Chris S. and Doug M. - AA Speakers - How the Twelve Steps Treat Addictive Illness NEW 2013 - THE M2 THE ROCK SHOW - Michael Molthan

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Good evening, everybody. My name is Chris, and I am
an alcoholic. It's really a pleasure to be here. This
is such a wonderful piece of country. We got the
opportunity this afternoon to go out on a boat and
you know, explore the area. And I've got to tell you,
this is really idealic up here. It's an amazing, amazing place,

(00:30):
and I'm grateful to be asked to come up here.
I want to thank Willie for tracking tracking, tracking us
down and asking us to come up here. Willy's my
kind of guy. Just a few minutes ago he asked
me you're thirsty, you want anything? And I said, yeah,
I'd look at diet coach. So he brings me a
six pack. You know, I mean, I love that, you know, definitely, definitely, uh,

(00:51):
definitely one of us, you know. Okay. My topic tonight
is is coming baffling and powerful. That's that's the topic.
And what I want to do is I want to
talk a little bit about alcoholism, a little bit about
the problem, a little bit about the solution that was
discovered basically by the early members of Alcoholics anonymous, and

(01:15):
what that solution was and uh and uh with it
with all of this, I want to weave in a
little bit of my own personal story because I think
it's important to qualify.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
I think you all need to understand that there's an
alcoholic behind these, uh these microphones, and you'll you'll probably
be sure that after after this next hour anyway, anyway,
you know, alcoholism has been around since they discovered that

(01:48):
you could ferment grain and crush grapes.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Alcoholism that there I believe.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Today, in the science that's being done, I believe that
alcohol wholism is more genetic than it is causal.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
What I mean by that is, yes, I think that
some people.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Can drink their way into alcoholism, but but I believe
more strongly in the fact that some of us are
genetically predisposed to become alcoholics.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
I even believe that we're alcoholics.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
You know, before we take a drink, there's something bodily
and mentally different with us than other people. And this
has been true for you know, thousands and thousands of years.
You can you can find references to alcoholism in the Bible,
you know, it's in in the in the Roman writings

(02:43):
from from many thousands of years ago. So, uh, I
believe that it's been around, and most of the time
in the history of of alcohol and alcoholism, most of
the time outlcoholics tide and they really very rarely found

(03:06):
a path to sobriety that would work for them. And
the reason for that is this that.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
If you're alcoholic, what happens is you drink past the
point of being able to stop on your own before
you really want to stop. You've passed the point of
no return on your own aid, on your own power,
before you even really want to quit.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
And that's what's happened over the course of time. Now,
in the last three or four hundred years, they've taken
alcoholism very seriously in different parts of the world. And
if you want to, if you want to get a
little bit of an education on the treatment of alcoholism.
In the last four or five hundred years, a man

(03:57):
named Bill White wrote a wonderful book. It's called Slay
the Dragon, and it has to do with the different
variations of treatment of of ways and means to get
people like us sober. And it's very very interesting that
there were there were periods of time, uh in in

(04:19):
our past where they would do things like inject us
with heavy metals there was the ki Lee Gold Cure,
you know, in the eighteen hundreds, and I can't imagine
injecting heavy metals into somebody is going to help their alcoholism,
but they swore that it worked, and Keiley institutes popped
up all over the place. There were periods of time

(04:40):
in Europe where, uh probably the probably the most horrific
was they wreckon. They realized that no matter no matter
what happened, and no matter how many times they got
an alcoholic sober, they were gonna drink almost the next
opportunity they had. So they would they would lock literally
lock you up into the these things. They look like

(05:02):
mummy sarcophaguses, and you would just be locked up in
there and they would just you know, feed you from
one door and you know, clean clean that clean.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
It out from another.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
And you literally were put in these things for life.
So you're trapped in these things for life. There was
a there there was times not too too distant past
where if you continue to drink alcoholically and cause trouble
in society, the treatment slash punishment that they would give

(05:33):
you would be to pour molten lead down your throat.
I'll tell you that would get your attention. But if
you were a real alcoholic and you survived that, you'd
be drinking pretty soon anyway.

Speaker 4 (05:47):
I mean, I mean, the problem with alcoholism is you
can't scare us sober, you can't teach us sober, you
can't motivate us sober.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
What has to happen is we have to become willing
to change the way we operate and start to practice
spiritual principles and learn how to live spiritually. It's more
about actions than it is about understanding. And alcoholism is

(06:23):
an unorthodoxed illness.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
It's I don't call it a disease.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
That the American Medical Association calls it a disease, so
that's pretty telling. But there's still some controversy about is
alcoholism a disease or not. So I don't say that
it is, but I do say that it's an illness
because the book Alcoholics Anonymous talks about alcoholism is an illness,
and it's an unorthodox illness. It presents in many different ways.

(06:53):
It presents certainly in people getting drunk out of their
minds and causing all trouble and you know, blackout bender drinking.
That's one symptom of alcoholism. But it also presents in
a myriad of other ways, and a lot of these
are misunderstood. When you put an alcoholic in front of

(07:16):
a psychiatrist, so you put an alcoholic in front of
a medical doctor, it's very, very difficult for them to
really see what the real problem is. They're seeing symptoms.
You know. The wonderful thing about Bill Wilson in the
early alcoholics is they understood the underlying causes and conditions
of alcoholism, and some of those some of those have

(07:38):
to do with our perception now alcoholism presents as getting
drunk out of your mind. How it presented to me
was was like this. I'll explain, like what any particular
day in the last four or five years of my drinking,

(07:59):
I would come too in the morning, you know, wearing
the clothes I had on the night before, stinking a
vodka if it was the summer, or bourbon if it
was the winter. Because I did that, I had seasonal
alcoholic beverages. So but I would be wreaking because I
drank so much the night before, and I'd be shattered. Listen,

(08:20):
as alcoholics, we think we have hangovers. I am telling
you we have a lot worse than hangovers, we actually
have alcohol poisoning because the alcoholic is compelled to drink
until they pass out. Well, if you drink that much,
you you have you have, You've got alcohol poisoning. You
have taken. You've taken alcohol, put it into your system

(08:42):
to such a point that your body just shuts down,
and it's it's really bad for the physical body to
drink that much.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
And it's considered alcohol.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
Poisoning at that point. So I would I would be
I would come to you know, in the morning with alcohol.
I'm not gonna call it a hangover, but I'm shattered,
and I'd stagger into the bathroom, you know, and do
my vomiting calisetics. You know this this is be any
This is a work morning, you know, long log, and
you know I'd throw some water on my face and

(09:15):
I'd stagger out to my one hundred dollars car and
uh and you know, I'd drive the work to my
bad job where I'm a bad electrician. I'm continuously blowing
things up and my my boss hates me. You know,
I'm just really you know, I show up and I'm
you know, I can't remember what you told me to do,

(09:37):
but I'm here, uh, and and I'm driving to work,
and the whole way I'm driving to work, I'm going,
oh God, I feel terrible. You know, today, I swear
today is a day where I'm gonna stop drinking. I
can't feel this bad. And it was.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
Terrible, you know, Tonight I'm not gonna drink.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
And you know, I'm gonna give this up.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
I gotta stop drinking.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it today. And
you know, I'd get to work and I'd screw something
up or go to the wrong job, or you know,
wire the wrong house, you know, or something. But the
whole day, the whole day, I would be swearing that.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
You know, the whole morning, I'm not gonna do this again.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Today.

Speaker 3 (10:15):
I'm gonna I'm gonna quit drinking.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
And if you would have take if you would have
taken a lie detector and hooked it up to me
and asked me, Chris, is are you ever gonna drink again?
I would say no, I'm not, and the needle, the
polygraph needle would go right to truth. This guy's telling
the truth. I meant it. I am gonna quit to that.
But what would happen is I'd get like half a

(10:37):
sandwich down, I'd rehydrate with a.

Speaker 3 (10:39):
Half a gallon of some kind of liquid, and.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
It'd be about three o'clock in the afternoon, you know,
four thirties quitting time, and I'd start to say to myself,
you know that, you know that decision you made this
morning about never drinking again.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
You know, that's a pretty strong position.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
That could be an overreaction, you know, to to this
whole thing, and I might have to modify that decision.
I might have to modify it. On the way home today,
stop at the liquor store, you know, and buy some
more vodka. And I would do that, and it's and
I would walk in and you gotta understand, like I

(11:21):
I need a drink so bad. I'd walk in and
I'd grab my bottle of Gordon's vodka. I knew right
where it was. I made sure the liquor store never
ran out of it, and I'd go up and I'd
get in the line, you know or whatever, and every
once in a while I'd usually be able to pay
really quick and get out to my car, because I mean,
I am freaking out that, you know, I don't I
need to get home and start drinking. It's like four

(11:43):
point thirty so, and every once in a while there'd.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
Be somebody in line like slowing things down.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
I remember this one time. There's this lady, you know,
and she she was going, she was asking the cashier,
you know what kind of wine goes with calafia? You know,
And and he's going, well, you know, how are you
cooking that tilopia as well? I'm brazing it, you know,
in the world. Use you got a little chordinary with a

(12:11):
blush or something, you know, some crap. I'm like, will
you just shut up? Will you just just get that lady
the hell out of here? Here about a gallo or something?
Move on, move on, don't you see I need to
buy this vodka. I got a problem here. I'm sober
and I gotta buy this now. Now, now listen, think

(12:36):
about this. I went from I went.

Speaker 3 (12:39):
From five hours earlier.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
I would have passed a lie detective that I was
never gonna drink again.

Speaker 3 (12:45):
It's the afternoon. I'm frantic.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
I'm ready to knock some woman out.

Speaker 3 (12:51):
You know, who's gonna make calafia?

Speaker 1 (12:54):
You know, because I can't get out. I gotta get
a home. I mean, think, think about it. Think about
the that that's insane, that I am suffering from the
insanity of alcoholism. I am driven to drink. Now, think
about think about somebody that's non alcoholic looking at a person.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
Like me, like, you know, I'm telling my boys, I'm
never gonna drink again.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
And I'm I'm hammered out of my mind, like four
or five hours later.

Speaker 3 (13:24):
What do they think of us?

Speaker 1 (13:26):
Right?

Speaker 3 (13:27):
Think about non alcoholics.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
They cannot understand this compulsion to drink. They can't understand it,
so they think we're nuts. So they put us in
mental health programs and all this other stuff because we're
showing up as crazy. But what this is, what this
is is it's an obsession of the mind. One of

(13:50):
the wonderful things about Bill Wilson and the early alcoholics
was they recognized what the problem was. The problem was
an obsession in the mind coupled with an allergy or
an unnatural reaction to alcohol, and then with an unmanageability quotient,
which is all across the board. We were a mess,

(14:14):
all across the board. And that's what they saw. Alcoholism
is like like as as this as this this whole
piece of business. So what happened with me was around
noon I would start to experience the obsession of the mind.
And what an obsession is is it's a thought that

(14:35):
overrides every other thought. So I can have a thought like,
you know, I'm never gonna drink again, you know, I know,
I know I'm an alcoholic. I don't want to be
sick tomorrow. I think I'll go to the liquor store,
you know. And that I think I'll go to the
liquor store goes to the top of the list. It
goes to the head of the class. And that's the

(14:56):
one that moves my feet. You know.

Speaker 3 (15:00):
That's what an obsession of the mind is.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
We get we're not dumb people. We know that by
putting alcohol in our body one more time, you know,
we're you know, we're playing Russian Roulette with our lives.
We were not stupid, but we do it anyway. And
that's part of the obsession of the mind. So Bill
Wilson and the early alcoholics recognize that. Now, how do

(15:25):
you define that psychologically? I'm not sure if you even can.
But the thing is is the descriptions in the book
Alcoholics Anonymous are so on the money.

Speaker 3 (15:37):
They answer the questions.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
And and and when you when you try to describe this,
you know, when when Carl Jung is trying to describe it,
he's describing it as a crisis of faith. That I
mean a lot of people are trying to explain this,
but Bill Wilson nailed it when he said, it's an obsession.
We get obsessed with alcohol. We we just we go.
And doesn't matter that they're they're gonna put us back

(16:02):
in jail, doesn't matter that we're gonna lose our family.
None of those things, None of those thoughts are at
the top of the hill. The one that's at the
top of the hill is I think I'll go to
the liquor store. And you know, that's that's part of
the insanity of alcoholism, the strange mental blank spots that
precede the first drink, the subtle form of insanity that

(16:24):
allows us to one more time, you know, start another bench. Now,
the other part of the other part of alcoholism that
that Bill Wilson recognized was that once we start drinking it,
we get a craving, a physical, physiological craving. And this

(16:46):
is this is how it would present in me. I
would I would finally get past the Tilapia woman by
my vodka, you know, get home, and I swear to God,
as soon as I sat down in the car with
it start to feel better. I had my bottle, you.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
Know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
But when I got home and I was able to
crack the lick, you know, I'd crack the lid and
I'd start pouring it in and I'd take that first
sip and it was like this, ah, you know, all
the tension and repressed you know, anxiety and angst would
start to flow off of me, you know, and I

(17:24):
would start to drink. And what would happen was the
first drink would always do one thing every time, and
that is it would ask for the second drink. Second
drink would insist on the third drink. The third drink
would demand the fourth drink. So the more alcohol in me,

(17:47):
the more physical craving I have.

Speaker 3 (17:50):
And that's and what would happen to me is in the.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
Last four or five years of my drinking, every single
time I started drinking, I would get tongue chewing, knee walking,
not able to operate my own pants zipper. Drunk. You
know you ever that drunk, Doug, You can't operate your
own pants zipper. That can be a concern anyway, that's
so so so. I've got an obsession that no matter

(18:15):
how hard I try to stay away from alcohol, a
thought's gonna pop into my mind and go over to
the Lick star By Liquor and start drinking, you know,
which is real trouble. But that's not bad. That's bad enough.
But I've also got a physical craving that when I
put alcohol in my body, it creates and insatiable craving

(18:36):
for more. I would come too after passing out on
the floor, and I would have a gigantic glass of
vodka or bourbon that I had just poured. Does anybody
in here relate to that? Like like, like listen, I
was so drunk, I was this close to passing out,
and I made myself another danic drink, you know, like

(18:59):
forty two bounces alcohol. There we go. You know that
probably would have killed me if I drank it. Now,
why would you do that?

Speaker 2 (19:07):
What?

Speaker 1 (19:08):
You know? What? You know an alcoholic will do something
like that. Aunt Fanny and Uncle Fudd. You know, we'll
have two or three glasses of wine and they've had enough.
I've had enough. You ever drink with people that have
enough on you? You know what I mean, there's no thanks.
I've had two already. Two. Yeah, I'm starting to feel it.

(19:33):
You're supposed to feel it. What are you crazy?

Speaker 3 (19:37):
Oh, I'll get all giddeon out of control.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
Well, then have two or three more and you go
right from giddeon out of control to fun. Come on,
let's go to the city.

Speaker 3 (19:48):
You know, I mean, that's that's how I drank.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
I didn't even understand these people that had enough, had enough?
Are you kidding? What is enough? What is enough? So
so you know that would happen to me every time? Now, okay,
obsession on my analergy of the body.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
We all get that. The worst part of alcoholism is.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
A sense of overpowering sense of self. Every single alcoholic
has this. It says in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. We're
selfish and self centered. That is the root of our
troubles and it isn't We don't think so a lot
of times like I'm not selfish. You know, I went
so and so money to get bailed out of jail.

(20:33):
You know, I mean, you know, we don't think we're selfish,
But it's all about us, you know, we're I'm on planet, Chris,
and you're all satellites orbiting around my planet, and I've
got to figure out how you're gonna land, because it's
gotta be in my best interest somehow, you know, you know,
I mean it's crazy. You know, we're selfish and we're

(20:55):
self centered, and this causes a whole lot of trouble. So,
you know, putting out of putting out of my mind,
drink because because at times, at times alcoholism solution to
my true alcoholism. Because my true alcoholism is that bizarre
sense of self and that feeling of isolation from from

(21:18):
from the world and from other people, and you know,
that sense of being alone and on my own and
in a hostile universe.

Speaker 3 (21:26):
I mean, that really is.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
The core of alcoholism, that sense of separation, of not
being a part of or one with. So uh so
here's here's forget drinking. I'm talking about when I'm sober
a good day, I am restless, irritable and discontented. You know,

(21:49):
just I just I don't know, I don't want to
be here. You know. I heard a speaker one time
say he was backstage with the Beatles and he wanted
to he just wanted to get the hell out of it,
you know. And I'm telling you I can I can
relate to that. Can you imagine? You know a lot.
I want to be here, you know, with Ringo, but uh,

(22:11):
but that.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
But that's why I always felt that.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
I always felt uncomfortable with myself and my environment. I
just didn't want to be here, you know, I want
I didn't want to be with them. There was always
something wrong with it. So I was always restless here
and discontented. On a good day, a normal day, I
suffered from self centered fear and guilt and shame and
remorse and anxiety. I was always a you know, always

(22:37):
just you know, the hair is triggered from freaking out,
and you know, people people would really stay away from me,
you know, because because Sabbey is crazy, you know, and
you know so. So I'm suffering from guilt and shame
and remorse and anxiety and depression and you know, suicidal ideation.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
I don't know if anybody else in here thought.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
About it, but practically every night when I was drinking,
I was thinking about, you know, taking myself out somehow.
Do you know that alcoholics are sixty times more likely
to take their own life than non alcoholics you know,
and listen, the the life insurance actuaries understand that, I'll
tell you, you know, they make it a little bit
hard sometimes for us to get life insurance. But we're

(23:27):
not a good risk. But but you know so, I
mean just terrible, terribly torn up spiritually, mentally, emotionally, just
a freaking mess.

Speaker 3 (23:39):
That's like a normal day.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
A bad day. A bad day is the day when
the hideous four horsemen are galloping through my life. Terror, frustration, bewilderment, despair,
you know, pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. So that to be sober,

(24:01):
you know, just that's a bad day. So now now
being that, being that messed up and being that uncomfortable,
and being that tortured by the bondage itself, that's really
what alcoholism is. And I believe we become obsessed with
alcohol in reaction to those feelings. Some of us have it,

(24:23):
have a more than others. Listen, alcoholism has a scale.
No matter how far down the scale you've gone, you'll
find your experiential benefit of others. Your ability to drink
on a non spiritual basis will depend upon how much
control in drink you've lost.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
You know, that's the scale and alcoholism. The scale doesn't
have to.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
Do with how many duys you've had, how many families
you've lost, you know, how many fights you've lost at.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
The debt, at the bar.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
It doesn't have to do with any of that has
to do with power, choice and control. How much power
choice and control have you lost? And drink. And that's
where you are on a scale. And some of us
go down the scale a little further than others. And
Bill Wilson is saying, your ability to drink on a
non spiritual basis will depend upon where you are on
that scale. Some some, some people can quit drinking, you know,

(25:15):
on a non spiritual basis. But but he basically says
in The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous that the alcoholic,
he calls them, the real alcoholic, is going.

Speaker 3 (25:26):
To be unable to quit on a.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Non spiritual basis, Unable to quit on self knowledge, unable
to quit on self motivation. And that's that's really us.
And you know, we're we're we're kind of in trouble
if if we're there now. The beautiful thing, the beautiful
thing about uh Bill Wilson and doctor Bob and the
and the whole goofy crew of the you know, the

(25:52):
first one hundred. You know, you start, you start studying
these guys, you will say, how did we ever make it?

Speaker 2 (26:00):
You know?

Speaker 1 (26:00):
So but Bill Wilson was he says he's a failed stockbroker.
He wasn't a stockbroker. He was a stock shister.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
He would try to talk you into buying shares and
if they go up, he'll get some of the money.
I mean, you know that's that's just unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (26:16):
Or or he tried to talk you into paying him
to go check out companies.

Speaker 3 (26:20):
You know, he was like the first stock analyst.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
But all of this was really unusual and and you know,
highly unorthodox for like Wall Street. He was he was
not thinking along you know, party lines.

Speaker 3 (26:35):
And doctor Bob.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
Doctor Bob was was they call him a surgeon. He
was a proctologist and that's what he was. And he
was a he was a failing proctologist. He had really
big hands and he would shake a lot, right. So
so you know, if you were unlucky enough to be
in the stirrups, you know, and he was coming to

(26:57):
do some procter in on you, he'd be like, oh,
you smelling like liquor whole with a big handshaken.

Speaker 3 (27:04):
Would you would be looking for a second opinion?

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Fast? Let me tell you. Hold on, doc, hold on.
You know it's better alright if you got re reculously so.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
So so he wasn't getting a lot of surgeries.

Speaker 1 (27:18):
Now, now these are the guns. These are the guys
who put together this unbelievable program. You know, God, God doesn't.
God doesn't necessarily always work through saints, you know what
I mean. I love the fact that.

Speaker 3 (27:31):
He works through sinners. You know, I wouldn't be here
if he didn't.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Anyway, Anyway, the wonderful thing about these guys is they
understood that you do not fight alcoholism with sobriety. You
don't just stay sober. They tried that all of about
thousand times. It never worked. They got drunk again. Okay,

(27:58):
you fight alcoholism with spirituality. That's what they discovered. And
they discovered it in the Oscure group independently. Bob Bill
and Bob ended up in the Oscar group just coincidentally.
And what the Oscer Group really was was it was
a it was a first century Christian uh practitioners that

(28:20):
they were basically kind of an evangelical offshoot of the
Episcopal Church or something and uh. And really what they
were about was was they were about doing more than
going to church on Sunday. They they thought that you
really need to.

Speaker 3 (28:33):
Put a lot into this.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
You know, there's a lot of pain, a lot of suffering,
a lot of sin in the world. We need to
be about the business of looking at how the first
Christians acted and we need to start doing that and
that and that's what this guy, Frank Bookman and his
OXC group crew did. And they every night they would
meet and you know, they would witness, which is kind
of like what we do with speaker meetings, and.

Speaker 3 (28:57):
And then you know, and they would run around and
try to help help people.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
And they were they were constantly trying to improve their
behavior through the practice of things like restitution, which is
basically our ninth step with sharing with sharing, uh with
other people about your defects. And that's basically what our
fifth step was. A lot of prayer, a lot of meditation.

(29:21):
Every single day, they would do quiet time, which is
like morning prayer and meditation. They would do evening review.
You know, that's that's what that's what the option groupers
would do. You know, they understood that without God they
were nothing, and they would make they would make demonstrations
like we do a third Step prayer. They would make
they would make those same types of demonstrations about God.

(29:43):
You know, I just I'm not I'm not doing a
real good job here. You know, I really need your help, uh,
and whatever. Prayers kind of similar to that, basically inviting
God in and and the the framework of the Twelve
Steps was really offered to a lot lot of alcoholics
through the OSC groups. It's funny Bill Wilson wasn't the

(30:05):
only Oscar Group member to write a book about alcoholism
and recovery from it. He wasn't even the first one
to write a book on that. Uh. There's a number
of books that talk that talk about this for centners only,
The Big Bender. I was a Pagan. These are all
books that were written by OSC group members before Bill

(30:27):
Wilson penned The Big Book. So there was a lot
of people getting sober in the OXC group because of
the fellowship, which would be meeting practically every day and
having house meetings all weekend long. I mean, they fellowshipped
like maniacs. You know, we're doing a similar thing here.
This weekend where this is like an oxcar group house

(30:49):
party to be meeting together for a whole weekend. Well,
that's what they used to do, and that's what Bill
Wilson did when he was getting sober. They would also,
you know, they would also go out and try to
help other people. There was a number of.

Speaker 3 (31:05):
Things that they that they were doing.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
So Bill Wilson and doctor Bob are involved with these people,
but there's a difference in participation level. Doctor Bob continued
to drink. He was going to the Officer group for
about three years or so and drinking. You know, we've
seen this happen in alcoholics anonymous somebody coming to meetings
and continuing to drink but continuing to come back. Well,

(31:30):
that's what doctor Bob was doing. But what he was
doing was he was coming late, he was leaving early,
and he wasn't getting involved. He he wasn't participating. Now,
what Bill Wilson was doing was he was coming early,
he was leaving late, he was bringing people, he was
tracking people down to.

Speaker 3 (31:48):
Bring in, you know, bringing drunks in to help.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
He was witnessing, he was sharing, he was getting involved,
and he stayed sober. So that's kind of a lesson
that I think we can learn, you know, uh, ourselves from.
Why was Bill successful and why was doctor Bob not successful?
It was participation. It wasn't one guy was smarter than
the other or one guy knew more than the other.

(32:12):
It was one guy did more work than the other.
And that's the guy who who ended up ended up
staying sober. Now, oh, they recognized that that the the
spiritual practices in the Oxcer Group were keeping them sober. Uh,
there was some there was some early strife with some

(32:32):
of the ox Group members.

Speaker 3 (32:34):
And it basically had to do with with Bill. Bill
was bringing drunks into the meeting.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
And now picture of meeting maybe twice the size of
this and you know with Oxcer Group members and these
are these are church people. They weren't all the Oxcer
Group people weren't alcoholic. They were they were, you know,
a whole cross section. Frank Bookman would try to go
after the richest and the most famous, you know, that's
what he would try to do. So so there's some
high falutin, you know type people in these meetings.

Speaker 3 (32:59):
And Bill was dragging these drunks, you know.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
Out of the bowery. You know, off the barstool and
they'd be staggering in you know, they'd be causing trouble
and they'd be hitting on the women or you know,
pushing somebody aside and blithering into the microphone. There was
all kinds of problems. So what so what happened was
was Bill was kind of asked, you know, hey, can
you can you take your parade and move it up
the street, you.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
Know, And that's kind of what kind of what happened.
Uh in New York.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
Uh, the Akron group, doctor Bob was doing this and
Akron with the uh you know, in the Osture group,
and he stuck it out with the Ostra group for
a while longer, you know. Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous. The
fellowship was actually named after the book. What happened was

(33:47):
Bill started to see these offshoots, these different groups starting,
and there was there was some stuff that concerned him
about some of these people. Uh, they were they were
doing it their way. You know how we are as alcoholics.
We're gonna we're gonna do it our way. And and
some of some of the people that were doing things,
you know, we're really concerning him. So he knew he
was gonna have to write a book, uh, detailing out

(34:11):
the process. What what what are we doing as alcoholics?
What are we doing to be able to to stay
sober and to recover from from this illness? And he
put he started writing, started writing the big book. Now,
after the Big Book was published, that's that's really when
when when the name was changed to these groups to

(34:32):
Alcoholics Anonymous. So you know, I like to I like
to think that I like to think that we we
always need to use the book Alcoholics Anonymous as our benchmark,
as as as our touchsdown. I really like history. I
read history books like people read the newspaper. I just

(34:53):
love history. My sister is a medieval medieval historian PhD.
And it just kind of runs in the family to
do this. And I love history. And I'll tell you
a little bit about the mechanics of history. If you
want to study a certain thing, whether it's Roman history,
you know, Christian history, whatever, what you want to do

(35:15):
is you want to look at the culture. You want
to look at what's going on in the culture. You
want to get your hands on the earliest texts, the
earliest unadulterated texts to be able to do a real,
real study of Alcoholics Anonymous and what's going on. And
in many many cases, in different religions and different spiritual traditions,

(35:39):
what's happened is the later publications have watered down or
changed the trajectory of that particular religion or that particular
philosophical tradition.

Speaker 3 (35:52):
And I think I think that's happened in Alcoholics Anonymous
a little a little bit.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
So I like to go back to the book Alcolics
Anonymous and even the original manuscript, uh of the of
the big book, which is now published.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
By by a A uh.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
To see to see what's going on, uh during during
that period of time, what, what was what was really happening,
what was really important? And uh, the book Alcoholics Anonymous
makes it very very clear what the problem is. The
first number of chapters describe alcoholism. It's a it's a

(36:29):
it's a it's a comprehensive description of alcoholism. And then
by the time you get to reagnostics and how it works, uh,
it starts to shift to the solution to alcoholism. And uh,
again this was this you know when when I when
I think back about what was going on with these guys,

(36:52):
I think Bill Wilson was what four years sober or something,
and you know he's writing this this book Alcoholics Anymos
and a lot of the other members, the majority of
the other members had less than a year, and they
were helping him by giving him suggestions. I can't imagine.
I don't even I don't even want to let somebody
with four years unaccompanied in my house, let let alone,

(37:15):
let alone like people with less than a year, you know,
writing helping with our literature. It's just unbelievable. It's unbelievable.
But the book. You know, I'm lucky. I'm lucky enough
to be involved in at a very very high level
with addiction and alcoholism treatment, addictive illness treatment. I'm a

(37:35):
board member of the NCAD day, I'm a board member
of Sea Force Recovery Solutions. I go to all the
all the conferences and symposiums, and you know, I know,
I know so many high level people who were in
in in addiction treatment and listen, it has been tried

(37:57):
a thousand times. People have tried their books that would
would be more significant for the treatment and recovery process
of addictive illness than the book Alcoholics Anonymous. But I
need to tell you that nothing has even come close.
A lot of very very smart people have put out books,

(38:19):
you know, I think, I think a book a month
comes out by somebody who's gonna improve on you know,
the AA stuff. And I'm telling you, I'm telling you
it's it's never even come close. The book Alcoholics Anonymous
is so significant. And what's in the book Alcoholics Anonymous,

(38:40):
if it's followed, is sufficient of itself. It is sufficient.
In other words, the program of recovery in the book
is sufficient for the recovery from alcoholism. May not be
sufficient if there's other problems, if the people have a problems,

(39:01):
but it's sufficient for recovery of alcoholism.

Speaker 3 (39:04):
I've seen it happen.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
Time and time again, cutting, baffling, powerful, I work with.

Speaker 3 (39:13):
I work with a lot.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
Of alcoholics I've had, I've had commitments in treatment facilities
since nineteen ninety one. I've been doing doing talks and
you know, lecturing and you know, doing different things in
treatment centers. I've sponsored hundreds of knuckleheads, you know, you know,

(39:35):
the newcomers, cutting and baffling and powerful. You know, what's really,
really unbelievably destructive with alcoholism is this alcoholism invariably does
not allow us the dignity of a self appraisal, an

(39:56):
accurate self appraisal. Now what I mean by that is
we are always in more trouble than we think we are.
We are Listen, you know, I remember I was sponsoring
this this one kid, you know, and I mean his
life was on fire. I mean, you know, there was
still smoke from this guy.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
He burnt his life down so much he stunk like smoke.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
And you know, he had gotten DUIs and thrown out
of college.

Speaker 3 (40:23):
And you know, his family hated.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
Him, and you know, you know, I mean I could
go on and on and on. His life was burnt
to a cinder. And he comes to me seemingly with
a lot of willingness, right, and he's like, oh, oh
my god, my life. And so basically guy said him,
I go, okay, here, this is what alcoholism is. I
do what it explains for us to do in the

(40:46):
chapter working with others, I explain alcoholism.

Speaker 3 (40:51):
I help the guy.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
I helped the guy identify with the characteristics of alcoholism.
So you know, maybe he can say, yeah, that's me.
I got that, you know, and.

Speaker 3 (41:00):
He's going, yeah, yeah, you know, and I go.

Speaker 1 (41:04):
Okay, listen, you're an alcoholic, and it's it's unbelievably rare, for.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
It's like one in a thousand.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
Then an alcoholic is gonna be able to take care
of their own problem on their own. We need outside help.
That's what an alcoholic is. We need to find a
power greater than ourselves. We you know, we need to
start practicing spiritual principles because if the power doesn't work
in and through us, we will not stay sober. And
you know what, it'll always get worse. It'll never get better.

(41:35):
So so so as many things as you burn down
in your life, it's gonna be worse next month unless
you unless you start to work a spiritual program.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
So what I want you to do is I want
you to come over to my house on Tuesday night.
We'll sit down with the Big Book.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
I will outline the program of action and we will
get started on it so that you can get in
touch with the power greater than yourself. There will there
will solve your problems and enable you to be safe
and protected from the next the first strength. So Tuesday
night and he goes, oh wow, man, Tuesday.

Speaker 3 (42:16):
You know I would.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
I would, but you know I'm having my.

Speaker 5 (42:19):
Feet scraped on Tuesday, and you know, I do it
after that. But you know, it's the summer and the
Dead tour is starting, and I alas tours Dead.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
And I'm looking at this kind of like, oh my god.
You know, he's gonna die and he doesn't even know it.

Speaker 3 (42:42):
I mean, listen, this is alcoholism.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
Alcoholism does not allow us an accurate self apraisal. We
don't get it. You know. Everybody knows that we're drinking
ourselves to death, and you know, we don't get it,
you know. And and that's that's one of the aspects
of the illness. That's one of the symptoms of the illness,
that inability to connect well, how much trouble we're really in,

(43:07):
so that that is cunning, baffling, powerful, Oh my god.
Another thing. Another thing that happens is we outthink things.
I remember when I was first exposed to the steps
of alcoholics anonymous. Uh, basically, what you know, I read
them off the wall. Anybody read the steps off the wall?
That let me let me just put it this way.

(43:28):
You do the steps off the wall, you'll have an
awful wall program.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
And that's that's what I had because you know.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
I looked at the steps, you know, and they're on lamps.
They're on like lamp like window shades. Like came up
with the window shade I did within no window shade. Dugs,
you know where did that come from? Anyway? I'm reading
the window shade and I'm going, okay, okay, okay, I

(43:56):
agree with that in theory, but I'm not gonna do
it because it doesn't really have anything to do with me,
you know. I I don't see how any of that
it's gonna help me, you know. And that's that's what
we do. We we decide that we don't need to
go make amends. We decide we don't need to do
a fifth step. We decide we don't.

Speaker 3 (44:17):
Need this to become disciplined with parameditation. We decide we
don't need to go out and work with others.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
That's part of the insanity of alcoholism. And I'll explain why.
Let's say you come down with pancreatic cancer and it's
like stage four or something, and you go to the
doctor and Doc goes, yeah, you're gonna die. It's not
gonna be pretty sometime in the next two or three months.
But but Doc, but doc.

Speaker 3 (44:41):
Is there anything? Is there anything?

Speaker 1 (44:43):
Well, there's this clinical trial out in Akron, Ohio, and
it's been showing some really good results. Really, you know,
tell me about it. What. Well, they've got a they've
got a twelve process procedure, and it seems like every
single person that has gone through all well for those
processes has recovered from pancreatic cancer. Every single person that's

(45:06):
going through What would you not do to get into
that clinical trial and acrin?

Speaker 3 (45:13):
You would sell your.

Speaker 1 (45:14):
House, you'd sell your family, you'd quit your job. I'm
going Akron, and you would there would be a sense
of urgency about getting to Akron and getting into that
twelve procedure. But that's not what happens to us. What
we say is like, wow, man, I would, but I'm

(45:36):
touring with the dead. It's part of alcoholism, and it's
one of the things that it's one of the things
that kills them. It kills us. We don't understand how
much trouble we're in, and and our sponsors are usually like,
you know, you what, we didn't what? Yeah? You ever

(45:58):
working with somebody and they come to you with a plan,
you know, they got that They've got a plan you
know you got a plan. You're like, please share the
plan with me.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
I know it's gonna be a butte, you know.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
And it's and it's like, well, you know, now that
I'm not doing cocaine, I can sell it and make
a lot of money. Oh that's a butte. That's abute.

Speaker 3 (46:22):
You know, thank you for sharing that with me.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
I think we're gonna go out of direction. I think
we're gonna find a different kind of gameful employment for you. Ah,
you know, so so listen, there's there's so much, there's
so much insanity. If you're putting if you're putting ethyl
alcohol into your body at like a quarter time every
single day, you know, you're you're really you really are

(46:46):
going to be generating some some serious insanity. And you know,
I'm telling you one of the one of the things,
it's it's very difficult sometimes working with h with these
these new guys. And I gotta tell you one of
the mistakes I made back when was uh, I really
thought I was to counsel them. I really thought that

(47:08):
I was supposed to be like a drama coach, like
give me a call. You know, when you shoot yourself
in the foot, you know, and I'll help you get
through it. I mean, I had this misconception about how
to work with other people. This is before I was
exposed to the book Alcoholics Anonymous. That there was like
an oral tradition thing that was going on in New
Jersey at that time, like like you got.

Speaker 3 (47:30):
You gotta give it away the way you got it.

Speaker 1 (47:32):
You know, well, well what if you had a mutton
head for a sponsor, you know, with no experience with recovery,
you know, are you gonna continue that debacle? You know?

Speaker 3 (47:42):
I mean there was all the stuff that was that
was going on.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
And and you know I was doing that. I was.

Speaker 3 (47:50):
I was the drama coach.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
I was. You know, I was the person that you
called after you blew up your life. And I was
the person who would take you to detox after you drink.
And I was the person who would sit on the
phone in midnight, you know, while you're blithering all your crap,
not willing to listen to one piece of advice, but
you needed to talk.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
I need to talk, you know.

Speaker 1 (48:12):
I was. I was the guy that was on the
phone and you know they're calling me at work with stuff.
I mean, and I was.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
Doing this for a long, long time.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
Finally I got exposed to h to some people who
had some true experience with the recovery process in the
Big Book. And you know, I don't I don't sponsor
like that anymore. I don't take them on to raise
them up anymore. You know, you know what I mean.
You know, that's that's not what these early members of
Alcoholics Anonymous did. You're gonna You're gonna Doug is. Doug

(48:42):
is gonna be doing a deal tomorrow, and he's gonna
be giving you a beautiful cross section of what the
first AA members, especially the ones in Akron, did with
their with their prospects and proteges with.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
The new people who would come in.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
They didn't take them on to raise them.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
They didn't say, give me a call, you know if
you feel like drinking. What they did was they brought
them in.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
And they started taking them through the recovery process, which
is basically what ended up becoming our twelve steps. And
that became very very, you know, very very important to them.
You know, in some areas, I know that that's changed.
That's not that's not the first priority, that's not the

(49:29):
there's not a sense of urgency anymore. About taking somebody
through the steps right away. Uh, there's there's the the
idea that there needs to be a stabilization period and
a lot of other things. They did not believe that
back in the day. You would you would still be
vomiting and they'd be on step two with it, you know, you.

Speaker 3 (49:47):
Know, and that's just what they did.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
Now, now, maybe there's some wisdom in you know, stretching
things out a little bit, you know. Uh, I'm not
saying that that there isn't. But but what I was
trying to do, the mistake I was trying to do
as a sponsor in those early days. What my mistake
really was was believing that I could help someone manage

(50:12):
an unmanageable life. I believe that I could help protect
somebody against something that they were powerless over, instead of
understanding that my job is getting them, preparing them for
a lifetime relationship with a power greater than themselves, which

(50:34):
will solve all those problems, which will answer all the
true questions, which will help enable her to become happily
and usefully whole. I love this sentence. It's in the
twelve and twelve. The twelve steps are a set of
principles spiritual in nature. If when practiced as a way
of life, we'll expel the obsession to drink and enable

(50:56):
the user to become happily and usefully whole. Beautiful explanation
of our recovery process. If practice is a way of life,
the twelve steps, they'll enable you to be able to
stay separated from alcohol and allow your life to become
happy and useful, and you will feel whole.

Speaker 3 (51:17):
I believe. I believe the alcoholic.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
At core I said this earlier suffers from a sense
of separation, a separation from God, a separation from from
the fellow man, a separation from love and compassion, just
a separation from the divine. And what recovery does. What
recovery does is it puts us back in touch with that.

(51:41):
It heals the separation. It enables us to become happy, useful,
and whole. And I think that's incredibly important to understand.
Alcoholism is cunning, backling and powerful. We can go down
a lot of rabbit holes with it. We we can.
We can start working on the wrong problem. There's a

(52:06):
lot of wasted time working on the wrong problem. I'll
give you a beautiful, a beautiful snapshot of my sponsor
fish food fill and how he understood what the real
problem was. Okay, I came over to his house one time.
I'm like Phil, Phil, they tracked me down and he's
my barls mind. I dona break my leg. I've got

(52:26):
my Carl, my Carl another breakdown, but lose my job
and grow. My brother was all dore and he goes.

Speaker 3 (52:34):
He goes, Chris, Chris, Christ, let me ask you a question.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
Yes, Phil, do you pray? What do you pray? Should
I start agetting slower? You know? Did you hear me? Yeah,
they're gonna come get me. What's praying got to do
with it? You know? And he would go, he would go, listen,

(52:59):
I want I want you to do something. This is
what I'm gonna ask you to do. Every single morning.
I want you to get down on your knees and
I want you to ask God for the strength and
direction to get through the day. And at night, I
want you to thank Him for giving you the strength
and direction to get to the day. And Chris, I
know you there are gonna be days when you're gonna

(53:20):
forget to do that. I want you to pay attention
to what happens on the days that you do it,
and pay attention to things that happen on the days
that you don't. And I'm looking like I'm looking at
him like he's insane. But the thing is is he
had like an uninterrupted series of being right, you know,

(53:40):
you know, like like twelve times in a row, he
was right about things. So I had I had to
start believing it. So I go, all right, all right,
I'll do that, you know, And he goes and I
want to see you at a meeting tonight. Now what
kind of an answer to the lawn sharks are gonna
come kill me? My car, car doesn't run, I'm gonna

(54:01):
lose my job, and my girlfriend broke up with me,
and you want me to pray?

Speaker 6 (54:08):
Are you completely out of your mind? I mean, this
is what I'm thinking. I'm the kid that wants to
go tour with the dad. But for one reason or another,
I listened to him. Now here's what Phil did. Phil
understood the car breaking down.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
Was a symptom. Phil understood the loan sharks were a symptom.
Phil understood that the girlfriend that left me was a
symptom of my not being capable of being in a relationship.
He understood all these things as symptoms of alcoholism. So
he didn't want me to run down rabbit. He wasn't

(54:46):
gonna sit there and help me manage the loan shark,
help me manage you know, call the girlfriend up and
get her over here. He wasn't gonna. He wasn't about
any of that business. He didn't want anything to do
with that. He knew the real problem was alcohol, and
he knew the real answer was a connection to God
and the people in the Fellowship of Alcoholicsnimus. He knew

(55:10):
that was my answer, So that's what he was telling
me to do. He didn't get involved in the periphery.
He was very very wise, and a lot of times,
a lot of times I need to remember that lesson,
because it's very very easy for me to get caught
up in the drama. You know, a lot of a
lot of a lot of the people you start to
work with are still caught up in a lot of drama.

Speaker 3 (55:33):
And you'll want to.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
Go to traffic court with him, or you want to
sit with their wife, you know, to help counsel things out.
You want to do all this kind of stuff. And
I'm not even saying you shouldn't. But I truly believe
that we need to keep the keep our eye on
the ball. You know, what is the problem that conscious
separation from Man, God in the divine? What is the

(55:57):
answer to that connection to God, Man and the divine?
And we need to keep our eye on the ball.
And the steps, the twelve Steps are truly spirituality for dummies.
I mean the idiot's guide the spirituality. That's really what
they are. They are a very very simple form of

(56:18):
getting in touch with the power greater than yourself that
will solve all your problems. And I cannot believe Bill
and the first one hundred got it so right in
the book.

Speaker 3 (56:30):
I mean, the hand of God had to be on them.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
They were not smart enough to put the big book together.
I truly think God just got tired of seeing us
all die and cause trouble doing it, you know. And
so there was a divine inspiration to the writing of
the book Alcoholics Anonymous. I believe it, and I know
I know that I would not have been able to

(56:55):
continue to stay sober on a non spiritual basis much longer.
This was me at about six months sober before I
went through the Steps. I'm going to fourteen meetings a week.
I am absolutely desperate to stay separated from alcohol.

Speaker 3 (57:12):
I pulled a handgun on my family at Christmas.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
You know, you know what I mean. I've gotta get sober.
I don't want to kill my family. I like him sometimes,
you know, but I do you know, I don't want
to get in trouble you know either, you know. So
I am desperate, desperate to stay sober, desperate. I'm going
all these meetings. I hate him. I'm going to those
music you know. I'm telling you, I'm the secretary over here,

(57:35):
I'm the coffeemaker over there. I'm driving the boobies to
the hatch. You know. I'm doing whatever. And you asked
me to do, I'm doing. But I would be sitting
in a meeting and this is what would happen, And
I'd be sitting there like criticized, like critical, like you know,
I am the critic of this meeting.

Speaker 3 (57:50):
Okay, I'm gonna.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
Critique everybody, and oh, listen, this is hypocritic. Oh yeah,
oh yeah, you're so spiritual. Yeah, I'm sure yeah. Oh
oh no, oh no, oh no, he's raising his hand.
Oh I don't want to hear. Oh god, no, please
don't call him, Please don't. Oh my god, they're calling
on him, they call on him. Oh, now I'm gonna
have to hear about his family, like five minutes. Tell

(58:15):
somebody who cares. Oh, now he's grateful, Now he's grateful.
I'm gonna slash all four of the stars in the
parking lot and follow him outside so I can see
gratitude and action. That's what I'm gonna do. Oh, listen
to this guy, Listen to him. Oh now that's what's
going on in my head. But I'm staying.

Speaker 3 (58:33):
I'm sitting here like this.

Speaker 1 (58:37):
You ask me, that's men. How you doing, Chris? Great? Baby,
really good? Fine? Loving this aa you know.

Speaker 7 (58:47):
I mean that's me.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
On a non spiritual basis. Okay, how long can you
stay sober like that? You know? Thank god? I was
exposed to to this swell sets pank. Thank God. Anyway,
I love this area. I'm gonna I'm gonna sit down now.
I hope, I I hope. Uh.

Speaker 3 (59:09):
I talked a little bit about cunning.

Speaker 1 (59:11):
Baffling and powerful and uh I'm looking forward to hearing
my friend my friend's dog, thank you. So I'm gonna
keep this mine up here. But it's done, and I
am an alcoholic. Oh well, it's great to be here.

Speaker 8 (59:26):
And I you know, once again, I want to thank everybody,
and especially Jim over here.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
You know you really do. You guys really showed us up.
I guess a wild Canadian time. Uh yeah, so it
it took me, uh Jim three hours to fall out,
and then I went under.

Speaker 8 (59:42):
The blankets for another two and it kind of worked.
So but I it was just uh, it was the
most amazing god thing that I've experienced. And and we're blessed.

Speaker 1 (59:52):
To We're blessed to be here. Chris and I speak
around the world together.

Speaker 8 (59:57):
And we've had a lot of fun doing bring the
message of the original message of Big Book at Alcoholists Anonymous.

Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
As many of you all know, or maybe you don't.

Speaker 8 (01:00:08):
I'm a retired airline captain from one of the US
airlines and I'm not gonna mention any names, obviously for
stock option reasons, and I don't want the stocks to
go down because I don't lose my retirement.

Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
But I'm a checklist type of guy. I'm a checklist
type of guy.

Speaker 8 (01:00:23):
You give me a checklist the Big Book at Alcoholist
Monomous here you give me a checklist.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
And I'm going to follow it.

Speaker 8 (01:00:28):
And I've been following this for eighteen years, and I've
watched save countless lives, countless lives. And so today I'm
gonna have the honor of introducing.

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
To you a method that Doctor Bob used when he
was bringing people through the Big Book.

Speaker 8 (01:00:47):
Because if you read in the stories about Doctor Bob's
nightmare at States How, and I'm turning the pages right now.

Speaker 9 (01:00:56):
I guess I'm in the fourth edition, and so it's
days that as I keep talking, it's trying to make
this thing happen.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Over here and to doctor Bob's nightmare.

Speaker 8 (01:01:10):
And he stated here it says a co founder of
Alcoholics Anonymous, the birth of our society dates for the
first day of permanent sobriety. Here we go again using
the word permanent. Imagine that my name's Dog, I'm an
alcoholic and I'm permanently sober. I mean, the whole meeting
would be about me, and I'll discuss that later, he said.

Speaker 1 (01:01:31):
In nineteen fifty, the year of his death, he carried.

Speaker 8 (01:01:33):
The AA message to more than five thousand alcoholic men
and women. So Doctor Bob also was sponsoring women and
what I'm here to do today is to share you
his methodology. So five thousands men and women he took
through the Big Book of Alcoholics anonymous, and he did
that within his ten years of sobriety.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
So do the math. He was really forcing these people
through the book, right, and he was doing it within
four to five hours. And so I'm gonna show you
on how he used to do it.

Speaker 8 (01:02:02):
And I challenge you to show that to others, and
you will watch just Lives Change.

Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
And what we're gonna do today is we're gonna change
lives and we're doing it one alcoholic kind of time.

Speaker 8 (01:02:15):
But in the checklist here, in the checklist here, it
says that Chris S will speak first, and you all
want to hear Chris S.

Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
So, my dear friend, say, good morning everybody.

Speaker 3 (01:02:37):
It's good to be back here. What a what a
great what a great.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
Town you have here. Uh thoroughly enjoyed myself last night.
I always loved listening to Doug. Who's got more energy
than Doug. No, man, if you if you could bottle
the energy of the of that guy, you'd not crack
off the market, you know what I mean? All right, Well,
you know we are, like Doug said, here we're here

(01:03:01):
to share our experience, strength and hope. We're here to share,
especially our experience with the recovery part of the triangle.
You know, Alcoholics Anonymous saved my life. I have an
unbelievable amount of respect and gratitude toward AA and towards
the people in AA, toward all the meetings, and especially

(01:03:25):
toward towards the literature. Because I was I would not
be here. The last five years or so of my
drinking were just as bleak and as decade it as
you can imagine. I was. I was just trying to
survive the day until I could get a hold of

(01:03:46):
some liquor. This is on workdays, until I could get
a hold of some liquor and check out. I mean,
the pain of being me was so great that I
just I just wanted oblivion. Bill to talks about it
in his story, you know, he talks about that need
for oblivion to end the personal suffering through just getting

(01:04:12):
so inebriated that you just check out, you know, mentally, physically,
you just check out.

Speaker 3 (01:04:19):
And I was basically.

Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
Living to do that. I would get up, I would
get up in the morning, you know, as just as
sick as you could be. I'd get through work, I'd
go to the liquor store, I'd get drunk.

Speaker 3 (01:04:32):
I would start drinking it around four forty five.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
Every day. By six o'clock I would be just as
drunk as you can be. By eight o'clock, I would
be in a blackout. A lot of times I'd be
phoning people. You know, any drunken dialers in here? Oh
my god? You ever do you ever realize that you've
done it in blackouts? You know you see the phone numbers.

Speaker 10 (01:04:56):
I mean that was me because because I had such
a sense of loneliness about about my existence, I was
so cut off from anything comforting, you know, and I
was I was just drinking to to.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
Just escape this stuff. And by probably eight thirty nine o'clock,
I would be passed out drunk, and and I usually
passed out sitting up. You know, I would crash.

Speaker 3 (01:05:24):
You'd hear me hit the floor. You would.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
You would think, after years and years of doing that,
that I would put carpeting in the room, you know,
you know, to because I'd bruised myself up every day.
But you know, we're too busy to do things like
you know, get car insurance or you know. You know,
I mean I was I was too busy. I was
about the business of just getting through work and just

(01:05:47):
just getting drunk. Now, you know, this gets my attention
in a number of ways, and a number of different times.
I was exposed to some some outpatient treatment because of
a you why that I had, And I learned a
little bit about the availability of treatment for addictive illness,

(01:06:07):
and that there is a place called Alcoholics Anonymous that
one might go and maybe achieve some support for, you know,
achieving sobriety. And I learned a few of these things,
and around nineteen eighty nine, I started reaching out for
help because I was getting to the point where I knew,

(01:06:29):
I knew I wasn't gonna survive much longer. I mean,
you know, not only was I drinking a lot, but
I was involved in some psychotic things. I mean, you
want to talk about a jackal and a hide. I'm
a pretty decent guy, you know, sober, but you put
enough alcohol in me and I'm answering my door with
a handgun. You know, I am perceiving that there are

(01:06:50):
people who are trying to rip me off, and I
am gonna go kill them and all this insanity that
was going on in my mind, and I knew it
was only a matter of time before I did something
that would either get me killed, put me in prison,
or you know, I was gonna die from alcohol detox.
And so so, you know something, the survival mechanism within

(01:07:13):
me that I believe is the is sometimes for many
of us. The grace of God got me, got me
exposed to some treatment, and then got me into the
rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, I talked a little bit
last night about I had kind of misdirection as far
as as far as what was going on in my

(01:07:35):
early days in aa I. This is what I thought.
I thought Alcoholics Anonymous was a giant pep rally. And
what would happen is you would go in and you
would be reconvinced to not drink.

Speaker 3 (01:07:50):
So you go in and you do your meeting, and
it's like yay, yay, you don't drink.

Speaker 1 (01:07:53):
Today, you know, And at the end, you know, you
all form a big circle, almost like a football huddle,
and you like, okay, we're gonna keep it sipball. We're
gonna first things first, we're gonna upside out and think, Okay,
we'll meet back.

Speaker 3 (01:08:06):
Tomorrow at the Loney Noony, okay break, you know, And.

Speaker 1 (01:08:11):
I thought it was about, you know, infusing me to
remain sober, like just reconvince Chris that it's a priority
to stay sober and everything will be fine now now.
So I'm going to AA, I'm going to Outpatient. I've
pulled everybody, everybody that you know, I'm not drinking anymore.
And on the way to an AA meeting one time,

(01:08:31):
I had almost ninety days on the way to an
and listen, in any meeting I was in, I guarantee
to you, I was the person who wanted to stay
separated from alcohol more than anybody else in that meeting.
I know it, I know it. And on the way
to an AA meeting one day, the thought came to
my mind. Remember I was talking about the obsession of

(01:08:53):
the mine last night. The thought, the thought crossed my
mind that you know what, you've been sober almost three
months now, and you know, you don't even remember, really,
it's been so long, you don't really remember what it's
like to be drunk. All that. If you stopped at
the liquor store and got a gallon of vodka and
drank it. Then it would re remind you why you're

(01:09:15):
doing all the say, is this up? So to get
this I I bought a gallon of vodka and I
drank it to improve my sobriety. Listen, the obsession of
mine doesn't care how it gets alcohol back into your body.
Alcoholism doesn't care how it tricks you into into drinking it.

(01:09:39):
If you haven't had it, if you don't have spirit,
spiritual protection from the first drink, something like that will
happen to you. You know. I mean, it's it's a phenomenon.
You know, it's it's it's not something that you can
you can tie down to scientifically. It's just it's just
an obsession that comes into your mind. And that's what happened.
I started drinking that picture this. I got a gallon

(01:10:01):
of vodka and I'm making a drink and I'm sitting there.
This is a good idea. You know, I heard somebody
at the Meating City. If you can't remember your last drunk,
Kevin had it. So I'll remember this one.

Speaker 3 (01:10:11):
You know, this will be my last.

Speaker 1 (01:10:12):
You know this has worked. This is good.

Speaker 3 (01:10:14):
And you know second one, I'll drink the second one.
Everything's fine.

Speaker 1 (01:10:16):
This is great, This is a good idea. I drink it.

Speaker 3 (01:10:18):
All of a sudden, I start to get really drunk,
and all of a sudden.

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
I go, Oh my god, what have I done. I've
opened up the cage door to the beast, and the
beast is gonna move me around like a puppet, you know,
for who knows how long. Oh my god, what have
I done? And I realized the enormity of my mistake,
my mistake. I have now put alcohol back in my

(01:10:43):
body and who knows where I'm gonna end up? Now?
Think think about this, Think about this. We talk about
we talk about insanity and step two. We talk about
insanity and step two. Was I insane when I was
drinking and drunk? Or was I insane before I was

(01:11:04):
drinking and I was drunk? Listen to be an alcoholic
like me to put to buy a gallon of vodka
and start drinking it. For somebody like me, that alcohol
was killing. And I put myself in a treatment center
for twenty eight days and thirteen thousand dollars. And I'm
going to outpatient treatment paying seventy dollars you know, a night,
two nights a week, and I'm going to I've told

(01:11:26):
everybody I'm never drinking again, and here I am drinking that.
That's plain insanity that I did that, And being insane
is basically all about not knowing the difference between good,
greg and wrong, not knowing the difference between good and bad.
That's what insanity is. So I'm insane, and the alcohol
actually restored me to sanity because once I started feeling

(01:11:50):
the effects of the alcohol, I realized the mistake I
had made and how huge it was. It talks about
in the Big Book here that builded this. And what
happens is we sit there and we beat on the bar,
asking ourselves, how could we have let this happen again?
This is the this is the tragedy of alcoholism. We
do not have a mental defense against the first drink.

(01:12:15):
You know, listen, I'm in AA, I'm in outpatient treatment.
I've made a commit I want to be sober more
than anybody else in any of the AA meetings I'm in.
And I'm drinking a gallon of vodka. What is that?
You know? What is that? Well, you know I'm a
dead man. You know I can't even not drink. And

(01:12:36):
so that really got my attention because it took about
five months or seven months to get sober after that again,
because you know, once once I'm drinking, you know, I'm
you know, I'm in it, and I have to be separated.
And there's different things that can separate us, but I

(01:12:58):
have to be separated. And and what basically happened is
Christmas of nineteen eighty nine. You know, I'm at my
mother's house. My brother and sister are home for Christmas.
There's nieces and nephews and cats and and it's like
this festive mood. And you know, there's Christmas carols on
the on the stereo, and can smell Christmas cookies, and

(01:13:21):
there's presence under the tree that's decorated. The stockings are
hung by the chimney with care. And I start, I
start drinking Johnny Walker black because that's my Christmas drenth
Anybody anybody else have like a Christmas strength that you
get just just at Christmas. And I start drinking Johnny

(01:13:41):
Walker black and I go into a blackout and I
get a resentment. Anybody understand those drunken resentments, like like
what did you say to me? You know, it was like,
you know, I know what you mean by that, you know,
and I go into an absolute rage where I threaten

(01:14:02):
everybody's life, you know, and they bail, they take their
Christmas elsewhere, you know, and I come to, you know,
I'm wondering where the presence went. And I'm like shattered.
You know, I've been I've been in a blackout for
about four or five days, and it was just brutal.
And you know, I remember staggering into the kitchen. You
know how you had to put those fidget under your

(01:14:23):
you know, drake because you're dehydrated. Your brain is about
to dry out, and you know, they really drink water
out of the fidget. And I'm doing that and I'm
looking and there's piles of vodka bottles, piles of vodkaballs.
I'm like, oh my god. You know, I didn't remember
buying any of them. I must have staggered up to
the liquor store, you know, about thirty times, you know,

(01:14:44):
so so, And then I start going into the DTS.
Anybody in here ever experienced full blown you know, ugly
terror DTS, I mean just an awful, awful experience, you know.
I start to just just just freak out. I Mean,
the DTS are bad I started to hallucinate and there

(01:15:06):
are animals running around, like what was that? And there's
things scratching on the house. I later found out it
was the wind, you know, moving some branches against the house.

Speaker 3 (01:15:15):
But there are big animals scratching on the house, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:15:18):
Try to get in and there's maggots on the slip
covers of the couch. I'm like, oh, I mean, just
freaking out. And I remember I remember laying back on
the couch like like just trying to get comfortable, trying
to get a little bit of sleep because you know,
for three days I couldn't sleep in these DT's And
I'm looking up and I'm looking up at the ceiling
and all of a sudden, out of the ceiling came

(01:15:40):
this demon. It was like it was like Satan himself comes.

Speaker 3 (01:15:45):
Out of the ceiling.

Speaker 1 (01:15:46):
It's like a big bullhead, like one of those old
monitor heads. And then you know Snot is coming out
and it's coming down to like eat my face. And
I'm like, I like freak out. I go God, Ah
help me.

Speaker 3 (01:16:02):
And it disappeared, and you know, it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:06):
Was that crying out to God from that kind of
you know, like like defeat. I mean I really thought
that I was gonna die and I cried out for help. Now,
you know many of us have these types of prayers
in our life during our separation events. We you know,
we all have separation experiences from alcohol. Well this was

(01:16:29):
mine because after crying out to God like that, I
have not had a drink since since that day. And
I believe God heard that heard that prayer, and certain
certain circumstances and situations started to fall into place in
my life. I went back to Alcoholics Anonymous as soon

(01:16:50):
as I could. I got. I gotta tell you, I
was shattered and I was not right. But the minute
I could get out to my car and go to
an AA meeting, you know, I went. I'll tell you
that story. I had the most beat up piece of
crap car that you could have. It was amazing. It
was even still running, you know it was. It was
a nineteen seventy six Ford Granada with white walls, with

(01:17:13):
no muffler, no clutch, no emergency break, no heater, and
it's the middle of the winter, so if you made
the mistake a turn on heater, aafreeze with spray on
the inside of the windows, you know, and had all
the quarter panels were gone, and inexplicably it had orange paint.
You know, it's like somebody took a gall out of
orange paint and just threw it around the interior. This

(01:17:35):
was this thing was a piece of crap. And and
because it didn't have a clutch, it could only be
driven on flat areas. So so literally I had a
meeting book and I had to find a flat meaning
so I'm looked into the meeting book and I go, okay,
there's one in Mars down. You know, that's kind of
highway that's flat, you know. So so I drove to

(01:17:57):
the nearest flat meeting and I remember, you know, as
you pull into the church parking lot, there was just
a little tiny hill that you had to like go
up to get into the parking lot. It was like
a foot or too high. And there was the porch
right where all the alcoholics are out. You know, four
hundred alcoholics are out having cigarettes out on this port

(01:18:18):
and I've got to drive up this little hill past
them to get into the Now I got no clutch
and no mufflers, so I have to do this. I
have to like drive by them, you know, going a
mile and a half an hour. Wow, you know, and
I could just see I can still see them all
looking at me like must be a new guy, you know.

(01:18:41):
And then and then because the parking lot's not level,
I had to park my car against the tree.

Speaker 3 (01:18:46):
There is no emergency break, no clutch, there was no way.

Speaker 1 (01:18:49):
Of stopping it unless it was flat. So so you know,
I did that, and it was you know, nobody parked
next to me.

Speaker 3 (01:18:56):
I'll tell you either. But but and then.

Speaker 1 (01:18:59):
I went in. I went into to this meeting, and
I am just I'm just shattered, you know. You know,
we have sometimes sometimes it's hard to remember how tough
it is to walk into your first meeting. This is
my first meeting back after like seven months, and and
you know, I was dying and I had I had
self centered fear on me, so thick. You've got no idea,

(01:19:20):
you know. I walk into the meeting and I sit
towards the towards the back, and I sit down, and
I thought that this was a beginner's meeting. It turned
out that it was a step meeting and they were
on step twelve and they were they were going up
and down the roads reading a paragraph. So I'm sitting
there like I'm here on here, over here, oh god, oh.

(01:19:41):
And somebody goes here and hands me a step book
and goes, we're reading from step twelve and I look
and they're coming down the road at me. I'm gonna
have to read shot. I panic. I go, oh oh,
I got over, and I get up. I leave. You know, no,
no way am I gonna be able to read a paragraph.

(01:20:03):
I mean, that's how shattered I was. So i'd go
outside and I'm standing outside and I'm standing on the
stupid I'm having a cigarette, and I'm thinking, you know,
we're here by seconds and inches sometimes, folks.

Speaker 3 (01:20:13):
I'm thinking, I'm thinking, oh.

Speaker 1 (01:20:14):
My god, oh my god. You know this is too much,
this is too much.

Speaker 3 (01:20:17):
I don't think I'm gonna be able to do this
if I if I don't do this, aa, I'm gonna die.

Speaker 1 (01:20:21):
But I just I can't. I can't do this too much.
And asked me need to read. And so this guy
comes out. I guess he saw me leave. I'll never forget.
His name is Jorge. And he comes out and he
goes and he starts fucking me. He goes, hey, so
you leave, you know how you doing? I'm like, oh, really,
mad or come back, and realizing that the demons or
the magazines look, I was, oh god, really, And then

(01:20:43):
and he goes, well, you know, why don't you, why
don't you come on back into the meeting with me.
I'm like, oh, I'm not need to tomorrow. This is
meeting tomorrow and my talent. I'll go back tomorrow. And
he's like, no, no, come on, come on in.

Speaker 11 (01:20:54):
You know, he's like yanking me, so you know, all right,
and he drags me back in and the only seats
left now were in like the second row, so you know,
he brings me in there and he sits me down,
and you know, I'm sitting there and I'm listening to.

Speaker 3 (01:21:08):
Somebody's share and I can't hear a word they're saying.

Speaker 1 (01:21:10):
I'm in my head is just you know, all in all.

Speaker 3 (01:21:14):
Consuming and sanity, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
And all of a sudden he leans over. He goes,
raise your hand and tell everybody you're coming back. And
I go what. He goes, raise your hand and tell
everybody you're coming back.

Speaker 3 (01:21:25):
I'm like, well, there's this meeting tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (01:21:27):
You know. Everybody raises their hand and everybody's coming back
the meeting. Why And he keeps going. He's like, no,
raise your hand, raise your hand. Tell he started to
get loud. Now people are starting to look at us,
you know, because he's starts talking, and you know, I
know people are looking at us, you know, and I
know they're gonna be thinking at me next, you know.

(01:21:47):
I mean, oh, listen too much. It's too much. So
so I gotta shut this guy up. So right. I've
never seen this happen before. I've never seen it happen
effort right in the middle of somebody sharing, I know,
like like this, and.

Speaker 7 (01:22:00):
The person, the person cheering the meeting is like what
And I'm like and and so the person cheering the
meeting shuts the person up who's talking and calls on me,
and I say something really profoundly, you know.

Speaker 12 (01:22:15):
The person not an alcoholic gas was like, and you
got back all the time just comes to terrors, wadna
thank you?

Speaker 1 (01:22:26):
And and the room is quiet you can hear and
drop me. I was like. And then all of a sudden,
the whole place goes yeah like that. So I start
sharing it and I'm like, whoa, you know, and listen.
I took it as acceptance at the time, you know what,
I mean, I now know people are like, oh my god,

(01:22:49):
givers shared. You know, I thought I had trouble, you know,
Oh my god, do I not want to be you?
Oh I'm so glad I came here and oh I
know that that's what it is now. But back then
I took it as acceptance, and it was. It was
a powerful experience for me. It's a powerful exerience because
I thought if I, if I had the courage to

(01:23:10):
be able to raise my.

Speaker 13 (01:23:11):
Hand and tell everybody I'm coming back, I might make it.
I might be able to stay in this alcoholics anonymous thing.
There was a wall of self centered fear. And you
know that's what we die from, folks. We die from
this unnatural sense of self. You know, all spiritual, all spiritual,

(01:23:33):
really spiritual people, spiritual masters, they all understand that we
are one, that we are one.

Speaker 1 (01:23:40):
The alcoholic is on the other extreme of that, of
that compass. We think that we're all us and everything's
coming at us. You know. Albert Einstein once said the
grand delusion of mankindness. They believe there's more than one
of them here, you know, like think about that, Think

(01:24:02):
about that. So I was so isolated and I was
so filled with self centered fear that I couldn't even
raise my hand.

Speaker 3 (01:24:08):
And tell people, hey, I'm coming back. But this guy
helped me do it.

Speaker 1 (01:24:11):
This guy Whohey, if it wasn't for him, you'd have
a different speaker here tonight.

Speaker 3 (01:24:16):
He pushed me into.

Speaker 1 (01:24:18):
Doing something that gave me just enough power to come
back the next day, you know, and keep and keep
this this mechanism, this this spiritual mechanics of alcoholics anonymous
working for a minute, you know, so? Uh And I
found out later, you know how much time Worge had
two weeks? He was two weeks. So so if you

(01:24:41):
think you're too new to help people, you know, if
you've just started coming around, let me tell you somebody
with two weeks saved my life.

Speaker 14 (01:24:52):
Yeah. So any even here, I am, you know, I'm
I'm I'm going to AAM. I talked about this a
little last night and I'm going to a mean. He's
like a wild man. I am fellow shipping, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:25:07):
What I mean. I'm here, I'm there and listen, people
are patting me on the head. They're saying, Chris, you're
doing great, Pat pat pat, you know, good goodness. See
every meeting I go to you're there, you know, Pat, Pat, Pat,
And and you know I really, I really was doing.
I really was willing. I was very very willing. Uh

(01:25:29):
And you know I used up a lot of energy.
You know, there's a chapter in our book called into Action.
What I was doing at that time was I was
into activity. I was doing I was showing up. I
was showing up, and I was I was reaching out
my hand to whatever extent I could.

Speaker 3 (01:25:46):
I was reaching out my hand.

Speaker 1 (01:25:48):
But I am I am what the Big Book of
Alcoholics Anonymous describes as a real alcoholic. And you know,
I don't mean, you know, I don't wanna I don't
want to sound exclusive or demeaning to you know, the
real alcoholic. All the real alcoholic is is it's some.
It's just it's an individual who's gone down the scale

(01:26:10):
far enough that their power, choice and control can be
nonexistent at certain times. That's all A real alcoholic cass.
You know, so so often people people come up to
me afterwards and talk to me about, you know, using
the real alcol what you think the risk of us,
aren't you know? I'm not trying, I'm not trying to
be divisive. You know, these are the terminologies that it

(01:26:34):
uses in the book. And it's only about it's only
about power, choice and control. It's not about it's not
about the outside stuff. Alcoholism manifests in unmanageability in the
exterior world with all the trouble that we get into,
and you know, the problems that we have with people
and the law and all that. But the real, real,

(01:26:58):
tragic part of out wholism is the internal stuff that
goes on, the stuff that goes on within us. Yeah,
we suffer a lot of consequences, but the real pain
is inside inside of us. And and you know, I've
got to tell you that what I was doing, which

(01:27:20):
was going through a lot of meetings, and I was
even trying to be of service by you know, volunteering
for certain group functions and trying to help people, you
know who had maybe less money than me. I'd buy
him dinner. I mean, you know, I would do all
kinds of things like that. I was very generous. But
what I was doing was was really working only one

(01:27:40):
part of alcoholics Anonymous, and that was the unity part.
What happened to me, what happened to me basically was
somewhere around nine months sover A buddy of mine, Radio
Shack mic. I had my sponsor Fish Food Fille and
my buddy Radio Shack Mics. And but radio Shack Mike

(01:28:00):
did was he gave me a series of tapes. He
was the kind of guy who would go to the
New Age bookstore and he you know.

Speaker 3 (01:28:08):
Buying every you know, he was very pious. He would
buy whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:28:11):
He would buy all this is this, Oh Chris man,
you need pyramids, pyramids over your bed. You gotta have pyramids,
you know.

Speaker 3 (01:28:18):
And the next week it would be affirmations.

Speaker 1 (01:28:21):
You gotta tell you affirmations. You know this one time
I did. I started to do affirmations because he gave
me a book on it. I remember standing in front
of the mirror and one hundred times I need to say, Chris,
You're a wonderful god. Chris, You're a wonderful god. Chris,
You're a wonderful good christ By and got bad you know,
you know, I mean was in RadioShack. Mike wasn't trying

(01:28:46):
to hurt me. He just he just didn't even come close.

Speaker 3 (01:28:49):
To understanding the level of alcoholism I had.

Speaker 1 (01:28:52):
You know, he got arrested for like cocaine possession and
came to ay like this ready to go. You know,
I mean, I was just destroyed by alcohol. So these
these were two. So he's he's handing me affirmations to
you know, trying to treat alcoholism with affirmations is trying
like trying to stop a semi with a cobweb, you

(01:29:13):
know what I mean. You know, you need you need
a whole lot more ammunition in the gun than that.
But this one day he handed me a set of
tastes and these were tastes by the late Great Joe
and Charlie from Arkansas. And he has these to me
and it's like eight ninety minute takes. I go, I go,
are you kidding me? He goes, no, no, you know listen,

(01:29:35):
I didn't really enjoy these. But you're hardcore, you know
you'll probably hike these guys. Yeah, and uh and and
I started listening to him and oh my god, they
pissed me off. Oh you know, listen, as an alcoholic.
It's there's a great there's a great section in the
book Alcoholics Anonymous where it says, if we have this,
if you have disturbed your prospect about their alcoholism, this

(01:29:59):
is all to the and I understand what Bill Wilson
is saying now, because in my days of early sobriety,
you know, my early years of bitter struggle in Alcoholics Anonymous,
there would be people who would really piss me of,
I mean, really upset me because they you know, they
would be calling attention to something that I was doing wrong,

(01:30:19):
or they would be correcting me about, you know, a.

Speaker 3 (01:30:22):
Misconception that I have or something that.

Speaker 1 (01:30:24):
I would be like raw. But but what would happen
is is I would have to deal with that. I
would have to think about it. I'd have to come
to terms with that information, and you know, and and
move on because it would just be it would burn
inside me. So after I heard the message of Joe
and Charlie, and this is basically what the message was

(01:30:47):
that I heard. Chris, you're going to the fellowship. You're
the pope of the fellowship. You know, you are the
king of all the meetings in the area. You know
you're doing a great job with that. But if you're
not working a program the twelve steps out of the
book Alcoholics Anonymous, you do not have an AA program.
And if you don't have an AA program and you're

(01:31:08):
an alcoholic, your chances are way more than average that
you're gonna drink. So when you drink, you know, please
don't go out and tell everybody that AA doesn't work
because you never engaged in the program of recovery. Think
about it like this. Let's say let's say you had
a type of a type of cancer, okay, a foot cancer, right,

(01:31:32):
and you go to the hospital and you go in
the waiting room and there's a whole bunch of other
people with foot cancer in the weaving room.

Speaker 3 (01:31:38):
And you sit in the waiting room.

Speaker 1 (01:31:40):
And you talk about foot cancer, you know, and you
form a little club and your pace and dues, and
you know, you put a little foot cancer literature together,
and you share about foot cancer, and you know, I'm
grateful I've got foot cancer. And then you go home
and you never leave the waiting room. You never go
in for the operation. You know, you're part of the

(01:32:03):
waiting room crew. I mean, wouldn't that be insane? Yet,
That's exactly what I was doing in alcoholics Anonymous. I
was going into the meetings that I was sharing about
my alcoholism, and I you know, I was you know,
I learned very very early how to how to give
good share you know, how to be like a little

(01:32:24):
bit self deprecating and tell funny stories about how stupid
I was that days I really liked need Last. You know,
I learned how to give share like that. And so
I'm sharing, and I'm even sometimes saying I'm grateful, but
I'm not getting out of the waiting room, which is
the meetings. I'm not going in for the treatment for alcoholism.

(01:32:46):
You know, and this is basically what the Joe at
Charlie takes. You're telling me, I've not engaged in a
recovery process. Now I get really I get pissed off.
I get through all the tapes so I can say
that I did. I put them on the shelf, and
I'm you know, I'm like those guys from ARCTS. That's
not how we do it. In New Jersey. We treat
our alcoholism by going to a discussing meeting and share it.

(01:33:09):
So we do share. I don't know how they do
it in Arkansas. They do all this work in Arkansas.
You know, we share.

Speaker 3 (01:33:18):
And what happened was, you know, all of us, all
of us get challenged, all of us get challenged, and
all of.

Speaker 1 (01:33:25):
Us go through you know, uh, basically, like an emotional bottom.
A lot of us experienced this in AA, and what
it can basically be is it can basically be a
lot of life challenges hitting you at once that you
have no spiritual fortitude to be able to get through.

(01:33:45):
And that's basically what happened to me. A whole bunch
of different things happened. And you know, I remember going
over to my sponsor's house talking to him about it,
and I did talk to him about it. And after that,
I went back home and uh, and I pulled these
tapes down off the shelf. I just knew, somehow, some
way that there was some truth in what Joe and

(01:34:07):
Charlie were talking about. Listen, if you're an alcoholic and
something disturbs you about your alcoholism and it's and it's truthful,
it's something that's truthful, that truth will haunt you. You
will you will need to deal with that some way,
somehow as you move through through your life. And I
had to deal with my alcoholism and it got so bad.

(01:34:29):
And listen, I didn't do this out of any sense
of virtue, you know, to be a better AA. I
did it solely to stop feeling the pain of the
bondage of self that Chris was experiencing. I didn't want
to feel bad anymore. So I took these tapes down.
I opened that. I got my big book out, and I,

(01:34:49):
you know, I blew.

Speaker 3 (01:34:50):
The dust off of the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:34:51):
And I had one of these big books that I
got from treatment. You know, anybody have big books from treatment,
you know, And I opened it up. I started the tape,
and I got a notebook and a pen, and I
sat there, and when Joe and Charlie went over an instruction,
I would listen to the instruction, I'd stop the tape,

(01:35:11):
and I would do the instruction before I moved on.
I operated from that moment forward as if the big
book was a textbook and I needed to go through
it and solve the problems and learn the material and
then move on because and the reason I did this
is there was no there was nobody that was doing
this in my area at the time. If you raised

(01:35:34):
your hand and said I really need to go through
the steps in the meeting that I was in, you
would basically be told, you know, go to step meetings,
you know, get the twelve and twelve and go to
step meetings. And I remember one time one time, you know,
asking in a four step meeting, just you know, because
I went to step meetings galore, and I raised my
hand one time and I said, you know, I'm thinking

(01:35:56):
of doing a four step and I was just wondering
if anybody had any you know, any advice on that.
And he could could you know, if they've done it before,
and you know, they can they can point to, you know,
point me to where I need to go.

Speaker 3 (01:36:08):
And this this crusty old timer raises his hand and.

Speaker 1 (01:36:11):
He goes, kid, you do a.

Speaker 3 (01:36:13):
Four step with a pencil.

Speaker 1 (01:36:17):
And that was his advice. That's what That's what he
That's what he gave me. I'm like, thanks a lot, Clem.
You know, that's really helpful. Thank you very much for
that that wonderful stage advice. I do a four step
with a pole. Yeah, this is the last time I
asked a question in this meeting, you know. So uh So, anyway,
you know, I discovered these Joe Charlie things and I

(01:36:39):
go through the steps and and you know what what
basically happened was these steps are designed to uh to
bring about a complete shift in consciousness, a spiritual awakening.
I believe a spiritual awakening is is a is a
miraculous shift in perce. We're no longer going to be

(01:37:04):
viewing the world the way we view it.

Speaker 3 (01:37:06):
We're no longer going to be interacting with the.

Speaker 1 (01:37:09):
World the way that we interacted. You know, our behavior
and our perceptions and thinking are going to change.

Speaker 3 (01:37:16):
And this is what This is.

Speaker 1 (01:37:17):
The power of the Twelve Steps Alcoholics anonymous folks is
two things.

Speaker 3 (01:37:22):
It is freedom and it is power.

Speaker 1 (01:37:26):
We get both of those things when we experience the
recovery process. We're free to do anything that we want
to do as long as our motives are good and
we have the power to The power is working in
and through us, you know, to enable us to become
happily and usefully hold to recreate our lives, to solve
our problems, and to really be you know, expressions of

(01:37:52):
what we can be. You know what, we get to
unlock all the chains that we've put around our life
and now we're and we have this spiritual power that
enables us to live life, you know, the way we
need to live it and be the way we need
to be.

Speaker 3 (01:38:08):
So it's just it's just amazing. So this is happening
to me now.

Speaker 1 (01:38:12):
I don't you know? Sometimes I want to I want
to start, I want to finish this talk by reading
a little bit of the spiritual experience in here. This
is stage three in this little big book. I'm not
sure it's the spiritual experience Appendicce appendix. Among our rapidly

(01:38:40):
growing membership of thousands of alcoholics, transformations, though frequent or not,
by no means the rule. Most of our experiences are
what the psychologist William James called the educational variety, because
they developed slowly over a period of time. Quite often
friends in the newcomer are aware of the difference long
before he is himself. He finally realized is that he

(01:39:00):
has undergone a profound alteration in his reactions to life.
That such a change could hardly have been brought about
by himself alone. What often takes place in a few
months could seldom have been accomplished by years of self discipline.
With few exceptions, our members find that they have tapped
in an unsuspecting inner resource, which they presently identified with

(01:39:22):
their own conception of a power greater than themselves. Most
of us think this awareness of power greater than ourselves
is the essence of spiritual experience. Our more religious members
call it God consciousness. So they're talking a little bit
about what is a spiritual experience? You know, what is
a spiritual awakening? What is the treatment for alcoholism? I

(01:39:44):
believe the treatment for alcoholism is this spiritual awakening. And
it happened to me through the educational variety and slowly
over the course of time. And there's a reason for that,
and that's because I didn't engage in the recovery process

(01:40:05):
in alcoholics anonymous right away.

Speaker 3 (01:40:07):
I had a period of.

Speaker 1 (01:40:08):
Flying blind where all I was doing was not drinking,
going to meetings and trying to trying to be at
service a little bit. And although that that that offered
me the opportunity for a very tentative sobriety, it didn't
really help me with my recovery. Now I'm going through
the steps with the Joe and Charlie tapes. I'm now

(01:40:30):
I'm now a tape guy. Because you know, the more
the more charge I'm getting off of doing these spiritual exercises,
the steps, the more the better I'm feeling, and the
more interested I am and in this way of life.
So I started to I started to look for other
Big Book workshop tapes and the next person that I
was that I was exposed to was a man named

(01:40:51):
Joe Hawk. Joe Hawk became a very very dear friend
of mine. I'm I'm you know, I'm grateful to be
able to say that I actually was able to do
some some personal work with Joe before he died. But
he was he was a genius at putting into language

(01:41:13):
the spiritual mechanics of the recovery process, to try to
explain what you needed to do and what would happen
to you if you did it. The spiritual life is
not a theory. We have to live it.

Speaker 3 (01:41:29):
That's a great line in this book. But it took
it took somebody very very experienced to be able to
put into language this this process of recovery. And I
got very very involved in the stuff that that Joe
was doing and I started to do some.

Speaker 1 (01:41:49):
Some work with him. Now basically kind of what happened,
you know, through all this was was it I started
to sound better at meetings where I was going to people.
People saw a very very swift positive change happening happening
in me because I had gone through the steps and

(01:42:10):
a lot of a lot of guys were coming up
to me and asking me if I would sponsor them.
And it was almost like every every lunatic in the
in the rooms was it was like attracted to me
at one point in time, and you know I was.
I was saying yes to everybody. And at this point
in time, yes, I had had a perfect a personal
experience with the steps, but I still didn't know how
to use them as a tool to sponsor. You know,

(01:42:32):
in our literature basically says a sponsor, a sponsor's main
responsibility is an adequate presentation of the twelve steps. That's
what our responsibility is as as a sponsor. Bill Bill
said that himself. But what I was doing was I
was doing it like it had been done for me.
You know, here, here's my phone number, give me a call.

(01:42:53):
You know, I'm willing to listen, you know, whatever, whatever
you need. And and and I got involved in and
that's how was sponsoring it. And a lot of these
guys were drinking on me. You know a lot of
these a lot of these guys were not not staying sober.
So what I decided to do one time is as
I said, you know what I'm gonna I had a
great experience with the Joe and Charlie Tates. I had

(01:43:15):
a great experience going through the Big Book. It made
a lot of sense. It changed it changed me pretty profound,
in a pretty profound way. I think I'm gonna start
bringing these guys over to my house and doing this.
And I started bringing people over to my house and
starting on the title page and going through going through
this book, and where there was an instruction, we would
stop and we would both do that instruction. I really

(01:43:36):
thought at that time that if I was going to
be taking somebody through the steps, I needed to be
doing them myself. And so for a period of two
or three years, I was taking a number of people
through this book at my house two nights, two nights
a week, you know, come on over for three or
four hours. We would be studying this and we would
be doing the homework. And the next week you were
coming with you you know, your four step or whatever.

(01:43:57):
And and you know, I learned a great deal from
this experience. I was helped incredibly, but so were some
of these other guys. And the truth of this experience
was this that the people who came over to my
house and went through the book with me and did
the fourth and fifth step, you know, did the prayers,

(01:44:21):
put together their eighth step list, actually went out and
made events. You know, one thing I always like to
say is they should put actually in front of every
single one of those steps, because so often we think
all we really need to do is.

Speaker 3 (01:44:33):
Share about them and read them and agree with them
in theory. You know, they're.

Speaker 1 (01:44:39):
Spiritual exercises that need to be taken. You know, So
the guys that came over to my house, who bought
in at that level, who actually did this and actually
put together a prayer and meditation discipline and actually went
out and worked with other people, every single one of
those guys is still sober. I'm talking about from the
early nineties. They're all still card carrying a members indeed

(01:45:02):
standing still working with other people, every single one of them.
And the people who would who would recognize the fourth
step is quite possibly an overreaction to, you know, a
problem that they really have under control, or or you know,
I can't I can't go back to missus mcgillacuddy and
say I'm sorry. You know, the people who you know

(01:45:22):
who who refuse to consider that all of the steps
and what would happen in those cases was these people
would just start stop coming over to my house, and
you know, they'd get another sponsor. They get a sponsor
who will, you know, an easier to solve their way,
sponsor who just wanted them to be the cookie boy.
You know, I'm not going over to the Christmas house

(01:45:43):
anywhere's going to make amends, you know, I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:45:46):
I got this new sponsor. He wants me to be
a cookie boy.

Speaker 1 (01:45:49):
You know. And they would, they would, they would do that.
But the people who hung in there with me, every
one of them still around. The people who didn't, every
one of them is gone. Every one of them is gone.
I'm not saying they're drinking. I don't know what they're doing,
because when you leave a we you know we're not
about the business of keeping track of yet. You know
we're not gonna chase yet, We're not gonna keep track yet.

(01:46:11):
You know where to find this if you need us,
you know what I mean? And uh, And so I
don't know where. I don't know where these these people are.
Probably a percentage of them weren't weren't what we would
call real alcoholics. Maybe they weren't, who knows, But a
number of them got drunk and a number of them.
A number of them died. One one of my one
of my early spotses I just heard this week. Uh,

(01:46:34):
he was living out in Seattle. He was a guy
that I sponsored for about a year and you know,
was was non compliant. In other words, when I when
I when I said, this is what you need to do,
this is what I've done, this is what you need
to do, he became non compliant. When you become non compliant,
I don't need to fire you. You go away. That's
just what happens. I no longer have anything for you,

(01:46:57):
so you move on. And this the ASU moved on.
And he was a brilliant trial attorney. This guy, oh man,
he was one of the smartest people I have ever
been in the presence of. But he wasn't smart enough
to outwit alcoholism because he thought he could do it
using his mental acuity. And you can't outthink alcoholism, you

(01:47:19):
have to out act alcoholism. And he wasn't willing to
do that. And he died in Seattle this last week.
And you know, it's a shame. I've lost a lot
of people in this last year. One of the things
that's happening to a lot of the old timers is
pain medication. There is some serious pain medication out there

(01:47:42):
today and you can get it pretty pretty quickly from
practically any doctor. And what's happening to a lot of
us because a lot of us are showing up in
treatment centers after twenty thirty years of sobriety. You know,
in AA, they're ending up in treatment centers because uh,
these uh, these pay medications are so powerful. They'll they'll

(01:48:04):
they'll take you back to a consciousness of powerlessness. They will,
they were, they will remove your defenses against the next
trenk and you will you will experience, uh, the acute
aspects of powerlessness at that point in time, and you'll
either you know, get way out of control with the

(01:48:24):
drugs or the drugs and alcohol. And that happens to
a lot of us these days.

Speaker 3 (01:48:29):
You know, we we must remain ever ever vigilant.

Speaker 1 (01:48:33):
But anyway, when you know, when we're talking about the
spiritual making, Douglas, Doug is going to take us through
a process that the earlier AA members uh would do
with people. They would give you the spiritual triage to
start exposing you to the actual power of God. That's
what this was about, is that amazing or what too.

(01:48:57):
There are things that we have there. There are barriers
that we have erected out of a sense of self,
that we've placed in our lives that block the sunlight
of the spirit. It blocks the ability to God for
God to come in and work in and through us
because we've put up a barrier. You know, I believe,

(01:49:20):
I believe in the in the Covenant that God gave
us basically in the garden of Eden, and I want
to talk about that just for a minute using a
little biblical vision and analogy. Okay, Adam and Eves are
in the garden of Eden. It's gorgeous. I mean, there's
fruit on all the trees, you know, perfect weather. They're

(01:49:41):
running around naked, you know, just having a great time.
This is wonderful as wonderful and God is God would
show up every once in a while and say, bless
you my children. You know, I want you to I
want you to enjoy yourself. And God when God came
down this one time, he said, look, you know, I
just have one role.

Speaker 3 (01:49:57):
Please enjoy, Please enjoy paradise.

Speaker 1 (01:49:59):
Please run around naked and have a good time. You
know what I mean. But there's there's one thing that
I need to ask you not to do. See that
tree over there, that's the tree with the fruit, the
fruit of self obsession. That's the tree with the fruit
of self centeredness. And I really recommend that you not
eat of that if you want to really enjoy paradise,

(01:50:23):
don't go near that tree, you know. And and God
goes and does what God does. And Adam and I
are sitting around there. They start talking. They start talking like,
why do you think God doesn't want us to eat
that tree? You know? You know what I bet you,
I'll bet you you know, we should probably go eat
of that tree, you know. So they do, and they
both eat of the tree of self centeredness, of self obsession.

(01:50:45):
And the next thing, you know, all of a sudden,
they have this self centeredness they feel they feel, you know,
shy because they're naked, so they cover themselves up. And
I was on there, you know, they're all like about
self now, and God shows up and just with one look,
God can tell that they've eaten that fruit, and he goes, okay, okay, listen, listen, guys.

(01:51:06):
I love you. You know, you're you're you're my children. Obviously,
you know you want to be involved with self. Obviously,
you want to have self determination. So I will grant
you this self determination that you want so badly. But
you gotta leave paradise. You gotta leave Eden, and you

(01:51:28):
gotta go over here east of Eden, to the land
of Nod. Anybody in here been to the land of Nod,
I'll tell you I have nod and out I've been
to the land of Nod. Now so so here, so
here as as humankind moves over to the land of Nod.
Because of this sense of self that isolates us from paradise,

(01:51:52):
what happens is, as alcoholics, we are living in the
land of not and we need to get back to
the garden. And the twelve steps offer offer us a
way back. We become willing, you know, we ask God
to please remove the defects of character. We make a

(01:52:15):
decision in the third step to put ourselves back into
God's care. God, please relieve me of this this obsession
of always you know, knowing everything, and please, you know,
I need to get back to the garden. And I'm
turning my self centeredness in at the door, and we

(01:52:37):
get an opportunity to go back to paradise. In alcoholic Asnonymous,
we do. You have this spiritual awakening as the result
of the twelve steps, you can go back to paradise. Remember,
this is about power, and it's about freedom, Alcoholics Anonymous,

(01:52:57):
and it's also it's about leave behind the bondage of
self and rejoining the universe again. You know, And I can't.
I can't. I can't tell you how grateful I am
for this process and for what's going on in my life.
I never knew it could be this good. You know.

(01:53:18):
I thought, Okay, I'm going to I'm going to AA
so that I can stay separated from alcohol. I had
no idea what was available in here. If you're new
or if you're just coming back, there are two things
that are true about you, and you're not gonna think
they are. One of them is you're in way more
trouble than you think you are. You are alcoholism is

(01:53:41):
an illness of minimization. However bad you think it is.
Put a couple of zeros in front of that and
you're getting close. Okay. Yeah. But the other thing that's
true is there's a more significant answer to be had
in the practice of the Alcoholics Anonymous principles than you
are giving it credit for right now there are more positive,

(01:54:04):
significant changes available to you for engaging in this alcoholics
anonymous tank. But then you can possibly imagine, and that's
some really good news, folks. All Right, I'm looking forward
to hearing Doug. Thank you, goodasing everybody. My name is Chris.

(01:54:29):
I'm an alcoholic. Yeah, you know, that was a that
was a great trip. Yesterday we went out, We went
out and grabbed a whole bunch of crabs and steamed
them up. You know, it was it was. It was wonderful,
Probably the best crabs I've ever had. A number of
things happened this weekend. A number of things happened this weekend.

(01:54:52):
Best clam chowder I think I've ever had in my life.
You know, that's that's that's salmon I've never had. You know,
this this place this yeah, this place is. This place
is great. Doug and I both had a fantastic time.
And I think this is the first time in my
life I've been called a dignitary.

Speaker 3 (01:55:15):
Let me let me tell you that's not what they
were calling.

Speaker 1 (01:55:17):
Me in the eighties. And you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:55:20):
They weren't calling me for anything. They were you know,
they were.

Speaker 1 (01:55:22):
They were telling me, would you just shut up? You
over there? Would you just shut up?

Speaker 3 (01:55:28):
Would you go somewhere else?

Speaker 1 (01:55:30):
I mean, that's basically what was happening to me in
in the eighties. Eighties. I was I was persona non
grata practically everywhere I went, you know, I was. I
was a blackout drinker. Any blackout drinkers in here tonight, boy,
isn't that fun? You know?

Speaker 3 (01:55:48):
Is not disconcerting, you know, coming to in in some.

Speaker 1 (01:55:51):
Town that you don't even know why you're there. I had.
I had a bunch of problems in blackouts. A lot
of things would happen to me. I remember this one time, well,
I don't remember this one time where I called up
my boss. I had a resentment. I called him up,
but I threatened his life. You're I'm going to kill yo.

Speaker 3 (01:56:12):
And because it was a.

Speaker 1 (01:56:13):
Blackout, I forgot and I went in the next day,
like you know, you know, walking in, He's like, what
are you doing there? You told me you were got
to kill me.

Speaker 3 (01:56:25):
I'm like, well, what'd you do?

Speaker 1 (01:56:28):
You know, the alcoholic can never take responsibility for anything,
you know, It's always got to be somebody else's somebody
else's fault. You know, I had a lot. You know,
it's the crazy thing about alcoholism is is we don't
do really well with alcohol a lot of times. I mean,
you know, crazy things happen to us. I want to

(01:56:50):
tell you about the very first time I ever drank.
I was about thirteen twelve or thirteen years old, and
me and a couple of my buddies got school. We
decided we're gonna cut school and go back to my
house my mother was working, and get drunk.

Speaker 3 (01:57:06):
You know, we we we talked about this.

Speaker 1 (01:57:08):
We thought it would be really cool to do, you know,
to go drink, drink some booze.

Speaker 3 (01:57:13):
So we did. We cut school.

Speaker 1 (01:57:14):
We went back over to my mother's house and I
brought down a bottle of four Roses whiskey, Canadian whiskey.
Folks uh pulled it down out of the cabinet, blew
the dust off of it. And I didn't know anything
about drinking. All I knew was the old John Wayne movies.
Remember those movies.

Speaker 3 (01:57:32):
Where John Wayne had walk into the bar.

Speaker 1 (01:57:35):
You know, he'd walk in, he'd go bartender whiskey, and
the bartender and pour a big glass of whiskey and
John would grab it and drink it down, grab the
bottle and go back to the table and sit there
and drink until he had to shoot somebody. And and
and you know, this.

Speaker 3 (01:57:52):
Is that's all I knew about drinking. So that's what
I did.

Speaker 1 (01:57:55):
I poured three big, warm water glasses of four roses whiskey.
I mean, if I smelled it today, I would get
that because I got.

Speaker 3 (01:58:05):
So sick on it. But here's what happened now, Well,
I want to tell you what happened.

Speaker 1 (01:58:08):
To the two guys that I was drinking with. These
guys were not alcoholic. They never became alcoholic, they never
became problem drinkers. They were normal people, normal kids, just
you know, experimenting a little bit. And what they did
was they drank about two thirds of their glass and
that was it. They were done. Okay. They knew that
to drink anymore would probably not be a good idea,

(01:58:31):
so they just sat back and they.

Speaker 3 (01:58:33):
Watched the show.

Speaker 1 (01:58:35):
The think is what I did was I finished mine off, I.

Speaker 3 (01:58:39):
Finished theirs off, and I finished.

Speaker 1 (01:58:41):
As much of that bottle as I could drink as
a little little twelve year old. And I went into
a blackout, and I you know, I don't remember much,
but they told me some of the stuff that happened.

Speaker 3 (01:58:53):
I tried to trash the house, you know, they split.

Speaker 1 (01:58:57):
I ended up. I ended up coming to out in
the field near my house. I came to out in
the field, like what the hell am I doing in
the field? And then I go into the house and
I start to get sick. Now remember your first drunk,
like really bad drunk. How sick you got?

Speaker 3 (01:59:14):
I mean you're sick for a couple of days.

Speaker 1 (01:59:16):
I know, I was vomiting and just I couldn't I
couldn't get off of a horizontal plane, and for two days.

Speaker 3 (01:59:24):
I mean really really sick. Now here's the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:59:29):
A normal person, if they ever drank a food or
a beverage and got that sick, they would never do
it again. I mean it would just you know, if
you were like allergic to rudabagas or something, you know,
and you ate one and you got sick for two days,
I mean, you'd be able, you'd have a sufficient defense

(01:59:52):
against putting a rutabaga back in your body. You'd know,
you'd always remember that. I know, no thanks none for me.
You know, I get sick on those things, and you
would remember. But there was something that alcohol. Alcohol did
something to me, but it also did something for me.
And what it did was I was always I was

(02:00:14):
always this kid who just didn't feel right about myself.
I was always worried about what you were thinking about me.
I was so attached to my my perceived image of
what you would think.

Speaker 3 (02:00:29):
I had to always be cool, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:00:32):
I couldn't ever ever imagine, you know, if people thinking
I was laying.

Speaker 3 (02:00:37):
So, I mean, you know, I had this crazy, crazy impression.

Speaker 1 (02:00:42):
You know, it's it's that self centered stuff that the
alcoholics have. I was always worried about something, you know,
and I had I had, like I guess it was
being shy. I really think it was probably more self
centered fear.

Speaker 3 (02:00:57):
But like, if.

Speaker 1 (02:00:58):
There was an oral report in school, I would like
cut because I couldn't go up in front of the
class and talk about glumbus or I'm not gonna do that.
That's laying, you know. So I would cut school for
three or four days until they forgot about the oral
report I would have to do. I mean, you know,
I would do all this stuff. So I was this
kid that just didn't feel right. I didn't feel right.

(02:01:20):
I hated school and nothing felt good, and I was
always pretending.

Speaker 3 (02:01:25):
Everything was right. And when I took.

Speaker 1 (02:01:28):
That glass of four roses whiskey and I put it
down by the second glass, that self centered fear just
left me. It just fell off of me, and I
started to feel larger than life. I started to feel
okay about everything, you know what I mean, okay about everything.

Speaker 3 (02:01:49):
This alcohol did so.

Speaker 1 (02:01:51):
Much for me. You know. One of the things that
one of the things that I remember back in school,
I think I was maybe eight or nine, did did
you all have square dancing up here when you were
kids in school? You don't even know what that is.
I mean, what a horrible thing to do to like

(02:02:12):
pre alcoholic kids, you know, to make them do this.
And I remember, you know, there was a gymnasium like
bigger than this, and they would line up.

Speaker 3 (02:02:20):
The girls on one.

Speaker 1 (02:02:21):
Side and the guys on the other, and they'd blow
the whistle and you was the guy who have to
run across the gymnasium and they ask a girl to
dance and they'd be your docy dough partner or whatever.
You know what I mean that that just freaked me
out to have to do that. I'm like, oh, my god,
you know. And every once in a while when I
tell the story, a woman will come up to me

(02:02:43):
and go, how do you think we felt? You know, oh,
hurt you guys like run into this, you know what
I mean? Like, okay, I can imagine. But I was
always terrified. You know what if she says no, you know,
and I find out later they were they were told
you better say yes. You know, there might be alcoholics

(02:03:04):
out there, you know who who would kill themselves if
you said you and uh and so so, you know,
but I was just terrified.

Speaker 3 (02:03:11):
This freaked me out.

Speaker 1 (02:03:12):
Now, now listen that four roses whiskey in that bottle.
There was a lot of things. There were dancing lessons
in that body. You'll give me enough whiskey and I'll
tell you what. I'll ask you. I'll run across that
gymnasium and you know what if she says no, she
doesn't wanted to ask me, but I'll say, well, don't

(02:03:33):
come begging me later, you know, I mean, it just
it just did so much for me. It just changed
the whole way. You know, that that that I saw
in the world, and I wasn't worried about what you
thought you were lucky to be with me, you know.
I mean it was just a complete change from this
like like shattered, you know, self conscious person to to

(02:03:56):
just like some larger than life dude that's just running
around Karen. And the fear left me. That fear left me,
so so I chased that feeling that I got, you know, forever,
for twenty years. I chased that feeling of freedom, of
self freedom that alcohol offered me. Now, the two.

Speaker 3 (02:04:19):
Guys that were drinking me, that's not what happened to them.

Speaker 1 (02:04:22):
You know, they got a little bit dizzy, a little
bit light headed, you know, maybe felt a little nauseous,
and they'd had enough, you know. And and whenever I
would drink with people like that, and you know, moving
forward in my life, I would say, oh you feel
a little dizzy, a little lightheaded, a little nauseous. Well,
chug two more of those and go right past all

(02:04:44):
that to fun, you know, I mean, let's let's have
let's have some fun here. Then I just had a
complete different relationship to alcohol. Now, now, if you drink
as much alcohol as I drank, you're gonna get in trouble.
There's gonna be problems. You know, you make mistakes. Uh

(02:05:05):
and and there are people who are going to hold
you accountable to these mistakes, and some of them, some
of them wear uniforms. And what I started to do
very very early on, was I started to wreck cars.
You know, any any drunken drivers in here. You know,

(02:05:25):
it's very very serious these days. But I come from
a period of time where drunks let let friends, you know,
friends let friends drive drunk.

Speaker 3 (02:05:33):
I mean, that's just the way it was back back
in the day.

Speaker 1 (02:05:35):
We always had a road pint, you know, with us,
and we felt, we really felt very strongly about hitting
the road with confidence, you know what I mean, like,
you know, put a little ballast down.

Speaker 3 (02:05:47):
And I ended up I ended up starting to crash
some cars.

Speaker 1 (02:05:50):
And the first one, the first one I crashed, was
when I was seventeen years old. And what happened was
I drove through a telephone pole. And it was not
good because when the cops got there, I had no
pulse and I wasn't breathing. It was a really, really
bad accident.

Speaker 3 (02:06:08):
I went flat white in the ambulance.

Speaker 1 (02:06:09):
On the way to the hospital after that, and you know,
I don't remember much from the hospital. I remember that
the doctor couldn't give me anesthesia because I was drunk,
so he had to sew my head shut, with me
drunk out of my mind, vobbiting, screaming. Oh, he was
not happy. He came to visit me the next day
in my room and let me know he was not happy.

(02:06:33):
It was an absolute mess. But picture this, like like
the minute I got out of the hospital, you know,
I had my head taped up and my ribs were
taped up, and the first thing I did was go
up to the drive up to the liquor store, get
two six packs of beer, and drive down to the
park where we would drink. Now, think about this. I
just got killed in a drunken driving accident, and the

(02:06:59):
first thing I had to know was get boozing and
go drive. It didn't even occur to me that this
was a bad idea. You know. We we're the type
of people who, you know, after we've gotten our third duy,
we say to ourselves, I gotta stop driving, you know.
I mean, I mean, like quitting drinking just never occurred,

(02:07:21):
never occurs to us, you know, And I didn't think
about it, you know, so I got I got, you know,
my first duy. I'm out at this place called the
Pits down in it barn dancing, believe it or not.
But it's different when you're drunk. Okay, that's what I
was out there doing. And uh, and I remember that.
Some of the last things I remember was I was

(02:07:43):
chugging pictures of beer. Now you know the twenty six
question pamphlet or whatever, you know, they should put that
in there.

Speaker 3 (02:07:50):
If you ever chugged pictures of beer, you.

Speaker 1 (02:07:53):
Might have an alcohol problem. And uh, and you know
I was a mess. I was a mess.

Speaker 3 (02:07:59):
And I remember, you know, I remember the guy who was.

Speaker 1 (02:08:02):
My designated driver didn't want anything to do with me
because I was a wild maniac. So I ended up
getting in my car and I made it about three
quarters of a mile and I hit some black ice
and the car spun around and hit a bridge abutment
going backwards, and I.

Speaker 3 (02:08:17):
Broke through the seat and out the.

Speaker 1 (02:08:19):
Back window, and you know, I come out of it,
and I like shake my head and I'm laying on
the trunk of the car and my legs are still
in the car, and I'm looking up at the sky
going you know, WHOA, this ain't good. And you know,
I get I get off the car. I go around,
I pry the door open because the car is like

(02:08:41):
bent like a boomerang. It's not a window left in it,
you know, the drive chaft is slap in the frame
and there's three flat tires.

Speaker 3 (02:08:48):
But what do you do when something like that happens?
You want to go home?

Speaker 1 (02:08:54):
Right? So I get in and I start driving for
home with with this car. It just no.

Speaker 3 (02:09:00):
It's the middle of winter, no windows and.

Speaker 1 (02:09:03):
Literally I'm driving down the road to schooling waking up
booking a bam, whyking the booking? The bad I'm going
like about two miles an hour and I go buy
a cop taking radar and he's like he didn't he
didn't pull me over, he walked me over. I was
so stuff And he comes up.

Speaker 3 (02:09:20):
And he grabs his arms to the window and starts.

Speaker 1 (02:09:22):
Shaking me, like where did you have that accident? I'm like,
what accident? Off? Like this glass is flying out of
my hair. Oh. So he took me down to the station.
That was That was fun.

Speaker 3 (02:09:37):
I was. I was always the final owner of every
car I ever had.

Speaker 1 (02:09:41):
I mean, yeah, when I got sober and went to
sell a car, I didn't know how to do it.

Speaker 3 (02:09:47):
You know title.

Speaker 1 (02:09:48):
You know, I didn't know, so so anyway, you know,
I had a lot of problems with this. I'll skip
to I'll skip to my last my last DUI. I
was at a friend's house. You know, one of my
college roommates came back up, and you know, we went out.
We went out drinking. I remember we went to this
place called the Gasoline Alley and I, you know, when
I go out drinking with people, I put a ballist on.

(02:10:10):
I don't want to start. You know, when you start
like out at the bar, I gotta start earlier. You know,
I got a low I gotta put a little ballist
on it. So I show up at this guy's house
and I'm already tanked, and we go off to the bar,
and I remember, I remember.

Speaker 3 (02:10:25):
Going into the bar and sitting down at the.

Speaker 1 (02:10:27):
Bar, and you know, I'm really hammered. And the bartender
comes up and he goes, what do you have? And
I go, bartender, I gotta be honest with you. If
I were you, I wouldn't serve me. And he goes, well,
why is that.

Speaker 3 (02:10:40):
I go because I'm hammered out of my mind, and
the bartender goes, well for being so honest, it's on
the house.

Speaker 1 (02:10:46):
What do you have? So I go, triple bourbon? Okay.
So the bartender takes a glass, does you know three
bourbons there there's like this much room in the top right,
and he takes the spring sure of the coke and
he goes and I go and he goes like this.
I'm like, okay. So I start drinking and I look,

(02:11:08):
I'm looking around, you know how we peruse, you know,
And I look around and I see that there's a
table of four very attractive women who would probably benefit
from my company to this point, right. So I start
heading over and you know, I'm I'm about twenty five
feet away, and they noticed me coming and they all
go like like like oh my god. And I make

(02:11:31):
it almost to the table and I trip on my
seat and I just kind of just land on the table,
knocked the drinks in your life. I'm like all up.
You know. They're like, oh my god, my friend's grabbed me,
you know, dragged me out to the car, you know,
and stay out here. You're too much trouble. Oh god.
So you know, later that night, I'm back at it.

(02:11:52):
I'm back at his house. He takes me back home
to his parents' house, and his parents don't like me
for some people. People didn't like me a lot sometimes,
and so I had to go. So so I had
to drive home. So here I am. I'm driving home,
and I'm about I'm about a half a mile away
from my house. And supposedly I crossed the double yellow,

(02:12:15):
you know, and the lights cut turning on. I pull
over and I rolled down the window. I'm like, well,
there he's like a licensed registration, insurance cards something like
all right, so it's my mother's car because I crashed mine,
and I'm in the Global compartment.

Speaker 3 (02:12:32):
I'm looking for the registration in the insurance car and.

Speaker 1 (02:12:37):
Finally I just give up. This is too much of
it to do, right, So I grabbed the entire contents
of the Global Apartment, like oh yeah, it's like it's
like maps and you know, cleanex and all this stuff.
And Cotts just don't have any sense of humor, you know,
down in New Jersey. He goes get out of car.
You know, that's what I get out of the car

(02:12:58):
and do some sobriety things that I end up. Do
you remember Hazy Recollections. It talks about Hazy Recollections in
our big book. Well, I'm up at the police station
and I had hazy recollections the next day of the
sobriety test, and you know, they had me do the abcs.

Speaker 3 (02:13:18):
And I nailed the abc This is what I remember.

Speaker 1 (02:13:21):
I nailed the ABC's, you know, I nailed them.

Speaker 3 (02:13:24):
And you know, and is it like I learned them
when I was three or something.

Speaker 1 (02:13:29):
But I nailed them. And I ended up with a
summons in my pocket, you know, for DUI. And so
I hire a lawyer because I nailed the abc s.
You know, I they're gonna have you know, I'm gonna
fight this, this travesty of justice, this thing, right. So
I hire a lawyer. And this is back in the
early eighties. I had to hire this fifteen hundred dollars lawyer,

(02:13:52):
three piece suit, you know, a really professional guy. And
he comes over and we go up to the police station.
He goes, Okay, we're gonna they supposedly they video, so
we're gonna we're gonna look at the video. We're gonna
put a case together from I'm all right, okay. So
he goes up and he tells the police, you know,
he gets permission to look at the video. And I
should have known something was wrong because when the cop
handed the video to the guy to my lawyer, he

(02:14:14):
went like, so that was not a good sign. That
was not a good sign. So what happened was sure enough,
he put the VHS tape in and pushed play, and
I went, I would have you ever seen video of
you like really drunk? Oh my god, don't do that.

(02:14:36):
You'll need therapy, you know, for years.

Speaker 3 (02:14:40):
Just to be able to deal with that.

Speaker 1 (02:14:41):
It was traumatic for me. And I'm like and there,
and so it's going through all the tasks and the
cops are having a blast. They're going, you know, they're like, well,
you know, could you walk the straight walk the straight line?
Mister short would you take your hands off the police
officer while you're walking life? I'm like hanging out like
cod like what. And when it gets to the A VCS, Yeah,

(02:15:04):
I nailed the ABC's all right, I nailed them. Like this,
should I have a cigarette? I'm like, now, now, this
whole time, this fifteen hundred dollars lawyer is he's taking
notes that he's making fifteen hundred dollars right.

Speaker 3 (02:15:25):
Well at the very end, the very end, and I
don't remember.

Speaker 1 (02:15:28):
It but I'm watching it the very end. The cop goes,
I'm just a sure that we're going to turn the
camera off now, but we want to give you an
opportunity to say anything that you need to say, you know,
you have anything more to say. And sure enough, I
look at the camera and I go like, I say, oh,
oh my god. The lawyer loses it.

Speaker 2 (02:15:52):
Okay, he goes blah, I've never seen it go stupid.
I'm like, oh, if you had any chance, any chins
at all, you know, you just blew it lock.

Speaker 1 (02:16:08):
And I'm like, I'm like, oh god, oh, I guess
we'll play, you know. And and I walked four years
you know, you know, four and a half years later.
I was afraid there was gonna be like jetson mobiles.
You know, by the time I by the time I
got my license, and when I got my license back,
i'd had it. It was gone so long. I had

(02:16:29):
to take the driver's test, you know. So I'm standing
in line over seventeen year olds, you know, I'm like thirty,
like that, lived in the city, you know, never never
had a car. Oh just terrible, just terrible. You know,
how we get how we get through all this and
and I was so angry at the cop for doing this. Now, recovery,

(02:16:55):
can you imagine recovery is a shift in perception. Now,
I am incredibly grateful he got me off the road.
I couldn't killed not only myself, but you know, anybody
that was on the road. And and in that period,
in that period of time, you know, I was at
least safe from you know, vehicular homicide. You know that

(02:17:16):
period of time.

Speaker 3 (02:17:16):
Oh my god, Now you know I had a lot
of other trouble.

Speaker 1 (02:17:20):
You know, you may not believe this, but I experimented
with some non conference approved substitute I did grow up
in the late sixties and seventies, and they were very
plentiful at that period of time, I remember, and I
would I would partake in them in my regular alcoholic nature. Listen,

(02:17:42):
alcohol was there first and alcohol was there last. But
it was all about taking a vacation from the burden
of being Chris. And alcohol was my thing, But so
were some of these other things that I remember. I
remember the great quail epidemic of seventy two. And here's

(02:18:03):
basically this is funny. I'm actually doing a workshop in
Florida in a couple months with the guy who brought
the kluds into school in nineteen seventy ten. Okay, I
was making an amends and this guy goes, you're making
in the moons. I go, I go, yeah, I go why.
He goes, are you in aa?

Speaker 3 (02:18:21):
I go yeah, he goes, so am I you know?
So it was so cool. I hadn't seen him in years.

Speaker 1 (02:18:26):
But anyway, his brother gave him a sack of these coluds. Now,
if you don't know what kludes are, if you've never
had them, picture a six pack of beer in a pill.
That's really what they were like. So if he took
two pills, it would be like chugging two six packs
of beer in five minutes. That's what it was like.

Speaker 3 (02:18:45):
So this guy brings in this big sack of pills.
His brother had given him to him the night before.

Speaker 1 (02:18:49):
You know, he'd never taken them, but his brother.

Speaker 3 (02:18:52):
Said, go Selly's.

Speaker 1 (02:18:53):
So he brings him up and first period, before first period,
we'd be in the smoking area and he comes with
this big sack of pills and we go what are those?
And he goes there qualudes. Oh, well how much are they?
You know they could have been dog worming pills. Hey,
you know, we didn't care back then what a what
a qualude was. So you know how much are they?

Speaker 3 (02:19:12):
Well a dollar a piece?

Speaker 1 (02:19:13):
Okay, you know how many do you take?

Speaker 3 (02:19:16):
And he didn't know, right, so he goes three or four.

Speaker 1 (02:19:21):
So about fifty of us took three or four kuludes
those four first periods because the problem, you know, the
ambulance was back and forth. If all there now Now
finally it's about third period and I'm walking down the

(02:19:44):
hall like this, hanging out of the lockers, going and
going to the fourth period and fly, I figured, now
I got you know, I gotta get out of here,
you know, I gotta get out of here. This is
too much. So I see an exit, exit, exit, you know,
and I had for the exit, and I haul ass
out and and there's woods. You know, there's like there's

(02:20:04):
like the ballfields, and then there's woods. Like I got
to make it to the woods. And I run out
to the woods. And when I get out.

Speaker 3 (02:20:09):
Too the woods, there's people out there hugging the trees.

Speaker 1 (02:20:12):
They're already a whole bunch of them. We're out there
like whoa. But so you know, I'm out there and
we all we're all passed out, and you know, the
cops and ambulances and everything. Now the next day, the
next day at school, you know, I walk in and
everybody's like looking at me, laughing at I'm like, what
you what are you laughing about? He goes yesterday when
you made a break for the woods. So yeah, because

(02:20:35):
it took you five minutes to go one hundred yards,
I thought I was hauling ass, you know what I mean?
Oh God? And you know there was there was some
times also when you know, people allowed me to be,
you know, over medicated.

Speaker 3 (02:20:56):
I remember this one time. We're a concert in New York.

Speaker 1 (02:20:59):
City and this was a crazy mid seventies. Things were
insane back then. And I remember I went to this
fog Hat Wishbone Ash concert like at the Beacon or something, okay,
and you know, me and me and John, you know,
the clay we got decide, hey, let's go into the bathroom.
Then let's buy some asses. You know, Okay, let's do that.

(02:21:21):
So we go into the bathroom and you know, we
find some people who are selling drugs and we give
them money and we take them and we go back
and we listened to one song and we look at
each other like, I'm not high. We must have got
ripped off. So we go back to the bathroom. Okay,
we buy more ass and we're looking for the guys
that rip the song. We buy mores and we take that.
We go back. We listen to the one more song

(02:21:44):
and we go, oh my god, you know, I think
we were ripped off again. Let's go back because we're
because we're kind of drunk to it. So we go.
We go back and we buy more and by the
encore of the second band, it starts coming on. Okay,
I'm like, whoa, It's like it's like Disney World. Okay,

(02:22:05):
so we make it. We make it out to the van.
We all came in the vent and we get in
the event and we start driving and nobody's talking. You know.
We're like like and and I don't know if anybody's
ever gone through the Lincoln Tunnel. Okay, here's what it is.

Speaker 3 (02:22:21):
It's like twelve lanes.

Speaker 1 (02:22:22):
Ten lanes, eight lanes, six lanes, four lanes, two lanes tunnel, okay.
And we're driving down toward this tunnel and somebody up
towards the front of the van goes, hey, man, we'll
never fit right and we all start moving forward. He's right,

(02:22:45):
it's a mousehole. We'll get stopped. So we start backing out.
You ever try to back out of the lake of Tune.
So it was like fort like we had to take
the bridge. Oh man, oh my god.

Speaker 3 (02:23:07):
Probably probably the worst thing.

Speaker 1 (02:23:09):
That ever happened to me on this listen. You know,
you know, you know I did drugs, I did, you know,
But but it's the alcohol that really had me. But
but but some of these, some of these experiences just
show you how crazy I was. I remember this one
time I did. I did some I did just to
write amount of accid. And you have to you have

(02:23:29):
to be in the right place, and you know, you
need to be like with the right stereo, with the
right Black Life posters, you know, where it's quiet, you know,
and everything's got to be cool. And so so I
take I take this stuff and I go home, you know,
and I'm I'm getting ready, you know, like's just gonna
be cool. And uh, but what had happened earlier in
that day was, you know, I was driving down to

(02:23:49):
the park where I got this stuff, and I saw
a friend of mine in front of me, stopped at
the stop side and he didn't know I was behind him.
So I come up behind him and I give him
a little bump like you know what the car and
he goes loop like this and it turns around. Ah,
you know, like you know, practical joke. So you know,
I forgot all about that. So so I'm sitting in
my room like this, you know, led zebal and one

(02:24:11):
is on and I'm like whoa, And and all of
a sudden, my mother starts knocking on the wall like
the police are on the phone. I'm like, whoa what
the police are on the phone. Come down. So I'm
coming downstairs and it's all bright, you know, with the
lights on it, and I get on the phone. I
go hello, and there was this crishort, Yes, you gotta

(02:24:33):
come up to the police station and file an accident report.
I'm like what you know, like oh my god. So
I go I got they know where I have I
have to go, right, So so I walk up to
the police station. I remember walking up to the police
It's big and the doors are like forty feet high
and the lights are on and you know, I open
the door and I go in and you know, everything

(02:24:55):
everything is like whoa.

Speaker 3 (02:24:58):
And I go up to the desk where the where
the where the cop is and I go.

Speaker 1 (02:25:01):
Like and like, he goes, hell, he wanted to come
down here Actually the point he goes, okay, okay, come
over here, and he goes. He goes, here's a pat pets. Oh,
here's a piece of paper. Draw the intersection where the
legend action that took place, right, So here's what I do.

(02:25:22):
I draw the intersection like that big okay, and he
takes it. He goes, no, he goes, heyn care of
the intersection and he starts drawing it really big, and
I'm like, no, it wasn't that big. I don't know

(02:25:44):
how I got out of there without like admitting, you know,
I was high, but I made it home. I went
up to that kid the next day and he had
like one of these like military fathers who would reconnoiter
the car.

Speaker 3 (02:25:56):
When he got home. He so a little bit of
black rubber, you know where I gave him a.

Speaker 1 (02:26:00):
Bump and I go, do you know what you did today? Like,
oh my god. Never never able to take uh take
my own responsibility. The people that I was hanging out with,
over the course of time, they went from you know,
regular high school kids to people that didn't even have
real names. You know. Towards the end of my drinking,

(02:26:21):
there was there was green Man and Weezer, and there
was this guy I used.

Speaker 3 (02:26:25):
To party with called Rat.

Speaker 1 (02:26:27):
There was Rat, but he said it was with two
te's you know, you know, oh my god. And these
are the these are the people that I was hanging
out with in the last three or four years of
my drinking. It just, you know, it gets so bad
over any considerable period of time. Alcoholism always gets worse.
It never gets better. And what happens. What happens is,

(02:26:48):
you know, your your life gets smaller, more deck in it,
and more dysfunctional.

Speaker 15 (02:26:54):
Every single day, just a little bit. It's like incremental
every day. Hey, it just gets a little worse, and
you're not really noticing that it's getting really getting worse
until your best friend is green Man.

Speaker 1 (02:27:08):
You know what I mean. It's just I've never still
do this day. Don't know, it's really uh, it just
you know, I came out of this, I came out
of this just an absolute mess. I remember, uh, you know,
I remember my last girlfriend. When I was drinking. Now, listen,
I was not getting a lot of dates, okay, because

(02:27:30):
by eight o'clock at night. I was projectile vomiting, you know,
uh and in a blackout, and that's just sometimes that's
a year. It's not attractive. Okay, so uh so you know,
but but this, but I started doing this one thing
this this uh, this girlfriend and one of my buddies
ended up in a prison in Texas and she became

(02:27:50):
friends with somebody, and when she came back, she goes, oh,
you'd really like this girl. You know, you should start
writing to her. So I started this prison pen pound
thing with with this girl. Now, if you're new, we're
just coming back. Okay. We're not recommending this as a
dating method. It did not work very well for me. Okay.

(02:28:11):
When she got out, I had her move in with
me and mom, Okay, and they didn't get along. Do
I need to do I need to mention this woman
was a career criminal. She was one of these people
who was a sociopath to the point of.

Speaker 15 (02:28:29):
Not not even not understanding right and wrong, not caring.
You know, Listen, alcoholics, We as alcoholics, we care very
deeply when we do things wrong and we hurt other people.
We suffer from that because we do have a conscience.

Speaker 1 (02:28:48):
This particular person had no conscience, you know, just the sociopath.
She always wanted to be armed. You know, I what
do you want to be armed? Boy? You know, I'm
we're living in this this this upper middle class neighborhood,
you know, and where where I'm telling you that if
you've got caught walking a dog without a leash, it

(02:29:08):
made the newspaper one of those type of places, you know,
And she wanted to be on that ended up not going,
not going real well, you know, so I gotta I
gotta tell you she broke up with me, and oh god,
those are those are the days now? You know. Alcohol,
Alcohol was just just destroying, destroying everything in my life.

(02:29:34):
When you know, when you're as critically and as chronically
alcoholic as I am, the world there's no color in
the world. The world is shades of gray at best.
And there's always always problems, and there's always fear, and
there's always like physical pain, and there's always mental anguish,

(02:29:55):
and you know, it was getting it was getting to
the point where I was sitting at my desk at
night and I had a thirty eight caliber handgun. I
don't even know where it came from, but I remember
you know, I would put it to my head just thinking,
you know, I should just end this, I should just
get it over with. And for one reason or another,
I never pulled the trigger. A lot of us do
pull the trigger. A lot of us do, and for

(02:30:17):
one reason or another, you know, I didn't. I had
my separation experience. I ended up in the rooms of
Alcoholics Anonymous, and I misunderstood so much. I really thought
the whole point of Alcoholics Anonymous was not drinking, and
everything we did was about convincing conn continuing to convince

(02:30:39):
each of us that we need to not drink. Now,
that is part of alcoholics Anonymous, Please don't misunderstand. But
I think that there's more involved with AA. There's the
recovery process is designed to change me from the type
of person I was, you know, and I had some

(02:30:59):
I had some trouble. I had some trouble in AA.

Speaker 3 (02:31:02):
You know, in the early days.

Speaker 1 (02:31:04):
I was, you know, I was no vision for you
in my in my first six months, I gotta tell you,
I was going to a lot of meetings, but I
still had this unbelievably repressed anger. You know, when when
Bill asks us to inventory or resentments that Resentments are
the number one offender that kill more alcoholics than anything else.

(02:31:26):
I know what that's like, because resentments almost killed me.
And this is this is how it This is what
it looked like when they almost got me. I would
judge people in AA means, and I would critique particular amiens.
And you know that AA meeting has those people. And

(02:31:48):
you know, over here at this AA meeting there's a
bunch of high bodies. You know, they don't know nothing
about you know, us, they they and there's beer drinkers
over at this other game. And I mean I had
I had all these different preconceived judgments on on all
these groups, and I would get mad.

Speaker 3 (02:32:08):
They would have.

Speaker 1 (02:32:08):
A business meeting. Now in New Jersey, they had slow,
painful root Canal esque business meetings, you know what I mean,
where people would be mad, you know, but they'd bring
all their sponsors to vote one way, and there's all
this contention, and you know, it's like a riot, you know,
people yelling, and and you know I'd be in there

(02:32:29):
and I'd be all caught up in this. I wouldn't
I wouldn't know, you know, I wasn't an informed group member.
I didn't know which which was right or which was wrong?
But you know I was in there, you know, getting
upset and uh, and I would then leave the meeting.
You know, I'm not going back there. I wish I
had a dollar for every alcoholic that did that. I'm

(02:32:50):
not going back there. The only right thing I did
was when I left the meeting, I would go to
another one.

Speaker 3 (02:32:57):
There was there was some kind of survival instinct.

Speaker 1 (02:33:00):
It work in me. In my first year, I changed
my home group four times, and it was always because
of them, you know, they were doing it wrong or whatever.
And really, really what it was the real problem wasn't
that they were doing it wrong. The real problem was
my perception. The problem is never the problem. The problem

(02:33:23):
is always how we feel and think about the problem,
you know, especially as alcoholics. So so anyway, you know,
I had problems I had I had problems with certain
friends and certain home group members. And then all of
a sudden I met you know, missus, missus right, you
know God's will for me. You know, I had about

(02:33:43):
thirteen months fourteen months sober, and and I found this
found this girl who had about eight months you know,
when she was just out of the halfway ass and
I thought, this is gonna be great, This is gonna
be beautiful.

Speaker 3 (02:33:56):
You know, this is perfect.

Speaker 1 (02:33:58):
She seemed to actually like me, you know, which was
always a plus in my book. And uh, and I
you know, I remember we start we started dating, and
and that crashed like the Hindenburg in about two months,
you know what I mean. It was just a brutal bloodbath.
And and what a mess that was. And you know

(02:34:19):
what I what I learned was what I learned was
that that I didn't I didn't acquire girlfriends. I took hostages.
You know. That's what we do, is alcoholics, like, oh,
you know, when we're when we're you know, when everything
is based on self, what we do is we assign
roles to people. Okay, you're gonna be the girlfriend, and

(02:34:40):
you're gonna be loyal, and you're gonna be and you're
gonna be and you're gonna be. Well, she wasn't really
interested in some of that stuff, so, you know, all
of a sudden, the plan wasn't working, you know.

Speaker 3 (02:34:50):
So so I learned a lot from that, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:34:53):
As a sponsor today, I believe where it says in
the Big Book were not the arbiters of anyone's sexual conduct.
And I you know, I know well and I know
well enough not to tell somebody to get out of
a relationship when they get in one, if they're new,
because when you do that, that just that's just they're
just gonna leave and mess up to other people, you

(02:35:14):
know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (02:35:15):
So you know, leave them alone.

Speaker 1 (02:35:16):
A lot of times what will happen is the pain
will be so acute that they'll be rocketed into the steps,
you know, or you know, something else. So so I
don't I don't get too involved in that. I learned
from from the pain of my first relationship, and uh,
you know, I sought spiritual solace in the steps, so

(02:35:38):
I don't necessarily see it as as a bad thing,
you know, as a as an alcoholic, I ended up
being a bad electrician. I mean that's what I was
doing for a living. And when I mean a bad electrician,
I'm serious about that. You know. I would blow stuff
up on a daily basis. I was like in Natowski
from Taxi. You know, I come out, bah bah, I

(02:36:01):
blow up the garage over the Labowskis, you know, And
it would always be some some debaccle like I remember
this one time we're doing a series of apartments and
we're having to drill down into the wall to drop
a snake down to run a lineup for a power antenna.
This is back before cable you'd you'd have to power

(02:36:21):
up these antennas and UH, and I had somebody marking,
and you know, I mistook a mark for where I
was supposed to drill. And picture these gigantic, big drills
with with UH with an extension and then a really
long augur bit. So the drill is up here and
you can get like four or five feet with the drill,
and I remember drilling dratted down and I remember backing

(02:36:43):
the drill out because it's getting stuck on something and
I'm seeing like cloth or something on the end of
the drill. So so I go downstairs and I knock
on this guy's door. You know. The guy comes down.
He goes, oh, what I go, Do you mind if
I look around in your house? We're working up in
the attic and I kind of need to look look
upstairs and you in your room. So he goes, okay,
So we go upstairs and I'm looking around and I

(02:37:04):
open up his closet doors right, and I open up
the closet, and as soon as I opened the door,
I see about thirty suits covered with plaster, and one
of them's curled up into the ceiling. We're my drill
bit cut right. I was like, God, damn, what are
you gonna do? You know, I know, well, maybe my
boss knows a good martinizers. You know, I didn't know

(02:37:26):
what your drives. Oh my god. You know I was
forever doing here. Here's here's one for it. You know,
I was really sick this one morning, but I'm one
of these guys who works, you know what I mean,
Like I show up at work, I might not feel
really good, but I'm going to work. So I'm at
work this one day and we're putting an electrical panel

(02:37:48):
up on this house. And basically my job is to
put the meter pan and and you know, the the
wire up with the weatherhead and all that. And my
partner's inside he's out in the panel. Now he's in
the truck, and I'm kind of working on this on
this meter pan, and all of a sudden, I still
go and I know I've got like six point four

(02:38:11):
seconds to get I'm gonna vomit, right, and he's right
over here, I don't want him to. He already he
already thinks I'm lame, you know what I mean. And
I'm his partner, and I'm always like blowing stuff up
and forgetting things, and so he's upset with me. So
I don't want him to.

Speaker 3 (02:38:26):
I don't want him to see me get sick.

Speaker 1 (02:38:27):
Right, So what I do is I tear around the
back of the house. I just make it around the
back of the house. And that morning I had drank
a half a gallon of grape drink to rehydrate. You
know how you have to like rehydrate when you've been
really drunk the night before. So I get around the
side and I go, wah, I'd like a fire hydrant. Right,
I stuck over the back of this house with like

(02:38:48):
purple vomit, like waw a purple viomb. And you know,
I figured behind the house I would be by myself. Right, Well,
there's a there's a there's another house back there with
a deck, and there's a mother, a father, and three
kids sitting there drinking iced.

Speaker 16 (02:39:04):
Day about twenty feet awevermen and they're all like this,
you know, money, mommy, the purple deer moster for money,
you know, and I'm.

Speaker 1 (02:39:17):
Like, you know what, now, you don't want to look stupid,
you know. So so I go and I get a
hose and I'm like, yeah, it's always happened on Tuesdays
and I washed the house down. Oh god, but things
like this, things like this are always always happened. I remember.
I remember because of my decoxing from alcoholism, I didn't

(02:39:37):
really know what it was. But in the morning, i'd
be like, I'd give a shar oh. I'd be like,
you know, high tension, nervous, just freak, you know, loud noises,
you know, and stuff. I'd be like, freak. So I
remember going to a doctor this one time and I go,
I go, doctor. Wait in the morning, I'm like, I'm
a nerves I'm not just rap my strug. I felt

(02:39:58):
like fuck. And the doctor goes hold on, man, hold on,
and he takes takes out as his hooter, right, and
he puts it on. He puts it on my heart,
and my heart's going watt him through the black mood
black room, like that's right. It's like freaking out because
I'm detached. And he goes, whoa, he goes sounds like
you've got a protracted mitro valve, you know, with with
acute anxiety. And I'm like, sounds good, dark you got

(02:40:22):
anything for that, you know, and he goes, he goes, yeah,
we've we've we've got these these this new drug it's
called xanax, and I go, well, what kind of milligma?
Just got that? In doc? I underneath the big ones,
you know, and then it's he gives me this prescription
of xantix. Now within five minutes, I'm not even counting
them anymore, you know, I'm pouring them into my hand

(02:40:44):
and way, and that feels like enough, you know, because
I was nervous and and right on the pill bottle
it said no alcohol and gigantic letters, big bigger letters
than the name of the drug. Right, no alcohol. He's
like pouring on and I drinking cord of vodka with her,
you know. And I gotta tell you, when you do that,

(02:41:05):
you get limber, you know what I mean, You're you're
you getting noodled. And I didn't know, I didn't know
a sober moment for like six months when I was on.
I was like, and I remember this one time, you know,
I allowed myself to be over medicated, and you know,
I think I took a whole bottle, you know, like
forty of them or something, you know, drinking too. But

(02:41:28):
I'm a worker, right, I work, And I remember I
remember going up to the top of the street. I
was in between driver's licenses, going going up to the
top of the street and waiting for my buddy to
pick me up. He dropped past me and picked me
up and take me anywhere. And when he saw me
and I got in the truck, he looked at me like,
oh my god, you should go home, you know, you

(02:41:49):
can't work. I'm like, I'm like, the hell are you
I'm going to work, and he goes, okay, hey, he drives.
Are now now picture this. There's this a glass window
with the boss, and then then there's a long parking
lot and all the vans are parked there and you
park down book behind the vans, and you come up
and you get your work assignment from the boss, you know,

(02:42:11):
up in the shop. And I'm walking serpentine, all right,
I'm walking like this up to the shop and I
see my boss turn around. He does this da David,
and he comes out and he starts yelling at me
for being hammered out of my mind, and he's like,
somebody take him home. You know, I'm being embarrassed in

(02:42:33):
front of my peers. And you know what a mess
when I mess? That was so you know, I I
was so embarrassed about this that, you know, I stopped
doing the zance. Oh god, you know. So one of
the reasons I don't I don't identify as a drug
addict is because when the time came and I got
too noodled, you know, on these benzos, I stopped doing them.

(02:42:56):
And when I smoked enough pot to get like paranoid,
you know, I stopped smoking it. And when I did
enough cocaine, I'm like, draw one more and I'd be
on the same ship. It was three days later. You know,
I stopped. I stopped doing it, you know. And what
happened was the thing that was the thing that was
left at the end was the booze. The booze, booze,

(02:43:18):
booze booze, just drunk all the time. Oh my god.
It got to the point was so pathetic. It got
to the point where it was too much of it
to do to get up from my desk and go
into the bathroom to vomit. So I would just open
up the window and I'll say, you know, there's like
sidewalks going to a retirement community, and I'm like, well,

(02:43:38):
like you can have the window. They're like, whoa. It
just it was it was just really really bad. Now,
you know, Uh, I'm in AA.

Speaker 3 (02:43:51):
I get myself a sponsor.

Speaker 1 (02:43:53):
I talked a little bit the other night about how
I got exposed to the twelve Steps and I start,
I start coming too, I start, you know, realizing just
how tragic my life was. You know. One of the
things is is we just don't know how much trouble
we're in. We you know, and I didn't either. But
as I started to get better, I started I started
to see just how tragic and how sick I was. So,

(02:44:18):
you know, I'm going through the steps and I'm hanging
out and I'm hanging out in the ANA meetings, and
you know, I don't really know what was going on
in our area, but there were a whole lot of
discussion meetings. I think what happened. I think what happened
was this. You know, in the early days between nineteen

(02:44:39):
thirty nine and nineteen forty one or two, really the
Big Book was our only literature. And when you wanted
to understand how Alcoholics Anonymous worked. That's really what you
would go to. Now the twelve and twelve gets published,
and I think from the day the twelve and twelve
was published, some people started to their eyes off of

(02:45:01):
the ball. The ball being the instructions in the book
Alcoholics Anonymous. Even in the introduction to the twelve and twelve,
it says, this book was written to broad and deepen
the concepts of the steps that were laid out in
the book Alcoholics Anonymous. It's not meant to, you know,
take it's not meant to wipe out the power of

(02:45:22):
the Big Book or the importance of the Big Book.
It's just a series of essays that Bill wrote basically
to get you to buy the twelve Traditions, because that's
really that was really his motivation in writing those essays
and the steps. So, but what happened was so inside
the mid fifties, most Alcoholics Anonymous members had the twelve

(02:45:43):
and twelve and they started to use it as a
meeting format. You know, there's a mathematical simplicity to it.
You know, there's twelve steps. You can do a step
a week for twelve weeks. You can go through the
book four times in a year. There was like there
was mathematical sense to the thing. So that's what started
to happen. There was a lot of Step meetings. Now
when I got sober in eighty nine, in our area,

(02:46:07):
there were step meetings golore. There was one Big Book
meeting three towns away, and in that meeting, what you
would do is you would read a paragraph and you
would share, and you would go through the entire Big Book.
So like three quarters of the Big Book at that
period of time was stories. So what would happen was

(02:46:27):
you'd be in the stories for a year. And it
wasn't what I would consider a good big Book meeting today.
It was it was go through the whole book, kind
of like you go through the Step book.

Speaker 3 (02:46:40):
You know, from from page one to the end of
the book.

Speaker 1 (02:46:44):
And what happened was in our area people started to
sponsor in an oral tradition fashion. What I mean by
that is, you know, my sponsor, Harvey gerbil Feather, told
me that I actually just keep it simple, you know,
keeping it simple, and you know why, And he also

(02:47:05):
told me I should do a step a year, you know,
because he doesn't want to work really work with me,
and you know, that'll keep me busy. So things like
that were going on in our in our area, and
I was going to a whole bunch of twelve and
twelve meetings, and I was getting really confused about it,
about everything, and you know, I was I was deteriorating spiritually.

(02:47:26):
I was deteriorating inside. You know, the the going to
meetings was was keeping me sober, I believe that, but
I was still just tragically, tragically dry drunk. You know,
that was just suffering so so grievously from from untreated alcoholism.

(02:47:47):
You know, I get involved with the Joe and Charlie work.
I moved my way through the Joe and Charlie work
and I start to sponsor some guys. I talked about
that a little bit this morning, and my life started
to really to really change. You know, recovery. Recovery is
really the goal here in alcoholics anonymous, full recovery is

(02:48:10):
really the goal. Sobriety is a great thing. It helps
us get out of the jackpot, It keeps us from
going back to jail. It may keep us in the
big bed. You know, there's a lot of things that
staying sober might might do. But recovery offers us a
new freedom and a new happiness. It, you know, it

(02:48:31):
offer it offers us serenity. At times, I have great serenity.
You know. My life today is My life today is
just crazy. Like I went from being a bad electrician.
So when I got sober, I got involved in maintenance
work instead of construction. And getting involved in that maintenance work,
I started to get promoted because I was actually there,

(02:48:55):
you know, and I was actually present and I could
actually hear people when they were giving instructions and things
like that, and you know, I started I started to
do pretty well with that. You know, today, twenty three
years later, I'm a facility manager for a pharmaceutical manufacturing plan.
And this is this is a this is a very

(02:49:16):
very responsible type of a job. I've got a ton
of employees, a ton of responsibility, a huge budget and
reports and all. I mean, this is a lot of work.
It's a lot of responsibility. I wouldn't have even wanted
a job like this when I got sober. You know
what I wanted to do.

Speaker 3 (02:49:34):
I wanted to put in my eight hours and go
home and be.

Speaker 1 (02:49:37):
Able to forget about it, you know. But for one
reason or another. I truly believe that God fits us
to be of maximum service to our fellow man.

Speaker 3 (02:49:49):
And that's kind of what happened to me. And without having.

Speaker 1 (02:49:52):
Like undue amounts of ambition, you know, and really trying
to do this stuff, I basically fell from one good
job to a better job, to a better job to
a better job. And you know, and today I'm I'm
doing I'm doing quite well with that. Friends, you know,
I don't I know who my friend's names are. Now

(02:50:12):
you know, you know, And it's it's amazing some of
the some of the friends that I have, and how
how close I am with them. That's a really good thing.
I got involved with some professional addictive illness stuff. I'm
on some boards. But I also I'm also consulted quite

(02:50:33):
often when when when families have have kids that are
in trouble. One of the things that's going on in
a big way down by us. Now tell me if
that tell me if it's happening here is there's an
oxy epidemic, whether it's oxy codin or MS cotton or
you know whatever. And these are some serious serious painkillers.

(02:50:53):
They they're they're nicknamed Hillbilly heroin, you know, down down
by us. And what's happening is a lot of these
kids getting hooked on them in high school and they're
getting hooked on them and when they run out, they're
gonna they're gonna start detoxing and they're gonna start feeling
like they've got a bad case of the flu for
days if they can't get this drug. So the next

(02:51:16):
thing that they learn is you can go down to
one of the cities and you can find heroin. So
there's an epidemic and aria I'm talking about the upper
middle class areas. You know, people who can't even imagine
that their kids would be doing drugs are shooting heroin.
And you know, I'm a I'm a resource for a
lot of these people because I have a I have

(02:51:38):
a relationships with a number of really really good recovery centers,
some treatment centers, but more often recovery centers, and uh
and you know, I help these parents get these get
these kids treatment. It's it's an epidemic, you know, So
I'm doing a lot of good there. One of the
things that the company that I work for us as

(02:52:01):
it manufactures two drugs. One of them is died then
and it's a high blood pressure medication and it saves
a lot of lives. But the other drug is called
core Tem. Coretem is a drug that will treat and
quite often, more often than not, cure malary. Now on

(02:52:22):
the planet today, the number one killer on the planet
today is the mosquito, believe it or not. And what
the mosquito will drag around with it. And it doesn't
necessarily happen a lot in the United States because we
DDT the absolute crap out of those mosquitoes and we
wipe down malaria and everything else in the twenties. But

(02:52:44):
other areas of the world that weren't allowed to use
DDT the way we did still have huge malaria problems.
And this Coretem, the World Health Organization buys it and
sends it to these third world countries. And I'm telling you,
two thousand lives a day probably saved because of this
particular drug. And what my job is is my job

(02:53:04):
is to keep this plant running. I'm in charge of
the utilities. I'm in charge of the maintenance. I'm in
charge of all the stuff, all the projects and repair
contractors and all the stuff that keeps this place humming.
That's what I'm responsible for now. Now, think about that,
I went from a bad electrician that would drill into

(02:53:25):
your clothes closet, you know, to having a job like
this and being okay with a job like this, you know, unbelievable, unbelievable. Today,
I would truly understand the word recovery. Doug was talking
today about the tenth and eleventh Step. I absolutely love

(02:53:45):
the eleventh Step. And for the last twenty years, I've
been seriously studying different kinds of spirituality, comparative religion, you know,
Eastern Eastern philosophy and meditation, and especially first century Christianity
because that's really where alcoholics Anonymous came from. And I'm

(02:54:05):
studying this stuff and I'm finding things to apply in
my life, and I'm developing, you know, a spirituality that
I can really call my own and that I can
really make my own. And I've got to tell you
there's an enormous amount of comfort in that. And that's
really why we drank. We drank for that comfort. We

(02:54:28):
drank for that ease and comfort. And I find that
same comfort that I was looking for in a bottle
that was very elusive because I might, I might, you know,
drink number seven may give me that comfort, but I've
got to drink number eight and I become a vomiting pig,
you know, So I would I would blow past the
comfort into the vomiting pig. So it was. It never worked.

(02:54:50):
Right now, now, practicing and developing these these methods of
spirituality that I do today, it's a very holistic way
to get that comfort. To feel comfortable inside. The alcoholic
has a hole. There's there's there's a vacancy inside the alcoholic,

(02:55:11):
and we try to fill that vacancy with alcohol, with drugs,
with sex, with food, with anything and everything, just to
try to put something in there so I feel good
for a long time. You know, I used to spend
money and buy things because they would make me feel
good for five minutes, you know, just purchasing something and
and and I found that that hole. The only thing

(02:55:33):
that fills that hole is a relationship with and the
consciousness of the presence of God, because it's it's a
God hole. You know, God made us. I believe God
made us to want and need God, and when we
rebel against that, it creates a disturbance in our force.

(02:55:58):
You know. One of the great early early Christian theologians.
Saint Augustine says said, basically, God, our hearts are troubled
until they rest in THEE. And I think Augustine was
probably an alcoholic because you know, my heart was restless
until it rested. You know. In God, it talks about

(02:56:22):
the consciousness of the presence of God is the most
important thing in our lives. The most amazing thing about
this whole alcoholics anonymous is the amount of power that's
available through this power greater than myself. My conception of
God has changed greatly over the years. My first conception

(02:56:45):
when I showed up here was I believe God was,
you know, a white haired old man sitting on a
thrown up in the clouds with Saint Peter and a
big ledger, you know, keeping track of what the shorter
kid's been doing. You know, I mean, that's really that's
really what what I what I thought. And when my
foster sponsor first asked me to start praying to this God,

(02:57:06):
I'm like, why, I don't want them to know where
I am, you know, you know, I mean, it was
just a crazy, wacky conception of God. Today, today, my
conception of God is is less of a noun and
more of a verb. In other words, you know, I
don't believe in that God anymore. I don't believe that

(02:57:26):
God exists the white haired man up there on the throne.
But I believe everything is godly NICs, you know what
I mean, Like like I'm experiencing God's grand design right
here at this moment. This is a This is a
remarkable group of people. This will never happen again, this

(02:57:48):
group with the same people. It's a marvel experience. And
it's just it's just amazing that we're all here. You know,
I used to think I was the center of the universe.
Here's here's the truth. Here's the truth of that. We
live on a planet. It's not even the biggest planet
in our solar system. Okay, we've got a son. It's

(02:58:11):
not anything even remarkable really in our galaxy. You know,
as a matter of fact, we're not even near the
center of the galaxy. We're way on the outside of
the galaxy. And our galaxy isn't even in the center
of the universe. It's one of the galaxies that's kind
of out on the end. It's not even near near
Our galaxy isn't even in the center of the university,
and I thought I was the center of the universe.

(02:58:32):
You know, I'm not. I'm not even in a galaxy
near the center of the innerverse, you know, And you
know I understand that today. I understand what you know,
what my place is, and my place is to be
a spiritual being having a human experience and trying to
do the best I can and trying to help help

(02:58:53):
other people. Now, I'm going to get through this human
experience and it'll come it'll come to an end, and
you know, I we'll go into that next room, you know, whatever,
whatever that looks like. And you know, I'm okay with that,
and you know I am really about the business of
enjoying life today. Listen, if you're new or you're just

(02:59:13):
coming back and you feel restless, heritable and discontented and
you're not really getting along with people, and your boss
is an idiot, and there's maniacs on the road, and
you know, there's all you know, there's all this like disturbance.
Please stay and try Alcoholics Anonymous. What you may be
suffering from is untreated alcoholism. That's what I was suffering from,

(02:59:37):
and there is a treatment for it. And that treatment
is is marvelous, marvelous to experience. Incredible things can happen
in your life. You know, how free do you want
to be? How far do you want to go? It's
all available in alcoholicos. Anyway, thank you, thank you for
being here, willly, thank you so much for bringing this up.

Speaker 3 (02:59:57):
Great food, great people.

Speaker 1 (02:59:59):
I add absolutely love this place.

Speaker 3 (03:00:06):
All right, all right, we're gonna get started.

Speaker 1 (03:00:10):
Yeah. One one announcement to make you known. Doug has
an announced for him.

Speaker 17 (03:00:15):
One announcement. One of the announcement of the housekeeping announcement.
I think that's what Joyce swashed Johanna has told me.
If anyone catches a crab with a cell phone with
a claw.

Speaker 1 (03:00:29):
It's blamers. That'd be Jimmy. Oh boy. Okay, I just
want to I just want to say again that this
has been This has been a marvelous weekend. You know,
I get I get the opportunity. I'm very lucky. I
get the opportunity to do some of these throughout the
year and rarely i'd say never, you know, have have

(03:00:54):
I been in the presence of such hospitality? And uh
and just innate is spirituality, There's there's there's something that
is going on in this area. It has really been,
uh been marvelous to to experience. We've had a great time. Uh,
and we want to thank you for for you know,
giving us the opportunity to come up here and be

(03:01:16):
part of your world for for a weekend. Thank you
so much. And I've never seen this many questions in
an ask it basket, so.

Speaker 3 (03:01:30):
Participation is really good.

Speaker 1 (03:01:33):
Also. All right, I'm gonna go ahead, and I'm gonna
go ahead and uh and read these and and Doug
and I might both answer the question. One of us
might answer the question. Let'll just see how it goes. Okay,
why aren't the twelve Concepts of service talked about more
often in as you know? That's a that's a pretty
good uh, that's a pretty good question, you know. Uh.

Speaker 3 (03:01:53):
I really like Bill's writing in the twelve concepts.

Speaker 1 (03:01:57):
Uh, there there are. It's a little wordy and it's
a little bit sometimes difficult reading. But I still think
some of his best writing is in the Service Manual
of the twelve Concepts for World Service. But there's something
that I use a lot that comes out of that manual,
and I'll share about it right now. I believe in

(03:02:19):
the twelfth concept there's warranties, and I believe it's in
warranty six. I could be wrong about that because I'm
numerically dyslexic. I'm the opposite of Doug when it comes
to numbers. You know, never ever trust me if I'm
quoting numbers or statistics. But anyway, it basically, it's basically
a principle that does not allow us to offer any

(03:02:43):
punitive action against a group or an AA member. And
now this is important. This is important because it's about
non punishing. It's about we don't punish people. You know
where the punishment comes from through not non adherence to
spiritual principles.

Speaker 3 (03:03:02):
You know, you know who the punisher is.

Speaker 1 (03:03:04):
The punisher is alcohol. You know. We don't necessarily need
to be the police or the judge, the jury or
the executioners. You know. So so there are principles like
that in the twelveth concepts that I think it's important
for us to know about. And as a sponsor, I
recommend to the people that I sponsor to get get

(03:03:25):
a you know, the twelve concepts. Get to get the
service manual and at least read it one time. Obviously
it's used more for you know, general service and World service,
you know, applications. But again I believe that there's thirty
six spiritual principles that are listed out, the twelve steps,

(03:03:47):
the twelve traditions, and the twelve concepts for world service.

Speaker 8 (03:03:51):
And you know there's everything you could do is a
circle in a triangle in AA. Right, So we have
the recover Unity service, and we have the we have
the steps and traditions in the in the concepts.

Speaker 1 (03:04:06):
And so I've studied those.

Speaker 8 (03:04:08):
I've never s I never really studied the concepts before
because the highest level that I've ever gotten in the
AA service triangle was in a group and I like,
I like working in the pits, the the home groups, uh,
the smaller version, but I hear and for those people
like where who are in the area and districts, uh,

(03:04:30):
I hear there's a lot of learning up there. I
I just feel and I didn't have the patience enough
to you know, I have a hard enough time to
keep my mouth shutting in a group.

Speaker 1 (03:04:38):
Can you imagine a district an area and you know,
people not knowing who I think I am, and I'm
like relling.

Speaker 8 (03:04:44):
So once again it comes back to knowing your limitations
and I and I sure know my limitations there and.

Speaker 1 (03:04:51):
And you know I in the in the concepts and
in the service structure of alcoholics anonymous, there's there's protect
there's protections. They slow they slow things down a little
bit because very rarely do you get as many people
with gigantic overinflated egos and you know, power driven, you
know maniacs, and you know they all they all jump

(03:05:12):
into the to the service structure, and inherent in that
service structure is protections to like slow things down.

Speaker 3 (03:05:19):
So you can't get some power driver trying to, you know,
change the way AA works, because.

Speaker 1 (03:05:24):
Well we will try, you know, because we've got we've
got a better idea about how things go. Let's see
what we got here, Doug. This is for Doug.

Speaker 3 (03:05:34):
Why do you consider us to be the chosen Ones?

Speaker 1 (03:05:36):
So uch, that's a good question. You know.

Speaker 8 (03:05:40):
I believe on this planet that we're on, that we're
all equals. You know, I read the Bible and to
the Jews of the Chosen One. I don't think God
plays favoritisms. I really don't think God cares. I mean,
I think he came up with this massive DVD and
there's a trillion billion ways that we can run our
life in whichever way we choose. We choose, you know,

(03:06:01):
to have a free experience to anything.

Speaker 1 (03:06:04):
We desire to do. I think that's a key or
she meant for us.

Speaker 8 (03:06:08):
And so to blame weather, to blame bad luck, to
blame my father beat me like a you know, like
a slave. I could have went that route, you know,
I could have. I could have been a product of
the state, and I chose.

Speaker 1 (03:06:24):
I chose not to.

Speaker 8 (03:06:25):
And when I came into AA, I heard a different
message than trudging the road to happy destiny, as as
you all have heard me.

Speaker 1 (03:06:33):
I heard a message of I could do anything I
desired anything. And uh, you know, when I opened up my.

Speaker 8 (03:06:40):
First large, large restaurant, it was it was big, and
it was a massive bar. I remember a guy came
up to me once in AA, do you know what
you do?

Speaker 1 (03:06:52):
And I said, well, actually no, you know, I'm an
airline pilot and he that's not what he meant.

Speaker 8 (03:06:57):
He meant, no, no, no, you're an alcoholic opening up
the biggest nightclub is showing Sylvida. And I'm like, yeah,
I mean I didn't I didn't get what his point was.
And his point was how are you gonna do that?
Because he thinks of aas limiting. I think of aas
all exclusive. And I went to page one hundred and
one hundred and one in the Big Book, and they said,

(03:07:17):
we can even go to woopie parties, but always has
it so long as there a contingency, as long as
we're spiritually fit, So as long as I'm praying and
meditating in the morning, as long as I'm helping others,
I do anything I desire right, so to have all
this power that we have been tapped into most non alcoholics,

(03:07:39):
I don't like call him the normal people. Show me
the folcroon point. The folcroon point on an airplane means
I could balance it with one finger. That there's a
fulcrum point on every So tell me the fulcrum point
of who's normal?

Speaker 1 (03:07:52):
Really? To find normal?

Speaker 8 (03:07:54):
To me, I mean there is no normality, right. There's
choices that we make and leave once you get intown,
called astonomous. They're literally unlimited, comeless. Unlimited choices means that
we have to watch out for ourselves, right, we have
to take.

Speaker 1 (03:08:12):
Responsibilities for our actions.

Speaker 8 (03:08:14):
And I believe that with all my heart being the
chosen one of aay that we have found something that people.

Speaker 1 (03:08:21):
Look at us like, you know, you're different.

Speaker 8 (03:08:23):
People say to me, you know you're so different to
do business with. You know, you're so different to hang
around with. It's because I literally take these steps, these
traditions into.

Speaker 1 (03:08:33):
All my affairs. And what is the world full of
one percent alcoholics? Maybe almost ten? Really want a lot
of trunks out there. But now let's talk about recovered ones.

Speaker 8 (03:08:45):
So if you're a recovered alcoholic working the steps in
the triangle, I mean you're definitely the trosen one because.

Speaker 1 (03:08:53):
It's like it's like playing the game and you know
the ending, all right.

Speaker 8 (03:08:57):
So that's why I do so well in business because
I believe I know the ending to each one of
the games.

Speaker 1 (03:09:02):
I start.

Speaker 8 (03:09:03):
Treat people well, treat them with respect, give a great product,
good great service at a reasonable price.

Speaker 1 (03:09:08):
Duh. You know I always say, it doesn't take a
rocket scientist to figure this out.

Speaker 8 (03:09:11):
Although I got an aerospace engineering the great it doesn't
take a rocket scientist.

Speaker 1 (03:09:14):
To figure this sound, And I learned all this through AA.

Speaker 8 (03:09:17):
So being part of the chosen like we are with this,
you know, when you're allergs reaction to peanuts you don't
have to work a twelve step program, right.

Speaker 1 (03:09:25):
I think I'm allergic.

Speaker 8 (03:09:26):
To alcohol because I had to work at twelve step program,
which gave me this unbelievable light.

Speaker 2 (03:09:30):
I e.

Speaker 8 (03:09:31):
The chosen one, and I really that solidified it when
my mother died and I saw the reaction of my
sister's non alcoholics.

Speaker 1 (03:09:37):
In me, saying, God, that was beautiful. That guest was
I want to go out like that.

Speaker 3 (03:09:44):
You know, mineus the teaspoon of Martine she wanted.

Speaker 1 (03:09:48):
But I wanted to go out like that. Right, only
chosen people could speak like that, And we're doing chosen
my con I just maybe I mean lucky. You know,
why are we the chosen ones? You know?

Speaker 3 (03:10:01):
I was once lost and now I'm found, you know
what I mean? Like thin?

Speaker 1 (03:10:07):
Think about that, the despair of the alcoholic approaching his
or her bottom. You know that Mother Teresa was once
asked what is the worst and most tragic thing you've
ever seen?

Speaker 3 (03:10:24):
And her response was the loneliness of the dying alcoholic.

Speaker 1 (03:10:29):
Now think about that. Mother Teresa, you know, was involved
with leper colonies and you know people's children starving at
that and she said the most horrible thing that she
ever saw was that was that despair and that loneliness
within the alcoholic. And I believe it's because of that
sense of separation, that being so far away from God,

(03:10:52):
you know, being so lost. And here we are, we
get exposed to a recovery process that brings us back
into the sunlight of the spirit. And here we are,
We're now in the sunlight of the spirit, and we
we we understand gratitude at a personal experiential level. And

(03:11:14):
you know, yeah, we moved through our life. We start businesses,
We you know, we manage people. I manage a.

Speaker 3 (03:11:21):
Lot of people, and I'm involved in a lot of things.

Speaker 1 (03:11:24):
But I don't I don't take I don't take it,
you know, as as life and death serious. I understand
that this is all a gift of God, and you know,
I need to be about the business of helping God's
children because That's probably what I'm going to be judged
on if I do get judged at the end of

(03:11:45):
this at the end.

Speaker 3 (03:11:46):
Of this game, it's going to be on you know,
have I, you know, have I taken seriously the directive
to help God's children?

Speaker 1 (03:11:55):
And you know, I do try to do that. I
do try to do that, so you know, are we chosen?
You know, I'm not one hundred percent sure that we're chosen.
I think the grace of God falls on everyone equally.

Speaker 3 (03:12:07):
I think, though, that we pay attention to it because
our lives depend.

Speaker 1 (03:12:11):
On it sometimes, you know what I mean, literally have here.

Speaker 3 (03:12:15):
Well, okay, here's a good one. We'll Sobriety make my
ass look big.

Speaker 1 (03:12:19):
Okay, well that Doug's gonna answer that doesn't. That's a
good one, thanks, brother, I'm good Will. Why don't we
talk about sex more often in meetings?

Speaker 8 (03:12:42):
I guess because it's just very uncomfortable, you know, as
you start bringing people, as you start bringing.

Speaker 1 (03:12:48):
People through the steps, and look at this, I just
have to open up the sex.

Speaker 8 (03:12:52):
You know, it says that we.

Speaker 1 (03:12:53):
Need an overhauling there you think.

Speaker 8 (03:12:56):
I mean, so people talking about this is probably very uncomfortable.
So you got to make sure a person coming in
that's in front of you will know. And there's a
lot of times, especially when I'm sponsoring women, I should
say bringing them through the steps, when it comes up
to the sex cervatory, it really rocked my world.

Speaker 1 (03:13:17):
I remember the first one that I did. Her name
was Jen, and.

Speaker 8 (03:13:20):
Jen Will listen to this day because she listens to
all my days. Jens from Sara Soota, Florida, and I
have called my sponsor. Immediately, he says, go into meditation
real quick and ask for it to be removed and
forget what we heard. And I did, and it rocked
my world.

Speaker 1 (03:13:36):
And I don't know if I ever wanted to do
that one again.

Speaker 8 (03:13:39):
And then all of a sudden, Jen had twelve years
of sobrieting and she had never worked the steps, and
she works the steps through me, and all of a sudden,
this lady Nate comes up to me. He says, I
want you to do to me what you did to Gen.
I'm like, well, let's rephrase that one, okay, And.

Speaker 1 (03:13:53):
I would have them come over my house when my
wife was present, and before you know, there were two
girls here, and then there was three, and then there
was eight, and there was twelve, and it was just,
you know, we were changing lives. And I was starting
to Joanne about this about sponsoring women.

Speaker 8 (03:14:09):
If you could look at another person as a soul
instead of as a physical being.

Speaker 1 (03:14:14):
It really you could change a lot of lives.

Speaker 8 (03:14:16):
Because, as talked about Dad with five thousand men and women,
he changed a lot of lives.

Speaker 1 (03:14:20):
And I in Christmas maybe talked about this too.

Speaker 8 (03:14:24):
In the women community, the sponsorship is a little shallow,
and so by giving them a great foundation, you.

Speaker 1 (03:14:31):
Can help them build the depth of their lineage.

Speaker 8 (03:14:37):
And so to speak about sex is very uncomfortable. We
cause a lot of us have these deep dark secrets
and the sex thing, and I've seen more people And
I was just speaking to a young lady and she
was talking about how she worked with touches about called smiles,
and I said that he told your deepest, darkest.

Speaker 1 (03:14:54):
Secrets in four steps. She said no, And NIC said,
I'd we finished your nice that. She said no. So
I said, you have need to start it.

Speaker 8 (03:15:01):
You know that she hasn't even hit start yet and
and so once she does is going to be changing
the life. And the sex thing almost set me out
for what I did in nineteen eighty four, and by
speaking to another sponsor through it, by making the amends
as I did, by going up on that hill for

(03:15:21):
women that were abused and helping for six months, it
really changed my life.

Speaker 1 (03:15:27):
And so I think that's why, Yeah, when we're early
on and we first get sober, there's there's like a drive.
We have that sex drive, and we you know, we
want to get a boyfriend or a girlfriend. And and
you know what I usually say to the people I'm
working with is, you know, two dingalings don't make a bell,

(03:15:48):
you know what? You know what I mean. Now, Now
I want to Now I want to I want to
tell the story. I want to tell the story. This
is a true story. Now, this is a true story. Now,
this young woman, she's she's sober about night. She goes
up to her sponsor and she goes, she goes, Listen,
you know, I know all about this no relationships in the.

Speaker 3 (03:16:06):
First year or whatever.

Speaker 1 (03:16:07):
But you know, I want a man. You know, I
want to start dating. And I'm serious about this, and
you know I want some help. So the sponsor knows
that this is a losing battle. So you know, we'll
do the best we can to manage this. So Doug
talked about the instructions for sexual relationships being on page
sixty nine yesterday. Right, so this spot, this woman's sponsor says, okay,

(03:16:31):
go home and read page sixty nine. Now this girl's
on the way home and she's just numerically dyslexic like myself.
So Instead of going to page sixty nine, she goes
to page ninety six, and I'm just going to read
what it says on page ninety six says do mean,
do not be discouraged.

Speaker 3 (03:16:49):
If your prospect does not respond at once, search.

Speaker 1 (03:16:52):
Out another alcoholic can try again. You are sure to
find someone desperate enough to accept with eagerness walking. We
find it a waste of time to keep chasing him.

Speaker 3 (03:17:06):
Man cannot or will not work with you. He says
he may be brokeer homeless.

Speaker 1 (03:17:13):
If he is, you might try to help him about
getting a job or give him a little financial assistance.
I just I just love it. That's that's from the
late Great Joe and Charlie. By the way, I stole that.
Let's let's see. So now we've covered sex, you know

(03:17:35):
you'll know exactly what to do. And Chris, how did
you end your mood altering shopping? Wow?

Speaker 3 (03:17:44):
That's awesome, what a great what a great question. Now
now now listen, you know we have that vacancy.

Speaker 1 (03:17:54):
That I talked about last night, and a lot of
times we need to try to fill that to make
us feel good. Now, it's it's an inside job, though
it's not something that can be done by outside stuff.

Speaker 18 (03:18:06):
Now I'll tell you. I'll tell you a little bit
about what I did when I got sober. You know,
I was, I wasn't making a whole lot of money,
but I was spending most of it on stuff for me.

Speaker 1 (03:18:18):
For the first five years of my sobriety, I lived
at home with mom, like most macho guys in their
thirties too, you know. And you know, but finally I did,
you know, I did. I did run away from home
and uh with a with a woman and we you know,
was shocked up and we got married. But but I
was still spending a majority of my money on CDs

(03:18:39):
and books and just acquiring and ordering stuff through the mail.
And I mean, it was ridiculous. It was. It was
near hoarding. And what you know, what happened personally to
me was, uh, you hit a bottom. You hit a
bottom with these sprees. It talks about having sprees in
the Big Book, and this sprees don't necessarily have to

(03:19:01):
be alcohol sprees. They can be sex spreeze or shopping
sprees or gambling spreez or you know, we can do
a food spree. We can do a lot of spreeing.
And you know what happened was I just hit a bottom.

Speaker 3 (03:19:16):
I just hit a bottom.

Speaker 1 (03:19:17):
And you know, I've always asked God for help with
running my life. God is my director. You know, God
is my father, and and you know, these were the
third step decisions that I basically made. And one day,

(03:19:37):
one day, the obsession to add stuff into my life
from the outside to make me feel better was removed,
like a lot of my character defense. Now. You know,
I used to think you needed to work on your
character defense. You need to fight these character defense until
you win. But the fact of the matter is is

(03:19:58):
you got to kind of go around on the back
and you kind of prayer and meditation and working with
others and step work and meetings and uh and uh.
You know, God sometimes removes these defects of characters. We
have to participate. It isn't a step book that God
will not uh render us white as snow without our cooperation.

(03:20:18):
So we have to cooperate. But we can't go head on.
And you know I tried so often to go head
on with this stuff, and me working on my own
character defects looked like this. Does anybody in here know
what what the game Whack a Mole is you know,
you take the mallet and you know a mole head
will pop up and you'll try to smack the morale,
but but.

Speaker 3 (03:20:38):
The mole drop down and another one will pop up.

Speaker 1 (03:20:40):
I mean that was me. That was me trying to
trying to work on my character defense by you know,
a frontal assault. I was.

Speaker 3 (03:20:48):
I was playing whack a mole. And you know, I
had a spiritual advisor one time that.

Speaker 1 (03:20:51):
Came up to me and said, you know, Chris, you
know you know what will happen if you keep if
you keep whacking the mole like that, and and I
go what he goes?

Speaker 19 (03:21:00):
He goes, you can go blind. So so I learned
my lesson when I do. Let's see, what is the
funniest newcomer plan?

Speaker 1 (03:21:18):
You heard your funniest newcomer plan? You got one?

Speaker 3 (03:21:23):
Let me think, Let me think. I mean some of them,
some of them have really are abutes.

Speaker 1 (03:21:28):
I got it. Okay, he's got it all about me.
So I get this guy in Sarasota, Florida, and he
comes up to me. He says, you know, they all
come to me and they're shaking. I always got the
shaking guys. But the other sponsors are like, we don't

(03:21:48):
want this guy go see dunk, you know what I mean.

Speaker 8 (03:21:51):
And so I had this newcomer guy come up to
me and he said, sorry, I've tried this a million
times and I'm over it. And I said, okay, come on,
it's my how Saturday between ten and two, and this
time I used to do it in my house.

Speaker 1 (03:22:03):
And he comes up to the house and he had
about he really is a big book. He talks about
in the sponsorship hard working with others.

Speaker 8 (03:22:12):
He says, you really got to get him down when
they're well, I should have taken him over the house then,
but I didn't. And so he had three days to
think about this, right, And so he comes over my
house and he says, w's your big book. He says, well,
I wanted to talk to you.

Speaker 1 (03:22:25):
I said, okay, what do you want to talk about?
He says, well, we may I understand what you do.
I said, no, you don't.

Speaker 8 (03:22:31):
So let's just start down and tell me what you're thinking.
He says, well, I found this procedure. This is an
honest to god truth. He goes, I found this procedure
in Tampa and he went and did it, and he says,
I'm going to go to this procedure. And what they
do is they take out your blood and replace it.

(03:22:51):
And as I did him just like a look at you.
He goes, they take out your blood and they replace it.

Speaker 20 (03:22:59):
They Keith Richard's recovery. Yeah, we take out your blood.
And I never heard of this before, and so what
does that do? So all the detoxes and stuff were
out of me, and so then I'm good. I'm like,
what about your mind? I didn't think about that one.
We have to change the obsession.

Speaker 1 (03:23:19):
Of the mind. Now, your blood is good, you know,
what about your mind? All right? Why don't hear a carrot?
Go over my house or get that carrot somewhere. I
don't care. Just get over your work. I know, you know,
you know I'm thinking about this is a good question.
I'm thinking about this. But you know, most of the time,

(03:23:41):
the newcomer plans are more tragic than they really are funny,
and you know, because some of them are absolute abutse.
I did start to work with this one guy who
really really did want to go tour with the dead.
I mean, he wanted to go tour with the Grateful Dead.
And he did that every year, and he didn't see
any problem with doing that. And he was sober like
ten days and you know, off, off he went. And

(03:24:03):
he when he got back, he had he had done
so many drugs he could barely talk anymore. He was like,
you know, he was like, beautiful, beautiful, move buddy, and
you know, let's let's not maybe do that next season.
You know, but some of them are just really really tragic. Listen,

(03:24:27):
you know, we die, we die.

Speaker 3 (03:24:31):
I've lost a lot of people this year. And I
was just on the phone. I was just doing a
placement this morning with somebody who get this.

Speaker 1 (03:24:40):
After eight years, spent a lot of time in prison,
got out of prison, uh, started to put a business together,
got hired by a big company, had a big important job,
and ended up basically relapsing. And he relapsed because he
was living with a woman and they were they were
engaged and they were gonna get married.

Speaker 3 (03:24:58):
But he met up with somebody and he was having
that affair on the side, you know.

Speaker 1 (03:25:03):
And listen, those things take us out pretty quick, and
that's what happened with him. He ended up he ended
up drinking one night and smoking crack, and his whole
world fell apart. So I got him. I got him
a place in a ninety day treatment opportunity in Texas
and got him there and he's he's in the place,

(03:25:24):
and fifteen minutes into it, he goes, I gotta get
out of here. And he leaves and he finds his
way back home and he expects to go back to
his job, which he told his.

Speaker 3 (03:25:34):
Job he had a drug problem and he needed to
go away for night days.

Speaker 1 (03:25:38):
And the next day he's back like, well, it's not
really a problem, and he wondered why he got fired,
and you know, and I finally I just get a
call from him. I get a call from him this
morning and he wants to go back.

Speaker 3 (03:25:49):
He wants to go back to Texas.

Speaker 1 (03:25:50):
I go, buddy, you blew that up, you know, and
you know all of us were saying the same thing.
You need help. You can't just do the right about
face and stop smoking, cracking, drinking whiskey. You're just not
gonna be able to just do that because you want to.
Why weren't you listening to us? And you know, he's

(03:26:11):
starting to get it now, but you know it's it's
gonna be a much more difficult, difficult row for him.

Speaker 3 (03:26:18):
The hoe at this point in time.

Speaker 8 (03:26:20):
And you know, in the Big Book it talks about
I says, if you could do a turnabout, our hats
are off field, right, I couldn't if you.

Speaker 1 (03:26:29):
Could do a turn about, that means you're not an alcoholic,
and my hat's off to you. You know, there's a
lot of times I shouldn't say a lot of times.
I'd take probably about ten times in my eighteen years,
and I've taken people.

Speaker 8 (03:26:39):
Through the step every weekend where I actually turned a
guy away and says, you know, you're.

Speaker 1 (03:26:43):
Not an alcoholic.

Speaker 8 (03:26:44):
You're a hard drinker at best. You know, you've had
you've had a hard situation. Non alcoholics do what you
do and then they just stop or they moderate, you know.
And I've seen I've seen a couple of guys in Florida.
One is a pretty powerhouse attorney and he's doing just
and he's got a wife and he's got kids, and
you know, he wanted to join our way of life.
And I said, no, you know, I can't allow you

(03:27:07):
non alcoholics in here because they're gonna kill us.

Speaker 1 (03:27:09):
Because the real people that are the real.

Speaker 8 (03:27:11):
Deal that's in here right now, you know. And this
guy says, you know, take it easy. Of course we're
gonna take it easy. Yeah, I got one here that
says workshop twenty five bucks. I'm not sure what that means.

Speaker 1 (03:27:21):
Oh sure, I think it was thirty five. It's only
twenty five mins. Twenty five bucks for all this? What up?
All right? Done? Whoa? All right here? Way up? Everybody
got a couple of hours.

Speaker 8 (03:27:38):
Infatuated with flights and surprise, I never got kicked off
a plane for being hammered. You mentioned Friday night, you
lost a phone, a plan, a plane? All right, How
the heck did you?

Speaker 1 (03:27:49):
Wow? Here we go. You're losing the plane story. You
know what I can get off? Then here? Thrown off
the plane? Are you out of here? It's absolutely well?
Report back, how great we are, so we can come
back to here next year with only four flights, nine trains,

(03:28:13):
remember war and six twenty six times? All right?

Speaker 8 (03:28:17):
So I actually did get drawn up for playing for
being drunk, so I'll tell that story too. I was
with my dear friend, dear dear best. I had one
best friend, right was just His name was Tony duh
d givanna. He's a he's a non alcoholic.

Speaker 1 (03:28:32):
He stuck with me. He was a United captain and
him and I went to college together and lived together,
and I went to my airline.

Speaker 21 (03:28:38):
He went to United and you know he uh, I
got back from speaking in Bermuda uh last year and
I found out to be drowned saving his child and
his child's living.

Speaker 1 (03:28:51):
He's dead and that was just devastating to me.

Speaker 8 (03:28:53):
The chief pilot of the United called me up and
he said he used to talk about me so much
about the old Doug days.

Speaker 1 (03:28:58):
Uh. You know, they had stages dub Dub one was
I'm like, well, good party.

Speaker 8 (03:29:03):
Stage two I was like buying women drinks, but it
was that women drink three days, you know.

Speaker 1 (03:29:08):
And then and then stepped the DUG three and they
had they call a.

Speaker 8 (03:29:11):
D three D three areas like the D four, you know,
seeing myself and falling off him. So he used to
have a great a lot of stories with me. So anyway,
we were playing golfs in Washington and he says, I
want King crab.

Speaker 1 (03:29:25):
Lights, a lasting King Crab Lights. I'm like, let's go
to a last couple because we could do that.

Speaker 8 (03:29:31):
So, you know, we'd pack up a bag and we
go to United and he gets on for free, and
of course I'm a Union Airline pilot and they throw
me in first class. So him and are first class
and first off with Seattle. And by the time we
got to Seattle, for because you drink free at the
first class, we're hambered. Captain gets in the back throws
us off the airplane. They had to get a wheelchair

(03:29:54):
for me, a.

Speaker 1 (03:29:58):
D four.

Speaker 22 (03:29:59):
Right, My buddy Tony didn't pilot unifour block and be
like hat on finely. So we somer it up and
we soaked it up in Seattle for two days.

Speaker 1 (03:30:10):
And this is in July, and then we.

Speaker 8 (03:30:12):
Fly into Anchorage, Alaska, and there's all these pictures that
just meet, you know, kissing all.

Speaker 1 (03:30:19):
These women like and I don't remember, I'm want a glacier.

Speaker 23 (03:30:24):
And so what they would do is like he passed
out and they put me in the car and put
a hat on me or put like a dress on me,
and it just like I was like this little doll
they were bringing around. They put me in, they put
it brawl in my head like this pictures.

Speaker 1 (03:30:35):
Of that and I'm just like at every picture. So
so I get on the.

Speaker 8 (03:30:41):
Plane to come back to Washington, and I pump out
of Northwest Lane the train was full and I had
to sit in the content and so I'm sitting in
the coffet and the captain, the first officer, go.

Speaker 1 (03:30:50):
God, you steak. You know you showered. I don't think
I did. I don't remember I was, but I was.
I was flying for this for this corporation out of Morriste,
New Jersey.

Speaker 8 (03:31:05):
And it was fine of a pretty cool airplane and
I was certified the fly by myself, which was which
is really cool. And I dropped these guys off in Nantucket,
which is a really upscale island off of Boston Coast.

Speaker 1 (03:31:19):
It's really beautiful and the only way is through a plane.

Speaker 8 (03:31:22):
And so I'm coming back and then there's thunderstorms and
I had a land in a little airport off of
Long Island, New York.

Speaker 1 (03:31:31):
And so I get off the get off the airplane.
First thing I do is I forget to close my
flight plan.

Speaker 8 (03:31:37):
So now they're like scrambling the s sixteens. You know,
everybody's coming in. All the distractors were strong, and I've
been a really fun cab guy, and in a couple
of pilots and we're like, let's get a drink, you.

Speaker 1 (03:31:50):
Know, and before you know it.

Speaker 3 (03:31:53):
I wake up. I'm on a floor.

Speaker 1 (03:31:55):
I have no idea where i am.

Speaker 8 (03:31:57):
My hat on backwards, my stripe, sure, I crook, get
my ties around my head and I'm like, oh, and
it's daytime, and like twelve hours are missing, and you know,
they think I'm like in the middle of the sad
I'm dead.

Speaker 1 (03:32:13):
And I'm like and I run.

Speaker 8 (03:32:15):
I run back to Long I run back to the airport.
I get in the cab and I'm I'm looking for
my airplane and I couldn't. They moved the airplane and
I'm running up and down this place.

Speaker 1 (03:32:23):
Where's my big plane? Where's my fire? I'm looking, I
can't find the plane.

Speaker 8 (03:32:29):
I finally get on the plane and I'm just like, oh, oh,
I'm starting the engines and the.

Speaker 1 (03:32:34):
Engines are so loud, and I'm like, oh, you know
what I mean. And I had no passages. It was
just I was just gonna kill me. And so I
take off and I and I like barely put up
the landing gear and I and I just hit all
a part and I'm like, oh, we'll get sick. And
I'm throwing up. See. So I find my way back
to Morris and I get off.

Speaker 8 (03:32:55):
There's police, there's fire trucks, there's the FAA, there's been navy,
there's the Air.

Speaker 3 (03:33:00):
Force, all like you know, was such a great guy.

Speaker 1 (03:33:05):
Yeah, walking off the airplane falling down. The bear leaders
to say, I found the plane and got fired on
that one. Man. I can't. I can tell you the plane.
So I's if I'm sponsoring this one knucklehead who's a
relapse or he's really he realizes all the time and
he's a heavy drinker, but he also does a lot

(03:33:25):
of ben benzos. Right, So he's on he's on a
plane flying from like New York to LA or something,
and he passes out. And I mean he goes, he
passes out. You know how when you pass out, you
can't nobody can wake you up. Well, they tried to
wake him up and they can't wake him up. So
they goes, there're a doctor. Is there a doctor? You know,
they get a doctor.

Speaker 3 (03:33:43):
Doctor walks over and goes, you got to get.

Speaker 1 (03:33:44):
This guy down, you know, land this plane. This this
guy could die, right, he took too many drugs or something.
So they land the plane in like oh mah or something, right,
and and they have to wheel him off that he
he comes to in the hospital. He leaves and and
you know, he's driving around with a taxi driver or something,
and he crashes a party and this is this is

(03:34:06):
a party for the governor elect of Colorado who just
got elected. Right, he crashes the party. Sometime he just
walks in and you know, we we can just walk
into places and he watchs and he sits down next
to the governor for like the whole evening, and the
secret Service people thinks he's with the governor, and the
governor thinks he's like a secret service guy because he's

(03:34:28):
got like a military air cut and there's pictures of
it in the paper like this, you know, like a
like all the and like he comes back and he's
telling me all this. I'm like, dude, you know you
gotta work the stabs. You know what I mean, your
life is unmanageable. You're like, let the governor elect. You know,
what are you doing? You could have been arrested. Oh, unbelievable.

(03:34:53):
How can we attract and keep more young people in AA.
You know, that's a great question, and it's incredibly important
to I really believe we need we need to be about.

Speaker 3 (03:35:04):
The business of keeping the meetings interesting and we.

Speaker 1 (03:35:07):
Can do that bye bye by putting together formats that
keep on topic, you know what I mean, Like, like
what happened when I first started coming around down in
New Jersey in the late eighties. What was going on
was there was the closed minded discussion meeting. Anybody know
what the closed minded discussion meeting is. That's basically where

(03:35:27):
a bunch of people raise their handy tar well you know,
you know, I was out prune in my rose bushes
in my neighborhood up and you're like, who cares? Who
cares about you and your neighbor and your rose which
just kill me? Now, you know, I want to die
now now. What I really, what I really believe is

(03:35:50):
important is for is for us as as share people
with meetings to actually share the meeting and you know,
try to keep it on topic. And you don't have
to be rude doing it. You don't have to say
something like shut up, stupid, you know you can you
can kind of direct the meeting, you know, back to
the topic. And I think when we I think, when
we stay on topic, we can keep the meeting interesting

(03:36:12):
and young young people.

Speaker 3 (03:36:14):
Will will you know, be more responsive, Like like when.

Speaker 1 (03:36:17):
It's a bunch of old people sitting around talking about
how dull their day was. We're just we're not going
to be attracting the young people. And there's going to
be activities and you know, things like dances and stuff
like that really help.

Speaker 2 (03:36:29):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (03:36:29):
But but again there is there is a tunami of
problems heading for young people today. It starts with the
oxy cottons. It starts with you know, passing around around
diverting pharmaceuticals. You know, that happens like crazy these days.
It happens in the junior high and high school. And

(03:36:51):
there's there's just there's a whole herd of young people
that are going to be heading toward us and towards
the other twelve step fellowships that we're gonna need to
make feel welcome and we're gonna need to be able
to offer them some help because there's there's an epidemic.
There's a tsunami head in our way. And it has
to do with just how powerful a lot of these

(03:37:13):
painkiller medications are and how easy.

Speaker 3 (03:37:15):
They are to get.

Speaker 1 (03:37:16):
And it's you know, that's that's that may not be alcoholism,
you know, pure and simple, but but what it is
is it's it's it's something that you know, many of us,
many of us can help people with. You know. It
also comes back to this free will thing that we
got going on here in the world.

Speaker 8 (03:37:34):
And and I believe when God said that we have
free will, you really mean that. I mean, it's it's
free will. What part of free will are we missing?
And so as sober alcoholics.

Speaker 1 (03:37:44):
I have two children. They are twenty two and twenty one.
They're eleven months apart.

Speaker 8 (03:37:48):
And I got sober when they were three and two,
and I was just you know, I was all over them,
you know, with love and kindness, and I broke the
mold of abuse. And I'll say a quick story. My
son is going to be My older son just graduated
Florida State University. He's going to University of South Carolina
Law School and he's going to be clerking for a

(03:38:09):
dear friend of ours who's the district attorney for Richie
the Big Yeah, Richie Bay.

Speaker 1 (03:38:15):
He's a district attorney for Maryland. You're Richie Bay. His
story is a god thing. And so he works in
the cocaine division. And because you used to be a
cocaine as well, he should as well. If he should.
He's part of the Mexican gang in the whole nights.
It's a god thing.

Speaker 8 (03:38:30):
So my son's going to clerk for him. And uh
so he Richie Bae said, okay, uh to my son.
We were in his office. He says, here's a law book.
He says, I need you to open up to the stage.
He just called somebody who's a second offense.

Speaker 1 (03:38:43):
You know, he just got an ounce of the pop.
What are you gonna do with them? My son want
in the lawbook? He ready. He goes, okay, I can't.
He says, but what is an ounce of pop? And
Richie b looked at it. He looked at me. He goes,
is this kid kidding me? He's really yours.

Speaker 8 (03:38:59):
He's not drums, you know what I mean. I've been
bringing it to AA meetings since he was three, when
we'd be in like a Catholic church and David west
Freddy goes, maybe makers make it. I'm like, no, no,
And to this day, we give out little trinkets. You
give out cakes.

Speaker 1 (03:39:17):
I like that better. We got little gifts, little trinkets
showing our years of sobriety. And I remember when I
got my first year of SOBRITI.

Speaker 8 (03:39:24):
They were four and three, and I gave them each one.
I was like, this is for daddy being good. It's
got big AA on it. And they ran around the
whole freaking neighbors say, look at what.

Speaker 1 (03:39:33):
My daddy gave me. He's being good. If it Autohol's editem.
He was just balling out the window.

Speaker 8 (03:39:39):
And even my younger one, who struggles a little bit,
is just you know, into the drug and drinking scene.

Speaker 1 (03:39:44):
And and I think it's.

Speaker 8 (03:39:45):
Because that my communication with him, my love with him,
and I just I stayed all over them.

Speaker 1 (03:39:51):
And I think if we showed that kind of love
and carrying to our children, you know.

Speaker 8 (03:39:54):
Some will strike. I mean, there's not much we could
do about it, but the chances of that are, you know,
probably less than average. So it just comes back to responsibility.

Speaker 1 (03:40:06):
Thank you. It was educational but also entertaining.

Speaker 8 (03:40:11):
And I bet you if we were to say the entertaining,
the entertaining, my buddy here Chris and the educational would
be near me. Chris said he was calling me. It
started up in Denmark. We was calling me the tacticianer
or the technical guy.

Speaker 1 (03:40:27):
Chris has the great story and as Jim point down
on the boat. He had the great voice because there
was money.

Speaker 8 (03:40:32):
Were drive along and Jim was Jim was out of
the boat going along, and all of a sudden, Chris
did the voice that Chris didn't like.

Speaker 3 (03:40:39):
He was stop the boy.

Speaker 1 (03:40:40):
He goes, you're that guy, he's this rock star. So
Chris christ is definitely there. Here's one it says, Chris,
did you marry after you stopped taking hostages'? That's beautiful.
You know when boy meets girl on a campus, trouble
soon follows. I've got personal experience with that. I was

(03:41:04):
sober about about two and a half years and I
met my second wife and I married.

Speaker 3 (03:41:11):
Her, and you know, we we had we had a
good year there.

Speaker 1 (03:41:15):
Uh and that was that was pretty good.

Speaker 3 (03:41:18):
And here's basically what I did, though, Listen.

Speaker 1 (03:41:21):
I was all about the business of practice, practicing spiritual principles.
So I can say this honestly, and you know, Doug
can probably vouch for me. He's up for statehood. You know,
I kept I kept throwing spiritual principles at this relationship
and throwing them and throwing them and throwing him. And finally, finally,

(03:41:41):
about thirteen years into this marriage. It started to get violent,
you know, I started, I started to become attacked by
this individual, and you know that that was the defining point,
you know, and I went, I went to my sponsor
and I said, I said, Gary, you know, you know
what should I do?

Speaker 3 (03:41:59):
What should do? He goes.

Speaker 1 (03:42:00):
You know, I don't tell you what to do, but
I will ask you a question. And I go, okay,
what is that, Garry? He goes, He goes, let's you know,
forget about you. Is it in her best interests for
you to stay in this relationship? I want you to
think about that. And I went into some serious meditation
and prayer about this particular this particular situation, and I

(03:42:24):
came to the conclusion that, you know, I was making
it possible for the continuation of some serious dysfunction. And
I left. And that was after a number of years
with this person. I got word about four months ago
that after twenty five years in AA, this woman is drinking.

Speaker 3 (03:42:48):
After twenty five years, this is my ex wife.

Speaker 1 (03:42:51):
That kind of caused me some consternation because we still
owned a bunch of property together and stuff. I was like,
oh no, but you know, she seems to be doing
okay with it. You know, who knows, But here's what happened.
I'm separated from her, and everybody in here is probably

(03:43:13):
aware of Facebook and what Facebook is like. And you know,
I started using Facebook early on to find people that
I had I had not been able to find in
a long time, to make amends. Stud it clean up
some amens. But as I'm going through one of the
people who I went through high school with and I'm
just checking out his friends, and all of a sudden.

Speaker 3 (03:43:35):
I see Andrea stan Kai. Now Andrey and I were really.

Speaker 1 (03:43:41):
Good friends in high school. You know, she she was like,
she was like four years younger than me, so so
we really liked each other. But there was never any
intimacy because you know, I listen, I was a scumbag.
But you know, at that point in time, you know,
somebody nineteen is just not going to get involved with
somebody who's fourteen. It just would not have been a

(03:44:04):
good things. But we were very good friends. And we
went to like led Zeppelin together, and Yes and Pink
Floyd and we you know, we partied like maniacs and
we were very very close. And then I went off
to college and what happened is, you know, back then,
there was no cell phones, there was no internet. If

(03:44:24):
you lost track of somebody and they moved a couple
of times, they were gone, there was really no way
to find them again. And that's what happened. And for
years I was.

Speaker 3 (03:44:33):
Asking people, do you know where Andrea is? You know,
you know, people that I would bump into.

Speaker 1 (03:44:38):
But my alcoholism was progressing and my world was getting
smaller and small and smaller. So fast forward, I'm twenty
years sober, and I'm looking through the Internet and Facebook,
and all of a sudden I see Andreas fan Kin.
So I typed in a little note Andy, Andrea, how's
it going? You know, I haven't you know, I've been
looking for you for like thirty years, you know, how

(03:44:58):
are you doing? And she she, she, She sent me
a message back, and we decided to get together for coffee.
And we get together for coffee, and we're living together
in two months, and and we're married within a year.
And you know, I've got to tell you that the
one part of my life that wasn't what I would
call sober or recovered was my intimate life. Because I

(03:45:21):
had to throw spiritual principles at a dysfunctional you know,
nightmare like like continually.

Speaker 3 (03:45:27):
You know, today I can I can honestly say, I'm
like Doug.

Speaker 1 (03:45:29):
I adore my wife. I mean, we come from a
place where we were best friends in childhood. You know,
it was like going home.

Speaker 3 (03:45:39):
Getting together with this person, and there's there's.

Speaker 1 (03:45:41):
More than marriage and and and uh and and and
being a lover, and there's there's being a friend and
really trusting and really wanting to be with this person.

Speaker 3 (03:45:54):
And so so it took me a number of years
to get this piece of the puzzle right.

Speaker 1 (03:45:59):
But I can honestly say that, you know, today that
piece of the puzzle is right and I am with
the right person.

Speaker 24 (03:46:05):
She may not be totally convinced that, because I can
be a little wacky if you can imagine them, you know,
and I'm not always always right.

Speaker 3 (03:46:15):
On the beam, but but but you know I am.

Speaker 1 (03:46:18):
I'm I'm beyond beyond happy at the same time. And
it's not about it's not about a hostage situation. It's
more about what can I do for you? You know,
how can I How can I make you happy?

Speaker 2 (03:46:29):
You know?

Speaker 1 (03:46:29):
And that's really what we're trying to do.

Speaker 8 (03:46:30):
And you know that leads us perfect into the final
ending of this, which I'd like to challenge everybody for
Chris's new wife is just so wonderful. My wife and
I love hanging out with them. And sometimes they'll come
to some events that are fairly large or Chris and
I will be back. But yeah, and you just see
them just staring at us, like you know, with this glow,

(03:46:54):
like you know, that's my crazy husband up there.

Speaker 1 (03:46:56):
And I think they really appreciate all we do and
we love hanging out with you and your life and
look forward to seeing you next week in New Jersey. So,
so how do you get how do you get to
this perfection as I call it?

Speaker 8 (03:47:11):
Well, first thing, you have to believe that the universe
will provides you what you desire. That's the first thing
you'd have to believe in.

Speaker 1 (03:47:17):
It's not I'm going to ask you not even.

Speaker 8 (03:47:19):
To not even to start this, uh, this this thing
that we're about ready to do. So my sponsor challenged me.
I think I had about two years sobriety.

Speaker 1 (03:47:30):
Maybe, And he says, I want you to write down
the top ten things that would.

Speaker 8 (03:47:35):
Make and so what I'm like you to do is
to take your list here and if you would go
on Mac, and I want you to copy this right here,
and so as you can see the last side says work,
the right side says love.

Speaker 1 (03:47:49):
And I want you to write numbers one through ten
with lines going through followers. Okay, so it's work at
the top, and then the other side is going to
be loved and then just make time across. All right,
you could even do it. You know you're young right now,

(03:48:10):
as I believe in this asue.

Speaker 8 (03:48:11):
If you can start off with the end in mind,
then you can you can start a path to get
to the end.

Speaker 1 (03:48:16):
Correct. Well, the same thing is here. So I started
getting into the spirituality. I got my spiritual awakening like
Chris who has continued on with this, and I did
not continue on with it.

Speaker 8 (03:48:28):
I lasted for about five years. I read every spiritual
book that was out there, everything.

Speaker 1 (03:48:34):
The Bile, the Bible of Kuran, that eighty nine things
of the Buddhists, I can't pronounce it, but or eighty eight,
so there's there. I just read everything. I was a sponge.
I wanted to learn, and I came up with this
my God thing. So I got my God.

Speaker 8 (03:48:50):
And it actually came in a book from a sponsor
who's still got sober to this day. Lastly I found
in my office drunk with a gallon of vodka and
article tops on him.

Speaker 1 (03:49:01):
But he gave me, He helped me find my God. Right.

Speaker 8 (03:49:04):
So he came from a book of Conversations with God,
Book One, Conversations.

Speaker 1 (03:49:08):
With God, Book one that changed my life.

Speaker 8 (03:49:11):
And so I started believing as this book that God
was talking about free will. And he says, why would
I give you, you know, ten commandments in which you
will never be able to pass, and say, but once
you got free will.

Speaker 1 (03:49:24):
But if you don't do this, you're going to help.
It's he got three will if you don't even know that, right,
he says. I called it the ten commitments, the commitments
I had.

Speaker 8 (03:49:31):
To year when he changed these the words you're around,
it was really phenomenal, really phenomenal.

Speaker 1 (03:49:36):
And I started getting this, Oh.

Speaker 8 (03:49:38):
My god, I'm on this CD disc and I could
do anything I want within the CD disc and there's
a a trillion, billion, trillion ways that I could turn
my life.

Speaker 1 (03:49:47):
But with free will, I have to take the responsibilities
for my action. So I mean, I have to be
a grown up. Right. So the situation that I'm in
I called somehow some way I CAUs situation that I'm in.
The good news is I can change that situation any
time I want, and I did. So. What he did

(03:50:08):
is he had me put down work, and he said,
I want you to design your perfect job.

Speaker 8 (03:50:15):
Now I'm an airline captain, flying eleven days a month,
making a lot of money, throwing up.

Speaker 1 (03:50:22):
Every time I gotta go to work. I hated it.

Speaker 8 (03:50:26):
I found out I didn't like flying airplines. I'm not
too good as the captain of an airline. I think
you wouldn't want me up front, right.

Speaker 1 (03:50:34):
I didn't like it. I didn't say that I hated it. Right,
But when everyone starts to calling you crazy, you call them.
Your mother said, are you crazy? You're crazy? Do you
want to leave?

Speaker 8 (03:50:43):
And I stayed in there until I just couldn't take
it anymore. Then I just retired because I had enough years,
because I got out very young. But when I did that,
he said, you need to believe, and you need to
love yourself enough to believe that this will come.

Speaker 1 (03:50:57):
Be patient, mister add.

Speaker 8 (03:51:00):
Be patient, but this will come, and you work towards this.
Some of the things I wrote down was teaching. I
wrote down helping others I wrote down international speaker, right,
I wrote down.

Speaker 1 (03:51:17):
I wrote down I wanted to live in Washington. I
wrote down, I wanted to be self employed with employees.
I got a little carried away with employees. I got
a thousand of them now, but whatever. And then I
went down the whole list.

Speaker 8 (03:51:39):
And do you know, about a year ago, I was
in Singapore speaking at the Entrepreneur Organization International Debt in Singapore,
and I was about two thousands of people were.

Speaker 1 (03:51:49):
There, and I'm up on stage and I'm doing my gig,
you know, backflips. Many people laugh, and I stopped. And
it seemed like about nine hours but adds by five second.
And I looked at everybody and I said, oh my god,
that was the last thing that I had.

Speaker 9 (03:52:07):
And it was done.

Speaker 8 (03:52:08):
I hid the achieve all ten Okay. The next thing
I did is he had me right out from the
love of my life right, And I wrote, out, of course,
it's funny when I have women do it.

Speaker 1 (03:52:20):
And when I'm like, I did it. The guys are
the top four is look right, always top boys. Luck.
The women the top four is sensitivity. It's just so,
it's beautiful, it's really beautiful. Mine was the luck right,
and I wrote the top ten town. One of the

(03:52:42):
things I did not want was the first thing that
I desired to have children. I didn't want that because
I had two kids, right, and I was afraid it
would take away from my children, and I didn't want that.
So my wife was nine out of ten. She's actually
ten out of ten because Hermer's son, my Menimenie is
five and seventeen. Were like this, he's just the best
kid in the world. He's a really cool kid.

Speaker 8 (03:53:04):
And so my wife is ten out of ten. Now
what I would do is I would take this and
I would hang up on the mirror, and then I
would rate the person.

Speaker 1 (03:53:12):
That I was seeing at the time after about thirty.

Speaker 8 (03:53:15):
Days, because we're always on our best day here for
the first thirty days. Like you ever made a jerk
in a week? Well, I hope not right, but so
one of the best behaviors. Then if it didn't reach
up to at least a six out of the tent,
then I would love and leak out to them saying,
I really don't think this is going anywhere unless you
just want to hang out.

Speaker 1 (03:53:34):
I I'm good, right, but some dancing and they'll change
me in which he doesn't. But when I met my wife,
it was it was just it was unbelievable. It was unbelievable.
She was right off the boat Italy. She was European.
I met her on my airplane when she was going
to Rome, and she didn't give me a cellphone ever.

(03:53:55):
And three years later I was doing a deal of
financing this IT cap and he in Washington, DC, and
I told her I needed it. I told him I
needed to talk to some of his employees, and she
came walking in.

Speaker 8 (03:54:06):
She had moved to America and she saw a picture
of me in my pilot uniform on the wall in
an aeroplane.

Speaker 1 (03:54:12):
She looked at me, and I'm looking at her, and
I'm like, you know, everyone's going they're talking like this
and numbers are flatting. I'm hearing why why my why,
And I'm just like staring at her, and I'm like,
where have I seen you before? Because she had been
up to my cockpit because my flight attendant pulled a
prank on me when I said that chicken ha, and
she sent her up in a flight teck. Back then,
you could do that withouout being a shock.

Speaker 8 (03:54:34):
So I told her to every boy stopping round unless
you give me your telephone numbers.

Speaker 1 (03:54:37):
She smiled and walk away, and they were like, yeah,
d got what happened. I hear to speak English. She's like,
I just talking to her. She's bes grating, so whatever.
She looked and she goes, I'm like, oh, capitano, I'm
going to be Italian asked, and I was just like,
I'm like miss Elly.

Speaker 8 (03:54:57):
And it was funny becau because at the same time
I fought my my my, my financial officer.

Speaker 25 (03:55:05):
Chief financial officer was saying, well, we're not going to
fund that company. At the same time, I'm like, well,
we're funding that company. He's like no, no, no, no, no, no,
We're not funding that company. I'm like, no, no, no, no,
no no, we are funding that company.

Speaker 1 (03:55:17):
He says they'll be out of business in one hundred
and twenty days. I'm like no, probably ninety. And he's like,
you're acting the guinea and I'm like you're And I
funded the company and they went I was business in
ninety days. And so I told my wife come work
for me. She's like, what are you doing. I'm like,
I don't know what, We'll figure time out.

Speaker 8 (03:55:34):
Yeah, she's being with us ever since, and we work
together and hang out together and prey meditate together, and.

Speaker 1 (03:55:39):
We work out together.

Speaker 8 (03:55:41):
You know, it's it's it's an unbelievable, unbelievable relationship, unbelievable relationship.

Speaker 1 (03:55:46):
If you can go from love to adoring, it's it's
a totally different level. And so so what I did
is I put it up on the wall, and when
I met her.

Speaker 2 (03:55:54):
I took it down.

Speaker 1 (03:55:55):
So I said, this is it. This is the one
she's ten out of company.

Speaker 8 (03:55:58):
So what I would like you to do, if you
would for me, just for a little while, we could
put on some meditation music or whatever.

Speaker 1 (03:56:05):
That's doesn't sound that's good idea. And I want you
to fill out piece too. And I really want you
to be honest. You know, if it's the lucky you want,
you know, the tiny little, the big little, the butt
ben to the butt, that's fine, whatever, We're not gonna judge.

Speaker 8 (03:56:21):
I just want you to fill out the person you
want to fall in love with, the perfect husband.

Speaker 1 (03:56:26):
And then I want you to fill out the perfect job.
You know, feel it, touch it? What office is it?
In my office?

Speaker 8 (03:56:34):
I remember I'm into history, like Chris. I'm wanting my
office to be really cool. My office is Thomas Jefferson's library.
Thomas Jefferson was our third.

Speaker 1 (03:56:43):
President in the United States. How cool is that? And
I've had that since two thousand. So I want you
to feel it. What are your employees look like? What
is it is? Where are you living? Are you living
here or you know? And you want to keep your
skin beautiful because if you want to sign it, I
just take that out loud out for three months or

(03:57:04):
five months like my friends Jim.

Speaker 3 (03:57:06):
But I want you.

Speaker 1 (03:57:07):
I want you to do the work I really do,
and then I want you to do the love. Now
when you do the love, I don't want you to
judge yourself. I really don't want you to judge yourself.

Speaker 8 (03:57:17):
Okay, I want you to chest mark if you are
with somebody, just you don't have to do it now.
You can do a labor but mark if they're if
they're a part of that, all right. So I found
out that when I was with my when I was
when I was with my wife first wife, I married.

Speaker 1 (03:57:35):
A flight attendant. And I tell you that. Imagine that
I married a flood attendant. She's my dearest friend. She's
my dearest friend.

Speaker 8 (03:57:40):
And our kids are so healthy and her and I
just celebrated my son's graduation.

Speaker 1 (03:57:45):
She comes to all my openings of new stuff that.

Speaker 3 (03:57:48):
I do, and she was two out of ten.

Speaker 1 (03:57:53):
She was two out of ten. But she's my best friend,
she's a great friend. But she was two out of ten.
My wife today is ten out of ten. Totally different,
totally different level. Okay, so I want you to start
doing this. Is it ready? Go

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Chris S. and Doug M. - AA Speakers - How the Twelve Steps Treat Addictive Illness NEW 2013

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Chris S. and Doug M. - AA Speakers - How the Twelve Steps Treat Addictive Illness NEW 2013