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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 858 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: gordon-f-twelve-steps-and-spiritual-recovery-ca-1993-archive-858.mp3 Duration: 00:57:01
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My name's Gordon F. and I'm an addict. I bring you greetings from the Southern California section of Cocaine Anonymous, with best wishes for a successful and enlightening convention. On a more personal note, I would like to thank the convention committee for having the temerity to select me, the very least of my brethren, for the honor of sharing with you this morning. I am grateful. There are many people in this fellowship who have struggled and suffered with me as I meandered my way for many years in and out of this great program, and I would like to suggest to you that my presence before you this morning is merely a combination of the power of this program and the blessings from their many nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.
I am indeed grateful. As I said before, I am an addict. My name is Gordon F.. For me, ladies and gentlemen, my addiction is a fact. It is a fact of which I am neither proud nor ashamed. That's just the way it is, and I have learned through the principles of this program to approach that fact the way I approach the fact that today is Sunday, and there's nothing I can do about it except to try in my own humble way to make today the best Sunday that I can within the confines of my human limitations in the same manner I approach my life as an addict and try to live the best life that I can within the confines of my addiction.
And for me and for you, those confines are only two, just two. I cannot drink and I cannot use, and it seems to me that for reasons which have escaped me lo these many years, when I do not drink and I do not use, my life gets better. And I would like to suggest to any nonbelievers with us this morning, trust me on this, if you too do not drink and do not use, your life will get better in spite of you.
But I don't want to mislead you, ladies and gentlemen. That's not always the way it was for me. I spent a number of years trying to deny the fact that I was an addict, and when my life became so unmanageable that I could no longer deny that fact, I spent the next several years trying to hide that fact from you. And as a direct result of my inability to accept the fact of my addiction and to do the kinds of things necessary to deal with that fact, I was destined, as perhaps many of you in this room have been destined, to come in and out and in and out of this great program with such frightening frequency that I began to believe in the very fiber of my being that there was no hope for me.
Truly, as I stand here before you this morning, I really, honestly, and truly believe that I would never die. I was one of those people in this program who just could not get ninety days, and I couldn't get ninety days. There was something magical about ninety. And one day I hit upon a plan. I had eighty-nine days, and I took a ninety-day chip. Next day I was loaded. Next day I was loaded, I just could not get ninety days.
And I thought about my condition, and you know how we addicts think when we're loaded. And it seemed to me that perhaps, just perhaps, I thought God had selected me to be an example of what happens to the addict who does not find recovery. And I accepted that fact. And I said to myself, if this is the way God wants it, then this is the way it will be. I will be the finest example of an addict that the world has ever seen.
I will do God's will. And I began to use with a vengeance. I remember very well one night—you know how you get to the point where you can't get loaded anymore, but you keep using and using and using. And from time to time my head began to tell me, maybe, gorgeous, maybe this is it.
[00:05:04]
And I said, if this is the way I'm going to go out, what I ought to do is write my epitaph so that those that come after me can have some idea of what I was about. And I will share that with you. When I die, don't cry at all, just rinse my pipe with alcohol, put two rocks between my head, and tell my dealer I'm going to bed. And I thought that was very heavy. I thought the generations yet unborn would read my shit and just knew how heavy I was if it was a coconut.
But as happens to most of us, just as I had become comfortable with that kind of existence, just as I had lost the trust of kind friends, just as I had lost the love and affection of a family that had enabled me damn near to their last penny, and I had lost the respect of my colleagues, just when, ladies and gentlemen, I had been down so long that it began to look like up to me, just then, my time came.
My time came. Now, I don't want to mislead you, ladies and gentlemen. I don't know any more about this disease than you do. I'm an addict just like you, trying to work the 12 steps of recovery just like you, trying to be the best human being I can be just like you, without the use of drugs. But I believe this out of my experiences in this program. I believe that there comes a time for each of us and there comes a time for all of us when the pain and the suffering and the humiliation and the degradation becomes so great that God in his mercy looks down on us and says, enough, my brother, enough, no more.
And those of us who are given the grace to hear that message come through the doors of this fellowship and find a seat and get comfortable and never have to leave again. And those of us who have ears to hear and will not hear are destined to drink again and use again and hit the pipe again and snort again, and some of us will die. That is the natural history of this disease. And I had come to the point where it seemed to me that death was the better alternative.
Don't misunderstand me, ladies and gentlemen. When I speak of death, I do not speak of physical death. I speak of what my experiences in this program have come to lead me to call lingering death. In my city, you see it all the time, pushing those carts from one place to another and never coming to rest. You know what I'm talking about, waking up in the morning and having the sun hit you in the face and say, oh God, not another day, please.
I speak of knocking on doors that used to welcome you and not finding them open. You know how they do, especially in L.A., they look through the shutters, they say, man, it's you again, I told you not to come back, boom. I speak of making calls and getting those recordings and nobody responding. Not knowing from day to day when you would eat, where you would eat, how you would eat, and in some cases, who you would eat.
That's the kind of death of which I speak, lingering death. And I thought for a very, very long time it would be nicer if I would just put the trigger to my head and pull the gun and let me go and let you worry about my shit. I thought I was the lesser of the two evils. I just didn't have the balls to do it, I just didn't. So I continued in that kind of decadence until my time came. But it came in a kind of way that I wasn't too pleased with.
I was sitting up in what by now had become one of my favorite resorts. I was laying out there in the care unit for Orange County. I was one of those people, any time it got too hot, I would find a recovery house or a care unit or a halfway house and go, you know how we do, do my 28 days, read a big book 12 and 12, delude myself and my counselors that I got this thing, say the right slogans, work your steps or die, live and let live, one day at a time, do the right kind of sharing.
I got a God in my life today. And all this time deluding myself and my counselors that I had this thing.
[00:10:00]
And I would be discharged. And unbeknownst to me, while I was in these units, somebody would put a governor on my car and I would get in my car, trust me, I rarely tried to go home, but my car would take me straight to the man. And you know how we are when you've just finished a program, you're full of recovery and you want to convert the world, and I would go to the dealer, tell them a little bit about recovery.
And I would arrive on a Friday and wake up on a Tuesday and wonder what happened. Instead of me teaching them a lesson, they had taught me a lesson. And there I was, starting all over again. And after going through this over and over and over and over again, a decision was made by the powers that be that something should be done for me, and that I should be sent to a long-term recovery center. And the decision was made that I should go to a concentration camp in southern Pasadena that masquerades as a recovery house.
And it is called Impact House. And I would like to confess to you in all honesty and sincerity that I stand before you today clean and sober, wholly and solely, because Impact had a tremendous impact on my life. That's why I'm here. Let me back up very quickly and tell you how I got here so we can find some common ground for what I have to say next. I come from a small British colonial possession on the South American coast, and I was given the opportunity at a very early age to come to this country to challenge the academic system.
I was fortunate. I was blessed with a small degree of academic talent, and I was able to negotiate the system rather successfully. I did all the things you would like your children to do—prep school, college, medical school. Came back to New York at Columbia University, where I did a residency in obstetrics and was selected to come out to Southern California to study under a very famous man who is now dead, so I'll break his anonymity, a man named Jim Nolan, who was then the professor of gynecologic and oncology at USC.
I came out, spent a couple of years with Jim, learned the tricks of the trade, and decided to go make a living. And make a living I did, if you measure making a living by the toys that one accumulates along the way. I was married to the right kind of woman, lived in the right kind of house, overlooking the right kind of hill, my four-car barrage was people to cars of the correct German extraction. My children were back east in the same schools I had attended, performing with some distinction.
And if you asked me in those days how I was doing, I would tell you, I was doing very well. As a matter of fact, I would tell you I was doing very well whether you asked me or not. I was one of them kind of people. And while I was meandering along my merry way, getting and spending, conquering and taking names, it happened. It happened. I'm going to spare you the gory details, it still sets shins up and down my spine when I think about it.
I made a clinical error in judging the operating table, and because of my ego, I refused to call for help. And what started off as a small error became a large error, and the large error became a monstrous error, and that monstrous error led to a massive malpractice. Initially I thought I was upset because they were coming to take my toys away. But later on I discovered that the problem was that God had made a mistake, and my ego could not stand it.
Up until this time, I had not touched a drink, smoked a joint, I had not used up to this time in my life. But what I did not know then, that I've come to discover now, was in the head I was an addict. Ladies and gentlemen, what I'm trying to suggest to you, it is not the using or the drinking, it is the thinking that primarily makes you an addict. There are people who take a head off a joint and go home and have no problem.
You and me, we got to stay until it's done. You see people in a bar all the time. You wonder where they're going. Half the drink is still in the glass and they're leaving. What the hell's going on?
[00:15:04]
Now you and me, it's got to be finished before we leave. But in my own case, you see, my father was an alcoholic. And from watching this good man become a terrible man after a drink or two, from watching this kind man become a cruel man, from watching this honest man become a beast after a drink or two, I elected very early in my life not to drink. And did not drink for the first 45 years of my life.
But my actions, my thinking, my behavior was like that of a man. Deep down inside, in spite of all my academic accomplishments, I really felt that if you knew who I was, you wouldn't give a shit about me. So to compensate for that, I became this arrogant, obnoxious son of a bitch. Ladies and gentlemen, what I'm suggesting to you is that at its very base, at its very base, the disease of addiction is one of low self-esteem.
And the drink and the drug helps us to hide that low self-esteem temporarily, though it may be. And when I had encountered my problem, I couldn't sleep. I could not sleep. You wouldn't sleep too if you had my problems, would you? And one of the things that doctors do very well, we know how to put people to sleep. That's not a problem. So I would put myself to sleep with some second oils. I'd start off with a mild dose, two or three, end up with a large dose, a couple of dozen at a time.
But when you wake up in the morning, you're a little groggy, and you can't function. So you need some speed to get you going. But sometimes you're going so fast, man, you've got to slow down. So you need some valiums to slow you down. And in the midst of all this polypharmacology, a friend of mine—female, of course—suggested that she knew just one drug, just one drug, that would keep me mellow all day long. Ladies and gentlemen, here comes the pipe.
If you go to lots and lots of meetings as I go to, you will hear people describe all kinds of encounters with all kinds of drugs. Trust me on this. The moment they mention the pipe, you know the story's coming to an end. You will hear some people share that when they first hit the pipe, they did not like it. It upset their stomach, they vomited, but because of the company they were in, they continued, that was not the case with me. It was love at first hit. I loved everything about the drug. I liked the ambiance, I liked the ritual, everything about it. I loved cocaine.
But by the same token, I stand here before you to tell you, it is the saddest case of unrequited love you've ever heard in your life. Cocaine did not love me. And if any of you gentlemen have had the experience in your life of loving a woman who didn't give a shit about you, you can relate to the way I felt about cocaine. And I was destined to chase that drug all over the world, all over the world, trying to reclaim my lost love.
As a result of this, of course, the downward spiral became very, very rapid. And laying up there in the care units for the umpteenth time, the medical board decided that they were tired of me and my shenanigans. They'd given me enough breaks. This was the end. I had to go to a long-term recovery center, or I would lose my license to practice and be expelled permanently from the medical profession. The place that's elected to me, as I told you, is this place, Impact in Southern Pasadena.
Now, I checked Impact out, man, and it wasn't my kind of place. It wasn't my kind of place. I did not object to the fact that, you know, they didn't have a weight room, they didn't have a tennis court, they didn't have a, I mean, not even a little eight-hole, I mean, nothing. What I objected to most is I'm from Los Angeles, and I had never copped in
[00:20:00]
Southern Pasadena. And I was not about to go to Southern Pasadena for six months, you know, knowing what they were smoking up there. That was not my thing. I mean, every recovery house I went to, they had to have something. And here they were telling me, I said, no, no, no, no, no. But then when they came with the alternative of losing my license, I said, well, maybe I'll give it a shot. And I went to Impact. I am fond of saying that I was given the grace to go to Impact because, left to my own devices, I would not have gone there.
It was the first intervention of many in my stay at Impact, in which a higher power guided me to a place where at least I could make a fledgling attempt at recovery. Now, I don't mean to suggest that there's something magical going on at Impact, far from it. But they taught me there a lesson that has escaped me for a number of years, and I will share it with you. They taught me at Impact that regardless of who you are or who you think you are, regardless of whence you have come or whether you think you are going, an addict is an addict is an addict. And the way to recovery for all of us, no exceptions, is through the 12 steps of this program. Nothing else works. James Dillard F. said it another way, could we would see the pattern of our days, we would discern how devious were the ways by which we came to this, our present time. We would forget the hurts, the wonderings, the fears, and know that we could grow no other way or come to our own good, save by these steps we find so hard to take. You know, I thought for a very long time when I would come here and sit where you now sit and listen to a speaker such as myself, and I would say, my name is Gordon F., I'm an addict, I thought, I really honestly thought I was doing something about the first step, but I was not. What I later discovered I was doing is doing what I thought you wanted me to do, so I would make you think that I was one of you.
In other words, I thought I was complying with what the requirements for admission to this program was. Ladies and gentlemen, the first step is not a step of compliance. The first step is a step of surrender. There is a subtle but very critical and very important difference between compliance and surrender. When you comply, you do it to please them. When you surrender, you do it to please you, and you don't give a shit what they think.
Funny thing about this program, funny thing about this program, you get whatever you come here for, nothing more, nothing less. If you come here to keep your job, trust me, you will keep your job. If you come here to beat a case, you will beat that case, I know. If you come here to get your wife back, you will get your wife back. If you come here to get your children back, you will get your children back, but none of that will keep you clean, and the reason it will not keep you clean is because after you get what you think you have come here for, school's out, you've graduated, you're like a ship cut loose from its moorings, and there you go, there you go, there you go, and it happens very subtly. You're satisfied, you're too busy to go to meetings, you've got to go home to your old lady, you're too busy to be of service, you've got to go take the kids to a baseball game, and you forget the things that brought you here and kept you here, and there you go. And the reason for that is somewhere in the process, you forget that sobriety is your number one priority. I am one of those people in this program who have slipped many, many, many times, and every time I have slipped, not that I look back at it, is because I failed on that day, at that moment, at that time, to take an honest first step. Ladies and gentlemen, what I'm suggesting to you is that if you honestly believe that you are powerless over a drug, if you honestly believe that you are powerless, you will not take that drug.
If you were in this building right now, and you did not believe that you were fireproof, and this building started burning, you'll get the hell out of here, I don't care who you are. If you know you cannot swim, you will not jump off the deep end of that swimming pool out there,
[00:25:03]
you won't do it. What I'm suggesting is that every time you slip, it's because you think somewhere, somehow, maybe, perhaps, you've got a little power, so that you can control it. Lack of power is our dilemma. I do not care how many newcomers you take to meetings, I do not care how many amends you make, I do not care how hard you pray, if you do not take an honest, sincere, and thorough first step, nothing happens.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with what? The first step. And if you do not make an honest first step, nothing else happens in this program, because the time will come when you will not have what? Any spiritual resistance, the power to resist. We are powerless, we are without power. When I was at Impact, they told me to find a power greater than myself to restore me to sanity. And being the addict as I was, I elected to do it the easy way. I looked around, and I decided exactly what they wanted me to do. And I noticed that there at Impact, they will tell you when to go to bed and when to wake up. They'll tell you when to eat. They'll tell you when to sleep. They'll tell you when to take a shower. You can't go to the bathroom at Impact without getting permission. Now that's as high as your power can get. So I decided that what I would do is make Impact my higher power, and I would do every single thing they asked me to do with meticulous detail. And after I was going on with that regime for about three months, they called me and they said, Doc, we got a problem. I said, what the hell are you talking about? What kind of problem you got? You tell me one goddamn thing you've asked me to do since I've been here I haven't done. They said, Doc, that is precisely the problem. Your shit is too clean. What I did not know then that I had come to learn is that every single member at that time of the staff of Impact had been through Impact. What this does for me, unfortunately, it takes the sleaze away, because the moment you think something, they're already diagnosed it, because they've been there. And they began to explain to me the ways in which I was complying rather than surrendering to the program. And I listened to them very, very carefully, and then they told me that one of the things I needed to do was to make a decision, turn my will and my life over to the care of God, as I understood it. Let me spend a little time with that for you, because this has been a very, very critical step in my recovery.
First of all, let me deal with the decision. Watch me carefully. I just made a decision to pick that piece of paper up. Nothing has happened. Okay, watch me again. I just made another decision to pick that piece of paper up. Nothing has happened. Watch this. I have just picked that piece of paper up. This, ladies and gentlemen, demonstrates what, for me, is the most fundamental aspect of this program.
Faith without works is dead. The decisions you make are of no importance unless you do the kinds of things consistent with those decisions. What you believe is of no importance unless you do the kinds of things consistent with that belief. Let me give you my most favorite example. All of us in this room believe that red lights are there for us to stop. There is nobody here who does not believe that a red light is not there for us to stop, yet from time to time, depending upon the hour of the night and the urgency of the situation, you approach that light. Your belief has not changed. Here you come. You come to the light. You look to right. Your belief has not changed. And there you go, easing past that light. What you believe is of no importance unless you do the kinds of things consistent with that belief. But I had a greater problem than making the decision.
When I got here, God and I had some serious quarrels. Very, very serious quarrels. I come from a small British colonial country where I've seen God used as an instrument of oppression and conquest and subjugation. There's a song we used to sing in the old country, the missionaries came with the Bible in their hand, now we got the Bible and they got the land.
[00:30:02]
And I saw God as a youngster growing up, as somebody who would come and take your shit and give it to the masses. and you got to get on your knees and beg him to give it back to you. I decided very early that this is the way God operates and I wanted no part of it. And God and I got along fine for 45 years, until I came to this program. And I saw a truly amazing thing, a truly amazing phenomenon. I saw whites getting clean and sober, blacks getting clean and sober.
I saw Christians getting clean and sober and Jews getting clean and sober. I saw Buddhists and Muslims getting clean and sober in this program. I saw agnostics and atheists getting clean and sober. I said, wait a minute, God, what's going on? And it occurred to me as I began to ponder this question, that my grandmother was in fact correct. I don't know if any of you had one of those grandmothers, when you're young you think she's crazy, and when you get older you think she's a prophet.
Everything she says comes true. Boy, you'd better go to jail. Look out, I had one of those grandmothers. And my grandmother used to say, in God there is no east or west, in Him no north or south, but one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth. And it occurred to me that if God did in fact exist anywhere on this earth, He existed right here in these rooms, in this fellowship, because this is where love is.
Because this is where love is. I found people in these rooms who were willing to do for me things I wouldn't do for myself. And as I began to play with this, it seemed to me that the best way to approach my understanding and knowledge of God is to take what my grandmother used to say, God is love. And I would like to suggest to you that if you approach your daily lives with the spirit of loving kindness, by definition, ladies and gentlemen, you will be doing God's work.
And as I began to do this, my life, in fact, became more comfortable. And I don't know why that is. And right as I was enjoying myself already, they called me in again. I said, yeah. They said, Doc, we're very pleased with what you've been doing so far, but you've got to do a fourth step. I began to explain to them, I said, you know, I have no problem with doing a fourth step, but you have to assure me that what I'm going to write is not going to get into the hands of a Mount Sacrifice attorney, or the IRS, or the Franchise Tax Board, or my wife, for that matter.
I can't be writing this kind of stuff with me. You've got to assure me. Needless to say, they paid no attention to what I said, and pointed out to me that I had 30 days to complete a fourth step or pack my bag. By this time, the recovery buzz was beginning. And I began to believe that my life would be better, even if all my shit were exposed. Then to go back to music, so I dipped a bullet and decided to write this stuff.
If you go to many step study meetings as I do, you will hear a number of pseudo-intellectuals like myself in this program asking the question, why do a fourth and fifth? And they will ask the question the way I used to ask it. I could see how admitting I was powerless and my life was unmanageable could help my recovery. I could see how finding a higher power and turning my will and my life over to the fear of God.
But I could not see how telling somebody my own personal private business would help me to recover. I couldn't see it. Let me help you to see it the way I came around to see it. The best explanation of doing a fourth and fifth comes from an old song which was popular when I was a young man. This means before most of you were born. And I will share it with you. Once I had a secret love that lived within the heart of me.
All too soon that secret love became impatient to be free. So I told a friendly star the way that lovers oft times do just how wonderful you are and why I am so in love with you. And this is the release you get when you do it. Now I shouted from the highest hills even till the golden daffodils at last. My heart's an open door
[00:35:01]
and my secret love is no secret anymore. Ladies and gentlemen I am suggesting to you that you do a fourth and fifth to disembowel yourself of the secrets. And when you have no more secrets you have nothing to fear. When you do a fourth and an honest fifth you get rid of all the hurt, the fear, the pain, and the resentment. Our resentment will get exploded. But there is another more compelling reason to do a fourth and fifth.
I have come to believe out of my experiences in this program that if you do not do an honest and thorough fourth you will take a fifth or something somewhere somehow. When you look in the mirror for example when I look in the mirror I see what this computer is telling me is in the mirror. And from time to time there may be a significant difference between what this tells me is there and what is really there.
In my own case for example depending upon the occasion of where I'm going from time to time I see a full head of hair when I look in the mirror. I need another pair of eyes a response to say no my brother that's just a reflection from the mirror. There ain't no mirror there. And this is why you need to take your fourth step to your sponsor and read it to him or her so he or she can say man you ain't no bad son of a bitch you are just a punk that's all.
Can you imagine the ego deflation of an arrogant son of a bitch like me for my sponsor to tell me you know you know when I came to this program I have been mistakenly believed that I was a kind of half-willed cross-buckling kind of you know Casanova type. And after he read after he read my poem he said man you were just a high-priced prick that's all. I'm suggesting to you that the ego deflation that goes with doing an honest poetry brings you back down to earth back on solid ground so that you can continue so that you can continue with the rest of your program.
In the 6th and 7th steps we call upon to have the willingness to deal with our character detection for the time. In the 7th and 12th we see the 6th step is the step that separates the men from the boys. It is the bridge that moves us in dealing with the disease and dealing with ourselves. For the first time in the program we call upon not to look outward but to look inward. A lot of people debate the difference between character defect and shortcomings.
I don't know the difference but I can tell you this. Both constitute unacceptable antisocial behavior. But in order to deal with this unacceptable antisocial behavior we have to pray for willingness. What is willingness? Very simply put willingness is the desire to do what ought to be done when it ought to be done whether you like it or not. You see a lot of people say you know I'm willing but my sponsor wants me to go up there man I'm not an inch and eye person I can't go up there.
If you are not ready then by definition you are not willing. And I don't mean to suggest that we come into this program brimful of willingness. That's not our style. Both of us come here because somebody has little pie and it's rare of our anatomy and robes here. I don't know any self-respecting addict who's still got a pocket full of money who said let me go to Coke and Anonymous and relax for a couple of minutes man and see what happens.
Oh no. We don't operate that way. By the time we get there we are driven by some external forces. So willingness comes hard to us. But as the president said it is in you. And it's a gradual process. And I don't want you to start beating yourself up because after you think you've taken the 6th and 7th you're not perfect right away. Happily for you
[00:40:00]
and happily for me this is a program of what? Progress. Not perfection. And regardless of how much time you have regardless of how high you go, regardless of how many cups of coffee you wash regardless of how many meetings you set up you cannot rise above the level of a human being in this program. In the 8th and 9th steps we called upon to make amends. It seems to me that amends involve much, much more than a mere apology.
I'm sorry it gets old among us. When you look at the number of times, I mean we're always sorry when we wake up the next day. An amendment is not only an apology but it carries also the proviso that we will try as best we can not to do the same kinds of things again. But that's not simple. In order not to do the kinds of things again, we have to be careful not to find ourselves in a position that leads us to those kinds of things.
You know, a guy who has an ex-wife that he's angry with and he tells me he has to go over there to check, he has to go check. I said, brother, you I don't recommend it. That's why you have to use the post office. Because I know by the time he gets over there and hands over the check, it's too late. Character defects are jumping off by the time he rings that doorbell. Nothing he can do. So not only must we make apologies to avoid having the same things happen, but we also have to be careful to keep ourselves out of the way of doing the kinds of things that in a very simple way lead us there.
You know, the classic example is you go to a party and everybody's partying and you see everybody making a beeline for the bathroom. Uh-oh. Now you know damn well what's going on. Now if you're going to work the 8th and 9th, 6th and 7th, you're going to say, thank you for having me here, bye. But if you still want to see whether you have some power, step one, you will stay around and watch everybody coming out.
And eventually, you know what will happen? You will move from a position of power to a position of powerlessness. Look out, there goes your time. The 10th step is a very, very powerful step for us in our recovery. We call this the prescription for daily living. When I first got clean, I misinterpreted the 10th step. It says, when I was wrong, I was promptly admitted. I thought it said, when you were wrong, I was promptly admitted.
Man, I was running around telling people how wrong they were and what they should do and how to get in line and after I discovered that I was using up my apprentices very rapidly, my sponsor pointed out to me. And then I went in the other direction. I was apologizing for everything. Shit, I didn't even do what I was apologizing for. And my sponsor pointed out to me that the 10th step is not a step of redeeming.
When you are wrong, the 10th step asks you to take a clear look at your partner and apologize to your partner. And do the kinds of things to prevent you from getting into that situation again. The 10th step does not mean that every time something happens, you must bend over and have them whack you in the behind and you must become a martyr. The 10th step is not a step of redeeming. You have to be careful.
Sometimes you're on the job and it's obnoxious. As a matter of fact, most people in the workplace, they don't care how much time you have. They don't care what kind of program you work in. They are drunk with the wine of the world and they don't love you, so the onus is on you to protect yourself and to avoid being in the way, developing the kinds of situations that force you to take the 10th step.
Not easy. But if you are to work this program start to live happy and contented lives. This is what will happen. And lots of people ask, what are the benefits I get from doing all this? The benefits go far beyond not drinking and using. Ladies and gentlemen, what I'm suggesting to you is what we have here in this program is not a clever device to stop addicts like you and me from using it.
[00:45:04]
What we have here is a means of helping us to change our behavior so that as we tread this road of happy destiny, drinking and using is no longer an option. The same damn things happen every day, whether you load it or not. But for you and me with a program, we have come to learn that using is no longer an option because we have a program. That's what this thing is about. It is possible to not drink and use for years and years and years without a program.
You still do this all the time, but they're crazy and part of the system. And the difference between those people and us is that we worked the steps of this program and we were able to bring some sanity into our lives. The eleventh step has always been for me a very, very powerful step—prayer, meditation, knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out. Let me give a prayer first of all.
It seemed to me when I was playing with this program that if you went to the gym every single day and cooked up some rice, every single day, whether you knew anything about physical development, just every day, you would become buff. That's the physical law. There's nothing you can do about that. And it seems to me in the same way you got on your knees every single day, every single day, and prayed.
And when you got off your knees, you tried to do the kinds of things and live a life consistent with what you pray for every day, something will happen. I don't know what it is, but something will happen. And when you get off your knees and go to places where you know, ladies and gentlemen, you know that whatever goes down that day, you can deal with it. They sell themselves so beautifully. The value of prayer makes us know that we are not alone.
I'm not good on meditation, because when I try to meditate, it completely keeps running on me. And what I've learned since I've been in this program is I close my eyes, keep a nice quiet place. It doesn't have to be any special place. And I imagine that there's a big sea, and on that sea there's an island, and on that island there's an altar, and on that altar burns a flame. And I see myself swimming ashore, going to that altar, and standing before that altar, and having that flame burn all the impurities of my life away.
And when that flame has burnt my impurities away, in my meditative mood, I find power in my purpose, reason for my being, and strength for whatever actions I may choose to do that day. But in order for this thing to work, it has to be done regularly and honestly. People ask all the time, how do I know my will from God's will? And I don't know. But I will tell you this. What is happening right now is God's will.
Because you are here, this is God's will. And anybody who is here who wants to be out there is very uncomfortable. You're saying to yourself, I wish that somebody would shut up so I can go out there. So I have learned that the difference between my will and God's will is the degree of discomfort that I have in any situation. Anybody who is here who does not want to be here, trust me, is very uncomfortable.
So the simple yardstick that I use to measure whether it's my will or God's will is how uncomfortable I am about going to do whatever I'm going to do. And it seems to me that the whole crux of human existence is to bring God's will to my will so that I'm able to accept whatever is going down. The big book says acceptance is the answer to all our problems today, but I'm here to tell you because of that.
Some shit's going down that I'm not happy with. And the key is to try to be able to accept the things you cannot accept. The 12th step for me in my own personal program has always been a very, very difficult step. I was explaining to a few of the brothers this morning that one of the things that has always bothered me about this 12th step is because I had difficulty trying to explain something to a brother who I know was not interested in what I was talking about.
He wanted a place to stay, a couple of bucks in his pocket for me to get out of his face. And my early 12th step work really disillusioned me, really disillusioned me, because I really honestly and truly felt I could keep some people sober.
[00:50:02]
And when some of the people I was sponsoring went out, I said, oh God, this thing is not working. But I continue to do 12th step work for three reasons. One, if the people who 12th stepped me here had given up on me, not once, not twice, not three times, but over and over and over again, if they had given up on me any step of the way, I would not be here. Secondly, I believe, perhaps foolishly but rather sincerely, that there is a destiny that makes us brothers.
No man comes to this place alone. What you put into the lives of others somehow, somewhere, comes back into your own. I believe that. And thirdly, I do 12th step work because I'm an obstetrician. That's what I do. I deliver babies for a living. And from time to time, I get called to the hospital to see a teenager in the clothes of an arduous laborer. And you hear them, and you hit the parking lot, oh God, oh God.
And you go up there, and finally she delivers, and she looks at you, and she says, not again, doctor, not again, not again. And about 10, 12, 18 months later, you get called again. And sure as day, same teenager, same scene. And it occurred to me that if I could take all the teenagers I've ever delivered and take them to see, night by night, to visit the various hospitals, to see their colleagues in the clothes of this kind of arduous laborer, I really believe that the next time the brother approached him, he says, pardon me, sir, do you have a condom?
I believe that. What I'm suggesting to you that the greatest value for 12th step work for me is that it brings me face to face with my disease on a daily basis, and it lets me see the ravages of this disease, and lets me know in a very real way, I don't want to go back there any day. Billy Joel put it another way, to paraphrase him, I don't care what consequence it brings, I have been a fool for lesser things.
I want it so bad, I think you ought to know that I intend to stay here for a long, long time. And it seems to me that if you find your own humble way to work these 12th steps, you'll get what the book describes as a spiritual awakening. And the spiritual awakening for me is very simple. It's the difference between being drunk and being sober. It's the difference between being clean and being loaded.
It's the difference between being rational and being irrational. It's the difference between being honest and being dishonest. I build Blue Cross once, and I take what they take. I build Medicare once, and I don't build a patient, I just take what they take. And that's very spiritual to me. And it seems to me that this is why the Father was very, very close to me. What would happen for you, would happen for me.
So that your life would be better. And this, really, is what this program is about. So that we can find that spiritual balance, so that our lives can get better. This program is not about not drinking and not using. But you can't get better if you're still drinking and using. So in order to get the spiritual awakening, you have to practice all 12. And the first one said, I'm one of the fortunate people in this program, for whom all the promises of this program have been true.
You know, when I came to this program, I thought I would never darken the doors of an operating room again. Man, I'd messed up so badly that I just knew. But I said, I'd come here and go through the motions, since I had nothing to lose, and I just couldn't have time to get sick. I'm happy to report to you that I'm one of those people for whom all the promises of this program have come true for me. Every single thing that I've lost through this disease, every single thing has been restored in the most wonderful and most remarkable way.
I live in the same house. I drive the same car. I'm married to the same woman. My children have grown up and graduated, and are doing well professionally. And I go to the hospital every single day. What I've come to realize as I look at this, is this is a gift. It has nothing to do with me. It is a gift. It is a gift from all of you. Because if when I had come here, you were not here to convince me that this shit worked, I would not have stayed, man.
[00:55:00]
I'm one of those guys who has to have proof. And for this, my patients thank you. My colleagues thank you. My children thank you. And most of all, I thank you. There's a pamphlet that makes the rounds of this program called A Memory's Eye View. I encourage you to read that pamphlet if you get your hands on it. To my mind, it is one of our finest pieces of literature. And in this pamphlet, the author, Thoas Yen, takes a biblical turn, and recounts when Herod was once again languishing in one, no, John the Baptist was once again languishing in one of Herod's prisons.
And he heard of the miracles that Jesus Christ was performing. And he sent two of his friends to check him out, to see what the hell was going on. And they came up to Jesus and saw the miracles that he was performing. And they speak upon him and they said, Are you the Messiah? Or shall we look for another? And Jesus did not answer that question directly. He said, Go and tell John what you have seen.
Tell John you have seen the blind see, and the lame walk, and the deaf hear, and the sick made well. And in like manner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to report to you that I have seen in and out of this program, through the longest day and into the darkest night, I have seen the lame walk in this program. I have seen the blind see. I have seen the deaf hear. And I've seen the sick made well. And I've seen the suffering addict who comes here with a willing heart and an open mind.
I have seen him find recovery. I know, ladies and gentlemen, I know, because I was that suffering addict. I thank you.