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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 871 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: harold-c-why-therapy-ca-1993-archive-871.mp3 Duration: 00:52:12
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It's real interesting about recovery for me, and as folks come into recovery, it becomes even more astounding that the belief is that all of our needs can be met in the Twelve Step Program, the belief is that clean and sober is enough, the belief is whatever I need to work on, my sponsor can help me do that, the belief is if I keep coming around and I keep doing what's suggested to me, things will get better and I can kind of go on with my life, well, those are some premises that I hope to work with today to show you that they are myths, that they are not real, and if you're not careful, they'll take you out, there has to be more than Twelve Step Fellowship, there must be more than your sponsor, there has to be more and essentially more than just being clean and sober, there has to be a center, there ain't no choice, there must be a center to begin with because I think inherently we're born with it, it just doesn't develop, it's called our spirituality, you know, you don't get it from a book, you know, you don't go buy it, you don't get it from your sponsor, you have it, it's a gift, it's been given, we choose not to use it, we choose not to use it because we make some other choices, what I'd like to do is we begin to move into this is to invite any dialogue, I certainly am not suggesting to have any answers, my role is to, to be honest, piss you off, make you think, challenge you, and make you really get another look at, not that we're doing anything wrong, I think sometimes we need to stand back and look from another view, from another angle, from another position in our life at the same thing and kind of see it differently, what I hope to be able to present to you, another view, or perhaps put another lens in the viewfinder that you're using and see something a little different, it's not lightning, it's not both, you know, there's no direct intervention, I think it's information we haven't found readily available so we kind of go over it and we don't investigate and we don't look at it, one of the things that I'd like to share with you first on is, I believe a lot of the things that we work on or certainly that I've worked on in my recovery has not really been negative consequences of my addiction, what they have been, I'm a liar, I steal, I cheat, I'm inconsistent, I'm not responsible, I don't take care of myself, I don't take care of my family, you can't depend on me, well in case you don't know, those are not negative consequences, that is very simply addiction, if I stop drinking and drugging, usually I won't have to lie, usually I'll manage my money right, usually my wife may or may not be okay with me, if I'm not drinking or drugging I'm usually on time for work, usually early, usually dependent, usually accountable for it, but all we have moved is the chemical and we believe that that's it, that's not even the beginning of the journey of recovery, remember the premise that recovering is a process, recovering means to change, it does not mean to stand still, if it was to find a spirituality or to find an answer that allows us to stand still, let me show you relapse, I'd like for you to do this with me if you can or if you choose to, I'd like for you first of all to think of a timeline, birth to death, we're born to die, there ain't none of that slick stuff going out the back door, there is no back door to this process, it is very action oriented, we're going to go through it, we cannot cheat it, what we can do is something pretty exciting and I'll show you how we do that, I'd like for you to think of how old you are before you came into recovery, how old you were, write that number down for me please, as you think of how old you were chronologically before you came into recovery, I'd like for you to think as best you can how long you were drinking or drugging, not addictively, not the powerlessness in our lives becoming unmanageable, but even recreationally with some kind of type of pattern, if it was even every weekend or even the study in school or whatever the reason was that you can see a pattern if it was just every weekend or just to have sex or just to do whatever, when, how long, when did you first start doing that?
[00:05:09]
I'd like for you to subtract that number from your age, the bottom number is how old you are emotionally, it is where at some point we have stagnated, what stagnation means that we have stood still, stood in one place and not moved, there are two types of people that do that, that we know of, one are people in a coma, they go into a coma, they're very much alive and when they come out of the coma, they remember what was going on before the coma, well guess who the other people are, addicts and alcoholics, I want you to take that bottom number and I will bet you add for women, for women because they mature quicker than men, women would add two, or women, since there's more than one here, would add three years, which would be age six, age twelve, the gentlemen we would add two years, age seven, age eleven, I will bet you a trauma took place in your life and you gave up on yourself and I will further bet you the onset of your chemical youth started there, between whatever your age is at the bottom, add two years on either side up, take two years off and put two years on the other end and I will bet you that something happened that's significant to you or for you within that time frame.
Now that significance, you have to understand, does not mean anything dramatically, for me, my father died and I said to hell with it, for me, some people that I've worked with, their families moved to another area to help with mobility and took them away from their friends and they shut out the world, for another man, he was slapped at age three, employee would never be slapped again and he froze there and he was sixty-seven in my office, still remembering when he was slapped and lost his identity.
What I'm supposing to you, this is where we have stagnated, this is where we have stopped growing, addiction allows us to be there, recovery, the rules will not help us work with that. This is something in good treatment, if there's such a thing, won't even touch this in a twenty-eight day program, incest, physical abuse, emotional neglect, won't even touch it, we'll tell you, no, no, that's long-term treatment, let's look at powerlessness and unmanageability in your life, let's look at when you use, how you respond, we're not going to touch that right now because that's not important.
Most of us remain stagnated here in our life, as we're stagnated these issues are still dormant, they're here because we put a lot of other stuff on top, when I get drunk I beat up my wife, I need to work with that, when I got drunk I got five DUIs and my license is suspended and I have to have a license to go back to work. When I was drinking and drugging, I got in a fight and I got shot, I hit my mother. These are valid issues for early recovery, has nothing to say with what we have suppressed, has nothing to say about what's going on.
These little guys that are called feelings, they're there turning around waiting their chance to be worked with. Recovery helps us to live in today. Therapy helps us understand yesterday and bring that into today. That's the whole goal of therapy. Therapy is nothing striking but to teach you how to live with your whole self. This is what I've done at age nine. I said, fuck it, I don't care no more. Stayed in an addiction for 27 years, got sober and said I want to start my new life and done nothing with this. Matter of fact, I don't even want to talk about it. I was a kid back then, that ain't got nothing to do with what I do now. I can handle me now.
You know, that's your bullshit. You know, I need to talk about my wife left me, so did my wife before my other wife. Why did she leave? When I get drunk, I hit her. Well, that ain't got nothing to do with the onset of my addiction. Has nothing to do with anything that I'm predisposed to. What it has to do with is the damn fool I act like when I use the mind-altering chemicals. Period. Indicate.
[00:10:10]
Don't have to go no further. The 12-step programs, AA, NA, and CA, and those other positive 12-step programs with some spiritual impact teaches us how to live today. We have a responsibility to connect the gut and the intellect. They are not separate. Remember we spend all of our life to do what? Not to feel. There's no great mystery to why we stay fogged up. We don't want to feel. Because some of us, we ain't been high for the last two, three years before we come into recovery. It was just a routine of something not to do for normalcy because I don't want to feel.
So when we remove the chemical, guess, anybody in here fish? You know, like fish? What's that thing on the end of a fishing line that you, what is it? What's the bob? Is that a bob? A bobby? You know what that is. You know that thing you throw out, care how deep the water is, it pops back up? Well, that's what happens when we get in recovery. Like we get sober and some say, feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling. We don't know what they are because we're too damn afraid to look. We want to run into the room, I'm feeling, I don't like what I'm feeling.
And somebody says something real profound. That's what recovery is about. Recovery ain't about that. Recovery is about how to manage those feelings. But you have to first know what you're feeling. What I'd like for you to do is you look and continue to know that recovery is here. You have the responsibility to come here to work with some issues. Those responsibilities allow you to do a lot of great things.
And one of the greatest things that should allow us to do is know and be responsible to draw a line for therapists and sponsors. I am a therapist. I supervise a lot of therapists. I have a private practice with therapists that work for me. Half of the folks that come see me, they come to see me to be their sponsor and pay me. Because half of the sponsors are trying to be therapists and avoiding being sponsors. My sponsors don't have no business in my bedroom with any problems that I'm having. My sponsors should not be doing the ledger to my financial status.
And I sure shouldn't be talking about any abuse, incest, and all of that other stuff with my sponsor because what is his or her background? Matter of fact, we say a sponsor, a man to a man and a woman to a woman. I say if I'm married, I better damn right have a married sponsor. Because if I don't, he don't understand why I need to be home at 10 o'clock. He can share experience, strength, and hope, which are the three principles, spiritual principles of the program. The big book says it, our story, what happened, how it is.
That does not give anything about how to deal with me with wrongs. It says share your experience of how you work this out. That's all. That's all. We'll do a fourth or fifth and we'll do that. That's all. What we have come to do in our way, and I use this word very pointedly, I think in our ignorance. And what ignorance is, to me, is not knowing. I don't know what I don't know. That's ignorance. Denial is I know what I know. And I want to act like I don't know what I know, but I know I know. And you know I know.
Well, I think we're in denial. And we want to turn denial off on the room. The rooms are not the melting pot for every drug addict. Everybody don't go in the rooms and go in the vacuum and come out the same. We, at that point, need to do something different. What we need to do different is begin to do one. What are some issues for me that I need to work on? What are some things that I need to do in my life? An example that I share with people is to look at this. Now remember, I'm trying to do this with good taste. This is an IP. Can everybody in
[00:15:00]
here identify with me an identified problem with your family? Y'all kind of work with that? Do you know that it only can be one identified problem at a time in the family, in a system? Only one person can go in the middle. Think about it. When your family was working with you, who else was they working with? I didn't say a whole lot of us, and then he all crapped up now. Oh, we got some more messed up than us.
But who is the focus on right now? Me. And the family has a vested interest in keeping me sober. They don't want me sober. You know? I didn't say they don't love me, they don't want me sober. Guess what happens if I get sober? Who will they have to mess with? So when I come out here to C.A. and A.A. and other responsible groups, you guys teach me how to live one day at a time. Well, my family, guess what they want to do?
They bring in Brother Bobby. They call and say, Harold, you've got to come home. Your brother's acting like a fool. You're the only one that can help him. Guess what I do? Out of guilt. I've been waiting for this call. I'm going home and help Bobby. I go back, they let him out and keep me in and I relax. Responsible to help me understand that? And guess what? Each one of us are plagued with that process.
This is a simple process. I mean, this ain't nothing profound because the family is involved in keeping me sober. They don't have to look at themselves. So whatever I do, they can't understand it. You can't. I have to become my family. You do. You teach me the things that are my inalienable right as a human being that I can feel and I should be allowed to feel, that I can touch, I can be free, that I have a right to be free.
You tell me it's okay when I make a mistake and give me a hug and tell me to keep coming back. You don't expect anything of me. You only expect me to stay clean for the day. That's what you do for me. Who's going to help me with my abandonment issues? I've been sober 10 years now. Trying to know how the program works. Trying to know what's going on. Trying to get a feeling, to know what powerlessness is.
Who's going to help me with this one? Who's going to help me with this one? Think of when you were out using before you got sober. Look here. When's the last time you had sex sober? Just ever. I didn't say all hopped up. Drunk up. A joint in my mouth. From the gut. From the core. You know, sexuality and spirituality, not even worth arguing about. They're the same. Of course, in a sexual reunion, guess what can happen?
Birth. And guess what birth is? The most powerless event of any woman's life and certainly the most honorable of any man. We pollute that with a chemical. When did you ever have sex sober? And who's going to help you understand your fear of intimacy? Your sponsor? Well, hell, if he's in the program, guess what he needs to be doing? Working on it. Who's going to teach you that? Who's going to allow you to go back and look at a system that is set up to strangle you and never let you go, that is dysfunctional, teach you to understand that there's nothing wrong with dysfunction.
There's not. And I get angered when I hear dysfunction being a negative. The whole world is dysfunctional. How you manage the dysfunction is the goal. The whole world. Look at the world. How do you manage the thing? And who's teaching management of dysfunction? That's why we need therapy. That's why. I need to know that today I may need to be in the middle because something's going on in my life with my family.
But I also may need to know that I may need to get out of the middle for one of my sons to get in the middle because he needs some attention. I may also know sometimes I'm the deliberate scapegoat in my family because there's so much tension at home with us. I set a chaos up to divert everybody and be the bad guy. And it's okay, but I don't do it every day. It's okay. Because we are, my wife does it all the time.
[00:20:02]
And don't even know she's doing it because if she spread it, the responsibility of the house, it would blow up. I don't know how. And we haven't had an intellectual conversation about it. It's intuitive. But who's going to teach that? Certainly not the rules. Certainly not a sponsor. Because it's in the natural process in the rim of growing. And it's some growing that we did not get. Is anybody wrong or right or right or wrong?
No, it's a fact. So who's wrong or right? This one, that's bullshit. All of that is a smoke screen to keep from looking at, I've got some work to do. Recovery is a platform of beginning. It is not a platform of ending. People that relapse, guess what they're doing? They're celebrating ending. Recovery is a beginning. A beginning of what? The easiest part of recovery. The easiest part. And it's painful.
I sucked methadone for ten years and had to withdraw. Pain, you know, I know it. I kept myself cooped up, speedballing meth and coke. And every day I'd drop some PPS. And every day I'd drop some PCP in it for balance. I used to like Haldol and buy it. Well, I didn't. Well, I didn't when I was in the penitentiary. You know, I used to go out to the tourism. So I could just stay disconnected and fucking disassociated with rehab.
I knew it. I knew it. And I don't have a doctor's degree or nothing. I just knew that I wasn't okay with my centeredness. Who's going to teach me that? The easiest part of recovery is getting sober. It's easy. We can teach you to do that one day at a time. All you got to do is listen, and I'll tell you how to do it. You'll never drink again or drug. Don't pick up. That's it. Any language you speak, translate it.
Don't pick up. You can't get on. But the hard part, the hard part, changing your lifestyle. Ain't talking about no fucking rich and famous either. Simple lifestyle. I can't go up into anybody's wife and woman because I got one. Can't do that no more. This, this, I'm responsible. You know, I have a sense of that. I can't do what I used to do. It ain't I can do some, not do the other. I can't go to a bar, period.
My sponsor goes to bars. He goes to the discos, non-alcoholic. You want me to follow him? I own them. I get off one in the nightlife. I ain't never got to have a drink. Put me in the environment and I'll get a euphoric and somebody do an acid. Who's going to teach me that? I don't like my oldest son. I don't like him. And he don't like me. I don't like the little fucker. He's 28 and just like me. And I know where he's going.
And guess who he blames? Me. And I don't like him. Because he won't change. My sponsor told me, wait on it, don't talk to him. Because he's a relapse issue. Failure to talk to him is a relapse issue. Y'all come go with me to see him and support me to do it is a healthy issue. Is he right or wrong? I don't know. I don't know. I got some responsibility to what I do. Can we get into sponsors? Lead me to the mountain, Mohammed, and I'm coming.
Better find out what mountain they like. Because rolling rock come out of a damn mountain too, you know. We need to be responsible. Now, I'm not saying this needs to occur in the first six months, the first year. I'm saying it needs to occur, like I hear folks say, real spiritual shit. I'm stuck. And I know it's time to take another step now. Of course, I'm stuck in my step. Whenever you know what it's time to do, that's what it's time not to do.
Of course, how do we know who we listen to? Oh, I got some illusions about who the fuck I am on some given day. And I tell myself some real hip stuff. So it might not be God talking to me, but sometimes I talk to this real addict. Me. How do I know when it's time to move? Use me in a hindsight after I've moved. After I'm living it, I know I need to do some other stuff about it.
[00:25:01]
Why therapy? Therapy allows me, and it gives me a process to look at. And it must be action therapy. Be real careful. See, therapist, and I'm one, like you see if your sponsor got a sponsor, see if your therapist got a therapist. Yeah. Damn right. Oh, that's your business too. To know his mission or her mission. Of course, if I don't have a therapist, and as much dysfunction, and all the other things that I deal with, and I don't have a way, an outlet, what am I doing with it?
I'm storing it for my demise. I'm storing it to destroy myself because I'm different than you. And I'm not different. I'm objective and can listen to you because most of us have our own answers. We don't know how to access those answers into action. Don't go to therapy and leave therapy without an action plan. Just good advice is good. What do I do with it? How do I do it? Where do I go to do it? Therapy is how to live.
Therapy is also how to connect now with yesterday. If you don't know your history in anything, you have no idea where you're going because you don't have roots. You stand for something or you fall for anything. The 12-step program. None of them. And if you read Not God by Katt that talks about the history of AA, Bill and Bob warns about that. Bill and Bob in the early 100s are very clear because Bill was a counselor in a detox.
In the 40s. There were detoxes in Minnesota in the 40s. Well, yeah, Bill was a counselor. Sure was. You know what Bill done with the drunk? Hugged them and loved them to death. He didn't try to tell them to understand cognitive therapy and repeat after me the first step. Therapy. Because something is missing. What's missing? My understanding of my own self. Not understand. I know why I'm an addict.
I used. And I didn't stop. And the program helped me understand that. But who helped me understand? My family never tested me. And still don't. My mother's dying as we speak. And there's a lot of unresolved issues with my mother and myself. A lot of unresolved issues. My mother was caught in a shootout with me. And it was like TV. Her on the ground and me over top of her doing other kind of stuff. I'm the baby of 14.
My mother's dying and we probably, before she went into her death and in a hospital, probably won't leave. I could take all of you to her home. Without exaggeration. My mother would literally, like I said, hug you, welcome you back, and shake my hand. I'm not talking 20 years ago. I've been sober 14 years. You know what that means? To that emotion, when that happens, for me, from a woman that I would give any part of my limb, just to I love you or for her to give me what she would give me?
And the sponsor's going to help me deal with that? How? In God's name, how? I need that affirmation. I need it. Who's going to help me understand that for the trained person? To make some sense out of it for me? And who's going to help me live with it after she dies, if I'm still here? Because the reality, I haven't felt it yet. My system is preparing for probably the darkest day of my life. When my mother leaves and we have unresolved issues.
And I know that, I know this very well, I'm a very grounded therapist. This is going to happen if I'm alive. There ain't no shortcut other than to do do, to numb out, so when it happens, I won't be in reality. I'll be up there with Captain Kirk, Mrs. Fogg, running around the galaxy, beaming each other down. It's a reality. And each one of you have some reality. They ain't going nowhere. Why wait for them to come true and not take some motion to do something about it and confront your fears?
Confront the incest. Confront the abandonment. Confront, Dad, you never played ball with me. I missed that and that had an impact on me.
[00:30:02]
I just need to share that with you. That I loved you so much I wanted you in my life, you weren't there. Because you know what? That We Say We Would Never Do, We're Doing in Our Very Lives with Our Own Kids, The Same Thing That Happened to Us, The Very Things We Swear, I Never Do, I Never Let This, I Must Be Doing It Very Soon, I'll Be Speaking Tonight, and I Hope In It, In Some Infamous Way, Something Happening, To Charge You, To Get Off Your Laurel, They Call It a Nursery, Off Your Ass, And Challenge Your History, And Go Back and Do the Work, To Go Back and Do, That I Don't, I Mean, I Have Two Kids, Twins, Just Two and a Half, I Told Marcy A Few Weeks Ago for Months, I Don't Know How I'm Going to Discipline My Daughter, She Got My Numbers, I Don't, And If I Don't Do Something About It, She's Going to Run Riot and Going to Split Marcy and Myself, I Don't Know How, Because She Takes Every Emotion I Have, And She's Not the Two, I Know What to Do with Harold's Ass, I Know What to Do with Him, No Problem Buzzing Him and Banging Him and Come Here I Want to Talk, With Her, She's Manipulated Me From Philadelphia Here, Tell Daddy To Bring Me Candy, And Guess What I've Been Looking For, Take A Guess, Candy, And I Want It From Utah, See I Don't Want It When I Get To Philly, But Utah, Utah Candy, Because Baby Needed Something, For Where Daddy Went, Utah, She Asked For Candy, I Put Utah On It, That's My Dysfunction Plan Out For People Pleasing, And The People Pleasing, See Two and a Half She Got Me, I Want Utah Shit, I'm All Down Main Street Looking For Utah Shit That Won't Melt Before I Get Back, Now I'm A Sick Mother Fucker, But That's What I Was Doing, And I Know Better, I Was Kind Of Letting Her Know I Was Keeping It Utah Shit As I Went By, Utah Candy, You Know, Tomorrow I'm Getting Some Shit Here, Ain't Said Nothing About Bruiser, Bruiser's Fine, It's A Problem, He Needs To Go, I Don't Rule This Little Ass Out, You Know What I Need To Understand, When We Were In My Childhood, In My Childhood, Those Were The Days, Is Therapy Forever, No, You Go To Therapy With One Specific Issue, And CA Is Not Responsible For These Statements, Whoever Vibes With This Tape, With One Specific Issue, Don't Let A Therapist Give You A Treatment Plan Of 30 Issues, One, Take That Information And Apply It To Your Life, If That Works For You And Something Else Emerges In Your Life, You Go Back, And Say Look Man, I've Been Out Six Months, I'm Doing Fine With Relationships, What Just Jumped Up For Me, She Gone, And Left These Damn Kids, And This Bill, And I'm Ready To Go To The Top Of The Building, But I Deserve Better, Help Me, Now I Ain't Giving Them Away Till I Start That Shit, So Right Away I Gave Them Boundaries Of What I'm Not Doing, Help Me How To Do It, Now Don't Take Me On No Trip About What My Father, I Didn't Come To You About My Father, I Came About What Am I Going To Do With This Here And Now Issue That's Affecting My Life, My Recovery, That I Can't Be A Good Dad, And I Love Him Too Much Not To Give It My Best, That's Therapy At It's Very Best, Sigmund Freud, And Adler, And All The Rogerians Can Come And Have A Whole Thing Here, That Is Therapy At It's Very Best, And Them Men Are Much Brighter Than I'll Ever Be, But I Ain't Stupid, That Is Therapy, Therapy No Longer Has You Have To Get In Touch With Feelings, It Could Be I Need To Understand Where I Am In My Life, That I Can Make Some Decisions That I'm Afraid To Make, I'm In Therapy Now, When, Thursday Before We Left, You Know What I'm In Therapy For, I'm Inpatient At Home With My Family InpatientEveryWhere.com, We Frightened So Much About That, And It Ain't Her, It Ain't The Kids, She Ain't Crazy, It's True, And I Don't Know What To Do, In Spite I Can Tell You What To Do, But I Don't Know What To Do For Me, So I Threw My Little HMO Card Up, Put My Ego In My Back Pocket, Sat Down, And Guess What I Got For A Therapist, A Woman, And She's Going To Straighten Me Out Because Her And Her Husband Don't Have Them Problems, I Love You, I Said You're So Blessed, But I Do, Can You Help Me, That's It, What Is The Fellowship, Guess What It Is, It's A Group Of Men
[00:35:00]
And Women That Meet On A Regular Basis To Really Reinforce Their Recovery And Their Well-Being, When They Say Without Parallel One Addict Helps Another, You Know It's The Greatest Therapeutic Value, They're Not Talking About Therapy, It's About Connecting And Identifying And Relating, You Know I Know People That Are Clean And Sober, A Lot Of Them, God I Know More Of Them Than I Know People In Recovery, They Doing Everything, Except Drinking Or Drugging, I'm Clean And Sober Or I Haven't Had A Drink In 20 Years, I Come To This Meeting Every Week, I've Never Missed, And I'm Just Bored But I Just Keep Coming Back, Who The Fuck Want That, Don't We Got 11 Conditions To Say We Promote Something Here, We're A Program Of Attraction, What The Fuck Is It For You, Who Wants 30 Years In The Same Chair And Seat And Crying, Would The Program Say Something Else, You Know, The Program Says If You Read In The Big Book And We Love Bill And Bob, We Do Recovery, Yes It Does, It Certainly Does, We Do Recovery, What Does That Mean, The Level Of Fellowship And All That I Needed 14 Years Ago, I Don't Need Today Because I've Grown, And If I Need The Same Level Today That I Did 14 Years Ago, I'm Sucked, I'm Doing Nothing Except Not Drinking And Drugging, It Is Virtually Impossible To Be Here In January In The Same Place In September, That Is Impossible If You Work In A Program Of Growth, In A Program Of Change, And The Recovering Process Is A Process Of Change And Growth And There Is Nothing You Can Do About It Except To Clean And Sober, And I Know, I Know, There Are Many Of Us Saying We Are Clean And Sober And That's Fine, But It Means Something To Me Because Nowhere In The Big Book Have I Read Clean And Sober Yet, Have You?
Wait, Where Did That Come From? If We Go By The Big Book, The Bible, You Get In There, If You Did After This And Somebody Let Me Know So I Can Read It, I Need To Know It Because I Go Around Saying This And I Don't Want To Say Something That May Be Wrong, If You Read It I Need To Know It And I Want To See It Because You Hallucinate Too Like Me, I Want To See It, And Then I'm Going To Have Marcy See It And Somebody Else See It, So Where Do We Get Clean And Sober And Equate That To Recovery?
It Means I Don't Have To Be Responsible, I Didn't Use Today And I'm Feeling Addict, I Ain't No Fucking Addict 14 Years Later, I Ain't, I Ain't Using No Drug And Trying Not To Use People, Because Here's The Trick, If I Come In Here And I Say To You, I'm An M.D., What Do You Expect? What Do You Expect From An M.D.? What? You Don't Know? Okay, If I Come And Tell You I'm An Airplane Pilot, What Do You Expect Me To Do As A Professor?
Okay, If I Come In And Tell You I'm A Medical Nurse, Where Do You Look For Me To Report To Work? If I Come In And Tell You I'm An Addict, What Do You Look For Me To Do? Well, What Am I Saying In The Room, Can I Tell You I'm An Addict? I'll Steal, I'll Cheat, I'll Lie, Because I Ain't Changing, I Just Didn't Use The Drug. That's What I'm Going To Say, So That We Can See We Have Grown, We Are Grown. I And My Attitude Depict More About Me Than Anything I'll Say Or Do, And If I'm Telling You I'm An Addict, Guess What You Expect From Me?
That Behavior, And That's Why We Exclude People In The Room And Say, Don't Pay Him No Mind. Pay Him Some Mind, It's Called Twelve Steps. That's Why We Need Third. We Need Third People Ourselves To See Our Growth, To Embed Our Growth, And To Do Things For Our Growth. The Things We Need To Do And All That I'm Concerned That Therapy Does For Me, And I Can Only Say Me, Gives Me A Delicate Curve, And Teaches Me How Some Therapy Returns To Feeling, Loving, Caring, Freedom, Self-Esteem And Self-Worth.
It Is A Process, A Tool, A Vehicle That Teaches Me How To Do That. Why Must I Be Taught How To Do It? I Never Knew. Why Would You Expect Me To Do Something No One's Ever Taught Me How To Do? I Am A Father Today Of Harold And Tamara.
[00:40:00]
I Was Not A Father For Jamal And Shelton. I Was An Addict, And That's What I Taught Them. If Harold Goes To Rehab, He'll Sit In A Group And Guess What He'll Tell Them? I Don't Know What Was Wrong With My Father, He Just Hugged The Hell Out Of Me So Much I Think Something Was Wrong With Me Or Him Once. So I Hugged Him Today. I Hugged Tamara, I Kissed Him. I Try To Get Home Every Night, I Don't Get To, I Really Try To Get Him To Bed, Leave Again.
You Know. I Try To Do Things, Even Though I Can't Be Where I Would Like To Be Because Of What I Am And What I'm Doing, I Do The Best I Can. And I'm In Therapy To Talk About That Ain't Enough, But I Want A Future For Them And I Have To Have A Trade-Off, Where's The Balance? The Way That I Know How To Balance My Life Is Use Deuce. And It Comes Right Down The Middle Of Where I Am In The South Houston Grove.
It Keeps Me Very Much The Same. And When I Get Sober, Guess What I'll Have? Tamara And Harold Will Be Married, And I'll Be Talking About, Gee, They Were Two, And God, Look At Them Now. The Whole World Has Passed Us By While We Were In Our Funk. We Come Out Of Our Funk And We Look For Things That Stay The Same. Things Ain't The Same. And Please Don't Play Catch-Up. Hans Tomato Paste, Y'all Know That Guy?
That's Made Of Hot Dogs, Hamburgers, Meat Loaves And That, That Shit Ain't Made For Life. What Happened Back Here, It's Called Over. I Can Come And Learn From It Through Therapy And Bring That Into My Now So That It Doesn't Repeat Itself. I Cannot Go Back And Change It. Relapse Is Forgetting. Relapse Is Taking That Moment And Forgetting. And For Some Reason Most Recovering People Want To Forget. We Need To Remember.
And We Need To Remember Only To Remember That We Are Always In The Process Of Changing. Recovery Is Recovery From Whatever Illness Or Whatever Disease. We Need Help. Do We Need It Every Day All Day? No. We Need To Be In A Position Of Responsibility To Say Let Me Go Get Someone Objective. Let Me Step Out Of This Arena And Stop Making A Boogeyman And A Mess Out Of The 12-Step Program. It's Not Designed To Do Everything We Want It To Do.
Of Course Some Things, In My Opinion, Are Shared In Rooms That Don't Belong. And The Reason That I Say That, Because It's Supposed To Be A Process Of No Cross Talk Or No Feedback. Just To Dump. And Most Of Us, A Lot Of People Put Information Out For Feedback. And Get Pissed When They Don't Get It. A Lot Of Us Look For Sponsors At Google. And All A Sponsor Can Do Is Experience Strength And Hope. And The Other Part That A Sponsor Can Do Is Share With You What He Had.
Not Wrong Or Right. And You Have The Responsibility Whether I Use It Or Not. I Don't Have To Use It. I Don't Have To Use It. But I Need To Talk About It. And So We Move To, And I'll Give You Another Piece. My Beliefs. Because I Read The Literature. I Ain't No Guru. I Don't Do But One Thing Well I Think In My Life. And Mark You Probably Will Agree With Me. Because There's A Lot Of Things I Don't Do Well.
And What I Probably Do Well Is This. Because It Is My Life. It Really Is. This Is All I Think I Know. I Really Do. And That's Okay. And I Don't Know A Lot. But I'm Always In The Process. That I Had A Sponsor. A Sponsor. Twenty People. What Could He Do For Me? Huh? Okay. When I Go To My Therapist. Guess What? I Got Him For One Hour. One On One. Some Of Us Got Unavailable Sponsors. Because You're Busy Helping Other People.
Some Of Us Got Sponsors That Have Sponsor E-Meetings. Sponsor E-Meetings. All My Pigeons Will Be Here This Afternoon. And I'm Going To Have A Meeting. That Shit Ain't Nowhere In No Literature. It's The Most Corrupt Shit You Ever Want To See. Sponsor E and Sponsor. One On One. My Personal Intimate Struggles With You. Knowing More About Me Than My Wife. And Other People. I Ain't Doing It With Fifteen Other People.
Ain't None Of Their Business. Where I'm At On The First Step. Or Whatever Step I'm On The Night On. Watch Therapy. I Get The One On One. And Guess What I Get A Chance To Say? Where I'm stuck, where I want to work, and where I don't want to work. Because I tell you, I'm involved. And if you don't do it, I fine, I don't go back. I get another therapist who's going to help me with my needs.
[00:45:03]
It's called business. It ain't called extended family. It's Called Real Business For This One Hour, I Bring A Responsibility In, And I Employ You To Bring In The Responsibility, And Together, I Didn't Say That We Make Miracle Happen, But At Least I Saw Her, And I Felt That I Get The One-On-One Time That I Need, When I Need The Other At Group Level, I Can Go All Over The Country, And Be Received With Open Arms, And Hugs, And Kiss, And Listen To, I Need An Acting Plan For Some Parts Of My Life, And A Lot Of Times, I Don't, You Know, I Do More Work, If Recovery People Allow Me On Sponsorship, Then Them Getting On With Their Lives Because They Don't Want To Go Back And Talk, See We Know, We Know, We Know, We Know, 600,000 People Die At Least Every Year From Alcohol, We Know That, That's A Statistical Fact, Clinton Ain't Taking Taxes Off On Alcohol, Cigarettes, And Gas, There's No Investment In Turning Around This Epidemic, Rehabs Are Closing, Jails Are Being Built, So Why Are We Waiting For A Knight In Charming Armor And It's Already Here, Usually, Because The 12-Step Program, Incidentally, Is An Action Program, If You're Working The Steps, It's Impossible To Relapse, It's A Fact, You Cannot Relapse Working The 12-Step Program, It's Spiritual, Not Once All Is Spiritual, The Fellowship Ain't Spiritual At All, You Can Go To Meeting And Get Drunk After Meeting, And There's A Difference In The Fellowship And The Program, You Will Not Relapse In The Program Because It Is Spiritual Development, And You Can't Work The Program Until You Make A Commitment, So You Can't Even Be Applauded, Why Do We Need Therapists?
For The Therapist To Put A Button In Our Illusions, To Help Us Get Our Feet On The Ground, And To Help Confront Us About The Very Thing That May Have Set Us Up To Lose, You May Be Able To Do That, May Be Able, See, They Don't Empower You Either, You Empower Yourself, You Must Empower Yourself Through Looking And In Therapy, You Should Be Learning Skills From Your Therapist So When You're Not In Therapy, You Can Reuse Your Sessions In Your Life, Therapy Is Education As Well As The Potential For Healing, The Potential For Healing, But It's Psycho-Education, I Learned In Teaching Therapy What My Folk Need To Be Doing When The Session Is Over, Because I Won't See Them For A Week Or Two, They Need To Have Some Action-Oriented Processes Going On, That's Why Therapy, Together, Therapy, 12-Step Program, Therapy Sponsorship, Therapy Is Well, The Program Is Well, You Will Grow Beyond Your Beliefs Because You Just Removed Yourself From Inertia, You Just Made A Commitment, I'm Not Going To Stand Still And Deny Where I Came From, Most People That Are Healthy Don't Chase Death, In Case You Don't Know That, And Every One Of Us In This Room Is Suicidal, Of Course We've Done Cold Till We Couldn't, Shit Driven, We Smoke Wreaths, Ah, I'm Just A Killer Here, Take Some, Our Goal Is To Die, There Is A Motivational Force On Why Some Of Us Have A Desire To Do That, And It Has Nothing To Do With Success Or Failure, It Has To Do With Me, Can I Be Helped To Discover That, Sure, Is It Hard, No, It Takes About The Same Amount Of Gut As It Took When You Woke Up One Day And Said I Had Enough, I Want To Try A New Way Of Life, Because To Do Therapy I Have To Look And Say I Need Help, I Can't Do It Alone, So There Is No Ego, We're Prone, We're Not Having An Ego, All Learning Is To Deflate The Ego, Why Do You Think Most People In AA Was Narcissistic, Do You Know The Word, You Don't Know That, Why You Think Everything In AA Is Suggested, As Soon As You Tell A Narcissist Somebody Don't Know Everything What To Do, They Do The Fucking Opposite, We Know About That Don't We, Why You Think Everything Is Suggested, They Have To Make Us Think We Discovered The Wheel Again, Then We'll Use The Damn Thing, But If You Bring It To Me, Oh, I Don't Need That Shit, I Know What I Need, But You Say You Know Maybe, Well I Think, Or It Might Seem To Me, Well I'm Not Quite Sure How That Thing Would Move Against Three Wheels, I Can't Figure It Out, Narcissistic Run Again, I Got It,
[00:50:00]
We Just Put This Wheel On It And Push It Down The Street, We Didn't Get Sober Until We Stepped Out Of Narcissism, Unhealthy Narcissism, Especially Us Cocaine Addicts, Oh, Do We Have A Bad Taste, Alcoholics Were Notorious But Us Cocaine Addicts Just Ain't Playing In, Our Narcissism And Our Illusion And Our Grandeur, Is Unbelievably Ridiculous, It Is, Now We Come Full Circle, We Have To Understand, Or Perhaps We Need To Understand Why, And That Is The Appropriate Question For Therapy, Why Am I Here, Why Do I Do This, Why, Why, Why, And You Do The Work, You Define, That Work Can Not Be Done, Under The Sky Of The 12-Step Program In And Of Itself, Just No More Than Treatment Does Not Work, I've Done My Dissertation, That Treatment Does Not Work, I Just Got A Ph.D. Last Month, In Community, Drug And Alcohol, That's My Whole Thing, Treatment Doesn't, It Doesn't Work, Treatment Has Never Worked, Alone, You Better Plug A.A., N.A., A.A., C.A., Watch The Other One, A.A., C.A., And Other Things In, To Integrate Into The Treatment Process, Treatment Without 12-Step, Is An Exercise In Masturbation, Gymnastics, Does Nothing, You Need To Make A Connection, Therapy In And Of Itself Without A Support Group, Doesn't Work Either, You Have To Have Some Place To Take This Stuff, Some Environment, Some Body, You Have To Have Some Experimental Ground To Go And Try And Test It, To See If It Fits, And If We Try And Test It, We Can Try And Test It In The Room, I Don't Want To Give Too Much, Because Hopefully I Need, Something To Charge Me Tonight, Or To Charge You, But What I've Offered You, Is The Best That I Have, If It Helps You, Thank God, If It Hurts You, I Apologize, But It's Honest, Thank You And I Love You, And I Hope You'll Be Invited Back.
Applause