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Source: Steve L – Lead, Iceland 2010 – Speaker Talk – Date Unknown.mp3 File: steve-l-lead-iceland-2010-speaker-talk-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:58:17
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Steve Lamb Alcoholic. It's good to be here. It's good to be sober. I want to thank Ellie for inviting me out here and for Carla to greet us so warmly and for Horta and Kristen and Benny and Jenny for driving us around all over Iceland today. I mean all over Iceland today. We saw geysers. We saw waterfalls. We saw the Blue Lagoon, which I've since been told is full of poo. I'm glad we didn't have time to swim there.
And I thought I was bonding with Horta. We were out by the waterfall and I got a little too close to the edge and he said, you know, back off. It's dangerous. You could fall. And I thought, how sweet. And then he looked at me and said, yeah, we really don't have time to get a replacement speaker. If you knew, I want to welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous. I want to tell you I have one prayer, one hope for you tonight. And my hope for you tonight is that you don't have hope. None whatsoever. I don't say that to be mean. I don't say that to be cruel. I don't say that to be heartless, although I've been accused of those things in Alcoholics Anonymous.
I say that because it's my experience that it was only when I was really desperate, because that's what I wish for you, that I was able to do what's necessary for me to do to be here with you tonight. And it's really, really simple, but as the book says, it's not easy. It's get a book, get a sponsor, read the book with the sponsor, work the steps with the sponsor, which is the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I was having a discussion before. This is an interesting activity. It is an activity. It is not action. It is not the program of action. The program of action is in the 12 steps. And then most importantly, to get into a position where I could sit down with another man and convey to him what was so freely given to me, because that's the magic in Alcoholics Anonymous. That's what it's all about. And, you know, if you're new, when I say desperate, I don't mean slightly confused or a little disoriented or having a bad hair day, although it's been a long time for me on that. I mean you look in the mirror and you don't know who you are, you don't know what you're doing, you have no meaning in life, alcohol has beaten you into a state of reasonableness.
And you're sitting there at, let's see, it's quarter to nine on a Friday night in Reykjavik, Iceland, and you're sitting there thinking, why am I listening to this bald, fat American talk about Alcoholics Anonymous? Welcome. Welcome. And if you're new, you're probably thinking this sucks. You're probably thinking the whole thing sucks, it's painful, your skin itches, your eyeballs water. I'm here to tell you just embrace the suck.
Just put your arms around it, hold it close. At some point in time, it's going to be two, three minutes of your story. Nothing more, nothing less. It's the price of admission. We all went through it. Just kind of lean into it. It'll go away. It'll pass. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous on July 27th, 1996, and I've been continuously sober since then, so I've been sober a little over 14 years. And I came here not to get sober.
I didn't want to get sober. In fact, I came here, I had a DUI, and I knew that you guys don't drink. Well, I don't want to not drink, so I don't want to come to Alcoholics Anonymous. And the judge over in America sentenced me to go to six AA meetings in six months. I thought it was excessive. You know, I had a pretty busy social calendar, and I just didn't see how I could fit it in, number one. Number two, you don't drink, and I don't want to not drink.
So I didn't go to AA for a long time. I went until about five weeks left to do six AA meetings in five weeks. I'm not the sharpest guy in the world, but I know that's more than one a week. And I understand you've got 300 meetings a week here in Reykjavik, and we've got about 3,000 in the greater Los Angeles area. But I didn't think I could fit it in, and I was freaking out. I remember my first AA meeting was at the Hermosa Beach Alano Club, and it's kind of a small Alano Club.
I saw your Alano Club. You've got a Goliath Alano Club. It is huge. It is the biggest Alano Club I've ever seen in the entire world. It's huge. I hope you fill it up. By the looks of it tonight, I think you will. And I've got to tell you, I went into that clubhouse, and there's two doors. There's a coffee bar there, and there's two doors, and you walk in, and to the left they have a counter where they do birthdays.
In California, they do birthdays with a cake. And they do cookies, and they have coffee to the right, and there's a coffee machine to the right.
[00:05:00]
And underneath the coffee machine, there's supposed to be a trash can, but this morning there was a chair. It's not supposed to be there. And I sat in the chair, and I looked out at you, and you looked at me. And there were a few empty seats, and very nice, lovely, wonderful people looked at me and saw me, and they waved at me. And they said, come here. Sit here. Come on. And I said, no. You know, and I shook my head.
It's because I couldn't go any further. And I looked at them, and they looked at me, and they were nice, but I was given that, you know, just back off, leave me alone. I'm not going to be here long. Don't bother me, and I won't bother you. Look. But I was really afraid. I was terrified. I was scared. It was very alien to me. I didn't understand it. People were all excited. They were all hopped up on AA.
And like I said, they were doing birthdays. I don't know what you do here in Iceland, but in America, when they have a birthday on the west coast, they have a cake. You know, a pastry with frosting and candles and stuff. And this particular morning, they had an inverted Styrofoam cup with a candle on it. That's it. And they were bringing it up, and they're blowing it out, and they're all happy, and they're all proud, and they're saying this is a cake.
Now, I know I'm new, but that ain't no cake. It's not even a pastry. And they're all excited, and they're telling deep, dark secrets that nobody should tell that early in the morning about anybody. And I'm horrified. And people are saying things like, if you want what we have, join us. And I'm thinking, no, hell no. What are you talking about? I'm looking around. I see a linoleum floor, folding metal chairs, and people that don't even know what cakes are.
They think that Styrofoam, I mean, this is not good. This is bad. And I don't remember a lot about that meeting, but I remember one gentleman who was there named Dick Dolmage, and Craig remembers him. He died with 15 years of sobriety. He helped a lot of people. He helped me. But I'm new. And I don't like you. I don't like you. And I really don't like Dick. Because Dick is a retired fire captain. He's totally lit up for AA.
He shares the same way every morning, and nobody warned me. He's slightly deaf. And Dick goes, hi, my name's Dick, and I'm an alcoholic. And I remember thinking, holy mother of God. I know why they call you Dick. And I can't wait. I can't wait to get out of here. And finally the meeting is over, and I get up, and you do what you do. You grab my hands. Okay, I've been to church. It didn't go well, but I was there for a while, and we're going to pray.
So we start praying. We do the prayer. Okay, fine. I get ready to leave. Do you let go? No, you don't let go. I don't know if you do this in Iceland, but in America, next thing you know, my arms are going back and forth. And I hear, keep coming back. It works if you work it. And I think, I have died and gone to Huckleberry Hill. I mean, and I'm making a beeline to get out of the room, and people are, you know, they're all teeth and smiles and phoneless, and are you new?
Here's a book, and, you know, like I don't even like to read, and, you know, just all this stuff, and do you have a sponsor? No, no, and I'm never coming back. I'm never coming back. And that was my intent when I left that meeting. I was never coming back. The next morning, I'm sitting there, sitting there, looking out. You could ask me, why are you there, lamb? I don't know. I've got no idea. I'm here.
And I sat there in that meeting, and I attended that meeting for almost three years straight, didn't miss hardly a day. And I went about 100 days, and what I kept hearing people saying, what I heard, was just don't drink and go to meetings. Meetings, meetings, meetings, 90 meetings in 90 days. You heard about Bill. He stopped going to meetings. He drank. He's out there. Hey, don't worry about it, kid.
Just go to meetings. There were people in the room that were talking about sponsorship. There were people in the room talking about the steps. I didn't hear them. What I heard was about the activity of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I've got to tell you, I go to a lot of meetings. I like meetings, but meetings are an activity. Meetings are where we harvest newcomers. We herd them off in the corner. We pick them off.
We take them out to do the steps. If I hadn't gone to meetings, I wouldn't have learned about the action. But I went about 100 days, and I was suffering from untreated alcoholism. This more than anything has convinced me that I'm an alcoholic of our variety. I've been thrown in jail five times in this country, five times in other countries. I've had a DUI. I had a lot of problems related to alcohol.
It really seemed inconvenient to you when I drank, but I don't really like you that much, and you're a price that I'm willing to pay for me to drink. So I drank. But as I was physically sober and not working the steps, I was slowly losing my mind.
[00:10:05]
And I'd be at a meeting, and I'd start hearing every second word and every third word. And then there was like this white noise, just this kind of constant humming and buzzing. And I thought I was going nuts. And I went on a business trip on Trial Lawyer by Trade. And I went to Minneapolis, and then I went to Pittsburgh. And I was preparing for trial, so I was doing depositions. And I'm doing depositions, and I'm going back to the hotel, and I get done a little bit early.
It's maybe Wednesday or Thursday. I'm back in the hotel. I don't know, 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock. My flight's not until later that night. And I don't do what you've told me to do. I don't call a central office or an intergroup or hook up with AA in Pittsburgh. I don't have a phone list of my home group to call them because I don't have a home group. I don't have a sponsor, and I can't call him. So I think I'm separate, and I think I'm alone.
And my experience in Alcoholics Anonymous is that is the big lie. That is the big lie that every single person I know that's coming to Alcoholics Anonymous buys hook, line, and sinker, and it takes spiritual exercises, which we call the steps, to dispel that lie, to make it vanish. There's a guy named Chuck Chamberlain, and this is non-conference-approved literature, but when I was new, my sponsor had me read it.
It's called A New Pair of Glasses, and the old-timers will know about this guy. He did a series of talks in Palomasa back in 1976, and it was recorded on six recordings. And one of the things that Chuck did was he has a drawing in his book, one simple drawing. It's a circle. Inside the circle, he writes, life, good, God, whatever your concept of a higher power is. Then to the left of the circle, he draws a stick man, and that's Chuck, and that's me, and if you're an alcoholic of my variety, it's you.
And what separates me from that circle of life, good, God, that circle of life, is a thin line. And he identifies it as ego, or conscious separation from. We're here to have conscious contact with the God of our understanding by working the steps. When we get here, we have conscious separation, and I feel like I'm separate and apart. So what I'm doing is they've got a little, they call it an honor bar, it's a little mini-fridge, and inside that mini-fridge is everything I need and everything I want, all the alcohol in little, bitty, tiny, beautiful bottles.
And I open it and I shut it, and I open it and I shut it, because I want to drink. Bad. But I know that to drink is to die, because I've been around here long enough to know that bad things happen to people of my variety to drink. And I'm afraid. I'm really afraid. And I open it and I shut it, and I open it and I shut it, and finally I drink everything in there except the alcohol. I slam down the water. I slam down the soda.
I drank tonic water. It serves no purpose without gin. I'm telling you, your cheeks go, they suck in, you know. I mean, you can work through it, but it's painful. It gives you a head buzz. And I arranged the domestics and the imports because I wanted to drink, and I'm watching TV, and I'm watching TV and I'm flipping channels. And when I'm flipping channels between, I'm flipping channels between religious TV and porno.
Religious TV and porno. And the bad part is I'm getting confused. And finally it comes time for me to go to the airport. You know, Norm Alpe used to talk about seconds and inches. You can talk about the blind, dumb luck of the alcoholic. I like to think of it as the grace of God. And I've come to believe that the grace of God is there for all of us. But when I'm new, I can't hear it. It's a transmission that I can't receive.
It's garbled in transmission. I'm hearing every second or third word. And I just need a sponsor to direct me, but I don't know that. And I go back to California, and I get up the next morning, and I got a plan. Now I'm 100 days sober, I'm stone cold sober, and I'm stark raven mad. And I was in the Army for a while, and I had a kit bag after I got out of the Army. And I opened up that kit bag, and I take out all the demolition.
I take out all the weapons, and I put them off to the side. And I take out 13 passports that I'd acquired while I was in the United States Army in Special Forces and that I'd used for God and country to help America. And I'd neglected to turn in those passports and those weapons and that demolition because I thought one day they might come in handy. And today was the day. Today was the day. And I got a plan. This is my plan.
I'm going to take these 13 passports, and I'm going to take my tourist passport. It's really important that I use my tourist passport. So I'm going to take my tourist passport. It's really important that I use my tourist passport to leave the country.
[00:15:02]
I go to British Columbia. Once I get to British Columbia, I'm going to start flipping passports. I'm going to start traveling east. I doubt I would have gone to Iceland, but I was going to go to Europe somewhere, hang out for a week or two, come back to British Columbia. When I got to British Columbia, Steve Lamb would cease to exist. You know, I'm not proud of this. I got a wife. I got a kid. I don't think about them for an hour, 10 minutes, a minute.
Not a second. I'm selfish and I'm self-seeking and I'm self-centered and I'm afraid and I want to run. And I'm going to go down to Costa Rica and I've got some former associates of mine who are doing rather interesting marketing and distribution down there. And I'm going to join them. And I lay out all these passports and the 13 passports that I neglected to turn in that are illegal are all current and haven't expired.
And my blue tourist passport has expired. And I'm just devastated. I can't believe it. Now, this is not really that important, but, you know, I've been to high school. I went to college. I went to law school. I went and got a Master of Laws. I'm admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States of America. But that particular morning, it's pre-9-11, I can't figure out that I can fly to British Columbia on my driver's license.
It escapes me. And I'm sitting there and I'm almost in tears. And what I heard looping in my head, I don't know if they do this in Iceland, but we do it in Southern California, these stupid, pathetic A.A. sayings that I hate. And the one that I kept hearing was, if your ass has fallen off, put it in a bag and take it to a meeting. What does that mean? What does that mean? And really, do you think there's a bag big enough?
I don't. But it has something to do with going to a meeting. So I go to a meeting that morning. And I'm at this meeting and there's a guy named Jim and he's one of these big book thumpers. He's a step-Nazi and he's talking about sponsorship. And I'm sitting there, I'm next to this old guy. He's about 34, 35 years sober. His name is Walter. And I'm sitting there and I'm hanging my head down on my knees and I'm shaking my head.
And Walter looks at me and says, hey man, what's wrong? And I said, Walter, I am just clueless. And Walter laughed at me and said, good kid, maybe now you're ready. And I remember thinking, you old wet brain bastard, you know. I mean, I keep hearing people saying if you're, you know, let us love you till you can love yourself. And this guy is making fun of me. He wasn't making fun of me. I now realize that what Walter was doing was he was excited.
He got that whiff, that hint, that smell of desperation in me. And he thought maybe after 100 days, this idiot that's been sitting next to him every morning might actually take some action and do Alcoholics Anonymous. And I was listening to Jim and he was spitting and shouting and yelling and I thought he was talking to me only but he was talking to the whole room. And what I heard him say, although people have told me this is not what he said, but what I heard him say was if you don't get a sponsor, you're going to die.
And I went up to him after the meeting and I said, you know, Jim, I heard you talking about sponsorship. I've been around about 100 days and I thought it's time I'd get a sponsor. And you mentioned in your talk that if I had questions about how to get a sponsor, come talk to you. So, you know, I thought I'd talk to you. And Jim looked at me and said, man, you are pathetic. And he grabs me by the shoulder because he's excited.
He takes me outside. He introduces me to a guy I've never met before. He says, Michael, Steve, Steve, Michael, sponsor, sponsor, you go with God. And he walks away laughing. And I'm thinking, I don't think so. This is wrong. This doesn't feel right. I don't know this guy. And he's looking at me and by the way, he's got this lazy eye. It's wandering off to the right all the time. He can't even look at me and he's like going like this, you know.
And he reaches in his pocket and he gets a card. He starts writing on it. He's asking me questions. He says, you got a book. I said, yeah, I got a book. He says, you got a 12 and 12. I said, yeah, I have a 12 and 12. And Michael said to me, good, you are going to need them both. Be at my house Monday night, 630. And I'm thinking, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. See, I should interview. I should get to choose between at least five.
I've got a very complex set of issues and I don't know this guy. And would you please look at me because your eye keeps going to the right. And what I heard myself say was, okay. And it was almost like an out-of-body experience. I mean, I looked around and who said that? It was me. I said, okay. That was my first step in Alcoholics Anonymous. When I got to AA, I knew I was powerless over alcohol, but I couldn't admit that my life was unmanageable.
When I have another man guide me and direct me through the steps, my life is unmanageable. So I meet with this guy, you know, every Monday night and we work through the steps. And to give you an idea briefly of what my drinking was like, you know, towards the end, I'm a, again, I'm a trial lawyer by trade. So what I like to do is I like to drink beer and shoot tequila, Mexican whiskey.
[00:20:02]
And the tequila is important because it's an accelerant. Because the beer can't quite get me there fast enough, but the tequila can. So I drink beer, I shoot tequila, I drink beer, I shoot tequila. That's how I like to prepare for trial. And when I'm getting, it used to work, okay. I drink beer, I shoot tequila, I do this all night. I kind of lay out all the documents and the exhibits and I think of the witnesses in my mind and I can picture the judge and I can picture the jury.
And I have in my mind my opening statement, my closing statement. It all kind of compresses and folds into my mind and I memorize it all. And then in my mind, around 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock at night after I've been drinking beer and shooting tequila all day, I take a little power nap. I now realize that I pass out and I black out. But I've had this happen before so what I do is I take alarm clocks and I strategically put them all throughout the room.
Like five or six alarm clocks set two minutes apart. And eventually I'll wake up and I get up around 4, 35 o'clock in the morning. I shower and I shave, I put my suit on, I go to work. And the particular day I'm thinking about is a typical day. I go to work and I'm trying a case. And I'm in downtown Los Angeles, I'm in the courthouse and we're picking a jury. And as we're picking a jury, the judge realizes this is going to tie up his courtroom for maybe, I don't know, a month, a couple of months and he's kind of cranky and he tells my client and the other client, you know, you guys should talk about this and see if you could, it's just a civil matter, it's just money, see if you can sort it out while the lawyers pick a jury.
So I'm picking a jury and my client Brian is talking to the other client. Around 11, 30 in the morning, Brian tells me that they've reached a settlement. He's very happy, it's very favorable for him financially and the case is over, you know, and we haven't even done anything and it's been successful and my client's happy. And Brian says to me, he says, you know, look, I know it's early, it's 11, 30 or so, but do you want to go have a drink?
And I'm thinking, what a country, of course I want to have a drink. And he's buying, yeah, let's go because I'm thinking I'm not going to be able to drink until maybe 5 or 6 after court, now I'm going to drink, it's not even noon. This is great. So we go down to this place called Grand Avenue Bar and it's in downtown Los Angeles, kind of a high-end sports bar. And again, I drink beer and I shoot tequila, but Brian is kind of a high-finance New York guy.
So he goes up to the bartender and he tells the bartender, get the dusty bottle off the back of the bar and he brings down the cognac. I've never had cognac before in my life. They bring out two big brandy sifters or big goblets, big glasses and the bartender pours a shot into each glass, which in those big glasses it looked very lonely, it was really small. And I looked at it and Brian looked at me and he said, you've never had cognac before.
And I said, no, I never have. Now, I'm going to drink it because you're buying, I'm not stupid, but I've never had it. And Brian says, look, pay attention, this is what you do, this is really important. What you want to do is you want to pick up the brandy snifter and you want to let the heat from your hand go through the glass, that will heat up the cognac. And I'm thinking, is this really necessary?
And then, you know, but apparently it is. And then you want to twirl it around in the glass and the vapors from the heat and the glass will be released. And then you want to bring it up to your nose. You don't want to snort it, you don't want to sniff it, you just want to allow the vapors from the cognac to waft into your nostrils. Then you want to back it down, you want to bring it up to your lips, you don't want to drink it, you don't want to sip it.
You just want to allow the cognac to drape across your palate, whatever the hell that is, okay? And so he goes through the routine and he does it. And, you know, by now I'm starting to twitch, my eyeballs are itching, you know. But I'm ready to do the process and I get it in there and I'm rolling it around and I mean really, how warm does it need to be, you know? So I'm going to bring it up and I'm going to let it waft and I get it up to my nose and bam, it's gone.
You know, and Brian looks at me and I look at Brian, I don't know who was more surprised. I mean, I didn't plan on doing this and he says, man, what the hell is wrong with you? And I said the alcoholic anthem, I said, I'm sorry, man, you know, I don't know. Can I have a beer, you know? So I'm drinking beer and I've had two or three or four beers and he's doing what he's doing with cognac and, you know, it's really pathetic.
He doesn't know how to drink but he says, okay, look, pay attention, you know, let's do it again, all right? Come on. And I'm thinking I've had three or four beers, I wasn't where I was at 2 o'clock in the morning
[00:25:00]
but I can do this, I can do this, I can do this, I'm going to do this. And I get it out there and I twirl it around, I'm going to do it, bam, and it's gone again, you know? And he gives me that look, he gives me that look, kind of that like pathetic, disgusted look. I don't know if you've ever seen that in a, maybe a former wife or husband or employer but he gave me that look because he's going to become an ex-client.
And I'm thinking, oh, man, whatever, you know? And he says, look, you know, it's maybe 1 o'clock, the office hasn't closed in New York, it's a little after 4, I'm going to go to the bathroom and I'm going to come back, you know, I'm going to leave him, I'm going to call New York and give him the good news. I said, okay, fine, so I'm sitting there, I'm drinking my beer. Minding my own business, and I look down, I see his cognac, bam, I drink that, you know?
And I go to the bathroom and I come back out and Brian is arguing with the bartender. And I come up because somebody's stolen his cognac and I say, you know, some somebody stole your cognac, you're kidding me. I don't know if you know this but I'm a trial attorney, I'll interrogate people, I mean, Benny, look at that face. You know he would drink it, you know, hard time, come on, you know? But Brian is not stupid, he's now an ex-client, he's shaking his head and he's leaving.
Now, a person who's not an alcoholic would be really upset about this. This is a major client, this is a lot of money to the firm, it's gone. I'm thinking, great, now I can drink the way I want to drink, you know? I get a table, I sit down, I start drinking beer and shooting tequila because that cognac is way too complicated, you know? I'm drinking beer, I'm shooting tequila and a lot of people when they drink, they forget to eat.
I ain't one of those guys. I like to have a light snack, maybe some, a couple of cheeseburgers or a pizza or something like that, you know, nothing really heavy. And I got to tell you, you know, I don't mean to be disgusting but I am and it's part of my story. And what I do is I drink beer, I shoot tequila, I have maybe a pizza and I just, I start farting like a dog. I mean, we're talking purple haze, you know?
But in my mind, I'm thinking, I'm kind of making music, you know? It's a, and I suffer from a perception problem. The book identifies it as delusion and I look across the room and there's two young ladies at the bar and they're looking at me and I'm looking at them and I don't know about you but when I'm drinking like I'm drinking, I can read your mind. And I look over there and I think, oh yeah, they want me.
I mean, who wouldn't? Come on, you know? I've been drinking beer, shooting tequila, I'm farting like a dog. I got this whole purple haze thing going around me. I got a chunk of pizza on my, oh but yeah, they want me. And so I've been sitting there and I'm drinking beer, shooting tequila and I'm farting. I'm doing my own little musical thing and people are pretty disgusted. And it's getting late in the evening and I tend to get too drunk and I forget and I go to lift my leg to really be totally musical and I completely miscalculate.
Oh, you've been there. Well, if you've been there, you know it's very important to act cool, you know? Not, I mean, this is, you don't want to act alarmed and you got to keep your leg up, you know? So I, I finish my beer and I go to the bathroom and I get in the bathroom and I go in the stall and I take off my jacket and I take off my trousers and I take off my drawers and I clean myself up and I put my pants back on, I put my jacket back on and I'm out at the sink, minding my own business, rinsing my drawers out, you know?
And yeah, there's a guy who looked at me just like you did and I mean, and I'm like, what's your problem? Don't you practice hygiene? I mean, come on, you know? And I, I get him cleaned out a little bit, you know, and I rinse him out some more and I wring him out and I go in the stall and I take off my jacket, I take off my trousers, I put on my drawers. Hey, I got some class, I mean, come on. I put my pants back on, I put my jacket back on, I'm walking out, they're, they're a little damp.
I told you I got a perception problem. I'm feeling kind of sexy, you know? And now I got this built-in fart filter and I'm going to drink the way I want to drink. And I drive home and I park in the driveway, my driveway, your driveway, I don't care. I'm an equal opportunity driveway guy. And I go into, I lived in North Redondo Beach at the time and I never want to forget this. I go through my garage and I have to go through the garage, by the way, because it's got a power door.
There's no way I'm getting a key in a hole. It ain't going to happen, you know? But the door goes, goes up. I can get in there, you know? And I go in there and there's three steps from my garage to the living room. And right next to those steps, there's a, there's a fridge. And in that fridge, there's beer. It is physically impossible. Physically impossible. I don't care how much I pay. make it up those three steps without getting a beer, can't be done, it's impossible.
[00:30:03]
So I get a beer, I drink the beer, I go upstairs and I go up the stairs, my lovely wife is asleep and I finish the beer and I put it on the coffee table and I get in bed next to my lovely wife. On a good night, two or three hours later I get up, I stumble around, I maybe wind up in the closet or in the hallway, I pee in her boots or, you know, maybe the trash can and on a bad night, I wet the bed. Yeah, that was a vision for you, that was.
Those are the skill sets that I brought to you. I was a bet wetter and I would crap my pants with reckless abandon and alarming regularity, that's what I did. But that wasn't enough to keep me from drinking. My wife wasn't thrilled about it, you weren't thrilled about it, but you're a price I'm willing to pay. You know, and finally I got that DUI and I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. And again, like I said, I just, I can't, I can't tell you what happened because I know I was there physically those first hundred days but I don't remember a lot, you know.
And I know that I'm the kind of guy that my wife sends me out for milk and I come back three days later, three days later. And she's like, where have you been? I was busy, you know, I was busy. But I have the milk. No, I would come back with the milk and, you know, I would just, you know, you were distracting to me and I like drinking with you and that's what I did. And I'm an alcoholic. And finally, you know, I'm in AA and I'm finally doing the steps.
And like I said, I got 100, 120 days sobriety. We're sitting down. We're meeting every Monday night. We're working through the steps and I remember we got to the inventory process. I want to talk about this briefly because I run into a lot of people in my travels that have a lot of different ideas about the inventory process. And I want to stress to you tonight that this is what I learned from my sponsor.
It's not AA doctrine. It's not the chosen path. I suggest that you do whatever your sponsor directs you to do. But my sponsor, Michael, tried to stick to the black stuff in the book and it was really critical for me and I'm going to explain why. When we got to the inventory process, what I was to do was in the first column, I was to list my resentments. The people, places, things or institutions that burned me up, that tore me up.
In the second column, I was to list the cause. In the third column, I was to list what it affects. And Michael made it very clear to me in this process that while I could write the history of LAM if I wanted to and he would listen to it, I did not need to do that. In fact, in each column, no more than one to three words were necessary that he would sit there with me. He was prepared for a long talk and we could fill in the details.
The point was to get it down on paper in the format. In the third column, I was to list what affects me. Was it my self-esteem? Was it my pocketbook or security? Was it my ambition? Was it my personal relations? Was it my sexual relations? And I didn't even have to write the words down. I could use the acronym SPAPS. And if it was a real big resentment, it'd be a five-banger and I'd list all five of them.
And in the fourth column, I was to list where I was at fault, where I'd made mistakes and where I was to blame. And this was really critical for me, not in relation necessarily to the second column. Could be. But more than likely, it was the third column. In fact, it was almost always the third column. It may also be the second column. But we're looking at the third column. We're looking at causes and conditions.
Now why was this important to me? When I was in early in AA, I heard a lot of people talking about the fourth column and they kept saying, my part, my part, my part, my part. Michael explained to me that that's a useful shorthand but it can be problematic. And here's how it's problematic. If you have a person that comes to you and let's say they were sexually abused or physically abused as a child, as many people in Alcoholics Anonymous are, and they come in there and they list, okay, I'm resentful at my uncle.
What was the cause? Well, he sexually molested me. What does it affect? It affects everything. It corrodes the soul of my life, every fiber of my being, my self-esteem, my pocketbook and security, my ambition, my personal relations and the sexual relations. I hate him. I'll never forgive him. It's marked me for life. Okay, what's your part? What's my part? I don't have a part. I was five years old.
What does this inventory process have to do with me? But if you look at it the way the book talks about it, where was I at fault? Where did I make a mistake?
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Where was I to blame? It may be in relation to the second column, but really what we're looking at is why are you still plagued with this problem with self-esteem? Why do you have problems with finances in your pocketbook? Why do you feel insecure? Why is your ambition stifled? Why do you have problems with personal relations and why can't you have a normal sexual relation? What defective character, if it were removed from you by God, you would no longer be affected by this person?
And that was critical for me. I'm going to explain to you why. The first person was my dad. So the person, two words, my dad. Second column, the cause, deserted me. You know, I was about five years old. He went off to Vietnam. He was in the Air Force. He never came back. He didn't die there. He just stayed there for about eight years. He joined Air America. He went with the CIA. He married a Thai woman.
I've got a stepmother and I've got a half-sister. And he didn't come back into my life for a long time. He deserted me. What did it affect? Everything. S-P-A-P-S, it was a five-banger. It corroded every fiber of my life. And it made it so that I couldn't have normal relations, personal, sexual, otherwise. Where was I at fault? Where did I make a mistake? Where was I to blame? Nothing in relation to the second step.
I was five years old. But why do I still have these feelings about my dad? Well, let's look at it. Self-esteem? You know, yeah. Was I selfish? Was I self-centered? Was I self-seeking? Now? No, that really doesn't seem to apply. You know, the seven deadly sins, pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, sloth. Well, I was really angry then, but it just feels like it's faded now. I don't really feel that anger.
It doesn't seem to apply. Was I frightened? Was I afraid? Yeah, I'm afraid. I'm afraid of you because of what I think happened with me and my dad. I can't let you into my life. I can't have a relationship with you because in my mind, if I trust you, if I give myself to you, you'll have power over me and you will hurt me, and I am not going to let that happen. And because of that, I can't love fearlessly.
I can't participate in life, and it's killing me. And probably most importantly, on the bottom of 66 and top of 67, the book talks about those of us who are spiritually sick, and my sponsor put it in a very simple way. He asked me, where are you unwilling to be forgiving of this person? Are you unwilling to accept that your dad is spiritually sick and that he is a child of God and he deserves forgiveness like you do?
And the answer was yes, and he had a very simple acronym for that, U-A-S-S, U-Unwilling, A-Accept, S-Spiritual, S-Sick. And every time I write it, I write U-Ass, because I'm being an ass. Nine times out of ten, this person doesn't even know about the resentment. They're not even in the game. It's like sitting down with a guy and playing checkers, and he thinks you're playing chess. It's a totally different game.
And one of the things that Michael did for me was he asked me about this. He said, okay, so he had it written down. He says, so you're resentful at your dad. I said, well, yeah, he left me when I was five. I mean, that seems like a justified resentment, right? And then Michael said to me, well, man, wasn't that exactly what you were going to do the morning that you met me? Weren't you going to leave your wife and your kid?
And I've got to tell you, I felt like my soul went out of my body. You know, all the air left me. You know, they talk about ego deflation at depth, and that's what happened to me. Because my sponsor at that moment in time saw me for who I was. Not for who I acted or wanted to be or pretended to be, but for who I really was. And my experience in the steps is they helped me to see me for who I am, and you for who you are, so that I can treat you appropriately as a child of God.
Not who I expect or demand you to be, and this is most difficult with family members, but for who you really are. And we went through this process, and, you know, I did this fifth step with him, and he was prepared for a long talk, and we did it. And I got quiet afterwards, and we worked through six and seven, and I want to talk briefly about the amends process. And we got into that process, and I've got to tell you, I did a lot of amends wrong.
I did them badly. And one of the things that happened to me was Michael asked me, he asked me to make a list of proposed amends.
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So I did, and I came to him, and he asked me the very first one, he said, why do you want to make this particular amends? And I said, well, if I make this amends, she'll forgive me, and it'll be okay. Now if you've done this process, you know that's not the point of the amends. The point of the amends is to cause some reparation for the person that I've harmed. The book talks about, they may throw me out of the office, they may reject everything I'm trying to do.
It's not about me feeling better. It's by trying to help you reduce some pain. And one of the things that Michael did during this process when we were in the fifth step and the ninth step was we took a look at the Lord's Prayer, which a lot of people in AA say many times as they close, as a closing prayer. And I used to say this all the time as a little kid. You know, and one of the phrases is, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
I didn't know what that meant. And Michael explained it. I didn't know what that meant until I was 38 years old and Alcoholics Anonymous. It means one of two things. Either I'm asking my higher power, God, to forgive me only to the extent that I'm willing to forgive you, and apparently not much at that point in time. Or I'm stating a spiritual truth, which is I am only forgiven to the extent that I will forgive.
And that's why they say that forgiveness is divine. It's that simple. So we're in this process and I was supposed to make amends to my mom. And she grew up, she was in Vegas and I was supposed to say a couple things and then listen. Very, very important that I listen. I drove to Vegas. I sat down with her. She talked. I talked. She talked. I talked. And I talked. And I talked. And I forgot to shut up.
And it was really bad. I got out of the room. I got on her side of the street. I started sweeping it up and looking at her character defects. It was really ugly. It was really inappropriate. I knew I'd done the wrong thing. And I came back to LA and I told Michael, I think I really blew it. I sat down with her and I told him what happened. He said, well, didn't you invite God into the equation? I said, yeah, Michael, I did.
But he seemed to leave as soon as I started talking. I don't know what happened. And Michael said, it's funny how it works that way. If you want to listen to God's direction, sometimes it's good to be quiet, to be quiet. That took me a long time to learn. But he told me, he said, look, you'll have an opportunity. It'll come. She doesn't live that far away. She's in Vegas. She can't do anything right now.
But the time will come and you'll know what it is. And in 1999, I knew when that was. In the spring, I got a call from my mom. She told me she was dying of cancer. She'd had cancer before. She'd been cancer-free for 15 years. She'd had a radical mastectomy. She'd had both breasts removed. But now it's back, 15 years later. There's a spot by the spinal cord, a spot by the lung, and it's metastasized.
So it's in the bloodstream and she doesn't have more than a year. So I reviewed what I was going to do with Michael and I got in the car and I drove out to Vegas and I went to her hospital room. And I sat with her and I made amends the way I was supposed to make amends. And a father was restored to his mom and a mom to the son. And I listened. You know, and whatever I was angry about, whatever I was irritated about, whatever I resented her about just evaporated.
But now I've got a problem. Because now I'm a dutiful son and I don't know how to do that. I've never done that before. I went to some guys in my home group, one guy, Bill C. His dad, Gordon, died with 45 years sobriety. And Gordon had cancer. And I know that Bill was taking care of him. We were taking meetings up to Gordon as he was getting ready to die. And I said, Bill, what do you do? And he said, it's really simple, man.
You want to go to her. You want to sit down. You want to comb her hair. You want to brush her teeth. You want to tell her stories and listen to her stories. And that's it. That's it? Yeah, that's it. That's all you got to do. Just pay attention. Be present. And that's what I did. And I was her son. And before she died, she called my brother and my two sisters. And she brought him over and she said, look, if you need anything, anything at all, you call Stephen.
He'll take care of it. Now, five years ago, that was never happening. I wasn't present for her. I wasn't present for them. But you taught me to be where I say I'm going to be and do what I say I'm going to do when I say I'm going to do it. To recall, to be present, to be right here, right now. And that had completely escaped me before I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I was there and my mom passed away.
And I did the eulogy and I took care of everything for her and probably, most importantly, for my dad. And before she died, it was Christmastime of 99. We were in Vegas. for those of you who've had a loved one that's passed from cancer like this, they slowly slip into a coma
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and they have this process where they go through hospice and they bring them back home and they just are alert and awake less and less hours every day. So it's important that you get out there and you get to see them and talk to them before they take their light to another room. So we're all out there over Christmas and my mom is probably alert only 2 or 3 hours a day and we're cooking and I think we were cooking spaghetti and my sister Vic is down from Sun Valley, Idaho and she's there with her significant other John and they're drinking wine.
And this wasn't remarkable at all except for the fact that I've been to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings with John. And before that particular night, he had more time than me but not that night. And he announced to the family that he went to a doctor and found out that he had some kind of chemical imbalance and it's been corrected and now he could drink normally. Now, I've been taught not to judge but I'm watching, you know, I'm watching and I'm counting and I call my sponsor Michael and I say, Michael, John is drinking and he says to me, don't judge, it's none of your business.
And by the way, you don't just have a chemical imbalance? And I said, yeah, I know. And he said, you know, be present, you know, maybe you can help him if he ever wants to come back to us and if not, maybe you can make amends to your sister because you haven't made amends to her yet. So I sit there and I'm watching him and what John is doing is he's taking his wine glass and it's down here and he pours the wine so that it's all the way full, it almost crowns, you know, so he's got to lean over and go, you know, before he can pick up his wine glass.
And he's got that wine glass with him all the time. Now, my sister, she'll misplace her wine glass and she'll say, where's my wine glass? Oh, it's behind the toaster because I'm watching, you know. And, you know, towards the end of the evening, I tell my sis, you know, you're going to finish that, right? Because it's the right thing to do. I mean, you don't, you know, no wounded soldiers, sis, you want to finish that wine.
And I relate to John because the way he drank with the wine glass is the way I drink beer. And what I mean by that is, you know, if I'm drinking beer and I'm sitting there and we're at a bar and I'm drinking with you and, you know, I can't leave a half empty beer bottle on the table because you'll drink it. I mean, there's just, it's going to happen. So I got to take it with me to the bathroom. And when I go to the bathroom with that beer bottle, I don't know about Iceland, but in the United States, if it's a civilized urinal and bar, it's flat top so you can put the bottle on top.
But in some bars, they're crafted by the devil. They're designed by Satan and they're rounded, you know, and you can't put the bottle down. What to do? Well, if you're an alcoholic of my variety, you put it in your teeth and hold it like this while you go to the bathroom. So my teeth are all chipped, but I never lost a beer, not a one. And that's how John drank. And I, you know, I went home and my mom passed away and I did the services and about two months later, I got a call, one of those calls.
A lot of us have gotten them, two or three o'clock in the morning, the person is crying, I can hear the tears, I can, you know, I can hear the congestion and the snot. And it takes me a while, but I finally realized it's my sister. And what she finally tells me after a few minutes is that John has found it necessary to put a gun in his mouth and blow his brains out. And he's done that in the living room next to her and her daughter, my niece.
And what I was able to tell Vic is I said, look Vic, I don't know if John is an alcoholic of my variety, but if he is, this is not about you, this is about him. It's about selfishness and self-centeredness and look at me. And there's an organization I know about, it's called Al-Anon. I know about them because they follow us everywhere we go. I am convinced that we are the reason for their existence, but they never seem to thank us.
I don't understand. But I know people who know people and I got her hooked up with Al-Anon in Sun Valley so that she could get some relief. Because I could help her out, but you know, the reality is, you know, I play for the other team. You know, I'm an alcoholic. So I love her as a brother, but that identification that we get alcoholic to alcoholic that Al-Anons get, it's different and it's special.
And the last amends I want to talk about is a very significant amends for me. It was to my daughter, Ashley. My daughter, Ashley, was born with cerebral palsy. She had a very severe seizure disorder. She was not ambulatory, so she couldn't walk. She was in a wheelchair. She had to be fed through a feeding tube. She couldn't talk and she could communicate with her eyes,
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but she was really, really, really sick. And one of the many things I'm not proud of that I talk about openly in Alcoholics Anonymous is I resented her. I resented my own daughter because she took away time for me drinking. I didn't want to take care of her. If she were normal, I wouldn't have to deal with this. That's selfishness. That's self-centeredness. That's alcoholism. That's who I was and I had to be relieved of that.
I mean, I brought her up. I had to be relieved of that. I mean, I brought that into AA. That lasted for a time in Alcoholics Anonymous and I had to work through that with my sponsor and another gentleman by the name of Scott and I got relief because I was able to see her for who she was, that she was a child of God and she was the type of person who never harmed a single person and I could take her out in the wheelchair and I could tie a balloon around her arm and it would blow in the wind and her hair would ruffle and she'd laugh and giggle and she was my daughter and I was her daddy.
And now everything's great. Everything's wonderful and I'm so happy to Alcoholics Anonymous for bringing me to God and bringing my daughter to me except there's one problem. It's time for her to die. The doctors come to us and they tell us she's dying. She's 19 but inside she's probably 80. She's on so much medication for seizures and for other various illnesses that she's got that her system is just shutting down.
And I got a problem with this because now I'm a good father and I want my daughter and I have a conversation with God and I say, what, how can you do this to me? You know, I was such a crappy father before and now I love my daughter and I'm there for me, for her and don't, don't, don't take her from me. Don't do this. And I had to do a lot of spiritual work with that and I had to get quiet and I had to pray and meditate.
I had to follow direction of a sponsor. And what came to me in that quiet time was this. What came to me is the very distinct possibility that I now think is the reality. God wasn't taking her from me. He was bringing her to him. And what was going on with me as I was being selfish and self-centered once again, she was ready to go and she was tired. I would hold her in my arms and she'd look at me and I knew, I knew she was ready to go and my job is to be her daddy in this world and the next and to walk her light from here to the next room.
And what I've come to believe in Alcoholics Anonymous that has been so important to me is that our essence does not die when we leave this planet and physical body. The essence of my daughter was imparted to me, through me, but what I believe is God and she taught me how to love. And that lives through me and hopefully I can convey that to others. And the people that I've known in Alcoholics Anonymous are not about what they've got and what they've done.
They're about one man talking to another and conveying what's been given from him to the next man so that a person can live, so that a person can live. And when you go to an AA memorial service and you hear about these people, you realize that they live on in us. They live on. They're not walking the planet anymore, but the lessons that they've taught us live on in us. And I got to tell you, if I get nothing out of Alcoholics Anonymous other than that, I'm totally overpaid.
I want to talk about sponsorship for a little bit. I am not here to tell you to go forth in sponsorship. I'm here to tell you to go forth and sponsor. That is not my job. I get that. But I want you to understand that my experience is this. My experience is that through sponsorship, the joy of Alcoholics Anonymous, the joy of the 12 steps has been revealed to me in a way that I never thought was imaginable.
There's a line in the 12 and 12, it's on page 57. The first time I read it, it made no sense. It's very simple. It's this, until we had talked with complete candor and had listened to someone else do the same thing, we didn't belong. When I read that when I was new, and yeah, whatever, what it means to me now is everything about the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Until we had talked with complete candor of our conflicts, until I had given Michael my fifth step and had listened to someone else do the same thing and had listened to another man give his fifth step, I still didn't belong.
I still didn't feel like I was in that circle of life. You know, and I got to tell you, I love prayer and meditation.
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I think it's very, very important. I also think it's important to remember that the 11th step is what's between 10 and 12. It's so that I can fit myself to be of maximum service to God with you, not so that I can sit in a closet and pray. That's not what it's about for me. And through this process of sponsorship, this happened to me the first time and it's happened to me every time. When I sit down with a man at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning and he reads me his deep, dark secrets and he gives me that fifth step, the same one that I gave to Michael.
And I know his story and he knows my story. And we're not supposed to be there because we drink no matter what. And he knows my story and I know his story. And we drink no matter what. And he's doing this thing that we do. He's giving me his fifth step, this treasure. And I look in his eyes and the God of my understanding is in that man's eyes every time. Every time. There have been times in the 11th step when I've had moments sublime.
But every time I've listened to a fifth step, every time I feel the presence of God without question. Because we're not supposed to be there. And one of the ways that this works that's been most significant to me is I sponsor a guy. His name is Stephen. Stephen has a son. His name is Evan. Evan has cerebral palsy. He has a seizure disorder. He's in real bad physical shape. And Stephen knows that I share this and he understands why.
When he came to me, he resented Evan just like I resented Ashley. We did these 12 spiritual exercises that we call the steps. And a father was restored to his son. And a son to his father. A couple weeks ago, we were over at Bill C.'s house. We were cooking chili for our chili cook-off. Laughing and smoking cigars and drinking soda and farting like dogs. And Evan was sitting on a blanket, laughing and giggling because Alcoholics Anonymous had given him back his daddy.
So if you're new, I want to welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous. Again, I hope you're desperate. I don't say that to be mean or cruel. I believe that that desperation is the gateway to grace. It doesn't feel like it. It doesn't taste like it. And it doesn't smell like it. But it is. It is. And it's a beautiful thing. And if you've been around a while, I just ask you to think back and remember that time when somebody bought you a cup of coffee or took you out sat you down at a coffee shop when you were out of your mind with alcoholism.
Or better yet, that person that sat down with you and cracked open that book and worked the 12 steps with you. And just think about the person who's to your left or right because they need you. And I just got to tell you if you're anything like I am, I know one thing more now after 14 years than anything. And that's that I need you a lot more than you need me. Thanks for having us here.