Welcome to the Hell and Back meeting of Cocaine Anonymous. My name is Mike, and I'm a crack head. Hi. Are there any other addicts present? Welcome. Please help me open this meeting with a moment of silence, followed by the serenity prayer. God. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Cocaine Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other, that they might sol- that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from their addiction. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop using cocaine and all other mind-altering substances. There are no dues or fees for membership, but we are fully self-supporting through our own contributions. We are not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution. We do not wish to engage in any controversy, and we neither endorse nor oppose any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay free from cocaine and all other mind-altering substances and to help others achieve the same freedom. In accordance with the seventh tradition stating that we are fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions, we will now pass the baskets. The mission of the Sunday night To Hell and Back speaker meeting of Cocaine Anonymous is to carry a strong message of recovery, hope, and spirituality to those who ma- who may not be in a position to receive such a message easily. To Hell and Back does this by recording the speakers every week. Proceeds from the CD sales at this meeting go towards the duplication of these recordings and their distribution free of charge to halfway houses, treatment facilities, and other institutions. If you would like to make a contribution to this cause or purchase recordings of any of our speakers, please see our CD chairperson after the meeting. At this meeting, we read the 12 steps adapted from the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and tonight I have asked Howard to read. My name is Howard, and I'm an addict and alcoholic. Hi, Howard. 12 steps. One, we admitted we were powerless over our, over cocaine and all other mind-altering substances, that our lives had become unmanageable. Two, came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Three, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. Four, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Five, admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Six, we're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Seven, humbly ask Him to remove our shortcomings. Eight, made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Nine, made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10, continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. 11, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for the knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Thank you, Howard. That was for me. Handstand. Oh, okay. At this meeting, we record our speakers. Please turn off all cell phones. Also, the chairs in this room are very loud, so please keep the movement in the room to a minimum out of respect for the speaker and for the recording taking place. It's been a little bit since I've been to Hell and Back. Congratulations, you guys. The, uh, the sense of, uh, tradition and, uh, um, is, is steeped in this place already. I can really feel it and, and it's, it's my great honor to introduce Howard, who I love dearly. Uh, and he, uh, he also gives me that sense of lineage and, uh, connection to all those that have lit the way for all of us. And so, uh, listen to Howard. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Howard, and I'm an addict and an alcoholic. Hi, Howard. It's an honor to be here. Uh, thank you for inviting me. Uh, I, uh, I always, I mean, I frequently say, "Well, I'm gonna tell my story different now," because I've, I've been telling essentially the same story since I was, uh, 13 years sober, and I've been sober for 39 years. So I've been leaving… But I never change it. I just tell the same jokes and everything. But, uh, uh, I was… A thousand years ago, I was born in Los Angeles, California. But I was raised in a small farm community about 45 mi- miles southwest of Wichita, Kansas. We were in the Bible Belt, and in the Bible Belt, you're taught about God. Uh, a- a- and, and, uh, much of what I was taught wasn't helpful to me. In the Big Book, it says that something to the effect that we have to get rid of our old ideas. And, uh, I've heard the– years and years ago, I heard somebody say, "Now, that's very important. That's very important." And I thought, "Well, it may be for you, but my old ideas are good ideas." Uh, but I didn't even know what my ideas were. I've told a story about the, about the training of wild elephants. They'd take them out of the herd, and they put a rope around their leg, and they snub them up to a, a tree until the baby learns that when the rope's tight, it's futile to pull. Then they go on with the rest of his training. But, uh, uh, when, when, uh, they ended the movie, there was an elephant that was a huge elephant who they had cut a tree down, trimmed the limbs off of it, and they had hooked the harness o- on the elephant to this tree, and he'd pull that tree out of the forest for harvest. And at the lunch break, in order to hold the elephant where they wanted it, they put a rope around his right front leg. They drove a stake deep enough in the ground that when they wrapped the rope around the stake, the elephant could walk around, but when he got to the end of the rope, the rope got tight, and he couldn't pull against the tight rope. That was what he was trained to believe, and that's what he believed. The rope didn't hold the elephant. The stake didn't hold the elephant. The limiting belief that they imposed on him when he was a baby and all through his life up till then was what held the elephant. I wasn't in the program very long, and on the way home from a meeting, it occurred to me, I thought about something, something was said in the meeting reminded me of the baby elephant, and I identified with it, and I thought, man, I come to… I came to sobriety with about six hundred and fifty thousand four hundred and two baby elephant beliefs just like. I mean, I, I– my whole belief system was limiting and was wrong, but we get locked into it. It, it's, uh, uh… and it's just very difficult and, and it takes a lot of, uh, program effort, uh, to change that. So I was taught that I was separate from God. Nobody told me… Well, finally, they told me I was separate from God, but, but God was up in heaven, and I was in this little farm community. And so I knew I was separate from God. And, uh, I knew that if I– I, I knew that if I would do what God wanted me to do, my life would be better, and there was plenty of those guys telling me what God wanted me to do. And, uh, and if I got in trouble, they said, "Beseech God in prayer to help you." Well, the on- the first time I can remember praying was it was the day before. It was Sunday at church, and it was the day before wheat harvest started and, and, uh, or was supposed to start, and we fervently prayed for it not to rain so that the farmers could harvest the wheat. Then we would pray for it to rain. But until then, we were praying for it not to rain. And, and that, that day it rained, and it hailed, and the wind blew and wiped out all the wheat in some of the county of Kansas. And while nobody pointed the finger at me, I knew whose fault it was. I knew who wasn't doing what God wanted you to do. Therefore, it was my fault that God hadn't answered the prayer. Now, if you're four or five years old, and you've assumed the entire responsibility for wiping out the Kansas wheat crop- … what you have is an ego problem. An ego problem is where I base my sense of well-being on me making things happen that I lack the power to make happen. And my whole life was made up of that effort. I had to be an individual achiever, I was taught, so that I could win the competition, become the best and the boss, and with that, I would have prestige, a position of authority, money, and a sense of well-being. It's just that it don't work. And, and besides that, uh, a lot of people wouldn't do when I was in this position of authority, what the hell I told them to do. Mm-hmm. And, uh, and I would try harder to get them to do it. You know, and in retrospect, I'm not sure exactly what it was I wanted them to do. I just know that I didn't feel good, so they have to change. Somehow, they have to change, and that's gonna make me feel better. Well, and, and, uh… I won't get into … other than w- my dad was an alcoholic. I was the sixth kid born in that family within eight years. I was born in 1932, so that, uh, uh, it … there was in the, uh, the Great Depression, and, uh, and my dad would, would, uh … There were three times when he just beat me way the hell harder than he should've. And, uh, I never got where I liked being beaten. I understand in California there's people that like that. They hang 'em up and I'm not like that. You whip me tonight and I'm gonna cry. Uh, but nothing really went well for me, and I never had the sense of wellbeing. I was 12 or 13 years old. I was in the seventh grade, so five and seven is 12, around there, and I, uh, I drank my first half of a half a pint of whiskey, and I remember feeling good. I remember thinking, "This is what they mean when they say let's go have a few, few drinks and get to feeling good." And, uh, I'm telling you, it was a thing. In, in, uh, the book Alcoholics Anonymous, in the back of the book, they describe a spiritual awakening, and the language they use is a sudden change in consciousness followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook. A sudden change in consciousness followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook. Think about your first drink or your first cocaine or your first drug. What was the experience? A change of consciousness followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook. Man, that was it for me, you know? And it was … Now, uh, I, I can tell you I married my grade school sweetheart. We've been married for 58 years. In that period of time, in that period of time, she got drunk one time. She was on the floor in the bathroom with her face up against the porcelain throne. The next morning when she got up, she said, "I don't know how you guys do it, but I'm never gonna do that again." And she has, she has never done that again. I know, as a scientific fact, which we will largely skip over, other than to s- The big book is technically correct when it says we are bodily and mentally different from our fellows in such a way that if you assign a value from zero to ten of how you feel… Let's say my wife normally was a five. Okay? She just felt that about mediocre good all the time. And I remember watching her having that think, "How come she's such a phony?" Because- … nobody feels good like that all the time. Now, what I know now, if she was a five, I was a three, and when she drank whiskey, she went from a five to a seven, and from a seven to a two and a half, and she was never going to go to a seven again if… You know, because she j- she's… Five was good enough for her. We live our lives as a three, and whether we're taking alcohol, drugs, cocaine, or what the hell we're taking, w- we will go from a three to a seven, and when we go back to two and a half, we're thinking, "I'm going back to seven." "This shit is too good." We become addicted to sevens just like that. And, uh, uh, and the thing is, it isn't that bad to start with. It's just that over any considerable period of time, it gets worse, never better. And I went, I, I just… And that was certainly true in my life. Um, Pat and I graduated in 1950 from… And, and the Korean War started, and I joined the service and went to Korea. And, uh, she got engaged to this guy and, and my li… And I had never… I'd always loved her, but I never told her. And, uh, uh, but, but my life was gonna be empty without her. And then I found out that they broke up, and I went home to tell her. When… Soon as I come back to the States, I went home to tell her I loved her. And, uh, I had also learned some Shakespeare, a lot of Shakespeare for some reason. And, and, uh, one of the things I said was, "Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eyes, against whom all the world cannot hold argument, persuade my heart to this?" She fell like a ton of bricks. And we got married about a month before I got out of the service. And, uh, I can't… I don't have to tell you guys the stress that you feel when you have that responsibility. And, uh, kind of a f- f- you know, kind of a strange thing from 58 years ago that what we did was fall in love, get engaged… Well, we fall in love, we dated, we got engaged, we got married, then we had sex, and then we had babies. You know? That is actually the, the way it was planned, and that's what we did. And, uh, with that comes just an immobilizing stress. And, uh, uh, I, I g- I… Eventually, I was going to college to get a jo- to get a degree in engineering, and I got laid off on Friday as a toolmaker, and Monday I got a job as an engineer, a, a entry-level engineer, as a process analyst. I was a process analyst. We analyzed processes. And, uh, I… It turns out I was good at it because the other jobs I had had gave me knowledge that engineers don't normally have, just practical knowledge. And so… But I had to write reports, uh, you… and I was doing a good job of technical analysis, but I couldn't write a technical report. Now, that kind of limits the importance of doing a good job if you don't write reports so that the people that need to know that get that information. But the fact is I couldn't write reports, and because I couldn't do it, I would just seize up more and more. And I, I took the stuff home to work on it. And, uh, at home it was the same thing. I got my, my s- paperwork spread out on the table, and I just froze up with anxiety, with fear and anxiousness and, and… Now, I had nothing specific in mind when I got up and looked into the refrigerator other than perhaps to see what the hell was going on in the refrigerator. And what was going on in the refrigerator was a neighbor had brought a pint of whiskey over to my patio party Sunday and had left what was left in the bottle in the refrigerator. And, uh, I knew Bambi wouldn't mind, so I poured myself about a half a glass this size of, of whiskey, just nearly all that was there. About half of what was there, actually. And I sat down, and I was sipping this whiskey, and the thought came to me, "Why don't you start the report with a brief description of what prompted you to do this analysis in the first place?" I said, "Hell, that's a good idea, Howard." And then I thought, "And then you could briefly describe the significant findings of the analysis. And then you could conclude the report with recommendations to change the process based on those analysis results in order to improve performance." I went back to the refrigerator, I knew what I was looking for now, and I got the bottle of whiskey, and I sat down. I did not get drunk. I did not get drunk. I got brilliant . And I wrote, I wrote a technical report. I discovered a technical vocabulary that I didn't know I had . And I knew this was a good report. And I didn't get drunk, I got confident, I got brilliant. I took it to work the next day. I didn't get brilliant at work, but they typed it up and circulated it for approval. Everybody that had to approve it, approved it. My report was neased on, released on Friday. That seems to be a law. All reports get released on Friday, unless you're on the street. On the street there's no need for reports. Uh S- so, the next Tuesday or Wednesday, my boss's boss's boss, the chief of the section I worked in, brought my report out in his hand and said, stood right at my desk and said, "Howard, did you write this report?" I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "This is a great report." I said, "Thank you." He said, "We knew you could do it if you'd just give us the effort." My head said, "Effort, your ass. I gave you effort. It wasn't effort, it was whiskey." But my head also told me, "Don't tell him that." Let him think effort. They'll pay you more money for more effort. They won't pay you any more money for drinking whiskey. And I'm in it for the money and I'm getting the whiskey, too. So there you solve some problems in your life and, and what happens, of course, is once you're working better, you start getting better assignments so that you can no longer wait till Wednesday night to start this process. You start at Monday night, and then you carry it on Tuesday evening, Wednesday, Thursday, and, uh, and then you have the patio party on the weekend. And then I got an assignment to analyze data on the flight reports of the Atlas missile program, which is top secret information, so you can't take that stuff home. Aha, but what you can do is go out for lunch and have a couple martinis or whatever goes good with lunch. Now you're, you're smart again. You're brilliant. And I prepared this, I, I, I did this summary report, and it turned out to be a bestseller. It made the division director look good. It made the, the General Dynamics division director and his counterpart in the Air Force. It just made everybody look good, and I became the, the kind of the, the hero of this story. And I didn't have anything to do with it, except whiskey. And, uh, I got promoted from a process analyst and engineer to a senior engineer. Then I left Convair or General Dynamics and went to Hughes in Culver City as a senior senior engineer, and then as an engineering manager. And that's not setting the world on fire, but that's a progressive series of promotions, which I got because I drank whiskey. Long about 1970, I had to drink so much whiskey before I become brilliant that my speech became slurred. And my boss was after me about that and, and, "Gutter, what you drinking?" "Well, I'll cut back, but, but he, I can't tell him that, Tom, I can't do anything if I don't drink whiskey." Now, there's a thing called synchronicity, which is roughly defined as a series of random events which together move life forward in an orderly way. Synchronicity was certainly part of my life when I went into the Tattletail, the bar I drank in, and I found a guy that was selling little white pills with crosses on them that he, that he wrapped in tinfoil and held them up, you know, when you bought them, he'd go like that, and looked like Lifesavers. It were Lifesavers. That's what it was. Booze and Benadryl. You know, man, that helped me in every area of my life except controlling my bowels. It did not help. Some of you may remember, if you take bennies and booze together, you will have trouble controlling yourself . But man, you are smart. And then pretty soon, that kinda gets you wired, and you find new combinations and, and, uh, uh… And in the Tattletail, I don't know about you guys in your bars, but in my bar, we were deep thinkers. Nothing is as easy as it looks. If something can go wrong, it will go wrong, and at the worst possible time. My God, that's a fundamental truth of life. We need to put that on a sign and put it on the bulletin board. Everybody needs to know this. Life sucks. And then you die Out there. Do not trust anyone. And then we go to Patrick Henry, I think. "I know not what course others may take. But as for me, give me Librium or give me death." We had a sense of humor too, you know, and all of that went, you know … Now, my boss demoted me, took me out of management. I was gradually accumulating debts beyond what there was any hope that I could pay. My wife was going to leave me. I talked her into staying, uh, but I knew that was the very end, and, and I also knew that all my life without her, my life was empty. And I wanted her not to leave me. I told her, "I'll stop drinking altogether if you'll stay." She stopped. Four days went by, and I said, "Pat, we gotta talk. I want you to stay. We need to stay and raise our kids. We can work our way through this. But if I can't drink anything, I guess you'll have to go." And this … I had not wanted my life to come to this. I, this wasn't, you know … But it came to that. And there really wasn't a choice. I was … You know, and, and, and the idea of not drinking wouldn't ha- … Well, I was, had all these troubles. I woke up, and it was just, I just … Goddamn, you know how it is. And I went to the bar, and I stopped about 6:00 in the morning, and I had a double shot. And I could relax. And then as I was drinking the next one, I'd look out the Dutch door, these people hustling and hurrying to work. And what my mindset was, "Those people don't know shit about how to live life. This is it right here." Why would I give this up when I was just feeling terrible, and in two drinks there wasn't a problem in the world? Yeah, but it just stopped there. Well, I didn't. And, uh, uh, I, I had an opportunity to sell some equipment that I didn't own. Which, in fact, was owned by the federal government. Which I found right before they lost it. I got it through a fence. The fence ran off with the equipment. And on July the 26th, 1972, I woke up on page eight in the Big Book. Of course, I didn't. I just make up page numbers. I make up what it says. Nobody ever checks. And it and it adds credibility to my talk. No words can express the loneliness and despair I found in that bitter morass of self-pity. Quicksand. Straight quicksand. That's the bottom, folks. When your life is sinking, when the character and quality of life is disintegrating, and there's nothing in your life to stop it. That was where I was at. I realized this equipment that I'd stolen was owned by the government. I knew the routine. It's calibrated test equipment. The calibration lab recalls the equipment for recalibration. Nobody finds it. They tell security. They never find anything, but they fill out these reports and submit them to the federal government, saying, "We lost your equipment." The government sends them to an office in Santa Monica, which is called the Federal Bureau of Investigation office, and they send people out to the Tattletale to say, "Do you know where I could buy some test equipment?" I, uh… All of that came to me that brilliant morning, and I thought, "I've got to stop. I've got to stop drinking." And I was gonna go to AA because the last time Pat was going to leave me, she said, "Why don't you go to AA?" And I said, "AA is for people, and CA is for people, where drugs and alcohol have caused so much trouble in their lives that they need to go to this special program. That's not our trouble. If you'd just get off my goddamn back, that'd be That day, I knew it was my trouble, and I turned myself in to AA. Uh, I did not believe I was an alcoholic. That was something that was an old idea. Um, I believed all of these things that we heard and thought of in the Tattletale, you know? And, and yet the first guy that… Kenny, Kenny Sixberry, w-was the guy who took me to my first meeting. Well, Kenny S. Uh, back when he was in the Tattletale, we knew him as Kenny Sixberry, but he went to AA and changed his name to Kenny S. And, uh, and, uh, he introduced me to his sponsor, who I trusted. It's an amazing thing. It's not amazing now, but at the time, I knew I trusted him, and he wasn't– he didn't even smile. He frowned all the time. Uh, but he did welcome me, saying, "Join us in what we do. Do with us what we do. Don't do what we don't do. And in a very short time, your life will be magnitudes better than you ever dreamed your life could be." I had… But I trusted him for some reason. I, I, I just knew that's what I did. Uh, that night, they described alcoholism the way… and, and drug addiction the way we know it is. We're obsessed with the insane, obsessive belief that this time it's gonna be different. This time, I'm just gonna get my heart started. I'm gonna get my, my brain to working, and then it's gonna be different this time. I am not going to overshoot the mark. But coupled with that insane obsession is a physical reaction that's peculiar to us as a class of people that manifests itself in a phenomenon of craving for more once we start. Well, I knew I never craved a drink. Uh, and my– and Kenny told me that night. He said, "Well, if you didn't crave it, the reason you didn't crave it is because when you start drinking or using, you keep taking the pills in large enough numbers or drinking the drinks quick enough that the craving never has an opportunity to set in." I thought maybe that's what I am. I know I got drunk one more time. I was drunk for five days. I had never been drunk for five days before. I had not been able to stop, and I tried to stop. I, I had the willpower to stop smoking cigarettes about four years before I came to program. That takes willpower, and that's all I had going for me, and I willed myself not to smoke, and I quit smoking. And I knew when I stopped… when I wanted to stop drinking and wanted to stop taking drugs, I knew I had the willpower to do it. Well, let me tell you folks, I could not stop. I didn't have the willpower to go by the goddamn bar. I had to go into the bar, and I was in San Diego, and all I needed to get by the bar to get to the gate to get on the airplane to come home, and I didn't ma– I started trying on Monday, and I didn't make it till Friday. And I will just tell you this, that, that changes my life. That scared the hell out of me. I didn't know if I'd ever get stopped again. And if I do get stopped, I don't want to have to do this over again. That was a, that was a big, big… that was a tall pole in the tent of my early life in recovery. Uh, I, I, I, I wasn't going to work the steps. I wasn't going to trust God for Christ's sake when… Let it rain. And, uh But he never did anything like that to me. And I, uh, uh, but I went to meetings and, and Kenny said, "Listen to what people say. And, and there's no doctrine here. We don't know what the answers are. We just know what worked for us, and people will share that. Listen to them. And if somebody shares something that you think fits you, take that home and add that to your program. But right now, your program is go to a meeting every day. That's it. Just go to a meeting every day. Listen." I heard a guy say in my first 30 days, "If you make one mistake and brood about making that mistake, you've made two mistakes, and the brooding is generally the worst consequence of the mistake." I said, "Goddamn, that's true in my life. I'm gonna take that home. I'm gonna stop brooding." Well, I didn't stop brooding. I heard a guy say, "I was 36 years in learning that all the people that I hated didn't feel it, and it's killing me." And I thought, "Goddamn, that's right. I, I got to stop hating people, and I'll take that home." And I did, but I didn't stop hating. And today, I can look back, or e- even years ago, I could look back and see really I wasn't taking… What I was taking home was hope, hope this works. I didn't know that's what I'd taken, but I'll tell you that's a good thing. That's a good thing to take home. The hope that this will work keeps you from being hopeless, and it helps you, so it keeps you from being helpless. Without that, we are doomed to a seemingly hopeless and helpless state of mind and body. So we stop drinking and stop using, and we start bringing home hope. And, and I heard Archie Johnson say, um… Jeez, I'm out of time already and I'm not even… Okay. Uh, Archie Johnson said, "I was so busy today wanting what I was getting that I didn't have time to worry about getting what I want." And in the program, we try to learn to live in the now, right now. And whatever's happening right now, including my cough, love that because that's what's gonna happen anyway. I thought, "Let's stick him in the eye with a sharp stick." "Let's see him love that." 'Cause that is the way I thought. That was my old ideas. And I went outside and it was raining as hard as it could rain in the Pacific Palisades in California, and I've hated the rain since it wiped out the wheat crop. And I make it to the car. I'm soaked to the skin. And the voice that used to tell me, "Don't trust anybody," said, "Why don't you love the rain? 'Cause it's gonna lo- gonna rain anyway it always has. Why, why, why not love it?" And I went home, took a shower, put on dry pajamas and, and, uh… Which, since I stopped drinking and using, stayed dry. And, uh, we had wooden shingles and I could hear it and it was soothing, and I loved the rain. Now, why would I love the rain? For the same reason that I trusted Frank. And whether you know it or not or believe it or not, I know it and I believe it. It is what we call God's grace. God graced me with a trust for Frank and graced me with love for the rain because that's the way we get a toehold in this program. We keep coming. We take stuff home. And just gradually, our life changes. And we start… Yeah, and then I heard a guy say, "If you're not working the steps, AA will stop being fun, and you'll decide it isn't gonna work for you. You're not gonna drink or use, but you're not going to those goddamn meetings anymore either. You don't go to the meetings," he said, "and you'll go back to the bar, or you'll go to the crack house or wherever you're doing the deal." And the guy may say, "I thought you was going to the program. I, uh, uh, CA or AA. Don't that work? If you're not working the steps," he said, "be honest with him and tell him you don't know if those programs would've worked or not 'cause you wouldn't try." And there was nothing in my head to stop, to not, to, to, to pop off at that. And I started doing the steps. Probably at the first half of the first step, then the fourth step. Uh, and, and I forgave my dad. That is such a big thing. I took the equipment back. That was such a big thing. The morning after I took the equipment back and the boss said, "I don't know where it's been, but I know it's in perfect working order and therefore I know it wasn't stolen. And it wasn't stolen 'cause I have it. But you mustn't ever tell anybody you stole it." Well, I haven't up till today. I'm saying it today. In case there's some new people, so I can also tell you the truth. That ever how good you felt, I mean, I know how good I felt when I drank my first drink, took my first Benzedrine, kept taking that stuff. I know how good that made me feel. I felt that good when I woke up the next morning and the equipment was off my shoulders. Except it was a better good feeling because my speech wasn't slurred and I was controlling my body functions. It was a very good feeling. And, uh, so I just kept doing that stuff. I, I, uh, um, I would call Frank. I could, I could get a hold of Frank, my, my sponsor. Um, anyway, I called, um… I was, I w- I was upset about something and, and Frank said, uh, "What's wrong?" And I said, "I'll tell you what's wrong. I watched the juggler on television last night, and there was a guy spinning plates on the tops of sticks. He had six sticks like pool cues, and he'd take a plate and put it on the first stick, and he'd get it spinning. Then the second one, and he'd get it spinning. And when he got to the fourth one, the first one was falling, and he had to go back and get it going and get the second and third and fourth. And he had to fit…" I, and I said, "That's the way my whole goddamn life is." Frank said, "Well, why don't you let the plates fall?" "Well, that's easy for you to say 'cause you don't have to make a living. I have to make a living. You're retired." He said, "That don't sound like living to me." And he said, "You're an engineer. You have to know that there's some kind of lip on the plate that interlocks with the stick when you engage centripetal force, and that's what keeps the stick up, and that's what keeps the plate up and spinning. It isn't anxiety. It isn't the body English. It isn't the tenseness." And that became my third step. Someplace along the line, I was asked to speak at Brentwood, and I spoke at Brentwood and I told that story. And, uh, this was about… Now I'd been sober for quite a while. And, uh, that's 'cause it was after '83 because this good-looking kid with long hair, and I'd seen him around. I didn't really know him, but he kept going to the back of the line, the, the, the, the line of the, the people thanking you, and he kept going to the back. And, and, uh, when… So that- He was the last one to shake hands with me and thank me, and he said, "My name's Johnny Siegel, and I'm spinning plates, and I'd like for you to help me stop spinning plates." I said, "Let's have lunch tomorrow." That … He… One of the plates he was spinning was he was offered a vice president… He was active. He was at the first CA meeting, and he was very, very active in CA. Uh, certainly one of the active cofounders. And, and he had been offered the vice president of marketing job with some, uh, chemical treatment program, and, uh, he was also a successful television actor and writer and songwriter. And his third option, the third plate he was spinning is he wanted to work on his own expense with no other income other than from his investments and help Cocaine Anonymous get started. And I said, "Well, are, are you seriously considering this vice president offer?" And he said, "No." And I said, "Well, take that plate off the goddamn stick, and, and then you decide what the other option you're gonna do, and we'll meet next week, and I'll convince you you made the right decision." And when we came back the next week, he had decided to live on his income from his investments and work on helping Cocaine Anonymous get started and get going. Some of you guys knew Johnny, and, uh, and he did this not just all over the United States. He did it all over any place where he could at his expense for fun and for free. And during that time, he never had a depressed moment. He was… Now, he should have been depressed because he used to, uh, mimic me. You know he would say, "Howard said," and then he would do a very poor imitation. Very poor. Didn't sound like me at all, but everybody would say, "Johnny was imitating you," you know. Now I'm so proud of those. Sometimes people call me up and play me these tapes of him doing me. It still doesn't sound like me. That guy s- sounded funny. I sound like Clark Gable. Uh, I g- … It was just one of the great parts of my life and, and I… And he asked me if I would join CA and be a member of his home group, uh, uh, and he said, "You could be an elder statesman," which y- you know, an, an elder statesman is a guy who has been sober, kind of knows how he stays sober, knows the traditions and can, can, can kind of pass that information on, and with that experience, is able to help when asked. Now, there's the fatal flaw in that process because nobody's ever gonna ask. But I went, and I enjoyed the meetings, and I still go, and they're wonderful meetings. And, and for a long time, or for a while, I thought, "This isn't… Well, it's kind of different, but AA and CA meetings are very much alike. I'm not sure we need two meetings or two programs." That was what I was thinking, and then I heard Tom one night at my home group, the CA group, the, the, the East Valley Men's Group on Thursday night at 21:21, and Tom was talking about doing something with cocaine in a crack house, and he said, "I burned my thumb to the bone." And I'm thinking, "Jesus, Tom, you should've went out and got a drink." Drinking's safe compared to this. But at the end of the meeting they said, "Does anybody have a burning desire?" And this kid stood up, and he had just been, just been discharged from, uh, the, the, the… one of the, I think, uh, uh, Chandler Valley Hope. And, and he said, "They told me to come to this meeting, and on my way I was sure that I wasn't going to the right place, that I couldn't find help, but I want you to know my thumb is burned to the bone." And I thought "Goddamn, this is a good program that we have here, where people can come in that could never identify in an Alcoholics Anonymous." They… In AA wouldn't, we wouldn't any know more about burning your thumb to the bone than the man in the moon. I'd know about speed, and I'd know about a lot of, of that. But when it comes to that kind of thing… And I'll tell you this, Tom needed to share that so he could solidify his relationship with this newcomer, and he could start sharing with him what he has found here. How great is that? And thank you, Johnny Siegel. I have… My life has changed- When… Okay. That, that would be fine with me. Uh, so I've worked a step. It's, it's… That step working is an amazing thing. If you're angry a lot, and you wonder why you're angry a lot, you know, one of the things that I discovered was if I made a list of everybody I was angry about in my life, starting with my dad… Now, I'm not only angry with him. Every time I think about the son of a bitch, I resend the anger. That's called a resentment, and I am sending the resentment over and over again. No wonder. Well, you know, anger, anger and fear are character strengths when you're being chased by a grizzly bear. But if your grizzly bear died in 1951- … and the only place this is going on is in your head. Now, when you're being chased by a grizzly bear, there's a, there's a rule of nature, and it is don't let the pleasure centers be activated because the last thing you want when you're being chased by a grizzly is to suddenly feel pleasure and say, "My God, this is wonderful." So if your grizzly bear is a dead father from 1951 and you're not experiencing pleasure because you're angry about that, give yourself a break and cut him some slack. Give him, in every instance, give him tolerance for what he did. Give him compassion. He, like you, had to have his way. He was in a position of responsibility over your behavior, and you misbehaved. The fact that you had attention deficit disorder and, and, and wouldn't have done that… I mean, I was smart enough not to do a bunch of that stuff, but I wasn't engaged in that. I was daydreaming or something, and getting beaten didn't help me. But my dad didn't have a chance. I could see that, so I could give him compassion. I could give him patience, and I could give him kindness, and those things are forgiving. There's no quid pro quo. There's no let's make a deal. That stuff is forgiving, and when you give that, you get it out of your head, and you activate the pleasure centers that would not… You wonder why you're feeling good. I'm telling you, that's why you feel good, because the pleasure… That's the only way to… You know? Eh? Your pleasure centers are activated, and your anger and fight you have given up on. And that's what the steps do, and we do it… We, we don't do it with just one trip through the steps. We do it, and we do it, and we do it. And I learned to meditate. Frank taught me to meditate, and I meditated for 30 minutes every day from October the 30… from October the 1st, 1974, until July of 2002 when I had open heart surgery, and I missed some days. But meditation is a very, very powerful thing. And anyway, and it's part of the steps. So this is a hell of a deal we have in AA, and, uh, CA. And, uh, we're the luckiest people in the world. And the traditions, if I wasn't… I'm, uh, running… I'm out of time, but I would have liked to have just talked about the traditions because the traditions… Okay. None of us can stay sober in our culture. We cannot by ourselves just be in our culture and stay sober. We have to drink and use to, to make it in our, in our culture. We come to AA and CA, and we learn traditions and steps. One of the things we learn through the traditions is we are now organized to be of service. Our culture is organized to establish positions of authority, and direct people, and get to the top of the heap so you'll feel good, which will never ever, ever work for us. But if we take being of service from our structure of being of service, so at our jobs we do our best simply to do our best, to be of the best service we can to our employers and the people we're serving. And as soon as we turn… If, if we're doing it for a paycheck and you get paid twice a week that's it. Twice a week you'll feel good. If that's what you're working for, twice a week you'll feel good. If we're doing it to be of service, it's, it's a life-changing thing, and it feels good. And the other, as soon as you start working for money, you lose your sense of… Well, I don't know about you, but as soon as I start looking for a dividend check from my business, I lose my sense of wellbeing, and I become money per… You know? So there's no way I could get from where I was to where I am, 'cause I have a wonderful life. I have wonderful friends. People love me, and I love them, and we don't even know each other. That's because we do know what love is. Love isn't standing apart gazing at each other. Love is standing together- Sharing mutual objectives and going to any length to help each other reach those goals, and our goal is a happy, comfortable life in sobriety, and we go to any length to help each other do it. That's not just saying we're in love. That is being loving. It's a hell of a deal. Thank you for letting me share, and I love you. Thank you, Howard. If you would like to purchase a CD of this speaker or a previous speaker, a big book, a 12 and 12, or a Hope, Faith and Courage, please see our CD chair. This meeting is a home group. If you would like to become a home group member, we, we meet the third Sunday of every month directly following the meeting. Next week's speaker will be… The best speaker ever. The best speaker ever. Can we get one more big round of applause for our… Thank you. We will now close the meeting with a prayer of Howard's choice. Conscious of who we're praying to. Then let's pray the Lord's Prayer, and let's slow it down slightly so we can know what we're praying for. A moment's meditation. Prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. Be safe. Bye, sweets. Bye. Thank you very much. Hey. And as soon as we turn… If, if we're doing it for a paycheck and you get paid twice a week that's it. Twice a week you'll feel good. If that's what you're working for, twice a week you'll feel good. If we're doing it to be of service, it's, it's a life-changing thing, and it feels good. And the other, as soon as you start working for money, you lose your sense of… Well, I don't know about you, but as soon as I start looking for a dividend check from my business, I lose my sense of wellbeing, and I become money per… You know? So there's no way I could get from where I was to where I am, 'cause I have a wonderful life. I have wonderful friends. People love me, and I love them, and we don't even know each other. That's because we do know what love is. Love isn't standing apart gazing at each other. Love is standing together- Sharing mutual objectives and going to any length to help each other reach those goals, and our goal is a happy, comfortable life in sobriety, and we go to any length to help each other do it. That's not just saying we're in love. That is being loving. It's a hell of a deal. Thank you for letting me share, and I love you. Thank you, Howard. If you would like to purchase a CD of this speaker or a previous speaker, a big book, a 12 and 12, or a Hope, Faith and Courage, please see our CD chair. This meeting is a home group. If you would like to become a home group member, we, we meet the third Sunday of every month directly following the meeting. Next week's speaker will be… The best speaker ever. The best speaker ever. Can we get one more big round of applause for our… Thank you. We will now close the meeting with a prayer of Howard's choice. Conscious of who we're praying to. Then let's pray the Lord's Prayer, and let's slow it down slightly so we can know what we're praying for. A moment's meditation. Prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. Be safe. Bye, sweets. Bye. Thank you very much. Hey.