Audio
Transcript
Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – 3rd Annual Woodstock Session 10001 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: bob-d-3rd-annual-woodstock-steps-1-2-and-3-aa-date-unknown-archive-10001.mp3 Duration: 00:49:41
============================================================
My name is Bob D, and I am an alcoholic, and I'm sober only through the grace of a God that I was afraid to believe in, that I have accessed and maintained in my life through the twelve-step process in this book, an ability to remain reasonably sponsorable, and a persistent and consistent effort in the primary purpose of helping other drunks, and consequently, I haven't had a drink or any mind or emotion-altering substance since October 31st, 1978, and for that I owe you big time. I'll never pay that debt. I woke up, I got like some laryngitis going on, so it's probably the first time in my life I've actually sounded like someone from Vegas. So if you're new, I got a program you can't refuse, you know. I want to thank Bobby and Bill for picking me up at the airport. Bill took me to a noon meeting, and I like going to local meetings when I'm out of town to get the feeling of the local fellowship, and it's all pretty much the same no matter where you go. And I, it's funny, I was just thinking, I just thought of a weird thought, AA's very much like the mafia, very few people get out of here alive. I'm tasked with talking about something in an hour that you could spend a half a day talking about the first three steps. The big book of Alcoholics Anonymous spends more verbiage on step one in the meetings around the country. You will hear people talk more about things that have to do with step one than anything else. Bill, in the 12 steps and 12 traditions, says that it's the first step, half of step one is the only thing we will ever have to do 100%, and that's probably true. The rest of it, we try the best we can, you know, but no one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence.
But step one is crucial, it's one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do, and I couldn't do it intellectually. You know, in chapter five, it sort of sums up a lot of the big piece of the program, when it says our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas. A, that Bob is alcoholic, that's not good, that Bob is alcoholic and he can't manage his own life, period. There's not, I never thought, there shouldn't be a period there, there should be like a room for exclusions, except money, work, sex, or maybe a little little caveat on there, that he couldn't manage his own life when drinking, but now that I'm sober and I'm thinking clearly, get out of my way, will ya? I mean, let me at it, but no, it says period. I can't manage my own life.
And B, that probably no human power could relieve my alcoholism, and how do you know that? Oh my god, what didn't we try? I mean, we've tried everything. I mean, I was hypnotized, it never did keep me sober, but to this day, if the doorbell rings, I have this tendency to want to bark, but I don't, I don't. I primal screamed, I'm embarrassed to tell you, at one point this therapist had me lay on the floor in her office and scream at the top of my lungs, mommy, daddy, as I kicked my hands and feet, oh god.
I did gestalt therapy, I took all kinds of medications, all kinds, I mean, I'm the guy, I got, I'm driven by something, I don't know what's wrong with me, and I don't think it's alcoholism, so anything that gets on the radar that I think maybe is going to help, I took a run at it, you know, I took a run at it. And no human power, the only way, I couldn't get that because you told me in 1971 as a young kid,
[00:05:06]
not quite old enough to take a legal drink, when I was first introduced to my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in an institution, at that point you couldn't have convinced me that no human power, you couldn't convince me I was even powerless, really, you could convince me I was in trouble, I mean, I was in trouble, but I'm going to turn this around, man, I'm going to turn this around, I'm a victim of a delusion that I can, I know I don't, I'm very, very unhappy now and depressed and my life's a mess, but I know I'm going to pull it together, I'm going to wrest some satisfaction and happiness out of this world, I just got to, I just got to get some more information, I got to understand where I went wrong, I got to line her up, and I'll get her to roll.
And I had no idea that the worst years of my life were ahead of me, when I fantasized that the best were ahead of me, that I just had to hit some bumps in the road, that's all, it's going to be good, no human power, including me, and that God couldn't, what if he were sought, oh no, not, not that word, not the G word, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, then the next thing it says, being convinced of those three things, being convinced basically of step one and step two, I am at step three, and I got it, all I got is my experience, and I got to tell you, I, I'm going to talk a little bit about my handicaps and the things that blocked me from being convinced, being at that place where I was ready for step three, and one of the things that, it's true as long, far back as I remember, when it says in the beginning of chapter three, most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics, oh man, I don't want to be an alcoholic, I don't, I don't want to be an, I got, I got some members, I got some uncles that are alcoholic, they are pathetic, they are, oh my God, they're, one guy's really mean, they're just idiots and pathetic, I am not going to be like that, but I will be a drug addict, well, there's, there's a little panache in that, I mean, the banner we used to ride under was sex, drugs, and rock and roll with, it's not sex, drugs, and wet pants, I mean, it was, you know, so I don't want to be an alcoholic, I'll be a drug addict, I'll be a mental health case, I don't mind that, that's not all bad, if you're a mental health case, they give you pills, that's not all bad, but I don't want to be an alcoholic, oh man, not an alcoholic, and besides, I, I got this delusion that someday, some way, somehow, I'm going to control and enjoy this thing, I'm going to roll it back to the good old days when I was, when I was a teenager, man, and I'd get high, and it was, I was rocking and rolling, man, I could, I got to be able to roll that back to that day, I, I, I have to, because the truth is, without that medicine, without that effect, I'm nothing, and that's my big secret, I'm nothing without it, I can't live in this world, I don't know how to fit, I, I, God, I can't, I'm just, I'm so, that the, you know, alcohol, it was such an amazing thing, it would take me to such heights of majesty, and, and, and just come, oh my God, I could be so bright, and so funny, and oh, I could talk to girls, I'd tell you, if it wasn't for alcohol, I'd be celibate to this day, I, I, I just, I, I could have never, I couldn't even ask a girl to dance sober, I'm nothing, alcohol allowed me to play, learn how to play the guitar, and sing, and play with, in a band, it allowed me to, to do things I could never do, to be, um, my God, I loved it, but no matter how glorious it is, the, the bane of alcoholism is that I, I always end up having to sober up again, and then I'm back to being me, oh, that ain't no good, and I, that's my big secret, that I, that the way I am on the natch ain't no good, I don't fit anywhere, I don't know how to be funny, I don't know how to talk to people sober, I, I ain't no good, so this delusion that some, even though,
[00:10:03]
in the latter years, man, this deal has turned on me, and it's gotten bad, now I drink, and I feel sorry for myself, and I, from about the moment I get out of a halfway house, and start drinking, I pretty much stop bathing, because the truth is, once all the fun ran out of the party, I, I don't care, I, at the very end of my drinking, it was all about oblivion, it wasn't a party, and yet, and yet, I fantasize sober, the, the, usually the two or three hours before I pick up my first drink, after a period of abstinence, I am dreaming the daydream of past drunks, you know, I'm, I'm romancing, I mean, I am excited on my way to get high, I'm excited, because I put the memory of that effect, when it was magical, up against the backdrop of my sober desolation, and abstinence is desolate for me, it's lonely for me, it's depressing for me, I'm the kind of guy, I quit drinking, and I worry about stuff, I worry about stuff that's so crazy, I can't tell you what I'm worrying about, you know, but I worry about stuff, I, what you're, what people are thinking is a big piece of business with me, I, you know, I'm always wondering what you think, and I, and if I catch you looking a certain way, I know what you're thinking, and, you know, this is not a friendly universe, sober, and I want, I want to get back to those glorious days, and so, what is a delusion, except that it's a psychotic wishful thinking, all of reality is that there is no control anymore, and there is no enjoyment, there is no ease and comfort, but my god, I don't want that to be true, I can't have, it can't be true, and so, what do we guys like do, we try everything, don't we, we try all the medications, we try the different branches of therapy, and I found a lot of stuff, oh my god, I'd find new medications, or I'd have these breakthroughs in therapy, these things that happened to me, and it would change my life for two weeks, and then I'm back to being me again, and even, even in the latter days when, that I was in and out, you know, I got to the point where I, the first part of that, that first delusion was smashed, and okay, I get it, I get it, I don't know why, I don't know why I got that allergy, man, I've tried, how many times can a guy tell himself, okay, just, I'm only going to go that far, and as Ralph says, and it's whole paycheck, you know, how many times can a guy tell myself, tell myself, can a guy like me say to myself, man, I can't go, I can't do that again, and I do that again, maybe worse, and I get it, I get that, I got that thing, I got that, I couldn't have said the words allergic reaction or phenomenon of craving, I didn't, hadn't read the doctor's opinion, I don't know, but I know that I'm the guy now, after, this is after three or four years of rehabs, three or four years of trying to control and enjoy my drinking, I get it, and here's the sad part, I believe with everything in me, that that knowledge, now that I broke through the, I'm not an alcoholic, and I am an alcoholic barrier, I think that that knowledge coupled with this sincere desire not to drink again, because now I know, I think I'm out of the woods, I think I'm home free, and the most horrific years of my life were yet to follow, how could you know, I mean really know, and make up your mind, and make up your mind, you're never going to touch it again, and six months later, You're back at it again.
I did that time and time and time again. And the more I failed at staying sober, the more I hated you for your wonderful sobriety.
[00:15:02]
People in AA just would start to creep me out, you know, be in those skid row halfway houses. I was in one and I'm there because I'm homeless and it's one. time. Some people go to Bermuda, I go to treatment. I'm in this place and it's bad. My life is bad. And I got to sit in the day room at this stupid meeting and listen to these people from the outside come in and tell me how wonderful their life is. I remember sitting there thinking, isn't it bad enough that I burnt my life to the ground? You have to rub my face in how wonderful you are? I thought, I've died and gone to hell. This is hell. This can't be any worse than this. It's hell. And I kept going back to it. And there's another delusion the book talks about. The idea, the delusion that we're like other people or presently maybe. You know, after you're six, eight, ten months sober, 20 years sober for that matter, got a good job. People like you again. Heat's off. You know now you're not going to go to prison. It's good. People are starting to like you again. Mom and dad are throwing a little money at me on occasion. I cured them of that later. I start feeling good.
I got a girlfriend. Things are looking up, looking up. Don't really feel as alcoholic as I did in that detox. When I was in that detox, I really felt like an alcoholic. I'm telling you. Oh my God. I was jumping out of my skin. My nerves were shot. I was dry heaving. I was an alcoholic. Self-centered guys like me, we have a tendency to judge ourselves by how we feel. I don't really feel that alcoholic. And I act like a guy who doesn't think or feel he's an alcoholic. And what starts happening to me, some crazy stuff.
Sometimes it would be obvious, and other times it would go right below the horizon and just undermine the very fabric of my life. Is it this soul sickness, this malady of my spirit would start to work on me. Silkworth starts to talk about some of the symptoms. He says that guys like me, when we quit drinking, I become restless. Well, I am right now, but I know as soon as I get to the place I need to be, I won't be as restless. I don't know where that place is. It's just not here. I'm irritable. I don't want to admit I'm irritable.
First of all, irritable people irritate me. You know irritable people. You work with them. I don't like irritable people. I'm not irritable. But man, when I quit drinking, I just see how stupid people are. It becomes very clear to me. Oh my God. Everywhere I look, stupid people. There's stupid people everywhere. You go to work, they look like good people when you got the job. You're not there very long. You can see how stupid they are. You drive in traffic. Oh my God. Do you ever see the stupid people in traffic? Oh, some of them are driving like crazy people. Other people are driving like they're really, they shouldn't even have a license. They're going so slow and they're, oh my goodness, get out of my way. Stupid people in traffic. The grocery store. Go to the grocery store to buy some simple little thing. Get in the line behind people. Do you ever see what they buy? Oh my God. There are some stupid people in the grocery store. Oh my God. A half gallon of ice cream and a six pack of Diet Coke. There's some stupid people. Stupid people in this world. I'm telling you. Oh, they make you go to these AA meetings. Oh my God. They're grouped right here. All the stupid people, they're right here. Do you ever sit with untreated alcoholism and listen to people share an AA? Oh my God. Half of them, half of them sound like they need a drink. And the other half sound like hallmark cards from a recovery bookstore. I mean, it's like, I mean, I feel like sometimes I'd feel like I was being stoned to death by platitudes from a refrigerator magnets from a recovery bookstore. Stop. If
[00:20:08]
I get another, if I get another God loves you one day at a time, I'm going to puke. I'm telling you. Oh, you know the one that used to make me crazy? People would say, if no one told you today, they love you. I do. I just sit there. I don't, I don't even like you, but I'd like to know where you live and when you won't be home. And I'm chronically malcontent. So of course says we're discontented people. And I, I, that is so mysterious to me. I spend my life getting sober. And every time I get sober, I got this desolate vacancy inside of me. I, I don't know what it is. I can't put my finger on it. And so I start targeting things to bring into my life that I hope are going to make a difference. You know, like that relation, like that girl. Oh my God. She's the one. She's the one. And you know what happens? I reel her in, get it right up here. Close and personal. We're three weeks later. Oh my God. Was I wrong about her? Jesus Christ. Get that job. Oh my God. I remember this so clearly. There was a big steel mill, Pennsylvania. Friend of mine worked there. Make big money. I mean, it's big money. Buy a house, own a boat, have a Harley kind of money. Oh my God. I thought, oh man, if I could get into that mill and that, you can get in there. Oh man, I'd be there. I got in there. Boy, everybody there, stupid people. I'm telling you. And they don't do it right and they're taking advantage of me. And I, I left. I was the guy, I'm always the guy that's leaving. You're always wrong and I'm always leaving. And I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know that I have a malady of my spirit. I, I started hitting psychiatrists. You know, there's implication in step two that you're insane. I got, I think I got some files to validate that around the different places. I, I've been, I've had several diagnoses. One of them was clinical depression and I've read the diagnostic stuff. I understand why I was diagnosed clinically depressed.
It matches up. And I took the treatment for clinical depression and it helped for a little bit. And then the relief wasn't enough and I started slipping back into being me again. The guy who's disconnected and disassociated from life itself. The guy who seems to get stuck up here and I can't get out. I was diagnosed as free-floating anxiety and panic disorder. I understand the diagnosis. I would just, I'm a worrier. Most thinkers are. I'm a thinker and a worrier. Bill says something in the book. Bill says some funniest stuff sometimes.
I didn't know this. You don't know some of this stuff's funny until you're sober a long time. You read it again, you go, oh, that's funny. Bill says, we talked to you a lot about problems. He says, that's because we are problem people. I have a friend who says he calls himself a golf person. All he thinks about, he's obsessed with golf. I'm kind of obsessed with problems. I see them where they don't. I'm like that guy in Sixth Sense where he walks around going, I see dead people. I see problems. In religious training as a kid, I didn't hear about the God who loved me and was there for me because there's nothing to worry about there. I heard about the God who existed to judge me. Now, that could be a problem. I heard that. The God who could see in the dark. Oh, that could be a problem.
Oh, I do my best work in the dark. I mean, oh, my God. Could see in the dark. The God who could read your mind and judged you for what you were thinking. Oh, I remember when I hit that, the nuns talking about God knows your thoughts and your thoughts are sins. I thought, oh, this is awful. This is really bad. Because to this day, I got basically left unchecked. I got two movies in my head. One is sex and the other is violence. I'll
[00:25:05]
drive down the street and go, I'll kill him. I'll do her. I'll kill him. And I ain't trying to do that. That's just the stuff that goes through here. I mean, so, oh, if there's a God, I'm in a lot of trouble. Oh, my God. This isn't right. There can't be a God. I'm better off being an atheist. But it's hard to be an atheist. It really is very hard. Because you got to, if you've ever met any real atheist, you kind of got to be very religious about it. I mean, no, really. I mean, I can't get that much fanatical angst about being an atheist. I'm a hope, I'm a kind of want to be atheist. I just, what I really am is I'm a guy that's afraid of God. I have this thing in me. It's this defect, I guess. I don't know. I'm the kind of guy that if I just suspect you don't like me, I'm going to not like you first. And that's the way I was with God. I just thought, everything in me told me that I'm never going to be good enough. I'm never going to measure up. You know, I go to church and I look at those church people and God, I'd like to be like them. You know, but I ain't. I know it. And I get tired of pretending that I am. I'm just too bad at being good and I'm too good at being bad. I don't mean to be that way. I've tried, I've had some periods where I have really tried to be good. What happens, it just seems to put torque on my back because when I can't be good anymore, I just go, man.
I just go, you know, I go. Some of the worst drunks I've ever been on, the most hideous, the most shameful were after periods of being really good. So if there's a God, I'm in a lot of trouble. You know, I know. I couldn't have intellectualized it. It wasn't a cognizant thing, but I knew in my innermost self that if there's a God and he helped everybody on this planet except one person, I know who the one person is, you know. I know. I know what I did to my mother and father. I know the guys that went to prison as a result of me because I needed to save my own butt. I know every despicable thing I've ever done.
That's always the problem is that I know, don't I? I know. I always knew. I think it was George Bernard Shaw said that, that said that God created us in his image and unfortunately turned around and returned the favor, which means that I, I start imagining God has all the judgmental, petty, childish, vindictive, self-righteous qualities that I have. And it's hard to warm up to a God like that when you're like that. And so I come in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous and I run up to the God barrier and it's just, I can't do that.
I can't do that. And even, even when I've got to a point and in 1978, I tried to kill myself. I tried to take my own life. I'd been relapsing for several years and I was in a horrid, horrid spot. My sponsor says something that is so dead on. He says, you get to a place where there's no friendly direction, even in the bottle. I got it. I get it. I can drink that. I can drink till I pass out, but it's pathetic and it's self-pitying and depressive drinking. It's drinking where I feel awful and grimy, terrible, squirmy, awful drinking where the only relief I have is oblivion, which oblivion wouldn't be bad except it's not experiential. You're out and there you are again. And I always come to and there's no relief anywhere. There's no friendly direction anywhere and I'm at that point where I can't live with it. Not like this. And I can't roll it back. I failed and I finally, in my innermost most self and and that's really what it talks about step one and I I think this is the beauty of Alcoholics Anonymous and also the greatest hurdle I must
[00:30:00]
surmount is that I can die of alcoholism understanding intellectually everything. if I don't fully concede to my innermost self. And the problem is that my ego doesn't mind learning about alcoholism. My ego loves knowledge. It loves it because it's in the business of solving problems or if there's none to solve it will create a few to solve just because it needs something to do. And I love, the ego loves knowledge because it fancies that it's power if you know enough. I became, I came out of one treatment center. I was their star student. They put me in this training deal. Became an alcoholism drug abuse counselor. I was very good at it. I mean I really learned how to do group therapy and one-on-ones. I learned about the intricacies of emotional response and all that stuff. I studied rational emotive therapy. I was very, very good at it. I was a great counselor. Right up until the day I lost the job for being drunk on the job. And then, then I would sit in bars and explain to people their chemical dependency issues. Presently unemployed but I am going to start a clinic.
Knowledge is not power. How do you fully concede to your innermost self? I guess guys like me, we just try and fail and try and fail and try and fail. And if you live long enough something eventually happens in here. And it was bad. I've been in meetings where people said, oh I finally got step one and they're very happy about it. I went to a bridge with step one to take my own life. I mean I went I mean I went step one was not good news. Step one was, Bob you're screwed. I mean step one was horrid. I'm in a trap I can't spring. I'm stuck here.
And I couldn't kill myself and I ended up in a detox. And I don't know what I'm going to talk about and I don't talk about much because I I don't know. I'm not so sure I understand what happened and I don't and I know absolutely that this experience in and of itself would not have kept me sober. But in that hospital a wannabe atheist who was scared to death of God, who had just tried to kill himself, who was finally at the place that it talks about that that guys like me have to get to before you ever come to believe in God. It says we came to believe in the hopelessness and futility of our life as we've been living it. And then it says then there's you're at a place where there's nothing left but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools that you guys have been laying at my feet for years and I jump over them on my way to get what I want. Because what I want makes more sense than what you're talking about to me. Besides I don't really want to change I just want relief. And I was in this hospital and I'm there getting ready to discharge me in a couple days and I am terrified because I know a truth. I know I'm going to drink again. I don't want to drink again. I really don't. There's nothing in the bottle for me and yet I know I'm going to go back to it like a moth to a flame. And maybe this time the despair will be great enough that it will overcome the fear of dying and maybe I will find a way to do me in.
And I'm going to die like this. I'm going to die in this lonely depressive nobody loves me anymore. Nobody cares about me. My parents who I loved so much won't even take my phone calls and I'm going to die like this. And this woman who worked there was a counselor she said to me one day in passing she said, so you've relapsed all these years. She said how you doing now and I said oh I'm doing wonderful. Which is not true. And she said to me well what have you done this time that's different. Now I don't, I didn't study for this test. So I said something that was an AA kind of sounding thing to say. I said oh I just took step three. And she lit up. She
[00:35:06]
said really? She said do you mean you said that prayer on page 63? And I was having this debate. I thought should I say yes? What if she asked me what the prayer said? No I'll get caught. So I said no I just kind of did it my way. And her whole countenance just sunk and she looked at me like I had stained myself or something. And she shook her head and walked away. And I'm getting ready to be discharged and I had this book this $15,000 big book that the insurance company paid for. And I turned, she said page 63. So I turned to page 63 and there's this crazy prayer in there. It's written in that archaic King Arthur kind of language or something.
I don't know you know. Who the hell goes around to, nobody in a bar ever came out and said so glad to see thee. I mean no nobody talks like that. So I'm reading this prayer and it's that offer myself to you to build with me. And then right in the middle it said relieve me of the bondage of self. And I read that prayer and I threw that damn book across the room and I started sobbing because I knew see I can't get away from me.
My god I've been trying. Once drugs and alcohol stop working there's no way to get away from me. And there's no way to change me so I'm okay sober. And there's no way to change me by any human means, chemical means, anyway. So I'm okay anyway, anyway at all. And I understood what it when it said bondage of self something in the core of who I am knew that I was stuck in me and I can't change it. And I fell down on my knees and I'm a guy who doesn't believe afraid of God. I'm terrified of God and sobbing I just said God please help me.
And I don't know that I could have ever meant a prayer more than I meant that. And I guess funny the course of events that happened after this. You know hindsight's pretty good. I didn't know what my lab just spinning. I'm facing two years in a state penitentiary. I'm homeless. They're trying to get me into a halfway house. I mean I got a lot of problems and I got to tell you something. Something came over me that made no sense at all was a feeling that I was going to be okay. Now I can't tell you why. There's no reason to think that or feel that matter of fact if you looked at my life objectively you'd go Bob you might as well kill yourself. I mean just but I had I had this comforting feeling and I went and I got a sponsor. I got this guy Dick T who's a man I love. He's like my dad. I mean we became so close over the years. I'm close over the years. He's old now. He's 87. He can't drive. I promised him I said as long as I I'm alive and I can drive and I got sponsees that got cars you will never be housebound.
And we come and get him daily. Take him out to meetings and he's amazing. He's amazing. And I went to this man who at that time 34 and a half years ago he was the guy in AA. I mean he was involved in everything. He was the guy. There's always one or two in every town. He was the guy in Vegas. And I went to him and I said something because I felt so worthless. I felt so unworthy of even help and I said if if you would you would you sponsor me and if you will I'll do everything you tell me to do. Which those words aren't much. The amazing thing is when he started asking me to do some things that I really didn't think was a good idea is that I did them. Like turn myself in and offer go to do two years in prison. There was let me tell you something there was nothing in me that thought that was a good idea. The amazing thing is I did it and I didn't know I didn't understand that a window had been opened here. That momentarily and I'm telling you only momentarily I had enough of me kicked out of me that I was able to walk through this window and start to make some connections and the window would close. And it would close and the ego comes back and you know it's it's sad but it comes back stronger and it comes back smarter.
[00:40:05]
And I'll tell you something that's I it's a I think about a lot. We're losing a lot of old-timers in AA and they don't think it's alcoholism. They think it's depression. They think it's anxiety. They think it's some kind of some somebody's convinced them. It's some kind of brain chemistry and if you examine their actions and you make AA suggestions of spiritual actions that are designed to realign me with God. They'll say crazy things to you like if you ask him why don't you come down to detox with me. There's a lot of new guys down there. Oh I've done a lot of that.
This year? When? You need a sponsor. Well I sort of have a guy I play golf with once a month. Wow how's that working? How's your how's your nightly review? How's your prayer meditation? How's your service? It looks like to me like your life's all about you. And they don't get it. We lose a lot of them. We lose a lot of them and it's alcoholism. And the problem with alcoholism is it mimics a lot of other craziness. Do you know there's one and I think every alcoholic to some extent is a hypochondriac. Anybody in this room other than myself have been convinced they had some sort of cancer when they didn't? Anybody? All right.
Well there's one disease a hypochondriac never thinks he has. Alcoholism. He never thinks that. He thinks everything else but never alcoholism. The great news about Alcoholics Anonymous I'll tell you I bank on this and I tell the guys I sponsor and I get a lot of guys that came out of mental health that were whacked and on medications for years. And I say are you willing to completely give yourself to this simple program? And if they say yes I'll say there's a promise in the book and the promise is that when you when this spiritual overcome that you will straighten out mentally and physically.
Let's see if that's true. Let's see if that's true. You don't believe it do you? I know. I know you don't. I didn't either. I was too nuts to be here. But are you willing to take the actions? I'll tell you a little story that I heard my sponsor share. Probably 1980-81. I don't know. A long time ago. I mean I tell it as if Clancy's when Clancy shared this I thought oh my god that's it. That is the deal. And I give him credit because I don't think there's ever been a better analogy for what we have here. You know most of us come here we don't we don't really believe that this will work. Why should we? I mean you you're telling me that there's a god and a source of power here that's going to change my life. You might as well tell me to vest all my problems under my pillow with the tooth fairy. I mean geez.
But are you willing to take the actions? Are you willing to take the actions that will eventually access the power? Clancy said when you hit a bottom it's very much like being shipwrecked at sea. That you're dying. You're hundreds of miles from from anywhere and you're you're treading water and it's it's bad and it's frightening. And just about when the time comes where you don't know if you just about when the time comes where you don't know if you can make it any longer coming kind of just across the top of the water are these two goofy looking guys and and they just they you don't even know how they're on top of the water. They're just they're pretending like they're rowing some boat or something and they're just coming across the water and they row up to you and they say my name's Bill. My name's Bob. We're from Alcoholics Synonymous we have God in these beautiful 12 steps and they'll solve all your problems and you go Get away from me You guys are nuts. I got problems here. I'm trying drownding get away from me I don't need I don't need to be drowning and have my last thoughts or crazy people get away from me You're treading water and they they row off because we're not intrusive
[00:45:03]
They row off and just about the time can't make it anymore over the horizon comes this big chrome Ocean liner it says treatment center on this side. Oh my god, they got psychiatrists and psychologists and biofeedback technicians and vocational rehabilitation specialists and medications and members of the opposite sex and dieticians and you know You know deep within you that a person of your depth and complexity needs all of that The plumber and the construction worker in the invisible boat don't really have it but all these guys with Degrees and oh my god, you get on you get on that boat and you go off to sea and it's amazing I mean, I'm in group therapy and Cracking the Secrets of My Psyche and I'm Emoting, I'm Beating Pillows, I'm Emoting, I'm Getting Stuff from My Childhood Out in the Open, I'm Seeing How I Was Mistreated, I Never Knew That Before Until You Really Pointed It Out, I'm Really Getting It, I'm Getting It Man, The Knowledge is Heady Stuff, It's Heady Stuff, Cause I Think Man, Now I'm Gonna Know, I'm Gonna Know, 28 Days Later, Over the Side and There You Are, Treading Water with Your Graduation Chip and Your $15,000 Big Book and About the Time You Start to Go Under and You Can't Tread No More Water, Here Come Those Two Idiots in That Invisible Boat, They Come Rowing Right Up to You, You Don't Even Know How They're Doing It, You Don't Know How They're Sitting on Top of the Water, They Come Rowing Right Up to You and They Say, We're Bill and Bob, We're From Alcoholics and Homeless, We Have God, These Wonderful 12 Steps, Solve All Your Problems and You Go, Oh Man, You Don't Got Nothing There, And They Pull You On Board If You're Lucky, There You Are, You're Sitting on Top of the Water and You Don't Know How You're Sitting There, As Some of Us, At 8 Months Sober, As I Sat in a Meeting in a Juano Club and I Realized, My God, I'm Sober Without Anything, No Medicaid, Longer Than I've Ever Been Free of Everything, Since the Time I Took My First Drink and the Truth Is, I Have No Idea What's Holding Me Up Here It Couldn't Possibly Be the Praying in the Morning, It Couldn't Possibly Be the Service, None of It Makes Sense, But Something's Got Me Here And I Don't Know What to Do and I Say, You Say to the Guy, What Do I Do and They Say, Row, Row? What Do You Mean Row? He Said, Just Go Like This and You Go, Oh My God, I Hope Nobody Sees Me And a funny thing happens, the more you row the boat, the more substantial it becomes and the stronger and the bigger it becomes and you can build a life in that boat and you can sail around and pick up other drowning people and you can raise a family in that boat and you can find the only life you've ever known in that boat and it's as solid as solid can be And then unfortunately, some of us get so comfortable in this boat that we stop rowing and the minute you stop rowing, the boat starts to disappear So if you're new, abandon yourself to God as you understand God or you don't understand God, it doesn't matter It's not, as a guy Joe said to me when I was new, he said, Kid, you need to take step three and I said, Joe, I can't take step three, I don't believe in God and he says, listen kid, just turn your will and your life over to this chair in the Elano Club and you'll experience a miracle And I said to Joe, okay, I turn my will and my life over to the chair, what's the miracle? And Joe said, the miracle is your life's no longer in the hands of an idiot If you're new, come with us, leave the idiot behind, pick up the oars and row the boat, thanks Thank you