Audio
About this recording
- Topic
- 1 Clif G. (AA) Lori G. (AFG) Oklahoma, OK lets Talk About Sex Al-Anon Without Bo
- Speaker
- Clif G. and Lori G
- Date
- 2020-06-06
Transcript
Source: Clif G. and Lori G – 1 Clif G. (AA) Lori G. (AFG) Oklahoma, OK lets Talk About Sex Al-Anon Without Bo – 2020-06-06.mp3 File: clif-g-and-lori-g-1-clif-g-aa-lori-g-afg-oklahoma-ok-lets-talk-about-sex-al-anon-without-bo-2020-06-06.mp3 Duration: 01:01:52
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Hey. Thanks, Yvonne. My name is Laurie Gidding. I'm a grateful member of Al-Anon. Hey, everybody. I'm Cliff Gidding. I'm a grateful alcoholic, sober since August the 15th of 2001. And my recovery date is July 1st, 2001. I'm only saying that because I want you to know I have 45 days longer than him. That's the only reason. Not that it's important. I'm just saying. Okay. So we are going to talk about sex and AA's dirty little secret.
I'm sure y'all are really excited. Actually, we make fun about this. But it's one of the things that everybody has struggles with and everybody has questions about that nobody wants to talk about. And and that's why we decided to do this. And so we're going to try to break this up into kind of what it was like, you know, before we got here. And after we and then, you know, when we got here and then after we got here and the struggles that we've had and, you know, what we brought into this relationship and and things that we've learned and things that we've had to do to to to figure things out.
And and we've used the steps and the traditions to do that. So I'm going to start and then Cliff's going to talk and then you may open it up after that for questions or for comments. And and then take a break. So I grew up in a religious home and I grew up with really good parents and they were really strict. But they were like my dad was extremely religious. He helped start a church when I was a little girl and he wasn't a minister or a preacher or anything like that.
He was a deacon for the church. And I'm told we had church services in our home before he helped build this church. And so when I was a little girl, I had two older sisters and an older brother. And when I was a little girl, we were we were we went to church all the time. And and I was you know, my sisters are 10, 11 years older than me. My brother's six years older than me. So when we I just remember going to church from the time I can remember anything.
And we always went. And so I I we had really strict rules about a lot of things. And then what happened and I had these principles and these values that I was taught. And then what happened is that when I turned seven, my parents divorced. And it seemed like when my parents divorced, all that kind of went by the wayside and nobody else kind of went to church anymore. I still went to church. I was trying to speak and trying to figure it out because I was going to be a good girl.
I always wanted to be a good girl. I always wanted to do everything right. And and and every and it seems like that nobody else really kind of talked about those those principles and values as much anymore. And it just kind of everything kind of changed in an instant, it seemed like. And so my my dad and my mom and my dad are were as old as everybody's my age as grandparents. My my I was a late in life baby.
And and so we didn't talk about we didn't talk about sex. We didn't talk about relationships. And so the only what I learned is just about relationships and things about me is by by just watching people around me. My dad was dating a woman immediately, if not before the divorce. And she became my stepmom years later. And and he and he and and there was a you know, there was a lot of stuff about that.
You know, were they having an affair? And and my mom talked horrible about my dad. And and my mom, when they got a divorce, started going out to clubs and she didn't go out to clubs because she's an alcoholic. She's not. And she didn't go out to clubs to go drinking and stuff. She went because she was looking for a man. She needed a man. And and she did that. It's it. And she was and she went out all the time and she started going out every weekend and all weekend long from the time that I was probably about eight or nine years old.
And she was gone a lot. And I was left home a lot. And and and one of the things that happened that I don't really talk about is that when she when she did that. There was a time when she would bring men home. She'd bring men into the house. And I was young and I didn't know a lot about about anything. But I knew I knew what sex was and I knew what sex was because I had an older brother that was six years older than me.
They probably told me more than I needed to know at the time. But they did. And my mom would bring home men and I knew what was going on and I hated it. And so I would do stuff like fake being sick or acting like I was scared or that I had a nightmare.
[00:05:05]
Anything to get my mom's attention to get her out of that bedroom. And I know that that made an impact on me. But again, nothing was ever talked about. Nobody ever said anything. Nothing ever happened. And and eventually my mom met my stepdad and I was about 13 when they got married. And my stepdad was really strict and he was really good to me. He taught me a lot of stuff and he did a lot of things for me.
But what happened was when I was 16, I watched him. I caught him watching me take showers through the skylight in the bathroom. And I told my mom about that. My mom caught him up there and asked him about it. And he told her he was cleaning the gutters. Now, it was 1130 at night, so he was not cleaning the gutters. And I and I and I think that she knew that he wasn't cleaning the gutters. And I think that he knew she knew what he was doing.
That my mom needed that security and was had been looking for a man for a number of years and finally caught one. And I don't think she was going to let that go for anything. And so what happened was I got kicked out of the house and I went to go live with my dad. And and, you know, and I felt like that my mom picked him over me and it's kind of good. But but that that that's what I grew up with is, you know, you have to have a man in your life.
And that's the most important thing. And and I, you know, and I and I've seen the way that my mom behaved around me. And my dad, you know, my dad was a good, good man. And he married my stepmom and they stayed together until the day he died. And and they had a pretty good relationship. Now, I saw them struggle. I saw them fight and argue and and all that. My dad had been sick for a while and he was kind of grouchy and he was kind of hard to get along with on some days.
And and so I've seen that. And we didn't talk about sex growing up. And we didn't talk about relationships growing up. Nobody ever sat me down. And I never had the sex talk. I will just tell you the closest thing that happened is when I was living with my dad. When I was a senior in high school and I had a boyfriend and and he had been around for a while. And I think my dad was worried. And my dad, again, as old as everybody else's grandfather fathers, I guess, couldn't talk to me about it.
So he asked one of my sisters to ask me if I was having sex or if I was tempted to have sex because he wanted me to be protected. And I was not I was not having sex. And and, you know, that's just the way it was. I always kind of it was always kind of a secret. It was not anything that we talked about. It was not. And it wasn't that I grew up that I thought sex was bad. I just didn't. I just it was just never talked about. You kind of had to form your own ideas.
And and for me, I think what happened was between growing up in church and this strict background and you don't have sex before you're married, which, by the way, is what I did. I stayed. I didn't have sex until I was with my first husband. And I had this strict. And and the fact that we didn't talk about it, I really didn't know anything about sex. I really didn't know anything about relationships. There were no good really role models in in my family.
And my dad has, you know, my my mom was my my dad's third wife. And my mom has been married five times, five times. I have a sister that's been married four or five times. I have another sister that's only been married twice. And and now I'm with my second husband. So there were not a whole lot of solid, good role models as far as relationships or anything. I didn't know. I didn't know what it meant to be in a relationship. I didn't know what it meant to.
I mean, I really didn't know what any of that stuff was. And so I got married at 19. I got married at 19 because a guy asked me to marry him. It's not because I thought that he was the love of my life. And we were going to live happily ever after. I mean, I thought that would happen, but that's not why I married him. I married him because he asked. And I was an insecure girl. I was always insecure my whole life.
I was the ugliest kid in school. And so I was I was I was very insecure. And so the first guy that asked me to marry him that I had any feelings for at all, I said yes. And and, you know, I was 19. He was 27. My everybody that knew me tried to talk me out of it.
[00:10:00]
And that I'm the good little girl and I'm not going to do anything wrong and I don't make mistakes. And so I'm going to do whatever I got to do to get through that and to prove to you that I'm right, because I always like to be right. And so we get married at 19. I get married at 19. It's a big mistake. I don't know how to be a wife. I don't know how to have a relationship. I don't even know how to pick a good partner.
And he was, you know, he he he wasn't like a meat. He wasn't like he wasn't a drunk. He wasn't abusive. He didn't cheat on me. Nothing like that. As far as being physically abusive, that he was verbally abusive. He was mentally tortured me every day. He had secrets. I couldn't trust him. You know, but I thought that I had said, yes, I knew, you know, I was married to him. And by God, I'm going to I'm going to make it work. And I stayed married to this guy.
Not because out of love and devotion, but out of the sheer deal of that. I'm going to be right and I'm going to make this work and I'm going to show you. And I was miserable. I was miserable in this marriage. I didn't know how to communicate. I didn't I didn't know anything about it. And he's the only guy I'd ever slept with. I didn't know anything about anything. We got had a we had a little boy and I didn't know how to be a mom again.
I it's just one of those things I'm trying to learn as I go. And, you know, I had elder sisters that were 10 and 11 years older than me. And we kind of would talk about things, but not a lot. There just was not a lot of communication going on about anything. And so, you know, I was pretty naive. I was pretty naive. I was pretty sheltered. I you know, I I just didn't know anything. I just really didn't know anything.
So when I when I meet Cliff, you know, I'm going to tell this story. I never tell this story. This is going to embarrass me to death, but I'm going to tell this story anyway. So the first time that I slept with Cliff, this is a true story. First time I slept with Cliff, I said before I slept with him, I said, hey, listen, you need to know I've only been with one other guy. He was like, OK, when we got done having sex, this is what he said. Oh, my God, you're not kidding about that, are you?
So that should tell you about how I had no experience. Let's just say that I had no experience. I, you know, I just didn't know anything. Again, naive, pretty sheltered. And so that is the background that I can come here with. I come here with secrets and not good information, no information and not anything healthy about really any relationship I've seen. Other than I will say this, my mom and my stepdad was probably an alcoholic.
I know that now. And they fought constantly and he was paranoid and he was jealous and they fought all the time. And I can't tell you how many times in the middle of the night or late at night that my mom would come into my room and say, pack some stuff. We're leaving. And we would go and stay with my sister's house for a day or two. And then we would go right back into the situation. I mean, I can't tell you how many times that happened.
And my dad and my stepmom, honestly, were really pretty had a pretty good relationship. I mean, there was at least some health there. The problem was that my dad was really sick. Most of their relationship and she had become less of a wife and more of a caretaker. And and he and again, my dad was cranky and he could be hateful and short. And she and she felt like she was being taken advantage of. And I could tell the breakdown there.
So when I get here, I'm just going to tell you, that's what I brought with me. That's what I have. I don't have any I don't have any really healthy ways to do anything. I just don't know anything. I just I just don't. And so, you know, and when I met Cliff, I will, you know, most of you know this. But when I met Cliff, I was still married to my first husband. And I met Cliff and I started dating Cliff.
And then I left my husband and I did that in that order. And I'm not proud of that. And it's not anything I recommend that I came into this. I came into this relationship really sick. And I entered a sick relationship and I did it all under the guise and secrecy and lies and unhealthy behavior. I was selfish and I wanted what I wanted and I didn't want to be married anymore. But I needed a safety net. And I'm going to tell you, when I first met Cliff, he was a way out of my marriage.
He was not going to say I will tell you that I was not going to stay with this guy. He was just going to be my safety net to get me through. Now, I will just tell you, we've been together 25 years. So who knows what's going to happen? You never know what's going to happen. But my intent was not to stay with Cliff. I will just tell you that he was going to be a fun little period. He was going to be a fun little period for me until I kind of got settled and then we
[00:15:03]
were going to step, and I didn't think he wanted anything either, I mean I just thought we were just going to have some fun and play around a little bit and then I was going to be, we were both going to go our separate ways, I never thought that it would work out. So I can, that's what I came in here with and then I meet Cliff and you know and it's wild and it's crazy and it's a lot of fun, but it's sick, it's just sick.
And so I'm getting in there, even though it's only been 15 minutes, I'm getting in there because he's got a lot more history than I do on the before, I'm just going to tell you. One marriage, he's got a little bit more than that, so I'm going to stop there and I'm going to let him go. You're doing so good. I was right with you, I was hanging on the edge of my seat here. Yvonne, thank you so much for inviting Lori and I to come participate today.
We talked about this about a month ago, I think it was, but in Corona time it could have been two years ago, who remembers, I mean you've been here trapped so long you just forget, but when we talked about it and I remember saying to Yvonne, there's no way we can do three hours of this and then we got to talking and it was like an hour went by and we thought, okay, maybe we can figure something out.
And I want to thank you for your service to the Al-Aman community, Yvonne. It's a great, great service that you've done to wrangle this around, no matter what, it's a great service. And I have jumped on here over the last several weeks from time to time and picked up stuff. And so thank you for all your hard work, everybody's hard work, the tapers and everybody. It's been great service to the folks who I didn't realize that I really was a social distancer long before this came along.
So I'm glad you got this put together for those who are forced to be socially distant and to talk about, to kind of kick off about, you know, to talk really about where we're at today. I got to talk about, I got to get qualified to be here a little bit because I can't, I just don't expect you to take it on faith that, you know, just because I say I'm an alcoholic, I am one. So I want to qualify a little bit just for you all.
But to do that and to really set the tone for this whole workshop, you know, we really got to, we don't really start with my story. I really start with a couple that were born in 1930, 1931, my mom and dad. And they were born and they were high school sweethearts. And if you, Lori one time did the math and figured out my mom got pregnant before they got married because my brother was married seven months after they were married.
So she was sharp that way. And we had these two kids who were kids that were having babies and they were both came from large families. And they were one of seven or eight kids in an agrarian lifestyle and grew up on farms when, in the United States, when people lived on rural, in the rural areas, they were living on a farm, they had lots of kids to help work the farm. And that's what happened to my mom and dad.
They were, they were real kids. And so they were one of many that grew up post-depression. And, you know, a lot of the, a lot of the ideas about life that I learned was learned because I listened to what my mom and dad said. And I think that's what happens to all of us. But my brother was born in 1949 and my dad eventually went off to the Korean War and fought there and left my mom at home. And my brother was a small child.
And then came home and finished college and graduated. They moved to West Texas and there was an old couple in West Texas and they had one child. And my brother must have been, I don't know, eight or nine, somewhere, let's say eight. And Lori tells the story much better than I, but I'm going to tell it anyway. They had one child. And that child got killed in an accident. And, of course, my mother saw that she only had one child who was about eight years old. And to hear her tell it, she began to beg my father for another child.
And in October of 1959, I arrived and I didn't arrive with a champagne glass in one
[00:20:03]
hand and a cigarette in the other, but I could have. It would have set the tone perfectly well for my life. So I was born in the late, just at the tail end of the 1950s and grew up in the 60s at the end of the Vietnam War and the sexual revolution. And I grew up early in my life in West Texas and out by Plainview and Lubbock in West Texas where the wind always blows and the dust falls close behind it.
And then when I was about five or six years old, we moved to Oklahoma because that's where our mom and dad were from. Moved to Oklahoma. So I'm one of these people who can't ever say, you know, you didn't want me because I know my mom begged for me. And so I don't have anything like that to say. And I had parents who were really good parents and I was not raised in an alcoholic home. However, alcoholism circled my entire family.
My mother was the only girl with seven brothers and she learned how to be tough early on. She was next to the baby. And so she learned how to be tough and all my uncles, except for one of my mother's family, had suffered from the illness of alcoholism. I remember my uncle Dickie, he used to go, he used to, he would leave when I was a kid. I can remember he just leaving. He would go to town on Saturday and he'd be gone for a month.
I mean, just gone. And, you know, eventually somebody would go get him out of jail and he'd come home. He'd be on a month-long drugs. I'm a kid. I don't understand all that. But I used to listen to the stories that my uncles would tell about their lives growing up and all that. There seemed to be some kind of romance around alcohol. You know, there seemed to be some kind of, these whiskey-filled weekends seemed exciting. And I remember as a kid sitting and listening to those stories of young romance, such as it was, as they were in high school and stuff.
Of course, they were older than, but reminiscing, I can remember stories about that. And there was always this romance around alcohol, always this, it was something, some kind of, I could imagine some kind of swashbuckling romantic adventures. But anyway, I mean, so alcohol, alcoholism swung all around my mother's side of the family and on my father's side. He had a sister who suffered. I had one sister and she suffered greatly from alcoholism, married an alcoholic, died an alcoholic death. Very successful, but died an alcoholic death, died all alone, no children. And so I grew up in this with one brother who was 10 years older than me.
By the time my brother got up where I got up, where I could enjoy my brother, he was gone. And he was 10 years older. It's almost like having two different families, practically. And it was always a strained, strained relationship with my brother. It was almost like I came along and interfered with all these plans. And I get that. He was having a perfectly content life and long I came. But one of the things my brother did, because he was older than I was, I mean, I used to love trying to hang out with my brother and all that.
And Bill Wilson writes in the essay on Step 5 in the 12 and 12. He writes in there about this feeling of anxious apartness, anxious apartness. And I can remember the first time I read that in Bill's essay, that so resonated with me. And we hear people describe often when describing the malady that that all of us here on this Zoom meeting have in common, be you alcoholic or alcoholic, this this malady, this this anxious apartness, this being here and feeling like I need to be over there, that less than, that different from, that somehow walking to a different beat.
I'm early to every meeting I've ever been to, but I always feel like I'm late. You know, it's like I'm walking into the middle of conversations and they seem to be going on and I can't ever quite get clued in. It's like walking into kindergarten and not not knowing. They have seen that those kids knew the answers to all the questions. And I have no idea what book they're reading. It's always been that for me.
And if you can identify with that kind of anxious apartness, that separateness, that being here, but really thinking over there would be better, you know, and it really
[00:25:00]
capsulizes for me when I did inventory, several inventories, really capsules for me because I was a wisher. I wish I had this. I wish I had that. You know, if I had his mom, my life would be if I lived in their house, my life would be different if I had his sister. You know, and then as you get older, things change. Well, if I had his clothes, you know, if I look like this, if I, you know, dress, if my parents were made enough money where I could live in this kind of house, I'm just wishing that my circumstances were different and somehow I get the idea.
I love what Larsen says about this information flows through the universe, lands on our head and we begin to take action on it as if it's true. Love that because that describes my life to a T. I mean, I just gather information with no basis in fact, and I begin to take action on it. And this, that anxious apartness, that restlessness, irritableness, discontentedness captures a guy like me in this prism of self.
And I have no idea that from and I can't tell you when I, I wish I could pinpoint say this was the day that I began to realize that the spiritual malady had me in its grips. I don't know that fear, that grip of fear. You know, I don't know. I can't tell you what I can't point to a time. It just seems that that's kind of always been with me. That anxious apartness, fear. But I can tell you this, when I was 11 years old, it's important that, you know, I was 11 years old because in AA meetings, it's really important because they need to know I had 11 years of continuous sobriety to that point.
But when I was 11 years old, my brother on a hot summer day, he had been out working cattle with my father and he had opened up a can of Tall Boy Country Club malt liquor and he took a big drink of it and he handed it to me. And he and I drank that beer on a hot summer day in Oklahoma under a willow tree. I'll never forget it. At the back of his pickup, it was a willow tree. I can tell you exactly what he was wearing.
I can tell you what I was wearing. Tell you what it smelled like that day. I can tell you what the wind felt like on my skin. I can tell you everything about that moment in time. And what I can tell you is that on that day, alcohol did for me. Quickly, in an instant, what Alcoholics Anonymous has done for me steadily and surely over the last 18 years and change. In that moment, in the magic of alcohol, it's the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous, but it's the magic of alcohol.
In that moment, what happened is everything, all that noise in my head, that anxious apartness, that restless, irritable discontentedness that they talk about in Alcoholics Anonymous was just evaporated. And in that moment, I got brought to the right here, right now with my brother. And that illusion that alcohol creates for a guy like me, that illusion that in the moment, everything suddenly is okay, that fear subsides, that idea that I'm different from, that I'm separate from, the wishes, they all went away in that moment, and that kind of effect that alcohol has on a guy like me, who is a real alcoholic, as described in the book of Alcoholics Anonymous, that every time I start drinking, I can't stop.
And every time I tell somebody like you all that I'm never going to do this again, I break your heart every time and I drink again, that I can't drink and I can't not drink. And that effect that alcohol had on me on that day, when I was 11 years old, was so profound, the illusion it created was so profound, that the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous prophesizes what will happen to a guy like me, based on their experience, and it certainly became mine, that I would be willing to chase that effect, that illusion, into the gates of insanity or death.
And I'll tell you this, every time I drank, I became willing to pay that kind of price to go insane or to death, to change the moment I was in right now. And every time I became restless, irritable and discontented, it didn't matter whether I was 21, 32, or 35.
[00:30:02]
I got into spots like that, I always, my memory always swung back to the need for the sense of ease and comfort, and I always remembered those times when alcohol worked its magic on me. The trouble with that, I'm allergic to that, and every time I start, I can't stop, and I'm down the road. What I can tell you about all that is somewhere in there, and I don't know, again, if it was before I had a drink, after I had a drink, the day I had a drink, I can't tell you that.
We talk in Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Nam about finding this power greater than ourselves. We come to believe in some kind of power, this idea of separateness, that I'm separated from you and I'm separated from God, separated from this power, and if I say the word God today and that troubles you because you believe in something else, know this, when I say God, whatever you think, that's exactly what I'm talking about.
That's what I mean. Okay? I don't want you to stop listening to me just because I use a word that might offend you. So whenever I say that, whatever you believe, just know that's what I'm talking about. It's impossible to separate ourselves from that, but yet I believe I can. I believe I did. I believe I was somewhere in there separated from that. And what happens for a guy like me if I am separated or believe I am separated from you and from any kind of power, what happens is that I have to manufacture some kind of power.
Now, it'll be false power, know that for sure. But I have to manufacture something to propel me through life. What happens for a guy like me is I've learned certain skills in my lifetime. I came to Alcox and they wanted to put bad words on them like character defects and shortcomings, but nonetheless, I learned these management skills that I thought served me very well. And they were things like lying, cheating, stealing, misuse of my societal instinct, misuse of my security instinct, misuse of my sexual instinct.
I would misuse those things. I would lie, cheat, and steal or any of the other seven deadly sins, misuse any of those or activate those in order to create what I like to describe as some kind of sense of false power. And I'll tell you how that looks. You know, I see Jim and Jim's got something I want, I steal it from him. Jim doesn't know I stole that from him, but I did. And what happens when I steal something from somebody, it creates the sense in me that I've got won over on you and it creates this illusion of false power.
You know, I cheat Linda out of something and I cheat her out of something. And she knows I've cheated her, but nobody else knows. She can't prove it. She just knows that it gives me the sense of power over Linda. I lie to Yvonne, I tell her something that's a lie, but and she buys it. And so I get one over on her. I get the sense of power. All those defects of character, the activation of all or the misuse of our God given instincts, my social instinct, my security instinct, my sexual instinct, the misuse of those by lying, cheating, stealing.
What happens for me is that gives me that sense of power. And because I'm not connected or I feel separated from any kind of power, that begins to become a way of life. It sustains me in the short term, you know, but it's false. Therefore, it's fleeting. Therefore, it works for a day or two. You know, I get one over, give me a good example. I sleep with the high school cheerleader I brag about to all my friends.
Or maybe I don't sleep with her, but I lie and say I do, which is a much more common example. I lie and say I do. It gives me the sense of power because all the guys think I'm somebody now. You right? I get this sense of that. I'm somehow, now it's a lie, but I get the sense of power. The trouble is it's fleeting. What happens for an alcoholic of my type is I misuse those instincts. I misuse these character defects and it sets me up for restless irritable discontent.
Because what happens if I create false power, it eventually runs out, it beaches. I mean, it just turfs out and I become restless, irritable, discontent again. And again, I need the sense of ease and comfort and I remember drinking and what that brings for me.
[00:35:00]
And so therefore, I'm tied in this vicious circle that's imprisoned and encased in self. And I am totally clueless about this. I have no idea. Prior to coming to Alcoholics Anonymous, that the real problem in my life, the real problem in my life is me. And I think that's what Al-Anon and Alcoholics Anonymous helps us all with, is to identify that they're not the problem or it's not the problem, I'm the problem.
And I'm clueless about that. And I start drinking and, you know, I become a daily drinker in high school. I'm a daily drinker. By college, I'm a blackout drinker. And I graduated from law school and I have a good career. I have a successful career. I graduate high in my law school class. I have photographic memory so I can read something and retain it, you know, which served me well, by the way. I could read things and test well.
I could do well. And I just, I get out of law school, but I still suffer from that restless, irritable, discontent. And so therefore, no matter how successful I become, it's never enough. There's never enough. I mean, the measuring stick continues to grow. You know, if I, if I look, if I am successful, it's always, but what if? You know, I'm always looking. I'm always looking to try to determine what's the next, where do we go to next?
And it begins this perpetuation of, you know, the hamster wheel of life. And there's this, you know, in the book of Alcoholics Anonymous, it talks about things such as worldly clamors, that we get caught up in worldly clamors. You know, we alcoholics, I get caught up easily in worldly clamors if I allow myself to. I can get caught up and I can get caught up and distracted easily. You know, I'm like a something shiny.
You know, a squirrel can run across our front yard here in a minute and I may be totally diverted here for five minutes. I don't know. You get the point. The measuring stick of the world is totally different than what we measure, how we measure things here in Al-Aman and Alcoholics Anonymous is totally different. But if you looked at that measuring stick, my life looked, appeared successful. I always tell this in when I give my AA talk, although I have discovered that some things that are really funny in AA aren't that damn funny in Al-Aman.
I get that. You know, I don't talk about the keen alcoholic mind in Al-Aman because you guys know, you never hear about the keen alcoholic mind in Al-Aman meetings. I know that's a fact. But I always like to tell AA people because, you know, Lori is my fourth wife and I always like to tell them that, you know, I know that's important and when I got here, I figured out pretty quick. I needed to tell people that Lori is my fourth wife because in Alcoholics Anonymous, as much as it is in Al-Aman, we know how important rotation of service is.
So it was important for me, for people to know that I was big on rotation of service long before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. But I, you know, Bill Wilson writes in the 12 and 12 that a real struggle for alcoholics are these defective human relationships. Defective human relationships. That's a real struggle for the alcoholic. And we say that as if it's just only alcoholics have that problem, which we know is not correct.
In the book of Alcoholics Anonymous, there are several places in there where Bill and the first 100 who wrote the book, they talk about things like more than most, the alcoholic leads a double life. So that there's a lot of people that live double lives. But more than most, the alcoholic does that. There's things that talks about that the alcoholic is the extreme example of self-will run right. Which the only conclusion is there's a lot of examples of self-will run right.
But an alcoholic in self-will is the extreme example of all of them. And so we know. And then when it talks about the sex inventory, it lays out things which starts to talk about, you know, how people get fanatical about sex one way or the other, too much, too little, no flavor for a straight peppered dine. And then the book says the most interesting thing. It says, we all have sex problems, all, so we'd hardly be human if we didn't.
And so what I know about all that, you know, which is really helpful for a guy like me
[00:40:01]
coming into Alcoholics Anonymous, because I don't know about how you all perceive yourself. I'm suspicious because we all suffer from this malady. There's commonality. The thing that distinguishes alcoholics from Al-Aman is you don't suffer from this allergy. Yet you still can get into obsessive behavior. You still can have, you know, we get tunnel, we get focused. We get that restless, irritable discontentedness.
What happens for me is alcohol does that, fixes that for me. And I'm allergic to it. And once I start, I can't stop. But I get in that cycle. But that commonality of the malady, that thing which connects us, the humanity of just people, how Bill describes it in the first one describes it, is that we all have sex problems. More than most, the alcoholic. The alcoholic is the extreme example. And what I think Bill in the first 100 in describing it that way is trying to say, look, everybody has problems.
They have living problems. They have sex problems. They have God problems. They have people problems. They have relationship problems. But people who suffer from this malady, and I can only speak from the alcoholic standpoint, more than most, because everything seems exaggerated for us, alcoholics have two speeds, 0 or 100. You know, we're either leading the parade or being run out of town. We're never really sure.
But we're always right there. You know, we're firm believers that balance is the destination we pass from going from one extreme to the other. We don't know nothing about that, you know. If we get into something, more is better. I remember one time we had one of the first Illinois speakers I ever heard was at the Western Club. I was about, oh, I got sober in August, so four months sober, and she came and she gave the talk in December at the anniversary, and there was this big Christmas tree they'd put up that the alcoholics had put up at the, there was a big, oh, I don't know, probably 15-footer.
It was huge. I mean, there wasn't a limb on that tree that didn't have three strands of lights on it. And she looked at that, and she said, I can tell alcoholics have decorated this tree because it's more, more, more. And I know that's how we run. I mean, I am all in on something, and this is, when I'm done with it, I'm zero. And I know that about me today. But I tell you about all those defects of character, and I set the stage for all that, and talk to you about how Bill and the First 100, in writing our book, in writing the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, tells us that, look, while alcoholics may be the extreme example of these things, or that more than most we do these things, that's not to say that other people don't have them as well.
The unfortunate part about that for a guy like me is I believe I'm the only one who has them. Because I look through everything through this prism of self, and because I only see things through this prism of self, I believe I'm the only one that's impacted this way. I believe I'm the only one that feels this way. I believe I'm the only one this has ever happened to. I believe I'm the only one that sees things this way.
And what I know today is that we all have this, people who suffer from a spiritual malady, we all suffer that idea, that brokenness, that brokenness inside of us that causes us to see the world and see our fellows through this skewed view, through this prism of self. And in our fifth step of the big book of Alcoholics and Obsesses, it talks about, or in the fourth step, it talks about when we make our resentments and our fears and sex conduct, it says, look at these things from an entirely different angle.
And in order to do that, in order to look at people that I'm mad at, to look at situations I'm pissed off about, to look at institutions I'm mad at, principles, to look at bad sex conduct, fears, I need to know what position have I been looking through? What's the way I have been looking? And the way I have been looking is through this prison of self. What Alcoholics Anonymous, what the steps, what the fourth step requires me to do is step back and look at it from a different angle.
is step back and look at it from a different angle. I step into those people's shoes and look at it from their point of view for the very first time in my life.
[00:45:00]
So I'm broken, I'm plagued. I've created this mass of character defects, of shortcomings, management tools, however you want to see it. But they're all wrapped in this prism of self-fear, separateness. And, you know, there's teenage angst wrapped up in all this. And, you know, my friend Bill says, you know, I think everybody goes through that, every teenager goes through that. I'm different, I'm awkward, all that.
And I don't disagree with that whatsoever, but I fall back on what our literature says and says more than most. So as a teenager, more than most, I have these, these feelings are intensified for me. More than most they are. I see things and I hang on to them because like Larsen says, information floats, I grab it and I hang on to it. When I was about, I don't know, 12 years old, something like that, it was after I started drinking.
My brother got a job at, he was a fireman in an EMT. And I used to go up to the fire station and hang out with the firemen up there because it was kind of a cool thing to do. They had the old fire station originally, it was two story, they had the pole. It was all kind of cool. It was really kind of neat to go up there and help them polish the, you know, the fire trucks and all that kind of stuff. It was kind of neat to go do that.
They built a new fire station and they had this, it was single story at that point, they had the big, you know, the bunk, bunk room where they all slept. And one Saturday I was up hanging out with my brother at the fire station because my mom and dad would let me go up and hang out. I would go up on Saturday morning sometimes and sit down and watch TV with the guys and they would, we had this big kitchen and cook and then sofas and stuff, sit down and watch TV, we'd watch movies and stuff.
And one day when I was about 12 years old, the guys took off to the bunk room and they had this little projector and they, of course, the walls were all white, you know, no color in the fire station, just all white walls. And they had this little eight millimeter projector and somebody had been to Dallas, Texas and they had come back and they had this little eight millimeter film that they were going to show.
And my brother said, come in here and watch this with us. And it was an adult, today we would say adult video, but back then adult film. And I'm clueless about all this. I mean, I don't have anybody sets me down and talks to me about how the world works. You know, I had good parents. They're non-alcoholic, but they, that's what they did. They worked and they made sure that I had everything I needed.
Not everything I wanted to make sure I had everything I needed. But, you know, my dad was a Korean war veteran. My mom was the only girl in the house full of guys. They don't know how to sit down and have a conversation with me about stuff like that. You know, some people I've heard some of my friends talk about, you know, the talk. I never got the talk. What I got was an adult video, adult film and my, at the fire station.
And I remember watching it that day and thinking, man, you know, and something about that, as much as alcohol flipped the switch, I can tell you something about that flipped the switch too. And I can remember every Saturday, I would want to go back to that fire station. And I would want to know if we were going to watch movies that day. Now, not the kind they were playing in the kitchen, the kind they were playing in the, in the bedroom.
And, you know, when you're going through teenage angst, trying to figure all that out, and that's imposed upon, I can only share my experience, that's imposed on you. My vision of sex or how sex and women and, and the interrelationships got extraordinarily skewed. My understanding about relationships with women, extraordinarily skewed. I remember as a kid, I was thinking about this this morning, I had a, I found out this morning, a classmate of mine passed away and it just made me extraordinarily it just made me extraordinarily sad.
We were real small, I grew up in a little small town of 5,000 people, probably 80, 84 people in my class. And so we were all pretty close, closer than I realized. Today, we were closer than I realized we were, or perhaps it's just time catching up with me that I'm realizing how close we were, but at any rate, you know, I remember being in junior high school, middle school, I guess is what they call it now, but, and there was a little girl from Louisiana that moved to our town and I remember how cute she was.
And I can remember what, because I don't know how to, I don't know what
[00:50:02]
to deal with all this. I used to pull her hair, you know, I don't know why I'd pull her hair because I needed her attention. I'd pull her hair and, and I just needed her attention and I don't know how to get that. I don't know how to talk to people. I don't know how to do that. You know, I don't know how to have, I've got defective human relationships because I don't know how to have them because I'm looking through a prism of self and I'm selfish, I'm self-centered and I'm full of fear.
I have no idea of what to do with all that. And what I know to do with that when I get in situations like that, when all that wells up, I drink because I need the sense of ease and comfort. What I've discovered for me is back then, when all that was happening, this idea and view of sex, and I think sometimes, you know, in meetings, the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous that I've been to, I'm going to really narrow it down to me, the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous that I've been to, when we start, when somebody brings, it's a rarity that anybody will bring the topic of the sex inventory up in an AAB.
If you do, they start giggling. And they want to talk about how many, you know, that's always a deal. The number is always extremely important, apparently, but I get that. Oh, they want to talk about something that makes it funny. And what I know today, or what I can say today is looking back at my life, there's been nothing funny about that. I used every, you know, the book of Alcoholics Anonymous, we talked about in our sex inventory, we look at those and say, were we selfish?
And I can't tell you any relationship I was ever in where that wasn't the case. I'm looking to get something out of the deal. There's a measuring stick that I'm bound to. I somehow believe I get these messages, sometimes I get messages that I somehow believe I get these messages that I can become more of a man by the number of women that I've met. I mean, it's just, I'd like to cut it for you some other way, but I want, I think I'm charged here with telling you some kind of truth today, the best as I see it, because see, I don't measure up.
I don't fit in. I'm separate from, and somehow I've got to figure out how to fit. And if I do that, and I can tell you about it, then somehow you will see me as something that perhaps I'm not, but you'll believe that I am. And so self, this idea of self, this idea of spiritual malady that I'm separate and different from, the misuse of the sexual instinct, I know at least for me. What happens, what has happened to me and what happened is that I need your, I need a female's approval.
Somewhere in there, it's always a con. There's always a con involved here. Last night, Yvonne called me. She won't mind me telling the story because I won't tell it. Yvonne called me last night. She actually called Lori first, but Lori was doing a Zoom talk last night up in Wisconsin. So she texted me and said, here's Yvonne's number, call her. And, and I called her back and she really wanted to talk to me.
She just didn't have my number, but she's got it now. And she was talking about how she had been in a meeting somewhere else and some other lady was talking about these very things we're talking about today. And that later in the day, she was texting with somebody else and they were talking about the very things we're going to talk about later today. And she called to tell me that, that God, you know, isn't it funny how God works?
A month ago, we started talking about all this stuff and planning on how we were going to do it and talking about sex today. And the day before she starts getting all these God shots of people in her life talking about the very things we're talking about today, one lady in a different country saying, tomorrow's my anniversary, but I really, I'm really having trouble with my sex part of my life. And I really want to be in that workshop.
And she sat quietly, not saying, oh, that's, that's my idea, sat quietly and thought we're on the right track. But how many times have you been in an AA or an Avalon meeting and they talk about the sex inventory and they talk about it at all, at all, but it's always humorous stories, it's always, they skirt the issue, they don't, and, and, and to talk about the sex inventory, really, we're just simply talking about another faction of self, you know, when we talk about resentments, we talk about what people have done to us, you know, what they've done to us.
In the sex inventory, and we generally find in the resentment inventory, you
[00:55:02]
know, we have some fear or some selfish part of us that really set the ball in motion to cause harm. That's no different in the sex inventory. The sex inventory looks at the brokenness in ourselves, the selfishness or the fear inside of us, where we're trying to fix some broken part of us. And, and again, because this is what alcoholics all we know, I'm looking outside to try to fix me. I'm looking out here to try to get this piece in here fixed.
You know, Step 12, the greatest promise we have in our two programs, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of the steps, the steps give us an awakening with this power, whatever we determine that is for us, this God of our understanding, spirit of the universe underlying the totality of all things. That becomes the reliance. In the book of Alcoholics Anonymous, it uses the word rely, relying, or reliance nine times when it refers to this power.
That our ultimate reliance, that we must rely upon God. And what causes me struggles is my trying to rely on you. I'll tell this story and I'll kick it back to Lori. We were in Wyoming about nine years ago, eight, a while ago. And we were, you're going to be all right, David, just make it sure, man. We were in Wyoming. Is that a clue? Okay. We were in Wyoming and I don't know if this ever happens to you all.
This happens to me. And we're on this trip with about 10 other people and we're there for like a week or 10 days. We've rented a couple of houses in Wyoming and we're up in the Grand Tetons. We're at Jackson Hole. We're right outside of Jackson Hole. And you can't ask in August, a more beautiful place to be because it's cool and it's just a nice place to be. And we're going through Yellowstone. And there's one buddy of ours with us who is a single guy.
There's two guys that were single guys came with us. And somewhere as we're going through Yellowstone, I'm driving. And the idea creeps into my head. This is why I say Larcene is so right. This idea just from nowhere. It's just like the drink thought. It comes from nowhere. And the thought comes to my head, Lori would rather be with that guy than me. Now we've been together at this time, 16, 17 years.
The thought creeps into my head. That's really what she wants. And my friend described it. He was in the backseat and he described it as if he could just see this veil come over me where I just shut down. I mean, fear just consumed me in a moment that quick. I've been sober 10, 11 years. Fear consumed me. And I just shut down and I'm consumed. I'm obsessed. Do you know about the obsession in the mind?
I'm obsessed that Lori, I've got this information in my head that just creeped in on me that that's really the truth that really, really Lori wants to be with this guy. And I mean, I get home that night and we go eat dinner and I'm just locked up. I mean, I can't function. I can't. I am all up in my head. And we get home that night and what I need is, I need Lori just to sleep with me and then I'll know if we can have sex, I'll know it's okay, then that will prove to me that I'm okay and that we're okay.
And I mean, she knows I'm in trouble. She just looks at me and knows I'm in trouble. And she said the most profound thing to me. And I don't know about you, but when I don't get my way, and I was probably, let's see, I'm 60 now, probably 50, 51, 52. When I don't get my way, I act like a three-year-old. I just throw a fit. You ever throw a fit? I throw a fit sometimes. I haven't in a while, but I just throw a fit.
I'll be a three-year-old. And particularly when I am all wrapped up in self. But see, the way she has to prove that to me is she has to sleep with me. It's not good enough that she's been with me for all this time. It's not good enough. You know, you don't either love me the right way. You don't say it the right way. You don't tell me the right way. You don't look at me the right way. I mean, I just got a list.
It's never the right way. The Most Profound Thing To Me, Stop Me Dead at My Tracks, I'm Not Sleeping With You So
[01:00:05]
You Can Feel Better, That's Between You and Your God, And It Brought Me Up Short, Next Day My Buddy and I Got Up, We Went To an AA Meeting, And We Practically Broke In As Soon As They Got There, We Busted The Door Open, Started Setting Up Chairs and Washing Cups Afterwards, I Just Needed To Be a Servant, I Needed To Get Out of Me, The Fundamental Problem Is, Was and Always Has Been and Will Always Be, Is Self, I Get To Thinking, I Get Wrapped Up in Me, And I Want to Use Sex Instinct to Fix Me, I Want to Use Sex Power, But See The Deal Is, No Human Power Can Relieve That From Me, No, Lori Can't Fix Me, She Can Give Me a Temporary False Power Fix, Just Like I've Been Getting False Power Fixes All My Life By The Use of My Sword Cutting, She Can Give Me a False Power Fix, But It's Going To Be Fleeting, Doesn't Resolve The Problem That Three Months From Now It's Something Else, The Answer Has Always Been For Me, For You, For All Of Us Here, In These Defective Human Relationships, Particularly As We Swing Around And Talk About Sex For The Rest of This Time We Have Together, The Problem Has Always Been My Reliance Upon Something Other Than Me, My Reliance On Something Other Than Human Power, My Reliance On This Power Greater Than Ourselves That We Find In The Program Of Alcoholics Anonymous And Al-Anon, That We Find Through The Twelve Steps, This Connection And Awakening We Have.