Audio
About this recording
- Topic
- 3 Clif G. (AA) Lori G. (AFG) Oklahoma City, OK Finance, Romance & What did you s
- Speaker
- Clif G. and Lori G
- Date
- 2020-08-20
Transcript
Source: Clif G. and Lori G – 3 Clif G. (AA) Lori G. (AFG) Oklahoma City, OK Finance, Romance & What did you s – 2020-08-20.mp3 File: clif-g-and-lori-g-3-clif-g-aa-lori-g-afg-oklahoma-city-ok-finance-romance-and-what-did-you-s-2020-08-20.mp3 Duration: 00:40:05
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Janette has informed me that Lori and Cliff are back. Are you guys ready? Do you want to take questions? Are you ready? Okay. He's getting something to drink, but he'll be right here, but we can take questions. All right. And I saw… You guys want to keep on talking during the workshop before we answer questions. If you want to do questions, then go back to the workshop. I'll do whatever you want to do. I don't care.
Well, normally when you open up for questions, it's sidetracked and you may not get back to the workshops. I don't know what your guys' plans are. We have no plans. We are open. Your wish is my command, Mike. You run it. You're running the deal, not me. I don't care. He's laughing. I think you guys should go for another hour and then go open up for questions and comments. Otherwise, you're never going to finish what you guys are wanting to talk about.
I second that. I don't even know what I want to talk about, so that works out good. Talk about me, then. I can do that right out of the chute. Let me just say this. Mike is a warrior, and he has done more for all of us in the last four months than any human could possibly think about doing. He has been phenomenal. That's true. And along the way, he's garnered some elves to help him, like Jeanette. He's just put these people, and it's been incredible.
Mike, we can't describe really adequately the service you've provided for us. 900 talks recorded in 90 days is just unbelievable. To do all that and put them up and say, here they are. I'm going to say this. I get it. It's important to give to GSO, no doubt, your local intergroups, your area district. Go to www.recoverytapers.com. There's a donation deal there. And you be quiet, Mike. Don't you say a word.
We'll kick you out. Yeah, we'll put you in the waiting room. I'll mute you, Mike. Drop some bucks in the bucket for Mike, because all this is free to us. He does all this, and it costs to do that. I'm just telling you. He gives his time. Go throw some bucks in www.recoverytapers.com. Put it on your to-give list. Be quiet, Mike. Put it on your to-give list, because what he's done for us in the last four months, unparalleled, or five months, how many years we've been here now, unparalleled.
And so, Mike, I can't say enough about you. You know how much Lori and I love you and how important you are to our family and been friends for many years, and we're grateful for you and all you do. And he's recording this, right? Absolutely. And in fact, just by coincidence, www.recoverytapes.com happens to be listed in the chat. Well, there it is. And there it is. I haven't heard. Just take a little picture of the chat, and then you've got it.
You can just connect to it by hitting the link. Oh, my God. Dale, thank you. So there you go. This is it. I get it for free and for fun, Jeanette. I understand, but it costs money to operate all that. And we're going to need to pay for the rest of them. At the end of 2020, when we have to put them away in a rest home for about two months. I wasn't suggesting otherwise. I was just saying that it's for free and for fun, but then we have to pay for this other stuff.
That's all I was saying. I know what you're saying. You can download all this stuff. It's all good. We're doing it for free and for fun, except the people who run the servers and all. They aren't us. We've got to send our money to them sometimes. And GSO. Thank you, too, Jeanette. Thanks to you. What I always say at conferences that we're asked to talk at is that when I was new sober and she was new in Alamo, I lived off speaker tapes.
Tapes, by the way. I'll try to tell you. I've been here. We lived off those. And what Alcoholics Anonymous is and its stories. We pass on our history through our story. One alcoholic talked to the way we ensure our history is kept pure and recorded is that we support the tapers. When we're at a conference, we buy stuff. We buy CDs. We have no ability to do that. This is a way we can do that to make sure these stories that our history, our legacies continue to live is by note.
Go to WWE recovery tapers dot com. Oh, a couple of bucks in the bucket. So there's my public service announcement for Mike. You got your hand up. Yes, you can say. I want to make sure the room is safe.
[00:05:00]
I'm going to add just one thing. Just got a text from Joyce, who's always one of our co-hosts, whose husband just had surgery and home saving sound. But his blood pressure is running kind of high. So if you just keep Joyce and her husband in your prayers, please. I know you are. I love you. You're my favorite Floridian. All right. So we've talked about finance romance. And then the the other part we had was what did you say, which is really about communication, which is probably.
As much as people struggle with finances and sex and romance and all that. They struggle with those areas because they can't talk about. We struggle in areas because we don't know how to talk about. I mean, we don't know how to sit down and have a conversation. I know how to sit down and have a and demand or order or I don't know how to have a conversation. An inclusive conversation, you know, I don't know how to do that.
I don't know how to. You know, one of the things I did, you know, in in that really helped me back. I'm going to jump back to the sex deal just a minute. Well, they really helped me because it has to do with communication. One of the things that I concluded that I needed where I really need help with. I need to be able to go to my partner and say, I'm I'm having thoughts that I need to go. You know, get on the Internet and watch some porn.
And I need to be able to come to you and say that without you throwing judgment on me or giving me a lecture. I need to come to be able to say that to you without judgment so that I can say it out loud. So it's on the table that we're not hiding it. You know, I just need to be able to do that. And she agreed. And you know what? When you become trans and it would took until I had to muster all the courage I could get.
And it was right over here, right by the kitchen stove over here where I said it to her. But that's OK, because I proposed to her in the vegetable aisle at a supermarket. So I'm used to doing weird stuff. She did. I just got on one knee in the supermarket right there in the produce aisle. She kept saying, get up, get up. But what the hell? But I. He's a romantic like that. I am. But once I was able to say that to her and let her know what I need, that's a big deal.
Is that the difficulty is to talking about what I need? And I don't know how to do that. I know how to express to you. I'm going to try to manipulate you. My whole life, I've been able to try to manipulate you to what it is I think I want, need, demand, whatever. I'm just going to I can't say it to you outright. I got to find a way to get you there. And, you know, the first thing I got to figure out is what are my needs?
I don't I really don't know what those are before I get I get here. I don't even know who I am. And. To be able to commune, I think the most difficult person to communicate with is the person I'm the closest with. The hardest, as much as I would tell you how close we are. And Laurie said it, I mean. The hardest person to talk to about what I really to to have the faith and trust and reliance to say to her.
When this happens to me, I need to be able to come to say this. I need to come tell you about it. I was really afraid to do that because, you know, the fear is she's going to begin to project. I begin to think what she's going to think. And when I begin to think what she's going to think, I get into struggles with me. I get into that. I'll talk myself out of it. She's going to judge me. She's going to think I'm looking at it every day and I'm just copping out.
And so I try to think myself. Which is horrible. And. To be able to sit down and just say, this is what I need. This is this is what my concerns are. And I think if I could do this, if I could come to you when I'm struggling or when I had those. And, you know, the moments that happened for me and it really doesn't matter if it's pornography, eating a bag of potato chips, go and spend a thousand dollars.
I don't think it really matters. It's a piece of me that's trying to quiet that low grade, restless, irritable discontentedness that is part of the human condition. You know, our good friend Bill, who I love dearly, Bill, see you out in California. And I do not disagree with him at all when he talks about teenage angst that every every teenager has goes through this separateness that I don't feel a part of those growing pains.
[00:10:08]
And I don't disagree with that at all. I really don't. And I think he's totally spot on about that. But what I do think is what our book says, because it says things like this in our book. More than most, the. The alcoholic is the extreme example of self will run right. So whatever the norm is, you know, whatever the normal is for people, alcoholics are a different version of that. Our book seems to indicate we're extreme examples or more than most.
So when we get in these ideas of distances, separation, lone wolf, you know, that part in Bill's story, which says I'm alone, I became a lone wolf, which is wolves are pack animals. Wolves run in packs when one is cut from the herd, when one is run off, it's abnormal. It's not normal for a wolf to go out on their own. It's highly if they lose their pack, it's highly abnormal. Bill describes that when he talks about being a lone wolf, a highly abnormal condition.
Chuck, when he described conscious separation, you know, he drew that picture of a circle. And in the circle was God, the universe, the world and everybody. And then he drew the little stick man outside the circle. And he did that to say, that's how I see everything. And here's me. He's elaborating on what Bill Wilson describes in his story as a lone wolf. Here's everybody else. And here's me. And so I have those kind of thoughts.
And so it's difficult for me to communicate with you. It's difficult for me to talk to people because I believe that I'm different. And I can't really tell you what I'm feeling. Let's be honest. You can't go to church and share about what really you're thinking, right? They'll just they'll try to take you to the altar and get an exorcism performed on the spot. You really can't do that. I mean, you go, I go down to where I go to church and share about what, let me just tell you what's really I'm thinking about.
I mean, it's going to be bad news. Can't go to the social hour and do that. So it's difficult to talk about because when I come to Alcoholics Anonymous, all my life, I haven't been able to talk to anybody. I believe I've just got to figure it out on my own. Been that way since the first day of kindergarten. I remember walking in those little kids headshot up, looked at me and I thought, my God, they know the answers to all the questions and I don't know what book they're reading.
I'm 15 minutes behind. I'm there early, but I always feel a step out. I'm 15 minutes behind the conversation. Always don't know how to do anything. Can't figure it out. Not good enough. Separate lone wolf. All that. Got nobody to talk to about that. I don't know. Just believe I got to figure it out on my own. So when I come to Alcoholics Anonymous, the struggle I had, I think a lot of people have, is trying to get here and trying to describe what's really going on with us.
That's why it's so important, this idea of identification, that we share about what we were like. Describing the spiritual malady, describing restless irritable discontent, does not describe alcoholism. Describes the human condition. But in that, when the idea of what the first 100 wrote about us, about the extreme example, more than most, put that on top of alcoholism, the allergy and obsession, I feel this sense of isolation, separateness.
It's very difficult here why identification is so important. I hear your stories and I begin to not feel like the one cut from the herd. I begin to feel like I have found my tribe. I have found my pack. I'm no longer a lone wolf. That's why identification for us is so vitally important. If we were a spy, it brings us in from the cold. We have found our people and we're moving toward, we find a way to move towards and move back to our people.
And once we get here then, we become conditioned early on because of the process of the steps to begin to open up to people. By step four, we're writing down stuff we swore we'd never tell anybody. Swore, yet we're writing it down. Now, it might be in code by God because it could fall into enemy hands at any moment. So we're going to write it in code. But we're writing down things. So we're going to write it in code, but we're writing down things we swore we'd never tell
[00:15:01]
anybody. And then in a short amount of time, we're actually telling somebody that. Now we might go and tell them almost everything, and then call them on the way home and share the last little bit. Or two or three days later, call back and say, okay, I got to get clean about this one other thing. There's this one other thing I need to tell you. Because we really evaluate what the book says, you know, are we making mortar out of sand?
We take that hour. Are we really doing what we're supposed to be doing? We become conditioned to communicate with one person. We have a person that we begin to trust, our sponsors, that we begin to communicate with, and we let them in to all the bed wet and in the book reading. And they don't run about, begin to open up our life. And mostly that's because they begin to share with us, they've shared with us.
We've identified with them and they begin to share their life with us. We begin to understand in order for me to get better, I've got to share my life. We've come to understand. We look at that part in the book that says that some of these we bought. We see Dr. Bob's story when Bill's talking to him and he says, I'll do anything but that. And we see what happened. He drank. And the book says for us to drink is to die.
If you want to be living, want to be free, then we got to do these things. These are what we have to do. And if you're desperate enough, I mean, if you know you're dying, you're willing to do that. If whiskey's done its job and you've been beaten to a state of reasonableness, I won't do anything. And I follow through that with action. But I become to some person and I begin to tell my story too. And I begin to open up about it.
And I begin to trust a person in my life, which fundamentally I've never had. I can't trust you. I can't trust you because I had this old idea. The fundamental idea of my life. I'm afraid to be alone. If I tell you who I am, really let you know who I am, you'll leave. And what happens to me, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in my life. Prior to alcoholics and alcoholics, the fundamental underlying, probably deep-seated fear, the one that at the core of everything is you're going to leave.
I begin to make that self-fulfilling because I begin to act as if you will. And when I begin to act as if you will, you eventually get enough of me and you leave. You know, if I believe that Laura's going to leave, I begin to put enough trot lines out. I need to have a couple on the line so when she leaves, a couple of things I'm going to say, see, I told you, that gives me the idea that I'm in control of my life.
I knew this was going to happen. But I never have to be alone because I got a couple of fish out here on the line I'll just pull in. It's this vicious cycle. It's this vicious mess, you know, of this fear, underlying fear of being alone. I don't want to, if I tell you who I am, you'll leave. If you find out who I am, you'll leave. But we begin to build this trust with our sponsor, we begin to build this relationship, we begin to trust, and we begin to communicate to them who we really are.
Because here's the deal. The one thing sponsors have the uncanny ability to do when we meet them for the very first time is to see us not how we are in the moment. They see us for what God would have us be. They have this uncanny ability to see where we can go. They see us, sponsors look at a sad, sick, and sorry guy, I mean, Donald looked at me and didn't see me as that. He knew where I could go. He knew where God could take me.
He knew what would happen for me if I allowed this transformational process, if I would be willing to commit. And so we begin to build this trust. And he does that, we do that by sharing ourselves with other people, gives them permission to share some of it. And so I begin to build this trust with Don. Slowly but surely, I begin to build trust with you in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, in our meeting after the meeting, in our meeting before the meeting.
Car rides going, getting the car and going somewhere. You guys and gals begin to share with me parts of your life. And I begin to become willing to do that. I begin to willing to open up and share that with you. And what happens, I learn how to communicate by talking to you. You are for me, you become for me what the book talks about, a demonstration. My friend Rick, he was on here earlier, I don't know if he's still on.
He gave one of the talk that was so profound to me, and I'll share it with you. It made such a, really made an impression on me about how it was. He talked about, he was sitting home one night, and he was watching TV.
[00:20:00]
And there was an OxyClean commercial come on. You guys remember OxyClean, don't you? And he said he was watching this and he was, you know, the guy was on TV talking about OxyClean. He was talking about all these dirty, this mess, and he's looking around and hell, it was a mess around him. And he said that the guy put all this dirty clothes in his clear tub and put the OxyClean in and said, you know, at the end of it, he took it out and all the stains were gone, all the dirt was gone.
It was just unbelievable. And he said he was setting in the problem, and he began to believe that OxyClean might work in his life. So he got on the phone and started ordering OxyClean. And it got delivered and he started putting his washing machine and dishwasher, he just practicing OxyClean in all his affairs. And he said at the end of that, he eventually ran out of OxyClean. And he said when that happened, he said, he said, I had, I knew it would work.
He said, I bridge that from coming to believe to faith that I knew it would work for me because of the demonstration it had made. And he talked about what kind of demonstration of mine. He said if that guy that was selling OxyClean had been out drinking the day before and had come in and in the middle of his presentation had puked in that clear tub, he said, hell, I'd have changed the channel. I've been gone, never bought any OxyClean.
And so what happens is, is that the demonstrations you all made helped me come to believe that this could work for me, helped me to believe that if I could open up in my life, if I would surrender to this process, that what would happen for me is that I could have the kind of life that you were talking about, that you were demonstrating to me in the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. And our book talks about this over and over again, the demonstrations we make early on, it says a much more important demonstration.
I let off with that today when we start much more important demonstrations. So it's not what we say, it's what we do. And what you did for me was you became demonstrations. You came into meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and talked about losing your parents. And I watched you, I watched what you did, I watched how you lost your parents, I watched how you talked about that, watched how you opened your life about that.
When I lost my parents, I knew what to do. I knew how to talk about it. I knew how to express what was going on in here to say it out here because of the demonstration you made. And through those demonstrations, what happened was I was able to come home and begin to talk to Lori. I was able to set her down and talk about what I needed. I was able to say, when we would have those moments of where I would have financial insecurities, I was able to say to her, what would happen is this, fear for me looks like anger.
When I get scared, I lash out because I don't know what I don't know how to because my emotions drag me around. I don't know how to properly react. And the book tells us in this spiritual experience appendix, we have a profound alteration to our reaction to life. So what happened was I would have a reaction and then I would go have, you know, it's like drinking. I get remorseful about my behavior. I will come back to her and say, listen, I'm really afraid.
I'm regret what I did. I'm sorry. I snapped at you. Here's what's going. I'm afraid. The ability to tell on myself, the ability to say what's really going on here to come to Lori and say, listen, I'm afraid goes against everything I believe prior to come down. We don't show no fear. We don't let people know we're afraid. No way. What I do is I put up a face of anger. I come at you when I'm afraid. I come at my behavior gets really bad and I get right up in your face and my tone goes way up.
I mean, I talk real loud and I want you to back away from me because I'm really scared. And what I've had to learn is, is that I can't do that in my relationships with human beings. When I do that, it pushes you away, which is really what I want. But what I really need is what I need is, is to be calm and say, I'm afraid. I'm afraid that I'm running out of money.
[00:25:00]
True or not, these don't have to be truths. They have to be my beliefs. What I believe is happening because perception is very important here. My perception of reality is still at times I need checked. I may perceive things. I'll just give you an example. I'm walking down the street. I'm going down the street. I'm teetering along. I'm late. I've got to get somewhere. And I see Julie. And Julie's walking towards me and she's in a hurry too.
And she says something to me like this, hey, Cliff, nice tie. And she just keeps on walking. And instantly, my mind goes, what the hell does she mean by that? What does she mean nice tie? What the hell? She's giving me a slight. And I don't know about you, but right in that moment, I begin to plan Julie's death. Right then, I'm planning her demise. And I may spend the next two days planning Julie's demise, thinking when I see Julie again, I'm going to, and I'm going to say this.
And I mean, I get it all orchestrated out. I mean, I spend days. And then about three or four days later, I'm walking down the street again. I see Julie. I'm getting ready. I'm perfect. I'm so sorry I was in a hurry today. I always love your ties. You have the best ties. And my brother, he always compliments on those ties you wear. Where did you get that one? I need to get that for him. And see, it's my perspective.
It's my perspective. I need to tell the truth on myself because I need perspective. I need to say I'm scared. I'm lonely. I'm afraid. I'm angry. To say I'm angry is OK. I'm upset. This has upset me. And I've got to get down. You know, all this, a lot of this relates to, and I harp on this because I believe it to be true. This all goes back to two things, my fundamental relationship with God. And two, what old idea am I operating on that's causing this?
What's the name of the hammer that hits the knee that caused the leg to shoot out? What is triggering my behavior? What is that hitting me, resonating in me? What idea is it pushing up against that's causing me to react? Because the spirit, the very essence of a spiritual experience is that this profound alteration in my reactions to life. And if I'm still getting butted around by my emotions, I need to take a never, I need to go deeper again.
I need to go deeper. I need to flush out what these are. I need to get them on the table. I need to talk about this. This is a, my discovery here is, you know, when they would talk about recovery being a journey, you know, when, when the first 100 wrote things like we claim spiritual progress, not spiritual perfection, they were not kidding. This is a journey. This is a, this is a no, this is not a deal where I just step off saying I have arrived.
This is a spot where it is a, a long period of reconstruction as our book talks about with our families, whoever, but a long period of reconstruction within myself to figure out I'm building new structures here. What old ideas don't work? How do I discard these that allows this relationship and my relationship with you? How do I communicate more effectively? How do I say to you the truth without the fear that you'll leave me?
How do I build a relationship with you? A relationship built on love, caring, service, so that when I say something to you, that's the truth. I'm not afraid you'll leave me. I need to speak the truth, which is so desperate. We are so, I'm so desperately afraid of. I can't tell you the truth because you'll get mad and leave me. And it's important you stay with me. But the very essence of friendship is for you to come to me and say, Cliff, I'm concerned about you.
I'm concerned. This is, these are what I see in you. And you know what? The people that I sponsor and the people that I'm close to, I have given them this consent to step into my life at any moment and say to me, hey, listen, I'm worried about you. Or, hey, listen, what you said the other day, uh, to Lori in front of all of us was not, was not cool. You don't need to treat her that way. That is not okay.
And I need to have people like that in my life to be able to step into my life and hold me accountable. It's the essence of that. And that fear, the ability of me to communicate with people and to say my truth or what the truth is, that relationship with God is so important. It gives me the courage to do that. Gives me the courage. to
[00:30:24]
tell her that she's going to think and I out think myself. And what I really need to do is just be honest with you and say, listen, this is this is what I need to talk to you about. And you know, I've been able to do that. We've been able to sit down and these are difficult conversations to have, I believe, difficult for me, maybe you maybe not difficult for you. But difficult for me. Difficult to sit down and say what I what I really need in this relationship, because why? Because fundamentally, I don't believe I do. You know, still burdened to some extent by old ideas that I don't believe I deserve the best that God has for me, which is really the fundamental truth is I don't believe I'm worthy. At the end of the day, we get to the bottom of the old idea. I'm not worthy of God's love. Not worthy of God's love, which is from the from the very root of the sentence is not true. It's an old idea that's false. So learning how to communicate demonstrations you you I watch you allow people to step in your life, I watch you step in other people's lives. And we have this, we build these relationships, we build these fabrics.
And and, you know, I have this good friend, Terry, who is my litter mate, he's a couple months behind me in sobriety, but the same year, and we have this deal where we step in each other's lives when we tell each other, we tell on each other with ourselves, we do that first, we'll go to the sponsor, going to make some good ideas, run it by one of your good friends first, just test drive it there to see before you go totally run it to the sponsor, you know, you don't want to just let the sponsor know you're totally crazy out of the chute, you can soften it by the time you get to them. But, you know, I got to have people that I can talk to about what's really going on with me.
And be open about that. And communication and mine and Lori's relationship is so vital to me today. And my communication and other people's lives is so vital today. I've got a buddy of mine in Rhode Island, and he and I, he had, he's one of these guys that when I first met him a couple years ago, my friend Kevin, who I love dearly. When I first met him a couple years ago, he was this guy that I looked at, and immediately I had an idea who he was. He's this guy that he just, he just, you know, he's about six foot, he's good looking, he's, you know, I look at people sometimes like that, and I just judge him and I, I sign him a role still, you know, I just think that's who they are. And so I immediately become intimidated by all that. Maybe you don't experience Maybe you don't experience this, but I do.
And, and I, I reached out to him a couple times because I know what I need to do. That's about me, not about him. I need to reach out to a great guy, solid guy. And then earlier this year, he was one of the first people in the states to get COVID. And when that happened to him, I immediately, when I saw that he had it, somebody had texted me, I called him and I stayed in contact with him. And then I told him the truth.
When he got better, I said, Kevin, I need to tell you about you and me. I said, when I first met you and this, I just told him what I told you. And he said, Clint, that couldn't be farther from the truth. He said, when I first met you, I thought, here's this kid, here's, this guy's got it all together. And I mean, we both come from the same perspective to each other. It's unbelievable, unbelievable how we both form these ideas about each other, but so far, and Kevin, I talked a couple of days a week and we had this unbelievable relationship, you know, because I'm willing to tell him myself, I'm willing to talk to you about, listen, this is what I thought about you initially, and I'm sorry.
And the truth is I need a relationship with you. I need you in my life. I think the more I'm willing to tell on myself, the more I'm willing to say, you know, this is what I thought. I'm sorry. I thought that, but this is what I thought, or the more I'm willing to say, whatever my emotion is, honestly, without the more I'm willing to do that, what happens is another little piece of me that gets healed. There's another little piece of me that the truth that God shines a light in.
There's another little piece of me that channel between me and God gets cleaned up. And that relationship, that relationship I have with the power here
[00:35:02]
gets healed and I get healed. And in that process, when that happens, it's more in harmony with what I talked about the last hour. Fit myself to be maximum service to you and God. That only happens if I'm willing, if I'm willing to take risk, if I'm willing to grow towards these perfect ideas that I'll never reach, but am I willing to grow towards them? And that's really fundamentally, am I willing to grow towards these ideas? Laurie talked about this, the traditions in our relationship. Listen, this unit, this is a spiritual unit.
Our relationship is a spiritual unit. The first step, the first tradition, the first concept, they all state the problem. Powerlessness, disunity in the tradition, powerlessness, disunity in the tradition, unity, that's the trouble, disunity. We strive for unity. The problem is disunity. We strive for unity. Same in this relationship. I have to strive for unity. In this relationship, I have to put my needs secondary for the survival of the unit.
For the survival of this relationship, I need to put my wants and needs second to make sure this survives. If this is paramount, which means above everything else, I've got to make sure I put my wants and needs secondary. And so how do we do that? By a group conscience and allow God, as we understand Him, to express Himself in our relationship. This is if I'm willing to take risk and communicate, if I'm willing to say the truth calmly like an adult, which I'm still working on. Thank God I've got adult supervision today.
But I'm willing to try to be an adult and have adult conversations today and be a grown-up. Some days I'm better than others. I'm really good at this. It doesn't matter what happens at this house. If something goes haywire wrong, I just come in and apologize for it. It doesn't really matter whose fault it is. I come in and say, man, I'm sorry that happened because I know eventually it's going to turn around and be my fault. So I just start apologizing early.
But I've learned that if I just take the heat early on, if I just come in and say this is my fault, that goes along with what we were talking about keeping score. That's a big deal for people in relationships, keeping score. If I just come in and say, one of the things I did get out of all that money on counseling that we spent on for really not having a problem other than drinking, the one thing I got out of that more than anything else was what Joe used to say to me, Cliff, what's that cost you? What's that cost you to say you're wrong? What's that cost you?
How big a deal is that to say, but if you're grounded in your trenches and right and wrong and keeping score, by God, it's a big deal. It's a big damn deal. I'm not giving in today. And Lori will absolutely back me up on this because she says all the time, Cliff apologizes way more than I ever do, but I don't care anymore. I'm not keeping score, so it doesn't matter. I could be, everything could be my fault because I don't care because I'm not keeping score. I'm not looking in the sack going, how many times did I apologize?
I don't care. I just don't care. What's more important to me is that this relationship survives and that we have a healthy, communicative, loving relationship because I really believe this. I believe everything that this big book of Alcoholics Anonymous says. I believe everything, but one of the things I believe more than anything else in that book is the responsibility that recovering couples have to other recovering couples.
When it says that we sometimes have to take skeletons out of our closet to show to other people, to save them from a life of alcoholism, to save them from that life, that we can't be too afraid to not take those out and talk about them, share them, so that some other family might avoid the misery that we've had to endure. Everything I've been through, everything Lori's been through, everything we've been through together, here's what I know for sure. It's been done not to us, but for us that we could pass along and help somebody else. It's been done so that we could have an experience to pass along that some other couple, some other person might be saved that same misery, that same despair, and they may be put on a path toward the God of their understanding.
I sure have enjoyed being with y'all today. It's been a real treat. I'm not that we're done, but I'm going to let Lori do it, then we'll do some questions. There's Anissa. Look, it's Anissa. Oh my God, it is her.