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Episode 44 · 1 year ago
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Episode 44 · 1 year ago
Russell S at Biggest Little City In The World Group - Reno NV
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
COMPOAM is all yours. Thank you, Chris. My name is Russell spats. I'm an alcoholic from the south to the fast room, from Miami, Florida. Can y'all hear me? You always have to do these sound checks. You know, want to speak for forty five minutes and find out nobody heard word you said. So it's good to be here listen. I haven't found it necessary. Give you a few facts and then we can get to the real important stuff, I suppose. First of all, I want to thank Chris for asking me to speak. It's always good to be in an AV for me, I go to a lot of them, a lot of the units, and it's a privilege when anybody asks you to share their your story. I haven't found necessary to have a drink since January twenty two, one thousand nine hundred and eighty one and and so I'm in my forty year of recovery now. And let me see, I'm I'm seventy one years old. I've been married thirty nine years. Thirty nine years. Yeah, my sponsor said don't get into any relationships, don't make any serious decisions during your first year. So I got married after three months I didn't think it was a big deal, but I may have been wrong about that. I'm recalculating at this point, but it's too late now. I'm too defensive a deal. You know, she's a member of Alan on, our ladies of perpetual revenge, and she does a great Autan on ten step. When I'm wrong, she'd probably have been said and she was at an all day Alan on best to day. He's like a leader down here in Alana. I'm actually I'm not only you know much about Alto Holnon, and I'm telling you don't really have to know much about it, but but the truth of the matter is I would be what's called her full of fire. You understand, I'm her qualifier. I am basically her disease. I am her disease. When I go to the conventions with her, he's in the corner with a bunch of her, her cronies, and you know that it whispering, laughing at all, pointing at the you know, is he's the one. That's the guy you know. So listen. I have four children, I race sober, and seven grandchildren and three dogs and and that's the deal. So I'm going to talk a little bit about some stuff. I'm gonna you know, they say he's like a giant toolbox as a wrench, that that every nothing walks through the door. And I don't know whether I'll be your ranch tonight, but I'm going to try to be as honest as possible and one God once told me the only thing you need to do for good a mean he's be sincere and once you learn how to fake that, you got it made. I'll try to be honest about the whole thing. There's no point in lying. You know, first of all, I'm seventy one, I'm senile. You know, I really think I to tell you that it's an important thing to be honest. I mean there's a possible you might like something I said and you really have to check with your sponsor because I'm really not that well so. But and that's the you know, I'm you know, here's the problem with speaking. And I've been I'm a lawyer, so I'm a pay bullshit artists. So I've been speaking, doing steph series and talking. You know, ever since I had five years sobriety, I've been out there doing the deal. And the problem is not that I don't have anything to say. I mean I could. I mean, let me tell you something, it's going to get really good during the third hour at this talk. But but the bottom line is it's not that. Here's my here's my problem. Okay, with what it was like and what what it was like, what happened and what it's like now. I'm just going to be honest with you and shared my problem with you. It's not a big problem, but I just want to know what it is. I drank for I don't know, twenty years, Fifteen, twenty years. I've been sober almost forty years now. You know, I don't know what's I don't even know what what that adds up to. You two, forty, sixty, whatever it is, it says our stories disclosed in a general way, what we used to be like, what happened when we are like now. And I got a...
Shitload of stories. I got a lot of stories. I got stories that are five minutes long, I got stories that in twenty five I got I got a I got a story, one story that last thirty minutes, forty minutes, and and you know what, the store or every one of my stories. I got stories about before I stopped drinking. I got stories as to what happened when I stopped drinking and I got stories for last forty years about what it's like now. I got stories about early sobriety. I got stories about Middle Sobriety. I have stories about fifteen years and twenty years sobriety. I got stories about thirty nine years sobriety. And every one of my stories, you know what? My stories are all about the same thing. They're all about the disease of alcoholism. They're all about how I almost killed myself. Calm Manager wrote in the book man against himself that suicide said alcoholics are a minimum about destroy themselves. wrote that in one thousand nine hundred and thirty nine. I got stories about how I almost destroyed myself. And other people I got stories about how I almost destroyed myself. They have to come in and day and and and and let me tell you something. These stories are important to me because there's stories about the disease. I'm just telling you this is all from my point of view. My sponsor once said to me, my first sponsor, I have got for because when you stay sober for a while, they die on you. You know. They passed away great men. And my first sponse once told me, you said the first step and getting out of jail is knowing you're in jail in the first place. And I thought alcohol was my jail self. I came to the point where I thought that was the jail, that was the bondage. But you know, after I came down and I was sober for a few months, I realized, I started to realize that even though I wasn't drinking, I was still crazy. I had a sponsor wants tell me that he thought what he had to leave a a after three months because he said, even though he loved Aa and he thought it was the greatest thing in the world, he said I had to leave and I said live, says Russell. I said, I don't think I'Ming Out, I think I might just be crazy, and he was. He was despondent because he loved a AIGs, I said, and I reminded him how it kept on to do some something a and how really get an AIDS as I know, I know this is for Russell. I think I'm crazy. I think that's my real problem. Crazy. And I said, Tommy, I said listen, he says what I said. Listen, I said, Tommy, you can be both. He said really. I said absolutely absolutely. He said, Oh, thank God. I thought I had to lead, you know, because you know, it takes about three or four months to realize that there's something going on that's wrong with you and it has nothing to do with Scotch. And then you finally see things in the big book that maybe you missed beforeward says alcohol consumption is not our disease, it's not the problem, it's as it's a symptom of it's a hell of the symptom, but it's a Simtha are real problems that there's in our mind, on our body. And then they after you stop drinking, you get to maybe spend the next ten to fifteen years, maybe twenty years, to see really how large the jail cell is. You get your little penlight and you sort of look around and then there's the jail cell of lust, there's the jail cell of pride, there's the jail cell of bread and anger, there's a great jail cell of envy. You get to see how large it is and that the mentions of the jail cell and how it's killing your life and everything like that. And you know the truth is is no getting out of the jail cell. You know, no get an atomless you know what the jail cell looks like. And even after you know what the jail soon looks like, it's hard to get out of jail when you're so comfortable until self and you finally have to come, come to the point where you become tolly ready to leave jail, entirely ready to stop screwing around on your wife and Tilly, ready to stop saying I wish I had this or I finally had that, entirely ready to stop trying to grab ass...
...after a lest of the worldly clamors, to be entirely ready to make God the central fact of your life. So then finally you can find out what the real disease is. Unhealthy dependencies, dependencies on people, dependencies on my heels and romance, dependencies on money, dependencies on material things. So you can maybe, finally, possibly, we rock it into the fourth dimension of existence experience much of heaven by finally learning really what the great fact is and putting the pedal to the metal and making God the central fact your life and actually being convinced, which takes a long time, being convinced that it really does live in your heart and mind in a way which is a deep miraculous and he can do for you what you've never done for yourself and that you can't do for yourself, and finally understanding that the real problem is selfishness and actually finally learning what that selfishness looks like, because it's impossible. It's impossible to stop being selfish unless you know what you're sucking. You can't stop being selfish when you think you're actually, basically it's, a good person, when you're really basically an evil person, is not a good person and left to your own devices, they're going to hurt somebody. You're not going to do good early direction. You're going to do good, good early direction based upon your opinion. You know. You're not going to do the next right thing. You're going to do the thing that you think is right, and it's a real difficult thing. When you're not off, you start doing the things that you think is right and then six months later you learn why the hell did I ever said that? Why the hell did I do that? Why the hell did I say that? And you realize that you're not really a good arbiterrm figuring out what's right, because the truth is, your rationalize, you could tell you so rationalize that you believe. You buy into your bullshit. You say things to yourself like I'm give a crap what other people think about me. You say it over and over again. Sometimes you announcer the world that you can give a crap what other people think about you, when you really when you don't even realize that the only people that say to themselves they don't give a crap what other people think about them are people that spend their entire life worried about what other people think about them and actually think that other people are actually thinking about them. Because people that really don't give a crap what other people think about them never tell themselves. They give us. They they never try to talk themselves into thinking that they don't give a crap what other people that they say. They never say that stuff. They say things like pass the sugar, but they don't say that Shit, you know what I mean? And you start realizing this is a real serious the seats and the problem with the disease is it has to do with your thinking, and you realize that it's one thing to give up the drink and it's another thing to be powerless over the thinking and you wake up at three o'clock the morning and abject fear because you're worried about the same thing that you've been worried about the three weeks. Three weeks you've been worried about this thing. You tell everybody you know and your sponsor about this thing that you're worried about. They tell you all nice things. You go to mean to feel good for a few seconds and then you're worried about it again. You wake up thinking about it, you go to sleep thinking about you wake up three o'clock the morning. Sometimes you even say yourself this. You say something like this. You realize that it's killing you, you realize that all the thinking of the world isn't getting you anywhere, that you even say to yourself. You say something like this, I got to stop thinking about this. I gotta Stop Thinking about this. I've only got two hours sleep, I'm going to work. I got to stop thinking about this. You have explained yourself that all the thinking of the world, all the all the frigging this. You added up the bills, you've added up the money. It's not every time you add it up you're screwed. It's not putting any money in the bank. You've got to stop thinking about it and because it's killing you. And then five seconds later you start thinking about it again, and you know it's almost like I got to stop drinking. I gotta Stop Drinking, I gotta stop worrying, I gotta have what's it like to be sober and be in fear and have anxiety? You know, I'll tell you what. There ain't no anxiety like sober anxiety. Three o'clock in the morning, you know your life...
...is over, they're all going to find out. Divide your phone, piece of crowd. And then those voices. What about the voices? What does that have to do with it? To teach? What about that stuff? When you're in the shower? Are you driving a car at all? A sudden here that voice and says you're an Asshole, you want to kill yourself, you never going to be okay, and you turn around to seem same exit to you and you're the only one in the car. You know, I'm going to that come from that like being down from Mars. Or is that really your reputation about yourself? Your reputation about yourself with you. Is that really finally the voice that breaks through, the tells you what you really think about yourself. And maybe that's why you feel like that's why you feel less, why, for the last twenty, thirty years or forty years, you felt basically keep down, sign up, unworthy, no matter how many times you think. They don't understand me and they're know how great I am and how wonderful I am. Maybe that, maybe the default position of the alcoholic is to constantly feel a sense of unworthiness. Deep down the side, they know they don't deserve the alive. That the basically piece of shit. Hey, somebody feels like that. That's part of the disease. I mean the big book says the twelve and twelve says and lesson. Until an alcohol excepts his alcoholism and all its consequences, the sobriety would be precarious of true happiness, will find none at all, and I think happiness is sort of important for various reasons. Because it says on a big book. So that's true. Then what are the consequences of being an alcohol maybe feeling unworthy is the consequence of what. What would what would hell a person act? What would he say how would you think if you lived his entire life feeling that he's unworthy and worse than everybody else and not good enough? I mean, would that be a person that's constantly saying to himself, if only I had a wife, if only had a husband, if only I had a better job, if only I had more money, only I had a car, if only I can lose a hundred pounds or fifty pounds, if only I was blond and nothing brown, that if only other than Reno, you know, if only, if only, if only, if only. You know, what do you finally realize that when you constantly come, constantly, constantly tell yourself you're an if ball player and he yes, butter, and you don't understand her and your entire life is trying to figure out what's wrong with you and saying, if only I had this, and you know that's the problem, because you run after that thing and you grab that thing and you get that thing and you feel good for I don't know what's the half flight, five minutes a month. You get married to that Gal you know will change your life and everything's greater than you have a child and a house and everything, and everything's great and then six months later you're looking at some redhead at a bar and you're saying things like if I only had that idea, of if I only had this ideelk right, you know, if if only. And when you finally realize that every time you say to yourself, if only I had this idea, okay, if only had that idea, okay, when you realize that every time you say that to yourself, you're repeating over and over again to yourself, I'm not okay, I'm not okay. When you finally realize that you live a life telling yourself over and over again that you're a piece of shit and you're not worthy and you're not capable of love and nobody you know I mean this disease. How long does it? How many times do you have to be crushed to actually even get a sense of how sick you are, you know, and how selfish you are? I don't know. Apparently a lot of times, because the big book, in the Twelve and twelve, says the way we get a new perspective is by repeated humiliations and the final crushing of our self sufficiency. It says that in the seventh step. So apparently the even though I thought as soon as I stopped drinking that everything is going to be wonder wonderful. Apparently that was just the first crushing. That was the first crushing. You know, that was the initiation crushing. You know what I mean? Apparently there's some more...
...crushing going on. You know, apparently you got to do the first step over and over and over again. You know, apparently that's has something to do with getting sober and learning stuff. You know, how do you get on this rocket ship right in the fourth dimension? So my problem is this. My problem is is that I got all these stories and they're all about the disease, what the disease looks like. I can be and it's all about having the disease, feeling disease, dealing with the disease. It's all about having the disease and not drinking because of even though I have the disease. And then every story I have in my artillery after I can day is all about how, with these stories, I didn't drink. It's all about victory over the disease, victory over disease with the help of with the help of God, victory of the disease with the help of God and then finally arriveing at the point, what does it say? We will surely meet when we trudge the road to happy destiny. Let me tell you about the road to happy destiny. Let me tell you something that there's like a dvanced a the road happy destiny is a road to happy destiny. It's a road to happy destiny. At the end of the road there's something called happy destiny. You know, what happens is, as you're trudging the road to happy destiny, you're not yet a happy destiny. You're not yet. You're trudging a road to happy destiny and there are a lot of exits on that highway. There are a lot of places we can get off that I here's a lot of clammers, worldly clambers that will steer you away from that highway. And here's the problem of being in the middle of the road to happy destiny. Here's the problem not really being a happy destiny. Yet we have a big book that says when it talks about the great fact, it says there's no middle of the road a solution. It says there's no middle of the road solution. There's no it says God either is or isn't. What's your decision going to be? It says you can't even you can't. Here's what it says. It says if a mere a code of morals or a better philosophy of life? What helped us? We Bet sover long time ago, but that no code could help us. Nothing can help us. That's why we wrote a book that we could talk about God. God either is or isn't, you know. And here's where we get upset at that, because we don't like God. We don't like the God thing. And the book says, and it's written to the agnostics, it's the only part of the book that's written the agnostic. It says this sort of thinking has to be abandoned. But what if you don't want to abandon it? What if you can't abandon it? What if you want to do anything but give your life over to God? Even though the big book says we're on a new basis, the base of trust and relying upon God. Even though the big book says, don't worry if they laugh at you, we never apologize for God. We never apologize for God twice. They know, the PEOP book says, says all men of faith have courage. We Trust our God, even though the big book says at the end, it says we must get rid of this felt with this this this problem. We must a selfishance, we must or kills us. God makes that possible, even though right after that it says once you make a sincere decision, for God also remarkable. He's happening, being all powerful, they'll give us everything we need if we stay close from the performance, work well, even though the book says see to it your relationship with him is right, and great events will come past you and tell us others. It's not the fourth step, the fifth step, the eight step, the nights up, every step, the perpet do the perfect stuff. I'm going to do the perfect it says. Nothing means nothing if you don't have a belief in God, if he's not the sent a bit piece of your life. I'm not talking. This is my opinion, this is what I've learned after forty years, and this is what I read in the big book. It's actually in there, believe it or not. What are you? What are you going to do when, somehow, some way, even though it says there is the middle of the road solution, even...
...though it says half measures of value nothing. Something inside of me tells we half measure will actually give me fifty percent. What do you do when everything in your body wants the negotiate with the negotiate with the cure? What do you do when you want to say no, that's your that's that's your program. You got your program, I got my program. You do it your way, I'll do it my way. What if it is only one way? Maybe there's only one way. Maybe the disease is so virulent and so horrible that there's only one way. That they talked about in nineteen thirty five and maybe they were doing in nineteen thirty five and then maybe somewhere down of the road, because of the maybe we have a big book and in Twelve and twelve that map side exactly what doesn't say. Rarely have we seen a person of fail who has thoroughly followed our path. The big book was nineteen thirty nine. A started in nineteen thirty five. Between Nineteen thirty five thousand nine hundred thirty nine, what they were doing was not reading the big book, the books they found absolutely essential. According to talk about the girl timeas was first with the thirteen sermon on the Mount and the book of James, but we don't read those, even though they said they're absolutely essential. There's a lot of things we don't do because, because here's the problem. Here's the problem. We have a big book in a twelve and twelve says God either is or is that what your decision going to be? We got a big book that talks about me, thank God. We got a big book that says, and I'll tell you, I know what it says, because they're read in a hundred different places. You know that that it's all. It's an all or nothing thing. You know, if you know, have you you must get rid of all these old ideas. But result his nail. You got big book. It says you can't manage your way out of it, you can't think a way out of it. No humans going to get your way out of this. God couldn't win if he was sought. And then you said the rest of your life seeking him and seeking him and seeking him. And you finally have a sixth step that says this is the step that separates the men of the boys, because apparently there are a lot of boys and girls that just want to join the not drinking club. And then you've got men that, according to the twelve and twelve, are men that are trying to grow in the image and likeness of their creator, their creator, they're deity, trying to grow in that and not settle perhaps measures. Apparently that's what the book says. So what do you do when you have a book like that that lays the whole thing on God and your faith in God and surrendering read Dr Bottom a good times. Page one one. What are you doing? You have a book that says all that about God and you got a fellowship that doesn't want to fucking hear it, and you got a fellowship that will make you feel guilty and will dison you and make you feel like they're stupid if you even talk about God. I mean, apparently our fellowship, as much as I love it, because it's filled with psycho is just like me, apparently this fellowship is not well, people's anonymous. So what do you do? Have you ever been in a meeting and you actually, as anybody ever been to an AA, wouldn't worry about what they're going to say, never worry you. Ever, you ever not mention God, even though you believe in God and it's helped you because you're worried about whether people will like you or not. What if one of the consequences of this disease is an addiction to people's approval? What if we're all codependent of what if our entire life we feel so shitty about ourselves and so unsure, with so second gets are felt? What if what if they put what if they said one of the promises is that fear of people will leave us? What if they put that in there because they know alcoholics are definitely afraid of people and it causes us to have shitty lives because all we do is worry about what people think about what do you do about a fellowship where you're going in there in the entire book is about God, and the bottom line...
...is is you cannot talk about what the book says, even if you feel it, because people will make you feel guilty. I needed any place you can should talk about God and should be an alcoholics anonymous. What do you have? You have a fellowship that is wordered it down so much that they will make you feel guilty for even saying that, and you feel guilty and everybody in here knows exactly what I'm talking about. I guess what happens is you just that that forty years. You can do that shit from you figured it out somewhere around thirty years. They can't fucking fire you. They can't fire me. It's they can't pry me. And here's the crazy thing. They don't fire me to ask me to speak all over. I speak about the same thing. And you know why? Because there are people that want to hear the message of death and what you people that want to hear this because they don't want to just play games and do entertainment, a a and all that stuff. They want to live a life where the rocket in the fourth dimension of existence. They want to experience much of heaven. That's what they want. They don't want the same old group therapy bullshit. You understand. So I digress. So here's the problem I have. Okay, let's get back to my problem. Let's get back to talking about me. You know what I mean. Me, me, me, being me. Let's talk about me. Oh, enough about me. Sure, let's talk about you. What do you think about me? You know, whatever, let's go mass okay. So here's this. Okay, so here's my problem. Somewhere towards the end of this talk I'm going to get to what my problem is. We'll talk about my problem. But side this is what happens. is how the mind works. I don't have any can speeches. You know what I mean. I just go wherever the flow is. You know, it's it's like a truck, it's like a giant. It's like watching a train wreck, isn't it? It's like crazy stuff, you know. And so here's the deal. Here's the here's the problem. So I got all I got. I got at last count. I finally had to put them down because I was going to these conventions and everything and I said I got to start. A guy would come with me. Says, do that story. I like the story. And dice think they request stories. Do the story about the Camaro. Do the story about the mind is dudes. So I actually put down the stories, you know, and I and what happens is when your spiritually minded and you love the Lord and you're walking around the low place, everything that happens to you is another story. It's another story. You know, it's it's like amazing. God is like all over the place. You know, all the God incidents and everything. So I did the last time I captain was like a hundred eight nine stories. We'd have to be here for a week for me to go through all the story. So here's the problem I am. The problem I have is this. I got to tell what it's like, what it's what happened when it's like that. And I have, last count, one hundred and eighty nine story and these stories you don't like. SOAPHY's choice. These stories and, like my children, these stories define me and tell me who I am and what I am, what my life's about, how God has worked in my life, tells me all about disease. And I gotta pick. Here's the problem. I got to pick like four or four or five stories. You know what I mean. And I'm senile. You know what I mean. It makes it even worse. It's harder, you know, and so what? So I'm going to tell you. I don't even know how much time I am. I'm going to tell you like three or four stories. Well, I'll tell you. And if it's a problem sometimes, you know what. And here's the other thing. I really want to skip over the drinking stories. And the drinking stories are important. I know they're important, but I want to skip over the drinking stories because I don't want to talk about drinking, because I can't help anybody talking about drinking, because still be a lot of people talk about drinking. And besides, if you don't think they're an alcohol you don't you have a drinking problem. That's way too sure that it is to start drinking anyway. So you know I mean. I'm not sure you can talk somebody out of drink unless they're ready. You got my spots. You say you can't rob an alcohol with desperation. Don't Robin Alcoholic his last drink. I want to talk to you about sobriety. I want to talk to you about forty years of supper. I want to talk about being rocking,...
...the fourth dimension exist. I want to talk about emotional sobriety. You know I mean. That's what I want to talk about, not that drinking. Listen, I came to alcoholics anonymous, because no woman, no car, no matter of money, no suit of clothes, know nothing ever work quite as well and quite as fast as just a few drinks. And that's the bottom line. And if alcohol work for me the way work me when I was eighte eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old I'd still be drinking it. And the problem, I promise, is alcohol doesn't work for me anymore and the real problem in my life is to stopped working for me about ten years for if I realize that stopped working for me. And I heard a Shitload of people and I heard a lot of people. I met a beautiful girl, a nice girl, in college and I said, if I only had this girl, I'd be okay, and I'm Kevin and that Earth Man, believe me, I wanted what she had and I was willing to go to any length to get it. I moved Hevin on Earth to charm my way and insinuate my way into our her life, thinking I loved her. Listen, I never, I never met a girl that I wasn't in love with. You know. Well, I thought it was loved. It was actually something else that I won't go into, you know. But the bottom line is is that and I love and I said I could only have her and I managed to marry her and we had a child. I was I was and we had a beautiful house on Miami Beach. We had the whole thing, and then six months later I'm looking at other women she wasn't working for me anymore. You never buy a new car. I wout a new car. It was wonderful, beautiful, it was beautiful, and six months later it was like an old car. Wasn't that Nice? I said, I finally had this car. You know, every buy a nice suit of clothes and you say you feel like a million dollars. You feel good, you know, and so you know it's the clothes that make you feel good. You know, because you can't feel them without the close. Anytime you need something to feel good, it means it means you feel like crap without the deal. You know what I mean. So the deal is so. So I got a light and she made me feel good for what six months? That was it. Then I at the next four and a half years trying to figure out how to get feeling sorry for myself and less than after other women, trying to figure out how to get out of that relationship. And I never cheated on my wife. I never treat physically on my wife. I would just come in every night at four o'clock in the morning, hanging out of the bars, looking at other women, saying, if I can only have that one, if I only have this one, and then we finally went to a marriage councilor because she had a child and she thought it was he apparently, apparently, I don't remember this because it was a big party and I've been drinking. Apparently, at some points in time at the wedding somebody said to me till death do you part. You know what I mean, which, quite frankly, I think it's like a ridiculous sort of contract. But she was taking it seriously, you know, and she wanted to try to save the marriage and we went to a marriage counsel and the marriage announcilor said to her, Ronnie, what is it about Russell? Give me three things about Russell that you'd like to see change. And I'm sitting there and I'm already making dates with the gals in the bar. And the bottom line is is I realize that I'm in a bad situation because I had just busted loose from the jail and she's trying to get me back in the jail. And I don't remember what she said. She might have mentioned drinking or coming home for dinner. She might have mentioned that. And then he turned to me and says, Russell, what are the think three things you want to change about your wife that will pick something your marriage. And I looked at him I said, I just want to go out with other women and that was the end of that session. Now, generally, when people hear that, and I like to tell that story because it's the truth, especially when women here, I did get that look on the women, get that look on Chris. You're not going to say some women look at me when I tell that's sort it's like they don't like me. It's almost like they don't like that the manafing. You know what I mean, because I think what they think is that the only person to do something like that is a piece of shared, selfish, evil person. And the reason I said that is because I was a piece of Shit, selfish, bum evil, irresponsible person. And you see, you need to understand how evil you...
...are and how much you can hurt somebody because of your selfishness, to understand how screwed you are. Because if you're an alcoholic and you only think you just banded, sometimes you're basically a good person, you have a good heart, then you want to know something. You don't have any clue as to what kind of disease you have. Or you and I have suffered from different diseases because I'm a selfish son of a bitch, and that's what I am. And you want to see. The best thing that has ever happened to me is learn over a period of time, what an ASS whole I am. I was a I was a trial attorney. I Graduate Department alarms and mathematics, you know what I mean. I was going to my phd and Algebraic topology. I decide to go to law school instead national science. How then, and fellow you know, I tried Comon. I tried twenty homicide cases before I was twenty five years old. You know what I mean? Not Maybe people get involved in that kind of stuff or do that kind of stuff. You want to US something. I wasn't a loser in that sense, you know. I mean to the world I was. I was success, and you wanted something, I would. I was a bum in a three piece suit and thought I was great, because my best thinking got me in here and won't tell me anything about myself. I lie to myself about who I am and what I am, and the greatest guy I have going to meet myself is to finally get to the point where I had what's called Godly sorrow, where, instead of self pity, which is worldly sorrow, because I'm a Selfpityo Holic, but I was never a godly sorrow, and a godly sorrow, hally, is when you finally you don't it's not like selfpity. It's finally getting to the point where you're ashamed of what you become, where you become ashamed of what you become. There is nothing greater than shame. You know, some people think shame is a bad thing. I think shame is an incredibly good thing for alcoholics. I've heard more alcoholic women tell me, but you don't understand, I'm a good mother and I've looked at him say, let me tell you something. You're a shitty mother. Is that what you tell yourself? You're an alcoholic, you drink, you're emotionally not there for your child. You know, you think and you use that what you tell yourself to keep you going, that you're a good mother. You're a crappy mother. I was brought up in an alcohol home with an alcoholic mother feeling sorry for herself. You're a piece of shit mother. You know. That's the deal. So gals don't be asking me any advice. You know, hope I'm the wrong guy, you know, but you want to know something. Is a funny thing when people in Alcoholics get the truth, the bitter truth, you'd be shocked at how many of them all of a sudden turn their lives around. I don't know. There's something about hitting body. We there's a lot of Shit we tell ourselves. Hey, I'm a good this and I'll be good that. There's a lot of bullshit we tell ourselves. Listen, I came to alcoholics when the constituence questions of my drinking came at me faster than my ability to lower my standards. You know, we have, we have a way of just sort of like proping ourselves up with so much bullshit. You know, need to make ourselves saying, well, it's not that bad. Yes, it is that bad. You know. Thank God I ran to the people in my life that would tell me. You know why? Because he is the problem. As alcoholics will kind of codependent. We don't want we want people to like us. So you get these sponsors and other people that want to pad you on the back and sort of lift you up and make you feel good. They don't want to tell you the truth because if you tell the truth, you might get madded them, you might fire them as sponsors, you might you might talk about and behind their back, you know, and stuff like that. And you know what they say in the twelve and twelve. They say we don't argue withoutcoholics. We tell them to try. Wants to tryst with control drinking. And I had sponsors, sponsors, and they were me. I was supposed to be sponsored by Jesus Christ, there Albert Einstein, because I like they ask knowledge and unfortuse. I got sponsored by UKR use, car salesman, you know, having me regulate the sixth grade. I was terribly under sponsored. But when I came down boss anonymous, I had to neurons working and they were waving goodbye to each other. So I was in a fit mental condition. So they voiced these guys on me and I have the...
...sponsor in front of me in my office and I got literally twenty five plaques in my office attesting that I've been educated far beyond my capacity to understand anything. And I turned to Bob and I say, Bob, these are my degrees, and he looks at me and he says this without missing to me. He says, well, you know, rust rectal thermometers have degrees and you know what they do with those. And so that's that's basically example of my sponsorship. My explain to my spons how smart and great I am, and he explained to me that I am a donkey. He once said to me, I figured it out because I don't want to get too crazy about this thing, because I'm the middle of the road, tonic guy. You don't want to get too crazy. You might start going to church or something like that, and that's really off the wall, even though, by the way, in the big book they encourage church membership because they encourage you to get involved with people. They're always focusing on God, because your priory duty is to increase your conscious contact with God to the point where every waking moment of the thing, no matter what's going on, you're thinking, your default position is about God, and that way you will never worry about the shit that's going on in this world. It will never have to worry about what's going on in this world because you will train yourself to always be thinking about God, so you won't have to worry about prayer meditation, because your whole life will be prayer. You will live a life of prayer meditation. You won't have to worry about have turned it over, because you will wake up and it will have already been turned over. You'll be live in a turned over life. So you won't be waking up thinking about all the bad things or what you have to do. You'll be thinking about you'll be, will be saying, in my case, thank you Jesus, thank you for another day. That's just my case. I'm not trying to I'm not trying to evangelize anybody, but I'm allowed to tell my story. This is my story. You know you'll take it to the limit. You know, listen, this an address rehearsal. This is your life. You're free to have a minus. Well, you're free to have a life. You can be sober, you can be I'd see it, I sponsor guys with twenty, five, thirty years who are miserable, live lives of quite, you know, quiet desperation. You're welcome to have a horrible life and a life a hug of quiet desperation, but they'll give you your twenty five year medallion, they'll give you a twenty five years of gallion. You can be cool, you can feel, you can be unhappy, you can be dissatisfied, can be filled with fear. They'll allow you to do it. You don't have to be rocking in the fourth dimension of existence. Shoot low. Hey wants the shoot for being normal. Oh, I just want to be normal. Holy Shit, what if you hit it? Can You? Have you looked at normally? Yelly, I've seen what your how about extraordinary? How about extraordinary? How about that? You know what I mean. But then you have to hang around with people that are doing that to you. You understand what I'm saying, because the person you'll be will depend upon the people you hang out with. The books you read and the books you redal depend upon who you hang out with it, and they'll be telling you. Also, it's a stupid shit because if you're an alcoholic, you're insane. I know you're insane because the second step says you come to believe that power ritting yourself will restore you to sanity, and I think you can't be restored to sanity unless you are insane, because if you're already saying, why would you need to be restored? And it doesn't say. When it says came to believe that a power greating than self will restore you to sanity. It doesn't say that you will be restored to sanity. It doesn't say as soon as you take the second step you're restored to sanity. The restoration to sanity happens about thirty years later. Thirty years later, thirty years late. Okay, ten say I'm fullishit. Then Tal home, I got guys that say to me, they come up to me, they got twenty years and they tell me that all the problems they have. I tellt yeah, I know that that problem. I had that at twenty years. You'll be okay in ten years. How got? How come? How come? I don't know what you notice this, but there is a difference between people that are five years of people that have thirty five years. Hey, listen, I don't know where you're at. Maybe you have ten years. Is they're difference between you with ten...
...years and you would one year. There's something you know. It's a great thing about having time. I know people like to say time doesn't mean anything. Usually people that have only five, you know, a few years, say time doesn't mean anything. Doesn't let me tell you know what you what time mean? Times mean. Time means that you've been crushed crushed. You know, you don't putty. I'll tell you what means. It means I've been crushed for that long. I've been crushed and crushed and crushed. There's something about it means the new perspective I have. And I'm not even close. I'm listening. I'M NOT PERFEC I'm not even close, but I be. All it means is that whatever has happened over a period of almost forty years now, with the crushing and the crushing and the crushing and answer and the cancer and the IRS and the money and this and that, that and the kids and the whole bit, whatever is happened to me over forty years to crushing. That's how much my perspective on life and things have changed. You know, I'll tell you. I can't. I can't tell. I can't tell whatever I'm telling you right now as to you know, since listen. If you don't like it, don't blame me, blame alcoholics. Anonymous. I am a product of alcoholics. Anonymous. Call Up New York and tell them that there's some guy in renal, the Vada that saying all this bullshit can be scared away new comers. You know, unfortunately they can't fire me. They keep on asking me to talk for some strange reason, and people come up and they say they never talked about this stuff in my group. They never talked about God in my group. They never talked about God in any means I go to. And I said that's funny. They talk about him in any of the meetings I go to because I'm talking about it, because I don't apologize for it, because my big book says we don't never apologize for God. We never apologize for God. We let him demonstrate our life what he's doing for us. Because I believe the program of alcoholics anonymous and I believe what it said. I don't try to water it down, because I'll tell you something, when they started wordering it down and make it it easier because they don't want people to get uncomfortable, when that started happened, I don't think the disease went along with it. I personally don't think that the disease of alcoholics anonymous set down and said, well, they're watering down the God thing. Oh okay, then we'll do it with the border, the book will we'll give into the water down way. You know what I mean? I think the disease was clapping it saying those schools of watering it down. They had it in their hand. How do escape from me? And they're watering down because there's so stupid. As John Wayne said, life is tough, even worse if you're stupid. That's what he said, not me. So in any event, I told like one story, maybe two stories, maybe I don't even two stories. One Story. I'm sorry, I have to apologize to you. Know, I get on this name, with this emotionly sobriety God thing, and I get, I don't know, I get I get myself worked out like a Frettin Lynch mob or something. You know what I mean. I like you people, I don't dislike you. I'm not trying, really not trying to you. I hope you understand that. You know. But and if I let me tell you something, if you don't like what I said, if it bothers you, just remember our spiritual axiom. Whenever you're disturbing, no matter what the cause, there's something wrong with you. So then what you can do, as you can either drink over it or hate me, or go to a sponsor and put me on your list and do one of those four step things, one of those inventory things, and then you can be one of those people that come up to me two or three years from now saying I used to hate you, but now I love one of those guys. You know what I mean, because I'm telling you the truth. You know what they say, like in the movie, you know Jack, that says you can't handle the truth. Maybe you just can't handle the truth. That's that. Isn't that of an amazing thing? With alcoholics, anonymous, you know, like they'll, even if they hate you, they'll listen to you. But there's...
...something about when somebody tells you the truth. You can't fucking avoid it. It's like heart, it's like a horror story. Kill me, the lawyers, and now you're A and now it's too late. You know why? Because I've insinuated myself. He's your mind and you'll never be able to get rid of you've all been vaccinated. Now you can't walk away. You can't walk away from this meeting and like make believe that you didn't hear what I just said. Even if you don't like it, I really sort of screwge you. You know, I have to apologize. But here's the deal. Since I don't worry about what you think anymore really, and I worry about the God, am I understanding things, which tells me that my job is to be a maximum service to God and other people? And then I have to tell you the truth and not worry about what you think about me. And since I don't worry, I don't judge who I am and what am by what kind of suit I'm wearing or what kind of clothes I have, or what you think about me. I only judge myself based upon whether or not I'm fulfilling what God wants me to do, because it says he'll give me everything I need if I stay close to them and perform my work. And since I'll walk away from here thinking, God, I did what I told them, what you told me to tell them. Okay, the good thing about my part is, no matter how you take it, what you do with it, I'll feel like I did the right thing by him and I'll have another day of feeling that I'm doing what I'm supposed to do in alcoholics and that is that is carry a message of death and weight in the matter of a message that can give people recovery, you know, instead of having like a form of religion without power and a meeting for everybody feels good and everybody gets entertained and they laughed the jokes, but it has no power to change anybody's lives because they're all sleep walking through fucking a on automatic pilot, thinking they're doing okay, and all they're doing is just some sort of mental mass, spiritual masturbation, not getting anywhere. Then say what I'm saying. Am I making any sense? Anyboy, anybody? I'll wake up out there NU nine hundred and fifty six. I'm done, it's over. It's over, that's it for me. I'm out of here. That's my story. I'm sticking to it. So.
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