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Episode 4 · 2 years ago
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Episode 4 · 2 years ago
Russell S - Escape Velocity @ West Dixie Club 2019-2020 #6
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Oh boy, old age. It's not for Sissy's okay, my name is Russell's bats on an alcoholic. It's good to be here. So the usual suspects. Guys are looking good. Happy thanksgiving. Thanks giving, I gotta say something. Thank you, Millie is. It's and look, I got Jimmy a over. I haven't seen Jimmy in a while now. I want you guys know about Jimmy. I want to try to shame him. He is pathetic. How long is sober now? Twenty five year. Twenty five years of UN detected drinking. I think that's marvelous. So about fifteen years ago, for Jimmy lives and is going to get you sick. Well, he does this to me. He Jimmy lives in bally, Indonesia. Now let me explain you where Balley is. If you drill a hole right here and go through the center of the Earth, I'm at the other side. You come out in his home group in Valley. You know, and let me do about it. I flew over the valley. flew me over the valley. We they had a convention. Was At your first convention over there? No, it's second or third or whatever it was that a convention over Valley. Went over to Balley was like a twenty four hour plane trip. Twenty four hours on a plane. Unbelievable. They did, you know, they pick my pocket and Chot Taiwan or something that some bucks. You know, is unbelievable. And you know that's I was a little longer trip than an hour from Palmeto Bay over here, you know, but it is great. You know, a dollar is like ten dollars over there. And so what was I'm he's over here, he's like visiting. He's got a beautiful Balonesian wife and fourteen year old daughter. He's, I got a house on a mountain overlooking the water and only does his complain. So here's here's the so leny day. What he does? You know, because I this is my only shot at getting back to him. What he does? This is what he does. Is the only thing he does over in valley. So he doesn't have a job, he doesn't do anything, you understand. He goes to a meetings, you understand, and then he surfs. He's been serving all the only does his surf, okay, and and when he's not surfing he has his a buddies over there and the old lad. I guess it's the Indian Ocean. You got in the Indian Ocean on a boat and they catch these huge fish, huge fish, you know. It makes whatever you catch at like like, like direct, you know what I mean. And then what they do is they get on the side, on the back of the boat, at sunset, they hold up these huge fish, they take a picture, you understand, and then they post it on facebook and send it to me. For three weeks I'm in a state of fucking depression. I either get pictures of him with the fish or him raphine or something like that, and it's very depressing. So and he lives for day. Says, Oh, I think he's got a really I think. I think this will send them over the edge, you know what I mean. We'll start drinking or something. So I'm glad Jimmy series a good guy, good man. It's good to grow up in a a and you know your friends. A lot of your friends stay sober and you see him and that kind of deal, and so it's a good thing comes here every year. So I, as I said, I'm an alcoholck and I have found us there, but drink. Since Januar two thousand and nineteen eighty one and it is sort of Thanksgiving the night before. Thanks you having, so I'm sort of like waxing, although I'm sort of like talking about six and seven, but I really sort of waxing, sort of nostalgic on the on. Well, I want to talk a little bit about thanks you having, because I'm thankful. I'm very thankful and I'm grateful to be here. And and alcoholics anonymous number three, which is the story about Bill Dotson, will dots. It's the got to clock the nurse and it's in our big book. It's alcoholics anonymous number three. It wasn't in the first edition, I think one of the second edition. He in his story. He says Bill Dotson says this...
...is and I'm going to try this isn't exactly verbatim. I'll do the best I can. And he says he said he was looking around. Aa. He had a few months or something like that. He says I knew there was something more, something I hadn't got, and I I know that that feeling. I know that feeling. I know the feeling of going to a A. I don't want to say it's like bad sobriety it's it's what it is. You know, they used to say to me at three months when I was going nuts. It's say, Hey, you're exactly where you're supposed to be. I didn't understand what that men, you know, and it didn't I'll tell you what, it didn't help me at all. You know what I mean. When you're depressed and you're going nuts and you're worried about money, you go up to guy says that, yeah, you know, you know how it is. Yeah, you know, initial sobriety. You're up and you're down and you're up and you're down. That's the first hour. You know. I mean, people say you got a split personality. I said I wish I couldt down to one. I'd be okay. I mean from twenty, you know, and we should get down to to so in any event. So the bottom line is is that and then that looks and that goes on. That that stuff, the up in the down of the up in the down and up there. You know, listen, why want you know, I'm just talking about myself. So maybe none of you identified. Is usually what I found in a is one of my old ideas is nobody. You know, you walk around the planet very, very lonely. It's lonely be an alcoholic, you know, says, unless until an alcohol acteps, is alcoholism and all its consequences is supress. Sobriety be precarious, and one of the consequences, I think of being an alcoholics. You're very lonely. You know I mean. You know, it's Ironic, they call us. We call it where alcoholics anonymous, and the only place an anonymous is out there. As matter fact, they're all anonymous out there. You ever, you realize that everybody's anonymous. Head. You know, if you get a real an actual earth person and you bring them into an a room, because I've seen this happen. You, they sit in a room, even to a mediocre meeting. You ever, you have whatever, I have a film with you bring like a guest, like an who's never do any meaning, and you pray that it's a good meeting, you know, and it's the worst freaking Hey, a meeting you've ever been to. Its Home my God is Ye, and then the guy says to you, wow, that was incredible and you realize they're all phony shits out you know, that's all phony Bologne out there. It's all, what about those dolphins, you know what I mean, and you're going to the marlins game and what kind of car you get next year, and we're what was aspen like? It's all bullshit, you know, and you don't realize that they don't. They don't interact like we do. So to them the worst a mean it's like a miracle so that they've never done anything like this, because everybody out there is freaking anonymous. That's why I'm uncomfortable in a sense sometimes out there because because they don't know me, I'm in alcoholics anonymous. I'm an anonymous alcohol I come in here. I am anything but anonymous. Everybody knows me. I fly to Seattle, I walk into an a meeting, I sit down next to a guy who doesn't know me from Adam. We talked for three seconds. He knows everything about me. He knows more about me and how I'm thinking that my wife does, and she's been with me for almost thirty nine years, and that is the absolute truth. That's the absolute truth. I have a wife I've married to almost thirty nine years. I've got four children, I've raised an A. I've got seven grandchildren. They're having a Thanksgiving thing tomorrow. You know, it's somebody's I used to have them over at my house and buy a lot of people over and sponsors. Now they're having it at some cousins house or something like that. They'll be like Twentyzero people and they'll have all sorts of stuff there and I'll go there out of you know, I'll go there. You know I love my grandkids, I love my wife. I'll go there, but but as I'm there, they know that I'll be there for about an hour or so and then I'm...
...booking it to an a meeting where I'll feel more comfortable, where I will feel I listen, you don't have to like it and they don't have to like it, but up here, it's in this chair. I got to tell you the truth. I will book it to an a mean where I will feel comfortable. Then I'll feel comfortable because I'll be with my real family. And what you what you find out usually is that your real family is not necessarily blood related. I'll be with my twin brothers and sisters, you know, but that's not the only reason I go there and I want to talk a little bit about that because I want to talk about gratitude and some other things. I got sober and January twenty two, one thousand nine hundred and eighty one. But that was not really I mean it was bad. It was bad. You don't listen. I'm not going to compare bottoms. Everybody has a different bottom. But it was bad and and I'm glad it was bad. I'm glad it wasn't one of these bullshit bottoms, you know, or goofy brow bottoms or, you know, I got a bad bucket of ice or something. You know, I I was I was thirty one years old and I thought my life was over and I thought it was never going to be better again. And I was I don't know what suicidal is, but it was bad. It was just a bad deal. And but, but that wasn't actually the worst of it. My my spiritual bottom, I believe, was and I talked about it, you know, when I do my talks and things. Was On December, twenty five nights and I had long before that. I had divorced my wife, a beautiful young lady, and and left her, left my inlaws, who were great people, left my child, left my house, left everything, left everything, and I was I was excited to leave them because now I could go out and date other women. I left a wife for five years and a child and house, so I go out and get laid. That's the truth. You know, it doesn't have to be pretty. You know, I don't say that to make myself look good. I say that to make myself look exactly why. I was a selfish prick. You know, that's what I was. I was evil. I was a piece of shit. Now, you guys probably have a mild form of this disease. You probably didn't hurt it. You probably basically good people. I'm not. You know, you just a night. You're nice people that you know. Some bad breaks him to understand. He's you probably never hurt anybody except yourselves and never disappointed people. But but I was an asshole. You know what I mean? And now listen. I wasn't like a monster monster, you know I mean that kind of stuff, but you know, I sat around thinking bad shit about myself and other people, and you know, my whole life was the voted. If I you know, it was pretty much thinking about killing people and murdering them and if they got in my way, and then, you know, I believe I'm fully capable of it. You know, of you know. You get in my way, you hurt my feelings, do something, it's the fucking death penalty. You know what I mean. There ain't no probation. And my deal and and it's important to understand who you are and what you are, because then you can really appreciate the miracle of alcoholics anonymous, and the Miracle That doted and do in your life when you go from, you know, when you go from piece of shit to the extraordinary life I have right now. It's like a miracle you can appreciate if you just go from being while I'm not, I wasn't that good. I was kind of bad. I was messed up a little time to I'm a little bit better now. Not much of a deal, you know what I mean. Not exactly a miracle, you know, but I that was in my deal. My deal was seven twenty five, one thousand nine hundred and eighty one. I was my plan was to be the you after of Miami. I don't know what the plan was. Had something to do with women and cars and money and travel, and it didn't quite work out because I couldn't stop drink. Well, didn't work out for a lot of reasons. But what appear? It ultimately appeared at the very end like it didn't work out because I couldn't stop drinking. And when I said couldn't stop drinking, I mean, and there is a great thing about alcoholics, anonymous, I don't have to explain this. I mean I couldn't. I mean I couldn't stop drinking.
You know, if I was given this talk to the Quantis Club, they'd say, what did he say? Well, but he couldn't stop drinking. You know what I mean. I don't even have to explain that. I couldn't stop drinking and you know I try to stop drinking against my will and things were bad and so I thought my life was over and I had gone out to what's called a no Tae Buena. Some of you guys know what that is. It's twenty four, Christmas twenty four, and I and the Gal who I don't know, she took me there or whatever. Father kicked me out because I got in there drunk. And you know, you want to you want to have like a head start, you know, for you hit one of these deals, you know. So I got in there drunk and because that's what I was. I was a drunk and I was an attorney. I was a drunken and three piece suit. So and he kicked me out, and so here I am alone. You know Frank Sinatra. Most of you guys are pretty young, you know, you're like forty or less. There's a song by Frank Sinatra called Saturday night is the loneliest night of the week. You know. I mean if you're an alcoholic, you know what loneliness is. And I was like launchless it. I was trolling the bars. You know, friend, Hey, I wonder what she had, and I was one to go to any length to get it, and I was but side, you know. So there's line Saturay night is the loneliest night of the week and it's a lonely deal. And I say, I got kicked out. So here I am on Christmas, Christmas, around two o'clock in the morning. And you know, if you're an alcohol can used to compare and your insights with other people's outsides and you just know that everybody has something. You have shit. You know, you're comparing who you are and what you are with and basically one of the things about alcohol, at least my alcoholism, is this, this incessant idea that you doesn't even rise. It doesn't rise really to a conscious level. I think it's more unconscious. This this sort of idea that you're pretty much worthless. You know, you, you, you act like you're a big shot, you're grandiose, you spend a lot of money, you don't have buying shit. You don't need to impress people you don't like. You keep on telling yourself you don't care what other people think about you. But pretty much your whole idea about yourself is what you think other people think about you. So you spend a lot of time worrying about what kind of car you drive, what kind of closure you have out with. You know how fat you are, how thin you are, what you look like the other people. Why they say that. What do you think she mean? But by that mighty think she looked at me that way, even though you don't give a shit about other people, and spend a whole one because deep down inside, you have no selfworth whatsoever. Now of some I'm just talking about my deal. You understand. It says nothing do with you, so I don't worry about it. You know I mean. And and so when you live your life that way and you don't even know why you feel the way you feel and act the way you act and do the Shit you do. You know and and so that's where ends. So by the end you know and and it's like Bill Wilson said, and talk about alcoholism. He said the real problem with alcoholics is unhealthy dependencies. And what happened is what, as you know, the drinking as bad as it is, and it is what gets us in here and really it is what keeps us in here and what disciplines us. I mean he he's like a thank God for booze, because a's like, you know, it's like a giant something of or oven. You know, you come in here and you don't get with the program, you don't hold the hands, you don't do the deal, you don't do the steps. We don't. Don't worry about it there. You know, you'll pollute the area for a while, but every year or two the alcoholic vacuum clean it comes through here, you know what I mean, and sucks up the bullshit and throws it out the door. And the ones that don't die, they come in here with a new attitude and they stay, because otherwise, if everybody stay, even the ones that weren't serious. You know, that's what it says in the big book. It says is everybody welcome, says if they mean business. You know, Matt, back then they had low bottom drunks. These guys were dying. So everybody around them at business, they got him down on their knees to give their life the Lord and everything like that, because that's how bad they were. About now we got people have a...
...like a bad bucket of iy Sun side of the night and their mothers put him in the even sentais. They they go to AA, but they know they're not really interested too much. You know what I mean? I mean it could happen, but they got to go to three or four or five or six or twenty six treatment centers and, you know, be arrested, have their legs chopped off and you know, whatever the heck has to happen where they finally, somewhere around the age of forty, figure it out that their alcoholics that need help and they stop chasing the deal. But the bottom line is is that is that alcohols are great disciplinarian. You know, that's the thing that really gets to the point where you got to grow up or die. You know, that's the way it is. So this particular night I went home and it was three o'clock, two or three o'clock in the morning, and I you know, you know when you've there's there's nothing more lonely than the holidays. If, if you're an alcoholic, can you're at your bottom. You know, you just know that everybody, because I had experienced holiday, because you know, when you're an alcoholic, you you, you are, you are man. You are Jonesing for Christmas. In June, you are looking forward to New Year's Eve. You know what I mean. In October, you know I mean. It is like it is like the greatest, the hollies of the greatest, getting drunk you could, you're allowed to get drunk. Oh crazy, go wild and everything like that. And and then when you get to the point where it's all over and you can't stop drinking and everybody's kicked you out and you're all alone and you know that everybody has somebody and you're the only one on the planet earth that doesn't have every everybody's having a Norman Rockwell Christmas, you know what I mean, and the field with love and you're sitting there alone in your bachelor pad and nobody loves you and you're all alone. And I'm a self pityoholic as it is. You know, it was like I hit a bad bottom and I had some preacher came on TV and you know, a lot of you heard the story and said, if you want to change your life, he says, give you a life to Jesus, and I got down on my knees and he did the sinner's brand. Give my life to Jesus, which is not a big deal for some, but for a Jewish kid from great neck Long Island, you know, I think, well, maybe you had to be there, you had to be here, and I don't know, it's hard to explain. If you're with me that night, maybe you would have understood. But in any event, don't robin alcohol of his desperation, every alcoholcaster drink his last drink. And and thirty days later I didn't. I didn't immediately stop drinking, but thirty days later, you know, after I got into a car accident, almost killed myself and somebody else, I picked up a white chip, so I'm all right. I had my last drink in the hospital bed with tubes running into me from the accident everything. I had my last drink. If Buddy of mine to drink buddy mine, it's snuck in a cold cores beer, which back then, believe it or not, you had a smuggle it in through a through a stewardess, you know, or somebody. There were smuggling corps beer like it was cocaine. You know what I mean? The amazing and and that's the deal. But but I really hit my spiritual bottom, you know, the the bad deal. And December twenty five, Christmas Day, around two o'clock in the morning. And so you so this time right now, this time of years, is sort of like bitter sweet for me, because this was the time of the year where I was at my lowest. I wanted to die. Was Thirty one years old. I thought my life was over. So, for whatever reason, I'm not going to even get in there. For whatever reason, in this time of the year, I go to a meetings all the time. I mean that's how my whole life is a a, you know, essentially, and and because that's where I want to be. Okay, I'm I don't go to a because I'm forced to go. I'll go to a because I want to go. I used to want to go and go to a meetings because I need a meeting and I still need meetings. I still need meetings, but I don't go to a so much because I have to have a meeting or I'm going to drink. I'll go to a because I...
...want to see what, because I'm concerned, is whether whether somebody there I can help, you know. And and one of the things that this guy said bill dots and build dots and Bob Dots and I keep on getting that makes it. But he said he said he knew there was something more, something he hadn't gotten, and then he said he was he was trying to figure out what the secret was. He thought there was like a secret, you know. And and unfortunately or fortunately, it's just the way it is. I guess it keeps out a potent and is it would be great if you could come in here and listen to one person speak, throw to one aim meeting or read one book and then all of a sudden you got like thirty years sobriety, you got whatever it is, whatever that whatever that deal is, whatever those promises are. You read one book and you sort of study it and after three months you got thirty years and you're just floating on the air. But, but, unfortunately, you got to have thirty years in order to you gotta have thirty years in order to get thirty years. So, you know, I mean you got to go through the desert like the Israeli you know, remember they got it. They were in bondage for four year years and they going to the promised land was like a two week March. Forty fucking years, you know. And you know why? It took forty years? Because they were following the Lord, they were read the bother were following God. You know, why would God take forty years? Because, man, by a time those bastards got out of out of the forty years, they're ready to rip, rape and run. I mean they were. They were no longer slave mentalities. They were all people that were born in the desert walking around in there. They were tough, tough guys, you know, and they had to get out of that slave mentality, being slaves to lust, slaves the things, slaves to alcohol. So, you know, it says what we have to have is mantes maintain a manner of living which demands rigors, honesty and the truth is the alcohol drinking was but a symptom my disease. My disease ends my mind, not my body, and the Asshole I was and the bastard I was and the guy that hurt people in the selfish son of a bitch I was, and the delusional guy was the day before I took my last drink was the same guy one day after I took my last drink, because my mind and the way I thought about things and who I was and what I was and what was it born what didn't change at Tad, you know what I mean. I just got a little humility through pain so that maybe I listened to somebody for a nano second. So I picked up a white chip, which was a big deal. Let me tell you something. I could sometimes. I think that the best I've ever been in alcoholics anonymous was the night I picked up a white ship. I stood up like and I didn't know anybody in the room. I stood up and I walked up to the front, but everybody see me. It's almost like I was saying I need help to everybody in the rooms. Is Probably the best I've ever been. But I picked up the watch. I've been fighting to get back there for thirty nine years, you know, get back to that mindset. You know what I'm talking about. My sponsor to say the problem with alcoholics I get too well too fast. So it's so Bob Dotson, he was trying to figure out the secret. And and then, and it's in the book. You can check this. Read it. Alcoholics, anonymous number three and he says that. I was sitting in my house with my wife and Rhetta and he said and he was over it. He was listening to Bill Wilson and they had some sort of at least some sort of it was something more than the not drinking thing. It was something more than not drinking thing. You ever go to meetings and yet and you see somebody or something's going on? I know I did it all the time. I see these old time as I remember I went to a meeting with Al Kennedy. Didn't never saw him before in my life and he gave a talk and I was just transfixed by this guy. He was just talking and I don't even know what he was saying, but I was just watching them and I said, man, and I wish I had what that guy has. I don't know what he had, but he looked like...
...he was. He was nervous. I can tell you this. He wasn't upsetable or anything. He was comfortable in his own skin. And then after he left, my sponsor told me. I said, I want to go hang out with that guy. And you know, because I wanted what he had. As in the book say, the precursor to do this ebistance. If you want what we have and you will have got any length to get it, then you ready to take certain steps. Man. You know how many years, guys, you know how many years I ran around every Friday, Saturday night, Wednesday nights, Thursday nights, the bars and they counted the money I spent looking for her, for her. Yeah, you're laughing. You don't know what it's like. Let me tell you something, man, if I just had one tenth of that desire to be like Al Kennedy, it's had been a superstar in here. You know what I mean. But you know, there's there's this tug of war. You know this, you can, you can I and I've known so many people that were never able to reach escape velocity from alcoholism. I've seen millions of them escape from the booze, but never able to do the escape velocity where they weren't pulled back by the other shit. I sponsored God named Kevin. What a great guy he was. I Love Kevin. He's one of my first guys I sponsored. And Funny Guy, great guy, and he gets up, he gets whenever he got drunky, he got arrested. I mean he was like a former marine. He was a great guy. I love this guy. He lived in my house for me and my wife for like five months, you know, and I sponsored for many years and he's passed away. He got my finally got about five years sobriety. But I have such a true, tremendous Kevin Stories where one time, one time he called me up, he got about three months and some guy with two years. He started living with her and, you know, called me up on night. He said, Russell, he says what he says. He says Diane, she tried to stab me last night with scissors, tried to stab me with cheers while I was sleeping, and I said Kevin, he said what he says. Kevin, listen to me, when a woman tries to stab you when you're sleeping, that's God's way of telling you it's time to leave and Kevin explained to me. He explain to me because he had had a bunch of a a. You had been in out. He says, this is but Bud Russell, what about love? But about commitments? What about responsibility? What about love and tolerance? Shouldn't give people and you know, by the time he's done, he's got me sinking. Well, maybe I'm wrong about them, like maybe I'm ready to go to freaking Alan on, you know, and because they're so good at this stuff. And of course he drank again. And you know, one time he was talking on the phone, in the phone with that is what happened. She she cut the phone, for she was an a a, you know, just an alcoholic woman doing her thing, you know, and doing their thing. You know, that's theal and one time he was saying that this is Kevin. He met a Galut. He was he was in treatment at what's the place in Florida prison where they send the drunks? I forgot the name of it starts with me, but it's by Tampa. Something he was in prison for. He was sentenced to like a bunch of time and some alcoholic place and in Tampa and he met a gal there named Annie. She's gorgeous. She's Gorgeous Annie. They were cod drunks together and there and they started relationship. So ultimately got kicked out because they can't have relationship and they moved in together, but they were sober. That's we told me. Since you got to meet any so I went over there. We're supposed to meet with my wife's to be at a burn steakhouse, great place. I'm sitting there at Burns and he's not there. It was Kevin and it's great thing about sponsoring people. You have such an and he I call him. I said, Kevin, we're here at the snake house. Where are you? Says Russell. He says you wouldn't believe this. I mean, you can't make this shit up. Said you wouldn't leave, is what he says. Annie is naked on the balcony overlooking.
You know. He was on the living room and she's got a box, she's drunk, she's got a bottle of vodka in her hand and her an hand she's got a butcher knife and she's screaming at me and I said what is she screaming at? The Kevin says she screaming at me to leave and I said now, Kevin, listening, you need, you need to leave. And he said, but Russell, what if she hurts herself? And what about love, and what about commitment? What about whatever? And I said, what is she doing now? Says, she's screaming. What she's screaming? Leave, Kevin, you need to leave. So Kevin Drank again that night and went to jail and all that sort of stuff. So see, there are people that will escape the drinking, but they don't go fast enough to escape the gravitational pull of all the other all the other things were addicted to. And those are the things, by the way, that you'll be dealing with for the next twenty, thirty years. Those are the things that you'll be dealing with in the sixth and seventh step, where and you finally come to the point where you're willing to go to any length, that you're willing, you know, to give up all the defects of God, where the guys are willing to stop running around looking for the women and girls are willing to stop running around thinking that if they only had a man in their life they'd be okay and feel like there's something and build their selfrespect around man and you stop running around thinking about cars and all the other sid that's, you know, the stuff that you remember how you felt before you were ready to stop drinking, before you ready to stop drinking, if somebody told you how to drinking problem, you didn't like it, did you? You know, I mean that's sort of like the way you look at people like me who say what, you got to start stop with the romance. You got to stop with the cars and the money and the romance. You know, you're looking at me. You think I'm like meddling in your life, you know, and I came here to stop drinking. I haven't had a drink, I'm not even thinking about drinking, and you think that. You think that. Think that because you're thinking. You're telling me you're not even thinking about drinking and you've been sold for ten years. You're thinking that. I'm fucking impressed. You're trying to you're trying to hide behind it's like a cross to a vampire. You're trying to hide behind the not thinking. You're like an addict waking that you're just waiting the drink or feel sorry and you're just holding that that I'm not drinking thing up in front of me to get me out of your fucking life so you can go around and pour around them like you're like to. They're like that Shit. You know, you think it impresses men. Kevin ended up drinking again, Kevin, because so many people, you know, a one, a half one percent, stay so rumber twenty years because most of them can't, can't really, they can't really deal with the real deal with the real disease. So Bill Wilson and when Bob, so Bob, what's his name? Build Bob Dotson, build dots Dotson, whatever his name was, it bill or Bob, Bill Dootson. Says Bill Wilson, he overheard him. He was talking to Henrietta and he said he said and Henrietta, see, said he heard him say this. He said, Henrietta, they were eating like a sandwich and he said, Henrietta, Lord has been so wonderful to me, sureing me of this teble disease, that I got to keep talking about him and tell another people. And he says, he said, I heard that. He said, I think I have the answer. Bill Wilson was grateful for God had done, for what had happened to him, and and he gave all credit to God and he's so grateful that he can't stop talking about it. He says that I that sentence, Lord has been so wonderful me. For me of this tuble disease that I got to keep talk about and telling other people has...
...been a golden text for me and alcoholics, anonymous. And you know, if you read the Big Book and you actually start reading it and understanding what it says instead of skipping Oh, and you read things like great a consisting nothing less. The God has become the central fact of our lives. Were absolutely certain they lives in our hearts and minds and wayment, which is the miraculous run a new base based of trusting, re lying upon God. We never argue, we never argue with anybody about God. We're never embarrassed about God. We never tried to defend it. We let him demonstrateing our lives who who we are and what's going on. And see guys like like Al Kennedy, who I wanted to hang around him because I wanted what he had, and my sponsor said, you know, he's dying of cancer. I said, I'm talking about the eyes of me. said he's dying of cancer. You didn't say anything like that. He's just trying to help people. He since well, he's got about six months to live. You know, his life was centing to Bond God, you know. You know he was ready to leave. You know, my sponsor died with sixty one years dinon cancer. He says, my bags are packed and ready to leave. I'm okay. you start seeing that Shit, you know. you start seeing that shit. You know you see some real you see some guys that are really seriously, you know, facing the deal and there as calm as you know. You would think they're just going on a trip to Alaska, something in a valley or that kind of stuff. You see that. There's some. There's some really heavy hitters in here, but they're few and far between. You know, they're the men and alcoholics, anonymous. You know, that step that separates the men from the boys, the difference between the guys that are, you know, just just in here to stay. Get Out of my life. I'm sober. You know, the guy's sponsor that says they get off my back. I haven't had a drink. Get off my back. I'm want to drink. You know, I mean those guys from the guys that really are interested in this deal that have come. You know that that are, you know, gotten to the point for six step deal. You know, entirely ready to have God remove all these defects. Of doctor say it's like shooting for perfection. Will never get there, but we're shooting for it. You know, entirely ready to get rid of all this stuff. You know what I mean. Now I'm not even close to getting rid of all of it, but you know. And what are those guys? Do you know what the book says? Those guys? It says it says once, he says the problem is our selfishness and self centered us. He said, above everything, we must get rid of that selfishly. And so you know what it says? Says God makes that possible. They'll give us everything we need once you make that serious decision for him. But give us everything we need. Serious decision for God is not getting on your knees one time and saying the prayer, like the third step prayer you think you're finished with this deal. Serious decision is never getting off your knees. You know. It says the big book. Do you know what says the Big Book? It says we encourage church membership, and then it says why we encourage church membership, Church and center God membership. He says because if you want to increase your conscious contact with God and your whole life has to revolve around God. And basically that's what the winners do. They involved their whole life about God. The bottom line is it's best that you, if you're not an aiming, that you hang around people that are talking about God. And then, you know, what it says is we're not saying this is obligatory. I mean you don't have to do it, because you know why? Because they know that most people in a won't do it. Most people a will say shit like well, they said that when I went to day I would walk out the door. Of course, in the beginning of the first or four years they would let you walk. They would have told you get down on your knees or you know you're not going to an amy, then give a shit. Now A has become we'd kinder and nicer and we don't care. We just happy if you're not drinking. We are happy if you're not drinking, but we're hoping that maybe you'll turn into one of the men and you'll stick around and you really get serious about this deal, and because everybody sobering a A. Everybody's physically sobering a but not everybody is emotionally sobering a. You know, it's maffic. Most people aren't that they can be. It depends upon whether they get serious and they turn the life into focusing on what you need to focus on. Here it says God, I will give you everything you need if you stay close to the reformers work well,...
...and his work is that you'd be of maximum service to other people and be a servant so other people. How much time do you think about being a servant to other people, as opposed to whether you're gonna have a date Saturday night or whether they can get a new car? You know, all the other stuff you talk you think about, you know and you say so. You say to yourself, you say, well, how do you get there? How do you do that? You know, my whole life, up to thirty one years old, though, I did was think about that stuff. How can you not think about that stuff? Everything, every movie I watch is about that stuff. Every billboard I see, it's about that stuff. Everybody out talked to out there, they're talking about that stuff. You know, half the people I'm talking to do in here. They're talking about that stuff. Every time I have a sponsor, sponsor complain to me, he's complained about not having the stuff. He's plays about the Gal the guide, the car, the money. The whole world is about that stuff. There's not a TV show on that isn't about the stuff. You know what I mean, as in fact, the only time I hear anything about religious people in alcoholics anonymous is how stupid they are. We even have a little saying in here. The fellowship does not the book. The book says. Let me tell what the book says. We lose all pracjuice. Even against organize, even against organized religion, we begin to see what they're right. That's what the book says. You know, the fellowship says, I'm spiritual, not religious. The book says. The men appreciate religion. They even encourage church membership. They joined churches because they get out of the bullshit. They surrendering. They do that stuff. You know the boys do? They say I don't need that Shit, I'm spiritual, not religious. They put down religion. That's what the boys do. A lot more boys than men in here. I can tell you that. And alcoholics anonymous. That's the deal. But here's the great thing. You get to make a decision as to what you want to be. One of the men, are one of the boys that all the time the world to do that you know. But I can tell you this. There are consequences. There are consequences to how you do this deal. Nobody gets away with anything here. Nobody gets away with it. You don't get away with anything. You may they sail for ten or fifteen years or twenty years, but the bottom line is you don't build this thing right, you don't bring this build this thing solid, you don't put it on solid ground. Let me tell you something. Life is a humbling experience. You know things, Shit happens. You know people die, people leave, you know, jobs fade away. You know stuff happens, cancer comes, Shit happens in your life. You know, yes, if you stop drinking many times the crap, you'll stop the stuff from happening. That's a consequence of your drinking. But stuff will happen as a consequence. The stuff can happen real bad to you as a consequence of lusting. We had a president that was impeached because he couldn't stay away from an intern. You think now, you think of you think of people that are intelligent people, intelligent people high up there like to have everything. You know what I mean, that have that shit happened to him. You sit there and you say, what the Hell, what the hell? Didn't do a six step and happens to alcohol. Did into a six step? How does all the time? Doesn't matter. You know how rich you are, how famous you are, anything like that Shit. That's listen. You think you're not dealing with the alcohol. I listen. If you don't look, it is absolutely true. If you don't deal with this stuff, you know it can ultimately come back as alcohol. You know it can come back as the symptom. You, you, you go out there and you drink again. You think your problem is drink. You. You go out there and you drink again and you think your problem is drinking. And you come in here and you stop drinking because you think the cure is not to drink. And so you do the same bullshit you did when you first came in here. You just figure out how not to drink. Would you can do an egg for year or two or three, and then you start thinking you're okay again, but you're still chasing after the women and you're chasing the money, and then you up drinking again, and then you go to another treatment center to figure out how not to drink because you think fucking drinking is the problem. And...
...you don't even know what the promise is. My fact, you don't even want the solution because you don't want to stop the horring, I mean just horring for women or sex, I'm the horing for the money, the horing for the world. You don't want to stop looking at that stuff as a mat fact, you don't even like people talking about that crap makes you uncomfortable. Makes you uncomfortable whenever you just stay talk like this might even disturb you. Just remember whenever you disturbing, matter what the cause is, something wrong with you. That's what a that's what a is about. Hown'd you read the book? How would you read the Twelve and twelve? How's your read step six and seven? How don't you talk read about they talk about the gluttony and the sex and the lust and all that stuff. Haven't you read that? The you know, they stopped talk. Listen, I hate to tell you this. They stop talking about the booze real fast and alcoholics anonymous. You know, let me days about the time you get to the fifth chapter. They ain't talking about that Shit. They ain't talking about the drinking anymore. You go to those conventions, there as a hundred thousand people. Nobody's drinking. There ain't no drinking problem. Let me take some nobody has a drinking problem. They a they got a spiritual thinking problem. And you know something, that's same thing that stopped you from coming to a in the first place, that same thing where you told people, get off my back, I don't want talk about drinking. Is the same thing that's going to kill you in here with the other shit. That's the truth. You know, you might just have to get burned. You know, how long did it take? How long did it and they take you the real like you had a drinking problem. And the thing about the drinking problem. Here's the problem. The drinking problem is the drinking problem. At least they'll arrest you. I mean, if you can't stop drinking, they arrested the then on the rest you for driving while feeling sorry for yourself and driver. Don't arrest you for driving that. They're only rest you for driving. They're all resture for driving will coveting or driving wall being cut grandiose, or driving by pop by being selfish. I mean if they are rented. Look if they arrested you from thinking and doing the crap that you're doing, that is unhealthy dependencies. Right now, there'd be more people really sober doing this. Fif Six them. They take out of cards. Excuse me, sir. You've been thinking. You've been thinking about women, haven't you? You've been, I know you're married, and you've been thinking about going on your wife, haven't you haven't been doing that? Okay, we're gonna need you to walk this line. Sorry, I'm gonna have to arrest your putting the cuffs on. We're gonna call your wife. Put the cuffs, you know, after the you know, third or fourth the rest. You might say, man, I need help. You get down on your knees, say Jesus, take this off of me. You know, I'm getting tired of going to Jailanis Shit, you know, but they don't do that right. They let you go through three or four divorces, pay alimony for about ten or fifteen, twenty years, completely ruin your life. They let you do all that stuff. They let you. They let you go bankrupt because you spend the money you don't have. They let they just let you ruin your life over a longer period of time so you can live a life of quiet desperation. And you're sober and you're like, you're like this Guy Bob Dots and build on you saying I knew there was something more, something I have one of my going to get these promises should happen. And you're never going to get them happen because you don't really want them, because you don't want to have to do the shit you have to do and get in order to get that stuff happening in your life. You don't want to do it. You just think, because you just proud of yourself, because you gave up the drink, and you think giving up the drinking, which is really the anti in the pokerim that gets you into the stadium, you think giving up the drinking is the secret to the promises. where it says, where it says how you do the promise, because God is doing for you and you can't do for yourself. And so around this time of the year I always make it a go to a room meets anyway, but I always want to go to because I just know that this is the time year where I thought my life was over. This is the time year which is most difficult. It is probably a time of year with his more suicides. And I know if I go to an a meeting, whether it's Christmas Eve or Christmas Day or Thanksgiving me...
...or thanksgiving, there's going to be some drunk there, some guy there who's brand new, who doesn't have a family, doesn't have any place to go and he's feeling like his life is over. And that's the guy I'm looking for. That's the gall I'm looking for. I'm looking for that deal, you know, that's what I'm looking for. Him Is that's my job. That's what I've been equipped to do, you know, the part of a royal priesthood. Now, with you like it or not, that's my job. My job is not to have a whole lot of fun with I can do that, you know. I have to do that. I have to be a good father and I have to be good grandfather and I have to do my deal, and I do that. But what I want to be, what I feel obligated to do, what I feel the God of my understanding needs me to do is to be here, you know, and try to look for those people and, through that deal, be of service. And and because, and I'm going to sort of end it this way, you know, because I really wanted to sort of talk about this one thing. It's because it's because of who I I know who I was, I know who I am. I mean, I do know why. I mean, I've listened. You know, we see through. You know, one of the one of the books, they say, and alcoholics in talked about the good old timers, they said. The books we found absolutely that's absolutely essential, was first corinthians thirteen, summon on the mountain, and the book of James and Certain First Corinthians thirteen, which I really encourage you to read. They say. It says a lot of things, but one of the things it says, it's says we see people last darkly, but soon things will be revealed. And I came in here and I'm seeing, I don't see. I'm looking at myself in the mirror. I don't even see me. I have no idea who or what I am. And as time goes on and you fight this alcoholism and you fight these feelings and you fight this craft and maybe you might have to go to twenty three meetings to learn one thing about yourself, because for twenty two meetings or you talking to doing this, talk about that asshole or that idiot or that jerk, or why did this happen or why did that happen? In the twenty three meeting you have to talk to your sponsor and writing a few things, and twenty third sent meeting, all of a sudden you're saying I am I'm an idiot. And you learn like one thing about yourself and then you you learn something and then maybe twenty few meetings or two years later, you change that one thing and then after you know, three or four years, you learn another thing about yourself and then maybe in two years you change that thing. And every time you change something, you look at yourself a little bit differently and you say things a little bit differently and it may take a long time to really see how this other stuff that I'm talking about, which you're not even thinking about now, because just the way you live, thinking crazy and being evil and being crappy and being selfish, is just the way I am. Do you think when I walked Awaut on. My wife happy. She was kicking me out because I couldn't stop drinking. Say now I can drink the way, now I can go out with the women I do you think for one second I thought I was. I'm a rationalizer. I tell myself for actualizes. I give myself really good reasons why it's not my fault. Are you can't believe the Shit I can come up with. We got married too young. She didn't understand me. This is really helping her out. It's better for her. I'll just pay my job. The Shit I come up with to get myself off the hook you can't even imagine, and I'll tell you something, the people I avoid that might might tell me to my face and confront me and saying you are some asshole. You can't. You can't imagine how I hate those people and how I avoid those people. And you can't even imagine the links I go do to hang out with people to tell me I am one great son of a bitch man. I'll tell you I can keep myself in sickness. You can't believe, you know. And so I hang out in here and I change slowly, and I can tell you this. Whatever is going on for me right now, whoever I am right now, whatever kind of person I am right now, this ain't me. See, I know enough about me and who I was when I came from that. I give all credit, like Bill Wilsten, to God. This is how he demonstrates, how he changes your life. This is how when doctor, what was the doctor young, says, ideas, emotions, attitudes, what...
...are the guiding force of these men's lives, are pressed to one side and they become they become dominated by home new set of ideas, emotions that I don't I don't give myself the luxury of saying, Oh, look at everything I've done to change and I'm a better person now. I am not. Let me tell you something. I am fully capable, at almost thirty, nine years sober and after everything I've done, everything that's happened to me, I'm fully capable of regressing. Usually it's just for moments. Let me tell you something. The old the guy who walked out and his wife got did that stuff. He is alive and well and just waiting to come out of the cage. I could come out of the cage real fast and a moment's knowed as a certain period of time. If somebody looks at men, you know, and I so I know who's really involved to make him that change in me. I don't delude myself to say look, how good I am or anything. God is good. I'm not good. You know, God is good, but in a really strange way. I don't. You know. Some people say, well, that's kind of negative, but it's not negative for me. You know what's you know what's you know why? It's positive for me because I have a god that thinks so is unconditional love and he thinks so much about me that he's willing to help me out even though I'm pretty much an asshole. See, I don't need a God that helps me out because I'm a good person, because I'm not. I need the kind of God that is unconditional love, that he loves me, he wants to help me out even though I'm screwed up. I'm an alcohol I know a god that loves screw ups. That's why my God came. He came to help us, the centers of the screw ups, you know. So that's all I have to say. Thank you very much, happy thanks getting I.
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