Bill C. from Torrance, CA at Boise, Idaho Oct. 31st 1998

Bill Alcoholic

Boise.

Who would have ever guessed

Lazy.

I'm Bill Sheamus. Patrick. Oh, Cleveland.

Yes, I'm Italian.

That was a really weird little deal with the lady Bowen here on the floor,

and I'm sure there's an inside joke to that.

There's been several of those this weekend. You can tell that there's some people in this room that are very loved because the abuse is incredible.

We got here and we thought, well, this is Boise. It's like nowhere, you know? I mean, this is going to be a small little deal and it's a general service thing. So it's going to be really small, you know, and you couldn't get this many GSR people in a, in LA for anything, you know? I don't know how you've done it, but the level of participation in your Alcoholics Anonymous around here is really stunning. It's really nice to see.

I'd like to sober up really quick tonight because my story is probably a lot like yours, just dull and boring and incredibly repetitive.

And, you know, thank God there's people around that were like wheel men for the mob or jet fighter pilots or did something, you know, I really didn't do much of anything. And my story is as I was a surfer and a biker and a tough guy and I rarely went to the beach. My motorcycle rarely ran and I was afraid to fight.

But I look really good.

I had a Chrome Nazi helmet for a hat. I had a primary chain for a belt. I've got tattoos all over me and a big black boots. Greasy Levis change around my boots. I had a clip on earring because I didn't want to hurt myself

and a little 22 pistol. I carried my back pocket and if you push me in a corner, I'd pull my little gun on you and I'd look really good.

But like most of you, I was full of shit, you know, it's I was a liar enough, a phony most all of my life. And so everywhere I was was a rude place.

A strange thing happened to me, too. When I was six years old, my dad did a weird thing. He got sober and he's still sober. He's 44 years sober.

He works a horrible program,

you know, he still, he goes to two meetings a week and he goes to the Hermosa Beach Men Stag, which is my Home group, and he goes to another meeting Thursday night that's smaller that he's completely taken over and runs correctly.

Well, a, a needs a lot of adjustment, you know,

but I got raised in Alcoholics Anonymous back 40 some years ago. There weren't many meetings around. This was in LA. And what you did is you went around and you started meetings and they took me with them. You know, this, this was before the hospitals had figured out how to make money out of this. So when you went on a 12 step call, you brought them home.

There was no, because it's clearly that alcoholism is a moral weakness. So they don't take you into hospitals, you know. So there were many times I'd be sitting in the living room watching television. I'd have to go in the other room when my old man brings some fat Italian guy home and sit him in the front room, pound on the book and point his finger at him and tell him all the good stuff. Same thing we do now.

Virtually nothing's changed, you know, And I come home from school and there'd be guys laying on the back porch. Sometimes they were drunk. Sometimes they were sober, waiting for their sponsor to come home. And I'd get them up and bring them in the house, clean them up. And, and there was an old boy, Harold Harrell. It became like a member of the family. And, you know, we went to his wedding and then we went to his funeral. He never could get sober. And he burned himself alive in his bed, drinking and smoking

and. But I know what you people look like. I've been to all the

barbecues and the roundups and the conventions and stuff like this, you know, in California, we kept going to Bakersfield. It wasn't until I got sober I realized it was a Southern California convention. I mean, there's no good reason to go to Bakersfield, you know? Finally I figured out that's why they kept going there, you know,

But it was, I knew that you weren't a bunch of old people just hanging out under bridges, hanging on to each other, not drinking, you know, I knew I'd seen all the laughter and I'd been to all the homes and the Christmas parties and New Year's parties. And when it was my turn to drink, I did it with a vengeance. You know, I mean, I don't recommend being raised by Alcoholics, you know, I mean, when there's, when there's, when there's two people in the house that have clear eyes and they know exactly what you're up to, it's hell.

You know,

it's hell,

You know, Clancy was sharing last night about how horrible his life is because he got home and there were no parents around. I thought, what's he complaining about?

I mean, they were on me like stink on shit, man. It was just horrible, horrible. You know, first time I got drunk, I was like maybe 14 years old and I got drunk and, and caused trouble at this party that one of our friend's older brother had. And they dumped me out on the front lawn and I crawled in the house and I crawled down into my bedroom and I threw up in my record player.

One of them had a lid on him. Remember, they kind of had a lid on it, you know, And it, I crawled down the hall and I was sitting in the bathroom. I'm sitting on the toilet and had a trash can between my legs because it was coming out both ends. And bathroom door opens up. I look up the tears running down my eyes, and there's my mother and father standing there. My mother standing there with this aghast expression on her face and my father standing behind her, laughing hysterically.

And both of them, in their own way, we're saying, Oh my God,

we've got our own in-house little alcoholic.

And that's the way I drank. You know, I mean, some people cross an invisible line. I never crossed an invisible line. You know, I drank. I drank for effect. I never, there was, there was never a time that I can recall where I sat down just to have a couple of beers and relax. I wanted to get screwed up. I wanted to get off. You know, I didn't want to just relax. I wanted to party. Remember, the whole idea was to have a party.

That was the whole idea. Everybody here stand up here, we'll talk about you'll. Then I could talk to the girls and then I could do a No idea was to have a party. I ended up in my living room naked, watching religious television, taking notes.

What the hell happened to the party?

The women were not lighting up, coming in the door, you know, it just wasn't happening.

And like any good alcoholic, you do that for 5-10 years, you know, it's like some people will got it got really bad. So I straightened up. No, you got to make damn sure it's horrible. You know, let's run it into the ground. You know,

I'm a child of the 60s. I graduated from high school in 1965.

You hear people talk about I wouldn't trade my best day drunk for my worst day sober. Bullshit. 66 and 67, I wouldn't trade for anything.

It was great. It was summertime all the time. The road from Los Angeles to San Francisco was the road to Nirvana. Golden Gate Park was the center of the universe. They weren't eating hitchhikers yet, so it was safe to travel. You know

what? We're cutting the acid with speed.

It was just wonderful. We weren't getting loaded. We were making a political statement.

They were changing the world, and if you haven't noticed, it changed.

It's incredible. Every decade since has wanted to be the 60s.

So I got out of high school and I became a hippie and became a biker. And I was sitting in the Bath Lake on 4th of July and 65 or 6, something like that, and the Hells Angels came riding into the valley and my life changed. I thought, yeah, that's what I want to be. I want to be an outlaw. I want to be a gangster. I want to be a biker. I want to be a Hells Angel, you know?

So I moved to Oregon to grow my own.

Met her, you know, and by the time I was 22 years old, I was in the Oregon State Mental Institution. I needed to rest.

I mean, climbing that career ladder,

it's exhausting, you know? I mean, it's like, you know, crawling over those dead bodies and stuff, you know?

And you know, when you end up in the mental institution, it wasn't just like a bad week.

You know, I mean, it takes a while to build up to that level of neurotic behavior to end up in the mental institution. Another thing I have to remember is that the way I got into the mental institution is I called the police on myself

here. Here's a good point. This is a good point. Listen up,

there is a difference between Alcoholics and drug addicts and there's a lot of hot controversy and something to get discussed in general service a lot. You know the whole alcoholic addict thing. But there is. I am living proof that there's a difference. No self respecting drug addict would ever call the police on himself,

but an alcoholic will do it and think it's a good idea.

There is a level of lameness in the alcoholic that

is difficult to describe.

So I spent a couple of weeks in the mental institution and got out and then went back for a two week follow-up program. And how many of you here have been in a mental institution?

You other people should talk to these people.

There's something that we share. People look at you and go, God, you're in a mental institution. Only somebody that's been in there realizes it's not so bad,

you know, it's safe in there. It's better than jail, you know, generally.

And they give you plenty of Thorazine. So you stayed mellowed out, you know, and sometimes there's women there,

you know, it's a good place to look for a bride,

you know, foods decent. You get a lot of therapy, which is great because it's all about you, you know,

and it's not that bad. It's not that bad. You know, we were at the International Convention waiting at a bus stop down in San Diego. And people, you look on everybody's badges. You see where people are from. Karen was with me and somebody said that they were from Salem, OR, And I went, yeah, I was in the mental institution in Salem. You know, she was saying that's where she kind of moved away from

the person I said that to, kind of moved away.

I think that's metal institution. People should have our own little meetings and stuff.

You can be the leader.

So what was going on then? As I got married, I had two kids and I was sticking needles in my arm every day and acting like a fool and. And I lost a wife and I lost two children and lost a few cars and lost some jobs and

I was 22 and I that was a bottom now. I was there. I could have gotten sober. Then

there's people that get sober at 22, you know, God bless you that you didn't have to do another 15 years, 15 years of of beating myself to death. But what I did do when I was up in Oregon, I came back down to Los Angeles and I got normal. And what normal is listen up. This is

when you go out. You might need to know this. This is how you get normal

what you do. What you do is you can only drink on the weekends.

The reason, the reason you can only drink on the weekends is because normal people have jobs.

This is incredible too. They'll go up, they'll go to work on Monday

and they will immediately follow that up with Tuesday,

I'm not kidding you. And then right behind that, they'll do a Wednesday and a Thursday and a Friday in a row.

Now, I don't know about you, but when I drink, I don't show up no matter what.

You know, you hear people talk sponsored guys that actually got through college. I don't get it. One guy explained to me though, that you have to get a real easy major in order to do that, you know, but man, I never showed up for anything. I didn't do anything when I drank. So you can't drink during the week. You can only drink on the weekends. What you do during the week is you smoke pot and well, you know, it's not really a drug. It's, it's like, it's green and it's from God, you know, and it's like.

It's just maintenance. It's maintenance. It's what you do in between getting really loaded, you know. And the other thing is you can't do any heroin because you can't get anybody to go along with the concept of social heroin use.

Nobody, not even doping. So they'll look at you now. I don't think so, Bill.

I don't think. Maybe a little speed, but none of that heroin. You really can't do that. So you got to quit taking acid because, well, everybody knows why. And, you know, you got to quit all that stuff, you know, and you just drink on the weekends and smoke pot during the week. So I did that for 15 years.

By the time I was 37 years old, I weighed over 300 lbs and I was not only drinking on just weekends anymore, I was drinking all the time because I couldn't not drink.

I weighed over 300 lbs. I've got hepatitis C and I've got cirrhosis. I got into a political argument and a second story bar, which was a real mistake, but I was right.

Have you ever been right and in the hospital,

you know,

You know. And they threw me out and I shattered my ankle and I walked with a pronounced limp. The muscles in my upper body had atrophied from just, like doing nothing. And I had a pitched nerve in my right arm, and my right arm was curled up against my side. And I couldn't reach out to shake your hand.

And I was as miserable as I ever hoped to be ever in my life ever again. I had found another wife and had two more kids. Because that's another thing alcoholic in my variety. You cannot be alone.

It's a group effort, getting me through life.

It requires A-Team. This is a team building concept. This is true today, OK. And every once in a while, you got to get the team back together and get them going in the same direction, you know?

And you know

when you don't want to marry an alcoholic, you want to marry an untreated Al Anon.

There's a very good reason for this is when the Al Anon has a slip, she thinks about you,

then there's two people thinking about you.

Back to the teen concept,

this is a quality program, total quality management

and and I found that woman and we set up housekeeping and I saw I was married again and had two more children and I had no emotional contact

with another living human being at that point in my life. Only an alcoholic knows the truth of that, that you can be surrounded by people and have no contact. I've always been a very social person and at that point in my life there literally was no one left in my life. I was a loud, arrogant, pompous, whiny, snively modeling, pissed off, neurotic

piece of shit

and everybody had moved away from me on the group W bench. You know, there was nobody left, you know, nobody left. And that night in 1985, and I noticed there's a lot of class of 85 around here. That was a good year. And it was also a very depressing year. And that night I was with another guy and we closed the bar and I started talking to him

4:00 or 5:00 in the morning, one more time. I was in the wrong place. I hadn't made it home

and I had a wife at home that didn't care whether I was there or not. She told me a long time before that please don't call. I'm sleeping just fine, and

I wasn't at home, and I knew I wasn't going to make it to work. And it's like when you're sitting in the living room and you've been up all night and the paper hits the porch, you know, And you can't keep the sunlight out. You can't draw the shades dark enough. And here's going to be another day and it's going to be hell. It's going to be awful and it's going to be sick. I had hangovers that would kill a weaker man.

It's just horrible. And one more time and I started telling this guy I can't live like this anymore. I just can't live like this anymore. I can't do it anymore. It wasn't the worst drunk I'd ever had, you know, I mean, it was just, it was the the last one

and there wasn't anymore hip dope around or anything like that. There wasn't any more cool. It was me and the gin bottle, you know, That was it. There was no style. There was no party. We weren't going anywhere. We weren't going to do anything. We had no plans. We were just drinking.

I would get drunk from the neck down.

That's living hell. There's no more mental relief, no more emotional relief. But it would get rid of the physical pain that I felt every time. It never stopped doing that. I could drink and I could numb my body. My liver stuck out on one side. When your liver sticks out like that, what you do is you don't look down there, you know? You pretend it's not there, you know, and you just drink some more. You just drink some more, you know, 'cause you can't not drink.

I have no choice anymore. And I went home that morning

and I called my mother and this was a woman by that time that 30 years in Al Anon,

my parents never preached to me. They never sat down and had the talk. They didn't try and do an intervention. They didn't do any of that. You know, they, they just knew, you know, they just knew that. And I called her and she came over very quietly, loaded me up in the car before I changed my mind and drove me to the hospital program, a hospital program in Costa Mesa. Because you see, this is my MO. I went to my first shrink when I was 13 years old.

I hated my father. Well, lots of kids hate their father. But you know, every kid would double over in pain and the vile, vile would come up in your throat and you just gag and you'd sit there and just jerk and twitch and pray for his death. I hated him passionately. I heard a guy in a meeting the other day say, I don't know much about anger, but rage is an old friend, you know? I mean, that kind of passionate hatred, the kind of passionate hatred to get you up in the morning,

you know? You know, let's meet the day. Let's hate him some more. You know, my mother saw this and she took me to a shrink from the time I was 13. And I've been in mental institutions. I was in a group therapy thing for 2 1/2 years. I've been to different shrinks for I've been gestalt and gestalted. Rolf Primal screamed.

Transactional Analysis. I've done it all. I know more about myself than it's safe to know. You know, most of it is just useless information. But the thing about it, it's my favorite subject. It's me and I just

love it. I love it. You see, I can tell you anything about me. It's easy for me to do inventories and stuff. I love the subject matter. I mean, if, if I can't come up with something really good, I'll make some shit up. I don't care, you know? It's like, you know,

so I knew because I knew a A and I knew I couldn't just come to the lame meetings and not drink. I knew I couldn't do that. You know, I needed to be checked in. I need to get a rest so that we can do it some more. You know, you need a break. You know, it's just kind of an artistic, sensitive guy out there in this cold, cruel world, you know, and, and if you and I can get together and work on my problems, get in touch with them, flesh them out, be with them, you know, if we do

that, we will determine what the root cause is and we can affect some change in you to make it a little easier for me.

Well, once you understand what it is that's upsetting me, you will of course discontinue that behavior.

Teen concept.

So we checked me in.

We want the cop care first. The guy said $25,000. I looked at him. I said I'm not that drunk,

it's not that severe of a case.

So we bought one for 8 grand discount price over over the Costa Mesa and they checked me in there. Well, while I was in there for 35 days, they made me wear a sign around my neck that said I am not a counselor.

I scratched the God's honest truth. They really did.

They'd have breakfast and then I'd have to wear it and pour coffee for people and stuff. There's something about humility or something

they were trying to teach me, something I don't know. Well, evidently there was some confusion about who, you know, who was running the place. You know,

I mean, if you ever really wonder that there are no leaders and Alcoholics and Anonymous get involved in general service and it'll be this absolute proof that the inmates are running the asylum, you know, and there are no leaders,

thank God. But like, if I was a leader of Alcoholics Anonymous, we'd weed some of you people out,

there's no doubt.

So I don't even guys used to come down the hall and I'd help them. They come to my room and I'd help them right there. Inventory, you know, we'd make. I tell them this is probably what they want to know, you know, you want to throw in a good little homosexual experience in there because you know, even if there was, there probably wasn't. Just won't cop to it. But that'll make them feel like it really did it. You know,

the truth is about most Alcoholics, they don't remember most of it. You got to make some stuff up, you know? What do you think you might have done that? Probably, yeah.

That's the truth. That's the truth.

I woke up with a couple of guys but it wasn't anything serious.

My sponsors talking tomorrow, be sure you asking about that.

So I spent 45 days in there

and the place did me really good. It was a straight ahead place. It was they ran us up to a fifth step and they took us to a a meetings and and it was pretty straight ahead. It wasn't there wasn't a lot of Foo Foo stuff in it. And they kept me away from a drink for 35 days and I will forever be grateful for that. It worked. I had not been away from a drink or some kind of a drug in 35 days since I was 15 years old and I was 37 then and I was hurt. I was hurt. I was hurt physically for sure, but I was hurt emotionally and mentally. You can't stay out there that long and that hard and not be

scarred and crippled. You know, I think what's happening to most of us around here in A is that we're finally growing up because we skipped it when we were teenagers, you know, we were loaded and missed it all. I missed it all, you know, I missed it all. So I got out and I had to come to this AA thing.

First meeting I went to was the Gong show at the Hermosa Beach Illinois Club was on Friday night. Rocky Hudson was the was the secretary of that meeting. He had Rockies 2020 questions like, is the economy recovering faster than you know, things like that, you know, and and it was just a big giant hoot. And I stood in the back of that room and I never felt so out of place in my entire life.

You all were walking up to the podium taking chip things and saying I'd like to thank God in my sponsor for my sobriety. And I thought,

God, they should record themselves and play it back. You know, they wouldn't talk like that, my God. And then the happy birthday thing. Man, the happy, I thought to myself. Oh no,

no not

not this. Linoleum floors and metal folding chairs for the rest of my natural life.

No, no, no, I can't do this. You know, not my old man's club,

not this, you know, that's humiliating. I've talked to other guys that have been kind of raised in a or guys people have been raised in a A and it's hard to admit that defeat to come in because they all look at you and smile, you know, all those years ago, you know,

then you finally show up. That doesn't change anything to look at you.

Then they walk away because they know you can't listen to them, you know, and they trying to get their buddies to be your sponsor and shit, you know, it's, you know, painful, painful to lose. You know, I heard a great definition of surrender. That's when you give up and go over to the winning side. What's so bad? You know, it's like, and then if you get your ass kicked out there for some reason, we just can't give up, you know, we just can't give up. That would mean I'd lose, you know.

But there I stood in the back of the room and listened, and I couldn't hear the music. I couldn't hear it. I was scared to death. I didn't belong at home, I didn't belong at work, and I sure as hell didn't belong in AA.

So a couple of weeks went by and I knew I had to get one of these sponsor things. And well, they tell you all that in the hospital, you know, the hospitals are really going to give you a list of buzzwords you can come in and speak correctly right away, you know, and, and I knew I needed to get a sponsor thing. So I looked around for a while and and I saw this guy and I still can't figure out why I asked him, but I walked up to him and I said, will you be my sponsor? And he says

be at the Hermosa Beach Illinois Club at 8:00. Meeting starts at 8:30,

be there at 8, you know, and we'll talk about it then. I thought they were just supposed to say, well, I'd love to, you know, I said ship is going to be a test, you know.

And so, you know, I Monday night I showed up 8:00 and he took me around the corner of the auto club and he asked me a couple of questions. And if there's any new people in here,

I can't imagine that there was another thing I'd like to say, all you people that have less than 30 days that didn't stand up, neither would I not in a room like this.

You know, I leaned over to Karen. I said, would you stand up? She hell no. I wouldn't even show up here.

GSR thing. Oh man,

of course, I guess you could stumble in by mistake. So he asked me a couple of questions. The first question he asked me is he said, are you willing to go to any length for victory over alcohol?

Well, I knew enough to say yes. You know, I mean, it's like, you know, and I suggest if there's anybody in here that's new that hasn't been asked that question, that you just say yes because you remember one. You really don't know what they mean by it. And if you say no, you have to listen to them for another 10 minutes or so. It could be really painful. So I said, yeah, you bet. You and me, buddy, off into the sunset. Victory over alcohol,

no doubt.

Let me ask me the second question. He said,

I noticed that when you identify yourself that you call yourself an alcoholic and an addict. And I said, well, yeah, you know, I did a lot of dope, and they taught me to do that in the hospital. So what? And he said, well, I might suggest to you that if you're calling yourself an addict because you think it's a little hipper, slicker and cooler, you might want to just drop it and be like everybody else for the first time in your life.

This is Alcoholics Anonymous.

I've never had an applause. So this is a GSR crowd

now I'm all thrown up.

You're supposed to get all pissed off. And this is when I lose like 20% of the room goes out slowly, you know, and

true. So I remember standing there and I'm six foot five and I and I had lost a little weight. So I was probably down to 290. And, and I'm looking down at this guy and he's a little short guy. Well, he's not that short. He's 10 years younger than me. He's got a full head of hair, all of which pisses me off

and I can I can feel the anger well up from my stomach and the veins and my neck start throbbing and what was going through my head is who the hell do you think you are?

And what came out of my mouth was,

OK,

I'll tell you when you're fat, bald in 40

and you and your old man's club, there's no more debate.

You know, Ladies and gentlemen, this is the last house on the street.

This is the world's aftercare program.

There's nowhere else left to go. This is it. When the hospitals are all done with us, when the insurance money runs out, the priest is just pooped out. When they're all done, when they're all done, they send us here to a fucking A.

I remember driving home that night thinking, because what he said, what he said to me was true, what he said, the last thing I wanted to be was just some garden variety lame ass alcoholic, you know? I mean, at least in your dope thing, it's like contemporary. It's rock'n'roll, you know? And I'm a pretty hip guy. I'm pretty cool, you know? I'm biker dude, tattoos and stuff. I'm cool, you know, and I just have no hair,

you know.

But what he said to me, because I was trying once again, I just, I needed to be just a little bit different. And it really wasn't a lie or anything, you know. And I mean, he took the last little bit of hip I had left. And how did he know? How did he know that about me? How do you know this stuff about me? What? What is it

you all look with that dumb smile? You'll be saying something. The other. Yeah, you know, And like, how do you know? Is it 'cause maybe we're like each other? I think there's probably a possibility in that no matter how different you look, whether you're female or male, there's a similarity among us about us. The, the neuroses are kind of uniform, you know, And I remember driving home that night thinking this is going to be hard.

You know, this isn't, you know, I'm not going to be able to,

to fake it through this. You know, he doesn't care about me. He wouldn't have talked to me that way. He didn't, he didn't interview me. He didn't ask me any questions in order to be able to adjust his approach to me based upon my specific age.

I mean, you know, I went into the hospital. They give you that Mippy test, you know, the 8000 questions and stuff, you know, and he didn't do that. He didn't even give me the 20 questions. He didn't nothing,

you know, Why would he talk to me that way? This is going to be maybe. Oh shit.

So he said be at my house Thursday at 5:00. Read the doctor's opinion, which is the chapter of what? The Roman numeral stuff that you never read. You know, it's like not even page one. Read that

and make notes in the margin and stuff about what you agree with or don't agree with, and we'll discuss it. So I went home and I did my little homework assignment, made notes in the margins, you know, and I showed up at his house at 5:00. We sit in his living room and he did not trust me that I'd read it. And he had me sit there and read it to him out loud,

which was kind of humiliating one more time. But I'm starting to get used to it by now, you know? And we went through it and he would stop me at different places and ask me some questions. This was kind of the interview, you know, and, and there's a part in the doctor's opinion there that describes four or five different kinds of Alcoholics. And he said to me,

we read that and he stopped me. He goes, well, which one are you? I said, well, I think I'm this one here. He says, well, circle it, put a star next to it. You're in the book.

Well, I kind of like that.

My favorite subject,

and he explained to me at that time, he said this book is about you. It's not written to you. It's not trying to sell you anything. It's about you,

and you should identify with it. If you don't, there's a problem. And you said you spotted yourself in the book, so evidently you identify with it. That's a good thing. We read on then there, and it says the only thing that's going to save an alcoholic of that variety is a complete psychic change. And we discussed that and determined that I could use one of those.

You know that my perception of the world around me should never, ever be confused with reality.

The way I see things is just a little bit Askew, you know,

probably more than 10 or 20°.

And and he explained to me that his job as my sponsor was to help bring about this psychic change, putting me in touch with this weird power greater than myself thing. And it would bring about this psychic change that this was not about getting sober. That had already happened. That was a great deal. It's free. You don't have to ask for it or anything. It just happens. Now what we're going to try and do is attempt to affect this psychic change that would cause me to be comfortable.

Please turn it over to Side B at this time. Thank you. Maybe I wouldn't go back out and drink again. That this was the key that as my sponsor, he was going to help guide me through this process that he had been helped through by his sponsor. And he said, now we can sit here and talk about what you think your problems are. And he said he'd be more than happy to do that so that I would not share about them in the meetings.

He explained to me that the meetings are about recovery,

not about how your day was OK. Now, I didn't know any different. I thought all of you were doing this. I thought this is what you did. You went to class once a week. I didn't know there was an easier, softer way. I had fallen in with a bunch of right wing death squad A, a people you know, and I didn't know that. I mean, these people do not believe that this is a program of suggestions.

I asked him about that once. He says, well, we just tell that to people's not to scare the hell out of him. You know, it's like, but there's some stuff you've got to do if you want to stay around here. And that's what you and I are going to do.

So I didn't know any different. So I went along with it, you know, and the doctor's opinion talks about it describes alcoholism. I can remember reading that and I read it in the hospital. They have you read all that stuff? And this time when I read it, I really started to identify with it, talking about the sense of ease and comfort that comes. And I can remember. Can you remember? Remember, it's not the first drink, it's the second and third one that causes you to breathe a little easier,

that you just like,

oh, you know,

and these people knew about this. I didn't know anybody knew about that. You know, he also explained to me as we read the doctor's opinion, that this is an allergy of the body, that it's physiological. Now, they also talk about this in the hospital and this is talk about a lot in Alcoholics Anonymous, that it's a physiological thing. I have a disease, and I don't know about you, but it took me a long time before I really believed that. Because what I think about myself, what I thought about myself is I'm just a moral weakling.

If I was a real man, if I had any guts,

I'd act like real men act that I'm just weak. Now you can tell me all you want that this is a disease, but I don't believe it. I have no self worth, I have no self esteem, and some intellectual concept coming into my head is not going to change that feeling. I am not going to think my way through this program. That will never ever happen. If you ever catch yourself sitting alone in a room thinking about yourself, get the hell out of the room.

And if you find somebody that'll sit there and talk with you about it, both of you leave.

So I showed up there every week and we read another chapter in the book. Now, the first step is pretty easy. It talks about powerlessness. And by that time in my life, I knew that I was powerless and I knew that my life was unmanageable. The simple fact that there was nobody left in my life or the clear indication of unmanageability. Remember the party deal? Well, if they all happen to the party, you know, So I knew that I was powerless over alcohol. I knew I couldn't drink anymore, but I also knew that I was gonna,

you know, I couldn't imagine just not drinking. I was scared and I was frightened and I needed help. And it was nice right from the start. When I showed up in his living room and he spent time with me, I felt better. I felt better. I felt out of place in the meetings. The meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous will not keep us sober. The fellowship is something to be survived.

You people only care about yourself.

You're going to hit on my girlfriend. You're going to borrow money from me and not pay it back. You won't show up to my God damn birthday party. You'll treat me horribly on a regular basis. One time I left the Alano Club when you had misbehaved and I walked across the parking lot and I was leaving. I was out the door. Enough of this shit. And I walked across and I stopped and I thought, where are you going?

It's a sad place,

you know, sad place.

But I felt good right away when he was sitting there talking to me and he explained to me where I was and the whole idea of the powerlessness. The second step talks about being restored to sanity by a powdered power greater than yourself. Now, I had trouble with God. All Alcoholics have trouble with God. You know, I had some intellectual construct about. I forget. Well, I can remember it, but we'll talk about that some other. You asked me about it later. You know, it's like embarrassing and and, but I had trouble with God. I couldn't do the God thing today. I don't know that I really do the God thing, but I know one thing for damn sure,

not an issue in a A. There's only one issue in Alcoholics Anonymous and that's powerlessness. Are you or aren't you? There are no other issues and God certainly is not one. You don't have to believe in a God damn thing and it's one of the nice things about it. You know it's better off that you don't. If you can hang on to not believe in anything, you'll do better because as soon as you believe in something, then you have a position to defend.