Fr. Tom W. from Oakland, Ca at Santa Clara November 2nd 1996

I've heard several of his tapes and he almost needs no introduction in their area. Please help me welcome Tom W

My name is Tom and I am an alcoholic

and I'm glad to be here on a Saturday night.

I live up in Oakland and I work most weekends doing desperate things with Alcoholics and I'm I'm never around on a Saturday night. So

chance to get to a meeting

and hang out with desperate people in San Jose is a plus.

And it's, it's really nice for me to come and see that there are some people still alive and out of jail, You know, that I had been noticing over the last 15 plus years that I've been connecting. So that feels good. And for for folks that I haven't yet met,

I was just reflecting after as I was listening to the first speaker that we've never met before and, and so much of his story, the feelings and the

the thinking and the craziness is the way I think and feel. I just make that connection pretty easily. My sponsor is a hopeless alcoholic and needs meetings as much as anybody I've ever met in my whole life. And he's of the opinion with 25 years sober, but what does he know?

He's of the opinion that if if you go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and are able to identify with the speaker, you're in a pretty good place.

And if you go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and don't identify with the speaker at all, it means you need another meeting.

So he's been

nagging and whining about that towards me over the last 20 years. And I, I, you think I'd get it more quickly, but I don't, I need a lot of repetition. Anyway, what I get to talk about is what it was like and what happened and, and what it's like now. This is a dangerous time of the year for me. And, and again, we have different dangerous times. I'm I'm personally, I like the fall, I like autumn a lot. But

the slipperiness of this period is that it's election time.

And I don't know about you, but I can get swept up in things.

And I have been known to hold on to resentments which cross state lines.

And it was real important for me when I began going to meetings to hear about the traditions that said that outside controversial issues stay outside. And it was important because I had never been able to do that. I got sober during the, you can't really say the late 4th presidency because it was so short, but

I, I got sober during the Ford presidency and

I, I was drunk for the bicentennial celebration in July of 1976. I vaguely remember the great ships coming into the New York harbor. I was not there, but I was having a couple of social drinks while watching the television. And then I kind of come out of the haze somewhere in August of 1976, and

there was Mr. Ford, and he was

giving the acceptance speech for being nominated president that year. And I looked it up later and I found out that my first day without a drink was that Wednesday, August the 8th

of 1976. And by the time November came around, I was a couple of months over and I was a total lunatic. Total lunatic. Some people get excited about some stuff, some people get excited about other stuff. Political stuff has always made me real and I have been

right wing and left wing and radical middle of the road. And the one thing that I've consistently held on to

is that when I believe something, I've really believed it. And if you disagreed with me, not only were you wrong, you were stupid.

So for my own recovery, I really needed to have a good, a good introduction into how the traditions work, especially around the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. It doesn't say the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. And agree with Tom, that's not in the tradition

and that pants tradition that says that outside

controversial stuff stays outside. And the tradition makes special mention of politics, sectarian religion and alcohol reform. And I think that's really wise because we have a tendency, I mean, we as people, but definitely Alcoholics, to hold strong feelings and break out in this fight. I was sober a couple. I stayed away from politics for my first four years sober because I was so nuts.

And then I figured I'm well enough and I was going to meetings in Los Angeles.

I was living down there. That's why I was going to meetings there. And I was not commuting, you know, to go to meetings

and I started dabbling with the candidate just a little bit. And then I got real involved. And then I started carrying literature around in my car and, you know, signing up voters, I mean, can and I, I knew that my higher power wanted me to tell all of you about my candidate. And I had all this literature in the car and, and thank God I left it in the car and I went to the meeting and I had a moment of clarity.

And what I realized there was, and this was a meeting I loved, there was a plumber park in central LA off Santa Monica Blvd. And truly dangerous, crazy, self obsessed, whiny Alcoholics would come to this meeting and I just identified with them and felt right home. But the moment of clarity was the realization that there were people in that room who thought that King George the Third was our best president,

and there were other people who wanted to start by blowing up the Bank of America. I mean, I was, it was a little intense

and the moment of clarity was this is not the stuff that unites us. This is the stuff that divides us. And it's real important. I get to keep that outside. I was in Poland a few years ago. I do get to travel. I at the end of my drinking, I never left my room because they were out there but sober. And if you don't know who they are, you might not be ready to get sober yet. I

someone in Berkeley said that paranoia is just total awareness, and I like that.

That is a keen insight into my way of living.

What about 8 or 10 or 12 years ago, you know, somewhere there. I got to go to Poland and I was working in Sweden for a while. And I really do believe in little geographics. I find they really help leave the country, go somewhere else, work for a while, come home. I've done that more than once.

So I went to Poland and I went to some meetings in Poland, and this is when the communist government was still running things. Things were a little intense, but Alcoholics Anonymous existed in Poland and

by some moment of grace we got connected with silver people in Poland. And

the chances of that happening were slim, but there we were. And we were in Warsaw and we were staying with the fellow and his wife and their couple of kids. And he was very, very sober and very in a A and about five years sober. And he had been a very active member of Solidarity. And this was the labor union that had had helped change the Polish society so much. In fact, he spent some time in jail because he was an active union member and he got sober and he was doing a life. And somehow

an article appeared in one of the papers about getting sober and recovery and alcoholism and a phone number was listed and he was on the phone duty and someone called. The person who called was a high-ranking member of the government who said he couldn't stop drinking. So this fellow Solidarity member who had spent some time in prison made a 12 step call on this high-ranking member of the military government and found out that he was talking to the man who threw him in prison

outside. Controversial issues stayed outside and at the time we visited them, he was that man sponsor

this, this, if it can happen there, it can happen here, you know, but, but there's reasons for it. So anyway, I, I just want to mention that because I think it's one of the things that I don't always observe and I it's one of the things we need to do because there are so many things we just don't agree on. I was in New Mexico a while ago and I've happened to fall in love with some people down there because of meetings and programs and a few other connections. And I love

before I knew how they voted

and I showed up at this fellow's house. I was going to spend the weekend there. I was talking at a conference in Hobbs, NM, which they call Hobbs America down there. And, And he had a large photograph of a former governor of California.

And I told him that I would have to sleep with one eye open, you know, and,

and we, we, we were able to expand our world, you know, and it was, it was fine. And without the program, I simply would not have had a heart or a head big enough to even have a conversation with this guy. So I'm, I'm real glad to be sober. But let me tell you about what it was like and what happened and what it's like now. What it's like now is it's gotten worse.

I for for newcomers and visitors,

you need to know that they do not ask people with a lot of mental health to share at meetings. With the exception of the first speaker, he was fine. But but what they want to do, the thinking is if they get someone who is clearly a barely functioning person to talk,

everyone else will feel better about themselves

and go home thinking that they're doing just fine. And that's how it works. So I am not here as a role model.

I am here as a warning.

And as long as you understand that, we'll get along fine. I, I had someone come up to me and, and oh, they didn't like something I said and we were not going to be best friends. That was real clear. And

she thought that because she was so horrified by something I said, I would change.

And I told you that not only will I not change, I will always mention this thing that bothered you so much.

I I read the book. I don't read the book a lot, but I read the book and parts of the book speak to me. And parts of the book are always a surprise to me. And the copy I got doesn't have any pictures in it.

And that bothered me for a long time. And what I've, what I've done with the book, one of the, you know, what tools do I use to stay sober? I, I read some of the book. I read several of the pamphlets that I, that just saved my butt regularly. The Jack Alexander article I think is brilliant. I when I am feeling really hopeless and my sponsors machine is not connected, I read the Jack Alexander article. I also really like the pamphlet called

A Member's Eye View and I very much like the pamphlets is that says so you think you're different.

Those are my three favorite pamphlets and the books. So those are things I use, but but I was in New Mexico and I have a a little habit that when I open the book and start reading it in real,

but I was in Abiquiu, NM, I was trying to make some kind of contact with the higher power one more time. I was not being real successful.

I was at a Benedictine monastery that was vegetarian and

miles from the paved road and no telephones and no electricity, and I was feeling far away from you. And I opened the book and it was under the section written. He had to be shown. Now, this is one of the original stories from the 1st edition of The Big Book, and here's what it reads.

When I was 18,

at the end of high school, the high school team had a banquet at a well known Roadhouse outside of Akron. A Roadhouse is a place where you could get a a meal and a drink. And it was kind of off the beaten path and everybody knew where they were, but there were no neon signs. You know,

we boys drove out in somebody's car and went to the bar on the way to the dining room. And I, in an effort to impress the other boys that I was city bred, having lived in Scranton and Cleveland,

they don't think that's a funny line in Scranton and Cleveland.

I think it's a real funny line, you know?

I asked them if they didn't want a drink. They looked at one another queerly.

Finally, one of them allowed he'd have a beer

and they all followed him, each of them saying he'd have a beer too.

I ordered a martini extra dry.

Didn't even know what a martini looked like but I heard a man down the bar order one. That was my first drink.

See, at least now the industry makes things like Annie Boone Springs Farm sweet wine. So you can start with something that doesn't taste like gasoline. You know,

starter alcohol, you know,

candy with booze inside of it. I mean, they know what they're doing. But this kids very adventurous.

I kept watching the man down the bar to see what he did with the contraption like that, and he just smelled of his drink and set it down again. So I did the same. He took a couple of puffs of a cigarette. I took a couple of pumps of my cigarette. He tossed off half of his martini.

I tossed off half of mine

and it nearly blew the top of my head off.

I vividly remember my first martini, and I was in college being hit by a mule.

It irritated my nostrils. I choked. I didn't like it. There was nothing about that drink that I liked. But I watched him and he tossed off the rest of his, so I tossed off the rest of mine.

He ate his olives and I ate mine. I didn't even like the olive.

It was repulsive to me from every standpoint. I drank 9 martinis in less than an hour.

I can't tell you how I identified with this very square, faceless man from Akron, OH in 1938. This has been my insides. I I just danced with martinis for a long time and thought they were a sensational and they were just

deadly. I was listening to a guy up in Oakland in the past year and he was at a meeting talking about the disease of alcoholism and he said that alcoholism was a lot like dancing with a gorilla.

You are not done dancing until the gorilla is done dancing.

Now it's important to reflect on that for a couple of minutes because the subtlety of the image might be something you miss. Because early in the evening you think you're in charge.

You've asked the gorilla as out, you think the gorilla is kind of cute. You're getting along pretty well. And in the back of your head, you figure later on you might get lucky. You know,

you don't know you're in trouble

until the moment comes in the evening when you want to sit the next dance out and the gorilla doesn't want to and you discover you keep dancing.

A little bit later on, the gorilla tells you that you're going to tango,

and you explain that you don't know how to tango, and you find out the gorilla doesn't care. You tango and you end up doing unspeakable things and you're absolutely out of control. There was a commercial done a few years ago, Samsonite luggage put in the gorilla cage, you know, and the gorillas just knock the shit out of these things and they survive really nicely.

A lot of us don't, you know, a lot of us don't. A lot of us get ground up by the gorilla over and over and over again. We die of overdoses, we suicide, we do drunk driving accidents.

Casualty rates are real high with this particular dance, you know.

People who love us look inside the cage and they see us dancing with the gorilla and they get real anxious and they want to run into the cage and rescue us. And then they get their arms and their legs yanked off.

And a lot of the Al Anon program basically says stay out of the cage,

stay out of the cage.

And then you have to talk about your feelings about staying out of the cage. And it takes the whole meeting.

If if you're clean and sober tonight, haven't had a drink today, haven't had to do any chemical stuff today, that's a real good sign that the gorilla has let go.

If the gorilla has let go, get out of The Cave

and don't go back into the cage even when the gorilla starts singing your song, because that happens, you know, it is so cute. And maybe we'll get along and I took some lessons and I'm sure it'll be fine. And

Doctor Gill, who is a soldier physician up in Marin County and still alive, he got soldier in Mr. Eisenhowers last year as president. I I remember things according to who's president.

It has always given me someone to blame and I just remember

who's president, you know, who is I blaming for that four year period?

Doctor Gill says that alcoholism is a disease that has three distinct phases.

Phase one is the fun phase. This is when it's real fun. And that's a large part of my drinking story. I had a lot of fun while drinking and I, I, I mentioned that at a meeting once and, and one of the old timers, not as old as me, but nevertheless, an old timer said you should mention alcohol and funny old trigger the newcomer

and see, I just don't think that's true. I think it's important to tell the truth about your drinking. And if you give heights, people will die. And if you had a good time for a while drinking, it's real important to say that. And the fact is, if I could still have a good time drinking, I'd be doing it. You need to know that

if the fun phase is phase one, but it's a real phase. When I drank, I felt smart. When I drank, I felt graceful.

When I drank, I felt insightful. I was a high school kid growing up here in San Jose. I was real awkward. I was real uncoordinated. I drank and it was magic. It was magic at phase one.

Phase two is called fun plus problem.

It's still fun, but you start to have problems,

hangovers,

tattoos.

I'm personally grateful. And again, this is an outside controversial opinion and you're sure welcome to disagree with me and I will not take offense, but I am personally grateful that I got sober before it became fashionable to start piercing everything.

I have met people who have been pierced sober and I'm glad for them.

You have job trouble, you have relationship problems, you have family problems. I one of the earliest problems I began having was the mood swings. You know, we call it Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I, I had those a lot. I I was sober just a little bit

and I didn't know if I was. So I mean, you know, am I an alcoholic or am I crazy or do I have a tumor? You know the big question.

I was hoping for tumor

because if it was fatal, I'd be dead in three months and and then it would be over. But if it was alcohol, it

we're at 29 and I thought I'm going to have to live sober for years and years and years. And I personally at that time would rather have been dead. So I preferred death to sobriety. But I went to a meeting in El Cerrito,

Oakland. Emeryville, Oakland.

Albany

El Cerrito. That's how you find it. In case you're looking, Berkeley's in there somewhere too, but

you can skip right over Berkeley until you're five years sober.

Well, it'll, it'll make you anxious, Trust me. I

so I went to this meeting in El Cerrito to the El Cerrito fellowship and I went to an old timer and I said, how do you know you're alcoholic? How do you know you're alcoholic?

And one of the reasons I've been able to stay in Alcoholics Anonymous is because of the way he answered my question.

He didn't tell me how I know I was an alcoholic,

although I have seen Alcoholics talk to other Alcoholics in that tone of voice. And it's not the tone of voice to use to me

because you can't scare me and you can't humiliate me and you can't embarrass me.

And rather than cooperate with that tone of voice, I have been known to get drunk.

It's just don't. It's just nothing. Doesn't work. My parents used it with me to stop smoking, you know, and I showed them I smoked for seven more years.

Oh, well, that's not the point. The point is what? The guy didn't tell me how I would know. He told me how he knew. He knew.

He didn't tell me what my experience should be. He told me what his experience was. Instead of giving me an inspiring little talk or a sermon, he shared his experience. And that's real important for me. If I'm going to hang around at meetings, I need to know that you share your experience and I get to share mine. And there's lots of different ways of doing this. And then I can sit in the room. If I can take what I need and leave the rest, then I can

here, you know, And here's what he told me. This crusty old timer with maybe nine months or a year,

he said that he knew he was an alcoholic because he had no way of guaranteeing his behavior after the first drink.

I said, what do you mean? And he said, well, there are times that I drank and nothing happened. Nothing happened. Got home, no crises, no no problem.

Other times I would drink and anything could happen.

And he said I never knew which one it was going to be. And that's my story. I, I started listening when people began talking about Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And by the way, if you're looking for something to read that is not program approved, I might suggest Doctor Jacqueline Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. It's a terrifying book. It's a terrifying book,

and there's no recovery in Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Mr. Hyde wins, you know, and it's all about this, this stuff that happens when you drink. It's pretty scary. I not only had a bad case of Doctor Jacqueline Mr. Hyde, I also had a pretty good dose of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

And I would drink and I would become half a year dopey or sleepy or grumpy.

Occasionally I turn into snow light. I have no idea what was going to happen.

So fun club problems, you know, also, and I want to mention this particular kind of problem. Looking back, it's the scariest thing I ever did. But while I was drinking, it was the thing I rationalized most easily, and that was the vast amount of drunk driving that I did. I drove drunk for years and

I thought it was hilarious. I thought I was. I was in high school, high school senior drunk driving. I remember telling classmates of mine, I have no trouble driving while drunk. My trouble is getting to the car. Ha ha, ha. You know,

now as I'm just edging 50, you know, I'm looking back and I see the behavior was absolutely lethal and any any day of the week I could have been a statistic or caused any day of the week I could have been a statistic or cause statistics with the drunk driving. It's just horrifying for me.

Sun Sun Plus problem Stage 3 alcoholism, according to Doctor Paul is called problems.

The book says the good times were gone. Never again could we recreate the great moments of the past. They were but memories and and I was in problems for a real long time. My biggest thing with my drinking, I didn't do a lot of jail time or any jail time like the first speaker. I, I did

go to San Quentin for a while, but I was there as associate chaplain, not inmates. You know, the little different

I, my big thing with my drinking was the depression, the depression and the isolation and the being inability to function. And then I would work up to functioning and I would function for a while and then I would just collapse. I thought for a long time. I'm a teacher by training and my first teaching job was at Mission High in San Francisco and moved down to LA and where the riots were. That's where I thought school for the next seven years. And I loved, I loved

classrooms. I love my students. I love that part of town. I felt challenged and alive and creative and the drinking was my medicine. The drinking is what I use to deal with anything that was difficult or significant in my life.

Let me jump ahead a little bit. I was sober a couple of years, like maybe four years. The tools I were using, the tools I tools I were using, tools I was using never know. I went to meetings, anything to deal with the emotional chaos of my life and I wasn't doing anything to deal with my rage and I wasn't doing anything to deal with my fear, which was real up and and my drinking sedated, all that stuff. For a long time,

what I used in the classroom to deal with my students was ridicule and sarcasm.

And I had a real fast mouth. And I, I taught kids who were twice my size and, and I, you know, and if they ever counted the votes in the classroom, you know, there were 26 of them and one of me.

So I I was just fast on my feet and fast with my mouth and brutal.

So I was 3-4 or five years sober. It was time for student evaluations and we were doing an oral evaluation of the classroom. And one of these kids who was 17 years old, 18 years old, serious young man, he turned to me and he said use my title. And he said

the client's material sign.

But you have a way of making people feel real small

and I, I, He was absolutely right on the button. I, I had to spend some time learning how to deal with emotional problems and stresses and strains in other ways besides sarcasm, ridicule and humiliation. When I'm tired or caught off guard, that stuff comes right back and I can have a real fast mouth and I have to learn how to not do that day at a time. But that has been part of my 4th and 5th step. That was a real

big part of making amends to people because of my big back mouth. And I would excuse stuff because I'm funny. And so I would say, oh, yeah, yeah, it was a little cruel, but it was mostly funny. It was a little funny and mostly cruel. And I had a lot of relationships like that. So I I've had some work to do. I'm almost done with tonight's talks. And we can all go home to our moms.

I

I want to talk a little bit about step one and two and three, because that 20 years sober, I had a different understanding of one and two and three-step

one asks a couple of questions. Step one says a couple of things. Step one asks, are you still having any fun?

And if the answer is yes, then you're not going to stay around. Go get done, you know, go get done and we'll be happy to talk to you. This is not a program for people who need it. This is a program for people who want it. And if your craziness is anything like mine, the only thing that makes me want anything is pain and discomfort. So I, you know, if you're, if you're still drinking successfully and dating wonderfully and having

at work and making a lot of money and you're personally grateful, well, go do it.

It has been years since I've danced that dance, you know, and, and so I just can't have much of a conversation with you on those things. So I don't argue with people for whom it's working. Step one, says Noah. It's still raining.

Step one, says General Custer. More are coming.

I don't know of anybody who has a lot of fun while doing the first steps. I mean the first step is an awful experience. It basically says I am bleeding and on fire. And this has been going on for some time.

When I got sober,

I would bump into people who call themselves two steppers. They didn't wanna work steps. They, they, they did Step one and 12 is what they said. And that makes no sense to me. Step one, I'm miserable. Step 12 join me.

So the, the, the thing for me in recovery, getting sober, how on earth do you get from step one to Step 2? Because for me, step, I mean, the hardest step is the second step four and five are inconvenient and making a making amends can get a little complicated. But the really impossible situation for me was going from 1:00 to 2:00 because one says we're doomed

and two says there's hope. Now I'm a reader. I read a lot, did a lot of stuff. I still read a lot. When I was in college I used to drink a little and smoke non habit forming marijuana and then read Existentialist Novelist

Saja Kanmu. I remember in English. If I could have read it in French I would have, but I didn't occur to me. I wasn't that pretentious at the time.

Umm, but I would read the one of those fellows. His name is Franz Kafka.

Kafka's a little Moody and a little unhappy and Czechoslovakian Jewish complicated life, 1930s and one of Kafka's lines, and I identified with this so much for years, Kafka writes. There is infinite hope,

but not for us.

Now that's what I believe I thought. For you there's hope. For me, there isn't. You know, I mean, I'm doomed. You're going to get along fine, but I'm worse than you. I'm just luck at the draw. It's not going to workout.

So how do you get from step one to Step 2?

And here is my current reflection on this.

I do not think that Alcoholics Anonymous is a self help program.

I think if I could have helped myself, I never would have had to meet you dreary people,

you know, and spend lives in rooms filled with smoke and, you know, people who vote differently than I do.

I didn't get from step one who Step 2 by marching and working the program.

It's not how it works.

What happened is that I got carried from step one to Step 2,

and I got carried from step one to Step 2 by the higher power, as I understand the higher power, through meetings in rooms like these. I did some footwork. I had to cooperate. I was in pain, I was bleeding and on fire. I went to an awful lot of these meetings. I made phone number, I made phone calls, I went after people, I bought a book. I did a lot of stuff, but that was just a willingness to participate. I got carried to the second step

and one night at a meeting in Berkeley, I was sober for a couple of months, six, 7-8 months. And I woke up and I looked around the room and realized that I had just a little, tiny bit of hope. Not a lot,

but I find out I don't need a lot of hope. I don't know if I've ever had 100% hope. I mean, I think you get stupid around 90% hope. You just stop paying attention, you know, and get grateful and lose your critical faculties. And I've I've never had that experience.

But I I regularly have enough hope

to do left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, go to a meeting, say hello to a newcomer, talk to an old timer, make coffee. I have enough hope for that a lot of times. And sometimes when I don't have very much hope, I just go back to bed. And there are days like that. This summer, one day I went back to bed twice. You need to know this. I just, I couldn't think of what to do left. So I went back to bed

and I got up and that night I made a meeting and I just said, it's been a real long day and I just haven't had

an awful lot of hope. And I go to meetings and I find that your hope is contagious. And if I associate with people with, with not too much hope because I don't trust them, but people who have enough hope, I, I suddenly am able to do left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. And then I find I'm in a position of being able to trust the higher power again. Not 100%,

but enough.

I just need enough to turn it over. There's a an 18th century Jesuit theologian, which is my spiritual background. My training is in that particular reference, and this guy was writing a couple 100 years ago about his difficulty with turning it all over.

And I, I mean, I turn it over, take it back, turn it over, take it back, turn it over, take it back. And I was trying to explain that to my sponsor using small words and speaking slowly so he'd get it.

And he said, and again, I'm unique. I'm the only one doing this. Everyone else at meetings trusts God so much and has such a good time with a higher power in the program. What's wrong with me? And Terry said when you find you've taken it back, turn it over.

I said, yeah, but what else? Shouldn't I humiliate myself or cut off a finger or something? Or, you know, he says, no, just when you find you've taken it back, turn it over. So I, I do that. But this is 18th century. Jesuit said this. If you have, if you cannot turn over everything

for all times, than just turn over now.

And when you're conscious again, turn over now. And when you're conscious again, just turn over now. And so that's how I do step three. I regularly turn over the present into God's care. And I find that gives me enough faith and hope to do left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, and then show up somewhere, you know, like at a meeting in Santa Clara. I don't know the future. I haven't known the future since I stopped taking drugs and.

There's a Baptist, a Baptist hymn that says I don't know the melody and I'm going to paraphrase the words, but the Baptist him says I don't need to know what the future holds because I know who holds the future. And I just do right foot and left foot and go to meetings where there are women and men with hope in here. And I learn how to cooperate with people I don't agree with a lot. And frequently I have a real life. I find recovery is slow business,

but it's very real. I think it's a struggle a lot of times and I need encouragement. I'm one of those people that does get discouraged and I'm one of those people who have to take real careful attention for don't get too hungry, don't get too angry, don't get too lonely, don't get too tired. I have two last points to make that I'm done. When I was younger and even more arrogant,

I thought that I could handle Hungary just fine,

and I could handle hungry and angry. Hungry, angry, lonely, all operating at the same time complicated my life. But I didn't really need to call my sponsor or change my behavior unless all four were, you know, blowing up at the same time. Then I had to do some action,

you know? Now I find 20 years sober, 49 1/2 years old,

um, anyone of them puts me in a dangerous place

and I find paradoxes in my life. There's a lot of paradox, but in many ways I'm I'm in real good shape today, and at the exact same moment I'm a mess.

Equally true. I'm resilient and flexible and at the exact same time I'm brittle and fragile.

I find that to be quite interesting. Little bits can throw me way off

and then a little bit of fine tuning can bring me back. It's a daily program, so I I reached the hungry. I skipped meals. I still do that. I keep thinking that you should eat, that I'm busy,

and then at 3:00 in the afternoon and I want to start shooting people

because they have turned into swine

and it's for their own good, you know? And I won't kill them. I'll just shoot them in the knee so they'll remember

and I'll call my sponsor with my rage and he'll listen for a few moments and then he'll ask in his judgmental tone of voice, Have you eaten?

When I'm talking about deep meaning and significance and he asks about burritos, you know, give me a break.

I don't always notice when I'm angry. I mean, I don't. I mean, I, I'm from 1/2 Irish, half Swedish background. We don't get angry, we get even. And

I I from a tradition where we would get you extra cups of coffee hoping you'd choke on them. You know that's what I come from. So why don't I don't notice I'm angry. I just suddenly noticed I'm right

and you're wrong

and you must be punished and this gives me no pleasure

Scenario and

I call I went lived in LA for a long time. Maybe it only seemed like a long time. I moved back up here and and I'm I'm the one that moved but I felt abandoned

and I called my sponsor and I said I'm feeling so lonely. And he said yes,

and I said yes, me. I mean, what do we pay these people for?

And he said, Tom, there's nothing to fix. Sometimes we all get to feel lonely. What should I do? Make some phone calls? Go to a meeting, talk to a newcomer? Put up with an old timer, you know,

dig in the yard, test the cap. I mean, it passes, you know, it's but I that comes up and the tired,

I don't notice I get tired, I notice I get hopeless.

She suddenly were doomed and the sun's burning out and you know, it's never going to get better ever. And you can't get good peanut butter anymore. And,

and that's when I have to really do some stuff around making sure that I get emotionally recharged and physically recharged. So it it's real important stuff in my in my program

and I still clearly have trouble with that last point. I was at a meeting in Stockholm,

one of my geographic and an American woman came into the meeting. And I've always had a little difficulty around people who are sober, who only have peak experiences now that they're sober and they're so grateful and love everybody. And I've never been to a bad meeting. And I tell them they should travel with me. I mean, I'll show them that meetings,

my sponsor is pretty perky. I mean, it's hard to put up with. I mean, day after day of gratitude, you know? Oh, please. So

I I was at this English speaking meeting in Stockholm. This American woman came in. I had never seen her before, but I find God has given me the gift of critical insight

and I do not have to know you at all to take your inventory. And

by the way she walked, I knew she needed my advice. And she sat down and complained and whined and nagged about things and I, I thought I'd straighten her out. And we don't give advice in a a but she needed it, you know, So I made an exception for her and