Sacramento Spring Fling, February 19th 2000

Hi everybody, I'm Steve Bordner. I'm an alcoholic that already have those hands go fast. I talk fast. Hands are the best. Asbestos

signers hate me. I'm ready for a nap.

I don't know what you people are doing here. If I wasn't talking, I'd be taking a nap at this conference. It's alcoholic

double everything, speaker meeting, dances.

I haven't been to a full meeting yet. I got up, I went to the Intimacy in Love Al Anon meeting and let me tell you what the Alcoholics did with that meeting the first time they saw it.

We try to avoid intimacy and recovery as long as we can. I've gone 20 years and avoided it. Thank God

I went down there. There was like, I was the only, there were only two guys, me and another guy that were down there without women.

No. So that'll tell you how effective that conference was. Now, I left there to come back to Robin's talk, right? And then I had to leave her right in puberty, which was tough

because she was dressed to kill when I had to go to the Al Anon luncheon.

Then I had to leave the island on luncheon in the middle of Al Anon, happening to go to my room to think about this for a minute. And then I'm here and I don't know what I'm going to do about Mark and Wayne tonight.

Wayne's feeling really bad because he's not on video. Actually, you are. There's a little beta Cam

about 3 people can get around and they're going to put you in the bar and say

what not to do. You're not scared the hell out of those drunks down there. No, if you listen, I don't know where you go. I haven't heard Mark tonight. I'll be here because there's food here with him and I'm very deeply spiritual when it comes to food. But you know, I, Wayne is Wayne and I have ended up being on the same platform for the last couple conferences and I, I just, he is my brother and

he just got a great story. So I don't know what you do, but this is this is and you've been cheating, Mary has been cheating. You've been going to some other program. We know you're cheating on us.

You've been cheating all right, but you know what? He he if you're new and and Alcoholics Anonymous is the weirdest group in the world. OK, I love it. I've loved it. I'm not I'm not a very interesting speaker. I don't have a very interesting drunkalog and I didn't hate AA when I came in. I loved it from the minute I've been here. But this is a bizarre organization and newcomers, I just want to let you know it's a bizarre organization And and that was just demonstrated for you. This is an organization in which

if you come in and get drunk, it says in our book, we have to go to the most sordid places on the face of the earth. Here we'll go down to downtown wherever to get you out of some rice infested,

you know, a hotel. If you rob a bank and don't drink, we'll ask you to speak at our conference.

If you sleep with your wife's sister will tell you you're getting better. You know we'll just love you no matter what and less your cell phone goes off in a meeting.

By then,

we're going to rip your heart right out of your bleeding chest.

This is a group of people that left for a pack of cigarettes on Halloween. Didn't come back to Valentine's. But if you forget to turn off your cell phone,

you selfish, self-centered

that. You see, without alcohol, we're a little rigid.

We like to think we're bohemian, and that's when we're drinking. The flexible people are in Al Anon, not in Alcoholics Anonymous.

You don't think this is true? Just get on your picnic committee,

go to your picnic committee and say something like, you know, I think we ought to move the tables over there

for the cheer.

The room will get very quiet

than the oldest of the old timers will raise himself up to his four foot two, heighten his Walker and say we don't move the picnic tables at the Founders group,

Bill Wilson said On that picnic table

Doctor Bob had a little potato salad over there. We don't move the tables.

I was up and locking, yada. Speaking in a very adult meeting. Problem with LA meetings is when you're my age, you feel old.

You come in here a young Turk and wind up Ward Cleaver.

Very sad thing to happen to an alcoholic. And it's a very adult, older meeting. It's a very fluid, well to do area. And this woman was sitting down, they were giving out chips and she was about 40. She had 3029 days, right? She had 29 days, sweetheart of a lady and they were giving out chips and just codependency got her. She had a 30 day chip and nobody to take it. And she said, well, I've only got 29 days, I'll take the chip. You would have thought she farted. My God, they went crazy.

No, you can't take a chip. Lazy time early. You'll die and they'll be plagued and boils and we'll all go see. Take it one second early.

Alcoholics Anonymous. That's right. Oh, they're really loose people.

I want to thank the committee for asking me to be here right now. They're not so sure

they're going. Maybe we should have got that other guy.

It's a pleasure to be here. They did ask me to make a few announcements. That's not that. We've had such a good response to the marathon meetings. We're adding a few.

Don't get ahead of me,

trust me. Of course, during the dance tonight there will be the relationship workshop

that's an any male alcoholic's room.

It's a very short workshop.

You would be able to go to the workshop and get back in time for plenty of the dance.

The women are relating just a little too heavily.

But there's a differe

difference. It's just a difference between us. Yeah. I was sitting in my Home group the other day and this woman I know, she came in and she she's just the talked about classes. She's just the classiest mommy you'd ever want to meet. But she was a little wild when she was first sober when she's drinking. And she said that she shared, I don't know why, because you don't wasn't a women's staggering thing. But she shared that she'd bottomed out on sex and sobriety when she found herself having sex on the back of a Harley and an alley behind a bar. Now I know. Oh, yeah. Right. Come on. Come on, Come on, Come on.

And you can see all the women that kind of went oh, honey. And they, you know their, I understand. And me too. And and then the men,

they were thinking

I have a Suzuki.

Anybody need to bottom out after the meeting? I could just a servant.

Some of the other workshops they've added is it's a four step workshop. It's called. Is lust really a character defect?

It will be presented by the Tuesday Night Men's Stag Group

Oil rig, 101 N Sea, and they have a little note here. Female visitors always welcome. There's a fifth step workshop. Does sharing in the dominant and submissive chat room count as a fifth step?

Interesting question. And then there's a six step workshop. The only thing I'm entirely ready to do is be sponsored by a supermodel. So any of you that are

interested in those?

Oh God, I'm so I'm just so chockful. It's just I'm so full. I mean, Bob's talk last night just spun my cop and

I'll tell you seriously, the the the

sort of meditation on because it's exactly Bob talked about the exact nature of his wrongs where his arrogance and, and, and, and for me, I sometimes think that God or Alcoholics Anonymous is like the elephant with the 10 blind people. You know that story where there's ten blind people holding onto the elephant and because they can't see the elephant, the one blind person that thinks they've got the trunk thinks that the elephant's like a snake. And then the one blind person that thinks that that has the leg thinks it's like a tree trunk. And, and, and, and for me, we come at such different directions sometimes to the

program. For me, the exact nature of my wrongs was I believed I was unlovable. And I understand where I got the message. I understand that it was an incorrect message, but it was the message that I had to be perfect to get love. See, when I was new and I heard Normay, who was the first speaker I ever heard, I would not have felt entitled to go up and say thank you. I would not have felt entitled to go up to and say, can I have a cup of coffee with you?

See, that's that's where I came from. And I just want to say, you know, after I speak, there's nothing more useless at a conference that the speaker has spoken.

So

because I know what you guys are doing. All right, now next, next. Let's see what they got to say tonight. So I mean, if you see me around the halls and it's just you want to talk to me because you think I'm doing something up here. I mean, this is this is a nice job, but it's not a very important job. It really isn't. Being a speaker in a is like being Tony Curtis and Spartacus.

If you remember Spartacus, it's about buff killer Roman gladiator guys, you know,

fighting the Roman Empire. And then there's Tony Curtis. And I go, what do you do? And he goes, I'm a singer of songs.

And they go, oh, great, That's wonderful. That's what we need in the war, a singer, a song to have the hot lead enemy. You can hit the high notes. That's wonderful. We're glad you're here. Yeah, that's all the speaker is. It's a singer of songs. I mean, the real work is those guys in the pink shirt. The real work is in the archives room. The real work is all the committee meetings where nobody killed each other coming on day. And that's where the real work happens. But if for some reason I'm up here, I'm just from out of town and you want to tell me stuff you don't want to tell your sponsor yet, you know,

sit down with it. Because all I, I do that all the time. I call central office in LA when I want an anonymous sponsor for a minute.

They always tell me that

same thing. You're going to have to talk. I know. I just want to see how it plays with you first.

Want to see how many times I got to read page 63 before I talk to my sponsor?

But this was the meditation I was working because this is applied to my It says I am I who am afraid of rejection,

afraid of initiating love for the fear of being inadequate and sought by the beloved.

This kind of love is so far beyond any love I can offer in return.

And yet it is a love that demands a response.

And that is my experience in Alcoholics Anonymous that I've come in here and I have I have seen things and been given things that I felt that I was not entitled to. And about three years of sobriety, I just give up on. I deserve, you know, I have no idea what I deserve. I don't know if I deserve the good stuff in my life and I don't deserve, I deserve the bad stuff. I just got the stuff I got in my life. And I've got to figure I've got some phrases and a that I don't like so much. One of which is God will never give you more than you can handle. Not my favorite phrase.

I don't know who made it up, but they have a real wrong idea of what I can handle.

I can barely handle brushing my teeth three times a day.

What I do believe is, if I'm willing, God will give me the ability to handle whatever happens.

I don't like that phrase. If you're having trouble with God, think how much trouble God's having with you. Not happy with that one either.

Don't think God's having any trouble with me. You know, if he can handle Bosnia, he can handle Steve Bordner.

I mean, it's not like I got up this morning and God's going, oh God, I was having a good day. Now Steve's up. I need some Valium

that just makes God into my mother one more time. You know what I mean?

Just just don't. I'm the only one in trouble with God. That's me. That's the I don't. There are lots of stuff I don't like. I I the Kingdom of God is not a democracy. I love that line. I just have a trouble with everything. I have trouble with gravity. I have trouble. I mean when I get to heaven. I don't know about you, but I need God for about 100,000 years. I want to talk to him. I want to.

Then why did you do it this way?

I mean, just why? Why just minor stuff too? Why invent if you're going to invent 2 sexes,

Why, after they've made love do you have One wants to go to sleep and one wants to talk? Why did you do that?

That just seems a prescription for trouble.

Both talk, both sleep. I mean, it seems simple to me,

but believe me, God is a joker, you know? I mean, God just is hilarious. Just messes with me all the time. Just look at the guys I sponsor. I mean, you know, I Spencer gossip guys and I have to tell him, look, if you don't call her bitch in an argument, it'll go better. I mean, this is exactly where they start.

I love them.

This section, they're all they got the hands up, the whole yeah.

I tell them this and they look at me like I'm crazy. You sure?

If I don't say bitch, what do I say? Well, how about honey? I don't know, man.

Sure about that one.

I've been accused of not sharing much of A drunk log. Everybody who talked, including the Al Anon's, probably have worse drunkalogs than I do. You know, it seems to me that a couple dozen people speak in a meetings. One's the guys who are tied down in Folsom doing life who now run Microsoft. Those guys,

I never went to jail. I'm short, I'm white in jail. I'm on hors d'oeuvre. I'm not going.

We'll have him before lunch. All right, Go right to the weight room. And then

then there seems to be these guys that wake up in Reno with $100,000 in a suitcase and 12 hookers in the room and

that didn't happen either

yet. So

I, I just drank my so don't get me wrong, I mean I drank suicidally. I'm the last thing you look at. My family, come from a family of Alcoholics. I'm the very last person you would think would get sober,

right? I drank suicidally, but I drank alone for the most part. I sat in my chair. I love that commercial. Is that commercial now that you go to those guys they put trying to put in their, you know that commercial that was to me drinking, you know

that's my pick up line in the bars.

I didn't do well in the bars,

although a couple of the Al Anons are breaking into a sweat right now. I can assume it's working. No, actually, right before I got sober, I went this bar that's called group therapy, and the men's room was right next to the women's room. And I'm really in the bag and I'm leaning up against the door and right now walks out and I look at her and I look at her and I give her my best.

I mean, who could resist that, right?

And she looks me and then goes Simba,

God's well working in my life.

No, but I I would

sit in my chair and cry because they missed the word bubble gum on the $10,000 pyramid and laugh hysterically because Gillian was leaving Seneca one more time on Ryan's Hope.

Then watch some Twilight marathons. Yeah, mine's a favorite of them. When they capture the devil. I like that one. So,

you know, and that was it, that, that that's that one Gray miserable day after the other. And I think when we talk, take away all the chartering of the planes and all the supermodels and all the stuff,

that's really what happens to all of us when we drink. Just sitting in a chair

trying to and Darryl said it last night, trying to feel whole again. So you see, that's, that's what alcohol does for me. I do feel separated. And I'm of the opinion that part of this separation isn't alcoholism, it's part just the human condition

in the 60s we had that you can't experience my experience line. You know that we do to a certain extent live alone. And

and if I'm in a selfish self-centered state and separated from God, that God is what makes this language of the heart possible. And I didn't know that this higher power,

but for me, the alcohol did that. See, I didn't know what was wrong with me. All I knew was when I drank, I felt OK. And when I didn't feel OK anymore, I kept drinking enough, trying to feel OK again.

See, I'm an alcoholic. I have a physical allergy to the drug ethyl alcohol. When I drink it, I want more.

And I know when I say that to Alcoholics, I get flatlined to say that wanting more is abnormal.

If you guys look at me and you go, well, of course you want more, Steve.

That's why there is more.

If there's no more, we'll go get some more.

I mean, I joke about this. It was true. I got addicted. Antique shots and sobriety. I found an antique shop's a thing that's very strange. It's called a shot glass. Do you guys know about these

shot glasses? Let me explain the concept of a shot glass to you.

A shot glass is what a non alcoholic uses to make sure they don't get too much alcohol in their drink.

Let me demonstrate what a non alcoholic can do. They'll have a drink in their hand and they'll go. I'm done.

But

for those of you on tape, the very attractive speaker walked away from the glass.

They do. They walk away from the car, right? Not us. We're sitting there. I'm done.

Hey,

my kind of girl.

That's my kind of girl. I like Sacramento. Yeah,

see. But me, I take 2, four, 1213 ounces of ethyl alcohol. I drink them,

they hit my stomach.

The sun rises,

paralyzes my legs,

goes up my chest, flushes my face, goes out my fingers,

and every pore in my body goes,

ah,

a little anxious right now, aren't you?

A little sweat on your lip? Your sphincter got a little tighter there

because I just woke him up, huh? Oh yeah, man, let's get the hell out of here and go drink. He said, ah, this guy that talks to us, he's idle. Listen to it much, but he still talks. If you're new, he has a lot to say to you, and he'll still talk to you. You just won't listen to him as much. But he says things. He says things like what's a Zima?

What's the Zima? What's a dry beer? Wet and dry, Wet and dry, Wet and dry, Wet and dry, Wet and dry, Wet and dry, Wet and dry, Wet and dry.

Long Island ice tea. We never had one of those.

I mean, you know, if he's new, he says things. If you knew, he says things to you like this. OK, OK. OK. OK. OK,

he talks fast because he wants to drink, he said. OK,

you got 90 days, you better drink soon before you get so much time you can never drink again.

Let's have a non alcoholic beer now. I, you know, and I have no opinion people, I don't drink them. I don't drink them because for me to drink a non alcoholic beer is for me to go to the House of prostitution and listen to the piano player.

It ain't gonna happen. I'm gonna tell myself that's why I'm going. I'm just going for the Bach, the Mozart.

I'll get A room

now when you get lonely, talk to you later. You're a very good guy. I was in a media. It was called the musicians meeting. Very cool meeting. This was years ago. I had like nine years at the highest cake that night was five years. You would think if you were in a room where somebody has five years and you have a, you feel pretty good. Wow. I had more time, not arrogantly so, but I had more time than the longest cake in the room. Not in alcoholism, no.

They have five years. You're still here. Eight years later, you're really sick.

All the healthy people have stopped going to meetings. He wants to get me back home by myself alone watching the television.

Then he can say things to me like you're a very good person, you're a very good person. You can have one drink, just one drink. You can have just one drink. You can have one. Let's just have one. Let's just have one, One. Come on, 111,

here's nothing about being interesting. Just one month. One month.

He's the Rain Man of demons. I'm a very good drinker. Very good drinker. Very good.

5 minutes to Jack Daniels. 5 minutes Jack Daniels. Now I know. I know. If I ever take that drink, you're a very good person. You can have one. You can have one. I take the drink. Boom, you rotten loser. You

you just threw away

20 years of sobriety, you might as well drink your miserable self ta da.

If I could ever get them in front of Maine, I'd go. You're not consistent,

so we don't care. Our job's to kill you. We hate you, so why do you talk to us rather than your sponsor?

Alcohol is a pimp.

It's a pimp.

Everybody in this room is Benny's boy or his girl,

right? A little money in your pocket for Thanksgiving. Going to buy a Turkey, go home and see grandma,

Pimp says. Get in the car

and where's my money?

Need a few toys and a bike for the kids for Christmas? Now you're not home. Get in the car.

Where's my money? Your mother's dying. Your father's sick. Everybody's else at the funeral. Everybody else is helping with the family. Where are you? You're out getting loaded. We'll get in the car. And where is my money?

And then some nice judge or therapist or wife or spouse sends you to A and A

and the pimp becomes very white.

I really love you, baby.

I'm not going to be bad to you, baby. I love you so much. They don't like you their day, baby, I love you.

So you take the drink and it's get in the car and where's my money?

See, I know one thing. I don't know what's going to happen to me in sobriety if I drink today. I can predict with absolute certainty what will happen to my life. I can't tell you how long it'll take, but I know what will happen. It's abs. There are no surprises if I drink,

but I can't predict is what's going to happen to me if I stay sober. That's where all the surprises, that's where all the miracles, that's where all the magic is today.

It's just, it doesn't work as fast as alcohol. It's been a very strange year. I want to tell you a couple of stories and, and Bob was talking about last night, a couple of people who died and one guy was the sweetest. It was the first time in 20 years I've gone to an, a, a memorial full of people for a guy that never really made it. Muslim memorials I've gone to have been for guys who've had a long time. And sometimes even if they go out and, and they had a long time, they're in this guy never had more than 90 days. And you should have seen the people at his memorial. And he was a very, very

special person. I mean, I believe all people are special. There's no such thing as a boring person, you know? It's my ability to appreciate people that's the only problem.

And so the fact of the matter, this was just one of those guys that could get under your skin. And I don't know why he didn't make it. You know, my book says that it could not or would not. It tells me in my that sentence, not the judge. Some people just don't and some people can't. And I don't know which is which. It's God's business,

you know, And he died a horrible, terrible death. And that's when I stopped liking that phrase. Stick with winners. I mean, I understand what it means. Stick with the people who are sober. Stick with the people going to meetings. Stick with the people. But this guy was a winner. And he died drunk because he kept showing up and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings trying to get it, trying to get it, trying to get it. And I don't know if maybe if he'd had one more, he would have got it. But in my book, he was a winner.

And then there was another friend of mine, Jay. And Jay had a long time and Jay had some back trouble and he had some

needed to take some medication and, you know, but then he took a drink and I don't know how that worked. He just did, you know, And he came back and he couldn't get it. And Jay had started workshops and

they found

in an apartment. He killed the woman he's with, and then he'd committed suicide. It could be me. You know what a horrible I, I, I think about him sometimes and I think about what the last few minutes of his life must have been like.

And as I was in my Home group and we were sharing about him that day

and we were sharing about how much we missed him, a guy next to me when he shared said he was my sponsor.

And I'm sober today because of that man. See,

'cause an alcoholic synonymous one-on-one equals three. And I can't. That's the problem with God I want to see. I want to put God in a box.

I wanna, I wanna rub his little belly and have him come out and grant me 3 wishes. That's the kind of God I want.

I wanna, you know, I want a God that I can rewrite the big book, step over the nearest bar, take a few drinks, and you get to keep your time. That's the kind of God I want,

Oh my God of God praying only for every damn thing I want in getting it. That's, that's see and, and, and, and it's not the kind of God that I find in Alcoholics Anonymous. It's the kind of God that's in everything and the successes and the failures. It's the kind of God that that doesn't care. There's nothing I can do to make him love me anymore, and nothing I can do to make him love me any less, which is a problem for me.

See don't get me wrong, I'm glad God loves you, but I'm not happy he loves you as much as me

because I'm so hacked. I have to be special just to be OK. And so I want God to love me

just as much more than you.

I want to be under his arm. This is King David and Steve Bordner. My God,

that would just make me OK with you see. But what that does is it takes all the performance out of it.

But what does that mean? See, I always want to be Hamlet and sometimes that means God wants me to be the spear carrier.

I love doing this, but sometimes that means I'm also the scroll guy in my meeting. I waited till they got rid of that circumcision rule, but I'm the scroll guy. You know, I put the scrolls up because that's the kind. And somebody said, well, that's a newcomer commitment. Uh, uh, then I have to fight me for it. I want to just be a worker among worker, a friend among friends. And when you get time, when you start doing this, all of a sudden somebody, something thinks you know something just because of this.

And for me just to be, excuse the profanity, average

ordinary is a spiritual gift because I will separate myself out from you again. I will I will have an agenda. I know that you know, and I turn my will in my life over the care. I told you, I just got out of three years and it's not like something that stays constant, but I stopped trying to decide whether I deserve stuff. It just happens. That doesn't mean I don't try to be responsible. That doesn't mean I don't try to learn from my mistakes. So I'll tell you, in my opinion, the hardest step in the program is not for

6.

6 entirely ready,

huh? Now the first problem with that is when I came in here, what you call character defects were my life goals.

So we have to have a whole change of idea that repenting of looking at it a different way. But but then it's like this entirely ready and that's six step. You know, he said Bill says that the old catechism and what's the purpose of life, to know God and enjoy him forever. And Bill kind of puts it a different way. He says what's the purpose of life? To grow like our Creator, which is to be perfect and yet acknowledged that we'll never be perfect.

Now I know about you. I don't like that. I like black, white, right? Wrong. No Gray, no ambivalence. I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't. I want to be perfect or you never have to be perfect. Go ahead, screw up as much as you want. That's what I want. See. And yet there's this bind in here. I never get to decide when I'm done. And yet I can't go away.

And I know I have an agenda and I know I have an agenda because I've watched too many people in AA have an agenda. I have a lovely, sweet friend, one of the most talented people that you ever want to meet. And one of her agendas was that she stayed sober. Worth the program. She was going to be successful in her career and she just wasn't.

So she took a drink and she's not back. I know I have an agenda when this happens. If this happens, if I work the steps, I'm going to get better is one of my agendas now. It says I might have to contain myself with patient progress. But it also says relieve me of these character defects, the ones that stand in the way of working with you and others, not the ones you want me to keep. And I have come to believe that sometimes he lets me keep them

even though I'm willing to have them removed. See, but my agenda is if I'm willing and doing it, you're going to take them. He goes. No,

I like you with that one,

not hurting anybody. And it keeps you tied to me when I was now I'm not very big really. It's really says, you know, it keeps you tied to me because listen, this is my agenda, folks. What I want to do is get good enough so I can get away from you.

I'm trying to buy my way out of having to deal with you. OK? I want to be able to say, see I've done this, this, this, this and this. Now leave me alone. Then go home and be very lonely. Turn off my answering machine and resent you for not calling.

I'm not very big, so I never fought, OK? I'm not the guy I didn't fight.

In fact I almost got in a fight at 9 years of sobriety. The last fight I almost got in I was sitting in the back of a meeting and I don't know about you. Do they talk in meetings up here? Do they do in Southern California? They go to a meeting and talk

and, and, and so I'm in the back of the room. That's why I like sitting in the front and I'm in the back of the room and these guys are talking and I'm waiting. They're reading everything. And it's sort of like in the movies, you wait for the trailers and then you worry about whether they're going to talk. And so finally, so finally, you know, they're starting the sharing. So I breathe in and out

because, you know, as soon as you tell an alcoholic anything, you're in trouble. And I go, excuse me, excuse me, do you mind not talking during the meeting? And they go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And keep talking

while the red veil comes down and you're there before you're there. And all of a sudden I'm telling them to shut them up. And, and this guy's like 30 days sober, 33, I can't lick my lips. He's detoxing. Not a good situation.

We're standing up yelling at each other. I got nine years of sobriety. Secretary saying you guys got to be quiet. We sit down. He says go outside, I'll kick your butt and I'm leaving.

I'm going totally insane.

Luckily 15 other guys got up and came with us and Stoddard picked me up off the ground.

You know Scott, he's pretty big guy now. It's hard to think you're going to kick anybody's butt when your feet are doing this.

Lollipop Guild. The Lollipop Guild,

he went. Walk away.

And like sanity returned, I realized I didn't want to fight this guy. I didn't want him to hurt me. I didn't want to hurt him. I didn't want to get kicked out of my Home group for six weeks for a fight. I walked away,

you know, I made amends to him. I ended up sponsoring him actually a couple of times.

Just like dating an AA, get up at the podium, go. I don't want a relationship. They're lined up out the door.

I'm looking for someone. You're in. It's Citizen Kane. But

I made my amends to the meeting and then he started again, right? He said. This is what he did to me. Because in everybody's book, there's a chapter where you should be by now.

You're never there. This is what happened when I'm home. I made amends to the meeting. I made amends to the secretary. I made amends to this guy. Clean slate. I've done everything this guy starts in me. You should be better than that. At 9 years, you can never go back to that meeting again

because what I have a problem doing is accepting my imperfection.

Now, there's a wonderful book called The Spirituality of Imperfection, and in that book he says that every human relationship has the potential to harm and to heal because every human relationship is between two imperfect people.

And deep down inside of Maine is still the belief that I need to be perfect in order to be loved.

And if I'm not perfect, you won't love me. And so the agenda is, if I keep doing this, I'm going to get perfect and you're going to. And then one day, I don't know when it happened for me, you just realize, you know what, they're just going to be aspects of my life in which I may fail for the rest of the time I'm breathing. And am I willing to accept that?

In the Pre Al Anon talk at the luncheon, I think it's Jackie, he kept saying God's in charge God and God is in charge. I believe that God is absolutely in charge of everything.

Got absolutely in charge of what I'm thinking about taking a drink and you run into the sponsor, come on to the liquor store. God is absolutely in charge of families being united. God's absolutely in charge of every good thing that happens in my life. And then there's the other stuff.

Parents die.

Couple conferences I spoke At every conference I spoke at, one of the primary speakers had lost a child in recovery.

I believe God's in charge. When a plane's upside down and going into the ocean,

you know, there's a story. It's about two rabbis, and they're coming home

because at that time, this is an old Russian story. They would travel the circuit and they're coming home. And as they come home to their village, the Cossacks are attacking their village,

and they're sitting on this hill watching everything and everyone they love be slaughtered. And one of the rabbis falls to his knees and says, oh, that I were God. Another rabbi says, why would you stop it? He says no, then I would understand.

What I've had to come to accept in my sobriety is God has revealed himself and God is a mystery and I don't get to know it all.

I mean, like I said, when I get to heaven, I got a lot of questions,

a lot of questions. But what you have given me is the acceptance that as to whatever appearances, I think Bill Wilson, Russell, whatever appearance to the contrary, somehow even as horrific as it may seem,

there is a higher power that is somehow making this all come out for the good. And what I know in my own life is all the failures. And this is the weird thing. This is a very strange program. Alcoholics not like, come on, folks. It's a weird place we're at, right? I mean, the first thing they tell you is you're not a bad person trying to get good. You're a sick person trying to get well. Why?

Why? It's a lie. I mean, come on. We lied to newcomers all the time in here. Newcomers. We lie. OK, We lie. They tell you they never heard a lie on a A. That's a big lie. OK? I lie to newcomers every second I can. If I think it'll keep them sober, they call me up and go, Gee, didn't they? Didn't Wife and I go read page 2?

I don't know what's on too.

This came to my head 10 minutes later. Thank you so much, that helped me. I got exactly what I needed.

So I read two find out what the hell I said

Big Lie Alabama. My spiritual grandmother used to say this all time. You're not a bad person trying to watch super. All right, So if I'm not a bad person trying to get good, but a sick person trying to get well, how come I got to do a moral inventory? Huh?

Last time I looked, heart patients weren't doing moral inventories. No, no, no.

Last time I looked, people with sugar diabetes weren't going. Hey, Fred, when you're out of town, I slept with Ethel. I'm not doing it no more. No, no. Alcoholics got to do moral inventory

because you see me becoming an alcoholic. I believe I came from an alcoholic home. It's in my genetic makeup. I don't think I could have missed it. Some of you had to work a little harder.

Just very, very forgiving disease when it comes to that. You know, you don't have to have the genetic makeup, but you know what?

Becoming an alcoholic is no moral issue to it, but what I do when I'm drinking does.

If I drive drunk and take your grandmother out in a crosswalk because I need another drink,

that's a moral act. Let's see. And when I came here, I didn't know what was wrong with me and what the problem is. Now, you guys have told me what was wrong with it. You have taught me that if I drink, people get hurt. Not just me, other people get hurt. And so I am responsible for treating this thing. You've taught me that I have. And I never, I don't think the disease concept was ever intended to Get Me Out of taking responsibility for treating what's wrong with me.