Barney M. from Alderson, WV at Canyon Club Speakers Mtg.

Good evening. My name is Barney and I'm an alcoholic.

And yes, I am from Alderson West by God, Virginia,

and it's nice to be here tonight. I come back to, I retired about five years ago and bought a piece of property back in West Virginia. So I'm back there most of the time. And but I come back out to California in the winter time because I'm I'm crazy, but I'm not stupid.

And

so I get the hell away from all that snow and ice and everything. But it's nice to be here again. I haven't met in this club for a long time. It's been, I guess about five years or so since I was here. I think Tim was saying that he was here with me the last time I was here, and

I remember coming to Laguna Beach, to the Canyon Club when I was about six months sober.

The man who was sponsoring me

was coming down here. We used to,

they used to have people come down to the Canyon Club and this is the old Canyon Club,

and bring a panel and they would come down with six or seven speakers from LA or wherever they were coming from. And he asked me if I go to the Laguna Canyon Club and participate in the meeting down there. And I did. He allowed me to talk about, I think he said I could have two minutes.

And

so, and that was just about 29 years ago.

And so I've been coming to the Canyon Club for a long time. And I remember when they built this new club and it's, it's very nice, very fancy place. It's nice. And so it's nice to see all of you again. I if you're new here tonight. And there were quite a few people that raised their hands and, and there are quite a number of people here, I suspect, who have a year or less. How many have a year or less?

A year or less? Yeah. I'm glad to see you all.

I I don't know how you feel if you're new, but I know that when I was new, my sense was that I was in the wrong place, that I was here by mistake, that I was not really an alcoholic,

that somebody had made a terrible mistake. My namely my ex-wife. And

because she was divorcing me, she called me an alcoholic and, and I knew that I was not an alcoholic. And I, I didn't like being an AA. I didn't like being an AA meetings, I thought they were boring and I thought the people were kind of goofy and, and I, I wasn't interested in whatever was going on here. I knew that that I did not have a disease

and I I was willing to admit that my drinking was a little peculiar sometimes, but

I didn't merely think that I was hooked that badly. And I liked him. I thought there was, there had to be some way that I could, that I could get my drinking under control.

And but I, you know, here I was being divorced and and I didn't want to get divorced. We had six children and and we had played a lot of Vatican roulette and

so

so we have these six kids. We were living in Woodland Hills, CA at the time

and, and I was a rather successful guy, I thought. And I, you know, it seemed to me that you couldn't be an alcoholic and be as successful as I was. I was a television news anchor, man. And I was making a lot of money. And I was, I had this nice home and I had six kids and I had a swimming pool and I had two cars and I had

a lot of very fancy clothes. And my kids had fancy clothes. My wife had fancy clothes

and I couldn't imagine that anybody like me could possibly be an alcoholic. I didn't know anything about the disease of alcoholism, but I, I just imagined that what an alcoholic was like and I, I just didn't see myself that way. And

so I knew that there was number possible way that Alcoholics Anonymous could help me. The main reason I I knew that I was not an alcoholic is because when I drink, I feel better.

So I knew that, you know, you couldn't be an alcoholic. I thought, you know, Alcoholics were people who drank and started seeing rats coming out of the walls and cockroaches coming out of the chandeliers and, and

hiding bottles and, and couldn't hold down a job and, and, you know, wearing long coats and, and just kind of huddling in doorways and sleeping in cardboard boxes. And, and indeed, that is true of a lot of Alcoholics that I have met. I sponsor a couple of guys that slept in a cardboard boxes. I mean, that is true of some people here, but it is certainly not true of everybody in a A and but I just had this vision of

Alcoholics

that was very screwed up. And

I see I grew up in, in the South Side of Chicago in an Irish Catholic neighborhood

where

you didn't have to be Irish, but it sure helped.

And my father was Welsh, but my mother was very Irish. She was one of 16 children in an Irish family and, and she was a Flannery. That was her name. And, and so I I considered myself Irish

and I told everybody that I was Irish. In the Monsignor who ran that church was Monsignor Patrick J McGuire

and, and his feast day, of course, was Saint Patrick's Day, which became the most important day of the year. And that's the kind of place it was. And I, the, the Dominican nuns ran that school that I went to. And in those days, you could go to a private school for almost nothing. As a matter of fact, it was a dollar a month. That's what we paid tuition in that school. And we had these wonderful nuns teaching and, and

my memory of the nuns is not, I hear people

talk about nuns in a negative way. I don't have a negative feeling about those nuns. I think they tried as hard as they could to teach us some values and some standards, in addition to reading, writing, arithmetic, which they were very good at, to teach us some values and some standards to live by so that we could, you know, we could live as a happy people, that I could be a happy man and, and I could have a good life. And, and, and then I went on to a Catholic High School in Chicago, Mount Carmel High School

on the South side of Chicago. And I had the Carmelite priest there. And I think these men worked very hard to try to give us a set of standards and values to live by so that we would be happy, contented, peaceful people in our lives. And, and then my mother used, my dad died when I was 14 and, and my mom used the last of the insurance money to send me to the University of Notre Dame.

And I had the Holy Cross fathers and, and I know that they worked very hard to try to give us a set of standards and values to live by

so that we could live to be contented, happy people and, and, and, and grow to be fine men and, and, and, and standards of the community. And they all failed.

These people screwed up something terrible because

when I was 21 I was a mess.

When I was 21, I was a frightened,

inadequate,

terrified little boy

who was who was mentally still on the South Side of Chicago, mentally still poor, mentally still not with it, mentally not knowing what the hell to do for a living.

Just absolutely lost in a world that I didn't understand, that I was scared to death and

and I was the center and I knew that I was a Sinner. I knew I was a Sinner when I was seven years old.

Matter of fact, I knew that I was a moral leper.

That's not only somebody who sins a lot, that's somebody who enjoys it thoroughly.

And I knew you were supposed to like it that much. I was supposed to feel guilty and I was supposed to feel a lot of remorse. And the only time I felt guilty as somebody caught me

because I love sin. I mean, sin is really fun and,

and I found a lot of things to sin about and,

and I was, but I was very confused, young man. I, I really had a lot of confusion about everything you can imagine. And I didn't know what I didn't know how men behaved. I didn't know what you were supposed to do to be a man. I thought it had something to do with being tough. I thought it had something to do with being willing to throw the first punch. I thought it had something to do with talking loud

and being aggressive, and I thought it had something to do with

pretending that you were OK even when you weren't. And I know how to do that. And I know how to pretend as they say. I know how to pretend I got my shit together. I can pretend that I can. I can look pretty good. I can act sophisticated and and worldly and I'm just this little Irish kid from the South Side of Chicago who doesn't know what the hell to do with himself.

I didn't do any drinking in my younger years. To speak of a little bit of drinking, I'd

I didn't like beer and I the taste of whiskey. My mother was an alcoholic. She wasn't drunk all the time. She was just drunk part of the time. And we didn't know what an alcoholic was. We certainly didn't know anything about Alcoholics Anonymous. We didn't know any of that stuff.

But I, you know, she, sometimes she got very drunk and she'd roll around on the floor and cry and carry on. And I've embarrassed me and I, I, I didn't know what the hell to do about that. But it never dawned on me, never occurred to me that I would ever do anything like that.

I mean, people don't behave that way. And

what? Through a series of really odd coincidences, I ended up in the radio broadcasting business. I had learned a little bit about it under Damon, and then I got a little job at a little radio station in Monroe, MI when I came out of school. And,

and I did that. And then I went to Toledo when I became a news director in Toledo. And then I was a news director of a radio station in Detroit. And I had, for some reason or another, I had, I was 2223 years old and I had guys working for me who were 45 and 50. And I, I was still scared to death. And I thought somebody was going to catch on

pretty soon,

but I'm still bullshitting my way through. And I, you know, I'm looking good. I know how to, I know how to look good. I know how to look like I got it together

and

now I'm, I'm scared and I and I'm, I feel inadequate and I feel like I'm not, I'm not yet. I don't have, I don't know what to do. And, and I got married when I was 21, I guess, and started having these kids and, and

I don't know what's much about that either. I don't know much about being a husband. I don't know much about being a father. I don't know much about anything. I'm so dumb, just so dumb. And, and I'm the news director of a major radio station in Detroit by now.

And then I went into television and I started doing TV work and, and, and a lot of changes took place in television right at that period in, in the, in the middle 60s, everybody went full color. And you know, from black and white to color. We went from magnetic optical sound to magnetic stripe film. We went to and ultimately we went to mini Cam and videotape real fast and satellite trucks and Jesus, everything changed within a period of about 10 years, Everything rolled

and God had all changed. The electronics changed that everything changed. And I was, I was there, I was working through all of that process. And every time they, you know, we went from typewriters to computers and Jesus, I mean, it was just nutsy. And I was so frightened. Little boy. Now, somewhere in my early 20s, I made a magic discovery,

and I think it's a discovery that sooner or later every alcoholic has to make.

And it's such a simple thing. Nobody ever pays much attention to it when it happens. Somebody ought to put a plaque on the wall, but nobody ever does

it. Just it's just one night. It happens,

and yet, and yeah, it just goes by and here it is. No matter how I feel, no matter what's going on in my life, if I'm up or down, if I'm happy or sad, if I feel bright or stupid, whatever is going on in my life, when I drink,

I feel better.

It is such a simple it's it's just nobody ever notices.

It just happens now,

it turns out. I feel so good when I drink that I want a lot

because I somehow am convinced in my own mind that if I drink more, it's going to get better and better and better and better. What? It doesn't,

as we all know, but it does get pretty good

and it's a lot of fun.

And, and I somehow I feel like $1,000,000, a few drinks that I'm right on top of the world, A few drinks that I am brighter than you. A few drinks that I'm the most intelligent guy in the room. A few drinks that I'm certainly the most handsome. A few drinks that I'm the slickest guy going, a few drinking. I mean, it just magically turns me into something really marvelous in my own brain.

And

so I drink a lot

and,

and I, and I get drunk, of course.

And, and here's the thing, when I get drunk, I have a tendency to move around a lot. I, I travel quite a bit. I go from bar to bar.

I go from city to city, I go from country to country.

I just move around a lot.

I don't remember things. I have a tendency to forget. Forget where my car is. I forget what I'm doing. I forget who I'm with. I forget, forget. I just can't remember. I just, I go through these periods of time that I kind of lose time. I lose a day, I lose 2 days.

I well, just as an example, I can remember

I woke up in the airport in Kingston, Jamaica

on us. Turns out it was a Saturday afternoon.

The last thing I could remember was having a couple of drinks in a bar in Detroit Friday night.

Now, that would be all right if it happened once,

but it happened to me a lot.

And you wake up in all these strange places and you can't remember where the hell you are. And it's, it's embarrassing and you don't want to ask

and you finally figure it out and you know, you managed to get home and, and, and, and of course, the first question is, where have you been?

They've been calling from work. You know if you anchor the news and you don't show up, they notice.

They just expect you to be there every God damn day. It's a

mean. You're under pressure that way and it's just,

God, it's awful. And,

and I don't know how to explain my behavior. I don't know how to, I don't know what to say. I you know, because I because I ain't going on these trips alone

most of the time. I have company and

and my only hope of course most of the time is that she's got her own credit card.

But I spent huge amounts of money trying to impress people I don't even know. And it turns out I spent most of the time I spent about 10% more than I make.

And it don't make any difference how much I make because I'll tell you what, by the time I was 27 or 28 years old, I was making a lot of money and, and I was having a good time. And they were ABC was flying this other guy and I into New York. And we were being wind and dined in the Leonard Goldenson suite at the New York Hilton Hotel. And we were being taken up to the top of the the black tower there on the Avenue of the Americas.

And they put us in this big auditorium. I'm 27 years old, 28 years old, and we're lecturing the suits. We used to call them the suits. These are the guys who sales guys and advertising guys from all of the country would come in and they'd sit in this auditorium and we would lecture these guys on how we got such great ratings in Detroit

and we had no idea,

but we would tell them anyway. We made stuff up and they took notes

and those were wild times. And it was, it's my bookie. Tell them

I'm giving the 14 points though,

and

the Super Bowl is over.

So

that's why I was.

And so we're working hard, the ratings are great, we're making a ton of money, and I'm drunk all the time. Just drunk night after night after night after night and just roaring around having a hell of a time. And

I can only tell you that by the time I was 30I began to get very tired

and it became harder and harder to function.

It became harder and harder to go down and sit in that studio and have internals goddamn lights on you and you just want to melt.

And it was good if you got it got harder and harder to read the copy. It got harder and harder to convince people that I was OK because by this time I'm getting a reputation for being a real bad drunk and but the ratings are good so they're not going to fire me.

They they just lectured me a lot.

And when I'm 35, my wife divorces me because she thinks I'm an alcoholic and I know that I'm not an alcoholic. I'm too successful to be an alcoholic. I got underwear with my initials on it.

How can I be an alcoholic?

And

I, I I went on got drunk one night and I called this guy

and this is a guy that had told me some months before that he was an alcoholic. He said it right out like he was real proud of it. And and he said you call me if you everything you got a problem. I

say call them not because I thought I had a problem. I got to get this woman to drop the divorce. I got a bullshitter and she ain't buying my bullshit too much anymore. I've been married to her 14 years. She now knows all the stories and I don't know what to say to her to get her to drop this divorce. And I call this guy

and I said I'm not an alcoholic, that's not why I'm calling you. And he said, yes, I know social drinkers called me all the time at 3:00 in the morning.

He said, what do you want? I said well I've I've been thinking

and what I'm thinking is if I don't drink for about 6 months that she'll drop this divorce and I can get back to what I consider normal living. And but I got to bullshit a pretty good here for about 6 months now. I can stay sober for about a week when I'm really pushing it.

But after that I get real nervous. See I have this problem. It's not drinking problem. What I drink I feel better. It's when I quit drinking and I go on the wagon that's when I get nervous. I get nervous and edgy and irritable and crazy and I can't function

and that's when I ain't drinking.

I have what I would describe as a horrible sobriety problem.

I don't know what you're supposed to do with that.

And the guy said, well, he said, I'll tell you what he said,

we just do this thing a day at a time. I said now I need about six months.

One day she didn't buy that ship.

Six months

and he said, well, Barney, I haven't had a drink actually in 4 1/2 years. I said, well, my problems not quite that severe.

I don't need that kind of time. I need about six months. This was the first conversation I was to have with this man

of many conversations because he became my sponsor and we were to have many conversations that were the same as that.

That is, I would talk to him about what I was feeling and thinking, and he would say something back to me that would indicate he hadn't been listening.

And he did it all the time.

He starts taking me to these stupid meetings which were just God awful.

We go to these meetings and it was the same crap

every night.

Somebody get up there and leave the meeting be real happy and joyful and free and,

and, and then they would, oh, call on people to read

and they'd read the same crap out of that book every,

every night, like they couldn't remember it.

Chapter 5 and how it works.

And then they would call on people to read who weren't very good at it,

and then they would applaud.

Oh, George is going to read Chapter 5. Is that one?

Jesus. And then they read these traditions. I had no idea what the hell that was all about, but they seemed really important to these people. They were. Every night they read them.

I thought they must do that to see if the newcomers can pronounce anonymity. I don't know what.

And then when they can't, they laugh at him. You know, the same.

I don't know, I don't understand. I don't have the slightest idea what's going on there reading all these steps. They're talking about God. I don't know. And then you get people getting up the podium and they talk about all their marriages and their divorces and their jails and their hospitals and their institutions. Jesus. It just goes on and on and on, this lip Dee of horrible things that happen to these people

and I don't identify with the crap and people are saying have you identified yet?

I'd say no,

and I don't expect to.

I'm not like these people. There was an Anchorman in the bunch.

Nobody like me

and we go to these meetings. We go to these meetings and they go to the meetings. And then I said to this man who was my sponsor 01 night I, I thought I could help these people a little bit. And I, I, I went up to this woman who seemed to be in charge of this meeting.

And I said, you know, I notice you folks read out of your blue book there every night,

and you seem to read the pretty much the same stuff. And there is a lot of great literature that's been written over the centuries,

prose and poetry, things that would be very inspirational to these people, I'm sure. And I could bring it in here for you.

And I know it's a lot of the people that are reading are not very good at it.

On the other hand, I am

so I could read this stuff and be something new for these folks. You know, they must get off aboard with this crap.

And she's How long have you been sober? I said about two weeks,

she said. Well, I'll tell you what I need. I need a floor mopper,

I said. You need a what?

She's we need somebody to mop the floors. After the meeting, I said, oh God. And I, I, I went back to my sponsor and I said, how do we write to New York to report that bitch?

She's trying to kill newcomers

he's really talking about. I said. She wants me to mop the God damn floors. They saw it be a good thing for you, I said. Why? He said, well I don't think you should ever ask me that question. Just do what I'm telling you to do and mopping the floors will help you stay sober. I said I don't understand how he says just do it. So I started mopping the floors there on the left side of Ohio St. every Tuesday night.

Actually, I got pretty good at it and and I was finishing my side quicker than the guy on the other side

and and my side was cleaner.

So every Tuesday night I finished, you know, and I got you again, you son of a bitch.

I never told him there was a race. But you got to keep it, Ed. Should I?

That's the way I used to amuse myself. I said the back of meetings and mock speakers and make fun of everybody. And I thought the birthday cakes were really ridiculous. And then after I'd been hung around here about six months,

I, the thought occurred to me because I haven't had a drink in six months.

And I, I thought, I wonder if I get one of the cakes, if I could get a year, I could get a cake and I could make a speech

and I could tell these people what a bullshit thing this is and that I don't like their book. It's badly written. It's a bunch of crap. I don't work their steps. I don't believe in God

and, and I've had, I've studied theology for 16 hours at Notre Dame and I don't believe in God.

So I can tell him why I don't believe in God. I could lay that one on him,

but I could tell him I stayed sober anyway

and they could stick that.

So I sat in the back plotting my speech

night after night after night. I sat there and I thought about that speech and I kept adding things and subtracting things. And I'm really going to tell these people.

And and then I had this spiritual experience. I sit in a meeting one night. This tall redhead walked by

and she had this gorgeous long red hair

achieve these long legs. She had the greatest legs in North America

and, and I knew she could help me.

So I started chasing her around the meetings. And I, I, I, I, I went to a lot of meetings just to see those legs. I hated meetings, but I would go to see those legs and, you know, I'd walk a mile for a camel, I'd walk a mile and see those legs. And I, I kept trying to get her to go out with me and she wouldn't go out with me. She had three years of sobriety and she said I don't date newcomers. And I said, well, I'm new now, but I'll be old later. How about coffee

trial? Something here?

And one night, she said. How many children do you have? That's what I have. Six, but they're very small. You'd hardly notice them.

See, I in a way trying to threaten my wife.

I had said to her one night, if you don't drop this divorce, I'm going to get the best lawyer in Beverly Hills, that I'm going to demand custody of the six children.

I thought that would scare her a little bit. She said you can have them and she left.

So I'm living in this apartment in Santa Monica with my six kids,

the oldest of whom was 12, and the little one was about a year.

And I'm trying to go to meetings that I'm trying to work and I'm trying to function. And I'm half crazy. And I hired a lady to take care of the kids. And I didn't speak very good Spanish and her English wasn't very good. So I couldn't explain to her that I couldn't pay her. But

I figured, you know, a couple of weeks and she'll leave and I'll get another woman and that's the way it'll go. And but she stayed. I don't know. She wouldn't go away, that woman. And

finally after about a month, I came up with some money and I paid her and her sister came over and sister spoke pretty good English. And I, I said ask her how come she stayed when I didn't pay her? And she asked her and she said, 'cause she really likes your kids. I said, God, it's amazing. And so that woman stayed with us for a long time and

I went to meetings and I hated the meetings and I the book to me was just so stodgy and and so to God. It was it been written in 1939.

And I thought, you know, this is old fashioned stuff. It it it read a little bit, I thought, like it had been written by an Episcopalian from Vermont.

Turns out it was written by an Episcopalian from Vermont.

But I just,

I, I hated the meetings that I hated the book and I hated everything was going on. I, I, some of the speakers were kind of funny and, and I really was attracted to this redhead. That's why I don't think motivations matter. See, I, I don't care what your motives are. If you're in here for all the wrong motives, that's fine. That'll be a difference. The trick here is listen to me. If you're new, OK, put your ass in the chair and leave your head outside

every night. That's it. There is no other advice. I'm going to talk here for 45 minutes. That's the most important thing I'm going to tell you. Put your ass in the chair and leave your head outside because your motives don't matter here. And, and, and in my opinion, this is not an intellectual exercise. There's nothing to be learned here. There there is. It's not like you're going to come in here, take notes and learn something intellectually and then know something.

We do not have a chapter entitled

into thinking

we got one called into action.

What does that mean? It means my floors. It means my coffee. It means stacked chairs. It means participate. It means if somebody asks you to read or participate in an AA meeting, say yes. That's all. You don't have to like it. Just say yes

because you're saving your own ass.

I mean, I see people all the time and I mean, we, we have a problem. We have a La Jolla meeting on Saturday nights and we have 210 minute speakers and we have a hell of a time trying to get two people to talk for 10 minutes. Oh, I don't think I want to do that. Who gives a shit what you want?

You do it anyway.

You don't have to, you know It doesn't matter what you want, doesn't matter what you think. Thinking got you here,

action will keep you here. Chuck Chamberlain. It was a wonderful guy in a, a used to say, I don't believe that you can think your way to good actions and I certainly don't think you can think you're way sober,

he said. But you can act your way to better behavior. You can act your way to better thinking ultimately, but action is the magic word. You just got to do it.

It's like my sponsor used to say, don't come to a meeting and tell me how you feel. Don't come to a meeting and tell me what you think. Come to the meeting and tell me what you did today to participate in your own sobriety. Did you call an alcoholic? Did you read the book? Did you go to a meeting? Did you call your sponsor? Did you try to help some newcomer? Well, I'm a newcomer, So what? Somebody's newer than you.

If you got one day, you tell the guy that just walked in the door how you got the one day. That's what you do. We share our experience, strength and hope. That's what we do here. So if you're new, you turn around and get the person that's newer and give them your phone number and get them to call you. Somebody newer than you.

If you got one day, you tell the guy that just walked in the door how you got the one day. That's what you do.

And you got a commitment from the newcomer to say finally,

yeah,

because he's sure you want something

and you get him to do that.

And that's. And and I worked with a lot of new people my first year. I sponsored people in my first year, and they all got drunk every day. I want them. And I finally gave up on it because I knew I wasn't helping anybody. And I didn't know. I didn't know what to do because everybody I'm working with is getting drunk. And finally, when I was three years sober, I almost got drunk.

By that time I'd gone to work for CBS and Philadelphia. Make it a ton of money,

successful as hell. Not going to meetings, because

who needs meetings when you're three years over

and

a guy And my wife was divorcing me. I married the redhead, by the way, when I was a year and a half sober and she had two kids and were raising these eight kids.

Yeah,

and,

and a guy said to me one night, a guy had 18 years of sobriety and he said to me, he said, how's it going? I said, would you really like to know?

He says yeah. And I told him, I said it's not my life is not good. I'm here trying to be successful. I'm trying to get the ratings up. I'm trying to make a career here. But I don't like the A, A here and I don't like the way they do their meetings. They're very different from California. And they don't read Chapter 5, for Christ sake. And

they don't read the traditions and they don't have birthdays here, and they don't have birthday cakes. They call them anniversaries. And if you sponsor somebody, they don't call them babies, they call them pigeons.

And I said to a guy one night, I said, how come you call him pigeons? He says that I kind of what they do to you.

Yeah.

So the guy that was all different than I, I just thought, Jesus, I can't do that. I can't deal with this. And I said, my wife, you know, I married this girl and she's got these two kids and we got these eight kids and I'm half crazy. And some of the kids are drinking and using drugs, which I thought was kind of unfair and

and I was just nuts. And

the guy said, well, how many meetings do you go to? And I said, well, I don't have time for meetings for Christ sake. I'm trying to be successful here in my career. And he said, how many newcomers do you work with? And I said, I'm no good at that. I tried my first year and they all got drunk.

He said what are you doing about the third step? I said, Oh well, I don't believe in God. Hard to do that one. He said, well, I think you got to go to meetings whether you like them or not.

I think got to go to the meetings and just put your ass in the chair and shut up.

Don't you have to explain to him that you've been sober three years to shut up?

And, and I think you got to have to do something about newcomers. You got to you got to try to give your phone number to newcomers.

And he said, I think you need to do something about the third step. I said, like what? He said, well, we got a prayer in our book here for guys like you. It's the third step prayer.

And I didn't know that

and he pointed it out to me. My sponsor says if you want to hide anything from an alcoholic, put in the big book.

And there it was. There was that prayer,

and I said, oh, yeah, OK, he said. Now he said, why did she just do that? Like you mop floors or make coffee or stack chairs, Just do it. You don't have to believe nothing, he said. Just just say a phony prayer, I said, to a phony God, He said, yeah, of course.

I said, oh, I could do that. He's so sure.

I said, well, I could do that. So I started saying the phony prayer to a phony God, and I'm going to meetings and I'm grabbing newcomers and threatening them,

and some of them stayed sober and I don't know what the hell to do with them when they're sober. They're in your living room, they're in your kitchen, they're on the phone. They won't leave you alone.

What meeting are we going to tonight?

So what do you mean we? You're the newcomer. God damn it, leave me alone.

And they, you know, they embarrass you. They come to the meeting, you know, and you're, you're trying to look like a good sponsor and

they come up and say things like, how do you work? Step three. Sort of embarrassing when you got to say, I don't know. I never tried that one.

Finally, the only thing I knew to do with these people was to sit out with them and tell them the truth,

which is a painful thing for me to do because I'm trying to look good and I'm trying to be smooth and I'm trying to be slick and I can't do that because nothing is working for me. So I sit down and I say, look, let me explain something to you. I don't like Alcoholics Anonymous, okay? I don't like these damn meetings. I think the book is badly written. The steps are bullshit. I don't believe in God

and I'd be honest with you, I don't even like you.

The only reason I'm sitting here talking to you is because somebody told me you would help me.

And this people I sponsor, very sick. They say, oh, I really identify with you.

I have finally come to the conclusion.

But you don't have to be very bright to sponsor people.

I believe this. I think sponsorship is so simple that it almost escaped me. It turns out that the principal job of a sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous is just to keep the baby amused.

Yeah,

keep amused until a A works.

And I know how to keep amused. Go mop floors, make coffee, stack chairs, get involved.

I know how to do that. Call me every day. God damn it, I know how to do that.

And ultimately, and finally, what happens is that a A works. It works in their lives magically, in a way that I could even imagine.

And now I got babies that explain it to me. They love to do that. Well, let me explain the steps to you. But that's just the way it is.

And I got fired from that job and I came back to California and I went to work in San Diego and I found out the a a was different there, too. Jesus, everywhere I go, it's different. And I, I started a meeting in Philadelphia. I started a meeting in San Diego, Then I started another meeting in San Diego.

And the other night somebody asked me to come down and talk at that meeting that I started in downtown San Diego. That damn means going to be 25 years old. And and I went and talked to the other night. I just, it blows my mind when I thought about it, I thought, Oh my God, this means going to be 25 years old