Bob B. from St. Paul, MN at Sacramento Spring Fling, Sacramento, CA

Hi, my name is Bob. I'm an alcoholic to the grace of God and the power of the program. I haven't had a drink since the 10th of December 1967. For that I'm very grateful.

This is

I want to thank London, the entire committee for the opportunity to be here this weekend. This has really been nice. I spoke last weekend at a conference in Southern California and my wife came with me and we have a son that lives in LA. So we did a little family stuff and, and this has been a nice, very nice experience. You do a few things differently. I noticed that you have two different speakers tonight and

alcoholic likes to do everything

and it's difficult. I mean it really is. And you have 15 minute speakers and some of them are dangerously close to being better than your long speakers. And I,

I, I think fear is not a good motivator and

you know, no, but it really has been terrific. I the small world. Chris had talked Friday night. I went to a meeting in LA on

was it Wednesday night, Wednesday or Thursday night? And Chris is sitting in the chair next to me. You know, that's a small world. That was Wednesday and

an Angel last night. What a package Angel is. I mean that is she reminded me very much of an old of a long time sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous that I knew I enjoyed her very much. And like Ron's talk and Ruth blew me away. There's a strength, there's a power and those low bottom stories that is so crisp. You can't I tend

sometimes over intellectualize and, you know, philosophize and there's just a brutal, wonderful strength in what she shared today. I mean it just, you know, right down the middle and and right on the numbers and I I just

like that strength of the people who I've had the privilege of hearing over the years. You know, they just kind of support me with that. I just it gives me a core and tonight Mildred is one of my favorite people in a A so I will

look forward to hearing here. So we've got a nice weekend. If nothing else happens, this will be

wonderful. I started drinking when I was 14 years old. It was a freshman in high school and I was kind of an insecure kid. I was one of those. I kind of felt like everybody got to school an hour early and held a meeting and I missed the meeting. And they kind of decided what was going to go on for the day. And I pretended I was at the meeting just hoping they talk about it and

but they didn't. I just. So I was a small kid, 4 foot 1195 lbs, second smallest kid in my high school class when I entered.

So I had a big mouth, always trying to compensate, always trying to get attention, do things that would attract, you know, have people notice me and I got to be a marginal member of the in Group. And but you know, kind of felt I was there because I was being how everybody else wanted me to be. And one night a buddy of mine had a 5th. We went out and we split that 5th. And you know, I had the same experience that almost all your speakers talked about today. It just altered my whole perception of things for that moment on. I became a social drinker. Anytime anybody else said I'll have a drink,

so shall I just never passed up an opportunity to do it.

I went to a Military Academy in a high school campus and we drank in high school like most people drink in college. We just drink our brains up.

A couple of us almost died of alcohol poisoning. Of my four closest friends, 3 risks are an AAA and one's an Al Anon

and we have and two of our wives are in A and so we had a lot of alcoholism. We had a lot of recovery, which is not a bad combination if you're going to have the disease. It's nice to have the answer, but we drank a lot in high school. By the time I finished high school had a reputation as a drinker and maybe a drunk, but certainly a drinker and I was in trouble and was making false I DS and got arrested a couple of times in a car accident here and there.

And I thought my drinking reputation were problem was more that I was underage and if you drink underage, it's tough to drink easily. You know, you have to plan it around your parents or the cops,

you know, And my dad was not a happy camper when he caught me drunk and either with the police. And so I thought if I got away from home, that would help. So I went away to school and my drinking did not become normal. You'd have a different talker. I drink my way to the University of Notre Dame in the middle of my senior year. One day I just walked out and

I don't know, started out as a pretty good student, ended up as a horrible student. I was going to school one day a week maybe, and civil engineering carrying 25 credits a semester,

which gets kind of hard to bluff your way through a thermodynamics exam, you know?

Now I'm the class drunk. I have three guys in my engineering school petitioned to have me removed. You know, I mean, I really was a class drunk and I didn't,

and I hated that that was not, you know, not what I wanted to have my scholastic Kirby. And I left Notre Dame, as I see, in the middle of my senior year, and I was due to be commissioned that summer as an officer. And I had to get a medical release, a medical release that got us for alcoholism. I was diagnosed an alcoholic when I was 19, which seemed to me to be a misdiagnosis. And

we talked about psychiatrists not knowing what they're doing. But this psychiatrist was right on the numbers, you know? I mean, he, you know, started working with you. And I was about 16. And by the time I'm 18 or 19, he thinks I'm an alcoholic and he thinks I should go to alcoholic synonymous.

That surprised the hell out of me because it didn't fit any picture. I didn't have enough information to think that that was even a possibility. That just seemed like a dumb diagnosis, but got me out of service. I came home, finished school, and when I finished school, my father asked me to leave home. He said, you know, this isn't working. We love you and we care about you, but you're just a absolute pain in the ass and you got to go. And so I left and

took a job at a liquor store and

I almost killed a little girl one day back in. You know, they talk about moments of clarity. I was, I did not hurt the little girl. I came with an inches. I knocked her off her bike backing up drunk. And she was under the back of the truck, but not under the wheels.

And I mean, I just can't. Well, I mean, we've lots of us have been there. And I picked that little girl up and I said, where do you live? And she pointed down and I went down the alley and where she pointed was the house I was born in.

Or excuse me, not my wasn't important, but where I live for 12 years

and the neighbors started to come out and they look like a lynching party,

you know, I mean, I thought I was in serious trouble gonna call the police now when they found out who I was. I live in Saint Paul is like a big small town. I mean, if you, you know,

they still remember our family and it was not horrible. So they, you know, kind of let me off the hook because the little girl wasn't hurt. But those moments of clarity where you're sitting there with a, you know, 5 year old child or four year old child in your arms and just how did I get here? You know, how did you end up with all those wonderful ideas, you know, that you were going to go do and you're just a drunk. You almost,

you know, I mean, just in a moment, you know, you know, clarity. I lost that job for going on 80 miles an hour with the truck and getting the ticket. And I took a job as a waiter. Now I'm working at a waiter to club in Minneapolis and I'm have a place in Saint Paul. But I think in the six months I worked as a waiter, I made it home two or three nights. I just kind of kept a paper bag, couple of paper bags full of clothes over the club. And I get up at 10, drink beer, go to work, you know, work for the waiter from about 11:00 to 2:00. At two I'd go drink beer at a bar, and

five I'd go by 1/2 pint or a pint. And somewhere during that day, I'd figure out who I was going to live with and where I was going to stay.

And you know, Doctor Seuss, the child author, those are actual photographs of people I live with during that period of time,

time in my life.

I got my face kicked in at a party and I got fired as a waiter. They didn't want me serving food, looking how I looked, and I was tapped at no place to go. I hadn't been home in a couple of months. And I went back home and said can I move back in the house? And they let me move back in the house, the condition that I wouldn't drink. And I lied about that. But I got back in the house and alcoholism meant different things to me over at different periods of what it meant more than anything else is about every six months I had to start over.

You know, this is going to be different soon as they get back to school after Christmas, it's going to be different. Next semester is going to be different. Next year is going to be different as soon as I get that job. But maybe if I got a car, it's just it's going to be different. It's going to be better. And it wasn't. It was better for a day or a week, maybe even a month on long stretches, but never

better long term. And it was the zigzag pattern going downhill. And but I made the largest full court press that put pulling my act together. I got back together with Linda, who I had gone with for a couple of years and broke up with for almost a year and we became engaged to be married. I got back together with her and why she got back with me, I'll never know. I mean, I was just the party that I saw her at and talked her into getting back with me was just, I was just a tongue chewing, babbling idiot. Chuck used to say. I mean I literally had drunk myself

sober. I drunk

almost a quart of Jack Daniel was into my second and I felt as sober as I feel at this moment. And I'm my face is all cut up and I've got, you know, stitches. And I'm trying to tell her that I think we should start dating again. And

at that time, my wife was a psychiatric nurse working on an alcohol warden.

Powers of persuasion and

I and think I'd she agreed that we could start dating again and we dated for quite a while platonically and got developed

a good relationship back and I bought a car got my first job got a job executive trainee at a manufacturing concern and I thought well now it's going to be OK only wasn't OK because it was I couldn't shut my drinking down now I'm the company drunk you know I'm in a company of engineers and I stand out like Rudolph the Red nosed reindeer. I am back again, you know, just like I was in engineering school and I'm falling asleep at my desk. And I used up my sick leave in the first two months and I'm,

you know, falling asleep in the John and they're paging me trying to find out where the hell I am. And it's just,

you know, and I quit that job after six months, took a sales job, thought a sales job would give me more flexibility. And I had the sales job for about 6 weeks. And I went out on a

three or four day drunk and three day, I guess I woke up one afternoon in August or July of 1967. And I was just panicked, didn't know if I had a fiance or a job or a place to live until I was married. And that was an economic necessity. And I just panicked. And all of a sudden the recommendation of my father and my psychiatrist that I call a A didn't seem such an impossible one. And I called alcoholism,

I got an old timer on the phone and he talked me for a few minutes and he called someone else. He came back on the phone and said, could you go meet a couple of guys at a diner in about an hour? And I said that I would. And he described the two guys. And I called work and found out I had a job and called Lyndon, found out I was still engaged and called home and found they were concerned rather than mad. And which is, I thought, why the hell did you call a A, you know, it just kind of a overreaction, you know, that guilt kind of response that you often get. And

but I wanted to go see what an alcoholic looked like. That was kind of the 1st.

That's how much insight I had. I mean, I literally wanted to go. I was curious to see what these two guys, I mean, you know, how dumb can you get

when you're when you're young and in trouble, you get in front of a lot of help. And I had been in front of bishops and nuns and priests and I'd been in front of lawyers and judges and doctors and psychologists and psychiatrists and, and usually you're in trouble. Almost always they're asking you questions. Usually you don't participate in the conversation. And when the conversation is done, there's a series of things that they advise your family to do with you. Just kind of how those things went. And I thought, I'm going to go meet

two guys that are going to interview me

and they asked me a bunch of questions to come up with some advice. And thank God that wasn't what I found. I sat down with two guys at a broiler that was about two miles from the house I live in now. And one guy's name was Bob. One guy's name was Warren. One guy has six years, one guy has six months. And they said we're from a a we had a drinking problem. We found an answer in a a We're here as much for ourselves as we are for you. You know, we hope this helps you. And but we found it helps us trying to help you, you know, so no pressure. Weren't signing me up for a multi level marketing deal.

Free toaster, you know, there wasn't any business

and they told me the drinking story and I had never talked to another person with a drinking problem. You know, I mean, it's the power of our, you know, one of the great. We have many traditions in AAI think one of the most profound of which is that we share our experience, strength and hope and not our thinking and ideology. You know, there's a power in sharing your life with another person. Those two men shared their life with me and my life changed

out of that conversation.

I mean, it was, it was an experience of grace just period. I mean, it was just was two guys never met him, you know, 2 1/2 hour dinner shared their story and I'm right in the middle of their hand and I'm identifying with them. And I there's just no doubt in my mind that they, you know, have nailed me or what they were talking about I was experiencing. Went to my first meeting that night.

I drank twice after walking an A a once in a business trip to the West Coast. I was told to call AAI didn't. I said I had a bet that I wasn't drinking and I stayed sober half the time and got drunk and in trouble the other half.

And then I was sober almost three months and we got married and I drank on her honeymoon, which I think I had that planned. But I'm enough of a phony that I'm kind of a complier, you know, I had it subconscious, you know, because I mean, it was just the minute I2 times I drank, I was out of town, you know, I mean, that's, you know, when I'm in town and get the system going, I'm compliant when I get out of town. I mean, it's, it's there, but I'm not dealing with it, you know, and

we honeymoon to Acapulco, you know, where the divers dive off those cliffs. And I I could, I dove off those cliffs on my last run.

I was I was in the audience watching a world's high diving contest. I thought, God, that's not so tough. And

I went over and introduced myself to Aleman, the ex president of Mexico. I'm stone drunk. This is not don't picture anything attractive. This is ugly American. I am. You know, his nephew had been my roommate for my sophomore year and he was not impressed with that. His bodyguard was done. So I drove off the public landing, split my swimsuit, cut my leg and climbing up the Cliff. My wife is going absolutely nuts. And I get up to about 85 or 90 feet and I'm stuck. I can't get up. I can't get down

and

I'm watching the waves come in on the waves go out and I, you know, trying to figure out whether to jump or dive. You know, I got to, you know, kind of scope this thing out and finally I figured out screw it and I dove and I made it. God watch it after foods and drinks. If I would have jumped, I would have died. You can't get out for it. I didn't know that. I mean, I'm just literally looking at the, you know, normality talks about seconds and inches there. You could change a second here or there for many of us or an inch here there, you know, and our lives would be very different or mean wouldn't be here in this room.

I want my wife and I would go back there. We went back there about 20 times. We take the kids and my 10th anniversary. She gave me a picture of that chasm with but for the grace of God underneath it. And we are watching the divers day one night at midnight and I said, God, that's the dumbest thing I ever done. And she said vibe. It's not even in the top 10.

I don't know how you can share a life with another person and have such a different view of it. They're just there seems to be a communication problem. I've as I've gotten older, I've got a little heavy and I'm trying to get in shape and she's been after me to get a bike or something. So I got a bike and now she's I got a Harley and I don't know,

try as I can to please her. It just, you know, I mean it just, you know. And

my wife's a neat lady. She's a very active member of Alamo. I can't tell you. I don't know if we'd still be married, but I have. I would have a strong concern about whether we'd be married today if my wife wasn't an active member of Al Anon.

You know, she sponsors people and she goes to the meeting, she starts meetings and it's just, it's just about as important as as it could possibly be in our experience. It's really nice to have someone that won the,

you know, when you get into those inevitable conflicts and fights or whatever the hell you're going to get into someone who's looking at their part.

You know, we turned the lasers on ourselves rather than on each other. I think we would have. So I'm very grateful that she did that. So now I'm an A a 24 years old just after my 24th birthday and I'm sober and glad I got right back a minute. I got off the plane, I went back to a a thank God. I don't know why I was, you know, that smart to do that, But that was the

going to AAA has been easy for me. Living AAA has not been easy. But I think one of the gifts for me is that I want

to go meet those two men I identified and I was given the grace to take the first step. And from the moment I walked in, AAI loved a Now I've had a lot of difficulty sober, but staying has not been my issue. And I worked with, you know, I was the youngest person in our group for two years. And every time a young person came in at about a, you know, our town is a small, big town, Then they'd say, oh, they got a new guy over at Uptown and they,

you know, no matter where the person came in, I'd get a whack at him. And I must have worked with 40 people the first couple of years and no one got sober,

no one got served in and out of treatment, in and out of jail, in and out of everything. And I just,

and I couldn't figure they didn't like AAI, couldn't get him to go to meetings, you know, I mean, and I don't know, you know, and I wasn't, I mean, this was not brilliance on my part. It was not hard for me to go to a, you know. So I really feel like I was, you know, not given a gift, but I mean, whatever

headset I brought that allowed me to stay in Alcoholics now I'm just grateful for because these were people who were every bit as bright. Neither did every bit as in market in some cases to help a lot more and didn't identify, didn't like it, didn't like the meetings. One of the things today when I'm working with someone, they're not going to meetings when they're new, You know, I'm pretty damn sure they aren't really through the first step. They're not identifying because if they identified, it would be their place. They would be going to see their people. That's why I went to a A. That was the only place

that worked. Every place else wasn't working very well. So now I'm 24, and I think, oh, God, this is terrific. You know, I have just screwed up everything I've ever tried to do. Great starter, poor finisher. But I found out I'm an alcoholic. And Alcoholics Anonymous has the answer for the problem of alcoholism. I'm an alcoholic. You got the answer. I got about five or six other things that are going on in my life that are driving me nuts. And if you got the answer, those things ought to go away. And hell, it might take a year.

And boy, they didn't go in a year or two years or five years.

They haven't totally gone away in 31 years. But my problems were horrible, but ordinary, you know, I couldn't get up in the morning, set the alarm clock for 6:30, get up about 20 to 8, supposed to supposed to be at work at 8. It's tough to be at work at 8:00 if you get up at 20 to 8. But an alcoholic can do it 'cause we're quick, you know. But it's hard. I mean, it really is. It's hard. Have a little financial problem. I spent three or $400.00 more months than I made.

If you do that over a long period of time, you'll end up in death. Just want to report that one to you in case you don't know where that goes.

And I was starting to have some marital issues. You know, my wife were newly married and my when I sobered up, my sex life was just terrible. I was I slept poorly. I, you know, on your first year of marriage is supposed to be one of your most amorous times. Everybody's telling me if you put a penny in the jarring and on all that old thing,

there's an old wives chill, that if you put a penny in the jar every time you Make Love in your first year of marriage and then take a penny out every year every time you Make Love afterwards, you will never empty the jar. Now I don't that

that was now that may be very old, but that was what I was told. And I was not putting many pennies in the jar. And I, it was, you know, once in a while I rock by and throw a dollar and just make myself feel better. And I,

and my wife's father was a real regular guy, came home every night at 5:30. He was just, he was a neat man. And I'm just erratic as hell. And I'm, you know, she's seeing less than me married than she was when we were dating because I'm, you know, I'm going to a meeting 6-7 nights a week and she's a nurse. She's getting up at six, I'm in bed, you know, she works, she comes home, I come home at 5:00 maybe. And you know, she broiled something because she can do it. That time is broil And we have, you know, and I eat it and off I go to the meeting and then I can back to the meeting at 11:00,

you know, she's in bed, you know, and this is day in and she's starting to get kind of negative. She's wondering if one of the places I'm supposed to practice the principles is in our home. You know, I'm saying it's none of your business. I mean, you got your program. I got my program. I mean, I don't, you're not supposed to be doing my inventory. And

then we started to have kids and I, you know, my, I had great parents. My dad was my hero. He was a wonderful man. But even great parents make, you know, have issues. And I wasn't going to have the issues that my parents had and I didn't. I had all the issues they had and a bunch they never thought of. I was, I was loud and patient, angry and mature and sometimes violent with my children. I'm not proud of that fact, but that's an accurate description of how I was, especially in my early sobriety

and I had a gambling problem. It was more of a hobby.

Three or four hours a day, four days a week is about how that went. But I was making about $10,000 a year playing backgammon. It was kind of like a second job. I really, I mean, I was almost thought I'd become a professional gambler, which would have been a wonderful experience for my family, I'm sure.

And these were not problems I had sometimes, not annually, not quarterly or monthly. These were daily problems. I mean, I had them all the time and I had them all when I walked in the front door of a A. And, you know, I almost didn't notice them for the first nine months of my spare. I was on a honeymoon. I came in,

I was just overwhelmed with the experience of alcohol, these animals. I just went to the meetings and met people and learned about the steps and just soaked it in. I mean, it was just like, you know, I did a fourth and 5th step, but it wasn't very insightful. It was mostly a recitation of my horrible behavior. It was not, you know, it did not get me at the causes and conditions and but it was the best. I, you know, it was what I did and I did it, you know, as much with as much integrity as I could at two months of sobriety or month of sobriety, however long it was.

And by the end of my first year, I started to get a sense that something was wrong.

In my second year I had a pretty good list of what was wrong. Thank God. God did not give me the list on the first day I was in A A might not have stayed.

You know, I mean, I number of people have talked about it. I mean, I thought a A would be about not drinking. And then when I came in, they told me that alcoholism was a disease, physical but also mental and spiritual, that once I crossed the line from probably drinking into alcoholism, my alcoholism affected me all the time when I was drinking and when I was not drinking. What a revelation.

I mean, that was some of the worst problems I had were cold stone sober, had nothing to do with the physical act of drinking. What I thought you were saying to me is drinking bourbon as your problems start drinking bourbon. You know, I had been there, done that. Just before I went back to my senior year,

I got robbed and rolled pistol whip shot at, thrown out of the second story. But a hotel ended up in a psych ward. After they patched me up, they were not going to let me go back to school

and I talked my way out of it, went back to school, didn't drink for three months and my life didn't change. I didn't all of a sudden become what I thought you were telling me. I become, if I just wouldn't drink, didn't become the model kid, the

good Christian, good student. It didn't happen. And I thought I, you know, improved that I could quit when I wanted to. And booze wasn't the, you know, booze is my answer. You know, it got me in trouble once in a while. But by and large, it was a terrific friend. It was I don't know why I was a man or a boy or a young adult who's I was born with an amplifier set on 9. I had a noise in my head that was louder

than it should have been and it wasn't very comfortable. And when I got a couple of drinks in me, my amplifier went from about nine down to about four and a half or five, and I could be with other people.

Noise in my head went down and I had literally had a totally different experience of people. I felt warmer, I felt different. I felt part of, I felt less shepherd. It was just wonderful. And I thought alcohol was my answer, not my problem. And I thought that if other people knew about some of the dark crevices of my life and some of the experience I've had cold stone sober, they wouldn't think it was just an alcoholic, you know? So what the hell did they know is kind of my attitude

when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. The first major experience I had as I tore down my wall, you know, I, like most of us, built a wall up between you and me and, you know that thought the wall was, you know, high and thick and you couldn't see through it. I didn't know it was paper thin and made a glass. You know that most people

who were close to me in my life had been seen through my wall of protection for quite some time. And the thinking that went on behind the wall says you like me, but you only like what I let you see about me. If you could see everything about me, you'd hate me because I hate me. And who knows more what allows you crumbling insufficient person I am than me? I'm walking around Asis used to say what Comparing my inside with your outsides.

Some point in time I got afraid enough, heard enough,

and scared enough that I tore the wall down. I said hey come and get me. I don't care who you are, where you come from, but just come and get me and help me not be who I am anymore. I can't stand me 5 more minutes. That's why I came to AAI. Didn't know if I was an alcoholic, didn't know what an alcohol. I just couldn't stand me. 5 more minutes and it was painful enough that I was willing to do something that I didn't know about and was a little embarrassing.

If you stay behind that wall, you're probably going to die of alcoholism or drug dependency.

You're gonna feel unique. You're gonna feel that you're different, Clancy talks about. If we ever had a flag that all of us could pledge your allegiance to, the flag would say, But I'm different

and a lot of us have that keen, strong, intense sense of difference. And if you keep that, it will kill you because you will not be able to believe that what worked in my life will work in yours. We have to identify enough to find enough similarities to be able to connect. We have to connect somehow in our hearts or we won't stay. When I tore that wall down, I made a discovery. I'm not unique. My personality may be unique, but not my illness, not my behavior, not my experience, not my feelings. And I started to have a sense that

worked in your life might work in mine.

But now I'm an A and I'm starting to have problems that I don't think a guy sober should have.

So, you know, I started having financial problems and you know, I big spender, I'd go out after the meeting. I might check in economy 50 bucks overdrawn and I'm in the checking plus and I'm buying dinner. You know, that's my that's how I handle it. And

so I put a brick up. You know, thanks a lot for helping my drink. I promise. Stay on my finances,

you know, so now I'm having a little trouble at home and Linda and I are fighting a little bit, you know, and say thanks. I've got my dream promise. Stay out of my marriage.

You know, I'm gambling a lot, so I'm not going to work very often. When I go to work, I don't stay because I don't know what to do. So I, you know, thanks a lot for having my drinking problem, but stay out of my work,

stay out of my sex life, stay out of my finances, stay out of my gambling. Brick by brick, sober in AAA, over a four or five year period of time, I built a wall back up, going to four or five meetings a week.

I had a sponsor. I did a fourth and 5th step. I was not intentionally deceitful. I was deluded. I was. I was in such denial. My sponsor knew about 65 or 70% of what was going on. That sounds like a low percentage. And I know that you and California are all up in the 90s,

but, you know, in Minnesota we're still struggling, you know, and I, you know, I mean, I really try, you know, and I didn't think Warren got it. You know, my sponsor, you know, I'm hyper and I'm flying about 3 feet off the ground. Warren's very laid back,

got 44 years sobriety, still my sponsor, you know, great relationship and he got it. You know, now that I'm 55 and sponsoring kids that are your young men that are in their 20s, I don't expect their lives to be perfect. Warren did not expect me to have it all together. I was the guy that expected me to have it all together, which is why I lied to Warren or why I was living in such denial that I couldn't give Warren as accurate a picture as I probably might have, should have, could have given him, you know,

So I'm going along and I, you know,

first year I could name some of the issues. Second year, I got a real good list. Third year, they're bothering me. 4th year, they're eating my lunch. At the end of my fifth year, I'm in a lot of distress in my sobriety.

It feels like I'm going backwards.

You know, it's a bad deal Now. The truth is, is I was not going backwards it I felt like I was going up the down escalator. Every time I take a breath, I just kind of went down 2 steps. But I think it would be more accurate to say is that I move as I move forward in my recovery. You got me more honest,

less able to stuff and deny what was going on in my life. And so I started to see these things in my life more than I saw them before. And while it looked like it was getting worse, I was just starting to see them.

You know, I don't know what it is about Alcoholics. We feel bad when we discover negative things about ourselves. It would be like we'd rather have the negative things and not know about them.

I used to tell a joke that I'm now going to tell that my wife does not approve of, but she's not here.

I acknowledge your disapproval and I'm going to tell them because I tell it well and I think it fits in this part of my stir.

But it's about a lady that goes the doctor and doctor says what's wrong? She said those horrible sensation. She said I have the sensation that I'm passing gas. You cannot smell it or hear it, but I have this

uncomfortable sensation. So doctor gives us some medication, says come back in a week, and she takes it and comes back in a week and the doctor says, how's it now? She says it's worse, She's worse. She says, yeah, now you can smell it,

Doctor said. Well, good, now that we have your nose cleared up, we can work on your hearing.

So there's a level of perception, self perception that is sometimes, you know, not,

you know, but now I'm sober, I'm, you know, working with guys and I'm sober six or seven years and I'm telling when I say I'm in distress, I'm in a lot of distresses. 7 years of sobriety. I'm thinking about

leave an AAA. I'm thinking maybe I gotta go to Gamblers Anonymous. I'm thinking that I'm a poor, you know, great starter, poor finisher.

You know, I, you know, had a great faith, lost my faith, didn't work for me. Had a great family, didn't seem to work for me as a much. You know, I went to a great school and didn't, you know, just and now I'm an A A and it's a great place. But I'm, you know, doing what I usually do. Start good and then poorly.

And

it's, you know, new guy comes in the club and gives me that bushel basket full of manure and tells me about all the problems that he's got. And I say, hey, God, I'm glad you're here. You know, as horrible as it is and as bad as it seems, you're in the right place

if you just come here and stay,

you know, get a sponsor, read the book, try and I don't have to do it perfectly. Just try to do as good a job as you can with these steps. You're going to be OK. See, that guy over there got his life was a mess two years ago and now he's knocking out of the park.

You're going to be just fine. Then I get in the car 11:00 at night and I drive home and I say, Bob, when are you going to be fine?

You just bought a $300.00 Sport coat at a store that you had a $400.00 bill at. When you gonna stop doing that?

When are you going to learn how to work? You do not have a pass. I do not. You know almost everybody in the world knows how to work and you don't know how to work.

When you gonna stop being angry with your children and more loving with your wife? What, are you gonna stop gambling? I didn't have an answer 'cause I'm busting my britches to try to not do those things. I'm not a guy who has no integrity. I know what's wrong. I'm working my little Pratt off on it and I'm failing and

out of fear I I guess I subconsciously knew where I was going. I've always had good teachers and good models in a A and I think I knew that the people who had what I wanted

had a better relationship with a higher power. They knew more what God had to do with Wednesday than I did. You know, I had a lot of,

I had a great religious and spiritual background, but when I it was unaccessible to me at that point in time in my life,

and I know the answer was to get closer to God, but I had a problem the minute I tried to get closer to God. What the hell do you think God's going to want me to do? Quick gambling, get up in the morning, go to work, stay at work, beloved and kind to your wife and children. Stop. You know, I mean, don't spend more money than you have. You know, I mean, I know what God's going to want me to do. What the hell is the use of going to God to try to develop a relationship if you can't fulfill the conditions of the relationship?

I was stuck in that place for two years.

I did. I mean, I just as soon as I clean my act up, going to go to God. I know I positive he's got the answer. I can see evidence of it around me,

but I can't change these damn things. And if I can't change them, there's no sense, you know, signing up.

So I was stuck there. And I went back to the steps as best I knew how with that flaw. And I went back and I took step one at 8 years of sobriety. And I found out what powerlessness and unmanageability meant to me. Wasn't very hard, clearly powerless. Everybody knew my life was unmanageable.