The 47th Annual Florida State Convention in Naples, FL

The 47th Annual Florida State Convention in Naples, FL

▶️ Play 🗣️ Clancy I. ⏱️ 1h 6m 📅 17 Jul 2024
my name is planned G. insulin and I'm an alcoholic
and we're glad to be here at the young man who read the traditions where to go
as far as I'm concerned you can read the long form because we need to hear a multi
in my home group to Pacific group Russia's we read them the long forms the second Wednesday of every month there's a thousand people there they need to hear whether glad to hear them
at I was a little surprised as he got into it
I certainly will read them but not it may be some other meetings
I'm very glad to be here I'm glad to be back in Naples haven't been been Naples
maple seven coming to Naples at the last week of October for every year for the last since nineteen seventy staying in bill's case housed on Gulf drive and with a bunch of guys around the country who are known as the knights of humility
because of their arrogance
there's only one humble night and I'm too humble to tell you that is
but I really love name so why should grow unfortunately but it was a celebrity soon I'm glad to be back here glad to be at this convention or thank Joe on the committee for inviting me my first I first talk to the Florida state a convention I guess and thirty years ago over in Miami and I remember how much I enjoyed that and I and joy being here and this is really I've I've really kind of utilities is spent so much good entertainment you kind of feel like you hate to spoil it by having a talk in the middle of a general
they moved maybe and get these honeys out you're like coming there
I wish one would collapse in my arms
they did a wonderful job though
an idea last night I mean you know today we got the star studded stuff in my study of the medieval stuff and I was watching Joe March around would dress to king Henry the eighth and and Tom or was it some kind of a night
in some gone of some sort and I
and I noticed Joe kept his costume on a timer took his off by the end of the evening
I said why is that Tom Herman what's what's wrong why are you changing music on CD project once a king always a king but once a night is enough
I really enjoyed the commission joined the meeting so going to meetings I enjoyed last night Brian for many times I was like to hear me talk I certainly enjoyed gains presentation instigate G. on the
on the singleness of purpose which again is something we need to hear and unfortunately most people need to hear it don't go to the meeting that's that's a trouble those kind of meetings you singleness of purpose hello aren't going there and and really you really find out front what aid is about those kind of meetings she does remarkably good job number those of us that were there enjoyed it very much and I of course her Alan on speaker this afternoon who's a
one of my
you'll have to say about that
one of my very favorite she's the only on on speaker I know that I refer I recommend people go in here and
I mean I don't go myself but I recommend a lot of people
get a very excellent talk nice nice girl and a
it's been a good all the small management goes for just a good
find a moment of a history
I was killed in a crash on these people and outside there can you people back understand me at all
I have been able to understand anybody
the secret
hi
summation there and we have some new people some of our reading here's a surprising to see that
and it's hard to remember that you look around the room as well well the hotel today thinking I'd like to find some new coaches look at all these people already so well all casual and try to imagine everyone of them sick and the man on shaving in the women's smelling bad after drinking and drunk and sick I think everyone here has been like that and what a miracle it is for us to be here and so hard to remember this so easy to take this for granted because no that's that's the bad thing about eight talks you know how they're going to turn out
sooner or later no matter how sad I make this story
here I'm going to say and then
I put the plug in the jug
it's just been wonderful objection
Hey would be a lot more realistic at the group level food have speakers are resolves it and then it turned out god dammit I just couldn't make it
more closely to watch this is gonna be one who makes it or not you know
because that's the way it is in the in the groups
are you a
I think it's a funny thing we we talk a lot about eighty and how easy it is and it is so easy as a man really nothing to it and that's why this is so strange that so many people slip and have such a hard time with that I was in and out of a year after year after year after year and I don't like pain and I hate being treated like in for I hate to go back to those meetings is it well that jerk is back again I hate these things I don't like pain and yet I keep slipping and I never it just seems as though I was one of the ones god shows us was the main reason was because I felt like I was a bad man in the center and I'd hear people say well I'm sorry to god's grace and when they say that I don't I'm going to stay sober because I'm not going to get god's grace god's grace goes to good people just go to bad people and I I sometimes can stay sober day till we got talking about returning to god and that was the beginning of the end I just I can't do that
they only have one
also one probably the holy centers I had I never could identify you know the the new people here tonight you're saying you don't alcohol is a first alcoholics purchase problems alcohol and you come to eighty eight and had major problems alcohol then you return to god and then after you get new life you show your gratitude by helping others and I can't do any of those things because my problem really isn't alcohol and I can't return to god because of god exists I am damned there's no way around that and there's no way I'm going to stay around here
you don't many years ago nineteen nineteen fifties by the gradual to ensure the grapevine
Dr silk with two of the bravest man eight history not able to duck bill Wilson Dr
wrote an article for the grapevine discussing slips he's I don't know why alcoholics make such a big fuss about slips is that there's some sort of supernatural thing god coming down to punish bad people he said we see this in medicine all the time he said we have someone who has a severe heart attack and we we pulled him through the heart attack and we get on their feet again and we give them a regime to follow a regime of you must get your rest and you must watch what you eat and you guys check certain exercises and you take these medications at this table fine but after awhile it gets boring
and they start making little alterations and pretty soon well I don't need all that restrict me after all this time and I don't you know I could have been a little thing to eat and little by little and they don't ever go over here they just go off a little bit but they keep going off a little bit and one day there over here and they have another heart attack and sometimes die just same thing with diabetics receipt all the time diabetics with the weather feed together we covered can't have sugar must take your insulin take this diet get your rest and they do just wonderfully the left one is so boring
and I can't believe a little sugar thing would hurt me and I don't really need all I'll get more rest next week just you know and on and on what either read on the go that's all that happens alcoholics drug use I don't need all this stuff and little by then you're over there and you're gone you should not make a big deal out of it is just human nature
and it really I can understand that so welcome looking back in retrospect
I I grew up but I was raised in a very strict religious family up in northern Wisconsin Norwegian Lutheran
you don't see many Norwegian restaurants in Florida or anywhere else
a few years ago speaking an op you know Oslo and after the meeting that took me up to north of there too
racial group run stolen or my grandfather had come from the eighteen eighties a whole bunch of game in America my grandfather's brothers and all kinds of people came to America in a big mob to get out of that damn climate
and they all settled in Wisconsin and Minnesota
and spend the rest of your life thing yes this is cold here too
when I go in there they brought to the Norwegian Lutheran church with him I thought this California when I went to Norway the church the Norwegian with intrusion or was much more liberal than this Wisconsin because they had needed what should liberalize the kept up the way they remembered it eighteen eighty five as much as they could and you know you just have to it is a good idea ten commandments you try to observe the ten commandments you you don't see him and you stay away from Catholics
it seems reasonable
and when I I was the bad you know you seem to need more fun than other newsrooms in the pajamas eight or nine and broken couple committed a second lease it forgot to honor my mother my father my couple did my neighbor something on it and little by the time I was twelve and then some more people think whatever's fifteen I knew that I would stand and I didn't want to be but I just I just can't do it
and would save me is that the war started I ran away to the war
and I browse had this secret knowledge I'm really going to go to hell you know usually when you grow up you get over that reply Hitler said you give me their minds under twelve and they'll be a little bit of **** went by the winter ninety five and so I
are you one day I was having trouble in school I was having some trouble with life and and a small and skinny other people but your pimples and I
the war started I thought I'm going to the chapel I'll go toward I'm going to kill ****
and I in the side of my mother gave me I was going to order one of the superior Wisconsin visit my aunt she packed my little bag and gave me bus fare and I checked out and he tried to San Francisco had no idea where the hell is going on one ride all the way or I would never would have made it I told this guy I wanna I wanna be in there
really bring Cargill chaps you know small this character to be in the navy going back to the ship he said you're looking at the Rinker realty you might get the merger minority Cryin for men they really need every little breed they'll take
message me show me how to go to go to the Coast Guard office I went there sanctions killed zero three sixteen I lied my age she said you're only sixteen a have to have your parents permission try to run the block that my parents permission
and they gave me Siemens papers right there and got to be the national maritime union I signed a waiver for my dues whatever they were I got to me than Embarcadero put me on a big ship an hour later is about where the South Pacific
and it really was fun for about forty five minutes
you know these tough guys and I was stuck in a room I was they called it a cabinet was cabins have blogs this was a room with three of the worst type of people in any small skinny pimply faced dumb kid can be with these guys are called man
what was to be here
and I lay in my book these are these guys start talking and I never heard talk like that I was in the room with big time Sanders I thought I'd been listening these were big time center said they'd been doing dirty things with girls in that chances for for days apparently I
I mean I'd had section Claire Wisconsin at fifteen but I've been apprehensive but I've been afraid that been alone
these guys were doing people
in a study of four of course they've all got black here those are the Catholics have heard about
three hundred mission
I found a mission that ship by beginning ship fool you know after awhile I can't go up there not only left handed ranch
I can't love to keep British telecom we need to elbow grease
these guys all had whiskey in there but she makes me drink every night and drink when they get off watching it just to Palm Beach had never seen anything like that
and they drank and cursed and talk dirty and I just felt so bad
and one day this guy turned to me how much he'll join here you think you're Manafort all she's not
we shop the bottle in my face and I was dumb but I was basically a Norwegian author despite being a bad one
and I just was
developing a something to tell about just demolish
you big
badman get the bottle out of my face I have to be a Norwegian look through we don't drink whiskey and if we did I promised my mother grandmother we have not going to be quick and don't you ever do that again I may be small but I got some I guess some honesty
has your telemedicine what you're man enough I heard a voice say god damn right
I had my first drink of the respondents close to that I threw up and they laughed at me
in all the way across the central Pacific when nobody's again speaking that K. C. back sooner or later another one to take a drink I vomited that went up to the didn't know I was so desperate want those guys to think I was a man I could hold a drink down I never could we're coming into Pearl Harbor finally I saw that movie Pearl Harbor last year due to the terrible love story but it really had dated recreated that's where Pearl Harbor looks to be getting a World War two
and I was it was up to look at another ticket and drink the SLOC one more time in the day before my sixteenth birthday it stayed down
and I couldn't breathe
and all of a sudden something strange happened I found myself feeling significantly better
right I realize why people drink I did to in your teams you learn things you don't pay much attention to it when the ship smoke nobody my family small visual I spoke to Putin smoked infused
what do I spoke to didn't puke wrestled to a half or three packs a day every day for the next forty seven years I learned of course a little bit on that ship I learned to techniques for lost
not a member work but I had at least started
and I would be a terrible I'll call it the next day they took me to Honolulu bought before bugs appeared I got drunk they left I left a funny little
I want another ship to the motion islands after that and I look back and I I really like to do I tried to learn to drink from then on to drink they would think it would make me sick because what I found out as a teenager that drinking give me a good feeling I don't know what it was I guess in retrospect I think what it was was so significant I believe I would describe it as that was the first time I ever felt the way men looked
and it's just remarkable three holes in me were filled up
and many years later standing on Skid Row in Los Angeles
my teeth picked out and everything I had gone after being somewhat successful don't ask me why I drank alcohol I could give all surgeries based on my psychoanalysis I'd spend thousands of dollars in psychoanalysis I read books I read German philosophy did lot of things and I can give you reasons why of the conflicts in inter conference in my being but looking back the one answer I wouldn't have given because it would be understood it was the correct answer the correct answer was I had my last drink because it made me feel the way men look that's about the only thing I can describe
I remember the last day I drank so many years later
two big guys threw me out of a skid row mission I land outside the sidewalk
and I stood there in the rain and cold rainy morning sick and desperate
terrible feeling I don't know what the feeling was I know what it is now because I've seen it in others I'm sure there are people in this room of had a feeling there is no friendly direction you have no more friendly there's no place to withdraw to to go back to to say I'm sorry you are on your own you better make it
if someone guy would company that morning and said you know slam you're dying you're down to a hundred and twenty seven pounds she lost your wife and children or see them again
you lost your career once upon a time they called you a boy genius now you can get a job washing dishes
you've lost your all your clothes in that great car you're driving for someone that you lost in Phoenix new at the jail in Phoenix that for the guy kicked her front teeth out centers tend your with your blood dripping down your mouth and you're sick and bloated and got no closer your clothes are torn and covered with vomit
your little mother up in Wisconsin she no longer allowed to accept phone calls from you because your stepfather so tired of watching you call her and manipulators so should go to a little tiny bank account and send a few more dollars and try to help a little boy
now you're dying on the street or even go to a often on for almost ten years now and you sit in these meetings smugly even now and think these idiots in their little problems what what would what did you go back to a one more time and admit you're an alcoholic and do something about it
and if some guy had said that to me and if I'm in a mood to be honest which I probably would not have been how to handle pal
you don't understand I'm not really an alcoholic
we might as well prove you're not an alcoholic I would be able to do that
it would have been able to stand back and delineate the differences so I probably would have done what people like me do when we get cornered and were afraid I take refuge behind bluster
and I say things like object out of my face you son of a **** let me
because I'm afraid I don't know what free
I can look back now and to
really understand a little bit more about that situation I mean I knew I had problems I've had no problems I was a little boy there's I've always had the feeling I guess in red I don't know what the feeling was that I would look at it later in life
I've always had the feeling there's something missing in me and I don't know what it is and nobody tells me but I know when I get close to people they act as though there's something missing in me because they don't seem to accept me the way the except other people and I don't seem to fit into places like I want to fit in to let other people seem to fit into and I feel different I feel lonely sometimes I get the middle crowds we should feel lonely I feel less than sometimes I feel superior summers but I don't feel equal to anybody I feel not a part of things and not all of these things aren't there all the time but the common goal like bubbles in a pot and I
I really hate that either right grow up a lot growing
but I didn't I did not grow to yeah I had I had some victories along the way you know I've had victories on which was fine but today
but the victory still never seem to last just they just seem to last a day and then now what you can do to prove yourself always got to prove myself I was going to prove something I don't want to work for what about
and I when I get older I
became somewhat successful as a writer
and I got it right said to money and wonders of the what I got to psychoanalysis
and I really I really got to like psychoanalysis I spent thousands of dollars in psychoanalysis and I don't know why I liked it because only ever hear in psychoanalysis new news and how you've been hurt in ways you don't remember yeah but I yeah I really liked it I use one of the things Jesus it's a sad story but I'm doing pretty well
and I never understood why psychoanalysis
people like me I don't know ten years later several quite a while a few years ago a guy that I sponsors telling me how much help you shooting by going to adult children of alcoholics not tia Allen on version of the other version
he said you wanna go to couple business ensure love to go
and I sat there and I watched this action going on and I suddenly realized that's what psychoanalysis did for me it really helped me
of all the emotions I know probably the worst one is deep seated guilt continual perpetual go you don't know is recognized but there's always that ball in your stomach and not only guilty of the things you've done but kill to the things you should have done and didn't do it is to lay down if you go through life it seems to me if you want to feel like this is always like this just always off somehow
and what do you think I don't know of any way to get rid of guilt drinking gets rid of it temporarily get rid of that scale at least
what what do you think with therapy yes really guilt
and that's what psychoanalysis did for me whether intended to work that way or not I don't know and I don't know whether the adult children of alcoholics and I'm supposed to work this way but it worked this way for me
it just boils down to this
it works on the principle
that the
patient is and has always been a victim
you haven't heard a great deal it's not your fault you may not receive the love you needed could not receive the nurturing the friendly hands that should have been there and on and on as you get that little by little you come to realize yes I was hurt a lot and little by little you come to realize it really wasn't my fault
I've been made this way by forces beyond my control
and little by little guilt slowly dissipates
and is great although I did I never thought of guilt dissipating I just started feeling better but looking back I can see that's what it does deal disappears
there's a great relief that hadn't hadn't come for years he said what's wrong with that that's a great thing and maybe it is for most people but you know you'll discover anything did you find good in this world there's always a little price tag for a little little tag attached to it and there are three little price tags for victimization that to you don't see the time but you can seem in retrospect clearly one whether you intend to or not you must accept and enhance Billings the resentment resentment toward the people of her chin resentment towards the people of failed you you go to those meetings where there's no laughter in those meetings they are intense meetings of people talking about how they've been hurt
and the second will price tag you praise you must accept the fact that you have been made irrevocably different
that you're you know you're different you're gonna stay different I didn't really understand what you're heard one of their groups talk one time he said
we're like trees or river sapling someone reach within us and pulled out our hearts we continue to grow physically we look like all other trees but we have no heart we have no soul because been taken from us
and of course the third of the price that you pay which is obvious if you're like me
intermittent but intense self pity
I could have been something by god you know I think you have seen on the waterfront word Marlon Brando's edges ready I coulda been a contender Jimmie few to taking care of me hi
and it will show that the inconvenience of to get rid of guilt maybe they're all right and maybe they are for most people
after I was here a while sober and begin to understand that and reading this book and started understanding I ran across something funny in this book
this book list the three most lethal emotions for people like me
resentment self pity and feelings of difference
and where they're so meaningful because they will justify every drink I take to lie die from it and it will never have been my fault
and you don't understand
those are the words of people who drink till they die
but I read philosophy I did love the I've got to do German philosophy which is just impossible to understand just backwards upside down and when you're reading it by yourself you go huh
people are looking you say how true
I did a lot of things but nothing in my life ever help me as much as a few drinks I didn't have any understands it that was not a natural effect I just have a few drinks help me with anything and I love drinking drinking makes me feel great he gets rid of that scale really makes me feel like I'm something
and what's wrong with that I just have one problem with it I have an unfortunate tendency to over drinks sometimes
because I prefer to believe I have many times been thoughtlessly over served
and then I ask bizarrely
the psychiatrist told me once you act is only because you repressed as a child but then are we going to church and you're not just breaking fourth
I told our new arresting policemen that one night he didn't even care
hi I go to jail it's no big deal I just bring a drug act badly so I was sent to my first day meeting
I wasn't center someone suggested that some of the town drunk seem to be slowing down the growth maybe out of other children doing
how do my first drink in meeting in nineteen forty nine that's a long time ago
now do you little snot turn even born
we love you
and I don't know what I expected to find but I but I found wasn't anything to help me and seem to be a bunch of Edel guys sit round a table
but the pride in the job
but I just want to make a new year's yeah you figured I'll call it twenty two I said no I don't think I'm an alcoholic
what you're doing here I try to be honest as I think I'm too sensitive
I never told anybody else that for a long time
if you're working with the newcomer he says he's too sensitive issues you might try not to laugh because you maybe try to be honest for the first time a long time but I wanted me for awhile I think the final meeting I wanted really got me the guys in
I stayed drunk around the clock for twenty years one day I walked in that door
tell me to put the plug in the jug and I did
and I just never been so god damn happy
but I would love for Fairbanks Morse the nearby city drive judge Berman I got drinking a little too much and I went to a in the same old crap just different faces and what a good that's what Hey it's a nice place except for one thing my problem is not alcohol
I have some of the feelings they have been on my brother's alcohol I can't stop drinking anytime and have done it time after time my problem is once I stop sometimes a couple days later some of the weeks later somebody sneaks into my bedroom and middle of the night and puts an invisible spring in my gut and the next morning when I get up they start to tighten it
and then you start the restlessness
and the irritability and the
resentment of being treated like a child by people who are depending on me
and little by little I get will cross it and try to do things but I know they won't be able to cut that feeling is two or three drinks
and I pulled off a long as I can and eventually I take a drink but I don't take a drink because I'm a drinker I know how to explain that to people I drink because I have these feelings
then sometimes later I drink too much again Michelle your problems drinking you want to go to a a you'll be alright the FCG thanks for the advice which is run a shriek but you don't understand
does anybody understand our problem is not that bad there's something wrong inside of me but the one thing you don't want to talk about it much because I don't want to as our books is no rush to look very different from their fellows I guess
and so I drank and stayed sober and want to be psychoanalysis and read books and had jobs and good jobs went down another good job and went down I would down in Dallas I was the last time I was working for Tracy locked in are just advertising into the south and I was hoping right these LCD already through the board company
down I went and hid in a matter of just a few days I guess they've been setting up for some time been notified my wife she left they repossessed my car I was the victim of my house Justin we got Frank I work in the US Senate street corner nothing negative G. car to drive to Los Angeles to get out of there I got as far as Phoenix and got drunk and lost the card at the jail get my teeth out lost everything I had
one of the a club and how some some already for twenty dollars Tularosa newcomer and for twelve supposed to get them to Los Angeles and here I'm being thrown out of a skid row mission
that's standing here you troublemaker address right so I'm not a troublemaker three years ago I was on the faculty of the university of Texas
ads that I wrote are running this weekend in life and time in the New York region the post I had my picture in The New York Times for one of my treatments
but it's hard to explain these things in mid air
Mr send the damn old mission in the cold rain that'll guy did come up and talk to me but I I couldn't talk to anybody get out of the rain and I'm sick
right after you join a club and pretend to be a new cover initial stops raining
and if I were in a critical borders seventy two blocks away and I walked and walked and walked in the rain and I walked and walked and sick my mother reading like drenched in Warren New York asking them how they could possibly walk that far when you're so sick and desperate and course the number of people in the room with the answer that
that's the only time you can
you would not ever do that if you had any alternative and I got to this club with the same old crap in the stampede turned over to god and matured all calls and sickening smirks in just
and I lived there all day long at a meeting that night about four pounds a cake that I can eat with my gums yeah
at a meeting on gratitude almost puked up gonna just
then they all went home right no place to sleep is raining I said the magic of a plan to put on my new cover look
I'm a newcomer
no rushed everything have no place to stay can you help me
the Maybelline look
so you're lucky kid cutting Joe Quinn listen forty nine mark in the parking lot last summer so tall grass and you can sleep in apps
if you want me to sleep in abandoned car yeah good deal
thank you very much
I still remember sleeping that gamble card the dead cold and sick of my mouth bleeding
yeah I thought I can't believe this and that's why we're in the club on a Sunday morning it's working if you had a spiritual meeting about god or Jesus or somebody didn't want to hear about who is on my table and looked all after that that there's another meeting and I went to that needs more cake in this in this crap and semi abandoned car kept reading to get the next morning
we're thinking maybe I'm dead maybe I'm
maybe this is what hell really is it is
it is in fire and brimstone just cold and rain and your mouth hurts and every day someone talks to you but eighty eight
for eternity
and I had no idea then there after the beep my sobriety it didn't want to be I got sober a lot of times for good reasons I never wanted anyone to be so that puts a persisting so you know you think if you're a lot of people think like I used to think if you really want to stop drinking bad enough you will and and maybe some people do not people of are attacked apparently I
I was in jail one night overnight just overnight
I was in jail overnight a lot because I I have a tendency to drink to counsel police officers
you think you learn after awhile but I was there's a new officer that needs help
and if I get the morning again made me into you see Jesus and how much I I know I am sorry it's going to be better I just had a bad please well you are drunk essential son died we couldn't find you anywhere and that's just about killed me sent a bunch of girls and one little boy and I could not stand it I could not stop I felt such an wave of terrible guilt and
with very little boy Wisconsin I still remember that weekend sitting in a living room with my two big brothers and all their big healthy farmers Wisconsin farm boys and their dad my father in law and nobody said unkind word to me I just have some more pastry class here establece coffee here can I get you something but in their eyes you could just see what have you done to our sister you dirty **** you thirty **** we may have some more pace and we buried my son I put my hand is casket nobody's watching us I promise you John image when this will never happen again in our family I promise you
and
we buried next to those that
okay yeah I had a thought about this talking to carry the day he's had this problem
I didn't realize how guilty that made me feel I was sober five years before I could face the fact that my son was did I went backwards but I can't gravestone is great I could not I just could never think about it just
I got my to my father my father in law we went down to school country churchyard
end of
put some grief in our little boy journalism and was really touching took me I read for the deep thing it was but I stopped drinking when I went back to Texas was working and I really had a good feeling almost like it was a beast or something someone has died but the proof of purposes to make us all better and we got along fine and my family I got a lot but we prayed for John sold and I went to work can go a long way to work and things are going well and I
I thought it's so sad my son's death had happened but he did it so we can all live
and it was wonderful to one night somebody snuck into my bedroom and put an invisible spring and my god
the next morning it started
I just moved here to build a
as the days went by and restlessness now coupled with great self pity and
killing my son gives bad what kind of a rock god damn thing is that just
whose job the job is like a job anymore you just bunch of dumbbells and they don't like taxes and I give my daughters there nor is it merry take your systems in order to route for god sakes let me alone then hate myself I'm sorry girl we played a March
and knowing if I could just have a couple drinks I could break it
but if you can about your son's casket a couple drinks and one day it got to a point where my wife to to children church I just pulled the car in the garage and took the holders of the gospel
trimmer much sleep and died
and the neighbor had recently bringing coffins Dan and he knows that I went in there for the motor running too much we handled over she was wrongly found me dead in the car
pulled me out of my chest and breathe my maaf they rushed me to the hospital
examine me for we can determine how seriously mentally ill and committed me to the state insane asylum
and that's how I get when I stopped drinking folks that is not a drinking problem or something terribly wrong inside of me
I am a big classified me as a schizophrenic paranoid tendencies
I thought about that a lot of several times after been subject to back to Texas sometime and find that psychiatrist
he must be about nine you know I could probably have them pretty good you know
dear you categorize me as some sort of a dual personality you any act
if I could get my purse down his other two automated stays
my problem is always been this crowd that gathers in my head at the drop of a hat
this kid out here building we can what do you think I'm not sure
are they looking at you as funny as they are in a
I hear people say things like I'm not sure the programs enough for me I may need group therapy
not me I just go for a ride alone in my car
this was such a good thing about alcohol alcohol reduces it to one voice
it may be a bad voice but it's one of the ways
why did you quit your job and punch your boss right in the face okay
I almost didn't get out of there you know how we're going to the hospital the next year they put in experimental alcoholic word that hospital officials say the Texas and by that time my my mind was getting better from electric shock treatments I was able to pretend to be an alcoholic not out recovered alcoholic I thank AT that time
but my problem is I know and I hung around this club is just hideous dreadful
and I
I fell into the
every January
I go to a
the North York group in Toronto cops prepare yourself for an exciting thought here
they have a date with Clancy hi
in the morning if some local guy talking and I talk on the history the traditions or something like that and they were after never question answer reading right answer visiting authority answers questions from the little people
and then there's another local speaker I talk at night a few years ago talking and I've discovered that bothers meetings I do what I like to mention the question answer reading because I didn't know I had to say but she never natural ability to take difficult questions and if I don't know the answer I can weave a tapestry of B. S. well I think
let's look at that from another angle
here's what governor actions classy I have a question if you don't mind I would like one year long answers
I thought somebody had a slap that ****
given my all
she's every year you have hearing you talk about how we lost everything I know you're dying on the streets and all of the you know you've been sober forever and ever you touch turns to gold could you just answer to censor to what happened not some long harangue just a sensor to
as well
you could possibly put them in a sense you do there's so many psychological things take place thanks
I thought to myself if you maximize your own **** you bowled me the FIA
she broke my rhythm is what you did
I was very upset that night was taking a shower before the meeting and then answer came
it was answered I could give her idea I probably wouldn't know because I hate little dumb answers I like answers with body input not
if we have new coverage here tonight I hope they leave saying things like
did you hear what Clancy said
when birds don't fly at night
did you hear what plans he said
never mind if the horses blind keep loading the wagon
well obviously these answers me nothing but they give the newcomer whole
the answer I thought it was so dumb just that dumb
this is the first time I ever felt so bad I let the stupid H. tell me what to do I thought that was the final indignity the final sellout I don't mean steps and traditions I mean things like in those days up well this is a this is a club we have had to be a member to be in the daytime and night you could commit for meetings and I don't wish to go the manager took pity on me said well you're you're really a mess you can spend all day hang around but you got to go to the meetings and sit in the front row every night and
I have a Quincy with address
and so should me and that there were no styrofoam cups had been invented yet every meeting had portion cops and the old timers get sick awash in those looking for some new stooge
you there boy that's front teeth you all want to wash our cups tonight
if I had any place to go to wasn't reading how to send
no
I love to cook tonight or tomorrow night or any other night I want to let them off with that long term
I said I'd be on the rain so I still remember that night we're going home I'm staying on the club just the managers close up I still watch those damn cups and ping three years ago I wouldn't hire these guys to mow my lawn
and here I am being treated like dirt
remember me by
another day so we said we need some help clean up how bout you cared about to teach you can do that
the worst of all Friday night guy said we need someone to help stop the Myanmar night Jimmy will appear but you could you live right here on the property
and I thought I was dead I just
I'll just do this let die can be long and I thought of the hands of a fanatic clubs clubs in those days like today they have fanatics that if you stay sober very long the other on you like a pack of wild dogs you know got a sponsor can be a sponsor American sponsor
I'd have sponsors if your new tonight let me tell you about sponsors
they all seem to be so nice I want to help you with the step up I just want to stick their nose in your business that's all
and I said this actor committed all over printed I mean huge movie actor I see the movies you characterize your brother is I'll get some money from this idiot
I guess some teeth I guess some clothes and go back to New York yes I did drink a lot of bad luck attrition lock in some other places to run my lesson I'm ready to start work on probation and I'll become something and I'll save my money welcome back to Los Angeles to
hello I'll buy this club in order to burn it down
and I hope they're all in it
I didn't really understand I saw the movie Kerry some years later with hope they'll pour blood and water burning too you know
I said Bobby my sponsor sure kid he became my sponsor I try to
Hey Mike isn't there but he had he was a fanatic hard to play a fanatic
and over a period of time what he did he save my life
he saved my life very simply and directly and I I want to go to someone I can go for an hour talking sekali how came about buy one get two point of
because I told Bob
you know he he would try to help me I mean he didn't like me very well I found out later because nobody likes a smart Alec newcomers a smart aleck attitude because my defense and I was a loser and I ridicule out of people
but he would take me with him and he would talk to me sometimes and
and every room talking to me about to
you're somehow got to come come to believe her alcoholic and I
a driver like I can't I can't be an alcoholic bye bye I wish I could if I I wish I were in Auckland could save so many problems over the years but I'm not
and it's over pretend what we've always this
the number one problem I can't be an alcoholic is that my problem is not alcohol
it really isn't it is when I'm drunk but it's not really alcohol
and he is over creative time
really pounded into me
he said I said to Bob I can't take the first step because I cannot admit I'm really an alcoholic he said why don't you just read the black parts on the page
what is it saves the state would Richard alcoholic
no but that's what it means and you know what and I know
and if I need to point out to be
so I had to admit I was powerless over alcohol I think I'm not powers over all his or do you think you're powerless over alcohol
not really
he's very good policy these guys talking meetings begin drunken rate nuns and they fight a Hong Kong movies I was a good guy that's been hurt a lot victimized Bob that's been my problem
do you think you should do every generation there's a small group of drinkers to get a natural reaction alcohol what do you think that is I think using a drunken state drops not at all that's why people die from this thing
Principia natural reaction something you never think about is that what it does to you at all
it has to do something special for you
it must almost instantly alter your perception of reality and change your relationship to the world around and fill the hole since idea
I used to the rock what's wrong with that
he says does that
little by little you get more and more living in a little more fantasy to come to depend on and more and more
and eventually the final stages you could no longer predict what's happening we start to drink I don't I'm not like I didn't get drunk and fight a Hong Kong says it doesn't mean that
it means for people like us would research independent or drinking you may have four or five drinks and go home go to bed
you may have four or five drinks go to Mexico
four five branch fall in love with eighty nine year old woman on a Walker
thanks doctor which is something going to happen
yeah that's right I understand that
he said the bad thing is this the kid that you got to have a drink and I will fight it but but it happens when people drink don't you understand about my problems are not caused by drinking okay so I do drink so I'm having a natural reaction but that's not my problem is my life was unpleasant and that's why I drink not I don't get my life is not in place because every he said he had wanted to redo that steps as
we admitted we were powerless over alcohol dash in the English language dash means end of thought beginning a new thought you now must admit that your life is a manageable July financial
not really
he said you're living in an abandoned car for Christ's sake
and I said
that is what it means it often means is up in Malibu the richest man in North America sits in a meetings four nights a week and he could buy all the treatment centers and you can buy all the counselors and all the psychiatrist in city sits in a meeting party does that what did you do anything
beats me
this is because he just coverage now homeless and that's the only way to stay comfortable
is that all of us are born as human beings we all have emotions we grow up we have conflicts of we have to fight through the processes we discover things we can't do things we can do it that's called maturing that's called the maturing process and some of us along the way discover something very fortunate seems I can take a few drinks to get away if those conflicts I can get a few weeks and run away from those problems I could do a lot of things and it's great and I really get away from
and there's a school of thought that says this happens to alcoholics that you're maturing process slows down and may even stop when alcohol begins to work what is the biggest difference but all of a sudden I you're drinking you get away from life now you're gonna get sober okay I've had enough
and then you discover sobriety is very unpleasant because the one thing you never realize this gonna body gonna brain grown abilities grown up strength and all without you being aware of it at the intermission back in call of childish emotions
we call them alcoholic you motions because that sounds better
but the trash wash water alcohol emotions I hate you I love you my guy that median mark
China's going to change although he motioned stop at a school grown for about twenty minutes
and he said it it really is kind of bad and eventually you have to drink
there is no place outside of these rules that wouldn't imagine that there are people who drink to forget their drinking
that's right well
this is the only smart thing you should set your problem is not really alcohol and you're right I feel is
he said you're probably something that sounds like alcohol and a lot of people don't understand it which is why about ninety five percent of alcoholic still backdrop
it is something called alcoholism
as our cheeses Bob save that child issues for people who don't know any better intelligent manner maybe done up in intelligence that's ridiculous alcohol alcohol drugs anything should not the same thing
an alcohol problem is overcome by stopping drinking and cleaning up your act and all of us have tried that a lot
but in this strange thing called alcoholism which unfortunately for you and me looks exactly the same to the naked eye this mind consuming perception distorting bodily eroding thing called alcohol's you'll discover that stopping drinking has no significant long term effect on your life other to gradually make it so painful you can't stand
some doctors say that alcoholics have to drink to preserve their sanity sometimes
and then you drink until it gets out of control and then you have to stop you stop to you have to drink then you drink do you have to stop but the one that you always know I'm not really an alcoholic because alcohol wasn't really the problem
it's all these other things they don't understand
cheesiest pop
that's me
he said there's a name for people like you
what is appalled
he said you're an alcoholic
and I said well I'll be damned
I just spent ten years of my life and giving up everything I had because I could not find the definition alcoholic I took the self definition people given digital Teladoc about it just means an untenable sobriety coupled with an untenable drinking and your card in a cul de sac there's No Way Out
and I'll tell you that it changed my life
because I'm I didn't become wonderful after that but at least I knew it was wrong I had some basis but then I had the problem later today I wanna tell Bob you know Bob
if I recall could have taken steps to yes but
I can't return to god I can not return we got a call what you want to
and he said well kid there's nothing in asus you have to return to god will return to a power greater than myself the food people doesn't fool me just doesn't say that there's nothing in aid that ever ask you to return to anything you come to believe in something as our slogan of this model commission came to believe you come to believe that something can't you come to believe in god I don't know can you believe it
no
just you think I'm doing better than you are
yeah
congratulations on your new higher power
and he became my higher power a lot of people after that's it
the best protection sponsors gogue
I know
but I trusted him I had a feeling that he knew how I felt that's the great thing about that meeting yesterday on this singleness of purpose identification that's what makes a work when you can believe someone knows how you feel you then can do details here but after then it's just information from someone who doesn't understand either
but I did things for him that I would have done for my father it would have been for my employer would have nothing I just did stupid little things and actions made amends to move things
and little by little over a period of time my perception change in one day but then he died I come to believe in days while her power
but I got a new sponsor
who is very
very spiritual man not religious members spiritual man he lead me into believing finding that maybe god existed maybe god did not hate but maybe god loves me
and maybe god's grace did not just fall on certain good people but it fell on everybody because if it doesn't fall in everybody it doesn't fall and nobody
and we all have god's grace it was up to me to somehow open the doors of some of that grace can get into me
and that's the problem that's a hard thing remember you know I have a different situation most of you
Thursday morning before I came down here
I just had to stop my work that is what I always do I parked in the parking lot they came out and I stepped over the bodies of dying men and women to get to my office
okay I want to get my car you know step of the bodies of dying many women die from alcoholism drug addiction
you might say well why don't you help these people and I've been on the phone was thirty years trying to help these people
but there's a reason why many of going to dine that sidewalk it's the same reason people die in Naples in mansions and people die in Chicago all over it boils down to this
they are unwilling to take actions they don't agree with that is exactly what it boils down to because once you begin just take the actions here things seem to change but that requires a surrender this very hard to make I don't know how I'm so fortune happen to me but little by little I came to believe in a god I remember praying frightening and always said begin to realize there's not to be afraid of going back to Wisconsin take my mother to church years later and sitting that Norwegian church thing what was I afraid of these people in this church our freedom but I'm not the same gods in my media west LA that's a great feeling as a result of that response she was able to take me through the steps and that changed my life little by little I didn't do do happen here I didn't very begrudgingly but that's the purpose of sponsorship to me I think the most important thing that I know of an eight is to have a sponsor and to be a sponsor you can't
a few years ago a guy sponsor came to mean
and he's got to put the flag on the moon and he said you know the Russian government's having a
special meeting
in the the Russian consulate in Leon all the astronauts are invited Russian American and I can bring a guest on the S. S. T. but my wife and I are divorced and my children around who could I possibly take
I don't want to see him go there alone
sure we have the S. S. T. in New York
if you're going to be S. as T. prison long narrow plain to see see the sad reflection on the of the cabin there's a clock written one arm clock can you take off and go to three o'clock in his circle New York then as you get over the ocean starts to move around it gets back to twelve you're not the speed of sound and it keeps going and you have very high and you kiss scary and but the treat you well then you it's great to be a land use I hope you get good breaks in the suburbs
could be in Belgium
the date we do the same thing they reversed the thrust of the gesture that we do in fort Myers they reversed the thrust of the jets they just take the same judge that push it this way and stop harassing to me that's a great help of sponsors the same pain that makes it imperative for alcoholics have to drink if I can allow someone to change the thrust of that pain I think it can be used to get me to take actions I would never take on my own for in five thousand years and little by little that those actions take place and it's just
it is a L.
it's a change in life you don't
one of the problems I had one of the problems most new people have
is this a while okay
okay Asian is nice
why does it work you see what you can read up to five no I don't see how does it work I see why does it work that's the question I used to have my my why do you say a word tell me that maybe I'll do it
and there's no answer that
in the seventeen hundreds the worst illness in the world or smallpox just take over cities that I have a book called bring out your dead with the print the cards going to Philadelphia people bring up your mothers and daughters and children did throw me the car Jesus of sand no way to stop it nobody knows what causes no knowledge of disease or germs or bacteria just god's strength Houston
and in England the young doctor noticed that there was he was interested that she does one group of girls never got smallpox the girls that did the same things they did got smallpox with these group didn't
girl to milk cows did not give a small some of the girls did and we talk to each other they found out the girls the girls who had something called cow pox which was a minor disease never got smallpox but L. all the other call girls hit
and to me that somehow it must be something mistake but if you get caught but she won't get smallpox I need to order a classic or classic experiments of all time the border boarding Jimmy Phillips nine years old
and from his parents he took a gun with the girls had called parks I need a hundred and that's where bacteria just use what he did was already cut a little slit in the kid's arm he took some possum blood of the people that had called box and rubbed the kid's arm and he got sick and got better
I need to know where they're dying of smallpox
and Carson Armistead took a stick with the blood and possibly dying people and rub it in our kids are going to get sick and get better
and that day they discovered how to keep from getting smallpox you get caught parks
in fact usually interesting thing the word for calling Latin is Vargas that's what Vargas vaccination means injection of the call
but after that a lot of people still would you mean to get six I won't get sick that's nonsense a lot of people have died of smallpox some people did but some people did and was for a hundred and fifty years they finally discovered that small box sets up a series of
devices to cancel effective smallpox virus
and
then they knew why but they had to take it on faith for a hundred fifty years doesn't matter I think somebody will do that alcohols maybe a hundred years now some science crazed scientist clubs lavoratori che I've got the answer I found the answer it turns out the twelve actions
take it under a series of dictatorial leadership
such a trace of endorphins in the upper cerebral cortex
that makes it a nation under certain drink alcohol
because doctor wonderful wonderful going to be too late for us crash we'll all be dead but we can
so weird but we have to do each other not to newcomers on a continuing basis
we shop to keep don't take to smallpox
take the damn smallpox
do it because the actions here are what make the difference take the actions here because it turns out alcoholics launch of your new is not designed to make you more and more dry and I've been sober almost forty five years at burst in flames spontaneously
the purpose of H. two very slowly do what alcohol did fast too little by little change my perception of reality to change my relationship to the world around me to enable me to live with some degree of dignity and peace and self
self respect and live in a world that I would have sworn I could not be live in
I don't know anything better than that
you know when you're reading chapter five fridge reading the traditions of that young man read the wrong form the traditions but I was hoping to get to the end because the reason for all of this is the last the last phrase along from the traditions
why should we do these things why should we continue to stay here why should we continue go to meeting so we don't get this far weird keep going back and going back why we do these things and the last race of the run for the division races so well
this to the end that are great blessing shall never spoil us that we shall forever live in thankful contemplation of him who presides over saw
thank