Missouri State Convention in Jefferson City, MO

My name is Scott Redmond. I'm an alcoholic. Hi. Hi, everybody. Thank you so so much for inviting me to your, your wonderful function.

I have been just treated, extraordinarily well, and, you have a great fellowship here. I I can't tell you what a great time I'm having this weekend. I wanna thank, Tom and Jean for picking up Sharon and let me tag along. And, Sharon and I, live a couple of miles away from each other, but we don't spend any time with each other unless we're a 1000 miles from home. And then, we spent a lot of time on a welcome the gentleman who took the, was here for one day.

It kinda looked like you've been voted most attractive man on your cell block when you came up, you know. I I, you know, it's nice to win but I don't know, you know. Is this good? Is it bad? You know, and, we're real real glad you're here Real glad you're here.

And, you know, sometimes I hear people in the program, you know, would sometimes say, jeez, I feel just like a newcomer again. And I know what they're saying. I know they they're they're hurting or they feel but I I always say in my head because of course because I judge no man. I I always say, no, you don't. You don't.

You feel rotten but you don't feel that rotten. You don't feel like that. Every part of your face isn't moving in a different direction. You know you don't look like something a 7 year old made and brought it to the science fair and it fell apart while you were trying to set it up, you know. You don't you don't you might feel I'm not saying you don't feel like crap, but you don't feel like that, you know.

And again I'm I I know what they mean, but I haven't felt new since I've been new. And, and if you feel like new you're new that no. You probably aren't spending that much time with new guys because, man, they're they're very, very interesting people, And, I, I'd like to, welcome all the newcomers to AA. If, you know, there there are so many new people here tonight. I feel blessed to be able to share at this meeting and, I I if you knew, I want I'd like to say I have a great life today.

I'm sure that thrills the crap out of you if you're new. Sure you're just overwhelmed with joy for me and, because I know how happy I was for the people having a good time when I got here, you know. And I'd sit and I'd hear them talk about this, the life and the wife and the, you know, and the the house and I'd think to myself, maybe you'll go home and maybe your house will blow up. Maybe your wife will blow up, and we'll see how spiritual you are next week. If you're bored, I wanna welcome you to AA.

I wanna tell you my favorite story about being bored in Alcoholics Anonymous. Happened to this friend of mine named Jeff Dee. He used to go to my whole home group, the North Hollywood group. When he was a newcomer, couple weeks over, he's shifting around in his chair at this meeting in our home group and his sponsor said, what's the matter? Jeff said, I'm bored.

His sponsor said, well, you know why you're bored. Jeff said, no. Sponsor said, you're bored because you're bored. That's that's why you're bored. And it was like an acid moment for him.

He went, wow. Wow. It freaked him out. You know, he thought, what a cool thing to say to a newcomer. You know?

And, he can hardly wait till a newcomer told him they were bored. Bored. 13 years later, no newcomer has told him that they're bored. He's at our home group at the North Hollywood group with this young lady who was new, and she was shifting around in her seat and he said, what's the matter? She said, I'm bored.

He said, well, you know why you're bored. She said, yeah. Because I'm with you. So if you're new and you're bored, welcome to AA. If you're a drug addict, addict, welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous.

If you're a a dope fiend, which is somehow worse than any of us, welcome to AA. I heard a guy a while ago identify as a he said my name is blah, and I'm a crack monster. Woah. Crack monster. That's scary.

Crack monster. I wonder do they have, like, a Halloween costume for crack monster? And there's a new exotic group I'd like to welcome today, the Tweakers. Very, very excited that you're here. There you go.

Yeah. You forgot why you're clapping, didn't you? You did. I'm clapping. I don't know why I'm clapping.

And I love the tweeters. They stay quick for a while. Long while, they wear their clothes out from the inside and, they're easy they're spooked easily. What I like to urge you to do is to catch alcoholism. Catch the dreaded alcoholism.

We'd love to give it to you. I didn't have it when I came to AA. Didn't have alcoholism when I came here. Caught alcoholism in AA meetings. The infection entered through the ear.

It infected me. I began to infect others around me. But I could not possibly have an alcoholic when I got here. I'm Jewish and Jews don't drink because it might dull the pain. Yeah.

You don't wanna waste any agony opportunity that presents itself. And one of the first guys that saved my life in alcoholic Thomas in this first home group, which I'll tell you about in a little bit that I joined the edge of the world group. That was my name for it. The first one of the first guys to save my life was the guy who said he he identified. He said my name's John.

I'm a, an ex Catholic, which means that I don't believe in God and I'm therefore, positive God is going to come kill my aunt for feeling that way. And I said I'm gonna sit next to John. I because I I had been introduced to an old testament God when I was a kid who got your ass no matter what. He got you. He He turned your wife to salt and killed your goat and put a finger in your eye and he got your ass and that was it.

And there was no hiding, nowhere, no time, got you, got you, got you. Had to learn a foreign language to talk to him, got your ass kicked for worshiping him the way we worship him. It was a bad deal all the way around. I dropped the the Jewish bible which is the Torah when I was a kid and the rabbi said pick it up and kiss it. I said, he never kissed me, he threw me out, you know.

I, you seem to have the exact same right and wrong answers as the as the kid is sitting next to you on this test in Hebrew school. Can you explain that? And I said, miracle. So I didn't laugh long and my stay was unappreciated, and, I wanna thank all the other speakers. We got in late last night and didn't catch Friday night.

Well, and, I, heard a great talk this morning, and, you're gonna hear my friend Sharon tomorrow who is a great buddy and a great, great member of AA. And if you didn't hear the speaker this morning talk about his sponsor, a guy named Tom I, and I agree with him. I think he's just one of the most extraordinary members of Alcoholics Anonymous. And, if you haven't gotten a chance to hear, Tom speak, take some time and do it. He's an extraordinary guy.

He and I got to attend an AA function down in the Caribbean together. I went snorkeling with him and was charged by his wife with the mission of bringing him back alive, which I did do. And while we were down there my wife was in the general area where all the drunks were hanging out and this new guy said she heard him say to another guy, jeez, I was out sailing with Scott Redmond in a sailboat. And in the middle of our conversation, he threw himself into the ocean. And the guy just wouldn't shut up.

It was just blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And I went overboard. I just I threw myself into the waves. And I had this incredible feeling of peace as the water enveloped me, and it just got completely quiet. So now I put a basin of water near the phone.

So when I talk to new guys, I could just dunk my head in that water anytime I want. I grew up in, New York City, in the Bronx in New York. Nobody from the Bronx. With no? Oh, you're not here with the no.

Witness protection program? My family, was and is absolutely nuts. My wife never believed me about my family until she met them, and my mom threw an engagement party for us, and my aunt Rose came and wore her wig backwards. And it it had a bun on it and it, right out there and it was it was it was not a mistake. It was a look she was going after.

And, if you got anything for free in my family, it meant it was stolen. My uncle Jack was a welder and used to get free bales of steel wool. What do you think? What do you what do you think? Oh, Jack, here.

Take a bale of steel wool. I mean, they were but he said they were free. And, his wife took decorating classes and made throw pillows and filled all the throw pillows with the available materials with the free steel wool. So when you when you that stuff works its way through on you. So when when when you were at their house, everybody was moving a little bit, you know.

The whole room was like a living, pulsing, breathing thing. And, and they're still absolutely crazy. Just a little bit ago, a year or so ago, my mom calls me and says, honey, I got bad news for you. I said, what, Ma? She said, you know, your aunt Lina is dead.

I said, oh, no. When? A year and a half ago. I said, what? She said, well, you know, your aunt Phyllis is back in the mental institution and she calls me and her answers me.

So I haven't picked up the phone, but Phyllis died a couple of weeks ago. I started picking up the phone again. They finally reached me to tell me that Lena was dead. These are the communication skills that I was brought up with. And and, I had an I had an uncle who was one of the top 10 welterweights of the world during the thirties.

His name was Izzy Redmond. In 1936, he was fighting in Atlanta, Georgia. He was with anti semitism, and he had his name changed to Izzy Goldberg so that no one would know he was Jewish. Now I I want I wanna tell you these are my people. This is my genetic pool.

You don't go to the down of the foreign branch to the bartender. I'm a member of the biggest bunch of morons you ever met in your life. There was like chronic institutionalization, suicide attempts, mental and physical abuse, just awful awful stuff. And and if you're new here, all I've got is good news for you because my family didn't have one single solitary thing to do with making me an alcoholic. I'm not telling you I didn't get bumped around.

I got bumped around plenty, and I'm not telling you I didn't have to do anything about it. I didn't do plenty about it. But you see one of the other reasons that I wasn't alcoholic by the time I got here in addition to the Judaism, was I had been, in psychotherapy for 18 years. By the time I got to AA, I was gonna be, dead, but I was gonna understand it. And I'm I'm not putting therapy down.

Therapy is great stuff. It says on page 133 of our book, if you need a doctor, go get one. I got no beef with therapy. I didn't understand that in therapy you got understanding and in Alcoholics Anonymous you got for forgiveness, and without forgiveness I would never be able to be in my life or have a life or live it off. I absolutely didn't know that.

And, so I got no beef with therapy, but you see I was showing I was trying to treat my alcoholism with psychotherapy. It's like showing up at a gun fight with a knife, you know. And just just getting these colossal ass poundings. Just just these crushing ass poundings all the time. And I was doing good work in therapy, but I was dying.

If you have alcoholism, if you have a bizarre physical reaction that makes it impossible to you for you to control and enjoy to moderate once you begin, and if you're special and you're a drug addict, try some controlled crack smoking. If you have that weird physical reaction and it's coupled with some fascinating thinking. You'll hear it referred to as alcoholic thinking. It's the source of a lot of mirth at Alcoholics Anonymous meanings. I love reasons to drink.

I collect them. They're my favorite thing in the whole world. I have a friend named Larry who the first time he ever read our book, he read the first page of the 4th chapter which contains a sentence which says basically facing an alcoholic death or a spiritual life is not always an easy That's that's not a normal reaction to that. That's not that's not a challenge. That's a statement of a condition.

You know? My favorite reason to drink I have heard of up to today was a couple years ago, I was sponsoring this guy for about 15 minutes. And, he lived with his wife, he was a male prostitute and he had a gay lover. And he called me to tell me he drank and I went, oh, why? And he said without missing a beat I caught my wife cheating on me.

Now I just want to tell you I get that absolutely and completely and I get that that was the product of 1 of 2 processes. That was either that could have just been just a gem, just a pearl, just an occasional hunch of inspiration. You had to come up with something and boom there it was fully cut cloth Or that was the product of weeks in the hamster wheel, weeks in the rat's maze, weeks of hard diligent work of moving the whole world, moving the whole world so it could just fall in slot by slot. I know I'm married. I know I'm a hooker with a beeper.

I know I've got a gay lover. Put the bitch cheated on me. I'm out of here. You gotta move the universe. You gotta rearrange your life and everything in it to accommodate the walk to the drink I cannot stop taking once I begin it.

And when that process happened in me, I began to suffer from this horrible cancer of the soul, this soul sickness that ate me up from the inside and left me hollow and insane and alone. And if you've got that and you're bringing that to psychotherapy, unless your therapist puts on a black robe and shakes a chicken foot over your head, you're pissing into a gale force wind. And I did it once a week and I paid a $110 to take that leak. So, I grew up in the Bronx, nuts from the word go, took that first drink. I'm allergic.

My hand's in the air, but I didn't wanna be a drunk. So what I did was it was kinda like, applying, being refused by the French, resistance so I became a Nazi. I went and tried to be a greaser and I completely flunked greaser school, because I'm a a weenie. And, I, I'm a physically large weenie, which is worse, really worse to be this big because then people wanna prove you're a weenie and you're always willing to admit it at the get. You know?

So I was being brought into this, gang by George Rosenstein in the Bronx and and he said, look. All the guys around me in the circus said, look. We just and they they would they stole cars and and, so we just do Chevy, Biscayne's, and Fair Lanes. They had a steering column with an ignition on the column and it said on, off, and lock. So he said if the car is on lock, just shine the car, find another car.

If it's on, off, just take your house key, put it in, and you're off. And I wanted to make my phone, so I looked around and said, what if it's on on? He said, someone's in the car, you moron. And, so I I went across the street and joined the hippies, and, the questions weren't really hard and after they'd ask it, they forget what the question was. So it did really much matter, and I achieved very quickly with them.

I got right up to the top of the pyramid there, got addicted to drugs, got arrested, got asked to leave a bunch of educational institutions. I I just zoomed to the top, and, I had a a father who, was a bartender for 35 years, never more made more than $10,000 a year, and my brother and I never went to school with ripped clothing and we never missed a meal. And, I made tons of money. I made what he made in a year, I'd make in a month, And my children went to school with ripped clothing all the time, and missed meals all the time. And I thought my father was the biggest loser I ever met.

And, I, once I got with the hippies I, I I avoided the alcoholism, with marijuana. I'd like to welcome all the pot smokers here tonight. You you remember Wow. Alright. Take it back.

I don't welcome the pot smokers here tonight. You remember Wow. Right? Wow. Right after wow usually came what?

What? Wow. What? What? What?

What? What? Watching a pot smoker is like watching a dog try to run on the linoleum. There's there's like a lot of activity, but no movement. They just can't can't get a claw in the rug, you know.

And I I, I kicked, marijuana with pills. I I was I triumphed over pills with cocaine. Cocaine is an excellent drug. It's it's particularly good for sex if you enjoy sex from the neolithic period. And, but I overcame that cocaine problem with heroin.

Heroin's a very dark, complicated, artistic drug, then you cross the line and become a vomiting pig. It's just a little hop, skip, and a jump. And, there was alcohol on the table every day, but this was my way of avoiding catching alcoholism and I almost, almost avoided it and almost died from it. And, I was just about 20 years old, and I, shot some dope because I was awake. And, went to hitchhike from the Bronx down on my apartment in Manhattan.

My aunt and uncle picked me up on the highway and took me to the hospital. My father had had a massive stroke, and I was loaded at the hospital and I couldn't be there the night my dad died. I couldn't be there for him. I couldn't be there for my mother or my brother, and, probably a couple of times in a kid's life, you ought to be there for his old man. This was one of them, and I couldn't answer the bell.

The curtain was down, the sound of the heart machine couldn't even get through, and that night my father was lost to me. I couldn't talk about him. I couldn't think about him. I couldn't look at a picture of him. Anytime I even heard the sound of a heart machine, it sounded like a personal indictment of my collapse as a man, a brother, and a son.

And I knew exactly what had happened to me that night. I knew what was wrong, and I knew how to fix it. And what had happened was it was needles and heroin, and all I had to do to not be the guy that couldn't be there the night that his dad died, all I had to do was very simply never put a needle in my arm again, and I didn't not for 13 years. Shortly after that I achieved I've suffered from chronic success my entire life, and I, shortly after that, I, achieved one of the dreams I had as a kid growing up in the Bronx and visiting Manhattan once or twice a year. I got to act in a Broadway play, in a musical.

I got to sing and swagger around a Broadway stage. And was I not it? Yes, I was. And, before the show one night, a new ushererette with long brown hair walked in. I didn't talk to her.

I just looked at her. I didn't know her name. I walked back into the dressing room and stood up on a chair and said to the cast, if anybody talks to the new ushererette with long brown hair, I'll break all the bones in your hands and feet. She saw in my biography that I was a filmmaker and came in the next day with a big book that didn't we had not said word 1 to each other, with a big book that said Orson Wells across it and sat in the back the next day so I'd have a way to strike up a conversation with her. And we've been married 24 years.

She became very, very ill from prolonged exposure to me, and I thought she was exotic too. You know, she was from Detroit and I, I had so I had never been out of the Bronx. I thought there were, like, palm trees in Detroit, you know, and, and, we had a great time. We were young. I was acting on Broadway.

We're in arguably one of the most exciting cities in the world with the world at our feet, and we didn't know that we, we were just a couple of dogs trying to run on linoleum. You know? And, we had a real good time for a while, and, and then Nancy started really getting bad. And and, we got so sick. At one point, a guy lend us lend us his car and, we sold it.

And, I I will never forget that guy's voice on the phone, you know, as long as I let him. You sold my car? I let that's like house sitting for someone and they come back and you're in escrow, you know. And and, and and the alcoholic life had become the only normal one. We didn't have rent.

Big duh there, you know. And I looked into my wife's eyes and I said, honey, I am so sick of being a punk irresponsible kid. I don't wanna borrow money. Let's stand in our own 2 feet. Let's fill the car.

And she and she looked into me with tears in her eyes and said, let's do. Now I wanna tell you, I understand how we were able to do that. We were to do that for the same reason that I love dental surgery. Now I gotta tell you something. About 8 months ago, I got a hand surgery on my hand.

This hand. And, and the doctor said, mister Redmond now I'm, 15 years sober when he tells me. Says mister Redmond, you're gonna, have to have a general anesthetic. I said general anesthetic. Wow.

Normal people do not get excited about general anesthetic. They don't. I'll tell you why. You're you're asleep for it. You are generally anesthetized for general anesthetic.

But you see, here's the deal. When they give it to you, they say count backwards from a 100. So you go a 199. I love 99. It sounds like you like 99 too.

But here's the deal, I won't trade my life in for 99 anymore. And here's the other deal, I was able to sell that car for the same reason that I got excited about initially. It would tell I spoke to my sponsor about the general anesthetic. I leave out the middle. I leave out the surgery.

I go from announcement of dental surgery. Most people don't go, dental surgery. I go from the announcement of the dental surgery to the pain killer. I leave out the sutures, the blood, and the pain. I go from let's do the right thing, sell the car.

I leave out Grand Theft Auto. I I leave out forging the pink slip and looking behind me for the cops every day for the next god knows how long. If you're new here, welcome to the middle. We're real big on the middle of you could say obsessed with the middle, by god. Nancy came home one day and I had this idea to cook something, but I died in the middle of the idea.

I, she came in. I was laying on the floor. The soap was on. I had a handful of eggs in my hand, and I was blue. And, she tapped me with a foot and said, how are you?

And I looked up at her and I said, exhausted. Frankly, I'm exhausted. And she went to the phone and, called the doctor and said there's an empty vial, there's an empty bottle, and the doctor said why are you calling me? Why are you calling me? Why aren't you call there's a blue Jew on the floor of your kitchen.

Why haven't you called the paramedics? I'm not when my wife tells the story, I get a little queasy at this part because she always goes, I hung up and did some cleaning and and then she called another doctor for a second opinion. And, we're married a couple years and our beautiful son, Michael, was born. He was really welcomed into the world. We were surrounded by friends and family and there were a ton of phone calls and, we were right in the middle of our community.

And 2 years 9 months later when Jesse was born, there were no friends, no phone calls, no family. We have been completely isolated by the disease of alcoholism in just 2 years 9 months. Jesse was born with a condition called transitive tachypnea of the heart, and I didn't even wanna go to the hospital because it reminded me of my old man. And, now I'll tell you, this is when you're supposed to be with your people, and my wife was all alone. Nobody would even visit.

It wasn't the people didn't love us, it just hurt too much to be around us. The ice around our heart had become so thick it had just propelled everybody that we knew and everybody that loved us. And, Jesse was up in an incubator, Nancy was all alone in the room, and this doctor called me that night said, mister Redmond, your wife is in a tremendous amount psychological duress. She's alone on a maternity ward. Kid's up in an incubator, we need you down here.

And I said, look, I don't you know, I never met this doctor before. I said, I can't find anybody to to watch my 2 year old son. And this doctor who I had never met before said, I tell you what, I'll give you my address and you can take your kid over to my house. My husband will watch him so he can come down. And I said no.

I had no there was no way I could possibly accept this woman's generosity. I think I woulda had a look at my wife one more time and say how how do you get here? How does this happen? I would it would have been another horrible naked lunch where I was just caught staring at the end of my fork saying, what? What?

And and, you know, my my wife's favorite line in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and, is when Bill talks about a horrible spot he had gotten himself into. He describes his life as, waiting for his wife to leave her purse so he can steal from it, dragging a mattress down from the upper floors of their home so that he wouldn't kill himself and cursing himself, a coward, because all he could do is stare at the poison in his medicine cabinet and not swallow it. And then it says, little were we to know this was to continue for 3 more years. We hit a bottom, we take out a shovel, and we start digging. And, and it was to continue from from the day Jesse was born 3 more years for us.

3 more more years of my life running out between my fingers like a handful of water over and over again. One day I came home, we had these 32 ounce tumblers, I popped a cork on a bottle of wine, I emptied the entire bottle of wine into this tumbler and I turned around and my wife was giving me the pre alanine rat rat stare. This one. And I said, what? And she said, what What are you doing?

And I looked at her and I said, I'm having a glass of wine. Can't a man have a glass of wine in his own home? When my son, Michael, was 5 years old, he came up to me and he said, we were living, in an apartment, which eventually right after I I got sober, the landlord pulled me aside and he said, if you move, I'll lie for you. I will I will put anything in a letter that you want me to if you will go away. He wanted to pass it on.

And, my son and there was some, a couple of Christian families, devout Christian families, so my son got wind of god and, which he wasn't getting any wind of in our And he came up to me. He was 5 years old. He said, dad, is there anything such as god? And I looked into the eyes of my perfect 5 year old baby boy, and I said no. I just the mind reels.

I can't even imagine giving worse information to a little boy and lying and doing something completely antithetical to what I thought I was doing. I thought I was giving him the real stuff. I thought I was saving him some skin so he wouldn't have to get played like those saps and suckers. I was giving a 5 year old the real existential line like he needed it. Took time from reading Sartre in order to ask me that question.

And what I thought I was giving him was the real stuff, and what I was actually giving him and and it's so beautifully pointed out much much more eloquently than I can ever present it in the 4th chapter of our book than in fact I was giving him the coward's way out. In fact, I was giving him the mushiest, weakest thinking of all. And, I I don't know really, if if you could do anything more abusive to a child. This is where I wound up a couple of months before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, And, the reason why I came to Alcoholics Anonymous for me was really simple. It was after 13 years, I put a needle in my arm again.

All the jobs were gone. My wife was completely insane from, overexposure to me. Micah was making involuntary clicking noises with his throat that he couldn't stop making. He could barely read or write. He was, a 168 IQ, and he could barely write a sentence down.

He was 6 years old. He couldn't stop grinding his teeth. His small motor skills were all screwed up, and there was nothing organically wrong with him. He was so distracted from being terrified all the time. He couldn't concentrate on anything to put together a play sequence together, to put together a learning sequence together.

Jesse's condition was so alarming his preschool didn't know what to do with it. It's preschool that he was being ejected out of once a week for non payment. But But it was the fanciest preschool in our community. And, he was playing these war games that he couldn't stop playing. He couldn't stop pretending he was a robot.

There's nothing wrong with those games, but he couldn't come back. And the feeling was was that it just was too dangerous to be made out of flesh. It was just safer to be in this world that he had sent himself, and he was really having a hard time coming back. Now I just thought I was married to a nut, and we had given birth to a bunch of a couple of mentally ill kids because she was not right and I had a lot of overwhelming personal problems because my aunt wore her wig backwards. On April 22, 1985, I crossed the line I swore I would never cross again.

I put a needle in my arm. Why? I don't know and, frankly, I don't care. I called my therapist of record that morning in my 18th year of psychotherapy, my first Jungian therapist, never had seen one of them before. I figured that might be the key.

He said to me that morning the exact same thing that the man who 12 that Carl Jung himself said to the man who 12 step the man who 12 step Bill Wilson. He said to me, there's absolutely nothing that can be done for you. I had never heard this from anybody before. I said, what? He said, the only thing that I can possibly suggest is we have you institutionalized or you attend the meeting of narcotics anonymous or alcoholics anonymous.

Now why I went to that meeting, I do not know. Any other day, I probably would have gladly chosen the nuthut. I would have it would have been I I would have been with my people colorful and adventurous people and, and they give you good dope in those places. And most other days, man, I would have been there in 10 seconds. Why I went to that AA meeting?

I do not know. I woke up at 5 AM to go to a 7 AM meeting deep in the San Fernando Valley. I walked into this place called the unit a. And I took one step into this clubhouse and took one look around and said, oh my god. Alcoholics Anonymous.

How did I wind up in Alcoholics Anonymous? How lame is this? This is beyond lame. This is beyond church, beyond synagogue. This is beyond this is beyond any plateau of lameness I ever even imagined was available to me.

Alcoholics Anonymous. I couldn't believe it. And everything was a miracle. Miracle. Miracle.

I'm a miracle. You're a miracle. The furniture is a miracle too, and the coffee is a miracle. And they get right up in your face and talk this unsolicited a a crappie at the drop of a hat. And you know the guy they sent over, He's got one tooth with a cavity.

Right? He's got a belt buckle large enough to serve a whole fish on. Right? Do I want what you've got? No.

No. But thanks for spitting on me. I really appreciate it. Alright. Do I come back next week with my own set of bib overalls?

Am I issued a pair? When do we hook a rug? Alright. And I know the Jew hunt's gonna start any minute. I know we're gonna get that.

Right? Come on, Jaime. Strap on these antlers. Let them run. Count to 10.

Poke them with a stick. I've talked at a few conferences that almost turned into a Jew hunt, by the way, but I don't know. The only reason I hated everything about Alcoholics Anonymous. The only reason that I can even imagine that I stayed is that I was out of plans. If you are new here tonight, I pray for you that you are out of plans.

If you are new and you have a plan, it's probably a beaut. Don't use your plan. Grab one of us after the meeting and tell us your plan. We wanna know the plan. That's the book I've always wanted to see, the collection of newcomer plans.

And I just kept coming back and I hated it. My wife reached out to the Al Anon family groups and started pursuing her miracle and I wanna tell you I don't know if this happens out here, but it happens sometimes in Los Angeles. When I was new, I'd go to certain AA clubhouses and I'd hear people, making off color remarks about Al Anon at AA meetings, and it confused and it injured me because I was so proud of my wife for, for doing her deal. And, you know, until I stuck around long enough and I'm not talking about good natured jokes. God knows we're telling up good natured jokes about mean, you know, ignorant jokes.

And until I stuck around long enough to find out that they were just mean and ignorant people, although I judged no man, I I, it confused and it hurt me, because I'd sit in my seat and go, isn't this what we're supposed to be? Isn't this like a good thing? And you know what? It is. It is.

So if you're lucky enough and you know what? Sometimes people go to the program, and they find out the best thing is to be a part, and it's better for everybody. And sometimes they find out that they should stay together. We found out that we should stay together. And so, if you're lucky enough to have found your way there and be enriched by it, god bless you.

My my wife had a sponsor who carried the message of the program to me before I ever heard it in Alcoholics Anonymous. We go over to that house, and there were just it seemed like a 1,000 people were there all the time. And she never fought with Nancy. Nancy called up and say, oh, they're idiots. And Ruby go, yeah.

Yeah. They are. Come on over. They're idiots. They're morons.

Come on over. We got a new girl. Come on over. We're doing we're cooking. Come on over.

We're all putting on makeup. I mean, that's just what that's all what in our kid. We had a lot of rules in our house because we were out of control and dying. Gotta have a lot of rules. Kids can only eat health food.

So every wife my wife every morning when my wife would say, you've had your granola, now get in the car with doctor death. But you're gonna die healthy. And they had all we had all these rules about what they could eat, what they could watch on TV. They go to Ruby's house, she had one refrigerator with crap in it. She'd sit them down in front of the TV and let them watch whatever they wanted, and they would just, oh, they love her.

They still love her. They're grown men. She sends them $5 on every birth birthday, and they just love her to pieces. They love her to pieces. And, I'm gonna apologize for my language, but my wife's Al Anon sponsor used it.

So I'll just tell you when they were real little, you also couldn't curse in our house. You could overdose and die, but you couldn't you you could not use a 4 letter word as you were going and asphyxiating and dying. And, she called the moment and said, boys, if you say thank you, you get more shit. And they went, ah. And they always said said thank you, and they still say thank you today.

And Ruby's husband, who is now, I guess, 35 years sober, Milton called the boys over at a function at their house, called them over. I don't know where this came from. They were real little boys. Called them over and milk whispered to them, boys, your parents don't know shit. And the kids went, oh, we suspect it, but now it's confirmed.

And that's like they they love Ruby, and they love Milton, and they love Al Anon and they love AA. I made a decision with my sons, which does not work for a lot of families, but I made a decision to not bring them to Alcohol Anonymous meetings. Some of the meetings I was attending to, I didn't want them to hear the stuff that was going on. Quite often, I didn't want to hear the stuff that was going on. So, as a result, my children, grew up without AA being a burden on them.

And again, I do not knock people who bring their kids to AA meetings. I know that we have to sometimes, and I know that some kids really benefit from it. That was this is not a judgment call at all. I'm just I've been asked to tell my story. What the hell?

I'll go ahead and do it. It. And that was true for me and my son since they were little boys. And, we started making a beginning. And I stuck around Alcoholics Anonymous for 6 months, enjoyed the gift of step none, and, the glorious gift of step none, which, of course, is nothing.

And, I, and I was suffering from untreated alcoholism. I didn't know what that was, but I tell you, if you're not drinking and, which is a great treatment for alcoholism. Drinking works. It kills you, unfortunately, but, man, it is a it is a great treatment. It brings great relief to this alcoholic.

If you're not drinking and you're not using the program of action outlined in our book, it is such an it's it's and and you look in the mirror and there's a vein pumping like a garden hose on your forehead, feeding your brain like a a breeder reactor, you know. And I knew I was gonna drink, because I had seen the AA drill 100 of times since I had come in. Guys came in, did the work and changed. Guys came in, didn't do the work, didn't change, got sick, got sicker, got to the podium, shared their gift with us, and share their ass right out of the door, or stayed here and became columns of human sewage and sexual predators, although I judge no man. And, again, I I judged no man because I'm just too damn spiritually developed.

And so I knew I was gonna drink, and I broke down. I asked God to sponsor me, and he was a great guy. And he asked me to read some, material from the big book of AA, and he invited me over to his house, and he read chapter 5 to me, and spent hours with me for phoning for free, and I couldn't figure out why. I didn't know what the hell this guy wanted. And he read chapter 5, and he took me through the first three steps, and he showed me how to do a 4th step, from the big book of AA.

And I will tell you, I didn't have a burning bush experience, but I stopped feeling like I was stealing someone's chair here. It took me 3 months to do my inventory. And you know what? I will tell you. In our book, it doesn't say write a little, read a little, write a little, read a little, because sometimes guys will work on the inventory.

They'll say, just can I just give you what I got? I was encouraging to wait, because I think these guys knew that if you sat down and went over the whole mess, if you sat down and discussed the whole sordid affair, I'm resentful at them. I'm resentful at me for resenting them. I'm resentful at them for watching me resent them. And I've had sex with all of them.