Gopher State Roundup XXXII in Minneapolis, MN

Bill alcoholic. Bill. Bill alcoholic. I wonder how long the Tweakers can keep that up. It's really a treat to be here.

I'd like to thank, Mike Kaye and and my host, Ed. Where's Ed? Where's Ed? Where'd Ed go? He's been taking real good care of us, and, we just had a real wonderful time.

Who's that bald guy up there? He won't look at me. Could do that for a long time too. I'd like to say hi to Bill. Hey, Bill.

Hey, Bill. That's a really nice picture. I I don't know that I've seen that picture. And Bob? Hey, Bob.

Who knew it? The man was really ahead of his time, wasn't he? A great haircut. The Akron special. I was a surfer and a biker and a tough guy.

And, I never went to the beach. My motorcycle rarely ran and I was afraid to fight, but I looked really good. I looked good. I had a chrome Nazi helmet for a hat and a primary chain for a belt and black greasy Levi's and big black boots with chains around them. I've got tattoos all over me, but I had a clip on earrings.

I didn't wanna hurt myself. That's my story. The only people that laugh at that are the other phonies. They don't get this down at the rotary club. It's not funny there.

I've I've tried it. I'd also like to welcome the people that are up in their rooms watching me on channel 28 naked. I'd like to say to you if you're watching an a a speaker naked you're in deep trouble. There's something wrong with your life. Probably need some therapy.

I, that is my story. I'm one of those people that when I started drinking, everything stopped. I mean, my life just stopped. Nothing really much happened. I'm a child of the sixties.

I graduated from high school in 1965. And, it was a great time to be getting loaded. Matter of fact, we weren't getting loaded. We were making a political statement, you know. I mean these were issues.

There were issues. Important issues. I'm certain of it. And, you know, the road from Los Angeles to San Francisco is a road to Nirvana. Vana and Golden Gate Park was the center of the universe.

They weren't eating hitchhikers yet, so it was safe to travel. And the young ladies were discovering their sexuality and we were helping them as best we could. You have to stop and think about this. Some groups get this and some don't, but they were actually burning their bras. Remember that?

Remember that? Now you tell me there's no god. I mean, that was all we could come up with was draft cards. I've told a lot of stories about the sixties over the years, a lot of stories and and you know like they say, if you really remembered it you probably weren't there but you know, I I've had to stop telling the stories because I'm really to be honest with you, I'm not quite sure exactly what happened. I'm pretty sure I did not live with Joan Baez, but I said I did for years.

By the time I was 17 years old, I was a bad drunk in high school. I was in trouble. I had the attitude. I had the slouch. I had the big jacket.

I had the foul mouth. I was irretrievable at 17 years old. And by the time I was 22, I was in Oregon State mental institution. I needed a rest. You know?

My mother took me to my first psychiatrist when I was 13 years old, and it was because I didn't have anger. I don't think alcoholics know much about anger. Anger is an appropriate emotional response to a negative situation. I had rage and you can get off on rage. You can use rage better than, well, you can it's better than a lot of drugs.

I mean, you can go away on rage. I mean, a lot of us get sober and we fall into rage. All of that stuff comes up and we just go into rage. And I had rage. I had double over, fall on the floor, bile in the throat, veins throbbing, eyes bugging, fist into the wall, head into the wall.

I was just pissed at the injustice of it all. It was just horrible. You know? And my mother looked at that and said, there's something wrong with the boy. I mean, it's just not that bad, you know?

And isn't that true about us, you know, something normally incorrect occurs and then our response to that normal incorrectness suddenly for some odd reason becomes the issue. You know, somebody steps on my foot and I shoot them and people talk about overreaction and stuff, you know. And I spent a year and a half with this therapist and he helped me. The guy really helped me. I enjoyed it and he he introduced me to my favorite subject, me.

That lifelong pursuit of self. Do you notice how it never ends? You know, it's that's one of the nice things about it. You can do it forever. It just goes on forever.

And, and I started my career path of looking for myself at 13 years old. And remember the party? Remember the whole idea was to have a party. Wasn't that the idea? I mean the whole idea behind drinking was to have some fun.

The whole idea was to get out of the house and go have an adventure. Meet her, get lucky, go to the party. I don't know about you, but I ended up naked in my living room watching religious television taking notes. I mean, I'm having sex menage a uno. Party.

We're partying with Billy now. It's it's gonna get real interesting. So at 17 and I'm in the bad drunk, at 22 I'm in the mental institution, short party. Short party. I mean you don't need any other explanation and any other description that alcoholism is physiological other than that last 3 to 5 years that you and I stayed out there.

Nobody would consciously do that to themselves. I mean what the hell are we thinking? The answer is we're not. You know, seriously, we're not. We're out of control.

I mean, in in the end, isn't it just maintenance? It's just getting through the day. I mean in the end, it was me and a gin bottle and I was just getting through the day trying to kill the physical pain that I felt. Because there was no more mental and emotional relief. But as a teenager, as that teenage kid, I was in the height of it.

I was having fun. I was in the doctors opinion, it talks about that the alcoholic life seems like the only normal one. Now how the hell do we pull that off? You know, what what do you do to actually create a reality around yourself that it's okay to puke on your friends, you know, and hit on the the neighbor's wife and stuff. I mean, all the real cute fun stuff that we do.

You know? The way we treat our our family and our relatives and the people that love us and you know that that look in their eye. How many times, you know, I mean I have these visions, I have these memories of standing in front of somebody. I have no idea what it was I said, but I can see their face change And I've said this really cute thing, and they just turn away in disgust, and I watch their face change. How does it become okay?

Well, the first thing you gotta do is hate your parents. It's a requirement for being an alcoholic. Right? Because it has to be someone else's fault. It must be someone else's fault.

I cannot take responsibility for my own behavior. If I do, I can't justify it and I have to stop living that way. So it's gotta be your fault. And my first persona was the rebel. I I wore alcoholism and drug addiction like a suit of armor.

I tattooed it on myself. I had the uniform. I walked around. I was the rebel. I was anti establishment.

And I was marching for something. I'm not exactly sure exactly what it was, but I was out there marching, you know. And that was my first persona. That's the first thing that I did. I was an angry young youth.

I was profoundly neurotic and tortured, and I was abused as a child. That's what it is. I was abused as a child. You know. And then isn't it weird when you get sober and you gotta go make amends to them and you start making the list and you know it's gotta be longer than that?

It's it's, I mean, he did something that's worse than, you know. It was awful, wasn't it? When I was a kid, wasn't it awful? And I think I was just awful. I got sober in March of 85, but my journey my journey in Alcoholics Anonymous really started in March of 1954.

I was 6 years old and my dad got fired from a job. And, rather than go to the bar, he came home, which was pretty odd. And, I'm pretty sure that it was my mother that called Alcoholics Anonymous. And, he went to a meeting in Inglewood, California on Western on and, he came back from that meeting and he told my mother, he says, you know those people have got something down there and I'm gonna go back and find out what it is. So the following night she went with him in order to monitor the experience.

Make sure he signed the entrance form correctly, and talk to the right people, and pay the dues. And, they walked into this room, this little Alano club in Inglewood, and another woman saw my mother there and walked up to her and asked her what she was doing there. So my mother told her and that woman took my mother into the other room. When my father died in 1999, he was 45 years sober. When my mother died in 2002, she was 48 years in Al Anon.

And in her box of archives were letters from Lois Wilson. And so I I grew up I grew up hanging out with people like Chuck Chamberlain, and, you know, Clancy was the newcomer and everybody said he wouldn't make it. And, you know, and they matter of fact they still say that about him. And, and I grew up in one of those houses. I would come home from school and there would be guys laying on the back porch waiting for their sponsor to come home.

And sometimes they were drunk, sometimes they were sober. And I'd get them up and bring them in the house. I came home one day and there was a woman hiding in the garage. That was the Al Anon. Now I'm this is the truth.

This is the truth. Don't make Al Anon jokes if you don't know what it is. But if you know what it is, you can make some great Al Anon jokes. But, you know, don't throw rocks at them, laugh with them because God knows they're laughing at us. You ever heard the term alcoholic thinking?

Yeah. You only hear that in AA meetings. I don't believe there's any such thing as alcoholic thinking. I think we're just immature. Doctor Silkworth agreed with that.

Thibault agreed with that. Matter of fact, Silkworth wrote a really great treatise on the idea that we would actually come up with a unique thing called alcoholic thinking in order to avoid looking at ourselves. And, I don't know why I brought that up. Evidently, I needed to hear that. I don't recommend growing up in an AA household, at all.

There's nothing worse than living in a house with 2 people with clear eyes that know exactly what's going on in your head. I mean, you're going around the corner to smoke 1 and they're waiting for you going, where are you going? You know? Because they've been around the corner, they know, and, I got out of there as quickly as I could. My parents are 2 of the most boring, ignorant people I'd ever met in my life.

It was incredible. You know? It was much more fun hanging out at the active alcoholic's house down the street. You know what I mean? I mean, there was action there.

Shit was flying around. You know? So you're on your toes. You know? There was always a party.

My house, it was just boring and straight and barbecues and potlucks and, you know, only smiley people. But we had a guy that became like a member of our family. His name was Harold. And he was like uncle Harold. I mean there were a couple of those guys, but I remember this guy in particular and Harold was one of these guys that was always on the back porch and he was usually always drunk.

And he just couldn't My dad would give him jobs around the house, put money in his pocket, and drive him to meetings, and give him clothes and stuff like that, you know. And finally Harold got sober and I remember one time getting him up, he was laying on the porch and I come home and I must have been 10 years old, 11 years old, something like that. And I went up and I started lecturing them. I said, you know, you're not supposed to drink man. You know, can you imagine?

That's called hell. You know, you're laying there. What's this? You know? Woah.

You know? You're not supposed to think. I would imagine he'd heard that before, you know? And so so, he finally he gets sober. And, pretty soon he's coming over to the house.

He's got a car. He's got a job. His clothes are clean, you know, and they're going to meetings and stuff. And then he meets this woman in AA, if they fall in love, and I went to the wedding when he got married. And, sometime later he started drinking again, and, and he got divorced.

And then I went to the funeral after he burned himself up alive in a hotel room smoking drunk. And I was probably 13 years old at the time, and I knew that the reason that man died is because he drank. I I was real clear on that, you know. I mean, you one of the things about growing up in an AA household, you get a pretty good idea of what alcoholism is. You you may not grasp the physiological aspect of it and there's a disease and stuff, but you know damn good and well that it's not good to do.

That people get hurt and people die, and and you see these other smiley people coming over, and you know that what these people are doing in your backyard is a good thing. They're plotting and planning and starting meetings and doing things, and and positive stuff is happening. I remember talking to other kids about, that my dad was sober and stuff. And one of the things I did in therapy is I'd I'd talk about the fact that my parents were in AA. And I and I can remember as much as I disliked my parents, as much as I really I profoundly hated my father, I would talk about his AA life with a certain pride.

That that was a good thing that my dad was doing. It was a good thing. He was an asshole generally, but he had this good thing that he would do, you know? And, so at 17, I'm this bad drunk. I meet a girl in 1965 when the Hells Angels rode into the valley at Bass Lake up above Fresno.

One of our favorite authors who just recently blew his head off wrote a book about it, and and I happened to be there. I was there when all that came down. And, and I met this woman, and we went up to Oregon to grow our own. And, we had a couple of kids. And at 22, I'm in the mental hospital, and I'm sticking needles in my arm every day, and I'm drinking like a fish, and I lost a job and and several jobs and a couple of cars.

I lost a house, and I was not coming home to that family at all. I wasn't taking care. We were on welfare, and, and I lost that family and those children to divorce. Divorce. And I'm in a mental institution.

I'm in a mental institution. And the the way when you end up in a mental institution, it's not because you had a bad week. You know, you have to build up a certain level of toxicity to end up in the mental institution, you know. I mean, I was running with an outlaw motorcycle gang and I'm shooting speed and I was strung out. I'm having black and white hallucinations and drinking like a fish and things were not going well for Billy.

Anybody else here been in a mental institution? Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I'm a I'm gonna ask that question again and I'm gonna give a look if they lock the door behind you, it's a mental institution. That's better.

There's always a bunch of people out there thinking, well, they were just observing me. It really wasn't a mental institution, you know. I was only there for a week. Only those of us that have been in a mental institution know that it's not that bad. You have some sparkling conversations in the mental institution.

I mean, it is an eclectic crowd. It's a great place to look for a bride. I'd like to introduce you to my wife, Karen. Stand up, honey. She requires me to tell you that I did not find her in the mental institution unless you count AA.

Yeah. You know? When I was in the middle of this, it was probably 68, 69, something like that, And I don't remember anybody talking to me in there about recovery. I don't remember anybody talking to me about Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't remember anybody talking to me about abstinence or a 12 step program of any kind.

Now they may very well have talked to me about that and I just don't recall it. I had the wonderful experience a few years ago to actually speak at a convention in that town of Salem, Oregon. And this is how AA works, I went there and I was gonna revisit this place. Now I I joke about it a lot, but it wasn't a real happy time in my life. The reason that we laugh about these things is because it's not like that anymore.

But when it's like that, it's not cute. I mean, it's not people were coming to visit me to think see if I was okay in the mental I didn't want visitors in the mental institution. This is not a high point for a badass biker like me. You know? It's like and I was in there a couple of times too, and, but I went up there and I had every intention of visiting the place.

And I got there early that day on a Friday and I drove around and I head right next to the penitentiary so that you can see where you're going, you know. And, and I and I tried find I couldn't find it and time was running out and they had a little banquet like they had here for the speakers and stuff, and I'm sitting next to this guy that's about my age, he's a local guy there and he's one of happens to be one of those speakers, long ponytail hippie guy, you know, and I love ponytail hippie guys, and and, I'm talking to him and I said, you know, I was in the mental institution here. And he looked at me and smiled and he goes, I work there. And I said, of course you do. He goes, absolutely.

He says, would you like to go there? I said, yes. So he called off security and said, I'm gonna be leading this weirdo around Sunday afternoon, and I got my picture taken next to the sign, found the ward I was in. It's like my alma mater, you know? It's like it's like some people went to Harvard.

I went to the Oregon State Mental Institution, and, and, so I get out of the mental institution and it was time to go home. The state of Oregon determined that they didn't want me any longer, and nobody else that I knew there cared to have me there. And I came home and I went back down to Los Angeles and when you hate your parents, you can still ask them for stuff when you need it. Don't ever forget that. This is, you know, don't be too proud.

And, so I needed something. So my dad let me sleep in his garage and he gave me a job in his little machine shop in El Segundo. And I tried to get normal. And what normal is for an alcoholic of my variety is that you pretty much gotta quit doing heroin because you can't find anybody to go along with the concept of social heroin use. It's pretty much a lifestyle you know, and, you gotta stop taking acid because you gotta talk to people.

I mean, regular people I've noticed this, they have conversations where one person stop talks and then they stop, and then the other person talks, and then he stops, and then that person you ever you ever watched them do that? It's it's called interchange or something and and, I don't do that very well. And so you gotta quit taking acid. So what you do is you you just drink on the weekends, and the reason you can only drink on the weekends is normal people have jobs and they go to them those jobs on Monday and then they follow that up with Tuesday. I've seen it.

I've seen it. Then they do they do Wednesday, Thursday and they do this week after week. It's incredible. It's depressing, but it's incredible. And when I drink, I don't show up no matter what.

Literally everything stops. I accomplish nothing, I go nowhere, I have nothing, everything stops And, and I end up alone in a room somewhere almost every time, and and I'm a social guy. I love people, I love being around people, I derive my energy from people. I tried this experiment for 15 years, and as you can imagine, it failed miserably. By the time I was 37 years old, all the hip dope was gone.

There was no more hip dope. There was me in a gin bottle. That was it. One of the things that happened, I think, that kind of kicked me over the traces is I started sticking needles again. I started using needles again, and I and I thought I would never do that again.

And, but I I wasn't hooked or anything like that. I was just drunk, and it was in the room. You know what I mean? It's just you ever notice? I mean, it's it's you just end up places.

You know? You just you end up places that you have no intention of being. I never intended to be many places I ended up with people that I ended up with. And, in the end, I had married again, I found another woman, I had 2 more children because an alcoholic of my variety, you can never ever ever be alone. I need someone to take care of me.

It it's a group effort getting me through life. It takes a village. You know? You know, it's like and people have a tendency to stray and you gotta gather them up, you know, get them back, get them refocused, you know, on the plan here. We got a plan.

We're We're going somewhere, you know. And and there's lots of volunteers out there for that. There's lots of volunteers. People that will step up and take responsibility for me and, and I found one of these women and we had we set up housekeeping again. I had 2 more children, and at 37 years old I lived in the house with those people, with those children, and with that wife, and I had no emotional connection to another living human connection to another living human being.

None. And the worst thing about that is I did not know that. I had no clue. The eye can't see itself. I can't stand outside my own experience and look at it and compare it to anything else.

I figured that everybody feels the same way I do. The thief thinks everyone else is a thief. I had no idea that I was that dead inside. There's a great line written by a non alcoholic in the doctor's opinion, it says, we lose touch with all things human. Isn't that true?

There's no room for you in my life. I cannot feel you in my life. I do not feel what you feel. The only time how you feel affects me in any way is when how you feel affects me somehow. But I do not relate to how you feel.

It's when you're mad and I need you to not be mad at me, and then all of a sudden I'm concerned with your life situation. But beyond that, nothing. Guys come to me today and they say, I love my children. I look at them and go, do you really? Don't you think they're in a way just a little bit?

Because you were in my way. You everybody was in my way. You were a hindrance. You were a speed bump in my life, you know. And at 37, I had no connection.

There was nothing left in me anymore, and I didn't know it. But once again, I was drunk from the neck down. There was no more mental and emotional relief. There was no word left. You know what that is?

That's hell. That's hell. When the medication doesn't work anymore, when I can't get any relief. You ever drank yourself clear? Now that was never the idea, was it?

You know what the problem with moderation management is? You ever heard of moderation management? The woman that started it killed some people on the freeway here a few years ago. You know, the problem with moderation management is is that I don't know any of my brothers and sisters in Alcoholics Anonymous that ever wanted to moderate a goddamn thing. Moderation was never the goal.

I never had the desire, ever had the desire to sit out on the veranda and have a couple of beers and watch the sun go down. That was never the the only time that idea came to me is after I got sober and I'm looking for a way to go drink. But when I was drinking, I never wanted to sit out on the strand wall and smoke a joint and watch the sun go down. I wanted to lay down behind the wall and be shit faced. You know, I wanna get off.

I'm drinking for the blackout. I wanna go away. I don't like this reality. I did not create it, and I wanna go somewhere else. Thank you very much.

And when that stops happening, I'm in a squirrel cage. I'm in trouble now. So I went home this one particular night and I called my mom. No one loves you like your mother. Hopefully.

And, my mother came and got me and she drove me silently before I changed my mind to a place in Costa Mesa called Starting Point and checked me in there. I should go back a little bit, I went to my 1st shrink when I was 13, spent a couple of times in a mental institution, I spent two and a half years in group therapy at one time, I've been to several other psychiatrists for one reason or another, I've been observed. I've been gestulted and rolfed and primal screamed. I know more about myself than is safe to know, but it is my favorite subject. While I was in this recovery place for 35 days, they made me wear a sign around my neck.

I had to make the sign, we made it in crafts. It's a little rectangular piece of cardboard with a string that went around it and I had to wear it and pour everybody coffee and what it said on the sign is, I am not a counselor. Because evidently there was some confusion about that. So I spent 35 days in there, it was a pretty straight ahead place, you know, they worked you up through a 5th step and had some counseling and stuff, but it was pretty straight ahead. It was all big book oriented stuff, and, you know meditation and prayer, and all that stupid stuff they make you do.

You know? And, while I was in that thing, they'd let us out every once in a while to go to the drugstore or something to get toothpaste, and I was afraid to leave. I just knew that, you know, I'd be walking around outside and a beer truck would drive by and can would fall off and jump into my mouth or something. I don't know what the hell we're afraid of, you know. It's like, but I just knew I mean, I knew didn't you know?

Didn't you know you were gonna get drunk again? Didn't you know? I mean, it's like we all sit around, every one of us sit around, and we think about, you know, I should quit drinking. I should maybe it's the drinking, but you can't really imagine not drinking. You know?

You can't really imagine living life sober without because the impact of your personality on me is devastating. It's just it's absolutely devastating. Matter of fact, the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous is something to be survived. You know. I really I'm serious.

I mean, this is the character defects center of the known universe. I mean the absolute worst thing we do is relationships and we do a lot of things poorly, but relationships is right up there in the top one, You know? I mean, you know, you'll hit on my wife. You'll borrow money from me and you won't pay me back. I'll give you a job.

You'll do a shitty job and somehow it'll be my fault. That's my personal favorite. How you pull that off is beyond me. You know? And then the coup de grace is is that you won't show up to my birthday party after all I've done for you.

So I couldn't imagine living life just without some cushion, you know? And and I was afraid to leave that place. And I got out and I started going to AA. What an experience. You know, I mean, what an experience.

Alcoholics anonymous, what an experience. I remember standing in the back of the room, it was Friday night at the Hermosa Beach Alano Club, and there was this meeting called the gong show. Lot of people said that it really wasn't an AA meeting. It was some hermaphroditic kind of thing. Some aberration of an AA meeting, but there was a lot of laughter and stuff.

And I remember you walking up to the podium taking your dumbass little chips and saying, I'd like to thank God and my sponsor for my sobriety. You know? And I'm thinking and then the coup de grace at the end was, happy birthday to you. And I'm standing there and I'm looking at my shoes and I'm thinking, I can't do this. This is too stupid, you know, I can't.

And and I'm cursed with the disease that a lot of us have. I'm too hip for AA. This is, you know Now, you gotta picture this. I'm fat, bald and 40, and I think I'm too hip for AA. We talk around here a lot about denial.

That is not denial. This is delusional. To be in denial, you actually have to know some shit. You know? And I've I've got the delusion problem now.

Now at this point in my sobriety, I think one of the saddest things that you see around here is somebody trying to be cool in of all places, AA. No. This has offered me a level of lameness that I did not know was available. It's just, it's beyond belief. And in order for AA to work for you, for me, for anybody, you gotta lay them up.

You know, you just have to go along with the lameness, you know. And that's a barrier for a lot of folks. But I knew I had to get a sponsor thing. You know, you you really need a sponsor thing. And in the hospital they tell you that that you gotta have one.

And so I walked up and I asked this guy, will you be my sponsor? He says, be at the Hermosa Beach Alano Club Monday at 8 o'clock. The meeting starts at 8:30, be there at 8 o'clock Monday night and we'll discuss it. Now I thought what he was gonna do is that he was gonna ask me a series of questions about myself, so that he could get a feel for my case, so that he could adjust himself accordingly to approach me in such a fashion, to make this transition into sobriety a little easier for me. Because the psychotherapeutic community is always interested in how I felt and what I thought about how I felt.

That was my life experience and I was actually looking forward to this because you see, I have no trouble telling you all my secrets. I have no trouble with that at all. I really don't. Matter of fact, if the conversation lols, I'll just make some shit up. You know?

I mean, and I, you know, we'll just to keep the ball rolling, you know? I mean, in the hospital I used to tell people, I used to help them do their inventory. I swear this is true. I said, you know, I said, put some homosexual stuff in there. It makes them think you're telling the truth, you know?

And it's probably true. You just don't remember. Well, I woke up with a couple of guys, but it wasn't anything serious. You know, I mean, it's just kinda what happens sometimes, you know? Have I gone too far?

See, is anybody leaving? Share in a general way. Well we seem to be getting close. So anyway, I show up to the Alano club and this guy takes me around the corner and he asks me a couple of questions. One of them is, are you willing to go to any length for victory over alcohol?

Very lame. And, it's like like, what's he expect? You say, no. I'd like to lose. Thank you.

How about, like, just win a couple of battles and not total victory? And I said, yeah, sure. I'm willing to go to any length, man. You and me, bro, off hand in hand into the sunset. Hoo ah.

Victory. You know? Yeah. That's what I'm looking for. Victory.

And, and the second question was more of a statement than a question, he says, I noticed that when you identify yourself that you call yourself an alcoholic and an addict. And I said, Well yeah, I did a lot of drugs and they taught me how to do that in the hospital, so what? And he looks at me and he says, well, if you're calling yourself an addict because you think it's a little hipper, slicker, and cooler, you might wanna drop it and be like everybody else for the first time in your life. This is Alcoholics Anonymous. And I remember standing there looking at the guy.

And it's in the dark, and he's a short little and he's 10 years younger than me, and he's got a full head of hair, all of which pisses me off. And I'm looking down at him and standing in front of me was the boys vice principal, my father, every cop that I've ever yelled at. You know? Because I had a bit of a problem with authority. You know?

You ever heard people say that in AA when they're up at podiums like it's a badge of honor? I'm here to tell you that's a character defect. When you're 14 or 15, it's kind of appropriate. When you're 40, it's just stupid. You know?

But that night, I'm standing there looking at this guy, and I could feel the rage. I could feel it coming up in the veins throbbing in my neck. And what was going on what I what was going on in my head was who the hell do you think you are to talk to me like that? Because he embarrassed me, and it it shocked me. It surprised me.

And what came out of my mouth was, okay. When you're fat, bald, and 40, and you're in your old man's club, there's no debate. There is no debate. There are no referrals from Alcoholics Anonymous. This is the last house on the street.

There's nowhere else to go, ladies and gentlemen. For the rest of our natural lives, it's linoleum floors and metal folding chairs. Party. This is it. I did not make this up.

I need you. You don't need me. There's many more standing behind me waiting to come in here. You don't need me. I need you.

I have to figure out some way to make this work. I've got to somehow I've got to get underneath all the personalities to where there are some principles or something that I can grab a hold of that is gonna help me survive this thing to get to the other side of it. You can bet if I'm gonna change, I'm gonna be uncomfortable. I don't change when I'm not uncomfortable. When I'm on familiar ground, in a familiar place where I'm in control and I'm in charge, no change occurs.

This guy is offering me his life, isn't he? When we walk up to these people and we ask them, we tell them, I want what you have. Will you help me? What is it we want from them? Isn't what we want is their lives?

I mean, I want your life, and I can only equate it in things like Mercedes house and stuff like that. But deep down inside, there's something more, isn't there? Isn't there something more that I'm looking for? And how am I ever gonna get there if I control this Probably. There Probably.

There's no comfortable place in Alcoholics Anonymous. It's not comfortable here, Not when we're new. It's never comfortable. And as far as I'm concerned, there are some misconceptions around here that are really dangerous. One of them is that this is a selfish program.

No, it's not. We made that up so we'll feel better about being here. You know? It is the antithesis of a selfish program. It's about me finally getting out of myself and into you.

It has very little to do with me. The same alcoholic that made that up came up with there's a different program for everyone in AA. No. There's not. I mean, I think there should be a special program for Billy, and I've created several of those over the years but there's only one program and it's real clear as to what it is.

Matter of fact, it says one of the great lines in the book is that we have a way out upon which we can all agree. We all agree on this. It's what allows us to sit in the room together black, white, you know, everything. Gay, straight, everything. We all can sit in the room together, all ethnicities, sexual persuasions, because we have a way out upon which we can all agree.

And we don't talk about anything else other than that way out. Now if you wanna think that there's a special program for you and you can go and you can create it, you need another phrase that is even more deadly than that one, but it's attached to it. It's take what you can use and leave the rest. Doesn't that just sound wrong? Isn't that how you and I have lived our lives, all of our lives?

Isn't that what we've always done? Take what's easy. Take what's convenient. Take what's convenient. Take what's handy.

Take what belongs to you. You know? And just leave whatever's inconvenient, whatever makes me uncomfortable, whatever I don't like, whatever doesn't look right, whatever smells wrong, whatever it might be, whatever's too hard to get, whatever makes me uncomfortable, just leave it. I think it's time for me to finally step up to the plate and realize that my problem is is that I'm emotionally immature. I don't have alcoholic thinking.

I have emotionally immature thinking. I'm like a little child. And when I started drinking when I was 14 or And this 16 year old is not your honor student. And this 16 year old is not your honor student. This is the one with the bit of a problem with authority.

You know? And if you let this 16 year old take what he wants and leave the rest, he'll leave the room. It's uncomfortable for me here. I'll just go. Thank you very much.

You've been your own worst enemy. Put yourself at the top of the amends list. Just blow your head off. Make it quick. Save us the pain of watching you flop around like a boated fish.

Isn't the way it works is you put yourself at the bottom of the list and by the time you get there you have some self esteem? Isn't that how AA works? I think so. You've got to learn to love yourself before you can love others. I always have loved Billy.

Now maybe I was a little self destructive, but it was all behind making Billy feel good all the time. You know? I'm an alcoholic. I should never ever feel bad. When I feel bad, there's something inherently incorrect.

It needs to be remedied immediately. You know? This I take as self love. Let's make Billy feel good. I think the way AA works is is I pretend that I love you, and that in that process, I'll start feeling better about myself because of those acts, and I'll begin to like what I see in the mirror.

The day will come where I'll raise my head up from the sink, and I'll look at that guy in the mirror, and it won't be hard. I won't have to avert my gaze, because I'm beginning to live a decent life. We're not bad people getting good. We're sick people getting well. Isn't part isn't part of the sick people getting well bad people getting good?

Isn't that kind of the pathway? It's like when the guy comes to you and he says, I think I'll rob a liquor store. And you say to him, no, no, no. That's bad. You know, don't rob the liquor store.

Get a job. You know? You know? And the guy looks at you. He goes, right.

Okay. You know? I think I'll marry the nude dancer down at the Wild Goose. I don't think so. You know, I don't wanna tell you how to live your life, but that probably is gonna be a short term relationship.

You know? But I think part of the pathway for us getting well is to start performing decent acts. I mean, that's how you build self esteem. None of us gets to Alcoholics Anonymous feeling very good about ourselves. The last thing we want to do is continue breaking that down.