The Desert Rose Roundup

Good evening. My name is Paul, and I'm a full blown alcoholic. Good afternoon. I'm glad to be here. Glad to have the opportunity to talk about my two favorite subjects, Alcoholics Anonymous and me.

And I I feel bad about the people that have to stand. I figure what the hell I have to stand. I, Wanna welcome all the, alcoholics. You sound like a bunch of alcoholics. Wanna welcome the, nonalcoholics.

Don was lead. Too bad you weren't all here to I'm glad you weren't all here this afternoon to hear Max tell a perverted version of my story. I, Don led the meeting and he referred to people who live with or love alcoholics as being Al Anon. And he was hissed and booed by, Al Anon members who said living or love living with or loving an Al Anon an alcoholic doesn't make you an Al Anon. The Al Anon's are, people who live the Al Anon program.

And, there's an Al Anon in the 4th row back Right over there in the truth is I have a weird and strange disease and it's referred to as alcoholism. Max says, disease that is so weird and so strange that nobody's even thought up a name for it yet. They call the members the Al Anon. I like to call it Al Anonism, but they they don't like that. And, but, no, I, I I love alanons and, I find it's good to, say that in a meeting this size because it I can tell there's some alanons here in the audience.

I can I can tell? I can feel the vibrations. They, and, I feel very lucky. Max is, Max works for her program and I work mine and we got a good deal going. In fact, we got 2 ava dogs up in the room.

Lily and Sabrina. They said to be sure and tell you hello. And, they come to all of our meetings with us and, well, all the ones we drive to. And, well, they come to more meetings than a lot of people that are trying to stay sober. A matter of fact, they have nicer personalities than a lot of people that are trying to stay sober.

In fact, we're listening to tapes on the way down here. We always do that on the way to meetings. We listen to tapes of meetings and, tapes, such as Walt puts out and just listen to learn thing that have been a very important part of, our recovery programs. And, we're going to meeting one place. We were listening to tape of, father Tom w.

You probably have heard about him, heard him, or heard of him. And, there's a lot of tapes. He was telling the story about, the one time that Hitler drank. And he said that, he was reading this thing about Hitler and Hitler said that when he was a young soldier, he and some other young soldiers got hold of some liquor one night and they drank it all. And Hitler got drunk.

And the next morning, he felt terrible. And he decided that's stupid. He's never gonna do that again. He decided he'd never ever drink again. And, he never did.

He said Hitler never did drink again. And Tom says, I give you Hitler as an example of an of an alcoholic who doesn't drink and doesn't go to meetings. So, anyway, I'm glad to be here, and I'm glad to be able to, talk about Alcoholics Anonymous because that's, I have a deal going with Alcoholics Anonymous. As long as I, talk about the fact that alcoholism is a disease and, recovery is spiritual. They allow me to stay sober.

It's my commission for, what they call carrying the message. And, in fact, I saw sitting through the meetings, over the weekend and noticing the, the, AA, emblem. The circle meaning encur encompassing the whole world. And the triangle, the base stands for the 12 steps that were read here tonight. 12 Steps of Recovery.

And one side of the triangle refers to the 12 traditions of unity. The steps, the the unity, the traditions are meant to hold a group together just as the steps are meant to keep the, members from falling apart. And the other side of the triangle is the 12 concepts which have to do with service. So we have recovery, unity, and service. In fact, I like the idea that, we have a book out here.

A big book, with all of the meetings. And, are you aware that, 1989 is the 50th birthday of the big book? The book was first published. As a matter of fact, are you planning a birthday celebration down in, Orange County, California in Laguna Beach? We're having a, birthday celebration for the 50th birthday, the big book, and, making a big deal out of it.

And I think that's nice. As a matter of fact, I was reading something about the big book the other day about do you know how the book got its name, Alcoholics Anonymous? If you're like me, you probably have assumed that the book was called Alcoholics Anonymous after the organization Alcoholics Anonymous, the people of AA who wrote the book. That's not true. When the book was written, AA did not have a name.

It was written by a 100 drunks who stayed sober. And, one of the suggestions of, title for the book after they got it written was, to call it 100 Men. You know what happened to that. Some woman got sober and screwed that up. Somehow, they just thought maybe it wasn't a good idea to call it it 100 men and 1 woman.

I guess the title was too long or something. Another idea was to call it, a way out, the way out. And, they were all ready to go to print on calling the book, The Way Out. And, just before they did that, somebody decided to run to check out the Library of Congress and see if the way out had ever been used before. And they did some checking and they found out that it already had been published 12 way out which would have made us the 13th way out.

And I guess we would have been what would we have been called? 13 steppers or 13 13th way outers or something? So that went out. And, I guess what happened was that somebody, they had a a guy, I think his name was Jack, and he was out on pass from the network. And, he was original originally, he was the founder of the, I believe, it was the New Yorker Magazine.

He was out on task, and they were having this big discussion as to what to call this book. And he says, why don't you call it, anonymous alcoholics? And, they took him back to the nut ward and he never got out again. But they ended up calling the book Alcoholics Anonymous, and then the organization took its title from the name of the book, reverse of what you think. So if you get nothing else out of this tonight, at least you know all that.

I don't know what you're gonna do with it, but now you got that. You know? I, anyway, also, I wanna welcome the newcomers. I'm glad to see the newcomers stand up. Those who did stand up.

I, I wanna welcome those newcomers who didn't stand up too. I wanna tell you, you're gonna stay sober. You're gonna make it because you're my kind of alcoholic. I didn't think it was anybody's business whether I'd had a beer or not. My god.

And the good news for the newcomers is to to know I want you to know that if you're willing to help us, if you're willing, not not to help us. If you're willing to let us help you, if you're willing to ask for help, we can give you all the help you'll need so that you'll never ever have to take a drink again as long as you live if you don't want to. And in fact, even better news than that is the fact that if you will ask us for help, we can give you enough help that you won't ever have to take another drink again as long as you do, even if you do want to. And the bad news is that if you drink, you'll never enjoy it again anyway. You don't know it, but when you stood up, you were screwed.

In fact, you'll just enjoy your drinking so much you might as well just quit. It's easier to just not drink anymore. Now, speaking of, not drinking again even if you do want to. I remember one time, sometimes I like to listen to the things that are read in the meaning and listen for mistakes because sometimes the mistakes are more meaningful than the things that are written the way read the way they're written. And I remember something like the traditions are read tonight so very well.

And I remember the time the guy read the tradition saying, the only requirement for membership is the desire to start drinking. I thought that was very appropriate. In fact, the reading of the book, the reading I I I didn't accept that book. I just accept, you know, the first 106 4 pages of the book, if it's in the book, I just decided it's true. Maybe it isn't true.

I don't know. But I decided for me, it is true. And I don't even have to think about it anymore. If it's in the book, I just accept it. I mean, I don't have any trouble with that.

In fact, my life is much better. I mean, much, much better just for me to just accept the fact that if it's there, it's true. Not debatable. It's not that it's just it's true. Now I don't have any trouble with that.

If I were gonna have any trouble with it, I might have a little trouble with that. Many of us exclaim, what an order. I can't go through with it. Yeah. If it's in the book, it's true.

But, I've never heard anybody exclaim, what an order, I can't go through with it. One night I was down in Bellflower and, some gal read that portion of chapter 5 and she read it as though there must have been an exclamation point or something was missing. And she read it as, what? An order? I can't go through with that.

Somehow that's easy to make more sense that way to me. It's interesting that I, you know, I said I was glad to be here and I I enjoy AA functions and AA roundups and conventions and workshops and service stuff. And I try to go to all the AA things I can. I just want all I can get of this thing. I just I want every bit of it that I can squeeze into whatever time is left.

And I and that's strange because it's strange because I didn't, I didn't I didn't like y a a when I came here, but, of course, the truth is I wasn't alcoholic when I came here. I, a and a a a eight meetings are really dumb if you're not an alcoholic. They they say a lot of dumb things and they certainly laugh at stupid things. It's a weird thing when you're not in a hike. I mean and I wasn't in a hike when I came here.

In fact, I wasn't in a hike. I didn't feel a little funny when I say when I came here because I but I didn't I didn't have to come here. I didn't have any get well nudge from the judge. I didn't have to come here. I could have stayed there and not taken a pass to get out of the network.

I, it it was just, getting a pass to go to AA was the only way I could get off the network. Well, I was there by mistake. You'd, well, it was a mistake and misunderstanding. It's a misdiagnosis. It was embarrassing too because I'm just I was in the network of the hospital I was on the staff of.

And In medical school they teach you how to act. That's that's what you would make in school for, to act. Teach you how to act like a doctor. First thing you do is you wear a tie and a coat and Max and I had many discussions about whether or not I needed to wear one here and I showed my independence. I didn't bring one along.

And then I got here and everybody's come up to the podium so far. He's had on a coat and tie. But in in in the Mako school, they teach you how to dress like a doctor and carry a bag and wear a stethoscope. And if you don't have it around here, put it in your back pocket. I remember a guy at the AA meeting used to get mad at me because I told him he was a doctor.

He had no right to tell him that. That's fine. I don't wanna tell him I'm a doctor. And my home group about a third is as big as this. They asked him to get up and read chapter 5.

And he gets up and read chapter 5 at 8:30 at night. He's got a stethoscope stuck in his back pocket, you know, with his coat in so that everybody can see the stethoscope, but he didn't want anybody to know he was a doctor. That's That's what they teach you in medical school. In fact, I I knew how I felt very comfortable being a doctor because I had training in that. And I had a big desk and I would sit on my side of the desk.

And I I was the doctor and you were the patient. And if you got to call me by my first name or you got too personal or I started I got uncomfortable because you were getting too personal, I could always say, well, let's go in the other room and you take off your clothes and I'll examine you. And I was back in charge. And, but when I but in medical school they didn't tell you. They didn't teach you how to act on the nut word when you're the patient.

And it's very boring. In fact, they had a weird philosophy at that nut word. Real weird philosophy. They tried to convince me that my life would be improved if I learned how to make leather belts. That made no sense to me at all.

I I couldn't sell leather belts in the office or I didn't I didn't see how my life could be improved in any way for me to know how to make leather belts. I didn't understand the philosophy. And besides, I didn't understand the instructions. Which of course was the father of the occupational therapy gal. Because I've always had a theory that if you don't understand if you don't understand a thing well enough so you can explain it to me so I understand it, then you don't really understand it as well as you ought to.

And, I wasn't gonna embarrass her by asking her a 4th time how to do it. And and the funny part about that is I went to the AA, you know, went to those AA meetings, and I've been to all kinds of AA functions ever since. And I have never I haven't seen one here at this round up. I haven't seen any occupational therapy booth. I haven't seen any occupational therapist particularly or giving instructions to the AAMs and yet I went back to that network and I made the most beautiful pair of moccasins you've ever seen.

A pair of moccasins and a half a wallet. And, I love my moccasins. They they were nice. They were. I would wish I'd bought them.

The workmanship was nice. Right? In fact, they and they and they look good. They fit good. They wore good.

They wore wore real well. I used to wear them every chance I got, and it took 7 years before, you know, the town should break and repair them. It took 7 years before those moccasins wore out to the point where I couldn't repair them anymore. And I felt bad. Not bad enough to go back and make another pair.

But apparently Max was afraid I might and for my for my 7th birthday my dear Al Anon wife had my moccasins bronze And and I love my bronze moccasins. I loved them and I figured as long as I remember where they came from, I wouldn't have to go back and make another pair of them. And I love my bronze. I just love them. Even though they're not nearly as comfortable anymore.

I'm talking about doing those physical exam examining people. It remind me of an incident Just like being in fact, being here in the desert reminds me. Last week, I spent all last week at Club Med where it's, 400 sober alcoholics went to Club Med and took over the complete club over in the Bahamas. And that was just terrific. And off of one section, there were 4 different levels of, patios by this, place where they're teaching everybody to sailboat.

And down in the far I wonder where some gals down there. Would you believe they were topless? And I pointed that out to, Max and Joyce got in the gallows with us. And Joyce says, you better run down and, check your breasts. And that reminded me I don't tell a story anymore because the women's livers got after me.

But I I used to talk about how when I was, in the office, my background, my training, my specialty is internal medicine. Do a lot of physical exams. Lots of physical exam. When I examine men, I have them take off everything but their shorts. Don't get ahead of me.

When I examine women, I have them take off everything. And I give them a sheet with 2 holes in it. They put their arms through and the sheet hangs down. They feel like they got something on. Then they're sitting on the table like this looking this way, then I examine their eyes, ears, nose, throat, neck.

Then I take a little plastic thing and I drop it down. And as I do that, maybe they put my right hand over their left breast. And I say to them, do you examine your breasts regularly for lumps? And one of 2 things happens. Always the same.

1 of 2 things happen. Either they think to themselves, my last doctor told me to do that, and I used to do that. I never found any lumps, so I decided I wasn't doing it right, so I've stopped doing it, but I ought to be doing that. Or else they think, oh, my last doctor told me to do that, but I don't want any lumps in my breast, so I've never done that. But either way, they're thinking of the scientific aspect of why some man is standing there with his hands on their breast.

You know? And so I never I never put my hands on a woman's breast without saying, do you examine your breast regularly for long? And it's always worked very well for me. And then one day I went to work and I had the flu again. And I, took a few little pep pills, in order to help me get through the day because I was a hard worker and I worked even when I was sick with the flu.

And I had the flu a lot. And when and, and I was examined this girl and she was rather small. In fact, it wasn't so short but she was small. She just wasn't very well endowed in the breast department. And I examined her eyes.

She was no truant. My total flaccid came dropped down. Put my right hand over her left nubbin, and I looked at her very solicitously, and I said, do you examine your lumps regularly for breast? I'm often wondering whatever happened to her. I, figured someday she might come up to me after a meeting and want me to check her augmentation that she's had done or something.

And, anyway, I went to AA and I wasn't even alcoholic. And AA means are boring when you're an alcoholic, not an alcoholic. And I in fact, that, that's how in people, that's how you get alcoholism. It's a contagious disease. You pick it up at meetings like this.

See? In fact, if you're here tonight and you're not really, really, really an alcoholic, you wanna be real careful what you listen to. People think you get alphales in mountain bars by what you put in your mouth, by what you drink. That isn't that you get drunk drinking in bars, but you don't get alcoholism. Alcoholism is what you let go in your ears.

So if you're you're here tonight and you're not an alcoholic, you wanna be very careful what you listen to. Keep an open mind. Keep it wide open so whatever you hear goes right on through. Because if I say something and you think, oh my god. I did that and I felt like that when I did that.

You suppose I might be an alcoholic. Boom. Just like that, you're an alcoholic. You're an instant alcoholic. And and once you get it, you can't get rid of it.

That's it. I tried to get rid of it by giving it to other people. Made it worse. Yeah. The more I gave it away, the more I had it.

I'm I'm much much worse alcoholic now than I was 22 years ago. That first night that I became it took 7 months 7 months of coming to AA meetings just for the laughs or just for the brownie points that I got or whatever, before I went to one meeting too many. Turned into an. And then even then, I was just a just a little. Just a little bit.

Just a teensy bit alcoholic. Wasn't a real alcoholic. Just I was allergic to alcohol. I was allergic to alcohol. I knew I was allergic to alcohol.

I was just alcoholic enough to keep coming back. And the more I came back the more alcoholic I became. And I'm now 22 years later, I'm much much more alcoholic. And I, as I say, I knew it. So they're allergic to alcohol.

They came to AA and they said you have an allergy in the body and a compulsion of the mind. The allergy in the body and a compulsion. I don't have any compulsion. If you have a compulsion, surely you know it. It makes you do things and marches along.

Big black cloud follows you around. Makes you strangle pretty girls in back alleys or something. I don't know what the pretty girls are doing in the back alleys. But, anyway, I didn't have any feeling of a compulsion. In fact, when I wanted to drink, I took it for God's sake.

What would happen if you waited for a compulsion and it didn't show up? I didn't mean compulsion, but I knew I had an allergy, alcohol. I used to, in fact, I remember when I was a little kid, I knew a long time, when I was quite young, I should say. I used to go to church dinner dances. Hate church dinner dances.

Do not like church dinner dances. A lot of people at church dinner dances always want you to talk to them during the dinner party. You have to talk to them. Talk to them. That's chitchat.

You have to talk chitchat. I like to talk chit chat. I don't know how to talk chit chat. I don't just don't want to talk chit chat. And you have to dance.

You have to dance at church dinner dance. You cannot not dance at the church dinner dance because every church dinner dance has at least 1 hyperactive woman who runs around to you. You sit in there mind your own business and they run up and say, come on, Paul. Let's dance. You say, no.

I don't dance. And they say, oh, sure you do. And drag you out on the floor and prove that you don't dance. You know what I do? I used to have a few drinks before I went to church dinner dance.

Relaxed me mentally and physically. Relaxed me mentally and I could chitchat. Or I could chitchat with the best chitchatters there. When I had a few drinks, they relaxed me and they relaxed me physically and I can dance. Boy, I dance fine too.

Today, I don't drink and I don't dance. Yeah. Trouble is, I have a period of time that I still got out of sync. I wouldn't even begun to relax mentally yet and I get too relaxed physically. But, in fact, my voice, my tongue, my mouth, I would talk slowly and deliberately so nobody would notice.

Yeah. Yeah. Or I would reach for something to knock it out a trip when there was nothing. I would find myself lying there on the floor. Just lying up for it looking very serene.

And my line would say, get up you fool. People will think you're drunk. And my body would say, what do you mean get up? We're paralyzed from the ears down. I think, isn't that strange that I can't move?

Isn't that strange that we're paralyzed from the ears down? I don't understand that. I've never heard of anybody getting paralyzed from the ears down. I must be allergic to this stuff. I must react peculiarly to the drug alcohol.

I have to check up on that sometime. I have to ask some allergist or something. Never find anybody to ask. You can't ask just anybody. You can't because that darn fool may not know any more than you're doing.

They say, well, if it's actually like that way, maybe you shouldn't drink any. I didn't wanna know what to do about it. I just wanna know why I was allergic to it. In fact, being of scientific bent, I lied there. And, mentally, I had a leafing through the pages of Goodman and Gilman's textbook of pharmacology under alcohol intoxication, blood other The other thing was sometimes it wouldn't even be unrelaxed physically yet, and I get too relaxed mentally.

As if as if alcohol dissolved the glue that held all my brain cells together. It'd be like as if all my brain cells would get together and say, what the hell? He's drinking anyhow. Let's take the night off. And they'd go on home and go to bed.

Yeah. And my body would go on doing things. Yeah. And in the morning, I tried to figure out what my body was doing when my brain was home and dead. And I never did figure out how to figure how to recall something.

It's like getting up in the morning and think, oh, darn. I fell asleep and missed that TV program last night. Let's turn it on and see if we can get it now. Yeah. If you missed it, you missed it.

Then it's gone. You can't I don't know how to recall something that wasn't recorded at the time. And, anyhow, I ended up becoming more and more alcoholic, having to do the steps. Yeah. Having to do the steps.

I see a lot of people in AA that, say try stay sober without doing the steps. Go to a lot of meetings. Go to minks, lots of minks instead of doing the steps. I've seen people stay sober. Good sobriety right up to the minute they get drunk.

And they always seem surprised. Well, I was going to a lot of meetings. But it in fact, I heard some guy who was in Hawaii said that, He said you're not really he in his opinion, you're not really an AA member unless you've done the steps. Because he said sitting in a meeting doesn't make you a member of AA. Sitting in a meeting doesn't make you a member of AA any more than sitting in a chicken coop makes you a chicken.

Listen to the chickens giggling. Anyhow, I, I had to do a lot of things to stay sober, learn to stay sober. In fact, I I found out how to stay sober and it's been easy for, easy for it is easy. Now it it was not easy in the beginning, but but it's gotten easier as time goes by for me to say so. To not take a drink is to on a day a day at a time basis is easier for me to say.

I mean, to taking a drink doesn't even occur to me as a matter of fact. It's not even an option. No longer been an option. So it doesn't even occur to me to take a drink. I, my problems that my living problems today and and I know I hate to I don't wanna say anything.

It makes it sound I don't think alcohol is my problem. I know that alcohol is my number one problem. But to not take a drink is not an active concern of mine and not an active problem for me today. My problems today aren't with drinking. My problems are with thinking.

As a matter of fact, as a matter of fact that's so that's so true that I don't even have a problem today. I don't even have a problem today unless the thinker do. And on the other hand, I have never ever thought I had a problem and been wrong. Yeah. If I think I got a problem, I got a problem no matter what you think.

And if I don't think I have a problem, I don't have a problem no matter what you think. In fact, I alone determine the size of my problem. Now, I decide whether big problems or little problems. Don't bother with the little ones like resentments. I don't bother with any, but the justifiable ones.

And I don't bother with little problems. I have a little problem. All I have to do is think about it a little bit. I only have to work on a problem to make it bigger. All I have to do is think about it.

I can take any little old problem and think about. I can take a non problem and think about it. But, well, hell that's no problem. I suppose if I think about it a minute, it could be. It is.

Yeah. It is a kind of a problem. And I keep thinking about it and it keeps getting bigger. And pretty soon I'm thinking, my god. It's a good thing I'm looking at this.

Everybody else is missing it. You know? And it gets bigger and bigger. And the bigger it gets, the more I look at it. And the more I look at it, the more bigger it gets.

And so I have a hard time having a why bother with a problem unless you're gonna be obsessed with it? You know? I might as well just dwell on it. Watch it grow. And then I look over there and there it is.

And I look over there and there it is. And people can't even help you much with a problem like that. People aren't any help with a problem like that. They tell you dumb things like, well, don't think about it. Yeah.

Then my favorite story along that line is that I always felt that I would have done more with my life if I'd had the right background. If Max would have been easier to live with, I could have done much more with my life than I did. And I used to call my sponsor up and tell them the things that she did. Because I thought somebody ought to know why I'm not doing more with my life than I am. And I would call up and tell him because somebody needed to know how difficult it was to live her to live with Max.

And I would call him up and tell him these things that she had done. And I don't know whether he got tired listening or I got him on a bad day or what it was. But one day she did something really horrendous that I I can't recall at the moment. And I called him up and I'd hardly even gotten started telling him about, what she had done and he interrupted me. He interrupted me.

He says, why don't you put it out of your mind a couple of days and see what happens? I said, Jack. Jack. I said, a couple of days, I'll forget all about it. Yeah.

And that that's, you know, that's the point with problems. They, they have a very high infant mortality. You can't neglect problems for any time at all because they just they just they're like delicate plants and that you have to take care of. Every and they say that with plants, you know, you have to talk to them. You have to nurture them.

You have to pay a lot attention to them. You have to water them. Fertilizer. A lot of fertilizer. Problems are like that.

Have you ever had a problem that's like a delicate plant, like one that you've nurtured and worked on, and you really love it so much that you can't leave it long enough to go to a meeting that night. You go to the meeting tonight, Joe? No. No. Can't go tonight.

You gotta stay home and work on this problem. You go off to that meeting and some jerk like down here puts you on picking up chairs or down this one or doing that and waste your time. By the time you get home, that problem might be wilted down to the point where you can't even bring it back. You can't. I mentioned sponsor.

Mention sponsor. It brings up one of my favorite annoyances. No. Not sponsors, but people some somebody will say that they were asked somebody asked them to be their sponsor and they said, well, what did you say? They said I said, no.

I said, why the devil would you say no to anybody that asked you to be their sponsor? The answer is always the same. Well, I didn't think I knew the program well enough. I said, what the hell do you expect to do? Go to sponsor school first?

Yeah. You learn to be a sponsor by being a sponsor The same way you learn how to lead a meeting, or to read to the meeting, or talk at the meeting, or how to even be an AA member. You you come in and you do it. You go and I can speak at a meeting. You just get up and do it.

And everybody in the audience sits there and focuses their attention on you and watches and watches for your mistakes. And afterwards, they tell you what you did wrong. You know? That's how you learn how to do that. That that's being sponsored.

Right? You you learn. You do be a sponsor for your benefit, not there really. You do it because of what you learn by it. At least that's the way it's been for me.

I get to think about this. You don't have to be. I think part of it is that people will quote their sponsor with something really profound. And so, you get the idea that to be a sponsor you gotta just reek with profundities. Truth is truth is You can be a real good sponsor and only know 5 words.

Five words. You're sponsoring somebody and they'll call you up. They'll ask you a question. You'll answer the question with a yes or a no. Yes or no.

They'll tell you something and it sounds quite good. They're really happy. Don't really have to pay a whole lot of attention. You can tell by the tone of their voice that they're happy. You say, really?

Sometimes they call call from cloud 9. They're really happy. Really happy. Then you say, wow. So you got yes, no, really, and wow.

Sometimes they call when they're not very happy. Sounds sad. You say, whatever. They got yes, no, really, wow, and whatever. That's not hard.

Not real hard. It's kinda hard. If you're not paying very much attention, sometimes you can't remember which one to say. But the answer to that is you use a non word. There's none there a non word.

No matter what they say, you say, Now, with practice, you can get that into a question. Yeah. Or you get all kinds of inflections out of them. Yeah. You can just play with that.

But you got 5 words and a non word. It works fine. Try it and see. In fact, I've heard that it works, I heard it works well with adolescents. I've heard that it works well with spouses at home.

And an adolescent confided to me that it works real good with parents. Five words and then onward. Boy, I know that some of you are sitting there thinking, yeah, but that's not always true. Sometimes they're gonna call up and they're really gonna wanna have an answer. And that's true.

That's true sometimes. Not not very often. But once in a while, somebody calls up and they wanna know what to do about a problem. It's a question whether somebody's just whining or wants to really work on the problem. Someday they want some action to take.

And that's not hard at all. That's even easier in a way. If they really wanna know what to do about their problem. And it doesn't matter what the problem is. It doesn't matter what it is.

It doesn't matter whether it's a sex problem, money problem, work problem, relationship problem, sobriety problem. No matter what the problem is, no matter what the problem is, you just pick a number from 1 to 12. You say work that step. And they disappear. Now one of 2 things happen.

They either will come back later and say, oh, I have the most wonderful sponsor, which is what you wanted to hear all along or else they never come back. Especially especially if you pick that number, which one is it for? There's something about that number that but then if they don't come back, you're just you're better off anyhow. You don't wanna sponsor somebody that's gonna work the steps. And if they do work, the steps are easy to sponsor.

It's fun. So don't cheat yourself by not agreeing to be somebody sponsored. I make it all sound so easy. As if I've got it all figured out in my own head. And the truth is that one of the best things, yeah, one of the best things that's happened to me in these 22 years.

Thing is I'll I'll be trying to make my 22nd birthday the end of, July. But speaking of dates, and I said it's 50 years since the book was written. Also, December 2nd this year, it'll be 50 years that Max and I have been married. And, man, but we and it's been over 65 years that we've been emotionally involved with each other, which is, I often make that upsets people but the truth is that the young people of today just don't have what it takes to put together a relationship like Max and I have like that. Not the young people of the day.

They just don't have what it takes. For one thing, you've gotta be very, very old in the But if they just keep coming back, kind of like my friend Angie says, there's only 2 rules for being an old timer in AA. Just 2 rules. Don't drink and don't die. And, anyhow, one of the things that has happened with me in these 22 years is I've gotten comfortable with all those all the people who live in my head.

I've gotten comfortable with the people in AA, the people out there, but particularly with the people that live in my head. I have a whole bunch of people that live in my head. I have personalities up there that I haven't even used yet. I shouldn't even said my name is Paul and I'm an alcoholic. I should have said my name is Paul and we are alcoholic.

There's all kinds of people up there. There's one of them that's afraid. No matter what it is, it says, oh my god. Don't do that. You'll screw it up and they'll all laugh at you.

Another one up there says, man, as long as you're sober and you got this program, you can go anywhere and face anybody and do anything you want and nothing can harm you. Because there's no way anybody can harm you except by making you take a drink. And this program is such that nobody and nothing can make you take the drink. And, I got one up there that, always got his eye on Max. Doesn't care much for her.

Never has. She's always telling me things, did you hear what she just said? What kind of a man would put up with that kind of stuff? Another one up there thinks she's absolutely wonderful. Think she's just terrific.

Got a great sense of humor, charming, great. Reminds me regularly that she's the one who, continued to go to AA meetings even though she's not an alpine. Continued to go when I got mad at her and wouldn't go anymore. I don't know if you're a candidate or not to sit at home and drink on Saturday night when your non alcoholic wife is off laughing it up in an AA meeting. I got all these people in my head.

Can they talk? They talk. They talk and talk and talk and talk. Talk. Talk.

Talk. All the time. Talk. Talk. Talk.

Talk. There's always there. Always at least one of them. Talking. Talking.

Talking. Can't listen to you too. Yes. I'll say that as soon as they stop talking. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. I know that BS that they're saying, but I'll let them say it anyway. Yes.

And they're talking. And sometimes the radio talk show drifts over and picks up another one. There's 2 of them. They talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Or go to meetings and drink a lot of extra coffee.

And then they really talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. I finally go home and wanna go to bed, my body's tired. Why don't you go to sleep? My brain says, no. Let's lay here and talk about it a while.

Yeah. Let me go out of sleep and in the middle of the night, say, hey. Wake up. We have an emergency. We gotta talk to you.

Yeah. Really gotta talk about this right now. You you know that deal that went on today that you thought you handled so well and they were so happy with you? Wasn't like that at all. Yeah.

They're really ticked off. You wait till morning. You'll find out. And then I go, I wanna listen to that crap and I'll roll over and fall back to sleep. And just as I'm ready to fall off to sleep, I'm thinking, boy, I'm glad I'm not thinking about that anymore.

And then they'll say, hey. And another thing is you did the same dumb thing 6 months ago. In fact, you've done a lot of dumb things. Let's just lay here tonight and make a list of dumb things that you have done. Yeah?