Sober Village 14 in Cancun, Mexico

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. My name is Paul, and I'm a full blown alcoholic. I love it.

I love being an alcoholic. I, the best life I've ever known. I, Linda said she was an addict. I think if I tried hard, I could pass as an addict too. We had a In fact, these are very open meetings here.

There's AA meetings, but they're almost a generic AA meeting. Anything goes, almost anything anyway. We had a show of hands of the alcoholics. How about people who belong to a program other than AA? Any recovery program other than the 12 step programs?

Programs? That's something. Let's give them a hand. How How about the Al Anon specifically? Let's see a hand for the Oh, yeah.

I got a lot of them. Always glad to see Al Anon's at meetings. Yeah. They need all the meetings taken cut. You can't hear me?

Well how did that go? My name is Paul, and I'm an alcoholic. Yeah. I worked hard and live in this story. God, I don't want you to miss any of it.

I see the hands of the people that are here in, at their very first club met, very first club met. Oh my God. That's amazing. That's amazing. I'm like Annette, that takes me a while to get adjusted in that.

But one of the things I've found here already, and I've checked it out, is everybody here is one of us. And so I get in something like this, I get so much in the habit of talking to every speaking to everybody I meet. That my problem is that when I leave here, I find myself speaking to everybody at the depot in the airplane. But it's a good habit to get into. And that's, it's, unusual for me because I'm basically a very shy and, introverted.

I am. I am. I had to, I've had to learn, this, as part of my disease, you might think I'm here having fun and that's who I am, but that's not why, that's not, that's not the whole point at all. In fact, if you're feeling at all guilty that haven't spent the money to come here and that, you are treating your disease. This is part of our disease.

I mean, this is the treatment for our disease. Yourself. We we have a textbook, we have a textbook on how to recover from a serious medical problem. And it's I've studied many textbooks of medicine and how to treat various medical diseases. And our textbook is the only textbook on of medicine that I know of that tells you that's part of the treatment of recovery from that disease, and it's on page 132 and it's in the very very middle of 130 2.

In fact, I've counted it. There's 16 lines above it and 16 lines below it. Don't laugh, you'll go check it out. And there are 2 extraneous words before it and 2 extraneous words after it, and in a very, very, very, very middle of page 132, it says, We absolutely insist on enjoying life and so that's part of our treatment and that's why we're here. In fact, I find that my treatment, my disease, the way it needs to be treated is with people.

It takes people, takes a lot of people. God speaks to me through people. He comes to me through people and it has to do, in fact, it's real difficult for me because I have a dual problem. I'm not only an alcoholic, but I'm an alcoholic with Dysnomia. A number of people have asked me about that disease, they've heard about it before, they don't remember the names.

Dysnomia, dysnomia is a form of dyslexia, And in Dysnomia, you can't remember names or faces. And so I'm not really self centered and selfish and and and and snobbish. I just I'm sick. I have dysnomia. I just want you to respect that.

And, just just remember to tell. Don't expect me to remember your name. I love you, but I can't remember your name. It's just too damn bad. But it takes a lot of, phone calls, for instance.

Phones have been very important to me, but it takes a lot of phone calls. Whenever I think of it, I always give out my phone number. We live in the 714 area, all the people that live in bankrupt Orange County live in the 714 area, and their number is 240-3940. And I need lots of phone calls. And another thing I need lots of, and this is something I see a lot on any trip or cruise or tour or vacation thing.

At the last day, people are running around shaking hands, hugging people, exchanging phone numbers and that because they want to really, they're finally becoming friends with the people they've been on the trues or the tour with. And that seems so dumb. Why do that on the last day? Why not do it on the 1st day? And I think this would be a good place to start.

There are a lot of people here who don't know other people, never been here before. First of all, before we do that, let's let's see the hand if you're here for the first time and you're like, and that says you're having trouble getting started, ask people. Yeah. Anybody you ask is one of us, but let's see the hands of people who are willing to temporarily sponsor new people that are new to the area. See, there's a lot of us here.

Look around and if you don't remember who are just ask anybody in the past. But and besides that, I'd like to see all the, I'd like to see you all get to know each other now. Why don't you stand up and introduce yourself in a hug to at least 3 other people. Okay. Okay.

Enough of this foolishness. I guess that's what's known as losing control of the audience. Gotta get one of the Alenons up here to get control again. As a matter of fact, in this business of, this being treatment of a disease, I remember, many many many many years ago, I was a freshman in pharmacy school and the dean of the school was giving us a talk and, I don't know what it is he was talking about and what the subject was, but he was, I remember well that he made what I thought was an extremely stupid statement. He said that, he said if you want to live a long and healthy life, get yourself a chronic disease and learn how to take care of it.

I guess he was thinking of things like diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, or whatever. But get a, get a chronic disease and learn how to take care of it. And I thought, my con, I've got to sit here and listen to 4 more years of this guy. Yeah. And I thought that was the dumbest thing I ever heard.

And yet, in retrospect, I was working on my choice of disease at the time. And I, perfect. It took me a long time though, to actually become an alcoholic. It, matter of fact, I didn't become an alcoholic until I had been coming to AA meetings for 7 months. Really wasn't funny.

I was, suffering from a brain tumor and, as a matter of fact, I feel very, I don't know if you feel strange with that band around your wrist. I feel at home with it. That's how I came to AA, with one of these unbreakable bands. I mean, it mine was white though. And it had my name on it, in case I forgot who I was.

And it had the name of the nut ward of the hospital I was on the staff of in case I got lost, you know. So I feel very at home with one of those bands. I was in the nut ward by mistake. I had a brain tumor and they had missed it and, nothing funny about a brain tumor. In fact, they were spending their time trying to talk me into making leather belts.

And, like they rather insisted that you make leather belts. In fact, I don't think you could get out of the knot org until you made leather belt. And, I, I remember telling them, I said, that they just seem to think that my the quality of my life would be improved if I learned how to make leather belts. I told them, I said, I I have a whole wall. I have a whole wall that's full of diplomas, and licenses, and certificates, and papers that prove that I've been educated way beyond my level of intelligence, and I don't see how my life would be improved in any way by me knowing how to make leather belts.

I didn't understand the ins I didn't understand the philosophy, and besides, I didn't understand the instructions. It wasn't my fault. This is called a dumb occupational therapist. I always had a theory, if you don't understand things well enough, so you can explain it to me. So I understand that you don't understand as well as you're supposed to.

And that poor woman has explained it to me 3 times and I wasn't going to embarrass her by asking her a 4th time. And I have no idea. I have no idea why going to AA meetings would help me with that. I've never been to an AA function of any kind where they had an occupational therapy booth and yet for some reason or other, I went to a few of these AA meetings and went back to that hospital and made the most beautiful pair of moccasins you've ever seen. A pair of moccasins and a half a wallet.

I don't know what happened to the wallet, but I, I love those moccasins, really love those moccasins. I wore them every chance I got. Tongues would break, I'd repair them. Took 7 years. They've been not only they not only look good, they felt good, and they wore good.

It took 7 years before they 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 I, apparently Max, my dear Al Anon, was afraid I might. And so she had my moccasins bronze. And, I love my, I love my bronze moccasins. I keep one, keep one at the office and one at home, so I can remember where they came from.

I figure I always figure if I remember where they came from, I won't have to go back and make another pair. And I just love my I just love my bronze moccasins, even though they're not nearly as comfortable anymore. But I Yeah. You know, it seems that it seems odd it seems like the fulfillment of a lifelong fantasy that I'm in a foreign country and I'm invited to talk about, diagnosis and treatment of the serious medical problem. And I've always thought, you know, I don't like to travel, particularly it's not that I'm afraid to, I just I find it boring waiting for connections and all that stuff, But I always thought if they ever gave me the, Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering the treatment of some serious medical disease like, high blood pressure, cancer, whatever, and they were gonna give me the Nobel Prize, I'd be willing to fly to Norway or Sweden or wherever it is, they give you the Nobel Prize.

I'd be willing to go, so least I could do. But what I was going to do when I did that, I was going to give all the credit to God and I used to and you remember the movie, Amadeus, the life of Amadeus Mozart and, where the, is Mozart was this, they portrayed him as this squirrely little guy. And, but I didn't identify with Mozart. I don't know anything about music, anything at all. But I identified with a villain, Salieri.

Salieri was the other musician who wanted all he wanted, all he wanted out of life was to be famous. He wanted to be a famous musician. He was willing to work hard for it, but he wanted God to make him famous. And he used to pray to God to make him famous, and instead of making him famous, God was making this goofy little character Mozart famous. And it literally drove Saudi Arabia crazy.

Remember in the movie, he attempted suicide and at the end he was going through the insanity side? I really identified with, Salieri and, because that's all I wanted to do. I wanted to be famous, but when they gave me the Nobel Prize in Medicine, if God gave me the answer to a few little medical secrets, then I would, become famous. But when they made- when they gave me the price, I would give all the credit to God. I was going to make God famous.

The only requirement was he'd make me famous first. Yeah. I thought it was a fair deal because he already knew the things I needed to know. All he needed to do is tell me I'd be famous and make him famous. And I thought it was a pretty good deal, as a matter of fact, and he never bought it.

He not only didn't make me famous, he made me anonymous. Anyhow, if you're here today, that's another group of people. We talked about the people that, belong to different recovery programs. How about people that aren't in any recovery program as such, but they're well, you're welcome here too. We're glad you're here.

Could you see your hands? People that aren't going to any group, but you're here as guests and whatever. Anybody in that category? Yeah, give them a hand. You're very welcome.

I'm glad you're here. I also want to warn you, you're in a very dangerous spot. I found out that alcoholism is a very contagious disease. I mean, you get it from other alcoholics. As I think I was saying earlier, it took me 7 months of going to AA meetings before I caught the disease.

I used to say I was an alcoholic. They like that. And they always said he was an alcoholic. Yeah. Really turned alcoholics on, you know.

But I didn't really believe it until 7 months. And I found out that's how you get alcohol. You catch it from other alcoholics. It's a virus that affects your brain and goes in through your ears. If you're around this weekend, this week, you have to be very careful what you listen to.

That's if you keep your mind wide open. Keep it wide open so whatever goes in goes right on through. You get the idea that you felt like that when you did something similar to what they just said they did. You begin to think, thank god. I wonder if I might be an out boom.

You're an alcoholic. The minute you suspect it, it's already too late. And you won't get any sympathy. Turn to the person next to you and say, you know, I think I might be wrong. Oh, we got another one.

Put your hand up. People think it's a damn big deal to be an alcoholic because some people put up both hands and wave them. So be very, very careful. But it might be the best thing that's ever happened to you. I don't know.

I, I'm just glad I'm an alcoholic. Wasn't glad to get here, but I'm glad to be here and, it's the easiest life I've ever known. And one of the things that is so different about me today, from when I was before I became an alcoholic is attitude. I find that my attitude is entirely different. Somebody said that AA stands for altered attitudes, and if there's anything that's, significant in my life, it's, me personally, it's my attitude.

I have an entirely different approach to life based on my attitude and even the fact that it's, I, how do I word this, my attitude always was a reflection a reflection of whatever was going on in my life. You'd be upset too if you had my life. You'd be upset too if you had my wife. She, she was, she this is funny, she drove me to drink for years, and if you had my problems, if you had this, if you had that, then so my attitude was a reflection of what was going on around me. In AA, I find that that's a lie.

That's not true. That's my choice to have my attitude be a reflection of what's going on around me. That if I have a rotten attitude, it's my choice to have a rotten rotten attitude. It's in I have a choice and I can have a good attitude and what it's the reverse. If I have a good attitude, then the things around me tend to be good.

If somebody said, it's hard to have a bad day with a good attitude. And they've also said it's hard to have a good day with a bad attitude. And our attitude is our choice. I didn't know that. So my responsibility.

And also attitudes are contagious. We can pollute the environment with a bad attitude. And, in case you don't know what I'm saying, I am saying that what Annette said, that she and the boys, as she calls them, and I've worked real hard to make you have a good time. And Club Med has worked for years to set things up so you can have a good time. God has gone through a lot of trouble to give you this environment so you can have a good time.

And this ultimate result is if you don't have a good time while you're here, it's your own damn fault. I don't have your expectations too high. The higher your expectations, the lower your serenity and the lower your expectations, the higher your serenity is for me anyway. And so, attitude has a lot to do with it. I, I'm not saying that so much to you as I am to myself.

I need to hear that because I need to be reminded that my attitude is my what I need to do I'm talking to the committee in my head, all these people up there, and they determine my attitude. It depends on who I listen to. It's my my head is like that crowd out there. I mean, all these people in my head. Except you're sitting there quiet.

Quiet most of the time. They're up there talking and talking and talking and talking and talking. That's really they talk and they talk and they talk. It's full of people, full of personalities, and that's all they do. They talk.

They talk. They talk. They talk. They talk. Don't do any work, they just talk.

They make they make suggestions and talk and talk. And I'm trying I'm trying to talk to you and kind of have some kind of a logical sense to it. And then one over here will say, well, talk about so and so. The other over here will say, no, no, no. Talk about that.

Talk about this here. And then they get to fighting back forth among themselves. That's what they ought to talk about. And the other ones join in, they're saying, all this clatter is going on up there about what I ought to be talking about. And I think, oh, shut up up there.

And they all shut up and I can't think of anything to say. But my life depends on who of those people up there I listen to. I mean, there's one of them up there that, everything is negative. He sees the bad things in in the defect and the sad part about everything. He's always reporting it to me.

The other one sees the good and talks about that. And it's okay, but I have I have to exercise the choice of which ones I listen to. In fact, it's that way with my relationship with Max. Max sit there looking very innocent, but as I said, she drove me to drink for many years. And and now, with the program and all their attitudes and depending on who I listen to in my head, she hasn't been able to drive me to drink in 27 years now.

And so we've been married for 55 years now. 55. Wow. He said, wow. And, boy, it is wow.

And I feel like if we can do it, hell, anybody can do it. Yeah. But, I had a profound thought and I lost it. It's your loss. I'll think of it later.

No. I was saying, oh, 27 years. 27 years. Yeah. 27 years is a long, 55 years is a long time.

50, 27 years without a drink. That's the longest. 27 years is the longest I have ever gone without a drink. 20 27 years is a long time between drinks for me. I have never gone that long without a drink.

I haven't I haven't even had I haven't I haven't even had an occasional drink. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think if I had even, an occasional social drink, I don't think I'd be standing here with 27 years sobriety. I it's just and I found out that's the way it is in AA.

We don't drink. We don't drink in AA. We just don't drink. We don't drink. We don't no matter what happens.

No matter no matter what doesn't happen, you know, we just don't. We just we just don't drink. It's a no matter no matter what. In fact in fact, we're kind of noted for not drinking. And that and that not drinking has a lot to do with my 27 years of sobriety.

I, by not drinking, I have more choice as to who are people in my head I listen to. Like I was saying, there's one of them up there that has always been obsessed with Max. I've known Max. We've known each other since we were 4 years old. And, wow, right.

We were next door neighbors. As a matter of fact, I think that's how I became an alcoholic. She, well, it's true. I have, I have basis for it. She, she was an orphan, but she was raised by a grandmother and true alcoholic uncles and then also by an aunt and her husband was an alcoholic.

And the Ganslein boys, they were called. Their names, their names are often in the paper in the last review back in Ohio, being in jail for common drunk. And, as we were growing up, my family didn't care for me playing with a gangsterling girl because they were afraid as I grew up, I might turn out to be an alcoholic. And by God, they were right. Actually, so I, a lot of people don't know how they got to be an alcoholic.

I'm an alcoholic by marriage. I wasn't an alcoholic when I married her. But there's what I started to say was, there's one up there that's obsessed with watching her. He watches her and he watches her and he reports back to me. He said things like, did you hear what she just said?

Did you notice the tone of voice in which she's speaking to you? Does that does that woman know who she's talking to? And yet there's another one up there that thinks she's just terrific. Just as obsessed with her and just and but thinks she's and likes to point out to me, didn't you have a great sense of humor? Isn't it great the way she's so active in Illinois?

Isn't it interesting that she kept going to AA meetings when you stopped going even though she's not an alcoholic? And she likes to point and don't you enjoy her laughter? Don't you enjoy her spirituality or sense of humor? My my marriage, my relationship with Max doesn't depend so much on what she or I do as much as it depends on which of the guys in my head I listen to. I can listen to 1 and watch the relationship get better.

I can listen to the other and watch the relationship get worse. In fact, my day depends on who are the people in my head I listen to. Because there's all kinds of chatter going up on up there, and I make the choices of who I listen to. And if I listen to the right people, my day gets better. If I listen to the other people, my day gets worse.

And the worse it gets, the more I tend to listen to the people that are making it worse. And it's it's kind of like a meeting. I listen to everybody, but I pick and choose who I want to what I want to carry home with me. And it's kind of like my head is, it's like, meeting all the time. And then I say, well, thank you for participating.

Now if you'll sit down, we'll call on somebody else. I have a meeting going on all the time. Anyway, it all has to do, my change in my disease and my getting a handle on it, all came about, all came about abruptly, it seems like. It seems like this. Then let me say this, then I'm going to sit down.

It seems like if my life were graphed from it started way, way, way over there, and it's going to end way, way, way, way, way over there. And it would be on the graph, it would be a giant v. A giant v In the sense that from the where my life started until July 31, 1967, when I became an alcoholic, my life was on a downhill course. It wasn't a straight line down. It was just enough nut ward.

And that wasn't bad enough. I was sentenced to AA. And I had to go to 7 months of AA. And on on July 31, 1967, I accepted the fact that I, of all people, strange as it might seem, and even though it had nothing to do with it, somehow got somebody else's disease by mistake. But whatever, I was indeed a mild alcoholic.

Didn't seem funny at the time. And from that moment on, my life has been getting better and better and better, better and better and better. And it's and and it seems like there's no no limit to how high that can go except how long I can stay around, keep doing what I'm doing, that's keeping it on the uphill course. Now, again, it's not a straight line up. It's up and down, up and down.

Some days, some weeks, some months, some years are better than others. But the long term trend is up and up and up. And I I'm sure I can't live long enough to get everything this program has to offer. I don't think anybody can. There's more to this program than any one person can ever get all of it.

But I want as much as I can get. So I want to be as involved as I can be in this thing. I want to I want all the AA experiences I can get to get as high as I can get on this thing. I love this way of life. And it it the thing that really fascinates me is the the the point of that v, that act of acceptance of that one fact of reality.

And it seems to me the more I look at that in other aspects of my life, the more I realize that when I accept reality, my it my life gets better and better and better. When I refuse to accept reality, my life gets worse and worse and worse. Certainly, my alcoholism did, and now it gets better and better. When I when my when my energy combines with the power of God or nature or reality, my life gets better and better. And when I when I resist it, it gets worse and worse.

I see it over and over and over again. And I think life asks every one of us at every moment of every day, What role do you want to take here? Do you want to do you want to be the hero or the victim? Do you want to be a whiner or a winner? You know, do you do you wanna how do you the show is gonna go on, and the choice is up to you.

The choice is up to you. And I, I like being aware of that. I like that that that idea that it's my choice as to the quality of my life. It seems to me my role in life is to enjoy life whether I like it or not. In fact, I Let me say this.

I've heard it I've heard it all my life, either directly or indirectly, that when we die, before we get into heaven, we'll have a pre admission interview with Saint Peter. And he'll say something like, have you been good or bad? Well, I've never met anybody that's been there and said that's what they do it that they do. And then they wouldn't tell us that if it weren't true. But, I wonder.

I don't think so. Right? In fact, why would he ask us if we've been good or bad? He already knows I've been bad. Fact is, I understand he has a book.

He's been checking off things all this time. He knows I've been bad. I don't I I had the feeling My theory is, and I have as much right to my theory as anybody else who doesn't know what's really going on. They're all just theories and I like mine better than theirs, so I'm going to use mine. And my theory is that if we do have a preadmission interview with Saint Peter before we get in, I don't think he's gonna ask, have you been good or bad?

He's gonna ask, what was your predominant mood while down there? And if you seem surprised to say, or I think you what he wants you to say is, well guilty. Because they no. No. I know you've you've heard that all along, but we're not as fascinated with guilt as you might think.

He'll say, I know that you know that this is a place of happiness, peace, and joy. What you don't know is how we keep it that way. Unhappy, resentful, disgruntled, crampy people, they go someplace else. In fact, you're standing over the trap door. With that in mind, what was your predominant mood down there?

So as I say, let's enjoy it here, whether you like it or not. I love you all very much. Thank you.