Paul O. from Laguna Niguel, CA speaking in Huatulco, Mexico

Good morning. My name is Paul, and I'm a full blown alcoholic. And I, I like being an alcoholic. I I I like this way of life. I like a way of life.

I wouldn't have all this if I weren't an alcoholic, and I thoroughly enjoy and like being an alcoholic. And if that bothers you to hear me say that, that's true damn bad. If you don't understand it, ask your sponsor. If your sponsor doesn't understand it, get another sponsor. I, you may think I'm here just having fun.

And that's not true. I'm an alcoholic and this is part of my treatment. I am here getting well. And so are you. And the money you spent, the time you spent, the trouble you've gone through is all part of the recovery from your disease.

It's a fascinating disease. I I've studied many a textbook on how to recover from serious medical diseases, but I've never studied one other than this one that has part of the recovery where it says you absolutely insist on enjoying your recovery. And I, I'd like that. And I'm sorry you can't quote that to your insurance company, but, you should be able to. This is part of getting well.

And, I think that we're the luckiest people in the world. I really wanna welcome you. I feel that I particularly ought to welcome the people that came through Dallas. I think they deserve double brownie points. I think you should be allowed to relax and have fun all week long.

We had the show of hands of the what do you need? Meet closer? You want me to start over? We had a show of hands of all the alcoholics. Let's do that again.

All the iced trees, raise your hand. That's fine. What about the people who are members of, and it may be in addition to or separate from AA, members of other recovery groups? We see all of your hands too. That's terrific.

Let's give them a big hand. Could we at my home group, we love to embarrass the newcomers by making them stand up. Could we have all everybody who is less than 1 year in whatever recovery program you're in, will you please stand up? Less than a year in your program. I admire your courage and in coming.

What about, would you stand up if this is your first, sober club med? It's the first sober club med since then. That's terrific. That's all part of and that said something about at the end of the week, you wish it was longer. The thing I've noticed that, on cruises and things like this, at the end of the week, people are running around exchanging phone numbers and addresses and really getting to know people and that.

And it always seems a shame to wait till the last day to do that and get to know people. Seems to me it'd be so much nicer if we got to know each other at the beginning of the week rather than the end of the week. And I like to I love hugs. I know the world is divided into people who love hugs and people who hate hugs. But maybe we could convert some of the haters before the weekend week is over.

Why don't we take I think hugs are more important than anything I have to say up here right now. Why don't we take a few minutes and everybody stand up and hug at least 3 other people, preferably people you don't know? Let's get to know each other. Something, something like that is easier to start than it is to end. But one of the things that happens so often on a trip like this is when people first see you, they'll say, did you have a pleasant flight?

And we had a very pleasant flight on the charter flight. But the last time I was on a commercial flight, they had, 2, flight attendants, a a gal and a guy. And as they were going down the aisle with their cart serving drinks, the gal asked this guy, a seat or 2 behind me, what he would like to drink, and he said he would like white wine. And, she looked through her cart and didn't find any and turned to the male attendant and says, do we have any white wine? And he said, no, but we got plenty of red wine.

And so the gal turned to the guy behind me and said, we don't have any white wine, but we have would you like red wine? And he had to think about it. I suppose it would be a terrible mistake to have the wrong kind of wine with airplane peanuts, but And, what I have a favor to ask, actually. You know, on the planes, they have each airline has their own in flight magazine. And in American Airlines, it's American Way or something like that.

And they have departments in the magazine. And one of the departments of the regular sessions of the magazine was Best Buys. And in this, the gal gave the, what she thought was the best audio, the best video, the best play, the best movie, the best book, and the best wine. And she said, under the wines, she said, the 1992 Napa Valley Chardonnay's had it have a crisp pear apple flavor with a touch of clove at the end. Now, what I what I've been on the lookout for is somebody who is planning a slip who could check that out for me.

It's the 1992 Napa Valley Chardonnay. I'm not all that concerned about the crisp pear apple flavor, but I'm really curious about being left with a touch of clove at the end. Thunderbird never left me with that. Thunderbird was my favorite white wine. I, if somebody would it's not worth going out for, but if anybody's out there, check it out.

And another thing people ask a lot is, how's your health? And they say, oh, you're looking fine or something. And I was thinking, Max reminded me, sometime back, I was told that I had cancer of the prostate, and they wanted to chop it out, go through my abdomen. And I thought, you know, major surgery. And I thought, geez.

You know what, you know, major surgery, you know what minor surgery is. Minor surgery is surgery that somebody else has. This is major surgery and cancer. And I thought, jeez, you know, I've got a problem. And then I thought, no.

I don't have a problem. I took the 3rd step, and I turned my will and my life over the care of God, and he's got a problem. My health is part of my life, obviously, and he's got a problem. And he has a pretty good reputation for handling things like that. And And I thought, This is a good test.

We'll just see. We'll just see how well he handles this. And I reminded him that I had taken the 3rd step. In fact, I do that a lot. I when I awaken in the morning, first thing I do is I say the serenity prayer, 3rd step prayer, and the 7 step prayer.

And then at breakfast, Max and I say those together and do some reading and have some time, quiet time. And periodically, through the day, when I'm going to do something, unusual or that I'm apprehensive about, I'll say the 3rd step for a gallon and I'll modify it. In fact, people will say that to me. Are you, do you get nervous yet when you're gonna talk? And I'll say, no.

Not really. For one thing, I don't like to call it nervousness. I'd rather call it anticipatory anxiety. But I I take the 3rd step prayer and I modify it. And I say, God, I offer myself and this situation to you to do with as you wish.

Relieve me of the bondage of self. And I, I tell them, you know, I would like this to turn out really terrific, but if this is the time you'd like me to make a complete ass of myself, at least one of us will have a good time. You know? And and that's what I did with this surgery thing. And interestingly enough, I was, the the surgeon I had didn't like pre plan insurance plans and that, and he he didn't like Medicare.

And so, anyway, he was fighting that by fighting anybody had prepaid plans. And I thought, I don't wanna be chopped open by a disgruntled surgeon. So I fired him and somebody on the program got me an appointment with a surgeon at the university. And I went to see him and he was glad to do it and I turned the job over to him. And what had happened, what how it turned out was that they I I wanted a private room.

Well, all the private rooms were on what's called the Wilson Pavilion. And I had my surgery on the Wilson Pavilion, and my urologist's name, believe it or not, was doctor Bob Smith. Now, he's a urologist. He's not a proctologist. But they're next door neighbors.

I mean, you can't. And for the newcomers who don't know, AA was founded by Bill Wilson and a urologist, doctor Bob Smith. And it turned out that the thing was completely eradicated and, have had no problems with it since. But it's been a a factor in the 3rd step, my use of the 3rd step. One other thing, 3rd step comes to mind, we have a Thursday night topic discussion meeting where the leader picks the topic.

And this one night, the gal picked the topic bondage of self. And I thought, oh, that's a dumb topic. She won't get much response with that. But during as the meeting went along, they got quite a bit of response and, I get I had a lot of good thoughts about bondage of self. They didn't call on me, but I had them anyway.

And I got to thinking about the bondage of self. And, you know, I've come to conclusion that I am, by far, the most interesting person I know. Yeah. I really am. I'm just fascinated with me.

I spend more time thinking about me and what I've done, what I haven't done, what I should've done, what I'm gonna do, what I might do, what I'll never do. You know, I just, I really, you're interesting, but you're nothing compared to me. I in fact, that has to do with me. Here it is. I've been invited to a foreign country to talk about my two favorite subjects, Alcoholics Anonymous and me.

And in a sense, that fulfills a lifetime fantasy. I've always wanted to discover the cure for some serious medical condition and be asked to travel around the world lecturing on the diagnosis and treatment of this serious medical illness. In fact, I don't like to travel. Max likes to travel, but I don't. But like the the, Nobel Prize, I I thought if they give me the Nobel Prize in Medicine for learning the treatment of some serious medical illness, and they want me to come to Norway or Sweden or wherever it is that you get the Nobel Prize, I'll go there.

I'll I'll go I'll make that concession and traveling to go there. It's the least I could do to go and pick it up. And but and I thought god will help me. I I I used to tell god that it it I was like the Salieri in the movie, Amadeus. Remember Salieri?

He was the one who, wanted the all the fame and was a hard worker. But what he the fame was all given to this screwball in the movie, a little guy named Mozart, and it drove it literally drove Salisbury crazy. And in the end of the movie, he was in the insane asylum. And that was the way it was with me. I all he wanted was for God to make him famous, and that's all I was.

I was willing to work hard, and all I needed was for God to tell me that how to diagnose and treat some serious medical illness. Give me some scientific facts that other people have discovered. And then I would met when I got the Nobel Prize, I would give all the credit to God. I I was gonna make God famous. All he had to do was make me famous first.

He already had the facts that he needed and that he knew the things I needed to know to be famous. I thought it was a real bargain, but he never bought it. He not only didn't make me famous, he made me anonymous. And so here I am with you. And, but anyhow, I'm glad to be here and I'm really glad you're here.

So much of it to me seems to have, so much of my life has to do with attitude. I, when I was new in the program, they said AA stands for altered attitudes. And if there's any one thing that's different about me today, other than the fact I'm sober, it's my I have a different set of attitudes. I was always convinced. I always knew.

I was that was one of my big problems in AA was it in coming into AA, it was hard for me to learn anything because my head was already full of knowledge that wasn't true. And I couldn't get anything new in until I got some of the old stuff out to make room for it. And, but I knew that naturally, your attitude was a reflection of your life. You'd have you'd have you'd drink too if you had my wife. You'd drink too if you had my life.

My life was my attitude was a reflection of my life. In sobriety, I've come to realize it's the reverse. My life is a reflection of my attitude. And I I exercise a choice of attitude at every moment of every day. What was it, one of the first Al Anon meetings I went to to check out what they were doing there, and what what they were doing to ruin my marriage and my relationship with Max.

One of them, I heard one of the gals say, she quoted, Eleanor Roosevelt. She said, Eleanor Roosevelt said, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. And I thought, wow. If they can't make me feel inferior, they can't make me feel anything. They can't make me angry.

They can't make me depressed. That I have a choice as to how I react to whatever they do or say. And that's, that's been very important to me. And I I find it my and you know, that's that's that's true for us here. We talked about, Guy and, Nat and Steve and Club Med and and God himself.

All the trouble they've gone to to bring this all together and make this occasion for us and us going all the trouble we went to to get here. And yet, there's one thing that's more important than all of that put together, and that's our own attitudes. Our attitude is what is more important than all the other things that have gone on before. And we can either make this a good week or a bad week or a bad day or a good day, just by our attitude. In fact, I firmly believe, as somebody said in AA, that it's hard to have a good day with a bad attitude.

And it's real hard to have a good day, hard to have a bad day with a good attitude. And so that my attitude the committee in my head needs to know that, I need to and my the committee in my head needs to know it. That's what's going on now. I'm stuttering, stammering around a little bit because of all the people in my head. 1 of them up here is yelling that I should talk about a certain thing.

And before I can do anything about it, one over here is yelling, no. No. Don't talk about that. Talk about this other thing. And then the third one, they start yelling, no.

No. Don't talk about that. Talk about it. And they're fighting among themselves, and it's really very distracting for me. And I I think, oh, shut up up there.

Yeah. And they all shut up and I can't think of anything to say, you know. My life, it doesn't depend on what happens. My life both sides of every question that are up there. And they both sides of every question that are up there.

And they all talk about it and they they do a lot of talking. A lot of their ideas are illegal and lewd. And God, I'm glad you can't hear what I have to listen to. But it's it's a it's a lot better than it was before the program. And I, packed now.

I I I knew I used to fight with them. I used to fight with him. There's one of them up there no matter what the what the situation is, he'll he's a lot of people, too many people, not enough people, too hot, too cold, whatever. His answers question and response is always the same, well, let's have a drink. It was almost like a command from God or something, I thought.

And, the problem was that every time he took a drink, we all got drunk. And they have all and I used to, as I say, used to fight these people and that really energizes them. Really, they they love to fight, and work back against my my will part. I don't fight them anymore. Now, I I I listen to them.

I listen to them. I say, well, now thank you for participating. Now if you'll sit down, we'll call on somebody else, you know. And we have a meeting going on all the time and I can pretty much control who I'm listening to. It has to do with the steps and the the program and living this way of life that it's made.

Not only have I gotten comfortable with you and the people out there, but the people in here. And it's been a real comfort and a nice way to go. I my life has changed a lot on the program. It's changed tremendously. It's not I I I don't even sound adequate to say that my life has changed.

It seems like an entirely different life. In fact, I was thinking, if I made a graph of my life from beginning to wherever it's going to end, what would it look like? And I've come to conclusion that it probably would be a giant v like, the Jelinek chart. And my life began over way, way over there and it was from from then until July 31, 1967, it was on a downhill course. Now it wasn't downhill course.

Now it wasn't the straight line down, it was up and down. Just enough ups to keep me confused. And then when it went down, it was downer than it was before. And it finally ended up in the nut ward of the hospital I was on the staff of. In fact, I was grateful when they put out these, name tags.

Looks glad you did that this morning. When I first came to AA, I had a my name on a unbreakable plastic bracelet. It, it had my name on it, and it had the name of the hospital, Nut Ward, that I was on the staff of that hospital. In case I got lost, people could take me back where I belong. And that was the way I came to.

Hey. I feel very comfortable wearing my name. But in fact, if I had my way, everybody would have their name tattooed on their forehead because I can't remember names and faces. People think it's because I'm self standing self centered and selfish and self obsessed. That's not true.

The truth is that I don't remember names and faces because I have dysnomia. Now dysnomia is a form of dyslexia. You know, dyslexia is where you can't read and remember certain things. And dysnomia is a part of that, and you can't remember names and faces. And when you when I don't remember your name, don't think of me as being selfish and self centered and self obsessed.

Think of me as being sick. Sick. I have he just think he's got dysnomia. And people think I'm kidding when I talk about dysnomia, and I'm not. I know it's true because I read it in the view section of the LA Times.

They wouldn't put it in the paper if it wasn't true. And anyhow, I forget what I was talking about before I got to snowmia. So I get more troubles than just that. And, oh, I've said, Yeah. I ended up in a nut ward.

That's what I did. And, you know, and that wasn't bad enough. I had to go to AA. And I went to AA for 7 months. And on July 31, 1967, I finally accepted the fact that I, of all people, strange as it might seem, and even though I had no choice in the matter, and had never done anything to make me an alcoholic, and somehow gotten somebody else's disease by mistake.

But I was a mild alcoholic. And from that moment on, my life's been getting better and better and better. And it's better now than it's ever been, higher on this side than it's ever been. And it's my perception that the only thing that determines how high that can go on this side is how long I can stay around doing the things I'm doing that's keeping it on an uphill curve. And I want all I can get out of this program.

I want all I can get. I don't I can't I I can't get it all. I don't think anybody I think this program has so to offer that nobody, no one person could ever live long enough to get it all. But I want all I can get. So I want to keep getting all I can.

So I'm going to keep doing all the things I'm doing that's keeping on an uphill curve. And the thing that fascinates me was that the point of the v, that that one act of acceptance changed the course of my life dramatically. Dramatically. Complete. It's complete change.

Just on one act of acceptance. You know, as smart as I am, I thought, why didn't I accept it a lot sooner? And I think the reason is that I didn't approve. I was confused between acceptance and approval. I thought you don't accept something if you don't approve it.

And I didn't approve of me being an alcoholic so I didn't accept it, therefore, I couldn't do anything about it. Finally, I was forced into accepting it even though I didn't approve of it and now I approve of it. Approval followed acceptance. It didn't precede it. It didn't accompany it.

And I often left with the thought, I wonder what my life would be like if I accepted every reality on a moment to moment basis and just accepted it and went along with the flow, let go and let God, Let it be. Go with the flow instead of resisting it. I often wonder what it would be like to do that entirely and completely permanently. I guess that's kind of where we are today, here. We need to accept this week and what happens and and really enjoy it.

And as I said in the beginning, it's part of our program. If you don't know it if you're new, it's on page 1 if you thought I was making it up, is you'll see it on page 132 in the big book, Valparais Anonymous. After you've done all the steps, it says, we absolutely insist on enjoying life. It's part of our recovery. And I think that's what we're here for this weekend, to really enjoy our recovery, and enjoy this week, and enjoy every aspect of it even that that we might not like, might not approve of.

Let's all have a real good time and thank you all for listening. Let's go eat.