The Men Among Men Conference in Reykjavik, Iceland

Good morning, everyone. So this is a presentation that, whoop. That we call Kitchen Table AA. And the reason that we call it that is that when Ebby came and spoke to Bill, and Bill was busy drinking his gin and pineapple juice, where there we were talking was at Bill's kitchen table. And we believe that this is where the heart and soul of Alcoholics Anonymous happens, at the kitchen table.

Bill? Hi, I'm Bill. I'm an alcoholic. In the 19 thirties, in 1935, when Bill and Bob got together, What we know about that is a lot of it is in the big book. We wrote the big book 1938, published it in 1939.

You stop and think about this man that wrote this big book was 3 years sober. And, I don't know about you, but most people I wouldn't allow a guy with 3 years sober unsupervised on my property, much less to be able to write a book of that spiritual depth. And as many of us over the years have read that book a lot, more and more is revealed all the time. It's a very, very powerful document. He says a couple of things in there, especially in the forward of the second edition.

The first 100 a 8, there were not a 100, there were about 77. So they lied to us upfront. This whole thing was started by a failed stock speculator. Mister Wilson was not a broker, he was a speculator. A failed proctologist, which I think the man that gave the most for Alcoholics Anonymous was the guy that Bob operated on when Bill gave him a goofball and a couple of beers and sent him into that hospital.

We never find out what happened to that guy. The 3rd guy was a lawyer, of course, who ran for office and lost. And then they hooked up with Hank Parkhurst, who, the best you could say about Hank was he was a used car salesman, and him and Wilson came up with some phony stock certificates. So these guys were sales guys and what had happened to them is their life got changed and they really wanted to get this out there, what they had discovered. So they used the skills that they had, marketing skills.

The book was very critical. In 1940 or thereabouts, it's kind of unclear when this document was written, Doctor Bob and some of his compatriots in Akron wrote the Akron manual, And I think this is significant and interesting because I think this is what they were really doing. In the big book, as it was passed around among different people between New York and Akron, they softened it. If you've ever heard one of the early lithographs where it doesn't talk about suggestions and it says you, not we, and they changed all that, and they they softened, which I think is positive. It's a good thing.

It's not a bad thing. The Akron manual has none of that. So I'm gonna read to you some of the, we think significant passages in this manual. This is what they were using when people were coming to Bob and they'd say, well, I'm sober now, and I'm you you tell me I'm supposed to go out and help these guys. What do I do?

Well, they came up with a manual, with some guidelines. And one of the first ones here, it says, explain that we are not in the business of sobering up drunks, merely to have them go out on another bender. Explain that our aim is total and permanent sobriety. Not one time in this manual does it say one day at a time. Not once.

Definition of an Alcoholic Anonymous. An Alcoholic Anonymous is an alcoholic who through application and adherence to the rules laid down by the organization has completely forsworn the use of any and all alcoholic beverages. The moment he willingly drank so much as a drop of beer, wine, spirits, or any other alcoholic drink, he automatically loses all status as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Now we're used to the only requirement for membership is the desire to stop drinking. These guys are saying, you drink, you're out.

AA is not interested in sobering up drunks who are not sincere in their desire to remain completely sober for all time. To the newcomer, it is your life. It is your choice. If you are not completely convinced to your own satisfaction that you are an alcoholic, that your life has become unmanageable, if you and It would be better for all concerned if you discontinue reading this and give up the idea of becoming a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Kind of a loving approach to the whole thing.

A word to the sponsor, you must fulfill all pledges you make to him, either tangible or intangible. If you cannot fulfill a promise, do not make it. You have in your hands the most valuable property in the world, the future of a fellow man. Treat his life as carefully as you would your own. You are literally responsible for his life.

We're gonna talk about that more as the this weekend goes on. You'll hear a lot of people say that, you know, there's a lot of things that we're not. We're not a taxi service. We're not a you don't hear any of that in here. I mean, you take this project on.

You are the vehicle God has sent to save this man, and they truly believe this. I do too. Alcoholics anonymous is 100% effective for those who faithfully follow the rules. Drunken state. Before long, you will have a new thrill.

The thrill of helping someone else. There is no greater satisfaction in the world than watching the progress of a new alcoholic anonymous. No whiskey in the world can give you this thrill. Above all, remember this. Keep the rules in mind.

As long as you follow them, you are on firm ground, but the least deviation, and you are vulnerable. As a new member, remember that you are one of the most important cogs in the machinery of AA. Without the work of the new member, AA could not have grown as it has. You will bring into this work a fresh enthusiasm, the zeal of a crusader. You will want everyone to share with you the blessings of this new life.

You will be tireless in your efforts to help others, and it is a splendid enthusiasm. Cherish it as long as you can. For you are ready to sponsor some poor alcoholic who desperately who is desperately in need of help, both human and divine. So God bless you and keep you. You aren't very important in this world.

This is one of my favorite lines. I'll bet you they had this in the big book and they said, no, let's take this out. If you lose your job, someone better will replace you. If you die, your wife will mourn briefly and then remarry. Your children will grow up, and you will be but a memory.

In the last analysis, you are the only one who benefits by your sobriety. Seek to cultivate humility. Remember that cockiness leads to a speedy fall. Medical men will tell you that alcoholics are all alike in at least one respect, they are emotionally immature. In other words, alcoholics have not learned to think like adults.

We will go into this a little deeper. There's a very interesting phrase you hear about alcoholic thinking, as if there is really such a thing. At meetings, don't criticize the leader. He has his own problems and is doing the best to solve them. Help him along by standing up and saying a few words.

He will appreciate your kindness and thoughtfulness. So participate. Participate. Don't sit in the back of the room and throw rocks. Don't criticize the methods of others.

Strangely enough, you may change your own ideas as you become older in sobriety. Remember, there are a dozen roads from New York to Chicago, but they all land in Chicago. How soon you will be cured of a desire to drink is another matter that depends entirely upon how quickly you can succeed in changing your fundamental outlook on life. For as your outlook changes for the better, desire will become less pronounced until it disappears almost entirely. It may be weeks, or it may be months.

Your sincerity and your capacity for working with others on the AA program will determine the length of time. So what they're talking about is the desire to drink, that the key to that going away is working with others. They're not saying the key to it is doing an inventory or paying back the money. Part of the program. Right?

What these guys are talking about is the key to the our serenity, is working with others. That that is the real key. The rest of it is a build up to that. Alcoholics Anonymous is based on a set of laws known as the 12 steps. Years of experience have definitely proved that those who live up to these rules remain sober.

Those who gloss over or ignore any one rule are in constant danger of returning to a life of drunkenness. 1000 of words could be written on each rule. Lack of space prevents, so they are merely listed here. It is suggested that they be explained by the sponsor. If he cannot explain them, he should provide someone who can.

So that's the Akron manual. This section of our little talk, this one section that we're in right now, we call why? Why do it? Why sponsor people? This is what these guys believe, the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Even behind the big book, this is what they believed. This is what they did. This is all they did. They didn't do anything else. Everything else is an activity.

What they did was they helped one another. They went into the hospitals and dragged them out of the hospitals and into the meetings. Thank you, my friend. This next section is, a thing that we call, or it's from a document that was written in the mid sixties called Gresham's Law and Alcoholics Anonymous, and it was, written by a gentleman by the name of Tom p. Tom was a, okay.

Great. Thanks. Tom was a magazine writer, and an editor, and he got sober, during the war, during the, in the 19 forties. And he became very close to Bill Wilson. And they, he really helped write the 12 and 12.

He helped edit the second edition of the big book, in other words, the story section in it, And he was a very, very active member. In 1968, he'd had it with Bill, And he withdrew himself from, from Wilson and from AA, and he moved up to upstate New York, and he founded All Addicts Anonymous. And, Tom was a brilliant guy, a little strange. Imagine that. And he made sure that AA was done correctly.

Like, he split from Bill and he said, you know, you're not getting it, Bill. You're having this depression because you're not applying the 4 absolutes to all your life. And I'm gonna show you the right way to do it. So he goes off to upstate New York, and he gets this little commune going of folks, and they they start having a pretty vibrant community. And he told them what to do.

Like, in this if you're gonna be part of our group, no more eating meat, no more white sugar, no more white you can only eat organic. You have to do a thorough sexual inventory. And you have to read all these different spiritual books, and he listed them. And they were doing AA correctly. They were doing it so correctly.

By the time that I visited Tom, there were about 80 of them living in a bunch of trailers way out in the country. A real expansive movement. But anyway, he, he came up with something that we feel that was very important, and it's this Gresham's law and Alcoholics Anonymous. Gresham's law is that bad currency tends to drive out good as long as they're valued the same. And that this has been operative in a in Alcoholics Anonymous.

That weak AA is driving out strong AA. So there and and, again, this is in the mid sixties. They said there are 3 ways of working the steps. 1, the strong original way, proven powerfully and reliably effective for over 70 years. There's the medium way.

It's not so strong, not so safe, not so sure, not so good, but it's still effective. And the weak way, which is actually no way at all, but literally a false teaching, a corruption of the stated program. So what is it that we define as strong AA? Well, in strong AA, you do all of the steps. All of them.

That you practice rigorous honesty. That you take and continue to make restitution. In other words, these guys, you know, in the strong a, we're not saying that you're not gonna make mistakes. If you follow follow the path, you'll never make another mistake. Talk to my second wife.

Admits admits false that they pray and they meditate daily. I know that here in Reykjavik, you all work both parts of the 11th step. In California, some people actually feel that meditation is extra credit. Goes to 2 or more he's growing along spiritual lines. Goes to 2 or more AA meetings weekly and actively works the 12th step.

Medium Alcoholics Anonymous. Starts off with a bang, stays sober. Procrastinates on parts they don't like, god steps or inventory steps. One meeting a week, Why would you go to more? It's the same stuff over and over.

Less and less self examination. No effective sponsorship, service at a group level. In in the medium, there's a couple of manifestations in Medium Alcoholics Anonymous. One is that if you go to lots of meetings, if you go to meetings, you're doing AA. Personally don't believe that's true.

I think going to meetings is part of AA. But in the medium thing, if you're going to a lot of meetings, there is the illusion that you're doing AA. But you're not, are you? Really, you're sitting back there and you're just kinda kibitzing and hanging out and being social. The other aspect of it is get a lot of commitments.

If you have a lot of commitments, you you can stay sober. Well, if you're going to meetings and you've got commitments, then there's the illusion that you're doing AA because you're there's a lot of activity. There's a lot of movement, but there isn't a whole lot of depth to it. There's no action, just activity. Media MA, I think, is really, really dangerous because it can lull you into a feeling that you are okay.

And whenever you start feeling not okay, you just step up your meetings so that you'll feel okay again, and you ignore the not okay feeling. Now week AA, and we're all familiar with this probably from our own lives and in the meetings, unlike medium, has big chunks left out of the program, attends lots of meetings, and stays away from the first drink. For me, week AA is everybody's program when they start. They don't know what's going on. They go to some meetings.

It's a support group. AA is a support group, which is AA is not a support group. Also, my experience with weak AA is you may get to the 3rd step. Rarely will you get past the 3rd step. And, I've had the experience many, many times where somebody comes to me and they've been in AA for a couple years and they've been sponsored for a little while by me, and they've done the first three steps and they forgot they lost their notebook or they don't understand the columns or they can't find a store that sells a pen and they can't do divorce stuff.

And they plead with me, why is my life not getting better? Why do I still have the same financial problems? Why do I still have all these problems? And, you know, as if you were a carpenter and you built 1 quarter of a house, would you move in? And that's what happens in week AA is that you do these things, and it looks from the outside.

If sitting in this room, we don't know who's doing week AA. It looks the same in the meeting. When you find out what's happening is when you follow them home. So another part of this thing about this strong, medium, and weak AA and, again, we're not here saying you guys are weak. We're strong.

Do what we're doing. That's not what we're we're saying. To him. To him. Yeah.

I mean, one of the things that you have to know is is that this literally is the longest relationship in my life, my relationship with kinda pathetic, isn't it? But, one of the things that, that I believe with all my heart is that when these guys started Alcoholics Anonymous, they had no idea that you could be relieved of the obsession to drink just by the spiritual power of the group. Now I came to you on the 2nd day of May 1979, and I haven't taken although I found it necessary on a lot of occasions, I haven't taken the front drink or sniffed any glue or done any of those other wonderful things that I found to be so consoling. And one of the reasons why is that when I came in, I was desperate, and I was given a grace at my first AA meeting where I saw, let's see, with all the advantages that I was given in this world. You ever meet anybody who says, oh, when I hit the lotto, I'll you know, I'll do this and I'll do that.

I was born male, caucasian, and Californian. That's the biggest lotto hit in the world, you know, except for you guys in Reykjavik who know this is the spiritual center of the universe. But, you know, the the the truth is is that I saw that everything that I'd ever done, I'd never given myself completely to. Sitting here in Alcoholics Anonymous, which is the worst thing that can happen to any hipster, right? I mean, they don't drink here.

The worst thing that could you know, I better just deal in and do what it is that these people do. And so that's what I did. And I got right after it. And I got the results. Interesting that there were lots of other people that I've known along the way, and what all I'm doing is reporting what I've observed in my life.

And what I've observed is is that Alcoholics Anonymous is almost a 100% effective for those who do it, not those who agree with it. And that's kind of the difference between the strong and medium and weak AA. Strong AA is you do this stuff. And when we talk about sponsorship, I started I started sponsoring when I had 28 days sober. And I went to my sponsor.

I'd I'd done my first, 6 steps. And I I wrote my first inventory when I was 24 days sober. I was reading the big book unsupervised. I saw where where, it said, if you skip this vital step, you're gonna drink. And I went, oh my god.

And I ran to my sponsor and I said, I'm gonna drink. I haven't done my inventory. And so he and an old timer told me some silly stories about life forms they'd woken up with. And and they they they, you know, they said go home, get really jacked up on coffee. And, and I wrote my first inventory.

And I I shared it with him. It took me about 3 and a half hours. No big deal. But what happened is is he came over. I read the stuff to him.

We did the silly prayers, and I was out as a fully engaged member of Alcoholics Anonymous with, like, 25 days sober. Guy asked me to sponsor him. I said, well, I went to my sponsor. I said, what do I do? And he said to me the most wonderful thing.

If they're sick enough to ask you for help, you cannot hurt them. You can't. And one of the wonderful things that that is that we have to offer every Alcoholics Anonymous member, every new member, is that we as members will never treat them the way that they treat themselves. So that's the end of this portion. Harold Walter was the first guy who wrote a book about the Oxford group.

Doctor Bob and Bill Wilson were both members of the Oxford Group. Walter was not a a sober guy. He was a Christian evangelist, and he he called this book Soul Surgery because that's what it is that they considered working the steps and carrying this message. And I love this because I think this really shows the difference between Why is it that the media Why aren't we holding this in a football state? With all the people we know that have come to Alcoholics Anonymous over the years.

Should understand that his prayer and Bible study will ultimately become burdensome if he regards them as fundamentally and inevitably the means to his own spiritual empowerment and not to the means of his successfully serving others. In other words, I believe, just my belief, in Alcoholics Anonymous that if you don't go out and carry this message, if you don't get involved in what we call kitchen table a a, that you can have the the obsession to drink removed. You can have your life change. But ultimately, what will happen is is it will become boring because it's based in myself the same way that my drinking was. And so that what I must do is I must be involved in this constant spiritual regeneration, which is what step 12 is.

It's this constant spiritual regeneration. And what we'd like to share with you is the things that we found along our path. Okay. That's it. One of the things that happens when you've been around a while is somebody will come up and ask you to sponsor them that's been sober a while.

Maybe they're 6 6 to 12 years sober. And they come up and they say, you know, will you help me? I need some help. And I well, what's the matter? Have you ever done an inventory?

And they'll they'll say something along the lines like, well, yeah, but not like what you're talking about. I haven't done that. And have you made amends? Well, yeah. Kind of.

You know? I mean, there's a few hanging out there. And are you sponsoring anybody? Well, no. I don't sponsor anybody.

If you've got someone in Alcoholics Anonymous that's sponsor in a handful of people, they don't come up and ask you for help. They're getting the help. My experience with these guys that have been around a while, that are sober a while, is that they are all wrapped to find out what the root cause of the problem is. To find out what the root cause of the problem is. So it's all based in self, and they have fallen victim to the belief that Alcoholics Anonymous is a self help program that is a support group, and their problem lies within them.

And the solution to in Alcoholics Anonymous that is offered to us is getting out of ourselves and into other people. And through that process, we will see ourselves like we've never seen ourselves before. It is my contention that steps steps 1 through 9 are about 20% of the program. Working with others is 80% of the program. The the real gift in Alcoholics Anonymous doesn't come after the 9th step when the psychic change occurs and your perception of the world changes around you, which is pretty goddamn dramatic.

When if if it's actually happened to you, it's pretty stunning, like, maybe it is me. You know? Maybe it wasn't them. That's a pretty big awakening, you know, when you can actually grab a hold of that and have a depth of understanding. The real awakening comes when the awareness that we achieve turn the awakening we achieve turns into an awareness is when you're sitting with somebody in a room and you see the light come on in their eyes, and you feel that connection that you are truly the link in the chain, that you are the instrument of god's will, that how God works in alcohol Alcoholics Anonymous is through us.

We're we're fortunate to be in a in a organization where people's lives are saved every day, and the vehicle that is used for that is us. It's not the meetings. It's not the meetings. What do you remember when you came in? Isn't the thing that you remember is the person that was kind to you?

The one that smiled, that remembered your name. The one that got you a cup of coffee, that found you a seat. For you ladies, maybe the guy that really tried to help you and did not hit on you. I'm serious. You know, my wife, that's who she remembers, is the guys that tried to help one of my favorite pieces of, literature right now in Alcoholics Anonymous literature is the 12 and 12, the 7th step.

And the last paragraph or the second to last paragraph in that step, if you read it, says, the chief activator of my character defects is self centered fear. Fear that I'm gonna lose something I have or not get something I demand. And for a long time, I read that because it felt like Bill Wilson or Tom or whoever wrote that part was reading my mail. Because I get, short with my children. If I'm worried about money, I have fear of self centered fear.

I get short with my children. I'm not kind to my wife. I had self centered fear so I would lie to people to make myself different than I was because I didn't think I was enough. But after a while, I read that whole chapter again and the answer there's always an answer. There's always a solution in the book.

And the book says the solution is humility. And there's a line of poetry that says in that in that section of the 12 and 12, it says we came to see humility as a nourishing ingredient that led to serenity. That's beautiful. So my challenge constantly in Alcoholics Anonymous is where do I get that humility? How do I have that?

And I was fortunate when I first got sober to fall in with a group of men that worked the steps. They did the steps. I saw them. They demonstrated it. I had gone to church.

I'd gone to Catholic school. I've been in very involved in the church where they told me what to do. But in AA, they showed me. They did it. And we have a panel.

Our home group had a panel up at a fire camp way up. This isn't gonna mean much here. It's it's about an hour drive from our home group. And I live a half an hour in the opposite direction from our home group. So it's an hour and a half from me.

And I had that panel one weekend. It was a holiday weekend. And 4 guys were supposed to go with me, and I was gonna pick them up at our Alano club, which is half an hour from my house, and then it's another hour to the meeting up at the fire camp, which is a prison camp for prisoners who are on sort of on their way out of prison. They've done their time. They get to do this for a little while.

So I went to pick up the guys who were supposed to go with me, and none of them showed up. And I thought, I don't have to go. Nobody's gonna know. The guy they're not gonna wrap me out. They're not here.

And I, stopped myself because the men in Alcoholics Anonymous had shown me differently. They'd shown me. I remember when I saw a guy when I was 6 months sober and somebody dragged me on a panel, and a guy with 10 years of sobriety who had a great life was sitting there with me. I thought, what the hell is he doing here? This is for losers like me that need to do this.

So they'd shown me. So I drove I started to drive to San Francisquito, this hour drive. And I have this wife who's really good looking. And I have a bunch of guitars at my house and that I like to play. And I kept thinking, I'll just I'll just turn here on this freeway and go home.

I did you know, I showed up. Nobody else showed up. And I had to force myself to not turn off, to keep going. And when I got to San Fransasquito, where I did not want to be, and I was all by myself, I got out of the car in this prison camp, and there's this huge African American guy standing right outside my car, and he says, are you Alcoholics Anonymous? And I said, I guess.

And, he said, can I talk to you for a minute? And he took me down to this, where they have little picnic tables and some workout equipment. It's the yard, I guess. And usually when you show up at this place, they make an announcement and you meet the guys in the cafeteria. Well, they didn't even know I was there because I hadn't checked in yet.

So I sat down on the yard with this guy and he started talking to me about how he got into prison again and about how he'd failed another family. He left another wife and another group of children. He was in immense alcoholic pain. And he hadn't had a drink in 6 or 8 months in this prison camp and said that's not easy. You know?

Everybody here gets loaded. But he said, I just can't go back. I can't go back to my life. I need Alcoholics Anonymous. And every once in a while, I'd try to interject with my spiritual wisdom and vast experience, and he'd go and keep talking.

And it occurred to me later on that when it we say one alcoholic talking to another, it's very important that one of them is listening. And, now we talked about strong AA, medium AA, and weak AA. Weak listening is waiting for the other guy to stop talking so you can talk. That's not listening, but that's how I did it for a long time. And this guy, started kept talking and talking, and the sun went down completely.

I couldn't even see him. We were 4 feet apart, but I fell in love with him Because I was I knew him from inside my heart because I was just like And he we got done and we walked back to the car and I did no panel. It was way too late. And I floated home to my home. And when I got home, you know, my wife was better looking.

My house seemed a little bit bigger, and my children were well behaved. And the point is is I I guess I'll just say this. I drive home from work sometimes, and I think you know, I get that self centered fear that activated my character defects. Am I helping enough with my wife, or am I helping too much? Am I hurting her?

Am I a good father? Am I? I don't know. I don't think I am sometimes. Do I make enough money for this family?

Am I a good sponsor? Am I a good son? Blah. Am I? Am I?

Am I? And my the mask gets closer to my face. Like, I don't know if you guys have ever seen the movie, the man with the iron mask. That's how I feel. All my problems are right here.

And I walk into my house and the phone rings, and I pick up the phone and it's somebody in Alcoholics Anonymous saying, can I talk to you for a minute? And the roof comes off of my house, and the sun shines in, and I'm connected to something larger, much larger than me and my little insignificant worries. And that's the why of it. The why of it for me. I'm, standing outside the Alano Club in Hermosa Beach 1 night with my sponsor, and there's an old wino there.

And he's been hanging around the club for quite a while, for for months, eating the cookies and drinking the coffee, and sometimes he's sober. Well, he's standing outside the club this night, and he's just drunk is the Lord. And there's myself, Jay, and another guy. And we're talking to this guy. And Jay looks at the guy, and he says, if we find you a bed somewhere, will you go?

And the guy goes, sure. So he takes off to go find him a bed somewhere, to call a couple of places, see if we can get him in somewhere. And the wino kind of wanders off, and I'm standing there talking to this guy, Tony. And I said to Tony, I said, what are we wasting our time with this guy for? He doesn't really want it.

You know? And Tony looks at me and he goes, who the hell are you? And I went, woah. You ever been new and said the wrong thing, you know? And they look at you like you know?

And and he says, where do you think you are? What do you think this is? And I had no answer. I didn't know the answers to those questions. And he says, you know, I looked like that when I got here.

I looked just like that guy. That's that's me. And this is what we do. We help these people, and, we don't judge them. So Jay comes back and he's found he says, I found you a bed.

And he looks at me and he says, go get your car. And that's what he used to do. He'd say, he wouldn't ask me. Why don't you go get your car? Well, he says, go get your car.

And I would just turn and go get my car. You know? I didn't know any different. And he told me that the reason I was sent to Alcoholics Anonymous is that you people needed better transportation. I had a nice car, so we never drove his car.

It was always my car, my gas. It was it was unfair. And, so I went I went and got my car, and I come driving up where the wino is, and they're standing there. And they throw the wino in the front seat. They throw his bedroll on the back seat.

No one else gets in the car, which I think is against the handbook. You know? And I think this guy is gonna stab me, rape me, and eat me, you know. I mean, I mean, I'm big and I'm gnarly looking, but tonight, you'll hear the real story, and, and I look over at this guy after a while, and I realize that he's not much older than me, maybe even younger. He just looks bad, but I don't see past that.

And we start talking, and he says to me, he says, what the hell happened to my life, man? He says, I had a wife. I had some kids. And and what happened? What happened to me?

And I started looking at him a little closer. And I realized that I've got a wife. I had kids. I almost lost it. I lost one family.

I lost 1 wife and and a set of kids to divorce and, and mental institutions and stuff, you know. And and I was married at the time and had 2 small kids, and I'm looking at him, and he's telling my story. He starts telling my story. By the time I got to the way back in, I was holding his hand. It was my own personal alcoholic.

You know? I had bonded, and, and I got him checked into the place. And I drove home that night, much like what Matthew talked about. I drove home that night, and I said a prayer, a sincere prayer. And it wasn't a prayer of thank God that's not me.

It was a prayer of thank you God for showing me that is me, not a whole lot of difference. You don't find that. You don't make that connection sitting in a meeting. It happens out on the street when you're in an uncomfortable position, a position that you did not choose to be in, a position that you put yourself in just by saying, yes, I'll go. If you and I if we leave that choice up to ourselves, we will never put ourselves in an uncomfortable position, and we'll never have that new experience that causes us to connect with the world around us.

That causes us to connect with the world around us. But sitting in that car that night with that drunk changed my life. This idea of showing up no matter what. One of the things that I'm very fortunate about is that I love Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. I'm a bar drinker.

I just I just like it, you know. I've always enjoyed going to the meetings, and I think that that is grace. And, and I enjoy the activity in the meetings. It saved my life. But when I again, back to this strong medium weak AA.

For me, see, I don't have the ability to decide whether or not I'll go to a meeting at 27 years sober. Because I made a bet with my life those first couple weeks in Alcoholics Anonymous. And my bet was, is that these guys were right, and that I didn't know. And I believe that I have a chronic, fatal, progressive malady. It killed my stepmother.

It killed my father. It killed my brother-in-law. It's taken out an entire generation of my family. All of, my cousins are, in one form of, distress from, you know, either sexual compulsivity, drug addiction, alcoholism, just weirdness. And chronic weirdness.

Yes. Did you see the tattoo? Anyway, the, the thing is is that I bet my life on that. So if it's Monday night and I'm in Hermosa Beach, I go to my meeting. To me, the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous are spiritual chemotherapy.

And on Tuesday night, I have a meditation group at my house. And on Wednesday night, I go up to the Roxbury, men's stag, the Beverly Hills men's stag most times. Sometimes I go once a month, I go down to the Salvation Army because that's an activity of my home group, so I need to participate. Thursday night, I go to the 11 step group of Alcoholics Anonymous with my fabulous wife. Friday night, I've got another AA meeting that I'm at that that my group helped start, the 12 suggestion.

And then Saturdays that that we go to, except when we're out doing this kind of thing, then Saturday night, I it's my night off unless I'm out doing this type of work. Home with her, on Sunday nights. She wants me there with her. Anyway, I don't get to decide what's best for me. Now does that mean I have to go to all those meetings like this weird guy from California?

No. That's not what I'm saying. But what I am saying is that for me, I don't get to decide whether I'm going to a meeting or not. And I'm just in this phase where I'm going to lots of meetings. Generally, I've gone to about a minimum of 3 a week.

And, I'll go on that rant a little bit later. But the the thing that I wanted to say is is that when it comes to a commitment, and for me, going to a meeting is a commitment. I gotta go. So I it's my turn to do the panel at San Francis Quito, you know. Even though I'm at the time, I'm probably 18 years sober.

I don't need to be doing these things. But I'm a yeah, sober man, armed with steps, concepts, and traditions able to transcend life in a single bound. Anyway, going up to San Fransasquito is one of these things, and I have the same experience that Matthew does. And I pull up, and there's the guy. He's still there.

He's still sober. And he looks at me and he says just as I get out of the car, he says, are you Alcoholics Anonymous? Of course. Will you sponsor me? Now rule number 1, when you go on these panels to the prisons, you're never supposed to give them your home phone number, and you're never supposed to, you know, get personally involved with them.

So what do I say? Of course. Because I was taught that I never say no in Alcoholics Anonymous to somebody that that asked me to sponsor them. And so this man comes into my life. This man that left school when he was in, like, 7th grade, this man who never had a father, whose uncle started having sex with him when he was, like, 4, you know, who's, who's had who lived in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles for 10 years.

And I have the privilege of learning to love this man. And when he got out of prison, because I'm an active member of AA, he got into Soberville. And, and he started coming to our stag meeting. And we live in a very, very affluent area. You know?

It's, AA looks just like this meeting. There aren't a lot of African American large men with no education, And he came and became part of our group. And that man taught me more than anything about god as I understand god, not more than anything. But but, you know, one of the things the only thing that makes sense to me there that no. It's not true.

The thing that makes most sense to me in the new testament is at one point, the guys are ragging on Jesus, and they say, well, when did we do these things? And he said, for you. And he said, anytime that you went to the hospital, anytime that you went to the prison, anytime that you fed the hungry, anytime that you clothed the naked, any time that you did anything for the least of my brothers, that is when you were doing something for me. And to me, this is Anthony chat or Anthony was my own personal Jesus. He is for me.

And, has he stayed sober all the time? No. He's a man with profound challenges. But in our book, in the in the forward to the second opinion, when it lays out the thing, it talks about, you know, people coming and staying sober from the gate, and then there's the others that come in and kick the tires a little bit, and then they go out and drink. And then they after a while, they come back.

And then there's those who, if they continue to come, show general improvement. And Anthony has been to jail a few times in the intervening 10 years, but he's never been back to prison, and he's never committed a crime like he used to commit. And my life is much, much richer for that. So again, this whole thing that we're talking about in the why of doing this is that what we need to do what I need to do, What I need to do is I need to put myself in the position to have a spiritual experience. And the spiritual experience is not sitting home in my bedroom meditating, although that can enhance it.

But the spiritual experience is going out and putting myself in the position to be used to help other alcoholics. Now I've talked a little bit about my relationship with God, and I have a very close personal relationship with God. And God, as I understand God, one of his favorite things to do is smoke cigarettes, especially with new alcoholics. So I think we should take a smoke break. Thank you.