The North Scottsdale Group in Scottsdale, AZ

Hey, this thing is planned. Might be a better talk than I'm gonna give you. Hi, everybody. I'm Charlie Parker. I'm an alcoholic.

I'm visiting from the Primary Purpose Group in Austin, Texas. My sobriety date is March 22, 1985 and that's the most important thing that's ever happened in my life. I'm honored to be actually, I want to thank Stephanie and the legend of Mickey and Colleen. I've still never met them, but I want to thank anybody who had anything to do with me being here. It's always an honor to be asked to speak in an AA meeting.

And it's funny, you know, they said they should wear a tie and I always wear a coat and tie when I'm behind at least when I start off, I wear a coat and tie from behind the podium and Out of respect for AA and our history and stuff, but I mean the bulk of my history and bulk of my experience in a coat and tie, usually when I put it most of my memory when I put on a coat and tie my job is to stand there and say, no contest Your Honor. I mean, that's just my experience. You know, I mean, that's what I'm hoping to talk about tonight. I never know what I'm going to talk about. I, but I hope to get around to the, just describe a little bit to you about the love affair I have with the program Biocollects Anonymous.

I like to qualify. I grew up in Dallas, Texas. I come from a really normal family. I mean, I know normal is a setting on a washing machine, but I've heard enough missteps to know that a lot of people had it a lot worse than I had it. I mean, I don't blame my alcoholism on the way I grew up.

I don't blame my alcoholism on any outside circumstances. But I grew up during the baby boom in a pretty regular household. And the only I mean, my sister can you all hear me, okay? My sister was perfect. I don't know about it, if anybody else anybody else experienced that.

And my mother was a 1st grade school teacher. And so, 42 years, my mother was a 1st grade school teacher. So I was really well prepared for the 1st grade. And I kind of kicked ass, I mean all the way up to like 5th grade I held it together pretty good. But I grew up, I don't know if anybody else grew up under the burden of potential, but I was my whole life I was told about why don't you live up to your potential?

Why can't you be more like Charles Moliere across the street? And in my mind I was thinking, you know, I'm really not holding back that much. But but But I went along and I used to I didn't take my first drink of alcohol 'eighty 5 and I used to think 16 was kind of young to get started drinking. And nowadays, it's not even young to stop. It's like, I don't know about it in Phoenix, but it seems like in Texas, people are picking up desire chips at like 8, You're like, Oh, you're looking for your parents?

And they're, No, I'm here for a 90 day shift. Welcome, welcome. And I ain't busting on anybody, much love for the young people in AA. I mean, I really I started drinking when I was 16 and I didn't really need this program until I was probably 17. But I didn't come in when I was 17.

And I rocked along. We talk about being an thumper. I'm an unapologetic big book comp and I'll probably get to that later about the way that came about. But I might as well tell you now. Not that part, but during my talk, I will say I'll get to that later.

I'll say something and I go, oh, wait, but I'll get to that later. What that means? All that means is that this is an inappropriate time to talk about that piece. But when I say I'm going to get back to it later, I'm not coming back to it. My brain is like Grand Central Station.

Every thought that comes into it, I got to take for a ride. But I'll do my best. But sometimes when I say I'm going to get back to it, there's about a 10% shot. But our book says the first requirement is that we fully concede to our innermost selves that we're alcoholic. And in order for that to take place, I mean, there's a lot to say in that statement.

First of all, I got to know what it means to be an alcoholic. And second, there's a big difference. The longest journey you'll ever take in recovery is from up here to right here. And fully can conceding to my innermost self is a lot different from when I first came into the program and said, well, yes, I must be alcoholic. I mean, I drink every day.

All the people I know drink every day. I I've had a lot of trouble as a result of drinking. That I will get to later. But what it means when I say say I'm an alcoholic and what is the way it's beautifully described in the first 53 pages of this book is that I have a body that reacts funny to alcohol. When I drink it ain't regular.

There's something that happens inside of me that only happens in about 10% of the population. There's only about 10% of the people that even have the potential to become alcoholic. And what it means is that when I take a drink, it triggers a craving inside of me that I got no control over. And I can't tell you if I took a drink standing up here tonight, I couldn't tell you how long I'm gonna drink, when I'm gonna stop, or what's gonna happen with any predictability. Not my worst problem though.

I mean, because I always say, if my biggest problem was my reaction to alcohol, detox centers would turn out winners. Are you with me? I mean, if my biggest problem was alcohol, I would only had to stop drinking one time. My problem is that I'm always been sober when I make that decision to take the 1st drink. So the craziest thing that ever happens in my life happens when I'm stone cold sober.

So that's it. That's if you don't get anything else out of my talk and you're new tonight, get that what it means to be alcoholic doesn't mean that he got a DWI, it doesn't mean I've been to jail, she left, I lost the house, lost the car, lost the jail, all that stuff. What it means is that I've got a physical allergy coupled with a mental obsession. And if those two things working together, because that make me an alcoholic. 1 is that I can't drink regular and the other is that I got a mind that's always going to make me drink.

That's the shortest version I can tell I was stuck in a cycle where I was going to drink until I had to stop and then I would stop until I had to drink. And if that makes sense to you, that's really bad news, you know, because there's really there's no good news in step 1. I mean if I sit down with a guy, a new guy, I spent an hour or so describing step 1 and if he's not scared and depressed, he is either not alcoholic or he's psychotic and we can't help him. I mean, but because it has really been an awful program. But they say doctors don't like to tell us the nature of our disease.

They definitely didn't like to back in the 30s because they didn't have a solution until these guys came along and wrote this book. But we've got a solution. So this would really be a crappy program. If I got up here and said, okay, okay, for you new guys, here's the deal. You got a body that doesn't react regular to alcohol.

It's never going to be predictable. It's always going to get worse. It's never going get better. But that's not the worst part. The worst part is your brain is going to always convince you that's a good idea to have a drink.

Really sorry. Try to have a nice day. But that's what it means when it says fully conceived by innermost cells that were alcoholic. When the doctor's opinion, when he says men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol, that one always makes me giggle a little bit. Because I mean, can you tell that the doctor was not an alcoholic?

He loved us. He helped a lot of us. But if one of us had written that, don't you think we'd have said something with a little more oomph than like the effect produced by alcohol. I mean, I like banana pudding. I love I love the effect produced by alcohol.

And so I mean for most of us and for myself included, the first time I took a drink of alcohol was a very, very big day in my life. I mean I just I remember thinking, oh, we're going to do this a lot. Because we use a lot of unfamiliar terms in Alcoholics Anonymous. We use a lot of I don't know you guys know exactly, I don't ever want to forget what it's like to be new in this program. Everybody in this room whether it's somebody with 40 years or 40 hours, everybody in Alcoholics Anonymous has had day 1.

We all know what it's like to come in scared to death, completely powerless not know how to get through one day without taking a drink. It's not like some of us came in on accelerated program or something. I mean, it's I don't ever want to forget what that feels like, but when we come in, there's a did anybody else feel like they were speaking a foreign language when you come in here? You know, it's like Mr. Bill and Doctor.

Bob and this doctor's got an opinion and this doctor's got a nightmare and you know, I mean, what the hell? And you know, if you're having trouble with your 4, go back to your 3 because it could be your 1 and when you get up to 89, you're going to need a strong one. And you know, and but one of the terms they talk about, they don't talk about it until you get up to about Page 63 in the book, 62 I think, where they talk about a spiritual malady. That term I always had a lot of trouble wrapping my brain around, but I had a black hole inside of me from as far back as I can remember. It went back easily to elementary school.

I had a hole inside of me that made me feel separate from everybody else, made me feel less than, made me feel different, made me feel like I had to outperform you to feel in any way equal to you and I just never really felt like I was a part of it. Most people in AA know what that's like. I mean that term to me that's the spiritual malady and that's what's driving that mental obsession that drives me back to drinking, triggering that phenomenon of craving, creating all that havoc in my life over and over again. There was a time when my drinking worked really well and it was going really good. And then like most of us, I started losing the power of choice and control.

And I'm going to try to speed through the drinking part of my story, but I started getting it started off real fun and with very little bad effect and I started having bad effects, then I started having a lot of bad effects and a little fun. And then trying to recreate the way it had been for me when I was 17, 18, 19 years old. You know, little stuff like left a barn, a blackout one night and came out of the blackout after an impact and the fender was sticking up at an odd angle. And short version of the story is I grabbed my shoes and I went running back to the bar and I saw cops out there looking at this car that I run into. I'm running under the trees to get back to the bar so I can report the car stolen.

And so but as I'm driving past, 2 cops are there with a flashlight. And there's glass all on the ground and I remember thinking, my God, they got here fast. And I'm running with my sneakers in my hand. And so the next day, they said, you, Mr. Parker, you're going to have to take a polygraph test before you can pick your car up.

And I said, why is that? And I said, well, it was involved in an accident before it was reported stolen. So you've got to be kidding. And he says, no they ran into a parked police car. And I remember thinking, that explains how they got there so far.

Because I've been a little foggy on that one. But we talk about our lives being saved and changed by seconds and inches. And if those 2 cops have been standing there, you probably have a different speaker tonight. I had a lot of breaks like that. The stuff went poorly in some situations, but it could have gone a hell of a lot worse.

As it started to unravel for me, I like to say it started getting a little sloppy. I mean, it got to where people didn't want to see me around and I started getting charges while you still got pending charges. And it starts really looking sloppy on paper. And what happened but I like to tell one story. When I talk about the loss of choice and control, I was very, very fond of pawn shops.

I love pawn shops. It's such a pure equation. I mean, you just you walk in there and you hand them the beer raffle and they give you the money and you walk out. I've never had a pawnbroker go, Jesus, Charlie, what are you going to do with this money? Or why aren't you just in here this morning?

It's always in and out. And And there's the weak part of that deal is that I didn't own a lot of stuff. So I was forced upon stuff that didn't belong to me. And that creates hard feelings. But I had a plan.

I mean, I was a smart guy and you had like 90 days to get everything out of the pawnshop. And so I would try to pull a scam every 90 days. And you know what, but talk about things starting to go badly. I remember one time I came out of a 5 day blackout. I don't remember a thing from a 5 day period.

And I pulled a scan that was going to get everything out of the pawnshop. And when I came out of this blackout, I was at my mother's house. I should tell you that I was so poorly treated as a child that, I finally ran away from home for good at the age of 28. I mean it never went back. But I came out of this blackout sitting on the edge of the bed at my mother's house and I had $8 in my pocket and and I had this gangster wad of pawn tickets.

I mean, I hadn't gotten a damn thing out of the pawn shop. And I just remember going, oh, no. You know? Because I shot my wad, getting the the money that was supposed to get it out and I got nothing. I mean, I got there.

And so I had to go to my father and my dad was a good man. He worked hard for the stuff. Nobody was was giving him his stuff. And I have to go to my dad and go dad, if we act now I can get you a really good deal on all of your stuff. But if we wait till tomorrow, it's all retail.

And I should also tell you I'm a big guy. I ride Harleys on this stuff. I'm also likely to cry like a little girl on a pink dress up here at the podium. And this story hits me hard sometimes. So I have to kind of tell it like it's a joke or I'll just start blubbering up here.

Because what I have to do was get in the car with my dad and this is in Dallas, Texas. Dallas is a big town like Phoenix. So I mean, it wasn't we're just going to go to the pawn shop. It was we got to go over to Buckner Boulevard and get your gear rifle and then we got to go out to Harry Hines and get the metal detector. And then I left a shotgun over in Oak Cliff and then we need to go over on Harry Hines to get the sterling silver.

And it was all day in the car with me and my dad and all that shame. And the most important thing about that story is that when we were riding along, I would say, dad, I am so sorry, you know. As we're riding along, I would go, dad, I swear to God I will never do this again. And if I was lying to that guy, I didn't know it, because I'm in it with every fiber of my band. That's what I'm talking about when I talk about the loss of choice and control.

I wasn't getting loaded because I like to party anymore. I couldn't not get loaded because when I would swear to my dad that I wasn't going to do it anymore, I would hit his house like a cat burglar within 48 hours of that day. I'd be in the backdoor to his house and it just be like that and off we go to pawn shop. And the short version of the story, if that's possible at this point is me and my dad made the rounds of the pawn shops 3 times before I got sober. And I was that whole time I was fixing to go to treatment.

You know, I was about to go to treatment for 9 months. And so I know what it's like to be kind of wanting to sort of maybe think about starting to quit and because next week is a good time to go to treatment. I mean, when you think about it and sometimes when it get really bad, my God, I'm going to go tomorrow. I mean, well, probably tomorrow afternoon. Afternoon.

But it has been a long time since I've been cool. I always like to tell a story. I was at the treatment center that I do a lot of work at and this guy was there and he was getting discharged like the next day and just as full of crap as a Christmas turkey. And just get and they're getting ready to put him on the street. And And we're talking, he goes, you know, man, they're telling me I got to do this and I got to do that, but I ain't got to do I'm kind of slick, man.

So I ain't going to do it like that now and I got my own ideas. I said, hold up, pal, hold up just a second. I said, look, when you call me from Manhattan and you're up in a penthouse and you're partying with Donald Trump and Puff Daddy or whatever he calls himself this month, and you got the New Giants cheerleaders up there with you and stuff. We'll talk about how slick you are. But when you check yourself into the Austin Recovery Center, you kind of cash in all your slick chips.

I mean, it's like but that's it. I mean, that's when it talks about that I don't really my alcoholic life seems like the only normal one. I had no idea how far down the scale I've gone. Because everybody I knew drank like I did. My mother would say you drink every day.

And I think, well, yeah. I mean everybody I know drinks every day. Why wouldn't you drink every day? But if you're like me, people want to talk to you about your drinking. You know when you drink like I do, people always want to talk to you about you drinking.

The most important thing that happens in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous though, from the 1st day in 1934 up to today, the most important thing that takes place in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is that it's one alcoholic talking to another one. That's the way our program started, that's the way it works best today. Because in my book it says, for a message to interest and hold an alcoholic, it's going to have depth and weight. And what they mean is don't come at me with some half baked, half assed understanding of what we do and why we do it. Because people would always want to talk to me about my drinking, they didn't understand what it did for me.

I mean, I was sitting there and I know what that black hole I got in there. And I'm thinking, okay, I understand it. From where you're sitting, it probably looks like I drink too much. Sometimes I overshoot the mark a little bit and I'll wreck the car, I'll lose the job or I'll lose the house or she moves out or whatever. But if you understood what that does for me inside, you wouldn't be coming at me with silly crap like you need to stop drinking.

AA was the first place I've ever been where I was around people that drank like I have, that knew how to that had stopped and seemed happy about it. They had a solution. Well, fast forward a few years, I skipped over a lot of stuff I usually talk about. Hopefully by now you figured out that I was a I should say, just one other thing about my drink. Drinking from that time when I was 16 years old, it would be real macho to stand up here and say that I drank whiskey and did outside substances every promise you with everything I've got is that promise you with everything I've got is that from that day at 16 years old until the day I soldered up in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I never turned down the opportunity to get loaded one time under any circumstances for any reason.

There was never one time where you would hold something out and I'd go, oh no, you see it's my it was it was just all bets are off. I was completely tireless over not doing anything. Well, I'd like to talk a little bit about what happened when I came into our call it synonymous because I've been in the program 22 years. I've had a lot of that time, in fact now March 22, 'eighty five. It's been March 22, 2 different times.

Well, somebody asked me, I tell you, did you do that on purpose? And I was like, oh, yes, yes. I had that kind of manageability. I'm going to wait till Friday to stop. That'll be really cool.

No, I just looked up one day and I had 3 days sober and it was the same day, it was March 22 of the following year. But I've had different kinds of experiences in Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm trying to leave myself a little bit of time to talk about that, because what happens in this Katie is here with me. Were any of you all here when Katie talked a couple of months ago? Yes. She just picked up 23 years last Sunday.

She's got 4.5 months on, man. She'll never let me live it down. I've kept her sober a time or 2 though by telling her if she she drank I'd sponsor her when she came back. That's not going to happen. But she and I were littermates and we came in together and there was a whole bunch of us and we were having a good time and sober.

And I don't want to not I don't like to get up and talk about we're doing it right now and anybody else is doing it wrong or that my sponsor was doing anything wrong, because or anything like that. But I've had different levels of experience in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and I've had different levels of spiritual awakenings as a result of this program. But I think what happened for me the first time when I came in and I've been in AA for a while, The reason I like to talk so much about what it really means to be an alcoholic is that physical allergy coupled with the mental obsession. Because what's driving all that is that is the spiritual malady. And the problem with that is that when you take away alcohol from me, I don't get okay.

I mean, has anybody else experienced that? The book says we're restless, irritable and discontented until we can again experience the ease and comfort which we get from taking a couple of drinks. I mean restless I don't have to tell you about. Irritable is that when Katie says, good morning, honey, and I go, oh, are you jacking with me already this morning? It's going to be like that, And this contented, that was an exaggeration for the crowd there.

And discontinued is what I'm starting out liking the deal I'm getting. And that takes place well into sobriety. We have a lot of these meetings where we talk about traffic and work and people and stuff. And what we're talking about is untreated alcoholism, you know, because I think what happened for me, this is a the first period that I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, I really thought my problem was alcohol, And there was a part of me that thought that if I stayed dry, that that was it. And they would say half measures of ale is nothing.

And I'm thinking half measures avail is nothing my ass. It's gone pretty good for me. I mean, I'm half measuring it. And but what I was doing was, I was going to a bunch of AA meetings. This triangle right here, it's about 4 inches behind me is a 3 sided triangle.

And what I was doing was I was doing the work of one side of the triangle, but I was expecting the benefits of all three sides. Used to in our book, it would say unity, service and recovery on the three sides. It really pissed me off that they took it out in 1993 because it used to be right there with the book. And what my sponsor does now a lot of times Mark H is my sponsor. And when I check-in with him, he'll go, where are you at with the circle and triangle?

And the unity is the fellowship of the people in the program. And I said, well, I'm doing a lot of meetings. I'm going out to the Ranch on Mondays, talking to the guys, we've got the primary purpose group on Tuesday night, doing plenty of fellowship. What about service? Well, I'm sponsoring 14 guys and I'm doing the Monday thing and then we're doing the meeting at the house and doing all this stuff.

And so I'm pretty involved in service work and I'd say if I'm weak on anything, it would be in the recovery program right now, because in the past 7 days I've probably done 5 morning meditations and maybe 3 evening reviews. And that's the way we check-in. And in a matter of minutes, you can get an idea where I'm at with the program. But what I was doing that first time was all this side right here, it's all unity. And the one thing I want to really be sure is that you don't hear me up here saying that I don't like the fellowship of alcoholics and all this because I love the fellowship of alcoholics and all this.

Katie and I go to a lot because I love the fellowship of Alcoxonolimus. Katie and I go to a lot of conferences, we go to a lot of meetings and stuff like that. But going to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous does not treat alcoholism. It's bad news, you know. But what happens is, what happened for me was I think I had this understanding that you know how you hear guys going well, Kick the dog this morning on my way out the door and screamed at my wife and I left work 2 hours early and did 3 hours of Internet porn and did some gambling on the way home.

But I didn't drink today and that makes me a winner. And you're like, no, that kind of makes you an asshole. But that was what my understanding was because I had a program that was based on abstinence from alcohol. And the reason I like to talk about it is because when I live a life that's based on abstinence from alcohol, then the only thing, you know, that I'm going to get is dry. I'm going to have that restless irritable discontent.

The book talks about the book takes a real bizarre right turn on Page 60, 60 to 63. It's been up to there talking about the physical allergies, the mental obsession, spiritual malady. You know, when we straighten out spiritually, we straighten out mentally and physically and stuff like that. And I wasn't hearing this stuff in the meetings. But it's a weird place right there where all of a sudden now it's got me hooked, right?

It's got me admitting that I'm an alcoholic. It's got me interested in a spiritual solution. Am I even willing to believe, because the first thing that if I really pound step 1 into a guy, he knows that he's beyond human aid. That's the way the book rolls it out. It talks about the powerlessness, the loss of choice and control, the physical allergy and the mental obsession.

And since when this sort of thinking is fully established in a person without the whole tendency, he's probably placed himself beyond human aid, right. What does that mean beyond human aid? That means I can't fix me, Katie can't fix me, my sponsor can't fix me, 90 meetings in 90 days won't fix me, a counselor, a therapist, no human power is going to be able to fix me. Well, if I'm completely screwed, which is the bottom line of step 1, you know, sorry pal, you're SOL. Then and no human power can see how they kind of cleverly roll out the whole higher power thing there?

It's not saying if you're beyond human aid, well now all of a sudden God starts looking interesting or whatever you want to call it. I mean, because if I got if I can handle it, why would I need your Higher Power business? And the only reason we talk about a higher power here is not like we get a new toaster for signing a guy for Sunday school or something. I mean, the reason we talk about a higher power here is because it's the only thing we've ever seen that works, right? I mean before this book came out, they had a 2% success rate with Drunk Like Us.

Out of a 100 of us that would come in the door, 2 of us would make it. And the other 98% would either go to the prison or the mental asylum. You could go to the mental asylum for life back then for chronic inebriation and or we die. And if you've seen people die of this disease, it ain't pretty. You know.

That bitter end doesn't always come real fast, you know. Well, what happened for me though was I was living a life that was still completely self centered, when I was involved in the program of hypoxylaxis. I went to AA barbecues, I went to AA dances, I dated AA women, I worked with AA guys, I had AA roommates, I was just in fellowship up to my ears. But I had started backing away from the program and I had missed the whole piece on selfishness, right. It's strange, I mean, Chuck used to tell a story about a guy.

He would talk about the importance of really finding out what the problem was. And he used to tell a story about a guy that had been scared of dogs his whole life. And so in the inventory, he started looking back to see where this came from. And when he was a kid, he realized that one of the neighborhood dogs had bit him one day. So ever since so that's why he's been scared of dogs his whole life.

But then as he looked back a little further, he saw where he remembered that he'd been chasing one of the neighborhood girls across the yard when the dog came out and bit him. And he said all my life I've been running from dogs and chasing women and dogs never were my problem, I don't know if you can relate to that. But that's kind of what I've been doing with alcoholism. When you get over there on Page 62, there's this huge shift that I completely miss. And for those of you that this is redundant to, God bless you and rock on you.

But if there's anybody I don't think I'm the only person that this has happened to. And I want to tell you a little bit about the spiritual awakening I had well into sobriety. When a lot of this started around for me, I was sober a good amount of time. But what happened was I was there may be people in the room that are sitting in a place where you're going, I still go to some meetings. I don't really read my big book much.

I'm not sponsoring anybody. I don't I mean, I'm not going out to any treatments and I'm way too busy. I got kids and stuff. I don't have but I mean, I should go to the meeting occasionally, but I'm not thinking about drinking, right. You take that guy that's in that position and you let him go to the dentist or blow a knee out in a motorcycle crash or something like that.

And I can't tell you how many times I've seen that guy you hand him a bottle of Vicodin and 2 weeks later he's going, what the hell just happened? Because I'm walking around, what happens is over a period of time, God's will starts dropping down like this. As far as God's consciousness, it's not the window. It's all me and it's me and it's me and it's me. And step out of the way, yes, I got faith in God.

But I mean, there's a thing in here where it says and it's in the 12 and 12 where it says we can have faith and still keep God out of our lives. What that means is I get in this place where I'm running the deal and I go, oh yes, man, I got faith in God, sure absolutely. God is awesome. But I mean I don't need him for this. But I mean if I come across something really big, I mean I'm bringing God right in.

But I mean, so I'm rolling along with no God consciousness. It doesn't even come into play in any of my decisions and what happens is, God's will drops down like this, self will comes up like this and I don't even know what's happening, right. And so next thing you know, traffic is pissing me off. Katie is pissing me off. My kids are pissing me off.

Business, everything and I can't there's a thing where it says isn't he under the delusion, isn't he operating under the delusion that he can rest satisfaction and happiness from this world if he only manages well? And that's exactly what I was doing. I was managing my backside off, but I couldn't quite get it going, you know. And there's a thing on 62 where it says, though he is sure he is somewhat at fault, he is sure other people are more to blame. Anybody experience You know, I mean, it says on there, here's the thing when I was talking about not really knowing what the problem is, right here on page 62, right here on 60 it says, my first time through the steps.

I've done a 3rd step prayer on my knees. I did a 4th step. I did 6 and 7, didn't mean much to me. But we did them and then 8 and 9, I thought well, I'll do those and I'll feel better about me and then I won't have to drink all the time. 45 was so I feel better about me, and I won't have to drink, it's total BS.

I mean, it's not at all some of the crap you hear in AA meetings. My favorite pet peeve is sometimes I like to think about the newcomer. I like to think so much about what it's like. When they say the chanting, God Almighty the chanting drops me out of my mind. I mean, I think about this guy coming in, he's been shoot heroin and drinking whiskey for 14 years and he comes in and we're chanting like a bunch of kids at summer camp.

I mean he's going, Jesus I want to stop and I don't know about all this. But the guy comes in and he hears something 2 or 3 times and he starts thinking it must be AA, right? I mean I heard it in an AA meeting and they keep saying one of the ones that always gets me is this is a selfish program, right? How many times have you heard that? Well, you know this is a selfish program.

Well, you hear it a few times, you start thinking, I heard it in AA. They said it was a selfish program. Total bullshit. It's not in the book anywhere. In fact, the book is full of stuff where it says, I got to though at the time we're getting our lives in order and that is not an end in itself.

Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and our fellows. And then over here on Page 14, it says for if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead. Just a couple more. 92, it says or no, 94. It says, suggest how important it is that he placed the welfare of other people ahead of his own.

Does that sound like a selfish program? You know, I mean, it's just full of that stuff. And what I've done was I had missed that selfishness piece. There's a line there on Page 60 when we're going into step 3 where it says, the first requirement is that we'd be convinced any life, not just an alcoholic life, any life run on self will can hardly be a success, right? That line didn't touch me.

I don't know about anybody else, but the first time I went through the steps that line, not only was I not convinced that my life around self will couldn't be, I didn't give it a thought. I mean, think about it in the 3rd step prayer where it goes, relieve me of the bondage itself. What does that mean? I mean, I'm just down on my knees. I'm nervous as hell.

I got a grown man and we're down on our knees together. You know, I mean, is anybody looking at, you know. But going back through it, what happened for me? Oh boy, we got 8 minutes. I was in a plane crash in 2003.

I chartered a plane out on Eastern Long Island to go back into Manhattan. I was in that place where I wasn't really doing the deal. But I was I've been sober a good while. We crashed into the water at night. I mean, it's no Earl Hightower story, but it was pretty damn dramatic.

And I mean, we crashed into the water at night and had to escape from an underwater plane that the doors wouldn't open on. And what happened was and that's the shortest version I can tell you in the story. But what happened was I didn't understand at the time, but it was the beginning of a spiritual awakening for me. Because I knew that there was dishonesty in my life. I knew that there was some stuff that I wasn't doing that didn't quite jive with the program.

And what I started doing was you don't want to get down on your knees and say, God, you take care of my whole life. Well, I mean everything but this. And I'll handle that insurance deal. But everything else, guys, well, so what happens for a guy like me is you just quit getting down on your knees and I've been in place for a while, where I was totally on self will. I'm not checking in with God, because I had hit the wall with self will early in my program where I didn't feel like I was getting a good deal and I went the wrong way.

I went more into self will. I thought to hell with this AA thing. I tried it your way, I'm not getting what I wanted and I started running more on self will. Well, I hit the wall with that and what happened as a result of that I can't believe I got 6 minutes to get this in. What happened as a result of that, I came out of that deal and I remember going to my sponsor and going, I'm so self centered that I can't even have a conversation with somebody.

I mean, I have to force myself to say, how's the wife, how are the kids, and act like I give a flip about the answer. Because I want to talk about me. And I mean that's self centered. And my sponsor says we're going to go out to the restaurant and talk to the wine. The reason I tell this story is because it did not sound like a good idea.

The idea of going and working with these guys you're like, no, no, no. See they're going to want to talk about themselves and I want to talk about me. But what happened though was it was the beginning of the bright spot of my life. I started working with these guys and there was times where I felt like I was sometimes a step ahead of these guys, because I was getting a new understanding in this book. I was really going into the book and really reading it line by line, word by word.

I started going to the primary purpose group, where we studied the book sentence by sentence and then go back through it. And it brings about a depth of this book that I never knew was there. The book is 500 feet deep and I've never stuck a toe in it. I mean, I just tried to pick up what my understanding of Alcoholics Anonymous in the meetings. I started going into the book, I started hanging out with other big book thumpers.

And how can we grow in understanding and effectiveness? We're on the phone with each other every day going, okay, now what are you going to do when a guy says this? Well, what I usually say is this and that. I'll pull into this part of the book and I'll go to did come to me, if you're And the reason that's important is because if you did come to me, if you're sitting in the room tonight and you've been around a while now, for the new guys, welcome, I love you, I'm glad you're here. I think there's plenty of message of the hope of recovery for the new guy in the rooms.

But if you're sitting in the rooms and you've been here a little while, you've been here 2 years, 3 years. And you're not feeling what you hear people talking about. What I'm telling you is it's still available. It's available as a result of the work right out of the book of this program. And I never knew that.