Aberdeen Wednesday Night Group's Soberstock Roundup in Aberdeen, SD

Give an enthusiastic welcome to Adam T.

My name is Adam. I'm an alcoholic

like to 1st thank the committee for asking me to come and speak. It's an honor and a privilege to be asked to participate in Alcoholics Anonymous. Ultimately, it's a responsibility to give back what was so freely given to me. I want to welcome you guys that are new. If you're trying a A1 more time, if perhaps you don't think this will work for you,

if you don't want to be here. I, I didn't want to be in AAI, didn't aspire to this.

Um, you know, I hated all you happy people. And um,

you know, I stood up as a newcomer for 17 years. It became ridiculous. And you know, I had so many key tags and chips, you know, I mean, I could have played poker with them. It was ridiculous. And, you know, I, I mean, I don't mean to be funny, but I did that walk of shame over and over and over. And,

you know, I mean, I know the old timers were judging me. You know, I mean, if you're new, we're, we're judging.

You know,

some of us make bets.

I love it when they say don't judge anybody. Ever hear that? Don't judge anybody in a You ever hear that 5 minutes later they're telling you to stick with the winners,

right? You hear a lot of stuff like that that's not in the big book. Don't make any major decisions in your first year. Have you guys seen the third step?

What's the other one I love? Oh don't get in a relationship in your first year. No one knows if that works. No ones ever done it,

but the one I love is God doesn't give us more than we could handle. And you know, if that was true, I wouldn't need God's help. And the longer I've been in Alcoholics Anonymous, the longer I've been separated from alcohol, the more that I've come to terms with the fact that I absolutely do need God's help. And I, I Alcoholics Anonymous is done for me what I could never do for myself. It's done for a lot of us collectively what we could never do for ourselves. And,

you know, as I always say, and I'll probably say it again, if I live to be 100 years old, I could never pay Alcoholics Anonymous back for that freedom

that, that I have. And, you know, I always heard the gratitude was, you know, a feeling, you know, and I thought gratitude was a feeling. And, you know, my sponsor pointed out that gratitude for me wouldn't be a feeling. It would be an action. And it would be demonstrated through what I would be willing to give back to Alcoholics Anonymous as gratitude for for my freedom. And

you know, it, it just became ridiculous. I, I, I was so filled with guilt and shame, you know, alcoholic ego about being a newcomer that, you know, eventually I started coming to meetings drunk. And I, I mean,

The funny thing about AAA these days is if you see a guy drunk in the rooms there, people are like, what's he doing here? Right with you with the event, event of treatment with swoops, A lot of us up in our most desperate moments. You don't see people drunk in the rooms of a a But you know what I would do? We have these late night meetings in Los Angeles, you know, ten 11:00 at night. I would I would go to 711 get a Big Gulp cup, you know, fill it up with liquor, put a little coke on the top and I would go to late night

do some of my best sharing.

I,

you know, and they didn't think it was funny. They weren't laughing, you know, And then eventually, and this isn't a plug for treatment, but I started going through treatment centers. I heard the first speaker talk about going to treatment. And, you know, by the time I finally got sober, I'd gone through treatment 28 times. And I remember, you know, like telling my sponsor, I went through treatment 28 times. I was hoping that would get rid of the guy, you know, loser.

And he said, you know, that doesn't make you an alcoholic. And I thought you're kidding. He says no, it means you paid half $1,000,000 for a big book.

I didn't think that was funny.

You know, I'm not going to start citing pages tonight out of The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, but page 101 of the Big Book

says any scheme that attempts to shield the alcoholic from temptation is doomed to failure.

See, Treatment was a great place to fatten me up for another run.

But treatment never solved the problem.

And I always thought the problem was alcohol. And a guy said to me, you know, Adam, if that little bottle of Jack Daniels, that little drink, if that's your problem, he says, you're probably not an alcoholic.

And then in the very next breath, he said to me, if you are an alcoholic, the type that's described in the doctor's opinion in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, your problem is an alcohol. And it took me another decade to understand what he was trying to tell me because it was obvious from the time I was in junior high school that I couldn't live with alcohol. Drooling on my desk, pissing in my pants. Even from that age, everyone could see that I couldn't live successfully with alcohol.

But as an alcoholic, the greater aspect of this disease

is the very fact that I can't live without alcohol.

And I have a mind that always takes me back to a drink.

The alcoholic mind.

I have a mind that will argue with anybody about anything at anytime. You tell me it's black, I'll tell you it's white, right? You tell me it's go, go, right. I'll go left with an attitude,

you know, Denial for me is like, don't even notice that I am lying.

It's an acronym, you know, and I do it in every aspect of my life. I don't just do it with alcohol. I do it with relationships. I do it with chocolate cake, you know, I do it with credit cards. It's no wonder there's 412 step programs. They're all identical except for the first half of step one. You know, I go to meetings and people identify in a a as Alcoholics. Then you got people identifying as addicts, then you got addict Alcoholics. Then you got alcoholic addicts that are somehow different, you know?

Yeah, like I'm dumb and stupid, right?

Then you got the dope friends in the back row that are worse than all of us,

you know, And if we don't have a common problem, we don't have a common solution.

And it took a long time for me to really understand what that common problem was,

you know, and it becomes more and more apparent to me the longer I'm separated from alcohol.

And there I was, you know, in one more treatment center. I was 120 lbs. I let everybody down one more time,

you know, I was dying of alcoholism, I was dirty, I was hopeless. You know that great feeling in detox, you know, and I'm in the detox circle with my fellow associates, you know, a vision for you,

you know, and this woman from A A comes in and does her, you know, on her H and I panel and she does her H and I talk and you know, she's in her business suit. Probably one of Clancy's crew.

And at the end of her talk, she says if I could give you all the gift of recovery, I wouldn't do it. And I looked at her and I looked at the guy next to me and I said, what a bitch.

And you know what she said? She said something that I'll never forget. She said the reason I won't get wouldn't give you the gift of recovery is because I wouldn't rob you of the journey.

And all of these years later, I understand that that journey to surrender

and that journey to recovery is personal. And I can't transmit that intangible gift of desperation to anybody. If you're new, you know, I mean, by the way, if you are new, we're the only people that want to reward because we ran out of a burning building.

Yeah, we're very happy you're here,

You know, And if you're sitting here thinking about drinking tonight, it beats the hell out of being in a bar right now thinking about being sober,

you know? And I remember my sponsor told me, said he wanted, he said, buy a black suit when I got sober. And I said, why? And he said, well, you're going to go to a lot of funerals. And then he said if you drink again, at least we'll have something nice to bury you in.

And you know, The funny thing is, if you baby the alcoholic, you will bury him.

And I thank God that I heard the truth about this disease, that this was fatal. It was progressive, it was chronic. It was never going to go away. It wasn't going to get better.

And that the shower I took yesterday wouldn't keep me clean today, you know, And I had to come to terms with that fact. It's almost like unplugging a refrigerator. If you unplug a refrigerator, you know what happens, right? Everything goes bad.

And you know, my experience shows me if I plug, unplug from Alcoholics Anonymous, I slowly spiritually deteriorate, no matter how much time I think I have.

You know, a lot of people get a lot of years and not enough days around here. And you know, it's one day at a time. And it's been that way for, for almost, you know, a little over 10 years for me. And, you know, I do a lot of H and I, I, I probably should, right? I'm an alumni from everywhere.

So

I have this panel up at the VA, the Veterans Administration. And, you know, we take panels into like, you know, detoxes in prisons and, and, and hospitals. And, you know, you get into a room like this big full of soldiers and you start talking about surrender. You know what happens, right?

Room gets really quiet, especially Marines.

But you know, one of the greatest illustrations of surrender that I had ever heard came out of one of those experiences. And if you ever watch a soldier surrender, the illustrations perfect. You'll see him take the rifle, lay it down on the ground, sit down on the side of the road, wait for someone to tell him what to do. You know when you get 40 AK, 40 sevens pointed to your head, you don't throw down the gun with an attitude,

right?

You're not sitting on the side of the road looking back at the gun, because if you do, someone's going to shoot you.

Am I looking back at alcohol? Am I looking back at the magic that I once found in alcohol?

Because see, for me, like a lot of us, life had its moments. And for those very moments, I'm willing to give my life to recapture and recreate the magic that I once found in alcohol.

And unless I can find that sense of comfort and ease that I sought from alcohol through this process, there's no way I'm going to stay here.

It took a long time for me to understand. I mean, people say don't drink no matter what. I'm like, why don't you join Nancy Reagan's merry band of winners and just say no,

I drink no matter what,

you know? And the first speaker was talking about that. I can't bring into my consciousness with sufficient force the pain and suffering of a week or a month ago. I have no effective mental defense against the first drink,

which is really just another way of saying I never took my first drink drunk

with why I think is a perfectly sound mind. It takes me back to alcohol,

you know, And that journey to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization that we talk about is personal. And thank God we don't shoot our wounded around here.

This room would be empty,

you know, and I thank God that the old timers continued to reach their hand out and say just keep coming. Just be quiet. Have a cup of coffee.

You know, and

I just some of my dearest friends have died of alcoholism. And I, you know, you can't give it to somebody. I wish I could give that gift of surrender to you. If you're new. And, you know, for me, there was a direct relationship between willingness and surrender, You know, you'll never see anybody more willing to work the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And the guy that comes crawling in the room after a long hard run, he'll do anything right? 90 meetings and 90 days.

He'll take a commitment. First day out of detox. He wants to take the coffee pot home,

right? That's how we lose half our literature

and that same guy thirty, 6090 days later looking at me saying, you mean we got to go to meetings every day

and like a prize fighter that throws in the towel. What I would do is I would take that towel back one little piece at a time, over and over and over again,

You know, And I came to understand for me, like a lot of us, that there's a huge difference between the act of surrender that gets the newcomer into the room of Alcoholics Anonymous over and over and over again, and the state of surrender that's keeping the old timers here. It's a completely different concept. It's kind of like watching a swan glide across a pond of Stillwater. It looks so graceful,

it's so effortless, it's so beautiful. But you know what's going on under the water, right? He's paddling like hell.

And if you're new, we have a chapter in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous into action. We don't have a chance or into feelings.

You know, there's no chapter into thinking

we ought to have a chapter into whining from the podium.

And what happened to me, like a lot of us, is I became willing to set aside everything that I thought I knew about AA, about God, about the 12 steps, so I could truly have a new experience with this,

you know?

And

that was very difficult for me to really understand my experience, you know, and everything that I thought I knew was really a wedge between me and freedom. And I had to be willing to set aside all of those old ideas. And as an alcoholic, there was a huge difference between compliance and surrender. There's a guy by the name of Doctor Harry Tebow is one of the contributing members to some of our original literature, and you can look them up on the Internet. And he talks about the difference between

compliance versus surrender.

And I'd been in compliance with Alcoholics Anonymous for years, doing it for sober living, doing it for the judicial system, doing it for the parole department, doing it for Family Services. I mean, where I live, they do it for the trust fund,

you know, But that act of surrender that we talk about very much like that soldier that lays down that rifle is unconditional.

And as an alcoholic, see fear won't keep me sober.

Getting a third strike, living on the street, being homeless, losing my career, throwing away my education. Did scared straight work for you guys?

That went right over my head.

Now the big book talks about the problem drinker, right? Completely different character. Problem drinker, Someone that can stop or moderate given sufficient reason. Huge difference between a problem drinker and a real alcoholic. You get a problem drinker and a real alcoholic in a drunk tank for say drunk driving. You get 2 completely different philosophies going on. You get the problem drinker on one side of the cell thinking

why did I drink so much last night?

I knew I shouldn't have drank so much. Real Alcoholics on the other side of the cell thinking why do they take the 12?

You know the court card, People never laugh at that.

Things might have been different.

And that's the compliance line that we see, you know, at a lot of meetings,

you know, and I had a court card for five years. I had a court card

and

you know, I wasn't ready until I was ready, you know, and no one could give me, you know, that gift of surrender.

You know, if I really look at it, problem drinkers wife says, you know, if you don't stop drinking, I'm leaving you. Problem drinker cleans up his act, right? Doesn't drink in the house, gets a little Visine. Now if my woman says to me, honey, if you don't stop drinking, I'm leaving you. You know what I'm thinking, right?

I'm thinking about single life

now, just looking back at my relationship to alcohol. If anything got in the way of booze, it was out of my life. Relationship, career, education, all of it. Alcohol is very selfish and eventually for me, if anything got in the way of alcohol, it was out of my life.

And if you're new, my experience with Alcoholics Anonymous is that if anything gets in the way of Alcoholics Anonymous, if anything gets in the way of my recovery, it's out of my life.

You know, a woman, I don't care how beautiful she is, how much she loves me,

how good she makes me look.

I remember the first time I said that from the podium. There she was in the back of the room.

She's like, sweetie, you don't look like an alcoholic. Why do you got to go to all those meetings? You're not speaking again, are you?

Your recovery is getting in the way of our relationship.

Couple months later, we're having Thanksgiving dinner. You know, I'm at the head of the table all dressed up and I'm with her family outcomes the the exotic wine and she's like, sweetie, you can have a glass of wine. It's just one glass of wine. Four more rehabs.

I know I stole her purse that night,

went and bought an outside issue.

And she came to detox with a Get Well card

and I did it to her like 3-4 more times.

For her, a slip was 5 minutes of compassion.

I would say you guys know the difference between a toilet seat and a codependent. A toilet seat doesn't follow you around after you poop all over it.

Told you shouldn't have brought her to this meeting.

You won't be able to pull that out or anymore,

you know? And if anything got in the way of my recovery, you know, it was out of my life. I have sponsors that pay more in taxes than I make all year. They have these huge careers and these little tiny AA programs. And you know what? I've never seen one of them stand the test of time here. What do I do for a living? I stay sober.

What do I do for money? It's over there. And if I get them mixed up, I'm in handcuffs. If I get them mixed up, I'm I'm handcuffed to a Gurney. I'm in an emergency room. I'm back in detox. That may not be your experience. That's my experience that any time I put anything in front of Alcoholics Anonymous it's taken away from me.

Self knowledge won't fix me. I mean, I've had every relapse prevention class known to man

and I can't make it past the liquor store,

you know, and I'm in, I'm in relapse prevention class, you know, again, we're talking about triggers.

I tell my my my instructor waking up to trigger for me.

I'm up.

I was asked to leave the class

and there I am, one more time behind a dumpster on Skid Row drooling on myself, reciting chapter 5 out of the Big Book

and the bum next to me is like will you shut up man? You're ruining my high

and I'm crying because I can't get back here

and I've got a head full of Alcoholics Anonymous and I've got a belly full of booze and I'm separate, different and alone. One more time.

And if you think that sounds bad, you know what's worse than that? Being in this room tonight and really being an alcoholic and not working the 12 steps that could be worse. Coming to meeting late, leaving early, not having commitments, not being of service. That could be a worse death,

you know, I always, you know, that's why I always try to address the person in their last 30 days, you know, we never recognize the guy and his last 30 days, you know, and you can always spot him, ask him how they're doing. I'm fine.

I'm, I'm like, why don't you tell your face that?

You know, and it's tragic because we always hear about it later, you know, so and so blew his brains out or committed suicide or drank again. You know,

See, the knowledge was necessary, but it was insufficient to keep me sober.

The knowledge about recovery was something that helped me to win the confidence of a newcomer where no one else could, where the clergy couldn't do it, where the therapist couldn't do it, where the drug and alcohol counselor couldn't do it, where the parole department couldn't do it. Another drunk was able to win my confidence because he lived like I did. He felt like me,

not just in active drinking, but more importantly in untreated alcoholism. And he was able to share his experience, strength, and hope with me. In the insanity that precedes the first drink, in the delusion that I live in, in the resentment that drives me crazy, in the selfishness.

And thank God that we have a common solution.

You know, you hear it at every meeting. We where I go to meetings, they they say keep coming back. It works if you work it. Have you ever noticed they don't say keep coming back? It works if you know it.

I mean, I told my sponsor I had a degree when I came to AA and you know what he said? He said thermometers have degrees. You know, they stick those

vicious

Oh, just play the tape through. That's another one I love. Just think it through.

I mean, I'm driving my brand new car down the freeway past Skid Row. You know, I live in a big city and I, I think about Skid Row and, you know, my head tells me Skid Row wasn't that bad.

Just give me a toothless honey and a cardboard box. I can make it on Skid Row where I live. It's warm

and that's insanity.

You know, I always thought insanity was doing the same thing and expecting different results. Isn't that what most, most people say in AA? That's not the insanity I deal with. I have another type of insanity. It's doing the same thing, knowing exactly what's going to happen and doing it anyway.

At least the other kind of insanity, doing the same thing and expecting different results. At least there's some hope there.

Insanity, like we were saying it's, you know, I don't want to offend any of the tender ears tonight, but it's, it's kind of like having sex with a gorilla. Now you know if you have sex with a gorilla, honey, it ain't over till the gorilla says it's over.

You get the gorilla back in the cage. You know what happens, right? Starts looking at you again with those loving eyes.

Remember how it used to be?

It's like a sadistic lover. I promise I won't hurt you this time,

just let me out for a second.

What's the other one? No ones going to know.

I mean, that's the way the disease talks to me. I don't know how you know it talks to you, but you know, this goes on and on. It's like my sponsor was talking about people that, you know, are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. And I'm looking around and he said, what are you looking at? They're talking about you,

that I have this peculiar mental twist, this obscure way of looking before I take that first drink. I mean, I will tell myself it's OK, and then I'll step around the podium and believe it.

And I have to stay aware of that truth,

you know, and I have to be very clear on that.

And thinking it through won't work for me.

You know, reminds me of this story of a guy was, you know, we were talking about hunting today and,

you know, this guy gets a rifle for his birthday. And it's his lifelong ambition to, to shoot a polar bear. So he, you know, he flies up to Alaska and, you know, he, he sees a bear and you know, he's got his new rifle. So he he shoots the bear and he goes over to check out his kill.

There's a tap on his shoulder. It's a bigger polar bear. Looking down at him says, you know what? You just shot my son. You got two choices. You either let me have my way with you or I'm going to maul you to death.

Couple weeks later he's healing up in the hospital.

Now he's got a resentment,

so you know, he gets a little better. He flies back up to Alaska. He's going to get the bear, right? He's healed up, goes to the same spot. He sees the bear, takes his shot, goes over to check out his kill, Tap on his shoulder, Bigger polar bear looking down at him. You just shot my uncle. He got two choices. Either let me have my way with you, or I'm going to maul you to death.

Back in the hospital, healing up again,

You know, now this goes on back and forth, back and forth for years.

Finally he's, you know, he's up there again. He sees the bear, you know. He takes his shot,

goes over to check out his kill, tap on his shoulder. It's the king of the polar bears looking down at him.

The king of the polar bear says, you know, we've been watching you.

You're not really up here for the hunting, are you?

You know, and that's the kind of insanity that I deal with with alcohol.

And we talk about driven by 100 forms of fear, self delusion, self pity. It's almost like driving cattle. You know, when you're driving cattle, you have, you know, horsemen on the four corners of the herd. And it's like, you know, when you're in the middle of that, that herd, you don't know, you're being driven into the slaughterhouse,

driven by resentment, by selfishness, by self pity, by delusion, you know, and I just couldn't see that. I couldn't see the truth about that. And you know, the longest bridge that I ever crossed, the longest journey that I ever walked was that little tiny hyphen between the first and second-half of step one.

And really understanding what unmanageability is.

You know, because we hear it in Chapter 5. Every time you read Chapter 5, you hear it. Our personal adventures before and after make clear 3 pertinent ideas, right? A, then I'm an alcoholic and I can't manage my life. B, That no human power, not even Clancy, can relieve my alcoholism and see that God couldn't, would have sought. And I'm thinking before and after what? What are they talking about?

And for me it's before and after I put down a drink. See the problem? Drinker comes in the AA and thinks unmanageability is based on drinking. If that's true, stop drinking.

But my experience shows me when I'm not drinking, I have a whole nother set of problems

and there's guys I drank with that have the same phenomenon of craving that the doctor's opinion talks about.

And as soon as they put down the drink, something magic happens. They fit in again, the career welcomes them back, they come to meetings once a year, never work a step, and their life gets consistently better. They've been serene since. Their asset, the seat in AA. That's not my experience.

My experience, every time I stopped drinking, the first thing they say to me is, boy, you need to be on medication.

Why are you so angry?

Why are you so emotional? What's wrong with you back there?

You know I'm crying at dog food commercials.

When I'm not drinking, I have a whole nother set of problems. They're outlined on page 52 of the Big Book. When I'm not drinking, I'm afraid of misery and depression. When I'm not drinking, I can't control my emotional nature. When I'm not drinking, I'm full of fear.

When I'm not drinking, I can't manage my personal relationships. Sound familiar?

When I'm not drinking, I'm basically unhappy.

When I'm not drinking, I'm no use to other people. And the way that plays out for me in untreated alcoholism is I don't fit in. I'm not. Part of you don't understand me. Everybody's in my way. Life's not fair. They're not treating me right. I'm underappreciated. They're not paying me enough. She's cheating on me. I got a drink

and some magic happens. I pick up a cocktail and I intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle me.

Right. Give me a couple more drinks. Fear of people and economic insecurity leave me. I'm buying the whole bar drinks.

Hello, write your check.

Not only am I getting better looking, honey, you're getting better looking.

You give me a couple, Vicodin. I could comprehend the word serenity and I know peace.

Give me a little cocaine. I want to start a business with you.

Get me down to my last 20 bucks, I'll show you how my experience will benefit others.

Now you know what? If you're laughing at any of that, there's something really wrong with you

because that effect does not occur in the normal or temperate drinker. Alcohol is supposed to be a depressant. So I normally have two drinks. They go, I've had enough. I'm, I'm feeling it,

you know,

and for me, alcohol creates that sense of comfort and ease. It makes my life seem manageable. And unless I can find that sense of comfort, ease that I saw it from alcohol through this process, there's no way I'm going to stay here.

And there's a relationship between God and alcohol. What it says in the promises. We suddenly realize that God could do for us what we could not do for ourselves. Didn't some of us suddenly realize that alcohol had done for us what we could not do for ourselves?

And you can see that relationship between God and alcohol by substitution and the promises. You know, you get into the ghettos in this country where everything has been burned to the ground. There's always two things that stick out. Churches and liquor stores.

You know why? Because they both give man hope.

And if you're a newcomer, you know when we wish you the gift of desperation. You know, that gift of hopelessness where everything that I call self-reliance had failed me, had to be burned to the ground for me to become willing to take actions here that I didn't believe in.

You know, there's a letter from Bill Wilson to Carl Jung, and he talks about the relationship between spirits and spirituality or God and alcohol. And for people like me, alcohol is an artificial means to a spiritual experience. These 12 simple steps are a practical means to a spiritual experience. You take the booze away from me. You don't give me something better on the dead man.

Because it was alcohol that gave me the courage to walk across that dance floor and ask that beautiful girl to dance. It was alcohol that gave me the guts to go after that big job. It was alcohol that gave me the courage to go on that audition. It was alcohol that gave me the wings to fly.

And when I'm not drinking

on separate, different alone by nature, when I'm not drinking, I'm chasing you. 4 exits past my exit on the highway.

I'm jumping up and down on your hood in traffic.

You know, when I'm not drinking, I'm counting your items in the checkout line.

He got 11.

See you guys do that up here too.

You know, I'm so separate, different and alone when I'm not drinking my own moms like drinks on you were nicer. Have a

cigarette while you're at it.

Another outside issue.

You know, unless I can find that freedom that I sought from alcohol through this process and actually find it

through the 12 steps,

there's no way I'm going to stay here.

You know, it's like we're on a train and the train goes to one place. The train goes to jails, institutions and death. That's the only place it goes now. Right now we're at a station,

but my experience shows me that without this process in the 12 steps, I will get back on that train again.

There's a guy named Chuck C and he said the real problem here is an alcohol. He said the real problem is a conscious separation from God.

And any points of the 11th step where you see this solution, conscious contact with God and the bridge from 2:00 to 11:00 for me was steps 4 through 9,

you know, and I became willing to take those actions that I didn't believe in. Maybe what they should say in AA is rarely have we seen a person fail that's done steps 4 through 9. Rarely have we ever seen anybody do 4 through 9.

What I do is the notorious a, a waltz, 123 drink, 123 drink. And I'll turn my will on life over to anything but that which will solve my problem. That's why we always say if you want to hide something from a newcomer, you know where to put it, right? Stick it to yeah, stick it in the the literature. They'll never find it.

There's only one thing Alcoholics do in moderation. You know what it is? The steps.

And that's a tragedy,

you know. And I had to come to terms with what he meant by a conscious separation from God. And it was simple. I didn't want to pray to God. You know why I didn't want God to find out where I was.

And a lot of us are like that. I mean, we have a chapter in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. We agnostics, have you noticed we don't have a chapter? We believers

and I slowly had to look at those old ideas that were blocking me,

that I had this belief system. I mean, you know, if you get in a closet and pray for a hot dog, you know what will happen, right? You'll die,

and I had a conditional relationship to this power all of my life and I didn't know it. God can move mountains, but you better bring a shovel.

Or where I live, we, you know I had a Santa Claus, God, right? We have a parking meter, God, if you get a parking space, God, it's good. If you don't,

that's a visual

and I don't mean to be offensive, but but I had a conditional relationship with this power. I tell my sponsees, don't pray for women. God's not a pimp,

and what Alcoholics Anonymous in the 12 steps eventually did for me was showed me a way to be rid of these old ideas about this power that were blocking me from a spiritual experience. And it was an evolutionary process.

You know, Bobby Earl used to talk about

the priest and the atheist. We have a story that we use the term in a, a, the Eskimo. And that comes from a story of a priest and an atheist. And they're in a bar in Alaska. And the priest says that the atheist, how come you don't believe in God? And the atheist says, oh, I tried God once. And the priest says, well, what do you mean? And the atheist says, well, I was in a Blizzard. I was walking around in the snow and I was lost. And it was dark and I knew I was going to die. So I got on my knees and I said, God, if there's a God help me, I'm going to die.

And the priest looks him right in the eye, and he says, well, you're sitting here, you must believe in God. And the atheist says, you don't understand. Right after I got off my knees, I bumped into this Eskimo, and he showed me a way back into town,

you know, And if you're new and you said that prayer, God help me. Maybe this is it.

There's a poem in Notre Dame. It says I sought my God, my God. I could not see. I sought my soul, my soul I could not free. I sought my brother and I found all three,

and we talk about nothing ensures immunity from drinking more than intensive work with others.

And my sponsor sat me down after 28 trips through treatment and 17 years as a newcomer. And he said if you're not willing to take people through the steps, you're going to die.

And I hope

that it's a matter of life and death because it's amazing how quick someone will do a four step when they have a gun to their head.

You know, like my friend said, it took him

two years in a day to write a four Step, 2 years to worry about in a day to do it.

You know that which will solve my problem.

And you know, it was the bridge for me from faith to trust. There's a huge difference between faith and trust. You know, it's like if there was a high wire, you know, across the room, you know, like, like a high wire between two buildings. And you know, a guy came out pushing a wheelbarrow across the high wire. We don't look up at him and think, oh, he'll probably make it. That's faith. You know what trust is? You get in the wheelbarrow

S and he's not really.

And that wheelbarrow for me was steps 4 through 9,

that I became willing to take actions that I didn't believe in,

you know? And Wilson talks about me being the actor, trying to be the director forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and all the players. If only people would do as I wished. But when I never considered in that scenario is like a play. I had given God a role in my play,

and when God didn't meet my finite human expectations, what I did is I slowly became separate from that power.

And what Alcoholics Anonymous has done for me, like a lot of us, has shown me a way to be rid of those old ideas.

You know, you tell a 5 year old kid, I want you to go in your room and straighten out your room. He doesn't want to do that. You tell that same kid, I want you to go in your room and I want you to throw out all your old stuff and we'll take you and buy you new stuff. How long would that take?

At some of these we bought,

and when I started to look at the steps and the process and inventory from the perspective is being rid of the things that were blocking me from spiritual freedom, everything changed. My motivation changed

when they asked Michelangelo, they said to Michelangelo, how did you make the statue of David? And Michelangelo said, I never made the statue of David. I just chipped away everything that wasn't David and there he was.

And for me, the 12 steps showed me away to be rid of those old ideas.

You know, it says step three has little lasting effect unless that once followed by a strenuous effort to face and be rid of the things that are blanking me. It doesn't say face and cope with face and endure forever

to be rid of.

You know, those old ideas were killing me. See, alcoholism for me was the only prison where the key was inside.