The 39th Winter Conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Pollock,

The view up here is fantastic.

Alcoholics Anonymous is alive and well in Winnipeg. Thanks for having me. Thanks for inviting me here.

I love the spirit of Canadians. I was walking down the hallway the other day mentioning the the temperature to somebody in the the gentleman said, well, this is no mosquitoes out today. So

it's a nice positive attitude.

You have smart water in Canada? I haven't seen any. I haven't been to a grocery store, but I brought this bottle with me from California. It's called smart water.

I always bring one with me because I'm hoping it helps my talk a little bit.

The first time I ran across this I couldn't get the lid open. It had some kind of really difficult lid is like, I guess you have to drink it first to get smart. I'm not sure, but

I had one of my sponsors open it for me. Anybody have sponsee's a show of hands? People have sponsees. Excellent. How about people have sponsees that are with have sponsors that are here with them? Excellent, excellent. I I try not to never never leave home without a sponsor,

but I didn't bring one on this trip, but I always try to bring one with me. They're just awesome. Love sponsees are fabulous.

A couple months ago I was traveling to a conference and I got I missed missed one of my connections and I was concerned that I wasn't going to be able to get to my destination in time. And I texted my host to ask him for some counsel of what I should do. I was, I don't know what to do because I was not going to get there when I was supposed to get there and I knew I was going to a good a a group. When the guy texted me back he says

read page, read page 449 and go to a meeting.

So

that's two secrets of a I've only been talking for a couple of minutes. You want to stay sober intensively work with another alcoholic and if you have a problem, the solution is always spiritual.

So if you doze off, Misty got something to take with you there. If you get done listening before I get done talking, that happens sometimes. But I got thinking about this smart water a little while ago and I was I was looking back at my drinking. I thought, boy, sure would be nice if if whiskey had different kind of labels on it. So when you went to the liquor store, you knew what kind of whiskey you were going to get instead of now you go, you don't know what you're going to get when you drink this stuff. I mean, you might get

Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde whiskey.

You might get puking and going to jail whiskey.

I used to get some of this dial in whiskey where you call people up in the middle of the night, don't want to, they don't want to hear you.

Sometimes I get this stuff called travel and whiskey

where you wake up in some strange place with some strange people. And you ever done that where you'll wake up and you kind of want to chew your arm off because you want to get away from where you are? It's like I thought it was a girl.

I

I'm jumping ahead a little bit. That's fifth step stuff.

I did not have sex with that girl.

I think

the stuff that I really like or you get sometimes once in a while, you get a bottle of smart whiskey where you you go home and you you start analyzing some problem you have and start taking some notes and you solve all the problems in the world and you wake up the next day and you can't read any of it. But

the stuff I really like is called, I call it plucking whiskey, where there's a story in the back of the book where this this guy standing at a bar and all of a sudden these magically plucked from the bar and thrust into some position of power and prestige. I drink a lot of that stuff. I love that stuff. I lived in this fantasy world all the time. So that describes my drinking. I'm a puking, going to jail, traveling, dialing Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

guy that thought whiskey made him smart,

so that covers it.

The other thing I like doing besides drinking is I like thinking and I like I like doing them together, Thinking and drinking, drinking and thinking and thinking and drinking and drinking and thinking. And Einstein has a saying I like. He says none of your current problems can be solved by the thinking that created them. I can't solve my problems by thinking about them.

I was in a meeting last week, I think it wasn't somebody was the topic. It might have been our our thinking and

someone says they had this like hamster cage in their head. I'm thinking that would be really good. I got a shit slinging monkey in my head.

I may not walk my talk, but I'm glad I don't walk my think

you've seen these 20 questions for whether you're alcoholic or not. Most people have run across them.

You can take those same 20 questions and use them for your thinking. Is thinking causing you problems at home?

Do you have trouble sleeping because of your thinking?

Would your life be better off if you stop thinking

I

Yeah, you can see why a guy like me needs a sponsor.

I got a sponsor. His name is Jack and Jack.

Jack teaches that an air traffic control school and till recently I worked at a place called the Department of Corrections. I worked in a prison as a teacher. So control and corrections, Jack and I have issues, but

there's a saying also an A, is it D be nice to the newcomer, maybe your sponsor someday. And that was nice to Jack when he got sober. And he's my sponsor now. He's my second sponsor, my first sponsor. I didn't know this was going to cause a controversy, but I had a woman sponsor the first time and she was my sponsor for 18 years. And she was a heavy smoker and she died of lung cancer. And one of the last things she said to me before she died is sobriety is no fun when you can't breathe.

And so after Donna died, I got Jack as a sponsor.

So a lot of people in a a, they brag about how much time their sponsor has. My sponsor, she, he sponsored Moses.

And but what I like to brag about Jack is what a great program he works. He's a fabulous example of Alcoholics Anonymous. His life's not perfect, but he he applies his principles in his life. And the best sermon is a good example, and Jack is an awesome example of it for me.

And Abe Lincoln has a quote that I like. He says it doesn't matter how tall your grandpa was, you have to do your own growing.

So

one of the best examples I heard of why it's a good idea to have a sponsor. Some newcomer was at the meeting outside and somebody asked him how long he'd been sober, what his sobriety date was. And and the guy says which one? And he says, I haven't had meth for about 3 years. So I got three years off meth and I haven't smoked a joint since I was in Mexico about six months ago. So I got six months of pot and I haven't had a drink for 90 days,

but I had a had a beer last night, so I guess I have 89 days today.

It's called newcomer math,

so I only have one sobriety dates. The only one I've ever had. It's December the six, 1982,

and thanks.

Clapping for an alcoholic who quits drinking is like clapping for a cowboy with hemorrhoids who stops riding his horse.

And my sobriety day is the last time I smoked marijuana. We got any marijuana smokers here?

I mean, we got eczema X marijuana smokers. OK,

if you're new here, we don't smoke marijuana and Alcoholics Anonymous.

We don't do that,

and the people that do do that aren't sober.

I was smoking marijuana because I had a problem with alcohol. I could. I got to a point in my life where I could clearly see that alcohol was causing me some problems and I didn't like the problems

and I wanted to quit drinking.

Maybe what I really wanted to do is I wanted to quit having the consequences of drinking. I'm not so sure I wanted to quit drinking, but I didn't want the consequences of drinking anymore. And I hadn't found you yet. So the best idea I could come up with this, I'm going to smoke marijuana because my problem is alcohol. So I started doing that and I'd quit a lot of times before, but this one particular time I was able to stop drinking. I had AI was a gardener. I had a a really nice patch of marijuana growing

and I had shopping bags full of stuff

and I quit drinking

and I thought I was OK because I thought my problem was alcohol. So I went on my way. I stayed stoned all the time. Before I got out of bed in the morning, I was smoking marijuana. Not addictively,

but,

and during this time that I was not drinking, my sister came to AA because we have, we have a family disease called alcoholism. And she, she has it and she came to A and, and I was not drinking and I kept bragging her that I was not drinking. I take a bunch of visiting in my eyes and, and you know, I'd go see her and, and, and tell her how good I was doing. And she just kept saying, why don't you come come to A, Why don't you come check it out?

And this is what you told me about A A, she says. You like the people

and the people will like you.

Wow, she nailed it for me. She didn't talk to me about God or steps or principles or sponsorship or any of that kind of stuff. She told me about you. She told me that I would I would like you, and more importantly that you would like me. I had no idea how lonely I was when I got here. I was so empty and it took a long time for me to realize that until I started to get filled up by being with you. So I arrived at

a a quite a quite a while after my last drink, over a year after my last drink,

and I came to the meetings. I introduced myself as an existentialist. We got any of those.

I was an alcoholic. I wasn't even drinking and

I kept coming to the meetings. I, I, I didn't occur to me to ask myself why is someone who's not an alcoholic coming to the meetings? But I, but I kept coming to the meetings and I'm so I'm so happy and grateful that there was no sign in any of the clubs that I went to where said you had to be an alcoholic to be there.

I had a desire not to drink. I did have that and I knew marijuana counted. So I was clean and sober, but I didn't want to be alcoholic. Oh, that's like I couldn't even say the word 2 words. I couldn't say alcoholic or God those those words would not come through my throat.

But there was something going on at the meetings that I had no defense against, and it was the love that I felt.

It was like a magnet. I kept wanting to be with you because I felt I fell in love. Maybe for the first time in my life, I felt love. So I kept coming back and kept coming back. And I was listening. I wasn't agreeing with a lot of things, but I was listening. And what happened for me is I end up catching alcoholism from you. It's like

this is a contagious disease.

Does anybody here not alcoholic today? Don't sit next to me because I'll try to give you a case of food because that's where I caught it. I remember when I finally raised my hand, said I was alcoholic and said, well, it's finally unanimous. Everybody else already knew about it, but

you know, I've heard someone say that you can't change something you can't name. I knew there was something wrong with me. I was broken somehow. I didn't there was something not right. And, and the way I was living my life, I used to like to get a bottle of Scotch, a carton of Marlboro and a self help book. And I was, and I was trying to

trying to figure out what was wrong with me. Well, I come to AA and there's a name for what's wrong with me. It's called alcoholism. I have alcoholism. I didn't want it. I didn't ask for it, but I have it. And this is like what Dave read. This is that's the prescription for the treatment of alcoholism. That's what I have. So I need to be with you so I can treat my alcoholism.

I'm so glad that I was able to listen. When I got here, I met a guy in our area who came in and out of a just could not hear what was going on. And one time he, he's out drinking and he comes out of a blackout. He's in the back of this bar on the on the in the alley. And he he wakes up and there's a wino pissing in his ear and he can hear just fine after that.

It takes what it takes.

So

so I get to hey and

honey hoop.

I got AI got a guy that I sponsor. I said I, I the last, the last thing I did, I have alcoholism, but the last drug I took was marijuana. I I sponsor a guy who's sobriety dates the last time he did nutmeg. Now when you do something like that, you get a name in a his name is Nutmeg Steve

and I started meeting all these characters like there was a guy named Machine Gun Tony and Boxcar Bill and SWAT Team Ron and Dumpster Don and

Booger John and

P Bed Ed

said these people are going to help me. I like hello.

I don't think so.

And then I started hearing all the things that people did to to try to control and enjoy their drinking.

People get married to help him with the drinking. They get divorced or they join the Army or I did something called Rebirthing one time where people go to Esther Dianetics or Oprah or Chopra or

so I sponsored another guy. You can't make this step up. He joined Amway to help him with his drinking.

You somehow thought that was going to help, you know,

So I'm going, I'm going to a, a somebody says to me you have an allergy. You have to go to meetings the rest of your life. I think Really

I'm thinking my dad had an allergy to bananas. I never saw me to banana his whole life. He didn't go to BA.

There's no such thing called bananas, Anonymous.

The reason is bananas didn't talk to him. He just quit eating bananas. Alcohol talks to me. Maybe it talks to you or it used to talk to you. Oh, come on, sweetheart. Have us have a drink. It's going to be so wonderful. Oh, your team lost. Your team won. It's Sunday. I mean, it's like it's always chattering with me. I loved alcohol when I started drinking. I'd still be a virgin if it wasn't for alcohol.

Although anybody else relate to that

at it starts off that way but it ended up in the end it says alcohol said to me. Get in the car, bitch.

And I and I got in the car.

I did what alcohol told me to do and bananas don't do that to people.

So

so I'm going to meetings in this old timer comes up to me now old timers are a kid and kind of pokes you in the chest. I was a 39 year old bachelor. I wasn't a kid. And they, you know, he pokes me in the chest and says, you got a God in your life, kid.

I don't really believe in God. You're reading a book. I don't really like that book. I don't even know. Mr. Brown, You didn't.

You're working the steps. I don't want your 12 commandments. Thank you very much.

You got a sponsor? Nah, now I got it. I'll. I'll take care of it from here.

You meditating? Nah, no, my head's too busy for that. Then he asked me to kick her. He says. Well, how you doing?

Well, I wasn't doing too good. I, I, I had a period of not drinking and not doing drugs, but I hadn't worked the program yet. There's only a window of opportunity that I can see. If you don't do something, not drinking is not going to be fun anymore. And you're going to either drink or do something else that's blow your brains out or something like that. And I got to thinking to myself, I wonder if I can do this. I wonder if I'm capable of doing this program.

And I I looked, I looked back at my drinking and I thought,

I can follow a path. I know how to do that. I had a rut back and forth to the liquor store.

I I know how to completely give myself to something. I completely gave myself to alcohol.

I had a higher power. It was alcohol.

I never went into the liquor store, read the labels, walked out and say alcohol doesn't work. I drank it. You have to drink alcohol for it to work. And just like that in a you have to do this for it to work.

If you're here now and you haven't worked this program and you go back and go to the bartender and say you today doesn't work, please don't do that 'cause you don't know if it works or not 'cause you haven't worked it. I also understood that I can't get drunk on yesterday's alcohol. I have to drink today to get drunk today. And sobriety is the same thing. I've got to do something today to stay sober today.

So I thought, you know, I can do this. I can, I can. And I also had a feeling that you weren't all lying to me at the same time. Your life was way better as a result of the work that you did here. And I thought, I want that in my life.

We say, if you want what we have. And when I first got here, it was like, well, I told you that some of the names of the people. I said, well, what do you have? You know, And I realized pretty quickly, well, you don't drink. That's pretty special for for an alcoholic. And then I was here a little longer and I realized not only you don't drink, but you like not drinking. You're happy not drinking. That's a big step from just not drinking.

And then I was here a little bit longer and I realized what you really have is relieve me of the bondage of self.

That's the magic of A and I wanted that because I was all wrapped up in my stuff. So I'm here about, I don't know, remember the timeline, maybe six months or so. And my sister suggested I go see this man named Howard, who was a counselor in Sacramento, where I was living.

I go to see Howard. He's a member of AA and he's a family practitioner.

And for an hour I told Howard the truth. I'd never done that before in my life to anybody. I've been to psychiatrist. I'd been to shrinks on occasion. I lied to them, paid them the money, left. Nothing changed. Somebody told me once that Alcoholics really should go to veterinarians. They're used to guessing what's wrong with their patients.

So,

so I asked, not cried in Howard's office for an hour telling him the truth about myself. My drinking was I described my drinking as very sleazy. I had a lot of shame, a lot of guilt, a lot of secrets. I, I had a double life. I had a word time and daytime and I and I drank in, in places where your feet stick to the floor at night. And I didn't want people to know who I was or what I was. And I, I moved around a lot.

And so I told Howard the truth about myself. And at the end of the hour, he got on a piece of paper and he wrote prescription, get on your knees and pray. And he gave me that. And I gave him $50. It was like a $50 fifth step and with no four step. And I started to do that. Didn't even believe in God, but I said, God, what do you want me to do? And give me the power to do it. And I'd say thank you. And Howard gave me a number of a woman

who gave me another, a number of another woman who was Donna. And I called Donna on the phone

and ask her to be my sponsor and never had met her before. And I agreed to work the steps, a journal in a book and read my journal to her once a week and go to at least four meetings a week. And I agreed to do that

at about the same time I bought a new car. My life was starting to get a little bit better. I had an alcoholic truck prior to that. I saw one yesterday here in Winnipeg. A crack windshield, door panels a different color, bumps all over, tires are bald, springs popping through the seat, somebody else's tags on the back.

Just a piece of junk truck. And one of the reasons I believe that I was so lonely is because I would not have wanted to go out with a woman who would have gotten in that truck.

It's like,

I think Groucho Marx, somebody said I would not want to belong to a club that would have me as a member. It's kind of the same thing. So I have this new car and then I called up my sobriety car because it was, it was a gift of me being sober. And I started to go to a lot of meetings. I was trolling. I I wanted to have a date and because I was so lonely and I don't know if anybody's planning on using a as a dating service, I'll say the the odds are very good, but the goods are very odd.

So I started meeting with my sponsor and there's a little there's little numbers on the steps for people that went to college, I guess. So I I went back and I started going over my life and I looked at my drinking and it was real clear to me when I took a drink, I couldn't stop. And when I, when I wasn't drinking, I forgot that or didn't understand that. And 11 experiment that I had that really

resonated with me is one time I didn't want to be alcoholic. So I'd have these experiments once in a while to prove to myself that I wasn't alcoholic. So one of my better ones was I decided to quit drinking for 30 days.

An alcoholic couldn't do that. I thought. I don't know when alcoholic was, but I thought they couldn't do that. So I quit drinking for 30 days. And at the end of 30 days, I had a glass of wine to celebrate not drinking for 30 days at noon, and I was in jail at midnight that night.

That's powerless over alcohol.

I don't have the power over alcohol, but there's a second part to step one. I call it step one, Part B,

that my life is unmanageable. And I think a lot of the reason my life is unmanageable because I couldn't accept that I was powerless over alcohol.

I'm not a good manager of my own life. I need some, I need some power in my life to manage my life because I screwed it up and I found that power in a A and my life looks manageable today because I'm not managing it. But one of the things that I do that helps me to remind myself of that is I don't ask the question why. Why is a management question? Why for me is asking for an argument with God? I don't want to argue with God.

So what I do, rather than ask myself why,

I ask myself what am I going to do about it? Not why am I alcoholic? That's a bad question. Question is what am I going to do about? That's a good question because I can get into the solution that way. Because when I'm fighting reality, if I have a problem nowadays, which I rarely do, I mean like a real problem, I, it's almost always

step one, Part B where I think I'm the manager. Something's going on in my life that I don't like and I want it to be different than it is. That means I'm fighting reality. If I fight reality, I lose, but only 100% of the time. So I, I try to stop doing that.

A step two, we all have stories, crazy stories of stuff we've done when we were drinking. And I've got a few, I'm sure you've got a few. But what I realized about step two was the craziest thing I ever did, I did sober. I picked up another drink. For a guy like me to pick up a drink, I'd have to be crazy to do that. So that that for me is step two. I've been restored to sanity.

This the I worked in a prison for 15 years as a teacher,

and it was a men's prison. There was 6000 men in this prison. It's like a city. It was a huge place. And I asked my students over the 15 years that I worked there if they'd ever been in a A. And guess what? Probably 80% of them had been an A, maybe more. Most people in prison have been to a A. They certainly know about a A.

Then I ask him another question after that I said, have you, were you ever in AA and had a sponsor in A and work the steps in a A and we're had service commitments in a A and during that time that I was in the prison, I had probably had 2025 guys that said yes to those questions. Every one of them, every single one of them told me it was the best time of their life. It was the best years of their life.

Well then I asked him, well, what are you doing in prison? What was the answer?

They stopped going to meetings.

So for me,

I go to meetings so I won't go crazy because people that stop going to the meetings go crazy and then they drink again. And also when I go to meetings, I get to find out what happens. Don't go to the meetings, they go crazy.

So I stay in the meeting so I don't go crazy. I get to Step 3 and I'm thinking I go to my sponsor and say, well, that's as far as I can go. I, I don't believe in God. I was saying a prayer, but I still didn't believe in God. And I said to my sponsor this a, a, is this full of contradictions? This doesn't make any sense at all. He says, what are you talking about? I said, well,

you know, in the in the literature I read something about the problem of the alcoholic is in his mind.

I go to a meeting, there's a sign on the wall says think, think, think.

Somebody else is one of the, and also in the literature, one of the indispensables of recovery's honesty. Someone else says fake it till you make it.

Someone says you have to give it away to keep it. That doesn't make any sense. Tell it to your bank manager.

I got some friends in the military to say, you know, going to surrender to win. What

people say if you haven't had your if you don't remember your last drink, you haven't had it, the book says. You can't remember the degradation suffering from a couple of weeks ago.

Taking a trip, not taking a trip, recovering, recovering. We're not bad people trying to get good. We're sick people trying to get well. Why do we have to do a moral inventory? People with cancer don't have to do a moral inventory.

Don't make any major decisions the first year, but turn your will and your life over to the care of God. As you understand, that's a major decision.

Don't get in a relationship the first year but get a sponsor and tell them all your shit.

God couldn't. What if he were sought on the page prior to this is may you find him now Do you have to find him or can you just look for him?

Alcohol, cunning, baffling, powerful. There is one who has all power that what is God. Well, if God has all the power, how good alcohol have the power? That's the kind of stuff I think about. It's like I'd rather argue about something than do anything. And there's a line in the literature about resigning from the debating society. I had to do that to resign from the debating society. My favorite one is half measures of illness. Nothing. You'll be amazed before you're halfway through.

So my sponsor says to me, well,

maybe there's some. Are there any contradictions in your life? She asked me

and I get to thinking about that and I just, I just graduated from UCLA and I was on a trip into Europe and I saved a little bit of money, sold my motorcycle, went to Europe and and ran out of money pretty quickly. And I wired, a friend had wired me $200. I was just outside of Munich someplace. I got the money at noon. I woke up the next morning and the money was gone. And I was going to say I don't know what happened, but I know what happened. I got drunk and I guess I played the big shot.

All the that could have lasted a couple of months on that money.

I got to thinking, you know, there's a lot in the literature about it. In a lot of ways, we're normal, except when it comes to drinking. And I'm thinking, yeah, I've never gone into a grocery store and say, hey, can I buy everybody a loaf of bread?

So what I decided to do, and this is this is this is key for me, this is critical for me. I just, I decided to let AA change me rather than me try to change AA. I had always wanted to change outside circumstances. I never, never dawned on me to change myself or to work to change myself or ask for help to change myself.

And that's for Step 3. For me was

was a decision. The word decision was key for me. I decided to work the AA program.

Still didn't really have this clearer understanding of this higher power, but I plugged into the power. It's like in my kitchen, I've got a toaster and a microwave and a stove and a refrigerator and coffee maker and all those kind of things, and none of that stuff works without the power. You have to plug it into the power. You don't have to understand electricity to use electricity.

You just plug into it and it works. And a a is the same way. We have a power here that you plug into and it works.

So I made a decision to do that. And then I launched on this launch is too strong a word. I, I started to fiddle fatting around and, and, and working the steps. And I, I did got to four. I didn't have a lot of resentment. So I knew of, but I had a lot of hate in my heart for my father. I hated my father. He was a, he was a drunk. He was a mean drunk

and it was a period of maybe six or seven years where I wouldn't even talk to him if I saw him. And I put his name at the top of a piece of paper. And I started to write about the pain that I felt as a child. And I started to cry and sob. And I, I called my sister and talked to her about some things that had happened. And I called in the sick to work that day. And I just spent the whole day just kind of sobbing and writing and talking and crying. And something happened that day. I some something inside of me melted away about my animosity towards him.

And I could see him as a, as a spiritually, he was a sick man. And something healed for me that day. And I did a fears list. It was longer than I thought it was. I didn't realize I had fears. I had women on that list. I was afraid of women. Maybe that's why I was a bachelor at 39. I was certainly afraid of being intimate with anybody. And I had God on that list. And those relationships are difficult when they're based on fear.

And I had, I did my sexual inventory. It was, as I mentioned, it was pretty sleazy,

but I didn't, I didn't leave anything off. I was as honest as I could be. And that to me is the key to the to the 4th step is I didn't purposely leave anything off of it. I go to do my fifth step. It's kind of a rainy day in November. My sponsor notices a lot of trash on the street where we're going out to where I used to grow a pot where we're going to do my fifth step and I do the fifth step.

And it was like my life had been a garbage can and I just kind of tipped this garbage can out.

And on the way back, we saw a rainbow. And it just, it touched me deeply that that that I thought I'd throw in my life away and, and I shared it with another human being. And I see a rainbow. And there's some wonderful promises in the book. Make it on page 75 of the 5th step. Those things happen to me. I felt I was excited about my sobriety that day. I felt like I was starting to have a relationship with the creator and I was doing what you did. I was. I became a member

by by being willing to do some stuff that was very scary and difficult for me to do,

but I wanted what you had

Six and seven are very deceptive. A couple little paragraphs there. Oh, this is easy. Well, about that same time that that all that trolling I was doing was successful and I met a woman named Betty and we got married and we had a little a a marriage. And as I when we were dating, we are, my idea of a date was to go to a meeting someplace and it's about the best I could do. And

I'd be walking. I'd be walking her to her door, holding her hand

after going out with her, and I didn't know whether to kiss her or say the Lord's Prayer

better. And a couple of children. Angela, 7, Sean 13.

I married Betty and I got to be a husband and a father on the same day, stepfather and she had a sister with a couple of kids and I got to be an uncle. I didn't know how to do any of those things. And I was working. I was working this program and I'm taking inventories and I'm getting in relationship with people and I find out what I believe is my my main character defect. I call it fault finding. I'm a fault Finder.

You're going to do things that I don't think are right. I'm going to point them out to you and I'm going to push you out of my life. I've done that my whole life. My best thinking just prior to getting sober was in this place where I was growing pot. I wanted to put a big barbed wire fence around it to keep the teenagers away from my pot and just have some Brewers yeast and some vitamin C and bunch of cheap wine and all these bags of marijuana and just

kind of, you know, give myself to my addiction. And I realize that in America, the worst punishment we have is called solitary confinement.

I did that to myself in my disease. That's where I put myself because I'd pushed everybody away. So now I'm married and I'm a stepdad and I don't want to be that person anymore. I want to, I want to learn how to do this, but I find fault in everything. I have this. I don't know if it's a gift or a curse or, but I think I know how to do everything. I have the I know the internationally accepted standard way to do everything. And I'm going to tell you,

nobody can do it right. I'm not much fun to be around because I find fault with everything.

So I'm, I'm, I'm learning to, to be in relationships. So one of the things that I decided to do in the interest of harmony is I decided to do the dishes myself because nobody was doing the dishes right.

So, you know, and I like to garden. So my hands are dirty. So it was, it was a good, good thing for me to do to get my hands cleaned and, and, and have some peace in the family.

But I wanted to do the, I wanted to just do the dishes. I didn't want to do them with anger or resentment. Sometimes I just have to stand at the sink for several minutes sometimes just to get calm enough to just do the dishes. Just doing the dishes is actually very spiritual. There's a lot of things to be grateful for when you're doing the dishes. I read someplace a little while ago, there's over 60 ways to do the dishes. I thought there was only one. It was my way

and I started.

I started learning from you the way you treated me when I came to you,

and I started treating my family that way. I started treating them like newcomers. I started treating my children like newcomers. I stopped criticizing them. I made an effort to stop criticizing them and finding fault with everything they're doing. If their room was messy, I close the door. My daughter had. This Dalmatian was like a dog from hell. And it was like sometimes I'd come home and as the closer I got to home, the matter I would get and I'd be so mad. By the time I got in my driveway, I'd have to turn around and go to my sponsor's house. I couldn't even walk in the house. I was so mad.

And just to step over it and I started writing notes to Angela about how wonderful

a wonderful daughter she was now happy that that I got to be her dad and just what a neat kid she was. And I just started loving her. Many, many years later, she came to me and asked me to walk her down the aisle. You gave me that. I don't know how to do that. I'm a fault Finder. I push people away from me. Her dad, her biological father, came up to me at the wedding and thanked me for raising his daughter.

I got to write the checks for that wedding too.

I was happy to do that. I was grateful to do that. I had a good job. You taught me how to have a good job. Show up to work every day, give 8 hours of pay, 8 hours of work for 8 hours of pay. I was happy to do that.

Sean, I didn't know it at the time, but he was 13 and he was just starting off in his disease and we had a little AA house and need sneaking out of the window. And he, he was, he was, he was getting going with his disease. And around just before I had five years sober, he borrowed my sobriety car,

which he, he, he had my wife's permission and he got drunk and smashed it and almost killed his passengers. Passenger was in a coma for a week

and I was not very spiritual about that. It's like how dare he ruin my sobriety. Car and I was mad and we had some Al Anon's that made a house call

where we live swimming from, Alanon said. Well, maybe it's Sean. Sobriety car.

Wow, that was his last drink. He got sober when he was 17. Just celebrated 25 years of sobriety.

Yeah,

he lives in, he's a civil engineer, lives in North Carolina. And he was on his way. He called me on his sobriety birthday to thank, thank him for his sobriety car because it's his car, not mine. And he was, he was going pheasant hunting in North North Dakota. I mean, what a good life. You know, this, this disease is progressive, but recovery is progressive too. Betty and I believe that we were better parents than our they were better. We parented better than our parents did. And I can see that Sean is a better parent than we are. And my daughter Angela is also a better parent. I have 5 grandchildren.