Steps 6 and 7 at the Stateline Retreat in Primm, NV December 9th

Bill, Alcoholic

Liz Claiborne.

Very nice.

Thank you Bob for having me come here. This is really a treat.

This is what happens when you never say no to an AA request. You end up in a casino in Nevada, you know, and

been some strange places.

I'm a who's that bald guy?

You won't look at me.

I'm a zealot

in a room full of zealots. It's a safe place we can compare zealotry. This is truly preaching to the choir.

I imagine most of my opinions would match yours. I hope a few of them don't so we have something to talk about.

You know, I can form an opinion. I don't need any really input to form. I can just do it on the family. It's a talent that I have. You know, it's and if you speak enough in a a, you get really bored with your story and you go through the experience of making stuff up for a while and that doesn't feel really good because you're trying to transcend that. So what you do is you start expressing opinions because they evolve and change and you can keep your own interest. You know, it's

kind of a survival mechanism.

You know, I had an interesting experience driving here.

I came here with my sponsor, Jay and Mike L, and we had a nice drive up here. And part of my story, which I think meshes with this step six and seven a bit, is I was raised in a, a, a real strange thing happened when I was six years old. My dad got fired from a job and rather than go to the bar, he came home

and he called Alcoholics Anonymous and he went to a meeting in Inglewood, CA

and in a Lano club, which is now the Southwest Illinois Club. It's moved and but it's still still alive. And he went to this meeting and he came back home and he told my mother, you know, those people have got something down there and I'm going to go back and find out what it is. And the next night she went with him in order to monitor the experience. You know

and don't make al Anon jokes if you don't know what it is.

A lot of people make a lot of stupid al Anon jokes because they don't know what it is.

But if you know what it is, you can make some great al Anon jokes, you know? You know, it's like you stop and think of the consciousness of an individual that would live with us on purpose.

What are they thinking? Oh, this will be fun, you know.

So she would. They walked in this club and this woman saw my mother and went up to her and asked her why she was there. And

she told this woman, well, I'm here to make sure he fills out the form and pays the dues and talks to the counselor and. And this woman took my mother into the other room. And

when my father passed away in 99, he was 45 years sober.

My mother died in 2002 and she was 48 years in Al Anon.

She helped found and informed the El Anon Inner Group, or Central office in Los Angeles, and

worked with Jack Prose to bring panels into prisons for at the Al Anons that are there for murdering us. And,

you know,

in a whiteout,

that's it.

And

so I got raised in a in a House of a zealots.

I got raised in a house that had a lot of weird aunts and uncles around. You know, probably some of you have been raised in in one of these places. I don't recommend it. There's nothing worse than living in a house with two people with clear eyes that know exactly what's going on in your head. You know, it's like it's not fair and

but I'd come home and there'd be guys laying on the porch waiting for their sponsor to come home. One one day I came home. There was a woman hiding in the garage. That was the Al Anon. You know, they have issues and

and I got raised like that. Well, Jay, my sponsor

found some old cassette tapes

and he brought him with him. Of my mother and father speaking. One of them is 1959

and we listened to a couple of them on the way here and it was just

kind of eerie.

My mother in a in a tape in 1988,

think it was or 87. She told the story of Maine

from her side.

Now one of the fortunate things that happened to me as I was fortunate enough to get sober early enough where I spent 15 plus years with my mother and father in NAA doing a a stuff and, and we got to speak together at different places a few times. Very special, very, very lucky thing. Not everybody gets to experience that and to heal

with your parents, you know, the ones that are at at the top of that resentment list

we heard about

and my mother told the story and she talked about how when I started drinking when I was 15,

that she was laying in bed waiting for me to come home. 30 years in Al Anon by this time

and she realized she's damn it. I've done this before

and I'm not going to do it again. I mean, she talked about it from an Al Anon perspective. You know, I'm supposed to have information now. How am I going to deal with this situation?

And

she told the story of Maine coming back down from Oregon and bringing my wife and two kids and I had a Uhaul truck and, and I had gone up there to grow my own. And, uh, it was the 60s, you know,

it was the 60s and,

and how I came to the house and they would not let me stay there. And she talked about how hard that was

to say, no, go take care of yourself. We're not going to, we're not going to bring your family into this home.

And she told the story. Because when it was time for me to get sober, who did I call?

Like any good gangster, I called my mom.

You know next time you see some badass looking guy walk in here, walk up to him and ask him. Do you live with your mom?

Chances are she's the only one left, you know,

And

and she came and got me quickly before I changed my mind. Al Anon's are very efficient

and they're prepared

and she came and got me and checked me into a place and and I have not had a drink since.

She talked about joining her and my father participating in Families Anonymous

and sitting in a meeting while I was in my addiction doing my thing,

and how my father said my son's a drug addict and I hate his guts

and the freedom of being able to actually say it out loud and not pretend that it's something different than it is. And

and then she talked about me being three years sober at that time.

Very touching.

Alcoholism runs in families. So does recovery.

You know, I'm a, I'm a living example of that,

that it happens. Not all the time, certainly not in our time frame, but it happens.

I was a surfer and a biker and a tough guy

and I never went to the beach.

My motorcycle rarely ran and I was afraid to fight,

but I looked really good.

I had a Chrome Nazi helmet for a hat and a primary chain for a belt and black greasy Levi's. Big black boots with chains around them. I've got tattoos all over me

but I had a clip on earrings. I didn't want to hurt myself.

My my biker nickname was horny.

I have it tattooed on my arm right here

and it's misspelled

HORNEY

Hornet.

You got a picture of this

Bert Grims tattoo parlor parlor at the Pike in Long Beach? Me and a buddy and the tattoo artist, We all three determine that's how you spell that word.

You know, we've heard some great talks already this weekend. You know, people that

share their experience on the step and in doing that, tell your story, talk about what how you really experience that. I don't know why they gave me character defects in such a small subject. You know, it's, it's not a lot to talk in your 25 years sober. It's pretty over and done with, you know, And

so I'm going to try, I'm just going to make some stuff up and see if we can,

you know, some people were deeply scarred. I was just kind of it was only a flesh wound and

but all of us tell the story about how we didn't feel connected, how we felt separate from every person that stood up here so far this weekend is is said that I'm sure the rest will. We all tell that story and we talk about that like it's some kind of unique experience, like it's limited to Alcoholics, like we're the only ones that feel that way. I think all kids feel that way. Some of us come from very dark places and it's worse because we truly are scarred

by people that are uncaring and unsympathetic and sometimes just plain flat mean and cruel. A lot of us, though, were just like any other kid. The difference between US and those other kids that don't feel part of is that we medicated that feeling and we never grew out of it.

And we use this term sometimes when we're describing this, we use this term called alcoholic thinking as if there is such a thing. I mean, you say it often enough, it just becomes true. And we all stand around talk about alcoholic thinking. You know, the only place you ever hear that term is an Alcoholics Anonymous. No one else ever uses that term. The professional community never uses that term. You know what they say about us? They say we are emotionally

immature and we hear that and we go, no,

I have special thinking.

I have alcoholic thinking and it's never going away and you need to consider that when you're dealing with me. I have special thinking

and I'm convinced that me therefore you

are just emotionally immature. I think that's the core of our problem.

Wilson in Six and Seven, You know who we already heard

talk about it, that he uses shortcomings and character defects. And he said, well, he just didn't want to repeat himself. But something that works for me is character defects to me. My definition of this or aspects of my nature that don't work well, that cause conflict in my life the way that I am judgment, prejudice, argumentative things like that. Shortcomings are parts of me that are completely missing,

that never developed.

I think I have more trouble with the shortcomings than the very obvious and easy to identify character defects about me. The stuff that's missing because I don't know, it's not there. I have no clue that I have no compassion. I don't know. How would I know? I've never been compassionate. How would I have it to compare to? Oh shit, I lost my compassion. You know, goodness me, I should go get some more, you know, I mean, I just don't know. I'm just go about my merry way. Just

rolling over people and wondering why they continue to be in my way.

So as a kid, you know, I'm disconnected. I drink, I get healed, All the promises come true.

15 years old, I finally get the job done. I get drunk, you sip on a few beers, and finally you get the job done and you get it on.

In the 60s, this old movie that was really done along before then called Reefer Madness.

And in there it's become just a cult classic. You know, it's so, it's so bad. It's so filled with misinformation that it's become very hip. And one of the things that says in the primary thing, it says that marijuana leads to heroin. Well, you and I both know that's not true. Beer leads to heroin, you know, long before the marijuana man, we're drinking beer and they missed. They left the whole beer part out. You know, it's like beer's OK, but pot's not. You know,

I don't know. I'm in California. Man legalizes. Come on. Outside issue,

15 years old, by the time I'm 17, I'm a bad drunk. In high school, I got the big jacket, the

slouch and the sneer and the foul mouth and the bad attitude. I had a bit of a problem with authority, you know, And I was big and I was loud and I was armed, you know, It was not a good combination. And I wasn't shy. I wasn't quiet and retiring. I was a very bad criminal. You can always tell when there's an alcoholic involved in criminal activity because it was an attempted, whatever it was, you know?

You know,

it's like he tried to rob the bank but he forgot the car. You know,

he tried to rape the girl, but she kicked his ass. You know,

I was that kind of a criminal. And

so by the time I'm 17, I've already been to jail. By the time I'm 22 years old, I'm in the Oregon State mental institution. I needed to rest and

short party. Short party. When we tell the story about feeling separate from and then we drink and we feel connected and we, I think the whole idea was to have a couple of pops get out of the house, go to the party and have some fun. That was the whole idea. We can become social, we can communicate with people now, we can party. We're willing to take risks. The fear goes away, the zits fall off, Everything's better. You know, I don't know about you, but I ended up naked in my living room watching religious television, taking notes,

party. You know, I mean, I'm having sex. Menage Uno,

next time you see some guy walk in here and he says, well, I'm just a party kind of guy, ask him how many other people were at the party.

You know, we have a unique ability to end up completely alone. I mean, physically, completely alone,

and we'll fight for our right to party. You know, you don't need any other proof that alcoholism is physiological other than that last three to five years and you and I were out there. There's no party. What party? Nobody's knocking on my door going. Can Bill come out and play? You know, none of that's happening at 22. I'm in a mental institution.

Mental institution? I got married, had two kids, I'm running with an outlaw motorcycle gang, I'm sticking needles in my arm every day and drinking like a fish, and I'm in a mental institution. Anybody else here been in a mental institution?

Oh, come on.

Well, there's a bunch of you out there going. Well, it really wasn't an institution. They were just observing me.

I think I remember some of you.

I was in the Oregon State Mental Institution in Salem. It's right across the street from the penitentiary, so you know where you're coming from or going to.

And a few years ago, I went up there and spoke at a conference and I went and found the mental institution. I get back to the little conference and they had a dinner for the speakers and stuff on Friday night. And this guy's sitting next to being old hippie, about my age, long ponytail, came up from California, never left. And I'm talking to this, we hit it off and I'm talking to this guy and I go, you know, I was in the mental institution over there. And he goes, I work there

and I went, of course you do, yes. After a while, you just get used to it, you know, Of course he did. He says, would you like to visit it? And I went, yes. He called security, says we have a dignitary from the South. I'm going to be showing him around.

So Sunday we after the conference, he took me over there and I found the ward I was on. It was the same ward that Ken Keesey worked on when he wrote Cuckoos Nest. They filmed Cuckoo's Nest in the place I was in. I had my picture taken next to the sign, you know, because like some people went to college and stuff, you know, it's like this is all I have. This is. This is it.

This is Graduate School,

you know,

Katie talked about having no interest in education. I had an interest. I just didn't want to study anything, you know, I just wanted to like get it, you know, And the

anyway,

so I came back down to Los Angeles and tried to get normal. State of Oregon kicked me out. I was OK with that. And I left that wife and family up there and I came down and tried to get normal and

my dad let me sleep in his garage and gave me a job in his machine shop in El Segundo.

Normal for an alcoholic of my variety is

you got to quit shooting heroin because you can't get anybody to go along with the concept of social heroin use. This is pretty much a lifestyle. You got to quit taking LSD because normal people have two way communication with each other and LSD is A1 sided kind of a thing. It's not two way at all. And, and you can't, you can't drink during the week because normal people have jobs and they go to the jobs days in a row.

You know, I've watched him do it and

it's really incredible. Week after week. It's just pathetic. And when I drink, I don't show up. No matter what. My life just stops. Everything stops. Nothing happens. Nothing really happened to me. I didn't accomplish anything. I didn't really go anywhere, unless you count the mental institution. You know, it's like I didn't finish school, I didn't play sports, I didn't do anything. I just got loaded. I missed the 60s

and I was there. I was there. I was right there with him.

I've told so many stories about the 60s. I got to quit doing it. I'm not sure exactly what really happened because I lied about it so much, you know? I'm pretty sure I did not live with Joan Baez, you know? But I said I did for years, you know? I mean, you just have to make stuff up because I don't know what happened,

you know,

So what you do during the week because you can't drink as you smoke pot because it's green and it's from God and it's not really drugs and it's, you know,

because I don't know about you, but the impact of your personality on me is devastating. I cannot do you. I need something in me all the time to cushion the blow of you on me, you know? I mean, and I for 20 plus years, I had something in my system all the time because I just can't walk around the streets and talk to you and interact with you. I can't do it. I don't know how

I'm stunted. I'm crippled socially. I don't know how to do it.

And the other thing that about getting normal for me is you got to find a woman because he can't ever, ever be alone. It is a group effort, getting me through life. It takes a village, you know, and and it's still some things haven't changed. I'm just a high maintenance dude, man. It just takes a lot of people to get me going. And, and I found her and we got married and had two more kids. And 15 years after the mental institution,

I'm 37 years old and I live in the house with this woman and these two children.

And I have no emotional connection to another living human being. And I don't know that

I don't know. I can't stand outside myself and have a separate experience, engage the one that I'm having to find out where I'm at to put me on a scale somewhere of how emotionally connected. I've never been connected. How would I know I'm disconnected? I've never been connected to other people as far as I can remember, and I don't. So I don't know any of this. This is all hindsight.

So I called Mom. She came and got me and checked me into a recovery place, you know, starting point in Costa Mesa. Now I went to my first shrink when I was 13 because I had rage. Not anger, rage. I mean veins bulging, eyes bulging, bile from the stomach into the throat, fist into the wall, head into the wall, double up, fall on the floor. Rage at the injustice of it all?

Yeah, I have no idea where this came from.

And I've spent a year and a half with this therapist trying to work through it and, and he helped me and he introduced me to my favorite subject,

me,

that lifelong pursuit of self, The idea that I can go inside and discover the root cause of my problems, expose them to the light of day, understand them intellectually, adjust my behavior accordingly, and then everything will be OK.

It sounds really good.

I just don't think it works, you know? But I love the process. You'd love to have me in your group. I'm really interactive. I pretend like I care and everything. It's really, I mean, you can learn how to do it. You can learn how to do it. And I've had, I'm an insight junkie. I've had hundreds of insights and epiphanies and awakenings. And then you just sit and drink wine and think about it. You know, it's like write stuff down, write the Great American novel, you know.

So I spent a year and a half with this guy. I spent 2 1/2 years of group therapy at one time. I've been to several other therapists. I've been gestalted and Rolfed in primal, screamed. I know more about myself than is safe to know. So when it was time for me to get sober or whatever it was, I was thinking because when I listened to my mother on that tape, she repeated some of the stuff that I said. And I don't, I don't remember any of it. I mean, I'd been up all night. I was hammered

and evidently what I said to her is I said I've got to do something about my drinking, I've got to do something about it because by this time there was no more hip dope.

There was number, there was number Rock'n'roll. There's no heroin, there's no LSD. I couldn't even smoke pot anymore. It was me in a gin bottle. All that stuff was over, man. I'm just a garden variety alcoholic that grew up in a Paisley decade, you know, and there was other stuff around, but in the end liquors quicker and it worked until it stops. You ever drank yourself clear? Boy, that was never the idea was it? You know I'm drinking and you're not going away.

That's called hell,

you know, I mean, you're sitting right there. I don't know what I look like from the outside, but you're still there, you know, 'cause I'm, I'm a drink. I'm drinking for the blackout. Thank you very much. You know, I want out of here. I don't like it. This is your reality. I want out. You know, I, I don't care for it here. And it's literally stopped working.

So when it was time for me to get sober, I couldn't imagine. And one of the things I said to her on the phone is I don't want to go to AA. I don't want to, I don't want to be in my old man's club. You know, if I know that if I go there, I'll just drink anyway, it won't work. And I'd been around Alcoholics Anonymous. I mean, I we hung out with Chuck Chamberlain and you know, Clancy was the newcomer. You know, they all said he wouldn't make it. The guys that are still alive still say that about him. You know, it's like, and he's I've confirmed that with him. You know, it's true. I mean, this is who we, I wasn't with, just

people that went to meetings occasionally. I mean, I went to all the potlucks and the barbecues and the conventions. Now I know why we were going to Bakersfield all this time. There's no good reason to go to Bakersfield that I can figure out, you know, but it was the Southern California convention and we, you know, I mean, this is what I, but I could not imagine just coming into a A and not drinking, could you? I mean, really, it's too bizarre. I need to be checked in, you know, I need medication, I need therapy, you know, I, I need a rest. That's my MO.

Well, while I was in this place for 35 days, they had me wear a sign around my neck. I had to make the sign. We made it in crafts.

There's little rectangular piece of cardboard with a string that went through it and it said I am not a counselor

because evidently there was some confusion about that.

Then they let me out.

They just let us out, you know, like we're OK now go forth. Multiply.

And I was like, where do we end up

here? This is it, man. This Alcoholics Anonymous. It is the world's aftercare program. You know, when all the money runs out, when everything runs out, we end up here. You know that there's no referrals from a a, there's no place you go where you walk in and you say, I'm from Alcoholics Anonymous. They sent me here

that that place doesn't exist. You know, I mean, really, the inmates are running the asylum. We are the counselors.

I've been married three times and people ask me for relationship advice.

I give it to them.

I figure, hell, you can't hurt him. They're in A

and whatever I come up with in the way of advice could not possibly be worse than what they're planning on doing.

And we say we don't express opinions or give advice. If we didn't do that, we wouldn't have a damn thing to say to each other, you know? I mean, really, Come on. I need some good advice. I'm a newcomer in AA. Give me advice. Please don't quote pager numbers to me. I'm not impressed and I won't read it anyway. And I don't get it even if I did, you know? I need somebody to talk to me like another man. Tell me what I'm supposed to do. Please tell me. Tell me what I'm supposed to do. I need help. I need advice

I mean, I have no social skills. I am just a giant character defect in the character defect center of the known universe Alcoholics Anonymous. I mean, the absolute worst thing we do is relationships, you know I mean, we do a lot of stuff poorly, but relationships is right up there in the top one. You know, it isn't what we're doing here in this Philly and aren't we practicing on each other to figuring out how to be friends, lovers and,

you know, sponsors and sponsees and stuff. We're practicing. We don't know. I don't know.

I mean, every once in a while you give me and you're in your Home group, my home groups to Hermosa Beach men's tag. It's where the men are men and the sheep are nervous. You know,

it is the epicenter of sobriety. We're sober correctly there, you know, and it's one of those, you know, and right wing death squad AA, you know, it's like you start sharing about your girlfriend, we'll just start clapping, you know, we don't want to hear about it. We want solution, that kind of stuff, you know. And you know, every once in a while you got to stop when you get pissed at somebody in your Home group because they're behaving incorrectly. You got to kind of take a step back,

remember the story and where they came from and you will come to the conclusion. It's amazing he can string sentences together. For me to expect him to be rational and and kind is like, it's irresponsible to expect that, you know, he's only 30 years sober. He just started,

you know.

So I got lucky. I asked somebody to help me and

he told me he says be at my house Thursday at 5:00, read the doctor's opinion, make notes in the margin of what you agree with and don't, and we'll discuss it. And I did my homework and I showed up to his house at 5:00 and he did not trust me that I'd read it. And he had me sit there and read it to him out loud

and we started the journey.

He said, As your sponsor, I believe it is my job to guide you through the process of the 12 steps so that you'll find a power that's greater than yourself,

that can restore you to sanity and relieve you of your problems, that you might get comfortable enough that you stay sober for the rest of your life, one day at a time. That's my job. I would be happy to sit here and listen to what you think your problems are so that you will not share about them in the meetings.

The meetings are for recovery from alcoholism, not about how your day went.

I immediately informed him down there at the Illinois club, they are breaking that rule right and left.

Should we go tell them

you know,

And he says no, he says A is a safe place. You can go there and talk about whatever you want. It's a safe place. He says. I'm just describing to you my AA. He gave me his opinion. Thank you for that,

for not being afraid to do that.

And, and I try to do the same thing today. I try to describe my a, a or the a, a that I feel comfortable in it. I love, but I don't profess to know what everybody needs.

I believe that there are no mistakes. I believe Alcoholics Anonymous is as vibrant and effective as it has ever been in its history. I believe that I think we're better than we were. I don't think we need to go back to basics. I think the basics haven't changed much. There's 12 steps and we work them. You know, some people have a different take on them. Some people

were weak, medium, strong A, A, but ultimately

we work the steps or generally we don't hang around too long.

But I think, how do I know that you don't need to walk into a room where people are sharing about how their day went and you feel relaxed and comfortable and it's a safe place and you can not participate for a period of time until you acclimatize till the fog lifts and then maybe you'll step out of that meeting and go look for something else. How do I know that that isn't your path? This whole idea that people are walking into a A and they're hearing stuff that's dangerous and they're not staying sober because of what they hear in meetings, I think is bull.

It's a spiritual place. It's not an intellectual place. And I don't know what your spirit needs. I know what I found and I look back on it 25 years ago and I feel that I was lucky. I ran into somebody that just dragged me into a A some years later when I was sponsoring people, I said to him, I said, Jay, these guys I'm sponsoring aren't doing what I did. And he laughed and I said, what are you laughing about? He goes. You were my first one.

I don't know what it takes for you to grab a hold,

you know? I thought everybody was doing it the same way. How would I know any different? How would I not? How would I know that people weren't sitting in some other guy's living room reading the book together, going through the process,

sometimes sober. I was a few months sober and my wife comes to me and says I'd like you to stay home on Tuesday night if you would and watch the children so that I can go to an Al Anon meeting. And it pissed me off.

I told her. I said I don't babysit. I can't believe you'd even asked me to do that. And I just stormed out of the house.

Very spiritual.

And I made the mistake of telling my sponsor,

you know, because I don't know that you don't think that I'm OK. You know, like some guy asked me one time, he says, Bill, did you ever consider the fact that you could be completely wrong? And I thought about it and went, no,

no, as a matter of fact, no, you know,

and he rarely yelled at me. You didn't, he wasn't, you know, we these hard ass sponsor thing, it wasn't like that. But in this case, he yelled at me. He goes, it's not babysitting, They're your children.

This was news to me.

Semantics, you know,

he says. Now you go back there and you tell her with a smile on your face that you'd be happy to watch your children while she goes to Al Anon to try to find recovery in the family groups.

So I went home and I went. I'd be happy to, you know.

So my little boy was less than a year old and he just passed out right away. I didn't know what I was expecting, but I'm afraid of children.

I don't know how to be a father and they're more self-centered than me. It's competition,

you know, I don't want to be alone with them. I don't know how to talk to them or communicate. I don't want to play games with them and stuff, You know, it's not about them, it's about me. And this is all hindsight. I don't know that I'm afraid, you know, I mean, so we heard a great talk on fear, just last, last speaker and and I don't know that I have, I don't know that that's what it is. I'm just irritated and restless and

anxiety filled and angry and I express it all in anger. It's all covered up in anger and,

and all that. And so my little girl, she's like 3, you know, we're watching TV together and the next week goes by. She doesn't want to watch TV. She wants to play games and stuff. And then she wants to go outside and play catch, you know, and I'm starting to develop a relationship with my children by this time. After a month or two, I'm not afraid of her anymore. I'm starting to look forward to spending time with her. She's kind of cool. She's cute and she likes me, you know, So my wife comes home one night, she goes, hey, I'm not going to my al Anon meeting tonight. And I said, well, you better go,

this is my night with the kids.

Who knew?

Certainly not me. When have I ever known what was good for me? Recovery, by its very nature, is uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable.

I don't know about pain so much. There is pain in life, but certainly recovery is uncomfortable. Me confronting myself is never comfortable ever.

And in 25 years of sobriety I've just gotten used to being uncomfortable. I'm not afraid of it anymore, but it hasn't gone away. I still get uncomfortable in situations where I'm not in charge, I'm not in control.

There's a strange thing that happens to us between, I think 8 and 12 years sober.

I think there might be another one around 20 or so. I'm sure some of the other guys here and women could tell you what happens when you're 30 and 35,

but there is an odd thing that happens between 8:00 and 12:00. I think the sheer weight of our personalities just caves in on us and crushes us.

We don't know. I mean, I have no personality of my own, so I'll take on years until I get one of my own because I don't know who the hell I am. I don't sit around even think about it.

I just figure I'm me, I'm just. This is how it is.

And at about 8:00 or nine years sober, I got really, really uncomfortable. And at the time I was president of AAA,

I, I was on the fast track of making a name for myself in an anonymous organization.

I'm not sure exactly what that is, but it's very weird. And, and I'm not conscious of any of this. Some of it maybe, you know, I want to be better than you. I knew I was real clear on the fact that I didn't want to be just someone else sitting in the meeting. I mean, that's just pathetic. You know, I don't want to be a sheep. You know, people say, well, a bunch of sheep get in the middle because the wolves, I want to be a wolf,

you know, never wanted to be a sheep. You know, I want to be the leader.

When I had to go to the Indian guides, my wife sentenced me to Indian guides with the kids, you know, and the ongoing process of trying to make a dad out of Bill. And I went to my sponsoring. I go, man, I want to wear the dumb ass feather and the stupid vest and all this stuff, you know, and he goes, join the Indian guys, be an Indian, don't be a chief, you know. So I got into it and it's all about the patches, man. I'm going after all the patches and, you know, and I become the chief and, you know, it's like I couldn't help myself.

I just didn't want to be an Indian,

you know? I mean, geez.

And so I'm 8-9 years sober and I go to him and I And when you're president of A, A and your sponsor in most of Southern California, you don't really have to talk to your sponsor at all. I mean, there's no time. And so I hadn't had a real conversation with him in a long time.

And I wrote some stuff down because it was that bad. I actually wrote some stuff down and I went to him and I read him my stuff. And I said, man, I need help. I mean, I'm, I'm just something really wrong. I need help. And he looked at me and he said, go find God. And I said, please don't give me these mindless platitudes. Treat me something like some wimpy newcomer. I need real practical help, not just mindless crap like that.

And we were sitting down,

and he stood up and leaned over me and yelled in my face. He goes, there is nothing else. You talk a good game, go do it. And I almost hit him. I mean, it really, really upset me to be spoken to that way. Me of all people, you know,

And here's the picture. Here's the picture.

I'm speaking at meetings. I'm sponsoring lots of guys. I'm going to lots of meetings. I'm doing starting to do some workshops and some things like this. You know, I'm, I'm really active. I was chairman of the intergroup. I was involved in general service. I was doing all of it, you know, because that's what I do. That's who I am. That's what I do. I just do. I'm manic. I just go after it. I used to think it was because I'm such a good guy. Now I know it's just what I do.

It's just who I am. I can't do it any other way. It's no special attribute.

You know, I got lucky and I got intrigued by Alcoholics Anonymous really early. I got intrigued by it after just a very few weeks. I started coming back just for the stories alone. I don't understand how people can say they're bored in a A It's better than any reality television show I've ever seen. How could you possibly be bored? And of all places, Alcoholics and pissed off, Sure. Resentful, yeah, you know, But bored? And that's not possible. I mean, you've got to work at that to be bored, you know?

I mean, you got to really ignore the weird stuff that's happening around you in order to be bored, you know?

So I got involved and there I was fully involved and I'm giving you lots of good advice. You ever had the experience of sitting with a person in a room somewhere and you give him a 20 minute lecture on how they should live their life? Then they leave the room and you think to yourself, man, that is good stuff. I should try some of that, you know,