Q&A on the topic of 'My Sponsees are nuts' at a workshop called Kitchen Table AA in New Orleans, LA

I wanted they wanted to read something. I wanted to read this

to you now. Remember, this is this is pre big Book

and this is something that Doctor Bob dearly loved

and

it's from this book called The Greatest Thing in the World by Henry Drummond. And it's a, it's a description of the First Corinthians chapter 13.

And it's, it's a lovely, lovely thing. If you want to try a spiritual experience with somebody that you love,

try reading that.

This is the thing that usually here at marriage is or sometimes at funerals. But the aspects of love, love is patient.

So this is the wind up of the this this address. And Drummond was a brilliant man he was.

Now I have all but finished.

How many of you will join me in reading this chapter once a week for the next three months?

A man did that once and it changed his whole life.

Will you do it? It is the greatest thing in the world. You might begin by reading it every day, especially the verses which describe the perfect character. Love suffereth long and is kind. Love envieth not. Love vaunteth not itself. Get these ingredients into your life,

then everything that you do is eternal.

It is worth doing.

It is worth giving time to. No man can become a St. in his sleep, and to fulfill the condition required demands a certain amount of prayer and meditation and time, just as improvement in any direction, bodily or mental, requires preparation and care. Address yourself to that one thing at any cost. Have this transcendent, transcended character exchange for yours.

You will find, as you look back upon your life, that the moments that stand out, the moments when you really have lived, are moments when you have done things in a spirit of love

as memory scans the past above and beyond all transitory pleasures of life, their leap forward. Those supreme hours when you have been unable to do unnoticed kindnesses to those about you, things too trifling to speak about, which which you feel have entered into your eternal life.

I have seen almost all the beautiful things God has made. I have enjoyed almost every pleasure that He has planned for me in. And yet as I look back, I see standing out above all that life that has gone four or five short experiences when the love of God reflected itself in some poor imitation, some small act of love of mind.

And these seem to be the things which alone of all one's life abide.

Everything else in our life is transitory.

Every other good is visionary, but acts of love which no man knows about

or can ever know about,

they never fail.

So do you all have any questions for us? Yes,

we believe you. We're ready.

This is a question about something that I heard from Clancy. I only heard once. I guess I've listened to 50 hours of this talk. The stage is a smart and I want to ask your opinion whether this is

those who don't know Clancy has a reputation is being very directional sponsor

And I remember the talk where he said once he said, you know,

he said he called me a dictator's, but that's a bunch.

All the little spots have to do is that you're fired, he said. But it's like a relationship that goes through stages, sponsorship

at first. You're holding on to somebody's hand like a child and telling them to be safe. Don't worry, you know, do this and you'll be OK,

he said. And then as you grow up, you get to a point where you're in an adolescent relationship and where there's a lot of what I got to do that and there's a lot of back and forth and argument and, you know, like teenage years. And he said if you get through that,

it develops into something else,

a relationship between

people you know, at a much more different than adult level.

And I've never heard sponsorship described that way before until I heard it. And I wondered if you

would think that's a realistic, you know, I think that

one, one of the situations has changed in my life for all

of our lives, probably in the last 10 to 15 years is when all the young people started coming into a A in our area. There's just a flood of them. And like, we've jokingly talked about them taking over our meeting. And I was not really that funny. So they really have. And but when they first started coming into our meeting, they were asking us to sponsor them.

And my first reaction, initial reaction to that is what am I going to do with this child?

Some of them are 16 years old,

you know, that's I'm in my 60s, you know, but late 50s, then mid 50s

and I was a bit put off by it. My experience with it is that when you're sitting across the table from them reading the book, it, the, the age difference truly goes away. It's it's a different relationship but many of them are looking for a father figure.

They've never had that really in their life or not a healthy 1.

And it became apparent to me that that's what was happening. The way they were acting around me and stuff. Not all of them, but some of them. It was very much like that at first. It made me feel very old.

Then I realized I'm not a father figure. I'm a grandfather figure. I'm old enough to be the parents, the parent of their parents. Remember this one guy invited me, says my parents are coming into town. I really want him to meet you. So I'm nervous about meeting the parents.

There were my kids age, mom was looking pretty good actually. And I was shocked by that. I was like God damn, I got old. Well, this relationship, this father, son kind of thing.

Very sweet,

really nice, real,

you know, I mean there there's a couple of them that would just come up and throw their arms around me and I just put my in this, hold their head and we walk around like that. It's really sweet if you open yourself up to it

and then they look at you like you're just this sage. And then they realize after a while

that you've stolen all this stuff from other people, that you're really not that sharp, you know, and and you watch them grow up emotionally. Some of them are more emotionally advanced than me. But and then you hit that adolescent stage, you know, where they're they're breaking free, they're on their own. And we were talking about Maverick,

you know, Mavericks all grown up now, and he asked him to be his sponsor and broke my fucking heart. He's moving to Seattle. You know, I'm losing my boy,

you know, it's like that, but it's sweet. It's sweet. You know, it's. So yes, I agree that it relationship, that relationship does go through stages and phases.

I think what we do that hinders that process is many of us will try and maintain

a certain relationship the way we perceive that it should be. And when they try to attach themselves to us, we will push them away because it's not supposed to be like, I don't want you to be dependent on me as what you hear a lot. That's really not what's going on. They're trying to connect and they're using you As for that vehicle and you know it fairly quickly. I learn, I go, I can do this.

This is something I can do. You want me to be that for you? I can do that,

you know? Sometimes I'm the mad dad, you know,

sometimes they don't behave correctly and I go sit down. You're grounded. You know, it's like, sometimes it's like that, you know, But I think they look like they say kids seek out discipline. I think that's true. You know, I mean, when they get to the point where they trust you and they realize you're not trying to hurt them or to cage them in, they listen to you and they follow your lead. You know, you tell them how to behave in the meeting or

why did you say that to that? You know, whatever it might be, they'll listen to you because they trust you.

And so it's interesting. It's interesting can be a little intimidating sometimes. I agree with that. I, I was thinking after you read that, if that's my experience and it's my experience sponsoring people, I mean, I can think of, you know, we talked about liver Mike, you know, he really want to know what do I do today? What do I do tomorrow, right? And then when I told him maybe since he was having trouble finding a job, he should volunteer as a paralegal, he got really angry.

And I said in, But I said, you haven't done anything for months. Why don't you volunteer? And he did it. But it was that adolescence. And now he sponsors

many people, he's well respected and we check in. But then I thought, is it my experience with Bill? And I'll tell you, you know, like Bill said, I used to go to Bill and pretty early sobriety. I was two or three or sober and get direction, you know, and work through the steps. And then we did the seething cauldron where we all did fifth step. So did that. In fact, I had an awakening, you know, I don't. I didn't remember

really being physically abusive to the mother of Phoebe until I was like 6 years sober.

That first time it came out was to him. And that reminds me of Rocky It from the Gong Show used to say, you know, when you're one year sober and you do a inventory, you say, well, I stole a bunch of rope. And then when you're 7 years sober, you say, well, they're a bunch of horses attached to it, you know, and it isn't that you were lying, it's that you were in denial. But you know, I took before I moved to Washington, I was, I just was. I'm very, very uncomfortable with myself about some behavior

really severely

alienated from myself. And you know, now I'm somebody in a, a right, which I watched happen to my brother. So I took Bill aside before I left and I I told him this stuff that I really didn't like about myself

and we had changed in our behavior because he looked at me for a long time silently. And he said, do you know how much I love and respect you?

He didn't tell me what to do. He didn't judge me. There was nothing like any of the other fifth steps I did.

And so we're adults now,

and that really helped me a lot to go up there, being completely clean with somebody and being particularly clean with this guy who have known for 20 years intimately. So yeah, that's my experience, just like Clancy said. I I hate to agree completely with Clancy, but I do.

I think I just did 10 minutes on that last session.

I have two questions. One is if you have a a sponsee that is not drinking, but they're taking a mind altering drug,

do you do you address that? Do you keep bringing it up? Do you keep sponsoring them? Is it a mind altering drug that have been prescribed? Yes. OK, that makes a difference,

yes. And do you do you have any expectations or stipulations when you first sponsor somebody you know that you say you know you must do this or be this before I will sponsor you doesn't want to question

well. I,

since I'm not a doctor,

I stay away from that as much as I can. We because I don't get new people as much anymore. I don't get folks that have been prescribed medication to help bridge them into sobriety or, you know, help them come off. Whatever those detoxings are,

I can tell you from experience in my own family,

difficult it is for people that have surgeries and real

difficult

pain management problems,

the amount of judgment and abuse they get from people in the fellowships, all based on fear.

So our friend

Scott

used to say, you know, first of all, is there

a is there name on the pill? But that's what's most important thing. The second thing is later on going from having it be from a physician to maybe a psychiatrist, because there's a difference. And if the, you know, we have no idea, you know, I mean, the psychotropic drugs today are so much different than they were now. I can tell you that I used to have an opinion about people not,

you know, being completely clear of mind altering drugs.

It was a man who lived in that. I lived in an apartment down on the stranded Hermosa Beach. It was a man next door who was

manic depressive I think, or bipolar. I can't remember what it was that he was, but he would occasionally stop taking his medication, be a sober guy going along, just finally stopped taking his medication and he ended up medicating himself with alcohol.

OK. And one night he decided that the best foreplay that he could come up with with the young woman that he brought home with the from the bar was to show her a gun that he happened to have. And the gun just discharged and went through the wall from his apartment into mine.

This completely change

people being on medication. From then on, it was like, yes,

we didn't have, we never had any problem like that, you know, so, so I had an opinion and then I had an experience and it changed my opinion. So I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's kind of it. Now, on the other hand, I can tell you that

I was newly sober. I remember Bob, our big tall guy. That was Bob Ryan.

Oh, please strike that from the record. I'm just sitting,

don't worry anyway, but but anyway, so this man asked me to sponsor and I said OK, I'll sponsor you. And I said, I see that you're taking medication and I think you need to get off that medication before I can sponsor you.

And so he was confused. He wanted to be sober. This is probably 198687. And, and so he, he says

he's confused. So he calls his doctor and his doctor called me up and just hammered me.

Hammer me. Who do you think you are, man? This guy's in real trouble and blah blah blah blah blah.

And

and so, you know, OK, well, I won't sponsor. I'm sorry. You know, I made amends to Bob for not, you know, going to Med school and, and all that stuff.

20 years later he comes up to me and he says, you know, I've been off the psychs now for about four years. And he said, you know, I never could get a

spiritual connection because of the masking agents and the medications that I was on. So he said you were right, but I was in no position

to do that. So again, this idea of what's our role? Our role is to love people where they are. We meet people where they are. We don't coddle their behavior, nor do we say, oh, you've got the green card. Sure, you can smoke. You can vape marijuana in the parking lot before you come in the meeting. And that's not that's not what we're doing. But we need to meet people where we are and assist them in their spiritual evolution.

And the thing about you asked about, do I have any requirements? I think that's an interesting question. So I prefer if someone's really new that they call me every day and I have to have set times because I get a lot of calls. So if you're going to, if you ask me to sponsor you today, you'd have to call me at 6:45 because that's the time I have available. And if you don't do that,

we don't talk. And, and some people say, well, why do you want that? And it's really a willingness

exercise. It's not because I need to talk to every day. Sometimes there's conversations or 30 seconds long, but more often than not, when someone says I'm just checking in and I asked two questions, they go on for 25 minutes. OK, yeah, I did some stuff, but I got to tell you about it. But that's really why. I mean, I was listening to Sandy Beach the other day on ACD and he goes, you know, why do you go to a meeting when you don't want to go to a meeting? To exercise your humility.

So you remember to be humble. And so that's one thing. And you know, I don't fire them if they don't call me every day. Some people do call me every day. Some people call me every 3rd day and imagine in their minds they're calling me every day

and then you know, we're in a weird position where we travel all over. I like for people to meet me at a meeting

once a week at least. I'll tell you, we've all had this experience where somebody asked us to sponsor them because they heard us speak at a conference. 99% of the time that doesn't work because first of all, they're hearing a certain image that they think is going to be the daily experience with us. And secondly, you know, I played in a rock'n'roll band. I'm not stupid. And then there's an image and then there's reality, right? And then we, we, then they also we don't see them right.

I've had two go successfully long distance. We Skype will read the book. We can do it, but if you're new,

meet me at a meeting and call me every day.

I don't really.

I don't have any requirements.

I mean, I don't tell them up front, OK, if I'm going to be your sponsor, you've got to do these two or three things. I don't do that.

After a while, I will say to somebody, what's this relationship all about? What are we doing here? What do you mean? Well, I never see you and you never call me.

You know, if I if if you or my sponsor, I would go to your Home group. Yeah, of course. Is this foregone conclusion that's I want what you have? I'm going to enter your world

and people that give me a hard time about that, you know, eventually I'll bring that up. If that's the way the relationship is going and they give me a hard time about it and I go, well, clearly you don't want what I have.

It's obvious to me. I don't know how you feel about it. It's real obvious to me

because I don't want what you have,

you know? You know, I'll tell him that I'm not

if you asked me for help. What you really want is you want some aspect of my life. You have this image, whatever it might be.

I mean, the downside to be in a circuit speaker kind of person is they expect that you're going to be wise all the time,

which all you got to do is sit in my backyard with me for an hour or two,

you know, and

but I don't, I, he never had any requirements of me. He never had to require anything of me. I just stuck my hand in his back pocket and followed him around like a puppy dog for a pretty solid three years, you know? And I just, and when nobody was doing that with me, I went with what's wrong?

Don't you love me?

The medication thing is,

the hard thing about medication, about people on medication is it's really hard to work the steps when you're dead.

And I've witnessed real bipolar stuff. I've seen it.

I've also believed that I know a lot of people that are medicated that don't need to be,

but that's just my opinion. So what? So I think that, you know, one of the things I've learned about myself is that

people have problems I don't have.

And if they have a problem I don't have, for some odd reason, I think they're faking or something. I, you know, I, I still can't put my finger on that. You know, clearly you're full of shit, you know, and I just think that, you know, just for no apparent good reason, there's no backup for it. And, and most of the time I'm dead wrong. I really get into it.

I got a guy right now, although I haven't talked,

who's on Suboxone

coming off opiates, and

he's a product of the psychotherapeutic community. He's got a therapist.

He's an analog patient program. He spends all of his time talking to me about his paranoid delusions and what's going on. It's hard to get him to sit and read the book with me. The Suboxone Fig, I asked him. I said, why are you taking that?

And he says, well, the people at the outpatient program want me to take it. I think it would be good for me. He says I don't really want to take it, but they want me to do it. So I'm going along with it and I and that happens a lot

where these kids here take this and they're not asking for it, it's being handed to them. That's the way the medical community treats addiction problems and stuff is with more medication.

I absolutely disagree with that. I think that's really a bad approach.

So what? So I disagree with it. You know, like Jay says, you meet him where they are.

So he says to me, do you think I'm sober?

Because he's conflicted.

He's not sure.

And I said, what do you think?

And he goes, well, I'm not sure,

he says. But what I'm thinking is, is that when I finally am weaned off of it, that's when I'll start my sobriety day. I go, that's a good plan.

I mean, I don't argue with them. I mean, he could go either way. If he, you know, it's OK with me, I don't care. It's up to you, you know, I mean, if, if there's anything that we have to be sure about, it's our sobriety,

you know, I mean, I know, I know that on March the 27th, from that point forward, I have not consciously taken anything that would alter my consciousness. I've been in the hospital many times in the last few years and I've been on morphine several times for extended periods of time. At first it was kind of a giggle. It's kind of fun, a freebie.

And you know, really, I mean, that's the way we think. That's the way my friend Ed was right at the end, you know, It was a really sweet,

sweet for us. You know, it's like,

but I'll tell you this, after about the second or third day, I didn't like it anymore. I've been clear for a long time. I've gotten used to it and I don't like all that foggy crap. I don't want to be cut off from the sunlight of the spirit. It doesn't work for me anymore. It's not a party.

My sense is, is that they're the same way. They've just been raised in an environment where this stuff is treated with chemicals, you know, and I,

I think the pendulum will swing back around sooner or later. My wife was

has aside from her marriage is in a lot has had a lot of different problems in her life and her her original sponsor was a psychotherapist and a very talented woman. And she said we're going to work the steps now. She says

mental illness,

mass alcoholism is, you know, much of it alcoholism looks like mental illness. This is why the they they give give this stuff to all these because drug addiction and you know, you're going to be depressed as that. And another thing she said you have to work the steps right now so we can decide whether it's mental illness or whether it's alcoholism.

And so that's why we're moving quick. So, you know, one thing, a subtext is something you said earlier, because they're handling the medication thing really well. But a big learning for me as far as sponsees doing what I tell them, right is. And I remember response, he came to me and he was almost in tears and said, I'm so sorry I lied to you. And I'm like, yeah, you're the first fancy that's ever lied to me.

But the the subtext might be that that I like to address. And it was a good learning for me was, you know, two things.

One is that

you know, well, I'll take this guy toothless. Tim lived in my lived in my trailer for a while, right, and we bought him teeth and then he sat on him and broke him. But but I would call Bill and I go

for all the factory reasons, but when you're he was living with me, I'm helping him get his car fixed, I'm helping get him work and doing all this stuff. And I was telling Bill, I was complaining about it. You know, I'm like, you know, the guy's not. I'm doing 10 times more than he's doing for his own

recovery. And he was sober a long time when he moved into my trailer over 10 years. And he said, so let me get this straight, Tim, sobriety is not living up to your expectations. And that's pretty clear that I'm at fault, right? I, Tim, I let him go his separate ways. He some other stuff happened between us, but he, you know, I didn't, that wasn't a position I should have put myself in and it's none of my business.

Secondly,

the thing about them not doing what you want, they ask you to sponsor and then they call and complain about their lives, right? This is a pretty good mechanism. If they're calling you every couple of days or every week and complaining about everybody and their everything and they're not showing up to read the book and they're not going to the meetings they say they're going to go to. There's a very short window where that is allowed in my life. And then I say, look, you asked me to sponsor you. I have Alcoholics Anonymous to offer you.

There are 12 steps. I am not going to listen to your stuff anymore until you do something to change. And like Bill says, if you don't want what I have, that's part ways. If you want what I have, you need to start doing what I do because I'm not going to listen to you anymore, right? That's there's a line that's and that sometimes I think might be what you're driving at quickly too. I had this guy

that he was a tweaker and he tweaked a lot

and he he lost the entire month of November.

He doesn't remember anything that happened in November,

and

so he's coming over. We're reading the book together

and one day he says to me,

my therapist thinks that I'm depressed

and that I should get some medication to treat my depression.

What do you think?

Well, like I mentioned before, I can form an opinion on the fly and it's like it's easy for me. But I asked him a couple of questions. I really thought about it and I, you know, where the fact that I'm, I'm not a doctor, I really am not, but I'm looking at this guy. He doesn't seem that bad to me. I've seen people that are really down, like really depressed, you know, he didn't seem that way. And I asked him, I said, well, are you suicidal? You having suicidal thoughts? He goes, no,

I said, are you homicidally thinking about taking anybody out? And he goes, no, not really. And I said, well, maybe you're depressed because you're just a loser.

He looks at me and he and he and he kind of smiled and he went.

Good point.

After what he had told me, it's like, hard to argue with it, you know, I mean, sometimes depression is the appropriate emotional response. Last night him and I sat up till after midnight for my birthday and I was in it. We don't see each other so much anymore. And we see each other, but we don't get a lot of quiet time. And I was talking to him about how I was feeling about my health problems and all. I'm on a liver transplant list, you know, and I'm, I'm sick a lot and I get depressed. I get down, you know, I and I'm not

by nature, you know, I'm a homicide guy. I'm not a suicide guy. You know, it's like, you know, and, and I was talking to him about one of the things he said to me is something this happens a lot. And when you've been sponsored by someone a long time or you sponsor a lot of people where they'll tell you something you already know because you've told other people, but you're not applying it to yourself, you know, I mean, it's head knowledge, you know, and I'm, I'm sometimes I'm good at diagnosing you, not so good at diagnosing me.

And one of the things he told me last night, he says, well, you know, you're sick, man. You know, depression goes along with that. You don't feel good about it. That's that's okay.

You can be. It won't kill you.

And I think the medical community looks at it like, oh shit, you're depressed. Take these. You know, maybe you just need to be depressed for a while because your life is depressing.

You know, that's different than people that suffer from depression.

That's a different animal.

You know, there are people that have, for whatever reason, you know, there's a lot of argument now as to whether it truly is a chemical imbalance. I don't think they think that's true anymore

now, but there are people that suffer from something other than what what I do. And that's a different animal and I, I need to stay out of that. But kind of logic, I mean you, I think logic can play like you. After some years of dealing with a lot of different people, you build up some experience. You, you cannot, you can identify certain things. I I sponsored 2 guys that are like stone cold schizophrenics.

When you see that

that's a mental illness, man, that's like gnarly, except really intriguing.

I get absolutely fascinated by like, what are they giving you now, man? Are you hearing voices? What do they say? You know, it's like, and they'll tell you, they'll talk to you because they don't want to be schizophrenic. This one poor guy, I know I'm going on here, I'm sorry, but this one poor guy was sitting across from me in my little ashram out in the backyard.

Ashram is where we smoke and meditate and, and he looked up at me and he was, his head was down. His mouth is kind of half open because he's so medicated

and he looks up to me and he's got tears in his eyes and he goes,

will this help me?

And it just,

it just broke my heart. I mean, how much they suffer.

I mean, it's they're not having a good time, you know?

And I looked at him, I didn't know what to say. And I said, I'm not sure, but I know it won't hurt you.

And we just kept reading, you know,

and there's a lot of injured people out there.

When anyone anywhere reaches out for help, I want the hand of Alcoholics Anonymous to be there for that. I'm responsible, you know, and you just do your best. And that's part of the issue is that because you have alcoholism, like, healthy people don't want to be on medication. My wife had a stroke, right? I didn't know this. She didn't know this, but they put you on an antidepressant as soon as you get to the hospital because you're going to wake up paralyzed. And that can be quite overwhelming for your psychology.

So we didn't know we had enough on our plate. We didn't know I didn't read all the crap they were giving her. And she gets out of the hospital 5 weeks later and she says,

I can't feel my feelings.

Said really? She said, yeah, I feel like I'm behind glass. This is a healthy person's response to being on an antidepressant. So I looked at her medications. I go, you're on antidepressants. She goes, why? I said, I don't know why, so let's go to your doctor. So we go to the doctor. And she says to the doctor,

I don't want to be on this senator, president. And he said, well, you've had a stroke. You've had a terrible malady that's going to affect you. And we put those on you to protect you. And she goes, what is it with California? You're not supposed to have a big cry over anything

and it's great. He laughed and said I've not met many people like you and he said I don't stop taking them all together. You'll have a big cry over losing your keys because they're psychotropic meds. If you stop in one day. Like I said, we've made that mistake in a a just stop

and then they crash. So my wife did not cry at my parents funeral. I mean, my wife loved my parents, she's just British. So I gave her half a pill and we went the next day to see my oldest daughter in the play. The curtain opened. My wife burst into tears and I said, what have you done with my wife? And she said shut the fuck up. And she hasn't been on antidepressants for she's been paralyzed, partially paralyzed for almost 15 years and she hasn't been on antidepressants. Does she struggle?

Hell yes, but not like that. She can get out of bed. She doesn't want to hurt herself. She's, you know, she just gets Henry. She doesn't like it that she forgets everything. She doesn't like it that she can't wear high heels, you know, those kind of things. But that's not depression. That's different. So we've sure beaten that question into the ground. Has anybody, do you have any other questions?

Oh yeah. See I've kind of touched on this,

but as a sponsor, how involved or not involved should you be in the details of your sponsees life? Like not regarding step work,

right.

Give us give us one snippet. Yeah, we're giving an example because, you know, when they're dying, you do go to the hospital. Yeah, well, now, just

like relationships, friendships,

pregnancy, whatever, for instance.

Well, I'll go in and note the big guys will take it, but

one of the things Bill taught me and I learned it over and over again because I want to save people, is he, he said. Don't get sucked into their drama.

You know, my first sponsor, I thought my sponsor was, I thought he was stupid. You know, I picked him on the fly at a meeting and I go to his house and I go, you know, I owe like $18,000 to this guy. And I have this baby. And I can't, can't stand looking at the mother of my baby. And my mom has cancer. And he go, yeah, we're on page seven. And I'd be like, God, this guy's stupid. He's like an idiot savant or something. And then we'd read the book and they get done, and I would forget

and I go home, right? Then I come back and I'd go, oh, my God, the IRS figured out where I live now, and I'm in a lot of trouble. And I think the police are after me. And he'd go, Did you read Bill's story last night? I'd be like, God, this guy's an idiot, you know? And then I got done with the steps and all that stuff was fine. Is that help answer your question? Keep them in. This is what you have to offer the book and the program. They want us to be their marriage counselors, like Bill says. Yes, you have.

But I remember my wife saying to me once, I love women. I love women probably way too much, right? I think they're the evidence of God. But a loving God, a loving God, a vengeful God. But I was sponsoring all these men and talking to my wife like, oh, man, you should hear what this guy is up. And she goes, you know, you become a real misogynist

because I was hearing one sick guy described a relationship and oddly enough, the woman always came off looking terrible. And as I've gotten stayed sober longer and actually gotten to like had dinner with people and their wives and been to babies being born, I'm like, she's pretty good. I got involved with opinionated and emotionally involved in something I had no business forming opinions about. Is that helpful?

OK, they'll they will come to you and talk about their partner

or friend or employer in a negative way.

Because in order for the alcoholic life to seem like the only normal one, it has to be someone else's fault. You can never take responsibility for your own behavior because your own behavior is indefensible, so you have to make it someone else's fault. It's that bitch I live with. It's my asshole employer. It's that neighbor next door that his trees coming over into my yard.

You know, it's always based in that, that if

this outside me was different than I'd be OK.

That's an illusion. It's a lie. It's not true.

I've learned over the years, when you come to me and tell me every time no longer, no matter how long you've been sober, if you come to me and tell me my boss is an asshole, I immediately don't believe you. I mean, before you finish the sentence, I do not believe that's true. He probably asked you to take that box and move it over there, and you can't talk to me like that.

I mean, that's the emotional immaturity. I'm like that.

You know what? I would go to him. One time Karen and I got into a fight. I mean, we would have screaming FU fights. I mean, the last time we had one, which was years ago, we both went into separate rooms and started laughing at the same time because it was just so ridiculous. Neither one of us remembers what they were about at all. We were just screaming in each other's face, you know, and we ran out of language, so we just cussed.

And I call him for an emergency counseling session.

I drive to Rocky Cola, he drives up there, gets up, gets in my truck, right? And I go off that bitch, she said this, she said that. And I just, I went on for. And he's sitting there in the cab just looking at her blank stare, like, wow, you know, because I'm jacked up. This is it. This is the end. You know I'm going to get rid of her or kill her or both, you know,

barrier in the backyard. And you know what? The dogs eat her. You know, it's like

I'm really pissed, you know? And I'm just going on about, I'm going on about it, you know? And then I finally catch my breath and I look at it and I go, So what do you think you know?

And he says to me, I can't believe

that the woman that you claim is your soul mate, that she has healed you sexually and brought such love into your life, that you can speak about her in those terms.

And I told him, I said, yeah, But she said,

you know, you're not hearing me stupid. You're not hearing me. She said, you can't say that to me. I have to defend myself. I have pride, you know, And he just looked at me and he says, I can't believe. And he just wasn't interested in my analysis of the situation at all. He's only has only ever been interested in my behavior.

And he would tell me, Bill, you can't talk to people like that. It's not right. But she said, you know, I don't care. I don't care. That's what I do with guys, you know, I don't. So in that sense, in their relationships, I try not to get involved in the debate of analyzing what's going on in this other person's mind who is not present when we're having this conversation. And I don't know him or her