I’m an alcoholic. Hi, Adam. Wanna thank the committee. Thank you for inviting me to come talk tonight. It’s always an honor and a privilege to be asked to participate in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Ultimately, it’s a responsibility to give back what was so freely given to me. Welcome to people that are new. You know, if you’re trying AA again, if you don’t wanna be here tonight, if you don’t think this will work for you, sorry it’s come to this. I mean, jeez. I I I didn’t get to AA because I had a bad weekend.

I had a couple of bad decades. And for me, like a lot of us, eventually, this becomes a matter of life and death. I mean, every meeting has their perpetual newcomer chip, you know, that that guy that walks through the rooms, a lost soul. And that that was me. I live on the West side.

I stood up in AA for 17 years as a newcomer. And I I had so many chips and key tags. We know the drill. Right? Could have played poker with them.

Yeah. I remember one secretary saying give them back. And then and I I did that walk of shame over and over and over again. And looking back at that experience now, I thank god for the unconditional love of the old timers. A lot of the old timers even in this area that aren’t with us anymore, like, Joe Gee and all those guys that I met, like, 30 over 30 something years ago.

And, you know, I remember them saying stuff to me, like, don’t even bother taking chips. Just sit in the back. Shut up. No. No.

But in a loving way. Right? But they made it really clear to me, and if you’re new, I hope you hear this. I hope you hear this. They made it really clear to me that if and when I was ready.

Because somehow, those old timers, they could see it. They could see it by my demeanor. They could see it by my lack of interest. They could see it by my fidgety nature. They had the wisdom to see just by my attitude that maybe it wasn’t right now.

But those old timers made it really clear to me that if and when I was ready, that the door of Alcoholics Anonymous would always be open to a drunk like me. And I think looking back at that experience now, if you’re new, next to my parents, Alcoholics Anonymous is the closest thing to unconditional love that a drunk like me will ever experience. No matter how many people I burned, how many lives are destroyed, how many cars I wrecked, how many hearts I broke, how many jobs I lost, how many despicable shameful things I did. And if you are in fact an alcoholic, it’s the most shameful thing in the world to be the family drunk. Especially if you come from a large family like I do.

My mom had 3 sisters and a brother. My dad had 3 brothers and a sister and I mean, she told them everything. 1 right, One more rubber room, one more overdose, you know, one more car accident. Happy birthday, dad. I’m in jail.

I mean, gosh. Does anybody here relate to being paid not to come home on the holidays? Oh, it was like it was like that thing. I knew I’d get that $500 come back in January because they knew I’d steal their friend’s cards. I mean, let me in that house full of people with gifts.

It’s over. I would destroy it. I would do I destroyed her. I destroyed that family. And I if you’re new, I couldn’t see it.

I couldn’t see it through the lens of Al Anon. For at least the first decade of my recovery, that figure that I’m only hurting myself. I had no idea. My mom and dad were, you know, they were great people. They loved me.

I was a straight a student. I was a top of all my classes. I was an only child. And I look now at all the hope and expectation. If you have kids, you know, that kind of hope that parents have.

You see it outside the elementary schools lined up. I mean, they’ll kill you if you get in their way. Right? And to watch my mom and dad, to literally watch those 2 souls watch me burn my life to the ground. To the point where eventually, I had drove her so hard in that direction.

That eventually, She sold the family property. She did not leave a forwarding address. That’s where I left my mom. They were married 50 years. And despite all of that, that high price we pay for this almost despicable low quality of life.

The doors of Alcoholics Anonymous has always been open to people like me, people like us. If I live to be a 100 years old, I could never pay AA back for the love and kindness. So you know what? Some of you people have shown me. Not all.

I mean, come on. Hey. Let’s get on this here. If you like everybody at AA, you know what it means. Right?

It means you’re not going to enough meetings. My sponsor said, you don’t really have to like anyone in particular. But if you go through the steps and the traditions, you’ll love you’ll learn a lot of people here you don’t even like. People that are annoying. People that are sarcastic.

People that are difficult. Right? I mean, there’s people that, like, you know, I just can’t be in the room with them. When I see that guy at 711 pissing in his pants loaded, my heart still breaks for him. If I’ve learned anything in 26 and a half years sober, it’s compassion for my fellow man.

This is not the hotbed of mental health. You know, we think that narcissism is a choice. I mean, come on. I’ve learned how to not take things personally. He pet a lion.

It’s got a thorn in its side. Of course, the lions get a bite you. Every human being has a hidden thorn. Is it my job to point it out or to pull it out? Or is it my job to live by example?

To be kind and helpful and supportive. I learned that here. You know, what happened to me eventually is and we never see this anymore, but I started coming to meetings drunk. Now the interesting thing about AA 2024, if you actually see a drunk person in a nice place like this these days, people say stuff like, oh my gosh. What’s he doing here?

It’s ironic. Right? How quickly we get well. But you don’t see a lot of wet alcoholics today. And I don’t wanna bash the therapeutic community.

I saw the druggy buggy outside. You know, they’re usually sitting in the back. But for me, treatment would swoop me up in my most desperate moments. Right? Throw me into yoga class.

I’m doing the downward dog. Like, really? Craft hour? Come on. I’m making belt buckles and bongs.

Right? Please. Nature walks. First chance I get, I’m walking to 711, get a big dope cup, filling it up with liquor, put a little Coke on top, walking into the late night candlelight meeting, doing some of my best sharing. You know, then I started going through treatment centers.

By the way, has anybody read the chapter of the wives? Yeah. I never read it. I never had a wife. Not at my very own.

I just wanna stir it up for the Al-Anons. I know. Talk to your sponsor. But it’s interesting because the chapter to wives talks about 4 types, and it’s an illustration. Right?

Magic, medicine, misery. Sound familiar? Fun with problems, just problems. It describes 4 types of alcoholics. And the 4th type of alcoholic that’s described in the chapter to wives is the type of alcoholic that’s been placed in one institution after another.

Sound familiar? Type of alcoholic that typically drinks on his way home from the hospital. Right? And in the 17 years that I recycled through Alcoholics Anonymous, albeit in one of the largest AA groups in the world, I still became that 4th type. By the time I finally got sober in Alcoholics Anonymous, I’ve gone through residential treatment for alcoholism 28 times.

Right. Not 28 days like the movie. This isn’t Hollywood. Right? 28 consecutive times and I’m wearing that like some kind of badge of honor.

I’m thinking that’s what makes me an alcoholic and I remember telling my late sponsor, you know, I went through treatment 28 times. I was hoping that would, like, get rid of the guy, you know, loser. Go find someone that’s willing, you know, one of those overzealous sponsors chasing me around, didn’t wanna ruin his batting average. And I told him I went to treatment 28 times. He starts laughing and he says, Adam, that doesn’t make you an alcoholic.

And I thought, you’re kidding. He says, oh, no. That just means you paid half a $1,000,000 for a big book. And I didn’t think that was funny. And I’m not gonna start citing and quoting pages tonight out of the big book.

But page 101 of the big book says any scheme that attempts to shield the alcoholic from temptation is doomed to failure. See, treatment was a great place to fatten me up for another run. Treatment has its rightful place in recovery. Even Bill Wilson had gone through treatment. Treatment probably saved my life.

If you wonder what all the treatment centers and religions have in common, it’s very simple. They all send their trunks to us. Some people don’t go through treatment. It’s not a prerequisite for AA. But my experience after all of that is a treatment never solve the problem.

And as an alcoholic like a lot of us, I always thought the problem was alcohol. I thought it was liquor. And I remember someone in Alcoholics Anonymous saying to me, Adam, if alcohol is your problem, that drink, that chocolate, that 12 pack, that little glass of Chardonnay, if that’s your problem, you’re probably not an alcoholic. And then in the very breath, he says to me, and if you are in fact an alcoholic, the type that’s described in the doctor’s opinion, in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, your problem isn’t alcohol. And I’m like, what?

It went right over my head. It took another decade for me to understand the impact of that statement. It was like some kind of cruel riddle. I drank over that for years. But what happened to me, and you’ll hear that a lot.

What happened? What happened to me is I got around a group of big book enthusiasts, literalist. People in Alcoholics Anonymous that took the statements in the big book, turn them into questions, directed the questions to me. Very simple ideas like the Socratic method. Was I incapable of being honest with myself?

Did I in fact drink because I like the effect produced by alcohol? Well, duh, that’s a no brainer. Right? Mhmm. How about this?

Was I restless, irritable, and discontent by nature? Was that my natural state before my lips ever touched alcohol? What a powerful question. Was my greatest obsession at somehow, someday I would control and enjoy my drinking at the same time? And the last piece, the more important thing, did I pursue that illusion to the gates of insanity and death?

And what happened to me as I went through those considerations, if you’re like me, is that for the first time I saw the truth. The most obvious truth, what we call the external unmanageability, was crystal clear. From the time I was in middle school, I was in 8th grade. I was already pissing in my pants. I was already drooling on my desk.

I was already passed out under the bleachers. I overshot the mark from the first time I drank. My nickname in 8th grade was space cadet. I couldn’t find homeroom. People were picking high schools.

I was already picking rehabs. But if you’re new tonight, alcoholism comes in people. It doesn’t come in bottles or 6 packs or 12 packs or kegs or shot glasses or little fancy glasses of wine. Alcoholism comes in people. And the greater aspect of this spiritual illness is Bill Wilson described it, centering in my mind.

It’s going to the considerations in the big book of centering in my mind. It’s going through the considerations in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous shows me anything at all. It shows me that an alcoholic of my type, an alcoholic of this type cannot really live without alcohol, not successfully, not happily. And part of what it really means for me to be an alcoholic, if I’m honest about my relationship with liquor, is that I seem to have this mind that will consistently take me back to that first drink. Every time I get released from an emergency room, a hospital, right, a fancy Malibu treatment center, men’s central jail, 5743.

Roll it up. It’s amazing to me. I’m sitting in county jail, right, countless times, 95100 Twin Towers. Right? I’m sitting in that cell, casually reading a novel, not a cloud on the horizon.

And I hear that number 5743, roll it up. And there’s this visceral compulsion in me that is so powerful that no matter how long I’ve been locked up, I can’t even stop at the release module for my property. This does not sound familiar? As soon as I hear that number and I know people mean well. And I come to AA and I hear people say, well, well, don’t drink no matter what.

Like, what? I mean, not that I’m literate, but I did read the book. I’m like, what happened at the top of page 24 where it says verbatim, every alcoholic passes through the state where even the strongest desire is of absolutely no avail. It says, for someone like me, what my willpower will become virtually non existent. So I know people being well.

And for a lot of people, they’re powerless over the second drink, but not the first. But I got a car outside with no brakes. I can’t stop myself from getting in that car. I know that car’s got no brakes. I know that if I get in that car, I’m gonna hit a treatment center.

I’m gonna hit an emergency room. I’m gonna hit a police car. That’s what it means to be powerless over that second idea. But what it’s saying is something very different that I have no effective mental to get against the first one, that I can’t stay out of that car. I’m gonna sit in that car and start playing around with the idea of all the places I might go if I just start that ignition.

That somehow treatment or therapy or medication is gonna put brakes in that car is delusional. And when I hear people say, don’t drink no matter what, there’s gotta be a translation for a drunk like me. Go to meetings no matter what. Work steps no matter what. Maintain commitments no matter what.

Be of service no matter what. Develop this Be of service no matter what. Develop this discipline of steps 10, 11, and 12, which is peace, power, and purpose, respectively. And what the doctor’s opinion said is so true. It says, as true.

It says, as strange as this may seem to those who do not understand. It says, once a psychic change has occurred in this person who seemed absolutely doomed, he is suddenly easily able to control his desire for alcohol. What a powerful thing this is. If you’re new and you don’t believe in life after death, you’re looking at it. And some of us know that without a doubt that had it not been for divine intervention, this thing called Alcoholics Anonymous.

What you read today was such a powerful thing. There used to be a story about the Eskimo. Anybody’s heard about the Eskimo in AA? That comes in the story of a priest and an atheist, and they’re in a bar in Alaska. And the priest says to the atheist, why don’t you believe in God?

And the atheist says, well, I tried God once. And the priest says, what do you mean? And the atheist says, well, I was lost in a blizzard. I was out in the snow, in the tundra, pitch black night and I it it was a blizzard. And I got on my knees.

I knew I was gonna die. So I got on my knees and I said, God, if there’s a God help me, I’m gonna die. And the priest looks at him and he says, well, you must believe you’re here. And the atheist says, you don’t understand. Right after I got off my knees, I bumped into this Eskimo and he showed me the way back into town.

Welcome to the Igloo, guys. I didn’t recognize it. I didn’t recognize the divine intervention that this is. That this is friendly direction that points to a power that will solve my spiritual problem. This self centered fear that is driving me.

It’ll catapult me into a completely new way of living, but I was resistant to that. What it really means to be an alcoholic is I seem to have this mind that continues to take me back to that drink. It’s almost like my default program. I got a computer and I live in Santa Monica. Now it’s called Silicon Beach.

It’s a new name for Santa Monica. We got Yahoo, Snapchat, Google, all the great, you know, tech companies are there. And a lot of the guys that work in those companies are very smart. Right? They program computers.

They build apps. A lot of them are engineers. Here’s some math for the smart people. Potential plus alcoholism equals 0. It’s like the quadratic formula.

We all know that. Right? But, you know, we talk about the language that Bill Wilson uses in 1939 and how advanced it was. Because today, we use the word program all the time. It’s common vernacular.

One of the definitions of the word program, if you look it up in the dictionary, very simple, a sequential set of instructions, right, designed to do what? Bring about a result. Now listen to the parallel language. What do you do when you a corrupt file on a computer? Well, it’s obvious.

You install a recovery disk, and the function of that disk is to restore that program to an early report in the process. 2nd step, the original self. The self that’s not corrupted by fear or self or resentment. The self that’s not corrupted by the lies I tell myself. That inner narrative.

It never occurred to me that 1011 become like the viral scan. That if I follow some very simple instructions for someone like me, what happens when I get to 10 is I become mindful. I become accountable for the first time in my life. I can become transparent with a spiritual adviser or a sponsor. All of a sudden, I’m able to see where I paint the red flags green.

Preemptively, I’m able to navigate around the drama, be able to match calamity with serenity, be able to bookend my day. What a powerful thing that is for people like us. You know, we talk about, oh, a powerful thing that is for people like us. You know, we talk about, oh, I’m powerless over everything. I don’t buy that.

You know, we were talking about this thing about our thinking. There’s this great thing in this treatment center I do talks in it. We do h I and it’s on the wall. It says, watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, they become actions.

Watch your actions, they become habits. Watch your habits, they become your character. Watch your character, it becomes your destiny. And we talk about in Alcoholics Anonymous, my thought life will be placed on a higher plane when it’s separated, divorced from wrong motives. If my motive is selfishness and self centeredness, you don’t think the outcome is gonna same?

How dare I think I can plant corn and harvest potatoes? It’s like I mean, at some point, I had to become responsible for these ideas. It never occurred to me when Wilson talks about principles before personalities. It seems that our founder’s future hope was that these spiritual instructions, these guidelines would have more impact than the fellowship, and I love the fellowship. I love the meetings, the weddings, the birthdays, going to Denny’s, all the wonderful things that we do.

But it talks about it in the book that it’s one element in the powerful cement that binds us. For me, the fellowship gives me enthusiasm. It gives me inspiration. It gives me encouragement, hope, brotherly love. Some people actually find relationships and employment here.

Right? But if you unleash a character like me into a large group of people like this without guiding principles, you know what happens? My character defects thrive. Consciously or subconsciously without guiding principles, I actually get sicker in a big group of people like this. And what that looks like if you’re new is consciously or subconsciously, I start to become more separate, more different, and more alone.

And if you haven’t heard that terminology, what it actually means is separated from God, different than every single person here. We call that terminal uniqueness. Right? And alone, you know that loneliness, that ache in the heart of every one of us that really has nothing to do with the proximity or close to some other people. That lowing is right here, right now.

The bigger the crowd, the more alone I am. My own birthday, my own wedding, that thing inside me. And if you have that like I do, what that is my inability to connect. And you put a couple drinks in me. I’m calling people from 5th grade saying, I love you.

Oh my god. I go right into amends. Get me loaded. Put a couple drinks in me. I’m standing on the roof of my building howling at the moon.

I’m at one with the universe. Not don’t relate. Couple more tricks. I’m okay with me. Get me good and drunk.

I lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in my fellows. Right? Drunk dialing at 3 in the morning. Come on. It’s like alcohol does so much for me.

I don’t care what it’s doing to me. Think about it. Alcohol is classified by the AMA as a depressant. 9 out of 10 people, they have a couple drinks and they’re like, oh my gosh. Like, I gotta slow down.

I’m feeling it. I have work tomorrow. I have a couple drinks, and honey, I wanna get married. Right? I wanna go to Vegas tonight.

I’m trying to find the car keys I hid for myself before the first trip. Oh, you never done that? I’ve done all that. Including, like, hide in the crack. Right?

Yeah. That insanity. See, for me, alcohol is a stimulant. It does something for me that overshadows everything it does to me, and that’s what the Al Anon can’t figure out about us. No offense.

They can’t figure out why we drink. We can’t figure out why you don’t. And I thought for years because I drink, therefore, my life’s unmanageable. And in reality, that’s like looking at the tip of an iceberg and seeing the ruined marriage, broken home, financial destitution, the failing health, and thinking that’s a problem. In fact, that’s what treatment told me the problem was.

That’s why I was sitting in another fancy treatment center in my nightgown learning about my triggers. I’m like, excuse me. Excuse me, counselor. Wait a second. Waking up’s a trigger for me.

I’m awake. Like, sir, will you please go back to your dorm, button up your nightgown, and see what AA is saying is something very different. AA is suggesting that the trigger for me is actually on the inside. You ever notice when an alcoholic is not having a good day? It’s when I’m not getting my way.

Oh, come on. We’re all like 5 year old kids here with old people’s faces. Oh, really? You don’t believe it? Cross one of us.

I’ll resent you for I’ll resent you for decades and your grandkids. The problem is if you’re new, the resentment in Latin means to refill. Again, consciously or subconsciously, I’ve taken an event from my past. I’ve attached an emotion to it, then I refill it. I recreate it.

I replay it. I re engage in it. My life becomes like spiritual Groundhog Day, and I don’t even see it. Right. And it talks about unless I can experience an entire psychic change, meaning a complete shift in my perception, it says there’s virtually no hope for my recovery.

This is strong language. This is a fatal disease. What it really means to be an alcoholic. And right next to being separate, different, or alone, there’s 3 fundamental ideas in my life. The first is to be protected by some kind of God.

The second to be accepted by self. The third to be connected to a community. Protected by God, which in a way is almost like if I go to the ocean with a cup, I get a cup of water. What if I go to the ocean with my whole life? God take all of me.

My resentment, my fear, my selfishness. It sounds passive, but it’s not. It’s about alignment. I had to see that. Like, the first three ideas in a vision for you.

Abandon yourself to God as you understand God 1 through 3. Admit your faults to him and your fellows 4 through 7. Right? Clear away the wreckage of your past. You think I can abandon his ship and climb back on?

And you hear it in every meeting. It’s almost like we go into this kind of, like, unconscious zone. But it says we ask for his care and protection with what? Complete abandon. 1st piece.

The second piece, to be accepted by self. In 4 through 7, if I continue on that journey, I develop what’s called an internal locus of control. We were talking about it at dinner. That means I don’t need internal or external validation. I developed this center.

And the 3rd piece to be connected to a community. Imagine, protected by God, accepted by self, connected to a community, and I go from being the weakest link in my family. And like all of us, in native American, this idea, were generations of dysfunction. That’s what I bring here, generations of it. And to go from being the weakest link in my family, a family where my mom brother committed suicide drug, my father’s brother committed suicide drug.

I got from a long line of suicide, mental illness, and alcoholism, and to be 26 and a half years away from that, and now be the strongest link in that family. Alcoholics anonymous. This idea of alcoholism is the only disease when treated that will actually leave the sufferer in a better position than if they never had the disease. I didn’t never believed it. And I got around some of these big book literals.

And I remember he said to me, how free do you wanna be? You wanna be free enough to just survive this? So you could kick the dog and run around playing victim. And when people say, how you doing? I’m hanging in there.

And so and it was rough. I mean, he was hard on me. He said, or you do you wanna be free enough to chase your dreams? Free enough to have relationships that work. Free enough to navigate around the drama.

To be able to stay in some kind of fit spiritual condition. To have a center of peace and power and purpose. And I got excited about it. It was almost like salesmanship, but I saw people that live like that. He said, true strength was gentleness.

What a weird concept. Because I’d live in a place of fear all of my life, and I didn’t even know it. That I was driven by self centered fear, and I couldn’t see it. I always went to what if. And to be in a place now where I got separated from that.

And I look back at 17 years of failure. It probably again, one of these really big groups, and I I look back if you’re new, and it was my defiance towards spiritual principles. In the original manuscript, we’ve all heard it. It says rarely we’ve seen a person fail and thoroughly followed our directions. It doesn’t say path.

And if you’re like me, I don’t like directions. I I don’t even like being told not to do something I already don’t wanna do. Sound familiar? I will argue with anybody about anything at any time. You tell me it’s black, I’ll tell you it’s white.

You tell me it’s big, I’ll tell you it’s small. You tell me to go left, I’ll go right with an attitude. Oh, and then I’ll blame you for eternity. That’s why we say denial is an acronym. It stands for don’t even notice I am lying.

Oh, come on. Think about it. You could tell an alcoholic. You can’t tell him much. You don’t believe it?

Try sponsoring somebody. Right? And what that means is you could lead me into the gates of hell, but you can’t push me into heaven. And when we talk about attraction rather than promotion in the 11th tradition, what that really means to a drunk like me is eventually I’m gonna come back to AA on my own terms. Not because sober living wants me to, not because my parole officer wants me to.

Not because DCSF thinks it’s a good idea. I mean, where I live on the west side, they all get sober for the trust fund. Right? But if you’re like me, not to be divisive, but hope doesn’t matter to a drunk like me until I’m hopeless. You think hope matters to me when I got a $1,000,000 left in the bank, brand new truck, little boat down in the marina?

You wouldn’t catch me dead in an AA meeting. And my experience, if you’re new, is that God didn’t mean anything to me. God didn’t mean a single thing to me, until my back was against the wall. And what happened to me, not gut or bravado. I got shot in little argument, went right through me.

And I’m, you know, I’m conscious. I’m laying on the gurney. I got the paramedics over me with a little paddles. You know what? All I know is god.

You ever been in a situation like that where you’re faced with your mortality? There’s only one thing people cry for, mommy and god. Right? You got your head in the toilet every morning, puking your guts. Anybody had the dry heaves?

I mean, come on. Who prays more than drunk? So I guess it’s all I’m saying is, oh god. Please help me. Right?

And it’s so interesting because, you know, Bill Wilson has this powerful white light experience. And on the very next page, it says it was quickly blotted out by worldly clamors, most of which were where? Within himself. So I’m sitting in the cardiologist office in the ER, and he stuck a tampon right through me. That’s the way they deal with gunshots.

And he does an angiogram where he runs this this cord through my groin, pumps a dye through my chest on the TV. And he looks at me and he smiles and he says, the bullet missed. You’re gonna be fine. Now one second ago, I’d seen nursery school to that day pass before my eyes in, like, 3 seconds. I’m like, oh, what I wouldn’t care if to say goodbye to my poor mother.

You know? Like like and then in the very next thought the very next thought was, I need to get out of this hospital before law enforcement shows up and wears my drink. Yep. That that quick. Yep.

So the moral of that story, if you’re new, is there’s a huge difference between the act of surrender that gets a newcomer into AA over and over and over again. And the state of surrender that’s keeping the old timers here. It’s a completely different concept. And she just said it. Humility plus service equals gratitude.

How do I stay in a posture of gratitude? The only way I do it is by working with people. I’ve tried everything else. Nothing ensures immunity for an intensive work with others. Immunity for not only that first street, but for the insanity and the bondage of self.

What a simple idea. Into me. Intimacy is into me I see. This thing that we do. For us, it might just be sitting and reading the doctor’s opinion to somebody.

And if you read the doctor’s opinion, don’t worry about it. By the time you get to Bill’s story, they’ll have a relationship. Career. And by the time you get to more about alcoholism, they won’t need AA. I mean, the number of people that come here, like, we all know.

If everyone came to Alcoholics Anonymous State, this convention would be 3, 4000 people. Right? So what happens? The further I get away from that dream, the more difficult this becomes. And I didn’t understand.

There’s a word called purgatory. And you know what it actually means to be caught between 2 worlds. In AA, here’s the world. I can’t live out there drunk anymore because it’s just too painful, but I can’t be sober and happy because I’m unwilling to let go of my old ideas. I have a coin.

It says, the greatest battle in a man’s life is not against his brother or sister. It is against himself. So what is it that’s stopping me from having an amazing life? From chasing my dreams. This becomes the idea.

You tell a 5 year old kid go in your room and straighten out your room. He doesn’t wanna do it. Tell that same young man go in your room, throw out all your old stuff. We’ll buy you new stuff. How long would that take?

So I would challenge everybody in here. If you haven’t gone through this process to ask yourself what it way, we don’t look like our stories. Right? The way, we don’t look like our stories. Right?

So what happened to me is I got to one more treatment center, £120, dying of alcoholism, stunk like urine. You know how we look. Right? A vision for you. You know?

And I’m sitting in the detox with my ass hanging out in my nightgown judging the speaker. I mean, it’s so funny how we’re the only people that could be on the curb and still look down at the world. Right? Come on. I got 2 speeds, grandiose and comical.

I’m strutting around the detox bragging about robbing Brink’s trucks. I finally did my 4 step. It was a bread truck. I know. It was and it was empty.

It was empty. So I’m sitting in the treatment center with my fellow associates. So this woman I I I and I’m so arrogant. Right? I don’t realize I’m homeless.

Okay? Because it’s a nice place. And this woman comes in on an HNI panel. As we all know, it stands for hospitals and institutions. It’s a committee that brings meetings into prisons, detoxes, treatment centers, hospitals.

RHNI on the West side is almost as big as this. 2nd Monday of the month and these people are fighting each other to get on panels to talk to people that don’t care. I know. But but HNI probably has one of the lowest relapse rates in all of recovery. If you’re new, we’ll help you.

We will help you get to HNI. We will show you what we’ve done. What do we mean and what do we do? It’s in the book. We’ll show you.

So this woman’s on this panel. She’s doing her talk. We’re in the audience. At the end of her talk, she looks us all up and down, and she says, if I could give you all the gift of recovery, I wouldn’t do it. And I looked at her.

I looked at the guy next to me, and I said, what a bitch. And then she said something that would later change my life. She said, the reason I wouldn’t give you the gift of recovery, the reason I wouldn’t give it to you is because I wouldn’t rob you of the journey. And if you’re new, that journey to recovery just like that journey to surrender that each and every alcoholic has to walk, it’s personal. We can’t give that to you.

Again, not to be divisive, but if you were in a hot tub with a supermodel, 5th of whiskey, 8 ball, daddy sends you to rehab, we don’t expect you to be happy. Anybody ever get interrupted in the middle of, like, you know, a 5th of whiskey? It’s awful. I mean, come on. We see these high speed pursuits every day on TV.

The guy sitting there in the car for, like, 2 hours, and the cops are like, what do you think he’s doing, Bob? We know what he’s doing. He’s got an 8 ball and a fit of whiskey. He’s gonna finish before he goes to jail. Come on.

Like, are you kidding me? Anybody drink on their way to treatment? Every time. Every time. And I felt great walking in.

Oh, I felt so good walking in, and then it starts to just come down a little bit. And now do I really gotta do this today? AMA. That gift of desperation. What I didn’t understand if you’re new is desperation and hopelessness are not the same thing.

I have this men’s group. They have, like, 400 guys every Wednesday, and some guy will get up and they’ll say, you know, I I got a drunk driving last time. You’ll get a standing ovation. And then you’ll say, my wife broke my nose with a frying pan. Another standing ovation.

He’s got a ball patched up. And then he says, and I got a promotion to work and everyone’s like, oh, no. You see? Because sometimes what’s worse than bad luck in early recovery is good luck. And I had to see that.

Desperation can be fixed. You know what fixes desperation? $10,000. Write a new cover, a $10,000 check. See if you’ll be at the meeting tomorrow.

Never. Hopelessness. Being in a $1,000,000 house in Newport Beach on a piss soaked mattress. Knowing the next streak is probably gonna kill me. And knowing I can’t stop myself from doing it.

That’s hopelessness. And to understand what that meant. There’s only 3 ways people get here. Crisis intervention, they just get tired. That last one was the only thing.

I got so tired of living like an animal. Chow time, group time, lights out. I mean, it’s like, even the institutional living. I couldn’t take it anymore. And all I had to do was become willing to take actions.

I didn’t believe in an Alcoholics Anonymous, and suddenly I would have a door to unlimited freedom. What a beautiful thing this is. You know, a lot of times, I know there’s just a little bit of time left. We talk about AA has no evidence based results. Really?

Go to a world convention. Right? My friend Trina’s here from British Columbia. You probably Kathy’s room can’t get in. But if you go to a world convention, I’ll tell you.

You check out 80,000 alcoholics in a world convention, it’s unbelievable. You wanna talk about evidence based results? When they do the out of towners, it takes 2 and a half hours. Every con in every country, every city, every township. You can’t do that on your insurance.

It’s effort. You have to make the effort. But for every one of those people that have made that effort, you’ll see a son. You’ll see a mom. You’ll see a beautiful daughter.

You’ll see a dad. You’ll see a world of people that will tell you AA is the most powerful thing in their loved one’s life. This little book we talk about is on the top 88 books in the United States Library of Congress that shaped America. It’s affected the lives of some of between, what, 30 to 40,000,000 people. And you know why it it’s not gonna work for me?

Because it wasn’t my idea. Arrogant. I got to a place in my life where my head couldn’t get enough or my body couldn’t take anymore. That’s the progression. You ever seen that kind of drinking where my head can’t get enough and my body can’t take anymore?

God means something totally different. It means grow or die. Now I’m gonna be confronted with a fork in my rope. This is no longer a choice. My hand’s gonna be forced.

I either go on to the bitter end as we’ve all heard, blotting out the consciousness right of my intolerable situation or accept spiritual help. And it talks about faced with alcoholic destruction or to live on a spiritual basis, these are not easy alternatives. Really? Do a survey at Costco. Jails, institutions, and death.

Happy, joyous, and free. No brainer. Oh, come on. You step over to my cell in men’s central jail. You ask me that question.

I’m scratching my head thinking, how bad an alcoholic death? Can I talk to my counselor, my therapist, my parole officer, my MFT, my attorney, get back to you on Monday? And now I’m justifying, minimizing, and rationalizing my right to drink. And when the doctors have been, he talks about me being in full flight from reality and outright mental defective, and I argue with that. Look at how I defended my right to get loaded.

See, the bottom really for a lot of us is the same. From Yale to jail, Park Avenue to Park Bench. Very simple bottom. 2 fold. When I ask for help, but more importantly, when I’m actually willing to receive it.

Do you have any people come here looking for help? I’ll simplify it. I throw you a life raft and you’re like, I was looking for a blue one. I really don’t like the way you threw it, bro. Heartbreaking.

How do you work with someone like that? It’s so heartbreaking. Acknowledge. In working with others, he didn’t use the words like codependency enabling. He didn’t use words like boundaries.

But if you look at those concepts in working with others, the idea is not to work harder at someone’s recovery than they are. So I’ll close with a couple ideas. I’ve been given the 5 minute warning. So if someone did to me what I did to myself, I would’ve killed them. If someone did to me what I did to others, I would’ve killed them.

And then I come to AA, and you want me to pray to god. I didn’t want god to didn’t want God to find out where I was. I was bankrupt in those simple relationships. If you look at the steps by design, they remedy those 3 ideas. 1 through 3 recreates and develops a relationship with God.

4 to 7 recreates and develops a relationship with self. 89 recreates and develops a relationship with others. Simple idea. 10 maintains, develops, and grows my relationship with self. 11 maintains, develops, and grows my relationship with god.

12, through service maintains, develops, and grows my relationship with others. So coming out of the steps, a selfish, self centered drunk like me is not only easily able to control my desire for alcohol. It’s right in the doctor’s opinion. But for the first time in my life, I’m able to live in harmony with god’s self and others. There was a great spiritual teacher.

He was asked what’s the most important thing of all your teachings. He said, love god with all thy heart, love thy neighbor as thyself. And if god scares you out of AA and you’re a real drunk, don’t worry about it. Booze will scare you back in. So in 1 through 3, I give it up.

4 through 7, I clean it up. 8 and 9, I make it up. 10, 11, and 12, I keep it up. Einstein said I’d rather live my life pretending there’s a God and finding out there isn’t than live my life pretending there’s no God and finding out there is it’s Pascal’s wager. You can look it up later.

It’s easier to believe than not to believe. So the last thing I get to fly a lot, and I I don’t have a lot to brag about on the outside, but I’ll tell you this. I was at LAX. I was waiting for a plane. This kite comes running up to me at the airport.

He’s wearing a Slingshot t shirt, you know, 3 sizes too small. He’s got the tattoo the whole full body tattoo with the neck thing, got the teardrops, and he rushes me and he’s like, you don’t remember me, do you, bro? I’m like, I missed a jump back. No. I don’t remember you.

I mean, like, I was looking for somewhere to and I thought he was gonna hit me up for money. He’s really aggressive. But he had these 2 little kids with him. And he had this beautiful lady by his side, and I was completely blindsided. And he said to me, 15 years ago, you spoke on a prison panel and something you said changed my life.

And then he said, these are my beautiful daughters. This is my amazing wife. We wanna thank you. And the wife starts crying. I just like yesterday.

She starts crying. Now the little kids are crying. No. No. No.

No. Wait. Now I’m crying. We’re all crying. A minute ago, I didn’t know whether to run, call security.

You know, I mean and now we look like the long lost family from the old company. I mean, I felt it was amazing. I actually my head started to get big. I felt like the Dalai Lama. I had to tell my sponsor.

My sponsor’s like, Adam, you got a big mouth and a good memory. Don’t let it go to your head. Click. He had to ruin my moment. There’s 2 dates in a human being’s life.

The day we’re born, the day we find out why. All my life, I thought it was about money, property, and prestige. Job, house, girl, car, different job, different house, bigger house, different girl. But see, puke smells the same in a Mercedes. See?

The problem is if you have what I have, a spiritual disease, how dare I think I could solve a spiritual problem with a physical solution anyway. How arrogant it is. Part of the word spiritual is ritual. The things that we do here, if we do a step workshop, you’ll hear the actions that we take change our perception of reality, mind, body, and spirit. Restless, irritable, and discontent is irritable of the mind.

Restlessness of the body. Discontent of the spirit. The solution is peace, power and purpose. The last thing I’m gonna say, there’s a poem in Notre Dame. It says, I sought my God.

My God, I could not see. I sought my soul. My soul, I could not free. I sought my brother, and I found all 3. Thank you.

Wow. Thank you.