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Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> Hi, my name is Bob.

I'm an alcoholic. To the grace of God and the power of the program, I haven't had a drink since the 10th of December, 1967. And for that, I'm very grateful.

This is I want to thank Linda and the entire committee for the opportunity to be here this weekend. This has really been nice. I spoke last weekend at a conference in Southern California and my wife came with me and we have a son that lives in LA so we did a little family stuff and and uh this has been a nice very nice experience.

You do a few things differently. I noticed that you have two different speakers tonight and uh alcoholic likes to do everything and uh it's difficult. I mean it really is.

And you have 15-minute speakers and some of them are dangerously close to being better than your long speakers. And I uh I I think fear is not a good motivator. And uh you know, no, but it really has been terrific.

I uh small world. Chris would talk Friday night. I went to a meeting in LA on uh was it Wednesday night?

Wednesday or Thursday night, and Chris is sitting in the chair next to me. You know, that's a small world. That was Wednesday night.

And uh uh and Angel last night. What a package Angel is. I mean that is she reminds me very much of an old of a longtime silver member of Alcoholics Anonymous that I knew.

I I've enjoyed her very much and like Ron's talk and uh Ruth blew me away. There's a strength. There's a power in those lowbottom stories that is so crisp.

you know, you can't I tend to sometimes overintellectualize and uh phil you know, philosophize and there's just a brutal wonderful strength in what she shared today. I mean, it just, you know, right down the middle and and right on the numbers and I I just uh like that strength of the people who I've had the privilege of hearing over the years, you know, they just kind of support me with that. I just it gives me a core.

And tonight, Mildred's one of my favorite people in AIA, so I will look forward to hearing her. So, we've had a nice weekend if nothing else happens. This will be wonderful.

I started drinking when I was 14 years old. I was a freshman in high school. And um I was kind of an insecure kid.

I was one of those I kind of felt like everybody got to school an hour early and held a meeting and I missed the meeting and they kind of decided what was going to go on for the day. And uh I pretended I was at the meeting just hoping they'd talk about it. And uh but they didn't.

I just So I was uh small kid, 4'11, 95 lb, second smallest kid in my high school class when I entered. So I had a big mouth, always trying to compensate, always trying to get attention, do things that would attract, you know, have people notice me. And uh I got to be a marginal member of the inroup.

And uh but you know kind of felt I was there because I was being how everybody else wanted me to be. And one night a buddy of mine had a fifth. We went out we split that fifth and you know I had the same experience that almost all your speakers talked about today.

It just altered my whole perception of things. From that moment on I became a social drinker. Anytime anybody else said I'll have a drink I said so shall I.

I just never passed up an opportunity to do it. I went to a military uh academy in a high school campus and we drank in high school like most people drink in college. We just drank our brains out.

A couple of us almost died of alcohol poisoning of my four closest friends. Three of us are in AA and one's an Alanon. And uh we have and two of our wives are in AA and uh so we had a lot of alcoholism.

We had a lot of recovery which is not a bad combination. If you're going to have the disease, it's nice to have the answer. But we drank a lot in high school.

So by the time I finished high school had a reputation as a drinker and maybe a drunk but certainly a drinker and I was in trouble and was making false IDs and got arrested a couple of times and a car accident here and there and I thought my drinking reputation were problem was more that I was underage and if you're underage it's tough to drink easily you know you have to plan it around your parents or the cops you know and my dad was not a happy camper when he caught me drunk and either with the police and so I thought if I got away from home that would help. So I went away to school and my drinking did not become normal. You'd have a different talker.

I drank my way to the University of Notre Dame in the middle of my senior year. One day I just walked out and uh I don't know started out as a pretty good student ended up as a horrible student. And I was going to school one day a week maybe in civil engineering carrying 25 credits a semester which gets kind of hard to bluff your way through a thermodynamics exam.

You know it um you know now I'm the class drunk. Had three guys in my engineering school petitioned to have me removed. You know I mean I really was the class drunk and I didn't and I I hated that.

That was not, you know, not what I wanted to have my scholastic career be. And uh I left Notre Dame as I say in the middle of my senior year and I was due to be commissioned that summer as an officer and I had to get a medical release. The medical release I got was for alcoholism.

I was diagnosed an alcoholic when I was 19, which seemed to me to be a misdiagnosis. And um you know, we talk about psychiatrists not knowing what they're doing, but this psychiatrist was right on the numbers, you I mean, he, you know, started working with me when I was about 16, and by the time I'm 18 or 19, he thinks I'm an alcoholic, and he thinks I should go to Alcoholics Anonymous. That surprised the hell out of me cuz it didn't fit any picture.

I didn't have enough information to think that that was even a possibility. That just seemed like a dumb diagnosis. But it got me out of service.

I came home, finished school, and when I finished school, my father asked me to leave home. He said, "You know, this isn't working. we love you and we care about you, but you're just an absolute pain in the ass and uh you got to go.

And so I left and um took a job at a liquor store and uh I almost killed a little girl one day backing out of a you know, they talk about moments of clarity. I was uh I did not hurt the little girl. I came within inches.

I knocked her off her bike backing up drunk and she was under the back of the truck but not under the wheels. And I mean I it just can't well I mean we've lots of us have been there and I picked that little girl up and uh I said where do you live and she pointed down and I went down the alley and where she pointed was the house I was born in or excuse me not I wasn't born but it where I lived for for 12 years. Uh and the neighbors started to come out and they look like a lynching party you know.

I mean, I thought I was in serious trouble going to call the police. Then when they found out who I was, I live St. Paul is like a big small town.

I mean, if you, you know, and they still remembered our family and it was not horrible. So, they, you know, kind of let me off the hook because the little girl wasn't hurt. But those moments of clarity where you're sitting there with a, you know, 5-year-old child or four-year-old child in your arms and you just, you did get here, you know, how did you end up with all those wonderful ideas, you know, that you were going to go do and you're just a drunk.

you almost, you know, I mean, just in a moment, you know, you know, of clarity, I lost that job for going 80 miles an hour with a truck and getting a ticket and I took a job as a waiter and now I'm working at a waiter at a club in Minneapolis and I'm have a place in St. Paul. But I think in the six months I worked as a waiter, I made it home two or three nights.

I just kind of kept a paper bag, couple of paper bags full of clothes over at the club and I'd get up at 10:00, drink beer, go to work, you know, work as a waiter from about 11 to 2. At two, I'd go drink beer at a bar. And at five, I'd go buy a half pint or a pint.

And somewhere during that day, I'd figure out who I was going to live with and where I was going to stay. And you know, Dr. Seuss, that child author, those are actual photographs of people I live with during that period of time in my life.

Uh, I got my face kicked in at a party and I got fired as a waiter. They didn't want me serving food, looking how I looked. And uh I was tapped.

I had no place to go. I hadn't been home in a couple of months. And I went back home and said, "Can I move back in the house?" And they let me move back in the house, a condition that I wouldn't drink.

And I lied about that. But I got back in the house. And u alcoholism meant different things to me over at different periods, but what it meant more than anything else is about every six months I had to start over.

You know, this is going to be different. Soon as I get back to school after Christmas, it's going to be different. Next semester is going to be different.

Next year is going to be different. As soon as I get that job, maybe if I got a car, it just it's going to be different. It's going to be better.

And it wasn't. It was better for a day or a week, maybe even a month and long stretches, but never better long term than it was the zigzag pattern going downhill. And but I made the largest fullcourt press of put pulling my act together.

I got back together with Linda, who I had gone with for a couple of years and broke up with for almost a year. And we became engaged to be married. I got back together with her and uh why she got back with me, I'll never know.

I mean, I was just the party that I saw her at and talked her into getting back with me was just I was just a tongue chewing babbling idiot as Chuck used to say. I mean, I literally had drunk myself sober. I drunk almost a quart of uh Jack Daniel was into my second and I felt as sober as I feel at this moment and I'm my face is all cut up and I've got you know stitches and I'm trying to tell her that I think we should start dating again.

And uh at that time my wife was a psychiatric nurse working on an alcohol ward. >> Powers of persuasion and um I to uh thank God she agreed that we could start dating again and we dated for quite a while platonically and got developed a good relationship back. And uh I bought a car, got my first job, got a job executive trainee at a manufacturing concern.

And I thought, "Wow, now it's going to be okay." And it wasn't okay because it was I couldn't shut my drinking down. Now I'm the company drunk. You know, I'm in a company of engineers and I stand out like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

I am back again, you know, just like I was in engineering school. and I'm falling asleep at my desk and I used up my sick leave in the first two months and I'm you know falling asleep in the john and they're paging me trying to find out where the hell I am and it's just you know and uh I quit that job after 6 months took a sales job thought a sales job would give me more flexibility and I had the sales job for about six weeks and I went out on a three or four day drunk and uh three-day I guess I woke up one afternoon in August or July of 1967 and I was just panicked. Didn't know if I had a fiance or a job or a place to live until I was married and that was an economic necessity and I just panicked and all of a sudden the recommendation of my father and my psychiatrist that I call IIA didn't seem such an impossible one and I called out call.

I got an old-timer on the phone and he talked to me for a few minutes and he called someone else. He came back on the phone and said, "Could you go meet a couple of guys at a diner in about an hour and I said that I would and he described the two guys and I called work and found out I had a job and called Lyndon, found out I was still engaged and called home and found they were concerned rather than mad, which is I thought, why the hell did you call a you know, it just kind of a overreaction, you know, that guilt kind of response that you often get." And but I wanted to go see what an alcoholic looked like. That was kind of the first uh that's how much insight I had.

I mean, I literally wanted to go I was curious to see what these two guys I mean, you know, how dumb can you get? When you're when you're young and in trouble, you get in front of a lot of help. And I'd been in front of bishops and nuns and priests, and I'd been in front of lawyers and judges and doctors and psychologists and psychiatrists, and and usually you're in trouble.

Almost always they're asking you questions. Usually, you don't participate in the conversation. And when the conversation's done, there's a series of things that they advise your family to do with you.

Just kind of how those things went. And I thought, I'm going to go meet two guys that are going to interview me and ask me a bunch of questions and come up with some advice. And thank God that wasn't what I found.

I sat down with two guys at a broiler. It's about 2 miles from the house I live in now. And uh one guy's name was Bob.

One guy's name was Warren. One guy had six years, one guy had six months. And they said, "We're from AA.

We had a drinking problem. We found an answer in aa we're here as much for ourselves as we are for you. You know, we hope this helps you and but we found it helps us trying to help you, you know, so no pressure.

Weren't signing me up for a multi-level marketing deal, no free toaster, you know, there wasn't any business and they told me their drinking story. And I had never talked to another person with a drinking problem. You know, I mean, it's the power of, you know, one of the great we have many traditions in AA.

I think one of the most profound of which is that we share our experience, strength and hope but not our thinking and ideology. You know there's a power in sharing your life with another person. Those two men shared their life with me and my life changed out of that conversation.

I mean it was it was an experience of grace just period. I mean it was just was two guys never met them you know two and a half hour dinner shared their story and I'm right in the middle of their hand and I'm identifying with them and I there's just no doubt in my mind that they you know have nailed me or what they were talking about I was experiencing went to my first meeting that night I drank twice after walking an AA once on a business trip to the west coast I was told to call AA I didn't I said I had a bet that I wasn't drinking and I stayed sober half the time and got drunk and in trouble the other half. And then I was sober almost 3 months and we got married and uh I drank on her honeymoon, which I think I had that planned.

I But I'm enough of a phony that I'm kind of a complier, you know. I had it subconscious, you know, cuz I mean it was just the minute I two times I drank I was out of town, you know. I mean that's, you know, when I'm in town and got the system going, I'm complying.

When I get out of town, I mean it's it's there, but I'm not dealing with it, you know. And uh we honeymooned in Nakapokco, you know, where the divers dive off those cliffs. And I I could I dove off those cliffs on my last run.

I w I was in the audience watching a world's high diving contest. I thought, "God, that's not so tough." And uh I went over and introduced myself to Alaman, the ex-president of Mexico. I'm stone drunk.

This is not Don't picture anything attractive. This is ugly American. I am, you know, his nephew had been my roommate for my sophomore year and he was not impressed with that.

His bodyguard was not. So, I drove off the public landing, split my swimsuit, cut my leg, I'm climbing up the cliff. My wife is going absolutely nuts and I get up to about 85 or 90 ft and I'm stuck.

I can't get up. I can't get down. And I'm watching the waves come in and the waves go out and I, you know, trying to figure out whether to jump or dive.

you know, I got to, you know, kind of scope this thing out. And finally, I figured ah, screw it and I dove and I made it. God watches after fools and drunks.

If I would have jumped, I would have died. You can't get out far. I didn't know that.

I mean, I'm just literally looking at the, you know, Norm Alpie talks about seconds and inches there. You could change a second here or there for many of us or an inch here or there, you know, and our lives would be very different or we wouldn't be here in this room. I went, my wife uh and I would go back there.

We went back there about 20 times. We take the kids and one on my 10th anniversary, she gave me a picture of that chasm with but for the grace of God underneath it. And we were watching the divers died one night at midnight and I said, "God, that's the dumbest thing I ever done." And she said, "Bob, it's not even in the top 10." I don't know how you can share life with another person and have such a different view of it.

There just there seems to be a communication problem. I've as I've gotten older, I've got a little heavy and I'm trying to get in shape and she's been after me to get a bike or something. So, I got a bike and now she's I got a Harley and uh I don't know, try as I can to please her.

It just, you know, I mean, it just, you know, and uh my wife's a neat lady. She's a a very active member of Alena. I can't tell you.

I I don't know if we'd still be married, but I have I would have a strong concern about whether we'd be married today if my wife wasn't an active member of Alena. Uh you know, she sponsors people and she goes to the meetings, she starts meetings, and it's just it's just uh about as important as it as it could possibly be. In our experience, it's really nice to have someone that when the, you know, when you get into those inevitable conflicts and fights or whatever the hell you're going to get into, someone who's looking at their part, you know, we turned the lasers on ourselves rather than on each other.

I think we would have So, I'm very grateful that she did that. So, now I'm in AA, 24 years old, just after my 24th birthday, and I'm sober, and uh glad I got right back. The minute I got off the plane, I went back to AA.

Thank God. I don't know why I was, you know, that smart to do that, but that was the going to AA has been easy for me. Uh, living AA has not been easy.

But the I think one of the gifts for me is that I went to go meet those two men. I identified and I was given the grace to take the first step. And from the moment I've walked into AA, I've loved AA.

Now, I've had a lot of difficulty sober, but staying has not been my issue. And I worked with, you know, I was the youngest person in our group for two years. And every time a young person came in at about a, you know, our town is a small big town and they'd say, "Oh, they got a new guy over at Uptown." And they'd, you know, no matter where the person came in, I'd get a whack at him.

And I must have worked with 40 people the first couple of years. And no one got sober. I mean, no one got sober.

In and out of treatment, in and out of jail, in and out of everything. And I just And I couldn't figure they didn't like AA. I couldn't get them to go to meetings, you you know, I mean, I and I don't know, you know, and it wasn't I mean, this was not brilliance on my part.

It was not hard for me to go to AA, you know, so I really feel like I was, you know, not given a gift, but I mean, whatever headset I brought that allowed me to stay in Alcoholics Now, I'm just grateful for because these were people who were every bit as bright, needed it every bit as in more in some cases a hell of a lot more, and uh didn't identify, didn't like it, didn't like the meetings. One of the things today when I'm working with someone when they're not going to meetings when they're new, you know, I'm pretty damn sure they aren't really through the first step, they're not identifying because if they identified, it would be their place. They would be going to see their people.

That's why I went to AA. That was the only place in my life that worked. Every place else wasn't working very well.

So now I'm 24 and I think, "Oh god, this is terrific." You know, I have just screwed up everything I've ever tried to do. Great starter, poor finisher. But I found out I'm an alcoholic.

And Alcoholics Anonymous has the answer for the problem of alcoholism. I'm an alcoholic. You got the answer.

I got about five or six other things that are going on in my life that are driving me nuts. And if you got the answer, those things ought to go away. And hell, it might take a year.

And uh boy, they didn't go away in a year or two years or 5 years. They haven't totally gone away in 31 years. But my problems were horrible but ordinary.

You know, I couldn't get up in the morning. Set the alarm clock for 6:30. Get up about 20 to 8.

Supposed to supposed to be at work at 8. It's tough to be at work at 8 if you get up at 20 to 8. But an alcoholic can do it cuz we're quick, you know.

But it's hard. I mean, it really is. It's hard.

I had a little financial problem. I spent $300 or $400 more a month than I made. If you do that over a long period of time, you'll end up in debt.

Just want to report that one to you in case you don't know where that goes. And uh I was starting to have some marital issues. You know, my wife, we're newly married.

And uh my when I sobered up, my sex life was just terrible. I was I slept poorly. I you know, in your first year of marriage, you're supposed to be one of your most amorous times.

Everybody's telling me if you put a penny in the jar, you know, well, that old thing. Uh there's an old wives tale that if you put a penny in the jar every time you make love in your first year of marriage and then take a penny out every year every time you make love afterwards you will never empty the jar. No, I don't that that was now that may be very old, but that was what I was told.

And I was not putting many pennies in the jar. And I it was, you know, once in a while I'd walk by and throw a dollar and just make myself feel better. And um and my wife's father was a real regular guy.

Came home every night at 5:30. He was just he was a neat man. And I'm just erratic as hell.

And I'm, you know, she's seeing less of me married than she was when we were dating because I'm, you know, I'm going to a meetings six, seven nights a week. And she's a nurse. She's getting up at 6:00.

I'm in bed, you know, she works. She comes home. I come home at 5 maybe.

And, you know, she broils something cuz all she can do at that time is broil. And we have, you know, and I eat it and off I go to the meeting. And then I come back from the meeting at 11:30.

And, you know, she's in bed, you know, and this is day in and she's starting to get kind of negative. She's wondering if one of the places I'm supposed to practice the principles is in our home. You know, I'm saying it's none of your business.

I mean, you got your program, I got my program. I mean, I don't you're not supposed to be doing my inventory. And um then we started to have kids and I, you know, I had great parents.

My dad was my hero. He was a wonderful man. But even great parents make, you know, have issues and I wasn't going to have the issues that my parents had and I didn't.

I had all the issues they had and a bunch they never thought of. I was I was loud, impatient, angry, immature, and sometimes violent with my children. I'm not proud of that fact, but that's an accurate description of how I was, especially in my early sobriety.

And I had a gambling problem. It was more of a hobby. Uh three or four hours a day, four days a week is about how that went.

But I was making about $10,000 a year playing back gaming. It was kind of like a second job. I really I mean I was almost thought I'd become a professional gambler, which would have been a wonderful experience for my family, I'm sure.

And these were not problems I had sometimes, not annually, not quarterly or monthly. These were daily problems. I mean, I had them all the time.

And I had them all when I walked in the front door of AA. And you know, I almost didn't notice them for the first nine months of my SP. I was on a honeymoon.

I came in. I was just overwhelmed with the experience of Alcohol Anonymous. I just went to the meetings and met people and learned about the steps and just soaked it in.

I mean, it was just like, you know, I did a fourth and fifth step, but it wasn't very insightful. It was mostly a recitation of my horrible behavior. It was not, you know, it did not get me at the causes and conditions and but it was the best I, you know, it was what I did and I did it, you know, as much with as much integrity as I could at two months of sobriety or month of however long it was.

And uh by the end of my first year, I started to get a sense that something was wrong. In my second year, I had a pretty good list of what was wrong. Thank God did not give me the list on the first day I was an AA.

might not have stayed. Uh you know I mean I number of people have talked about it. I mean I thought AA would be about not drinking and when I came in they told me that alcoholism was a disease physical but also mental and spiritual that once I crossed the line from drinking into alcoholism my alcoholism affected me all the time.

when I was drinking and when I was not drinking. What a revelation. I mean, that was some of the worst problems I had were cold, stone, sober.

Had nothing to do with the physical act of drinking. What I thought you were saying to me is drinking bourbon is your problem. Start drinking bourbon.

You know, I had been there, done that. Just before I went back to my senior year, I got robbed and rolled, pistol whipped, shot at, thrown out of the second story of a hotel, ended up in a psych ward after they patched me up. They were not going to let me go back to school.

and I talked my way out of it, went back to school, didn't drink for three months, and my life didn't change. I didn't all of a sudden become what I thought you were telling me I'd become if I just wouldn't drink. Didn't become the model kid, the good Christian, good student.

It didn't happen. And I thought I, you know, proved that I could quit when I wanted to. And Booze wasn't the, you know, booze is my answer.

You know, it got me in trouble once in a while, but by and large, it was a terrific friend. It was I don't know why I was a man or a boy or an young adult whose a I was born with an amplifier set on nine. I had a noise in my head that was louder than it should have been and it wasn't very comfortable.

And when I got a couple of drinks in me, my amplifier went from about 9 down to about four and a half or five and I could be with other people. The noise in my head went down and I had literally had a totally different experience of people. I felt warmer.

I felt different. I felt part of. I felt less separate.

It was just wonderful. And I thought alcohol was my answer, not my problem. And I thought that if other people knew about some of the dark crevices of my life and some of the experiences I've had cold stone sober, they wouldn't think I was just an alcoholic, you know.

So what the hell did they know? It was kind of my attitude. When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, the first major experience I had is I tore down my wall.

You know, I like most of us built a wall up between you and me. And you know, I thought the wall was, you know, high and thick and you couldn't see through it. I didn't know it was paper thin and made of glass.

You know, that most people who were close to me in my life had been seeing through my wall of protection for quite some time. And the thinking that went on behind the wall says you like me, but you only like what I let you see about me. If you could see everything about me, you'd hate me cuz I hate me.

And who knows more what a lousy, crummy, insufficient person I am than me. I'm walking around, as Cece used to say, with comparing my inside with your outsides. Some point in time, I got afraid enough, hurt enough, and scared enough that I tore the wall down.

I said, "Hey, come and get me. I don't care who you are, where you come from, but just come and get me and help me not be who I am anymore. I can't stand me five more minutes." That's why I came to AA.

I just I didn't know if I was an alcoholic. Didn't know what an alcoholic. I just couldn't stand me.

five more minutes. And it was painful enough that I was willing to do something that I didn't know about and was a little embarrassing. If you stay behind that wall, you're probably going to die of alcoholism or drug dependency because you're going to feel unique.

You're going to feel that you're different. Clancy talks about if we ever had a flag that all of us could pledge our allegiance to, the flag would say, "But I'm different." And a lot of us have that keen, strong, intense sense of difference. And if you keep that, it will kill you because you will not be able to believe that what worked in my life will work in yours.

We have to identify enough to find enough similarities to be able to connect. We have to connect somehow in our hearts or we won't stay. When I tore that wall down, I made a discovery.

I'm not unique. My personality may be unique, but not my illness, not my behavior, not my experience, not my feelings. And I started to have a sense that what worked in your life might work in mine.

But now I'm an AA and I'm starting to have problems that I don't think a guy sober should have. So, you know, I'd start having financial problems and, you know, I' big spender. I'd go out after the meeting, let my checking account be 50 bucks overdrawn and I'm in the checking plus and I'm buying dinner.

You know, that's my that's how I handle it. And uh so I'd put a brick up, you know, thanks a lot for helping my drinking problem and stay on my finances, you know. So now I'm having a little trouble at home.

And Linda and I are fighting a little bit, you know, and I say, "Thanks a lot for help my drinking problem is staying on my marriage, you know. I'm gambling a lot. So I'm not going to work very often.

When I go to work, I don't stay cuz I don't know what to do. So I, you know, thanks a lot for help my drinking problem, but stay out of my work. Stay out of my sex life.

Stay out of my finances. Stay out of my gambling." brick by brick, sober in aa over a four or five year period of time. I built a wall back up going to four or five meetings a week.

I had a sponsor. I did a fourth and fifth step. I was not intentionally deceitful.

I was deluded. I was I was in such denial. My sponsor knew about 65 or 70% of what was going on.

That sounds like a low percentage. And I know that you in California are all up in the 90s. Uh but you know in Minnesota we're still struggling you know and I you know I mean I really try you know and I didn't think Warren got it you know my sponsor you know I'm hyper and I'm flying about 3 ft off the ground.

Morren's very laid-back, got 44 years to bride. He's still my sponsor. You know, great relationship.

And uh he got it. You know, now that I'm 55 and sponsoring kids that are or young men that are in their 20s, I don't expect their lives to be perfect. Warren did not expect me to have it all together.

I was the guy that expected me to have it all together, which is why I lied to Warren or why I was living in such denial that I couldn't give Warren as accurate a picture as I probably might have should have could have given him, you know. So, I'm going along and I, you know, first year I could name some of the issues. Second year I got a real good list.

Third year they're bothering me. Fourth year they're eating my lunch. At the end of my fifth year, I'm in a lot of distress in my sobriety.

It feels like I'm going backwards. You know, it's a bad deal. Now, uh the truth is is I was not going backwards.

I felt like I was going up the down escalator. Every time I take a breath, I just kind of went down two steps. But I think it would be more accurate to say is that I move as I move forward in my recovery, you got me more honest, less able to stuff and deny what was going on in my life.

And so I started to see these things in my life more than I saw them before. And while it looked like it was getting worse, I was just starting to see them. You know, I don't know what it is about alcoholics.

We feel bad when we discover negative things about ourselves. It would be like we'd rather have the negative things and not know about them. I used to tell a joke that I'm now going to tell that my wife does not approve of, but she's not here.

I acknowledge her disapproval and I'm going to tell it anyway because I tell it well and I think it fits in this part of my story. But it's about a lady that goes to the doctor and doctor says, "What's wrong?" And she said, "I have this horrible sensation." She said, "I have the sensation that I'm passing gas. You cannot smell it or hear it, but I have this uncomfortable sensation.

So doctor gives us a medication, says come back in a week. And she takes it and comes back in a week. And the doctor says, "How's it now?" She says, "Oh, it's worse." She says, "Worse?" She says, "Yeah, now you can smell it." And doctor said, "Well, good.

Now that we have your nose cleared up, we can work on your hearing." Uh so there's a level of perception, self-perception that is sometimes, you know, not, you know, but now I'm sober. I'm, you know, working with guys and I'm sober six or seven years and I'm telling when I say I'm in distress, I'm in a lot of distress. It's seven years of sobriety.

I'm thinking about leaving AA. I'm thinking maybe I got to go to Gamblers Anonymous. I'm thinking that I'm a poor, you know, great starter, poor finisher.

You know, I, you know, had a great faith, lost my faith, didn't work for me, had a great family, didn't seem to work for me as a much, you know, went to a great school and didn't, you know, just and now I'm an AA and it's a great place, but I'm, you know, doing what I usually do, start good and end poorly. And uh it's, you know, new guy comes in the club and gives me that bushel basket full of manure and tells me about all the problems that he's got. And I say, "Hey, God, I'm glad you're here." You know, as horrible as it is and as bad as it seems, you're in the right place.

If you just come here and stay, you know, get a sponsor, read the book, try not have to do it perfectly. Just try to do as good a job as you can with these steps. You're going to be okay.

You see that guy over there? God, his life was a mess two years ago, and now he's knocking it out of the park. you're going to be just fine.

Then I get in the car 11:00 at night and I drive home and I say, "Bob, when are you going to be fine? You just bought a $300 sport coat at a store that you had a $400 bill at. When are you going to stop doing that?

When are you going to learn how to work? You do not have a pass. I do not.

You know, almost everybody in the world knows how to work and you don't know how to work. When are you going to stop being angry with your children and more loving with your wife? When are you going to stop gambling?" I didn't have an answer cuz I'm busting my britches to try to not do those things.

I'm not a guy who has no integrity. I know what's wrong. I'm working my little prat off on it and I'm failing and uh out of uh fear.

I I guess I subconsciously knew where I was going. I've always had good teachers and good models in AA. I think I knew that the people who had what I wanted had a better relationship with a higher power.

They knew more what God had to do with Wednesday than I did. You know, I had a lot of I had a great religious and spiritual background. But when I it was unaccessible to me at that point in time in my life.

And I knew the answer was to get closer to God. But I had a problem. The minute I try to get closer to God, what do the hell do you think God's going to want me to do?

Quit gambling. Get up in the morning. Go to work.

Stay at work. Be loving and kind to your wife and children. Stop, you know, I mean, don't spend more money than you have, you know?

I mean, I know what God's going to want me to do. What the hell is the use of going to God to try to develop a relationship if you can't fulfill the conditions of the relationship? I was stuck in that place for two years.

I I mean, I just as soon as I clean my act up, going to go to God. I know I'm positive he's got the answer. I can see evidence of it around me.

But I can't change these damn things. And if I can't change them, there's no sense, you know, signing up. So, I was stuck there.

And I went back to the steps as best I knew how with that flaw. And I went back and I took step one at 8 years of sobriety. And I found out what powerlessness and unmanageability meant to me.

Wasn't very hard. Clearly powerless. Everybody knew my life was unmanageable.

Uh the fooler for me was step two. You know, I thought step two was a throwaway step. You know, I mean, not I mean to the extent that obviously I believe that God would restore us to sanity.

Okay. I believe God would restore us to sanity, but I didn't believe God would restore me to sanity cuz I'm 8 years sober going backwards. There's a difference.

I believed it for us and not for me. I think when you're in deep doodoo, you either get more active or less active. I got more active and I started to see the miracle again.

I was allowed to see people with bigger problems with smiles on their faces walking through walls that I was trying to walk around. And I started I came again to believe that God will restore me to sanity. I took the third step with my sponsor on my knees in his office.

I'd not done that before. It was embarrassing and awkward, but I thought, "What the hell? This time I'm really gonna try to dot the te's and cross, you know, or whatever.

dot the eye and cross the tea. And I did a four step. When I was done with my four step, the two previous fifth steps I done, I done with clergy.

And I decided this one I'm going to do with my sponsor. So I went to my sponsor and I said, "Be careful. When I'm done with this, I'm going to do whatever you recommend that I do." I said, "I'm in a horrible amount of pain." I said, "I feel like I'm dying a thirst line next to a lake.

I feel like there's a plastic shield or a glass wall separating me. I know where the water is. I know what to do.

I just I I I can't get there and I'm just I just feel like I'm that far away and I I can't tell you how damn tired I am of being that far away. Took my fist up. We cried and talked a little bit and one of the things he wanted me to do is go to a psychologist.

Oh, I did not want to do that. That felt like a failure. Felt like an admission that a didn't work for me, you know, and I got to go do something.

But I had a lot of issues about success and failure and money and work and I went to hell. So this was a industrial psychologist that this friend's firm used and I went over there. Psychologist said, "Will you get your parents involved?" I said, "No." I said, "My parents have been about as involved with me as I think they need to be." Said, "You know, they're in their 60s or 70s or whatever the hell it was." And I said, "If you can't help me without getting my parents involved, could you refer to me someone who could?" He said, "Well, you get your wife involved." I said, "Oh, you know, when you get your wife involved, there's a whole different data bank.

It's a uh it's very awkward. I mean, they see things so differently, I think. And sometimes kind of a skew and uh I said, "Yeah, I'll get my wife." He said, "Well, we get your kids involved." I said, "They're pretty young." He said, "Well, we'll just bring them.

We'll see." So, I remember we were I remember the session. I can remember what the room looked like and this guy. We're in the middle of the session and I'm explaining to him that I'm going broke.

I'm I'm working two hours a day. Have no idea why I'm going broke. I mean I you would think you know why this company's not successful I have no idea and uh so I I had worked for my dad for about as long as we both could stand it which was about three and a half years and then I went out and started my own company with a partner who is still my partner today he's 35 years sober his name's Terry and uh I was about a couple of years into that and uh you know we're in trouble cuz I'm not doing my job.

And the the psych psychologist looked at me and said, "Why are you so afraid of failing?" And I just I wanted to pull the nose off his face. I said I I mean I I said, "Listen, you ass. You know, you're a doctor.

You fail. You just take your little sign, walk down the hall, pound it on a different door, and you're making 100 grand within 3 months of sticking in the dirt." I said, "I am about to go under, and when I go under, I'm going to lose everything I have." Nod your head up and down if you understand that. Everything I have.

And he looks over at my wife and he said, "If Bob lost everything he had, would he lose you?" And Linda said, "Nope." Looked over at the kids and said, "If your old man lost everything he had, would he lose you?" And the kids said, "Oh, hell no." You know, if you can't lose, you can't play. I was the guy in the football team that had a uniform. I did the calisthetics.

I did the locker room. But when they blew the whistle to block and tackle, I went up in the stands because I don't block and tackle. If we had a running race, I would sound and act and talk like a good runner.

I would have a great pair of shoes, nice shorts, tell you that I won some race in Minnesota. And the race started out, you know, and you'd kind of think I should be in the top 10. When the race would start out, I'd be in the top 10.

Somewhere between a third and 60% through the race, I'd fall down, hurt myself, and wouldn't finish. When the race was done, someone say, "What happened to that guy from Minnesota?" Said, "I don't know, God, he was doing pretty good. He was up, you know, in the top 10.

He'd run some damn race in Minnesota. Must have pulled a hamstring." But if you would have followed me around in a helicopter in my life for the preceding 5 years of that race, you could have guessed within 30 ft of when I would have fallen down because I don't finish anything. Good church can't participate.

Great family, family schmuck. Go to Notre Dame. I'm the top of the 14 kids from my class that went to Notre Dame.

The only one who didn't finish. I interview well. I just don't work well.

I can get the job. I just my mother always said, "Bob, you're not very bright. Dress well." So I have, you know, try to do that as best as best I can.

And you know, but I don't finish anything. And I'll tell you something that gets old. It get it's not funny.

It hurts a lot. It causes a lot of damage. You know, all those little jokes about potential and how much everybody has.

When you can't be who you truly are in your heart, it hurts. That is that is not, you know, a haha. So, you know, I'm in this thing and I, you know, the psych psychologist, you know, is right on my issue.

Failure. I had a very successful father, was never going to be as good as my old man, you know, and it could never make as much money or be as big a deal or whatever, you know, not that my father demanded it of me. I was the one who was demanding it of me.

Not too long after I did that psychiat psychologist thing, I was home in my living room reading some non conference approved literature. And uh it just been a horrible day. I had, you know, went to work late, left early, got in a back game, won 600 bucks, got in a fight with my wife and slapped one of the kids, missed the A meeting, missed dinner.

You know, just one of those, you know, wonderful days you'd like to have videotaped and sent to the general service office to show what eight years of sobriety can do. And I said, "Gee, it happened again." I'm saying, "What do you mean it happened again? It's your life.

I mean, weren't you there?" I'm saying, "Well, yeah, I was there." But it's so habitual. It's almost as if it happens in a blackout. I mean, it almost as if I'm not And all of a sudden, I realized that was a bunch of crap that my life was the way it was because I designed it that way.

I sounded like a guy who wanted to quit gambling. I was a guy who wanted to gamble whenever the hell I wanted to gamble and not have problems because of gambling. Sounded like I wanted to clean up my marriage.

I wanted my wife's children and my wife and children's attention, affection, and love without spending time with them. I wanted money without work, not the design. You know, when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I told you that that conversation with those two men changed my life.

I think what happened to me is I was stripped naked and I stood in front of a mirror and looked at my alcoholism in a way that I had never seen my alcoholism before. And the truth of looking at it in the eye altered me. The truth, you know, will set you free.

First, I promise it will piss you off, but it will set you free. It altered me. I drank at you know they say once you come to AA if you really stand in front of that truth you may drink again but you will never drink with the impunity that you were able to drink before you came to Alkalas.

That night in my living room it was like a mirror was put up in front of me and I looked at my life in totality in a way that I had not seen it in a n in a stark naked way and I told the truth about my defects of character. I realized that I had tried as hard as I knew how to try for almost 8 years in Alcoholics Anonymous to get rid of my defects and I have failed. And then I had the thought that that's exactly where I was supposed to be.

And I was given the opportunity to take the six and the seventh step of the program. The sixth step said that we're entirely ready to have God remove our defects of character. Seven steps we humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings.

I spent eight years trying to get rid of them. I don't have the muscle. If I could get rid of my defects of character, I don't think I'd need a a would not need the meeting, would not need a sponsor.

I have always known what to do. I just haven't done it. I get people who come over to my house, you know, spend 45 minutes is who was talking about ranting and raving and talking to their sponsor and I guess it was Ruth.

And uh when they're done with the half hour or 40minute presentation, I say, "Hey, close your eyes and pretend that I came to you with this story. Tell me what to do." They always know. We have always known what to do.

We do not have the power to do it. The my problem was not knowledge. It was not information.

It was lack of power. And that night I knew that and I got down on my knees and took the sixth and the seventh prayer and four of the major problems of my life disappeared that day. Such I believe is the power of God and the power of the steps and the power of the program.

When you are open as and beaten down at that moment that I was a doctor doesn't heal. He creates a septic environment. It creates an atmosphere in which healing can take place and God heals.

A farmer doesn't grow. He creates a fertile soil. Plants a seed.

creates an atmosphere with growth can take place and God grows and we don't change. We create an atmosphere in which change can take place and God changes us. We are the pipe, not the well.

It happens through us, not by us. I am not the source. When you are truly ready to make a change, you put a support system in place.

The next day, I turned the checking account over to my wife. My wife does not have the issues with money that I have. She can pay a third of a bill.

I can't. Within nine months, she had us square. Okay.

I started to date my wife. I've dated my wife every Friday night when I'm in town for the last 25 years or when I'm gone, I do it on another night. It's a real live dangerous state.

No one else goes out. You know, I had her love and affection. It was everybody else's love and affection I wanted.

I had to go back and learn how to be romantic with my wife. We were always talking about business problems, stuff, you know, kids, just school, just, you know, which is not how we fell in love. You know, we were, you know, wanting to get in the backseat of an automobile.

We were not talking about school when when we were, you know, when we were falling in love. And I had to go back and learn how to treat her and be with her in a way that enlivened both of us. And that's been the one of the best damn things we have done for each other.

And it it has been a stability for us over some up and down times over the last, you know, 25 years. I stopped gambling that day. Okay.

I have spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours learning how to be a better parent. I think being a parent takes 125% of whatever you got. I mean, it's just it's about as big a job.

Maintaining a lifetime relationship with anything is difficult. with a city, with your parents, with your spouse, with your children, with your job, with alcoholics and it takes a hell of a commitment. It takes a lot of growth.

It takes a hell of a lot of change and a fair amount of pain and some ups and downs if you're going to maintain a lifetime relationship with anything. And uh when I made those changes, my life altered 180 degrees. It was every bit that spirit that's surrender that second spiritual experience I had was every bit as powerful as the first one I had when I walked into alcoholics.

I I will report to you that I think that for most alcoholics sometime between 5 and 12 years your ass is going to fall off and I don't think it I I just think it will because you cannot get it all done at first and what you what you perceive as what your job is in recovery you just can't hold the ocean of the world in the teacup of your mind. you will not have a big enough picture of what there is to do. You will accomplish much.

You know when when when talked today about you know growth happens in a but it happens slowly usually in the first year it happens fast. Now there you know and then it starts to slow down. There are profound changes and I know Walt knows that but I mean you know you get a big curve you know and then it either goes down or levels out you know and then we but almost always when you your alcoholism the physical part goes away it's like the disease goes underground and it starts to express itself in some other arena of your life and you'll start to have similar experience of the compulsive obsessive thought patterns and behavior patterns in your sex life or your marriage or your eating or you're spending money or your work or someplace But you know almost all of us have one serious or two serious problems.

I was a generalist. I had four or five you know but very few of us very few of us I don't know anybody who I think is really exempt from that. And almost everybody has, I think, has a second time where they have to stand in front of a surrender-like experience to take on what's next with a more adult maturity of the program with a deeper with a little bit more depth about that.

And uh that's happened to me. When I did that, my life changed. The guy who couldn't work all of a sudden could work.

I was in the investment real estate investment business at that time. It was bad and all of a sudden it was poised to take off. and I started to become pretty successful, you know, and uh made enough money to burn a wet elephant, bought the big house, two Mercedes, you know, every year bought new cars, and I'm, you know, and for about seven or eight or nine years, everything I touch turned to gold.

And it was uh it was a period of deep shallowess. It was uh my life became about me, okay? And what me wanted, okay?

And uh I didn't think I was hurting anybody. I was paying for it in cash and didn't think I would, you know, and if I wanted it, I could go get it cuz I could write a check and I could go do it was I thought God was blessing me because it was just a wonderful AA member I was. How would you like to be around that attitude?

And uh uh I de you know there are problems with lack of success, there are problems with success. There are adjustments and issues and attitudes and it was a new experience for me. And you know I did some of it okay and some of it not okay.

And then in 1986 they passed the tax act. And between 1986 and 1991 I lost $8 million. and I went broke and I was at at 1991 I was uh 24 years sober and uh broke and I had to negotiate with five banks not to go bankrupt.

I mean I wasn't like kind of broke. It was broke and it was uh you know I'm back in front of the budget word. I'm talking to my wife.

I'm you know thinking I'm going to lose the company. I'm, you know, looking at ending my career at a menial job. Didn't know what I was going to do.

Uh, I felt about as bad. It would be hard for me to explain. I There were two things just before I went through the the worst part of that.

I went to a man, asked him to be my spiritual adviser. He said, "What do you want?" I said, "I want two things. I want to be less materialistic and I want to be more loving." Within about two months, I started to lose everything I had.

promise you that happened. I went back to him. I said, "We got to talk.

We got to I said, "You you probably I didn't get into it deeply enough. What I'd like to do is is keep the stuff and not be materialistic." You know, that just thought I'd, you know, put the instructions in. Um, but I think I had uh I had to find out who I was without my money.

I had uh lessons to learn around money and materialism and I think that God I don't think the real estate crash was designed only to teach Bob Bzans the problem but there's also personal aspects of these large you know title waves that come through and uh my personal aspect of what there was for me to learn in this process uh that's how h high the noise had to get for me to hear the universe speak to me and in In that process I had and then that my middle son uh we have three children 30 20 27 and 18 all three of which are in the program one has 11 years one has eight and one has eight months and uh the middle wouldn't it have been wonderful for me to be such a horse's ass that my children wouldn't come to Alcoholics Anonymous because they did not want what I had. I could have come within a quarter of an inch of that. Wouldn't that have been great to be a good speaker and a poor liver and your children die of alcoholism because you can't, you know, take it home.

And that could have been the case. The u uh how do I start there? Oh, Peter uh who was at the conference in San Frernando.

Peter had just he was in his freshman year in college, came home at Christmas, got arrested for drunken driving, towed out an automobile and ended up in detox. It was his Christmas present to his mother and I. And uh and he's in a halfway house and I'm going to the halfway house and Friday.

I go into the meeting. I start crying when the meeting starts. I mean, I just I cannot not cry.

I I cried through, you know, 24 years sober. I'm broke. We got this little turd who's in treatment.

And uh I'm thinking of starting a new program called APA, Adult Parents of Asses. And uh but I I'm trying to charter it right now, but I you know, we're and uh you know, it's just you know, I can just see the newcomers say, "How'd you like to have what that guy has?" You know, 24 years old crying in the you know, think he's got the clap. I don't know what the hell's wrong with him, you know.

I mean it, you know, and I had to find out who I was without my money and I got through that uh because I got more active and I got closer and and I was grounded enough that I but it was one of the most painful. Losing my money and becoming what at that moment I thought was a failure was not like changing clothes. It was like ripping skin off my body.

I never realized how deeply invested I got in success. I thought I was deeply invested in failure. But those 10 years where I got into it, it just seeped into every pore of my body and I you know I had to change.

I had to make a change. I've got about 10 minutes left and I don't know if I can do it in 10 minutes but I you know my mentor Bob White used to say to me he said when you start talking there are time he said I don't like to talk and I there are times when I don't like to talk you know I do it because I get asked and I do it because I think it's part of what I should do. Uh but he said the one thing that keeps it alive is if you get kind of a something you want to say you know and he said you kind of get on a run where you want to talk about a particular thing and he said that for some reason that keeps it alive and what I've been talking about for the last almost 10 years is change which I think is the essence of the program.

One time Chuck, we were talking about Chuck uh uh Chamberlain was who did not who to me was absolutely one of my heroes. He's a some of you people may not know who he is which startles me you know I once mention and some people but he was a revered member of AA who died about 10 years ago and uh uh a great thinker and a man who we a man who I think altered communication and alcohol anonymous prior to Chuck's talks I think most talks were drunks and I think Chuck was the first one one of the first people to really break that pattern and I think the pattern is changing a third time I think the pattern is changing from talking about just the program to now talking about problems in sobriety. I think our communication in Alcoholics Economist is evolving and Chuck was one of the great people and teachers who broke ice with that and got a lot of criticism about being a water walker and all that.

He was the big one. He was just about as profound a man as I have ever had the pleasure of being. But he Chuck didn't do much outside the program.

One time he was asked to give a talk at an alcoholism symposium in Atlanta and I was remember that he said he was doing that and he went down to Atlanta gave the talk and I was someplace with him afterwards and they said how did you like that symposium? He said to all the experts in alcoholism from all over the world, he said, "Do they do they do they know a lot about alcoholism?" And Chuck in his wonderful way put his finger kind of in the middle of it. And he said, "They don't know much about surrender." You know, I mean, it was just like boom, you know, right down the middle, right on the numbers, you know, because that is the source of the power in the program of alcoholics.

That is when we're talking about change. We're not talking about change. We're talking about transformation.

It isn't just change. It is not linear. I mean, it is like renting a donkey and going to Damascus and getting knocked off your ass and having your life change.

I mean, it is not linear. It is transformation, not change. And it is profound and in many cases immediate.

And I I mean this is not small stuff. This is stuff that books have been written of since time in memorial. And we have the opportunity with some regularity to see that kind of change.

But you'd think that one of those changes that you'd never again go back to have a problem. I mean, once you experience the power of God at that level, why would you ever have another problem? I mean, you just couldn't imagine.

You know, I always like when uh Chris was talking about the Jewish tradition or you think about the Christian tradition, you think about Peter who lived with Christ for 3 years, then he gets in a little trouble and the first time he, you know, he's Jesus who, you know, he doesn't even know who the guy is, you know, he's in a little trouble, you know, and you know, he lived with God, you know, or who who, you know, many people think is God. And uh but there is something about spiritual experiences that need to be maintained that give us this day our daily bread you know not give us this day the bread we had two years ago you know that I can rely on that you know for sustenance today because there's something about it that it devolves I don't know what it is but we do not seem to be able to hold it as strongly as we would like to because other if we could hold it there's a lot of teaching today in AA that would make some people believe that the program is mechanical that if you just go through this process, read, you know, read the black on the page, you know, I love that and I I understand what they're trying to say. And I and I don't think that's a bad thing to say, but you get the impression that all you have to know is 164 pages and there should be nothing wrong with your life.

Would it be so simple? You know, would that it had be so simple? Would that it be that the man who wrote it had such a simple experience, you know?

And I'm not in any way trying to say that our answer is not in those 164 pages. It is and it isn't. I just, you know, it's not one, not two.

It is both those things. So I'm not trying to be a heretic when I stand up here and say that. But the changes in the process is not just mechanical.

If it was just mechanical, every time I had a problem, all I have to do is click my heels together, say the third step prayer, and I'd be back in Kansas. there would not be there just would not be a problem. Okay.

But sometimes you say the prayer and no one's home. Sometimes you can't even summon your will to say the prayer. Okay.

In addition to being mechanical, it is also spiritual. And because it is spiritual, there is something you have to there's a way of being in the process that is different than just doing. Uh it has to do with honesty.

It has to do with integrity. It has to do with an open mind. It has to do with your will.

It has to do with many different it has a way with how you bring yourself to that process in order to have because you know if someone came to you and with a problem all you have to do is tell them to surrender. Just go surrender. I mean how but that's that's not an easy thing to describe even though it has happened to most of the people in this room it is because it's of God you can't hold it easily in words you can describe it you can point to it but as my master said when most people you know when the master points to the moon most idiots look at your finger and uh and I think that that is a lot of what happens in in the program the power is God it is not just alcoholic synonymous.

What we're trying to do is to get a relationship with that power individually. I believe without question that it comes through our fellowship and this is where our the path that I was to find it. But eventually it becomes also very personal and the I'm going to take 10 more minutes and I'm going to stop if if I could if you could hang in there for 10 more minutes.

Most people come here if I think if I asked you to raise your hands and said how many people would like to get rid of the things that don't work in their lives and hurt people I think everybody would raise their hands and say count me in. Okay. If I have learned anything in 31 years of sobriety it is that we do not want to change.

It is the opposite. I believe that there's a part of us that says look we're not going to change. Nod your head up and down if you understand that we're not okay.

I don't mind that you go work on this thing, but understand something. We're not changing. You can go to meetings, do the step, talk to your sponsor, inventory the godamn thing, but we are not changing.

Do you understand that? Okay. We view change like death.

We are so identified you know Elizabeth Kubler Ross has talked about the stages of death and dying you know an you know denial anger depression you know denial anger bargaining depression and acceptance and that we you know we usually deny it's there when we can't deny it you know then we start to you know get angry about you know why is this happening to us then we bargain you know with God to take it away when those three things don't work we are faced in front of this thing and we cannot escape it and we start to get depressed I'm not talking about clinical depression not trying to play doctor talking about depression due to a circumstance and appropriate depression. Scott Peek in a in a book called a road less traveled talked about but if you allow depression to do its work I had not heard those words before but from my own experience I know what to mean to grind the ego to dust. You will pass through depression into acceptance.

Now he said when you hear the stages of death and dying you think most people go through them but they don't because the pain of the depression is so great they back out of the depression and go back into denial anger and bargaining and interestingly afterwards he said and it is similar you go through a similar process with major changes in your life most of us are so afraid to change because we feel like the it's us that we're changing and I want to say to you it is not us who is changing It is the false self. It is simply it is not muscle and bone. It is just behavior.

You made it up. You can unmake it up. But it feels like you are literally dying in the process of change.

That's what I think the process of surrender is. I think the pain Clancy has one of the great it isn't just his line but I he was the man who I first heard it. He said there is not pain in change.

There is pain and resistance to change but there is not pain in change. And most of us in the resistance to change, what we don't we don't want change. We want relief, okay?

We're in we're in a pool of liquid manure up to our nose. And someone comes by and says, "Could I help you out?" And you say, "No, just try to get that guy over there not to make waves." Okay. It is, you know, it is not, you know, just We're okay.

We got it under control. That's, you know, we're going to hang in there. I uh jokingly say I got if I had a new guy I was working with doing a four step, let's assume he's a 40 or 35 year old male.

I say, you know, he's having trouble with the columns and I'm say, "Hey, get your wife, get your kids, get your boss, get your sponsor, get your, you know, coworker and a couple of creditors and brothers and sisters and bring over the house." And then what I want you to say to them is we have a step in AA where we try to get in touch with our defects of character and I'm having trouble identifying them. And I was wondering if you'd help. And why do we laugh at that?

We would not call the meeting. Why would we not call the meeting? We don't want to change.

And I'll tell you, it's one cut worse. Not only do we not want to change, we don't want to know. We train our wives.

We're not talking about that. You got that? We are not talking about that.

You want to talk about that? It's going to get expensive. We are not talking about that.

We train our kids. We train our bosses. We train our co-workers.

We train each other. You get to a certain spot and the chasers hang out with the chasers. The gamblers hang out with the gamblers.

The, you know, and we had a deal. We'll do the steps, talk traditions, go to meetings. You don't get in my crap.

I won't call you on yours. Deal. Deal.

Okay. happens all the time. Okay.

I got to deal with a couple of guys that I got that says when I get out of line, you are obligated obligated to come to me and tell me I am out of line. Those are like brothers in AA. Not an easy thing to do, but that's the obligation if you're in the game.

We do not want to change because we are afraid that we will die in the process. It is an illusion. Okay, we think we are giving up our treasures.

They are dog turds wrapped in gold tinfoil. They do not work. They are.

They are. They do not. You have never in your life ever gotten in front of something you needed to change and changed it and not only had the benefit of the absence of the problems that it caused, but a whole set of energy that was available to you to live your life that you did not have available to you before.

There's a synergism in change when the grace of God I think comes through us. This program is designed to help that change take place. I don't know where you can access the spirituality and the power in a spirituality in a more practical accessible way.

The pain that we are in in the process of resisting change is the universe's message to us that it is not working. It is the point of entry. Most people want to escape pain and walk around it.

The path in a spiritual path is through the pain, not around it, not in the avoidance of it. The pain is the opportunity. Thank you.

>> Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message. Until next time, have a great day.