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So on Tuesday when I finally go back to work, they will ask me, "What did you do this weekend?" I won't be able to tell them how wonderful this was. And even if I spent all of the week trying to tell them, they wouldn't understand. Tina told me that someone came in and did their first three steps since the convention started.

And the two other people did fifth steps while they were here. This is a place of miracles. Do we realize that?

The problem is Monday morning or Wednesday night is just as much a place of miracles. So we have to work very hard that we don't confuse this moment as the only moment. It's all for us.

My name is Kevin Heeney. I am an alcoholic of the doomed and hopeless variety. Thank you for having me here.

>> My secretary Betatina is from from Denmark. It was my intention to have her teach me to say what Bill Wilson said to Dr. Bob 37 years ago last week that my name is Bill Wilson and I'm a rum hound from New York.

but I couldn't get it together. So, I'm Kevin Heeney. I'm a rumhound from New York and I'm here to tell you Alcoholics Anonymous absolutely works.

I'm so thrilled to see so many people who are new and so many people who are not alcoholics but wish to understand this way of life. It's tremendous that you're here. >> >> I come from New York, which is known to be a very liberal, very dangerous, very wild city.

But the only way we could have this many people doing this and sleeping overnight in a church, we'd have to call it Woodstock, and we need a whole lot of drugs, a whole lot of rock and roll, and a whole lot of alcohol. So, I salute Denmark for what you do. I'd had my first drink when I was 12 years old.

The boy who got it for me, he he in fact his mother was Danish, his father was British. So, uh, Denmark got me my first drink of alcohol. And I can sum up what I was like as an alcoholic with the phrase not enough.

I was not enough. I was not handsome enough, not smart enough, not strong enough, not well-hung enough, not cute enough. You name it, I was not enough.

And when I drank that alcohol, I became enough instantly. Alcohol opened doors. Alcohol made all things possible.

My first sponsor, Sparky, used to say, "Look back, but don't stare." Alcohol worked and it worked beautifully. Uh my father was a violent man. My mother died of cancer when I was a little boy.

It was I could give you a very strong accoa qualification, but this is alcoholics anonymous and the problem was not them. The problem was me. But when I drank, all was well.

And I thought all of you had something that I didn't have. There's a a man aa he's dead now, Chuck Chamberlain, a man who I think is a saint. If you do not know Chuck, learn about Chuck.

He has a book and takes new pair of glasses. He is just incredible man. He's Clancy's sponsor, but don't hold that against him.

And Chuck says, "It's like the insulation on the alcoholic's wiring is too thin. I feel things too much. I think too long.

I worry too much. I can't help it. I was born that way.

But when I drank alcohol, it all went away. Alcohol, it was it was a power greater than me. And I happily turned my will and my life over to it.

And for a very long time it worked. If I had not found alcohol, I am sure that I would have committed suicide or had to kill my father. But by the time I was 19, I'm not being dramatic.

That's the truth. Life on life's terms was unimaginable. But booze made it possible for me to keep going.

So I had my first drinks and it wasn't something dramatic. It was two, you know, 12year-old boys. We drank a little bottle of something called Southern Comfort.

It's a kind of it's a it's an American alcohol and it was great. And the next morning I went home and I had found heaven on earth and I would work very hard to go back to heaven as often as I could. When I grew up uh this in the state of Connecticut, they did not allow alcohol unless you were 21 years old.

So it was very hard to get a hold of alcohol. So I was always thinking about it, planning it, scheming it. who was old enough and had false identification to buy it for me.

When I switched to drugs, it was much easier because drugs were illegal. Any, you know, no one could buy them, so everyone could buy them. But alcohol was hard to get, but it was worth the effort.

And and I learned to drink and I learned to drink and I was raised in very strict American Irish Catholic. So that meant dark winters in dark liquor in the winter, in the summer, light liquors. You did not drink gin and vodka except during the summer months.

And this was the rules so that we were dignified people. And and you drank, you know, red wine and fish. No, you know, all of these rules so that I could be sophisticated.

I could be Deonire. These are names maybe some of you don't know. So I could be like Rock Hudson and Carrie Grant.

So I could be something I dreamed of being because I was not enough. But alcohol let me be enough. I would was afraid of girls.

Alcohol let me hold a girl's hand and go further and go further and and and alcohol did that for me. Every door that alcohol opened, it would later slam closed. Everything alcohol gave me, it would take back and take back more.

I didn't know that. While it worked, it worked wonderfully. I got the, you know, the nights by the sea where the sea is shimmering with the stars and the moon overhead and and and the nights in the discos that were just incredible and and where just things were couldn't have been better.

And then and then the horrible part of the disease, it stopped working so well. And then there were times when I would only want to drink a little and I would drink a great deal. And then the worst, there were times when I would drink a great deal and feel nothing.

I would drink a quart of whiskey and feel nothing. And and it wasn't that I thought I was not drunk. My tolerance got so high that I could drink and drink and drink.

But then it was also unpredictable. I wasn't sure what would happen. And the years went on.

I went to uh I am trained as a social worker. Uh, and the first internship I had was at a drug and alcohol treatment facility and they sent me there and this was God's joke. He was sending me for treatment but I wasn't ready and I didn't pay attention and but I was exposed to many things that year but one thing was they asked me uh each Monday morning they had an AA meeting in the hospital basement and I would sit through rounds with the doctors and the psychiatrists and the nurses and the PhDs and it was very scary and very impressed and they knew everything and I knew nothing.

And then Monday morning they would send me down and I would sit in on the AA room with the and they had a little woman, her name was Honey Bunch, that was her nickname. And she was just so sweet. And the men and women would sit in a circle.

I sat outside the circle, you know, I was an observer. And they would have their AA meeting. And it was like nothing I had ever seen or dreamed of.

People would sit and tell the truth. And they would they would say things no one should ever say in confession or to their therapist. They would tell the truth.

And then this is the amazing thing. They would get up, go back upstairs, and lie through their teeth for the rest of the day. The same woman who said that she was a heroin addict would say, "I'm not a heroin addict.

I never did anything like that in my life." The man who admitted he was drinking day and night for 25 years said, "My wife's a That's why I'm here. She just set me up." I mean, how could they tell the truth in the basement and come upstairs to where the treatment was and lie? Alcoholism is the answer.

I didn't understand it. But what was even more touching was when the meeting would go on, it was like a purple light filled the room. I wanted to be part of that.

And I knew I had a problem with alcohol. I didn't know how much of a problem, but I knew I had a problem. And I knew I shouldn't do it there, but I knew I could go to any AA meeting and I could raise my hand and say, "I am Kevin.

I'm an alcoholic." And I could enter that circle. I could not. No, no, no, no, no.

The disease would not let me do that. There there is a phrase that is not used much in Alcoholics Anonymous in the United States. Maybe you use it here.

It's called drinking against the will. That is alcoholism. When you swear on your mother's grave, on your children's eyes, I will not drink today, and you're drunk, that is alcoholism.

When you drive a nail into your hand, don't let my pick up the glass, and the hand picks up the glass, that is alcoholism. Somebody who drinks too much, is a little sloppy, you know, a few car accidents, that could be a problem drinking, but that's not alcoholism. The big book has two questions to determine if I am an alcoholic.

One is that when I start to drink, can I control it? There was a time I could, but that time went away and it never came back. And I was always trying to bring it back.

When I realized that I had this problem, I would try to control my drinking by I would I I never changed brands. I always thought it was the stupidest thing in the world, you know, to go from beer to wine or wine to whiskey. I mean, what's the point?

It's all the same thing. But what I would do would be I would try to stop. I once stopped for nine whole months and the people who worked under me sent a delegation to me to beg me to go back to drinking.

I was ruining their lives. I was so pissed off at everything, but mostly I was pissed off that people were drinking and I couldn't drink. And then it got shorter and shorter and shorter.

And in the end, I could only not drink Monday night and Tuesday night. I would drink Wednesday and then I would drink Friday and Saturday. The woman I was living with at the time, and this was a terrible thing, when I fell in love with her or fell into bed with her, whichever happened first, she drank scotch and sodas.

She smoked cigarettes. And within 6 months of moving in with her, she got Alanon disease. And it hurt.

It hurt me. She became a pain in the ass. And the worst thing she did was she she actually was a wonderful woman.

Uh but she said to me, "There was much pain in my heart." And at night, late at night, I could finally talk about the pain, about my mother's dying, about not getting to go to the grave, about not knowing until it was too late, about my father and his violence, about all the things that hurt. And when I would talk about this finally, she said, "You cannot talk to me about this at night. You cannot come home drunk and tell me because you don't remember in the morning and it changes nothing." She said, "I will not allow it." She said, "You wake me up in the middle of the night.

If you're sober, I'll talk. I'll talk till dawn, but you're not allowed to talk when you're drunk because it doesn't do anything. It doesn't change anything.

It doesn't help you." And it started to make me explode to uh I'm going to I'm getting comfortable. Uh in order to hide from her, we lived in what is called a studio apartment. That means one room with the kitchen in the same room and the bathroom is separate.

So it's this one tiny room. You had the bed, a little space, a table with the TV, and then the wall. I mean, it was that tiny.

So I would I worked at night. She worked during the day. So I would come home at night and I would buy the beer.

I would buy three six-acks of beer and I would pop every bottle, every can before I got in the apartment because to an Allenon's ears there is no louder sound than the pop and I did not want to disturb her sleep. I wanted her to be at peace. So I would sit in this bathroom with no window and drink the beer and smoke camel cigarettes.

I was like Hitler in the bunker waiting for the Russians to come. And and this was the glory of alcohol. I mean, I had lived in England and gotten drunk all over England and all over the continent.

And now I'm in this bomb shelter drinking at night, hiding from her. And and Wednesday night she worked out of the city. So, I got to actually sit in the living room and have the TV on and the window open for air.

I mean, this was the glory of alcoholism. And I lied. And and I only had two people ever tell me that I had a problem with alcohol.

One is the American writer Norman Mailor. And he said, "You're a sloppy drunk." And I was so embarrassed. I unless you drank exactly like I drink, I would not drink with you because I didn't want you to say something to me.

I had a friend who later came into this fellowship and he and I would I knew he was safe to drink with because we would go to the liquor store and and we would say, "What are we going to drink tonight?" And he'd say, "Jin." And we'd each get our own court. I knew he was safe. He wouldn't try to drink my drink and he wouldn't look at me.

And so this is going on and and I've got this experience at the hospital where I know what an alcoholic is. I know what AA is, but I can't stop. I don't want to stop.

So, I'm doing all of these things to control my drinking. You know, I don't drink in front of her and and I and I hide it. And I only drink with real alcoholics who are just like me and and every so often the guilt and the shame and the embarrassment and the disgust becomes so unbearable.

I stopped for a little while and I don't know if any of you know the experience where you look at yourself in the mirror and what I would see was not what I looked like but what I was a slave to alcohol a disgusting pitiful slave but I was 27 years old I mean I I I was I was young I you know I was strong it didn't matter and to prove I was not an alcoholic I became very physical I would swim a mile a day. Every day of the week, I would play squash 5 to 15 times a week. I ran 2 miles a day to get my body in shape.

I ate health food, brown rice, raw vegetables, tofu, when no one else but the Chinese in New York knew what tofu was. I I I went to therapy two times a week. I laid on the couch.

I was making the body strong, the heart strong, the mind strong. I used three different forms of meditation and prayed the Catholic rosary beads. But I kept drinking except for these little periods where I would try to stop.

I had lost control. And when I would try to stop, I couldn't stay stopped. And the rest of the time, I didn't care.

And and I hated myself more and more and more. And the world was ugly. And at 28 years old, I was older than I think I will ever be in my life.

I was an old, crushed, defeated, burnt out young man who had no future. And finally one day, Linda said to me, we had a a a dinner party and it was be a a weekend I had been looking forward to. Friday night was the dinner party.

on Monday. It was an American holiday is coming up in May. There was to be a an outdoor barbecue and beer.

It would be drinking out of doors in the summer gentle air all day. And I just for weeks had been looking forward to just drinking and drinking and drinking and drinking. And Friday night we have this dinner party and I get drunk and and the way I drank now was if you had me to your home, I was the most wonderful guest.

As soon as I came, I took my jacket off and I was in the kitchen. And I was cutting things. I was washing things.

I was putting things in the oven. I was grating cheese. I was cleaning the wine glasses.

It was was like paid help. Why? Because every time you walked out of the kitchen, I made another drink.

And I hid the drinks all over by the corn flakes, you know, by the flour, you know, in the dishwasher. I had five drinks going and one drink that I was slowly sipping. And I would be very visible with my one drink that I was slowly slipping, you know.

Meanwhile, you know, I'm now 10 drinks into the evening, but you didn't see that. That was my clever game. And in the middle of dinner, and the dinner is with my colleague, psychiatrist, psychologist, Linda looks across the table at me and says, "You're a face.

How did you do it? I've only seen you have one drink." I was so embarrassed with her lack of finesse and class. She's this I I what can I do with this woman?

I mean, you know, in front of these people and and then I did the great alcoholic thing. Maybe some of you have done this. On the way home, I was pitiful and quiet.

You know, oh, poor me. Aren't I sad? You know, feel sorry for me.

The next morning, I got up and I did what a man who is an alcoholic, as courageous does. I fled the house before she woke up. Went to the boatyard.

I I did a lot of sailing and spent the day drinking with my friends. And she came out that evening for a cocktail party. And I was there in my blue blazer and the the the shirt and and looking like everyone else at the yacht club.

And she got out of the car and looked at me. And I knew she was not happy. Nor should she be happy.

a quart and a half of Mon rum later at 10:00 at night in my sister's living room in front of 60 of our closest friends. She asks the same question. You're drunk.

How did you do it? And why did you do it? And there's silence in the room.

Now, I being a clever alcoholic knew that the only way to handle this was confront her. And I thought, if I can say as many big, long, multi-yllable words as possible, I will prove that I'm not drunk because drunks slur their words and they don't use long sentences and they don't talk about Shakespeare and quote Schopenhau. I would dissolve her argument.

And she just looked at me and said, "I'm not buying it." And went to bed. And I got up the next morning, the day of this big party, and I knew I was screwed. we were not going to the party.

And I got in the car with her and I turned to her to say something and I inhaled and I had a moment of grace. I inhaled and before I could speak, I knew anything I say will be a lie. It will be a lie because I can't do it.

If I promised her I would stop, I couldn't stop. If I promised her I could cut down, I couldn't cut down. I knew anything I could say to make this go away.

I had a moment where I couldn't lie. Not that I didn't want to. No, no, no.

I guess up until that moment, I thought I could change. And now I saw myself. I couldn't change.

And so I was silent. Uh for several days, I didn't drink. And then I drank again.

And there was another scene with her. And the next morning, I went to my office and I sat in my office and I looked down at what is called First Avenue in New York, a very big street. And I looked down at the street from my office window and and I thought, I'm going to lose Linda.

She was leaving. I will lose my family. I will lose my job.

I will live on the street. I will drink nonstop and maybe one or two drunks a year I will enjoy. But I will drink and drink and this will go on for years.

And I know I can be a drama queen. I was not being a drama queen. This was the truth.

I was looking out. This was what my life would be. And there was no hope.

This was what would happen. I would die ugly and I would die slow and it would take a long time. And I went in my office and I sat down and I looked at the ceiling and I and I started to say, "God, help me." But I didn't believe in God for years.

You know, idiots believe in God. the weak or the poor who can't afford therapy believe in God. And I started to say that and I said nothing.

And I sat back in the chair and I lit a camel and I said, "So let it be. The ending of my life starts now." And in walked uh my secretary and I had misused this woman every way possible. I had made her do my job when I was drinking.

I had I I just I was a a bad boss. Uh, and she looked at me and she said, "What's wrong with you?" And I told her, "I'm being promoted in a job at a social work agency and I don't want to be promoted. I've been trying to get onto Wall Street to make a lot of money and I cannot get a job on Wall Street.

My stepmother, the wonderful woman who raised me, is dying of cancer. My sexual identity crisis is up again." And I listed 15 things, all real issues. And the last thing I said is, "And I think I'm drinking a little too much." And Rachel looked at me.

She was a a beautiful young woman, two years out of college, and she looked at me and she said, "You remember when I went to Barbados in February, and I said, "Yes, you were on a schooner. You were sailing the Caribbean. You said it was incredible." She said, "I didn't go to Barbados." She said, "I went to Metropolitan Hospital." Metropolitan Hospital in New York City is a city hospital.

In other words, a hospital for the poor. People like me don't go there, even if they're run over by a truck. We go somewhere else.

It's a bad hospital, bad service. And she said, "I went to Metropolitan Hospital." And she pulled her sleeves back. And all the way up the arm to the elbow were deep gouges and Frankenstein stitches.

And she held her arms out to me and she said, "I tried to kill myself. I was drunk. I'm an alcoholic.

Would you come to an AA meeting with me? Another part of my denial besides the the whole foods, the tofu, the therapy, the meditation, the levitation, the psychotherapy was I had a very busy social schedule, an extremely busy social schedule. It took you 3 weeks for me to fit you in with everything I was doing because drunks don't race yachts.

Drunks don't have three squash memberships. Drunks don't swim every day. Drunks don't.

Drunks don't. I had nothing to do that night. There's a line from the American writer Kurt Vonagget.

The book is called Cat's Cradle. And the line is, "Unusual travel plans are dancing lessons from God." My God was inviting me to dance that night. And I tried to think of every excuse why I could not go to the AA meeting with Rachel.

I had none for that night. only that night I went with her to an AA meeting and now I had been to AA before. I knew AA was great.

I wanted to join AA. I just didn't want to be an alcoholic who had to go to AA. But now I'm on my way to AA with Rachel.

And we sit in the meeting and I listen very closely because the speaker is an investment banker and I want to figure out how did he get the job? And you know there they after they speak or before they go to raising hands they say is there anyone new who would like to identify themselves. Now for years one of my wonderful defenses to protect me from being what I was an alcoholic was I would tell you I was an alcoholic.

You know, I'm Kevin. I'm an alcoholic. Because, see, I ordered two drinks at a time in a bar because I couldn't wait for the waitress to get back to me after I finished the first drink.

So, I would order two drinks. By the time I was ready for the second drink, I'd order the next two drinks because they go away and they they smoke cigarettes and they flirt with people and the bartender's all the way over there and he won't look at you and I'm I'm going out of my mind. So, I order two drinks at a time.

And if you looked at me and said, "Why do you order two drinks at a time?" might say, "Cuz I'm an effing alcoholic." What do you think? Because if I told you I was an alcoholic, you couldn't tell me I was an alcoholic. Cuz I'd already told you I was an alcoholic, so it doesn't count.

I'd out myself. So at the meeting when they said, "Is there anyone here who's new?" I was very comfortable saying I was an alcoholic. So I shot my hand up and I said, "I'm Kevin.

I'm an alcoholic." After the meeting, a number of people came over to me cuz I said it was my first time. And I hope, ladies and gentlemen, in recovery from Denmark, you aren't so busy making coffee plans and flirting with each other that when there's someone new in the room, you don't go over and give them your phone number and try to help them because you may It's not that I have strong opinions. It's a language difficulty.

because we're here to be helped and to help and the best way and but that night people came over and they said they were very kind to me and and one man said the misery is refunding at your at the door and and another man asked me to go to coffee. What I thought he said was do you want to go get a drink? And I put my hands in my pocket and I pulled out a few dollar bills and I said and I'm surrounded by these people who are so excited.

They've got a live one, you know, a new AA and and I pulled out these dollar bills and I look at them and I him and I say, "I don't have that much money. Going to a bar is probably going to cost a lot. Why don't we go buy a bottle and go to Central Park and we can drink on a bench?" If I had soiled myself, the looks on people's faces would have been no more horrified.

My first smart thing in AA was I shut up. Some of you are probably thinking, I wish you stayed shut up, but you have me for another few minutes. Uh that was the 13th day of June in 1982.

I have since that day never had a drink of alcohol. We we walked up a a street in New York called Madison Avenue. It's a very posh, expensive street.

And we passed they, you know, they have those little fruit stands where they sell you an apple for, you know, 50 crona type of prices. And they had a big sign in the window, limes and lemons on sale. And I turned to Rachel and said, "Well, there's some goddamn fruit I'll never be needing again." Now, you know, I was a real grateful newcomer is what I'm trying to say.

But when an Irish Catholic kid stops drinking, I figure a gets another check on the board, you know, another victory. So, let me tell you the bad part. Uh, I continued to smoke marijuana periodically and cocaine from time to time.

Listen closely because I know I'm speaking in New York English, which you don't want to hear and probably can't translate so well. If you can sniff it, snort it, shoot it up, shove it up, and swallow it without a bonafide doctor's prescription, your day count is zero. I will explain why with my story in a moment, but I didn't hear that for a long time.

And then when I did hear it, I didn't want to hear it because I wasn't using that much marijuana, but it was helping me get it together. Uh I say it because maybe you don't it's not said because it will lead me back to what I really wanted to do, which is drink. So I ignored that.

Uh I came to AA Monday through Friday because Saturday and Sunday I sailed and I really didn't have time to be with you poor sick people. go to coffee with you. Excuse me.

I have real friends and I have a real therapist. I don't need your help. I'm very happy you're helping me with the drinking, but stay out of my life, you wretches.

I'm happy to, you know, give you my dollar, drink your cup of lousy coffee, and throw empty my ashtray when I'm done. And that's as much of you as I need. What was I really saying?

I'm terrified of you. I'm terrified that you'll ask me to change. I'm terrified that you won't like me.

I'm terrified that you won't ask me to go with you. I'm terrified that I won't fit in. I'm terrified that it's just like high school again and I'm not secure and you're all much better than me.

That's what I was really saying. I'm afraid. I'm afraid.

I'm afraid. I don't care if it's newcomers or old-timers. I think all alcoholics are afraid.

We inhale fear and we exhale anger. We need to be very gentle with each other. That doesn't mean we need to bend the rules too much, but I think we need to be gentle.

So, I smoked marijuana and uh and one about in June I came in. In November, I was at a magnificent wedding at a very very exquisite uh penthouse dining room. And the interesting thing is the entire wedding party, the bride, the groom, the bridesmaids, the groomsmen, all would go into the men's room and sniff cocaine off toilet seats and smoke marijuana.

And the little Jewish grandmother was saying, "What is my granddaughter doing going in the bathroom with the men's?" And I mean, you know, here's her exquisite daughter kneeling down, sniffing coke at her own wedding. And we thought it was great. And when we sat down to dinner, they had, you know, those wonderful, wonderful dinners where they're the six wine glasses, the three reds, the three whites, and the conac glasses already laid out.

And I gestured to the waiter, "Remove the glasses. I don't drink. I'm in AA." You know, I've got cocaine falling out of my nose.

My fingers are burned from the joint I'm smoking, but I don't drink. I'm in AA. And I'm having a wonderful time.

15 more trips to the men's room with the bridal party and it's great and the evening is ending and I'm watching the flickering lights of Manhattan and I think the only thing necessary to make this night perfect is a double Glenfidic or a koasier just to kind of roll in my hand and end the night perfectly. And what you people had been trying to tell me suddenly clicked and I realized I want a drink. And I So I had my last drink in June, but my sobriety date is November 7th.

It took me two years to realize that. I wasn't lying. I just couldn't get it together in my head to understand.

I started my trip, but my sobriety date, let me tell you what the old-timers used to say. Anything that I put between me and my sobriety, I may get the thing, but I risk losing my sobriety. I will tell you this slogan that I have.

A day count will help you get a year, but a year count will help you count days. I needed to change my time. It hurt me to give up two years.

But I would rather have two good days than two bad years. Please don't let pride take you out of here. Honesty is what is required.

Though sometimes we I can't get honest as fast as I want or stay as honest as I want. But I I did finally get it. And then I I was there was a a man Sparky who became my first sponsor.

No, actually I had been sponsored by someone briefly. I picked the meanest, toughest man in the room. I thought that's what I need.

I had a father who beat me mercilessly. So I need a new father to beat me mercilessly. If any of you have this insane notion, lose it tonight.

We need a a gentle God and a gentle sponsor, clear, specific, firm with directions, but gentle and loving. Uh, this man who the tough one dropped me and it hurt me so much. I was so embarrassed that I didn't ask anyone else again.

So, let me be frank on this point. I suspect some of you in this room have had several sexual partners. So if it didn't work out with one, you were ready to try another.

Same thing with sponsors. If it doesn't work with one, get another one. Don't be cute.

The man who I got, Sparky, was very gentle. He listened and listened and listened. And I swore if I lived to be a hundred, I could not pay back what this man did for me.

And I have sponsored since I went through the steps. I have never had less than five sponses, sometimes 15. I would have had a much bigger life.

I would have been much more successful, worldly successful. But this is my job. There's a line in the big book that says to fit myself to be of maximum service to God and my fellows.

That is my purpose. I have had existential doubt. Who am I?

What is the world about? What am I doing here? I'll tell you what it is for me to help another drunk or another human being.

That's what it is for me. And if we just make it helping another drunk, that's not good enough. I need to be a good brother, a good son, perhaps in a good father, a good worker, a good boss, a good citizen.

It's to be good in all these areas, not just with the drunks. If I show this man kindness and I snap it at the office, I'm full of My sponsor, Bill Baldwin, said, "Sounding good in an AA meeting is the easiest thing in the world to do and the most unimportant. So Sparky gave me mountains of time and and it was Higher Powers's way of making up for the dad who couldn't give me anything but his fists.

And I could not tell Sparky the truth. I couldn't I did a fifth step and I was too embarrassed to admit to my homosexual activity in the past and I couldn't admit to him that I had this job as a stock broker and I was terrified to call up strangers and ask for money. So I did nothing at the job and I ruined the relationship.

I was afraid he would judge me. I was afraid he would condemn me. I strangled the relationship with my own hands.

He never would have done that. I didn't give him the chance. I think the hardest thing in the world, we'd say get a sponsor and I'm going to talk about sponsorship.

It's the hardest thing to do. Oh, I have inadequate and ineffective and dysfunctional relationships in every area of my life. But you tell me let an absolute stranger in to start telling me how to live my life.

I don't think so. But that's what you tell me to do. And the extent that I can do it, I start to get better.

So I I killed the relationship with Sparky and I had no sponsor. And then one day I'm now I now got the job on Wall Street. I'm a stock broker.

You know the image. Nothing's really happening. I'm not making any money.

I'm terrified. I'm hiding under my desk for weeks on end. But I've got a, you know, a business card.

And one day I wake up and uh I realize it's nothing. And the woman who I'm dating, she's beautiful, she's kind, but we don't care about each other. It's not going anywhere.

The career is not going anywhere. I walked away from a career I loved, and I don't know how to say no. And like a cat stuck up a tree, I don't know how to climb down.

And I wanted to kill myself. And it was a beautiful, beautiful August morning. New York has ugly summers.

But this was a it was bell clear blue sky, bright sun with a wind blowing from Canada that was cool. And I got up and I wanted to die and I couldn't go to work. And I went to the 79th Street workshop, this big big meeting in the city.

And I sat there and I I didn't know what to do. I was having an emotional and spiritual bottom. And this man Keith came into my life and he basically taught me the big book.

And for a year we were inseparable. And I hope you all have heroes in AA, men or women who you look up to. I hope you have the experience I had of someone in AA when you just see them, it's easier.

And when you talk to them, the tension goes away. And when they give you time, it's going to be all right. People who transmit, all is well.

You're going to be okay, kid. Don't worry. It's not that bad.

It'll work out. And you feel it. And I followed him like a like a puppy and he taught me aa and he transmitted to me.

It's a very wonderful word transmit. It's used in our literature. The the form of Buddhism I practice talks about transmission.

I believe that that is what happens. The spark of divinity jumps across. Actually it doesn't jump across because the divinity in me salutes the divinity within you.

But by having that salute, it helps me to awaken that I am this thing. Keith taught me the big book. Taught me to go through the book and do these things.

There have been other sponsors. My sponsor Mike is sitting here. Mike has been incredibly kind.

I worked with one man for 12 years. It took me 11 years to only lie to him 20% of the time. Truth doesn't come quickly to me because I would rather die than be embarrassed or humiliated.

I would rather lie and strangle the relationship than say, "I screwed up again. Help me." I'll tell you what I know with the 23 years I have. I'm a doomed and hopeless alcoholic.

I am hopeless because I have a physical allergy. The first drink leads to the next and the next and the next. 5,000 years ago, the Chinese said, "The man takes the drink.

The drink takes the drink. The drink takes the man." That's what AA understands about the craving. But then the other part, why I'm doomed?

Because I am restless, irritable, and discontented unless I'm working this program, unless I feel some connection. And sobriety for me, and I get this from Chuck Chamberlain, sobriety is physical abstinence, plus the ability to be at peace, ease, and comfort with you, with me, and the God of my understanding. That is true sobriety.

And then I have something to give, and then I want to give it. I have been uh my life just won't stay up. There's a an old American blues song called Bad Born Under a Bad Sign.

I can't remember who wrote it, but there's a line in the song that says, "If it weren't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all." That's been what's blessed me. I haven't wanted to work with Christian mystics and then work with the Cabala and then go work with the Hindus. It's because I can't put the fire out in my soul except for brief periods.

It's, you know, there's a slogan, maybe you know it. It wasn't the light of heaven that got me into AA. It was the burning of the fires of hell on my ass that got me here.

Every time I think it's going well, it stops going well cuz I stop doing what I need to do and I cheat myself and I slip my throat and then the pain gets unbearable and then I get busy again and and then I I have a breakthrough. Bill once said to me, he said, "Kevin, you'll look back at this time, whatever the hardship was." He said, "You'll look back at this with envy because it woke you up and got you moving." See, cuz I want to hit the snooze alarm. I don't want to grow.

I don't want to get better. I don't want to be healthier. I want to get by, get over, and get away with everything.

That's my alcoholism. I would love to tell you and that stopped in 1989 or 96 or 2002. It's with me always.

It's always there. Uh I'm recently coming off a situation where it took years to discover that my anger made me an ugly person and that my desire to do the best for the drunks that I treat made me wrong. I was so interested in being right.

I became wrong and to learn that I must change. I must be different. That I must be a different kind of manager, a different kind of person.

That I must with my wife seek to understand rather than to be understood to give love. Aa is like the bank robbers note. And the note says, "Do what I say and nobody gets hurt.

>> >> And about 2 years ago, I had this realization that I will lie on my deathbed. Whether it's in 2 years or 40 years, if I don't change, I will lie on my deathbed and look back over my life and realize I had a magnificent life. What a godamn shame I didn't enjoy it while it was happening.

And that's alcoholism to miss the moment. This is a spectacular gracefilled miraculous moment and everyone before it and everyone leading up to it, the traffic jam on the way home, whatever is going wrong, my the answer is surrender. Like Bill told me, like like Mike said, I really know I'm surrendered when I truly give up.

And then there's something that comes in America. We don't seem to understand that peace does not come by fighting the war harder. Peace comes by putting down the weapon, putting up your hands, putting up the white flag.

The goal of AA is peace. Now, the world's still going to be the world with good guys and bad guys, with true evil and true kindness. But let me find peace and let me try to bring a moment of peace.

That's what AA offers. I I mean this AA we're so crazy here. You walk in the door, we hand you a big book, we hand you pamphlets, we hand you slogans.

Do you realize if you went to a Zen monastery, they'd make you kneel on hard stone floors for 12 years before they told you first things first? You know, if you went to be a Jesuit priest, they'd make you do 20 years of training before they gave you a glimmer of the inside job. We're throwing at the newcomer.

We'll walk you home. We'll come and pick you up. We're so desperate to help.

We're so crazy. We're so wonderful. We're God's kids.

Let's enjoy the ride. Thank you very much. >> 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.