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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. >> The sun may kiss the clear blue sky, and the rose may kiss the butterfly, and the morning dew may kiss the grass.

and you my friend I consider class but it's it's a an awesome responsibility to be here because uh it is true to I am a Roman Catholic priest in fact the only I am the only Roman Catholic priest who's really disturbed about all of the changes in the church I absolutely loved it when everything was in Latin nobody ever knew I had a drinking problem till I tried to say mass in English and that's when I got caught and that was very soon after I was ordained actually it lasted 362 days and we would all would want to go into all of that but I did I have I think six I did medical school and then I went to obl for seven years I have a whole ton of degrees after my name but the real postgraduate one is basket weaving and wallet making and and playing in porno putty in a Twitch farm down in Indiana in a laughing academy of which I was their guest for 57 weeks. No, not 28 days. All right.

Uh All right. I'd like you all to stand up and wake up, please. And just everybody get up and turn to the people closest to you and introduce yourself and just talk and wake up.

What's your name? >> Where? >> Oh, yeah.

>> That's right. I heard you shoulder last week in stainer. >> No.

>> Okay. >> All right. You're lucky.

>> This mic is not going to uh work on the house. I'd it'd be impossible to expect me to send. Can you hear me in the back?

>> Uhoh. No, this mic is not for uh but this mic is. All right.

Wow. All right. Well, it would really be neat if uh everybody who is here now would get to know everybody uh by the end of the day.

has kind of been uh a big demand. But really what we what we're talking about is uh is breaking down walls. And I I might I'll talk a little bit about that.

What the alcoholic person is is a person who is walled off. All right? And no matter how gregarious the person may be or how uh joy of the party, a joke teller, life of the party, all of those types of things that we go on uh deep down at the unconscious level, there is a great feeling of being walled off alone.

And so that's what we're going to start dealing with. Why uh are we or the gift of AA? It is my firm belief that it is a great gift and it is also statistically I'm sure here is where I did most of my work was Detroit.

For every one of us who is here, there are 35 other people who are not as fortunate and continuing in the vortex of their primary illness, alcoholism, which will lead to in well we call it organicity, brain damage or die of a very premature death. So but that's not what we want to talk about. We're here to talk about life and the gift of life and the opportunities we have and the blessings or you know the real blessings are the program the people in it and the tools of the 12 steps which guarantee freedom, happiness, peace and serenity.

Page 83 and 84 in the big book. and and those are the goals of why we're here and how do we arrive at that is through the internalization of the steps uh and I uh for the it is true you know that uh those are the guarantees this is my book as you can see because it's so many times now I've been in since 1965 right and working in the field and so many times people have come to and said, "Father, I can't understand what happened. I'm the best 12steper in my group." And I went and I had a slip and now he's half in the bag.

And I say, "Well, what do you mean you you you know your best 12 stepper?" "Well, I work like heck working with other alcoholics." And I said, "Well, that's not the 12th step." "Well, I I I I save drunks all over the place." I said, "That's not the 12th step." "Well, I I carried them." I said, "That's a third of the 12 steps." And I said, "Well, now where's your big book?" "Oh, my big book. I gave it to my first pigeon eight years ago because he needed it more than I did." And I said, "Well, let's get the big book and and read the 12 steps." So, we turn to page 60 and I read the 12th step and it says, "Having had a spiritual awakening." He goes, "Oh, there you go. You know, you priests and ministers and men of the class and counselors, how are you going to start pumping God down my name?

And if I don't want to hear anything about God and and so many people keep coming to me and said, if I had heard anything about God on the first time I went to AA, I would have been out the door in no time. But I really like AA. between page 58 and 103.

The name God is there 47 times. Right now I'm not here to to I want to talk about life and about freedom and about happiness and about peace and and that's you know the internalization of of of the steps. It is true that, you know, the the the the the fellowship of AA is vitally important if we're going to get rid of this walled off feeling and if we're going to join the human race and all of those things.

But the fellowship of AA will not bring about the profound personality change called psychic conversion from worry, anger, self-pity, and depression. the profile of the alcoholic when dealing with this reading this book I think it yeah it is in the fourth step will talk about the alcoholic's personality or the alcoholics's symptomatic problems are worry anger uh depression and wait I got it mixed up there worry anger depression anger and what what we're talking about is a negative vision and I and I will get into some of that. So what what we're talking about now is the internalization of the steps.

Nobody can do your work. The bottom line in in in deep deep here's some heavy Catholic theology for you now. Ready?

God is not going to come down and cook your breakfast. All right? There ain't no such thing as a free lunch right now.

If we want to arrive at what some of the gifts are or the guarantees are that comes through work and no other way. Uh and I can't emphasize that enough. I don't want to go into statistics about so many people I've met, you know, not the people that are here, of course, believe that an AA commitment means I go to one meeting a week, I sit in a smokefilled room, I drink very stale coffee, I eat a hard donut, and by darn, they better get me well.

And at the end of it, they say, "I tried aa, but it didn't work for me." you know, and that's not the goal of the program. Yes. You know, that certainly if if the alcohol or other psychotropic mood altering drugs, marijuana, all the pills, all of that type of stuff does not get out of our lifestyle, certainly there cannot be any progress made at all.

Well, certainly not. But just by the fact that we stop ingesting any chemicals then we have to start doing the real work about what recovery is about or spiritual recovery. Now when I say spiritual what I mean is I'll talk about it later too but developing the own solidarity within yourself so that you are able to accept the stranger coming as a bearer of gifts.

Now, that rolls off my tongue pretty easy. It's kind of a spine tingling phrase, but what it does mean is what is our place in the universe and how do we relate to other people? So, let's look.

No. Okay. We go back to my friend who keeps saying, "But I tried AA and it didn't work and I was the best 12steper in the group and uh I had a slip and I can't understand what happened and uh so we read it." He said, "Having had a he goes there, you're going to start Bible thumping me and you're going to start giving me all this type of stuff and that's not what I'm here for and all that type of stuff." And it says spiritual awakening.

Now what is a spiritual awakening you know and everybody you know and I can pick on Catholics because I'm one they expect magic right so much of of a a religious upbringing because of uh the way we might have been envisioning it which is not the real way tied up with magic let's pour a little water in a baby's head you won't go to limbo I mean it's so ludicrous you know I mean what god would create a creature in his own image and likeness to reflect back his love and if we don't go pour water on his head, he's going to limbo, right? And there's a whole bunch of other stuff. In fact, I'm sure a lot of you have heard word hocus pocus referring to method and and those words come from the words the priests use in the words of institution when he's celebrating Eucharist hawk estimus.

That's Latin and that's where that whole thing comes from. Hope is hope it's more magic and I want we want to get out of the magic both individual magic and group magic and even aa magic thinking that we just have to hang around meetings and sit in coffee shops till 2:00 in the morning sharing drunk a lot and we're going to grow spiritually it doesn't happen that way you know and I I can't emphasize that enough as a spiritual awakening and right away we want magic we want angel Gabriel to come down and and with his 76 trombones and going, "Don't worry, Von. Uh, you'll never drink again." Now, I myself thought that should have happened when I was locked up in Our Lady of Mercy Twitch Farm, Dyer, Indiana, in in my honeymoon jacket, one of those crazy hospital uniforms that doesn't close at the back and and you have to keep walking so you're back to the wall so you don't smile at people.

and and and there I was with uh 200 psychotics. It was one flew over the cuckoo's nest in real life. And I thought after I had been there 3 weeks that there I was a young priest only ordained a year.

Took me seven years to get ordained. I kept looking around for the magic. When is angel Gabriel going to come down and get me out of this place and to prove to me that the will that I'll never drink again?

Doesn't happen that way. And so you know what is it? a spiritual awakening.

Again, it is in the big book on page 569 in in the back and it'll talk about spiritual experience. That's the one word that was changed day from awakening to experience to get rid of that magic type of thing. And William James will talk about it and he's the father of American psychology.

And what he's talking about is an educational process. Educational process. Educare Latin word which means to lead out of a person.

A hierarchy of values which were once there but have gone dead dormant asleep nonoperational because of the development and continuation of a primary illness alcoholism. Okay. to lead out of a person a hierarchy of values.

Now, what am what are we talking about there? We're talking about selfworth. We're talking about selfrespect.

We're talking about dignity. We're talking about joy. We're talking about enthusiasm.

We're talking about commitment to life. We're talking about love. And we want to get into that one.

That would be uh well I'll explain some of those concepts later but we're talking about those internal things which are inside a person. We're talking about what really you know constitutes a human being and what gives them the motivation or the enthusiasm or to continue being able to celebrate life. If there's any a group of people who should be able to celebrate life, you know, and not have that perennial funeral going around in their heart all the time uh you know it should be all of us who are given the opportunity and the gift of the fellowship of AA and the internalization of the steps.

We're able to be to to to respond not react not react against not have be over against energy of reacting against life and situations but be able to respond and and have you know solutions. It doesn't mean that everything is going to be a bowl of cherries. It doesn't mean that it's euphoria.

I'm sure everybody knows a little bit about what the pink cloud situation is at the beginning and then uh ego boundaries get snapped back into shape and and the kind of pink cloud dissolves a little bit and then we can learn something about what the real internalization of the steps are. And so that when we talk about the 12 step, what we're talking about is what is the spiritual experience which we go through again the spiritual experience. Don't start looking up into heaven.

Lord, every time they mention God, everybody starts looking up into heaven, adoring God with his long white beard on a pink cloud and a lot of flaky angels struming hosana, hosana, hosana. And they haven't talked to their wife and kid in six weeks, right? and spend all night in that.

I'm on cake, though. I'd be very careful of what I say. Okay?

You're going to you're going to miss some of the nitty-gritty stuff. Believe me. So, all right.

So, where's the joy? Now, what's the purpose of going through recovery? What's the purpose of going through the commitment to do all this work?

And the work is on yourself. Nobody else. Most of us spent most of our time pointing the finger right at somebody, of course, not realizing there's three fingers pointing back here.

And it was always somebody else's fault or some other situation. Now that as the day gets on, we got to realize that stops, right? And I have to take responsibility for my life.

Evil does exist. Basic evil is when I project the responsibility of my behavior on somebody else. How come it happened?

Oh, here we go. You know, we've all done it. And I'm not saying that, you know, that we're going to be as pure as snow, but or that is not it at all.

We're humans and I will get into the shadow side of life and the redeemed side. But you have to start realizing, you know, that I mean I I counsel an awful lot of people and and it's and you know what he did. You know what he did and they're on the edge of his of their seat and they're persspiring and the emotional is is is just intense.

It's it's electricity all over the place. And I go, "Holy, when did that happen? 1986." I go, "It's 1994." you know and we and so many so we don't come into therapy we don't come into aa the word therapy meaning anything that is good for a person we don't come in that you know just to become independently functional that's not what turns a to life that's not what turns anybody's crank you know we come in for you know some real values now all of these steps were written in the past tense And that's not because it's grammatically proper.

That's not because, you know, it was the way that would be best uh expressing them. They could have been written in many, many different ways. But the point I'm trying to make with that is that the action of one is found in the following step and the action must be taken.

If the action is not taken, the step means nothing at all. It's just mental gymnastics. It is just verbosity and it is just sitting around talking about it.

And until that's internalized into the gut and until we work on it hard enough and change so that it comes into the unconscious level, it is just always going to remain an intellectual ascent to doctrine, dogma and definition. And that is not where life is lived. Life is not lived at intellectual ascent to doctrine, dogma, definition.

Life is an emotional response, gut response to situations in which we find oursel and that's where what basically what the AA program is all about. action is the magic word. like you hear these things so many times and you know okay fine I can remember when I was first in Lord I all the sayings all the slogans oh my was so fright you know I mean there I was with all these degrees in the nigh house I mean how could I let go that god I got degrees in ontology you know and epismolive oh my god what's that mean you know see and it's it's a head game and so now we got to it down to say okay if we want to get something out of out of today that you know is going to discard the brain and say okay what does where am I with this step today what does this really you know motivate me to do today so that I can work towards greater freedom happiness peace and serenity all okay the first the action the first step is found in the second step the action the second step is found in the third step the action action of the third step is found in the fourth step.

The action of the fourth is found in the fifth step. The action of the fifth step is found in the sixth step. The action of the sixth step is found in the seventh step.

The action of the seventh is found in the eighth. Keep going. The action of the eighth is found in the ninth.

The action of the ninth is found in the 10th. The action of the 10th is found in the 11th. The action of the 11th is found in the 12th step.

And I have to go through that. You know, as monotonous as it might seem to you because once I presume that everybody would understand if I said the action was the neg they say, "Well, Father Quinn says there's only six steps." Right? There are 12, you know, 12 in that order.

Now, you know, if there's some people here, I don't always to be fright, but who can't count from 1 to 12, please see me. No, we have another place. And if some people can't follow the order of 1 to 12, we need a little retraining because, you know, we're all quite selective, all of us.

And sometimes we take the step we want and we kind of hang on that one, right? And so my first 10 years in AA, I worked on step three. And then the next 10 years I worked on step nine and then the next 10 years.

It's not the way they're written. We start at one and when we finish one we go to two and when we finish two we go to three. Now it doesn't mean that once we've gone through that.

My own personal experience is that once it has been completed that you close the book on it and you never have to you know continue to look at the meaning of that step. In this book there are 45 pages pageuh 58 to page 103. There they are.

Right. If a person commits themsself, you know, either be in AA, Alanon, Allatine, 12step groups to say, "All right, this is how I'm going to live. This this will be the measuring stick." We can absolutely guarantee >> that that person will not again, you know, be troubled with with alcohol, the abuse or the use of alcohol, uh the addiction of alcohol to the drug, right?

And that's and absolutely. Now, can you imagine if I went to the American Cancer Foundation and say, "Well, I got 45 pages." If people commit themselves to live by that, they'll no one will ever die of cancer anymore. we could probably get $4 trillion dollars.

But here we are in in the in the with the great problem of addictions in our society. Uh and there they are. And I'm not just talking alcoholism.

I don't want to go into statistics about how many car accidents and more people are killed in car accidents through alcohol in all of Vietnam and on and on and on and on. It goes. No.

No. But you know for the number of us that continue to reread and and to internalize it is very very low. You know the number of people in in the program who who really get down uh to looking at that and not looking at comparing.

You know comparing is a very difficult problem. When we come into Alcoholics Anonymous, we compare all over the place. And and that's understandable because we're frightened, we're scared, we're disillusioned, we're all those things which we pretend we're not.

We're trying to be bravado and everything's going to be fine. And we start comparing all over the place, right? Am I better, worse, fatter, thinner, skinnier, taller, richer, poorer, as bad?

Did I go to jail? Did he go? Oh my god.

I spent 11 months in AA in the nut house. Really comfortable because you know I really didn't belong there because I'd never lost a wife. So that made me very comfortable.

You know I was already I didn't have to identify with any of that stuff. You know Lordy be. So we always pick something which we don't have to identif and we start comparing.

When we compare ourselves to other people, one individual to another individual in the spiritual in the spiritual life, we are losers. Absolute losers, you know, and and it gets tough, you know. I don't here I'm not here to make friends, you know, and and I'm not here to come off looking like and I'm not the authority in AA.

I am not the spokesman for AA but I am here with on a very sacred response that knowing that I'm dealing with life and death and I'm dealing with your life and your death and I don't expect to be here to stand here and just be funny. I like to, you know, if you want funny entertainment, we can I can do that for hours, right? But that's not why we're here.

This is very serious business. Again, for every one of you that's here, the same applies. You know, there's so many others out there saying, "I don't need AA and I can handle it myself." And I know what's going to happen to them, you know, cuz I live in that life in the daytime.

So that there's work to be done and and it doesn't mean that and it's going to be ego stripping. Yeah. And ego ego reduction is one of the characteristics which definitely must take place.

Now some of it is going to be aware at the conscious level. Majority of it is a totally unconscious level. And if we can get behaviors going so that we're able to accept it and and perhaps then we can work towards some type of real freedom, some type of real when I say solidarity within ourselves, I'm talking about selflove and appreciation of who we are as creatures.

All right? And that then all of the negative energy of being over and against can subside and we can get doing something positive. So we get to the first step again.

There are 12 and we look at the first step and the first step is admitting we are alcoholics. Now to admit something and not make a decision about it is absolutely futile. There are tons of people I know and have since working in this field which goes back to 1967.

Tons who admit they're alcoholic have not made the decision to do something about it and now they are in a situation where they are no longer free to make that decision. You follow what I'm saying? Right?

We have an opportunity to make a decision. Unless we internalize that and make a decision about that, we've really got to do something about it ourselves, right? And what that means is admitting the powerlessness over alcohol and all other mood altering drugs.

If we just say, "Oh, yeah. Well, I'm an alcoholic and and and this is the way it is and uh and continue to even go to aa but continue to drink. Finally, that alcohol will strip the person of any capacity to be free to make a decision and then we have organicity, brain damage, corsop syndrome, and ultimately whatever the ends turn out to be, brain damage and death.

And so there's an opportunity but but that again comes upon not by just thinking about it or thinking about all the external things that are going to happen but what are the the the the real guts of the challenge which is given to us. The first step has to deal with positive acceptance of our human condition. That's alcoholism.

to work out our destiny in this plot of toil which has been given us to till positive creative acceptance. And so we have to ask ourselves, you know, is is the fact that I'm an alcoholic a positive creative acceptance in in my situation that life is better for me and for those who I am committed to. Uh because so many of us might think that you know the giving up of the alcohol to put it that way is some type of a negative influence.

So therefore I can't drink and there we go with poor me poor me poor me poor me. No all the other fathers on the flying father team are drinking. I can't pour me.

Keep saying that long enough and we end up saying pour me another drink. And and that's not what it's about. And so what we get into at the beginning is the four words that that you have to get around with the first step.

And one of them is the hitting bottom. Then there is surrender. Then there's ego deflation, ego reduction.

And then there is humility. Now, hitting bottom, if hitting bottom is not followed by a surrender, it brings about absolutely nothing at all. Believe me, I've known magnificent people, you know, who have come upon some hard times, right?

And they were drinking sterno and cat heat and nappel and vitalis and guard leaves and shading cream and nail polish remover and carif and sax and paint thinner and a1 and orange river. What's the word? Thunderbird.

Oh, they were fantastic characters. And they would say to me, father, give me a buck tonight for my flop flop ticket because tomorrow night I'm I'm going tomorrow in the daytime I'm going back to New York to get my job back in the stock market. I'd say, "Well, how long have the hard times been?" It's only 9 years.

And and what I'm, you know, what I'm saying is the reality of the situation of both overcoat on that's all we owned and of, you know, beard unshaven, hair unckempt, all of those things. The iningable the the ego was not even impinged at all. Not even scratched.

It was still very much his majesty, the baby directing the universe, right? That's a Freudian term and I'll get I'll get into that when we start talking about about uh you know ego reduction. But the hitting bottom has got nothing to do with the drunkalogs.

The hitting bottom has got nothing to do with the horror stories. And my goodness gracious when we are at AA meetings, Alanon meetings, 12step meetings, yes, identified by what has been going on, what has stripped you of, but for goodness sakes, share with people how you're getting well. That is so important know to realize and so many young people are coming to AA and they're told oh you know I spent more in my time you ever drank in your life that was actually told to me when I was 31 years old or are you ever lucky to have coming into AA when you're 18 because you don't even know what pain is yet.

That's a horrible thing to say. And another untenable situate statement is I know just how you feel. I was there myself x number of years ago.

Untenable statement. Your feelings are your feelings singularly to you and also to the other person. You can never you'll never have an original thought in your life.

Everything's already been thought out. But your feelings are. And for me as a counselor or priest or whatever to assume that I know exactly how that person feels just because I went through all of the throws and the anguish and rejection and remorse and of alcoholism is totally invalid.

So when we start talking about hitting bottom it's got nothing to do with smashing fenders. It's got nothing to do with living in the disaffiliated communities of society. skid roll.

Everybody always says that, well, until I get that bad, you know, uh, and I because I've been around that long, I have heard known and people said, "Well, I'll never get that bad." I would never drink Sterno or I would never. When the bankroll empties and there is a bottle beside you in the bed, if there's a bed, right? And in that little can, you know, the remedy for pink polkadotted alligators and turkeys with straw hats and the Santa Fe train coming down the middle of the roof and all of those free floating anxieties that are there in total horror crawling under your skin and you know if you drink some of that stuff all that's going away you drink it.

Believe me, you know we all say, "Well, I'm certainly not a skid row. I've never drink." That's what we say now. but stay in the throws of the vortex of the disease of alcoholism and not make a decision to do something about it.

Namely, the stopping of the ingestion of alcohol and then the internalization of a program of recovery that actually happens. See, I'm not talking about a little social situation here or about unemployment or or about all those other things we hear about all the time. We're talking about life and death, right?

very very seriously and and unless we make those decisions and what our thinking is needs a lot of revamping you know and to be able to be appreciative that and that we'll end up talking about gratitude because unless that silver thread of gratitude is going through every alcoholic's life man woman we end up again demonstrating uh a response to life that is over and against negative so we get to the first step and it means they're hitting the bo hitting bottom. And what hitting bottom is is brought to us by reality, not by a priest, not by a therapist, not by, you know, somebody talking to me, not by any of those things. is when we can wake up to the fact that reality is speaking very loud and very clear and the person has to accept they cannot keep doing the things they have been doing.

Sure, alcohol is one of them. The ingestion of alcohol is one. But how about manipulating people, you know, and all of those other types of things, you know, and and that's when we start getting down to to, you know, like every one of us who's alcoholic, you know, we can very easily win three Academy Awards in one afternoon, you know, and you know that as well as I do if we have to, right?

If the heat's on and we got to do something to get somebody else to agree, we can play general bull moose. We can, you know, we can go through all kinds of roles and acts, you know, and walk away saying we've done it again, right? Yeah.

I mean, how many of us sit at the bar, you know, go through all of this nonsensical thing, you know, and and I mean, the grandiosity, you know, and the big shotism and how, you know, how lucky the world is to have us graciating it with our presence, right? They don't realize how fortunate they are, you know, and that's a little bit Oh, it's a lot to say. Okay.

So the hitting bottom means you know that the pain comes yeah but the person is is is able you know reality speaks loud enough you know because how many people we can we can start talking about the hallmark of every illness of alcoholism of every addiction is denial. Denial. And that's there for a very good purpose.

I not reason but purpose. When an alcoholic drinks the effects that are elicited mentally, chemically, biologically, pharmarmacologically in the alcohol are very very different from the effects that are elicited in the social drinker. Now I don't know if you want the big lecture on tetrahydro isofquinolin but what is produced in the brain is twice as uh addictive than heroin right and they've done all kinds of tests and very simply I'll do it quickly you know oh this arm car says say that 80% of the this is 80 everybody who's pulse is going to definitely suffer the negative effects of of nicotine inhalation.

Everybody who drinks does not suffer the negative effects of alcoholism. Everybody who drinks is not going to turn out to be a chronic addictive compulsive uncontrolled drinker. There are two very very distinct different pharmacological androgal responses to the chemical alcohol.

Now I'm going to oversimplify a lot of pharmacological doubly endocrinology stuff I did in after I went there. See, I made a mistake there. After they made sure I got sober, right?

See, usually we say after I got sober. After I made a decision to go get sober. Check that one out when you're thinking about it.

See, I never made a decision. Father Kusino, who has domestic jurisdiction over me, who says tuck and that's where I go, sat me down and said, "You're going away." and next week I was in a paper honeymoon jacket. Right?

That's the reality of it. That is the honest 1967 June the 16th. That was it.

Right? And and because I I I was just lucky enough to be brandly new and the heat was on. What do we do when the heat's on?

We join. Don't worry, honey. I'm going away.

Hey, don't don't throw me out. Don't leave. Oh, no.

No. I'm going away. A right.

the same thing. I mean, it took me seven years to become an oblate priest. Here it is 363 days later and I'm entire Indiana.

I mean, it it's exactly not what I had planned, nor God had planned, nor the oblate fathers, nor anybody else. So, after they made sure that I was put in an environment where I couldn't drink anymore, right? And then we start working on on some on on some of these things.

They definitely said go to AA and I said what? What? All these degrees and all this stuff and the holy oil of you want me to go to those bunch of drunks and get help?

He said nurse this nurse was college. Believe me, I'm a priest and all I see are souls. But this soul had played defensive end with the Chicago Bears for 9 years.

And she says, "Plissa was her name. Doctor, why don't you go to AA?" I said, "You have your mind." Me, "Wow, with all this stuff that I ridiculous." I said, "Listen, go upstairs and get some shock treatment. I think you better break that." Selfishness.

What's the next move? How do I get out of here? >> Next move.

Will this help me get out of this nut house if I go to the AA meetings? Yes, it will, but I'll go. Right.

And I went and I sat down and there were about 12 people. It was a closed AA meeting in the nut house, right? And so everybody's an alcoholic.

I'm an alcoholic. I'm an alcoholic. I'm an alcoholic.

I'm an comes around to me. What am I going to do? I'm an alcoholic.

You join Right. Get your heat off. And then because I talk funny and before I was mature, I used to talk fast and and I said funny words like out about in Houston in Chicago, you know.

So I started giving AA talks all over the place. I was giving AA talks. I never knew what I was talking about.

Someone put this book in my not this one cuz this one's relatively new. And I said, "What's this book? This book can't help me.

I've got a license in philosophy. So, I put the book down. All of the alcoholics in that hospital stayed there for 14 days and then they went out and did some retraining and some uh re investigations and a little track history and guess and they were always carried back in and they always be carried back in sideways or draped over somebody's shoulders and you know 3 months later they kept coming back in and 3 months later guess who's still there and they'd look at me and say you're still here.

You really must be sick, right? So then I picked up the book and said, "How to get out of the nut house, discharged from the looney bin, how to get out of the twist farm. It must be in here someplace, but I'm missing." And that's when I start to read the book.

Naturally, in the next 6 months, I rewrote it a few times, and that's the way it goes. And so we start looking at the hitting bottom. Okay.

Now I'm going to tell you when it came to me 11 months of therapy. I mean that means hard. I mean this was no, you know, sit around make phone calls.

No phone calls, nothing. Nothing. Aa meetings every night.

11 months. The doctor said to me, "Father, what are you going to do when you want to drink? drink.

>> Hey doctor, I got I I got reinstated as a priest. I was suspended which means you can't say mass. Okay.

I got my faculties back which means I can celebrate liturgy now. And I went on I you know was able to go to a church and work on the weekend. You know I I I And what he said to me is, "Father, you have just told me you are powerful over alcohol.

Go back and start all over. You haven't." It's not funny. This is 11 months.

This is a year. You know, that's why I joke when the people say, "I can't afford 28 days." But what I had done with the AA business, sure. Yeah.

When the heat's on, boy, we're going to accept everything. Hey, we're going to look like the best little patient they ever had at the conscious level, right? But what I had done with uh with the whole internalization of accepting and the humility and the ego deflation is exactly the same thing as when I was in high school and was the best goalender in Montreal.

I never passed an exam in high school out of defiance. I just kept going to whatever school I wanted to, you know, and then I went right into a medical school without any any any uh report cards, whatever. And then I got into the Oblate Fathers where I was for seven years caught up with all these little studious guys from Louvane and Rome and Ireland and and Africa.

And so what was the uh what was the motivation? number one. I never put the goldie pads on once those seven years unless there was 7 or 800 people around.

All right. Really? But the number one drive then was to come out and be number one all the time.

Right. And sure pulled it off. Right now you come into a and you apply the same unconscious tools that all we got to do is whip this thing into shape.

Right. Prove my superiority over it. Prove my control over it and then everything's going to be fine.

Boom. The doctor says, "Go back and start all over." 11 months of therapy. I think it was $2,500 a month.

You're blowing the whole thing. Go back and start all over. And so, when we start looking at hitting bottom is to really evaluate and say, "Okay, what's reality saying?" Yeah, reality saying, "I absolutely cannot touch a drop of alcohol.

To this very day, I am as powerless over alcohol." Well, lordy be. I'm 28 years older and at that time I spent 57 weeks locked up and if it's a progressive illness, if I touch alcohol again, no one's ever going to see me ever cuz I'll die before they let me out and I ain't willing to give up any hockey games or shore holders or sailboats or whatever. There's too much life to go on.

And so when we talk about that is, you know, do we are we really able to do that? And is that, you know, to look at the reality because there's got to be the hitting bottom, the looking at that, you know, all of the the horrible things that went on and say, do we surrender to it? Do we surrender to that fact where there is no more fighting?

It's a lot deeper than acceptance. Acceptance still leaves an awful lot of a person in there to reurrender to the fact that we're absolutely defeated by who? Our best friend.

When I go through that know that the business of the 80% of the drinkers over here when they drink too much it's a depressant it's a woo a downer. It's a fall asleep. It's uh you know get sick the next morning it's I'll never do it again.

Look at us the 20% of us what happens when we drink and upper produces euphoria that wall which I talk about which we all had and still do for a lot of us that walls us off from the west of the world dissolves and we become kinship with everybody. We are the best dancers. Can't dance a damn.

But you know, three drinks and you're making Jean Kelly and Fred a stair look like they're totally paralyzed. Right? If I had a bottle of Hagen Hag when I'm writing a sermon, I would make Pton Sheen look like he had a speech impediment, right?

And everything is magnificently glorious, right? And it is fun and it is stimulating and we are the best salesman and the best lovers and the best cooks and the best everything. And it's just magnanimous.

And why is that happening is because of the size of the cells in the liver and the norepinephrine and the serotonin. I want to say to you all this stuff which produces something in the brain called tetrahydroisquin which is very addictive and which is euphoria producing. And that goes on until there's cellular tissue breakdown and that's when the funny hahas turn into the funny tragedies and utter catastrophes.

But the initial response is always worthy of being repeated. Most of us here could sit down and tell us about our their first experience with alcohol because it was that impressionable on our brain. I was 17 years old sitting in the Kent Tavern with Kenny Rearen, Morris Reard, uh well Bill Der wasn't there, Ray Gler, Kenny M.

These are Montreal Canadians. I mean, this is more important than the Pope. If you're in Montreal, you're an English-speaking guy in Montreal, you want re, you want to assume to the highest position in the world, it's the Canadians.

And there I was drinking quarts of Molson's, which were 40 cents for the court. So, I can remember, right, with the big guys. I mean, this is better than heaven.

I'm 60 now. That was that was 43 years ago and I can remember it like that, right? Cuz that's what was being produced.

And then it went on and it got better and it got better and it got better and then I joined the oblates and for seven years didn't touch a drop and then I got back and tried to catch up on my drinking and of course I was 7 years older 40 lbs lighter and the funny haha had changed into darn tragedies. Then the remorse came and all that type of stuff. But when I talk about surrender to that fact I'm talking about not just submission.

The big problem is compliance. when we go through the the externally go through all of the motions and we come to AA because we know that you know reality speaking and so we're going to submit ourselves to this discipline right the energy that is coming out of our gut is still over and against and we're going to comply and yes we'll do what they tell us complying knowing that What's going on on the outside is everything is so magnificent that I am so happy and if I keep coming to these meetings I'll get my job back and I'll get my wife back. I'll get my my seniority back and I'll get all this.

But deep down inside it's compliance, which means we're verbalizing a whole bunch of nice terms and a nice bunch of humility and all of that stuff, but inside we're steaming with hostility. His majesty, the baby got stopped. And so we get stopped, but we don't surrender to that.

We say for a while I can I work a lot of prisons. I can stand on my head for this sentence. Piece of cake.

And so there's no real surrender to it. And the surrender comes you know only by doing a lot of action by doing a lot of of action. So that you know what's at the conscious level at that conscious level is all the nice things.

Hey, oh, I'm so happy I'm in aa and isn't it nice and I don't have to have these philosophical discussions with the toilet bowl every morning and I'm actually getting to work and the kids talk to me once every four or five months and it's really good and then inside we're steaming with hostility bastards, right? Got stopped and we're not accepting that. We're not nowhere near accepting powerlessness.

And unless we start working on that and measuring that we can go to AA meetings from now till doomsday and we can go to every AA roundup and conference in the world and unless we start internalizing these things it's the same type of energy which over over and against you know it's the same type of fighting it's the same type of trying to claim our own superiority that doesn't always mean we have to be acting like General Bulmoose we can be Sally seductress and we can be all kinds of things, you know, to get our way. And when we really talk about the surrender to the fact is surrendering to life, it's not giving up. No, and it's not surrendering to to negative stuff.

And it's it's not that. But it it's and it's not just acceptance because acceptance means I accept, but it's still an awful lot of I in it. And when we talk about ego reduction, we're talking about getting the eye out of it.

What am I talking about in ego reduction? I'm talking about what the infantile ego is even before it is born. And what do we got?

We've got omnipotence. We got a very low tolerance to any type of frustration. And we have doing everything in a hurry.

Omnipotence means all powerful. My wish is the world's command. And when I express it, you better jump.

Right? And that's the infantile eagle. Then with what happens, we see that.

Well, come on. How many of us at our at our adulthood throw tantrum fits? You know, little majesty the baby.

No, somebody stepped in our ego and it didn't go the way we wanted. We want to do very very low frustration tolerance to any type of frustration if something doesn't go our way. What I'm doing is when you know sure a lot of you know a lot more about bringing up kids than I do, but it it's exactly what we're talking about is the very early stages.

When the child comes into the world for the first year, there is no separation between himself or herself and the rest of the world with his arm moves or her arm moves. The world is moving. There is no separation between the child and the mother.

He's totally omnipotent, totally egocentric, totally narcissistic. Narcissism fancy word psychiatrists use it on every drug. But what's it mean?

a guy or a gal having a love affair with themsself and they can't stand the object of their affection. That's hell. That is hell.

Walled off. I'll get back to that walled off business right from the rest of We can be married and we can be father of a hundred kids and we can be running big whatevers and still be walled off. and never get to know what the real promises of the program are.

So when we're talking about ego reduction, I'm not talking about going around saying I'm a sewer. I'm a sewer. I'm a great big s.

I'm no good. I know that is phony. A lot of people have to have phony guilt so that they don't have to do anything about themsel.

If I can get it into my head that I'm no good, then I don't have to change. And what we're all about is change every day of our life. Right?

And that's a challenge. And sometimes it's much easier to keep going to AA meetings saying, "I'm the rottenest. I'm the dumbest.

I'm the ugliest. I'm the stupidest person in all of this group." And everybody says, "No, George, you're not the stupidest. You did get the grade to remember." Okay, fine.

But don't ever say, "George, you know, you're one of the stupidest people in this room. Watch what happens." Right? No.

But it what I say is a lot of people keep walking around negative, negative, negative. I'm no good. I'm no good.

I'm no good. I'm no good. I'm no good.

You know what they're saying? There is no supreme being to me that can forgive me. Therefore, I don't have to change.

Therefore, I can keep going away 8 28 years later saying the drunk a lot. Back in 1964, you know, I came through a window at Ruby Foos nightclub. One day, woke up in a hospital where I had been saying mass two days before.

Nurse saying, "Father, don't swear. 18 stitches in my head. What in the name of God has that got to do with January the 22nd, 1994?

Right. Nothing. But we can go through life telling that funny.

And if I go through my drunk with you, we could have you all roaring on the floor because just like everybody else in here, I'd only tell you the funny things. The hypothalammus gland goes back into our brain to bring out the good things. It doesn't go looking for guilt, shame, remorse, pain, all of those things which were horribly excruciating, you know, and the remorse.

Oh my god, the real hell of alcoholism at 3:00 in the morning. The hypothalamus is an origin. It's really goes back just looking for the good things.

So, I'll tell you about the funny things and coming through nightclub windows and oh, funny, right? for a riot 3:00 in the morning. You never do it at 3:00 in the afternoon.

No excitement, right? I mean, if a priest has got to come and get you, why you don't get him to come and get you at 4, wait till 4 in the morning cuz then you really get some action going, you know? So, ego deflation, okay, what we're talking about is deflating that part of the ego which is self-will run.

that that has to be so that we can reality speaks to us, right? But it's not talking about deflating that part of the ego which we need for selfworth, for dignity, for selfrespect. No, to be able to accept other people, to be able to love, which is an extension of myself for the spiritual well-being of another person.

Right? It's not saying I'm no good, I'm terrible, I'm bad. That is not it.

That is phony. It's false. It's against nature and it's against God.

Didn't create you. Created every one of you. It holds every one of you in the palm of his hand.

Says, "I love you. I love you. I love you.

I love you." And so when we talk about ego deflation, what we're talking about is the infantile part. The part that acts like the infantile on that his majesty the baby. I want what I want when I want it.

The rest of the world better jump when I say so and dance to my tune. And don't you realize how lucky you are to have me around here? And my god, then we start going on this kick, right?

And it can happen at a red light. It can happen when you're stopped at a red light. You know, a double red light that lasts for 30 seconds, right?

And all of a sudden, we're acting like like idiots, right? when it's a simple little red light and I and and then we get into some, you know, interpersonal relationships and that type of stuff. Oh my god, you know, how could this person do this to me?

Don't they know everything I've done for them? And we start going through all of that type of stuff. But but there's just that part of the ego.

But because there's a lot of therapies which came out in the 60s namely Cinon dayop which completely destroyed people just yell at them and accuse them and make a let me why are you doing with that you know making all kinds of uh statements which were totally untenable and just crushing the person down to zero all the time and they're just leaving them there like a pool of water right that's not what AA is about no we're about freedom happiness peace and serenity which were measurable, documentable. All these words which I use are are are not pious puffballs in the sky. They're measurable, documentable, uh, observable, behavioral relationships in in in with other people.

Freedom, tenderness in the way I talk to people, touch people, listen to people, be present to people, respond to people. That's measurable. It's observable.

It's documentable. Right? and freedom.

That's what it is, right? Doesn't mean that I can go slap happy all over the place doing what I want, dancing down the street. We all did that when I was in the Netherlands.

You know, we had marvelous free time. It's a little embarrassing though when guys hit the baseball and run to third base. I said, "Oh my god." So, when we talk about the first step, there's two columns.

I feel depressed. I feel guilty. I feel worry.

I feel unclean. I feel ashamed. I feel pushed around.

I feel uh Give me some more. >> Powerless. >> Powerless.

I feel unloved. I feel ashamed. Some more.

>> Angry. >> Angry. I feel angry.

I feel frustrated. Irritated. >> Guilt.

>> Guilt. Lonely. Alone.

Walled off. Nobody cares. Nobody loves me.

Uh, feel scared. >> Isolation. >> Isolation.

>> Useless. >> Useless. Yep.

Yeah. >> Attack. >> Attack.

>> Hopeless. >> Hopeless. Definitely hopeless is a good one.

No hope. Shame, shame on it all. >> Shame, shame, and guilt.

You know, why did I waste my life? And here we go. Let's spend the next 10 years trying to figure out why I waste life.

If you're here trying to figure out why you drank, waste of time. Total waste of time. Clinically, I can show you all kinds of things.

That's not what we're trying to figure. A lot of people go into therapy and say, "Well, I've gone in to heal the inner child, and now I found out who I am. Everything's going to be okay.

So, now that I know what my problem is, I can drink again." No way. Opposed to that column. The other column is feeling at peace, feeling clean, feeling worthy, feeling loved, feeling uh enthusiastic, feeling joyfilled, feeling, give me some more.

>> Wholesome, whole, >> a sense of belonging. >> A sense of belonging. >> Useful.

No really >> happy, >> happy, >> wanted, >> free, wanted, >> alive, >> alive, >> and love. >> Wanted, needed in love, >> pardon. >> Attached, >> hopeful, >> hopeful, >> okay, you got the sense of it.

So, and I don't want you to raise hands now or or you know, but which which column do you identify with most? Not that they're static and that that they're they're going to be etched in concrete forever, but you have to say which where where am I with those things? And if it's too much on the negative side, then it's the first step.

If you want to know where you are with the first step, it's not drunk. It's not the fact that you're not drinking or drugging. It's where are you with this positive creative acceptance of life?

No. And how come if I've been sober 28 years and I feel still feel isolated or unloved or you know is it the program's fault? You know, am I going to start that business?

Evil is blaming other people for things that come about in my life, right? And so that there's a you know when we accept and surrender much deeper than accepting that we're able to start working on that. So just you know keep those thoughts in your those two columns in your mind and say where am I with that?

What happens when somebody doesn't do what I want them to do? Huh? Really?

What happens if someone's lived a lifestyle that I don't approve of? Am I judgmental? Anyway, we were supposed to break for coffee 10 minutes ago.

So, Ron, if we break now, what time do we want to come back? >> From 5. >> At 5 to 11, we'll come back.

>> 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.