Bob D. AA Male Disk #4 (final)

**Bob Daryl** (0:00)
It's a bad way to go. I went through a period, I'm not proud of this, when I was, I had double-digit sobriety, and I was single, and I was making a lot of money, and I started, unbeknownst to me, I started building a life on self-gratification and self-grandizement. You know, at one point, I had three almost $100,000 cars, they were all paid for, and two motorcycles. I was flying around the world first class, and I had a lot of money and a lot of prestige and a lot of crap, and I was building this house of cards based on self. And while you're doing that, as long as, before the wheels fall off, it's kind of cool. And if you'd ask me, as I'm building this life based on self, how you doing, Bob? I'd have said, man, I'd have answered you how I felt. I'd say, I'm doing great. See, see my new car? I'm doing great. I think if you'd asked Clancy during that period of time, he probably would have said, well, I think if he lives through this, he might help some people.
And then I went through a divorce 10 years ago, I guess. Tough time, tough time. There's no easy divorce. I was, I was very scared. I was depressed. I, it, it, thank God, I was, the actions of Alcoholics Anonymous kept me from sinking into a depression because depression can't hit a moving target. And I was busy in AA. If you'd asked my, if you'd asked me, how are you doing, Bob? I think I'd have told you, I ain't doing that good. I don't like this. I'm scared. I feel like a failure. I don't like any of this. I would have told you, I ain't doing that good. If you'd asked my sponsor, he would have told you, and I could, I just had this conversation. He said, Bob's doing good. He's calling me a couple times a week. He's making his commitments. He's returning his phone calls. He's actively looking for people to sponsor. He's going to a lot of meetings. He would have based how I'm doing on what I'm doing and not on how I feel, and which is real and which isn't. What I'm doing is the only thing important. It's the actions I take that cut the course of my life. Chuck Chamberlain used to tell a story about sitting at his house up on the hill in Laguna Beach and looking out across the ocean to the sailboats that were sailing between the harbor in California and Catalina Island. And he used to say, it is not the make of the boat or the cost of the boat that determines its course and where it ends up. It is only the set of the sail.
And Alcoholics Anonymous has encouraged me to take the actions that catches the wind of God's grace and takes me in through my life. But I have to take the actions. And see, if you are a sailor, you don't hold the sail direct. You tack into it. And AA showed me how to tack in my own life. And it doesn't make any sense. In step five, in the book, The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, it starts off that chapter by talking about the principles of alcoholics and anonymous will run contrary to what you would want. And they really do. The actions that are appropriate never seem appropriate when they're appropriate. I don't know, you ever had a really bad day and you're really depressed and your life's cropping, you're worried about a lot of stuff and you just think you feeling need to sit and think for a while, and your sponsor says, go to detox. Well, those new people can't even help me with my problems. And yet if you go to the detox and you spend an hour with a new guy, you will find a solution there that has nothing to do with the problem.
When I was, I'll tell you this little story and I'll shut up. When I was 10 years, almost 10 years sober, they got me up on the ski slopes of Utah. They tried, they've been trying to, people in AA have been trying to get me to go skiing for all those years and I wouldn't go because I'm afraid to look bad. I'll do anything where I can start as an expert, but I don't like the learning curve, right? Well, I was finally sober long enough to be willing to look a little stupid, to learn something that might be fine. I was going to give it a shot. So they get me up there, they get me, first of all, they get me on this chair. And they don't tell you how hard it is to get off the chair at the top. They don't tell you that. And they, I'm coming up there in the end of the chair and I got to get off. Well, I don't know how to get off. So I just fall. Now there's people coming in on top of me, yelling at me and stuff, you know, like, oh, I'm, it's bad. It's high altitude. I'm worn out. I'm not used to this high. I can't get a breath of air. It's bad. I got this weird clothes on. It doesn't, this is, I want to go home. I want to go home. This is not, all right. I rode the chair up. Isn't that enough? And the guy says, no, you got to ski down this hill. And I'm looking down this hill. And it's like miles straight down. This is the most intense bunny hill you'd ever see. It was unbelievable. Oh my God. I'm freaking out. And he says, he says, you got to make this pie, this pizza pie wedge. And you get down and you turn it and...