David L. from Fayatville, NC at Seaside, OR January 2nd 2000

Thank you, Zan, thank you so much. My name is David Lloyd and I'm an alcoholic. It's a pleasure to be back here. I came here in April of 94 for the first time. That was my third time speaking at a conference and it was a wonderful place. It still is. Seaside is gorgeous. I want to thank Zan particularly for all the extra touches she has done. She and Harlan have been wonderful and I mean that we have been fantastic. Fantastic.

Thank you.

If you ever call them again, you'll notice that on their recorder they have a little message that says please repeat your number twice because our recorder has a problem or something like that. And So what I've been doing for the last several months is everything I say I've been retweet repeating twice. Hello, Harlan. Hello, Harlan. This is David. This is David. We go through the whole thing and

and so we've had this little running, a double recording going. Of course, I blew it the first time I got to buy and I didn't say bye bye.

So we had to make that one up. It's a pleasure to be with you. Thanks to the committee and Cherry over and thank you so much. And Cheryl, I think the committee and the and the work that's been done here. In fact, Harlan came to me over two years ago,

he said, David, if we can put this together, will you come and speak in Seaside again? And I told him I would

and and then he wrote me a postcard and said you're committed.

I knew I was, but it's a pleasure to be back. I want to talk with you today. No, by the way, we do have a this is course, the new Millennium. This is being the new year. And and I want to thank Wayne last night for starting out, leaving the 1999 in a beautiful way. What a wonderful Sherry. Thank you.

Good job.

And I've also found that Wayne and Nora shake a mean leg on the dance floor, too. I want to tell you, they were out there last night, but nice dancing, too. But I want to tell you that we're bringing into the new Millennium in this first speaker meeting, perhaps for you. It is certainly my first speaker meeting. A new concept you can see in the center of the room, the ball is still turning right at the top here. And I don't know what that means except it's been burning all night long. And so I guess we'll have lights at some point. It's the new way to celebrate.

Just a little sidebar humor. It's early, I know.

I want to talk to you about a dis ease I have and I want to talk to you about it in a very real way. Is is as Anne said, I look like maybe I lost a car. I did find it, but that was at a Holiday Inn one night, but took a little while the next day, but I did find it. But the truth is, I really don't know how to describe this disease or disease I have except to tell you that it affected every fiber of my body.

One of the things that this disease or disease I have does to me is it allows me to proceed, be perceived by most people as being OK.

You know why I tell him that? How you doing? I'm I'm fine in North Carolina. Somebody asked me about North Carolina. I think it was Joe and I was showing him some dialects so he could impress one of his friends. But

yeah, he got it. He got it. Y'all can see Joe after the meeting, he'll give you his Dalek. But. But the point I'm making is that I was in North Carolina when we were born. In fact, it's just a moment or two before birth. You have to start smiling and you have to mumble these words. I'm fine. How you? I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. You have to shake your head, like just just a little bit, Michael. Not much, but just a little bit. You know not. I'm not even Japanese, but you know, I'm fine. How are you? I'm fine, I'm fine

and you go through like it's called finding we perfect fine into a fine art. How you doing this Well, I'm fine. How you doing? I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. Thank you so much. I'm fine,

oh, I'm fine, I'm fine saying Oh no, I'm fine, I'm fine. I don't, I don't need anything. What do you want for Christmas? All you'll come or something. So I got getting Combs.

I just finally figured that out this Christmas.

I'm fine. You see, my disease says to me that if I'm not fine, you will not like me. If I'm not fine, See, my worst fear, my worst fear is you're going to find out that I'm afraid. See, if you think I'm afraid, if you know me as afraid, then you will not want me to be around you. And so my, my, my, my, my whole drive in life, my whole, this whole disease for me is that feeling of having to be OK. And inside I'm absolutely collapsing,

having to be OK. And inside it's like there's this explosion inside of my gut and it's like chronically there every day. Having to be OK and say the right words and not knowing what the right words are. Having to be OK and dress the right way, or maybe not dress the right way or lose weight, gain weight depending on my age

and never having it right.

That's my disease. You see, there's a section here in the big book that to me absolutely summarizes and in fact Wayne mentioned it last night, but it's on page 62. This disease, this disease I've come to know is alcoholism says this. It says this on page 62. Selfishness, self sending this that we think is the root of all of our troubles. Driven by 100 forms of fear, self delusion, self seeking and self pity. I stepped on the toes of my fellows and they retaliated,

seemingly without provocation. But we invariably find that it's sometime in my past.

I have made decisions based on self which have come back later to hurt me. That is a summary of my life, including the lost car ahead.

I could stop right there. Hundreds of forms of fear. Hundreds. Do you know what it's like?

It's like, am I the only one

that feeling? Am I OK? Am I OK?

The first thing I remember I was, I don't know, five or six. My mother asked me to well, we were going to a relative's house. I don't know it was an aunt or uncle, but we went and I was in the back seat and my mother pointed and she said don't you ask for one thing when we get there with my brother Larry and I. He was 16 months two days old at that time. He still is nothings changed at that point. But he pointed, she pointed, she said now don't you ask for one thing not not even a drop of water because I don't want Aunt Sue to to say Lipa and Claudia, my mom and my dad are welcome back here. But those mean young guns had better never do this again

and never come again. And so I sat there. I don't know if you ever did this. The next memory, I was on a wooden bench at the back door. And I was sitting on my my hands. Have you ever done that? Stuck them under my thighs so I wouldn't touch anything. So I want to get in trouble. And I remember people walking by and I'd go. I'm fine. How are you? You want some drink? Oh, no, I'm fine. Thank you. I'm fine. I'm fine. I had to go to the bathroom so bad

and I would not. Do you know what? I learned It was OK from my counselor in treatment at the age of 40,

she said. I could even leave the group and go if I didn't have to go,

I said. But what do I do when I'm in there?

This is a true story and she said Just go in and kind of look at yourself and wash your hands and come back.

So I tested her

I

and it worked. So he always it wasn't so much going to the bathroom, it was coming back. I just knew. They all knew where I'd been.

Was that fear? That fear.

So I got in the car, the first thing in the car, and I said, mom, how did that do? How did it do? Did they want me to come back? And I don't know if you know that fear, that base fear of never, ever being accepted back. And you've got to do more than you are. You've got to say more than you are. You've got to be more than you are or you're not because you're not enough. I just didn't have a plan. I didn't know what else supposed to be

hundreds of forms of fear, hundreds of forms in every way possible, hundreds of forms of self delusion. And some people asked me last night when I share this because it's something I haven't shared. I don't share every time now, but I think it's very important I don't forget it. In 1989 I met a guy named Joe and only give Joe credit. They say after three times it's yours, but I'm going to give Joe credit because Joe changed my life, he said at a meeting in downtown

Dallas, TX. He said to to said in this meeting that alcoholism is a disease characterized by pyramiding thoughts.

That's pretty highfalutin. Yeah. And I didn't understand it, so I went to Joe. I said, Joe, what do you mean? And he said it's like this. It's an upside down pyramid. It comes right out of the center of this head of mine. It has all my life. And it works like this. I can be sitting in my office 9:00 in the morning. Good morning. How are you doing? I'm fine. How are you? Good morning. Good morning. How are you? I'm fine. How are you doing, Daniel? I'm fine. Thank you very much. I'm fine

people. My boss walks by about 9:30. I'll go. Good morning, Don. He doesn't speak. For whatever reason, he doesn't speak. And here it goes. Starts right here.

So a thought process comes right out of the center of this wonderfully active brain I have.

What do? I didn't speak. First of all. Second thought, he's probably upset with me. Third thought, I bet it was that report I gave him this afternoon. Joe, he didn't like that report yesterday. Poor thought. We got a meeting at 1:00. I bet he's going to fire me.

Somebody. You've been there.

9:00 I'm fine. How you doing? Good morning. I'm fine. 901 I'm fired. I hadn't left my desk.

I haven't left my office.

Nobody's come in and no phone calls have come in. But I'm fired. And then I take that pyramid. That's enough. But I'll start and build another pyramid on top of that pyramid. And I think, well, if he's fired me, so that's a given. Now I don't have to negotiate that anymore. It's a given.

Well, he fired me. OK, so then I have to go down to Ray Ave. to the unemployment office and apply for unemployment.

Well, what if they won't give me an unemployment check

then? I started out with you, man. Well, I'll go by the Marina Dale bread store and buy bread for my family.

9:00 I'm fine. How are you? Good morning. Fine. 901 I'm fired. 901 1/2 I'm buying day old bread.

I have not left my office.

Now understand the interesting part about this. If anybody walks in during the course of that thought process, guess what I will say when they say, how are you doing this morning? I'm fine. How are you doing?

That's some fine thinking, is what? That is some fine thinking. I had it honed. You know, it's like this. You wake up on Tuesday morning feeling pretty good, got to go to work and you scratch a pimple. It's right here in your calf of those on this side of the table. I do it on this side. It's on your calf right here,

and you get in the shower. You scratch it a couple more times, you sit down, you're putting on your socks, getting ready to go to work. It's 7:15 in the morning and you look down, you see this pimple now it's got a little red circle around. Here it goes.

Wonder what that is? It look, it looks infected.

You start rubbing a little bit. Oh my gosh, it's got a knot in it.

Must be a tumor.

Are they going to cut my leg off right there

for this side of the table? They're going to cut it off right there.

They'll probably cut it off right here. If, knowing me, they'll cut it off above the knee. I'll have to go get a prosthesis. I have not gotten out of my house yet to go to work and I'm worried about a prosthesis.

Do you know what I'm talking about that?

See, I thought only did it with bad things. I do it with good things too. I was, this is about nine years ago. Then I I was in the shower one morning humming a country western tune. I don't know why, because my life was going along pretty well at that time, but I was.

But I was having this country in Western tune and

I got out, dried off some underwear on, I was shaving and the next conscious thought I had was where am I going to get a tour bus?

For those of you who have not been to instant stardom,

let me take you there in my thought process. Here it goes. I'm humming this country in West of June. This sounds pretty good. I bet I could sing country western music if I tried, if I practice a little bit. Michael got a band around town here, a couple of gigs. We go out to Nashville and in Nashville we'd get a couple of contracts and and get a bigger band and get a contract to go on tour and I'll need a tour bus. I mean, it's out there.

March 22, 1966. I was 19 years old

now. Let me share this with you. I went to the Rascala bar because my girlfriend had broken up with me

and I bought 2 tall Pabst Blue Ribbons and drank them one at a time.

And guess what happened? Please hear this. For the first time in my life, that thinking stopped.

And I was fine. Really. You know, I'm saying I was there, I was present, I was fine, I was OK. It was all right. Whatever was going on. It didn't matter about the exam on Friday. It didn't matter about that. You know, you know how many times I took exams in high school and college? About four or five. And I take them on Thursday, take them on Friday, take them on Saturday, Sunday. But, you know, and then I would finally take it. I was so exhausted. When I finally took it, it didn't do well.

You know what I'm saying? That thinking it went away. I mean, I looked out and I saw all these women that needed dancing with and I went out and asked them to dance. I was singing, my feet were moving.

I mean, I didn't have pimples. I wasn't skinny, 120 lbs, six foot two. I was absolutely muscular and I felt absolutely good. In fact, I saw so many people that needed things I needed to share with them. Just they were really, they were really asking things, you know?

Tell us about the world, David. How is it going?

And I stayed there as long as I could until they had that last call. I never experienced that before. And they, they said you'll have to come back later. And so I just, I said I've got to go now, but I'll be back Thursday night.

That's where it started. You see, I drank for 22 years. But please hear this part. You know what I did every time I drank. And Doctor Silkworth says as I was reading it this morning, he says it in a beautiful way. We drink for the effects produced by alcohol. This cessation is so elusive that we desire to drink again, to get that feeling, that feeling. And I drank for 22 years every time. Just trying to get back to Greenville, NC, March 22nd, 1966. And guess what started happening to me?

Do it at first, hey, and then I'd see Greenville coming room. It goes right by me and I was roaring drunk. I mean, what happened? I just want to get the Greenville.

I couldn't figure it out. I want to tell you about my last year of out there. It was basically 13 years ago. Starting today, 1987. I want to tell you about my wonderful year of 1987 because I did lose more than my my car. You know what I lost? I lost myself. I lost my dignity. I lost my every, every value, every principle, everything that I felt was neat and needed in life. I lost it one year at a time

for 22 years, and the last year of my drinking at this date in 1987, I was in the hospital. Now let me tell you about why I was in the hospital. See, I had this thinking process that told me that since my father died of cancer in 85 of the liver, that I had it too.

Please hear that. And it was so real that the pain was so real. I went into the hospital between Christmas and New Year's, called my doctor and said I've got I've got a real bad problem. I didn't tell him how much I was drinking.

And he said come on in. And so they ran tests for 10 days. I was in the hospital at Highsmith, Rainey, the old hospital, and I was doing tests today and tomorrow. And after 10 days they came and said, we can't find anything wrong with you. And I said, but you don't understand. There's something wrong with me. I mean, this is unbelievable pain and I've got to get some help. So they sent me to Duke University Medical Center, which is about an hour and a half away. And they kept me there for 12 days, all the way in Raxley into the early part of February. And

I basically was there for more tests.

And in fact, I'll tell you how real this disease is. This ease is one of the days that Duke was the National Convention. I was CEO of a multinational company and we had our International Convention in Florida. And guess what we did? Since I could not be there to give the opening address, we hooked up a phone line and put a speaker phone tied to the speaker system in this convention hall with about 700 people and from my bedside on my deathbed,

I addressed them for the last time.

I'm so sorry I can't be with you, but I'm fighting cancer here.

I

It's true.

Do you know why I was in that hospital? Please hear this. Do you know why? Looking back now,

I did not want to go to that convention?

Do you know why? Because I had to speak and be there and be OK and fine. And how are you? I'm fine. I had to answer, have answers to questions and I had run out of answers to questions. I had. I had no, I had no energy left to be fine because I knew inside I was dying. I didn't understand it. And the only thing I wanted to do was to kill myself. But I couldn't tell you that because I wouldn't be finding you would think I was coward

for sure. That sold out pretty well.

And so rather than go to a convention in Florida or to say to people I can't do that, I found myself going into the hospital. Please hear this. For me, for 40 years of life, you know what I did when I could not face reality any further? I got sick,

I got flus viruses, I had lower back, upper back pain,

headaches, nausea, bad leg. Broke a foot one time playing tennis that that lasted about a year.

I work well can't go tonight on my football to me, I can't I mean I dropped out of social stuff. I dropped out of business. I dropped out. I could not be when I could not face this, this reality of life because I was so frightened and so full of self delusion with his thinking, so full of it that I could not, I

would get sick and that was my perfect permission to not function that day. You see, I realized today that in my recovery that's a form of being a victim. And I have to look at that very carefully because what I'm not willing to do is show up and I'm trying to blame it on something else, not me and my ability or inability to do it. I would suggest to you that that 1987 year was interesting in many respects because every Saturday a day like today, guess what I started doing about 9:30? Getting drunk and I started thinking about drowning myself in the lake. I lived on

boat that I had and I was going to tie 255 lbs from the blocks together and put them on my left ankle, tie the rope around and throw them in. And I was going to get dragged down and I was just going. It was going to be over. See, it wasn't bad. It was basically very good. It was that it was going to end, finally.

Hundreds of forms of fear, hundreds of forms of self delusion, hundreds of forms of self seeking. And to me, that's the ultimate form of self seeking

is that I would dare look at that as a permanent solution to a temporary problem. But see, to me it was very permanent problem. I couldn't figure my way out. The only way I felt safe any longer was in my bathroom, 5 feet by 6 feet. I got to tell you about my bathroom. It had a toilet, it had a tub, it had a magazine racket, had exhaust fan, had a door with louvers and a lock. And I could go in there and be by myself. Do you know what that feels like? I could stop. I could let down. I could take my beer and put them in my coat pockets like this. And I

back down to the, to the bathroom so nobody would see that I had beer. I'd had them in the refrigerator. See, nobody knew I was drinking Lane, nobody at all. I mean, I was hiding them under the vegetable tray in the in the refrigerator, you know, celery, carrots, lettuce. And I just put them down in the back and they cover this stuff up and nobody knew was there.

I'd sneak in and

I'm out of here. I knew that my family, honestly, my children must have thought I had the worst case of dysentery of any human being that ever lived.

See, I go to the bathroom, I turn on the exhaust fan. I top pop 2 tops. I would basically drink my beer, read a magazine and I'd hide my cigarettes because I was a closet smoker for the last five years. Nobody knew of smoking, right? And I had them under the magazine rack. And I, I slide off a cigarette, smoke me a drink me a beer and look at a magazine and read it sitting there on my toilet. How much better could you want it?

I mean, I ask you, how much better could you want it? What a life, What a life.

I would get my family mad with me so they'd leave and guess what I would do in 1987? If they left and the phone rang, I wouldn't answer it.

So guess what my family had to do with me? They had to workout a calling code and basically if they were out and needed to reach me and I was by myself, they would call 6, let it ring six times, hang up, and on the second ring, I'd always call them. I mean, I'd answer it. I only blew it one time because the second ring was somebody else.

If somebody came to my door, please hear this. I would crawl on my belly, out of my chair in the den, down the hallway and close the door and hide because I was scared that you were going to find out that I was drunk.

Other than that, it was a great year in 1987.

Hundreds of forms of fear, hundreds of forms of self delusion, hundreds of forms of self seeking.

Want to tell you a story? I was two years sober and I had left the office, was leaving office and my boss came by. See, I was there for 21 years at that time. And you know what? I knew every day that my boss is going to come in and say, OK, we figured it out. You don't know what you're doing.

You've only been doing it 21 years. What you don't know. And that afternoon he came by, he said, I don't like this and don't like that. And you know, you need to do this over. And by this time, I mean, absolutely, I was just crazy. And so I went home. It's about 9:30 at night. I called my sponsor, Keith L He said to please say hello. And some of you, I know Jim, you have sent some greetings back to Keith. But basically he's, I said, Keith, you know what my boss said to me today? He said what I said he said,

and he gets real quiet when I get angry like that. He said, well what time is it, David? And I said it's 9:30. He said, is that AM or PM?

I said it's nighttime, Keith, it's PM, He said, what time did your weekend start? The only weekend you're going to get this week to celebrate your work. What time did it start? I said 5:00, He said, so it's 9:30. I said right then he said, look down at the four and tell me where you're standing.

I'm standing on brown carpet in my den. He said, good, you're in your den. I said right, right. He said, David, when are you going to let this go? When are you going to choose to let this go? When are you going to choose to let this thing with your boss go? He said now if you want to, you just choose this. He said you can choose this Wendy, you can choose to hold on to it till tomorrow morning at 9:00 and mess up your he didn't say that mess up your whole Friday night.

He said now if you really want to go for a good one this weekend, why don't you hold on to it to 6:00 Saturday afternoon and you'll mess up your whole Saturday. You know, you can choose do that too. He said of course. Now if you really, really want to have a good time with your family and your work time off this weekend, let's hold on to it the Sunday morning 10:00 that's nice. You'll mess up your whole Friday, Saturday, Saturday night and Sunday morning. They said now of course David, you have options

and if you choose this weekend to hold on this till not Monday morning at 9:00, you can mess up your whole weekend,

he said. A little bit different,

he said. It's your choice.

Please hear this part. I said I don't have a choice. He said yes, you do. And then he said this. What do you get out of being a victim, David?

You know what I said? I don't get anything, Keith,

he said. You must because you keep doing it to yourself. And he slammed the phone down.

I called him back.

I called him back and I said, what do you mean by that? You know what he told me to do? He told me to go for treatment. I was two years sober. He said you need treatment. I went for codependency treatment for 24 weeks. He said you don't know how to let people let them live. You don't have to draw boundaries. You know how to say no, you don't have any of those skills, David, and you've got to get some help, and I did. Now, the interesting thing about it is this. I did not understand that I have choices.

I did not understand that. You see, for me, when I was working on my 4th step, Keith asked me to do something very unusual. It's not unusual. I thought it was unusual. I was trying to write my four steps. In fact, I was writing it so well that I was looking forward to having some type of publishing rights. We could go with it afterwards. I want to make sure that we had it, you know, right, right pin, right notebook. I was really working on the rightness of it. I'd ordered everything from from out there in Minnesota, and I got all those books in. I had everything going

and he gave me a legal pad, a yellow legal pad. He gave me two number two sharpened pencils. He told me it would be more interesting if they were sharpened and he also told me to write with pencil because I wouldn't have to lie because you can erase your answer with ink. You have to lie because you don't want to race it. I said OK, and then he put on the top of the front the first sheet of the first pad, the pad. He put fears and he skipped a couple of pages and put resentments and he skipped about 3.34 pages and he puts

and left the rest of the pad.

I don't know if that was any indication, but

here's what he told me to do. He said for you to sit down at night, David, and say this prayer. And I had to write the prayers down and the first prayer I had to commit to do this 15 minutes every night. You see, I think I know when I'm worked the third step,

when I've worked the third step, third step, I've made a decision to begin the process of turning my will of my life over. And to me, the very the very manifestation of that decision is I sit down with a legal pad and two number two chopper and pencils and for 15 minutes every night. And when I do that, I've made the decision. And until I take that action, I have done nothing but think about it,

OK?

And he said to pray this prayer. God, please show me in your time and in your way, my fears.

Amen. And I'm supposed to say that prayer, get quiet, hold my pencil in my lap, and basically write down any word that came to me.

I was not to write a sentence or a paragraph. I was to write words or phrases because he did not want me to write a book. And my goal was to write a book in this inventory. And he knew that. And then after I finished my fears, after I had worked with that till I felt like my fears were there, guess what I was to do? Sit down with my resentment page. And God, please show me whom I resentful at what happened and what my part in the resentment is now. I did not like that last phrase in the prayer

because it was like the big book I had to work on. You know, basically my mom,

who what, who it was, what happened? She kicked me a third what it affected me, my physical security, myself esteem, my fear. And then on page 67 of the Big Book is the kicker.

What was your part?

Oh,

you see, resentments for me were justified. You know why? Because I was a kid.

I was an adult. They did it to me. I mean, what's the problem? They did it. I'm doing it. You know what they did? I'm doing it. You see, I came here in 1987. Please hear this. When I was sick, when I could not function, do you know what I did? All day, most days? I thought of how I was going to get even.

Please hear that part. It took and consumed so much energy from me that I could not live. It says in in in the big book on page 6364 that it says, you know, the resentments robbed us from the sunlight of the spirit. It squandered the very moments of life and it did for me. It squandered. You see the interesting thing about it, Jim? I thought I was getting them. You know what I'm saying? I was like, I'm going to get her.

I got treatment and my mother and I had had a very embattled childhood. It was not a pretty psychic many days wonderful lady loved me. I just didn't. We didn't see how to eye a lot of things and I got the treatment in my in my my counselor Claire, She said to me, she said why are you so angry? And I smiled as pretty as I could. I said me angry. I'm not angry

and she said yes, you are. You know how they kind of in the jump, the group jumped in you how they do they got nosies. What they did, Bob.

Yeah. You're angry. You're you're angry. That's it. OK, so I'm angry. But she said. Who you angry with? I said my mother. You see, I told a lot of people about my mother, but I only told one event at a time. I never told anyone person all the events. Because if you say anything bad about my mother, guess what I did. What are you talking about? My mother. She's fine, Lady. How's your relationship with your mother? Oh, it's fine. It's fine,

just never went to see her for 20 years, truly. So our Christmas afternoon, Thanksgiving, didn't call her, didn't write her. Truly,

that's that's the relationship we had. But it was fine, I thought over every day, most days.

Some unpleasant thoughts

and she said, who you angry with? And I said my mother and I told her what happened when I was 13 and I told her all this stuff. And I agree with Wayne. It's not the reason I'm an alcoholic, OK. But the resentments I carried with me calls unbelievable pain within me and thinking and within me, which I then took alcohol to numb those pains.

And what I have to do is look at the pain. You see what I had to look at was the fact that and Claire said to me, she said what happened? And I told her what happened. I was 13151719, all this stuff. And she looked at me and she has this dumb question. She said, David, where's your mother right now? I said she's in Raleigh, NC, Rock Garner and I was in Milwaukee, WI. She said, how far is that? I said, oh, 1200 miles, 1000 miles, something like that. She said, what do you think your mother's doing right now? And I said, well, she's retired, she's 69 years old. She said, what do you think your mother had for dinner last night, David?

Not thinking, I have no clue. I'm hearing a detox center my third day in this was fun. I said, I don't know what you had for dinner last night. And she said, what would you have wanted if you had been there? And I said, well, if I've been there, I wanted fried chicken, potato salad, green beans, lemon rain pie, little iced tea in a row. That's a good Southern meal, by the way.

And she said, David, what did you have here in detox last night for dinner?

And I said, wasn't too hungry. You know, Claire, I was a little upset. I'm going to go through some changes here. A little frightened vanilla. It wasn't too hungry. I had a little roll, a little tea, you know, I wasn't too hungry. She said, how much sleep, David, do you think your mother got last night? So I don't know. I wasn't there. She said, well, I take a guess, how much sleeping sleep do you think she got? I said, I'll probably 6-8 hours. She said, David, how much sleep did you get here in detox last night? I said, well, Claire, I was thinking about a few things and I was trying to change my life here, a little little change. And I I wanted to smoke and I had to go to the day room to smoke. So maybe

and a half nurse already told her all this and she said, David, what do you think your mother had for breakfast this morning?

That's what I wasn't there, Claire. She said, well, what would you want? I said, OK, eggs over easy, grits, sausage, toast, strawberry jam, orange juice, a little coffee. She said, David, what did you have here in detox for breakfast this morning? And I said, well, Clarence, dealing with a few things. I smoke a little bit too much last night and I was a little congested this morning, a little nausea on my stomach, you know, and

and I just have a little toast, a little coffee.

She said, David, where is what do you think your mother's doing right this red hot second? I said, well, she's retired. She's probably talking to a friend on the phone, this thing with a friend watching a soap opera or something like that. And she said, oh, OK. She said, David, what are you doing right now?

For the first time in my life, please hear this. At 40 years old, I stopped.

You know what I mean by a stop?

I never stopped thinking about that. I never was never going to let it go. I was going to prove I was going to show my mother. You know, I was going to show her. I was going to show her that I did not need her

and it almost killed me.

You see my and again, Claire said She kind of rubbed the salt into the wound. She said, Well, it seems like your mother's doing pretty well.

And it seems like to me you're killing yourself.

I don't know if you can grasp that.

I had never stopped enough to see what it was doing to me. I was killing myself

and she said you got a choice. Back to these choices again. She said you can choose to let this go. I said let this go. I'm gonna show her,

she said. David, you're killing yourself.

And she said I would encourage you to let it go. I said, how do I let it go? And she said something very crazy. She said first, you have to admit you're powerless over alcohol. That's an interesting way to let a resume go, that your life has become very manageable. Secondly, that you're powerless over your mother

and that your life regarding that relationship is very unmanageable. And thirdly, that you're powerless over what happened or didn't happen to you in your life, that your life about those things that happened or didn't happen had become very manageable.

And she said. And thirdly, you must pray for your mother every day, what you want for yourself.

I could go for the one or two of them, but that was a tough one. You see, I did. I had. I'd pray for my but it was not that kind of prayer.

See, I thought my mother was a mean woman.

I didn't realize my mom was sick too,

and So what I had to agree to do to stay because she told me this and I think she meant it. She said if you don't agree to pray, you can't stay here because no human being in this world can help you and your condition, your spiritual condition, unless you agree to let go

and say your power.

So I told I would and I went to the to the shower the next morning, turned on the shower, turned on and flushed the toilet so it'd have all kinds of noise. I got in the shower and said that little prayer. And I said, what what do I pray? And she said pray for you. What for her, what you want for yourself. She said, what do you want? I said, I want to be happy, sober and free. She said pray that for your mother. I said, but my mother doesn't drink. She said that's OK, pray for her to be sober anyway. And so I did

and I got to group and nothing really happened except the group said, did you pray for your mother?

You know how to get nosy? And I said because they were doing it too, and some dads and some moms. And she said I said, yes, I did. You know what she did? She said, OK, then will you agree to pray every day for the next two weeks? And you know what happened? I was there in in inpatient treatment, residential treatment for a month and then two months and a halfway house. And guess what? I was there two weeks at a time. Did you pray for it for two weeks? Will you pray for, for the next? Did you pray for for the last two? Can you pray for for the next? The last thing Claire said to me

when I left, she said, David, please pray for your mother. It will free you.

I want to go back to that. That might leave that story there. When I got to the 4th step I had to list my mom. She kicked me when I was 13 and I was frightened myself esteem physical injury. And he said what's your part? Were you selfish, dishonest or frightened? I think it says on 67 and I said all three. I guess you say I didn't mind my mom that that was a little slight of hand I forgot about. She told me not to ride the bike, and I pretend that they didn't hear her