Scott L. from Nashville, Tennessee at Specific Group

Good evening. My name is Scott Lee and I am an alcoholic. Very moved and honored to be here, actually to be anything that this fellowship's doing because I owe my life and my freedom and you know, everything is valuable to me. Just the usual stuff. And I'm from Nashville, TN. My Home group is called The Backroom and I love them just like I love you.

And I'd like to thank Bob and Julie for hosting us and inviting us to come. And wow, what a friendly place. Are you all aware of that?

I don't know whether you know it or not, but you've got a tremendously friendly thing going on here. And I think it's one of the critical pieces. I,

I like to quote Lois Wilson a couple of times as I as I start my meeting. She was co-founder of Al Anon and I owe owe my life to her. Maybe if you're an alcoholic, you do too, because Bill went to her one time young and sobriety and he said, he said, I'm working with all of these guys and none of them are staying sober. See my life hung by that thread And Lois said Bill, you are

and I think that's why we're all here. So if are there any Al Anon's in the room because see our hands another a few. Thank you for coming. I'm honored by your presence.

You all do some tremendous work. I think there's a lot of silver Alcoholics who got that way when Al Anon helped one of you get too healthy to continue to help one of us stay sick.

Do I say that right? OK,

good.

And I'm excited about all the newcomers. Wow, wow. Because I sat there hovering one time at my first speaker meeting too. I didn't actually sit in the chair. I was about 8 inches above it, just vibrating. And so if that's what you're doing, just sit on your hands if you need to. We're really glad you're here.

I quote Lois again and see if I can get settled in. This is a big deal for me and I'm just a puking drunk from down South. And I'm not a professional public speaker. But someone asked Lois Wilson what she did in that moment of silence before the Serenity Prayer, which is the way we opened the meetings in our part of the country. And she said, I invite God to the meeting.

That's powerful for me. I started doing that and meetings get better everywhere, OK.

And what I'd like to do is I'd like to have another moment of here shortly. And not that I don't believe God didn't hear all the time. I do believe that. But there's something for me when I invite him in, I guess is an acknowledgement of the truth. And so I don't completely believe what I'm about to say, but but almost my God's a gentleman. He doesn't go where he's not invited. He doesn't stay where he's not made welcome and saying I don't completely believe that, but in large measure I do. I think it's part of why the 11 steps are important. And I actually, I mean the step out of the book, not the one off the wall

and where it talks about how to open and close my day. So in a few moments here, when I call for another moment of silence, what I'd like to do is to invite you to please invite the God of your understanding to join us here, fill this room with love and bless you with an open heart that you might hear through it. And what I'm going to do is ask him to fill the room with love and bless me with an open heart that He might speak through it, or in the worst case, that I might speak to it. We talk about the language of the heart here. And for me, I'm learning to lay down the language of the gutter,

pick up the language of heart. This part of my recovery, and it's incomplete, but I can report progress

in case there's somebody here. If you don't have a God or you're, you've got one you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley or you know, you got some, it's not working for you. Let me involve mine for this time that we're together. He does great work. He's been keeping me sober for a long time. He has a great sense of humor. If you don't think so, look around the room.

Are we funny? I think we're hilarious. So, so borrow mine if you need to. Just you address him as the God of Scots, a limited understanding because that's the truth. And just invite him to open your heart. And we'll do it for an scientific experiment. Just kind of see what happens. So let's have a few moments and invite the master to join us. I'll meet you back here.

Amen. Thanks. That takes the heat off of me, doesn't it?

There's a bad talk. We know whose fault it was. OK.

Yeah. Yeah. Anything to dodge responsibility, right? I deserve to be here.

I I didn't start drinking until I was 18. I have an excuse is I didn't know what it would do. I needed a drink way before then.

And one of the reasons I didn't drink is I suspect my dad was one of us. And he told me when I was a small boy, maybe 10 or 11, he said there's beer in the refrigerator, get you one when you want it. And he said, one of these days you're going to want to get drunk

for your first time. And when that day comes, come to me, tell me what you want to drink, I will buy it, and we will sit in the living room and get drunk together for your first time. And that offer was good, and I knew it. So as you can see, it wasn't against the rules for me to drink. Therefore I didn't have to drink. You understand that, don't you?

Don't try that on the Earth, people. They don't get it right.

But I went away to college this summer. I turned 18 and I got out with the boys the first time and we started drinking Sterling beer. Did they have that over here? Sterling beer. It's one of my definitions of willpower. It was awful. It was the bad stuff. It was a dollar a gallon.

Hey, it really was you. You get this mayonnaise jar from the chow hall. I was at a men's school, get the mayonnaise jar and they run through the dishwasher. And then at Clara's Saloon, they fell that baby for a dollar with sterling beer.

I'm going to tell you the rest of the story in two sentences. Are you ready? I'm going to tell you when that was with tax, it was a dollar two.

Oh yeah,

Budweiser was $1.12. We drank the Sterling the rest of the story,

and somewhere between the first sip of the first beer and the bottom of I think maybe the second one, the magic happened for me. You're an alcoholic. You know what I'm talking about. The magic app. I was suddenly taller. Did anybody can't anybody get taller when they drank? Come on. Where are you? All right. Little taller. Yep. Cleaned up my my complexion, too. I was better looking. Did you get better looking when you drink? Come on. Come on. Where are you? OK,

better looking. Brilliant conversationalist, huh? Do you have a lot to say?

Yes, two head got two hands from Bob.

Here's yours. Coming. You ready? Fantastic dancer.

Let's see if dancers all right. Yes, Lord. Yes, Sarah, I was a dancer

possibly. Well, one of my, I think my second favorite is this one expert on many subjects. Let's see the experts. Where are you? Yes, here we are. Expert on many subjects. Oh, yeah. I think, However, I think the biggest thing that it did for me is it made me feel like I belonged. When I was a little guy, I became convinced that I was defective, there was something wrong with me that could not be repaired and that I wasn't as good as everybody else and and anything that I ever did could not possibly ever measure up.

And if you all knew who I really was, you wouldn't want me around. And I became an act. And my act was that I pretended to be whoever I thought you wanted me to be. You being defined as whoever's immediately in front of me, That's the way I live my life. And when I got my blood alcohol mixture just perfect that first time, that went away. And from that, I had an entire psychic change. And the entire psychic change was all of a sudden you all was pretty lucky I was there.

Now that is a change. That is a change and to to kind of I normally I've got a 12 hour story and they've asked me to cut it back slightly. So I'm going to skip just a little bit. And let me tell you, I was just sick that we didn't get to hear more. Weren't the 10 minute speakers fantastic tonight? I was sorry we didn't get to hear a lot more from both of them. You guys were grand. They'll were grand.

So anyway, I discovered the elixir of life at 18 as a freshman in college

kind of just sort of zip through it. I, I, I was in the accelerated class and I exhibit through a four year college and five years and two summer schools.

Some hands on that, a few. OK, all right. the United States Air Force was taking you if you were warm and breathing and, and I was commissioned a second Lieutenant. I went to Valdosta, GA to Air Force pilot training. I'm going to talk a little bit about what that was like. We flew an airplane called the T38. Did you see Top Gun? See a movie Top Gun. But everybody did in the beginning and in the end of that movie, they're having these dog fights with these Migs.

I have a newsflash for you from Hollywood. Are you ready? The Russian government didn't loan him any Migs to make a movie. OK. That black airplane was at 38. I flew that airplane for about 6 months. And I'll tell you a little bit about what that was like. It's a high performance aircraft, which means it will fly faster than the speed of sound it has after burning jet engines. It's stressed for 7 1/2 positive GS and about four and 1/2 negative. I'll try to say what that means. You take the the runway in this thing

and you lock the brakes, you lock the canopy, you run the power up to what they call military power. It's everything short of Afterburner.

You release the brakes and you light the burners and you get a little kick. You like that kick, didn't you? That's how you got here. And,

you know, the ones I like to kick, they don't get here. We don't get them.

We don't. And anyway, about a mile later, you're doing about 165 or 70 miles an hour, and which is quick for a tricycle, only has three wheels, you know, And you pick that nose up and she flies right off. And you raise the gear. And at 1000 feet, you raise the flaps and you begin to push on the stick because this airplane wants to climb like a homesick Angel. And you're running in maximum afterburner and at 1000 feature accelerate to 600 knots, which is about 660 miles an hour. Rough, rough figure. Pull her up

and you level at 40,000 feet, 3 1/2 minutes from when you release the brakes back on the other end of the runway. All right, this aircraft has a roll rate that's this way. If you'll just lay the stick against your leg, it has a roll rate in excess of 420° per second. Yes, that's more than once around every second. And let me tell you a secret, your eyeballs won't keep up with that sober, right?

I tried it both ways.

You ain't watching 420, you're just not going to see it.

A loop, which is a three six degree turn through the vertical plane pulling positive GS at 10,000 feet. The entry air speeds 500 knots, about 550 miles an hour and you pull up at 5G's. Now AG is a force of gravity. You're pulling 1G right now. So at 5G's a 200 LB man weighs 1000 lbs. Everything on you waste times 5. If you've ridden the big roller coaster when you hit the bottom of the first hill and everything feels like you're kind of sagging down, that's about two GS. You pull five in a loop.

It takes 10,000 feet to pull this airplane over on its back. You'd be wings level inverted at 20,000 feet.

Now you can look at the world like this. You'd love it. I really recommend it. And then if you get a chance, you ought to try that and and you lose about 8000 feet coming down the backside of the circle. And the total elapsed time on that's 25 seconds, it's actually less than 25 seconds. And I tell you all about that about the airplane for two, two obvious reasons. The 1st and of course is to impress you.

We got that. OK.

The other one is to tell the story. My alcoholism come home from a day, come down from a day of flying that airplane. They released this from the flight line about 5:30

and I go into the officers club and I do not plan to get drunk. Now, I used to go get drunk intentionally a lot. I would celebrate Arbor Day. I mean, anything, right? Any, any excuse really. But I used to just sort of take drunk, you know what I mean? You just sort of hit me kind of like a sinus infection. Just boom, there it is. I didn't really feel like I did anything. And so this particular evening I'm going to the club and I do not plan to get drunk.

Let me tell you a secret we have. We all have the same story.

Would y'all be willing to do audience participation with me?

Let's try that again. Would you be willing to do audience participation with me? Yes, thank you. When I point at you, want you to fill in the blank. OK, Are you ready? Walk into the club at 5:30 and I'm planning to have one beer. No more than

two. Come on. You remember that, You know just one or two, right? OK,

your Alamance, by the way, you can play also.

OK, All right. Going to have one beer. No more than I should be home by 6:30. No later than seven. No, we're not planning to get drunk tonight. No, no, it's not the plan, all right? No, the plan. No, the plan is we're a straight shooter tonight. But what happens is the magic happens. And somewhere between the first sip of the first sip, the first beer in the bottom of the second one, I get this phenomenon of craving the Doctor Selworth talks about in the book,

and I don't get home by 7. As a matter of fact, I leave the club at exactly 1:00 in the morning because they

can there be another reason.

And

I drive home with hand over one eye. You see, show hands. Who knows why?

OK, yeah, these are my people here. And and then my favorite part of the drunk as I would get home and I would get a chance to listen to her.

Boy, I really love that. And then at the risk of being indelicate in such a really nice surrounding, what a great place for an A meeting. Can I see a show of the hands of the pukers? These are my people. How the rest of you got here, I don't know. I thought, I thought the two most important inventions of the 20th century were that little Half Moon shape of carpet that they put around a commode for you to kneel on.

That was invented by one of our boys, you know,

and that soft commode seeds you could rest your head on you kind of in between heaves

because I am in there doing it. OK. Oh yeah. And for those of you who are new, I'm from out of state, I'm leaving on Monday, okay, But I'm going to tell you the truth. They're going to lie to you. They're going to tell you you cannot quit forever. It is not true. I have personally quit forever over 2000 times. Okay, now it never worked, of course, but boy, I could do it. So I've been there, quitting forever and

right. Your cookers, huh? Didn't you quit forever when you puked? I always did, yeah.

And and then I would pray what I call the pre a prayer. OK, we'll do it together. I do the first line, you do the second. You ready? God? Get Me Out of this.

Yeah, pre AA prayer,

if you're new, they got one of these things, 18 questions or something to see if you belong here. I have a one question test. Did you another prayer?

Stick around and brush my teeth and go to bed and it's now two o'clock 2:30 in the morning. I get up at six and that magic place between drunk and hungover. Remember that one? I really miss that, don't you? And I get a shower. If Mr. Gillette had not invented the safety razor, somebody else we talk. It's on that I'd be dead at my own hand, I'm sure.

And

flight suit and boots, sunglasses and hat. I'm in a car out to the Air Force Base at 7:30 this morning. I'm I'm in that airplane I was telling you about and we just taxied out. And today we are in a 2 ship formation. Been to the air show, seen what they did. We did that. And just after liftoff, I tuck in behind the leader's tail and what we call a close trail. And if I could stand up in my cockpit and lean forward, I could touch his afterburners. And we're doing 500 knots pulling 5G's

going over the top like this and I'm dying with that hangover. I am absolutely dying. The the butcher knife is stuck in here, comes out the back. I'm surprised my helmet will fit.

My eyelids hurt on the inside, right. Toenails hurt, fingernails hurt the throat and the sinus cavity is ripped raw from throwing up all that acid the night before. I've thrown the oxygen selector lever to 100%. That will not cure a hangover. I don't care what they tell you. I I feel tested that hundreds of times, all right? It will not cure a hangover, right? I got booze coming out every pour.

And the only thing that keeps me going is the sure and certain knowledge that I will never feel this way in a plane again because I quit last night forever. And I met it with all my heart,

right, Right. And I'm hanging and you know what? You know what I've just defined for? You know what that is? That's willpower. That's willpower. I, I think, I think a functional alcoholic has got a phenomenal amount of willpower. And it's no defense against this disease.

I think it's the reason that the Earth people don't become Alcoholics is they don't have the willpower for it.

At the risk of taking their inventory, they don't. I mean, the guy goes out on prom night, right? He drinks a pint of Jack Daniels, he pukes on his dates prom dress, he wrecks his car. He goes to jail. He gets up the morning. He says I'm never doing that again and he never does. Obvious lack of willpower.

They couldn't hang with it like you could, right?

It's fact.

So I'm dying in this airplane. OK, dying. And by 5:30 when they release us from the flight line, I am not well yet. But I'm a young man and my body is resilient and I'm better. I'm a lot better. I'm good enough to have feel like maybe I could drop by the club and have maybe, maybe one beer. No more than should be home by 6:30. No later than I'll leave the club at exactly 1 because they drive home when I hand over one. Listen to

God Get Me Out of this

bullet.

Y'all did good. You must Very well. Very good class. All right,

don't we have the same story though? Isn't it amazing? And and yet my problem was I'm tempted sometimes to introduce myself and say my name is Scott and I have a learning disability known as alcoholism.

I was unable to look into the past

all the way to yesterday

and say, didn't you do this yesterday? Weren't you in this same airplane, the same cockpit, same time yesterday, dying of a hangover? And by the way, the day before and by the way, five days last week and 22 days last month, I was powerless over alcohol, and I was ignorant of the fact that I was powerless over alcohol. Ignorance and powerlessness is a rough combination. As you may recall,

I graduated from pilot training. I most of my flying time is in A4 engine jet transport. I flew all over the world.

I have been drunk on five islands and five continents and don't have a guess. I'm in the islands and I missed a lot. I mean, I, I really had a chance to see the world and I saw the bars.

I went to Vietnam in 69, and I was stationed for a while at Phuket Air Force Base, South Vietnam. And I was drinking tequila there one night. And I were drinking tequila,

traveling juice, You know what I mean? I mean, I need to be somewhere else if I'm drinking tequila and I woke up at an unusual place. Anybody ever do that? You ever wake up at an unusual place? Yeah, I woke up in an unusual place. Fortunately enough, I was still on the Air Force Base. And I collected my belongings and I'm in my my boots and flight suit, sunglasses and hat. I'm a captain, right? 2 silver bars. And I'm walking across the Air Force Base from this unusual place where I awaken.

To my trailer that I live in and at 6:00 in the morning

with about a force five hangover, you know, just sort of an average one. And I passed 12/15/20 people, I guess on my walk across the Air Force Base, outrank them all. They were, you know, one or two at a time, going to breakfast or whatever. And they all saluted. But they gave me the funniest looks as they did. So I thought, man, does the whole world know? I hung my butt out at the club last night. How can they possibly know? And I walked into my trailer and walked into the bathroom without changing anything and looked in the in the mirror and I'm listening, missing the lens out of one side of my sunglasses. OK. And I don't know that

and that eyeball hanging out, there's this color, this ladies dress right back here. Looks like a rough cut Australian fire Opal. You know,

I I was eventually flying a an intelligence mission, very highly classified, and at 4:00 one morning I was taxing my aircraft out and I was exceptionally drunk. By my standards, I wouldn't have written in an automobile with me.

And I had my window as I was taxiing out. I had my window open just in case I threw up. I threw up out the window. And I thought I was smart. Does that sound smart to you? I'm fixing to ride with a very drunk pilot. Does that seem intelligent to you? It did to me at the time. And we're taxi typical runways about two miles long, the towers in the middle. And we taxi all the way down to the far end of it. And my Co pilot's running this checklist and everybody's doing what they're supposed to do. And I'm trying to drive this thing as smoothly as I can so I don't make myself throw up.

And

well, you drove that way, didn't you?

And I get this thing to the end of the taxiway and say my copilot is doing what he's supposed to do. His head's in the cockpit. He's throwing switches and doing the stuff he's supposed to do. He's not watching me drive this thing. And I applied the brake so smoothly that I taxi that beast right off into the grass off of the end of the taxiway. Couldn't keep it on the pavement.

Possibly some of you have had that experience with other types of vehicles.

I thought so, yeah. And we got the And you know what, if it'd been 4:00 in the afternoon or if or if there had been another airplane taxi in behind mine, somebody else would be speaking to you tonight. And I'd be serving the rest of my natural life in the military. President Leavenworth, because that was a felony. I was real drunk. I would have probably blown a .225 something like that.

And

it's only by the grace of God that I'm not in prison. And so I go to prisons and I, does anybody here take meetings into jails and prisons regularly because of your hands? God bless you and congratulations for those of you who are not doing that. Do yourself a favor and see one of these people and go try it once. Boy, I get a lift out of that. I love to do that. It is such a joy. But

so there are other places. I could have been in here tonight. I could have been serving the rest of my life in prison where I richly deserve to be. I could have been dead by this disease and I don't think I'd impress you. We all got big numbers on that, don't we?

I've been to the insane asylum. I woke up on this in the rubber room. No doorknob, in my underwear, in in hallucinations. I think they saved my life. My my other option to live happy, Joyce and free, at peace in my own skin

by living what's in this book. I was 41 years old. It took me a long time to get there. People have asked me, how in the world do you fly an airplane drunk? I'd like to help you with that a little bit. It's a Big Sky.

I mean, take a look next time you're out.

There isn't much up there. The ground is the problem. You had all your wrecks on the ground in you

just keep it away from the ground.

See, so many answers are simpler than you would have thought, aren't they?

You guys are great.

Anyway, I I got an honorable discharge and got a job as a traveling salesman. For those of you who are new, if you're not serious about staying sober before you order your next drink, I'd like to recommend that you interview and get yourself a job as a traveling salesman. It bring you back to a a faster than any other form of work that I know of. I became a manufacturer's Rep in the summer of 1984. My business partner knew I was in trouble and he had an intervention on me and my choices were to go to treatment as fast as he could put me in or we were going to get

called a business divorce and he was carrying me then and I knew it. And on June the 28th of 84, which was my belly button birthday and still is by the way, that's the only thing I haven't had to change is the reason I make the point on that. I was signed into the Ridgeview School of Charm just outside of Atlanta, GA and they told me later that I was one of the saddest looking people that ever came through the door. And and one of the earlier speakers talk beautifully about it. Because when they told me that I couldn't drink Miller Lite or Beefeater

or use some of the alcohol substitutes that I was using in pretty good quantities, by that time I didn't think I was ever going to have any fun again. Never thought I was even going to smile, enjoy a ball game, have a good time of any kind. I think the book says stupid, boring and glum. That's what I thought my life was going to be. I'm here to report that has not been the case, although it was for about the next 60 days. It took me a while to get kind of squared away in this thing. I'm living an astonishing life,

absolutely astonishing life.

People ask me how I'm doing and I say I've been blessed beyond my capacity to receive. I think that's true. I think that's part what you all have taught me here is that I got here like this, locked up. And what you all have taught me to do is to open up to receive the blessings that have always been here. It hasn't been God's unwillingness or inability to give. It's been my inability to receive that's been the problem and one of the greatest things I've received. I am currently married to my now and forever wife, one of the most exciting and interesting women I've ever known. I'd like for you to say hi to Miss Linda. Would you stand? She just hates this.

Would you stand up? Hi, Miss Linda.

I'll pay for that later, but I wanted you all to meet her.

She is such a gem. But anyway, so I signed into this treatment center and I'm not happy about being there because I don't want to quit in the 1st place. I wasn't an alcoholic. I'd never been arrested. I'd never been fired from a job. I had a good military career. I'm a college graduate, owned my own business, hadn't been in a fight since I was 12 years old. I didn't drink every day. I didn't get drunk every time I drank. I didn't drink in the morning. Never had a DUI, never wrecked a car.

It's hard to find alcoholism in there. At least it was for me and

but they got me here in this book on page 44 where it said if when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic.

I am probably alcoholic

because that's my story. And in another place it was read tonight, this thing about control and enjoy his drinking. It was one of the other, right? I could either control it or I could enjoy it, but I couldn't do both. I think those are the things that make me an alcoholic.

Anyway. I was not happy to be there and I didn't sleep well. As a matter of fact, I don't think I slept at all the first three nights. I'm just laying there in that bed. And what happened, what I'm about to describe to you happened the fourth night that I was in treatment. And I'm laying there in that bed and lights out at 10:30 or 11 and you can't leave the room until like 630 the next morning. And I'm laying there and I know I ain't going to sleep again. And let me tell you something, if some of you are aware of it, I'm sure. But if you don't sleep and you don't drink

at night time, it stays dark a long time.

Well, it does.

It does down South anyway. And

so I'm laying there and this review of my life happened to me. I did not do what I'm about to describe to you. This happened to me. And it's not like a near death experience. I've talked to a lot of people have those words instantaneous. This one lasted several hours where a review of my life happened and I had always given myself credit for my intentions

always in the past. And my favorite intention? Well, I used to be an amateur magician and I intended to get a clown suit and carry it in the car with me. And when I was on the road, instead of running the salons to get into the clown suit and go to the Children's Hospital, take my magic kit in and do a magic show for the kids. And I intended to do that for over 20 years. Thought I was one great guy, you know, because one of these days I was going to do that and I was taking full credit for it. Our third step talks about a decision,

and I've learned the difference between the decision and the intention. An intention is followed by more intentions. A decision now that is followed by action. That's the difference. And this night, as I'm laying in this bed and this review happens, the intentions evaporated and I could not see them anymore, and I was stuck with just the actions. It's not as pretty a story that way. And I got to the point where I began to think about the worst thing I've ever done. And maybe you don't have one. I got a single thing that stands alone,

and I'd always been able to stop that.

Three fast gotchas. Believe me, we'll knock that out.

I'm laying in the treatment center. I got no access to chemical assist, and I can't get the thoughts stopped. And I don't know how long I lay there thinking about this thing that I had done in my early 20s, and I hated myself. And I was so ashamed and I was so sick at Seoul

that I reached what I call bottom. I hear the term, but I don't see it defined in my literature. For me, bottom wasn't on the physical plane. I mean, I've flown with a lot of hangovers. I'd puked blood a few times. I've been in all kinds of trouble.

It wasn't bottom was in here.

Bottom was when I couldn't stand me anymore and when I was willing to pay any price and do anything not to be the kind of man who did the kinds of things that I had done that for me was bottom. And at that point, something in here, I believe it was my spirit screamed and it was really loud. This didn't come out of my throat, didn't come out of my mouth, did not happen in my head. Something in here screamed very loudly to a God that I don't think I believed in and screamed out God forgive me

and I received the forgiveness in that moment. Now to describe it to you, if you've been in a dentist chair and they've taken X-rays,

when they finish, there's this lead apron laying on you. It's when they lift that off of you. That's what it felt like. Something heavy left me from head to toe, all parts of my body. And just like it flew off of me as like it was on chains. It was just snatched off of me and I thought I might float up off of the bed. I felt so light

and I lay in the presence of this magnificent light and with my eyes closed I could see the whole room and this golden white light was shining only on me and on my bed.

And I knew in in that instant that there was a God, that He loved me beyond my capacity to receive love,

that that God had the power to forgive me and that I was forgiven. And that all happened for me in a moment. I think I took the first three steps in that moment

and I used to say he forgave me then. And it occurred to me that that I'm not happy saying that because I don't speak for God and I'm not happy. I'm not comfortable around people that do. So I don't know if he forgave me in that moment or if he never judged me and I was just able to receive the forgiveness then. And I'm very comfortable not knowing. That's one of the things that my sobriety has brought me is I'm comfortable not knowing. It's OK with me. I don't need to know anymore.

And I lay there in his presence for a while to the best. I mean, I, I don't know of any other exchange that happened, but I don't know that you can lay in the Master's presence and not have something happen. And I don't know how much longer I lay there in his presence. Whether it was a few seconds or an hour or two, I really do not know. And, and after that, I slept a little for the first time and I awakened the next morning wanting to be one of his guys.

And that was my first cornerstone. And I believe it was given to me because I would let, I was a last Gasper if I had, if I didn't get it that time, I wasn't going to get another chance.

And I think that's why that was given to me. And I'd like to tell you that I believe with all of my heart that that event alone would not have kept me sober to today.

I don't believe it. I don't believe it at all. Bill talks about his own at the bottom of page 12 in the book. But soon the sense of his presence had been blotted out by worldly clamors, mostly those within myself. It was necessary for me to go further. So I awaken the next morning wanting recovery for the first time. And, and I started doing what they told me pretty much. And, and a few weeks later, I walked into my counselor's office at 11:00 one morning. He was a member of Al Anon Collect to honor you again.

And I went in there and he was working on my aftercare plan and I knew that. And when I went in there to do was to assist him with his work.

Old timers thinks that's funny. I think so too. And so I explained to him that I was not going to go to a halfway house, that I wasn't going to take Ant abuse. And if they had a 28 day program and I wasn't staying a minute longer to try to help them out, they just lay out the parameters so the man could do his work trying to be helpful.

And he said you've left out something you aren't going to do. And I said what? And he said, well, you're going to make it.

I'm not a violent man by nature. I make exceptions,

made a verbal one and in some pretty rough language asked him generally,

why'd you say that to me? It's not exactly the way I said it. And and he asked me this fabulous question. He said if you already know how to run a program to keep yourself sober, how is it you happen to be a patient here?

And I said,

and nothing came out. That had never happened to me before. I got an answer. Don't you? I don't think it's happened to me since I do have an answer, right? Couldn't answer the man's question. Don't know how much longer I sat in his office. I know I left there and went to lunch and I ate lunch, but I couldn't quit thinking about his, his question. And after that, my body went where it was supposed to be, you know, to group and coping skills in the movie and physics, whatever all they had on my body was there. My mind is back in that man's office trying to answer the unanswerable question. It was dusk, about 9:00 at night and the answer hit

the same place the bottom did right here did not show up in my head. It showed up in here and I was well I could show you where I was at the treatments. I was here right where I was standing and it it was like that hit. I may have taken a step backwards. And the answer was and is I do not know how to run a program to keep myself sober and if I am going to be one of the very few that make it, I'm going to have to do it All this is not smorgasbord for me. I do not get to take what I want to leave the rest. I have too much wagered here. I talked about it before. I had bet my freedom.

I have bet my sanity. I have bet my very life.

I have bet everything in my my life that's important to me on this.

I don't get to take what I want me the rest. I need it all. And at that point, I surrendered to what I lovingly call step one, Section B

OK, my life's unmanageable. That means I'm not going to be in charge anymore.

That was not easy for me.

I,

I zipped through that 28 day treatment center in six weeks flat and

I went back to Nashville where the only guy I knew in the entire city that was in recovery owned one of the businesses that I called on and I didn't want him to know. You understand that, right?

Newcomer thinking. Just real solid. And I set out to follow this aftercare plan to go to 90 meetings in 90 days. I think I went to 87 because you see, I thought if you missed, you just missed. I didn't know you could go to two meetings in a day. Newcomer thinking and I finished a what I call a psycho Babble. Four step guide. The you know, do you, do you still hate your mother? Do you look in the toilet before you flush? Kind of, you know, fill in the blanks. 4 step guide

and I'd like to report that I did get some relief from that. It got me to the fifth step.

I'd like to recommend the actual four step. The real one, The one and only. Sure enough, real life change your life. Four step. First time I ever looked at the steps. They look me like they've been written by a hanging judge. It was having a very bad day, didn't they? Then they looked that way to you, huh? They looked like you were designed to punish me. I was wrong about that. I was wrong about a lot of things. Now that makes sense, because if everything I know for sure is right, how do I get to a A?