The Carry This Message group's first annual Fall Retreat

at this time without any further ado for me I'd like to introduce our first speaker this evening and that would be daisy from Baltimore Maryland

they've got an alcoholic

I want to thank the the group and and Mike and Kathy for for for asking me up here and you know it's always a privilege and honor to be asked to come somewhere and do something like that and and to be quite honest

for me it it it reminds me just how powerful

god in this program is because there was a time when I absolutely was convinced I would not get anything

now now I have the opportunity to stand up here tonight and share with you

what my life has been like the last twelve and a half years because of the program about policy

the twelve steps in a relationship that I have would guide you to all of introduced me to go and and since this is supposed to be you know quote unquote retreat

I like to try to focus on

when spirituality one god one one that which is the core of our program

the core of my disease is one more perilous

that's the core of my duty

and the core of Alcoholics Anonymous and of course the solution is that how

I try to make no bones about it

okay a little bit about how I went up to the point where I was convinced my innermost self

that I was tired and

but the best way that I would I need to do that is first to convince you why does someone go to the extreme

that I went to to continue to track you already know that but I don't want this to be a blow by blow description of my of my drinking but I think it's important that I painted picture of the magic's alcohol does for me without that magic I don't believe let me stay in this room that I don't believe that I'd be an alcoholic I believe that I would be a social drinker who maybe got some trouble and you know quick for moderated work you know did the about face and drinking like a gentleman now but that's not my story

the first time I had my my my real

I don't have a real pissing my real you know the real magic said alcohol did for me I was about thirteen years old and

I I had grown up without a dad my dad got killed in Vietnam and now I'm an alcoholic it's just part of you know part of my story part of the is and maybe some now but

I grew up without a whole lot of male role models in my life the man my family typically come from blue blue collar hard working background image to minimize and they've worked all the time and women raising children that was sort of the way things were broken up and say the men were always working two jobs and the women were taking care of the kids and that's pretty much what what my family member never ran and I grew up watching the movies with the tough guys to John Wayne and Clint Eastwood you know the Charles Bronson you know and and and those are my heroes you know and there's guys that walk into a bar and a daughter whiskey in a drink it straight down AT the puncher shoot the guy next door

and so in there this is kind of my idea you know and and it's thirteen years older there's nothing more in the world that a thirteen year old boy wants to be an enemy

yeah and and this is sort of what I'm bringing to the table and I I want to work

that summer of my thirteen years old and summer between eighth and ninth grade in a place called pecan in Baltimore and it and it sort of on the on the west side of all morning that is blue collar you can get borderline like trash you know and not

the guys that I work with loading trucks in this in this warehouse in Pitt county fit the bill of the John Wayne Clint Eastwood tough guy hi I mean they they were exciting to be around you know because they cost and they drank and every now and again one of which hit the other one just for the hell of it you know and and and there was nothing more that I liked and sort of being around here these real men and my monitor taking up drop me off to work every day and age you know and and and one weekend these guys are going out of Richmond Virginia to do a big job and they were going to move out and household furniture and it was a great big job and they were trying to get anybody that they could get to go help and I asked my mom if I could go and she said reluctantly said yes

you know and now she sat me down the region with these guys and you know I work as hard as I could that first day we were down there and with one of these days you know there where with ninety nine degrees and nine nine percent meeting at the end of the day we're all drenched interns wet and we work hard and you know I was five foot tall hundred ten pounds but I work as hard as I could and getting and I'll never forget it was we are working in

unloading the furniture out of this big penthouse apartment in Richmond and it was one of these ones that had the twelve foot ceilings and had a great big

ten foot windows that overlook the city bridge it was beautiful and at the end of the day

we had unloaded about half of the library of this penthouse and most of the books were in boxes and there was a group of the guys that I was working with they were sitting around looking at every one of these you know tall picturesque windows over the city of Richmond at the end of a hard is what it was like a it was like a Budweiser commercial it really was at the end of the day you know rational abrir but anyway I've been awhile you know

and not

and I'm going to stand on the wall and he's got to pull their boxes into a little half circle and they're looking at is the Richmond I I'm also had that look like a newcomer had difficulty

you know where you got the old timer stand off in their own little circle on the side of the newcomers kind of stand over like please invite me in season right now and I had that same look and and one of the guys caught my motion be over and I kind of loved ever sheepishly too I mean that you've done the work of a man today a folk at thirty sixteen thousand sixteen ounce Budweiser cans they were ice cold you're so cold it will be the condensation running down the outside Canada Canada's example I can use that you've done the work of a man and they have a drink with us today

that is take a drink because I'm an alcoholic I took a drink because morning the world this thirteen year old boy wanted to be a man I wanted to fit in and I pulled out my little box in my little half circle there and I sat down the box and I received a drink with the men

and and that in itself well it was almost a spiritual experience you know just because just being invited to drink with the man I mean you know while the little buddies route ride your bike and playing baseball and and here I am and I'm interest in Regina by myself working with the men drinking looking out of the city which

and not and I watch how they drink because I didn't want to I don't want to be a lately you know I wanted to drink like the men and so when they got there sixteen ounce first one downstate probably not they're all set aside god knows and I got my sticking up and down shortly there after that I want to be behind that I try to crumble it up my hand

throw it away

and they gave me another one and then the magic happened about twenty four ounces into my into my drinking experience in Richmond

and see what alcohol does for me is it and it made me I am not really store quiet you know reserve you know introvert when I drink man it just it just anime fan action drama and I got about twenty four after that belies Romeo five foot tall one hundred ten pounds and I just stood up

you know I just and I don't know what I would stand up for a while looking and you wonder why would stand up and I walked into the circle and said let's go

and they all looked at me like white

and I said let's go it's boring sit here looking at this point

a civil what you wanna do that let's go get some either whatever but we're going to drink more all right

you know so what what apple did for me it took me from being on the outside the circle to being a leader in that you know and twenty four ounces and is twenty four ounces when I stood up

you know I went from being five foot tall and a hundred and ten pounds with pimples and embraces and to be in a six foot two two hundred forty pound weight you know it's just that magic just sent me an apple just put me together notice of south and it's just it gave me a feeling like I've never had before they keep Lewis talk about talk about his first drink any health benefits the rest of his life trying to get back to the way he felt at first at first time it really didn't matter and that's that's the truth for me you know I I continued to drink to try to get back to Richmond

yeah that was my mission man to get back the way I felt when I twenty four ounces and was right there and it just put me together and get the message and but I had this problem I never seem to really be able to hit the mark I'd kind of be sneaking up on the mark sneaking up on a marking another shooting and I just you know ninety passed out in a black and you know and then I was pretty much the way my drinking when I drank as much as I could get a hold of it some point in the night I went to one of the things out of whack down which I just assumed everybody had that's the same that's part of learning how to drink is you know you you don't really know when you should stop and you need to kind of go a little too far and you gone white in color black out next time you try to stop before you get there you know overstatement mark that problem again you know and and the rest of my drinking from I was thirteen and I got sober June twenty third in nineteen ninety out twenty two years old when I got sober so really for the next nine years I was trying to get back to Richmond

and I was trying desperately not to restrict more

and you know people talk about all the different schemes that we employ to try to manage control are drinking and and I tried all the

you know I I tried beer owning I tried you know I tried the currently I tried you know eating drinking drinking on a full stomach you know I haven't written drugs in to see if that would help you know I mean it really doesn't help a whole lot different longer you know just kind of drag it all out you know and it's more expensive than alcohol and you know so it makes you poor and last

it's really a bad combination I don't recommend anyone

and in that in that nine years what happened is it you know when I first started drinking and and doing that magic is thirteen years old I had hopes and dreams

for a little guy I mean I have some dignity and self respect

I mean I was gonna be the first time I was a collar family to get a college education and I was actually positive that I would do

I know smart enough I knew I had the opportunity and I was going to work hard to do it because I was taught those things on the side of the hard work paying off I thought about it value of an education the last one month herself through college part time

you know Washington tree I was I was raised that

most of most of the men right handed interest Mississippi my family didn't accept my my father's my father's been killed accord but his father

I was in a

now he was a little suspicious

I heard the stories about him

and I that's even kind of grew up around I mean I was twenty little kids run around for five years old name because when I go over their house and he would have made a mistake he wasn't wearing one

you know and I went fishing with detailed guide to Renee and walked around the meetings when I was a kid so my experience Alcoholics Anonymous was at work

what it wished for really really bad drunks you know I mean these guys were bad and they were old I mean it really slow and

in a and then I knew that big it was really weird because my grandfather had a sticker to step one day at a time and he talking needs twenty four hour rental and all that but lately we went fishing with guide to my grandfather the server like I think that they were less than fifteen years when he died at sixty eight we kind of started late in life but they were guys if we went fishing with

get worse over like twenty and thirty years

and so he has often isn't real we are twenty four hour rentals but it seems to me like these guys are like about doing this to rest our life

you know and so that was sort of my my background with AA and and I started by trying to control my drink and about about sixteen years old

yeah because I wasn't five that's on our end hand anymore my black out that would be coming in a book called about a Jekyll and Hyde drinker get up and now what about the real alcohol you know maybe one of the finest cell you know but let him bring for a day or two and it becomes more or less insanely from dangerously antisocial and I just cried me sixteen years old

yeah and that's when people start to step in in you know I mean

that's when I really started noticing that that my friends were changing yeah the guy that I I went to went to grade school and middle school listen you guys have really good kids in the class you know all the sudden and they were kind of on the back burner and the bad kids were now you know and front center and you know and I I my mom let me drive a car when I was sixteen and now I had transportation

you know and and I had to have the ability to drive around and find people to get us to

you know and and and I and I found out right away man is drinking and driving you know it's like a sport you know

you know it you know it's it's it's a pastime I mean that's like that's where the action that you drinking and driving you go places and do things that non

yeah I look back in hindsight now I'm so glad that you know whole Carly kidding get didn't get killed because when we were hot my hash should nineteen eighty seven to that that I was driving and we were Podocarpus six or seven people may have put a hat stand and they will be waiting there and tearing down the road you know and and just drinking like fish and

and it is the other thing to kind of got my attention

right about that time with them

it is the real violence cancer to get into fights and I I wasn't I wasn't really about god and not by the time I was eighteen I had sort of moved up a little bit further in terms of the size and weight and you know the varsity athlete in couple sports and I was the strongest guy my eyes when I look at the bigger and stronger than I am now and you know what I've got drunk and got violent it wasn't a whole lot of fun anymore for the people around and I started really getting people just flat out abandoning me as friends people that I knew my whole life it just wouldn't hang around and one of the other things that sort of got my attention is is when I was sixteen my my mom remarried right about time out sixteen and she might want to take down truck driver that I was working with at the time and my mom's an alcoholic and thank god she is entering and like to say that she had the program but unfortunately she hasn't really invested the time and effort and alcohol and a lot of our lives today mission not drink run run okay

and you know I hate to see it but I like to make that point because when I say that you serve one I want to make the difference tonight between what life is like without drinking with a license like the twelve step program there's a big difference

and you know she might want a truck driver then and she brought him home and they they like to drink a lot and yeah I don't I don't know whether he's an alcoholic and I sure looks an awful lot like this and there's a lot of violence in our in our house and not only he would know he started as somebody that started and then people get hit the whole wall and I walked out to sixteen years old that I'm not religious but

and by the time I was eighteen years old I was graduating from high school and state of the top male students my graduating class and little Joe the varsity athlete as they have pretty little cheerleader and you know I'll be that girl up in the front to our people our graduation party night president graduate

you know what what do you say to someone the next day

you know what how did how do you even go about trying to justify and rationalize that in your room

in your in your own soul you know and that's really where I knew something was seriously wrong because there are principles I was raised with and I've always been the kind of guy and I like to think that I'm largely that way in a not perfectly but largely that I really have always cared a whole lot of fun

and I just maybe I just you have self centred Kerr I don't know but but but it's true that matters I've never really care a whole lot of what other people thought about me I don't I don't care at all not a whole lot and

you know people have started talking about my drinking long before I see that girl up black out

in front of all the guys and girls that I had I grown up with them again and and close to my time with my whole life

and you know

you know and I knew that there was something definitely wrong on the inside that that was not me I don't know who that guy was that it was not me because when I left that house my sixteen years old because I was tired of being a mom you know what I said I'm not to be like him

never be like you and I know I wouldn't be here I knew I wouldn't because I wasn't built that way into

you know what I found out later that there is absolutely nothing that I can not or will not do

one hundred

there is no I will not cross and as my as my simply human dignity myself respect with the roadway and I like to use the analogy of yeah my alcoholism it's like like the waves on a beach in the ocean you know and and I was right on the shoreline and I'd take a stick and I draw a line in the sand I say damn it I'm not gonna do that and the way to my office and come down crashing on the shore and it was just like that that line clean like it'd never been there

and I take a step or two back and I draw the line and say why did that but I'm never going to do that and the way to my office and come crashing down and they would wait outside until eventually there were there was no beach that intervention we I knew that I was just an illusion there was nothing that I would do the cleaning martyr

and I said hello place today

and it seems like the more that I would lose a massively human dignity myself respect and more of it the more I would lose that soul that I believe that it is all

as children who are clean so

the ties between us yeah they would begin to build the wall the wall block by block him and by the time that I got to you in nineteen that that wall is pretty high pretty sick already

a lot has to happen for you know for a guy who feels like he's really going places and and doing well all year before the line of Austin Alcoholics Anonymous a year later you know when I graduated high school I I kind of tell you what happened but on the outside things are still looking really good

but then a year after walking out of high school my life is totally consumed by fear I looked in the mirror did recognize the guy I saw

you know how to trade like that hard working decent people I was taught about honesty hard work innovation integrity people around my head shining examples have shining example of how to be a good moving long before I came down off nominative continued to be like people like my grandfather my grandfather

yeah even my mother is

you know just displayed incredible acts of courage is active now

you know when I was a child

take one raise another two year old and in the seventies when

women didn't do that a lot of a lot of career women around a whole lot of take it easy for her to move in with their parents or get another house she didn't do that she took on a big job

she did the best she could and she I think she did a pretty good job

I would wanna trade places with

and so some of what I'm talking about here is that my past in in hindsight and perspective this big game for doing the fourth step to take in my inventory interestingly you know

how things really work not not much but the perception when I got here which are really given me the ability to change my password to the value of things that happen within

relationship with god and and at nineteen years old when I when I thought about coming out ofthe naman reason that I that I I came here the guys in front of me didn't recognize the guy that I'm going with a gun in my mouth and the hammers back my finger on the trigger and I wanted to die

not really because I wanted I just couldn't handle it

the article talks about coming to a jumping off place we can't imagine life without money more you can't imagine life without it you know talks about knowing loneliness if you do

and I believe that was really one of my one of my first sort of sort of internal bottoms wet weather looking into that here and I I that I saw

or the eyes of a man who is who is losing its soul

it was just being stripped and and I knew I could feel it just feel it would be in my life is being taken for

and I didn't have the courage to pull the trigger and be done with the help of placing the

I didn't have an answer

I knew I had a problem I didn't have an answer in a thought came to me and have a baby how to try out all of the non

yeah and

and that was that was all I had left I mean I I was raised in the church and I don't have a hard story from the church I I wouldn't toss out of punching damning on you know if anything I was always raised with the with the father image of god father was you know by all accounts

pretty decent guy and you know I was taught from the time I can remember this and when he died he one of the company's kind of looking at

my dad's up there looking out for me what's going to happen

and

currently escalated but somewhere in in a teenage years I began to do things that I believe maybe two that were set me apart from that idea of god and I knew that my father would be proud of me the things I was doing things that go on in the people that is hurting and so I knew that my father would be proud of meaning god wouldn't be proud of me and they were proud of me even if I would help me

and so somewhere along the ages thirteen fourteen I said stop going to church

and so even though the church had had been a part of my life got to be a part of my life he wasn't part of the answer

and I've been you know sort of sort of raised you have seen like on this with the with the psychiatric profession trying to help me you know long before I took a drink man ever shopping plaza in front of me asking me what I

now it it was very was very clear there was something wrong with me besides alcohol

and not

you know and and I'd seen those people and all for my whole life nineteen years old and they didn't seem to be able to help me I know my family loves me and would do anything in the world for me and then they couldn't help

just sink in deeper and deeper

you know and I thought it may be a good out off and on and and I you know often my first me about how often and I was twenty years younger than anyone else in there at nineteen years old legal drinking age at I'm in Maryland twenty one yeah a leading legal drinking age yet boy that's a that's a good identifier out isn't it

I'm not even old enough to drink you know and

the guy called me up after the meeting today I don't know if you're not logged in on the promised one thing if you're an alcoholic and you keep drinking to get worse in the meantime

that's the first time somebody it really pops in the about the progressive and fatal nature of the disease and I hadn't been out at that time I had seen a lot of people around me died nineteen intimate the guy the read and pretty hard and even the ones that were they were doing some pretty heavy stuff they were getting that yet they got dead later on because they were getting dead yet

you know and and what happens is that started out as a three and a half years and now the program that popped on entering a hand here to tell you what there's nothing more miserable than coming out of programs out

because you know you you no longer have a home

we don't have a home and you get to that point you don't feel at home in the bar

because you've already been day and and if you've seen one happy person there have you seen one person it seems to have sobriety and be be happy at happy and at peace about it intruder during

January

and you walk into the bar and you don't you don't sit there and and and then you come in day in and in the first couple tries it you know I kept telling myself well okay it'll be different next time

in any case you coming out of a long enough you just become convinced that you're not gonna make it here either

you know and and I said hell the place to be you know where you're you're you're no longer sit out there and in the bars in the drinking my

Hey guys you don't make it may just hope

in a straight ahead here that I really

I really became convinced that I was not any power

and you know the worst part about that in N. out is not any what it does to us on the inside whatever little bit of a soul that I had when I got here you ought nineteen by the time I I came back in and stated twenty two completely stripped not

there's absolutely nothing left a shell of a broken human thing

and

it's not so much we do ourselves with but what's even worse is what we do the people who love me coming out about

Anahita hopelessness and the people a lot of time

you know when you make a promise one more time if and then they don't believe more stop making the promise because you know yeah

and what happened was the last two weeks of my drinking about a block of resolving battery which is no big deal one of the bright light you know fast car acting kind of drink to that one of the placing things happen you go to jail and we get a lot of record and other card a big deal things that happened before and I've been to more than one hundred minor car accident and you know they think that and as a girl but at the time instructor might I kind of had had had used up my high school sweetheart and I was working on number to look just like her and I I would move in on the number two and about halfway through that one and she was looking at it with the same here the person needs to have her on it and a finger in my chest pain you know I wish I never would have met you have to be you'll never change in his worst academic year

I thought you know you're right I was absolutely convinced that I would not make

and I was going to be one of those unfortunate

and it doesn't

if at any luck of late it wouldn't take too long and it and it would hurt too bad what it would be a

the last thing that happened was I got to play with the guy in any case it's out of my head on a concrete wall a parking garage in Baltimore city

and I came to that whole side of my head and match and blood coming out of my ears and I strapped down

my grandfather at the time of all my hand my mother's father

but I live with and never drank

I looked up at him and I looked up at him and I asked him I'm going to

yeah that was a an action drama and I've been to the house a lot of times and I've been banged up and busted up it's just a

but I knew this time was different

I feel life is fading away

it's cold

dark

I was scared but I've never been scared

and I knew the answer on that here and now my grandfather's

and handing and shake

and I heard a man say once enough of non diamond upgrade on the and I pleaded it is god that I didn't leave with help me that god did it seem like I was just so far away from

to try to reach in the dark give me another chance to try to reach the target to make my life count for something

and you know I think it's a bright light bill Wilson you know mountain top experience you know

I got a priest ran over me the next time I woke up at five o'clock in the morning

let's don't come out of my ears and going I know what

I now have my body become paralyzed that was covered in my involvement

seconds later thanks to this is that this is how I wind up

this is what kind of

I can never think that this is what kind of

I thought well of my plans in a and I'll be

somehow I won't have to do with the people that I see it have do not want to take it to the extremes of the accident they they seem to have to pay

I'm a little smarter a little brighter and I'm not that bad

and somehow it from being not that bad yes to being bad I was hoping

and the next day the guy that you're going to hear

figure out a little of the new house

June twenty third nineteen ninety

he walked in the room and I saw the compassion conversations and it wasn't for the tubes in the hood they were shocked and it wasn't for the side of my head smashed in the blood still dripping out of my ear it wasn't her and that and that what it was seventeen a lot of people very few

from time to time I see a person and wind up in alcohol is not going to twelve step call and look into the eyes and they've lost soul

there's nothing but pain and everything

there's just nothing left

and that's what it's all that day many wealthy army took his hand on my shoulder he said David I've ever had to be this way again

the shooting twenty third nineteen ninety

and it hasn't been that way from that data

some have

yeah he was over nine years when he walked in that hospital

and I'm sure he has plenty of things planned that day when he got the call and come

and I I always like to remember that now that I'm sober three years longer than he was

I think you know I have a busy life when that call comes

now Hobson reaches out and says we need help and I'm responsible

no matter what's going on

what that started was was was you know twelve years of a fairy tale there

it doesn't mean that my life hasn't been you know it's not it doesn't mean it's not like

but when you look at where my late in the day and I'm gonna tell you where from from where it came it just it doesn't happen

you know if you were to walk up to someone and say okay here's this guy what do you think the odds would be the twelve years later he'll be here

you know you walk into someone who's analytical someone who's a professional maybe someone who deals with it in the field of alcoholism and say okay twelve years if you first of all

it probably in about a couple percent I'm not even going to make it through the first thirty day like this guy you know but that's not the way down right there and which by the time we had a couple years will knock out another half of them by the time you get five years not got another half of them you know by the time you get down there without god if you don't have gotten information you got a better shot at water

I I heard a speaker say one time that if you see a turtle on a fence post

you can bet it had helped

we can better help and when I feel like the end of your

is it a turtle on a fence

to the outside world you on just another drunk if you are just another example of this program works day in and day out like it always does

look at the outside world okay now let me get this straight you were paralyzed Brandon said your brain was scrambled your gun carrying drug dealing bomb and now you're here

how does that happen

and

yes that's what I brought you June twenty third nineteen

with

completely stripped virtually I'm actually when I want to talk about here

absolutely convinced god wouldn't help me absolutely convinced even after that I walked in itself that makes this any amount of time before they'll either let now that's possible for some items somehow happened I'll be drinking again I think when he came as well Stephanie I believe are going to get it

it didn't happen like that for me I was hopeless

and now they sent me home from the hospital about three weeks later because it's just it you know it was very clear that I wasn't going to die there by then and insurance companies anyway you know we're going to keep putting a Billboard and on one side of my body was paralyzed we had a stroke one time and based on

and my was a top open all the time and money recall Adam and now

and

you know what I need help getting around I couldn't drive a car and and you know that I think it was that it was actually the day that I got home from I got home that morning and I was laying there thinking

I think

look what you did this time yeah he really done up right smart guy

the cashier paralyzed you're physically destroy your record human being mentally you can hardly put your name because I couldn't speak

I have a hard time getting the words out

still it is but

your parents and you know it and then you'll know how it is delivered and I thought he had before you're really done it now that the girlfriend of twenty six CDS something again nice timing banks out

and the family you know my grandmother's really anyone I had left it had it had anything less than any recent you have anything left because you just have to leave the compound gods come do someone

everybody I know and that's saying something along the

but I can't member heard trained by myself

right right

and then I go back and then the night that I was laying on the bed with my friends

my grandmother like to tell the story of my anniversary whenever other call that haven't done a good job last couple years she for mining any to shut up quicker

he likes to tell the story of land there watching it later and then we'll put him on the head and asking god to do god's will

he said you know sure it will

yeah and if it's not letting me in advance

one way or another because he was like

and Americans my early Friday I thought you need for that matter that night my god my petition with my colleague

that they're going to date because you know my grandmother so

the woman of action woman to say we've got our shortcomings but tell you what when a rubber meets the road