Steps 1, 2 & 3 at the Carry This Message group's first annual Fall Retreat in West Orange, NJ

let's start with the serenity prayer with your permission

god ready to shredded if we're doing the things I cannot change courage to change things I

I'm interested there's different

I'm Tom Flanagan alcoholic

my loan groups to harbor city speakers group in Baltimore and I've been with you guys should job August fourteenth nineteen eighty

I have a sponsor and I sponsor if you guys

I've experienced the steps in my life and I'm such a slow learner I had to experience of numerous times and I'm not finished yet I'm still continuing when this experience and I like the experiences are joyful

it's more than just a trip for me into recovery it has been an adventure

that's what it's been for me

that's the reason I do it it feels good thank you hello and I'm an excessive person I know you're not

she says first

in a general way what we're going to do David I want to talk with you about our experience about the steps hopefully we're not going to do any CRA

you know we're both a bit beyond that and all that data you health for a bit beyond that he is

LF

the twelve steps and we're the purpose well earlier she tells us

the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous sure sure resa principles spiritual nature which you have practiced as a way of listening can expel the compulsion to drink and enabled to suffer to become happily a usually hold

nineteen thirty five a a is talking about honesty healing happily eight usually hold it don't say it same thing about hanging in there

that's the direction the purpose

not my understanding but things

where do we put the steps in our lives when is the best time with a new person

check

well

I think it's like most bond she told me when you work with a new man think of it as working with concrete

J. and that's the best way to look at how soon were you made my sponsors sort of funny

and he says with concrete is wet it's easy to work

when it dries out a little bit anxious to harden if you gotta change you need to check

sure he should gestures that we work with to do crime right away what a concrete is still wet

say

check the web text

and that's what I what I did

when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous

it is my opinion this is it I was told to do just that right away I didn't want to I would just like you I want to study this thing about the love I just got so weird the rest of the track to read by Michelle thank you very much I was very intelligent W. no other show intelligence I was consulting retired truck driver one had a live

B. copies made you know

right

show us a little while you heard you still wonder

do the steps yet they told me to use well as you wait for four years Asia you gotta do this step here is to lift the fog

and I said the bush brochure words I've ever said my life okay well only but they did just that

it is the first step

all of it by myself when it comes to alcoholism there's not a single thing I could do about it

nothing

how do you go

well I tried

will power white power social power church power low power

all other kinds of power

yeah

you could shaded Tom had power failure

that's the reason I got here in the dark

this is the power is almost

contact our failure

that is the whole description of Thompsonville mich lack of power it has more to do with not drinking it has all to do

with I don't know how to live successfully

the whole dog gone diagnosis of poor living

is set forth in the first step

if you're desperate if you are not desperate then you need to

some excuses to delay doing something like that I should not eat it William H. here I am with damaged material in my head and I'm going to study

we'll S. good as good as you can delay doing anything

you can delay it

you might delay the joy of living

why would you want to do that and I couldn't pick up live fast enough I live here in

he had me so we had to do this that

I am tired of the snow

we're not going to talk a whole lot about

on manage ability when I got to you guys I was divorced from a marriage of twenty five years I called my Irish Catholic background that doesn't sit lightly on the conscience

I was fired from a career job of twenty nine years

I had made a ton of money when I was eight years old I had holes in the soles of your shoes

and I would go to conserve all memory and seven digits anyway at one thirty five yes

it was forty eight hours sleep monitoring group which

so I've been there done that got the T. shirt and

see I am in a parlous condition should not going to open up although I've met some sellers who came in and they were showing arrogant they were like maybe they refuse to admit that they were that their life was a little bit unmanageable I seen them come AA and I see him go most I'm go

it would happens when you go well over here thank

yes terms yes all my life isn't and supporting their route for a while and after awhile to get a job no big job like used actors you can't get a bonded anymore

it needed to get a little apartment you get a mortgage anymore because you shut the hell out of your credit you know so that's that happens

and the general Clark out of pay cash ward but the the title the tags all belong to the courts on one deal now that scattered you know

some of you experience that and no

I did so

in the ticket little girl friend with peace and all the office

this is a wakes up one Saturday morning he sent her

look alike I don't have to go to work anymore and Saturdays and Sundays you bring work home you know this is a very trained over job I got my little cars all straight forward wasted no bank will touch your firm I don't want to help

it's a

I got a national park we look to cut that grass is a four acres and Rodman and ended on and you know

is she going to pick her up we're going to go out you know she says hello and goodbye at the right time singers pretty sharp hopes to

stillness on the

he says why life is no longer on manageable locale I am bad at G.

Asia corner

okay bye bye he's going

he's managing his own device

show I don't dwell too long one on manage ability

I twelve one tower which

and Dave is going to give you a real good reason why I did well when parishioners because she knows me for a long time

Dave has a forgiving heart she still talks to me

so what I'm going to do is

let Dave commented better escape you comment a bit one dollar this is the move went to second step for us thanks they've got some alcoholics

before we move on to to contract try to take it set the stage for what the steps are important and and sort of when

we should go through on and and

my experience in those if you hurt me last night I came down blocking on the top at nineteen years old the first time in and spent three and a half years coming out about walking on and my experience is pretty it's pretty simple that he asked what was different

in a three and a half years and out of alcohol and it in the last twelve and a half years of the server life anything that I can really identify to definitely different is that I was willing to do awful stuff

you know and that's three and a half years I couldn't seem to make it

two four

I can get to it

and then I would be hung up

and the reason that I believe is it for me I we get hung up when I got to for that I really wasn't convinced I was a parent

and if you're really not convinced that you're powerless to enact these actions speak for myself and when I'm not convinced that I'm fairly

and I'm not willing to take action

it really really

or out of the ordinary they really require effort in shape at a level that I've never never had before and when I look at the fourth step and I need five followed that the reason for it was scary I knew they required me to disclose to someone else things about me which I had planned on keeping inside the rest of my life

and if you're not powerless and you really don't need to go to those kind of links and now I mean that's pretty extreme

I found out about powerless next in June twenty third of nineteen ninety when I lay in a hospital bed with my side of my head smashed in our allies blood coming out of my ear the doctors on my family if I didn't

I have the eventual

you know and I and I laid there knowing that

that was after three and a half years of my best efforts to help all of them my last year before that nineteen eighty nine when I went back and looked I had not drank

for over three hundred thirty days in the previous three hundred sixty five

that is better than ninety percent

you do ninety percent plus anywhere else on this earth and they're gonna say your exception you are going to university do better than ninety percent and you do it consistently consistently graduate without

you know you go to your job and you give him a high ninety percent and and and and you'll get ranges you'll get promoted Alko's anonymous you common you don't drink for ninety percent of the time what you get is laying in a hospital bed with your head smashed into

and and and really for me

you know when I came in at nineteen I would mean the legal drinking age and I was focused on on magic bility I really like because that's what gets our attention

you know and for me what got my attention was you know I I've been a student all the sudden I was seeing rapidly drifting to a DNF students

you know I was a pretty decent guy and all of a sudden I'm I'm I'm I'm you know beat the hell out of my girlfriend who I really do love and care about and want to do that too I look in the mirror and I don't recognize the person standing in front of me

my friend or talking there's something seriously wrong

L. I. suffering

and I came to a head

and I probably made it the first time I guess about two months on a one week a week

M. and nineteen you know I was already physically healthy when I came in apple had even really affected me physically of course I'm you know I I go back to the gym I start working out and you know it doesn't take very long to where I'm you know healthy as a horse and and feeling good every day sleep and eating right you know working out a little bit I feel great Allen and

yeah mentally all the sudden when I stopped drinking and staying up all night when I shop at college and and start you know doing homework and taking tests with the rest of the class all of a sudden you know I had done that much damage I'm I'm get names again

you know and and my girlfriend you know I'm not drinking anymore I'm I'm not hit enter and I'm taken as an intern for your nightstand and she invites him back into the bed again great you know so no longer my life is a manageable

it looks like everything's matching this one

no and I think well you know I'm not a legal drinking age yet

a little premature with his alcoholism diagnosis

and now

and then I I love the big book of sometime to give this out

am I on the big book was somebody to meeting thank god for that person

read read in the book did you know if you can make your alcoholic step up to the bar and pressing control drink and try it more than once it'll be worth it to get convinced not that thank god

like a gift from heaven the server was very

as I step into the bar and I tried to control drinking it went really well the person

and it went really well the second night and then I don't know what happened on the third night but I can't do it day in and later and the figures experiment didn't go so well I better go back a

and I what palaces you know it's sort of been for me as it is it was

you know that the June twenty third nineteen ninety with my head smashed in the lantern of badly really just the you know sort of the the conclusion of that three year being convinced a piece of my soul at a time

one of the things that really got my attention to it Alex Smith was I drink like on anti

in a three and half years

and I really do that's when I really got my attention because it was one of the things you know I I hear some people who who who drinks you know after they come out of treatments are they conveniently forget to take their interviews for like two or three weeks and then it right you know that's plain

mine was I take the pill at five o'clock before I'm walking out the door and I've taken the delivery day

and by nine o'clock that night the middle section settled in between my ears that I'm going to drink and it doesn't matter that I've taken that till date is going to make me feel like I want to die if I drink alcohol and I drink

drink

and I was bone dry five months when I took that drinking you know you're the first reaction was

thank

thank god I can remember walking into the into the bathroom at the bar

I thank god I just feel so much better

and my body feels like I'm gonna die but on the inside because I'd just been white knuckling got hanging in there

this measure

thank

and you know after training have fears of not doing the steps

and finally being convinced that I was laying in that bed now and it and it and it wasn't like when that happened I know I was gonna get sober

what I knew was that I was drinking

what I knew was that somehow it got him not being that bad when I first came to in nineteen to be too bad for you I would not get

if I ever got out of bed I would again

I know I know like I'm sitting here today and just like I I knew it then I know today that of myself by myself I cannot keep from taking a drink

one more thing about the first and only wanted to you know for a long time I ever read the book you know and I read the book for those three years and I'm not I mean I mean you know think of a Republic mark I could read and I did pretty well in school is always pretty good student but somehow I always get to chapter five and it's a being tenders for step three megabytes what the hell happened I wanted to

Hey Lauren chapter fine and I missed the first two steps from hell and it took me a while of sort of careful reading and and and surprised to find the first step in the first that's downtown page thirty one census said we had to concede to our innermost selves

we were alcoholics

and I like to use the example of the the last presidential election

when we talk about concessions

you know for me it was much like the presidential election if you know what I would concede when he conceded it was over

there was no more debate about who who should be president of you should be president it was

and June twenty third nineteen ninety

I conceded to minor myself but I was out how did me I believe that we get over

I just knew that I was powerless over alcohol and any amount of time

that was my concession

the second step we talk about coming to believe

and a power capital P.

greater than ourselves

to restore us to sanity

and you know it ends in the first half we talk about this and then they they think they do that capital P. for sneaky

I noticed that capital P. long before June twenty third in nineteen ninety and I noticed the capital P. instead he was followed by a capital G. in the word god in step three

they were misleading me about the direction that we were going at

and I don't want to be misleading here today about the direction that the twelve steps are going

if I am Charles this time said last night and his dog

dissolution of parliament it's fine

yeah the book makes no bones about that it really does and I make no bones about it to the other sponsor

I try not I try to make no bones about the fact that this is really a spiritual elements in their native virtual solution fix

and that's the purpose of the twelve steps the only purpose

is to produce a special way tell us that

and when they talk about the insanity of of of alcoholism

you know what I had seen some psychiatrists and psychologists a lot I mean a long before I took a drink you know forty five years old they're asking me what the inside look like you know they got me banging nails and Saddam you know by buying the punching bag and I've got the special folder at school did you ever have a folder you know when you go down your call down to the principal's office because you've done something this terrible horrible tragic and and you got little Johnny next to you who's a nice kid who just like beat the crap out of for no apparent reason and they pull out on a little bolder in some little Manila folder that had like one piece of paper and they pull out the date dot holder at Dave dot holders right there and it says next to little Johnny folder and I know that I'm different

and that's what's in that folder is all the things that are wrong with me the things that make a difference because when I grew up it wasn't fashionable to be seen like us like I prefer psychologist or counselor and I can remember distinctively making use of my little friends about where I was down when I would get heating people on a weekly basis for years at a time

if that is they're talking about it's not that

is not being crazy not mental issues they say they're they're talking about I believe is not the insanity that seems to appear magically when I get to a certain point my drinking I am a job on high drinker

yeah my reputation on the street but not that I was a badass but that I would absolutely I'm predictably craving

and I have some real power let me tell you yeah you pull out a gun and issued a couple times and it gets people's attention

and you can be my best friend one minute ninety beat me with a bottleneck

you know and that was it and what they're talking about the seventy is not a crazy thing to do during

what they're talking about and I'll describe to you one of the clearest example of insanity

about may of nineteen ninety I told my Fridays noon twenty third ninety nine about may of nineteen ninety three months the pride and the work begun to work with Tom I've got to step four

I had a vacation planned to go to California southern California with a normal friend of mine he was playing on going out there to live and we were going out I had a cousin out there we're gonna go out kind of go back out and try to come up with a a place to live and and and you know get a vacation I had it planned for for months as I said it's time to time you know what I did because I was worried about my sobriety that we do what you do here did you get out there you call intergroup you get a meeting you pray take your big ball and and you do what you do here in the Bahamas that's okay

as I got to California and I have you know some some jetlag now cannot really for them just like any other way but I felt tired and then I called and they had a big cook out though I did call it a group and I did get a meeting the next day but the next day we were going out on the boat on my doesn't matter at the beach and we played in tennis and really make a meeting the next day in the long and short of it is after being out there for about a week I found myself

writing and and a truck going to Tijuana Mexico but but in another sense physically separate them physically sever every three months and and as I'm writing if you want it's become interested account we get out and

the thought came to me spiritual strength I'm not an alcoholic in Mexico

I don't know where things come from

you know

and that to me is is the insanity of alcohol that

it after a day a week or a month

we forget

we forget the horrible terrible things

the prices that we pay for alcoholic

and we decide to drink again

you know repeating the experiment over and over and over again this time it'll be different I'm not an alcoholic I believe that

I believe that and I immediately followed up with rationalization it's all the people in Maryland it they're making me feel guilty about my drink and I'm out here you know and there's nobody to make me feel guilty it's really the guilt is making it makes my alcoholism so extreme and and you know and now that I have all the self knowledge about myself and I just got straight A.'s you know going back to college you know you know I just found out that I'd gotten straight a's that semester and I was like man

nine I wish trump within five minutes of having I thought

I was physically server than I am today and five minutes

that's the insanity of alcoholism and I see here

before we go into three you know it it did god I sponsor and I really don't spend a lot of time I want to do it I kind of about my feelings either you're there you're not and where I start on that with one into it I start and how it works on page sixty with with it with a three part in idea aspen this report and ideas that that our description of the alcoholic chapter did not the kind of person of interest before and after make clear three part and ideas

Hey there we are alcoholics and could not manager of mine

B.

Ali no human power could have relieved our alcoholism and see that god could and would if he were sought

and the next one is is being convinced or step three

so clearly to me that's a very clear line

to tell whether or not we're done with one engine are you convinced

now some of you probably have heard this story before so forgive me but you know what I kind of like a history everyone become a little bit of an a history but nowhere near the level of Thomas but the kind of intrigue me and and somewhere along the way I I came across when the original manuscripts the big book

and after their three part and ideas original manuscript said if you are not convinced meaning of this three part and ideas

re read the book up to this point and if you're still not convinced throw the book away

and I believe what they were saying we're trying to convey

in that sense

is look

if you're not convinced

we can't help you if you're not convinced it up yourself and by yourself you can I keep from taking it during

if you're not convinced that you need some power to intercede in your life

and we just can't help

you know that's a that's really been my experiences is one and two were were were you know after having the side of my head smashed in lan Abed paralyzed

prayed ever by a priest not knowing about well over time

I knew that I was powerless over alcohol and need to be a matter of time before I would drink that would

I also knew that it would only be a matter of time before the insanity insanity it I've seen repeated over and over and over again it is three and a half years and out of you know step up to the bar one more time in trying to Google drinking and after a while you know you just can't help but think and even even in my own insanity I could even see just how crazy that one how many times they repeat the same experiment and the results were exactly the same yet I would still lie to myself one more time and Tom said it many times I cannot drink on the truth

you know if I really look at my life and I ask the sponsor I ask the people who love me and around me the truth about myself they will not tell me that it's okay for me to take it right

there are guys that were you know every now and again I run into him some not even the old friends with people that were around some of my old friends and different social events and and it's it's not unusual for one of them to bring up a story about me and say that basic effect man we are so glad anytime people even knew me well if the people are kind of on the periphery of sini

and I said man we are so glad not drinking

if you were I was ever high school reunion fifteen years back in

but the junior this past year

I ran to a girl there that I hadn't seen and probably close to fifteen years

and she was a couple years older nothing she happened to marry one of the guys that did it with my class and I had been at her college graduation party

and she walked up to me she said yeah I remember my college graduation parties he said you were crazy

Allen has some some sorry I had no recollection of what is

the point is that even fifteen years of someone who I didn't even know that well the first set and that their mouth is talking about the insanity of watching me during

you know and she's seen me struggle on and I thought she was a good friend of a girl that I dated system and they knew the whole story you know so we make impressions at their home and and powerlessness and then manage ability and the insanity of my alcoholism is the foundation for which I need the remainder of the tent the rest of the ten steps to follow I mean they clearly defined the problem in step three I'm going to take over now did we begin I believe to to get to the solution of what is and how we find that power of attorney back over time thank you

what we're going to do I want to add a little bit more facts you

sedition just inside just slides right into it because that's how the steps really work in our lives they don't work at it chopped up dash

one just moves on to the next if you're making progress

question

one of the main sayings in recovery for me is to be totally convinced of what does not work

literature calls it letting go hold nineteen years older so gentle with it

I should be so gentle

as soon as I get a little closer to halo Polish I will pay but for now

one of the exchanges well she's having the Nile hope yes after all

in order to have that now you must know the truth and change up

an alcoholic I might try it does not know the truth

July here tonight some I don't know

George three Mitchell

I am in delusion

that's the word the Bocuse doesn't even mention that your difference all

what's the difference

Lucien

is to believe in a lot

the dilution is

next time it will be different well how many times have you said that Tom

sixteen hundred and thirty eight

and you stick sixteen hundred thirty diss would be different that's a delusion

Getty

we're not into dial where inclusion

we believe our life to be the truth that's the difference the Nile is to know the truth and say it ain't so

the decision is to be ignorant of the truth

if you believe in life it's not to say

a different form of insanity

they now may be a

a real moral flaw

to Lucious is more of a

mental through all

could be a little bit different

it'll be different not long

one

I have the compulsion to drink no you don't

you'll still be really hurt well I want to

I'm an alcoholic I don't have a compulsion to drink until I pick up the first drink in that sets up the physical crazy which is the second portion

now if I don't drink

I don't set up a key portion it's like a little kid playing with matches

if you take that matches the way he's not going to sack mommy's kitchen on fire

this is very very simple

don't take a take away that matches

take away the food she won't drink

we should have no compulsion

that's what a compulsion is

that is not the problem of the alcohol

the problem of the alcoholic is that mental obsession

you know a lot of alcoholics would you decide to drink after you paid show were decision to drink is based on a sober mind

before you picked up the G. Q. or separate

and a sober mind has decided to pick up a tree we'll

so you can't blame it on abuse you know he had none yet

this don't cop out or nothing

mental obsession

Tom in street language which is a mental section

mentor session is an idea

overrides all other ideas to the contrary

all right even our own research experiences

like a circuit breaker kicks in it kicks out the truth

what do you mean well I remember going to watch my life was your example in me but the mental obsession

I'm going to watch

Monday Night Football the borrower but you guys right

okay

I'll just make a few stops push boarding up that tested

L. it there's some real of the woman in the airplane the jukebox right as she got to turn the doggone thing warm real loud one football game is going to win it and she had very very poor taste but hillbilly songs you know we're

we should not very ugly woman

if you were watching the football and I get drunk and I don't know what the final score is very

and there's a tractor will be down in the bar with a credible taste in music

now

somehow or another we formed a mutual admiration society she is not

and what follows the course

well this is a

I learned that the lipstick in bad places and I was still married at the time but I did get home about four thirty in the morning

that to drive that home

I have remorse

Irishman killed

autocrats

it's just Tuesday morning I go to work late

I felt terrible I couldn't eat nothing hello

when she had just had to shoot you know

she went to bed has shamelessly can Friday I was thinking about social drinking tadi

for days later my recent experience of Shane gill diffusion

was of no value that some dental section

I was very shocked

very very fit over rights just true

override your own recent experiences I'm not proud of that episode

but if it has value for another

shin

and it wasn't wasted

connect with Alcoholics Anonymous Isabel

we come to believe that it is god's economy absolutely nothing is wasted if we share my sponsor the truck driver according to send truck driver now

not to be showcased what he

he tells me that when you have those experiences what will come to division four one five six and seven when you have those experiences and you keep them a secret

they will be a millstone helps run your race or if you share them they will become a milestone by which you can measure how for you

your choices millstone or milestone each two hundred Jewish

that's recycling designed truck driver

he just lays it out there check

now

we're going to move to three

registration turn our will and our lives overseas share guide as we understand

almost bunch

can't do to search that while we

live chat

I don't believe in god he should say that the emperor anywhere god don't care what you believe all you care what you believe and what you believe is got you here Neil it kick you forward unemployed truck drivers

and I was able to get your brother obeyed at their way up

sorry he says the prayer with me

home patients mentioned that it is Rick Romania Mr Chikore Frazier got I don't believe

that's desperation and

you desperate ugly things said that you conceded your innermost self Uralkali you'll do it

if you've got reservations you got some old ideas you ate that go well you may not do that

do they have about the issue kicks in you're still doing a deal with them

let me

well well you told me I had a good Irish

S. wretch overtures and read off your dish uninspired to god I really don't believe it

own pre sessions and shame

I should you know does she write well we

he said will you drink top twenty seven years will

which is just a little late to worry bout integrity agency to

sitting right here

and so the shade

so you say that they are here okay thank you

shishi meaning out of

all I know you have a few accomplishments in your life that remind uses

a lot of bad battery you are a lot of women better you look great

and it's sinking U. S. troops

if that's the strategy to crap brief last

a lot of men and women better than me correct

it's free shipping

today I ate that special special but not that special

what was the main problem

what was your main problem lesions we'll get to that later we give you a hint

one of the reasons you say you don't pray

issues hang

the gods like you that's a major mistake

use people who don't do things you like you don't like them

that's you but they got

god loves you

he doesn't approve of all the stuff you didn't

what election

we'll get to that and I think it's like a child you have a child it does do things that you like because you mean you just like to child

beach you might dislike the actions is challenged over to John

what do you think you're better parenting guide

stop up staging god

okay well we

if you were rich okay going

we need to turn your wheel you're going to hear people say alternate over budget crap

please click

I used to do that

must watch said it's quite

everybody shows a lot of crap that

you know which is forbidden she teaches concert

okay