The Carry This Message group

like to now introduce our guest speaker for James L. from

he

right from a list

change is gonna come up and over and talk tonight for

so

so at this time I'd like you to introduce you

thanks

good evening everybody I'm a grateful drug my name is James

is because of loving god and good sponsorship lessons that I learned from people like yourself I have not found the necessary pick with drink or drugs is June eleventh nineteen ninety four for that I'm eternally grateful

I'm a member of the W. group we meet Monday nights at eight thirty nine o'clock on Wednesdays and we hope to see you sometimes and if you enjoyed a meeting we hope you do it if we don't receive the parking lot

I

I

I think Mike

if I remember awhile back

it's kind of like the love the tradition says you know we don't we don't like to represent ourselves but we let our friends recommend this and I think that that that how you describe me at the data sharing was about the best way I've ever heard said in regards to the type of person that I am

I do believe in my heart that I do carry a certain degree of enthusiasm about the program sometimes

and I think when he described me as you know of the way that I presented as an enthusiastic way I believe that that was that was the way I feel in my heart about the program about calls

some enthusiasts like ourselves at times pay a penalty for believing in what we believe in

but I believe that the program about call sometimes work

I am not one of those speakers to talk much about the progression of drinking I know a few Jakob probably teach me a few tricks on how to bend the elbow

that is not the solution to my problem

I'm not one who is hopefully I hope not to be blaming anybody in my sharing that makes me want to say you know because mom and dad he drank and most of the community by which I lived in was stumbling appear again that is an excuse for my bad behavior

because when I got back here in nineteen ninety four after fourteen years to be and what someone like to say a chronic relapsing what I think it was with fourteen years of pure defiance

from hearing the truth in deciding not to follow the truth as it was laid out for me

some people qualify by by

getting into the drunk a lot thing

I would like to qualify in a different way I would ask you for a moment if you can relate

I give you a couple little situations why claim myself to be an alcoholic

if you can relate to this we're probably on the same page

have you ever woke up

in the middle of the night out of a dead sleep

sweaty

shaky and nervous

and you reach down on the side of the bed for it

twisted top

you take a hit

and the next expression that comes out of you with

he laid back down on the pillow

can you relate to the idea waking up in the early days grab a pencil if you didn't take a lot that night kinda fill your pockets

and noticed that there's a few Bucks in it at a certain sense of security comes about you and you can even put the drinking yet just knowing that you have a couple of Bucks

some of us get dressed in we we go out to the nearest facility that carried the elixir of a power that we're looking for and as you walking down the street you start to decide in your mind how much can I get the stuff that I need with the money that I have in my pocket

and as you get to those wonderful doors you open them up you walk inside me got all the stuff that we love to use and and you can you check your money and you grab a bottle of it you walk up to the counter you put it on the counter all the sudden you feel a sense anticipation come about you and you haven't even put it in your body yet

he paid a man and you grab the neck of the woods a certain clincher around the neck of it that even if if if if god himself try to pry it from your

we wouldn't be possible and you get to that place where you want to be and you hear that top crack in your mouth start to salivate

and you open it up let me get that cuts

you start to pour in your whole face just for you know and it just

S. dash

yeah relate

if you do

that I'm not going to take the privilege of pro claim he was an alcoholic but I am going to meet that James is

and my drinking was not that kind of drinking that came from any particular specific reason

but I'm going to try to tell you why I think that alcohol works so well for me

not the civil war said

many women drink essentially because they like the effects which is produced by alcohol I honestly believe in my heart that the effects that I got from from alcohol worked for me for a long time

and when it didn't work for me the lie admitted to you that it was injurious over a period of time I could no longer differentiate the true from the false that's why I believe I stayed even dollars introduced alcohols anonymous in nineteen eighty it took up to nineteen ninety four for me to to be able to receive the truth of alcoholism because when I became restless irritable and discontent the idea did come across mama and if it didn't come across my mind over a period of time I can no longer differentiate the true from the false because I believed that my drinking life was the only normal one I will get upset but I will go to a function to see people drink with impunity and I will come into the meeting to tell you I didn't like the way they carry themselves at the wedding

they were all drinking there

the United States government says if you're twenty one years old you have the legal right to drink

I'm not here to tell you anything different

I'm here to tell you that if you're anything like we are in you're willing to go to any lengths then you're left between a rock and a hard place and your choice is simple

you either set this spiritual stuff that is laid at our feet or you can continue to drink trying to blot out that nonsense idea consciousness you know the stuff if it wasn't for them

because he my resentment a lot like most alcoholics

built up over a period of time

history

my mother or father separated when I was three years old and my my earliest memory of my childhood was I was in a train station in New York

and I could see my grandmother reaching out from my home as my mother held my hand and I could see a snatching or **** me away from my mother

so from the time I was three years old to the time that I was ten years old eleven years old I did not know we neither my mother or father my grandmother was the only parental guidance that I had up to that time

my grandmother passed away one more one night while I was laying it down on the kitchen coffee table do all my homework she had asthma attack she asked me to get a Cup of coffee and we got it

I'll bring it back toward I continue to do my homework in those I noticed a grandma had moved in the last

now I'm ten years old also

and I go up to an I. tapper and I noticed a coffee spilled on it I didn't get kicked or slapped or cussed out figured something must be wrong so I run out the door and panic

now this is fear I'm being driven by fear I have no answers I don't understand so I take off to the first place that I knew that was my uncle's house

we get back to the house they tell me that grandma had passed away

now I don't know about most people in this room when you're ten years old a comprehensive things at that time were far beyond me you know I understood heard the story of life or death but did lose the only source of of support that I had was a lot to handle at ten years old and not knowing if your mother or father is going to come for you are you going to end up in Elko Billy's house or whoever's house and and and and it was terrifying

so my grandmother passed away they buried her in a my mother and my father came down together to retrieve me and I had to make a choice between which to outlook on the go

so I chose to go with my mother because believe it or not when I look back at it in hindsight the choice the reason I chose to go with my mother because my grandmother was a female

and identified that and I ended up coming to Jersey city with my mother

by the time I got to Jersey city most of my family in Jersey city didn't know me

so there I was going into a strange environment where people didn't know me at all my sister's name kind of showing from me because I was big for my age so they felt unsafe and uncomfortable around me any time that my mother wasn't in the house or no adult was around you know they kind of like ship the way for me to kind of tell you what I dealt with was it this was my first my earliest record reckon regulation of what it felt like to be lonely to be sad

now following in the picture yet I'm talking about those how they call it in the book emotional dove the devil makes

and end up people's fears and all that other stuff we talk about it and and now I'm feeling that stuff but I have nothing to fix

so now between the ages of ten and thirteen years old I became the kid that stole the drinks off the table

you know trying to relate and and and and and be cool you know like when the grown ups had activities not related but why is it down

latest guys down you know stuff like that and that went on for awhile and the reason that it works for me because the kids thought it was pretty funny and it was cool and stuff and and and and that's how it was in house I would say it was around that time where I was trying to have a relationship with my mother

and

by the time I was thirteen years old only really had maybe a year and a half or so to kind of get to know who she was M. A. and and a lot of people who have who know me hear me tell this story alive see I admired my mother my mother was a good looking woman she was raised at the time for children not five children at this time by herself

she was a good looking woman a charming woman this up right strong woman and she was coming back from an adjuster logic that should work from nice to look at it would just take a breath you know that that's how I just love them I didn't know or but I loved

she tried to be good to me when she could she was she did the best she could with what she had she taught me some things you know she taught me how to cook clean honest so

ladies here tonight she table stays true about me you know and I still carry that legacy of that my mother left with people so what happened with that was so dramatic that made alcohol work for me is after going through what I went through between the ages of three and thirteen years old man a friend was coming back from a public swimming pool at the time my mother never used to frequent a social club in the seventies right across the street from the apartment building that we lived in

why she was there something must happen to me and my friends see the animal is down the block from from the public wouldn't pull so like good ghetto kids we take off the sea was up

so we run down we run that we get to the building they bring in a woman out on the structure here is all over the place which one she was all she's kicking screaming make than just talking out of her head it was my mom

somebody found it necessary to slip but make it one of the drinks in the snap to mine

state of New Jersey found it necessary to put me and three other siblings on the care of eighteen year old little young lady

well my mother spent over a year interested aspen

we went to the neglect swallow property all kinds of stuff that you read about newspapers you know kids little dirty mattresses not have enough enough to eat and I got my first job when I was thirteen years old across the street get a dry cleaners and I will go over there and I work at the school and I will bring a few Bucks hold and they'll put some beans and fatback it's biscuits on the table and by this time now I am starting to drink I'm getting older boys to going to the liquor store to get my colt forty five in and we rolled out a little how do I buy a spicy make like to set up better living through chemistry

and the

you know these these type of things started to take to take hold you know you you start to drink you forties and hang out with the boys now I'm telling you I'm doing it because me and the boys are cool but the reason that I'm doing this because awful shame guilt remorse fear all kinds of those emotional

B. double minutes that I mentioned earlier

and and and and alcohol and drugs only seem to to to make it

almost okay

because it will last for a period of time it will come back most of us as a recovery I heard a woman I think it was a woman on her status no it was a man

I believe many remember it red meat and somebody said when they stopped I believe it was brother see and meet the night of

they said something that brought a lot back to me they said when they got sober got worse

for it got better

M. I. A. gave me recall because that's how it was every time that I would drink and then stop

it got worse if they get worse exterior early but internally it got worse and no wonder I agree with the book when it says that you know some of us get to the point to where we step away from the guy that you know we stop we stop we stop looking for things that inspire us to to to get through and

so doing that time period I guess that would be the point that if I was was like that I would be sharing that stuff in meetings you know to kind of give me illustration you know somebody I probably could relate getting beatings with a belt that been soaked in water

somebody I could probably relate getting beaten with stench in courts broomsticks

matchbox cars racing tracks

you know whatever was

at hand you know that me and I would like to come into the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and tell you that that was the reason why Drake

I drank solely for the reason that I told you earlier when it hit the belly of my stomach something wonderful took place it didn't matter anymore so I gotta agree with how it works

when I was when I finally reached the point of drinking on a regular basis I can honestly look back in hindsight and see that I was driven by self imposed crisis

I'm S. I'm sorry I mean to be self propelled I can see how was driven not to feel the way I was feeling and no matter what you told me no matter what you try to say to me to keep me from drinking you don't understand

from ages thirteen to that was eighteen years old I felt that I was recreationally using and drinking I honestly do I believe that I was just hanging out you know I remember episode when I was fifteen years old me as friends at the school got every dog will lick on the planet just about from transgender Bourbon and every kind of malt liquor and and draft beer we set up on the tracks and drank in the end I'm stumbling home in the in the summer and not my mother at the time find me on the bottom of the steps lay in the mold you can if it wasn't for my head to look up on the bottom step up by the drowned in the pew

now this is normal alcoholic stories and I would like to sit here and do what I like to hear sometimes because do you know I drank a lot

did I drink some more

and then they told me that I was drinking a lot

and I recognized that I had a problem with the drinking that I was doing and I kept drinking some more to I couldn't drink anymore thanks for letting me share

the help me here you know

by the time I was eighteen years old I was told that my condition was bad I was I was in the truck with my boss and he looked over at me by this time my oldest son mark he was born

by the

a couple months old

ride in the truck my boss looked over at me eighteen years old in my head I got a little shake too early in the morning he said well you need some help

and by god's grace and they put me on my first rehab in nineteen eighty

from nineteen eighty to nineteen ninety four

I bounced in and out after a period of time would be a soap

I would literally get up in the middle of meetings and tell ya ya can kiss my **** yeah I don't understand in if you zoom up shoes you'd do the same thing I remember feeling in early sobriety that now I got it not going carried a message model get the neighborhoods open old times look at me and say go get you drunk before you get them so yeah yeah yeah you don't understand and and and in some cases like nowadays when I hear that kind of stuff I understand the difference between what they were telling me dead in Baghdad I thought it was done they had a problem C. I thought that I was sober

and I remember thinking that I was in sobriety and I remember hearing old timers before me talking about boy you only been a few months ago claiming the sobriety

how can you even tell me that you're sober you know because I used to think that I was sober I had a period of time abstinence from alcohol so I figured I was sober now I was physically removed from alcohol but my mind was was still obsessed by the idea that alcohol could do this with me

so like I said from nineteen eighty that's the kind of behavior that went all I try to bring us up to date and while I'm here today

it was around the spring of nineteen ninety four after I had left the dock to the market street mission in nineteen ninety

I came in nineteen oh February second nineteen ninety one I ended up at the Market Street mission

in a holistic program

I stayed there for fourteen months

after about three and a half years of cleaning crazy

I was driving to the mall

I was supposed to go eighty west I went eighty east

I had a conversation with myself all the way down to New York City

all the way up to the point to actually put the chemicals and substances into my body I argued with myself

seventy two hours after doing that I recognize it's time to go home I get a call on the start driving eighty east eighty west and I'm cry like a baby because I recognized here it was I had three and a half years of abstinence for many by law through chemical whatsoever and I just finished user for seventy two hours and I decided to drop a call from the bank

I ended up at St Clare's hospital they bring me to fall is my wife at the time

and the first thing she said to me is when you try to do commit suicide and like a good alcoholic **** he is

she said you should have died

I had a spiritual awakening at that moment was that was not as profound as some that we read but like bill says there's many spiritual awakenings in the rooms of alcohol sometimes there is people

I'm laying on an examination table I'm looking at the examination light overhead

now I know angels came out of it

there was no songs being sung in the room but I'll tell you all this I had the most clear is thought that I've ever had in my entire life and that thought was simple it said if I was to stay sober it was between me and god

now stand him up telling it to you and I can actually feel that that remembrance of that moment starting up on me and it makes me want to get emotional and that's what bring out that preacher part of James a lot of people get pissed off at you know and and and and that's fine with me because like I told you in the end in that moment of awakening that thought with not only in my head but it was in my animals may

and I knew then that god could do it I struggle for a few more months in on June tenth which I did not know was eighth birthday I come home one night and my wife and kids were gone that wasn't like it mattered that they left it was just the fact is I didn't want to lose what I had but he gave me enough of a enough of a

private time where I could ask myself a question do I want to continue to go all the way I did so I called the insurance company they call some of the local hospitals they had me before so they finally found the program if that would take me and they flew me out to California a state out to California for about two and a half three months maybe

and what happened was while I was in California what they did for me out there is that I found the groups similar to this group

a group that believes that that the program was outlined in the first one hundred sixty four pages there was a group out there called the processes and I got involved with them and L. two was my first sponsor when I got back in California and I don't believe in temporary sponsorship I really don't either either you all my sponsor you're not either I am yours or not because if you want a temporary spots I guess you look for temporary sobriety

all you got that selective sobriety you know you didn't do what I want you to do so you're fired

like I care yeah let me

bill bill made a statement once would bill said that the people that he tried to help the didn't get sober he noticed that when he got home at night that the man in the mirror still sober

now some people may call the selfish program I don't what I call it is a person that was willing to go to any lengths to stay sober include helping someone who's going to be as defined as we all

so when I got back here

I met my first bot Selamat be

how about I don't know but now have sober now well must have clean no I'm so browse all step two at the time I thought

and I'm standing in front of a meeting in Morristown and

there was people who remembered me

when I had the three years of cleaning crazy in the holy list program

and they couldn't wait

they set things like this to me

so where your guide now

we should Jesus now

keep it simple stupid

the catch you ready now

and as they possibly me I'm looking at Lamont B. any sitting there watching these people do this and because he didn't participate it moved me

so I went up to Lamont said Lamont

he C. S. how long you've been sober he said five years

I say have you complete all the steps he says yes I see do you have a you know I understand that the traditions exist yes I said would you be my sponsor

the mother said yes boss

we went that meet the ninety told me not to share in over a period of time the mob was started to get me into the early stages of the process of recovery he had me update with him where I was where I left off and we started to build a relationship amassed all take me to the first stages of of the steps

after about work when the month for years so I ran into

one man I can just strangle

okay

name is John Starr

judge John stern

help me

I haven't I like John Starr I'll backtrack a love John Starr because with Johnstone was able to do for James is what many people over a period of time could never do for me

Josh started taught me what true humility was

Jostein taught me that the greatest lesson of humility is being true to dial and sell

what you see is what you get

I can live with that can you

and I think that when people go up to someone and they see something that is in your personality trait may begin to play god and say you know Mike

WWW dot

do you know me well enough to tell me what kind of man god expect me to be

and then sit in a meeting and tell me what you think of humility

I laugh at you

you know it is really the truth you know because I think I think that what Josh Duggar did for me is that Johnston took a young man that was full of anger yeah I heard my story I know what it must've been like for me I don't even have to tell you what it was like I used to sit me to say my name is James and I'm a time bomb it was the god honest truth I had told people in meetings

when I see you outside it'll be nothing between us bear an opportunity

and John style will say to me is that the kind of man you want to be

and I could feel my stomach tie up in the not because the truth was I didn't want to be that

but while others were attacking those bills emotional

the devil makes

John stern tolerated me enough and Love Me enough

to work through that with me not saying that Lamont didn't

the reason that I felt so comfortable with the month and I tell you what happened when that night he brought me in the meeting he told me not to share with them I started this year he was an African American male who was eloquent

the market talk it's such a decent man for me that he just made me go

you know I mean I would look in his mouth as he we use words to describe how he felt and I didn't know they had those kind of words the kind of words that I used to use his words that would not be appropriate in the presence of those who don't wish to hear it

they told me the people who use vulgarity was a per person that short vocabulary read a book

you know if I have to stand here at this podium in use obscenities vulgarities and obscene descriptions of how I feel I need to check myself

because it's very inappropriate for me to talk that way but in the parking lot you may hear me use of language you might not like

you know I kind of have a spiritual book that told me I rather speak a few words that you understand and speak many words that may confuse you

so sometimes I have to be in Rome when I'm in Rome

so in other words so in other words when I come down when I got to do a twelve step call that might happen to be in a crack den I'm not going to go up in there and go really have we seen a person fell

I'm not I'm not I'm not you know I'm not if I'm with a loved one has got to go retrieve a loved one I'm not going to go in there talking that way I'm going to see may get your blah blah blah about that blah blah blah get out the blah blah blah dole before I put my foot in your blah blah blah

and if you decide to sit on it blah blah blah after me telling them that well Thomas says we help to win that we discard the underworld and we did

and nobody likes to let go live and let live in live one day at a time I really believe that that's what he meant in the family afterwards because he told me that that nagging wife push that man to go back to drinking no I don't think it was the negative the wife to push them back to go back to drink and I think that is an ability to put down this new crutch

is what caused him to go out and drink but Dennis said later on that he continued to drink smoke because of smoke and drink coffee obsessively but he wasn't drinking

now that's what you choose to do however you wish to live the one thing that we had to talk about is how not to drink a day at a time

now finished and given my sh meal

what worked for James was when I got introduced to the first one sixty four pages of the doctor's opinion bill story does a solution the more about our policy which was my first step

in the doctor's opinion I was given a diagnosis of my condition I share some of that which you early not the source told me that I was out right mental defective full fight full reality a maladjusted to life for those who don't understand what maladjusted mean the word emails were Greek in origin and means bad so I would suggest badly to life's situations and the only thing that seem to work for me was booths SO he told me that anyone who gave me a message that left out the physical factor is given me a message which is incomplete so I can agree with early stages of sobriety when you tell me that you know don't drinking go to meetings but those of us have been sitting here for a period of time I know that you're going to have to do a little more than that but we know that we cannot leave out the physical factor for we have given you a message which is incomplete so by the time I got the bill story I was given the first illustration of the alcohol of how bill said that the alcohol he was pretty felt himself to be normal in every aspect of his life was set for when he had to combat with alcohol and my my **** and I think that the truth because any I would get up and go to work like any other normal person but on a Friday I will make a solemn oath and I'm going straight home and I'm going to pay my bills

and I wish that wherever I was going and you will see me a day or two later and I got no money and I will do little things like this I'll come up to the house and go

and my wife of

me

if you can relate to that some man in the world maybe some ladies to

but most of those guys know what it feels like to be so full of shame after making a promise to you your significant other that you were gonna come straight off work and you end up going out for two or three days and you tapping on the door you own a home full of fear

some may

what do you want nothing just let me

and then I will get in and I will give you like the book says reasons that I feel were plausible

excuses that I thought were good enough some of my even believe myself if only you went through what I went through

by the time I got to there's a solution bill told me that the only thing that could help me with the vital spiritual experience and I told you the one that I had and that's the one that I still hold on to this day I do honestly deep down in the core of my being and my son is here to bear witness to this the other day I've been going through a tough week

holiday season some emotional peoples and my son with me and it was right in the day and he and and and and and he said to me you know what dad I remember when you said the other day that no matter how tough we getting nothing going to make you drink today

now my son bad witnessed a statement that I made to him awhile back I mean that moves me

that is that that he could tell me that she does I couldn't do that prior

to bill store I'm sick of Macomb dot subpoena bill story does solution more about alcoholism see for me the doctors got the pin was my diagnosis bill was the witness of the patient did solution gave me my prescription which was the vital spiritual despair more about alcoholism for me was my relapse because prevention chapter it tell me what type of thinking could cease to relapse I was given several different lustration saw how the alcoholic end up with a drink in his mouth

the first one was as someone we see somebody's little purple bitter

you know just how to how to make

but so tight to suck brick on the wall you know and if any Sydney already picking all people because he's miserable in his sobriety that was the guy who said you know what I'm not going to drink until I retire and they said for twenty years this man went without a drink

and when the day came out came the small jacket and slipped this in in the four years he was dead

after putting the drink doubtful of twenty five years or so four years later date so everything that he thought he was dedicating to his life for whatever he thought he was gonna do didn't pay off

because alcohol killed I'll give another illustration I could drink man owning his own business end up working for his business shows up Tuesday morning

I had a few words with the boss not big you know

I know what I do I got out of his diner down the street that you maybe I'll find a few familiar face but I can sell a card to my eagle let me know you know everybody down and knows my name you know and go to my cheers and celecoxib you know and and not a not wrong we have a glass of milk in the sandwich a nutty role with a number wrong with you because me if you decide to have another glass of milk and a sandwich but there's some wrong what you're thinking when you say you know what I put a little bit in my Milton or custom

that R. sum about that reason we could get me drunk

also my favorite character

is the guy walked through the threshold and he said

I think I have a couple cocktails just before dawn

that was how I drank that's how I drove the whatever it was that I wanted to use to fix me I never gave thought to it I never put up a mental defense my last relapse reminds me of the J. walk for fourteen years I tried to drink the way I thought I should drink and the last time it broke my emotional back

and in the end and then least of all those muffin another one of my favorite characters more

it wasn't a problem in the world hi low rise

bam drunk again

and I could see building them do all what people did for me many years over over time

try to find out why would I give it all up

we did not experience was appearances and up to where it says god could or would if you saw it with my six step reading

and by the time I got the guy could or would she was sought because of my past I've never had a problem with the leaf see I was the guy you read about in step two to twelve twelve I had a heart for the Facebook got for the bulls

and and and it and it just it turned me into a gnostic Lee inclined individual a doubtful individual when it came to faith and belief so I needed the illustration of the preacher's son and we did it we did not to because it taught that tapped into a place for me to adopt us long forgotten

I remember going into church wanted to be like grandma and you know wanted to feel the spiritual experience could like we say in in my police is to get some of that holy ghost feeling you know I wanted I wanted to feel that but I was going in there expecting something that day while working full

and I was delusional about and and I couldn't get that thing so I was disturbed by so I acted out all my old self will and just like you said everybody got a fundamental idea of god it told me what alcohol did to me and we did not take it says alcohol was the great persuader it beat me into a state of reasonableness a little later on I read it told me that I could make a living I couldn't control my emotional nature I was prayed to misery and depression I was out felt useless and I was full of fear medical page retell the largest good stuff and I like it well the fact is logic of good stuff and I still like it prior to page fifty three did I learn anything that I just read a we didn't ask the

because in the open the opening paragraph we did not because as in the preceding chapters you have learned something about alcoholism so here I am logic is good stuff and I like it and they told me that the reason that I didn't want to do that is because I didn't want to give myself to reasonable interpretation

I thought what I would do is I was sitting there at my former thinking was soft and mushy and although my hands up and down says I don't know