The Carry This Message group in West Orange, NJ

what I'd like to now introduce our guest speaker for the evening hailing all the way from Dallas Texas mark H.

if you're about hot markets and I'm an alcoholic

in the

our guys separate me from our whole morning of October nineteenth of nineteen eighty two and that power has kept me

separate from a call center that time all right my own group was called the clean air group in Dallas Texas I didn't name and plant

this is the way that works

it's good to be here with you all

I can't remember when I started coming to New York I was born and raised in the Midwest they call I will

lived on a farm for three years of my life with town once a month at age ten moved to a town of three thousand I was a huge account right

so this is a broker at working in New York for the first time I had a bunch of belief systems in place about you all it where you live and whatever is not

I it's really funny because every time I come to New York I just had an absolutely fabulous bye might I've got a new home now stand I was called a hole for the way were husbands

so any of you in here that are soon to be getting divorced you're calling me a call

you know and they decided I'd be a great good roses I've been very divorced four times and

let's say that I

I didn't I had various people offer sponsorship but one gentleman said he would be my nicotine sponsor

Peter was kind enough to be my hair sponsor will build the the dog there is more crude just let me know Recology to help me with that so I I you know my all my needs are being met back here but I did have a lot of fun in the

a lot of fun yeah I'm looking forward to come back next next August like my mind is where stuff when I was talking to talk about the sponsored fired somebody and I so my it automatically goes to you know those of us who sponsor we need like a pink slip

you know and that we can we can write out some stuff you know what I'm saying if they don't

they don't do what we think they should do you know that kind of stuff

we're talking the other night we sat out last night was on

the new drugs that they're not thirty eight yeah one gentleman that around twenty four years

we got about three weeks and we're talking about how many times you read the big book like you didn't know what was in the big book and I thought to myself you know you take a look at our writer go and you get the big book and say look Rita first turn sixty four pages then we expect something to happen I mean that's like that's like giving me Emmanuel under sixty four pages to find out who's sixteen and that's a logical part of the

you know I don't want to wait be careful don't hurt yourself or anyone else yeah

well you know I the program about college noms is very sacred to me and when I say that I'm talking about the recovery portion I'm talking about the fellowship and talk about the service of peace and the reason is is because it changes transformed my life it brought about a revolutionary spiritual experience in my life and I guess I'm what you call a fundamental orthodox member of our call it's not as if you if you know what that means

my life is incredible today I was also they go now we was talking about

this moment right now I've never experienced before never experience again and if you don't call me when I came here almost twenty years ago

that I could get taken to a state of consciousness in which every moment is so new and fresh and exciting and and I could live and move and have my feet in that moment

free up my like situation which changes all the time I would have said you're absolutely not

said there's no truth in that you know that that old statement how do you know what you don't know you know you see I don't know what powers around call during our call for twenty years

everything the big book talks about in terms of where alcohol is a monthly JQ alcohol alcoholism it took me you know when I sobered up in the two

I yeah great damage kidney damage liver damage what about the words you can never think I would be put to death in doubt the what a single human being in my life wanted anything to do with me I don't need an answering machine I didn't even call because what nobody call and I didn't have any black little black book is where the body taking any more calls now when I was in junior high school I did not go down on my couch and say listen do you have a program whereby at least thirty six this is where I can be that that is what happened

yeah I was a second second of four boards in the United take a break because sixteen years old yeah that alcohol is a nineteen eighty six nine watch that

yeah I've made some decisions about I didn't want to live my life like that you know but I took a break

when I was sixteen and very early on the effect produced by alcohol which argues for twenty years I begin to experience and I can assure you want things at some point in time you got to look at is what is the effect produced by alcohol the reason why I say that is because

why would I keep going back to something which hopefully begin to call for Ricky consequences in my life

so I think that's a really something to take a look about what was going on to me prior to the drink

why would I keep going back to the great you know if you continue to progress in the in alcoholism

it's pretty much a no brainer ultimately what's going to happen to your

those of you that are real aka haulage that drink like I drink you know that your economic conditions begin to change

the paycheck if you or your and get you noticed that your home has a different look

four bedrooms you a car to your car and you know when the card or whatever it is you know when you

you begin to notice the quality of food that you're eating begins to go through a change in your

and so on middle that you're trying to convince yourself that this is okay you know it if you're like me I'm a little late today I begin to realize the quality of people that are hung out with there was a dramatic here as well and

that begin to happen and and you begin to notice that there's less time with people who used to care about you and in course in the you know in my mind there was always something wrong with with them in a

and I was a geographic drunk guy right back I

I still carry resentment I think it gets talked about some of the old timers gets delayed the one down the whole life and made their made in one day

and then he I live is devastated that's a lot of lot of moving around a lot of travel you know but

that's that's what our goal is the match you know best for you and I

high school and I went to college a little college you'll be at earliest memories and even long before it took a drink and I would ask myself why I just look at the experience of that is it all that stuff on page fifty two the call that the devil much which I think is a great work but it seems to me that that was exactly how I experience life internally

so much of of everything that we are here to read and talk about his to do it what I call our external perception of life

in the tragedy of that though is is we experience like really controlling if you well our mind talking to is our motion state that kind of stuff and you know that paragraph is so somebody up by

that trouble and personal relationships you know I started most of all the women myself

I didn't know when I came to the aid

that because I didn't have any kind of a personal relationship with myself like yourself I could not have one with you which is why I've also separate all my life including really my first in years name walking to a meeting like this you know what I'm talking about like a dance shield comes around you there was more highly

is it being done yet

my apartment by myself

you know we do a whole lot of doing just great

what

all you know but you know you just don't look good reading so you don't do that crap

you know you need greater misery depression

easy job and both of them full of fear really

I I would think they would get me

I'm clear about booze was my solution booze is never been my problem

my hair is black when I was great at her white when I got sold

that happened about two years I look at it as it goes out of my wife you talk about the terrible you know you're you're sitting at home like you know closer to go to meeting got a lot to talk to someone here

you know it yeah but if I don't go away the Senate get drunk yeah all right we'll go and get driving down sales sure what if someone talking in there what what they don't need

you get there hi how are you and I'm mark

did you go to a

one of the call I mean you get what you want to go India

I got there she is in it I got because I just got home my name is unbelievable you know you go for a job interview and if your service opens

they do it

what do you mean you haven't heard no no I mean work what do you do

black a little beads are

three medic ideas but ten days of a treatment center detox and

in order to the cafeteria story in in in Denver Colorado I got sober me down the interview with the human resources and she said well you know I've been doing this is exactly what it will have been drinking and

I'm not put your business background and

what about work he told me later you should mark all of my dreams to get as far away from this guy you can't and I turned you into our

let you know that those words but you know it was this idea be useless

you know it seems like it didn't matter how successful I was in the external world

there is a part of me that that I mean you guys are what this is like

they're all going to find out probably all the same day

job she's leaving

iris is coming down the hall and you know they're going to find out you know what I I don't know how it got that way I just can tell you that I got that way I I'm sure there's a lot of there was a lot of reasons about I got that way I don't know I got the way I just know I got that weight when I drink I would never play

which is why I drink for twenty years which is why I every human being that ever cared about me to begin to talk to me about my drinking early on and I

there was no way I was going to go through life without drugs absolutely no way which is why I drink the way that I Durango I got drafted college into Vietnam came back from there

gal that I hit man in college we roared off to California lived in San Francisco for years and

from there Eugene Oregon in Portland Oregon and then a

I like bills as my drinking is still more serious proportions here's why you got this I will park it was terrified to begin with and now I'm in this business world getting more and more and more successful I remember at age twenty six second myself with the merger of the gonna have a heart attack well today I know is what the colonnades ideas that

and I what I drink that thing goes these things didn't go on I was a daily drinker and

report that woman in and then I moved up to Seattle Washington and then from there they lasted and I guess that was the beginning of the end of the end for most of the pretty much the same is that everything that have any value in our lives fully because the drop off you know that was really the end of any kind of a career that I have the relationships are gonna through a series of events in nineteen seventy nine and wound up in Denver Colorado

that type moves are void in any area that I've worked in before and I have a brother who is an entrepreneur and mood altering substances

we

if I would care to be employed in that business with him and says my resume didn't get anywhere outside Europe knew that so we we did that for a while until such point in time is up several government gave him that he really needed not be in that business and

so

that was you know in about a year after that I'll never forget that the morning of October nineteen nineteen eighty two and I don't you know I don't have any issues coming in and out of a I went to a few meetings about a year and a half or got sober funny story about that on my very first meeting AT was it a group in Denver is a birthday nine nine three she still went I don't know what her name means and the guy that was getting it shipped with picking up a thirty two year chip not chronologically he was seventy five I look at this guy and say he's thirty two years old the looks that bad he needs to be walked out of that meeting and a working for me

and I probably would do a few meetings between now and then you know what that means I have to be living with a woman who was in my way that's how we knew toward the end right

and but that warning

you might relate to this

who is the managing the effect produced by goons

it probably stopped by six seven years before this morning happened

and what would happen is I would take a break and nothing would happen

and I'm drinking drinking drinking drinking drinking and pass out these blackout and you do all that it

but I could I could not get out of this place I was in bill uses words like the better morass of self pity or the four horsemen I think those are good words to describe and then the horrible thing was that my best friend was he no longer could take me out of that place then you begin to suffer all the physical stuff that comes when you're drinking twenty four seven

in that particular morning

I ate you know

it's it's somewhat vague but

I'm sure there was a part of me that that that morning yeah they had all the fun that I could stay in and there must have been a part of me that morning that reached out to this power you know the series of events I want to detox and wind up staying about twenty eight thirty days in that place and then I got release from there my first three years were difficult I I hand out

they diagnosed with brain damage from some other substances that I like to mix with my alcohol and not

of course along with health yeah that's never healed I think you're lying but

and I have experience working over in and I was terrified it was unbelievable

you all held hands and I thought that was really nice that you did that I did not participate in that I thought that was real hokey course I look back I was afraid I was terrified you know you've been holding hands that's a little weird to me

you know in the old talk about got a lot of it but what about the other three methods became Catholic doing Vietnam much other experiences quite frankly just didn't give a damn more didn't take too much about anything one way or the other yeah

member hook it up with a guy named topple short guy buys offices media get it now

I remember vaguely somebody did that work with me not much of a I remember being afraid angry all the time there's a group in Denver they call the fellowship hall and it's in Aurora Colorado and I used to go there you don't you're fairly new you can probably relate to this

I started to worry that really eight years here in

and I hate doing well I've been better you know it's just hasn't been around a long time in those first couple years you know I'm here my body which of them is beyond belief is still healing I don't know what you mean the one they're not crying the next I'm laughing the next I'm a sociopath and I you know it you're just trying to live with

they can't sleep Sunday's usually fourteen hours

can't even some days you just talking yourself what you think you're involved with all that you know you

well these old nine guys and there's always a heavy delays in three

no no

you know I just

and you know and then finally I reach the point you know you get sociopath cares on here and all my here is about a year I mean you know this man that ever get anyone there one day and he starts to whatever and we didn't you know

and I raise my hand I want to talk about this and I'm sure it was something I had to do with anger about why why did you go away

he says I hire you right at the top pick up all of the you know you work as a programmer yeah

people just I just beat the **** out of this world man

you know I'm like yours over there that's how much fun I was having none of it you get better that's a lot by the way if you're being told that his

you want to date but it is going to get better while could be a little rough up here or not and that's the way it should be you know it's like you get to work with someone who is a real apology you know usually you say that was not the like blood I feel like a certain rules of the day that's got you're supposed to be you know yeah okay the other day with high self esteem your pet we can help you

good about yourself

updated your kidney and even the Irish you know what good you know it's like you go to these crazy treatment centers they want to give you these affirmations right I mean I basically bought the last five years my wife was burning firewood blah blah blah

they get there this is the kind of

well I thought it was going through he said I'll tell you when you get out of the office team when you get done with all your business you know one of those guys you know get stepped on

so I did go to a lot of meetings you know I know you have a great regular meetings maker make it my experiences I thought the truth but it might be for some people and I there's certainly value in there and I think that the power of god and the individuals within a group can carry along for a while but of course it does to me is a meetings wondering what's wrong and alcohol but instead you see alcohol wasn't my problem the meetings will drink what is really wrong with me

yeah hi guys you might relate to this you separate me from alcohol which is been my only solution reason comfort in my life you put me in these rooms I get worse I do not get better

I get worse except now I gotta live like sober but I got no tools for you know

and by the way you would think alcoholic beer emotionally unavailable you have not been an alcoholic man we are very emotionally available that's why we drink you can

thank you you can see it all over what we do is very bizarre stuff right because remotely available to research on what to do with this stuff just who is not a reporter you know when you

the route three years I met a man some you know on and on P. and you begin to take me through the journey

I did the best I could with that in hindsight it off fast forward a little I had three great years and that person can

hand up

but if I if I didn't do anywhere near the amount of work out of the bullpen with the steps that I that I need to do and then do it I got my I missed a piece

your character and then talk about the poor kind of drinkers yes I think it's into the wives

and I was talking with my pal Joe but I would guess it is a lot of W. is looking forward to come back here in August we're talking about this the other day about

it took about four carriages of alcohol is really in that chapter

yeah well we got to talking about was is you probably want to find out which one of those for you are and it would depend on how you drink that are you going to live

yeah I was the fourth guy I was the guy that was running

I was the guy that you know not to miss the divisions I was the guy that was going to quit for nobody or nothing I was the guy that no human power can help in hindsight what I did when I first came here with me is a guy that came in today and I'm like a little while longer

well guess what that isn't going to work if you're bad golfer whiskey you better be a demand go up of gotcha that's my experience the reason I tell you that this is my little world wallflower in years when I look at my first ten years put me in the same asylum in Houston Texas in nineteen ninety one

nine years

K. within twenty four hours the server side I was having so much fun not great

the therapist tried to help me with some other stuff yeah I've been I've been free of that period of time long enough to tell you most of that was about the only treated alcoholism most of that but it was about sober I was in a rage about Mike didn't go all the way out one because I've never done with the third step that we read and I asked me to do which is this I offer myself to the bill would be do you do with me if you want which means my life is no longer my business I didn't do that my first ten years in eighty eight and I was I didn't wake up one day and say I think this is the battle goes over ten years ago now it's almost commit suicide right now what happened

take a guy like me all my life and self reliance you know pick yourself up by the bootstraps tough macho male blah blah blah blah that stuff will keep you in the south will

big game that you've turned your world like already got into

hi site was the best thing that ever happened to me I got in more pain

I got to tell you how much I love blues this is the truth

not once all years are great did I ever one time everything made suicide watch it a whole bunch over those first came here

yeah I had a look at that and say well what's that about that's good trees work home with me for a good book yes so simplistic in the in this regard it says mark if you're real up all if you look at your first if this is you we're going to give you two door just two dot five zero

Iran spiritual living what do you want

a little bit

what

we talk a little bit better you know like

you know what it does we're talking I think you said something and I think it's so true it does have to do is bridge living

can't look at a full doors right and he says what I have to give up to go to the doors of living right yeah I understood that I understood exactly what it seems like

delivery all my old ideas and beliefs do man ten commandments no sacks no ****

well I

you got me going crazy living don't think so right

get overloaded what yeah okay okay I'll be on the sports workshop to work every day you don't be a good one yeah that's virtually

but the battery is a little bit more

you know like like we just you know okay

when I look back at you know the first at three

if you want to look at your actions when I look at my first ten years

my actions that we are still heavily involved in self well I took the job I wonder working sixteen hours a week

view readings will step work worry about the money you know I I'll never forget this

it is part of living is waking up right I I like to say this I went through most of my life I was sound asleep dreaming I was away I thought because my eyes were open I was awake wasn't awake

what have I come to the aid I described the condition I was in around five six years of bought a home

hello I can prove you've got

you know

want to have the office exactly one was a real dog and one was a pool

well I wanted to have

we it's nice for bedroom home with lots of mountain property in two cars in the garage to be an alcoholic of course the nonprofit and they have a home so I bought the five thousand dollars you really can't you know all of you go to sleep in the day probably and only use the one time you imagine that got out

with all this new furniture and I

sitting in this house with nine

for whatever reason there was gone

yeah I realize I feel like I got an albatross around my neck and I

I'm in more fear than I'd ever been I felt like drinking I said something's wrong

I wonder if I've been lied to because I live in both the very great American dream right I'm sober I got all this stuff

yeah I missed nine Islamism was absolutely unbelievable and all those stories about that so I went up and then the house in Houston Texas and

after that yeah I want to going to work for the nut house

so I

I left Denver in you know I was telling them

Tom in the way over here that that was a very significant event because

your

yeah your attachments will kill you

when I was placed in this position I like never Colorado everything that I thought defined who I am external

what's truly removed from me including my house in the eight the whole group everything and I I went to Texas in nineteen ninety one to seven days out of a hundred dollars in a big book and I had no idea and there were no how there was no support group but there was no nothing no downtime meet in in hindsight that was one of the most significant events in my life because when you get placed in that position you're going to turn the got knowledge about this from my side when I look at my first in years name

I had made my mind god and didn't even know

I thought that because my mom told me I believe in god that I knew god

not true

that is I have a very clear

those first ten years okay those first ten years and they are talking to a group like this I would have been terrified inside you at the scene

but I can tell you for nineteen ninety one at this moment that it's never been my experience as I can walk into a room full of people not know a single one I'm completely at peace at home

so what happened to me at that time well

I really begin to take a look at the big book it I begin to say all the things that I have been unwilling to do on a daily basis

not yet forgotten drinkers right

and if you go to great the way that I agree with you every day regular roared through life

probably doing meditation to drive today won't work for you right a little step work probably won't work for you either but I started really look at the big book particularly the technical level step and I realized that a lot of things but I was paying lip service to what was doing

so here is the position I'm in

I don't know I I give away but

I got in years but you know what I've never really done I've never totally given myself to this way of life in all the years I've been in the program

so at that point in time I said all right here's what we'll do I am going to completely surrender to this way of life when I go back I really

did my current step at ten years old the reason I can tell you that because from nineteen ninety one to this moment my wife is not my business and I quit making it my business I don't care where I live I don't care who's in my life I don't care what I do

because every time I care about any of that stuff are you drink your weight up and not houses right miserable back with anxiety and fear that hasn't been my experience since nineteen ninety one because if you look at the back of the proper myself to you they'll meet you do you wanna think about the implications of that if you're able to live there can you can you can you tell us that can you be at peace with that

so I get moved to a small town Texas called Kerrville listed other port part of my story town of eighteen thousand

this is just the truth anybody that don't have anything that I want

yeah I gotta tell you something about me I'm not the kind of guy that's going to get your work completed you sound good to me

you're going to have something that I want

and I'm gonna come to you and I'm gonna say this question

first of all I don't believe any of these dependencies that that actually developing a good message I got from don was I'm gonna get you as independently as quick as possible

as quick as possible you're not going to end up with is about god knows about what's in the big book don't let anyone read your big book for you sorry there's no one in that town has a damn thing I want so what do you do a lot of different books I start looking for weapons that could quickly see where religious people right because of what they offer

so a lot of different books a lot of different disciplines started coming to my wife I reworked the first nine steps starting on the title page

four times in the first ten years ninety one to ninety three I had a lot of fun written inventory I had experienced at a deep level something I did not understand which is reconstruction of the ego or by you come in day eight you have this experience but you stop you you I guess you could say it this way

some people talk about there's a theory well all workers at one time lived in ten eleven twelve if you can do that god bless you I can't do that that didn't work for me because my ego rebuilds yeah it's got a very good way to rebuild and I start to get resentful I start to get a great and I started talking it miserable what I started to do page could you do that the Dallas begins to show up in my life again I don't set out to do that that's a phenomenal just happens and you and I can't do anything about that which is why I continually working and reworking steps I just finished writing another forced app and when I go back Sunday I'm gonna do when reading about three four times file under examines repairs about three pieces of succulent or row I'll take that inventory report different people I still am very actively involved in reworking the first nine steps I do that because I like the effect reduced by you follow me but he was real real circle is

there there's an acid test but I think in this call is what you're doing working

it's a great question ask yourself what are you working the big book is full of promises you an idea of what you're doing is working things like this

our peace can be alone a perfect piece knees but here's a call from the help role here serenity I will be done pauses educator doubtful ceasefire anything or anyone

you know be able to meditate said the silence stop judging people the list is fairly and less so for me it's real simple if in fact I can't live that it maybe what I'm doing is not working you see

I am very much aware that are responsible for like the whole experience like it is nobody's fool it has nothing to do with where I live in my life your name and I am glad I am very very aware that I'm not I'm willing to assume complete responsibility for that

so I that's why I continually work and rework those first nine steps I continually talking again my first experience of this relationship I have with alcohol the

to this day almost twenty years over I love with you more than most people drink

I really did

everything I tell you that when that wall gardens overlooking the first deputy

hi Sir my mother's father you know they I don't know how you all go back and look at the first step would I use it and then call the set aside for

have you got any part of this program here's your news

your knowledge of your past experience and you have to do it

you know your moment of it like that each of the seven which are completely free experience in your **** we all have it if you work is that

you want to capture that what time will I remember back then I had this

great experience nice yeah that was then and this is now and so I get invalidity anymore right

so use that bird and I look at those first thirty three pages of the book and I work with this I reworked the steps with powers I got power line I got the power but the power comes through the right

I ask myself where bite with loss of control today if I took a drink

that's a consideration

thirty three pages they answer that question I got thirsty and

it was it was amazing to me I got thirsty

it taste alcohol

that's important for me

because there's a piece of you that the further away you get from a drink your mind starts to do some things you know like whiskey is no longer ever going to be a problem right

so I started to look at that and I begin to realize that if in fact there were but we didn't have to drink again I don't have a clue what would happen to me my last drink last year now

I hear people talk about well what I think of drink I do this I think of myself how do you feel that

I pick up a great point one of the St Louis I don't know what I'm gonna do when I drink

see I don't know if I could ever make it back and I will limit the power of god working product relaxers

people with ten years of work on it as far as I can help actually five percent ever make it back to these rooms because of the progressive nature of the disease of alcoholism

I live in the city of vocals close to four million people address what they call a major group there

when I celebrated nineteen years I went down there and they keep a record all the kids they sell

they sold sixty seven nineteen years here in the city of four million you think it's a deadly disease thank

I don't ever want to lose my first experience I don't want to ever lose that I don't understand how deadly this thing is that I'm up against yeah I got a part of your retirement wants to

well it wasn't so bad we've been sober

why I continue to pursue that course of action that I did today

what severity would be have to be first and foremost in my life I don't ever want to pick up the drinking it yeah my power I can't keep myself they can have a great talking to you guys last night

ornament three years was seven eight months I have this question

do you believe that your ball with your last three laps they will go

I said really

where you get the idea that you're involved with your request if you were already requested that I meet you choose will you drink or not drink three they'll call it is over I got involved when I go back to drinking or not if I had the power to decide whether to go back to drinking you would have another speaker

and I wouldn't be able to help the whole

there are other neat places

what makes me an alcoholic is the most insane thing I ever do it over at certain times and I don't know what that looks like it when that's going to happen and I know the ball with that improve their own the book is currently about the only thing is going to prevent that are you in your condition

J. I probably understood something

if you don't work with the first steps of the book you start working again a lot of and you decide you're gonna take a few days off and not do the severity of this post sure progress

the pope says the only reason that you and I stay sober if you believe the book is covered with this particular