The topic of "Emotional Sobriety" at Carry This Message group's Day of sharing

Into New Jersey. My name is Rainey Nelson. I'm an alcoholic. Hey, Rainey. If you'll bear with me, I'd like to take one moment to remind myself that I need God to be here.

Thanks. I'd really like to thank everybody else who's spoken so far today. Really, just some unbelievable stuff. And, no matter how many times I I get into a a spiritual body like this for a period of time, it it never ceases to amaze me, the power that that seems to move around and the things that seem to happen, just from being present with a group of people like this. Now I, I'm an alcoholic of the, of the hopeless variety, and, despite that fact, I have not found myself struck drunk since February 17, 2000, and that is a miracle.

And, if you knew me before I, before I got sober, you would agree, and you'd be about as happy about it as I am. Now, I'm not an alcoholic because of the way I drank. Okay? I drank alcoholically, but that's not what makes me an alcoholic. What makes me an alcoholic is there's 2 things that go on.

1 is I suffer from something that I now know is alcoholism, and that was with me from my earliest memories. When I was about 5 or 6 years old, for whatever reason, and I don't know where it came from, I don't know if was instilled in me by society. I don't know if I got it from my parents. I don't know if I read it in a book. I don't know if I just picked up this idea.

But I picked up the idea that it my role on this planet and in this universe was to make sure that I was happy and cared for, and that the only person that was gonna do that was me. And the only way that I knew to do that was to formulate and carry out a plan. And so I I began planning at a very early age. Now for me, this is the beginnings of alcoholism. I, I grew up, with 2 of the most well adjusted functional human beings as parents that I have ever seen.

I was in a very dysfunctional home, but the dysfunction, oddly enough, was entirely because of me. When I when I became functional, it turns out my entire family really had it on the ball. I didn't see that when I was a kid. I would have told you a lot of problems. There was a while that I I started really looking back and really looking at my childhood, trying to figure out what what is it that was done to me, you know.

And there was a period of time, a a a decade or so ago when repressed memories were coming. There must be. Something must have happened to me because for me to be where I am now, you know, obviously, I've repressed something. You know what? I don't remember much before I was 5 years old.

So I must be back there, you know. And and I would dig and dig, and I would talk to my parents, and and my my, my mother has a a long history in psychology, and so she would we would play this game and she said, you know, there was that when you were 18 months old, I left you at the babysitters, and I came back one day, and you were bawling your eyes out. You were crying for me, and maybe that was it. Maybe it's abandonment issues. Oh yeah.

I said, Yeah. You know, we moved a lot. We moved a lot when you were a kid, and I went to something like 13 schools before I hit junior high school. Maybe that was it. Maybe that was the deal, you know.

Oh, yeah. Maybe that was it, you know. I maybe maybe I I don't know. All I know is, by the time I'm 12 years old, I'm waking up every single morning, to like a a the Jerry Springer show is going on in the back of my head, and and what's going on is I'm as I'm looking and I'm planning out the wreckage that I know is to come today, and how can I avoid it? How can I change it?

How can I control it? What am I gonna do about this? And so, every day I'm waking up, and I'm formulating a plan for the day. Now, at 12 years old, my big plan, and I'm gonna use a lot of terminology here that I would never have used then, but in hindsight looking back at it, I'm looking for the proper way to manage my life. I'm sure that I can force the world by playing a really good game of chess.

I can force the world to give me the satisfaction and happiness that I know is my birth right, and that I'm here for. And so I get up in the morning and I got a plan. And at 12, the plan is usually something like, okay. New school. Let's go into school.

We gotta look cool. We gotta get people on our side right away, because if they're not on our side, they're gonna talk about us. If they talk about us, they're gonna start thinking at us. Chris I I always identify with that. Chris talked about that this morning.

I they're thinking at me. I know they're thinking at me. So I gotta have some way to make sure that you're thinking good thoughts at me. Because that way, I'll get reflected back at me that which is gonna make me happy. So what I'm gonna do today is I'm gonna go into school, you know.

I'm gonna find the kid that everyone picks on. Right? The kid that everybody doesn't like. Right? And I'm gonna pick on him, and I'm gonna be funny about it, and I'm gonna be witty about it.

I'm gonna find a teacher that everyone likes, and I'm gonna make sure that I pay attention, and that I'm cool in that class. I'm gonna find a teacher that everyone doesn't like, and I'm gonna, you know, whatever, throw spitballs at them so that I look cool. And I'm gonna find the kid that looks like he might be tough, but I know I can take it. I'm gonna get in a fight with him. And we're gonna play kickball, and I'm gonna score them, and I got this this entire list of things that I'm gonna do in order to cause the world to give me satisfaction and happiness.

And, you know, obviously, by the end of every day, I am just a beaten man. Because it's not it's not that some of those things don't work out. The problem is some of them don't, and everyone that doesn't is is dashing me against the rocks of hopelessness yet again. And by 12, this has become an obsession. I mean, this is not this is not something that I wake up and I go, wonder what we'll do today.

I wake up in the morning, and literally, I have a cast of characters going on in the back of my head, getting me out of bed. Right? Telling me where we need to start and where we need to go today, and and I am losing it. And and 12 years old was was one of the worst years I have ever experienced on this planet, and there was nothing wrong outside. That was my alcoholism.

Right? I didn't know that at the time. You couldn't have accurately diagnosed it at the time because there was one thing missing from the puzzle, but at 13, the alcoholism met the alcohol. K. And 13 was a marvelous year.

13 was 13 was It was magical. Because when alcoholism and alcohol meet in the same place, at the same time, in my body, it's unbelievable what happens to a guy like me. And the first time I drank alcohol, Chris, if you got any of you guys who are here and heard Chris. Chris Chris told my story to a t this morning. Because I have I had this picture.

Right? Because I'm I'm constantly on the lookout for for new plan fodder, you know. What can I do? What can we add into the plan today? Maybe it's something I'm I'm missing here.

And somewhere along the line, I've started to see, and hear, and read, and and learn some things about what alcohol looks like. What it looks like when people drink, and they look like they're having fun, and, I was always an avid reader because I wasn't allowed to watch television for whatever reason. My mother didn't like television very much. So if you got in trouble in my house, the first thing to go was TV. I didn't watch TV from age 7 on.

It just wasn't allowed. I was always in some kind of trouble. So I read a lot. I used to read things that I had no business reading. For whatever reason, I loved Henry Miller.

Now, at 12 years old, Henry Miller doesn't make sense to anybody. I don't know if you it doesn't make but the guy was drunk all the time. And he and he had these beautiful descriptions of the world, and even when things went wrong for him, you had this sense that he's won out. He's gotten what he wants. And I'm and so somewhere in the back of my head, I have this idea.

Alcohol looks like it might be a good part of the plan. I had no idea how right I was. 13 years old, a guy shows up at my house. I've just met this guy. He's the new kid in school, but I don't know him.

So I have a much better shot at looking really cool to him, than to all the people who have seen me pick the wrong guy to get into fight with. Who've seen me pick on the wrong teacher at the wrong day. Who've seen me embarrassed and humiliated because that happens. This guy comes to my house, shows up with a peace offering, you know. We're gonna be friends.

Let's hang out. We're 13 years old. You're not supposed to do this. So, whoops out a gigantic bottle of vodka. Cool.

You know, cool. I know you're not supposed to do it. I know it looks like fun. Let's try this out, and, you know, I I don't know anything about chasers. I don't know any I'm just not a subtle guy.

I I never have been. I don't remain subtle to this day. If I if my sights are on something, I'm a bull, and I just go for it. And so I I poured a a water glass full of vodka, and I started drinking it, and it it burned, man. It didn't taste very good.

It didn't I I didn't know what was going on. So what I do is I I distract myself. Let's a song, you know, throw your head back, gulp the whole thing. I still I will never forget the look on this guy's face, Andy Snyder. I'll never forget the look on his face because he starts drinking his Drake off, and he goes, and he looks at me.

He goes, and he and he just gets this look on his face like, my God, what are you doing? And I drank the whole thing just like that. I just opened my throat, drank it, and I kicked back, and I waited see what this does. What's this about? What's going on?

And, you know, about 5 minutes later, nothing's really happened. I got this weird burning sensation in my stomach. I don't, you know, I got this weird taste in the back of my mouth. I'm thinking about maybe getting a breath mint or something. But nothing's happened yet, so obviously, more is what's needed, because we gotta find it.

So so I do the rinse and repeat thing, and I do it again, and I wait. And and at some point, after the second gigantic glass of vodka, it it happened. The alcoholism and the alcohol met, and they shook hands, they introduced themselves, and and the sun rose somewhere in my body, and every cell in my being simultaneously just exhaled, and relaxed about 30 degrees. And, the best description I can give you of what happened to me is those promises that we hear at the beginning of the meeting. It was night step promises.

All of those things came true for me. I had I did not regret the past. I didn't I knew a a level of serenity that I had never known before with my best friend. With the coolest guy I've ever met, Andy Schneider. And he's the coolest guy in the world, because he brought me the new plan.

This is now the plan. It's not part of the plan. It's not an ad. It's not a this is the plan. Right?

And but plus that, he's he's looking at me like, well, I'm someone to be looked at. You know. And he's looking at me like, wow. You're really crazy. And I like being looked at like that.

I like people looking at me that way. You know, I got, yeah, I blacked out. First time I drank, I blacked out. The the book says that at some point in our drinking career, we all cross into this stage where we lose control over the amount that we take. Right?

Where the alcohol is now taking me. I'm not taking the anymore. And I and I I was born across that line. All it you know, add water, add vodka, boom. You're there.

I blacked out the first night, got into a fight with street sign, got picked up by the police trying to go to a movie at 3:30 in the morning, 3 miles from my house. My parents came and picked me up, got grounded for 3 weeks. Greatest night of my life. Best night of my life. My hand has never been the same.

I I cherish the fact that I have this one knuckle that's a little weird from losing a fight with a street sign. I I think that that's just one of the greatest experiences I've ever had. Now I'm an alcoholic. I'm not a complete idiot. So it's not like I set about drinking 247 everyday from there on out.

I understand that I need to make you happy so that you'll leave me alone. So I will do the bare minimum. You know? I will show up at school. You know?

I will pretend to to do my homework. You know? I will go out to the mailbox and collect any letter that's coming from the school so that my parents don't find it. And I will find every chance that I can to go into New York City, to go to the party, to sneak into the liquor cabinet, to do whatever it takes to get drunk. And that's and that's fine.

And to tell you the truth, in the beginning, I I could go I could I didn't. But I could go weeks at a time in the alcoholism, in the spiritual malady, in the discomfort, knowing that there's an end to it. Knowing that once Friday night comes, this will all have been worth it, you know. And I will crawl through miles of broken glass to get to a drink, because it's the only thing that makes me feel okay, and it worked man. It absolutely worked for me.

I never tried to keep away from it. By the way, I had a very hard time when I showed up here getting the idea of, of being physically powerless. That was really hard for me to understand. It was hard for me to understand this idea of an allergy that that I didn't have control over the amount I took. Because the fact is that every time I drank, I wanted to be obliterated, and I wanted to black out, you know.

When I talk about going out to party, I don't use words that that describe having fun, and I wanna go out and blossom tonight. No. I wanna go out and get obliterated. I wanna go out and be destroyed. I I use terms of destruction, because really that's what I'm trying to do.

What I'm trying to do is to get rid of what lives in here. I wanna escape it, and, and so they told me, you know, when you drank, did you have control over the amount that you took? Did you ever drink more than you wanted to? No. Because I wanted to get up.

I wanted to get so wasted. I couldn't think straight. But the truth of the matter is, I'm not a big dude. You give me a 6 pack fast, I'm pretty obliterated. You know, when I got a huge tolerance, maybe it was 12.

You know, 3 Long Island iced teas at happy hour, and I'm really in bad shape. What I didn't want was the other 30 or however many. I I don't know how many I drank. I wanted to be obliterated and wasted, but I didn't wanna wake up naked in a pool of urine on somebody's coffee table. That's not what I wanted to do.

I overshot that mark. No matter how far out I was setting the mark, I overshot it every time. Every time. And and when I really dug at it, there were a few times that I that I wanted to I wanted to drink to loosen up a little bit. There was, there's one moment that I that I always remember.

I had this new girlfriend. New girlfriend and she has older brothers, and they're in college, and they both, played football, and I'm a little nervous about meeting these guys. Italian family. I'm a little nervous about meeting these guys. And, I decide that, Okay.

You know what? I'm not gonna get I'm not gonna get completely stupid here. Right? I'm not going out to get wasted. I'm trying to make a good impression.

However, I also can't go wound up and tense. So So I need to have a couple of drinks. I I mean, it makes sense. Right? 2 or 3 drinks, a glass of wine, you know, and that's that's all I'm looking to do because I have I have purpose and direction this evening.

My purpose and direction is to make friends and manipulate my new girlfriend's brothers into not wanting to kill me. Right? Once again, I woke up that night. It was a laundry room. I woke up in a laundry room that that relationship didn't last.

It didn't survive that night Because I I drank, and and I drank until I got this warm fuzzy feeling, and and I and I can remember a a brief interval where I'm chatting it up with her brothers, and we're getting along, we're laughing, we're having a good time, and we're gonna get another round. And and the next thing I know, I'm not welcome ever again. And that's it. And I don't know I I I don't know what happened. I don't know how that happened.

And so I can look back, and my experience abundantly confirms me that, yes. You know what, no matter what I wanted to do, for me, beginning the process of drinking is like jumping off a 20 story building, and trying to stop before I hit ground is not gonna happen. And, and for me, when I get separated, it's because something has separated me. It's because I've blacked out or something has physically restrained me. I'm locked up.

I'm in a hospital. Something has separated me from alcohol, and that's the way it always goes. I I do not have any conscious memory of beginning to drink, getting that click, that feeling when the when the alcohol kicks in, and deciding to stop. I I don't ever remember doing that. There are times that I drank a half a beer and clamped down on myself.

There was no effect of alcohol. Now that that doesn't count as far as I'm concerned. Right? If the alcohol effect enters my body, I'm seeing it through till the end, and the end is not something I have control over. And I got my hands around that and I understood that.

And, you know, you know, just fill in your own war stories. Okay? There's the jails, there's the institution. Somehow, I never got a DUI. I still don't know how.

I should have, but for whatever reason, I don't know. God decided I needed to have a clean driving record for some reason. Everything else, I'm a multiple convicted felon in several states. I I I have, I was listening to Jenny talk and I was and I was thinking to myself, man, I I should've got myself an alanine because they all left me. And I'm thinking, god, somebody that somebody that would hang around through all that, that's that's what I was missing.

That's what I was missing. Because right about when you came into Al Anon, that's about when I I started contributing to other people needing to go to Al Anon. I I left I left a trail. I left a a wreckage. I left bodies.

I I just I, I I am not very good influence on the people around me. The people that care about me pay. They pay dearly. When I was in my late twenties, you know, you can imagine the kind of crap that's going on. I joined the military, I saw the world.

I'll tell you what I remember of the world. The clearest memory I have of seeing the world was Guam. And I'll tell you what I remember about Guam. I just met a guy who was stationed in Guam, and I asked him, I said, what? What's there's this bar in Guam and there's and it's on the beach, and there's volleyball nets, and I don't remember anything else about it except they serve drinks in pails, and the straws are this big around.

And he went, Donnie and whatever the name was. He knew exactly what it was. That's what I remember. I I saw parts of the world at the time that that very few people got to see. And I remember the place with the gigantic straws, you know.

That's what I remember. It just got worse. It got it got horrendously ugly. I am not I'm just I'm not one of those people that have one too many martinis and embarrass themselves at the business lunch, you know. I'm the guy who, at 30 years old, if you see me on the street, you're on the other side of the street and you're still gonna check your wallet, you know.

You'd need to make sure. And I'm a very weird shade of yellow that that doesn't quite make sense. I weigh about £60 literally less than I weigh now, And I'm a frightening frightening sight, and nobody wants to talk to or be around me. I believed because I when I was in rehab, I remember hearing people talk, and I thought, you know, my mom must have been afraid that I was gonna die. And in the process of amends, I got to find out the truth of the matter was she got past afraid I was gonna die when I was about 21.

By the time I was 30, she was firmly in the area of please just die and get it over with. I'm tired of watching this. I am awake enough to have some sense of what that must be like to wish that your child would die because it's more painful to watch them alive. By 30, I've, I used to describe myself as a chronic relapser. It's not accurate though.

The truth of the matter is I was a lapser. I was an extended lapser. I came into AA meetings. There were periods of time that I was locked up somewhere that I would stifle down, and I would keep the alcohol and the non conference approved substances out of my body for a brief period of time, because I did a lot of those. I I wanna talk about my experience with AA, and then I'll get into what I believe emotional sobriety is about.

I wanna start with when I started coming to AA very serious, and very intending to stop for good. Just as I need to stop. When I was about 30, I've, I've been through multiple detoxes. I've begun multiple rehabs. I didn't finish any of them, because they they wanna keep you there long past the point where you're actually sleeping at night.

And I'm coming to AA, and I'm starting to get the sense that, you know, when I can't do just a little. The marijuana maintenance plan is not gonna work for me. I need to give up everything. I need to give it up forever, and I'm willing to do that. And, and in fact, I'm willing to do whatever you you tell me.

And, every time I would come, and I would go to some meetings, and I would meet some people, and I, and I would get drunk as a skunk within 3 days, and I would be gone for a period of time, and I would come back. Every time I would come back, a little more willing. The, end of 1999, I am so willing that I did 90 meetings in 90 days, and I got a sponsor that I talked to every single day. I was at least one meeting a day. I had 2 coffee commitments a week, and I never stayed sober for 3 days at a time.

Everything that I believed I was supposed to be doing. I was talking a little bit with Tom before, meeting makers make it. I made a lot of meetings, man. I made a lot of meetings. And for me, if I'm a meeting maker and that's all I am, I'm losing my mind, and I don't lose it slowly.

And I I I work with a lot of people, and I know a lot of people, and some of the people closest to me are people who have come into sobriety, been sober for a period of time, and then bottomed out emotionally, and and then they find this path to this place that's extraordinary. Me, I bottomed out without ever getting sober. I I can't. I can't do it. I don't know.

For whatever reason, that was the plan for me. At the end of 1999, I've done about 4 months going to AA constantly. Really doing I mean, doing and I everything that was asked of me, I did. I went to step meetings to learn the work, the steps. I had no idea what you were talking about.

The only thing I learned from the step meetings I went to, and again, I don't know what was said, but what I internalized, what I understood was that I have to get the first step perfectly every day. Now what does that mean to me? That means I get up every morning, and I say to myself, you're an alcoholic. You can't drink today. Right off the bat, fundamental misunderstanding.

What I should have been saying to myself is, you're an alcoholic. You're gonna drink. That's it. But no, I'm I'm I'm Today, today, I am deciding I'm not gonna drink no matter what, and if some piece of my anatomy falls off, I'm gonna pick it up, and I'm gonna drag it to the meeting, and I'm gonna make some coffee and put away chairs. And I call my sponsor and tell him, made that decision.

I did it. More often than not, I'm drunk by 3 in the afternoon. It's just the way it is. I know the end's in sight again. I'm I'm in I'm caught in the stages of the spree, and I know that the end of the spree is coming.

And the end of the spree is a drag for me. It's a drag. And, I I can't I can't go through this sobriety thing again. There's no hope in that. There's nothing for me.

You obviously have misunderstood, because when I was 12 years old, I was in agony, and I found the one thing on this planet that that allowed me to to exist somewhat peacefully. And now you're gonna take my medication away and tell me that everything's gonna get better. You're wrong. You're wrong. And my experience is it doesn't get better.

Not for a guy like me. I believe that there's a lot of people it does. More power to you. Fortunately, those people can't sponsor me. I can't have that person as my sponsor.

We can hang out. We can talk. Some of those people are very spiritually awake. Some of those people are tremendously in the service. Some of my best friends are that way.

We can meet, discuss how wonderful the universe is, how great things have gotten as a result of AA. But if I'm up against it, you're not the guy I need to be talking to. We don't have the same issues. We don't seem to have the same problem. So, I know it's going down, and I'm about to run out of money, and I'm about to be in a terrible state, and I have nowhere to go.

And, I have smoked too many cigarettes and lit too many fires in my parents basement watching Star Trek again, and I know that I'm getting tossed out of there. And I know the last time's coming up. And, this is just for me. Okay? As far as I'm concerned, death is nothing to be afraid of.

It never has for me. The only thing that has ever, and to this day, frightened me even a little about death is that I think there's a good chance that for a few minutes beforehand, I'm gonna be in pain. And I don't wanna go through that. The pain frightens me. The dead?

No. That's just that's just the game over button. Just check me out. Time to go. So I decided to check out.

I, I made, I used to call it the key the Keystone Cops Suicide Caper. I made a very strong, I mean, every ounce of power, will power, marshaling all the forces of my will to god, I tried to end my life. And I tried very hard, and it was not a cry for help. I didn't want your help. You tried to help me.

You can't help me. You know, I am not helpable. And I understood this in a gut level. I understood this where I live. The concession to my innermost self has happened.

And and as far as I'm concerned, that's not something I do for myself. It's not something you can convince me of. It's something that either happens to me or not. You may be able to guide me towards seeing that But you can't make that happen for me, and I can't convince myself of it. And at this point, it's happened.

I know, I'm hopeless. I'm hopeless and I'm helpless. And I don't have anywhere else to turn. And the idea of turning somewhere else, I had heard, this is what I gleaned from all of my wonderful step meeting experience about the second and third step. You must get the god thing.

Alright. What does that mean? Well, I don't know. You just you gotta get with the god thing. Say a prayer.

Now prayers don't look right to me. Because when when I when I hear people talk about praying, it sounds to me like you're trying to get this god to do your will. What's that all about? You know? And if it's gonna do my will, why do I need it?

Why can't I do it myself? This seems silly. I can't get with the God thing. So I got nowhere to turn. I got nothing left, man.

I am done. I'm wiped out. I am powerless over alcohol. My life is unmanageable, and personally, for me, I'm powerless over death. I can't die.

And and I'll tell you flat out, I tried. And, the depths of despair for me are coming to realizing I'm still alive again, and what am I gonna do now? I wound up doing, you know, 6 weeks and a 4 week rehab, leaving. Now I I, I I went into this rehab, just desperate, man. And, there were a group of people around, the kind of people that organized days like this.

A group of people that were involved in the Burnsville group. Some people that had some direct experience with the steps, and some people that were my kind of lunatic alcoholics, and I needed that. And and they were not they did not appear to love me the same way everyone else did. They didn't tell me just keep coming back, it's gonna be okay. And it really ticked me off.

There was one guy in particular who had no problem coming into a meeting and pointing at me in the middle of the meeting, and cross talk. You guys may be able to skip a 4 step, but you're killing this kid. And he would look at me and he would pause. So I would know he was looking at me, and I would think and and I would look at this guy and I would I would think, you're not I'm I'm here 2 months, and I know you're not supposed to do that. What are you what what are you doing here?

And I would think that arrogant. Arrogant. And I would hunt around for the people that would hang out and take his inventory with me after the meeting. And we would take his inventory. I still know that man to this day.

And, and he is one of the finest examples of AA and sobriety that I ever hoped to meet. And he had no problem he had no problem with pissing me off because he loved me. He had no problem getting in my face. It didn't bother him in the slightest. He loved me so much.

He didn't even know me. He didn't even know me. He looked in my eyes. He looked at my skinny pathetic little self coming back again. And he loved me so much that he was willing to piss me off.

So I'm in this 6 week program, and and consequently every Thursday night, this guy's coming in bringing a meeting. And in the rehab, he's pointing at me. In the rehab, 1st 3 weeks there, they wouldn't let me go to meetings. You know, I wasn't capable of it. I didn't sleep for 3 weeks.

I couldn't control my bodily functions for 3 weeks. I was useless, that's why I was there 6 weeks, because I didn't even begin the rehab part of things. And I would go downstairs, and, I started putting on weight, you know. The girls are looking at me again. Right?

People are, I'm sounding good. I've been to a lot of meetings. I know how this goes, you know. You The 10 minutes before the meeting, you sit down, you get a quiet place, and you figure out what your problem dujour is so you have something to share. And I'm gonna come, and I'm gonna give you my problem for the day, so you can clean it up for me, and I'm helping your sobriety.

And I'm getting some attention. And this guy's in in this meeting carrying this fundamental AA meeting into this rehab pointing at me. Going, you guys wanna wind up like him? Because if you're in this place messing around, talking to the girlies. I had dyed my hair blonde because I was bored.

Dyeing your hair blonde. You're probably in trouble. And it pissed me off so much. I went up to the meeting. I said, what what is the problem you have with me?

I said, to what? Why is it? You know, I'm I'm here. I'm doing what they ask of me. He's like, because because I care about you man.

And one day, you and I are gonna be spiritual brothers. And what Now why why why you gotta go say something like that to me? I just had a real clear picture in my head of who you are, why I don't like you, why I'm better than you. What You gotta go say something like that to me. And I started talking to him, and he hooked me up with the man who was my first sponsor.

And they hooked me up with some Joe and Charlie tapes, and there was a counselor in that rehab that, that started talking to me. And I started getting real serious, and I'm gonna go to the meetings every day, and I'm gonna do and this is what I must do to keep myself sober. You know, I must go to the meeting every day. I must work the 12 steps. I must read the big book.

I must have a sponsor. And this is did did you hear what I said? This is what I must do to keep myself sober. And I left that rehab after 6 weeks. And I I went to a long term treatment facility where they were gonna help me to learn some life skills.

And, within 24 hours within 24 hours, I'm loaded up again. I had no idea how that happened. I went to a meeting that morning. I prayed that morning. Every single tool that anybody had ever offered me to keep myself sober, I had done that day by noon.

And I don't know how it happens. Now I can't I can't live. I can't die. I can't stay sober. I can't get drunk.

I am what? I'm out. I went crawling back to the same rehab. They gave me a blood and breathalyzer test to get back into the rehab because they didn't believe that I had actually gotten drunk that day. So only time anybody's ever given me a test hoping, and I'm and I'm going, man, I hope it actually shows up because otherwise, I'm in serious trouble.

And I spent another 6 weeks there. What time am I going to? 45 or 30? Okay. I listened to those Joe and Charlie tapes.

I I went to a a a long term halfway house. Best thing that ever happened to me. Not and not because there was anything wonderful about the halfway house, because it was an extended period of time where I was kept so busy, I didn't have time to think so much. You know? I was exhausted all the time.

I was busy all the time. And for whatever reason, I had died at the end of 1990 99. And I and I mean that. Something in me had died, never ever to come back. And I knew, man.

I know you open those doors for me, and I know I'm in deep deep trouble. And the only thing I have to give a shot at is this stupid book. These stupid things that they're talking about on this stupid tape. And and I'm doing it. And I'm doing it.

And to tell you the truth, I had a sponsor at the time. He didn't guide me through that book. Just wasn't what he did. Wonderful man. I would get into the car with him, and I would start to open my mouth to talk about a problem, and he would just be talking.

This guy was connected to God in a way that was incredible. He would just start talking and tell me what was going on, and answering my questions without even me saying anything. He didn't know anything. He'd say, I don't know where this come from, but I just feel like I'm supposed to talk about this and blah blah blah blah. Astonishing.

Astonishing. I did a 4th step. I shared it with my counselor in that place, and I shared it with my sponsor. My 5th step with that sponsor consisted of I was so nervous. He said, You know what, just tell me the worst thing on there.

And I told him when I was, when I was about 28 years old, I stole $15 out of my 12 year old sister's piggy bank, and it's eating me up. He said, alright fine. Let's go get some coffee. That was my 5th step. Was it perfect?

No. No. Was it mechanical? Yeah. Absolutely.

I did it mechanically. I made an an 8 step list. You know, I I told him about it. He would say, yeah. It's fine.

So, you know, I'm gonna do this immense with my mom. I'm gonna sit down and talk to my mom, you know. I'm gonna call Jerry from from the West Coast. And I went and I did everything I could do, man. To the utmost of my ability at that time given what I knew, I made direct amends to the people that I could, you know.

And I became clear on the people I couldn't find. And, I left that facility, and I was scared, but I was really hoping something had happened, and I don't know. Was I okay? Was I not okay? Was I changed?

Was I not changed? To be honest with you, I hadn't even bothered to ask myself that question yet. And about 9 months sober, I I sat in a meeting one night, and there was a woman who was about who who was coming back again, and she was talking about, you know, I don't when am I gonna have my spiritual awakening? What's gonna happen? And and I thought to myself, you know, I've I've I've done these things that are supposed to to be done.

And I understand now that those promises are 9 step promises, and I'm I've done everything I can with that 9 step. And I'm living in 10 and 11, and I just started sponsoring someone, you know, at 9 months sober. Have I had a spiritual awakening? And I went through those 9 step promises in my head. It's the only thing I knew to do.

And and sitting in that meeting, at that moment, for the first time in my life, I suddenly realized that something had done for me what I couldn't do for myself. Because I couldn't do it, you couldn't do it, everybody's tried, man. The entire planet, you know, it it if somebody had come up with a list of what needs to happen, it would have been, you know, world peace, feed the hungry, and let's get rainy fixed up, man. Because that guy's in some serious serious trouble, you know. If there was a way to do it, it would have been done.

And suddenly, I'm something had shifted, and I got this incredible sense of peace. And I'm sitting this meeting, and I I've never been able to talk about this without getting that chill feeling. If you can remember the first time that you realized God had shown up in no uncertain terms, It's a mind blowing experience, man. And I'm looking around the room to see if everybody else has felt it because it just got 5 degrees warmer and and breezy at the same time in here. Did you see that?

Like, what and then, you know, nobody else had noticed anything, but it happened to me. I about 6 months later, I started, I started really fanatically, I started doing things like going back to the treatment facility I was in, every Thursday night and and carrying the same message that was carried to me to other people. And, I started attending a a a group where people were dead serious about the steps, and I started hearing all these things that they were talking about. You know what it was? They were talking about the 9th step, and they wrote cards out.