The Legacy Group in Fort Worth, TX

My name is John Allred, and I am an alcoholic. God. God. Congratulations, you guys. Month 2 months.

That's me. I, you know, I was reading a while ago. This has been a this has been an interesting month. I was reading, it was a long time ago actually, Admiral Perry's journal. Admiral Perry was an explorer.

He's the 1st civilized man to go to the North Pole, and he kept a journal for all of the stuff. And he was writing that journal. And what he did is when he was going up there, he would, hitch his dogs up and he would travel. He had a little compass and he would travel north, going to the North Pole. And then, he'd travel for a while and he'd pitch his tent and he'd get out.

Night would come and get out his little, sextons, little instrument. He'd look up in the stars and see where he was, chart his course, latitude, and longitude. That way he knew how much ground he had traveled that day. And, one day he got up and he hitched his dogs up and he headed North, has a little compass out going North, worked hard all day long going North. And at the end of the night, he pitched his tent, got out of his little section, how much ground he had traveled, and he realized when he charted where he was, that he was further south than when he started in at the beginning of the day.

And it was just bewildering to him because he lost ground. And he knew he was going North, working hard going North. And the next day he got up and and upon a research, he found out that what had happened, he had moved down onto a big huge block of ice that was floating south faster than he was going north. And I read that and I, hell, that's my story. I can get up in the morning and I can head north, work hard, you know, I'm going and lose ground on that thing.

And and that's the way the last, couple of last years been for me, actually. And I wasn't supposed to be that way. Never really I never thought that somebody was supposed to be that way. Now nobody told me one of the great fallacies you'll hear in Alcoholics Anonymous, I think I don't know if you mentioned this or not. Biggest one of the biggest fallacies you'll ever hear is somebody will say, well, I'd rather have quality sobriety than quantity.

Right? You ever notice people say that never have any quantity? They just got about 2 years sobriety. I wanna tell you, I'm more impressed now with long term sobriety than whenever than when I first got sober. You know, because I know that those guys that have long term sobriety have lived life on life's terms and not drink.

You know? 1980 8. 1988, October 1988, I was supposed to, I've been invited to go over to Shreveport to the Tri State Conference. There's a big conference about 2,000 people attend that conference. Nice conference.

And, I was gonna do a banquet speaker Saturday night. So I got up Friday, got dressed, packed, walked out, passed my pool, down to the car, got out of my German car. I was gonna leisurely drive over Friday to Shreveport to attend that conference in Shreveport. I'm a big shot. I just take Friday off.

My wife couldn't go. She had not a big shot in work. And, she's gonna fly over that night. I drove over to Shreveport, and my my wife came in Friday night, attended that conference, and good speaker Friday night. I'm supposed to speak Saturday.

Got up Saturday morning. I've got this beautiful picture of successful sobriety. Right? And, I got up Saturday morning. I just wanted to die.

I just wanted to die. I was in so much pain. Made a terrible talk. Just a terrible talk. In fact, I ran into a Catholic priest that speaks quite a bit.

He was over there and I ran down about 6 months later, another conference. We're having dinner Friday night. He said, man, you gave a terrible clock in Shreveport. I said, no. He said, what's wrong with you?

I said, well, you hear about it tonight. And, what happened I learned something. I learned that it it takes me one day to screw my life up and a year to accept it. Because what happened in October of 88 really started in October of 87. And in October of 87, you might remember those of you that are are old enough.

That's when the stock market had a big crash And it dropped 500 points on Monday, Black Monday they called it. It dropped 300 points the Friday before that. 270 points Friday before that. And that was a third of the market, in the stock market, which would be like our market today losing 3,000 points in a day. You know?

And, I lost a little bit of money in the stock market. Not a lot. I didn't have a lot of money in it, but I lost a little bit of money. And if I had done what my sponsor did, I'd have been okay. If I had to call up my phone pick up the phone and call my sponsor and said, what are you gonna do?

And and done what he did, I'd have been okay. Because the market came back and was ahead of where it was. By December, it was ahead of where it was when it dropped in October. But I didn't do that. I sold everything, all all the other stock I had and started to play stock options and proceeded to lose over the next year, proceeded to lose about 40 times as much money as I lost that one day.

And one more problem with that, it wasn't my money. Well, it kinda was. I had borrowed it from the bank. I signed a note and bumped it up to sign a note. And they loaned me all this money and, and I lost it.

And I was in I just and the note was coming due, and I lost all that money. And the thing that was making me real sick was nobody knew. Nobody knew. My sponsor didn't know. Nobody I sponsor knew.

My wife didn't know. Nobody knew that I'd like that I was even in the market doing. Ton of secrets. K? And I got home Friday.

I got home Sunday and called my sponsor. I met him Monday and laid everything out with him Monday. What I've been doing. And he said, well, the only thing I know what to do, man, is work the steps. He said, I hate talking to him like this because he always starts off by saying, well, I got no magic.

And what I want is magic. You know? I want I want him I want magic. And, he says, I got no magic. I just know to work the steps.

So he said, you're gonna have to write an inventory of the last year. Now, it's not a 4th step. It's an annual inventory. The book talks about annual inventories in the 12 and 12, where we go back over the last year and see what we've been doing for the last year. I don't have to go back to when I was 4 to find out what happened when I was 4 that's making me buy stock options when I'm 30.

Okay? That's not what this is. This is just the last year. What secrets have you been building in the last year? What little little plans or little schemes?

The book says our little schemes. What little schemes you've been working on the last year? And usually, they're secrets, you know, that nobody knows about. And, so write that inventory out for the last year. I wrote that and it took me one night.

I wrote it. I met with him on Tuesday. Took a 5th step with him on Tuesday. Read in that inventory on Tuesday. Then I got a change in 6 seconds.

I gotta go make amends. You gotta go to the bank, talk to the bank, and let them know I don't have that money and the notes come in due. I'm gonna have to make arrangements to pay it out. Because it was a it was a a signature note. And I gotta make a mess of my wife because, she didn't know about it.

And, you know, Texas is community property. So the nice thing about that is is that, you know, half of everything you have is your spouse's, including half of your debt. And so she thought we were doing fine, but she didn't know about this huge mountain of debt I got over here, you know, and my little scheme that I had to bring more time. So I I told her on Wednesday, I said, I'd like to meet with you on Thursday, make appointment. She said, you'll make an appointment with me?

I said, yeah. I wanna make 8 o'clock. 8 o'clock. Pick 8 o'clock because I wanted I didn't want her hungry. So I wanted her to after we'd eaten.

And I didn't want her tired. So I wanted to do before it got too late. And I knew that she would be angry and I figured I'd be lonely. So we'll do it at 8 o'clock. And so I met her at 8 o'clock on Thursday and laid the whole thing out to her.

She cried. She couldn't believe it. She cried a little bit. And, I went and talked to the bank, started making arrangements to pay the bank off, and things would have been fine. It would have taken us a few years to pay that that off.

Lot lot of years to pay that off. But one problem, I didn't quit doing it. But the funny thing was is that the next year, 1989 was just the opposite of 1988. Everything I did turned to gold. I made a fortune in 1989.

June 10th, what a great day in my life. I made more money on June 10th, 1989 than I've made in 10 years total. Yeah. Now, you got a problem when you do that. If you're sneaking around doing stuff like that and that's sneaky, you got a problem.

Because you you you you got a problem if you lose because they find out. You got a problem if you win because they find out. Because you gotta tell them. I mean, you can't go file your taxes and then they say, how much money did we make? How did you do that?

Where'd that come from? You know? So you gotta tell them. And I'm not supposed to be doing that stuff. So I wait she was in Chicago on June 10th.

Gonna come back on Saturday. So on, I I cash everything out and got all my money and I paid off all of our debt. I mean, I paid off every bill we ever had. House and all. No.

No debt. And I had another chunk of money I put in the bank with the deposit slip, and I took all of our paid receipts, and I put them in a manila envelope. And I put her I picked her up on Saturday. She came back from Chicago Saturday. I picked her up at the airport.

We went home and I said, honey, can you come into the living room? I have something I'd like to share with you. You know? We're in the living room and sat down, and I handed her to the middle envelope and show up, but I'm selling these paid receipts and this big deposit. She said, what?

What happened? And I said, well, honey, Tuesday, God told me to buy. And, she cried. She was supposed to leave you if I did it, if you do that. And I said, I know that.

That's why I put a little money in there. She had. They can't leave when you do that till you have this money and things are good. You know? She's gonna buy a new car.

You know? What the hell? And things have been really perfect except for one little problem. I didn't quit doing it, you know. And, by the way, I don't think wanted me to think I got a lot of money because I decided I didn't quit doing it.

I don't know who's got it now. And in August in August, she divorced me and we got divorced. And we got divorced, like, in 61 days. There's a 6 day cooling off period, and and she had the attorney lined up. And 61 days after we separated, it was over.

And, my head was just spinning, man. I couldn't make a judgment without this thing because I had a lot of money. And I thought I went to my sponsors. This this doesn't make any sense to me at all. You know?

I mean, look at look at what all of us. I said, if if these these roles were reversed, she thinks I got this compulsive gambling problem. I said, look at my money here. I said, that I consider me a financial genius, you know. If those if those years were reversed, I lost that little bit of money in 87, 88.

Yeah. But look at all the money I've made this year. I said, if they were if the years were just switched around, they'd be they'd be talking about me as being a genius. And he said, well, I said, I don't know whether you've got a problem or not or what it's just causing you problems. He said, But why don't you go home and see what you can find out?

Go home and take a piece of paper out and write down on a piece of paper all the things that investing in stock options has done for you, all the benefits has provided you. And then on another piece of paper, write down anything that's cost you See if you can earn anything. So I don't know. On one piece of paper, I had one benefit. I've made a little bit of money at that time.

And as I said, I didn't get the key. I don't know where to get it. Made a little bit of money. That was it. Only benefit.

But what did it cost me? It cost me my marriage, cost me my home, cost me my family, cost me my job. So that'll cost you your job. See, this was my schedule. Now, I was at that time, I thought I'd been I'd have been 9 years sober, 8 years sober.

I could see nothing wrong with this behavior. I just see nothing wrong with it. And I'm 8 years sober, I see nothing. This was my behavior. This was my schedule.

I get up every morning 5 o'clock. You see, I got 3 newspapers I gotta read. I got 3 newspapers I gotta read because I'm gonna make trades that day. Read my newspapers, do my homework, get to the office at 8:30. I actually get in the office at 8 o'clock because I got 3 stock brokers.

I'm running and I gotta call, make my trades. Stock market broke us up at 8:30. I start making my my my trades in in effect. By 10 o'clock, I'm like a drunk who needs a drink now. I'm pacing the floor at the office.

I can't stand it. I didn't know what's going on, you know. So I leave the office, 10 o'clock. I've only been there an hour and a half. I leave.

Office isn't open till 9. I leave at 10. I'm a run they had to fire me. I'm I'm running the largest sales organization in my company. It's $22,000,000,000 company out of New York.

I'm supposed to be training those guys and work with those guys and I leave. I go home. Because I go home, I turn on the TV. I gotta watch that little banner going across the bottom of CNN, F and N headline news, case something even know. Talking to a stockholder on the phone making trades.

Work hard all day long doing that. Wife comes home. She's been working. She come home. She says, let's let's go out to dinner.

I said, no, honey. I'm tired. Been working all day. I said, let's let's order out here and bring it in. You know, because I can't leave.

I can't leave now. I gotta watch CNN, FNF, and LA news, watch that little banner go across there in case something happens. Now the market is not open, but it's gonna open up in the morning. And I and I and it's really hard to do because I can't watch those channels. She knows if I'm watching those channels, I'm playing the market.

I'm not supposed to play the market, so I gotta wait. She goes to the bathroom and I can get the remote. Finally, she goes to bed 10 o'clock. I stepped up 2 o'clock in the morning because now I can watch CNN and F and N headline news. I watch all those channels on there.

You know? After the first hour, it's just a repeat, but I'm watching till 2 o'clock in the morning. Finally, I go to bed I go to bed at 2 o'clock in the morning, get up at 5 o'clock, start my day all over again. I'm 9 years sober and I can see nothing wrong with that behavior. You know, nothing wrong with it.

You think I was you think I ever at one time in that year that I'm doing that, do you think I ever one day picked up the phone and called my sponsor? Not once. Do you guys have any value to anybody I sponsor during that year? Here's this without they'd call me on the phone, and I'd say, you doing okay? They said, well, yeah.

Fine. Call me tomorrow. Quick. No value. I'm I'm I'm busy.

I'm watching CNN, F and N headline news. I hear something happening, you know. Into that thing. Not once did I ever see step 10. This is vile, man.

Predicting for a long term sobriety because I get myself in more jackpots with step not doing step 10 than anything else. See, step 10 is a repeat of the first 9 steps. It's a fail safe. See, because step 10 says, continue to take personal inventory and went wrong and prompted me. Well, before you take an inventory, you have to take steps 1, 2 and 3.

Then you take your inventory which is step 4. And when you get through with your inventory, you gotta give it away which is step 5. And before you even went wrong, promptly admit it for you, make your amends, you have to take 6 and 7 to change. I got that last week. And then you can make your amends in step 9.

So step 10 is really a fail safe step. It's review of the first 9 steps. You take step 10. If at any point in time, I call my sponsor during that year and said, let me tell you what my day has been like today. It all ended.

It would all stop right there because you just said, are you nuts? You're crazy. That's the most bizarre behavior I've ever heard about in my life. Never shared that. Ton of secrets.

And we are as sick as our secrets. And when I got those secrets I'm working on, I get sick. And I put my sobriety on the table, and I'm saying, I'm willing to risk my sobriety for you. Yeah. Can't risk it today.

I've got too many too much time in there to risk that. Never call my sponsor to limit anything. Ton of secrets. I learned a lot in going through that whole process. Alright.

I learned a lot about pain. I learned a lot about about my willingness to rationalize. See, I was rationalizing my behavior, but it's okay because look at the money I'm making. Yeah. Rationalization, the book says, back in the appendix, the rationalization is the process we go through where we make socially unacceptable behavior socially acceptable.

Is this not a form of insanity? Straight quote out of the book. And I was making you socially unacceptable. I love to do that. So, simple thing is now whenever I have to justify my behavior, you ask me something, if I start to justify it, that behavior is wrong.

See, my subconscious will build the defense. Why it's okay for me to do that? You know, if it's wrong, I will build the defense. Why it's okay for me to go do that? If it's right, I don't know.

My mind doesn't build a defense. I just do it and you can say, why are you doing that? Well, but I wanted to. Is there something wrong with it? No.

I won't build a defense. In fact, if it's wrong, I will build a defense. So if I start my sponsor now whenever I and anybody I sponsor, whenever I start to justify my behavior, they just asked me one question, why do you find it necessary to justify that? Because if it's right, I don't have to justify it. And I and I love to justify.

I got a good friend. Most acolytes are that way. We justify our behavior when it's wrong. I got a very good friend. Love Dick.

Dick's a little older than me. There's a lot older than me. And, this time, Dick was Dick and I got divorced by the same time. And, I wasn't married and he was dating this gal. Every time I see Dick, we'd talk and I I say, how you doing, Dick?

You gotta meet with a girlfriend. Really? Yeah. I wanna tell you, John. She's beautiful and she is, without a doubt, the most sensitive, most mature, 20 year old I've ever met, I've learned so much from her.

I'll bet you had, Jack. And, you know, John, if if if she in in the past 8 years, and she's in in the past 4 years, she's really only had, 3 days drunk. But she's only got 90 days today. But if you add them all together, she's only been in in 4 years, she's only been drunk 3 days. You know?

And that counts for something. I understand that. You totally understand. But I love to justify my behavior. You know?

I learned about sponsorship. I learned why you need a sponsor. You know why you need a sponsor? Because you can't see what you're doing. It's like climbing a mountain.

You ever climbed a mountain? When you're climbing a mountain, you can't see the mountain you're climbing. You can see mountains around you, but you can't see the mountain you're on. You're on the damn mountain. You can't see it.

You're on it. You know? And when and when and you can't see what you're doing. Your sponsor, he's not on your mountain. He can see what you're doing.

He said, I said, there goes. Alright. Look at that fool. He's climbing that bone right off that cliff one more time right off that cliff. And then down to the bottom of the cliff waiting to pick you up.

See, I couldn't see what I you can't see that. You can't see what you're doing wrong, you know? And and even if you can see it, you don't believe it because your ego is so whacked out. So I learned a lot. I learned a lot about people will always tell you what they're doing.

They always will. They'll always tell you who they are. But my mind doesn't believe them. At least not with me. A task date and a gap.

First day I took her on, very first date I took her on. We're on this date, had a great date. I'm dropping her off at the at the door. And she says to me, you know, I have a confession. I said, okay.

What what's your confession? She said, well, I I stood a gap without you tonight. You know you know what my mindset? I don't blame you. And then, 2 years later, when she stands me up, I can't even get mad at her.

She told me what she was. Okay? They always do it. It's like it's like it's like that old turtle and and scorpion. You know, the turtle and scorpion meet at the creek.

And the scorpion says, hey, you're gonna cross the river? Yeah. He said, can I climb on your back? I'm going over there too. No.

If you're crazier a scorpion, you'll sting me. I'll die. Don't be crazy, man. He said, if I'm on your back and I sting you, you'll drown and I'll drown. That don't make any sense.

Pearl says, that's right. So 5 months, he gets on to get halfway across the river, scorpion stings around the top of the head. Pearl says, you crazy. I can't believe you did that. Why did you do that?

And the scorpion said, hey, you knew what I was when you picked me up? Up? And then and I knew what she was when I took her out. My mind would not she wouldn't do that to me. See how our ego works?

Not to me. She wouldn't do that to me. I can't even get mad at them when they do that kind of stuff. K? Because they tell you what they are.

Business people tell you what they are. And we just have to believe them. If they tell you something, believe it. You know? And then don't get involved in it.

Stay out of the bushes. You know? You need to get in that in that stuff. I learned an awful lot going through. I learned about pain going through that divorce.

I learned I used to think that sobriety was gonna be pain free. If I get sober and I work these steps, I'm not gonna have a lot of pain and trouble in my life. It's gonna be pretty clear smooth. Right? You know?

Now, the book never tells us that. In fact, the book warns us just the opposite. The book says, in our adventures before and after. Did you get some adventures after you get sober? You know, and they're probably gonna be a hell lot more painful than when you got here.

At least, all mine have been. But learn about pain. See, I get in a wreck. If I'm broke up physically, I break break my leg. I'm in the hospital.

You come in. Physical damage is pretty easy to diagnose and it's pretty easy to tell. It's gonna take you 6 weeks to heal that for the leg to heal. Nothing exactly long it'll take for those bones to mend. So we'll put you in a cast.

Here's what we're gonna do. And I'm gonna give you some pain killer. Take away the pain. But you know what they do? That's a real art.

They could take away all the pain. Doctor could give you pain killer, take away all the pain. They never do that. Never. See, because they don't want you to jump up, forget you got a broken leg, and re injure it.

They want that pain there for a reason. That pain is there for a reason. So you don't re injure yourself. Spiritual and emotional damage is much harder to diagnose, impossible to talk about how long it's gonna be. It's very hard to understand how all that plays together, but it's the pain.

It's the same thing. See, god could take away all that pain. I'm convinced of it. He never does it. He didn't want you re injuring yourself.

If you came and yet somebody walks in here, guys just lost his job, his wife's left and he's had his house repossessed, and he's bankrupt, and he's got 8 years sober. And he walks in and they say, how are you doing? Fine. Scared to death to tell people I'm screwed up, man. I just lost my house.

Lost my job, lost my wife. I don't know what I'm gonna do. Because it's been sober too long. Been sober 8 or 9 years, you know. And then what happens when we find out about it?

And he's and he's crying in the meeting? Well, you know what? You need to accept that. Get on with your life. Now, by the way, I'm a big believer in acceptance.

I do believe in the old page 449, you know, in the in the other in the other book of the what is that? The 3rd edition? 449 where acceptance is the solution to all my problems. I believe that. But see, it took me a while to learn what acceptance was.

So acceptance doesn't change the way you feel. It changes the way you act. And the proof of that is your alcoholism. When I accepted my alcoholism, what happened? Did I still have a desire to drink?

Yeah, some of us did. But our actions changed. We didn't drink one day at a time. We prayed to have God change us and then God removed the desired grief from us. And so our emotions finally caught up to our actions.

And that's what's gonna happen with all that stuff. So when you when I accepted the fact that I was getting divorced, still, are you breaking up with somebody or whatever you know, lost your job, whatever that pain is. Yeah. Yeah. When you accept it, it still hurts.

You know? Still hurts a lot. But then your actions can change. Then you can you can quit, like, you know, doing those location drive by checks. You know, we just drive by their place, make sure everybody's home.

Those those telephone calls, you know, where you call and hang up. Well, that caller ID messed up, didn't it? Didn't caller ID just blow that to pieces? You quit put all that stuff, You know, you accept the fact, it may still hurt a lot. But you know, the actions can change until eventually catch up with you.

In fact, I was sitting there. It used to hit me in waves. I've been driving down the road and hit me in a way. I just started to cry. And I'm pulling up my sponsor's house and and I went in there and I was saying, when am I gonna get well?

When do I get well? I've done everything you guys have told me to do. When do I get well? And, Ruth, my sponsor's wife, she got more time than any of us. Don't like Ruth.

She needle pointing. She puts down her needle pointing. She looks up and she says, what makes you think you're sick? I said, well, look at me. I'm balling, man.

I can't quit crying. She said, yeah. She says, why is it why does that mean you're sick? I said, well, the book says so. She said, it does?

I said, yes. The book says run around, disturb her, said there's something wrong with me. Spiritual accident. She said, yeah. There's something wrong with you.

Morning. She said, But let me tell you something. If that phone rings and I pick up the phone and it's the police saying, Your son has just been hit by an automobile and is dead. That's gonna hurt. Does that mean I'm sick?

Is that pretty normal? It's just pretty normal to feel that stuff. She said, in fact, the fact that you're feeling all that pain tells me you're not that sick. If you didn't feel that stuff, then I'd be really worried about you. You may have names for people that don't feel that stuff.

You know? It's pretty normal to feel that way. And I just always been thinking that if I'm feeling this stuff, I'm not I'm not working the program. It's very normal to feel that pain in sobriety. What you do with that is gonna make the difference.

And I'm going along there. I'm trying to work my program and, they told me, they said, you need to work with others. You know, one of the best ways to get out of that pain is to get in there and get in the program and work with newcomers. Right? So I started going to all these meetings, working with these newcomers.

And I'd go to these meetings with put on my business card with these newcomers. And every time some guy gets an entire chip, I'd go back and get my card, give me a call. Problem, when you do that, they start to call you. And, and I only handed that to men. I didn't hand hand my new my my card out to the newcomer women.

Only women. They wanted me to do that, just men. And, I was going to and this was this is true. This is really deflate ego deflation of death. I'm sitting there and I said, Preston and, walking a little late, sat down and and looked over.

And here's this good looking gal. I don't know. 20, 22 year old gal just staring at me. Yeah, okay. I'm doing okay here.

How many she stared at me? And there's tongue to her friend and she's looking at me and I'm doing alright. I guess so. After me, she after we said the Lord first, she made a beeline for me, come right over to me, and introduced herself. She said, my friend tells me that you're single.

And I was at the time. I said, yeah. I'm single. And she said, I would love to introduce you to my mom. I have an ego deflation of death, you know.

That's why they only let me pass it out to men. Just me to get my car. That's it. And, so anyway, I passed it. These guys are calling on the phone and I started sponsoring all these newcomers.

Right? So I'm sponsoring these guys and they're they're coming on the phone and they'd say, listen, if you're gonna sponsor me, I we need to get together because you need to understand some of my, core issues. And this was in 89. I didn't know anything about core issues. I said, your core issues?

Yes. My core issues. See, I come from a very dysfunctional family. I said, really? The the dysfunctional family.

Yeah. Very dysfunctional family. And and because of that, I was broke up and it was just terrible. And I never had any real proper role models. So I I have an abandonment issue that I've never really learned to cope with.

And because of those role model problems, I didn't have proper role models in my life. I have a problem setting boundaries. Don't know how to set any proper boundaries which, by the way, has led to sex addiction. It's just driving me crazy here. I'm listening to that.

I'm exhausted. We've only been on the phone 5 minutes. I'm exhausted. We gotta get together, I guess. You know?

So they they come over. They got all these books with them. They get from treatment, you know, and they bring those books over there. And And I don't know anything about this stuff. And they're on their latest, you know, designer drug and, it's helping me.

And I mean, these books are where I gotta get up to date on this new this new recovery program we've got working here. And I'm gonna tell you, you wanna read all that stuff and get into that issue deal, anger management. You want to get into all that? Read those books. Let me tell you what happened to you when you do that.

You'll relate. And I'll tell you why you're gonna relate. I started in the insurance industry when they did. What happened is the insurance industry was spending out about $250,000 on drunks while I'm getting sober. You know, they're sending those treatment centers, put up 28, $30,000 a pop.

That's how much it got to. And, and they would come out and they'd get drunk. Recycling back in there, they get drunk. And they did some studies and they found out that a guy that walks through the door of Alcoholics Anonymous and sits his butt in a meeting and those that go to treatment and then come into AA have the same percentage of recovery, the same percent succeed. And they said, why are we sending them to treatment?

They spend all that money when they can just go to AA and have the same shot of recovery. And so they said, what we're gonna do is we're gonna define alcoholism as a mental disorder. And under the mental disorder clause of the insurance policies, you have $5,000 lifetime benefit. K? Well, the recovery center said, 5,000?

We can't do that for 5,000. Wow. That's what you're gonna get for mental disorder, for alcoholism, mental disorders, $5,000 lifetime benefit. Well, we're broke. You just you just broke up the industry.

But then some of the recovery centers said, wait a minute. Wait a minute. It's a mental disorder. Yeah. We have 5,000 for alcoholism as a mental disorder.

Yeah. K. How about depression? Can we get 5,000 for 10 for depression? Oh, yeah.

That's another sort. 5,000 for depression. Okay. Now, we're up to 10. Okay?

How about anxiety disorder? Can we get 5,000 if we got anxiety disorder? Yeah. We can figure. We can do that.

Okay. Now, we're up to 3. How about if there are 6 addicts? Oh, yeah. We can get that.

I wanna tell you something. It's all created because they couldn't get you well. And so, they took all of our character defects and made them mental disorders. That's why you relate to them. They categorized our our our character defects and made them mental disorders And now they can get paid on.

And if you don't believe me, I wanna tell you something. If you've been to treatment in the last 10 years, you got out of treatment. I'm gonna promise you something. You had more than one thing wrong with you, didn't you? Nobody comes out of treatment with just one thing wrong with them or you'd be in there a very short time.

You gotta have a lot wrong with you in order to get paid. So they have to diagnose you being all screwed up. You know? That's how it happened. Like it or not, that's the reality of the situation.

You know. And so, I'm reading all this stuff and I didn't know any of that. Then I'm just reading this stuff and I'm getting concerned. I don't wanna tell them not to do that stuff because they were working with doctors and they got their their counselors working with them there and they got this new designer drug they're taking. And and I'm and I'm not getting well, they're getting drunk and I'm not getting I'm not getting any relief at all.

And I went to my aunt and my sponsor and I said, okay. My program is not working. My program is not working. He looked up and he said, well, why don't you try ours? They asked me some key questions.

He said, John, he said, are you how many how many guys under a year are you sponsored? I said, 14. Under a year. He said, any of them getting well? I said, no.

And I'm getting sick. They asked me a key question. He said, well, John, are you passing on to them the same simple program of the Alcoxonomics that was passed on to you? And I wasn't. And I had to go make amends to those 14 guys knowing that most of them would leave and go find other sponsors because I couldn't do that anymore.

You know? And I don't wanna be able to leave after I've been there all month and not know the program of aid that was passed on to me because that's what I'm responsible for, is to pass on the same program that was passed on to me. And when I sit in a meeting about I know they don't have more of their legacy, but I sit in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in my own group, and then they would get get off on those tangents talking about what their therapist has them do for anger management, you know, or or how to learn to set proper boundaries, you know, or these other disorders that they've got that they're working on, you know, I don't get mad at them. K? They don't know any better.

I get mad at guys like me that have been in the program long enough to know better, to know that there is no recovery in chasing that rabbit. You go down a rabbit trail, man, and there's no end to it. The program of Alcar's analysis passed on to me didn't say a damn thing that I have to learn to deal with, control, or handle any of my issues. That just says just the opposite. Says you can't do it.

If I if I could have dealt with my issues, I'd have done it 25 years ago. And you had a different speaker today. The program that I was passed on to me says that you're beyond human power. There's no human power on earth that can help you. You're beyond that, which means you're sick.

You are one sick puppy. And you're gonna have to find a power greater than yourself that will solve your problem. I don't call my sponsor to learn how to manage my life better. That's not what my sponsor does. I don't go to AA to learn how to manage my life better.

AA is not a fire station. You know? We don't come running in here with our hair on fire. Then, oh my god. What am I gonna do?

She's left. She's done this. She's done that. Hell, what am I gonna do? You know?

AA is a program that teaches you not to set the damn fire. You know? After you've gone through the steps, you've cleaned up that stuff, then through step 10, we don't set any more fires. And when we do, they're real small, we put them out before they get for haircuts is on fire, you know? My my sponsor is not the fire chief.

I don't come to learn how to manage my life. There's road there to be managing my life and surrendering my life to a power greater than myself and what we're doing here, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. So the only reason we work the steps is to have that spiritual awakening. That's why we work the steps, is to have that to find that power greater than ourselves that will solve our problem. Now, that only applies if you believe in god.

If you really believe that God personally is gonna take care of you. John, yeah. Okay. There's a God. I know there's a God.

And he created the world, but, you know, come on. He's not personally gonna get involved in my life. I mean, you know, he gave us a brain to think. You know, we gotta pull ourselves up by the bootstraps. You gotta do the work.