The Eastside Group in Fort Worth, TX

But I I heard on, from Dino and and and from from Jack that he does a real nice job. And we were kind of wondering if he was gonna make it tonight and somebody come running in there with a big book under their arm running like a windmill salesman or full of brush, man. And I figured that must be him. And so so, but he comes from a primary purpose group over in Dallas and I've heard a lot I've met some people from there and I've heard a lot of good things about that group. And and I don't wanna take any more time.

So, John, if you'll come up here, let's give my east side welcome. Move it to the other side. For some reason, it feels better on this side than that side. My name is John Kelly. I'm a grateful recovered alcoholic and my sobriety date is September 4, 1999 and for that I am very very grateful.

And I just saw my sated mother today, and she's pretty grateful too. She likes that. I sure put that woman through a lot of misery over the years. Some might call me fanatical. I don't know.

Some call me a big book dumper. That's the way I was brought up. I'm not gonna tell my story tonight. I'm gonna get right into the steps, but I got sober in in in September of 1999 and that wasn't my first go around in this rodeo. I started trying to get sober and Alcoholics anonymous in July of 1988.

And I've been to literally 100 and 100 and 100 of meetings all over the state of Texas, all over this great country and the Caribbean. Got piles and piles of desire chips. And in the last 5, 6, 7 years of my drinking, I did not wanna drink anymore. Did not. I didn't wanna go to jail anymore.

I didn't wanna lose any more friends, lose any more jobs, lose any more freedom, lose any more of my dignity. And I had I had no iota what the program of Alcoholics Anonymous was all about. See, I'm one of these cats that's pretty hip, slick, and cool. You get me sober for a few days and I can hear what these people say in these meetings and stuff, and I can mimic, and I can copy, and I can come up with my stuff on my own, and you'll be patting me on the behind after that meeting. And I tell you I'm doing great, And I always got drunk.

I have no success doing it any other way, so we just go right by the book. And we are big book thumpers where I come from. So I'm gonna just kinda do it like I do when I do these treatment centers, but you know, I've had an Alcoholics Anonymous book since 1988 and I never read the darn thing. You know, I you know, I'd read some stuff and it some would make some sense, some some of the stuff wouldn't make any sense, and it I just didn't it didn't ever really sink in. It didn't I didn't really identify with much.

I remember the first time I read Bill's story in 1988 and I'm thinking, man, that guy really needs to be sober. I had no concept of what he was talking about because I hadn't done any of that stuff yet, you know. And I'm sure a lot more happened to Bill and and Bill's life and what's in his story, but you know, when I got sober in 99, my story made his look like a walk in the park, you know. I mean, I I'm it was a tedious process to get me to to see what was in this book and and I and I thank God everyday that I made it to a group where the people in that group, the lights are on, you know. I won't mention the group, but my last home group before this group, I mean, I got so many desire chips there.

I mean, they didn't even clap anymore when I get one. They didn't have anything to offer me either. And and, you know, I was convinced that I was just gonna die drunk. And, that's what I tried to do on said in in the summer of 99 because I couldn't stay sober. I've been in 5 emergency rooms in about a 10 week period, all alcohol related.

And, I was just resigned to the fact that I was gonna drink myself to death. And that's what I tried to do that entire summer. Drink enough vodka, not the good stuff. Skull. Pop that little governor out of the top, you know, so you can drink it fast.

And and somehow on Labor Day weekend for that Friday, I came to and blood all over me and I hadn't been stabbed, you know. And, I had one thought that crowded out all else is I don't want to die die this way. And, I detoxed myself not too far from here in my brother's house, and the first person I saw was this little old man who I'd met the year previous, The first person I saw was this little old man who I'd met the year previous about 80 years old. I was shaking and vibrating and stunk to holy hell and and, that old man walked up to me and gave me a hug and I looked at him and I said, I need to talk to you. And he he looked back, you know, over the top of his glasses like your grandpa would do when he means business.

And he says, what the hell can I do for you? And I said, I'm scared and I don't want to drink anymore. And he said, come on. And we sat down in this little room before the meeting started, and this little man opened up his big book and he he must have done a marvelous job 12 stepping me because it sunk sunk in. So we're gonna we're gonna do it the way the old man does it, and it was passed on to him like this and this is the way we're gonna roll.

But if you have a big book, you open it up to the title page and it tells you right what this book is about right off bat, it says Alcoholics Anonymous is a story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism. I can't tell you how many treatment centers I've been in that tells me I'm always gonna be a recovering alcoholic. And when I think of that, I'm thinking of some sniveling, whining. I'm always in recovering. That offers me no hope.

That offers me no hope. They're telling me I'm gonna recover from alcoholism. This is a book on how they did it. So let's see what the book says. If you turn past the table of contents of the preface in the second paragraph, it says this book has become the basic text for our society.

This is a textbook. What do you do with the textbook? We study it. Right? When we got the 1st grade in math class, made a little math teacher passed out math books to everybody, unless you were a frigging genius, you didn't go to the end of the book and start working big problems, did you?

No. We had a teacher who was there to guide each one of us students through the work so that we could learn the principles of mathematics. This is a textbook. I'm gonna refer back to it over and over. It's all marked up, notes in the margin pages falling apart.

I'm gonna study it. Why on earth, you ask, do I study the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous? If you flip the page, it tells you right there, 4 to the first edition. This is how we open up our meetings. We don't read how it works.

That's granted we were granted that right in the 4th edition, but it says as it was written in 1939, it says we of alcoholics anonymous are more than a 100 men and women who have recovered. There's that word again. Hadn't even got to the real number pages yet and they mentioned recovered twice. And it says we've recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. A hopeless state of mind Here's my definition.

Back in the day when I was drinking, in order for me to get through the day, I had to drink no matter what, and it was killing me. In order for me to live, I had to drink, but it was killing me. That sounds like a conundrum. I don't know. I couldn't live with the booze, and I sure as heck couldn't live without the booze.

But I had to drink, a hopeless state of mind in that body. Now here's another great line. It's probably one of my favorite lines. It says, to show other alcoholics precisely how we recovered is the purpose of this book. So they're telling me that the textbook of Alcoholics Anonymous is giving you and me precise instructions on how to recover from the deadliest illness known to mankind, alcoholism.

Alcoholism kills people that ain't even alcoholics. Precise. What does precise mean? Means exact. No gray area.

The big book, the textbook tells us how to take the steps, when to take the steps, with whom to take the steps. There's prayers and promises all along the way. Promises of what happens when you follow the directions in the big book, and there's some promises that'll come true if you don't follow directions in the big book. And I have experienced all those promises at one time or another, you know? But precise.

Telling me to put the plug in the jug and keep coming back. That sounds good. They don't mean me any harm by it. But if I could not drink and go to meetings, I'd be out there not drinking and going to meetings. I have no successful experience in that.

I'm a chronic, end of the line, street level alcoholic of the hopeless variety. Me sitting around a meeting and hearing about your divorce one more time is not is not a program of action for me. Says for them, we hope these pages will prove so convincing that no further authentication will be necessary. This is the only book where we have instructions on the steps. There's lots of great books put out by Alcoholics Anonymous.

I have them all, I encourage you to get them all and read them all, they're awesome. Awesome. The 12 and 12 is an awesome book. There's no instructions in the 12 and 12. It's written by a guy who was 20 years sober at the time.

That's that's like me showing up September 4, 1999 and my sponsor that night instead of 12 stepping me, he told me what his life was like today. Great. How in the heck do you get there from where I'm at? That's all we have this book. And if that rubs you the wrong way, read page 17 of 1212.

It'll tell you that this book is where the program of Alcoholics anonymous is. So as we think this account of our experiences will help everyone to better understand the alcoholic, many do not comprehend that the alcoholic is a very sick person. So we're gonna have chapters called doctor's opinion. They're gonna explain this illness. We've got chapter 2, the wives, 2, the family afterward, 2 employers.

Why? To let those folks out there know what's killing us. See, their solution for us drinking is totally different than what our solution is. You know, they get hurt, they stop. I get hurt.

Oh, it wasn't that bad. I keep going, you know, And it says, and besides, we're sure that our way of living has its advantages for all. So obviously, we get sober, our lives improve. Our family's lives improve, we're better employees, we're better tax payers, yada yada yada. But since these 12 steps were adopted, there's over like 280 other groups that use the same darn 12 steps.

Cocaine anonymous, narcotics anonymous, gamblers anonymous, you name it anonymous. There's one called messies anonymous for people that I guess are too messy or not messy. I don't know. They'd have a relapse if they came to my house. That's for sure.

The basic thought on that is the 12 steps work when applied to whatever is killing you out there. Right? Next part of the book is forward to the 2nd edition written in 1955. It tells about how AA grew, how it was started, how it grew. Grew real slow in the first.

All word-of-mouth. Bill met doctor Bob, they got Bill Dotson. Slow, slow, slow until some articles were written, Jack Alexander in particular and AA blew up. Right? And it grew incrementally year after year after year after year until a little bit later on, and we'll get to that in just a second.

The part I want to work out talk about here is I know, I'm doing the steps, but I got to get ramped up before well well, I'm getting there. I'm getting there. Okay? But if you look in the forward to the second edition on Roman numeral 20, 5 lines down from the top, they give you some statistics. Now these aren't empirical statistics.

They didn't talk to every single member of Alcoholics Anonymous, but they the home office contacted the groups that were in existence at the time and asked them some general questions about their membership. This is what they generally found to be true. It says, of alcoholics who came to AA and really tried, 50% got sober at once and remained that way. Alright? So back in the day, early AA, half got sober, stayed sober.

It's pretty darn good. Real good. There's not a treatment center on this planet that can sniff 50%. Says out of 25% of those returned as time passed. Right?

So they had 25% of that other 50%. They had to go do some more drinking knuckleheads like me, you know, weren't willing to get a sponsor, weren't willing to help anybody, weren't willing to make amends, whatever the case may be, weren't convinced of step 1, whatever. They went out and did some more drink and 25% of them made it back. Says out of the remainder of those 2 out of 3 returned as time passed. There's groups in existence still today with documentation from way back in the early days that we're knocking out 75%, 85%.

Alright? AA in the year 2000 estimated less than 5% of the folks coming into alcoholics anonymous are gonna achieve 5 years of sobriety. I don't know about you, but that sucks. Well, how could you go from at least 50% to less than 5% in a matter of 50 years? How can that happen?

I mean, alcohol is alcohol, right? Booze is a 100 proof is a 100 proof. Rotten nagging spouses are still rotten nagging spouses. Crappy jobs are crappy jobs. Problems are problems.

Well, what changed? Well, I'm a lay out how it did how it worked back in the day and see if this matches up to your little experience today. Back in the day we got this guy here, we'll use a guy. We got this guy here, he's in the hospital detoxing one more time. His family has thrown more money at his disease than I mean he's been on the doctor Phil show.

He's been to the best treatment centers and this guy's in the hospital detoxing, dying one more time. Back in early AA, the guys would come visit this cat in the hospital, and we sit down with this cat, and we tell him our stories. We identify him. We find out all we can about this young man, and then we leave. And then we come back the next day, and we sit down with this young man again, and we go through that same old spiel one more time.

Find out a little bit more about him. We identify with him. We tell him our story. We tell him what it was like when we were trying to stop drinking and drinking. And then we leave.

And we do this for a couple 3 or 4 days. This guy is getting a little more clear headed while he's in the hospital. We come back to visit him and he knows one thing. I drink as much booze or more than he ever dreamed of drinking. And he's dying and I ain't.

And he says, you're just like me. How do you stay sober? Now I got him. Now I get to lay out this program, the spiritual program of action. I become that man's sponsor.

We go through the steps as outlined in this book. This man recovers and now he is helping this man. That's the program of Alcoholics Anonymous folks. Not once did I say it was sitting around the table talking about our days, the IRS, any of that stuff. I mean, if your doctor diagnosed you with cancer, you wouldn't go to a meeting talk about cancer for 90 days, would you?

Nope. I don't think so. So let's find out what it means to be a real alcoholic because if we don't understand step 1, all the rest aren't gonna make a difference. We're gonna go to the doctor's opinion. That this doctor's opinion was written by William d Silkworth Worked at Town's Hospital in New York City, a little hospital right off Central Park in New York, worked with over 50,000 of us alcoholics and drug addicts during his tenure at town's hospital.

Alright? He was an expert on us. He loved us, but he couldn't figure out why is it that guy or that gal that comes to his hospital that that's drinking to excess, Maybe they're going through a divorce or maybe they that just they're going through a period of their life where they're just drinking way too much and they end up in his hospital and they counsel them. They nurse them back to health. They give them some hydrotherapy.

What I don't know what that, I guess that means we're really clean when we leave there. I don't know what that means. They shoot water at us. I don't know. But they do all they can and this person's scared to death that they're gonna lose the rest of their family or their standing in society or whatever the case may be, and this person leaves the hospital never to return.

Right? They learn their lesson. And then you got guys like me go to the same hospital, get the same treatment, knowing full well when I leave there, I cannot so much as take one drink of alcohol, or I'm gonna lose my job, my house, my car, my kids, my freedom, my dignity, knowing all that. And I leave that hospital in high hopes in a short amount of time, I'm right back to drinking. Man's been trying to answer that riddle since booze was invented.

Hell, they've been praying on us, moving us from here to there, giving us hobbies. They tried everything. Finally, they just come up with a solution. They just lock us up for it, you know. So this doctor came up with a theory and when this book came out, it was just out of theory.

If you can ever get a hold of a first edition, you'll notice he don't even sign his name in the first edition. Alright. It's just anonymous doctor, I think. Or I've seen it, but I don't I don't remember what it said. Since then, science has proven its theory to be a 100% accurate.

Step 1 says we admitted we are powerless over alcohol. Now a completely different thought, a hyphen that our lives have become unmanageable. Alright. So let's what the doc let's see what the doctor says. He says we believe and so suggested a few years ago that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of allergy.

Right? So he's saying if you're a real alcoholic, a chronic alcoholic, your body reacts differently to booze than 90% of the world population. They estimate about 1 in 10 of us have what it takes to be an alcoholic. Right? An allergy.

An allergy is just an abnormal reaction to something you eat or drink. Who's allergic to Penicillin in here? Always. Suzanne, what's up? What happens when you have, right?

I've heard I I asked that to a lady a couple days ago and she says, I die. She went straight past the hives and throwing up and throw constraint into die, you know. She's had a flair for the dramatic. So ain't that ain't that odd? If I get an infection or something like that, I can go to my doctor, he gives me penicillin, and it cures me.

It fixes me. Susanna can get this very same infection and go to her doctor, and they give her penicillin, and she swells up, you know, throat constricts, has a hard time breathing, and then maybe if they gave her enough penicillin she would die. Right? She has the allergic reaction. Right?

That's just the way she is. That's the way I am. Doesn't matter. He's saying if you're an alcoholic you have an allergic reaction to alcohol. Alright?

And he says that the This is how the allergic I don't break out into like hives and I I've broken into some stuff on alcohol, but I hadn't broken out anything. But, this this is this is what I got Dino in the back. I I like making him laugh, you know. This is what the allergy does in a real alcoholic. He says that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in those other people.

The phenomenon of craving. It's one of the things that sets me apart, those normal drinkers or those hard drinkers. See, I get the thought in my head I'm gonna take a drink and I take the drink and I trigger this out. Is there anything that she can do other than getting an antihistamine or something or, you know, whatever they do to counteract? If she takes penicillin, once she takes it, she's gonna have the reaction.

Right? Nothing she can do except go to the doctor and get the get the antidote or whatever. Right? I take a drink of alcohol, I trigger this allergy, bam, my brain says let's have another and another and another. And it was just my intention, You know, it's Friday night.

I just got paid. My boss's birthday and everybody's going to a little pool hall to to sing happy birthday to my boss. Right? And I call my girlfriend and she says, hey, I'm making your special dinner and I have the Wonder Woman costume all lined up. Right?

It'll be ready at 8 o'clock. You know? And I'm like, it's my boss's birthday. I I'll be home by 8. Right?

And it's my intentions. I I love the Wonder Woman costume. You know? It's my intentions. But I get to this place, everybody's having a good time, and I take that first drink, and bam, I trigger that allergy.

Now my brain says I'll have another and another, now I'm doing shots, now I'm at a bar where the girls don't have any clothes on, now I'm here, now I'm there. Who knows when I make it home? Right? The phenomenon of craving. See, it happens to alcoholics.

It don't happen to those other people. I mean, did you ever get to a point where you said, no. I I'm too drunk tonight. I didn't. I didn't utter those words.

I drank till I passed out, and I drank as soon as I came to. That's how I do this thing. Right? I'm powerless. I've lost control.

Once I start, I cannot control how much I drink. Right? That makes sense. It's my job in the beginning when I sit down with a newcomer to lay this out. And it ain't my job to pat him on the behind and tell him I'm gonna love him in the sobriety.

My job is to paint the picture and I'm gonna paint the picture as dark as I can. Why? Because that's my experience. I drink. I can't control how much I drink.

If this was my only problem, because I know there's been many many times where I woke up after one of those bad nights and I thought this has got to stop. I've drank too much again. I've just got to stop because I think alcohol's the problem. Well, if this was the problem, what would be my solution? Don't drink.

Makes perfect sense to a normal person. Oh, you drink too much so don't drink. Well, that doesn't work out for me. Why? Because of the second half of step 1.

My life is unmanageable. Why is that? Because my mind always leads me back to the drink. Always. It always leads me back to the drink.

I'll read the rest of this paragraph here. It says, these allergic types can and the reason I read this because I remember one like my first or second treatment center and I still have the big book because I have in my here, you know, powerless and all this stuff, you know, all my little notes and everything, but on this one particular big book that I got, this treatment center, this part that I'm gonna read to you, they that they told me that's why my life is unmanageable. Right? So I'm gonna read what they say. It says these allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all.

It says these allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all. Once having formed the habit, found they can't break it, once having lost their self confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up and then they become astonishingly difficult to solve. And I'm just listening to what they said. And they said, that's why your life's so manageable. It made perfect sense to me.

Right? No. That's not the right answer. Those are consequences. Hell, you drink from the time you get up to the time you pass out, life becomes increasingly difficult to handle.

Problems pile up. Those are consequences. Has nothing to do with why my life's unmanageable. 2nd half of step 1, the reason my life is unmanageable, to save my life, to keep that job, to keep my freedom, to keep my girlfriend, to keep my kids, I am not I am unable to manage the decision to stay away from the drink. Cannot do it on my own power.

I've tried it over and over and over. That is why my life has become unmanageable. Has nothing to do with those consequences. Nothing. The circumstances of my life don't make me an alcoholic.

Down at the bottom of that page they say, men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. It's a pretty true statement. Let's make it a real true statement. Alcoholic men and women drink essentially because we love the effect produced by alcohol. I mean, come on.

Did you blood don't tell me you just drank just for the taste. I drink some nasty stuff in my day, including rubbing alcohol. If you're stuck out in the country and you ain't got no wheels and all they got is rubbing alcohol and you need a drink, you'll drink it. Or I did, at least. I don't I don't recommend that to anyone.

I hear you can go blind or whatever. I don't know. I was in Iceland. You should see see the stuff they drink. Anyway, I want the effect.

I mean, think. See, I went through life before I ever took a drink. I didn't know this until, you know, now that I'm sober and all that stuff, looking back, reflecting upon my life. But I needed a drink long before I had a drink. I needed a drink.

My girlfriend had it right. She drank when she was 8. You know, she she held out as long as she could, man. She needed a drink when she was 8, you know. I held out till I was 15.

Right? But see, you know, I'm the first kid. There's 2 sets of twins behind me. I'm the first grandkid. Granddad was pretty well off in West Texas.

I had the best shoes, the best clothes. My family loved me. There's no alcohol in my direct family. I had everything looking for, you know, the future looked bright. I played every sport.

I was great at every sport. I made great grades. You know what I'm saying? Everybody pat me on the butt telling me how great I'm gonna be when I grow up. You know, and I dreamed that I was gonna go to UT and and be a lawyer like my uncle and and work at his law firm.

I'd be retired by now. You know? Except I had this little voice in my head. You're telling me I'm great, but I had the little voice in my head going, you're a freaking loser. You know what I'm saying?

I was like, we moved around a lot. I was self conscious. I was real shy. I'd meet some friends and then we moved. Right?

I had but I had that little voice in my head. You know, I walk into this room and I think you're all staring at me. What did I do? I just I just didn't fit. The twins below me, they bond and, you know, I'm just I don't fit Until I was 15 at tennis camp in florida and I took my first drink and then I fit.

All the dots were connected. The keys to the universe were in my possession. Those chicks that I was with, they wanted me. You know what I'm saying? I was hip slicking cool.

You know, I want that effect. I want that effect. Right? It says this sensation is so elusive. See, I had that effect for years years years until the tables turned, and I couldn't quite keep that effect.

Oh, I just drink right on past it. It was fleeting. You know what I'm saying? I don't know if it was the 3rd drink or the 5th martini or whatever, but I get that effect but I've already triggered the and I'm gone. I overshoot the effect over and over.

The sensation is elusive. You know, it's like trying to catch a a a greased up balloon or a pig or something. It's just elusive. I can't I can't just get to that sense of ease and comfort and stop. Why?

Because I got this allergy telling me to drink another and another and another. It says that while they admit it is injurious, oh, I got some injuries. Now the injuries don't make me an alcoholic, but I got plenty of injuries. Oh, I've been to jails only 2 times. I've been to jail twice.

I mean, it's not like I'm a hardened veteran, you know, of jail. I can't I can't stand up here and it's like, oh, I could do jail time standing on my head, you know. That's nothing. I've wrecked cars. Most of the wrecks that I've had in cars were not my cars, they were your cars, you know.

I was always driving them. Been to 5 treatment centers, I don't know how many hospitals, I don't know how many friends I've lost, how many great jobs I've lost, family members I've lost. How about dignity? I lost some dignity too. Alcohol took me to places I never dreamed I go, took me with people I never hell, I'd go home with Bo Derek wake up with Bo Diddley.

You know? I've used that joke for like, 6 years now and it always gets a laugh. But, yeah, I had some injuries. I mean, that's the truth. I leave this I leave this building today and I go have a drink, that stuff starts to happen and in a hurry.

I mean, before a little bit before I got sober, I left one day before I'd ever had a drink, had a little, like, 2 months of sobriety and I left this little halfway house. All I was gonna do is look for an apartment. And I ended up in in in jail with a felony possession, PI, and kicking a cop in the chest. He was trying to pull me out of a cab. I mean, that's that's how my that's where my drinking took me to.

Right? That's the truth about my drinking. But what does my brain tell me? It's not that bad. Just a little bad luck.

I I had bad luck for the nineties. It was all bad. Everything was bad. I had a psychiatrist when I was like 19 years old was telling me, you know, list all the bad things in your life. And even at 19, all the bad things that I consider bad in my life were all a direct result of alcohol.

I drink 17 more years, you know. It's a tedious process. It says to them, well, I'm gonna hold my finger on that page. I'm gonna go to See, I'm gonna give you the bad news of step 1. Go over here to there's a solution page 24.

It's in italics. This is the bad news of step 1. Says the fact is that most alcoholics for reading yet obscure have lost the power of choice in drink. They're saying if you're a real alcoholic, you ain't got no choice in the matter. You're gonna it's not it's not a matter of if you're gonna drink, it's when you're gonna drink.

It says our so called willpower becomes practically nonexistent. Here's the tricky part. This is the part we I like to ram home all the time in little treatments in this because this is the part that I never understood. It says we're unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.

Welcome to your life being unmanageable. They're saying that the day that I take my last drink within a certain amount of time, and it varies for me my life unravels quickly when I'm not drinking. So the time frame is very very short, but they're saying, the day I take that last drink, I get removed from that last drink. My little brain is unable to come up with a solution to not drink. I can't remember it.

Well, let's do a little test. Close your eyes and think of the worst, most painful degrading experience you had as a direct result of drink. That. So what were you doing 24, 48 hours later? Oh, drinking.

Isn't that amazing? Amazing. First time I got thrown in jail. God. I prayed all day long and I had I had been kind of 12 stepped a little bit and I kinda knew a little bit more than I had done in previous times.

And I'm praying all day long and loose there. God, if you'll get me out of this, I'll do anything. I'll call Frank back. I'll I'll get the best lawyer I can get, and I'll get out of this, and I'll go back to my meetings, and, you know, and I'm just praying all day long. And I'm in bad shape, bad, bad shape.

Shaking it out, and it's horrible. My little boss at the time bonded me out that day. I got thrown in jail on Sunday night sometime. I bonded out Monday evening. I'm walking out loose stare and I'm putting my watch on my wrist and my watch says 847.

And I ran across the street and bought me another bottle of vodka. You think that I walked into the the liquor store and put that vodka up there and said, I just got the hell kicked out of me and I got a felony possession, a PI kicking a cop in the chest. Give me another bottle of this stuff, man. No, but I had to drink. I drink no matter what.

See, left to my own devices, I'm unable to manage the decision to stay away from booze. I've lost the power to choose. Those are the only 2 questions you need to answer in your little heart of hearts for step 1. I know they've got little pamphlets that say 20 questions or 40 questions. Hey, if you answer those 2 questions, you're going to answer all the rest of those other questions.

I think. I don't know. I've answered them all. Drink in the morning. Drink at night.

You name it. Lost jobs. Come up with a 100 questions. They're all gonna be checked. True, true, true.

It doesn't matter. I've lost the power to control it. I've lost the power to choose. Welcome to step 1. But let's look what Bill says more about step 1.

We'll go over to page 30, and I love the way he writes. That's why we do a big book study all the time in my group. Why? So we can learn what's in here. Look what he said.

He says most of us have been unwilling to admit we are real alcoholics. See, when I was in college, I'd be proud to tell you I was an alcoholic. Why? Because it was fun. I drank better than most people.

I didn't get sloppy back then. I didn't slur my words. I could drive better, dance better. You name it, man. It was good.

I was proud of it, but it towards the end, now I'm hiding booze, and I lived alone. Go figure. I don't know. Don't know what I was thinking. We cleaned up my apartment when I sobered up.

There was, you know, y'all been through it. There was booze everywhere. Alright. I I didn't want to admit that I was a real alcoholic. See, I I went through like most of the nineties trying to still prove that you were the reason why I was an alcoholic.

That's why I moved to Puerto Rico. Drunker than you know what, I just had to get away from Dallas. Tried to blame it on my family for a while. Trying to wish upon, I mean, I'm not making a lot of this, but wishing that I was like, you know, abused as a kid. That that must be why I must have been abused as a kid.

That's why I'm an alcoholic. You know, I didn't want to admit I was a real alcoholic. Says no person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Bodily different from the allergy. Mentally different because I have a mind that leads me to the drink.

See, my middle obsession is subtle. They call it cunning, baffling, powerful. See, I go to the little meeting, get a desire chip, and and and and make a go at AA, and I they tell me to keep coming back. They tell me to go to 90 meetings in 90 days. I do that.

And because I'm an alcoholic, I think, well, I'll do that and and and I'll join the I'll even join the sober softball team, you know. And I'll get some Tony Robbins books and I'll start running 5 miles a day doing push ups, doing good deeds for my mama, you know. You see me at a meeting, I tell you you ask me how I'm doing, I tell you I'm doing great. Doing great. Feel better.

Sleep better. Everything is great. God is wonderful. Right? But inside, it ain't that great because I'm like an actor.

See, little by slowly, I'm unraveling on the inside. Maybe somebody in my group tells me, man, maybe you just need to double up on your meeting. Okay. Maybe you just need to make out a gratitude list. Oh, okay.

And the days go by, and I unravel a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more, and I don't like feeling that way. I start feeling a little self pity. Start feeling some fear. Start feeling that that feeling of uselessness. Why me?

You know, you ask me how I'm doing. I tell you I'm doing good. See, I feel that way long enough. That spiritual malady. I feel that way long enough.

I don't like feeling that way. My little mind says, I don't know why the world treats you so poorly. You're a good guy. You look a little stressed, John Kelly. Stress is very, very dangerous.

I'm here to help you. I love you. It'll be different this time. What you and I need to do is we need to go on down to Centennial and just get us a pint of vodka. I know you're an alcoholic's anonymous.

This is just between me and you. No one will know. That's the middle obsession and that is a death sentence for an alcoholic because the middle obsession condemns an alcoholic left to his own devices to drink to the bitter end. It tells me when I work with others to stress the hopeless of the situation. So I hope I'm doing a good job.

It says therefore it's not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove that we could drink like other people. I bet there's some provers in this room trying to prove, hoping against all hope that the previous 1,000 experiences of of my drinking, tonight, I'm gonna be a miracle of control. Tonight, I'm just going to have a couple, enjoy this evening, and call it a night. I'm going to prove. Maybe I'll I'm not gonna drink tequila.

I'm a vodka and rumble men's type of person, you know. The higher the proof, the better for me, you know. So I'm not gonna do that. I'm just gonna drink beer. Swell up, you know.

To prove that, Now here we go. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. See, my brain tells me that I can control and enjoy it. I don't know about you. If you if I ever tried to control it, I sure as heck wasn't enjoying it.

Anybody ever tried to control your drinks for you? I went to a party with a girl one time and and it was like a cash bar at this party. And so I gave her my money. Right? And so she was buying the drinks and she was because we'd had some run ins, you know.

So she's buying the drinks. Right? After the first couple of drinks, I'm trying to figure out a way that I can kill her so I can get my money back, you know, because I was not having a good time. And we ended up having to leave that place. I can't control and enjoy it.

And if I'm enjoying, I sure as heck ain't controlling it. Right? But my mind I mean, think about it. Think not not this time. I know you're all big book numbers in here and everybody's rocking and rolling, but think back to one of those other times when you swore you're never going to do it again.

Right? You were given sufficient reason. Right? Maybe it was a job, maybe it was the relationship, maybe it was just you looking in the mirror, and you swore you were never ever going to do it again. Right?

And maybe you went to church more. Maybe you did more good deeds. Maybe you went to AA. Right? But you didn't drink.