The sixth New Hampshire State Conference of Young People in AA in Nashua, NH

My name is Noah. Noah. I'm an alcoholic. Hi. And, lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and all punches.

You want to do? It's kinda sad when you're the guy speaker and you get to pull the microphone down. It's kinda I, I wasn't being chivalrous when I asked her if she wanted to go first. I had to pee. And then I got back and I started drinking the water and now I gotta pee again.

So what do we gotta half now? Yeah. Alright. So that'll be good because that'll be about my limit. It's kinda neat.

There's a lot of people here in Maine. I I get sober in Maine. And, a lot of times when I is there anybody here that's, like, only been sober for, like, a month or something like that? Anybody in the room? I mean, I figured probably most of this yeah?

Good. Good. Congratulations, man. I just like to know, like, basically where people are at because I, you know, when I get sober, I come into meetings and people would start talking about, you know, friggin divorce and crisis and all kinds, you know, I'm like, well, how do I not drink? You know?

That's what I wanted to know. So, usually, when I I go to, like, rehabs and stuff like that, I usually ask people, you know, is there anybody here who doesn't know how to drink? I mean, because because, I mean, truthfully, I I know how to drink. I'm I'm pretty good at it. I could out drink guys who are, like, 3 times my size.

I I mean, when I was 16 years old, I was playing anchor man with a gun bunch of guys from a wrestling team. And I was the anchor man and they quit. And, you know, so like, I don't have any problem with drinking. The problem that I realize is is is not drinking. And I imagine that there's people in the room that, have a little bit of problem with that too.

I I when I get to AA, I I didn't and I still don't know. I don't have any idea on my own. I have absolutely no idea how to not drink. When I was 12 years old, I I picked up alcohol and, and and I didn't put it down until I was 24. And, I lived that entire period of my life pretty much drunk.

Gradually, the, you know, number of days in between how how long I went, got fewer and fewer and fewer and by the time I was I was ready to stop drinking, it was pretty much if I won a day, that was a big deal. And so I was 24 years old, I was living in Bangor, Maine. It's a really great place to drink. There's not really a lot else to do in Bangor, Maine. So I I had gone up to, graduate school and I was going to graduate school, which is my first reason why I wasn't an alcoholic because I was in graduate school and you can't possibly be an alcoholic if you're in graduate school.

And my other reason was because I had never done cocaine. And, you put those two reasons together and you've got a perfectly sound argument as to why you you are not alcoholic. And, so I was in graduate school and they were paying for me to go to school. And, I was I was a teaching assistant and I used to, like, go study economics during the day. And about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, I'd I'd go out and and I'd look into the teaching assistance room, and all the kids would turn around and look at me.

And they were thinking these things about me. And, they all thought that, you know, I was an idiot and I was a freak and I didn't belong there and, the half of them thought I was gay. And then, you know, they, you know, the the girls didn't really like me, but they should. And and, you know, they all think they're smarter than me. So I I couldn't stand what they were thinking, so I'd go home.

And on my way home, I'd stop off in the Rite Aid, the Rite Aid. I loved Maine because I grew up and and it, like, Rite Aid, which I didn't know what Rite Aid was until I and and it, like, Rite Aid's, which I didn't know what Rite Aid was until I moved to Maine either. But they they sell beer at Rite Aid. And and you walk into the Rite Aid and and I'm thinking, I gotta eat dinner. I haven't eaten anything all day long.

And I and I walk through the aisle and, I I go over to the beer aisle, and I pick up a 12 pack, and that's dinner. And then, I bring it home, and I put it down on the counter, and I start making broccoli. And I'm gonna have broccoli and beer. And, you've got hops, barley, broccoli. I mean, it's like a full diet.

And, I threw a couple carbs in there, like some pasta, and I was good to go. And, and then I'd start studying economics. And and I'm really freaking good at economics. I don't understand why. It's just this weird thing that God gave me this gift.

I'm really good at it. And, so so I'm studying economics and I'm not an alcoholic because I can do statistics and I can do economics and drink a 12 pack of beer. And I can call my friends up and tutor them on the phone and tell them about how smart I am and, then I get off the phone and think that they all hate me and think I'm too stupid to, you know. And it was insane. And what was going on was, this kid lived upstairs from me.

He was 18 years old and I gone to Maine because, I I got into like 4 other colleges for graduate school but I was dating Beth and Beth was gonna be my wife and she was gonna have kids and she was gonna become a veterinarian and I was gonna be a school professor and I was gonna write books and I could drink and stay home with the kids and write books And she would be a veterinarian and really take care of me and I go on sabbaticals and I could go sleep with my graduate students and all these things were gonna happen. And, it was just gonna be fantastic. And so I'm in graduate school and I and all the kids at school, you know, they think those things about me so I can't talk to them and I don't have any friends there. And Beth doesn't starting to really not understand me anymore. And, so I'm hanging out with the 18 year old kid up above me, and I'm buying a beer at night.

And, and I come home from school at 3 o'clock because they have what everyone's thinking and I gotta drink my beer and, do my economics and, and somebody stole my frigging cigarettes. And I'm like, what happened to my cigarettes? Where'd they go? I locked the door before I left and the cigarettes are gone and then shit's getting moved all around my someone's breaking into my frigging house at night. And, so then I'm, like, going into this panic and everything's going crazy in my head and it's like and they're trying to trick me into, like, flunking me out of school and things are going nuts.

So then the cops start coming over to my house, but I can't tell the cops that it's the kid upstairs because I'm buying the kid booze. And I'm 21 years old and I get a DUI. And if I get another get another arrest, then I have to go to jail and so, this craziness is going on. So I'm trying to talk to my ex my girlfriend about it on the phone and, you know, she's in school, so she doesn't have time to hear this. And, it's going absolutely insane.

You know, I come home, things are missing, stuff's going crazy. Everyone out at school and and and they're breaking into my house. They're stealing my cigarettes. They're moving shit around. Finally, somebody steals my grandfather's watch, and this is the one thing I actually cared about.

It was a gold watch. It was the only thing I had that was my grandfather's. And, and so the cops were coming and I I said, you know, that's it. And I filled them in on what was going on. I was gonna take my big chance that they don't tell the cops that I was buying for them.

And, and and so I had to move and craziness just kept going. What happened was I went home that that that Christmas and Beth just didn't understand how much trouble I was having. And I went over to her house to try to convince her to come and live with me over Christmas break and I had to move into a new apartment. And and and Beth's mother didn't insure her on her car. She didn't have car insurance.

So she couldn't drive my car because she didn't have insurance. And if she got an accident, I couldn't afford to deal with it because I had a DUI and doesn't this woman understand, she has to insure her daughter on her car so that she can come live with me because she's gonna be a veterinarian and I'm gonna write books and sleep with graduate students and teach classes and and she's ruining my freaking life. And, so I started screaming at this woman in the middle of her living room, her own house, screaming at her that she's ruining my life. None of these people get it, they're all screwing everything up and, and Beth just looks at me and said I can't deal with you anymore. You're out of your freaking mind.

You know? You you're just out of your mind. See, I used to go over to Beth's house because it was normal. It was like normal land. They watched fucking Disney movies.

Sorry, I swore I promised myself I wouldn't swear and now I'm swearing. But they, you know, I go over and we'd watch like Dumbo or something like that. And then I go out like the other 6 nights out of the week and I'd get cocked and I'd hang out at bars and I'd flirt with chicks. I couldn't cheat on my girlfriend because only losers cheat on their girlfriends. But I just, like, flirt with one time a girl walked all the way around the bar, came over, stood right next to me and stuck her tongue down my throat.

I told my friend, Pat, I'm like, watch, see that girl, I'm gonna pick her up. And because she didn't believe me that it was easy to pick girls up at the bar, you know, and so she comes walking all the way around the bar, sticks her tongue down my throat, I pushed her away, I said, I was just trying to prove a point, I have a girlfriend. You know, I had absolutely no sense and then she smacked me and I didn't get it. Like, why are you smacking me, you know? I'm trying to tell you I'm a nice guy, I don't cheat on my girlfriend.

So, you know, I never really did anything unfaithful, but I used to go and I'd live at bars and then one night a week I'd have to go over to Beth's house to go watch Dumbo and Feel Normal. And, and the whole time I'd be like, I hate it here. And, I couldn't wait to get out of there. And finally, she freed me, you know, you're done. I mean, this is the girl that 3 and a half years earlier, I met her at my house.

I was living on a farm in Sunderland, Massachusetts, I was going to UMASS. We used to have raging parties with, like, 200 people. They'd get off the bus, they called it the farmhouse. It was my house. And, they'd get off the which I loved.

I mean, I loved it that my house had like a nickname and, it meant I was important, you know. And, they, they'd get off the bus and they'd come to the farmhouse and they'd get drunk and and and, you know, kids would play freaking sit out by the fire and like all kinds of weird shit go on. And, and, and, and, and, and, and I moved there with Alison because I was in love with Allison. She was gonna realize she was in love with me, only she was dating my roommate from my previous house, Jeff, who owed me money, who didn't pay his bills. And she started dating Jeff right bef right after we signed a lease together.

Well, what was supposed to happen was Allison was supposed to realize that Jeff was a real jerk. When we moved in together, she was gonna fall in love with me, start sleeping with me and dump Jeff. Well, it didn't happen and so I had to go find somebody different. So I'm at a party at my house and and this girl shows up and I don't even like her, but I gotta pick somebody up, you know, and now it's 3 and a half years later and I'm gonna kill myself over this girl that I never liked. I never liked her the day I picked her up.

She's a really nice girl. I took her hostage for 3 and a half years so I could make Allison jealous, who I don't even talk to anymore. I don't even know her anymore, you know. And yet, you know, here it is, three and a half years later and I'm living in Maine and Beth can't deal with me anymore so she breaks up with me and, and I don't know what to do, so I drink. You know, I keep drinking.

And, what happened was I I, I spent the next 4 days drunk, which really wasn't any different than the previous, you know, 4 days. But I spent the next 4 days drunk and, went to, New Year's Eve night, I went out to mom McKinnon's in Boston. And, and I remember it was midnight and I looked up my friend Pat was making out with a chick and I thought, how dare you? I just broke up with my girlfriend. You're not supposed to be with anybody tonight because you're my buddy and I'm sensitive and so, you're not supposed to like, I'm the only one allowed to score tonight if anything happens and I was afraid to talk to anybody.

So, you know, so I walked out of Mama Kins, it was 20 below 0, I was wearing a flannel shirt, and the next thing I know, I was on the T. I don't know how I got to the T, I don't know where I was on the T, all I knew was that there were 4 kids, they were like of a different ethnic origin, and they were kicking at me, kinda trying to wake me up a little bit. And, and I remember looking up and just being like, Oh shit, You know, like, where am I? And they stood me up and they bro they were laughing at me, you know, and and they're like, kinda, dude, you gotta you gotta you gotta get together. And, and so they said, I tried to figure out where I was.

I had no idea where I was. They put me back on the train going the other way. They told me where to get off. I called Beth's mother, and Beth's mother was gonna fix it. She was gonna drive me back to Beth's house, and I was gonna we're gonna make it all different.

And everything was gonna well, Beth's mother was from Al Anon. So she drove me to Whistler and we had to go home and I had to go to my mother's house and I was humiliated so I drove back up to Maine and I spent the next 4 days drunk in Maine. And, the last night I drank, I woke up at 10 o'clock in the morning that day and, went down to the Irving station, got my 12 pack, came back and I started making tapes. I'm gonna make tapes, I'm gonna start showing chicks in Bangor how, how cool of a music select, I'm gonna make a Miles Davis tape, I'm gonna make a tape that has all kinds of like bluegrass music on it, and then we're gonna have this raging potty, nah, I don't know anybody. And, we're gonna make this raging potty and I'm gonna play tapes all day long and everybody's gonna see that I'm making these tapes and and then my day come my time comes and I go down to the bar, I've been scoping out like Fitzwillie's or something like that.

And I go down there, I've never been in it. And, and I go down there and I stand at the bar all night long drinking gin and tonics, smoking butts with my new best friend, this kid that I met. And, he gave me his lighter. And, we we were smoking butts and talking and staring at these 2 girls dancing together all night long, and I'm thinking, I'm gonna pick them up. And then I'm thinking, they don't like me.

They think I'm gay. Everyone here hates me. And I smoked butts until it was about 1:15 and I realized the Irving station is gonna close soon, so I left there. I walked up the street, I remember standing in front of the refrigerator door at the Irving station and I said, I don't have any freaking 12 packs. I've been drinking since 10 o'clock in the morning and I'm mad because they don't have any 12 packs.

So I grab a 6 pack of pounders and I go walk back to my house And, and I drank that. And I put my head down, and I said, God, what the is wrong with me? And I picked my head up and I looked at the beer in my hand and I just thought I can't drink anymore. And I don't know, today, I know where the thought came from. God put that thought in my head.

Because I had never ever in my life ever wanted to not drink again. Ever. When I was 12 years old, I started drinking and it took away how I felt. And while it stopped working, it was the only thing I ever knew that took that away. And I never wanted to not drink.

So, when the the thought occurred to me to not drink again, I it floored me. I just I can't drink anymore. So I finished the beer and, but I called Beth on the phone at 2:30 in the morning to inform her of my my big awakening, and she didn't disagree. And she also wanted to know why the hell I was calling her at 2:30 in the morning. But, but I I said, what should I do?

And I had been to AA when I got my DUI and her whole family was in AA and they, you know, so I knew about it. So she should probably call them in the morning. And I did. I called the next morning and and this guy John answers the phone. See, the previous 12 years are kind of the same.

I could sit here. I could tell you all about them. They're like the same story. It just just keeps getting crazier and crazier and crazier until it gets to that day. And then, you know, it's just nuts.

And, it started off, it was a lot of fun. But it it just wasn't fun anymore. I mean, it was a mess. It was absolute insanity. And I didn't know that.

Everything I know about what happened, I know now in hindsight. I know as of after writing about it and reading it to my sponsor and then going out and making amends about all this stuff. That's how I understand things to be the way they are today. I mean, what happened was I called my I called AA and this guy John answered the phone and he said, hello, this is John. Are you Noel?

Actually, he called me back, and I said, yes. He says, I'm from AA. I said, okay. Whatever. And, he said, I can come pick you up if you want and take you to a meet and, we we can get together.

I'll be at your house at exactly 9 o'clock. Don't be early because you'll be wasting your time and don't be late or I'll leave. And, I like this guy. I like that. He's an ass.

And I like people that are like that. So I went over, I went out at exactly 9 o'clock. Boom, the guy was there. I went over his house all day long and talked to him about football. I knew no house all day long and talked to him about football.

I knew nothing about football. He knew nothing about football, but I didn't know that. He just had the football game on, so I assumed I must impress this man with my knowledge of football, so I started telling him everything I know about over. Tom is from over. Tom is from Westa.

Now, I'm living in Bangor, Maine. It's 300 miles from Westa. Tom used to drink at the bar that I used to stand outside of when I was 14 years old and say, dude, you wanna buy me some beer? And like and like, you know, we weren't like even close to normal kids either too because the guy go like, oh, okay. What do you want?

A 6 pack? I'd hand him a frigging stack of ones like this. I need 8 cases. And the guy's like, what? And we'd be running across Lincoln street like this with 8 cases of beer, you know?

And like 5 kids would come out of the corners and like It was insane. We were nuts. You know, and that was that was 14, 15 years old. And, so anyways, Tom like Tom like knew, I mean, I probably bought dope off of him. He knew the same people I knew.

He hung out with the it was just like, maybe God put him there, maybe not. I don't know. But it it was weird. So that kinda hooked me for the time being, you know, 10 minutes. And then we went, we went to a meeting.

And I remember this about the meeting, there was a guy with white hair sitting at the back and I didn't like him because he was obviously in charge and, and he asked if anybody wanted to make a commitment to sobriety. And I said, just so, 24 hour commitment. I remember standing up to pick up my white chip. I think I had been like, like informed about the white chip on my way there or something. So I stood up and I started bawling.

And, and I didn't know why I was crying. And that was over 8 years ago. And I know why I was crying. My whole life changed right then. I mean, I had no idea what was gonna happen to me over the next 8 years, you know.

From the time I was 12 until I was 24 years old, I never didn't drink. I didn't know how to not drink. That day, that minute, I didn't know how to not drink. I still don't know how to not drink. What I learned how to do over the next 8 years is I learned how to do what I'm told.

And that's what I do, I do what I'm told. But I didn't do it right away, what I did was I was just going to these meetings and within like a couple of weeks, I'm looking around the room at these freaking meetings and you know, everybody in the room hates me, you know. And and nobody nobody here knows what I know. And, I don't really go on here. I mean, I haven't done cocaine.

I'm in graduate school. I have 80% of my teeth. There's there's a whole string of really important reasons why I've never prostituted myself, which is important to me. You know, so therefore, I can't possibly belong here, you know. I don't live under a bridge, I didn't drink out of a paper bag, you know.

All of the real important reasons for not being an alcoholic were floating around my head all the time. And I remember being at this meeting at Husson College, and, staring at the back at Katie's head and, Katie, if you ever hear this tape, you know, I'm sorry, but this is what I was thinking about. I was thinking about having sex with Katie. That's it. You know?

And like most people who have, like, no sobriety and and are sitting around in meetings and haven't done anything to get better, I'm suffering from untreated alcoholism. I'm sitting in this meeting, I'm staring at the back of Katie's head, I'm thinking about having sex with her and then I'm looking at all the guys in the room with the 3 times my size, thinking they're gonna kick my ass if I even talk to her. So so I raised my hand and I start talking about all the things that I understand because I read 2 chapters out of a Deepak Chopra book and this guy, Eric, comes over to me after the meeting and he says, you know, you can do something about the way you feel if you want. And, and I can help you. And, you know, FU, you prick comes to mind like that, you know, like who do you think you are, you know.

But at the same time, what was going on was I was going to these meetings for a month and I go home and everybody's saying, oh, it gets better. Just keep coming. And, you know, and they're all very nice and they're trying to help me. And I go home and I'd stare at the beam in my kitchen and think about hanging myself every night. And I was wondering when it was gonna get better.

I I kept coming and when's it gonna stop? And what was happening was the craziness was just going non stop in my brain. All stuff that I just told you about, that was all still going on in my head, only I didn't have the only thing that ever took it away. You know, it wasn't there anymore. It was gone.

So it was just going 9,000 miles an hour inside my head and it wouldn't stop. And I just wanted it to stop. That's all I ever wanted. You know? I wanted that when I was 12.

I wanted to understand why the kids acted like they did when I was a kid. I wanted to understand why I had problems. I wanted to understand all these things. I wanted it to go away. I thought understanding it was gonna make it go away.

And, so I went to these meetings and, I kept coming and and I met this guy Eric in his office to help me and, didn't know what else to do. So like that second when I thought I need to not drink anymore, for some strange reason I thought I need to let this kid help me. I didn't know what to do. I I was 19 years old. I was going to college and I couldn't read and I didn't tell anybody.

I never let anybody help me with anything. Help letting people help me does not does not come to me. I I don't let that happen. But I didn't know what else to do. I mean, I was really tired of thinking about killing myself.

And so I did and and we got together and he we started going what what do we got? A couple of minutes? Yeah. Yeah. A couple of minutes.

Alright. So, we started getting together and we started going over the big book. And he said, you need to understand whether or not you're an alcoholic, because this whole recovery deal is about a relationship with god. And you can't base a relationship with god on a lie. And, you know, he didn't this guy never never bullshitted me, ever.

You know? He just told me straight, mom, this is the way it is. And, I like that. And what happened was we got together and we started reading through the description of the alcoholic. We read it all the time in meetings and how it works.

I didn't know what the hell it was. The description of the alcoholic is from the doctor's opinion up to page 43 in the big book. That is the description of the alcoholic. At the time when they wrote it, it was the only description of an alcoholic. No one had ever written one before.

No one knew what the hell an alcoholic was. I didn't know what an alcoholic was. I was sitting around in AA meetings and it come to me and said, I'm knowing I'm an alcoholic because he said it and he's gonna say it. But I didn't know what it was, you know. And so we went over it.

It's very, very, very, very clear. He made it very clear to me. He says, there's 2 things you need to be concerned with. When you start drinking, can can can you control the amount of alcohol you drink? I said, no.

Can't. Can't do it. You know? I have countless examples of, you know, like, I start out drinking and I fall out of trees. You know, I end up on 290 hitchhiking home.

You know? And he looked at me and said, good. Don't ever drink again, Which is something that's almost kinda taboo to say in AA. But the reality is is that's the truth. And he could tell me the truth because he had a solution.

See, for somebody to just tell me that would be mean. That's like taunting a guy with no legs saying, come here. You know? But it's it's not, you know? But he, he actually had an answer.

You could tell a guy with no legs come here if you gave him like a wheelchair or a pair of crutches or something But, you know, he did, you know, he had an answer. He said, you're gonna die drunk Cause the reality is I don't know how to not drink. I can't not drink. There's this other part of alcoholism that I think we don't really like to talk about very much, which is that I have a mental obsession. And the mental obsession occurs when I have no alcohol in my body.

It could occur today. It could happen. Just boom. Get this screwed up thought that tells me to go drink. They call it relapse.

They have a whole chapter about relapse. It's called more about alcoholism. Yet we talk about relapse as though it's something that happens other than alcoholism, but relapse is alcoholism. It means that I will drink again. It's it's like the guarantee.

My mind is going to tell me to drink again unless something seriously changes inside of me and he helped me to understand that. And he says, you know, so what what needs to change? Well, you need to come to believe that a power greater than yourself will store your sanity. I don't believe that. He says And then I was terrified, I thought, you know, there's one more thing I can't freaking do.

You know, and, he says, well, you're not expected to believe that at this point. You know, 3 weeks ago, you were throwing up blood and crapping your plants and shi pants in Chinese restaurant stall. We don't expect you to come to AA and all of a sudden believe in God. You know, that's not reality. I know some people talk about it as though it's reality but it's not reality.

What's expected is that you've had enough and you're willing to try something different. And that's what step 2 was to me. Was I was willing to try something different. I was willing to do what I was told. And so we got on our knees in his living room and held hands and said the 3rd step prayer.

And the whole time, I'm worried about whether or not the guy's gonna rape me. And, and I'm thinking about that thing I did when I was a little kid and, you know, oh my god, am I gonna have to tell him that? And, you know, and, that's it. That's all I'm thinking about. And he's having this peaceful experience and and, we go home.

After we done, he's he he told me to buy a notebook and a pen before I got there. And, we get up from saying the prayer and he says, now I want you to go home and start writing a list of names of people that piss you off. And, I went home and I whipped furniture around the house. I picked a chair up over my head and I threw that across the room and I punched the wall about 15 times and I bawled my eyes out because this guy told me to go do something. You know, I I just wanna go to meetings, you know.

But I didn't just wanna go to meetings. But I just wanted to go to meetings. But, you know, and it was just and, he said, go home and write a list of names of people that you hate. And, I had bought a shirt 2 years earlier that said, every day in my life, I'm forced to add another name to the list of people who pissed me off. And I didn't know I'd be actually writing that list out.

You know? And there were lots of names. I had somewhere around x names. And it took me somewhere around Y months to write them all down and they fit in Z notebooks. And that's as specific as I need to get about it.

We wrote down all of the people, I wrote down all of the things that I hated about them. There were many. I remember extremely See, that's one of the things I didn't understand is I'm not stupid. 5th step. This guy remembers more than I do, and I'm terrified.

I'm like, oh, my his 5th step. This guy remembers more than I do, and I'm terrified. I'm like, oh, my God. You know, I love the people that don't remember. It's like, good.

Good. You're lucky, man. I mean, I remember what friggin' Danny, who's actually in the program now, threw my teeny, meeny, miny moes. It's it's school steps at Thorndyke Road School when we were 4 years old at the Memorial Day celebration with my brother my brother and his sister. They were in school singing around the flagpole.

We're playing with my brand new friggin' teeny meeny miny moes and Danny whipped him at the friggin' school steps. And he didn't care. Both of us are in AA now. So, you know, I mean, all the way from that to my dad wanted to play with somebody else's kids and left me at home when I had just had brain surgery 3 months earlier so he could go play baseball with somebody else's kids who were better than me. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

It sucks. But, he didn't know how to be any other way. And so we look at all these things, we look at what they affect in our lives, and we look at our part. You know? We look at what we wanted out of things.

And, we turn things around and we look at them from a different perspective so we can have forgiveness for people. Because we don't have forgiveness for people. We don't have any business asking people for forgiveness. And that's what I come to understand. You know?

And I spent I spent some time reading that to my sponsor, This guy Brian, Eric had moved and Brian picked up Brian as my sponsor. And I I moved to Massachusetts now. And Brian lived in Camden, Maine. I lived in Worcester now or Millbury, Mass. And, I didn't trust anybody else in the world.

You know, I was a couple years sober at this point, and Brian was the person I trusted, Period. That was it. And, and that's okay. And I tell that to the guys I spoke you know? I had so many times people like what I realized through my writing was that there were so many people that I made myself vulnerable to that I had no business ever trusting, you know.

And I and I lied to myself about what I trusted people with, you You know, girlfriends, kids I did drugs with, kids I drank with, you know. And then I wonder why they did things like pick up my girlfriend and start having sex with them or like, you know, all kinds of things that happened and I wondered why they happened but like I put myself in the position to get hurt, you know. I just wanted people to like me. I wanted everyone to like me. Everyone, the whole world, everybody in the planet is supposed to like me.

And so I do things, because of that fear. So anyways, this guy, Brian, is the 1st guy in the world I've ever trusted. So I'm damn right I'm gonna friggin' read my inventory to him. So I drove 3 and a half hours up to Camden, Maine to read my inventory to him. And I did that a couple of times.

And Massachusetts to listen to me read inventory. I sat on my couch for 7 hours and just listened. Then he took me out to dinner and bought me a big steak. And he drove back up to Maine because he had a prison commitment. This is a a bank felon.

This is a guy who robbed banks, who's a crack addict and a drunk. Why would he do that? You know? And I learned something about what it means to sponsor people right by my fist step, you know. Brian understood that if I didn't do this, I was going to hang myself from the beam in the kitchen, you know, if something didn't fundamentally change inside of me, I was not gonna be alive much longer.

And so we did it, you know. And, I went out and I started making amends. I made amends and, those were a blessing. Next weekend, I get to put in a hardwood floor with my father, you know, the guy who wanted nothing to do with me, The guy who actually just didn't know how to want something to you know, he didn't know how to do something with me is really all it was. And, you know, it it's just a miracle.

Last night, I didn't stay because my wife was at home. And, she's my wife. I didn't understand that. Beth was gonna have my kids and work and take care of my stuff while I drank, you know. Last year, my wife got sick and, I was working 2 jobs to make sure that things got got done.

And, then my brother-in-law got cancer and, I didn't know what to do so I have a 10 step that I write out every night I mean, every morning. And, I mean, you wanna feel powerless. You have a a guy who weighs 300 and something pounds get cancer and start having a tumor grow off the side of his face. He's got 2 kids at home. And, what the hell did he do?

You know? And, I don't know what to do. So I'm writing inventory and I said, you could paint the house. So I started driving up to Maine to paint the house. Because now things are much clearer today, I don't have the craziness, the the chaos running around in my head.

What the hell do I need to do? You know, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Just constant madness in my mind. You know? And, so I drove up and I painted the house while I was working and, you know, he died.

I didn't drink. A year ago yesterday, I got out of the hospital. I had brain surgery. It was a year from hell. I have hydrocephalus.

I have a shunt in my brain. It it found its way. It goes down into my gut. It's a plastic tube, and it stuck me in the liver. And it was sticking me in the liver for about 6 months.

And I couldn't find a doctor that understood what the hell was wrong with me. It wouldn't even look. And I was doing my 10 step 1 night, and I wrote it out, why don't I go to another doctor? You know, I was on this insurance plan that I I thought I was stuck in Mass in New Hampshire. And, I was afraid.

That's what it came down. I was afraid to go to another doctor. I was afraid. And so I went to a meeting, down in Boston and a friend of mine, I was reading the inventory to him and I happened to know that he was a neuropsychologist because a year earlier, I was reading my inventory to him and he started telling me about what it's like to have hydrocephalus. I'm like, the hell?

How do you know this? And he's a neuro psychologist. It's like what he does for a living. And, he got me all this help to get, so that I had all my medical records and all this other shit. So anyways, I ended up I ended up having brain surgery a year ago yesterday because all this stuff happened from my 10th step that allowed me to have the information I needed to go and give the information down to the doctor down in Boston.

If I didn't do a 10 step, if I didn't write things out and deal with it, I would've never known any of that. I I just I wouldn't have known it. I would've just hated the doctor in New Hampshire. And I wouldn't have another solution. He's a prick.

And I'm dead, you know? And so what I have instead is I have this process that allows me to get down to the truth, so that I actually know what to pray about. You know, I used to I used to pray for, you know, God bless this asshole and that jerk and da da da da da da da da, you know. That's nice and it's a good start, but, you know, it's a lot more effective to be able to say, God help me because I'm afraid of failing tomorrow at work when I have to give a presentation. That's really what I'm afraid of.

I have to give a presentation. I know that I have to do it tomorrow. And this is the truth. This is what's going on tomorrow. I wrote it out in my notebook today.

I'm afraid. I'm afraid of I've never failed at anything in my life. And yet, I'm afraid that I'm gonna fail. God's not gonna let me fail. You know, won't happen.

So, you know, these are the things that happen and and because of that I get to precarry this message to other people, you know. And, it's it's really remarkable to be able to watch other people go through what I was taught how to do. And that's really the whole gift of of a Alcoholics Anonymous, you know. I came here and it was all about me. And today, it ain't all about me, you know.