The Northern Plains Group of Alcoholics Anonymous in Fargo, ND

Right about there? Hi. My name is Lee Johnson. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Lee.

God, your enthusiasm is just unbelievable. Thanks, Dave, for asking me a while back to, come and share. I have fun sharing. It was somebody that turned my life around when I was bumbling around in treatment that I heard heard something I needed to hear there, and I hope maybe something I say tonight may help you out. But you know something?

It's none of my business. That's the deal. You know, a lot, you know God, I just see so many people in this room that I know. There's so many that my home group is a Saturday morning men's group and it's thanks, you know, and I'm grateful to be sober by because of my I have a home group, I have a sponsor, and the God of my understanding in my life today. Because of that I've been sober since September 25, 1993.

I feel all of those are very important ingredients in my sobriety. I have a couple sponsors, one is Doug I and another one is Lloyd G. I know a lot of you know Lloyd g. Say a little prayer for him. Would you please?

They just put a trach tube in him today. So, his time with us is gonna be getting shorter all the time, but he's just been an unbelievable mentor for me in my life. He's taken me, taken to me places that I never thought I'd be going, to be honest with you. You know it's like getting a car and let's go. When I was sitting in a meeting one morning at the clubhouse and he come up and asked me, if I'd be willing to start a jail meeting.

And I said, sure. I said, God what's this all about? You know and it's there's there's there's people in this room tonight, the first time I ever met them are wearing orange, But they're here tonight and they're sober you know and that's fun and they really clean up nice I always tell them. But you know, I'd have missed that. I'd have missed that if I hadn't got into service.

And, thank you guys for a wonderful roundup. I was able to take him to the Gulf you know and that's service work. Hey! We drug a new guy along. God, he had so much fun he couldn't believe it, you know, and that's the deal is getting involved with outside activities and that's what I found, that's what my home group did for me and I feel my home group's the best home group in the in the world you know and I hope you know and we're not perfect but I that's the way I feel and I'm sure if you remember this group that's the way you feel about this group.

And you know and that speaker on your your speaker on Saturday night, Tom I I I heard him at the at the last international and when he talks about that, when he talks about what alcohol did for him, when that when he put that alcohol in his body and it was about 11 I was I was 11 years old, so I was pretty close to when he was when he started. Is that, you know, what that effect of alcohol did for me when I when it gave me that, Oh man, it was just like a revelation. Where had this been all my life and it made everything just fit from a very early age. I I grew up in a little town called 2 Harbors, Minnesota. I was an only child and on in those days about every 6 miles up the road was a 3 2 tavern.

I had a giggle when you mentioned Disneyland because I had an uncle that was deputy sheriff and I used to ride along with him and he was, you know, I know he was one of us. So I'd ride along with him. I'd sit I'd I'd be drinking little I'd be drinking beers down and sitting on the table down there, you know, when I'm 10, 11 years old. And, those 3 two taverns were like Disneyland for me. You know?

The jukebox is going. It's things are happening and it's just like cheers, you know. That's where I wanted to be. And I did a lot of things when I started drinking at 11. I played sports, you know, qualified for qualified for lettering 1 year and then the next year I'm ineligible to play and then the next year it can play again and you know it's kind of in and out of those car accidents and 18, I ended up going that's why I go to jail.

You know, one of the worst parts of times of my life, I thought at that time, was being sentenced to jail for a year and just I know the feeling of tearing the hearts out of my parents and the people that love me, You know? So when I when I go to jail now, I I understand a lot, and I can share that experience. That bad time in my life that's been in the in the promises as it talks about, you know, some of the worst worst things that ever happened into my life. I can I can share my experience freely today because I'm not a I'm not a prisoner of my own my that old garbage, you know? And as a result of doing the steps in my life, you know, doing a 3rd step and a 4th step.

I had sponsors, that, well, Calvin knew one of them. Chuck Lohman. God bless him. He was, he was a main part of my life when I first started. I and I understand there were so many people in my in my group that helped me out when I first got here, because I'm a I'm a businessman, was back then.

I drank myself to success. I got out, you know, I had I got out. I was in the Marine Corps for 4 years, got out, started going to Morehead State, a guy come up, I was bartending. You talk about bartending job? Oh, god.

You know, what a place for an alcohol. He had 2 bartending jobs and going to Morehead State. One was at the Flame when they used to have the dancers over there. Man, I tell you what, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven, you know. And and then one day a guy come up and asked me to go to work for him and I did.

And 14 years later, I ended up owning his half of the business and that was back in 1986. And, I was, I kept chasing whatever it is, you know. And whenever I got to there, wherever there was at, it was never enough. And I I material things. I kept measuring my my self worth and material things and, it just it kept chasing that.

And along the way of chasing all the material things in my life, I lost myself. And I didn't understand that because if you'd looked at me and in me and said what's wrong with Lee's life? What could possibly be wrong with Lee's life? You know, got a beautiful home, got a nice wife, got a business, but inside I was just it was empty. There was just an emptiness in there.

It was a black hole. And one night I was on my way home and after, about a 3 or 4 day hard day drinking and my wife had left for the for the weekend and, I was on my way home to change clothes and I rear ended a federal probation officer and just masked the Jesus out of my car and hers and, you know, and it was the same deal all over again, you know. After that was I was 18 years old when I went to jail and that's exactly how I feel. All those old feelings came back and I was 45 years old. You know I've just all that self loathing, all that you know, like somebody shot a cannon through my guts.

And how could I get out of this but I, you know, I and I, that night after I got out of jail, I went back home. And a neighbor of mine, I called him up and, I knew, you know, in my business, I know a lot of people. And I call a judge that I know and know that was way back then and he says, well, you're just gonna have to do what you have to do, you know. And anyway, my neighbor come and rescued me and you know what alcoholics do when they get ready to get rescued, they drink. Because I didn't know honestly I knew no other way to get rid of that emotional pain.

All of that all that stuff that I used to alcohol would take care of for me. It would just give me that sense of ease and like in the doctor's opinion, it says that drinking gives you that sense of ease and comfort. It's exactly what alcohol did for me for a long long time, but it wasn't doing that anymore. And, that night my, my neighbor rescued me and we drank but you know something that was that night I just couldn't I couldn't put enough into me. It was just like an out of body experience.

I just couldn't just couldn't make anything go away. Next morning, he called me bright and early, and we had started a day off as I normally would and I started drinking again, but I couldn't it was just it was just the most unbelievable experience. And that night, I was over to his house and I had literally had a half a glass of whiskey and water in front of me, you know, and I and I I looked at that and I was going, you know, if something doesn't change, nothing's gonna change. And I sure wasn't asking God for help cause I did not have any God in my life. A bunch of well meaning people up in Two Arbors, Minnesota tried tried to to share their their religion with me at the Norwegian Lutheran Church and I wasn't buying what they were selling, you know.

I just to me it just seemed like there was a lot of hypocrisy. And so I wasn't so I wasn't asking God for help, you know. And I come to find today I believe it's a lot of people's prayers like yours saying prayers for these people that are still suffering out there that were that were helping me out. But the next morning I got up and I had still all had that emotional pain but for some reason the thought of having a drink that morning, you know, I just didn't think that was gonna be the answer and, I didn't understand it at that time but my miracle had actually started that morning. And what I found, I feel my personally is that night I had a moment of clarity and that's started me on a journey that I've been on since.

I got into, I told my wife when she came back that on Sunday night, it says where's our car? And I says, well it's not in good shape. And I got a DUI and I'm about as bad a shape as that is, but it's the first time I ever admitted to her that I really had a drinking. She knew I drank a lot, you know, and, but I had crossed that line a long time. I think I crossed the line as soon as I put alcohol in my body when I was 11 years old because I loved it.

I drank I drank for the effect and I drank as much as I could and as I said as often as I could. I lived the party, I loved the party, you know, and that led me into a treatment. And, I remember for years I'd say I I did say I says well I put myself in treatment. You know that pride and ego? The the the bottom line is is alcohol had beat the shit out of me so bad I didn't really have any other place to go.

You know, and I'm grateful for that because in the in the chapter, the more about alcoholism, it talks about changing brands and doing this and don't do and that. You know something? By God, when I read that the first time, I couldn't how in the heck would they know all this stuff about me? You know, and when I read, that's what I I firmly I tell people to please read the literature, you know, the big book. Read the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous because when I started reading that, I could not believe that they knew so much about me and I identified with it.

But you know, I was having a hard time you know my idea of an alcoholic was some bum that come crawling out from underneath the First Avenue Bridge. See that was my picture of an alcoholic and he'd collect enough cans so he could get a bottle of wine and drink it and then go back home which was under the bridge. See I was not identifying as being an alcoholic And I was, when I was in treatment, a gentleman by the name of Maury, god bless him, he passed away here about 2 years ago. He came to the store or came to the treatment center and he he told a story. And, he had been a very successful banker and you know and he drank himself out of everything including his marriages, his banking business, and everything he had earned all through his life and I identified with that guy and then he also has said you know, I'm, you're here in treatment learning about an illness called alcoholism, you know, But all the knowledge in the world about your illness of alcoholism isn't gonna really do anything any good if you put into some action.

And he says, you have to get in some type of recovery program. He says, I'm here on behalf of Alcoholics Anonymous. And literally that was another chink in my armor because, that night when I, said you know if something doesn't change nothing's gonna change. Alcoholics Anonymous sure as hell was not on my radar screen, I'll tell you that. I knew nothing about Alcoholics Anonymous.

If you'd asked me what Alcoholics Anonymous is about, this is a bunch of bible thumping religious zealots, you know, some emotional cripples and I guess maybe I am too, but you know that was my perception of it so that would have not that wasn't even on AA was not even on my screen. So when he, when he said that he was there on behalf of Alcoholics Anonymous and he had shared he shared part of his story. You know, I became willing and that's what it you know, the key to me is it talks about it in our opera. I got this big book here. I knew I'd find one of these here.

You know, I knew I'd find one of these because that's the the big, you know, the the book called Alcoholics Anonymous. A lot of people lovingly call it the big book. I call it the operator's manual. The operator's manual has all my instructions in here. It tells me how to precisely this is not voodoo, it's not some, you know, this this this will tell you this book will tell you exactly how to get and stay sober.

It's willing to know it but it reads easy, it works hard, you know. A lot of people I've run across, I know one especially in jail says, hey it didn't work for me. I says guess what? It doesn't work for me either. I gotta work for it, you know.

I wanna be sober worse than I wanna get all have all that crap again. And so I get I get done with my, I get done with my treatment program and, and I I I'm looking for another meeting to fill in that time. I go up to the Sunday night meeting or, excuse me, the Monday night meeting meeting. I'd hope it's just kind of like my another one, my second home group. And there sits the guy that carried the message for me that night, and I thanked him so much.

You know, I didn't understand that, you know, he just went and shared his story and I thanked him. I thought, you know, I personally thank he says, you'll you'll see and now I see. I understand. I understand. He was he was just God's messenger for me that night.

You know that he was the man that kinda cracked cracked my that ego and pride of mine. And I ended up in my home group and, and, made friends with Chuck and, but, I didn't have him as a sponsor to start with. I was about 3rd meeting there and they said you need a sponsor, so during announcements I stood up and said I needed a sponsor. And a couple guys jumped up and I picked 1 and, he was a sponsor of Chuck's. And, he was my sponsor for a while but what I found was he he he talked the talk, but he didn't walk the talk.

And I wanted some, you know, and you'll see that many place. You'll see that. It's like the old do as I say, not as I do it, Theo. You know, you can figure that out. So I know along the way, I got involved with my group and there's things I did while in that group that you know, I wanted to be hip slick and cool.

I wanted to be a somebody, you know, and what I found is the eyes you get in this thing is sober. But I still wanted my pride and ego. My pride and ego were there, so they had an open they had an opening for a GSR. So I took the job as GSR, you know, but I got the title, but I didn't do the work. And after about a year of that, I stepped down from it because it required some commitments.

That was early on. But anyway, but along the way of doing some of that and get going to district meetings and doing other things, getting involved in service, and there's a lot of familiar faces out here that I've done I've been involved with service work with. You know, I did I did it for the wrong reason, but I got the results, you know, and that's that's just like, you know, come on along you know and and that's some of the things that happened to me along with I can't I just like your speaker the other night could not stress service enough and that is truly I I I couldn't stress it enough myself. Just getting involved, and and there's so many you know, lots of things. Just helping your group out, helping another you know, doing a 12 step call like you're there's so many and being, you know the whole premise I believe of Alcoholics Anonymous was to get back into society and be a useful member of society.

So that means getting out and doing other service work in your community and being a useful member of El you know of, of, you know, in society. And, god, I can just you know, I I bet you I I can just think now of, some of the experiences I had with, Chuck and a few of those other guys. It's, it's just, I I don't know where to, you know, I just don't know where to go with this. You know what all of a sudden I'm going, God I could go in many different directions here. I think I'll have a little drink here.

It's not last call yet. But as a result of sponsorship, you know Lloyd came in my life and, one of the kindest, gentlest giants that I've met of a man. And, what I've, because I have this huge pride and ego and he's I've learned that you know by the he he has been in a different way than Chuck ever was to the ego deflation because he he's just he's shown me what he's literally shown me what humility is about. Just through his actions of working, you know, working the program and the steps and sponsorship. You know, I know your group here has a strong sponsorship and I I through the course of being sober a number of people have asked me to be their sponsor and truly I've learned more from those people working with them than I could ever give to them.

I've seen more of my own character defects through other people in the in the gift of it. And going to different, being willing to do different things. One of the just recently we were talking about the 8th 9th step and then the the 9th step was a pivotal part of my early sobriety. I was about 5 months sober and that uncle I was telling you about used to take me to Disneyland, all those 3 2 bars, you know. When I was 18 years old, I, I went up to his house one night.

I lived a mile south of him and I was broke and drunk and I needed some money and there was a guy living with him. And, when I when I got there, both of them both of they were drunk and passed out and I stole the guy's wallet that was living with him. And the only person that knew that knew that was me And I never shared that with anybody, but every time I'd get around him, I was kind of the apple of his eye because he'd take he did we did a lot of things together. We used to go up in the old Drummond Road up north of 2 Arbors and he'd let me drive his even though he was a deputy sheriff, he'd let me drive his car out in his Thule's and drink beer, you know. And, so I I did a lot of things with him, you know, and but I always had that ugly feeling in my in my gut when I get around him because he got blamed for that and the the sheriff of Lake County was my godfather.

His name was Ralph Alt. So the Sheriff was called in and all that stuff, you know. And when I in treatment when I did my 4th and 5th step, he was on he was on my list. And it was something that I knew that I was gonna have to do and I was scared to death to do it because he was he was a pretty he could be a very volatile man, a very angry man. So I went back to my hometown and, in 2 Harbors and I, went into his garage on 1 Saturday morning and about, and we were alone.

And I says, you know, Unc, do you remember that time when that happened? He says, yes. I do. You remembered it like it was yesterday, you know. And he says, I was the one that stole that money.

I was the one that caused all that. And it just, you know, and it was ex I was scared. It was extremely awkward for me. It was extremely awkward for him because he in his way he, you know, he I was pretty special to him. I just know God sent somebody through that door that morning, wanted to buy something from him and they did.

I just know God sent somebody through that door that morning, wanted to buy something from them and they did, you know. And, after that guy had left, you know, I I says, I'm really truly sorry I caused that pain in your life, and I really would have, you know, I'd like you to forgive me for it, but I I don't know. I and I didn't know how he'd react to it or not. And and I says I gotta go. And, you know, he looked me right in his eyes.

Looked me right in the eyes, and he says, you know, Lee, what's between us is between us. And that was the that was like when I walked out of that garage, it was like a monkey was taken off my back. A huge gorilla, that crap that had been in my guts for all those years. And so still pretty early on in my sobriety, and this GOD business was really, you know, this was this was tough for me to swallow. But I heard just, you know, consider it good orderly direction, you know, group of drunks, whatever you want.

And, what happened, along the way was I I started developing faith. That gave me faith I was on the right path because I experienced just like it gets to the 12th step, you know. As a as a result of these steps and I and I had an experience as a result of that, But going back to the 3rd step prayer in our book, it talks about, praying for the release of bondage of self and I had asked for that. I said that prayer before I walked in that room not knowing how it had happened and that's and I experienced that. And, so I started doing other things.

I made it, you know, other amends, but that was a very pivotal point in my sobriety that I just knew that I was on the right path. And when I and then my, my home group meeting we when I started there was probably 20 guys. You know there's sometimes there's a 100, 120 people that show up there every Saturday morning now. We break into bigger groups and but it was in those groups going to meetings, so your I know your sponsor always tell you go to meetings, read the literature, You know? Well, in those meetings, I heard people sharing my stories, little bits and pieces of my story.

You know they were sharing their raw meat and what that did was it gave me courage to share my raw meat about Lee. You know and Lee Johnson can live in Lee Johnson's skin today. Lee Johnson doesn't wanna be somebody else but Lee Johnson today. See, I always always wanted to be something. If if that look hip slick and cool, that's exactly what I wanted to be.

If you wanna be a cowboy for the day, that's what I wanna be. If that made me fit in your group, you know, and I don't have to do that anymore, you know. I can be okay with Lee. I can look in the mirror today and I like the guy I'm looking in the mirror with. There was a lot of sometimes I couldn't stand who I was looking in the mirror at.

And So many different experiences that God I could speakers that I've heard that have touched my life, people in this room that have touched my life that I've watched them changed right in front of my eyes And that's Today I said whether, you know when I see somebody new and they have they they have this God issue that I had, because I had the same. Whether you believe in God, I don't think makes any difference. Just come. Just come to these meetings. Just come to these meetings.

Start watching some people around you. If you keep coming to these meetings, you start you watch some people around you, and things are changing. You don't sometimes you don't even realize you're changing yourself, but you're watching people change. Now how is that happening? How did a guy that I couldn't find my butt with either hand get in here, wanted to swallow it, the end of a 12 gauge shotgun to make all that emotional pain go away?

How does a guy get to where I'm at today? You know, I can't tell you. It's just like, you know, how did I ended up being that that, you know, that at that point where, I wanted to the white line's in the middle of the road, 50 miles down the road, it's on the right side of the road. How'd it get there? It just gradually happened.

That's how alcoholism alcohol owned me. I had a higher power in my life for many years. It was alcohol because I gave it all the power. And my time is getting short here and, you know, I was I just thought I'd be so hip slick and gooey and all this stuff would just flow out of me. All of a sudden, it's just like I I just I'm getting a block and I don't know why.

You know, I guess I'm running out of oxygen, so it's time to quit. But there was, there was, something I heard on early in my life and it just captured me and I'm gonna close with this. It says the AA is not a plan for recovery that can be finished and done with, it is a way of life. And the challenge contained in its principles is great enough to keep any human being striving for as long as he lives. We do not, cannot outgrow this plan.

As arrested alcoholics, we must have a program for living that allows for limitless expansion. Keeping one foot in front of the other is essential for maintaining our arrestment. Others may idle in retrogressive gru without too much danger, but retrogression can spell death for us. However, this isn't as rough as it sounds as we do become grateful for the necessity that makes us to align and we find that we are compensated for the consistent effort by the countless dividends we receive. A complete change takes place in our approach to life.

Where we used to run from responsibility, we find ourselves accepting it with gratitude that we can successfully shoulder it. Instead of wanting to escape some perplexing problem, we experience the thrill of challenge and the opportunity it fords for another application of AA techniques and we find ourselves tackling it with a surprising vigor. The last 15 years, I could change that to the last 12 and a half for me, of my life have been rich and meaningful. I have had my share of problems, heartaches, and disappointments because that's life. But also I have known a great deal of joy and peace that is the handmaiden of an inner freedom.

I have a wealth of friends and with my friends an unusual quality of friendship. For to these people, I am truly related. First through mutual pain and despair and later through mutual objectives and a newfound faith and hope. And as years go by together, sharing our experiences one with one another and also sharing the mutual trust, understanding and love without strings, without obligation, we acquire relationships that are unique and priceless. There is no more aloneness, that awful ache so deep in the heart of every alcoholic that nothing before could ever reach it.

That ache is gone and never need to return again. Now there's a sense of belonging and of being wanted, needed, and loved. In a return for a bottle and a hangover, we have been given the keys of the kingdom. And when I first heard that I said could that really happen to me? Guess what?

That's what happened to me. So thank you.