The Primary Purpose Group in Lynbrook, NY

To share his experience, strength, and hope, we have Simon all the way from Cannes, France. I'd like to bring him up, please. Good evening, everybody. My name is Simon. I'm a recovered alcoholic.

Good to be here. Thanks, Sean, and Derek for this this invitation, and, it's good to be here with you guys. My home group is the primary purpose group, in the south of France. We're a big book study group and, we take this basic text pretty seriously. We're actively involved in getting getting newcomers through the 12 steps, quickly, sponsoring people and taking this message this message into institutions and places where where people want it and hopefully need it.

Grateful to be here. I just want to thank the guys that have, and girls that have been great hosts really since, since we've been here. I've really really enjoyed meeting everybody and and being part of your lives over the last few days and sharing this experience with you has been great. So thanks Sean, Derek, and and the girls that I've met and and everybody else. It's been really a great experience.

I've never experienced hospitality like this, over here and it's good to be in a primary purpose group, so thanks for that. I won't keep you too long tonight. I just want to share my experience strength and hope on what I was like, what happened, and what I'm like now. And I know there's some people in the room who are fairly new, and still suffering of some people in the room that have been around a while, and have found their way back in here still suffering. There is a solution.

My book says a solution, and that is the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous as they're laid out in this basic text, and you can recover from alcoholism, you can recover quickly. The book goes on to say that when the spiritual malady is overcome we straighten out mentally and physically, and this fellowship, I believed, was developed to treat the disease alcoholism, which is what I suffer from. So describing in a general way what I was like, what happened, what it's like now, I was born into a lovely household. I had absolutely no cause to drink, no reason to drink alcoholically. I was not abused, I had none of that.

In fact, you know, I was born the son of a policeman and the son of a policewoman and both of them were in the police force. And I had lots of warnings very very early on about what it was like if I if I drank, what it was like if I did the other stuff, what it was like if I did this, what it was like if I did that, and none of those warnings crowded into my mind when I was faced with the insidious insanity of the first drink. Uncomfortable in my skin from day 1, full of fear. My only recollection was it being part of that household and I always kind of felt like I never really fit it in. Never was really down for doing any of the family things that were going on.

I was just uncomfortable. I was miserable, I was bored, I couldn't really seem to focus on on anything. I couldn't really just seem to really fit in this household or anywhere I was in the world to be quite honest. Anyway, what I did whenever I went to school, I I just felt awkward around people, I felt nervous, I got tight, I got sensitive around people, and I hated being in my own skin. I hated it, you know, and I just felt awkward whatever I wore I felt uncomfortable in, Whoever I was with, I felt uncomfortable around and it was just hot abroad.

I didn't enjoy being me as a very very young child. Yeah. I moved moved schools quite a bit. My parents, bless them, you know, they they they moved me around quite a bit to try and to try and sort me out, basically, you know, they moved me from one school to another school and subsequently I was always trying to get accepted and always trying to fit in with with people And, you know I'd go to a private school, great education for about a year, you know, where they teach me to wear a cap and a blazer and a briefcase and I turn up to that school fitting in and then they moved me from that school because I was getting into trouble and I went to another school and this other school people were wearing, sneakers, that's an American word I understand by the way, and a rucksack, you know, and I'd turn up with with potty shoes, a briefcase, and a blazer. It was kind of like getting light up, I don't quite, I'm not dressed like them, you know, and I'd change, I'd be a chameleon and I'd scale to wearing trainers and I was always trying to fit in with people and never really been part of anything, and then that's what it was like growing up for me.

Age 13, I had my first drink and all of that changed in a heartbeat for me. As soon as alcohol, I remember it like it was yesterday, as soon as alcohol hit my bloodstream, all of that fear, all all of this awkwardness, and an internal discomfort disappeared and I had a shift in perception, you know, my thinking changed and the way I perceived the world changed, the way I perceive people changed, and I all of a sudden felt as though I was actually a part of what was going on in this world once and for all. And I sat sitting at home and I'd look outside and after that first drink, I didn't get drunk on the first drink, you know, there was no horrendous consequences, there was no blackouts, it just felt good and it was a relief for me. I felt relieved that all of a sudden I'd found this solution that made me that changed the way I felt and made me feel like I thought you looked, and I felt part of it and it was great and I couldn't wait to do it again. And for that whole week I was looking outside, I wasn't allowed out after dark, but I could look outside.

I was looking in my room and I'd see people on the streets, on the corner of the street, sneakers on, smoking, and drinking, and I yearned to be back out there again. I really wanted I wanted to be out there with them doing what they were doing, feeling the way they were feeling, and drinking what they were drinking. And subsequently, I started to hate being in my house, you know. I've got an opportunity I was out with them. I just wanted to be like them.

I wanted to dream like them. I wanted to be out there and I didn't want to be where I was. And what happened is I started to grow to hate my father and my mother for what they did for a living and for who they were because in the neighborhood that I was growing up in, it was a call to have parents as police officers with the kind of people that I wanted to be around, you know, and, subsequently, I grew to hate them. I grew to hate my father. I resented him, you know, because I was hanging out in the streets and people were saying, this is the policeman's son, you know, let's not do that in front of him, let's not drink now, and I wanted to be part of what they were doing, but they weren't accepting me either, you know, and it's because of my dad and because of what they did for a living that it was like that, sir.

That's what happened. You know, I grew to resent them and I ended up hanging out with these people and I ended up drinking and the disease started to progress. Didn't know that at the time, but it started to progress and then Friday night drinking was turning into Saturdays. Saturdays were turning into Sundays and, and it went like that, you know. I was turning up for school sometimes, I was more interested in in getting a hold of this thing called alcohol to stop me from feeling the way I was feeling.

That's what I was interested in. It was stopping feeling the way I was feeling and about 14, 15, 2 years into beginning of my drinking, I started to lose I started to lose control of how much I was gonna drink. I'd go out on a Friday and I drink with the intention of having just a bottle or 2 bottles or 3 bottles, but then finding myself still drinking, you know, 6, 7 hours later when everyone else had gone home, you know, and I was still looking for places to go to go drink. My education was was pretty non existent, you know, and I continued drinking. I hated how I felt without a drink and I loved how I felt with alcohol inside of me, And it went on like that, you know, my father passed away, you know, the home became unmanageable.

My mother and my sister, they they hated who I was becoming and so did I, but I couldn't do anything about it. You know, all I needed was I knew that I had to drink, and, subsequently, you know, the household I grew up in wasn't particularly friendly or nice, you know, my alcoholism started to affect them, and I started to become not a particularly nice person to live with. I wasn't present for my little sister as a brother. I was out out looking to drink more and more and more, and, and this this progressed. I became addicted to outside issues that I won't speak about in here, and it my human condition started to deteriorate quite quickly.

You know, the outside circumstances started to happen, as a result of my alcoholism, as a result of my disease. I was fired from jobs and, you know, various accidents that again I won't spend time talking about too much in here, but at the age of 22, I was just I just had enough of of who I was. I had enough of living the way I was living. I'd had enough of feeling the way I was feeling. I became quite ill, and started seeing a counselor, and I went through this counselor, I was under an outpatient in a Roche unit, which is drug and alcohol unit.

I started having therapy and none of it was working for me, you know, and I'll turn up and I'll be drunk and I'll be drinking and they were saying, well, we can't do anything with it. You don't wanna stop. And I went through this for a period of about a year, you know, I'm not just sick of living the way I was living and I was looking at my mom's eyes and my sister's eyes, you know, every time I'd come home and they just looked so, hurt. Every time I'd go back, they would look so hurt and it would be here he comes again, what's the matter with it? You know, and they would just look disappointed and I'd see the shame and the guilt in my mom's eye, you know, when people ring up and say how's her son?

She'd she'd cry and she wouldn't know what to say, but none of that stopped me. I'd keep drinking. I keep drinking, you know. She'd say look, please, you know, don't drink, please don't drink. No, I promise I won't and then within a day or 2 later I was loaded again.

And this was the pattern I really wanted to stop. You know, I was looking at my family and people around me and I could see very very clearly that I was destroying their lives, but I could not manage the decision to stop. I couldn't control what I was gonna drink, what I was gonna drink, and I couldn't choose to stop. I couldn't, you know, and they were so wanting me to stop and I promised them and I let them down again. And at the age of 22, I attempted suicide For the first time, and it wasn't a cry for help, this was a serious attempt to kill myself.

I I couldn't live in this world successfully, couldn't talk to girls, couldn't stop drinking. I just couldn't manage anything myself. Couldn't, and I wanted what everybody else had on the outside. I couldn't seem to get it, and alcoholism was killing me. And I had a serious attempt to kill myself, and I was just done with living.

Didn't want it anymore, didn't have any money, fired from jobs, family members, and I couldn't stop, and I kept going. And then the suicide attempt, I woke up the following morning, disappointed that I was still living, and I've lost the will to live. I did not wanna live anymore, and then I went into into a psychiatric unit, and then I went to another psychiatric unit and then it's the year and a half of asylums was my journey. And I was taken away to a 12 step treatment center and this this is what happened to me. It's my experience.

I was taken away to a 12 step treatment center, where I was for 7 months and I had one counseling session, the day 2 group therapies, videos, readings, and every form of, education around the disease of alcoholism was given to me. It was a 12 step program. I was given an introduction to the 12 steps, but it wasn't as I know it today in the big book Alcoholics Anonymous. I learned a lot of stuff at the time, and I was there for several months and within 30, I think it's about 40 days of coming out of that of that treatment center, I thought I hadn't worked any of the steps. I thought that I would be okay and this was just a period of time.

So my head was sort of like, this is a period of time you've gone through and you're not really an alcoholic. You know, this is just a bad you just had your you've had it rough, and I drank. And there I was with a drink in my hand, with the destruction around me and my parents, my mum, and my sister looking at me saying what is wrong with him? Why didn't this work? You know, he's been in hospitals, he's had counsellors, he's had therapy, he's been to treatment.

Why is he still drinking? And, I went to AA, and, I went to AA, and they told me to make a lot of meetings, and I did, but I wasn't comfortable in my own skin. I wasn't comfortable. I'd sit in sitting in AA meetings and people will be talking about about how their lives are getting better, they'd also be talking about how much many problems they had, and I'd be sitting in the meetings and I'd be going and they're telling me to come to lots and lots of meetings, but I'm not getting particularly comfortable here. You know, I was walking away at the meetings feeling lonely and desperate and very very uncomfortable as I left the car park, and I'd go home and I'd come back and then say, okay, make 1990.

So I started making more than 1990. And the condition of my mind and the condition of my body was just getting worse, and I was forced with the decision that is that I had to stop feeling the way I was feeling so I'd go drink. And just to first pull the clock with 5 times in 5 years in in Alcoholics Anonymous, I went out and I and I drank. Nobody had talked to me about the 12 step program of recovery. No one had even sat down with me and opened a copy of the Biblical Catholics Anonymous, but people were telling me to do everything else apart from this, and I did everything else apart from this, and I drank.

You know? My life didn't get better as a result just putting down the drink one day at a time. My life got worse, you know. I put down the drink and people would say you're a winner kid, keep coming back, and I was thinking great, okay, I'm a winner, but I knew I wasn't inside of myself because I couldn't manage my money, I was full of fear. Yet every relationship I was getting into with a member of the opposite sex ended disastrously.

You know, I couldn't I couldn't seem to to be of any real use to anybody. It's actually just the bedevilment. So I was living the bedevilment, and what we're doing is I was I was believing the bedevilments, but I was going into AA meetings and sharing the bedevilments because that was what my life was. I was coming into Alcoholics Anonymous talking about bedevilments and people were saying you're a winner, and I couldn't understand it. And I was going out and I was I'm not a winner, you know.

I'm not a winner. And then it it it just got worse. And, you know, my my life did not get better for making lots of meetings. And then my 5th I had a 5th relapse in 5 years in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I was ready, really ready to go go finish the job and to say Alcoholics Anonymous is not working, the treatment centers did nothing seemed to fix me. And then I came back in.

I was taken to a meeting after another relapse. I was suicidal. I was shaking and my sponsor tells me that I was I looked very disturbing, you know, and I believe I was today. My sponsor is here this evening and, you know, I was very very disturbing and, he approached me after that meeting with a copy of the beat book Alcoholics Anonymous in his hand, and he said have you had enough? Have you really had enough yet?

And I said, I have, but I don't know what to do. I said, because x y zed, a b and c haven't worked for me, and I've been in AA 5 years, and it's not working. And he said, have you have you got a copy of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous? I said, no. And he you got a copy of Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and he said I think we need to sit down and I think I need to explain to you what's wrong with me.

And for the first time in a very long period of time, this man sat me down and took me through the doctor's opinion when I actually started to see what I was suffering from. And the only thing that makes me alcoholic and the book doctor's opinion tells me that is the this phenomenon of craving sets me apart from the the moderate and the hard drinker as a distinct entity. That's what makes me alcoholic. I also suffer from an obsession of the mind and I've been living and breathing this thing called the spiritual malady, and then that's what I was constantly restless with a born discontent and until I could put alcohol back in my body. And he disturbed me on the question of alcoholism.

He really disturbed me on the question of alcoholism. We started upon this work and we went through there is a solution, we went through the more about alcoholism, when I finally start, this is me. This is it. This is what I've been suffering from. And we finished the first 43 pages of this book, and he said, you know, you're ready to take certain steps.

Are you ready? And if anyone's been for the first 43 pages of that book and a real alcohol and alcoholic of my type, you know, I was willing to go to any length after I saw my truth in the big book Alcoholics Anonymous, and he said if you've seen your truth in the big book Alcoholics Anonymous and you can relate, you're probably alcoholic. And I started my journey through the big book, you know and if you're new around and you're struggling or if you haven't done this work, it can be done quickly. This can be done quickly and he proceeded to set out to say to me that I'm a real alcoholic and my conception of real alcoholic was a bum on the street or, you know, people with bright red faces and large stomachs. That's what I thought alcoholics were, and after seeing what was in the first 43 pages, I understood that, you know, I was a real alcoholic.

I had absolutely no power when it came to alcohol. I had absolutely no choice as to when I was gonna drink, how much I was gonna drink, and I had absolutely no control over how much I was gonna go drink and it was killing me. And also that when I didn't have a drink, you know, I was getting worse and alcohol was not my problem, it was my solution, you know, it was what fixed me, was fix my internal condition. He gave me a copy of a pen and paper and we started making inventory and he said get down everybody that you resent for that. He said make a list of all your fears and a sex inventory, and he said this is absolutely nothing to do with sex, nothing to do with with how you've acted out sexually, to see it is to see your behavior towards the opposite sex, and how selfish, and how you've treated the opposite sex.

And he said to me, you know, you are suffering from a disease which only a spiritual experience will conquer and everything else had failed me. Everything else had failed me and I thought, How do you get one of those? And he just said, Do what I tell you to do and keep this book with you at all times. And I said, Alright, you know, that's what you tell me that's gonna save my life because remember I'm ready to go die again, you know, I'm ready to go and check out of this world again. I started my journey for the people with Alcoholics Anonymous, pretty much word for word, paragraph for paragraph, page for page, chapter by chapter.

And I started to, I started to see my truth and I started to get some power into my life. I did a 4th step, shared it with him and God in the 5th step, began to feel lighter. Something was shifting. I was no longer waking up and having, like, a 100 of voices in my head screaming at me, telling me that I'm never gonna get her and I'm never gonna get this and she's gonna leave and he's gonna sack me and I'm never gonna get paid that, and, you know, my voices were living inside of my head and I woke up, probably about 3 4 days after the 5th step, gone, and the silence in my head between my ears was likely sitting in the head now, and it was profound. I didn't hear anything, and it was quiet for the first time in my life.

Between my ears was quiet, you know, and I woke up and I don't understand it, so I rang up, this is what's going on, and he said good. He said but there is action, more action. He said that the list of the list I've given you and the result of your 4th or 5th step, he said man you gotta go out and you gotta make these amends. He said, but you should even see the effort of your life on self will in that 4th column and that 8 step list. Chuck says we took it, we made it, when we took the inventory, we did.

This guy understood what, you know, that this was a life and death errand for me, and I understood it at that time too, and there was a lot of there's a long line of hurt people for me to go make restitution to, a long line of people. I didn't want to do it straight away and he said you're feeling good, he said, but there's action and more action that needs to be done. He said you must you must go further. I had enough willingness at that stage. I had to ask for some willingness to go out and make the amends, and I've done a lot of amends to people over over a long period of time now.

The last, I think, year and a half, I've done a lot of amends, and I've had many experiences with amends, especially with my mother and my sister. Those 2 girls are the best girls in my life today and I love them both. One of them, my little sister, is younger than me and, you know, my mother is a very very nice lady and, they they told me what I was like and how I'd hurt them and just just to share on that with the men with my mum and sister, you know, I I love them today and they love me today and whenever I go back home, you know, that they welcome me. My sister rings me up today. She was terrified of me as a young girl and I was never present for her.

And my sister rings me up and she seeks counsel with me today, you know, she's she's having problems in her life today. She rings me up and and I'm able to emphasize and stress the spiritual feature of this program very very freely with her. You know, she she reads the chapter to wife and the chapter to the family afterwards and she rings me up with questions and, you know, I'm able to nurture her, you know. A simple sorry did not fit the bill with my family because there was simple, you know, it was a sorry with them for a very very long period of time, but what I've been able to do is go back and and and kind of resurrect the home home with what I've learned in here and with the power that I've been given as a result of working these steps and go back and nurture them and help them and show them that there is a way that they can also recover from this disease too. My sister says to me today, she says, You know Simon, she says, if you had to go through what you had to go through again to be the person you are today, we'd go through it again.

She said because we like who you are today and I want to take no credit for this. For me, this is about the glory of God, this is about the power of God, which I didn't understand, I didn't know about, I had no religious training or spiritual upbringing at all, but it's a power that I have accessed as a result of taking certain steps in Alcoholics Anonymous from the big book, and this power has helped me to aid them. My mom and my sister said to me that, they felt like battered wives and they kept going back for more, That's what my alcoholism did to them, they kept going back to more. Today it's not like that in that family home. Those girls are the most the most beautiful girls in my life today and I love them very much.

I've had to pay a lot of money back. I've had to to go and sit opposite people and say that I've stolen from them. I've had to do it. I haven't wanted to on certain times because self has come back in the way, you know. All of a sudden the means that were about you became about me and I've had to go back and if I'm honest, I've had to go back and redo a couple of amends because I caused more harm in doing so, because I didn't follow specific instructions on that part of the amend in the people of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Self came back, another person hurt. I had to go back and redo that stuff again. 10, 11, and 12, for me have been where I grow not where I maintain my sobriety. I have to seek spiritual growth. I have to seek this power through working 1011 12 because the moment I shut myself off from that power and I've done it, I start to become rest of suitable discontent again.

I shut myself off from the power. It becomes about me and all of a sudden I'm becoming miserable and everything around me looks grim. 10, 11, and 12 towards the clock, really is where I grow, you know, and it's where I constantly into where I constantly ask God to remove what's stopping me, and I'm pretty rigid about about this program of action. I know what it's like to die from this disease both drinking and I know what it's like experience suicide sober one day at a time without power in these rooms, and it's horrendous. A few people nodding their head they understand what that's about and you know that is the only deal that's left for me.

And I just want to read page part of page 27 to you before I carry on. It says, Here and there once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences. To me these occurrences are phenomena. They appeared and this is what I believe what's happened to me, the the spiritual experience that I experienced, to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements, Ideas, emotions, and attitudes, which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them, you know. And that's pretty good news for an alcoholic.

That's pretty good news if you're suffering like me from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body and then that whatever you've tried to do you can't fix it. You know, that's pretty good news because at the time I submitted to this work and I've been through this work a couple of times in the last few years now, that's good news because I couldn't fix it, you know, and if you're new around and you're struggling in these rooms tonight, if you haven't got a sponsor, get one. If you haven't got a copy of the People's Alcoholics Anonymous, buy 1, and I strongly recommend that you start this work because I've experienced that which I've just read and pretty much everything in this book I've experienced has happened to me as a result of taking simple steps, you know, and that has been sufficient enough to overcome alcoholism. I work with others and my life depends on continuing to seek the spiritual experience and that was a spiritual experience I had with the desire was to drink was lifted from me, but I've had many spiritual experiences since through working with others. You know, with the chapter working with others is very very clear with me.

It tells me that, you know, if I don't, enhance my spiritual condition by self sacrifice and work with others, you know, I may not may not survive the certain trials and tribulations ahead, you know, and I work with others today daily, you know, because that's where I grow spiritually, you know, through that where I grow spiritually and passing this message on. I won't give an opinion, I won't give a personal interpretation about this big book Alcoholics Anonymous, or I won't share my experience and from my experience with it, and I sponsor people straight out of this book, you know, and my life has taken a new meaning. If no one has worked with anybody, my experience is the moment I started working for him, my program absolutely exploded when I started working with people, you know, and I don't even have to, you know, to really understand much. I just need to reach my hand out and let them know there was a solution and be prepared to give away the solution in the big book Alcoholics Anonymous. Working with others is the bright spot of my life, you know, I've got many friends today, you know.

Here I am in in in Nassau County, New York, you know, and that's a long way from where I from where I was, you know, it's a long way from where I was. I absolutely grounded in 12 steps of this program. You know, steps 10, 11, and 12 is a daily thing for me. Prayer meditation is a daily thing for me and I continue to seek. And my life has changed as a result of that, you know.

I live in a good country, I have a host of friends, and I have a job today which I'm well paid for. You know, I no longer feel the way I used to feel. I no longer think the way I used to think. I'm no longer driven by voices. And the power that I've been I've accessed as a result working the 12 steps of our colleagues anonymous has done that for me.

You know? So, I'll leave it there. Very grateful to be here tonight. Thanks very much.