G.A. Speaker Meeting in Edina, MN

God, what a good looking bunch of sick people. My name is Thomas, and I am a compulsive gambler. Hi, Tom. With the help of the God of my understanding, the 12 step recovery program of Gamblers Anonymous, my sponsors, and many of you, the fellowship of, Gamblers Anonymous, I've not found it necessary to place a bet for 5,480 days. And I'm very grateful for that.

And you know, I'm not asking that anyone put me up on a pedestal. I'd rather, just offer myself an example of the miracle of the 12 Step Recovery Program because when I came into the program, I was a very sick man. How sick are you? Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Well, I'll tell you how sick I was. When I stumbled out of one of my gambling haunts 1 night, I I got panhandled by a very rough looking guy and, he wanted $5 for meal. And I told him there's no way.

You're just gonna take that $5, go right in here, and you're either gonna drink it or gamble it away. He said, absolutely not. Never drank in my life. Don't believe in gambling. Or offering 50 to come home and show my wife what it's like if you don't drink or gamble.

So, that was pretty sick. Nice to see so many old friends, new faces. Even some people from my Al Anon family are here. So you guys be gentle with them. These are experienced Al Anon people, so no loans or back rubs.

What I hope to do tonight is to share, what it was like, what happened, what it's like today. I'm gonna try and get sober or get to the recovery portion in 10 minutes because that's the important part. And we all arrived by different means of gambling and, that's not important. It's it's how I got, well part that I would like to share with you. Many of what I'll share with you tonight is, based on some 2020 hindsight, you know, lessons that I've learned about myself and the program, throughout the years.

When I came in, I was a complete stranger to myself. And I didn't even know who the hell I was. Also I'm not a good nor comfortable public speaker. So I've I've got some notes, and I'm gonna be referring to those so I don't get lost or wander off. The only other time in the past that I've spoken in front of so many people was to, occasionally yell bingo.

So, I was born in a small Eastern Montana town, second of 4 children, you know, surrounded by extended family. We practice the strong Catholic roots of my dad's side of the family, had wonderful examples of morals, ethics, honesty, work ethic. Didn't really want for anything, was never sexually or physically abused as so many of our people in our our 12 step rooms are. And, there were a couple of of things that did happen in my early life that that, played out later on, probably the major one of those being my mother's alcoholism and my mother was a stay at home drunk. And so the face of her alcoholism very seldom shown in public but it was, always present at home.

And my, my father, lovely man, really a codependent man. And he believed that if he could provide for my mother better, if he could love her more, if he could make her happy, some the result was in that in that family, I lacked some role models that were pretty important for, for life. Expression of anger or joy was not present. You know, the family motto was don't rock the boat. You know, you wanted to keep everything on an even keel because if if you expressed either anger or joy, you didn't know how it would be taken, and so you wanted always to be concerned about how mom would handle that.

Because if she wasn't happy, they wouldn't anybody happy. Saw no healthy resolution of conflict, saw no healthy, fighting and making up, saw no, examples of a normal relationship between a husband and a wife. And, you know, some basic needs, for adulthood just just weren't present. And, surprise, surprise, my own drinking started at 14, junior alcoholic in training, one way to college at 18 on a half ride football scholarship and the freedom of no supervision, just like throwing gasoline on a fire. This is 1966, sex drugs and rock and roll theme of the era.

I got plenty of 2. I'll I'll let you guess which 2. Within a year, I was a full blown alcoholic, drank away my football scholarship, and gambling made its first appearance at that time. The poker game started Thursday night and usually ran till the wee hours of Sunday morning, And I was always the one still at the table wanting to play one more hand. Also the consequences started.

I started having walking blackouts. And during those blackouts, I suffered from the Winona Ryder syndrome. If it wasn't tied down, I'd steal it. And, the incredible confrontations and emotional hangovers of that, were just very, very painful. You know, it was never a good time if you've been to somebody's apartment the night before and stolen all the meat out of their freezer and they come to talk to you about it the next day.

So, so I, you know, when faced with these problems, decided that I would, change, my behavior. And so I sought the recommendation of that committee of unrecovered alcoholics that resides in my head. And, they came up with a marvelous recommendation, less drinking, more drugs. Made sense. Made sense.

And so, you know, for the next 5 or 6 years, I I spent chasing the perfect pie, combination of alcohol, pot, and speed, you know, trying trying to catch that perfect long lasting buzz. It was hard work. It was hard work. After, toward the end of that 5 year period of time, I'd come back from Mexico. I I wintered in Mexico at that point in time.

I'd tell you more about it, but I don't remember. And I came back from Mexico and I wanted to quit. And lo and behold, I ran square into the fact of powerlessness. I couldn't. I couldn't stop.

I have a real clear memory of standing out in the backyard of the house I was living in and shaking my last bag of pot out. 4 or 5 hours later, out there with a flash out trying flashlight trying to pick the grass out of the grass. So, ended up checking myself into my first outpatient treatment program. It's a great success. I stayed sober for 9 days.

Good, bad and ugly about that experience. The good was that I was exposed to 12 step recovery. The bad was a complete failure on my part to grasp my condition. Didn't get it. The ugly, what had been open social use of alcohol and drugs became a secret.

I started using in secret acting as though I was sober. Gave incredible power to the disease. So I wandered in the wilderness for the next 15 years appearing on the outside to be sober and successful. Marriage, couple of kids, started a business, living in a beautiful 5 bedroom home, and all the time the cancer is growing. I'm approaching 40.

I'm expected to put away retirement funds, college funds, car payments, life insurance, all that adult stuff that I had no experience about. A normal person, I know I didn't consider myself normal at that time, might have consulted his his spouse and and shared his feelings or consulted a therapist or a friend or a clergy. Guess who I consulted? The committee. And they came up with another really great recommendation.

They told me I needed more excitement in my life. Oh. So I started the search for that with a stop at a local bar for a mid afternoon burger and a couple of beers. Reasonable for an alcoholic, And at that bar, I ran into what I still consider the greatest misnomer of all time, Minnesota charitable gambling. I asked the bartender what that silly looking booth was over there in the corner and he told me and I went over and bought $20 worth of tickets and didn't think it was any big deal.

Back the next day and lost 300. I didn't step across the line. I jumped with both feet. So I led a double life for the next, two and a half, three years. Gambling anytime I could.

My business was really bad those next couple of years. I never seemed to have any money. And my spouse held up the mortgage and all that stuff. I'll date myself. I don't know if, many of you remember The Ed Sullivan Show.

The Ed Sullivan Show would, have European circus performers. And, one of the acts that they would have on that I remember very vividly is a guy would come out and he'd have a stack of plates and a big bundle of wooden a real thin flexible wooden dowels. And he would start a plate spinning on one of these wood dowels and then another one and another one. And my recollection, this guy would get 12, 15 of these going. And, that was my life.

You know, I was spinning lies, deceits, you know, running around, you know, trying to remember what I'd told to who and where and and keep those plates spinning. And what I like about the example of that act is that part and parcel of the act is that it's gonna fail. This part of the entertainment value is the fact this guy cannot keep him going. And sure enough, one plate falls, then another, which knocks over a bunch more. And, eventually, the the end of the act is the guy standing amongst all the wreckage.

And that was what happened to me. You got caught, went to treatment again, got caught again, went to treatment again. At that point, my marriage collapsed under the weight of my, under the weight of distrust and dishonesty. I was asked to pack a bag and leave. I have no, ill feelings about my, ex wife and and what she decided to do.

She needed to protect herself and the kids. I certainly wasn't gonna do it. And that lonely, walk down the driveway with, a suitcase It's still a very, very vivid memory. One would think that that that type of consequence would be enough for a bottom. It was waving the waving the start flag.

I spent the next 3 years flat out crazy. 3 years of hell, gambling, drinking, overeating, gourmet pot, you know, just completely out of control. At the end of those 3 years, late in April of 1992, I was in in great financial distress. Hadn't, I didn't bother to pay any taxes for those 3 years, either business or personal. So that had a little something to do with financial distress.

Way behind on every kind of bill, and but but that wasn't the bottom. The bottom was I really started to have trouble looking at that guy in the mirror when I shaved because inside, I still had this sense of an honest individual, and and that didn't match with my behaviors because I would lie, cheat, and steal to gamble. And and that emotional bottom, that inability to connect who I was inside with and how I was living was was my true bottom. And the god of my understanding finally gave me the gift of desperation. I considered I wasn't fearful of going to jail anymore.

I figured that would be treatment program on the government's expense. I had considered a taking on a second job, armed robbery of of drug dealers or pull tab booths, retirement benefits probably wouldn't have been all that great for that. And thoughts of suicide were prevalent and real. I just thought it was just easier to just be done with it all. But instead, in a moment of clarity, actually, I was down to seeds and stems again, I I made a call to the GA hotline.

And, you know, I'd I'd finally reached a bottom that was meaningful and and I was entirely ready. So what happened? Well, I went to a meeting. For the first time in my life, I went to a meeting because I wanted help, not to get a judge or a spouse off my back, not to make that be able to checklist something at a treatment center. And a true miracle happened.

I sat down and looked at those steps on the wall and I'd seen them 100 of times. Didn't comprehend anything about them. And I sat there that day and they made sense. They made sense. Also, there were 5 other people there.

I wasn't the only one caught up in this. It ended the isolation. And one of the people there told me a very important thing. Told me that I had a choice whether to gamble or not. But once I gambled, there was no choice.

I was gonna keep gambling. I didn't have any idea that I had a choice that I could say no. Also, the first and I'm not, I'm not a spiritual kind of person greatly and, I I don't know how else to describe this. But the, there was a guardian angel at that meeting. It's the only way I can describe it.

The other newcomer, he was a native American man, hard looking man. He had convict written all over him. He had the bulging muscles in the big, huge upper torso of someone who's been pushing weights in a penitentiary, had all the prison tats. And he shared before me and shared that he had spent 15 of the last 20 years behind bars because of crimes he'd committed when he was drunk. But the last time in, he'd gotten sober in jail and had 5 years of sobriety.

And then he broke down in tears because he said every time I get 2 quarters together, I I gamble it away. And I'm afraid if I don't deal with this gambling, I'm gonna lose my freedom, and I'm gonna be back in jail. And the ability of this man, this very hard, hard man, to be honest and to cry and to share about the reality of his situation just just opened floodgates for me. And I talked to him after the meeting, and I ended up giving him a ride home. And we made a, a real strong commitment to one another to be back the next Tuesday morning.

I was there. He was not. Never seen him again in my life. I hope he found his his peace and his happiness someplace, but he's with me every day. You know, he was very, very important.

You know, I asked myself why, you know, I walked into that meeting and and, I've never looked back. And again, some of the 20 20 hindsight, I took the first three steps before walking in the door. You know, you know, I took the first step standing at a pull tab booth with the last $20 out of a $1,000 paycheck. You know, I I I took the first step writing in a bad check, and I knew I had no money to cover. You know?

I took the first step stopping 2 and 3 and 4 times in one day. You know? So there was no doubt that I was a compulsive gambler and and my life was unmanageable. So I wasn't there to debate or learn about that. I understood that.

And as I mentioned, it was the first time I'd ever gone to a meeting where I wanted there to be help. I wanted there be to be a solution. Step 2. And as I sat in my car before I went into that meeting, I been to lots of 12 step meetings, and I was a debater. I wanted to debate you about the literature.

I wanted to debate when you told me to do stuff. I wanted to engage you in debate. And I made a dis a decision to to to to accept what I was told, to not argue with the literature and to take the advice I was given. I made a decision. Step 3.

So I didn't click to that for for a long time but, you know, love to tell you that I drove right into step work. I try not to lie today. I did get a sponsor right away. A real real gift in my program, Tom P. And I spent the first several years, in recovery working on consequences.

And my view of what happens when you stop gambling is very similar to if you're driving a car very fast on a gravel road and you stop the car, you stop the gambling, that cloud of dust that's behind you continues to roll up over you for a long time. And those delayed consequences, the IRS, the divorce, the broken relationships with family, the failing business, the bad credit. I had to stomp those out. I had to put those in some kind of fashion before I could really get involved in step work. And and so that's what I spent my time doing.

My sponsor was not a sponsor who gave me assignments. He he led by example. You know, he didn't tell me to do a 4 step. He did 1. You know, he told me about the power of a 5th step.

He shared with me, you know, his work on on dealing with those character defects. He shared with me the power of his immense work. Just just really what I needed to see somebody doing it and then and then I could follow along. He also was a big believer in service, and that was very helpful. I got involved in service, very heavily involved in service, inner group, led this meeting for a couple of years, worked the hotline for a couple of years.

During that time, I I I tried to write a couple of 4 steps. And, yeah, it didn't didn't really work for me. Particularly, the GA 4 step format, I I I didn't work for me. And I found that at about 5 years clean, frustration was was building. I was still very angry.

The dis of the disease was still there. And and I kept asking myself, you know, is this all there is? I've done all this work and USOBs are still gonna you know, I I just was very angry. And then another one of those guardian angels showed up. I was at a meeting and a guy did a pitch for a guided 4 step workshop.

And when he got done, he said, and if you wanna sign up, see Jack. I've never met Jack before, but he's sitting right next to me. Okay. I get it. So I I involved, got signed up and and did a, 4 step workshop and it was a major, major turning point in my recovery.

It was guided, methodical, out in the open. You know, I finally met and was introduced to that stranger I've been living with for 49 years. Me. And and, you know, followed that up with with a 5th step, you know, and the love and and acceptance of of some stranger to, sit for 7 hours and and hear my 5th step, you know, very powerful. I often visit him in the psych ward.

Oh, no. No. The wonder the wonder of that, 4 step was that what it supplied or gave me for for the remaining steps. It gave me all the information I needed for step 6 and 7. It clearly defined what my character defects were.

It clearly defined where my moral compass was off. It showed me what I had to change. It gave me a complete 8 step list, you know. It gave me the courage, you know, to to start the 9th step of men's work. And and I I found the 9 step of men's work to be just absolutely, incredibly freeing and and, probably the biggest high since since I got sober.

It just, you know, for for for so long. And one of the gifts that my sponsor talked about the whole time during this process and that he understood and hammered onto me was the fact that I didn't have a gambling problem. I had a living problem and a gambling solution, You know, until I could clear up this emotional and spiritual disease that existed in me, until I could reconcile, how I lived my life with how I wanted to live my life. You know, the gambling was always a possibility. The The drugs were always a possibility.

The alcohol was always a possibility. I had to change. I could not stay the same person I was and stay in recovery. I had to change. You know, the miracle of recovery really started to happen.

You know, I quit reading about the steps and started to live them. I I had experienced a spiritual awakening, a personality change, And it it was it was it was incredible. You know, I began to live my life guided and directed, you know, by the moral compass that was found in the 12 steps. And, I also started the most intimate relationship of my life. I I was finally getting to know and love Tom, and I've been running from Tom for a long time.

Also, with that came peace with my mother and her alcoholism. I was able to forgive and accept that she did the best she could. And and and as an as an addict, how could I not forgive her? And she passed away, an unrecovered alcoholic, but she and I toward the end had a very intimate, loving relationship. So that was very powerful.

Then at about 10 years, another gift disguised as adversity. My son's lifestyle choices had truly become a family disease. Suggested welcome describes it very well. Our thinking becomes distorted by trying to force solutions and we become irritable and unreasonable without knowing it. Happened to me.

My ex wife and myself were engaged in a daily battle to force my son to shape up. We failed. Couldn't be done. Out of out of that desperation and anger and and frustration, I sought out an Al Anon meeting. And that first meeting, I was an angry camper, and I wanted to tell everybody about it.

And this little old lady took me aside in a very fundamentally found 12 step way. Didn't tell me what to do. Instead told me what she did around a daughter and how she had found a way to deal with her similar circumstances, but how she'd been able to do it in love, not in anger. It was like the clouds parted. You can do this in love.

You know, what a what a concept, you know. And and I learned that I I could I didn't have to, you know, stand in the way of my son's consequences. I could let them pass directly to him and that was a loving thing. You know, I could set and enforce personal boundaries about myself and my house. That was okay.

You know? And I I could disengage from the conflict of of his addictions with love. And and, you know, wow. What a relief. What a relief.

I've often heard in the the meeting rooms of Al Anon, when the horse is dead, dismount. You know, no no amount of screaming, kicking, or dragging is gonna get you any further down the road. Get off and start walking on your own journey. And, you know, surprisingly, the Al Anon program really changed not only my my relationship with my son, it impacted my my recovery very, very powerfully. You know, it finally made me realize how powerless I am over my entire life.

Now now don't take me wrong. I'm responsible for action. I'm responsible for showing up in an adult fashion. I'm responsible for making decisions. But once that action or decision is made, I'm not in charge of how it plays out.

And and I don't know why, but I felt that incredibly freeing. You know? If it comes out bad, it's not mine. You know? So I I really, really am very thankful and and those of you that either have spouses or or family members or friends that are involved in addictions, I would strongly recommend Al Anon.

What's it like today? Marvelous, baby. Just marvelous. You know, I I've made a decision, you know, to fashion a life within 12 step communities. And I'm very happy with that.

I have I have made a strong commitment to give back in what was so freely given to me. And today, my my prayers are very simple. You know, when I wake in the morning when my feet hit the floor, I stop and I take a deep breath and I say yes. That's all I gotta say. The night before I go to bed, you know, I take a deep breath and I say thank you.

And, you know, life's just a dance if you know the steps. The problems my problems continue but, but the solutions are much more obvious today. And, you know, I've learned to turn, stumbling blocks into stepping stones and it it's very freeing. And before I close, I'd like to add to add a take a few minutes and and toss out some random bits of, as Tommy sees it. Some miscellaneous bits of recovery that I've experienced and embraced today.

First and foremost, this may be news to some of you. We are a 12 step recovery program. You might not know it from lots of meetings around town. You know, but as the combo book states, the steps are the basis for the entire GA program. Practicing them is the key to your growth.

You know, I have yet to meet anyone in long term recovery who did it on the 12 topics of recovery. Recovery depends on the steps you take, not the number of meetings you go to. Recovery 101. Establish a home meeting. Get to know them.

Let them get to know you. You know, don't be an associate member. You know, Don't just sit in the meeting, you know, take part of the meeting. Do service at that meeting. Get a sponsor.

Work the steps. Help others. Pretty simple. The most dangerous thing that I hear all the time at meetings, take what you like and leave the rest. Hello, We're addicts.

You give us the easy way out, we're gonna take it every damn time. I can tell you that some of the most valuable things in my recovery, I would have left because I didn't like them. I didn't want to deal with them. Take what you like. Think about the rest.

If you've not done a 4 step in program, you're running a game on yourself. You know, how do you know, what to work on in step 6 through 9 if you've not done an inventory? I may ruffle some feathers with this, but a 4th and 5th step in treatments, good thing required. I did several. But typically, in treatment, you're 3 weeks away from a major event in your life.

You're 3 weeks away from the bottom. You don't have the clarity of thought or mind to do one that will do for your whole life. Wait a while, clear your mind up a little bit, do another one. Beware of euphoric recall and the trap. Euphoric recall, you know, only remembering the good things, the highs.

Think it through all the way to the end, all the way to the inevitable. The trap, the killer of people with lots of time and you go to meetings, you get a sponsor, You work the steps. Your life changes dramatically. You suddenly have the time and energy to add other things into your life. You might get a hobby, spend more time with your family, do more work slowly, very subtly.

You quit doing the things that got you that freedom. You know, you you you quit going to meetings all the time. You don't talk to your sponsor. Do step work. Then you wonder why you find yourself sitting in front of a machine, not at Misty.

You know, you have to keep doing what you did to keep what you got. Enough pontificating. I'd like to close with a reading. Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little.

God will constantly disclose more to us. As we ask him in our morning meditations, what you can do for the man who is still sick. The answers will come if your own house is in order. But obviously, you cannot transmit something you haven't got. See to it that your relationship with him is right and great events will come to pass for you and countless others.

This is the great fact for us. Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of the past. Give freely of what you find and join us.

We shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit and you will meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny. May God bless you and keep you until then. I'll close.