The London Primary Purpose conference in London, UK

Can you hear me okay? Okay. Good evening, everybody. My name is Simon. I'm a I'm a recovered alcoholic.

And, first of all, I just wanna thank, Dave and Vic and the committee for, the opportunity to do this to reshare my experience, friends, and hope, and what I was like, what happened, and what I'm like now. But also to talk from my experience, and and knowledge out of the big book Alcoholics Anonymous. Obviously, last year, and, met Dave and Vic and and the guys last year, and it's it's been an honor to walk this path with them over, over the last year. I introduce myself as a recovered alcoholic. That's what I've come to experience as a result of working the 12 steps out of the first a 164 pages in this book.

I also no longer suffer from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body that drove me to the gates of insanity and death, of a killer of disease called alcoholism. The first few pages in the forwards, to this book in the forward to the first edition, it gets quite specific on on how we're gonna recover, from this based on following, a plan of recovery that's estimated and is outlined in the first a 164 pages of this book. It's what I've come to experience, and it's what I've come to share with you this evening. The doctor's opinion. The doctor's opinion the first couple pages of the doctor's opinion, it says, the message that hold must hold, these alcoholic people must have depth and weight.

And in all cases, their ideals must be grounded in a in a power greater than themselves if they are to recreate their lives. Lives. That's what I've come to experience here in Alcoholics Anonymous, is recreation of my life. I came here to stop drinking, And initially when I first approached the Winter Park College 1 was in 1990 8, I was given a lot of information that was contrary to what's in this book, and I thought this business was about just not drinking. And I was told that this business was just about not drinking, and for me, that that wasn't enough for me.

Just to rewind the clock back. My home group is the primary purpose group in the south of France. We are a big book study group. We study and we practice, which means carrying out the instructions suggested in the first a 164 pages of this book. We meet 3 times a week.

We're actively involved in in carrying this message from this book into hospitals, institutions, and wind up places. And we spoke to people fairly strongly, and we're actively involved in helping newcomers, if they want this solution through the plan of recovery estimated in this book. My sober date is due June 20, 2003. I've been sober three and a half years today. I've never ever been sober three and a half years today before in my life.

That wasn't the first sobriety day that I had, here in Alcoholics Anonymous. I had 5 sober dates, before, June 20, 2003. And I approached this work outlined in this book for the first time coming from the point of a chronic relapse in Alcoholics Anonymous. To explain in a juvenile way, and I mean a juvenile way what I was like, what happened, and what I'm right now, that would lead me on to the experience I've had and continue to have these steps in this book is, I was born into a very, very nice home. My father was a policeman, and my mother was a policewoman.

And I'm here. So, you know, I I understand today that, my alcoholism is not causal, and it certainly wasn't brought on by any any type of situation that happened to me as a young child, or or where I lived, or what my family environment was, or how I was brought up or what education I had or what didn't happen or what did happen when I was young. And it was a great home. And the reason I share that is that I was given many many warnings as a very young child, from my father, and as to, son, if you drink, this is what will happen, and you'll put into a drunk on the street. Son, if you do the other stuff that tradition doesn't allow me to talk about in here, but if you do the other stuff, this is what will happen.

And I had many many warnings as a young child growing up for my father and for my mother, in a very gentle and loving way. However, none of those warnings crowded into my mind, when the insidious insanity and the first drink was upon me. I was unable to bring into my consciousness the warnings, that I'd had from my father and from my mother many, many times. And, growing up, the spiritual man malady for him, which is restlessness, irritability, and discontentment. You know?

And and that's when I first heard that, 5th time around in our college, I can relate to it. I can understand, you know, that state of being. And that's how I grew up. I was restless around most people, I was irritable around everybody, and I was unhappy pretty much with everything after a period of time. You know, where I lived, where I went to school, and what I wore, and what the other children have.

I didn't have it. And it was just and I was just I was disappointed with everything, and very very miserable from a very young age. And, that state of being and and that state of, of living for me became more and more uncomfortable as as I got older. And subsequently, because of of the behavior that, came out of this condition, my parents thought it was the school I was living in, or they thought it was the town that they were living in, or it was it was maybe it's because of the people that I'm hanging out with, or maybe it's because of this, or maybe it's because of that. And it as we know today, it has nothing to do with that.

However, they did their best, and they tried to change my environment to get me comfortable in my own skin. And, and subsequently, I I went to about 8 different schools in 11 years, and we'd go from living in to living in East London, you know, to living back down in Essex, to going back to Hertfordshire. And it was just the changing schools all the time from one school to another. And, you know, when I turn up in these schools, I'd go to a they'd they'd send me to a private school, because they thought, you know, the education is better there. He's gonna look smarter.

He's gonna meet a different, better class of person. And, you know, I turn up to the school, and and the outfit would I'd have a pink cap, a blue blazer with pink outlines, and I'm wearing these socks and these shoes, and I'd turn up with a briefcase. And after a period of time, I'd become restless, and I would discontent, bored. I wouldn't attend lessons, and the same old, problem would continue to arise. So they'd take me from that school into another school.

And I turn up at another school, which was a grammar school, not a private school. But I turn up, dressed in private school clothes, to a grammar school with a briefcase and a cap and shiny shoes and everything else. And everybody else in this school had graffitae on their rucksacks, trainers on, you know, and I turn up, you know, how I was dressed. And and subsequently, you know, I I never quite felt as though I really belonged anywhere. I never quite, really felt as though I fitted in any anywhere, inside.

And it became more and more uncomfortable living, for a long period of time. I had a wonderful younger sister. She's a couple of years older younger than me. Sorry. And, you know, the family home started to become restless, super bored, and discontent because of my restlessness, irritability, and discontentment.

I picked up alcohol, age 13, And the restlessness, the irritability, the discontentment, the boredom, the indecision, the doubt, the fear, the uselessness, all over this underlying condition that I've felt all of my life disappeared for the first time. I remember my first drink like it was yesterday. And it did it absolutely changed me at a level that I dreamed it would change me, and it allowed me, some relief, in in my own body, and in my own mind. And I liked it, and I couldn't wait to drink again. And I'd get back to the family home, and I'd see these these guys out on the street, smoking, drinking, and hanging out.

And I'd be up at my window, it was with my family, and I'd be looking out of that window, and I was I really wanted to be out there with with them doing what they were doing. And I wanted to be part of what they seem to be doing. And I saw the liquor in their hand, and I saw the alcohol, and I really wanted that again, because I wanted that feeling of ease and comfort that gave me that first time I had it. And there were those very few consequences after the first drink. It just made me feel good, you know.

And and it seemed to to to, fix and sort out this internal, agony, that I felt inside of myself from a very very young age. And I'd go out and I'd hang out with these people, and I wasn't particularly particularly popular because of what my parents did for a living. In in the neighborhood I was growing up in, it wasn't, cool really to have 2 parents who were police officers, you know. And subsequently, with the people that I wanted to be around and were smoking what they were smoking and drinking what they were drinking, tell them too much, you know, because we don't even taking it home. And I I never really felt as though I could reconnect with these people or fit in there.

And that was age 13. I didn't know it at the time, but the disease started to progress within me. And I'd go out, and I'd continue to drink on a Thursday or Friday after school. I didn't particularly do well at school. I didn't have I have a great opportunity for education, but I was never really there.

And I wasn't able to, I really want to do what was on offer. I found this solution for me called alcohol that worked, and it stopped me feeling the way I was feeling and thinking the way I was feeling, and I and I just wanted to to do more of that. And I finished my education, and I wanted to go out to work. I I have no qualifications or education, but I knew I just I had to go to work to get money to work. And I started to become, age 17.

I I've always been a sales salesman, since the age of 15. And I wanted to go out to work because I wanted money to go get drunk again, and buy alcohol, so that it would continue to help me treat what was wrong with me. I didn't know it at the time. You know, I had a lot of successful years drinking. I also became addicted to other substances.

Again, that tradition 10, doesn't allow me to talk about in here. I'm not sure I recovered drug addict, and I I go to another fellowship to treat that. What I don't do is talk about my experiences with that in in a room of alcoholic smiles, and I believe in symbols of purpose. And I believe it was the 5th and the 10th tradition that that tell me I have have one primary purpose, which is to talk carry into this message to alcoholics, and I I have to be mindful of that in here. And disease started to progress, I continued drinking, as I was working, and I started to become very, very successful, and and I had a job offer in the city of London.

And, you know, by this time, my family, were just happy that I was working a lot, because the home was starting to become ill. In fact, at this time, I was I was drinking a lot, but it wasn't so much what was happening when I was drinking, because when I was drinking, I was getting better. What was happening for me was what in the home was what was happening when I wasn't drinking. And I'd go home into the home, and I'd I'd become very angry. I'd become very afraid.

Sufficient inconsiderate habits have kept this home, and started to keep this home in turmoil. My mother and my sister became, very ill as a result of my alcoholism. My mother's became, under prescription from a doctor, doctor, under, these, like, beta blockers that she was taking. And my sister, at the age of 16, was on antidepressant. And alcoholism already started to manifest itself within my family.

I would leave the home, and I'd go and drink some more, and come back, and they wonder what time I was gonna come home, where I was gonna be, what the next phone call is gonna be like, and what state I was gonna be like when I came home and and the subsequent weeks following that. They became very, very ill, as a result of that. My father passed away, when I was 18, and he had an early death. It was a a shot death. And for me, it was an excuse just to drink.

And it was like, you would drink if this has just happened to you, you know. That was justifying the reason why I was drinking. My family became ill. I became started to become quite successful. I don't know how that quite worked, but I was always able to get up early in the morning.

I was always able to attend my job. I was always able to carry out that because I knew I was getting money to go to go drink. And, you know, Bill describes in his story, that financial leaders were his heroes. And at the age of 17, city, traders and city salespeople were my heroes. And I have a very local job, and I I really wanna be in London because in London, it's great.

They earn a lot of money. They look well. They're powerful people, but they're able to drink at lunchtime and after work. You know? And it was a great place for me for I wanted to be there.

And I'd read the Financial Times at 17. I did not have a clue, really what it was about. And at 17 years old, I'd have a pinstriped suit, and I'd have the Financial Times under my arm, and then I'd be going up into the city, to work. And these these individuals became my heroes, and I'd look at people making lots of money. This is what I want, and this is what I need, and this is how I should be living.

And I was never very comfortable on the inside, and I did become quite successful. My father passed away, and the disease started to progress. The other stuff that I was taking started to take its toll financially, emotionally, mentally. And I started to become very, very unhappy. My family at the time, were becoming worse.

They would, shut their doors in the evening. They would only give me a key for the back door so that I wouldn't wake them up when I came home, and they started to feel as though they were prisoners, in their own home for me. My mother subsequently has told me that, she felt like wife and kept going back for more, with the behavior that she accepted in the home. I became professional. I was making money, and the money was was going on on drink and other stuff.

And I'd start drinking on Thursday night. The people that I was drinking with at the time seemed to have several drinks, make a decision, and say, excuse me, I'm leaving. I need to go home and attend to my family. I need to go home and attend to my wife. And this was around 11 o'clock.

And I couldn't understand that. Why why would they leave here, and go home, when alcohol is being served? Surely, it's not doing for them what it's doing for me. But they seem to be able to manage the decision, after a couple to stop and don't attend to other stuff. And what I started to see around me was, people drinking with impunity.

People drinking without any serious consequences. And what I'd see is that I'd start drinking, and after that, they didn't seem to be getting the effect that I was getting from it. I didn't really like the taste at all, but what I did do is I drink for the effect, the chemical produced inside of my body. The trouble is that once that that chemical took effect alcohol took effect inside of my body, and I had that sense of ease and comfort. I couldn't seem to be able to guarantee how much more I drink, and I couldn't guarantee to my mother the commitment I made to see her earlier to be back, at home in the evening.

Other people seem to be able to do do that. I couldn't. And I often find myself, you know, they'd call last orders at a bar, and I'd go, you know, somewhere else to a drinking joy in Charing Cross Road and then to finish the job. And subsequently the next morning, I'd ring my mom, and I'd say, by the way, I'm not coming home. And I think she said, you know, I know.

And it's at certain times, this happened. Not all the time, but at certain times, this happened. And after a period of time, the Thursdays became Fridays, and the Fridays became Saturdays, and and I wasn't really working. I was going to work, early in the morning, and it was it was a pub in in Clarkenworld, near the city that opened at 5 AM for first orders. At the moment, I found that out.

You know, it was great, because what it done is it allowed me to drink until 2 AM at, a drinking establishment in Charing Cross Road, and then go to Clark and Will for 1st August, and then go to work. And what what started to happen is that there were consequences to my lack of control and to my lack of choice, around my drinking. And I started to lose jobs, and my external world started to fall apart. And I'd continually make promises to my mother and to my sister and to everybody around me, my employers, that I'm not gonna do this next time. And I'm sorry I'm late, or, you know, I I will be in Friday.

And I I'd made these promises to people, and I wouldn't be able to fulfill them. But I had this very serious intention to turn up for work on Friday. What I started to experience was I'd make promises. I'd be caught in what the book talks about is a strange mental blank spot, and I'd break the promise, in the home, in the workplace, in another areas in my life. 22 years old, I had most of the external circumstances that happened to us happen.

I'd lost jobs. I had I had a dream driving ban, that is not just exclusive to people who suffer from alcoholism alcoholism either. And it certainly wasn't it didn't make me an alcoholic just because I had a drink driving back. And all this stuff started to happen for me, and I was, unable to stop. And I desperately wanted to stop for a period of time.

I felt as though, every day, I hated the job I was doing. I hated the person I was becoming. I can see the hurt in my mom's eyes, and in my sister's eyes, and in my employer's eyes, and I could see how it was affecting them, but I wasn't able to do anything about it. At 22 years of age, I I absolutely, lost the will to live. I was unable to hold down any form of relationship.

This this internal spirituality that the book talks about, had really taken its toll with me. I I hated who I was. I had absolutely no self esteem. I was plagued with a feeling of mislessness. I was having trouble in personal relationships.

I couldn't control my emotional natures. I had I had spent everything in my bank account continuously. And at 22, I attempted suicide. And and for me, it was this was, not a cry for help. I I I wanted to I didn't wanna live anymore.

I didn't wanna live anymore with the voices that were going around in my head. I didn't wanna live anymore with the way I was living my life, and I didn't wanna live anymore with the way I was feeling and what I was doing to people around me, and I was I was unable to stop it. These outside issues brought me to my knees quite quickly, and I had some mental consequences as a result of doing that. You know, the book talks about in the other chapter, the book talks about giving sufficient reason, can you stop or moderate? And I had a lot of reasons to to stop.

I wanted to stop, but I couldn't stop. I had to stop several times, but I couldn't manage the decision to stay stopped. Hated who I'd become as as a person and and what I was doing to people around me, and I could see no way out. I desperately wanted to stop, but couldn't. And the only way out I saw, for me, was suicide.

I came back from work one night, after trying to hold it together for another day, and I went to the cabinet, and I got a a a pots full of pills, and I tried to attempt suicide. What happened with me is that I woke up the next morning, and the window was open in my room. The notes that I've written out to everybody had gone, and I've woken up, very disappointed that I'm still living. And I I didn't wanna be awake. I put my suit on, and I tried to go to work, and try and hold it together one more time.

But I knew that by, you know, 10, 11 o'clock, I'm I'm gonna be loaded again, and I'm not gonna be able to get through the day. My mom saw how the disease was progressing, and she saw the deterioration in my condition. She said, I think we need to go go see someone. And I went to start seeing this this lowest run counselor, who was under the mental health act, and she was in this outpatient facility. And she'd come and see me once or twice a week, and and we'd talk about a lot of stuff, and we would, look at some of the reasons, and we talk about, you know, my dad, and, you know, was it because he was a policeman, I was rebelling, or, you know, I was defying defiance, they called it, in the home, and it and it wasn't.

And we'd agree it was, and then I'd get drink drunk again. And she'd come around, and I'd be drunk again. What happened is, the book talks about, in the other chapter, that we enter up stages of asylums and institutions. And I was taken to a detox facility, where I spent a week there, and they tried to, withdraw me from the alcohol and the chemicals that I was taking. And they tell me to go to AA.

I went to an AA meeting there. I came out, and I went and got drunk, and my mom wouldn't allow me in the home. She, stopped me living there, and she said that she wanted me to go to a night shelter. And I went to a night shelter, and then I was put in another psychiatric unit, and it just went on and on and on for a year and a half. I didn't stop drinking.

I could do for about 3 or 4 weeks, but what happened inside of me was the spiritual malady would come back. I would start suffering from all of this internal discomfort, and the voices would be driving me while, telling telling me that, you know, I'm not gonna get this, or she's gonna leave, or I'm not gonna get paid that, or, how I'm never gonna quite live up to the way you're living, and I'd go get drunk again. I was unable to stop drinking given sufficient reason. What I learned in these facilities is that I was shielded from alcohol. What happened in these facilities is they were able to deal with the physical part of the illness, but they were not able to treat the mental and spiritual part.

And I will never ever, do any justice to those facilities because I think they did a great job of the physical peace. However, I suffer from the 3 fold disease of alcoholism, and as we know, when the mental piece and the spiritual piece, are not treated, but the physical piece is the mental piece will get me back to the drug. The mental piece will get me back to the drug, all the time. These facilities tried to help me. I'd keep drinking.

And I was taken to another treatment center in, Southwest of England, where I was for 7 months. And if it the truth is that I had not fully considered to minding myself that I was a real alcoholic. And I went to treatment, and I had group therapies, 2 a day. I had one to 1 counseling. I had videos, and I learned a lot about, what I what they believe I suffered from.

But today I understand that self knowledge involves nothing, and that I need I need to experience power in order to recover. I was in that treatment facility for 7 months. I hadn't worked all of the steps as they're outlined in this book. I'd worked some of the steps. I treated them like a homework assignment, And I came out of treatment, and within about a month and a half, I was drunk again.

And I went back to the treatment facility, and they said, you know, you need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I and I said, okay. I'll go back to Alcoholics Anonymous, and and this is my experience, and I know that it it's a lot of other people's experiences, but it may not be some of other people's experience. But, you know, I went to AA, and and I came into into Alcoholics Anonymous, and we sat they sat down. And, the information that was passed on to me in those particular rooms, in those particular groups, wasn't the information that was contained in this book, and and it wasn't clear cut instructions on on how to recover from alcoholism.

It wasn't a a path to God or a path to a spiritual experience that could get me into a place called recovered, provided I maintain terrible things on a daily basis. And there's a lot of information for me that, that I followed, that I became willing to follow. And then he said to me, you need to make lots of meetings, and I've made lots of meetings. And I feel okay temporarily for for a period of weeks, maybe even a couple of months. And then the spiritual reality will return, and I'd start to get a little uncomfortable, and I'd start to get a little unhappy.

And everybody else in in in these particular rooms, and I know it's not like it's everywhere, but I'm aware it's like this in a lot of places in this particular room. Everybody seemed to be very hap happy doing what they were doing. And I and then they spoke to me about high power, and they said, you know, Simon, you know, if you wanna get sober, you need to find a you need to find a high power. I said, fine. How do I do that?

Listen. It's gotta be bigger than you. I said, well, you know, I I come from religious training on those spiritual group. Please do everything we tell you today. I said, fine.

They're a hype. They're a power greater than myself. I'll do what they tell me to do. But the information that was passed through a group of humans to me was the information contrary to recovering from alcoholism. It was a lot of the book talks about a middle of the road solution, and it was a lot of, information that kept me very, very busy, very, very separated, and very, very shielded from bars, alcohol, and I just became living in meetings.

And, you know, we've all heard it about the information that goes on on there. And I wasn't able to get sober in that environment. But what happened to me is is 5 5 5 times in 5 years, I drank. And I went back for a 1 year trip, and it was pretty much every year. I went back for a 1 year trip in 5 years.

And I thought it was great. You know, it's just like, oh, Simon's sober again, or Simon's relapsed again. You know? Okay. And I'd go back into the meeting the next day, and I'd start because the way the spiritual manor was at work, it hadn't been treated.

I'd start talking about my problems in relationships, my problems with depression, my problems, this feeling of uselessness, my inability to make a living, and they loved it. And that is like the crazier I was, the the the the the harder they laughed. And it was like it was obviously entertaining for several people in that group. And it's like, oh, he's really sick tonight, you know, and I'm sitting there. But the thing is is that I'd turn her back from those meetings, and I'd go home, and and I wouldn't, I wouldn't wanna go back, and I wouldn't wanna drink, but I knew I was gonna have to drink because the way I was feeling, the way I was thinking was becoming unbearable.

You know, I would go back and then say to me, okay. You know, there's 3 sides of the triangle. You need to get involved in those 3 sides of the triangle. You know, why don't you get involved in service? I was fine.

I'll get involved in service, and the fellowship is the meeting, so we need to do that. You know? But what what these what the information I was given was that I needed the program of our Godox Anonymous in order to recover. You know? I was unable to be effective in the fellowship and in service until I'd worked the 12 until I'd worked the 12 steps.

And I but what happened was somehow it all kinda got it was just the wrong way around. And I was trying to be, you know, effective in service, suffering from the spiritual manly, not having any experience of working the steps. And each one was a new solution, but I was trying to be busy in service, and it didn't work. I did the same inside of the fellowship, and I did ask me to make lots of meetings, and I made lots of meetings. I was making a minimum of 4, maximum of 12 meetings a week, for a period of time.

And it didn't treat the disease. All it did is it separated and shielded me. June 20, 2003, after another relapse, I was contemplating suicide again. And I went to a meeting I was taken to a meeting after a relapse, and I found it very difficult to stay in the meeting. I was sitting on my hands, and I was my sponsor calls at today's, and you were very, very disturbing.

And I was I was contemplating either something something's got to happen to me in these rooms, or I'm just gonna go, and I'm just gonna try and do what I did in 1990 8, and that's to commit suicide. Because everyone would have been willing to talk about drinking, and people would have lots of ways of how to do this. But I had no introduction to the 12 steps. And I met this man, and some of you know Peter, who is my current sponsor. And he had a copy of the big book outside of the meeting, and I left the meeting, and I was told to go home.

And they were all gonna take me to the meeting, and he said to me, have you had enough yet? He said, have you really had enough? He said, because I've watched him for a couple of years. And I said, well, yeah. I'm fine.

I'll just get back into it and then, you know, carry the message. He said, you've got no message to carry. He said, why don't you shut up for the first time in your life, and and just listen? And he had this book outside, and he said, do you have one of these books? And I said, no.

And he said, buy yourself a book. He said, ask me 2 questions that night. He said, if when you want to, you often quit. Are you able to do it? And I said, for periods of time, yeah.

And can you control your meal you you take, mainly drink once you start to drink? And I said, pretty much never. And he said, you are probably an alcoholic. And if that's the case, you are you are maybe only suffering from an illness that only spiritual experience will conquer. From that day on, I've worked with this man, and I've been shown how to work these steps.

I've been introduced to the 12 step program. I worked the first three steps with him very quickly. He handed me a pen and a paper, and he said, right now, you need to go and do a 4th step. And he showed me how to do it. Previously to that, a man who had sponsored me, gave me very different information to that, but he showed me how to do a 4th step, as exactly how it talks about on page 64 of the book.

And it listen. It's a 4 column inventory. List all the people, institutions, and principles with whom you're angry, why you're angry with, and what it affects, and what your mistake is. He showed me, you know, page 67, the book gives me the 4 areas of my mistakes, which is selfish, dishonesty, self seeking, and fine. He said, Ron, you're looking for your grosser handicaps here.

We're just looking for these 4. He said, you know, I don't want you to write any type of life stories, and I just want you to look at the stuff that's currently when you think about your new feeling and the the stuff that's currently burning you up, And we did a full step. It took me a few weeks, and maybe a month following me. And I met with him to do a 5th step. And he said, you're suffering from a disease that only a spiritual experience will conquer.

And the promise of, in into action, when it talks about the 5th step, is that we begin to have a spiritual experience after step 5. And there are a number of promises there that he read to me, and he said to me, you know, you're gonna be delighted. You're gonna look the world in the eye, which was good news because I wasn't able to do it. He said, you're gonna be alone at perfect peace and ease. And that was for me.

So I was used to pacing up and down my apartment like a cage tied up, you know, most nights running up and down with my head going and all of this stuff. And he he spoke to me about that, and he said that your fears are gonna fall from you. And the work I did in the 4th step is that I saw that I was driven by fear my whole life, and it was an evil and corrosive thread that that like, the fabric of my existence was shot through me there, and I was terrified of pretty much everybody and everything. And he said that these fluids are gonna fall from you, and that you'll start to feel the nearness of a power greater than yourself. If it doesn't matter what that is, as long as, you know, you're open and you're willing, that's all you need.

And and then you said you're you're practically on your way. So I did step 5, and and several days after step 5, I got got back to my apartment. A couple of days afterwards, I woke up, and for the first time in my life, there were no voices in my head, ever. And there was a profound silence, like, it's here in my head, and it was quiet for the first time in my life. And then I knew that something was a change going on in me, that I wasn't able to produce myself.

And I started to feel, power. I no longer started to feel useless, and I no longer started to feel afraid, and I no longer started to feel, out of place in this world, and my mind had come down. I had a mind that that would always tell me that no matter how bad the consequences were on the on the last drink, that next time it was gonna be different, and that there was always, a lurking notion in my mind that, you know, I would drink. That had disappeared for me. I wasn't thinking about alcohol.

I wasn't thinking of the next one. It was just quiet in my mind for the first time in my life. And it well, in 6/7, I looked at the the areas of my life that were, basically, an effort to run areas of my life that were, basically, an effort to run my life based on self will, and how it was no longer everybody else's fault, that I was drinking, or because of this or because of that, I started to look and take responsibility for my actions. And I saw he said in the book, you know, that the alcohol, you know, is is just a symbol. We had to get down to causes and conditions, and and I saw that my whole life I would be making decisions based on self that always put me in a position to be her.

I saw that I was selfish, and self centered, and afraid, and it was all about me. And everything I've ever done in my life was about me, and I just and that's it. And I said, what about the drinking? It's not about the drinking. So leaving the drink question aside, you know, yet we can look at how, unsatisfactory living has been.

And my whole life, I've been making decisions based on self that put me in a a position to be heard. The 6 or 7, and and I started to write a step a step 8 list out. And, I believe that that the 4th step, it was kind of like we'd hear in in AM meetings, and you're working on 4th step. But my God, you know, how painful it's gonna be. And and, it was very freeing to see this stuff for me.

There was no pain attached to a 4 step. You know, the book talks about, it's a, a house cleaning exercise. And that any business that usually goes broke that this industry usually goes broke. And and in that, it was a fact finding, a fact facing process. You know?

And it wasn't about, you know, all this stuff that happened. It was just about, you know, the selflessness and self seeking behavior and the dishonest and the fear and kind of thought that we're interested, not really in 1 and 2. And then I started to write step 8 list out, and for the first time on that step 8 list, I saw, I saw I came face to face with the illness. For the first time, I came face to face. And I looked at the destruction that had been caused in my life, as a result of this selfishness and and self seeking behavior.

As a result of this mental obsession. I'm not sure about the craving that would take place in my body when I put it in there. And we also looked and he showed me, the this thing about the spiritual manhood. We looked to page 52, and I saw that, you know, the bedevil ones on page 52 was what I was going into Alcoholics Anonymous and talking about for an unbridged. It's because I was experiencing them, but how that they would disappear when I started to go out and clean up and clean up my past.

And the book talks about with with Amiens that we to take a bit in our teeth. A simple story won't fit the bill, and that that how must we must be willing no matter what the personal consequences were. And as selfishness and self centeredness, there were a lot of consequences, and a lot of people I needed to go out and make direct amends to. And and some of those I bought, and it was shown to me in the book here, where what the promises would be if I was to do this. And I had to go that that if I didn't go out and clean these amends, that that nothing worthwhile in life would be accomplished until I do so.

And I started to go out, and I started to look down the list and approach these people with regards to momentum. I didn't really have a great deal of power to do that, but he said, as you do this, more and more power will come into your life, life, and you'll be given power to go and and do this. And, I've had experience after experience after experience with with Lightstepper Men's. There was an employer that I used to steal from, who I I stole his time. He employed me, and I I was never really there.

I had abused him, his employees. I'd taken from him, and he kept my job open for months on end whilst whilst I was in institutions. I went back, and I made a means to that man, and that man employs me today. I went back to make a means to my mom and my sister, who were still very, very ill as a result of this. And I sat down with them, and frankly analyzed the past.

What happened with me, so I started to get more and more power in my life. I was no longer, you know, powerless. I started to have an experience with power, and I started to feel the presence of a higher power in my life. And I started to see the presence of this power working in my life. I sat down with my mother and my sister, and there was a lot of money that was that I should have, I should pay back.

My sister was a younger girl. She, you know, she wanted an older brother, and she idolized me. She wanted, her older brother back. One thing that I realized making the amends with my family is that is that I underestimated the human capacity to forgive. And these these 2 women forgive me as I started to pay the money back, and as I started to ask to do to them what they wanted.

And it wasn't just a question of me going back and saying, sorry. You know, I approached the Amin's, through prayer that I adopted. And I went back to my mom and to my sister, and I asked them what I what I needed to do to repair the damage done. I was told to shut up, and I was told to listen to what they wanted me to do very carefully. And my sponsor said at the time, he said, what what they asked you to do, you need to do that, and we need to follow through with it.

I was unable to to make amends to my father directly. He passed away some, some years before that. Again, I saw council with a sponsor, and I was told that grave side amends may be worth doing with your father. And I went back to my father's grave, and I sat down with him, and I went into prayer. And I asked my father what I needed to do, to repair the damage done to him whilst he was alive.