The Central Pacific Group in Minneapolis, MN

Wow.

Hi everybody, my name is Kane Thompson and I am an alcoholic.

It is by God's grace my sponsor, people like you and meetings like this and the United States judicial system. I've been sober since August 15th of 1996.

And I did say it's because of God's grace and my sponsor and people like you, mostly I, if you didn't notice by the day, I just celebrated my 4th birthday a couple weeks ago and

it was a very emotional time for me. I've never done anything consistent for four years in my life, anything that amounted to anything. And this is it's been an accomplishment to me and it's all thanks to you. First off, I want to thank Sue and the group for asking me to speak up here. And I want to thank members of my Home group, Northern Plains Group from Fargo, for coming to support me.

And I want to welcome all the newcomers that are here. I saw a few hands go up and I want to welcome all the people that have been here for a while, but

maybe you don't think this is for you or maybe you've been doing all the things your sponsor tells you to, but you still don't think your life is going how it should be yet.

That's, that was, that's my story. That's a lot of my story and I can relate to that. That's you're the ones I'm talking to tonight.

I, I did things over and over again. I would every little bit of my life, I would say to myself, this, this problem, you know, my sponsor knows a lot about me and he knows a lot about my alcoholism, but he doesn't know about this part of my life. So then I would like subconsciously separate those parts of my life and keep those for myself. And I try and solve those problems myself. And it was only at those points that my life would get miserable

over and over again.

Coming into this program, there's no guarantee we're going to be happy right off the bat. I've heard over and over again that the most unhappy time in an Alcoholics life was right after he silver's up. And I'll vote for that. That's the absolute truth. But if you keep coming back, and if you get a sponsor and you listen to your sponsor, listen to your sponsor and keep doing, keep coming to your meetings and keep finding a regular meeting you, you can be happy. You can find things in your life you never dreamed possible.

When I was growing up, I, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what everyone else knew that I didn't. It felt like everyone else had a meeting of how to be cool or there was a class before, before junior high started and taught everybody how to be cool and I missed it. And I spent all my time watching all them and trying to learn from them as I went through. And I just felt like I, I just couldn't keep up with them ever.

And I tried and I tried everything. I tried everything for anybody's acceptance and

I went through sports. I, I joined football in 7th grade and after about two weeks, every time somebody would tackle me in practice, I thought that was something personal against me. And they were hitting me hard just because of that. They, so I'd get all sensitive about that. And it was, it was never about the game. They just didn't like me. So I quit that. And I, I tried track, but I was, I was kind of a pudgy little kid. I wasn't very quick. And so I, I did the shot put discus and I tried to do

pole vault. I tell you, when I was growing up, I didn't say to myself, geez, I really want to throw a shot put when I get older. I mean, it wasn't a dream of mine. I, I joined track because it looked like something I could do and there was cool kids on the track team. So I joined and as soon as we started actually going to meets and then they started telling us that, Yep, that's great that you're in shot put and that you're doing discus, but you still have to run at least one event. And I would come in dead last. I would be

20 body lengths behind the last person in the race and

and I just decided that that wasn't for me either because there's a good alcoholic. I'd never want to come in last. I didn't like that and

tried the swim team and

like I said, I was pudgy. I wasn't the most aerodynamic thing in the world. I, I didn't make it through the water too quick and I quit that and I just spent the rest of my time trying to be cool and trying to keep up with everyone around me.

It, it was a battle. It's it, it seemed like that's all I thought about

when I got tonight. Actually, it was in 8th grade when I had my first drink and I really didn't get drunk. I I worked at a bar that my father and my father's girlfriend worked at and I cooked in the back and it was a small little one room kitchen. And my actually my brother was a waiter there. And my brother is, he's always been the class clown his whole life. He's always had fun and everyone's always loved him. And I remember sitting in the doorway of the kitchen looking out into the bar and everybody laughing at him. Hey, Kyle, this and

that. And everybody just loved him and he was drunk half the time and people were drinking and people were toasting their beer and having a good time. And that seemed like what I needed to do. And one night when I was stalking the fridge for in the back, I snuck a couple beers back from the walk in cooler back into the kitchen with me. And I decided I could have a couple and watch them through the window and have as much fun as they did. And it didn't happen.

Couple years went by, we moved again. That, that was part of my reason for having a tough time, or so I thought felt at the time,

tough time relating to anybody. We moved a lot when I was a kid. It seemed like every time I would just start to get comfortable somewhere, boom, I'm in another school and junior high is tough to get in with new groups of people and early high school is tough. And I ended up in a new school, and next thing I know, these kids grabbed a hold of me, which turned out to be the troublemakers in the school.

They weren't out robbing banks. That's not what I mean by troublemakers. But they were out drinking and they were partying it up, and they were skipping school and they were doing everything but what they were told they were supposed to. And as soon as I started hanging around them and doing what they were doing, I kind of got a rush. I kind of just skipping school and just doing things that I knew were wrong kind of gave me this feeling inside that, yeah, I'm starting to feel good here. And I started having a couple beers with them here and there, and then

I got drunk. And

the first time I got really drunk was at my house, my father's house. My father's an alcoholic, by the way. I has nothing to do with why I am, but

I say that only because the first time I got drunk, it's kind of ironic. My, my father had gone away to treatment and he left me like $120.00 cash to feed myself and take care of myself. And he went into a detox rehab treatment. And I had every friend I knew over and we threw away all the food and we stocked it with 40 ounces of Blue Bowl and Strawberry Hill Boone's Farm wine to the top. And that's all we did for days. Just sit there and drink and drink and drink.

My dad was supposed to be gone for 30 days of treatment.

He left on a Thursday and that following Wednesday I was at school

and at lunchtime I wasn't feeling so well. I drank too much the night before and I decided to go home early. And there was my daddy's truck and I didn't know what to do with. The house was full of beer. There was wrappers everywhere, There was a carton of cigarettes laying on my bed. He didn't know I smoked. Just all these things that I did not want my dad to know. And he was there seeing them all. And I was just mortified. And I left and I went to work that night

and he called me at work and said, hey, can I come pick you up and go out for dinner tonight?

And we did. And he just sat down. He said, look, I can't tell you not to do these things. Obviously I do them. And it would be hypocritical of me not to. And I turn around, walked out the door. OK, my dad's going to let me do this. I mean, it's not that he was going to let me. He didn't want me to. But I just, I went with that and I went with that for quite a while

when I started drinking and I was in groups of people. I can't, I can't really remember after starting to drink saying, you know, that alcohol makes me feel better. I didn't. I didn't know that in the back of my mind

I knew that when I was sitting in a room of people that were drinking and I wasn't, I was. Even if they weren't drinking, I was constantly thinking about what they thought of me. My whole life I was trying to bring myself up to the level that I thought everyone else was. It became so important to me and what they thought of me. And I sat there and I watched people and I was worried about what they thought of me and how I walked and how I talked and how I dressed.

And

when I look back now, I realize that I drank on a regular basis because I had fun. Only because when I started drinking, I stopped thinking about those things. I didn't care what they thought of me. It just left my mind. It was gone. I mean, it was. I could do what they were doing and I could be better at it than them. Or so I thought.

Excuse me.

So I went with that. I went with that for a long time.

I would say I was 16 then his 9th grade 16 and I drank and I drank and I drank. And

as over the time went when I graduated from high school, I moved out and I was, I was ready to go. I was ready to be out front under my daddy's wing and I was ready to party and I was ready to party my way. Not just on the weekends or just when dad was at work or whenever, whenever it would work around my curfew or whatever else. I got my own apartment and I was doing well. I was, I was doing well. When I first moved out. I thought I could do this. I could manage my life. I could have a good job, I could make money, I could pay my bills and I could party at the same time.

All the way through my story, it's I've always had the best intentions. I've always had the best intentions to do well. I never, I never intended to end up where I was before I made it here. And I did have a good job when I moved out of my dad's house, but it took about 3 months of me not being able to show up to work on time in the morning 'cause I partied too hard the night before and I lost that job. I was bouncing around from job to job

and, uh,

that brought myself esteem down just a little bit more and just enough to where I just wanted to drink even more. And my apartment was a small little one room apartment with a tiny little bedroom tucked off the corner. And I had at least 3540 people packed in there every night of the week. And I would wake up in the morning and I would step over passed out bodies all over my apartment. I'd clean up all the beer bottles and I'd go to my temp job that I picked up for that day or whatever else I could scrounge up to make some money for beer that night.

Having those people coming into my house on a regular basis

and doing those things,

my, I guess you could say my horizons expanded a little bit. I, I started sampling with other things other than alcohol. They, they came around and they were there and they, they did something for me that alcohol didn't do anymore. I mean, when I took that first drink, I felt in a way,

I felt comfortable where I was finally and it gave me a good feeling. And the longer I drank, I can't say I had a great time every, every time I drank. That's that's not why I drank. It wasn't to have a good time. It was to stop my head from racing the way it did from the moment I woke up until the moment I went to bed. I mean, that's that's why I drank. And when I phoned other chemicals, other drugs that, that it showed me a new horizon for a while. It it it let me go longer it would it would allow me to wake up in the morning

and kill those thoughts as soon as I woke up and go all day and still party into the late night without passing out. And alcohol, alcohol usually if I started drinking it 1:00 and 1:00 in the afternoon when I woke up I would be passed out by 5. And that wasn't fun to me. So

as as my story went on I got more and more deep into it and

partying as hard as I did. Like I said, I couldn't hold a job and having the access I had around with some things around me, I started getting into dealing some drugs and

it didn't take very long. I'm. I know now that I wasn't any good at it. I

it, it, it took about 3 months of actually dealing to try and make money and we got in some trouble and

I had, I had done just about everything I could and

I got a phone call. Let me back up minute. I was in Fargo, ND. That's where that's where I got in trouble. And

after the, after the bust happened, I took off and I split and I came down here to Minneapolis to some friends I knew. And I lived down here for a while. And

at the moment my friends are trying to tell me that, look, you're gonna have to make a decision right now. You're either gonna need, you're either gonna need to decide that you're OK with not speaking to your family and letting them go for the rest of your life, or you're gonna have to just face up to this and go to prison. And I didn't know what to do. I, I didn't make a decision either way. I, I decided I needed some time to think. And I kept going. And it was actually a few blocks from here when I actually made, had my first realization that I might have a problem. I,

I was at a party in the middle of December and

I mixed way too many things. And that was that ended up being the last night I ever touched a drug and

I ended up leaving and going back to Oregon. And the sickest part about this is, is the house I was living in when I was in town. My sister, whom I had always been close with my whole life, was maybe a mile away from where I was then. I was here for a few months and I never gave her a phone call. I never know let her know I was here and I was shopping at the same store she shops at, and I mean around the same place. And I never saw her. And

I left again. And up until then, even in the depths of my using, I maintained a close contact to my family.

I called my family every Sunday, every Sunday, regardless. And if something would come up and I couldn't call them on Sunday, by the time I called them on Monday, either my sister or my dad was half frantic about what was going on in my life and why I didn't call him last night.

And when this happened and I decided to take some time to think, I didn't call him for a while. This happened in October 14th and

I called him for a couple weeks and let him know. I called him a couple times from Minneapolis and told him I was still living in Oregon and that's where I was.

And

about the beginning of December, I stopped calling him. And I didn't call him the whole month. And I didn't call him over Christmas.

And over a series of events, I ended up hitchhiking down to Phoenix, AZ, because I had lived there when I was younger and I found some friends, and I thought it'd be a safe place to hide out. And I was down there a couple weeks hunting for jobs, which doesn't work very well when the federal government is looking for you. You can't fill out a legitimate application. You can't put your name on any tax forms. It's all under the table. And I didn't do well. I went hungry, and I'm a smoker, and I went most days without cigarettes, which was almost worse than no food. And,

and I just couldn't take it. And the family that I was staying with, they took care of me and they fed me down there.

And just before New Year's, they were all going to see their family down in Mexico for the weekend. And they had a guest house in their backyard. And like I said, they'd been taking care of me. They fed me my meals and my friend would buy me a couple bucks here and there to get a pack of cigarettes. And I woke up the morning and New Year's Eve and they had all packed in the car and took off and left me there by myself and locked their house up tight and left me there. And they, I think they realized I needed to do something. I, I wasn't doing anything

and I walked around for a couple hours

and then finally I made my first phone call back to my sister and she bought me a bus ticket back up here

on that bus ride. I decided I was done. My drinking had got me nowhere. My drug use had gotten me nowhere except on a Greyhound bus at six foot three when you cannot be comfortable riding from Phoenix to Minneapolis. I was miserable. I, I had nothing to look forward to in my life and I came back and I decided I was going to turn myself into the federal government and just get this over with and move on with my life. I spent about a week or two with my family catching up and just trying to repair some damage that I'd done.

And I made a phone call to Fargo, and I called, like, the Sheriff's Department and the federal government. And I said, look, my name is Kane Thompson. I have reason to believe you're looking for me. What do I need to do? And every phone call I made, they said they didn't have a clue who I was or what I was talking about. And I was like,

so that that was and I felt good, but I had had a bad scare and I started drinking a little bit. Then I, I started drinking again

and the drinking came back a little bit and then I decided I was going to try and do something with my life. And I went back and I, before I moved to Oregon, I'd started my GED. I took two tests and I split down and I let it go for like a year and 1/2, which was pretty sad considering I was only a credit and a half short of my high school diploma. But I gave up and decided the GED was the thing for me because high school was too much work.

Teacher told me what to do too much. I didn't like that.

I came back and when they told me they weren't looking for me, I finished my GED and I started applying to colleges and I started making myself feel good about myself. And I thought, I thought that's what I needed.

And about a month after that, it turns out that they just told me they didn't know who I was because they hadn't had the grand jury yet. And I got off of work one day and my dad

told me I was staying with my dad at the time. And the United States Marshals had called his house and said, do you know who Kane Thompson is? And he said, yes, it's my son. And he said, do you know where he is? He's at work. He's living with me right now. And he said, well, we have a federal warrant for his arrest. Do you think he would come turn himself in or do we need to send somebody to pick him up? And he said, no, He, he's been kind of waiting for this. And he told me

and I did it and I went and I turned myself in.

That was in February of 96. And at that time, I was managing a kitchen in a fine dining restaurant that just happened to have a very

a low quality dive bar connected to it. I mean, it was the, the worn out wood plank floors and peanut shells on the floor and not your high, high quality drinkers hanging out there. And

that's where my summer went. I decided that, you know, I'm going away for a while. I'm going to party this up. And I, I went into a my pity pot and just felt sorry for myself for an entire summer. And I drank and I drank. I turned 21 that summer, and

the whole time this was happening up until then, I'd gotten in a lot. I'd gotten in trouble all the time when I was younger. I got minor consumption after minor consumption. I got in trouble for a third degree robbery when I was about two months before I turned 18, and they gave me like 30 days probation and $120.00 fine. And all those things had just been a slap on the wrist and just kind of think in the back of my head. I decided I can't get in trouble. You know what I mean? God is looking out for me. He's not going to allow me to get in trouble,

and it didn't turn out that way this time.

I spent that whole summer, I would get off work

at in the restaurant, I would go out to the bar and I would be fully content and sitting down and having a couple beers and going home and taking a shower and sitting on the couch.

And I would say 8 to 9 times out of 10, after I took a shower and laid on the couch for about 5 minutes, I was too bored and I needed another beer and I was back at the bar drinking until close. And that was a regular pattern for me. That's, that's, that's what the book talks about and phenomenon of craving. I, I had one or two and I was content with going home and not drinking anymore. But within a couple hours, all I can think about is where am I going to get another beer? That's that's what I need right now, sitting on this couch thinking to myself.

Especially that I'm going to prison

and I have all these things weighing on me. I owe it to myself to drink as how I felt. And I would drink and I would get up in the morning and I would open this restaurant and I would walk in at 7:30 in the morning hungover and feeling sick. And my boss would walk in and

I'm not going to take his inventory, but he would walk in in the morning and mix a drink. And if he looked at me and he saw that I was slightly hurting, or if he could tell I was sick, he would walk out in the bar and mix me a Bloody Mary and bring it back in the kitchen and hand it to me and just let me go about my business. And I kept opening it up. And I would drink one or two in the morning and then I would make sure the lunch rush went off OK and I'd clean up and I'd go back out in the bar and I'd have a few more beers and I'd go home. And that's that's what my summer turned into

my 21st birthday. It it went really hectic.

I mean, that was granted, that was before all this is happening, but I came home at 2:00 in the morning. I don't remember anything from 8:00 on. I was a regular blackout drinker, but this time particularly scares me. I woke up in the morning and my dad was sitting in the chair next to me and I was laying on the couch. Somebody had to carry me from their car to his couch. And I'd never let my dad see me like this before. My dad's been sober a year longer than I have now.

And I walked in and I was I was exactly what I had always hated in him when I was growing up.

And I got up and he told me he spent the whole night putting his hand under my nose to make sure I was breathing because he said they threw me on the couch and I didn't twitch a muscle for about 13 hours. I just laid there and

finally I went to prison

and that was August 15th to 96 and I was very ready to serve my time and get out and drink again and hopefully someday use again that that was my attitude going in. I was going to go in and pay my debt and get out and just continue with my life because that's all I'd known. I mean, that's all I'd ever known before that. And like I said, I, I'd been caught drinking many times living with my dad. I've been caught. I'd never suffered a consequence severely as a result of my drinking until then.

But then I was still really good at rationalizing. I rationalized the whole prison thing right out of the picture as a reason not to drink or use drugs anymore. I that had nothing to do with my drinking or using. That was all the government. That was all the voters and the government making too harsh a laws for somebody like me who wasn't really doing anything wrong. And

I went through and

that alcohol was away from me and the drugs were away from me for the first length of time ever that I can remember since the first time I picked up a drink. And I didn't know then. I know now from reading the book and working my sponsor, the reason why I did this. But I started reading a lot. I, I quit high school because I hated to read. But next thing you know, I'm sitting there and I'm picking up books and I'm reading them because I wanted to read them because I thought there was something out there that I needed to learn. And I,

I studied all these different religions I could find and I looked for God and I looked for everything, anything that would make me feel decent. I mean, everybody in there was sober, but I still just felt terrible. I had nothing to go on. Everybody was looking at me funny. I, I was just crawling out of my own skin. And if anybody out there knows anything about astrology, I started to study astrology and I read my chart

and

coincidence enough, it, it described my life to a teeth and it told me that I was super sensitive. If anybody knows anything, if if anybody knows anything about astrology, I'm a triple cancer. And that told me that I put up a hard shell and I'm very sensitive on the inside and things like this. And it basically described alcoholism to a tea and, and my alcoholism in particular. So I went with that and I didn't, I didn't read further in the book to find out if there was a way I could stop that or if I could change that. I was comfortable with just

knowing what was wrong with me. I mean, OK, that's what it is. I'm a triple Cancer. I don't believe in astrology. But the book, the book tells me that that's my problem. So I'm going with that.

And

the federal government has a wonderful drug program that they offer. And they tell you that if you take this drug, drug and alcohol program, they'll give you up to a year off your sentence in six months and a halfway house. And whether or not I was looking for help at the time or not, my hand went up, signed me up. Where do I go? I'll get out of here a year early, no problem. And I walked in and

it was either my dad or my sister and I was talking on the phone before we started. And they just, they, they told me, just go in there and keep an open mind. Listen to what they have to say. You have to sit there for the next seven months anyways. Listen to what they have to say. And if they have anything to say that makes sense, pay attention and maybe you'll learn something. And they did.

And they shocked me when I went in. I thought they were going to sit and tell me all this. All through my using time, I talked about government and their propaganda against it and government, their propaganda against drugs and this and that. And I thought that's what they were going to fill me full of was just all this stuff. And they never talked about drugs. They never talked about alcohol. They talked about thoughts and feelings and just not having a higher power in your life. And

when they started describing the personality traits of an alcoholic,

I kind of sat up in my chair and I'm wondering where they're where they're getting this stuff from.

And after we it was a very intensive treatment. It was seven months, five days a week for 3 1/2 hours a day. I,

I got out, I thought I had all the tools I needed. I was ready to hit the streets and stay sober for the rest of my life. And I got out and I got to this halfway house and I sat at my, the intake counselor's desk and I told her I learned a lot from that treatment. I'm ready to go. And by the way, all the way through my treatment, I sat and I told my counselor over and over again, because I knowing I was going on probation and knowing they're probably drug tests and breathalyzers,

I spewed my guts to my counselor about how much of a drug addict that was, but I told him I never drank.

I never touched barely any alcohol because I thought when I got out then they would drug test me, but my probation officer would still let me drink. That was my whole idea. And but then I found out that they already know that if you have a problem with drugs, you're probably having a problem with alcohol too. So I, I sat at my counselors desk and I told them, look, I, I really don't need these a meetings. I'm, I haven't, I haven't found a God that works in my life. I know there is one. I don't know what to think of him. I don't know what to believe he or

she is and that's all this a a looks like to me is a bunch of God stuff. And she said, well, that's too bad because I have you signed up for a mandatory 4A a meetings a week.

And I said, OK. And actually, she said A or NA meetings and

and I and I did my first meeting I went to was in the other fellowship. And

I've heard said before that coincidence is just God's way of staying anonymous, and he was working in my life that day. When I went to that first meeting,

there was a guy there who went to both fellowships. And when we left the meeting, I was still convinced that I was an addict. I didn't have a problem with alcohol.

We left that meeting and he said, can I pick you up for a meeting on Thursday? And I said sure. And he came and picked me up and I assumed I was going to an NA meeting. And I signed up from a half a house for an NA meeting. And we showed up at an, a, a meeting. And a lot of the people who are sitting here today that came down to support me from Fargo were at that meeting. And I started to get to know those people and I started to really start to see

that

I am an alcoholic and my drug use is just but another symptom of my alcoholism. And I saw that finally, because my whole life, I knew my dad was an alcoholic. I knew that I saw the way he drank. I saw what he did. So I tried everything I could in my mind to differentiate him for me because I didn't want to be what he was.

And I came to the realization that I am. It hadn't. It had nothing to do with what I used at that moment.

Well, I shouldn't say that it didn't it it had a lot to do with it, but it was the drugs were another symptom of my alcoholism.

I started hanging out with these people

and at first I, I'll be honest, I didn't just catch the fire and run with it. When I got here, they all looked happy and they all were having a good time. And by then I understood that through my treatment that I didn't always have a good time. And I always sat and wondered what they thought of me because that was part of my problem as an alcoholic. And I saw these people having fun, but I still thought, yeah, that's great, they're having fun, but their problems aren't nearly as bad as mine are. They don't understand why I'm so sensitive inside and what's going on inside of me.

I just got screwed over from the government for the last two years. How about you? I mean that. That was my whole attitude in it

and I stayed with them.

Before I knew it, the halfway house was over with my probation officer didn't even know I existed. And it was about 3 months of still going to meetings and having a sponsor that I, I look back and I noticed, you know, I haven't been required to go to these things for a while and I hadn't even thought of it. I just it, it just became a part of my life that I went with it. It got to be a routine. It got to be part of my life. When I, when I missed, when I would miss my Home group, I would feel it. I would feel

something was missing from that week and I just I couldn't get it back that whole week.

I started out when I first got here, I went for about a month without a sponsor and

a buddy of mine that I had met said you need to just find somebody it has what you want. And that guy that picked me up for the my first a meeting, he, he played video games for a living and that was something I wanted. So I asked him to be my I asked him to be my sponsor and.

And the best thing about it was if he was busy and

he was, he was the kind of sponsor that

he was there when I needed him and he was always there when I needed him,

but he wouldn't come and force things on me. And overtime, I learned that I needed more than that in my life.

I through the meeting that I joined when I first got out of prison, I I met a gentleman that I ended up moving in with him.

I had seen him at a meeting a couple times and I was in the process of finding an apartment. The halfway house was really harping on my back to get out

and I found the one bedroom apartment and I was talking to this guy outside of a meeting like the day before. I was going to go sign on this one bedroom and he said, So what you been up to Kate? And I'm like getting an apartment trying to get out. He's like, really, I'm looking for one too. Let's go find one. Okay, I moved in with this guy and I, I, I barely knew anything about him. And when I, we first moved in together, I'll admit he was pretty sick

that that's what I saw of him. But I, I, I started, I started watching him and really, honestly, he got better

almost on a daily basis. He got better and better. And I would sit at my house and the only time I would talk to my sponsors when I would call him. I was going on about 10 months in this program and I hadn't started reading the book yet. I was nothing and I hadn't done anything in the book.

And my roommate sponsor would come over at least once a week and come and sit at the table with him and they would go through the book and they would talk and they would meet. And all these guys were showing up to pick him up for meetings. And I watched my buddy get better and better and better.

And finally one night I just decided if I'm going to do this and I'm going to want to be as happy as everyone else that I'm seeing around me, I need to do something. I need to get a different sponsor. So I went to my roommate sponsor and asked him to be my sponsor.

The night that I did, I experienced something different in sobriety that I never I if you would have told me that it occurred before I joined this group, I would have thought you were nuts. A buddy of mine had his one year sobriety birthday that night at midnight. And I'm sure people here do it. We, we do what's called a wait at about 11:15 or about 11:30. A whole bunch of us go and take over their house for about the last 45 minutes of their year. And

we spend the time, we go around the room and we we share something about the person and we sell, We celebrate their year of sobriety and they get to the end and we give them a chance to say a couple words. And then at midnight, we count it down and we sing happy birthday. And then we say the serenity prayer and then we all go to bed. And that, that was the first time I'd experienced something like that. And I thought that was just wonderful that these guys were sitting here telling stories about each other and laughing at each other at things that I would have never laughed somebody about because I would have been afraid I would get my butt kicked.

And

people shed in tears. And I watched this guy just about to hit his one year and he was crying. And I, I couldn't believe it. I just and I left and

we went to coffee for a while and I asked my roommate sponsor. I give him a ride home and he only lived about two blocks away. So I didn't have very much time to think about it, but it took me almost that whole way. And I finally got up the courage and I asked him and he he told me he would sponsor me and he told me there's three things that I needed to do. Said I need to meet with him on a regular basis.

Once a week. We're going to set a consistent meeting time. We're going to go through the book, and we're going to work the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

You're gonna attend my Home group, so that's at least one other regular meeting time. I'm gonna see you every week. And he asked me to call him before I drink, and

that seemed pretty easy to me considering all three of those things I already wanted. And that was the reason I was asking him.

I would love to say I got him as a sponsor. My life got great overnight. It didn't. I

Like I said at the beginning, I did everything in my power to still try and run my life on my own way.

I I did things I never should have done. I,

I dated newcomer girls in the group, which is a bad, no, no bad. Any, any, any, any new guys in this room stay away from the girls stay or I shouldn't even say newcomers. Any guys stay away from the newcomer girls. I, I did it and they, they, they made, they made very easy hostages for me. I felt, I mean, that was, they were, they were. I don't, I'm not trying to say anything bad. It was just that's the way it turned out. And I did that once,

and I got caught, and I got in a lot of trouble. And I went on for a while. And next thing you know, an old friend of mine who's actually my date for my senior prom showed up at my meeting and it happened again. And this time I had some sobriety under my belt, and I knew better. And I'd been doing these things my sponsor told me to do when I was doing what people around me had told me to do. And I still screwed up. And I learned my lesson on that