The Northern Plains Group in Fargo, ND

Hi, everybody. I'm Scott Benson. I'm an alcoholic

and it's by the grace of God, the actions of Alcoholics Anonymous and sponsorship that I've been sober since May 23rd of 1989.

The Happy Birthday Northern Plains group, the,

the, UH,

kind of a lot of, a lot of emotion and a lot of history

has transpired in the last year going on your 6th anniversary. And I have the, I want to thank Aaron for asking me to share the, I spoke at your first meeting through. I was living in Spokane, WA and it's your first meeting. For those of you that that weren't here, there's 32 people here.

And at the first meeting of NPG, and it was the last Tuesday in April

and I was living in Washington and just happened to be kind of vacay. I can't remember exactly. I think I was vacationing or something here in North Dakota. And Jeff and had asked me to speak. And when I spoke at that meeting, I would have never guessed that six years later it would have grown as much as it's grown. And all of the secretaries touched upon it in one way or another. Is that the what saved my bacon,

and probably is saving the bacon of anyone that's been here for a little while? Is that someone went out of their way

to be helpful. You know, the backbone of Alcoholics Anonymous is one alcoholic helping another alcoholic. And I didn't when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. I did not think that Alcoholics Anonymous would fix what was wrong with me

and the, the people that there's many people here but your past secretaries or people that I love and respect. And I have probably heard, I suppose I've heard a lot of,

I suppose

not so spiritual things about all of the past secretaries. And I still love them and I still respect them because in Alcoholics Anonymous, as you hear in many circles, but in Alcohol Anonymous

takes a Carpenter to build a barn and

any Jackass, excuse my language, can tear it down. And these are people who've discovered the key to staying sober is intensive work with other Alcoholics. If that works when other activities fail. And that there people I love and respect because of that. They is all of our flaws and we're all flawed people. That's what brings us together.

It is in coming together and be helped and and being helpful to one another.

And that's what they do. I mean, in my book, if you're helpful to other people, I think you're a winner in Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't

the I was asked to share in a general way what I used to be like, what happened and what I'm like now and, and to talk a little bit about my alcoholism.

I had

as far back as I can remember, I always felt like there was something wrong with me. I felt cursed with red hair. And let me tell you something. If you don't have any hair, you have red hair, you do have it harder. And I really felt like I was given a raw deal from day one. I didn't know who my father was. And so I felt like that was a wedge against me. I knew that his name was John Thomas. And oftentimes after I started drinking, I would and I knew he was from Florida and he I knew he had a brother named Oscar. And I would get drunk

and I'd call information and for John R Thomas, any City Florida,

and I would call Pete. I would call these John Thomases and ask them if they had a brother named Oscar. And but I never had the courage to do something like that sober. And I loved what when I started drinking, I loved what it did for me because I always felt like

there's a lot of people in Alcoholics that have tattoos. Unfortunately, because I was a never was is how I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. I wasn't has been. There's some has beens I sponsor, some has beens MM F is a has been, but I'm not a has been. I was, never was, and

I was actually, take that back, my one big accomplishment prior to Alcoholics Anonymous, that is, I grew my hair to the middle of my back. That was my accomplishment that I'd contributed to life.

And but I, I, I always felt like I wasn't enough. I felt like people talked down to me. And what I've discovered in Alcoholics Anonymous is that when I have low self worth, that when people are trying to teach me, I think they're talking down to me when they're trying to teach me. Because I think that even though I feel like there's missing something, I have too much of an ego to actually ask for help. And so I try to wing it and

oftentimes that has been one of the biggest things as I compare my raw insides to other people's outsides and I come up short every time. You know your secretaries. I would love to have Jeff Wit for a day. Well, take that back for about four hours. And the I would love to have Chads

Chad if you get to know him, one of the

I didn't see what happened. So

if you get to know Chad, the one thing about Chad is he will really go out of his way to be helpful.

And if you get by the fluff and what comes across is arrogance, which is really not arrogance at all. But sometimes, you know, I, you know, he's always had the right shirts, the right bikes, the right everything. And, and Kirsten, her, her, she's got a lot of excitement and I wish I had a tattoo story

like Kirsten. And, and then there's Mike. You know, the first time I, I was living in Jamestown. I've lived in Jamestown a couple of times. And I don't mean to be jumping around, but I don't ever know what I'm going to talk about. And I remember one time I heard someone in Alcoholics Anonymous say that if you have to take notes and talk,

that it's not coming from the heart. And I asked my sponsor what he thought about that and he said apparently they've never heard you speak and

and so I never know what I'm going to say. And I'm too insecure in my time and sobriety to pull out notes, although I did write them

by be embarrassed to display them.

And but anyway, getting back to Mike, because that's what Mike wants to hear right now is Mike is, is I knew he was going to be OK in Alcoholics Anonymous because when I met Mike, his sponsor was Jeff. And I knew Jeff would take good care of him. But I also knew that Mike was willing because anytime I went to Minot, whether it was a Saturday night, a Thursday night, a Monday night, Mike was at a meeting.

Mike. Was it a mean? That's my earliest memory of Mike.

Umm, Kenny on the other hand, he was Kenny. I remember one time Kenny telling me that he really thought that selling vacuum cleaners or something along those lines was really going to turn his life around and

some some sales job. That was, I remember when I was new and one of my first non sponsor

approved actions was I quit my job doing dishes to sell rainbow vacuum cleaners and they'd sold me that I was going to be rich. And I remember the first day of the interview that after about an hour anyone who looked like a salesman was gone except all of us that didn't look like salespeople they hired. Go figure. Anyway, that that little experience is why my sobriety date is May 23rd of 1989 and not January 10th,

1989. I was one of those guys in Alcoholics Anonymous that I took two one year chips because I never told anyone I drank. And I remember I would, I would say to myself, I would go to sleep every night thinking how am I going to fix this? How am I going to keep my sobriety date but be honest because I know this honesty, this rigorous honesty, things got to be important because they got it all over Alcoholics Anonymous. But of course, that's what

a a good four steps for and a good fifth step. But anyway,

so I've known Kenny a long time and I've watched him grow and I they're a quality Kinney very decisive. Sometimes he's decisive in the wrong direction, but he's decisive and I appreciate that about him And

in Aaron is always very kind and she I think she spots that I have no matter how hard I work Alcoholics Anonymous, I am, I am often intimidated by the opposite sex and stay away from them other than my wife, of course, because she's married to me and my bride. But I, I'm just whatever. It's just part of my personality for fear. I for fear I will be embarrassed by it's the same fear I had in high school. Why I never said hi to anyone. All these things

sober. What my problem is, is I cannot be comfortable in my own skin sober. And our book describes it as being restless, irritable and discontent. I'm always restless, you know, I'm opening the covers, closing the cupboards. I'm irritable and my irritability takes two shapes. I'm either on the muscle with people, intimidating people, or I isolate because I can't stand how people live or how people treat me and I'm discontent. Whatever it is I have is not good enough for me. It is not good enough for me.

And that's what I in school, when I would walk down the hall, my biggest fear was I would say hi. I never said hi to anyone unless they said hi to me first. But my biggest fear is I would say hi to someone and they would say, what are you looking at, you dork? And thus it was easier just to walk by people I knew with the strange look on my face. And but that same scenario, drinking.

I remember getting drunk and going to school

and high fiving my Fiat instructor, and I don't ever remember having that kind of excitement towards life unless I was drinking. And of course that got me suspended from school, but it was still nevertheless I loved. Once I started drinking, I loved what it did

for me, and what it did is it took a guy like me that never felt like enough, like I was enough and made me feel enough for a while. The problem with that is that I couldn't seem to control the amount of alcohol I took. Once I started drinking, I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know if I'd wind up in Glenbourne, North Dakota in a wheat field wondering how I got there. I didn't know one experience. Jeff always reminds me he likes this story, and I kind of like this story too, is

I was drinking one night and I'd bend a treatment

because of my drinking. Because when you drink and you drink like I drink, you tend to get in trouble with the law. And so I'd been to treatment a couple of times and knew I probably shouldn't drink. But I believe that

if I, if I,

if I only drank a couple of times a week, I'd probably be OK. And on one of these couple of times a week, I started drinking and, and I, and I blacked out. And I was familiar with the blackout because they described it in treatment. And I, I used to always think that blackouts were, I didn't know whether to believe them or not when people would say you did strange things and you know, you never do good things. They're always terrible things that you do in a blackout, but

I have a blackout and I think some of the reason I share this is that it's a demonstration of alcoholism. But I'm also

looking for someone to actually say that was my yard. But

I suppose deep down is that I, I, I was, I came out of a blackout and I'm driving a car. It's my car. I know it's my car because the wires are hanging out of the dash. And I'm the kind of guy that gets it done just enough. And I got it done just enough to get the stereo working. But I'm driving and I looked beside me and there's a guy I don't know have no idea what where he is other than in my brief conversation with him. I was able to deduct

that his wife was giving birth to their baby at the hospital and he's out drinking with me.

Then I glanced in the rear view mirror to notice that now I've got a 1974 Olds Omega with the inline six. It was not a hot car then, is it now? But but I had boat equipment in the back seat and coming out the back windows it was apparent that this dude does not own a boat dealership. Real apparent. And I did not say to myself, Scott, you can't drink.

It's just crazy for you to drink. What I said to myself is I will never

drink Mad Dog 2020 again

because if that's what it does to you. And of course, by the way, that night someone in Mandan, ND, got a yard full of boat equipment.

Hey, we're good at coming up with quick solutions. I the other thing that's funny about that, the next day my mother had told me my mother had been in an in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous. And all I knew about Alcoholics Anonymous was I knew a little bit about the men of Alcoholics Anonymous, and they always wanted to help my mom

and then they wanted to move into our house. And so I didn't like Alcoholics Anonymous, but she was always, she was always wanting to, when she would get sober, she'd want everybody to be sober. That was one of the things I suppose I hurt my mother with the most, as I used to tell her things like you think everybody's an alcoholic because you're an alcoholic.

And I am so grateful today that she did because I got sober young and I've been able to do a lot of things that a guy like me shouldn't get to do. Like what a privilege it is. This is what a privilege it is to speak in front of this meeting because a guys like me that doesn't happen to. But anyway,

my mother, the next day she told me if I kept driving drunk she was going to sell my car. How dare her? And the next day when I woke up or the next morning or afternoon about two

out of my bedroom and looked at the kitchen table and there was a wrecker receipt in 25 bucks, she sold my car.

She still hasn't made amends to me for that, come to think of it, but I suppose she doesn't need to.

I have a teenager now, so I'll see what I get to experience. But comes around, goes around, I suppose.

But so I'm, I'm, I know I shouldn't drink and I and I can't seem to stop drinking because the pain of sobriety is what the curse is. People tell me, Scott, if you just don't drink, you'd be OK

and I would try to just not drink. But I didn't have any hope. I saw the world as nasty. I thought a nasty. I was the guy. Now I've gotten a sponsor. Well, this is a kind of a funny story. What comes around goes around in Alcoholics Anonymous. But I was the guy in school that when they do the team captains thing, I was the guy that they'd argue that the captain wanted on the other team. The last one picked,

you know, I was no, you take them. No, no, no. You take them. And

today I've gotten to sponsor a few of those team captains and straighten them out on kindness and compassion.

But

I was really, and I, I did, I did virtually anything that changed the way I was feeling because I did not feel enough sober. And that's why I would continue to drink even though, you know, if the pain of our drinking kept us sober the first time I did something painful, I would have stopped. But see, I've got this obsession, this obsession that says somehow, someday I can control and enjoy my drinking. And I have an aunt that's allergic to peanuts. When she eats a peanut, she gets hives and her throat

up where she's literally such one time in her life she ate 1/2 a peanut and this happened and she has never thought, boy, maybe I can eat peanuts if they're in Snickers. I've had worse things I've had I have had terrible things happen to me drinking terrible things that you can't even share from the podium. And yet I thought, well, maybe if it's a different town or if it's a different brand, or maybe if I have my friends watch me, boy, what

what a that's a terrible solution for an alcoholic to say. All right, friends, I want you to make sure I stay in line tonight. You know, they're in for it. Just a terrible night

and the the

I one time anyway, I probably need to get sober, but I was just absolutely had this obsession that I couldn't get rid of it some way, somehow I could control it and I never see, even though all my experience said it was once I started drinking, there was I had no control over what was going to happen, how much I would drink and I usually drank until I passed out or blacked out or ran out of booze. So anyway, if you're, if you drink like I do, at some point or another, you get

sent to treatment. At some point or another, they tell you to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. And so I wound up in Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't want to be there. I was not something I wanted to accomplish in life. Hey, I want to go to AA And I started going and what saved my life was a guy in Alcoholics Anonymous got my phone number

and he was gone and he and I had drank. Now I drank knowing that if I drank, I would go to jail for a year. I was to go to a a a meetings for a year, two a week. And if I drank, I would go. And that didn't keep me from drinking and the cycle was on again. I was I was literally I'd given up on Alcoholics honest one more time. Now mind you, I'd never really given it a try. I'd never worked the steps. I'd never really had a sponsor I listened to and never went to meetings regularly, but I'd

up on Alcoholics Anonymous and this guy by the name of Scott T

Umm got my phone number and 10 days later, because he got back in town, he called me. He called me when I was on my way out to drink again. Had he not been taught to call other people and Alcoholics Anonymous, I might not be here because that guy called me. And for whatever reason, I decided he asked me to go to coffee. And for whatever reason I decided to go. And he shared his story with me,

and I thought it was the first time I'd really identified with alcohol

because I'd never identified with alcoholism. People always talked about some of the consequences of drinking, and I think the consequences of drinking vary.

What happens to me, how I feel sober and what drinking does for me is what determines whether I'm alcoholic or not, not necessarily some of the consequences. And I, he kind of, he made Alcoholics Anonymous attractive and he would call me and take me to meetings and he made sobriety seem fun. And I thought maybe,

just maybe, this would work for me like it had him. Now, I had a hard time believing he was like me because when I met him, he was six or seven years sober. He had a nice job, people liked him. I was,

I was, I had the crazy mind. I didn't know what I was going to do. I mean, one of the thoughts I had was I was going to join the military because I'd always tried to get into the military when I was drinking. But I kept getting Duis and they frown on that. You know, I discovered if you have one, you can get into the the Air Force. If you got 2,

your nip down to the Army and if you got three, you can't get into any. And but

he he said, you know, if you do what we do in Alcoholics Anonymous, your life will get better. And ultimately I got involved in a Home group and he started taking me and and some of the other guys he sponsored through the steps and my life beginning begin to change. And it changed never as fast as I thought it should.

And the, I was thinking about, and I don't know how much time I have left, but I, I really thought that

I, I really thought that I would have a miserable life. I really did. I thought that I left the state hospital in Jamestown, ND with the diagnosis that I would spend the rest of my life going in and out of institutions. What a bleak diagnosis. And but for Alcoholics Anonymous, that had been the case

because it literally took someone like me that I was absolutely unteachable. I resented the world at, you know, you hear about people who had chips on their shoulders. I had two chips on my shoulders and I didn't have a lot of hope. I, I always kind of felt like a second class citizen. I always felt like my case was too severe

and Alcoholics Anonymous totally changed the course of my life and really what I wanted to do. When I first started coming to Alcoholics Anonymous, I wanted to stay here long enough

to get off probation and move to California to dye my hair blonde and live on the beach because I really thought if I had blonde hair things would be easier. And I really thought if I lived in California things would be better. And what happened was I fell in love with Alcoholics Anonymous and my one of the greatest things that Scott passed on to me was the idea that nothing so much will help me stay away from drinking as intensive work with other Alcoholics. It works when other activities fail

and that does not seem like an attractive solution when you don't have a job and you don't have know what you're going to do in life. And I think that what happened was is he he encouraged me to go to college, which I would have never done because I had never heard the really heard the word College in my house growing up. I didn't know anyone who went to college. And he and I started going to college and I started going to meetings. And one thing about school is, is kind of interesting looking back in my sobriety, at one point there was

six of us that lived in this house

and I stayed active in Alcoholics. Nice. I always worried I would be the one that didn't make it because one of the things that my first sponsor, his sponsor said to me, he there was three of us in a room and he said a year from now two of you will not be here.

And I thought I was one of the two.

I thought, I thought, oh, I'm, I'm screwed because Mark is a much better a a member than me. But you know what? We're all still here.

And I think that part of that is, is that, you know, a Home group is very a Home group to be a part of and to help build. And you know, my sponsors wife talks about today that we don't shoot our wounded in Alcoholics Anonymous because if we did, we'd all be dead. And that I need to have you know, I've seen everybody's the people I know anyway. I've seen their human side. And no matter how how hard I work Alcoholics not on this, I will not, never, never rise above being a human being. However, I've been

in a program of action in which I can look at my part in things, which I can find my part in things. What my wrong is where I can make a man try to balance the books to make it right, to ask for some guidance from God, to talk to a sponsor when I'm not sure what direction I should go. In

turn my thoughts to someone I can help because I did what I wanted, when I wanted, how I wanted, and going after everything I wanted. And that got me

in and out of institutions, that got me crying myself to sleep. I mean, I people, I always felt like people looked at me like I was a loser. But at the end, I felt like a loser. At the end, I thought about when I was sober, what baffled me about alcoholism. I thought, why is it I'm six months sober and I'm more suicidal now than I ever was drinking? And so I have to find a light way to live sober comfortably in my own skin. And nothing has helped me more than

in my involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous. And

you know, the, my sponsor told me that the guys that you work with will become your best friends and that you'll get to see a get a front row seat in the people, a lot of people's lives. And that's been the case for me. I, when I was, I'm always people who know me

in Alcoholics Anonymous know that I, I really have a desire to be helpful. And I think one of the reasons that I have a desire to be helpful to other people is because it has helped me so much.

It has helped me get through things that I don't think I could have got through otherwise than trying to be an example for someone else. And one of the things that happened to me when I was about two years sober, going to school and busy and Alcoholics on. So I got a call from a relative of mine and I was too busy to return his phone call. And a week later, when I was convenient for me to call him back, I discovered that that he'd left but

was trying to reach me to go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

He had went to California and shot himself in the head. And I always think that it's important for me to do what's in front of me. And that's one of the reasons that I think it's so valuable to one of the most spiritual things that I can do is do what I say I'm going to do. But the other thing I can do is, is is do what's in front of me. When someone

calls me, call him back.

When I see someone struggling, give them a pat on the back. Oftentimes we talk about, you know, I would say the welfare of the new person is very important and that I want to I want to be around the people that want to be here. And then sometimes the person still struggling isn't the new person. I've had many struggles in sobriety. It's six years sober. Chad got to hear my money doesn't matter talk as I threw my laptop across the room to demonstrate that theory that money doesn't matter. And after what had happened was as they wanted

new guy I'd been working with at the jail to move into the house we were living in. And they as their sponsor, they overrode me and said they did not want this guy from the jail living with us because they would perhaps he would steal their stuff. And to demonstrate that money doesn't matter, I chucked my laptop across the room. Of course, after they left, I quickly made sure it worked again. And I called and I, I was trained in Alcoholics Anonymous. I knew that I was getting warning signs there. And so I called my sponsor and my sponsor said,

well, your house is you're not running a mission and that if they don't want them to live there, that maybe that that's the right thing to do and you ought to go along with it. And here's how you're going to make that right. And it gave me a comfort knowing what I was going to need to do to make it right because I caused a lot of damage in my drinking. And, and I'm quick to blame other people because that's what I always thought it was. It was other people. And what I've discovered is,

is that I am the creator of of 99% of my problems in that focusing on Scott does not fix anything and that if I am to,

I think the, you know, I need to move towards God's will for me. And that doesn't always jive with my will for me. In closing, to give you a little bring up to speed on NPG. I don't know that I had much of A part in, in, in, in, in the Northern Plains group, But I know something when I was four years sober and I was graduating from college,

one of the things I'd done as I joined the National Guard because I always wanted to be in the military. And I went to officer candidate school, Officer candidate school because I don't know, I want to be in charge too, you know, and I, they would not give me a waiver for criminal convictions. And I was pissed. I thought, I'm four years sober. I've been active in Alcoholics Anonymous and it's just, you know, and I was, you know, I was thinking about writing senators,

suing the National Guard, any number of things. And, and I talked to my sponsor and he said, you know,

something better is out there. Why don't you do the next indicated task? And the next indicated task at that point was since I wasn't going to Commission and wasn't going to be an officer in the National Guard, it meant that I wouldn't have a job out of college. It meant that I would have to start looking for a job. And so I started mailing out 10 resumes and cover letters a week and I got a job.

And first I thought they were I should start a company for rejection letters because I got a lot of them too.

And I got this job, and this job took me to Jamestown, ND,

and Jeff was one of the people that helped me move down there. And that first night we went to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and that meeting was Chad B

at that meeting was Chad BI put your two Co founders together because they ran into me in brief periods of their life and

because of living in Jamestown, ND, a lot of things have happened to me that once have normally happened. One I got to I get to live in the town in which people told me I would spend the rest of my life going in and out of institutions. And they're right, but it's only to take meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous into them. And I've got a watch. I've gotten a front row seat in a lot of people's lives, a lot of people's lives that a guy like me doesn't get it. The other person that was at that meeting was Mike SA guy a sponsor here. There's at this meeting, I,

there's people that I've sponsored. There's, I don't know how many people that I sponsor here tonight, but people I've had a front row seat in and a guy like me doesn't get a front row seat in anybody's lives. I'm usually a taker. I'm not a giver. And Alcoholics Anonymous allowed me to be a giver some of the time. And in closing, I think I'm out of time, but today I have

Shannon, who's my wife, and I think that she is my my life's companion. And we do things because of the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous that allow us, after being married, to continue to build our relationship. I have five children

and I keep busy and I keep busy with them and I have a business and that I kind of always wanted but never thought it was possible. And all those things are contingent and I love them, but all those things are contingent on me

putting my recovery first. Because if I don't have my recovery, we've got to remember I'ma never was. If I don't have my recovery, I will get real uncomfortable sober. And if I get too uncomfortable sober, I won't be here because there's a lot of good people smarter than me, more spiritual than me, that are not here.

And there are a lot of people that at one time sat beside Jeff and Chad at meetings that are not here. And I'll guarantee you the one thing I know about people that aren't here is they're not doing as well as the people that are.

They might for a little while. But usually I just seen another obituary of a guy I sponsored in Jamestown at one point that what you didn't see is it didn't say he died of alcoholism. It just explained his life where he moved from this town to this town to this town to this town, to this town and started all these different careers. And he was in that midst of brief recovery by followed by worse relapse. And I'm, I, I hope that we all have time to,

to go out of our way a little bit

to be encouraging to someone who maybe isn't doing as well as we are that's sitting beside us. And thank you for my sobriety.