Arkansas Conference of Young People in Alcoholics Anonymous in Morrilton, AR

Real honor for me to present to you Daniel Lee from Benton, AR

All right,

That's why I'm talking about. I'm Daniel and I'm now call it.

Thank you.

I love it. All right, let's say here,

well, you just do this for an hour. Maybe not. All right,

I'll start off. My Home group is the East side group of Alcoholics Anonymous.

What I'm talking about,

uh, Benton, AR were otherwise known as a Benton Mafia because if you leave, you die and

my, my sobriety date is August 8th of 98. And for that I'm extremely grateful. And if you're a little burnt like I am, or maybe got a real short attention span like I do, that's probably the most important thing I'll say all night. And

so, yeah, let's have a dance. Let's go, man,

but

but, but that, that's real important to me. And I hope everyone here has a sobriety date because it's there's two things. You know, the first thing is I never ever want to forget what it was like on that day, August 8th, you know, where I stand a chance of going back there. And, and the other thing is, you know,

the fact that I hadn't had a drink or any mind altering substances since that day proves to me this program works. It proves it to me, and

it also proves to me there is a loving God that that cares about me, you know, and that's a huge deal.

Oh, man. I'd like to thank the committee. Thanks a whole bunch.

I gotta say,

I absolutely love Alcoholics Anonymous.

I love this convention with all my heart,

but you know, they, they asked me to speak and I was like, why me? You know, it's like we got this saying at my Home group, this tradition, you don't ask a Home group member to speak at the Home group because they've already heard all your bullshit. And,

and, but you know, after thinking about praying about it and everything, you know, it's, it's God's writing a script. I ain't writing a script. So I'm here and, and there's ain't no comers. Never seem to, never heard me.

Maybe I can say something and would you please raise your hand and we'll go out on the porch and have this meeting.

Alright, Like I said, I'm, I'm a little burnt. I, I was real burnt when I got here. Alcohol and and some drugs really messed my brain up and but I've always talked real slow my whole life. So I'm not going to say very much, but you know, I'll, I'll probably talk for like 3 or 4 hours. So. But

I do have a clock, I think. Yeah, OK.

But anyway, just try to bear with me. Maybe we can get a Hick interpreter around here or something. But

so I'm supposed to share in a general way what I used to be like, what happened where I'm like now?

All right, so who all was there for the tree cutting incident very first thing this morning? OK, OK, so you all know I, I put the damn chain on the chainsaw backwards, all right?

Now, this is not the first time I've done something mass backwards. And a matter of fact, my mother and father's here, she can attest that I was born. I asked first. Literally,

yeah, I was a breeze, baby.

Of course, I don't remember it, but you can talk to mom. She'll fill you in on the details. But I literally the ass came out first and I've been asked backwards ever since. You know, I had the little, you know, kind of messed my legs up or whatever. Had to be where the little Forrest Gump braces.

I don't remember it, you know, for, for a little while, a year or so, but.

But I turned out all right, didn't I? Yeah,

first things I can remember from my childhood, being pissed off of my sister. I got a older sister and she's like the Bossier type sister and like we live out in the country and there's no neighborhood pack of kids that, you know, it was just me and her. And so when it was play time, you know, we had to play what she wanted to play by God. And so I ended up having to play like all this girly crap like

tea party and restaurant, not tea. You know,

I would have much rather just been out in the yard digging a hole or, you know, whatever other little boys do. But, but you know, I, I started getting resentments early on. And, and, but the main, the main thing about my childhood that I, that sticks out to me and then I'll move on is I had a whole lot of anxiety as a child.

You know, I, I had this knot in my gut from grade school on, you know, and

I don't know if other normal kids have any of that. I know I had it bad. It was so bad that

you know, and again, Mama, dad, I keep referring to mom and dad help mom and daddy here half my damn Home group. All these people, you know, people could tell that my story better than I could and a lot faster. They're in this room. So if y'all get sick of listening to my ass just like knock me over the Cliff and we'll get one of them. But anyways, where the fuck OK, it got hand. I almost left something slipped there

but

y'all watch out because we know somebody gonna listen to this on tape in the morning that couldn't be here. I would just like to say for Mark and Robert

that I

and dressed in a suit and tie at behind the podium. Please picture that in your brain

but anyway, sorry you couldn't be OK at Dang the the anxiety was so bad that not in my gut by like 4th or 5th grade. I actually went to the doctor, I believe over this and you know nobody knew you know just give this boy 1/5 of Jim Beam it straighten right up. You know, but,

but anyway, you know, and I felt different than and apart from like every other age speaker you ever hear.

So anyways, that was childhood. I rocked along. I want to skip a bunch of the drunk log tonight because I want to talk about the cool stuff, which is sobriety, but I got to talk about something here first. This would be like, you know, I may share a few opinions tonight and just like take what you want, leave the rest, whatever. But I I did some things

in my drinking career that

were drugs. OK, Wouldn't. Wouldn't

we didn't, we didn't, we didn't call them outside issues back then. And when I got sober, I went to a lot of speaker meetings and I heard this term and I did outside issue. I grew outside issues. I, I ran them up my, my nose, up my veins. I smoked these outside issues. I, I, I, I put them in different orifices and,

and these outside issues, outside issues, I like, what the hell are they? Man, if I would've known what that shipment was,

but I would have done that, you know, why did anybody tell me? And like I said, I really burnt. So I mean, so if there's any newcomers here tonight that are having problems with, I don't know if I'm the only person that had problems with stuff like that, but man. But let me just clear it up. It's cold

outside issue equals drugs. OK, so I I don't feel the need to say outside issue. Actually drugs is a shorter word so we'll get done past but but anyways, you know an outside issue to me. I get real confused about that because it's like outside issue. I think like issue like slavery or abortion or like the

like whatever politics or religion, you know, and I'm like

an issue. Anyway, that's all I'm gonna say about that. Let's move on.

My first drunk, OK, I had, I had done a lot of drugs before my first drunk, but my first drunk I got, I got talked about that. And let me just say after talking about outside issues and drugs and all that, I respect this podium. I respect Alcoholics Anonymous and I and I will identify myself as a real alcoholic, you know, 'cause that's what this is about. So anyways,

damn it got me.

I might be going to need some more of that.

I Yeah, that's Ozarka. I don't. OK, All right.

I are the first drunk. Mean, mean nobody had 1/5 of Jim Beam. And I, I'd never drank whiskey before. I'd had beer a few times, but never enough where I could drink all I wanted, you know? And we had this 5th of Jim Beam and we started drinking it just straight, no chaser. And after about the 4th or 5th big goat,

this feeling came over me, you know, and it was just this perfect buzz. And I mean, and the thing was the big, big thing was I no longer had that knot in my gut, you know, I didn't care, you know, I was, I just started high school at the time, everybody messed with me because I went to high school, Catholic High School for boys in Little Rock. And I'm from like way out in the country in Saline County. And like everybody messed with, even my teachers, you know, mess with, you know,

because the way I talk and stuff and I'm like, look, y'all live in Arkansas too, you know, shit. But, but anyways, I, when I, when I drank that first time, I didn't care about any of that. Who cares what these people think? And I felt okay in my own skin for the very first time that I can remember, you know, now I, I had some really happy times as a child and I, and I probably was all right molding skin as a child, but but this is the first time I could remember in a long time. And and what I realized today

as I like to, I reached the perfect level of being messed up. All right, and hopefully y'all know what I'm talking about. I had reached the perfect level where everything is perfect. I got the perfect buzz. I got no worries. You know, I'm OK with myself, I'm OK with my buddy and what we're doing and, and it was perfect. And So what did I do? My brain says that this is perfect. Just think about what one more drink would do. So I drank the rest of the bottle,

blacked out, ran around screaming like an idiot out in the woods,

did a bunch of stupid stuff and didn't remember any of it and came to the next morning thinking, you know, I don't know what happened last night, but it sure was good. And and I just set the stage for my drinking career. That's how I drank and it

anyways. So I like I say, I'm not going to tell a bunch of stories. There's a lot of weird stories I could tell you about, you know, being tracked across Lake Ouachita by beer can trail and getting busted on some shit and then

smoking cigarettes, hog tied and county jail. But we can talk about that after the meeting. But

just let me tell you about what my daily routine was last few years or whatever my drinking, I would come to in the morning and run to the window to see if my truck was outside wherever I came to because I didn't remember that most a lot of times I didn't even know where I was and but I'd see if my truck was there. A lot of times it wasn't, you know, and, and, and I, I was a serious blackout drinker. I'm talking about

at least 90% of the time I drank, I blacked out because it was just insane. The phenomenon of cravings

and the, and the physical allergy. I, I mean, it was not only could I not stop once I started, I, it was like I had to drink it as fast as I could for some reason. But but anyway, so I would find my truck, figure out what day it is. Do I need to be at work? You know, find if I got any, any, any alcohol left or any drugs to get my head right for the day. If you got to get started off right, you know, and I would spend the whole day

getting high, doing things, going to work and,

and trying to figure out what I did the night before. And then thinking to myself, and this is every single day, OK, And thinking to myself, why did I get so messed up last night? Because I didn't plan on getting that messed up. And tonight maybe I won't get that messed up. Maybe I won't get messed up at all tonight, you know, like it'd be good to take a night off, you know, so, so that's what I'd be thinking. And I was working construction and I get off work. Everybody I work with drank. My boss drank

somebody always had a couple of ice cold beers, you know, and they give me this beer and and you got to drink them, you know, because you you deserve it. You put in a hard day. I was I was toting sheetrock, stocking sheetrock. If anybody's ever done that, there's some lots of fun. But but anyways, you deserve it. Could you work hard? So I drink these couple beers all right

and get them in me. And then I, I that plan I'd made earlier in the day about not drinking

tonight, we just go out the window and I start making new plans, like, OK, here's the deal. OK, I lived in a dry county. He had to drive about 20 minutes to the liquor store. So I'm going to go up to the liquor store, get me a 12 pack and just, you know, chill out, smoke some pot, drink a 12 because. But I had a very large tolerance for alcohol and a 12 pack was just enough to take the hedge off. You know, it didn't get me drunk. And, and I was going to mellow out tonight. Not going to go to jail, not going to wreck anything, not going to embarrass myself. And

that be my plan, you know, and I and it, and it was, it was like I always, and I loved the speaker last night, Danielle, talking about the delusion. That's what it is. I believed a lie. I believe the lie that I could drink and get to that perfect level and stop and then just maybe drink enough after I got to the perfect level to maintain that perfect level forever. You know, that was like my plan and it never worked out. I had to start over every day, you know, but

those

I mean that was the whole goal of my life was to get to the perfect level and stay there. But it was like I get to the perfect level and just like fly around past it every day. But so anyways, I get in the truck and head to the liquor store and I lived in Benton. All right, so many of y'all are familiar with that area. I get to about Bryant. My brain be telling me, you know, you might as well get a case of beer because that way you want to come back tomorrow. You know what, I get up about Alexander about to take the exit

and I'll be thinking, you know, they got these 30 packs now. You know Wolf, Wolf, one of my buddies wants a beer. You know, I don't want to be a

I want to be a butt hole, you know, and

so I, yeah and I always came out of, came out of liquor store with a bunch of beer and a big jug of whiskey because that's what I really liked and it's going to last me like 3 or 4 days. And. And if y'all drank like me, you know what happened, You know that phenomenon or craving kicked in and it was just impossible for me to stop, you know, unless I got locked up, passed out, got knocked out, which

that never even happened. That happened.

I got kind of whooped up on a little bit a few times, but

I only been knocked out one time in my life. I fell off the house about five years ago. Anyway, I I'm real hard headed. That's the deal, you know, I was born ass first with a real hard head. So

anyway, so that that was my routine and it and it was every day. And so you can imagine the problems it's created. I'm not going to go into detail, you know, problems with the family, problems with work, you know, even though it was a drink and drug and drug friendly

workplace,

you know, it got crazy and and I just, I just couldn't hold together. So what happened was, let's see, it was summer of 98,

you know,

I had a lot of problems, like every alcoholic. And what happened was alcohol quit working and

hopefully y'all know what I mean but you know what I mean by that for me is I had all these issues going on in my brain. These were issues. They were like things you think about and talk, you know, issues and like,

look at what I'm doing to my family, you know, look at, you know, look at all my buddies dying. I had a lot of acquaintances die in a real short period of time. Look at all this screwed up shit going around me. And why, why am I even here? Why am I? And this is all the kind of stuff you start thinking about as an alcoholic and what you do, you go drink

because you've got to have that sense of ease and comfort so you don't have to think about that crap. And so that's what I would do, but I couldn't get no ease and comfort anymore. And I would drink insane amounts of alcohol trying to get that sense of agent comfort. And the best I could get was slobbering drunk and pass out. And it got so bad that I, you know, I've done the deal. I've gotten drunk two or three times in a day. I've, I've spent two days trying to drink and pass out. You know, it got so bad I got suicidal,

but I didn't have the gust of blowing my brains out.

Thank God I tried to get some people pissed off enough to kill me. I mean, I'm really serious about that.

So my best thinking was this is what I'll do. I'll just drink myself to death, OK? Because I know you can do that. I've known people that had done that. So

you know, so I, I set out to do that and I, I came to on August 8th of 98 after a three day blackout. They determined looks from jail. This one day went on a three day blackout. August 8th of 98

I came to my parents house was destroyed. I destroyed it and these fits of rage because there's the end when alcohol quit working, say I'd always been a happy go lucky drunk, but when it quit working it was just non-stop rage or the other extreme like I'm terrified. So I'm either like running out into the bushes, which I did because they're after me, or,

you know, or I would just, I mean, I start.

Stuff with people I shouldn't be starting stuff with, you know, just because they look at me weird. What? And anyways, I came to on August 8th of 98 and I realized that I I can't. Yeah. Three or four of them. Man, I've always had powerful thirst. OK,

but

anyways, I realized I can't even die. I mean, I cannot even die. And I remember I walked outside of the house and I looked up to the sky. It was a beautiful blue sky real early in the morning. I said, God, if you're real and really help people, then just let me die on the way this gas station or give me some kind of help. I had to go and get some cigarettes because I couldn't find any in the house when there were some right there on the coffee table. But

I couldn't find them.

But I said, God, just please let me die on the way this gas station, which is like 5 minutes away, or give me some kind of help. And what happened was I got arrested at the gas station like 10 minutes later. To this day don't understand on what grounds they charged me with what they charged me with. But that's not relevant. We won't go into that. It's Saline County, you know.

But anyways, anyway, moving right along, but

I went to jail and

really, really a bad time. OK, I I was not in a good jail goer there. Then

the last,

the last week I drank, I went to jail twice, right? Those two times I while I went to jail and while I was in jail, I was hog tied at least 10 times. I'm talking about they would come into the solitary cell to hog timing and I'm like what can I do in here?

You know what you know like beat my brain on the ball or so y'all like that. Wouldn't you know and

I but I was not a piece of old jail goer, but they're thin. But anyways, they we weren't on good terms. I would say that I,

and they, they really wanted me to help them get some people that I was really good friends with and I was having no part of that. And they, they played a lot of tricks with my brain and, and anyway, this went on for a long time and it was really, really, really bad. And I've done a lot of inventory work over this resentment I had towards them. But what happened was I after a day or day and a half? I don't know. But

see, I've been drinking large amounts of alcohol. OK, you know, better than a liter of whiskey every day for months,

probably better than 1/2 gallon for a couple weeks. And when they locked me up that day, it just, I stopped, you know, cold Turkey and I got real sick, started having convulsions, had some seizures and I went in conscious. I got a sponsor, had a sponsor a few years ago that gave me a new term for it, the crappie flop. And I, I can relate to that.

I don't see him in here. He was here last night. But

I can relate to doing some crappie flopping. But

hog tied, OK, anyway,

OK, so, so I went unconscious for I don't know how long, could have been in a minute, could have been hours a day or something. But when I came to, I was in this fog, you know, I didn't know where I was. And I, I was having these weird hallucinations like I've done things that make you see things before those drugs, you know, and, and, but

this was, this was like nothing I'd ever experienced. This was like some evil stuff. And anyways, there was a trustee, like I said, I was in my home away from home, the solitary cell. But this trustee looked through the little square window on the door at me and said, I've seen him. And I was like, man, where am I? Because I need to get out of here. And

he told me, man, you died and you're in hell now and you're never getting out. And, and I believe that, man. All right.

And yeah, it's kind of humorous, yeah, but.

But

I don't know, I I still can't laugh a lot about that. But that's

that's good for me. I'm glad y'all enjoy it, but

you know, I, I honestly, yeah, I'm not not kidding. I really honestly believe that. And and now I was like, hold on, you know, I've been wanting to die, but this ain't so cool, you know? And, and

that's where I hit my bottom because

a few days before that, I had had a moment of clarity, you know, like three or four days before that when I've been in that solitary cell, I'd had this moment of clarity that I'm screwed, OK? I cannot. I've tried everything I can to manage my life and I cannot make it. And, and if there is a God, he's going to have to help me because nobody can help me. I knew that no human power could help me. They tried.

They could lock me up. They could

just one example, OK, I smoked 2 cigarettes, hog tied one. I'll tell you the whole story if you want to hear it after me. But I mean they can't help you know, and I cannot help myself. If there is a God, he's got to help me. But I didn't ask him for help. Then I waited till I come out of that blackout on August 8th. And here I've finally broke down and asked God that everybody told me my whole life loves me and cares about me is there to help me. And now I'm dead and I'm in hell and I'm screwed for all eternity. And

OK, so that's the circumstances

of my bottom, but what the bottom really was, was a feeling of 100% hopelessness. OK. And that's what I, I share with each and every one of y'all, you know, because we all got crazy stories about how we get here. I've never heard anybody tell the same story that I've got. And that's no big deal. It's just, but the, the deal is we are, you know, I was 100% hopeless of my situation ever improving, of me ever being able to live life

in any kind of reasonable way, drinking or not drinking or,

and, and, and I tell you what, another thing was, it was an awful, awful, lonely feeling. And you know, when I got to the room, they told me I never have to feel the way I felt when I got here. And I didn't believe that at first, but I believe it now. And thank God for that. Thank God for that. And

you know, anyways, so I spent about 3 days in this mindset. I'm dead, I'm in hell. They let me back into the regular drunk tank and got in some fights. And anyway. But anyway, after several days of this, I finally got a little light bulb in my head, you know, maybe these guys were just messing with me, you know? But I knew that if I wasn't dead, I must be dying because my whole body hurt. I couldn't.

I couldn't eat,

you know, I felt like I've been run over by like 100 mules or something, you know, just kick the shit out of me or something, you know, I don't know if any of y'all got experience with the crappie flop, but it, it really messed me up and I never want to get sober again ever. And so anyway,

I realized maybe there was mess with me. So I started begging for help. I started begging them, you know, let me see a doctor, let me go to the hospital

something, let me give you some kind of help, you know. And finally, they let me go

like an hour before I was gonna go up for playing arraignment. And they were gonna keep me with Nobel for a long, long time. I'd probably died. But they let me go with my mom and dad. They've been trying to Get Me Out. And because they knew how sick I was and under the condition that I would go directly to detox and I was like, wherever, just give me some help. And I didn't find this out too much later, but they told my dad, if he gets out of the Jeep to even smoke a cigarette, you call us and we'll have every cop in

on his ass, OK? And that's my relationship with them. They told my parents that I was a menace to myself and a menace to society, you know, and I was going to run And but I was through, all right. And I got I got the detox, the sobering center in Little Rock. Thank God for that place.

And I went to sleep and I woke up and this woman, you know, it's kind of like a lot of y'all probably been there, but a lot of y'all probably haven't. But it's kind of like set up. You got all these beds.

Well, even if you've never been like in there for your drinking, you may be carried the message in there. OK, all right. But

you got a bed and you got this little curtain you can pull around and that. And I had my curtain pulled around me. And this. I hear this woman's voice. Daniel. Daniel. And they got a lamp on the other side of the curtain. I wake up and there's all this bright white light all around me. I'm like, oh holy shit, you know, And

I had been, I have a strong religious background. OK, not I'm not religious today, but I I grew up in the Catholic Church and going to the Missionary Baptist Church every Sunday.

That's a whole another story. But

I, I knew some things about heaven and hell and purgatory and, and I was thinking, man, maybe I'm in purgatory, you know, that'd be like sweet, because you can get out of that shit, you know?

So I,

anyways, I, she said, do you need anything, Daniel? And I was like, man, you know, it took me like two or three minutes to answer him because I was thinking, what do you say? You know what? And I thought maybe they let you smoke in purgatory. And I said

a cigarette maybe would be nice. And she said, well, OK, you need to get your ass in that room next door or fixed me. And I ate me. I said yes ma'am, I'm there. All right. And that's how I went to my first aid meeting. I'd never been before, didn't know what a A was.

Anyways, I, I went into this room and there was three members of Alcoholics Anonymous, carried a meeting in there

and I'll never forget this as long as I live. I hope I never do. But these guys and, and from what I understand, they're all three still sober this day, but they carried the message to me. OK. And this is what I how I was all right. I had turned into a nasty drunk. OK, That's all there is to say that when they weighed me in, I weighed 138 lbs. I had seed tick bites from head to toe from being hog tied on a gravel Rd. in August in Arkansas.

I had cuts all over my face and upper body from fighting in jail.

I probably hadn't bathed in a couple weeks,

all right? These people from Alcoholics Anonymous shook my hand

and told me that I was glad I was there. All right.

And that's,

you know it.

It'd been a long time since anybody shook my hand, you know, and told me that I was glad I was, I was there. But

so they carried the message. They talked about themselves and what they used to be like and how they used to think and how they used to try to get to that perfect level when they couldn't. And they go right back, right past it. And,

and then they shared about getting sober and working these 12 steps and Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, and there was just something about it that I'll never forget that these people, I just know there was something real about them because who in their right mind would take time out of their busy schedule to come see a sick, nasty drunk like me

and, and try to help me? And I knew there was something real here, and I didn't know what it was,

but it gave me just enough hope that maybe if I do what these people did, I won't want to die. You know, maybe if it really works like they say it does, I can have a life that's worth living. That's all I was after, you know? And, and so that's what I did. I got from there. I went to the treatment center. I went to Serenity Park.

Thank God for that place, you know? Yeah, we got some alumnus up in here, you know,

and we got down this real quick.

Spilled a little. I've always been messy drunk,

but anyways, I started working the steps. The first step I'm going to say is it was a relief to finally find out what my problem is. My problem is I'm just like all these people in AAI, have an allergy to alcohol. When I put one in me, I develop a phenomenon of craving. And when I'm not drinking, I'm obsessing about getting that sense of age and comfort. So I'm screwed because my brain's telling my body, my body can do something physically cannot do.

And that's a recipe for death and permanent insanity, you know? And I was a firm believer because I experienced that first hand, you know, I drank to the gates of insanity or death. And I was only 19 at the time, you know,

but it was such a relief, you know, and then I found out, you know, that that my real problems in my mind because my body is never going to change. So I got to work these steps so that I never get so screwed up in the head that I think I have to take a drink to fix it. And

anyways, the third step, I had this experience in the shower one morning. I shared about it last night, but I was like, so scared of all this God stuff. Like the last prayer I'd said before the third step prayer was God let me die or give me some kind of help and I ended up in hell, all right. And so I, I was scared to death of, of praying the third step prayer because I had seen in my childhood what happened when people get God

in church and stuff. And that was not attractive to me at that time.

All right, like I said, 19, I was a Heather and you know, I was like, I wasn't all about going and building huts in Ethiopia and hanging out Bibles at the airport, but just like, sure, that's not, but I had AI reached a turning point. OK, just like it says and how it works. We reached a turning point. My turning point was in the shower one morning. I realized that I will do anything not to go back where I just came from. Anything.

I'll, I'll stand on my head on top of the Washington Monument

with people planting bombs in it. Who cares? You know, whatever I got to do to

to get this, you know, whatever these people tell me to do, I will do it. You know, if I have to go build the huts about whatever.

And I made that decision that morning in the shower to go on with the steps. And today, of course, I understand that step a little differently. I'm turning it over to the care of God as I understand him because my will of my life, my thinking and my actions when I got here was all kinds of messed up. I needed a new set of directions because my directions were just messed up. And

my new set of directions was the steps. So I got, I got working on the steps and the 4th and 5th step. All right. When they explained to me, here's what you do. You take these sheets of paper, you start out with the first column of the resentments. You write down everybody you're mad at or every institution. And I was talking to my first sponsor about this. And I was like, man, this is going to be so easy. And I pulled this list out of my wallet. I had made it

at some time last few weeks or months of my drinking, the list of everybody that had to die before I did

this. And this is actually this is actually something that kept me alive one day, all right, because there was one day I really was going to blow my brains out. But two, two things stopped me. One was all the people that had to die before I did. And two was it was about harvest time and I had some pot growing all right,

so, and by the way, I got sober. I didn't get to smoke any of that stuff. My buddy got it all and but, and thank God he got in time before I had to go to prison for it because they know about long story. Anyways, let's get off of that. But so I anyway, but I, I made my inventory, my first one. All right, let me explain another thing about the burnt deal. All right, when they, when they took me to detox, my parents and

I hadn't drank or drugged in five days.

OK, I, I love newcomers because I love talking to them, seeing where they're at mentally, like if they're even there with us because I wasn't all right. And they, they say that, you know, about 5% of what I told them made sense. I couldn't talk and make senses. So when I did my first 4th and 5th step, I did the best I could

because I did not want to go back where this came from. And it worked alright. If I looked at it today, I'd probably be like this biggest piece of crap you've ever seen. But it was the best I could do and it worked. It kept me sober and I did the fist up with my sponsor, you know, and then later in sobriety, some things happened where I had to get another sponsor and I got the chance to do it again and I did it, man. You talk about like thorough and like I got to get it all

and thank God for that. He had a plan to help me out with that. But

anyways, these resentments, I had such deep seated resentments, and there were a few of them that were so hardcore that just doing the 5th step didn't just make them just go away like a lot of them. And so I had to pray for some people and I had to actually want to be free of the resentment before I could ever be willing to look at my part, you know, however insignificant my part seemed. I mean, that's the only way I can get freedom.

And so

I eventually developed that willingness on those few resentments I had. They were real deep seated. And then the fear, man, that's something that I still experienced today. I mean, I still experience all this today, you know, but not near like it was. But

I and the sex. Okay, Amanda made me promise not to talk about the farm animals, but

just let me

I'm not going to say it.

I

But here's the deal about the sexual inventory.

Thank God they wrote about sex in a spiritual book

And, and when, you know, in the authorities, I think that took some guts and, but I don't know that I'd be sober without it. All right. And there were some things I had a lot of embarrassment and shame and remorse about in that area and other areas that I that I was never going to tell anybody. I was going to take them to my grave. And I told my sponsor these things.

And then he turned around, said, man, that's, you know, you're pretty sick. Yeah. But, you know, I did some sick stuff like that, like this right here, you know, And he told me about it. And I was like, man, you know, that wasn't so bad. And now. And what I gained from that fist of experience was another human being in my life that knows everything there is to know about me, all the horrible stuff I was going to take to my grave. And I can trust this person. First person I ever felt I could completely trust. And you talk about some loneliness going away.

All right, the 5th step promises, you know, a lot of people I've heard share around where I go to a a talk you. Well, anyway, they talk about when they did the 5th step, they felt like £250 feed sacks been lifted off their shoulders, you know, and I didn't really get that, you know, but I got what it said in the book.

I got this stuff where it was like for the first time I felt like, man, maybe this will work, you know, I got this feeling that maybe there is a God that's going to help me, you know, And then I realized, man, I can look at people in the eye over the next few weeks. And I was like, man, you know, I can, I can actually sleep at night without thinking about. So anyways,

step six and seven, let's see how we're doing on time. Oh yeah, we still got about 2 1/2 hours. We're good, but

but anyways, step seven, I'm not going to talk about ochre or nothing. I got here for the end of Larry's talk and that was he said it much simpler and better than I could ever say it that, you know, I've got to be become willing. I become willing through the 5th step, seeing how bad my character defects have screwed up my life. And then I become humble because I realize that I cannot change myself