The Firing Line group of Cocaine Anonymous in Dallas, TX

I am an addict,

truly blessed to be here and I'm our covet addict. I don't suffer from any of the things, any of the symptoms that make me using or active addict today. I don't suffer from the mental state that precedes the first one and a body that isn't satisfied, a phenomenon of craving. And I got that way because I did the work of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. I continue to do so through the power of God and the help of a sponsor. I am currently on my amends and practice in 10/11/12 to the best of my

and I was just

no talking about amends. I my sponsor said a guy like me with the amount of time I have has way too many MNS still left to be made and I don't. Hopefully this isn't recorded but he's a bastard. No he's right. I I get to a place in recovery. I've had many of these journeys, these experiences that are spiritual in nature, that allowed me to think I'm above it all and that I'm cured and well and I'm well, but

not the way I think I am. And I stopped doing the things I knew to need to be, well,

those daily actions, but I did them today and I've been doing it pretty consistent. My recovery date, the date of my journey that began was January 15th of 2003 and had lost the power of choice. So I didn't pick that day. I thought there would be many other days that I had had, you know, what we call bottom. So in other words, what I'm getting at is I don't have a hard drink or a hard druggers bottom. That's just not the case. And I tell you a little bit about that, but

I'm going to read something real quick out of the big book just to so almost similar to what you read tonight. But I find this useful sometimes. I was kind of inspired to read this before I speak and and this is on there's a solution. Page 29 is the last two paragraphs says each individual in the personal stories describes in his own language from his point of view, the way he establishes relationship with God. These give a fair cross section of our membership in the clear cut idea

what actually happened in their lives. We hope no one will consider these self revealing accounts in bad taste. Hope is that many alcoholic men and women desperately in need will see these pages and we believe that is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that they will be persuaded to say yes. I am one of them too. I must have this. So I'm going to talk about my story tonight. I,

I don't know a lot of you. There's some that I do know, but I'm not from Texas. I don't know if you've picked up on that yet, but I'm actually from Maine and we have a great saying in Maine, come to Maine on vacation, leave on probation. And

so if you're ever up there and you're active, be very, very careful

now. But so I'm going to talk about my story. I really, you know, I'm, I love to talk about the big book and all that work and get fired up and get everybody going to talk about the spiritual revolution that's going on in TA and Alcoholics diamonds and even in NAI really like to talk about that. But because

a lot of people don't know me, this might really my first major speaking engagement since I've been here. I moved here about seven months ago. I got married and I worked for a great treatment center and I travel a lot. So I don't get to go to a lot of meetings around here. I get to go to a lot of meetings other places. But so I think it's just appropriate to talk a little bit about my story and how I ended up here in this moment talking to you because I don't think you really appreciate where I come from if you don't. You know where I am today if you don't know where I come from.

So I'll tell you about my first experience with alcohol and drugs

was at six years old, and that was by something I only think they sell in the state of Texas. It's called coffee Brandy. My friend Nikki Light came down here and when she was active and she called me up and was like Smitty, they don't sell coffee Brandy. And she was devastated. But that was my first experience and it was spiritual nature. You see, what was set in motion then was the effect produced by alcohol. Now, my mother gave me that drink and I didn't think that she gave it to me in any malice or meant harm or any of that stuff.

She probably thought it was funny, right? But my life changed from that point forward. Now,

I don't know if I had the phenomena craving or any of that other stuff going on at that young of age, but I can tell you that I remember the effect produced by alcohol. And I'll tell you what I started to do at a young age. I started to do things for the effect produced by it, right? If I got in a friendship with you and we played video games, we did whatever we did. If I read a book, I did, I did it all for the effect. And if it didn't give me the effect I was looking for, we weren't hanging out. I wasn't watching that movie. We weren't playing that game. And so I grew up another. I started to really have a lot of judgment. And I think judgment is

actually one of our it is the one thing I need to lose. And I'll get a little bit later into that. But I started to judge. And when I started to judge and look around me in the neighborhood I grew up in, now I'll tell you about that neighborhood and the people that are around me, the people that I was judging. You see, there was a lot more value and a lot more importance based based in being cool than it was being smart. OK. So I grew up in a single mother, you know, single. I had, you know, my mother, my father wasn't, he was an absentee. He was never there. Everybody in my neighborhood

really like that. There was no lawyers or doctors, any people, the people that were my heroes weren't Michael Jordan or Dominique Wilkins or Wayne Gretzky or any that was the people on the corner hustling and doing the things that they were doing. Now, a friend of mine who had some older brothers and I loved, I just, I just loved the older kids. And, and he would talk about these brothers that he had in a way that I never felt that way inside the way he described it. You see, I, I, I didn't feel that way about my own family. And I thought that is going to be something wrong.

Now when I took that effect that I got from alcohol, I remember the way I felt connected to everything around me, right? It's with the promises. It really was the promises. I didn't even realize that that's what I was looking for and

was was that was that ease and comfort. And so I started to come at life with that, you know, that mind and those type of goals. Now you hear a lot of people and you're a common theme is like in cocaine anonymous is, is, you know, I just never,

I never wanted to grow up to be an addict. I never wanted to grow up to be an alcoholic. I never wanted to do that. I never wanted I did. That was just, you know, I don't know if it was I was a you could call me a product of my own environment. You know, it was I did. I didn't know what that meant and what would happen to me doing that. But that was kind of my ambition. And so at 7-8, nine years old, that was my ambitions and I acted that out in many other ways. Snorting kool-aid, which is horrible. We got a kool-aid snorters in here or what was that little smarties. I crushed those up and

get right inside from the sugar.

The phenomena craving would take over now and so but I would do it again, right? I was like that burned really bad. Let's do another one. Maybe it'll work this time even better.

So, you know, that's what started to happen with me is I, I was very ambitious. I wanted to, to, to do those things. And I was very fascinated with what we would call the drug game. And so 1415 years old, I was drinking and drugging and had those ambitions and I got what I wanted,

right. And so I started selling styling. We got hooked on benzos. I loved at 15 years old. I was just so strung out on benzos at 15 years old that I would wet the bed. I mean, it was, you know, seizures, that type of stuff. I was really a, a mass at 15 years old now

there wasn't a lot of, you know, my story has a lot of, you know, consequences, I guess we could call them. But I, I, you know, when I first came in, I thought that's what made me alcoholic. So I'll describe to you some of the occupational hazards that I, that I had. And that's all they really were were occupational hazards

didn't make me alcoholic. I learned on or attic later on. It was my direct relationship with with those substances that made me that way. But I, I, I thought, you know, that the consequences would just get bad enough that it would, you know, I would stop. But I at 15 years old, there was no need to right. I was having fun. I was had a had a, you know, a lot of friends. If you did, if you were in the drug game, you for some reason, when you had things that people wanted, you seemed

have a lot of friends.

And, and so I started to live that life out and by 16, I, I, you know, by 1617 years old, I had crossed some sort of line. I'll tell you a little bit about, you know, this is a Cocaine Anonymous meaning I like to talk a little bit about my relationship with cocaine. And that's really where that journey had begun. And, and, and to continue to, to cultivate, so to speak.

I was, I remember trying to think the first time I ever did crack, but I was, I was dabbling some coke because I was the only weed. And that's just what people had other stuff.

And so I started to do some lines and smoke some coke and, and got really strung out and hung out with this, this woman, she was twice my age and would stay up all night with her and her friends and they were shooting coke and we were smoking coke. And her son would be like, who's that? And he was little and he would be up like going to the bathroom and he'd see this. I was 17. I mean, I'm, I was only 5, maybe five years or seven years older than he was. You know, I must have looked like a kid to him, like hanging out with his like 35

old mother, 40 year old mother and doing I mean, he had to know what I was I was doing.

And so at that point I really liked like the whole trade weed, sell weed to get cocaine and I started to do that and you know, cocaine pyro cocaine was like powder phenomenon are craving, right. It would just it was like power POC, you know, I just I do one line. It would be you know, and so I I could, I got that, you know, with especially when they came to cocaine, the phenomena of craving

coming down though, and it was good. That was a benzoate because I always liked it, except for when you get too strong on that benzos and you do lots of cocaine, then you would you just wouldn't come down. It was just yeah, that would always. But anyway, so I I'll tell you where I got with my relationship with cocaine. There was this I'm from Portland, ME, New York City is not that far from there. And there was this kid, his name's Jujay and he was a Latin King. He was from New York City, did timer, Rutgers Island. He was

probably 10 years old than me and I started selling crack cocaine

for jujay. We'd be out, you know, red tops, blue tops, yellow tops, you know, all of it just bad, you know, doing coke, smoking. He happens. He'd have his girlfriend like half naked walking around the house. And I'm like, man, this is I love this life, right? Big thing of crack. And we're just chopping it up and smoking it and doing all you know. And, you know, The funny thing about Jujay is that I had a relationship with him years after this, but he was so nuts. This kid

five years ago, someone ripped him off. You still living in Portland? Someone ripped him off and he killed the guy for $100. Like, I don't just rolled up and just was like, bang shot the guy right in broad daylight. Just did not give a fuck, you know, And I, I'm like thinking, yeah, this was like my, you know, when we were doing that, of course, we were long lost friends or brothers or something, you know, doing all that. So I started to really just, I started to get involved in a lot of,

you know, a lot of illegal activities that would soon

wind me up with a lot of people hating me. A lot of people disappointed me. And my mother would be like just, you know, she her idea of me being well, or like stopping drinking. If you just go to school, if you just get the right job, you get the right girl, you just line all these things up, then I would be okay and I would try and I really, you know,

I try and I would, I really wanted to be happy. I didn't want to do those things because I didn't think they would create happiness. The life I was living seemed to be the one, the only normal one, as we talked about in the in the big book. And so at 1718 years old, I started to get in a lot of trouble and was arrested. And

what started to happen is that I got so beaten down by me, I started to just not give up. You know, I robbed people for $10. I robbed someone for $10 one time. They're like, can you like go up the store? I just took off of their money. I'd be gone, you know, and that's like, that's where I started to do it. It started to happen to me. I, I, I crossed that line and I tried to stop. And I don't know if anybody, if I don't think everybody in here, and I could be wrong about that. It's done like jail time. But what started to happen to me when I would stop using and drinking and drugging? It was like doing.

It was like doing time

till the next one, right? And, and if you haven't been to jail and you've got that experience, you've been there,

you've been to jail because that's what it's like doing time between and so 19 years old, I started to use IV drugs pretty heavily.

I and A lot of people, you know, are ripped off, a lot of people shooting a lot of drugs and people are not happy with me. And I had, you know, years before that 1516 years old, I just had thought, you know, I was the man. Like I was so delusional. To give you an idea, I had a physique like Paris Hilton.

I'm 636300 and 60 lbs. I walk, I have sunglasses on, walk around in a cane right in my apartment. Well, my mother's house that I was, you know, holding her hostage at. I'd have like the family tree. You ever see the Godfather? The family tree would be me at the top. All this stuff like my consigue, Larry, my capo. You know, I remember one kid who got sober. He said, you know what, you told my buddy you were going to make him your capo. And he said, he said he came downstairs. He said, is Mike Smith's fucking crazy? He's going to talk about me making

capo. Well, the what the hell is going on? So, so at not 1819, you know, in this reputation, this reputation had, you know, I had my my best friend at that time was in as it was in prison for making a phone call. He threatened his girlfriend in Massachusetts. He got picked up. And this is a very important part because this is this is where things really started to change for me because I was left without like my crew. So my buddy calls his girlfriend

who he threatens her Leaves on the leaves on the the

was back then what was the answer machine? Right. So leaves it leaves down the answer machine. The feds come and arrest him at his job. He calls me up like I can't wait to get in front of the judge. Judges just got to throw this out like, oh, I threatened my girlfriend. Well, as a federal offense because it was over state lines, right. And when you got in front of that judge, the judge at first offense, they hated his family. His family was very his father had killed somebody back in the day and got it basically got off the self-defense and was very they sold a lot of weed, which is very strange. They never really caught into high drugs.

They would sell a lot of weed. So they when they got I would assume that when they got him, they were just going to smoke. So they gave him two years in prison for threatening his girlfriend and federal penitentiary. And so when he went to the feds, I was down was like without my defense right with my, my, me and him would just go and we do a lot of you know, I was never real. My wife was asking me about this, but I wasn't, you know, I wouldn't be like considered, I guess, a badass. I was very unpredictable, like you didn't know if I was going to steal from you or like hit you with something like I didn't really care.

And I don't know if that's sociopathic, but I, I, I heard, I mean, I physically it's funny, but I physically like, I still owe 11 of men's. Like I like physically have hurt some people pretty bad that I'm very ashamed of. And this was around that time when my buddy went to the prison.

And so he goes to prison. And it's funny is the thing. At that time, that would be the worst thing to ever be called, would be a snitch, right? A rat. So this rumor and gossip got around that I was cooperating,

which wasn't true, which turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. It was absolutely the best thing because now I can, I'm not trusted. No one will sell to me. I have no place to go, right? My, my, my life is online. People actually showed up in my house with guns in my mother's house with guns waiting for me. And I would, you know, I would hide out and do whatever I did. I think I had like maybe one or two people that would talk to me. So at 19 years old,

I got arrested by the DEA

and

yeah, it was a pretty pathetic

circumstances that got me, ended up getting me arrested by the DEA.

You know, I was down at down to high school hanging out and, you know, got the principal pulled me in and strip searched me and found found drugs on me. And then a month later, DA came DEA came knocked on my door. And one of them actually turned out as funny as some people know this, but one of the DEA agent actually turned out to be a dirty, dirty DEA agent. And some, some of my like valuables that I had that I actually stole from people actually got stolen that day. I went into jail and no one would ever like break really break him up. He was just very and he was looking at it because they came knocked at my door.

I have no shoes on and I'm such an arrogant mock that I say come inside. I have a triple beam cocaine right and weed behind my door. I was so arrogant. I would I had like my Bureau behind the door. So it closed and on top of the Bureau was all this. So when we walked in my room, he closed the door. It would cover everything up. So I'm like, go ahead, get on my shoes and he's going through my baseball cards. I I get strung out on baseball cards. I get, I get on a run and I'm like, dude, you go up and get like

me some baseball cards box, I'll give you some dope, man, Like straight, like I had people like that would go in

and they were just stealing all kinds of baseball cup dude. I got like a Hakeem Olajuwon card, man. What do we give me for it? I'd be like to bring over once, you know, I just get, I get so strung out. And so he was like going through my shit and I, I go to jail and this girl Charity actually bails me out. And as funny as I made her a man's because she used the bail money. I got the bail money like a couple months later, six months later, I was trying to give her back to her and she's like, that was her name. Charity. It's a charity. Either take the money, it's going to a charity either way,

so you can take it and it'll go to you charity. I'll go put in another you know, but she she bailed me. She bailed me out and and I just got a real bad run. My girlfriend left me had this girlfriend, you know from from 15 years old. She left me everything was just gone now nobody around and I robbed my I just I made amends for this recently to us kid gave me a bunch of Dilaudid and I

ripped them off and before that the backup I had some bouts with again.

You see some people get sober and they get happy. I'm not one of those. I am totally like that is part of my problem is like, Sir, I don't have a drug or an alcohol problem, a drug alcohol problem. Stop by using drugs or alcohol, right, take it away. It's gone. See, my problem starts when I get when I get sober. So I started to go into detox today. I had no place to go. It's a good place to hide out, get some meds. And so I'd go into detox, go into outpatient. And I did that three or four times and just chronically like, and I'll tell you

what, the furthest thing for my mind was a a they take God a a I'm like, OK, yeah, a A is going to be good for me. There was no CEA up in Portland at that time. It's it's pretty popular up there now. Or God was even further than that idea. Like there was I, you couldn't take my, what I thought were my problems and say, oh, the solution would be God, it's all like, I walked up in the meeting and said, yeah, that'll work for what's going on, right? Like it doesn't, you don't get there from where you are when you're that you just like you're like if I.

Get more money. If if I just got this, you know, I, I do this position and you know, it would be, it would be everything but those two things, I would never have put that together. And so my story starts to become one of absolute ignorance. I had no idea. And they had told me and they even read the big book and the guy that came in to do the meeting,

who I realize now almost killed me, but you know, I, he was doing like six and seven. And this weird thing, I don't know if they do this down here, they have this weird thing with six to seven. He's talking, he's talking about like him fixing his own defects. And I don't know what's going on.

And, you know, I just had never put that together. And so I ripped this buddy off for Dilaudid. I walk up the street and

and there's this girl sitting on the steps that I know and I've been to the house, a party there, drank there, did all this stuff there. I said, hey, what's going on? What can it kill Tom? Anybody ever do that? Rip somebody off and like, all right, I got to act like I'm going to get rid of the stuff. And so enough time will lapse so I can come back, have a good story and punch myself in the face or do something to make it look like I got robbed or whatever. You know, I was so just so deceitful and dishonest and and I was the type of guy would just like I would hang out with you and you would have something that I wanted and I would just I would, you know, smooth you whine, you Don you do.

I did to get that from you and the soon as I could get the opportunity to get it from you, I would I would take advantage of that. I mean, I was I would steal if I went in your bathroom, I would steal the Cologne. I'd be like, oh, Calvin Klein. All right, This is my I would steal everything. I love taking stuff that's not mine, right. I even did that in sobriety.

What you can talk about if you want No,

how humbling is that when you're absolutely stone cold sober, going to make amends, right? I was, you know when you're fucked up, you can say, wow, it was high in your mind, right? I was messed up when I did that. You know, when you're absolutely stone cold sober, it's a different thing. So I go rip this guy off, run into this girl

and she's like, hey, like, where have you been? I'm like, oh, things are good. I like went to this rehab deal and she likes that's funny. And, you know, married with my sister. I said, yeah, Mary is great. She says she's sober. She's been sober like five or six months. She's no Charlie. And I knew Charlie by his reputation, like he was like out like doing. He would do breaking, you know, burglaries. I don't know if Doug knows anything about that at all, but he would do this type of stuff. And

that was just never my game. You know,

I like to rip the people that did all the work. The bear guy would rip them off. Yeah. That was the type of my my deal. So I have no clue. You know, phenomena crave and mental state that, you know, you hear a lot like the first one gets you drunk, the first one gets you high. That's that's not the case that, you know, for a guy like me, it's the mental state that precedes any of that, the thinking that goes along with that. So I'm in this have no clue that what I have is alcoholism and drug addiction.

Have no clue what the what where my the condition that my spirit's in. Have no clue.

You know, I couldn't stand being in my own skin. I never thought about killing myself only when I was sober,

only when I was. So I would like get dramatic and be like, you don't love me and like act all out, like maybe a good reason to go out and get screwed up, right. But I had, I got stone cold sober and wanted to die. And so if you feel that way when you get sober, what are you going to do? You're going to treat that very quickly. And so I'm in that mode, ripping this guy off. She says Charlie, I'm like, Charlie's an asshole. I don't like Charlie. I've never met Charlie, by the way, never talked to him, never had any. But I'm don't like Charlie, right

course, I think this right, I'd like to think that people like I did all you CAA people, I would think at you and when you call me out. But anyway, so is there coming back for a meeting? You should come up and hang out. So I go up there and there's a couple people from a A there and

they just leave. Like I'm totally jammed. Like my knees are buckling, right? I'm like, hey, what's going on? I do the recovery thing too, right? Because I thought like I had gone to rehab, that I was like, at this, I was above them, right

Again. Never wanted to fit in, always wanted to stand out, right. So, umm,

they want to take me to this meeting. Next point. So I agreed to go this meeting. I shoot up some drugs. We walk to the meeting. Of course, I go on the back and it's in this wet shelter of of it's a wet shelter. There's a detox. It's like a public detox in Portland. It's a wet shelter where people, if you drink, you can sleep there and stay there. And so it's in this wet shelter that been by many, many times. And I sit down and she leaves me in the back of me and says I'm going to go tanning. I'll get you after the meeting. I'm thinking like, I know that I'm

most important person in here because I'm the new guy and you're going to leave me here. And

what was funny is, and I still like to do this as a meeting. I go to around here and, and, and they do this and I, This is why I don't like to agree with it. Is there was someone that said about, Oh, she got a treatment and they said, Hey, I was told by the people in treatment to come here and ask for temporary sponsor. And these like, there was like a kid, there was like 14 who was sober

and there was all these other people and they just went off on this lady because I was going to raise my hand until like temporary, you know, temporary sponsor, temporary surprise. They just went around. I was like, holy, why the hell did I end up right? I just, you know, they just went off and I was like, I guess I'm not going to raise my hand. But of course I'm all nice and happy and jammed in the back and, and, you know, feeling, feeling nice and comfortable. And so I, I leave the meeting and I don't know,

you know, what starts to happen

is that because of that place of ignorance, I started to go like hang out. They just call me up every day. These people doing 12 step work. I don't know what they were doing, right? They say, hey, come up, hang out. I had no place to go. I had absolutely no place to go. So I, I start hanging out with these, these a, a people and they took me to a couple of sober parties, right?

And what, and this is, this is funny. This is even funnier is the last time I used this was this was, I got sober the first time 12 days before my 21st birthday. You know, this was 8-9, nine years ago

and that tells you where I was at 12 days before. My 21st birthday was May 1st of 2000. And on like April 11th, 30th or 31st, I was asked over party raid the medicine cabinet. People in recovery don't like to take drugs. I took the drugs, the Vicodin went out and started talking about spiritual principles with them all. And so and I stayed and I stayed sober from that, from that point forward.

And I got into a a that that I knew of then, you know, I guess we call it open A a contemporary a what whatever it was.

A lot of people work in the steps out 12. I didn't know what what steps were stairs. I have no clue. It was not like I didn't know that was even, you know, a a attendance God steps to get spiritually fit, like was the furthest thing from my mind. I used to start going because people wouldn't shut up. They'd say get a sponsor. So I got a sponsor

and I started to do do some. I took some action. What I started to do was do it someone else's way really, and I got some results out of that.

I got some results that were good. I started to feel a lot better. I saw having experience with the God that I didn't believe in God. I believe. To me that was about and believed in drugs and alcohol and that was a power grade of myself. But I just started to believe because you guys believed. And I took some action, got down on my knees and started to take some steps and I start, you know, I hung out a lot with the fellowship and I got really high off the spirit of the fellowship.

And that started like the shine on things for me just started to wear off right.

And I am truly blessed. I ended up

self seeking on a female. I ended up in August of 2000, I went with my friend Meredith and Charlie became a very good friend of mine. I'm very pivotal part of my recovery. So I'm self seeking on this girl, Meredith, not Meredith. She's actually one of 12 step me. And so if you don't think you can, you know, help another person from the opposite sex, you're wrong because she 12 step me, but it was her friend. See, I'm considerate. I was self seeking on and we went up to

Farmington, Maine. And so I walk in this A and I thought I had like the solution. Like, you know,

I started to realize that, you know, I didn't come to AA or CA to stop using. I came because I couldn't stop using. You know, I started to realize that it wasn't for people who needed or wanted. It's for people that do it right. And so I had this very profound spiritual experience. I have resulted just taking some actions. And so I walk, I go up to this man, I walk into this room and there's like seven people answer big book man. I've been to big book man. I know all about the Big Book, right? Cover to cover. And

so I walk into the Big Book meeting and

it was called Chapter 2. And there's in Farmington and the guy named Adon Prince help spawn this being in Jerry Elkin starred that helped this meeting get going. I didn't know that thing. They would mention Don Jerry's name at some point during the during my course of time there. But what ended up taking place is they were reading, it was named Chapter 2. Conveniently, they were reading Chapter 2 and the guy started going through the big book breaking it down. His name was Paul. And I thank Paul about two years ago for this because it changed my life.

So Paul starts going through, breaking it down. He got to end rate right above the paragraph that I read actually

in a light bulb went off. You see, I had been doing steps and I would actually be like, Oh my, he does the steps out of the big book. You know, like I didn't. I had some secret way that I was doing them that was made-up by these guys that are really like cool, but they were like they were type of people that were like come over and paint my you know, that type of shit. It was just like, you know, you're going to work your way and you know yourself, you know, worship your sponsor and then you'll be all right, right, human power worshipping. So but he got to this part and it said

the wrong clear cut directions are given shown how we have recovered, followed by 43 personal experiences. It was like, whoa, clear cut directions. I mean, my buddy Garrison says this. You know, I always fancied myself a smart kid. I always thought I was like, I could, why haven't I ever seen that or heard that or anything before? I'm sure it was read in a light bulb went off. I was like, holy shit, the steps are in the it's from this point forward, they're going to show clear cut directions, show how we can be recovering. I was like, what? That was just news to me.

And so I, I went back down to Portland and I've been, I said this Doug, Doug laughed at this. But this is true. You know, I've been doing the work out of the big book before was ever popular. Really. Like it was, it was like bad, like there was one, there was like 3 big book meanings and all of Portland, all of the whole state of Maine, there's maybe six or seven now, but I mean, it was bad. Like there was one, the one big book meeting was called big Book step Study. And I went to it in Portland and I walked in and there was a guy they were doing it right out of the big book

sex inventory talking about things that he was do he did sober that I was currently doing sober. And I was blown away. I was just blown away. And I was like maybe a little bit too drastic, right? There were people going there for my Home group. Come check. When you left that meeting, when you wake up and you've been doing contemporary a that long and you walk into a big book meeting, you actually feel like you're not even sober. You're like, I'm not even sober. Like, I'm not doing what these guys are describing.

And so I left. I was in a halfway house,

kicked out of the halfway house, stone cold sober right wreckage. How can you go back to someone? I did it sober, got kicked out of the halfway house sober

and I was working at call center lost that job living my buddy Anthony, who by the way was, you know, locked up in the psychiatric ward forensics units. He was criminally insane, had changed his life by doing some work and then, you know, started resting on his laurels as well. So I I at a year clean and sober removed. I was self seeking like crazy on date lines, acting out really bad sexually

and I thought it would be a good idea and Anthony thought it'd be a good idea as well as that if and I got saved they should know that I got saved

that we could drive there. He got Mercedes given to him, very nice. Someone gave him cuz he was a boxer, gave me Mercedes. If we would use that Mercedes and work for an escort service and bring all the girls to God. So that's what we started to do at a year or so. Yes, that was my solution and it was a viable solution. Trust me, for about two weeks

and I got started. I started doing heroin, you know, shortly after that. I thought if I just don't drink, everything will be OK.

You know what happens next day I'm drinking next night or wherever it was I'm drinking and up back in treatment and grand jury indicts me in two weeks for rob. We're doing all this crazy stuff and I move away and I I'm on a relapse. No clue. There's a warrant out for my arrest for it for I try to rob drug dealer. They don't like that even though they selling drugs, they don't like it when you try to rob drug dealers FYI.

So I I'm on the run, drinking, drugging,

trying to hold a job together, trying to do, you know, the appropriate thing, I thought, and self will self will all through it, right, just just willing the way. And I actually 12 step this girl I was dating, it was drinking. She went to a meeting under my suggestion and called me said everybody knows you here and they miss you. And I would, I would like call people up and say, hey, like, I'm done, Like drunk, I'm done.

Let's go to a meeting. I'm ready.

And they would show up and knock on the door and be like, I'm not here. I convinced myself I wasn't there. Well, they're knocking the door like I'm really not here. I missed him coming by and I was just absolutely crazy. And it was, it was pitiful. It was absolutely pitiful. It was pitiful and crazy, pathetic. Pathetic would be the best way to describe it.

And so that's the most scariest part is like not knowing if you're going to make it back. I had no clue.

That's why I say I lost the power of choice. I did not know I was going to make it back. And that was in 2001. Drank the drug 12 step. That girl got really miserable. Started selling a lot of heroin. A lot of people started dying. Couple people did. One person did manslaughter, a bid. She wouldn't snitch me out. And I got really, really bad. Check myself into a methadone clinic. Was there for a little while. Check myself out of there. Drank, drank, drank.

And

it was not a night that was, you know, was that different Really, I was, this won't surprise anybody. Now you know my story. I'll get to the January 14th, 13th where it was right around that time I was, I was out with a couple of guys when I had grown up with my whole life. And the other guy, and he's still amazed. I think he might have alcoholism that it was my last time I drank, but it was with this guy, John and Tommy. And we were sitting at the strip club.

Love the strip clubs and

what ended up happening was, was experience, experience of a spiritual nature. Voice came over me, said Mike. Go back to a work the steps of the big Book that you'd be a lot different.

And that's what happened.

And I don't know when I came back, like the net was it the next day, it was very, very foggy. I started the self will and kept, you know, it's funny as a newcomer, I forgot to mention this earlier, but like when you ask for help, you hear a lot like you always hear any links, right? And I this is how sick I was. Like if you said you will, you know, my sponsors asked me if I was willing to go to any links and what I heard was, is does that mean sexual favors, right? That's like that's the type that's just where my mind's at right.