The Center for Spiritual Recovery meeting in San Marcos, CA

I would now like to introduce Scott G from

Laguna Niguel.

Hi, I'm Scott Jean. Scott Gimble from the podium, originally from Chicago by Wave, Laguna Niguel, CA.

And I'm a recovered alcoholic on top of all that.

And since I complied with the a, a tradition of showing up in a suit and tie, I'm going to kind of just do this right here. Let it all hang out, all right.

I'm I'm really humbled and grateful to be speaking here tonight and thank you for asking me, Bob. It's just an honor and a pleasure and

it's about the top of my list on things that I want to be doing. I

Alcoholics Anonymous means everything to me. It's

it saved my life.

The opportunity to share the message that I've learned

just puts me on a

real high, real sober high, and

I'll share a little bit about that with you. I'm originally from Chicago. I was sharing with one of the young men over there earlier that I'm from Rush Street, Chicago as well. I grew up there in the red light district and

I got here in December of 1985. I was on geographical from Chicago to California because I thought you guys had clean living out here and you know,

get away from the other substances, which I'll stick to alcoholism because you guys didn't. I didn't know that you had that kind of thing out here. I wouldn't have ordered all that stuff from back.

And

thank God for FedEx. You know,

when I always go to new groups, I, I, I

groups that I just visit the, the old timers, they look like newcomers and the, the newcomers, they look like old timers. So I don't know who to, who to buddy up with. So I'm, because I'm always chasing a newcomer down. I I want, I want to see the newcomer and I want to get their name and I want to take names and see if I can carry the message.

Like I said, I got sober in December 1985 on a geographical my father

introduced me to the program Alcoholics. Now I'm as when I was 11 years old as he was a recovered alcoholic.

So I kind of grew up with the program. I had 10 years of hard, hard drinking by the age of 21 and I was definitely done

and I wanted sobriety very much.

My way didn't work. And at that young age, I'd already been, I moved out of the house and I was 1314 years old and, and sold stereos for a living and aluminum siding and all kinds of stuff that can incorporate into my drinking life. And I,

when I got sober, you know, I heard messages that

if I was to go to a lot of meetings,

90 meetings in 90 days, or in my case it ended up to be about 3000 or so meetings, that I was going to be a success. And

about year four or five, my sobriety,

I wasn't feeling that

I suffer from alcoholism. And although the alcohol wasn't in my body anymore, I had gotten rid of that

part of the problem, the ISM was. And I didn't want to understand what that was because I thought that having a lot of time under my belt or at that time, a lot of time was going to work.

And

as things progressively rolled along, you know, I wasn't putting the booze in the belly anymore. But I was, you know, kind of want to get more out of life than a bunch of AA meetings. And I, you know, I went and went out in the world and, and, and kind of grew a big business into a big business and got away from the problems of not having any money. And you know, money, property and prestige diverted me from my primary purpose, but I didn't know what my primary purpose was.

And

about years six or seven, I had very, very well to do guy. And,

you know, I had everything that money could, but I didn't treat the ISM in the alcoholism part.

And, you know, I started to get a little bit full of myself. And, you know, all along, I didn't really pay attention to the steps. I didn't pay attention to the basic text, the 164 pages. I thought those were for people that needed to learn more about how to stay sober. And I already knew how to stay sober. I just didn't know how to stay on crazy

and I was still sick with untreated alcoholism

and in not treating my alcoholism. Eventually we do the thing that we're most apartment to do, which is what I did. Alcoholics do one thing well drink and didn't happen like that. You know, problems began to mount up. Seriously, business lawsuit started to fly in the door just about on a daily basis. I couldn't believe it. You know, I was just looking at that and

I have married a gal and

that marriage was not a marriage at all. We were barely married a year and I

probably forgot a higher power in the program, which was

a newcomer. I I worked the 13th step and I got, I got her

is my new higher power. So my mistress was my higher power. My business was failing. I had no God in my life. I never worked a step

in continuity or you know, I stayed stuck on the forest up for 100 years and and

I didn't want to drink again,

really didn't want to drink again.

I ended up in a mental institution because

I had the classic nervous breakdown. I couldn't handle life without drinking, but I wasn't willing to get through the steps to get to God in order to solve the ISM was in purgatory. You know, a lot of time under my belt, and that's for whatever that meant. But

I had untreated alcoholism

would say ask Scott, go to Scott. You know, I had all the answers, but I didn't know what the question.

You know, the booze is out of my belly

and I'm no further along than the first day I was sober.

So

I kind of make a Long story short, had gotten to the point where I had expressed to one person that I, I really loved and trusted and we were sober together and I just had, you know,

I just want to kill myself. I just want to, you know, I came to work one day. It was normal.

I couldn't handle it anymore. I couldn't hack life. I couldn't deal anymore. I I I didn't want to drink and I didn't want to stand up as a newcomer.

My pride and ego were just so full of myself that I would rather die than drink again

and report back that, you know, I'm taking a newcomer chip and I wasn't going to have it.

So I ended up in a mental institution and, you know,

mistress came over, you know, about a week after that and said, I don't think this relationship is working out too well.

Let me have it. I'm in a safe place, you know,

and if you're gonna break up with somebody, what's safer place is there than a melon institution?

You know, they got all the treatment they can get. You know,

they're just safe as heck. You know, I'll just call the psychiatrist and after she left and, you know, and talk about it. And

so, you know, I got out of there and I got home and I was still having nervous breakdown after nervous breakdown of anxiety every day. I couldn't

I couldn't even get out of the house. I remember 1 morning I was in the bathroom. I want to drink so bad now that they had put some, you know, psychotic drugs into my body. I figure I just had kind of a mini slip. I might as well go all the way. And

I just remember rocking myself with my knees to my chest on the floor of this bathroom to get the courage to get up and try and get out of the house, you know, and

eventually a drink again. And of course I would. I'm an alcoholic and that's what we do. But

I stayed out for 12 years and, and as an alcoholic that knows what he is

and the type of drinking that I did, it was a heavy 12 years, you know, it wasn't light. I eventually got divorced and

so I was kind of free just to do whatever I wanted to do. And there wasn't too many people that cared about me anymore. Everybody in the program were kind of huddled in their masses of fellowship. They had stopped reaching out to me, and I didn't care anyway. I want to be drinking. Once I was stuck there, I didn't want. I didn't know how to get back here anyway. I

didn't want to get back here.

I thought if I came back, I was headed for another 3000 meetings and that wasn't going to do it.

I was scared, you know, I was full of fear.

I'm going to go to another meeting and somebody's going to talk about their dead cat or their divorce, and I'm not going to. I'm going to feel like I feel.

So eventually

it really started to catch up with me to an implosion level of alcoholism and addiction as well. And

I had bet my my wife in 1998, and I remember when we got together,

my wife's here with me tonight, my best friend and we had gotten together and

she said, my sister's coming over today. You're going to meet my sister. She's very Christian. I'm like, oh,

you know, I'm all getting all tight and I got to need a drink for that. And,

and she says, by the way, I think we're drinking too much.

And I says here,

I love this girl and she's going to leave

because now she's on to me.

Now she's got my number,

but Despite that, I kept on going and, you know, I kind of toned it down the best I could. You know, before I'd see her, I'd get

after,

you know, so amongst other things and

try to contain it the best we can while we're trying to one of the slogans is fake it while I'm drinking and make it or I don't know what what what I was doing was trying to do. I want the girl, I want the booze, I want the money, I want all this stuff. And I can't have it all because I'm an alcoholic. And well, what occurred is just a massive meltdown in about 2005 and

we had a beautiful daughter and we were very successful in our business

and

my wife wanted to have another baby.

We went out to dinner on this

conversation

and I said

can't do it.

I'm an alcoholic

and I'm not going to stop drinking right now.

Waitress brings over another double vodka to the table. Like I'm looking at this thing. I can't pick it up.

I'm sick. I've been drinking all day.

I'm sick

now. Selfish, self-centered and selfish. Isn't that what we are when we're doing our thing and even when we get a little bit sober because we haven't gotten through these steps yet? And

I had been working with a guy or talking to a guy that I grew up with from Dallas, TX,

who today is my sponsor. And I, you know, I drank into another two years until 2007, October of 2007, when everything started to hit me hard. And I was just tearing up everybody around me. And I was in the bathroom at work one day and half my body seized up

being loaded on everything.

Umm, I said I'm going to die if I don't do something.

In 2007 I started working with this guy. He had 15 years of sobriety. Down in Dallas, TX is my sponsor. His name is Tom Pick and he won't mind me telling you his name from the podium.

We had a similar story because Tom had 15 years of sobriety and he went out and drank and he was going to meetings and going to meetings and saying at these meetings, you know, guys, I don't know if it's going to be today, I don't know if it's going to be tomorrow. I don't know when it's going to be, but I'm going to drink again and there's nothing going to come between me and that drink.

Then he went out and

remember, he called me up and says, you know, I kind of went out, you know, I kind of didn't. Do you think I'm a newcomer? And I have been, you know, drinking all day that day. And I'm like, you're asking me. I,

I says, you know, if you're going to ask me, you're going to answer that question.

Tommy called me up about a month after he got out of treatment,

somewhere in 06, and he couldn't talk right,

I say. You sure you're sober?

He says. Yeah, I've been sober for like 40 days. I says, dude, you're slurring your words.

You can't speak grammatical sentences.

I'm really worried. I'm worried that you did brain damage this time.

And I

couple months after that we talked again

and he was getting better quickly.

So it kind of the seed was planted of who I could call if I decided that I ever wanted this thing again.

And

I did.

I had been working with a leading psychologist, a PhD and well known in Southern California about it, you know, drugs, alcohol and depression. And I go to his office every week for a couple years. And he'd say, on one hand, we can get sober and life will get better, and on the other hand, we can stay crazy. And I said, well, that's the question. I'll tell you next week.

And then I'd leave those sessions and go out and drink.

I wasn't ready after all this stuff. I wasn't ready after all this stuff, you know? And

finally,

I saw myself going to lose my family. My wife, I could tell she was getting a little bit healthier than as sick as I was. She was going to be healthier and she's about ready to take it out the door and throw my ass out the door. And that wasn't the reason I got sober, though. I knew that

in my years of sobriety there was some assemblance of peace and tranquility without alcohol. But

I was scared to come back. I tried to come back between 05:00 and 07:00, probably three or four different times in the mass periods of sobriety that were meaningless. You know, I'm a quitting fool. When it came to putting the drink down, I just pick it up. I couldn't make the decision.

You know, page 24 talks about we lost the power of choice and drinking. I didn't understand the very basic thing in the first step of our book

that I was incapable of making the decision to put alcohol down.

I was incapable of having the choice. The choice left me long before the alcoholism started,

the drinking alcoholism. I had no choice. I would swear off every day. Every day I swore off in the morning and I'd be in the shower. I'd swear off today I'm not drinking. I'd be drunk by 2:00.

Sure is how I come back into the office and everyone just kind of part ways like the Red Sea because they knew, you know, here he is and he's drunk.

Remember one of my employees, you know, we'd like to play God when we're drinking. And I decided that I'm going to go back and fire her and

she says you can't fire me, you an alcoholic. And I said

I'm still the boss, as crazy as it was, you know, and

you know, you could call it high functioning, low functioning. My bottom was deep and low. And I wasn't too sure about that bottom when I was 21. Although it the stories, the war stories, which I don't tell from the podium, I tell those one-on-one when I'm sponsoring somebody or somebody wants to hear about my experience with alcohol.

It was deep enough. I am just amazed that I survived all these years with half a brain intact. And

so when I decided that I was done,

done for good and all, they kind of formulated some kind of intervention on me, which would have been the second one in my life. And you know how they all have the letters waiting for you and you're going to enter the room like on TV, and you know they're all going to read to you how

they want you to be sober? And because you can't scare me into getting sober. You can't scare me into sobriety. And you can't.

It wasn't going to happen, so I let him off the hook because I was done. I was done. I came back from that psychologist session and he says where you're headed now is back to the office. I said yeah, He says. There's a group of people waiting for you over there.

I said great.

So they started in on it. You know, my wife was there too, and she was in tears. And

of course she's always interior. She could tell. Funny joke, she's going to laugh. Here she is. She's crying right now.

And my partner says to me, says something like, you know, I smoke marijuana every day. Why can't you control this? You know, and

my best friend says to me, you know, hey, you know, you need a 30 day treatment, you know, and I was like,

guys, I'm done, let's go take me to jail. You know, I needed a medical detox. And when I was there, I had talked to my sponsor, who was still my sponsor today. And he says, you just go along with this deal, the medical detox at unique. So I was going to shake. I was going to shake and bake. There were other substances that I was doing and it was going to be a madness. And I was ready because I was done. And you know, I got to treatment and

I,

my 6 year old daughter,

you know, her father had never been away,

was the same little Angel that I

week before I got into treatment,

I got down on my hands and knees in front of her back because she was the closest thing to God. And I said please God help me

because I want to be done. I just don't know.

I don't know how to do it.

I tried 3000 meetings.

I'm not. I'm not knocking meetings. I am not knocking meetings. But my sponsor told me

some very important things.

He said, buddy, we have a spiritual Mally requires a spiritual solution. That's the bottom line. The steps are going to get us to the spiritual solution. They're going to get you spiritually awake. I was putting spirits in my body for all those years. Now I need to replace the power of alcohol with the power of God. And he explained it that way. He didn't use higher power with me. We'd known each other for many years.

I knew there was a God, and I knew that I was about as far away from Him as I could ever be.

And if I wanted to have them back at me that I was going to have to ask them.

But

I said, what do I need to do? You know what, what, what do I need to do that I haven't done before?

And he says, well, I'm glad you asked that.

And he says when you get out of that treatment center, you're going to get on a plane, you're going to fly to Dallas. And we're going to go through the steps rapidly, quickly

lightning

and we're going to show you how

to recover and get recovered.

Book says 13 times in this book. I'm today I'm a self claimed big book thumper. Guys, you know, without this book I'm dead man.

I got to this place that Tom had taken me to. You know, here we go again another a a meeting, but this time I walk in the room and I see 250 people. The happiest, healthiest

looking guys and gals I've ever seen in my life. I mean, I didn't think I was in an AA meeting. I thought, you know, this was a pit stop. Where are we, you know, these, these people are really happy. I mean, and I'm like, you know, they're taking something now. They're they're on something. And I, I said to Tom, I says, this is cool, man, what's up? You know?

And he told me, he says, you know what, God's up.

All these people here have had a spiritual awakening.

They study the we don't talk about our problems in meetings. We don't talk about anything in a meeting except the solution. And we go out and we take this work to hospitals, we take this work to institutions, and we carry the message, the little sick guy that's still suffering, that needs to hear the solution and not what the problem is.

And the problem is not alcohol. How long you been sober now? Sky said. Well, about 3 weeks,

he says. Alcohol is not your problem.

Alcoholism is your problem. Untreated alcoholism is your exact problem.

And we're going to treat the malady. We're going to treat the spiritual condition, the internal condition that I've carried around since I can ever remember, that restless, irritable, discontent internal condition that my father had before me. And, and I just come to learn the other day that my, his father had it before him and my grandfather, my great grandfather before him, stuck his head in an oven because he couldn't support the family.

And,

you know, I had learned a little bit more about alcoholism since I've been sober and that, you know, it's a genetic deal. Some, most of this stuff is genetic. You know, they're not far from your family tree. There's some guy up there that was drinking away, you know, and treating his ISM with alcohol, you know, and I,

I was scared about the God thing.

I was terrified because what if he had done his time with me

and

I ran out of

energy? Focus on me. What he's going to take, the other guy

didn't know, was just full of fear, you know, And

we work the steps fast, you know,

1:00 to 9:00, three days,

three days. And I mean it was night and day really.

It was easy. The 1st 2 steps were questions for me.

There were easy questions to answer.

My powerless over alcohol? Heck yeah. Is my life unmanageable? Absolutely. When I put the bottle, When I put the stuff into my gut, I change. I don't drink normal,

I don't understand normies half a glass and they can be done. That is just insanity to me. You know,

some of you are laughing. It's insanity to you. You're going to finish that glass and you're going to finish somebody else's.

I did it 1000 times. You ain't going to finish that drink. What are you doing?

Came to believe power greater myself could restore me as sanity. And Tom explained that it's not the insanity that after you put the drink in your body, the thing, the behavior that I did, it's the insanity,

definite obsession that I couldn't get rid of.

The over and over obsession. Nobody obsesses about alcohol except

my book, says the real alcoholic.

You know, the book talks about the moderate drinker. The guy gets, you know, he can put it down. Wife says quit drinking or, you know, no nookie and he's putting that drink down, buddy. He's, you know, cool

than the hard drinker who gets, you know, maybe he's got some problems headed at him, DUI and stuff. And you know, he drinks hard and

but he can put it down. He can stop giving sufficient reason. He can he can stop drinking. And then there's the real alcoholic.

That guy was me. It doesn't matter what the reason is. I can't have a reason because it's not going to work out. I can't make the decision. I can't decide today I'm not going to drink because that doesn't work out. It doesn't matter if my wife is going to leave me or my child is headed to grow up on another alcoholic household,

that's not going to workout. The real alcoholic which I am, has one solution, which was the spiritual malady and the spiritual solution to the malady.

So we went through these steps and, you know, it was easy.

It was easy. You know, I didn't have a lot of stuff that was unburied. I want to get it all done,

you know, 1011 and 12 are the bitch. You know, staying sober and taking the personal inventory every day. You know, I sit on the edge of the bed. Or when my wife is kind of fading out, I'll pick up my mental handbook and go, OK, who'd you harm today? How angry did you get? And who do you own amends to?

But my primary purpose is like the 5th tradition, to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers. Without that

in my life today, I'm done.

I can't stay sober, not for a minute. If I'm not, my intention isn't to find the alcoholic who wants help.

I'm not doing the work that I'm supposed to be doing in the 12th step, having had a spiritual awakening and I was awake

because I had lost the obsession to drink. After I went through those steps, the obsession left me and

I don't know when it was. I know it was about a 1015 days after I got back from Dallas. Totally. I wasn't thinking about drinking anymore. I wasn't thinking about anything anymore other than following directions.

These men and women, there's a lineage in Dallas. My Home group is a primary purpose group of Laguna Niguel and

there's a strong lineage that exists in in the primary purpose group of my sponsor and then his sponsor Myers and his sponsor Cliff and Cliff to Joe McHugh. And then somewhere right there is Doctor Bob one or two away

and these guys are all staying sober and they're happy joys and free. And I want, I wanted that. I don't want to be obsessed about alcohol anymore. I don't want to think about alcohol anymore. I I I want to be free,

I want to be happy without alcohol. Can it be possible? And it was,

you know, my business started to fail badly when I got sober, guys. I mean, it was,

it was like downhill. I'm like, OK, I get sober and you punish me. You know, here we go down. You know, I'm going to lose everything and I'm taking new guys into the office and I'm shutting my door. I'm getting them out of meetings and I'm shutting my door and I'm going over steps. Boom, 1234, let's go that fast. Because my sponsor says, you know, I'll call them up and, you know, say I got this going, I got that going. And he'll say to me, you talk to God about it before you called me

a lie. Yeah,

yeah,

sure. Did. You know, God didn't tell me anything. What do you got? You know, Yeah.

And

OK, next, here's what I want you to do. Go down to that treatment center. It's about four blocks in your house and find out and go upstairs and get, get a newcomer to work with. You know, I earmarked this page. I I carry this book everywhere with me, the basic text and you know,

page 14

bottom paragraph Particularly it was imperative to work with others as he had worked with me. Faith without works was dead, he said. And how appallingly true for the alcoholic. For an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self sacrifice for others.

He could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead. For me, that means life, The alcohol is gone. I'm not going to survive the ups and downs of life if I'm not working with the other guys.

You know, in Dallas they get to work with women first of all, in California. A, my wife wouldn't allow that. And BB, it's not customary out here,

but I wouldn't be telling the truth if I was.

If he did not work, he would surely drink again. And if he drank, he would surely die. That's me. This is this guy they're talking about in this book is me. Then faith would be dead indeed. With us is just like that. My book tells me things about must my thing. My book tells me things about rapid. My book tells me that I'm recovered 13 times, talks about recovering one time in the book. I don't have a drinking problem today.

I'm still dealing with the ISM.

If I didn't have a spiritual awakening and I didn't do this and I didn't get close to a higher that I call God, I wouldn't be sober today because I'm going through so much

am telling you that I have 1000 reasons I could drink right now and I don't have the obsession to. I got the reason, but not the obsession. My dog is dying of cancer. My father just got out of a coma for the second time. My business is failing. We don't know what we're going to do. These are great reasons to drink. Aren't they wonderful. I could have gone out on that.

I can't afford resentment, so I can't do the anger. Drink and drink at you

this program. The steps are a miracle that save my bacon

because I finally found after 3000 meetings that wasn't the meetings that were going to keep me sober.

The fellowship is wonderful. I loved you guys but

book talks about we trust an infinite God, not finite self. If I'm going to call you up and expect you to keep me sober, that's a tall order to put on you. I don't care if you have 30-40 fifty years of sobriety,

because my mental condition is I'm an alcoholic and without a spiritual awakening and without working these steps, I'm doomed is just bad news for me. Alcohol is, you know, is it's killing more people

and cancer and AIDS combined every year in the US And we come around these meetings and we try and get the slogans, fake it till you make it in one day at a time. And I can't do it one day at a time. It's just me talking. It's my opinion, my experience. I'm done. I'm done for good and all. I was done when I got here. I'm done for good and all

and I am responsible to keep spiritually fit in order to maintain that doneness. I am responsible to to maintain that connection with God, even if it's just getting on my knees and, and don't even know what I'm saying. I'll, I'll use a third step prayer and I'll get into the book,

but sometimes I can get so jammed up

that I, I, I have no, I can't even recall. But page 24 says we can't recall the incomprehensible demoralization of even a week or a month ago, that last bad drunk. The further away I got from the drink in sobriety when I was dry, the closer I got to drinking

without the steps. With the steps,

I'm about as farther away from the drink as I'll ever be

with God. I I do not think about alcohol. That is the miracle of the program. And I'm the real alcoholic. I even look like one with his hat and everything. You know,

The miracle for me is the fact that I can come home today

and the dog is happy to see me and the kids are happy to see me and my wife is happy to see me. Other than storming through the door when I was a drunk

and no one wants to be around that and they're scared of Dad,

the miracle for me today is the fact that I can get a hold of you guys and get them through the steps rapidly and watch them recover.

The first 100 worked these steps in rapid fashion, and they didn't even have most of them. They had six of them. You know, Bill failed miserably in his first six months trying to get guys sober. Bob had better successes.

This was a trial and error. Many of people came before us that died from this, whether they died sober or they died drunk. I keep a list of 31 people in the front of my big book that died from alcoholism that I met in the program

of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Most of them went out and drank again.

These are people that had been sober either short or long amounts of time, up to 25 years in one case.

Without the psychic change guys, and without the program Alcoholics Anonymous, and without the steps and without a higher power, there is no solution,

Book says. We have to live the spiritual life. It's not a theory.

I try and do that to the best of my capability every day, putting God first and foremost in front of me.

My morning, my prayer. I can't wake up very good. You know I still need 4 cups of coffee to get going,

but

if it's just a prayer that says God,

who can I help today? Another cup of coffee.

Boom. I can get into some real prayer.

Sometimes I don't have enough time to get into that prayer, but

I make time.

I put everything aside for the guy that needs help. If I get a call, it doesn't matter what time,

you know, if I got to run out, I do. Panels. I do.

I've been speaking more and more about this stuff.

I don't do a lot of discussion meetings. We do a great big book study in Laguna Niguel.

It's out of Dallas. It's the primary purpose groups. They've been around about 2223 years now, right Angie?

And the bottom line for me is that without that work, I'm done. I'm dead. I'm dead man,

so I will sacrifice anything and everything I can in order to get to carry this message to the alcohol and to those that want to get through the steps and not stay in the meetings and think that they don't have a connection with God, can have one or higher power can have one to work in the steps. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to speak tonight and God bless you.