The Into Action group in Plymouth, UK

Can you Please remember that there is no tea or coffee during this meeting and could I ask that mobile phones be turned off or switched to a silent profile? In accordance with our common welfare and tradition 5, we respectfully ask that disruptions be kept to a minimum. Repeated disturbances are not acceptable at this meeting. And with that, I want you over to Richard, who has come to share his experience joking up with us

drug addicts.

First of all, thank you for asking me given the opportunity to share my experience.

And you know, I think it's a testimony to the fact that things change. You know, it's a miracle that I'm sitting up here

in more ways than one,

but it's good to be here.

And I'm wearing a tie tonight. You know, I don't particularly like wearing ties, and I haven't won a tie because no one's particularly asked me to. Reason being is that I didn't want to stand out, really. I didn't want to be different. You know, I just wanted to fall in what with what you guys do it

and that's the reason I'm wearing it.

Welcome to anyone who's new. I know who's new comes in a meeting tonight because I spoke to people before the meeting started. So that's what I've been told and that's what I've learned. You know, that's why we arrive early to speak to people to seek out anyone who's new. So welcome to anyone who's new. Welcome to Drug Addicts Anonymous and,

you know, welcome to anyone who's suffering as well. You know, you don't have to be nude to be suffering,

OK. And that might mean someone who who who's not doing this at the moment, you know, not working the steps, not in the free parts of this program that we find it, you know, and that can be anyone because I know from at some point, you know, whoever you are and whatever group you're in, you're going to be suffering. You know you might hear something tonight which is

perhaps live in you off a bit. You know, you might hear some information that you need to hear to take some actions which might save your life.

I haven't got. Well, I got 10 minutes. 10 minutes. Yeah, I'm insulted.

No, not really. It's it's it's a pleasure. I think I'll speak to someone today.

Someone is doing this work. And,

you know, a big portion of the recovery program in the book Alcoholics Anonymous is devoted to the problem. Yeah, it's, I think it's about 43 pages for the 1st 164 and 10 pages of the doctor's opinion. OK, so they're spending like 5152 page, something like that on the problem. Yeah. Because it's important to understand what your problem is.

It's my belief that if you don't know what your problem is,

the solution won't work. Yet. That's just my understanding and that's my belief and that's my experience. You see, I had to experience and it talks in here that Bill Wilson, the guy who wrote this book along with the founders, you know, when he when he went along and spoke to Doctor Bob, the co-founder, you know, Bob had tried

spiritual means, you know, to try and

stop drinking. He he was now a garlic. You know,

none of them works.

You know, similar stuff to what he ended up doing, but none of them worked for him. And the reason was because he didn't understand his problem. You know, it says we have to smash home upon the reader or the new person what the problem is, you know? And So what is the problem? You know,

before I explain that my experience of that, you know, I think it's a case you're here, you know, you've made it here. If you know, you know, so you're looking for saying I'm I'm taking it that you want to stop using drugs,

you know, because that's why I came, you know, I had some sort of desire to stop using drugs, you know, I didn't understand what my problem was. So if you want to stop using,

that's a stomp. You know, that's what I found. This is start. It will probably allow you nothing. If you're anything like me, you know, it talks about in the book that even the strongest desire to stop with a valid nothing, it's not enough. You know, it's not enough for me just to really want to stop using drugs. You know it, it won't cut it for me because I've got an inability to do that. You know, my problem is in my mind, and I fool myself into using time

again. I'll have excuses. I'll have rationalizations and justifications, you know, which I believe, you know, and I believe it would be different this time that I use. And I can't differentiate the truth from the force, you know? So my mind will continue to trick me into using again and again and again, you know, even though I make decisions to stop.

And if I look at my see, this is what I've got to look at is my experience.

My experience is the key. My experience will tell me the truth, whether I'm a real addict or not. You know, that's what I found, not what my mind tells me, because my mind is telling all types of nonsense. What does my experience tell me? And what happened to me was that

are connected with my truth, and I've got to know my own truth. And this was it for me. When I use, I can't predict where it's going to stop. Yeah, I can't. I've got no control over it. And that's what being powerless means. It means being driven. I've got lack of control. I can't control the amount that I use. And the second part of that is that

I can't make a decision to stop and stay stopped.

Yeah. And that's the problem. If you want to, if you want to stop, like I say, that's a good start, you know, but it's just a start. The thing is, there's obstacles in my way. And the problem is in me. It's not outside of myself. It's not my financial situation or my, my sort of my sort of status for a partner or anything like that. It's it's nothing outside of me. It's internal. You know, this is this is where it sits inside of me. The problem when I understood that,

that none of you could help me, you know, I can't get bowed out of it, No amount of money, no amount of drugs, no amount of whatever, you know, that's when I started getting a bit shaky really. And what I experienced was this is that when I start can't control and then I stopped for a period of time, quite long in my case.

And within that time, I experienced that, this ease of being clean. I experienced being irritable, restless and discontent.

I experienced what it's like to be full of fear, to be having trouble with my personal relationships. The book talks about it. They call it a human problems. I experienced this in abundance. Yeah.

And after some time of that, my mind started to take me back to drugs and I realized that I was powerless over my addiction. With that realization, that was all I needed. I understood that I didn't want to use, and I was going to, whether I liked it or not.

That was it, nothing more. With that realization, I felt hopeless. And that's when the fellowship meant something to me. Because I believe if you're not hopeless, we can't give you hope. I have to be in a state of hopelessness in order to experience hope. Yeah. And that's what happened. I was hopeless. I came into a room of people who shared an experience for me. Thanks, Trace.

And out of that experience I found hope. What I found

really coming here was a power greater than myself. That's what I found. I don't have to get no more mystical about it, and I do, and I have done, you know, but it don't have to be no more mystical than that. I realized I had a problem. I couldn't do it myself. I couldn't stop this myself. I'd use whether I liked it or not. And I found a group of people, I think that, you know, in some religious texts it talks about it's two or more gathered in my name. I'll be there. And that's what you find. You'll find power

in these meetings, you know, and that's why my solution is here. The power's here. I just have to tap into it by asking for help and then listening and taking the actions that I'm given.

I might as well wrap it up there. And I'm sure these guys will share their experience with you. And if you know, you know, we've got a design for living that works and that's me. Thanks.

And now, Oh well, I'll hand you over to Rachel. We'll always come to share our experience with notebooks.

Thanks, Tracy. Well, it's such an honour to be here and sharing at the top table. And thanks for your chair, Rich.

And yeah, you know, I feel today, you know, I've got a power greater themselves working in my life. And you know, when he's doing for me what I can't do for myself because I wouldn't be sat here, you know, I just don't do things like this. And

I was being really fast

my my childhood started in Cumbria and my dad was alcoholic and my mother was fanatical about religion. I had quite a strict upbringing and a lot of dysfunction at home.

I remember getting to about the age of 14 and I just knew that there was something not quite right with me inside. I felt off and

I just,

until I started drinking,

I, I just, I just didn't feel like I fitted in any way. I didn't feel like I had any purpose,

you know, I just, I just didn't know why I was here. And then, you know, I started picking the drink up and, you know, I, I always feel like I always wanted to fit in and mix up with the cool kids, but never quite there. Do you know what I mean? And all that kind of stuff. And I started

using alcohol and, you know, just relieve me of this discomfort, this feeling of being ill at ease with myself. And, you know, all of a sudden, everybody wanted to know me. You know, I become popular at school for all the wrong reasons. People that I couldn't usually speak to spoke to me. I was in with all the cliques kind of thing.

But you know, I'd be confident to talk to boys,

you know, and I thought it was my answer. And you know, by the age of 17, I was a fully blown addict. You know, I

come from alcohol to weed, smoking weed every day

and then it progressed to to order drugs.

But, you know,

I couldn't, I couldn't just go out and have a couple of drinks like some of my friends could and get all giggly and stuff. I, I had to milk it and take it to the limits, you know, remember, sat up with people and sat snot in coke with them. And these people have got jobs and, and I had to do, you know what I mean? But in my eyes I was just like,

I just didn't know when to stop partying.

And you know, I try to control it as well, thinking I'll, I'll just spend like £20 on it and just continually quintic cash machine £100 later. Having no food for a week. Cupboards are empty. Life's unmanageable.

I was in an abusive relationship

and that went on for five years. But, you know, he supplied me with drugs and I didn't think that much of myself. And I thought that, you know, if you just carry on supplying the drugs, then I'll I'll stick it out kind of thing.

That relationship ended. And you know, I just felt like this feeling return again. And my only way out of things back then was to use, you know, I didn't want to feel like that. So, you know, going to harder drugs

and, and I didn't plan it out to be like that, but you know, I was, I was using crack and smack regularly. Got to the point where I couldn't get away from this abusive partner. I was at a terrible habit that I couldn't control

and and I was just just wished I was dead, you know, and I went running to my mom, got myself in a rehab,

did that in 97. It wasn't a 12 step

rehab,

you know. It kept me clean for a year, came out, got myself a job,

a nice home partner, but still my life

was unmanageable because all these material things I had around me. And I thought that everything that I'd sort of built up what I wanted as a normal life, you know, this condition was still in me and it was just left untreated. And

things were just getting worse, you know, And

I couldn't live with myself. I didn't like the way that I felt. I would rather be off my head than be me.

So, you know, I started using a lot again and holding a job down and I, and I did it for seven years.

But, you know, the absences come and I was and I was lying and cheating about why I wasn't at work because I, you know, I just couldn't get it together to go to work, too hammered from the night before.

And I'd used all the excuses in the book. You know, when I was at work, I felt inferior and inadequate and couldn't quite last the day at work without obsessing about getting home. And, you know, using something, it's always like when you've been out in the cold and you, you know, that feeling that I got from it was like when your mum, when your mum puts her hands on your cheeks and you've come out it cold, you know, like that kind of feeling. And

you know that. And the obsession was, was still on me, you know,

like say the condition was left untreated. I still had a shit attitude towards people, a shit attitude towards life. I was ungrateful for everything.

You know, I was just getting worse, not better. And

I, I had a baby thinking about she would be my saving grace. And

you know, I was really, really happy when I first had a first couple of months, you know, for the first time in my life, I'd experienced love and joy and, and then, you know, this condition came back and I thought, what is wrong with me? You know, I'm wanting to be a mum. I'm wanting to love this child. And I just wasn't capable of anything. And I just felt numb

and just a failure. Do you know what I mean? And my relationship ended.

I, you know, no drugs in my system.

My partner had gone and all I was left with was self. And I didn't like self. And you know, I was a broken woman. I was, I was ready for a nervous breakdown.

You know, I didn't have anybody in my life, no contact with friends or family and just lost the plot basically. And

I couldn't return back to drugs because I didn't want to, but I felt compelled because it was only my way out and the only other option was suicide. So I tried a suicide attempt and I came round and that was the next morning when I woke up, I was broken. And I said, if there's anybody out there, can you please step into my life? And,

you know, and, and, and I did, I got a good sponsor, you know, and

started committed meetings.

You know, I've got step one straight away. I realised that I don't have a choice when it comes to drugs. I don't have the power of choice whether I'm going to use or not, you know? And

Step 2,

you know, we came to believe that power greater than ourselves could restore it to sanity. I've actually changed my whole concept round of the God thing because the God that I was brought up with, you know, burnt my Madness albums because they were satanic, you know, So I was pretty sure, you know, that my higher power wasn't going to let me live my life and life is going to be crap.

Well, you know, I, I, I, my higher power

changes a lot and it's not and I haven't got so fixed ideas of what he is anymore.

You know, step three became willing.

You know, I became willing when I said to my sponsor, you know, she wanted to see that willingness in me. I made sure I rang her every day, you know what I mean? Did my suggestions every day. I was willing. I wanted what these people have got and I wanted to get better.

You, you know, when it came to Step 4, um, that was the hardest part for me because I was quite good at realizing what other people had done to me. But when I got to the last column and seeing what behaviour I had done, you know, it's, it's quite revealing. And to share it with another human being, you know, part of me at that point wanted to bail out and think,

well, they could be an absolute blabbermouth and share my shit with everybody. And, you know, but I was willing.

I was willing to trust this person. You know how this person has done this program before me and I've had to be, you know, open minded and willing all the way through my steps. And, you know, it was amazing because like when I shared, you know, she said, oh, that's nothing, Listen to this.

And it made me feel so much better about myself,

you know, and it made me feel acceptable as a, as another human being. And you know that I'm not no worse than anybody else or any better. And you ought to continue to work steps. And, you know, my life's changed in three months. It's changed so much, you know, I'm happy.

To be alive today, and I'm grateful and I'm grateful that you know what I've learned so far. It's been vital for my recovery to stay clean and,

and just learning to be of service to another addict. You know, that's my main focus now and I'm realising what this fellowship's about and I'm just so, so grateful. Thanks

and now is come to share his experience getting up with us.

My name is Mark. I'm an addicts. First, I'd like to say thank you for inviting me here today. You know, it's a lot of bold faces in the room. People haven't seen for, you know, several years. And you know, it's good to see you, you know, and also there's a lot of people in the room. There's more people in the room. In fact, I've never laid eyes on, you know, and as Richard said, I can only assume that you're here because you're desperate and you're defeated by by life, you know, which is what I was at the end of the road.

You know, it was 12 years ago this week that I arrived in Plymouth for the first time. And

at that point in my life, you know, I believed,

you know, through my lack of understanding about the disease of addiction, that all I had was a drug problem. And which was,

you know, extremely foolish really. Because, you know, there was days, there was periods in my life prior to arriving in Plymouth where I had stopped using and,

and gone back to it very quickly. You know, not as the young lady there was saying, you know, didn't have the ability to, you know, I was absolutely powerless over my addiction, not over drugs, over my addiction is what I was powerless over.

You know, I'm sitting there, it's been a, I've got a really busy, wonderful, fantastic life. You know, it started. I finished work at 12:30 last night. I woke up at 7:30 this morning. I kissed my wife, my 2 little girls.

I've been traveling down to Plymouth. We arrived here about 5:30 and I'm sat here now and I've got a job to do. You know, I haven't come here to socialize or to do anything other than to try and keep think it's simple, this job that I've been given to do and tell the truth. Now when I arrived in Plymouth, as I say 12 years ago this week, I was a dying man. I had a disease that was killing me, a disease I didn't even know I had.

Now I was detoxing a facility not very far from here and you know, which was a, you know, it's, which is what I needed at that time. I was in very, very bad shape

and

what I found,

but what what occurred in my life at that time when I wasn't using, I was worse than when I was using. I didn't look. Time is not a healer when it comes to disease of addiction. The longer period of time that I am between the last time I used and not having a power in my life, not having a 12 step design for living, I get worse, not better. And and I really, truly experienced that not very few yards from here with, with people that are in this room.

And it absolutely terrified me.

Now I'm not one of these people that's going to sit and say I didn't have anywhere. I came to the rooms, all the, you know, the fellowship because I didn't have anywhere else to go. I have plenty of places to go, you know? You know, I have plenty of other places to go.

But I was too terrified to leave this town. You know, I,

as I say on the disease, you know, I didn't know I had,

you know, a disease. I, I know through the, you know, the experience, you know, of good sponsorship through the wisdom that I've achieved, you know, through work in these steps, that a disease that was with me, you know, all of my life, you know, and.

A great phrase from my sponsor.

You know, my problem didn't start when I first took drugs. You know, using drugs was a solution to a problem that I already had. And I can't put it any better than that. You know, I was irritable, restless and discontent from the word go. I felt separated from everybody in this world

and was incapable of, you know, joining in with others, feeling at ease with others. I got bored very quickly.

You know, I'm talking about the spiritual aspect of this disease, the spiritual melody, you know, and

of course that kind of attitude and behavior or consequences, you know, my education and, and, and much more. And when I was first, you know, introduced to drugs, you know, I was scared, you know, all the warnings from my parents, you know, and other people, you know, and, but I wanted the approval of these people that I was with, you know, that was more important. And I thought that

it would just be a phase or a fad like some, you know, other things

in my life that I could be, I'd do this and then I won't do it again. But right now, in this moment, I just need to seek the approval of these people that I'm with. And

how fucking wrong was I, excuse my language, How wrong was I, you know, because the first time I took drugs and they did something for me, they did a right number on me And and it worked and it works for about four years of my life. You know, I could manage my drug using. I had,

I'm not going to use the word fun, but I could manage my drug using and you know, I could work

and I wasn't harming anybody,

you know, and I was independent in my financially, in my lifestyle. But you know, this disease progressed very, very rapidly. And I'm not talking about my drug use, you know, my drug intake, you know, progressing. I'm talking about the the disease of addiction. You know, those periods between me using got narrower and narrower. You know, I became, it was my life became so unmanageable,

you know, as a result

of this disease progressing. And,

you know, you're absolutely terrified me.

And let me try and keep this as simple as I possibly can.

I've got an absolutely fantastic life today. I don't have to take credit for it. I ain't got a clue what the time is. You know, I've got an absolutely fantastic time that I don't take credit for. You know, I'm a Freeman today. You know, from the moment that I got sponsored, it's my sponsor sat right next to me today, You know, from the moment I asked this guy to show me the way, show me what you've done, you know, and and from the moment I applied the simple actions that you gave me to do. Yeah. That fear lifted.

The obsession to use was removed. Yeah. I don't have a drug problem. I never had. I never have had a drug problem. You know, the obsession to use drugs went away. That is an absolute miracle because I'm a man that used drugs for a long period of my life. And that obsession was with me constantly. You know, I used every day, you know, And for that just to do these simple actions that you know, that I was given to do and for that obsession to be removed like that so quickly is an absolute

cool. You know, when I was taken through the steps very, very quickly, this design for this wonderful design for living, you know,

you know, I put the program first. When I put the program first, everything else in my life is as it's meant to be. And and that is absolutely fantastic, absolutely fantastic. You know, I'm, I take responsibility for my life today. You know, I work hard in all areas of my life and I know how to have fun. You know, when I was sitting in a moment ago, you said you asked me, this is my sponsor taught me and it's true. It's in the book. It's a Call of Duty,

you know, I've got No Fear. I don't fear crowds or people, you know, I have No Fear whatsoever, you know, because I have faith in that's what I have today. And the spiritual malady is an antidote for the fear that was with me all of my life. A spiritual awakening, Mark, is the antidote to the fear that was with me all of my life. So

when I, you know, I've done this many, many times, you know, been given the privilege and the opportunity to sit here and,

you know, nice to think it might

immature mind. You know, in those days gone by that I was a cent of attention.

Well, let me tell you right now that is couldn't be further from the truth. You know, my attention is on somebody here that is desperate, somebody here that's looking for a way out, you know, and I'm a man that was suicidal at the end of the day. At the end, you know, that was it. And I had so much doubt that I didn't believe that my life would ever improve. And through

stop, Stop seating to make my own decisions, you know, to run my thinking past my sponsor, to embark on this wonderful 12 step program. You know, my life took off like an absolute rocket, you know, And

it was when I was halfway through Step 4,

I remember having a break and going in the kitchen and put the kettle on.

And I've verbalized these for I, I spoke these words out loud. This is what I've needed to do all of my life, sitting around with other people, whoever they are, you know, in different books of life, use your own imaginations, some of them in white coats. I could tell you that

talking about my problems,

talking about my parents or my drug use,

the crime that I, I, I, I've been involved in in years gone by was not helping me at all. You know, it was making matters worse, to be quite honest, because I came out there confused, frustrated and just as fearful and just. But what it did do, I will say this, it contributed to the hopelessness, you know it because I thought I'll never, ever be able to be happy and look around and be like the people that I could see around me. People in my family, other people at work that, you know, seem to have this

natural ability to, you know, to get on a gel with one another and make lives for themselves. So let me say this, that I've become the man not to date

ages ago. I've become the man that I was always meant to be. I've become the man. I've become the sort of person, I put it that way, the sort of person that I used to envy, the sort of person that I used to take the Mick out of. That's the sort of person I become today.

And it's all as a result of surrendering and asking for help applying the principles of this program,

you know, putting the program first. My Home group, you know, working with others, you know, whether I want to or not, it's irrelevant. These are things I need to do. These are things I need to do. They nourish my spirit and they help me grow up and become, as I said, the man I was always meant to be. You know, and from that guy that arrived there 12 years ago with a, you know, a bin liner,

I've got a life that's bursting at the seams. It's available to anybody there.

He's at the end of the road and they're willing to go any lengths. I'll leave it there. Thanks.

Now I'll hand you over to Julian who share his experience Chevron hope of us.

Hello, I'm Julian. I'm an addict and stay tuned. I'm going to go fast. I'm a bulk standard addict. That's the most important thing you need to remember about me. There's nothing special about anything that is unique about me is irrelevant in this room. Anything that's different, my little quirks, Julian's ways, whatever absolutely irrelevant to anybody in this room. Wouldn't expect you to be interested.

I'm a book standard addict in that I have this condition like Richard, it was diagnosed. It was diagnosed when I first came to the rooms, when I first came to a 12 step fellowship and my disease was diagnosed and most of my life I had no clue what was wrong with me. I wouldn't expect anyone to be any different. I had no way of knowing what was wrong with me. I had no way of understanding my bizarre behaviour. But I look back and I was absolutely, from the from the word go, incapable of

seeing life from anything but my own perspective. I was incapable of joining in,

absolutely incapable of joining in. Driven, they say in the literature by 1000, forms of fear. Fear that I wouldn't be noticed, fear that I was being noticed fear that I'd get a job, fear that I wouldn't get a job, fear that I was with a girl, fear that I wasn't you name it, I was afraid of it. And I needed something to tranquilize myself and very, very soon it. Well, I was a quick learner. Very soon I found something to medicate myself with. And like Mark, you know, it worked for a while. And I was very cheerful against all the

you know, if you're new, maybe you're identifying. Maybe you remember how easily we, we always shook off advice. You know, this is going to do you no good. You'll lose your friends. You know, you'll make yourself feel. But no, no, I knew what I was doing. And I did cheerfully scrape them all off. I scraped them all off until I got to a point in my life where there was absolutely nobody left in my life who gave a damn. And I was surrounded only by people like myself. And then I knew loneliness as few know it,

because I was surrounded. But, and this is the greatest nightmare and it can ever suffer to be surrounded by people like himself. Absolute horror,

and it wasn't long before after I descended into that phase of addiction where, quite honestly, no doors were open to me. Every door had long been closed. Only a person with very little care for themselves would have anything to do with me. Each relationship was a battle and a disaster.

Every step seemed to be a new mistake, a new source of regret. And I did what they say in the literature. I began to start showing up at hospitals and institutions. You know this stage in our lives when we begin. You know this line we cross when we begin to. And it's, to be honest, for me, it was the beginning, the beginning of the end of hope, when I started to turn myself over to the people in white coats and the professionals and say, well, you try and do something with me because I can't anymore.

It didn't start like that. I had high hopes. I was one of those in the yearbook, you know, most likely to succeed.

And by the time I was 28, my life was effectively over, effectively over absolutely nowhere to go and nowhere to turn because I, you know, my good thinking had gotten rid of anybody who could have helped me. There was nobody left who could help me. And I managed to get away from drugs for a little while off my own steam. To be frank, some people may think it's dangerous to share such a thing, but we know in our experience it's possible.

Um, clean time, I heard somebody else say at the overdue the other day is overrated. Lean time is overrated. I got it without listening to anyone. I managed to get stay clean for a number of years during which my life beggars belief. Continued to get worse, I continued to get worse. I continued to make a falling judgment and I went into a treatment centre and they told me that I was a man who needed to cry.

I was a man who needed to learn how to cry. And so they, they suggested that I cry. And after a couple of weeks of that, you know, they suggested that I might like to stop. Yeah. Nothing was nothing was very different. Nothing was very different. I never had, as you might be guessing it, I never had a problem with words.

It was said earlier that the steps made it make it possible to sit at the table and do. I've got to be honest with you. And it didn't. I could have done this before. I'd have been talking absolute nonsense, mind, but I wouldn't have cared. I was never afraid. A word sitting around in a circle talking about myself has nothing to do with the way that I recovered. Absolutely nothing to do with it at all. I was adept, and I always gave a different account of myself at every sitting. At every sitting. Why? Because I didn't have a clue what's wrong with me.

Why do we ask newcomers to share?

Because if they got the condition I've got, they haven't a clue what's wrong with them. What are they going to say?

Except I'm confused. Thank you. You know, I, I was desperately confused. I, I found my first. I, I found my first fellowship meet. Well, I was confused because the, because it didn't make any sense on the face of it. I had all this. I had many of you. If you knew my life story, it's pretty boring. Go into it. If you think I was privileged, you'd think I was privileged. Nobody raised a hand to me. I come from the sort of family I still do, where if you stand still long enough, you'll get a hug.

But it didn't. But none of these things made any difference. I

still nosedive. I still nosedive. My life fell apart at an appalling rate. Don't you dare. My life fell apart at an appalling rate. And I wound up in these treatment senses and still found that I felt exactly the same. I felt exactly the same. I hadn't met. I hadn't put the two together by then. I hadn't put the idea that I didn't feel

any different about life together with the idea that I would I would surely use. I hadn't made the connection. I needed other people to help me with that. And so when I went to the meetings and people like me, because we're going back a lot of years and I was young

and people like me were saying, listen, lad, because they talk like that in some place. You know, listen lad, if you don't have a solution and you don't know what you're doing and you can't explain to me what you've done today to stay clean, you are going to use. You're going to use. And I didn't believe them because I didn't understand why. I didn't understand why and what these good people have been trying to say. All I'm doing is repeating them. All I'm doing is reinforcing this idea that if I don't experience a profound change of thought and most importantly,

attitude, attitude, I'm going to use. I'm going to use. I can sit and I can spout violets in a meeting as long as as long as they'll have me here. But if I haven't changed, if I haven't experienced a change of thought and attitude that is driving my life today, I'm going to use because that's who I am. That's who I am. I'm a man who can't live without drugs or a solution. And as Mark said, drugs at one point were the only solution that I ever found in my life

for the way that I am terminally ungrateful. And when I got sponsored, I was, I was encouraged to read as I know everyone in here is. And if you're not, sack your sponsor. I, I was encouraged to read the literature because my sponsor didn't claim to be a doctor. My sponsor didn't claim to be an expert on anything apart from this. He wanted me to understand what came in it. And I found, as others have implied, you know, I found my golden text. I found my golden text and I understood.

I understood why I had to sit here, and I understood what I had in common with you people when I read this,

and I understood why I had to do what you were doing, not say what you were saying. God forbid it should start like that. God forbid it should start like that. I've seen it start like that so many times. I've seen it start like that so many times. I know what these guys are about. I'll say what they're saying. Well, no, God forbid, no. I had to do what these people were doing and do it with such a vengeance. There's a phrase, isn't there? I do it as if my life depended on it because it did. I finally understood that it did depend on it. And the text goes like this.

So our troubles, we think are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves. And the alcoholic, the addict is an extreme example of self will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. Above everything, we addicts must rid ourselves of this selfishness above everything. Now again, going along with what Richard has said. If you don't agree with that,

then we can't help you. We can't help you if you don't agree with that. If you

as yet are not convinced that the root of your own troubles is your own self centred

attitude and your own inability to see life from anyone else's perspective or to be or to be involved in life for a greater cause, then really the Fellowship is gonna have a a tough time making any difference to your life by the very short term. Once the novelty's worn off, I needed to take it deep inside me, deep inside me that I had created my own misery. And this meant I couldn't, I couldn't recover on my own experience because, you know, I'm such a clever bloke. I'm such a clever bloke, you know, and,

and my sponsor, you know, he wasn't very academic. My sponsor, bless him. You know, I used to think, oh, you know,

I'll have to watch you closely. I'll have to watch you closely and I'll have to listen. You know, I may have to pick you up here and there. The trouble was, my thinking was always designed to lead me back to the gutter. And I recovered entirely on my sponsors experience. I didn't recover on my own. I didn't recover on my own. I didn't think for myself. Got to tell you that. And yes, I've also got to tell you. Yeah, I do now.

I do now. But I didn't when I was going through the steps. I made no decisions for myself. I listened to my sponsor and my sponsor said the dreaded words that every, every, every newcomer, if he's serious, dreads hearing. If you're not serious, you wouldn't give a damn, But if you're serious, you're dread hearing. The words wouldn't work for me, son, because if it wouldn't work for him, it won't work for me. And I would say, all right, Governor, all right, I'll leave it out. I won't do it.