The Feet First Speakers group in Quakertown, PA

Please help me welcome our speaker tonight from last House on the Block group in Tannersville, PA. Adam A

's

cool.

Hi everybody, my name is Adam Andrew. I'm a recovered alcoholic.

Get a couple things out of the way first. I guess the the first thing is I want to apologize in advance for my mouth.

I'll try,

but God hasn't seen fit that it be completely cleaned up yet. And the other thing is, is I got to get this out of my head first before I start 'cause I, I feel like I'm at a funeral.

I, I own one tie and this is my funeral outfit that so

I've been, I've been tripping on this for like 2 weeks now. You know, it's like, oh God, I gotta wear a tie. But you know, hey, the the 9th step tells us that we need to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and the people around us. So

I'm wearing a tie

I guess.

Best way to start this is

I'm a oldest of three boys, a byproduct of the 60s.

I I should have been born at Woodstock, but my mom backed out at the last minute.

I always was mad at that because then I would have had an excuse. But you know, I, I spent the early part of my childhood, I lived in a teepee, I lived on a commune. I lived in a school bus,

traveled around the country more times than I can count now and pretty much grew up

in a lifestyle that accepted, you know, alcohol and other non conference approved substances.

And it was perfectly normal Now, It wasn't a it wasn't a, a strange thing for me to, to move into the life that I, I had. I didn't think there was anything wrong with it.

My role models growing up, you know, were people who party.

Yeah, people who

who did lots of other things too. I was raised in Northern California.

I grew up basically

200 miles north of San Francisco, and

I always had this vision of my life. And I was going to be an old man sitting on the porch with a beer in a bong, you know, and that was going to be who I was. And, you know, the, the people that I looked up to as as a kid, that's what they did, you know, that's, that's how they were. And again, it didn't seem abnormal. It was a perfectly acceptable way of life.

Problem is, I'm an alcoholic and

I can't maintain any kind of normalcy when I when I put alcohol into my body.

Can't maintain any kind of normalcy when I'm sober, but it's infinitely worse when I start

on. I picked up my first drink my first conscious drunk 'cause I I I drank many times before this, but my first conscious drunk with my buddies in school. I was probably about somewhere around 12 or 13. I'm not sure the exact age,

but a friend of mine's mom went out of town and we had a sleepover over his house and we went down to,

I think it was a Circle K and we had this dude bias two big jugs of Gallo wine and and a six pack. And we went over to this construction site near the railroad tracks and, and, and proceeded to get drunk. And from that moment, from the moment that I, I, I took my first

drink like that,

I found what I had been looking for. Because up until that point, I was, I was very self-conscious. I was very introverted. I was very much the

the odd one out. You know, I was, I was the poor kid that went to Catholic school and went with all the other rich kids from town. And, you know, my dad was the part time janitor. My mom was the lunch lady in order to make sure I had tuition. And I always felt like I wasn't part of the crew, you know, even though there was only 17 of us in our graduating class, I didn't feel like I was part of that, you know? And

that was my, you know, that was the way I existed up until I picked up my, my first drink.

And when I did, I, I, I was in, I was there, I was done. And, you know, I, I found what I had been looking for and, and I ran with it. You know, unfortunately or fortunately, however you want to look at it, within three days of that first drink, my dad moved us back to the East Coast and I wasn't able to drink again for quite a while, probably about six months.

But the first opportunity that I got, I did,

you know, and again, I had that same kind of feeling on

I,

I bounced back and forth between between 12:00 and

18.

I spent, you know, half the time in California, half the time in New Jersey,

you know, jumping back and forth. I, I was born in New Jersey and I have family there. And it was always that place we go back to

and but my home always felt like it was in California because that's where I was, you know, that's where I, I related to.

But from I guess, I guess I was my, my 16th birthday

was a, was a was a pivotal point. I, I got, I got really hammered and the next day I went back to California and it didn't stop. I didn't have a, a, a layover of months before I started to drink again. Within a week, I hooked up with my old friends. Within a week, I was drinking

at least all weekend long.

I know it didn't take very long for me to drink 6 days out of the week because I I, I, I grew up in a college town out there and, you know, Thursday is the beginning of the weekend. You know, Friday and Saturday is the weekend, Sunday still the weekend. And Monday you need to drink to get over the hangover on Tuesday. I couldn't find nothing for a long time, but Wednesday was hump day. Yeah. So there were six days that I could justify

drinking

and then I

couple years later found $0.50 mug night on Tuesday and I was kind of screwed. But, you know, I,

I, I called myself an alcoholic from the time I was 16 years old.

You know, I, I, I kind of wore it like a badge, you know, it's like, you know, we, we drink 2 cases of beer and then we go to a keg party. You know, I'm an alcoholic. You know, I didn't, I didn't know what it meant. But I, I, I, I, I kind of, I didn't have that, that attitude that some people have, you know, never admitted, you know, always thought it was a bad thing. Never occurred to me that, you know, it might be a bad thing.

You know, it was like I said it was, it was a perfectly acceptable, normal way of life with the way I was. I was brought up. And not that I wasn't brought up with morals and whatever 'cause I, I, I had, I had, I had good morals growing up. But the partying was a separate entity. You know, it wasn't an immoral thing. It was something that we all did.

By the time I was 18 years old, I, I, I was back in California. My all, my entire family was back east

and I was out there by myself for the first time on my own.

Backtrack a little bit. At 16, I moved out onto the streets for the first time. I, I spent the summer outside,

I crashing on roofs, crashing and we had this really great tree Fort as a kid. It was huge and I stayed there for a while, crashed on a few couches. But it was my, it was my answer at that time to my dad told me to get a job

or whatever. I don't remember the argument, but he told me just get out of here. I took that as get out. And so I moved out and I moved on to the streets and I partied around the clock for the next, you know, three or four months, whatever it was with that summer. And I took it as a license to, to run. And I did the same thing again when I was 18. You know, I, I, I, I ran, you know, I, I went, the whole family was on the East Coast and I went back to California

and

my dad had a piece of property out there with a trailer on it. And I, I moved into this trailer And, you know, within short order, I don't think it was more than a month or two that the, the lights were out. And within short order, they kept shutting off the water and I kept going out to the street and turning it back on. And they had that little hole in the ground thing and you know, I cooked on a fire pit,

had a couch on the porch and or on the deck, whatever you want to call it, had a recliner in the backyard. And that's how I was living. You know, at, at one point I had it, I had a keg party and somebody burned my front door.

So I hung a blanket.

It, it sounds crazy, but it seemed normal. You know, I had no interest in going to work. I had no interest in showing up for normal society. Why work when you can get high? You know, that was my attitude, you know, and, and I, you know, I drank daily. I did lots of other things. I hadn't gotten full tilt into the other things

yet, but I was pretty much. I was pretty much a drunk and a Stoner at that point and that was my life

and

and I didn't see anything wrong with it. I also had nothing to compare it to, you know, I didn't, I didn't. The people, the only people I associated with, were people who were like me. And

my father moved back and

he didn't like the fact that I didn't have a job in the house or the trailer was the way it was. I was living with three girls at the time there.

He, he told me this was not OK and you can't live like this. So I moved out and I justified what I was doing is I'm camping out under the stars. You know, I set up my nice little bed roll and I had my clothes line in the, you know, next to the Creek and, and, and I had this little platform that I would go out and wash my clothes. And, you know, I did what I had to do every day to, to drink and, and, and do what else.

Like I said, I, I, I was never really into the whole work thing. There was a period of time where I got a job at a Taco Bell or at a Burger King or whatever. And I figured it was a good way to eat. You know,

I, I was never interested in the whole

lifestyle of paying rent and, you know, having a house, having a car. I had a car. My buddy gave me a car. It had no muffler. It had no insurance, no registration. It had a license plate so I could drive it. You know, I didn't have a license, but that didn't matter.

I and it had 4 1/2 lbs of pot in the trunk. So it was a, it was a, it was a perfect, you know, thing for me.

Umm,

I,

I spent

on and off.

That's seven years out there, you know, outside.

There were brief instances where I wasn't.

But

the day before Thanksgiving, I've been living in the Bay Area

and I had a job, and I got a job at the psychedelic shop down on Market Street in San Francisco. And the owner had asked me, you know, he's like, you know, my interests and things like that on my application and, you know, what kind of music do you like? Do you know anything about the dead? No, not really. I'm basically a Floyd junkie. You know, he goes well. Are you willing to learn?

Sounds good. I can do this, you know, and

he actually gave me a job in a place to stay and got me loaded the first night I was at his house. And I was like, I'm good here, you know, this, this will work.

I had gone back to Chico on the day before Thanksgiving to see some friends and to party for the weekend and

got arrested with 79 heads of acid.

And

I was

on 17, I think, when it happened

and the,

the cop was, you know, grilling me and asking me to, you know, tell on my supplier and whatever. And to be perfectly honest, I didn't have one, you know, because I was that guy, You know, I used to hitchhike down to the Bay Area regularly and, and, and do my thing down there and bring it back up. And again, this is not, I was not a,

it was not a drug dealer in the traditional sense of people who are making money off of this. I was doing this so that I could get loaded on a daily basis. You know, I'd buy enough because acid was cheap. I was buying it for $0.30 a hit and I would sell enough to buy more and the rest

would go towards booze and the party. And

that batch that I had was strictly personal use and I didn't think there was anything wrong with that. And I, I, I couldn't understand, you know, I understand the legality of it, but I couldn't understand why they would look at me like, what are you crazy? You know, this is personal use. You know, they were trying to get me for distributing and all that. And they plea bargained me down to personal, personal or the, down to the regular, the regular possession. And I ended up doing two years

on.

It was the first time I kind of realized that I had a problem,

you know, I'm locked up. I'm like, I don't know, 19 years old, something like that, and I'm going to prison. Yeah,

hear about as long longer than is now. No facial hair, skinny is a board and walking into prison and I was like this don't seem right and on and no real. I don't want to say criminal history because I had a criminal history, but it was all petty. It was a drunk, you know, I was a drunk and a Stoner. I didn't carry a gun and I didn't rob people. And that's the way I, I looked at it, you know,

so I, I realized there was a problem.

And I remember writing letters and, and talking to everybody and, and, and trying to get somebody to understand that I needed something more than jail. And I, I need to go to rehab. I need to go to some kind of treatment or whatever. And, and I knew that I had a problem

the day that I got released. Within 20 minutes, I had a six pack.

Within two hours, I had 1/2 ounce of weed down my pants, two hits of acid in my system, and a bottle of schnapps in my back pocket.

I just spent two years in jail over this and it never crossed my mind when I got out that I just got out. You know I shouldn't be doing this. I hadn't even seen my parole officer yet. And I was sleeping under a bridge that night.

I called my parole officer the next day and I said I need to get out of California. I have family in New Jersey. Can you send me there and I'll transfer my parole? And, you know, my theory was is that people back here work and there's, you know, there's more to life than sitting on an inner tube. But it, you know,

a cooler floating behind me, you know all summer long, you know, because that's how I spent my summers. I spent my summers in an inner tube on the river with a cooler floating behind me,

and

so I figured I needed to do something. So I came back East and

I spent, that was my first introduction to some kind of normal society, I guess you would call it. I moved in with my mom and her husband at the time. And they were, they were sober in the rooms and they didn't tell me I had to go, but they told me I couldn't get out in their house. I couldn't drink. I couldn't, I couldn't do anything. And and if I was to come back to that house loaded, I'd be out.

I don't think it was a week that I made it on. It might have been, but I don't think so. I did get a job. I did manage a little bit

to try and function there.

I think I made it long enough to get a girlfriend that would take me in. I think that's about what it was

because me and this girl, we moved in together, She had a nice chunk of money she had gotten in an accident and they gave her a bunch of money and

sounds good. And I can party. I don't have to work. I can go look for a job, you know, I was willing to do that, you know,

But my main focus was how do I continue to live the way I'm living?

That lasted for about two years

on

right around that point before I moved in with her. Oh, that's right. When I moved in with her or right before I moved in with her, my mother gave me the option to go to detox or get out. And it was my first time going to detox. And I remember answering that questionnaire, there's like 12 questions or 10 questions, you know, about whether you're an alcoholic or not. And I answered every one of them except about two.

And my response to this was, well, maybe I'm a potential alcoholic.

Yeah. I think the, the, the, the, the grading on it was, is if you answer one or two, you're an alcoholic. I I had it flipped, You know, I, I'm potential. I, I, I yeah, yeah, I drink in the morning. But, you know, it's not because I have to. Yeah, It's not because I have to, you know, and that was a big thing when I first started going through the steps. I couldn't understand craving. You know, it took me a really long time to get a grasp on the craving because I never tried to control my drinking.

You know, I never tried to drink a couple and stop, you know, and

when it was first pointed out, I really scoured my brain and I did find one instance. I found one instance in my life where my girlfriend had told me she'd withhold sex if I didn't, if I drank too much that night. So only have a couple. So I did and

I I had to look at my behavior that night. That's what was suggested to me was look at how I was acting that night. Was I, I was a happy go lucky guy who was, had a little buzz on or you know, no, I was AI was a miserable asshole who wanted to drink, you know, and he said, yeah, that's the craving. That's your body telling you you need it. And since that point, I've been able to recognize it. I've been able to see where the where the alcohol kicks off this allergy. But at the time when I first was going into it, I never wanted to stop. I

ever wanted to control it. There was no point to having a couple, you know? The only reason to drink was to get loaded, and that's the way I looked at it.

But

what really caused this whole collapse or whatever

was that I I was with this girl and we were going to get married and she left. She wasn't putting up with it no more and she wasn't talented. She put up with it for a really long time

and she wasn't anymore. She started to get sober, I started to get sober, she got sober. I couldn't.

I went to my, I went to my parole officer. They were going to violate me anyway.

So I went, I figured I got a problem. I need to go to detox. And so I went to detox. I, I, I went to a, they sent me to this place called the Damon House in New Brunswick, NJ. And this is one of those places where they make you wear a dunce cap and, you know, a diaper and stand in the corner and shit like that.

And I was there for like an hour for the intake thing. And I, and I was like, I called my parole officer. I said, you sent me back to the jointer. Give me, give me another day to find something 'cause I won't stay in a place like that.

There's no way, you know, you don't have locks on the doors and you're going to make me wear a diaper. It's not going to happen.

So I ended up going into the Salvation Army, and it was probably the best thing ever for me because when I walked in that door, the first thing they told me is you got to find God.

Yeah. And I believed in God, and I believed in God my whole life, but I just believed that I was fucked. You know, I, I from the time I was in the 3rd grade, I thought I was going to hell, you know, I figured I was done. You know, I, I think 3rd grade, I got caught with The Dirty magazines in the bushes by the nun. You know, and you know,

you know, sometime, sometime around 7th grade or 8th grade, we did the, you know, the,

the burning bag of crap on the nun's doorstep and, you know, and all this stuff. And I figured I was screwed, you know, and I also didn't necessarily buy into the,

the particular theology that I was being taught, you know, and they told me if you don't believe in that, you're going to hell. So, you know, I, I, I figured I was screwed,

but I had gotten, I was getting sober and I was

reading the literature and I was hearing about the God as we understand them thing. And so I figured I'd give it a shot, you know? And being the good Catholic boy I was, I became a witch.

No rebellion there.

But what I did is I actually walked around this place and I and I and I and I and I talked to guys that were, that were reading spiritual literature and that I talked to guys that had different beliefs. And I talked to everybody and I and I found the common denominators. I found the common thread.

It was throughout all their beliefs and in the very beginning that was my higher power. My God was just a set of principles in the very beginning, you know, today it's more than that, but it's not much more than that, you know. But in the beginning, it was this set of principles and and it was enough, you know,

came into Alcoholics Anonymous, got a real great buzz off of getting sober. And you know, life is awesome and this and that and the other thing. And they kept telling me to talk about my reservations and this and I got to talk about your reservations, got to talk about your reservations. And I never got in trouble over smoking pot.

It was always the booze. It was the hard drugs, you know, the weed never bothered me.

I talked about it and I talked about it and I talked about it and I got high.

They didn't tell me to do anything about this reservation. They just told me to talk about it. You know, you're supposed to share about this stuff. You know the healings and the sharing.

Well, I,

I continued to go to a a, you know, and I don't know who told me this, but I got to thank him, whoever he is out there. And they said don't drink and go to meetings. But if you do drink, go to a meeting anyway,

you know? And I never stopped going.

I was loaded every single day except for little spots here and there for three years going Alcoholics Anonymous, sharing about my problems.

Oh, oh, the weed thing. I thought I was sober. I, you know, because I hadn't picked up a drink, you know, and say, hey, you know, we, we, we don't talk about drugs here, you know, and, and it, it's OK, you know, it's a natural herb. I'm going to be a Rastafarian. I'm a smoke dope and be spiritual.

I couldn't do it. I, I something in me, I don't know where it was, but it was somewhere inside of me was just eating at me. You know, there was a hypocrisy there and I didn't outwardly know it at the time because I truly believe my bullshit, you know, but

I didn't, you know, deep down, I, I knew I was full of crap, you know, and because I was also Sharon too, you know, and I'm telling this great stuff that you're supposed to do because I've been around the rooms for three years and I I know all the right things to say, you know, and you know, I've been to a million in one step meetings and this and that. And

but I wasn't doing anything and I knew I wasn't. I knew I wasn't. And so in my deluded state,

I hadn't relapsed, so I needed to go out and drink so I could come back to a A

No lie, No lie. That's exactly how I felt. I need to go out and drink so that I can come back to a A

I picked up a drink and I couldn't stop for three years.

Go into a meeting every single day, going to go into 3, going to four meetings every single day, sharing about my problems. You know, I had a sponsor, he drove me to meetings. You know, I had a network of people, you know, they drove me to meetings. We hung out at the diner and we went bowling. You know, I shared about the problem of the day. You know,

I I did everything they told me to do. I made coffee. Should I even chaired a couple meetings,

but

I couldn't stay stopped for more than a couple days. You know, I remember sitting in this Monday night meeting and I'm just back off a run. I'm like a day, maybe two days sober and, and I felt like this hollowed out eggshell,

you know, and, and if you, you just even touch me, I'm done. You know, I'm just going to shatter into a million pieces. And

that was my problem. You know, booze was never my problem. Booze has always been my solution. My problem is being sober. I don't know how to be sober. I've got this and talk about it. The spiritual malady, you know, I got this.

It's unmanageability is what it is. You know, it drives me crazy and and if somebody believes different, Bob, till you drop. But you know what? The unmanageability in my life has nothing to do with the crash cars or the lost jobs or the lost relationships or the pissed off whoever

with the unmanageability is is the unmanageability is something that goes on inside of me. You know, they talk about it on page 52. It's having trouble with personal relationships. Pray to misery and depression can't control our emotional natures. We've all read it, you know, it's it's that internal crap, you know, and that's the stuff that drives me to drink. That's the stuff that drives my obsession, you know, because the only thing that I know up until this point to fix that

is to get loaded,

you know? And I have this obsessive mind that tells me it's OK. I have this, this mind that tells me that it won't happen this time. Or you know what? Fuck it, you know, I, I, my last run,

they, they think to drink through. Well, my last run, I'm living in East Orange, NJ. And if anybody knows E Orange, it's, it's, it's the hood, you know, it's right next door to Newark and it's just as bad. And you know, me and my girlfriend at the time are the only white people in this neighborhood, you know? And like I said, I thought it'd be cool, 'cause I'm a Rasta who smokes dope and the spiritual, you know?

My last run, OK, well, I'm going to go to the bar. I'm going to have a couple shots of tequila. Then I'm going to stop at a liquor store. I'll get a I'll get a couple bottles of Mad Dog. I'm going to make my way up to Woodstock or wherever they were having that Woodstock 94 thing. And, and I'm going to go to the concert. I'm going to hop on a bus. I'm going to make my way out West in a couple years. Maybe I'll hit a meeting in Berkeley.

I thought the drink through,

this is the mind that I'm working with here

'cause I thought that that was a good idea. You know, they told me things to drink through. I did and I did it, you know, I didn't follow through with the way I planned, but you know what, It was just as bad. It was just as screwed up, you know. But the idea was, is the mind that I'm working with at that point, I can't think to drink through. There's no way, you know, because the booze is my answer.

It's an old guy who was coming around a a or was in a a for God knows how long. He he had like 50 years or something. He was two days older than dirt right next to God. And he used to talk about grabbing drunks off the street and bringing him back to his house and reading them in a big book and, you know, getting them sober and drying them out.

And at that point, I had no idea what he was talking about because my idea of what the big book was is the book of stories that you're supposed to identify with. And, you know, we talk about how we drank like them and, you know, and, and all that stuff.

And he and he said sobriety is a gift from God and what we do with it is our gift back.

And during that last run,

his face kept popping into my mind and those words kept popping into my head, you know, and it drove me insane. And

on September 6th, the day after my birthday,

94, I think

I'm I'm still shot. It's never five years to get your brains back. It's bullshit.

I'm still waiting.

I I think it was 94. Somebody could do the math for me. Later,

I crawled out of a basement

and

wrecked mentally, emotionally, spiritually, lost my apartment. And I'm walking down the street and I was like, I got to go back to the rooms

and I walked about two miles to a meeting.

And it was a big book meeting.

And they read that movie, the story about the old lady Southern something or other. But it was, it was an old lady from the South. You know, I'm a skinny young guy from Northern California. But I identified with everything in this story. And something happened that day. Something clicked.

I got a moment.

I started reading a book and what Bill had said to me. They, the old guy

came back and I started reading it and I seen the part in the very beginning when it talks about it being a textbook

and I knew what that meant. First time I ever seen it. It's been been around a A for over three years. Been in it as best I could for three and never seen that. Never caught that and

proceeded to

read that book and do what it said.

I got sober

in the beginning very much like

the founders in the sense that I got mail order sobriety. You know, I read the book and I did what it said.

My sponsor at the time told me I'd drink if I wrote a four step.

He told me you're not ready for that yet. Yeah, as we said, he said you're not ready for that yet. You'll drink. And I said I'm drinking anyway, what does it matter? You know, let me try. It's the only thing I haven't done, you know, and

did my 4th and 5th step. I was two months over,

I got AI, got AI, got AI, got a major God shot right around that .23 months over and and it was it was massive to me at the time. Looking back, you know, and whoever out there might hear this may not think it's that big of a deal, but I was sitting in a meeting and I

realized for the first time in my life that I don't ever have to drink again.

And it was an extremely unique thought. I had never heard it before. I'd never thought it before. I was that guy who was sitting on the porch with a beer and a bomb, you know, And later on, I was that guy who was in and out of a A living in the park down the street, you know, because I can't get sober. I thought I would. By this point, I had introduced a whole bunch of my friends who were active to a A and they were getting sober, and I wasn't

panel on. I figured I was constitutionally incapable. I'm one of these people who just can't get it. Everybody around me is getting sober. I can't,

but that day I'm sitting in that meeting and it ends. That thought just came in and it crowded everything else out and it said you don't ever have to do this again.

And

I finished

all the amends that I was capable of at that point, you know, that I knew of or that I was willing to look at in that first year because that first inventory that I did was crap. It was probably 80% lies,

but it was absolutely as honest as I could be as at the time that I was doing it, it absolutely was because I was truly seeking the solution. Like I said, I was incapable of being honest. I was deluded. I was shot out, I couldn't remember squat and I was hallucinating on a regular basis.

Acid flashbacks. Not schizophrenic or anything like that, but I, you know, I,

I was incapable of being truly honest. You know, I, I,

but I was as honest as I possibly could be. You know, there's a line in the, in the book that says God doesn't make too hard terms for those who seek, you know, and I'm a prime example of that, you know, because I was screwed up. I had no guidance. I was full of shit, but I was trying to find God

and it worked. You know, like I said, I finished the amends from that inventory within my first year and I proceeded to become this rabid step Nazi. And

I would I'd walk into a 12:00 and 12:00 meeting with my big book under my arm and I and I and I tell everybody how they're doing it wrong. And, and I'd go to every meeting I went to and and stand up here and you know, you guys don't, you're not doing it right. This is the right way

and and

I did that for a long time. You know, it took me

to fully get balance with that. Probably took me about six years.

I started to find some balance with it at around 4 years sober because I bumped into some people who were actually doing it

on. I spent four years, like I said in Alcoholics Anonymous, sober doing the steps and not having any guidance. And the only way that I was going to get any guidance, and this is what I did, was I would go to a meeting and find that guy who was in and out for 15 years who couldn't stay sober. And I dragged him back to my house, bring him through the steps, and then use him

as my accountability,

you know? Umm,

I don't know if it's in the book, I think it is, but somewhere, wherever I got it says create the fellowship you crave. You know,

we started our first house meeting right around a year, somewhere around there.

Still have one today. The last house on the block, that's my living room. I do have an outside group that I go to. I, I, we, I go to a Way Out in Tannersville on Tuesday night at 7:00.

I need outside accountability because I found that my house meeting is great. I love it. It saves my ass all the time.

But what happens on occasion is when I'm not well, I let them put me in the guru spot. And I don't know when I'm not well, you know, unless I got people outside to tell me what's going on, unless I got people.

You know that that see me regularly and that I allowed to hold me accountable outside of my sponsees and the people who come to me for guidance. You know, because that's what was happening. I found in the beginning,

you know, in the beginning, I, I didn't have the sponsor who was who I was accountable to. I had a bunch of sponsees that I would bounce shit off of and out of necessity. That's what I had to do at the time. But when I was four years sober, I I stumbled across this group and met this guy.

We used to call him Anal Dave.

He, he was a, he was an airline pilot and he was in the military and, and he was a big book thumper. I mean,

hardcore big book thumper.

And he handed me this sheet and it was color-coded with page and paragraph numbers. The Cliff Notes. I still hand it out today. So Cliff notes to the big book, and it's got everything in it that you need to know. And

I met him that night and I asked him to be my sponsor and we proceeded to do some work.

He's no longer my sponsor. I, I, I, I believe. And this may change tomorrow. But and I was also taught that

each time I go through the steps, I'm having a new experience. I'm looking for a new experience. Doesn't mean my old sponsor can't give me that. But I've found that I I work better when I find someone new and have their spin and and and utilize their experience.

I'm still in contact with him. I'm still in contact with the three other since him and I'll

one of the most awesome experiences I ever had, and it was a profound changing experience, was there were these two guys at my old Home group and I used to look at them like they were they were like, you know, I was in awe. You know, they were so spiritual and they, they knew all this stuff and, and they, and they, you know, they practice this thing perfect and blah, blah, blah. And

we proceeded to do a three-way fifth step

on a Sunday afternoon, and we all brought our inventory to the table and we all shared our inventories with each other.

And

it blew me away

because I realized these guys are just as screwed up as I am. And, you know, they may have it in different areas, but they're just as screwed up as I am. And

it changed a A for me, you know, I believe it's in the vision for you. It talks about going shoulder to shoulder, you know, and I'm a firm believer in that, you know, that there are no gurus in a A,

you know, there's nobody who's more spiritually evolved. We're just on different paths and at different points in our recovery. But it's not about spiritual evolution. It's about it's just about

moving through the day and, and, and and practicing this stuff to the best of our ability. And we all, I don't care who you are, we all have our stuff points. You know, we all have areas of our lives that are still have some kind of unmanageability. Maybe not today, but it's still there. You know, had a great day today. Yeah, when I sit down and do my nightly review tonight, I'm so far