The Daily Serenity Group in Denver, CO

Hi everyone, my name is Adam and I'm an alcoholic and by God's grace and the help of EA, I've been sober since June 28th, 1996. And for that I'm very grateful. And

God, can you all hear my heart pounding up here? I mean, this is I did not know I was going to be doing this tonight. Stephanie is not joking. I came by to actually just confirm that I was speaking on the 18th for her and she said no, no, no, you're speaking tonight actually and on. Oh shit, you know, I mean, what do you do? Well, you know the, the cool thing about it is that, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous is really made it possible for me to not only say yes, but to say yes to Alcoholics Anonymous. I know that sounds very strange, but what I mean by that, of course, is that it never would have occurred to me, to

the kind of person that I was when I came in here. You know, I wouldn't have done anything unless I know there was something in it for me. And,

you know,

I just am thrilled to be to be asked. And it didn't even occur to me to say no. And so, Steph, thank you so much for asking me and I'm really glad I could help you out

and hope this talk is everything you wanted it to be. You know, I don't know, I, I also just want to really welcome those of you who are new and I want to let you know I'm, I'm living a really good life today because of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm sure you could care less, but you know, but I care. You know, when I, when I woke up this morning, first of all, why I woke up, I didn't come to.

And when I I did, so I knew where I was. I was in my own apartment, in my own bed. I knew how I got there. I knew who I was with. And it was nobody. And that was a blessing. And

you know, I,

it's, it's a really action-packed life in a lot of ways. You know, I have a job that I absolutely love. I work in international education and I do what I do basically is I send college students over to foreign countries to go bottom out in their alcoholism. And I keep it chairworm for them while I'm here

because that's precisely how I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. I was 21 years old when I showed up, and the preceding year before that had basically been nine solid months of drinking in Japan. Has anybody ever been to Japan, by the way? None of you. We have. I see a few heads going up and down. So you know about the beer vending machines then, right? Oh, thank God for the beer vending machines. You know, I always know. I'm in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I mentioned the beer vending machines, and a few newcomers go like this. OK, you have my attention,

you know,

Oh God, they were wonderful. You know, going to any hotel, go up to the third floor, plunk in ¥500 and there's no greedy bartender tip and nobody saying, don't you think you've had enough? Oh, fantastic. You know, few of them outside of seven elevens. They're, they're great. They're great, you know, so convenient. But you know, when you, I mean, I lived out in the sticks in Japan actually, you know, when we were the only white guy around for about 12 miles. You know, they do notice. They do notice you. I mean, I'd be standing out by the 711 drinking a tall boy that I purchased out of it. And in my mind, I'm in some

bar watching my very beautiful friends play pool. And of course, I'm way too cool to play pool and too good. So sitting there drinking and out of the 711 comes some, you know, little Japanese high school girl in the uniform and everything like that. She takes one look at me and I go like this and she runs for her life. And as she's going, I'm thinking, my God, she totally thinks I'm hot, man. You know, And I, and I clocked that beer can against the vending machine, like I was giving it a cheers with a beer Stein or something like that. Because,

you know, and I'd like to tell that story because I remember once I, I lived in Chicago for a little while and I used to go to this young people's meeting out in Bucktown. And I remember this little 16 year old girl saying to me, you are like the coolest person I ever met because you drank out of a beer vending machine. Yeah. And I told her that story and all of a sudden I wasn't as cool anymore, you know, And I don't know. And it's really cute and everything like that. But, you know,

that was not exactly where I'd intended for alcohol to take me was, you know, standing by myself

with nothing but a 711 rice patties, a beer vending machine and a drunken white guy. That is exactly where alcohol took me. It took me to a lot worse places. It took me to the basement of my residence hall drinking beer that I had stolen out of the refrigerator. I, I was the kind of thief that broke into your apartment and raided your refrigerator and your medicine cabinet that, you know, I wasn't interested in your money. I wanted, I wanted whatever it was you had that was going to get me away from being on myself. You know, and I would be drinking down there in the basement, not because I was having a good time

and not because, you know, drinking was fun anymore, because now I got to make the evidence of what I've stolen disappear. And that's not exactly where I'd intended for alcohol to take me either.

But there was no, not drinking never occurred to me to not drink. And it's really funny that that's kind of the place where alcohol took me, you know, because I had, I had a mother who was a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I logged a lot of seat time in Al Anon. Are there any Al Anon Alan team members here? Any double winners? No, no one's going to fess up, I guess. OK, well, it's all right. I'll fess up.

I logged a lot of seat time in Al Anon and I never worked the 12 steps because I didn't know I had a spiritual malady and I

I was 14, you know, I mean, what did I know about anything?

Although I, I will say this much, I'm really grateful to Alan on and Alton for at least planting the concept of the 12 steps in my mind so that it kind of made my drinking a little shorter. There are a lot of people in here. I'm sure that I've heard that old cliche about having to having a belly full of wine and a head full of a, A, you know, and I had something like that,

you know, and I think if not for that, I probably would have been out there a lot longer, dying a lot longer.

But yeah, I had a mother who was a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I had logged a lot of seat time in Al Anon and I was sure it wasn't going to happen to me. Well, it happened and it happened big time. And you know,

I didn't, I didn't want to come to a a not at 21 years old. Not one is finally legal for me to drink in this country

and not with my mother. Oh God, anybody but her,

you know, I know, but, but I was in a lot of pain the night before my first meeting. I, I actually really like to talk about my first meeting very much. It's we've all had a first meeting, you know, and I remember mine like it happened yesterday. Just real quickly, here's how it happened the night before. I showed up at my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous at 7:30 with my mother.

Umm, I was out at a pool hall with the only two people left in my life who were so crazy enough to hang out with me.

And I, you know, to this day I don't know what it was that set me off, but something sure did. Because one minute I was fine and the next thing I knew I was whipping a pool cue at them just left and right, screaming at the top of my lungs that I wanted to see the color of their blood.

And you know, I didn't get myself into that kind of shape just once. You know, that was real common for me. And I, if you're new, I want you to know this also. That was real common for me when I was not drinking.

OK, I'm the kind of person that they described in this book when they say restless, irritable and discontent until he has a drink. And I didn't do restless, suitable and discontent and moderation either, obviously. But I didn't, I didn't do it once either. That was real common. Something would set me off and the next thing I know I was driving my I was driving you up the same wall that I was climbing and I was not being nice about it. And it was a whole lot of not pretty.

What ended up happening was the guy who I was out with. I was out with the guy and girl. They were boyfriend and girlfriend. He caught the pool cue on an in swing, whipped it out of my hand, grabbed me by the front of the shirt, brought my nose right up to mine

and said shut the hell up.

Just shut up. And I was so shocked that he had done that, that up I did shut, you know? And

his voice dropped a few notches and he just said to me, Adam, go home, go home. Don't even offer us a ride. We're not going to get in the car with you. We'll figure out a way to get home. Just don't come near me anymore. Don't come near Rachel anymore. Just get the hell out of the lives of whatever. Whatever you do, don't say you're sorry 'cause you're not. You say you're sorry all the time and then you do it again. You do this all the time. And I'm not taking it anymore. I'm not going to let her take it anymore either. Get the hell out of my life

and it was like a piano kind of hit the ground inside of me somewhere and I was just devastated because I knew he was right. I hadn't gotten myself in that kind of shape just once. Well, guess what? I get behind the wheel of the car and magically it drives itself to a bar.

Surprise surprise. And I'm sitting there in that bar and I am hurting worse than I've ever heard in my life and God I want to have a drink. But what's crowding that out is the night of my last drunk. Another place alcohol didn't alcohol took me to, and I didn't mean to go there.

I was in Japan. I, I was, I, you know, I've been drinking every day because that temper was out of control when I wasn't drinking and it just seems safer to stay drunk. I knew that the kind of violence I was capable of would have gotten me to deported.

And thank God for those beer vending machines. Man,

that's not funny.

Yes, it is actually. What am I kidding?

I just remember that in that last night that I got drunk, you know, I was, I was, I was on the swim team and that, you know, I was in the college swim team in Japan. And the nights had been ending pretty much the same way. I would get there promising I was just going to have two and magically 2 would turn into four and four would turn into eight and eight would turn into 16. And they started bringing Hefty garbage bags to these parties because I was the only person that would like throw up as much as I did. And

you know, they would bring these garbage bags for me to throw up into. And the night was over when I was carried out. One person holding me up here and in my hand is a Hefty garbage bag full of my own vomit. And I'm being carried off to wherever it is I'm going to come to.

And that last night I wouldn't let somebody carry me home because I was embarrassed and I was ashamed. And so without garbage bags present, I threw up on every train that I rode home. And there were four of them between Yagoto where I was, and Sakai, where I was heading. And I got off the train at Sacca Bay and

crawled on my hands and knees to my host family's house. My host mother took one look at me, said, oh, honey, you're not going to make it up the stairs. They put me in the backroom, which is the room where the family's grandmother had been in the last days of her life. And it was the only room in the house with an adjacent toilet. And I use that word very liberally.

That's not funny either. It was basically a cesspit with a toilet seat on top of it. And this is the kind of contraption to poor maggot killer down

once a month and I wasn't done throwing up. And this ain't the kind of contraption and rest your cheek on because it's nice and cool either.

Y'all are pretty sick if you think that's funny,

and it is, but it's a whole lot of not funny because I'm laying there. I'm seeing the alcoholic national anthem. You all know the alcoholic national anthem. Let's sing it together. Oh God, if you Get Me Out of this, I'll never drink again. Right? OK, Yeah.

And just like everything else that was coming out of my mouth, it was a lie to because of course I drink again after that because I'm an alcoholic and my choice has been made. You know, I I can't remember the suffering humiliation of that night the next time somebody puts a drink in front of me. And I didn't remember it the next time somebody put a drink in front of me. But I remembered what my friend said when he caught the pool cue on the in swing and ripped it out of my hand, and how bad it hurt and how much I wanted to drink.

But that was the first time I actually thought about the consequences.

I actually thought about what was going to happen if I got behind the wheel of the car, if I got that drunk. And I knew, I knew that I knew that I knew that somebody was going to die and it wasn't going to be me and that I was going to have to live sober through whatever came after killing somebody in a drunk driving accident.

And I got scared. I got really scared. And I think this is kind of where God put his foot in the door and said, all right, that's it, you're through, you're done. Because that car went into drive. And I drove home at 2 miles an hour. And I sat up and I waited for my mom to take me to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And she got up

there. I was sitting on the couch, still fully dressed, shaking. I said, Mom, I need you to take me to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous with you. I'm I'm, I'm an alcoholic. And she just looked at me with all the seriousness in the world. And she said,

no, you're not. And I said, yeah, I am. I'm an alcoholic.

And she said, no, you're not. I just told you you're not. You're not. Go back to your ality meetings, you'll be fine. I said, mom, you're not going to believe what happened last night. I said I don't care what happened last night. You're not coming to this meeting

and I finally laid it out there I told her everything that had happened and then she finally just, you know, huffed and said, all right, fine, I'm taking you to a meeting let's get a few things straight. This is my Home group and you will not join it. These

these are my friends and you will not love them. And there's a guy there named Jim Lathrop. And you will stay the hell away from them. You will not have him for a sponsor. Am I understood? And you know, I know I was at my bottom because if I had been in any less pain than I was in at that moment, I would have said, you know what? Forget it. Just forget I even brought it up.

Screw this. Screw you too, lady.

But I was in just enough pain to make that unholy packed with the devil. And

by the end of that meeting, I've done everything my mother told me not to do because I And here's why. Because I got to that meeting and all my mother's friends rushed forward and embraced me. And they said, you know, you're new so you really ought to start going to a meeting every day. And this is a good one because we meet every morning at 7:30, so really ought to join the Home group. And,

and when they started that meeting, they said, if you're new and you're looking for a temporary sponsor, the women should go see Carolyn P and dementia go see Jim L.

What do you do? I do what any good alcoholic son did. I looked at my mother, I shrugged. I flipped her the bird. And then I did everything she told me not to do,

you know? And I know today that we're both grateful I did that. See, I didn't know that my mom had a resentment against him, Lathrop, and that that was poisoning her relationship with these friends she was telling me to stay away from, and that she and in fact woken up that morning with the resolve to resign from Alcoholics Anonymous.

I'd like to think 2 lives got saved that day

and we joke about that a lot.

You know, a is really healed. The relationship between my mom and I, it was very toxic and very poisonous and very violent when I was growing up. You know, classic alcoholic home growing up, every kind of violence except for sexual, thank God. But a lot of fighting, a lot of screaming, a lot of broken promises, a lot of silent dinners, and a lot of them maintained secrecy.

And there, you know, I don't have to tell anybody. You know, if you've grown up in an alcoholic home, you know that there's not a whole lot of funny going on in there.

But what's beautiful about Alcoholics Anonymous is that it's, it's really healed that relationship. And she and I are actually able to laugh today about stuff that was life and death at the time, including that first meeting. And we both laugh about it all the time. Even, you know, I, my mom is lives in Oklahoma City and I go see her at Christmas and we go to meetings together. And I remember she was asked to speak and, and tell that story and they turned him in and they said, Adam, do you want to rebut? Do you have rebuttal or anything like that? I said no,

exactly how it happens, you know, And

I think if it had happened any other way, somebody else would be standing here tonight or you'd be in a lot of trouble stuff. Somebody wouldn't be here tonight. I don't know. But you know, I don't remember anything that was said to me at that first meeting. I just remember saying that horrible sentence. My name is Adam. I'm an alcoholic. And the little old man sitting next to me, I put his hand on mine and welcome me home. And I didn't know I was home. He knew it.

I was given a 24 hour chip and my first meet, my only 24 hour chip by a woman whose face was just

covered it in wine source.

I don't know that she had only 30 days and was giving it away at the time. I just knew that she looked scary and she had this Southern Comfort in her voice. You know, she sounded kind of like this and she was giving everybody who took a chip a hug. And I was scared to go get one. And

it's the truth, you know what I mean? And I just remember she put her arms around me and I exhaled and I didn't know. I've been holding my breath, you know, And I don't remember anything that anybody said. I remember what people didn't say to me. I remember people did not say to me. Sorry, kid. One member of your family is more than a A can take, so you got to go.

I remember nobody said to me,

umm,

you're only 21 years old, you couldn't possibly be done dying yet.

And because they, they might have been right, You know, I mean, I probably was physically capable of drinking more, but you know, I describe what I'm like when I, I don't drink, you know, and my skin turns inside out real quickly and I couldn't take living like that anymore. You know, a lot of the stuff that appeared on my 8th and 9th step, you know, a lot of the amends I had to make were things that I did when I was

when I was between drinks.

Because it was between drinks that I broke into your apartment and I stole your refrigerator, the booze out of your refrigerator. It was between drinks that I opened up my roommates wallet, took $20 out and tried to convince him that it was my $20. It was between drinks that I lied. It was between drinks that I

that I really

did the stuff that I'm the most ashamed of or was at that time. You know, the nice thing about the steps is that I don't have, I don't have the kind of shame

that I had about the kind of person that I was. I mean, it took everything that I had to go through to get to where I am today, you know, and I, you know, if I could have done differently, I probably would have done differently. And I'm not saying you're proud of a lot of the stuff that I did, but I do know that just like everything else in sobriety that's caused me pain, you know, even that stuff

has turned into experience, strength and hope.

I don't drink and I don't die. I work the steps and everything that caused me pain turns into experience, strength and hope, including the stuff that I did between drinks and a lot of the stuff that I did while I was drunk too.

I, you know, and nobody said to me, you know, I spilled more than you drank. I mean, God, I was so scared that one of those crusty, mean old timers was gonna get on my face and say, I spilled more than you drank. You know, 'cause I just, I was, I was primed. I was primed. I just wanted some mean old time to say that to me so I could say, well, you know what?

Maybe if you've been drinking what you spilled, you would have gotten here at 21 two, you know, and not because

that's funny.

It's not funny,

but I wanted to say that not because I was a tough guy or a bad guy, but because I would much rather you kick my ass and make me feel vulnerable. I'd much rather you punch me in the face and hash brown my nose than hurt my feelings.

I had always been that way, you know, long before

I ever picked up a drink. I had problems. I was your classic high school geek, small and body, big on brains and even bigger on mouth. And, you know, I, I had that temper going on because I'd grown up in this alcoholic home and I'd learn to fight from early on, you know, And I didn't know the rest of the world operated like that. I was a very smart child, quite literate and articulate before my first birthday, you know, And my parents had a lot of high hopes and a lot of high expectations.

You know, so

smart kid,

it only knew how to fight. My, you know, my two tools for living were make good grades and went in doubt attack and they turn me loose on kindergarten. And by the time I was 17 years old, I was just this angry little mess. I was the kid that lived in in-house suspension because some football team jock called me a fag and I took him by the back of the head and I smashed it into a locker until he bled.

And you know,

I'm astounded when I think about that, just how insane that was. You know, I've never want to fight in my life,

but I've never taken on somebody my own size. You know, and I learned in my 4th step why that was because if I take somebody on who's my own size and I don't win, people might not think I'm a very good fighter. But if I take on somebody bigger than me or if I take on more people than one, you know, they might think, well, God, you know, must be a tough little punk if that many people have to jump in or if somebody that big has to jump in. So,

you know, I didn't know that until I did an inventory. There's a lot of things I didn't know until I did an inventory. You know, I'm a college drunk. Any college drunks out there?

OK, a few of you,

any old mill drinkers out there? No old mill drinkers out there? Oh my God that's a shame. Cheapest beer? You could buy a case of that for 5 bucks. Pure pasteurized horse piss. Never seen a shaft of wheat in his life.

You know, and

I,

I got to college, I was recruited by this women team. I was a very good swimmer and I got recruited by the swim team. And quickly I became the only swim team member who was shoveling money out of my own pocket to be at a swim team party. Because, you know, I, I would get drunk and I would just tell these fantastic stories about all these wonderful friends that I had and all these cool adventures that we went on. You know, neither the friends nor the adventures existed. Of course. You know, to think I got so upset when I walked in here and I saw something about being restored to sanity. I had imaginary friends, and I went on trips in fantasyland

when I got drunk, you know? And I liked alcohol because it helped me not mind the fact that I was a poser and a liar,

you know? But I had a grandiose ego back then, and I didn't even know it, you know? People put two and two together real quickly and figured out I was a liar, and they stopped wanting to hang out with a liar. I would show up at the party and the music would go off and be like, what?

You know, I didn't get it. I didn't get it, you know? And then somebody would come up to me and they say, oh, hey, Adam, great, you're here.

You know, we all pitched in for another case. So can you give us 5 bucks? And I would hand the money over, knowing that I was the only one doing it.

I handed over my own money. I handed other people's money. Never want to forget the day I handed over all this. I had a mountain of dirty laundry that was like this high. I was the kind of alcoholic who had no compunction whatsoever about wearing his boxer shorts inside out.

Keep coming back,

you know, and, and I was raised better, but, you know, I had taken the cup of quarters that I had saved to do my laundry and I traded it in for that right To drink with people that didn't even like me. You know, see, I didn't know until I did an inventory that what I was essentially saying was that it was more important for me to drink with people that didn't like me than to have the tiny little dignity that comes with wearing clean clothes. You know, and that may not be a big deal. And that may not sound like a really big sacrifice,

and it's not. But, you know, the story of my alcoholism basically is that I just kind of ripped off or allowed to have ripped off these little tiny bits of myself esteem until there was nothing left,

you know? And then I'm down in the basement drinking beer that I've stolen out of somebody's apartment. Never want to forget the day, you know, the swim team got tired of my company real quickly and they wouldn't even take my money. They wouldn't even take my cords. They wouldn't take anybody else's money either, you know, So I show up at the frat parties and, you know, I would drop somebody's name and go down there and act like an idiot. One day I dropped somebody's name. They said, you stay right there. They went back down to that

mess of cheap beer and meaningless sex, got the person whose name I dropped, brought him upstairs and said, did you bring this guy here

or did you say it could come over? No, they took me by the back of the shirt and by the back of my jeans and threw me off the steps of the Delta Cap Epsilon house and on I, another piece of myself esteem came off, you know, and I kept saying, you know, I did. God, what? What's so terrible? What is it that I wanted so bad that you got to treat me like this? You know, that I just want to have fun. I just want to be with you guys doing what you're doing because it makes me feel comfortable. It makes me not hate myself. It makes me not mind the fact that I'm a liar and a poser. It makes me a good dancer. It makes me conversational.

It makes me not mind the fact that there's such a big difference between me and you,

but it's really hard to explain all that when you're in midair and they're kind of throwing you off the steps, you know?

Anyway, I went to Japan on a geographic cure because I didn't run away in moderation. And that's where I ended up drinking every day, basically. And I promised myself I wasn't going to let that happen either. But you know, I got there and I had a ball for a while. I'd like to tell you something. I'm making my drinking probably sound like a real terrible experiment in, in, in better living through chemistry. And it wasn't. I want to guarantee you all, I had a ball for a while. I loved it.

I mean, all night long playing Tecmo Bowl on Nintendo,

drinking Old Milwaukee or Molson's if it was a really good night, and listening to Kurt Cobain howl out with the lights out. It's less dangerous. Here we are now entertain us. I mean, God, when he, when he died, we had an Irish wake for a week. Man, you know, it just,

I had a ball. I had a lot of fun. I just don't, I can't exactly explain what it was that changed all that. But I do think it was right about the point that I started handing over the quarters for the drink. You know, I didn't realize I was selling out for alcohol and I didn't realize I was miserable and I didn't realize that it wasn't getting better and that not drinking wasn't the answer. I knew not drinking wasn't the answer because I would go home for the holidays to my mother and her, my father, my mother being the sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Therefore, no more booze in the house

and within minutes of arriving home I'm driving everybody up the same wall. I'm climbing because I'm used to living by my rules

and it was horrible.

Anyway, got to Japan on a geographic cure, drank myself to my bottom and ended up at my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I think

it's it's not a long trip, but it was a hard and fast one and it may sound really strange to hear somebody say it. 21 years old. He was tired, but I was tired.

I really didn't want to go on living anymore because I knew that alcohol was causing a problem and I knew that not drinking wasn't working either. I learned really soon that not drinking wasn't working either because I was going to meetings of Alcoholics and all This is this is the day. This is what happened. This is what happened. I'm supposed to tell you what it used to be like what happened and what what it's like today. This is what happened. I've been going to meetings for about 3 weeks. I had had a drink

one more time. I'm in a fight with my mom. I don't know what it is that set me off, but she said take your things, put them in your backpack and get the hell out of my house. I don't care

if you're sober in a or not, you will not talk to me like this. I'm going to the store and when I come back, if you're still here, I'm having the cops take you out. And she left and I looked around and I just couldn't believe it. I didn't know what I'd said or done. You know, I anybody ever had these like weird sober blackouts, you know,

you know, and my program at that time, it consisted of just don't drink and go to meetings. And that's what just don't drink and go to meetings got me. And that was when I finally realized that there was going to be a whole lot more than this just not drinking thing, that I was going to have to make some changes.

My mother did come home. She did find me there. I said, listen, I'll pack up and leave soon. But would you please just take me to a new meeting? Just drop me off at a new meeting. Let me do that. I'll come back and I'll pack up.

And she did. I don't know why, but she did. But I went to that meeting and they read the chapter called There's a Solution. And in that chapter it says something about

if you are as alcoholic as we were, then there is no middle of the road solution.

You can either go on drinking to the bitter end, trying to blot out the consciousness of this intolerable situation, or you can accept spiritual help. But if you accept spiritual help, it's because you're doing it because you want to and you're willing to make the effort.

And it goes on in there to talk about how none of us like the leveling of pride

and, you know, the evaluation of shortcomings that comes with it. I'm kind of paraphrasing, but he said we. But we saw that it worked in others, and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we've been living it. And I read that line and I knew this is the best I could do with just don't drink and go to meetings. This is the best I could do

and it sucked. And that was the day I became willing.

That was the day I ended up with a real sponsor, one of those men that you hear about in a that has gone to school for hard hearted sponsorship. He didn't care about how I felt. He cared about what I did. He used to say to me all the time, Adam, I don't want to. We would try to read the big book together on I'm an educated person and I would try to tell him what I got out of the reading and say no, shut up. If I wanted to hear anything you had to say about this book, I would have asked you to sponsor me, but I didn't. So shut up.

And I'd say, yeah, But he said, see, you're doing it again. I told you to shut up.

End up. I would shut.

He wanted me to say the third step prayer on my knees. I said to him, well, I'm, I'm Jewish. I don't, I don't pray on my knees. And he gave me that. Well, you know, that sponsored death ray look, you know, you know, one eyebrow goes down, the other eyebrow goes up. And you just know that your mouth has betrayed your mind, you know? Yeah, he gave me that look. And I knew that he knew that I had never done a Jewish thing in my life,

not one thing. I had never been to synagogue. I had never been bar mitzvahed. I ate pork and loved it and

I learned a very interesting lesson that day. The keyword in the third step is care. You know, we turn our will and our lives over the care of a power grid in ourselves. And you know the best I could do for God, God group of drunks because all those group of drunks that see my mother come in, they helped her get her life together. And if they could work on her, then they had to be able to work on me.

All of those people plus me was clearly more powerful than me alone trying to get sober. And I had chosen a member of that group of drunks,

you know, and he must have sat there at coffee with some of those other old timers and said, well, he looks like he's going to stick around. So we're not going to treat him with kid gloves anymore. You know, just lay it on the line for him. Jamie, don't, don't hold back. You know, whatever you do, don't let him say anything back to you because he's going to think himself right out of this room.

You know?

He really cared. He cared enough about aid and not let me Dick around with it. He cared about enough to work with a guy who probably was one of those people you hear about in a a not nobody's too dumb for Alcoholics Anonymous, but there are a lot of people who are too smart. I was one of those. But he cared enough about me and my desire to stay sober, to say that prayer with me and to not let me have my way with it.

And,

you know, that was the great effect that was felt at once when I had that third step prayer, you know, is that I realized this person must really care about Alcoholics Anonymous. If he's not letting me screw around, then he must really care a lot about me and my desire to not drink. And, you know, that whole group of drunks who didn't tell me I was too young and who didn't throw me out of my first meeting and who welcomed me so warmly, you know, they really must care. You know, and I became willing to turn my thinking and my actions over to that kind of care.

And I have to tell you,

I haven't had a drink

for almost 16 years.

And life in your care has been magnificent. Life in your care has been magnificent. It's not always been pretty, but I swear to God I wouldn't trade it for anything. Not one thing.

Some fantastic things have happened in sobriety. You know, I, I got back to, I got to go back to Japan several times

sober and I got to go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous there. And you know, I got to tell you the last time I lived in Japan, I was there for two years. I went to meetings

in Japanese. I was the only guy there, the only white guy there one more time.

And at four or five years sober, I was one of the long timers in that meeting. You know, A is still pretty much in its infancy over there. And you don't find out about A until you've been to the psych ward a few times, you know, and it's really tough to go into a meeting like that and say, what do you got for me? You know, And that's really where I really learned to be a service. And that's really where I did learn to say yes. And that's really where I did learn to have the to develop the kind of attitude that would allow me to walk into this mean just to confirm

that I was speaking on the 18th and say, oh, you need me tonight, I'm here for you.

I got to go back to Japan many times, like I said, and I got to enjoy every minute of it sober. And it's the people in Alcoholics Anonymous that saw me through every step of the way.

I graduated from college, I graduated from grad school. I, I've fallen in love and sobriety. I I made some really great men step. You know, those, that, those people that I was having that bar fight with that night,

Umm, I made amends to them and,

you know,

they invited me to their wedding and I, I couldn't go unfortunately because I was going to be living in Japan by the time that they got married and I couldn't fly back. But I took them out to dinner and we had this really long talk and

you know, I'm still in their life today and it's a very different relationship, but it's a really wonderful, healthy relationship. They trust me with their kids. I'm a guy. I used to try to swing a pool cue at them and they trust me with their kids.

You know, that's a big deal.

I reconnected with family that I didn't speak to because of my own selfishness. You know, at three years sober, I went down to Florida and I reconnected with my father's mother, his sister and, and those kids, you know, and, and my youngest cousin had never met me because I was too resentful and too angry and too wrapped up in myself. And, you know, that little girl wrote me a letter at the end of my stay and every word was in a different color of magic marker. And she she said.