Step 1 at the 2nd Annual Stay Sober For Keeps Workshop in Laguna Niguel, CA

I get to go first. That way Myers can come up here and tie up all the loose ends and stuff, all the crap that I forget. All right, I'm John Kelly. I'm a grateful recovered alcoholic

and my sobriety date is September the 4th 99. And I am very, very grateful about that. And so is my Mama.

So we do a little, you know, we're going to cover a whole lot of ground today. It always warms my heart to see people that sacrifice a Friday night and a Saturday night and a Sunday to come here. Knuckleheads like me talk, you know, I mean, that's pretty impressive because I know we all have lives and families and kids and jobs and stuff that we like to do on Saturday, just screw around and and we're here.

So hopefully we won't disappoint. I am like a participation guy. So do I have like is there anybody here with like more than five desire chips over the years?

Y'all can be honest. No one don't look around, just raise your hand. Anybody with more than 10 more than 15 or 20. There's my knuckleheads. I love it. I love it. I'm not making fun because I am that guy too. And I told you last night on my story and when I was about dead and detoxing home rebound and and these guys came and talked. They blew my mind. I didn't get sober that time, but they said stuff that I never ever heard. Maybe I heard it in 11 years in a a land, but I never heard it presented this way.

And so we're just going to kind of kick it off. I'm going to do a lot of step one stuff, but just to get my mouth going right, I'm just going to kind of start where I always do. And then the title of the book, title page of the book, it says Alcoholics Anonymous is the story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism. All right, not recovering. I'm still in recovery. I'm always recovering. I mean, that's like a sniveling, whining person. I work 12 steps. I had a spiritual experience. I have recovered from the

illness known the mankind, alcoholism, an illness that kills people that don't even have alcoholism,

right. This is their story, their experience. It's not ideas and opinions, it is experience. And this is what this book is about. And if you flip the page over past the table of contents of the preface,

again, you flip me a book, I go to Page 1 and start reading, right? I am a reader. I like to read, but I typically don't spend a lot of time. There's a lot of information before we get to Bill's story that's vital.

And in the in the preface, in the second paragraph, it says that this book has become the basic text for our society. So right off the bat, the authors are telling us they're qualifying this book and they're telling us that this is a textbook, right? A textbook is totally different from a novel. I may read the latest John Grisham novel and get blown away and give it to Mars and like, dude, you got to read this. This is awesome. I will probably never read that novel again, no matter how great it is,

right? A textbook is different.

A textbook is something we study. We refer to it, right? It's like in little first grade in math class, a little teacher passed out math books. You know, unless you were the friggin genius of the class, you didn't go to the end of the book, start working long divisions, right? Each chapter in the mathematics book builds upon the previous chapter. First we got to learn the numbers. Then we're going to do simple addition, 1 + 1. Then we're going to move on to the next chapter and do some subtraction, then multiplication, and then division, right? Each chapter builds upon the previous chapter. Each chapter

gives us a problem, it gives us a solution, and it tells us how to get from problem to solution. They're calling this book a textbook. Why is this book a textbook? Why don't we study that? Flip the page. It tells me why 4 to the 1st edition, we have Alcoholics Anonymous or more than 100 men and women who have recovered. I like that word. Recovered all right from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. Well, what the heck is a hopeless state of mind and body?

Well, how about this? I can't get through the day without drinking and it's killing me.

In order for me to live, I got a drink and it's killing me. The most powerful desire for me to stay away from booze of is absolutely no avail because I drink no matter what. I can't live with the booze. I can't live without the booze,

right? Seemingly hopeless state of mind and body to show other Alcoholics precisely how we have recovered. Is the purpose of this book. Precise, right? You dig that? Precise instructions. What does precise mean?

Exact, right? Precise is no Gray area. The book tells me how to take the steps, when to take the steps, with whom to take the steps. It gives me prayers and promises consequences all along the way if I read through the pages of this book and I get inspired and I get hopeful and I want to get what they got. I got to do what they do, right? Precise instructions. I'll give you a little story about precise so we can tie up. Let's just pretend that it's my, my, my lovely bride's birthday coming up, right? And I want to do something special, right? And I got my friend Angie here and Angie make it as a Baker and she

baking cake. She wins prizes at the State Fair all the time, right? And I plead with Angie to give me one of her prize winning recipes so I can make a cake for Melanie, right? And after some him and Sahans, she gives me their best recipe she's got. And I go down to the Central Market and I buy the best ingredients that are on that recipe list because I want to make a good impression on my lovely bride, right? And I get home and I get all those ingredients out and I start to mix them up, fall in the directions

and there's a knock on my door and it's a little old lady from down the street. And she comes in and she inquires what I'm doing. And I tell her Melanie's birthday is coming up and I'm making her the cake of all cakes. And as I'm mixing it all up, she's looking over my shoulder. Then she says, baby, you're doing that all wrong. And I said, well, I'm following the the recipe. Here she goes, baby, I've been baking cakes longer than you've been alive and you need to use a little less cocoa and you need to do this and you need to do a little of that and not a little of this. And I'm thinking, well, God, she's older. And you know what? She may know what she's doing, right?

And I do what she says and I can keep making the cake. And I'm getting ready to put in the oven. And she stops me. I'm like, what are you doing? I got to bake the cake. She goes, baby, you're going to burn that cake up. And I said, well, that's what the recipe says. Cook it at 350. Baby, I've been cooking cakes longer than you've been alive. And I said, well, what do you suggest I do? She goes, you need to back off that heat. You need to cook that cake at 90° for 90 days.

Now, let me ask you a question. Let me ask you a question. Is my cake going to turn out like that? Prize winning cake? No, no. Why? Because I didn't follow instructions. They're going to give me instructions in this book for him, for them. We hope these pages will prove so convincing that no further authentication will be necessary. A A puts out a lot of books. I got them all. I got a lot of additional books. There's some great books on alcoholism out there. I encourage you to read them.

The only place on God's green earth where there are instructions on how to take the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

is in this book and in this book only. I know we got another little book, a little thinner, easier to carry around, written by a man who is 15 years, 16 years sober on what the steps meant at that point in his life. That's like me getting a showing up September the 4th, 1999 and Cliff telling me this is how it is.

Great. I'm coming out of the gutter. How do I get from there to there? That's why I need this book. And if you don't like what I just said, go read page 17 of the 12 and 12 and they'll tell you the exact same thing.

We hope these this account of our expense will help everyone to better understand the alcoholic. Many do not comprehend that the alcoholic is a very sick person. We got a lot of ignorance and misunderstanding out there. They think it's my willpower. They think if I just love them more, I could quit drinking. They think if I could just pull myself up by the bootstraps,

right? So we've got a chapter called we got a section called doctors opinion that we're going to go over in a couple minutes. We've got chapter to the wise to the employers, right? The family afterward want to let those cats out there know what is killing me, right? And it says and besides, we're sure that our way of living has its advantages for all the short. The small picture is I got sober and guess what? I can be part of my family again.

I can hold a job again, I can pay my taxes again. I get to mow the lawn, right? I get to maybe in my circle help some some new guys. The big, big picture is look at all the people that are now sober. Look at the state of Texas doesn't have to pay for me to go to Parkland Hospital and drain resources. The state of Texas doesn't have to pay for me to go to jail. The state of Texas doesn't have to pay for me to go to home. We're bound

right. It has its advantages for all right, and that's the 4th to the 1st edition. I ain't going to spend too much time on the four to the second edition because it was written in 1955. And it tells them very broad strokes how A started out very, very slowly.

Bill met Doctor Bob, they finally got around that alcoholic #3 and they grew slowly, right? Some key articles were written. You had the meeting with the Rockefellers, the Saturday Evening Post Fulton Aslers thing, and after that Saturday Evening Post article. AA blew up exponentially year after year. Wild Growth

and the Home Office of A A is in New York City. And then when they were writing forward to the second edition, they wanted to get some, find out some general facts about their membership around the country.

So they questioned, you know, what's the name of your group? You know, it's not like some scientific empirical evidence, but they asked them, well, you know, when you start your group, how many people just start with how many you got? Now, there were groups back then that kept darn good records. The controversial part of the program is right here. Roman numeral 20XX for those who are Roman numerally impaired.

Intergroup in Dallas hates when we do this, and they've hated it for years and years and years. 5 lines down. This is what they generally found to be true in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1955. Of Alcoholics who came to AA and really tried. There's that keyword. Really tried. 50% got sober at once and remained that way. That's pretty good. 50%, half,

50 out of 105, hundred out of 1000. Pretty good, right? Don't you think?

Just let you know there's not a treatment center on this planet that sniffs 50%. OK, so something they were doing back in the day, they were doing pretty good. They got half, right? 25% sobered up after some relapses. So you had knuckleheads back in the early days, right? They got to a, a a they may have got a sponsor. They got a little fired up, but for whatever reason, it's like Jim the car salesman, they failed to enlarge their spiritual life, right? They went back out and did some more drinking,

says 25% of them went back and said, hey, Jason, what is it that you do again? Because I'm dying here,

right? They got busy, says other remainder. Those two out of three returned. His time passed.

Like Myers referenced last night, dummy, there's groups with documentation from the 30s and 40s and 50s where they were knocking out eight out of 10, nine out of 10, right? Fast forward to today and a a worldwide estimates that less than 5%

of the people coming to Alcoholics Anonymous will achieve long term sobriety. Sobriety. I got 12 years at less than 1% of the people coming to Alcoholics Anonymous. Worldwide get 12 years

where Myers is at. I mean, it's like infinitesimal.

Strikes me as odd. What the heck happened from 50%? Fast forward 50 years and now we're less than 5%.

And what's different?

Drugs. They had Drug towns, hospital where I'm going to talk about it, World famous for sobering up Alcoholics and heroin addicts, you dig? They had problems. They were in the Great Depression.

Rotten nagging spouses are still rotten nagging spouses. Jobs still suck in the IRS, you know right? Problems haven't changed. Has booze changed? Last I checked, 80 proof vodka is still 80 proof vodka. So what the heck changed?

Well, let me break it down how they did it back in the day because we've all been to AA land. Let me break it down how they did it back in the day and see if that matches up with your experience in Alcoholics Anonymous. And we'll use my brother Myers here as the Guinea pig. And here's here's Myers Ramer.

He's in Homeward Bound detox one more time. And Myers comes from a good family and they have tried everything to help Myers and his alcoholism. He's been to Betty Ford, he's been to Sobriety by the Sea. He's been down to Lahacienda. He's been to the wind up Joint. He's been on the Doctor Phil show with his inner child doll. They have tried.

They have tried everything under the sun to get Meyer sober, and Myers has tried everything. And yet he's in Homer bound detox, chewing on his tongue, dying one more time.

Well, back in the day, the cats from AA, we go visit Myers while he's detoxing and we sit down with Myers and we identify with him. We tell him our story, we find out all we can about him, and we leave.

And we come back the next day and we sit down with Myers and we go through the same spiel again. And we leave. And on the 3rd or the 4th day I go visit Myers and I sit down with them. And by this time he knows a couple of things. And one of those things is I drink as much or more booze than he ever dreamed of.

And I'm going home to my hot little wife and he's in a busted up detox and he says, man, I'm just like you. How in the heck do you stay sober now? I got him.

Now I get to lay out the program of action that's outlined in this book, Meyer says. He's a he was a real alcoholic and he'll do anything to get sober. And I become his sponsor. And we go through this in a rapid fashion, right? And in a short amount of time, he has gone through the 12 steps. He has recovered from alcoholism and now he is helping the new guy.

Not once

did I say they sat around talking or sound around a damn table talking about their day their way. Not once.

That's the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. So let's find out what it means to be a real alcoholic. Because I spent a lot of years in a a land and I didn't know what it meant to be a real alcohol. Oh, I got a disease. Oh, my disease is acting up again today. You know,

So Doctor's opinion was written by, you know, the bulk of it is Doctor Silkworth, Doctor William Duncan Silkworth, the little Doctor Who loved drunks. That's a great book. You can get it on Amazon.com. It is awesome.

Doctor Silk Worth, like so many people, lost it all in the stock market crash. Needed a gig. New Charlie Towns Silk Worth had a little affinity for Alcoholics. He got a job running Towns Hospital. He had every intention when the market turned around, When he got on his feet again, he'd go back into private practice. It never happened. He loved drunks. Towns Hospital was world famous. Central Park West. World famous for sobering up Alcoholics right

in Silkworth over his time there's. I mean, he worked with like 50,000 or so drunks during his time there,

but he couldn't figure out why is it? Why is it that the guy or the gal who's drinking themselves silly, who's going to lose it all? Who's going to lose their family, their reputation, their job, their business, perhaps their life? They go to towns hospital and they get the treatment, the towns Lambert treatment or whatever that was, the hydrotherapy and all that stuff. And they counsel them on alcohol abuse and they get them eaten right again and doing all that stuff. And this person

scared to death, doesn't want to drink again, doesn't want to lose their sweetie pies,

they leave the hospital and leave half live happily ever after. And then you had a certain part, certain percentage, 10% or so, who go into the hospital, who get the same lectures, the same treatment, the same warnings, the same everything.

And when they leave the hospital, not only are they drinking again,

but they're in far worse condition than the previous time.

And so Silk Worth came up with the theory. And if you look on Roman numeral XVI or in a fourth edition XXV, I I Roman numeral 28. Let's find out what it means. And it says we believe in so suggested a few years ago that the action of alcohol and these chronic Alcoholics is a manifestation of a allergy. All right, an allergy, an abnormal reaction to something I eat or drink. All right,

got peak. I got a little nephew who's allergic to peanuts. We discovered that when my nephew was like three or four years old, reached into a candy dish at Christmas time, ate a handful of nuts and darn near died. Had to rush into the emergency room pump him full of whatever they did

darn near died Fast forward today little Doug is now like 30 something years old guess what he don't eat peanuts. We could call him right now hey Doug, I'll give you $1000 to eat a handful and he doesn't want to eat peanuts right He has the allergic reaction. I can eat peanuts all day long I love them right. How does the allergy manifest itself in an alcoholic that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class it never occurs in the average tipper drinker. So he's saying the doctor is saying that if I'm a real

I have an allergy to alcohol, it sets me apart from the rest of mankind, right? My body is physiologically different than those normal drinkers. When I drink alcohol, it manifests itself in a form of a craving. The only thing that one drink has ever done for me is convinced me that the next one is going to be better.

I cannot control how much I drink because once I drink it, I've triggered this allergy. It's beyond my control to stop. I am powerless over that reaction. Right? And I'm off to the races. Doesn't matter what my intentions are. Does it matter if I'm just going to watch the basketball game with my buddies? Have a couple of beers once I start.

Bad stuff happens. Wear a helmet, all right?

You know what I don't like? Break into hives with this alley. I've broken into some stuff, but never broken out, right?

That's the phenomenon of craving. That does not happen in my brother or my couple of brothers. They can take it or leave it. They take a drink, whatever. That's not me. So there's a question I got to answer in my heart of hearts, can I control how much I drink? Can I step over to the nearest bar, have a couple of drinks and stop abruptly and go home? Ain't going to happen

for me. Never. It does not happen

right. The other twisted experiment is I'm a vodka guy. Put a nice big bottle of absolute vodka in your freezer, let it get really good and cold and go over there and pour you a nice a nice big slug and don't drink anymore for the rest of the weekend. Good luck.

That'll be gone before you know it.

That's we think well, God, that's bad, right? Because if that was my problem in step one, if this allergy is what's my what's my cousins solution with the peanuts? Don't eat peanuts. Makes perfect sense. He can even walk by a pile of peanuts and he doesn't freak out, right?

I know people, a lot of people who's allergic to penicillin.

What do you all do with all the CVS's and Walgreens around it? Y'all like freak out when you know there are largely dependent on them. They don't take penicillin, right? If this allergy to alcohol was my problem, then my solution is very simple. Don't drink. How'd that work out for you? Uh-huh. Something else, something else involved in here. And it says these allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all. I got to read the labels. Go read Nyquil Alcohol.

Go read vanilla extract.

Lots of vanilla extract will get you where you need to go

in a pinch.

Listerine, it'll get you where you need to go in a pinch. There's a whole bunch of stuff. I got to read the labels now. Treatment center number one. This next part is controversial sometimes in a a because treatment center number one said this next part that I'm read is why my life is unmanageable. Let's test that theory. This book is like Mythbusters. You dig? It'll help you out a lot because the way I was taught, if it ain't in this book, it ain't a a, right? That's the way it was taught, it says.

And once these allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all, and once having formed the habit, once found they can't break it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them, maybe they become astonishingly difficult to solve.

And there's a whole lot of people out there will tell you that's why your life has become unmanageable.

I beg to differ. You drink like I do, from the time you come to to the time you pass out. Day in, day out, problems pile up. They become astonishingly difficult. It's very hard to problem solve when you're blacked out.

Jobs suffer, relationships suffer, you drink like I do. That stuff happens. Those are consequences.

My life is unmanageable because now that I know I cannot control my drinking, and at some point in my life, various points in my life I swore on a stack of Bibles, I will never ever pick it up again. I've made a firm resolution

in a short amount of time. I'm picking it up again.

I'm going to come back to the doctor's opinion. Look at real page 24,

because here's the bad news of step 10. You thought the allergy was the bad news? No, no, no, no, no. Here's the bad news of step one. It's an italics, and my sponsor says if it's an italics in this book, underline it because it's important. Says the fact is that most Alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. I like that. I've already lost control. Now they're saying I got no choice in the matter. Well, let's see how this plays out.

Our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent. Sometimes my willpower is sufficient.

I'll never forget getting out of home or bound one time and I was at it was at the grocery store one day and somehow I made a wrong turn in the grocery store and was on the beer aisle

and I had to get back to like the cheese or something. Was that the And I made it down the gauntlet of the beer aisle and I got what I needed to get and I got out of the store and I was like,

staying sober is pretty easy, right? My willpower was sufficient. Here's the tricky part, the cunning, baffling part. We're unable at certain times, not certain times, sometimes, occasionally,

usually the worst possible time. We're unable at certain times to bring into my consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We're without defense against the first drink treatment centers one through 5 or tell me, play your tape. Play. Think the drink through. All right, that just is telling me. I'm not I I don't remember, although I mean, I have not forgotten about it. All the horrible things alcohol did

me, believe me, I haven't forgot about him. What that is saying it at some point left him on the vices that will be insufficient to keep me away from booze. Fear sobers me a bit.

OK, so let's do a little test. Everybody close your eyes. I want you to think of the worst, most painful, degrading, humiliating experience that alcohol has ever done to you.

OK, Myers, we'll start with you. What was it? Just kidding. I know that one. Fists of fury. But

OK, so everybody got that in your head.

What were you doing a couple of days later?

You too, huh?

So you'd think like putting my hand on AI touched a hot stove when I was little. Guess what? I don't do it no more. I don't sit there and obsess on today I'm going to touch the piping orange hot stove and not to get burned.

But alcohol's a whole different matter, right? Alcohol got me to do things I never dreamed I'd do and I cannot. That is that memory that is not enough to keep me away from it. Left to my own, what they're saying here

is the day that I stopped drinking. The clock is ticking.

I stop on whatever. Today is January 21, 2012. If this is the day I stop, the clock is ticking. And he, what he's saying was is in a short amount of time, a week or a month or something like that. Left on my own devices, I will be unable to stay away from booze. I will drink no matter what,

and for me to drink as a diet because I can't control how much I drink. And that's why alcoholism is an illness, because left untreated, what do you do? You drink yourself to death because of it.

Simple. Left untreated, what does cancer do?

It continues to grow and to multiply until it consumes the host and the host dies. Left untreated, that's why I can't. Alcoholism is no different. Let's go back to the doctor's opinion.

Frothy emotional peel seldom suffice. Did your little loved ones, your little sweetie pies, give you some frothy emotional appeal?

If you come home again, I'm leaving.

I'm thinking, well, sync. Being single doesn't stink. You know I didn't like this job anyway, right? Frothy. A promotional pill seldom suffice. The message which can interest and hold these alcoholic people must have depth and weight. Had a lot of great people in Doctor Bob's life in the Oxford Group, giving him some appeal, some frothy emotional appeal. Right. Whose message had depth and weight? For Doctor Bob, it was Bill Wilson. Why? Because Bill Wilson was just like Doctor Bob. Bill Wilson had been in the same hole as

Bob, and he knew the way out. He had a message of depth and weight.

Cliff Bishop had a message of depth and weight. Right that's it says they're in nearly all cases their ideals must be grounded in a power greater than themselves if they are to recreate their lives.

Just look at the bottom of the page because I'm probably running out of time. Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol right And that's a true statement. Why does the normal Joe out there like like a beer or a glass of wine now and then I mean, you got Sonoma up the road a few hours, right Why do they like that? What God, it's great right. You get have a long day at the office and you come home and the wife's there. This is sexist. I know we're so much more advanced, but this is the wife's making dinner and the

two kids are doing their homework and the husband comes home. He's had a long day and he grabs the papers, iPad or whatever. He sits down in his big chair. He's got a glass of nice red wine that they picked out of, you know, and it's just, it relaxes them, you know, and they, they feel good. It's a, maybe a social lubricant. They, it's just cool. Let's twist it around a little bit. Alcoholic men and women drink essentially cuz we love the effect.

Why did you Did you drink for the taste only?

I want that effect.

I told you about my effect, 15 years old at tennis camp. I want that effect. And for many, many years I got that effect. I don't know if it was the first beer, the third beer, the 5th glass of vodka. I don't know. But I want that effect. Remember

trying to go it alone. Or maybe you're an AA land and you're not being successful saying sober. You're just newly sober. And things start to turn around and you start to get a little hopeful, right? And then as the days go by, that newness starts to wear off and you realize the relationship is kind of in the tank and and the job you have really stinks and your puppy is sick and it's raining in Southern California and it's just not working out right.

How'd you feel when you had a couple of drinks?

Did it fix any of those problems? Nope. But I want that effect. Right? But I can't stay in the effect because it says the sensation is so elusive. Because what is that effect? I mean, if we if we scientifically discovered that it was 3 glasses of vodka got me to the effect. The problem they're in is I can't stop it. 3 glasses of vodka. Why? Because of the phenomenon of craving. Once I get to the effect, the craving is checked in and I'm off to the races. I will overshoot the mark

every time. The sensation is elusive. I can't get it. It's like trying to catch water. It's going to slip away. The sensation is so elusive that while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after time differentiate the true from the false. We've all got injuries, right? Too many times in a A land we get a new new guy or gal coming in. Oh, we got a newcomer, let's tell him how we got here. And now our a, A meeting is turned into a big fishing story

because this guy tells about this and I can beat that,

right? And now I'm going to tell my God awful little story. And then this guy is going to tell his. And now the little old lady who came into Alcoholics Anonymous is like thinking, I've never been to, I've never ate out of a dumpster. I've never sold myself, I've never done. And she leaves,

right? I got injuries. My injuries don't have to be injuries. I have been to many, many hospitals, injuries, treatment centers, injuries. I wrecked a whole bunch of cars, most of them not mine. Injuries, right? I have harmed a lot of friendships, a lot of relationships, my family, right? I've been to jail. I've had to pay attorneys,

right? We go on and on and on about the injuries.

I got one we can probably all come together with.

How about

dignity?

Oh, you too, huh?

Yeah, alcohol got me to do some crap I never dreamed I'd do and end up with folks I never dreamed I'd end up with. And I go home with Beyoncé, wake up with Bigfoot, you know,

but, but those are some injuries. And I didn't, you know, when I was first grade, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I can assure you, being 35 years penniless, unemployable, unlovable, unwholesome was not on the was not on the table. I had dreams, you know, but alcohol took me to a whole different place,

says they cannot, after time, differentiate the true from the false. The truth is, as I drink, I get drunk. Those things pile up in a hurry. That is the truth.

I learned that the painful, tedious way of running all my plans. But that is the truth. If I leave here right now and walk down to that little liquor store I saw on the way in and start start off with a pint, I assure you I will be in jails, in hospitals. I will dish, annihilate relationships, you dig? That is the truth. What's the false? Today it'll be different.

Knowing what I know now I couldn't and hearing these guys sad story, I could never possibly go there, therefore I won't. It'll be different today. Today I'll control and enjoy it. Today I'll drink like a gentleman. Let's not confuse ourselves with the facts that I have 0 experience drinking like a gentleman, but today I'm going to drink like a gentleman. All right. That is flat out insane. My brain is trying to kill me and make it look like an accident,

you know,

says to them. Their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. The way I was living in the late 90s had become normal to me.

It was normal for me not to have work. It was normal for me not to have friends, not to have good clothes. It was normal for wherever I happen to be crashing. It was normal for when I left,

you know, it was 5050 at best. If I were to ever arrive again. It became normal for my family to shun me. It became normal.

Like I was talking to a guy out there in the parking lot, became normal for him to walk however many miles it was to go beg for money from the nuns. That just became normal,

he says. I become restless and irritable, discontent. So alcohol kicks my brains in. And maybe I go to a, maybe I go to church. Maybe I just say I'm never ever doing it again. And for the short term, the goose hangs high. For the short term, a week or a month or whatever the case may be, My times always got smaller and smaller and smaller as the years went by.

But for the short term, I felt better. I slept better, I worked better. I was hopeful. You see me at the grocery store, you'd ask me how I'm doing to tell you I'm doing great, been sober a week. This is the best thing. My life has changed. It's different this time.

You can't see sponsor like you hear that a bunch. It's different this time.

I'm doing it for me this time.

At some point, that little newness, that little, that little thing kind of goes South. And it's not like people dying in my life that knocks me off track. It's just mundane crap like waking up.

I go to bed and I'm OK, and I wake up the next day and it's like I'm on the wrong side of the universe,

you know? I realize I'm watching my favorite team play a football game or something, and I realize it's halftime and I don't even know what's going on. Why? Because in my head I'm spinning and spinning and spinning. Why do you think they laughed when I walked in the room? I think my momma loves my sister more than she loves me. My head restless, irritable. I'm just fidgety. I'm sketchy, you know, restless. And I'm irritable. One minute, OK, and the next minute you Call My Name and I'm like, bite your head off. Just a little jumpy, a little tense,

and I'm discontent.

Poor me, I don't have a good job now. I drink up my car. I think my Mama loves my sister more than she loves me. Doesn't anybody love JK? Discontent. I could have 25 years now, but now I only got 30 days

discontent. Poor me sober.

Look at page 52. I ain't going to go there now, but read those bedevilments. Having trouble with personal relationships, can't seem to be a real help to other people. Feel of misery. And that's me and my normal state, stone cold sober. And if that's me and my normal state, what happens unless we can again experience a sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drink. See, I get restless, irritable

discontent long enough

my brain comes up with

this sucks.

I'm just glad to be sober today

and I play that game long enough, which is for me is not too. I'm always amazed at Myers story how he made it six years in a a land. I make it like six months and I'm ready to. I'm looking for a tall building and a sniper rifle because this is we're going down, baby, right. And so I drink, right? Restless, irritable, discontent, unless I can't against the experience. A sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks.

Drinks they see others taken with impunity. After we have succumbed to this desire again,

right as so many do, the phenomenon of craving develops. We pass through the well known stages of Esprit, emerging remorseful with a firm resolution. Never, ever to do it again, I promise.

And this is repeated over and over and over and over,

and unless this person can't experience an entire psychic change, you're screwed.

I got these cats at home and they still think you do live stories. Yes, they will read that. Write that down. Plagiarize is. There you go, buckaroo, because that's the way it goes. You know, what I thought was bad in 1988 got infinitely worse by 1999. And if I wouldn't have got sober in 99, it would have got worse until I died from it. Welcome to step one. I got no control over the booze. And the worst part is, is I cannot manage the decision to stay away from Boost, to save my life,

to save my job, to save my health, to save that relationship. I am unable to manage the decision to stay away from booze. Left to my own devices,

I'm screwed in step one. That's all. I got

what John was talking about and stuff. We, we. What I want you to do is try to see how much of a conflict and a contrast there is between

what he's talking about and, and what we do in our meetings. The, the I'm going to switch gears on you a little bit like this. We're going to talk about step one as it relates to sponsorship and, and come at this thing a little bit, a little bit of nuts and bolts. Now listen.

If you talk to anybody in AA land that's been in meetings for very long, the very first thing you're going to find out is that they spend a lot of time talking about the drama that got them here. You see what I'm saying? And so you can spend years and years and years in a, a talking over and over and over again about the drama. There's nothing wrong with it all. We all have the drama. The problem is, is that it doesn't make any, it doesn't describe what alcoholism is. And look, guys, I'm, I'm, I'm adamant about this stuff. If you don't understand your own disease, you can't teach it. And if you can't teach it, you're useless.

OK. Yeah, I said it EU word. We're here to teach this, and you have to be able to understand. But let me tell you something, guys. I know. I know a host of men that I've worked with over the years that don't have a clue what their alcoholism looks like. I say, well, tell me why you think you're an alcoholic. And they go, well, well, there was this DWI, and my wife left, and I went no, no, no, no, stop, stop, start over. Tell me again what you think. And then they'll try it again. They try to go straight to the drama. And I keep going. No, no, no. Let's look back. So go back and look at the doctor's opinion.

98% of everything in the doctor's opinion talks about what the physical allergy. Why is it? Why is it that once I start drinking I cannot stop? It addresses everything there. Everything from the doctor's opinion all the way over to page 44. We agnostics. So you got from 23 to 44 talking about what? The mental obsession? Why is it stone cold sober? Do I find myself going back to drink again? Guys, let me tell you something. Your wife and your family is not baffled by the fact that you drink

too much. I promise you they're not. What they're baffled is, is why it is stone cold sober with no booze anywhere in you. Do you decide to pick up a drink again? You look like a fruitcake and you are. I mean, doesn't it even baffle you? I mean, you just go like holy with all of the knowledge in front of me of what booze has done to me. You see? I mean, I wrecked the cars, I lost the job. I touched things I swore I'd never touch. I just, you understand what I'm saying. I mean it just