Adam A. from Tannersville, PA speaking in Henryville, PA

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

also a drug addict too. But this is Alcoholics Anonymous and I believe in singleness purpose. So like you just read

how many people have been a A before,

OK, It seems like it's getting a little more like what I was used to when I went to when I went to rehab, everybody pretty much it was like one or two people who had never been to Alcoholics Anonymous before. And one of the things that I used to hear a lot, you know, was that it didn't work or, you know, and the reasons why was

people got tired of hearing the war stories. They got tired of hearing the bitching in the moaning.

It was all about

sharing about our issues and our feelings and and all that stuff and not enough about recovery. And, and I found that to be true for myself when I walked into the rooms of a, a I, I walked into an area where

the, the local a, a idea of a program of recovery was very much like group therapy. There wasn't a lot of talk of God. There wasn't a lot of talk of the 12 steps.

There wasn't a whole lot of real substantial solution. It was all about, you know, how was your day? How shitty was your day? Let's feel better, you know, let's talk about it. And, and, and they used to say all the time, a, a problem, a problem shared is a problem halved, you know, and for me, I'm the type of alcoholic that wasn't my truth. That wasn't my solution. You know, I can bitch about my problem and feel better. Go home

and wake up the next day and have the same damn problem. Come to a meeting and bitch about it, Feel a little better. Go home, wake up the next day, have the same problem. You know, and I can only last for a certain period of time, very short period of time. My grace period was about 3 days When when when I was in that place where if I, I wasn't able to deal with the internal conflict that was going on with me, I was going to go get high. Yeah, that was that was the solution that I had at that point. The only thing that ever worked for me

for the way I was feeling was to get loaded.

And until somebody gave me another way to live, I was going to continue to go back to that. I wanted to read something. It was, it was jumping in my head when I was, when all the, you know, readings in the beginning, we're starting off. And it's something that really gave me a lot of hope when I when I first came across it. And, and we don't hear it enough in the meetings. We hear a lot about the nine step promises. Everybody talks about the nine step promises. We read them in the beginning of almost every meeting or at the end of every meeting.

You know the painstaking about this phase of our development, blah blah blah. Well, if you flip the page on the 10 step promises are amazing. The 10 step promises say we ceased fighting everything in anyone, even alcohol, for by this time sanity will have returned. Will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as if from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort. On

apart it just comes. That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we have been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor we are afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep and fit spiritual condition.

When I first heard that, that that was a major eye opener to me, you know,

I was under this idea and it was perpetuated by the fellowship that I was around, was that, you know, I'm going to be recovering for the rest of my life. I'm going to stay sick. I'm going to be, you know, always be screwed up, you know, and, and trudging through my day and have to make a meeting and, and got to, you know, get through this issue or that issue or whatever for the rest of my life. And that's not really a message of hope to me. You know, I want to hear that I'm going to get better. You know, I want to hear that things are going to get better, you know? And, yeah, you know,

I was recovering for a period of time. It took me getting to through the 12 steps to reach a place where all of a sudden those things started to happen. You know, my problem with alcohol and drugs was lifted. I didn't think about getting high anymore. You know, I still was crazy. I still acted like an asshole sometimes, but I didn't think about getting loaded anymore.

And, and that was an amazing thing for me because I'm the type of guy who got high no matter what,

you know, I, I, I drank and I used no matter what.

I'm, I'm the oldest of, of three boys. I'm a byproduct of the 60s. My, my parents were hippies. I should have been born at Woodstock, but my mom backed out at the last second.

I

on their way, I would have been born in the parking lot on the way home, you know, and actually I probably would have been born sooner because of the acid and all that. But, you know, I used to get mad because I, I thought that that would be a great excuse. You know what I mean? You know that, that that's why I'm the way I am. You know, I was born on acid, you know,

but uh, you know, the, the family unit that I grew up in, you know, it's like I

getting drunk and getting loaded were not necessarily bad or wrong in my home. I, I drank with my dad and I smoked pot with my mom. I lived on a commune when I was a kid. I lived in a teepee. I lived in a school bus. I crossed the country five times before I was five. You know, we lived in that world and it was perfectly acceptable. You know, my mom was growing plants when I was a kid

on I was raised up in this life and and it wasn't it wasn't viewed as being bad. I,

I took my first

conscious let's go get drunk drink when I was about 12. I had some drinks before that, but they weren't necessarily either. If I took them, they weren't to get drunk. And if my parents gave them to me, I had no consent, you know? And they, they had, you know, I was the type of I was that little baby that they put beer in the bottle and watched him stagger around the parking lot, you know, and they thought it was funny, you know, and looking back, I think it was funny too, you know, But the idea is I took my first drink with my buddies at around 12.

We got 22 jugs of like gala wine or something like that, you know, with the screw top and, and a six pack of beer. And we went and hung out on the train tracks next to a construction site and, and we proceeded to get drunk. And

it was, it was what I had been looking for. You know,

I, I found where I belonged. You know, I, I was home in a sense, it felt great. I I lost all my inhibitions, all my fears, all the stuff that was going on inside of me disappeared that night.

And I had a blast on some point in the evening. I blacked out. I woke up in a puddle of red wine and Dorito puke on. Yeah, exactly. But you know what? And and this is this I'll never forget. I don't remember necessarily a lot of my first drunk, but I remember the next morning. I remember the next morning and I was laying out in the yard and the sun is beating on my on my on my face and my head. And I had the most obscene hangover that anybody could

have, you know, red wine and Doritos. And my only thought was, I can't wait till next weekend.

Yeah, I want to do this again. You know, I felt like I was home. Over the next couple years, I wasn't able to drink a lot because my parents at that point were traveling a bit. And I lost contact with my friends that week, and I had to build new friends and all that kind of crap. But the first chance I got, I drank again.

By the time I was 16 years old, I had, I had settled down again. And I was, I was in, I was in Northern California. That's where I pretty much grew up and

I started to drink almost daily. It wasn't really daily, but it was, it was damn close. You know, I, I, I grew up in a college town. And so, you know, Thursday is the weekend, you know, Friday, Saturday and Sunday is the weekend too. And then Monday you got to recover from the weekend and Wednesday's hump day,

you know, so I had justification to drink on all six of those days. And it took me. It took me a couple more years to find a reason for Tuesday,

but I eventually did. I found a $0.50 mug night and that was a good enough reason to drink on Tuesday.

But I, I from 16 on, I was basically a daily drinker in high school. I had a liquor locker and we had, we had three separate lockers, one for clothes, one for books and one for booze. And we, we, we drank and, and got high all the way through high school. I don't know. I actually, I didn't graduate. I was going to say, I don't know how I graduated. I didn't, but I did get my GED at the end. I don't know how

I showed up to school just to socialize. I didn't show up for any other reason. No, I didn't care about classes. You know, I remember one year I was smart and I took an office practice class so that I could clear all my cuts in the process, you know, and never have any troubles.

Like I said, we grew up in a college town. We used to have a lot of keg parties at my house. We lived on the outskirts of town. We didn't live in the city limits, so it was real easy to get away with keg parties. We had a six foot front, 6 foot fence,

2 bucks a head, you know, and you get a cup, drink all you want, you know, or we, we sell the promotions, 3 bucks a cup and chicks are free, you know. And, you know, we used to have raging keg parties at my house

and none of this seemed to be a problem, you know, and like I said, the, the, the, the, the grown-ups, for lack of a better word, didn't have a problem with this stuff. The only problem my dad had was with the drug use and, and,

and he had a problem with the drugs because he told me, he told me I should move to Alaska or Maine or I forget what else was legal at the time, you know, because of the legalities of it. And that's all he, that's all he was concerned about. He didn't want me to get locked up, but he didn't see anything wrong with it. And so I didn't.

At 16, I, I had my first encounter moving on the street. I lived on the streets for a summer, you know, a good three months. I lived in a tree house.

We had as a, we had his kids, Yeah. A friend of ours, a friend of ours parents had or father had built us at this really great tree house, you know, really stable, solid tree house. And I lived in it for three months over the summer. I had a job that year and I was drinking and and partying and going to work all summer long and living in this tree house and, and I loved it.

Ultimately, my dad had finally found me and dragged me back home that year, you know, and back to school.

But by the time I was 18, I was I was out there again, you know, I was out on my own doing my thing. And I was never about trying to live in this world. I was never about trying to show up and go to work and pay bills. And, you know, my dad had a piece of property that he owned and it, and he wasn't there anymore And we had a trailer on it. There was no electricity because I didn't work or pay for electricity. The water. I had this special wrench, you know, it's like, it's like

feet tall and you shove it into the ground, turn the water back on. You know, every time the water company would turn it off,

I, I had a fire pit in the backyard that we used to cook on. And you know, I had the, the, the lawn sofas and the, and the, and the lazy boy chairs in the backyard. And this was a perfectly normal to me. You know, it was perfectly acceptable because like I said, I didn't want to join. I didn't want to be part of part of society

so it was real easy for me to live like that and then immediately move to the streets. My dad had come back to California and and told me I couldn't live the way I was living. So my idea was to camp out under the stars and I stayed out there for like 5 years.

There's never a hardened criminal type, you know, I didn't do robberies or burglaries or anything like that. But I was a drug dealer. I was a booster, you know, I I did whatever I had to do

to continue to get high. Yeah, Because that's all it was about. I was never about dealing drugs to make money. I was about dealing drugs so that I could have friends that I could get loaded with. You know, I sold acid. Acid's cheap. You know, you could spend $30, get 100 hits, sell 10 of them, get your money back, and then party with everybody, you know. And that's the reason that I did it. Yeah,

like I said, it wasn't about any of that life stuff.

I ended up going to jail.

I remember being locked up and and writing letters to anybody who would listen.

I got a problem. There's something up, you know, I need I, I don't know what I need. I need some kind of treatment. I need whatever.

Didn't know what any of that meant. I just knew that every time I got in trouble it was somehow surrounding getting loaded. It was either trying to or in the middle of being high. And

I thoroughly believe that that that that I had a problem when I was locked up and within 20 minutes of being released, I had a six pack. Within two hours of being released, I had 1/2 ounce of weed down my pants, a bottle of schnapps in my back pocket, and two hits acid in my system and I spent the night outside that night. I hadn't even seen my parole officer yet.

I called her the next morning and I said I got to get out of California.

I'm going to spend the rest of my life in and out of jail on all my friends were like that. They were either dead or they they were doing life on the installment plan, you know, and they do six months in, three months out, a year in, six months out. And I, I didn't want to do that. You know, jail was easy for me. I didn't have a problem with it. It didn't scare me.

It actually scared me that it was easy. That's what scared me because you tell me when to eat,

you tell me when to sleep, you tell me when to go play cards or workout or watch TV. You know, I have no responsibility. I have no accountability to anything. And that's what I was looking for all of those years. You know, I don't want to be responsible. I don't want to do anything. I just want to get loaded and I can get loaded inside. It's a little harder to make it. It was a little harder to get it, but I could still do it,

you know, and, and that kind of scared me. So

I had my parole transferred to New Jersey and I had family back here. I was born back here. All the relatives were back here on and my mom was here and she was, she was in AA at the time she had gotten sober. She was about five years sober when I came back. And her only rule was that I don't get high in her house while I'm living in her house. Lasted like 3 days.

It was. I just can't do that, you know? I don't know how to live

without being loaded,

you know, I don't know how to go to the supermarket. I don't know how to go to the deli. I don't know how to go on a job interview. I don't know how to do anything without being high because that's all I've ever done, you know, on. And

so like I said, it lasted about 3 days. I stayed with her for a little while. Eventually she threw me out. But I, I, I've always been fortunate. I always found the rich girls.

I always found girls with daddy issues and, and and who were rich and they like to take care of me. I don't know why, you know, too bad I ain't got one now. I actually got one who I got to support, but

you know, but at the time, that's why I always found it. I found this girl who had $100,000 settlement from a car accident. And so again, I didn't have to do anything. And, you know, I had my stash and I had my booze and I, I, she bought a car for herself that she didn't have a license for, but I did,

you know, So she got me a car, you know,

and I remember it was May I, I had gotten a petty theft, two dirty tests and a drunk driving and I was still on parole and I knew I was going to get locked up. And I called my parole officer and I told her I needed to go into rehab. And

after quite a bit of work, I went to detox and another rehab that I just will will not stay in. It's one of those therapeutic community types and they make you wear a diaper and a dunce cap and shit. And I was like, that ain't happening, you know, I called, I called her, I called my brother. I said he sent me back to the joint or give me another day. You know, I'll find somewhere, but I ain't going to stay in a place like that. It's not locked, you know? And if you treat me like that, I'm not going to stay.

I ended up getting into the Salvation Army,

you know, not really a rehab, but it was what I could get into at the time. And I got a taste. I got a taste of what recovery was

a you know, and and I got to give credit to the Sally and I always do this. The Sally did save my life because they said the one thing that I needed, you know, and and it's carried me to this day as they said, you'll never get and stay sober if you don't find God, you know, plain and simple. And they had their brand and they were pushing their brand,

you know,

umm, but the bottom line is, is I needed to find a higher power. Doesn't have to be any particular brand. It doesn't have to be theirs or mine or yours or whatever, but I got to find something that I can believe in. And I held on to that, you know, and I remember talking to all the guys in this, in this, in this place and asking them what they believed and what the, what you know, what, what are the principles behind what you believe? And my first higher power

and recovery was a set of principles, you know, it was a set of principles common to all the world's religions, you know, and that's all it was. It was something that basic and I could get behind that I could get, you know, get with that. And I came into Alcoholics Anonymous and I, and I started to do everything they told me to do. The problem was I went into that area where they said make 90 and 90,

you know, don't drink and go to meetings, share about your problems, you know, and I did all that. I did everything they told me to do in the fellowship.

I had a coffee commitment, I had lots of phone numbers. I called people, I hung out, I went to the diner, I went bowling and I drank, you know, because all that external shit didn't matter, you know, All that external stuff isn't why I got drunk, you know, I didn't get drunk because of the people I hung out with. You know, I didn't get drunk because of the music that I listened to or the shirt that I wore, the music, you know, the, the none of that external crap mattered. It was all what was going on inside of me.

You know,

the, the, the book talks about unmanageability. You know, it says that our lives had become unmanageable. It's not that outside stuff. It's not the crash cars, the lost jobs, you know, the, the pissed off wife, girlfriend, husband, whatever. That's not the unmanageability. Unmanageability is the shit that goes on inside of me. You know, there's a, a paragraph on page 52 at a big book. It talks about having trouble with personal relationships. Pray to misery and depression. We can't control our emotional nature.

We're full of fear.

I forget, but there, there, there's, there's eight of those things that it that it talks about and that's me. Drunk or sober, that's who I am. That's what I'm left with when you take the booze out of me. So if I'm still that person, my only solution that I know is to go back and get high until I can change that stuff.

The book tells us that once the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.

You know, so I deal with this, for lack of a better word, God issue.

I deal with this, this need for a higher power. And once I've done that, everything else falls into place.

And that's been my experience. That's what that's what happened in my life. Because my life didn't, you know, I didn't, I didn't get a job and get a place and get this stuff and get that stuff, get the girlfriend, get the kids and then my, you know, and then get God. That's not the way it works for me.

I dealt with my God stuff and all that stuff started to fall into place and I know I'm talking a lot about God and, and just to clarify,

I, I have the same perception of a higher power that I have, I have today that I had back then. And, and, and what that is, is I use a, a simple thing. It's called my God's name is Sam, OK. It's an acronym that stands for sure ain't me. OK, not a religious person. I don't go to church. You know, my prayer and meditation at it's perfect picture perfect time is a walk in the woods.

You know, it is, is in my garden

planting and doing shit like that. You know, I don't have a particular religion that I adhere to. I, I find the benefit to all of them and the rest of the shit, throw it out. You know, the stuff that doesn't work.

I

I've come to realize though that that method was wonderful for me, but it was very difficult because I had to come to my own understanding of my morality. I had to come to my own understanding of what I believe God was. You know, it's extremely strong today, but over the years it was hard because I could be wishy washy and I'm a self-centered selfish asshole who wants things his way and can easily justify. Well, maybe that is God's will, you know, because I don't have any kind of book or doctrine

me what's right or wrong because I don't follow any of that. I had to actually really work at it. I had to sit in meditation. I had to practice this stuff regularly. And ultimately it's made my faith strong as a result of that. But it was hard.

I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. I, you know what? I I knew I was an alcoholic at 16 years old, but I didn't know what it meant. I called myself an alcoholic at 16 years old and I didn't know what it what it meant. And I was in a A for three years and still didn't know what it means.

You know, I thought it had to do with the trouble and how much I drank and all that other stuff, you know, and what it really boiled down to. I had to sit down and read this book

and, and, and, and find out what the description of an alcoholic is.

A

once I put booze in my system, I can't guarantee what's going to happen. Now, I may be able to drink too. I may end up drinking 20. I have no idea. Yeah, 'cause I have drank too. You know, I, I was asked by a girlfriend one time, please don't drink a lot tonight. I'll, you know, she offered up favors and, you know, and, and, you know, and all that, you know, and, and so, you know, I'm thinking about this. That might be a good idea, you know, And I drank too.

But the problem was

and the problem was is that I have this physical craving for alcohol when I put it in my body, OK, I take 1 drink and my body tells me I want more. So I'm all uncomfortable, I'm restless, I'm irritated, I'm agitated. I'm you know, so that night that I drank too was IA happy go lucky guy who was going to get some that night. No, it was a miserable prick whose body was telling him he wanted to drink.

So I didn't get any of that thing.

But it took me a long time to realize that because I didn't,

I never drank with the intent of having a couple. I always drink to get fucked up. That's, that was the only reason that I drank, you know, so I had to scour my brain and I found that one instance and, and, and, and I could see that, that, that I was irritated. I was agitated, like, you know, I was crawling out of my skin. And that's the allergy. That's the, that's the craving that I was experiencing, you know, and that's the one part it says, it says in the book that this, this phenomenon of craving

only happens. What does it say? It only happens to this type. They're talking about chronic Alcoholics and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. You know, so I'm not an average temperate drinker. I may not be an alcoholic because I have craving, but I'm not an average temper drinker. So I, I could be a hard drinker. I could be

an alcoholic, so that limits it a little bit. So then I start going further into the book and I, and it talks about the obsession of the mind, you know, and, and, and what that is, is knowing the consequences, knowing that when I put a drink in my body, there's a really good chance I'm going to jail, you know, or at best, I'm going to wake up with all kinds of new consequences, you know, other than the ones I started with,

you know,

knowing that full well,

you know, can I convince myself it's OK? Do I convince myself it's OK? Do I think that it'll be different this time, you know, or I'll handle it. I'll only drink beer tonight, you know, No, no Jack Daniels, you know, no, no vodka. You know, I remember by the end of my drinking, the only hard liquor I could drink was tequila because Jack made me violent. Vodka made me black out. You had a Southern Comfort, made me made me yak.

You know, It's like there there was nothing I could drink anymore, you know, because I had

it's all the boozers fault. It's not mine, you know, obviously, you know, it's, it's, it's this brand, you know, and, and you know, this obsession of the mind that tells me, you know, it says

they, they, they describe it perfectly in here. So on page 24, the fact is that most Alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice and drink. Our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent. We are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force

the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.

You know, how many times did I pick up a drink and forget about all that shit that happened yesterday, you know, or last week or last month, you know, or this morning, you know, you know, I woke up in the morning. I'll never do that again by lunchtime. How am I going to do this tonight? You know, that's the obsession of the mind, you know? So that's the two aspects of powerlessness. And then we already talked about the spiritual malady. You know,

my default setting is restless, irritable and discontent.

And I have trouble with personal relationships. I'm pray to misery and depression. That's my default setting. That's how I am regardless. Yeah, that's how I can be today. You know, if I don't do the things on this sheet here, you know, if I don't do this stuff on a daily basis, I default back to that restless, irritable, discontented person and I'm miserable. And then I start looking around and I start seeing, you know, people getting away with doing stuff, you know, whether it be drinking, you know, drugging, doing stuff that I know I'm not supposed

to do behavior wise, You know, they're getting away with it. Why can't I, You know, And the reason that I feel that way is because I'm not doing the things that keep me from being restless, irritable and discontent. Yeah,

second step is really easy. You know, do I now believe or am I even willing to believe that there's a power greater than myself?

Yeah, it's that simple. You know, do I now believe or am I willing to believe that I'm not God 'cause if there's a power greater than myself out there, I'm not God? It's that simple. I don't have to know what God is. I don't have to even really have faith in God in the second step. I just got to believe that I'm not it

so I move on. 3rd step Made a decision to turn my will and my life,

my thoughts and my actions. My will is my thoughts, my life is my actions. Made a decision to turn my thoughts and my actions over to the care of this God. You know, whatever it is, Sam, you know, how do I do that? I don't know. It's just a decision. It's not an action, it's a decision. So if I can make that decision, yeah, I'll do that. How do I go about it 4 through 9?

Continue with the steps. You know, I wrote my first four step and it was garbage.

It was, it was 80% lies, you know, you know, 90% victim, you know, and you know, and it was only three columns because that's the picture they show you. You know, I, I didn't bother reading to the next page. You know, the next page tells me the 4th column, which is my real truth. But you know, it was crap. But the, the, the, the good thing about it is, is, is another line in this book is God doesn't make

terms for those who seek. And, and when I was writing this four step, even though 80% was bullshit and 90% was victim and it was only three columns, I was honestly trying to do it to the best of my ability. I was a mess. I was two months sober at the time, was jumping out of my skin, you know, and I wanted to climb a bell tower every two minutes, you know, and I'm writing this stuff down and I honestly wanted to get better.

And God doesn't make too hard terms, you know,

He allowed me to give some truth from that. I sat down with my sponsor, I shared this stuff with him, and I got a little bit of freedom, you know, 'cause up until that point, I was either the biggest piece of shit on the planet or I was a nice guy who drank a little too much. You know, I had these polar extremes view of myself. And, you know, after I shared this with him, I realized, you know what, I wasn't a nice guy who drank too much, but I'm also not garbage. Somewhere in the middle,

you know, I was an asshole. Yeah, but I'm a drunk. Yeah. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm OK here and I'm not. I, I got to see some balance from that inventory and I went about moving forward. You know, I, I was, I was, I don't know, roughly four months over when I did my first fifth step and I completed the first round of amends before I was a year sober.

Now again, like I said, 90% was bullshit on this or 80% was bullshit on this inventory. So there was a lot more immense that I had to do.

But off of that first inventory, I was able to get some freedom, you know, and I remember in, in the, in the first few months of recovery, I thought about getting loaded every single day, all the time, you know, and then I started writing and it subsided a little bit, you know, it still came regularly,

but not all day, every day, you know, and then I did this fifth step and all of a sudden it started dissipating a little more, you know, and it was coming like once or twice a week, you know, and then I started making some ends. And then it's once or twice a month and, you know, and, and by the time I was about 18 months sober,

because I had started a new round of step work shortly thereafter finishing my amends, by the time I was about 18 months over, I stopped thinking about getting high. It just went away. And that first paragraph that I read tonight about cease fighting everything and everyone, even alcohol happened. You know, I stopped living in that problem. The problem was removed. And and you know, I haven't, it came back a couple times after that, but

I don't know when it stopped. But I always like to use the number four years.

You know, I was, I was because it probably happened around 2:00. But I don't want to lie, you know, and say that it lasted, it went away quicker than it did. So it's easier to say 4 because I know it. Four years I didn't think about getting high anymore at all. And I haven't since

coming up on 19 years this year, you know, it's 15 years that I haven't thought about picking up a drink or a drug and it has not crossed my mind. Now, granted, I could still be crazy. I could still be an asshole at times. You know, I got a huge fight with my wife this morning over something really stupid and it was my fault, you know? So you know,

I'm no St. I'm not perfect. I'm still getting better, you know,

but it's not a booze problem anymore. Now it's just an asshole problem, you know? And I can live with that. I really can, you know? I'm not going to jail over that, you know? I'm not living under a bridge over that stuff.

You know, I remember I was, I didn't really talk much about six or seven because in that first couple times I had nothing really happened. It was just a quick jump from, from my fifth step to my 9th step. It was literally, it's actually technically the way the book says. It's only an hour and a half, maybe two hours most. You sit quietly after your 5th step for an hour, meditate on what you've written, see if you missed anything. Call your sponsor if it did. If you did make your list of amends and go about making your amends, you know,

two hours, OK, But I was probably five or six years sober and I was going through a round of work with a, with a guy

in in western Jersey. And we had done this. He told me, go home, take my quiet hour. And I at the time, I had two kids, I think maybe my third, not two kids at the time. And my kids are always been savages. They're a lot. They're a lot like me and

and we've we've kind of encouraged that, you know, to a certain degree, you know, my house is not my own. It's my kids house and they, they run the house, they do their thing and we buy shitty furniture it.

And I said, I don't, I don't have a quiet hour at home. And he goes, well, there's a hunters trail over down the road, you know, go down there. So I went down to this Hunter's trail and I took a walk out into the woods and I, it was offseason, thank God.

And, and I, and I, I got quiet and I prayed and I meditated for an hour long walk out into the woods. And I came back and I got down on my knees and as I'm saying, my seven step prayer started to rain. And it was actually kind of cool. You know, it was like this quick, out of the blue downpour kind of thing. And I finished up my prayer and I got in my car and I drove an hour home

and I forgot to turn on the radio.

And I'm the guy who has the radio on full blast as soon as I get in my car. I forgot to turn on the radio because the first time in my life the hamster fell off the wheel. I was at peace inside my own head for the first time in my life. And it was frigging amazing. It really was, you know. And granted, that hamster jumped back on every once in a while, you know, he does. He does. And you know, But you know what? He stays off more and more today. You know,

there's times over the years that that it'll last for six months of peace in my head, you know, without any kind of issues, you know, and, and it and, and, and, and don't get me wrong. My life is not easy or rosy or whatever, you know, you know, everybody got freaking hammered. What was it five years ago when, when the housing market died? I was in construction,

you know, and, and you know, between I was a single income

household, we went to a dual income household and still took like a 50% cut in our, our, our income. You know, it's just like, it's ridiculous, you know, we got all kinds of crazy shit going on in our lives, but I'm OK inside. And that's what this did for me, you know, that's what this step process did, you know it, it got the noise out of my head first. It got the booze out of my way

and now it's getting the noise out of my head and it's getting the insanity out of Maine so that even when it's crazy outside, I'm still OK. And I have the tools to deal with that craziness outside. Because how the hell do you deal with the craziness outside when there's craziness going on inside of your head? You know, and I, I, it seems so simple now looking back, but at the time, you know, I, I got all this noise in here and all this shit going on out here and I'm damn near running over people because the little old blue haired lady cut me off and you know, and,

and all that stuff. And I think it's perfectly normal. And I can't even imagine how I used to live that way because it's not like that anymore. You know, it can be, you know, and, and there's been times, I remember last summer, I, I hadn't done any step work for like a year and a half, almost two years. I've been doing my daily 10 and 11 stuff. I'm still working with others, but I hadn't done a linear approach to the steps where I went through from 1:00 to 12:00 again

like 2 years. And

all of a sudden I woke up and I was squirrely as shit, you know, out of the blue. I don't know. I I don't, I don't know where it came from or why it happened, but all of a sudden I was just nuts. And I'm OK. It's no big deal. I don't need to write. Yeah, I'm good. I got this. Yeah. Couple days later. Yeah, I'm even. It's even louder and louder and louder. And it got to this point where there's three days and I'm just jammed and I can't function

and I run. I work for a