The Hong Kong International Convention in Hong Kong

Hello everybody my name is Kenny I'm an alcoholic

because there is a God and a a works. My date of grace is 11/17/94 and it truly is a date of grace. I tried for several years to say stay sober and was not able to do that in all my day to grace. The problem was simply removed. I couldn't stay sober and I haven't had to for almost 18 years. Truly a miracle. What a conference. Read this book.

I love that title for the conference.

They told me when I came around if you wanted to hide something from an alcoholic, just put it in the big book.

I don't know what the big deal is. You know, if you're an alcoholic like me reading this book, it's only a matter of life and death. I,

I believe the book was truly inspired by God and the people that wrote it were messengers of God bringing a message to us here. If you came here to hear one of the most dynamic and inspirational talks that you've ever heard, I hope you were here last night. It was wonderful. Today you just have me and I should not be your speaker. I really shouldn't be.

When I finally did get this recovery thing, the old timers quit making bets on who was going to get sober because

there was little chance that I would ever get this thing. Probably least likely to succeed. Not only that, but as a child, I think back in, I wasn't a bad kid, but my teachers just didn't understand me, you know what I mean? I mean, they just didn't understand me. And I can remember one of several schools that I went to that I would get called out of class two or three times a week, sent down the hall and I wasn't going to the principal's office because like I said, I was a good kid. They

didn't understand me. Literally they didn't understand me. I was going to a speech therapist because I I couldn't understand me. Excuse me? I've got a dry sense of humor. It seems like the the longer I go, since I had my last drink, the dryer it seems to get, but it's the way it is.

Well, you know, if I'm up here, any one of you could be up here. I never thought I would ever be up in front of a group, much less at an international conference.

The only explanation I can have is that God has given me a story. He's given me an amazing story, and now He's given me the opportunity to share it with you. It must be someone out there needs to hear something that I have to say, otherwise I wouldn't be up here.

I'm told I'm supposed to open with a joke, so let's give this a try.

Knock at the door? Who could that be? 3:00 in the morning, pouring down rain.

Who could that be? There it is again. So guy gets up out of bed, walks to the front door, opens the screen door, looks out on the porch and there's the drunk staggering back and forth. So it's going to help you. And he says yes. He says, I am sure stuck out here, Mr. and I could really use a push. Could you help me out? Man thinks about it a minute, says, hell no, it's 3:00 in the morning, I'm going back to bed. Good luck. So he turns around, goes back and gets into bed, starts to pull the covers over his head. And

he's laying there thinking.

Two or three weeks ago he'd had a flat tire. Some guys pulled over. It helped him get going. He thinks, You know, guess I ought to go out and try and help this guy. Just be the right thing to do. So it gets back up and he walks out to the porch, opens the door, pitch black porn down rain. The drunk's nowhere to be seen. So he hollers out in the distance. Can I help you? You still out there? You still need to push. And a reply comes from the distance. Yes, Sir, I sure do. I really appreciate your help,

he says. Well, where are you? I

I don't see you. And he says, well, I'm sitting right over here on the swing.

Now, that's not the funniest. That's not the funniest joke in the world, but

it reminds me of when I got to AA.

When I got to AA, I, I got to AA and I was sitting on a swing and I would ask you people to come along and give me a push and you wouldn't. You give me a push and I go forward a little ways and then I come swinging back faster than I went forward. And I had this structure that I'd build up around me and it was my life. And there were a couple of chains hanging from that. And those were my old ideas and I wouldn't let go of them. And every time you gave me a push forward, I'd come swinging back even faster.

Finally

I became willing to let go of those old ideas and you gave me a push forward and I took a leap of faith and I landed on new ground.

And that's kind of what happened to me. Now I've got to be careful not to build a new swing set in sobriety because I've done that. You know, the old ideas I had were quickly replaced by new ideas. And if I held on to them long enough, I found out here I am again holding on to old ideas. And the problem with being on a swing is that while you're only going back and forth, it gives you the

illusion that you're actually moving and going somewhere.

So I beg you to take a moment to check yourself like I check myself. Am I actually moving forward and my recovery and my trudging the road a happy destiny? Or am I just swinging back and forth?

They say the spiritual It's easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. And we're headed for trouble if we do.

When I accepted this invitation to give my talk, I started thinking about revising my talk. I'm going to make it a little better. I've got 18 years, almost 18 years of sobriety and the number of miracles that have taken place have just been amazing. And I started making some bullet points on all the lessons I've learned and all the great things that have happened to me. And

two weeks later, I printed out, I've got 58 pages and bullet points,

and I started trying to come up with a plan on how to do this. And

my plans just never seem to workout very well. And I gave a couple of talks, a couple of practice runs at home

and I said, I'm going to get sober right away, you know, and that way I have time to share more than miracles that have taken place. And I, I had no problem doing that, you know, 5 minutes into the talk and I'm sober. 5 minutes later I found out I'm drunk again. And I tell what I do, I intended to stay sober. So I would, I would get back and I get sober again. I'd start, you know, next thing I knew I was drunk again. And that's pretty much my story, you know, if you, if you summarize it, I came to a thinking I was going to get sober right away. And

kept getting drunk over and over and over again.

I've come to believe that the only way I got to where I am today is that I had to go through everything that I went through. I'm going to try and go through it as quick as I can today, but there's only one way for me to have gotten where I am, and that's to have gone through the things that I've done. And while some of it's a little bit tragic, if I had the opportunity to go back and change any of it, I wouldn't change a single thing. I would not be willing to take the chance

that I wouldn't have the life that I have today because it's truly more than I could have ever imagined.

I was born in Akron, OH. I need to qualify myself here a little bit. Akron, OH, birthplace of AAI. Think they may have seen me coming

now. I say that jokingly, but part of me believes it. I Maybe that qualifies me as being self-centered enough to be here.

I had a pretty normal childhood for an alcoholic, which means that my childhood was just about as dysfunctional as the average Alcoholics. My parents were divorced when I was five. My mother remarried my stepfather, who was an alcoholic, and we moved around a lot because of his job. I grew up living in trailer parks. I never felt like I fit in. I was always the new kid on the block and I was always being picked on.

First time I was picked on, I didn't understand why. I just couldn't understand why I didn't fight back. What did I do wrong? I couldn't figure out what I did wrong.

We'd move again. Same thing. It happened. Same thing it happened. I never could figure out what I did wrong.

Of course it had to be me, something I was doing or not doing.

Had a little resentment over that. When I got older,

age 13, we moved into a town and we settled down. We settled down roots and I got, I was a good student, almost a straight A student. Probably did well at school. That was my way out of where I'd been, at least I thought.

I got involved in sport judo and I excelled at it. And in about a two year period,

age 15, I'd taken third in the nationals. I had an opportunity to go to Japan, to the Kodakon on an exchange program. And for a guy that grew up in trailer parks, I mean, this was just amazing, you know, this opportunity to, to travel.

Every time I,

God on the mat bowed in, got ready to compete, I never, I never saw the opponent that I was facing. I would close my eyes and I bring back memories of my stepfather. I bring back memories of all the bullies that picked on me and I fed those resentments that I had. And and I was quite successful when I got out there because I had a lot of rage inside and I let it out.

Had I any idea the price I was going to pay for that later?

The damage that it did to my soul was just tremendous. And when I took my first drink, I found oblivion within

two years, the obsession and the compulsion. And I didn't know what that was about. When I got here. I didn't think I had a compulsion. I just drank because to get drunk, because I like to get drunk.

I could quit drinking on Sunday and not drink till Friday.

I mean I could do it. I told myself I was going to do it several times and on Sunday I would quit for the entire week. I never actually made it the entire week. Always changed my mind by Tuesday or Wednesday.

By the time I'm 17, I passed up my trip to go to the Kodakon. I told all my friends that I didn't think I'd enjoy sake. Truth of the matter was, I was out of control and I knew it. I dropped out of high school. I wound up in jail.

They told me I wasn't going to walk out of there, but I could March. So that's what I did. I joined the army and I've got a lot of drunk stories about the army. One time I was drunk on tequila and bet somebody I could chug 1/4 tequila and I turned it upside down. Wound up with alcohol poisoning and almost killed myself then. But for the most part,

I was pretty much under control in the Army when I got out.

I started to go into college on the GI Bill,

almost didn't make it through college, like I said, because of the stage fright that I experienced. I, I couldn't get up and talk in front of a group, but I did finally make it through that. I found a set of found a group of people that drank the way I drank to hang around with. I mean, the big book talks about us leading a double life, and I was certainly no exception. I have my college life where I was studying and going to school

and then I had my drinking buddies and I'm a kind of an overachiever when it comes to everything. So when I chose my drinking buddies, I wound up hooking out up with a motorcycle club. Perfect, perfect for an alcoholic. The more anti social I was, the better I fit in and I could go out and just

go full guns and get up the next day and go to college. There's something wrong, something missing inside. And I didn't know what it was. And I looked around and I realized what it was was I'd always wanted a family. And I started looking around. I found the right girl and I told her if she got pregnant I'd marry her because I wanted a family. And she did and we did, and we got married and I was out one night with this motorcycle club and

ran outside of a bar. Because everyone is

had vacated for some reason. And I got out there and there's a guy in another motorcycle club with a pistol pointed in my face and the gun was shaking and I'm looking down the barrel and he's asking his buddy should I shoot him? Should I shoot him? And before his buddy replied I I had the wherewithal to answer for him. And I looked at him, looked him dead in the eye and said, no, you definitely should not.

And he didn't. And you know, that didn't really shake me up while I was drinking. No guns were fired. No gunshots were fired. I've been shot at a couple of times before that,

but I went home and I looked at that little baby girl and I thought, you know, she really needs a father and made a decision at that point to change my life and we packed up and moved to Houston, TX.

My alcoholism was pretty much a Bay for the next 7-8, nine years. And the only thing I can attribute that to is for the first time in my life, I put someone else's welfare ahead of my own.

And I think that's part of what's working today, big part of what's working today. I put other people's welfare sometimes a little bit ahead of my own.

For the next seven or eight years, I started doing what I call climbing mountains.

I wasn't right inside. I needed to find a job. If I found a job, I could support the family. Everything would be OK. I looked around. I found a job,

everything was OK for just a little while, but that didn't seem to do it. There's still something missing. Well, if I became a CPA, you know, then I'd be happy and satisfied. And the book talks about this delusion that I will be happy and satisfied if I just manage well. And I would look and I said, what is it I need? What is missing in my life? Ah, there it is on top of that hill. If I just get that, I'll be happy and satisfied. I wanted a son. If I had a son, I'd be happy and satisfied. Had a son that didn't do it.

More education. I went back to school for an MBA. They wanted me to get up and talk in front of people though, so that didn't work. I got a masters in accounting. It's good enough, You know, that satisfied everything it seemed like for a couple of weeks and then I looked around. What is it that's missing in my life? There's something missing in my life. Oh, we've been living in apartments. If we just had a house, everything would be fine. We saved up money and put a down payment, bought a four bedroom house,

the list goes on and on. I don't know if you have a list of what it's going to take for you to be happy and satisfied.

You know, that delusion is still persistent today. I still fight that. I still think I'll just, you know, I'll be happy and satisfied if and when I get to the top of whatever hell it is. And I get to the top of that hill and I'm not happy and satisfied. And I look around and I say, oh, there it is over there. I climbed the wrong hill.

See, when I manage my life, one or two things happen. Either I don't get what I want and I'm disappointed, or I do get what I want and I'm even more disappointed. Happens over and over and over again. About this time, the marriage started falling apart and I I found another mountain to climb. If I become a lawyer, you know, then I'll be happy and satisfied and she'll never leave me. Becoming a lawyer is going to solve all my problems

and I'm working 5560 hours a week

doing tax work and going to law school and my marital problems got solved about my second year of law school. She filed for divorce.

Wasn't the solution I was looking for, but they were solved and

I went out on a bench. First time I'd gone out on a bench since I'd gotten to Houston, I went out with abandoned and I just said I'm going to get totally wasted. And I had no idea of how the disease had progressed or could have progressed. I had no idea what I was went in for when I went on on that first vendor.

I not only left off picked up where I left off. I believe I picked up where I would have meant had I been drinking and using the entire time. I I had accumulated money in the bank I thought was going to make me secure. I had a retirement account, I had a good job, family. It was all gone within a year. I mean within a year everything had disappeared. I'm on my way back to

a four bedroom house with four big jugs of water,

bottled water. I had four big jugs filled up with water. Somebody had been good enough to give me a ride back there and I was carrying that water back to the house to flush the toilets with

because the water had been shut off two months earlier. And I go in and I flip on the light switch and I'm wondering how in the hell did they get past the Rottweiler in the backyard to cut off the power, because it was three or four months overdue and they hadn't been able to do that before. Then

I looked around the house, which was virtually empty. I think there was still a couch there. Everything else was pretty much gone. There was stuff piled up in the driveway. A family was gone,

the job I was hanging on to just by a thread, and I received what you call the gift of desperation

and I was willing to do anything.

They've been trying to get me to check into treatment but I didn't need to do that. Well, when the gifts of desperation came along, I decided I would do anything and that's what I did. I checked into my first treatment center and was there for 30 days and I did everything they told me to and and more and they cured my alcoholism and my addiction. All except for the drinking and drugging part.

You know,

that went on for, oh, I don't know, another three, 3 1/2 years. They did also diagnose me as being clinically depressed and they gave me antidepressants. Now, those didn't seem to work for me. They work for some people. They didn't work for me when I quit putting everything I owned in the pawn shop on a weekly basis. So my clinical depression just seemed to go away.

Funny how that happens. They took me to my first a a meeting and I walked in the meeting and I looked around and the first thing I did was I sized everybody up.

How can all these dumb people help me? You know, I can tell by looking at them they're not as smart as I have and they haven't accomplished the things I've accomplished. How can all these dumb people help me? And my only choice was to either sit there or go back to the lock up board. So I decided to take a seat and I sat down and they opened the meeting up.

They read how it works.

One of the lines in there is a

half measures availed. It's nothing. I think my mind picked up on that and I thought, I wonder what I can get with 51%.

I found out. Wonder what I can get with 60%. I finally found out that too, but I'm sitting there in the meeting and they asked if anybody was new and I raised my hand and they told me I was the most important person in the room.

With that I immediately realized they were a whole lot smarter than I give them credit for. Well,

maybe there is hope for me here.

The first meeting, I'll never forget the topic. It was on being terminally unique. And people would go around the room and they all shared about how when they got there, they felt they were different than everyone else, that they couldn't relate and how that feeling of uniqueness almost killed them. And I couldn't relate to anything they were saying, you know? And they asked me at the end of the meeting if I wanted to share. And I, I told him that basically that I couldn't relate to anything they were saying. And they started laughing.

They had me.

Well, that gift of desperation that I walked in with was somehow magically dissolved in that meeting. And I left there with renewed hopes that I'd be able to stay sober. There's a paragraph and Bill's story that starts off renewing my resolve, you know, And he winds up drinking it. Yeah. And that's what I did for about three, 3 1/2 years. I'd come back into meetings, and I'd renew my resolve to stay sober. And

I was literally

dying to stay sober. Just couldn't do it. I kept trying. I kept trying. I did four steps, I made amends. I did, you know, I applied myself to that like I'd applied myself to everything else. Lot of self will, self determination, hard work. If you could do it, I could do it. And I saw people who couldn't do half the things that I was doing getting sober and staying sober.

They must be cheating. They're getting help from someone somewhere. Sure enough, they were.

I didn't want anything to do with the spiritual part of this program. I was later told. There isn't any other part you know about. To me, God was a crutch that weak people use because they just didn't have the willpower to do things on their own.

I thrown God out when I got rid of Santa Claus. You know, making a list and checking it twice, you know, it seemed like pretty much the same thing. God was just a Santa Claus for for grown-ups. And they actually had some of these grown-ups still fooled. But I could tell they really didn't believe there is a God because if they really believed what they were saying, they wouldn't be acting the way they were acting. At least that's how it appeared to be as a kid. And I just kind of blew the whole thing off as something that the Catholic Church had created to control

ignorant and superstitious masses. And that's a pretty hard line view. I believe God created the earth, and that's what God was. He was the creator, and he was off somewhere else in the universe creating another world and hopefully doing a little better job of it than he done here. But as far as a God that actually had some personal interaction, that idea was just foreign to me.

Like what I heard yesterday. It was what I knew for certain that almost killed me,

and that was one of those things that I knew for certain. I mean, I just knew it.

I started opening my mind

to spirituality when I saw people that couldn't do the things that I was doing getting sober.

I argued with people about whether or not I needed the spiritual part of the program. I'd argue with them till they went away and that meant that I won the argument

and then I go get drunk.

Finally someone got my attention, he said. Kenny, maybe you don't need the spiritual part in this program. And I said, finally someone that understands where we going from here, he says.

He says, well, the only way you'd need the spiritual part of this program is if you happen to have a soul. If you don't have a soul, you probably won't need it.

And then he asked me point blank, Kenny, do you have a soul?

And I thought about that one for a while, and I realized that I did. You see, when these crazy thoughts were going on in my head,

there was something inside of me that said, hey, these are crazy thoughts.

We all recognize we have a body. And if your body's sick, you don't make good decisions. You know, it's pretty much accepted today that people can be mentally ill. If you're mentally ill, you're not going to make decisions. Well, if you have a soul, then it happens to be sick. What kind of decisions would you be making?

You see, I had a soul and it was sick.

I started thinking about what kind of condition my body would be in if I laid it on a couch, told it to be quiet, don't say anything, don't get up, watch TV and hand it in a bag of potato chips every day or two to eat. And I just told it to sit there. And I realized my body being pretty bad condition. And that's basically what I've been doing in my soul for as long as I could remember. You know, I told her to sit on the couch, be quiet,

and I would get busy, busy, busy doing one thing or another so I didn't have to pay any attention to it. And when I needed a break, it would start to speak up and I'd pour a little alcohol or other chemicals in my body to shut it up because I didn't want to hear what it had to say. My soul was sick.

And if you don't think this is in the big book, and I mean it certainly is, it says right in their planes can be. When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.

So I opened my mind a little bit to this God thing and I tried to make myself believe in God. And the more I tried to make myself believe, the more I got to make believe God.

I became willing to pray and ask God to help me stay sober. And that didn't work. Didn't work a bit. I did that for a year and a half.

Finally

my plans have degenerated. I had a plan for staying sober when I got here. I developed one shortly, you know, afterwards when I was in treatment.

And then I would drink again. And then I would look back and see what mistakes I made. And I would make a new plan.

And I would

get drunk, realize what I did wrong and make a new plan. And I must have had 50 or 100 plans over those 3 1/2 years. And finally someone pointed out, said Kenny, what's it? You got a new plan? I said yeah. And they said, what's the odds of it working

based on your history?

The odds of it working were not very good. You see, lack of planning was not my dilemma. Lack of power was my dilemma.

You know you have the best plan in the world, but if you don't have the power to carry it out, it doesn't mean squat.

I'd eventually wound up with a plan that I refer to now as the One Day at a Time plan.

And what I would do was after a three day binge, I make sure that I had two bottles of wine in the refrigerator. And at 11:30 sharp, the alarm would go off and I drink those two bottles of wine. So that by 1212 o'clock started the new day, I hadn't had a drink. And I would pass out. I would wake up about two in the afternoon, get something to eat and I go back to sleep. And and that was my one day.

And the problem was I couldn't seem to get day two. You know, I could just get that one day at a time.

I'm rocking along like that and I'm starting to feel pretty hopeless. And some people who were in a A

who worked right out of the big book, we're about the only ones that were still hanging around me.

And they told me, Kenny, if you keep trying to stay sober, you're going to die.

They asked me to say, Kenny, you ever get this feeling that you're hopeless?

You know that you're never going to be able to stay sober? I said, yeah, I do. I get that feeling from time to time. And they said the reason you get that feeling that you're hopeless is because you are.

They didn't give me help.

They talked to me about my four step, you know, and they didn't tell me I needed to learn to love myself. I said, Kenny, when you did your four steps, and I know you've done quite a few of them, did you ever get a feeling of guilt and shame? And I said, oh, yeah, I got an overwhelming feeling, feeling of guilt and shame. So what? We can tell you why you felt that way. I said, really, why? Why is that? He said, well, if you're like us, you're probably guilty of doing a lot of shameful things.

There are a lot of acronyms in a, A for

God G OD group of drunks, Good orderly direction, but I believe the one that I relate to most is the gift of desperation.

And those guys were the messengers from God to help bring me that gift of desperation.

And I thought that was a rather strange way to try and help somebody get sober. And I started looking in the chapter I'm working with others and it says, couldn't find anything in there on giving the guy hope. But I I found something in there that says that the more hopeless your man feels, the better, the more likely he is to follow your suggestions. Now, I paraphrase the big book a lot. I had memorized how it works

before I got out of treatment. I knew I could quote it

today all I do is paraphrase it. Worried more about more concerned about what it means and you know, the exact words they use. So a lot of my quotes in here are not going to be exact, but hopelessness.

I'm reminded of a line that Doctor Silkworth uses in I think it's a a comes of Age, and he talks about hopelessness as being the black soil out of which every vital spiritual experience is growing.

And I started feeling hopeless.

I'm on my one day at a time program. I've got almost two days. One day I got a new sponsor and he's bringing me back to my apartment and I say goodbye to him and I'm doing just fine. I'm alcoholic, of course, I'm doing fine, right? I'm doing just fine. And, and I'm excited because I know if I just go into my apartment, I made it through the 8:00 meeting without leaving, you know,

I said I'm going to get an A2. All I got to do is go into the kitchen and make something to eat and go to sleep and I'll have two days

sober and it's been a while.

I said goodbye to him and I walked around. I walked down there. I got to the door in my apartment. I unlocked it. And this thought came over my head. You know, you ought to give those guys a call and see what they're doing tonight. And I locked the door back up. I said, that's a crazy thought. And I unlocked the door and then I locked the door. Then I unlocked the door and I locked the door. And I don't know how long I stood there, but the insane thought went out again and I'm out for another three day binge. And anyway,

after that binge, to give you an idea of the progression of the disease, I've got 2 college degrees and I'm, I'm sitting there at 3:00 in the morning.

No one will answer their phone. I can't figure out why no one's coming to the door anywhere I go. So I turn on the TV and what's on at 3:00 in the morning, there's a show called Cops and they show a little marketplace not far from where I live. And a car will pull out and the car will pull out in the window, will roll down and money exchange his hands. The car starts to drive off and the cops come in and they arrest everybody.

I got a camera on the other side of the building. Same thing happens. Car pulls in, window rolls down, money exchanges hands,

cops pull in. They haul everybody off to jail. And with my keen alcoholic mind, I realize I know where I can find something.

I only need one more, and then I'll be able to quit. And

I knew this was insane and I argued with myself the whole way there.

That convinced me I couldn't trust my thinking anymore.

Got home,

just one more and I'll be able to quit. I thought was still alive. That lie was still alive.

And I'm sitting there in my bedroom and I got my big book out and

I set it on the bed and I started opening it up and I said, well this doesn't work, I don't need to read that. And I started to pray. In fact, I said the third step prayer and the 7th step prayer and I asked God to help me stay sober and that didn't work.

And out of desperation, I looked up and I said, God, if you're out there, you're gonna have to show me you're there. I, I knew part of my problem was that I couldn't make myself believe. And I said, God, why aren't my prayers working? I've been praying for a year and a half for you to keep me sober. And this line in the big book came back says we're careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. It doesn't work. We've wasted a lot of time doing that.

And I started thinking about my prayers to ask God to help me stay sober. And while I didn't say this, what I was really meaning was, God, please help me stay sober

because if I can't stay sober, I won't be able to get what I want.

That was the bottom line. God, please help me stay sober because I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I don't want to be sick and tired anymore. It was all about me. Now, I think when some people say that prayer, you know, they have every intention of going out and helping other people and doing good things and all that kind of stuff, but not me. You know, I just wanted to get sober, be so I could get what I wanted out of life. And it was a selfish prayer. And maybe that's why my prayers hadn't worked.

I left out of there with a feeling more desperate and hopeless than I ever had. And I walked across the street to make a phone call because it was almost 9:00. The liquor store was going to open and I had enough money for another bottle of wine

if no one answered the phone. And I looked up in the sky before I made that phone call. And I said, if you're up there, you're going to have to do this thing for me. I can't do it. I realized on that walk across the street that I done everything humanly possible that I could do to stay sober, and if there wasn't a God, I was going to die.

And I opened up my heart and I reached out with everything I can, not because I believe God was there, just I kind of came in through the back door. I believed if there wasn't a God, I was going to die.

And I said I don't want to be the pitiful piece of whatever that I'd become piece of work. Let's use that.

And I asked in the name of Jesus Christ, please help me. And that's something I'd never done before. And I don't know if that was significant or not, or if it was just the fact that I was willing to do anything. But I'm not willing to take that chance. I'm a Christian today of my own, of my own understanding. But that's, that's just for me. I don't think that's

necessary. In fact, I know from hearing other people that it's not. And as I looked up in the sky, I said that prayer and I asked God to take my life, make me of some use to somebody, somewhere. I didn't want to be me anymore. I was pitiful

and I looked. Something caught my eye and I turned and I looked out in the in the road.

You know how when the clouds part just a little bit and a beam of light will come down? Well, that that happened. There's this beam of light shining down in the road. And as the clouds continue to part, that beam of light came right up to me. And I was totally immersed in blinding white light. And every time I testify to this, I get covered in goosebumps like I do right now. And I was covered in goosebumps then

and it felt like electricity

and I, I remember coming out of it and looking down in the phone was hanging still, so I knew this had taken more than a moment. There was something there with me, and I can't explain what it was.

I took a couple of steps and I realized that I felt half the weight I'd felt before. I felt like I weighed 100 lbs. I felt like I was walking on air and I knew there was a God. I mean, I just knew there was a God. And I picked the phone up and I called my sponsor and I my new sponsor. When I say my sponsor, I'm talking about any one of fifty to 100 people.

I, I went through a lot of them, you know, during this trip. And he said, well,

packing bag for two or three days, I'll come pick you up, but be there when I get there. And I said fine. And I went over the house and I packed a bag and. And he came and he said, I'm surprised you're still here. And I said, yeah, yeah, he picked me up. And he says

I need to run a couple errands, but I've got somewhere to take you. You mind riding along with me? And we started driving around and there been a hurricane, one of the biggest hurricanes ever hit Houston for the last couple of days before that, I'd missed it. I'd missed it.

I mean, there's trees down in the middle of Rd. you know, I mean, the place is a disaster. And we go help a couple people and move some furniture because, you know, water gotten in everywhere. And whatever he said to do, we went and did it. And he went and bought me lunch. And, and as we were talking, he says he says something kind of strange about our conversation today. And I said, what's that? He says, you haven't asked me where we're going. And before that, if you were going to take me to check in somewhere, I want to know, first of all, can I smoke?

You know, how clean is it? What are the qualifications and people that run the place? I mean, I had a list of criteria for any place that you were going to take me to. And I remember looking across the the table at him and, and saying, well,

I'm not running the show anymore. And I wasn't, I wasn't running the show anymore. Anywhere he took me was just fine. And he took me to a halfway house and I walked up on the porch.

Ask him for a push

and

they told me to come in and stay a while and that's what I did and I checked in there and I tried to help the guy that came in behind me because I couldn't stay sober and I knew I couldn't stay sober. Something had happened, but.

I couldn't stay sober. I started doing what they've been telling me to do for a long time, trying to do it. They said if I took care of God's business, he'd take care of mine, and that's what I tried to do. I told myself that the next guy that came through the doors, I'd try and help him. And the next guy that came through the door was a bigger problem than I was