The 34th annual Serenity Weekend in Jekyll Island, GA

Hi, I'm Kent. I'm an alcoholic and I am from Montgomery, AL Not originally. It's probably not hard to guess. Want to say congratulations to 34 years. That's that's pretty awesome to have a convention like this going on our conference for 34 for 34 years. I want to thank Linda and the committee for inviting my wife and I to come out here and speak. I know Lynn's been trying to get us out here for about 3 years, but we had some scheduling difficulties, but it's been absolutely wonderful. We drove

from Montgomery down to Eufaula, you follow Albany to Waycross to Brunswick on 82, which is a beautiful, beautiful ride, except for the love bugs that we're committing suicide on the windshield. But it's an honor and privilege to be here and I really appreciate it. I, I want to tell you my sobriety date is September 18th, 1998. By the grace of God, good sponsorship, the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I haven't found it necessary to take a drink or a mind altering substance since that day.

I got some good news. And the bad news is the good news is I have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.

The bad news is I have not recovered from being me, you know, And that's, that took me a lot. And you'll hear that's pretty big in my story. For the longest time, I thought my problem was drinking, right? And I would put the drink down and things would go OK and then things would go bad, you know, And it took me a long time. It took me about 80 years to really get the first step that my problem was not drinking. My problem was me. And I did that in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, which you'll hear. I, I hit a bottom in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I just want to tell you a little bit about, you know, what I was like. I don't like to dwell on it. If you hear it in a, a conference, you, you probably know how to drink. And if you get asked to speak, it's probably a safe bet that we know how to drink too. I was born May 18th, 1962 in Tokyo, Japan. My dad worked for the CIA and that's what you know, they were doing over there. I grew up in an upper middle class family. I have a brother that's thirteen months older than me and a sister that's three years, three years younger. My parents are not alcoholic. They're still

to each other. They live up in Washington, DC. There's no alcoholism in my immediate family. There was no physical, sexual emotional abuse in my family. My brother and sister are disgustingly normal. And I just, you know, I, I do know I had a, there was a genetic gene in my family and I got it and I drank myself into alcoholism and it happened really, really quick. Like a lot of people, you know, I never fit in. I mean, I definitely remember that from as early as kindergarten and 1st grade. There's just

something different from, you know, for me, I just didn't feel like I belonged even in my same family. I grew up in Japan and then Taiwan and Switzerland, and I went to high school in Singapore. So I wasn't exposed a lot of English TV and I read a lot of books. And that was my first escape from reading. You know, I mean, reading's a great thing, but even like from the age of 6, I was reading because I didn't like who I was, who I was with and where I was at. So I read, I read all the Louis Lamour books and I'd read books about the

men you know, then later on the spy novels. But it was always about being somewhere outside of my head for where I was physically at. I was always looking for something different.

I used to always have a big sibling, sibling rivalry with my brother. I'm a 50 year old now. I'm 5 foot five in This morning I weighed 137.8 lbs. So you can imagine me like in 7th grade, I think I was, you know, 4 foot 270 lbs. And my brother, I used to have asthma really, really bad. In fact, I was given the last rights by a Catholic priest when I was three. I was supposed to die.

And so up until the time I was 12, I had asthma really bad, and I was very, very

infirm. Kit and I really couldn't play a lot of sports and I had to be protected and stuff like that. And then I grew out of it. But my brother was a year older, in 8th grade. He was five, 10180 lbs and was shaving in 8th grade, right? I shaved on my 18th birthday just because it was time. I didn't need to. But, you know, maybe that's what the beard's about, right? You know, I can do it.

But I say all that, you know, because the first time I picked up alcohol, I was 14 years old and we had just moved to the Republic of Singapore.

I did not have a spiritual experience. When I had my first drink, I did not get drunk. I was one of those kids. I was neither extroverted nor was I introverted, right? I was just kind of in between. But when I had that drink, I was with a bunch of guys I didn't know I had just met. And I do remember feeling part of OK 'cause I was always comparing myself. I was always better than you or not good enough. A lot more on the not good enough side

and the alcohol just made me feel fine and I drank throughout high school. I did not have a drinking problem in high school.

I had my first blackout on my 18th birthday, but I blame that on tequila. I when I graduated high school, I was going to college, but by the time I graduated high school, I was a student, student body president. I was class favorite. I was king of the junior senior prom. You know, as the Al Anon say, I was a young man with potential, right? And that was in June of 1980 and I went to University of Northern Arizona and Flagstaff, AZ. I wanted to be a forest Ranger.

I did not know that forest forestry is actually a science degree because I'm kind of a liberal arts type of guy. History, social studies, foreign languages. I'm not really good at math or the hardcore sciences. Who knew? And that's when fear. I am not an angry alcoholic. I am much more comfortable with fear and self pity. And fear was a corroding thread throughout my life. It dominated my life and it absolutely reared its ugly head when I got to college and I found out that I had to take advanced math and chemistry and, you know, Physiology and botany. Anything

E at the end of it is pretty scary to me. And also, I stopped going to class and by October of 1980, I was drinking a gallon of Carlo Rossi Paisano wine before noon. I mean, it happened that quick, right? Happened that quick.

It just boom, I was off to the races and after two semesters, I mean, you know, I and also I'm not one of those guys that can drink and do great things. You know, I mean, I have friends of mine that have gone through PhD programs while in active alcoholic. I can drink or I can do things,

right. It's like pick one because once the craving hits me and I start drinking and I'm a beer drinker, OK. And it's just all I want to do is just get mellow and just leave me alone, right? Just I like to go my own little world. So I stopped going to classes. My parents pulled the plug on that after a couple a couple semesters and I just kind of wandered around for about a year. And then my parents got me a appointment to Virginia Military Institute. And I was there for 2 1/2 years and actually did pretty good because there were no women, you couldn't

car and there was number alcohol and they marched you to class. OK. And that was, it's interesting. That was my first exposure to structured discipline. And what I have found is that when I have discipline in my life, I can actually function fairly well when the discipline is taken away from me. Me 'cause I'm managing my life, I'm incapable of it, right? And I self destruct. And that includes in the program which which you'll hear. But the problem with a four year degree is it takes four years, you know, and I and I like what Wayne Butler says.

I'm the 50 yard man in the 100 yard dash. You know, I will beat you to halfway guaranteed because I'm a go getter. I'm a hard charger. And then either my laziness or my ADD, you know, look, there's a squirrel and it's like poof. And I stop, you know, I stop in the middle of the race. So I left after 2 1/2 years and I listed in the Army and I spent quite a bit of time in the Army.

Different units, different places did very, very well in the Army. I started to have some things, not externally, but internally, like after three day weekends where all I do is get a hotel room and hold up and drink beer.

You know, at the age of 2324, I'm coming to work on a Tuesday and I'm doing this right. And I didn't know anything about alcoholism,

but I kind of knew that maybe my drinking had something to do with it. But you got to remember I was 2324. I had no consequences and I was not willing to entertain dude as my drinking because I, I worked a lot. But when I wasn't working, I drank. That's all I did was I worked and I drank,

spent a lot of time deployed, which I am convinced is why I'm still here today. We've begun 6 to 9 months out of the year where there was no alcohol. And those times when I would question myself with my relationship with alcohol,

my idea, like I guess a lot of people of the alcoholic is someone that has to drink every day, all day, whatever. And I'd be like, man, I can go six, nine months without alcohol And it's not white and ugly, right? When I don't have it, I'm not thinking about it. But when we would come back to the base, even if it was 2:00 in the morning after we cleaned weapons and turned them in, I could not go to bed until I went to the 24 hour shop. It got a six pack even though I hadn't had it for six, nine months. And then once I had it, it was, you know, like a 12 pack a night. And on the weekend, it would be a case that

today. And So what eventually happened to me is I ended up in the Republic of Panama with the Army. And I was at a point in my life, you know, 2728 years old. You know, I'm just restless. There's more discontent, right? I'm not satisfied. I don't, I don't know what's going on with me. I'm doing very well militarily. And it's just there's something wrong with me. I just wasn't getting it. So I kind of, you know, the people I respected the most were, were married people with families. And I said, you know what, you know, you're 2029 years old,

listen to barracks your whole life or oncology. I had a car once, but it got stolen while you were in Honduras. Didn't even file a police report. You know, whatever, you know, I don't need a car. I mean, my barracks is here, the 24 hour shop at that sells tobacco and beers half a block from my barracks. I don't need a car. So I lacked responsibility, right? So I married a Panamanian prostitute I knew with a 7 year old daughter, right? So

thank you, thank you, My wife and I. When I came back from Africa, my wife and I spoke in an Al Anon conference in Buena Vista, Co,

and when I said that, it was just like,

and there was nothing funny about Panamanian prostitutes.

So yeah, there is

a but what happened, that was the beginning of my end though, because what happened is, like I said, I can't manage my life and being married, I had to move out of the barracks and I had things like bills, right? Telephone bills, electric bills, how to budget money. I couldn't do it right. And that's pretty amazing when you figure

some of the stuff I done in the military, some of the schools I'd been to, and I was always on a grad or distinguished on a grad from every single military school I've been to. And yet I could not do things that an emancipated 16 year old can do, you know, like I said, like work within a basic budget. So as my life started unraveling, because what that was kicking up on me was shame, fear, guilt and remorse, right? Just like the book talks about, because of because of those feelings, because I drink for the effect, I would get drunk and do something else stupid, right?

Sober up. More shame, fear, guilt, and remorse. They shut the phone off. They shut the power off. OK, more shame, fear, guilt, remorse. I have to drink more ad infinitum. And eventually I miss 3 days of work, which is no big deal if you work at Krispy Kreme, but Uncle Sam calls it AWOL and they're pretty particular. And so some buddies of mine came and got me. And it's like a lot of Alcoholics. It turned out that I was pretty much a solitary drinker, so I thought nobody knew.

Well, it turns out that my drinking problem, I was the last one that knew

and I went to a six week treatment program up in Fort Gordon, GA where they absolutely convinced me to a tee that I was an alcoholic. That's where they presented me with the disease concept of alcoholism. I could see all the stuff said OK, I'm an alcoholic, so the solution is not to drink, right? I got exposed to the big book. I got taken to meetings. I didn't hear a darn thing right because I'm a self knowledge type of guy. I didn't know what the problem was. You told me what the problem is. I'm not stupid. I do have

tremendous willpower and money aspects of my life, thank you very much. I'm going to go back to Panama, not drink while I lasted 6 months. Once again, not white knuckling. Six months later it's Carnival, you guys call it Mardi Gras here. My wife went into a dress store. There was a survease of Panama beer cart there. I had two beers and I stopped. I'm like maybe, maybe I'm not an alcoholic, right? And I had like 2 beers the next day and then three weeks later I was drunk on duty. OK. And this was

1992

and how President Clinton was drawn down the military. And when I went to treatment, I had signed a form. I signed it. I didn't read it, but what I signed, it is said if I had an alcohol or a drug incident within a year, I'd be summarily discharged, you know, And that's what happened. So the military career's gone. And that was the worst point in my life. I have never been as bad as that in my life. I did not stop drinking. I increased drinking

and So what? Now what happened is that that rodeo from 92

I had another 28 day inpatient followed by a one year program that was like a supervised apartment deal.

I I ended up not drinking, getting divorced and going through bankruptcy, not drinking OK, which is a good indicator for me that I can't manage my life with or with alcohol. That second part of the first step is not saying that my life is unmanageable when I'm drinking right that's I mean, you've probably all heard the hyphen if you understand grandma, it's like break break next thought right on powerless over alcohol. Oh hey, and by the way, my life is unmanageable, whether

drinking or not. So then I came, I, I took my wife Corey hostage

in February of 1997. And I was in DC, she was in Montgomery and did the long distance thing for a while. And I, I moved down with her because she had what I wanted, right? She had a job, she had a car, she had health insurance and she had a house. And she's cute as a button. Yeah,

so. And it's also important for me because even though I've been to all these treatment centers and I believed I was an alcoholic, I still had a lurking notion,

right? Being the self pity and type, it's like, well, you know, if you had a life like I had, like, what do you mean a life like I had? But the big thing for me is nobody in my family, as far as we can find out back to the 1700s, had ever been divorced. You know, it was kind of a big deal for me. And my marriage was really pretty crappy, mainly because I was in it.

And so I, you know, and I was also on those Alcoholics that I didn't think I had a problem that money couldn't solve. But my problem was I never had money, right? So I kind of believe that one of the reasons I drank was I had a really bad marriage and I had financial difficulties, right?

And if those could be overcome, you know, perhaps I'd be OK. So I moved in with Corey and she got me a job. She had a really good job and she managed everything. And I had no financial concerns. And we actually got along very, very well. And I couldn't stop drinking, you know, I couldn't stop drinking. And So what happened is, you know, by September, September 1st, we got married on July 18th, 1998 and I went to Ireland on our honeymoon.

I got to drink in the motherland

and we came back and what had happened is I'd hit the last stages of alcoholism. I was now physiologically addicted to alcohol. I had drank in the morning for years, truly by choice. I kind of enjoyed morning drinking, but now I absolutely had to drink. I was waking up sometimes I was getting the night sweats. I didn't know what it was. I sometimes I thought I would hear it. I was urinating in the bed and I wasn't. It was just a sweating in the middle of the night and I would wake up and I would have to grab a beer and my hands were doing like this

and it would take me like 40 minutes to drink one beer. So I wasn't living La Vida loca, you know, I wasn't in the court beers, commercial, me and the hotties on the beat, you know, with bikinis, snows, you know, I've actually, one of my most vivid memories is I would always wake up before my wife on Sunday and I would grab the warm red dog beer that I'd hidden in the pickup truck and go into the guest bathroom of the house, away from the bedroom, close the door, put a towel over a warm beer so it would go.

And then I would drink warm beer

on the toilet, hiding in the house I live in, just so I could go to Walmart, you know, so I could function, you know, so it wouldn't be, dude, what's wrong with your hands? You're pretty young for Parkinson's. So that's what alcohol did for me. And so September 18th, I, I was unemployed. I was unemployable. And I, my moment of clarity came. I knew what I was going to do to this marriage was the same thing I was going to do to the other marriage.

And I was terrified by what was going on with me because the last couple weeks I couldn't even drink a beer, right? So it's not like I woke up and said I want to try a spiritual way of life. What had worked for me had stopped working. I I couldn't even ingest it right? So I was out of options. And so I went into what I hope is my last treatment center.

And what happened there is I got introduced, I had a counselor that was a recovering alcoholic. You know, when I was finally honest with him that this was my third treatment center, he's like, dude, what do you, what do you expect me to say to you? You know that you haven't heard before? I said, well, you got $10,000 from Blue Cross Blue Shield, you better say something. And he said, have you gone to Alcoholics Anonymous? And this is the interesting thing, OK, When I was in that one year program, I went to five or six a A meetings a week for a year.

I didn't have a sponsor, I didn't work the steps and I didn't have a Home group. If you ever been around a A and large metropolitan areas in the Washington, DC area, there's probably 3000 meetings a week. And I would just go to different ones because it was interesting, right? And I like the meetings. Don't get me wrong. I didn't sit in half measures row. I listened attentively. I thought it was great. I thought I was doing a A, I truly did. I thought a A was going to meetings, right? Meeting makers make it,

you know I I know I must have heard about the steps. I assume I did. There are people that are sober up there

and I, I know people had sponsors. I just didn't, don't know, didn't apply to me. And while I was doing that, I seemed to be OK. I lived in a structured environment, had a job and I went to meetings. But as soon as I moved away, I went back to drinking again. So this counselor said, if you have you gone to a A and I said, dude, I've done a A and This is why I'm so glad he was an alcoholic because I did throw him. He's like, really? You went for a year and they said, did you have a sponsor? And I said, Nope. He said, did you work

with somebody? I said, Nope, said did you have a Home group? I said Nope. And he said that dude, you didn't try a a right? And I was like, OK, And he said, I want you to go to a a, I want you to go tonight. And I said, wait a minute, tonight's aftercare. I think we're going to watch a video on cocaine or something, right? And he's like, no, no, you're, you're going to go to you're going to go to a A and you're going to go tonight. Your excused from aftercare. And that's what I did. And I, I asked a man to sponsor me and he said, OK, no problem. He said, you know, I'm up here all the time. My, that my first Home group had meeting seven nights a week,

8:00 at night. He said, be here at 7 meetings from 8 to 9 and stay until 10:00, right? He said, and I want you to do that. Said I'm going to do a 90 and 90 because I wanted to show him that I, I was committed, right? And he said, good for you Skippy. How about going to a meeting today for a year? And I was like, wow, this guy's a fanatic.

But I was afraid, right? I was afraid. And I said, I'll do whatever you want me to do. And So what happened?

Man, I got exposed to Alcoholics. I'm from the big book and and my sponsor sponsored me to the best of his ability, the way he was sponsored. And I took the steps and I had a spiritual awakening. You know, I took steps that I didn't understand. I took steps that I didn't think would work for me. And it was explained to me that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, the steps are like a recipe, right? If, if it's a, someone gives me a recipe for red velvet cake and I've never had it. I've never tasted it. I don't even freaking bake right?

And I don't think it's going to work. I said, I believe this recipe is for pecan pie. I can think that if I follow the recipe when I'm done, when that oven goes off, it's going to be a red velvet cake. It doesn't matter what I believe. It doesn't matter what I think. If I follow the instructions, if I have the experience, there'll be a red velvet cake. And that happened to me and some amazing things happened to me. I, I was able to go back to college at 90 days sober. I still worked at, I had a job that, that paid for my tuition and books

and

I got a college degree and I got picked up by the Air Force, you know, and all that time I had in the army that I thought I'd lost when I got kicked out because I got a general under honourable discharge. I did not get an honorable discharge because of the, the AWOL and the, and the drunk on duty. You know, they're funny that way. And that was a lot of shame. That was a huge shame because the military was my life. I loved the Army with my heart and soul. And I really felt that I had let them down, mainly because I had in fact let them down.

So I got picked up by the Air Force

and for the first two years I was in college and I didn't have AI, didn't have a security background check. I had a normal background check, but I didn't have a security clearance. And when I graduated college and they offered me full time job, they said, OK, now you got to go through a security clearance. And I called my dad and one of my dad's last job, he was a head of personnel for the CIA. And he said, son, you can't get a secret clearance. You know your your DD214 from the military says

right? Well, let me back up real quick.

Everything I have in my life that's good has come from the program of Alcoholics Anonymous or Al Anon. I was in a meeting early on and I heard a guy from my Home group talk about he'd been the guest of the state of Alabama 1314 times, right? And when he was doing this nice type of man, he said he wanted to make amends to the state of Alabama, you know, for his behavior. And his sponsor said, why don't you go for a parole, right? And he did that and he actually got a pardon from the governor. And so when I heard that, I talked to my sponsor, I said, I wonder, is there a way I can get my

discharge upgraded? And he said, shoot, I don't know, man. Why don't you go to the VA? And there's a form. And I filled out a form. And most of the form is they wanted testimonials right from people in the community, priests, rabbis, ministers, doctors, lawyers, whatever. And

I kind of sat on it for a little bit, but when I filled it out, I didn't, I didn't have any testimonials from anybody, right? I just put on there. I'm a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Since I've been discharged, I have not, I have not been arrested. I've graduated from college. I've been employed by the United States Air Force. I I'm a productive member of society. And I sent it off, You know, there it is. Just send it off and six weeks later, whatever. I have an honorable discharge now from the United States Army. But at the time of the conversation with

dad, he said, son, you're DD214, says general under honorable conditions, discharge, alcohol rehabilitation, failure. You know, you can't get a security clearance. I was like, man,

so I talked to my sponsor, right? And my sponsor is just some schlub from Montgomery, AL, right? And I said, man, my dad said there's no way it's going to happen. And my sponsor said, do you think God brought you down this path just to yank the rug out from Monday? Do you think he plays like cosmic jokes on people?

And I'm like, you don't understand, man. You know, my dad, he's like, this is a God thing. It's got nothing to do If if God wants you to do this, this will happen. He said fill out the form. It's like a 13 page form. And he said and don't lie. And I'm like, oh, don't lie. You're right. He's like, yeah, don't lie. You know, honesty is the best policy of rigorous honesty.

So I filled it out and you guys can imagine I have a secret clearance and I have for 14 years now.

I heard another lady speak, Tammy F from my area, and she was speaking in my Home group and she talked about she went from GED to undergrad to graduate degree in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. My wife and I were sitting there together and I said, you know what I believe? I believe I want to get a master's degree just for me. You know, there's no money attached to it. There's no job promotion. It was just something I wanted to do and that was important for me

because like a lot of people, I had self esteem issues, right? Guess what counselors had told me? My sponsor said, well, you, he said, you know, if you want to build yourself esteem and AA, we tell you to do things that are esteemable, right? It's like, oh, that's, that's a funny concept because I was always trying to get approval from other people rather than do the work myself, right? Or make up stories and have you pat me on the back for stuff I didn't do. And so I was able to do that in, in Alcoholics Anonymous. I, I went back to, to college after my undergraduate, while working full

time, was able to get a master's degree. So I'd say all this just to show that I, I worked the steps to the best of my ability. I had an experience. I had a spiritual awakening. OK, that which was dead had been awakened. I had a conscious contact with the power greater than myself.

And then I stopped, right? I stopped. Not the meetings, not the sponsoring. But when I said this is my eye opinion and part of the message I carry is to people who were dying in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.

OK, not the newcomers, but the guy with guy and gal with over one year sobriety. One year two year 3141724

that have either never had an experience with these steps to find a relationship with the power greater than themselves right or who have have and have stopped doing it and they're dying in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and all we talk about is the newcomer. OK, I know where I come from. It happens all the time and I know what happens everywhere in Alcoholics mom because I get to travel. I heard a guy say it absolutely blew me away because I did this experiment.

Go to the largest group in your area that has a birthday board, right? And look at all the nine months and one years and two years

threes. Where's the sevens? And then there's a right,

we have to carry the message to the newcomer. But people die in Alcoholics Anonymous because the message, the message is not being carried. The solution is not being carried. That there's so much, there's so much water down misinterpretation that's being carried out there, that there are people who have never heard the message of Alcoholics Anonymous, but they're going to meetings, right? And they're not hearing the message in the meetings and they're dying and nobody recognizes it because they're not drinking. OK, My book, My book is very clear.

Drinking is about a symptom, OK. And the only thing that can save me is a conscious contact with the power greater than myself. So what happened with me at right, about six years sober? You know, we talked about we switch addictions, right? You know, we swap seats in the Titanic. I got into financial difficulty. Now, I'm not talking about, you know, we get kind of cute to Montgomery. Talk about retail therapy, right? I got in a fight with my boyfriend, so I bought a pair of shoes. No, no, I got $42,000 in debt in two years buying stuff

that I knew when I hit buy wasn't going to make me feel better. I got credit cards, you know you those, you know how your credit repairs itself and sobriety. And then here come the unsolicited credit card offers. I was taking them and I was lying to my wife and I had like four or five credit cards and she had no idea.

And I had at this point I had my own allowance, my own bank account, and it was just letting it roll, right? Let it roll, let it roll.

And I knew I was in trouble and the way I was sponsored, like I said through the book, but it was up basically to the 9th step. And then here's what it was explained to me. The rest of the program was the 10th step is I've made it when I'm wrong. The 11th step, I ask God to keep me sober in the morning. I thank him at night. And the 12th step is I go to meetings and I do surface work and I sponsor people when I'm asked to, OK? And that's it. And that's pretty much what I did.

And it's no surprise looking back on it and having been exposed to the real solution

at the 9th step, when the promises come true, right? It says this is but the barest beginning, right? And then the 10th step and the 11th step is said, you know, this is a lifelong journey we have to continue. Bill Wilson, one of his writings, I think it's in the language of the heart, he talks about a, A is spiritual kindergarten. OK, Well, what that means to me if, if it's kindergarten, that leads me to believe there's a body of work that I can do the rest of my life with whatever I choose to explore my relationship with a higher power, right?

A little bit more than asking God to keep me sober because that's what I did when I was 45 days sober and thank him at night. That's not gonna. It's not gonna. It just doesn't do the deal when I'm six years sober, right? Where is the improve? Where is the seeking, right? How do I improve my conscious contact with my higher power if all I'm doing is the same stuff I did at 45 days sober? The whole spot check inventory in step 10, The 11th step. Holy cow, the nightly review

upon awakening.

I'd been to big book studies. I'm sure I had actually kind of shared rather eloquently about it. What I didn't do was do it. OK, so and I was also where I got sober was the 4th step. It says do a four step. You do it once, just do one four step, right? Well, that same paragraph says a business which takes no regular inventory. But the bottom line, not doing a daily spot check, inventory, or nightly review I'd gone through six years

of, I had stuff piling back up on my wagon, right that I got rid of in my 4th and 5th step. Because I'm still me and drinking's not my problem.

So I still have resentments, fears, I still have dishonesty. I made-up with selfishness. I've got all the stuff that's coming back up in my wagon. And for me, it exploded in a financial way. And So what happened is I am so spiritual. I came on it. I became honest with my wife when my monthly allowance was no longer enough to cover the minimum balance. OK, the credit cards once again, I'm between a rock and a hard place. I have to do something. And so I told her what was going on. And you'll hear she knew. I mean,

she knew, you know, I mean, she'd say stuff like, wow, where'd you get that gun safe and say, oh, I bought it on layaway. And that's funny because Alcoholics were not really layaway people, aren't we? You know, So she knew, and she'd been working with her sponsor. And her sponsor said some powerful stuff. You need to let him go where he needs to go or nothing will change. You know, you need to let him go. And so she said to me,

and she had a lot of fear of financial insecurity when she married me, which is kind of ironic

to marry me. And she'd done a lot of work. And so she said to me, you know, honey, it's OK. It's it's just money. And that kind of blew both of us away. But she said, what are you going to do differently? Okay. And there's a guy out in California named Scott that I've been listening to for years. And in one of his talks, he talked at 18 years sober, he'd gotten himself an $81,000 in debt. And I said, all right, I said, can you threw the taper community because my co-worker was speaking a lot. And, you know, can you get Scott's number? And I'll call Scott.

And she did. And so I called Scott out in California and he said, yeah, man, I'm willing to work with you. He had a terminal illness. But he said, as long as I got, you know, we'll work through this deal. And I told him what was going on. So I said, call me next week. So I called him next week and I had my big yellow legal pad because I got financial issues, right? And this guy had financial issues. So we're we're fixing to do some budget work, right? And so he says to me, he says, OK, he said, where you at in your inventory process?

I was what? He's like, what, what's your daily inventory practice?

I'm like, dude, I don't have one. You know, now what about this? What about this 42,000 in debt? And he's like, no, no, no, you don't have a financial problem. You have a spiritual problem, right? And he said, if you're not doing a daily inventory, if you're not doing a regular, a regular annual house cleaning, if you're not asking God's assistance when you get up in the morning, he said, where are you with God? And I'm like, oh, I believe in God. He's like, OK, good for you. What is your relationship with God? So I ask him to keep me sober and he's like, how long you been doing that

as well? Since I was about 45 days sober, right? And he's like, there's your problem, buddy. He said what happened to me,

whatever it says, in the 12th step, having had a spiritual awakening, what was awakened can go back to sleep. OK, How many of you have dear friends in the program that you know for a fact they worked the steps and they got drunk 456 years later,

right. This is a one day at a time program. One day at a time. That's cute. In a meeting, I'm sober one day at a time. It says if we do his work and stay close to him, right? It says in the book, Now, you know, I, you know, it's funny. I hate the terms like big book Nazi and big book thumper. Those are pejorative terms used against people who actually read the book. It says a nightly review. And if you're challenged by this, that's OK That's OK. That's what if you're not doing it, I invite you to do it because I didn't do it. And

I'm it's by the grace of God that I did not drink. So when I got exposed to the inventory process, OK, the spot check, the nightly review, starting my day with some sacred time. OK, some prayer and meditation. Absolutely. I can talk to God anytime, anywhere. But there's something special about carving time out of my busy day in the morning for prayer and meditation and time for God. OK, it kind of right sizes me. There's God and then there's me. OK, not I'm going to pray in the shower

which I used to do or pray on the way to work, which is fine. It doesn't. I'm not saying he doesn't hear it had about me and my relationship to God.

Scott worked with me until he died and then my current sponsor. The way God works in my life, my wife and I spoke at a conference up in North Alabama and he's was speaking. He was the main speaker and he came from Denver, Co and I don't think he's been in Alabama since. And he hadn't ever been in Alabama before. And I met him two weeks before Scott passed away. And as soon as Scott passed away, when they called me from California the next day, I called this guy gentleman Mickey and asked him to be my sponsor. And this is important. Mickey had never met Scott. Scott

Mickey, they don't have the same sponsorship chain. OK. So when I called Mickey, we said, OK, here's what we're going to do. He said he wants you to do a nightly inventory, right? And that's something too. Scott, my phone call with Scott, I read him my inventory for the week. I called him once a week. Mickey, you're going to do nightly inventory. And when you call me, we're going to you're going to read your inventory, right? And we will discuss what comes up in your inventory

and to see where God is it. Where in your life are you currently agnostic?

Right here, right now. What areas of my life are am I leaving God out of my life? OK, What's my relationship with money? What are my fears? OK, all areas where I'm keeping God out of my life that are exposed by doing the inventory process. If I do the inventory process, let me tell you that you know that old, that old saying, you know, don't worry about the splinter in your brother's eye, worry about the log in your own. That's what the inventory does. I have enough material working with me to keep my sponsor amused

and me busy for the rest of my life, OK. And what's happened? It's it's been tremendous as I started this process. You know, I told you I worked for the Air Force and the actually Department of Defense sent an e-mail out to the civilian workforce saying with fighting a war on both fronts, were asking for civilian volunteers with certain career fields to kind of step up to the plate and free up a military guy who can do something else.

And so something I felt I wanted to do was part of my immense process to the Army,

right? I didn't finish my my third enlistment. And it was something I felt I need to do was to, even though I work for the DoD, I would work as a civilian, you know, a nine to five. And I wanted to do this to make amends, right? To give them the best of me, right? Alcohol free and I can suit up and show up and make commitments. And I talked to my wife about it, talk to my sponsor about it. I had the blessing from both and I applied and I was applying, man. And I was doing what I do, right? I mean, I was people depending on what they had caller ID. Oh, not that guy