The Fellowship of the Spirit convention in Copper Mountain, CO

Hi, everybody. My name is John D and I am an alcoholic.

It is an honor to be here tonight and thank you very much for this honor and thank you to the committee and all the people who put this together. It's amazing. Thank you, Rob, for that introduction. That was really nice. And

I hope you feel the same way after I'm done, you know, because The thing is, is that I

sometimes I say stuff that makes people a little bit upset because I sometimes say what I feel and what I think. And that was what I was taught early in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was told to talk about what was going on inside of me and what was happening and really share that stuff and make sure that it was getting out there that I wasn't holding on to my secrets and my stuff. My sobriety date is November 1st, 2001.

Now for those of you who are binary, you know, in your thinking, that's 110101 and which probably means something like, John, if you ever drink again, you're an idiot,

you know, because

I'm going to tell you a little bit about what it was like, what happened and what I'm, you know, what it's like now and what it's like now is beyond my wildest dreams. I owe absolutely everything that I could ever imagine to Alcoholics Anonymous. I owe the career that I have today. I'm, I'm up here at another conference that I've been attending up in Breckenridge for my career, which you didn't tell me I was going to get one of those. When I got to Alcoholics Anonymous,

I thought maybe a car, a driver's license, maybe a little toothless girlfriend, maybe, you know, I get that.

But you know, I was kind of hoping for something along this, but that, you know, the career. Don't threaten me with a 401K. What the heck are you? I mean, Oh my God. So I'm up at this, this conference up here and, and it's been fabulous. And being able to come to this conference and, and be invited here has been amazing because one of the things you also did for me in Alcoholics Anonymous is you taught me to say yes. You told me not maybe not. I'm going to try. You said you're going to say yes.

You know, we're going to go in this 12 step call, nod your head, John. Yes. OK. You're going to go to this treatment center. Yes. OK. You're going to go over here and do this. Yes, you're going to do that. You're going to be this. You're going to take this service position. Uh-huh. Uh huh. And inside my head, I'm going no, not that. And when they asked me to speak,

that's what happened. I said yes and then I went, no, not that

because, you know, I'm actually terrified of public speaking and it always makes me a little nervous. So I stand up here and, and I always ask God to kind of help me and I'm he's always there, always has been through my entire sobriety. I do reference the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous because I am an unabashed, absolutely unapologetic big book thumper.

Absolutely. For those of you who are out there, thank you for carrying the message because this is where I found it. It's in these pages. And I believe in a sponsor and I believe in strong sponsorship. And I have a sponsor today. I've never gone without a sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous. I've always had one. One I can sit across the table from and, and talk to. And we sit there because the book tells me clearly that that's where recovery begins is when I'm sitting there with another alcoholic. That's what tells me where I need to go and what I need to do. And that's important to me. And I believe in a Home group,

Home group is in Loveland, Co and it's the Loveland A, A group. And if you ever get up there, you know, please come and visit us. It's a wonderful group. And I love my Home group. And I believe it's the greatest Home group in the world. And I know there are a lot of you here from around the world. I was sitting there having dinner with a guy from Ireland and I met a lady from Australia earlier and all these wonderful places. And I've traveled a lot. And I remember going to a meeting in the Bahamas about a year ago and I was getting off the ship and I told the taxi driver, you know, the address. And he looked at me, said

you don't want to go there because I guess it was in a bad neighborhood. And sure enough, we showed up and it was on dead Dog Alley. That was the name of the the street. And it was a burnout church. But there were some dudes standing out front. They were smoking cigarettes and they were, you know, drinking coffee and they had some tattoos and, and there was a little circle and triangle in the window. And I was home. I was home. I knew these were my people. And that's what I needed to be. I

like I say, my sobriety dates November 1st, 2001, but I spent ten years in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and I damn near died in these rooms. I damn near died because I began thinking that, you know, I listen to a lot of stuff that that I heard. And I had these filters that would filter out things like get a sponsor, work the steps. I filtered that out. I heard, you know, I heard meeting makers make it.

So I went to a lot of meetings and I didn't make it,

dude, 90 meetings in 90 days. I did that and I didn't and I drank the entire time. They didn't tell me to not drink between those meetings. But I mean, that was just one thing that, you know, I heard a lot of stuff. It wasn't until I got my first sponsor who told me, you know, he said what we're shooting for here is permanent, uninterrupted long term sobriety. One day at a time, permanent recovery.

I am an unapologetic recovered alcoholic. I do not know why that is controversial. And Alcoholics Anonymous, the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous on the title page tells me that that we're talking about recovered alcoholism. That's what we're talking about, you know, recovered from a hopeless state of mind and body. And that has happened through the miracle of this program. And thank God for this. And throughout the world, I've seen it work over and over and over again. You know what? It's not about the people who slip through the cracks. It's about me trying to figure out, you know, why these cracks are so wide.

You know what's happening. I don't know. But I know this, that if I do the work that's laid out right in this book with a sponsor, something miraculous happens. And it's happened with every guy I've ever worked with who's gone through those 12 steps with me. You know, when it happened to me,

I was born and raised in Pueblo, Co. Now, that's not the reason I drank. OK, For those of you who know that area, OK, it could have been, but it's not. There was some thorough step work done on that. And that's not the reason I drank. I was born and raised on a little farm out there and out on the Mesa. And it's a beautiful area. It's you got a view of Pikes Peak and a view of the smokestacks of the steel mill and pretty much, you know, the snow falls and the the ash falls. And that's kind of how it was. You know, everything was grey. And I grew up in a family that, you know, it was

that Catholic, Irish alcoholic, CIA connection thing going on. And that was,

it was kind of normal. You do not have to kick my family tree very hard for about a dozen Alcoholics just plop on the ground all over the place. It's just normal. That was what we did. We drank and died of alcoholism in my family. That was normal. That was considered, you know, the big book talks about that too. It talks about the alcoholic life seeming the only normal 1. And that's true in our family that seemed the only normal one. And so,

you know, we we're living out there and it's a nice little farm and, you know, tractors and dogs and horses and pigs and cows and all that stuff. And, you know, it's OK. You know, my dad's from that area and my mom's from back East and she's really not used to the farm. So they moved to San Francisco about 1968 to San Francisco.

I had a little culture shock for a while there. And, you know, the thing was, is that I just wanted to fit in with the other kids. You know, I wanted to fit in. And I always felt different. You know, I felt like my ears were too big, I was too skinny, and I never fit in. And I felt like things were all wrong with me.

And so they thought maybe they'd get me involved in a musical instrument. So, you know, we looked around and, you know, they started having me play the bagpipes, which always makes you fit in with everyone else, you know, immediately, you know, so you know, the neighbors dogs are howling. And if you've ever heard an 8 year old play the bagpipes, I'm telling you it's this. I love the bagpipes. I brought them with me. I don't know about bringing them to the jam session tonight, but you may hear them over the weekend. But but you know, it's kind of a solo instrument with a band though, you know. And so I got involved in the bagpipe

and I and of course, you know, you're wearing kilts and stuff, which always makes you fit in, you know, well, in San Francisco it made me fit in. But anyway, the point is, is that it was this.

It really wasn't, you know, I didn't see it as that unusual. To me, this was just the normal life. And I began to also notice some things about my family. I didn't really connect them all until I got sober.

My dad came home from work and we had this thing I called the 5:00 shadow, which was, you know, he'd come home around 5:00. And there was that shadow that began to happen in the household. And if you grew up in an alcoholic family or you're an alcoholic who maybe created this shadow, you'll understand what I'm talking about, which is the shadow began to descend on the family around 4430. And everything had to be perfect in the house. And if you could just make it right,

that would be OK, you know, because you just want a dad to love you. Because what you really were looking for was to be needed, wanted and loved,

you know, and that's what you were looking for. And the thing was, is that you didn't know what it was going to turn out like, you know, but you knew something was going to happen. He'd come home and you could hear those ice cubes dropping the bottom of that, you know, that glass about 3, you know, cubes or so clink, clink, clink. And then you'd hear that bourbon kind of, you know, bounce into that glass and that glug, glug, glug sound. And, and you could see my father change just as he was pouring the bourbon. And then, of course, there was that little spritz of, you know, and it's of the ginger ale. And he put that on top sort of like a

little film of oil, like on top of water. You know, it was like this much, you know, it was tiny, like a cherry on top or something. I don't know. And you can see after a couple of drinks, the sense of ease and comfort that came over him at once by taking a few drinks. And I understood that later in life, you know, And but you didn't know whether you were going to get the violent, you know, destructive father or you're going to get, you know, this loving, kind, joking little Irish father. You know, you never knew what you were going to get.

And, you know, we got bounced around a little bit, but that's not why I drank.

You know, that's important to remember too, is, you know, I used to blame things my alcoholism on, on a lot of different factors. And that's not true. I'm an alcoholic, you know, and there's a lot of reasons why I drank, but it doesn't matter. I have a friend of mine who's a wonderful guy I grew up with and he's a professor of North Carolina. And he, he's a doctor and he teaches the neuroscience of, of addiction and he's a professor and he has a big grant from the NIH and all this stuff that, you know, fantastic

work he does. And he and I were talking one time a few years ago about my recovery and about his work in figuring out the brain and why people drink and why they use drugs and all this other stuff and the methodology and et cetera, the etiology of addiction. And

he was talking for a while and I said, you know, I'm so glad that you're doing that. I really, really am. We need people like you on the front lines out there doing this work. It's important. It really is.

I said. But for me, it's sort of like if your house is on fire, you know, you're glad that the firemen, you know, has gone to school and he learned about fire science and he knows about, you know, temperatures and he understands, you know, what wood does and all this other cool stuff about backdrafts. But what I'm concerned about when my house is on fire is, did you bring the hose? Because that was what I needed is I needed the hose because my life was on fire.

Now with my family, that dynamic, you know, that the Big book talks about

that neurosis began to develop and things began to go kind of South. And I moved out when I was fairly young and, you know, went off and began to explore the world. But I began drinking when I was around 13 or 14 years of age. I'm not exactly sure most of us can talk about that first drink and, and remember it. And I can too, you know, and, and remember that sense of ease and comfort, that thing that happened where I began to fit in, you know, where I wasn't the geeky kid anymore, where I could talk to the girls, where I could be cool,

you know, that began to take over. And I wanted it all the time. So I didn't immediately go out to Skid Row and suddenly, you know, you know, get a box or anything like that. But I mean, the thing was, is that, well, I knew where it was anyway. You know, the thing was, is that it was, it was kind of almost inevitable. The book talks about being driven, you know, and that I think is really important. I was being driven. I didn't have any choice about what was going to start to happen next. Once that stuff started to to hit me, I was,

it was on. So somewhere, you know, my drinking began to take on these larger and larger proportions. And I began traveling a little bit and I'd get little girlfriends here and there. I remember one girl, she was very sweet, and she was a bartender, of course, and she was my girlfriend. And she said it's not normal for people to drink eight or nine gin and tonics, you know, in like, at a time, like one right after the other, you may have a problem. And I thought, yeah, I've got a problem. I got to get rid of this witch. That's what I'm thinking. You know, seriously, I was done

because anything that got between me and alcohol had to go.

And I think that's important to talk about. I know people sometimes say, you know, well, I don't like to tell war stories. Well, how can I identify with you if I don't understand where you're coming from? You know, I needed to hear a few war stories. I needed to hear that, especially in 12 step calls. I think it's absolutely essential. And so I'll tell a few because it's that that identification that I'm a real alcoholic. I'm not the moderate drinker. I'm not, you know, anything else. I'm the real alcoholic

and that had to be identified and I needed to see other people who were a real Alcoholics too.

The thing is, is that, you know, this pattern began to show up where I began to drink a lot and I began to do some other outside issues. But the thing was, is that that was really never the issue. It was always alcohol. That was my first love and I loved it forever. And and The thing is, is that I may love alcohol sometimes more than people who still drink. You know The funny thing about that? You know, that love was deep

and it nearly killed me,

but I didn't know what was happening at the time. Something had happened inside my head. The switch had been turned and the alcoholism was in full effect. Now, the effects of that I could manage things occasionally, you know, fairly well. But around 2122, things began to get kind of out of control. I was one time working on a house and I decided, you know, we're peeling the paint off of this house and it was in San Francisco, a very $1,000,000 house, and we're peeling the paint off. And if you've ever done that with a torch, it's very laborious. So I decided after

8 drinks that what I do is I put this paint dinner on the side of the house, then put the torch on it.

That didn't go very well. The house exploded into flames, absolutely blew up. And I managed to grab a bunch of buckets of water out of the pool and put out the fire. And, and in the meantime, what I didn't realize is that she had all these macrame hanging planners, you know, those ones that, you know, are made out of macrame. And then it's got a like a clay pot inside of it, but they were filled with cactus and it had burned through those. And one of them had landed on my head and they had to like embedded itself in my skull.

And I went downstairs and told my buddy what happened. And of course my hairs on fire still. And he's putting me out, you know, and, and, and I've got no eyebrows and I'm just, and I'm a mess, you know, and I'm still smoking and it's just bad. And I got this captive sticking out of my head with the pot partially stuck into my head. And he and, and he's like, dude, you got a cactus sticking out of your head. I'm like, I know, man, I can't get out of my head. He's like,

dude, I don't know what we're going to do. And I'm, I'm so we're pulling on it and cutting it and, and we're pouring alcohol on it and we're pouring alcohol in me and that's not working. And we go to the ER

and we walk up to the triage window at the yard and the lady says, So what brings you here today?

I don't know,

you know, So what I didn't realize, though, is at the time, there was more than just that cactus on the outside of my head. There was a cactus on the inside of my head. There was something that was prickly that every time I touched it, it absolutely was going to stick to me because when I picked up the first drink, I could not not pick up the second drink. I had to. I had the allergy. That's the physical stuff that began to happen. And I think, you know, the book describes that masterfully, you know, perfectly. It describes exactly how I how I drank

so and I think most of you really understand that too. And those of you in the Al Anon family groups, you know, thank you so much. A little side note here. My entire family is in recovery.

My sister could not be here if she is a grateful member of the Lewisville Al Anon family group, and she could not be here this night. And she wanted to be, but she couldn't be because she is in Hospice work. And so she's doing that tonight. My brother has been 16 years sober, he's in San Francisco. My mother has been in Al Anon since about 1972.

I don't know, you know, forever and and it is Alcoholics Anonymous and Alan on family groups has literally transformed our lives and we thank you so much from the bottom of our hearts. So I'm learning, you know, that that I've got a problem with alcohol that I pick it up. I can't stop. I know what I'll do. I'll join the army. OK, that's brilliant. You know, so I go in the Army and I go to Germany, which of course there might be a little drinking in Germany. I don't remember because. I

drunk the entire time so, and I'm pretty serious about that. I was really drunk the entire time, except for a very short period where they sent me to Saudi Arabia.

I was there TDY for just a little short period, but they extended it. And they said, oh, you're going to be here six months. And I said, oh, no, I'm not, you know, And I freaked and I called a friend and he said, this is what you do. You go to the Chapel and you tell him this. So the next day I went to the chaplain and I told him, you know, there's been a mistake on my, my records. I'm actually not Episcopalian. I'm Jewish. At that time in Saudi Arabia, they kicked you out of the country. They were like, we don't want you here. Goodbye. And they were like, and they sent me back to Germany.

That's the kind of lengths I was willing to go to, to drink. I was willing to do that. You know, that's the kind of stuff I did. Now, you know, my drinking progresses and I decide on a few couple of little things that might have helped, but it didn't. I went to, you know, I didn't know that I was an alcoholic. I really didn't,

I ended up homeless in Northern California and I was dying. I was drinking 2 for a dollar bottles of Ripple, this Coca-Cola flavored wine. It's reinforced and it gets the job done, $0.50 apiece. And I'm, I'm panhandling for that and I'm and I'm dying and my family's not, you know, around anymore. They're kind of just gone. You know, my sister's in Colorado and my brother, he's off somewhere and my father doesn't speak to me. And my mother, she's gone doing something else and, and I'm just alone and dying

and probably about 30 years of age at this time. And

the desperation with which I was drinking. I'm living in a little tent next to a polluted river there in Petaluma, CA. And I have rats for roommates that are that would scurry across my body while I was sleeping. And it was getting pretty bad.

And I decided I'd end it all. And I decided that I couldn't go on this way. And I didn't know any way out. So I went out to the railroad tracks that were right there by the river. And I laid down on those railroad tracks. And I decided I'm going to lay on these railroad tracks. And when the train comes along, I'll know no more.

What I didn't realize is the train only ran about once a week and it wasn't, it wasn't the right day. And anyway, so I'm laying there on these railroad tracks and I'm in there in the fog and the cold and, and, and I've got that, you know, that sensation of that ripple inside of me that, you know, that whatever the heck it was Mad Dog or something. And,

and I'm thinking, OK, I'm just waiting for that sound. I'm waiting for the end to come. And all of a sudden, this other drunk, like, trips over me in the dark. It's like 2:00 in the morning. And she trips over me. She's walking down there. She's stumbling down the railroad tracks. And she like, tripped over me. She's like swearing at me. She's all matching. What are you doing down there? And I lied to her, you know, And I said, oh, I must have passed out, you know? And she says, you know what you should do? You should go across the street to that place over there at 6:00 tomorrow morning. They serve free coffee and Donuts.

And I said, and I don't know why, but that sounded like a good idea

at that time. So I got up up those tracks and I waited till 6:00 in the morning and I walked into this little place and sure enough, they were serving free coffee and Donuts. And that was the first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous that I remember going to. And I looked up on the wall and I hadn't had a shower in about a month and I hadn't brushed my teeth and I looked pretty bad. And

I didn't smell too good either, you know, and, but nobody seemed to mind. They seemed to just bring me a cup of coffee and they realized that I was hopeless. And, and they and they, they talked to me, which when you're homeless, one of the things that happens is you become invisible. You really become invisible to people. And as a homeless alcoholic, that feeling of loneliness, you know, is really, really deep. And the book talks about that feeling of loneliness. And so I understand that, you know, that loneliness that few will understand except you guys.

You guys understood that when I came to alcohol. It's anonymous.

And I remember looking up at the wall and there were these big banners in this thing, and those must be the rules, right? You know, because I looked at the rules and I read the rules, and it said we admitted we were powerless over alcohol. And I thought, OK, this is possible. Yeah, I think that I might be powerless over alcohol,

but I don't see how my life has become unmanageable.

Swear to God, I'm like sitting there thinking, oh, my God, really? You know, my life is, you know, So I, you know, I go to a little treatment center. They, you know, get me into a little spin dry there and Santa Rosa at the Orinda center and I'm, I get a little spin dry there and 28 days in this treatment center. And, you know, I don't get a sponsor. I don't work any steps. I do all the little things because I'm the star of the treatment center, you know, and I do go to a detox meeting. They do detox me from alcohol.

One of the things that drives me a little crazy is every once in a while I hear things in the rooms that kind of make me nuts.

And one of the things that I hear sometimes is you never have to drink again if you don't want to. I know the intention is good, but what about me? What about me? Because I drank even when I didn't want to, desperately didn't want to. What do I do then? And that was important when when you guys, somebody else came and they told me, this is what you do. This is how you get out from under. This is what we do. And that was important to me. It wasn't about, you know,

you know, slap me around and make me feel good. And I put the little blindfolds on and I walked, you know, and I did all the stuff that they wanted me to do and 28 days and I leave there and I go back and I got everything set up. So I got a little apartment and it looks like the Taj Mahal, you know, to me. It's just a little one bedroom flophouse, you know, and I'm not even that like a little studio and but it's only a block from the Alano Club. And I'm thinking, OK, you know, so I go downstairs to go to the meeting, you know that I knows it like 5:00 and instead

or at noon, I guess. And I, instead of turning right, I turn left because I

remember that my friend hasn't seen me in a while and he must be worried about me. So I went to see my friend, who was a bartender, and I went to see my friend and I said, hey, Mark, you know how you doing? He said, where you been? I said I've been in treatment, I'm an alcoholic. He said no, you're not. I said yes, I am. He said no, you're not. I said yes, I am.

He said no, you're not. And I said, well, maybe I'm not. Pour me a gin and tonic. 4 hours. I had absolutely nothing between me and the first drink. 4 hours I managed to last. And that started another I don't know how many years before I could draw a sober breath. And I kept going to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I just couldn't stay sober. I was in your rooms all the time and I was in those meetings and you know, and people said, you know, well, we can't really 12 step him. He's a wet drunk.

I'm really glad that

Abby didn't realize that when he went to see Bill.

The thing is, is that, you know, that's what happened to me. You know, that's what happened to me. And I and somebody, you know, began to help me out and they said, you know what, maybe you should go see your family out in Colorado. So I thought that's the ticket. You know, I'll go to Colorado and I'll get sober. I went to Colorado and I came out here and I I'm out in Denver and I'm, I'm living in Denver. I'm staying sober three months at a time sometimes and I'm going to to Vitality down there on 72nd and Lowell and,

and I'm meeting some people and I'm starting to get some connections, but I still have not got a sponsor. I'm not working the steps. I'm not reading this book. By the way, if you're new to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I've been using that term a lot. This is the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. OK, this is our basic text. This is what it looks like open. OK, I swear to God, I used it as a as a coaster for years. So,

you know, to me, the big book of alcohol synonymous is, is so vital, so important.

Nothing drives you crazier than when a big, you know, when a newcomer can't get a big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Anyway, The thing is, is that, and yes, I do a lot of writing around stuff like that. So The thing is, is that I'm in Denver. Things are getting worse again. It's getting even worse than when I was homeless. I'm barely hanging on. I've got a little apartment. My mother

is living in Lewisville at the time. And she says, hey, Linda, I saw my sister Linda. So Linda, I saw on the TV that they found a John Doe face down in Sloane's Lake. Will you go see if it's your brother? Now, Linda's a Hospice nurse in Denver County and she knows all the corners. And she said, OK. So she went to the to the coroner's office and she unzipped that body bag and she looked to see if it was me. And for the next three months, she looked at every single John Doe that they found who died of alcohol related causes.

Because I disappeared off the face of the earth. And that was the kind of thing I was doing to my family. And if I don't think that selfishness and self centeredness isn't the root of my problem, I better really think that over because that's the stuff I was doing. Nothing you know I said was as bad as I'm not hurting anybody but myself.

Selfish and self-centered.

They get me into the Salvation Army rehab center. At this point, my liver is kind of sticking out of my chest. I'm really actually, you could actually palpate the outside edges of my liver. And if you know anything about the human anatomy, you should not be able to do that. OK? You should not be able to feel your own liver. All right, I'm yellow. My, my eyes are actually turning green because of the bilirubin that's in my body. And I'm really, really sick.

I'm really shaky. I can't hang on very much. But I managed to get up to Estes Park and my sister medically detoxes me up there.

She brings a body bag because she's not sure if her brother's going to live through this or not. Because that's the truth about alcoholism is that we die from this.

And I can tell you from personal experience, I have seen it more than once.

And The thing is, is that it's not a pretty death by any means. There's no sweet goodnight.

It's usually pretty violent and it's pretty awful. And The thing is, is that my sister is, is having to do this because she loves me.

And I have what I've come to realize was a spiritual experience at that point.

And something happens, a willingness happens in me to do absolutely anything, to do absolutely anything for Victory Over Alcohol. I absolutely am willing to go to any lengths. And so I'm willing to go to the Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center. And if you have ever seen or been to the Salvation Army Rehabilitation Center for Men anywhere you're from,

it is kind of the last house on the block. It's one of those places that really it's pretty tough. You know, I remember going in there and I'm sitting down in this little chair and I'm waiting for the for the guy to, you know, kind of do the intake. And he's up there being little officious. And he's, you know, and he says there's no room here. We don't have any room. You can't come in

and I'm devastated because I'm ready, you know, and I'm ready for anything. I'm willing to do anything because I'm really dying from this. And I, I, I just want it to be over. I don't know what's in front of me, but I do know that what I've got is unacceptable. So he's saying there's no room here. And, and, and,

and my sister says, you know, I, you know, I talked to the intake counselor and he said he can get John in. You know, he said, well, he didn't tell me, so you may have to come back.

And I looked at my sister. I said, I heard there was another place down in Colorado Springs. How far is Colorado Springs? She said 45 minutes, said I'm willing to go if we need. If we need to go there, I'll go there. I'll go anywhere. I just want to do this. And that's when the willingness was really there. My sister said that she saw a change. She saw something happen that had never happened before.

What's kind of funny about that story is that about two years later, the head of the Salvation Army called me. She says, I've got a guy here who just can't stay sober. I, you know, he's having such a hard time. I think he needs somebody to really talk to, somebody to sponsor him, but might really understand him. Would you talk to him? And I said, sure, of course I will. And I showed up. And it was that same guy who told me that there was no room at the end.

Interesting how God works, but I get in the Salvation Army and the only thing that I'm capable of doing is moving one box from it, from the pile of trash

that's off the back of the truck, you know, which is basically stuff that people don't want anymore. And I'm taking it from there and I'm putting it in another pile so it can be made useful again. What an interesting allegory that is for Alcoholics Anonymous. What an interesting thing it is to something that because I was unemployable, I was absolutely hopeless. And through a period of rehabilitation, which which means rehabilitation means to be fit, to live in again,

to be rehabilitated, I can live in again.

Well, and that's what I began realizing I was doing was I was being of service. I was moving that stuff. And I was, I was, I felt as if I was making my own way in the world. It wasn't much. I was wearing the little cast off clothes from the Salvation Army. I'm wearing those, you know, and I'm going to Chapel every Wednesday and I'd sit there and Chapel on Wednesday and they'd say, my name is Bill and I'm here to get my life back. And I think, what part of my life do I want back? And I realized at that moment that I needed a new life. I needed an absolutely new life.

And I discovered that I can have that through this program, through the, through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. It promises me a new freedom and a new happiness. It tells me that I can have a new life. And I, I found out that I could do that and began to sit in those little meetings and I began to, you know, really listen, really, really listen. And you know, I began to hear things like, I began to hear guys talk about the idea of doing your program like you did your drinking. Well, I don't know about anybody else, but I did some pretty hard drinking.

So I began, I put it all on the table. I really laid it out there. And then another guy said something along the lines of maybe you don't want what we have, but the question you have to ask yourself is do you want what you have? And I learned the fact that is, is that I didn't want what I had. I didn't have a relationship with my family that was healthy. I didn't have the ability to stand on my own 2 feet. I had absolutely nothing. I was empty. And I was willing to take anything that you were going to show me how to get.

And what you promised me is that I could tap into a power greater than myself

that could do for me what I could not do for myself because I was the guy who could not not drink.

And all of a sudden, 30 days is going by now, you know, and I begin to to realize that, you know, wow, this is pretty cool, you know, and I, and they let me out of there and they let me go to the to York Street. So I go to York Street now. I love York Street

and I went to a meeting there and I went upstairs and it was an open meeting and there were guys introducing themselves as alcoholic addicts and they introduced themselves as addicts. And then there was the dope fiend in the corner over there, you know, And there was, you know, some guy who I don't know what his 12 step program was. And, and then the lady next to me introduced herself as a sex addict. And for the rest of the rest of the meeting, all I could think about was how to get her to relapse with me, you know,

And I realized after the meeting was over, now I'm living in the Salvation Army in A5 bedroom room with a bunch of stinky guys. I've got so much to give this woman, you know? And, and The thing is, is that I'm sitting there

and it hit me that she could not save my life. I needed you. I needed Alcoholics who spoke my language, who knew a way out to save my life. So I began going to meetings that talked about alcoholism. I began going to close meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. I began to go into meetings that that talked about the big book. I began to go into big book studies and 12/12 by 12. So I began and then I got a sponsor. Now, I didn't get the sponsor on purpose.

Most of what has happened to me in Alcoholics Anonymous is not on purpose.

When it says at some of these, we balked. I have to tell you, I have sounded like a chicken almost all the way through Alcoholics Anonymous. You know that that beautiful prayer that you know, you see sometimes the footsteps. You know, that beautiful prayer. And I love, love that that poem. I guess it is. And and you know, there's one set of footsteps and you know, there's two steps of footsteps and that's, you know, you and God walking side by side. And then there's, you know, one set of footsteps where he's carrying me. And then then for me, there's this third set where it's like one set of footsteps,

these heel marks where I'm being drugged, kicking and screaming all the way through because that's exactly what has happened sometimes.

You know, there's a part of the book that says almost none of us, almost none of us have liked it, says there is a solution. Almost none of us have light the self searching, the leveling of our pride, which this process requires for the successful consummation. I'm kind of paraphrasing and I always think about that part. You know, those, you see those commercials on TV where it says, you know, 8 out of 10 people suffer from diarrhea.

I always think, do two people enjoy it? You know, because The thing is, is that I don't know about anybody, but

when the process began, I really didn't, you know, but my sponsor just kept saying, nod your head, say yes. So I got this sponsor, this guy. What happens is they trick me into getting a sponsor, you know, they say, you know, you should ask Greg to be a sponsor. And I say, well, I was thinking that Greg is standing behind me, says OK. And I went,

call me on Wednesday, I'll pick you up on Thursday. OK, So every Thursday we'd sit in this living room and he'd pull out that book and we'd read that book and we went through the steps and we went through the first step. And I really understood powerlessness. And we read more about alcoholism very carefully because to understand the obsession, because that's when I suffer from too, is the obsession of the mind. That thing that that absolutely, totally baffles me, that thing that keeps me pounding on the bar over and over and over again. And one thing that I have learned in Alcoholics Anonymous in the 11 years that I