The Primary Purpose Speaker meeting in Duluth, GA

Good morning.

My name is Carl and I am definitely an alcoholic

and I gratefully recovering one at that.

Thank you, John, I think thank you for for inviting me to speak.

My understanding of when when asked to tell our stories is, is to share what it was like, what happened and then what it's like now. And so I think my perspective, I've had a chance and I apologize if some of you have heard my story before. I don't remember what I said. So it probably will be completely different. But the, the the idea is over. I was just talking to John before, is

I? I know the first few times that I had a chance to tell myself

it was as usual about me because I was worried about what I would say about what other people would think. And you know that as like many things that I learn over time, that that's not really what this should be about it. It's not about me. It hopefully, and I, I pray for this this morning, is that I say something so that someone hears something that helps them stay sober. And that's really

John asked me if I was nervous and, you know, part of my profession, I speak to a lot and not very good at it, but I they pay me to do it anyway. So

stupid people.

I convinced them too, no, that, but so I do that, but

it that's not, that doesn't make me nervous, but this, this does because, you know, it's, you know, taking a sword and spilling my guts and, and so hopefully you get something out of this. My, my oldest daughter or my, my youngest daughter said that she hey, you know what? I told her what I was doing today and she comes rolling in from somewhere with her friends. And so that sounds great. I've never really healed your

You tell your story, Dad, can I'll come listen? And she said, what time is it? And I said nine. And she said, can you just record it

and I'll listen later?

Oh my God, I don't. I have. Yeah. I live with five.

Four and two were at college, but they both came back last night. So I live with a bunch of teenagers and I used to have hair.

It's a blessing. I keep saying that. So anyway, So what it was like, I, I, I was, I grew up in Maine. I had at the time highly deficient parents because they didn't give me what I wanted when I wanted it.

It it's, you know, in hindsight, they were they were fantastic. It there's a lot of years that I spent claiming or

coming up with all of the the things that were my parents fault. It's something that I think is calm. A common theme for many of us is there's always something or someone that's been wronging us or is wronging us so that I have something that I can point at or point to or eventually later in my drinking career that I can hang my hat on the justify the need to go out and escape.

And so there had to have been something wrong with my parents. And, and the bottom line is

it never occurred to me for far too many years that it's actually there was something wrong with me.

And I think my first addiction was approval. And that probably saved my life, or at least I think it did because it, it, it was more important to me to get accolades and approval from my parents growing up than anything else. And so I, you know, drinking and, and those pot smoking, you know, those bad people.

Sorry, that's not what I believed later, but the, those people were bad and, and so,

and my parents said that that's bad for you. So I desperately wanted their approval because that's how I was able to feel good. And you know, I, there was something missing from day one. And some folks can come to this disease and I think some folks come right out of the gates with it. And I'm pretty sure I was the latter. And so I, I grew up not knowing what was wrong, but something was wrong. There was a hole. And so I started by filling it with

with your approval, absolute insecure pleaser. And so that's the only way I could derive any sense of self worth. And so I immediately out of the gate didn't know how to have relationships to me, that you were something

that I could get that I thought I needed. And that's that's all I thought about the relationships and how what I had. So later in life that it became more exploitative it because the relationships that I had were you weren't a person and I didn't give a rat, but about whether I had a relationship with you, you were an asset and you had a value. So either you knew somebody or you had something that I wanted and valued. And so that was why I would

to present myself as a person, you know, that I hoped you saw as interesting. I remember climbing the corporate ladder and, and I, it's kind of sad, but I would walk into a corporate event and I would look around and, you know, just shamelessly self promoting, which a corporate America rewards. But the, so it seemed to work for a while, but the, I would look in the room and I'd figure out, well, where are the, where are the people that I report to and where's their boss?

And then I would accidentally be standing behind them in line. I would systematically work the room to, you know, to what I thought I needed out of those relationships so that I could be perceived in a certain way. And then whether and how well that went was how well that that that evening was to me. I mean, it was that exploitative and it's, it's kind of sad. So

I never really through high school, I, I was kind of a brainiac, I and A nerd and I was pretty awkward.

But you know, it seemed did fairly well in sports and just for overachieving and all that type of stuff. A yes person and a joiner and all those, those crazy things. But my first real experience with with drugs and alcohol were when I got to college because

college for me was I didn't have, I could get away with. And at that point it seemed OK because the stories that my dad told and that kind of thing that at college you could was OK to have

to kind of do that type of thing, certainly drinking. And so I had permission or at least felt like I had permission to drink. And so I don't really like remember the first drink and the bubbles and the burning down my throat and like making my toes curl it. That wasn't really my experience

it you know, I think there we kind of all have sort of things that make us click. And I would assert that some of the IV medications that I received in the hospital may made me feel that way. But fundamentally

alcohol is my problem. It has always been there is what just about killed me and will kill me if I if I don't if I don't aggressively pursue this program. And I know that in my heart and I know that's that's a fact. So drugs are part of my story, but they're they're part of my disease, but they're not the they're not the root cause. And I know that my heart it 100 proof vodka straight from the trunk on a Saturday afternoon. And in August,

you know, just warmed perfectly, just like sake. Just

woo Hoo hoos,

right?

Right after breakfast.

So. So anyway, I feel, yeah,

I feel, I feel eminently qualified, unfortunately, but so I am so drinking,

drinking for me did allow me to be a lot less awkward. And, and a lot of at least when I came in here, my family and everybody else around me, including my, my boss and others told me that alcohol was my problem. And it's taken me a while. And I heard a speaker say this once and I just like he has that backwards, he said, and alcohol is my solution. I'm like, well, he must, he got that mixed up. But then he went on to say that it worked for me for

long time. And it, what it did is, you know, it was really my first relationship that I had because alcohol was something that that filled that hole. And so

I was taller and I danced better and all that, you know, I told better jokes and all of those things. And I, I periodically go out with people that drink and I know none of that's true. They're not taller and they suck at dancing. It's just that they think it's a disease of perception.

And so I, there's nothing worse. I think it's, it's, it's really good training, teaching for me to, to go and hang out with people that drink because we're just so obnoxious.

It's just, it's awful. If you're sober and you're with people that are half in the bag, it's not really fun. So not at all. But so I did, I was still on the achievement trail, but in college I learned immediately how to become a functional alcoholic. And that basically meant that I knew what I had to do

and what I thought I needed to do, which was I was going to be a career guy and I was going to go, you know, capture the world and all that crap. And so I, I was going to go to Business School. And so I was a straight A student in college and got scholarships to, to go to Business School and all those things. But,

but, uh, but I had a companion and it was alcohol and I had a couple of occasions where I, you know, I almost died of alcohol poisoning and I was drinking again within a week. I had no idea. I, I mean, I drank so much that if there was not an EMT that I as my roommate, I don't think I would have lived through it. And you know, and then the, the dread afterwards, the I'll never drink again,

that anxiety and a knot in my stomach.

And within three days, well, just a little, it's not going to be a problem. And in college it, you can, you know, a great place to drink because you can be, you can hide as an alcoholic for a very long time in college. And I did that in college and in Business School because I, I literally started a fraternity chapter in Business School. So because there weren't, you know, the grad students were serious

and I, I needed an access. So it was all undergrad starting the fraternity. So I had my little party path and so I could act and drink

excessively and get away with it. And so, so all through, through college and, and Business School and later in life, I formed a relationship with alcohol where I would basically do what I had to do and then drink usually at, at night. So I would, I would go to the go to the cafeteria, I would go to the library for, for three or four hours straight. And when I got my work done, my reward was I could go out and drink and I would, I fill a bottle up with Bacardi 151

large campus and I would drink myself to black out and I'd wake up God knows where. And then that's what I wanted. And it was fun. It was a party. That's it was a party boy. So God, some of the places I woke up.

So,

you know, shifting gears, I, I, I did well in, in school and Graduate School because that pattern worked for me. Alcohol worked for me for a long time. It was my solution. It helped fill

avoid that nothing else could. And so so I was a functional alcoholic for

for almost 30 years. And

and so it was really hard for me to accept that that was my problem when the time came. And so during, during the early part of my career, I got married and had had two, two daughters and and then it was career and I became a workaholic and again an approval, a holic. But there would be probably every four to six weeks on a weekend, I would have a blowout

and it be the same old deal. And I'll never drink again.

And and then a couple weeks later, off we go. But so kind of Fast forward. So that's kind of what it was like until the tail end. And for most of us, it's the what happened part is,

you know, it's it, at least for me, it's when it stopped working, when my longtime companion became my enemy and, and it really basically netted out to it wasn't working anymore. I couldn't, I, I had to drink more to get where I thought I needed to be. And it was became less predictable. For the longest time I could have two or three drinks every night and more on the weekends

and maybe occasionally be hungover the next day on the weekends and

it kind of go wake up where I thought I belonged in my bed and and ready to work the next day. But

after a while, that stuff, that wasn't the case. I needed more to to kind of get to escape. It was always to drink for relief that that sense of, of goodwill

for for the longest time. And I'm kind of a runner and a geography changer. I, I went everywhere,

even in high school. I'm like exchange student, sign me up. So, you know, South America, maybe I'll feel better over there. And, you know, before I went to Business School, Alaska, well, spent a summer up there. I'm out in the Aleutian chain and I'm walking as far as I possibly can from the dock and there's no power lines as far away from civilization as you can get. And I couldn't find it because I brought it with me and I didn't. So I just as a complete runner searcher, you know, all these crazy jumping out of airplanes and Cliff diving,

anything that I could do to try and find this feeling that I just didn't have wasn't going to, I didn't know how to fix it. I didn't know what my problem was. Didn't really have any alcoholism in my family. They were all normies. And so I I didn't have a clue. Alcoholic to me was somebody that didn't have a job, that couldn't support themselves and that they were the classic under a bridge, you know, track marks in their van, whatever it was, that was the profile. And so for very

especially at the tail end, I would hold that out as the reason why I wasn't one. And I've learned that if you call Helen Central Office,

she's been there and she probably still will be for a long time. She's been there at least 30 years. Helen will tell you if you know, if you think you're having trouble with drinking, Alan will tell you that it has no, doesn't matter the way you drank, if you the way that you mix things up. You could be an alcoholic, but just drinking wine, or you could be the daily, hourly kind of drinking drinker that I became.

And so I'm going to switch away from my my war story very quickly because that that doesn't matter. It's how it made me feel. The alcoholic and the doctor's opinion drinks primarily or or I don't know exactly the quote, but drinks drinks fundamentally for the effect

and and that's what I drank for was that feeling of relief. And so if it's if that's what alcohol does for me, then then that I I may have a problem. And the rest of the pieces, excuse me, I'm 52. In the big book, it talks about, well, had problems with relationships. Check

Having trouble at work? Yep. Check. You know, you just kind of go down the list and it's haunting about how how clearly you can diagnose this disease when it's when it's time and in the same sentence, how clearly we are last person to admit it. And so towards the talent I also had, I have some medical conditions and so I, I added drugs to the mix and you know, prescription drugs in particular.

And so I was heavily in opiates and I could convince a doctor of anything

to the point where I would look at, I looked up cluster migraines 'cause I was taking opiates. But then I I wanted to take more as getting these bad headaches in the morning, which is part of the the next alcohol, marijuana, opiates. You wake up with a headache. Well, I better go see a doctor. Something's wrong with me.

And of course, what I wanted from the doctor was more obvious. And so we gave them to me And so I could just convince doctors and was quite successful at feeding my addiction.

And to me it was just, it was an accelerator, that's all it was. And it just increased the uncrypted unpredictability of this disease for me. So the outcome was getting worse and worse. And I, I, quite frankly, I'm grateful. I, I can't today. I am so grateful that it speed it up because one, and I've, I've gone through the steps several times, but so I don't have regrets so much. But if there's sort of one nagging thing is that I wish I'd gotten sober sooner

because the life that I have today is so much better. And so that that's kind of a wistful thing to have to deal with. But, you know, it's not my call. I also know that I I'm where I am. I'm exactly what I'm supposed to be. And, and that's that. But I didn't, I didn't come to this disease very readily.

We're we come here on circumstances, not on virtue. And I was definitely that. I I didn't

believe I had a problem. I knew I drank a lot, but I could quit anytime I wanted to. I just didn't want to yet.

That's what I remember swearing up and down and yelling at my wife that that was the case. And when it finally caught up with me and I realized, oh shit, oh, shoot, sorry. I better, I, I think I have a drinking problem. I better stop. I couldn't. I thought I could and that was terrifying. And then when it stopped working, then then it really is living hell that there's no, I think all of us or any of us that have been there. There's no other description for for

bottom alcoholic. It is just horrid and losing my wife and family. They they basically said get better or else and I remember promising with all my heart with tears in my eyes and meaning it absolutely believing it with complete conviction. I won't drink anymore.

I promise because I was destroying my life. I knew it and I was drinking with an hour

and you know the the big book talks about pounding your fist on the bar. How did this happen? Again,

that's the the confounding part of this disease, especially if you don't believe you have it and the disease is designed to convince you that you don't. And I was definitely a candidate for that. And so going down in in a, in a great big ball of lame. So my first iteration was my wife walking out and my boss telling me I had a problem. And at the time I was

and a highly responsible position and I was blacking out on conference calls. I mean, it's running on $80 million division. I'm just like, you know what, just get on here asking your directors the next day, what did I say? You know that that's not a good way to run an organization. And I don't know, maybe you guys did. But I didn't work for me for very long. So. So I took my boss and my wife to say I had a problem. And the first time I came in to rehab

was to hide. I'm like, all right, OK, I got a problem. You're right. But basically I was escaping again. And that's what I did is I came in to Ridgeview, great insurance and all those things. And I played softball for summer. And I haven't got, you know, could quote the big book and go through the steps and yeah, I got this, I got this. It's all good and had a wonderful summer. Not a good time. And we won quite a few games that year. Softball team.

But but I didn't I, I, I was still terminally unique. I was doing it my way

and

and I don't, I don't think I realized it until as also as common about five months, quote UN quote sober and and you know, I, I was without alcohol and drugs and I was without a solution. And and that's when I was picking up white chips in it and I'd started, I'd started back up and, you know, I was lying. And, and that's even worse because once you've got a little bit of recovery and you're going to meetings and

you're doomed because it's just too much of A contradiction.

And so I, you know, I, I, I completely imploded and a mental breakdown. And

remember, I've told this part about my story, but I, I was going to go to Utah. I had, I had somebody out there that was going to hire me and I just to hell with my family. The hell with this, my job. I'm just out of here. And and I made it almost a Buckhead

right away is really and I remember just I just lost it. I called my wife bawling and I didn't tell them that I'd left and and I'd broken into her office, you know, her corporate office. And because I knew that she'd taken some of my medications down there. I mean, it was out of my freaking mind. And that's what happens when, when, at least for me, without this solution and without

my other solution,

I was, I was a dead man. I was completely nuts. And so I, I went, I, I told my wife I'd meet her at Ridgeview and I in the parking lot, I took every single pill that I had and overdosed. And I cut my wrists and, and I, I thank God I was right next to the hospital

and, and so I went, went in on suicide watch. And that's glamorous. You know, it's just like, OK, well, you know, it's working for me. You know, my thinking has gotten me here. That's not, it's not what we think should happen. And, and I remember, you know, wake up from several days later and I'm sitting on a mattress with nothing because they take everything away. It's just sort of like burlap bag thing. And there's this big black guy

chair because their job is to sit and watch you so you don't hurt yourself. So I look up and hi,

you know, that's just, it's awful. And so,

so I went into a long term recovery program and again, I thought it, I was going to do it my way one more time. And thank God, I found the sponsor who knew me called and he called me out. And I finally, you know, you're in, in recovery. You're supposed to write your story and tell your, your roommates and all that kind of stuff. And yet again, I, I'm just, I've just stupid. I'm like, well,

these guys are some of these guys have like prison records and they were drug dealers and they really glamorous stories to me. And I'm like, well, I want to have the best story. So I made one up just like, what the hell, You know, I want to kind of be a badass, so I'm going to make up a better story.

It's ridiculous.

And, you know, so I had made the mistake of telling my sponsor a little bit of my background, and he heard about this. And he's like, really, Carl?

What? What

prison? And, you know, work in a corporation. So Smith, I was in prison for a while,

yes. So it just, it didn't, it was,

I finally just came that, you know, he asked me, how is this working for you? Do you like your life? And and I, I didn't, I didn't like who it was and it was just tying us up. So I surrendered it. It was a huge relief and

and I listened to my sponsor and I hate that rat bastard and I love him. He does. He he knew me. He knew me and he knew me and so

I couldn't get away with anything. For the first time in my life I'd surrendered and I've committed to listen because I knew I was dead if I did not figure this out. I finally accepted that this and for a while at Beth was OK, but I, I didn't want to die. I was too much of A chicken shit to do that. I, I, I just, I was too, too scared to kill myself and, and didn't want to go back out drinking. I just didn't want to go down that way. And so I figured why not? We all tried it. I'll try it your way.

And so I did. And umm, but he made, he forced me to go through the steps. He made me go through willingness. I was on step one for four months because I was not willing. I was not ready. And thank God, he held me to it. But then it, then it clicked. I finally accepted. I, I, I was willing to go to any length to get the solution. And and I, I remember

it just started to help out. I'd always kind of been.

I went and I had the church upbringing and that kind of stuff, but I used to ridicule religion

and it took me a while to separate God, religion and spirituality. And, but I, I'd always haunted and fished growing up in New England and I loved that. But you know, it was something that truly was a joy to me. And so I, I was able finally to have permission in this program about picking your own higher power where I could connect the two. And so

it, it allowed me a path to find a spiritual connection. And truly, that is the

the most powerful thing in the world. It has to be for me writing the job description for my higher power. You know, my boss, my boss, my sponsor, basically the same thing. It's like right, right. This write the description for your higher power

few, few, few criteria. They have to be more big out bigger than you. And so I did. And you know, I spent hours trying to come up with the right writing and he didn't even freaking look at it. So I don't care

as long as you've got one.

No. And then and then he took me out in the park. And at that point I still, you know, out of all of my horrid behavior. I mean, there there's lots of rotten stories about my behavior. But you know, so my I'm like self-conscious now we're out in the park because we're going to pray. I don't want to get any. Some of them might see me,

might be seeing my knees Bray. Oh my gosh, how embarrassing.

You know, I'm like peeing out in public in a bar on the table,

that's OK. But this, Oh no, don't get caught on my hands and knees saying a prayer. But

the the third step prayer, staring, staring with Holden, you know, also just learning to have relationships with people, it was with men and it was very different for me. And so actually holding his hand, looking him in the eye and then and going through and saying the third step prayer together is still probably the most moving experience I've ever had.

I'll never forget. I mean, if I start to cry, it would be now

because it's it, it, it was the, the point where I finally knew it was going to be OK. But I actually could live and find a path in life. And, and so my 4th step, again, laser eyes sponsor was pretty critical of my 4th step. You write it up and of course I wrote it up. He said OK, now write the truth

but this is so much better.

He he just had me cold. And so the 4th and 5th step, I didn't really,

I, I didn't get that massive lift right away that some people talk about, but a month later I did because it, I putting it in writing, it was kind of odd. The things that I, I, the stories and the things that I was holding out in life to justify why I deserve to drink and why I needed an escape. All those things, those little snippets in our life that we carry around in our head

that that we just playback over and over again. Or at least I do. And it reminds me, This is why I need to drink.

And just looking at them on paper, I wasn't as good of a person as I thought I was and I wasn't as bad of a person. And I and as as my sponsor supposed to do, we pointed out patterns to me and and six and seven went. I work a lot more on those now, but an early sobriety, you know, we kind of went through them,

but at that time I wasn't really ready for the depth of that process. So the true understanding of humility and that will be a long road. I hope I never figured those out.

Then the immense process. And again, I didn't, I didn't have a huge list of, of amends. My, my sponsor was of the, the mindset that amends is really of, of the school of thought that it, it's not everyone that you might have wronged in life or any girlfriend that you might have spurned or anything like that. It, the immense process was the result of an inventory. It used to be fundamentally that people had bar tabs that they'd run up and that type of thing. And the idea is just settle yourself

and it's going to be a valid harm that you can repair

When people, it's interesting because I when I first was in in rehab, the first time around, I went from I have a problem. I'm going to get better too. Going to all the people that I thought of her. I'm sorry. That was my events process and that worked really well

because I never said I I'm sorry to them before and I'd never said, oh, I promise this time it will be different. Like they were going to believe that. I think I think the most moving amends that I had it was with with my uncle that had passed away.

He was a terminal cancer when I was at the peak of my, my little circus and,

and he was really close to our family. He lived with us for a while and every Sunday, dinner, holidays, we were really, he was kind of my, my second dad and, and he was dying and all I cared about was the drugs that he had in his cabinet. And I made sure that I was the first person that that my aunt called so that I could go over there.

And the first thing I did when when she was upstairs was was I said, well, I'll throw all this stuff out and I'll put it in the trunk of my car. And I felt like it was Christmas. And that's disgusting.

And so that that's a painful part of, of my story. And so in my amends, he passed away, obviously. And, and,

and so

I, I started visiting his grave site and I, I wrote a letter and then I remember looking down at, to me, I feel like we get a lot of encouragement. If I actually slow down and open my eyes, I can tell when I'm in my higher powers will versus my own, because there's less chaos. And also that there's some type of kind of talk about God shots or these coincidences or whatever. To me, they're just, I rely, I just, it's, I don't even surprised by him anymore. It we become, we start

rely on it, it's true. It just happens. It's like, Oh yeah, of course, you know, hope, thanks. You know, to me it's like there's a breadcrumb or something that says I'm on the right trail. And remember just glancing down because I had no idea when he died. I didn't know anything. Look down at the data. It was my sobriety date

and it's like creepy shut up back in the air in the back of my head, but it was just it was thank God and that I was in long term recovery. I needed I, I basically it took me over a year

and halfway houses and three quarter houses and everything else

to recover. But today, so what's it like today? It's a lot better. I've gone through a divorce. I've gone through

and in sobriety and

you know, at the time it looked like I was going to lose my, my daughters. It was an ugly divorce, but I, I kind of just, I, I did it what I thought was my sponsor and we closely went through this and I just did it in, in the accord to this program, which is counter intuitive to what your lawyer says to do, by the way, just just in case. And, and quite frankly, I was getting my ass kicked, right? Because if you're honest and, and all that sort of stuff, it's ugly.

And, and so I was down there like maybe visitation,

a supervised visitation because I had had enough wreckage in the past. That was pretty easy just to for that to be the case. I remember praying for clarity and for the opportunity to be a better father. And I've learned about prayer. Be very careful. Be very careful because they come true.

And through a combination of circumstances, my wife had had enough of, of my daughters and, and she dropped them off with their things and said they're not welcome at my house anymore.

Just before the ruling was going to come down. And so suddenly I was thinking maybe, you know, every other weekend or something, but

whoa,

I didn't really want that.

And so, so I have, you know, full custody of my, my daughters. And that's a living immense that that is truly, you know, when I think about service work, I see it every day. I wake up and it's like, so I'm in a season of life. I need to, you know, I kind of a sponsor. I raise these kids now I, I've remarried and, and she has three kids as well. So, you know, and she has sole custody. So we got five of them

and we're insane. But it's a huge responsibility and it is massive blessing because it's an opportunity for me to be a decent father

and it's an immense And so for me, this is what I think of as part of part of service work. When you look at what it says is to be of service, the 7th step prayer is to take away my difficulties, not for me, so that my dog comes back and I get my job back and my life is better. That's not what it's for. It's so that I can be of service to you and to others. And so that can take many forms. It can be normies. I married an army

and and not only that, but she's brutally honest and thank God.

So I I get crisp reminders every single day.

And so it's built in humility. That's awesome and it's annoying, but it's, it's perfect because I need that. And so the

that's been a blessing. It's been an opportunity. I have had the opportunity to pursue my career. But I don't confuse the, the difference between my life working well today and this program. They're not, you know, for a long time I thought that one meant that all had to something good had to happen and that's what was supposed to happen. That is not the case. Life dishes out the same crap it always has. And the difference is perspective is a disease of perspective. So I could look at my current job and my current

and my current wife and my current kids and say, you know what, I need to drink because they do this and he does that and they do this. And, and because of that or because of this program, I can just be grateful as hell that I have it, but I have an opportunity to live and that I was a dead person literally and figuratively and spiritually. And so I live now and I'm grateful for it and

it's changed my perspective. So I, I just did a couple minutes. I think

something I like to kind of reflect on is I, I need to live this program every day. And when I was drinking and using excessively, my morning would would start with usually I'd wake up with the sweats and a migraine headache and in total fear. And my first thoughts were, do I have enough for today? Do I have enough whatever drugs, alcohol, the things that I needed or how am I going to make sure I have enough

so that I could stay using and drinking, you know, drop stop by and get more vodka, check. Step one, call somebody to get some other things, check, you know, call a doctor and get another prescription. Check. You know that that was my day and it was basically focused on on getting what I needed so I could just get through my day.

And it was horrible. But I think now I have two, two possible days that that can start for me.

The first one is, is the one without this program. And I wake up and, and it's, it's the, you know, it's the, the peanut gallery. I'm still nuts and I still desperately need this program. I wake up and it's just like you're fat, you suck, you ate too much last night, you know,

and that that's, that's how it starts, You know, it's like the little ticker underneath it's, you know, the crap that you did the day before. All of that stuff just starts rolling and.

You know, on my day immediately takes a sharp left hand turn and you know what? I'm still fat. And then it plays over again and over again and I just sit there and then the circus music starts up and it it's just, it's awful. I mean, that's literally what is in store for me every single morning. If I don't have this program and and my sponsors helping me with this is he's like, well, this and kind of he, he really appreciates this perspective and he's like, well, if you wake up and start

thinking about your higher power and your connection, try and connect sooner and sooner so that it is absolutely the very first thing. Don't even give yourself a minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes and I'm really screwed. My day is completely S but give yourself a few minutes or or and you're in trouble, but don't give yourself that time and just get it done. And so the 3rd way and the way that

we're, it's described in, in, in the big book is, is we wake up in the morning

and we start with our, you know, we start with our prayers. And that's how I do that. As soon as I possibly can, I connect and I roll down on the floor and I hit my knees. I don't know why it matters, but it matters to me, to this alcoholic. I need to be on my knees. And I start my, I start with the third step prayer, the 7th step prayer and then the Saint Francis prayer. And you know what? Then my day is a lot different. We consider our plans, we pause when agitated. You know, you hear these things. It's like, right. I

always do that. I wished I did, but it's there. The path of right living is in this program. This big book is the solution. Not a solution. The solution that will help me recover from a deadly disease. I've buried too many friends.

I'm sure many of you and this room have as well. And so this is a way for me, it provides me a way with living now that's different. It's not, you know, I'm still here. The the, the circus is always in town and it's there at a split second away. But this program is, is here. And if I follow it and if I don't chase after directly after things, but just focus on how do I have a better relationship with my higher power? How do I work with others?

How do I participate in this program, go to meetings, talk to my sponsor, help other men in sobriety, be of service? I go through the steps. I'm on Step 8 with my sponsor, always be going through the steps. And I go through them with sponsors when I've got them active and they don't run off or themselves or whatever. But I have a perfect track record with Fonsees because I'm sober today

and and that's what sponsoring at least was taught to me is what that's for.

Because I can't put my life like at the beginning of my story. I can't place my self worth in somebody elses hands. It is absolutely an inside job. And so today what it's like is,

is it's a wonderful experience. I, I'm grateful to this program. I, I'm allowed to do things now that I just, I can't believe where I am. I just sort of