The Unity In Recovery event in Medicine Hat, Alberta

Big room.

Good evening everyone. My name is Mark Torgus and I'm a recovered alcoholic.

Oh, you guys are nervous?

I am. It's been a while. Two months ago Brown and Kevin chatted with me about coming to do this talk, so I've had two months to think about this. It would have been a lot nicer if someone would ask me at 9:00 this morning.

A lot better for me. I have a mind of an alcoholic and I like to think so. But before I get into anything, I'm going to start with a prayer here. It's called the set aside prayer. Dear God, please help me set aside everything I think I know about myself, my disease, the big book, the 12 steps, the program, the fellowship, the people in the fellowship in all spiritual terms, and especially about you, God. So I may have an open mind and a new experience with all these things.

Please help me see the truth. Amen.

That's that's called to set aside prayer. I do that before I do any work with any sponsees. I do it before before I need to do any kind of big book study what it does it in. I think one of the biggest nooses around any of our necks is to think we already know everything. Whether it's for me, it's because I, I, I work with a lot of people and sometimes I think I, I know more than I do right. And sometimes it may be someone that has a lot of time in the program,

might be some ideas you might have from a sponsor, might be some ideas from things you might hear the government, who knows, right? So anyways, this this invites us to have an open mind and a new experience with all these things. First and foremost, I would like to thank the committee again please everyone,

I'm going to pre apologize.

I may, I may offend a few people tonight. It's not going to be my intent.

I made the odd swear word might come out of my mouth, not sure.

Here's where my alcoholic mind took me last night. I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I've been taking notes here for,

oh God,

for weeks on this talk, right? I'd take a few more notes, take a few more notes. And last night I was trying to put this all together. I was trying to tie it all together and I had about 30 pages of notes.

So watch for the upcoming novel Memoirs by Mark. And what I realized is about midnight last night, I had a little meltdown.

I'm looking at these notes and I'm looking at these notes and not liking what I'm seeing. Not at all, right? And I had this little meltdown about midnight last night. I threw them all in the garbage and I kicked the garbage can. I'm like Kirsten Brand and Kirsten A A

and I didn't like any of it. Right. I'm going to take a, a bit of a different approach with everything here tonight. The reason why I didn't like my notes is I was looking at them all and it was just A,

to me, it was just another, it was just another drunk a log, right?

And, and I don't like drunk logs. I, I'm going to share a few things tonight that have to do with my story, but it's not my war stories that make me an alcoholic. And that was a really confusing thing for me. When I first came into these rooms, I'd hear one person say, well, I'm an alcoholic because I got four DUI like, well, I don't have 4 DUI's. Maybe I'm not an alcoholic. Then I hear someone else say, well, I'm an alcoholic because I spent 15 years in prison. I'm like, well, I didn't spend 15 years in prison. Maybe I'm not

alcoholic. I did not hear the next person say, well, I'm an alcoholic because I live under a bridge. Well, I'm not living under a bridge. Maybe I'm not an alcoholic, right? And what I realize is, is these war stories that don't actually bring us together. I think they separate us, right? What I wanted to talk about tonight and here's here's me at midnight last night after having my little meltdown and kicking my garbage can and being all angry,

throwing my notes in the garbage. And then about 12:15, I realized, like, what the hell am I going to say?

All right, I got nothing. So I got driven back into what I was taught, which was prayer of meditation. And I thought about what the topic was tonight, which is unity and recovery. And it's like, OK, well, what brings us all together? You know, like sometimes we don't, we don't even like each other, right? But what actually brings us all together? And it brought me to page 17 of our Big Book. And I am going to read from the Big Book tonight.

So for you those that don't believe the message comes from the book, this is going to be a long talk for you.

And this is has to do with unity and recovery.

The feeling of having shared a common peril is one element in our powerful cement which binds us. But that in itself would never have held us together as we are joined. Their tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution, right? Not my solution, a common solution. We have a way out in which we can absolutely agree precisely how we have recovered right.

We have a way, sorry, and upon which we can join in brotherly and harmonious action.

So just bear with me, guys. I am nervous. So it's gonna take all the kind of shake off some of this jitters.

I have a real common or sorry, a real special bond with this particular group.

As Dan said, I was here when it was a God directed intuitive thought. You know, it was basically two men having a conversation on the phone and he was coming off a really hard relapse and he was he was hurting. And we're going into the big book and we're walking through some stuff and and finally said he goes, we should really start a big book meeting. I'm like, yeah, you should.

And, and he's not the first newcomer to have a lot of enthusiasm. Let's just say an early recovery. And most of the time it pitters out. But me as a sponsor, I'm I'm there to match those efforts.

And I got ahold of my sponsor in Texas and we got some information and he went for it. He got going right. And it's really cool to see the big book making a comeback in this city because this is the only big book meeting in in our city. And I do believe that to be quite important.

Just going to share a couple of cool little notes that I wrote in regards to the Big Book.

There's been 50 million copies of this sold, which I think is a really cool stat. 227 anonymous fellowship have picked up the 12 steps in the 12 traditions, right? So this has been the the driver of so many other fellowships.

Named by Time magazine is one of the most influential books written in English.

Library of Congress named it as one of the books that helped shape America,

arguably the most important thing to happen in the 20th century. Millions of lives have been saved by the the message. It's in this book, so that's a pretty cool deal.

So the topic of unity,

I want to talk about what brings us together. Like we've just read in the page 17, we have one common problem. What's our common? We come from all walks of life here, right? We're we're normally people that wouldn't mix.

We all have something called alcoholism

and we all have something called a common solution as described from the big Book. But what I want to talk about today is and, and I'm going to be, I didn't want to get into my war stories at all. And I'm going to say a few things tonight that I would never see in a meeting. You're going to hear me talk about drugs and you're going to hear me talk about a few things that that don't belong in the meetings frankly,

'cause they just don't belong there. But I was told they do belong from a podium around a 12 step call. So I will say some stuff tonight. I wouldn't normally say,

what do I want to go with this?

What does it mean to be an alcoholic?

So

again, as I talked about before, I was never really sure what it meant to be an alcoholic, right? I always thought it had to do with the war story. And what I learned as per the big book is, and I'll share my experiences with each of these, is I have a three-part problem. The first part of my problem is a physical allergy to alcohol,

and it's something that doesn't get discussed that much in our rooms. Right with that basically means is

when you take alcohol, ethyl alcohol, and you put it in my system, my system reacts differently than the average person. This only applies to about 10% of the population. 90% of the people can safely drink, right? What that looks like for me is, is I plan on having one or two drinks and I have significantly more. And I can look back at my drinking experience over the years is, you know, I planned on having one or two, but I get thirsty after the first,

not before, right? I want more.

Has anyone? Has anyone here have a food allergy?

What happens when you What's your food allergy? Gluten. What happens when you have it?

You throw up.

So let me ask you this.

Do you think childhood trauma caused your food allergy?

Probably not, right?

OK, well,

let's use it. Let's use a different analogy.

She's analogous strawberry being allergic to strawberries, right?

The high likelihood that my allergy to strawberries wasn't caused by childhood trauma. You know, I know that a lot of people have suffered childhood trauma in recovery. And I think it's important that you visit that, and I think it's important to get outside help with that.

But not everybody. I don't believe that to be the 'cause I believe this to be genetic in nature. I believe this to be handed down through generations. For me, if I look at my family tree and give it a good shake, there's Alcoholics littered absolutely everywhere, right? I actually had a good upbringing. You know, here's The funny thing is, I went to a treatment center years ago and spent a lot of money to be there. But they came from the idea that all addiction, all addiction is a result of childhood trauma.

And they weren't going to let me leave until I came up with some.

And and I did by the time I left. I blame my parents for for it, right? And again, I don't want to dismiss anyone that has had childhood trauma. I think it's, it's something that's really important to deal with, right? I'm a big believer in outside help, but for myself,

I didn't come from that. You know, I had a good family. I had a a good upbringing. I had good parents. You know, they're alcohol or my dad was an alcoholic, but he was a good man, right? My life wasn't perfect, but it was

it was good.

The allergy I believe to be as genetic in nature

and what happens with me and the allergy is it leads me, leads me into different things. In my early drinking, the allergy would sometimes I'd plan on what having one or two drinks and I'd have one or two drinks, you know, but as a as a, my drinking career progressed pretty much every single time

when I planned on having one or two, I would have significantly more, right.

And then that led me into a world of drugs as well.

I did a lot of cocaine and I did a lot of other stuff. I slept around a lot. There was a lot of gambling. There's a lot of things. But everything always started with the first drink, right? And I would never really know what was going to happen. It's funny because there were so many people that would say to me, it's like, Mark, we didn't even realize you were that bad. You know, we didn't realize that you're that bad. They they would see me at 910 o'clock.

You know, earlier, you know, what would happen to me is, is I disappear and I take off alone and I'd go by a 40W and eight ball of cocaine, go home.

Percocet sleeping pills.

I spiced the night up at the Viagra, right? So,

and I'd wander around with a baseball bat alone, staring out my window, looking for cops in my trees, You know, That's what I would do. That's where the allergy took me, that that was no longer fun, you know.

So the physical allergy to me was I like analogies and I like the analogy. Is, is, is the allergy can be looked at like sex, like having sex with a gorilla. Once it starts, it ain't over till the gorilla says it's over.

It's a three-part problem. That's only one part of the problem. The next part of the problem,

because here's a deal. If I got an allergy to strawberries, pretty simple solution, just quit eating strawberries, right? But the second part of my problem, or in any other alcoholic problem as per the big book, is I have a mental obsession of the mind. And that's where my alcoholism lives. I have a mind that always wants to take me back to the first drink, basically a sober blackout. I can't remember

all the bad stuff that I've done right.

What goes through my head is somehow someday this time it's going to be different.

Some examples. I'm actually just going to read something from the big book here and

bear with me,

which I think truly

helps explain the mental obsession. The fact is that most Alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent. We are unable at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient spores the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a month, a week, or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink. That's what makes me an alcoholic. Anyone that tells me in the past that they chose not to drink today,

there's a pretty good chance you're not an alcoholic, right? What the big books telling me is that I've lost the ability to choose. I'm drinking against my will. I was drinking against my will. Some examples of that would be

my first DUI

and I remember making a deal with God. It's like, oh God, please just get me through this and I promise I'll never drink again. I and I was drinking again shortly after I got a second DUI. Like, please, God, just help let me get through this one. And I promise I won't drink again. And I was drinking again.

And then there was another time. I'm wired up to a polygraph test to see if I'm going to be spending seven years in prison. Not a fun experience. And RCMP officer about 6 foot four is there to break me. And I'm just praying, right? It's like, God, please just get me through this. And I promise I will never drink again. And I got through it and someone else went to prison as a result. And I was drinking again.

No, there was a time in Mexico I got,

can't believe I'm seeing this

in Mexico. I got busted by the Mexican feds with a whole bunch of cocaine and that doesn't go over very well down there.

And I'm making a deal with God again. It's like, God, please just get me through this one. And I promise, promise. I was most scared I've ever been in my life, right? I promise I won't do this again.

And

I meant it each and every one of those times I would have passed a polygraph test. That's how much I meant it, you know, And I quit for my kid before I quit for a woman, before I quit for a job, before every time I meant it so much that I would have passed a polygraph test. Now, thank God the Mexican feds are crooked and I was able to buy them off. And but again, within 24 hours, I'm back at it, right? I've lost the ability to choose

whether I drink or not.

A good analogy for the mental obsession would be this.

It's like a

like a dog returning to its vomit, you know, it's like the dog knows it's a bad idea. It's like if you were to say to him, like if he could talk, he's like, Yup, this is a really bad idea. But here I go. And I'm not sure why, right? I'm really not even sure. I don't even know why I'm doing this, but I'm going to do it, you know, And that's, that's the crazy part of this illness. I got a physical allergy. I got a mental obsession. And at the root of it all,

and it's a part that we don't talk about that much, is the

the spiritual melody.

I have a melody, the spirit. And this is how I feel in a sober state. I started drinking at the age of 12, and I think I needed one at the age of 6.

That's about how far back I can remember where I didn't feel OK inside. I felt separate from other people. I felt alone. Even in a room full of people, I would feel alone. I was absolutely full of fear, right?

Alcohol took all that away.

My relationship with alcohol was absolutely wonderful and amazing and it worked for me for a really long time.

The big book clarifies this with three turns, restless, irritable and discontent. This is how I feel in a sober state, right? That's actually what drove me into alcohol. It it further clarified, clarifies it with some stuff that's called the bedevilment since on page 52 and and I'll just read them here. It asks me, were you having trouble in personal relationships? Were you having trouble controlling your emotional nature?

Were you pray to misery and depression? Were you having trouble making a living?

Did you have a feeling of uselessness? Were you full of fear? Were you unhappy? Were you having trouble being of real help to other people? Right, that explains me without alcohol. When I quit drinking, that's when my problems start.

So alcohol worked for me for a really long time. We had a love affair. It I liked myself better when I was drinking.

And from ages 12 to about 25, it worked like a charm, you know, it worked great. I, I was better with booze and then it quit working. Something happened along the way. It actually quits working. And that's where my troubles really began.

For I think that's the thing that

people that aren't alcoholic will never really understand about us. It's like, why can't you just stop?

It's like if you knew how I felt inside when I wasn't drinking, you wouldn't ask me that question,

you know? It's the only thing that ever took away the pain.

So for me, just quit. Drinking is like a form of torture.

And that's for me, it's,

I mean, I would try to hang on for dear life in this program or even just in sobriety, right? And I never could for very long. No,

for me, sobriety was a form of torture. I needed a replacement. I needed the 12 steps, and I needed God right for me. Just going to a whole pile of meetings didn't treat it.

I always had the idea that outside stuff would treat my spiritual malady. And I chased money, I chased women, I chased power. My

really good example of this is, and I think as Alcoholics we're really mislabeled sometimes we're driven. The Alcoholics I know are absolutely driven people. We are got all sorts of willpower in every other part of our life, right? And a good example of this for me was I got involved with a group out in Victoria, BC, Bear Mountain condo project. And I, I wasn't even a real estate agent

and, but I got involved in this project and I was able to, through this

obsessive crazy mind to mind, I was able to sell 44 condos in a really short of period of time from my basement in Alberta, right? And that was as much as their entire staff combined on site. So the ownership group was a group of NHL players, and they had me come out there

in honor of what I was doing. And these guys are household names. Two of them are in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Big deals, right? And, and they have this dinner in my honor. And I'm thinking I have arrived. You know, this is it. This is my moment,

and I'm sitting there with dinner with these guys and it's about 6:00 or 8:00 NHL players. And like I said, a couple of them are Hall of Farmers.

And I'm sober and I'm crawling out of my skin. I feel absolutely worthless. I feel like I shouldn't be there. I don't feel like I deserve to be there. And the only thing I'm looking at is where is the wine, right? That's all I'm staring at. They're talking to me and I'm just like, coming out of my skin, right? The spiritual malady coming out of my skin in a sober state for myself. A glass of wine, guzzle it. They're looking at me, right? Like, are you OK?

And vote. Halfway down in my second glass of wine, I'm like,

yeah, I can breathe, I can talk,

right? And they then I became the man that they'd known before. I was just scared, frightened 12 year old child sitting there with a bunch of men thinking that I'm something that I'm not. You know, the spiritual melody.

So I believe that's what we all have in common. three-part problem. I don't believe that our war stories bring us together. I believe that they push us apart.

What else do we have in common?

What we have in common I believe is a three-part solution, a three-part problem, a three-part solution. One is recovery, which is the meetings and the 12 steps.

Two is Unity, which is meetings and Fellowship

service which is sponsoring other Alcoholics helping this kind of stuff. Chair in meetings sharing hope, right? I was,

I was in another meetings for I was in and out of a A for seven years trying to get sober

and I wasn't getting it. I wasn't getting it. I wasn't getting it, you know, and

go to meetings. I remember getting drunk right after a meeting. I was in a church basement and and I'm new and I'm hearing one person after another after another after another. One guy's complaining about traffic, next guy's complaining about his wife and next guy's complaining about his job and everyone's just complaining and complaining and complaining, right. I'm like, if this is recovery, I'm taking my chances out there, you know, and The thing is, I kept coming in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out. And the only thing that I was being told

just go to more meetings, go to more meetings, more to more meetings, more meetings, more meetings, 90 and 90.

And I remember doing about 100 meetings in 90 days and wanting to pull it put a bullet in my head.

Meetings was not treating my spiritual malady.

I need to do the full program and that's the promise that was made to me by my sponsor real early. Promise that I make to anyone that I work with as I draw the circle in the triangle, recovery, unity and service. My promise to anyone that I work with is if you live in the center of the circle in the triangle, you will not drink again.

Whenever I call my sponsor out in Texas and you

usually to whine about relationship issues,

he always asked me who was before he gets into anything. It's like, where are you plot yourself? Where are you in the circle in the triangle? Are you getting the meetings? Are you when's the last time you took a newcomer through the steps? Are you starting your day with prayer and meditation? Are you doing inventory step 1011 at night right? Are you doing the deal? You know, what I find out is when I'm living in the middle of the circle in the triangle,

all the hostels seem to just leave town.

You know, this is a disease of perception there. Really it is. You know, my perception changes completely when I'm doing this whole deal, when I'm doing this whole program. And why do I do it? I do it for the same reason why I drank and drugged. I like the effect it produces and the doctor's opinion. It tells us we drink and drug for the effect. It makes us feel better until it quits working. And I needed a substitute for that.

So that's why I worked this program. Like the desperation of a drowning man. You know, I do the whole deal because I like the effect it produces. I like to feel OK in my skin. I don't want to go around this world in a sober state. I want to be excited about recovery. I want to go live a really cool life. I think that's what God meant for us to do, right?

And that's what I do is I try to live in the center of this. I certainly do not do this perfectly by any means, but I have a program that can get me back on track. I welcome the suffering. Now, this program is easy when life is good, you know, but the suffering, it always drives me deeper back into it. I knew I was coming up here a long time ago. And you know, last last week I went and did another step five with my sponsor because I'm trying to clear the channel. I'm trying to clear the channel as a little twisted up, right? You know, I'm just, I'm doing the deal.

I spent a lot of time in prayer and meditation last couple of days, you know, because I like the effect it produces. I needed a substitute.

I'm going to talk about hitting Barton and some of the important players in my life.

I I hit my bottom when I had everything and didn't make sense to a lot of people. I hit a external bottom in my early 30s. I was broke. I had a business that was on the verge of bankruptcy. I was living in a friend's basement on a blow up bed and life was not good. That to me was my external bottom, right. But I had it in my eye, in my

in my mind that I had a case of the only's. If I could only just get the girl,

if I could only just get the job, if I could only just get the house, if I could only just get a nice vehicle. Right through my 30s and maybe a little bit of luck and a lot of hard work.

I I got everything I thought I wanted. And I remember being in Maui looking in the mirror

and stared at myself. I'm like, shit, it's still there, you know, it's still there. I had everything. I had absolutely everything. I was there with a beautiful woman. I had money. I had everything. I think bottom can come on a park bench or Park Ave. You know, you see millionaires blowing their brains out all the time. The external stuff does not solve my spiritual malady.

I went to about a 30 day stretch. I was completely spiritually sick and I had no idea what was going on. I've been in and out of the doctors for a long time and I was labeled as PTSD, manic, bipolar, depressed, right? All these different things. And I was given all these different meds for all of it along the way. And at the end of the day, I got to find out I'm just a garden variety alcoholic, right? You know, I haven't done anything for a long time,

but there was a period of time

that 30 days and the bottom hit in Maui and I went for about 30 days. And it was really hard to explain, but I, I thought I was going to die every minute of every day for about 30 days. And my eyes were all swelling. There was, there was a lot of fear. I remember going to the doctor and I'm like, there's something wrong. I'm dying. I was actually right in my obituary, right?

And I remember getting these blood tests done. I'm fully expecting them to be fatal, right?

And the doctors going, you're OK,

Like I'm not OK.

Clearly I'm not okay

but it's funny that and I I was a self-proclaimed atheist and a self-proclaimed agnostic but I really wasn't. I would pray if I had too much drugs and I felt like I was going to OD.

I pray when I was in the courtroom. I prayed for a girl to come into it my life. I prayed for a girl to leave my life,

so I don't know if I was really agnostic or atheist after all.

But The funny thing was, is I knew exactly where to go and what to do during that period of time in Maui. I started doing the Lord's Prayer that night because I didn't think I'd make it through the night. You know,

I thought I was going to die

and, umm,

a few things happened shortly after that.

I think with with all of us, there's a a defining moment, whether it's a a conversation, a phone call, wandering into a meeting, a chance conversation, a Facebook post, whatever it may be, there's a a defining moment which changes your entire life.

For me, it was a click of a mouse. I was dying in the rooms of AA

seven years in and out, in and out, in and out and

clicked on to an online meeting and it was not like a meeting I had never been exposed to before. Everyone was very friendly to me at first and

but they were a group that

he really didn't care about how I felt. They really didn't care about what I thought. The only thing that they cared about was me taking some actions. And the deal was with this group is that you were going to be assigned a sponsor that day or leave, right? And I was pissed off because didn't they know about my feelings and how important I was?

But I was intrigued. It was the first group that they would rather step on my toes and stand on my grave.

And I got my first sponsor there and it was a it was a female out of New York. And she took me through this work and she took me, She was saying some stuff that I'd never heard before. And she took me through this work at a really rapid pace

and I got well, quick. Something happened. It was almost abnormally simple.

Didn't make sense to my intellectual mind

and it went really good. And I remember

they really pushed us in to get working with other people really quickly, right. I remember calling this lady after the fact again wanting to discuss relationship issues

and this lady was very blunt with me and the question that she would always ask whenever I'd call is did you help another alcoholic today? And if the answer was no, click,

conversation was over. Now I personally don't do that. I'm harsh but not that harsh.

But what it did is it taught me my ultimate pathway out of this. Right. If selfishness and self centeredness is the root of my problem, then getting out of self is my answer to this. And I was a skilled manipulator and I was a skilled liar. And it was the first person that told me the truth

and

it launched me into sponsorship is what it did, you know, when I was absolutely frightened, I was frightened to sponsor people and I was scared, you know.

But I brought these ideas back to Medicine Hat about doing the work quickly. Now it's in yourself as a recovered alcoholic following the

the instructions of the big book as per described. And I was welcomed with open arms. And that's the rest of the story. So no, that's not open.

I got a lot of pushback

and I end up going back out one more time

and then I came back in again

and I launched into this program, right. I started sponsoring in two months and I have not looked back. I've taken God somewhere between 50 and 60 people through this work, either in a sponsorship or a Co sponsorship position, you know, because I like the effect of produce and unbeknownst to me is a lot of people are staying sober. A lot of them you, a lot of you are here today, you know, and, and, and thank you. You're you're the ones that are keeping me silver. There's been many times I've, I've thought about leaving this fellowship. You know,

it's, there's been some old timers that made things fairly difficult and there's been a lot of gossip, there's been a lot of slander. And but when you start seeing people get well quickly, you know, man, there's not a drink or drug like that.

There is absolutely no drinker drug like that out there.

So thank you for all of you that have stayed.

There's a there's three people I want to draw attention to that have been influencers in my recovery since my original sponsor, who I've moved away from. Around four months over, I started listening to the audios of a man, Chris Raymer,

and

he was talking in a fashion I've never heard before. He was very blunt. He was critical. He told the truth, and I listened to him. I tape after tape after tape after tape. I kept listening to him. He said he worked at a treatment center in Texas and I became a sobriety stalker.

I, I listened to one of his tapes quite clearly and, and I listened to where he worked at. I found out the treatment center he worked at,

so I went online

and I found his e-mail address

and I emailed them and he answered and I emailed him again and he answered

and we started talking on the phone.

And then about one year, Silver asked the big question, Will you sponsor me? And he's he didn't say yes right away. He says, let's talk about what that's going to look like. You know, the last thing he needed, he speaks all over the world from the podium. And last thing he needed was a high maintenance fancy. And I've been with him for five years now and he's been a huge influencer in my life. You know, he's a, he's a cool guy. A lot of a lot of you I know have listened to him.

Dale. Dale's been a big influencer as well. I remember when I came back to the, to the meetings here and I was sharing the messages of the big book and that you could get well in this program quickly. I'm like, oh, Dale's going to be pissed,

right? Because he, he intimidated me because he knew what he was talking about. I was already taking a lot of heat. And I'm like, you know what, screw it. I'm just going to say what I'm up to. And I remember him saying very specifically to me goes, that's all a product of good sponsorship. That's all directly what's in our literature. You're doing things right. I'm like, oh, thank God I got an ally finally, you know, and Dale's been a big influencer and, you know, I don't talk to Chris that much. I talked to Dale quite often. You know, when the word sponsors actually nowhere in our big book, It's not in there.

You know, I have different mentors. I have a variety of mentors that I go to and

third guy, he's here right now. Greg, Pastor Greg,

I met Greg when

think I was about eight months sober

and one of my friends kids just died. Oh dude, do it overdose. And he spoke at the funeral and he spoke really well and I listened to when I heard him. And the next day I'm driving. I'm still in the oil patch at the time and I'm driving home.

That's where I'm driving to Brooks. I pull over to the side of the road and I call the Dream Center. I'm like, not even sure exactly why I'm calling you, but I heard you speak yesterday and I'm involved in a A and, and what I'm fine is I'm working with a lot of people and, and I'm finding a lot of them have a difficulty being fully honest with me on their Step 5. Would you be willing to get involved?

And he's like, absolutely. And he made some calls to some other priests and some other pastors and. And Greg's going on to do 5060 step fives. Yeah. So he's been a huge, huge influencer in recovery in Medicine Hat here. I know some of you have done your step lives with him. I know I am, too. I remember going to see him with my Step 5 because I didn't feel comfortable. There's a couple things I held back on, Right. And I remember going to see him to do my Step 5. Nervous, as nervous as I was tonight, maybe more,

And

I'm holding this document, like the secret CIA document.

And I let it all go that day, you know? And he's like, if there's a name for it, someone else has already done it.

And it was good. But I remember a conversation that I had with him. I showed up with a big book and I gave it to him. And he's like, can I be honest with you? I'm like, absolutely. He goes, I got a bit of a beef with your program. Is that cool? What is that? He's like, you got to tell everyone you're sick for the rest of your life. Like, that's not true. I opened up the big book and I showed him the very first promise in the big book. This is a story of many. How many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism?

And then I showed him what the why the book was written.

So this is precisely to show other Alcoholics how we re have come. We have recovered. And then I showed him on page 90 the book. It's like we are to draw attention to ourselves as people who have recovered. He's like, you know what he goes. I didn't know any of that because I was under the impression that you had to tell everyone you were sick for the rest of your life. I'm like, that's not a message. I hope, right? I'm well today.

You know, my life is good, and I think that that's a message I want to give to the newcomer is you can get well,

then you can get well quickly. The obsession can be removed, right? I have a daily reprieve based on my spiritual condition. I can never safely put alcohol in my body. Abstinence is my only answer. That is not what recovered means. Does not mean cured, right?

I can. Doesn't matter how much spiritual work I do. Doesn't matter how much time I have in doesn't how, doesn't matter how many people that I sponsor. I can never safely put alcohol in my body due to the physical allergy. We talked about that. That physical allergy never goes away. Recovered has to do with the mental obsession. I do not obsess about alcohol. I've went through some really hard times in sobriety.

I

I know some people, they their life has become absolutely on fire. And so bride and I welcome that night because it's absolutely I love hearing those stories. I've been challenged a lot in sobriety. My my mom has died and my dad has died. My uncle, I was close to my aunt. I was close to my family's been torn apart at a long distance relationship, long distance, long term,

basically get shredded, you know? But my story from the podium is, during all those times of hardship, not once,

not once did I obsess about drinking. And I think that's the message of hope that the newcomer needs to hear so that we have a solution during the bad times, not just the good times. Recovery is easy when things are good, but what are you going to do when the tide turns, right? When are you going to do when she leaves or he leaves or when you lose a job or a family member dies, right? This program, this this book gives me a solution for that.