The Primary Purpose online meeting in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada

Hi there everybody. I am Matt Cassidy. I'm grateful for covering alcoholic and and as Dave said, he is my sponsor so he's here to keep me honest. And

God, I'm so nervous when I do one of these things and I have to be 100% honest from the get go, you know, nothing not thrown up in the garbage pail or anything that nervous. But you know, every fear inventory I've ever done, you know, the fear of being unloved, unaccepted, looking like an ass in public, the fear of being found out, you know, always, you know, always turns up. So for me to get in front of a group of,

oh, 50-6, you see that Ego told me there was gonna be 70 people here. So it's, you know, it's not as big as a crowd as I thought it was gonna be, you know, so, but so to speak in front of this many people in an unfamiliar format, you know, where it's like, I'm not gonna hear any feedback, no laughs when I say something I think to be funny, you know, or, you know, or I'm just gonna look for head nods, you know, when people identify. But the only planning I've done is I just, you know, like Dave said, I'm here to share my story and edit the big book. Alcoholics Anonymous. If you have a drinking

problem, we hope that you may pause in in reading one of our 42 personal stories and think, yes, that happened to me. Or more important, yes, I felt like that or most important, yes, I believe this program can work for me too. You know, I've also picked

each individual in the personal stories describes in his own language and from his own point of view, the way he established his relationship with God.

Our stories disclosed in a general way what we used to be like, what happened and what we are like now.

If you have decided you want what we have and you're willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps, you know. And lastly, frothy emotional appeals seldom suffices. The message which can interest and hold these alcoholic people must have depth and weight. In nearly all cases, their deals must be grounded in a power greater themselves if they are to recreate their lives. Those those four things kind of tell me exactly what I'm supposed to be doing here. You know, at the I'm not into a drunk log because my drinking career was not very long. It's

not very that it's not very, you know, entertaining to be quite honest. But what it does have is it does have all of the aspects of alcoholism which, you know, I was taught by a good sponsorship. You know, when I'm sharing what it was like, you know, I'm giving about 45 minutes here. So what, what I used to be like is 1/3 of my story. So if I'm going past, you know, 1518 minutes of and I'm still talking about drinking, you know, Dave, anybody feel free to jump in and start heckling 'cause you know, I'm talking too long about the problem and not enough about the solution. You know, that solution being a God word, You know what a word that I

like when I first got here, you know, and I'm sure I'll get to that.

I'm also nervous because this is, you know, the like my second time talking like in a year. And I'm sure I'll get to why that is, you know, later on when I get to when my life is like now. But you know, not not to scare you more, but I'm going to talk a little bit about my childhood. But did not 'cause my alcoholism. It just has a lot to do with, you know, the other person that I was, you know, I was born into alcoholism, you know, like I shared my last name as Cassidy, you know, in case the pale skin and, you know, premature graying hair does not give it away. You know, I am Irish,

you know, if there's any doubt of that, I have a Celtic cross tattoo, I have a Shamrock tattoo and I have two leprechaun tattoos just to remind me on a daily basis of how Irish I am. You know, the, but, you know, on both sides of the fence, on my mom's side, on my dad's side, it's just filled with, you know, Alcoholics. You know, the, you know, it's, if you're not alcoholic in my family, you marry one just to fit in. And you know, everybody usually laughs at that, you know, but it is, is 100% true because, you know, I, I talk about two of my uncles, you know,

you know, one of my uncles just died about a year and a half ago of cirrhosis of the liver. But when you talk, when my family talks about, you know, Uncle Butch, you know, they talk about how he died from an infection, you know, because if he, if we talk about cirrhosis, the liver, then we don't have to talk about what the real cause of that is, you know, and that would be his alcoholism. Then he literally drank himself to death. You know, another one of my uncles right now is out of it, you know, lost his job due to his drinking. His wife threw him out of the house due to his drinking. He's bouncing in and out of sober houses because he can't, you know, he can't stay sober,

you know, but we don't talk about him at all. Because if he's down on a, you know, you know, they just talk about him being down on his luck when his name does come up and you know, hopefully you don't have luck comes back to him. So it's either like the delusion, you know, that runs through my family, not denial, because denial is not wanting to believe, you know, the truth, but knowing it's the truth. You know, my family, you know, we, we lived in a lot of delusion of, you know, sick alcoholic behavior that was 100% acceptable.

You know, the, you know, at a young age, you know, I, because I grew up in alcoholism and I grew up with a, you know, a father who was physically abusive, you know, mentally, you know, verbally abusive,

you know, you know, because I grew up around alcoholism. You know, my mom went to Al Anon in 1984, you know, so I did have exposure to the 12 steps at a really young age. And I remember, you know, she told us, you know, she sat down and told us that she had joined this organization called Al Anon. And it was a 12 step fellowship, you know, and it's, you know, she's going to do these 12 steps and she was going to, you know, get. Well, you know, she explained to us that, you know, she couldn't fix Dad's drinking, which, you know, The funny thing about that is when she, you know, she tells the story the way she tells it, which is probably the truth. You know, the

then when she sat down to tell us all about my dad's alcoholism, is that, you know, I she said Dad has a problem. And my answer to her was, yeah, Dad drinks too much. You know, and I knew right away, you know, you know, I guess I could spot alcoholism from a mile away because, you know, even back then, you know, I probably, you know, I was definitely, you know, showing symptoms of it. You know, I just wasn't drinking to fix it. You know, I turned to a food at an early age. You know, at my heaviest, I was 5 foot eight, 260 lbs. So, you know, I guess you could say I always had a God shaped hole, you know, so,

you know, I look for anything and everything to fill that hole, you know, but I never found anything that really fit that hole and took care of the bill until I found, you know, God. And so, you know, as a result of my, you know, the, you know, as a result of, you know, growing up in that abusive household and as a result of, you know, I was sexually abused by a next door neighbor, you know, at a young age. So, you know, I had that to deal with, you know, because of all that stuff that was going on in my life. I remember being, you know, just a young kid

and I was going to Catholic school at the time. So, you know, I remember thinking if there was a God,

you know, and this is what he's doing to me, I want nothing to do with them. You know, I definitely may, you know, I definitely missed the mark on, you know, a loving and caring God that they were teaching in school. You know, I would come to, you know, find that God in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's the God of my understanding today, you know, but as a young kid, you know, with no belief and a higher power, you know, and, you know, just looking to fill that hole and looking for anything and everything, you know, outside of yourself, you know, the, you know,

I was never satisfied. And, you know, I, I always like to tell the story that my mom got a job at a, a camp for rich people.

You know, everybody whose dad was there was like a doctor or a lawyer, you know, and they all made like, you know, 4, you know, 5 figure salaries back in the 8, you know, back in the 80s, you know, when my mom got a job there, so we got to go for free. And when we started going there, I remember crying that I didn't want to go because I didn't like it. And then when she quit that job and we couldn't go there anymore, I remember crying because now I couldn't go anymore. So, you know, I was, I was never happy regardless what was going on in the outside. You know, I'll Fast forward to, you know, 1994, you know, the, my senior year, you know, my senior year high school, you know, this is Alcoholics Anonymous

due respect to 5th, you know, the 5th tradition and 3rd tradition, you know, is that this is, you know, this this is about alcohol and alcoholism. But you know, dry goods are a part of my story, you know, and it was, you know, it was Donnie who spoke a couple weeks ago, who, you know, for the first time in my life, you know, put it in perspective for me. In the book, it talks about how we use, you know, different methods of, you know, to control our drinking. And I, and I believe after hearing him, you know, I was using, you know, truckloads of, you know, dry goods just to treat that, you know,

but alcoholism, because I had made this promise to myself as a little kid that I would not be an alcoholic, you know, So I had exposure to drinking, you know, but I really didn't want to do it to excess because then, you know, I had this fear that I would become an alcoholic like everybody else in my family. So I used other, you know, substances that, you know, treat my alcoholism. And, you know, they work because they, you know, they take care of the restless serial discontent that I feel when I, you know, when I have no nothing in my body,

you know, but you Fast forward to my senior year of high school, you know, when I was at, you know, I was at a party and, you know, everybody there was, you know, was drinking and I knew they would drinking and, you know, so I was like, all right, I better drink to fit in, you know, because you know, I had that chameleon sodomy before I knew it was going on, you know, before I knew it was a side of me, you know, So I remember drinking that night. So it's like the first time I'm really

they drinking, I'm getting drunk and I remember it clear as day because I hadn't hit the blackout yet. But I remember sometime during the party I I was drinking out of it was last because I knew if I knew, I just knew internally. If you drink out of a bottle, you know, that makes you alcoholic. So I had to drink out of a glass, you know, So I had to look high class, you know, So

I dropped a glass and shattered on the floor. And I remember still to this day, my first thought was, you know, I was embarrassed because everybody looked at me. And then I was mad because I had just I just wasted alcohol.

But then I was relieved when the next thought was there was still plenty more in the fridge, you know. So I know, I know even, you know, from that early point that you know, I had, you know, the, you know, the physical allergy because I know I needed more, you know, once I put it in my body, I would need more. So, you know, that story proves that I have physical allergy aspect of this disease, you know, which Doctor Silkworth says, you know, makes us alcoholic. You know, my drinking just got worse because this is a progressive illness, you know? So,

you know, I was, you know,

I had some time to think about this talk before I made it. And the more I thought about it, the more stories that came back to me. And, you know, just like how I could see, like, you know, the progression of my illness, you know, and I, like I said, I, I talked to my mom often and, you know, she still goes to Al Anon. So I, you know, I, I shared with her one of the stories and she's like, you can share that and you talk. And I was like, yeah, I guess so 'cause, you know, it produced, you know, an effect on you. So, you know, I told her story of how, you know, somebody down the hall from me in college brought it, you know, brought a bottle down. I was like, hey, you want to try this?

You know, so I by that time I'd already developed, you know, the mental obsession. So my mind goes, yeah, we never had that. We got to try it. Even though I know I had work before, you know, but I still thought at that time that I can control my drinking. So I'll just have one or two and then I'll, you know, have enough time before I go to work. But of course, 1 led to two led to three led to, you know, more and more. And then I was like, oh, crap, I got to go to work. So I call my boss and I tell him that is, I was like, Oh yeah, you know, I can't come into work today. He's like, Oh no, what's the matter? You know, he was actually showing true concern. You know, I said, oh, I hurt my,

you know, I I couldn't just, you know, they couldn't just come with an easy excuse, like, I don't feel good. You know, it's like, you know, how to come with something like, you know, big, you know, so make them really feel sorry for me and say, oh, I hurt my shoulder. He's like, OK. He's like, you know, he's like, well, he's, you know, I hope it gets better. We'll see you around. I was like, OK, yeah, thanks. So the next day when I woke up, I worked in the building where the school cafeteria was. So now I realized that I would have to walk past my boss on my way to go to breakfast at the cafeteria. And I just told my heart, my shoulder, so to

cover the lie with yet another lie, I actually took, I actually took my shoulder and I bashed it up against the, the bedpost of my bed until it was black and blue so that I could stop at the Infirmary on my way to the cafeteria so that they would give me a sling or give me an ice pack or give me something, you know, And I was just like, you know, that story came back to me. I was like, Oh my God, I was like the lies that I, you know, the lines that I went to have to cover up my lies, you know. You know, another time that I thought of as you know, I went to get out of bed one morning after heavy night of drinking. And I

to stand up and I healed over like, you know, like a like a, you know, like a Jenga board. You know, I fell flat on my face. And when I looked down at my ankle, I was like, Oh yeah, that's right. I did something to my ankle which would explain why it's the size of a grapefruit and purple legged grape. I was like, now it all makes sense why I can't stand up, you know. So, you know, there was another time that, you know, I mean, there's a, there's a questionnaire on our SIA meeting list up here, you know, for Suffolk County. This is, you know, did you ever wind up in a hospital due to your drinking? You know, so I always thought when I first saw that list that it meant, you know, that I wind up a detox

rehab. And I could say, oh, no. But the more I thought honestly about my drink, I was like, yeah, I did wind up in hospital numerous times because, you know, because of my drinking, you know, so I could easily change my answer to yes on that one, you know, so my drinking just got worse. You know, it was like, there were times like, you know, I went to a family party, you know, it was my, my, my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. And, you know, they had, you know, they had an open bar, you know, 'cause like I said, we're surrounded by Alcoholics. So, you know, what would a party be without it, you know, without an open bar? And I remember walking up to it and, you know, the

somebody was nice enough to list all of the beers. And most people would look at that as I have choice. You know, I could have this one or I could have that one or, you know, or I could have the liquor on the top shelf, you know, so most people look at it as choice. I looked at the list up on the wall as a mission statement. You know, I had to go from top to bottom and back up to the top if if I had enough time, you know, so, and that's what I did for the night. I went, I went down the list. I went back up in between. I throw in some hard liquor because they did, you know, again, they had to have the top shelf stuff, you know, that cheap stuff, you know, for, you know, for a Cassidy family affair.

But, you know, I'll just Fast forward to my last drunk. You know, my last drunk was nothing, you know, exciting, nothing spectacular, to be quite honest. But what did happen to me that night was I needed the last piece of the puzzle that I could see clearly, you know, so that I could knew know how much trouble I was in. You know, that night I was going to a party, you know, and it was about an hour and a half drive from my house, you know, So I sat in my driveway, you know, getting ready to leave for the party. And I and I remember making a solemn

myself like Bill talks about in the book we make some always with. So without a Bible, OK, I didn't have a Bible handy, but if I did, I probably would have sworn on it that tonight I was not going to take a drink. OK, it's not that I didn't want to drink. But by this point, by this time, everybody was calling me alcoholic, you know, except me. So I was not going to drink that night to prove to everybody that wasn't alcoholic. So if you've ever had to prove to somebody that you're not alcoholic,

you're probably alcoholic, you know, in case there's anybody out there who has any doubt,

you know, so, so I leave for the party and I'm not going to drink. OK. It takes about 45 minutes to get from my house to the next county line. By the time I got to the next county line, I remember clearly the thought that crossed my mind. OK, the thought that crossed my mind, not that I had to make up and, you know, not that I had to like think about it. It just popped into my head. It was it's going to be a six hour party. If we would go to a six hour party and we buy a six pack and we drink one beer an hour, that's social drinking. That's not alcohol. So you can still drink

and you can still prove to everybody that you're not alcoholic because you can show them that you can control your drinking. And that I know today is the mental obsession, you know, that Miss that missing piece of being the true alcoholic on page 21. You know, I went to the party that night and I, you know, I went and I bought a six pack and, you know, just I tore off all the labels, you know, and I made this grandiose announcement to everybody because, you know, when I speak, everybody listens, you know, you know, so you know that there's a six pack in the fridge. Nobody drink it. Those are mine, you know, and it was like about 2025 minutes,

somebody goes walking past with a beer without a label on it. And I was like, that's my beer. They don't listen to me. Who the hell are these people will screw them. Then I'm gonna, if they're drinking my beer, then I'm gonna drink all theirs, you know. So then, you know, off to the races I went, you know. So when I woke up the next morning, you know, I was like, where was my, you know, where was my thought of not drinking when the time came where, you know, where was my, where was all of my willpower? It was not, I knew it was non-existent, you know, it was the, IT was the first moment of clarity out of memory many that I would have, you know, in sobriety,

you know, and that that was the morning of May the 5th of 1996. And I'm, you know, proud to say, due to God's grace and good sponsorship and the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, that's still my sobriety date, You know, so I'm an Irish guy, you know, I don't know about up in Canada, but down here in the United States, you know, on Saint Patrick's Day, everybody pretends to be Irish, you know, so they can drink. And on Cinco de Mayo, May the 5th, everybody pretends to be Mexican so they could drink, you know, so I'm the Irish guy who got it sober on a Mexican holiday. So if I ever come across in sobriety the Mexican guy who got sober on Saint Patrick's Day, I'm telling you right now,

him and I gonna start a big book study, OK Scouts honor. OK, so my buddy Charlie laughing because St. Patricks Day is his sobriety date. But but he's Irish, you know, so it doesn't count, you know, but. So there I was, you know, stone cold sober now not, you know, and not wanting to take another drink. But it took me two weeks to be convinced that I still couldn't do it myself. You know, I remember driving around one night, you know, and I was just like, I'm gonna drive around to every 7-11 and just drink coffee. And I

drove around to every 7-11, you know, out by my house and I probably drank, you know, I'm still, you know, I still got an alcoholic mind. It's just not alcohol because it was only 19 at the time. So I could, I couldn't, you know, I couldn't go into 711 buy beer. So I couldn't buy a small coffee. I had to buy the large coffee, you know, so that I drove to like 87 elevens drinking like 820 oz cups of coffee, wondering why my hands were shaking and why, you know, why I couldn't sleep that night, you know, you know, the, it's, I think that's like an equal to an urn. I'm not exactly sure,

but, you know, so I wind up in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, at, at A, at some meetings, because at that, at that time, I was also in the rooms of Al Anon, you know, 'cause I, like I told you, my mom was in Al Anon. So

I thought my daddy's drinking was my problem. So if I went to Al Anon, I could, you know, I could work on myself. Like my mom worked on myself, he worked on herself and things would be OK, you know, But the problem was, you know, in between when I got sober and, you know, before, before I got sober, I went to an Allen on conference and I found myself nodding in agreement with the AA speaker. So I was like, you know, so even then, like that was another moment of clarity before I start training. I was like, why am I relating to an alcoholic? You know, I was like, you know, red flags along the way, but I never saw them, you know, so so I'm sitting in the rooms of AAI go to

first meeting, you know, close meeting and I'm like, I'm mad and I think I'm an alcoholic. And, you know, they let me ramble on for a little bit, you know, and then when when I was all done, the speaker just goes, Matt, if you think you're an alcoholic, you probably are one because normal people don't sit around and wonder if they're alcoholic. You know, so I was just I was kind of let down by that because I was kind of hoping he let me off the hook and like, you know, OK, after I had talked like, no, you're not alcoholic. But, you know, he, he, you know, he kind of like, you know, put the final, you know, final nail on my coffin.

You know, God started doing for me what I could not do for myself because my first sponsor, you know, I, you know, walked in the room that night after I shared and I knew he was going to be my sponsor. So, you know, it's the little miracle started to happen along the way. You know, unfortunately, part of my story was the first four months of my sobriety, I was hanging out with a crowd that was just simply don't drink. Go to meetings, you know, hang out at the diner, go to, you know, join the softball team.

You know, I remember sharing one night that, you know, I wanted, I want to do my 4th and 5th step and somebody telling me you're not sober enough to do a fourth and 5th step. You know, you know, you got, you don't have enough time, you know, So

those were the type of people that you know, that I was surrounded with. So, you know,

you know, I was, I was about 100 days sober. I moved back, I moved from New York down to North Carolina, Greensboro, NC to go back to college, you know, so I knew that I needed to plug into the fellowship down there. So I started going to meetings in Greensboro, NC, and I was about 100 days sober, you know, sitting in the rooms of a, a dying of untreated alcoholism and not knowing what my problem was, you know, but down there, if you've ever, if you, if you've never been down in North Carolina, my experiences, you know, especially the Greensboro Triad area,

they're big book country. You know, they, they talk straight out the book. They quote the book that everybody carries a book, you know, so there's like, so all of a sudden I see these people walking around carrying big books, walking in the room, sharing out the big book and carrying a big book message. And I was like, what are these people talking about? I mean, it's like I read the 1st 164 pages because somebody told me to read it and I read it like a book. And it was no surprise ending. There was no, you know, there was no, you know, there was no plot twist going on. You know, it was like some guy named Bill and some guy named Bob. And, you know, but other than that, I was just like, you know, so, you know, some guy named Fred.

You know, and I just, I just didn't get it because nobody ever explained to me that it was a basic text. It was a textbook, you know, something that was meant to be studied. It was something that meant to be applied. You know, the, you know, my second sponsor that I met down in, you know, North Carolina, you know, by name, man, by the name of Joe Jay. You know, I certainly hope he was able to meet, make the meeting tonight because I gave him the link. But, you know, when I met him, you know, he actually sat down with me and showed me the, you know, the cover, you know, he showed me the big book, you know, and then he opened it up to the

page. And, you know, he goes, look, he goes, this is Alcoholics Anonymous, the story of how many of thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism. He was the first person to show me that I could recover from this disease, that I was not always going to be sick from it, you know, that, you know, that I could get well. You know, he explained to me that that was the book that him and I would be reading together. You know, he said we'd be getting together once a week to do some reading and do some step work. You know, I'm, I'm, I don't know what night of the week I met him, but you know, the first weekend that I was with him because he goes, oh, and he goes, we'll go to it. He goes, we'll go to a rehab because,

you know, he goes, he goes, so you can meet some other people and we show up to the rehab and they're like, Joe, you speaking today. He goes, no, you need a speaker. He goes, yeah, he goes, this is Matt. He just moved here from New York. He's your speaker for today. You know, so he kind of like threw me right into service work too, you know, you know, working with others, you know, So, you know, I, I just remember sitting down with him and, you know, going for the book. And, you know, he did to me what he was supposed to do. He qualified me as an alcoholic. You know, he made sure that I had mental obsession. He made sure that I had physical craving. You know, he made sure that I knew exactly how screwed I was.

You know, he made sure that I understood that a A was the last house on the block for me, that if there was any way that I could stop drinking on my own, I probably had already tried it and it did not work. You know, he reminded me of such mean things like, you know, I came to A A, A A did not come to me. It's not like they knocked on my door and begged me for membership, you know, So, you know, just so just just the way that he lovingly crushed my ego because that's what I needed in order to get well, I needed, you know, I needed to be told in a loving, caring way that, you know, that I had a problem

and that a a was the only answer that he had to offer. You know, he said he was going to give me the 12 steps of recovery, you know, which is the only thing he had to offer because it was the only thing he had, you know, and the you know, I remember when he first gave me that talk. I remember saying to him that the you know, I know it works for you. I know it works for your sponsor. I said, but I really don't know if it's going to work for me, you know, any pointed out to me because Matt, because you haven't worked at 12 steps yet, Because why don't you work them and see if they don't work for you? He says before you have an opinion on it,

you know, so I agreed, I agreed to do that, you know, I agreed to work to 12 steps, you know, at that time, you know, the, you know, again, he also shoved me into service work, you know, at the, you know, there was a young people's conference that people were trying to build down there at the time. There's a there's a really young, really hardcore young people's movement at the time. You know, there's a bunch of us young people, you know who, you know, newly in sobriety. You know, we only had like a couple of years Max. But

you know, we all, we all had a common purpose we wanted to put on this convention,

you know, so we, we got into service work, you know, we got into going to different meetings and carrying a message. We got into, you know, grabbing other people's like, Hey, you just shared a meeting that you got nothing to do or you're bored in sobriety. Why don't you come help us, you know, and so around me grow the fellowship that I crave start, you know, started to grow up around me. You know, all I had to do was show up and be and, you know, to be a part of it, you know, so, you know, I was involved with that. I was going through the step work with Joe. And, you know, I remember the, I remember the first, first step, he says to me, because he's, well, it's your first fist.

So he goes, you get to take the location where we're gonna do it. He goes, I just wanna make sure that you're comfortable. And the only answer I could come up with, and I said, well, why don't we do it in my apartment? And he's like, OK, if that's what you feel comfortable. I was like, yeah, I was like, that's why I feel comfortable. Because in the back of my head was when I'm done with this, he can't throw me out because it's my apartment. And that's the only reason why I want to do it there. You know, 'cause I had this big fear of when I open myself up to another human being for the first time in my life, you know, I had this, I had this fear of rejection.

But when we went through that fifth step, all I found was a loving,

caring person who understood where I came from and was there just to help me, you know, see my defects of character, you know, to see the things within me that blocked me off from, you know, from God. You know,

when I, when that school year ended, you know, the I had got a call from my parents because my dad was like, I'm starting to think about retirement and what do you think my biggest expenditure was? And I was like out of state tuition. And he's like, yeah, it is. So he said, you know, he goes, so you're going to come home. He said, we'll send you to a local college. He said, but, you know, you're not going to go to school out of state anymore,

you know, so I was like, OK, I was like, so I get to go to college, but just not this college. He's like, yeah, I said, OK, I really can't argue with that. You know? So, so I had to move back from North Carolina and I came back to New York and I was I was trying to carry that big book message. You know, it's, you know, it's like, hey, guys, here's what's in the book, here's what it says. Look, we can be recovering stuff. And I was met with a lot of resistance, you know, from a lot of people you know and you know,

you know. Unfortunately, over time it could, you know,

rather than, you know, care more about, you know, God's will for me, which is to, you know, help others. I started to care more about, you know, fitting in and more, you know, so, you know, by that, you know, by the time I was done with college, you know, I met my, you know, soon to be wife, you know, so, you know, we'd started dating. So, you know, I had a fiance then, you know, that we were going to get, we got married. Then I got a house and, you know, I had, you know, I changed jobs into a better job. So I had all this stuff going for me in life, you know, so,

you know, so I was

kind of shifting away from, you know, giving everything to God and I wanted to take credit for it and I wanted to enjoy the life that I was being given, you know, and I slowly turned into a, you know, don't drink and go to meetings guy. You know, I was working with people, but I wasn't exactly taking them through the, you know, take taking them through the book. You know, I was kind of like, you know, cutting corners, you know, the and

you know the I'm not, I'm not, you know, I'm not proud of that period of my sobriety because you know, it was, it was, you know, the if I ever heard it, I forgot, you know, Dave told me the other day, you know, it's a driety, not sobriety. You know that I was, you know, he uses the expression I was so dry. I was a fire hazard. And, you know, I could definitely agree with that, You know, So, you know,

Needless to say that, you know, over time, you know, the, IT says in the book that I'm in the grips of a progressive illness.

It says nothing about it's only progressive when I'm drinking, you know, I know, I know today my alcoholism gets worse even when I'm not drinking, you know, so the spiritual malady was, you know, starting to come back, you know, the, you know, and it's like, I know today the spiritual malady, if left untreated, makes fertile ground for the mental obsession and mental obsession that I have no treatment for. You know, I can't use the broken mind, you know what, to be defensive against that first drink. You know, I, I, I, it has to come from a higher power, you know, so I'm probably in a lot more danger than I that, you know, that I

of, you know, and it was, it was around this time, you know, that, you know, I knew the answer was in the book. So I was just like, you know what I was like, whether I'm, you know, going to be liked or I'm not going to be like, there's none of my business, you know, it's what God wants me to do, you know, and, you know, helping others. So I went and bought a brand new big book because at the time I was walking around, you know, still my third edition big book, you know, because I got sober 96 and the 4th edition wasn't published the 2001. So I used to walk around my third edition to show just how sober I was. You know, it was you know, I would use it like a like a

of honor, you know, so but me, you know, so I went, I bought a brand new 4th edition big book. And I know that in the book I'm like, alright, I know there's beliefs I'm supposed to have. I know that the steps I'm supposed to take, you know, I know that there's an action that's supposed to be done. And most importantly, I know that this promises in this book. I don't know about up in Canada or any other parts of the United States where some of you folks are, but in meetings down here, they'll close meetings with reading the promises and they read the 9th step promises and it it, it, Yeah, they go the heroine on the back of my next

saying it, you know, it just drives me nuts. I'm like, you folks have no idea if you think that those 12 promises, the only ones in the book, you know, that this, this third step promises, there are ten step promises. They're just, there are promises where they just, you know, where they don't need to even need to be more promises, you know, So, you know, so I can't with this crazy highlighter scheme, you know, just, you know, because I wanted to do it, you know, perfect. Of course, you know, because an alcoholic can't ever, you know, settle for moderation, you know, so,

you know, so I highlighted this new book and where I said I was action to take. I took action and where it said there's a prayer. I got down on my knees and I said those prayers and is around this time where, you know, I went to a,

you know, I went to a big book, you know, convention and the, you know, Chris R was the was the speaker, you know, So I went up to him after the meeting because I knew he had, you know, he was friends with Dave. So I was like, I went after him after amino was like, hey, I was like, I was like, can you give me Dave Frederickson's phone number? I said, I'd like to reach out to him and talk with him, you know, so because Dave got sober 19, I got sober at 19, you know, so, you know, I knew the stuff that we'd have in common. So, you know, Chris goes, all right, I don't give away a phone number without taking one in return, He says. So he goes, he goes, I'll give you

based on them, but you got to give me yours. So I said, OK, sure, no problem. Like I'll ever hear from Chris Raymer, you know, it's like my phone level ring with him on the other end. But but hey, he asked for it. So I gave it to him, you know, so I reached out, you know, I reached out to Dave and you know, like, like you said, you know, that was, that was 2010. I, I, I literally stalked him, you know, the, at the time, you know, he was, he was working at it, he'd be working out of New York, you know, so I go visit him before, you know, before he had to go to work and you know, you know, I meet him at the airport, you know, and you know, we'd have like 45 minute chat or something. So,

you know, like I said, so I, it, it probably qualifies as stalking, but, but it was definitely, you know, good times. And the, you know, and I, you know, Fast forward a couple years, you know, I, my, my first kid was born. I'm like, you know what I'm like, my life is changing. So, so I decided to change sponsors. I asked Dave to sponsor me. And you know, if you ever asked Dave to work with you, Dave has a plethora of spiritual exercises to give you, you know, a yes from Dave. Never, never comes lightly, you know, so off I came on like a new spiritual journey with, you know, these things to do

and, you know, so I started doing these exercises, you know, and you know, and like, you know, no big surprise. You start doing spiritual exercise, you start getting spiritually fit, you start getting spiritually fit and you start carrying a message of depth and weight. You know, so I was going to meetings and I was sharing, you know, I, I'd open a, a Matt Cassidy and people like why he's got to share his last name and I'm a recovered alcoholic. Why does he say he's recovered? You know, I was like, you know, I, there was one cranky old timer who had four, you know, who had almost 40 years of sobriety, who used to introduce himself. I'm so and so