The 4th National Annual Drug Addicts Anonymous Conference in Jensen Beach, FL

All right, everyone, thank you for coming back. I really appreciated all the speakers that we had to start off this conference. I wanted to mention one more thing too that we like again, we kind of touched on the service structure, but we do have quarterly meetings every three months and and that service structure of DA is so important. So if you guys started DIA meeting or you're part of, please make sure you have AGSR, go to dausa.org and e-mail them and they'll give you the instructions to call into those quarterly meetings where we're formulating

out of what Matt said, how to best serve the newcomer. We're also forming an area in South Florida and there's also an area in North Florida you could see me or any of the committee members at anytime to, to, you know, learn more about how to get involved in those area meetings. So for our next speaker, we have someone all the way across the pond. Is that what they say

from from another country? DA actually again started in Sweden and England and it's it's really big in Europe and and then migrated over here to the United States. So with how Drug Addicts Anonymous is doing abroad and whatever else you would like to share, I'll give you Dan.

Yeah, yeah, my name is Dan. I'm OK. So thank you very much for inviting me to do this. It's a real pleasure. And I'm. I'm very excited. And I'm looking out at a room full of

delinquent, dishonest, perverted drug addicts so. So I feel really at home.

Yeah, yeah, we do recover this trip.

I could say so much. I'm going to try and keep this tight so, you know,

forgive me 5 sort of wander off on my little journey, but there you go.

So Drug Addicts Anonymous,

well I'm I'm really conscious of trying not to go against the traditions and express opinions on outside issues, but that doesn't mean that I can't share my experience, which is what I'm going to try and do. So what's my experience? My experience was that I woke up in a treatment centre on the 7th of November 2001. I haven't used since. And

you know,

you know, if you if you don't be to a treatment center, you don't have to go to one. And there's a funny joke about treatment centres, which is

this guy goes up to the sort of brutally old sponsor that he says, I just got out of a treatment center. And the grizzly old sponsor says, don't worry, you can still recover.

OK, That's probably expressing an opinion. I love tweeting. Say seriously, it saved my life. I was going to die, you know, like, is it Brian?

Matt No,

I'm Brian, Brian, my my friends are dead. OK. And I was just talking to I don't know who it is outside. I've forgotten your name. My memory, my memory from name is terrible. But I was telling this story. So I working with 3% and at 31 days clean, I something happened and I noticed 31 days between because the day before I had we called them key tags, key rings or chips. It was an orange one. You get an orange one when you're 30 days. I've never been 30 days I've gone to

before I've got an orange key ring and I was walking around the street center showing off because hey, hey, girls, I've got orange cube. I I'm I'm pretty much a counselor. Okay, so, and but a couple hours later it hit me like a fucking sorry, I swear a lot. I'm trying to get it coming. I don't know any direction, but anyway, it hit me like a ton of greats and I wanted to use and I really, you know, and I'm smart. And so I came up with this amazing plan that

drinks and it was hidden a little bag of heroin because somebody bought weirdly nothing to actually take heroin and drugs into treatment centers. I was shocked when I found that out. I was like, what, why would you do that? But when I got to the street, someone said, Oh yeah, how many how many times you been in treatment? I was like once and he was like, this is my 14th time.

What I found out later why that is anyway, I'm a I'm a one time only man into the treatment. There you go. God. I mean, that's like that's I want that to stay the case, right? I never want to go back in the treatment center. I never want to use drugs again ever. I mean, I love drugs, but I never ever, ever want to do it again. OK,

I'll get to that later. Anyway, so 31 days clean, it hits me like a ton of bricks. I want to use some gear and

I cannot get out of my mind, right? I cannot. I just I crack heroin though my drugs that I really like to just crack heroin, crack heroin is in my head, right. So I'm running around and literally I'm behind drain hypes. I'm down the laundry room. I've got bushes outside. I'm looking every under the beds. I'm just gonna be here. Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? And two hours later, I'm exhausted, right? And I walk out of the gate and I can see down the road there's a pub which hilariously we had nicknamed the Relapse Arms. And I can see this pub bar,

it's kind of surrounded by the glowing golden light, right? And it looks so good. And I'm just thinking, yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, here's the plan. Go to the pub. I'm gonna get a beer, a double Scotch, another beer, another double Scotch. I'm gonna go down to the. This wasn't where I live in London. This is down down the road about 200 miles away from Plymouth. There's probably a little bit like Florida in some ways. I guess you can start anyway. If like, if like London is LA or New York, then Plymouth is like Florida, if that makes any sense. Give you some idea of workout. Anyway, so I, I go down there,

I can find some homes, dude, he can, he can hit me up. I can then get a train back to London, go to the crack house and I can do the what I wanna do, right. That's my plan. It's brilliant. It's come on, you know? Anyway, so,

but a weird thing happened. 31 days came. I'd been to a few meetings, OK? Something had got into this impenetrable skull of mine, OK.

And this thought was running through my head and it was. I wanted, I hated being in treatment, by the way. I found it very boring and demeaning. Is very embarrassing. It was very shameful, you know, like, this is what happens when you can't use drugs, when you fuck up with one thing that you love more than anything else, right? But you prove to everybody and yourself that you're a loser and you're incapable of. You know what I mean? What's the worst day of your life?

Being driven to a treatment center by my mum and dad,

OK, hands down. Like I've had some really shitty things happening, People have died, I've had my heart broken, disease are terrible things. But that was

a hate being in there.

I want to leave, but I can see I'm going to go and do the things, put me in this place. So I'm going to leave go and do the thing that put me in here and I'm going to turn around and come back and I'm going please let me back in.

And they won't because you, you know, if you leave a tweet center and use drugs in the UK, you had to stay away for at least two months, right? So I don't want to go out there for two months. I don't want to go there for 2 minutes, but this thing is in my head. Something is happening now I can see what's about to happen. I in in my using that was never possible, right? The idea was in my head. I just did it right. Let's get some crap done done right. I didn't think, well, if I get some crank, then I'm going to

my bank balance. I'm gonna piss her off. I'm gonna lose my job. I'm gonna end up homeless. I'm gonna have no friends. That, that, that,

you know, I'm a real drug addict. The understanding of the knowledge of the consequences that are certain to happen are not available to me. OK. It's like if I could write down the list all the consequences that when I smoke cracker, do heroin. Here's a list. Yeah. Here's a list of all the. I lose all my money, I get arrested, I go to prison, she leaves me, you know, I get ill, you know, I overdose. Blah. That long, horrible list, you know,

right? But when I really need that list, I get that piece of paper. It's not that I've forgotten. It's blank,

right? If I can, if there was any vague idea that what I'm about to do is not too smart, I just go.

It's easy for me to push it aside, OK, But this time I'm like, OK, yeah, leave, leave, go, use, come back. That's bad. That's mad. That's insane.

I stood there and I thought, OK, I could go and talk to some of the other patients, the other drug addicts, but they can't help me. They're as crazy as I am. The counsellors, they can't help me.

Where am I going to go? I went upstairs to the toilet. I still remember what the line I looked like on the floor. I got on my knees and I prayed. Now, at that moment, I didn't believe in God,

but I was willing to give something else ago. And I prayed to a friend of mine who had recently died. OK, I was with him when he died. I buried him. His name is Sean. He would have loved recovery, but he didn't find it. He killed. The addiction killed him.

And I said all I said was, Sean, if you're up there, please help me. But if you're up there, please. It was I was a prayer of desperation. Now there was no,

That sounded quite good.

Flash of light. There's none of that. Well, I, I went downstairs. I rolled a cigarette, had some shitty coffee and sat down. And suddenly we took the piss and was kind of like, who's the New Girl in the treatment center? What's her name? Right. OK, that's all that happened, right? But the, the thing that had happened is that I've been restored to sanity. Something had been removed

from me. OK, now this might sound a bit controversial, some of you, but basically when I started my journey by properly seriously spiritually start my journey, God is a dead drug addict, OK, that's how I needed it to be for me. Okay, it changed. You know, what I would say about God now is possibly even more controversial that in some ways, you know, I recently did a a sort of a ten week course with somebody who helps you sort of clear stuff and not the steps of something else. But it was really, you know, recommended by a friend of mine who

to bounce over a long time. And anyway, but you know, so I've, you know, I, I've, I've sort of looked at different things of what God can be as God as I understood him or it her, whatever, right. So it it's changed from, you know, that, you know, dead drug addict to where I am today.

Why am I telling that story? I think it's important. It's important for me and you know, I've I've, I like what I said earlier in my Home group. We know who the newcomer is. Ohh. I there's people come and share in my Home group. Sometimes they they said, oh, if there any newcomers in the room. What do you mean? Yes, What do we put you wanna take your job properly? If you have to say if I know I'm in my home goods tonight, Friday night, right, I'm not there. They are there. They're gonna do a seriously good job of carrying a message. We've been doing that

on the 27th of September. We are the our group celebrates its 10th anniversary and we've been doing that every Friday night for 10 years. We don't do anything else, right? We get there early, right? So we're there an hour before. So we have some fellowship and we have some fun. We have a meeting that lasts one hour, right? And then we when that finishes, we go and have food. And if you're new, we are buying you dinner, right? We're giving you money for the bus home, right? If you whatever you need, you need 10 lbs to get some electric for the meter or whatever you need, then that's yours, OK. And if you

smoke some crack with it, that's up to you. Next week, you come along and you smoke crack with it. You probably not gonna get 10 lbs, but whatever, you know, you'll get together, you're gonna get some help. I'm not idiots. Jesus Christ.

So that's that's how we go. OK. And if you don't believe me, you can ask Zach because he's been there. He shared that he knows what it's like and he recognises what a dear his his version of a Daam. And our version is the same thing, right? It's very big, different format. Something can do a big book study some people who do this, whatever, whatever, whatever. But in my Home group, we, you know, somebody shares their experience for 1520 minutes and then the Home group members all piling right. And so if you're new or if you're sort of like, oh, you beat them, maybe

maybe you guys 13 years clean and he's crazy, couldn't work the steps is completely insane, but you are left with no mistake about what the problem is. So we spell out, we make very clear, right, mental obsession, physical compulsion, and that when we don't use, we don't get better, right? We this other thing starts kicking out of the spiritual malady. So we let we lay that out and then we lay out what the solution is. We get a sponsor and we work through the 12 steps. OK, We don't take long to do that.

And I'm a fan of each case of its own merits. I was talking to somebody, you know, we've got a guy in our homework at the moment and he was using Valium for 30 years in I30 years. Can you imagine what that man's detox is like? He can't string a thought together. So we've had to take it really careful really slowly with him. Other guys coming in there like, yeah, quite two weeks, they're done right, and they're out there sponsoring. So each case on its own merits, you know, we whatever.

So we essentially what happened is that I joined,

I joined what, the middle of the road bog standard meeting it, it wasn't in Drug Addicts Anonymous because there are no box down in the middle of the road meetings in Drug addicts Anonymous, just to be clear about that, OK. And if there are, then we should visit them and help them. But I was, there was another fellowship, a big druggie fellowship and and I it was monkey see, monkey do. I was just doing what everyone else was doing, right.

And there's this other group and, and I'd heard about this other group and, and, and people are Nazis. You don't wanna. No, no, no, no, don't go there. And so I went along and I was like, yeah, and they, these are terrible people. That's like hanging at the table. And they're sort of suggesting that I get a sponsor and then I don't hang about anywhere.

I've got to 18 months clean and I wanted to commit suicide. OK, I was suffering from this tremendous depression. It wasn't really depression, let it be fair. It was more self-made misery, OK, It was just self pity. Self pity. Self pity. Self pity is disgusting. It's

and I went up to this guy, this Nazi dude and Taliban, whatever, you know, he was like fundamentalist, you know, he really believed what he was saying and he was armed with the big book and I said

and the next day I was in his house and actually the big work and Bang Bang, bang. Long story short, I joined his group and

it was very it was a very important group and and from that Drug Addicts Anonymous group in the UK

because after about 2 1/2, maybe three years, we got to the end of the road with what we were doing. We, you know, we were in this. Let's not pick bones about me. It's already been done. We're in Narcox anonymous. We're using big book, not in the meeting because you can't do that. OK, It's you. They have their own literature from that stuff to them. Fantastic. As mentioned, Jimmy K, whatever. But you know, in terms of like, you know, someone comes up to me and asked for sponsorship, right. Come out of my House outcomes a big book.

This is how we're gonna work through the steps. Nothing wrong with that at all. OK, As was clearly said, that's how that fellowship started anyway. But we weren't, you know, you're not allowed to sort of put your big book on the table in one of those meetings. You're not allowed to talk about the blah, blah history or whatever. And, you know, we have to accept that the, the, the our critics were right. And so we looked around at some alternatives.

Didn't wasn't

really fan of fellowships that are named after a specific drug and then we heard about this thing in Sweden drug addicts anonymous and wow man that makes sense because I'm a drug addict right now. Am I an alcoholic?

Don't know. Don't really care. I'm a drug addict. You know, Alcohol comes in big bottles and heroin comes in tiny little packets and it's fun to use. I love doing it. You know, Crack. Amazing.

Like, but yeah, before I got into those drugs, I was drinking myself stupid. But you know, heroin for me, just that part alcohol permanently and

but I know Madam. So I've used with people who when the heroine was late, they would go down to the off licence and they would give themselves 6 cans of Superstore and I'd love them to. How do you do that? I can't do that. Anyway, My, my point being,

there's something really attractive about the same Drug Addicts Anonymous.

And we got in touch with the guys in Sweden and it just sort of happened. We sort of had a good conscience. We, we, we got about $1000 in our bank account, which we then gave back to NA because it's, that was given to us through the guys of my colleagues and honest tradition 7. So we then had to sort of start again. And we sort of on our first meeting, we said to the hungry buddies, you know, look, we need a food and preserve. We need this money. At the end of the week we carried up we have 1000 lbs again $1000 again right

amazing here. That's your money. That's not ours. There you go. We need some money to pay the rent and get some literature and doors and there's it was incredible. Anyway, so we started Drug Alex Anonymous and

so to give you guys some information, to give you a better history, to give you a bit of DAA from abroad. That's funny. From as far as we're concerned, you are from abroad.

OK,

I love you so much. I cried actually earlier I had a little tear going with that passion there. So anyway,

we invited this guy over, called joking and he was one of the founding members of Drug Addicts Anonymous full stop. As you know, in Sweden, he's, I don't know how long he's been 203035 whatever, but he start, him and his mates started Drug Addicts Anonymous in Sweden and we invite them over and he's come back to the stage and starts talking at speed this year,

big guy cats. And

he starts sharing about why he started drugging synonymous. And it was exactly the same thinking as why we joined. It was exactly the same. And basically the saying was, look, when you when you get your big book right, when you read it, right, and you work through the steps with somebody who's armed with the facts about themselves, but who's the real deal, right? Who was also sponsored by something, sponsored by somebody and sponsored by something. You very quickly get back to either Bill or Bob, right?

You can go through Clancy or you go through the whoever, whatever, whatever. But you know the the road is not that long. You know, the links are it's only a few links, right? So,

and when you do that, you get taken through the work quickly, right? You get given solid, good, clear, simple guidance. No Fanny about no kind of like spins or interpretations. It's just down the line. It's a very simple program. And some people will debate how you do a step forward, which to be fair, there's a little bit of, you know, whatever movement there, I think. But honestly, like my my sponsors, me, I don't care how you do you step forward, just do it right. And I just did it. You know 4 columns you know got.

Country together. It didn't take long. It wasn't this, I think wasn't the entire like white pages Bible, kind of like 500 resentments. It was pretty straightforward, pretty simple. Anyway, so he's sharing about this and he's telling us this story. And basically what he said is dragon is anonymous is a a drug addicts. It's that simple, right? But not a, a, a, a, the real a, a, right.

And what the real a is the book Alcoholics Anonymous. OK. And what, when you read that, you know, it doesn't matter any of the stories you read in, in the 1st 164 pages, you know, these guys are like they're fucked, right? And they, they, they, they look because it's the 1930s or whatever, it's America. They didn't really use that kind of language. You know, they sort of boils now. I don't know about boiled out, but I was fucked,

right? OK,

but, but, you know, actually when you sort of like has been suggesting to do a little bit of research, I love the story about, yeah, when I first read the impression of like Doctor Bob, right? And he's this doctor, he's an arse doctor, but whatever, still a doctor. So he's this doctor and you know, he comes comes across he's using all this weird sort of 1930s kind of slick language. Oh, God damn pigeons, God damn that, whatever. And he kind of get the impression that he's this homey kind of guy, whatever. And so there's

that they they go down to the local lake and it's a hot day and they, you know, they're swimming. And Doctor Bob takes his shot. He's covered in tattoos. And then I. Wow, Bob, where do you get all those tattoos? He's like, I don't know. He gets so drunk that he just sort of like, just, yeah, do that any way you want, Right. OK. So these guys, I think we build story.

If you just read between the lines a little bit, it's pretty clear, man,

this guy is absolutely insane, right? You know, there's a great story, I think got taken out the book or it changed his title. But doctor alcoholic addict, right? Then this guy, he's a lunatic, right? He's writing his own prescriptions for something called pethedine, which is very, very strong opiate, right. And he parks the car in the garage, right? And he's he's banging up some pet the dead, right. And if he if he bangs up too little when he gets upstairs to bed, it's not really having the effect he needs to go down and do.

If he burns up too much, he can't get to the top of stairs. He just right, okay, that's really serious. So these were hardcore. They were they, they, they were really, these guys were lunatics. But when you read the stories, they're ending up in a hospital. They're getting detox. A couple of days later, the fog has cleared a bit. A couple of lunatics turn up, hide their clothes, start grinning at them and start talking about what it's like to, in our case, use drugs. They don't sort of go there.

God will save your life. They don't do that because they know better. They know what to do. They talk about using drugs, right. When I sit down with some 12 step, some crackhead, I'm not gonna say there's a spiritual program that's gonna say no. I say yeah, I know what it's like. I know exactly what I know what it's like. You need fucking going. You get a 20, you do it. You get another one. You get and you what it's like to spec your mum's carpet. I don't know if you know what that's

The thing is, but my mum had the cleanest carpet in London, man. Every night I would go through it with a fine tooth coat. I'll be there for hours, right? To walk up in the morning, I walk home, right? I used to go smoke crack at this guy's place, right?

And I would end up and I would have like my loose change, right? Like I've all the papers gone, that's gone hours ago, right, The loose change, right, which is probably, you know, like this. So I'm not looking to go now. This news change was gonna give me the bus home and a packet of cigarettes, right?

And I'm not OK. And I push it across the table and I say see those little specks there kind of both. And we argue for about 10 minutes about how much how many of these little you can see them just about right. And you know, it's that really disappointing kite that you could go gone right

now. That means I've got a four mile walk home, I've got no cigarettes. And on my way home, I do this.

It takes hours to talk 4 miles if you are looking at every little piece of paper and every little shiny. I mean, that's heartbreaking. And I was doing that every single night, right?

So

when when joking was speaking about this, he made it exceptionally clear, right, that what he and his fellows saw as an opportunity with Drug Addicts Anonymous was carrying the message as outlined in the big book. How you do that? I don't know what your name is, but how would you share? It's going to be your language of the heart. Like it's not. You're going to try and sound like anybody else. You're not going to tell anyone else's story. You're going to tell your story, right? Like that's what I do. That's my story. We can identify, which is very, very important. But you know, and I've been around a little while,

lots of weed addicts, Special K addicts, whatever, cocaine, whatever, right? Although I must say, I don't actually have much luck with the real alcoholic. I don't, I don't, I don't know why, but real Alcoholics like who just, I mean, alcohol is an amazing drug. It's the one stock truck. You don't need another drug on top of it. If you're smoking crack, you need another drug on top of it, right? I mean, pretty much OK. And heroin is really boring if you don't have cocaine or speed or crack. I'm just saying, right? If you didn't,

you didn't. If you didn't know that,

then I don't know what you've been doing OK,

one of my sponsor, his thing was weed, right, like the Super strength scum, right? That's another one of those drugs. You know it's a one stop. It does everything right. Okay, so I'm probably expressing way too many opinions of what I hear, but so I am a drug addict in drug addicts anonymous, right, Alcoholism drug Ketman is a drug. Apple nitrate is a drug. I don't know if you ever tried that one. I did that in America. It's weird. OK, so this thing about physical,

the physical,

the physical craving, all right.

My sponsor introduced me to a Doctor Who has done a lot of research. It's also a drug addict

that Medical Sciences basically caught up with the astonishing

announcement that the book Alcoholics Anonymous made when they sort of talk about, we believe this is the this is a physical deal, right? But there's no evidence other than what you can see. It's funny because when you look, I, I've been around long enough to, to, to have heard the stories about. Yeah, it's in the blood. No, it's the bones. No, it's the liver. And there was a PhD thesis that came around in the 70s that spoke about the reaction of alcohol in the body that caused this physical problem.

None of that's true. Okay. Medical science can now pretty much with certainty pinpoint whereabouts in the brains physical. What happens is physical reaction that influences the mind through dopamine. And anyway, I so I had this experience. I was I was driving a band around the United States and couldn't get any drugs.

I was in

Memphis or Houston, I think somewhere in the South. And so these, these girls, these girls turned up. We're in a fan. I don't know, It's like it was 20 years ago. Anyway, critics, man, where they come from. Anyway, so we're band rehearsing. These fans of the band tell these two girls to say, hey, y'all. Well, God damn. Love you, man. We're going to come to see you tonight. Can we bring anything for you? And the drummer for a joke, says the Scotsman. Yeah. Why do you play this

93 These two plucky young girls turn up with a bottle of Hamil nitrate and I I'm like, oh man, that drug is shit. I don't know what the why do you answer some cocaine or something? This is like, we've just got this anyway, so we drive a little bit. That's right. That's it. We are in Memphis now We drive a Mississippi. We've got a Mississippi. That's right. Go to Mississippi and there's I couldn't get any drugs. There's no drugs and

someone takes finds the bottle in the glove compartment. They start passing it around the van and I'm like, oh man,

that's not a drug and I'm not cracking. Heroin addict. What the fuck? Anyways, bottle comes to me and I just go. Momentarily. I get a sense of ease and comfort. Momentarily. All it wears off real quick. What happens next is I steal the ball, run out of the woods and I do the lot. When it's when it's finished, when it's finished, when it's finished, I cry,

right?

I'm, I'm sitting there now. This is the summer of 1999. This is 20 years ago. I'm sitting there going what? Why do I do that?

I get clean, I get a sponsor, I work through the steps and I start my year in the light of this new knowledge. And I can see that that's the physical craving. All right. I don't have a mental obsession with that particular chemicals. I'm not really interested in it. I as I said, there's a couple of firm favours, but you know, you go back to the mid 80s, nice smoking hash like you wouldn't believe. You know, the early 90s, I was living in Germany. I was drinking myself. Stupid, right? You know, I'm I'm a drug addict.

So this guy joking is laying out his vision.

This is what they saw. And we're sitting there going, wow, man, that's exactly our experience, OK. And we then see people in Germany, Denmark and a few other countries. Lithuania, Oh my God, they're crazy in Lithuania, they're amazing. When I get back, we've got a UK convention at the end of October. They're coming over and they're just absolutely fantastic as you could be Russia.

So it's growing. It's it depends, you know, are we looking you guys in America? It's like the, not The Pioneers, but the spearhead in a way, because you know, like somebody said,

there's like 100 groups here. It's like growing up wildfire. I speak to my spot every week and he's like, yeah, another God damn. Another meeting started. But I think we're reaching a challenging time. OK, Because essentially what happens is this, okay, You come in, I don't know how long, 70 days a month, two months, three months, six months, nine months. Yeah, yeah, I think like 40 something days, 40 something days, 40 something days, right? OK, 40 something days. So you get a sponsor,

you get lit up by the 12 steps, boom. And you're you've joined a group. They give you like you're gonna make making the tea. Are you gonna be cleaning up the cigarette butts? And then, you know, you become the secretary of the GSR and you're like, you're doing 3 meetings when you're sponsoring a small army is fucking great. Your life takes off, right? It's amazing. That's what's gonna get excited, dude, because your life is gonna fucking take off if you do this properly. I guarantee it. I've never ever seen that not happen, right? But then what happens? Oh, man, I've met this girl. She's got pregnant. I got a job, got a new truck.

Bye. Happens again and again and again. It didn't happen to me because, I don't know, maybe I'm just weird, but I fucking love being here, right? I'm quite good at doing this, as you can tell. Cheers.

But but but you know there's not there's some humility going on here. I know that maybe what yes, you know I am good at this because I need to be right. My life depends upon being effective and being of maximum service to God and others isn't some sort of part time deal. This isn't a bit maybe I'll be a little bit useful. I don't know about you with God that I believe is all powerful,

right? They're not. If it's all powerful, there are no limits. It's infinite, right? It's been there forever. I mean, come on. Right. Like this isn't this isn't it started a little thing, but it grew anyway. So service, this comes down to I do service because I have a massive debt to pay this fellowship. OK,

right. A massive debt, I'll never pay it, but I can do my best. And that means that I'm going to come out to Florida and share for you when I get home and I get home on Tuesday,

maybe go to meet on Tuesday, I'm not sure, but definitely Wednesday I'm going to go to a meeting. I'm going to go to my home on Friday. I only calling my sponsor. I'm going to be hooking up with all my sponsors. We're going to be sort of like how you doing? How was it? You know, you didn't have me to call for 10 days and did you relapse, got crazy? Did you fuck the girl from next door? What's going on? Whatever. But you know what I mean, Like we could do, I mean, you know, we can do a lot in 5 minutes. We can do a lot in 10 days, you know, but but I'm sure, I'm sure they'll be good. I'm sure,

yeah. I just help them get connected to God. You know, they're not connected to me. They I help them stay accountable

of but so,

but so the good news is that we are kicking ass and taking names. The bad news is that this is not an easy deal to sustain because of what I've said. People come, their lives take off and they go, OK. And then what happens is they lose the truck, they lose the girl, they lose the job, they lose the teeth, they come back and go, Oh my God, you're right. This, you know, I'm convinced now. And it, it, it's it,

you know, I don't, I don't really know how to instill into people who absolute certainty that you must stay, you must do this. All I can do is say this is what I do, OK, I, I can, I can share a couple of things with you. Good habits early, Okay. Is anybody here between 7 / 7 years of clean? Between 7 and 10 years Anybody?

OK, right. So I'm 17 1/2 years. Great. OK, so

between 7 and 10 years, statistically, that is when you're most likely to read. Once you've got a year under your belt, that's the danger period between 7 and 10 years. Because what happens to you is you. Every meeting you go to, you've heard pretty much everything everyone is going to say. You've read the big book countless times. You've read this, that you've worked steps, you've good. It gets a bit dull. You know, you sit in your chin,

that story again, everyone's laughing, but I'm not because I've heard it 10 times. You know, life gets really exciting. The new job is paying you more money, new partner, new this, the outside world is really attractive. It's great. And and I was warned about this and it happened to me. You know, I lost my job, I lost my sponsor and I bought my first apartment all in the space of three months when I was 10 years. And I'm suddenly like, my world is like, whoa, where did my sponsor go? Like what happened, right?

You know, I lost my my career, you know, I got sacked.

Ouch. I've got to get a new job, which I hate. I've just bought an apartment, which is now I'm like, I got a serious commitment, which is like freaking me out like what the fuck? And I'm sitting in my Home group and

I'm dragging it into the world. Please make this show

right. And I'm sitting in the chair. I don't know how much one of these chairs cost.

What do you think, $100 for one of those chairs sound reasonable? If you were to buy one of these chairs, something like that, $50, five dollars. OK, Mine cost $250,000, right? OK, but something like that. That's probably the amount of money I spent on drugs in my 20 year career, something like that, right? And I'm sitting on this chair and I'm thinking, don't fucking I want to get, I want to leave.

Don't you do it? Don't you do it? And I got through it. I got a new sponsor. I worked through the steps I need. I give re up to my spiritual experience

right, but I have seen a lot of guys just you know, this corrosive thinking really kicks in and we have lost one two real seriously good members as a result. Some of them have come back, some of them not. But it you know, this is what was said to me that I was warned and I paid heed and I believe I managed to pay heed to that morning because I got into good habits early. You know the idea that I'm going to stop praying in the morning and praying at night. I was shown it's like, you know, it's a weird thing. You don't none showed me how to pray. If you say don't,

you wouldn't know how to do it. It's a weird thing and I but I pray every morning for every night and I've learned how to apply this program in my life, right. I had some resentments and sticky stuff that I needed to get good with, but it didn't take long, right? And

but this idea of service,

if we aren't doing service, this will fall apart. And when you look at the history of Alcoholics Anonymous, they get to the sort of early 40s, it starts to fall apart, right due to like leaving, going crazy, arguing, falling out, whatever, whatever, whatever. They don't have the traditions at this point. Bills trying to definitely sort things out. And it's becoming, you know, the way you look at, I think our growth of Drug Addicts Anonymous very much mirrors the growth of the early days in

holy synonyms. I think that's pretty. So it's safe to say that and slow growth. Turns out there's a great book by William White, Chasing the Dragon, which is a history of recovery and an addiction in North America, that it's worth reading. It's, I mean, it's fascinating, but one of the conclusions of the back and one of them is that that any sort of like society or group has been based around recovery. The only one to outlive its founding fathers

whose Alcoholics Anonymous. And of course that's they can be true and Alcoholics Anonymous Anonymous and laughs as well,

hopefully. And the, the, the, the, the essential paradigm, if you like within that is slow growth is good growth, right? If we grow too quickly, we'll, we'll, it'll collapse. But so we good, good news. We're doing good. But I just I've got you know, I've spoke, I speak to my sponsor about this a lot. We need to get some stuff organized. I think we're going to need One of the reasons why I'm here is to talk to some of the old grizzly bastards

about setting up World Service of some kind. Simple, effective. I think we need a World Service website.

We want to do a world convention. We did it in London in 2017. It was amazing. It was absolutely incredible. Such a great time. We got Chris Raymer over and we had, it was just fantastic, right? We we lit the stage right. It was just boom.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. OK. And So what we want to do is we want to do another world convention, but this time we're going to do it in the land of the brave, right? That's you guys. And I don't know where that's, but you've got to we'll help you because we've got the experience. We're pretty good. We're pretty tight. We've got some pretty smart dudes who know we'll you know, we will help. We'll sort of like get help you get the agenda and all this. But you also know what you're doing as well. But we want to do that in I think 2022 is possibly going to be 25 years after DAA started. So that's, that's what

we want to get like thing together because we, we have seen is that where groups are sort of isolated, they struggle, right. And what especially look at United States is such a massive land area. You've got this little group over here, this little group over here, this little group over here. They need to somehow get connected together. And that's something that I think that we the, the, the World Service will be able to help with all that. This is really great to hear that areas are starting to perform. We, we,