The New Horizon group in Bend, OR

All right, the format of this meeting is as follows. Our speaker was shared with us until 12:30, what they were like, what happened, and what they're like now. During this time, please stay on mute. The speaker will then choose a topic from the 1st 164 pages of the Big book, and when the speaker's done sharing and reading, I will be calling names for sharing. If you unmute your phone to thank the speaker or to share, Please remember to mute yourself again promptly. Please allow me to introduce

our guest speaker is Jacob S from the West Portland Group. Thanks for joining us today, Jacob.

Thank you, Pete, and thank you New Horizons for inviting me to share on this Saturday.

I am an alcoholic. My name is Jacob and my sobriety date is June 6th, 2019. My Home group is W Portland Group. I have a sponsor. I'm currently working the steps. I'm doing my maintenance steps 1011 and 12, and I'm very happy to be here. So I'll start by reading a little something from the book,

and I was told that I could start from the title page all the way to page 164. So I actually chose the title page itself.

On the title page, it says Alcoholics Anonymous. Underneath it says the story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism. That's what it says in my book, the 4th edition. This recovery from alcoholism seems to be very controversial in a A,

but I will talk about recovery from alcoholism in my story and I want to stay that I do not represent Alcoholics Anonymous. What I say is one alcoholic

my story. So this is this is what it is. So we'll start. I started drinking when I was pretty young, you know, like a lot of us here. To me it was very normal and to me normal look like me being able to drink about nine tall boys of Keystone Light

while my friends in the forest that we went out to drink at could only handle about 3. And I thought man, I must not have a problem with alcohol because I seem to sit fine with it while other people seem to have a problem with it because they get completely stumbling over themselves drunk. And I continue to seek this out because I didn't experience a white light experience right at first. I didn't have this

epiphany that many people talk about

where as soon as alcohol hit their lips then they're relieved of this insanity. I felt very good when I had alcohol, but I didn't actually experience what alcohol could do for me until I continue to seek it out and continue to drink into my adult life.

I, you know, moved out 18, went to go find a place where I could drink without being restricted from being having access to alcohol.

So I moved to Southeast Asia. I lived in Vietnam for several years where they didn't have an age limit to when I could buy alcohol. The ages between 18 and 21 are so difficult if you're not good at making friends that are over 21. And I was very I, I wasn't going to let that stop me from being able to drink the way that I wanted to. When I ended up in Vietnam,

then I didn't have a job. I had $500 in my pocket

and I figured I would just make it work. And it turns out $500 can get you going, you know, pretty long, $500 US in in Southeast Asia. And I eventually found a job and started drinking the way that I wanted to. It turned out that that geographical didn't actually get me away from the same kinds of behaviors I had already started to form back in the States. Because what had happened is that

once I started to drink, I couldn't seem to stop drinking.

I thought this was just living as an adult, living as a regular person, trying to act as I am normal amongst others. And what I didn't realize is that the inner thoughts that I had my entire life, that feeling that I missed the memo for how to live life, I missed the instructions. I felt like an outsider. And I used that as an identity for myself, that I'm just an outsider. This is the way that I'm going to drink.

You see, I didn't wait for you to give me the permission to drink the way that I wanted to. I didn't need other people to tell me that I could have, you know, 3 drinks here and three drinks there, or you have two beers and then you stop at the bar. I immediately took the privilege for myself to drink the way that I wanted to. And I I realized I was kind of embarrassing for other people, not for me, because I wasn't embarrassed by my drinking.

I

it was embarrassing because for other people, because they saw that I just kept going.

I I came back to Portland after some time. I've been I'm from Portland. From the name of my Home group, you can probably deduce that, but I just

continue to live my life the way that I thought that I should be living it, which to me was, you know, we talk about this idea of white knuckling and I felt like I had been white knuckling my life while I was drinking, trying to hold on to all of the components.

It wasn't until I got desperate enough after years of doing this, after years of trying to hold it together, that I eventually gave Alcoholics Anonymous a, a shot and I walked into to these rooms

and I want to spend more time on that today. Of course, there's many details that I can talk about for hours about what my drinking was like and the, the, you know, similarities that we have because I'm sure we have many every single person in this room if you're a real alcoholic like I am. But it was by walking through this book that I have right here, which is the Big book of Alcoholics Anonymous with a sponsor, that I actually

came to learn more about my alcoholism and experience that in my life.

Because knowing it, I can memorize this entire book and not know anything about alcoholism. You know book smart doesn't mean being able to apply that

in the forward to the 1st edition it says we have. Alcoholics Anonymous are more than 100 men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. To show other Alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book.

Now it talks a lot about suggestions in this book. It talks about how the steps are suggested. It talks about how this program of recovery we are. We have a list of these suggestions. My sponsor said this.

He said, yeah, we have suggestions, but it's like a suggestion that if I throw you a life raft, it suggested that you grab ahold of it. I would drown if I don't take a hold of this life raft, which are the precise guidelines for me to be able to live my life now. I was so desperate when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous. I came in homeless, not having any money like many times in my life, figured I could make it on my own. Had the thinking that

I know that I have a problem with alcohol. I'm pretty sure I'm alcoholic and I don't even know if there's a solution here, but I'm willing to give anything a shot. And this is kind of my last resort because I had tried everything up until coming into Alcoholics Anonymous and I couldn't find anything that worked for me that that stopped me from my insanity and my obsession with alcohol.

So

quickly I started going to

meetings. I found a sponsor, which wasn't a complicated process. I looked in a group of guys that was in men group, men's group. And I said there was a, there was a person that walked up to me after the meeting and like a good alcoholic, he said, hey, how are you doing? Do you have a sponsor? And I turned to the other guy next to me and I said, yeah, this guy's my sponsor. I did not know that guy. I did not know anything about him.

I just felt awkward by this other interaction happening. And for me, any interaction that had to do with human beings was too much for me to deal with. That's why I drink. Anytime I had any social interaction with somebody, I had to have a beer before you could talk to me because I was just full of anxiety. I was full of fear. And for the first time in my life, I was faced with my my emotions

when people walked around. You know, I went to a big book study in my first week of recovery,

going to Alcoholics Anonymous, I should say, and they're reading out of the stories in the back. And they read some of the stories in the back and they got to my share. They said, hey, do you want to share on the story? And I went, you know what?

I don't even like that story. It's not even well written. It's a horrible story. And you know what I'm dealing with today? I'm dealing with having to feel my emotions for the first time in my life and I am pissed off.

Honestly, I don't want to read these stories. I want to hear somebody sit down with me that my sponsor did. Afterwards, after that meeting, he sat down with me and he said this is my story. And when he sat down with me and I could relate it to him and he started to tell the, the things I felt, the experience that I had, all of the different pieces, all the little components that I thought nobody ever

could even imagine that that was my that was what was in my head.

Those are my secrets. Those were the things I had been keeping inside for years and years and years. And I couldn't find anybody to talk to you about it. I tried, I tried to talk to people about it, especially after that bottle of whiskey at the end of the night when I'm getting emotional and I start talking about my mom or something and how traumatizing it was growing up in the house full of, of Alcoholics. You know, I wanted anyone to hear my story.

What my sponsor said to me is like,

there is a solution

to everything that has gone on with all of that wild thinking, all of the things that you've been blaming other people for.

We're here to take the steps into that, that recovery.

And I believed him. I need to look at someone in the eye. It wasn't going to be that story in the back of the book. I needed someone to look at me in the eye and for me to see that they were not biessing me because I'm a I'm a professional BSE.

I can see when somebody is lying to me because I have lied to people chronically my entire life. And I had 10 different personalities for whoever you wanted at that moment.

Now I get to be fully me in any room that I go into, and that is very powerful for me to experience. I don't always like the actions that I make in my life. I'm not always proud of them, but Alcoholics Anonymous has shown me that I don't have to go run to alcohol now

just because I make a bad life choice. I get to look at that bad life choice in the eye and say, what do you want to do with me, Higher power? What do you want to do with me? Show me how to live. I learn how to live through these rooms. I work the steps with my sponsor. He brought me through the steps twice, once through the Big Book and once through the 12:00 and 12:00.

He's a Big Book sponsor, so the 12 and 12 piece was he more used the 12:00 and 12:00 to show me where it came from in the Big Book

and like, so that was an interesting way to go through it. And I really appreciate that because what it comes down to is real alcoholism. And I don't mean that,

you know, we talk about, you know, I'm a real alcoholic. I say I'm a real alcoholic. What does that mean? It means that when alcohol is in front of me, I don't need to drink it to be insane. I can just obsess about this particular thing so much,

the obsession of the mind and the phenomena of craving. When I take that drink, I cannot stop.

I think about the second drink when I'm taking the first drink, I think about the 5th drink. When I'm taking the second drink, I constantly am trying to get more. And for me, I did not understand that that was not what normal people do. Normal people drink to relax. They don't drink to be relieved of this insanity, and

it was amazing for me to learn that there was something else

that could be replaced that could bring me to sanity. So my sponsor pointed me to step one and Step 2.

Step one, Admittedly, we were powerless. You know, obviously I was there. I was completely powerless, ready to admit it. Yes, I'm desperate. I have nothing. I have nothing in my life. I have nothing to to have. Yes, of course I'm powerless. I can't manage my own life,

So what does sanity look like in in today? Sanity

looks like exactly that. Turning it over to my higher power and saying

I don't know how to do this because sanity is the constant stream of me being in, not Jacob's,

me not leading the situation.

Where did I get myself? And I think that if any alcoholic, if you're real alcoholic and you ask yourself this, where do my decisions get me? Well, they get me

in prison from being violent, from being angry. They get me into pretty messed up situations, countless ways of fear, selfishness, and

just discontent.

For me, I don't have to live like that today because the steps are right here. And if you haven't worked the steps, it was pointed out to me, I'm going to read one little thing

then it's very simple. It's like a two step process really.

Burn the idea is on page 98. Burn the idea into the consciousness of every man that he can get well regardless of anyone. The only condition is that he trusts God. Trust in God and clean house.

I like the Before the meeting, we were talking about vacuum cleaners and cleaning, cleaning houses.

Cleaning the house can be pretty massive. It was massive for me when I came into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous because my house had been getting messy for my entire life and I had never stopped to think that maybe I should pick up some of these things. And so when I got to do the steps the first time through, I wanted to do a thorough cleaning.

And for me, that was everything that I could possibly pick up, everything that I could possibly do.

I don't need to keep repeating the steps over and over again. When I do a thorough cleaning the first time through

recovered from alcoholism, recovery from alcoholism, and then the continuing process of me keeping that house clean, that is what recovery looks like. The continued humbling of myself every day and turning it over to a power greater than myself. That has been quite difficult for me when my life has gotten a lot bigger

from being a homeless person, coming into a, you know, desperate and clinging on to anything and anyone that would talk to me and be my friend. Now I have a relationship, a home, a child. I have things in my life that I never imagined and my life has gotten much bigger. I have more responsibilities than I have ever had in my life.

And for me, I'm I'm not the one that's handling it each day. If I'm the one handling it each day,

I turn, I turn it into a mess again very quickly. I let God handle that.

That doesn't mean that I just sit there and I say, and this is what's been shown to me through the examples of other people and Alcoholics Anonymous is it doesn't mean sitting there and saying, yeah, it will get handled. It will just get handled. It's all good. No, I actually have to do the work. And the work means showing up, moving my feet and going, helping another alcoholic, being involved in Alcoholics Anonymous because it isn't just I work the steps and now I'm done.

It means to maintain that daily reprieve that it talks about in the book,

that daily reprieve upon the maintenance of my spiritual condition. Each day

I need to turn that over to a power greater than myself.

So

I don't feel like I have a lot more to say honestly, because I feel like the topic is is is just, you know, presenting itself right now. But you know, the topic for today is the,

the little passage that I read on page

96, trust God, clean house, examples of that. How do you do that today? How are you applying that to your life? I would love to hear your stories of of recovery and how that's applying now.

That's all I have. I'm Jacob, I'm an alcoholic and thank you so much for letting me share. Again, I'm glad to be here and to actually get to share the message of recovery with you today.

Thank you.