The Paramount speaker group in Paramount, CA

Thank you. I'm Patty. I'm an alcoholic. I'm grateful to be sober. I'm grateful to be in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And thank you for entertaining while I was using the ladies room.

I thought 10 minutes was 10 minutes. I, I'm really grateful to be here. I, I've had one of those days that feels like a week. And I don't know about the rest of you, but when I get going in the morning and I'm just kind of like zoom and all revved up and going. There's nothing more serene for me than to come into a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And it doesn't seem to me to matter what's going on out there or how revved up I am or how busy I am when I come here and I hear the words, rarely have

person fail read. And I come into the room with you. I know I'm going to be OK for an hour and a half. And so I was really grateful to be here to arrive here tonight. And thank you for for sharing with us. I'm always a little concerned when the speaker at an A, A meeting starts out by saying I was born, especially if they're old, because then it's like, God, you're going to have to listen for a really long time. But I want to start out tonight by saying I was born

February 3rd, 1949. And

that's not important to any of you. It's really important to me because you see up until that day, everything in my life was fine. Up until that day, I had enough of everything. Everything was the right kind and everything I had no complaints. And it seems to me from the day I was born till just recently, an Alcoholics Anonymous, it has never been enough and it's never been the right kind. I always needed more, always needed different. I always needed something else. And, and as Alcoholics, I think we're good getters. I would get stuff,

but I whatever it was, I would get, it wasn't the right stuff,

wasn't the right job. It wasn't the right relationship. It wasn't the right place to live. It was never, never right. I always need a different, always needed more. And, and I didn't know that that was a spiritual malady. I didn't know that I suffered from a spiritual malady, that no matter what happened on the outside, it wasn't going to be enough and it wasn't going to be the right kind. I didn't have any idea about that. What happened to me is when I was 13 years old, I had my first drink of alcohol and

as far as I can remember, I don't remember ever thinking about alcohol. I don't, I don't remember ever making any pledges that I would never drink. I don't remember

ever sitting around plotting for my first drink, waiting to have my first drink. I I don't remember thinking about alcohol one way or another. And yet when I was 13 years old I was on a camping trip with a group of girls. We were camping on the beach just South of Oceanside. Now remember getting into the 10th that first night and I had a bottle of vodka in my pillowcase. And to this day I don't know where that bottle came from. I think it was the grace of God, but I I can never be sure. But I remember pulling it out of the pillowcase and I remember being excited about having it and I asked

anybody wanted any and they didn't. And the reason they gave me for not wanting it was all we had to mix with it was grape soda and root beer.

And I said, well, So what? And I took off the top and I drank half the bottle and I looked around the tent and nothing had gotten different and nothing to change. So I drank the second-half of the bottle. And that was to be the end of my social drinking. Never again after that day did I ever offer anybody a drink out of my bottle. And, and I don't know about any of you, but I never had resentments until I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. In one of my early resentments in Alcoholics Anonymous was I heard you talk about your first drink

and you talked about taking the drink and you felt the liquid in your mouth. And you, you somehow felt it as it went down your throat. And you traced it as it went to your stomach,

hit your stomach and it exploded and went to your fingernails and your toenails. And your pimples fell off. And you grew a few inches and you lost weight and you became Prince Charles and Lady died and wonderful things happened to you. And that wasn't the case for me. I'm my first drink of alcohol and absolutely nothing happened to me for about 15 minutes. And at the end of the 15 minutes, the only thing that happened to me is I had to go to the bathroom. And it's my belief tonight that if you were to drink a quart of anything in about 15 minutes, you would have to go to the bathroom.

So I got out of the tent and I shuffled down to the outhouse, and I went in and went to the bathroom. And when I got done and went to get up, I realized I was absolutely, totally, 100% paralyzed to the toilet seat. I couldn't blink. I didn't feel my heart beating. And I was overcome with a sense of fear. And of course, the fear was that somebody else was going to have to come use that outhouse. And there I was, paralyzed in the toilet seat. And I don't know how I knew it, but I had a intuitive thought that the body was somehow made-up of energy,

and I somehow figured out at 13 years old that if I could gather my energy, that I would somehow be all right. So there I sat, paralyzed, gathering my energy. And I suppose it was my first formal meditation because I sat and I gathered my energy. And when it seemed to be all in one place, when it seemed to be all centrally located, I just sort of fell off the toilet, out the door, into the sand, and started crawling back to the tent.

Now, since coming to Alcoholics Anonymous, of course, I've learned that my entire problem that night was my attitude.

If my attitude would have been right, I could have had a fantasy that was in the Marines. I was being dive bombed as I was trying to get back to safety. And if my attitude would have been right, it could have been a wonderful experience. In my own defense, I always have to tell you that my pants were still down at my ankles. I had started to get sick. I couldn't quite get through it. I couldn't get around it. And under those circumstances, it's a little difficult to have a good attitude. I did manage somehow to get back to the tent. I fell in and I passed out. And when I came to in the morning, I realized nobody was in the tent with me, and I couldn't figure out where they went until

cleared enough that I realized I'd been sick all night long. I'd hit the side of the tents, the top of the tent. I hadn't missed a square inch. And quite frankly, I don't want to be in the tent either. So I got out of there, and that was my first drink of alcohol. And it was the most wonderful, incredible, marvelous, fabulous, magnificent spiritual experience I'd ever had. And it must have been because I put some amount of alcohol into my body from that day until the day I came through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I didn't always get drunk

and I didn't always drink the kinds of things that you would classify as a beverage. I'm I drank a lot of vanilla extract. I used to buy it by the 6 packs.

I drank a lot of mouthwash. I drank a lot of perfume. Taboo became my after dinner drink of choice.

I still have a problem with it. If you're wearing that, I may follow you too closely and laugh at your neck. I

and I don't know how I knew that. I don't know how I knew that that stuff had alcohol in it. How do we, I mean, it's, it's something I think that's intuitively born into the alcoholic. My next door neighbors do not know that you can get a high drinking Aqua Velva, but I knew it and I came to your house and ate and drank everything in your bathroom.

And I don't think, I don't think this is unusual. I don't think I'm living any different than anybody else. I don't know that what I'm doing. You're what you are doing, but they're that they're not doing. And you know, when I think about it in retrospect and everything I know is in retrospect, I mean, we don't know we're putting the story together when we're putting it together. If I would have known when I was out there that what I was doing was going to be important, If I would have known when I was out there that I was going to be expected to report to you what I was doing out there, I would not have done some of the things that I did.

If I would have known I was going to have to report it,

I would have paid a lot more attention to my life, but I didn't know I was going to have to report it. So I didn't pay a lot of attention. So a lot of it, it's all in retrospect and a lot of it actually has been reported to me by other people. And I just have to sort of believe they told me the truth. I mean, I, I love blackouts. I, I don't understand people in a, a who share and they say, you know, and I, I was drinking last night and, and I realized I missed 7 minutes of the evening and it scared me to death and I came to Alcoholics Anonymous.

I don't under I love blackouts. I wish I could have a blackout sober. I think, I don't think there's anything more exciting than leaving work on September 12th, going back to work on September 20th and discovering you've been there the whole week.

But but when you're a blackout drinker, you have to sort of get your story from other people and, and you have to just believe they're not lying to you. I have a job that I had to get a fingerprint clearance for and when they were fingerprint, I fingerprint really well. I've done it a lot and

when they were fingerprinting me, I don't want to raise any red flags. So I kind of calmly said to the woman doing the printing, I said, how far back are you going to check?

And she looked me in the eye and said, from the day you were born. And I thought, oh, geez, it's like a fifth step, only it's in the wrong order because they're gonna know about it before I do.

And the book Alcoholics Anonymous says more will be revealed. It doesn't say how so

when my report came back, I actually know a lot more about my story after reading that report than I did before I was fingerprinted. So you know, the piece is sort of fill in as you go. So but this is a you know, this is my story and this is how how I remember it. I,

I was about so I don't know I'm living any different. Anybody else? I, I was a bar drinker. I was a living room drinker, an alley drinker, an office drinker, dumpster drinker, a car drinker. And now, I mean, I didn't specialize, I drank, but I love bars. I love really sleazy bars. They bought what kind of the sawdust on the floor and the mirrors are cracked. You kind of have to duck around to see yourself in there. And they'll post here around the bars ripped or people tried to hold on as they're falling off their bar stools and

they're full of smoke and they have that wonderful used booze urine smell that'll

I salivate still when I think of it. I love that smell. Sometimes when I'm at work and I'm in a really cranky mood,

I'll drive over to one of those places and just open the door and take a big hit off of it just to perk me up for the rest of the day. But but I'm fascinated about the quality of people who drank in those places. I mean, there, there were CEOs of really big companies. There were bank presidents, Admirals in the Air Force. I mean, that's what they said they were. And

I never told a lie in a, in a, in a, in a sleazy bar. So I mean, I guess they are. But we weren't having conversation. We weren't sitting around there looking at one another saying, well, what do you prefer? The red mouth washer, the green? Well, what's your preference, Chantilly or Aqua Velva? We weren't having those kinds of conversations. So it doesn't occur to me that I'm living any different than anybody else. I think I drink as I want to drink. I don't know that I don't have a choice. I don't know that at 13 years old, I put alcohol into an alcoholic body. And from that day on, I had no choice. I think

I wanted to drink. I had an opportunity to go to college. I went to San Diego State, and I graduated from there with a 3.8 grade point average. And the only reason I share that is it almost killed me in Alcoholics Anonymous. Because you see, when I got here, I told you I was too smart to be an alcoholic. Nobody with a 3.8 grade point average could possibly be an alcoholic. I stayed in school and took classes for a master's degree because I'm one of those people, if I'm doing something well, I want to keep doing it. So I kept going to school and I took classes for a master's degree.

I left San Diego and I was headed. I've been offered a job in Chico, CA and I was. I loaded up my car, everything I owned. I had two cases of beer, 2 bottles of booze, and I headed north. I got to Santa Ana, which is about 80 miles north of San Diego. I was out of booze and I was thirsty. So I pulled off the freeway. I pulled into the parking lot of the sleaziest bar in town. I have a sense I can find them. I don't even have to look for them. Pulled into the parking lot, walked in this place and had was full of smoke and had that wonderful smell and Willie Nelson was singing on the jukebox.

I knew I was home. I sat down in order to drink. And that's as far north as I ever got, 80 miles from where I started from. Alcohol had become my mother, my father, my God, my friend, my lover, my companion, my support. And at some point it had turned and began to strip me of self esteem, self worth, dignity, decency, honesty, integrity, pride, all the things we have going for us as human beings. And by the time I got here to take it at all and I didn't have a clue. I thought I drank because I wanted to drink. Alcohol controlled every year in my life. It controlled where I would live,

would work 80 miles north, and I had a good job that I was headed for. And I ended up 80 miles north of where I started from unemployed, sitting in a bar ordering one more drink. Just give me one more drink. Just give me one more drink. I'm going to figure it out. Just give me one more drink. I didn't know I had a spiritual malady that I couldn't fill with anything. I didn't know that alcohol wasn't going to fill it out, but I was trying as hard as I could. Just give me one more drink and

I ended up getting a job in the profession of my choice. I rose very quickly to the top, and that too almost killed me and Alcoholics Anonymous,

because when I got here I told you I was too successful to be an alcoholic. I told you about the big oak desk I sat behind. I told you about the trophies in the plaques.

What I didn't tell you about is I was in the newspaper business and we were a community paper. And so we often gave awards. And I know tonight, because God gave me a gift, we often won awards. But I didn't tell you part of the Times that I would come out of a blackout behind a podium much like this, in a room full of people holding an award, not knowing if I was giving it or receiving it.

And so I would say thank you and I would go sit down and then somebody would elbow me and tell me I was presenting it to the Kiwanis Club and I'd have to get up and start over again. And, and I didn't tell you about that. I just told you I was too successful to be an alcoholic. I arrived in Alcoholics Anonymous. I was 26 years old. That was young when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. It's pretty old to be getting here now, but, but it was young then. And I told you I was too young to be an alcoholic. I was 26 years old. I graduated college with a 3.8 grade point average. I'd taken classes for a master's.

I'd risen to the top of my profession. I was too successful. I was too successful. I was too smart and I was too young to be an alcoholic. And like you, what they said to me was keep coming back that came here on a court card and I'd waive my court card in their face. I'd flip them off and I tell them I didn't have an effing choice. I had to come back to Alcoholics Anonymous and I'd sit back down and and I arrived here because of

I'm driving. I have a driving problem. I mean, I'll admit that freely. I'm driving down the street and the light comes on behind me. Now I know what that light means. You know, there's people in Alcoholics Anonymous that think that light means what? The pedal to the metal and take off like a bat out of hell.

Know what it means? It means pull over. So I pull over. The officer comes up to the door. The first thing I do is slam the car door open and try and knock off his private parts.

Now men are a little fussy about their private parts. So it's the doors flying open. He jumps back and it's good when he jumps back because now I can get him in focus. And I think one of him, one of me, one of him wanted me. I think I can take him. 1:00 AM. One of me, I think I'll try and I go for him and it's a pretty fair fight for a couple minutes, but I never remember that. He's got a friend back at the car,

and the friends got a radio, and the friend calls some more friends and pretty soon it's six of them, one of me. Well, I know it's not fair anymore. And I say uncle and they take me away. And the next time the light comes on behind me, I pull over. The officer walks up, I slam the door open. He jumps back. I get him in focus. I think One of him, one of me.

1:00 AM one of me. I think I can take him, one of him, one of me. It looks like a fair fight. 1:00 AM one of me. I think I'll try and I go for him. I don't remember the friend or the radio. I don't remember the friend's friends. Pretty soon at six of them wanted me. It's not fair anymore. I say uncle and then take me away. I don't do that once or twice. I do that 3456789 ten 1112 * 12 times. I never remember the friend in the radio and the friends friends.

And that's the insanity of my disease. The insanity of my disease as I do the same thing over and over and over.

And I think the results are going to be different. This time, I'm going to take them. This time, it's going to be a fair fight. This time I'm going to win. And do you know when you do that? They don't care that they win the fight. Drunk driving assault, Drunk driving assault. They put an assault charge on. They don't care that they won. They always tack an assault charge on there. Now, I have a reputation in Orange County as a violent drunken. I don't know it

when they when you get out of the car that way, they start thinking you're violent. And I have a reputation. Orange County is a violent drunk on me. I don't know. I'm violent

and one night I'm at the bar drinking and thinking. I think all the time. I still think all the time. If you're new and they tell you don't think, if you figured out how to do it, let me know. I don't know how not to think. I'm talking to you. I'm already thinking about something else. Then I start thinking about the fact that I'm thinking. Then I start thinking. I shouldn't be thinking what I'm thinking. While I'm thinking what I'm thinking that I'll tell you what, I'm grateful. I'm grateful I don't have a loudspeaker on my head.

Imagine if everything you thought came barreling out. I mean that,

but I thought all the time drinking. I think all the time sober and I'm in the bar drinking, thinking and the bar closes and I leave and I'm going home thinking.

I'm driving, thinking and I turn left onto my street thinking. And as I turn onto my street, the power steering goes out of my car. Do you ever notice as Alcoholics, bad timing, bad things happen in inappropriate times? Power steering goes out. I slam into a car parked on the left hand side of the street. Well, of course I panic. I just turned the wheel just to teensy weensy to get back to the middle. I slammed into a car on the right,

turn it a little and I slammed into one on the left and I slammed into one on the right and I slammed into one on the left.

I finally turned into my driveway and I was so grateful that I had gotten home safely.

I just sat there for a moment, and after my moment of gratitude, I went in the house. I couldn't have been in the house, but a minute or two in, the doorbell rings. It's 2:20 in the morning. Who is visiting me now? People never leave you alone. Somebody always wants something.

Could you give me my my beverage of choice there?

Thank you. Used to be Jack Daniels, now it's Arrowhead.

Come a long way,

but it's still out of the bottle.

People, they always want something. They're always bothering you. They never leave you alone. I'm disgusted. I open the door, it's the Orange County Sheriff. And I looked him right in the eye, said what do you want?

Do you know what time it is? Do you want me to come out on the front yard while I start telling about my car? Apparently it wasn't mechanical. You didn't care about my car. He points down the street at all these cars that are smashed out. And I said, and isn't it grand that I got home safely?

He didn't care about that either. He opened the back seat of his car. He wanted me to get in. Now I'm in the newspaper business. I've done the ride along. I don't have time for the ride along tonight.

Done it before, I'll do it again. I don't have time tonight. I've got to get up early. I've got a 7:00 meeting.

He's insisting on getting his car. I think, well, he's not going to leave. He needs some company. I better go with him. I get in the car. In Orange County, our sheriff's have a fence between the front seat and the back seat. I don't know what it's there for, I never could figure it out. But I get in the car because I have a reputation as a violent drunk. He shackles my ankles and he shackles my hands behind my back and he starts taking me for a ride and I don't have time and I start asking him where we're going. He won't talk to me. I asked him some other questions, he won't answer me. Keep talking to him, he won't respond. Now, I don't know about you, but I get irritated when they won't respond.

Now we're on the freeway, we're going north, and the devil flew in me. And I don't know if the devil ever flew in you, but the devil flew in me that night and I just honked up a big one. I just spit right on the back of his head.

So you're a little amused by it? He wasn't amused at all.

He's speed up and he started going faster and faster and faster. And when the speedometer hit 100 miles an hour, he slammed on the brake. And I'm shackled and I'm cuffed and I can't break the fall. And I went face forward into that metal grate. My glasses broke. I had blood everywhere. It was a mess. But I'll never forget that night they were taking my mug shot. They kept referring to me as waffle face because I had

the.

And I don't know, I don't know that it's alcoholism. I don't even know that alcohol is any part to play in it. I think it's you and they and them, it's the cops. They're always after me. If they just leave me alone, why don't they go after the criminals? Why are they bothering me? If you would just behave right, If they would just leave me alone, it's you and they and them. It's a cops that circumstances and conditions, a lot of things never occurs to me it has anything to do with alcohol. And I arrived in Alcoholics Anonymous as a result of my 12th drunk driving assault charge. And I'm very anal. I'm the kind of person I get

police from jail, I get the rest report and I read it. I find out where I made my mistake so I can practice that part so that next time I'll get that part right. And I had practice field sobriety test a lot. And on my what I pray God was my last drunk driving. I was doing a really good job. I had given myself an A plus. I was doing a really, I mean, by that time I knew put touch your finger with your your nose with your finger. It meant this. It doesn't mean this. I can walk the line. I can stand on one foot. I can do all the stuff. And and at the end of the test the officer asked me to say the AB CS backwards.

Well the time before I had responded with well I can't even do that sober. Well then I had confessed and he took me away. So on the last one, when he asked me to say the ABC's backwards, I said OK and I turned around.

He didn't think it was funny. I can guarantee you he didn't think it was funny. He cuffed me and took me to Orange County Jail and I I went to court on that drunk driving. I was 26 years old and because of my past record I was being sentenced to 10 years in prison

and in the middle of sentencing made the expression on the judges face change. The tone of his voice got different and he looked at me and he said, I know this won't work for you,

but I'm gonna offer you one more chance. And he offered me an alternative. And part of that alternative was meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I wish I could tell you that I left the courtroom. I came here. I looked at the 12 steps. I knew there was a solution to the problems of my life. I worked him on the first week and I skyrocketed to recovery. But but that's not my story. I drank for three more months. In retrospect, I can tell you that I drank with a sense of urgency and a desperation that I had never known. I didn't drink a greater quantity. Physically, it would have been impossible to drink a greater quantity of alcohol. But I drank with a sense of urgency and a desperation

I had never known. And on October 4th, 1975, the day before I was to go back to court to tell the judge what it was I was doing with the alternative he gave me. On that day, I came to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and it was a Sunday night and it was a speaker meeting. And I don't know who talked that night, but I heard two things. I heard we don't drink between meetings. Well, I looked around and none of you were drinking in the meeting. And I thought, if you're not drinking in the meeting and you don't drink between the meetings, when do you drink?

This made me really nervous. I figured the judge made a horrid mistake. If you just sent me to Sears School of Safe Driving, I would have understood.

I did not understand why he sent me to a place where people didn't drink. And the other thing I heard in that meeting was that the answers were in this book, Alcoholics Anonymous.

So after the meeting, I stole the book. I mean, God knows I need to have the answers. I can't tell you how irritated I was when I got home. Not only could I not find the answers in this book, I couldn't even find the questions. I thought, oh, dear God, I've still in the wrong book. I'm have to go back and get the right one. And

so on Wednesday with four days of sobriety, went to my second meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous to get the answer book. That's the only reason I came back. I don't think it matters why you come back. I think what's important is that you come back Wednesday with four days of sobriety. My second meeting was a small discussion meeting. And in that meeting I heard if you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it. And I looked around the room and I looked around the room, and I looked around the room and I could not figure out what it was you had that was so hot that I should be willing to go to any length to get it.

Some of you had nice jewelry. If you stood next to me during the Lord's Prayer, if your rings were loose, they were mine. Some of you have nice cards. I have a record as a car thief. I know how to get those. Some of you have nice spouses. We all know how to get those. I couldn't figure out what it was you had. And then I saw him. I truly believe there's a hymn for each of us. This guy was a skinny little fellow. He wore baggy pants and a thin belt. He had tennis shoes on with no shoelaces,

but the holes were there where they should abandoned. He nodded out. During the meeting I quickly assessed that he was shooting heroin. Cause folks who shoot heroin not out

and I can probably do this thing and not drink if I could shoot a little heroin. So I found out where he worked and the next day I snuck down to his office and I said, Dick, I have to do this thing called Alcoholics Anonymous to stay out of jail. And I don't know how to do it. And he told me if I would go to meetings and read the book and talk to other Alcoholics and not drink. So I guarantee you won't get drunk. And if you don't get drunk, your life will get different. And I'm grateful he told it to me that way. He didn't tell me my life to get better, didn't tell me my family life would get better, my job life would get better, my relationships would get better, my finances to get better, my sex life would get better.

He didn't tell me any of it to get better. And I'm grateful because none of it has. It's a little hope for the newcomer,

but it's all gotten different. As I stand here tonight, I can tell you from the top of my head to the tip of my toes, I have never had it so good. You see, I don't know good from bad for me. I'm going through something I think is good for me and it only turns out to be bad for me. And I'm going through something I think is bad for me, and it generally turns out to be good for me. I don't know good from bad for me. I've gone to times in my recovery where my entire life is falling apart. I've gone through time sober. I've lost jobs, I've lost relationships, I've lost stuff,

and it seemed to me in those times that God brought me this far and then took off to 12:50 of you and left me

and I didn't drink and I didn't die and I didn't drink and I didn't die to get far enough beyond it too, in retrospect, C, that every time I have thought my life was falling apart, what was really happening is it was falling together and it had to be exactly that way for God to move me to where he'd have me be. I don't know good from bad for me, but every year in my life is different than it was the day I walked the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I have never had it so good. You seen, all I came here for was the stay out of jail. That's all I wanted out of this deal.

If God had let me have it my way in the last 23 years out of shortchange myself, if a single day in the last 23 years I'd have had it my way out of shortchange myself. There's a God that has a plan for me beyond my wildest imagination. I have a really wild imagination, but beyond my wildest imagination, there's a plan. My job is to not drink, suit up, show up and live life to the fullest and let the plan unfold no matter what, no matter how painful I think it is. You see, I when I made a choice to recover, my sobriety was a gift. I have no doubt about that

given the gift of sobriety on October 4th, 1975. And I've heard people say it hasn't been necessary for me to take a drink. I want you to know it's been necessary for me to take a drink. It's been an emergency. It's been so necessary for me to drink. It's been overwhelmingly, incredibly, phenomenally necessary for me to take a drink. But because the steps work and because you've been willing to share your experience, strength, and hope with me, no matter how necessary it's been, I haven't taken a drink since I walked the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous. I never planned to stay this long,

so my sobriety was a gift from a very gentleman and very loving God. And I believe if you're sitting here tonight and you haven't had a drink today,

your sobriety is a gift from a very gentle and a very loving God. Recovery for me was a choice.

I made a choice to recover in Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't wait nearly as long as you did. I only waited 8 1/2 months, 8 1/2 months of not drinking. I made a choice to recover an Alcoholic's Anonymous and I'd like to tell you it was out of virtue, but it was not. I've been in pain and recovery. I've been in in real what severe emotional pain and recovery. But I want you to know that there I have never experienced a pain greater

than the pain of not drinking and not recovering.

There has not been any pain greater for me than the pain of not drinking and not recovering. And for me at 8 1/2 months sober, that pain drove me to my knees and on my knees I had a choice, either choose to recover or leave Alcoholics Anonymous. And, and by the grace of God that that morning I chose to recover an Alcoholics Anonymous and I took the first step. And the first step for me was simple. My my powerless over alcohol. Whenever I drink alcohol, I'm damned to live the same way day after day after day

after day. When I drink alcohol, I have no choices. When I drink alcohol, alcohol controls my life. My life's unmanageable because alcohol manages my life. Alcohol determines where I'll live, where I'll work, the people I'll run with, the people of eventually run from. And I have no choices. My only choice is to go to a bar and order one more drink. My only choice is to sit on a bar stool and dream dreams and plan plans. And someday I'll and I order another drink and I never get off the bar stool.

I'm powerless over alcohol. If I do battle, I'm going to lose when I'm fighting because I'm drinking it or I'm fighting it because you're drinking it. And my life had become unmanageable. And that was that was as simple as the first step was for me. I had a lot of successes in my life.

They were all fueled by alcohol and I had a lot of failures in my life and they were all fueled by alcohol.

For me, that I already told you, the second step for me, the insanity for me is how I think. Not that I think, but how I think. My thinking is just a little skewed from the rest of the world. And for me, I'm a loner by nature.

And Alcoholics Anonymous doesn't change your nature. The hardest thing for me to do is come here and be with you. I'm a loner by nature. I'd like to sit on my couch by myself. I like to read, I like to fish. I like to be alone. I don't understand people who say when I'm by myself, I'm in bad company,

I'm in my favorite company. When I'm by myself, I entertain the hell out of myself. I just stand up comedy for me,

You know, you're a loner if you don't like a a potluck. That's generally the indicator. So this is just my experience. For me, the power greater than myself in step two was not God because being a loner, if I had come to believe that God was going to restore me to sanity, I just sat on my couch. God would have flown by. Sprinkle me with sanity,

taken off to wherever it is God hangs out, and that would have been the end of it. I would have never had to do another thing. I would be on my couch watching Touched by an Angel right now

and somebody else would be here sharing their experience, strength, and hope with you. So for me, the power greater than myself was the action of steps 3456789. You see, I learned an Alcoholics Anonymous that I have always tried to think my way into right living. That has never worked for me. And Alcoholics Anonymous, you showed me that I could act my way into right thinking. Through taking the action, the steps, I have been restored to sanity. My thinking today is in line with the rest of the world. I'm an alcoholic. I'll always be an alcoholic.

Every once in a while have a thought that a drink would be nice. When I have that thought, I clap. I say thank you for your participation. I just go about whatever it is that I'm doing and I don't have to take an action on it. I don't have to beat myself up for having that thought. And I don't have to run to you and tell you I'm a lounging member of Alcoholics Anonymous because that's my alcoholism. And what being restored to sanity is for me is I don't have to take an action on my alcoholism. And I could never do that before. I could never not take an action on my alcoholism because alcohol controlled my life.

Step 3 for me. I hear people talking about having trouble with step three and you know, you ask them what step they're on. They say, well, I'm on the third step. You know, every day get up and I turn my will of my life over the care of God. But by about noon, I take it back.

Well, I'm on the third step, you know, I'm turning my will in my life over the care of God, except for my sex and finances, because I don't want to be poor and celibate. And

I hear those people. I pretty much stay away from them. I go the same way to work every day. And I drive up Chapman Ave. in Orange and I get to an intersection. I got to make a decision, turn right, turn left or go straight

to get to my job. I got to turn right. So I make a decision to turn right and I go straight to the intersection. So I make AU turn. I'm going back toward the intersection and I got to make a decision, turn right, turn left or go straight. Now to get to my job, I got to turn left. So I make a decision to turn left and I go straight to the intersection. Dang, and I make AU turn. I go back toward the intersection. I make a decision, turn right, turn left. I go straight to get to my job. I got to turn right to make a decision, turn right. I go straight to the intersection. Now I'm getting irritated now make another U-turn. I'm coming back toward the intersection and I got to make a decision, turn right, turn.

That's right. Now to get to my job, I got to turn left. I take the steering wheel and I turn it. The book says it. It says although our decision was vital, it had very little permanent effect unless immediately followed by action. The decision turn right, turn left, or go straight is really irrelevant. If I don't take an action, I'm going to go straight. I'm going to make AU turn and come back, and I'm going to make AU turn and go back. And if I had never taken an action with the steering wheel, I'd still be going, making new turns up and down Chapman.

So the decision in Step 3 is this. How do you want to live?

Chronic, hopeless, helpless alcoholic living in incomprehensible demoralization, a life of despair. No choices in your life. Alcohol controls every year your life. You're waking up with people you don't want to wake up with. You're doing things you don't want to do, or you want to believe the people in a are telling you the truth. Incomprehensible demoralization, despair or hope? Despair, hope. It's not a difficult decision. I think I'll decide for hope, but unless I do something, the decision has no impact.