The Second Surrender Wilson House Big Book Workshop Retreat – With Valerie D. & John S. – Part 1 of 4

So with that, I am going to ask Kelly to come up and share a little something else with you. Thanks Cass. Hi I'm Kelly, I'm an alcoholic. Thank you Andy for that reminder. I asked that you silence your cell phone just put it on vibrate and so that our speakers get a nice flow going and not interrupted by chimes and buzzers and bells. And I wanted to remind everybody that tomorrow morning at 1030, we'll be passing a gratitude basket for cash for the Wilson House. And as in years past, this group has been extraordinarily generous to the Wilson house and know that we pick this time of year nice and balmy out, isn't it? Vermont cold. We pick this time year on purpose to come to the Wilson House to support them through the winter months and our collection tomorrow at 10.30 cash will be to help them to upgrade their rooms and purchase things that they need to get through the Winter and to help keep the Wilson house the special place that it is so please remember tomorrow at 10. 30 we'll pass a basket for cash for the Wilsonhouse to just show our gratitude for our yearly trek here and our spiritual trekking that we do. The other thing I wanted to just mention is to remember that Jerry and Gail have been an amazing part of this event forever, and this is our first year without them. And their legacy definitely continues by the many lives that they have touched in this room. as well as through our Jerry and Gail Elkins Scholarship. There are three people here who we were able to give a scholarship to, including registration, rooming, and some of the meals. And that's a direct result and representation of the many years of service that Jerry and Gayle have given to this. So I wonder if we could just pause and bow our heads and send a prayer and well wishes and heartfelt thanks to Jerry and Gail for all they have given. Thank you. I know they're with us this weekend. Thanks, Kelly. Thanks, Kelly. So with that, I would love to introduce our speakers for this weekend. So on my left, we have Valerie, who is a cancer. She is the calm one. She enjoys long walks on the beach. she's from richmond virginia she's been sober for 25 years and her um home group is the jaywalkers in richmond awesome uh in here we have john john is a leo he's the loud dirty one john's from atlanta georgia he's coming up on 29 years in march and his home group is the fifth tradition group in atlana and i am very excited to have a new experience with these speakers and we're very grateful that you guys are here with us so thank you so much how's everybody doing I'm Valerie I'm an alcoholic and I'm very honored to be here this weekend Jerry Elkins has been a huge influence on my life him and I've shared the same sponsor for a long time and after Don some of you guys know Don P after he passed Jerry was there for so many of us that were challenged by Don's passing. I'm not sure what the right word. I know he was there and helped me, and he continues to be a great friend. And one of the things about people in Alcoholics Anonymous that you know are really living this way is that they're available no matter what's going on in their own life. if somebody's in trouble, they're there to try to help. And Jerry has always done that for me, no matter what's been going on in his life. And he's been through a lot, him and Gail. So he's definitely an inspiration to me. So my sobriety date is October 13th, 1992. My home group is the Jay Walkers Group in Richmond, Virginia. So if you're ever slumming it down south, come see us on Tuesday or Wednesday we'd love to have you. We have a closed big book discussion meeting on Tuesday nights and Friday nights we have a big open speaker meeting that's open to the community hopefully to inform about what alcoholism is and what it isn't. So this is just a great honor and a great honour to be with John Shires. I love this man. He's one of my most favourite people in AA. But to be here sharing our experience with having a spiritual awakening as a result, following those directions in the big book. And I am someone who needed that spiritual awakening. I came into AA the first time in 1982 when I was 15 years old. And AA in 1982 was nothing like it is today. Especially where I came in, which was in Orange Park, Florida. It was very, you know, don't drink, go to meetings, put the plug in the jug you know inner child group therapy you got to love yourself and some you know you just don't drink no matter what and I came into AA via treatment center and you know that's when treatment centers were still really really good because insurance covered it all and you could go for three months and it was really cushy and they gave you lots of really good drugs and all that good stuff. And, um, you know, and then for me at 15, I'd only been drinking a year. However, alcohol created a spiritual experience for me. It gave me the power to live and to try to face life successfully. And even at 15, my life was incredibly unmanageable. My internal life was very unmanangeable. I didn't know how to function in the world. I didn't play well with others. I was not a nice person. I was a thief. I was violent. I didn't fit in society at all. And I desperately wanted to. I came from a decent family, but I just didn't fit. Something was missing, something was wrong, and I never understood what was wrong with me. And so, you know, I had a little social drinking period. That's when I took sips off my parents' rum and cokes. That was my social drinking, period. And then, you know, once I started drinking, once i had that experience of my first drunk, it changed everything. Everything changed, and i wanted to feel that way all the time. And it was my mission to feel that way all the time, because finally that hole in my gut was gone. The mind was quiet. I felt good. I fell comfortable in my own skin. I could talk to people. I wasn't so weird. Because I'm the kind of person who gets weird. I'm weird because I'm scared. And if I get scared enough, I get mean. And I don't run and hide. You know, there's the fight or flight type of person, I'm going to fight. That's what you love about me, isn't it? Yes, that is one of the many things. So anyway, when I found alcohol, all of that was quiet and everything was okay and I was having some fun. And so I wanted to feel that way all the time. And when you're 15, you've got to be willing to do some stuff to feelthatwayallthetime. And I was willing todo that. And I got into a lot of trouble because of it. So I was in and out of shrink's office and counselors. I've been saved numerous times, numerous times. I've be dip-dunked and turned over twice. And trying to find Jesus or for Jesus to find me. Something had to happen. And, you know, in and out of juvenile detention centers, transit youth centers, juvie jail, just in all kinds of trouble. And those were all consequences for my drinking and what I was willing to do in order to drink. And so that's how I ended up in a treatment center at 15. In 1982 is this one shrink that my parents had sent me to said, your daughter's got a drug and alcohol problem. She needs to be in treatment. So I went into treatment for three months. The best thing that happened to me while I was there was that I was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous. I absolutely did not believe I was an alcoholic. I didn't even understand what that meant. I didn' t get it because it was very much talk therapy, work on your problems kind of approach. And so if it was talked about, I don' t remember them talking about the mental obsession and the physical allergy. I don't believe that was talked abou. But also, I don't know how open my ears were either, quite honestly. So anyway, when I got out of treatment, I had to start going to those A&A meetings, and I hated it. I mean, I walked into meetings at 15, and my life was over because back then there were not a lot of young people. I mean it was like the Krusty team in those meetings. And I hated being there. I resented being there, that's where I stole a key to their little clubhouse, that's where I'd take my friends to go drink and was at the AA clubhouse I was also a thief so I figure my kind of mentality is if you are not smart enough to walk it away you deserve to have it stolen I really lived that way and believed that and so I'd steal their money and I'd stole their key and AA was just a revolving door for two years for me of just in and out, in andout in and out. And when I was 17, I got into a lot of legal trouble. And sometimes we get the choice put in front of us. Either you're going to get sober or you're Going Back to Juby or join the military or whatever. Mine was get sober, you're Goin' Back to Jupy. I, of course, chose sobriety. My friend in North Carolina calls it sobriete. Anyway, so I chose sobriety. And so at that time, though, at 17, I was definitely at a bottom. As much as a 17-year-old can be at a bottom, I was at a bottom. And I remember saying to myself, I would never, ever drink again. And I meant it. I was done forever. I had written lots of sweet promises, but this time I meant business, mister. And that's why I'm so grateful we have Bill's story. I so identify with Bill's Story. So at 17, I got sober. I moved out to Los Angeles. My dad was now sober in AA about five years. And it's like a little sober geographic. It's going to be different out in Los Angeles, and I'm going to do this. I'm not going to deal with my dad who's sober. He'll understand. And I can move away from all these consequences in Florida and yee-haw. So I was in Los Angeles, and I was in AA, kind of. I was in a meeting of AA every day. I had a sponsor, but it was a sponsor in name only. The meetings I went to were not solution-oriented at all. I mean, I went to meetings where you could heckle the speaker, and And, you know, crosstalk was encouraged. And there was nothing about, you know, manners in AA or respect for Alcoholics Anonymous, nothing about our traditions. You know, I was in a meeting every day, had a sponsor name only, went to a lot of AA dances. We called them the 13th Step Dances. That was our version of working with others. You've got to give it away to keep it. That's right, baby. That's why. You've Got to Give It Away to Keep It. One of our most important spiritual principles. It's a principle. It's A Principle. It'sA Principle And so just, and I was getting sicker and sicker and nothing in my life, you know, I know that alcoholism, that alcohol is just the symptom of what's wrong with me, without a doubt, because I was, you know, with you people, around you people around some kind of a spiritual juju answer. You know, there was something happening. There's a lot of people who survived the 80s to AA, right? But I was around that and in that somewhat and I was getting sicker and sicker my life was getting uglier and uglier and ugrier still a thief, still a liar using people, running through people still the tornado through people's lives and sitting in a meeting every day I remember this guy Big Book Mac saying to me kid you need to sit down shut up and keep your legs crossed because you're missing the whole deal And I was like, funny old-timer. I didn't even know what he was talking about. It went right over my head. I had no idea what he meant by that. No clue. And anyway, of course, I know y'all are shocked to hear this, but I picked up a drink. I can't believe it myself. Because I had not done the work. I didn's have a relationship with God. I didn' understand the importance of that. I didn't understand how vital that was. That wasn't the stuff that I heard in AA. And maybe I did hear it, but because I wasn't surrendered, because I Wasn't Done, you know, I didn' t get it. So anyway, I started drinking again, and, you Know, you immediately have to find somebody to finance that, right? So I did. And more about that later. He didn't know what he was getting into. But we moved to Atlanta. I was in Atlanta for a couple years, and I really did not want to be an alcoholic like they talk about in our big book. You know, the alcoholic will try everything to prove themselves exceptions to the rule and to find some way to make it work, to make it okay. And that's what I did for the next four years. I tried to make it okay, tried to making it work. I found this nice normal guy. I mean he had a small porn addiction but other than that he was great. He was normal in every other respect you know. My parents liked him. He was a good provider. Like you would know what normal is. I know, right? Right on, right on. Would I even be attracted to normal? I don't know. Anyway, but he's a good guy. He's a great guy. He's been a good man. And we moved out to Atlanta and I tried a lot of different things to control and enjoy my drinking because I did not want to be an alcoholic. I did Not want to go back to AA. I felt better now that I was drinking. It was kind of like a big, yeah, this is all right. You know, and the mind immediately jumps in with all the justifications of why it's different this time. Why it's better. I'm older now. It'll be different now. I've got this man now. I was just young and confused then. I mean, all the stuff that our mind can come up with, with why it is okay, why it isn't different now, and my mind does that. You know when they talk about that in a doctor's opinion, you know, this becomes entirely normal. Like, after a while, I just can't differentiate the true from the false. You know, the lies I tell myself become my reality, my truth. And I believe it, and I'm willing to stick with that. So I tried a lot of different things. You know? At one point, I tried to be a sheepherder because I thought that Jesus was a sheepherter. Then I remembered that Jesus wasn't. He was actually a carpenter. But I had that, you know that picture that you see when you're growing up of Jesus with the little sheep herder staff? So I was going to be a sheep herter. But I was drunk with my sheep, so raising sheep. Done work. Very pretty. Thanks. So that was like my tree-hugging granola face. You know, I tried a lot of different things on to try not to be an alcoholic. to try to make my life make sense, to make myself make sense. And I tried being a sheep herder. I tried a lot of different things, some different careers or starts, right? Starts in different careers. And then I decided I was going to get married. That would fix it. I decidedI was going t have a child. That would fixed it. Then just as things were starting to get hairy, we got to move to New York, which was awesome. It's great when the geographic comes right when it's starting to get bad. And I got about a year and a half to two years staying power, then it's time to go, you know? So we moved up to New York. I was up there for a couple of years and the beginning of the end started for me up there. And they say that an alcoholic can't lower their standards fast enough and that's very true. You know, I couldn't lower them to keep up with the promises of what I would never do. You know, and we hear it, my spouse used to say it all the time, you know, we lead a very ugly life while we're out there, and I certainly did, and did things that I swore I would never do, went places I swored I'd never go, left my child, my newborn son, with people saying I'll be back and not coming back, things like that. and my poor husband at the time didn't know what to do with me, and it was just, it was ugly. And, you know, ended up down in Richmond, Virginia after a couple years in New York and decided to get sober by God's grace. I always thought that I would be able to pull that off, that I had the power to do it, that I could make a decision to get sober and it would happen. Because I quit drinking hundreds of times, You know, I had a little problem staying stopped. But I know how to stop. I know I've quit. So when I moved down to Richmond, I said, I'm going to stop, I'm gonna quit. And I meant it and started going to some meetings and did something very uncharacteristic. When I went to that first meeting in Richmond, Virginia, I asked a woman to sponsor me. She ended up being committed a couple weeks later. But she was perfect for me for those two weeks. She understood me, and I understood her. And it was a great lesson to me because you do not have to be in great shape to be of service to somebody here. She took my call every day. She met me at a meeting every night, and she was for nuts. You know? For nuts. I'm going to use that. For nuts, yeah. The F can stand for lots of things. but anyway fancy I'm not because we're being recorded that's right so she helped me I ended up drinking two more times my last drink was actually up in Minneapolis Minnesota I'd gone up there to see an artist about representing him now I was serious about being an Alcoholics Anonymous and I wanted to be here Just like our book talks about, you know, wanting and needing, but they're not enough. I mean, there's people that want to be sober all day long, right? There are people that need to be sobre, want and need or not enough, something else has got to intervene. And I wanted to be here, needed to be her, was serious about being a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. again I knew this is where I needed to be I was up in Minneapolis I was in this artist studio he just asked me he goes do you want a shot of whiskey I said yes I do just like that no effective mental defense against the first drink was going to AA wanted to be an AA was having a different experience in AA than had before and i think i had two or three weeks sober at the time but i was serious about recovery and i i could not say no and then he said you want another one i said yes i do and now then my dead ex-husband the one with the porn problem showed up he was pissed and i was pissed he's pissed because i'm drinking i'm pissed because he showed up and i've just had two and that experience really demonstrates the first step for me powerlessness on two on two level one powerless physically the physical craving i will never ever forget having to leave that studio after having just had two physically i was so uncomfortable i felt like i was being torn in two and i'll never forget it I could not wait to get more alcohol in my system, and how am I going to do it? And the mental insanity and obsession of how do I get away from you? How do I go out of here to get out of this world? How do we get more? And I was being watched like a hawk, and I hated it. And I would hiss, hiss, piss, piss. I mean, that terrible, restless discontent times, you know, 100. And I felt like I was coming out of my skin. There's nothing worse than interrupting an alcoholic who's just started to get their drink on, man. There's Nothing Worse. And I will never, ever forget that day. So his sister, I was never really a beer drinker. I was a liquor drinker. Anyway, his sister had some beer upstairs in the fridge and I could not wait for them to all go to sleep so I could sneak up there and drink and finish what I'd started. And I was willing to take one for the team that night and drink some beer, I tell you what. So I'm up there in the kitchen drinking beer and as I'm drinking I said God help me God help me and I haven't had a drink since then and there was a surrender that happened there for me that solved the problem that started me on this path that opened a door for me to be able to let the message of Alcoholics Anonymous come in for me to really begin to have an experience with what we do here and how we do it and to wake up spiritually. It took a long time for that surrender to happen, but once that surrender, right? The surrender's always quick. It's just the beating we take getting up to it, you know? Drunk or sober. I had many surrenders in sobriety where it took a lot of time and it took me a long ton, but the surrender was instantaneous and God comes in. And that's exactly what happened to me that night. And it hasn't been necessary for me to pick up a drink since then. And that is my powerless step one experience. That's good stuff. That's all I got for right now. All right. Good stuff. I showed you mine, so now you have to show me yours. I'll show you mine. I'm John Shires, and I'm an alcoholic. Hey, John. Hey, everybody. Sort of like a this do in remembrance of me thing. I just want to just have a little statement that I want to make just to test how well you all know Jerry Elkins. Here's the statement. This is a pretty nifty deal. Wow, that's a good response. That's a great answer. That's good response, Jerry. I hope you're listening to this. I need my dog back. Nifty deal? Jerry's nifty deals. Oh, that's awesome. That's really excellent. God, there's so many things I'd like to say to start to kick this off. First of all, thank you. Kelly, thank You. Maureen, thank you. All the rest of the people who made these events happen, thank you. I've been involved in conference committees and organizational committees for these things, and it's a lot of running around. It's a lot of work. So thank you all. Thanks for the invitation. I have to tell you right away, I'm a little nervous to be up here, my sponsor did this Jerry's my sponsor and he did this deal for what 20 years, you know so I'm asking to step into a position that my sponsor did for 20 years and I mean I just love Jerry, I mean Jerry everybody loves Jerry, Jerry's just one of those people he came along, I was about 9 years sober when I met Jerry and I desperately needed to meet him and that's how God works the teacher shows up when the student is ready right but so So, you know, that makes me a little nervous. And I'm a guy, and I want you all to know this, who really, really likes for you to like him. You know? And I didn't realize that about myself for many years. And it's a really lousy character trait to have. You'll do some really boneheaded things to try to get people to like you. And it is kind of ironic because the truth is I hate the world and everybody in it. Yet, I want to... I want your approval of me. And the fact that I care or want your approval when I hate you is a really crazy place to live. It's perplexing. It is. It doesn't make any sense. And, you know, we don't make much sense is what I'm trying to say there. So I want to say this too real quick. And Valerie, I know, will back me up on this. We are absolutely 100% for sure not experts on Alcoholics Anonymous or experts on the big book. God forbid I should ever feel like I'm an authority on something. I mean, every alcoholic sort of is born being an authority on every subject, even subjects they have no knowledge of or feeling that way. And I know I'm no exception, but that really is not the case. My sobriety date is March 7th in 1989, and I was six when I got sober. and I, there's a line in the book, we were just reading, I have a book study at my house with a bunch of my sponsees, and we're just reading this line, and I want to get this right. In the forewords, you know, where it says that the first 164 pages has not been changed, and blah, blah, blah, but I'm here to tell you that's just horseshit, because every single time I study this book they put new stuff in it and that sounds stupid and it's obviously a little bit tongue-in-cheek but my experience with the big book is that every time that I go through it with a new guy a whole new deal comes alive someone told me when I had about 10 years sober to never use the same book again stop having that same old experience that you've been having have a new one you know get a new book and so now every time I sit down with my guys I get a New Book and this one's marked up a little bit, but it's pretty new, a lot of it. And I do. I keep having this new experience. You know, it's unbelievable to me how much more there is than what I see. You know? They call this an illness of perception. A lot of people say that, illness of reception. I believe that that's true. You now, I don't understand a lot things or worse, I think I understand them and I don t look any further because I already believe that I understand it. That happens to me a lot in Alcoholics Anonymous and in the rest of my life, you know, so we're not experts and we're not going to try to like school anybody on the big book. I will refer to it a little bit and I have it up here and the one thing I'll refer to tonight, this is probably the only thing I'm referring to tonight is right on the title page, you now, is and Valerie was just kind of telling you a little her story and kind of using that to kind of just paint a picture of what the first step looked like in her life and it says the story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism so right on the first page of our book it's a story you know we're storytelling society we really are storytelling society you know and it's the story of one alcoholic struggling getting well you know having a new experience that is the most powerful thing in Alcoholics Anonymous and even before we had a book to work from the old-timers knew that and it was this story and when Bill went to meet Bob you know he sat down, and he told Bob, here's my deal. You know, Bob was only going to sit there for 15 minutes to listen to Bill. He had extracted a promise from his wife that we're only doing 15 minutes, and then we're going home, and I'm not going to be lectured about my plan. And Bill didn't lecture him. He just said, here is my story. After two hours, he said, thanks so much, Bob. Have a great life. And Bob said, wait, can't I say something now? And then he talked for two hours and kind of told his story. And we really are a storytelling society, you know. So I'm going to be telling my story to you guys over the course of this weekend. Valerie's going to be telling her story to you, guys. I've worked the 12 steps to Alcoholics Anonymous and I've had a spiritual awakening as a result of that process. I continue to try to do it. I continue trying to help others to do It. And I have an amazing life today as a results of that. And I'm a scumbag. I want you to know that. Hard carrying. When I got to Alcoholic Anonymous this. I was 19 years old. I came via treatment center. It was March 7th of 1989, my sobriety date. I've only ever picked up one white chip. And I want to tell you that not to put anybody down who's picked up more than one, but to tell You can do it. It is physically and spiritually possible to get sober and stay sober and have long-term lasting sobriete. And that's been my experience. I would say that my continuous sobriety, there's a lot of grace in. If you don't know what the definition is for grace, it's getting a gift that you don't deserve because my first three years in Alcoholics Anonymous, I did not deserve to stay physically sober. I have sponsees who have relapsed on a lot less than doing a lot lesser boneheaded stuff I mean yeah a lot less than what I did more than they in my first three years and I'll tell a few stories of that time you know over the course of the weekend but I came in I started drinking at 13 I come from a good family a wealthy family I lived in South Tampa grew up in South Tampa that's the wealthy area of Tampa private schools you know college prep you know high expectations professional parents, lots of love and nurturing. There's this myth that if you, you know, and I had it too when I have three children. They're now 19 going on 20, basically 20, 18, and 13. And I believe one of my kids were being born with every new parent belief that if I just love this kid enough he's going to turn out to be amazing. You know? And if that were true, I want you to know that you'd have a purely amazing person sitting up here today. Probably wouldn't be you. Yeah, it would be somebody else. But I came from a nurturing, loving, supportive household and I know that that is true today. I'm 100% clear on it. But what I experienced was, you know, pain, separation, anxiety, fear, stress, judgment, and tons of self-pity. You know, Big on the self-pity. Self-pitty is a good one for me. And I never felt that stuff, you know? I just never felt it. I never ever felt that way. You know, I felt uncomfortable and disconnected and out of sorts and nervy and judgmental and resentful for as long as I can really remember. You know? I can remember being four or five standing up against a fence on my school playground. I mean, this is the nice rich kid's private school playground that I was on watching all the other little uniformed kids running around and just thinking, they're not like me. You know? And I wonder if they think these thoughts that I think. I don't think they do. They don't look like they do, they look like their okay. They look like there fine, and I am not fine. At five years old I was not fine and I was aware of the fact that I was fine. Now I didn't take a drink. I needed to drink at five. I didn' t know it. I didn''t know it, but by taking a drink at 5 it would have fixed what was wrong with me. Because when I was 13 and I finally... Now when I say a drink I just want to say this, I don't mean, you know, I took a lot. I come from a big drinking family. You know, I have seven brothers and sisters. I'm number six out of eight. We're all among the legitimate children. And there's some intrigue in my family. I had to sip off my old man's beer watching the Super Bowl, you know? And all that kind of stuff. Whatever. Sip of wine at the table. You know? My mom tried to teach us wine. My mom owned a wine store and cheese, wine and cheese shop. This is a Chardonnay. This is what Chardonnet tastes like. It has this nose and it has these legs when you swirl the wine and all this kind of stuff. So I learned all that stuff as a kid growing up around my mom's table. Of course, later on, I didn't respect it. I drank for the effect. That's what my mom didn't know. She was kind of training an alcoholic. She did not know that. But the first time that I drank enough to feel it, I was 13 years old, and I got invited out with the older kids in the neighborhood that I lived in. One of them was 16, had a car. We all went out. We went to a drive-thru liquor place, which they still have in Florida, and if you were old enough to drive up to the place, they would sell it to you basically, and we got two quarts of Mickey's Mean Green malt liquor each, so eight quarts for four kids, and by the time that I had finished half a quart of Mickey'S malt liquor, I was totally fine. Everything in my life was great. I was the best looking, wittiest, funniest, sexiest. Ladies come up, talk to me, look at the goods. That level of confidence. I was so impressed with people who had any level of confidence because I've always been a very uncomfortable, shy kind of guy. And it was like Valerie accurately said, it was a spiritual awakening. It was a special experience for me. A spiritual awakening, the first time that I got enough of me to feel it. And I mean, I wasn't hammered right away, but I just was on fire. And I was alive in a way that I had never been alive. It was like I'd been walking around with a 100-pound bag of rocks up to that point, and I just set it down for the first time. Ah, man, this is great. My problem is that I have an alcohol deficiency. That was what I learned that night. And I'm 13 years old, and you can't drink all the time every day when you're 13. Well, I guess you can. If you're a girl, you can, right, Val? Yeah. So, but it was a weekend thing. Then it was, there were a lot of, thankfully a lotof potential alcoholics in the neighborhood I grew up in. And so we would steal from my parents' liquor cabinet. And all these well-to-do families had big liquor cabinets. They entertained a lot. So there werea lot of liquor cabinets to raid in the vicinity. We raided them until they got locks put on them. And then we started, we would scrape together money and we would get people to buy us beer and somebody had an older brother and then we started smoking grass and partying and doing other things. But anyway, just whipping and riding and I'm not going to spend a whole ton of time on that but for me immediately there were problems. The first drunk that I ever had that night when I was 13 I ended up getting sick, blacking out throwing up all over my friend's parents' place getting in trouble getting everybody else involved in trouble coming to be hated and reviled and judged by those guys for being a lightweight who couldn't handle his liquor and getting everybody in trouble. My parents, I was grounded for like forever when I came home the next day. And so there was a lot of trouble with what my first drunk was. But it was totally 100% worth it. The next day I thought that was the best night of my life and I can't wait to do it again. Let's do it. Let's try to do this again. And my last drunk looked almost exactly the same as that. I want to tell you. Got drunk, blacked out, didn't know what happened, got sick, you know. but the next morning it was the worst day of my life you know it was you know it was so that's the only difference so I want to tell a funny story actually when Kelly called me and asked me to do this and I was like oh yeah totally Oh Oh, it's Super Bowl weekend. Ah, Super Bowl weekend. Any football fans? Any football friends in the room? Any football parents in the room? So here's how, I'm 28 years sober. I would I've had some spiritual experience. I've had an ongoing set of spiritual experiences and I've learned some great stuff in Alcoholics Anonymous. And here's what I thought. You know, maybe in God's universe if the Atlanta Falcons fan agrees to go to New England on Super Bowl weekend that the Falcons will make it to the Super Bowl and get to play New England again. Yeah, ladies, that's how much I know about God's will. Yeah, so go Patriots. But I drank for six years and I ran it into the ground as hard as you can run it into the ground. And I came into a treatment center with zero intention of getting sober, okay? Absolutely did not believe I was an alcoholic or a drug addict or anything despite the copious amounts of alcohol and drugs that I was putting in my body at that time. Didn't think any of that. Did think that I might be mentally ill, okay? Because I knew how much potential I had Because I had been told all my life how much potential. You're cursed with it. Tell me, tell me. Cursed with potential. Anybody been told they got a lot of potential in their lifetimes? A lot of y'all have been told that? And you're wasting it. You know. Here's what I learned at Alcoholics Anonymous. Potential means you haven't done anything yet. But you're gonna. The truth is, I felt great about all these people telling me I had potential. You know? And I would think to myself, one of these days I'm going to exercise my potential. And I'm gonna just impress the heck out of all these guys, you know? And yeah, it's really weird the way that my perception on that went. But here's the problem with potential. If you ever actually exercise your potential and achieve anything good, they're gonna want that level of performance from now on. So God forbid that you actually take advantage of your potential and do anything. And I was terrified. My old man's a doctor and a self-made millionaire, and he fought in Korea, and he went into GI Bill to college and medical school and had five kids before he was done with all of that pride. Just, wow, man. Of course, I thought he was a jerk all my life. We'll talk about the fourth step a little later. But potential is scary. Okay, whatever. But I was aware that I had a high IQ and I should be doing better than I'm doing, but that just terrified me. I want you to know too before we get to the fourth step that I'm a creature of fear. I did not believe that fear was an evil and corroding thread running through the fabric of my existence. Like a lot of things in the big book, the first time I read that, oh god this flowery bill wilson bs you know um but i want you to know today i do believe that that's true but i came into alcoholics anonymous and the reason i came in really was not because i believed i was an alcoholic it was because i was living in a house that for the last two months had no electricity or water or utilities of any kind and we were two months in arrears and we're getting ready to be evicted. And I called my Al-Anon mother up and gave her a sob story about how mistreated I was by all of the people around me. And she was in Al-ANon at that time for about a year. And so she said, oh honey, well you need to go away and have this evaluation. And so I went away for an evaluation at a treatment center, which ended up being Atlanta, Georgia. But I want to paint the picture for you right before I left to go to my first rehab, Actually, my only rehab. I was living in this house with no running water, which means I was not brushing my teeth. I was nicht showering. This was February, March of 89. It was a particularly cold winter by Florida standards, so it was down below freezing every night. And when you don't have water, you run into a number of problems when you do not have water in your home. One of them is you cannot flush your toilet, but you still have a need to use it. right? So you can see the problem, can't you? You're smart. Yes, I can smell it. Can you smell the problem? Smell it. My house that I lived in, if any of y'all have ever stopped out here, you know, on 91 and one of the nice rest areas out there, you know after a particularly grim Saturday night, you now, and the smell of them of the men's room, I assume the women's is got to be similar but the men is probably worse, but that's what my home smelled like, you know and our solution to this problem of not having water to flush our toilet was to at night go into the neighbor's yard and steal their hose running through a bathroom window and flush our toilets so once a day we've got a good flush on the toilet now I am NOT an alcoholic you know there is I'm not believing that I'm an alcoholic right now because every bit of money that came into that house my roommate and I spent on alcohol you know every bit that's and it wasn't a calculated thing it was a need you know I need a drink and when I need to drink I will do anything you know include including steal money from my parents and my grandparents and steal their drugs and their prescription pads and all this kind of stuff so I went to rehab simply because I wanted to take a shower and I wanted some food and that I wanted the place to where there's electricity and you know heating and stuff like that so That's why I went to rehab. I love being hospitalized. Hospitalized, especially in the 80s. Yeah. You said that and that is totally true. Loved it. I was still on my parents' insurance which paid for four and a half months in an inpatient treatment center in Atlanta, Georgia and it had a gymnasium and a heated pool and a volleyball court and a softball field and you know, I don't know how you guys get sober nowadays. you poor saps but the miracle is this is that while I was there people came from the outside and told their stories they had a speaker meeting that they would bring in speakers there was a group somewhere that was bringing in speakers and these men and women would come in and tell their stories kind of like exactly what I'm doing now And I heard what one alcoholic hears when another alcoholic shares the truth about their experience, strength, and hope. You know, I heard, identified with these people even though I didn't want to. You know when you're kind of in the meeting when you are new and you are kind of nodding along to the speaker and then you are like, don't nod, they are going to think you identify. You know? Like that. You know. And I was pretty paranoid and I thought some of my rich relatives had actually planted paid actors to come in and be like, talk about dropping out of high school because he dropped out of high school. Which I did. I dropped out of high School, by the way. So a guy would talk about dropping out of High School and I'd be like oh my God. Anyway, you're not along. You just can't help it. You're like when Bill and Bob sat down and Bob was immediately struck with this is the guy who really knows what he's talking about who has an answer who is just like me but well or getting well or weller. Weller. You know, we don't actually get well. I want to just throw that out. I mean, we say that sometimes. I'm getting well and I'm home. We get weller, I believe. And I say that because I don't ever want to get complacent in this deal. At 28 years sober, I'm weller than I was, you know? But I wantto talk to you over the course of this weekend about some of the really well things that I have done with many years of sobriety. Me too. You know? Yeah. Valerie too. Yeah. But not as much as me. Because you're way more spiritual. But anyway, the miracle that led to my first surrender was that I heard these men and women talking about, you know, and again, this is the late 80s, so people weren't coming in and breaking down the book and talking about inventory and amends and sponsorship and prayer and meditation. You know, they were just coming in and telling crazy stories. They're telling the crazy stories that I connected with. And I want to say this too in general. Sometimes you'll hear a speaker say, I'm not going to talk about drinking tonight because I don't want to spend a lot of time talk about recovery. I think, and I understand what that guy's saying, but I do think that we really miss something important when we don't talk about what our drinking looks like because that's all the new guy can identify with. Since we're here to carry a message, if I just get up here and talk to you, which I could do, I could talk to you about how freaking spiritual I am because I am really freaking spiritual and humble. the new guy doesn't give a rat's ass about that right the new guy doesn' t understand that but he understands pain and humiliation and fear and suffering and wanting a drink so bad that you know you'll steal money from your grandma to get it I got a sponsor he called me today who's living with his 80 year old mother he's 60 years old he's been around Alcoholics Anonymous for 30 years. He's had several years of sobriety on multiple occasions. He is currently living with his 80-year-old mother who is dying of cancer and stealing her credit cards and telling me how bad he feels about it, you know? I mean, I get it. I totally get it, man. I'll do anything for another drink when I need a drink. But I came into Alcoholics Anonymous and I went to seven meetings a week for the next three years and had a killer program. Just ask me. And I shared in every single one of those seven meetings a week that I went to. A guy came up to me just about the time I was ready to surrender with three years sober and start working these steps. A guy come up to after meeting one night and said, have you ever been to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous where you did not share? And I was hurt. I was crushed. He's making fun of me, I think, Valerie. Hurt my inner child. But I went through seven meetings per week. the week that i was going to kill myself um i've been to seven meetings and i went to seven meetings a week basically on i might have in the earlier first year or two i'd average more because in atlanta there's over a thousand aa meetings in the metro area every week and i loved aa and i love the fellowship and i fell in love with you guys and this fellowship and i still am in love WITH YOU GUYS AND THIS FELLOWSHIP but i just misunderstood thank you appreciate that I just misunderstood what the program was I was told in treatment that a is your long-term extended group therapy you need to go and dump your problems there I mean I was by the counselors that I went to treatment with that and I had no reason to disbelieve them you know they were you know they were experts in alcoholism weren't they and so basically that's what I did though. I was 19 when I got sober, just almost 20. So for three years, I took the directions that I heard that I liked, you know, which were take what you want and leave the rest. Used to hear that a lot in AA. I don't hear that much in the meetings that I go to these days, thank God. But I did exactly that. I came to y'all's meetings and I got a girl's phone number and I got a cup of coffee and I didn't put anything in the basket and I didn't get the sponsor and I shared in the meeting and said something cute and philosophical and then I left. And I felt better. And it worked. And, you know, at least at the beginning, it did. It really did work. It was a new experience for me. When you go from a social circle of one person, my roommate Steve, who I hated, to a room full of happy, smiling alcoholics that'll work for a minute you know i'm saying there's a lot of things that will work for a moment treating alcoholism right there's a lot of things that'll work for i'll tell you what it'll work for a minute new relationship work for a minute she's the one when i was new every girl that i was with i had 25 relationships my first three years 25 sexual relationships and i'm not a player i'm not trying to impress anybody it was low hanging fruit guys, okay? And I was low-hanging fruit, okay, and all the low-hangin' fruit, it gets together and, you know, and that will work for a minute. For a minute, that new relationship, the excitement of whether or not we're going to sleep together or whatever it is for you, well, we'll kind of keep you going, you now. You know, a new car will work for a minutes. A new guitar will work for a minute, won't it? Chris, new guitar. Chris is a guitar player. A lot of stuff will work for a minute. A new job, a promotion, you know. If you get a certain number, everyone's got a number in their head in your bank account, you know, that'll work for the next year. That'll work a minute too, you know. But eventually, none of that stuff's really a treatment for alcoholism, right? None of that stuff will really work. And the treatment for alcoholism is to have a spiritual awakening. And we have a canned process basically in AA to have a spiritual awakening. That's what our steps are. This canned, formulated process that we've got to do and then continue to do. God, we've got to help others to do it. It's just not appealing. Some. Yeah, but no one's ever walked into Alcoholics Anonymous and looked at the 12 steps on the wall and said, that's it! It's always like, stupid. What else you got? I mean, that was my experience. It's mostly the experience of the alcoholics that I sponsor. So, I didn't believe that. I didn' t believe you. I didn''t believe a lot of what you said. I liked some things. I went along, like Bill Wilson says in his story, but those parts which were convenient and not too difficult. The coffee and the meetings and the girls' phone numbers. That's convenient and no too difficult, so that's kind of what I did. And at three years sober, on the outside, my life was better than it had ever been. I mean, I had a girlfriend. I had an apartment in the cool part of town where all the cool kids lived. I had a, this is 1991 or 2. I had, I had current model year car, okay? Which was the first time in my life that I had had a current model. I don't have a current Model Year car this year, you know? And I haven't in 10 years, but I had a current-model-year car. I had gone from a high school dropout alcoholic scumbag, you know, to a college kid going to Emory University. had gotten my GED, junior college, Emory University, making good grades, parents in love with me. Wow, look at our kid. You know, parents like to brag on their kids. And one of the things that I never realized that I did for years, I took that away from my parents. You know? My parents had a lot of rich parent friends and their kids were, oh, my kid's going here and he's doing this and he was doing that. You know my parents couldn't say anything about, not one word could they say about what their kid was doing. you know, because I was just a grade A alcoholic screw up, you know. But so I'm sober and I'm three years and I got a car and I get the apartment and I've got the girl, maybe more than one and I go to AA and I have like friends and people. I have 100 people that I'm on a first name basis with, you know, and that's where I was at three years sober and the externals were better than they had ever been but it's an inside job in Alcoholics Anonymous. none of those externals are treatment for alcoholism and I was gonna kill myself or drink again and I wasn't talking to anybody about that internal stuff on the outside it was like I would share in the meeting some new guy would come up to me and he would say man I just got man just mmm what you said tonight yeah that was just really awesome and I would say something deeply humble and meaningful like to keep coming back man man, it'll work for you too. I mean, you can get pretty sick in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. And the meetings that I went to, now I know there were meetings where the solution was being discussed at this time. There were. They were like they are now. In Atlanta, I would say 95% of the meetings are not solution-based where I live in Atlanta. There's pockets of enthusiasm. My home group is a pocket of enthusiasm and we love AlcoholicsAnonymous. You know, we love the 12 steps and 12 traditions. But I chose to go to the 10 o'clock midnight candlelight. Yeah, baby! We'd burn sage and candles and read spiritual stuff and not, hey, literature wasn't even in a room. Because that's where the women that I like go to, you know? So anyway, what I'm saying is that at three years sober, I had there's sometimes we don't talk about this as much. I used to hear this a fair amount. The second surrender. The second surrender. See, because I surrendered to the fact that I cannot drink and party successfully. And I kind of turned my will in life over to the care of these meetings. You know? And I did, you know, I hit my knees and I did a few things and I made coffee once a year for a month you know stuff like that and uh but i never worked any steps i never had a sponsor and i never had a home group really that i participated in and um i had a sponsee around this time and we were going somewhere and he said hey man when are we going to do this fourth step everyone talking about this fourth set when we're going to be doing this fourth step and uh this is how spiritually sick i was at the time about two and a half years sober I hadn't done a fourth step so I said to my sponsee who's sponsoring who here like I'm going to use the old lording it over the sponseed method to escape the fact that I haven't done these steps he goes okay man you know that was the sponsey I had in the car when I was arrested for driving on a suspended license and taken to jail about two weeks later so he changed sponsors because that's how God works. But it's possible to be in Alcoholics Anonymous for a long time and very unwell, you know? And so I don't say that lightly. How are we doing on time? We got 10 minutes? Okay. So anyway, a lot of that is all to just say that's kind of a first step story, you now? We're a storytelling society. And we're probably going to extend the first step just a little bit. I have a very difficult time talking about first step without bringing in the second step and without bringing in third step. And vice versa, I can't talk about step three without talking about step one. And truthfully, I don't believe a lot of people struggle in Alcoholics Anonymous for a long time. You know, and I've heard, I've had sponsees and you know, oh I had this sponsor and I just struggled with step four, I just struggled with steps nine. And when we really get to talking about it you know when we get to read in our book and we get to read the doctor's opinion they're really struggling with step one step one is hard to grasp first of all powerless alcoholics aren't powerless over anything I have knowledge deep meaningful knowledge I have really strong you know spontaneous and powerful judgments that are true about a lot of stuff I just have them. You are the alpha and the omega. They come unbidden from the ether. And I'm just not powerless over things. It's just asinine to think that there's nothing that... And I don't think deeply when I'm challenged about things either. I just say, I just want to have opinions and I just stay... When you try to get at me. But I'm powerless. I'm powerless. I mean, I really, I have to admit, I say it clearly that I can't do anything about this. Don't think I bought that when I first got to Alcoholics Anonymous. And my life is unmanageable by me because I cannot manage my life, you know? I mean it's a weird concept too, unmanangeable. You know, when you go into a really crappy business, you know, it could be a restaurant, it could быть any business, you know and the place is just not painted and the tables aren't set well and the place ain't swept well and there's a bad odor in the joint and there are cockroaches and there is vermin. What's wrong with that business? It ain't being managed well. If I was paying somebody to run my life, if I was pay them to run my life and they ran it exactly the way that I ran it, I would fire them. These are not elaborations on these ideas that were presented to me, you know, until later. You know, and when I finally got a sponsor who was really grounded in this book and we went through the book and read The Doctor's Opinion, you now, and read more about alcoholism and there is a solution. And you know what's interesting about the book? We were talking about this today is when we get to step three, it's on page 63, right? Step three? I know I'm in the room with people. Yeah, the prayer, right. So, I mean, this is the other... I said I was only going to refer to it once. I've already lied. That's the speaker you got. but look at this this is now this is really interesting because we get to into action okay working with others okay look can you all see this that's how much book that thickness of that book okay that's the first 63 pages plus the doctor's opinion plus a little full stuff dag nabbit then that's three steps do all that material that's three steps okay then we got 25 pages to go 4 through 11 they really spent a ton of time in this book really hammering home first the first step and then you know yeah and really it's all first first you know and then it's sort of like and solutions God now go you know inventory and then a character defect look what's wrong with ask God for help now don't stop you know keep going make Make amends, make amends. Don't stop. Now while you're doing that, do this and this and this and then go help somebody. Help somebody. Help somebody, you know? So it's sort of like it's all front loaded with this like because it's so important to believe that I am hopeless, that I am desperately, desperately hopeless. I'm not going to take action if I don't believe that, you now? And so when we're working with new guys, I just think it's really, really important that we, you know, and if we go through the book obviously that will happen i think the book is our best tool for that but it's not the only tool because the story i think is the bigger tool you know and you know i know i'm sitting in a room with a lot of people who believe like i believe and to some extent we're all preaching to the choir in here right but i do also want to reiterate you know we've all been to the big book studies and i've been this guy who was you know carrying the torch who was the born again big book thumper guy who was going to straighten you out in your meeting about how you're killing people with your screwed up message because it doesn't, on page 27 it says this. And strangely no one came up to me and asked me to sponsor them after those meetings. But I would just say this, that as valuable and as absolutely critical as this information is and as the book is, is the first 100 did what we do without the benefit of a book. you know and so it is the action and it is the stories and it's great that we have meetings but it's better that we go to the detox that we sit down with that newcomer one on one that we kind of share him here's what my experience was and if they have an experience that I don't have well I got a sponsor and you know what we're going to go talk to him you know we're gonna go talk to so and so in the home group because I know he's been through that kind of divorce or he's been through that situation or he had that thing come up with his kid, you know, he's dealt with suicide or he's dealt with this or he dealt with that. You know, to be quick to extend as far as possible our efforts to help that new guy and his difficulties. So anyway, that's a little bit of my sort of first step experience and getting a little bit into some of the rest of it too. But we're going to pick this up over the course of the weekend. And I think we're gonna have a really good time doing this. You know, I always have a really good time when I'm with y'all. And I did. I fell in love with you well before I fell in love your book or your God or any of the other stuff you're offering. And so I'm really looking forward to visiting with you all and hanging out over the weekend and this wonderful lady here and Chris who drove up with us, flew up and then drove up without. And a few of you that I know in the room. So we got another five or so minutes before we. Is there anything that you want to say? No, I'm looking forward to tomorrow and I think you'll be right. I think you nailed it, baby. All right. Thank you. I love you, girl. I love you, too. Oh, hey.