A Spiritual Experience Doesn’t Always Show Up on Time — Mine Came Months After the Tenth Step – Mike B.
About This Speaker Tape
Mike B. tells his story from the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers meeting on NABA, with a sobriety date of December 8, 2003 and nearly 18 years sober. Born in Atlanta on June 10, 1952 � AA's birthday � he traces an unease that started in Catholic school, where he learned to manipulate, fake it, and believe he had untapped potential he could pull out of his pocket.
His mother died when he was 13, and he milked the sympathy. By 12 he was picking his dad's liquor cabinet, pouring shots from every bottle into a jar, and refilling them with water so his dad's friends unknowingly drank watered-down booze for years.\n\nAt 16 he bought a car, stopped coming home, and wrestled his dad for the keys in the front yard � his dad walked inside, came back with a hammer, smashed the distributor cap, and had the car towed. Mike never saw it again.
He dropped out, lived on the streets, and he and his band buddies faked a gas station robbery inspired by Easy Rider so they could buy motorcycles. The epileptic assistant manager broke down under police questioning and they all got arrested. His dad came to the jail, looked at him through the bars, and said, "It doesn't look very nice in there, Mike." Mike got a 4F draft deferment from the record.
He went on to respiratory therapy school, then a master's from Emory, and did cardiac anesthesia for 39 years while his weekend drinking bled into daily binge drinking � 10 to 20 shots a night, chugged against a self-imposed 12-hour pilot's rule, catching vomit and swallowing it back down.\n\nIn 2001 he drank himself into heart failure and needed a double valve replacement. He underestimated his intake to his surgeon friend, and they never dealt with it. Two years later, after a 36-hour call shift where he slammed drinks in the parking lot and could not get drunk, he came home to an intervention by his wife and son. His wife, already in Al-Anon, told him AA or get out. He snuck to meetings at Triangle and NABA, saw the sign "one drink, one drunk," and latched onto one day at a time and avoiding the first drink.\n\nYears later, drifting into sleep after a 10th step, the entire intervention flashed back and he felt a presence in that room that was not human � a delayed spiritual experience he now calls his Higher Power. He served five years on the NABA board, sponsors men, and describes sobriety as the balance triangle of unity, recovery, and service. He closes with the psychic change: he quit thinking only about himself, learned to feel again, got his family back, and has a son who now asks his advice.
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Full Transcript
Let's have an AA meeting.
My name's Tim R., and I'm an alcoholic.
Welcome to the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers meeting on NABBA Zoom,
where a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more of sobriety tells his or her...
My name's Tim R., and I'm an alcoholic.
Welcome to the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers meeting on NABBA Zoom,
where a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more of sobriety tells his or her...
Let's have an AA meeting.
My name's Tim R., and I'm an alcoholic.
Welcome to the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers meeting on NABBA Zoom,
where a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more of sobriety tells his or her story.
This reading is based on a passage from page 29 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Each individual in our personal stories describes in their own language and from their own point of view
the way they established their relationship with God.
These give a fair cross-section of our membership
and a clear-cut,
idea of what has happened in their lives.
We hope no one will consider these self-revealing accounts in bad taste.
Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women in our NABBA Zoom room tonight
and listening later on aabluchipspeakers.org,
desperately in need, will hear tonight's speaker.
And we believe it is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems
that any of us shall be able to hear.
Thank you.
I'll be persuaded to say, yes, I am one of them, too.
I must have this thing.
Tonight's speaker is Mike B.
He's well-known to all of us, really.
He's served on the NABBA board for five years.
I dabbled, but I think he mastered it.
I know that he left the club in good hands when he passed it on.
Here's Mike B.
Thank you, everyone, and thank you for coming.
Tonight, I'm Mike B.
I'm an alcoholic, and I think that NABBA thing is an outside issue,
but we'll deal with that later.
But, you know, I'm thinking my story is not really unique.
The one incredible thing about my story to me is that a person like me
who had alcohol controlling my day-to-day life,
was unable to break the cycle of taking a drink,
became sober.
By the grace of God, and came into AA and found a true higher power in AA.
And that has just made the biggest difference in my life.
And I still, to this day, think that is absolutely miraculous
because, whoa, what a difference it is now, you know?
I remember when I said out loud the first time that I'm an alcoholic,
and I was in the 930 meeting after I'd been in the rooms for a couple weeks,
and I hadn't talked to anybody before that.
And, you know,
I had to get ready for it.
I had to prepare to be able to say something out loud in a meeting and say that.
And I worked up to it.
I was in a cold sweat.
I said it, and I told people why I was having a hard time saying it.
And the response I had was so giving and loving and reaching out to me
that it was just overwhelming to me.
And that was, I thought, was really pretty cool.
I think one of the root, the root of my insanity over the years with alcohol
came from the simple idea that I truly thought that alcohol made everything better.
And I don't care whether it was something bad that was going on
or if it was something great that was going on.
I truly thought that it meant something better.
And now in sobriety, if I start thinking that as a solution to anything in my life,
that's that insanity.
We talked about it.
And the second step, returning.
I thought I was a functional alcoholic before I came into AA.
I'm not sure what that was.
I made up my own definition because I never really lost a job.
I never, I always paid my bills.
I never went to jail because of alcoholism.
You know, and so I thought I deserved to drink, you know, because I worked hard.
And that's all I'll say about that now.
My sobriety date was 12-8-03.
So I'm working on my 18th year of sobriety.
And I think I'm going to start with what it was like.
And I'll start with my youth, which I was born here in Atlanta on June 10th, 1952.
And I don't know if anybody recognizes that date of June 10th, but that is AA's birthday.
I'm not sure if that has any relevance to my future.
But, you know, maybe I was a marked being at that time.
Who knows?
But, you know, I had this, and I hear people talk about it.
I had this.
I had this overwhelming feeling of unease when I was very young.
You know, it was like there was some instruction that I was missing.
You know, and I was in Catholic school for years.
And it turned out to be a training ground for my alcoholic reactions.
I learned real quickly to manipulate people.
I learned to tell people what they wanted to hear.
I learned to fake it.
I learned to fake it because I didn't understand what was going on.
I also learned that if I had consequences or punishment, that it would only hurt a little while.
And I used that a lot over the course of my life.
It's only going to last a little while.
The other thing I had going on at that time, almost every report card I had mentioned that I was not living up to my potential.
And the nuns would try to get me to do that.
And so I got that imprinted into me to where I started beginning, started believing.
That I had potential that I could pull out of my pocket any time I needed it and use it.
You know, so it was like a trump card, you know, for success if I actually needed it.
And I also had to always learn things the hard way.
I couldn't really take somebody else's experiences and frame that and learn from it.
And, you know, during this time, my concept of God was very confusing.
I didn't understand what was going on with that area.
I didn't know what the world, I didn't know what spirituality was.
Like I said, I learned to fake it and survive.
My parents, my dad was born in Memphis.
My mom was born in Atlanta.
They, neither one of them drank, you know, and there was nothing tragic early in childhood that I can point to why I drank.
But my dad, he and I kind of butted heads most of my early life.
And my mom, she passed away when I turned 13, and that was about the time of my life to where I was starting to experiment with a lot of things, a lot of outside issues and, and, and alcohol when I, when I could get a hold of it.
But she passed away.
And I guess the nugget from there, I don't have much memory of her.
I wish I did.
But everybody felt sorry for me.
You know?
So I was able to get away with behavior that wasn't such good behavior, you know, because they would always say, well, he's had this tough time.
This is what he's going through.
And when I figured that out, I used that over and over and over again.
I milked that to the death over the years of, you know, teenagehood.
Also early in my life, stealing became a big deal with me and the buddies in the neighborhood.
We would shoplift, going to people's houses.
You know, we just.
We just would do anything.
And what I, what I found is when I did something crazy and negative and bad, I guess is a word I can use.
It was easier to do it the next time and the next time and the next time.
And, and then came the sixties.
I was coming of age in the mid six, mid to late sixties.
And, and yeah, I wasn't, I can't really say I was a flower child, but I looked like one.
And, but I was more into the hedonism of the moment.
You know, which to me is that anything that felt good was okay to do, you know, no matter who had stepped on or pushed out of the way or what it was.
And there was a lot of outside issues, of course, in this part of, part of my life.
And, and it was really cool to get messed up all the time.
That's when I started smoking cigarettes and when we could steal them.
So I was about 12 years old when I started smoking.
And then the playground mix.
I don't know if everybody's familiar with that, but excuse me.
My dad didn't drink, but he had a liquor cabinet for his friends and kept things locked up.
So I would, I learned to pick that lock and then get a jar and pour out contents from all of his bottles and refill them with water.
And then I would take that with my buddies and we would drink that in the woods or wherever and get loaded.
The, I just think back and think my dad's friends must have thought, because that's what the liquor was for, for his friends.
They must have thought he was the worst host, you know, because he was.
Pretty much serving them water and mixers over the years and never got caught with that.
When I turned 16, I had been saving up for a car.
I bought a car.
And once I got that car, I quit coming home.
I just stayed out and partied for days and days, you know.
And one day when I came home, my dad approached me in the, in the front yard, wanted the keys.
And we started wrestling around with it.
And I was big enough to where, you know, neither one of us could win.
And so he just stopped, went into the house, came out with a hammer, lifted the hood up, smashed the distributor cap, and then had my car towed away.
And I never saw that again.
And I was just dumbfounded.
I thought that was the smartest thing I'd ever seen anybody do, because it was just so profound.
And then at this time in my life, my feelings about.
God were really neutrality.
It just didn't really play a part in my life that I knew of.
And, and so I'm trying to keep track of my contact with God.
I was expelled from high school.
So shortly after that, went to another high school.
Then I dropped out of high school.
Then I left home, you know, it was like after my 16th birthday and lived on the streets for a little while, hooked up with some people, you know, cause back in the mid sixties, there were a lot of people.
On the streets and a lot of people taking care of each other and everything and, and, and it was rough at first, but then I hooked up with people, like I said, ended up finally meeting a group of guys that were in a band, then our whole objective all the time was to get as messed up as we could and to kill as many brain cells as we could.
And because that was, that was the, what we were trying to do constantly.
We made a deal.
We made a deal.
We made money by panhandling, selling outside issues, and occasionally we would have a job.
And that had its own things happening here.
In the sixties, a movie came out, Peter Fonda was an easy rider.
And I'm not sure if everybody's familiar with that, but it was these two guys that were traveling around the country on their motorcycles and pretty much living the sixties on the road.
And so our group, we were really into that.
And we wanted motorcycles to do the same thing.
And this is how screwed up mentally we were.
We were working at a gas station, which is not very far from that actually.
And we decided we were going to fake a robbery at the gas station and which we did.
The assistant manager was one of us and he went with the police and they interrogated him.
It turned out to be an epileptic.
It wasn't on his meds.
And he kind of sweated it out.
And broke down and confessed.
And that night they came for all of us.
And I got marched into jail, not having anybody to turn to at this point.
I called my dad.
He came down.
I'll never forget that he looked at me through the bars and said, it doesn't look very nice in there, Mike.
And what an a-hole, you know, saying that.
But he was right.
It wasn't very nice.
And he said he had the rules that I had.
He had the rules that I had to follow.
And we stopped and got a haircut and a shave on the way home.
I had to get a job to pay for my legal fees and all the other things I had to pay for.
And so this is really when something big started happening in my life.
And I wanted something different.
I wanted something more out of life.
So I put my boots on the first day.
Went out to Tucker.
Went door to door from one business to another to find a job.
Finally found a job in a lumber yard.
Which was also a lot of people working there that like to drink all day long.
And that's when I started thinking that whatever I put my mind to, I could accomplish.
You know, that's what it was all about.
You know, I was self-sufficient.
I could do it myself.
And this was something that got stronger and stronger and stronger the rest of my life.
And at that point, you know, I was on top of the world, I think, in a way of that as far as feeling powerful.
I was still ambivalent to God at this time.
I thought one of the good things that came out of my arrest was being 4F for the draft.
Because I was still, draft was still active.
And I want to say that I really thank all those who did serve, especially back then.
I had friends not come back from that war.
And the reason that I didn't want to go is mainly because I am an absolute coward.
And I knew that.
And so it just kind of fell into places I didn't have to go anyway.
And so I went to a new high school.
Well, it wasn't new.
But it was an adult high school where people with records and women who've had children go to high school.
And it was interesting because everybody who was there wanted to be there.
The instructors, everybody wanted to be there.
And it was a great experience.
It was the first good experience I'd ever had in education.
And that was terrific.
And then after that, I decided to try to go to GSU.
But to get in there, I needed to, my dad and I both went down and talked to the president of the university.
And kind of talked my way into the college.
I got a job in a hospital.
And I started seeing these guys and ladies that seemed pretty cool.
They were rolling these breathing machines around the hospital.
And I got to be friends with a lot of them.
And they were respiratory therapists, which was a fairly new field at the time.
It was very lucrative for the hospitals, too.
And I found out there was a program at Georgia State.
So I went there, got into that program.
I got an AS degree in that.
Then I got a BS degree in that.
And then I worked in that field for six years.
And then finally wanted more.
You know, I wanted something more.
And a lot of people in that field were going on to anesthesia school.
And that's where I think I was headed.
About this time, well, actually before, when I started in the Georgia State,
it was about when I got married for the first time to an 18-year-old lady.
And we lasted about two years and grew apart.
There were no hard feelings that I knew about.
And then later when I was at a respiratory therapy school,
I ended up marrying another lady who was my clinical instructor down at Grady.
And we pretty much moved in with each other that night.
And we've been together for 45 years, over 45 years now.
And I had a child with her and have a child with her.
And that was a real decision that I just can't say enough about.
We took the plunge.
We weren't sure that we wanted anything like that.
But I can't say I was the greatest dad at all with all this drinking and stuff going on with me.
But thank God we have him in our lives now.
You know, all this time, you know, the weekend time was the party, party time.
And I would, you know, I was dotted with everything outside issues, alcohol.
And it just kept getting pretty heavy.
Like I said, we started into anesthesia school.
My wife went and I went, too.
We put each other through school.
I got a master's.
I was in anesthesia and life support systems from Emory Medical School.
I did real well in school.
Graduated cum laude.
Did cardiac anesthesia for 39 years before I retired.
And it was a great job.
It was exciting.
And it was, you know, it was an unusual thing for me to be in that position, I think.
But thank God I landed there.
It took a while.
The weekend started bleeding into the weekdays.
And the party kept getting heavier and heavier.
And then eventually, you know, toward the last five or ten years of about a 35-year career of drinking, you know,
it became a necessity pretty much, you know, because the discomfort was too bad without the alcohol.
The reason I keep looking down is because I've got some notes because I have a tendency to forget things.
And people mention to me how short my share is.
And usually that's because I forget what I'm going to say.
So I was trying to get this info to you.
I hope it's not too distracting.
Let's see.
Yeah, by then, let's see, alcohol was my drug of choice.
And it was a way of life, became a way of life for me.
And the way I drank eventually was that I called it like a binge drinking on a daily basis.
First off, when I was on call, my job was the most important thing to me.
Then the drinking was second because with my job, I think it was part of my identity.
Plus, it was a way I could keep drinking.
So I would try to if I was on call or something, I would never drink at work.
If I was on call, I wouldn't drink for that period of time.
But whenever I wasn't on call, it was like I had to drink more and more to catch up from what I missed, you know, type thing.
And.
And it was like a binge drinking on a daily basis, because when I would start drinking, I would just drink one, two, three.
You know, I would just keep drinking shot after shot.
And it was just.
And I read an article.
I mentioned this the other night that that pilots need 12 hours between the last drink and flying the plane.
And so I tried to adopt that to my drinking style.
So that's why I drink as fast as I could.
Soon as I got out of work, I started drinking as much.
Drinking as much as I could and as fast as I could.
If it went down and came back up, I caught it and swallowed it right back down again.
And I was just it was just an absolute obsession.
I could meet that 12 hour window sometimes, but it started stretching into the into the other time thing after a while.
But like I said, didn't get totally, totally out of control in that in that way.
Yeah.
I came in.
They they talked about how we all want to try to drink like normal people.
And I always disagreed with that.
You know, I always wanted to drink to get drunk.
You know, I can't think of any time I drank when I did not try to get drunk.
But then I started looking back in my sobriety.
You know, when I would get to that drink and get that nice burn from the first couple of shots and and and then I would start getting that mellow feeling, you know, and I would smile and feel good.
I'd be getting along with anybody that was around me.
And I think that's the thing.
You know.
And I think that's where normal people stop drinking is when they start feeling that.
But I could never stop there.
I had to drink past that and drinking as fast as I did.
You know, I mean, the stuff I was drinking, let's say at this time it would take, you know, 30 minutes.
That would hit me.
So it was constantly just building on itself.
And so I would pretty much I would cook dinner every night for my family.
Most of the time I couldn't eat it when I was through and then I would pass out.
And then the next day.
And then the next day start again.
I knew I had a problem.
A lot of times I drove the car when I couldn't even walk.
And I'm not sure why it's an alcoholic.
I like to drive when I was drunk.
And I'm not sure why it's an alcoholic.
I wanted to get on the phone when I was drunk, too.
But a lot of people seem to do that.
You know, I've had a few of those calls myself in the middle of the night.
And but like I said, I knew I knew I had a problem.
Um.
When I came into the program, I'm going to jump back a little bit back and forth here a little bit.
But when I came in the program and I met up with a guy and after a couple of weeks, I said, what do I do now?
And he got a big book for me.
And and I opened the first the cover.
The page is blank.
He pointed that.
So that's what you know about alcoholism.
Read the first hundred sixty four pages and look for the similarities, not the differences.
And I took him to heart and did that.
But I found my description of me.
There's a description of my alcoholism in the big book.
And and I also found that it was a sickness that I wasn't bad.
And I think that really, really did something for me, you know, because I think in the back of my mind, you know, all the stuff I've done that point, I pretty much felt like I could be a bad guy, you know, type thing.
But the alcoholism was not that sort of thing.
But I saw the description that when I drink, I want more.
When I when I'm not drinking.
I just totally obsess about when I'm going to have that drink.
And it reminds me of a story.
And I've told this before to a lot of people.
But back when we would go out and look for look at Christmas lights in the car, the family did.
And there was a place over near the cat farmers market, a little neighborhood, and they would just go all out with the lights.
And one night we were driving by stuff and saw a guy stand looking at his yard.
And we started talking to him.
Excuse me.
And he told us that if he wasn't putting up lights, he was thinking about putting up lights.
And, you know, later on in my sobriety, I started thinking about that.
And, wow, what a perfect description of an obsession.
And the actual obsession I had with alcohol, you know, that's what it was all about.
Yeah, I thought that I deserved to drink.
And like I mentioned before, I was a functional alcoholic.
I thought I could handle everything.
I could handle my drinking, even though I proved over and over and over again that I could not handle it.
I could not control it.
And I tried to control it every way I could.
You know, I tried to measure my booze.
I tried to switch kinds of booze.
I tried to do outside issues to stop.
And whenever I would wake up in the morning, I'd feel guilty and ashamed and fearful about what I'd done the night before.
And I would swear off the drink.
But I always swore it off forever, you know, and I was uncomfortable with that.
That didn't work.
And by that afternoon, I would always start getting so uncomfortable that I would need a drink in order to feel comfortable again.
Alcohol became the only coping tool that I really had to survive life or what I thought was to survive life.
And let's see.
I knew I was killing myself.
Let's see.
My wife was in Al-Anon.
And she'd been in that for years.
And she also was doing a lot of other self-help type things.
And, you know, she would leave pamphlets around for me.
And Al-Anon taught her all kinds of tricks to try to get me sober, you know.
And some of them, they would just make me absolutely enraged, you know, and almost to the point of hurting someone.
But, you know, thank God she was.
And later on, I'll get to that.
But I would always give her heart.
I would give her time for trying to better herself.
And I would do that with other people, too.
If they were trying to get better, I would just emotionally browbeat them about it.
And just that's the way I was.
So I emotionally tortured them.
And like I mentioned before, it was like Groundhog Day.
You know, do the drink, square it off, talk myself back into it, you know, go to work, then do it again.
And my life when I came today was very narrow.
I was like a horse with blinders on.
And I don't think I could really say I was really living life at that point.
2001, they've been monitoring me for about 25 years for my heart valve.
And that in 2001, I drank myself into heart failure.
And ended up having to have a double valve replacement, part of my aorta and pulmonary artery.
The cardiologist called my wife and told her she better make sure I tell my surgeon.
It was the alcohol that I'd done this to myself because he'd been watching me for years.
And I went and talked to my surgeon.
He was a good friend of mine, actually.
I'd worked with him for years.
And I told him how much I drank.
I underestimated it to him, you know, just maybe 10, 20 shots a night.
And he looked at me and said, is that a lot?
And I said, well, some people think that's a lot.
And that was it.
So we didn't deal with that issue.
So I knew I was going to be off work.
I had to have those valves replaced.
And I knew that I'd have time.
I'd be off work for about eight weeks.
So there were two things I was going to do.
I was going to learn Spanish.
And I was going to quit drinking.
And I found that that didn't really work.
I didn't do either one.
It wasn't long before I got back into the drink, you know, after the surgery.
And just kind of slid my way forward, I guess.
But at this point, though, I found a God.
You know, I had a foxhole God.
I had somebody trying to get me out of the trouble I put myself into.
And there was a well-used foxhole God.
And that's the one I came into AA with.
Then my wife and son did an interview.
Well, I'll go back.
Tim, what time do I stop?
Tim?
Can't hear you.
In about 13 or 15 minutes.
Perfect.
Okay.
Yeah, I was on call one weekend.
We did in-house call, 36 hours straight.
So I couldn't drink for that.
But I'd always have my car packed and ready for when I hit the parking lot on Sunday night, you know.
And I would just start drinking and just try to catch up for what I hadn't had for a couple days.
I did that.
And I could not get drunk.
I did.
I was pushing it and slamming it down, hours of it, and I just could not get drunk.
So I ended up going to bed pretty confused and demoralized and woke up the next day.
And my wife and my son were doing an intervention on me.
I had no idea that was coming.
You know, it was times before I'd been approached and kind of corralled.
And I'd always conned my way out of it.
And there's a story that goes with my son.
But he really imprinted on me.
They'd be in there.
But I'll tell that some other time.
The amazing thing was that I was bottomed out enough and had a chink in my armor enough to where I allowed them to do that intervention on me.
My wife said she saved up the money to send me to treatment because she knew I didn't want to use insurance because of my professional license.
Or she said I could go to AA or I could get out.
You know what I'm talking about.
So I thought, well, let's say AA must be the easiest.
AA must be the easiest thing.
So she escorted me to a meeting down at Triangle at 12 o'clock meeting.
I don't remember very much about it at all.
And I do remember feeling like I was attracted to it.
And so when I got home, I started looking at meetings.
And I started sneaking to meetings because I didn't want to admit that I had a problem like that and that they were right.
It was really the main thing.
And, yeah, I started sneaking to Triangle or NAVA.
I was kind of living at equal distance between the two of them.
And, you know, it made me feel better.
It made me feel better.
And this, let's see where we are here.
Oh, and several years later, as I was going to bed after my 10th step, I was kind of getting in the twilight of sleep.
All of a sudden, the entire intervention came flashing.
It came flashing back to me.
It was like I was there.
And I appreciated at that time that there was something there in the room which was not any of us humans.
There was something greater than us and something powerful and spiritual.
And I attribute that to be my higher power.
And I think my higher power got me sober.
And I think my higher power keeps me sober on a daily basis.
And it was like a delayed spiritual experience.
And I've had several of those.
And it just brings me such joy when I have those feelings and can feel so connected.
So we're at AA.
Let's see.
The things that were amazing to me, I started going to that 930 meeting at NAVA, and there was a sign on the wall.
And it said, one drink, one drunk.
And I started looking at that and reading it over and over again.
And it just really, to me, was the epitome of joy.
It really, to me, was the epitome of the first step.
And I was disappointed when they renovated and somebody lost it or walked off with it or something.
But it really meant something to me.
And when I discovered the idea of trying not to drink one day at a time, that, to me, was just incredible.
I thought I was so smart.
Why didn't I come up with that, you know?
And then the other concept was to avoid the first drink.
And I had been for years trying to avoid the 10th or the 20th or the 30th.
You know, but that didn't work.
And I think those two things made AA palatable to me at that point, you know.
And I would come late to meetings and I would leave early.
And I would feel really good.
I'd sit in the car and feel real good, you know.
And I called it a spiritual warmth.
And that's the way I described it.
But I was told that I needed to change because the same person would drink.
And I knew that, you know, I was a big isolator.
You know, I was large and in charge.
But I was by myself.
I was the isolator.
And I knew I needed to change that.
And so I started staying in the meeting and learning how to feel good while I'm around other people.
And there were a lot of things early on that I had to do that were totally contrary to my being.
You know, reaching out to other people.
And bigger than that was learning to listen to other people.
You know, that's a big deal.
That was a big deal for me.
And I was told that I needed to ask God on a daily basis to keep me sober.
And people told me they never talked to anybody that had done that, that had gone back out.
So I did that for years and years and years.
And I assume it worked.
I don't know if they were pulling my leg or not.
But it did work for me, I think.
And they told me to live life from AA and not live life and visit AA.
So it took me a while to figure that one out.
But I needed to become part of.
And I'm told that meeting makers make it.
And then just try to be part of things.
Let's see.
It's funny.
With sponsorship, I tried to avoid that.
Thank God there were two men over six months.
And they really gave me a lot.
And it was the way it needed to be done for me.
Because I was an isolator.
I was especially, I think I was afraid of men.
Because most of the relationships I've had in my life were with women.
And so they did that.
And it helped me a lot.
Then about six months, I thought I needed to get a sponsor.
And I asked three guys.
And all three of them turned me down.
But you know what's interesting?
Is that.
That didn't make me just storm out and feel sorry for myself.
You know, I kept trying to persevere.
Which is amazing to me.
That was a big difference for me.
But I had a, found a sponsor who I thought we got along real well and had three things in common.
Found out he was getting all, everything we did he was getting from his sponsor.
So I cut him out of the deal and went to his sponsor.
And he was my sponsor for about 12 years.
Until he passed away.
And he was a wonderful man.
And then after he passed away, a good friend of mine came to me and told me he was going to be my sponsor now.
And that was a very, very great thing for him to do.
And really helped me.
You know, to me, when I came in this first year, there were several things.
They told me not to make any decisions or do anything different for the first year.
Because I was already married.
And I'm glad they did.
Because, you know, when the reality of life and my consequences started coming to me in that first year of sobriety,
my first response to anything like that is to cut and run.
And because they told me that, I didn't.
I didn't cut and run.
I held on to see if things got better.
And by golly, they did.
You know, it really, really, really was a great thing that I was told.
To me, the first three steps are where I get the biggest bang for my buck is what I say.
Excuse me.
It's like it's one step in three parts.
You know, I knew already coming in that I was powerless.
I wasn't really convinced about my life being unmanageable until the alcohol started wearing off.
And like I said, it started coming at me.
And then I realized that.
And then, you know, I thought this God I came in with was my higher power.
But he wasn't my higher power.
He was a power that I dictated to.
So, therefore, I was.
My higher power when I came in.
And so with the second step, the idea I just had to surrender to the idea that this guy.
Who I chose was my heart power with insanity and keep me sober.
And that that was a big deal to relinquish that it wasn't any quest I had to do or anything.
It was just a question of surrender.
And at that time, I remember I was.
I was when I surrendered.
It was like a great weight was taken off my shoulders.
It was like all of a sudden it dawned on me that life was simpler.
You know, I didn't have to keep going like I was lying and cheating and finagling my way away.
And trying to remember what I'd said to this person or done in that situation.
You know, it just simplified everything.
I could let all that go.
And what a wonderful feeling that was.
The third step, of course, when I got to that.
The serenity prayer.
I mean, that's for a third step prayer.
That's scared me.
There was a lot of fear factor there about actually giving myself to something else because I did still didn't really believe it was my higher power.
Because I was afraid it was going to do something terrible to me if I let go.
But then I realized that I had to have faith, which to me is the same thing as as as believing and trusting.
You know, I had to trust that higher power to be a higher power.
And and that's what I work on.
I work on to this day.
But and in the course of the first three steps, I had what was called in our literature, a psychic change.
And I attribute that to the thing that allowed me to get sober and try to stay sober.
And that was that I quit thinking totally about myself and started just a small amount thinking about others trying to be service to others.
And and that's gotten greater and greater.
So I've worked on and gone along.
And with that psychic change, I was able to have a spiritual experience and to continue in the program and incorporate the steps into my life.
Because I think that the steps are not something I take and graduate from.
I think they're a continuum.
I think I try to incorporate the tools or coping tools actually of each step into my life when I need it.
So I think on a daily basis, I'm pretty much in one, three, six, seven, 10, 11 and 12.
And the other steps I take up whenever I need them.
And that three is something that I find myself in a lot of times.
And and a lot of people that come to me that have some difficulties.
A lot of them are in three.
I see a lot of people, a lot of action.
Step three in our program.
So let's see the others.
I had to become willing to be willing.
I prayed for that.
And let's see.
Twelve steps, I think, incorporating my life allowed me to comprehend and be part and use the three legacies as a daily basis for my sobriety.
That's unity, recovery and and service.
It's funny because I was such an isolator.
That the unity part, which is which is the people didn't really appeal to me.
It was the recovery, which was the program.
That's what I dove into.
But when I started doing service, that service allowed me.
To bridge those other two legs together.
I put me out there to other people that it exposed me.
It also made me feel part of.
And to me, that's that's how I stay sober on a daily basis.
Is that balance triangle, which which to me is an amazing, amazing thing.
The then I had to decide about a home group, you know, and I don't know if everybody knows for the home group is.
But to me, a home group is a group.
I go to where people get to know me and can make me accountable.
Help me be accountable, not make me and and a group where I get to know other people.
And my first home group was a 730 meeting.
But then I had to change it to a different time to be convenient for work in order to get involved.
And so the 545 became became an option.
I didn't want to go to the 545.
I thought everybody there was clicky.
I didn't like them, you know, but I had to do something.
So I went there and I made myself a part of it.
I got involved and they all got better.
It seemed overnight, you know, which was just amazing to me.
And the let's see the home group then starting to sponsor other men.
I remember the fear there.
I was told by my sponsor.
I could only share my experience, strength and hope if I give an opinion.
I need to clarify that is an opinion.
And it's amazing to me that men have come into my life when I need them to come in my life.
It's just an incredible thing.
And I get so much joy when when I get a phone call or touch base with somebody or see see one of my friends.
And it has just been a life changer for me.
It is as Tim had mentioned.
I did get on the NABBA board.
It's not really part of a.
But I felt like I had a debt to NABBA.
I had gotten sober there and I felt like I wanted to pay it back.
I found that I needed to pay it back.
And so it's like I said, it's not really a way back when the clubs used to be part of it.
But then that went away when other people's money got involved.
But it was hard service.
It was hard walking that line between AA and non AA.
And there were countless times when I was doing that that I was ready to quit or go hide.
And so it was very difficult.
I had to keep persevering in that.
And so with that experience, what I found is when I find service, it's really hard.
It's really good for me because I'll try to talk myself out of anything.
Well, let's see.
Where are we here?
Well, I think when I was president of the club was keep the doors open and give a safe place for people to get sobriety.
And I think we accomplished that.
And I really appreciate the people who keep going on and the members.
And it's just it's a wonderful thing to me when I used to go there when it was empty and before people were there and sit down.
And it was such a feeling of spirituality.
I equated it to a Native American burial ground.
You know, with the spirits.
And, you know, with the spirits there.
And, you know, because so many people have gotten sober through that clubhouse, through that building.
And so part of them is there.
And you can experience it if you really try to open to it.
AA.
What has AA done for me?
Let's see.
It has.
I found a God who is actually my higher power and is my partner.
You know, that's amazing.
And the one word definition for my higher power is positive.
Before I came to AA, my life was negative.
I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
And I could auger into a negative hole and just stay there.
AA and my positive higher power has given me the way to flick the switch toward the positive when I need to and to move on.
And that to me is amazing.
This is an easier, softer way.
I think the steps are the tools to help cope with life.
And I look forward to the day now instead of dreading it on a daily basis.
You know, because before when I would wake up, the thought was that drink, when is it coming type thing.
And then I would dread the whole thing that was going on.
And AA in the literature promises a purposeful life.
I have found a purposeful life in AA.
I think it's just something I had no idea existed.
I found that my prayers will, some of them will be answered.
I have to remember that to thank my higher power when he is helpful to me and when he's not, just that he's there.
You know, sometimes I'll have discomfort in my sobriety.
And, you know, before with that discomfort would come when I was trying to quit drinking, the alcohol was the only treatment I had.
And now I've learned in AA the tools to try to get over that discomfort.
And so I call them red flags.
When I get uncomfortable.
I need to look and see what stuff I'm involved in.
What's going on.
I need to use the tools I've been given.
Call another alcoholic.
Call a sponsor.
You know, doing that sort of thing.
But, you know, even with all that, there are times where I can't put my finger on it.
It's like something's wrong, but there's not anything wrong.
And one of the things I've learned in AA is that when it's like that, I just try to live past it.
Just like I tried to live past the urge to drink.
I live past the situation of feeling that way.
I now can actually have an opportunity to live up to my potential.
I have a flashback to Catholic grammar school.
And I also discovered that while I was out drinking, I didn't feel.
I wouldn't let myself feel.
I would always just kind of push them down.
And the alcohol helped me do that.
And when I came into AA and started getting sober, those feelings started coming back.
And it was very strong feelings.
It was hard.
But then I came to the realization that when I feel, I live.
You know, like I said, I wasn't living when I came into AA.
But now I can feel whether it's bad or it's tragic or whatever's going on.
I can still appreciate being able to feel and experience that.
Because that to me is true living.
On a daily basis.
And I've also gotten my family back is a big thing AA has given me.
I've got a son who actually asks my advice every now and then.
You know, and my wife and I, I try to give her space.
She does a lot better giving me space than I am with her.
But, of course, the hardest thing to do is carry the program home for me.
And I'm still trying after these years.
But I've just got to keep trying.
Because that to me is the after word.
If I keep trying and trying to be better and trying to follow what I've been taught to do,
I've got a chance today to not take a drink.
And that's all I've got.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mike.
That's an incredible story.
But, you know, going back to that botched fake robbery,
you are so fortunate that y'all didn't get away with that.
I mean, your life would have just spun completely out of control.
If you had gotten away with that.
And as it was, you got a chance to develop your alcoholism
and really get full blown to become an alcoholic, you know.
But then you found the solution.
And thank God for Al-Anon.
I agree.
Great story.
Great story.
Next week, we have Mary Ann Gee just celebrating her year.
And what courage to tell her story.
I bet it's going to be great.
And I hope you guys come back to support her.
Thank you, Mike.
That was wonderful.
Thank you so much.
Thank you all for listening.
I appreciate it.
Mike, it was great.
I love how you sort of, you actually, in the beginning, I liked it too.
But I really liked it when you started to let go.
And started to talk the way you talk when you're sharing.
And that was good to tell us how you did it.
That was cool.
Thank you.
Good.
Thank you.
I think I've said this before, Mike, just to finish.
My thing real quick here is that you were one of the most really, truly important person
when I entered that room at NABA, November 19th.
I can remember.
So thank you so much.
You're welcome.
Yeah, same for me.
Anyway.
I really enjoyed it, Mike.
I really did.
And I certainly enjoyed working with you on the board and seeing the underbelly of all
that goes on there in that building.
And I love that your description of the spirituality of that place and what's within the walls there.
And how powerful that is.
And how I know that means that it will draw us all back there at some point.
Because the whole place is principles before personalities.
Yeah.
The whole place.
And the spirit there is great.
You know, it means the world to me.
My daughter took some of her first steps in that room, in that 930-bit room.
From Sean to Pat Pugh.
So I walked across that room.
And so it means a lot to me, that place.
Mike, I really enjoyed your share.
And, you know, one, two things I got out of it.
Usually our fathers get the last words.
And two, I really related to your ascension and determination to be successful.
I understand that.
You know?
But there was a price I paid all the time.
And one more time, I also, after your surgery, after my bone marrow transplant, what did I do?
I went right back to the addiction, man.
And so thanks for sharing your story.
I get a lot out of you.
And I enjoy it.
I've been talking to a lot of men in this group.
And I've enjoyed it.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks, Gary.
Yeah.
I enjoyed you, too, very much.
I actually was listening while I was doing the dishes.
How soothing.
But everything else was off.
And I actually, no, it was great for me because I actually heard you.
And it was really soothing with the suds running through my fingers and listening to you.
And you were just so honest and simple.
You told it like it was.
And I actually, really, I enjoyed it.
It was very, very nice.
Thank you so much.
You're kind.
Thank you.
No, it was just true.
Yeah.
Thank you so much, Mike.
You mentioned in your story that your shares are sometimes short.
But they may be short, but they're very, very influential.
And you, you're sharing your experience and strength and hope has really, really helped
me the last 70 days.
So I'm very grateful.
Thanks, Mike.
Thanks, John.
Love to hear from you.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Why am I seeing you, man?
Yeah.
I want to echo that as well.
I mean, or back in January, Mike was one of the people that I said, I want what he has.
You know, he's got the call.
He's got the qualities that I want.
And I hear that knowledge-share, and yes, his calming matter of fact way of explaining
things that I really enjoyed and also, he has like an resonated knowledge of the steps
and be like, he'd be like, that's 711, 4, and 3.
And I'm just like, Okay, you know, I obviously don't know it that quickly.
Yeah.
um but it just shows how how knowledgeable he is in this program um and at the times i
at times i talk with him you know he's helped me realize that i'm already kind of doing things
in my normal day-to-day that are like related to other steps i haven't come across yet
but i know that when i get to those steps you know he'll be like he'll be like well you're
already kind of doing an 11th step and like i'm like oh you know like i'm sure when i get there
i'll be like well i'm already kind of doing that it's going to be easier because i think when you
go through them the first time they're kind of daunting you're like okay i got to get this right
i want to do a good job and that's been helpful to me to kind of chink away at them
before i get to them so um and i i heard so much in that story that relates to me
um which you know like i do most times you share so i i really appreciate it mike thanks
i'm gone away i ain't never going back only thing i own in a paper
sand
i'm all alone
and i've lost some
day and night
i need someone's hand carry me when i'm tired
i got the cold i can't stay here
no more
that mean old bartender just showed me the door
you
somewhere somehow
i'll win my
and we'll all be together on that broad highway
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
What it's been walking for
Till that hill got flat and down
I won't have to fight it no more
Somehow, someway
I'll win my fight someday
And we'll all be together
On that broad highway
And we'll all be together
On that broad highway
And we'll all be together
On that broad highway
My name's Tim R., and I'm an alcoholic.
Welcome to the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers meeting on NABBA Zoom,
where a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more of sobriety tells his or her story.
This reading is based on a passage from page 29 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Each individual in our personal stories describes in their own language and from their own point of view
the way they established their relationship with God.
These give a fair cross-section of our membership
and a clear-cut,
idea of what has happened in their lives.
We hope no one will consider these self-revealing accounts in bad taste.
Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women in our NABBA Zoom room tonight
and listening later on aabluchipspeakers.org,
desperately in need, will hear tonight's speaker.
And we believe it is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems
that any of us shall be able to hear.
Thank you.
I'll be persuaded to say, yes, I am one of them, too.
I must have this thing.
Tonight's speaker is Mike B.
He's well-known to all of us, really.
He's served on the NABBA board for five years.
I dabbled, but I think he mastered it.
I know that he left the club in good hands when he passed it on.
Here's Mike B.
Thank you, everyone, and thank you for coming.
Tonight, I'm Mike B.
I'm an alcoholic, and I think that NABBA thing is an outside issue,
but we'll deal with that later.
But, you know, I'm thinking my story is not really unique.
The one incredible thing about my story to me is that a person like me
who had alcohol controlling my day-to-day life,
was unable to break the cycle of taking a drink,
became sober.
By the grace of God, and came into AA and found a true higher power in AA.
And that has just made the biggest difference in my life.
And I still, to this day, think that is absolutely miraculous
because, whoa, what a difference it is now, you know?
I remember when I said out loud the first time that I'm an alcoholic,
and I was in the 930 meeting after I'd been in the rooms for a couple weeks,
and I hadn't talked to anybody before that.
And, you know,
I had to get ready for it.
I had to prepare to be able to say something out loud in a meeting and say that.
And I worked up to it.
I was in a cold sweat.
I said it, and I told people why I was having a hard time saying it.
And the response I had was so giving and loving and reaching out to me
that it was just overwhelming to me.
And that was, I thought, was really pretty cool.
I think one of the root, the root of my insanity over the years with alcohol
came from the simple idea that I truly thought that alcohol made everything better.
And I don't care whether it was something bad that was going on
or if it was something great that was going on.
I truly thought that it meant something better.
And now in sobriety, if I start thinking that as a solution to anything in my life,
that's that insanity.
We talked about it.
And the second step, returning.
I thought I was a functional alcoholic before I came into AA.
I'm not sure what that was.
I made up my own definition because I never really lost a job.
I never, I always paid my bills.
I never went to jail because of alcoholism.
You know, and so I thought I deserved to drink, you know, because I worked hard.
And that's all I'll say about that now.
My sobriety date was 12-8-03.
So I'm working on my 18th year of sobriety.
And I think I'm going to start with what it was like.
And I'll start with my youth, which I was born here in Atlanta on June 10th, 1952.
And I don't know if anybody recognizes that date of June 10th, but that is AA's birthday.
I'm not sure if that has any relevance to my future.
But, you know, maybe I was a marked being at that time.
Who knows?
But, you know, I had this, and I hear people talk about it.
I had this.
I had this overwhelming feeling of unease when I was very young.
You know, it was like there was some instruction that I was missing.
You know, and I was in Catholic school for years.
And it turned out to be a training ground for my alcoholic reactions.
I learned real quickly to manipulate people.
I learned to tell people what they wanted to hear.
I learned to fake it.
I learned to fake it because I didn't understand what was going on.
I also learned that if I had consequences or punishment, that it would only hurt a little while.
And I used that a lot over the course of my life.
It's only going to last a little while.
The other thing I had going on at that time, almost every report card I had mentioned that I was not living up to my potential.
And the nuns would try to get me to do that.
And so I got that imprinted into me to where I started beginning, started believing.
That I had potential that I could pull out of my pocket any time I needed it and use it.
You know, so it was like a trump card, you know, for success if I actually needed it.
And I also had to always learn things the hard way.
I couldn't really take somebody else's experiences and frame that and learn from it.
And, you know, during this time, my concept of God was very confusing.
I didn't understand what was going on with that area.
I didn't know what the world, I didn't know what spirituality was.
Like I said, I learned to fake it and survive.
My parents, my dad was born in Memphis.
My mom was born in Atlanta.
They, neither one of them drank, you know, and there was nothing tragic early in childhood that I can point to why I drank.
But my dad, he and I kind of butted heads most of my early life.
And my mom, she passed away when I turned 13, and that was about the time of my life to where I was starting to experiment with a lot of things, a lot of outside issues and, and, and alcohol when I, when I could get a hold of it.
But she passed away.
And I guess the nugget from there, I don't have much memory of her.
I wish I did.
But everybody felt sorry for me.
You know?
So I was able to get away with behavior that wasn't such good behavior, you know, because they would always say, well, he's had this tough time.
This is what he's going through.
And when I figured that out, I used that over and over and over again.
I milked that to the death over the years of, you know, teenagehood.
Also early in my life, stealing became a big deal with me and the buddies in the neighborhood.
We would shoplift, going to people's houses.
You know, we just.
We just would do anything.
And what I, what I found is when I did something crazy and negative and bad, I guess is a word I can use.
It was easier to do it the next time and the next time and the next time.
And, and then came the sixties.
I was coming of age in the mid six, mid to late sixties.
And, and yeah, I wasn't, I can't really say I was a flower child, but I looked like one.
And, but I was more into the hedonism of the moment.
You know, which to me is that anything that felt good was okay to do, you know, no matter who had stepped on or pushed out of the way or what it was.
And there was a lot of outside issues, of course, in this part of, part of my life.
And, and it was really cool to get messed up all the time.
That's when I started smoking cigarettes and when we could steal them.
So I was about 12 years old when I started smoking.
And then the playground mix.
I don't know if everybody's familiar with that, but excuse me.
My dad didn't drink, but he had a liquor cabinet for his friends and kept things locked up.
So I would, I learned to pick that lock and then get a jar and pour out contents from all of his bottles and refill them with water.
And then I would take that with my buddies and we would drink that in the woods or wherever and get loaded.
The, I just think back and think my dad's friends must have thought, because that's what the liquor was for, for his friends.
They must have thought he was the worst host, you know, because he was.
Pretty much serving them water and mixers over the years and never got caught with that.
When I turned 16, I had been saving up for a car.
I bought a car.
And once I got that car, I quit coming home.
I just stayed out and partied for days and days, you know.
And one day when I came home, my dad approached me in the, in the front yard, wanted the keys.
And we started wrestling around with it.
And I was big enough to where, you know, neither one of us could win.
And so he just stopped, went into the house, came out with a hammer, lifted the hood up, smashed the distributor cap, and then had my car towed away.
And I never saw that again.
And I was just dumbfounded.
I thought that was the smartest thing I'd ever seen anybody do, because it was just so profound.
And then at this time in my life, my feelings about.
God were really neutrality.
It just didn't really play a part in my life that I knew of.
And, and so I'm trying to keep track of my contact with God.
I was expelled from high school.
So shortly after that, went to another high school.
Then I dropped out of high school.
Then I left home, you know, it was like after my 16th birthday and lived on the streets for a little while, hooked up with some people, you know, cause back in the mid sixties, there were a lot of people.
On the streets and a lot of people taking care of each other and everything and, and, and it was rough at first, but then I hooked up with people, like I said, ended up finally meeting a group of guys that were in a band, then our whole objective all the time was to get as messed up as we could and to kill as many brain cells as we could.
And because that was, that was the, what we were trying to do constantly.
We made a deal.
We made a deal.
We made money by panhandling, selling outside issues, and occasionally we would have a job.
And that had its own things happening here.
In the sixties, a movie came out, Peter Fonda was an easy rider.
And I'm not sure if everybody's familiar with that, but it was these two guys that were traveling around the country on their motorcycles and pretty much living the sixties on the road.
And so our group, we were really into that.
And we wanted motorcycles to do the same thing.
And this is how screwed up mentally we were.
We were working at a gas station, which is not very far from that actually.
And we decided we were going to fake a robbery at the gas station and which we did.
The assistant manager was one of us and he went with the police and they interrogated him.
It turned out to be an epileptic.
It wasn't on his meds.
And he kind of sweated it out.
And broke down and confessed.
And that night they came for all of us.
And I got marched into jail, not having anybody to turn to at this point.
I called my dad.
He came down.
I'll never forget that he looked at me through the bars and said, it doesn't look very nice in there, Mike.
And what an a-hole, you know, saying that.
But he was right.
It wasn't very nice.
And he said he had the rules that I had.
He had the rules that I had to follow.
And we stopped and got a haircut and a shave on the way home.
I had to get a job to pay for my legal fees and all the other things I had to pay for.
And so this is really when something big started happening in my life.
And I wanted something different.
I wanted something more out of life.
So I put my boots on the first day.
Went out to Tucker.
Went door to door from one business to another to find a job.
Finally found a job in a lumber yard.
Which was also a lot of people working there that like to drink all day long.
And that's when I started thinking that whatever I put my mind to, I could accomplish.
You know, that's what it was all about.
You know, I was self-sufficient.
I could do it myself.
And this was something that got stronger and stronger and stronger the rest of my life.
And at that point, you know, I was on top of the world, I think, in a way of that as far as feeling powerful.
I was still ambivalent to God at this time.
I thought one of the good things that came out of my arrest was being 4F for the draft.
Because I was still, draft was still active.
And I want to say that I really thank all those who did serve, especially back then.
I had friends not come back from that war.
And the reason that I didn't want to go is mainly because I am an absolute coward.
And I knew that.
And so it just kind of fell into places I didn't have to go anyway.
And so I went to a new high school.
Well, it wasn't new.
But it was an adult high school where people with records and women who've had children go to high school.
And it was interesting because everybody who was there wanted to be there.
The instructors, everybody wanted to be there.
And it was a great experience.
It was the first good experience I'd ever had in education.
And that was terrific.
And then after that, I decided to try to go to GSU.
But to get in there, I needed to, my dad and I both went down and talked to the president of the university.
And kind of talked my way into the college.
I got a job in a hospital.
And I started seeing these guys and ladies that seemed pretty cool.
They were rolling these breathing machines around the hospital.
And I got to be friends with a lot of them.
And they were respiratory therapists, which was a fairly new field at the time.
It was very lucrative for the hospitals, too.
And I found out there was a program at Georgia State.
So I went there, got into that program.
I got an AS degree in that.
Then I got a BS degree in that.
And then I worked in that field for six years.
And then finally wanted more.
You know, I wanted something more.
And a lot of people in that field were going on to anesthesia school.
And that's where I think I was headed.
About this time, well, actually before, when I started in the Georgia State,
it was about when I got married for the first time to an 18-year-old lady.
And we lasted about two years and grew apart.
There were no hard feelings that I knew about.
And then later when I was at a respiratory therapy school,
I ended up marrying another lady who was my clinical instructor down at Grady.
And we pretty much moved in with each other that night.
And we've been together for 45 years, over 45 years now.
And I had a child with her and have a child with her.
And that was a real decision that I just can't say enough about.
We took the plunge.
We weren't sure that we wanted anything like that.
But I can't say I was the greatest dad at all with all this drinking and stuff going on with me.
But thank God we have him in our lives now.
You know, all this time, you know, the weekend time was the party, party time.
And I would, you know, I was dotted with everything outside issues, alcohol.
And it just kept getting pretty heavy.
Like I said, we started into anesthesia school.
My wife went and I went, too.
We put each other through school.
I got a master's.
I was in anesthesia and life support systems from Emory Medical School.
I did real well in school.
Graduated cum laude.
Did cardiac anesthesia for 39 years before I retired.
And it was a great job.
It was exciting.
And it was, you know, it was an unusual thing for me to be in that position, I think.
But thank God I landed there.
It took a while.
The weekend started bleeding into the weekdays.
And the party kept getting heavier and heavier.
And then eventually, you know, toward the last five or ten years of about a 35-year career of drinking, you know,
it became a necessity pretty much, you know, because the discomfort was too bad without the alcohol.
The reason I keep looking down is because I've got some notes because I have a tendency to forget things.
And people mention to me how short my share is.
And usually that's because I forget what I'm going to say.
So I was trying to get this info to you.
I hope it's not too distracting.
Let's see.
Yeah, by then, let's see, alcohol was my drug of choice.
And it was a way of life, became a way of life for me.
And the way I drank eventually was that I called it like a binge drinking on a daily basis.
First off, when I was on call, my job was the most important thing to me.
Then the drinking was second because with my job, I think it was part of my identity.
Plus, it was a way I could keep drinking.
So I would try to if I was on call or something, I would never drink at work.
If I was on call, I wouldn't drink for that period of time.
But whenever I wasn't on call, it was like I had to drink more and more to catch up from what I missed, you know, type thing.
And.
And it was like a binge drinking on a daily basis, because when I would start drinking, I would just drink one, two, three.
You know, I would just keep drinking shot after shot.
And it was just.
And I read an article.
I mentioned this the other night that that pilots need 12 hours between the last drink and flying the plane.
And so I tried to adopt that to my drinking style.
So that's why I drink as fast as I could.
Soon as I got out of work, I started drinking as much.
Drinking as much as I could and as fast as I could.
If it went down and came back up, I caught it and swallowed it right back down again.
And I was just it was just an absolute obsession.
I could meet that 12 hour window sometimes, but it started stretching into the into the other time thing after a while.
But like I said, didn't get totally, totally out of control in that in that way.
Yeah.
I came in.
They they talked about how we all want to try to drink like normal people.
And I always disagreed with that.
You know, I always wanted to drink to get drunk.
You know, I can't think of any time I drank when I did not try to get drunk.
But then I started looking back in my sobriety.
You know, when I would get to that drink and get that nice burn from the first couple of shots and and and then I would start getting that mellow feeling, you know, and I would smile and feel good.
I'd be getting along with anybody that was around me.
And I think that's the thing.
You know.
And I think that's where normal people stop drinking is when they start feeling that.
But I could never stop there.
I had to drink past that and drinking as fast as I did.
You know, I mean, the stuff I was drinking, let's say at this time it would take, you know, 30 minutes.
That would hit me.
So it was constantly just building on itself.
And so I would pretty much I would cook dinner every night for my family.
Most of the time I couldn't eat it when I was through and then I would pass out.
And then the next day.
And then the next day start again.
I knew I had a problem.
A lot of times I drove the car when I couldn't even walk.
And I'm not sure why it's an alcoholic.
I like to drive when I was drunk.
And I'm not sure why it's an alcoholic.
I wanted to get on the phone when I was drunk, too.
But a lot of people seem to do that.
You know, I've had a few of those calls myself in the middle of the night.
And but like I said, I knew I knew I had a problem.
Um.
When I came into the program, I'm going to jump back a little bit back and forth here a little bit.
But when I came in the program and I met up with a guy and after a couple of weeks, I said, what do I do now?
And he got a big book for me.
And and I opened the first the cover.
The page is blank.
He pointed that.
So that's what you know about alcoholism.
Read the first hundred sixty four pages and look for the similarities, not the differences.
And I took him to heart and did that.
But I found my description of me.
There's a description of my alcoholism in the big book.
And and I also found that it was a sickness that I wasn't bad.
And I think that really, really did something for me, you know, because I think in the back of my mind, you know, all the stuff I've done that point, I pretty much felt like I could be a bad guy, you know, type thing.
But the alcoholism was not that sort of thing.
But I saw the description that when I drink, I want more.
When I when I'm not drinking.
I just totally obsess about when I'm going to have that drink.
And it reminds me of a story.
And I've told this before to a lot of people.
But back when we would go out and look for look at Christmas lights in the car, the family did.
And there was a place over near the cat farmers market, a little neighborhood, and they would just go all out with the lights.
And one night we were driving by stuff and saw a guy stand looking at his yard.
And we started talking to him.
Excuse me.
And he told us that if he wasn't putting up lights, he was thinking about putting up lights.
And, you know, later on in my sobriety, I started thinking about that.
And, wow, what a perfect description of an obsession.
And the actual obsession I had with alcohol, you know, that's what it was all about.
Yeah, I thought that I deserved to drink.
And like I mentioned before, I was a functional alcoholic.
I thought I could handle everything.
I could handle my drinking, even though I proved over and over and over again that I could not handle it.
I could not control it.
And I tried to control it every way I could.
You know, I tried to measure my booze.
I tried to switch kinds of booze.
I tried to do outside issues to stop.
And whenever I would wake up in the morning, I'd feel guilty and ashamed and fearful about what I'd done the night before.
And I would swear off the drink.
But I always swore it off forever, you know, and I was uncomfortable with that.
That didn't work.
And by that afternoon, I would always start getting so uncomfortable that I would need a drink in order to feel comfortable again.
Alcohol became the only coping tool that I really had to survive life or what I thought was to survive life.
And let's see.
I knew I was killing myself.
Let's see.
My wife was in Al-Anon.
And she'd been in that for years.
And she also was doing a lot of other self-help type things.
And, you know, she would leave pamphlets around for me.
And Al-Anon taught her all kinds of tricks to try to get me sober, you know.
And some of them, they would just make me absolutely enraged, you know, and almost to the point of hurting someone.
But, you know, thank God she was.
And later on, I'll get to that.
But I would always give her heart.
I would give her time for trying to better herself.
And I would do that with other people, too.
If they were trying to get better, I would just emotionally browbeat them about it.
And just that's the way I was.
So I emotionally tortured them.
And like I mentioned before, it was like Groundhog Day.
You know, do the drink, square it off, talk myself back into it, you know, go to work, then do it again.
And my life when I came today was very narrow.
I was like a horse with blinders on.
And I don't think I could really say I was really living life at that point.
2001, they've been monitoring me for about 25 years for my heart valve.
And that in 2001, I drank myself into heart failure.
And ended up having to have a double valve replacement, part of my aorta and pulmonary artery.
The cardiologist called my wife and told her she better make sure I tell my surgeon.
It was the alcohol that I'd done this to myself because he'd been watching me for years.
And I went and talked to my surgeon.
He was a good friend of mine, actually.
I'd worked with him for years.
And I told him how much I drank.
I underestimated it to him, you know, just maybe 10, 20 shots a night.
And he looked at me and said, is that a lot?
And I said, well, some people think that's a lot.
And that was it.
So we didn't deal with that issue.
So I knew I was going to be off work.
I had to have those valves replaced.
And I knew that I'd have time.
I'd be off work for about eight weeks.
So there were two things I was going to do.
I was going to learn Spanish.
And I was going to quit drinking.
And I found that that didn't really work.
I didn't do either one.
It wasn't long before I got back into the drink, you know, after the surgery.
And just kind of slid my way forward, I guess.
But at this point, though, I found a God.
You know, I had a foxhole God.
I had somebody trying to get me out of the trouble I put myself into.
And there was a well-used foxhole God.
And that's the one I came into AA with.
Then my wife and son did an interview.
Well, I'll go back.
Tim, what time do I stop?
Tim?
Can't hear you.
In about 13 or 15 minutes.
Perfect.
Okay.
Yeah, I was on call one weekend.
We did in-house call, 36 hours straight.
So I couldn't drink for that.
But I'd always have my car packed and ready for when I hit the parking lot on Sunday night, you know.
And I would just start drinking and just try to catch up for what I hadn't had for a couple days.
I did that.
And I could not get drunk.
I did.
I was pushing it and slamming it down, hours of it, and I just could not get drunk.
So I ended up going to bed pretty confused and demoralized and woke up the next day.
And my wife and my son were doing an intervention on me.
I had no idea that was coming.
You know, it was times before I'd been approached and kind of corralled.
And I'd always conned my way out of it.
And there's a story that goes with my son.
But he really imprinted on me.
They'd be in there.
But I'll tell that some other time.
The amazing thing was that I was bottomed out enough and had a chink in my armor enough to where I allowed them to do that intervention on me.
My wife said she saved up the money to send me to treatment because she knew I didn't want to use insurance because of my professional license.
Or she said I could go to AA or I could get out.
You know what I'm talking about.
So I thought, well, let's say AA must be the easiest.
AA must be the easiest thing.
So she escorted me to a meeting down at Triangle at 12 o'clock meeting.
I don't remember very much about it at all.
And I do remember feeling like I was attracted to it.
And so when I got home, I started looking at meetings.
And I started sneaking to meetings because I didn't want to admit that I had a problem like that and that they were right.
It was really the main thing.
And, yeah, I started sneaking to Triangle or NAVA.
I was kind of living at equal distance between the two of them.
And, you know, it made me feel better.
It made me feel better.
And this, let's see where we are here.
Oh, and several years later, as I was going to bed after my 10th step, I was kind of getting in the twilight of sleep.
All of a sudden, the entire intervention came flashing.
It came flashing back to me.
It was like I was there.
And I appreciated at that time that there was something there in the room which was not any of us humans.
There was something greater than us and something powerful and spiritual.
And I attribute that to be my higher power.
And I think my higher power got me sober.
And I think my higher power keeps me sober on a daily basis.
And it was like a delayed spiritual experience.
And I've had several of those.
And it just brings me such joy when I have those feelings and can feel so connected.
So we're at AA.
Let's see.
The things that were amazing to me, I started going to that 930 meeting at NAVA, and there was a sign on the wall.
And it said, one drink, one drunk.
And I started looking at that and reading it over and over again.
And it just really, to me, was the epitome of joy.
It really, to me, was the epitome of the first step.
And I was disappointed when they renovated and somebody lost it or walked off with it or something.
But it really meant something to me.
And when I discovered the idea of trying not to drink one day at a time, that, to me, was just incredible.
I thought I was so smart.
Why didn't I come up with that, you know?
And then the other concept was to avoid the first drink.
And I had been for years trying to avoid the 10th or the 20th or the 30th.
You know, but that didn't work.
And I think those two things made AA palatable to me at that point, you know.
And I would come late to meetings and I would leave early.
And I would feel really good.
I'd sit in the car and feel real good, you know.
And I called it a spiritual warmth.
And that's the way I described it.
But I was told that I needed to change because the same person would drink.
And I knew that, you know, I was a big isolator.
You know, I was large and in charge.
But I was by myself.
I was the isolator.
And I knew I needed to change that.
And so I started staying in the meeting and learning how to feel good while I'm around other people.
And there were a lot of things early on that I had to do that were totally contrary to my being.
You know, reaching out to other people.
And bigger than that was learning to listen to other people.
You know, that's a big deal.
That was a big deal for me.
And I was told that I needed to ask God on a daily basis to keep me sober.
And people told me they never talked to anybody that had done that, that had gone back out.
So I did that for years and years and years.
And I assume it worked.
I don't know if they were pulling my leg or not.
But it did work for me, I think.
And they told me to live life from AA and not live life and visit AA.
So it took me a while to figure that one out.
But I needed to become part of.
And I'm told that meeting makers make it.
And then just try to be part of things.
Let's see.
It's funny.
With sponsorship, I tried to avoid that.
Thank God there were two men over six months.
And they really gave me a lot.
And it was the way it needed to be done for me.
Because I was an isolator.
I was especially, I think I was afraid of men.
Because most of the relationships I've had in my life were with women.
And so they did that.
And it helped me a lot.
Then about six months, I thought I needed to get a sponsor.
And I asked three guys.
And all three of them turned me down.
But you know what's interesting?
Is that.
That didn't make me just storm out and feel sorry for myself.
You know, I kept trying to persevere.
Which is amazing to me.
That was a big difference for me.
But I had a, found a sponsor who I thought we got along real well and had three things in common.
Found out he was getting all, everything we did he was getting from his sponsor.
So I cut him out of the deal and went to his sponsor.
And he was my sponsor for about 12 years.
Until he passed away.
And he was a wonderful man.
And then after he passed away, a good friend of mine came to me and told me he was going to be my sponsor now.
And that was a very, very great thing for him to do.
And really helped me.
You know, to me, when I came in this first year, there were several things.
They told me not to make any decisions or do anything different for the first year.
Because I was already married.
And I'm glad they did.
Because, you know, when the reality of life and my consequences started coming to me in that first year of sobriety,
my first response to anything like that is to cut and run.
And because they told me that, I didn't.
I didn't cut and run.
I held on to see if things got better.
And by golly, they did.
You know, it really, really, really was a great thing that I was told.
To me, the first three steps are where I get the biggest bang for my buck is what I say.
Excuse me.
It's like it's one step in three parts.
You know, I knew already coming in that I was powerless.
I wasn't really convinced about my life being unmanageable until the alcohol started wearing off.
And like I said, it started coming at me.
And then I realized that.
And then, you know, I thought this God I came in with was my higher power.
But he wasn't my higher power.
He was a power that I dictated to.
So, therefore, I was.
My higher power when I came in.
And so with the second step, the idea I just had to surrender to the idea that this guy.
Who I chose was my heart power with insanity and keep me sober.
And that that was a big deal to relinquish that it wasn't any quest I had to do or anything.
It was just a question of surrender.
And at that time, I remember I was.
I was when I surrendered.
It was like a great weight was taken off my shoulders.
It was like all of a sudden it dawned on me that life was simpler.
You know, I didn't have to keep going like I was lying and cheating and finagling my way away.
And trying to remember what I'd said to this person or done in that situation.
You know, it just simplified everything.
I could let all that go.
And what a wonderful feeling that was.
The third step, of course, when I got to that.
The serenity prayer.
I mean, that's for a third step prayer.
That's scared me.
There was a lot of fear factor there about actually giving myself to something else because I did still didn't really believe it was my higher power.
Because I was afraid it was going to do something terrible to me if I let go.
But then I realized that I had to have faith, which to me is the same thing as as as believing and trusting.
You know, I had to trust that higher power to be a higher power.
And and that's what I work on.
I work on to this day.
But and in the course of the first three steps, I had what was called in our literature, a psychic change.
And I attribute that to the thing that allowed me to get sober and try to stay sober.
And that was that I quit thinking totally about myself and started just a small amount thinking about others trying to be service to others.
And and that's gotten greater and greater.
So I've worked on and gone along.
And with that psychic change, I was able to have a spiritual experience and to continue in the program and incorporate the steps into my life.
Because I think that the steps are not something I take and graduate from.
I think they're a continuum.
I think I try to incorporate the tools or coping tools actually of each step into my life when I need it.
So I think on a daily basis, I'm pretty much in one, three, six, seven, 10, 11 and 12.
And the other steps I take up whenever I need them.
And that three is something that I find myself in a lot of times.
And and a lot of people that come to me that have some difficulties.
A lot of them are in three.
I see a lot of people, a lot of action.
Step three in our program.
So let's see the others.
I had to become willing to be willing.
I prayed for that.
And let's see.
Twelve steps, I think, incorporating my life allowed me to comprehend and be part and use the three legacies as a daily basis for my sobriety.
That's unity, recovery and and service.
It's funny because I was such an isolator.
That the unity part, which is which is the people didn't really appeal to me.
It was the recovery, which was the program.
That's what I dove into.
But when I started doing service, that service allowed me.
To bridge those other two legs together.
I put me out there to other people that it exposed me.
It also made me feel part of.
And to me, that's that's how I stay sober on a daily basis.
Is that balance triangle, which which to me is an amazing, amazing thing.
The then I had to decide about a home group, you know, and I don't know if everybody knows for the home group is.
But to me, a home group is a group.
I go to where people get to know me and can make me accountable.
Help me be accountable, not make me and and a group where I get to know other people.
And my first home group was a 730 meeting.
But then I had to change it to a different time to be convenient for work in order to get involved.
And so the 545 became became an option.
I didn't want to go to the 545.
I thought everybody there was clicky.
I didn't like them, you know, but I had to do something.
So I went there and I made myself a part of it.
I got involved and they all got better.
It seemed overnight, you know, which was just amazing to me.
And the let's see the home group then starting to sponsor other men.
I remember the fear there.
I was told by my sponsor.
I could only share my experience, strength and hope if I give an opinion.
I need to clarify that is an opinion.
And it's amazing to me that men have come into my life when I need them to come in my life.
It's just an incredible thing.
And I get so much joy when when I get a phone call or touch base with somebody or see see one of my friends.
And it has just been a life changer for me.
It is as Tim had mentioned.
I did get on the NABBA board.
It's not really part of a.
But I felt like I had a debt to NABBA.
I had gotten sober there and I felt like I wanted to pay it back.
I found that I needed to pay it back.
And so it's like I said, it's not really a way back when the clubs used to be part of it.
But then that went away when other people's money got involved.
But it was hard service.
It was hard walking that line between AA and non AA.
And there were countless times when I was doing that that I was ready to quit or go hide.
And so it was very difficult.
I had to keep persevering in that.
And so with that experience, what I found is when I find service, it's really hard.
It's really good for me because I'll try to talk myself out of anything.
Well, let's see.
Where are we here?
Well, I think when I was president of the club was keep the doors open and give a safe place for people to get sobriety.
And I think we accomplished that.
And I really appreciate the people who keep going on and the members.
And it's just it's a wonderful thing to me when I used to go there when it was empty and before people were there and sit down.
And it was such a feeling of spirituality.
I equated it to a Native American burial ground.
You know, with the spirits.
And, you know, with the spirits there.
And, you know, because so many people have gotten sober through that clubhouse, through that building.
And so part of them is there.
And you can experience it if you really try to open to it.
AA.
What has AA done for me?
Let's see.
It has.
I found a God who is actually my higher power and is my partner.
You know, that's amazing.
And the one word definition for my higher power is positive.
Before I came to AA, my life was negative.
I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
And I could auger into a negative hole and just stay there.
AA and my positive higher power has given me the way to flick the switch toward the positive when I need to and to move on.
And that to me is amazing.
This is an easier, softer way.
I think the steps are the tools to help cope with life.
And I look forward to the day now instead of dreading it on a daily basis.
You know, because before when I would wake up, the thought was that drink, when is it coming type thing.
And then I would dread the whole thing that was going on.
And AA in the literature promises a purposeful life.
I have found a purposeful life in AA.
I think it's just something I had no idea existed.
I found that my prayers will, some of them will be answered.
I have to remember that to thank my higher power when he is helpful to me and when he's not, just that he's there.
You know, sometimes I'll have discomfort in my sobriety.
And, you know, before with that discomfort would come when I was trying to quit drinking, the alcohol was the only treatment I had.
And now I've learned in AA the tools to try to get over that discomfort.
And so I call them red flags.
When I get uncomfortable.
I need to look and see what stuff I'm involved in.
What's going on.
I need to use the tools I've been given.
Call another alcoholic.
Call a sponsor.
You know, doing that sort of thing.
But, you know, even with all that, there are times where I can't put my finger on it.
It's like something's wrong, but there's not anything wrong.
And one of the things I've learned in AA is that when it's like that, I just try to live past it.
Just like I tried to live past the urge to drink.
I live past the situation of feeling that way.
I now can actually have an opportunity to live up to my potential.
I have a flashback to Catholic grammar school.
And I also discovered that while I was out drinking, I didn't feel.
I wouldn't let myself feel.
I would always just kind of push them down.
And the alcohol helped me do that.
And when I came into AA and started getting sober, those feelings started coming back.
And it was very strong feelings.
It was hard.
But then I came to the realization that when I feel, I live.
You know, like I said, I wasn't living when I came into AA.
But now I can feel whether it's bad or it's tragic or whatever's going on.
I can still appreciate being able to feel and experience that.
Because that to me is true living.
On a daily basis.
And I've also gotten my family back is a big thing AA has given me.
I've got a son who actually asks my advice every now and then.
You know, and my wife and I, I try to give her space.
She does a lot better giving me space than I am with her.
But, of course, the hardest thing to do is carry the program home for me.
And I'm still trying after these years.
But I've just got to keep trying.
Because that to me is the after word.
If I keep trying and trying to be better and trying to follow what I've been taught to do,
I've got a chance today to not take a drink.
And that's all I've got.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mike.
That's an incredible story.
But, you know, going back to that botched fake robbery,
you are so fortunate that y'all didn't get away with that.
I mean, your life would have just spun completely out of control.
If you had gotten away with that.
And as it was, you got a chance to develop your alcoholism
and really get full blown to become an alcoholic, you know.
But then you found the solution.
And thank God for Al-Anon.
I agree.
Great story.
Great story.
Next week, we have Mary Ann Gee just celebrating her year.
And what courage to tell her story.
I bet it's going to be great.
And I hope you guys come back to support her.
Thank you, Mike.
That was wonderful.
Thank you so much.
Thank you all for listening.
I appreciate it.
Mike, it was great.
I love how you sort of, you actually, in the beginning, I liked it too.
But I really liked it when you started to let go.
And started to talk the way you talk when you're sharing.
And that was good to tell us how you did it.
That was cool.
Thank you.
Good.
Thank you.
I think I've said this before, Mike, just to finish.
My thing real quick here is that you were one of the most really, truly important person
when I entered that room at NABA, November 19th.
I can remember.
So thank you so much.
You're welcome.
Yeah, same for me.
Anyway.
I really enjoyed it, Mike.
I really did.
And I certainly enjoyed working with you on the board and seeing the underbelly of all
that goes on there in that building.
And I love that your description of the spirituality of that place and what's within the walls there.
And how powerful that is.
And how I know that means that it will draw us all back there at some point.
Because the whole place is principles before personalities.
Yeah.
The whole place.
And the spirit there is great.
You know, it means the world to me.
My daughter took some of her first steps in that room, in that 930-bit room.
From Sean to Pat Pugh.
So I walked across that room.
And so it means a lot to me, that place.
Mike, I really enjoyed your share.
And, you know, one, two things I got out of it.
Usually our fathers get the last words.
And two, I really related to your ascension and determination to be successful.
I understand that.
You know?
But there was a price I paid all the time.
And one more time, I also, after your surgery, after my bone marrow transplant, what did I do?
I went right back to the addiction, man.
And so thanks for sharing your story.
I get a lot out of you.
And I enjoy it.
I've been talking to a lot of men in this group.
And I've enjoyed it.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks, Gary.
Yeah.
I enjoyed you, too, very much.
I actually was listening while I was doing the dishes.
How soothing.
But everything else was off.
And I actually, no, it was great for me because I actually heard you.
And it was really soothing with the suds running through my fingers and listening to you.
And you were just so honest and simple.
You told it like it was.
And I actually, really, I enjoyed it.
It was very, very nice.
Thank you so much.
You're kind.
Thank you.
No, it was just true.
Yeah.
Thank you so much, Mike.
You mentioned in your story that your shares are sometimes short.
But they may be short, but they're very, very influential.
And you, you're sharing your experience and strength and hope has really, really helped
me the last 70 days.
So I'm very grateful.
Thanks, Mike.
Thanks, John.
Love to hear from you.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Thanks, Gary.
Why am I seeing you, man?
Yeah.
I want to echo that as well.
I mean, or back in January, Mike was one of the people that I said, I want what he has.
You know, he's got the call.
He's got the qualities that I want.
And I hear that knowledge-share, and yes, his calming matter of fact way of explaining
things that I really enjoyed and also, he has like an resonated knowledge of the steps
and be like, he'd be like, that's 711, 4, and 3.
And I'm just like, Okay, you know, I obviously don't know it that quickly.
Yeah.
um but it just shows how how knowledgeable he is in this program um and at the times i
at times i talk with him you know he's helped me realize that i'm already kind of doing things
in my normal day-to-day that are like related to other steps i haven't come across yet
but i know that when i get to those steps you know he'll be like he'll be like well you're
already kind of doing an 11th step and like i'm like oh you know like i'm sure when i get there
i'll be like well i'm already kind of doing that it's going to be easier because i think when you
go through them the first time they're kind of daunting you're like okay i got to get this right
i want to do a good job and that's been helpful to me to kind of chink away at them
before i get to them so um and i i heard so much in that story that relates to me
um which you know like i do most times you share so i i really appreciate it mike thanks
i'm gone away i ain't never going back only thing i own in a paper
sand
i'm all alone
and i've lost some
day and night
i need someone's hand carry me when i'm tired
i got the cold i can't stay here
no more
that mean old bartender just showed me the door
you
somewhere somehow
i'll win my
and we'll all be together on that broad highway
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
so
What it's been walking for
Till that hill got flat and down
I won't have to fight it no more
Somehow, someway
I'll win my fight someday
And we'll all be together
On that broad highway
And we'll all be together
On that broad highway
And we'll all be together
On that broad highway
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