Ali H. at the Defective Characters – 2024

Recording in progress. All right. Hi, everybody. My name is Ali. I'm a grateful alcoholic. You guys can hear me okay? Yes? Perfect. Beautiful. Alika, thank you, brother, for your gracious invitation and for your kind introduction and to Uncle Tommy and everyone else who's a service at this group. Thank you so much for keeping this meeting on. You guys are like us. You're one of the meetings that started at the beginning of the pandemic, and you're still going on serving the community and just appreciate you very much. So thank you so much for the invitation. What do I want to share about? It's been a little bit challenging these days for me. It has to do with financial stuff. Like work is really, really slow, you know, and I got a family to take care of and doing the best that I can And just sometimes this ease of alcoholism visits me and starts to tell me when bills are starting to fall behind, starts to telling me that I'm not good enough. I'm Not a Real Man, that I don't deserve to be a dad. And I'm just so grateful for you guys, for this community, because you guys set me straight, you know? You guys lift my head up and point it to the ocean. You guys remind me that my job is to build a relationship with the ocean。 And you guys keep on telling me that your relationship with him is right and great things come to pass for you and others. See, sometimes I fall asleep into the delusion that I start to worship the little rivers or the streams that come from the ocean, like this job, this career, everything external. It's just a river that comes from the Ocean. And when I get focused on the river, I think it's going to dry out. What's goingto happen to me? But thank you for being there. Thank you for these steps in this community that, spiritually speaking, sometimes literally you lift my head up and point it to the ocean. And this invitation is part of lifting my head UP and pointing it to THE OCEAN. Because I get to come over here and talk about the miracles of alcoholics and all this. I get come over and tell you guys what a beautiful life I live when I'm awake to it. I'm away to it most of the time. You know what I mean? I'm awaked to it MOST OF THE TIME. The beauty of this program is that despite the financial difficulties and challenges, I walk with dignity and peace in my life on most days. On most days, I think that's a real message of Alcoholics Anonymous for me. A sober life packed with a deep sense of meaning and purpose. That's a Real Message of Alcoholic from my point of view. Deep sense of meaningful purpose I've been walking with, you know, as humbly as I possibly can. making a lot of mistakes and my entire life i searched for that ever since i was a little kid i searched with that for uh in the external you know i look for that peace that love that serenity and a pool of kids on the street in the neighborhood or extended family member attention or that love of mom and dad or accolades in school relationships jobs acknowledgments degrees i've searched for that in those things and then eventually i found the bottle and i had an incredible spiritual experience the bottle was a panacea to all my bills but all my problems dr bob talks about that the medicine to everything right and then i chased that that feeling that god feeling that peaceful feeling that that i was describing to you earlier in the bottom of bottle after bottle after bottle, after bottle. Started to turn into a broken-hearted bottle, broken psyche, broken bank account, suicidal bottle. Until this ease of alcoholism, the illness of alcohol just started to chew me up and spit me right in front of the gates of insanity and death. I didn't know what to do with myself. I just wanted to kill myself and drink at you. That was my solution to everything. i don't know it always comes out of me this way this part of my experience i guess um like when i say that third dimension explanation of what happened to me how i got introduced to you guys it just doesn't mean anything the only thing that has depth and weight that means something to me really it's true for me when i look back with a little bit clear spiritual lives is what at first seemed like a flimsy read was a powerful hand of this loving god that just grabbed me caressed me and just brought me to the rooms of alcoholics synonymous and put some awakened people like you guys in my path and a big book of alcoholic synonymous on my path. And you guys told me that if you want to we're not going to force you only if you want to. If you situate yourself in the middle of the circle and triangle to the best of your ability recovery unity and service right meeting steps all everything everything together if you do that to the best of your ability you will tap into a power that is going to revolutionize your way of life so i have tapped into a power that has transformed my my being and i'm here to talk about that power i'm here to tell you that i'm sober because of this loving power i'm so because of a loving god i don't apologize for my relationship with god anymore i don't feel the need to come and force it down anybody's throat either it's just my experience it's my experience you know but i didn't land here like this i landed here broken in every way you can imagine broken and suicidal or unemployed and unemployable and unloved and unlovable and ugly just ugly for seven years i was in and out of the program of alcoholics anonymous for seven year i had to experiment do a lot of experiment experimentations to show you guys that i'm not an alcoholic i'll show you i'm like you i just need the right girlfriend i need love in my life that'll fix me i'm now like you, i just think the right job in my you know all those doors had to shut on my face and they did and i became humbled i hum i got humbled i got surrendered and i crawled back to you guys open-minded and open-hearted and off the debating society and the long timer just fed me with your love and your truth and your experience you are the channels Lord make me a channel of your peace you guys are the channel and I got to follow a set of instructions designed for living if you would on a continuous basis that has set me on fire that has sent me on fire last few years i started drinking at the age of 16 um uh just in a general way that's my instructions and generally to let you know that uh for the first for the firstly couple years of my drinking every time i i drank i felt like there's the world made sense and my skin fit into this body you know i felt the peace and the quietness of the mind and then and then it turned on me and then this huge world of potential that everyone always described that I seemed to have, potential, potential ended up being very small in dark grungy dirty motel rooms in southeast Toronto with bottles of vodka and all the ugliness that follows that kind of existence just wanting to die every minute of the day and just not knowing what to do with myself, with this life I'm an alcoholic because of the effect produced by alcohol alcohol filled that god-sized hole to such a degree that i could not stop no matter how great the necessity or the wish that is the baffling part of alcoholism that's what the big one says right but every part of this illness terrifies me the the allergy terrifies me the fact that i have a allergy to alcohol my body reacts differently than 90 of the public apparently out there when i drink the drink tastes a drink the drinking takes a drink and drink takes a drink and i'm gone and i cannot promise you when i'm going to stop usually when the bank account's done and uh i'm fired and i've thrown out of the house and i homeless and i was suicidal usually that's how it ends for me eventually you know and this allergy of the body uh explained many things for which i could not otherwise account it explained the time after time where i would promise that the girl that i was dating that i'm just gonna go to the bar just grab a couple of pints watch the fights with the guys and come back home and i'm gone for two weeks so explain that and explain that explain many things it's not that i'm stupid that i am weak that i m not a real man like my dad used to tell me he said i'm sick it's i have an allergy of the body right see this allergy of the body this fact that when i take a drink the drink tastes a drink and then the drink takes everything away in my life cause the death of everything in my and the physical death is is the last step. I wish for it. I welcomed it. I tried it. It may not have been your story, but it's been mine. I've had many suicides at times, many of them. The doctors say four or five of them are real and the other five were cries for help. Okay, whatever. They all felt real to me. After every single slash wrist and after every single bottle of pills that I tried to down, after every simple psych ward visit an FDFA single, emergency room visit. Usually my poor mom is at my bedside. Usually she was there. And she'd be bawling and crying her eyes out. And don't drink, baby. Don't do this anymore, please. Okay, Ma, I promise you I won't do it. I won' t do this any more. Meaning with every fiber of my being and time after time after time after time breaking that lady's heart. Time after time after time after time breaking my own mother's heart not caring about anything. cunning baffling and powerful isn't it but my brain i can't trust it my brain will always tell me a drink is an option or sell me a lie and i'll buy it meanwhile and i'm suffering from this spiritual malady you guys said you guys have given me the description and the words i didn't know i just didn't feel right man i was always afraid of what you think about me i was never satisfied with the moment there's always some destination to get to or something to achieve and then i'll be okay and when i get there sometimes and i achieve it sometimes after the novelty wears up i'm still not okay confused by life spiritual malady that kept on telling me that i'm an alcoholic i you turned out to be an alcoholic who drinks like this and destroys his life because you were molested by those two 15 year old kids when you were eight you're an alcoholic because your dad beat you because he's an addict because because you moved to canada and you didn't speak a word of english because because the kids beat you up because because because okay all right and what about my younger sister what about her she went through this pretty much the same trauma in life as me i hope not everything but pretty much same not an alcoholic not an addict sure she has some emotional problems some wounds every human being does that she's trying to find solutions for but to be an alcoholic alcohol has to be the solution for me to such a degree that i cannot stay stopped and that is so important that's why the traditions are there that's where the steps are there but it's so important to that's how we're affected with each other but I'm not an alcoholic because what happened to me as a kid I don't believe that story anymore I'm wounded because of what happened music it because if I continue to buy that narrative and by that story I will continue to chase in the outside what think the problem is what i need what needs to change for me to be okay but that never worked when i met you beautiful people you said okay the problem's not outside of you it's inside you but guess what and we have some good news for you so is the solution because deep down within every man woman and child you told me there's a fundamental idea of god you told me you just a clean house man get out the garbage that's what you told me you know i wish i could show you when you're lonely or in darkness the astonishing light are your own being that's what hafiz says that's which you guys told me in your own ways and then you showed me and then he showed me i was so happy when i met you guys because i found the group of people that drank like me i no longer felt alone in that way you know what i mean and I was sober for a little while, going to a lot of meetings and setting up a lot of chairs. I'm really active at the group level, but dibble-dabbling in the steps, arguing about your God, arguing about the steps. Knowing a lot. I knew a lot, but thank God I don't know that much anymore. After about six months of just happiness and joy being with my tribe that I've just found and sobriety, I haven't done any work. I've just been visiting you guys in meetings. The disease in me woke up and it started to tell me that I'm a loser. What am I doing with you guys? A drink would fix this. And I went and drank. That's when I went out for seven years. In and out, in and out. In and Out. In and OUT. My last drunk was not as bad as the 50 before then. I was renting a room in a men's recovery home in downtown Toronto, southeast Toronto. I went and drank just for one night, not as bad as hundreds before. One night, came back, passed out, came to an incredible amount of pain. It's like my brain was torturing me and my body was hurting. I just wanted to die and I just want to kill myself and I just wanted a drink. My knees got bent. I don't know how else to describe it. I think that's the best description that comes usually. My knees got bend. It's different than I bent my knees. different world of difference a prayer came out of me is different than i prayed i prayed many times before my knees got bent a prayer come out of something like god whoever you are whatever you are can you just please help me not be like this anymore because i'm tired i don't even know if you are but if you aren't tired can you help me what a beautiful prayer from a broken soul i'm tired can you help me please it's too much from that prayer one prayer from a hurting soul from a broken soul god listens to his broken kids i really believe so man it was as if like he she it whatever shined his light on me and i just found my way back to the rooms of alcoholics and artists He put a new teacher in my path, and this teacher opened the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous with me, and I was taken through the big book line by line. I would identify if I could, if an action was directed for me to take an action, was my sponsor through the Big Books, we would move forward until that action was taken. And that's when I was set on fire. That's when the lights turned on, man. Within a few short weeks, the lights turn on. the lights turned on and there were times where I was I meditated on this I believe the answer the truth has come to me I mean that's why truth now I medicated on the question that why why this time many times before that I was introduced to the big book and you guys but why this I believe two ingredients it's very crucial for someone like me one is the gift of desperation it's a gift it's bestowed upon me so those seven years of shame in and out they were a gift to me they served a purpose for me they humbled me gift of desperation something we can't force anyone else to have you have to just love them until they have their experience with it gift of aspiration and when the gift desperation meets the window of the grace of God magic happens and when you sat at that window fat armed with facts about yourself and you knew that this not intellectual exercise this is a spiritual endeavor so instead you poured your heart and your experience and your love on the pages of this book as I was taking into the big book and the big book which is a couple of inches thick became thousands of miles deep and I was able to see myself in the pages of this book it became alive to me and I said to become free through the actions of these steps as outlined the big buck man by the way I always sometimes I feel like I have to say this I don't know how you guys but like when I share about transformation i get excited a little bit sometimes because you get present to it you know and then but i don't ever want to like come across as because that was my experience that has to be yours exact same way and if you don't you're wrong that's couldn't be further from the truth you do the steps however your sponsor takes you through the steps i hope they're in order i hope they are the ones of alcoholics anonymous that you have more success rate right because I always take it through the big book, line by line. That's just my experience. That's my experience, you know? The last few years have been to the best of my ability the 12 and 12 says contemplation, self-examination and contemplation and prayer meditation. Self-examine, pray, and meditation. That's all I've been doing. Self-Examine, prayer, and mediation. Cultivating and deepening, fertilizing relationship with this loving God with this inner resource experience after experience after experience that God is in my life moving from attempting communication with this power to communion with this Power to breathing this Power to living and walking this Power and words don't describe these words they're just like they seem like mouth noises because they do not do justice as you guys understand they don't do justice the experience the pure experience of sitting with love walking with love they just don't do it justice clean house trust God help others it's what i've been doing clean house trust god help by this what you dr bob said what you guys keep telling me clean house pray meditate build a relationship in order to pass it on to another alcoholic that's hurting the other practice principles of my life to the best of my ability and i've literally stepped back and i'm an observer in this life the last few years I've been observing, I've been watching this power do for me what I cannot do for myself in awe of it. In awe of it. I'll tell you some stories hopefully, just in awe of it I have a beautiful life today. I'm happy most of the time, not all the time I have peace in my heart most of the time in the storms of life I get to tell the storms how big my God is most of the time. Most of the times. I used to be in short-term relationships all the time, everyone always left me, rightfully so. I didn't know how to have proper human loving relationships. I took emotional hostages, I tortured people emotionally, mentally. So drowning in self, so consumed in self. I always thought I was ugly, man. actually not coming up to 12 years of marriage this way she's a soldier at God beautiful woman she is on the outside and inside man and he has she's come up to 15 years I think 2010 yet 2025 yeah she's coming to 15 years I see I've seen that realized together that that her and I both woke up because we had you know we had our issues too we woke up and we realize that we cannot have normal romantic human romantic relationships like the normies have out there we have to have a continuous spiritual experience with each other what that means is that god better be in the center of this relationship man either god is everything or this relationship is nothing okay and most of the time i ali i make it nothing and i blame her it's her fault i've done it so many times well not as much anymore thank about 15 years ago i believe if i can't my brain's trying to protect me i have to really sit down and think about timelines i think my brain is trying to protecting me from the trauma whatever around 15 years old was my last suicide attempt let's say i think 14 15 years of last was that. I didn't know what to do with this life that was given to me. This life here, I don't want to throw it away. I want to die. I try. Ten years ago, God gave us a baby boy. His name is Darius and he's one of the best things in my life. And he's such a good boy. Honestly, I think God has a sense of humor with me. Sometimes I think like he's like, he thought to himself, what a selfish prick. Let me give him one of my other kids to take care of so he can get out of his self i swear to god that's what's happened there is one of my best spiritual teachers his kindness and innocence his love i get to be a dad i get to pour the love that you pour into me into this boy and break the cycle i get the make amends with my dad so i don't carry that baggage into this relationship it my wife is 53 now she looks fantastic she doesn't care if i tell her age she looks she looks really good spiritual life is a great health restorative restorative it says someone in the big book in the later pages i'm 48 three years ago absy had it in her heart that she wants have another baby we go to the doctor for in vitro the doctor sits us down and this happened with Darius too but you know I'll tell you what the doctor sets us down uh and says don't waste your money you have a little bit honestly with the help we're going to give you have less than a one percent chance I think that's what he I think it's a one percentage to have a healthy pregnant so much your money i'll never forget my wife's tears as they roll down her cheek looked at the doctor and said doctor you do whatever you gotta do me and my husband will do what we do because you don't know the god that we know do you because if he wants it an army cannot stop it my son maximus is 14 months old now and these are 53 this lady here loving god loving god he cannot tell me that there isn't a god i have so many examples of my own life a personal relationship with this loving power but i don't want anyone to mistake this that i'm saying to you god i'm sharing god is good because i my son was born both of my son i have a wife and a house and a car and god is good, God is good because that would really make this program really cheap and shallow because if my sobriety and my serenity and my peace depended on what my ego wanted to get and got it the same, cheap cheap because life is full of challenges sometimes life gets lifey sometimes life throws curveballs and boulders sometimes and I'm so grateful that this program is a design for living that you taught me about a design for living that works when life gets tough sometimes curveballs sometimes depression following from childhood into adulthood into recovery sponsoring people praying, meditating speaking here and there transformed experiencing transformation sometimes depressed at home can't get out of bed feeling like a fraud sponsoring people feeling like I'm a loser I'm not a liar can't find the job to help support we start financial insecurity i do but i just don't have the fears of it as much right one of the promises financial insecurity for the first few years of recovery can't Find a Job to Help Support a Family Properly you know the alcoholic's head you're not a real man the voices in the head the demons you're a loser you're not a Real Man A Man Can Support His Family You Can't You're Digging Dishes For 15 Bucks an hour. You're a loser. The depression that follows that, I don't have to tell you about that. Gapsy and I, the love of my life, we got separated before. We almost got divorced once. All these valleys in life, what they've done because you have introduced me to a path of meaning and purpose, not a path of allegating what he wants and saying God is good because of that. Uh-uh, man. Because you've introduced me to a path of meaning and purpose. All those valleys in life, they have brought me back to the table and more humble being with God for a deeper experience. Every single time. I've become a more humble person. I've became a better messenger. I've becomes more compassionate to other people's pains. Because all the treasures in life do you ever hear in the news? man was walking down the street rodeo drive and he found the treasure do you ever hear that the treasures are found in the shipwrecks in the mountains in the mines in the ruins of life that's where they are that's what the treasures are what's the treasure the treasure is that i'm in pain i'm beyond the limitations of my the horizons are my limitations in every single way you can imagine i don't know so i get humbled and i get on my knees i'm like god i don'T KNOW HOW TO DO THIS CAN YOU HELP ME I DON'T KNOW HOW TO BE A HUSBAND CAN YOU HELP ME i'M TIRED OF ME GOD AND THEN HE STARTS TO FILL ME DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS DIFFICULT TEACHERS DIFFINTE STUFF TO DO DIFFRENT STEPS HE JUST STARTS To FILL Me WHY WHY SO I CAN BECOME A CHANNEL AND PASS IT ONTO THE NEXT PERSON WHEN they have that experience that's the treasure in life to be a servant a deeper relationship with God in order to serve him that's a treasure that is found in the ruins you don't see an apple tree picking up its own apples and eating it the fruits of the apple tree are not for that treat the fruits are for the passerby so the gifts that are given to me through these valleys The deeper relationship with God, having a deep and effective and meaningful message sometimes, when I have the experience of it, that gift is not for me. It's given to me so I can pass it on and live a blissful life in the moment as I watch God use me like a vessel to help his other kids. Just like he does with you. I'm not saying I'm anything special. I'm just like, I have to mic now. That's all I'm saying, my experience. Just like he does with you. Do you ever see the apple tree worried about tomorrow? Regretting of the past? Do you see any other God's creatures ever do what we do? Fear and insecurity and reason? No, they're in the moment, in the present moment, living out their purpose automatically. So I get to live out my purpose. And when I get it to live up my purpose from the gifts that God gives me, i get to be like an apple tree in the moment with god with love right there that's some powerful stuff man for me anyways for me anyway you know i have learned i've had to breathe these steps and ingest them and digest them they've had to become part of every single cell of the fiber of this body and this being they've had to a way of walking a way of being not a homework exercise to be graded this steps as a way of life because i don't suffer from a drinking problem i suffer from alcoholism it is a soul sickness and a spiritual malady in which on my own power i'm always worried about you what you think about me i'm Always discontented irritable and not satisfied always on my own power but that's not the case for me today because god is closer to me than breath on most days and i'm aware and i wake with gratitude with love in this moment with you guys in this woman because that's all there is that's how it is and that's priceless you can't buy this what we have here you can but i tried to buy it i just couldn't you know it's beautiful it's beautiful for our newer friends I'll end early for our new friends because it's ending early for our near friends for visiting friends thank you for being here I'm just gonna humbly make a suggestion only and only only and all if you're sick and tired of being sick and tired of being you. If that's the case, I suggest you say a prayer. Set aside everything that you know and you think you know. Get a sponsor. Join a home group and dive in this way of life. Dive in these steps. And after some time of chasing the light from the darkness you'll realize that you are the light. The light is coming out of you. God bless you. Thank you very much for allowing me to share and it's so nice as always to see the many friends like Anne and Jersey Jill and many, many others that I have met in this beautiful, beautiful pandemic era. Thank you.