Can’t Overdose on Meetings So I’m Testing That Theory Every Single Day 😂 – Craig G.

Take me where the promised land is. My name is Alex, and I'm an alcoholic. Welcome to the Monday 8 p.m. Blue Chip Speakers Meeting here at the NAVA Club, 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 establish their relationship with God. These give a fair cross-section of our membership and 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 room tonight and listening later on aabluchipspeakers.org will hear our speakers. And we do hope that you will join us in our conversation. We believe that it is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that any of us shall be persuaded to say, Yes, I am one of them, too. I must have this thing. And our speaker tonight comes to us from the Alpharetta Group. He also spends a lot of time in meetings in Gainesville. And I'm very excited to hear about his last couple of decades familiar with the rooms. And with that, we have Craig. My name is Craig, and I am an alcoholic. Glad to be here tonight. Thank you for everybody that read. And especially to Mary, first meeting, welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous. I can remember my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. It was 24 years ago up in Terre Haute, Indiana. And I was scared to hell. Y'all were going to ask me to read something when I came into that meeting. It's fearful of reading, you know. So being here for your first time and reading, that's a big deal. So, you know, just getting over that fear is a huge deal. But first time, my name is Craig, and I am an alcoholic. And I'm a alcoholic. I'm very grateful to be here tonight, to be sober tonight. I get to be, you know, to be a part of this program, you know. And it's a mere sobriety date, September 20th, 2021. Mother of a gentleman, my kids know where I am. That's a beautiful thing to do is, you know, tell a little bit about what I used to be like, you know, what happened to me, and, you know, what I'm like today. And, you know, 24 years ago, I was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous. But to go back a little bit further, you know, I knew when I was a kid, I knew I was different. You know, you hear that a lot in Alcoholics Anonymous. You hear that, you know, we feel different. The bad part was I wanted to fit in, right? You know, I wanted to be part of, and I always felt like that I wasn't. But, you know, I wanted to, everything I did, I obsessed about it. I can remember being a kid and playing sports. And, hell, I wanted to be the number one person, you know. I wanted to win. I didn't want to lose, you know. And I did whatever it took to win. And, you know, in school, you know, my parents, especially my dad, raised me in a way that, you know, that basically said, if you want to have things in life, if you want a good job, if you want to make, you know, good money, you've got to work harder. So I knew that in school I had to make good grades if I wanted to go to college. And, you know, so I excelled in that, part of that in-group. And I never was part of that in-group. A lot of it was, as it talks about in this big book, you know, it was imagined the way it was, you know. Yes, I could. And that was probably how I desired to win and to be number one and to be better. And, you know, I always practiced days longer than everybody else. And, you know, but after I accomplished something, I didn't want to do it anymore, right? So I'd get to a point and then I'd get what I wanted and then I'd stop, you know. But I can remember, you know, when I moved in down the street from Ruth in ninth grade, he liked to drink and smoke, you know. And I was over at his house one evening. And he pulled out some Panamanian. I can remember, you know, and you hear this a lot in Alcoholics Anonymous, too. I can remember, you know, I've had a couple of sips of beer before that. But I can remember I got drunk that night, you know. And he had a couple of drinks and he didn't get drunk. I can remember when I put that alcohol in my mouth and felt that feeling, that sense of ease and peace that we get when we put it in us. You know, I felt a part of it. I felt like I was, you know, I could finally relax. You know, I could talk and I felt, and I got drunk that night. From that day forward, you know, I had to go home the next day and I was hungover, but I hid it from him. And the other part, it was I wanted to do it again. You know, I wanted to get drunk again. And, you know, I did. But, you know, during high school, we drank a little bit, you know, drank on the weekends. But, you know, still because I wanted to go to college. But, you know, that's what I did. You know, I didn't get in any trouble during that time. Period. But when I did drink, I drank to get drunk. You know, and that was the difference. You know, that's what we do. You know, we can't, you know, we've got an hour here. The most important book around for us. And it says in here, you know, page 112, it says we've got to read this book. In the doctor's opinion, it talks about in the doctor's opinion, you know, that we've got an allergy. What is an allergy? In my body, I have an abnormal reaction, right? You know, others can put it in their body and they don't have this abnormal reaction. But I put it in my body and I can't just have one or two. I want to just have one. I want to have one or two, but I can't, right? You know, and after all, craving is, physical craving is, I don't do it anymore because I know I've got a problem. Guess what? I get drunk. I have a problem with this disease, you know, that it does this like that. But, you know, the cool part is there's a solution to it. I graduated from high school and I knew I wanted to go to college. And I went to the University of Georgia and I certified public accountant because I was dating this girl and her dad was a certified public accountant. And I knew I was good in math. And I knew I was good in math. And I knew I was good in math. By God, that's what I was going to do. So I graduated in less than four years. I passed the CPA exam on my first try. The company I worked for, you know, you work hard when you know the people that clean. The first one there in Atlanta at age 25, I was a paper mill and making good money and doing so well, they decided they were going to move me to Indiana, right? You know, it's a great opportunity for me. But, you know, I got moved up to Indiana and, boy, that's where I really started drinking. And I got up there and I didn't know. I didn't know anybody, right? But, you know, I was hanging out with people that liked to drink and, you know, a lot, you know. And I started drinking during the day or during the week. I got a DUI in Georgia when I was 25 years old. It wasn't too big of a deal back in 1995, you know, but I got that DUI and I kind of got that behind me and had to do a couple of classes, but no big deal. I just wrote it up as I just happened to be the one that got caught that night, you know. And I got up there to Indiana and guess what happened? You know, I got caught. Back-to-back DUIs in Indiana and got one in Illinois. It's an intensive outpatient program and that's where I was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous. But, you know, I used to say I gave my job away, you know. I lost my job, but what happened was I gave it away, right? You know, I gave that job away that was so great and they paid such good money. And it was the year 2000. My dad was like, you know what, son? You need to come back. You need to come back to Georgia, you know. I can fix this. We can fix this. And he didn't know anything about Alcoholics Anonymous. But thank God, thank goodness I had a good sponsor in Illinois, I mean in Indiana. And he said, you know what, man? If you can stay up here for a few months and get some sobriety under your belt and start working the steps, you know, you've got a pretty good chance. And, you know, that's what I did. I stayed up there and I got some sobriety under my belt and I came back to Georgia. And I got a sponsor here in Georgia. This was 2001 and, you know, I did what we're supposed to do in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, you know. I chaired meetings with other people and things got so good that guess what happened? I didn't need you guys anymore, right? You know, and I got some sobriety, years of sobriety under my belt and life got good. I got married, got a nice house, started working for the company I work for today. It's a poultry company up in Gainesville and, you know, life got good, you know. And I decided that, you know, I wanted to work more and make more and, you know, that was going to solve everything, you know. And it got so good that I didn't think I needed to come to Alcoholics Anonymous anymore. And guess what? I didn't. I stopped going. And, you know, I know this from my experience, you know, I'm an alcoholic. You know, I've got to either treat my illness, I've got to treat it with alcohol, right? I've got to treat it with alcohol or I've got to treat it with a program of recovery, right? And I did it for a number of years. I was a drug to being an alcoholic and not putting alcohol in my body and not treating my disease with a program and just doing nothing. And it was pure misery, right? You know, and I was at 14 years of sobriety at one time and, you know, life got so good that, you know, I decided that maybe, maybe, you know what? Maybe I'm not powerless over alcohol, right? That's how, you know, maybe I can. Maybe, maybe I can. Maybe, maybe it's just because I was 30 years old and now I'm 45 years old. Maybe I can put a little bit of alcohol in my body and, you know, and it got a little bit crazy. Before that, life started, I thought I got divorced during that time. Before I even picked up the first drink, I got divorced. I thought I needed to be single again. I quit the job that I was working at that I now went back to. And I was going to be a consultant and I did that for a number of years. And, you know, and I started and I was sober the first few months of dating. And then guess what happened? One night, and it talks about it in the book, you know, it says that alcohol is a subtle foe, right? I was out that night and she was having a glass of wine and I looked over there. It's pretty good tonight, right? And I took that drink, took that drink, that first drink. And I, you know, I took that first drink and guess what happened? I had a drop of alcohol in my body for 14 years. But I put that first drink in me. And within a month, you know, it is a progressive disease. You know, it is progressive. You ought to try to explain to your ex-wife, you know, that knew that I was an alcoholic and never saw me drink again that I could drink successfully again. You know, as alcoholics, we have a way of, you know, lying very good and being convinced that I could drink again. And I did for five years, you know, and it got worse. And it got worse. And it ended up happening. I stopped drinking that night. I had no intention of that. It was going to be that I didn't drop because I already had some DUIs and I sure as heck didn't want another one, right? So I normally didn't drop. But I drove that night, first date, and she was late. So I was waiting on her. And, you know, after she got there, I had some more. Thank God I didn't hit one of you guys when I was driving down the road, right? Because I could have and not even known it. Thank God I didn't, you know, hurt myself. I blacked out. I hit a curb. I hit a curb and, you know, got arrested. I know God's hand was in looking back on it now. I had no intention of getting sober that night. But God struck me sober that night. He struck me sober that night. And I didn't know, you know, but I have two daughters that are 12 and 15 now. But my oldest daughter, she had been praying for me. Every four months of drinking, she had been praying that her dad stop drinking, right? And I had no idea that, you know, she was standing in the gap. You know, she was standing in the gap. And, you know, God was listening to her and, you know, heard her prayer about it other than after I got arrested. And I had to go back and I read that police report. And I know God's hand was in play that night, too, because the guy that was trying to help me saw me run off the road, pay him off so he wouldn't call the cops, you know. And me and him got in a little bit of a disagreement. And thank God I didn't pull that pistol out of my car and shoot him because I could have and not even know. You know, thank God for good sponsorship because I had to go back to this man and make amends for the actions that I did that night of, you know, where he's just trying to help and be a good Samaritan. And I'm trying to fight with him. But I got taken to jail that night about, you know, about, you know what, I end up here again, right? And it's just, it came, you know, it hit me, you know. I was thinking about how I was going to lie my way out of this one, right? Pay my way out, lie my way out. I stayed in jail. It was Sunday night. So I got out of jail. It was Sunday night. So I got out of jail Sunday. Oh, this is the other bad thing. You get arrested with, you know, cell phones. Today, you know, I only have my wife's phone number, you know. I didn't know. I didn't call her, right? But, you know, so I got a bail bondsman and they finally get me out of there at noon on a Monday. And guess what? I was supposed to be at work, you know, 8 o'clock that morning and I didn't show up to work. And my employer come to find out. They had driven to my house looking for me, thought I didn't know what had happened, you know. But I finally get out of jail that day. And I go try to go get my car. Of course, I couldn't drive it. I had it at the impound and it was not drivable. But I can remember, you know, had to get the taxi cab to take me home and drop me off. And I sit there and I laid on my couch that afternoon. I'm thinking I called my employer because my phone was blown up from all the messages. And I told him, you know, that I had to take him to the hospital. I made up a lie about what had happened, right? It's what we do, you know. We lie. And I was going to lie on my way out of this one. But you know what? I went to bed that night. And I said a prayer, something simple like, God help me. I knew about you guys because I've been around you guys before. And I knew about what Alcoholics Anonymous could do. And I said a simple prayer, you know, for God to help me. Conceding to my innermost self that I didn't know what was going to happen. But I woke up the next morning early and I had a text message from my ex-wife. She sent me a text message. Now, she didn't know I just had been arrested the night before. And she said, Craig, I think you've got a drinking problem. I said, oh, really? And so, you know, I told her, you know, this is part of getting, you know, this is part of recovery. And that power came over me. And I just, I became honest with her. I just had got arrested. What the heck are you going to do about that? What are you going to do about that? From that day forward, life has gotten better, right? Every single day from that day. So, my employer had to go out of my neighborhood and give me a ride to work. As soon as I got in his truck, I was with him. I got to work. It felt good just to say, you know, what had really happened. And thank God they didn't fire me, you know. Thank God they didn't fire me, you know. They kept me. Being out there drinking for the previous five years, I wasn't a productive worker, right? You know, I was probably hitting them about 30% of the time, you know. And I got an important job and they kept me. So, I'm very grateful they kept me. And so, thank goodness for Alcoholics Anonymous. Because I knew a friend in the program that was still in the program that I'd helped out before. His name is Alan. And I gave him a call. I said, Alan, you know, I need to go back to Alcoholics Anonymous. And he said, Craig, be at this meeting. And that's where I met Tim and some others up there in Gainesville at a meeting at the Halt Club. He said, be at this meeting at 730 on Saturday. And, by God, that's where I went. It's that meeting after being away for a lot of years. Been through the door. And right above the door, it said, welcome home. Just like you guys. And people talking, reading the steps, all the stuff's up on the walls. And I knew I was exactly where I needed to be, you know. Back home again. We never have to be alone again, right? Never have to be alone again. And we're part of people that know exactly what's wrong with us, right? We speak the same language. So, stick with the winners. So, I got a sponsor. And I can remember going into that online meeting. And I go to a lot of online meetings. And I love them. You probably need to spend hours a day. You can't overdose on meetings, right? Can't overdose on meetings. So, I go to a bunch of them. But I can remember coming into that meeting. And Troy said, we've been saving a seat for a guy named Craig, right? He made me feel a part of. He made me feel welcome to do that. And certain meetings that don't do that. But he made me feel a part of what he had. He was speaking the language of the heart. He was speaking solution-based, Alcoholics Anonymous. So, I asked him to be my sponsor, right? And he does what sponsors do, you know. And he said, Craig, he said, do you have a desire to stop drinking? I'm Alcoholics Anonymous before. And I'm already on step three. Ten days sober, right? Which can happen. You can be on step three at ten days for sure. But I wasn't. But I told him I was. And he said, no, you're not, Craig. You're on step one. I said, all right, Troy, I'm on step one. I became sponsor-able that night, right? And if you don't love your sponsor, if your sponsor doesn't know you better than anybody, if your sponsor is not taking you through the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, if your sponsor doesn't have a sponsor, fire your sponsor, right? Get you a sponsor that's doing all that, right? First thing he told me, he said, Craig, my job is to get you through the steps. He said, I sponsor sponsors, right? That's what he told me. He said, my job is to get you through the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. And to get your hand into the hand of a power greater than yourself. That's what we do. You know, that's what, you know, Troy can't keep me sober. I became sponsor-able that night. And the first thing he told me to do, he said, Craig, I want you to read page 567. 568 of the big book, right? And I love those pages, right? You know, I didn't know at the time why he had me reading it, but I know it today because it's about the spiritual experience. And if you're here tonight and you're thinking, what the heck is the experience? Well, in step 12 up there, it tells you the result. We can't have it. It's sufficient enough to bring about recovery, right? Open in darkness, right? And that's part of it. It talks about transformation, outlook. You read that. Then the next thing he had me do, and then, you know, and, you know, he's making sure that I'm willing, right? He can't get to know me if I don't call him. So I have to call him. He said, I want you to learn, learn the set-aside prayer. I'm like, man, I've been around. I've heard the set-aside prayer, right? I'm like, what the heck is the set-aside prayer? So I had to go look it up, right? He didn't tell me where it said. I had to go find it. So I found it, you know, and man, how beautiful is that? That's what we really have to do, right? We have to set aside everything that we think we know. Because I think I know a lot, but look where I ended up at, right? So maybe I don't know so much. So I have to get rid of those old ideas of old, let go of that stuff. Set aside everything that I think I know. Open mind. And most importantly. See the truth. See the truth about you. See the truth about me. And that's one of the most important things he's taught me to do. But I found out by doing it. And I get these thoughts out of my head. I get these thoughts that are going on up here. Chatter of a thousand monkeys. Stinking thinking. Whatever you want to call it, right? We've got this stuff going on. The only thing we can think about when we're writing else going on. Because it's different than typing. I had to read it back to him. And I had to read it back to a couple of the guys he was sponsoring. You know. And he got to know me. He shared some things about himself. I got to get over that fear of the stuff that we had to talk about in step one. But I also didn't know that he was prepping me. I was scared to do a step four. You know. Behind. You've got to make a list. Step two. Step three. Step two. Step three. You know. He's always taught me. Never deny, man. The personal experience for these steps. Right? You know. And it comes down to this. You know. We've got a common problem. Right? We can't have just one drink. We can't just even have. We can't just have two. We have a common problem. The cool part is. There's a common solution. And it's right here in this book. Right? We've recovered. It's right in there. The steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Right up there. I can sit here and tell you about mine all night long. Right? But until you have your own. And if you've had one. With each of these steps. You know what I'm talking about. Right? If you haven't. You know. You don't know. But you can know. Right? I always did it. At the pages in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And when you get to the step three prayer book. And Troy. Now. He put. Throws his book down on the ground. And he gets down on his knees. And I'm like. What do we. You know. What do. I followed him. Right? That's what we do. We don't. We don't know. So we follow. And we. You know. We got down. And we said the step three prayer. Together. Together. And I can still remember. He had his hand up on my shoulder. Right? We became part of. At the same time. The key to all these. Don't stall out. I think one of the biggest laws. We've. Been working on. Well. I'm working on my step four. Well. How long does it really take. To do a step four. Right? You know. I think it can be done. Very quickly. Just writing the list down. Writing down. Nobody wants to talk about that. Right? Nobody wants to talk. Get us drunk again. Right? Because we think we're different. And. So. I do the step four. But there's one thing. I want. I didn't. Thank God. For good. You know. When I got there. To do the same. But guess what I did. I went to the book. You know. Go home. You know. Steps. Six and seven. I can't do it with you. I can't do it with my sponsor. It's not like you. Do it once. And you're done. But I want to get. To steps eight and nine. You know. Because I want to talk about my daughters. For the weekend. You know. It started. It started affecting. You know. And so. I knew. That step four does. It gives us. A. A lift comes out. It's one of the. Things that comes out. Of doing that step. So. You know. And I. Talk to my sponsor. About it. So. The thing I've learned. In this program. My Alcoholics Anonymous. I may think. I know how to. Make an amends. I may think. I know how. What I need to say. But. You know. Troy. Has taught me. And so. We discussed it. And he. We came to an agreement. And. You know. That's. I was going to make amends. To him. My youngest daughter. First. And she would ask me. A couple of times. She would say. Daddy. Do you remember. Do you remember. Last night. Those are words. That a dad. Never wants to hear. From his daughter. Do you remember. You know. You don't know. What you. I didn't know. What I've done. Right. And I got drunk. On one of her. Birthday parties. And it really. A birthday party. And then. And minister. You never know. That. Your soul. You know. What do you mean. I've already done it. She said. You stop drinking. Right. You stop drinking. And this is the only thing. That little girl. Wanted. For that. Right. You know. That this little girl. Only thing. That she wants. Is her dad. Not. My other daughter. Was a little bit older. She went to the men's. With her. And. You know. What can I do. To write. Keep on going. To meetings. That's what I do. You know. It's. It's part of God. Right. I call it God. You may call it. Higher power. You may call it. You know. The great reality. You may call it. You can call it. Whatever it is. As long as it's not yourself. And as long as it makes. Sense to you. That you know. Troy told me. He said. If you. You look. I learned how to prayer. It's by not doing prayer. And. He. He told me to start out. With. Asking God. To give me strength and courage. In the morning. but once months over lady was talking about to a 35 o'clock and now it's an hour so still dark out my mind is clear the book actually encourages us not you know to seek out other literature there's you know before they had the big book they sought out other literature for sure and but what to a prayer is basically and then the God of my understanding answers that prayer you gotta have your own personal see what it does for you and maybe doesn't do for you but it's really helped me a lot in my prayer and meditation life because you might thinking what the heck is meditation you know meditation contemplation whatever you want to call it it's just a hurry time right it's amazing how the breaks where I get to know God I got to spend more time with him found out by doing that did I get this power again so today I'm just as powerless over alcohol today as I was three years ago as I was 20 I look at it this way every single day I have if I renew it every single day you're going to be able to see that you're going to be able to see that I've got to get a pretty good chance to stay and see what you guys have taught me to do go to meetings you know why I don't want to pick up because I'm selfish and self-centered so every single day I'm fighting against that right and the quicker I can come out of that selfish self-centered life of Alcoholics Anonymous saved my life of Alcoholics Anonymous they know all about you guys I've got the program and how it works they've been to meetings they know I'm sharing here tonight they know about gratitude list I know about two ways I resent they know about why not teach them save my life maybe you can save help them in some way right I know it can I know it can and they love it and definitely doing for me what today what I could not do for myself and I know today like I said I'm just as powerless today over alcohol as I was yesterday three years ago I don't need to go to the meeting tonight for everything for me you don't need to go to the sixth one the sixth one's one I had better be going to right now because I think it's a matter of time to kick it off change it now because Bingo's going to make up the first drink might not make it back one day at a time glad to be sober tonight glad to be with you guys tonight thank you thank you so much Craig the distinction between losing and giving was really really important for me so I appreciate it you bringing that up thank you all right we got about two come to the ship okay we have a white chip here just coming in one day at a time much Bingo's going to make up the first drink might not make it back one day at a time better to make it back one day at a time because if I get a new job in the next incredible, fantastic journey in life.