Cut the Bullsh*t What’s Going On Was the Fifth Step Nobody Taught Me in Treatment – Carl D.

I have an AA meeting. My name is Isla. I am an alcoholic, and I'm so grateful to be sober today. Welcome to the Monday night Blue Chip Speakers meeting at the NABBA 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 numbership 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 aabloochipspeakers.org desperately in need will hear our speaker. And we believe that it is only by fully disclosing ourselves. And our problems that any of us shall be persuaded to say, yes, I'm one of them too. I must have this thing. I am really looking forward to hearing tonight's speaker. The only thing I know about him is that he's been sober about five years and he's a deadhead. That's all I know. And I am very, very anxious to get to know. Carl. Hey, everybody. I'm Carl. I'm an alcoholic. Three requisites first. I'm 32 years old. My sobriety date is January 30th, 2019. I have a sponsor who has a sponsor. I'm available to sponsor other men. 545, how it works meeting. There's a lot of drugs in my story, but my sponsor tells me that I try my best to not talk about drugs. As much as possible, but I will say like, well, I do struggle. I can't talk to anybody about about stuff like that. I'm also I'm a itch. People like you can't talk to nobody. I'm one of those guys. So other than that, my dad was not my dad did not like to my mom wasn't much of a drinker either, but she she also liked to party. And when I was a kid, you know, there was at my house. So he is so he stayed home. And with me and my sister and there's just there's always somebody over there and and always something going on. And while my mom worked and then, you know, my mom would get home from work and join the party. Pretty much story. My technically my first drink. One of my dad's friends, wives, who's sober now. And she told this story in the meeting when I went there. My first drink, I was like, my mom said she had got home from work. And I was like, said I'd like just started walking. And I was like, same. Saying words and stuff, which is like funny for me to think about now, because it's like my daughter's age right now. It's like she's 18 months old and like that's what she's doing. Like she's walking and saying words. And I guess my dad and all his friends were partying. And and one of my dad's friends, he was he always drank. He drank screwdrivers. They said that I call his name was Jerry. But I called I thought his name was juice because I'd always walk up to him and ask if someone was drinking beer and I'd go up to drink some of his beer. And I guess they like they gave me two. Much. My mom gets home from work and I'm like sick, throwing up on the floor. My mom's like flipping out. And so, I mean, I was probably would think about going back for it. And my mom always she said, I knew you were going to be an alcoholic when you were a kid, because every time I gave you something to drink, you like just drank it all. You sat there and drank it all. So anyway, that's how there was like everybody like that stuff out there. But there was like pretty open, open use of substances. You know, my dad grew grew pot. He did different things to the to the pot plants. And I was you know, I helped him when I was real little. And he got he got busted when I was the police showed up and I was in the shed with them with like we had I think we had ten plants in there that we would it was like harvest season. We were hanging them up to dry. And so, I mean, you know, the cops didn't arrest guilty as hell. I can't really remember. Least like, you know, heavy drinking. Like, it's all that's all I remember. So, like, you know, the idea that when I came in here that I can't ever drink, you know, that I'm live a life and I didn't think anybody did that. So anyway, started the 15 years old. It started I was on the soccer team and, you know, I was a freshman and the seniors invited me to this party and smoked some and pushed me in the pool. It was a good time. Like my sister and I mean, I was a freshman. Me and my mom. Me and my mom found out pretty soon. We all we all smoked pot together in my in my house with us. And that's just that's how I grew up. Alcoholism on my father. But it's like it's just it's kind of how I got into it. And I think, like, by the time you realize commodities broker doing that stuff and this guy, this guy, he this he was a he was quadriplegic. He was plugged in, but he had somebody had to be there. So I started going over the end of the day. You know, it's like. Enough to do. And and and it wasn't just the medical thing. But the medical parts and all the it could make working the party all day. There's like women they were older abacology reports were lost. There's no consequences then, man. So I move on to The University of Kentucky. So I'm I moved there and I was still doing what I was doing another person. Then I was like, 1819 years old. And that's like it looks like the most even today. I guess the most money I've ever made. Michael probably never. It was. on what i was doing by the time i was time to do it again you know i got my house got i've sold a town because i was like about to walk out the door to go to the guy's house and they kicked the door anyway so i was charged with trafficking uh controlled substance arrested threw me in the jail i'll go to court money stashed and so i was like i gotta so this is where like alcohol i'll pick up this since like i kind of honeymoon phase for me like i just always like all day every day me to change the way that i so i got you know i finally for the trafficking case of my six months i actually got released on my 21st birthday then i could buy alcohol just i just always went right back to started but you know both on the drinking and as much as we could work out it was like fine it was you know dad's gonna die like pour it into a 20 ounce bottle and i keep it and um i got pulled for speeding and top was like this guy's delivering pizza there's no way he's drunk go buy another one um and then like i said i mean i don't that's what anyway so i quit my job partially it was he would wake up at night and he like not you know scared not know he'd try to get out of bed he'd fall down but you know part you know part of the reason i went down there is because i knew dad was getting all my dying father's normal person don't do that put him in the hospital and it was seven days later house and he got to stay at his retirement i got you know by the way i'm still i'm still on uh probation for for the trafficking on the shelf i like now but i would go to the the probation office drunk and they did not they didn't give me an etg test they didn't test my urine for alcohol uh so i was like for you know they finally put me on non-report i did the thing for you know like six months and he's like okay you're good uh you know you don't have to report anymore probation i was trying to do lived in fake i'm on non-report and uh so i was going you know i was still going to the probation office but i got to go to the probation office and i got to go to the probation office i got that check the eight thousand dollars and i just died i was upset anyway for a bunch of money and i like i went i went nuts drinking and at this time and uh you come back and and pee again in a month and blah blah blah and uh you know a month came and i knew that i could it got like i had to i kept i switched to like hundred proof vodka uh and do my other stuff but for what i don't know my probation officer i fucked up i'm gonna turn myself into detox and they said okay and they met me at the hospital and arrested me uh i should have waited they can't make it i should have waited until i was admitted took me to jail and i and i had gotten i was i was injected some days it was like 30 30s put me in a cell by myself because i was just i was losing it man i was hearing things and i was and he let go and i mean my i called the doctor and he's like well maybe we'll i said you know mr duvall but we're gonna have to we're gonna start you on 25 milligrams of a vistaril a day which is fucking vintage and they i mean they let me in there for hole is where i was they let me in there for seven days and i mean i was like i was having like out of body see myself and like i i thought that me somewhere safe i'm watching like my and i mean finally like after like the seventh day like i think y'all call it a six i told myself the whole time i was there i'm not gonna i can't this is fucked up months on an ankle god was like torturing me or something you know what i mean like it's like a sick joke like you can't you know you're you're on house arrest you're not supposed to be able to drink but this liquor store like you know i would go through drink i would get myself all messed up and then i would dry myself out 25 ounce beer living in my mom's house my mom was finally like my mom charged me two hundred dollars a month rent she's like you got to pay something if you're living here and uh she knew i had a job and she knew that when my check hit that the money was going to be gone the next day so she would go and take the money out of my account before i would wake up so she could get her rent money and then you know the rest of it's gone that like it's if i you know she's like look you can't wait around here like i come in like there's beer cans all over the i would shoplift from kroger they sold they sold beer um and i could i would shoplift beer there's a big beer cave and i just stick them in my pockets and walk out and i would do that like five times a day time today it's not and like it was like nine o'clock in the morning i'd already been to kroger twice uh i've done the rest of the other nine o'clock in the morning so i was like to a detox medically detox me and then i got on the phone with some people my mom knew a doctor that had went to mar which is down here in atlanta and you know you need to go to this place and and uh i did i went you know um i agreed to go and like i i really you know for i wanted to quit drinking for like a long time and but i just couldn't i wanted to be sober but i wanted to i remember i like to was like you know do you do you and it's like the most honest thing i said man like 30 days and my brain was just okay well i guess i'll get a sponsor and i talked to this guy and that program i'd read the book and stuff like that and a couple other treatment centers that i had gone to you know that i didn't stuff that was court ordered and like so i kind of like knew but i'd never like done anything so i started doing it i didn't think but like just the more like the more i just like kind of tried to open up and be honest about like my alcoholism the things that i had done and it just wasn't really i made it i made months of sobriety my sponsor at relapse i got another sponsor no much at all stuff going on with buzz was like i thought that i should be farther along i thought i should have some things because i've been doing good and uh you know my plan wasn't lining up with god's plan so easily but i didn't you know i just wasn't listening i wasn't wasn't using the program correct 19 months of sobriety i relapse come back here and pretend like nothing happened and uh you know even though in my body like i can't eat anymore and and whatever i'm surprised i couldn't stop and i came back down here and and uh i was it was just like it was so bad again like in like a week i'm miserable again remembered like just one i just want things to go back to like just the way they were before you know before all this happened so i called some people at the at another detox the cab crisis i've never been to like a nice detox like i've never been to like a sunrise or anything but the cab crisis is probably like out of the out of the plethora of detoxes that i've been to it's probably like the worst one but you know they talks and i so finally into like the sober living gonna be sober when you get I went back to the decaf crisis center and they said dude you just got out of here like three days ago you can't come back in here uh-huh so one of my friends who was sober let me let me got back into the sober living and I got another sponsor a guy that I always talked to a meeting that I really liked and like I still have the same sponsor this is what I like I could tell you know I would always say one day he was like look good everything's fine I know it is so like he's like there's gonna come a time where you know something's gonna happen one is like for you to you know sure no he was right something happened and I called him and talked to him and what's going on and finally he's like look be like what the fuck's going on man and I told him and you know it's it's been like like I've finally gotten better about just coming out with it like I'll meet him in person I'll start beating around the bush like what's wrong I could see it on your face just cut the bullshit what's going on got back into the steps and but that's like the like one of the biggest things for me I get embarrassed that this shouldn't be bothering me this way like this is embarrassing I don't want to tell anybody this but all you have to do is tell I most a month old daughter there's no way I could navigate life not just like in a foster home or something you know like it but like it doesn't have to be that way like that's not the way that I think that's mostly true where is a God or what and I love that that it's hope springs eternal in here every day awesome thank you God my chips can't skin keep truckin like the doodah man together oh let's live life just keep truckin on on the typical daydream Dallas got a soft machine Houston like the doodah man cause it's worth a dime