Dr. S. and the Truth About the Phenomenal Craving – John H.

Hi, everybody. My name's John and I'm a real alcoholic. When Lee was introducing me, I kind of choked up a little bit. I want to thank Roxanne for inviting me to come out and giving me the chance to carry the message in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and to be here with you all tonight. This sure beats sitting in a jail cell. There were a lot of times when I wasn't home on Christmas and New Year's, the Department of Correction had other plans for me. In the book of Alcoholic Anonymous, it said that we would meet lifelong friends. And I have met lifelong friends. I've met my sponsor, Lee. He started out as my sponsor and now he's probably my best. No, I would go further than a best friend. I'd say Lee more like a brother to me. And this little daughter Hannah here tonight, she's a little angel. She's so inspiring in my life. There's always a lesson to learn from her, Judy and Tracy and Anthony. I could just name names for the rest of the night, but I won't do that. But what happened to me when I came to the program of Alcoholic Anonymous, I met people that were more like family to me, this is the family I always wanted. My sobriety date is April the 18th, 1998. And I'm a member of the Central Group of Orlando. You know, I love my home group. My home group is full of real alcoholics. When I first got out of prison, I went to the central group for my first Christmas to have my first Christmas dinner after spending four years and three months in the Department of Correction and I went there that morning about ten o'clock and we had a meeting until about noon and then we got up and we ate and after I fixed this big nice plate I asked Lee I said Lee well who do I pay and he said John you don't have to pay for this and I was shocked because I had never had nothing that good for free and I used to go to a lot of meetings at the central group with Lee and when Lee would meet this is the way he introduced me to people he'd say, meet John he one of them bad kind of alcoholics and I said, God, Lee gonna have everybody thinking the worst of me and then I sought around the central groups and I listened to a lot of their stories and I say, now these some bad alcoholics you know i'm an alcoholic of a hopeless variety and the reason why i say of a homeless variety is because all my life my family told me i was hopeless my friends told me I was hopeless the sheriff's department told me I was homeless the department of corrections told me I was helpless the statistics was against me they said that 90 percent of the people leave prison return But since I've been in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I have not had the obsession to commit the type of crimes that send me to prison. It's been eight years since I had to jump a fence. You know, now when I see the police, I say, say, there's a guy that's doing a good deed in society. I don't have to look at him as my enemy anymore. And another reason why I say I'm an alcoholic of a hopeless variety is because I remember going to bars and I'd watch the normal drinker. Well, matter of fact, I was going to New Hampshire to be with Lee and I got on the flight in Orlando and they served this lady a glass of red wine. And when we got to Charlotte, she still had that red wine. And I'm sitting over there next to her and I'm saying, why don't you drink this stuff? Why are you playing with it? And I can remember going to bars and I see people have a couple of drinks and they get that woozy, out-of-control feeling and they'll stop. They'll say, whoa, this is enough. And they'll get up and they'll go home and maybe they'll play with the kids a little, catch football with the kid, a motor yard or just have some time with the family. But for me, that little woozy, out-of-control feeling that they get, that's an in-control feelings for me. And I tell everybody, get back. I can handle this. I got this. And you know, I would sit there and drink until I, sometimes I would even vomit because I'd get so drunk I'd vomit. And when I would vomit, I was vomiting blood. And then I'd go back on the inside and I'd ask the bartender for a glass of ice and I'd eat that glass of ice and then I would continue to drink. And I have woke up places and didn't even realize how I got there, didn't know how I Got There, was afraid to move out of the spot I was in until I see somebody that I knew and then said, okay, I must not have broke into this house last night and went to sleep. You know, early on in this year I got a letter from the what it is GSO in New York and they invited me to Canada to speak and so Lee said John won't you take it to your probation officer and ask your probation officer can you go to Canada and speak and when I went in there he said man ain't no way you going out of the country so I went back to Lee and I said Lee the guy said ain't nowhere I'm going out ofthe country and so Leigh said write the judge And so I wrote the judge a letter asking to go out in the country, and I also wrote him a letter explaining to him why I should be off probation because I had been a pretty good citizen and I was doing all the right things. And so it came time to go to court. And when I stood before the judge, the first thing I started talking about was getting off probation, why I shouldn't be on probation. He said, I don't want to hear it. And I said, but he said, I don't want to hear it, but you can go to that AA thing. And, you know, I went to it and I flew into Buffalo and me and some friends got a car there and we went on over to Canada. You know, that's amazing for me because everywhere I ever went, I didn't have that alligator luggage. I had a brown paper bag. And they would be looking for me from city to city because I would commit crimes as I traveled. But that hasn't happened in a while since I've been in the program. I want to talk to y'all a little bit about my past. I'm not going to stand here tonight and say that my past made me an alcoholic. Usually you have to drink a little whiskey to become an alcoholic, but when I got to alcohol, it sure did help. I came from a little town called Statesboro, Georgia. I'm the youngest child of 13. My father was a proper. My mother was a Southern Baptist. And my mother taught me everything that any good mother would teach her child. I mean, she taught me how to say my prayers. She took me to church on Sunday. She took, took me into Sunday school. She even taught me the golden roots. But something happened. When I was about nine years old, my mother passed away. And my father was an alcoholic of a hopeless variety. And, you know, there was times when I had to go to school with holes in my shoes. And the other kids would make fun at me. And, uh, you now, my brothers and sisters, they always had little things to say about me. And I always felt less than everybody else. You know, and I would do certain little things in school to try to get the teacher's approval. And I just never was good enough. Everything I ever did in life just seemed to fail after my mom died. I went to Statesboro, Georgia to spend one summer, and I had two cousins that was a little older than me. I was about 13 or 14, then they was about 16, 17. And then one night they asked me, they said, come on, go to a dance with us. And I got in the truck with them, and we was going to a danc. And they got to this house, and the little house looked like it was about to fall over. And they knocked on the door, and an old white guy came to the door. and they asked him to sell them a pint of moonshine. And so they gave him $5 and he gave them that pint of moon shine. And so one brother took a drink of it and then he tried to give it to me and I told him no. So he gave it to the other brother and he took a drank. And we went on and when we got to the club, they offered again. They say, man, why don't you take a drink of this? It'll help you feel better. So I took a drunk of it. I took big swig of it And I can remember, you know, that's something about your first drink. You can remember. The doctor said you will remember. You know, I love carrot cake, but I don't remember my first slice. But there's something about that first drink of alcohol. When I took that drink of alcohol, I felt a warm, sensational feeling going down. And when it hit the bottom of my stomach, it exploded. And it seemed like my head swole and I felt like I was 10 feet tall and bulletproof and I was instantly good looking and I was very shy about asking girls to dance but that night I think I danced with everybody I had it going on and after then I began to drink as much as I could as regularly as I could. I began to steal md 2020 on the way to school in the morning time i would drink before school and i would hang out with my friends at night and we would do some drinking and then they'll say john we're fixing to go home i said drop me off and i'll continue to drink and then my father would send me to georgia or something after i began to get in trouble and i was living with my aunt and uncle and my cousins would take the truck and they would go down the road and park the truck and come back and tap on the window and I sneak out the window and we'll go drink and then I come back home and sneak back in the window. It wasn't long after that before I had got expelled from school and my father and my sister told me they say you need to go to job courts you need an education so I went to job court and after about two or three weeks in job courts they used to take us out on liberty trips and I learned how to get alcohol back on the center in Job Corps. There was a tire up under that bus, and I would take a half a gallon of rum and put it in that tire under that bust, and we would take it back on to the center, and I began to stay drunk there all the time. And it wasn't long before they kicked me out of Job Corps Alcohol got a hold of me real early. It began to whoop on me real earlier. Everything I tried to do, I would fail at it. um after I got back home from job course I began to hang with the drug dealers and I began to sell drugs and stuff and I was able to buy nice clothes and drive a nice car and I had good women in my life and I would mistreat them and everything just went to going bad and I Had A Lot Of Fun Doing These Things For A While But Somewhere In Life I Crossed The invisible line. My drinking was not fun anymore. The police had began to get mad with me, and they had begun to put me in jail, and I would go to jail and I'd stay periods of time, and I would tell my family, when I get out of jail this time, I'm going to be a different person. I'm not going to the way that I've always been. And I meant that from the bottom of my heart and when I get home the first thing would hit me was you know you ain't had a beer in a while one beer won't hurt and I drank that one beer and I'd be off and running and I began to my appearance began to fail and my family would come and get me and I could look in their face I could see all the shame and the pain in their faces. And I tell myself, I say, I'm not going to hurt my family like this anymore. I'm going to change. I'm gonna be different. And I would go home and I would sit there for a day or two. And then I'd get irritable and discontent. And you know, I just had to have a beer or something, just to knock the edges off, not to get drunk. I just wanted to knock edges off. And once I take and drink that one beer, I forget about that I had stopped drinking and I'd be off and running again. And that happened time after time after times. I even moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and I was trying to outrun my disease. And I found out that they make whiskey there too. You know, I used to travel, go from place to place, saying that I'm going to a brand new start. That's all I wanted was just a brand-new start. and it would work a week or two and then I would be right back where I started from. You know, I had a friend that lived in Atlanta and he had a little toy poodle and he said that the little toy poodle was bad about chewing on electrical cords. So he had to always keep everything in the house unplugged. So one night he forgot to unplug a lamp and that little toy pooble got a hold of that wire and gnawed down on it And he said, you can hear that dog holler all over the house. And he say, after then he could come in from work and he'd pick up that electrical cord and wave it at that dog. He said, that dog would just go to hollering all over again. You know, that doll never had the obsession to chew electrical cord again. But you take me My drinking could cause me to lose one of the best relationships I've ever been in It could put me as far as I could get away from my family It could puts me in prison and take away my freedom But when I get out, you can wave a bottle of alcohol at me And I'll do it again You know the book of Alcoholics Anonymous said that our dilemma is a lack of power I'm powerless over alcohol. And you know, getting toward the end, it had got real bad. I would go on the corners where the drug dealers was at, and I would say, y'all got all this drugs and money and stuff on this corner, and I ain't got nothing. I can't get nothing. And the guys would tell each other, give him something, man, to get him off the corner. He making business bad. And my sister heard about it. And my sister came and found me, and she had me to sign an insurance policy. And she looked me in my face, and She said, Boy, you ain't going to last long like that. I can remember walking late at night, feeling all the guilt, the shame, and the pain. And I would look up, and I would say, God, if I'm going to ever change, You're going to have to help me. And I Would have a pocket full of drugs and maybe a bottle of Jose Cuervo. and I began to say these things to God over and over I had begun to feel so much pain somebody that I had been in a relationship with for 13 years she had walked away and left and I just ran out of options and you know you have to be careful what you pray for I don't know somebody might check okay But it wasn't long after then that my house was surrounded by Brevard County Sheriff's Department. And they wasn't playing friendly that morning. I had finally met a power greater than myself. They put me in that car that morning, and they began to take me to jail. And I looked back out the back window at my family, and I said to myself, John, you are through. I had committed quite a few bad crimes. I did not know that April 18, 1998, when they put me in the back seat of that police car, that that was the beginning of a brand-new life. They took me to jail, and they tried to give me 60 years in the Department of Corrections. They told me if I plea out that they would give me $30,000. And I told them if I get that time, the judge will give it to me. I won't cop out to the state. And they had a video of me as plain as you looking at me right now. And they put me in a holding cell on the morning of my sentencing. And they took me in front of the judge, and I told the judge that I plead to the mercy of the court. He said, Mr. Hunter, they got you plain as day. Maybe you need to plead with them because I'm going to have to go their way. And I said, Your Honor, if I get that type of time, you're going to Have to give it to me. And I went back in the holding cell and I told God, I said God, If I get to 60 years today, let it be your will and not theirs. I went Back in the courtroom and the judge asked the state attorney and my attorney, he said, Present the habitual papers. My attorney had a copy of the high vitro paper. The state attorney had a copy off the high virtual papers but they had failed to put one in the judge's file and that means they couldn't do what they wanted to do to me and that's why I'm standing here today only by the grace of God nothing of my own self so they gave me as much time as they could. They gave me five years in the Department of Correction followed by four years probation When I got to the Department of Correction, I used to walk around the recreational yard every day. And I'd look up at that razor wire. And I said, God, you didn't make me to be caged up like a wild animal. And I say, God I'm not asking you to get me out of prison. But what I'm asking you is when I get out of prison that you help me be a better man. And shortly after that I was forced into a tear program. and I met a counselor by the name of Mr. Charles Elkins and for some reason he liked me but he was kind of hard on me at the same time one morning he asked me, he said John, do you think you're powerless over alcohol and when you drink your life become unmanageable and I said Mr. Elkins, you've heard my story over and over you know that I think I'm powerless over alcoholic and I know that it makes my life unmanangeable He said, John, you could say that real good out your mouth, but I don't think it's coming from your heart. Mr. Elkins gave me a book and he challenged me to read that book. And I only read about three pages of that book that night before it asked me a question. It asked me had alcoholism ever defeated me? Had alcohol ever defeated mean? and God gave me a moment of clarity I could think about the time when I promised my daughter I was going to take her to Disney but the night before I drank and drugged my money up I could think about that time when i had eviction notice but the night before i would drink and drug my money I could think about times when I had a lady in my life with two little children and they had gave me a final notice on my light bill. And I'd have the money in my pocket for my light bill with every intention in the world to pay it. And that thing would hit me about a drink and I would drink a beer and I was spending that light bill money. And that lady and kids had to suffer along with me. I began to think about that kind of stuff. And the next morning when I went back before Mr. Elkins, I told him that alcohol had became my master, and I was its slave, with tears rolling down my face. And he embraced me and said, John, it's okay. Now we can go to work. Mr. Elkins began to teach me the steps in a short form. But shortly after that, they moved me from Jackson Correction Institution to Daytona and Tomoka Correction Institution. At Bellway, two guys used to bring me a meeting in from the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. You all probably know them, Elmer and Andy. Elmer told me some good stuff. Elmers said, John, if you ever argue, rather you can or can't, you will. He said, john, I'm an alcoholic of your nature. You better put your foot in the rooms of Alcoholic Anonymous if you plan on staying sober. Shortly after that, I was released from the Department of correction. Upon release, I signed myself in the recovery house of Central Florida for one year. My family told me, they said, you're the biggest nut we ever seen. You just did four years and three months in the Department of Correction, and now you're going to sign yourself up in a halfway house for another year? See, my family couldn't understand. they couldn't see my fears. I had never lived in society sober before. I didn't know how to survive sober in society, so I wanted to stop to the recovery house so that I can get me a foundation built. One night, one Thursday night, I was sitting at a table at the recoveryhouse and a guy used to come do a big book study there. And instead of doing the big book story that night, this guy began to tell his story and when he was telling his story I heard my story and I asked him after that would he show me how to stay sober and he said John I'll show you what they showed me and me and him talked some and he asked me about the first and the second step and he asked me that I've made a decision to turn my life over to the will of God as I understood him and I told him, yes, I was there. And he said, let's go to work. And he told me, he said John, you need to write down a list of all the people you hate. The resentment list. And I hated a lot of people. And I wrote down all the names of the people that I hated and the next week when he came back he toldme now I want to know why are you mad at them? And I write down why I was mad at him and the last week he came by he told me that he wanted me to pray for him. I said, what? He said, yeah John, pray for them and ask God to give them whatever you would wish for yourself. And I did that. I prayed for him for the two weeks but there were two people on that list that I just couldn't get past. It was a girl who shot me in my bike with a hunting rifle and today I only have one lung because of that. And every time it get cold and I catch a cold, I always swore to God that I would get even. And it was my father who abandoned me as a nine-year-old kid. And I just couldn't get past those two people. And Lee told me, he said, John, think of three of the worst things you ever did. And i thought about three of the worst thing I ever did and he said do you think you should be forgiven? I said, yes. He said, John, I think you should be forgiven too. He said the reason why you've done those things are because you were spiritually sick. And he said the reasons why your dad and that girl did what they did to you is because they were spiritually sick. Well, that was good news to me that my father was spiritually sick That meant that my Father wasn't the type of man that would abandon a nine-year-old boy in the midst of a crisis That meant that my father wasn't the type of man that would send his nine-year-old kid out on the cold ground with holes in his shoes. That meantthat my father was caught in the grip of an obsession that no human power could have relieved him of. That gave me the best feeling in the world. You know, here in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, we don't hate spiritually sick people. We pray for them. You know, resentment is our number one offender. That's what the book of Alcoholics Anonymous say, that resentment is our number on offender, we must rid ourselves of resentment or it kills us. You know resentment for me is like this, it's like me taking a glass of poison and drinking it and waiting for you all to die. For all those years, all those years, I was dying on the inside and nobody knew it but me. You know, I began to work the fifth step with my sponsor and I didn't know if he was going to report some of the things that I told him to the police or not. But you know what i didn't want to get drunk so i was willing to take a chance um and plus i had read that we must be thorn from the very beginning so i wanted this i wanted I wanted this thing this time i can remember going by him sending me back and telling me what to read in my book and i'm taking my book from the shelf and the book asked a question it said have you tried to mix mortar without saying and i could be honest about it that time i had not tried to mix martyr without saying i had been straight with my sponsor from the very beginning you know but he kind of tricked me i believe on that eighth step i thought i was going to get a chance to write a new list but when he had asked me was i ever selfish dishonest and inconsiderate toward any of those people, that's the list he used for me to make amends with. You know, it's easy to make an amend with somebody that you want to make one with. But I didn't want to made one with my daughter's mother. She had took my parental rights for nine years. I hadn't seen my daughter in over nine years, and I was too ashamed to write my daughter because I thought she had all kind of hate built up in her and that she wouldn't accept it and I told Lee I said Lee these people don't want to hear from me he said write the letter John when I so I went on and wrote the letter and when I came back I say Lee I don't think I ought to mail this letter these people think I'm the worst person in the world he said John let's pray over the letter we prayed over the leather and we mailed a letter One week later, I got a phone call. It was my daughter. She said, Daddy, I love you. I want to build a new relationship with you. I want you to be a part of my life. My daughter is a great part of our lives today. My daughter's in Florida State University. She didn't take after her father. And the good part about it, this Christmas I was able to give my daughter a nice bracelet, a pair of Nikes, and send her a purse. I was unable to do something to show her how much I love her. Then I went on, and right now today I'm still working the same, the last three steps. Step 12 the most, carrying the message to the alcoholic that's still suffering. I go over to the recovery house two or three times a day, and I love those guys at the recoveryhouse, and I believe they love me. You know, whenever I'm into myself and I'm feeling too big-headed or something, I go up to the recoverhouse. They got something for me to listen to, and when I listen to their problems, it takes me out of my problems. I remember one time I wasn't having very good success with sponsoring people, and I said, man, I read in the vision where it say you can't transfer out what you don't give. You can't give what you don't have transferred or however that goes. But anyway, anyway, I said, man, my luck is no good in this area. And I wasn't going to sponsor people anymore. And i heard Polly talking about Bill Wilson and how he was sponsoring people and how Bill's success wasn't that good. But Bill realized in the midst of doing that he stayed sober. I don't help alcoholics because they're alcoholics. I help alcoholists because I'm an alcoholic, and that works well for me. You know, the 12 steps don't take away who we are. They take away whom we are not. You know there was a Michael Angel was standing in front of a church and chiseling on this big ugly stone, and this little old lady came out of the church and she said, Son, why is you chiseled on that big uglystone? He said, because on the inside of this big ugly stone, there stands a beautiful angel. And that's the same way with the 12 steps of Alcoholic Anonymous. When the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous take away what's ugly, then there stand some beautiful angels. You know, but yet there's still a light that centers the mind of every alcoholic, that he could one day safely drink again. And when we get away from the things in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, that lie comes alive. You know, I got a bad bike, so sometimes I have to roll out of bed. And when I roll out OFED on my knees, I make a good use of that. I said, God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and to do with me as thy will. Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may bear to do thy will, Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those who I may help. With thy power and thy love, may I do thy will always. And that takes John out of John. Every morning I offer myself to God, and I ask him to use me to his fullest. You know, I can't get drunk off the truth. In order for me to drink today, I would have to listen to that light that centers my mind. And this is what that light tells me. It said, John, you know you're looking pretty good. You're doing pretty good, you got an income, you've got a car, you have a place to stay, and your family's back in your life. You know one beer won't hurt. Now I could get drunk off of that, I could drink a beer if I listened to that. But if I said, John, when you open this beer, you're going to open the gates to the penitentiary. For long, you're not going to look too good. You're going be homeless. You're go to sell your car, and you're going right back to the dump. See, that's what happens to a guy like me when I take a drink. I've tried controlled drinking. It's that red liquor. I've try some white. It's the white liquor. I just drank a little wine. Now, it's that wine. I just have some beer. I cannot take a drink without developing the phenomenal craving. You know, all my life, I thought that I was weak. But Dr. Silkworth don't say that I'm weak. Dr. silkworth said that I have a disease. I'm a sick man. Dr. Silkworth said I'm an alcoholic, and I have a disease called alcoholism. And he said that alcoholism has the manifestation of an allergy. He didn't say that alcoholismo has the manifestoation of a craving. See, I used to smoke cigarettes, and cigarettes began to cause me a few problems. And I put together some willpower, and i was able to quit smoking cigarettes. But boy, I never was able to put together enough willpower to stop drinking. You know, when I found out that I had alcoholism, then you all could help me. You told me that I must learn to live along spiritual lines or I was going to die of alcoholic death. You told Me that I have to come to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. You told My that I need to get out of management. based upon my past I had poor management skills and if I worked for a big corporation I would have been fired you told me that I had to make a decision to turn my life over to the will of God as I understand him and let God be the manager of my life you know he's the father we are his children um you know I think that I came from one of the finest line of sponsorship a man could come from when my sponsor my grand sponsor is not telling me what to do i'm watching them learning what to do my grand spencer once told me that god was like any good mother playing high and go seek with her child see if a good mother play high and goes seek with our child she's going to hide where that child could find her and when that child find that mother, that mother's going to love on that child. See, God is not lost. He could and would if he was soft. And when you find God, he's going to love all over you. My grand sponsor also told me once that I'm to always treat God as a gentleman. See a gentleman won't come where he's not welcome so every morning I invite God into my life. And a gentleman won'T stay if you don't treat him good. So all day long them about my father's business. See, when I came into these rooms, I bought my worst and you all gave me your best. And when I messed up, you told me to keep coming back. Everywhere else I'd been, they told me don't come back. And if I showed up, they said who told him? You know, when the program of Alcoholics Anonymous has really been a blessing in my life my life is probably way different than most of y'all life in here you know a lot of yall went to college and some of you got high school diploma but but you had something to start on and you done pretty good in life and then one day you got to a place where alcohol took got the best of you and caused you to lose everything and fall back and then we got to the program you were able to get those things back again well that didn't happen for me i never lost anything because of alcohol. Because of alcohol, I never got anything. Alcohol got a hold of me when I was about the age of 14 years old. And it took over. It was a train ride to hell and back. You know, sometimes my family asks me, they say, John, how did you do it? And I tell them I'm just like that old woodpecker. And they say how is that? One time there was a woodpeacker and he used to go to this hardwood tree and peck on the hardwood every morning to get the worms and mites out. And so one morning he went to that hardwood tree, and he began to pecking on it. And a dark cloud came over that tree, and a bolt of lightning came out of that cloud and struck that tree. And it split open, and the woodpecker was able to get all the worms and mite he wanted. And then here come another flock of woodpeckers. And when they got there, they asked him, well, how did you do it? He said, I just showed up and did what I was supposed to do and God did the rest. And that's the same deal I got right here in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I showed up and did what I was supposed to do, and God done the rest. You know, I love y'all, and I can say that today and mean it from my heart. I love each and every person out there because no matter where I meet you in life again, I got a friend. Thank y'all. I love y'alls.