Even Higher Power Can’t Drive a Parked Car — Thirty Years of Maintenance Sobriety and the Shovel That Changed Everything – Todd N.

Let's have an AA meeting. Let's have one. My name is Isla. I am an alcoholic. I am so grateful to be sober today. 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 life. 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 will be able to understand the meaning of the words that we are saying. Desperately in need, we'll 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 am one of them. I must have this thing. I am delighted to introduce to you Todd N. He's from the Happy Hour group. in Buford just because he is like a master fisherman he promised to tell the truth the whole truth welcome my name is Sodom and I'm an alcoholic and um you know I was thinking about this and Derek kind of pulled me into it it's my favorite thing to do but I've done it enough to know that when you're asked you just say yes the way down here I kind of try to invite God into this process and we'll see what he's got to say I want to say thank you to Nava you know I was talking about this before the meeting now that's kind of like the blue but it's like all the women to come down and share for a few minutes y'all know this is a place tonight my entertaining justification portion of the anybody ever give up a relationship a breakup cost me this and alcohol cost me that and it took the girl I love took the job anybody ever traded anybody ever get charges by the habitual violator by the age of 21 there you go that's and here's the bonus question anybody ever been pulled over by a fire truck or any other non-police vehicle all right so now that I'm convinced we're all in the right place let's just get down to business I grew up my sobriety date is April the 24th 1990 I don't know if that means much to y'all but it tickles which you know I had two normal parents they both worked they provided for us you know I never had too much but I never went without remember my first drink you know it was at the skating rink you know I actually grew up I'm from Florida branch I live up at the lake now but I grew up in Decatur you know my high school was in the 80s and I was the minority you know in this place back in the day off west the chapel it's called the Golden Glide Skating Rink and I went in there one night and we snuck out and some buddies of mine and me we all split a 12 pack of beer and it was like man when I went back in there and I chased that for the rest of my drinking when you're 21 there's not a lot of the drunk along that you can still remember to sum it up I mean you know sex drugs and rock and roll pretty much tell you everything you need to know about my alcohol and drug abuse you know I embraced all three equally alcohol and drugs it was an instant love affair the drugs were a part of my life and the story very brief when you're 15 16 years old drug dealers don't card it's a lot harder to go down and buy 12 packs than it is quarter ounce and when somebody that you know for a while there's somebody would ask me it was like how do you get sober when you're 21 direct answer was the cocaine did for me in a year what alcohol couldn't have did in 10 first DUI when I was 17 you get them under 18 back then they suspend your license third DUI and you give the guy your ticket all part and you know when they let me out of jail that day they can you know the guy I remember this guy and he says you know I know you can legally drive but if I catch you driving in my car I'm not going to drive you out of jail and this is kind of how I really at this I mean I went to jail one night cop comes up the window taps on the window I roll the window down tell him I'm drunk take me to jail he tells me that he's off duty but he can call somebody and he did you know I don't know about y'all but I'll give you a fun fact if you see more than if you if only one cop's there you got a chance but I was in jail and I was crying I lost me a job or relieved out of session and he says but I gotta warn you he says we can do that and if God does he says if you drink you'll if you drink again you'll never you'll drink like you never drank before we said the prayer finally got me out I went home went to sleep woke up about lunchtime or whatever it was both parents got a job so there ain't nobody gonna be home till like I never drank before I crossed lines I swore I'd never crossed as many people as this in a room much smaller than this and everybody in there's got a cup of coffee but being the chameleon that I am I immediately walked to the back and that was long as I couldn't tell you anything they said 20 some odd days and I would tell y'all how good it was since I started hanging out with you at the newcomers meeting I was a little mad about hanging out more than 30 days because I'd never stopped drinking I was just telling you how much better it had gotten since I started treatment you know one night my last drunk middle pretty much a blackout I kind of come to the conclusion that if I kept doing what I was gonna do I wasn't gonna see another birthday to work today and when they finally drew blood for me the next morning I still 0.22 drunk and out of my mouth and that was that what comes I think I'm gonna go get some I put on some clothes went upstairs told my mom if she take me somewhere I'd go mom heard me tell that story and she says that's not what you told me that if you didn't take me somewhere right now that I was going to anybody in here like the center like for you know through the years I would go you know back then they did one shot for older when I miss was there's only big as your clubhouse or this clubhouse came to town and me and my daughter went you know to be international the next 20 years was a little made I graduated with my degree in career and insurance would tell me that I couldn't do that and say so it's a little bit of money in my pocket yeah anybody got kids you know everything's to challenge but it says we'll stay sober if we were talking about this we talked about they sober on trick every Monday night you know old Bob's gonna be there making a coffee making coffee but the problem is what happens when you take Bob's coffee away from me no I'm not here to blast me you have conversations about like and it's what the a or not because I changed your everything it was mentioned I am a part I am a member of the easy does a bass club I'll be remiss if I didn't say that and these old birds have been sober anywhere from days to decades my trick was going to meet I wasn't working with newcomers and I wasn't two two and a half years ago said that got my attention was she said that um that she let God she said that unless she can have a legitimate reason to say we talked about being in suicide was she made like a newcomer and she doubled down on her recovery like I said about that same time is where I'm sitting here wondering like is this all there is for recovery is I'm just going to tread this water I'm just going to be maintenance pool player non-drunk buddy of mine uses an analogy that says even God can't drive a park you know about this time I told myself um that you know I was I was willing when I first got sober I felt like me and God would kind of cut a deal and the deal was is that if I wasn't drink or do no dope if I would bring a big shovel and drink and that's been my grab sit down for an hour and all of a sudden their life's going to get magically better you know I'm a fisherman Saturdays are for fishing and this one particular Saturday was pretty nice um I was this newcomer and I drove him to a picnic in Duluth that was me bringing the shovel I show up at the picnic with a newcomer working with that guy for about a year and some change now and he picked up here you know and then at the second time like if there's anything I can do let me know anybody's ever been assigned that job in AA and all the time that I've been here but um that was kind of my ideas like don't give me anything really hard or really in depth but I went through a little flood and looked a little I don't know if y'all ever had any controversy down here I'm sure this is a super smooth running building you know but up there we had a little controversy you can let some personalities get in the way and stuff like that and and you know we had some changing of the guard and again I'm on this kick about it you know if I can't legitimately say no I'm going to say yeah somebody says hey you think it'd be a good idea if I was voted that in and I'm like because of that they voted in this lady as a president there's certain people in this program like I've been around a while I know the words we use you know I think Lois talked about good friends with one of the one of the ladies she was sponsoring and she'd taken her and at 32 you know it was like I was desperate I was you know I've had two and the first thing she did was she said and her husband sends me home with my internet series you know maybe I need a little refresher course about relationships you know you guys by the way the ladies do it better last year doesn't represent anything of what I've done previous 30 but she finally says yeah we get it we and we did a little we sat down after the meeting and she shows up with a warning I was in college for the weekend and up and again you know she's a woman and I'm a man and now it's getting a little you know this is where it gets a little tricky right so we got through the fourth step and on the fourth step she suggests that I don't know about y'all but logic is like my mind you know if you hit me with some logic then I use and her point to the story was that two things can't occupy the same place and if you've got something that you've been hiding up in there that's a that's an area of your life that got down on my fourth step that I had never even thought and when we got to the fifth step though this is when it gets a little trickier right so she says I'm going to pray on it she says I think we're going to get somebody else involved she sends me up to a guy and we got to the end of it he goes okay he goes well this is normally where I just get out the book and we go through six and seven you know into my gal and while we were there we went ahead and worked on through six and seven and Neil says I'm she looks at me she's like that's cute she says I thought we'd have a recap on five you know and we sat in the six and seven six month version of this you know like eating one day and this gal says and we've identified all like if there's not a gap between he says oh yeah we're taking all DeKalb County and show them that there's a bigger world we're taking them on a tour of like 30 and he goes and one of these kids because she's helped me through you know this last year and I tell her a story with who you're talking about and at the end of the conversation she's giving her a flat never told me about in the family because she didn't feel like it was safe that kid that I mentioned she just she's about to finish up her bachelor I get a walker down never seen her dad had taken training you know that this thing isn't this is probably the best thing I've ever found this kind of you know hopefully entertaining hopefully this thing with a fresh set of glasses you know the in the four to the 12 and 12 it says age 12 steps are a group of principles spiritual in their nature which is practiced as a way of life can expel the exception like this Bubba my share of problems and also sharing a mutual trust understanding and love without strings obligation we acquire relationship part of every alcoholic that nothing before term for a bottle and a hangover we've been given the keys to time down to Rocky this guy and he's dead now so his name was Creighton pendarvis this one right here this one get me into the all dominated the only thing that and he says the ring awesome awesome thank you thank you there were so many times I wanted to raise my hand again and and then then you finish in with that paragraph in the foreword to the of the 12 and 12 that's my that it's that sums it out for me absolutely thank you and thank you and I wanted to ask one question though that thing about God can't drive a parked car what was the verb God can't what even God can't drive a parked car thank you thank you God works through people so that was awesome and you I Hi, I'm Janine. I'm an alcoholic. Most important, white check, 24 hours, surrender check. 60? 90? Him, and he's my sponsor, and we met here at the speaker meeting. He hasn't been to this meeting since, which was New Year's. His father had a serious situation with his heart. I sent him home to face hospice, and he went well over a month. And so Tim's been on it. This is his first night back, his first opportunity to pick up a chip, and I believe it's 21. I'm Tim. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Tim. It's so good to be back. This has been my home group for, I think, 19 years. Somebody told me early on, commit yourself to something and commit yourself to a meeting. And I did that here. Now, Tim's done the heavy lifting. To recap what Tim said. My father is 90 years old. We're at 20th. Since my mother died six years ago, I've taken him to appointments. I've done all his driving. He's a minister, and he speaks at a lot of different places. I drove him. I handled his bills. I handled his financial affairs. I was not capable of understanding the promises when I came into AA. What I heard was, get sober, win prizes. But it's so much more than that. I don't even think I was capable of understanding what the promises are. Thank y'all all. Okay. I'm going to offer this one more time for anyone. Because it's the most important one. Anyone? Okay. Good job. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Congratulations to the lady who got the white chip. Congratulations to you. And please stick around after the meeting. I'm so happy that I know I can't do this by myself. And I need you. And again, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. But you gave me one match and gasoline, left but ashes, but I was running from the fire, from the fire.