Everybody Glosses Over Steps 6 and 7 — Those Two Paragraphs Run My Entire Sobriety – Tom McN.

Cornbread, let's have a meeting. Hey everybody, my name is Mike Boatwright and I am a grateful recovering alcoholic. Welcome to the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers meeting at the NAP Club, where a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more of sobriety tells his or her own 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 a clear-cut idea of what 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. 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. Man, Tommy, you sure didn't have to. You've got a pack of house, don't you? I'm not going to introduce our speaker tonight, although I've known him since I first got sober. He had about four or five years of sobriety when I first came in the program. Man, he was a god, but then I got better. I love you, Tommy. He's been around for my whole sobriety, and it's really an honor that I ask Chris to come up, or actually, Tommy asked Chris to come up and introduce our speaker tonight. My name's Chris Corder, and I'm an alcoholic. Howdy, folks, good to be here. I've known y'all's speaker tonight for a very, very long time. I think probably 12 or 13 years old. We grew up together, went to school together, drank together, did some other items together, and I told him not to pull out too much from under the rug, but I know him very, very well, and he's a very dear friend, and I love him to death, and he's helped me in times when nobody... Nobody else would, you know, and I'm extremely grateful for that. I have seen him at his very worst, and I've seen him at his very best, and I think tonight's his very best, so y'all enjoy. Tom. Well, I cleared the first hurdle. Chris didn't pull out one of many embarrassing stories about me. Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we're like now. I'm just so grateful to be a member of Alcoholics. It's anonymous, and this program was divinely inspired, and if you don't believe it was divinely inspired, it was started by an unemployable stockbroker and a drunk proctologist. Proctologist is a butt doctor, if you don't know. And as a matter of fact, Dr. Bob, before he got sober, he went to get the oil changed in his car, and when he walked up to the counter to pay for it, he reached in his pocket and pulled out a rectal thermometer and says, Oh my God, they said, What's wrong? He goes, Some asshole's got my pen. It's okay to laugh. God teaches to laugh, but never let us forget how we cried. You know, and I've been through some trials and low spots in the last few years, and I actually ran into something that Alcoholics Anonymous couldn't help me with. I have outside issues. I got outside help for it, and I'm going to leave it at that. I like to say when I tell my story that I'm a recovered alcoholic. What I've recovered from is a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. What I never recover from is what alcohol does to me when I take it into my system. What I've recovered is hope. And the only reason I don't announce myself as that in a meeting, of Alcoholics Anonymous, very often, is because half the room wants to argue about it, and they're not going to hear another thing I have to say. But I've recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body, and for that I'm grateful. And I knew some of my earliest memories were of being bodily and mentally different from my fellows. I knew that I didn't think like them. I didn't act like them. I was that. I was the class clown. I was that one kid that if you dared it to be done, it was as good as done. And I had no filter. I'm the youngest of five. Grew up in an Irish Catholic home. I grew up in Gwinnett County. I was born in Piedmont Hospital right here. And so I'm a native of Atlanta. But in the town I grew up in, they didn't even have a stoplight. And everybody knew the name of everybody else's dog. So they knew. I couldn't get away with a whole lot of stuff being the youngest of five. My brothers and sisters were the ones that got away with stuff. I remember the first day of school. I really looked forward to going to school because I got to see people. I grew up in the country, and my parents didn't get along with the neighbors. And so I didn't have anybody my age to relate to or to play with. And I really looked forward to school. And the first day of the first grade, the principal snatched me up and called my mother and said, I'm bringing him home. And she said, no, you're not. He said, yes, I am. She said, I won't be here. So she was glad to get a little relief when it was time for me to take off. My family has a long history of alcoholism. My uncle was in Alcoholics Anonymous. And when I came in in 1986, I ran into a few people that had known him. I was never able to get a hold of a speaker tape or anything of him. But I know that he was here. And he died in a hotel room. I'm in Memphis, Tennessee. And it's just a family history, a long history of drug abuse and alcoholism. And I have, I'm also an addict, but with respect to Alcoholics Anonymous, I respect the language of the house I'm in. When I attend other fellowships, I talk about addiction, the disease of addiction, and recovery from it. And when I'm in Alcoholics Anonymous, I talk about recovery from alcoholism. My parents used to give me whiskey in my milk in the bottle so I would sleep through the night without waking up and bothering them. And the first drink I can ever remember having, my dad was having a business meeting with a guy in the kitchen. And he asked me to get him a beer. And I got him a beer and opened it up, and he hadn't even taken a sip yet. And I asked him if I could have a sip, and I took it off and emptied it out and brought it back to him empty. And he just laughed and reached in the refrigerator and got his own beer. You know, it was all right to drink in my household. The first time I remember getting drunk, even when I was 12 years old, I couldn't stand people that would leave half a drink. I couldn't stand people that would leave half a drink. That's alcohol abuse, as far as I'm concerned. I was at this wedding, and these people were drinking champagne and wine and all kind of stuff. And they'd take a sip and just leave it. And when they were cleaning up after the wedding, I drank everybody's champagne and wine and whatever drink they didn't finish, I finished for them. And I was like 12 years old, and I got me walking drunk. And I was like, I don't know. And I just remember being like the life of the party. Everybody laughed at everything I said, and it was kind of funny. And it was just, it was a different time back then. Hell, I take kids out of homes for that stuff nowadays, but it was commonplace back then. When I was in fifth grade, I liked a lot of people. And I either liked you or really disliked you. There was no in-between. And I remember this guy wanted to play this game called Mercy, where you locked your fingers together and you wrestled around until somebody said Mercy, and he wouldn't say Mercy, so I broke all his fingers. And I got kicked out of the school and went to another school and got kicked out of that school and went to another one. And they put me on Ritalin. I know you'll find that. It's not that hard to believe, but they put me on Ritalin. And I just remember I was that kid that had to take pills at school. That was another thing that separated me from my fellow students. You know, I got a lot of ridicule for that. Somebody asked me one time a few years ago if I was ever on Ritalin, and I said, yeah, but it made me mean. She said, Ritalin doesn't make you mean. I said, well, people would make fun of me for having to take it, and I'd beat the hell out of them. So I had to take it for a few years. And they called it ADD then. They call it ADHD now. I don't know about all that stuff. I know in the 90s when I got into video games, I could sit there all day and play a video game. It's something interested me. It held my attention. Then I could do it for hours and hours and hours, and that's not ADD. That's OCD. That's obsessive compulsive. And that's the way I am. I have an addictive personality. If I do anything, I do it full tilt boogie. And Alcoholics Anonymous was the last house on the block for me. I've been to jails. I've been to institutions. And the only thing left? Is death. And I've had my stomach pumped a couple of times when I was not far away from death. I went to this party one time, and I remember I was going to show everybody what a drinker I was. I was like 15 years old. This guy passed around this bottle of Calvert, and I pulled the plug and started slugging it down. And I had already drank a six pack and a bottle of MD-20. And I was like, I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die in 2020. I like to mix my drinks. I never could stick to one thing and that's a recipe for getting sick right there. And this guy goes, he's going to be sick. And the next thing I remember was being in the shower with the shower run and them trying to revive me. And they picked me up and brought me to my parents' house. My dad. walked me to my room, and he put me in bed face down. And it's probably a good thing that he did that because I was too barbed out to get out of the way of my own puke. I woke up the next morning, and the sheets were glued to my face from vomit. And I took one breath and started puking all over again. And I had to peel the sheet off because it was filling up with vomit. I mean, my story was not pretty. And I got into a lot of drugs and other stuff. I was kind of the test case. When something new came out, they tried it out on me to see if it was there to do it. And I was such a garbage head that I was down for it. I was really down for it. And I went to... I got all paranoid that all these gangsters were out to get me. I went to Houston to live with my brother. And it didn't get any better out there. I was still paranoid from some of the other stuff I was doing. One day he sent me to the store in his van, and I just took off on the interstate. I don't know where the hell. I was going. I was in Houston, Texas. And I didn't have any money in my pocket and only had half a tank of gas, so I wasn't going far. And I remember thinking, these people were closing in on me. And they were going to get me. And I drove that van off the road and ran into a bridge abutment doing like 50 miles an hour. And the last thing I remember is the motor coming through the dash and... A couple of compound fractures. And I woke up in the hospital. And I was in traction for a month. And even in the hospital, I had the nurses bring me pot. And I had been in bed for a month. So my equilibrium was way off anyway. My balance was shot. I had been in bed for a month and I hadn't been up. And... And this nurse brought me some pot that I promised I wouldn't smoke until I got home. And when her shift ended, I got up out of that bed and went to the bathroom in my room and smoked it all. And the next morning, the physical therapist came in and smelled that smell. And he said, well, I guess you're ready to get up and get out of bed. But nothing... Nothing... Not consequences. Not fear. Not paranoia. Not frothy emotional appeal for my parents, my friends, my family. The thing about frothy emotional appeal like it talks about in the big book, that's like your doctor telling you if you keep drinking, you're going to die. That's like the judge telling you if I see you in my court again, I'm going to put you under the jail. That's like your friends telling you you've got a problem. My friends didn't tell me I had a problem because I surrounded myself with people that drank and did the things I did that were every bit as low-bottom as I was and I didn't have to hear anything from them. But towards the end, I got really isolated. And let me back up a little bit. You know, at the end of my drinking, it was just me and a bottle and some other substances. When I was 16 years old, I was sitting alone in my room with the lights out with a bottle of rum and a baggie of some other stuff and I said, this just isn't normal. People just... Most people aren't sitting alone in a dark room with this stuff. And I fully conceded to my innermost self that I was an alcoholic when I was 16. And I prayed and I said, God, if you help me, I'll help other people. And I didn't even know what I was asking for was the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't know anything about AA. I went on a few more years with the drinking and the drugging and my parents scooped me up and put me in the car one day and took me over to a place on Atlanta Road that's no longer there, a treatment center. And they let me out there. And I thought, I thought this treatment center was government witness protection. I thought I was in there to protect me from all the gangsters that were out to get me. Nobody was out to get me. I had isolated myself from everybody. I know some people come in here with bullets flying and people really out to get them. But that wasn't my story. All of that was in my mind. And I was there a week before... I even figured out that I was in a treatment center. It took me that long. And I got in a fight with a guy the third or fourth day there. They took me to the psych ward part of that treatment center and put me in the rubber room with a little helmet on. And I was there. I was there for five days. And then I got to come back to the normal part of the treatment center. And I spent 34 days in a 28-day program. Some are sicker than others. And they said, we want you to stay another week. And I said, I'm broke. Because I had paid cash for the treatment center. And my first big book cost $13,880. All total, it cost a lot more than that. But that's what the treatment center cost. Or triple that now. But anyway, I remember people coming in from the outside. And they were bringing AA in. And the first thing I noticed was the look in their eyes. They looked like they had something. Like they had a peace and a serenity. And their message had depth and weight. The book says the message which can interest and hold these alcoholic people must have depth and weight. And what that is is experience and solution. And I would hear them talk and I'd know they had my experience. And I'd hear them continue to talk and I'd know they had found a solution. And that attracted me to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. So when they offered the chips, I had a attention span of a three-year-old. So I didn't know what the chips were for. But when they gave them out, I watched them. Walked up to the front to get one because everybody clapped when you got a white chip. And I liked the attention. So I picked up a white chip and every time after that they would give out the chips, I'd walk up there and pick up another white chip. And I overheard this lady go, What is that a-hole doing? And I said, What are you talking about? She goes, You only pick up another white chip if you've been drinking again. So I had four white chips. And the next three times they gave out the white chips, I walked up there and put one back. I know we're not unique. Nothing in this room I can say is unique, but I've yet to hear that story from anybody else. So I gave the three white chips back until I had one. And after I spent a week or two in there, I got off of lockdown and I got to make my way home. And I got to make my way home. And I got to make my way home. I got to make phone calls. And there was a guy in there. The only reason I asked him to be my sponsor was, one, he was from Norcross, pretty close to where I grew up. And two, he drove a beer truck for a living. And I thought that was just cool as hell. So I asked him to be my sponsor and I called him up. And I gave him my laundry list of problems. And he said, Have you prayed? Have you prayed about it? And I said, I think I'll do that right now. And I hung up the phone and never called him back. And fast forward 12 years later, I'm sitting in a lunchtime meeting in Norcross and I looked across the table and there he was. He was still sober and I was still sober. Oh, I can't say I've only got one white chip because I really did pick up four, but I can say that I've been sober since my first meeting. I've been sober since my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's not by virtue, it's by necessity. This was the last house on the block and I weighed like 149 pounds. I gained 23 pounds in the treatment center. They feed you pretty well in those places. And I told him I was broke and I couldn't afford to stay there any longer. So all of a sudden, I was healthy enough to go to a halfway house. And they sent me to this halfway house on the south side in Riverdale. And I went to meetings at the Clayton house and got my feet on the ground there. And I spent a month in the halfway house and I met a girl and a boy meets a girl on AA campus and all that good stuff. They had a meeting one night and I didn't get along with the people in my house. And I just... I just didn't like them and they didn't like me. It was mutual. So we had a house meeting one night and they said, you've been he and she and when can you leave? And I jumped up and said, how about right now? And they said, hold on a minute. We need to sit down and talk about this. And they sat me down and told me that I didn't have to use over any of this stuff. And that meant a lot to me coming from them. That was my first... my first experience with unconditional love and alcoholics and all of this. They didn't like me, but they loved me. And they carried the message to me. And I went back to my parents' house for like five days and that wasn't working out. Too much water under the bridge there. I went to the bank and got a loan and went to a halfway house that was right up the street from here. And this is still in... like 1986. And it was a pretty good halfway house. And I spent some time in there and people looked up to me and I got to be the house man. But I still had a girlfriend. I wasn't willing to completely follow the rules yet. I'm not one of them that came in here and dropped everything and just followed the rules. They said, we're going to have a house. We're going to have a house meeting tonight. Somebody's going to get kicked out for he and she. And I went, oh my God. Here we go. So they had the house meeting and they pointed the finger at another guy and they asked me what I thought about it. And that was the first time I got to share some experience. I said, you don't have to use over any of this stuff. And when I had about five months, the time came for me to leave. That halfway house, I went on the bulletin board out here and I found a roommate that had, he had three years at the time and I moved in with him and my sobriety was off to the races. So when I came up here to this part of town, I had two months of sobriety under my belt and there was a guy sitting in here that had ten years and that seemed like an eternity. And when he spoke, I listened and he sounded so profound. And, you know, I later found out that he was pretty sick in his own right. But he carried the message. He really carried the message. And I asked him to be my sponsor and he took me through the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and it changed my life. But I held out on that fourth step. No problem. No problem with the first three steps. The first two steps are just conclusions of the mind. They don't really take any time at all. And the third step is a decision. It's a decision to work the rest of the steps, but it's not only that. It's a decision that God and I are going to trade places. He's the Father. We're His children. And I entered upon a new relationship with God. When we were doing the second step, he said, where are you at with the God thing? And I said, there is one and He's out to get me. That's the two things I know about God. And he said, well, there are two things you need to know about God. There is one and you're not it. And I used the group as my first higher power like Bill Wilson writes about in the 12 and 12. There was a group of people who had done together what I couldn't do by myself, so they were certainly a power greater than me. And a loving God. Expresses Himself through the group conscience. So I used the group at first. And I was able to go back to the church I lived in. The church I was raised in and hear a completely different message. And they were saying the same thing they said for years. The same thing. But I heard it differently. I heard about a kind and loving God that allowed me to be human and make mistakes. And had my best interests at heart. I lost my driver's license after I came into Alcoholics Anonymous. I had like 13 points out of 15 when I got here and I got a ticket and lost my license. Kept driving. Kept getting stopped for it. And I wasn't ready to do... I guess I wasn't willing to go to any lengths because I didn't quit that. I didn't want to do that behavior. And I kept driving and kept getting caught. And it became a felony. And I did the alcoholic thing. I bought a motorcycle. And every time they got after me, I ran. And they caught me out here one day trying to make the turn onto Briarwood. I got caught in traffic. And that guy got on his PA. I told myself, when this guy gets halfway to me, I'm hauling ass. And he got out of the car with the microphone in his hand and said, turn that damn motor off. And I turned it off. And it came time to go to court. And this guy named BJ, he was a DeKalb County judge. He was my lawyer. And when it came time to walk up before the judge, I said, should I tell them? I've got two years in the program, four years in the program. He goes, no, don't tell them that. We don't want them to know you're in AA and acting like that. And they said, the solicitor jumped up when I walked in and he said, that's him. I want him to do four and a half years. He's not going to quit driving. And BJ opened up a folder and faced him and said, I think he needs to go to boot. And they said, okay. And they signed off. And I went to a military style alternative to prison. And I remember calling my sponsor and telling her, I'm going to boot camp. And he says, if that's where you're to carry the message, then so be it. And I cussed him out and hung up and that's where I carried the message. I got in there on a Monday. And come Friday, the speaker wasn't going to be able to make it. They said he had gotten sick. I said, well, I'll do it. I'll do it. And I have a tough time speaking sometimes, but nothing like that place. It was full of hecklers. They were talking real loud and throwing out one-liners. It was a different place to tell your story. There was a lot of need. We started some meetings in there. And that's where I carried the message. And when I was getting heckled by that crowd trying to tell my story, I picked out one guy that was nodding his head and I knew that he had been there. I knew that he had been in the program at one time or another. And I told him my story and just forgot about the rest of them. You know, when I got out of there, I quit driving. I finally had enough. Alcohol, alcoholics aren't real good at following directions. Matter of fact, this group of people were in this halfway house and they had to pass this mental health center every day when they were walking to AA meetings. And the director of the halfway house says, whatever you do, stay away from that mental health center. Steer clear. And the curiosity got the best of them. He was walking past that mental health center one day and one of them heard him chant. And inside, 13, 13, 13. So there was a hole in the fence and he looked through the hole in the fence and somebody poked him in the eye with a stick and they started chanting, 14, 14. So we don't follow directions really well. When I interview a guy that wants a sponsor, I ask him if he's an alcoholic. If he doesn't know, we can figure that out by getting in the book. That's a question. Only, you can answer for yourself. I can't call you one. But I can tell you if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, nine times out of ten, it's a duck. So, and I ask them if they're willing to go to any lengths. And sometimes I see fear in their eyes when I ask them if they're willing to go to any lengths. And, it's my job to explain to them what any lengths is. I'm not going to have you down at the airport shaving your head and selling flowers. Any lengths means read, write, pray, make amends, and help others. Those five simple things. That's all it is. And, and when you can break it down like that, it doesn't sound like such a large commitment. But I'm going to back up a little bit. I was scared to death to do my fourth step. To tell somebody else about me. Because, you know, I still have this image of me as such a bad person. So I hit out on the third step until after my first year. And, I met a girl when I had six months. And a month and a half later we moved in together. Two weeks after my first year we split. And, I remember being at home one night and saying to myself, I'm glad there's not a bottle of liquor in the house I'd be drinking right now. And I called my sponsor and he said, it's time to quit messing around and start writing. And I stayed up all night and I wrote out my fourth step. And he was busy the next day with some service work. So I took that fourth step down to the Triangle Club and I held it up in the meeting and said, I need to do a fifth step with somebody. And this guy walked up to me after the meeting and he said, you can come over to my house and do it. And he was a complete stranger. Matter of fact, in that clubhouse, the Triangle Club, they used to have a plaque that said, there's no strangers in AA, just friends you haven't met yet. And that was a friend I hadn't met yet. And I put my hand out and the hand of AA was there. And I went over to his house and did my fifth step and I left. His house feeling a lot lighter like a load had been relieved. And what the book instructs you to do next is go home and spend an hour in contemplation. Find a place, take your book down from the shelf. I don't know why they say that. Mine never hits the shelf. But it says, take your book down from the shelf and find a place where you can be quiet for an hour carefully reading the first five proposals which is the first five steps. We ask if we've skimped on anything. And if you can answer to your satisfaction then you look at steps six and six and seven or two paragraphs. And I can remember I did six and seven out of the big book and it's just a couple paragraphs. They kind of get glossed over. And the longer I'm in the program the more important I find out six and seven is. Or are. Six and seven has a lot to do with the quality of my sobriety. I probably have every defective character I walked in here with but I'm not driven by them today. I don't have to act on something just because the thought crosses my mind. I actually have a filter today. And that's a nice thing to have. I heard a guy stay in a meeting years ago. About sanity. Sanity is that a moment of clarity that allows me to act and not react. And in the twelve and twelve it's defined as soundness of mind. And I had never had soundness of mind. That sounded like something good to shoot for. And you know when I had about nine months I was sitting in a meeting here and this guy named Stan said to me grabbed me up and took me downstairs to 12-step a guy because I was a lot closer to that guy's age than he was. And he looked across the table at that guy and he told him you don't ever have to be alone again. And I don't know if that guy heard it but I heard it. It was the most powerful thing I had ever heard. And I haven't had to go through anything alone in Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't have to. That's the kicker. I've gone through some things alone in AA but only when I chose to because any time I put my hand out the hand of AA is there and it wasn't always the first person I reached out to. Sometimes it was the third or fourth or fifth person but the hand was always there and for that I'm responsible. And I want to tell you one more thing about that DeKalb County judge that was the founder of my first home group. He started a meeting called the Belvedere Group and he sentenced people when they got out of prison to go to that AA group. And the rate of them the rate of recidivism I think that's the word the rate of return was very low. It was a very successful program. And this old timer approached him and he said BJ you can't force people to go to AA. It's a program of attraction not promotion. And he goes I just made them SOB's the most attractive offer they ever had. AA or jail. And kids used to get caught underage drinking at Stone Mountain and he would fine them and he said you can pay the fine or you can go to two AA meetings. I'm going to be there so don't try to cheat on it. And this guy came in here one night that he had sentenced and we were sitting there waiting on him to pick up a white chip and he didn't but his dad got up and picked one up. And you just never know when somebody's going to hear the message. You just never know. I'm going to read something here because I could never fail coming out of this book. In 6 and 7 I asked to have my defensive character removed. But right here in step 10 it says continue to watch for selfishness dishonesty resentment and fear. So what that tells me is I'm still going to have them. It's the beginning of a lifelong journey. It's something I'm going to work on the rest of my life. Continue to watch for selfishness dishonesty resentment and fear. When these crop up we ask God at once to remove them. Action word at once. We discuss them with someone immediately. Action word. Make amends quickly if we've harmed anyone. Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Love and tolerance of others is our code. And if I do that if I clean up my wreckage and my mistakes and make my amends during the day as stuff happens if I promptly make amends then I'm having a good day. I've already set the table in the morning by asking God to direct my thinking. And if I'm cleaning up the wreckage as it occurs during the day then when I do my review at night it's short and positive. It says when we retire at night we constructively review our day. We don't engage in morbidness and reflection because it diminishes our usefulness to others. In other words I did some things right during the day. It's not all about what did I do wrong. And then there's seven questions you ask yourself. That's a pretty good 11 step review at night. But one of the questions says were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? That's the same thing from page 84. If I've... If I've done my work on step 10 during the day then my review at night is short and positive and I sleep like a baby. Oh. 10, 11 and 12 are my daily living steps. It's my walking around steps. 11 step tells me what to do at night. It tells me what to do upon awakening. It tells me what to do when I face indecision. And it tells me what to do when I'm agitated or tired. When I'm doubtful. As we go through the day we pause when agitated or doubtful and ask for the right thought or action. So my life doesn't belong to me today. It belongs to God. And coming from where I came from that's a big step. It's a big step. But it's not as big a step as you think because you don't have to go through it alone. It's an honor to be asked to speak anywhere. It's an honor. And this is my favorite part of speaking when I'm done. Thank you. And that folks is what they call a great AA talk. Thank you one and all for joining the Blue Chess Speaker's meeting tonight. It's strange to me that it