First Word of the First Step Is We — Fourteen Years Before I Could Hear It – Gene R.

I'm Julian. I'm an alcoholic. Welcome to the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers meeting at the NAVA Club, where a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more of sobriety tells his or her story. Okay, first of all, please raise your hand if you have never heard Gene tell his story before. Okay, now look to the left of your chair. Is there a seatbelt there? Because if there is not, you need to put both your hands on your chair because you are about to be blown away. Gene. I am nerbed. How's everybody doing tonight? You look good. You all look good. Oh, my name is Gene Russell. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a recovered alcoholic. Don't get mad at me. You all get mad if you introduce yourselves that way. My sobriety date, I forgot. Don't worry about it. I'll get to it. October 21st. It's really good to see some of you guys. This room, NAVA, is the history in this room. And the role it played in my sobriety, especially early on, just to walk back in through these doors, I get goosebumps. And to stand behind this podium for, I guess, the second or third time, when Tim asked me to do this when I had one year sober, it was the first time I ever gave a talk. And, oh, my God. I'm still nervous today. And to be here and to be able to come back, because what I learned in this room, there's so many of you men, like Terry and Frank, still scaring the hell out of newcomers. So many of you wonderful men that, on Thursday nights especially, and Rusty, of course, that showed me the way. I learned how, this is going to sound weird, and I'll get into the story in just a second. I'll try not to keep this too long. But I actually learned how to have a meal with other human beings. In the NABBA clubhouse. I was so isolated and alone. And if I did eat, and when I did decide to eat just out of necessity, it was always alone. I drank and used myself into absolute solitary living. And when I got here, when TJ and Glenn brought me over to NABBA from Peachtree Corners, and we'll get to all of that, I came in on a Thursday night men's meeting. On that row right there was about 4,000 years of sobriety. And they would, they would look down their nose at you, and they'd bet, and they'd probably still do that today. And there was these men like Bob and Ray Ray out here, and Steve Orr, all these wonderful sober men, you know, for years. And you would just listen to them, and I didn't understand all of everything they were saying. But one thing I knew, that these men had known each other for years and years and years, and that they were comfortable in their own skin. And they exhibited what sobriety was supposed to look like. And they were such great teachers. And they took me in, and they let me eat with them. Down there before the meeting on Thursday nights, where you guys, I hope you still do that. And they took interest in my life, and they gave me the best, the best gift ever. The best gift ever. I didn't even know that I was getting it when I got it. And it was the privilege of being the coffee maker for one year. Over here, they said, Gene, they pulled me aside, and they said, Look, buddy, we've been watching you. It doesn't look good. Let's try this. Here's our record with that, is that the guy that we let make coffee, if he'll do that for us, he'll do it for us. If he'll do that for a year, that guy never goes back out. He never drinks again. But you're a special case. We're going to probably need you to do that for two years. And I did. October 21st, 2006 was not my first white chip, though. Unfortunately, I am a habitual violator in recovery. That's the best way I know how to describe it. My first meeting was in 1992. I was 22 years old. I'm 45 now. And that was at the 8111 Club. I was at the 8111 Club over there in Roswell. And I did not wake up at 22 years old and go, You know what? I'm 22. Things aren't working out. I think ANA is going to be a good idea. I had driven by that place forever and ever and ever, not knowing what that club was. But there was a very, very kind judge that I had the honor of standing in front of for multiple times that sentenced me to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I went in with my little sheet of paper. I don't know if you guys had ever had those sheets of paper to get signed to prove that you had gone to AA. But he gave me one of those and a job to get that all filled out. And he sentenced me to 81-11. And that was my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. And it was at 10 o'clock at night. And it was in the dark. And I learned the very first thing I needed to learn about AA, especially ones where they turn the lights out, is that I can come in late. I can do what I have to do. I can get my sheet signed and get out of there early. And then I will just comply for as long as I can. I won't do what's asked of me. And I will expect you to fix my problems, give me a girlfriend, a job, and a place to live. And when you guys don't do that, I'll drink at you and I'll blame AA for not working. That's what I did. So, if you get anything out of this talk tonight, get this. Some of the finest people in the world are in Atlanta, Georgia being sober tonight. And they've all had a part. All of you guys have had such a part in helping me out. And understand this. When we get into it, we talk about the work. When I did the work that's outlined in this big book, when I did it absolutely verbatim by how the text said and when the timing of the steps were to be applied, I got well. That is it and that is all. That is a little bit controversial with some people. Some people say, take your time to do the work. Do what you want to do. Tonight's going to be my experience. This is what worked for me. And it's how I sponsor today. And it works well for them as well. I was born in Texas. And I'm a recovering Texan. And my friends in Texas are always talking about how great... Hey, boy, I can't believe you ever left Texas. Texas has got everything in the world. You ever got to have a Texan? Tex, Tex, Tex. Those guys have never left Texas. I try to explain to them. There's a lot more going on out there. But I left Texas with a resentment at 10 years old. My parents moved here to Atlanta in 79, 80. And I was a little bit different like you guys all felt. You know, you always have that little thing going on inside where you don't feel just right and blah, blah, blah. And a couple of years later, my mom decided to take me out of school to keep me away from the bad crowd over at Norcross High School to move me over to Greater Atlanta Christian or Greater Atlanta Correctional, you choose. And to keep me away from the bad crowd. But what she didn't understand, it was that her son was the bad crowd. And the first drinking deal, the first experience with the alcohol, right around 14, 15 years old, I had a very good buddy come over to my house. My parents were having a little dinner party with a couple other couples. And one of the couples had a girl our age that came over. We were all friends. And my buddy had brought over a little bit of a fruit jar. He'd gotten into his daddy's liquor cabinet, got some brown liquor, and stole it. Brought it over to this dinner party. And the three of us, him and I and this girl, wonderful people, we hit the streets passing that bottle of fruit jar all around liquor. We had no idea what was going to happen. We weren't really drinkers at that time. And all of these internal things that had been experienced and being uprooted and different, blah, blah, blah. You know that whole story. When I drank, something happened that probably didn't happen to these guys. But one was, when I first sniffed this stuff, I thought, first, do you guys remember your first drink ever? Does anybody remember your first one? I remember my first one like it was yesterday. Does anybody in here remember their first Coca-Cola? Nobody does. Welcome to Alcoholics Not Us. When I drank this stuff for the first time, it was awful. It tasted terrible. I didn't like it. And a few minutes later, that feeling, that elusive feeling that hit me where my face got hot, I got funnier, and I'm more attractive to this girl. And my close personal friend Joe was with me and we had solved the world's problems in about an hour and a half and returned to my parents' home just to, just walked in the door, didn't realize that we were three 14, 15 year old kids and looked hammered because we were. And we stopped this party. Everybody got whoopings. All of us went to bed or got sent away and we all were sick. We did the whole thing and everybody woke up the next morning with a firm resolution not to do that. One of us didn't and that's me and that's why I'm here tonight because what had happened, was as bad as that experience was, when I drank, I got a feeling that I had never had before in my life. And it solved something that was going on inside of me. I don't know how you alcoholics feel about yourselves and I don't know what your relationship with alcohol is. My relationship with alcohol was that it was a solution. It was the party. It was what you did on Saturday night. It became what you did on Sunday morning, Monday. And it just became this thing that was a constant in my life. It was just a constant. It was always there. And I didn't know what to do when it wasn't there because I didn't know how to act in this world without this. And when I have this, I'm okay. When I don't have this, I'm not okay. Has anybody tried to stop drinking on their own? I can do that for a while. But what happens to me is when I stop drinking on my own is I start coming apart at the seams. Things start happening to me mentally. I can't handle the pressures. I can't get the bills paid. She's not listening. And all of these things go on and on and on. And man, if you had my problems, you'd need a drink too. And just to get to the record, I've had five DWIs in Georgia. I've had one in another state. I've been to 22 some odd aftercares or treatment facilities. I've been thrown out of every freaking place I've ever rented. And none of that have busted relationships, fired from jobs, alcohol-related offenses. Not any of that makes me alcoholic. Not any of it makes me alcoholic. I used to think that stuff made me alcoholic. Oh, if you did these things, you're an alcoholic. I'm a poor driver when I drink and I get caught. I don't understand. We didn't have Uber and I don't like to spend money on taxis because I'll fall asleep in the back of them and they don't know where I'm going. I've got to get my truck back to the house. So I usually get in trouble for that. What makes me alcoholic and what I found out and when somebody finally pulled me aside and said, can you control the amount of alcohol you take every time you drink? And I said, well, let me see. I can do about, you know, they said, no, buddy, every single time you drink can you control the amount? Can you go out and have two or three beers? Not once in a while. Not five out of ten times. Not even nine out of ten times. Can you do it every single time? And when you're not drinking, what's going on? What's going on when you're not drinking? Are you arranging your life to be around alcohol? Are you thinking about, not drinking and drinking anyway? Have you made a decision on Friday to get home with your paycheck and end up coming home on Sunday broke? Have you done these things? Have you made a firm resolution not to do it again but do it again? Have you done that? Yeah. Welcome to AA. I don't need the pamphlet anymore. That's right there on the first page of We Agnostics and I never knew that. And I learned these things here. I learned these things through your experience. What I understand now and I didn't understand then, I am bodily and mentally different than my fellows when it's in relation to alcohol. And I was frustrated by that simple fact all my life. Moving from Texas and going into a different school and changing environments and going to college and getting thrown out of college and doing all of these things. I arranged my life to be around this booze. In college, if you go to the big school, well, there's booze everywhere. And here's the problem with that. College is great and if you indulge in the booze for too long, you don't get to go to college anymore so you have to go get a job. So, when you're thrown out of that, what do you do? Well, you go find a job. Well, if an alcoholic needs a job, what's the most logical next step? Bartender. That's right. Some of my brothers are in the house tonight. And that's what happened. Right up the street from here, that's what happened. I was working at a record store because I love music. And I was over at P Street Corners. If y'all know where that's at. And there's nothing out there and this is way back in the day. And I'm a kid. I'm in my teenage years and I used to drive one of them Schwinn 10-speed bicycles. And yeah, man, so we all had one in banana seats. And, and, and, and, I would work for five records a week. We had records. Some of you young people, that's, before CDs and cassette tapes, record albums. And the five albums were great. And that was, you know, I'd do that for a few bucks and then in this thing, little strip center was a bar that you'd open the door to. I didn't, I didn't know it was a bar. I was driving my bike by it and there was this guy with a neat accent. He was French-Canadian but I didn't know at the time. He might have been Chinese. What are you doing? And, and, and I said, I'm not doing anything and the man asked me if I wanted to make twenty bucks which was a boon for someone like me. And, I said, yeah, what do I got to do, man? And he goes, come in here and stock some beers in this cooler over here and I'll give you twenty dollars. Take you about an hour. And he had cases of these long neck bottles of beer and the place was called The Derby. And, and yes, oh yeah, y'all heard, you've heard about that. The Derby's great because when you step, you open the door, it's the first one they ever had and I know they're going to find me and track me down and beat me for always talking about them from the podium. But you open the door in the bright daylight and it's dark and the darkness rushes out of the Derby and it just develops. Whatever's outside gets dark. It's like, and you step onto the carpet which is like a sponge and there's a smell of pine salt and urine and failure and broken dreams waft through and permeate and it's like as you walk in and your eyes adjust to the light there's three old drunks that never leave. They're always there. And Scott Jed and he's probably dead and Norm and these other guys and they're always, they were staples there for years and aside to that story, I went in sober after I'd been like four or five years sober. I went in to grab a sandwich or something. I was in the neighborhood and they were still there. And I go, hey guys, how's it going? They go, Gene, it's been a couple of weeks since I've seen you. Sober five years. I hadn't been in here. You guys are still here. A couple of weeks. Alcohol is a great thief of time, isn't it? And anyway, I walked into this and I had arrived. I had arrived. I make jokes about it but I felt, man, I got to stock these beers. I got a little bit of money and I did this for a couple of days in a row and a couple of weeks in a row and in about a month I was into this and I stayed a little bit longer than I may have should have and that door opened up and all that darkness flooded out and all this light came in and these two dudes walked in. I love big personalities. I love people that get the attention. I like the alpha dog. Man, these two cats walked in and all of a sudden all these girls walked in behind them and all of a sudden the music got a little bit louder and these cats were talking and telling jokes and then all these other guys came in behind them and saddled up at the bar and these two guys walked around the stick and they were the bartenders. They were the rock stars. They were the men. And they go, hey, boy, what are you doing here? I said, I stocked beers in the afternoon and my name's Gene or whatever. They go, well, you want to talk to me? You want to work tonight? You want to make some money and you want to get down with us? Man, have a good time. Now, stay over there and do what we tell you. It's all going to turn out all right. Four o'clock in the morning later, I'm hammered with money. Money. Those were my first two sponsors. All the girls liked them. Every day was payday. They were in control of the poison that I needed to be alive. None of these things I knew at the time and man, once I discovered that, all bets were off. All bets were off. All bets were off. I had access to the power and when I have access to the power and I've got other people that need the power, I become all powerful. I learned real quick how to manipulate people. Real quick how to be funny. Real quick to part you from your cash to make it my cash to go get what I need and somebody came in a little bit after that and enhanced all that alcohol with additives. Don't want to break tradition yet? We'll get to it. We'll get there. I know now there's tradition. I ain't going to hurt your feelings yet. Let me tell you something about that though, guys. When you have the physical allergy that the big book describes of once I start I cannot stop and I cannot control the amounts I take and I have instant access to this stuff, this magic that I have to have. Once that begins and all of a sudden the mental obsession that thing in my mind that tells me not to do it but I do it anyway and all of the fear and the doubt and the self-image and all that adds up and I am on. Things start to happen. The mind gets convoluted. The consequences come. The consequences come. You wake up in places you didn't intend to wake up. You end up on sidewalks. You get in fist fights that you lose constantly. You break relationships. You have good intentions. You make all that money but nothing gets paid. You live in an apartment where there's no furniture. You eat when you have to. And then you try to stop. You ever try to stop? Just stop. By God, that's a DWI. I don't want to do that again. Woo! $1,400 in probation. I'm done drinking. Tick. Tick. Tick. I ain't going to drink tonight. Tick. Tick. Man, man, I really wish that girl hadn't left. I liked her. Man, we were close. Man, I loved her. Tick. Tick. What am I going to do? I'm bored. Tick. Tick. This sucks. I'm scared. You know. Tick. Tick. I ain't drinking by God. I'm going to call my mom again. Ain't nobody else going to talk to me. She's asleep. Tick. Tick. All right. Just one. It'll be all right. I'll get a ride home. Been there? What about you ladies? Don't have to go out to the bars to do it, do you? And the housewives want to sit at home with the kids. Tick. Some bitch husband. He's a good. Tick. I'm so tired of that PTA meeting I have to go. Why doesn't he go? Tick. Tick. I got a little Xanax. Tick. Tick. I need a Lunesta. Tick. You know. That thing that makes me different will kill me. I'm terminally unique. That's an A.A. buzz word. We always have our own language in A.N.A., don't we? Terminally unique. I'm so different. Every one of us is a misunderstood artist. Every one of us. Nobody gets. Oh my God. Everything's a disaster and every one of us has a plan. I know. I tell you man with no coping skills and the things adding up in my mind it gets to be real bad real quick and here's what happens to an alcoholic like me if you do the other stuff to go with it. The highs are too high. The lows are too low. I can't hold a job. I can't keep any money. If you read page 52 and I hate people that quote pages in the big book but on page 52 if you look on that thing about those agnostic promises or the bedevilments where I can't have a good relationship and I can't hold it together and I'm of no use. I'm not used to anything else. Things start to happen and Gene Russell becomes to a place where I can't live with it and I can't live without it and I want to stop and I can't. My parents won't talk to me anymore. There is no girl and none of it's going right. Here's what I do. I make a plan. I can't run anymore and I just want it to stop. So maybe I'll do a little bit more than I used to or maybe I'll just I get to the jumping off place. Has anybody been to the jumping off place where you just want the noise to stop? That's what it used to be like for me and you've asked me to come here and tell you what I used to be like what happened to me and what I'm like today. But this went on and on tedious laboriously for years until I was asked to leave the state by the same judge that had asked me to go to 8111. And so I'm standing there once again and my dad got me the lawyer I'm in a bunch of trouble and he goes if you can get out of here get out of here and I won't have to put you in jail for five years on felony charges. And so my grandparents had passed away they lived in a place called Crystal Beach which is a very cleverly named place and I don't want to break tradition but I didn't name it and so and it's in Galveston County and there's only one real good reason to go down there and it's to get away from everything. There's like the bikers are all the banditos and I don't know anything about that culture and there's America's Most Wanted get runaways are out there and five of those guys got caught in one year and it's a trailer park on Spilts and I've got this house where my grandparents used to live and it's been empty for a number of years and I have that's my escape route. I can go there and not get felony charges and so I get shipped off there and my dad gives me $500 cash and his money I take my truck he drives me down there no driver's license this son don't understand you good luck with that. So you know I'm down there in this place I'm going to start a business of course that's what we do we start a business and um I'm going to start a business well y'all started some businesses it's a good idea right I live on the beach may as well be a fisherman duh I can drink all day so I was a commercial fisherman I tell that to everybody you're a commercial fisherman it's not like you fall off the boat in Alaska and you're dead you fall off the boat in Galveston you just stand back up get back in that's what I do he's overboard he's up he's down get in the boat anyway um so I did that and I bartended for a while and the internal condition was and all the while guys I need to tell you my first meeting was in 1992 I'm getting in all this trouble and here's what I'm doing I'm going to these AA meetings because I'm always on probation and I'm pretty soon I'm going to these AA meetings because you know what I know there's a solution there but I don't have access to it and you know what else I'm doing in these AA meetings I'm going to them and showing up and wanting a solution to the problem I have I don't want to be suicidal anymore I want this madness to stop I want to be able to you know what I wanted you to do I want you to teach me how to drink and do dope like a gentleman I wanted to be able to control and enjoy this thing that I had discovered but it had gotten so far out of control and I could not control it and I could not enjoy it and I was mixed up inside and the harder I tried to stop the more I did it and I'm stuck down in nowhere ass Texas and there's one AA meeting there's a little Methodist church down there and they had four or five people that attended that meeting regularly and two other stragglers me being one of them and those four or five people have been sober since before Bill Wilson and I love those people and I met a oh my god they were so there was probably about five or six of them and they were old timers and they were just beautiful and they were they were just so caring and they tried to help me and they knew they would watch me come in on Thursday nights and they told me this and they had and I tell this part of my story and everybody gets mad at me because I'm hating on them I'm not hating on them but here was the message I got the message I got if you come in here Gene we love you thank you welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous here's some coffee just have a seat we're going to read out the morning meditation book and we're going to discuss that for an hour and if you come to our meeting religiously for one year we're going to get you a sponsor one of us will sponsor you after a year and then we're going to work a step a month we're going to work one step a month and then and after that you'll be able to work with others can y'all do the math that's two years that's a long time for someone like me when I can't get two hours two days two minutes tick tick tick and Ben let me tell you something I tried I tried to comply I wanted to help I wanted to be part of I liked them I admired them but I could not stop on my own I wanted to I would go to I would wake up in the morning knowing the meeting was going on and I'd be around Crystal Beach fiddle farting around trying to work trying not to drink all day you know how hard it is to just not drink if you're a real alcoholic I'm coming I'm dying I love those people you think I like drinking 22 ounce Budweiser's in the stupid parking lot before the meeting by the way I like to share when I do that one thing led to another I met a girl we had one little visit and we got pregnant and she disappeared and I always thought it would be nice to be a dad but I don't know what's going on now and I met another girl did you know that if you take my booze away the girls are the solution to my problem and that I need the Holy Trinity in order to get out of here in order to get well you know what the Holy Trinity in ANA is the girl the job and the place to live if you get all three of those then I'll manage my addictions I won't want to drink like I used to you guys never would provide that for me I met a little girl she came on over and she worked at the marina over by where I lived and she was beautiful married but beautiful and very difficult to mince and guys I'm going to tell you this story because I don't want to break tradition but it's part of my experience and guys you need to know what's going on and she had a she had a little tinfoil and some garbage in it and a little lighter and she said here I'm going to light this up and you inhale this and I'm going to split and go to work and you got to understand she came into my home to do this this is not a home like you go home and your home's nice and clean and straight now this is an alcoholic's home there's dead chicken wing bones everywhere and laundry and I think there's a midget I don't know it's it's it's horrifying she comes in here and I she does this and I and I do this and I go man you know I don't really see what you see and I don't feel anything and she leaves and she says I'm going to come by after my shift and check on you and eight hours later she comes on back and my house is spotless it is and I am naked as a jaybird baby I'm clean that up I don't even I don't know why you do that I don't feel anything there's nothing wrong here when she did that when she did that guys I was drinking a beer I'll never forget it in my life she was drinking a beer like and it was like this much in it and when she did that when she came back there was this much in it there's a solution I only tell you this to tell you what's coming up you stay up for this many days in a row and you don't eat and you continue to drink and you don't you don't do anything else the insanity comes back the crazy people come in you're in the spirit world all this nonsense happens and you just want out and it culminated in a suicide attempt yeah this is where it gets a little hard and dicey crazy people had taught me how to do that a different way and I got where the pain couldn't I couldn't take it anymore and I got and somebody came in and rigged me up and I took a bunch of pills and I got so I planned it out I got that good vodka that I saved all my money up and got me some pop off vodka and ate a bunch of pills did a bunch of dope drank a bunch of booze and out I go and when you take that much upper and that much downer and you don't die you just talk into the light sockets in your underwear and you look like an idiot but you have a stroke and they if you want crazy people out of your house this is how you do it you do that you fall out and then they all leave that works every time and they dialed 911 before they left and they took me to the crazy bin over in Galveston and one thing led to another and said you need to go behind this door and I said I know it's behind this door I ain't going well you need to go to AA I'm not going there either it doesn't work I called my mom she finally talked to me my mom's a quick study I said mom I'll do anything you ask I'll do anything I want this madness to stop she goes well if you don't go to the hospital what are you going to do I said I'm going to go home I had six dollars I could have got maybe a ride for six dollars I got a beer and walked over across the ferry because that's the only thing that would work I said I'll go to anywhere you tell me if they don't do Alcoholics Anonymous and when you're laying there and you're dying and that's the relief you know something we talk about in these rooms all the time is hope right and hope to me has never been very important to me until it was gone I didn't understand how vital or life-sustaining hope is I had no moral compass whatsoever I was drinking to live and living to drink and I can't come to your stupid rooms anymore because it doesn't work and I felt like that if I did that something might happen but the access to that was blocked by well-intended members doesn't mean I didn't love them it just means they were misinformed for my case so when my mom studied and studied hard she turned on Dr. Phil you heard of Dr. Phil? Dr. Phil was talking about a treatment facility over out in Texas I'm in Texas there's a treatment facility in Texas I said well hell there's a good perfect fit don't do A&A there that's what she told me one thing led to another I'm in the hill country in Texas at a place called La Hacienda and my brother and her corralled me up and I go out to La Hacienda and I go where are we going mama she said La Hacienda I said what's that Mexican food I love Mexican food not a restaurant treatment facility three days later I'm 120 pounds I'm still what I am I'm just a wreck I get through the ICU I get a little syllabus little syllabus thing of all the rehab instructions and I shuffle down to the big room like this and it's big it's bigger than this and there's a there's a podium like this and a little coffee table and there's a big dry erase board with a little snowman on it look like a snowman and this stuff here 12 steps and 12 traditions and I sat way in the back where Tinsley's at and I sat in the back and I went oh no you tricked me you tricked me this this man walks out this life changing event happens I didn't know who he was he didn't know who I was we had to scratch out a little tale of woe on some notepaper before all this and this had a couple hundred people in this room and this guy walks up and he had the standard issue Texas outfit he had some busted old Levi's he had one of them red t-shirts his hair is this whatever and he had a couple hundred people and he had an eye patch I'll never forget the eye patch and he's exasperated he's just oh shit he's going through and he's calling some kind of roll and I'm listening and I'm like man you know I'm still tripping and Gene Russell Gene where you at? here? welcome buddy dang man you know just we got right here man we got a seat just right here in the front get on up here man alright Gene alright Gene I'm good excuse me I said with all due respect I'm fine he goes buddy I don't think you understand we invited you to come sit up here in this good seat and you can hear everything man we want you to be here man we're glad you're here why don't you come on just come on up why don't you I said I'm not coming up I'm good I'm good he goes oh yeah ok well why don't you leave I said excuse me he goes no you heard me why don't you get out there ain't no locks on the door here I invited you up here you said no there's a whole lot of people here some people would love to have this seat right now why don't you go and get on down the road by the way buddy I got your little deal here it's a long walk back to Crystal Beach Texas why don't you go ahead and go I go I don't understand he goes well what's your problem what he goes you got a problem I don't know what made me say this and I'll never forget it I'm so glad I said what I said I go that stuff on the wall there buddy it doesn't work I'm different he goes oh yeah it doesn't work does it let me ask you a few questions genius he called me a genius he goes have you ever admitted to yourself you were an alcoholic and your life was unmanageable have you ever come to believe in a power greater than yourself could restore you to sanity have you ever made a decision to turn your will and your life over to a care of God if you understood him have you ever made a moral searching inventory of yourself searching out through greater defects of character and done that under the guise of a sponsor admitted to yourself to God and someone else made sure of your problem have you become willing to take this information and have God remove these horrible defects of your character have you even thought about being willing to straighten out the past because I know you've got a past have you ever made personal inventory and when you're wrong promptly admit it have you thought through prayer and meditation a conscious contact with the God of your understanding and better yet you turd he was yelling he was yelling he was yelling have you taken this information have you shared it with a newcomer to help them get better from their problem because here buddy what your little note here says you've been coming to my fellowship all of your life and you've been taking you come in here and you expect us to fix your problem but you haven't done the work you haven't put pen to paper you just come in here and bitch about everything but you don't do anything and you blame us for your failures you don't have the God-given power the God-given right to come in here and tell me this doesn't work because you haven't done it what happens to the audacity and the arrogance of you tell me the truth what have you done have you done this and I replied to the best of my ability and he's like get out get out of my room right now to the best of my ability my foot buddy get up here or be gone and what that man's voice resonated into my soul he reached into a place nobody had ever spoken to me before like that he told me the truth he loved me enough to tell me the truth and we don't do that anymore do we because we're too afraid they're going to use again you know what kids they're going to use anyway you better love somebody enough to tell them the truth because people's lives hang in the balance I get to go to bed every night if I don't tell the truth it's on me that man was not rude to me that man told me what I needed to tell him to hear the way I could hear it and he sprinkled in some adjectives my 120 pound narrow behind got in that seat and he said buddy here's how this is going to go if you really want to be done for good and for all do you? do you want this insanity and this chaos to end? here's a little something for you dumbass do you want you want a bank account? how about a driver's license with your picture on it and an address you can be found at? huh? you got to go to one of those do you? lack of power being our delusion how about some power power to pay your bills power to get into a decent relationship power to get out of a bad one we don't have that power do we? AA people get into them all the time whoo can't get out of those um sponsor the book says we do this work next at once immediately we do not wait we do not hesitate we don't sit on that there is a this is a thing the chapter's into action not into wait what are you doing? what are you doing now? I'm working on my second step what does that mean? working on my second step came to believe I hear it all the time who have you helped today? I was taught what real AA was what they did back then they didn't screw around with you back then you had to be sponsored into these meetings you had to be wanting to get better and if you were just playing around then leave come back when you're ready we love you it's not mean it's not militant the book says that when people argue with me all the time about this I go well the book says this well I know the book better than you then do it or you're doing it your way I don't care this is what happened for me and I get into these long winded debates in AA parking lots all over the country because I'm the thumper it saved my life I sponsored the other way why does he keep relapsing? he hasn't made any amends guys let me tell you something I needed some advice I got shipped back out here to Atlanta some things have gone wrong we're running out of time we're running out of time I got a few minutes with you I got to tell you about I got to tell you about what the book talks about the best years of my existence lie ahead that didn't be true in my experience I thought who came into these rooms half-baked burned to the crispy core pitiful incomprehensible demo to the nth degree and said this to themselves well I guess the party's over I'm gonna be bored frickin' distended liver this is my fuckin' day I got this that's what I did I'm gonna be bored you know this guy they took me I went to a meeting out there and the guy took me to one of these meetings out there and they went around the room and they talked about hope we weren't allowed to share they talked about how their lives had changed guys they talked about going through some terrible problems man there were some guys in there going through a divorce and heard this man I don't go to meetings to share my problems but this guy said this thing and I just remembered it the other day because I'm having a real tough time in some personal parts of my life this guy said I'm going through a divorce man and it's just kicking my ass right now and I've been sober for a couple of years now and I'm just heartbroken I was talking to my sponsor the other day and he took me to this place in the 12 and 12 and he said this part about you and he started talking about the solution to the problem he was having see when I get to hurting I drink at you when things are going on in my head I'll get up first thing in the morning and Rusty will hurt my feelings over at the Biscayne room and I'll drink Jager at him all day long hope he die I came back to Atlanta and I was allowed to stay at my parents house I'm in my 30's now I ain't like you know don't have a driver's license I walk over there P3 Corners P3 Corners is the best and people made it to Napa made it to Napa got in here with you guys made it over to Biscayne made it over to the Mars Men's workshop thing over there they did a big book comes alive they read the big book Joe and Charlie Stiles Larry Scott and Christian Man and all of us yay who's written there trying to get sober and we started learning this book and unlocking what this book said and my life just changed I had no idea that the answer was in here I had no idea I got the more I read it the more I became just oh my god it's blown away by it and I man I was in this room one night and I needed to get a sponsor and my god man I had a buddy of mine and he had come in here and he ran in here his name's Danny y'all might know Danny he's my sponsor still today and he became my sponsor because he's gonna kill me if they record this if he hears this shit he I'm sitting right over there where Frank's at and I need a sponsor real bad and Danny runs into the room and he had socked this guy on the nose in his office right and Ray or somebody's up here leading the discussion for Thursday night it's real quiet and it's the men's meeting and Danny stops the whole meeting and goes oh god I hit this guy I'm gonna get fired from my job I just gotta get this off my chest and he the whole meeting the discussion leader said oh my god just stops and Danny is freaking out just oh god y'all don't understand I punched this dude and it's just bam I might be in trouble with the law and I'm running in my mind going that's him that's praying and so he was so freaked out out in the parking lot going hey listen man I know it's going bad right now but I really need a sponsor he's like what he told me to call him tomorrow he didn't have any sponsees and he wasn't sure he knew how to do it and he said he'd stop being my friend he'd be my sponsor he'd stop being my friend he'd be my sponsor because he cared more about me staying alive than he cared about being my friend and he's held me accountable for eight years next month he'll be nine he's my best friend he knows me man he knows all them dark places he's crazy as a tick and I'm dead without him and you can find those kinds of people in here guys you gotta understand what happened I'm an uneducated man and I've been thrown out of all these schools and I wanted to get my education right and I'm down here with NABBA and I'm going to these meetings and I got a sponsor who tells me things like I'm like listen I'm thinking about going back to college you need to go to college and I'm like alright I want to go to Georgia and he goes you're too stupid to go to Georgia you need to go to UCLA and I go UCLA I like that I'm going to UCLA I'm going to try that and he goes yeah university closest to Lawrenceville it's called Gwinnett Tech and so I would return to Georgia I would return to Texas and I'm trying to get my education I'd go back to Texas and I'd make peace with that place where all those bad things had happened and that little beach house had started getting worked on and I started loving it down there and that little AA meeting became stronger and it was just the thing I would go down in the summers and I'm about a couple years into this deal getting sober right and oh shit man I'm going down there and just spend a couple of months and work on my place and I'm like my mom calls me I'm in Alabama and she said son you might want to turn around there's a hurricane out there it looks like it's heading your way I said I've been through a bunch of those don't worry about it and I got a little bit closer I moved into Mississippi and Hurricane Ike was really getting big and I was like well I better turn on around this is probably bigger than I need to fool with and there's some friends down there some good people and Hurricane Ike came in there and blew me away and I lost everything I owned that night my business my boat my clothes my building it's all gone and I watched it on TV they televised that shit and sorry and it hurt and I got out of my sponsor's direction really bad one time I got one of those relationships you shouldn't have been in and that had gone south and I was hurting from that and some things were going on just I was mad and I lost everything and it was around October about this time of year and I had a resentment bigger than Texas and I was like man this is bad and I walked into the Biscayne room and I was going to go drink and I was going to come tell y'all I was going to go drink my men's meeting I go to over at Biscayne on Monday night but I figured I was going to make my big pre-announcement at the 6 o'clock prior to that and there's old timers in these rooms that love you enough to tell you the truth and so I was due to pick up my chip and I told y'all that it was what y'all had told me it was a big lie and that I was hurting really bad inside and you didn't tell me I didn't sign up for this kind of stuff and I hate every one of you people not as a group individually I hate you I've been thinking about it and I wish you'd all just had saved your breath there's an old timer in that room he had one of these you know what this is here y'all he had one of these it's not a crime to carry one to a meeting you know and Rusty Jones he had one of these said to me as he cracked the book open he said here's the how and why of it you've got to experience the sober bottom this is the process inside of the process here's the how and why of it we had to quit playing God because it didn't work and by the way alcoholics don't go to AA meetings and announce they're going to drink they just drink and he said if you want to drink if you want to talk about your problems I'll meet with you after the meeting but for the rest of the meeting we're going to talk about the topic you see what he did he held his responsibility to his group he didn't let it get off track he was a sober member he was appropriate he dressed me down accordingly he told me to have a seat I'll be right with you don't leave quite yet you ain't going anywhere we know what you're doing I hated him he saved me and I don't I don't want to Woody told me he'll stick with me for the rest of my life he said it's bad right now but for the first time in your life you started seeking a spiritual solution though you don't realize what you just did and if you continue to do that and you be honest about what's going on inside of you these people will never let you down however you tend to let them down quite often and it ain't about that Gene oh God I hate that in that parking lot out there every one of you it ain't about that Gene for years I hate that Gene still it's not about that and I lived to see another day and you gave me permission to hurt you gave me permission to be real stopped hiding behind the big book and I started trying to live by what it says to do I want this to permeate permeate permeate into me I want to be what this book says my life's better when I have a God in it I don't the obsession to drink hasn't come back and after I lost my home I lost my home and that insurance company didn't give us any money I was flat ass broke with a resentment and I got a sponsor I told you about Danny I go Danny I'm going to kill that SOB I don't mean hurt him I'm going to kill him he said that's a good plan you ought to kill him he robbed you you really want to get him back and I was like yeah I want to get him back Danny I'm loading up got a gun and everything got a plan we always have plans he goes alright buddy check this out let's get him this way I said alright he goes you give me two more minutes of your time I'll cut you loose you go kill his ass I said alright he goes alright you got that little construction management degree from UCLA over there I was like yep I got that he goes alright buddy here it is I want you to go over there to the state department of insurance here in Texas and Georgia and you find out what it takes to be an insurance claims adjuster like that guy I go okay why he goes well you're an idiot right and I was like well yeah and he goes go get you an insurance adjusting license and you become an insurance adjuster like him and here's what you need to know this resentment with this storm blowing your house away people that don't live on the coast their houses don't get blown away like that you live next to the coast it's apt to happen your money's never going to come back that money is gone but here's what you do here's what you guys taught me and this is what he showed me you're not going to get your money back go help them get their money back because you've got you some experience now right you've got something that they can teach you now right you can empathy getting into the other man's boots and looking at it through his eyes go help some people with this bad experience that's what you do in Alcoholics Anonymous right so Hurricane Sandy blows up into the northeast catastrophe New York City New Jersey Pennsylvania blown to smithereens water everywhere on the news what a deal sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous and license insurance claims adjuster Gene Russell just blown up into there into that catastrophe to start helping people and every one of those people in New Jersey and New York said you don't understand what this feels like you don't know what's happened to me you don't get it and I go I do I got the pictures right here this happened to me down there and they taught me so much they taught me to be aware you guys taught me to open my vision every one of those people that I would climb on their roofs out there I'd go out there and I'd climb on their roofs and they would point to New York where the towers stood I don't know why they did it I didn't ask them they would just go you know that's where the towers used to be and I'd go to the next house that's where the towers used to be right over there that's where they used to be and I just kind of downplayed it I didn't understand what was happening I didn't understand what they were telling me it was the most important lesson I've ever learned in my life and my buddy Larry Scott one of the best friends in the whole world even repeated it they didn't realize what he said to me but it reminded me of that moment when I'm driving home I'm in Virginia I'm trying to get back to Georgia because I'm tired I've been up there for months and months and months with no sleep and I'm just I'm wrecked I'm driving I'm like why were they doing that and what they were telling me was the same thing you've been telling me all my life what we have here today is a problem what we had that day was a catastrophe and none of us could do this and fix this by ourselves but collectively we the first word of the first step we got this we had that we'll have this if I've got a thousand problems and one of them is alcoholism I've got one problem when I do this and I seek the solution of a higher power that I choose to call God I work on that relationship the romance works out the finance works out the bills get paid the job gets done I don't go without I work on this that happens how do I do that I work with others not to feel the way I used to feel I help them do the work the way I was shown how to do the work rapidly quickly completely and get that person to a place of service immediately so we don't lose our newcomers sitting on their asses waiting to play and all my problems all my little bull gets taken care of on its own the first word of the first step is the most important word of the entire deal and then I'll learn about love patience and tolerance which you guys have exhibited so wonderfully tonight thanks for having me I told you well thank you Gene thank you very much I've asked none other than Rusty Jones to come up and give a chance and I did that before the meeting started I'm Rusty Jones I'm a very great vlog colleague thank you Gene thank you well that was adequate here at the Monday night blue chip speakers meeting we have a chip system Alcoholics Anonymous does not have a chip system you're coming in and coming back sick and tired of being sick and tired tired of paying high cost to low living gonna try a new way of life one day at a time come get a white chip after 30 days you get to crush your aluminum the silver, aluminum. Anybody else for the crushed aluminum? 90 days for the red badge of courage. Anybody else for the red? 90 days. Six months for the gold, nothing yellow about one of us stands over six months. Nine months for the green, the gold chip, the blue chip. One year, multiples thereof. Anybody with an anniversary tonight? I'm Jeff, I'm an alcoholic. Everybody, this is five years. Thank you. Thank you, Gene. I, too, am a recovered Texan. And I, too, am a habitual violator. And I picked up my first white chip in a sister fellowship in 1991. And I want to remind the folks that picked up 30 and 60 days, 90 days, that it shouldn't take 24 years to pick up a five-year chip. Liz, you just love pain, all right? Pain will go away. Simple as that. One day at a time. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, everybody. My name's Kelly, and I'm an alcoholic. Hey, Kelly. Hi, everybody. Thank you, Gene, so much for telling your story tonight. I thought I had heard it before, but I think I just heard the short version. That was really great. Thank you. And I'm also a Texan. Isn't that funny? A lot of drinking going on in Texas. And I'm glad to be here in Georgia, too. Picked up my white chip here at NAVA back about 10 years ago. And I'll tell you, this group has meant a lot to me, this facility. And a lot of people in this group have just really helped me so much. So thank you all so much. And I'm truly here by the grace of God. Gene and I share a meeting once a week. And I was that person who had one foot in and one foot out just a few short years ago. I'd hit my bottom in this meet, in this program, sober. And he would tell me when I'd, you know, when I'd go up and talk to him, he'd say, we really need you here. And, you know, that kept me coming back to that group. And I feel, you know, so much a part of AA today, you know, and it's through working these steps and really getting into the middle of it and, you know, in doing what the steps tell you to do, giving it back to other people, you know, clearing that past, you know, that I just couldn't let go. And, and I'm just really grateful for it today. And, and something else that somebody told me, you know, that really helped me is that, you know, I deserve support. And I did not believe that, you know, and I deserve a sponsor. So if you don't have a sponsor, you know, get a sponsor, you know, have somebody help you work these steps. I was also, you know, taught to go to like a big book study, 12 and 12 studies, and really get in the middle of this book. Thank you all so much. Any, any other blue chips? Any reconsideration on the white chip? Congratulations on the chip you're holding. All right. Congratulations, everybody.