Grew Up Inside the Disease Before I Ever Took a Drink – Lanny L.

Let's have an AA meeting. My name is Mike, and I am an alcoholic. Welcome to the Monday night Blue Chip Speakers meeting at the NABBA Club, where a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more of sobriety tells his or her story. Our speaker is Lanny L. I know Lanny in Gainesville, Georgia. He runs a Saturday night speaker meeting at the Hog Club for the Freedom Group. That's an 8 p.m. meeting. I have told my story for his group, and Lanny's returning the favor, and I'm real excited about it. He also has a counseling, a recovery counseling agency, and he has me doing additional service work, a DUI. We can't do that. I have a weekend DUI class where I've been able to go in and tell my story and hopefully plant a seed with some of the folks that haven't quite gotten into AA yet. I really appreciate Lanny. He's also a natural athlete. I took him out to play disc golf. I thought I was going to smear him. He tied me. He parred his first round of disc golf. A man can do it all. I hope he can tell his story. Come on, Lanny. I'm Lanny. I'm an alcoholic. Hey. Thank you, Tim, for asking me to come up here. It's always an honor to be asked to do service. I just want to say that everything I'm going to share I've heard in meetings. Nothing original. I was talking with Robert a little bit before the meeting tonight, and Robert told me he said if I mentioned his name three times up here from the podium, he'd give me $10. Good to see you, Robert. Robert, it looks like you've lost some weight. You're looking good. That comes from the men's workshop, one of a very good speaker I'd heard probably five years ago. I'd done that, and I've always thought that was one of the funnier things I'd heard someone share at the podium. Let's see. Just doing this to give you newcomers hope. So my sobriety date is August 8, 2001. As Tim had mentioned, I'm a member of the Freedom Group. I chair the Saturday night meeting. I'm looking for support. I'm looking for speakers. So if anyone is interested in coming up and making a trip up into Gainesville sometime, I'd love to just get with me after the meeting. I have a sponsor that I actively work the steps with, and I also have others that I sponsor in the program. I was thinking, you know, I didn't come to my first day eating in a coat and a tie. I've heard guys say that. I did not. But I'm going to tell you a little bit what it was like, what happened, what it's like now. I grew up in Gainesville. You know, I grew up in the disease. So my mother and father split up when I was – I don't even remember their divorce. I remember meeting my stepfather probably before I met my father, memories of my father. Both my father and my stepfather suffered from the disease. And that's what happens with that. When I say that, you know, I can remember the drinking. I can remember violence. And I have so much love for my mother now for just raising me. And my sister and I, just a lot of respect for her. So that was – and I think for me, you know, I always just felt different, I think, growing up in that. And I think going to school, you know, not having the same last name as my friends and, you know, just felt different. And I think for me, just like now, I just wanted to fit in, you know. I mean, that's one of the gifts of the steps today. I just want to fit in. I want to impress you. I want you to know how important I am. And, you know, so I was thinking what my – right, my first drink, I took that when I was 14. I snuck out with my cousin. And we'd gone out with some of his friends. He hung out with older guys. And I can remember it was an old Chevy pickup. And I took that first drink, and I took it just to fit in. And I didn't like it. I had no effect from it. I did it because I just wanted to be like the other guys there. Of course, I acted like something happened. But to be honest with you, I just wanted to fit in. You know, I was probably the youngest kid there. The first time I got drunk was probably maybe six months, a year later. And I can tell you. You know, I just felt like – I grew up with a lot of fear, you know, in my house, a lot of dysfunction. Everything looked good on the outside, but it was just, you know, I'm not sure what's going to happen. You know, my stepfather would drink. And, you know, just there would be no telling what could happen, you know, at night. But when I drank, I remember that first time that I did get drunk, everything felt okay. I mean, I felt just all that fear went away. And, you know, for me, too. I was thinking about it, you know, everything that, you know, I just, you know, I think for me, one thing was I kind of created these fantasies. You know, I always wanted to be very successful when I grew up. You know, I would just create these, just be in this, you know, full flight from reality, as the book would say. And when I drank, it gave me hope that would happen. Anyway, as a teenager. My drinking was just when I could. I kind of used, I became a Christian as a teenager. My family didn't go to church. But we went with some, my sister's best friend, they were real involved in a church, her father. And I went and I became a Christian as a teenager. And that was real for me. And so I kind of bounced back and forth. I was just looking for something to make me feel better. So I would go to, you know, participate in a youth group for a while. That would make me feel better. And, you know, go make some, get involved with church some. But then I would get. I would get tired of that. And I would want to get involved with my friends. Or friends who were drinking. And so I was just looking for any way to improve my self-esteem. And so I did. But the other thing was, I wanted to get out. I just wanted to leave. My idea was to get out of Gainesville. I couldn't stand growing up there. As I got into my high school, you know, surprisingly, I wanted to become an actor. You know, when I drank, I thought I was going to be famous. And as my drinking progressed, I gave up acting. And then I became a writer. You know, I was writing nothing, by the way. But I was, you know, going to be the next great writer. And just, you know, no one, no one would ever get over it, right, when I did the next great American novel. And so, but I wanted to get out. So I studied. I graduated school, you know, and I went into, I earned a scholarship at Gainesville College and studied theater. So, you know, and at that time, I kind of stopped going to church. And, you know, just got into drinking. You know, that's kind of part of what I thought it meant to be, you know, tragic. You know, some tragic figure. And I certainly was that. And I had hopes of becoming an actor. I thought, I'm going to be a famous actor someday. And so, you probably haven't. Well, I wanted to get out. So one of the things I did was leave, right? Like the first, so I started getting this idea. I'd be different. I'd be different somewhere else, right? I just wanted to get out and escape. I could be different somewhere. And the first time I had that opportunity was I got in this job up in Cherokee. It was a summer, it was a summer stock theater job. I worked for Under These Hills. I was an actor technician up there. And this is interesting. The first summer I was up there, I didn't drink. And this was just a culture of drinking and using and drugs. And then I didn't, you know, I didn't participate in that. Subsequent summers, I would. But through that job, I wound up getting an opportunity to go to St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I had finished school at Gainesville College. I took off and went down to Georgia College. I'd earned a scholarship and went down to Georgia College. You know, I'll just say I liked to use other substances alcoholically during that time. And so, you know, really, you know, just being out from my high, I didn't have that shame of being in my hometown or being seen or having that anxiety of going to see somebody I knew. You know, from growing up. So I really was able to kind of, you know, drink and do other things the way I wanted to do it. I wound up getting, I ran out of money. I didn't have money to go to school my senior year. And so I decided a friend of mine had gotten a job in St. Thomas. So I took a job as a scenic designer. Now, I'm not much of a scenic designer. One of the things we had to do at the college was the part of the scholarship we had to learn technical theater. So I had to go and spend nine years. Nine hours a week in the shop. And it was really a great program because, you know, this was back like when Free Jack was being shot in Atlanta. And actually, the guys, our technical director was one of the movie, he was one of the technical directors for that film. So he was very well networked in the industry. And so he got me involved in it. And so I got to work on that. And it was good money. So this other friend had got me involved in St. Thomas. So I thought, well, I'll take a year off and go down there because it sounds like a really great gig. So I did. And I'm telling you to say I didn't stay on the island. It was I was back in ninety five and I didn't stay on the island for six weeks. The worst hurricane, Hurricane Marilyn, hit the island and destroyed like 80 percent of the house. It was but I was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous. The guy that was one of the men down there, he was working for the theater. He was from the Lower East Side of New York City. His sister was on the island. She was sober. And so he had came to St. Thomas to get sober. And he is that quintessential New Yorker. Right. So he's calling me, hey, Slim. He called me Slim and he called me Hillbilly and called me Sister Chaser and all these other great things. These New York sayings. But he would take me to AA meetings. And I can remember at the time he would say, you know, if you ever need this program, you know, you let me know. And I didn't drink down there at all. It just really wasn't. I mean, I had some beers, but I wasn't partying down there. And but I still have the first big book he gave me. And I can remember. And I like the meetings. We got to take an hour off at lunch and go smoke. I would smoke cigarettes then and drink coffee. So I thought it was really great. But as I say, I left that job with a hurricane. I came back to Atlanta during the Olympics. And that's when I really got into just wanting to. It would be different for me somewhere else. So for the next couple of years, I really just I got a hold of a couple of Jack Kerouac novels. And, you know, and I was drinking a lot at the time. And I said, well, you know, it's going to be my life. And and it was I wound up moving. I went to California because that's where actors go. I had no plan and basically just, you know, decided to drive out there. I had one lead. I worked for a shop here in Atlanta. They had a shop in Hollywood. And I remember driving out and they didn't have work for me. But when I went out there, fortunately, and I remember staying in the state in North Hollywood. And I thought, well, I'm definitely not in the South anymore. You know. It was definitely not the South. I'll tell you this. I remember watching the cable television out there. And just on like cable access, they had pornography. Right. I mean, like just bad. Like you could see the guy in the mirror, like with the cameras and stuff. And I thought this definitely is a Georgian. Right. And so. So I was really shocked to be in California. Fortunately, I went to had a lead. I got a job there. And what I can tell you what California was. I did, you know, I did try to pursue acting out there. I pursued other substances and I pursued alcohol more. I did get on the dating game. And surprisingly, I did not get to date. But it was a great it was a good experience. And I thought I was hot stuff. Right. I came out. I thought, you know, and I would say I was bachelor number two. And I just thought I was just hot stuff. And it's pretty embarrassing now. And but at the time, I just thought I was the. And it did get to me. Chuck really came back for that year. And I'll tell you, the most interesting part of it was Chuck. Really, you had to sign this waiver. They shot eight shows in the day, four in the morning and four at night. The audience was rented and they were they were extras. They were extras out of Santa Monica. And they shoot four shows in the morning, four shows the afternoon. And the biggest, funniest thing was you had to sign this waiver. You could not do all these things to Chuck Ruller that all these bachelors had done to him. Like, you know, you couldn't do the money. You couldn't give him a noogie or, you know, give him like people just bear. I've done all kinds of crazy stuff. And they're like, if you do that, then you'll be prosecuted. So I did get to meet him. It was a it was good. That was the first time that probably for me where I really crossed the line with my drinking. I came back here. I was 23. You know, I was thought I was pretty hot stuff, you know, living. But I was empty. I remember when I came home, I didn't live out there very long. I lived out there less than a year, like eight, maybe nine or 10 months. And. When I came back here for Christmas, you know, people were asking me how I was doing and I was, oh, that's everything. Just, oh, you know, it's all just roses on the you know, all these great things are happening. And when I went back, I couldn't leave my apartment. And that was happening for me. Like with my drinking, like I just wouldn't go to work. I wouldn't necessarily drink. I just kind of isolate, you know, and I just wouldn't do anything. And so when I went back, when I was in California, I basically isolated and many people knew kind of what was going on. They all. That was kind of the culture of other like other drugs out there. And they're like, hey, just, you know, we'll help you. But I couldn't. So what I did was basically I just packed all my stuff and I left because I thought it'd be different coming back home. It's been much easier to stay out there. But that's just how I, you know, I just thought that was a solution. No insurance, no money. I ran out of money in Texas and stopped with an old girlfriend and she fortunately came to get home and she'd become part of my story later. But that's that's what. I would do. And so, you know, and then, you know, the next year I went back to a Cherokee, you know, had the relationship. And I love there's a great speaker, Jim Williams. He was one of my favorite circuit speakers or and he would talk about his relationships. And I'll just tell you about my relationships like we would meet and we would fall so much in love and I almost have to quit my job, you know, kind of thing. And then after about three months, it was just gone. Right. It was just kind of over. And, you know, and that's pretty much summarizes my relationships. And I had went after that summer. I decided to I went out and moved out to Seattle. And at this time, I disappeared like I literally like my mother. I was staying with my mother. I had a lot of shame just about where I was going. And, you know, I felt like a big failure from coming back from California. I could never really tell anybody what was going on. My family had asked and I would never be rigorously honest about, you know, I'm really screwing up out there. You know, I told her. I had some problems in a pretty big way, but never how serious it was about how scared and how alone and just how I was at the end. You know, I thought about killing myself, but never really had the guts to do that. And because I always thought there'd be it'd be different somewhere else. So once I'd given up kind of California, I thought, well, I read a Tom Robbins book that summer and decided to go to Seattle. And I had this thing, too. I thought, well, I'm going to be dead when I'm twenty seven. Right. I. I listened to a Doors album. So I thought, well, I'm going to be like Jim Morrison. Right. And I'm going to be like Kurt Cobain. People would ask me good questions when I was when I was drinking. And they'd say, so tell me what you've written. And it was nothing. And they go, oh, I see. And but when I drank, that's just what I became. I became kind of this. That's who I became. And that's what I really thought. You know, I thought I'm going to be this very proud. I'm just such a tragic figure. Right. Oh, God. And so it is. And so. And I was single during that time, too. I really can't figure that out. And so I stayed in Seattle. The woman that I had said that I had, who was a girlfriend of mine, and we were kind of on and off. She had gotten hurt. She was at the University of Texas at Austin getting her Ph.D. And she'd had an accident. And so we kind of had stayed in touch. And I had basically decided to leave Seattle and go to Austin and and try to help her. You know, with her recovery. So which was, you know, good alcoholic thing. And so I. And let me say this with it is I would move when I went to Seattle. One of the things I tried to do, because this was kind of a was starting for me. I stopped drinking for a month or so. When I went up there, I said, I just need to stop drinking. You know, if I could stop drinking for a year and I could get my life back together, get it back in order. I mean, I wanted to go to school. I wanted to do something with my life. You know, but I might stop drinking and I would go back to all the religious tools I had. You know, I would pick those up, but it would go for, you know, maybe three weeks. It felt like a long time, three weeks or a month. But, you know, I'm I'm attracted to guys like us. Right. And someone would always come out and say, hey, we're going to have a we got a cooler of beer. Would you like to come join us? And I was like, of course. Right. You know, not a people pleaser at all. And, you know, I don't have the phenomenon. A craving. Right. The doctor's opinion clearly didn't apply to me at all. But I would be right back in that cycle. I would be right back there. My drinking had become where I could not control it. And then to me, the shame of it was I would just isolate. I would just totally just isolate, want to disappear and go somewhere else. And so that's how I how I function. So I decided to go from Seattle down to Austin. And that was, you know, it surprisingly didn't work out. She kicked me out after. A couple of months, rightfully so, because of my drinking, she had said, you know, and in it, I that was really where I started to hit my bottom. I want to say Austin, too, because I work for a trade show exhibit company down there and I met one of us and there's a saying they say, and I'm not seeing this this gentleman again. And I've always been curious to look him up. But he was the big book. You know, they say you're the big book that nobody you're the only big book people ever see at the time. And this gentleman was named George and he was in a and I remember I couldn't stand it. He would talk about a and then I'd be like, I took his inventory and he would say, maybe you ought to come to a meeting sometime. And I'd be like, oh, and he I just I thought this guy doesn't know me. Right. And and he would talk about all his girlfriends he had having a and he was dating all these women. I thought this is a terrible place. Right. This guy, this guy is horrible. So I really took his inventory and thought that he was just, you know, terrible. I wanted to get sober, but I wasn't ready. And actually, George. So it was New Year's after Y2K. And I had stopped drinking for about six or seven days and I'm running and trying my whole kind of, you know, stop drinking on my own plan. And George had invited me to church. And and then he said, maybe we'll go to a meeting afterwards. And it was actually a little after New Year's because it was Super Bowl Sunday. The Titans played the Rams here in Atlanta. So whatever time that was. But we went to church and he said, I can't go to this. Meeting with you. But it was a meeting like the Serenity House up in Buford, that kind of area. If you're familiar with that building. Right. It was, you know, and he pulled. I followed him in my truck and he said, the meeting's in there. Why don't you go in? And he said, I can't, but I've got to go meet my mom. And I told him, I said, oh, yeah, I'll go in there. And so I watched him leave and I left right behind him. And, you know, and that's and I was drinking again by the afternoon. And that's and that's really where I was until August 8, 2001. The. I came back home. You know, then I decided the last thing I decided to do was I decided to go to Europe because, you know, nobody drinks in Europe. Right. And I went to this thing in Austin. It was like how to teach English as a second language. I thought, well, I can go and teach English as a second language. I've done a three hour course and they gave me some papers. So clearly I'm qualified. And so I decided to go to Spain, which is not a great plan. I went to Europe. My sister. I have a. Younger sister. And she was studying abroad in Italy from the University of Georgia. I thought, well, I'll try to meet her. And so I did. But I can remember flying. I remember I drank with my father on the way down the airport. And I remember flying. And it was I had to connect up in Toronto and fly over to Charles de Gaulle in Paris. And it was a bad plan because I was drinking on the plane and drinking about this. So great. What a great experience. And I didn't understand. Like it was like the fourth language was English. Right. When you land. I'm in trouble. And and. That trip wound up. I wound up kind of stumbling across on my 28th birthday. The guy who had done the Camino de Santiago. And he started telling me about the Camino. I said, huh, that sounds like something I could do. I could walk. You know, I need to walk. Kind of get, you know, kind of get sober or dry out a little bit. So basically what I've done is I stopped drinking and went to Madrid. And I didn't drink. And I got a credential. Now, the Camino de Santiago is where the Apostle James is buried in northwest Spain. And I thought, this is it. I said, Lord, this is you giving me the answer right here. This is it. And I got it. I got it. So I went and I got the credential and I went and I went up and started on the Camino. And and it took about 30 something days or more to do this to do. And I went from one end of Spain to the other walking. And it was great. It was a good experience. When I got to the end of that, I didn't drink because that was my prayer. I said, I want to drink, you know, and I can remember getting to Santiago. And. And as soon as kind of because you make cohorts, you should go through there. Just some friends. And when I when they had left and parted, I remember renting an apartment for a week. Had this great little apartment looking over the cathedral. And I remember going and getting the wine. And I could not. I did not leave that apartment for the next week. And all I could leave for was to drink. And I can remember when you go and there's a tradition there where you go and you pray. And they say you go to the sarcophagus where the apostles buried. And they say you pray and you get your prayer met or prayer answered. And I can remember going. I prayed to stop drinking. And and I didn't. And I thought I would stay there. I thought I'll stay in Spain. That'd be really cool. You know, I can work over here and get sober. And it didn't happen. I wound up getting a ticket. Well, I'd actually mailed my return ticket home. So I'm getting a flight home. And that was probably August 1st of 2001. I had thought about going to some meetings. I was really resentful. I thought, you know, I wanted it to be. I could just imagine coming back to my hometown successful. They just roll out the red carpet for me, how successful I've been. When I walked, I finally went into the. I picked up my white chip on August 8th, 2001. It's up at the Welcome Home Group in Flowery Branch. It's a little Baptist church. I walked in. I don't remember anything said, right? There was a couple of guys who gave me their number. I don't remember anything said in that meeting. I came into AA and I wanted. I had like this agenda. I felt so desperate that I had wasted my life. And my friends were kind of getting married and, you know, getting starting to get careers. And move on. And that was my goal. So I remember calling my. I called my old job in Atlanta to get it. Try to get my work back. And they wouldn't hire me. I'd felt some drug test in the spring. At the time I bought it, they said, we're in a hiring freeze right now. Now I know why they didn't take me back. So I wound up getting a job with my uncle who has a little cleaning service up in Gainesville. And that's kind of like Aramark. He does like mats and uniforms and linens for hotels. And I drove. I drove this van for him. And then I went back to a meeting at the Hawk Club to the Freedom Group, my home group. And I went back in. And I can remember going. And I remember them saying, you know, you need to go to 90 meetings in 90 days. And you need to read the first 164 pages of the big book. You need to get a sponsor and get involved. And I thought it was a big cult, right? I mean, I thought it was like, go. And I've heard a speaker say it's like going to revival like 365 days a year, right? So I was not going to do any of that. I thought that's, I might go, but I don't want to do any of that. And so this old man, he got me on the way out. And he's kind of like a biker from like Every Which Way of the Loose, maybe one of the, kind of the rival biker gang. And he's kind of a staple in our group now. And I couldn't stand him. And he talked like this. And, you know, I thought, if I look like that guy, I'm going to get drunk, right? Because it's like a program of attraction. You know, I thought, this guy, he looks terrible. He's like, I've got 20 years of sobriety. And I thought, oh, gosh, you look pretty bad. And so, but the old guy got me out on the porch. And he said, you're new around here, aren't you? And I was trying to explain how important I was and what I've been doing and everything. And he said, how long have you been sober? And so I started telling him about this traveling and this adventure. And he said, I didn't ask you that. I asked you how long you had sober. And I told him I had four days. And he goes, that explains. And he goes, you're thinking real effed up. And that's all he told me when he left. And that pissed me off so bad that I was going to prove that old man wrong. Literally, I thought, I'm going to do everything they say. I'm going to go to a meeting every night. And I'm going to read that book. Which I didn't read the book, but I did go to a meeting every night. I'm going to get involved. And at 90 days, I'm going to tell that old man you're wrong, right? And that's it. And I already knew when I came in, I wanted to go to, I had a connection in Portland. And I wanted to go to Portland. That was kind of my next place to go and be different and recover. But that old man, that had gotten me started. So I started going to a meeting. And I'll say this, I took everyone's inventory when I walked in. I knew everyone's deal. And I thought, oh boy, this is, you know. But the thing, the phenomenon of it was I identified with some people. Some people told my story. And when they did, it was like they took the top off my head. And it gave me some hope. And that was, that's what kept me, that was the part that kept me coming back. Was I had heard that. And I can remember the old man would share. And he said the same thing. He said, if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got. And if you want recovery, it's the steps, it's the steps, it's the steps. Why? Just because. And I couldn't stand that. And I thought, I couldn't stand that old man. And, but he saved my life. And I'm grateful for him today. That was God doing for me what I could not do for myself. Because I was not going to do any of the suggestions. So I had started to attend meetings. And for the first time in a long time, I felt like I belonged. I felt like I was in there for one hour a day for a couple minutes. Because I remember having to sit through and listen to all the people I didn't want to hear share. Because I knew what they were going to share. And I don't like that. I don't like their share. But I like his share, right? So I want to hear him share. But I did start to feel like I was in the right place. I asked someone to sponsor me temporarily. And it sounded like he had a lot of time. He did. He was a real big book guy. He always quoted the big book. I'm very impressed by that. But he had been sober for about, he had had a lot of time. But he had come back in a couple months. But he kind of started working me through the first couple steps. Then I had a sponsor that he had just came up to Gainesville. He had about 20 years in the program. And he did the third step with me. I can remember doing the third step prayer with him. And then I started on the inventory. I really struggled. I did the steps out of defiance. I remember guys would sit up in that meeting and talk about, you know, I just said, they would talk about the steps. I said, well, it's not going to work. Right? And when it doesn't work, then I'm out of here. So I was just going to do it just so I could say I had done it. And then when it didn't work, I said, well, I'm out of here. And then when it didn't work, I said, well, I'm out of here. And then when it didn't work, I could go. You know, at least saying that I had done my part. And this guy had sponsored me. I had gotten back into school probably after about 40 days in sobriety. I had gotten back into school at the University of Georgia. One big thing for me was I had told my uncle, the first day he had hired me, I said, I'm an alcoholic. He's a Baptist minister, and I have a lot of respect for him. And he said, well, you know, he kind of said, I think you just need to rededicate your life. I said, well, I'm just telling you. Because I had driven around there so much drunk that I was scared to death I would drink and drive that service van around. But that was God doing for me because I wasn't around anybody who drank. And it was, you know, I made half the money I was used to making. I can remember having to go, and I felt so humiliated. But I would go, and that job allowed me to go to the meetings every night. And I would. I would work all day, and I would go to a meeting at night. I had a lot of stress. I had a lot of shame with my family because they'd be like, you've got to go again. You have to go again. You're going again. And so I just had a lot of shame with that, with them. But I continued to go. That sponsor I had, he wound up kind of leaving. He helped me. We started working out, which was good. I couldn't really talk. I shared like how other people shared in meetings when I had gotten sober. But we went and worked out, and I just burned his ear up with it. I could really talk. I talked to him, and we would go work out after the meetings. And he had to go. And I'd gotten accepted into the University of Georgia as psychology. I was going to be, imagine, a doctor, right? So, you know, no. And he was a licensed clinical social worker. And he had told me, he had said, why don't you do social work? And I thought, oh, I'm not going to do that. But that's exactly what I wound up doing when I went back to Georgia. I got back into the University of Georgia, and I went in, and I did. I switched over to social work. And he was a big reason. He was a mental health counselor in town. I had gotten a job there. And so that's what I had done there. He left. That guy's name was Frank, and he had left. And at that time, I had about five months in the program. That's the longest that I had not drank or, you know, done anything else. And at that time, I knew that I could leave. Like, he kind of left. And I remember going to a meeting, a two o'clock meeting at the Hall Club. And I was hurt, right? Because that's kind of my story. My father left me, so I'm just waiting for you to leave, right? My whole trust thing. I'm just waiting for you to leave. So I'm going to be like, yep, see, you can't trust anybody. There you go. Everybody's just, that's how they are, and that's just how this is. But I just felt like I was in the right place. So I went to a meeting, and I talked to a guy that I'd asked to sponsor me, but he had too many guys he was sponsoring. And then I wound up, he said, I think you're one of us. I'm sponsoring too many guys, but don't give up. Don't give up. Don't give up. Don't give up. Don't give up. I had started working on a four-step with that temporary sponsor, which was a good step for me, or just starting to write some of that stuff down. I'd gone over a little bit of it with him. So he said, but as I said, he had gone. Then the next, I think that night, I wound up getting my sponsor that has been my sponsor now since that time. I went to his house yesterday. We had a fellowship. And that was really, and he was like the last guy I thought who would sponsor me. Because I was looking for this sponsor who was going to be tough and, you know, kind of like, you know, you got to do the steps. And I'd listen to guys here. I thought that was so cool to be like, my sponsor is so hard on me. You know, my sponsor gives me all this tough, tough, tough. And my sponsor was not that way at all. My sponsor said, I really don't care if you do this or not. He said, just let me know. He goes, you won't be the first guy who's never done it. And I said, since he didn't care, then I did it. And that's exactly what I needed to do. That's just how it worked with me. If he told me he didn't care if I did it, then I would do it. But if he wanted me to do it, I would not do it. So that's just God doing for me what I could not do for myself. So my sponsor set a deadline with me as we did the fifth step. And he gave me some worksheets from the Joe and Charlie, kind of the inventory, resentments, fear, harms others. And I can remember one funny story. I went to a 530 meeting and I told these old timers of the Fresh Air Group, I said, you know, I'm looking at these resentments. And I was a good guy when I was out there drinking. And, you know, I think anything I've done wrong, I really wrapped up. So I really don't have any resentments. Those guys laugh. They laugh and laugh and laugh. And, of course, I got mad, right? So they said, well, go home and try writing them down anyway. So I did. And I had a lot of resentments. And my sponsor had told me, he had said, we're going to set a deadline. Would that help me? So we went over my fifth step. And I'll tell you, when I went over my fifth step, when I got up with my sponsor, the greatest gift, and my sponsor's still in service, he's just someone I want what he's got. I mean, he loves his program. And I just have so much respect for him. He's human. But he really loves his program. And he's the attraction rather than promotion. The one thing that really popped out to me was he had had some things happen to him, like I had happened to me. And he shared that with me. I felt numb. And the other. The other big part for me was I didn't understand, well, I thought everything when I was doing the part was my ambitions, right? I thought if my ambitions worked out, it would be okay. He began to point out it was my self-esteem. And what I really discovered from my first fifth step was I have a self-esteem problem, right? A big self-esteem problem. And then also he began to point out to me that I had a part in things, that I had a part in all these things that had happened. And he began to talk to me about fear or self-centeredness or dishonesty. I can remember leaving that. I didn't have the feeling like the book. I just felt numb, right? I did go and kind of do the sixth and seventh step as he had, you know, as we had read about in the book. I was looking for this real bright light experience. I kept thinking I was doing the steps wrong in that first year. I guess from my experience, from my religious experience, I was thinking, I'm a good Baptist, so I'm like, man, I've got to do this right, you know? And I never got that feeling. And then, you know, of course, when you read the appendix two in the back of the big book, you know, I had a spiritual awakening. I'm having this spiritual awakening still. But as I've been, you know, and I can tell you this. I remember going, I got to my ninth step and I began to make amends. You know, my sponsor had me write down amends because I'm a people pleaser as a defect. So I will say what you want to hear rather than the amends. And one of the greatest amends I made was to my father. My father had left me. My father was. My father was an alcoholic. He was irresponsible. And but I had done things to hurt him. And I would say probably my big awakening during that was when I went to my father and I, because there were things I needed to make an amends for to him that I had done wrong to him. I learned that no matter what he did, I would never forgive him. And that was a real awakening to be able to start to to to look at just my part in that. And I did. There were several things. So. You know, I was grateful for that, you know, made amends with my family. That girlfriend that I was telling you about in Austin, I came in with an expectation that I would be able to get her back. I thought, I'm going to get her back. I'm going to write this letter. You wait and see. I'm going to work real hard on this letter. And I remember she, her family was originally from Louisville. I called and never got a call back. I thought, well, she must be somewhere. It was probably about when I had my year that it really dawned on me that she didn't call me back on purpose. You know, and I had that letter ready, you know, and that was really painful to look at some of the things that I had done while drinking that, you know, someone would forgive me. Because that's how I operated. I just knew you would forgive me. And she has that right today. And, you know, I can tell you that's probably a regret that I do have. So as I, you know, so I'm back home. I celebrated my first year. And, you know, I kind of wrote some things about, you know, recovery. You know, my second, I'll say this. I think I've got maybe a few minutes. I got into a relationship after my first year. You know, I did the suggestions. I just did not get involved with anyone in the first year. But I already had my eye on her and she had her eye on me. And we were going to meetings and we were, you know, being good. But, boy, as soon as I got that year, I was like, you know, I was sitting on ready and standing on go. But I grew from that relationship. She's sober today. You know, I'm sober today. You know, I can tell you the other thing that kind of came up for me was I had this tremendous resentment with my father that came up after a couple years of sobriety. I had to get outside help. I was continuing to go to school. You know, because of this program, I successfully graduated from the University of Georgia with a bachelor's in social work. I went on to graduate school right after that and I got a master's. And that's all because of this program. You know, at that time, too, I had bought a house. You know, and I did that. How I did that was, you know, people showed me how to do things in this program. People showed me how to go to work. People showed me how to buy a computer. People showed me how to study and go to school. They showed me how to buy a house or buy a car. I didn't know how to do any of that until I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and God put people in here that showed me how to do that. I had a tremendous resentment with my father. And I had to get outside help with that and did not talk to him. You know, I just had grief. And I prayed for him. I did all the suggestions that were given. And it was a couple of years before we started having a relationship again. And that was really tough for me. But it was good. He stopped drinking several years ago, but maybe five or six years ago. He passed away this year. My father had. He had passed away. He had gotten cancer last year. And he had passed away. And I'll tell you, one of the greatest gifts that this program gave me was to be there. You know, to be of service. My father and I never had this relationship where, you know, we were going to be close. Like, I thought we would. When I got into AA, I thought we would go to AA together and have this, like, you know, leave it to be for real. We'd just ride off in the sunset together. I mean, that's how I really thought, you know. And so, I'm grateful today that, you know, I was able to be there and be of service. You know, I was able to be of service to him. What's it like today? You know, this program, when I celebrated five years, I went back to Spain. And that was my five-year anniversary. Like, I had celebrated five years. And I just did the last quarter of the Camino. I did from Leon over to Santiago. And I was working. And, you know, I was on a paid vacation to go over there. Of course, I'm telling my sponsor I'm going to meet some beautiful Spanish. And he was like, why don't you just go and enjoy the trip and come home? Which I did. But I can remember when I had made that trip. And just, I cried on that flight home with so much gratitude. That was probably the most amazing experience. Also, that's where I saw the start of private practice. You know, I did, I'm a licensed clinical social worker. And had wanted to, you know, get involved in private practice. And that's where I had really saw, like, to do that. So, that was that trip, too. But it was just an amazing night. I'm not a big, you know, crier. You know, and even to this day, I'm just not a guy who's real, you know, over tearful or crying. But I remember on that flight home, I cried. And I cried. It was tears of joy. And it was just because of this program. Today, you know, my life, I have a, you know, the people I met in this program. And the sponsorship. Because for me, the God of mine. I thought I knew everything about God when I got into AA. And through good sponsorship, you know, that's what I need. I need someone who could just accept me and not judge me. And, you know, because I, of course, did that to myself enough. Someone told me my first year, they said, we're going to love you because you can love yourself. And I hated that. I just couldn't stand it. I hated to hear that. They were absolutely right. So, I'm so grateful. And that's no different than my experience today. You know, I was turned sideways about having to come down here, alcoholically, you know, just all over the place. You know, I called my sponsor. You know, we talked a little bit about it. He gave me some suggestions. I'm so grateful for that today. I'm so grateful that, you know, I'm not alone. You know, I'm certainly no spiritual giant. But I'm just grateful that I have a God today. And it's because Alcoholics Anonymous. And the people that I've met here. And, you know. The love that I've experienced in these rooms. I'm just grateful for. I can go to meetings. And when I leave, I always feel better. So, thank you tonight. That's it. Thank you. Thank you, Lenny. That was great. Okay, our standing chip person. I've asked Tinsley to come pass out the chips. My name is Tinsley. I'm an alcoholic. Thanks. That was a great story. I appreciate you making it down in the rain. Bad weather. To be here tonight. Here at this meeting, we have a chip system. So, mark our time away from our last drink. If you'd like to try this way of life. One day at a time, we offer a white chip. If I'd like to pick up a white chip. A silver chip for 30 days. And a red chip for 90 days. A yellow chip for six months. Green chip, nine months. And a blue chip for any birthdays tonight. My name is Rick. And I'm an alcoholic. This is six years. I guess really the way I do it is wake up every morning. Do the first three steps I can, he can't, I'm going to let him. Try to make a meeting a day. Keep myself associated with people in the program. Talk with people in the program. And then one big thing that I do is when I come into meetings, I try to find things that I can relate to with other people. Instead of trying to find things that I can sit here all day long. And say, well, I wouldn't like that person. I didn't do that. And that, those kind of things. But, you know, I really try to find things that I have in common with people. And that's pretty much how I do it. Thank you. Any other birthdays? Anybody want to reconsider on a white chip? Big hand for the chips you hold. Thank you one and all for joining the blue chip speakers meeting tonight. Bye.