I Appreciate the Wake-Up Call, Officer—I’ll Just Be on My Way Now – Jonathan

And the PISA group apologizes for not having coffee again. Like, we're locked out of our supply closet. So they changed the keys without telling us. But as previously mentioned, this is an open speaker meeting. And tonight our speaker is Jonathan. And he's from Shelby. Here he is. Thank you. How's everybody doing? I'm going to hide my coffee. I'm sorry. I'm a recovered alcoholic. My name is Jonathan. Glad to be with you guys tonight. Thank you, Eleanor, for having me up here. Got to come hang out with you guys a couple of weeks ago. We got to go into a prison and do that. That was pretty new for me. That was a new experience, and I was pretty nervous. And I always get nervous when I do this, but I'm going to do it anyway. I thought that I was never supposed to. I turned it down when the opportunity came up. So I'll tell you my story and let you know how it was for me and what happened and what I'm like today as a result of the fellowship and this program. Let's see. I always start out by reading a section from There is a Solution. It's a beautiful passage and one of my favorite ones in the big book. The book's full of things that I love, but I just wanted to read this. We are like the passengers of a great liner at the moment at the rescue from shipwreck. When camaraderie, joyousness, and democracy pervade the vessel from steerage to captain's table. Unlike the feeling of the ship's passengers, however, our joy escaped from disaster. It does not subside as we go our individual ways. The feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us, but that in itself would never have held us together as we are now joining. The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered the common solution. We have a way out on which we can absolutely agree, and upon which we can continue to move forward. We have a way out on which we can absolutely agree, and upon which we can continue to move forward. We have a way out on which we can absolutely agree, and upon which we can absolutely agree, and enjoying a brotherly and harmonious action. This is the great news this book carries to those who suffer from alcoholism. It took me a long time, unfortunately. It took me some time of being in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous to actually pick up this book and read it and discover some of the great news that this book carries to those who suffer from alcoholism. I'd like to start out saying something that a friend of mine says. I grew up in the perfect breeding ground for alcoholics, and that's the good stuff. Southern Baptist Christian Home. Everything was right. There was nobody in my house, nobody in my family to blame alcoholism on. I never got beat up as a kid. I was well taken care of. I had respected parents, people who were self-supporting through their own contributions and practiced all the principles that we try to learn today as adults where we come here and try to grow up a little bit. There are certain earmarks that I've heard from other people. I've heard, and learned a lot from other people's experience when they share. They talk about things that were going through their head when they were a small kid coming up. I've learned that just to the proportion that the book talks about, that this disease does center in the mind. One thing that was asked of me very early on by a sponsor was, what were you thinking? That's one way that I learned to start thinking in certain situations. Not really importantly what was I doing, but what was I thinking? As a child, I do remember having some of the same self-esteem issues that I hear other people talking about. Always feeling like I was on the outside looking in. Never really feeling a part of a crowd. Always feeling like I didn't quite measure up to somebody else's standards. Never really having an identity, but just kind of blending in with whoever I was around at the moment. Just trying to be whoever you wanted me to be. That was the only thing I knew. To me, that life was the only normal life. When I turned 16 years old, I started late compared to some people. I came back to school. I remember coming back to high school after a long summer. I came back, and it's like all the people that I hung out with before, they were different. Everybody started to go out. They were partying on the weekends. I was like, what's going on here? I kind of felt drawn to that. I had always been the rebellious type. I think Bill Wilson talks about the 12th. The 12th and 12th. The defiance of being a part of some alcoholic's nature. That was certainly me. I saw some kids going out and doing some things that they weren't supposed to do. That mom and dad would never approve of. I liked it. It looked very attractive to me. I wanted to go out and get away with something. For me, it kind of started out with some other outside issues, not just alcohol. Alcohol was socially acceptable. I wanted to go do something that was totally illegal, even though I was underage. I started with that. Drinking. I was put together with that very quickly. I started learning how to drink. As I look back and reflect on it, I never would have known this until I came in here and learned what an alcoholic was. I realize now that I drank very differently from the very beginning from other people. I'm 16 years old. We started drinking. It was a weekend thing. We went out after football games. We hung out. Everything was okay. Everything seemed normal. Very quickly, though, I started to kind of fall off the scale. School work, everything else became secondary. Social life really became secondary unless it involved drinking. Relationships with girls, anything like that, put on the back burner. I didn't care about anything. The only thing I cared about was drinking. By the time I graduated high school, I had already gone to jail. Some consequences started happening to me very early on in my drinking. Again, I'm looking back. That was a sufficient reason for me to stop. As I look back, there are plenty of reasons why I should have stopped, plenty of reasons why I needed to stop, plenty of reasons why a lot of normal people that were not abnormal drinkers would have wanted to stop and say, okay, that's enough for me. I probably shouldn't go that way again. But I said to myself from very early on, if only I manage well, if I can change this situation, if I can change the people I'm hanging out with, I don't need to go there again. This won't happen again. That was my mentality. After high school, by just barely making it through high school, I enrolled at a community college. I had already decided. I lied to myself, and I believe this lie, and I certainly had everyone else know, too. I said, you know what? I'm not even going to take the SAT. I don't need to do that. I'm not going to go off to university. I'm going to stay here and go to community college because that's a good way to save money. The classes are a little bit easier at the community college, and I can just get my stuff here. The truth was I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to leave the park. The people that I had grown accustomed to hanging out with were always involved in what I wanted to be doing. I was completely obsessed, and that's all I did. So I enrolled in college. I'd say I attended some classes. That was about as far as it went. I would easily leave school to go do something else, the drop of a hat. That didn't last very long. I was skipping from job to job. I started to lose jobs. Somebody pointed out. Somebody pointed out to me early on also that, you know, they said, no, you didn't lose jobs. You gave up jobs so you could create the way that you wanted to drink. That was the case for me. When I was 20 years old, things were really getting bad for me. I believe Bill Werser, you know, monstrous as a friend, was terminated in a row. Even friends of mine that I had who I thought drank like me still, I guess, didn't drink like me. They noticed some of my behavior. They noticed how obsessed I was. They noticed how I never wanted to do anything else, any kind of social event, going to a basketball game, going to a concert, any of that, where I couldn't drink. I did the other things that I wanted to do. I was out. I didn't want to do it. And so friends were gone. You know, I was doing things while I was under the influence that wasn't very becoming of a friend. You know, I was embarrassing myself, embarrassing others, stealing from other people. You know, just doing all kinds of things. Like what was read in the doctor's opinion, you know, emerging the next morning ever remorseful. Never, ever saying that I won't drink again, that I won't do that again. But that didn't really work out for me. So, see, I want to say this is the end of the year around 2000. I was 20 years old, and a friend of mine, the one guy that was still drinking like I was, the one guy that I stuck with, we kind of banded together. And every day after work, we had this person that I worked with that would kind of buy us beer and support our habits because by this time all of my money was given over to the legal system, you know, for consequences that I'd suffered as a direct result from alcoholism. And so we would go out and we would, you know, talk about, you know, some of the good old days. And then we would kind of get drunk and bash all the other people that we used to hang out with. You know, they were just, didn't really know how to have fun. You know, some of the other ones had gone off and they had stopped drinking. They had gone off. They had gotten married. Started doing those, you know, things that I guess some normal people like to do. You know, progressing on with life. But I just wasn't ready to do that. So me and this guy kind of hung together until one day. You know, one day I'd gotten the DWI and I was sitting at home. I'd been there, you know, all day long. You know, it was kind of to a place where I was tired. Just really tired of having to call people and try to bum rides. You know, when you're living. You know, when you're living that kind of life and you're involved with that kind of people. You know, I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here. You don't really have, you know, real friends. We're all selfish and self-centered. Nobody really cares to come get you out of the goodness of their heart. You know, if you don't have anything to contribute to what they want. You know, sorry. Catch you on the next round. Tell me when you get a paycheck. You know. And that was my experience. I had a real hard time, you know, socializing. And I just was really feeling that impending calamity. That pitiful and incomprehensible. A little demoralization. You know, I was at a bottom. I was at a turning point. You know, and I hear people talk about bottoms. You know, we hit a lot of bottoms. I hit a lot of bottoms in my life before I ever got sober. You know, the book talks about it. On page 34 it says, you know, if you are a real alcoholic. The only thing that will conquer that is a spiritual experience. And the maintenance and growth of that spiritual experience. If you can get sober and stay sober without a spiritual experience. You are not one of us. And as I look back over my history, that was absolutely right. This is one of many bottoms that I hit. Many turning points that I hit. I called my friend one day. I'm sitting at home, lonely and miserable. Depressed. I called him. His mom says, look. I don't think he's going to be coming back to Shelby anymore. We sent him down to Dallas, Texas. He's going to a rehab. And my heart just sank. I remember just going into panic mode. And the reality of being completely and totally alone set in. I just was in a panic mode. And I thought, well, you know, what am I going to do? What am I going to do now? There's no one left. There's nobody else to come pick me up. Nobody else that's going to cater to my habits, to my needs, to my wants. I'll just run out of options. I was at the end of my rope. You know, but when I called, I did get a call from him a couple of weeks later. And I picked up the phone. I'd been at home. I was watching. I was behind the music about Marvin Gaye. You know how Marvin Gaye's life had just gone to the crapper because of his drug and alcohol addiction. And his dad just shot him in the house. And I thought, I guess this is where it's going. Only I didn't have the money to live the lavish lifestyle that Marvin Gaye did. But that would have been nice. I'm sure I wouldn't be standing before you today if I'd have had those means. But anyway, so I sat there and was bathing in my misery and depression. And I'm probably loving every bit of the self-pity. And my friend Wayne calls me. And when I picked up the phone, it's just like Bill described it. You know, when Eddie came to see him, as soon as he opened the door and the guy started talking, he's like, something's different about this guy. Well, I could hear it through the phone. Because one thing that you don't hear too much of when you're out there drinking is a lot of happiness, a lot of genuine happiness. And when I heard this guy's voice over the phone, that's what I heard. I knew that something had changed. I didn't know what. I had a feeling I knew what he was going to tell me. And sure enough, he told me. Just like Eddie told Bill. So, you know, he said, I've got religion. But, you know, this guy said, well, you know, I found salvation. He started telling me about the way that he did it and everything. And, you know, I felt sick at first. You know, like, oh, my God, this is really the end. You know, I really am alone. This guy's not coming back. I thought, you know, maybe he'd get out of the treatment center and come back. I would think that we were left off maybe after he got over the initial, you know, emotional roller coaster that comes from going to treatment. But that didn't happen. You know, I remember he moved back and he moved in with his grandmother up the road in Charlotte. It was kind of out of my reach. But I was somewhat inspired, too, at the same time. You know, there was a part of me who heard some hope in his voice. And, again, I intuitively knew that what I was doing was killing me. I knew that. But I didn't have a way to escape. I didn't know how to escape. So what I did one day, after I talked to him on the phone, I remember crying myself to sleep. You know, a couple of weeks went by. I'm going to work, going through the motions of everyday life. And, you know, what he said to me was just really weighing heavy on me. And so one day I'm in my room. Again, the loneliness, the despair, the depression was kicking my butt. I'm in my room at night. I hadn't gone anywhere. And, you know, I remember I started to pray. And that's something that I hadn't done, you know, since I had been a little boy. I picked up a spiritual book, the only one that I ever knew, the only one that was ever presented to me. I beat the dust off of it. I beat the dust off of it. I beat the dust off of it. You know, I just flipped it open to a random page, and I opened to something that really, really inspired me. And just like what Bill describes in the story, I had a real, real barn-burning spiritual experience right there. I felt a sense of peace. For those of you who have had that experience, you know what I'm talking about. It's really hard to explain. I just felt a sense of peace and a sense of ease. And I thought that everything would be okay. So, you know, from there, you know, the obsession to drink was lifted. And immediately, I thought, okay, this is not a problem anymore. I just felt that it was really not a problem. And so I started getting involved. And the only other activity I knew to enlarge upon that spiritual condition, I started going back to the church that I grew up in as a child. I started doing the church thing, you know. I tried everything I could do to clean up my act and be the good church boy, and I played that role very well for a good while. I was doing all the right things, saying all the right things, doing all the right things, saying all the right things, doing all the right things, all the right church meetings, talking the talk, reading that book, you know, parroting out all the good things that come from that book. You know, it sounded real good. And it looked real good. And it worked. It worked for a while. It really did. But there was some things missing. And again, this is all hindsight looking back. There were some things missing. There were some things still going on within me. And I know it today as alcoholism. Then I didn't know what it was. You know, all these, and I can say this, and some of us know what we're talking about. It's not in a schizophrenic way, but those inner voices, those resentments, those fears, all those residual things that I've grown up with, those were still very much a part of me. I didn't know anything about an inventory. I didn't know anything about being honest with another human being. I mean, after all, had I not just gone to the altar and made my plea to God, you know, I mean, I'm a new man, right? It just did not work out that way for me. 2004, I had been sober by this point in time, almost, this was the end of 2001 when I'd gotten sober. So by 2004, it was a three-year mark. I'm completely dry from alcohol for three years. The effects, the euphoric effects of the spiritual experience of long since past, the depression, all those other things that it talks about on page 52, the bedevilment. Is everybody familiar with that passage? I'm going to read it to you. It says, we were having trouble with personal relationships. We couldn't control our emotional natures. We were a prey to misery and depression. We couldn't make a living. And we had a feeling of uselessness. We were full of fear. We were unhappy. And we couldn't seem to be of real help to other people. Now, take away the alcohol. And all this stuff is still there. Okay, so I didn't understand what was going on. And by this time, I had taken, I had met a guy in my hometown from Kansas City. He had invited me out to his church. He was a pastor in Kansas City. I'm out there working as a youth pastor. I'm there being a leader, okay? And all these things are going on. I'm starting to have all these doubts, all these fears, all these battles going on within me. And I can't talk to anybody about it. If I do, I get fired. You know, I can't let down my guard. So I'm an island into myself, just living in complete hell. You know, I stayed out there for about a year. And I remembered I started taking depression surveys on the Internet. I was like, what is wrong with me? Seriously. Seriously. I mean, it got me. Seriously. Seriously. Seriously. Seriously. Seriously. Seriously. At this point, I would walk in. You know, I was in a big city. I'm a small town guy. I'm in a big city. I'm meeting new people every day. A lot of upbeat, bubbly, funny people. Great personalities. But I don't want to be around them anymore. It was just killing me. I could not put on that act anymore. I played the role throughout the summer. We had gone to all these great camps in Florida and done all this stuff. And I'd smiled enough until I was about to puke. Okay? I just couldn't do it anymore. It was all I could do to get out of the bed in the morning. I would have to drag my butt out of the bed. I would go down to Starbucks and get what is it? A grande? The biggest one they got. Just gulp the thing down so I could go to church. Make an appearance. Appear like I was going to work and be excited about what I was doing. Whatever that was. You know, they kind of turned me loose to work with these kids and be creative and all that stuff. And I was just, whatever. You know, was not feeling that at all. But again, there was nobody I could talk to about this. Nobody. And so I started taking these depression surveys on the internet. You know, trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I didn't know. And I remember now, there was a couple of times it came to a point where, you know, after I would make my daily appearance and put in the hours and be in and out like I was going to meet with kids and do what I was supposed to do, I was just going back to the apartment. I would go back and sit there. You know, when 5 o'clock would come, I would go down to the local grocery store that had a video store and I would grab a couple of videos and go back to the apartment and shut the door, turn off the lights, and there I'd be for the next morning. And there was a couple of times when I sat there and I thought, my God, how nice would it be to drink? You know, I needed. I needed a drink. That's exactly what I needed. That was the solution to my problem. But I couldn't do that. I couldn't do that. I can't get it. I don't drink anymore. And I'm a preacher and I'm the church guy. I can't do that. You know, what will people think of me? You know. And I just couldn't do that. And I had this strange feeling, too, you know, some of the old ideas, you know, that I would just be letting God down, you know. I would lose it all, surely, if I gave in to that. That's what I thought. So anyway, the people I'm working with kind of pick up on this depression, you know, and they realize that I'm kind of homesick. They realize I have some other ambitions, again, trying to live up to other people's standards. I wanted to go back to school and finish the education because that's what you're supposed to do, right? You can't get a good job without an education. That's what I always heard. So I thought, well, that's logical. I need to go get that done. I don't feel at home here. I don't feel like I'm going anywhere. I need to move again. I need a little geographical fear. I need to get back to home base. Things will get better. So I moved back. I take off. I take off for Kansas City. I feel like a free man when I'm riding out of that town. I'm like, yes, I'm going back. Things are going to be better. I drove 14 hours back home. I drove through a blizzard. I got home, and I went to a Christmas party when I got back. I was happy to see everybody. Everybody was happy to see me. You know, the product of the sun returns, right? And I'm sitting in there, and I'm talking to everybody. I wasn't there for 30 minutes, and I just wanted to cry. The depression came right back. I was like, what have I just done? I started thinking. I'm a failure. I can't believe I did this. What am I doing back here? I'm such a loser. I'm back to this little hick town that I grew up in. What am I going to do? You know, what do people think of me now? They think I failed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The voices just won't shut up. And so, you know, a few weeks that I remember, a few weeks go by, I never left the house. I never got off the couch. And I looked at my mom one day, and, you know, I remember the little depression surveys I'd been taking back in Kansas. And I told my mom, I said, I think I need to go to the doctor. She said, yeah, I think so. I said, yeah, I think so too. And so, you know, it's something I never considered before. I never considered doing that. I didn't think there was anything I couldn't just pray my way out of. I didn't think, you know, it had to involve another person or any action on my part. But, you know, I go to the doctor. I get on an antidepressant. The antidepressant works. I spin right up. I feel like a new guy. You know what? And I said to myself, inwardly, I never said this outwardly, I said, screw this guy's stuff. It doesn't work. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of it. It doesn't work. I'm going to live like I want to live. I'm happy now. I'm done with it. I'm not thinking about that anymore. I don't have to have any boring theological debates with anybody else. And I don't have to have them in my head anymore. I'm just going to go do my own thing. And that's exactly what I did. I'd always been into fitness and stuff. I had a lot of time on my hands when I got back. I got back into the gym. Started picking up some of the old hobbies again. I had some energy. Somebody at the gym says, you know what? You ever thought about doing a bodybuilding show? And I said, yeah. I thought about it, but never really seriously. So he says, well, maybe you ought to think about it. Good idea. So I did that. I got into that. August of that year, this was February. August of that year, I competed in the bodybuilding show. Nice little ego boost. I'm feeling good about myself. Got some friends and acquaintances again. I can actually walk into a room and talk to some people and feel pretty okay about it. And I started hanging out with a guy who was also into bodybuilding. And he was a friend of mine from childhood. Now, this is a guy. This is a guy that I never drank with before. I never partied with him before. And, you know, so every once in a while, I knew that he would go out and help on the weekends. But, you know, I never really took part in that. But the week after I competed in this bodybuilding show, he wants to go. Excuse me. Let me back up a little bit. I started dating a girl, too. I hadn't done this in a little while. I started dating this girl. And she was fresh out of college. She had gone to East Carolina, come back home. I was looking, you know, on the job search, doing all the right things. And in college, I mean, she lived it up. You know, she had a partying lifestyle. She was doing good things now. She still had all of her stuff together, had her act together. But she still liked to drink. She goes to the beach with me and my family that summer. And, you know, the whole time she was talking to me like, you know, why can't you go out with me and have a drink? You know, why don't we go out to the club over there and we'll have a few drinks and stuff. And I was like, no, no, I can't do that. You know, something told me that. Probably wasn't. The best thing to do. You know, this is the guy that goes out. You know, the guy that used to own the car dealership. And he goes out to the bar and says, well, I sensed I wasn't being any too smart. But if I just pour it into the milk, maybe it won't. You know, that kind of thinking is going on. Okay. So we go out. I'd already made the decision. And I was like, yeah, you know, we'll go down to the club. We'll go down to Myrtle Beach tonight. And I'll have some drinks with you. And so we walk in to a place and they only serve beer and wine. And I was like, you know, I'm on this health. Heck, I don't want to have all the calories from the beer, right? Right, right, right. Right, right, right. So, you know, I'm looking for some whiskey. And they don't have it. So I started to drink it. I started to drink a beer. And it was, you know, I think I drank a Heineken or something. It was really heavy. I hadn't drank a beer in three and a half years. It was really heavy. I was starting to get full. And I was like, I don't want this. We go down to a little surfside pool room and bar. You know, smoky Redneck music going on. You know, whiskey flying around everywhere. You know, it was good. It was good. I got me a couple of Crown of Ginger Rails. Took a couple of drinks. The physical allergy just kicked in like harder than it ever had before. The girl I was with, the heavy drinker, that thoughts about on page 24. The heavy drinker has a couple of, you know, fruity drinks, you know, whatever she was drinking. Gets sick and goes to the bathroom. And, you know, I didn't know that she was getting sick when she went to the bathroom. I just thought she had to go to the bathroom. And she didn't come out for 20 minutes. By that time, you know, I'm shooting pool. Just killing the Crowns. Killing them. Killing them. Physical allergy kicked in. And the obsession kicks in. I'm off to the races. I got slam drunk that night. Finally, when the bar closed, we left. We started going back to the campground where we were staying. I had her stop by the store. I got, you know, two big 32 ouncers, you know, to take back with me. Didn't think anything of it. Didn't think anything abnormal about this. It's just, you know, the way I'd always done it. So, I mean, all went well. I did have a hangover the next morning. But, you know, nobody knew anything. I didn't go out and hurt anybody. I didn't go to jail. I didn't lose any money. The experiment went well. And so I said, well, you know what? That wasn't so bad. I had no desire to drink. You know, when I went back, I didn't think about drinking until, this was before the bodybuilding show. So I did the bodybuilding show about a month later. And then two weeks after the bodybuilding show, I was kind of recovering from that. I had gotten some sleep. And I was with the guy that I was telling you about. That I hung out with. I started hanging out with. And this guy's also a heavy drinker. He can stop or moderate. I saw him do it many a times. When he'd go to a club, he would just drink his face off for about an hour or two. And then he would stop. In the middle of the club, he would just stop abruptly. I was like, you know, that puzzled me. I didn't get it. But I understand it now. But anyway, he decides, we're playing some video games. He said, I'm going to go get some beer. He said, I'll go get some of that Michelob Ultra Light. I've been out of the game for a while. I hadn't tried that. It's low-calorie, low-carb stuff. Yeah, that's good for me. I'll try some Michelob Ultra Light. Yeah, go get it. He goes and gets a 12-pack. We drink six apiece. He's done. I said, dude, why don't you get back to the store? The craving is there again. I said, why don't you get back to the store? He said, man, I can't drive. I'm not going anywhere. And I was like, okay. Go to his parents' liquor cabinet. There's like what's left of a half-gallon of Bernice Vodka in there. I got it out. Killed it. Physical craving. I'd sit back in. You know, I drank. I got lit. Eventually, this started going on again. It started becoming a weekend thing again. Very rapidly, I ended up right back where I was. I just went on until August of 2005. I was on a complete roller coaster until July of 2007. Again, I had gone back to some other outside issues to go along with my alcohol. The fact was for me, I did not like the way I felt when I wasn't drinking or when I wasn't on the influence. I was on the influence of something else. I could not be sober and be comfortable at all. And so, you know, I had to have a job. I didn't come from a rich family. I had to have a job and maintain a job so I could support my habits. You can't go to the job smelling like booze. So what do you do? You take it in a pill. Take your booze in a pill form, okay? You can get away with that. You can talk to somebody and you're not ricking. That's what I did. Well, that got really out of control, too, along with the drinking. So I started reading on the Internet again. Maybe I got a problem. How am I going to cut? How am I going to get myself off these pills, you know, without letting anybody know that I'm taking the pills as if, you know, as if they didn't know, you know, I'm not eating food. Okay, you know what I'm talking about. So I start reading this little prescription that a doctor has given, you know, to wean yourself off these pills. And it's saying, well, cut your dose of this pill and take another of this pill. And, you know, take it in a small dose. Well, you know, I'll take four, you know, and I'll pass that on the couch. You know, I'm over at my grandmother's house. There's lots of noise, people walking in and out, TV blaring, you know, people yelling at my grandma because she can't hear. And here I am passed out on the couch, you know, completely lifeless. And so my mom and my wife, knowing full well who I am, my mom walks over when I'm passed out and starts digging in my pocket. Well, she finds the goodies, flushes them down the toilet, and then smacks me around and wakes me up. You know, here I am facing the consequences again. I've been found out again. So, you know. I start immediately launching out into this explanation, letting them know, you know, about the experiment that I'm doing. I found myself. I got hurt, Mom. You know, I started taking these pills because I was hurt. I didn't have the money to go to the doctor. And it got a little bit out of control, so I started reading on the Internet how I could get myself off of them, and that's what I'm doing. So, you know, I wanted to sound virtuous and like I was doing the right thing. And she pretty much, you know, blah, blah, BS. I know you. You know what? We know this guy. We know this guy that's been a friend of the family for a while. You know who I'm talking about. I said, yeah. He said he goes to AA, and, you know, it's really helped him. He's been cleaning this over for a long time. Maybe you ought to go check that out. I was like, psh. Okay. You know, whatever. Stop talking to me. If this will help, you stop talking to me. So I agreed reluctantly. She had just flushed everything I had, so I was in some horrible, horrible withdrawals. This was Saturday. Horrible withdrawals. Until Monday. Horrible withdrawals. Horrible withdrawals. Horrible withdrawals. Horrible withdrawals. I was in a hospital one day. I had gone to a doctor, you know, with her to get some help to try to detox myself properly from these things. And, you know, I am still drinking on the side, but she doesn't know anything about that. You know, certainly. I was willing to give up some of the other things, but I can always hold on. I can always hold on to the alcohol. I love, you know, let me get off the track just a little bit. I love that little pamphlet that says problems other than alcohol. I hope you guys will read that. You know, there are a lot of people that have problems. with outside issues other than alcohol. And so I didn't really know what fellowship I ought to go to because I certainly qualified for both. But I thought at first, in the beginning, I thought that I was a drug addict because that's what cost me all the money. That's what sent me to jail most of the time. That's what the people frowned upon the most. That's what my mom found, and that's what my wife didn't like me doing. But, you know, the drinking is still socially acceptable. I can get away with that, and I can still be okay. And so I didn't really believe myself an alcoholic because I'd never read page 24 of the big book. I wasn't a daily drinker all the time. I didn't drink in mass quantities. I didn't rob liquor stores. I wasn't sleeping under a bridge. So, therefore, I was not an alcoholic, right? No, I had to be taught these things. So, anyway, I go to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous for a new meeting one day. I saw this guy that mom and dad were talking about. He greeted me at the door. He's like, man, I'm glad you're here. He's like, I'm glad you're here. You know, tell me what happened. And I started going into a sob story. You know, I don't belong here, but this is what happened. Yada, yada, yada. You know, so I go in, and there starts my journey of a one-year, you know, standing out in Alcoholics Anonymous. This was July of 07. I met a few people in there. One guy who would later become my sponsor. Some people who really tried to listen to me and to understand me, you know, as I whined and whined and whined and moaned and, you know, pretended to know everything as I read steps off the wall and said, check, check. Okay, don't need that. You know, the same old story. I thought Alcoholics Anonymous was about going to meetings. You know, I heard people talk about steps and stuff like that and working the steps and how do you work the steps. You know, all these things weren't clicking. I was listening to it. I was hearing it. But, of course, I was too prideful to go and ask because the truth was I really didn't want what you had. I wanted the consequences to stop. I wanted to stop hurting. And so, you know, I kept going to meetings. And there was a guy that said, he's still around our fellowship, and he said something one day to me after a meeting, and I know he meant well. I really do. And, you know, I can kind of make sense out of what he said. And I was telling somebody about this before the meeting. He said, you know what, why don't you, you know, just keep coming back. Just keep coming back. Meeting makers make it, you know, if you stick around, you'll hear something that will get you. And I thought, well, you know, okay, so if I keep coming to enough meetings and I keep listening, eventually, you know, I'll hear something that will crawl up my butt and I'll be sober and, you know, happy, joyous. And I guess that's kind of how I took it. You know, I thought if I kept coming to enough meetings, I kept listening, then I would be somehow struck sober. I didn't know anything about having to go to work, having to get in this book, having to ask somebody for help and get a guide. I didn't know anything about that. But I kept going on the way I was going. January of 2008, some consequences had come down bad again. I'd gotten some major, major legal trouble. It's a direct result from alcoholism. And so, again, another turning point, another bottom. I thought, my God, this is it. I've lost everything. What am I going to do now? I've got to get right. I've got to do something. I started doubling up on my meetings. I made a commitment. It was the New Year's of 2009. And I said, man, you know, excuse me, it was New Year's of 2008. And I said, you know, I've got to clean up. This is it. I'm going to do it. I started doubling up on the meetings. I didn't drink. I didn't do anything else. I got to do it. I got to do it. I got back in the gym. I regained my physical health. Everything started going pretty well again. Not so much on the inside, okay, but to all outward appearances, things started improving once again. And so, you know, things got back to the only normal that I ever knew, you know, when I wasn't drinking. It got back to that normal. April 2008, four months after being dry, I remember driving away from the local Serenity Club in Shelby there, and I was talking to my mom on the phone. And she was talking about it. And I said, Mom, I don't need this crap anymore. She said, you know, all we do is talk about the same thing every day, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, I really had this picture of AA as, you know, people were joining together. I heard somebody else say this. I'll use this quote. She said, I thought, you know, people were coming here to join the fight against alcohol. You know, we come meet together for an hour every day, and we talk and help each other. And it's group therapy, and we help each other stay sober so we don't have to go drink and die, you know. Well, you know, I was never anywhere close to death that I could see anyway. So I wasn't. You're as bad as some of you people. I heard some of your war stories, and I still didn't know if I was in the right room or not because I didn't drink like a lot of you drank. And I said, you know what? And I was the youngest guy in there. Every once in a while, you know, the man in black was sentenced. You know, some of the young cats come in there. And so they'd be in, get the paper signed, and be out. But I thought, well, you know, maybe this is just not for me. After all, everything's going well. I'm out of here. I'm checked out. Within a matter of weeks, the same friend. He's a heavy drinker. Has a bachelor party. We go out that night. Get loaded. I say I'm not going to drink, but I'm kind of wavering. You know, it's a thought. It's an obsession all day. I know the event's coming. I said, I'm going to drink. We go. We rent a party bus. We go out, and we drink it in style. We go to these nice clubs. We're dressed up. $200 bottle of champagne. I said, I've got to drink that. I'll never have that opportunity again. We drank. We lived it up. We were respectable. No bad consequences. The experiment, once again, went well. And I said, hmm. So, you know, if I hang around with these people and just do it like they're doing it, it'll be okay. And that's what I did. And it's off to the races again. Very quickly, very rapidly, the progression caught up with me that time. This was April of 2008. By October, I was at a complete pit of despair. I've never been so full of fear in my entire life. I still managed to maintain that job. But this time, you know, while being very drunk out one day, I discovered another outside issue. And this one slammed me against the wall. You know, that, along with my drinking, just jackhammered me into the ground very quickly. Again, I was just so full of fear. There were two roads that I took. One was to the store, to somebody's house, and the other one was to work it back. Otherwise, I stayed holed up wherever I could, you know, to keep away from people, to keep away from certain places. I really felt like that I was going to die. And I welcomed that idea. I remember riding down the street one time, and I remember exactly where I was. And I remember thinking, I'm going to die. This is the end. Just that sense, that intuitive sense that if something doesn't happen, if something doesn't happen, I'm either going to go to prison or I'm going to die. And I really didn't want to go to prison. That didn't sound like a good idea to me. So the death. I welcomed that. Because I knew that I could not stop. I knew that I could not stop. There was going to be no effort made on my part. I knew I could not stop. You know, on page 34 at the bottom of it, it says, this is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it, this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or wish. And I like that description better. That described me. Because, you know, in the chapter of the agnostic, the first sentence, it says, when you honestly want to. Well, I never honestly wanted to. I wanted consequences to stop. But I never, ever, ever wanted to stop drinking. Ever. But the necessity was great. My life was on the line. My family. My marriage. My pattern of relationships. My job. Everything was on the line. And I could not leave it alone. You know, the times that I had been sober, those bedevilments came back to me. I was still suffering from untreated alcoholism. The misery and depression, everything else was kicking my butt. I needed a solution. So I land myself in jail. I leave work one night. I go and I steal some alcohol from the grocery store. You know, I put stuff, something up into a jacket. It was wintertime. Stuff, something up into my pants. And then I go, you know, buy a tall boy for 99 cents. You know, it's a decoy. I said, well, if I buy something, maybe they won't stop me. And they didn't. But, you know, I got out of the car. I passed out of the wheel before I could get the, you know, I was already loaded. I passed out of the wheel before I'd ever got the booze open. A guy that I went to high school with knocked on the window of the car. And he's dressed in a police uniform. And he says, how you doing, man? I said, okay, you know, what do you say? I mean, you know, you caught red-handed. Honestly, you know, as best I can remember, I was in and out, you know. But I really think I said something to the effect of, you know, I appreciate you waking me up. I'm just going to get on out of here now. No. If it could only be that easy, right? So, thanks for the wake-up call. No. No, I'm there. So, I got out of the car. I got out of the car. He asked me, could I search the car? I said, no, man, you know, I really need to get home. My wife's going to be worried about me. She's waiting on me. He said, well, you know, and I knew some things that I'd heard from my other cronies. You know, if they don't have probable cause, they can't search and this and that. Well, you know, he didn't smell anything. And I hadn't started drinking yet. The top was still on the bottle. I said, no, you can't search, you know. He says, well, you know, I've got a partner here. And he's new and trained. And, you know, I went in to learn some of the ropes. I said, do you mind if I let him search it? He just kept on and on and on. I said, whatever, you know. And this is what I did. Now, tell me this, you know, this wasn't a subconscious thing. I wanted to get caught. I was ready for something to stop. I was ready for some relief. I walked over to the car, reached into the console with my back turned to him and started picking stuff up out of the console. As if he, you know, might not see that. Slams me into the car. Takes me to jail. I start threatening suicide. I'm in and out of a blackout. I can remember little bits and pieces driving to jail. I'm on the phone in the jail cell with my wife talking about I'm going to kill myself. I'm going to kill everybody in here. I was going nuts. I stayed in jail for a little while. They come and get me out the next day. It's an ex-cop. It's a friend of the family. He comes and talks to me. He says, you know what? You've got an ultimatum here that you need to make a decision. He says, you know, if we let you out of here, you're going to have to go somewhere. I thought, oh, God. What does that mean? And it started to click. What he was talking about, I'm going to have to go somewhere. A treatment center, a hospital, something like that. And I said, well, yeah, I can do that. But, you know, I can't. I've got to work this afternoon. And he's, you know, like I just didn't understand the levity of it. He looked at me and said, dude, you're going to die. I said, do you not understand that? And fear gripped me, you know, when he said that. Because, again, yeah, I knew that. I knew that, but I didn't want to face the music on there. So it was either go there or stay in jail. So it didn't matter. Actually, I made that decision to go off to this hospital. I go down to Greer, South Carolina. I'm hating every minute of it. It was my wedding anniversary, my second wedding anniversary. Walk in to the part where, you know, the guests can't go anymore. Walk through the double doors and say, happy anniversary, honey. You know, please pity me. That's what I'm thinking. You know, I was crying, just an emotional wreck. I was angry because I'd been caught. I was angry because I'd let myself get into that position again. I walked in the hospital. You know, a couple days are going by, and I'm thinking, you know, I'm going crazy. They're pumping me full of stuff to bring me down off one thing, but it's not curing the mental obsession. You know, the physical element, the physical piece is being treated there, but the mental part is not. And I was restless, irritable, and discontent. So they give us these little papers to fill out in the morning, right? And it's just a little questionnaire. It says, you know, are you having trouble sleeping? Well, yeah, naturally. I don't have a sedative. Are you having panic attacks? And I thought, yeah, yeah, I never had a panic attack in my life other than, you know, what was induced by other things, you know, and just the residual fear that I live with on a 24-hour basis. But, you know, I said, yeah, yeah, I check panic attacks because, yeah, they'll give me something for that, right? Yeah, the doctor, I wasn't snowing him. He was a recovered addict. You know, I had been the doctor, you know, leading physician at this hospital for quite a while. He knew the game very well. A couple of the counselors there then knew the game. They weren't buying it. So, you know, I continued to be a little bit miserable. A couple of guys bring in an N.A. meeting one day, and, you know, I'm kind of halfway in and out listening to them. Didn't really like, you know, what he had to say. But then, you know, as a couple of days go by, the fog started to lift. You know, I could think a little bit. You know, I'd actually gotten some food into my body, something that I'd passed up for quite a while. You know, I ate enough. I tried to get enough on my stomach so I could drink. I was emaciated. So these guys from Lawrence Road Group in Greenville, A.A. Group, good A.A. Group down there, a couple of old-timers and a couple of young guys, they come in there. One guy, you all heard me say this before, one guy, bless his heart, he's about 100 years old, and he was sitting there with a cane. He had cataracts on his eyes. He couldn't see. He couldn't hardly talk. And I was like, well, what is this cat doing here, you know? But, you know, he was doing it out of the goodness of his heart. He still, you know, at that old age, he still wanted to give back what had been given to him. You know, and every one of those guys had been, a patient at that hospital, a former patient. Well, this guy, he stands up and he starts facilitating a meeting and he tells a story in a general way, but he goes into some pretty specifics also. You know, and I could really relate to what he was saying. You know, he was a pure alcoholic, but he started talking about some of the mental twists, some things that I hadn't really heard before or allowed myself to hear or anything. But he started talking about that and it was ringing my bell. But, you know, the thing that was most attractive about him was that he was smiling. He was filled with joy. And that was something that was so attractive to me. You know, I started to look around. He started to talk about powerlessness and, you know, and he started giving me hope. You know, here's a guy that has some joy on his face and I started looking around at all the people that I was in the nut house with and I didn't see too much joy. You know, so yeah, I decided right then and there, I was like, yeah, you know what, I want what you have. And I knew, I said, this is it. I said, something has got to happen. But I know that I can't do it. But this guy has given me hope. And he's telling me the AA worked for him. He started talking about the steps. He said the steps worked for him. And so there was step one and two right there. It had happened to me. You know, I realized where I was at. I realized the position I was in. And I knew that I was powerless. My history had proven that. Time and time again, I had stopped drinking. I got dry. I tried to put everything back together by myself. And it just came crumbling back down again. I gave way to the old bread and butter idea. This time I'll handle myself like other people. And I always went back to it. So I knew that something had to be different. And this guy was telling me that the 12 steps made his life different. And so I said, well, if it'll work for him, it'll work for me. Maybe. Maybe. I see the evidence here. So maybe I'll try it. I'll give myself to this program. The doctor recommends that I go to a 28-day facility. I did that. Great treatment center. I met Mike Burns up there. Some of you guys know him. I heard him speak up there. It's just a wonderful treatment center. They handed me a big book since I walked through the door. They really talked to us a lot about alcoholism. Alcoholics, in all honesty, they were very blunt. They said, if you do not work the steps, you will not get sober. You will not stay sober. If you don't do a thorough fourth step and a fifth step, you will not stay sober. They started reading some of those promises out of this book that we don't like to hear in meetings sometimes. You know, because they're not all fluffy and nice and don't make us feel too good. By God, they're promises. And they started telling us those things and driving home. And, you know, every counselor there, every person there was in recovery. They were recovered. They were recovered alcoholics. And they were good. They were good. They had been where I was. And that gave me hope, too. And I remember, you know, they took us all the way up through the third step. And they gave us, you know, a little pattern for the fourth step. And I started feeling this out. That stuff just came pouring out of me. You know, I, who thought before that I didn't have any resentments, you know, the classic story. It started coming out. I had 50 on the page. I had my fears. I had my sex inventory. I had it all done by the time I got back. And I hooked up with this guy over here. And I told him, you know, when I get back, I said, we need to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And I said, I'm going to do this. And I said, I'm going to do this. And I said, I'm going to do this. And they were, the topic was, what kind of psychology is used in AAs or any kind of psychological approach used, you know. And Dr. Silpore talked about that, a moral psychology of some sort. But, you know, I remember this guy telling me or asking me one time or telling me, he said, you know, you look scared. And this was before I, you know, got sober. And I was like, yeah, I said to him, nobody ever said that to me before. And I just kind of brushed it off. But, you know, he knew what was in my head even before I got sober. And I did. You know, we're sitting down to do a fifth step. And he starts asking me to tell him about himself. And he didn't want a list of conduct deeds, you know, things that I had done. He said, I want to know what you were thinking. Take me back to your life and tell me what you were thinking at this point. You know, and through that method, I was able to make a connection. And he said, you know what, you've been honest with me today. And then we'll start with one person. It started with one person for me. But there will be those who come after you whom you will help. And there's also other people in this fellowship who are already in it. They think just like you do. We're all alike in this deal. You know, we don't all drink the same, but we all think the same. It's pretty much the deal. And so I felt a part of, I started going to a lot of meetings. I started getting to know people. I was recovering. You know, all I was asked to do is take these steps. And in so doing, I found out that I was having a relationship with another person, a real honest relationship for the first time in my entire life. I've been honest with somebody. I've been honest with myself. First, I was taught how to do that. You know, I was having an honest relationship with a power that was greater than myself. You know, and some old ideas were being replaced by some new ideas. You know, the idea that I thought that I could just pray and everything would be taken care of and it didn't require any action on my part. You know, I found out that by talking to other people and becoming a part of the human race and giving of myself to others without expectation, those were spiritual acts. You know, and that was how I was growing and maintaining a spiritual life. You know, I was growing and maintaining a spiritual life. You know, and that was how I was growing and maintaining a spiritual life. A spiritual experience. A spiritual condition. One that's growing. And the book tells me that I have to keep up those things. You know, I've got a day to reprieve and that doesn't mean every day is a day that I can relapse. I heard that, you know, this thing is more powerful than that. It's more powerful than that. God's power is more powerful than that. But it's every day that I have an opportunity to carry the message and to live the principles of this program so that I can continue to experience happiness, joyousness, and freedom. You know, I can continue to experience fellowship. I can, you know, walk into a room of people, people that I don't know, and I can talk to you and I can actually like you. I'm not sitting there thinking about, okay, what are they thinking about me, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, these voices are quiet now. You know, I like my life. Nothing great has happened to me in sobriety as far as, like, you know, big jobs and promotions. We were at a meeting today and the topic was that I came to believe. And I was telling a couple people about this before the meeting. And the story was talking about how a lot of alcoholics like to get ahead. You know, when we were drinking, we dreamed great dreams of, you know, perseverance and pomp and all this stuff. And that was never my experience. You know, I just wanted to drink and get away with it. And I wanted you to do everything for me. You know, I never had those dreams. But, you know, some of the couple of old-timers in the meeting, you know, we were at a halfway house. And there were some guys in there that probably needed some of this direction. But anyway, it kind of turned into a, you know, a job. And I was at a church seminar or something. And I'm like, yeah, you guys, you know, you need to learn to be responsible and get out here and really look for a job. And I thought, man, this is an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. You know, without a spiritual life, without a spiritual program of action, I'm never going to get a job. I'm never going to be able to hold a relationship. If I do, I'm going to lose them. It always happened before. So a spirituality needs a spiritual solution. You know, and I have an opportunity to share that with you guys tonight. And I have an opportunity to share that every time I'm in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I got a couple of spots today. They're staying sober. They're both newly sober. But we're working the steps rapidly. You know, I had one guy. He started in 2007, the same year I did. And kind of the same experience. He was coming in and out of the rooms. Thought of the scripture there. He would come and talk about how lonely he was and how his life sucked. And the wife was still gone. And she wouldn't come back. And yada, yada. And then he would disappear for a while and come back. Well, the same trend. You know, a few months ago I saw him. Shared the same old stuff in the meeting. I grabbed him out of the meeting. After the meeting, when I opened the book, I said, look, man, let's look at this thing. We looked at the doctor's opinion and we identified him. You know, is he a real alcoholic? You know, found out that he was. We went into the back room. We prayed the first step prayer. Started the fourth step immediately. God tells me today he's had no obsession to drink. His obsession to drink is gone. Another guy, really young guy. I just had some time. I just had some horrible, horrible consequences of his drinking. I'm working with him. You know, I see it working for him. It's a great joy and a great experience to be able to guide other people through the steps. Like somebody took the time to do with me. Going to start a new meeting this coming up weekend. That will be a new experience for me. We actually don't have any meetings in our area on a Saturday night, if you can believe that. You know, one of the biggest drinking nights of the week. So a few of us decided it might be a pretty good idea. Yeah. Some people have a place to go.