Jim R. at the 4 For Recovery XI – 2020

We'll once again kind of invite God back into this. And one thing Dale always says is try to visualize your sponsor sitting on your left and your grand sponsor sitting On Your Right. Let me mute everybody before you can start over, please. Say that again. I wanted to mute everybody so it's a safe room again. And then you don't mute yourself and you need to start over. And I apologize. Thank God you're here, Mike. I had to mute everyone to keep it safe. Okay. So, where am I? What's happening? Oh, right. Just what I was saying is just out of respect, remember this is the meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and Dale always says try to visualize your sponsor on your left and your grand sponsor on your right as we go forward. And as I said, we're going to invite God into this again. And I think that means we're now ready for our reading, Janie. Hi, everybody. I'm Janie and I'm an alcoholic. Janie? Nan, where are we starting? And we have ceased fighting? Yes. And just continue on to finish that paragraph. Okay. Thanks for letting me serve. And we Have Ceased Fighting Anything or Anyone, Even Alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as a hot flame. we react sanely and normally and we will find that this has happened automatically we will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part it just comes that is the miracle of it we are not fighting it neither are we avoiding temptation we feel as though we have been placed in a position of neutrality safe and protected we have not even sworn off instead the problem has been removed it does not exist for us we are neither cocky nor are we afraid that is our experience that is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition thank you Janie thank you very much okay so get to a little introduction here of our speaker our next speaker and I don't know why I'm still looking at Janie Mike. Mike will get on this in a second, I'm sure. I don't know. Maybe I'll have to spotlight Jim. But I have known Jim for a long time and we've become really close friends. And I can honestly say the way my sobriety is and looks today would be completely different without him being an influence in my life. And he's serious as he can be about the program. And he's also every bit as funny as Nancy. So without further ado, I give you Jim. Okay. All right. Can everybody hear me okay? Awesome. My name is Jim Reiser and I am an alcoholic. I love seeing everybody's hands wave. I don't think I've done a lead on Zoom. Boom. So thank you for having me. Um, you know, I always say a prayer, um, before I give a lead because I want, I want the influence of God to give me the ability to give the best message that I can. And I was listening to Nancy, which was hilarious. I mean, I'm sitting there, I had to send a chat to Nan saying, Oh my God, she's you. You know, it's just great to be able to see Nan laughing and seeing how relatable that was. My story is interesting in that I was born with a birth defect called spina bifida, and I had the first of 55 surgeries when I was nine days old. And it's kind of interesting that my father, an Irish Catholic And I'm sure alcoholic was in there at some point, but I never saw him drink. But very stubborn man was told when I was born, both my parents were told when I wasborn that the preferred method for treatment for what I was born with was euthanasia. And they said, you know, we won't feed him. He will die within three days and he will die peacefully. And God bless my old man. And he was a Marine and that's what we called him. That was what he expected us to call him. um, that he said, if there is nobody who's going to decide my son's journey, but God and God will be the decider of his journey. And if suffering is part of it, that's on that's between him and God. It's not between anybody else. And, um, you know, uh, but, but I, I, uh I used that against my parents later in life, but I will say that the illness of selfish and self-centeredness that Nancy was referring to, and then the other thing that Nancy referred to that I really related to is putting off happiness. But the illnessof selfishness and self centeredness was well, well established in me right from the get go. I mean, it was immediate. And it wasn't anybody's fault. I mean, I required a lot of medical care early on. And if I had a complaint or I had an issue, the world revolved around me. My parents took me to the hospital. The doctors and nurses came to my room. People, you know, so the world really did revolve around me from a very young age. I also remember my father and mother sitting me down when I was five years old, telling me that I was likely going to be with Jesus soon because I was given a very short time to live because my kidneys were failing terribly. And there was really no option for that. And, you know, because of where the lesion was on my back, I was incontinent with urine. So I had to wear diapers all the way up until I was six years old. So I developed a pretty nasty shame early on. You know, I got made fun of terribly. I mean, this was back in the day before they had pull-ups and stuff. I had the cloth diaper and the pins and then the plastic pants that went over them. And they made noise when you walked. And so, you know, I was always embarrassed about it, but I developed a kind of a penguin walk, you know, so that it wouldn't make noise. But I got made fun of terribly. And so anytime I'd hear laughter behind me, I knew that somebody was making fun of me. And I think that's probably one of the only thing that's really carried over into my adult life is anytime I hear laughter, right? I have to, am I okay? Did everything, did I shit my pants? You know, that kind of thing. And, you know, but anyway so, so they, they my parents told me that I was probably, you know going to be with Jesus. Of course I was a kid. I was, you Know, I was taught a wonderful what Jesus was. And so I was I wasn't scared. I Was whatever. Okay. You Know, I didn't know anything about what death was or was not. I just knew that I wouldn't be in pain anymore. And that's what they told me. Um, but, uh, we were fortunate that we lived in Cleveland at the time. And, um, I was able to have a kidney surgery that not only saved my life, but got me out of diapers. And I'm telling you what, I Was pretty darn pumped about that. Um, I, I given an ostomy, ums where they rerouted my urinary system to the outside of my body and and I have a bag. And, um, so I've, I've been by golly, I showed everybody. I'm like, I'm not wearing diapers anymore. And I'm showing everybody my underwear. I was so excited. I was so proud. And you know, I got to pee standing up whenever I wanted to. And and I think that started some inadvertent exhibitionism when I was a kid. When I was hearing Nancy talk about, you know, posing naked. I was just so darned excited that I didn't have to wear diapers anymore. Unfortunately, my bowels were not quite as kind, so I still had accidents here and there. And I remember my very first really horrific, oh my God, I'm completely alone moment. And I was in second grade in Mrs. Lee's class. I can remember everything. I could remember where Diane Sapansky was sitting. I can remember where Cindy was sitting, I can remember what Mrs. Lee was wearing and I had an accident and I stood up and I had a big brown stain on the chair and it was like you know you see those movies where everybody's face is giant and they're all laughing at you and that's what I experienced and Cindy was my best friend and I said Cindy and I started crying. I said, Cindy help me. She goes, I can't help you. And for the first time, I felt completely alone. And Mrs. Lee said, can't you control yourself and move the class out? And I was by myself cleaning up. And so thus began a series of rides home from school to get me to be able to change and go back to school. And, you know, I was I was known as that kid. What was interesting, though, is that I was fortunate that I discovered music at a very early age. And so I started playing violin when I was five years old. By the time I was nine, I Was playing at Madison Square Garden as a solo violinist. And I have to be honest with you, I really hated that because I was always little Jimmy, the crippled kid. And I don't mean to be politically incorrect, but that's how I was perceived. And that's why I perceived myself, you know, the cute little crippled kid. And, you Know, and I was one of the first kids to integrate into out of the special classes because, You know, and, You Know, in my school in Ohio and, And, You Know, parents did the IQ test most of the time when a person with spina bifida gets hydrocephalus, which is water in the brain. I didn't get that. I was very fortunate. And mentally, I was just as competent as anybody, I guess. I don't know. But the bottom line was that my parents had an IQ test and all that stuff like that and found out I was smart. And so there were some expectations laid on my feet that by God, I better accomplish something. And I don t think anybody verbalized that to me. I think this was something I just laid on myself because I wasn t supposed to live. My parents sacrificed everything. And I did get a bit of that message, you know, after all we've done for you, that kind of thought process was very instilled in me. So, you know, I got tired of being little Jimmy, the special kid. And I think, I mean, I played the violin and I did very well in school. I liked school, you know, and for the most part, you know, I finally decided one day I'm tired of everybody making fun of me. So I'm just going to tell everybody about my story. And I asked my teacher, I said, do you guys mind if I tell my story to the class? And she said, no, I don't mind at all. I think it would be wonderful. So I told them my story and I said look guys, if you want to make fun of me, that's fine. But I'd rather us all laugh together. And so I was one of these class clown kids. I figured if I could make you laugh already then you wouldn't laugh at me. And so I talk about a manipulative skill set. I was that guy that I felt like I could manipulate anybody into doing anything I wanted because, frankly, I used my sickness at some point in time to benefit me, for lack of a better way of saying it. More on that later. but anyway so uh you know after I told my story kids kind of bothered me a little bit less and you know and I made some good friends and I was but I was always kind of protected you know there was always a couple of big kids that would protect me and um and and I both loathed and liked it I liked it when it was when when it benefited me and I hated it because I wanted to be my own guy I wanted to be able to you know be Jim the the guy and my dad's name was Jim so I was automatically Jimmy. And I really, well, first I was Jamie and I thought that was a girl's name. So I wasn't going to allow that. And then so Jimmy became my name. When we lived in New York, we moved around a lot. My dad took different jobs. He was an engineer. And so he took different jobs. And my mother became a nurse because she felt that I needed extra protection. And I'm glad that she did become a nurse. I resented it for a while because she was always using her nursing things. You better do this or your kidneys will fail. You don't want to get sick, that kind of thing. So we had a very codependent relationship. It's that simple. But I discovered when I was 14 the guitar, and I started growing my hair long. And I had really curly hair, and everybody said, oh, you have the most beautiful hair. And i discovered that, um, uh, i thought, well, gosh, maybe i need to be a rock star. I don't know why i thought that, but that was my thought. And, um... But before that, just before i started picking up the guitar... My dad's best friend was a World War II veteran. And his brother and I were also very close. And he fought, and he was one of the people that was involved in D-Day. And so I was a World War II nut. I learned everything I could about World War III. I learned everything I could about the different battles. And Arnie, I just, I worshiped the ground he walked on he was an amazing man uh and he uh one day he said riser because he always called us by our last names he says it's time to make a man out of you and we were living in new york state at the time and he gave me a can of genesee cream ale and for whatever reason i thought that me drinking that beer made me a man and arnie gave me that pat on the back i was no longer that cute little kid getting his hair tussled. I was, I was a man as far as Arnie was concerned. Now I'll be honest, I did not like how I felt. I remember drinking that like he did, you know, I took a big giant swig and, and he, he, she, he was doing the same thing. And then I stood up and I'm like, Whoa, and I need to sit back down. So I didn't like how it felt. Um, but what I did like was that Arnie perceived me as a man. And that was my, I thought, well, by golly, this is what it's going to take to stop being little Jimmy. I'll, I don't mind that. Didn't taste bad anyway. I really loved the taste of it. And I can remember in sixth grade, they brought some people to school to tell us about alcohol use and not to drink. It was, and this was back in mid seventies and they're Don't drink, don't drink. And I'm like, don'T tell a kid to do that, because they're gonna drink. And of course, I love the taste of beer. So I'm Like, well, is there any kind of beer that doesn't have alcohol in it? I kept on asking about near beer and all this other stuff and beer and beer. Everybody's like, man, shut up, dude. I didn't know. I mean, I just, you know, I Just, just loved it you know and and so anyhow as time went on um I had I started singing and playing guitar and um I didn't really like my voice very much but I really liked playing the guitar and I liked um I liked music I it was just a wonderful wonderful thing for me and so when I was 17 well I take this back let me back up real quick when I was 14 I started playing in a band everybody else was like 21 22 so I started playing in bars when I Was a kid and so I really had to grow out my hair because I just looked like a kid. And so I wanted to you know fit in with the adults but once again, I was sort of back in that that little Jimmy role and and but because of my health you know, this is back in the late 70s early 80s because of My Health, you know people were doing different drugs and stuff that, you know, and nobody would, they were like, Jim, don't get anywhere near those. You don't need more problems than you've already got. And so I stayed away from everything. You know, I'm seeing people snort cocaine and doing things and smoking marijuana and I just stayed away From it. I didn't, I just wanted a beer from time to time. And I just, you know but I didn' drink alcoholically at that time. I'd have half a beer and the rest of it would sit there. Um, and I can remember later on in life thinking, man, I wasted a lot of alcohol. But, uh, so, so when I was 17, my kidneys failed again and I had to have everything rebuilt. And, um, this was a really tough surgery and I, andI did, um you know, lose my, my heartbeat and all that stuff like that for about 20 minutes while I was on the table. Um I don't have any, you know, I was walking down a tunnel of light stories. That wasn't how it was for me. However, when I did wake up, I had this thought process that music was going to be a huge part of my life, but it wasn't going to Be the ultimate part of My Life. I knew that I knew it to my core. And so I pursued that after I graduated from high school, I elected not to go to college and and pursued the music career. And I was in a band, we were kind of a Rush clone, the band Rush. And I love that band. I did everything I could to sing like Geddy, play like Alex. And we had a drummer that played like Neil and just fantastic band. And We actually got the attention of Terry Brown who produced a lot of their records. And so we had some record company interest and ultimately, we just didn't quite gel from that. So I decided to try doing some solo music and totally different thought process with music. I was more of a folk rock pop. I don't know what I was. But I did attract the attention of record companies and signed a $7 million record deal in in 1988. And, um, I had done some, uh, work for John Mellencamp and, uh—because I'm from Indiana, um, and here comes my gigantic German shepherd. No, you need to go upstairs. Go on. Go, go, go. Go. Stay. Stay good. Sorry. I have my studio set up because I'm actually performing live tomorrow, So that's why all the lights and everything. But anyway, so I had success with getting signed for music. Now, here's the thing where this happiness thing was I was really relating to Nancy when I was hang on a second. I apologize. Hey, Linda, can you get him, please? Go, go, go. go on, go outside. Sorry about that. I just have all my guitars and everything set up and I don't want to knock them over. So I always used to say when I was a kid, gosh, when I get out of diapers, I'll be happy. Well, when i learn the Vivaldi concerto on the violin, I'll be happy when I'm, when I have a really good guitar, I'll be happy. So my happiness was always put off and it was interesting. My whole music career was like that because I thought, you know, when I get a record deal, I will be happy, when the record comes out, I would be happy if I get a hit song, I'd be happy If I get the number one single, I'm happy. I did everything but get the number one, and you want to know something? I was never happy in the music business. Never. And my alcoholism was not... I was already an alcoholic. I just hadn't gotten out of control. Nan and I always talk about this. I was selfish and self-centered from the get-go. I had all of the isms that we have. I juste didn't have the substance that brought me completely down yet. And unfortunately, because of the nature of the many surgeries I had, pain medications were prescribed. I didn't like how I felt on those either. And after that kidney surgery, when I was 17, I lived through it, got better and thrived and did very well. But what was interesting is about maybe two or three years later, I remembered they i had some pain medication left in my my my mom's closet she she managed all the medicines and you know so i was such an adult i couldn't manage anything right no i i i was a terrible adult um and and so i had a really bad headache one day and i took i took a couple of these pain pills and it was almost like a light switch went off it was like oh well my golly i i feel the I feel normal. I feel fantastic. And I was able to write what eventually became one of my hit songs. And it was like, well, I got to have this to write because, you know, I've got chronic pain because I had lots and lots of pain. That was just part of my journey was low back pain where they did the surgery. And then, you Know, all the different troubles that I had as a result of that. So that began that relationship began. I think I smoked a little marijuana and I didn't like how I felt on that. I was stupid. I had a joint in one hand and a lighter in the other, couldn't figure out how to get the two back together again. And I thought, Nope, this ain't me. This ain't going to be me. And by then, you know, I had had a buzz from alcohol once or twice. But, you know it didn't really do much at that point. So fast forward a few years you know there I was able to get that record out and, you know, we had success with the record. I toured, we toured with Mellencamp and the Moody Blues and we went all over the country. And unfortunately at that particular point in time, you Know, I was, I Was on pain medication still. And so I was allowed to have two pills at after every show and for, and my road manager managed all of that. So once again, you know, I had to be manipulative and that was one of my unfortunate skill sets is getting what I wanted in the best way that I could. And I had what, what I affectionately refer to as the pain face. And boy, did I get all kinds of sympathy for that? It was beautiful. I would get anything. I almost anything I wanted for that. I'd get out of things, I'd got something. And that was just part of the alcoholism doing its job before I really started drinking. But my entire tour, I had dreamed about playing in some of these places my entire life and yet the most important part of my show was afterwards. And that was all I cared about and being left alone. Because I was the solo artist, the band rode in the one part of The Bus and I had the full back of the bus. It was a little bouncy back there, but it was my place and it was my space. And if I was back there you better not come back there. And you know so selfishness and self-centeredness was not only the root of my problem. It was root branch and tree and leaves. Selfishness and self-centeredness was. And as soon as the second single came out I had had to go to the hospital again. And by that time, my alcoholism had taken root in the form of being hospitalized and getting meds there. And eventually I lost the record deal and decided, well, you know, I got to do something about this. So I went through a pain rehab program in Cleveland at the Cleveland Clinic where they took me off all these medications and they helped me get exercise and helped me get things in place. And I'll never forget, they had me set up with a counselor there and his name was Jim Serp and his last name was spelled S-R-P. So I immediately didn't like him because he didn't have any vowels in his last name. So I wasn't going to take anything that he had to say for, but he said to me, you should go to some AA meetings. I said, why do I need to go to AA meetings? I don't drink much. And I didn't at that time, he said, well, he said, you know, you just got some, some things about so you know, and so it just went completely over my head, it just did. And but I think what he understood was that I had no fellowship, I had No connection, I was terminally unique. I was I and and so I was given a solution, but I didn' couldn't believe I had the problem. So fast forward, going to college, I decided music was not going to be for me. And I wanted to, at one point, my ego took over and made me think that I should be a doctor. That being a physician would be a lot easier than being in the music business as far as... And in some ways, now that I've had my education, I certainly think that there was a lot of things that were a lot easier in the medical industry than there were in the music business. But I opted not to become a physician, but the pain program did so much for me. It helped me. Now, this was the first time that I actually became independent and I learned how manipulative I was and I earned how selfish and self-centered I was. And I learned that pain did not have to define me because let me tell you something. if you asked me how I was doing in 1990, because that 1991 is when I went through pain rehab, I would have given you every symptom I had. I would've told you how bad my back hurt. I wouldve told you horrible my life had been because of this spina bifida thing and just have myself and you in tears or try to. And what pain rehab taught me was, hey, guess what, man? Pain's something. It's part of your life and you're either going to live with it and go have a life or you're going to continue to be miserable. And so that was a gift. It was a gift because I got to shed that skin. It Was Wonderful. The problem that I had was is I had no real follow up. And if I would have been able to, you know, go back and look at that at some point and say, wow, you know what? We had aftercare once a month in Cleveland. And I lived in Indiana at that point. And so I'd drive back to Cleveland and I would come back just pumped up. I was like, wow this is great. I got to be with people who are just like me. Who understand. And we bonded, you now. But I didn't have that every week. I didn' t have that three or four times a week.I had that once a moth. And some of us know how it is if we don't go to meetings. We know what happens to us. We lose what we get. You know, the meeting is our daily medicine. And so while I was in school at Indiana University, fortunately, the best gift that ever happened to me was picking up alcohol. Tell you what, there was a professor who I just absolutely loved. He was a teacher for folklore class, and I loved this class. I had to take some electives, andI just thought, you know, this would be kind of a cool elective, but I love this guy. Anyway, I was giving him my tale of woe about how, you know, oh, my kidneys, and this is fatal for me. He goes, you know, I've got a fatal disease too, and for the first time in my life, I was immediately taken out of myself and focused 100% on another person. I said, Dr. J., you cannot have a fatal disease. You're the best teacher in this university. He goes, no, it's a fatal disease. And I was just blown away. I said well, he said it's called Gelinex disease. Now of course this is pre-internet so I couldn't go Google GelineX disease but I was pretty impressed with whatever Gelinext disease was and the more he talked about it and he said you know, but there is a treatment for it. And well, I looked up Gelinex disease and GelineX disease is alcoholism. So boy, did he have my attention? So I called him back and said, Hey, I just looked up Gelonex disease. I've never seen you drink. You're not an alcoholic. And he's like, well, you want to get together and talk about that? And I was like, you betcha. I'll tell you what. So we got together and he's telling me, you know about how he'd gotten sober And and I remember I completely related to him. But at that point, again, I hadn't quite discovered alcohol yet, but I certainly was using my pain medications the way that he was drinking. And I did. And he was he was a Christian. And so and I was Catholic, so I could relate to him and I'm almost embarrassed to say this, but i'm going to say it anyway, because that's where I was. and I remember telling him, I said, well, what makes you think Jesus suffered more than I do? Oh God. And, and, and God bless him for this. He said, well, that's not what we're talking about. What we're Talking about is, is that you can avoid and you can end that suffering if you want to. And that intrigued me. And so he said, you want to come to a meeting with me? I'm like, yeah, I'd love to, you know, cause I had decided to go to school to go into pain rehab because it really did make a huge difference in my life for a good, good several years. So I went to, went to an AA meeting with him. I got my big book on September 11th, 1994. It was given to me by, by Dr. J and you know and I thought this is great. this research is wonderful. This is going to help me help these people out. And then thank God, thank God one day it was another kidney surgery. I was staying at my girlfriend's house. This was during my college years and I had a kidney surgery and my girlfriend, all she had in her fridge was wine. So I took my medicine with a glass of wine And that got me rolling. Thank God. And that's why I say, thank God I started drinking. Thank God I start drinking because I went down the toilet within a very short period of time, within two or three years. And I remember, you know, well, you Know, I'm just having one beer and, you know a bunch of medicine and and it was like it was it was as shocking and and felt right quote-unquote as much as that first time where I felt normal for the first time and again I didn't do any hard drugs I didn'T do any drugs so I was sort of known as the sober guy in the music business and interestingly enough at college you know I was an old dude in school by the time I got into college, I was older. And so I didn't really relate to a lot of people. I just kind of kept to myself and did my thing. But I'll tell you, that moment when that clarity came to me, it was like, this is what everybody's talking about, about being good and free and awesome is this Chardonnay. It was some white wine. I don't even know what the hell it was. And then it was just like, it was a roller coaster straight down. Thankfully, the ironic part, and this is the power of this disease in my opinion, I graduated top 10 out of 3,000 graduates with blackout drinking and drugging. It was just insane. I mean, and of course, you know, by that time, opioids were really liberalized for pain. You know, so the belief that I was not, people would tell me, you're not addicted. You just need more. Of course, I'm like, let's laminate that research. And so, you Know, and then I developed autoimmune hepatitis. and i remember the first thing i asked the doctor is do i have to stop drinking can i have like one beer a day he's like oh yeah you can have a beer every once in a while which translates to um a pony keg every day once a day that's what that translates to and so you know by the time i graduated from iu i was just an absolute mess i graduated with uh summa cum laude and and and And I couldn't tell you what that meant. I mean, it was just like all I cared about was getting my next fix, drink, whatever I needed. And it's funny. I look at my financial reports. Well, I don't have them anymore. But from that time period, and it would be every three days, it would me big red liquors, CVS Pharmacy, Mr. Video, because I was going to get a video game, right? And then it would be Big Red Liquors 2, some other pharmacy, and Mr. Video. See, I was going to different liquor stores because I didn't want the liquor store owners to think I had a problem. I was Going to different pharmacies because I don't want the pharmacist to think i had a Problem but i guess i didn't really care that i Had a problem with videos i was just playing so many video games It was it was nuts it was absolutely insane pain and you know I gotta tell you when my parents um told me my my mom um said you know she she was in a very unwilling enabler but you know he would get my pain medicine for me and when they told me look we can't do this for you anymore we we can afford your insurance anymore you're gonna have to be on your own that was when I took over and realized how uh I I mean I that's I went right down I mean it was it was the best thing that happened to me was my parents in my family, giving me my freedom because when, and this is not a dis against them. When they were my enablers, I was, I Was sort of half stable. Right. But when they said, we love you, but we just can't do this anymore. We can't watch you self-destruct then, then it was either live or die. And, you know, I think most of us want to live. I've always believed that. And I did want to leave. And when I realized how bad it had gotten, I remember calling, um, well, I, I'd gone out to vacation out at the Andres in Pennsylvania. Mario's like my second father, and I would never do anything to mess up that relationship, and yet here I was sneaking alcohol and sneaking around Mario so that he wouldn't think I was in as bad a shape as I was, and that was really one of my final straws. My final, final straw was at John's. We had recorded some stuff for one of his albums and we went water skiing. I didn't water ski. I just drove the boat, but I was in withdrawal, horrible alcohol withdrawal, and also from pain meds. And I had an infection in my bone, unbeknownst to me at the time. But I tried to get John's wife, who was a model, to go with me and be my kind of diversion at the pharmacy. And I said, hey, Elaine, can you go to the pharmacy with me? Because I'm having a hard time walking. And John, and I'm not going to say it like he said it because I won't use that language in a meeting. But he basically just ripped me a new one and said, you know, you're just a junkie alcoholic. He said, you don't need my wife to go with you to get your crap. You'll have your beer and your pills and you're going to be just fine in about an hour. And I let loose on John right there in his kitchen. And, you know, you don't understand. You don't have a clue. You tell everybody you got spina bifida. You only had one surgery. You don'T know anything about what it's like. I've had 55 and just poor, poor, poor, little Jimmy. The one child that I couldn't stand, my own self was doing everything he could to stay that way. And so I just decided I'm going to prove to John that I'm not a junkie. I'm gonna, I'm, I'M NOT AN ALCOHOLIC. I'M GOING TO GO TO CLEVELAND AND I'M GONNA GO SHOW THEM. I'M GONNNA GO GET AN EVALUATION." And I went back to Cleveland and I went back to Dr. Covington and I said, I don't know what to do. I can't stop drinking. I'm in more pain than I've ever been in. I don' t know what to do this one moment from Dr. Covington changed my life. And I'm going to get emotional because it's led me where I am today. But Doc knew, he said, we were in treatment review and, and Doc Collins was the addiction stock. And i'll never forget, uh, I didn't like Doc Collins because he looked at you and could see everything that in you, you could look right through and he knew, and I knew he knew. I don't know why I felt that way, but I did. And Doc Collins, I didn't want anything to do with him. But I remember thinking if I don't go into Doc Collins' program, I'm going to die. I remember thinking that. So I told Ed, Dr. Covington, I said, I don'T know what to do. You know, I graduated. I want to go to school and I want work in pain management, butI can't stop drinking. I can't. This is horrible. And it's just my pain. If I could just get my pain under control, I could stop. But I think I need the other side, doc. I've already been through pain rehab. I knew what to do with my pain. And he looked me right in the eye and he said, I think I know what you need. And if your insurance company doesn't pay for it, I'll pay for it myself. And I knew I was going to go into the business of helping others. And And I always swore that as long as I lived, I would do the same thing for other people. And I went to that other side and I met, you know, fortunately for me, we in the pain program were housed with people in the alcohol and drug program. and um i remember i i you know they'd have aa meetings at night and they were having a blast and laughing and having a good time and and i would i remember coming out of my room one night and i said do you guys mind keeping it down because i'm trying to sleep over here and i'm in the pain program not like you people well that wasn't what i said but that was my inference right and and and so you know we pain people really need to get our rest we're told that we're taught sleep hygiene in our program that was such an ass and so um one day one guy said why don't you join us and i said well you know i i don't drink like you guys do but okay why not you guys seem like cool people this one guy keith spring he was just a cool guy and so i sat in that meeting and gosh, the way you're talking about your drink. And I can relate to that with my drinking and also by my meds. And so I was really, you know, in that, that, that mode, but once Dr. Covington made that switch for me, and then again, that's the AA meetings were what made me say, I think I need the other side. Right. And so when I, when, when I got to the other slide, um, I dove right in. I mean, it was like, wow, I'm an alcoholic. Oh, I don't know. Two days where I was just this up and down thing, you know? Well, I didn't understand court cards. I didn' t understand any of that stuff like that. But I did see people getting their sheets signed at meetings. And I thought, well, I'm going to get my sheet sign. I'm gonna get an A plus in this program. Because I'm gonna I'm Gonna, you know, somebody said go to 90 meetings in 90 days. By golly, I don't know what these meetings are. I didn't know that the meetings were like what they were doing there as volunteers at the clinic. But i don't know what these meetings are. But i'm gonna do it. I m gonna do it. Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know. So I you know, you know how we are. And so this fellow named Doug came in, he was a volunteer and the way he told his story and theway he presented himself was just amazing. He was just awesome. I thought, man, this is a guy that I could talk to. And I said, well, you know, they're talking about meetings and they're talking about sponsors, talking about all these other things. So would you be my sponsor? He goes, oh yeah, I'll be your sponsor. I'll be here to pick you up for your home group on Thursday. I said well, can we talk a little bit about this meeting stuff? Because I need a sponsor for sure, but I'm only going to be in Cleveland for a couple of weeks. And I really am not really that interested in those meetings. What I am interested in is getting better and I'm interested in having a sponsor, but not meetings. He says, I'll be back to pick you up. Read the first 71 pages of the big book and then we'll talk about it tomorrow. And then I'll pick you Up for your home group on Thursday. I said, man, you didn't hear what I just said, did you? He goes, no, you Didn't hear what i just said. So I'm picking you up for your home group on Thursday. But I liked him enough and wanted what he had enough because he told his story about how he got here, and I thought, man, he's really been through some crap. You know, I've only had my stuff that was prescribed, and well, then there was another young lady in the program who helped me understand that just because it was prescribed didn't mean that it gave me the access. And I'll never forget Collins, Doc Collins saying that. He said, so you think because you had spina bifida and all these surgeries, you were entitled to live in your life the way you were living it? And I'm like, I know what I want to say, Doc, but I'm not going to say that. So I'm just going to agree with you. And that was a turning point for me because, you know, I called John a couple of weeks into my treatment and I said, my God, John, I'm an alcoholic. And you know what? You know, when we first get When we first find out we're alcoholics, it seems like everybody else is an alcoholic for a while. And I remember telling John, I said, no, I understand the song Crumbling Down. The walls come crumbling down. I get it now. You're an alcoholic too. And he's looking at – he's talking to me and he's going, you're crazy. But anyway, he says, you don't need to go to them meetings. You just need to get back to center. I said you know what, John? For the first time in my life, I'm going to do something that I think is right and I'm not going to ask for somebody else's approval because that was another issue that I was very, very saddled with. I was worried about what other people thought. I didn't really make good decisions on my own and clearly I didn'T because I got where I got. I remember the first time Doug said, your best thinking got you into treatment. I said, well, I must be pretty smart then because I caught myself here and he's like, no, you jerk. You got yourself here because you drank yourself here and I'm like, oh, okay but I don't want to go over my time. OK, one of the best things that happened to me during treatment, because, you know, here I was, Mr. Smarty Pants and, you know, Mr., Sumacum Loud, and I was going to go to college and do all these other things. And there was a guy in our group one day and he looked at me and he was short and he wore a beater shirt and he wasn't very clean. And so, you Know, I already I automatically made some judgment about him. And he looked at me, and he kind of had this kind of tick when he would talk. And he said, you know, Jim, you're sort of in danger of thinking your way out the door. And, of course, I'd been around a little bit of time, and so I did the old keep coming back, Steve. And so as time went by, I didn't understand what he meant. So I pulled him aside and said, what do you mean? He goes, you are overthinking this. You just have to do. You have to have to go. You have got to do this is an action-based program. And I'm like, oh my God, this poor guy. Well, we had an anniversary dinner. It was the 16-year reunion for the Alcohol and Drug Recovery Center at Cleveland Clinic. And we all had to dress up. Well, I didn't have any dress-up clothes. I mean, I was really only going to stay in Cleveland for two weeks. And by that time, I Was there for about a month. And so we're walking up to the Cleveland Clinic International Continental Hotel or whatever the how it was called and, and outstep Steve from this beautiful green Jaguar wearing a nice little, you know, bow tie and all that stuff like that. And I'm like, Oh, here's, here'S good old smart Steve thinking my way out of the program. He's a car Parker for the Cleveland clinic hotel. What a, what a sap. And so, uh, so, and me, you know hey look, I was only sober a few weeks. I was still a jackass. And So I was like, Hey Steve, is that your ride? And Steve goes, yeah, yeah. This is my this is one of them this is my favorite one my jaguar and i said oh what and so he said i said what's the dna 1532 mean on your license plate he goes oh that's a strand of dna that i discovered in 1969 and i'm just like oh wow i said what the hell do you do he goes well i'm a i'm an md phd over at case western reserve so what the heck are you doing in our program he goes i'm also an alcoholic. So I'm just like, oh my God. So Steve saved my life. You know, it took me some time to tell him that, but he saved my Life. He made me realize that I was too smart to recover and he was right. Had I not met him, I probably would have thought my way right out the door. So I started going to meetings on, you know, one last big hurdle came into my play and I was um, you know, you remember my bowel issues and of course coming off of opioids and alcohol bowel control is non-existent regardless of how good your control is. So for me it was awful. And I remember one of the volunteers taking us to first outside the hospital meeting. It was the Maylee meeting in Cleveland. It Was one of The oldest meetings in Cleveland and, um, this fella came up, he was a volunteer. He had a Cadillac, beautiful white Cadillack, had a beautiful cream interior. And I was in the back seat and I was reluctant to go because I was still struggling. And, and I remembered, you know, I gotta, I got to go. And so I was sitting in the back and I thought it was gas and it wasn't. And I flipped out and I said, dude, I'm so sorry. I just, I just shit my pants and I got to get a towel. And I believed it was God's way of telling me I didn't need to go to meetings. That was what I believed. And of course, Patrick, who was the driver of the car said, no, he says, we're going to wait here. I'll get this cleaned up. If you think that's the first time this has happened in this car, think again, and it's not the last. I'm going to Wait for you. And Patrick inadvertently saved my sobriety too, because he waited for me. I changed. I complained to the, I went to the meeting and it was wonderful. I will never forget when it said, that one is God, may you find him now and I just felt a little warm fuzzy and that was enough to start me there and and that meeting was great and we got back I remember telling the counselor I said man I'm really embarrassed about the way my bowels are treating me he goes wear some depends I said I can't wear depends that would be embarrassing he goes okay then just leave a trail of shit around everywhere you go and so thus that sparked my style as a counselor uh and I had a 20-year career in helping others. I was able to start a lot of good IOP programs in the state of Indiana, and I wasable to do a lotof stuff. Now, fast forward 20 years of sobriety, I was pretty miserable. I developed Crohn's disease several years ago. I know it's like, wow. I remember my neurologist saying, man, you really pissed God off in another life. But by then, I was okay with depends. Iwas okay with embarrassment because I had a program that taught me how to live and taught me how to life productively and live with limits that we have. My body just ain't a normal body and there are really cool ways to help me deal with it and what a blessing, you know? I was able to stay in my job as long as I possibly could but my health finally took me away from it but I can tell you this, never in 20 years of me working in that program did anybody that didn't have insurance ever have to pay because I just looked the other way. I did what Dr. Covington gave me. And I am so grateful. You know, I kind of smile because the treatment industry has taken a different turn and it's a turn that I couldn't go. You know I'm not a fan of 12 steps. I'm a fan of recovery. I am a fan independence. I have people not having to depend on their doctor if they don't have to. Now obviously there are times when you have to but the treatment industry is a business and it's a money-making business for them. And it's good for public health, but it's not good for individuals sometimes. And so I made the decision that this was time for me to be done with this part. And one of the things that happened as a result of it is that I've been able to continue to provide the talents that I was given to people who need it. And I'm grateful that I get to do that today because, you know, it's better than it's ever been because I don't have work politics to deal with. I guess if I had to do it over again, I would not have been in hospital administration. Boy, did that really spoil a lot? I'm thinking, boy, am I glad I had most of these surgeries done before, you know, so, but I have to say that one of the greatest gifts of recovery is being able to use these steps in all of my whole entire life, in my pain, in my Crohn's disease in all the issues that I that I deal with because what that does is it reminds me, hey, guess what, you're not the only person who has these issues. You're one of many and you know what? So be it. Why not do what you got to do on a daily basis. You know what you gotta do. Don't drink go to meetings, talk to your sponsor, pray and exercise. That's it. That's It. I'm doing the same thing today that I did on my very first day of sobriety. And I love that. And it's given me unbelievable blessings. I mean, I was sitting here thinking of all the blessings. It would be another hour before I'd even get through the first layer. I mean it's just been wonderful. I've been, you know, I get to do IOP groups for my friend, for her halfway house. And these are people who may not be able to afford it. But I'll tell you, I've learned in this treatment industry, there's not a lot of good providers. It's just kind of weird. And I want to do my very best to give back. God has been extremely good to me and now I get to give Back. And, you know, I just think the best years are to come. I don't feel like, you Know, I look behind me and say, wow, my career in that is over. No, it's just changed. And I enjoy music a lot now. I write for one of the top hunting shows in the hunting industry and I never would have ever dreamed that that would happen. And I'm actually going to be performing tomorrow night for a YouTube live thing here just because I want to, because I found my voice again after 10 years of not singing. And, you know, I still do some work for John from time to time. And, but what's good now is, you know, I heard Nancy say giving with a hook and it's one thing this program has erased. There's no hook in what I want to do for other people. Um, you Know, I guess if there's a hook in it at all, it's just how I feel when I do something nice for somebody. It's a great feeling. Um I don't have to revolve my life around me. And I'll end, uh, with one of my favorite moments was with my sponsor, my late sponsor, Doug was my sponsor for the first couple of years. And then my late sponsor, Jerry, um, uh was just, uh he was, he was a riot. He uh, he'd been sober. He was 55 years sober when he passed away and uh but he was just a interface sponsor and and I love that about him. He, uh, I was, I was at a meeting one night and it was during a stressful time at work. And I said, Jerry, you know, this guy, Dale, he spoke for 11 minutes and 27 seconds last week. And today he spoke für 12 minutes and all he talks about is how grateful he is and doesn't, you Know, I gotta get home. I got to get my stuff done. I got take care of stuff. And he goes, and I'm on the phone with him and he goes, Hey bud, something wrong with your glasses there, bud. And I'm like, no, no. My glasses are fine. And I'm driving with my knee like we all used to remember those days and looking at my glasses, talking on the phone. I'm like, Jerry, my glasses are fine, man. He goes, no, no bud, your glasses, they don't mess up. And I was like, Terry, what's your point? He goes all I'm hearing about is problems with your eyes. Eye, eye, eye. Eye this, eye that. If you don't like that somebody talking at a meeting, maybe just go to another meeting. And I am just like, God. And you know, I was a decade sober at that time. And so the other thing that I love the most about this program is there's always, always, always something to learn. Always. I mean, when I get to work with Nan, you know, Nan teaches me things every day and I work with my current sponsor and he teaches me Things Every Day and we always complain about gratitude meetings but I will say that the gratitude that I have is that I picked up alcohol. Because had I not picked up alcohol, I would have been another opiate statistic because of the way that the pain management industry did what it did. And that's why I got out of the addiction industry. And I'm just going to help people that I can help. And that's what I'm supposed to do today. And I'm so, so glad I get that privilege. And I'll tell you what, I'm sure glad my own man made the decision to keep my ass alive because it has not been a miserable journey. It's been unbelievable. It's fantastic. And I'm so, so grateful to be able to share with so many people from so many different places. I look at Germany, Louisiana, Florida, everywhere. It's like, wow, that is what a gift we have to beable to help each other like this. And, you know, I've been doing Zoom meetings for quite some time now. I call it free half. It's, like, hey, come on aboard if you want some help. We, I know how to, I don't know. I know what to do. I've got some great sponsors. I got some Great Girls I Know for you women need help. I got Some Great Fellas that I know that for you fellas that need help and that's if you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. And I'm glad that I get the opportunity to take those today. So Nan, thank you so much. Love you very much. Thank you. Oh, Jimmy, baby doll. I've never called you. I love you so much. And, uh, I hope you know how much you mean to me.