More About Alcoholism as Relapse Prevention – James L.

I'd like to now introduce our guest speaker for the month, James L. from Dover, and he'll be speaking out of his story in steps one and two. Good evening everybody, I'm a grateful drunk and my name is James. It's because God's grace, lessons I learned from people like yourself, I have not found it necessary to pick up a drink or any mind-altering chemicals since June 11th of 1994, and for that I'm eternally grateful. It is a custom for me to just open up the way I open up. Anytime the Carrier Domestic Group drop a dime on me and give me a call and say, Hey James, you want to come and participate with us? I get excited. And I'll tell you why Anytime that I can come to a place like this Where I feel the kind of freedom That I feel To share my experience, strength and hope With other people Who are on the same path that I am on It's always good To do that If you look at other organizations in the world They got the same kind of thing The Marines stick with the Marines The Army stick withthe Army The Navy talk the Navy They all got their own little ways they do things And I think that those of us who like to follow the basic text feel similar to that. When we get amongst each other, it's like, hoorah! You know what I mean? You feel like Marines. It's like when you go through boot camp, you get that sponsor. It' s like that drill sergeant. Your mommy's not here now. I believe that the format was to introduce my story to you I'm not big on drunk a lot but I'm going to try to give you a summary of what I believe happened to me before the message took hold and I think that that's about the best way to do it The earliest memory that I have Or let's say the first self-centered moment That I felt where I had that mirror experience You know, that out of body thing Where you can see you in a scene Sometimes I can see that in memory You know what I mean? That I was experiencing something at that time when I was a child And what I remember is when I Was a small boy I can see my grandmother pulling me on one hand, and my mother holding me with the other one, and watching my grandmother win the war. And that'll let you know that that's the reason why I was raised in Dillon, South Carolina before I came to New Jersey. My grandmother had took me away from my mother because my mother and father were separating when I was real young, and I had two younger sisters, two and one at the time. And my mother takes me, my grandmother takes me to South Carolina, takes my sisters and my mother takes my sister in the Jersey City. So my grandmother is raising me from this small child and she's the only parent that I know. Now I really need you to kind of stay with me here because I'm one of those alcoholics that believe that I was defective before alcohol did the magic thing so i'm not going to sit here and tell you that alcohol was the problem for me because i'm not one of those people that believe that i don't mean no disrespect to those who do i've never looked at alcohol as an enemy i said it before and i'll say it again if you talk bad about alcohol in my presence it's like talking about an old girlfriend you might be mad at me if i get upset with you. But see, I can say bad things about it, but you better not. You understand what I mean by that? And that's how my relationship is with alcohol. Now, it doesn't mean that I want to get back with my old friend. I just don't appreciate you talking bad about him, you know. So what happened was between the ages of three till I was, I guess, about 11, 11 and a half years old, the first dramatic thing that I could recall was that I came home from school one day to do my homework. As I'm kneeling down at the kitchen, I'm going to say at the living room coffee table, my grandmother is sitting in her chair and she's suffering from an asthma attack. So every time she would have asthma, she would tell me to go in the kitchen and get her a cup of coffee. Now I understood that the coffee kind of calmed it down or whatever. I didn't know that then, but I know that now. So I went in the kitchens and got her coffee like she told me and I brung it to her and got back down to the coffee table to continue my homework. And I noticed in the period of time that I was there, grandma had not moved from this position. So I went over to her and I tapped her and a coffee spilled on the lap and I noticed there was no response. I didn't get kicked or shot putted or anything like that. I knew something was wrong. And i'll be honest to tell you that that was the first time that I felt pure terror. I had no answers. I was terrified. I run out the door I go get my great uncle who comes back to later on let me know that grandma had passed away now that was one of the first traumatic things that happened to me so now I never knew my mother and father really so now these two people come to retrieve me male female oh grandma was a female I'll go with mama mama brings me to the wonderful wholesome town of Jersey City and there I started in Mayberry you know and uh for those who know anything about Jersey City especially Greenville area, it ain't Mayberry, all right? And compared to the environment that I was accustomed to, to the apartment that I'm now brung in, I was in culture shock because hospitality was not the same. I saw people clamoring and trying to step over each other and I was confused and couldn't understand because what I want to share with you is the reason that I'm bringing this idea up is because I was born February 16th, 1963 in Dillon, South Carolina. And I have seen some things and have experienced some things which my cousins and family members up north here had never experienced. I actually saw strange fruit. Now for those who don't understand what I mean is that I actually Saw men hanging hanging from trees I saw men dead in ditches I saw prejudice I saw surrogation I saw people moving for their rights to be and now here I am up north and I'm watching people up here having the opportunities that people down there didn't have but yet their condition was a lot different so here I was big for my age my sister's name was estranged from me because I was big for my age, so they didn't really give me any love or fellowship. So every time my mother would leave the room, the family would leave me, you know, like I'd be by myself. So now I'm feeling loneliness for real for the first time. I'm feelin' like there's nobody I can turn to. Now, I'm not drinkin' yet, except for when I had my first drink when I was nine years old. Now if you notice, I ain't talk to you about that first drink, cause that first drink ain't really the significance of what I'm talking about here. But if you really want to know, I'll tell you how that came about. Just like everything else came about. Through example, I had a grandfather love me to death. He comes home from work one day, he don't feel like playing. He goes in the house, he comes back out with this clear mayonnaise looking jaw. I don't know what it is, he's smoking cigar, he opens up his jaw, take a couple of swigs and became a fun loving guy. So one day he came home, same reality, same moment, same thing. Sits down. This time he drops back in the chair. I see the example. I light a cigar. I choke. I open up this mayonnaise jar and took a swig of corn whiskey. Now if you know anything about corn whiskey, it don't go down smooth when you're nine. So y'all already know y'ALL can eliminate the idea of James was drinking for the taste. No, it wasn't. So now to bring you back up to date, now I'm between the ages of 11 and a half or so till 13. And what happened in that year and a Half was I was trying to get to know my mother. I love my mother, my mother would visit South. She would spend some time. My father would drive by drop off something and keep it moving. So I felt like I really wanted to know my mother. Now in the year and a half of trying to get to know her, when I was 13 years old, I'm gonna move you up a year and a half now, me and some friends are down at the public swimming pool and we leave the public swimmin' pool and were walking back towards home on Montgomery Street and we noticed that there was an ambulance out in front of this social club that my mother and them would go to. Now this is in the mid-70s in Jersey City, you know, in downtown Jersey City there wasn't that many black owned bars so They had a lot of social clubs. They were just light bars, like a VFW hall or whatever. So we go down the street and we look and we see this ambulance. So just like good ghetto kids, we do what came natural. We take off down the streets to see what's happening. So as we get up to the building, they're bringing a woman out on a stretcher, and it's my mother. Her hair is all over the place. She's screaming and yelling. She's saying things you can't make any sense of. And she ended up her mind snapping because somebody thought it was necessary to slip a Mickey in a drink and it snapped their mind. And from that day on out, my mother was never really herself. So here I am, 13 years old. I really never got the chance to really be close to anybody yet. And now I'm starting to drink with a purpose because between the ages of 11 and 13, I was the kid that when you laid your Budweiser down, I took it. You laid your scotch down, I sipped it. You know, I was trying to win the applause of the kids around me or trying to be cool, you know, I'm going to go steal a couple of beers and bring them back in the room. You know I was always working hard and trying to get my family to accept me. I'm not talking about friends, I'm talking about blood relatives. And I'm walking around feeling this, what most drunks know that I'm starting to fill the hole now. See? um and the reason i'm sharing this way is that as i'm trying to stay in my present to share my past with you you know i'm today feeling that i'm a little better than i was then because now i'm no longer letting that past dominate my presence so yeah i feel at this present moment i'm feeling a little you know remembrance of the time and it's starting to give me the feeling you know but that's what i come to meetings for to get honest with you and to tell you the truth about what's really going on and what work I had to do to be where I'm at. So now, I'm sending the older boys in, you know, to go get the beer in the liquor stores and the winos and I'm drinking and I're becoming angry. Ooh, did I say angry? Y'all don't know nothing about that. So I'm starting to feel that resentful thing, you Know, like, you're not even there and I hate you. Like my father, when you would mention my father's name, I would, you know, and I'm feeling that kind of stuff. And booze is working. It's starting to work. And now I'm picking up the example of the pimp players, hustlers, and gamblers because they were my heroes. You know, that's why I wear that big old hat like I wear, you know, and stuff. That's why i like little gold chains and rings and stuff I don't know where I get that. Like sis told me, I like my shirt, you knows, yeah, my shirt. And those guys were my hero and they used to dress right and they had the big cars and they have the good-looking girlfriends. They were always around. None of them had jobs, but they always had pockets full of money. And they would do little things like, hey, come here, James. Here, bro, go down the street and get me a sandwich. Here's a couple of dollars for you. They were the only ones that were kind of like showing me what I wanted from my family. Now, I'm going to move on a little faster, but I want to give you an example of why I'm talking about this. Now, take a minute and picture this. You're estranged from your southern family. You're up north. You're about, say, 11 years old and the ice cream truck is coming. Now every adult, maybe every young person in this room, know what it feel like when an ice cream trunk comes. You run down the street because you see all the adults on the steps. And we all tear down the streets to the adults to get the money because the ice scream truck is here. And you're in the crowd with the rest of the children and your uncles and aunts and them are outside distributing money. And you're in the crowd of children trying to work your way up so you can get your dollar to get ice cream too. And you'll see all of them get a dollar, start taking off down the street and you'll see your uncle take his money, fold it back up and put it in his pocket and you're standing there wondering, what about me? Y'all with me so far? I'm pissed off. I'm becoming something ugly. And I looked up, and my Aunt Janet, who I love more than my own biological mother, was in her window. She saw this, and I still love her to this day, Aunt Janet said. And she was the one beam of light I had in all of this stuff throughout my life and still to this today. She is the one place that I go where I find that human contact that I need outside of my sponsor, outside of people I see in this room like Gene and Kat you know, Mike and them a few other faces I see on a familiar regular basis. Y'all are the closest thing I got to me that's why when y'all around me and I get to talk about AA y'ALL all I got it's the truth I wish I could tell you something different I wish i could tell yoU I got a whole lot of wholesome home life the only home life that I got is that which God has given me, the father I didn't have, God put a man in my life, it's the closest thing to a father I ever had, you know, I never really had much of a tight family life and God has now gave me the opportunity where I could be the father that my father wasn't, you Know, so things turned out okay, a little, not a lot, I'm blessed, so what happens now is between the ages of 15 and 18, I'm starting to drink heavily. I'm becoming the second description that you hear about in There's a Solution. I am becoming a certain kind of hard drinker. I may impair myself both physically and mentally. I might even kill myself a few years before my time. If you give me good enough reason, like her, get me out of this hood, a change of environment or something tragic happening, I may decide to stop. I'm at that point now. But look how young I am, 15 years old. I'm already at the hard drinker level. Let me tell you why I was at 15. It was June and it was hot. and me and some buddies do the let's go to the liquor store thing how much you got i got three dollars you got five i got two dollars i got 50 cent and we get it all together and we run over and we tell this wino to go inside the liquorstore get us some scotch some gin some beers some wines some everything plus we had some stuff that we use for better life through chemistry and And we take off to the railroad tracks. Now, here's what happened. I'm mixing all of this chemical together at 15 years old, and I'm drinking much heavier than my peers. Some of my peers were smart enough from the examples that were set with them where they just drank just the gin. Then you had a crowd over here that just drank the scotch, and then you had just the beer and pot smokers. Then you have me. you know I hit the gin you're going to pass that scotch can I get a puff of that hey don't drink all the beer and I'm drinking heavy I'm 15 years old it's hot and I am coming down Martin Luther King Drive in Jersey City the sun is beaming and the whole world is spinning and Iam walking down the street I guess some of y'all call it a brown out I guess y'ALL call it that I just call it feeling good i'm walking down the street you know and it's hot and i'm peeling off clothes you know and i get to the hallway of where we lived i don't know how but i got there and and i ended up regurgitating i prefer puking and i end up falling out and my aunt jen and my mother for some apparent reason was running errands that day And they come down one flight of stairs, down the hall, but come around the stairs. And this is why I like talking about God. Because my 15-year-old head was resting on the bottom step while I was laying in a pool of my own regurgitation. I was 15. and I remember my mother and our Janet waking me up trying to peel these stinky nasty things off me and I'm walking up the stairs in a stupor in my drawers I'm 15 years old I am a real alcoholic if you have any problems with that there's some people in Jersey City be more than glad to convey that message to you you think that at that point with the words that of love that was being described to me and the example of love my mother my aunt shared with me at that moment would have been tragic enough to set me on the right course but it didn't because I would not get honest enough with these people who love me to tell them what I needed because if y'all recall from age three to that point nobody seemed to me to be trying to meet what I need so I'll take it so I became a taker of things and a user of people from 15 to 18 I did I did a lot of stuff if it made you go woohoo, I did it pop some pills, smoke some pot that's why I'm one of them drunks I'm an alcoholic synonymous and I believe what the old time I once heard said something, he said if you say you're an alcoholic and an addict it's like saying you're a German shepherd and a dog I understood that but I'm in Rome and when I'm in Rome, I do like the Romans do. That way I don't run into no problems. Now if you want to talk about better life through chemistry, see you in the parking lot. But the truth of the matter is, I'll stick to what AA's singleness of purpose is and I'll try to carry the message the best way I know how. But I ain't going to keep from you what my story is because that's the only one I know. So now I'm 18 years old I'm working for an independent soda distributor I'm sitting on the passenger side of the truck at 18 years old we get ready to make a morning delivery to one of these little bodegas that sold wine and liquor plus groceries and everything else you can imagine and we knew that they open early and in my mind I'm thinking I could get me a half a pint of blackberry brandy to get this you know and I'm 18 and And the man driving the truck and he looks over at me and Nick looks over at me. And there I was 18 years old and my hand was doing like this. And I'll never forget Nick Carpinelli. I love him to death. And I will never forget this man because he, he was one of those people that showed me kindness and Nick looked over at me and next said, boy, you need some help. And I remember how he said it. I can hear him as clear as day right now telling you how, you know, But it was, you know, like, it was like the words of love. You know, I don't know about most people. You ever, you, you knows, us drunks know feelings. Emotional upheavals. And I had one of those, you kno, because when he said it, it made me feel like really sorrowful for myself, you kno, because he caught me, you no, and he said, you really need some help. And he got me in my first rehab over in Verona, turning point. And Nick came and he visited me. He was a nice man. He tried to do his best to help me. That's the first time I was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous in 1980. From 1980 till 1994, I was what people in the rooms of AlcoholicsAnonymous called a chronic relapser. I don't know where they get it, but I understand the word chronic now and I understand why they called me chronic. Because I kept doing the same thing over and over and over. I would come in here, I would sit in here for a period of time, and then all of a sudden, I feel better. And I don�t like what you said to me. And I'm not going to that meeting anymore and left to my own devices, I went back to that which I knew well. I will share it earlier before the meeting is that that's the reason why Dr. Silkworth for me is such a cool dude because Silky's prognosis that he gave me in the doctor's opinion saved my behind in 94 and that came about after being three and a half years sober one time i like to call it my sobriety days better yet i was cuckoo for cocoa puffs what had happened to me was i had my first vital spiritual experience not in the basement but upstairs. Don't get nervous, don't run yet. I'm not going to talk about Jesus yet. What happened was I was in a gospel mission. I had a spiritual experience and that spiritual experience put me on a journey of total abstinence. No drinking, no drugging, no nothing. Meeting will go on in the discussion y'all go around the room introducing yourself came around to me i said my name is james i washed the blood of jesus in the loom i believe that didn't i believe it now but the message that i talk about now is the message is the practical program of action that went along with that first spiritual experience that i had so we'll talk about that down the road. What had happened was, there I was trying to live what a lot of us don't like to hear about in the rooms. I was tryin' to live a religious life. You understand where I'm goin'? Because I never had anything pure and decent in my life ever. And after havin' this thing happen to me, I wanted more of it. So I was just as gung-ho about that as I am today about alcoholism I'm still going home about that but you'll have to catch me at another time but what happened was there I was leaving this gospel mission I met a young lady I got married I had a child in wedlock I had a nice little apartment a couple of raggedy cars and I was becoming a productive member of my community i ran into a job that was absolutely perfect for me it was a limo job i'm tall i'm black my name is james and i'm charming as hell I got paid Oh, I used to get paid I used To walk up to them customers, man Going to the airport And I had that jacket on, boy That tie and jacket Good morning, sir, how are you? Hey, Jimmy, how Are you? Call nice and warm and toasty Got the paper sitting on the seat You know, I'm just sitting up there Just a-shining And I jump out, you know how I am guys Most of y'all who know me know how i am I'm high strung anyway I jump up the car, let him out the car Get his bag, walk him in He'll turn around and give me a nice healthy tip On top of that fee And what happened is after a period of time Here's what happened Now if you're new I really want you to understand where I'm coming from Because this is what people Who have had been released From the mental obsession Want you to know there I was bone dry sober total abstinence from anything coming back from work down 287 I'll say it again bone dry sober 80 east 80 west All of a sudden, this car decides it wants to go east. I'm bone dry sober. I was talking to myself aloud as I'm talking to you guys. And I said, James, turn the car around, man. Come off there by Parsippany. I'm on my way. i get down there where we break off at over there between 280 and 280 you know i'm still talking to myself come on man you got a couple kids your wife a couple ragged cars you got a decent job things going real well you're doing good in church god has blessed you i'm praying i'm doing everything i possibly can imagine to do to try to convince me to turn this car around. I get down by Clifton. I'm still talking to myself. I get all the way to Lodi. I could have sworn that that lady at the toll booth could see my, you know, going and I come up and I pay her and I hit the upper level 72 hours later and about $1,700 out of 1,800. I am coming back that night and I'm about 12 hours away from my last drink, so I'm not under a euphoric state. Y'all with me? Y'ALL SLEEPING? Y' ALL WITH ME? NOW I'M 12 HOURS AWAY FROM MY LAST DRINK, SO I'M NOT DRUNK, LEGALLY DRUNKS, I'M NOT IN A STOOP OR ANYTHING AND I'M DRIVING BACK AND I TRULY UNDERSTAND WHEN I READ a vision for you. I really understand what it means to be at the jumping off place. I started crying like a baby. I could not live with me anymore and I drove a coffin in a bank minute, 80 miles an hour, sober. I turned the wheel and took my hands off and just watched the ride. I wake up in a hospital at St. Clair's. Doctor says to me, it's your wife, she's on the phone, take the phone. She said, what are you trying to do? Commit suicide? Like a good alcoholic. Yeah. You should have died. Click. And this is the truth. Before man and God, I was laying there on that table and I'm sitting underneath the examination light and I had my second experience. This one was not like the first one. No Jesus came out the clock, no singings, no nothing, no illumination. I didn't get none of that. What I got that night was the most clearest and most crystal-less thought I ever had in my whole entire life. I mean, when I think about it, I start to get emotional and fired up inside because I still remember the feeling. My head was absolutely clear. I mean you ever hear those meditation tapes where you get the water and everything? You know, I mean that's how clear my mind was and this thought that came across my mind was if you to stay sober it's between you and God so her statement of you should have died had no weight all of the pain and stuff over the years didn't matter at that moment I needed to stop doing what I've always done I struggled for about another two months trying to stop on June 10th I come home, and my wife and kids ain't there. Now, check this out. I've been coming around AA for 14 years and never knew that AA's birthday was considered on June 10th. I didn't know that until what? I think you told me, didn't you? Yeah, I used to always tell that story. I think it was Gene or one of the guys told me at a meeting. Did you know that's AA's birth date? Huh? So my wife didn't leave. So I pick up, and I call the insurance company. The insurance company started calling all the rehabs and detoxes in the local area, and nobody wanted me because I done been there more than once. You know, and they felt that I was pretty much hopeless. You know what I mean? We're talking about a person that's been coming in and out of rehabs and detoxing for 14 years. Who wants to put up with me? So what ended up happening, my insurance company calls around, and they found a program for me in California. And I fly out to California and I got there a little after midnight on June 11th of 1994 and I haven't drank since. The big book that I brought in here tonight with me has been with me since that day. I end up going in this program where everybody up to the psychiatrist who's a recovering person. The little games I used to play at the other rehabs didn't work here. They said breakfast at 7 o'clock, we suggest that you be there. I come strolling in at 7.15. Y'all ain't gonna feed me up in here? They said well look if you don't like it, you can leave. Okay. So lunch would be served at 11.30. I was there at 11.20. He started me on the road. I ran into my first sponsor there, his name was Alton. And Alton was involved in a group similar to this one. Big Book Orientated Group. They believed in the steps and traditions and concepts. They were active. And I asked this guy to be my sponsor. He was going to meetings like in South Central L.A., Santa Ana, Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley. Southern California, and we were going to some of these hard meetings where the Mexican boys was at. They were sober, man. These guys were like real gangbangers. I wasn't too far from a real gang banger myself, so I felt right at home. And I was watching these guys, and they were talking about the big book of alcohol and synopsis. Now, I tell this story a lot because it's one of my most happiest moments because it was the first time I ever seceded in being told the direction and then getting the work done. And what happened one night, Alton had gave me, when I got to the detox, Alton and his group would always come by there and give out big books. And most people who know me know that I'm not much of a public reader. I don't like public reading, but I will. I'll read in a meeting or whatever. But he had gave me that book And we're going to the speaker meeting That night And I'm walking in I got my book Because I'm serious now I'm seriously I got myself a book I got ma book Alton's my sponsor I'm ready We're walking towards the meeting And Alton said what's on the cover of the book I said alcoholic synonymous Alton said what is it I said oh man that's the place people go you know man talk about their problems and stuff Alton says when we get in the meeting tonight you sit there with your book in front of you keep it closed and I had to sit in the meetin while everybody had their book open and sharing with my book closed staring at alcoholic synonyms And Alton said When you can tell me what Alcoholics Anonymous is Then you can open your book I've been coming around AA for how long y'all 14 years I don't know what AlcoholicsAnonymous is And Alten Would every now and then hit me What is AlcoholicsAnalymus You know you come there right And you and so one day I go to a discussion meeting just like most AA formats first time in my life ever listened person come up they said could someone please come up and read What is AA? And I went. And the first thought came to my mind, and they said Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their spirit and strength and hope with each other. And I left. And then I went up after the meeting and I said, can I get a copy of that? And they said, we think we have an extra one here and I read it. Alta came to pick me up. I got my big book. And this time, I'm ready. Walking towards the meeting, Alta tapped me. What you got in your hand? It's a big book What kind of big book? Big book of alcoholism. Alta said, what is AA? The Alcoholist Anonymous is a fellowship. He said, yeah, okay, okay. And I've been quoting the book ever since. And Alton was a wonderful man. In the beginning, I was kind of lazy, and Alton used to give me the nickname Brother Laydown. And the reason he gave me the nick name Brother LayDown is because when it got hot, I would cop out. When he started asking the hard questions about what is an alcoholic. If any man who I have a sponsor will tell you The first thing that I ask you When I become your sponsor Is I go what are you And you say I'm an alcoholic I say how do you know How do you knows I drink a whole lot I breathe a whole not don't make me air at it I learned that from Alton By God's grace I was with one of my Sparks East Tuesday night I had the opportunity to speak at a group anniversary they've been there for 58 years and my oldest pigeon was there and I'm looking at him and I'm going but for the grace of God and I remember him and you know and Alton used to give me the nickname brother lay down and Alten got me through my first two steps and I ended up in Jersey City I'm saying back up in Morristown when I got back to Morristown, I believe that what Alton did for me, and I believe that this is where I end tonight by letting y'all know what Alten had taught me before I came back here. Alton told me that the doctor's opinion would be my prognosis. He told me Bill's story was my witness of the first patient to recover. He tells me that there's a solution would be the prescription that I needed, and he told me that more about alcoholism would be relapse prevention. He told me my second step consists of we the agnostic, spiritual experiences, and all the way up to where it says God could and would. And I went, what do you mean by that? And he said, just do like I tell you later on. So when we went through the doctor's opinion, as you look at the 12 and 12, those of us who have, it talks about in the synopsis is different ways that we get here. Why must every AA hit bottom? Some of y'all got drunk, got really messed up, did it for a while, hit your bottom, came here, you stayed. Some of y' all had the difficulties of admitting complete defeat. Some of yall got here through an act of divine providence. Me, what kept me here was the medical explanation of my physical condition and my mental condition. And that's what Alton introduced me to. He said, listen, the first thing I want you to know is that when you drink, you can't stop it. When you stop, you can't start thinking about it. And I went, what do you mean by that? Remember, I don't know what it is to be an alcoholic and I've been coming right in for how long? I don't even know why I'm an alcoholic. And Alton began to give me the first day, he said, if you, when we look at the doctor's opinion, he showed me the first day he pointed out before we started going through it because I don't have enough time to talk to you sentence to sentence, paragraph by paragraph. So try to bear with me. So what he showed me in that introduction letter where it says anyone who leaves out the physical factor is giving you a message which is incomplete. So the first thing that Alton did for me was he explained to me why alcohol had a physical grip on me. You remember what I said? Why alcohol, not alcoholism, why alcohol, the physical toxic substance alcohol had a grip on me. He told me I was not like the temperate drinker. He said I truly was of the chronic variety. I was the guy that when I put booze in my body something goes boom. It just go boom. I'll give you a perfect illustration. If you're anything like I am, see if you relate to this. You got a couple dollars in your pocket. you walk out the door maybe you got dressed maybe you didn't and you're heading down the street to the liquor store you start to feel a sense of security because you got a little money you're shaky don't feel quite right but you feel emotionally okay you just hope the store's open And you're walking down or you're driving down Or however you get in there You begin to think about that drink You ain't even got it in you yet Your mouth starts to salivate Get a little moist around the inside of your jaw Some of us kind of just swallow along the way And you get and open up them doors And it's almost like a cathedral and you start searching around the place you know, you start looking around the place for that which you can afford and you ain't even got it in you yet and you start to feel a sense of anticipation and you grip it and you hold that thing like oh man and you walk up to the counter you almost can't let it go on the counter, you know you just kind of set it down and hold it with one man, because you don't know if somebody's going to take it. And you can't wait to get it in you. And when you finally get it in, just before you get it, your lips go like this. Why are y'all laughing? It ain't funny. You ain't even got it in. You remember, right? That you got that, you know that thing going? And when that thing hit my mouth and my tongue and my inside of my mouth said, I feel that. And I didn't even swallow it. Just, ooh, and I swallow and it goes down. And the next expression when it hit my stomach, and I wanted that again. And The Next Goat was bigger than the first. And it was just like anything else I ever did. I wanted more. Just got to get that again, man. And when you got down to that last bother, man, it was almost like somebody just told you. Your relationship was over after 10 years or 20 years. It's like, oh God, that's it, you know? And I don't know if I should try to hold on to it or drink it, and that's the physical grip that alcohol had on me. Not alcoholism, alcohol, the physical substance of alcohol. Dr. Sitworth said that that never occurs in the average temperate drinker. So I said, okay, I got the physical thing here. Now, I understand, man. So what you trying to say? He said, well, why do you think you drank the way you did? And I shared this earlier before the meeting. I said, I drank to escape. He said no, you didn't. He took me over to Drs. Opinion and he showed me what Dr. Silkworth said. They do not drink to escape but they drink to satisfy a craving beyond their mental control. And he said, now let us look at the first step. And I looked up at the First Step and he told me, you see that word powerlessness? He says, that's your physical condition he said when you physically put booze in your body you become powerless okay he says but we still got another part we got to deal with here your unmanageability remember when he said it was beyond my mental control well my unmanagability got nothing to do with the fact that i do stupid stuff under a euphoric state. My unmanageability has to do with the fact that I cannot manage to change my own mind when it comes to alcohol because it's beyond my mental control. Bill Sells is in Bill's story. Self-knowledge is not enough. We get another example. What was it? Roller Hazard? No, Eddie Thatcher. It was Thatcher, Eddie Thatchers, Hazard. sitting up there with the psychiatrist talking to John said he walked out of the place believing that he mastered both his mind and his body and a year later there he was again wondering what happened John had to look at him and said what do you want from me is there anything you can do we can lock you up we can put a bodyguard around you all the time But that ain't even going to guarantee it. He said, but wait a minute, I heard there's some people. Now, this is where we get crossed up at. If you knew, this was where a lot of people get crossed up at because now I'm going to introduce you to the second step. We get crossed out because we get the idea that just because I look out here in this room and I see all these physical recovering people, I want to start counting them. And I say, all of y'all is a power greater than me. well from a logical standpoint that is true but from an alcoholic point it's not true I'm powerless anybody else is now if you put a number on the word powerless you get zero I don't care how many times you add it multiply it do trigonometry to it you're going to still get zero I need a power greater than me now what makes y'all a power that appear greater than me is because the first time in my life I seen a bunch of people there's just like me bone-dry sober and that's what forced me to come to believe and how it happened was whether you get to we di agnostic the first paragraph says in the preceding chapters you have learned something about alcoholism so if you remember there's a solution the first thing it told you that if you asked the drunk why he went out took the first drink he had no more of an idea than you do but how many times you've been sitting in the meeting and heard somebody said i know why he Went Back Out Drinking and the first thing i do i go you know what i mean i'm like a pit bull how you know they don't know how you know. You know what I mean? Like, I never could understand that because of what y'all have exposed to me. I had a truth. And the truth was that I knew that y'ALL was just as powerless. I knew y'All were just as unmanageable, but yet you were sitting there in front of me sober. So, what happened to me is just like I heard who it was. Joe and Charlie gave perfect illustration. They said coming to believe is just you sitting at home watching a commercial. And they said, this washing detergent will get your clothes white as white. You ain't got none in your house, but you sitting there staring at the TV going, hmm. I think I'll try that. So you go on down to the store. You buy the product. You come home. You try the product, it works. Now the second time that you go to the store? Is you going to the store because you believe that it works or is you going because you know it works? That's why they try to get us to come to believe. Because that's what starts to encourage you. That's where the real encouragement started for me was in my second step. Because no matter how cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs I was, I had to sit here and live with the reality of what I was seeing you see so the second step in the 12 and 12 had some small truth in it when it says here is a large group of people and this is what the new a lot of newcomers like this because when we start talking about God God God they love this part because when they read this sentence They like the idea that it says, it is okay to make the group your higher power. For here is a large group of people who have solved their drink problem. And here's the part that they read really fast. They haven't even come close to a solution. What? It said, but they haven't ever come close. even come close to a solution that we should look at those whose minds have deepened and broadened in the concept of the power greater than themselves see i don't want to sit in the meeting and let you show me that god can do it so what did the book says in the big book and what it tells us it tells Us that our number one characteristic is what so what do we tell you it says logic is good stuff we like it we still like it and we did not see page 53 logic is a good stuff we like and we still like and the reason that I don't want to listen to you is because I can't give myself to reasonable approach or interpretation and I sat here and I told you when I drink I can't stop and when I stop I can stop thinking about it you see I'm standing here bone dry sober but yet it's very difficult for you to conceive the idea that i'm telling you that a power greater than me did it and because of you anything like i am you probably had a distorted picture of what god was or either you was because i played god a lot of times and the next time y'all see me we'll be talking a little bit about that but i don't want to go beyond what i'm here to talk about which is which a little Bit of my story in the first two steps. So I'm going to bounce back and forth because you'll hear people in your meetings say, oh, you know, for me, I grasped the second step before the first one, really. I go, really? Why are you here? Think about that. If I could be restored before I could admit why I need to admit anything. I believe I can be restored. I ain't going to meet tonight. I'll see y'all later. Where you going, James? Movies? We're going to the meet. You coming? No. Why? I came to believe. I don't mean any disrespect. I understand what they're saying to me that they had to get a hope. rather than saying that they had hope in the first step that the truth has now been revealed to them that now they come to understand they're like people who have lost their legs they can never grow new ones that they don't want to admit that they have been beaten by the persuader called alcohol you know the greatest thing that I ever heard an old time or one time told me he said I remember I got my first sponsee and my first sponsor was struggling and he kept going in and out And I went up to this very wise old time And I asked him I said yo man You know I got like this sponsee man He keeps going out man Tell me what I can do To keep him from going out And the old time looked at me and said Who the hell are you To keep somebody else from their bottom And I was Ooh Ooh I never thought about that And then he added on by saying What if they would have kept you from yours So I don't really disagree or agree with that concept I believe that I needed to have the first step before I had the first one I had to understand that my unmanageability just like that guy who didn't have a problem in the world not a cloud in the sky everything was favorable to him what's wrong with you again because if you read the story Bill and them must have been standing there like this Because this was like the fifth or sixth time They done already tried to bring this message to him And then my man just confessed and said You know what, I didn't even put up a defense, man I didn'y even give thought to it And so then before building them clothes out on more about alcoholism Building them tell you why that happened Look at Silky Silky gets another opinion towards the end Silky said it was up to me. I wouldn't have never bothered with either one of y'all. Too heartbreaking. He says, you guys are 100% hopeless outside of divine help. Now if you ain't read that and chose to ignore it, that's on you. But I knew for me That yes When I'm sitting in here When my early stages of sobriety I had no What do I mean early stages Of sobriete I mean when I was sitting there Trying to get sober Because there's a lot of that Going on too You know I ain't judging Just tell me what I see And the thing is Is that I wonder why We who carry The big book message is considered the ones that are complicating it. We're not. We're simply trying to just walk a person through the obvious things that we know to be true when it comes to our condition. We can fight it as much as you want, just like I tried to fight out in that night. What is AA? Well, you know, it's a place where you go... I want him to believe what I think it is. he wants me to know what AA is about I never understood that so I became the defiant one when also when it came to coming to believe and everybody whoever studied the book know that one of the most powerful things you'll ever read is page 52 and anytime I ever had a pigeon that was having a hard time accepting the high power I said go to page 52 middle paragraph and when they see that you know we were full of fear couldn't make a living felt useless and my favorite part of it is they were prey to misery and depression i was prey to mystery and depression remember the story running up for the ice cream truck money every time one of y'all in this meeting would start talking about how painful things were I would be just as prey to that as a bird was to a cat and I would go ooh and you say I lost everything and I will go ooh and your pain interested me because it was all I knew so when one of y'all big bookers came in hey how you doing He's one of them Oh he's one Of them you know what I mean And because there's something that happens to me When I'm a student of that Book when I take the time out to sit Across from my sponsor and ask my sponsor What do it mean that I'll be faced with A proposition And he brings me back to the day Of that last drink Where I was caught between the rock and the hard Place and I could not make a decision on my own if I wanted to stop or not. And he told me, how do you think you stopped? Going to jail didn't keep you stopped. Some woman or man who loved you crying while you were resting in their arms drooling all over their shirt, them trying to tell you that they loved you and they don't want to see you do this no more to yourself and you still got drunk or you was a parent and your kids were being neglected like mine was you know walking around trying to claim fatherhood and never did a doggone thing for my kid but yet I don't want to stop drinking had jobs with men we're trying to help me to be somebody they told me if I didn't stop drinking I I had to leave. I choose to leave, and then I want to come in here, and I want to get so defiant in my own ways that I refuse to believe that anything is powerful enough to restore me to sanity. So I don't know if what I'm saying to you made any sense or not, but A.A.'s big book of Alcoholics Anonymous out of all the things I've read in my entire life, it made a lot of sense to me. I'll round it up because it's only a couple more minutes But I'll tell you this The doctor's opinion, Bill's story There's a solution to more about alcoholism Gave me what I needed in that first step It really did We the agnostic opened up my mind When he gave me the example Of the preacher's son I needed that example Here was a boy who grew up With a father that was upright Good man probably You know how we love those guys with the back of collars because we could tell them everything and they just, it's okay my son, I love you it's alright and there he was wanting to be a good man but there he was a drunk couldn't stop drinking and could you imagine when the moment came to him where he had his spiritual awakening that he come to realize one thing and one thing only that his God did not have to be the same as his father's that he could have a personal relationship with his higher power? Personal. In the old times, even the purple-lipped ones with the tight spinster squeaking when they walk tell you that. You believe in whatever you want to believe in. And then those of us who know the book says, listen, we're not here to press anything upon you. We're just simply here to try to tell you that you need a power. Just a power! I ain't going to tell your doorknob I'm no longer that delusional I'm not going to tell you that my disease is outside doing push-ups because you'll embarrass me if you tell me to show you because I'm going to show just an empty parking lot with no disease doing nothing. Y'all with me on that one? But I can tell you this, I believe in a power greater than myself and the reason that it appears tangible to you is because I have not drank since June 11th of 1994 and I have a slew of witnesses that will tell you that that is true. Now, you could believe that or not. Now, if that ain't reasonable approach or interpretation for you, then you're going to wait till the day that you're defiant enough to where you're faced with that proposition where you have to make the choice that either God is everything or he's nothing. What's your choice to be? Our southern friend had to learn his lesson the hard way because he wanted to get defiant every time god or some form of spirituality was mentioned and bill and them said with much anticipation we waited for the day and they left him in that hotel room drunk and by himself and that's how you ended up with the word higher power in your big book but if you think that that's something the next time you read the doctor's opinion and doctors opinion was a man of scientific knowledge if you look at it he writes and says they need a power and he used capital P you ever noticed that and he said there was much much outside the scope of this book our synthetic knowledge was not enough our ultra modern standards moral psychology was not enough for these people. Me just sitting here telling you the truth about alcoholism is not just enough. We need more and that more you will find in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, the witnesses. As it says in the foreword to the first edition our testimony is so convincing. Testimony. You know what I mean? Think about that. We like to call it sharing. you see but I end with this if you ever end up in front of a man or woman with a black dress on behind a real big desk and they asked you where were you Thursday night at 8 o'clock and you only tell them where you've been it don't mean nothing but if you got at least one more person that'll come up behind you and say yep, they were there Thursday night at 8 o'clock that judge will probably look and say they have an alibi or better yet, they have a witness so I'm grateful tonight that I have witnessed I don't know, a few dozen people show up for their sobriety so therefore I'll leave you tonight not only believing but also knowing the AA works. So if nobody told you they cared about you this evening, remember a drunk named James did. As I always usually like to say when I end running my mouth, if I have said, done, behaved in a manner which is unacceptable, I ask your forgiveness. For if you have the power to judge, you have power to forgive. I hope I haven't said anything to offend anybody. The only story I know is my own. But what I was basically trying to say is that really newcomers, I want you to know something. Yeah, you're the most important person in the room as they say, but don't get so important that you don't want to listen to what nobody got to say because that's what I did. So God bless you. May the good Lord keep you and as our founder says, I'll see you as we tread the happy road. God bless.