My Relationship With Higher Power Cannot Be Taken From Me but I Can Give It Away – Doug M.

being here. My name is Doug Mefford. I am an alcoholic. Thanks to the grace of a loving God
and strong sponsorship rooms like this, definitely the 12 Steps. I haven't found it necessary nor
had the occasion to take a drink of beverage alcohol since August 15th in 1994. I'm extremely
thankful for that period of sobriety. And I can tell you this, I never intended on being here this
long when I got here. I got here when I was 22 years old and, you know, life was kind of, you
know, spring of bad luck, let's say. And, you know, I wasn't real sure I was alcoholic. We'll get to
that in a minute. But, you know, I can tell you as a result of staying here and staying active and
committed and participatory within the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, which is our 12 Steps
and the fellowship with meetings and conferences and different things of that nature, the life I've
been given was really not one I thought was accessible. I didn't think it was possible to have
the life that I had.
And I'll be forever grateful. And the thing that I know is a big part of it is a willingness to give
back, a willingness to say yes, a willingness to stand up. So I want to thank Jerry, although he's
not present, for inviting me to be here again. It's always nice to be invited back. You know,
back in the day, I was invited to leave with a great regularity and very often was asked not to
come back. So to be invited back multiple times, because I think it's probably the third or the
fourth time I've talked to you in the last 10 or 11 years since I moved here. And I think it's
a special honor. So as Brian said, I talked for Jerry at a different meeting on Zoom a couple of
weeks ago and really framed the talk around the third step. And so I was driving over here today,
I was thinking about, you know, telling my story. And, you know, there's generally three stories
every time you make a talk. It's the one you make on your way to make the talk. There's the talk you
actually make. And then as you drive home, there's the talk you think you ought to make. I don't know
what you're going to get, but you'll get some version of my story. And I think it's a special honor.
story and the experiences that I've had. And I will do what the book describes and how it works,
share with you in a general way what I used to be like, what happened to me, and what I'm like
today. And all three of those parts are important. Anyone by themselves may afford somebody an
opportunity, but the three, what I was like, what happened, and what I'm like today, really convey
what transformation Alcoholics Anonymous has provided. So I'll start at the beginning,
was born at a very early age. I was the youngest of four into a very loving and close-knit family.
I was given everything that a person would need in life. You know, my mom stayed home and raised
the family. My dad went to work. I was raised in the church. I was raised in the Catholic church,
and I don't think I'm a recovering Catholic. I don't know what that is. What I know
is I was given every opportunity to know and form a relationship
with a God.
My understanding through that upbringing, and for whatever reason, all those examples and all of
those teachings just never really landed for me. You know, I was rebellious as a kid. I was
rambunctious as a child. You know, my mother used to say as I came up, you know, if you were my first
child, you would have been an only child, you know, and that's long before I ever took a drink.
And for me, my life really was good. My earliest memories were really,
peaceful and contented and secure and safe. And I let you know all of that to let you know I'm not
an alcoholic as a byproduct of where I came from, who my family was, what I had or what I didn't
have. I come to know that I'm an alcoholic as a byproduct of my choices and actions, period. And
I developed the allergy the doctor's opinion in our book describes that I could not control my
drinking. It was read and how it works. And I don't know exactly when that happened, but I held
out as long as I could.
You know, my life started becoming driven by fear when they sent me off to kindergarten. You know,
prior to that, I was well adjusted because everybody loved me. It was my family. But when I
got around you, I wasn't real comfortable in my own skin. And I learned in my recovery that what
I did even at that age was compare the way I felt and the way I thought about myself to the way I
perceived you. I have a disease of perception. And so I felt apart from very early in my life
and was really driven by fear.
Learn how to be what it is that I thought that you thought that I should be in order to connect
with you. And if you nod at that statement, I will tell you you're in the right room because I don't
know anyone that thinks that way. Right. We're a bunch of mind readers, a bunch of soothsayers,
a bunch of fortune tellers as it relates to the people we come into contact with before they ever
even speak a word. You know, I know you don't like me, therefore I hate you. And I did that
on a regular and consistent basis. It was kind of in a constant state of conflict with people
internally.
But externally, I was a people pleaser and I would do what it is that I thought that you thought I
should do so that I could get along. And that's just kind of how I operated being driven by this
fear. I couldn't have told you that then. And that lasted up until about 12 years old when I had my
first drink. And for me, when I took the first drink, I had tasted alcohol before. I was an
altar boy. I drank unblessed altar wine because I was told I shouldn't. I did things that I was told
I shouldn't do just to see if I could get away with it. That was a big deal. I was pretty good
at getting away with it.
You know, I've met a lot of alcoholics. You know, I sponsor a few that aren't very good at getting
away with it. You know, they get caught a lot, you know, and they suffer the consequences. I just
derailed my life really fast because I never got caught. So my first drink at 12 years old and it
was I got, you know, literally knocked down, drag out, drunk, threw up everywhere and loved every
moment of, you know, quite frankly, getting sick didn't bother me. Not in the least. Now, I can
tell you when I was probably, you know,
seven or eight years old, you know, I sat at the dinner table and my mom fed me liver and onions
and I put that liver in my mouth. It was utterly disgusting and awful and it still hasn't crossed
my lips again. I don't have an obsession for liver, but I can tell you the obsession for
alcohol entered my life that first time I sensed the ease and comfort that came with a few drinks
because what it did is it took me being driven by fear, worrying about what it is that you thought
about me to really not care and being okay.
It made me feel comfortable in my own skin and really, quite frankly, what it did was allow me
to breathe all the way in. You know, I've been living that life with fear, just taking those
shallow breaths, you know, and not really being comfortable where I was. But when I got drunk
and I felt that booze, it was like a big, deep breath. I mean, I can still sense that today,
long removed from my last drink. And I hope I never forget that because that was what unleashed
the obsession.
Drinking. Because from that day until a while after I came to you, I was thinking about
drinking. I was either in the middle of it, planning the next time, reminiscing the last
time, or longing to continue. And everything started to revolve around drinking. I couldn't
drink every day at 12, but I drank as often as I could. And every opportunity, I drank as much as
I could. I don't know where I crossed the line, if there's a line, if I was born with it. I don't
debate any of that. But I know early in my drinking life, I was unable to drink. And I
was unable to control my drinking. And that is only in retrospect. When I was doing it, I thought
I was choosing to get drunk every time. I wanted to get drunk every time. There was a reason to get
drunk every time. And it didn't matter. And I lived my life by it don't matter. You know, I got
disciplined, quite frankly, in school quite a bit. You know, I used to say I wouldn't learn to read
if there wasn't graffiti in the halls because I spent so much time in the hallway. You know, I
grew up, I went to a Catholic school, so I grew up with paddling, not riddling.
You know, so I got some paddling that happened at school and things of that nature.
And that just fed the resentments. And that was some of the fuel for my drinking early on.
By the time I graduated high school, I was playing sports in high school, getting along,
doing what I needed to do, drinking as often as I could. But really, it was three or four nights a
week, every week, by the time I graduated high school. And I had probably crossed that invisible
line into uncontrolled drinking, unbeknownst to myself. You know, I was in a meeting last night,
and we were reading in the book, and it really describes so well, and there is a solution.
What happens to us? You know, it talks about, at times, the potential alcoholic. What about him?
What about the real alcoholic? And it talks about, on page 24, at a certain point in the
drinking career of every alcoholic, he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to
stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. If you're in here, you probably got there.
But here's the kicker, the cunning and baffling, powerful nature of alcoholism.
This tragic situation has already arrived in practically every case long before it's suspected.
I didn't know I had a problem before I had a problem. I don't go looking for a solution to
a problem I don't think I have. And so I'm bound in the grips of alcoholism by the time I graduate
high school, unbeknownst to myself. I go to the local junior college to pursue a career in baseball.
I started playing ball. I ended up becoming a player. I started playing football. I started playing
the starting catcher. I've got some potential opportunity for scholarships and things of that
nature to get my education paid for. I was doing well. I had met my new best friends, Chris and
Jeff, as soon as I arrived on campus at Waubonsie Community College in Sugar Grove, Illinois.
And the three of us decided we hatched a plan to establish a little distribution-oriented business,
and it would subsidize our income, and it would allow us to engage in drinking and carousing and
doing the things we wanted to do. Well, Coach Randall,
caught wind of the business venture, I believe, and he summoned us to his office.
And by this time, I didn't really worry about consequences because I had become very proficient
at life, you know, and getting away with it. And if I could look you in the eye and tell you my side,
I'd sell it to you and you'd buy it because I've been doing that in every avenue of my life,
living the double life. So I sat down with Coach Randall and he said, you can't play for me anymore.
I was like, but I'm the starting catcher. I'm the captain of the field. I'm the rudder of the ship.
You're going to be terrible without me. You're not going to be able to do anything without me
on that field commanding the team as I have been as your starting catcher. Now, what I said to him
was, OK, you know, because I'm a coward. I can't really stand up for myself. I'm a chicken. But I
think big thoughts, you know, and that's the way I operate. But I'm so scared I can't stand and I
can't say and I can't do. And we talked for a while at the end of the conversation. Now, mind you,
I've been playing baseball since I was six years old. You know, I'm now 20 years old.
And so I've given it literally blood, sweat and tears. And he said, do you want to play? And I
said, yeah, I believe I've got a future. I've given a lot to the game and I think I've got
some benefit to come to me from this game if I continue to play. And he said, OK, you got to do
a few things. And one of the things that I was to do was arrange a meeting between he and my parents.
And I really didn't have much of a future in baseball. It really wasn't that important to me.
I hadn't given it that much. And I just said, thanks. But no, thanks, coach. And I quit.
See, I didn't know what he knew. And I didn't want him to tear down the
deceit that allowed me to continue to live the lifestyle I was living,
drinking and running around and having a good time because I managed that double life
very effectively in my home. So I quit. I started working so that I could save up some money to go
away to the university in the fall. And that's really when it was kind of Katie bar the door
and I'm running freight train downhill. I started drinking the clock around on a regular basis,
living in my parents' house, having zero respect, zero consideration for their peace and serenity,
robbing them of any sort of feeling of safety in their own home because I'm coming in at all
hours of the night doing all kinds of stuff and really just really stole a tremendous amount of
time from that fall. I had gone away to the universe, Northern Illinois University and
DeKalb, Illinois, and literally within a week of being on that campus, I was a daily drinker,
was to stay that way until I came to you. You know, my first semester of college,
away from my home, not having to live the double life, just being able to let my hair down
back when I had hair, I just went at it. And I had so much fun. The first 16-week semester of away
from home was a party. I mean, I found new friends. I found new places. I found new methods and means
to drink and do what I wanted to do. And it was fantastic. Now, I was there to get an education.
I didn't get much of an education because when my report card came out that first semester,
my grade point average was 0.75. Parents weren't too happy about that. So they sent me back and,
you know, they said, well, we thought that might happen. They said that to me when they looked at
my report card. I'm like, what do you mean you thought that might happen? I mean, I'm a brilliant
young man. I've got all the potential in the world. What do you mean you thought that might
happen? Well, you know, no discipline, no authority. You've sown your oats. Now you need
to go back in that fierce determination to win like Bill describes came back. And I said, by God,
I'll show you because it impacted my pride because I had a lot of
ego and a lot of pride while I was still completely insecure. So I went back and I
did an amazing thing. I went to class. And when I go to class, I learn enough that I can test well.
I did the work that was asked of me. I got three, five and got out of probation. Everything was
great. Third semester, rocking along. It's the same as the first. Because the problem was,
is I built up that momentum in that second semester and I was rocking. I was rolling,
man. Things were good. I was balancing my life, balancing my drinking, balancing my school.
But then it was summer vacation. So I had three months off. And I lost all of that discipline,
pseudo-discipline. And I'm drinking the clock around in so many ways. Third semester,
same as the first. So I'm back on probation. I'm taking a fourth semester. I'm trying like
heck to try and get that fight up to go and do and get back on probation. And I just can't do it
because I'm at the point at this time in my drinking where I'm kind of drinking to live
and living to drink. And I'm not doing anything but drinking. I'd eat every couple of days maybe.
A McDonald's breakfast sandwich on my way in from an all-nighter. Whatever it was, I'm waking up,
I'm drinking Budweiser for breakfast. And I think about so often you go to the, you see the ads on
the television, the beautiful people. They're doing spring skiing and bikini tops and shorts,
or they're playing beach volleyball. They're just bronzed and buff and just great drinking.
I want to know when they're going to do the equal opportunity advertising and show guys like me
that are choking it down like,
broken glass and blowing bubbles out their nose and all that stuff. Because
we're the ones funding the liquor business. And I was funding it regularly.
So I'm about six weeks into the semester. I've gone past ad drop. I don't know what I'm going
to do, but I know that I have overestimated my ability. And so what do I do? I run around all
my professors and told them I got my girlfriend pregnant. So I needed to withdraw because I needed
to get a job to pay for this impending child. I didn't have a girlfriend. Guys like me don't
get girlfriends.
You know, me and Huey, my buddy would go to the bar on Sunday because we knew that the men that
were at the bar on Sunday or the women that were at the bar on Sunday were there to find men. So
Huey and I went there every Sunday to be that man. Problem was I started doing a Budweiser before
I really sought my target all the way up until last call. And then I realized, oh,
now I remember what I'm here for. And I'd start and set my sights on her and I'd approach her.
Yeah. And I'm falling down. I probably got puke on my shirt because I puked a lot,
and I never got her to come home with me. You know, I didn't have a girlfriend. I couldn't do
it. So I quit school. My parents start having discussions about me. They're still footing the
bill and they don't know what to do about me. And they tell me, command performance, come to the
house. I come to the house. I sit in the dining room or the dining area of the kitchen and they
go into the living room through a couple of French doors and they're talking amongst themselves.
And I'm not invited to participate. I'm not included in the conversation, but I am the
topic of discussion. What are we going to do about him? What are we going to do about it?
What are we going to do about that? They don't know what to do with me. And my aunt basically
offered the answer. She said, well, maybe Doug could come down and live with Jim and I in
Nashville, Tennessee. And they presented me with that option. I thought, you know what?
That is an excellent idea. Because if I can get away from these losers in DeKalb, Illinois,
that are dragging me down from my life's potential, that are really stopping me from
succeeding in the way that I know I'm meant to succeed, I can get down to Nashville,
have a fresh start.
And just rock on to the rest of my life and meet my potential. Because I've always been
told you got a lot of potential. You can be anything you want to be. Just set your mind
to it and go. And so I got on to Nashville. I was a setup. My aunt was a certified drug
and alcohol counselor. And they put me to work at Nashville Wine and Spirits selling liquor,
you know, and fine wine. So now I'm sitting at this wine shop. The only wine that had ever
seen a grape past these lips was the Unblessed Ultra Wine. Because like Mad Dog and Thunderbird,
Night Train, those kind of things don't come from grapes. You know,
we're talking corked bottles, not screw-ups. We're talking a couple hundred dollar bottles
of wine. And I'm thinking, how am I going to sell this? I don't believe in spending that kind of
money for 10 six-ounce glasses. I mean, $250 for 10 six-ounce glasses? I mean, that's not even a
good start. And I can buy a tremendous volume of Budweiser with $200 or $300. But I got to sell
this wine. And I am so insecure, riddled with alcoholic fear, egomaniac with an inferiority
complex. Can't say I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't
know everything there is to know about anything there is to know about all things. Just ask me.
Just ask me. And that's the way I'm operating. So I'm at this wine shop. We go to this
new wine tasting. And we're sitting at a dais. And I sit in the middle. There's five of us,
right? And the guy on the left, the salesman uncorks the bottle. He hands the cork to the
person on the left. The person starts smelling it. And then the second person starts smelling.
The first guy starts talking about what it is. And then this gal, and I smell it. And I pass
along. And I heard what they said. And I can be a wordsmith. So I just put my own spin on it.
No cork. I don't, I mean, it smelled like cork to me. But I had to describe it. Because I
couldn't say I don't know what I'm doing. Then they pour wine in all of our glasses. And everybody
gets a little glass of wine. And they're swirling around. It's got to breathe or you can't taste
right. It won't taste right. You won't be able to describe the floral effervescence or how the
tenon will cleanse your palate or whatever garbage it was we were saying. And so we're swirling
around. Then everybody takes a big swig of it. Swishing it around. I don't use mouthwash. I'm
swishing and swishing and swishing.
I'm just saying I ever saw that my whole life happened. Person on the far left picked up a
paper bucket and spit out the wine. I'm thinking, oh, God, gigs up. I've already swallowed it. I
don't understand why you would ever spit out perfectly good alcohol. The only time I ever
did that was an inverse reaction to its entry, like taking a shot in the morning. It just kind
of bounced back out. Spitting out alcohol, that's alcohol abuse. But I can't say I've already
swallowed the wine and look foolish. So I puff out my cheeks and spit out a bunch of air and then do
what we do. And that story is indicative of the alcoholic ego that is so,
driven by the fear. That isolation, the self-centered isolation that alcoholism
creates puts me in a position where I'm alone in a room full of people, where I feel as though
there is no way that I can be of any effective connection with any human being. It's the
bedevilments on page 52. I'm prey to misery. I can't affect a person's contact, et cetera, et
cetera. And I'm living in that. Now, I am going out to the bar. I go out to the bar with my new
best friend, Stan.
Met a new best friend. Wherever I went, reinvent yourself, get a new friend. It's a drinking buddy.
I got to find the drinking buddy. I go to the bar with Stan. Now, Stan's a musician. We start
drinking. We have a couple of beers and Stan's like, Doug, man, I got to go. I'm like, what do
you mean you got to go? We're drinking. And he says, I have drank. Past tense. I don't get that.
That doesn't make, that doesn't register. Because when I'm drinking, that's what I'm doing.
Everything is about drinking. And he has drank and is leaving. And I'm like, what do you mean?
He said, man, I got to go to band practice. See, Stan wasn't an alcoholic. And I didn't know I was
So now I'm sitting in Nashville in a bar by myself with no lower companions, nobody to point
the finger at, nobody to say I'm not that bad at. And I've taken the triggered dose, the first
drink. And I don't know that I can't stop, but I can't stop. And man, it's a miserable place
because now I'm alone and I'm getting drunk and I don't know how to stop. And I kind of want to,
but I don't really want to. And I don't know what to do about it.
So my brother-in-law said, I don't know what to do about it.
My brother at this time has a child. This is in July of 94. He has a child. And I decide that I'm
going to go meet this new child. I've been in Nashville six weeks, long time, big six weeks.
Now I need to get out. I mean, it's been, it's rough. Six weeks, a long time to kind of be going
alone. So I'm longing to be back with those old buddies that I can point my finger at and say I'm
not that bad. My brother has a child, gives me the respite to go back to Chicago. And I stop off at
Noblesville, Indiana, Deer Creek Music Amphitheater.
See the Grateful Dead for three days with my buddies.
Second night of that camping and concerts is the beginning of my what happened, which is
elongated. I overindulged in a lot of substances, including a vast amount of alcohol. And I had a
white light near death experience. And I don't know how long I was dead, but it was warm and
comfortable and I didn't want to come back. But for some reason, it wasn't my time. And I came
back and it hurt like I fell off a 10 story building. And when I came to it was though I was
I was in a paranoid, delusional, psychotic state. So I was in an altered sense of reality. And the way
that manifested in me was the paranoid delusion was the FBI and the DEA were after me. And they
wanted to know who I knew and what I knew and what I'd been doing with who I'd been doing it with.
And the honor among thieves of my life would not allow me to talk to those people. But they were
following me, but turning the pressure. That was my delusion. I drove back Chicago from Indianapolis
thinking that they're following me. I spend six days divulging secrets,
to my siblings that I wasn't going to tell anybody. I'm sitting at the half wall of my
parents sub basement is split level and I'm talking. You know, and I mean, I am delusional
and paranoid. I'm not I'm not talking about peeking out the blinds. I'm talking about going
to a football game with 70,000 fans and thinking they're talking about you in the huddle kind of
pyramid. I mean, that's it was all encompassing. And I got a brother who's six and a half years
sober and Alcoholics Anonymous at the time and I'm at his house.
Six days into this trip up there. And he knows something's wrong. But he knows he can't do
anything for me. He can't do anything to me. So he just turning the screws of pressure. You got to
leave, man. I'm postponing and evading. I'm shucking and jiving because I'm believing if I get on the
road to go back, I'm going to get arrested. I'm not meant for jail, not fit for that life. I ain't
doing that. And if I can't turn myself in and become an undercover agent or whatever, because
the honor among thieves of my life wouldn't let me do that. So here's the other option, kill myself.
And I had a plan. I knew what I was going to do.
But instead of executing the plan, I looked at my brother, Rob, and I said, I'm an alcoholic and I
don't know what to do about it. He said, you just took the first step. Now, I didn't take the first
step. The first step is was read in more about alcoholism. We had to fully concede to our
innermost selves. This is the first step in recovery. Right. I didn't do that. I said some
words. But those words set up a series of events that allowed me to be introduced to Alcoholics
Anonymous. The next morning, I'm planning on killing myself. Ultimately, I get a little bit
of a respite. And the addictions treatment program at Mercy Center Hospital would see me
right then. And my parents took me down. And I sat in a room to do an intake interview at an
addictions treatment program at a hospital with my parents on either side. And I told them
everything because I believed I was giving them my resume. I thought I was going into an
undercover agent program. I read the 12 and 12 cover to cover, believing that it was a manual
on how to do some level of undercover work in the drug enforcement realm and things like that. I
could pass that. I knew that. I'd fly through it. No problem. I spent 15 days in a psychotic state,
believing that I was in an undercover program, telling the counselors and the social workers
and the psychiatrists, y'all know why I'm here. I know why I'm here. I'm committed to this.
When are y'all going to just, you know, the gig's up. Let's go. And they're like, you're here
because you got a problem with drugs. I don't know.
I mean, I know I'm here and you know why I'm here. And that's the way I live 15 days.
I mean, I'm in the nut hut. Literally behind a locked door. I can't go outside and smoke.
I mean, I couldn't get a white pass. I had a blue pass. Blue pass meant I had to go out with a
staff member if I wanted to smoke. So the only time I got to smoke those 15 days
was the 10 minutes of an hour that they opened smoking. Now there's about 25 crazy people on
this ward. You put 25 people in a room about a quarter of the size of this room for 10 minutes
that are crazy. I'm telling you, Spicoli's van didn't have anything opened up out of that door.
I mean, it was literally like a smoke show coming out of there because you'd smoke about
four cigarettes in 10 minutes because you just go. And at the end of that 15 days,
I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm sitting in this counselor's room. It's just me and this
guy named Jerry. He was the counselor. I said, Jerry, you know why I'm here. I know I'm here.
Why are we not moving forward? This is getting ridiculous. I'm getting tired of waiting.
And he said, you know, here's the deal. All the professionals in here and you are standing in
a room. And for whatever reason, we all go around the room. There is an actual puppy dog on the
table. We all tell you it's a puppy. But when you get a chance to identify the animal, you say it's
a cat. And I don't know why the psychosis broke and I rejoined reality just in that moment.
Didn't change the reality still to this day.
Those 20 some days in a psychotic state are as real as I'm standing before you today. But it broke
and I rejoined reality. I was introduced to treatment. I got out of treatment. I got out
of the hospital inpatient. Went out of town for the weekend. Had one last little debauch. I failed
the urinalysis coming in on Monday. But it was one last time. I just got to get away with it one last
time. That's all I need to do is get away with it one last time. That's it. I lied about why I failed
the UA. Tuesday night, a man from Alcoholics Anonymous came to a family afterward meeting on
Tuesday night at that treatment center. And he shared what he was thinking, feeling, and doing
eight and a half years prior when he sat in that same room and he rang my bell. I sat there and I
thought, how can that guy know all of that? How can he know what I'm thinking? How can he know
what I feel like? How can he know what I'm contemplating doing if he hadn't been there
before? So what Daryl did was afford me what I believe every alcoholic must have happened in
order to get here.
Stay here. He afforded me the opportunity to identify. Without identification, without his
alcoholism touching my alcoholism, you'd have a different speaker talking to you. There's no doubt
in my mind. But for whatever reason, God puts just the right person at just the right time with just
the right information. And if it's not my time, it's not the right person. It's not the right
information. But I believe the God of my understanding will continue to send the message
repeatedly until I'm ready to hear it or I'm pushing updates.
I believe that with every fiber of my being, there's never hope lost until life is gone. So
Daryl rang my bell. I decided that night, I didn't know what I was going to do, but I was trying to
come up with a lie that would allow me to get away with it. And I saw my life as it really was.
Nothing but a con, nothing but a farce, nothing but a story. And I didn't like what I saw.
And I sat up in my bed while I'm trying to think about how to get away with that one last time and
threw my hands in the air and I said, God, please help me. I don't want to live like this anymore.
Maybe I knew inherently that alcoholism is not a drinking problem. I didn't say, God,
please help me. I don't want to drink. Alcoholism really is embodied as a living problem with a
drinking solution until that drinking solution no longer works. And that's where I was. I need
a suitable substitute to satisfy my living problem. See, I was maladjusted to life in so many ways.
The doctor's opinion describes it very eloquently. Full fright reality, maladjusted. But it's not
just that. I developed a physical allergy.
Ultimately, I needed to live life differently. And maybe inherently I knew that. I don't know.
But it wasn't just about not drinking. And so I went to the treatment center the next morning and I said
to my counselor, Marge, I was lying. And here's what happened. And she jumped up out of her seat,
ran around the desk and hugged my neck and said, man, I'm so proud of you. And I felt what it felt
like, to be honest, for the first time in an incredibly long time. And it felt good. And it
lit my fire. I went to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, 219 East Galena Avenue,
downtown Aurora.
Illinois. I walked down the half set of stairs into an old converted, you know, union hall,
long set of tables, bunch of smoke in the room, people in the room, around the table. And at the
head of the table was that guy that was at the meeting on Tuesday. And in the treatment center,
they're saying, get a sponsor, get a sponsor, get a sponsor. I don't know what that is. But I walked
in. I walked to Darrell. I said, would you be my sponsor? And he said, let's talk after the meeting.
And I cried like a blithering idiot through that meeting. I mean, I'm talking ugly snot bubbles,
kind of crying. I'm 22 years old and I'm an Alcoholics Anonymous.
What in the hell is going on here? There's a bunch of old people in here. I mean, we're talking
forties and fifties. Put on a banana peel, the other foot in the grave. What the hell am I doing
here at 22? And I was just miserable and scared and lost and lonely. And then Darrell and I talked
after the meeting. What Darrell did was practice the spiritual principle of sponsorship by
establishing the principle of accountability. He laid out the terms and conditions of sponsorship
and he taught me what AA was and what it wasn't.
Taught me what a sponsor was and what a sponsor wasn't. Told me where I would go, how I would dress,
how I would behave, how I would talk. He laid all of this out. And then at the end of the conversation,
he said, now I got to ask you one more thing. He said, are you willing to go to anyone for victory
over alcohol? And for lack of a better answer, I said, yes. I knew that's what he wanted me to say.
So I said, yes. And he said, okay, well, what are you doing tomorrow? I said, well, I got the weekend
off treatment. So I'm probably going to sleep in. Then I'm probably going to get up, maybe have a
little breakfast, probably lay around on the couch, watch a little TV, kind of relax and be good to
myself for the weekend. He said, I don't think so. He said, you will set your alarm for 530 in
the morning. You will get up, report to Kula Acres Park in North Aurora, and you will ask Rick,
how can you help out with the Fox Valley Fellowship Center's annual Big Rose Picnic?
I didn't know you could change sponsors. I didn't know you could say no.
And I did what he asked me to do. And I can tell you this. I know today I was given the
gift of desperation that allowed me to take the action that he suggested.
I believed he had an answer. He was a man with an answer. I believed that. So I did what he asked
me to do. And I was given a great gift that next day because I went and I asked and I helped and I
did. And I ended up in a food serving line, dunking ears of corn in a vat of butter and put my people's
plates. And Janet and John and Daryl and Denny and all these people that were at the meeting the night
before said, Doug, God, they remembered my name. It's good to see you. And I believed them. Keep
coming back. And I wanted to.
The Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous was extended to me very graciously.
But the gift I was given was the gift of service. Because through serving that corn in that feeding
line, what happened is the barrier of self-centered isolation that I had had cocooned around myself
came down just enough that I could accept the gift of that grace that was extended to me by
the fellowship. So I'm a believer in giving the new guy a paintbrush or a broom or a rag and
walking shoulder to shoulder, standing side by side and doing something.
But I wanted to do it properly with the people. There were two ones. The first one gets out,
and the second one like I out in the bush enough. Was smoked at Во Maddon.
So you know that's it. It's getting some work and getting them to talk and that's what happened to me and I really,
really believe that that was a fundamental foundational element that allowed me to
actually stay here at Alcoholics Anonymous. Daryl and I started walking along doing the steps.
I got to know myself better than I wanted to in the inventory process.
I also came to know in the fifth step process with him that I was garden variety drunk.
uniqueness and just be one among many. And I got my full-fledged membership card in Alcoholics
Anonymous. I'm rocking along. I'm starting making amends. My oldest sister, I've got two brothers
and a sister. I'm the youngest. She and I were really close. And my best friend in high school
said we were like soulmates. But at the end of my drink in the last year, year and a half, she said,
I don't like you when you're like that. So I was disengaged and I just avoided completely.
When it came time to make amends, we made amends, direct amends, wherever possible. I flew from
Chicago to Houston because that's where she lived. And I spent the weekend and I made my amends with
her. And we reconciled the relationship. And she went from a position in which that I don't like
you when you're like that and I prefer you not to be around me at all, to asking me to be the
godfather of her firstborn child. She asked me to be the godfather of her firstborn child. See,
that comes as a result of practicing Alcoholics Anonymous and putting principles in front of
personalities and taking the actions as they're suggested and demonstrating that I'm different
than others. And that's what I'm doing. And that's what I'm doing. And that's what I'm doing.
And she saw that. She asked me to be a godly spiritual influence in that child's life.
I still talk to her on a consistent, regular basis. Her younger sister blessed me with the
honor just last year of asking me to officiate her wedding. So I went and got ordained so that
I can do that. How do you go from, I don't like you when you're like that, I don't want you around me,
to being somebody that is an active spiritual participant in families' lives?
It's just through being an active participant.
It's just through being an active participating member in Alcoholics Anonymous and exemplifying
the principles through actual participating action, which I've done for almost 30 years.
My oldest brother, Rob, who was sober six and a half years, really kind of moved to Chicago
and used AA as butt room in so many ways. He was tending to the gifts of sobriety. You hear it all
the time. You see people in Alcoholics Anonymous. Maybe you go to meetings on a regular basis. You
see them for years, 10 years, whatever. And then they don't come around as much, if at all. Maybe
they come to birthday night and get a chip.
Once a year, kind of a thing. You see them in the grocery store. Hey, John, how you been?
Oh, man, I'm great. I'm fine. Where you been? I haven't seen you in a while. Well,
I'm spending more time at the job. I'm spending more time with the family.
I'm spending more time in the church and the community. All those things that were gifts of
sobriety are being tended to. And that which gave the gift is set aside. How often do you see people
like that in meetings?
Well, I've seen people come back and say, hey, I haven't been around in a while. And I've been kind
of off the beam. And I realized, you know what? I need to get back to the basics. I will tell you,
my recovery in the last 29 years, I've never left the basics. And if you never leave the basics,
you never got to get back to them. You just keep moving forward. And so I live a life today that I
didn't know I could. That older brother who used AA as butt goo, I watched untreated alcoholism
impact his family. Fast forward away.
And I'm sober. He's sober. We have some conversations. And I basically discount
his experience because he wasn't an active member. And so we stopped talking about AA.
Still maintain the relationship. He asked me to be the godfather of his third child,
so on and so forth. Still engaged. I didn't discount him. I just didn't want his experience
in AA because I didn't value that. He was a thief in my opinion. He took the gifts. He took what was
given to him and he walked away. And if everybody did that, I wouldn't have had anybody carry me
the message. Fast forward.
I'm now living in Dallas, Texas in 2012. And so whatever that is, 16, 18 years sobriety,
whatever it is. And his wife had lung cancer and then was taking pain meds post-surgery. And they
met in the program. She was in recovery. And she decided she was going to continue to take pain
meds. And then she decided she was going to drink. And she had a blackout event, fell down about five
stairs, crushed her skull. And she was in pain. And she was in pain. And she was in pain. And she
had a blackout event, fell down about five stairs, crushed her skull, broke a few vertebrae and ended
up in the intensive care unit. My brother Rob didn't know what to do. He called his brother.
He didn't have an AA fellowship because he used AA like butt goop. He was around it rather than in
it. But when he made that call to me, I did what I was taught to do. And I believe God gave me some
experience to allow me to stand in the stead for him and hold him accountable to do things that we
do here. And I said, listen, Rob, I don't know anything other than to tell you, but deal with
the administrator of the hospital, go to a meeting and find somebody that you can ask how they are.
And you don't get to talk about you. Do that and call me this afternoon. He did. We started a
journey of talking on a daily basis. And then I traveled up. I was there the night before his
wife passed. We're sitting in the hospice room and we had a conversation after a meeting. I said,
you know, Rob, here's the thing, what I can tell you, what I've witnessed and experienced in
Alcoholics Anonymous is anything, anything tragic,
difficult, joyous, happy, anything experientially that happens. And Alcoholics Anonymous, if you
place that directly in God's hand, he will turn it to good account to benefit him. And you may or
may not ever see who, when or where that happens. But if you will turn it over and turn it in and
share it openly, God will turn it to good account. But you got to buy the whole program. And he said,
what do you mean by the whole program? I said, well, the ninth step says made direct amends to
such people wherever possible, except when they do something that they don't want to do. And I said,
so what did you do to them or others? And you've never made direct amends to me. And he immediately
got indignant. Like, what do you mean? I harmed you? I said, oh, no misgivings, no problems,
no difficulties here. I don't have any problem. But you remember when I was a year sober and we
went to the race and I asked you to stay back as everybody went to the stands? He said, yeah. I
said, you remember the conversation we had in the RV that day? He said, yeah. I said, I made my
direct amends to you. He said, well, what are you saying that I harmed you? I said, well, I don't
know. I don't care. But what I know is you haven't bought the whole program.
See, when I was seven or eight years old, he was like my best buddy. He was the oldest brother.
And we ran around. We picked on the middle brother a little bit, so on and so forth. We did that.
But I walked out to the car, maybe eight years old. And as I walked out to the car, he's 18,
getting ready to maybe go to college, whatever. I find a half a joint on the dashboard and I pick
it up. I walk back in the house. I said, what's this? And all hell breaks loose in my home.
I said, you don't think that had an impact on that eight-year-old boy?
I'm not saying you owe me amends to make me better.
Whole as the day is long. But you've never taken the actions that the program prescribes
in full. Fast forward, his wife passes away. We go through that process. We talk on a daily basis.
I get laid off. I come down here to Atlanta. My wife's talking at the Altoona Roundup on a
Friday night. It happened to be my 20th anniversary. My brother came down for the weekend.
And he handed me his 20-year medallion. He said, I want you to have that because it's because of
you I'm back involved and engaged and active in Alcoholics Anonymous. And then the next morning,
he said, hey, you got some time? I said, sure. And he sat in my office with me and he made direct
amends. And I watched my brother change. See, I didn't need that. But I knew he needed it. And my
ability to stand in the gap and express those things to him, I am forever grateful. See, I had
the objectivity because I understood what he was going through because I directly sponsored a young
man that buried his daughter from medulla blastoma. So I was given some experience to share related
to sponsoring somebody through the death of a loved one.
And so God uses us in ways that we don't know. And he gives us experiences to arm us for future
events that may come to pass. I'm rolling along and I'm going to tell a couple of stories that
I generally always tell kind of by my sponsor's direction about what God does if you place your
life in his hands. The experiences, you know, in a vision for you at the very end of it on page
one, it says, see to it that your relationship with him is right and great events will come to
pass for you and countless others. This is the great fact for us. Great events. I've had a lot
of great events. You know, I met and married my wife in Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, we've
been married almost 25 years. We make it to April. It'll be that. We went through a little problem
at seven or so year, five, seven years. You know, it happens, but we made it.
Thankfully, you know, I've got a 19-year-old daughter who's a freshman at Kennesaw State
that's just killing it and doing a great thing. I got a 36-year-old stepson that just got out of
prison for the third time. And hopefully that's the last time. I've been through a lot of great
events, good and bad. But when I place myself unreservedly in God's hands, what happens is he
gives me the ability to stand and face that rather than run away from it. See, my inclination is to
forget everything and run away.
I don't want to run away from trouble. I don't want to deal with trouble. I don't want to feel
those feelings. I don't want to deal with that stuff. I've been laid off three times in the
course of my sobriety, you know, and I've been without. And I've come to realize through all
of this experience, I'm not my stuff. My stuff's nice. I can lose every bit of that stuff. I could
lose my wife and my children. I can lose it all, not of my own choosing, not of my own account.
But there's one thing that can never be taken from me. That's my relationship with my
higher power. My relationship with God cannot be taken from me. But I assure you, I can give it
away. If I don't tend to it and I don't continue to pursue spiritual matters, I'll give that
relationship away. And I'll go back to being a lost soul with no aim, no purpose, and no life to
live. And I don't want that. So I stay. I'm at the International Convention in 2010 in San Antonio.
I'm standing outside smoking a cigarette. A little Indian guy comes up and says,
I'm Lalu. How you doing? We engage and we talk for a while.
About 10 minutes to the end of the conversation. He says, man, it's great. Let's exchange numbers.
Great. We do that. He says, if by chance you ever come to India, I would love to host you at my
coffee plantation. And I think that'd be fantastic. I turn and walk away. I'm never going to India.
I have no desire to go to India. It's not on the bucket list. It's not on the places to see in my
mind. So great. Lalu calls every couple of months. We talk, so on and so forth. Fast forward,
2012. I go to the experience with my brother. I end up in a situation where I'm laid off.
He and I get to connect. I get to walk him back to the Center of Alcoholics Anonymous as a result
of that. And then I come to Atlanta for an interview. I go to interview with a technology
company. At the end of the interview, the lady I'm interviewing that would become my boss says,
hey, if we extend you an offer and you accept, would you be willing to travel to India? We have
a development office there. I said, well, yes, of course. And I go home. We negotiate the terms,
all of that stuff. And boom, I'm coming and I'm ready. And I'm thinking, man, I got to get a whole
Lalu. I got to get a whole Lalu. I got to get a whole. I can't get a whole Lalu. I don't know.
I got to get a hold of him. I've lost his phone number. He only calls the home phone. He hadn't
called in like six months. It's like, well, hell, what's going to happen? It's Friday night. I'm
leaving Saturday morning. It's 930. I'm thinking I'm leaving to Atlanta. I'm going to end up in
India. I'm not going to connect with him. We're going to sell the house. We're never going to
connect. Bam, phone rings. See, I can still future trip 10, 12, 13, 15, 18 years sober. I can still
do it. I'm doing it. Phone rings. Who's on the phone? Lalu. I answer the phone. We make a
connection. We talk. I end up going to Bangalore. I'm like, I'm going to Bangalore. I'm going to
Bangalore for development to the development office for three weeks in 2013. And I got to meet
Lalu and his wife at a hotel and have dinner. And then I got to travel on a government bus
six hours through the middle of the night to a place called Chikmangu in the southwestern
portion of the Indian Peninsula. And I got picked up by his plantation foreman in Najib and drove
up over the mountain and up to his coffee plantation. I got to have 72 hours of quiet
with one man talking to another.
We went down into town and I got the blessing of sharing on the first three steps and being
translated between English to Hindi and engage in that meeting. And then they had the rest of
the meeting in Hindi. And I heard the language of the heart, although I don't speak the language,
I heard what they said. It was an amazing experience. Then Saturday night, we go up to
the top of the mountain so we can get cell phone signals so he can call his wife. And we're sitting
there and he's talking to his wife and then he hangs up and we're just sitting there just kind
of visiting a little bit. And then the back of the Jeep opens up. Whoa, wait a minute.
Two little neighboring plantation guys jump in the back of the Jeep. They're both about 90 days
sober. And by cell phone light on the top of a mountain, southwestern mountain in the
southwestern peninsula of India, they have an alcoholic synonymous meeting, four people in
two languages. See, if I'm not willing to just do what God has in store for me by taking what
was presented as the best opportunity to take care of my family, I don't come to Atlanta because I
didn't want to come to Atlanta. But I believe God knew in 2010 where my life was going if I
accepted the charge that he gave me. So if I'm willing to accept the charge, I got to go hands
open, palms up and say, whatever you got, big guy, I'll do it. And if I do that, great events will
come to pass for you and countless others. In 2014, I was here about a year and I'm running
around doing some things and my mom needs to have bypass surgery. My mom went to Al-Anon when I went
to AA and we grew up in the program together. We worked at 12 Steps.
Her and Al-Anon, me and AA developed a really great relationship. She had to have bypass surgery.
You know, there's some risks. So I went up there and I saw her. We sat down, we talked and laughed
and had a good time and made the bed and just reminisced a bunch of stuff. 5.30, got up, took
her to the hospital. They prepped her for surgery and they rolled her ready to go back. I sat next
to her and I said, mom, I love you and I'll see you later. We go into the waiting room. Everything's
rocking along. Everything's going great. No problem. Updates every 40 minutes or so. Going well,
going well, going well on the bypass, doing surgery, doing the thing, doing the thing.
And then by 12.30, the head nurse comes up and escorts us into a locked room. And I knew this
wasn't going to be good. And she said, we're having some difficulties. And the surgeon's doing
everything he can, but we're having some troubles. And we wanted to let you know. So it wasn't a
shock if in fact something happens. We don't know what it's going to take to get through it, but
we're working as hard as we can to do so. And I knew at that moment I was fixing to lose my mom.
I called my wife and I told her and I stepped out of the room and I called my sponsor.
And I said, Stuart, my mom's
not going to make it through the surgery. I'm fixing to lose her. And it's me and my sister
and my dad. My dad had been married for 53 years at the time. My sister and my mom
had become best of friends talking every day. And this is my mom.
We got sober. We worked the program together in so many ways.
I knew we weren't going to have it.
My sponsor's response to that is, man, I really hate to hear that
and I'll pray for you, but I want you to do something. I want you
to go back in that room and be of service to your father.
And your sister. And we will be of service to you.
And I walked back in that room and the surgeon came in and he said,
I've lost her. There's nothing we can do. And I watched
my sister and my dad literally kind of breaking out. And I'm such
a selfish and self-centered alcoholic. Most of the time when things happen, I think, how is that going to
affect me? Even little stuff. I'm so sad. How's that going to
affect me? I get the news that I lost my mother.
Something that would affect me for sure. And I didn't have that
thought not once. I was able to stand in the gap and hold
my sister and my father and trust that Alcoholics Anonymous
was going to carry me through. And they did. The texts, the messages,
the phone calls from one phone call. It was unbelievable. Coast to coast
beyond the borders of the country. People were
praying for me and praying for my family. It was in the middle of
Arkansas. I didn't know really anybody in the middle of Arkansas.
But there was about 12 members of Alcoholics Anonymous from five different states
that came to be at the service. See, that's what happens when I'm
dead in the center of Alcoholics Anonymous. Committed, engaged, rather than just around
and involved. I get the opportunity to have deep and effective
meaningful relationships. And I have people that will support me, bar
none. You know, it's interesting today. My wife and I
have been married almost 25 years. Had a 10-year-old
in the house when we got married. So we never had
a relationship. We were just us. The daughter goes away to college and now we're empty nesting.
We're learning how to have a relationship as just two individuals versus parents. Because we've
never not been parents in the household. And it's kind of cool, but it's also a learning process.
You know, you got to learn the pattern. You got to learn the things. You know, different
conversations happen when there's not peering ears and so on and so forth. But it's a beautiful
thing to continue to evolve and expand and continue to let God be in the center of relationships.
You know, I'm grateful that I have a number of men that allow me to
have the opportunity to have a front row seat to watch their life change through sponsorship.
I'm grateful that I have an active and participating relationship with my sponsor. I talked to him on my
way over here. I think being a strong link in the chain is what allows me to stay.
I don't want to be a wagon tail and I don't want to be at the head of the
at the head of the farm. I want to be just one among them. And the grace of God, the Fellowship
of Alcoholics Anonymous, the program as contained in our 12 steps availed me that opportunity.
I don't always know what God's will is. I don't always know what it's not. I generally have an idea of what he would like. I believe, I believe what would please my higher power more than any is no matter what happens, good, bad, or indifferent, that I will turn and make him my first choice rather than my last resort. And if I do that, what a life I can have. Thanks for letting me be here.
Thank you.