Step 5 and the Spiritual Experience That There Must Be a Higher Power – Ben H.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Ben Hunt and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Ben! I've been sober today by the grace of God. Good sponsorship and meetings similar to this since January 18th of 2004. I'd like to thank Dave for asking me to come share. Tonight I'm going to share in a general way what I used to be like, what happened, and what I'm like today. I grew up in Jameson, North Dakota. oh yeah uh that's what i always thought but uh i got uh four other brothers i had two parents my mom recently moved to memphis a few years ago and uh i don't know if i grew up feeling like uh i was out of place until probably about the age of five at the ageoffive i got my eye poked out by my great grandma with a little plastic dart with some needles stuck in it because i was playing a game i put some needles in the dart and i gotmy eye pooked out but anyways to make a long story short, that's when I first started to kind of create my first lies and that's why I first kind of started to create this other image other than what was real because people would ask me the story of what happened and I just got tired of telling it so I started making a story up of how my eye actually got poked out and I was a little bit taller than the other kids and I did start to feel a little bit of a separation then. I excelled at school. I got put in the classes early in the morning for the talented and gifted and in the third grade I got kicked out of those classes for cheating on a science test. One of the other nerds that was in my early morning classes with me told me it was an open book test, so I started using my book as a test and Ms. Thompson caught me cheating and made me help the janitor for the week after school. And I was a little bit bitter about that. That was my first real hardcore resentment towards her. And I kind of got some attention for that though because there's been helping the butt out the janitor every night after school, and I've always liked to get attention in one shape or form or another, and kind of from that moment on found out that it's a lot easier to get the negative attention than it is to get good attention, and then I kind of rolled with that. Back at Roosevelt Elementary, if you got in trouble, you had to stand with your nose to the brick wall in the lunchroom while everyone walked past you in line to go get their lunch trays, and as the years went on, I was up there more and more often, and it really didn't seem to mind. You just stand there with your noses to the wall, you can kind of see everyone through the corner of your eye and they're laughing, they're pointing. It was like, you know, I don't know, I liked the attention and that kind of started to become the people that I hung around with. I always traced around with my older brother Chris and got in a lot of trouble actually. I think Chris and Chad B from the group here was my first resentment towards God and I was riding my bike with training wheels on it and we were putting black skid marks on the sidewalk and a preacher came and caught us. Well those two were big enough so they could pedal away but the preacher got a hold of me and all I can remember is this might not happen this way, but the preacher was cussing me out and I was bawling, pedaling my little bike away from the scene. And ever since then, after doing my four-step, I kind of came to the conclusion where I just kind of asked, well, if that's what those religious folks are about, I don't want nothing to do with it. And that was kind of my idea on organized religion all the way through. I thought that the little stories that they give you in Sunday school were a bunch of made drummed up stuff by these people, all these weirdos, and people part in the Red Seas and all this other crap happened. I just wasn't buying into it. Growing up through high school and through grade school, I was a kid that started to grow out of Mollet. I had a mullet. I was wearing Miller hats, a shirt, a Kiss T-shirt. I made my mom take me to a Kiss concert when I was 12 years old because she wouldn't let me go by myself. She had to come with me. I was just kind of starting to distance myself from everybody else in the real world but uh you know i always felt like i had a lot of friends i excelled a lot of sports christy was talking about being in swimming i was in swimming too from very early age and i was doing well i was actually state champion when i was 11 and i think the next year afterwards a group of people were talking about swimming being not as cool as i thought it was and i just quit you know I would uh I wanted people to think highly of me and I would do anything to gain your acceptance and your approval and that would later to become one of my more crippling handicaps, like Lurvick was talking about. I just kind of started to be a chameleon. Whatever you wanted me to be, I'd be it. And growing up, I've gotten in a lot more trouble through high school, getting into fistfights and stuff like that, getting kicked out of classes, just being a regular jerk to teachers. Anybody about me, I would like to pick on the kids who were less fortunate in high school and just kindof be a jerk to everyone around me because I never felt equal to them. I was either better than or less than them. and I never knew I was alcoholic. Now looking back, I believe I was destined to be alcoholic long before I ever took my first drink. Me and my older brother had like a 300-plus beer can collection we made. Our dad gets forced me in to buy different types of beer so we can build this big shrine of empty beer cans. I was like at the age of seven, eight years old. And first drinks, I would steal drinks from the basement of our house. I'd mix drinks up, take a few drinks with along the paper route. I never drank enough to get drunk while I was doing the paper route, but I can always tell that the second half of the paper went much better than the first did. Finally, when I was the age of 12 or 13, running around with my older brother Chris is where I drank enough to get a drink. It was black velvet. I went to a house party. They're playing this card game over there where you drink a lot, and my brother allotted me like five or six beers I drank. I ran out of those, and someone had some black velvet whiskey, so I just started supplementing the whiskey instead of the beer, and I didn't know that whiskey was stronger than beer at the time, so I was just drinking this stuff like it was just like a regular beer. And I found myself puking out in the front lawn of the house party, puked up blood. I later realized after being A.A. that black stuff that you throw up is blood. I passed out, I blacked out, and I swore to God I'd never drink that night. I remember actually saying that, I swored to God never drink. But in a short period of time that night, I felt like I was the party. I felt absolutely comfortable in my own skin. I felt the way I thought I should feel for a long time. And at the time, I wouldn't have gone and told you I was restless, spiraled, and discontent with my life and the people in it, but it just made me feel like I've always wanted to feel, and I felt Absolutely Beautiful. And from that moment on started the obsession that someday, somehow I'm going to control and enjoy my drinking. And I mixed things up, you know, started drinking beer on the weekends and just really had a good time. I had a blast. Ninety percent of my drinking career was an absolute blast. I loved every minute of it, and I'd do it again, you Know. And drinking just kind of went on like that. I got my first arrest when I was 17, and that was the first of probably about 24 arrests. And the consequences aren't what gets guys like me sober. They're part of the gig. And over a period of time, my mind won't pull up the memories of what happened last month. I go out with the idea that that's not going to happen again. In 1999, I ended up getting my girlfriend pregnant. We had a baby boy named Austin. And this is where I started my first attempts to really try to buckle down and control my drinking. and I'd be able to keep things together for, you know, the week and then we'd ship Austin off to the grandparents and it would be all out on the weekends and I behaved for short periods of time. But when it was game on, it was gain on. And I later eventually ended up leaving that situation. I got arrested for domestic violence, which I'm not proud of. It's just one of those things that happened and, you now, I don't even know how I got myself in that situation because I was never going to be that guy. I was ever going to hit the woman that I was with. But it's one of the many things that happened, the list I had of things I was not going to do in life, and I crossed that one out. And after I left her, I kind of had nobody or nothing telling me what I could and couldn't do anymore, and that's how I like to do things. I've pretty much been on my own as far as parental guidance. My parents didn't ask where I was at from the age of 12. I can go up and be gone for the weekend, and it's no big deal. So I was back to just Ben left with his own devices, and I could drink the way I wanted to drink. And the wayI started drinking then was pretty much every day, every chance I can get to. And this is when I found out that to avoid hangovers, just start drinking. I seen a sign hanging in a bar in Windsor. It's a small town to the west of Jamestown that said, avoid hangovers, stay drunk. And I was like, that makes sense. So I'd be the guy waking up at the parties still there from the night before and I'd just crawl into the fridge and start drinking again. It only took a few to get right back in the saddle and I felt good. You know, I can just do anything to make myself comfortable in my own skin. But this is also about the time where I ran into drugs. Drugs was one of those things that one of my nevers. I always looked down on people who did drugs in high school, and I wasn't going to be one of those guys. And I started becoming a pretty regular user of cocaine and meth just to balance out my drinking. And I could drink like the way I used to drink on that stuff for a short period of time. I could drank like I was 17 again, and it worked well. And I think it kind of helped me get here a little bit earlier than I normally would have had I not done this stuff. But I drank like that and did those things for a few more years. and going to parties. I used to run with Ben P here, and our idea of a good time is boarding ourselves up in the jungle room for a week, staying up straight and drinking. I'd go to work and still be up for the whole time, and that was our idea. It was the idea of good time, and I was looking for guys like Ben to go drinking with, guys who drank like that, guys who wanted to go on the three-, four-, five-day runs. But I started to experience a lot of pain in my side. My liver was starting to deteriorate, and I went into the clinic to get put on Anaboos because I thought I feared for my life. I wanted to stop drinking. I knew I couldn't do it on my own willpower, so I went in the clinic, and the doctor told me I needed to go to Alcoholics Anonymous for treatment, and I wasn't going to do either one of the two because I watched Sandra Bullock in 28 days. I wasn'T going to stand in a circle and chant, so where I was at at that point in time is a full flight from reality like the book talks about. And I was living only for what one might say to drink, and at that point in time I walked out of the doctor's office because I didn't care if I died drunk. I kind of thought it would be fitting. I thought my role in life is to drink myself to death, and that's what I tried to do. I went on a run after that for about 50 days in the bars pretty much any time they were open or they let me in. And I ran into this girl, and for some reason I tried sober up for this girl I'd keep things together for about three weeks, and after three weeks I'd be restless here on discontent. I didn't know what was wrong with me, but what was going on right here right now wasn't it, so I needed to go do something else, and that happened over and over for about a year, and I tried to keep things Together for her, which eventually wound me up breaking up with her. And my last drunk before I went into treatment, I was either going to kill myself or go into treatment. And that was a big debate for me to do. I was just kind of strung out, and I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I didn't know how to get out of this mess, and I was either going to go to treatment or I was going to kill myself. And I called her up after she asked her if she'd give me a ride to treatment, and she said that she would the next day because I called like a year prior after that whole Anabu's deal, and they said I called them up and said I needed to go to treatment, they said we can't wait until Wednesday, and I said yes and hung up the phone, and by Wednesday I completely forgot about needing me to go to any treatment. So I went to treatment. I paid attention in treatment. I had an honest desire to stop drinking at the time, and out of treatment, I was doing the same things with the same people, and eventually three weeks out of treatement, I was drunk again and not knowing why or how this happened. And I have always absolutely convinced that if I stayed sober for a month or longer that I'd regain some type of control of my drinking, and I didn't. And it was just as bad, if not worse, than what it was when I stopped. And that's where I had a few more incidents like that after treatment, and that's when I stumbled across Alcoholics Anonymous. A guy who I used to party with said he was going to go to a meeting, and we went to check out a meeting. And then I kind of felt pretty comfortable at the meetings at the clubhouse there, and he said, We're going to do this Monday night group. And I heard about the Monday night groups in Jamestown, which is a Buffalo City group, which now meets on Thursday nights, but in treatment there's a bunch of young guys who run around in suits and ties and are really active. And this was just about as distasteful to me at the same time as Sandra Bullock standing in a circle chanting. And I thought, you know what the heck, we'll go check it out. And went and checked it out, and everybody was just like everyone is here now, shaking your hand, they're talking to you, and they're telling, talking about alcoholism. I related with all the speakers that night. I thought that someone gave them my life story and handed it up to here to talk about this stuff. And I kept coming back, and I got a suit and tie. I've never wore a suit in tie in my life until I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, and I didn't plan on doing it because I'm way too cool to be running around in a suit and tie, but I seen that everyone else looked good. They seemed to have something that I did not have, so I figured what the hell, I'll give it a try, and told me I'd get a sponsor. I had no idea what a sponsor was. I didn't know that I wanted one. My only clue of what sponsorship was was in auto racing. I was just really that dense on the whole subject, and I'm like, all right, I'll get a sponsor. And Jeff told me, you know, gave me the rundown of what the deal was, and that next weekend I was going to a snowmobile race at the World Championship Ice Ovals up in Wisconsin, and there's a roundup, the District 6 roundup in Jamestown at the same time, And Jeff advised me not to go to the snowmobile race, and I was like, whatever. And I went to the snowball race. My first call time with my sponsor, I'm standing on top of the VIP suite, the skidoo box, drinking a beer, talking to my sponsor. And that weekend, I drank for three days straight. I had honest intentions not to drink that weekend either. I told all my friends I was going with that I'm going to these meetings now and I'm not going to drink. and one of the guys that was going with us was actually going to be a half an hour or 45 minutes late. And so I said, well, let's just go to the office bar and wait for him to get off work and next thing you know I'm on a three-day run. But that run ended up being my last run and the whole time when I was drinking it was just like I knew I could no longer keep it up. Alcohol was no longer producing the same effect that it did and I was miserable while drunk. I didn't get here because of consequences. I didn'T get here because I'm a nice guy. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous because alcohol stopped working for me and I wanted to find some way how to live because the way I'm living it is I'm trying to kill myself slowly day in, day out. I'm tryIng to take myself out of the game and started working the steps, started meeting with Jeff, started going through the book and I did not believe in God at this time. I was kind of, like I said, I was full flight from reality when I got here. I didn't even notice God in the steps or God in their prayers or anything, really, for the first couple months. And as a result of working the steps, as a resultado of doing my fourth and fifth step, I had a spiritual experience that there must be a God. So I started believing in God, and I started to pray to that God. And life started getting good. I got a large contract doing an automotive dealership in Jamestown, a remodeling job. and things were starting to happen to me that shouldn't happen to guys like me. My relationships with my friends started getting better, I started making money and I just started to become more and more comfortable. It started to feel like I kind of had a place in this world or a sense or a purpose anyways and I went on a lot of roundups in my first year. I think I went one six or seven roundups my first years And roundups are absolutely, you know, one of the keys, one ofthe backbones too to my early recovery is going to those roundups because I was convinced in my mind that I was bigger and badder than these people that were in my home group. I just figured these guys didn't really drink that much. And, you Know, I wasn't really quite convinced, but after hearing of some of the speakers at these roundups, one oftheguys from L.A., it's like if that guy can lower his ego, come into Alcoholics Anonymous and do these things, There's no reason why I can't. And, you know, I just love hearing people's stories. I just absolutely love it. And I started working the steps and started making some of my amends to some of the people about me because I'm the type of guy, my amens list is huge, and I'mthe type ofguy who if you came into contact with me prior to Alcoholics Anonymous, I left you better off or I leftyoubetteroff. I leftyourseoff. I was a taker in every sense of the form. And, you know, I've got a lot of work to do with amends. Financial amends is a huge one for me. I came into this program probably about $60,000 down to people I owe money to. And as a result of a self-will run riot in the program and sobriety, I'm well better than double that just in the last year or so. I'm going to need to, you Know, I got a long way to go. I've had a lot to work on. Money is one of my worst deals. I always thought if I had money, I'd feel better. And I had a lot of money in sobriety. I've had more than I ever thought I'd ever have at one point in time, but I'm no good with it. I spend it like water. It's like hot potatoes. As soon as you get it, get rid of it. And like I said, I've got a long ways to go in that department. But my relationship with my son has been one of the keys to the reason why I first kept coming back here because my relationship mit my son keeps getting better and better. I started slowly to rebuild a relationship with my mom. My mom, who was a person I'd disowned for about eight years, I kicked her out of our own house. When she left my dad, I told her that she could leave, and she did. And I'd see her on the streets. I'd be working on job sites right next to where she lived, and she'd come up and talk to me, and I'd brush her off, and the people who were working on her crew would ask, Who is that? I was like, Well, that was my mom, and they're like, Okay. But this person I haven't talked to for eight years kind of disowned, kind of, you know, whatever. I flew down to Florida with my son, and we visited with her for a little bit. I wrote her a letter at first and kind of explained that, you Know, I was wrong. You know, you had every right to do what you did, and I was strong. And that's a lot of what my experience has been in Alcoholics Anonymous is that I was drunk, and there's a whole lot of it. But, you Now, I'm slowly working on that relationship, helping to build that back together. I'm trying to get things built back together for my dad because my dad does, you know, me and him have never seen eye to eye. And, you Know, before Alcoholics Anonymous, two years ago, my old man wouldn't have borrowed me a $20 bill. And last fall when business was going to hell, he was willing to borrow me thousands and thousands of dollars. And that's the result of hanging around with you guys and being a member of AlcoholicsAnonymous. But if you're, how much time do I got left? but um this has been absolutely the best thing that's ever happened to me by far and it would have been the last thing i would ever thought of uh alcoholics anonymous was the last house on the block i would have never guessed i'd be a member of it i never guessed I'd been sober for two years and content with where I'm at um this thing that happened with the business this last fall um guys like me blow my brains out over stuff like that guys like me don't stay sober going through the deal that i went through last fall i just don't i uh i run from pain and i run you know i do whatever i take the path of least resistance and what hanging around you guys and being a sober member of alcoholics anonymous taught me that you can walk through these things and things get better so if you're new here tonight and as you guys are in your first week of sobriety well i welcome you to alcoholics synonymous um you guys that uh you know get a sponsor and um you know Do what's asked. Always say yes to any request. That's been one of the biggest things that's kept me in the game so far is you get asked to do something, say yes, I'll do it, and show up and make that commitment because without commitments to tie me here, I'm uncommitted, and if I'm uncommon committed, I walk out the door, I'll find something else to do for the time being. But get active. See who you can help instead of worrying about your own mess because worrying about yourself or your own mass really doesn't do too much good worrying about it and try to start piecing things back together. And that's all I have tonight, and I'll pass. Thank you.