Surrendering the Internal Condition That Alcohol Could Not Fix – Pat R.

Reporting in progress. Thank you. Recovered alcoholic, my name is Pat Rogan. And thanks to the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous outlined in our big book of Alcoholic Anonymous, which is the program of AA, I have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. And for that, I can't even express how grateful I am. AA didn't just save my life, but it gave me a new life, and definitely a new life worth living every time I say that I get emotional because I can't imagine my life without you without this fellowship and without this program and without guys like Nick in my life and guys that keep me on track so he's a member of my home group now so I get to spend some time with him now but anyways I'm here because alcohol stopped working that's why I'm hier I mean, if alcohol still treated what was going on with me internally, I would still be doing it. I'm not a guy that ended up in this program via consequences because God knows I suffered many, and none of them were enough to get me stopped. It wasn't until liquor stopped treating what was going on within me internally that I ended up in AA, and I'm not even sure how that happened, to be honest with you. I spent my last three weeks drinking in a hotel room a days in, in Fort Lauderdale, trying to justify my behavior. I think I finally crossed that line where alcohol would no longer give me absolution for my behavior, even alcohol was upset with what I had done at that point and where my life had gone, and it just stopped working. And I don't know if anybody can relate to get to that point where you're getting up to drink the pass out and get up to drink to pass out. And there's just no relief in it. My former sponsor used to say alcohol would give me permission to violate your principles and mine. And then later it would give be absolution, and I could no longer get absolution to the bottle. And I do not know where the thought comes from in that hotel room to call my sister who was in AA. I had never talked to my sister about AA, and my sister had never talked to me about AA. And nobody ever said to me, you should call your sister and go to AA. But the universe put my sister on my heart that night. And I reached out to my Sister and asked her for help, and she took me to my first-ever AA meeting. And I want to tell you, I had no idea what was going on there and uh and my journey in aa did not start well i i did not feel better uh well i guess i did feel better i felt anger better i feel fear better i fell resentment better uh there was a lot of things my one of my mentors charlie p charlie farmland used to always say you'll feel better all right you'll fill anger resentment and fear much better when you get here those of you that know sandy b you know sandy used to say you know what happens when you stop drinking you're sober and you find out why you drank and that's exactly what i found out when i got here all the fear of that five-year-old was back uh i i was i was tormented i love i heard eric clapton's story one time and and uh and eric talked about he was a tormented child and i just identified immediately with that torment that that anxiety that fear uh that i felt as a child and i was back there again in a it was the first time in 20 years that i had to deal with feelings that i Had to deal with emotions and uh and they were all naked they were all i mean everything i loved and everybody that loved me uh was gone you know uh i was alone with me for the first Time and and couldn't medicate through the bottle and uh And i was i was fear ridden i was instead of the five-year-old kid that was afraid to walk into school i was the 36 year old man who was afraid to walk into the meeting room and uh and i was just frozen in it i i was uh i was a five-year-old you know i really seriously got caught skipping school in first grade i didn't even know what skipping school was in first grade but i got picked up by the police outside the school because i was afraid to walk in the school and i wasn't that kid that had his homework done but if i had to to get out in front of the room and read it. Just give me the F and move along. I'm not getting up there. I am not doing it. As a kid, I didn't do any of the homecomings. I didn' t do any dances. I didn''t do any proms or social events in school. I was just scared to death to ask a girl out because if she would say no, I would have to kill myself. I wouldn't be able to take that kind of rejection so I just stayed a loner. That's a tough way to live when you're a teenager and all you can think about is one thing and you can't talk to women. And that's a problem, you know. And so I was that isolator. I was the kid that didn't feel a part of it because I wasn't a part of it. You know, I was like, oh, my God, I'm not going to do this. I was kind of the kid. It was the last kid pick. It was me and the heavy kid picked at the end of the team picks. And it wasn't because I was good at sports. I played junior varsity baseball in high school and varsity baseball in science school. So it wasn t that I wasn t athletic. It was just I just wasn t part of. And I know now it's because I didn't want to be part of or I couldn't be part of. And by the way, I don't know where any of that comes from. I don'T know whether I was just wired that way from, from birth or it had something to do with maybe the violence that took place in my house. Cause my dad was a, was a violent drunk. You never know who was going to walk through that door. My dad would walk throughthat door some nights and say, Hey, pack up the car. We're going camping. And I'm from Pittsburgh originally. My grandfather had a beautiful camp up in Cook's Forest area in northwest Pennsylvania, and we'd drive up to the forest and have a hell of a weekend, like build memories. Although sometimes halfway there my mother might ask where he got that car that we were in, and all hell would break loose in that car. I literally remember my mother being thrown out of the car in the middle of nowhere and us driving off, and the three of us at that time would look at each other well mom's gone you know i guess we'll get another one and she would show up later at the home when we got back home and and i have memories of my father coming home and my mother asking him something stupid like where were you the last couple days and all hell would break loose and i can literally remember me and my my brother and sister sitting on the couch watching tv while my dad would beat the crap out of my mother in front of us and it didn't happen once it happened over and over again. And by the way, that's not why I'm an alcoholic. It might be why I have this slightly nervous disposition. It will create that in a child. But I'm not an alcoholic because of the two questions on page 44. When I honestly want to stay stopped, I find I can't. And once I start, I can control the amount I take. And that's what defines us as alcoholics. My brother, by theway, was in the same house. He's not one of us. Although three out of four was caught the bullet uh there's me the oldest and then my sister who i called the 12 step me uh has two years less over than i do and it skipped my brother and thenmy baby sister died of an overdose 17 years ago and uh my brother will sit and think about our childhood and we'll sit and talk about our child hood and back in the day and you know he would get a little depressed and feel bad about it and then he would go have a couple of beers and go to bed or go watch tv and you know i would do the same thing and when i had those couple of beers i would go to town it was just a totally different reaction than he did and and my sister and my baby sister were the same way you know there's just the inability to control it once we started and about all that until i got here right no idea and you Know I went by my dad left i guess i was about six or seven years old i don't remember exactly when he took off uh and then my mother married another violent drunk uh my stepfather uh and god bless my mother she was just trying to survive she had four kids at the time and she was doing whatever she could to raise four kids on her own and couldn't do it on her old him but then this guy as i got older him and i started to clash physically because he wasn't my father and he wasn'T going to tell me what to do and I'm getting into my teens and early teens and uh and we're clashing physically and i know i need to get out of my house i know that i just got to get out of there and i know that my ticket to freedom is a car and so i buy a car at 14 years old in anticipation for getting my license at 16 years old and on my 16th birthday i actually drove from pittsburgh to harrisburg pa to get my learner's permit at the capitol at state capitol at the federal building and uh and drove back got my driver's license and i was making plans to get out of that house and uh and my cousin russell called me and heard i had gotten the driver's license in a car which made me very valuable back in the early 70s and uh he asked if i wanted to go to a dance with him and i said no i don't i don' t do the dances i just never never did any of that kind of stuff and was it a social kid and uh but he said well you don't have to dance uh there's gonna be a rock band there you can just come listen to the rock band and uh i said all right we can do that and uh I pick him up and my buddy rat everybody's got a friend named rat right I mean rat was a 16 year old italian that looked 30 you know like he had hair coming out of his chest I mean he was I think he was balding at 16 you know in Pennsylvania I don't know if anybody's come up that way but the drinking age was 21 in Pennsylvania and they had state stores and beer distributors you know you didn't have like i got here and saw booze in a 7-eleven i couldn't freaking believe it i thought i had died and gone to heaven you can actually touch bottles and put them back and pick them up and make choices and up there you looked at a list and you pointed what you wanted at the state store they had what they called lcb cards back then liquor control board card it didn't know it had a picture on our driver's license didn't Have pictures on them back then but the lcb card did and uh but rat looked 21 so rat was our designated go in the state store as a beer distributor guy to buy liquor and rat went into the state store that night and bought a bottle of boone's farm strawberry hill and a bottle orange vodka and uh halfway through that uh bottle of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill outside of that dance uh i went from peewee herman to john travolta and uh and i became like the life of the party i uh i danced i mean with every girl in the dance whether they wanted to or not you know it was you ladies you know that guy that keeps coming around in front of you like you're dancing with your girlfriends but this guy keeps coming right in front that was me you know staying alive i was doing my saturday night fever travolto imitation all over that dance floor and i danced with everybody in that dance that night uh i knew a new freedom and a new happiness that night i intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle me right i can see how my experience could benefit others in that dancing and uh and man i i had an awakening i want to tell you there was a transformation that took place that night and i actually touched a girl that night i actually got to slow dance with a girl at night i mean it was just an incredible night and uh and i knew that i was never never ever going back to being that scared little kid that walked into that dance that night and walked through that dance at night and i had found the magic and and i'll tell you when i when i speak to unmanageability i speak of this internal condition you know that that mark euston i heard i heard this years ago when i heard one of his talks he called that spiritual malady an internal condition and that identified with immediately that that torment you know that that that fear that anxiety that that inner dialogue that tells you you're not good enough or you're Not Smart Enough or You're Not Good Looking Enough or You're not tall enough and why do you have freckles and why aren't you as smart as that guy and you know I just there was just never part of I want I always wanted to be something else of somebody else you know wanted to Be Smarter or Better Looking or Taller or Heavier that guy I want to be that guy over there, not me. And that was gone. That, to me, was what managed my life. My emotions are the unmanageability in my life, and that fixed it. That was gone, and I was never, ever, ever going back to that tormented guy that I was before that blues farm show over at Hill. That was some magic right there. And, I mean, the short version is I went on a 20-year run. I didn't know about control or enjoyment. I didn't know anything about it. I mean, first of all, I never wanted to control my drinking. I don't know why anybody would want to do that. I loved the effect produced by alcohol. I mean the more the merrier. I just didn't notice there was this line that I would cross somewhere down the road. But I'll tell you this. The line I crossed was my lips as far as alcoholism is concerned. I really know that I caught the genetic bullet. You look at my family, it's just a long – there are bottles hanging from my family tree. Let's say that. it's just a long line of drunks uh my both my grandfathers are dead from this illness uh my grandmother on the irish side is dead from his illness my dad had four brothers and two sisters one sister is alive today aside from him who drinks a half a fifth of vodka every day to go to sleep you know i think he thinks it's a vegetable because it's potato vodka i don't he's got some bullshit excuse as to why he drinks every night but uh and like i said three out of the four of my siblings caught the bullet and you go look into my cousins and it's all out there also and so i didn't i didn'T know that my lips was a line i crossed i didnT KNOW that i DIDN'T have the ability to control it until i got here uh all i know is i love the effect produced by it that's all i KNOW and i mean really i mean alcohol has always been my go-to i could always just drink but if you had something to enhance that uh i was open to that you know my drug of choice became whatever you had to go along with the liquor you know i mean if you ask me if i wanted one of these i said of course i do you know I mean later i started asking what it was i mean what direction we were going anyway are we going up or down you know it was important because i'll tell you three days after i picked up a drink i went through a windshield and uh i wrecked three more cars that year i got arrested three times that year i lost my driver's license before my 17th birthday for eight years and got caught four times driving under suspension uh first felony at 19. but i love bill's story right ominous warnings which i failed to heed you know and but i didn't care i was going to figure it out i was like bill you know his his friends are objecting this you know the objection of his friends terminated in a row, right? And my guys were the same way. Like, look, we're not going with you tonight. You stay here. We're going to another bar. And I go, great. No, you're staying here. We're Going to Another Bar. We're not Going to Jail With You Tonight. We're Not Going to Wreck Another Bar With You Tonight. They just started. I started to become that lone wolf that Bill talks about after a while. and uh you know i uh i got married in 78 and i had a no i had my son in 1978 and i got married in 1979 and then i moved to south florida in 1980 and if anybody knows what was going on in south florid in 1980 i got caught in this massive snowstorm in south flora uh i found a way to drink around the clock and still make it to work It was an incredible gift. I had no idea how much I would like that, and aside from drinking all the time, I was partaking in these other substances that were allowing me to go to work and stay up all night, which was really a gift, and I became the number one employee, by the way. I had more energy than anybody in that building. They would just say, look at that guy. We need 10 of that guy to look at the energy that man has. And, you know, we don't even know where he is half the time. You know, and that was true. You know? I mean, it was crazy. They were delivering it to the job sites. And, yeah, I was up and down. You know what I mean? I don't know if anybody can relate to overshooting the mark, undershooting, overshooting, undershoot. I was just chasing that sweet spot all day long. You know. I would find it for a moment and then overshoot it and then try to come down to find it again and then undershoot it. I was spending $300 a day to go to work to make $80, and that will create some debt in the long run. I don't even know all my marriage. I became an absentee father. I became a man. I became and absenteee husband. I was never home. If I was home, I was sleeping. You know, I would pass out. i would get off work saturday afternoon and sleep until monday morning and then start over again and do six days straight and then come home saturday night and pass out and get up monday morning and go to work and i don't know how my wife stayed with me as long as she did but in 1989 she wanted out and uh and this is where this is where I look back and I try not to look back without morbid reflection as our book warns us but it's hard not to look back without regret and that's who I was and I hate who I was to be honest with you it really sickens me to be honest about who I was and who I was is if you want out, you're leaving with nothing because it's all mine. It's all my the house is mine. That's my son. That's my car. It's all mine and if you went out you're going with nothing and she wanted out so bad she left with nothing and I got the house and I got custody of my son took the car. I mean I just who I was that was just my mentality at that time and and so a couple of weeks later i'm sitting in my bedroom and it's this is the the the weird thing about zoom is that i'm city where i where it all takes place where my the beginning of the end takes place my bedroom is right there my son was playing in this room and i was in my bedroom with a bottle of jose and cuervo 1800. i mean it's like it was yesterday and here's what goes through my mind that bitch is out there having a good time and I'm stuck here with this kid and I was, I mean that's who I was. That's sad that is sad and I tried to take myself out in my bedroom with my son playing in this room right here and never even a thought of the impact that would have had on my son or the consequences of that behavior And here's the revelation I had after that. I'm a drug addict, not an alcoholic, right? I'ma drug addict. If I could just get off of these damn drugs, if I could stop this cocaine, everything will be fine. And I promised the ex, you need to come back. I love you dearly. You know, I can't live without you. Look at me, I'm gonna kill myself. And I know now that I'm drug addict and I'm never gonna touch another drug. No more cocaine. you know i'm just gonna and uh nobody else has ever made that promise i'm sure yeah and and she came back she came in because she thought i was a drug addict too and uh the truth is i never touched another drug i was two years clean when i hit the rooms of aa and uh we had another kid another son immediately and uh it took me two years I think I made it to Wednesday when I said I was only going to drink on weekends I thinkI made itto Wednesday and once again I'm an alcoholic and I don't know that I can't control it I don'y have any idea I just think I'm going to have a couple of drinks and go home and I just don't it took two years for me to get to a point where I just lost the grip and so did she she had just had enough And I don't even, to this, you know, I was in Brady's Lounge. It was like 2, 3 in the morning in North Lauderdale here. And I come home about 2 or 3 in The Morning. And to this day, I have no idea what she said. Someday I'm going to ask her what she says. She doesn't talk to me much. And we get together at family functions. We're not real social. And I have No Idea What She Said. And a fight ensued. my two kids came out of the rooms one was ten the other one was two and I knocked my wife down in front of my two kids my two boys saw their mother's head hit the kitchen floor and God I hated my father for that I hated my father for that picture and I gave my two boys that same picture and depending on your perception, it was either the beginning or the end or the beginning of the beginning often times I feel my life has fallen apart and it really was falling into place and that's exactly what was happening and I'm arrested, I'm charged, restraining order assault battery, I've been cuffed and taken from the house and she got the house and she got the car and she got the kids and I end up in a day's end for three weeks and I call my sister and I end up in my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous at the Fifth Chapter Club in Lighthouse Point and I want to tell you to this day I have no idea what was said in that meeting I don't even know what kind of meeting it was to be honest with you I know it's 4699 North Federal Highway I know the address and uh and uh all i remember about that meeting is a guy that looked just like papa smurf stood up at the end of the meeting and asked if there was anybody there that wanted to start a new way of life and i jumped up out of my chair and grabbed a white chip and it was march 26 1991 uh i was the only white chip i've ever picked up and uh if he asked that question in any other way if i get up i you know is anybody ready to surrender There was no way. That was just not in our vocabulary growing up. We weren't wired to surrender. Does anybody want to give up the fight? No, I need to get my house back. I need to get my sons back. I need to get that, I need to get myself back. I need my wife, I need to give up the fight or surrender. But yes, if anybody wanted to start a new way of life and man, I was at just at that point where yeah, I need a new day of life. And I had no idea by the way what you meant by that. I didn't know you didn't drink. My sister had been in AA for years and she drank. I had not idea. you know I didn't know this was forever either I mean you know I remember going up to some old timer and looking at him and I said you guys don't ever drink and he said no and I said forever and he looked at me with a smile on his face he said just for today and I thought wow and I didn' t realize how profound that was just today we just don't drink today but I didn''t get that I just, I didn't get it. You know, I fell in with the don't drink and go to Denny's crowd immediately. That was our mantra, you know, the don' t drink and g o to meetings, don't bring go to Danny's with us, and, you kno, don't pick up the first one, and meeting makers make it, and that's just not true. I mean, making meetings is a great suggestion, but it doesn't cure or help us with our alcoholism. I mean it helps, but it does' t cure it. It doesn' t give us a place called recovered, you k o. meeting makers who just make meetings get drunk i mean that's what happens you know and just you know don't pick up the first one they said some crap about even if your ass falls off pick up your ass and bring it to a meeting i'm not sure what that means but uh but that was my that became my new life work and meetings and denny's work and meanings and denys and and i was a meeting maker i mean i wasn't a 90 90 guy i was a 270 and 90 guy you know what i mean like i was in meetings if i wasn't at work i was at a meeting because first off i wasnít allowed to go home i was staying in the back room of my motherís and and and second off i was the only place i felt safe it was the Only Place I Felt Safe and The Only Place i Felt Okay and that that i did see the value in that and the value In The Fellowship uh you know i remember sitting at Denny's i wanted to ask him it's like what do you do for fun you know and i think they were afraid to tell me that that was it that they they ate a lot you know i mean sometimes we go to ice cream you know we have gratitude dinners where we eat you know with picnics where we eat and i'm looking at myself at the euphoric recall like this can't be my life you know all i'm doing is working meetings and denny's and and i i think they're afraid to tell me that was that was what they did for fun but I will say this I will stay that what kept me for the 90 days that I suffered really in a that's hanging in there you have you guys be I was hanging in there you know how you doing Pat she still got the house that's what I would say yeah are you doing I need to get my car you know are you don't have been house I got to get that house you know well I was the house I was that so if you have me I was doing it was about the house you know because that was who i was i spent my whole life getting that house and that bitch took it you know and so you asked me how i was doing i was going to tell you about the house yeah and uh but what i what i heard and what kept me for the three months that i was here was your stories you know the stories the fellowship kept me here i mean i i uh i heard the story i mean I felt like that yeah that happened to me yeah I did that you know And that, I knew I needed to be there. I didn't even want to be there. I knew i needed to be there but I really didn't want to be there and so I kept coming and I fell in with some good people as far as a fellowship. I get now the value of Denny's like they were they were dragging my ass after the 10 p.m meeting to the Denny'S to bloat me full grand slams and french slams and moons over my hammies and chocolate sundaes and you know then they'd send me home bloated so I couldn't drink you know and I get it what they were doing. They were trying to introduce me to people who really had the light in their eyes. They really did. I could see there were some speakers that I heard the light was on. I couldn't see there was something inexplicably different about those people. But I just could not stop the tape. I just Could not stop the fact that I had lost everything that meant anything to me. And I'm 90 days picking up my red chip and I'm dying inside. I am absolutely, I'm in a place in AA not much different than where I was in that hotel room. The only difference was there was no alcohol involved, you know. I'm In a hotel room and I can't stop, I can get any relief and I can't Stop drinking now. I'm an AA and I Can't get any Relief and I Can't drink and that's there's really no difference in what was going on internally except it was a booze involved and I'm ready. I'm just ready to, I want out. I want to go out. And so I pick up my red chip at the 10 PM meeting at the fifth chapter club. And I tell all of you off. I tell everybody what a bunch of losers they are that this is some kind of cult. And this just isn't working for me. If somebody hugs me again, I'm punching them. You know, I just had it. I would, I'll tell you the guy that used to really piss me off is this guy that used to introduce him. So I know, you know, this guy, this guy used to, every time he introduced himself, say it so i'll say he had a life beyond his wildest dreams right i wanted to kill that guy you know and that night i said what are you talking about do you even know where you are you're in a a nobody wants to be here and he was just giving this ridiculous smile you know and i would say you don't even have or a girlfriend i mean what areyou talking about and you know i realized now what he was talking about you know it took me years to realize when he was talking about it. See, I know, and I know I'm convinced at that point that I've got to get this outside stuff to fix the inside. If I could get this relationship back together, if I could gets this house back, if I can get my kids back, everything will be okay. He's coming from a different place. He's okay inside. And the outside is a bonus. The house would be a bonus, the relationship would be bonus, the car would be the car. It would be an abundance. And I had no idea that even existed. and uh and i left that meeting uh at a turning point right i was at a turning point and i was standing at the railing in the fifth chapter it was on the second floor and brian h uh who was in that meeting approached me with a big book in his hand right and he had just been by the way he had just been to a joe and charlie big book seminar so like he was on fire with the program and and he's got this big book he's shaking at me and he said you know there's a program here and i said yeah i've been here for three months he goes no you've been visiting the fellowship he said there's a program it's called the big welcome to their fellowship but here's the program and he's shaking his book at me i know now that like he had been to this joe and charlie seminar and he was on fire and he i guess i was his experiment to see if it worked i think you know and i know this later he told me he was working the steps right in front of me like like he was work at the step and then giving it to me and then working the next step and then doing it with me and then working and because he had he had been doing the same thing only he'd been around a year or two a year in prison and a year an aa and uh and charlie just set him on fire you know and uh that he wanted to pass it on to me so he said if you want to hear about the program i said okay why not what do i got to lose you know then i go into his little maza behind the fifth chapter club and uh he reads the doctor's opinion to me and man i have no idea where you were hiding that but man that's some pertinent information right there i mean somebody finally told me what my problem was and it wasn't on the outside it was on the inside you know i didn't know no i mean i i needed that information desperately what what every alcoholic and addict wants to know why can't i stay stopped and why once i start i'm off on a run you know and then he finally he described my life in that one paragraph in the doctor's opinion right we are restless, irritable, and discontent. Sober. Man, I was that way at 5, I was that away at 10, I was that at 15. At 16, I found the solution. But at 36, I'm back to restless, irritable and back to the bedevilance, right? And he said, unless we can find that ease and comfort that comes at once from a couple of drinks. And that was me three or four drinks and then boom off to the races right on a run and then we emerged from the run i am so sorry honey look unpack i know i know what i brought you i am your honor yes i understand i know that i promised but i mean it this time i really mean it this time that's a true story by the way i was in first time ever i got locked up in allegheny county jail in downtown pittsburgh in population right i did a lot of little jails a bunch of times but more than i can even remember but first time i ever in population in county jail and i was in my john travolta outfit right with my paisley shirt and my bell-bottom pants and my platform shoes i'm 125 pounds soaking wet addict alcoholic you know hair down to my shoulders and I'm in tears I'm absolutely in tears I've never been so scared in my life I swore on my mother at the arraignment the next morning to that judge that I would never ever ever ever again you know that was that felony charge by the way you know I was drunk before I got home so you guys get didn't get that my soon to be ex-wife didn't yet that that I'm on my way home after I get out and the first thing is oh my god, thank god and then I think my car's impounded I need money to get the car I don't have the money I got a court date, I need an attorney I just need to take the edge off just need it couple of beers and I'm out restless here on this ease and comfort, the run I am so sorry I promise you never again and I don't know how long you guys could make it I couldn't make it a week without a drink and it says this is repeated over and over and over again unless we can have some sort of psychic change or a little hope for our recovery somebody finally told me why I didn't go home I meant to go home I leave work and I called said I'm on my way home and I'd go through the drive-thru pick and pack and get one tall Budweiser for the ride home and disguise it in a brown paper bag, nobody knows what's in there right and I would never make it home, I'd call, start dinner I'm on my way I'd never make it hom oh it became a running joke yeah right, we'll see you later because I'd be on myway and I said look dinner's not going to be ready for about 40 minutes, I'll stop and say hi to the guys at the body shop real quick have a couple beers with them and i leave there and i'm going right past kokomo's i might as well stop in there have a cup of with joe the bartender over there say hello to him and the next thing like bill says it's two in the morning and i'm piling on the bar go oh my god you know what's the sense in going home now get whatever i need to get to work you know and that was just that was my life i didn't go home on a christmas eve Now, Christmas Eve, I didn't come home. Did you ever hear this? How could you? Did you ever hear that? I heard that a lot. How could you not come home on Christmas Eve? And I don't think I'm stupid, but all I had was, I don' t know. I don''t know. Because I didn' t kno. I didn''t kno what I didn ''t kn o. Finally, somebody told me what I didn'' t kn o, that I don'T, I'm not crazy. Anybody else think they were crazy? How many crazy people give up their children, crazy people give up the careers, crazy. People give up their freedom. Now sick people do that. People who suffer from an illness, a two-fold illness they do that and I thought I was relieved to find out that I was an alcoholic and not crazy you know and my recovery took off that day. I remember calling my ex, the restraining word was still on by the way, I called her and I go guess what good news I found out I'm an alcoholic. That's my problem. And she said, no, you're an asshole who drinks a lot. And she hung up the phone, you know. And she was correct. Brian said, you Know what she just said? And he said, yeah, she nailed it. You know, youre still the same guy that you were when you walked in here. You know. But I was ready. I was to surrender. Third step. I was right. What do we got to do, Brian? And we did the third step prayer and get writing. Get put pen to paper, you know and i finally put pen to paper and i don't know why that miracle works like it does but when that stuff comes out of my head and hits the paper and I see in black and white it just takes on a whole new life I mean there's this magic that happens when I'm not replaying it in my head and I put it on paper you know it actually I don't about you guys how stupid does some of look, right? I'm resentful of my wife because she took the house, because she took custody of the kids, because she took my car, because she divorced me. And then I get to that responsibility column and said, you were an absentee husband. You were an absenteefaul. That woman was trying to keep a roof over her children's head. She had me arrested. You assaulted of her. I had a resentment towards the police because they listened to me. They were called to the scene. It was a 911 call. They weren't doing their job. I started to have this transformation take place in my forestep. All I had to see was the truth. And mine was mostly resentment. Mine was mostly anger. The fear, I still, look, the fear is still that corroding thread that Bill talks about underneath all my behavior. All my negative behavior is fear-driven, still to this day. I mean, that's my thorn. Cindy would like that. That's my Thorn. It's still the fear is what keeps me coming back to God. And I have to work on it daily. Speaking, I don't know, I speak a lot and I'll tell you I have many panic attacks like four or five hours before and then about a half hour, 45 minutes before I'm fine. But God walks me through the fear. And God walks my through the fear during the day. I saw how I hurt other people with my behavior. The tools I was using to navigate life looked like this. Dishonesty, selfishness, fear, inconsideration, and we can go on to the seven deadly sins if you want. Those were the tools that I was using the satisfy my desires for life. My self-will, my social instinct, my security instinct and my sex instinct were all being satisfied with those spoons and the truth hit me right in the face. The truth hit people right in their face in my four step. I saw what a gift that sick man's prayer is in the four step and the proof about once it gets on the paper we start to look at this from a different angle. I start to see people from a different angle it wasn't her it was me he's nothing she's i'm not the victim i'm the perpetrator right she's the victim they're the victim in most cases there were a few cases where i wasn't my father i wasn'T a victim there i that wasn'T me i wasn'T the perpetrator there and i couldn'T see where i played a part in that there was no reason to see where i played apart in that but i know you i know this i needed to own it i needed to own it needed to own the reason the resentment see the truth in it so that later and maybe step nine i can be free of it but i needed to get free of i realize now what the third step told me is true right what's the third set say we're selfish we're self-centered we're driven by under forms of fear self-delusion self-pity and we step on everybody's toes and they retaliate and we blame them and we claim them and i'm going and i love the next line right but we usually don't think selves we usually don't think so no no no i'm a giver i'm like well my sponsor said how about doing a four-step and seeing if they're right see if theyre correct maybe they're wrong maybe they're not selfish so do a four step see if that's right see if they are right they were right that was right it's all selfishness self-centeredness and fear for me. Oh, what's in it for me? How much is mine? What about me? If I was doing something for you, I wanted something in return. But that four-step prayer talks about looking at this from a different angle, seeing where, you know what, they've got problems too. Maybe you should treat them as you would a sick person, as you are. Maybe you shouldn't see them in a different light. Maybe it's not about you maybe it's about them maybe they need your help how cool is that right where we start looking at it differently instead of what's in it for me i wonder how i can help that's the attitude change that took place for me right and forth you know right in step four you know and i'll i'll start to close with this but what i was afraid of was not four and i don't know if i'm alone in this i was a friend of five i was scared of five because five is the first time that i got to go outside of myself and let somebody know who i am you know let somebody know the truth up until this point i really didn't have to leave the house you know up to this point I really didn'T have to talk to anybody I could have just read it was all this in a book and done it myself now I got to speak to somebody you know now I now now it's a risk now I gotta take some risk and as much as I owed Brian my life I didn't trust him and not because he wasn't trustworthy I don't trust anybody you know i was i come in here i have trust issues man i don't trust the two people i should have been able to trust unconditionally let alone somebody else or some outsider i sat at denny's with you gossiping about all those people on the meetings and taking that speaker's inventory and by the way gossip kills absolutely kills in this program stop it if you're doing it I give anybody credit to get up at that podium and speak 100%. If you've got the guts to get out there, that's what they do to us. We come in here, we're newcomers. The biggest fear in the world is public speaking. You get a couple of months under your belt and they throw you up at a podium in front of a bunch of people. I give you credit for getting up there because I know how hard that is. But I'm taught my rule is if they're not there we're not talking about as soon as their name comes up i look around they're done you know we'll wait till they're here yeah but i didn't trust and i'm a member of this tough love men's group called the boca boys club who were not in boca and they were a bunch of old men i have no idea where they got their name but uh these are the guys that taught me how to show up in AA. These are the guys that treated me like the 36-year-old brat that I was when I got here. The undisciplined little brat that refuses to freaking follow directions, you know? Put your phone away, Pat. You know, that's what these guys in the middle of the meeting. I mean, somebody be sharing, you pick up your phone to look at it, put that away or go outside, you Know? I mean they just stopped the meeting These are guys, sit down Pat, this guy's speaking sit down you want to go back and go before after me you know don't disrupt the speaker i'm not taking anybody's inventory i'm just telling you what these guys were they were trying and i get it what are you picking on me for why are you picketing on me all the time you know i'd like to share about my ex-wife again no we're not talking about that right now the topic is powerlessness yeah powerless or my ex wife no pat get with us after the meeting we'll talk about your ex again right after the meeting you know these guys they used to have a pizza at the pizza shop before the meeting where you could go talk about all that kind of stuff you didn't need money anybody can come nobody you didn'T need money because the people that had money through 20s at the table and you know and the waiters would walk around way with $100 tips and the newcomers would come in here and eat for nothing you know but there's where they wanted you to talk about YOUR EX and your girlfriend or your problems at work all that kind of stuff but in the meeting they wanted you to stay on topic you know after the meeting there's some of them guys that stayed till two in the morning if you wanted to talk but right now we're going to talk about this pat you know you got my old bud reichardt he said that's when we could smoke in the meetings i didn't pick a cigarette pack up and throw it on son of a bitch it's you know okay bud you know a funny story i was i asked if i could chair the meeting and they and they said yeah that you can chair the meaning remember you have to wear a collar That's why I have this collar over my Santana shirt, you know. But he says, you got to wear a collar, you know, because that's all. It's the only thing we require. Follow the format, Pat, and wear a collar. I said, okay. So I got off work late the next Wednesday when the meeting was. Didn't have a collared shirt on me, but I went to the meeting anyway. I'm chairing it. Can't not show up. And so I go to the meet and I pass out the handouts and I go into the podium and the guy says, hey, you can't chair. I said what are you talking about? He said, you can't chair. I said why he said you don't have a collar on i said what the hell is the difference whether i have a collar chair in this meeting and he says the difference is pat you can't chair that's the difference i was pissed i mean i gave him a finger i walked out of there son of a bitches you know and the next week i came with a collar you know a shirt with a color on and but they taught me And look, respect AA for the sacred place it is. You know, and I'm not judging anybody. I'm just telling you what I was taught when I got in here. You know? If you're going to be at that podium, Pat, respect it. If you've got a chair, a function, put a jacket on or a tie. You know. But don't show up looking like you just got off work. Okay? You know what I carry now with me in my truck at all times? A collared shirt. Collared shirter. So these guys are on me about, when are you going to do your fifth step, Pat? You've got to get this fifth step done. Yeah, I'm going to go. I'm not going to try to do it. Yeah,I'm going do it and I decide to shut them up. I'm gonna call St. Andrews Church right over here at 11 o'clock at night. Nobody will pick up the phone and I'll tell them guys next Wednesday that I tried nobody answered, you know, and Father Queen picked up the phone. And I said, I am an alcoholic and all you want to do a fifth step. He said, be over my office tomorrow morning at 9.30. The Coral Springs group had been meeting there for years. He knew if you were an alcoholic and called him what you wanted. And I spent two and a half hours with Father Quinn the next morning, and my life forever changed, forever changed. I mean, some people maybe have it. I know a couple guys I've talked to that have had experiences in Step 3. I know of a lot of people that had them in Step 9. I know a lot of people that have it as a result of working 10, 11 and 12 I had my spiritual experience in step 5 and I left that office with a whole new outlook on life with a new outlook of the world Eckhart Tolle it's like walking into a room for the 100th time and seeing it for the first time I left that office and I had been in that courtroom that courtyard different court i was in that courtyard a hundred times and i saw it for the first time i saw green vegetation i saw bright red flowers i saw these yellow flowers on these trees i was looking around saying there are palm trees everywhere now i was going back to work looking around and going oh my god these trees are everywhere and i'm on my way home from work that night i'm heading west on this sawgrass expressway by our house and it's looking west and i see this gorgeous sunset and i can't wait to get to the toll booth to tell the lady about this sunset and I and I get there and I said look at that she goes what is look atthat he says yeah it's a sunset it's there every night I had been driving that road for 12 years and I had never seen a sunset andI realized I hadbeen looking at asphalt and bumpers my whole life i was just focused on the on me i was i didn't notice anybody i walk with my head down looking at the ground i didn'T even give you a head bob when you walk by i didn'T notice anything i was sitting at a light a traffic light i was looking at that light because when that one goes yellow this was going to go green i got places to go get on that horn because this guy needs to get moving in front of me and i didn'D even look if you could have died in the car beside me and needed help in the card beside me i would have never known it i was JUST focused on me and for the first time in my life I felt free without a substance in my body. It was the first time that I can ever remember that I was free, that I felt at peace without a sentence in my mind. God entered my heart that day. This is the solution we offer here. The great fact is just this and nothing less, that we've had deep and effective spiritual experiences that have revolutionized our whole attitude and outlook online. Central fact of my life that day was that God entered my heart and lives in a way which is deemed miraculous and commenced to do for me what I couldn't do for myself. And what I could not do was stay stopped. And the obsession was lifted that day. I haven't had the obsession to drink since that day I'm not telling you I haven' t thought about it That would be a lie. I stubbed my toe, I think, by getting, you know I mean, that's just who I am by nature. You know, in the back of my head somewhere, there's a part of my brain that knows that shit still works. That shit will still fix you temporarily, but I know the truth today, that that's blown up my life. I know that one drink, one alcohol in any form, I can blow up my wife. I can blew up my live without a drink simply by my behavior, you know, because my behavior will lead me to the drink. So I have to somehow align my life with some spiritual principles. That's what the third step told me I needed to do, and I found the truth in that. If I could align my wife with some spiritual principles, if I could just do what's right, I wouldn't have this internal condition that needs to be treated. So I wanted to stay there, but we know that's not possible, right? I mean, I wanted more of that peace that I got in step five. And to me, that's what The Rest of the Steps do, is they we get out of it and we get back in it you know i mean look we we realize how broken we are in six or seven we start changing we go out and we make the amends and steps eight and nine hopefully we've demonstrated some change but in 10 11 and 10 and 11 specifically it gets me back to that place when i left father quinn's office i can get back there anytime i want to work this program those defects of character on a moment-to-moment basis you know how free do i want to be at this point and as soon as i get out of that that that piece i have a tool to get me back into it that's step 10 and 11 you know i can i'm as free as i want to b if i want to work those two steps and i'd lust for that i absolutely i'd lost for more god like i lost for more alcohol when i got here you know before i got there i'd love it you know and then i get to do this and i get to work with other guys you know and that's that's been the transformation over over time the evolution of my recovery right i knew i needed to be here but i didn't want to be here and i don't know when it came when i wanted to be hier and then then i realized that i gettobehereyouknowthatwerechosenyouknow that we're gifted we've given this gift our stories become our greatest asset, our stories become our gift, our shared suffering my shared suffering becomes my gift if somewhere out there somebody's going to say I did that, I felt like that, yeah that happened to me what did you do? and I'll give them my number we'll have a nice conversation or we'll get together and we'll swap more stories and then I'll tell them what I did and I'm telling them what this program is all about and ask him if he's convinced and he wants to start the steps you know i mean look there's no requirement for well one requirement for membership in alcoholics anonymous but i want to tell you something there's a couple of them for a spiritual experience and that's the first two steps i mean that's why it says after how it works after the three-birded ideas being convinced right if you're not convinced of the first two then we're done as far as when i'm sponsoring guys you got to be convinced that that you're powerless and that no human power can solve your problem and at that point we'll seek the solution the god of your understanding not mine and that's that's just i get to do that i get look i'm not gonna i don't think it's an understatement to say we save lives here i don'T THINK THAT'S AN UNDERSTATEMENT WE SAVE LIVES HERE WE ARE THE MOST SUCCESSFUL ORGANIZATION FOR TREATING ALCOHOLISM ADDICTION I MEAN ALL THE A'S C-A-N-A AAA, DAA, HA, there's a bunch of them. MA, there are a bunch of them out there. We are the most successful people in saving lives when it comes to alcoholism and drug addiction because we get it. Because we get that. We get it because when I told you I drank on the way home from jail, you got it. You understood that. My psychiatrist said, how could you? Or if he said, I know how you feel, I said, really, you've given up your children for a drink? And no, well then you don't know how I feel. But some of you have. And you know exactly how I feel our defects become our greatest asset You know that it's just so cool. I mean and and God has always done. God has all used the broken To fix the broken, you know, I love that You know I just love that I needed to know that I need to know the God loved the broken because that's not the way I was Raised I was raised that if you did the wrong thing You were going to the fire and if you do the right thing you were gone to the gates and maybe you ended up in purgatory i don't know halfway house somewhere you know if you weren't bad enough to burn or good enough to go to the gates you know but you guys taught me that's not true you guys introduced me to something that was wrong my belief system was wrong you you taught methat god loves us broken because god uses the broken to fix the broken you know and we get to do that so i just feel so gifted to be able to do this today there's nowhere else i would want to be today i truly have a life beyond my wildest dreams that guy that i used to like have this resentment towards i'm that guy now i'm not guided i live my life on the inside out you know and i i love that it's not about the outside i'm telling you i don't like that stuff i like my truck and i like myself and i love my relationship i'm gifted in that area i get to walk this spiritual path with somebody who's walking in this spiritual path, and that's a real gift that I get. And I love all that, but that's not what defines me anymore. When you ask me how I'm doing, I'm going just fine. I'm blessed. Regardless of how much money I made today, regardless of the house, regardless of how everything else is going in my life, I am so blessed, and I'm blest to be here. So thanks for the invitation. I really appreciate it. Thank you.