Take Your Clothes Off and Walk Up to Main Street — Clancy’s Method for Finding a Higher Power 🫠 – John C.

Hi, Bob. I'm an alcoholic. Wow, John and I go way, way back. Hey, it's me. He drove down from Gainesville to be with us and share his experience, strength, and hope. And this guy does a ton of service work, and he's still involved with the newcomer today. It keeps him sober, keeps him on the straight and narrow. And, you know, we've cried a little bit together. We've laughed a whole lot together, and I've had a ton of fun with this man. And he's the one that opened his life and shared his experience, strength, and hope with me. I give you my friend and my mentor. I'm John, and I am an alcoholic. And I'm really pleased to be here. You guys do this every Friday night? Jim and I could be down here. No great food. Bob had asked me several weeks ago, and I'm honored to be here. It's been a long time since I've been at this meeting. I got sober in Roswell in 1981. Twenty years ago, I moved up to Gainesville, and I like it there. I'm a member of the Hawk, and we have bank robbers, bank managers, and bank presidents all meeting in the same room. It's an eclectic group of people, and if you're that way, please come by and see us. I was the middleman. I was the middle child of three. I have an older sister and a younger brother. Both are four years apart from me. I lived up to my sister pretty much. I grew up in Atlanta, and right around Peachtree Battle Area, Jones Golf Course, if anybody knows that. It was a small neighborhood then. Atlanta was a small city at that time, relatively speaking. And, uh, it was a great life. I went to elementary school there, went there to high school. I started drinking in high school. Instead of playing sports, I played sports for two years, and I got hurt, and I said, nah. The rest of the crowd drank beer after school. I was a fairly good student, regardless of what the University of Georgia. I'm a Bulldog. Somewhere along the line there in college with me, we're still together. Today, after 54 years, you could ask her why she stayed during those first 10 years that were so rough. She'd just say, it wasn't out of love. I didn't have anywhere to go. And I understand that. I traveled in my job. I was a manufacturer's rep. I sold contract furniture. That is a license for an alcoholic to run wild. For myself, how I got into Alabama and Tennessee, good area, good drinking area. And I know with me, I could come home on the weekends, recuperate a little bit, and get back in the car and leave again. My whole existence, I felt, was providing for my family, financially. Emotionally, my father wasn't around most of the time. So I didn't know all about leaving the money in. And that's all I felt my job was. You know, be nice on weekends. My son was born five years into our marriage. And I think that's where my drinking really picked up. Possibilities and the money and the things that were going out. I was scared to death. I didn't drink at home much. And I'd come home at seven. If I had really too much to drink, I'd order a pizza and ride with that guy. I didn't want to go home. So my wife saw a pizza coming. She was pissed. But I came to a point in my life where alcohol was not working. And I didn't really know that. My wife, one night, I came to her and she said, you know, your drinking's out of hand. And I'm not going to live with you anymore. You kill yourself. You make plans by clinging guns. You can imagine the Thanksgivings and birthdays and stuff where I'm coming in with my total hangover. But he was the man that saved me. He took me to my first meeting. He understood me. You know, at that point in my life, to the government, I was in turmoil. I was scared to death. I came into the rooms with the idea of staying for a month back out. I didn't come in to stay sober. I came in to keep my job and to keep my marriage. I was told early on, if you can't get sober for yourself, you aren't going to get sober for long. And that was the truth. I walked up steps and I said, listen, I'm in here for alcohol. Sober enough. And I spent 18 months coming in and out of these rooms. I think one time I had six months. That's what I could do. My last drunk, I don't remember. I was gone for three days. And I woke up. On my front, would not let me in. She said, we're splitting the house and you're getting the outside and I'm taking the inside. 50-50. I was fortunate enough that I had phone numbers of people in my home group that I went to. And I said, please just call them. Because I had no idea where my three days. These three guys show up and help me. What a lifeline that was. For me, they had said, you know, you've got to make a commitment. I had come prior to that. A close friend of mine in the meetings that I went to, Doc C, some of you might know. He and I went out to breakfast. I said, Doc, what do you think I ought to do? He said, first, you'll save money. And I went, you son of a bitch. He said, that's what you want, isn't it? I said, well, why can't I stay sober? He looked at me. He looked me in the eye and he said, you don't have the one requirement that it takes. For God's sake, tell me. He said, you don't have a desire. And until you have a desire, you're pissing in the wind. And that was true. I got a sponsor. He didn't like this. He was about my age now, then, and I was 30 years old. And he said, I'm going to be your sponsor. Sponsor. Sponsor. That's where my soul, that's all I need. You're going to be becoming one more person on my ass, like . You know, and that's what I thought it was. So I said, okay. And he said, we're going to go to a lot of meetings together and you're going to be driving because my eyes are not good at night. What the hell? Okay, I'll give you a ride if you need one. So we started up a relationship. He had been sober 13 years at that time. Somewhere during that, his wife died. He went out. He didn't make it up, just up 85, so somebody turns it up, and it devastated him. He came back into the program and was able to get sober, but then he moved down to Florida. A few months later, he hit a bridge in Bankman, and I think he took his own life. That time, the disease that me did, using my sponsor, I worked the 12 steps to the best of my ability. When we look at the first step, and we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, come to that understanding, because I, like many others, felt I was unique. If I get into martinis, it could be bad, but otherwise, it was bad, and I was enough alcoholic for me. I learned that along the way. I don't have to be the whatever. I was enough for me. I couldn't put down a drink. I couldn't say, no, I'm not drinking tonight. But working the steps, admitting that I were two different things. What it was, my mother was an alcoholic, and I'd get off the bus from school because she was passed out. I remember how upset I'd get. I'd be outside the window. I could see her, but I couldn't get her up. And that was not going to be me. I'd been in business with him for four or five years. We got together. He was my drinking buddy. But I didn't drink like he drank. So whatever. I was in all of these denial. Or did I pick it up from the alcoholic? Today, I believe it was my mother. I remember I was three years sober, and he lived in Sarasota, and I went down there. He said, you know, I can't drink. I'm on medication. I can't drink for the next six months. I said, does it bother you? No. He said, yeah. When we're through playing golf and everybody goes into the clubhouse, I feel estranged. I said, that's the only time? Yeah. Holy. I've been laboring under a misconception for a long time. My brother, I see him drunk. I'm sure Tim has. And my older sister drinks. But she doesn't drink like me. I don't. I try and utilize what I get in these rooms, and it means a lot more to me than trying to figure that out. That second half of step one, the unmanageability, for me, I felt I met that obligation financially that I provided for my family. That I did those things. That I did those things. I had children, and on the outside, it looked like I was doing a job. I still couldn't see that unmanageability in my life. Proved that to myself. When I came up, and the second step, I saw that God in there. I saw God written in the 12 steps. When I walked into the room, and I went, we talk about, my thoughts were a religious group, and I didn't want that. I had had it in my life. I'd been brought up in a church. up in the church. I was made to be brought up in the church. My parents didn't go. They just dropped the kids off at Sunday. They'd leave, you know, like, where are you going? God was a tough thing for me, the concept, to relate to that. And being able to say, to bring me back to sanity, I was insane in California. And wound up five days later in Birmingham in a mental institute. He didn't know what happened. But they were telling him, sit down, we think you've got mental problems. He said, no, I'm not. He said, no, I got mental problems. I got mental problems. That's about like I was. The other thing with God, my first was my home. Home group. And I don't know how many of you are familiar with Clancy, a circuit speaker. And one of the things that I heard that he said that made sense was, if you have trouble getting a higher power, take your clothes off and walk up to the main street out there and wave a card. And pretty soon a power greater than yourself will show up. And you can work from that. Talk about that. But the group served me for a while. But it wasn't enough. My sponsor continued to tell me to seek God in whatever way I could seek God and find God in my daily living. But that was a process. It didn't happen overnight for me. It was a number of years. It really took a process. It was through the sharing that I heard in the rooms. The people, I knew you people were sincere. And you had a conviction. And you had a faith in a God greater than yourself. But that took a while. Today, I do have a God working in my life. It might not be yours, but he's working good for me. And I rely as I can. The old thing of trying to turn everything over to God is tough. Like a friend of mine says, the hardest part of trusting God is to trust God. And I believe that's true with me. When I got to the third step, the care of God, is I understood. A friend of ours always says, my will is my life. My will and my life over to the care of God. My will are my thoughts. The action, it cannot turn them over to God, my understanding, other than other times. But I know I'm in because I get a good feedback. The first step put me out 17 days. 17 pages of shit that I can remember. And I got back to my sponsor. He said, does all that stuff bother you today? No. He said, then why put it down? You know, the fact that you stole $25 from your brother when you were 15, does that bother you? Okay. You put down the things that bother you. You put down the things that you wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning and worry about. Or they creep into your mind. Wouldn't you? I could. With me, I went. They don't talk. That was their order. There was a guy by the name of Damien. He works with alcoholics. I put in a request to see him. And then I go back to a room for dinner. He comes in with a gold t-shirt on with a dragon on it all day. I'm Damien and I'll work with you. He said, where are you on this? You've been doing this. He said, you don't need to see me. Do your fourth step tonight. I did. I put down. He said, put down whatever sticks out like a sore thumb to you. And I did that. And we met the next day. And he said, now give me all your good attributes. So we balanced them. I don't know whether he's still alive or working down there now from the monastery. But as Bob said, the life that AA has given me has been incredible. I've been able to see both my children. I have a daughter that was born four years after my son. Adults. What a blessing. Their grandfather and my mother, their grandmother, both can enjoy it. Bob and I scuba diving. And we put together a trip and started doing that. Able to go to me many times with different language. But today, my challenge is that we have a tremendous amount of recovering alcoholics in Gainesville. We have about. We have a lot of young men. A lot of them don't have a, can't navigate life today. I mean, if you went into prison before cell phones came, came out, you come out, you're, you're in the dark. Because we depend on them so much. So opportunity to work. A lot of them don't want it. You know, they're given, they're placed in better than going to prison for a year. And from what they tell me, other people say, I'll stay drinking and go to prison. Without that desire, you can't get it. I couldn't. Until I would make the conviction to myself, my innermost self, that I'm alcoholic. It could be a lot of things. I'm, I'm grateful for that. I've drawn the log. I'm, I'm no better than the best of you and no worse than the worst of you. Things I wouldn't have done and gave me that. I'm grateful for the God that this program has given me. That does. The best work in my life on a daily basis. I have today, the woman that I love, she still gives me a lot of shit, but she's still with me. I'm still with her. I can't ask for a lot more than that out of life. And with that, I'll pass. And I appreciate your listening. Thank you, John. That was great.