The Book I Was Going to Write Was Called It’s All About Me 🤦 – David K.

My name's Tim and I'm an alcoholic. Welcome to the Monday Night Blue Chips speakers meeting at the NABBA club where a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more of sobriety tells his or her story. This reading is based on a passage from page 29 of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Each individual in our personal stories describes in their own language and from their own point of view the way they establish their relationship with God. These give a fair cross-section of our membership and a clear-cut idea of what has happened in their lives. We hope no one will consider these self-revealing accounts for bad taste. Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women in our room tonight and listening later on a bluechipspeakers.org desperately in need will hear our speaker. And we believe it is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that any of us shall be persuaded to say yes. I am one of them too. I must have this thing. David Kaye comes back to the podium a year later. Hopefully a year wiser. But he was scheduled for his birthday in October. His work keeps him on the road a fair amount and he had to reschedule and he's made it work out for us to have him here tonight. So here he is, David Kaye. Hey everybody, I'm David, Alcoholic Anonic. Glad everybody's here tonight. I'm glad to be here. I'll tell you a little bit about myself. My sobriety date is October 13th, 2013. I'm 54 now, so if you do the math on that, I basically used and drank from the time I was 15 until I was 50. So, pretty long period of time from 15 to 50. I'll tell you what it was like. What happened and how I am now. So I was born in New Jersey in 1963. Middle class family. Middle child of three. And I grew up with a normal life. My parents were hardworking, very caring, very loving. We had a close-knit family. And to the best of my knowledge, there was no alcoholism in my family. There was. An uncle by marriage that was an alcoholic. And he was kind of always, he was known as the alcoholic in the family. You know, you always knew that his face was red. And, you know, he wasn't around at family events all the time. But nobody else in our family really drank. It was pretty normal, you know. So I took my first drink when I was probably about 12 years old. I'm Jewish. I used to go to a synagogue on a Saturday. And I decided I was going to get drunk after services. And my family was going to New York to go to Radio City Music Hall. And I was too sick to go. And that was my first drink. I couldn't stop. I had like three or four of, you know, grape wine. But still, you know, I like that feeling. And I'll never forget that. Then I, you know, I didn't drink for a while after that. It was one time. But then there were other things. And then there was college. And college brought back, you know, a lot of the alcohol. There was some in high school. But fraternity initiation was a night that I blacked out. Had a couple major blackouts. I was a blackout drinker. So I didn't drink a lot or often. But when I drank, I blacked out. So there was a New Year's in high school where my friends left me in front of my parents' house. Passed out, you know. That was a good feeling for my mom opening the door and seeing me, like, you know, laying there. That was good. I'm still friends with some of those friends now as well, too. We laugh about it. There was fraternity initiation where I have no idea how I, you know, I lived through the night. And then there was a time in 1986 when I had gotten right out of grad school. Everything was good. But I wasn't happy. And I was living in Naples, Florida. And I went out with one of my friends. And there was a happy hour, unlimited drinks at a bar. I hadn't drank in a while. And both of us. Well, we got really drunk. I don't know how I lived through that night. But I woke up walking down the street in Bonita Springs, Florida, out of control. I was lucky that I was picked up by an undercover police officer and taken to the hospital because I had a gash on my foot. I heard that we had driven home to our apartment, my roommate and I. I had been driving. I thank God that I didn't kill anybody or get a DUI. I didn't do anything, but somehow I made it through that night, but I wound up losing my job because I was in the emergency room in the hospital that night with a big gash in my foot and I couldn't make a meeting in St. Petersburg the next day. So here I was six months out of grad school with a great job and I lost it. So I had to start over. So I stopped drinking. Then I started doing other things, you know, and I just kept on going and going and going. And that was 1986. So. In 2013, I hit rock bottom. I had been going along rock bottom for a while. I'm sure, you know, all of us have gone through this. I kept on. I remember being on MARTA one day going to a business meeting in Memphis after an all night bender and not even saying to myself, I got to stop. I got to stop. And, you know, I can't keep on doing this. And it just reminded me of being rock bottom going along like railroad tracks. I was literally on the train getting to. And I somehow, you know, made it to a lot of these meetings that I had these business meetings all over the country. But that was a mess. I was a mess. You know, I would be sweating in a meeting. I mean, if people didn't know I was using or drinking, you know, shame on them. They should have known. I mean, I was just, you know, I mean, it was the day after. It was always the day after. So finally, I hit rock bottom. I was living in Dunwoody by myself in 2013. And I got arrested. And I spent the night. I spent three nights in DeKalb County Jail. And it was the first time. I always thought I could beat the system. It was the first time that I had ever gotten in any trouble. I had lost my family. I had, you know, I had lost my pride. I had never lost, you know, I had lost my job one time. But I, you know, had 30 years after that of a great career. And then I wound up being in jail on Columbus Day weekend in October of 2013. And that's when I realized. Oh, and before that, I had gone to a few meetings. Because one of my girlfriends had told me, if you don't go to a meeting, I'm going to leave you. Well, I would go to a meeting and then I would go and use and drink after the meeting. I mean, I didn't take it seriously. I had no idea what the big book was about the big book was the New Testament. When I shared, all I did was complain about everybody around me. And somebody said at the end of the meetings, of course, keep coming back. And I didn't know what it meant. But now I do. So when I hit rock bottom in 2013, I was sitting in the DeKalb Jail. It was a game changer. It was a game changer for me because I realized that, OK, I can't do this anymore. And I had never been willing to do anything. And that's a big word for me, willing. It was always I was going to write a book. And it was the book was called It's All About Me. I joked around with my friends about it. It was all about me all the time. And then I sat in that jail for three days, not knowing if I was going to get out, worried if I was going to get out. You know, I'm worried if I was going to lose my job. And it was Columbus Day weekend. And I wrote a letter to God. I wrote a letter to myself and to my family saying that this was this was it for me. I needed to change. And when I got out, I met with an attorney. And the attorney said, first thing is you need to get yourself to meetings because if I'm going to represent you, you need to get to meetings. So I went to 81-11. I still go to that meeting now. 81-11 at 10 o'clock was there last night. And I sat myself in the chair and I didn't say anything. And I kept on coming back. And I was in St. Louis on a business meeting about three weeks later. And I called that attorney and I said, hey, I've been going to AA. And he said, don't you ever call me back until you've been going for several months. I don't want to hear from you. I don't want you to tell me what you're doing. I just want you to keep on going. And it just it humbled me even more. So I kept on going to meetings. I finally got a sponsor after I was, you know, it was dry for three or four months. And. I found a sponsor who was leading a nine o'clock at eight o'clock meeting on Friday there at 81-11. And he took me through the steps probably over two or three months. And we went through all the steps. I didn't stop at three. I kept on going. And I did, you know, my fourth and fifth. I did my fifth in the parking lot of Marist because I live right there. And I'll never forget that that really changed my life. I mean, the program starting to work this program did miracles in my life. I started to see changes immediately and everything that was going on was functioning much better. I was taking better care of myself. I was nicer to people. Although that's still a character defect. When I get very hyper, I'm a little jumpy, but I really started to change. And my first sponsor stayed with me for about we stayed with each other for about a year. He lived in Forsyth County. So we didn't get to see each other. All the time, kind of lost touch and moved on to my next sponsor. Meanwhile, that during that time, I started a drug court here at DeKalb County. So I had AA and I drug court at the same time. And that really put me in my place about where I needed to be every day. I had all kinds of rules and restrictions around me revolving around drug court. I'll never forget. One of my colleagues from drug court is here today, and I'll never forget. I walked in drug court is supportive of AA. But they don't want. You know. You're talking about it. And I walked into drug court. I had been in AA for three months and I was a know it all. I thought, you know, I was sober and I was going to AA. And I had to learn a few humbling lessons in drug court about playing by the rules and listening to other people instead of talking. And that really helped me a lot. I graduated from drug court last year. And, you know, my sponsor was there, Richard, who is here somewhere, was my temporary sponsor for a period of time. I don't know. Where's Richard? There's Richard. Hey, Richard. And then Rusty is my sponsor now. So I've had four different sponsors. And that's been really important to me. And I have a really good network. I still come to NAVA all the time. I come to the 930. I come to this meeting. Go to 8111. I try to go to meetings when I travel. And, you know, this program has really done just I've had some great times during this program. My girlfriend's here with me. I've been with her for three and a half years. She started with me six months after I got sober. So she had to go through the whole drug court thing. She knows she's very supportive of me going to meetings. My mom passed away last year. Got diagnosed with cancer in February this year. This year and died in April. She died in two months. So, you know, this program gave me the benefit of being with my family and being there and being present instead of with the old David, which I would shut my windows. Shut my shades. Shut off my phone. Use some drink and do whatever for 72 hours to escape from everybody every weekend if I didn't have my kids. And this time when my mom was ill, I was there. I was present. I was very close with my sister and very close with my mom before she passed away. And she knew I was sober for the years that she was still here. So that really helped me a lot that she knew that I was on the right path now. So the program has been absolutely fantastic. For me, as far as building my network and learning, I still have a lot of character defects. I try to take inventory of them every night when I go to sleep. I'm much more spiritual now than I ever was and much happier. The meetings are what keeps me sober. You know, the meetings are what keeps me sober because if I stopped coming to meetings, I know I would go back out again. But I know I need to come here and I need to listen. And I need to hear everybody's story every once in a while. I need to share. That's why I'm up here now. But I don't try to share in every meeting. I try to listen to the stories that are similar to mine, which they all are, and to be humbled by where we are and what this program has done. And some of the highlights of being here is, you know, the convention that we had in Atlanta a couple years back. Seeing all of our colleagues there for, you know, all those meetings. And the Dome, which is no longer here now, but, you know, having 70,000, I think, of us in the Dome at a meeting at one time and doing the serenity prayer, which was amazing. This program did for me and has done for me what nothing else could do. You know, it got me to change the way I thought, to be humble, and to start listening. And that's really, you know, that's really the game for me is that, I've learned how to start to change and to continue to change and know that this is a journey. A couple of my friends, when I first started coming to meetings here, you know, when I first got arrested, said, well, you know, how long are you going to go to AA? And I said, the rest of my life. And he goes, you know, my friend says to me, well, why would you do that? And I'm like, well, because I need to and I want to. And I feel more strongly now about that statement than I did three years ago. I really think that this is, you know, being in the big book. And coming to meetings and various different types of meetings in different cities is what keeps me sober and what keeps me going on. So I'm trying to think of anything else. You know, relationships have come back. You know, I didn't have a strong relationship with my sister. My sister and I are very close now, and she knows that I'm in the program. My children, who I could, I used to resent so much my children when they were little that, you know, you know, I couldn't wait to give them back to their mom and to go out and get my next fix. That's what it was all about. It was like, all right, how fast can I get rid of my kids? Can I pretend I'm sick? You know, can I pretend, you know, when they're over, I would use sometimes when they were over my apartment. I mean, you know, I was doing everything wrong as a parent. I was, you know, just absolutely wired the wrong way. My kids know that I'm sober. My kids know that I'm in the program. My sons have gone to meetings with me and my sons have grown up now. They're 19. Almost 19. And I'm a 16 and I have a good relationship with them. And that means the world to me. You know, my number one job other than my career, my number one job is to be a good boyfriend, a good partner and a good dad to my children because I want to be a good role model. And I've done that the last four years where I wasn't able to do that for the first 14 years of my oldest son's life and, you know, 11 years of my youngest son. And that really makes a difference. I'm there for him now. So that's where I'm at now. I know I'm probably pretty short. That's really short. But that's my story. That's, you know, that's where I've been and that's where I'm at. So if it wasn't for this program, I probably wouldn't be alive. I wouldn't have a relationship. I wouldn't have a career. You know, I will say one thing. You know, the people in my company, I've been with the same company for 14 years through three different mergers. And, you know, they used to be suspicious of my activity. But they were 800 miles away. My bosses used to say, is there something going on with you? You know, but I'm in sales. So if you're in sales, you can be anything as long as you're selling something in a lot of companies. But that was the other thing is, you know, my starting this program was coincidental with a very large $13 billion Japanese company buying our company. And I wasn't going to be able to do the same things I did for the first nine years of my job there. And the president of the company, he doesn't know I'm in the program, but he keeps on, every time he sees me, he says, boy, you have changed so much since I first met you. He always says that. You have really changed so much. And if he only knew, well, he sees the results of AA. He sees what I've, you know, become and where I'll go. So that's all I have. I know that's very brief, but that's my story.