The Ego That Thought He Was a Great Husband – Jay P.

Well, there we go. I did it. I unmuted. Jay, grateful to be an alcoholic, powerless over alcohol. My dry date is October 16th, 2000. I believe I got sober by the mercy of God God and I stay sober by the grace of God. I got, I moved to Florida from the New York City area in 1997 and I said my sobriety date is 2000 but I've been going to the same home group in boca for 25 years it took me a little while of slipping and sliding but uh i did most of my damage i'm going to tell you what it was like what happened and what it's like now that's what i was taught by my sponsor who has a sponsor it's uh so amazing thank you stephen for asking me you know i i feel as though I know Steven, and I know the people I've met on this venue, as well as I know my close friends that I've grown up with in this program. I really do. I've made some of the people that I met through this process last couple of years in person, andI plan to do more. my whole bucket list has changed we'll get to that a little later on my bucket list is to go to uh kingsport tennessee buffalo new york two places i've never been uh to meet all my friends that i've made here uh and i can't wait to make those journeys you know make that journey anyway there was a guy that somebody asked either phil or stephen asked to speak on this uh i'm not sure which his name is peter m and he kind of told my story it's about a few months ago he was speaking peter marinelli and i met him down here and he's kind of a circuit speaker but i didn't really the last time i heard him on it must have been on a saturday night because i believe phil asked him and uh he kindof told mystory when i was 11 all i wanted to do was drink and drug and hang out with the older guys hang out with the wise guys and uh i couldn't wait to get my first drink and i started blacking out probably around 13 14 and uh i went to my first institution at 12 or 13 reform school of course i was incorrigible my mom my mom uh reported me to the cops and i had to go away and that was my first one and i met a guy named jimmy lehman james lehmann passed about 12 years ago and he uh he died with 25 years and i meet him about 40 years ago no about 35 years ago something like that he was my counselor some of you may know may may have known james lehman uh maybe not a lot of people down in florida did he move down here it was for me but yeah so that was my drinking i don't like really to talk about it that much uh i would always tell the next the last institution i was in was a psych hospital in philly don't know how i got there do not know how I got to philadelphia uh was for a psych psychiatric hospital for drugs and alcohol and there was a gambling counselor there gambling's a part of my story as well and it gets into my recovery but so that was my last i fell in love three times in that institution and uh the lucky winner sold her home and divorced her husband and we stayed together for a couple years before i escaped from her because she became my problem alcohol was not my problem she became mi problem and uh i think she reached out to me a couple times on facebook but i don't really go on that so i don' t know uh so that was a long that was 20 that was 25 or 27 years ago something like that and uh that's how i wound up down here the one of the other ones the second one i was in i was getting picked up in new york city quite a bit for my drinking uh solid alcohol uh and my uh dispensing salad alcohol and i uh went to a therapeutic community based on the synanon and the daytop village one and they gave us alcohol privileges if anybody's familiar with that uh when i tell younger people that they gave us drinking privileges they go what what you know drinking privileges yes they gave drug addicts drinking privileges back in the day and uh they said if you if you don't have if you have a drinking problem if you do not have a drinking problem you could get drinking privileges when you go into this next uh part of the program but i always admitted to having a drinking problem i couldn't i couldn t deny it i never took my drinking privileges because i i grew up from the first one i was basically a blackout drinker and uh i liked the feeling produced by alcohol then and then it got me obviously it got me but what happened was the men in alcoholics anonymous the first three years rolling around Boca Raton I got married or I got engaged to be married from a girl in the program and I was drinking 90 days before the date of the wedding and she busted me drinking and gambling and she married me anyway against the advice of my sponsor and my sponsor then is my sponsor now and uh on october 16 2000 or october 17 2000 when i went to my home group and admitted drinking again my sponsor said if if you drink again i'm not going to be able to sponsor you anymore because it won't be working and he said it in a loving way he really he said that in a lovely way and i didn't want him to not sponsor me anymore and i still don't want to not sponsor me he's still sponsoring me and he uh he said if you go out one more time i can't sponsor you and that was that was huge and then he took me through the steps in the big book of alcohol it's anonymous and uh we did it page by page first 164 pages and we did the work the 12 steps i admitted the third step with him took the third set prayer with him in the parking lot i shared it last night when we celebrate the anniversaries on the last monday of the month and i reminded myself that we did the third-step prayer in a in a parking lot in front of a thai restaurant and it was very spiritual for me and uh i also gave him my fifth step in a similar spot maybe a few parking spots away and after i gave the fifth step that was really an amazing uh burden lifted i had never really shared any of those secrets growing up what happened to me and now it's it's very very easy for me to share my experience strength and hope with people it's what brings me joy sponsoring guys i don't sponsor too many but i'll continue i'll continue in order because my story has a little bit of uh peaks and valleys you know i did make a connection with god working those steps and uh i divorced that girl i married that girl divorced that girl and five years later she drank she had a couple years on me and she picked up a drink and she's been slipping and line since um and then i went to al-anon i became friends with a bunch of guys and i i was doing okay and i was going to another fellowship for my gambling and then I decided that that fellowship wasn't as good as aa and i really i really found out that i was thirsty for a bet i really wasn't i really needed that fellowship and i left and the disease of alcoholism in all its forms is very cunning and uh i don't claim i claim recovery from my gambling date which is a lot later than my than my dry day but uh because the double life that we read about in the big book i was living the double life i was walking around like a sober man and i was lying cheating and stealing and gambling against with my third wife that was my third life i wouldn't even talk about my first wife because she came before i found a.a and uh she and i are friends and my third and my last wife who's got 30 plus years in al-anon took me to i met her in al anon and i was in alan on because i grew up in that alcoholic home and uh you know i just i just found the connection working the steps with a power grader than myself i call god and i met a man beside my sponsor his name was dennis o and he had about he got sober before i was born and he passed in 2017 and i call him my spiritual advisor and i have his mask card up and i Have my dad's picture up i have my other friend frankie d's mass card up and i conversed with these men on a daily basis uh and i get so i don't i didn't lose that but dennis really helped me my home group is a men's meeting in boca not the one not the men on track although i got a lot of help from the men on men on tract the late great ben t was important in my uh on my journey as well the men really saved me the women too but the men the men were much uh much more loving on me meaning uh they were very very patient i was not very lovable in the beginning and i didn't know that i had an ego i really didn't know I thought I was a great husband a good dad a good worker I was none of those things really I was really none of us but my ego was such that I thought it was really good at everything and knew I knew everything and I was good at every thing and wasn't really the case wasn't really the truth. The truth of the matter is I was a scared, selfish, self-centered to the extreme and scared. And most of my problems were usually of my own making, which I heard this morning. I go to a Buffalo men's meeting in the morning, 730 in the morning on Zoom. And I get all the strength for my day from that meaning as it's just a miracle how this thing works there's a guy on this meeting from that i met that always says i i couldn't miss this thing and uh you know i came this close to missing this thing and i live my life like that you know I really truly lived my life like that if everybody didn't help me I couldn't ask for help but I got so much help that i didn't even know i was getting help in the beginning um dennis would always ask me how was my way working when i was still drinking every time i would come back he would just keep asking me the question in a loving way and he was a pretty rough guy he was like again he's a gang not like a gangster he is a gangster you know and uh he told me once he broke all ten commandments and i go and you're and he was this loving guy and we would go out for breakfast a bunch of bikers a bunch of construction guys and some of us had shirts on shirts and ties on and we would start praying over breakfast in a in a denny's and we would pray over lunch and we would pray for dinner and everywhere we go we would pray and henry the problem would tell me always told the story about dennis that he that he asked dennis if he could help him and dennis told him no so if you ask henry if he can help if if he would be able to help you he would say no and if somebody asked me if i can help him i would also say no but i will take you where i go for help is what dennis taught us he instilled that in us and when he would talk dennis he would say our very lives as ex-problem changers depends upon our constant thought of others and how we may help meet their needs which is a quote which is written in the big book on the top of page 20. and he would he instilled that in me and he instill that uh just love him and what are you doing for other people right now where is your thought our very lives as ex-problem drinkers it never left me it never let me i didn't know why i wanted what he had but eventually it took three years but eventually i wanted what the men in that meeting had and clearly it wasn't you know women and money and all of that it was peace peace and serenity and uh you know i have that to a great degree today and my journey did take a did take little detour into the depths of darkness in the in the gambling world and And for another time, I thought I was doing well. I thought was a sober guy, even though I was lying, like I said, cheating, stealing. And I had to get busted by my wife again in order to seek God's hand in my life. I was so far away from God at that moment. It was only about six years ago now that uh i had to start over again in another and back in that other group and i found a sponsor who uh in that another group so now i have two sponsors and uh i need them i need both of them and i needed all the people on all these meetings uh to help me and i ask god on a daily basis i i go to god before i go to that meeting at 7 30 in the morning uh i do a bunch of reading i'm bad at writing my my sponsors want me to do a little more writing than i've been doing uh so i'm praying for the willingness to do little more writing at this time and uh i have a lot of friends you know i don't have a lot of money uh but i have a lot of money i don t have a lot of you know things but i have a lot of things because i have all the friends that i have there are guys in my journey there were men that helped me when i was down we had another fellow last night that i've known for 25 years and he he shared his story last night and he said uh he was down and he felt the peace when he was done financially you know he he does pretty well financially as i do you know i should never say that i don't have money because i'm definitely i'm definitely blessed in all areas of my life you know I sometimes forget that You know, I sometimes am so egotistical that I forget what blessings I've been receiving and continue to receive on a daily basis. I have so much love in my life from the men and women in AA, not only in South Florida, but in Southwest Florida, in Buffalo, New York, and in Tennessee, and all over the country from this. I've been to Toronto. I was hearing the people before the meeting talking about Toronto. I went to my first international in 2005 in Toronto, and there was – the guy just died that was the speaker, the Saturday night speaker he just passed. But he was the warden. The guy was the Warden, and there were all these people in the football stadium. If you've never been to an international, you might want to try to get to one uh it was just an amazing uh experience and i went with my ex-wife my friend frankie d and his wife and it was an experience uh we were getting divorced my wife and i were getting divorce and we went to tomorrow she wouldn't let me go to toronto without her and we were in the midst of a divorce but we went and i had the time of my life even though we were getting divorced and uh my friend you know i got close with my friend frank on that trip and he since passed as well but uh we would go around and we would go around to meetings uh on a daily basis we would ride motorcycles to meetings and we would look for girls even though he was married maybe i was married and we would still look for girls so that wasn't really spiritually fit um but uh but we did have a lot of fun and as i said i thought i was a good husband even when i was doing that kind of thing i was just so deranged so mentally defective that uh i really was delusional you know talks about that in the forwards talks about some of the uh some of the different types of alcoholics and some of us are outright mental defectives it talks about there and sometimes i think when i get to thinking that i could think my way into a drink now i'm pretty sure i can think my way into it right now and i'm afraid to do that when i first got here they said that the road gets now gets more narrow and i had no i had no idea what that meant and i'm learning now because this is the most important thing that i do my recovery is the Most Important Thing That I Have In My Life every moment of every day is a gift every time i thank god when i get up first first thing i do is thank god that i got up and every breath i take is a gift because i don't know how to breathe life into me god breath breathes the life into and uh i love to help i love to help out my sponsor gave me a direction early on do three nice things for people he said it usually does five nice things for people but he said just do three nice things for people and don't tell anybody see the doing the three nice Things was was not the difficult part of the of the assignment the difficult part for me in the assignment was not telling anybody about it and I had real trouble with that I had a real trouble With doing nice things For people and not bragging on myself about it and i wanted to tell you what a nice guy i was which basically negated the the kindness if i was doing kindness just to talk about it then i wasn't being kind that was being self-centered and it took a lot a lot of step work a lot of prayer and meditation and really it's very simple this program is really really simple i pray to stay honest today because i will trick my disease will trick me into betting lying stealing this guy shares he has about 40 years and he shared this morning that he doesn't lie cheat and steal near as much as he used to do and i just love that because i can identify with that i practice honesty i have to make i have to do 10 steps sometimes when i do lie and i would lie when the truth will would do i hear that every morning pretty much i've told lies when the true truth will do what'd you have for lunch oh i had a salad i don't think i've ever had a salad but i've told people that i've had a salad um and they really don't care what i had for lunch they were just like making a conversation but sometimes i would just lie about it for the heck of it and then i would have to say i lied or admit to god and myself and another human being that i that i did that and that's helpful to me you know the the humility that i can experience after I had to tell somebody that I lied, it's worth it. It's worth it to me. Because then I will try better not to do. I'll try next time not to say that as much because it's kind of it's kind of not fun to say I lied when I'm supposed to be this sober man. You know, and I hurt my family. Not proud of my behavior. You Know, but God forgave me and I forgive myself and i forgive everybody that hurt me i like to talk about my dad a lot he didn't have the blessing that we all share here of the 12 steps when i was in that treatment center he said he went to 90 meetings in 90 days of aa with my aunt who's celebrating 40 years in april she might not really my aunt she's my mom and dad's friend from school or whatever and we called her aunt and she's going to have 40 years in AA and so my dad went with her for 90 days but he was drinking a fifth a day and he says he didn't drink and he would have seized that he would have died of a seizure if he didn'T drink for those days but he's convinced he didn' t drink for 90 days and he read the part in the big book where it said maybe he was just a heavy drinker. He said, yeah, I'm a heavy drunker. He decided he was a heavy drinking man. He was a drinker and not an alcoholic. And I could easily spot my father's defects of character and I turned out exactly like my father. Exactly, 100%. I have alcoholism. He never believed that he had alcoholism, so he didn't. But I do. and i was a lot like him the last time he pat he never got this gift he never got this gif which is such a shame uh because it's free alcoholics anonymous is for fun and for free and he did have he did have the seed he did have the answer somebody gave him the answer for 90 meetings in 90 days but he left it there and i left it there for quite a long time as well in and out of eating it out of dryness you know i didn't pick up a drink since october 16 2000 but i did lie i did cheat i did steal and i could have drank and i i was on death's door without taking a drink so you know I have a lot a lot of friends in Alcoholics Anonymous some friends outside of alcoholics anonymous but they don't really understand they don' t really understand we're like a man we're like people on a ship on that ship that's going down you know we we held it together we survived the alcoholism to today and i need you and i think you guys need me you know no and we say no but no you guys don't need me no i need you that is true i need your guys all of you every single 184 i'm glad i'm not gambling now because i was looking for 200 but um Um, you know, that never served me, but all 183 of you and me, I need all of you. I don't know which one I'm going to use. I don'T KNOW WHICH ONE'S GOING TO HAVE, WHICH one's going to say the wisdom mostly newcomers helped me really. I spoke to a guy, took him to a meeting. He's not sure he's one of us. I am most people don't wind up here if they're not one of them. you know and his family his family is he his wife is kicking him out his wife's kicking him out but he's not sure he's one of us which is you know I identify a lot with him he teaches me everything that man taught me everything I met him and brought him to a meeting and took him to his first meeting and he he's he's done I wasn't I wasn' done my first meetings I was not done. I did not want what you guys had. I wanted what I had, and I got it. I kept getting what I have over and over and again. I started to get that pathetic feeling. You know, that Henry says that warm feeling, you know, it was pathetic when people were telling me what I did the day before. And I really had no idea. I really have no idea if you've ever been in a blackout if ever drinking in a blackout you know what i'm talking about i had no idea and the people weren't lying to me they were telling me my behavior the day before and i drove home and i don't know how i drove on my friend jimmy ray says he he threw bricks at cars he was so angry i i think i hit cars you know i think I hit parked cars driving and never made that amends and never never got caught doing that never had a d they were talking about duis this morning in the meeting and uh i don't have a dui i want to tell one drinking story then i'll get back to the solution again but i do want to tells us because i don t know that i shared this i thought of this this morning when they were talkin about that i didn't have a driver's license i was about 15 and i stole a buddy's car and in those days they didn't have your picture they didn't have your picture on the driver's license they just had your name so it didn't add my name on the license that was in the vehicle wasn't me but that's the license i gave to the police when the guy said he was chasing me for three miles with the lights on i said really you were chasing me for 3 miles with the lights and the sirens on because i was drunk and blacked out i suppose and i didn't get a dui he got it he got a ticket my buddy whose car i stole got a ticket but i didn t get a drunk driving ticket it's a funny story but i think he wanted to kill me i think my friend won't actually kill me for doing that but you know i thought it was just another day in a day in the life of me you know well what was i supposed to do tell him i did not tell him I was 15 or 16 didn't have a license or anything would I thought it was perfectly normal to do that and he wanted to kill me I don't know what happened he's not my friend anymore go figure uh we didn't stay close after that um and that was my life and pretty much all the things that i've done um while i was not in my right mind from alcohol you know dennis used to teach us I didn't lie, cheat, and steal to cover up my drink, and I drank to cover off my character defects. My lying, my cheating, and my stealing. And Dennis shared it before, and it just fit for me. Dennis used to share it. I was a liar, a cheater, and a thief, which is basically what I've been sharing about my my pattern as well i guess there are some alcoholics that never stole that's not my story and to me stealing is the lowest thing alcoholic gambler is the lowest form if you look in like some religious readings and stuff like that gamblers and alkeys are really low we're low life we're lower lives you know uh on the scale of things but we're really not today not today, not with the glory. You know all the glory of every day that I have without having to take a drink because I couldn't stop drinking I don't know about anybody else but I could not stop drinking and uh I couldn t stop doing all those other character defects either and my journey's been a long journey to be right here right now but it's a day at a time i've listened to many many circuit speakers many speakers and many speaker tapes and you know i'm not sure that this is great that to speak for 45 minutes or 50 minutes in a row But I love all the speakers that I've heard here on these Kingsport meetings, on this Serenity Improvement Group. And what hooked me in, besides that I love Stephen, what hooked my in was they say, if you're not having fun, why don't you come to this group? If you're no having fun in your sobriety, if you are not enjoying your sobrietty, why don t you come here and we'll help you with that. they promised me that if you're not having fun in your sobriety then come here and we're going to help you with that and they have and the speakers that lady who said my dry date she was a nun i forget all her story but she was a nun and she was having sex and you know she was just and not drinking and that's like me i identified with her i wasn't drinking but i really wasn't getting much better you know i did help people i did sponsor men i do sponsor men but when i was falling and living the double life nobody was asking me to share my experience strength and hope and meanings and they used to in the beginning when i was on fire for aaa and not doing all that lying cheating and stealing and i was working the steps of recovering i was inviting god into my life and i was taking god where i went you know henry henry says you know god's a gentleman he's not going to go where he's asked he's if you don't ask him in he's not coming you know so i had to ask god in but i left god out there and i and i made the money and and other things my master just like alcohol was my master alcohol is a power much greater than me much greater than me and so was some of that other behavior when I was walking they say we're either walking towards a drink or away from a drink we're walking towards God or away from God for a time I was walking away from God simultaneously thinking I was walking with God or towards God but but that was kind of deceptive. But I don't worry about what I did yesterday, I worry about what i do today. That's just the secret of AA to me. The speakers told me God is right now. Dennis told me god is love. All these 12 steps are about god or about love and then god or god and then love because to me they were interchangeable and all this program is about love and dennis would teach me and my sponsor would teach you know all she wants it all they want is love just listen to her just listen shut your mouth and listen to your wife you know just love your wife you know and uh to the best of my ability i've been working steps again i work traditions we were talking about the concepts my friend chuck and myself chuck from buffalo who i have met in person uh we share deep we share on a deep level you know my early sobriety i wasn't sharing on a deeper level i did the steps to the best of my ability as deep as i could go i didn't hold on too much you know like i shared earlier i don't i don't mind saying how i grew up or how how uh traumatic experiences i can share all that i i used to hold on to a secret you know when i was a young boy as a man molested me and i never told my family and i tried to get extract revenge on him but i i was too far gone myself into my own alcoholism but that doesn't bother me to share any of that that doesn' t bother me today it used to bother me i used to think i couldn't share that now i can share anything you know step step one took me a long time to honestly to get honest with myself but you know what every single day i am blessed to have 178. I must have, I must've got it. I must've lost a couple. All right. You know, it's hard to hold an audience for 45 minutes, you know, but I just love Alcoholics Anonymous. I love the people here. You know I'm surprised at myself, you know, resentments. We talk about resentments and we do some readings on that morning meeting and we have a meditation on wednesday morning i'd like to invite the men to that i would invite the women if you if you don't turn your camera on i guess the women could come too but um i guess we'd never know put up some fake name some masculine name and uh don't turn your camera on i guess you can sneak in but it probably wouldn't work out for you guys doing that and uh but it works out for me i'd like to invite the men in there on wednesday mornings we have a five minute meditation uh and then we do all the readings the third step prayer and then мы do a vision for you at the end of the meeting you know a vision für you is really sums it up he said it tells us at the end on page 164 see to it that your relationship with him is right and great events will come to pass for you and countless others now i i came on here on a saturday night and i heard a young lady talk all she talked about was the big book and i loved her share i just loved her chair she did for 45 years she stopped a little bit early like i'm gonna do but all she did was quote the big book of alcoholics anonymous the first 164 pages and she identified each and everything that she shared about and i was really really impressed you know with her her excitement about aa and i feel the same way i'm very very excited about alcoholics anonymous today you know i have an opportunity to be of maximum service to to others and that's what gets me going now that's what that's What I live for and I have heroes my friends are my heroes my Friends that go for cancer surgery you're gonna have a gonna have A kidney removed on Friday it's like yeah well I'm gonna have kidney I'll probably play golf you know next week after i get my kidney out but you know it's like another it's another day it's another day and he's just so so in touch with god you know my friends my friends and i we pray we ask god in to our lives on a daily basis when i'm in trouble it's because god's not with i'm not with god i i left god somewhere and i'm trying to take the control of a situation or another person and uh never works out very well for me when i when i do it that way and that's been my uh my drawback i can't tell you really guys it's so wonderful to come on i wish i could i wish i could hug all of you but i get it on here i have a new slogan for for zoom i have anew slogan for zoom uh somebody shared it in the meeting i was at they said they got clean on the screen and i i stole that and i stay clean on the screen with all of and you know if you told me two and a half years ago that i was going to do virtual meetings of alcohol synonymous i would have told you out you're crazy i'm not doing that that doesn't count you know meetings are meetings on meetings on a computer doesn't account you gotta you gotta go clean ashtrays and make some coffee and stuff like that be the chairman that means put the chairs off that doesn t mean run the meeting that means clean up and all of that and uh i'm just so happy that uh steven asked me to do this i hope he never asked me i hope phil doesn't ask me anymore yeah and i heard phil a few weeks ago he was great everybody i hear on here does a great job and i really appreciate uh the opportunity stephen and i'm really looking forward to going to tennessee i'm going to wait until you know the temperature warms up a little bit and we'll see you there thank Thank you.