The Internal Unmanageability That Drives the Obsession – Adam A.

Please help me welcome our speaker tonight from Last House on the Block Group in Tannersville, Pennsylvania, Adam A. Hi everybody, my name is Adam Andrick, I'm a recovered alcoholic. Let me get a couple things out of the way first. I guess the first thing is I want to apologize in advance for my mouth. I'll try, but God hasn't seen fit that it be completely cleaned up yet. And the other thing is, I've got to get this out of my head first before I start, because I feel like I'm at a funeral. I own one tie, and this is my funeral outfit. I've been tripping on this for like two weeks now. It's like, oh God, I've got to wear a tie. But you know, hey, the ninth step tells us that we need to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and the people around us. So I'm wearing a tie, Okay. I guess the best way to start this is I'm oldest of three boys, a byproduct of the 60s. I should have been born at Woodstock, but my mom backed out at the last minute. I always was mad at that because then I would have had an excuse but you know I spent the early part of my childhood I lived in a teepee I lived on a commune I lived with my mom I lived as a school bus traveled around the country more times than I can count and pretty much grew up in a lifestyle that accepted, you know, alcohol and other non-conference approved substances. And it was perfectly normal. You know, it wasn't a strange thing for me to move into the life that I had. I didn't think there was anything wrong with it. My role models growing up, you know, were people who partied, you know, people who did lots of other things too. I was raised in Northern California. I grew up basically 200 miles north of San Francisco and, you know, I always had this vision of my life and I was going to be an old man sitting on the porch with a beer and a bong, you know, and that was going to be who I was. And, you know, the people that I looked up to as a kid, that's what they did. That's how they were. And again, it didn't seem abnormal. It was a perfectly acceptable way of life. The problem is I'm an alcoholic and I can't maintain any kind of normalcy when I put alcohol into my body. I can't maintain any kind of normalce when I'm sober, but it's infinitely worse when I start. I picked up my first drink, my first conscious drunk, because I drank many times before this, but my first conscience drunk with my buddies in school, I was probably about somewhere around 12 or 13. I'm not sure the exact age, but a friend of mine's mom went out of town and we had a sleepover over his house and we went down to, I think it was a Circle K, and we heard this dude buy us two big jugs of Gallo wine and a six-pack. And we went over to this construction site near the railroad tracks and proceeded to get drunk. And from that moment, from the moment that I took my first drink like that, I found what I had been looking for. Because up until that point I was very self-conscious, I was Very introverted, I Was very much the odd one out. I was the poor kid that went to catholic school i went with all the other rich kids from town and you know my dad was the part-time janitor my mom was the lunch lady in order to make sure i had tuition you know and i always felt like i wasn't part of the crew you know even though there was only 17 of us in our graduating class i didn't feel like i was part of that you know and uh that was my uh you know that was the way i existed up until i uh picked up my my first drink And when I did, I was in. I was there. I was done. You know, I found what I had been looking for, and I ran with it, you know. Unfortunately or fortunately, however you want to look at it, within three days of that first drink, my dad moved us back to the East Coast, and I wasn't able to drink again for quite a while, probably about six months. but the first opportunity that I got I did and again I had that same kind of feeling I bounced back and forth between 12 and 18 I spent half the time in California half thetime in New Jersey jumping back and forth. I was born in New jersey and I have family there, and it was always that place we'd go back to. But my home always felt like it was in California because that's where I related to. But from, I guess it was my 16th birthday was a pivotal point. I got really hammered, and the next day I went back to California, and It Didn't Stop. I didn't have a layover of months before I started to drink again. Within a week, I hooked up with my old friends. Within a weak, I was drinking at least all weekend long. I know it didn't take very long for me to drink six days out of the week because I grew up in a college town out there, and Thursday is the beginning of the weekend. And Friday and Saturday is the weekend. Sunday is still the weekend, and Monday you need to drink to get over the hangover. Tuesday I couldn't find nothing for a long time, but Wednesday was hump day. So there were six days that I could justify drinking. And then I, a couple years later, found 50 Cent Mug Night on Tuesday and I was kind of screwed. But I called myself an alcoholic from the time I was 16 years old. I kind of wore it like a badge. It's like we drink two cases of beer and then we go to a keg party because I'm an alcoholic. I didn't know what it meant, but I didn' t have that attitude that some people have. I never admitted it, always thought it was a bad thing. It never occurred to me that it might be a bad thing. Like I said, it was a perfectly acceptable, normal way of life with the way I was brought up. Not that I wasn't brought up with morals and whatever because I had good morals growing up but the party in was a separate entity. It wasn't an immoral thing. It was something that we all did. By the time I was 18 years old, I was back in California. All my entire family was back east, and I was out there by myself for the first time on my own. Backtrack a little bit. At 16, I moved out onto the streets for the third time. I spent the summer outside crashing on roofs, crashing. We had this really great tree fort as a kid. It was huge. and I stayed there for a while, crashed on a few couches. But it was my answer at that time to my dad telling me to get a job or whatever. I don't remember the argument, but he told me, just get out of here. I took that as get out. So I moved out and I moved onto the streets and I partied around the clock for the next three or four months, whatever it was with that summer. And I took it as a license to run. And I did the same thing again when I was 18. You know, I ran. You know? I went. The whole family was on the East Coast and I went back to California. And my dad had a piece of property out there with a trailer on it. And I moved into his trailer. And, you know, within short order, I don't think it was more than a month or two that the lights were out. You know. Within short order. They kept shutting off the water and I kept going out to the street and turning it back on. You know, they had that little hole in the ground thing. And, you know, I cooked on a fire pit, had a couch on the porch or on the deck, whatever you want to call it, had an recliner in the backyard, and that's how I was living. You know? At one point I had a keg party and somebody burned my front door, so I hung a blanket. it it sounds crazy but it seemed normal you know um I had no interest in going to work I had no interested in showing up for normal society why work when you can get high you know that was my attitude you know and and I you know I drank daily I did lots of other things I I hadn't gotten full tilt into the other things yet, but I was pretty much a drunk and a stoner at that point. And that was my life. And I didn't see anything wrong with it. I also had nothing to compare it to. You know, I didn'—the only people I associated with were people who were like me. and uh my father moved back and uh he didn't like the fact that i didn't have a job in the house or the trailer was the way it was i was living with three girls at the time there um he he told me this was not okay and you can't live like this so i moved out and i justified what i was doing is I'm camping out under the stars, you know. I set up my nice little bed roll and I had my clothes line in the, you know, next to the creek and I have this little platform that I would go out and wash my clothes and, you know, I did what I had to do every day to drink and do what else. Like I said, I was never really into the whole work thing. There was a period of time where I got a job at a Taco Bell or at a Burger King or whatever. And I figured it was a good way to eat, you know. I was never interested in the whole lifestyle of paying rent and, you know, having a house, having an apartment. I had a car. My buddy gave me a car that had no muffler. It had no insurance, no registration. It had a license plate so I could drive it. You know, I didn't have a license, but that didn't matter. and it had four and a half pounds of pot in the trunk so it was a perfect thing for me I spent on and off about seven years out there you know, outside there were brief instances where I wasn't but it was the day before Thanksgiving I had been living in the Bay Area and I had a job I got a job at the psychedelic shop down on Market Street in San Francisco and the owner had asked me my interests and things like that on my application. What kind of music do you like? Do you know anything about the dead? No, not really. I'm basically a Floyd junkie. He goes, well, are you willing to learn? Sounds good. I can do this. And he actually gave me a job and a place to stay and got me loaded the first night I was at his house. And I was like, I'm good here. This will work. I had gone back to Chico the day before Thanksgiving to see some friends and to party for the weekend and got arrested with 79 hits of acid. And I was on 17, I think, when it happened. and the cop was grilling me and asking me to tell on my supplier and whatever. To be perfectly honest, I didn't have one because I was that guy. I used to hitchhike down to the Bay Area regularly and do my thing down there and bring it back up. Again, this is not... I was not a drug dealer in the traditional sense of people who are making money off of this. I was doing this so that I could get loaded on a daily basis, you know. I'd buy enough because acid was cheap. I was buying it for 30 cents a hit. And I would sell enough to buy more. And the rest would go towards booze and the party, you now. And that batch that I had was strictly personal use. And I didn't think there was anything wrong with that. And I couldn't understand, you know, I understand the legality of it, but I couldn'T understand why they would look at me like, what are you crazy? You know, this is personal use, you know, they were trying to get me for distributing and all that. And they plea bargain me down to personal or down to the regular possession. And I ended up doing two years. It's the first time I kind of realized that I had a problem. I'm locked up. I'm like, I don't know, 19 years old, something like that. And I'm going to prison. Hair about as long and longer than it is now. No facial hair. Skinny as a board. And walking into prison. And I was like, this don't seem right. And no real, I don't want to say criminal history because I had a criminal history, but it was all petty. I was a drunk. I was drunk and a stoner. I didn't carry a gun and I didn' t rob people. And that's the way I looked at it. So I realized there was a problem. And I remember writing letters and talking to everybody and trying to get somebody to understand that I needed something more than jail. You know, I need to go to rehab. I needと go to some kind of treatment or whatever. And I knew that I had a problem. The day that I got released, within 20 minutes, I had an accident. I had six-pack. Within two hours, I was in my pants with a half ounce of weed down my pants, two hits of acid in my system, and a bottle of schnapps in my back pocket. I just spent two years in jail over this. And it never crossed my mind when I got out that I just got out. You know, I shouldn't be doing this. I hadn't even seen my parole officer yet. And I was sleeping under a bridge that night. I called my parole office the next day and I said, I need to get out of California. I have family in New Jersey. Can you send me there? You know, transfer my parole. And, you know, my theory was is that people back here work, you know, and that there's, you know, there's more to life than sitting on an inner tube with a, you know. A cooler floating behind me, you know, all summer long, you know, because that's how I spent my summers. I spent my summers in an inner tube on the river with a cooler floating behind me. And so I figured I needed to do something, so I came back east and I spent, that was my first introduction to some kind of normal society, I guess you would call it. I moved in with my mom and her husband at the time and they were sober in the rooms. And they didn't tell me I had to go, but they told me I couldn't get high in their house. I couldn't drink, I couldn't do anything. And if I was to come back to that house loaded, I'd be out. I don't think it was a week that I made it. It might have been, but I don' think so. I did get a job. I didn't manage a little bit to try and function there. I think I made a long enough to get a girlfriend that would take me in. I think that's about what it was. Because me and this girl, we moved in together. She had a nice chunk of money. She hadn't gotten in an accident and they gave her a bunch of money. And sounds good. You know, I can party. I don't have to work. I can go look for a job. You know, and I was willing to do that, you know. But my main focus was how do I continue to live the way I'm living. That lasted for about two years. Right around that point, before I moved in with her, oh, that's right, when I moved him with her or right before I moved in, my mother gave me the option to go to detox or get out and it was my first time going to detox and I remember answering that questionnaire. There's like 12 questions or 10 questions about whether you're an alcoholic or not. And I answered every one of them except about two. And my response to this was, well, maybe I'm a potential alcoholic. I think the grading on it was if you answer one or two, you're an alcoholic. I had it flipped. I'm potential. Yeah, I drink in the morning, but it's not because I have to. it's not because I have to and that was a big thing when I first started going through the steps I couldn't understand craving it took me a really long time to get a grasp on the craving because I never tried to control my drinking you know I never tried to drink a couple and stop you know when it was first pointed out I really scoured my brain and I did find one instance I found one instance in my life where my girlfriend had told me she'd withhold sex if I drank too much that night. So, only have a couple. So I did. I had to look at my behavior that night, that's what was suggested to me. Look at how I was acting that night Was I a happy-go-lucky guy who had a little buzz on? No, I was a miserable asshole who wanted to drink. And he said, yeah, that's the craving. That's your body telling you you need it. And since that point, I've been able to recognize it. I've be able to see where the alcohol kicks off this allergy. But at the time when I first was going into it, I never wanted to stop. I never want to stop it. I never really wanted to control it. There was no point to having a couple. The only reason to drink was to get loaded. And that's how I looked at it. but um what really caused this whole collapse or whatever was that i uh i was with this girl and we were going to get married and uh she left yeah she wasn't putting up with it no more you know she wasn's tired she she put up with for a really long time um and uh she wasn't anymore. She started to get sober. I started to get sober, she got sober, I couldn't. I went to my, I went to my parole officer, they were going to violate me anyway. So I went and figured I got a problem I need to go to detox. And so I went to detox, I I went To a, they sent me to this place called the Damon house in New Brunswick, New Jersey. And this is one of those places where they make you wear a dunce cap and, you know, a diaper and stand in the corner and shit like that. And I was there for like an hour for the intake thing. And I, and I was like, I called my parole officer. I said, can you send me back to the joiner? Give me, give me another day to find something. Cause I won't stay in a place like that, you Know, there's no way, you know, you don't have locks on the doors and you're going to make me wear a diaper. It's not going to happen. Um, so I ended up going into the salvation army and, uh, it was probably the best thing ever for me because when I walked in that door, the first thing they told me is you got to find God. And I believed in God and I believed in God my whole life, but I just believed that I was fucked. You know, um, I, I from time I was in the third grade, I thought I was going to hell. You know, I figured I was done. You You know, I think third grade I got caught with the dirty magazines in the bushes by the nun. You know? And, you know, sometime around seventh grade or eighth grade we did the burning bag of crap on the nun's doorstep and all this stuff. And I figured I was screwed. And I also didn't necessarily buy into the particular theology that I was being taught. And they told me, if you don't believe in that, you're going to hell. So I figured I was screwed. But I was getting sober and I was reading the literature and I Was hearing about the God as we understand him thing. And so I figured, I'd give it a shot. you know and being the good catholic boy i was i became a witch um no rebellion there um but what i did is i actually walked around this place and i and i and i talked to guys that were that were reading spiritual literature and that i talked with guys that had different beliefs and i talk to everybody and i found the common denominators i found the common thread it was throughout all their beliefs and in the very beginning that was my higher power my god was just a set of principles in the very beginning you know today it's more than that but it's not much more than net you know but in the beginning it was this set of principals um and and it was enough you know came into alcoholics anonymous um got a real great buzz off of getting sober and you know life is awesome and this and that and the other thing and uh they kept telling me to talk about my reservations and listen you know i gotta talk about your reservations gotta talk about your resolutions and i never got in trouble over smoking pot it was always the booze it was the hard drugs you know the weed never bothered me um i talked about it and i talked About it and I talked about It and I got high they didn't tell me to do anything about this reservation they just told me to talk about it I was supposed to share about this stuff the healing is in the sharing well I continued to go to AA and I don't know who told me this but I got to thank them whoever he is out there they said don't drink and go to meetings but if you do drink, go to a meeting anyway and I never stopped going I was loaded every single day, except for little spots here and there, for three years. Going to Alcoholics Anonymous, sharing about my problems. Oh, the weed thing. I thought I was sober. Because I hadn't picked up a drink. And it's AA. We don't talk about drugs here. And it is okay. It is a natural herb. I'm going to be a Rastafarian. I'm a smoke dope and be spiritual. I couldn't do it. Something in me, I don't know where it was, but it was somewhere inside of me, was just eating at me. There was a hypocrisy there. And I didn't outwardly know it at the time because I truly believed my bullshit. you know but i didn't you know deep down i knew i was full of crap you know and because i was also sharing too you knowand i'm telling this great stuff that you're supposed to do because i've been around the rooms for three years and i i know all the right things to say you know uh you know i've been to a million and one step meetings and this and that and But I wasn't doing anything, and I knew I wasn�t. So in my deluded state, I hadn�t relapsed so I needed to go out and drink so I could come back to AA. Why? No lie. That's exactly how I felt. I need to go out and drink so that I can come back to AA. I picked up a drink and I couldn't stop for three years. Going to a meeting every single day, going to two, going to three, going four meetings every single day, sharing about my problems, you know? I had a sponsor. He drove me to meetings, you know? I had network of people, you know? They drove me the meetings. We hung out at the diner. We went bowling, you know? I shared about the problem of the day. I did everything they told me to do. I made coffee. Shit, I even chaired a couple meetings. But I couldn't stay stopped for more than a couple days. I remember sitting in this Monday night meeting and I'm just back off a run. I'm like a day, maybe two days sober, and I felt like this hollowed out eggshell. And if you just even touch me, I'm done. I'm just going to shatter into a million pieces. That was my problem. Booze was never my problem, booze has always been my solution. My problem is being sober. I don't know how to be sober. I've got this, and talk about it, spiritual malady. I got this, it's unmanageability is what it is. It drives me crazy. And if somebody believes different, bop till you drop. But you know what? The unmanangeability in my life has nothing to do with the crashed cars or the lost jobs or the last relationships or the pissed off, whoever. What the unmanageability is is something that goes on inside of me. They talk about it on page 52. It's having trouble with personal relationships, afraid of misery and depression, can't control our emotional natures. We've all read it. It's that internal crap. And that's the stuff that drives me to drink. That's the thing that drives my obsession. Because the only thing that I know up until this point to fix that is to get loaded you know and i have this obsessive mind that tells me it's okay i have This is this mind that Tells Me That It Won't Happen This Time Or You Know What Fuck It You Know I My Last Run They Think The Drink Through Well My Last run. I'm living in East Orange, New Jersey. And if anybody knows East Orange it's the hood. It's right next door to Newark and it's just as bad. Me and my girlfriend at the time are the only white people in this neighborhood. And like I said I thought it would be cool because I'm a Rasta who smokes dope and is spiritual. My last run okay well I'm going go to the bar. I'm going to have a couple shots of tequila. Then I'm going to stop at a liquor store. I'll get a, I'll get a couple bottles of Mad Dog. Um, I'm going to make my way up to, uh, Woodstock or wherever they were having that Woodstock 94 thing. And, and I'm going to go to a concert. I're going to hop on a bus. I want to make my way out West in a couple years. Maybe I'll hit a meeting in Berkeley. I thought the drink through. This is the mind that I'm working with here, because I thought that that was a good idea. You know, they told me think the drink through. I did. And I did it. You know, I didn't follow through with the way I planned. But you know what? It was just as bad. It was just as screwed up. You know, but the idea was, is the mind that i'm working with at that point i can't think the drink through there's no way you know because the booze is my answer it's an old guy who was coming around aa or was in aa for god knows how long he had like 50 years or something he was two days older than dirt right next to god and uh he used to talk about grabbing drunks off the street and bringing them back to his house and reading them the big book and, you know, getting them sober, drying them out. And at that point I had no idea what he was talking about because my idea of what the big look was is a book of stories that you're supposed to identify with. And, you know, we talk about how we drank like them and, you know and all that stuff. And he said sobriety is a gift from God, and what we do with it is our gift back. And during that last run, his face kept popping into my mind, and those words kept popping in my head, you know, and it drove me insane. On September 6th, the day after my birthday, 94 I think, I'm still shot. It's never five years to get your brains back, it's bullshit. I'm still waiting. I think it was 94. Somebody could do the math for me later. I crawled out of a basement and wrecked mentally, emotionally, spiritually, lost my apartment. And I'm walking down the street. I was like, I got to go back to the rooms. And I walked about two miles to a meeting and it was a big book meeting. And they read that story about the old lady, Southern something or other. But it was an old lady from the South. You know, I'm a skinny young guy from Northern California, but I identified with everything in this story. And something happened that day. Something clicked. I got a moment. I started reading the book and what Bill had said to me, the old guy came back and I started reading it and I seen the part in the very beginning when it talks about it being a textbook. And I knew what that meant. First time I ever seen it. I've been around AA for over three years, been in it as best I could for three, and never seen that, never caught that. And proceeded to read that book and do what it said. I got sober in the beginning, very much like the founders, in the sense that I got mail-order sobriety. I read the book and I did what it set. My sponsor at the time told me I'd drink if I wrote a four-step. He told me, you're not ready for that yet. That's what he said. He said, you'RE NOT READY FOR THAT YET, YOU'LL DRINK. And I said, I'm drinking anyway. What does it matter? Let me try. It's the only thing I haven't done. And did my fourth and fifth step. I was two months sober. um i got a i got a i gotta i got a major god shot right around that point um two three months over and and it was it was massive to me at the time looking back you know and whoever out there might hear this may not think it's that big of a deal but i was sitting in a meeting and i uh realized for the first time in my life that i don't ever have to drink again and it was an extremely unique thought i had never heard it before I'd never thought it before. I was that guy who was sitting on the porch with a beer and a bong, you know? And later on, I was that guy qui was in and out of AA living in the park down the street because I can't get sober. By this point, I had introduced a whole bunch of my friends who were active to AA, and they were getting sober and I wasn't. I figured I was constitutionally incapable. I'm one of these people who just can't gets it. Everybody around me is getting sober. or I can't, but that day I'm sitting in that meeting and that thought just came in and it crowded everything else out and it said you don't ever have to do this again. And I finished all the amends that I was capable of at that point that I knew of or that I wasn't able to do or that was willing to look at in that first year because that first inventory that I did was crap um it's probably 80 percent lies but it was absolutely as honest as i could be as at the time that i was doing it it absolutely was because i was truly seeking the solution like i said i was incapable of being honest i was deluded i was shot out i couldn't remember squat and i was hallucinating on a regular basis. Acid flashbacks, not schizophrenia or anything like that. But I was incapable of being truly honest. But, I was as honest as I possibly could be. There's a line in the book that says God doesn't make too hard terms for those who seek. And, I'm a prime example of that. because I was screwed up I had no guidance, I was full of shit but I was trying to find God and it worked like I said I finished the amends from that inventory within my first year and I proceeded to become this rabid step-Nazi you know I'd walk into a 12 and 12 meeting with my big book under my arm and I'd tell everybody how they're doing it wrong. And I'd go to every meeting I went to and stand up here and you know, you guys don't, you're not doing it right. This is the right way. You know, and I did that for a long time. You know. It took me to fully get balanced with that probably took me about six years. I started to find some balance with it at around four years sober because I bumped into some people who were actually doing it. I spent four years, like I said, in Alcoholics Anonymous, sober, doing the steps and not having any guidance. And the only way that I was going to get any guidance, and this is what I did, was I would go to a meeting and find that guy who was in and out for 15 years who couldn't stay sober and I'd drag him back to my house. Bring him through the steps and then use him as my accountability. I don't know if it's in the book, I think it is but somewhere wherever I got it says create the fellowship you crave. We started our first house meeting right around a year somewhere around there. Still have one today. The last house on the block That's my living room. I do have an outside group that I go to. I go a way out in Tannersville on Tuesday night at 7 o'clock. I need outside accountability because I found that my house meeting is great. I love it. It saves my ass all the time. And, but what happens on occasion is when I'm not well, I let them put me in the guru spot. And I don't know when I am not well. You know, unless I got people outside to tell me what's going on. Unless I got a lot of people that see me regularly and that I allow to hold me accountable outside of my sponsees sponsees and the people who come to me for guidance, you know, because that's what was happening. I found in the beginning, you know, um, in the beginning, I, I didn't have a sponsor who was, who I was accountable to. Um, I had a bunch of sponsee's that I would bounce shit off of and out of necessity, that's what I had to do at the time. But when I was four years sober, I stumbled across this group and met this guy. We used to call him Anal Dave. He was an airline pilot, and he was in the military, and he was a big book thumper. I mean, hardcore big book thumpper. And he handed me this sheet, and it was color-coded with page and paragraph numbers, the cliff notes. I still hand it out today. It's the cliff nodes to the big and it's got everything in it that you need to know and I met him that night and I asked him to be my sponsor and we proceeded to do some work he's no longer my sponsor III believe and this may change tomorrow but and I was also taught that each time I go through the steps I'm having a new experience on I'm looking for a new experience. Doesn't mean my old sponsor can't give me that, but I've found that I work better when I find someone new and have their spin and utilize their experience. I'm still in contact with him. I'm still in contact with the three others since him. One of the most awesome experiences I ever had, and it was a profound changing experience, was there were these two guys at my old home group. And I used to look at them like they were like, you know, I was in awe. They were so spiritual and they knew all this stuff. And they practiced this thing perfect and blah, blah, bla. And we proceeded to do a three-way fifth step on a Sunday afternoon. And we all brought our inventory to the table and we all shared our inventories with each other. And it blew me away because I realized these guys are just as screwed up as I am. you know they may have it in different areas but they're just as screwed up as I am and it changed AA for me I believe it's in the vision for you it talks about going shoulder to shoulder and I'm a firm believer in that there are no gurus in AA there's nobody who's more spiritually evolved. We're just on different paths and at different points in our recovery. But it's not about spiritual evolution. It's just about moving through the day and practicing this stuff to the best of our ability. And we all, I don't care who you are, we all have our stuck points. We all have areas of our lives that still have some kind of unmanageability. Maybe not today, but it's still there. I had a great day today. When I sit down and do my nightly review tonight, so far, I don't really have anything on there. It's been a great date. Last week I was an asshole. It depends on the day. It depends upon what I'm doing. But I've also been graced big time. I identified myself when I walked up here as a recovered alcoholic. And the reason that I do that is because those 10-step promises have come true in my life. I haven't thought about picking up a drink in about 12 years. And I drank no matter what. No matter what you threw at me, whatever consequence was standing in my face, I was still going to get loaded. Like I said, I got out of prison and within 20 minutes I was high. You know, I drank no matter what. And I haven't thought about picking up a drink. It hasn't occurred to me that it would be a good idea to pick up a drink in over 12 years. And I don't hide from it. We have a Christmas party every year and my in-laws bring booze. They don't bring a lot, but they bring boozy because they drink. Doesn't bother me. I'm not saying that you need to do that. Do whatever works for you. But that's what happens in my house. When I got married, we served alcohol at our wedding. We didn't have it in our glass. And we had a sober table for the people or a sober section for the people who were sober because half the family is NAA and the other half should be. Got one of those families. She's Irish and I'm Italian. It works that way. I'm not really Italian. I've got more of the Celtic in me, but I used to like the Italian aspect because of the food. But my grandma's from Italy, but what does that make me, a quarter? But we've ceased fighting everything and everyone, even alcohol. And I've been restored to sanity when it comes to booze. Lots of other areas, I'm nowhere near sane. That whole issue with wearing the tie. That's an insanity part of my life. I'm still attached to being that dirty hippie with no shoes and overalls. I'm very uncomfortable dressed up. Is that an agnosticism in my life? Maybe it is. Maybe I need to do some work on it. I don't know. Doing it. You know, I'm walking through the fear. That's what I was taught. I was told that this is a practical program of action. I'm not going to go sit on a mountaintop and meditate for 23 hours in a day. I'm going to live my life and I'm gonna practice this the best I can in all my activities. It doesn't matter so much what I do here. You know, what I do in a meeting is whatever. It's what I'd do in the other 23 hours out of the day. It's when I'm in the supermarket and it's when I'm with my kids and it is when I am stuck in traffic. That's where the real deal happens. That first big book sponsor I had said something to me and I didn't get it at the time and I do today he said the 12 steps are not the answer what the 12 steps do is they get me to the starting line they get me to where my feet are at and then the real answer is practicing this bringing it out into the world the original manuscript said having had a spiritual experience as the result of discourse of action We carry this message to others, especially alcoholics, and practice these principles in all our affairs. So if we're supposed to carry this to others it's not about booze. It's about reliance and dependence upon God. And that's the real deal. That's what it's about. That reliance independence upon God needs to travel into all my area of all the areas of my life. my uh my wife's uh old sponsor used to say that god is very polite he doesn't come where he's not invited you know and and i like that i really do because it makes me accountable you know i gotta ask god to come into these areas i gotta ask God to enter my life you know um that whole recovered state you know I'm recovered today but you know what I can wake up tomorrow and say screw you God, I'm going to do whatever I want and I'm going to get drunk. But if I wake up tomorrow morning and I say God what do you got for me? What do I need to do today? How can I be of service? I don't ever have to drink again. And it's an awesome way of life. All that shit that goes on out there, my job is to be of service. That's what it is. How I make money, how I interact, how I do these other things. It's all just stuff I do. My job is to be of service and that's how I try to live my life. Now we have this house meeting thing that started off as this simple little big book study in order to get accountability from people has turned into something completely different. It s turned into and we were looking at it the other day. We were actually talking about it. It's like a safety net in my life because I can't get away from AA, you know, because AA is not at the church down the road. AA is in my living room. My kids, I've got four kids, my two oldest know what I do. They know about the 12 steps. You know, we had a home group years ago and they used to ask in the beginning of the meeting, you know is there anybody out there who's willing to bring somebody through to 12 steps? my kids would raise their hand you know we all giggled and laughed but you know mike the guy who was chairing the meeting said yeah they probably do a better job than a lot of people we see in the rooms you know because the idea is these kids were raised with it it was they were brought up in it and we never hid it from them on any level you know as they got older we stopped with some of the wet ones in the house you know i told the guy the other night he's allowed to bring people And the only requirement is you don't bring a disrespectful wet one. Because when you get a disrespectful, wet one, the kids are harmed. You could be drunk. You can be high. We've had people nodding on heroin in my living room. But they were mellow. They were quiet. They were listening. They needed to be brought to detox. And that's why they were there. Alcoholics Anonymous happens out there. This is just the place we go to find newcomers. That's what I was taught. I haven't been to a meeting in many, many years. I don't know when because I need my medicine. I used to hear that all the time. Meetings are my medicine and I may only need one or two meetings a week but I don' t know which ones. I don''t get that. I don ''t use AA in that way. I don.''t use the meetings in thatway. The sole purpose for me to go to a meeting is to find a newcomer that I can be of service to. What can I bring? Not what can I get. Now, for people out there who are new, go to as many as you have to and get as much as you can. But if you're still doing that three years into the deal, if you'RE still doing THAT two years or five years or however long into the DEAL, you'RE missing the point. Because if we'RE actually practicing this program, If we're doing this thing, we don't need a meeting to stay sober. We need God. Now granted, this goes back to my sponsor, that same old one. Like I said, most influential. Your sponsor is not going to keep you sober. The 12 steps are not goingto keep you sobre. Meetings are not gonna keep you sore. But what those things are, they're all spokes in the wheel. And if you pull one out, the wheel's gonna get a little weaker. You pull two out, eventually it's going to fall apart. I do come to meetings to get plugged in if I'm not spiritually okay and I can't get a hold of anybody or whatever. I go to a meeting. But again, I goto a meeting to find a newcomer because that's how I get better. My problem is me. My solution is you. That's the nuts and bolts of it You know, because I can't think about my own crap and I can' t think about me if I'm trying to help you. And my problem is thinking about me. Selfishness, self-centeredness, that we think is the root of all our trouble. It's not the booze. I have an addiction to self. Still to this day. I do. I've got to be honest. You know, I know for a fact that if I turn my will and my life over to God and I ask him, what do you need me to do today? And I practice this stuff. My life's going to go great. And I also know for Affect that ifI say screw you, God, I'm going to do whatever I feel like and I'm gonna act on my own wants. My life is going to suck. But I still try to do that. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe that's the nature of me. Maybe that' s the natureof us. I don' t know. But I know that that'sthe constant struggle that I have on a daily basis. is to do what I know is best. What I know is best is to seek God and to do what's placed in front of me. It's, you know, well, okay. This has been a really good experience. Really awesome, meaning I like the fact that it's outside and wearing the tie wasn't so bad. And I hope I brought you a good message, and that's all I got. Thanks. Thank you.