The Layers of Surrender – John C.

I'm John Shires. I'm an alcoholic. It's a real privilege to be able to introduce the speaker tonight. John is a sponsor of mine, and I love him dearly. And there are very few people that I have sponsored who I was less hopeful for their long-term sobriety than John. And that's the God's honest truth. And other members of the home group would attest to that. But we love him, and he's made an incredible recovery. He's a good AA member. He sponsors a lot of guys. He's always doing service work. He's very involved. He's a very active member of Alcoholics Anonymous. So I look forward to hearing his story tonight. Come on up, man. I'm John Corey. I'm an alcoholic. Hey, John. Let's see. I have a sponsor. I sponsor other guys. My sobriety date is September 24th of 2012. It's not the first sobriety date I've had. Who here has had a sobriete date, like, prior to the one you have now? It's like half, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Me too. That's been my story. So it's kind of funny. Every time I talk about that, like my sobrieting date is, I remember, yeah but it was. Oh and before that it was and there were like some other dates and like what makes you think this is any different, bro? you know it's kind of the thought that i have and and um i don't know i i don' t know like uh there's this um thing we have here in our culture in aa like never drink again that's success right like i'm not ever i'll never i'll ever drink again it even says in the big book there's these stories he went on to never drink agai n and that's like some kind of badge of honor or success or whatever that's like the holy grail of like doing it right in AA um I didn't have that I've blown it twice uh what I know about alcoholism is that we always drink again and it seems like the further I go the more the narrower the road gets and like the harder it is you know or somehow um there's more is required um so let's see I was born here in Georgia to pretty, like, I guess fairly normal for the early 70s, kind of Georgia, southern, real traditional parents. They were really young when I was born. I think my mom was about 20 and my dad was like 23. They were poor, hadn't figured out what to do yet. My dad was kind of this idealist who, his father had been a real successful Baptist preacher at this big institutional Baptist church in Augusta, Georgia. I think my father fancied himself a preacher and somehow got this little church to hire him as the preacher. And that's what he, that's when his job was when we were born. I think there were like 12 people that went to church there and they lived in this little like cinder block one bedroom shack. And then I was born and it was fairly unremarkable. I had a fairly typical little early childhood. I remember, like, there's this thing that happened that seems relevant to everything that happened after that, which I would characterize as this slide into kind of like insanity and eventually alcoholism, where I started reading early, like earlier than the other kids and my parents or my mom especially and her family members were so impressed by that I caught wind of how that meant something and would hear these hushed conversations about John and we have to get him tested and then I went and got tested at this place and he's special and there were all these like kind of things said about like just about me and that I was special and different and unique and like read better than the other kids and was probably smarter than them and I was six or seven when this happened and that idea was given to me and I don't know if my being an alcoholic has anything to do with it but man, I grabbed that idea and held on to it for dear life and just, like, got really, really attached to the idea of being smarter than you, better than you and different than you. Like, from a very early age. And remember also being, like really kind of lonely and feeling fairly ostracized even though there was nothing factual to really, like... The fact that, I mean, I had, like friends and played with people and got invited to the birthday parties but always felt kind of like out from people and there was something I had to do to impress you that I was good and cool somehow. And that always came out in these just surprising, oh my God, why did he just say that kind of things? Often with me being sent home from whatever cause that we were doing. And with people coming and telling me that their fathers had told them that they're not allowed to play with me anymore or things like that. Kind of self-conscious, I guess. We moved a few times. I never really lived anywhere long enough to get really attached to anybody or have an answer to anyone. You know, we're going to move in a couple of years. it seemed like, and whatever lies I tell you to impress you with how things are won't catch up to me because we'll probably live somewhere else. It's kind of a fact of life. My parents split up when I was about 13. I'm presently the divorced father of three daughters and there's been a big churn of guilt and regret and oh my god, I've screwed up my kids kind of like thinking that has come from that and they have seen some counselors and in those conversations I've revealed that my experience with this was the day that it was announced to us that we're getting divorced. It was one of the happiest days of my childhood I was ecstatic it was like, oh my God, this probably means we'll live with mom and you won't be around anymore win. It was like this huge win and then like six months later we meet our coked up stepfather to be one time I didn't know, I had no frame of reference for, I mean you know,I had seen Miami Vice but there were no Ferraris in the driveway or whatever so I didn' t really have a reference for that until later like after some things had happened to make it clear that that's what was going on but I remember the first night I met this guy, and he was definitely like high as a kite. And off we went to California where he was in the Army and had like marching orders to go to a different Army base. So I'm like 15 years old and about to start ninth grade, and we just moved to Monterey, California. And I'm this little like country hick kid who just moved here from Dahlonega, Georgia. and uh that was where I lost my southern accent and just like you're in puberty and just got dropped in California man you were not talking like that anymore learning your voice fast and I think it happened in like two days um gosh that's another like fairly alcoholic tendency that I have you know you put me somewhere where like there's something to do to fit in with like the other people and I'll do it without even thinking about it. It's like completely unconscious, not even really a thought. We moved to Athens, Georgia when he went to prison. It was about a year. It was about a years ago. About a year later. He was kind of a drunk and my mom kind of got drunk after she and my dad split up. My dad was like this real fundamentalist like hardcore baptist like um you know preacher guy and really really like just harsh uh he was also like really angry and really afraid and really insecure and really just kind of like small-minded uh and and real afraid um always like flipping out and like losing it over stuff throwing furniture and like breaking chairs and stuff when he and my mom split up my mom has talked about this later she felt like she had finally gotten free or whatever I remember she started drinking wine and scotch after that and she's this little woman who like has never from the beginning been able to handle her liquor well at all. I remember her picking me up at the skating rink one night with some girl that we had to drive home and I'm like obsessed with the thought that I might kiss this girl in the back of the car it's all dark and we're like in the back seat in one of those big 70s cars like way back in the back you know and um and then uh and then like never mind all that like we're about to run off the road i mean like i've heard gravel under the wheels like four times and it's to turn my mom was like wasted uh driving us home i do remember that that was like real shortly after she and uh and my dad split up and scotch became like her thing after that um and dann later i would like steal cigarettes from her and uh and the army guy he was a drinker and um i couldn't stand him he was this golf playing sports watching like army ranger parachuter guy with this like military haircut and like all these muscles and like you know plaques all these all these i love me plaques on the wall about the time that he like you know went to Panama or whatever and uh and I remember kind of connecting that like that equals Budweiser like Budweiler is like that is it it's like a big truck in a dude like that man I don't ever want that at all like that is not for me whatever whatever that is it's not like my thing at all uh never gonna do that we moved to Athens it's a college town there are lots of like kids around my age who have pot we smoke pot we don't get stoned on pot because it's bad pot and we don'T know what we're doing but we smoke it and act like we got stoned and like laugh and um I meet a friend he drinks I meet other friends. They eat pills, and they introduce me to this, like, world of possibilities. One of them gave me a hit of LSD for $4. It cost $4 to trip on acid in 1988, and it lasted all day long, like forever, you know? Mind-blowing experience. The next day, I'm, like on the phone calling him back to find out, can we do that again? And, like, can you come by? Like, I want to get more. My mom hears me on the phone and flips out. And she's flipping out, and I'm seeking attention. And this, like – kind of, like these two things mix and flare up, and I wind up at this rehab hospital for an intake evaluation. And I don't know if you ever really go to an intake evolution and leave. I think those things are designed to pretty much keep you there, like, pretty much no matter what, you know. I don't think it matters what questions you give to the answers. But anyway, here I am, 15 years old. I've smoked some pot and not gotten stoned. I've tripped on acid once. And they give me my first big book. Tell me I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict. And off we go to an AA meeting and my new room and my roommate. God, this is crazy. So I wound up being introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous before I had a drink of alcohol. And I angled for like, hey, I really don't think this is the wing I belong in. I mean, admittedly, I've got some problems. Yeah, maybe I'm angry. Okay, yeah, okay. I mean I get the alarm over the using drugs and all, but it was one time. I mean perhaps, you know, maybe there's a better place for me And, no, that was characterized as one of my alcoholic con games by this counselor. God, I still have a resentment about that. I just remember this Dave guy who worked at Charter Winds in 1988 and, like, just his smug face about all that. i did my 30 days there and uh got out and and um had no interest in really like i don't know i'm not one of you i'm a kid who like got caught up in this thing i mean whatever but my job i have to go to meetings now and it was it was like if you go to these meetings then you can like use the car it's like all right what are you gonna do i go to the meetings The meetings are a place where I can smoke cigarettes openly without anybody giving me grief about it. That's cool. There are seemingly loose women at these meetings who hug me and find me charming and want to talk to me instead of, that's all right. And this is my 16-year-old perception of all of this, and it seemed like, okay, I'll do this for a little while. This is kind of like, this is all right, I mean, not bad. This is better than what the other 10th graders are doing. So I did. And that didn't last long. I can't remember what happened, but I'm sure there was a girl involved in drinking and somebody offered me a drink and I drank it. And I remember the first time that I had like three beers. I had three Budweiser beers. That thing about the Budweisers, whatever, I had met rock and roll people by now And they were drinking Budweiser beers So I had three Budweisser beers And I got the three beer buzz And it was the first time I had ever Experienced the effects of alcohol It was absolutely perfect It was Absolutely perfect I remember saying out loud We have to do this all the time And like this is how to do it This is all You just do this And I think it was, like, by the end of that week that it was like, well, I mean, the three-beer buzz, yeah. But you have to, like... You have to keep the three beer buzz going because it fades fairly quickly, you know? And you haveと, like , maintain the three beers buzz. So you drink the three beers and then you maintain the buzz by drinking more beers. Not quickly, because then you would get, like a four-bear buzz. That's not... You don't want that. You just drink steadily to,like, maintain the Buzz. And that's, in hindsight, I recognize that as pretty alcoholic thinking. And that was like, that was the first week that I drank. And my goal was to do it just like that. And I think it worked out like twice, like two times that week, I think, it happened. By the end of that summer, I had convinced an adult who I drank with, I'm like 16 17 years old drinking with adults that's another story but I had convinced my friend Warren that like we should find cocaine because then we'd be able to like stay up all night on New Year's Eve at the New Year'S Eve party and just drink like without ever passing out and he was a good sport and like produced cocaine and gave it to 17 year old me um and and in that moment there was this thing that just got seared onto my like brain and consciousness and it's still there and and it's it's this equation like beer plus me plus cocaine equals just this outrageously amazing good time with incredibly sexy rock star women who want me and music and like lights and being the center of attention without ever making a fool of myself and that's like the equation and that just got stamped on my brain and never left it like it never came off my brain after getting tattooed there or whatever that night I had that experience one time I never had that experience again ever but but it didn't matter because it was like it was tattooed on my on my mind somewhere like that's that's what that's the recipe do that again and and uh I tried uh god um eventually like I do what I always do and and I just drink all the time I get fired from jobs I don't care about going to work. I just want a drink. I'd go to your party and hang out by your keg and just drink, and the next night I'd get to the next one. I never have any money. It's kind of okay in a college town. I mean, there's like, there's just always beer and like there's always drugs being passed around and drinks to have and you know, you do what you have to do and you wind up wasted all the time and it's not really a big deal. Then I had to leave Athens because of like cops and this stripper girl named Cheryl who thought I should marry her. and went to New Orleans, and I had been on a trip to New Orleans and experienced drinking in the French Quarter, and it's like I've got to go there. That's where I have to go, and I went and got a job in a diner working a graveyard shift. I think that's why I survived my 10 months in New Orleans because I was at work between 11 and 7 every night when I could have gotten... I did my drinking between 7 a.m. and 2 p.m., and if you're going to kill yourself drinking in new orleans it's probably not going to be between seven and two so i've like dodged a bullet there um still managed to like get plenty drunk and and by the time i had this girlfriend too this um this i met this girl i fell in love with this woman simone she was like young and beautiful like just incredibly gorgeous and nobody like her had ever liked me before um but she seemed to and uh and she didn't drink she was in aa and i told her about my like experience with this and an eyebrow kind of went up and and then we went and did our little like 21 year old we're in love thing and and uh when her brother showed up her brother was like actually a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and when he showed up he took one look at me and was like oh my god I know exactly what you need and uh like I think the next night took me to an AA meeting and by then I kind of I needed to get sober you know I like I was kind of a mess we went by the end of that week I had decided that I was going to work Mardi Gras and then move to Hawaii and go to Maui and join Kihei Morning Serenity and work the steps with this guy's sponsor because like that's probably what I need and Simone is like yeah that is probably what you need and I was like man that's what i need i really need that and i was right i mean i really did need that um and and i did i left i went to maui i went the kihei morning serenity i met david every i asked him to sponsor me he did uh we worked some steps um i remember reading a fit step i remember making amends i like wrote checks that's kind of like 21 year old checks you write where it's like for 40 dollars or whatever because that's, like, all I got right now. And I swear in 10 months I'll have paid back that whole $430-something that you gave me that one time. It was kind of like that. And then I wanted to move, so I moved. I moved over to the west side of the island. I worked at the Alano Club. It was Kind of Like Napa only for tourists in Lahaina. And there's meetings there, like four times a day, five times a Day. I'm the resident manager. I sleep in this little shack out back, and I work the counter at the daytime and sell Snapples and clean coffee pots. And I'm just sort of the person who's in charge of this little clubhouse while all the AA groups have their meetings and go to meetings all the time, like around the clock. We don't have cell phones. I'm not connected to my sponsor anymore. Why would you need to be with all these meetings? I'm going to. We did all that. We did All That Sponsorship Step stuff. I mean, that's like done. We're good now. It's just now it's just like hang out and go to meetings, love each other. That's what you do now. Go surfing. And so I did. I remember I closed it. I worked for one year concurrently. I got one year of longevity at a job as a cook at the Hard Rock Cafe in Lahaina and thought, man, that's like, I can do anything. That's awesome. I had never had a job for more than about five weeks up until then. I worked there for a year, went to all these meetings, didn't really continue. I didn't continue, and then I wanted to move. like there was surf on the north shore and i could ride my bike to it i wanted to move and i did uh i think about that now and i think About the guys that i sponsor and i Think about who i Sponsor and i just i think, about like what it would be like to just decide i'm gonna move And then do it and not like talk to anybody not have any conversations about it not answer any questions about it Not like get any input from anyone at all not weigh that not consider it Just do what comes into my mind. And it's insane. Like, that is completely insane. That's what I did. And I was surrounded by all these AA people, and no one said, dude, that's insane, have you talked to your sponsor about this? Like, nobody said that. They were all like, yeah, sounds good, probably should. They got meetings over there. They did. I didn't really go to them. uh four months later maybe um somebody gives me a beer and I drink it this guy from the church thing that I was doing uh he could drink and why you know why can't I God Jesus loves you too and so yeah I mean it's true I guess why don't let's I'll have one of those and I did and in short order I was drinking the way that I always drink which is pretty much like what do how do I have to exist so that I can like drink all the time uh get up early go to work so that i can get off early get to happy hour by three o'clock where they have dollar margaritas until seven and drink four hours worth of dollar margaretas every day um and then go home and smoke a bowl and like collapse and pass out and get up tomorrow morning at five o'lock and do it again but it was okay because i rode my bike to and from work and i was like getting exercise and I was holding my job. And man, if you can get exercise and hold your job, why can't you drink as much as you want to? My world got really, really small. It was just like I go to work and I drink. It went like that for a couple of years. And I met this woman who took a look at me and thought, this is the guy for me. i later found out that she's nuts uh i didn't know that then i thought she was kind of maybe i did think she was Kind of Nuts then but um i met a woman and uh we started spending a lot of time together at her house and uh going on trips and stuff and she kind of elevated my lifestyle a little bit i was now like drinking in some really kind of expensive places with um, nice drinks and stuff. Uh, I liked driving her car. Um, and, uh, and I went to work one day and, and like it was after the Christmas break and I go to work and my boss, this guy who had kind of mentored me, I was the apprentice, had, uh had shot himself over the break and I like came into work to find his body and like his brain on the wall and, and, um, and it was like this real traumatic kind of thing. I recognize that now at the time I was like, oh god, that's like awful. I'm going to need a day and I think I took a day and then was back to, alright well now what am I going to do? And what I came up with was like I've got to quit drinking beer, I've gotta quit smoking weed I've Gotta Marry This Chick That I'm Sleeping With and there's all these things wrong in my life and I've Got To Set Them Right because that's not cool. People can die if you don't do it right. I've got to make all these things right. So I married the woman. I quit drinking for a couple of weeks, but drinking comes back when you're me. And I think it was about a year later that I couldn't stand this woman. I just don't know how much clearer to make it. I really did not like her. I could tolerate the woman drunk. I could not tolerate the women not drunk, so I drank. and she you know became increasingly uncomfortable with how I'm drinking you know she's around me all the time now and like how I drink is like is to pretty much be drunk constantly so that I can tolerate you and not like just lose it uh and then one night after like a handful of valium and some bottles of red wine at her sister's little wine party um they're like glaring at me because it's time to go and I'm like trying to open the other bottle of wine in the kitchen when we're like, we're headed out the door. What are you doing? I'm like, well, I mean, I can get one for the road and I'm barely standing up and there's all this stink eye and everything and in the car on the way home I told her everything I thought about her and none of it was nice but all of it is true. Like, I was very honest and I am like 27 maybe. she's 10 years older than me she's horrified, she's from this nice family where like everybody's nice and their conversations are really deep when they're about like what pie we're going to have for dessert and real shallow about everything else and she's not ready for me at all, like not at all and I don't know what I was doing there it was insane self-centered depraved alcoholic insanity Like, oh, you're, like, uncomfortable and crazy, so go marry a woman who looks like she's kind of got her stuff together and that'll fix it. That's probably what that was. And anyway, the truth came out this one night, and I had to go back to AA the next day because if you drink like I drank, that's going to end, And I didn't want my marriage to end. Not because I was into the marriage, but because like the house and my car were like really attached to it. It's true. I mean this is the truth of it. It's fairly gross, but it's true。 I'm like 27. I'm married to a woman. I can't stand. My life is like real wound up in all of that stuff. And like we're going to Telluride this winter. and I mean I can't like lose all this never mind like how am I going to look if I'm like divorced at 27 you know what a loser my dad's not going to be impressed with this at all I don't want to have that conversation with my parents I don'T want to have that conversation with anybody you know getting divorced because you're a drunk reflects poorly on you you can't do that so I went to an AA meeting there was somebody there that I knew they let me make coffee and clean the ashtrays uh and I did and and it was a 7 a.m home group meeting Makawa sunrise on Makawa Maui upcountry real pretty with this little rural church on the hill looking out over the valley it was beautiful and um and I rode my bike up there three mornings a week at seven o'clock and and um and posed as an AA member I did like service and I chaired the meeting sometimes and I got a book I think and I might have read some of it there were a few times that I thought maybe I should ask that guy to sponsor me he's kind of cool and it's like no I'm not I mean there is this one time this guy that I had met before he was friends with Shalen the the guy that had in New Orleans who had taken me to a meeting they were friends I mean they were those guys uh they were walking the broad highway like I know that now I don't I think I probably knew it then but I know it now and uh Bill Bill Amling he he sat next to me at that meeting this one day and looked at me and it was like he hadn't I hadn't seen him in a while he was like you're married now huh and I was like yeah it's like god how how's that going that must there must be a lot going on in all that huh and in my mind I'm like oh dude you have no idea man like my head was just so full of like judgment and rage and like anger and and I feel trapped and god I hate her and like but I gotta keep it together and like be like nice and because like we can't blow it you know and this is that's how I live like 24 7 all the time and this guy's like there must be like something going on and all that huh you ever want to talk about it and I was what are you talking about man it's fine no it's like letting this guy that someone like smelled that on me and might out me as being the like insane person that I was was like really terrifying to me and I like just put on my like straight face I was like dude it's cool I don't know what were talking about but uh i mean i don't know man your experience might have been different my marriage is great and and went on from there i don'T think i DON'T think I saw him again but that that chance encounter like two minute encounter i had with him before a meeting one time like 15 years ago just i remember that like god i remember it all the time that's that's one of those things that i recall frequently and just think about how how uh when you get some recovery in you and go through the thing that's in the steps and get to know your alcoholism you can see it in other people too and it's like really really clear becomes like just crystal clear um and it seems like the more fifth steps i do with other people not me i did mine but then And since then, I've done a bunch of these with other people. And it's like it just, like, wipes the crust off the glasses. You can see alcoholism. And that guy saw mine just really, really clear. And I wasn't trying to see it at all, but he saw it just crystal, you know, and tried to help, and I was not having it. Sober in AA, going to three meetings a week, probably like two years since I had had a drink at that point, convinced that I am like two years sober man in AA. Uh, I don't know why, like nobody's asked me to sponsor him because like, I've been here for like two year doing this stuff. I was fairly convinced, uh, that my wife was a sick person. Sick. Oh my God. Like not, not stupid or crazy anymore because, like, I've got some big book language and it's sick now. But man, but she's sick. And it turned into this just, like kind of constant. I had a problem and like a man went and did something about it. because that's what you do when you like you know care and wasn't afraid to look at myself i don't know what i was thinking about at the time like i hadn't looked at myself at all uh and got terrified if you did but uh but in my mind i like had this whole identity with the steps and aa and this conviction that i have like done this spiritual thing this is this deep belief that that was true and it was completely false i mean there was nothing true about it uh and and it's my narrative and and while i'm reciting it to myself i'm like looking at this poor woman who married me going you on the other hand you never did anything you didn't you never didn't anything you just like sat there about this whole time just sat there haven't changed at all haven't even like felt like you ought to same crazy sick person you always were god and it just built and it built never spoke about this to anyone until like god five years ago and it's just built like like this pressure cooker kind of thing and while it's building i'm like doing some career stuff we're having kids who like need things and cry all the time you know and like kind of get in the way of of the lifestyle it's i i can tolerate like some really obnoxious things in life as long as i don't have to work too much and get to go windsurfing three hours every other day or whatever and not much is required of me like i can really tolerate some stuff uh but when i gotta like work all the time and we're like it's been months since we had sex and um there's not any money and there's not any time and my house is like this dumpy little house in Gainesville Georgia not like my little cottage in Haiku Maui my threshold for tolerating all of that stuff um gets lower uh I achieved this career thing I wanted I decided I decided again that I wanted a different career I wanted to fly airplanes, so we moved to Georgia, and I started doing all this training and flying airplanes and teaching people to fly and everything. I eventually got hired at an airline, and when I completed flight training at the airline and they pinned my little brass wings on me to go make my $34,000 a year as an airline pilot, But I drank. It was my birthday, and I had like a beer. I had a big glass of Sam Adams, and God, it was so good because I needed it so bad. And then I had another one, and it was even better, and, God, andI stopped. I had, like, two beers and went home, you know, and slept the best that I had slept in years. um and and that kind of continued for a while and and and then i eventually like let her catch me you know and uh and just kept drinking and and drink the way that i eventually drank is it's always the same i get to where like i just want to drink all the time i'm like flying jets and drinking at night and getting up uh perhaps still drunk i don't know I never like breathalyzed myself, but thank God nobody else did either because I know that there were days that I reported for duty at 6 a.m., not sober enough to safely do much of anything, much less fly an airplane. And eventually I wanted not to do that anymore because this is getting in the way of my drinking. I'm scared I'm going to get caught all the time. Why don't we move? That's what we'll do. We'll move to New Mexico where your parents are and where you grew up. You'll be fine. You'll finally, like, be okay if we just take you to, like. New Mexico hippieville. Where they do yoga the way you want to do yoga or whatever. And then you'll be happy. And get off my case about everything. So we did. I just kind of checked out and, like., got drunk and stoned. There was this brief little window where I, like,. Tried to get sober and couldn't really. and then we had the communication fight we needed to have and she left and took the kids and I went to the bar when it was about three months later I realized the kids are in Georgia I gotta go and that was when I came here I had been smoking medical marijuana in these little foil packets with cellophane and a lab report on it it's amazing It is so good and clean and exactly how many percent of all the difference. It's like the best pot ever, and they didn't have it in Atlanta when I got here, and it was really disappointing because it was practically free in Santa Fe, but they did have cocaine, and it Was half price compared to the 80s. It wasn't as good, but it was cheap, and It's all over the place. and I spent the next six months uh basically like just being the drunk that I had always wanted to be uh and it was fairly epic I no longer have a wife or any kids and I've started drinking again and it's in it's just it was on and I lived like down in the east Atlanta village and went and partied at the at the the bar that the bus boys and waitresses hung out at and I'm like the oldest guy there was the creepy old guy at the club and in my mind I was like the second coming of like Don Draper and Jay-Z I had a I had this BMW convertible that I bought and I like drove it around and like tried to get myself killed or arrested every night uh and failed wonderfully uh and you know that ran for about six months and this and on September 24th I woke up on a friend's couch like wasted from Jägermeister still just knowing I'd just done just like done and for real done and knowing like I can't I just can't do it anymore. I had a girlfriend, I had a married girlfriend who broke up with me and it was like the day after I lost my job, my married girlfriend broke up avec me, wouldn't take my calls or anything because her husband threatened to take the kids and you'll never see him again if you ever talk to him again or something like that. And that was enough for me it's so stupid now it's like that job was like the worst job I ever had and that girlfriend was the worst girlfriend I've ever had but those two things like losing those two things at the same time indicated to me man whatever like drinking and cocaine you've been doing to make everything okay and to just make life work isn't enough and it's gonna take a lot more than that I did not have it in me to do more than now like it was I was done all right I just couldn't like I couldn't do but I went to a bad AA meeting. I don't even know if it was an AA meeting, they had steps on the wall and they read like something out of the big book, but that was, they're departed from alcoholics and honest. It's like, I don'T know. It was a, it's funny, it was like it was really bad, but the act of going to it was a surrender in some way. It was like, all right, I can't do this, I got to go get some help. There was no help to be had at this place. It was a bunch of old people talking about their problems, was all it was. Nobody greeted me when I came in. Nobody tried to introduce, there was, well, there's one guy who kind of made an attempt to sort of help me, but there was no hope to be out of this place, but the act of just walking in the door was a surrender. After a couple of weeks, the guy who kinda seemed a little interested in this stuff, I just asked him, like, hey, I've been to AA before. This seems a little different. Are there any meetings that are kind of like a little more big book than this and kind of maybe harder core than what we're doing here? And he directed me to the Fifth Tradition Group. He said, you might like that. And I went and I recognized the AA that I had been introduced to before And then I knew it was like big book oriented steps, service, lots of service, lots of services. Lots of service positions. Lots of people doing service. Lots of People in the Room. All these people like taking the podium. And it's funny because like at our big book study, you know, you like share from the podium and so I would go to that meeting every other Thursday because by now my girlfriend's like actually not going to get back together with her husband so yeah maybe we will do this and she's got her kids every other thursday so on the on the off thursdays when she doesn't have her kids there's no way i'm going to an aa meeting on that night and i'm with but i'll come every other Thursday uh and would hear like people talk about being a drunk like me and getting sober and their their tale of getting sober was unlike anything i had experienced in AA before, they all spoke with unanimity about the steps and sponsorship. Mostly sponsorship but then the point of sponsorship is so I can do the steps. And then sponsoring others and getting in service and like joining a home group and being in a homegroup and this is like everybody across the board has the same message and they're all like happy and like kind of put together somehow you know and after a couple of months of not getting well just sort of like coming to this group and being mad at it for not like embracing me with open arms and saving me a seat at the table when we go to pizza and making me the chairperson or what you know it's like I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't happening. And then it just kind of became clear, hey, if this stays like this, where you're just some, like, hanger-on at the successful AA meeting where people are getting sober and they're, like having this thing, but you're, just like, kind of a hanger- on here, you'll drink. Like that's not gonna, like that experience won't keep you sober. you will be drunk again. Maybe not this month, maybe not even this year, but you'll drink again if it stays like that and I knew that that was true and got scared and asked this guy who seemed to be active if he would sponsor me and I don't even know what that means. He seemed to be active was my impression of this guy. I didn't know him. I'd never spoken to him.I might have heard him share from the podium. He seems to beactive and I asked him if he would sponsor me. And he said, yeah, and gave me some things to do. I began protesting. He didn't care and was just like, you know, do these things or don't. I mean, like, it's dude, you're the one who wants help. You know, what are you? And so I started playing with these things, eventually got on board with like doing some of the things. And when I did, there were results that happened. Yeah, there were like, there are results that happen. And that was enough to that was enough To like initiate a further surrender, like, okay, I think the next one was like, that was sponsorship. That was a surrender. You know, yeah, I'll like, get a guy to help me. I'll tell him the truth about stuff. And so hilarious telling the truth at the time was like, vomiting all this insanity. That's what I would call him and just like, dude, you're never gonna believe this this insane like perception on like my crazy life at the time and I thought hey that's like honest and therapeutic or whatever you know but it was it was a surrender he demanded some things of me later and I did want to go eventually capitulate it's a further like surrender we did this inventory in a fifth step and it's this further like surrender and I keep saying that because what i find is like this whole thing is just like these layers of surrender it's just like that's all that i wind up encountering next along the way i'm at this real awkward like phase of this thing um i'll be sober five years in a couple of months and from what i've seen that's this real awkward light every everything's not new and awesome anymore it's like kind of boring and and it's like the same old crap really and uh another another sponsee who's not going to be he's not going to stay sober yet you know let's get let's go throw my time at that some more um and i've been going through this kind of like i don't know it's just sort of disenchantment and disillusionment about some of the stuff through this like transition thing but what what i keep finding is there is like this other layer of surrender uh after the thing that i get to, and that's very much at this place. Some things wonderful have happened. I can work again without like being kicked out of the workplace, which is really huge. I'm like actually worth something to the team that I work with. I met a woman in Alcoholics Anonymous. She told her story this one night when I was at the home group, and I was in the throes of this like insane relationship, And as she, like, starts telling her story, I'm like, oh my God, she's not crazy. Like, I want one like that, man. That's like, that's what a woman's supposed to be like. Listen to her. She's like got some principles and stuff. I want ones with a spine like that. Oh my God. And I think I mentioned that to my sponsor, and he was like, you're out of your mind. Like, there's no way that's ever going to happen. Why don't you just, like shut up and get back in these steps? And so we did. and then by some miracle, God saw fit to work that all out and that happened too. And she is amazing. Some of you know her and she's an incredible woman who's been a fantastic helper to me on this voyage. I'll close with reading something. This is from A Vision for You. It may seem incredible that these men are to become happy, respected, and useful once more. How can they rise out of such misery? bad repute, and hopelessness. The practical answer is that since these things have happened among us, they can happen with you. Should you wish them above all else and be willing to make use of our experience, we are sure they will come. The age of miracles is still with us. Our own recovery proves that. It's been an honor to be with you tonight. Thank you very much.