The Mental Obsession and the Power of Choice – John K.

But I heard from Dino and from Jack that he does a real nice job. And we were kind of wondering if he was going to make it tonight and somebody come running in there with a big book under their arm, running like a windmill salesman or a fuller brush man, and I figured that must be him. But he comes from a primary purpose group over in Dallas, and I've met some people from there and I'm sure a lot of good things about that group. and I don't want to take any more time. So, John, if you'll come up here. Let's give my east side a welcome. That's still up there. It makes me nervous. I'm losing it. Yeah, I'm not going to sit on it. I'd be way too nervous for that. I'm going to move it to the other side now. For some reason, it feels better on this side than that side. my name is john kelly i'm a gratefully covered alcoholic and my sobriety date is september the 4th 1999 and for that i am very very grateful and i just saw my sated mother today and she's pretty grateful too she likes that because i sure put that woman through a lot of misery over the years. Some might call me fanatical, I don't know. Some call me a big book dumper. That's the way I was brought up. I'm not going to tell my story tonight, I'm going to get right into the steps but I got sober in September of 1999 and that wasn't my first go around in this rodeo. I started trying to get sober in Alcoholics Anonymous in July of 1988 and I've been to literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of meetings all over the state of Texas, all over this great country, and the Caribbean. Got piles and piles of desire chips. And in the last five, six, seven years of my drinking, I did not want to drink anymore. Did not. I didn't want to go to jail anymore. I didn' t want to lose any more friends, lose any more jobs, lose anymore freedom, lose any more of my dignity. And I had no iota what the program of Alcoholics Anonymous was all about. See, I'm one of these cats that's pretty hip, slick, and cool. You get me sober for a few days and I can hear what these people say in these meetings and stuff and I could mimic and I couldn't copy and I didn't come up with my stuff on my own and you'll be patting me on the behind after that meeting and I tell you I'm doing great and I always got drunk. I have no success doing it any other way so we just go right by the book and we are big book thumpers where I come from. So I'm going to just kind of do it like I do when I do these treatment centers. But, you know, I've had an Alcoholics Anonymous book since 1988, and I never read the darn thing. You know, or I'd read some stuff, and some would make some sense, some of the stuff wouldn't make any sense, and I just didn't, it didn't ever really sink in. I didn't really identify with much. I remember the first time I read Bill's story in 1988, and I'm thinking, man, that guy really needs to be sober. I had no concept of what he was talking about because I hadn't done any of that stuff yet. And I'm sure a lot more happened to Bill in Bill's life than what's in his story, but when I got sober in 99, my story made his look like a walk in the park. It was a tedious process to get me to see what was in this book. And I thank God every day that I made it to a group where the people in that group, the lights are on. You know? I won't mention the group but my last home group before this group I mean, I got so many desire chips there I mean they didn't even clap anymore when I get one They didn't have anything to offer me either and you know I was convinced that I was just going to die drunk and that's what I tried to do in the summer of 99 because I couldn't stay sober I'd been in five emergency rooms in about a ten week period all alcohol related and I was just resigned to the fact that I was going to drink myself to death and that's what I tried to do that entire summer drink enough vodka not the good stuff skull pop that little governor out of the top so you can drink it fast and somehow on Labor Day weekend for that Friday I came to and blood all over me and I hadn't been stabbed I had one thought that crowded out all else is I don't want to die this way and I detoxed myself not too far from here at my brother's house and I made it to primary purpose on that Tuesday of September 99 and the first person I saw was this little old man who I'd met the year previous about 80 years old i was shaking and vibrating and stunk to holy hell and and um that old man walked up to me gave me a hug and i looked at him and i said i need to talk to you and he he looked back you know over the top of his glasses like your grandpa would do when he means business and he says what the hell can i do for you and i'm scared and i don't want to drink anymore And he said, come on. And we sat down in this little room before the meeting started. And this little old man opened up his big book. And he must have done a marvelous job 12-stepping me because it sunk in. So we're going to do it the way the old man does it. And it was passed on to him like this. And this is the way we're gonna roll. But if you have a big book, you open it up to the title page and it tells you what this book is about right off the bat. It says Alcoholics Anonymous is a story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism. I can't tell you how many treatment centers I've been in that tells me I'm always going to be a recovering alcoholic. And when I think of that, I'm thinking of some sniveling, whining, I am always in recovery. That offers me no hope. That offers мне no hope, they're telling me I am going to recover from alcoholismo. This is a book on how they did it. So let's see what the book says. If you turn past the table of contents to the preface in the second paragraph, it says this book has become the basic text for our society. This is a textbook. What do you do with a textbook? We study it, right? When we got to first grade in math class, the little math teacher passed out math books to everybody. Unless you were a frigging genius, you didn't go to the end of the book and start working big problems, did you? No, we had a teacher who was there to guide each one of us students through the work so that we could learn the principles of mathematics. This is a textbook. I'm going to refer back to it over and over. It's all marked up, notes in the margin, pages falling apart. I'm gonna study it. Why on earth, you ask, do I study the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous? If you flip the page, it tells you right there, four to the first edition. This is how we open up our meetings. We don't read how it works. That's granted, we're granted that right in the fourth tradition. But it says, as it was written in 1939, it says we of Alcoholic Anonymous are more than 100 men and women who have recovered. There's that word again. Hadn't even got to the real number of pages yet, and they mention recovered twice. And it says we've recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. A hopeless state OF MIND. Here's my definition. Back in the day when I was drinking, in order for me to get through the day, I had to drink no matter what, and it was killing me. In order for ME to live, I had TO drink, but it was KILLING me. That sounds like a conundrum I don't know I couldn't live with the booze And I sure as heck couldn't Live without the boozed But I had to drink A hopeless state of mind and body Now here's another great line Probably one of my favorite lines It says To show other alcoholics Precisely how we recovered Is the purpose of this book So they're telling me That the textbook of Alcoholics Anonymous is giving you and me precise instructions on how to recover from the deadliest illness known to mankind, alcoholism. Alcoholism kills people that ain't even alcoholics. Precise. What does precise mean? It means exact, no gray area. The big book, the textbook, tells us how to take the steps, when to takethe steps, with whom to takethesteps. There's prayers and promises all along the way. Promises of what happens when you follow the directions in the big book and there's some promises that'll come true if you don't follow directions in the big book. And I've experienced all those promises at one time or another, you know? But precise. Telling me to put the plug in the jug and keep coming back, that sounds good. They don't mean me any harm by it. But if I could not drink and go to meetings, I'd be out there not drinking and going to meetings. I have no successful experience in that. I'm a chronic, end-of-the-line, street-level alcoholic of the hopeless variety. Me sitting around a meeting and hearing about your divorce one more time is not a program of action for me. It says, For them we hope these pages will prove so convincing that no further authentication will be necessary. This is the only book where we have instructions on the steps. There's lots of great books put out by Alcoholics Anonymous. I have them all. I encourage you to get them all and read them all, they're awesome. The 12 in 12 is an awesome book. There's no instructions in the 12 in twelve. It's written by a guy who was 20 years sober at the time. That's like me showing up September the 4th, 1999, and my sponsor that night, instead of 12-stepping me, he told me what his life was like today. great how in the heck do you get there from where I'm at that's why we have this book and if that rubs you the wrong way read page 17 of the 12 and 12 it'll tell you that this book is where the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is so as we think this account of our experiences will help everyone to better understand the alcoholic many do not comprehend that the alcoholic is a very sick person so we're going to have chapters called doctor's opinion they're going to explain this illness we've got chapter two the wives to the family afterward, to employers. Why? To let those folks out there know what's killing us. See, their solution for us drinking is totally different than what our solution is. You know? They get hurt, they stop. I get hurt. Oh, it wasn't that bad. I keep going, you know? And it says, and besides we're sure that our way of living has its advantages for all. So obviously we get sober, our lives improve. Our families' lives improve, we're better employees, We're better taxpayers, yada, yadda, yaddda. But since these 12 steps were adopted, there's over like 280 other groups that use the same darn 12 steps. Cocaine anonymous, narcotics anonymous, gamblers anonymous, you name it anonymous. There's one called Messy's Anonymous for people that I guess are too messy or not messy. I don't know. They'd have a relapse if they came to my house, that's for sure. The basic thought on that is the 12 steps work when applied to whatever is killing you out there, right? The next part of the book is 4 to the 2nd edition. Written in 1955, it tells about how AA grew, how it was started, how it grew. Grew real slow in the first. It's all word of mouth. Bill met Dr. Bob. They got Bill Dotson. Slow, slow, slow until some articles were written, Jack Alexander in particular, and AA blew up, right, and it grew incrementally year after year after year after until a little bit later on and we'll get to that in just a second. The part I want to work out talk about here is, I know I'm doing the steps but I got to get ramped up before well, I'm getting there, I am getting there okay but if you look in the fourth to the second edition on Roman numeral 20, five lines down from the top they give you some statistics. Now these aren't empirical statistics they didn't talk to every single member of Alcoholics Anonymous But the home office contacted the groups that were in existence at the time and asked them some general questions about their membership. This is what they generally found to be true. It says, of alcoholics who came to AA and really tried, 50% got sober at once and remained that way. All right? So back in the day, early AA, half got sober, stayed sober. It's pretty darn good. Real good. There's not a treatment center on this planet that can sniff 50%. It says out of 25% of those returned as time passed, right? So they had 25% and out of the other 50%, they had to go do some more drinking. Knuckleheads like me, you know? Weren't willing to get a sponsor, weren't willingto help anybody, weren'twilling to make amends, whatever the case may be. Weren'e convinced of step one, whatever. They went out and did some more drink and 25%of them made it back. It says, out ofthe remainder of those, two out of three returned as timepassed. There's groups in existence still today with documentation from way back in the early days that we're knocking out 75%, 85%. AA, in the year 2000, estimated less than 5% of the folks coming into Alcoholics Anonymous are going to achieve five years of sobriety. I don't know about you, but that sucks. How could you go from at least 50% to less than 5% in a matter of 50 years. How can that happen? I mean, alcohol is alcohol, right? Booze is 100 proof is 100proof. Rotten nagging spouses are still rotten nagging spouses. Crappy jobs are crappy jobs. Problems are problems. Well, what changed? Well, I'm going to lay out how it worked back in the day and see if this matches up to your little experience today. Back in the days, we got this guy here. We'll use the guy. We've got this guy here. He's in the hospital detoxing one more time. His family has thrown more money at his disease than... I mean, he's been on the Dr. Phil show. He's been to the best treatment centers. And this guy's inthe hospital detox and dying one more time. Back in early AA, the guys would come visit this cat in thehospital. And we'd sit down with this cat, and we'd tell him our stories. We'd identify him. We'd find out all we can about this young man. And then we'd leave. and then we come back the next day and we sit down with this young man again and we go through that same old spiel one more time find out a little bit more about him we identify with him we tell him our story we tell them what it was like when we were trying to stop drinking and drinking and thenwe leave and we do this for a couple three or four days this guy is getting a little more clear headed while he's in the hospital we comeback to visit him and he knows one thing I drink as much booze or more than he ever dreamed of drinking. And he's dying and I ain't. And he says, you're just like me. How do you stay sober? Now I got him. Now I get to lay out this program, the spiritual program of action. I become that man's sponsor. We go through the steps as outlined in this book. This man recovers and now he is helping this man. That's the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, folks. Not once did I say it was sitting around a table talking about our days, the IRS, any of that stuff. I mean, if your doctor diagnosed you with cancer, you wouldn't go to a meeting and talk about cancer for 90 days, would you? Nope. I don't think so. So let's find out what it means to be a real alcoholic because if we don't understand step one, all the rest aren't going to make a difference. We're going to go to the doctor's opinion. this doctor's opinion was written by William D. Silkworth, worked at Towns Hospital in New York City, a little hospital right off Central Park in Newark, worked with over 50,000 of us alcoholics and drug addicts during his tenure at Townshospital. All right? He was an expert on us. He loved us. But he couldn't figure out why is it that guy or that gal that comes to his hospital that's drinking to excess. Maybe they're going through a divorce or maybe they're going through a period of their life where they're just drinking way too much and they end up in his hospital and they counsel him, they nurse him back to health, they give him some hydrotherapy. I don't know what that is. I guess that means we're really clean when we leave there. I don'T know what THAT means. They shoot water at us. I DON'T know. But they do all they can and this person's scared to death that they're gonna lose the rest of their family or their standing in society or whatever the case may be and this person leaves the hospital never to return, right? They learn their lesson. And then you've got guys like me go to the same hospital, get the same treatment, knowing full well when I leave there I cannot so much as take one drink of alcohol or I'm going to lose my job, my house, my car, my kids, my freedom, my dignity, knowing all that. And I leave that hospital in high hopes in a short amount of time, I'm right back to drinking. Man's been trying to answer that riddle since booze was invented. Hell, they've been preying on us, moving us from here to there, giving us hobbies. They tried everything. Finally, they just come up with the solution. They just lock us up for it, you know? So this doctor came up with a theory. And when this book came out, it was just out of theory. If you can ever get a hold of a first edition, you'll notice he don't even sign his name in the first edition. It's just anonymous doctor. I think, or I've seen it, but I don't remember what it says. Since then, science has proven its theory to be 100% accurate. Step one says we admitted we were powerless over alcohol. Now a completely different thought, a hyphen that our lives have become unmanageable. All right? So let's see what the doctor says. He says we believe and so suggested a few years ago that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy, right? So he's saying if you're a real alcoholic, a chronic alcoholic, your body reacts differently to booze than 90% of the world's population. The ESMA, about 1 in 10 of us have what it takes to be an alcoholic, right? An allergy. An allergy is just an abnormal reaction to something you eat or drink. Who's allergic to penicillin in here? Always. Susanna, what's up? What happens when you have... Right? I asked that to a lady A couple days ago And she says, I die She went straight past the hives And throwing up And throat constricting To die You know She just had a flare for the dramatic See, isn't that odd? If I get an infection Or something like that I can go to my doctor He gives me penicillin And it cures me It fixes me Susanna can get this Very same infection And go to her doctor And they give her penicilin And she swells up throat constricts, has a hard time breathing and maybe if they gave her enough penicillin she would die. She has the allergic reaction. That's just the way she is. That's the way I am. It doesn't matter. He's saying if you're an alcoholic you have an allergic reaction to alcohol. And he says that the phenol... This is how the allergic... I don't break out into hives and I've broken into some stuff on alcohol but I haven't broken out anything. But this is what... I got Dino in the back. I like making him laugh, you know. This is what the allergy does in a real alcoholic. He says that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in those other people. The phenomenon of carving. It's one of the things that sets me apart from those normal drinkers or those hard drinkers. See, I get the thought in my head I'm going to take a drink and I take the drink and I trigger this out. Is there anything that she can do other than getting an antihistamine or something or whatever they do to counteract? If she takes penicillin, once she takes it, she's going to have the reaction, right? There's nothing she can do except go to the doctor and get the antidote or whatever. I take a drink of alcohol. I trigger this allergy. Bam! My brain says, let's have another and another and another. It was just my intention. You know, it's Friday night. I just got paid. My boss's birthday and everybody's going into a little pool hall to sing happy birthday to my boss, right, and I call my girlfriend and she says, Hey, I'm making your special dinner and I have the Wonder Woman costume all lined up, right? It'll be ready at 8 o'clock, you know? And I'm like, it's my boss's birthday. I'll be home by 8, right, and it's My Intentions. I love the Wonder Women costume, you Know? It's My intentions, but I get to this place. Everybody's having a good time, and I take that first drink, and bam, I trigger that allergy. Now my brain says I'll have another and another. Now I'm doing shots. Now I'm at a bar where the girls don't have any clothes on. Now I am here, now I am there. Who knows when I make it home? Right? The phenomenon of craving. See, it happens to alcoholics. It doesn't happen to those other people. Did you ever get to a point where you said, No, I am too drunk tonight. I didn't. I didn' t utter those words. I drank until I passed out and I drank as soon as I came to. That's how I do this thing. Right? I'm powerless. I've lost control. Once I start, I cannot control how much I drink. Right? That makes sense. It's my job in the beginning when I sit down with a newcomer to lay this out. And it ain't my job to pat him on the behind and tell him I'm going to love him into sobriety. My job is to paint the picture and I'm gonna paint the pictures as dark as I can. Why? Because that's my experience. I drink, I can't control how many drinks or how much i drink. If this was my only problem, because I know there's been many, many times where I woke up after one of those bad nights and I thought, this has got to stop. I've drank too much again. I've just got to stopped because I think alcohol is the problem. Well, if this was the problem, what would be my solution? Don't drink. Makes perfect sense to a normal person. Oh, you drink too much, so don't drink well. That doesn't work out for me. Why? Because of the second half of step one. My life is unmanageable. Why is that? Because my mind always leads me back to the drink, always. It always leads Me back to The Drink. I'll read the rest of this paragraph here. It says these allergic types can... And the reason I read this, because I remember one, like my first or second treatment center, and I still have the big book, because I have in mind here, you know, powerless and all this stuff, you know all my little notes and everything. But on this one particular big book that I got this treatment center or this part that I'm going to read to you, they've told me that's why my life is unmanageable, right? And so I'm gonna read what they say. It says, these allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all. Once having formed the habit, found they can't break it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up and then they become astonishingly difficult to solve. And I'm just listening to what they said and they say, that's Why Your Life's Unmanageble. It made perfect sense to me, right. no that's not the right answer those are consequences hell you drink from the time you get up to the time you pass out life becomes increasingly difficult to handle problems pile up those are consequences has nothing to do with why my life's unmanageable second half of step one the reason my life is unmanable to save my life to keep that job to keep my freedom to keep my girlfriend to keep My Kids I am unable to manage the decision to stay away from the drink. Cannot do it on my own power. I've tried it over and over and over. That is why my life has become unmanageable. Has nothing to do with those consequences. Nothing. The circumstances of my life don't make me an alcoholic. Down at the bottom of that page they say, men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. That's a pretty true statement. And let's make it a real true statement. Alcoholic men and women drink essentially because we love the effect produced by alcohol. I mean, come on. Don't tell me you just drank just for the taste. I've drank some nasty stuff in my day, including rubbing alcohol. Hey, if you're stuck out in the country and you ain't got no wheels and all they got is rubbing alcohol and you need a drink, you'll drink it. Or I did at least. I don't recommend that to anyone. I hear you can go blind or whatever. I don't know. I was in Iceland. You should see the stuff they drink. Anyway, I want the effect. See, I went through life. Before I ever took a drink, I didn't know this until now that I'm sober and all that stuff, looking back, reflecting upon my life. But I needed a drink long before I had a drink. I needed it. I needed to drink. My girlfriend had it right. She drank when she was eight. She held out as long as she could, man. and she needed a drink when she was eight, you know? I held out until I was 15, right? But see, you Know, I'm the first kid. There's two sets of twins behind me. I'm The First Grandkid. Granddad was pretty well off in West Texas. I had the best shoes, the best clothes. My family loved me. There's no alcohol in my direct family. I had everything looking for, you know, the future looked bright. I played every sport. I was great at every sport, I made great grades, you know what I'm saying? everybody pat me on the butt telling me how great I'm going to be when I grow up. You know, and I dreamed that I was going to go to UT and be a lawyer like my uncle and work at his law firm. I'd be retired by now, you know? Except, I had this little voice in my head. You're telling me I'm great, but I had a little voice at my head going, you're a friggin' loser. You know what I'm saying? I was like, we moved around a lot. I was self-conscious. I was real shy. I'd meet some friends and then we'd move, right? But I had that little voice in my head. You know, I walk into this room and I think you're all staring at me. What did I do? I just didn't fit. The twins below me, they bond. You know I'm just, I don't fit until I was 15 at tennis camp in Florida and I took my first drink and then I fit. All the dots were connected. The keys to the universe were in my possession. Those chicks that I was with, they wanted me. You know what I'm saying? I was hip, slick, and cool. I want that effect. I want that effect, right? It says this sensation is so elusive. See, I had that effect for years and years and years until the tables turned and I couldn't quite keep that effect or I just drank right on past it. It was fleeting, you know what I'm saying? I don't know if it was the third drink or the fifth martini or whatever but I'd get that effect but I've already triggered and I'm gone. I overshoot the effect over and over. The sensation is elusive. You know, it's like trying to catch a greased up balloon or a pig or something. It's just elusive, I can't just get to that sense of ease and comfort and stop. Why? Because I got this allergy telling me to drink another and another and other. It says that while they admit it as injurious, oh, I got some injuries. Now, the injuries don't make me an alcoholic, but I got plenty of injuries. Oh, I've been to jails only two times. I've Been to Jail Twice. I mean, it's not like I'm a hardened veteran, you know, of jail. I can't stand up here and be like, oh, I could do jail time standing on my head, you know? That's nothing. I've wrecked cars. Most of the wrecks that I've had in cars were not my cars. They were your cars, you know? I was always driving them. Been to five treatment centers. I don't know how many hospitals. I don' t know how many friends I've lost, how many great jobs I've lost, family members I've lost. How about dignity? Ooh, I lost some dignity too. Alcohol took me to places I never dreamed I'd go. Took me with people I'd never dreamed. Hell, I'd Go home with Bo Derek. Wake up with Bo Diddley. You know? I've used that joke for like six years now, and it always gets a laugh. But yeah, I had some injuries. I mean, that's the truth. I leave this building today, and I go have a drink. That stuff starts to happen in a hurry. I mean, a little bit before I got sober, I left one day before I'd ever had a drink. Had a little like two months of sobriety and I left this little halfway house. All I was going to do was look for an apartment. And I ended up in jail with a felony possession, P.I., and kicking a cop in the chest who was trying to pull me out of a cab. I mean that's where my drinking took me to. Right? That's the truth about my drinking. but what does my brain tell me it's not that bad just a little bad luck i had bad luck for the 90s you know it was all bad everything was bad i mean i had a psychiatrist when i was like 19 years old was telling me you know list all the bad things in your life and even at 19 all the mad things that i consider bad in my life were all a direct result of alcohol I drank 17 more years, you know. It was a tedious process. He says to them, well, I'm going to hold my finger on that page and I'm going to go to, see, I am going to give you the bad news of step one. You go over here to, there is a solution, page 24, it's in italics. This is the bad new of step 1. It says, the fact is that most alcoholics for reasons yet obscure have lost the power of choice in drink. They are saying if you are a real alcoholic, you ain't got no choice in the matter. It's not a matter of if you're going to drink, it is when you're going to drink it says our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent now here's the tricky part this is the part we i like to ram home all the time in little treatment centers because this is a part that i never understood it says we're unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago we are without defense against the first drink welcome your life being unmanageable. They're saying that the day that I take my last drink, within a certain amount of time, and it varies. For me, my life unravels quickly when I'm not drinking. So the time frame is very, very short. But they're saying the day I take that last drink I get removed from that last drink. My little brain is unable to come up with a solution to not drink. I can't remember it. Well, let's do a little test. Close your eyes and think of the worst, most painful, degrading experience you had as a direct result of drinking. So what were you doing 24, 48 hours later? Oh, drinking. Isn't that amazing? Amazing. First time I got thrown in jail. God, I prayed all day long. And I had been kind of 12-stepped a little bit, and I kind of knew a little bit more than I had done in previous times. And I'm praying all day long and loose there, God, if you'll get me out of this, I'll do anything. I'll call Frank back. I'll get the best lawyer I can get, and then I'll go to the hospital. I'll be able to get out of this, and I'll goto back to my meetings, and you know, and I'm just praying all they want. And I've been bad shape, bad, bad shape. Shaking it out, and I mean, it's horrible. my little boss at the time bonded me out that day I got thrown in jail on Sunday night sometime I bonded out Monday evening and I'm walking out loose stare and I put my watch on my wrist and my watch says 847 and I ran across the street and bought me another bottle of vodka you think that I walked into the liquor store and put that vodka up there and said I just got the hell kicked out of me I got a felony possession, a PI kicking a cop in the chest. Give me another bottle of this stuff, man. No, but I had to drink. I drank no matter what. See, left to my own devices, I'm unable to manage the decision to stay away from booze. I've lost the power to choose. Those are the only two questions you need to answer in your little heart of hearts for step one. I know they've got little pamphlets that say 20 questions or 40 questions. Hey, if you answer those two questions, You're going to answer all the rest of those other questions. I think, I don't know, I've answered them all. Hell, drink in the morning, drink at night. Yeah, I mean, you name it. Lost jobs, lost... I mean... Come up with a hundred questions. They're all going to be checked. True, true, true. It doesn't matter. I've lost the power to control it. I've loss the power choose. Welcome to step one. But let's look what Bill says more about step one and go over to page 30 and I love the way he writes. That's why we do a big book study all the time in my group. Why? So we can learn what's in here. Look what he says. He says, most of us have been unwilling to admit we are real alcoholics. See, when I was in college, I'd be proud to tell you I was an alcoholic. Why? Because it was fun. I drank better than most people. I didn't get sloppy back then. I didn'T slur my words. I could drive better, dance better. You name it, man. It was good. I was proud of it. But towards the end, now I'm hiding booze and I lived alone. Go figure. I don't know. Don't know what I was thinking. We cleaned up my apartment when I sobered up. There was, you know, y'all have been through it. There was booze everywhere. All right? I didn't want to admit that I was a real alcoholic. See, I went through like most of the 90s trying to still prove that you were the reason why I was an alcoholic. That's why I moved to Puerto Rico. Drunkard, and you know what? I just had to get away from Dallas. Tried to blame it on my family for a while. Trying to wish upon... I mean, I'm not making light of this, but wishing that I was abused as a kid. That must be why. I must have been abused as an alcoholic. Abused as a child. That's how I'm an alcoholic, you know? I didn't want to admit I was a real alcoholic. It says no person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Bodily different from the allergy. Mentally different because I have a mind that leads me to the drink. See, my mental obsession is subtle. They call it cunning, baffling, powerful. See, I go to the little meeting and get a desire chip and make a go at AA, and they tell me to keep coming back. They tell me go to 90 meetings in 90 days. I do that, and because I'm an alcoholic, I think, well, I'll do that and I'll even join the sober softball team, you know? And I'll get some Tony Robbins books, and I'll start running five miles a day doing push-ups, doing good deeds for my mama. You see me at a meeting, you ask me how I'm doing, I tell you I'm going great. Doing great. Feel better. Sleep better. Everything is great. God is wonderful. Right? But inside, it ain't that great because I'm like an actor. see little by slowly I'm unraveling on the inside and maybe somebody in my group tells me man, maybe you just need to double up on your meetings okay maybe you just need make out a gratitude list okay and the days go by and I unravel a little bit more a little more and I don't like feeling that way start feeling a little self pity start feeling some fear start feeling that feeling of uselessness wah me you know if you ask me how I'm doing I tell you I'm dealing good see I feel that way long enough that spiritual malady I feel like I don't like feeling that way my little mind says I don' t know why the world treats you so poorly You're a good guy. You look a little stressed, John Kelly. Stress is very, very dangerous. I'm here to help you. I love you. It'll be different this time. What you and I need to do is we need to go on down to Centennial and just get us a little pint of vodka. I know you're an Alcoholics Anonymous. This is just between me and you. No one will know. That's the mental obsession. and that is a death sentence for an alcoholic because the mental obsession condemns an alcoholic left to his own devices to drink to the bitter end. It tells me when I work with others to stress the hopelessness of the situation so I hope I'm doing a good job. It says, therefore it's not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove that we could drink like other people. I bet there's some provers in this room trying to prove Hoping against all hope that the previous 1,000 experiences of my drinking, tonight I'm going to be a miracle of control. Tonight I'm just going to have a couple, enjoy the evening, and call it a night. I'm gonna prove. Maybe I'm not going to drink tequila. I'm a vodka and rumple men's type of person. You know? The higher the proof, the better for me. You know?" So I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to drink beer. And I swell up, you know. To prove that... Now here we go. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. See my brain tells me that I can control and Enjoy it. Now I don't know about you, if I ever tried to control it, I sure as heck wasn't enjoying it. Anybody ever try to control your drinks for you? I went to a party with a girl one time, and it was like a cash bar at this party. And so I gave her my money, right? And so she was buying the drinks. And she was, because we'd had some run-ins, you know. So she's buying the drink, right. After the first couple of drinks, I'm trying to figure out a way that I can kill her so I can get my money back, you now. Because I was not having a good time. And we ended up having to leave that place. I can't control and enjoy it. And if I'm enjoying it, I sure as heck ain't controlling it. Right? But my mind... I mean, think about it. Think not this time. I know you're all big book thumpers in here and everybody's rocking and rolling. But think back to one of those other times when you swore you were never going to do it again. Right? You were given sufficient reason. Right? Maybe it was a job. Maybe it Was your relationship. Maybe it WAS just you looking in the mirror and you swored you were never ever going to be able to do that again. You were never ever gonna do it again. Right? And maybe you went to church more. Maybe you did more good deeds. Maybe you went the AA, right? But you didn't drink. My question is, how free were you? Because if you were like me, I wasn't even drinking. But you know what? I was thinking about not drinking. I ain't even drinking back then and booze still owns me. Hell, they're telling me to stay away from my playmates, playthings. The mental obsession is a killer. They call it an obsession. And look at this next one. The persistence of this illusion. What's the illusion? That I can control and enjoy it. That I could drink like a gentleman. That I couldn't drink like a normal person. That is an illusion. Well, what's an illusion? If I turn this book into a parakeet, did I really do it or did I trick you? That's what an illusionist does. He makes us see things that aren't there. My illusion back in the day was that somehow I'll be able to drink normally. Although I have no experience drinking normally. Never done that. Got drunk the first time out and damn near every time thereafter. But my illusion is that I can drink normally The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it to the gates of insanity or death. i don't know about y'all when i started drinking but going insane from it or dying from it we're not on the horizon but that's where alcoholism took me too you know that's just the ugly truth and it says we had to learn we we learned we had TO FULLY CONCEDE TO OUR INNERMOST SELVES THAT WE WERE ALCOHOLICS this is the first step i gotta concede in my heart of hearts right no lurking notion in my group we call it the holy trinity I know there's a real holy trunity so I don't mean to be blasphemous but we'll just call it the trinity the alcoholic's trinity right the job the car and the girl if I can just get the job the car and the car and the child my life will be okay see I was under that illusion a long time too that if I could get these external circumstances in my life situated, I wouldn't drink. That's not a step one. If you can get sober that way, more power to you, my hat's off to you. I cannot do that. I have no experience doing that. I just had a talk with a treatment center in Dallas the other day and that's what they're telling these guys. You don't need to work the steps right now. you need to get your job situation squared away and get this stuff. You know, that's pretty scary, folks. I'm thankful that we get to go carry the message there, but good God, that is a real uphill battle because I am telling them the exact opposite. The big book is telling them exactly the opposite. I got to know in my heart of hearts that I am A, in fact, an alcoholic. you know I got a no here I knew up here for a long time but see I could never admit that I was a real alcoholic because I didn't know what a real alcoholic was you know finally thank God I started going to jail started having some more car wrecks and started ending up in hospitals I've gone through DT twice you know I've had some seizures you know so in some people's eyes they're like you're an alcoholic right I still was drinking I mean Bill puts it real good in his story no words can tell of the loneliness and despair I found in that bitter morass of self-pity quicksand stretched around me in all directions I had met my match I was overwhelmed alcohol was my master that was like all that's how I felt 1998 1999 I had no other option except to drink you know drink for the end drink for the end because I was convinced because of what I was told what I thought I knew about this program I was convinced that I didn't have a shot I was convinced I remember the day I don't know what day it was because these days were kind of black out among black out but I remember this one little conversation I had with my boss and I quit this job. It's kind of towards the tail end of summer of 99 because I'd called, he got, this guy was kind of irrational. He got kind of pissed off at me because I called in sick on Monday and Tuesday and I was calling in sick on Wednesday and it's like the 50th time I've done that so he got a little upset with me. It's kinda unreasonable. Anyway, so I fired myself and started drinking real heavily, you know, just to try to die. And I just remember thinking to myself, you Know, God, I'm not mad at you. I'm Not pissed off. I'm just going to be one of these guys that's going to have to die drunk, and I'm okay with that, but please make it hurry. It felt just like Bill did on page 8 that I just read. Just in that morass of self-pity, that morasse of self involvement, that morasses, you now? That's how I walked into Alcoholics Anonymous Stinking, vibrating Shaking Not a hope in the world There must have been a little angel with me that day Because that Tuesday That I got my last desire chip It was a long day Long day Three days after my last drink I can barely walk My brother drops me off at my place in Oak Cliff He went through and we got all the bottles that we could find And threw them away And I'm supposed to go to our meeting that night And I had another sponsor at the time And he called me He called me a couple times during the day Are you going to make it tonight? I said, I'm going to do it I'm not telling him that my brain is saying drink I've got $22 to my name, I believe 22 23 something like that all i had and my brain is telling me to drink and he calls me at five o'clock or 5 30 that day and says look my wife is giving birth i'm not going to be there tonight so you talk to cliff and i said okay somehow i made it there and i already told you he gave me a hug and we went to a little side room before the meeting started, and he sat me down before that meeting started and he blew my mind on alcoholism. He disturbed me greatly about alcoholism He gave me a good case of alcoholism Why? Because he's recovered and been given the power to help me He drank as much booze as I ever did, and I was the one dying and he's not. He was free. You could see it in his little eyes, the little sparkle in his eye, the twinkle in his eyes. This guy had the power and he painted me into a corner and then he asked me the question, are you a real alcoholic? And I'm crying and snotting all over myself and I'm, yes sir, I am. And he said, John Kelly, you're screwed. he used another word for screw. I'll let you use your own imagination. And I thought that for years about my own situation but for the first time in my life that sunk home. I'm going to die drunk. He tells me that and then he looks at me and he says do you think it works for me? And I said I know it works for you. And he says well how well is your way working? And I said, it's not. He says, what the hell do you have to lose except your life? And that's when he informed me that he was now my sponsor. And I was going to call him when he told me to call. I was gonna read what he told us to read. I was just gonna show up where he told me to show up and we were gonna take these steps the way it's outlined in this book or else. And the or else for my sponsor is go away. Don't waste my time. That's my last entrance to Alcoholics Anonymous I'll finish up there next week And I'll end here tonight But all I did in that little meeting That little brief meeting with that old man Is I took steps one and two I came to two conclusions I'm screwed and I hope Welcome to steps one And two And I will go into step two in more detail That's it I meet people all the time and they're telling me, well, I'm still working on step two. I've been working on set two for like a year. What's there to work on? You hope it works or it don't, you know? I mean, you Know, anyway, so it's very, very good to be here. I had a great time when I was here in the summer and I spoke. I don't know. I remember a lot of your faces and I just want to thank you because, I mean I love seeing all of your smiles I mean if any of you go to other groups I mean sometimes it's like speaking to a hostile environment you know and I love you people and I've told everybody I can tell about you know if they're ever in Fort Worth to come by here because I was treated so nicely the last time I was here and so far tonight so don't screw it up okay thank you for having me