The Relief of the Disease Concept – Bill B.

introduce you to Bill. That's the briefest introduction I've ever gotten. Good one. I'm Bill Barnes, I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is January 21st, 1993. The big book talks about when you're telling your story to say what it was like, what I did and what it's like now and that's what I'm gonna do my best to attempt to do give my older reading glasses here I was a late bloomer I didn't start I was kind of sheltered and it didn't started drinking until I was about 18 and by the way part of my story has some other substances in it and though this is an AA meeting and I respect that that being said my story includes other stuff and just from for myself a drug is a drug as a drug in the drug alcohols drug other drugs, drugs. So if I bring a little lead into here it's not to offend anybody and if it does offend you please call your sponsor and talk to them about it. Okay so I was a late bloomer started about 18. I know there's probably some people in here that started when they were five. I wasn't one of those but once I got started it took off really quickly and again I'm going to spend just a little bit of time on what it was like because if you're sitting in this room you know what it was like and I'm gonna spend a lot more time on what I did what y'all taught me to do here and then what it's like so started 18 started drinking hanging out at Chastain Park grew up here in Atlanta and identified with a certain group of people that happened to be the drinkers and druggers and this the only place I felt a part of and that was I've learned since I've gotten here that that's just the nature of my disease. I wanted to change how I felt, didn't feel comfortable in my own skin so I found a group of people that I could hang with that did the same things as I did and I got to use alcohol to numb out the feelings that I was having since I was a kid. So through a series of marriages, I was married three times during my addiction. I burned all three of them down, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with these three women. It was all my disease, and one of the gifts that recovery gives us when I finally got in to get some help is I was starting to really believe, I really thought I was just a bad guy because I would go out and do this stuff. I would disappear and do the things that we do, and when I started getting some help, y'all taught me that I'm not a bad guy, I have a disease, I'm sick. And so what a relief that was when I heard the disease concept, the concept that I have a disease that I did not ask to get, that when in the throes of it I have no choice but to do the things that we do when we're out there. So that was a gift to me, but I didn't know that at the time, so I had it, it was kind of interesting when I look back on it, It was a history of I would meet a girl, I'd like her, I date her for a year, I got married. I'd be married three years. The first two, I left because it was getting bad. It was all subconscious. It wasn't conscious. I didn't consciously say to myself, if I keep doing this, if I want to keep doing this, I have to leave. But subconsciously, I knew that I couldn't continue and I couldn' imagine living life not putting some kind of substance in my body to numb out the feelings. And I didn' think of it in those terms, but that's what it was. So I left the first two. The second one is the same thing, all three of them. A year, three years gone. A year three years, gone a year three years, Gone. Well the third one was a reasonably healthy person and after three years of disappearing for three days at a time and not being responsible and those kinds of things she had gone to see a counselor and she came home one night and I'll back up. What my history was with all of them was, I would do okay, you know, and then I would disappear. I'd go on a binge for three or four days. And then when I would come home I would purposely stay out until what time I thought she was going to work. So she would go to work, I could come in and try to sleep it off and then at the end of her work day she'd come home and all I was looking to hear is, am I in trouble? Are you leaving? Well, she never said, the last one never said that but looking back on it with a sober mind she was saying plenty of things that should have been interpreted that if you continue to do this I'm gonna leave so she came home one day and in one of those episodes and she said been to see a counselor I still love you but I am you have killed or I am NOT in love with you anymore and I'm out of here and so I knew I had a problem so I stayed clean for about a week untreated alcoholism and drug addiction for a week and we all know what white knuckling that's like it's just I woke up a week later and I go my life's over I've been married three times who in the world is ever going to want to be date me I've burned my business completely down I have no you know very little money I've got that incomprehensible demoralization that the big book talks about and so I just say the proverbial effort and I get on them and I'm also Also, I didn't tell you, I'm very grandiose at that time. Very grandiose. Huge ego, no self-esteem. I would try to buy your friendship with whatever because I just wanted... I was so hungry for relationships and to talk to somebody, whatever I needed to do to spend time with folks, I would do. So I was very grandiase. So I got on a plane, I thought my life was over, I flew down to the Caribbean and I drank Jack Daniels and shot cocaine for 48 straight days. And really thought, I remember talking to friends back home, it's over, I don't care, that incomprehensible demoralization. And thanks to the big boy upstairs at the end, I finally ran out of money. I couldn't borrow any more money, I'd spent the money I had plus probably I borrowed some money from some friends and stuff and I finally run out of my money. It's hard to stay in the Caribbean having a good time if you don't have any money. But luckily, for some reason, I hadn't pawned my ticket home. I still had a ticket home, so I get on the plane and I come back and there are some friends of mine at the airport to meet me and they found this treatment place for me to go. And I want to talk about treatment centers for a second. There are a lot of people that come in these rooms and don't go to treatment centers and they get this thing. They come in, they're willing, they do the things that I'm gonna talk about in a minute which y'all have taught me are kind of the recipe of recovery. And they get this thing. I wasn't one of those. I had to go get some extra help, and it's incredibly great that in today's world there are places that if you pick a good one, and I went to one called Marr, it's a world-class nonprofit place here in Atlanta, where what a treatment center does is gives me a jump start and an education on what the disease is and to identify some of the things that are going on with me. But all a treatment center is good for is those things. Luckily, this treatment center introduced me to these rooms because this is where recovery is. No matter how long I'm in a treatment centre, I'm only going to be there. When I talk to guys going into treatment now, I say, look, two things, not rules, two things I strongly suggest is one, follow all the rules. if you can't follow the rules of a halfway house how the heck are you going to live an honest life and a responsible life when you get out and the second thing is i say is don't leave till they tell you it's time to go it's very typical and i have same thing happened to me the feelings you know i've been 45 days i've kind of heard the classes and i'm back at work or whatever and i'm thinking i need to i needto go take care of family i needtogotakecareofoffindagirli needto whatever there's a million reasons why i needo leave the treatment center and what i always say those guys say look stay till they tell you it's time to go because the amount of time you're going to be at that treatment center no matter how long it is is an infinitesimally small amount of time compared to the rest of your life so I wanted to give myself every chance to stay sober so I stayed 11 months part of it was financial it was a cheap place for me to live but a lot of it me being willing to see what else I could learn while I was there so treatment centers can be great but you have to do that and the kind of rule of thumb is if I if if people come in here and they try it without it and they can't do it two or three times so you know they proved themselves I can't just by myself and I've got a good sponsor and I'm doing all the things we do here then the treatment center is a great option so but again it's not the program you know this is the fellowship people come in hear and they think about that I'll come in and just sit and listen to meetings or listen to stories and whatever and I'll get it by osmosis you I'll just learn it. This is the fellowship, this is not the program. This is a 12-step program and the 12- step program means working the 12 steps and that's what it's about. That's where the magic happens. So I ended up in this treatment center and while I was there I really believe my recovery started. For anybody who has ever been in a treatment center they have these things called these group groups twice a week in the community community meetings where they have ten guys two partners to get together and they talk about all the issues you know Johnny stealing my cheese and Johnny won't make his bed up and you know or there's other issues and you know I was just really tired of them talking about this group you know so I'd for every two every time they say something I just didn't like it so a few days before the next one I now I was as nice as I knew how to beat everybody so that they just wouldn't talk about me this one meeting I just wanted to talk about somebody else so y'all know what happened you know they started on one side of the room and every single person started jumping in my stuff and I'm getting angrier and angrier I am not hearing a word they're saying finally gets back around to the counselor and I thinking maybe he'll save me he jumped right in so I stood up I said at this I walked out the department into the apartment next door went into the bedroom where I had and pulled the closet up pull my suitcase out through it on the bed threw it open and said to myself I don't have anywhere to go and I'm really thankful that I didn't because that night was when my recovery started and here's why at that point I was hurting enough that I took each guy that I was living with there were nine other ones one at a time out on the back balcony I said what am i doing wrong and the phrase I've latched onto as I became willing to hear what I didn' want to hear about me before recovery it was always I'd make it about you if you said if you say to me bill you might want to look at look at that you don't always tell the truth I'd say well look at your own damn self or it takes one to know one and I wouldn't even look inside hey Tim I wouldn t even look inside and see if what you were saying was correct but that night each person I was willing to hear what I didn't want to hear and they all basically said the same stuff so what I got from that is like I got here with all these blind spots things about myself that I would change if I could see them I just couldn't see them and that's what these groups are incredible at doing good sponsoring the steps it's helping me see those things that I would want to change if i could see so I became willing to hear what I didn't want to hear and I still am it is it is by no means perfect I still have my Character defects, some character defects. And it is easier to hear this stuff from some people more than it is others. But I need to be willing to hear it wherever it comes from. Sometimes it's not about me. Sometimes somebody just, their stuff. But I needed at least look inside and say, are they right? If they are, man, that's a gift. I call them zingers. That doesn't feel good, somebody saying I don't tell the truth or somebody telling me I don' show up for work on time or somebody's telling me whatever it is. I call them zingers. They don't feel good. I need to look inside and go, is that right? It's a gift if they are right because then I can change it. So the second weekend to my program, I found this place called The Log Cabin. It's the CA group up in Norcross that I still go to today. That I walked in, I walked up, and this is what I wish on everybody is to find meetings where I walked up and I saw all these people that I could identify with who had smiles on their faces, they were laughing, they were telling jokes. And in the meeting they actually were, I call them solution meetings. They would talk about the problem but then they would talk what they're doing about it. Here's what the program tells me to do about it, I'm struggling with this or that. So I was really attracted to that. So I kept going, and every time the door was open there, I became connected. And that's where it comes to a home group. Home groups are incredibly important. I was taught to go to three meetings a day, and what that means is I go to the meeting 30 minutes before the meeting, I reach my handout, I get to know folks, I become connected to them so they can look at me and see if no one's something wrong, and I can look at them and know something's wrong. I then go to their regular meeting, and then I stick around 15-20 minutes after and connect again. do that I become a part of and and something I never had before I got here and it's incredibly important to my recovery so I got a home group and as I said I would go in the end that meeting In that meeting they were talking about solution all the time. They talked about sponsorship, and I'm going to talk about a thing that first none of the things I'm gonna talk about in regards to recovery are original to me. They're all things that I've picked up from meetings and sponsorship and other ways and Kind of put them in the way I can explain them, but nothing original. But y'all kept talking about sponsoring a higher power and that higher power thing. Man, you know, one of the brilliant things about this program is it's a spiritual program, not a religious program. It is an inclusive program,not an exclusive program. Anybody is welcome here. No higher power, this higher power or that higherpower, whatever. And I didn't have one. I was my higher power. I didn't say, hey man, you're a higher power. But that's the way I treated the world before I got here is I'm smart, I can handle this, I'm self-sufficient. The big book talks about it a lot, being self-suficient, it didn't work. So y'all kept talking about higher power stuff. So I got to the place where I said, okay, I've seen you guys. So I used the group as my higher power because it was easy for me to understand that a concept of that a group of people with a common purpose to stay clean was a greater power than me trying to do it by myself. So y'all became my higher power. I would listen to you guys, and now I've come to learn that my higher power, which I choose to call God now, speaks through you guys. You know, if you ever come to a meeting where I am, I'm sitting somewhere I go to a lot of meetings where there's circles but if I was sitting here, I'd be on the front row because I don't want to miss that nugget of thing that I can use because that could save my life. Or now it could just make my life better, you know, because I'll have a tool that I didn't have before to go through something I'm going through. So I'm gonna get to the six things. Before I do, I'mma go, something I picked up pretty recently. Somebody sent me something and I read it and I went, man, this really fits right in. And what it was, and I'ma paraphrase it, it was talking about healthy thinking and trash thinking. And what the piece was talking about and i looked in my own life and it's there all the time is that as i go through my day just when my mind is wandering and goes wherever it wants to i need to really take a look at that and be careful of it because it'll take me places i don't need to be going um and the p said for entertainment purposes only but i used to call it trash thinking because if i really look at you know slow down and look at it it's not good stuff and then the opposite of that is it's called executive thinking in the piece I did, but I call it quality thinking. And what that definition is about is that human beings are the only animals that I can stop and go, what am I thinking? Am I thinking the right thing? And that's the executive or quality thinking, so I need to check my trash, my wandering thoughts fairly frequently and go am I thinkin' the right thing? What am I thinksin'? Am I think in the right thing and through doing that i can i can redirect my thinking into to recovery healthy stuff good stuff good character qualities so i've been practicing that a lot lately and it works so this brings to the six things um used to be three then four and five minutes now it's six but this is kind of the things i've picked up through my years here uh it's kind of a recipe to not only get sober, but to grow my sobriety. And I've been taught if I make these the most important thing that I do every day, then I will get sober and then I will stay sober. And they are, I'm going to list them quickly and then I'm gonna break them down. But the first one is go to a bunch of meetings. Second one is get a competent sponsor. Third one is work all 12 steps. Fourth one is learn how to pray. Fifth one is worked with others. And the sixth one is learn how to have fun sober big deal talk about that one in a minute so going to meetings you know i proved beyond a reasonable doubt i could not stay sober on my own so uh i proved beyond reasonable doubt couldn't do it so if so i needed the help and the cool thing is is i've got you guys and a higher power that i found here and a sponsor that will help me if i will let them and all through the big book it talks about the key word to all of this is willingness. Am I willing to be honest with a sponsor? Am I will to call him every day? But I didn't hear about that stuff until I go to a bunch of meetings. So, I was in a meeting every day for the first year or more because, again, I wanted to give myself every opportunity to learn the tools that would help me be able to live those 23 hours out there in the world. So important to go to meetings. I've heard a lot of people say, I can't go to meet and my wife won't let me or I've got something else to do. And so I'll talk about for a second the importance of putting recovery first. What you all taught me is that in a level of importance, it's recovery first, higher power second, family third, and work fourth. And the reason it's put that way is because if I put my recovery absolutely first, my contact with a higher power will get better, my ability to be in relationships with my family will get bigger, and my job will go better because I'll be a better employee. Anything I put in front of that, if I can't quit going to meetings because I got to work or my family or anything else, I'm gonna go get high, go get drunk and I'm going to lose those things that I thought were more important than recovery. Conversely, if i put recovery absolutely first, everything else gets better. That's been my direct experience. So I do these things, I call them the little huge things. things. Kind of a series of, I call them little because they take just a little bit of time to do every day but they have a huge effect on my recovery and I'll get into those later. So first one is go to a bunch of meetings and second is get a competent sponsor. Sponsors are really important and to find that guy or that girl who's got what I really want. A lot of people will come in here the first time and they'll listen to people share and they go I think I can I'll go ask him and I'll be able to work my own program with him that's absolutely the wrong suggestion if I go to any meeting and listen to people share and if I walk up to somebody who I liked what they said I said and I asked them who are the good sponsors in this group they know who they are I just need to then go ask one and it's all a sponsor's job to do is to get me through the steps but it's my job to call him it's not my sponsor job if I want what he has I need to call Him it's on my sponsors job to call me and so a perfect sponsor II which there never is such a thing would be to call for me to call my sponsor that what do you want me to do and then go do that and what do y'all me do next we have to do next and it's It's not a sponsor's job to be your banker or my taxi or anything else. It is to share his experience, strength and hope. If I call him with a problem, if he has experience with it, he'll give it to me related to how recovery helped him go through it and I can learn from that. So getting a good sponsor is hugely important because, again, I proved I couldn't do it by myself. Anybody that tries to do this without a sponsor is just wasting their time, in my experience. The third thing is work all 12 steps. I've seen tons of people come through these rooms and they're beat up, they're willing, they get a sponsor, probably even a good one sometimes, and they work the first three steps and a little time has gone by and they go, you know, I'm feeling a lot better, I haven't put anything in for a while, that'll just ordinarily happen. I feel a lot bette,r I got a buck or two in my pocket, I got job back, my family's talking to me again, I don't need to do any more work. And invariably they go back out. I've seen people stay clean sometimes a pretty good amount of time but it's not we don't get the promises that are read at the end of every meeting. The magic doesn't happen. It changes. What y'all taught me is all recovery is is a change in perspective. That's it. The world out there is not going to change My wife's going to be who she's going to be. My job's goingto be what it's going to be, traffic is going to be what its going to be. You know my friends are going to be who they're going to be. So that's if that's not going to change and I want to be comfortable in my own skin being out there what's got to change? Me and the way I view this stuff the world and what's ever in it and me and the way I behave towards it. So it sounds too simple but it and it's not but that's really what recovery is a change and perspective. How I view use of alcohol and drugs today is completely different than I did before I got here. How i view friendships, how I view business, how if you everything and how I try to behave towards it is totally different then when I got her. And to make it even simpler what y'all talked about taught me was about in four or five excuse me four five six and seven is character defects character qualities. You know my disease is self-centered in nature. Before I got hear everything's about me. I wanted immediate gratification and I would go to any length to get it. And today y'all taught me to forego some immediate gratification for the much, much more valuable long-term gratification of how I'm going to feel about myself if I do the next right thing, especially when it's not what I want to do. That's called having integrity. I love that definition. Integrity is doing the next right thing especially when its not what i wanna do. Again, it's easy to do the next right when it is what I wanna do, but having integrity... What I came to find And I love this example. In step two and three, it says, came to believe that a power greater than I am could restore me to sanity. What y'all taught me was come to believe that if I start checking things out with a higher power, he will restore me the same thinking. And the example, this is a simple program. The example I love is, let's say I'm in a halfway house. I got five bucks to my name. I go into the Kroger store and buy a pack of gum. I hand the cashier five bucks. She hands me back $20 in change. All right, the self-centered, I'll rationalize Kroker is a big store. They don't need the money. I really need it. I might even rationalize God gave it to me. But the reality is I'm not thinking about the cashiers going to be short, that if I owned this store, I wouldn't want it to be stolen from. So that's the insane thinking. But as soon as I would look up and say, God, would you have me give this money back? What would he say? Absolutely. Yeah. It's just like, how quick? Yep, give it back. So I go from insane thinking, be a thief that I'll rationalize that I should keep this money to, okay, sane thinking, give the money back. How simple is that? It really is that simple is when I learn to connect with that and check things out with a sponsor and other people I respect and especially a higher power, I can change my perspective on how to look at things and how to go through them so the 12 steps are again where the magic happens the third thing is is getting through all 12 of them is what it's about because there's 12 different tools in each of those steps and they're in order for a reason and what I've been taught is you get through them as thoroughly but quickly as possible because I can't use the tool in the tenth step until I've worked the tenth step. I remember looking on the wall and reading the steps, and when I started working with my sponsor he could tell me, he finally realized, and he said Bill quit trying to figure out what a step is going to do for you by reading the English on the Wall and just be willing to do it and see what happens. And he was absolutely correct. I had no idea what it was going to do for them, okay? So the third thing is going to work on all 12 steps. Learn how to pray. Again, I told you I didn't have a higher power once I got here. I got to the place where can somebody grab me a cup of water please? Thank you. I got to the place where I kept hearing y'all talk about higher power and how it was working, you know, and I started hearing those simple tools of checking things out and that kind of stuff. And so as the big book talks about specifically, it says to quit having contempt prior to investigation. I showed up, I remember my younger brother is a Presbyterian minister so you can imagine the conversations I had with him before I got sober. And I knew subconsciously intrinsically that I couldn't continue the life I was doing if I was going to try to connect with something bigger than me. And so as the big book said I finally got to the place where I go okay I'm going to be open to the idea that there's something bigger than I am out in the universe. And I don't need to figure it out. If somebody ever walks up to you and says, let me explain God to you, you ought to run as fast as you can, as far as you can because that would be so arrogant and egotistical that somebody could actually understand a God. So, I've kept it really simple. And if y'all were with me when he looked up and said, God, would you give this back to him? And he said, yes. That's all that's necessary for higher power in my experience. So if people find other stuff, wonderful. If people end up doing something of their childhood or not, wonderful, but it's not a requirement in this program. It's not required to be sober, truly sober. So I started learning to connect with the higher power and through that there are three ways I know to do that. Thank you very much. small cups this is fine this is great thanks yeah thanks I learned to there's three ways I know to connect with a higher power there's prayer there's meditation and my absolute favorite I use the most is a conversational relationship with God goes back to the Kroger thing you know should I give that money back God I'm really angry should I yell at my wife no you know the answer comes I go from insane thinking yes I'm justified and I achieved wrong and I want to go off on her to, God, should I do this? Nope. You know? So I changed my perspective. Okay? It's so simple, not easy. It takes, why do you think they, we hear this term all the time in recovery, practice these principles in all of our affairs. It's practice. I'm not going to be great at this at first. I're certainly not perfect yet. I sure won't ever be. But I'm a lot better at it now than I was when I got here. So I learned how to pray and learn how to connect with the higher power because there are going to be times when there's not a sponsor available and not another person available and I've got these crazy thoughts going on and that's what I need to the book talks about that. I need to connect to the higher power. God, please help me. That's a great prayer. Let me quit thinking this way. What should I do, God? Call somebody. Get out of me. So I learned how to play. Working with others. That's the incredible gift and it's so foreign to what I was like before I got here because if you couldn't do something for me It was all about self-centered, selfish disease that everything was about me. If I wasn't getting something from you, I didn't want anything from you. Well, there's a real little secret here. By working with others, I get something back. I get a lot back. So working with other people is just simply what I talked about earlier. If a guy comes up and asks me to sponsor him, I don't care if somebody's got three months. If they've worked some steps, they ought to say yes. I know some people don't agree with that, but I do. I had worked seven steps. My first sponsoree asked me to do it, and I was told to say yes, I did. Guess what? I did, and that pushed me through the rest of the steps because he was serious about his recovery. If I've worked four or five steps, three steps, I've got experience with one, two, and three, and I can go to explain to them like it was explained to me what step one means. I can explain to him what step two. What do you think that does for me? It reinforces my understanding of the Steps and hopefully helps them whatever understanding I have at the steps today came from working with my original sponsor but vastly more so from going over them over and over again with new guys it's a big deal so and there's a you know I've had guys say you know i sponsored five people none of them stayed sober and I said well did you yeah so it helped him stay sober and And watching a newcomer that doesn't make it, I wish everybody could make it. But watching a new comer that doesn' t make it that's that perspective. I don't want to go there. I don' t have to go if I keep doing what this stuff teaches me. I want to say this. Working steps, it's work. I've heard people say I come in and God did it for me. God didn' t do it for m. He helped me but I'm responsible. My higher power gave me free will. The ability to think and behave however I choose. So I have to do my part. God will not do for me what I can do for myself. He will not make me go to a meeting. He will não me chamar de sponsor. Ele não vai, você sabe, toda aquela coisa. Eu tenho que ser disposto a fazer essa coisa. Então, é trabalhar com os outros. E então, aprender como se divertir soberamente. Isso é um grande problema para muitas pessoas. Eu sei que antes da recuperação, era sempre para mim, vamos subir alto e fazer isso, e vamos subir alta e fazer aquilo. E quando eu fui sober, is like, you know, all the feelings I had of trying to go to something were foreign to me. And the analogy or example I like to use is if y'all are getting to know me a little bit here and if I said, and you came up to me after the meeting and you said I'm looking for a good meeting on Tuesday night. And I say I know what one is. And if you were willing to go to a new meeting, you would say okay I'm willing and you would I get the direct you get the directions and you would head that way on the way there what would you be thinking you'd be going okay who's going to be there are they going to be good folks are they gonna be friendly is it going to be a solution meeting or a problem meeting because there's some of those out there what kind of what's it going to be like but because i'm willing i walk through all those feelings and i go to the meeting and i show up and i found out it was a good recommendation they're nice people they welcomed me there it's a good solution meeting i want to go back But even the second time, I'm driving up there. I don't know everybody yet, so I've got some feelings about it. How is it going to go the second times? Is it going be as good? Are people going to be as friendly? But I go because I'm willing. And I show up and it's a great meeting. And then by the time I go to the 10th meeting, what happens? I'm just going to the meeting, and I'm a part of. It's the exact same thing with learning how to have fun sober. I need to find out what I want to do. Well, it sounds interesting if I can't figure that out. There's a bunch of people in these rooms that know how to have fun. Just go ask a bunch of them, what do you do for fun? And when are you doing it? Can I go with you? Or get some ideas and then just go walk through the feelings of having fun. And after a while, just having fun, and I'm here to tell you that if I had not learned how to be learned how-to-have-fun sober, I would not still be sober. The book talks about we're not a glum lot. We absolutely insist on enjoying life. It says it in there as well. And I can tell you I have way more fun I had some good times back when I was out there but none of the quality of what I have now and I actually remember them now which is a big cool thing and I don't have to call and make too often make amends for what I did when I were out there doing it and it's something and the other thing is we're taught to the reason this is important we're talked to go from being self-centered to selfless we're told to get out of self and be of service So if I'm now switching my whole mode to be of service to my family, be of serve in setting these chairs up, being of service in chairing a meeting, being of serve as a sponsor, you know, being of servic to my famiIy. If I'm getting out on my job, being of serivce at my job. If I don't do something fun at least once a week, I'm going to burn out. I think it's considered a healthy, healthy part of recovery to do something that some people would call selfish. I call it being healthy, to go have fun at least once a week and hopefully more than that. Something I look forward to that is fun for me, and I've had guys I sponsor say, how about if I take my kids to the park? I say, well, while that is really good, that does not count on what we're talking about because you're going there to take care of them. You have to be of service to your kids while you're there. I'm talking about something fun for yourself, and there's tons of fun out there. I play a ton of golf. I love it. I play tennis. side there but there's it doesn't have to cost money you know there's lots of fun things that don't cost money so learn how to have fun sober it's a big deal so those are the six things that i have been taught are the recipe for getting sober and staying sober and again if i'm willing to do all six of those things ask myself every day am i doing all six or those things then i will get sober and i can stay sober what i see is so often is people do this stuff and then after a while, their perspective changed and they go, I don't need to pray anymore. I don' t need to go to a meeting. I don''t need to call my sponsor at all. And invariably, that's when the relapse started back in their thinking. It doesn' t happen the day they pick up. Some perspective changed before that. And I always like to talk about this is work. I said this before, but this is work to start off. But after a while it just becomes who I am. And it quits becoming so much work. It just becomes, as the big book says it becomes second nature. I will know how to handle situations which used to baffle me because of experience of practicing this stuff. I'll go through my day and it just comes natural. I remember specifically standing on the something stressful happened in my life and I'd been doing this stuff and practicing and out of my mouth came the right thing. And I went, whoa! Because I was used to the wrong thing coming out. And it was just because I'd been practicing this stuff. I want to talk about character defects and character qualities and brain cancer. I know there's a spiritual action that says whenever I'm disturbed, there's something wrong with me. Now, that doesn't say that only sometimes if Tim back there is acting wrong, then I have a right to be in character defects. It says when I'm disturbed for whatever reason, there's something wrong with me. Y'all ever been in a room where there's three people? One guy's acting crazy and the other two, one of them will react And the other one will just be calm about it. You ever seen that? What that illustration shows me is that it's not what people say or do, it's how I receive it. It's that perspective thing again. What recovery teaches me in character defects and character qualities is to instead of react with character defects to learn to respond with character qualities. Impatience, intolerance, patience, intolerence. Guess who's the one that benefits when I get on the right-hand side of the page which is the character qualities? me, and everybody around me too because I'm a much nicer, better guy to be around. People always talk about what's God's will for me? And I keep that simple too. See if this makes sense to you. If to the best of my ability, I live in character qualities, patience, tolerance, interest, and other responsibility, all the character qualities that I was taught by you guys and my sponsor. If I'm living into the best of my abilities, character qualities towards everything that comes at me in the day, whether it's my work family whatever it is the traffic's my hard one okay if I live in character qualities to the best of my ability how can I not be living in God's will pretty simple huh so and one of the real gifts I've been given is the tool of looking at people on the big book talks about treating people as if they're sick so heard this in meeting one time about brain cancer if somebody either close to me or not close to me is acting in their character defects. If I was to I'm going to use my buddy Tim for example. Forgive me, Tim. If Tim was acting crazy, which he never does, by the way. If he was acting crazy and somebody was reacting to him and I pull that person aside and say, hey, did you know that Tim's been at Emory Hospital getting treated for a real brain tumor in his head for the last six months? and he can't help it, because he's got brain cancer. How do you think the person would then respond to him? With patience and tolerance, and forgiveness, because they can't help it. Does that make sense to everybody? Well I suggest to you that people living in their character defects is exactly the same thing as having brain cancer, because you can't see it. Can't help. It's just they're reacting to life with wherever they got from. It doesn't matter where they got it from, they're just reacting to life. And it's being sick. The book calls it sick. I choose to call it brain cancer. There have been times in my recovery when somebody's acting crazy and I don't go, hey man you got brain cancer, but I'll go, brain cancer? And what that lets me do is just let them be who they are. People have the right to be who THEY ARE. It's when I learn to give them the right to BE WHO THEY ARE that I get to keep some peace about me. Cool stuff. The next one is a great tool that y'all taught me that I just, I call it the second most useful tool in recovery behind prayer. And it's called learning how not to project. The definition of projection is when I'm in my thinking, worried about something in the future or in the past that I can do nothing about at this moment. That's called projection. It is a useless, harmful exercise. It has no possibility of making things better and every possibility of making things worse. What brought it home for me was out of treatment, I'm back at my job, I'm a commissioned sales guy and I luckily got to go back to my office where I was working. I was sitting behind my desk at 4 o'clock the second day I was there And I owed a ton of money from consequences from being out there. And it was making me miserable. I was projecting about how in the world am I ever going to pay all this money back? So what did I do? What should I have done? One thing. There you go. Call my sponsor. And I said, I'm miserable. And he said, why? And I explained the story about how I owe all this Money for My Consequences and it's making me miserable. That's when he explained this tool to me. He said, there's a difference between planning and projecting. Planning is a good thing. If there is something I can do about something at this moment that will have a positive effect on what I'm worried about, do it. But then if I'm worry about it from that point on, it's a useless, harmful exercise. It has no possibility of making things better. What he had me do was pull out a piece of paper and write down everybody that I owed money to number next to it. And he said, now put it in your drawer and forget about it until you make a commission. And the very next day I am sitting behind my desk at the end of the day and I look out the window and I'm going, how the hell am I going to pay all this money? Oh, I'm doing it. And I brought myself right back into right here, right now. It is so prevalent. I still do it. I did it today. I had a business situation where I got a zinger. I got phone call I didn't want and somebody told me something I didn't want to hear and I immediately went into this is not going to happen in the future and this is não vai acontecer e eu não vou conseguir e é sempre, é sempre sobre eu não quero o que eu quero ou eu vou perder o que já tenho e eu me acordei e disse, eu estou projetando e aqui está a coisa engraçada sobre projeção 100% do tempo as coisas que eu projeto nunca se tornam da maneira que eu acho que vão ser de alguma forma enquanto eu estou fazendo o que sou disposto a fazer nunca But I'm here to say that there are times, like today, when this one's different. This is really going to be bad. This is Really Going to Happen. Guess what? That's my disease talking to me, trying to figure out a way to get me upset and back out there. It's exactly the same thing. It's all going to work out. The way he explained it, he says, Bill, you're feeling the pain of something that hasn't happened yet. That's a cool statement to me. I was feeling the pain of something that hasn't happened yet if it's gonna happen out there feel it then okay but in the meantime and the last quick example is let's say I get arrested tonight and I got to go to court in a week okay the planning would be what can I do right now or tomorrow morning because it's nighttime that will have a positive effect on my court case in a we I can hire an attorney and educate him on the case that's a good thing but then for me to sit in worrying I'm going to jail, I'm going to go into jail, going to jail. How is that going to happen? Does that have any possibility of having a positive effect on whether I go to jail or not? No. And if you use it the same thing I've got a job interview week from now I gotta have this job, gotta have this job. How do you think that's gonna affect the job interview? That's why it's called a useless harmful exercise. I will go in there to that if I project about it all week that I got to have this job I will going appearing desperate got to have this job and I will not interview take less money i think i should take conversely if i keep doing planning which means if i'm supposed to have that job in god's plan i'll have it i'm going to do some more some more planning and do some more get some more interviews up in case that's not part of god's planned for me and then if i go in and say god god if i'M SUPPOSED TO HAVE THIS JOB I'LL HAVE IT AND I INTERVIEW HOW DO YOU THINK THE INTERVIEW IS GOING TO GO A WHOLE LOT BETTER SO IT'S A HARD TOOL TO PRACTICE BUT IT'S IT'S MY SPONSOR ADD ME LOOK AT IT 90 SOMETHING PERCENT OF MY THINKING WHEN I FIRST GOT HERE WAS OUT THERE or back here. It was not right here right now. The book talks a lot about being in the moment. All I've got is right here, right now We all know people who woke up one day and they're gone the next and they thought they had a long life but it's wasted today because they're worried about something out in the future So learning how not to project is a huge thing What it's like now You know, the guy that three wives Who's going to want to marry a three time loser alcoholic and drug addict well as the big boy upstairs works I didn't jump right in when I got sober I was told to wait we attract the level of our own sickness when we're early in recovery and as we get healthier we attract the levelof our own health so if I'm willing to forego if I am not already in a relationship dating for a while until I become the person that's going to be attractive to a quality human being. That is the best thing in the world to do. So I did that, and I ended up at Two Years Clean. I met a girl who's not one of us, but is spiritually fit and, you know, really cool lady. And we fell in love, and here's the funny story. She's half Greek, and her dad's Greek, and her mom's not, but he's Greek and great guy. So I walked in, and this tells you the gift of recovery, what recovery can do. if you think you got consequences listen to this one i was able to walk into their house and say i love they got to see who i was through the dating process okay i wasable to walk into theirhouse and say i like your daughter's hand in marriage but by the way i've been married three times and i'm a recovering alcoholic and drug addict and they absolutely loved me today they it wasn't all peaches and cream at first but if we work through it and and again they they love me today because I've lived the principles of this program all of my financial stuff went away a long time ago because I started practicing the principles that y'all taught me in my business and my business is way beyond anything I ever dreamed it would be. And when I was out there that last time, you know, I thought my life was over. You know, I'm never going to have the good life. And sure enough, and these rooms are absolutely full of people who have come in here hitting really low bottoms. I consider myself a pretty low bottom when you're shooting cocaine 48 straight days drinking a quart of Jack Daniels a day. You know? Burned it all the way down. That's pretty low. I know there's lower but I'll talk about that for a second. It doesn't matter. The cool thing about this program is you can get off this escalator anywhere you want to. You don't have to go further than you already are. You can getoff right here and do this deal and have this incredible life. People always talk a lot in meetings about how bad it is if I relapse, and it absolutely is. But all I like to talk about is how good it gets. My sponsor was great at explaining things. One thing he said to me, he said he could not explain to me and I cannot explain to you, is that if you do this deal and you make it the most important thing you do every day, these things come out of left field and right field. These things that I can't explain, these cool things that happen in my life that I never thought would and the promises come true. So doing the deal. The biggest gift that recovery has given me is, and it gives anybody I think, is healthy self-esteem and healthy self respect. It's not ego, it's not look at me, I'm cool. It that feeling I get inside when I gave the money back at Kroger early in recovery. You know, it really hard to give the money early in recovery because I really want that twenty bucks but that's being willing to forego that immediate gratification for the much more valuable long-term gratification that I'll look back an hour a day or a month or years now ago and go, hey you know I did the right thing. I got out of me, I did right thing and by doing that we start growing healthy self-esteem and healthy self respect which is the most valuable thing I can own and and that's what this program will give us. I want to talk about what a relapse really is. A relapse is don't know what your drug of choice is, assume it's alcohol And I do, you know, if I had a pot full of money, I said, come on gang, let's go down to the bar. And I bought every bit of whatever you like right now, all you wanted. After the, I might get, we might get for the first few minutes or a few seconds what we thought we wanted, whatever that is. After that, after being in recovery a little while, what's going to happen? I'm going to start going, oh no, how am I going to explain this to my family? I'm not going to probably show up for work tomorrow. I'm going to spend money I shouldn't spend. Whatever little bit of self-esteem I've gotten from coming here and doing the right things is immediately gone. So what am I going to do? I'm gonna start feeling shame and guilt, so what am i gonna do? I'm Gonna do more. I'm Going to do more and do more until I stop running on money or whatever it is. And then here's the funny thing about it. If I'm lucky, and a lot of people are not, If I am lucky, I will end up sitting right back in these chairs trying to do what we're doing tonight. So tell me what's fun about using. But my disease will tell me that it's fun or the proverbial F it or I deserve it or whatever my disease will lie to me and tell me that I should justify going to do it. If I'm lucky, I'll make it right back into this chair trying to try to do what I'm doing now. So where we get to, and it happens pretty quickly if we do what we're supposed to do here, the obsession and the craving leaves. And the only way it can come back is if I quit making recovery the most important thing. Thanks for letting me speak.