The Spiritual Mathematics of a Life That Sucked – Harold L.

All right, everybody. My name is Harold. I'm an alcoholic and great to be with you tonight from the big state of Big Mo, Missouri, or that's what we call it as Big Mo. The show me state. My sobriety date is April 7th, 1987. So just a couple of days ago, I celebrated 34 years of continuous sobriery. That's awesome as well. And so I'm grateful to be able to share that with you today. my home group is in St. Louis I'm just I live just outside of St. Louis City my home group is called AA on the Rocks and we meet on Wednesday nights and we just went back live last Wednesday and it was a glorious time and a glorious celebration so wherever you're at around the country when you get the privilege to be able to go back live even though it was really limited because of CDC regulations it was still great to be with your homies and a lot of other people and we're virtual I mean were hybrid, so we had a big Zoom presence, but as well as an in-house meeting as well. So it was great. It was kind of like being in a meeting with handcuffs. You know, it's kind of Like sitting in a meeting when handcuffs when you can't, you know, really, you don't hug and do all that stuff. I know when this stuff's all over just going to have one hell of a mass burning party, you know, we'll do a lot of hugging and smooching, I guess when that time happens. But looking forward to that. I come from a great line of sponsorship. My sponsor most of my sobriety was Tom I from North Carolina. Many of you been around long enough to know Tom, or you've probably heard some of his tapes. Tom, unfortunately is, you know, he suffers from Alzheimer's illness and is in a nursing home in North Carolina today. So he hasn't been able to be in a position to sponsor anybody for several years now. So when that happened, Steve L from Nashville agreed to walk this journey with me. And so we've been walking that journey together. I'm current with him and it's been mentioned we we as a sponsorship pack we're together each week or most weeks and um so it's a good journey and uh so i say that is because i come from a great line of lineage of sponsorship because it's made a huge difference how my life's turned out and so i just want to make that and share it and so I think having solid sponsorship and being part of a strong three legacy group are imperative for you know long-term sobriety and joyful sobriery you know and uh and that and we read the steps tonight and if you read the forward into 12 and 12 i mean it tells us that 12 steps and i'm paraphrasing but there's a group of uh principles spiritual in nature which if practiced or adopted as i would say is a way of life um and you lived into that they will expel the compulsion to drink and lead to a life where you become happy and usefully whole and that's a huge promise and that's i think it's a great definition of what the fellowship's all about, but it's more than just not drinking. And that's what I looked at sobriety with that. That's the definition of what I would have gave it when I first got here. It means that we're not going to drink anymore, which means that's not good because I love to drink. And so we'll talk about that. I don't have a long time to talk, but I will dive right into it. And the things that I'll lift up in the next 30 minutes are really, I'm just going to sit around the five, what I call the five big delusions of alcoholism there's many more than that and there's some parts to this but i just call them the big five because these are really the big five things that in my sobriety that i really had to wrestle through or work through to have the life i have today and i think most alcoholics share these delusions in some capacity or another at some you know varying degrees and varying levels um so i'll share those with you and then i'll weave my story as we uh do that and i i think it'll be a fair share. And, you know, I think it's on page 105 of Bill Sees It. There's an excerpt from one of his letters and the top of that page, I Think it's titled if I remember right is titled chief responsibility. And it goes on to say that our chief responsibility is to deliver an adequate demonstration of Alcoholics Anonymous, whether that's us as individuals or groups or districts or area or a as a whole. And so I know that's happening tonight. But if you're new to Alcoholics Anonymous or you're on here just trying to find your way maybe you're coming back after been drinking for a while or you've just been a rut in your sobriety or you don't know what's going on hey wherever you're at on your spiritual journey your recovery journey I just personally want to welcome you to Alcoholics Andonymous and I hope that you can find what you're looking for here if you're wanting to stop drinking and you're truly alcoholic then this is a great way to live and it's a great solution for king alcohol so my numbers are in my name tag there and i put it there for a reason so um you're you're more than welcome to contact me or reach out to me after the fact if i can ever be of service to you in any way if you ever come to big mo come to st louis whatever we love to uh see you but we also love to put you to work you know we'll probably if you give us enough advance i'll put you the work doing something in recovery you know in our town So with that, I just let's dive in. You know, I was introduced to AA in 1979. That's in the Department of Corrections. I came to the Department Of Corrections both times that I found my way into recovery came through that system. um i was in a county jail and a detention center called the derrick county detention center where i was held over i just got released from a juvenile penitentiary system and i was already arrested on another charge and i WAS THERE ON A I WAS IN A HOLDING CELL WAITING TO BE ARRAIGNED ON ANOTHER CHARGE AND IT WAS THERE THAT THEY BROUGHT AN AA MEETING IN AND I WAS INTRODUCED TO A FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 1979 NOW I DIDN'T HAVE UM ANY DESIRE TO STOP DRINKING NOR or did I think I was alcoholic but I was you know I had to go to the meeting it was part of it and and I was there and uh you know so a seed was planted whether I wanted to be planted or not that the information was given to me and a seed Was planted a part of that plea bargain when I got out was that I either had to um go I with this charge I could either go back and spend two and a half more years on on the same sentence or I could in a parole violation or I can go do 30 days in a treatment center. Well, I quit school when I was 13, but I knew that 30 days was a heck of a lot shorter than two and a half years, so I chose to go to the treatment center, and that was my first introduction to any treatment. I was 15 years old going on 16, and so I was introduced to not only on the streets inside a treatment centre, but also on the outside. They took us to outside meetings, etc., and that's how I came into my introduction to you people. I didn't want anything you had to offer me at that time. Um, but later when I finally surrendered and gave my ask God to come into my life, you were the first people I came running back to. And I've been here ever since, but I call them the five big delusions because delusion number one is I'm not alcoholic. And that out that, that delusion unfortunately kills most of us. You know, we're, we'RE up against the illness. We were talking about it before the meeting started with COVID and how it's impacted. It's impacted everybody in the whole world. you know two to over two million people have lost their lives to this stuff um and it's just it's a wicked wicked wicked thing but the reality is you know you know based on numbers and guesstimates that there'll be close to 3.5 million people that will die from alcoholism this year and throughout the world um and that's uh that's a pandemic in itself although it doesn't affect everybody so it doesn'T get that definition but but it does validate just how powerful this illnesses. And most people that have alcoholism in the States, we got roughly 15 million alcoholics, you know, that they are aware of in the states and in less than 10% of those will ever seek help for the illness of alcoholism. And as our book would say on page 30, that in the first three words, great big bold letters, most of us are unwilling to admit that we're real alcoholics. And that delusion is so powerful that it takes us to the gates of insanity or death, and in my experience, most people that have alcoholism will go on to the gates of insanity and eventually death. That's how ugly of an illness it is, and it's an illness that says I don't have one, and that's the cunning, baffling, powerful nature of it. That delusional part of it is that I don'T see myself for what I really am, and THAT delusion itself did everything but kill me. You know, I started drinking when I was young. I wasn't even a teenager yet when I was introduced to King Alcohol, the effect it had on my life changed my life immediately. It was an apocalyptic event. The euphoric effect that the juice had on my life was just amazing. It Was apocalyptic. I mean, it's something that's been unveiled for you that you've never experienced before. And that's what King Alcohol did for me. It just changed my whole life. And I didn't become an everyday drinker. Matter of fact, the first time I really got intoxicated, I knew I was going to do this for the rest of my life. But I also got as sick because I've ever been off alcohol, I probably said my first alcoholic plea bargain prayer that night. I probably lied about my condition that night to my mother, and I didn't drink the next day, next week, maybe even next month, but what the effect and the lifestyle that was introduced to me that night was, like I said, it was apocalyptic. It was transforming. It was a revelation, and it was something that would alter my course for the rest of my life, and so I just it wasn't just the effect alcohol had on me physically but it was just the attraction to the whole thing and uh and so i gave my life to it and being a youngster and not really being able to live that life financially i fell into crime and started doing burglaries and a lot of petty crimes and bigger crimes and that's what landed me into the penal system and really the department of corrections had its teeth in me all the way well into sobriety and i paid you know dearly for some of this stuff, even in sobriety for what happened in my past. Um, and so I don't know if we'll have time for all that, but I'll share some of that eventually, but, but that's what happened. I left home when I was 13. I quit school when I started team. I loved home when I was 15 for good. And, uh, I hooked up after I got out of that treatment center in 1980, I hooked with the drifter who was in the, I was living in Northern Missouri. There was a drifter in town. His name was Scott. Scott was probably 45 or so big tall guy about six, four, six five big thing guy long hair had hair down to his buttocks had an old ups fan that he turned into you uh they turned into a living quarters this is really his mobile little rv but he was just a hippie partier and he he was just drifting around and he just happened to be in the town i was in northern missouri and i bumped into him a handful of times and we became you know drinking buddies and he was on his way back to austin texas and i said hey do you think i could go back to Texas with you, and he said, if you can get the green light from probation and parole and others, you can go, and I got the greenlight, and so off I went with this guy. I didn't even hardly know. I went to just get old enough to drive a car, and off I took with Scotty, and we went down south, and for the next five years, I lived all over the south. In Tennessee, I live in Chattanooga. I lived in Knoxville for a while. I lived about Texas, a couple different places in Texas, austin for starters and then i ended up in georgia ackworth georgian just over you know just over the tennessee line before you get to atlanta that's about the simplest way i can tell you and uh it would be an ackward georgina that i would have my first concession with king alcohol would be the first time that i was getting tired of this life and uh i was 19 i was a blackout drinker from day one uh i Was living in an old beat-up trailer park called red barn trailer court I lived with my buddy Mike and Danny nobody had a car nobody had a license we were all on parole probably had warrants for arrest lived in a beat up old trailer park with a bunch of rejects from the south so we had rejects from every state but the state of Georgia on our street I mean from Kentucky and North Carolina Tennessee all over the place how bad was it well I lived next door to three guys named Poor Chop Hollywood and Screwdriver that should give you a real good idea how life was going at that point in time in my life but I was a blackout drinker, I was a heavy bar drinker. I loved the saloons. You could call me a saloonetic because I love to go to the honky tonks long before they're really popular being called honky Tonks, I guess you know, but I love it and I love girl, love girl country girls, especially in white tee tops, tight jeans cowboy boots. If you had a cowboy hat and a four wheel drive even better. I love that stuff and I couldn't stay out of those honky tons and but the problem was I was alcoholic number one number two i was rowdy and i had a big mouth and if i was drinking whiskey or mixing it with something else heard a good chance somebody wanted to jack me once you know before the night was out i had that gift maybe some of you had that gift i definitely had that guilt and this particular night i woke up on a saturday morning and i was fully dressed it was winter time i had my boots on blue jeans and then i had flannel shirt and i sawed off base jacket on and i woke up with a big tomato head the middle of my trailer floor and uh and i was uh i was hung over to the max and as i woke up and got my wits i realized i had blood all over my hands i had it on my jacket my jacket and i had no idea what had happened to me which was not uncommon because i was a blackout drinker i figured somebody just kicked the dogs not nasty on me and i got up and went to the bathroom and i started to look from where i was bleeding as i got undressed i realized somebody had sliced me all the way around my arm and it stabbed me in my rib cage. And so of course I freaked out and I went out and sat down on the front of the trailer, but it was the first time friends ever that I can remember ever in my, in my run with alcohol, which had been about eight years at this point in that life, in the hard life, um, that I really got emotional about my life. I got emotional about my powerlessness over alcohol and, and I knew that I was powerless over alcohol. And it was the first time that I ever, ever, I mean, almost audibly said, man, I got to do something different than what I'm doing. You know, when I had tears in my eyes, I was very emotional. And here's the, here's The Problem with the Delusion of Alcoholism because, you know, we throw this word denial around, but it's only mentioned twice in a big book, once on page 10 of Bill's story, once in the spiritual appendix. And both times it's talking about denying a power greater than ourselves. You know, when our book talks about the illness, it talks about it on the basis of delusion and illusion. I mean, I can't see myself for what I really am. And I can differentiate the truth from the false. And that's, that's the hard core facts about alcoholism. And so if you're here tonight and you're new or coming back or whatever, and you have some sobriety, even if it's only a few hours or just a few days, I hope all of us can hang on to that and cherish it for what it is. It's a prized possession, and man, if it slips through our fingers, there's no guarantee that we'll ever get it back, so we need to do anything. As we would say to the newcomer, are you willing to go any lengths to have victory over it? And I hope that you are. At that point, I wasn't, and I didn't have any information. There was nothing between me and King Alcohol, and there's nothing between you and it, whatever it is in your life. In this case, it happened to be alcohol. If there's Nothing Between You and It, and you're powerless, well, you're going to succumb to whatever it is every single time. And so there was nothing between me and him. So I sat on the front porch of that trailer, and I'm very emotional. I'm thinking to myself, man, I got to do something different than what I'm doing. But it was just like King Alcohol was sitting right next to me with his arm around me, consoling me. I call King Alcohol the great compromiser. And he don't even care if you go to these meetings or even if you own a big book, as long as you don't live into this deal. Andso King Alcohol is there with me, and I'm mumbling stuff like, man I gotta do something different than i'm doing and this is what king alcohol basically said to me you know what kid you're right you do need to do something different but before you do anything drastic walk in here and grab your old army jacket let's walk up here to the magic market and get a quart of beer and a pack of smokes and there's a dark and it's broken and as sick as that sounds that was a very refreshing voice in this broken little mind at that time very comforting i walked in i got the old armor jacket i didn't even wash the blood off my hands and i started my journey up to the magic market and that sense of ease and comfort came over me before i ever got there i was already feeling better before i never got a drink in my hand i walk into the magic market i get the quart of beer i get a pack of smokes i come out i twist that top off and make that noise we all like you know that little i dream of genie popped out of the bottle and i took that thing back and i made a big old pull off it and i make that face that we make and i said it led out of big exhale and that was the last time i thought about not drinking for a long time and that's alcoholism that's the nature of the beast that's delusional part of all this stuff i hitchhiked to marietta georgia i got sewed up and that would be the last time i would think about not drink it for a long time and the crux of that insanity is just it's just embedded in delusion not able to see myself what i really am or what i really was or what all the evidence says that i was i just couldn't see it and uh and i made my way back to st louis my bottom in st louise came 1985 i moved back to saint louis and i got arrested for a 40 wi conviction this is going into 1987 a few weeks later i've been a drummer my whole life i started playing drums and percussion when i was about five and was gifted at it and it served me well especially during my my youth and my drinking years and i was playing in a rock and roll gig over across the river in East St. Louis with other bandmates, and we were coming home that night. I was in the back seat of the car as a passenger, and I was in a back seat on the passenger side, and there's four of us in the car, and then we're coming home, and it's late at night. It's probably two or three in the morning. We're 10 sheets in the wind after playing music and drinking all night, and a spotlight hits our car and pulls us over on the side of the shoulder, and we sat there for a long time. Nothing happened. We were all freaking out, wondering what was going on. Eventually the spotlight goes out and it was just a truckload of knuckleheads with a spotlight on their truck messing with us. And so we ended up in a high-speed chase with them coming back to St. Louis and went on for a good while. They were in a fast lane and they'd swerve at us and we'd sverve at them and this flipped back and forth. And eventually, unfortunately, going really fast, they were in the fast lane. They just, when they swerved at us, they sverved it back. And when they did, they hit it too hard and it just shot their truck like a bottle rocket right up over the embankment and it flipped countless times all the way down to, and it finally came to a rest and unfortunately destroyed the truck and killed everybody inside the vehicle. And so we didn't get home from that whole event until eight hours into next morning as well after daylight. And when I got dropped off and walked into my little apartment, you know, I was absolutely crushed. I was just absolutely crushed is like somebody took out a piece of my soul and just whacked it off, and I sat there just a broken, broken human being, but there was nothing between me and it, and it happened to be king alcohol. So within literally minutes, you know, I've already succumbed to the desire that this delusional idea that I can drink, and it's going to make it better, and you know I'm drinking again after I just come home from a fatality, drunk driving accident only to be behind the wheel of a car less than two weeks later to be arrested for a 50 WI, which happened to be fourth felonies for me, fourth and 50 WIs pro violation. I'm 21 going on 22 and I'm on my way back to the penitentiary. And, uh, you know, they had me isolated in a drunk tank by myself. I weighed about 140 pounds. I mean, I'm in my underwear in this drunk tank. And it was in that drunk tank that I said the most honest prayer ever said in my life, and it was simply three words. I've heard it a million times from podiums in AA, but it was definitely three words, God help me, and the only difference between that prayer and all the other ones that I'd ever said into plea bargaining words is that the word honesty was connected to it, and I love how in our book there, it says that God doesn't make too hard of turns for those who honestly seek him, and this was the first time that I honestly ever sought God for out of pure surrender and desperation, and as Bill Wilson would write in his own story that God's impact on his life was sudden and profound, but for most people it comes gradually, and I'm paraphrasing loosely, but that's what I would have said for well over a decade, that God's impacted my life was a gradual thing. It just took time, but one day while we're sitting in prison doing an A workshop, and we're going through Bill's story, and he said, And we ran across that paragraph where Bill said that God's impact on his life was sudden and profound. It finally dawned on me after all these years that God'S impact on my life was certain and profound because the minute I honestly asked God to come into my life, I've never had another drink of alcohol from that moment until I sit here tonight, 34 years later. And friends, that is sudden and that is profound. I didn't wake up to that truth for well over a decade. But that's the impact of this power greater than ourselves that we talk so much about here in AA. And so I got, I bonded out and I went to back to that treatment center that I was at in 1980 only to have changed names by this time. And I went there not to go to AA really not to pursue recovery. I went therefore a piece of paper because I had a huge trial coming up that I knew I was going back to the penitentiary. The question was for how long? And so that's all I was concerned. They consumed me. That's all we cared about. So I went through to do my time, you know, in the treatment center and that's how I really approached it. Every time I was in treatment, it was about doing time. I'm going to do my time, get my paper, come back, go to court and hope for the best. And I spent my time there. And but what happened there was beautiful. And I don't have time to get into it. But I got 12 step by guy there. His name is Gary. He only had two and a half months of sobriety. He was the age I am now. He was 55. And Gary found his way into my room. He's just not less than 90 days sober. But he but he was there to take people to outside meetings. and uh and he asked me if I wanted to go I told him no I didn't have wasn't interested at all and uh just politely asked him to leave and he left and then he'd come back and he did something beautiful he walked back just a few minutes later to open my door but he just stuck his head in that was the only part he stuck in he smiled real hard he said well do me a favor I said what's that he goes I want you to try really hard smile and get it over with and then you left and uh and I thought well what the hell does that mean smile and give it over but the next thing I know I got this willingness that came out of nowhere to get up and I got up. And the next thing I know, I'm scouring the halls looking for this guy. And I finally found him. I said, hey, are you still going to that AA meeting? He said, yeah. And I said well, that's good. He said why is that good? I said because I want to go. And he goes well, that's a good idea. And I say well, why is it good? He goes because I can't get anybody else to go with me. Then I knew I was followed and hooked in. I'm like what did I just get into now that I just followed it? And I said all right, well, I guess we're going and off we went. And we walked down to his car and he had a newcomer car. We could pass the basket tonight and easily pay for it. I mean, it was a 1970 P green Plymouth duster had no floorboards and it hadn't floor mats, but they were rusted out. He had no exhaust on his car. He had trash everywhere. He had a hot wired stereo and he Had old RCA home speakers in the back seat. And, uh, and he has a new car that he's going to show up at the meeting with. So he was like on fire and we get into that car and he cranks that thing up with no exhaust on it you know and off we go through this little town of 10 000 kirksville missouri right down through the heart of the city to where all the churches are at and carbon dioxide's pouring through the thing you're trying not to die from asphyxiation he's got a grin that wraps around his face he's got the new guy in the car he's giving me the a pitch he's firing on me as fast as he can fire trying to tell me how great his life is now that he's not drinking anymore and i'm looking at his car which was held together by duct tape and i'm looking at him he's got prison issue glasses and he looks like hell and i'M THINKING TO MYSELF DUDE YOU DON'T YOU KNOW YOU DON't LOOK LIKE YOU GOT MUCH GOING ON AT ALL YOU KNOW THAT'S WHAT I PRETTY MUCH COMMUNICATE TO HIM AND HE LAUGHS AT IT BUT HE'S QUICK HE GOES WELL TELL ME ABOUT YOUR CAR BECAUSE I'M MAKING FUN OF HIS WELL I DON'T EVEN HAVE A CAR YOU KNOW AND OF COURSE HE'S BUSTING MY CHOPS ON THAT HE GOes AND RUMOR HAS YOU GOT A BIG TRIAL COMING UP HOW'S THAT GOING FOR YOU SO HE JUST STARTS NEEDLING ME YOU KNOW WITH THE REALITY OF MY LIFE BUT WE GET TO the meeting and uh he said ma'am when we go in here i just i just need you to be herald alcoholic if they call on you let's hope they don't but if they would call on your all you do is say you're herald your alcoholic you don't have to say your herald an alcoholic in an attic or a disc or that he says here when you say alcoholic it's got a broad definition we know what that means i mean he probably even slept with a few farm animals because you're a country boy we get all that i mean it has a huge definition so just be herold alcoholic i said yes sir herald alcoholic so i've been heralded alcoholic ever since i've been to aa and i started my journey unfortunately i didn't want to go to aa it didn't really appeal to me even after that meeting i came back to st louis and thank god i had this persistent guy in my life this guy gary who pursued me even once i got back to st louise and i didn' t go to a it would be 90 it would be over 90 days before ever up close to 90 days before i'd ever make it to a and it was only because of his persist at pursuing me. I was at that, I was really at that place. And I know many of you have been there and some of you may be there tonight where you stood at that place and you could not pitch your life without alcohol in it. You know, and I just couldn't, I lived my whole life. I'd give everything I had to live this life. It was all I knew. I played music in it and I lived in it。I loved the honky tonks. It was, it was everything I ever, all my entire identity was in this lifestyle and I could not see myself not living that lifestyle. And I had a lot of great times drinking and I love the effect I've all had on my life. And so, you know, I just cannot picture my life without it at the same time as our literature would clearly say, I couldn't picture my wife if I continued with it because I knew I would spend the rest of my life incarcerated or that I would die from it. And so I was really at that crossroads. I was at that turning point. I wasn't in a bad situation and i was scared to death and i felt like i was on an island all by myself and i didn't know what to do i mean i drifted back to the bars i driftED BACK to the same honky tonks that i hung out with trying to play pool trying to drink coca-cola trying to fit in and had enough wherewithal and enough desire not to drink that i knew that if i stayed there i was going to get drunk and i left but it was because of that persistent friend that i went today and so if there's a message tonight to any of us is that we always got to remember that it was Abby who called Bill. It was Bill who called Bob. And it was Gary who called Harold. And that's why I'm here tonight. And I think today it's real easy to get caught up and drive through AA and Hey, welcome to AA. Can I take your order? You know, if I reach out to you or there to help me, but if I'm just left for me to figure my way out, there's not a lot of people picking up the phone and calling people as much as there used to be. I'm forever grateful because I guarantee you, I would have never went to AA had it not been for that persistent friend, 200 miles away. And I chickened out the first time, but I finally went to my first aiming, but I came to AA the same way I did everything else in my life friends. I'm going to do it how I want, when I want the way I want. If you don't like it too bad, because that's how I'm doing it. I lived my whole life like that. And so I came back and I didn't want a sponsor right off the bat. I had a probationary pro officer since I was 11 years old. No thanks. I still had one. I don't need somebody else speaking into my life, tell me what to do, when to do it, how to do It. No thank you. I mean, it had no appeal to me whatsoever. And the steps didn't attract me because I didn't think the steps would change my life is the bottom line. And I had such a worldly reliant worldview on how my life was gonna become happy, joyous and free. And it didn't embark the spiritual side of things. It was all about the world. Call me crazy, but I think I could be a little bit more happy, joyous and free if I had a few hundred dollars in my pocket. Call me crazy. But that made sense to me. You know, if I had a legal driver's license and a car I could legally drive and a better looking girl or a girl at all, you know, call me crazy, but I Think I could Be a Little Bit More Happy Joyous and Free. That's what motivated my life. When I get that then I'm going to be happy, joyful and free. I call it worldly mathematics, but that's what it was. And that is delusional. It's what our world lives in. this very individualistic and consumeristic mindset that once i have more stuff whatever stuff is that somehow or another i'm going to be happy joyous and free that's a delusion in itself i mean it tells us on page 61 that we're under the delusion that we can rest satisfaction out of this world if we can only manage it well i was swallowed that hook i was way under that delusion and so that's that's what my motivator was here for it wasn't about steps or anything so i fell in love with you people. I really did right off the bat. I fell in love with Alcoholics Anonymous, I fell in love with the people, I had a sober band called Alliance, we played all kinds of sober gigs, I played on sober softball teams, went to sober float trips, dated sober girls, did all the sober stuff, loved it all. You see me all over the place, you think I was on fire for this stuff but I was step none the whole time. You could argue I was 0.5, I had a desire not to drink but I hadn't lived into anything else and so you can only run that gamut for so long, and eventually you're going to implode. And so that lasted three years for me. I finally came, and I call it coming to the end of yourself because that's ultimately what had to happen. I had to come to the ends of myself, and that happened at Three Years of Sobriety. And I asked this guy, Roy, to sponsor me. Roy knew me the whole time, and I finally was in enough pain, and my life was in enough jams that I finally surrendered. And I said, Roy, will you sponsor me? He says, just come over to the house. And I went over to this house. He says Harold, you've been around almost three years. Tell me about your life. And I said I'll tell you about my life, Roy. I said i'm three years sober. I'm going on 25 years of age. I live in a basement house. I don't have any education. I don' t even have a GED. I got a criminal record. I don''t have a driver's license. I never had a driver''s license. I don ''t know if I'll ever have a drive''s license. I got an eight-number sticker that I can''t legally drive but I do. My life sucks, brother. I've been just take the word sucks put it in all cap letters underline it highlight it bold it put Christmas lights around it and flash it sucks sucks sucks that's where my life was at after three years and I hadn't drank in three years. And so he listened to all that and he listened to my story and after he got done he was very sweet he was Very loving is very gracefully said Harold, I hear everything you're saying and there is no doubt that you've been dealt a really tough hand in your life a man man i hope you're going to hear what i'm going to tell you and friends what he told me that night changed my life and it's as true that night as it is as i say with you tonight and this is what he said to me he said harold i hope You're Going To Hear What I'm Going To Tell You But Every Single Thing You Have In Your Life Right Now You've Attracted To You By The Person That You've Become And The Day You're Man Enough To Own That Is The Day you're on your way to some real change. But until you can own that, this little vicious cycle you're on, you're going to eventually drink again because you're not happy about your sobriety. Or are you going to do what my dad did? My dad unfortunately stuck a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. That's how my dad quit drinking. But to continue on the path that you're doing, it's not an option. So you're gonna do one or two things. You're either gonna grow or you're Gonna go. And the million dollar question is, what do you want to do? And I didn't want to go. I mean, I loved you people. Absolutely loved it. My life had centered around this thing. But I knew you were going to say, let's work the steps. And the reality was I didn' t believe the steps would change my life. You know, the late Clancy got rest of his soul, but Clancy used to say all the time that the hardest thing that any of us will ever do is to take actions that we don' t believe in. And friends, that' s been my experience. and it's the hardest thing we'll ever do as sponsors, as sponsoring other people and leading people on this journey is to get them to take actions that they don't believe in. I just didn't believe the spiritual mathematics of this thing. The spiritual mathematics are given to us on page 64 when it says, when we put the spiritual ahead of the material, we straighten out physically, we straighten up mentally. You can just go ahead and add emotionally and spiritually and all the other stuff along with it. We just finally straighten out when we get the mathematics right. But I've been living by worldly mathematics my whole life and i just had the mathematics wrong i really believe when i add the stuff that i mentioned earlier that i would be happy joyous and free but it's not true but i really believed it and so but i was desperate i had to come to the end of myself and all these years i've been sober and i sponsored lots of people during that time over the years what i've learned is is that i have really met anybody that's really lived into this design for living that we have with everything that they have that came all the way in, sit all the down and stayed here until their life depended on it. And I was finally at a place where my life dependered on it and I knew it and I didn't need anybody to sell me on it and so I started this journey in the steps and it didn't, my life didn't explode into change, it didn' happen in one big cataclysmic explosion but little by little my life started to take off and the mathematics kicked in. What are the mathematics? Well spiritual mathematics that means two plus two doesn't equal four it means the it's it's the world it's that realm of the spirit in the world of the Spirit as we would call it where the impossible becomes possible and friends that's what I'm telling you so I don't know where you're at on your journey I don't Know where you came from or what you got going on and what you think is an impossible mountain to climb but I'm Telling You In The World Of The Spirit Where The Spiritual Mathematics Exists That It'S True When I Say That Two Plus Two Doesn'T Equal Four And The Impossible Become impossible, so I started that journey, and it transformed my life, and again, it didn't happen in one big explosion, but it took off, and little by little, as I started living into this thing, the walls come down, and the impossibility started to come in, and I got a lot of breaks, and I started to take advantage of those breaks, and live into those breaks. I've reconciled with my mother after three years of sobriety, and she invited me into a business she had got into as a, you know, industry with a large company. And she agreed to bring me in as an assistant. And I went and did that. And the company agreed to hire me despite the fact of my past, despite the act of no education, not even a GED, despitethe fact they had to go to the state of Missouri and write and convince the department of insurance that I was eligible to even get into this field. And, uh, and they did, and I failed the test the first time, passed it the second time and i started my journey and i had a great life and uh and it started to take off for me things started to shake rattle and roll my sponsor tom has a great quote tom says when preparation meets opportunity and god does the introduction amazing things will happen in your life and it's really the truth but up until that point until i really engaged this this adopted this program as a way of life you know i wasn't mature enough to to to experience or live into the opportunity And so they just passed me by. They just went on by. They just left. And when I started to live into them, it changed my life as I grew up and started to mature here. And so I went on, and I had a great career. I got married. This is my wife, Susie. This is the great thing about Zoom. That's Susie, and we got five kids. We got four girls and one boy. You know, you got to be careful what you pray for. I didn't know I could ever fall in love with a little bald-headed woman with no teeth until they handed me one. I said, there you go, dad. So I fell in love this little bald head of woman. And now I got four of them and one more. And the youngest one is 23. They all growed up. And the beautiful part about it, none of them have ever seen me drink alcohol or do anything drastic in my life. It's been a beautiful ride. And they're all educated. And they were all living pretty good lives. I have to slap myself all the time. How did that ever happen? But I'm blessed that it happened. i got i was able to you know when i got here i was in that industry i got some initials behind my name but i finally plateaued i couldn't go any further because i didn't have any education sponsor said why don't you go get a why don'T YOU GO GET YOUR GED IT'S TIME i said dude i can't pass the ged test let's be real i quit school when i was 13 i've already tried twice when i was incarcerated i couldn' t pass it well then go sign up for community college i said are you kidding me man i'm 30 something years old at this time you know i'm over well over 30 years old just go do it. So I sign up for the classes and I go from work and I'm dressed in a tie and a suit because that's how I had to wear to work. And I walk into the classroom for the first time, they think I'm an instructor because I already got gray hair. They think I'M the guy teaching the class. No, I had sit down in the front and not look at any of them because when I was a teenager, if I took the thumbtack out on my kiss poster and pierced my ear with it, but to wear an earring back in my day, that was a big deal, man. But nowadays, man, these people were tatted out and they got tats everywhere. They got body piercings everywhere. Some of them look like they fell down that bolt section at Lowe's. They've got so much going on, you know? I mean, it's incredible. I mean it looked like they should be in museums or work of art and they're all 16, 17 year olds I'm sitting in this room with and I couldn't look at any of them but long story short I passed the test and then I eventually walked across the stage a few years later and got a bachelor's degree. Sent my mother a bumper sticker that said hey your kid made honor roll. I'm 30 something years old that was a big joke in my family for a while but eventually i walked across the stage and got a master's degree in business and i wrote my thesis on starting a business from scratching selling it particular business and I was I've been able to do that not once but I've been able To do it twice in my recovery and eventually I walked across the stage and I got another master's Degree and uh the impossible becomes possible is what I'm telling two plus two doesn't equal four here um it's been an amazing ride what i want to wind up with you know i've had amazing run i made some incredible amends i unfortunately just don't have time to get into all those things that i'd love to tell you about or talk to you about that have been huge blessings in my life i can tell you for sure i reconcile with my mother and she she went home in 2015 and she was the greatest winner of my life my mother was a rock star and uh everybody in recovery knew her she wasn't in recovery herself but she just was one of those moms that was around and uh everybody called her mom along great winter my life but it was a great it's a great honor to be asked by all my siblings to to get her eulogy and to uh to uh be the executive of her state it's long way to go when she wouldn't even talk to me when i got here you know and so this is a long reconciliation process what i'm telling you but what i want to wind up with so the delusions that i really had to wrestle with number one i'm not alcoholic number two i am alcoholic, but it's not my fault. Victimization had me by the throat as our fourth step would say to conclude that others were wrong was about as far as most of us ever got. And so that delusion of victimization did everything to kill me. And, and you know, the problem with victimization is you can drink yourself to death and it's nicht your fault. You know, you can sit inside a nine by seven or 10 by cell jail cell for the rest of your life. And it's niet your fault, you can blow your nose out, you can blow your lungs out. You can blow your veins out. You can flow your brains out and it's not your fault and that's a deadly game, that victimization. I know there's probably people on here tonight that are stuck in that and the steps are what's going to free you from that. That's what freed me from it. Delusion number three is I could come to the rooms and I could tell you I was alcoholic. I could finally own the fact that it wasn't your fault. You know, I had to really own it but let's just be reality. You know I've already burned my life into the ground. The mountain's too big a mountain to climb. i broke too many hearts i burnt too many bridges there's little hope that my life will ever really change so why even try you know it's impossible and so that that delusion of the impossibility that delution of the that the time has passed you by is a very powerful delusion when that delusion gets into your heart it creates discouragement when discouragement gets in your heart guess what you do you quit for most people they don't even get started that's why recidivism rates are 60 70 percent in our prisons because people already quit before they ever left and so that's the power of that delusion that it's going to be impossible for you ever to come back from where you are and this delusion it's not real that's what i'm telling you so if you're in that place trust me it's Not Real but you got to stay here long enough you got to stay long enough for the miracle to happen friends and it will happen if you stay here number four was spiritual disqualification that I was spiritually disqualified because i'd come to the rooms and i'd hear people talk about god and god sounded like this to me people say i hear the i feel the presence of the spirit god spoke to me this morning i heard god through what you shared i heard God through the devotions this morning God sounded like this to you know and so my conclusion was i was spiritually disqualified that and that and the things that i suffered in my life must be spiritual condemnation must be spiritual persecution it just made sense for me but as i worked through the steps and i got my tube tube unclogged and that's what it was like it's like this is my tube to this world of the spirit just heavily around and unfortunately my tube was clogged with resentments and fears and secrets and sex stuff all this stuff had my tube clogged where i couldn't tap into the world of the spirit when i finally screwed the lid off that tube and check out some of those resentments shared my entire life story with another human being and talked about the things i said i would never talk about in a minute confessed the crimes that i committed that I'd never been held accountable for. When I did all that stuff, all of a sudden my tube opened up and the sunlight, the spirit poured in and it's never left from that day until now. And it's been a beautiful ride and that's what the steps have given me. So I've been able to overcome those last delusions. But the last delusion, this delusion that there is no real purpose for my life. I mean, I lived a tough life. I lived an horrific life. I mean there's just no real purpose although we talk about purpose all the time today. We talk about our single-ness of purpose, our primary purpose, our group purpose, our real purpose. you know this was just to fit ourselves to be a maximum service to god and the people about us we talk about purpose all day long but this delusion in my mind is my life is too fractured it's too broken it's Too Far Gone and my life's never really going to be of value to anybody let's just be really serious about it but what i learned it's not true and as i heal and as our literature tells us all the way through that we got to cling to the idea that our dark past becomes It's the greatest possession that we'll ever possess. And with it, God can do amazing things, including invert misery and death for a lot of other people. And it was through sponsorship that I realized that, and I'll share this as I close, this is the two most important things I ever did in my sobriety and continue to do today. Number one, my sponsor said, Harold, you always have a new guy you're working with. And this started for me in 1990 when I started really working the steps. You always have an new man you're work with. page 100 first full paragraph greatest promise in the book as far as i'm concerned so always have a new guy if you don't have a new guy you stop what you're doing and get out your rods get out your bait go fish where there's fish but you always have an email you're on this journey with number two i want you committed to going somewhere once a week where you don'T want to end up and you can pick where that's at i don't care where it's at treatment center halfway house county jail whatever but just be committed going somewhere Once a Week where you DON'T want to end UP and so i stay committed to those i stay true to those and i have all these years later and that's what's led to the life I have today. I mean, ultimately everything points to that and it's what, it's, what helped me deal with all my isms, my phobias, but also is what helped me dilute, deal with that dilution. There was no value to my life. I didn't have anybody I could call when I got here. Nobody. I couldn't even call my mother anymore when I Got Here. Today, I got this, which is full of not hundreds, but thousands of contacts of people that are friends, people that I know that I can never do justice with because there's just too many. There's not enough time in the day, but I have a full life today. And I had literally nobody I could call when I got here. And that's a long haul to get from that place to that place, but what I'm telling you, it's a beautiful life. And so that's what this thing's about. So that started for me. I went to the Skid Row missions every Thursday night, every Saturday morning for three years from 1993. And in 93, I got a call and asked if I had come into the penitentiary system. I said, you're out of your mind. I said they're not going to let me come into the penitentiary system and do anything they said well we think you've been off paper long enough they will and I said well let's just play let's pretend for a minute let's just pretend they would let me come in I made a pack a long time ago I ain't never going on that side of the fence for you them or anybody else ever rest my life and they laughed and said well why don't you run out by your sponsor and call us back and you know how that went he said they'll let you in you're going well I've been there ever since they haven't been able to kick me out and that's 25 years ago and so that's what I do on a regular basis is going into in primarily maximum security prison systems is what i've been involved in and it's made a huge difference in my life and i could sit here all day and tell you stories that i came from that about seven years ago they asked if i would help participate in creating a new documentary for a called a new freedom and so to replace the old sure be sitting in the cell so i had the privilege along with a lot of guys i sponsor on the inside and several that are on the outside to do this documentary. And it was a powerful, powerful experience to be able to do that a long way. No, I'm never going there to do That, you know, so I'm just saying, it's been a huge transition for my life. But I want to my last minute, I want To share this. And this is really crux up on page 152. It's like the audience is talking to the big book. And This is what it says. Do you have a sufficient substitute for King alcohol? And the book says, Yes, but it's vastly more than that it's a fellowship in Alcoholics Anonymous and the word fellowship there is not a noun form it's in a verb form so it means we have to participate in our own sobriety but wherever you're at on your journey if you really listen to what it's saying if you come all the way and sit all the down and most importantly stay here and live into this thing it goes on to say that if you live this thing out that the most satisfactory years of your existence lie ahead you're going to make some lifelong friends evidence it's right here on the screen tonight imagination is going to be fired it's going to be an amazing run and it's really the truth for anybody here where are you going to meet these people if you live in a rural area high or low or an urban area they're everywhere drunks are everywhere but the beautiful part about it and conclude this on page 153 it says this you're going to get the privilege walk shoulder to shoulder with other people and help them rediscover life. And friends, I finally realized that I do have tremendous purpose in my life. So the five big delusions were nothing more than delusions, but at the point in time of my life, they seemed as real as they're going to ever be. But I'm just telling you through spiritual mathematics, the impossible does become possible. And I was able to live through those and overcome those delusions in my wife. And so the beautiful part about that statement is you're going get to walk shoulder to shoulder with these other people, and you're going to finally know what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. And that shift that happens, that shift at 18 inches from our head to our heart, when we really go from being a taker to a giver, is something you don't ever want to miss. But you got to stay here, and You got to live into this thing one day at a time. So we love God, we love others, and we transform the world. It's a beautiful way to live. It has transformed my life. I owe my life to you guys. That's all I got. Thank you for letting me share.