The Spiritual Sickness of a Progressive Disease He Couldn’t Outrun – Andy C.

My name is Andy and I am still an alcoholic. My sobriety date is the 8th of August, 1994. My home group is the Monday Night Speakers Meeting in the sobriety capital of the world, the St. Petersburg, Florida. And I have a sponsor and I sponsor others. You know, I'm sitting here actually kind of nervous for a change. And I stand in front of my family here every week and I'm not sure exactly why I would sit and be nervous. Except that when I stand up here and I do the secretary thing, I'm kind of doing it from memory. And all of a sudden something will pop in from left field that will come out of my mouth. Or, you know, Ed McMahon over here will say something. And it's just all rote. But when I'm actually standing in front of my family telling my story, I need to be honest. And I need to open up my heart. I need to share it. Sometimes that can be a little scary. You know, but being in this surroundings, in this environment, no need to be nervous. You know, I got a little choked up and I drank a couple of bottles of water. So if you see me dancing, it's not the Holy Spirit or anything. It's because I got to pee. Yeah. So I better have something else to drink here. You know, a famous speaker one time said that when you're telling the story or giving a speech, it needs to be much like a woman's dress. It needs to be long enough to cover all the important parts, yet short enough to keep everybody interested. So, you know, I hope I can set my ego aside tonight. And the story of what God and you people have done in my life actually will come through and that everybody gets something that they need to hear. I sit in that chair there at times. So when I get done doing what I'm doing, I've had a long day. And I feel like I just want to go home and go to bed. But I stay seated and I always hear something that I need to hear. Whenever I'm in an AA meeting, I always hear something that I need to hear. And it's times that I don't hear things that I need to hear. I really need to check my spiritual health because then I'm beginning to start trudging off on this little road of terminal uniqueness. And when I get terminally unique, I'm destined to fail. I'm destined to relapse. Because when I am a part of something, I'm not apart from. And it's really important, you know, that this is my home group and I make a commitment to be here every week. And I travel a lot. And sometimes I don't get to be here. And when I'm not here, I really miss it because it's really an integral part of being grounded in this program. Right? Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. At the same time, I'm finding a home group. If I don't show up, people call me and go, where were you? What are you doing? You know, and that feels really good. But aside from feeling really good, it keeps me in check because I've wandered off before. You know, you can all tell every week that my mind is a dangerous place to be, especially by yourself. You know? So, you know, to qualify a little bit from drinking, I don't remember the exact time that I ever, picked up my first drink. I think it was a family reunion. You know, aunts and uncles were mixing wine coolers for the cousins and kids to kind of quiet them down and keep them off to the side or something like that. But I can tell you, I remember my first drunk. And, you know, I used to always think that I went through a period where I thought my childhood was extremely chaotic and it was all my parents' fault and, you know, and siblings and things like that, that there had to be a reason that I was an alcoholic and it didn't have anything to do with me. And then I look back and I realize that my parents gave me the life that they could. And they did the absolute best that they could with what they had. Because everybody has their own set of circumstances that they come from and they make decisions based on those sort of set of circumstances. And later on, I remember I was in a group of friends and I was in a group of friends and I was in a group of friends and I was in a group of friends and I was in a group of friends and I was in a group of friends and I was in a group of friends and I was in a group of friends and I was in a group of friends and I was in a group of friends and later in life, you know, as I get into my story, my father played an integral role in my sobriety. Neither one of my parents were alcoholics or even drinkers. My mother's a teetotaler. And there was never alcohol in our house to speak of. The only time that I ever got, you know, around alcohol was at communion. But I remember when my mother would come back from communion, I always wanted to smell her breath. You know? You know, and I was a hyperactive kid. I mean, I just constantly going, bouncing off of things, breaking windows, beating on the house with a hammer, you know, all this kind of crazy stuff. So they took me to the doctor and the doctor put me on phenobarbital. My dog is on phenobarbital for seizures right now. So I can see what happens in him. I can just imagine what had happened in me. All that aside, I always felt very disconnected from everybody around me. I didn't feel really connected with any friends, any kids in the neighborhood. I was really kind of a loner. I remember in an early age sitting staring out the den window, you know, and I found out if you stared at the grass long enough, it would swirl and you could hallucinate, you know. And this was, this is sober. But I always wanted to be someplace else and I always wanted to be someone else. And I always wanted to take on a different persona. You know, there was, there was a time that I was on an airplane and there was a friend of my sister sitting behind us. So she heard me and told my sister about this. I'm 18 years old and I'm telling somebody over there that I'm a brain surgeon. I don't remember that, but I'm sure that it's true. You know, you put enough alcohol in me that I would play whatever role I can play to make myself better than what I thought I was. I was always comparing my inside with everybody else's outside, you know. And I remember, you know, I was in a room with a friend and I was sitting there and I was sitting there and I was sitting there and I was sitting there and I was sitting there and I was sitting there. And I remember my mother when I was seven years old saying to me after we had gone to Disneyland for the first time that I stopped lying. And she loves to tell this story. She said, she asked me, why did you stop lying? Well, I now have something interesting to talk about by going to Disneyland. So you know, I was always looking for something on the outside to fill the inside. And I remember the first time that I found King alcohol. I was in seventh grade and I went over to my sister's house and she was making slow gin fizz. And we were partaking of an illegal cigarette and I had the time of my life. And then I woke up the next morning and I'm throwing up and I thought that I was dying because it's red coming into the toilet. I thought my guts were bleeding out. It was slow gin fizz, you know. And we were going on a camping trip and we were meeting my brother-in-law's parents and I was told that I was carsick. That was what was wrong with me. I was carsick when we got there. So I got out of the car carsick for the next five hours. But I still remember going, golly, I can't wait till I do that again. You know, I was so sick and just, I mean, we've all been there, you know. And I didn't pick up a constant daily drink. I had a drinking career, you know. It happened, you know, on occasion, you know, throughout my teens, but not on a regular basis. And I look back at that today and I kind of wonder why. Well, and I didn't really crave it all that much, but at a certain point I went away to a Christian boarding academy and I actually lived a spiritual life. And at that point, those three and a half years in my teenage years, I remember feeling a part of, I remember feeling whole. I didn't have the size of, you know, a hole the size that you could drive a Mack truck through in my heart. And I was content with life as it was. And I could live life on life's terms. And I still had the different chaos going on through that time period, you know, that most teenagers do. But I remember it being a very good time in my life, you know. And I had always kind of wondered that. And when the first time somebody, you know, brought my drinking to my attention, it was like, well, you know, I didn't drink in high school. I'll just go back to my old days. And I was like, well, I didn't drink in high school. I'll just go back to being in high school. You know, and I remember a lot of time during my drinking career, I just want to go back to high school. And I didn't know why. I didn't know that I was seeking a spiritual medication for my disease. You know, that that was what was really wrong with me. You know, and I remember really early on in my drinking career after I started drinking on a daily basis, which happened almost instantly. Golly, I got a drinking problem. And I know the singleness purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous, but one thing, you know, part of my story is drugs. And drugs was actually kind of a blessing in disguise to me because it sped up my disease. So I didn't stay out there drinking for 40 years. It just, you know, it brought the bottom up really fast. And so, but I remember thinking, well, you know, if I'm going to drink, I'm going to drink. And I remember thinking, well, you know, maybe if I smoke a little pot, I'll drink a little bit less and I'll do this. And I started playing around in these different games, you know, when we're talking about what we did to try and control our drinking. We're not drinking in the morning. Well, that was my favorite time of day to drink. Well, you know, there's nothing. Okay, we're going to stop drinking in the morning, only drinking at parties. Golly, we can have a party every night of the week. Don't drink at work. Well, okay, that means no two beers with a sandwich or anything like that, you know. So there were all the different games. And I remember thinking, well, I can't switch from scotch to brandy. I hate brandy. But I love scotch. Well, let's switch to white liquors. How many of us have switched to white liquors? Because the dark liquor is what's really getting us. Or let's stay away from the sugar. You know, okay, all right. I went into a blackout on peppermint schnapps. I'm swearing off all sugar liquor. I still can't smell peppermint. It makes me ill. You know, and I look back through the wreckage of my past of while I was drinking. You know, there was a time in my life that it affected every single thing that I did. It affected my relationships. It affected my job. It affected my relationship with my parents. It affected the phone ringing off the hook with bill collectors. All of that stuff, this chaos in life that just, you know, I was like pig pen going through life. You know, all the dirt and everything flying around him, you know. And I just really couldn't get it. I couldn't get a handle on it. I didn't understand that, you know, that if I put that spiritual puzzle piece into my heart, it was like a key going into a lock that if I turned it, the door would open and I would have the solution to my problem. So I tried several geographical cures, but the same thing would always happen. I'd wake up the first morning in the new place and I'd walk in the bathroom and I'd flip on the light and I'd look in the mirror and there was that same son of a bitch. He had followed me. You know, and it took me about five years of drinking to realize that no matter where I went, there I was. And, you know, my last drunk, I was going to try the geographical cure of all cures. And so I woke up and I looked over in the bed and realized that I did not know who she was. I did not know her name. I went through her purse to find her driver's license, at least got her name, went into the kitchen to get a glass of water because I had no idea where I was. The sun's coming through the sliding glass doors. I walk over the sliding glass doors. I open them up. I walk out into the balcony. These beautiful coconut palm trees, white sand, blue water. I am definitely not at home because I live in Vermont. So this is not the first time that I've woken up in the wrong zip code. So, you know, and I'm sure that some of you guys have been there, too. I mean, so I went downstairs to the hotel. Front desk. And I found this little newspaper and I opened it up and it was like this, you know, St. Thomas tourist guide, you know, and I had I remember vaguely that I was going to run away to paradise. And if I could leave my wife and my kids and my business and my in-laws and my parents and all the bills and everybody that was constantly on my back behind me and run to paradise, that everything would be OK. But I looked in the mirror and there he was. You know, it was it had been it had been about two years before that, that I had been exposed to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and I really didn't get it. You know, there was a geographical cure to Los Angeles because I grew up born and raised in Eureka, California. And then I went to San Francisco and then I went to Santa Cruz and then I went back to Eureka again. And then I went to L.A. and then I went back to Eureka again. And then I went back to L.A. again. I mean, I like a lottery ball inside of a ping pong machine, you know. And then I finally stuck out my thumb and figured out wherever I end up, I end up. So I ended up in Vermont and, you know, for a California boy to get out of his truck at 18 degrees below zero. And I was actually chasing the sun when that happened. It's kind of a wide awakening. But God works in mysterious ways. Because I. I get sober not too far away from where Bill grew up. And went to meetings at his home during my recovery. So that was really kind of cool. But going back to, you know, having this huge hole in my heart and the way that I lived my life. You know, when it was first brought to my attention that I might have a drinking problem. You know, I knew it in my heart. But when somebody else brought it to my attention, it was no problem. It's all fine. Everything's good. OK, I can slow down. I can control it. I'll just stop drinking in the morning, you know, and I'll do the right thing because I, you know, all through my life, even though I had created all of this chaos, I really had it in my mind that I was going to do the right thing. You know, I wanted to be an honest person. I wanted to be a successful businessman. I wanted to, you know, I had all this. I had all these great, these great plans where I'd sit on a bar stool and just dream and, you know, and just come up with all these grandiose ideas and everything. Remember the brain surgeon one, right? But, you know, I always felt like I was I was better than what I was, that somehow I could lift myself, grab myself by the bootstraps and get out of all this chaos that I continued to create in my life. And I had been somewhere. And I had been successful. And I had been successful during my my drinking career to do that, because sometimes when I take a geographical cure, it's OK. I got to get a job. I got to pay off the bills. I got to pull myself up by the bootstraps. I got to get a new car. I got to pay off the one that was already foreclosed. And then I got, you know, and I got to do all this stuff. And things would go along pretty well for six weeks or so. And I would get my act back together. And then I'd say, well, you know, it's time for a drink. We'll just maybe have a couple. We'll go on Friday night. and we'll find out what's going on. Because the one thing was that when I didn't drink, and you might find this funny, I was an introvert. And I am an introvert today. Because I don't want to go talk to people. I don't want to shake everybody's hand. Although I've been in sales all my entire life, I don't want to go talk to people. I would really rather sit off in the corner all by myself and not have to talk to anybody. Then I've got to come out of myself. But what I found out about drinking was that when I got that first drink, it would feel good going down a little bit. And I'd start to feel a little bit of the warmth come up the back of the neck. Okay, I get the second drink, and now we're starting to... Okay, and then we get the third drink, and it's like... All right! All right! You know, I could dance. I could talk to people, namely women. I was gorgeous. I was ten feet tall, and I was bulletproof. You know, and that eventually stopped working. It really did stop working. Because I eventually ended up getting married, having a couple of kids. And, you know, that doesn't mix. The party boy atmosphere just doesn't mix with doing the right thing, with a family. You know, and it was brought to my attention, you've got a drinking problem. You don't come home for days at a time. You know, you hear the story of people going out for a loaf of bread, a pack of cigarettes, or a gallon of milk and not coming home. I did that. You know? And, you know, it was brought to my attention. I said, no, you know, I can quit on my own. I can go back to high school. I remember very quickly thinking, I'll go back to high school. And it wasn't like three or four days later, I had a job working in the evening. It was a side job. And so I went, you know, off up the mountain in Vermont to go work this side job. And something had broken with the guy's tools. I was supposed to help him lay a hardwood floor. And things weren't working out. And he said, you know what? Why don't we just go have a beer? Well, you know, it won't hurt to have one. You know, I take a drink, the drink takes a drink, and the drink takes me. And I woke up the next morning at like 9 o'clock in the morning. And God knows how I didn't die. In the car, asleep, below freezing, going, oh my God, my wife needed me to work two hours ago. What have I done? You know, because we had one car because my drinking had gotten rid of the other one. You know, so, I finally came to the realization that I can't do this on my own. And I said, okay, I'll go ahead and go to treatment. And so I went to this treatment center. And I really didn't understand the severity of this. You know, I was relatively young. I was 24. And I thought, golly, you know, I'm too young to really be an alcoholic. Maybe I'm just screwed up in some way. But, you know, if I stop drinking for a while, you know, I'll be able to get my act, back together again. And so I came out of treatment. And I stopped being a daily drinker. And I went about the process of what I call, I picked up a trash bag, plastic trash bag. Definitely not a hefty because it wasn't that strong. And I would carry this trash bag around with me. And any time life pissed me off, or you pissed me off, or my wife pissed me off, or my job pissed me off, I would stuff that emotion, into this trash bag. Because mind you, I didn't go to AA meetings. I went to treatment and I came out of, and I, so I would stuff this plastic trash bag. I didn't have a program that I was working. I didn't get the spiritual key. I just got dry, which made me nuts. You know, because then I didn't have the self medication of alcohol to make me, you know, feel like I was, like I belonged in society. So when I carry this trash bag around on my back, all of a sudden sooner or later, that trash bag is going to break. And when that trash bag would break, I was either gone for a day or a week or 10 days or something like that, out on a binge. And it was like I flushed my system and I'd come back home all kind of, I'm so sorry, please let me back in the door. I'm out of money. I don't even have my toothbrush. I don't know where I lost it. And then. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . You know, those were really humiliating times, but I got really good at it. . . And you know, some way my wife would let me back in the door and then we'd start this vicious cycle again that I would pick up another trash bag and I would start to stuff it full of life on life's terms until I drank again. So it was suggested that I really needed to go to Alcoholics Anonymous because, you know, obviously I wasn't getting it. So I went to Alcoholics Anonymous and I think I stayed sober for maybe about three weeks. I really didn't quite get the program. There was a bunch of old folks in there and, you know, probably about my age now and I really didn't identify with these people very well. And after about three weeks I went out on another bender again and I felt all remorseful and everything and I thought, well, I better get back to that AAE meeting. So I walked in and I sat down. It was the discussion meeting and I said something about, you know, Mandy, I'm an alcoholic and I just came back off a slip. And an old timer jumped up out of his chair. He goes, what did you do, step on a banana peel? . Oh, boy. . Now remember, I was terminally unique. Obviously this guy had no idea. He had no idea who I was or what I was going through or anything having to do with me. And so I was out the door. So I proceeded to have, you know, a few more years of that huge hole in my heart and trying everything that I possibly could think of to make my life better. You know, I had three jobs. I was, I was just, I was just, I was going to work my way into it because, you know, I'd always been, I remember looking back and saying, you know, I've always been able to pull myself up by the bootstraps. I've always been able to get my act together. I've always been able to do this. I mean, my friends used to call me Houdini because I get myself out of jams, you know. And then I woke up on the beach in St. Thomas. Wow. Oh, I failed to mention I didn't have a return trip ticket. I didn't buy one for her either. And so there was a really, really humiliating situation where I had to pick up the phone. First of all, I called the bank and asked them to transfer me some money and I was politely informed that my wife had come and cleaned out the accounts. So I had to humbly ask her for a return trip ticket. And that wasn't pretty. And I could come home on one condition and that's that I went back into treatment. And of course, you know, we've all done, I'll do anything. Please. I don't know how many times I offered to do anything. You know, I didn't know what it was, you know. So I didn't immediately get on the plane. I actually, you know, somehow I managed, I don't know what I did. I drank for three more days down there. You know, and then finally got on a plane and I'm just, I'm absolutely miserable because I can't drink enough to get drunk. I can't drown out the feelings that I'm feeling in my heart. I can't, I can't get away from me. You know, and it's probably one of the first times, you know, it happened twice in my life where I honestly committed suicide or honestly contemplated committed suicide. I wouldn't be standing here if I committed suicide. See, I told you. My mind is a room. It's a real scary place to be. You know, something had to change with the world or I wanted to get off. And so I'm like, okay, well, I got to go home. I got, all right, well, you know, I'll go, please. I'll beg my way back into it and I'll figure out how to get out on the end because I'm not going back to treatment because those people don't know anything about what they're talking about. They don't know me. Remember, I'm a brain surgeon. And I remember landing in, somewhere in New Jersey. And the plane was coming, you know, St. Thomas, San Juan, Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico into New Jersey. And the ceiling fell down in the plane and freaked everybody out. And they got that put back up again. So when we're landing and we finally taxied to the end of the runway, everybody says, great to be in America. And I mean, I got that. I got that. I got that. I got that. And I got that. I mean, I thought I was in some sort of really sick movie or something. Eventually I got back to the house, and of course I'm three days late from when I'm supposed to have gone back because I begged for a ticket. And they didn't have room for me at the treatment center, so I wasn't going to stay there, I was informed. But they had a spot for me at the psych ward at the hospital. And I thought, you know, I don't know about this. But I don't have any other options. I'm looking around me and I don't have any other options. I'm trying to talk my way out of this thing, but I'm not finding any options. Everybody's pretty much got their heels dug in, that they've had enough of this crap. You know, they've chased me all over the country. You know, my in-laws, my wife, my parents. God love them, my parents. And so, okay, I'm going to go to the psych ward. And I go to the psych ward for 11 days. And mind you, I'm still... I'm still taking Valium and Halcyon to sleep. And they're not going to take me off that stuff at the psych ward. And so I show up for treatment and they proceed to start dumping my pill bottles out. And I'm like freaking out, going, guys, I mean, the doctor prescribed that stuff for me. I really need it. No, no, you don't understand. We're going to get you cleaned out as well as sober. I finally begin to get it. You know, I did... Stupid stuff in treatment. Trying to fix myself from the outside in. Like change clothes five times a day. Take three showers a day. You know, my counselor friend that caught on that I'd show up in group in a different set of clothes all the time. She goes, you're allowed one set of clothes every day. That's it. My God, that was hard. But it made me focus on me. Instead of going back to the room, changing clothes. And then... I went back to group going, look at the new outfit I've got on. You know, and I actually got into the steps. And that was the key to beginning my recovery of that. Because I don't recall the steps from my first treatment. You know, I'm sure that they were presented to me, but I don't recall them. I'm sure that I heard the steps and the traditions read and the preamble read and the alcoholics meetings that I went to after I got out of treatment. But I don't remember. I just remember that guy talking to me about a banana peel. That just really pissed me off. But my mind began to open up. And another thing really amazing happened to me during that time period. I called my dad, who was always good to bail me out. You know, he was a heck of an enabler. Even from 3,000 miles away in California, he was a heck of an enabler. And I found out that he had been going to Al-Anon. And I said, Dad, I need some money. I can't pay my bills. He said, Son, I love you, but the checkbook is closed. Oh, my God. You know, that was just one of the things that the Al-Anoners told him. So I had a resentment for a while. You know, I got out of that treatment center. And after finally getting through the 30-some-odd days and getting in and starting to work the beginnings of my fourth step while I was still there and going to meetings and beginning to understand, you know, this wasn't necessarily my fault. I had a lot of responsibility in this thing. I had a lot of stuff to be accountable for. But I had a disease of alcoholism. And, you know, now that I had a little bit of understanding on that and I had a direction that I could go that could resolve these issues, then I had a responsibility. That I had been given the key to the lock to open the door and it was now my job to put the key into the lock and turn it and open the door and walk into a different life. And somehow I did. You know, I said earlier when I got my key chain that I'm really grateful to be sober today because I really am grateful to be sober today because I'm not really sure what I did to deserve to be here. Because there are a lot of people out there that deserve to be here and aren't. There are a lot of people that can't get it or seem not to be able to get it, but they want it. You know, how did I happen to be in the right place for the star to shine down? I mean, that I actually got to be here. So, you know, that's one of the things that I'm eternally grateful for. And I try and keep pushing my ego out of the way, you know, when I say that I'm not responsible for my sobriety. It's you and my higher power and the tools of this program. I've just been, you know, I've been blessed enough to have been given the knowledge to actually work those tools and to do what I'm supposed to do to stay sober. But anyway, my counselor said, OK, now when you get home, I get discharged from treatment in the morning. And they said, there's a new meeting at such and such, you know, in your hometown. And I was given a pamphlet on humility. Now, I still at that point really didn't understand the difference between humility and being humiliated or being humble. And they said, I want you to go into that meeting and I want you to raise your hand and I want you to bring up the topic. And I want you to bring up the topic of humility because it's going to be one of the most important things in your recovery. I didn't have an ego. Really, I didn't. And, you know, and I did that. And for a change, I actually stopped driving the bus and started listening to what people told me to do. And I started praying, not for what I want, not for what I wanted, but for what I will be done. And sobriety clicked. And not everything in my life came out the way that I thought it should have come out. But things got even better. You know, my relationships with my parents got better. My relationship with my wife, God love her, and I apologize to her on a pretty regular basis because something will pop up from the past that I don't think that I made amends to her for. And I'll pick up the phone and go, do you remember that time we were at dinner and I was such an idiot? Oh yeah, I remember that. I'm sorry. That was improper behavior. And it used to kind of catch her off guard when I would do that. And now she's actually kind of used to it, you know. What are you apologizing for now? That relationship didn't work out. But I was sober and was able to build a relationship. I was able to build a relationship with my kids. And I'm going to speed up a little bit here and get to some of the real important recovery stuff. I ended up getting a really good job. Things were going well in my life from the external purposes and everything. And then the economy changed and my job changed. And I ended up relocating from Vermont out to the Midwest in Springfield, Missouri. And when I got there, I made some real serious mistakes in my recovery. Number one, I did not find a home group. Number two, I did not get... I connected. Number three, I did not get a new sponsor. Number four, I stopped working the steps. Number five, the hole in my heart got really huge and the door to the light of my life slammed shut. It only took about a year. And I told, you know, when I first went out there to go to work, I told everybody I'm an alcoholic, I don't drink, I'm in recovery. I'm not afraid to tell people that because, you know, I get a little selective in the people that I tell them I did. I get a little selective in the people that I tell them I did. But I'm not afraid to tell the core people that I work with because that's also part of my lifeline. They're not in recovery, but that's part of my lifeline because what I do for a living exposes me to cocktails a lot. And if I were to do something stupid, I'm sure that somebody would come over and tap me on the shoulder. And, you know, I was deathly afraid of the drink. Deathly afraid of drinking again. But somehow I convinced myself that marijuana was not my drug of choice. Alcohol. was that I was never addicted to marijuana and that if I smoked a joint once in a while, everything would be fine. And I convinced everybody else around me of that fact too. You know, the things that happened to me with alcohol on the outside of losing my house, losing my car, going to jail, having bill collectors call all the time, all the external stuff that happened with alcohol didn't happen to me with smoking marijuana. But I became crazier than a loon. And it wasn't necessarily from the drug in my system, but it was the spiritual sickness coming back full fledged. And it was the second time in my life that I remember that this world is going to stop and I'm going to get off. And it was a it was a. It was brought to my attention that I probably ought to go back to treatment. So I went kicking and screaming, of course, because, you know, by God, I was coming up on six years of sobriety. And this was, you know, towards the end of July, the beginning of August. And I was presented with an alternative of you either lose your job or you go in to treatment and you get your act back together. So I. So I said, OK, fine, I'll go into treatment. And so I go into treatment. And I get assigned a counselor and the counselor looks at me and she goes, you know, you know exactly what you're supposed to be doing. You just haven't been doing it. There's no reason for you to start at the beginning of going to these orientation classes to tell you about the disease of addiction. There's no reason for you to be going to these orientation classes about a. There's no reason for you to be doing this. You're going to a meeting tonight. So I went to my first. So I went to my first. first outside AA meeting the first night I got there. Well, it happens to be August 8th, 1994, which happens to be my six-year anniversary. So I go to my first outside AA meeting, and when they're passing out the birthday medallions, they ask, anybody wants a white chip? I don't stand up. They ask for a red chip. I don't stand up. Ask for a blue chip. Brain surgeon. They ask for a year. And they then ask for multiples of years. And I start to lean forward in the church for you to get up, and my counselor's claw caught me in the back of the neck and went, no. Andy, you need to get up and you need to go and ask them for a white chip. Oh, wait a minute. This is my six-year anniversary. I haven't drank. No, you need to go ask them for a white chip. We'll talk about it later. So now I've just come full circle. Yeah, there we go. I've just come full circle back to my humility. I've forgotten about my humility. I've forgotten about that I needed to stay connected to the program, that I needed a sponsor. Somebody watching. Somebody watching over me because I cannot be trusted in my own mind. I need a home group that expects me to show up every week. I need to be working the steps. All of these different things. I'm back to being humble again. Well, actually, I'm back to being humiliated because I wasn't humble. So I went through treatment and I immediately got back into the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I got a sponsor. And I got back to working the steps. And I did another fourth step, fifth step, sixth step. You know, you know, my character defects. God love God. I mean, you know, I don't I don't wish my character defects on anybody, you know, and it's a daily struggle sometimes that we're playing tug of war. You know, if it happened to be a penny between us, it'd be copper wire. I mean, I'm there are my ego will want to get in the way because I want to step back and go, yeah, look what I did. Well, the last time that I did that, look what I did. You know, and, you know, my life got real chaotic after that first for a period of time. My professional career went in the tank. I almost lost my house, had my car repossessed twice. I had a lot of things going on because it all directly stemmed from my disease. But I kept on going to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I kept on going to my home group and I kept on being connection with my sponsor. And then I took another job and I moved to Manhattan, Kansas. And the financial aspect of things started to get a little bit better. But I stayed connected to my home group and I got a new sponsor and I got a new schedule. And I started to go into more meetings and I continued to work the steps. Well, I don't know if you've ever been to Manhattan, Kansas or not, but it's definitely not St. Thomas. So when I was offered a job to come down to Florida, I jumped. I jumped at the chance. And when I got here, the first thing I did was to find a new home group and to find a sponsor and to find a group of meetings that I could go to and continue to work the steps. And then I lived in Bradenton at that time and that's where my recovery was. And then I picked up and I moved up here to Pinellas County to be closer to the office. And I immediately found a new home group and I immediately found a new sponsor. And my sponsor said, you really need to come on over to Monday Night Speakers meeting. Now this is, gosh, six years ago? A long time. And it was still when we were over at Pilgrim's. And I walked in the back and I stood in the back of the room and went, these people are nuts. I was really waiting for the laying on of hands and the tongues and all this stuff. That's back when we had tables going down and people beating on the tables and everything and stuff. And little did I know I'd be up here causing half the commotion a few years later. But, you know, this meeting. This meeting has become an extremely important part of my recovery because it's my home group. I'm expected to show up here every week. I have created an obligation in my life that I am expected to fulfill. You know, the dreams that I had when I was drinking of doing the right thing has actually begun to come true in my life. It hasn't come true. It hasn't come true completely because then I'd be cured and I'd graduate and get the key to the city. But every day is an opportunity at a sober journey. Every day that I choose the spiritual principles of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous over turning back to my ego and heading towards the road to relapse is a great day. And I've got an opportunity to do something better all the time. You know. And I've been very blessed in my life where that, you know, along with sobriety came a lot of the things that I had wished for and dreamed for. You know, and that's all nice and everything. But it's really not the important stuff because, you know, if you wash that all away, what do you got? You know, I got an email today and it really kind of made sense to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'll change it just a little bit because it had a beer in it. But I'm going to change it. I'm going to change it. You know, it's the professor with the mayonnaise jar and the bottle of water. He walks out in front of his class and he's got this big mayonnaise jar and he fills it up with golf balls. And he says to the class, is the jar full? And they all say yes. And he sets it down back on the table and he picks up a little bucket of small pebbles and he pours them in until it fills all the way around inside those golf balls. And then he goes to the class, is it full now? Well, now they're kind of... They're beginning to think like he's thinking. They're going, oh yeah, now it's full. So then he picks up a bucket of sand and he pours it into the mayonnaise jar and the sand trickles down inside all those marble, you know, all the little pebbles and everything and stuff. The students are kind of going, wow, I guess it wasn't full. He goes, is it full now? And they said, yeah, absolutely. It's got to be full. So then he picks up a pitcher of water and he pours that into the jar. And it finally trickles down into all the gaps in the sand and everything. Before it comes finally up to the top and starts to spill over. Is it full now? Obviously, it's full. He said, the golf balls are the most important pieces of your life. In my life, it's my family. That's one of the things that sobriety has given me is that I have a relationship today that I'm not screwing up or screwing around on. I have an excellent relationship. I have an excellent relationship with my kids. An excellent relationship with my mother. I have an excellent relationship with my father. God rest his soul. I have important people in my life today that are actually relationships. People want me back. They want me to come back. I mean, that's really kind of an amazing thing to think of that, you know, back in the day, I got asked not to come back. And then he goes on to say that the pebbles are like some of the other. Peripheral things, you know, like job, money, cars, the water, you know, the pebbles in the sand. He says, so if you take the pebbles and the sand and the water out of the jar, it obviously is still full. And you get down to the basics of what your life is all about. So not only is my jar full of sand and water and pebbles today, it's full of golf balls. And that's actually what's. Really the most important part. You know. I've often heard it said that if I really had had my life come out the way that I had wanted it to be, I would have sold myself short. And it is honest to goodness truth that if I had planned it, I would have sold myself short. God always gives me what I need, not necessarily what I want. And thank God for that. And thank. You for my sobriety.