The Sponsor Who Told Him to Pull His Head Out of His A** – Dave M.

My name's Dave, I'm an alcoholic. It's my nervous move, I always scratch my neck. My sobriety date is April 23rd of 2004. And much like all the speakers you heard before, I think probably the most important thing I'm going to tell you guys today is that if it was my doing or I had anything to do with what my sobriery date was, I wouldn't be speaking. I have a sponsor who has a sponsor who also has a sponsor, and I've been given the privilege and honor to sponsor men and women in this fellowship. My home group meets on Monday nights at 730 in the lovely Kensington area of Philadelphia. I'm sure none of you guys know anything about Kensington. Our group is called the Port Fishington Speakers Group, and the reason we call ourselves that is because we're all, you know, typical AA fashion our first business meeting we were having an argument about exactly what neighborhood we were in some people thought we were in Port Richmond, some other people thought we were at Kensington and some other people thought that we were Fishtown so as a imperfect AA compromised fashion we decided on Port Fishington Speakers Group the format of the meeting is very simple, there's a speaker that's picked by our speaker scheduler they speak for an hour and then the meeting's over which is odd to me I don't know about anybody else but I guess we're all new at some point but when I was new I put a very high value on giving good share at meetings and I would plan what I was going to say I would ponder what I Was going to Say while you were talking about whatever it was really irrelevant as far as I Was concerned And then I would get my chance to shine and I would share because I have this problem as an alcoholic. Drunk or sober, I have an undying need to be accepted by you. And this delusion that I had coming into AA was that if you knew, like I knew the lingo around here and I knew how to talk about AA and I know what was going on, then you would accept me. And that was how I operated. And the cool thing about my home group is that if you're new, you don't have to worry about that. You just got to get a seat. And it's also good for me as an alcoholic because I'm an egomaniac. People say we're egom maniacs with an inferiority complex. I'll put it to you like this. I'm on an arrogant doormat. That makes no sense. But 51 weeks out of the year, I can't say a word. which in my case just means I save it all up for my anniversary. And halfway through the meeting, everybody hates me because I tell them everything that's happened the last year that I didn't agree with. So it's good for me as well. I love my home group. I'm also involved in a meeting on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. at Frankfurt and Norris. It's called the Fishtown Breakdown Group. As a result of Alcoholics Anonymous, my life has transformed. and a lot of Monday nights I have other obligations it's difficult for me to get there so God makes a way in my life to be involved in AA one way or the other and I'm really grateful for that all that being said for some odd reason I'm incredibly nervous there's some people in this room I consider really close friends I'm just honored to be here I got to sit out there and listen to everybody talk I've never been like the last person I'm usually the first and I'm half asleep because I'm not used to talking at 12 noon but it's just been cool for me to be sitting in the audience and hearing stuff and kind of spurring some stuff in my head and relating to different things people said Kim had said something about this idea that perception is changing and I think it's the coolest thing we get to do in AA you sit and you'll meet a guy on his first day and you start talking to him or whatever, writes an inventory starts making amends. 90 days you hear him speak at the local clubhouse and then about 6 or 8 months later you'll be walking into a meeting somewhere and you hear him speak again and he sounds totally different. And like a year later you just happen to happen into him again in another meeting and you see him and you listen and you hear him speaking and he sounds totally different because his perception is always changing. You hear him talk about his family in a different way. You hear him talk about his childhood in a different way. And I was just like him. I would hear that and I would think, that guy's lying. I just heard him last year. He wouldn't have told him about none of that crap. And that dude ain't lying. He's walking a path. And that's the path you guys, we've all been hearing about all day today. In my case, I have much in common with everybody else since spoke. I was incredibly uncomfortable as a child. I always say if there was like one of those like southerners you know the guy with like the overalls on chewing on a piece of wheat if he was standing watching my childhood he would say to someone standing next to him something wrong with that boy and I knew inherently inside of me that there was something wrong with me but I couldn't quite put my finger on it and usually when I get asked to do this that's what I'll say there's just three words I can tell you about my child that something was wrong. If anyone was to ask me what was wrong, I would try to explain it to you, but it would be kind of like trying to explain a dream that you had. I don't know if anybody else has ever... You should really get into it like... And then it just all falls apart. And then people walk away from you shaking their head. That's how I would be trying to explain the way that I felt on the inside as a kid. I just wasn't right, man. Social situations were incredibly awkward for me and I know as a result of the inventory process at Alcoholics Anonymous that is all centered in one word and it's called fear I'm ruled by it, and some days today I'm still ruled by it but as a child I would plan conversations I would plane events, I would think about the next day at school, I'd lay up at night you know, good way to put I'd be 12, laying in bed, worrying about how I'm going to pay car insurance. Like that's just consumed with that stuff all the time. And planning what I'm gonna say. When you say a certain thing, I'll say this, then you'll say that. I'll respond with this, you'll see that. But I met a lot of jerk-offs in my life that didn't follow a script. You guys would say something I didn't have a plan for. I would say something stupid, mutter, stutter, whatever. And then I got introduced to what we in Alcoholics Anonymous call a committee. A committee is, you know, the voices in your head. Why did you say that? What's wrong with you? You don't even belong with these people. And that was before I ever drank. And much like Randy talked about earlier, alcohol made all of that go away. and my first experience with it I was about 8 years old I was on a dock down the shore bunch of kids drinking I had 4 rolling rock pony bottles that night and it happened you hear it all the time people describe their first drink if you're listening if you are anything like me it sounds an awful lot like what Alcoholics Anonymous has done for me today one of my favorite guys I love listening to in AA, his name is Clancy, always says, Alcoholics Anonymous does for me slowly what alcohol did for me quick. And that first time I drank, it went away. I was no longer worried about what I was going to say to you. I was not longer worried about how you were thinking about me or what you were think about me, or how I looked or the fact that I got a stain on my tie. I wasn't worried about any of that. I said what I had to say. I didn't have to plan it. And here's the kicker for me, and this is where alcohol really kicks in for me. I was convinced as I was saying that stuff to you that you were digging what I was singing. Alcohol gave me this confidence, this courage, this ability to say stuff that I wouldn't otherwise say. If you're anything like me, I drank because I got results. That was a result for me that I, you know, hey, that means something. And I took it to the wall. There was no experimenting with me. I kind of knew. I didn't like know in my head, hey man I'm turning my will and my life over to the care of alcohol but when I look back on it from now till then, that's exactly what I did. I found something that worked. I was a kid I was going to school it was one of them weird, I don't know these weird social things that happen in schools but at the time the big thing happening was everybody would bring their glasses and their drinks to school with, like, tinfoil wrapped around them. Like it was like some, you know, like you knew what I was drinking. I don't even know what the thought was there, but it worked out well for me. I could bring booze to school, and I did. I drank before school. I lived two blocks away from school. And I can remember many days, you now, I would have to run across a football field to get in the side door and make it into my homeroom. And as long as I had what I needed before I went in there, the homeroom was a piece of cake. On the days that I didn't have what I need, it was like a death sentence. And I'd be worried about it, worried about who I was going to see, what I was gonna say, you know, all that stuff. And the other interesting thing that was happening as I got older, I started noticing these kids and they were very, like, respected. I watched them and other kids would respect them and they were always like oh yeah you know watch Ron Joe and they would walk up the hallway and it was like the parting of the Red Sea and these guys were respected they were revered everybody looked up to them so I watched what they were doing I don't know about anybody else it's a trait of mine I am fascinated by human nature always have been and always will be I think it's just sometimes a little crazy when you get fascinated by human nurture in AA You see some crazy stuff. But I watched these guys, and they were doing certain things. They were engaged in some very nefarious activities. That's a pretty big word. Never happened. I'd never be able to spell that. But they were selling non-AA conference approved substances in the school. And I decided that I was going to do what they were doing because I wanted the same kind of response they were getting from the other kids that they were giving. And I missed a little piece of that. They happened to be really good at that. I wasn't. There's a little peace to that lifestyle that goes along with that that involves confrontation and maybe even some fighting. Not my forte at all. If I give little Billy something this Friday and next Friday he doesn't give me $40, I'm supposed to do something. I don't know about you, but I'm not doing it. I just don't do that stuff very well. I'm no good with confrontation, and I was very bad at that. The other reason I wasn't very good at it is my motors were all jacked up for why I was doing it, I have one reason why I was doing it, because I wanted you to know that I was that guy. And the story I always tell to explain that, this happened in 1988. I thought I'd get a cell phone, because only certain people had cell phones back then, so I went and got one. Very big. I don't know if anybody remembers what phones looked like back then. But I looked like I was calling in troop reinforcements in Vietnam. I used that phone as often as I could in front of you because you had to know I had that phone, that I was that guy. As a result of all that, I got arrested because everybody knew what I was doing. Good Friday of 1989, I got arrest in front my father and I got that look that Randy was talking about. My dad's one of them guys who can look... I don't know anybody else's family like this. He looks over his glasses at you. Well, that's what I got. And I remember being in handcuffs at my front door. Side note, I was high on LSD. If you can imagine that. In handcuffs looking at my father. And my dad said, he just gave me that look. He didn't even say anything. He just gave мне that look of like, what are you doing? Like, what do you think you're doing? What are you thinking you're feeling? off I went got released the next day couple months later after running away to file the Grateful Dead around, don't ask me what I was thinking, I thought like if I just went on tour it would just go away delusional again I ended up getting sentenced to juvenile life I stood in front of Judge Harvey Winklestein don't asked me why I remember his name and off I went I ended up at a place called Jamesburg I was 15 years old, and this was not the malady, but I didn't fit in there. I was around some kids that were like doing some pretty bad stuff, and I was just some kid from the sticks, about 70 pounds, if that, and these kids were like in there for all kinds of stuff. It began a trend in my life, and I think it's a trend of alcoholism because what I do as an alcoholic is I will take absolutely unacceptable conditions and situations in my life, I will justify them in my head and inside of me, and then I will go about living my life like it's okay. I don't know about anybody else who's been out of jail. It sucks when you first get there, but once you're there, you just make do with what you got. Now, a normal 15-year-old kid going to jail, that would be what we call a red flag. Like he would say, whoa, I'm a little off track, something's wrong for me. It was not even a blip on the radar screen, it was just another day. And that was going to begin to trend in my life. I think as alcohol, you know, they say Marines improvise, adapt, and overcome. I don't think those guys got nothing on us. because some of the things that I've adapted to and overcame in my life defy human existence. I sink to depths in my life that like I can't even imagine but when I'm in it it's totally normal. Our book talks about this little principle and it's one little sentence in a doctor's opinion spend days talking about it. The abnormal becomes normal and I know exactly what that means. All these things in my life that had already started happening when I was a teenager were abnormal, but in my mind it was totally normal. And I started making those classic jailhouse phone calls that we all make and we seem to get so good at. You know, when you make the promises you know you're never going to keep to your family so that they can do stuff for you from the outside so that you can be comfortable inside. Get the boxers sent in and the books. my father was down visiting his grandson last week for the first time and we were laughing and this is the power of God in Alcoholics Anonymous he said at one point in our conversation he said you know it's like I look back on your, it was about 15 years of my life where I was in and out of jail and he was like I looked at each jail sentence as a different author like every time I went to jail I would have a different author I'd be begging him to send me books up so you had the James Patterson bid then you had the Dean Kuntz bid and we're laughing about it because I can see because God has restored my sanity today how completely insane that is and the cool part for me today is my dad can see it too and he couldn't see that then all he could see then was that's my boy and I want to help him and I took advantage of my father for a lot of years without getting into a long Harry's story about my father. He was orphaned as a kid, and he grew up in orphanages, and, uh, he had a really bad childhood. So he went out of his way to make sure that mine was good. And what I did was I turned that against my father because I knew he didn't want me to experience what he did, so I would, like, kind of play all his emotions to get him to do stuff for me. And I understand that today as a result of doing the 12 steps. Um, I have been in and out of treatment as a child, and I never I never understood that like the things that I did to my father I've done drunk and there's some things I've been doing that I've ever done to my Father sober when I was younger that were just as bad because the alcohol isn't really the issue the issue is my undying need and my undrying desire to get what I want it doesn't matter who's in my way that's what the whole third step thing is about I will do anything I'll be nice to you if I'm going to get my way And if I got to, I'll be mean to you too if I'm going to get my way. Underneath that, the important thing is I'll do whatever I have to to get my way and so I played on my father's emotions and I want to say that because and I know, the beauty of Alcoholics Anonymous is that we can laugh at our own misfortunes and trust me when I tell you, I do a hell of a lot of laughing but I don't want to just let that go by without saying that. I did a lot of damage to my family And I think the beauty of AA is that we get to clean that up. I just want to share that. So I went through all this stuff. I'm in this place. I got really good at writing letters. This judge called me down. He gave me another chance. He said, look, I can't let you go because of the law. But what we're going to do is we're going to send you to a treatment center. I ended up at a place called The Bridge at Ron and Pine in Philly and I was given a week I had like a week to wait I don't know about anybody else but I'm a lot like Randy in this respect too when I get released from jail I do really good in jail I don' t think about getting loaded I don´t think about any of that stuff somebody else is managing my life I get told what to do where to go who to see there´s no you know way to obtain it so it´s no big deal to me but once they call my name and I'm leaving, that ball of energy comes back in my stomach. My head starts racing again and this thing happens in my head like there hasn't been a thought of that the whole time I was in there and I walk about a 150 foot walk from the block to the receiving room and in that walk I have what we read about in the big book. I had a whole complete set of conceptions and ideas that I was thinking about while I was at jail that I'm going to do different this time when I get out. I'm going to do the right thing. Everything's going to be different. My family, I'm gonna make it up to my dad. I'm a son he never had. And then I walk into the receiving room and a completely new set of ideas begins to dominate me. And the thought is, eh, at least you'll feel one this time. Nobody will know. Just gotta get your mind right. I don't know how many times I told myself that. I just gotta get my mind right and thus begins one more debacle. And usually for me the only way that debacle ends is when I'm back in jail again. I'm not a guy that stops on his own. Interventions for me are usually by way of the prison system, not on A&E that's for sure. So I end up in this rehab and I don't know about anybody, but I spent a lot of time in AA and I want to say this because I used to spend a lot of time trashing treatment centers and what they said and the relapse prevention plans and the workbooks and all that stuff that I did. But what I can tell you is that those people gave me what they had. And they were good people in there. My family lived two hours away and it was hard for them to get up there during the week so these people would come in on their days off on the weekends so that I could have family sessions with my mom and dad. So they went the mile for me and they gave me what they said and what they thought they had In this place one of the things they said was pick an egg. That was like their mantra when you get out. Picking at it, it doesn't matter which, we're just getting one. And I ended up in a group down in Moore and Moore, New Jersey called the Stagecoach Group. It's a clubhouse meeting. It has like five, six meetings a day there. It's still in existence today. It's at Butter Road and Route 9 if anybody's ever on vacation down there. And I want to take this opportunity too because I don't want to make this a bashing AA thing because of my experience that I had when I was younger. I am quite sure that there was good members of Alcoholics Anonymous carrying the 12-step message of AA. Problem was, I was in the back of the room with the new girl. Didn't hear it. I liked that meeting for a reason. There was a lot of drama going on. I don't know about anybody, but I like drama. I enjoy it. I feel bad about me. I can always get into what's going on with you. And it makes me feel better. I call it the Jerry Springer principle. That's why I think that show is so popular. Because no matter how bad it is right now, I'm not sleeping with the neighbor's dog or whatever. Whatever's going on with Jerry Spranger that day. So I'm going to this meeting, and when I say I'm Going to this Meeting, I am going. I'm gone every day. I'm staying after. My home group was 10 o'clock at night. It was called the Foglifters Group. It had no time limit. and it seemed to me that every mentally disturbed person in the tri-state area that also happened to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous knew about this meeting and knew it didn't have a time because they all showed up, and there were endless chairs. Chairman smoking two cigarettes. They would open the back door. It looked like the place was on fire. There was so much cigarette smoke in there. They had a little sign that said thank you for not smoking. You couldn't even see it by the time the meeting started. It was like unbelievable in there. There was one guy in that group, his name was Charlie the Plumber. And everybody else in the group said Charlie was nuts. Charlie always had a smile on his face, he always had a cup of coffee in his hand and a big book under his arm. And everybody thought he was nuts and the topics usually consisted of alcohol, cunning, baffling and powerful the hideous four horsemen, and kind of like the group slogan was, if nobody told you they loved you today, come back tomorrow. That was just the way the kind of place was. A lot of meeting makers, a lot of dances, a lot sober softball, a lot hanging out, a lot travel to other meetings, no step work. My relationship with God was very simple. it consisted of one prayer I call it my untreated alcoholic prayer and it was when I would go to the meeting I lived in a small area so you can imagine it's all the same people at all the different meetings and after a while they all say the same stuff so my prayer was and I would sit across from we'll call him Bill sitting across from Bill and I will quietly say to myself please God don't let Bill speak at the meeting tonight Because I already know what he's going to say. I can mouth it while he's talking. Or Sarah. Sarah's goingto talk about her 12-year-old. Again, she's been talking about for 9 months. I was completely concerned with myself. I heard a guy, and I don't even remember who it was or what meeting it was, but he was talking about how the spiritual awakening happens. And usually it happens when you start to realize you're going to the meeting wondering if you're gonna see Bill at the meeting. See, back then I never thought like that. I was always going to the meeting with one person in mind and that was me. Externally, at that time in Alcoholics Anonymous my life got really good. I was tie-dyeing t-shirts, I started a little business on the boardwalk, I lived in a tourist trap so I could sell them for a lot of money. So I was making a lotof cash, had a girlfriend who was going to become my fiancee. Well, that wasn't enough, I thought I'd get another girlfriend. I moved out of my parents' house. We got our own little place on 16th and Asbury. Eventually, I moved to 18th and St. Charles. We lived right on the beach. I could flick a cigarette in the ocean. I had a back deck. I paid my rent every month in cash, $100 bills. It was $1,800. I used to get a rush off that, slamming them bills on the table every month when I paid my rent. Recovery for me was entirely and completely and totally external. and it's like a delusion that I've had with this whole AA thing because I always looked at alcoholism as external I always thought that alcoholism was defined by the fact that I was homeless or that I Was jobless or that my kids won't talk to me or I had backed up bills or whatever that's not what alcoholism is Kim had mentioned it in her talk alcoholism, the best description I've ever seen for alcoholism is on page 52 in the big book and it has nothing to do with outside stuff but being a delusional alcoholic I would come to AA and try to treat this internal condition that we read about on page 52 with a bunch of outside stuff and it just doesn't work it doesn't match up for me so I'm coming to AA, I'm stacking money, I got a top drawer loaded with cash, I am coming to meetings all the time and I am playing what I like to call the AA rat race and what the AA rat race looks like for me is I'm coming to AA watching you seeing what you got, what's new in your life new car, new girl, new haircut, new shoes whatever, and then I've got to keep up with you keeping up with the Joneses and what happens to me is that I lose sight of what God has so graciously put on my plate because I'm so worried about what he put on yours and as time goes on I'm getting more irritable I'm Getting More Restless and I'm more discontented with everything in my life. Because all I'm saying is you. And now I'm measuring myself up to you. And in an untreated state, I'm never going to win that. I lose every measurement I ever did. I lost every single one. I heard a guy speak and I try to share this every time I get asked to speak in Alcoholics Anonymous because I'm telling you it blew my doors off when I heard it. I went to an accident recovery in Barnegat, New Jersey and I heard this guy speak. And he said, in the middle of his talk, he just, you know, on a side note, he was like, you now what's funny? We're all in AA and we're all running around looking for the guy in his first 30 days. He said, how about the guy in his last 30 days? How about we go look for him? And what I realized at that time was the tricky part about being that guy is that when you are that guy, you don't know you're that guy. Because I was that guy and I had no idea. I was leaving AA and I didn't even know it. I started judging myself. I started judging you. I'm a guy that keeps files on people. And I have a motive for keeping files on you because if there's ever a day when you're going to give me a suggestion, I've got a reason why I'm not going to do it. If you say, hey, why don't you try getting a sponsor? Well, you cheat on your taxes! You know what I'm saying? I've Got a motive and I'm keeping files on everybody. and four years in Alcoholics Anonymous and what I can tell you and I know this is controversial and I'm not here to be controversial, I'm here to share my experience I was in Alcoholic Anonymous for four years, I went to meetings every day I was worse off after four years of sobriety than I was when I got here and what I realize today is that my alcoholism is not treated by me not drinking it's just not I was a mess on the inside I was a mess on the outside I was keeping her all together and I'm putting on the AA game face you know that thing we do when you come to AA and you're internally you're like ready to come out of your skin and then somebody comes up to you hey how are you and you go I'm fine everything's good when you start doing that over a period of time man that's not a nice way to live and it becomes very disconcerting and painful. And you start hearing them slogans at the meetings. People say, you know, if you didn't drink today, you're a winner. Makes sense. But what if you don't feel like a winner? Because I didn't. And I started thinking that kind of stuff. I started thinkin', like these thoughts started goin' on in my head. And then right underneath those thoughts was this other thought. That look at all these people. They're all happy. They're smilin'. Their lives are gettin' better. There's really something wrong with you because this isn't happening for you. But I'm spending all my time trying to convince everybody it's happening for me. And after four years, I picked up a drink. I had a thought before I drank. And just prior to that, I just want to tell you, all them external things I based my life on were gone. My girlfriend found out about my side-girlfriend. They're both gone. They like cancel each other out somehow. I don't know how that works. I wasn't a good businessman. I was a kid, and the guy that I was renting from on the boardwalk kind of seen how much money I was making, and he kind of extorted me because he knew I didn't have certain licenses and stuff that I needed, and every time my rent would go up, and he basically forced me out of business, so I lost my business. My mom died. My dog died. My girlfriend left, and Jerry Garcia died. I know it's funny when you say it, But like at the time in my life, that was my bread and butter. That's what I made my, that's like what I made my money, travel around, sell stuff in the parking lot. Made a lot of money that way. So it was like all crashing down, all this external stuff, gone. Because recovery was not an internal process for me. Once all the external stuff was gone, guess what I got? I got nothing. There's a line somewhere in the 12 and 12 where it says all scorecards read zero. Well, my scorecards red zero sober because I was all jacked up like everything about what I was doing was faulty so I had this thought I was sitting on the end of my bed and I thought I'm going to go out drinking and the next thought after that because I believe it was like programmed into me from going to so many meetings the thought was if you go out drink you're going to lose everything you have so played the tape you know that little cute saying you hear about playing the tape all the way through I knew exactly what was going to happen to me and I didn't have the power to stop it and I picked up so playing the tape did work for me I'm not saying it's not going to work for you I'm just sharing my experience it didn't work for a lot of people it didn' t work for m and luckily when I got back to Alcoholics Anonymous 10 years later I ran into some people that had some knowledge from the big book and they were able to explain to me that no matter how great the desire or the necessity you'll just be absolutely unable to stop and I didn't want to drink and I drank and for them 10 years there were many days and I don't say this lightly because I know that there's not even words I can use to describe the feeling of walking in Philadelphia on a rainy night under the L and not know where you're walking to and know wherever it is that I end up they're not going to be happy about me being there that's not nice man It doesn't feel good. But that's what ended up happening to me. I went from 18th and St. Charles Place in my nice little apartment in Ocean City to Ruth and Clearfield Streets in the span of about six months in an abandoned house. And it's funny, when I first arrived at Alcoholics Anonymous, when I would be asked to do anything in AA or speak or something like that, 40 minutes of my talk would be centered around this part of my life. Because it's a weird thing in AA. We have reversal of the ego. we're proud of like how jacked up we get. Like if you got 8 DUIs, I got 9. I'm better than you. Normal people probably hear us talking and they're like what is wrong over here? But what I can tell you in very simple words in a couple sentences in them 9 years of being in and out of AA, back and forth to Florida, in and out of a bunch of detoxes, I did everything I never thought I would do and I became all the things in this world I never though I would become. When I was a kid, I was about six years old. I was coming out of a department store parking lot with my mom and my dad in the car. And I remember seeing this guy. He was like a Vietnam vet. He had a little straggly beard with long hair, dirty flannel shirt on, begging for change. And I remembered thinking, look at that pathetic loser. Like, that'll never be me. And I'm here to tell you that's exactly what I became. I lived off of your sympathy. I could bathe in self-pity as well. as Kim was saying earlier. And I found a way, and I actually heard this gentleman that spoke on Wednesday up in Levittown, I heard him say this one time, it's probably the best thing I ever heard. He said if we could ever figure out how to take self-pity and get it in a bottle, we could close a lot of bars down. Because we need that stuff, our illness needs that stuff to survive. I lived off your sympathy. I kind of perfected the art of panhandling. the whole deal with panhandling if anybody's wondering to worse you off the better you'll do I've spent a lot of days on Roosevelt Boulevard I would like watch people as you drove past me in your cars and as time went on you become kind of sick of living that way and it gets to be a little kind of painful so you develop these ways of forgetting what you're experiencing I almost would say it's like time travel because I would sit and I would pick a car out any car, it didn't matter and then I would look in at you guys driving whoever was driving and I could imagine what you were doing you're going home to your husband or your wife you're gonna have dinner at your kitchen table you're wanna go see your son play a soccer game and I can literally like play this whole thing out in my head and imagine myself doing all that stuff because I couldn't stand what I was doing currently. And one of them ironic, weird twists of fate, right at the end of my tear, I was living in a tent. Now mind you, I don't want to give you the impression that I was like an outdoorsman. Somebody gave me this tent with all these stakes and sticks and a tarp to put under the bottom and make it all nice. Too much trouble for me. I just took a stick and put it in the middle of... But I was in a soccer field next to a treatment center. And that's where I lived for about the last year. And I would lay there and like I knew that this treatment center was there, all the guys would come out every day. It was like a halfway house from a prison that also had a rehab center in it. And they would all come out in the morning and would bring me sandwiches and they would try to talk to me and I would lie at night in my little tent, and I would look and pick a room out. I would see all the lights on, and I would pick one of them with the lights on and imagine myself being you. You're just coming home. You are going to reunite with your family. Anything at this point to forget what it is I am experiencing. On April 23rd of 2004, like I said, getting sober was not on my list of things to do that day. I just want to get that really clear with you guys. It was not on my radar screen. Didn't pop into my head. I was worried about a Russian flower guy that was getting on my corner earlier than me. My little spot where I panhandled. In my delusional head, it was like a corporate struggle. Like CBS and Rite Aid having a battle. And the truth was, it wasn't an immigrant and a homeless guy fighting over a streetcar. My musing was interrupted by a park ranger who pulled up in a dune buggy and he said, what's your name? And I did with any self-respecting alcoholic. I said, my name is Brian Gannett. Poor guy, I went to school with him. I was asked to speak at a meeting in Summers Point one time and met his sister and was able to get in touch with him he found out my real name because that's what they do so he had some super computer in his little dune buggy now here's the tricky part of this whole thing in the previous nine years I've been in and out of AI, I've Been in and Out of Treatment Centers In and Out Of Detox and what happens to us when we do that is that we develop these ideas. And what I do is I come to AA, I try to get sober, I don't get sober but while I'm here I get ideas and then I leave and I go out and go on a tear, whatever happens and then i end up back here again. Problem is when I come back here I'm bringing back with me the ideas that I had last time it didn't work otherwise I wouldn't be back again and they just keep piling up on top of each other. So if one of you guys would have gotten in that car with me that day and told me hey man, listen to what's going to happen. You're going to go away for about two months. You're gonna get out of jail, you're gonna end up at a Spanish recovery house in Germantown. You're gonna end up on the opposite side of the city the following Wednesday night, you'll meet a guy who's gonna turn out to be your first Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, he's gonna show you the 12 steps of AA your whole life is gonna get transformed through the actions you took as a result of the direction this guy gave you and about seven years later, you'RE gonna give your son a kiss in the morning take him to his cousin's house where your wife drops them off, and then you're going to go with your really good friend Cam up to Lancaster PA and tell everybody what just happened, I would have asked you for a shot of whatever it was you were drinking because that's not happening to me. One of the things I developed over time coming in and out of AA is that AA is not for me. It's for you. And I always relate my spiritual malady to a voice in my head. And this voice goes something like this. when I first come in things start to get better for me I get a girlfriend I get a job I get an apartment I get a car and then I'll be okay and down in Philly we say it's the ABCs of recovery an apartment abroad and a car if you get them you'll be okay so I come in I start doing that stuff and about a month and a half into this whole deal I'll be sitting in a really good meeting, because it usually happens at a really, really good meetin', a voice pops up in my head. And it'll say something like, you know what, Dave? Stuff sounds really good. It's God stuff. Spiritual and all. Sounds really good, but it's never going to work for you because you're a scumbag. And then I get up on my own free will, take my feet and walk right out the door. And that's happened to me over and over and over again. When I stop getting loaded, you just take the one thing away from me that actually enables me to function in this world. And after, you know, the initial rush of all that, because the truth is a guy like me, I'm homeless, I ain't bathed in months, I live under a bridge, you clean me up, things are going to look somewhat better. But if I'm not doing any other kind of work or anything on the inside, my perception gets cloudy really quick. And that's what happened to me over and over again. And what my experience tells me today is that the reason that can continue to happen to me is I never took any action. I almost came to AA expecting it to just happen. When, you know, I look at my own experience when I used to get loaded, I never got drunk watching you drink. And I'm coming to AA and I'm watching everybody happy and be well and smiling. And the thing I don't notice is the reason you're happy and smiling and you're well is because you're taking action. I'm just sitting in a meeting seeing you're unhappy, and I'm not hating you for it. I'm Not Seeing the Other Side of That. So in any event, I end up in jail as a result of that event. That is my sobriety date, April 23rd of 2004. I was not planning on getting sober that day. I did not know that's what was happening to me. To be quite honest with you, things weren't looking good when I was sitting in the back of that cop car. Things were not looking good. But it's the best day of my life when I see it now. Best thing that ever happened to me. I wasn't thanking him like Randy was, but I could thank him today. I definitely could because that was the best time of my live. So I end up in jail. I had an experience in jail that I don't, other than to just tell you what happened, I don' t know how to describe it. I was in a cell. I was in my own cell because if they put me with anybody else they would have beat me up. I was in one of the mental health cells, no toilet hole in the floor and I heard a voice and the voice said, Dave, the fight's over. Didn't really know what that was. Heard voices before, sometimes still do. But I can look back on that day today and report to you that from that day until this one I haven't even remotely considered to live in the way I used to live. And I can't take any credit for that. Words get thrown around in AA sometimes. There's a word that gets used in here called grace. Grace means an unmerited gift. And I did nothing to deserve what God did for me that day. But He did it anyway. Like I said, I ended up in a Spanish recovery house. In case you haven't noticed or you're new, I'm not Spanish. I don't speak Spanish although I tried to because I got a little crush on a Spanish girl at this Spanish NA meeting so I was following her around for a while. But somehow weird series of events I ended up in a Wednesday night 7 o'clock a Hawks playground in Port Richmond and the meeting called It's in the Book and it was two long tables in a room it was like a community center and there was a bunch of grown men reading out of a book and Alcoholics Anonymous came to life. And like I said earlier I don't want to be that arrogant to think that people were not discussing the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous, because they were. I just didn't hear it. But that night, and I still remember in my head this vision of what I saw when I looked in that room. It blows me away. There was a bunch of grown men sitting on kindergarten chairs. There was signs around the room like positive thinking area. Bully free zone. and these guys were talking about a couple things, and it kept ringing and repeating over and over again. They were talking About service to God, being of dependence on God, and helping others. Helping others. Going to AA to see what you can bring. Now that's just not my experience. It has never been my experience AA was, in my mind, always about me. As far as I was concerned, AA started the day I got here. You know what I'm saying? Like I never could understand that I was supposed to come to AA to see what I could bring to it. It was always like, I've got to go and dump. Or I've Got to Go and Talk About Me or Think About Me or How is AA Going to Help Me? And for all my spiritual platitudes, I want to tell you guys the reason I went to my second meeting at that group. There was a guy there who was a large man. He was about 600, 700 pounds. and he had two chairs pushed together little kindergarten chairs and I went back the second week to see that again it comes in handy when you work with a lot of new guys I don't know about anybody else but after a while you start thinking like new people are where you are and you talk to them like on this little higher plane god you know and they're picking their nose counting ceiling tiles I understand that because I know what that kind of mindset is like. I asked this guy the next week when I went back to be my sponsor, and I started my talk today with this whole idea. I can't see. What time is it? I can' t see. This is like a glare. Okay. So I'm trying to convince this guy that I know what's going on here. and it's probably the same way I laugh these days when somebody new is trying to convince me he was laughing at me because I'm like Captain Cliché I'm working on a miracle one day at a time hanging in there not leaving miracles going to happen when it happens it's going to pass I'm confusing them and he just turned to me and I'll never forget it, we were at a red light at Wayne and Shelton in Philadelphia if anybody's familiar with the city and he turned me, looked me right in the eye and he said, Dave, grab a hold of your shoulders and pull your head out of your ass because here's the funniest part of this whole thing, you're dying right in front of my eyes without getting loaded, you are dying of untreated alcoholism and you don't even know it and he says some pretty mean and hurtful things to me that night but it was the truth I had some ideas, I was telling you guys earlier about ideas that I developed I had an idea about sponsorship packs of smokes some dinner some clothes I mean, I've got this beige shirt from the county it was white when I got it and now it's beige could use some new clothes and that guy did none of that stuff he told me the truth and much like Randy's experience I went through the steps very expeditiously and I'm not going to get into that controversy about do them quick, do them slow So I'm just going to keep it really simple. Open a big book up at the beginning, do everything it says on that first page, and then turn the page. Do everything it say on that page, turn the pages. That was how he did it with me. And explained things to me and the first time we were driving around in his car and he was talking and we read a little bit and he talked a little more and I talked a lot. He talked a bit, then he read some more. I talked, he read, I talked. And then all of a sudden he was like, alright, you want to get down and say the third step prayer? I'm like, you know You're not allowed to That's like against protocol or something Chapter 4, subsection 3 You're NOT allowed to do that I'm supposed to wait until my fog lifts Or the head clears And he kept things real simple for me And I'm a really visual guy So thank God I've been around sponsorship That likes to utilize analogies Because that's what this guy did for me It's something I could get my head around He said, Dave, if you were shot and you were wheeled into the emergency room of a hospital and the doctor was coming over to work on you, to save your life, would you tell him to wheel you into the corner and leave you there for 90 days? Or would you want to get taken care of? And you hear these little goofy sayings in AA and they sound good. You don't want to be taken care off. You don' t want to go too well too quick. Why not? I don' think anybody has ever asked that question. Oh, sorry. I digress. So I became enthusiastic about AA. And I think above and beyond everything else, if you have that enthusiasm for AA, don't let anybody take it away from you. This guy took me through the steps and I was a little, shall we say, overzealous. I had a book bag filled with four-step outlines that I kept with me on a regular basis. I had to go to an IOP program for this halfway house I was in. I used to save up all my tokens that I got from there to be on the bus, and I would walk home so that I had extra tokens to get to meetings and stuff. And I would just run around the city like a nut. Anybody would listen about resentments. Put them down! Because I'm 30 years sober. You got resentments? Put them back. And I want to tell you something. I ran into some people that gave me a hard time, but there were some really good members of AA that sat down with me. They sat down with me because they knew it was doing something for me. It wasn't like I was enlightening them on resentments. But they knew it was going to be a big deal. It was doing some for me that didn't try to rob my enthusiasm or take it away from me. And walking through this process with my sponsor, I got really involved through the amends process, I had done some stuff to this guy that ran a recovery center in Philly called The Last Stop. As a result of one of my amends to that guy, I was really active at this place, at The Last Stop and I used to walk a bunch of guys over to this big book meeting every Wednesday night and I remember calling my sponsor and explaining, you know, I had to make amends for that girl that was my fiancé and at this time I was house, I was chore monitor at the recovery house which is like you know it was a big deal to me at the time wasn't a big deal to my sponsor I told him about it one day I was like Chris I'm chore monitor puffed up I said Dave how old are you I said I'm 30 that's great you're a 30 year old man with a curfew get in court so I'm chore monitor and I'm like sitting at the to me in my head, my sick twisted head it was like the VIP table you know it's like all the higher ups sat there the other higher up was just as homeless as I was because we're both living there but I was at this table and I'm calling this girl to make amends and I get her on the phone and I got to tell you guys now I'm in this deal I'm doing my amends now you know what I'm saying I'm sober like four months I'm on top of the world but I get her on the phone and the first thing she starts telling me about is her new husband who's a soldier in Iraq and he's away from his family and he was fighting for the country and as she's talking I'm shrinking and I said well that's you know that's cool I own a couple houses in Germantown I own my own computer consulting company you know like I could just did what you know did what we do to make myself feel better but I had this thing about AA because something was in me because as soon as I hung up with her I called my sponsor and I told him what happened and when he was done laughing he said to me he said Dave you're about the only idiot that I could think of that could take one amends and make it two and I share that story with you guys for a reason when I was a kid my father still is deeply religious and he used to send me a lot of stuff in different incarcerations he would send me letters and he sent me this letter one time and it had these things on it called the nine beatitudes of the wise person. And one of them was blessed is he that laughs at himself for he's never done being amused. In AA we have a different way of saying the same kind of principle. In AA, we say rule number 62 says you don't take yourself too damn seriously. And I can tell you that my life in sobriety has been full of experiences like what I just told you about. mistakes and blunders and absolute butcher jobs of the 12 steps. But on the other side of that, July 14th of last year I got to see my son born. My dad told me about 10 years ago that he had given up on being a grandfather and about a year and a half ago me and my wife went to visit friends in Tampa, Florida and while we were there this woman found out she was pregnant now I didn't know it at the time but I come to realize pregnancy is contagious because we came home and a month later my wife was pregnant and I called my father up to tell him the news so we're talking a little bit and I'm crying and he's crying because I'm a sentimental mess as you're finding out so I'm telling him what's happening and we came to this realization I got sober when I was 30 years old I told you guys earlier, my father was an orphan. He was raised by Christian brothers and when he got old enough to leave, he just stayed and he became a Christian brother. At the age of 30, my dad left that order and he went to college. At age 30, I got sober and went to collage. In the senior year of him getting his degree in collage, he met my mom and got her pregnant with their first son. In my senior year at collage my wife was pregnant with our first son That all happened to my dad when he was 36. My wife got pregnant when I was 36 I almost fell over About nine months later A really good friend of mine, Anthony Some of you guys probably know him He had a son about nine months before I did And me and him both I met him at the last stop Coming in right off the street And about nine Months ago we went to dinner my wife and I went down to his house in South Philly and we had dinner with him and his wife and his son all our families were there and it was a moment in the night where Janine and my wife went out to smoke and I'm sitting at the table with my son and I am looking across the table with this guy and he's got his own kid in his hand and we are looking at each other like how does this happen? How does this happened? I know how it happens there's this thing that happens in Alcoholics Anonymous there's a power in this room there's the power that flows through people in Alcoholic Anonymous it's got nothing to do with the people and it's everything to do with this universal force whatever you want to call it but it works and it will transform your life I'm a guy that didn't know how to be responsible couldn't pay a bill couldn't take care of myself didn't even know how to shave for God's sakes and God took a guy like that and made me able to do stuff in my life that I never thought was possible. And all of that while being given the grace to laugh at myself and all my mistakes along the way. I've met some of the most amazing people in Alcoholics Anonymous. I've watched some of their videos. Some of the best, most amazing things. If you're sitting in AA and you're not seeing stuff like that, find somewhere else to go because I know it's out there. There's these little pockets of people all over the place and they're all happy and they are all smiling and they were all very inviting saying all you got to do is come along I'll end with this I heard a lady say it was the coolest thing I ever heard AA is the biggest game of follow the leader in the world and it's like a big congo line you just got to get behind somebody and just do what they are doing and it just goes on like that forever so I want to thank you guys for asking me it's a privilege to get to do anything in AA It was a privilege to get to hear Ashley and Kim and Randy today. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you guys so much.