What He Learned in More About Alcoholism About the Solution – Mike C.

Recovered alcoholic Mike. how's everybody tonight there's this principle which is a bar against all information which is approved against all argument and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance that principle is a contempt prior to investigation that was my mantra for living for most of my life and a lot of it also when i had some recovery time going together and it kept me disconnected from God, kept me on the verge of suicide and it kept me a very unhappy camper for a lot of years. Through the book and a man who was strong enough to bring me the message from the book, I have a life today that's beyond my wildest dreams. I want to thank Aaron for teeing up. That's exactly what this is all about. I came in here with a problem with God and I had a life that had a problem of God and i found a loophole through the book to get God into my life. That freaking rocks my life today. To start off, I was born in 1959 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to a upper middle class family. I was the third son of three sons. My mom was a stay-at-home mom. My dad was a traveling salesman for a magazine. I spent summers growing up in North Dakota on a ranch we had out there. And about six years old, I discovered alcohol. My mom used to have these dinner parties at her house and we'd be watching all these adults having just a grand old time sitting in the living room eating appetizers and sipping on cocktails and stuff. And they'd get up and leave, go to the other side of the house for dinner, and I'd just pop up in one of those chairs and I grabbed one of Those Little Drinks. I can see it right now. It had a cherry in it and it was some like bourbon something or other. I just took a little sip of that me a kick like I've never had a kick before. Yuck, I like this shit. Luckily there's appetizers, so I had some appetizers while I was there. My mom's at the other end of the house having dinner party and I'm having this private little cocktail party. Got myself up to bed, fell asleep, not a consequence. It was fantastic. I really needed that drink. I was six years old and I still really needed a drink at that time. I I was the youngest of three boys, which meant I was the one who was getting taunted all the time. I was one they experimented stuff on. So I really needed some escape there. Growing up, I was a neighborhood pest. I had no filter. I found myself saying things at the wrong time and to the wrong people. So I was continually getting snuggies and shoving snow banks and swirlies and black eyes. And I would get myself in trouble. So having that one drink, and then next time Mom had a cocktail party, I did the same thing. It was like no big deal. Everything was going great. My father died when I was eight-ish years old, and it wasn't � I really don't remember processing it. I remember coming home and finding out he had died, and I remember crying in some minister stuff in the funeral and stuff like that. I don't know if I really processed it appropriately but boy when I had that first drink about five or six weeks later I was at my friend's house we were at the Jensen's house and I looked in the dishwasher Mrs. Jensen, this is the alcoholic house they were the alcoholics so this is where we all hung out before we went out and did things to other people's houses TP, damaging, vandalizing that kind of stuff So we're sitting in the kitchen. I haven't gotten a Snuggie yet. I haven'T gotten a black eye yet. I'm still just sort of like fitting in with these guys, a little worried what's going to happen. I opened up the dishwasher and here was a bottle of this vodka. So I pulled it out and everybody's eyes just sort of like lit up and I, ooh, look what he found. I took the little cap off, you know. Everybody was like, no way, you know, I took a little sip. Ooh, shit. I got so drunk that night I was the center of attention for the first time in years I'm surrounded by all these other thugs in the neighborhood and I went the whole night without getting a snuggie without getting shubbed in the snow bank I remember falling down stairs and having fun I stumbled home just to the other side I'm going into the house and I threw up all over the back porch made up the bed woke up in the morning here my mom whooping on my older brother going like you shouldn't be drinking you're too young how dare you and i'm up there going oh my god and luckily i didn't get caught again and uh i like that yeah i was able to like be around this guy now i'm not alcoholic because my dad died i'm non-alcoholic because i was the neighborhood pest or i got abused or things happened to me you know somewhere in my drinking career like aaron i loved drinking matter of fact My dream in life was to be a bartender, belong to the Rat Pack hangout and nightclub. That was my goal in life, was to become a sophisticated drinker kind of guy. And I aspired to that. I sucked at sports. I sucked in art. I sucked it school. I sucked everything else, but I was pretty good at drinking, so I got really good at that. Junior high and high school, I was the kegger caterer. People would call me up, and I would show up to the house with five or six kegs, and I charge money. So I was getting really drunk, and I was having a good time getting myself in some situations that I shouldn't have gotten myself into. And I found myself in a pew-per-pew-per... Pew-perdicumus? Where suicide was an option. And I remember sitting out in my car in my mom's garage. They weren't there that weekend. And I had the car running, and then the windows down. And I got myself a nice little drink I made. And I rolled myself a good little joint, you know? and I'm sitting there listening to some Cat Stevens or the Carpenters and really sad music. I'm going to kill myself. Write not much suicide note, you know, and have a little drink, sit, sit down, smoke a little pot. After about two minutes, I'm like, why am I doing this? You know, it's like, it was not that big of a deal. You know the drink solved my immediate instant problem. I was able to get over it and I just continued drinking for the rest of the night. It was like no big deal. I woke up the next morning, and the same problem was there, but it wasn't the immediacy. So right then, alcohol started to save my life. I'm trying to kill myself, but alcohol is stepping in and preventing that from happening. It's happened three or four times. You're not supposed to be killing yourself when you're in high school going to college. So I went to college, I picked my college based on the fact that the cocktails were 25 cents each, highballs were like 45 cents each. And it was awesome. I went through three classes that whole year I was there. I went to three classes. I was drinking, I discovered a Raskiller, and my life was on fire. I loved it. At the end of that quasi-year of college education, I got a little letter asking me not to come back. So I got an job back at home as a barback bouncer in a biker bar, which was really cool because I was the closet gay guy back then and working in this biker car, which is really not conducive to that. But it was great because I learned to drink. And these guys knew how to frickin' drink, and that's when I discovered my panacea of cocaine. Because I love drinking, I love cocktails, I loved doing all that stuff, but I would pass out or I would get sick, and damn, that cocaine just let me drink for days, two days, three days! And after a while, I didn't even need a job, I'll sell this stuff, you know, and I can drink all the time. I remember Mom one time asked, oh, things are really bad, and Mom decided to buy me house a few blocks away from her because she does that. And she was asking me about where my money's coming from, you know, where am I working? So I told her I worked at this managing some pizza parlor type thing, one of the many jobs I had supposedly. And she called there one day to talk to me about something and they're like, who are you talking about? This guy doesn't work here. I'm just like, so the lies started piling up. I started losing my roommates because it was like, all I did was drink and do cocaine. I was my best customer. I was the worst customer. You know, I owed myself more money than my customers owed me. People used to come up to me after weekends and say, I did your flow last night. I said, how do you know? He says, I've been in the bathroom all day. Quit cutting that shit. I was doing more than I was selling. It was just miserable. If you ever had cut cocaine, it's not good. The power was getting shut off. The gas had been shut off, the garage was full of pizza boxes, that's my life, you know? I'm going to parties and I'm just miserable, I want to die, I wanna quit drinking. So I get really smart, I put a rubber band on my wrist and say, I'm only having a couple drinks tonight, I've got certain stuff in this pocket to do and other stuff to sell and after a drink of the phenomenon of craving kicks in and the rubber bands in the audience and i'm drinking what i'm supposed to i'm going through all my product and i wake up in the morning just deeper and deeper in debt than i was before um i was swirling the drain suicide is actually becoming more common um my parents came to me one day and said we're going to europe for three months we need you to come and watch the house fantastic they have electricity they They have heat. They have food. They have money. So I'm giving them a ride to the airport, and on the way to the air port my mom reaches out and gives me a couple checkbooks and some credit cards and says, if you have an emergency, here's some emergency money. They thought something was going on with me. They weren't really sure. They were 70s parents, you know? The airplane hadn't even taken off but I'm already at the bank withdrawing money. About three, two months into their vacation, I'm up to about $8,000 or $9,000 stolen from them for pizzas and cocaine and keggers and just free-for-all. My parents had a really big house, and we had stolen some wheelchairs from the hospital. We used to have wheelchair races around the house. It was completely out of control. I remember I'm having some problems. I wanted not live like this. I want to put down the drink. I want it to be like this, but I don't want to do it. I want you to put it down with cocaine. Not completely, just be able to handle it normally, and that was becoming impossible. So one time I was sitting in one of the rooms doing some lines, drinking some tequila and I thought I'd call Cocaine Hotline because they seemed to be doing too much cocaine so I called the Cocaine hotline for help and they put me on hold and I sat there for like two minutes and said screw this, hung up and continued to drink. I didn't want to live like that. I remember I wasn't happy anymore I just wanted it to end And my attempts to try and stop the control just were pathetic. They would not work. I'm not going to drink today. Everything's fine. I'm Not Going to Drink. And then 10 minutes later, I'm drinking. So here's the deal. A week before my parents are coming home, it's up to like $10,000, $11,000. $12,000 stolen. And the stuff's going to hit the fan when they come home. It's like, what am I going to do? I decide I got three decisions. I can steal a lot more money and just go live in California for the rest of my life and never see my family again. I can tell them I'm a drug addict, alcoholic, and I need help. Or I could kill myself. Well, to kill myself never worked. And the California thing sounded like a really bad idea. And rehab sounded like it might work because I wanted to quit. I wanted control of my drinking. So I figured if I did this thing, we'll see what happens. So my parents come home, and I wake up about 11 o'clock, come down. By the way, I was supposed to have picked them up that morning in the airport, and I didn't. And I come down, and they looked at me like, I looked like hell, apparently. And I said, I'm an addict alcoholic, and I need help. And their eyes just lit up, you know? They knew something was wrong with their baby boy. And they're like, oh, by the way, I stole $12,000. And then they just sort of like, let's get you in rehab. About 15, 20 minutes later, out of the blue, this lady called my mom. My mom's this author. And she called my mum asking her some information about one of her books. And it just so happened And she's like this lady who works at Hazelton, this place up there. And my mom says, oh, my God, my son, he just told us he's an addict alcoholic and he needs help. And she says, well, we can maybe do that. You know, bring him in for evaluation. So I went in for this little evaluation meeting. And mind you, I'm 24 years old. Sat there, asked me some questions. And they said, we're going to put you in adolescent care with a bunch of 16-, 17-year-olds. But we can't get you in for, like, three or four days. I'm 24 years old. I'm being put into adolescent care. That's how mixed up I was, how in a mess I was. So about three or four days go by, and I'm trying not to drink, and I've sneaked out. I can't. It's just not working. My dad's just furious. He said, why don't you just not drink? And I, I can. I didn't have the faintest idea. Why not? So I went to Hazleton. Cleaned up some messes, and then I went back to my mom. And I went down to Hazelton. My first night in Hazleton, it was a meeting similar, a lot smaller. But they had the steps, and I was sitting on the front row. And I looked up, andI started reading the steps. And I'm sort of like, okay, I can do that. I did this. You know, I didn't have a faintest idea what I was doing, but I sort of thought I was working at a step program. And that night, they gave me a medallion. I thought, this is cool. This is great. And the next morning, the process began. They introduced me to my small group, And they said, we're going to have you fill out these workbooks as part of our program here. And I said, well, you know, I'm dyslexic and I'm not a very good writer. I don't think I can do these work books. And they say, well that's okay, we'll get you an intern. So they got this little girl just out of some college to dictate my work with me. So she starts asking me these questions about alcohol consumption. I don' t really know what's really going on. I just keep answering these questions. We're going through therapy. We're eating good. We've got some recreation going on in this place. And I remember that we started doing some prayer, you know, just ask God in the morning to help me get through the day. And while I was in the middle of my addiction before I got to Hazleton, those times I wanted to kill myself, I remember praying, God, please help me, you know? My life sucks. I want this to end. Just help me. I don't know what to do. Please. Because I had turned my back on God years ago. I didn't know it intentionally, but I had slowly walked away from the relationship that I had with God as a kid. In my mind's eye, when I was praying back in those using days, it was like this wooden door that had cracks in it. On the other side, I could see the glorious light which was God, and I'm this low-life piece of crap on the other end of the door, and He doesn't want anything to do with me. That door is a barrier, and I just can't go through it. I pushed on the door for years, and nothing was going to work. i thought god had cut me off a long time ago but i'm in therapy doing this book work stuff not really sure what it's all about and i'm praying one night in bed and uh i said god wherever you are whoever you are i need help and all of a sudden i saw in my mind's eye the the door that damn door with the light behind it and i just push it on that door and i hear this pull on the door okay so i pull on the door next thing you know i'm bathed in white light it's like this white light experience that we hear about i didn't have the faintest idea what it was at the time otherwise but at the time it's just like this really inexpensive acid trip it was really cool i up until that point i've been sort of like this annoying little pest and in the hazelton thing and after that moment i had just completely shifted from being a lying cheating stealing low-life self-centered inconsiderate self-serving, backstabbing to this like happy, joyous and free guy. Just instantaneously for the next three weeks I'm in Hazleton just like having this great time. Captain Therapy, Mr. Recovery, you know. Doing this papers and these workbooks not really understanding what it's all about but I'm really enjoying this new way of life I'm having. Not really paying attention to the therapy that's going on. In order to get out of therapy in order to getting into my halfway house I had to do a fifth step. In order to do the fifth step, you have to finish your fourth step. And I didn't even know I was doing a fourth step, but I went to go talk to my halfway house counselor who was going to prove whether I move in or not. So I showed up with this packet of information which turned out to be my fourth step packet, and he's looking through my stuff, deciding whether I'm good enough to get into the halfway house or something. And this big red-haired guy is from the Iron Range. He's wearing a big giant beard and flannel, just a scary dude. And I'm sitting across, you know, and he's looking through my paperwork and all of a sudden he gets this look on his face and his eyes just sort of... It's like, what did he see? What did I say? And he looks at me and he says, so you're a homosexual. And I go, yeah? And he sort of does this uncomfortable look and pauses for a minute looks at me and says, I used to get drunk and fuck pigs. I go okay. Years later I find that when you're doing a fist you're supposed to say something to make them feel comfortable about the problems they're going through. That really didn't do it for me. I wasn't that much comfortable after that. So we do this. I'm not even sure what it was. He's reading stuff that I had written, and I'm talking, and all of a sudden he says, don't do that stuff again. And I said, okay. And he said, curfew is this. This is how much you've got to pay. Everything's going to work. Are you going to move in? I said great, I'm in, you know. Went to Hazelton halfway house and they told me to get a sponsor. I said yeah, okay, whatever. And then I got a job at a bar and I got fired from the bar because my drinks were too weak because I turned I recovered now and wasn't getting other people drunk. It was just ridiculous. Wasn't working out, so I moved down to Florida. Got a sponsor in Lambda. This guy was amazing. He was about this tall. And he saved my life. He introduced me to people in the Alcoholics Anonymous community in Fort Lauderdale. He got me involved in the society. He got in fellowship and cocktail parties. Coffee parties. And he kept going to me. He's like, so Mike Chase, let's take you through the steps. And I would go, Joe, Hazelton, white light guy. I don't need that stuff. I'm doing all right. And he's like, yeah, we'll see, you know. 14 years. Well, my first year was on fire, you know. I love life. I love the Alcoholics Anonymous. I was, you ask me to do something, I do it. Make the copies, do the meetings, chair meetings. I'm going to do it all. I'm not doing all that stuff." And he keeps asking me to the step stuff. And I'm like, Joe. White light guy, Hazleton, I'm cool. don't need those steps um 14 years later i'm up in minneapolis plotting to kill myself um i had a white light experience in 1984 but i neglected to find out how to keep it i neglected the fact that there's certain things that you got to do in order to stay connected to god for 15 years i was on sex sprees shopping sprees work sprees jobs sprees um temporary fixes but I wanted to die there were times where it just was miserable that's what recovery was I thought that that was sobriety was just don't drink and go to meetings and shut up and put up with life I thought the best was all about so I went back to Minneapolis till I get some crystal check into a fancy hotel and kill myself I thought I'd go to one last a Amy's I went to this meeting and I showed up there and I'm I'm like, hi. And I walked in and I sat down and everybody's like talking to each other. It's like this really happy, great AA meeting and nobody bothers to say a diddly-doo to me. I'm just like, okay. Should I have stood up and said, hey, you guys, I'm on the verge of suicide. Somebody please come and help me? Didn't know any better. Didn't think that was what we were supposed to do. I left that meeting with a firm resolution that I was going to kill myself. Luckily, the next day I met somebody that changed my life. I went out for some coffee in a bar with him. And he said, would you like a beer? And I said, no, I don't drink, but I'll have an Amstel white. The damn thing's coming at me. I'm going, not a good idea. Not a good deal. Oh, I didn't know about this. And this amazing thought came to me. It was just like out of the blue. It said, they have a seat waiting for you if it gets too hard again. So I drank. And for the next six years, it was fantastic. It sucked. It was miserable. It was wonderful. It was this roller coaster of just, and in the end, I wanted to die again. And in the ending, I ended up in the Fort Lauderdale Psych Hospital, just baddier than a bat, batshit crazy. Diagnosed with multiple things that they probably invented just to keep me from going out in the street. And before that, 2005, 2004, my roommate, loving, compassionate guy that he is, sort of got the opinion that going three or four days with no sleep wasn't very healthy and he decided to tell my parents that I was drinking and using drugs again, so my boss one day at work said, you know, Eduardo Paul, we're having an intervention with you this Friday. Apparently he told everybody that you were getting high again. And I go, ooh. And my boss looked me straight in the face and says, get your shit together. It's like, okay. Let's see what we can do. Yeah, right. Luckily, God had put this little Weasley Big Book Thumper guy in our office. He's supposed to be doing sales, but he's basically doing 12-step calls all the time. It's so cool. And we had talked a little bit about my previous great AA and what he's doing. And I went to him after this conversation with Peter, and I said, Ross, I need to go back to AA. My parents found out that the jig is up. And he says, great, I'll bring you to the dry dock tonight. Okay. So I get on the phone with my mom, andI say, Mom, bad news. I've been drinking in using drugs again. And she's like, I know we heard. I said, well, don't worry. I'm going back to AA tonight. She says, OK. Cool. Hung up the phone. 5 o'clock rolls around. Getting ready to leave. And all of a sudden, Ross comes up. He says, well let's go. I go, where? He says we're going to the meeting. I says, oh yeah. Crap. OK. So I went to the meeting. Uh, I followed him with my own car and I sat down in the room front row and it was like I got home. It was just, ah, it felt so good. It's like I'm back in AA. I love and it was so cool. It was so nice and friendly. People would come up to me, they'd give me the phone numbers, you know, and I was just like, pat me on the back, it's nice to see you. And I picked up a white chip, you know. And it's like, I'm on fire, and I'm leaving, I'll see you guys tomorrow. This is so cool, and I get in my car, and I'm pulling out of the parking lot, also my phone rings, and it's my drug dealer saying, I got some really good stuff, come on over. I said, I will be right there. Clicked on the phone, looked up specifically and said, I guess it's not ready yet, am I? So a year later, I end up in the psych ward. You know how that ends up. I'm walking home from the psych war, public bags, poverty struck, and just depressed, and I went to downtown dry dock, picked up another white chip, got some more phone numbers, was told I don't have to drink if I don' t want to. I was told, I don''t have to dream between meetings, even if I just don'''t drink, go to meetings, that kind of stuff. And I thought it was really great advice, And I started going to IHOP, I-O-P. It's an IOP. And it was Tuesday, Thursday, Friday night, something like that. And we talked a lot about why don't you have a sponsor? You should be going to more meetings. There was one around this whole circle three times a week, not much recovery. I knew that I wanted to get back into A, but I had to do this IOP stuff. I learned much later that if you relapse and nobody finds out you still relapsed that was sort of interesting God, what's that all about, right? I had this grand sponsor that used to come up to me walk right up to my face look in my eyes and go that honesty is a bitch, isn't it? and walk away and I'd be like, shit, he smelled it again damn Pick up another white ship, you know, and get some more numbers. Get great advice. You've got to double up on your meetings. And I was in AA jail! I would wake up. I'd run to Victory. I go to work. I'd get off work. I run to Dry Dock. I'd go to Coral Ridge. I would go to Atlanta. I was going to meetings every... If I wasn't sleeping, I was at an AA meeting or at work, you now? Hurricane would blow through. No meetings. No work. No IOP. Mike Chase is getting drunk again. Mike Chase has picked up a white ship again. And it's just getting miserable. I just wanted to have like a couple drinks. I just want to have a couple lines, you know, and get to bed by 8. It wasn't working, you now? And finally on my last relapse I answered the phone. Never pick up the phone on a relapse, right? And it's my sponsee brother and he's on the phone with my sponsor, my grand sponsor. It's busted. I'm completely wasted. And I go to the Donald Trump dry dock that next day And I just stand up in the middle of me and I say, I need help. You tell me don't drink between meetings and you won't get drunk. I can't. I do. You tell them just don't, you know, drink through 90-90. I'm hearing all this stuff that's not working for me. I said, I needs help. I don't know what's wrong with me. And little Ross comes up to me and says, I'll take you through the book. I go, cool. I really don't want to, but whatever. Did I really realize it? I must be one of those real alcoholics again because I cannot not control my drinking. So we met. Took me through the book. Took me to the first page of Alcoholics Anonymous, which says, Alcoholics Anonymous. He said, this is what you know about Alcoholics Anonymous is the name. Everything else you think, you know, forget it because you're obviously not working. I want you to start out fresh. And it was cool. And we started reading the book from page one, every sentence, every paragraph, every page. He took time to talk about it. It wasn't just like let's just read through this book and get it over with. It was an opportunity for me to get to know him and build a relationship with him. We were praying, we were talking and there was this whole thing going on. I'm excited because it was not getting drunk. I used to tell people, I'm praying in the morning. I wasn't. I was lying. But when I started working with Ross, I was praying during the book, I started praying after the book and I started paying in the morning and my life changed. Once I was told in my real last time to go home and read the doctor's opinion. Okay. Next time I saw him, he said, did you read the Doctor's opinion, being an untreated great lawyer? I said, yes, I did. But I hadn't. It wasn't until I sat down with my sponsor and he read the book with me that I was able to understand about this phenomenon of craving, the mental obsession, the three-part map of the Z. You know, the spiritual malice, disconnect from God, totally disconnected from God. I know exactly what that's like, you know. God didn't want anything to do with me, I thought. Mental obsession. I could not not go a day without thinking about where am I going to get some more tequila, where am we going to see Mr. Get High, you know? And that physical allergy that kicks in, absolutely. I go to Vistro Las Olas for two drinks and the next thing you know it's 4 o'clock in the morning. I understand that stuff, you now? And he got me into the steps when we got to the steps. We read the foreword to the first, we read the forward to the second, the doctor's opinion, Bill's story. I was able to see a little bit more of what alcoholism is through, you knows, Bill's story. Then we're reading there's a solution. And I always went with this God thing. You hear a lot of God, God, God. And all of a sudden it's like they stumble across it. It's like this accidentally found the solution to alcoholism is a relationship with God. More about alcoholism. That was that opportunity for me to really evaluate my past and whether I'm an alcoholic or not. Because if I'm an alcoholic I am totally freaking screwed. It means I'm going to die. I've learned that in the previous pages. Problem one is I really wasn't all that hot with God yet. You know, I'm praying to him but didn't really understand the relationship too much, but we read the agnostics. I started off reading that contempt prior to investigation. I thought it was the most open-minded person in the world, you know, until he started challenging my thoughts about things, my position in life, my relationship with God, what it meant to be a good man, what it means to be a good worker, and I realized I was just a total eftar, you now, and everything, and I needed some major help. And he helped point out, more about alcoholism and there's a solution that therapy works on a lot of people learning how to eat, learning how to cook, learning How To Be A Better Person can help a lot people get their act together and get on with their life but for an alcoholic, that type of stuff is not what really works. I need to have God come into my life and do like, I like to call it the control thought, control delete, you know, just completely start me from scratch and by doing the third step prayer was the first time that I had decided I'm going to stop doing lying, cheating, and stealing. I was going to turn my life over to God as I don't understand him and just get through the steps and see what happens, you know? So he gave me the four-step. And I remember I'm calling people on the phone. I'm sort of going through this thing, and it was sort of an adventure. I liked it. And then I went and did a fifth step with this guy. We went over to his house. He sat down, and we talked for like six hours. And he pointed out that I was a real aftard. I was a lying, cheating, stealing, low-life self-centered, inconsiderate person. And that's what's blocking me from God. Because I'm always worried that someone on the back is going to come up and get me. I'm worried about the future. I can't live in the moment. I'm completely overwhelmed with everything that I've done. And I need to like beg God to help me be a better person. So we did a five, six, seven right then and there. He sent me home. I tried to be quiet for a while. Did the best I could. We got together the next time. We did steps eight and nine. He taught me how to do a 10-11. Started doing some 12-step work, and my life was on fire again. I was happy. I started going sideways. I started to go into meetings. You know, I hadn't really been authorized to sponsor yet. I hadn'T asked, and he had started dating this gal again, and he sort of got a little busy, and I got sort of busy. So I'm just going to meetings and stuff like that. And I started getting sideways again, and I was at the meeting one day, and this guy comes walking around the corner, And the first thing I thought about is, God, I hope my car's locked because this guy doesn't look like it's really safe to have him walking around. By the end of the meeting, I've asked this guy if I can sponsor him. So I had purpose for the first time. I'm sitting down and reading with this guy, talking with this guys. It's like, God this is what it's all about, to sponsor somebody. Now mind you, I didn't really know what I was doing. I threw in a little bit of Hazleton. I threw a little big book. And I threw 12 and 12 and 11 and so on. I was like this buffet of stuff that I really didn't know what I was doing. And, dang, he stayed sober. He's sober today. You know, he's happy, joyous, and free. Changed my life. About that time, I discovered Big Book meetings. I went to a Big Book seminar. I discovered a Big Books sponsorship. You know? The same thing that my sponsor had brought me through. And that's where I am in my life today. You know, I've got this opportunity to bring people to God through using the book. And what I learned in the 15 years of sobriety I had before is it's easy to get sober or dry. The secret is doing something with it and making something of your life of it. I remember in 84 when I got sober, it was like, oh, I got so much to give back. I've given up so much for drugs and alcohol you know it was a selfish self-centered 15 years and it was miserable you know and in Bill's in the doctor's opinion it starts off like this they're talking about Bill W here and this is cool stuff in the course of his third treatment he acquired certain ideas concerning the possible means of recovery as part of his rehabilitation he commenced to present his conceptions to other alcoholics impressing upon them that they must and likewise with still others. This has become the basis of the rapidly growing fellowship. You know, for 15 years I hadn't seen this idea about sponsoring anybody. I had myself to take care of. This time around I'm blessed that I am actually able to sit down with guys. If you've never had the opportunity to sit across the table from some guy who's just coming apart at the scene, shaking, dying. We come to Alcoholics Anonymous and he seriously wants to get help and he wants to change his life. And I know what it's like to be told, don't go to meetings, just go to meeting and walk out without any hope. But you sit down with a book with some guy and you start reading the book and you develop a relationship and I introduce him to our sponsee family and I see the light come out of these guys' eyes. That's what it is all about. They talk about the fourth dimension. It's not like not waking up hungover. That's great. I like that. Not having the obsession, that's great and that's part of it. But that special feeling you have when you're doing God's work, I had been godless for so many years and today I know God's just using me. I have no life. Everything I do today is God-inspired to help somebody else find God again. There's more to recovery than just not drinking. I was reading this fascinating article. Adolf Hitler didn't drink. Go figure. How's that supposed to make us better by not drinking? There's a lot more to it. It took a minute for me to think about it too, it's like, yeah, Alcoholics Anonymous is the... I read in the forward of the first and forward of second back in the days that these guys stumbled across accidentally the solution to mankind's greatest problem. And there was a certain emergency to spread the news because people were dying back then. I don't know what's going on today. You know, I see a lot of guys dying today and they don't seem to be in a hurry to get sober. in a hurry to get a solution and hopefully someone's going to hear something in the next few months that's going to get them excited and maybe find somebody who can bring them to the book and get them connected to God and then let them bring somebody to God because I've seen it. When I've got these little guys that I'm sponsoring and I get a call at 8 o'clock or 9 o' clock at night after they've just read forward to the first with somebody and this guy's like excited and they're on fire, it's like that's what it's about you know. Purpose and reason for living. It's what I'm all about today. So, I've been sponsoring people. I've been leading a meeting on a big book study, working on that. And I thought it was doing great. I'm having this amazing time, you know? And I got a new sponsor a few months back. And it's been a life-changing experience. I used to think I was doing steps 10 and 11 pretty darn good you know i occasionally thought about it um occasionally i would like think about my day that was my quasi 11th step i was praying in the morning you know and i was doing some meditation in the mornig doing all that stuff but it really wasn't reviewing my life you know i started going sideways again my ego came back my pride was coming back i had become sort of a douchebag at the office again. I've become a douche bag in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, and he pointed out in the book that there's specific directions on how to do an 11th step at the end of the night, you know? And it's not some casual just like, yep, yep yep, not not not. It's like he's got me writing stuff down, you now? And it has made such a change in my life. I feel like so much more connected to God because I'm like looking at what's going on in my light. I start my day without any hangovers from the day before, and I got that 10-step inventory going on. Last week we just started a steel-on-steel thing with a couple of guys and we sat down, four of us, we had prayer meditation and then we had some specific questions on where we are in our lives today according to God, recovery, society, and I got some heavy information thrown at me that was like, wow. And it's an opportunity for me to grow and get better. It's a blessing. Everything in my life today keeps getting it better. I'm blessed that people allow me to sponsor and bring them through the book. It's an honor and it's a privilege to help people find God. All I'm doing is reading the book, you know? If I tried to sponsor somebody like Dr. Bob or Bill W. did, I'd have a success rate like Alcoholics Anonymous does today, you now, 8% or 9%. But when you read the book I'm doin' pretty good. I am staying sober and helping other people find God, I think that's what this is all about. Just helping other people help other people because if people are dying. I was at a meeting the other night and I heard some pretty scary stuff. That Obamacare, they write that whole thing it's coming down the pike and it's going to happen you know we got to learn to deal with it. What just recently happened is the psychiatrist or something they've just lowered the bar of what it is to be an alcoholic so in 2014 when that right when the health care kicks in we're going to start seeing hundreds of more people coming into the meetings of alcoholics anonymous we're gonna have a lot of people coming in who are real alcoholics and we're not a lot people who aren't back in the 80s the same thing happened we got swamped with a bunch of people so in 2004 we got about a year to get ready it could be a swamp there's gonna be thousands of people come and ask and we need to be ready for that you know So if you're not sponsoring people, please start sponsoring people because we're going to need a lot of people soon to catch this wave because it's coming at us and there's no stopping. If we're not ready, it's not going to work. It's going to be a mess. And trust in God that people are going to get prepared and get ready for it because that's what it's all about, saving lives. God took a lying, cheating, stealing, low-life cell center, and considered self-backstabbing, self-centered, hard like me, you know, and gave me a life beyond my wildest dreams to have purpose and to be filled with love and to have a family. And my family family loves me, but I've got a family of people in my recovery family that's amazing and surrounded by love, which is what it's all about. I don't know. I want to end with this. You hear the nine-step promises a lot, you know, which they're great, you know. This is what I wanted when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and this is what I got and this where I'm coming from today. And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone even alcohol for by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor if tempted we will recoil from it as if from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally and we'll find that this has happened automatically. We will see that a new attitude toward liquor has been given to us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes. That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, and neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we have been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We're neither cocky nor are we afraid. That as our experience. This is how we are at, so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition. The original guys, the Oxford group guys, Bill W., Dr. Bob, Clarence Snyder, the original 4267 got sober in the Oxford group. The Oxford group was a first century Christian fundamentalist organization that was based on a relationship with God and they had specific rules called the four absolutes that they gauged their life and recovery on. absolute honesty, absolute purity absolute love and absolute unselfishness. If you can live that way, you're going to have a rockin' diddly do life. I hope you guys get God. Thank you. Thanks for listening.