Y’all Visit AA, I Live at AA — and That Was Exactly the Problem – John C.

All right, let's have a meeting. My name is Tinsley. I'm an alcoholic. Welcome to the Monday Night Blue Chip speaker meeting of the NAVA Club, where a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more of sobriety tells his or her story. This reading is based on a passage from page 29 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Each individual in our personal stories describes in their own language and from their own point of view the way they establish their relationship with God. These give a fair cross-section of our membership and a clear-cut idea of what happened in their lives. We hope no one will consider these self-revealing accounts in bad taste. Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women in our room tonight and listening later on aabluechipspeakers.org desperately in need will hear our speaker, and we believe that it is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that any of us shall be persuaded to say, yes, I am one of them, too. I must have this thing. Now, tonight. Our speaker is somebody that I'm just getting to know, although I'm friends with a lot of people that he hangs out with in his home group, so I'm looking forward to hearing his story very much, and with that I give you John. Hello, my name is John Corey. I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is September 24th of 2012. My home group is the Fifth Tradition Group. We meet right around the corner at Embry Hills United Methodist Church on Thursday and Saturday nights. I have a sponsor. I sponsor as many guys as I can. I've done this before. I mean, not spoken at a microphone, but I've been sober and Alcoholics Anonymous before, and we'll tell you some about that. That's the high points of alcoholism, huh? For a long time, I didn't understand what alcoholism was. I thought it was like just a kind of catch-all phrase to describe drinks irresponsibly, which later morphed into, drinks like a pig, and that alcoholic is just the word that you throw at someone that you think drinks too much, and that, you know, maybe some people reserve that word for like the really special cases, and other people are like quick to throw it around, and I have people in my family who talked about relatives that I had who were like long dead, who I didn't have any experience with or know at all, and refer to them as alcoholics, but you'd listen to them talk about like, the way they've been affected by these people, and kind of piece together that like whatever alcoholic is, it's just like, it's just something you say to somebody that like you're mad at or whatever because of how they drank or something. I think kind of how I internalized it. Like many of us, you know, 14, 15 years old, there's weed, there's acid, and nobody really had alcohol. There was this one guy who had liquor. He always liked that. I was never really a fan of liquor. As a concept, because it was like a frat boy thing, and the people who were, I associated with that were not cool to me, but drugs were for like rock and roll people, and I thought that was cool. So 15 years old, there's like these things going around at school, and, you know, I tried some of those things, and very early on in my experimenting with drugs career, I wound up in a rehab as a product of my attention seeking, and my mother's hysteria, and an overzealous intake attendant or whatever at Charter Winds Hospital in Athens, and then all of a sudden I'm like, the doors are shutting behind me. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. This is stupid. I've done this like three times. So there I am with no shoes, you know, playing volleyball, and there's this other kid from my school who's in there, and it's just like, oh, I got a surprise. And, you know, I'm like, oh, my God. So I went to AA meetings as part of that whole thing, you know. I'm like, you're expected to continue to go to AA meetings after you get out, and there's no real chance that I'm an alcoholic at this point. I don't even think I've been drunk at this point. But I'm getting introduced to some concepts that are going to be kind of relevant for the rest of my life in this setting. We went to AA meetings. They gave me a big book. I remember that. I remember someone sitting down and, like, asking me, all these questions about my experience with drugs, and have you done this and have you done this? And it's like, no, on all of them. I haven't done anything. I mean, I've tried to smoke pot and tripped on acid like two or three times or whatever. It's like all that's happened to me. But I'm interested in all of that is, like, the truth. Like, that all sounds good. Like, I don't even know what any of that stuff is, but that sounds great. Like, I mean, let's do all that, you know, when we can. And that was the truth about that experience. And I had this guy, kind of one of the counselors there, sort of rubbed my face in that and was like, see, I know you do, and you're going to be back in places like this. And he's like, dude, you're crazy. Anyway, I hung around AA for, I don't know, a month or two after that. Discovered that Alcoholics Anonymous is a fairly attractive organization. You know, it's kind of a, if you're quirky and weird and maybe run down a little bit, this is a cool place. It's a cool thing that we have going on here. People are real open and self-revealing and sharing of themselves and genuine and authentic and, like, tell the truth about stuff or at least seem like they do. And it was kind of a fun, I don't know what my peers were doing, but I was, like, leaving home to go to an AA meeting and, like, hang out with old people and, like, be with adults. And there were, like, loose women who would, like, share cigarettes with you and give you a hug after the meeting and stuff. It was something about, it was, like, cool, you know, for a minute, just for a minute, though. And then, I don't know, I drank, obviously. And it was, you know, a few years go by and all I do is drink. Like, I can't get anything going on. I'm young. I live in a college town. I grew up in Athens, Georgia. And all I do is, like, every day is just, okay, what are we going to drink? I got no money. How are we going to, like, piece this together, you know, and go find some. There's plenty of unemployed people sitting on couches smoking pot in Athens, Georgia, and you can go find one of them before lunch or whatever. And then there's a keg party in someone's backyard and a bottle of liquor getting passed around every night somewhere. And so it was, like, I don't know, from night to night, just bounce to wherever and wherever the drinking is happening, go there, drink, usually wake up there or in some bushes nearby the next morning. It got like that fairly soon. But it looked like everybody else is drinking, you know. I mean, it's Athens in the late 80s. Everybody's wasted. We're all, like, kids. We're all drunk kids. God, the bars. The bars were so good. They were so nasty and, like, cheap. And just they were alcoholic bars. One of them, oh, God, one of them was the Roadhouse. And you could buy a shot of whiskey. You could buy a shot of whiskey with your AA chip. You could, like, hand over your chip to the bartender and he'd pour you a shot for it. And they put the chips, like, up behind the bar. And there's, like, this whole row of, like, AA chips up there. It was an alcoholic's bar. It was so awesome. That was where I cut my teeth on alcoholism. Yeah. So this ran its course. I had to leave town all of a sudden. There were just too many people far too interested in me. I had been on a trip to New Orleans and saw that in New Orleans you can drink like I want to drink and nobody with badges ever takes any interest in you at all. It's real mundane and run-of-the-mill, you know. In Athens you might get attention for this, but in New Orleans nobody cares. They'll tip you. So off to New Orleans I go and I got this job in an all-night diner. And the fact that I worked in an all-night, I worked a night shift in an all-night diner in the French Quarter. And I think just the fortuitousness of just randomly drawing the night shift probably saved my life. I think I would have, like, exhausted myself in New Orleans if I were free. If I started drinking every night at midnight and did it from, like, midnight to 8 a.m., I don't think I would have survived the 10 months that I spent in the French Quarter. But because I was at work those hours and got to go do my... my alcoholic drinking from, like, 7.30 a.m. until about 2 in the afternoon, it limited the amount of trouble that I was able to get in and the number of guns that got put in my face and stuff. And I was able to survive that. This guy comes along and he's my girlfriend's brother. And he rides a motorcycle to New Orleans from San Diego and gets there and takes one look at me and is like, you need to get sober. He's been in AA for five or six years. At this point, he's, like, 22 years old. And very enthusiastic and, like, charismatic individual. Yeah, he still is. We're friends on Facebook. I see his little videos he posts all the time. And I, like, I want to just follow him, you know. I mean, he's, like, such this charismatic guy. And he takes one look at me and is like, you got to get sober, man. And I've kind of had this intuition that, you know, like, I need... It's not good. Because I'm drinking the way that I drink. It's just... It's just, like, God, the way that I drink is to do what has to be done to keep drinking viable. Like, and for me, that's, like, I got to have money. I got to, like, maintain some kind of employment, usually beneath my capability, but some kind of employment so that there's money coming so that I can feel pretty good about going to drink. Because if I just worked and got done with a day's work, man, I didn't go drink. I earned it. I, like, I deserve this, you know. It's, like, it's normal. It's just what people do. So it was always real important to me to kind of, like, maintain that. But that's all. It's, like, that's really as big as my life is. It's, like, this... Some job, in this case, cooking at a diner at night. And then, as soon as that's over for the day, go spend, like, every dime at the bar and find the drug dealer guy, like, after getting a few drinks in me. And just sit there and drink and drink and drink. And get drunk and continue. And continue to drink. And then stumble home and do the same thing tomorrow. And for, like, months and years on end. I mean, it never really... Nothing ever interrupts that. That's what keeps going on. Like, I can fairly well find this, like, equilibrium between do enough work to keep drinking and drink. And just keep... I can roll that on for months and years until I start doing cocaine. Cocaine kind of messes that all up. But... But... But as long as I don't get cocaine, I can keep that going for a long time. And that's what I was doing there. And it was not a good thing. You know, I'm... By this point, like, 21 years old. And all the people that I've grown up with have gone on to actually do things. And I'm... Very clearly, like, I'm living to drink. Like, that's what I'm... That's my job here. It's, like, cook and drink. And I would hear myself talking about these ideas I have. These things that I want to do. These aspirations I have. But I knew that these are false. Like, I don't have any. I don't have any of this. I want to go sit on a bar is what I want to do. And this is just the story that I tell you to impress you with, like, how together I am. You know, I've got... I've got plans. Many alcoholics have plans. So, anyway, we go to a big book study. And I start going to some AA meetings and kind of re-remember, like, what all of this is. And the hugs are still there. And there's still, like, cigarettes. And, you know, it's... And this guy, Shalen, is all like, man, you can do this. You can do anything you want in life, man. You're free. You're free. You can love others and serve God. And the world is your oyster. And you can do anything. And he's got this, like, real kind of exciting worldview, you know. And I'm like, yeah, yeah. And I'm, like, 30 days sober. And, like, I believe every bit of it. And take my big book and my chef knives and move to Hawaii. Because I could do anything. I mean, I'm free. I'm free. And... Yeah. And, man, it was really good. And, gosh, I sponsor guys now. And I see a lot of people who suffer from a lot of delusions. And the I'm free, I can do anything I want, and I'm moving to Hawaii delusion is a better one than I see, like, most people suffering through. So off I go. I got a sponsor at this group that I went to. He told me where to go. And I was the coffee maker and, like, the young new guy. And... And... And David sponsored me. And we did some steps. I remember... I remember praying. I remember sitting in his car and reading him my inventory. I remember him sharing some things from his fifth step 10 years before that was, like, really, like, heavy and revealing. Like, whoa, you know. And I remember having a real profound experience with that. I remember writing checks and mailing them to people that I had, like, screwed over for money back in Athens where I grew up and, like, making amends. I don't know about all of them, but I remember writing some real heartfelt letters to people and sending checks to folks and stuff. So I know that I made, like, some effort to do the 12 steps of AA. I was involved in a home group for a little while. But then I moved to a different part of the island. And where I moved to, like, all the meetings are at this clubhouse. Almost all the meetings that people go to are at this clubhouse. And, like, everybody goes. It's at the clubhouse. And you're not at a meeting at the clubhouse. You're hanging out at the clubhouse. And people just kind of gather there and stuff. And Shailen had a job working at the clubhouse. And I think since Shailen had a job working at the clubhouse, I wanted a job working at the clubhouse because I just wanted to be like Shailen. And I cooked at a restaurant. And then I got my little part-time job managing the Alano Club on Front Street in Lahaina and sold snapples. And took the money out of the baskets after the meetings and put it in envelopes and stuck it in the safe. And turned off the lights and washed the ashtrays and, you know, straightened up the chairs and wiped the table off. And just did, like, take care of the clubhouse kind of duties in exchange for being able to live in this little 8x12 room in the backyard of this place. And I had, like, free rent on Front Street. I just got to, like, sell the snapples. It was good. It was a good deal. Make the coffee. And, yeah, man, nobody's got free rent on Front Street anymore. It was pretty, it was a good deal. I worked at the Hard Rock Cafe, too. I was a cook there. I remember establishing a goal. I want to have a job. I want to remain employed at the same place for one year. And I did, too. Like, I worked in the kitchen at the Hard Rock Cafe for one year. And then I gave my notice after that. And I felt so accomplished that, like, gosh, look what you can do. You can do anything. And I didn't really have a sponsor anymore. I had, like, I had a clubhouse full of AA people around me. And if you'd asked me, I think I would have told you. If you asked me, do you have a sponsor, I'd have been like, yeah. Like, look, man, all these people. I'm, like, neck deep in this thing, man. I'm here all the time. I live at AA. I live here. My little cottage is back there. I mean, I'm, like, on site. Y'all visit AA. I live at AA. That was my, that was how I, like, saw all of this, you know. And. And that's not what sponsorship is at all. You know, it seemed like it was to me. It seemed, in fact, I was, in my mind, I was better sponsored than any of you. Because I had so much to draw from and, like, benefit from. And I was around you all the time. I've since learned that's not what sponsorship is. I did not have any sponsorship. I just had a bunch of crazy alcoholics around me at a clubhouse. And I didn't really have a program except for selling Snapples. And selling Snapples isn't a treatment. It's not for alcoholism. And as well-intentioned as I was and as earnestly as I had worked the steps the year prior, working the steps a year ago doesn't keep me sober. I mean, I don't, that's, I don't know how better to say it, you know. I got an idea. I need to move over to the other side of the island. Because that's where the big waves are in the winter. It's the North Shore. And I'm here to surf. And, like, I'm going over there. I went and hitchhiked over to. And I got a job cooking in a kitchen over there. And was like, all right, well, now I've got to get my stuff over to, like, somewhere I can sleep. And I moved. I didn't talk to anybody about it, really. I didn't go seek any kind of guidance. I didn't have a sponsor to talk to about it or ask. Like, hey, I'm thinking about this. What do you think? No one. It was just like, I've got to give my notice. I'm moving. Everybody's like, shoot, where are you going? Paella? Cool, man. Well, right on. And off I go. And I get there. And there's no meeting. It's like, you've got to. God, there's no meetings to go to. But there's a church. I hang out with the church people. And within a few months, one of them gives me a beer. And, hey, it's cool. We're like church people now. I drink the beer. And within a month, I drink the way that I always drink. I've got my job. I'm going to work. Every day at 2 o'clock, I start looking at the watch. And, like, we've got to get the stuff done. Because I've got to get out of here. Because happy hour starts at 3. And I don't want to miss, like, seven minutes of happy hour. Because that's two margaritas that I could have had in the four-hour window where they're only a dollar each. We've got to go. And, like, if something comes up and I can't make it out the door by 2.45, I'm freaking out. Because it's like, man, happy hour is burning here. And we can't waste, like, happy hour. And stumble home every night and, like, repeat, repeat. And, like, this is my thing. And I, like, get home and smoke some weed and collapse and, like, pass out. Every day. Some years go by. A woman finds me like this and thinks that I'm marriage material. And that created a whole wonderful set of, like, yeah, it was good. The job's not right. The, you know, it's just not. The opportunities here are so limited. And the islands, nothing's going on. The economy is so, like, kind of dismal. Everything's all real estate and tourism. Man, I want to, like, do some stuff. You know, the bottom's going to fall out. It's going to crash. We're going to have a kid. What's the kid going to do? We can't, like, we can't afford private schools here. Education's terrible. Man, we've got to move. We've got to move. I've got to get a real job. I've got to get, like, a career. And we've got to move. And restless, irritable, and discontent. I could quit drinking at this point. Because, um. It was real clear to me, I can't drink successfully. I think I had some. I had this episode coming home from a party one night with my wife. Where I shared with her everything that I actually thought about her. And, um. And, uh, like, I really told her the truth. And, uh, and, and was real clear the next day. If that ever happens again, your, your deal here is over. And I had a really good deal. Um, my life was set up in a real good way. You know, like, everything was, was pretty good for John. Um, and I didn't want to. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't want to lose it. Primarily because I didn't want to look like the fool who, like, wrecked that. I think was really, like, was really why. Uh, so I, I quit drinking. And I'm not drinking at all. But then, like, things just aren't good. Like, I've got to go. I've got to do something. I've got to change something. I've got to move. I've got to get a different career. I've got to, like, we've got to do some things. Um, and, uh, so that's how I got to Georgia. This was in 2006. I started flying airplanes. Because that's what I've always wanted to do. Uh, don't drink, fly airplanes. You know, don't drink, go to work. I worked for a while. Uh, the day that I completed my airline training and got my wings, uh, I went to the bar. I think it was my birthday. I went to the bar and had some beers. And, uh, now I'm, I'm an airline pilot who drinks like a pig. That's great. Uh, the, the consistent thing here is that I always, when I, when I very innocuously have a beer with a cheeseburger, uh, it is only a matter of a few weeks before nothing else matters. I'll do it at the minimum level that I have to, uh, family, job, parenting, whatever it is. It is the important things, whatever, whatever the minimum amount is required that I don't get fired or like thrown out of this marriage. I'll do, if you leave me alone about my drinking, you just let me drink the way I want to. Uh, and the way that I want to drink is, is like a pig. All right. I can kind of get up, get by. Okay. On that. If you're cooperative and don't fight me on it and cocaine is not available. Like as long as those conditions are met, we can stumble along for probably a few years, maybe a decade like that. Um, and you know, it's not pretty, uh, but it works. And as long as you don't challenge me about it, the fights aren't too intense. You know, it's not, it's, it's our, we can, there's an equilibrium and we can find it. Uh, and that's kind of, that's. How it was, she left with the kids after we moved again, she left with the kids and, um, she needed to, uh, I was not very easy to live with. Um, and I, my response to this was to go to the bar and like drink the way that now I can like really drink with the gloves off because nobody's watching. I don't have kids in the house and like, there's, I didn't answer into anybody, uh, moved to Atlanta after I realized that she's not coming back. She's here, here with the kids and, and, you know, that's important. And I've got to be around the kids. So I moved to Atlanta and, um, and, uh, and the bad news was that, uh, I had been living in Santa Fe, New Mexico on a leave of absence from the airline. Cause you can't, you can't drink at the airline the way I need to drink. So I just took some time off. Uh, but in Atlanta, they don't have, um, they don't have medical weed like they do in, in Santa Fe. Um, but they have cocaine and it's like half price compared to the eighties. And, um. And it's, everybody has it. It's not any good, but everyone's got it like all the time, you know? Uh, and so now like one of my, one of my conditions for, I can muddle along like this for a long time has been lifted. And I've got like a job, uh, making more money than I've ever made, uh, which was not much money. I don't know. I thought it was like, uh, lifestyles of the rich and famous or something, but it wasn't. It was just like the salary you need to kind of barely scrape by paying child support in Atlanta. But I thought I had arrived. Uh, and like, uh, all these cocaine people around me at the, the young people's bar that I hang out at, uh, like an unwelcome hangar on. So I'm like the old guy at the club. Uh, and, uh, anyway, this, this begins my last nine months up to, up to going to an AA meeting. And, uh, God, it was, it was bad. And it's in Facebook has come along since then. Right. So now I have like six years ago today and like, here's the picture I posted and the stuff that I was doing. Like it's right now, like it's, it's now it's like the August before you, it's like a month before I got sober. And, uh, I get this reminder every year about this time of like what it was like, you know? Uh, yeah. So anyway, it took about nine months for me to, um, to wind up just a smoking hole in the ground. Uh, I've got just, you know, tens of thousands of dollars of debt, all these unpaid taxes. It's fired from my job. Uh, my married girlfriend won't talk to me and is going back to her husband. Uh, my, it's always this drama when I go try to get the kids from their mom and I'm not allowed at my mom's house where she's living. And like, it's just crazy. Like my life is completely insane and I drink all the time. And, uh, and usually with cocaine too and drive way too fast. Um, but like, it's okay. I'm careful. I've got the time. hop down, and the music turned up really loud while I do it, like through your residential neighborhood or whatever, like squealing tires as I go around the corner, because you got to be low-key about this stuff, you know. And just all of this stuff comes down on my head, and it's just, there's this crushing reality that, you know, you're about to be dead. You do stupid things with stupid people in stupid places every day. You drive drunk, wasted with drugs in the car every day. Sometimes your kids, too. You're like, you're going to be dead soon. You're going to get your hands tied together and thrown in the trunk of one of these dudes' cars that you're like hanging out trying to play drug dealer with, and no one's ever going to see you again. Or you're going to wrap your BMW around a telephone pole, or, I mean, these are the, I don't know, this is like what I'm trying to do every day, you know. This is like every day I'm trying to create one of those situations. It's hard to do that. It's hard to do that. It's hard to do that. It's hard to do that. It's hard to do that. It's hard to do that. It's hard to do that. It's hard to do that. as I can and somehow dodging that bullet. And it starts to occur to me, man, you like roll the dice every day. And like, it's just a matter of like weeks before you're going to roll a seven. You know, you're about to lose. I feel like crap. I can't drink enough to make it OK. What's all happened to me? You know, it can't resolve like it's never I don't feel cool anymore. I had felt cool and like I've got the world by the balls right up to this point. And at this point, I can't make it work anymore. It just doesn't. I'm not I'm not cool. I do not have anything. I don't know what to do. And I'm screwed. I don't even know if I can dig myself out of this. The hole is so deep. It's bad. So I went to an AA meeting and and the way that I saw that was that that I needed to go pay my alcoholic tenants like I've been here before. This is what happens. You drink too much. You get in trouble. Everyone's coming down on you. You feel really bad about yourself. You quit drinking and you go to AA. Forty five days later, you feel fine. You're eating again and like everything's cool again. You know, I've had this experience before. So that's what I go do. I know. And, you know, some things, some things improve. Like it was a while before anybody would invite me back for a second job interview. So I didn't work much the first three months. I didn't work much the first three months. I quit drinking. I got an appetite again. I started eating food again. I instantly, well, maybe a week later, felt better. I felt like I have prospects now. You know, I got to I got to find a different meeting to go to where I can meet some people that can hook me up with a job, you know, or something like that. I can show up sober to pick up a drink. I can show up sober to pick up a drink. I can show up sober to pick up my kids from their mom. You know, that's that's looking a little better now. I found a guy with a headband and a ponytail and I asked him to sponsor me because he seemed kind of hippie ish. And that's something I equate with spiritual. So I figure he'd be good. And he tells me to be like water. And that sounds great to me. It's like some Bruce Lee wisdom. And I'm like, OK, I'll be like water, man. That's the best thing I've heard all year. So I go about being like water. And and I'm going to my meeting and I'm going to be like water. And it's all right. But but after a couple of I don't know, maybe a month or so, I noticed that there's not like there's not like anything that I would call strong recovery here. And I'm only here to pay my penance. I don't care. But judgmental as I am, I noticed like y'all, you know, and there's not anything like a strong recovery or anything I would characterize that way. There's some old guys who have been sober for a long time. And I'm like, OK, I'm going to be like water. And I'm going to be like water. And I'm like, OK, I'm going to be like water. And they talk about like the things that are going wrong in their lives, like animals that are passing away or dying or sick or whatever and cancer and family and that kind of thing. And it's just a lot of this like repeating sad stories. And that's the that's the dominant theme at the meeting that I'm going to. And after a while, I kind of got like unhappy about this. And I thought I deserve better if I'm going to not drink and go to AA meetings. I deserve a higher quality AA meeting than this. And I asked my sponsor, like, where should I go if I think these people are losers and I want like, you know, real AA? And he directed me up. He was like, there's another meeting. You should go check out this other meeting. They're kind of serious there. And I'm like, serious. That sounds good. That's what I need. So I went to that meeting and and they were serious. It was too much, man. It was like traditions and like the book. And if you're new, don't share. And all this like really like hard core like AA fascist or something. And I'm like, I don't know, man, that's that's too much. But but it was busy. And like there was a lot of people there and it was kind of cool. And like, well, I mean, you know, maybe I'll go back on sometimes. And I would go back and over a little bit of time, I realized that folks who are consistently here, like the ones who seem to be really like part of this thing are doing really well. You know, I mean, they're like smiling. And when they talk. Like universally when they talk, like every time they speak with a microphone in front of them, they're talking about how they got better from alcoholism. They're explaining what alcoholism is like straight out of the doctor's opinion in the book and like really filling in some gaps for me. And I'm hearing things that that it's inexcusable that a guy like me could have spent as many years as he did going to AA meetings. And and it took like that many years to ever hear what alcoholism is. And I'm like, well, I don't know. I don't know what alcoholism actually is. You know, I someone must have told me. I mean, I must have been at meetings where they read the book to me, but I don't ever remember having heard some of this stuff before, like six years ago. And and I started to piece together that that I'm not going to stay sober doing what I'm doing. Like if I kind of come to this thing a little bit and just sniff around it, but it's not I mean, these people have it figured out. I don't have anything figured out. In fact, I'm getting like less happy about the fact that I'm not drinking anymore. Some things are kind of like going a little better for me, but I'm not happy. I don't have anything like peace. The being like water is wearing thin and I don't know how to do that anyway. And and, you know, these people are happy and have friends and stuff and nobody even wants to be around me. And I'm having a hard time, but there's not anybody to like there's no help for the hard time. I'm having a hard time. You know, I'm like experiencing some difficulty here. Like I'm I'm about to need a drink and I don't know what to do about that except just like not drink. And I know how just not drinking works. So this is all kind of going on in my head. And and and eventually I asked one of the guys from that group, like, hey, here's kind of what's going on. And I sort of told him about that. And he's like looking at me and just kind of laughing and smiling. And I didn't realize how common a story this is. I thought it was like really unique that I'm having this experience. And I've since learned that it is not at all. Anyway, he winds up becoming my sponsor and immediately begins offering me things to do. I'm basically just telling me here, like, all right, here's what I want you to do is kind of how he introduces that, like immediately after I talked to him about sponsoring me. And I can't believe it. I'm like, who do you think you are, man? You just straight up told me to do something like, do you know who I am? Yeah, I don't take, you know, order me around. I'm not I mean, maybe I'll do that. I mean, you convinced me that this is a good idea and I might. And I had some things to learn about that. And and I had a process of learning them, too. I mean, and what this guy did would just continue to tell me to do things. And when I would like buck and fight, which was always, he would just say, hey, you don't have much like you ain't got much going on. You came to me asking for help. This is what the help looks like. Do you want the help or don't you want the help? That's kind of hard to argue with. It's like I'm pissed that I don't like this and everything in me like wants to fight that. But it's it's inescapably true. So I kind of complainingly went along with the things and like did some of the things and immediately began getting results. I remember one of the one of the real one of the real profound, like early feedback things that happened was. At my home group, I'm not popular like at all. And it's because I'm an asshole and like very vocal about it and pick fights with people because they need to know that they're wrong, you know, and then the wrong people to like exactly the wrong people. And so it's very understandable that I'm not liked. And so immediately after kind of bowing to, OK, I will like do some of these things and starting to follow some of the directions. We have our group business meeting and and I I raise my hand to volunteer to be the chairperson for the Saturday night speaker meeting, like 200 people come to thinking, you know, why not? You know, and and they they voted to make me the chairperson for this meeting, which was I still think that's astonishing. Like there's no way in hell I would have voted for me then now. And in fact, now, if I saw that happen, I would have been like, what? God was out for lunch. This group conscience. I mean, that guy does not belong anywhere near a microphone. But what happened as a result of that was that I went from feeling kind of like outside looking into this thing as it being feeling like a part of it and like this group of, you know, I'm like, I'm one of now. And so we set about working the steps. And and as we began that, I had a lot of notions about what that was because of prior experiences that I've had. I was just to set that aside and have a new experience. And that's you tell me that it makes as much sense as be like water. I don't know how to have a new experience, but whatever, man, let's just we'll go do this stuff and like see what happens. And we met and read the book and I would I'd God, I would have to go by this like this this crappy place to pick up this this awful guy with a terrible sense of humor and a Gatorade bottle half full of vodka. Um, to pick him up and give him a ride to meet my sponsor to like sit in on my big book time with my sponsor. When we like read the big book, you know, I'm not even getting like full sponsorship. I've got it's diluted with like vodka head over here. And I got to sit in the car with him while he like, you know, rambles on about like his job and how crazy they are and how he belongs like doing. He's going to be the VP of sales like at this new thing that he's got. Speaker 2 Hey, what? Speaker 1 Crazy, alcoholic, non juste guy. And you, I did that. I'm like, all right. I got pulled to give you a ride. I'll give you your ride. We go to Starbucks and we'd read the book and I don't know where he is. I don't, he might still be alive. He was having some really bad health problems around anymore. There was a couple of other guys that came and sat in on the big book things on a Tuesday night, so I don't know where they are. Um, I worked the steps in that whole thing we got to.一 in that whole thing we got to we got to my inventory and uh leading up to that I was really scared I thought um I don't know what's wrong with me but I know it's a lot and if this is supposed to reveal that I don't even know if I want to know and the the work of like uncovering this just sounds like more work than I even want to do you know because I have this I know that like whatever's wrong with me there's a lot of it uh and it's cool have a new experience just go here's the here's what you do it's columns follow the directions write the names down I did that and we went and read it and uh you know it took a few Sundays to read through all of my stories about stuff uh but what we came down to figuring out is this it's there's like 15 things wrong with me and they all have names and uh that's all it's a list like 15 things long and I remember coming out of that going man I thought going into this it was a mountain of stuff that probably can't be fixed it's so deeply ingrained and you got a list it's 15 items long uh whatever God is I bet God can manage a 15 item list uh it's like all right well let's set about uh having those things cleaned up so I went home and like did step six and seven which is to say like I have no idea what I did I just sat there for an hour uh and then uh set about making amends and and writing some things and uh I got to have I got to make it right with the people that I'd affected I'd have to go make it right with the mother of my my children um and that was a that was really good because I was like really honest with her and just copped to everything I just told her like that was I was as lousy as you thought I was I guarantee you I'm every bit as dishonest and psychotic as you always secretly or even maybe even not so secretly thought that I was and whatever you felt and however I'm I'm I did that totally acknowledge that and like I want to to set about trying to make it right she's like flabbergasted like the culture of our marriage was not one of like openness like that at all she's like astonished and uh and I walked away from that free and and I have a relationship with this woman today gosh I'm remarried my wife and I have a relationship with this woman today we we have kids that we're all responsible for together uh and sometimes get indications of that being a difficult thing for her like the the moving on has been hard for her um and and get to face that with like the truth is it's I'm free of all of that man I went I made it right I'm clean I do not I'm right I'm like I'm fine here I don't this is not scary to me we can meet and we can have conversations and we can talk and I don't there's not a cloud hanging over my head for the way that I was or whatever I have cleaned that up and uh many many many of the relationships that I had been in were like that I started working and I started working and I started working and I started working um I work as a as a software engineer I was not a very good one um that's I have since had some opportunities given to me that have allowed me some personal growth and have allowed me to become uh become a pretty good a pretty good engineer and a good helper of engineers I mentor people and lead teams today I'm kind of sure with people that uh hey these are some really these are some tools that you can use to really empower yourself to do some cool things and let me show you how to do that and make it accessible to you um that's that's really important to me uh I met a woman um in my home group uh and I kind of signaled my uh my interest in her and uh and she laughed and rebutted it harshly and uh and um and then her friend kept like kind of reminding her I think he likes you uh and then through this process of uh of taking the steps like that a door opened there like things changed and I think uh when I first got here I was terrified of people um I would sit like either by myself or or with women I like to surround myself with women usually much older than me who who thought who found me charming and like uh I could ask hey will you save me a seat and oh yeah yeah yeah I'll save and so I'm always like I'm looking and over there are the guys in my home group like all the guys in my home group are sitting over there and I'm over here with uh this lady old enough to be my mom like just sitting here like kind of looking at everybody and and after a while it's like dude what are you doing like all the sober men who are like any kind of example to you are over there together like doing that sober man thing and you are over here like not doing that like what's maybe this is a this might not be right you know maybe maybe that deserves some attention uh it didn't feel right to me uh so I asked for some help um which is very uncharacteristic of me uh and I got help I got told hey you got um you you may not have like football and stuff in common with these guys but you've got service in AA in common with them why don't you why don't you connect with them on the basis of like service in AA and I'm like oh god he just told me to be like water uh I don't know what to do um but uh but not long after that this uh we we had this men's retreat and I was like and I went to the men's retreat and we had the post-retreat committee meeting after that and they invited me to come and they put me on the committee for the men's retreat uh so now I've got this commitment to come and go to meetings with all these guys to do this guy thing in AA and uh and and then my sponsor says uh hey why don't you get a volunteer badge to take meetings to the jail and I'm like have you seen me I mean I'm the last guy in the world that ought to be taking a meeting to the jail that's the stupidest idea that I've ever heard I am like do you see how white I am and like you know I've got like a vocabulary and stuff they're not going to hear anything from me at jail they're gonna they're gonna beat my ass at jail I don't belong there and I was convinced that this was the truth you know and that I'm like the last guy that should be doing this uh and I got a volunteer badge at the jail I went and started taking meetings there um and and over the years have done that pretty consistently and connected with with a lot of men through that thing and I I don't know who I have helped uh I don't really know if I've helped anybody but I know that going there every couple of weeks and seeing the uh version of me that had a drink about a year ago and is now sitting there in an orange jumpsuit has helped me stay sober more than just about anything that I have done you know it's a very good reminder of like what happens to guys like me um eventually uh the woman that I met in my home group observed all of this happening uh and it was a very good reminder of like what happens to guys like me and it caught her attention she thought you know a lot of guys um a lot of guys talk and here's this guy like actually doing things to to like do different and and become different and let himself be changed by this thing and I think that caused her to kind of open herself to me a little bit and we wound up spending some time together and getting to be friends and then uh a closer relationship formed and then we were able to get married and buy a house and like start a family together uh we take care of my my three daughters and and uh and it's really good it's like it's really really good it's a really good marriage it's really good at work it's really good in my home group uh I don't really have any like complaints about anything everything is is really great uh I used to live under the idea that like to to be happy and successful means um and I just had this long laundry list of real self-indulgent things you know it means that I get to just do like my life the way that I want to and it looks like me doing everything I want to do all the time um and today I I my life is full of like kind of commitments and obligations and and service kind of things and uh and I I can't imagine living life another way you know it's uh it's it's very very rewarding and very fulfilling and just very gratifying and very accomplished feeling to go to bed at night and realize that like whatever whatever happened today I live to good purpose and like actually actually served like a purpose that is much greater than what I'm living for and I'm happier than just uh me having some fun today um and it I I feel pretty good about myself most days uh I'll read something to close this is from how it works on page 63 when we sincerely took such a position all sorts of remarkable things followed we had a new employer being all powerful he provided what we needed if we kept close to him and performed his work well established on such a footing we became less and less interested in ourselves our little plans and designs more and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life as we felt new power flow in as we enjoyed peace of mind as we discovered we could face life successfully as we became conscious of his presence we began to lose our fear of today tomorrow or the hereafter we were reborn I love that thank you very much for letting me share it's been a pleasure thanks John that was just great have you asked somebody to give out the chips where are the chips we've got a chip system in that cabinet over there I'm John Shires I'm an alcoholic hey everybody we got a chip system and alcoholics anonymous that marks your time away from your last drink if there is anybody here who wants to uh start the clock ticking on a new batch of sobriety whether it's your first time whether you're coming back from a relapse come up here and get a white chip anybody want a white chip tonight just enough just in time every time all right anybody got 30 days things over today yeah no no okay that's all right anybody got 90 days today all right and we got six months today nine months and we had a year or multiples of a year all right everybody clap for just a second just everybody clap in case the clapping woke you up does anybody want a white chip no all right well thank god for the chips you hold good stuff uh thank you one and all for joining the blue chip speakers meeting tonight carry me I'm tired I got to go I can't stay here that mean old bartender just showed me the door somewhere that broad