AA Speaker – Chris C. – Alexander City, AL – 2011
AA speaker Chris C. shares his story from insecurity and childhood trauma through addiction, hitting bottom, and working the steps with a sponsor to rebuild his life and find sobriety.
Chris C. from Alexander City, Alabama got sober on April 20, 2010, after years of drinking and using drugs to escape childhood trauma, homelessness, and the devastation of watching his young son’s illness. In this AA speaker tape, he walks through how identifying with the Big Book, working the steps with a sponsor, and making amends pulled him out of hopelessness and gave him back his life—including a relationship with his son that he thought was lost forever.
Chris C. describes his path from an insecure, intelligent boy who felt fundamentally different from everyone else—stemming from childhood sexual abuse at age 11—to active addiction through his twenties and thirties, including drug dealing, jail time, homelessness, and using his son’s seizure medication to get high. After multiple failed treatment attempts and the death of his brother from overdose while Chris was 14 days sober, he finally surrendered completely and worked the steps thoroughly with a sponsor, discovering that sponsor relationships, rigorous step work, and daily prayer and meditation are what keep him sober and connected to a Higher Power. He details how making amends, practicing Step 10 (daily inventory), and reestablishing his relationship with his disabled son have given him purpose and the ability to carry the message to others in recovery.
Episode Summary
Chris C. opens by reading a letter from his tenth-grade English teacher—a letter that captures who he was at fifteen: a bright but deeply insecure boy, already angry at the world and acting out in class. She saw the real person underneath the bravado. This sets the stage for his story, one rooted not in external failure but in internal fracture.
At eleven years old, Chris experienced sexual abuse that he says solidified two beliefs: that he was fundamentally different from everyone else, and that God didn’t exist—or didn’t care. He refused confirmation into the church and made a vow never to pray again. That wound shaped everything that followed. He was gifted mathematically but socially awkward, desperate to fit in, and by fourteen he had already started drinking. Within a couple of years, drinking became daily.
The pattern was classic: Chris was good at things—sales, building a shell, holding himself together temporarily—but never good at keeping it together. He dealt drugs, made money, then spent it getting his business partner out of trouble. In 1999, after days of heavy drinking and using, he had a psychotic episode—what he calls “my brain crack”—and spent three months locked in a room with a cat, convinced he’d poisoned himself. He blamed the last person he used with, not himself. That was a fancied resentment, he explains, because the truth was he was poisoning himself.
He got arrested in 2002 for drug trafficking. His family bailed him out. He got a 30-day treatment program in South Alabama, came out believing using would kill him but not believing he was an alcoholic. He became “a very good alcoholic for the next few years,” making near twenty dollars an hour, sneaking drinks at work, eventually unable to go an hour without alcohol.
In 2005, he met a woman who was also drinking herself to death. They were a perfect fit. When he missed work, they moved to New Orleans—the worst place an alcoholic could go. He drank a gallon of Canadian mist for seven dollars. Drive-thru daiquiri shops. They returned to Alabama, and his son was born healthy. Chris pieced himself back together, got a good job, made money again. Then his son started having seizures at five months old. Dozens a day. The child was flown to intensive care in Birmingham. Chris tried to drink the sickness away. He prayed his first honest prayer: “God, please let my son be okay.” His son survived but was left disabled.
Chris’s drinking got worse. He stole his son’s seizure medication to feel okay. His wife told him she was leaving. He went into a three-week blackout and lost everything. In the middle of it, a miracle: a phone call offering him a job. He took it, moved to a new city, and drank himself to sleep every night, waking two hours later to drink again. After a trip to Atlanta, the allergy was triggered. Three days later, Atlanta metro homicide was looking for him. Things fell apart. His family finally kicked him out, but offered one last chance: treatment.
Chris insisted on longer than a five-day detox. He blacked out and woke up on June 27, 2009, at Bradford treatment facility in clothes he’d never seen before, feeling peaceful because he didn’t have to run anymore. He did 82 days in a halfway house, got out at fourteen days sober, thought he could use “just once,” and went right back. He relapsed with a girl he wanted. That relapse sent him back to treatment on his 30th birthday.
Two days later, his parents showed up at the halfway house. His little brother—who was like him, who had joined the Army to escape his own demons—had gone to sleep and never woken up. His parents drove two hours from Auburn to Birmingham to tell him because they were afraid he would use and die too. Chris hit his knees and prayed the second honest prayer of his life: “Help me, God. I don’t know what you want me to do with this.” He made it through his brother’s funeral sober and saw it as the most powerful spiritual experience of his recovery so far—proof that he could get through something devastating without drinking.
But that wasn’t enough to keep him sober. He worked a thorough Fourth Step, Fifth Step, Sixth and Seventh Steps, and started making amends. He got some of the promises coming true, felt good, and stopped. Then life got hard. He compared himself to others. He started looking for relief through relationships. He thought he could take just one drink. The obsession kicked in. He called for help, went back to treatment for seven days, and came out on a mission.
Chris describes his breakthrough moment: he finally accepted not just that alcohol and he didn’t work together, but that his life was genuinely unmanageable. He couldn’t do it. He surrendered. He dove into the steps head-first, reading the Big Book closely and identifying with it—not focusing on the fact that it was written in 1939 by men in New York, but on the timeless principles that matched his experience. He accepted Step One fully (surrender), which made Step Two natural (there had to be something greater than him). Step Three was a decision he could always take back, but he wrote his own Step Three prayer with his sponsor.
His Fourth Step was different this time. He looked at the third and fourth columns of the inventory—not just what he’d done wrong, but why he had resentments, what parts of himself were affected, how he reacted. He took the abuse at eleven and ran with it as an excuse for years. He no longer has that luxury.
Chris walked into his first meeting outside treatment shaking so badly two women left the meeting. But a big burly biker gave him a chip and said, “It’s okay. We’ll love you till you can love yourself.” He knew he belonged.
He made a thorough Eighth Step list and calls amends “the coolest part of this program.” He went back to a former boss to repay one hundred dollars he’d borrowed. The boss told him that Chris coming in meant a lot, that he was happy to see him sober, and offered him a job. Chris realized he’d seen the world as all negatives, all people out for themselves. This man showed him there were people who really cared. He still pays his grandmother back weekly for money he stole. He found a man he’d borrowed money from in New Orleans five years earlier and sent him repayment; the man thanked him and said he never thought he’d see the money again.
Chris emphasizes: he is not the person he was before he worked these steps. He is completely changed. The most important thing he’s done in recovery is reestablish his relationship with his disabled son. He gets to spend time focused on his kid without thinking about everything else. He practices Step Ten by stopping when something troubles him, checking what’s disturbing him, and making amends on the spot if needed. Step Eleven—prayer and meditation—he describes as listening to God rather than just talking. Meditation is hearing what God is trying to tell him.
He has a job he loves. He’s a good employee and a good father. And now he gets to carry the message. The book says nothing so much concerns immunity from alcohol as intent to work with other alcoholics. He uses his brother’s story, his downfall, his experiences as forces to help others avoid the same path or know they’re not alone.
Chris closes by reading the Twelfth Step: “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we try to carry this message to other alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.” That’s his purpose now. He never had one before. Today he has one. He’ll continue to accept when asked, continue to give when needed, and continue to care when no one else is caring.
Notable Quotes
I knew from an early age that I was different, or at least that’s how I felt anyway.
There was something in me that was leading me in the direction of alcoholism from the beginning.
My brain cracked. That’s what I call it. My brain cracked.
I accepted wholeheartedly the first step, which I think is what it means to surrender. I’m doomed. I can either go on drinking and blot out my intolerable existence or accept spiritual health. Those are my two options.
Amends are probably the coolest part of this program. Through action and through daily repetition, I get free—completely and totally free.
We’ll love you till you can love yourself.
I am not the person I just told you about. I am not the guy who did all those things before I worked these steps. I’m completely changed.
Nothing so much concerns immunity from alcohol as intent to work with other alcoholics.
Sponsorship
Hitting Bottom
Making Amends – Steps 8 & 9
Relapse & Coming Back
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Step Work
- Sponsorship
- Hitting Bottom
- Making Amends – Steps 8 & 9
- Relapse & Coming Back
People Also Search For
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
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Welcome to Sober Sunrise, a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience, strength, and hope from around the world. We bring you several new speakers weekly, so be sure to subscribe. We hope to always remain an ad-free podcast, so if you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-onrise.com.
Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> Well, hey everybody.
I'm Chris. I'm an alcoholic. And uh thanks to a relationship with the god of my experience that I found through sponsorship, working the steps, and the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, I've been sober since the 20th day of April, 2010.
And for that, I'm grateful. Um, I found a letter I wrote um about six months ago, maybe five months ago, I wrote a letter to my 10th grade English teacher. She just so happened to be my best friend growing up's mother.
Um, uh, by the time I was a sophomore in high school, uh, things weren't going real well. And so I wrote her a letter to express not only my uh wrong that I had done by treating her class the way I treated it, but also to express uh my thankfulness because when I was acting the way I acted in her class, she pulled me out in the hallway and she asked me what was wrong and she was the first person to ever pull me aside and actually ask me, you know, what's going on because this isn't the person that I know. Um, and in looking for a way to describe what I was like, she kind of described it for me in a letter.
So, she says, "Uh, dear Chris, you touched me with your sincerity and impressed me with your recall. That was many years ago. I'd long forgiven and forgotten those sophomore antics of which you have such uncomfortably clear memories.
You were pulled out of my class because I knew the real boy underneath the bragadosio. My strongest impression of you from childhood on was of a wonderfully bright but somehow very insecure boy. I worried when you moved out of Wesley's orbit.
That's her son. To find faster friends, attributing partly to them to your eager to your early angry cynicism. Intelligence poses a danger to kids who perceive the foolishness of the world before they are mature enough to deal with it.
Chris, I wish you the best and will think of you often knowing the difficult struggle you've embraced. If apologizing helps in facing your demons, I'm glad for it. but don't give another thought to any offense you imagine you may have given me.
What we did when we were 15 is so minor in the scheme of things. Thank God. Um so that's what I was like.
Um I was very very insecure but at the same time and and if you've been around the rooms a little while you might have heard the term an egoomaniac with an inferiority complex. Um I was very sure of the things that I knew and very insecure about the things that I didn't. Uh mathematically I was gifted.
Um but socially I was very awkward. Um I wanted desperately to fit in with those around me and couldn't no matter how hard I tried. Um so uh I knew from an early age that I was different or at least that's how I felt anyway.
Um, and I stress this because what I'm about to say is going to take this in a different different direction. Um, there was something in me that was leading me in the direction of alcoholism from the beginning. Uh, but I had a an instance when I was 11 years old.
I went to stay with a friend and his uncle did some really unsavory things to me. And what that did was solidify my belief that I was very very very different from everyone else. no one could understand how I felt or what I had been through.
Um, it also solidified my belief that if there was a God in this world, he didn't want to have anything to do with me because he wouldn't let that stuff happen. And from that point forward, I chose not to be confirmed into the church that I was attending. And I chose not to ever pray to God again until much later in my life.
And I did. So, uh, arrests, trouble, whatever came, it's what came. I never turned to God for help in those situations.
I wasn't one of the people who did the um prayers to save me from this situation. God, if you'll get me out of this, you know, I won't do it again. I never did that.
Um I I took whatever I got like I took it. Um it, you know, um I also stopped sleeping real well. Um I I developed and I still to this day have a mild case at the time severe case of insomnia.
I do not like going to sleep. And it started then. Um, I remember staring at the stars and thinking, well, look at all this and how big it is and how wonderful all this stuff is.
How could this be without a God, without God? But so hurt by what had happened and by not feeling like anybody was there to protect me that um I just I couldn't. It was too much for me.
I didn't want to deal with it. And she talked about in that letter that being a being aware too soon of how the world really is. Um, and I felt like I kind of got robbed of a little bit of my childhood and I had to grow up real fast.
Um, and I made it a point for the next many years trying to act older than I was. Um, when I was 14, all my friends were in college. Um, by the time I was 18, I was doing things that or I was attempting in my own mind to do things that I thought people much older than me would do.
Run restaurants, uh, you know, develop a life. The things that I thought I wanted, you know, the child, the children, and the marriage and all these things. cuz I wanted that as fast as possible because I thought that's what life was about.
It was about setting these goals, achieving them, and and when I get there, everything will be okay. And I kept believing that, that everything would be okay. At some point, I was going to get to a point in my life where everything was going to be all right.
And that point never came. Um, I started drinking at 12. Um, and it doesn't surprise me.
Um, I felt very uncomfortable in all the situations I was in. Someone offered me a drink. It gave me a chance to be a part of a group, you know, I kind of fit in with the outcasts and the outcasts like to drink and they like to smoke weed.
Um, and so that's what I did. Um, I have to say this up front. Um, I am an alcoholic, but I did a lot of drugs.
Um, and I'm going to try my best to stick to tradition here and and hold it to the alcohol side of things. But if I slip, I apologize. I do not mean to offend any pure alcoholics.
It's just part of my story. Um, and from 12 on, I made it a point to drink and or use as often as possible. Now, early on, it wasn't real often.
I was 12 years old. It's hard to come across alcohol. It's hard to come across other things.
It's just, you know, I got it when I got it and I did it when I did it. Um, cigarettes were kind of my go-to. I could smoke them every day.
That was my little bit of little bit of being bad, you know, sneak out of class, go smoke some cigarettes out in the woods or in the bathroom or something like that. Um, I uh I got into high school and um and I started experiencing uh separation. I don't really know how else to say it.
Like it just things got worse. It started getting to where I couldn't relate at all and that you know nobody around me understood and it just you know I got all caught up in poor pitiful me you know and I lived in it. It was a beautiful thing to behold for a little while.
Um by 15 I was very angry. Um, and uh, and it showed and hence the letter. You know, I was acting out in all my classes.
I was skipping school. I was getting sent to in school suspension. And I was still making good grades.
I mean, I'm a smart guy. I test well. I just didn't apply myself at all.
Um, my junior year in high school was probably my worst. And I say that kind of jokingly. I mean, in all honesty, my experience with it was my worst.
Um, it uh, it didn't go real well. I got into even more trouble. I spent about 70 or 80 days in um and suspended from school that year uh for skipping, for smoking, for cussing out teachers, for doing whatever it was I was doing, you know.
And uh and sometime between my junior and senior year, I became very fluent in using and drinking every day. And my senior year was wonderful because I had a solution. I had something that worked for me.
You know, when I had that drink, I could mix with the people I was with. I felt comfortable. You know, um the promises that it describes that we read right before the meeting starts, those were true in my life, you know.
I take a drink and all my fears fall away and I don't worry about stuff anymore. You know, I can I can mingle and I can handle myself and I'm 10 feet tall, you know, and I use on top of that. And then I get, you know, I got all these other great things going for me.
I found my solution to all my problems. I felt good. I felt whole.
I felt complete. and um and I had enough access and enough money to do it as often as I could. And at by that point in time, it was very often.
Um I got expelled my senior year of high school for possession of marijuana on campus. Um and uh I was very upset at first. Um upset that I wasn't going to get not so much that I got expelled from school.
I didn't like school. I didn't want to be in school. School really meant nothing to me whatsoever.
But it was that I had grown up with all these kids and these people and my peers and I had gone from first grade all the way to my senior year in high school with all the same people and all of a sudden I wasn't going to get to graduate with them anymore and that made me really really really mad. Um I went and I took the GED. Um I didn't pretest for I went and took the GD and I scored so high on the GD that they named me the validictorian of the GD class of that year and gave me a two-year full pace scholarship to college.
And basically what it did was it solidified my belief that what I was doing was okay because I had no consequences related to what had happened. You know, I didn't get arrested. I didn't go to jail.
I didn't pay any fines. I got a two-year full paid scholarship to college. You know, um and uh and I didn't use it.
I mean, I I needed the things I was doing on a daily basis. And it was really hard to go to school and to do well. When you're doing the things I was doing every day, I don't want to get up for class cuz I spent all night drinking the night before.
I don't want to um go into class cuz I'm paranoid cuz I'm so messed up on the substances I'm putting in my body. You know, it just it was constant, you know. And it was a fight for about a year and finally I just gave up.
Um I uh I found that I had skills in sales and so what I did was I applied them to the negative side of life. I became a drug dealer. Um and I was very good at what I did and I made a lot of money doing it.
Um my business partner, however, was not very good at what he did and all the money I made doing it I spent getting him out of trouble. Um at some point I'm sure I messed I pissed somebody off. I did something wrong somewhere along the way and and um somebody came to me and told me that the DEA was looking watching me and that I was about to be arrested.
So I chose to step away from selling drugs. Um I made it a noble gesture and said I don't like the money. It doesn't mean anything to me.
But the truth is I didn't want to go to jail. And so um I stopped selling drugs but I kept using and drinking the way I had been while I was selling them. And the thing is is that by that point in time I was using and drinking in excess.
And it cost a lot of money to continue doing the things I was doing. And uh and I no longer had the lifestyle to to pay for it. Um I uh I had my first run in with treatment in 1999.
I I had been awake for quite a few days and I'd been drinking and using a lot and um and I had a psychotic episode. I don't really know what else to call it. My brain cracked.
That's what I call it. My brain crack. Um, I went from okay to not okay to the point where I could hear people talking that weren't talking and see things going on that weren't going on.
And um, and I knew that it was false, but when I could hear it and I could see it, I could feel it inside like it was just not good. And uh, I went to treatment and I stayed for 3 days until I couldn't take it anymore. And I went home and I locked myself in a room for three months and raised a cat.
I got a kitten and then raised him for three months. He's a very crazy cat, by the way. Um, and uh, and I really desperately wanted to be able to drink and use like I had been doing before.
There was no I never thought maybe I shouldn't do the things that led me to this point. actually and it talks about it in the book uh about false fancied or real resentments fancied or real you know and and I can relate because I had a resentment against the last guy that I used with right before I went crazy because I believed that he poisoned me and that's why I went crazy. But if I look back at back on it from a truthful perspective, you know, I was poisoning myself, you know.
Um, and so that was a fancied resentment because I just created it to be okay with what I was doing. And, uh, as soon as my mind allowed me, I went back to drinking and using the way I have. Um, I'm a Jack Daniels man.
Uh, anytime I had the money and I could afford to and I could and I could drink the way I wanted to drink, I had a fifth of Jack Daniels. That's what I had. That was my and never left my side.
I drink half of it. I buy another bottle because that other half's going away sometime soon, you know. And that's and I kept that uh standard up for a while.
Um the great thing about alcohol is where drugs are unreliable. Um alcohol is always reliable. Um if I buy a bag, I don't know if it's any good until I use it.
If I buy a bottle, I know it's good when I buy it. If I need to go to sleep because I can't come down off a high, I can drink myself unconscious. Um, you know, if I need to get to feeling better, I can buy a $3 bottle of cheap liquor and I know it's going to do what I need it to do.
Um, uh, I went I got arrested in in 2002 because I wasn't very good at not selling drugs. Um, and I started selling them again to support my habits. And I got arrested in between Auburn and Georgia um, with a lot of money on me.
And I was on my way to pick up drugs. Um, I got charged with felony possession and trafficking and I uh went home. Well, I actually thank the cops for arresting me cuz I was really tired.
Really, really tired. And I made the people in jail really mad cuz when I got there, I just went to sleep. Um, and uh and I I got up and somehow convinced my family to bail me out of jail again.
Um, cuz I had been in jail a few times between then and that point in time. somehow convinced him to drive up to this place and to pick me up. And I went home and I slept it off and I woke up and I started doing what I've been doing again.
And I spent about 30 days in a pretty pitiful state feeling sorry for myself using um thing about me is and as I suffer from what the doctor in the doctor's opinion talks about, Dr. Silver talks about I suffer from that allergy. Um and I very very much suffer from the obsessions.
So, five days of not using, the thought pops into my head, maybe I should drink and use. It'll make me feel better. I put one in and then I can't stop because that allergy set off and all of a sudden I'm running again, you know, drinking and using, drinking and using, drinking and using until something or somebody gets in my way and stops me.
My first real experience with um a higher power in my life, and I didn't realize it until I got into recovery, was in 2002. I had a set a set of events happen in my life where um I was forced into a situation where I had to ask for help. And it wasn't that I was in a in danger.
It was that um I kept having the same thing happen in my life and it kept saying you don't want to be like this. You hate the way you are. This person this is not the person you want to be.
And it's just over and over again going on. I went downstairs one morning and I'd been living in this loft in my family's house for about 30 days just locked up in there. I'd have people bring me whatever I needed and I'd just stay there.
And um and uh I went downstairs and I was and my dad my father looked me square in the face and he said, "You're drinking and using again, aren't you?" I said, "Yeah." And for whatever reason, I was willing to be honest in that moment and asked for help. It probably saved me 10 years in prison. I went to a 30-day treatment facility in South Alabama, South Alabama called First Step.
It's in Red Level, Alabama. Red Level is so small that the PO boxes in Red Level are A through Z. There's no numbers.
Um the uh treatment center I was in was in a house and it was right next door to the police department which was a mobile home. And I don't mean like stationary mobile home. I mean like it was on wheels ready to move when they needed it to move.
Um and uh and it was a good it was a good place. I mean it was half prisoners and half non-insurance people. Um and uh and I and I did my 30 days and I came out knowing that to use was to die.
But I didn't think I was an alcoholic. I didn't take into account that on New Year's Day 1998, I woke up and drank an entire fifth of a gardi in 15 minutes because it seemed like a good idea. I didn't take into account that I drank at every possible means when I didn't feel well, that I used alcohol to solve my problems.
I didn't take into account all that. I just noticed that I had gotten arrested for this drug charge and so that drug was my problem. Um, I uh became a very good alcoholic for the next few years.
Um, trying not to go to prison. I got um got a good lawyer u because I didn't have any prior uh criminal history or or convictions anyway. Uh Georgia has this thing called first offenders act.
And if it's a nonviolent crime and I never liked guns, not that I wasn't around them, I just didn't like them so I didn't carry them on me. A nonviolent crime and it's a um and it's your first offense, they uh they give you a very stiff probation. And mine said, "You have a two-year intensive probation.
If at any point in time you you fail during these two years to comply with anything that we ask you to do, we'll send you to jail for 10 years. No reduced sentence." And of course, I didn't want to go to jail at all. So, I said yes.
Um, I lucked out quite a few times over the next couple years, avoiding DUIs, um, avoid passing drug tests that I shouldn't have passed, just things that little things that I look back on now and see that I was guided sort of in a direction, you know. Um, I apparently jail wasn't where I was meant to be. Um, I uh I became a daily drinker.
I would drink a half a fifth of Jack Daniels and then go to the bar. That was my daily routine. I had a job that paid a lot of money and I could get away with it.
Um, occasionally I'd take a day off here or there. And usually what I'd do is I'd substitute some pill or something to get me by until I could get back to having time off so I could drink. And um and it started showing it started wearing on me.
Um in 2005 I was on the verge of losing this job because when you go to the bar when you have to be at work at 10 o'clock at night and you go to the bar at 8, usually 10:00 at night doesn't work out real well. Um and uh and I had been missing work and I'd been slacking on my duties and this is the job that paid a lot of money. I worked in um industry for a while and um and I had a an x-ray tech job um making, you know, near $20 an hour and I I mean I was making good money.
Um and I just couldn't hold it together. No matter how bad I wanted to, I couldn't hold it together. It was getting to the point where I couldn't go an hour or two without drinking and using.
I couldn't do it. I couldn't make it that long, you know? So, to be at work for 12 hours, I mean, I was sneaking out the back door and drinking out the back on smoke breaks.
I was going out to my car and taking breaks and doing stuff in the car. Like I was, you know, I mean, it was getting bad. And um in 2005, I I met a girl.
Well, she met me and she decided that I was the one she wanted. So um who was I to argue? And uh um and she was like me.
She was an alcoholic. She was drinking herself to death. So we we were perfect fits, you know.
Um she was okay with me doing what I wanted to do and I was okay with her doing what I wanted to do. and uh and um we uh I lost my job. Actually, I I got up one night to go to work and she said, "Why don't you just stay home tonight?" And I knew if I missed one more day of work, I was going to lose my job.
So, I I just stopped going to work. Um and uh we packed up. We moved to New Orleans to help with the hurricane relief effort after Katrina.
Now, I want to explain something. If you're an alcoholic and you're drinking yourself to death, New Orleans is definitely not the place you want to go. Um, I found out real quick that you can buy a $7 gallon of Canadian mist in New Orleans.
$7. You know, they have drive-thru daiquiri shops in New Orleans. Drive-thru.
The only law is they can't put a straw in it for you, so they just set it on top and hand it to you. Um, that didn't last real long. Um, because I follow me wherever I go.
And uh we found out that uh she was pregnant and I'd like to say that I chose better actions than I did, but I drank and used with her almost the entire time she was pregnant. Um we came back to Auburn, lived with my family. I didn't have any money, you know.
I drank it all up down in New Orleans. Um and uh I got a job working at a printing shop making next to nothing. And she stayed home and was pregnant.
And we uh we went about our lives like we do. Um and uh when money got scarce, we we found ways to get money to get what we needed. Um she introduced me to um to pain pills and uh that worked real good for a little while.
Um but as with everything else in my life that's ever changed or altered my mood or my mind, it stops working. Um, and with the type of alcoholic and addict that I am, it stops working fast because I tend to use it up as quick as I can. Um, when my son was born, he was healthy, thank God.
Um, and uh, and I started pulling my stuff back together. I got a good I got another good job doing the same thing I was doing for the other company. It was actually the funny thing was is they were facing each other.
So, the place I used to work, I now worked at the place facing it. So, um, making about the same amount of money. Um, I started out a little bit lower, but I quickly worked my way up.
I'm good at that. I'm good at picking the pieces back together and putting and building my shell back up and making everything look pretty. I'm real good at that.
Um, I'm just not good at keeping it together. It always falls apart on me. Um, when my son was 5 months old, uh, about four and a half, five months old, he started having seizures.
Um, and he had one one day, he had two the next day, and he had four the next day, and he had eight the next day. until he was eventually having about 80 grandma seizures a day. And we tried all we went we they flew him by jet to children's in um Birmingham and they put him in intensive care and they were pumping him full of anything they could think of to try to get him to stop feeding and they just couldn't get it to stop.
Um I got we got a hotel room near the hospital and I remember trying to drink my son's sickness away. And I don't know if y'all ever experienced that before where something hurts so much you just want to make it go away. you want to make it stop.
And I couldn't make it stop. I couldn't make I couldn't make it stop. I couldn't, no matter how much I used or drank, I could not make the thought and the pain go away.
I couldn't do it. Um, my son spent about three or four months in intensive care. We had a priest come to our room and I told y'all earlier that that I'd never prayed to God until later on in my life.
And he asked us, would we like to pray? And I said I would. And I prayed probably the first and for a while the only honest prayer I've ever prayed was just God please let my son be okay.
And looking back on it now I would say that my prayer was answered. But what happened was my son got very sick and he stayed very sick and when he came out of the situation he was in and got sent home he was not okay. not not by my standards anyway.
I wanted him to be that five months old perfect kid he was before he started having all these seizures and that just wasn't gonna happen. It wasn't gonna happen. Um I don't I don't claim to know anything about the brain.
But I know that if you have that many seizures a day for that long, damage can happen. It just can, you know. Um my uh drinking and using got just worse.
We got her two stepids in to my house. So now I had three kids and uh and I just couldn't stop. I mean, I couldn't I couldn't do enough and I couldn't stop.
And I wanted things to be different. I couldn't make them be different. And it just it was just miserable.
I lost that job. Um, I uh I didn't want to leave Birmingham, but I needed to go back to work and and then I started just lying to try to get out of situations and using my son's illness illness as an excuse to get money out of people to go and get things that I wanted and needed, you know, just manipulating the way that we do. Um, and uh, and I continued continuing what I was doing.
And at the worst points of my drinking and using, um, when I couldn't get what I needed to be okay, and when I couldn't get out of the house to get alcohol, I would steal my son's seizure medication to get me to a point where I could be okay with being being around and be okay, you know, and it's a terrible thing, but it it's the truth. It's it's where I go when I do this stuff. Um, my uh I I kind of started to piece my life back together again.
put that little shell back on, you know. And uh I got up into a new apartment and my wife came home and she said, "I can't be with you anymore." And uh and then she brought uh a guy home with her um to say that she'd been seeing somebody else. And that was pretty much the last reason I needed to try to act normal and to be okay anymore.
I was done. I didn't want to I you know, I had no more I didn't need to put my life back together to take care of my kid. I didn't I didn't want to fix anything.
And I went into a 3-we blackout and as in these other instances in my life, I had a moment of clarity. I got a phone call. A guy had approached me about programming and and doing uh um aluminum work for another company.
And I turned it down to stay with the um grocery chain that I was with. Uh I was the assistant department manager for Kroger. And um and in the middle of this 3-week blackout, I got a phone call and apparently the guy that they had chosen to take the place that I was going to take had follyied somehow or fallen out of this position and they were desperately seeking help.
And I'm in the middle of broke verge of homelessness. Like things were not going real well and I managed to get this call and it was like a a hand reaching out and pulling me out of the depths, you know. Um but um you know it was not to see.
I went and got the job and I passed the drug test miraculously and you know got got on to working and moved up and and I'm an isolationist when I'm drinking and using in the end it was all about me being by myself doing what I wanted to do and don't get in my way. And so all of a sudden I'm making a lot of money again and I'm living in a new city and there's no one within miles of me that I know. And what it turned into was literally me drinking myself to sleep every night, waking up 2 hours later, drinking to go back to sleep, 2 hours later, drinking to go back to sleep, and then get up and go to work the next day.
And it got real bad cuz I started having to use and drink at work like I had started to have to do with that other job. And you know, I made an ill- fated trip to Atlanta to visit a friend of mine, and I tried something I hadn't tried in a while, and that allergy was set off. And all of a sudden, three days later, I turned my phone on and Atlanta metro homicide's looking for me.
And all these everything's crumbling back down again, you know? Uh because when I black out, I do crazy stuff. Um and uh lost my job and I had to come back and live with my family and I just I just gave up on life.
I spent three months uh two of which homeless uh doing what I had to do to get by. And um and at some point my family got so sick of watching me kill myself that they they kicked me out, you know, told me not to come back, I couldn't stop stealing from them. And uh they came to me and they offered me one last chance.
And they said, and again, moment of clarity in the middle of a blackout, um we'll renew your insurance and send you to treatment. And what they said is, "We'll send you to a detox. We'll send you to a 3 to 5 day detox and then you come back home." And for whatever reason, and I'd only been to Bradford once, for whatever reason, I said, "If you send me somewhere to detox and I come back home, I'm going to end up doing exactly what I've been doing.
I need to go somewhere longer." Um, and uh, they got me into uh, treatment. Um, I blacked back out and when I came to, I was in treatment. Um, I literally woke up on the 27th day of June, 2009 in a bed in Bradford with clothes next to me that I'd never seen before.
And I felt kind of peaceful to be honest with you cuz I woke up that morning and I didn't have to go back. I didn't have to run anymore, you know. Um, uh, I had gotten to a point in my life where it just, um, every day I woke up, I was hoping I could drink and use myself to death that day and then I'd wake up again and I'd have to do it all over again.
And it was like that for a while. And the book talks about pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. I did things for drugs and alcohol that I just never thought that I'd do.
you know, I never thought that I would go to the depths that I went to. Um, and um, and you know, it is what it is. So, what do I do with it from there?
Um, I uh, I spent the 15 days in treatment, had a kind of a God moment, sent me to a halfway house. Um, I did 82 days and I did what a lot of people in AA called the AA Walt. I did.
I accept that I'm alcoholic and my life is unmanageable. I think I believe that there's a higher power out there. I will tentatively turn my will in my life over to that higher power.
I will work half step and I'll get drunk. And uh I got a hotel room at 82 days clean and sober and I got a girl I really was interested in and I had her at the hotel room and then I went on God's room and which is funny cuz I didn't have anywhere to go. You know, I I had to go back to the halfway house.
Um you know, now I've got the the allergy on me and I want to do more and more and more and I put myself right back in that same boat. Um, I actually called a friend hoping that they could hook me up with some way to keep going and they pointed me back to the halfway house. So, wound up back in the halfway house and started over again.
Um, and uh, you know, God, I hate I hate to say the things that I say that are involved with my life because I feel like it's a big tragedy story, but I'm going to tell you something. It's the biggest God moment I've ever experienced in my life. On October the 12th of 2009, um I was 14 15 days sober off this relapse and um my parents show up at the halfway house and I'm a little confused.
One, they're not supposed to show up and two um they were supposed to show up two days before that. Um and uh and they come up and I have a little brother. Uh and um my little brother uh is very much like me.
Always wanted to be like me. In the end, we started running and gunning together. Um and uh what he did to solve his problems was he'd go overseas.
He joined the army. So what happened is every time he get arrested or get a felony DUI, he'd enlist again or reinlist to go back over there again. He did three tours overseas.
two of which he did in Afghanistan and Iraq and one of which he did in Germany and Kuwait. Um, and my parents show up at the halfway house. And you know, there's some moments you just go into and you look up and you just know something's not okay.
I knew it wasn't okay. And and I and I got real nervous like the butterflies inside and I wanted to keep talking real fast and I wanted, you know, I just didn't want them to talk because I knew as soon as they talked something bad was coming out. And what they what they told me was that my brother had gone to sleep and he had not woken up.
And you know that confused me. Um it confused me because my brother didn't go to the depths that I went to. You know um my brother didn't do a lot of things that I did.
Now he did a lot, don't get me wrong. He just didn't do a lot of things I do. And um and you know who's ever ready for that?
You know, no one's ever ready for that. And especially me at 14 days and crazy. I wasn't ready for it.
So my parents the the trick of it was though is that they drove up there. They drove all the way from Auburn to Birmingham to tell me this because they were afraid I would go out and do the same thing when I found out. So they drove to Birmingham after finding their son dead to tell their other son what had happened because they didn't want to find him dead, too.
And that kind of breaks all those boundaries about us not affecting other people with our actions. It kind of breaks down that barrier that we have that says, "I'm just hurting myself." Because here are two people who their second child, they've just let the corner take them away and they're going to drive 2 hours to make sure that their other son doesn't do the same thing. And I felt very small.
And I let them leave and I went into my apartment in the halfway house and I hit my knees. And for the second time in my life, I prayed an honest prayer. And the prayer was simply, "Help me, God.
I don't know what you want me to do with this." And he did. I went home two days later. Um, I wrote the eulogy for my brother's funeral, which I keep in my big book.
Um, I uh got to experience that time with my family. I got to be there for my mom and for my dad, for my little sister. I got to see the people that I had run with who who were friends of his also who came to the funeral and I got to do it sober and that was big for me.
Um I don't I I think that in in all honesty experience-wise that's the most powerful experience I've had in recovery so far is that moment because here I am. I can't stop drinking and using. And if you're gonna use over something, what's better to use over than someone in your family dying, right?
Some big tragedy happened in your life. Um, or at least that's how I would have taken it before. And yet, by simply asking for help, I was able to get through the situation and not only get through it, but be useful to the people around me.
Um, it's a big that's a big deal for me. Um, I would love to tell you that that was enough to keep me sober and it wasn't. Um, I did a very thorough forstep.
I had a good sponsor. I had the sponsor I needed at the time, a sponsor that was going to lead me to that relationship I needed with a higher power to help me feel okay. Because when I don't drink and use, I feel worse than I do in the end when I was drinking and using.
I get restless, irritable, discontent. Life starts getting too hard. my emotions get on me and all of a sudden drinking seems like a good idea again out of nowhere.
And the most insane act I will ever commit is taking a drink because I'm sober when I do it and I know what's going to happen when I do it. Um, I worked a thorough fourth step, fifth step. I did six and seven fairly well.
Um, you know, who's to say how well you do six and seven? I don't really know. Um, I don't think I figured that one out yet.
Um, I made a great list and I began making my amends and I got about five or six of them in and I just stopped. You know, I'd gotten some of the promises coming true in my life and I got to feeling good again and that was enough. Or so I thought.
And the time came when life became too hard. and because you had a girlfriend and I didn't or because you had the job and I didn't or because you had the money and I didn't and I started judging myself by where y'all are at and it's a terrible place to be because I can never judge myself by where anybody else is at but me and um and it got really bad and I started desperately seeking ways to feel better and I did that through the female species and I went to female after female after female until I found one that would have me And the one that would have happened just happened to be really sick and me being restless irritable in discontent and her being really sick back in it again. Um I thought I could do it just once.
This is what my thought process was. I thought I could just take one and I wouldn't have to tell anybody. you know, I had a sponsor I was working with, you know, had like, you know, about seven coming up on seven months sober, you know, and um I thought I could just take one and I'll just I'll just jump back in the next day and it'll be okay.
Well, I forget that when I start, I can't stop and and then once I put it in, that obsession is so strong. It's just that drive and that compulsion to use and drink is so strong. Um, I uh somehow managed to ask for help.
Um, got sent back to treatment. They allowed me to come back for free for 7 days. Apparently, there's some clause in my insurance that allowed that to happen.
Um, and uh, I got out and I used I went right I went right back to that girl because it was my birthday. I woke up in treatment on my 30th birthday and uh, that was the last day there and that was April 18th, 2010. woke up in treatment and I got out and the only thing I could think about was going and meeting that girl so I could get me some, you know, and uh and I did.
I met her and I got me some and the next day I got drunk again. And um and somewhere in there I broke because I've been trying to force my will on every situation. I had to have what I wanted.
I had to do it my way. I had to have things the way I wanted to have them. And what had happened was is that I had I had basically accepted that alcohol and me weren't going to work together.
But I hadn't accepted that my life was unmanageable. Even though I had come from homeless and come from halfway house and done all the, you know, been all these places, I hadn't accepted that I wasn't doing a good job of handling things. And um something broke.
Um I drove myself down to Auburn to a treatment facility down there. I spent about four I'm going to say I spent about 10 days in there before I went completely insane. Um just I was so angry just so angry that I had lost this contact that I'd had that I had that I had because I wanted to blame myself for drinking and using you know which it was my fault but the truth is is that I'm an alcoholic and if I don't do the things that are asked of me that's what I do.
I drink. Um if I don't work the steps if I don't pray and meditate if I don't go to meetings if I don't read my big book if I don't do these simple things on a daily basis I drink. That's where I'm going to go.
That is an accepted fact for me today is that I will drink again unless and so I got really angry and I went home and I I kept swearing I wasn't going to pray. But the thing is just by swearing I wasn't going to pray. I was accepting the fact there's a higher power out there.
I was just angry and um I you know I gathered my things together and I went back to Birmingham and I dove into the steps with my sponsor and I mean dove in head first. I mean hardcore dove in um I think and this is important for me to say that it is very important for me to be able to relate to what's in this book to identify and something I hadn't done before was read the first four chapters including the doctor's opinion and look at how I identified with it not looking at the fact that I'm not a New York stock broker and it's not 1939 and it's you know I'm not an old white man and who knows about this and da da da da da none of that stuff. It's important that I identify with it because if I can't identify with what's in the book, how am I going to receive the solution that comes as a result of what they're telling me.
So, I identified with the book. Um, I accepted wholeheartedly the first step, which I think is what it means to surrender. If I accept that I'm doomed, that I can either go on drinking and blot out, you know, my intolerable existence to the best of my ability or accept spiritual health.
Those are my two options. You know, that's how it is for me today. Um, and and I accepted the first step and that made it real easy to accept the second step because if I'm doomed, my god, there better be something out there that can help me.
and I had already experienced twinges of it. So, it was easier for me to approach. Uh the third step was the part that I guess I kind of fumbled a lot, you know.
Um it's only a decision, but it's a decision I can always take back just because I decide and get down on my knees and pray in the third step with my sponsor that that God can have me and he can lead me and he can guide me and he can work through me to show everybody else what he's capable of. I can always stop doing those things because it's only a decision. And uh my sponsor had me write my own third step prayer.
It talks about it in the book. You know, the wording was quite optional. Um and it helped me develop a relationship with this guy.
And um I did a thorough fourth step and I did it real I I looked at the the third and the fourth columns a lot more than I had before. Before it was about me just getting off the stuff that I had done wrong and all the terrible things that had happened in my life and and how I was a terrible person and all this self-pity and self-loathing and blah blah blah self and um and this time I looked at why I had the resentments and what parts of me were affected by it. You know, why is it that I react the way I do in situations when people say things to me or when people do these things?
Why is it that I react that way? How do I react as a result of things that happened to me in my life that maybe weren't my fault? I took that what happened to me when I was 11 and I ran with it as long as I possibly could and use it as an excuse to do the things I did.
You know, well, you would do it, too, if this happened to you. I have a right to drink. I don't have that luxury anymore.
I don't have the right to be angry. I don't have the right to drink, you know. Um, and I really looked at the fourth and fifth fourth the third and fourth column of that inventory.
You know, what was my part? How is it that I'm acting that's not okay? You know, because what I what I try to do on a daily basis is be the best man that I can be now.
I fall short a lot. I do. It happens.
Um, but I try and then when I make a mistake, I get back up and I try again. Um, I want to tell you a couple of stories about recovery and about what you guys have done for me. Um, when I walked into the rooms to my first meeting, um, outside of treatment, um, completely off all substances, I walked into a room and I sat down and I was shaking and I shook pretty heavily throughout the whole meeting.
And uh I showed so bad that the two girls sitting next to me got up and left the meeting. And when the meeting was over and I don't know what the topic was. Um I'm I know I spoke.
I don't know why I spoke or what I said. I was really scared and I was really afraid that I was never going to be okay with who I was. I know that.
And uh I got up and I got to go I went to go pick up my newcomer chip, my my 24-hour chip, my, you know, surrender chip, start a restart, this way of life chip, whatever you want to call it. And the guy, big burly biker, not real tall, but big and burly. Um was handing out chips that night.
And when I walked up, I guess what I had said had struck a cord with him cuz he gave me a big old hug and he said, "It's okay. We'll love you and say you can love yourself." And from that point forward, I knew I belonged in these rooms. I didn't identify with all you at first, but I knew that somebody in here understood maybe just a twinkling of how I felt.
And that's the hope that I needed to stay here. Um I uh I made a very thorough eightstep list. Um and amends are probably for and in my opinion amends are the coolest part of this program.
They are where I get the most results. Um, through action and through daily repetition, I get a lot of results from this program. But from making these amends, I get free, completely and totally free.
Um, I uh I one of my last jobs I had I I had borrowed $100 from my boss um to do what I do with $100. And um and then I had quit the job. Well, um, not that this is the biggest amend, but um, I was really worried about going back to see him and I made sure I had my $100 on me and you know, I was ready and called in advance to make sure I made an appointment so he was good to go.
You know, set everything up, talk to my sponsor and um, you know, had my little I have note cards for all my men. I make them out and then I organize them based on if I know where they're at, if I know the phone number, if I know the address, if I know where they're located, so on so forth. And I have them in my car and I keep a couple of them in my dashboard so I'm always reminded that I got more to go that I need to keep moving forward because I told y'all I stopped in the middle of my men's last time.
What happened? I got drunk. So I go to meet this guy and I get it set up and I'm walking around the store and I'm I'm really nervous because I'm I'm afraid to see all the people that I used to work with because I I walked out on them too, you know?
I mean, I just, you know, just boom, didn't show up for work anymore. And um and I like I said, I'd been the assistant department manager. So it wasn't like I'd you know, just random, you know.
Um, I went back in to make amends to him and I sat down and I and I, you know, gave gave my um I gave my pitch but with heart, which is what I do in any amends. I have I have the basic thing that I say like I'm working the 12 steps of alcohol synonymous. Um, I have no hope of staying sober unless I can write these wrongs in my life.
And then I be hon then I'm honest with them on a personto person basis which is when I did this to you, it was wrong. It was dishonest, selfish. um inconsiderate, fearful, you know, and I want to know what I can do to make it right.
I never say I'm sorry. Um because I said I'm sorry plenty. It's what can I do to write the wrong?
And uh and he sat down and he and he said and I started to hand him $100. He said, "Stop." and he sat me back down in my seat and he said, "Look, um, he said, "I want you to know that you coming in here and doing this means a lot to me and that I'm just happy to see you in the state that you're in now versus the state you were in when you left." He said, "I don't want your money." Um, he actually offered me a job. Now, I didn't take the job.
I was living in another city. But it was it was amazing to me that this person because I had always looked at the world as as all the negatives in everybody else. You know, I'd always seen the myself and everyone, you know, out for myself.
Get what you can get. Ain't nobody really nice. They're just putting on a show.
You know, that's what I had believed. This man showed me that there were people in the world who really did care. He goes, "Look, your name is on a plaque downstairs as winning I wanted some employee of the quarter or something like that." He said, "You know, you were good.
You just these things happened, you know, and and um and he, you know, he thanked me for my time and he thanked me for coming and he said, "If I never see you again, I'm happy to know that this was the last time I saw you." Um, that was a big deal to me. Um, now I uh I rob my grandmother blind. Um, and I'm to this day paying for it.
I I I make I make a portion of my paycheck and I give it to her every week. Um, it's the only financial amend that my family has asked me to pay. And it's a large sum of money.
They they said, "We don't want the rest of your money, but we want you to pay your grandmother back." And I will. I'll pay it back until I'm done. Um, another random men story I'll make is, um, while I was in New Orleans, I lived with a guy and I had borrowed a bunch of money from him, uh, to pay my rent and then dipped out, never came back.
So, um, this gentleman, I didn't know how to find him. It'd been 5 years, you know, all these things. And the weird thing about this program is that when I'm ready and I'm willing to make these amends, it seems like they just sort of surface and find me.
It's not so much about me finding them as it is they just come to me. Um, and I and through random occurrence, I was able to find this gentleman and I sent him his money and he did the same thing the other guy did. He thanked me for paying him the money that I owed him, you know.
Um, and he said, uh, you know, he said some really nice things. Um, and he said, I didn't think you'd ever pay me back. He said, you were scot-free.
Why'd you send me the money? You know, where how was I going to find you? You know, or how was I going to prove that you owed it to me?
Um, I want to express something because it's important. It's for important for me to express to you that I am not the person I just told you about. I am not the guy who did all those things before I worked these steps.
I'm completely changed. Um, I uh I think the most important thing I've done in recovery is reestablish aside from the relationship I've established with a God that I experience today. may not be the God that you experienced, but it's, you know, the one that that keeps me sober um is reestablishing that relationship with my little boy.
Now, he is um disabled as a result of the seizures, but he's the happiest kid you'll ever meet. And uh as a result of working this program, I get to spend time with my kid today and spend time where I'm just focusing on him and not thinking about everything else. Um I get to experience peace today.
I didn't know it was possible. I have moments in time where my head doesn't talk to me. Um, I get to experience a lot of stuff today that's pretty cool.
Um, when I started really practicing step 10, which is I like to call it my walking around step. Um, I uh when something comes up that that troubles me, when something arises that's that's uh that's troubling in my life, I stop. I step back, you know, I I check check my you what what's disturbing me?
what part of self is affected, you know, uh do I owe someone an amends? And believe me, I've made a lot of amends on the spot to people that I've said harsh things to and or done harsh things to. Um step 11 is where I'm still working.
U meditation is a strange art. Um it's different for everybody. Um what I have found is that what I'm really trying to achieve in my own meditation is that I'm trying to hear what God has to say.
Because if I'm doing nothing but talking to God, I never listen for the answers that he's given me. So meditation and prayer for me are praying. I'm telling I'm asking God for his will to be done in my life, for knowledge of his will and the power to carry that out.
And in meditation, I'm listening for him to tell me what his will is. And sometimes I hear things that he I think are his will. And like the book says, I'm foolishly thinking that and I make a lot of mistakes.
But a lot of times I get inspiration in times when I really need it. and I get to end up places that I need to end up and do things that I need to do. And uh and it's led me a lot of cool places.
I have a job today that I love. I never thought that'd be possible. I'm satisfied with it.
I'm a good employee. I'm a good father. I'm starting to be a good son to my family.
Um I'm just it's getting better. And then the coolest part of this whole experience for me is that now being saved from that life that I told you about, being saved from that hopelessness and that desperation, I get to go and try to help somebody else come out of the same thing. I know a lot of people who come into here, me and Jim were talking about it before the meeting, who come in and they get better and they go back out and they disappear.
You know, I got my life back. I'm going to go back to doing what I'm doing. And what the book tells us is that nothing so much concerns immunity from alcohol as intent to work with other alcoholics.
And what it also goes on to say later is that nothing will be a brighter spot in your life. You know, by working with guys that I work with, I get to see what it's like to be back at the beginning because I forget and I get to help somebody else climb out of the gutter and experience this wonderful thing that I've experienced. Um, you know, I I can't explain the the change.
I can't explain it. I can I can feel it. I know that there is happiness and satisfaction I have in my life today that I've never experienced before, ever.
And to not want to give that to somebody else, I don't understand. Um, I get to come in here and use my brother's story, my experiences, all these negatives that have happened in my life and use them as positives. I get to use my brother's story as a force to help somebody else avoid the same situation.
I get to use my downfall as a force to let someone else know that they don't have to go through the same thing or if they have gone through it to know that somebody else has gone through it, too. It was important to me when I came in here to be able to relate to other people and to know that somebody else felt the way I felt. And today my purpose is laid out in the 12th step.
It says uh says anonymity I'm sorry says having had a spiritual awakening as the result sorry as the result um of these uh steps we try to carry this message to other alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. That's my purpose today. My purpose is to carry this message and to carry what I'm learning in here and the experiences I have out into the world with me.
It's my purpose. Um, I never had a purpose before. I have a purpose now.
So hopefully I'll continue to do this and I'll continue to accept when people ask me to take part in my recovery and I'll continue to give when people need it to be given. And I'll continue to care when no one else is caring. And uh, thanks for letting me share my story with you.
Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message. Until next time, have a great day.