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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. Can >> y'all see me? >> All right.

>> Oh, yeah. >> All right. My name is Casey Reed.

I'm a recovered alcoholic. >> And I never thought that. Oh, yeah.

Here we go. I never thought that I sound southern till I came up here. I had people in Texas tell me all the time, "Well, you don't sound like you're from the South." >> Oh, no.

>> I came up here and and I was I stopped mid-sentence was like, "Oh my god, I sound like I'm from Texas." >> Italian. And I came I saw the t-shirts, the wicked soba t-shirts, and I was like, "What the hell does that mean?" >> Down south, we just say sober. >> Okay.

>> All right. So, my sober date, my sobriety date is May 31st of 2003. I got sober when I was 16.

And my first drink didn't do, you know, I remember when I felt the magic. It wasn't the first drink, but I remember specifically when I felt the magic. But even before I felt the magic, I still drank like an idiot.

I mean, I still even before I took a drink, I just had this notion it was going to be something good. And I went to this party when I was in high school and I had a a clear Diet Dr. Pepper bottle of tequila that I had stolen from my dad's liquor cabinet and um and I remember looking at the girl next to me in the bathroom.

See, I went to the bathroom to drink, which started an entire like this kind of pattern of showing up at places going into the bathroom and drinking. Like, I never quite wrapped my head around the people that stood around the keg with the red cups and just kind of sipped on their alcohol cuz I was drunk before I got to the party. And if I wasn't, the first question was, "May I use your restroom?" And then I went and took shots out of your little Dixie cups.

Y'all know what Dixie Cups are, right? Okay. And um well, who knows?

Yankee cups, right? And um and I just drank by myself and I looked at this girl and I said, "How much of this do I need to drink to get drunk?" That's all I want to know. And um you know that night was I mean it felt a little different but I specifically remember when the magic happened and I was um about a month in and I was sitting in my house with my best friend at the time who was far advanced in her um alcohol and chemical career than I was which made her super cool to me.

And um we were not sober at the moment and she looked at me and she said, "I have to show you something. I think you're ready." I got all excited and she walked over to the stereo and opened it up and put a CD in and slid it in and turned on waiting for my Ruka by Sublime. And all of a sudden, I felt like my heart was was moving to the beat.

And I thought, "Oh my god, this is amazing." And it was the most amazing thing I'd ever experienced. And that's when the magic happened because all this and she looked at me and she was like, "Yeah, we were kind of stoners, too." And um really >> I remember thinking that I had discovered this whole new world. Like she had just given me permission to enter this new world that I never knew existed.

But I must have been looking for it my whole life because something writed right then that had been wrong for a very long time. And um like most alcoholics, I grew up feeling like I wasn't a part of. I'm not good enough.

I'm not tall enough. I'm not skinny enough. I'm not tan enough.

I'm not blonde enough. Whatever. Well, in the south, not tan enough.

I'm not blonde enough. You know, whatever it is that you have, I'm not enough of it. And if I was enough of it, I wouldn't feel the way I feel.

And the thing is is that I never I always was in the middle of everything. I had tons of friends. I was very popular.

I was popular with the popular kids. I was popular with the jocks. I was popular with the geeks.

I was popular with everybody. But I still never felt good enough. And so I like have this awful cough which is just wonderful.

And so something rided right then when that magic happened and it was like I had found my niche in society. For the first time I found something that I was good enough at that I had a personality in that I had an individuality in that for the first time and and it just it did things for me nothing ever did. I remember you know when when Bill's story says I had arrived that was one of the first things I think I circled in my big book.

I had arrived because I specifically remember I I think this only happened in my mind, but I specifically remember showing up to a party and opening the door and walking in. And I specifically remember everybody in that party turning their head, looking at me and going, "KC's here." And it rippled throughout the whole house. Casey's here.

Casey's here. Casey's here. And everyone was so happy to see him.

AND IT WAS LIKE, HEY, KC'S HERE. and and um did that ever happen to anybody else when they went into parties? YEAH.

>> I swear that's how I felt. And I and not even felt like that's literally what I thought happened. I specifically remember everyone looking at the DOOR AND GOING, "YAY!" WHEN I walked in.

And um to me that was Casey's here. Um, so I had been drinking for about two months before I was introduced to what the big book refers to as pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization. Um, quickly became my mo is just I want to get drunk and I want to get drunk fast.

And I knew nothing about alcohol at this age. And so I remember just asking my friend to get me some and she said, "Well, what do you want?" I said, "Well, whatever will get me the drunkest the quickest." She's like, "I'll get you some Everclear." All right. So, I get myself this bottle of Everclear and it's New Year's Eve and I go to the bathroom and I start taking straight shots of Everclear and feel like I'm drinking rubbing alcohol and when I'm good and liquored up, I come out of the bathroom.

Um, and I just I just commenceed to make a complete and utter fool of myself. And this happened every time I drank. I mean, I never had like the moment when I started being an idiot.

I was an idiot every time I drank, falling down, screaming, doing things that I wish I hadn't in the morning, making a complete and total fool of myself. And um I remember waking up, well, I got caught that night and I I remember going home and I'm I'm sitting at the table um and I I found something out that night that that served me well, which is if you act really angry, you appear more sober. Um, so I just started screaming about how it wasn't mine and this is this is BS and I can't believe somebody put that in my bag and d because if I just get angry enough cuz you look irrational when you're angry anyways.

I was afraid if I tried to sit there I'd be like so I just tried to make lots of big movements and then storm off to my room. And um I hated the way it felt to be drunk a lot. I hated the way the room spun.

I hated the way I just whenever it was like when I was sober, I just wanted to get drunk. And when I was drunk, I just wanted to sober up. And I remember taking lots of showers because for some reason, I thought that a shower would sober me up.

So, I remember being in the shower drunk at 3:00 a.m. and you just start crying for no reason. It's just weird.

And so, um, I remember waking up in the morning and and when I read that part of the big book that said pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization, I knew exactly what it meant. The big book speaks my language because the only way to describe that is when you wake up the morning after and all you can think is this. There's not even any words for it.

You just you put your head in your hands and you go, "Oh my god." And you just there's no words for it. You put your head in your hands and you think and and I remember the feeling of gratitude I felt that it was Christmas break and I wouldn't have to face anybody for at least a week. Um so I kept drinking.

I mean that was a great experience. So I kept drinking. Um I got involved in a lot of outside issues if you catch my drift.

um badly and and hardcore and they brought me to my knees and stuff. I don't talk about them from the podium, but they are a part of my story, so I just mention them. Um I went to an all girls private Catholic school in Dallas, Texas.

Um I can tell you why girls in plaid skirts and bows like people in all black. Yeah. Um, so this this school and I just became angry like I I just became so angry at everything.

I hated everything. And so I'm drinking and I drink a lot. And this thing happens when I drink, which is I can't seem to get drunk enough.

No matter how much I drink, I can't seem to get drunk enough. And I drink and I drink and I drink and I tell myself the next drink and I'll be drunk enough. The next drink and I'll be drunk enough.

And I drink that one. and then I say the next drink and I'll be drunk enough and I do that till I black out. And um so that's how I drink and it starts to cause all these problems and I eventually end up getting kicked out of this private school because I threatened to burn it down.

Um well actually I was suspended pending a psychiatric review for something else that is not which is a great story but I I can't tell it from up here. And um I was so mad about that that I walked back to religion class and wrote, "I hope Ursulin burns to the ground up" up on the blackboard. Um and apparently that's a threat these days.

So they called me on my suspension and said, "You can just not come back. That'd be great." Um so I um I had been to Catholic school all my life and I thought I was a badass personally. Um, I suspected I was brilliant and I suspected that I was probably a badass and um, so I went to public school and uh, I don't know how public school is up here, but there's a little thing we call DISD in Dallas.

It's probably the worst school system you've ever seen in your life. Um, and I remember walking in there and having the most complete culture shock of my life. Um, and it was like putting jetpacks on the back of the progression of my disease because all of a sudden I realized, hey, nobody notices when you're not in school here.

And um, so things progressively get worse to the to this point where I start skipping school to go get hammered. And um, and it, you know, if you skip too much school, you're truent. And if you're truent, your parents find out and then the hits the fan.

And I just couldn't have that happen because if if if it hit the fan, they were going to stop my drinking and I couldn't let that happen. So I I I'm freaking out every day about I'm like I've got I'm balancing like I can't I can't do my homework, but I have balanced how many absences I have, how many fake notes from the doctor I can steal, and exactly how many absences I have left. So I'm doing that.

And um I would wake up every day and say, "Okay, I have to go to school today. I have to go to all my classes today because if I don't I'm going to be truent. My mom's going to find out.

She's going to send me away. It's not going to be good. I I have to go to all my classes today.

And I couldn't make it. I could not make it through eight hours of school without leaving. And I didn't have a car cuz I was too drunk to ever get a license.

So, um I had a friend that had a car and I would say every day, "I'm not going to leave school today." And and I would I would plan out trips. And see, I thought I was nuts because I didn't realize it had anything to do with drinking. I just thought that for some reason I couldn't control my physical behavior.

I was like, I don't know why I can't stay in school. So, I would plan I knew the way she took from class to class and I would purposefully take a different route because I knew if I ran into her, if I saw her, if she even if the thought even entered my mind that I should leave school and get hammered right now, I was going whether I wanted to or not. And so I would see her and and I would be like, "Oh man." So we'd walk together and I'd say, "You know, we really got to stop skipping school." And she'd say, 'Yeah, I know.

We really got to stop skipping school. And I'd be like, "I'm going to get in trouble. I'm going to get in trouble." And this conversation would continue as we hit the crash bar to go outside and get in the car.

Um because it was it was just that nuts. And so and I had the same problem with sneaking out of my house at night. I couldn't figure out why I couldn't stay in my house because the moment and I had this I was such a maggyver man.

I had like I didn't want the phone to ring. So I would like go back to the computer room and like mess with the wires in the back of the computer and plug a phone line that I had hidden in the part of the house in the back of the the internet line. So and then I would hold a pillow over it so when it would ring I could answer it >> and um people would be like let's go let's go out tonight.

And then the same convers I can't really go. Okay. And um I would I for a while I just walked out the front door, then I walked out the back door, and then I started using the windows and whatnot.

And um every night I would say, "I can't do this again tonight. I can't do this." Um and every night I would. And so um came time when um I got caught one night.

Well, I went out and and um I got caught and then I had all these consequences. And I was always a fan at 16 of thinking that um the consequences were the reason I was so miserable, right? If I could just quit sneaking out and quit getting caught, I wouldn't be so miserable.

If they would just get off my back, I wouldn't be so miserable. So I come home and I'm caught or whatever. So I'm like, "Okay, now I really can't sneak out." And they ask me, "How are you getting out of the house?

I mean, how are you getting out of the house?" And like a good alcoholic, I lie. And here's the thing, looking back, this is how I knew when it came time that I realized I had lost control. Because at this point, I'm like, you know, the way I get out of my house is I I crawl out the window, I walk down the street, a friend picks me up, we go get hammered.

Now, when I'm asked how this is happening and what's going on, I said, "Well, I walk out the back door. Uh, I walk down the alley, just kind of walk around the neighborhood for a while." I mean, that's my story, right? So, we probably get an alarm system on our house to keep me in.

And um but they don't put one on the windows. So, I start going out the windows. Whatever.

That's why I didn't tell them I went out the windows. And so, I keep doing this. And and it got to the point where I'm thinking in my head, I don't want to do this.

I don't want to do this. I really don't want to do this. And I'm thinking this as I'm scaling down the walls of my house.

As I'm getting in the car, as I'm sitting in a rave, as some weird dude is giving me a back massage, I'm like, I don't want to be here. I don't want you to touch me. I want to go home.

It's cold. I hate raves. We are in the middle of a of a field in Texas and I want to go home.

But I would do it. I mean, it was like a prisoner walking to the execution booth. You know what I mean?

just resigned the fact it was going to happen. And so at I I had this um I got really heavily involved in some outside issues that I told myself was only going to be a spring break thing. And then spring break turned in three month uh three weeks.

And um I had this thought, you know what, I'm going to leave my house tonight. Just this once, right? Just this once.

I won't do it after this. It'll be fine. So I go and in the interim, the cops get involved and I run and I hide.

And have you ever tried to have you ever lay I was laying down on some dead leaves in a bush and I remember trying not to breathe because I felt like my heartbeat was causing the leaves to crinkle. My heart's moving and I'm like, "Stop my heart. Stop my heart.

Stop my heart." So I don't get caught by the police and they send my friends home. But the problem was the house I was hiding in the backyard of was like a friend of mine's. Her grandmother catches me and I cry.

Like I always cry cuz I'm a girl and I just start the waterworks and say, "Please, I've never done anything like this before." It's the whole It's the same thing every time. I've never done anything like this before. It's so and so.

And I just um and so she's like, "Okay, well I I don't know if I'm going to tell your parents or not." So I go home that night and see I've already been told if this happens one more time, your life is over. >> And um I'll never forget this. My mom walked in on me and I was in the bathroom and I was crying on the floor.

She said, "What's wrong?" And I don't You know, sometimes you say some things and you look back and you're like, why did I say that? But it's almost like it's almost like God allowed you to speak what was in your heart even though you don't have the capacity to. It's it's kind of like talking about saying, "I need help." And then be like, "Wait, wait, wait.

I don't know why I just said that. Take back. Never mind." She walks in and she's like, "What's wrong?" And I start crying.

I tell her, I said, "I I snuck out last night." And I said to her, you know, I know I don't like the consequences of my actions, but it's like I forget how bad it sucks to suffer the consequences when I go to make the decision to do the action. And my mom eyes got real big and she backed up. And it was that moment she occurred to her there was like an addiction problem cuz I think they just thought I was sneaking out of the house and hanging out.

And I'll never forget this was the turning point because I looked at her and I said, "I think we need to put an alarm on the windows." Which is funny, but when you think about it, that's the moment when I when I said to myself, I can't stop. I can't stop doing what I'm doing. And I keep telling myself I have control over and I can stop when I want.

And you know, I'll curve it before it gets me in real bad trouble. And I flat out told her, I was like, "I'm not going to be able to stay inside the house. You're going to have to put locks on the windows." And so they do that and um everything's fine and until I get drug tested and then everything is not fine and that's when I go into my first rehab and it was a 7-day detox program and I was nuts.

Oh my goodness, I was crazy. Um, like I remember sitting in here and and um I remember specifically, you know how they do body checks, like when you go into a psych ward, they have to look at like every inch of your body or whatever looking for scars and stuff. And so I remember standing there and having this moment and it's like you're just standing there, there's nothing but I used to wear like all this hemp jewelry.

And so I'm standing there and this woman's looking at me and I've never felt so humiliated in my life. And she's looking at the bruises on my body. And she's looking at how I don't have enough weight on me.

And she's looking at the scars on my wrist. And she's looking at me because I had recently locked all my hair off in a moment of thinking that I was going to shed some emotional baggage by cutting my hair. Um or no, that wasn't until later, but I did do that.

Um and I remember just having this moment and I just started crying. And um so I go in this place and like at one point we were we were only allowed to use pencils like these big charcoal pencils. And um this one this one girl was complaining about how like she can't turn in her homework if she doesn't do it in pen.

She just she can't. And the and the the big old nurse is like well honey >> you can't have a pen. And um I don't know why but I just snapped.

And I looked at this nur nurse and I WAS LIKE THAT'S NOT HOW YOU treat sick people. And I just started screaming and crying and freaking out. And they were like, "Go to the bathroom and clean yourself up." So I went to the bathroom and I just could not something snapped and I could not stop crying.

And so then they sent me to the quiet room and I went and laid on that little like cot well the one room with the window and the camera and and I just cried and shook. Um, and so I get out of there and um, I remember having this moment. Um, I forget if it was after this or before this.

See, I didn't believe in God. I went to Catholic school for 11 years and then got kicked out. So, I had a big problem with any sort of idea of God because the way I looked at it is um, God's a goody two shoes and he wants to give me a bunch of arbitrary rules so I don't ever have fun.

So, um, I'm just not going to believe in God because that's stupid. And um it's stupid. Um and I remember having this night when something happened and I was laying on my floor and I had another one of those breaks, you know, you just break, start sobbing.

And I was laying on my floor and I just remember being in so much immense emotional pain and um I was crying and laying on in like in the back corner of my office of the office in the fetal position. And I remember saying I specifically remember saying, "God, I don't think you exist, but you've got to help me." And so, um, can't stay sober, not even for a day, not even for eight hours to go to school. And things are just falling apart around me.

My body's falling apart. Things are falling apart. And um um April 10th of 2003, I woke up in the morning and it was supposed to be my first day back to school and I get a phone call at 6:00 a.m.

and it's my boyfriend at the time. And um this was, you know, the one, right? You always find the one when you're sick.

Um, and he says, "Casey, I'm on an airplane and I'm going to Utah and I don't know when I'm coming back. Some men in handcuffs woke me up this morning and told me I was going away and I lost it. My life was over at that point because that was that relationship was the only thing keeping me sane at that moment because I'd already been informed that I could I had I had to get sober.

I mean, I'd been put in rehab. I'm out. I have to go to 90 meetings in 90 days.

Um, and now I don't have a boyfriend. And there were multiple times during that day I would be walking to school and I just fall. Like I would just fall on the ground and start sobbing.

And so I go to my first AA meeting and I walk in and I felt like I had walked into a scene from the from Fight Club where he goes to all those like support meetings. It's dank. The walls are yellow.

There's old men there. And I sat down and I just started balling because I had this whole plan for my life worked out. You don't understand.

I thought everything was fine. As soon as I get old enough and people get off my back, it'll get better. I'll move to California.

I'll open up a head shop. I'll live on the beach and life will be great. And at that moment, and I felt like looking at my life was like looking down a long hallway, you know?

I kind of had a plan and I was okay with that plan and that plan kept me sane. And sitting in that AA meeting having to wrap my head around the fact of of waking up and having to be sober tomorrow, I felt like all of a sudden that hallway became a brick wall 3 inches from my face. And that's the only way I know how to describe it because I I remember thinking, you don't understand that I can't do this.

And that's all I could say. I couldn't explain anything else that I felt inside of me except no, you don't understand that I can't do this. I can't wrap my head around this.

I can't do this. And that's a hard place to be. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

That just I can't. No, you don't understand that I can't do this. But at the same time, you have to do this.

And um this guy pulled me out, this guy that I went to school with pulled me out and he took me out in the hallway because I was crying and he said, you know, he just kind of looked at me and I go, "What am I supposed to do when I'm sober?" He looked at me, bless his heart, and said, "I mean, it's uh it's kind of boring. We played video games and I just like like I just lost it." So, um, I got sober. Um, and, um, I had a new plan.

New plan. I'm going to stay sober till I get out of college. I'm a sophomore at this time.

And then I'll then I can do whatever I want. Fine. I'll stay sober for the next two and a half years and I'll do whatever I want.

Lasted a month. Um, and see what happened was when I was in treatment, I honestly didn't think that my drinking had anything to do with how much my life sucked. And when I was in treatment, they cleared my head enough for me to be able to piece together some things um, some things.

And um, I pieced together, I can't stay in my house at night. And then they, well, what do you do when you go out? You get hammered.

And I was like, "Oh, so maybe it's not that I can't not sneak out. Maybe it's I can't not get hammered." You know, same thing with leaving school and same thing with, "Wow, every time my friends pick me up and we don't get hammered, I get pissed cuz that was just how that's just what happened. I mean, you just assume that's what we were going to do." And so, I made some connections and I thought, "Okay, well, here's what I'm going to do since I don't want my life to suck." I've tried I've made a logical flowchart of when I do this, this happens and I don't like it.

And so I'm not going to do this. And um I'm like, "All right, you know what? I'm not going to drink.

I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to sneak out. I'm not going to skip school.

And I'm not I'm not going to lie about where I am." Good plan. Because then if I stop doing those things, I won't have consequences and life will get better, right? I mean, that makes perfect logical sense.

So, I um I do that. And the thing is is that I thought when you get sober things were supposed to get better. >> Things got worse.

A lot worse. I've never been so miserable in my entire life as going to a meeting every day and wanting to do nothing but drink. And u I have no clue what any of these people are saying have has anything to do with me.

And they told me get a sponsor. I was like I just kind of was like, "All right." And I remember I was sitting with these two ladies and I was like, "Hey, will one of y'all be my sponsor?" And they go, "Oh, um, well, let us give you our number." So, I never called them cuz I never cared anyways. Um, and I was just miserable.

That was the most miserable month of my life is that month at 16 when I was sober. And so, I thought, well, screw this. if this is sobbriety, I'm getting drunk.

And so I lasted a month and um then it was and then I had a really good reason though. I had a really good reason uh for breaking my month of sobriety and that was it was my best friend's birthday and you just needed to celebrate on your best friend's birthday. And so, um, we got a bottle of wine and I went to this hotel room and I had every intention of going home on time and not lying about where I was and and I started to drink and it's like all the other resolutions just go out the window because before I know it that that feeling starts to hit me and all I can think is this is good.

I need to amplify this by about a thousand. And so I'm drinking and I'm drinking and all of a sudden time comes and goes when I'm supposed to leave and my ride's like, "You ready to go?" And I'm like, "Uh-uh, see you. I will find a ride home." So they leave and um I call my mom and I'm I'm sitting on the phone with her and and it's raining real hard and I'm like, "Listen, mom, I'm on my way home, but there's this huge storm and I really want to be safe." And she's like, "Where are you?" And I'm like, "I'm pulled over at a Applebee's." I look across the street and uh we we'll come home as soon as it lets up.

Well, okay honey, you just be careful. And I remember sitting on the phone looking out at this storm and I had this thought and it was a casual thought and the thought was, "Didn't I say I wasn't going to do this anymore? Didn't I say I was done with this?" And I remember just being amazed for a moment at the fact that here I was again so quickly that there was no premeditation.

There was no thought. There was no It just happened. And I thought that's funny.

It didn't really mean much to me at the time. It was just a thought that I had. So I proceeded to get drunk and and then I just started to get real drunk all the time.

And um and then a month, two months after that, so I got drunk for a month and then I got sent to my second rehab. Here's the thing about my second rehab. Um, I knew that if I got caught again, I was going to like residential long-term, right?

Anybody's parents ever threaten that? I am sending you away if you get caught again. So, I do it again anyways.

And um, I get caught. And I remember my parents are divorced and you know you're in deep when you walk into your living room and both your parents are standing in there. I walk in and I'm like, "Back away slowly." Um, and my mom's crying.

She's like, "You're going to Morning Star." which was like the name of this podunk little trailer in Oklahoma where they sent me. And my mom lied and said I'd be there 30 days. I was there 18 and a half months.

Yeah. And I learned a lot of things here. And here's the thing, I learned a lot of stuff in treatment.

I learned a lot of stuff about my inner child and my ego states. And um we we had AA um but we had a lot of discussion meetings where we just kind of talked about what treatment we were working on. And um I mean I could I could seriously fill three hours talking about 18 months in treatment.

Um but I kind of feel like Dr. Bob where he has that one sense where he's like I will not relate to you all of my asylum experiences. >> So I was in rehab for 18 and a half months.

We'll leave it at that. I went in hating my life. Um, and and you know that feeling.

I woke up every morning and as my lids parted, reality just rushed in. And I had this sinking feeling, oh my god, this isn't a dream. And I had this like 0.1,000th of a second every morning of pure bliss before reality rushed in and just ruined it all.

And so needless to say, I start making consequence lists and I start doing treatment and I start going through packet steps, which is the steps with packets. And um I can't figure out why at 14 months I want to drink. I've made so I've done so many step one packets.

If you showed me one, I've probably done it. Um and I cannot not want to drink. And I can't figure out why.

And I start to get worried at 14 and a half months. I haven't had a drink in 14 months. And I'm thinking crap.

if I don't figure out because at this point I kind of want to be sober, you know, like I I I've seen that I can't keep doing what I'm doing if I ever want to be happy, right? I may be 16, but I'm not going nowhere and I'm going nowhere fast. And I never woke up and said I'd like to be a 40-year-old crackhead one day.

But I finally made the connection that I was going to be one whether I wanted to or not because I was under the delusion one day I was going to wake up and just not want to drink anymore. And I was just waiting around for that day. I thought maybe it would be when I went off to college.

Maybe it would be when I graduated from college. But at some point I would wake up and grow up and I would have a husband and I would have a dog and 2.3 kids and I would have a picket fence and that was the what I wanted. But well, no, I wanted to hedge on the beach.

Let's be honest. But at some point I wanted to have some normal semblance of a life, right? And so I've realized my life ain't going that way.

And I've made so many consequence lists that I could recite them in my sleep and I still want to drink. And I start getting real worried thinking if I don't start waking up wanting to not drink or not wanting to drink, I don't think I'm going to stay sober. Um, and they told me lots of things like play the tape through and um, give yourself a mirror affirmation and all these kind of things.

And I can't figure out why. I just It's like they used the reality of your disease has not sunk in. Well, hell no.

No, it isn't. I wish it would. And and I just want to change at this point.

We had this prayer that someone gave me and and all I remember is the first line. It said, "Dear Lord, more than anything in the world, I just don't want to be sick anymore." And I would say that every day. And I just I started to realize I've got they kept telling me the solution was God.

And I've got to have this fundamental change. I've got every cell in my body has to molecularly change for me to have a chance to wake up in the morning and not want to drink. and it ain't happening.

And I'm going all around and trying to figure out how to happen and it ain't happening. And so it eventually happens. I have this change and I leave wanting to be sober.

But here's the thing. I leave wanting to be sober terrified. I've got this fear in my heart that goes, I'm going to do it again.

Or it's not really me. You're going to do it again, aren't you? Yeah, you are.

You're going to treat this like you treat everything in your life. I felt like I was on the first week of school. first week of school in the assembly where you're like, you're all pumped.

You're like, I'm gonna get straight A's this year. Right? By the second week, you're like B's.

Third week, C's. Fourth week, you're like, I'm going to pass. You know, good thing the teachers like me.

Um, maybe I need to get real nice to somebody in the registration office. And so, I I just knew I was going to do sobriety the same way. My motivation for it would fizzle because that's how I do everything.

So, I get out and here's the thing. Um, I went to meetings. I went to a lot of discussion meetings and I talked.

I like to talk and I thought I knew what I was talking about. And here's the thing. We had these sheets where you had to do stuff every day.

You got to read. You got to do this. And we had to read the 100 pages.

I mean, sorry, 10 pages of the big book every day. And I was in treatment for 18 and a half months, which works out to 5,200 pages of the big book that I had read by the time I graduated from this treatment center. I could quote it.

I could tell it to you front words, backwards. I could tell you what was italicized. I could tell you the page number and the punctuation at the end of that sentence.

And I had no freaking clue what I was talking about. And so I get out and I'm kind of muting around and I'm going to meetings and I get myself a boyfriend cuz that's a good idea. And um I get a sponsor and like we do a step one packet and a month later we do a step two packet.

And at the same time I had a friend that followed a guy over to this meeting called Primary Purpose. Yeah. And I hated them.

>> Hated them because they said stuff like um there's one way to work the program. And they would do big book studies and they would go through the big book line by line and they would go through how to do a 10step and I'd be like you'd think to yourself, I don't really do that. But I would tell people I've done the steps.

I work the program. And um I don't really do that. And the thing is is that I had all these I had I remember sitting at a counselor's office crying when I was out and saying I don't think I'll ever get the peace I had when I was in treatment because I don't know about you, but I was happy in treatment for a long time.

I do well in institutions. And the thing is is that they gave me all these tools to deal with the things that drove me nuts. The the problem is when I got out in the real world, those tools are stupid.

Like if I was afraid that people were judging me in treatment, I could raise my hand at any point in the day and go, "Are y'all judging me? And all 15 smiley faces would go, "No, Casey, we're not judging you." Awesome. If I had an overflow of fear, no or or you know, emotional whatever, no matter where I was, I could stop and say, "I need to share." And I would share and I would get it out and I would feel some relief.

Um, if I was ang I mean everything. I had a tool for everything. But the thing is, you can't exactly stop in the middle of your senior year in school and go, "Are y'all judging me?" So instead, the thought stays in my head and rattles around and makes me sick because I don't know what to do with it.

And I'm convinced everything is about me in a bad way, sometimes in a good way. And so, um, I start going to Primary Purpose and I don't like anything they say. And I think things like, well, you know what?

My program works just fine for me. And um there are as many ways to work the program as there are people in it. All these real cool things I've heard.

And I think, you know what, you have no right to tell me how to work my program. My program works fine. And then I go home and cry because my program doesn't work fine.

Um because my life is starting to suck again and I'm starting to lose the motivation. And I was under the impression that you went to meetings to hear somebody say something inspirational that would motivate you and inspire you to not do something stupid until you went to the next meeting. and then hopefully some old fart would say something inspirational in that meeting and you could hang on to the next one.

And so I don't know why I kept coming back to primary purpose. It's like I would leave every night pissed and I would come back for the next meeting. And the more I went to primary purpose, the more I sat in my other meetings and went, "These people are sick." people talking about their bosses and their cats peeing on their carpet and their mother-in-law coming in for the holidays.

So, at some point, I fire the sponsor I have and I get a new sponsor and she sits me down and she says, "We're going to go through the steps." I'm like, "All right, cool." She tells me to um well, I go and I ask her to be my sponsor. She's like, "Yeah, read from the preface to page 44 and call me when you're done." And for some reason when I come out of treatment when I came out of treatment um I was like you know how you have ranks in treatment. So I still had all this ego from treatment like I'm a phase three senior client.

I will have this reading done tomorrow. And so I get it done and I call her the next day and she's like awesome come in we'll talk. So she starts talking with me.

If you have a big book and it's with you, let's go to the doctor's opinion because she starts talking to me about what step one means. Yeah, I'm a quoter. Somebody asked me that last night.

I was like, "I'm a big book thumper." They're like, "Are you a quoter?" I'm like, "Yeah, I am." All right. So, she says, "Well, let me explain to you what step one is." And the thing is, I think I know what step one is because I've done 900 packets about it. I've answered 44 questions.

I've done a sassy test and it says I'm an alcohol dependent. Sassy test. Y'all ever did those?

They're what they gave you to psych wars. They're like 44 questions and then they come back and they're like, "Well, according to your score." So she says, "Your power is over alcohol because you have physical allergy to alcohol and so do I." He says doctor's opinion says we believe and so suggested a few years ago that the act of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. And she said you know I drink the way I I drink the way I drink because I'm an allergy got an abnormal reaction to alcohol.

And she even got scientific on me. She was like my liver and my pancreas doesn't secrete the necessary enzymes to metabolize alcohol like a normal person. And I had always thought that that thing allergy to alcohol was just like a cute metaphor they gave you in treatment.

So that if you're ever sitting in a bar and someone asks you if you want to drink and you say no and they say why you go I'm allergic. And apparently I really am. And here's the thing.

She says that to me and immediately I know she's telling me the truth and immediately I know that I have that because I look back on all the experience I have about how I can't get drunk enough. How about how I take a drink and I need another one right now and I need it strong and I need to make it myself. And um and when I'm too drunk to make my own drinks, I'm telling other people, just make me one more drink and I'll be fine.

Just make me one more drink and I'll be fine. And I don't really and and come to think of it, I don't ever recall the end of a drinking. Like I don't ever recall putting the handle down and being like, "Woo, I'm good." I can think of maybe three times where I just took a couple drinks in my whole drinking career, but for the most part when I sat for a sitting, I didn't stop till I blacked out, passed out, ran out, or got caught.

I mean, I really and I I got creeped out when I thought about that because I was like, "Oh my god, I do have an allergy. I have a craving for alcohol. When I start to drink, I crave the next drink.

And when I have that second drink, I crave the third drink even worse." And I knew she was telling me the truth. So then she says, "It's not the bad news." Awesome. She says, "Open your book to page 24." She says, "The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink.

>> Our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent. We are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink." And I get pissed at this point because I spent 18 and a half months trying to get the reality of my disease to set in by making lists of my consequences.

And I can't figure out why. I I've written essays about it. I've written life stories.

I've written all sorts of things to try and get me in touch with the emotional consequences because if I can just get in touch with step one, I won't want to drink anymore. I mean, that's what I thought. And so all of a sudden this makes sense to me because this says there's something wrong with my head clearly.

But what's wrong with my head is that I can't recall with sufficient force how much it sucked. Which is what I said when I was 16 years old crying on the bathroom floor and says I don't like the consequences but I forget how much the consequences suck when I go to take the action. Good god my accent's coming out really bad isn't it?

I don't even think I sound this southern when I'm in the South. And so it makes sense to me finally. That's why at 14 and a half months of sobriety, I still want to drink.

That's why I lay in my bunk at night and replay fantasies about what used to happen when I used to drink. The good ones, the good kind. And um it makes sense to me.

And here's the thing, my brain is depleted in that area because the human brain naturally has these little like lights that go off. I I I kind of envision it like nuclear meltdown with the lights start flashing it goes, you know what I mean? Um when I go to do something that I that that in the past has caused me pain, right?

Like I fell off of a horse when I was seven and I will not get back on a horse because if I walk towards a horse and I get near a horse, my heart starts to beat. Those lights in my brain start to light up and they're like, "This thing will kill you. Back away." And I to this day I have this emotional reaction to that.

and my body protects me from getting hurt again. But I go to take a drink and nothing happens in my head. My head goes, "Woo!

This is a good idea." The doctor's opinion tell me that the mental obsession of alcohol is that I can't tell the difference between the true and the false. The true is that things should be going off in my head that say this is not a good idea. Here's another I thought about this one time and I was like, "Well, ain't that funny?" Because have you ever taken a drink and like say you drink a screwdriver and you get really really really sick and you can't and and after that if you even smell orange juice you want to puke.

Why is it you can drink orange juice? You can't drink orange juice the next day but you can sure as heck drink the vodka. I mean think about that.

My brain will associate that orange juice with the misery. And I recall with full force the misery and the suffering and the humiliation attached to that smell, sight, sound, and taste. But it doesn't do it to the vodka.

I don't smell vodka and go I mean usually, you know, but I do it to whatever it is I drank the alcohol with. Like that clearly shows me that there's something not happening right in my head. that I have a mental obsession that I can't if I get a week or a month away from whatever bad consequence it was motivating me out of fear or inspiration to stay sober all of a sudden it wasn't that bad and it's going to be different this time and here's how and you know what I was making a big deal out of this and it's not that big of a deal and if I just drink beer or if I just don't do it this way if I just don't do it with him it's all right and one of the reasons I get fired up about what the book says is is because for a long time I was told something different.

And I remember trying so hard to bring about some sort of change in me and it wouldn't happen. And so and like my first sponsor said, "Casey, it's real simple. You just got to want to stay sober more than you want to drink." And I thought, "My god, if that was true, I'd be sober a long time ago." And the book clearly states, "The most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail." Now, where the hell did she get that?

So, moving on. Step two. Now, I spent a lot of time on step two in treatment, making higher power collages and listing the characteristics of my higher power.

You know how miserable it is to be in a position where you know you're going to die and you know the only solution is to believe in God and you just don't believe in him. >> You feel like you're trying to will yourself to believe in Santa Claus cuz you just can't will yourself into believe in something you just don't believe in. And I remember the whole time being like I'm willing to believe in him but he just ain't there.

I mean, I'm I'm sitting outside waiting for some fuzzy feeling to overcome me, and it ain't happening because I didn't understand that step two says that I'm I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. He could. If such a power existed, theoretically, he could storm me to sanity.

I don't have to believe in anything in step two. Step two was a simple conversation. How you feel about God?

Pretty good. Okay, moving on. Because even if you don't believe in God, you can agree that if a power ruled the entire universe, he would have enough power to res to remove my obsession to drink, right?

Whether you believe in God or not. And that's fine. And I was willing to put aside all the prejudice I had from going to Catholic school about how God was a goody two shoes and wanted to put arbitrary rules on me.

So I had no fun. Fine. I'll put that aside.

So then we go on to make this third step decision. And I always read the third step wrong. I mean, I always read that, you know, step three, turned your will and your life over the care of God as you understood him, right?

I mean, so I've been trying to do that for a long time, but that's not what step three says. Page 63. I know it, but I feel compelled to return to the page.

Anyways, step three says, I'm going to make a decision to turn my will, my life over. Now, clearly, I don't know how to do that because if I did, I'd be sober. But going through with the rest of the steps is what's going to bring about me learning how to turn my will and my life over and bringing my will in line with God's will.

I'm just making a decision. I'm going to do what this woman tells me. And I always wondered because if you read step three, it talks about how we're the actor who wants wants to run the whole show and how I'm selfish and self-centered and and I read that and and I remember thinking, well, that's I'm kind of like that.

Yeah. And I always wondered, how many of y'all here have done a fifth step? All right.

So, I always wondered why Bill did all this stuff about how we're selfish and self-centered worthy actor at the third step because you never understand it till after your fifth step. Like after your fifth step, you go back and read and you're like, holy crap, this is me. I was always like, why did he put it the third step?

And then I realized one day that the third step doesn't say that I'm making a decision to turn my alcoholism over the care of God as I understand him. Because there's no such thing as just turning your alcoholism over and having it removed. It ain't going to happen.

I have to turn over everything. And in order to turn over everything, I have to realize the sink is ship. The sink is shipping.

The ship is sinking. You know what I mean? It's not just if I get sober and stop drinking, everything will be great.

Because if I start looking and I put aside the alcohol question, my stuff's jacked up. And I start reading about how he may be kind, considerate, patient, generous, even modest and self-sacrificing. All right?

And and about how, you know, I still am trying to make arrangements, and I'm still trying to get you to do what I think you need to do for me to be okay. And and sometimes I was malicious and sometimes I was sweet. But when it came down to the end of it, I was trying to get everything to go the way I thought it needed to be for me to get what I needed to be okay.

Because if I didn't do it, if I didn't arrange everything and everyone to how I needed it so I could get what I need to be okay, I wasn't going to be okay. Because if I don't take care of me, nobody will take care of me, right? And I'll just float off into the abyss.

I thought that. So, Bill introduced all these concepts about how alcoholism isn't the root of my problem. Selfishness and self-centerness is the root of my problem.

And I have to get God to remove the selfishness and self-centerness if I want to have a chance of that mental obsession being relieved. Because selfishness is directly linked to my mental obsession to drink. Which is why if I continue to live selfishly, I will not stay sober.

I wish I wasn't sick. Okay. So, I read it and I half understand it and I take this step.

I make this decision. And so, and you know, it's funny because it says, "Neither could we reduce our self-centerness much by wishing or trying our own power." And I was reading that and I was like, "That's why. That's why for 18 months, I'm trying to bring about some fundamental heart change and I can't make it happen." So, moving on.

So, step one, 12, three happened in one sitting. I sat down with this woman. She talked to me about the physical allergy and the mental obsession, and she wanted to know if I understood that I was screwed.

And I did. I understood that I was going to drink myself to death. I specifically remember this moment in treatment.

We got this girl in and she was detoxing very badly and um I mean she fell out and started like having convulsions and then she didn't know where she was and then she thought she was four and um I mean really she was like she thought she she thought she was like really scared and freaking out and tweaking out and then she hit her head and all a sudden she's like I'm four and um they had to take her to the hospital. I was like that was weird. So then we had this meeting because when you're in treatment, you have to have meetings and process things.

So we're going around the room in this dining room and everybody's saying stuff like this. You know, I just really I just really got in touch with the reality of of my drinking watching her. The next girl goes and she's like, you know, I've just I've never seen it from this side before.

It's so horrific. Next girl's like, I'm just so glad to be sober. You know, it makes me happy to be sober.

And the next girl's like, "You know, I just I finally see. I finally see." And I sit to me and I'm like, "I want a drink." She makes me want to take a drink. I see that she's experiencing something not in this reality.

And I want it. I want to suck it from her pores. And I know she's not enjoying herself.

She's scared to death. She's in treatment for goodness sake. And I know she's going to be here for a long time.

And every day I walk around going, I'm happy to be sobered. I see this girl fall out and I'm like, I want to get drunk. And at that moment, I I stood up and I walked down the living room and I got on my knees and I just started crying.

And that was the moment it occurred to me it was never going to get so bad that I was going to want to not drink cuz I kept waiting around for the bottom. One day the consequences will get bad and I'll just wake up and I'll not want to drink anymore and then I won't drink. And that was the first time it occurred to me.

These thoughts aren't leaving. Not without a fight. They're not leaving.

No matter how bad it gets for me, I will wake up in the morning and think, you know what? I want what she has and she's drunk. And so when when we talked about this, I understood what the mental obsession meant.

And I understood that I couldn't remove my selfishness by my own power and that I was completely helpless. So then after this, we stood up and we said a prayer. We I gave her a hug.

She handed me some fourstep sheets because it says, "Next, we launched out on a course of vigorous action. The first step of which is a personal house cleaning. You haven't really done much till you get to the fourth step because they call the fourth step the first step.

It's the first step of action. I haven't I haven't even gone off the couch yet, >> right? I've made some um I've had some ideas and it was great.

Anyways, oh my god, has it already almost been an hour? >> Wow, time moves fast out here. Okay.

All right, I'm gonna have to pick up speed. So, I start making this fourth step, right? And I go down and and I make this fourth step and and I do it exactly the way it's outlined in the book, right?

I have a list of people I'm angry at. I have a list of things I'm afraid of. of and I have a list of people I've hurt by my sexual conduct and I do it exactly the way it is in the book and I'm I don't have time to explain how it is in the book but you have a book read it.

Okay. So after I have my fourp sheets done, we have no time for applause. I've got my fourp done and I go and I do my fistep and I sit down and I had a week to do my forep by the way and I got it done.

I sat down, I do my fistep and instead of the first fistep I did in treatment where she told me it was going to be okay, baby. It's going to be all right and pat me on the back. This girl looked at me and went, "You are the most selfish, self-centered, egotistical, dishonest." And I had every defect on that on everyone.

And I and I remember getting done with my fist and driving home and taking the corner to go to my house. Was driving up Midway Road, took a right on Forest, and it hit me. I am screwed up.

followed by a joy that I have never known in my entire life and a thought that goes and God can fix it. >> And I went back and I read the promises of the fifth step where it says that I'm going to be walking handinhand with the spirit of the universe. And I always thought the promises in the big book were just poetry and they're not.

If you could have asked me right there, if I had never read the big book and you would have asked me how I felt, I would have said to you, I am walking hand in hand with the creator of the world. Right? So, I go home and I take my hour out like the book says to and then I get on my and then I I do six and seven.

And it always cracks me up when they have discussion meetings on step six because I don't know what people talk about for an hour. It takes longer to read the paragraph about step six than it does to take step six. Because step six says, "Are you willing to have God remove all those defects of character?" And I had a pretty good fifth step.

So I was like, "Yes." And then I got on my knees and I said the sevenstep prayer. Another one we can't talk about for more than about five minutes because all it is is a prayer. And I said that prayer and the prayer just reiterates what the what the third step says.

But it's like now that I've done my fifth step, I actually understand what I'm signing up to do. And I do that and I got up off my knees and then I took my fourep and I took all the names of the people on my forep and I put it on a piece of loose leaf paper and that was my eightstep amends list and then I added all the people that weren't on there. And this is I mean this is two settings so far.

One, two, three, did four for a week. Came back, did five, went home, did six, seven, and eight. Came back and met with her and we went over these amends and she told me which ones to make.

And I went out and I started making amends. But before I started making amends, she flipped over to the 10step. And she said, "Here's the deal with the 10step.

When you have a resentment or a fear or you're selfish or dishonest, you do what the 10step says." And the 10step has specific directions. So if you're wondering, do I do a 10step? You don't.

You don't. I call my sponsor every two weeks. Not a 10step.

Because the big book says a 10step is I'm walking down the street. I start think here's a real life example. I'm laying in bed and I start thinking that stupid guy.

I can't believe he said he was going to call and he didn't. Ass. If he ever does call, you know what I'm going to say?

And then I go on my head about what? No, no, even better. I'm going to say, right?

So, I'm resentful clearly. And what the big book says to do is is number one, I ask God to remove the resentment. Number one, step one of the 10 step, I say, God, this is probably a sick man.

He's got to be. He ain't calling. I'm kidding.

Please save me from being angry. And then I call my sponsor. I say, "Listen, Darra, I sat up last night and thought about all the mean things I was going to say to this guy if he ever called." And that's a resentment.

And uh I said I said my prayer to remove it and I'm going to go be helpful now. So that's that's what else it says. It also says to make amends if I've harmed anybody.

And then the most important part of the 10step that's completely makes the 10 step obsolete if you don't do it. I go help somebody because if selfishness and self-centered I I don't say I need a meeting because if selfishness and self-centered is the root of my problem, how is going to a meeting and talking about me going to help it? >> I mean that that doesn't make sense to me.

If selfishness and thinking about me is my problem, the solution is I need to go think about others. I need to go work with a drunk. I need to go down to a windup joint.

I need to go pick up paper off the side of the road. I need to go up to the group and pick up cigarette butts. I mean, I just need to do something to not be in me right now.

Okay, so that's what a 10step step is. I start doing that as I do the nightstep because the big book says we do it as we clean up the past. So then she also explains the 11th step to me, which is that I wake up in the morning and I do a specific list of questions and I spend some time with God.

And there's a specific list of questions you're supposed to ask yourself in 11th step on page 86. And I do that every morning. And then night before I go to bed, I do a specific set of questions every night.

That is the 10th. That is the 11th step. And then all throughout the day, if I get angry or irritated or agitated or doubtful, I'm supposed to pause and just not do anything and shut my mouth for once.

So I do this 11th step. Then she introduces I have 60 seconds to talk about the 12 step. >> All right, here goes.

She introduces the 12step step and the 12step says that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. His practical experience shows us that. So I don't know where in our fellowship we got I need a meeting.

>> And I don't know where in our fellowship we got listen I know the topic is step four but I just I'm having a problem. It's like then go talk to your effing SPONSOR >> because and here's the deal. Here's the deal.

The most important person is that person who's sitting in the meeting detoxing thinking somebody better tell me how to not take a drink today. And and here's the I was talking with somebody last night and here's the thing that we do sometimes is that we have these meetings and and we walk out that was a good meeting. that was fuzzy and that was spiritual and and a lot of times see it's not enough for a meeting to be solutionbased.

It's that's not enough. It can't be just solutionbased because everybody has a solution. Just because it feels warm and fuzzy doesn't mean you just walked out of a solution-based meeting.

It mean you walked out of a warm and fuzzy meeting. And here's why. When we share our opinions in Alcoholics Anonymous, it kills people.

And here's how I know. Two examples real quickly. Um, one I told my story that I told I was doing the steps at a group in Dallas and there was this woman who picked up a desire chip and I got down and I went and talked to her when I was done and she looked at me and she just had that look about her, that dead in the eyes, desperate to do something look and I said, "Well, what do you think?" And she's like, "I hate this place." And I said, "Well, why?" She goes, this was not my home group.

She goes, "I'm about to lose everything. I got here at 6:30 for the meeting before. I sat through the 6:30 meeting.

and I had to leave and go take a shot and come back because I can't stay sober and and she's never been to AA so it was a miracle she said this she goes because the the topic for the 6th discussion meeting was um finances like how to increase your earning potential or something and she's like I'm sitting in this meeting and I'm thinking I don't need to increase my earning potential I need to get sober and the thing is is that I spent a lot of time in treatment trying to figure out how to change and I went to people and I said how did you change? And they said, well, I I prayed for everybody in the meeting every night. So, I went and did that and nothing happened.

Happened for her, didn't happen for me. And then I went to the next person. What did you do?

Well, I meditated for 30 minutes every day. So, I meditate for 30 minutes. Nothing happened.

And the problem is, just because it happened for you doesn't mean you should share it because you don't know it's going to be that way for everybody else. Now, I know for a fact that if it's in this book, it'll be that way for you because it was that way for 75 people who wrote it. And it's been that way for every person who has worked it exactly the way that it was written in this book.

So, even though I may have, and here's the other thing that gets me whenever I talk about stuff like this, there's always that one person that's like, "Well, Casey, because if it's not in the big book, I don't think it should be in a meeting of alcoholics anonymous." And there's people that come up to me and they say stuff like, "Well, you know what, Casey? you know, you said 90 and 90 was BS, but you know what? If I hadn't gone to 90 meetings in 90 days, I don't think I'd be sober today.

And I'm like, great. God's working in your life. That's what that means.

That's what that means. It doesn't mean 9090 works. It means God is working in your life.

Because if you walked into AA and for some reason the reason a man hit on you was the reason you stayed around. That doesn't mean a man should hit on newcomers because that's how we stay around. That means God used whatever was in that room at that moment to keep you there.

I will go over two more minutes because here's the thing. We want to stay here and I'll here's why where I get this. I get this from the big book.

This is justified in the big book on the first page of there's a solution. It says, you know, we're blah blah blah blah blah. We're like a shipwreck.

Um it says the feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us. But that in itself would never have held us together as we are now joined. The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution.

A common solution. Now there are things that I do that my sponsor tells me to do that aren't necessarily in the book. Like she'll say, "Well, what I think you need to do about that situation is this, this, and this." But we don't share that in meetings because that's her personal experience and personal advice to me that she has permission to give from the part in the big book where it says having had the experience you can give much practical advice to the person you are sponsoring.

But she doesn't ever talk in a meeting and say well I just think that you should no we have a way out on which we can absolutely agree. So we can absolutely every person in this room agree on this solution. I don't know so much that we can absolutely agree on much of the stuff that's shared.

It says, "And upon which we can join in brotherly and harmonious action." This is the great news this book carries to those who suffer from alcoholism. Because every time we go into a meeting and we start talking about ourselves, there is somebody sitting dying from alcoholism thinking, I wish this person would shut up because I just want someone to tell me how to not take a drink today. And that's what's important.

And I mean, I go to a lot of meetings. I mean, I think I make it sound sometimes like I don't like meetings. I love meetings.

But I don't go to a meeting because I need to get some relief because I get my freedom from the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and helping others. I go to a meeting so I can find another newcomer that I can bring into the solution. Okay, I could talk for hours, but clearly I've already gone over time.

So, I want to thank y'all for having me. I appreciate it. the other speakers pretty much told my story already.

So, um I just want to thank y'all. 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.