AA Speaker – Scott B. – Fargo, ND – 2005
Scott B. from Fargo shares how sponsorship and working with others transformed his life from institutions to 16+ years sober. On intensive work with alcoholics.
Scott B. from Fargo, North Dakota got sober in May 1989 after years of blackouts, legal trouble, and a diagnosis that he’d spend his life in and out of institutions. In this AA speaker tape, he walks through how one man’s simple act of calling him back and taking him to meetings changed everything—and how intensive work with other alcoholics became the foundation of his entire recovery.
Scott B. describes how a sponsor who called him at the right moment—when he was about to drink again—introduced him to a life built around service work and sponsoring others. He discusses the spiritual principle that nothing works better to stay sober than intensive work with other alcoholics, and how building a home group and sponsoring newcomers transformed his self-worth. Scott talks about the difference between trying to control drinking and accepting powerlessness, the role of doing what’s in front of you, and how six years later he watched the Northern Plains group grow from 32 people at its first meeting to a thriving community.
Episode Summary
Scott B. begins by honoring the Northern Plains group’s sixth anniversary and reflecting on how it grew from 32 people at its first meeting—when he happened to be in town and spoke—to the community gathered that night. But the real story is about what saved him: someone going out of their way to help. That’s the backbone of Alcoholics Anonymous, he says. One alcoholic helping another.
Scott’s early life was defined by shame. He didn’t know his father, felt cursed by his red hair, and carried a deep sense that something was fundamentally wrong with him. When he started drinking, alcohol did something remarkable—it made him feel like he was enough. For the first time, he felt capable, confident, and present. The problem was he couldn’t control it. He blacked out, passed out, or drank until the bottle was empty. Yet even after terrible consequences—waking up in wheat fields, getting suspended from school, facing legal trouble—his mind kept whispering that maybe the next time would be different. Maybe if it was a different town, a different brand, or if he had friends watching him.
He spent time in treatment. He got sober once for a year (which he kept secret, taking two one-year chips instead of admitting he’d relapsed). He knew he shouldn’t drink. But the pain of sobriety was unbearable. He was restless, irritable, discontent. He couldn’t be comfortable in his own skin. One of the things that baffled him in early sobriety was being more suicidal at six months sober than he’d ever been while drinking. He needed a different way to live.
Scott had given up on AA—not because he’d tried hard and failed, but because he’d never really tried. He hadn’t worked the steps, didn’t have a real sponsor, rarely went to meetings. Then a man named Scott T. got his phone number. Ten days later, Scott T. called—on a day when Scott was heading out to drink again. Scott T. asked him to coffee and shared his story in a way Scott could actually identify with. Not the consequences (which vary from person to person), but how he felt sober and what drinking did for him. That’s what made him alcoholic. Scott T. made sobriety seem possible, even attractive.
They went through the steps together. A home group formed. His sponsor told him something that stuck: “Nothing so much will help you stay away from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail.” That didn’t sound appealing when Scott had no job and no direction. But his sponsor pushed him toward college—something no one in his family had ever done—and Scott started working with people in the program while attending classes. One of his sponsor’s sponsors told three young men in recovery: “A year from now, two of you will not be here.” Scott assumed he was the one who wouldn’t make it. But they all stayed.
Over the years, his sponsor’s prediction came true in a different way: the people he worked with became his best friends. He got to see a front-row seat into their lives—something a guy like him, who’d always been picked last and felt like a failure, never expected to get. When he was about two years sober and busy with school, a relative called trying to reach him to go to a meeting. Scott was too busy to call back. A week later, he learned his relative had shot himself in California. That moment taught him the spiritual principle of doing what’s in front of you: when someone calls, call them back. When someone’s struggling, give them encouragement.
Scott talks about struggles in long-term sobriety too—like the time at six years sober when he threw his laptop across a room to prove “money doesn’t matter” to people he was trying to help. His sponsor walked him through making it right, reminding him that his house wasn’t a mission, and showing him the next indicated task. Scott realized he was the creator of 99% of his problems, and that moving toward God’s will—not his own—was the path.
The Northern Plains group grew because people like Jeff and Chad showed up, built something, and stayed committed to helping others. Scott’s life expanded in ways he never imagined: a college degree, a business, a wife (Shannon), five children. But he’s clear about the order: recovery first. He’s seen too many people—including folks he sponsored—drift away, move from town to town, cycle through relapse, and end up in obituaries that don’t mention alcoholism but tell a story of restlessness and chaos. The people still in the rooms, still doing the work, are the ones doing well.
Notable Quotes
The backbone of Alcoholics Anonymous is one alcoholic helping another alcoholic.
I compare my raw insides to other people’s outsides and I come up short every time.
It takes a carpenter to build a barn. Any jackass can tear it down.
Nothing so much will help me stay away from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail.
I need to have a program of action in which I can look at my part in things, where I can find my wrong, make amends, ask for guidance from God, and turn my thoughts to someone I can help.
If I get too uncomfortable sober, I won’t be here. There’s a lot of good people smarter than me, more spiritual than me that are not here.
Big Book Study
Hitting Bottom
Step 12 – Carrying the Message
Service Work
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Sponsorship
- Big Book Study
- Hitting Bottom
- Step 12 – Carrying the Message
- Service Work
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> Hi everybody. I'm Scott Benson.
I'm an alcoholic. >> And it's by the grace of God, the actions of Alcoholics Anonymous, and sponsorship that I've been sober since May 23rd of 1989. >> >> What the uh happy birthday uh Northern Plains group.
Uh the uh the uh kind of a lot of uh a lot of emotion and a lot of history has uh transpired in the last you're going on your sixth anniversary. And uh I uh have the I want to thank uh Aaron for asking me to share the um I spoke at your first meeting through I was living in Spokane, Washington. And at your first meeting for those of you uh that that weren't here there's 32 people here and at the first meeting of NPG and it was the last uh Tuesday in April and I was living in Washington and just happened to be kind of vaca I can't remember exactly I think I was vacationing or something uh here in North Dakota and Jeff and had asked me to speak and when I spoke at that meeting I would have never guessed that six years later it would have grown as much as it's grown.
And all of the secretaries touched upon it in one way or another is that the uh what saved my bacon and probably is saving the bacon of anyone that's been here for a little while is that someone went out of their way to be helpful. You know, the backbone of Alcoholics Anonymous is one alcoholic helping another alcoholic. And I didn't when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I did not think that Alcoholics Anonymous would fix what was wrong with me.
Um and uh the uh the people that there's many people here, but your past secretaries are people that I love and respect. And I have probably heard I suppose I've heard a lot of uh I suppose uh not so spiritual things about all of the past secretaries. And I still love them and I still respect them because in Alcoholics Anonymous, as you hear in many uh circles, but in Alcoholics Anonymous, you uh you uh takes a carpenter to build a barn.
And uh any jackass, excuse my language, can tear it down. And these are people who have discovered the key to staying sober is intensive work with other alcoholics. that that works when other activities fail and um that they're people I love and respect uh because of that they uh is all of our flaws and we're all flawed people.
That's what brings us together. Um it is in coming together and be help and being helpful to one another. Uh and that's what they do.
I mean in my book uh if you're uh helpful to other people uh I think you're a winner in Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't uh the uh I was asked to uh share in a general way what I used to be like, what happened, and what I'm like now. And and uh to talk a little bit about my alcoholism.
Um I had uh as far back as I can remember, I always felt like there was something wrong with me. I felt cursed with red hair. And let me tell you something, if you're if you don't have any hair, you have red hair, you do have it harder.
And uh I really felt like uh I was given a raw deal from day one. I didn't know who my father was and uh so I felt like that was a wedge against me. I knew that his name was John Thomas and oftentimes after I started drinking I would and I knew he was from Florida and I knew he had a brother named Oscar and I would get drunk and I'd call information and uh for John R.
Thomas, any city, Florida. And uh I would call pe I would call these John Thomas' and ask them if they had a brother named Oscar. And um but I never had the uh courage to do something like that sober.
Um and I loved what when I started drinking, I loved what it did for me because I always felt like um there's a lot of people in Alcoholics Anonymous that have tattoos. Unfortunately, because I was a never was uh is how I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. I wasn't a hasband.
There's some hasbands. I sponsor some hasbins. Mike uh Mike F is a hasband, but I'm not a hasband.
I was never was. And um I was uh actually I take that back. My one big accomplishment prior to Alcoholics Anonymous that I was I grew my hair to the middle of my back.
That was my accomplishment that I had contributed to life. And um but I uh I uh I always felt like I wasn't enough. I felt like people talked down to me.
And what I've discovered in Alcoholics Anonymous is that when I have low selfworth that when people are trying to teach me, I think they're talking down to me when they're trying to teach me. Uh because I think that even though I feel uh like there's I'm missing something, I have too much of an ego to actually ask for help. And so I try to wing it.
And uh often times that has been one of the biggest things is I compare my raw insides to other people's outsides and I come up short every time. You know your secretary is I would love to have Jeff's wit for a day. Well, take that back for about four hours.
And uh the uh I would love to uh have uh Chad's uh uh Chad if you get to know him. One of the I didn't see what happened. So if if you get to know Chad, the one thing about Chad is he will really go out of his way to be helpful.
Um, and if you get by the fluff and what comes across as arrogance, which is really, uh, not arrogance at all. Uh, but sometimes, you know, I, you know, he's always had the right shirts, the right bikes, the right everything. and um and um Kirsten her uh her uh she's got a lot of excitement and I wish I had a tattoo story like Kirstston and uh and then there's Mike.
You know, the first time I I was living in Jamestown. I've lived in Jamestown a couple of times and I don't mean to be jumping around, but I don't ever know what I'm going to talk about. I remember one time I heard someone in Alcoholics Anonymous say that if you have to take notes and talk that it's not coming from the heart.
And I asked my sponsor what he thought about that. And he said, "Apparently, they've never heard you speak." And uh and uh so I I never know what I'm going to say, and I'm too insecure in my time in sobriety to pull out notes, although I did write them by being embarrassed to display them. Um, and uh, but anyway, getting back to Mike because that's what Mike wants to hear right now is Mike is uh, is uh, I knew he was going to be okay in Alcoholics Anonymous because when I met Mike, his sponsor was Jeff and I knew Jeff would take good care of him.
But I also knew that Mike was willing because anytime I went to Minot, whether it was a Saturday night, a Thursday night, a Monday night, Mike was at a meeting. Mike was at a meeting. That's my earliest memory of Mike.
Um Kenny on the other hand, he was Kenny I remember one time Kenny telling me that he really thought that selling vacuum cleaners or something along those lines was really going to turn his life around. and um some some sales job that was I remember when I was uh new and uh one of my first non uh sponsor uh uh approved actions was uh I quit my job uh doing dishes to sell Rainbow vacuum cleaners and they'd sold me that I was going to be rich and I remember the first day of the interview that after about an hour anyone who looked like a salesman was gone except all of us that didn't look like salespeople, they hired. Go figure.
Anyway, that uh that little experience is why my sobriety date is May 23rd of 1989 and not January 10th of 1989. I was one of those guys in Alcoholics Anonymous that I I took two one-year chips because I never told anyone I drank. And I remember I would I would say to myself, I would go to sleep every night thinking, how am I going to fix this?
How am I going to keep my sobriety date but be honest? Because I know this honesty, this rigorous honesty thing's got to be important because they got it all over Alcoholics Anonymous. But of course, that's what a a good uh fourth steps for and a good fifth step.
But anyway, um uh so I've known Kenny a long time and uh I've watched him grow and uh I uh there are quality Kenny's very decisive. sometimes he's decisive in the wrong direction, but he's decisive and I appreciate that about him. And um in Aaron is always uh very kind and uh she uh I think she spots that I have uh no matter how hard I work Alcoholics Anonymous, I am uh I am uh often intimidated by the opposite sex and stay away from them other than my wife, of course, because she's married to me and my bride.
But I I'm just whatever. It's just part of my personality. Uh for fear I for fear I will be embarrassed by it's the same fear I had in high school why I never said hi to anyone.
All these things when I'm sober what my problem is is I cannot be comfortable in my own skin sober. And our book describes it as being restless irritable and discontent. I'm always restless.
You know I'm opening the cupboards closing the cupboards. I'm irritable and my irritability takes two shapes. I'm either on the muscle with people, intimidating people, or I isolate because I can't stand how people live or how people treat me, and I'm discontent.
Whatever it is I have is not good enough for me. It is not good enough for me. And that's what I uh uh in school when I would walk down the hall, my biggest fear was I would say hi.
I never said hi to anyone unless they said hi to me first. But my biggest fear is I would say hi to someone and they would say, "What are you looking at, you dork?" And uh thus it was easier just to walk by people I knew with the strange look on my face. And um but that same scenario, drinking, I remember getting drunk and going to school and uh high-fiving my faded instructor.
And I don't ever remember having that kind of excitement towards life unless I was drinking. And of course that got me suspended from school. But um it was still nevertheless I loved once I started drinking I loved what it did for me.
And what it did is it took a guy like me that never felt like enough like I was enough and made me feel enough for a while. The problem with that is that I couldn't seem to control the amount of alcohol I took. Once I started drinking, I didn't know what was going to happen.
I didn't know if I'd wind up in Glenbourne, North Dakota, in a wheat field, wondering how I got there. I didn't know. One experience Jeff always reminds me, he likes this story, and I kind of like this story, too, is uh I was drinking one night and I'd been to treatment because of my drinking.
because when you drink and you drink like I drink, you tend to get in trouble with the law. And so, I'd been to treatment a couple of times and knew I probably shouldn't drink, but I believe that if I if I uh if I only drank a couple of times a week, I'd probably be okay. And on one of these couple of times a week, I uh started drinking and and I and I blacked out.
And I was familiar with the blackout because they described it in treatment. And I I used to always think that blackouts were I didn't know whether to believe them or not when people would say you did strange things. And you know, you never do good things.
They're always terrible things that you do in a blackout. But I have a blackout. And I think some of the reason I share this is that it's a demonstration of alcoholism, but I'm also looking for someone to actually say that was my yard.
But um I suppose deep down uh is that I I uh I was uh I came out of a blackout and I'm driving a car. It's my car. I know it's my car cuz the wires are hanging out of the dash.
And I'm the kind of guy that gets it done just enough. And uh I got it done just enough to get the stereo working. But I'm driving and I look beside me and there's a guy I don't know.
have no idea where where he is other than in my brief conversation with him, I was able to deduct that his wife was giving birth to their baby at the hospital and he's out drinking with me. Then I glanced in the rearview mirror to notice that now I've got a 1974 Omega with the inline 6. It was not a hot car then, isn't.
But but I had boat equipment in the back seat and coming out the back windows. It was apparent that this dude does not own a boat dealership. Real apparent.
And uh I did not say to myself, Scott, you can't drink. It's just crazy for you to drink. What I said to myself is, I will never drink Mad Dog 2020 again because if that's what it does to you.
And of course, by the way, that night someone in Mandan, North Dakota got a yard full of boat equipment. Hey, we're good at coming up with quick solutions. I uh the other thing that's funny about that, the next day my mother had told me my mother had been in and alcoh in and out out of Alcoholics Anonymous and all I knew about Alcoholics Anonymous was I knew a little bit about the men of Alcoholics Anonymous and they always wanted to help my mom and then they wanted to move into our house and uh so I didn't like Alcoholics Anonymous, but she was always she was always uh wanting to uh when she would get sober, she'd want everybody to be sober.
That was one of the things I suppose I hurt my mother with the most as I used to tell her things like, "You think everybody's an alcoholic because you're an alcoholic." And I am so grateful today that she did because I got sober young and I've been able to do a lot of things that a guy like me shouldn't get to do. Like what a privilege it is this is uh what a privilege it is to speak in front of this meeting. Um because guys like me that doesn't happen to.
But anyway, um my mother the next day she told me if I kept driving drunk she was going to sell my car. How dare her. And the next day when I woke up or the next morning or afternoon about 2, I mozzied on out of the my bedroom and looked at the kitchen table and there was a recorder receipt and 25 bucks.
She sold my car. She still hasn't made amends to me for that, come to think of it, but I suppose she doesn't need to. Um, I have a teenager now, so I'll see what I get to experience, but um, what comes around goes around, I suppose.
Um, but so I'm I'm I know I shouldn't drink, and I and I can't seem to stop drinking because the pain of sobriety is what the curse is. People would tell me, "Scott, if you just don't drink, you'd be okay." And I would try to just not drink. But I didn't have any hope.
I saw the world as nasty. I thought nasty p I was the guy, now I've gotten a sponsor. Well, this is a kind of a funny story.
What comes around goes around in Alcoholics Anonymous, but I was the guy in school that when they do the team captains thing, I was the guy that they'd argue that the captain wanted on the other team the last one picked. you know, I was, "No, you take them." No, no, no. You take them.
And, um, today I've gotten to sponsor a few of those team captains and straighten them out on kindness and compassion. But, um, I was really, um, and I, uh, I did I did virtually anything to change the way I was feeling because I did not feel enough sober. And that's why I would continue to drink.
Even though, you know, if the pain of our drinking kept us sober, the first time I did something painful, I would have stopped. But see, I've got this obsession. This obsession that says somehow someday I can control and enjoy my drinking.
And I have an aunt that's allergic to peanuts. When she eats a peanut, she gets hives and her throat swells up where she's literally such one time in her life, she ate a half a peanut and this happened. And she has never thought, "Boy, maybe I can eat peanuts if they're in Snickers." I've had worse things.
I've had I have had terrible things happen to me drinking. Terrible things that you can't even share from the podium. And yet I thought, well, maybe if it's a different town or if it's a different brand or maybe if I have my friends watch me.
Boy, what what a that's a terrible solution for an alcoholic to say, "All right, friends. I want you to make sure I stay in line tonight." You know, they're in for a just a terrible night. And um the uh the uh I uh one time uh anyway I probably need to uh get sober but I was just absolutely had this obsession that I couldn't get rid of that some way somehow I could control it and I never see e even though all my experience said it was to once I started drinking there was I had no control over what was going to happen how much I would drink and I usually drank until I passed out or blacked out or ran out of booze.
So anyway, if you're if you drink like I do, at some point or another you get sent to treatment at some point or another they tell you to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. And so I wound up an alcoholic synonymous. I didn't want to be there.
Um it was not the something I wanted to accomplish in life. Hey, I want to go to AA. Um, and I started going and what saved my life was a guy in Alcoholics Anonymous got my phone number and uh he was gone and he and uh I had uh drank.
Now I drank knowing that if I drank I would go to jail for a year. I was to go to a a meetings for a year, two a week. And that if I drank I would go and that didn't keep me from drinking.
And the cycle was on again. I was I was literally I'd given up on Alcoholics Anonymous one more time. Now, mind you, I'd never really given it a try.
I'd never worked the steps. I'd never really had a sponsor I listened to. I never went to meetings regularly, but I'd given up on Alcoholics Anonymous.
And this guy, guy by the name of Scott T, um got my phone number and 10 days later, cuz he got back in town, he called me. He called me when I was on my way out to drink again. Had he not been taught to call other people in Alcoholics Anonymous, I might not be here because that guy called me and for whatever reason I decided he asked me to go to coffee and for whatever reason I decided to go and he shared his story with me.
Um and uh I thought it was the first time I'd really identified with alcoholism because I'd never identified with alcoholism. People always talked about some of the consequences of drinking and I think the consequences of drinking vary. Uh but what happens to me um how I feel sober and what drinking does for me is what determines whether I'm alcoholic or not, not necessarily um some of the consequences.
And um I he kind of he made Alcoholics Anonymous attractive and he would call me and take me to meetings and he made sobriety seem fun. And I thought maybe, just maybe, this would work for me like it had him. Now, I had a hard time believing he was like me because when I met him, he was six or seven years sober.
He had a nice job. People liked him. I was uh I was uh I had the crazy mind.
I didn't know what I was going to do. I mean, one of the thoughts I had was I was going to join the military because I'd always tried to get into the military when I was drinking, but I kept getting DUIs. And uh they frown on that.
You know, I discovered if you have one, you can get into the the Air Force. If you got two, you're uh nipped down to the army, and if you got three, you can't get into any. And um but um he uh he said, you know, if you do what we do in Alcoholics Anonymous, your life will get better.
And uh ultimately uh I got involved in a home group and he started taking me and and uh some of the other guys he sponsored uh through the uh steps and my life began to change and it changed uh never as fast as I thought it should and uh the um I was thinking about uh and I don't know how much time I have left but I I really thought that um I really thought that I would have a miserable life. I really did. I thought that I left the state hospital in Jamestown, North Dakota with the diagnosis that I would spend the rest of my life going in and out of institutions.
What a bleak diagnosis. And but for Alcoholics Anonymous, that had been the case because it literally took someone like me that I was absolutely unteachable. I resented the world.
I had, you know, you hear about people who had chips on their shoulders. I had two chips on my shoulders and I didn't have a lot of hope. I I always kind of felt like a secondass citizen.
I always felt like uh my case was too severe. Um and uh Alcoholics Anonymous totally changed the course of my life. And really what I wanted to do when I first started coming to Alcoholics Anonymous, I wanted to stay here long enough to uh get off probation to move to California to dye my hair blonde and live on the beach because I really thought if I had blonde hair things would be easier and I really thought if I lived in California things would be better.
And what happened was I fell in love with Alcoholics Anonymous. And um my uh one of the greatest things that Scott uh passed on to me was the idea that nothing so much will help me stay away from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail.
And that does not seem like an attractive solution when you don't have a job and you don't have know what you're going to do in life. And I think that what happened was is he he uh encouraged me to go to college which I would have never done because I had never heard the really heard the word college in my house growing up. I didn't know anyone who'd went to college and um he and I started going to college and I started going to meetings and one thing about school is it's kind of interesting looking back in my sobriety at one point there was six of us that lived in this house and um I uh stayed active in alcoholics.
I always worried I would be the one that didn't make it because one of the things that my first sponsor uh his sponsor said to me, he there was three of us in a room and he said, "A year from now, two of you will not be here." And I thought I was one of the two. I thought I I thought, "Oh, I'm I'm screwed because uh Mark is a much better AA member than me." But you know what? We're all still here.
And um I think that uh part of that is is that you know a home group is very uh a home group to be a part of and to help build and you know uh my sponsor's wife talks about today that we don't shoot our wounded and alcoholics anonymous because if we did we'd all be dead and uh that I need to have you know I've seen everybody's or the people I know anyway I've seen their human side and no matter how how hard I work alcoholics anonymous I will not never rise above being a human being. However, I've been given a program of action in which I can look at my part in things which I can find my part in things, what my wrong is, where I can make amends, try to balance the books to make it right, to ask for some guidance from God, to talk to a sponsor when I'm not sure uh what direction I should go in, and to uh turn my thoughts to someone I can help because I did what I wanted, when I wanted, how I wanted, and going after everything I wanted. And that got me in and out of institutions.
That got me crying myself to sleep. I mean, I people I always felt like people looked at me like I was a loser. But at the end, I felt like a loser.
At the end, I thought about uh when I was sober, what baffled me about alcoholism, I thought, why is it I'm 6 months sober and I'm more suicidal now than I ever was drinking. And so, I have to find a light way to live sober, comfortably in my own skin. And nothing has helped me more than than uh in my involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous.
And u you know the uh my sponsor told me that uh the guys that you work with will become your best friends and that you'll get to see a get a front row seat in in the people a lot of people's lives. And that's been uh the case for me. I um when I was uh I'm always people who know me um in Alcoholics Anonymous know that I I really have a desire to be helpful.
And I think one of the reasons that I have a desire to be helpful to other people is because it has helped me so much. It has helped me get through things that I don't think I could have got through otherwise than trying to be an example for someone else. And uh one of the things that happened to me when I was about two years sober uh going to school and busy and alcoholics and I got a call from a uh relative of mine and uh I was too busy to return his phone call and um a week later when it was convenient for me to call him back, I discovered that that uh he had left but he was trying to reach me to go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and that uh they were he had went to California and shot himself in the head.
And um I always think that um it's important for me to do what's in front of me. And that's one of the reasons that I think is so valuable to uh one the one of the most spiritual things that that I can do is do what I say I'm going to do. But the other thing I can do is is is do what's in front of me.
When someone calls me, call them back. when I see someone struggling, give them a pat on the back. Oftentimes we talk about, you know, I would say the welfare of the new person is very important and that I want to I want to be around the people that want to be here and that sometimes the person still struggling isn't the new person.
I've had many struggles in sobriety. At six years sober, Chad got to hear my money doesn't matter talk as I threw my laptop across the room to demonstrate that theory that money doesn't matter. And uh after what had happened was is they wanted a new guy I'd been working with at the jail to move into the house we were living in.
And they uh as their sponsor, they overrode me and said they did not want this guy from the jail living with us because they would perhaps he would steal their stuff. And to demonstrate that money doesn't matter, I chucked my laptop across the room. Of course, after they left, I quickly made sure it worked again.
And I and I I was trained in Alcoholics Anonymous. I knew that I was getting warning signs there and so I called my sponsor and my sponsor said, "Well, your house is you're not running a mission and that if they don't want them to live there that maybe that uh that's the right thing to do and you ought to go along with it and here's how you're going to make that right." And it gave me a comfort knowing what I was going to need to do to make it right because I caused a lot of damage in my drinking and and I'm quick to blame other people because that's what I always thought it was. it was other people.
And what I've discovered is is that I am the creator of of 99% of my problems and that focusing on Scott does not fix anything and that if I am to uh I think the you know I need to move towards God's will for me and that doesn't always jive with my will for me. In closing to give you a little bring up to speed on NPG, I don't know that I had much of a part in in in in the Northern Plains group but I know something. When I was four years sober and I was graduating from college, one of the things I'd done is I joined the National Guard because I always wanted to be in the military and I'd went to officer candidate school, officer candidate school because I don't, you know, I want to be in charge too, you know.
And uh I uh they would not give me a waiver for criminal convictions. And I was pissed. I thought I'm four years sober.
I've been active in Alcoholics Anonymous. And it just, you know, and I was, you know, I was thinking about writing senators, suing the National Guard, any number of things. And and I talked to my sponsor and he said, you know, uh, something better is out there.
Why don't you do the next indicated task? And the next indicated task at that point was since I wasn't going to commission and wasn't going to be an officer in the National Guard, it meant that I wouldn't have a job out of college. It meant that I would have to start looking for a job.
And so I started mailing out 10 resumes and cover letters a week and I got a job and uh first I thought they I should start a company for rejection letters because I got a lot of them too. And um but I got this job and this job took me to Jamestown, North Dakota. And Jeff was one of the people that helped me move down there.
And that first night we went to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And that meeting was Chad B. At that meeting was Chad B.
I put your two co-founders together because they ran into me in brief periods of their life. And because of living in Jamestown, North Dakota, a lot of things have happened to me that wouldn't have normally happened. One, I got to I get to live in the town in which people told me I would spend the rest of my life going in and out of institutions, and they're right, but it's only to take meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous into them.
And I've got to watch I've gotten a front row seat in a lot of people's lives. a lot of people's lives that a guy like me doesn't get it. The other person that was at that meeting was my guest, a guy I sponsor here.
There's at this meeting I've, you know, there's people that I've sponsored. There's I don't know how many people that I sponsor are here tonight, but people I've had a front row seat in. And a guy like me doesn't get a front row seat in anybody's lives.
I'm usually a taker. I'm not a giver. And Alcoholics Anonymous allowed me to be a giver some of the time.
And in closing, I think I'm out of time, but today I have a my my bride Shannon is my wife and uh I think that she is my my uh wife's companion and we do things because of the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous that allow us after being married to continue to build our relationship. I have five children and um I keep busy and um I keep busy with them and I uh have a business and uh that I kind of always wanted but never thought it was possible and all those things are contingent and I love them but all those things are contingent on me putting my recovery first because if I don't have my recovery we got to remember I'm a never was if I don't have my recovery I will get real uncomfortable sober. And if I get too uncomfortable sober, I won't be here because there's a lot of good people smarter than me, more spiritual than me that are not here.
And uh there are a lot of people that uh at one time sat beside Jeff and Chad at meetings that are not here. And I'll guarantee you the one thing I know about people that aren't here is they're not doing as well as the people that are. They might for a little while, but usually uh I just seen another obituary of a guy I sponsored in Jamestown at one point that what you didn't see is it didn't say he died of alcoholism.
It just explained his life where he moved from this town to this town to this town to this town to this town and started all these different careers and he was in that midst of brief recovery by followed by worse relapse. And I'm I I hope that we all have time to uh to uh go out of our way a little bit to uh be encouraging to someone who maybe isn't doing as well as we are that's sitting beside us. And uh thank you for my thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise.
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