Am I Moving Forward… or Just Swinging Back and Forth? – AA Speaker – Kenny L. – Hong Kong – 2012
Kenny L. from Houston shares his journey from uncontrollable drinking to nearly 18 years sober. An AA speaker talk on surrender, spiritual awakening, and the difference between motion and real progress in recovery.
Kenny L. spent years in AA trying to stay sober through willpower, planning, and self-determination—only to keep getting drunk. In this AA speaker tape, he walks through his moment of spiritual awakening at a bus stop, his discovery that surrender works where control fails, and the critical lesson that moving forward in recovery means much more than just swinging back and forth on a swing.
Kenny L., a recovered alcoholic with nearly 18 years sober, shares how his obsession with planning and self-will kept him trapped in cycles of relapse until he experienced a spiritual awakening and learned to surrender. This AA speaker tape covers Step 3 (surrender), Step 7 (removing character defects through asking God’s help), and the distinction between staying sober and actual recovery progress. Kenny’s story illustrates how putting other people’s welfare ahead of his own and doing God’s will—rather than his own—finally broke the pattern of moving forward and swinging back.
Episode Summary
Kenny L. opens with a joke about a drunk man on a swing—a perfect metaphor for his early years in the program. He kept asking people to push him forward, only to swing back faster each time, held back by his old ideas and refusal to let go. The swing stayed in one place, giving only the illusion of progress.
Kenny grew up in Akran, Ohio (AA’s birthplace), moving frequently as a child, never feeling like he fit in. He excelled at judo as a teenager, feeding his rage against his bullies and stepfather into his sport. He took his first drink at 15 and quickly developed an obsession he couldn’t understand. By 17, out of control and knowing it, he dropped out of high school, ended up in jail, and joined the army. Later, in college, he found drinking buddies in a motorcycle club—the perfect cover for a double life. When a man pointed a gun at his face outside a bar, Kenny went home, looked at his baby daughter, and decided to change. He moved to Houston and managed seven or eight years of sobriety by putting his family’s welfare ahead of his own.
But Kenny wasn’t truly recovering—he was climbing mountains. He chased a job, then a CPA degree, then an MBA, then a house. Each time he reached a peak, he looked around and saw another mountain. The obsession to fill an emptiness inside never stopped. The delusion that happiness waited at the top of the next hill drove him forward, even as his marriage fell apart. When his ex-wife filed for divorce, he went back out on a binge. Everything—money, job, family, house—disappeared within a year.
The gift of desperation finally arrived. He checked into treatment, stayed sober briefly, and walked into his first AA meeting convinced he was smarter than everyone there. The first meeting topic was terminal uniqueness, and he couldn’t relate to anyone—until they laughed and told him he’d just proven the point. But that hope dissolved quickly. For three and a half years, he cycled through relapse after relapse. He worked the steps, made amends, applied himself with all his might. He watched people who “couldn’t do half” of what he was doing stay sober. They had to be cheating, he thought. They were. They had a sponsor and a spiritual program.
Kenny rejected God entirely. To him, God was a crutch for the weak, Santa Claus for grown-ups, invented by the Catholic Church to control ignorant masses. But when a sponsor pointed out he must have a soul if he could recognize his own crazy thoughts, something shifted. A soul could be sick just like a body. His soul had been laying on a couch for years while he poured alcohol into it to keep it quiet.
He tried to make himself believe in God. He prayed for a year and a half for God to keep him sober—selfish prayers really, all about what he wanted. Nothing worked. His plans multiplied. He had 50 or 100 different sobriety plans over those three and a half years, each one failing because he lacked the power to carry it through. Lack of planning wasn’t his problem. Lack of power was.
Then came the moment of spiritual awakening. Sitting in his apartment after almost two days sober, Kenny reached his breaking point. Standing at a bus stop in a bad part of town, he looked up and said: “If you’re up there, you’re going to have to do this thing for me. I can’t do it.” He prayed in the name of Jesus Christ, not because he believed, but because he’d exhausted every human option. If there was no God, he was going to die. He asked God to take his life and make him of some use to somebody somewhere. He didn’t want to be himself anymore.
What happened next changed everything. As clouds parted, a beam of white light came down and totally immersed him. He felt electricity, covered in goosebumps. When it passed, he felt like he weighed 100 pounds, walking on air. He knew—absolutely knew—there was a God.
He called his sponsor, who came and picked him up. Instead of driving straight to the halfway house, his sponsor ran errands, helped people move furniture after a hurricane, bought him lunch. When his sponsor pointed out that Kenny hadn’t asked where they were going, Kenny realized something profound: “I’m not running the show anymore.” And he meant it. Anywhere his sponsor took him was fine.
At the halfway house, Kenny checked in with no recovery yet, but something different. When the next guy came through the door—a bigger problem than Kenny—Kenny prayed and asked God what to do. The answer was clear: take three of them. He wrote their names on a mirror, checked on them daily, made himself available. His sponsor told him that availability is more important than ability—far more important.
Kenny realized something watching his sponsors: their lives were getting better, and they were too busy to meet with him much. What they had in common was willingness to take time to work with him. If he paid less attention to what they were saying and more to what they were doing, maybe he’d start getting what they were getting. So he stayed after meetings, tried to help the newcomer, and did what they were doing.
On Step 11—prayer and meditation—Kenny learned something crucial. When he got anxious at a bus stop, he’d asked God to help him stay sober. But the book says to pray only for knowledge of God’s will and the power to carry it out. When he got out of his own way and asked, “What do you want me to do?” the answer came: “Pick up the trash.” So he did. He cleaned up the area around the bus stop. When the bus came and he looked back at what he’d cleaned, he felt good inside. The obsession to drink was gone. For the first time, he’d asked God what He wanted, not what Kenny wanted.
On Step 3, Kenny learned he wasn’t supposed to jump straight to Step 11. After turning his will and life over to God, the next step was Step 4. His sponsor asked, “What comes after three?” not eleven.
On Step 7, Kenny discovered that God does remove character defects—but only when they stand in the way of usefulness to God and others. He asked God to remove defects that stood in the way of money and popularity. Nothing happened. But when he’d get home from work, tired and wanting to watch TV, and he’d get on his knees and ask God to make him a better listener, more compassionate, more understanding before working with a newcomer—those defects melted away. As a result, he became a better sponsor and his relationships improved.
Nearly a year sober, Kenny was asked to share his story at the halfway house. His stage fright—the fear of public speaking that had haunted him since childhood—was lifted. He’s since spoken to groups of 400 to 500 CPAs and attorneys. The fear didn’t return.
Kenny watched a man named Jim B., who’d been sober 15 years, drive 30 miles across Houston traffic every Friday night to lead a meeting at the halfway house. Jim talked about the ABCs: go to meetings, don’t drink, repeat. Kenny used to think that was simplistic. Then he realized: if he wanted what Jim had, he didn’t need to listen more carefully. He needed to do what Jim was doing. So Kenny did the same thing Jim did—led meetings, showed up, did service work. And he got what Jim had.
Through that connection, Kenny got involved in a CPA peer assistance program. When they needed someone to tell their story at the state convention—a career-killer move in front of top CPAs—Kenny prayed about it. His intelligence told him it was stupid. But he’d learned his intelligence only gets him so far. He put his name in the hat, they drew it, and he told his story. The program got massive funding.
When they asked him to become the program director at a 50% pay cut and no benefits, Kenny prayed again. The answer came: you might be able to help somebody. He took the job. The year he took a 50% cut in pay to do God’s business, he made more than three times what he’d ever made in his life—through a side practice that grew because his specialized skills became valuable. When he took care of God’s business, God took care of his.
Three years ago, Kenny opened the Powerhouse Recovery Center. He tried to do everything himself at first, broke down, and asked God for help. The answer was always the same: you’re not supposed to do it alone. He looked around and saw plenty of people ready to help.
The core message Kenny shares: Are you actually moving forward in your recovery, trudging the road to happy destiny? Or are you just swinging back and forth, giving yourself the illusion of progress while your old ideas keep pulling you back? Real progress means letting go, surrendering, and doing God’s will instead of your own. It means putting other people’s welfare ahead of your own. And it means watching what people with what you want are doing—and doing that, instead of just listening to what they say.
Notable Quotes
When I got to AA, I was sitting on a swing and I would ask you people to come along and give me a push and you wouldn’t. You give me a push and I’d go forward a little ways and then I’d come swinging back faster than I went forward.
The problem with being on a swing is that while you’re only going back and forth, it gives you the illusion that you’re actually moving and going somewhere.
God, if you’re out there, you’re going to have to show me you’re there… If you’re up there, you’re going to have to do this thing for me. I can’t do it.
I realized that I felt half the weight I had felt before. I felt like I weighed 100 pounds. I felt like I was walking on air and I knew there was a God.
The one thing all the sponsors I had in common was that they were willing to take time out of their day to work with me. And maybe if I didn’t pay quite as much attention to what they were saying as to what they were doing and started doing what they were doing, maybe I’d start getting what they were getting.
When I took care of God’s business, he took care of mine.
Step 7 – Character Defects
Spiritual Awakening
Sponsorship
Step 12 – Carrying the Message
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Step 3 – Surrender
- Step 7 – Character Defects
- Spiritual Awakening
- Sponsorship
- Step 12 – Carrying the Message
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> Hello everybody. My name is Kenny.
I'm an alcoholic >> because there is a God in AA works. My date of grace is 111794 and it truly is a date of grace. I tried for several years to say stay sober and uh was not able to do that.
And on my day to grace, uh the problem was simply removed. Um I couldn't stay sober and I haven't had to for almost 18 years. Uh truly a miracle.
What a conference. Read this book. Uh I love that title for the conference.
Um they told me when I came around, if you wanted to hide something from an alcoholic, just put it in the big book. Uh I don't know what the big deal is. Um, you know, if you're an alcoholic like me reading this book, it's only a matter of life and death.
Um, I believe the book was truly inspired by God and the people that wrote it were messengers of God, bringing a message to us here. If you came here to hear one of the most dynamic and inspirational talks that you've ever heard, I hope you were here last night. It was wonderful.
Uh today you just have me and I should not be your speaker. I really shouldn't be. Uh when I finally uh did get this recovery thing, uh the old-timers quit making bets on who was going to get sober because uh there was little chance that I would ever get this thing.
Probably least likely to succeed. Uh not only that, but uh as a child, I think back and um I wasn't a bad kid, but my teachers just didn't understand me. you know what I mean?
I mean, they just didn't understand me. And I can remember one of several schools that I went to that uh I would get called out of class two or three times a week, sent down the hall. And I wasn't going to the principal's office because, like I said, I was a good kid.
They just didn't understand me. Uh literally, they didn't understand me. I was going to a speech therapist because I they couldn't understand me.
Uh excuse me. I've got a dry sense of humor. It seems like the the longer I go uh since I had my last drink, the drier it seems to get, but it's the way it is.
Well, you know, if I'm up here, any one of you could be up here. I never thought I would ever be up in front of a group, much less at an international conference. Uh the only explanation I can have is that God has given me a story.
Uh he's given me an amazing story and now he's given me the opportunity to share it with you. It must be someone out there needs to hear something that I have to say otherwise I wouldn't be up here. Um I'm told I'm supposed to open with a joke.
So let's give this a try. Knock at the door. Who could that be?
3:00 in the morning pouring down rain. God, who could that be? There it is again.
So, a guy gets up out of bed, walks to the front door, opens the screen door, looks out on the porch, and there's the drunk staggering back and forth. Says, "Can I help you?" And he says, "Yes." He says, "I am sure stuck out here, mister, and I could really use a push. Could you help me out?" Man thinks about it a minute.
Says, "Hell no. It's 3:00 in the morning. I'm going back to bed.
Good luck." So he turns around, goes back and gets into bed, starts to pull the covers over his head, and he's uh laying there thinking two or three weeks ago he'd had a flat tire. Some guys pulled over. It helped him get going.
And he thinks, you know, I guess I ought to go out and try and help this guy. It just be the right thing to do. So he gets back up and he walks out to the porch, opens the door, pitch black, pouring down rain.
The drunk's nowhere to be seen. So he hollers out in the distance, "Can I help you? Uh you still out there?
you still need a push? And a reply comes from the distance. Yes, sir.
I sure do. I really appreciate your help. He says, "Well, where are you?
I I don't see you." And he says, "Well, I'm sitting right over here on the swing." Now, that's not the funniest that's not the funniest joke in the world, but uh it reminds me of uh when I got to AA. When I got to AA, I I got to AA and I was sitting on a swing and I would ask you people to come along and give me a push and you wouldn't. You give me a push and I'd go forward a little ways and then I'd come swinging back faster than I went forward.
And I had this structure that I'd build up around me and it was my life. And there were a couple of chains hanging from that and those were my old ideas. And I wouldn't let go of them.
And every time you gave me a push forward, I'd come swinging back even faster. Finally, uh, I became willing to let go of those old ideas and you gave me a push forward and I took a leap of faith and I landed on new ground. And, uh, that's kind of what happened to me.
Now, I've got to be careful not to build a new swing set in sobriety because I've done that. You know, the old ideas I had were quickly replaced by new ideas. And if I held on to them long enough, I found out here I am again holding on to old ideas.
And the problem with being on a swing is that while you're only going back and forth, it gives you you the uh illusion that you're actually moving and going somewhere. So, I beg you to take a moment to check yourself like I check myself. Am I actually moving forward in my recovery?
Am I trudging the road to happy destiny? Or am I just swinging back and forth? Um, they say the spiritual uh it's easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels and we're headed for trouble if we do.
When I accepted this invitation to give my talk, I started thinking about revising my talk. I'm going to make it a little better. Uh I've got uh 18 years, almost 18 years of sobriety and the number of miracles that have taken place have just been amazing.
And I started making some bullet points on all the lessons I've learned and all the great things that have happened to me. And um two weeks later I printed out I've got 58 pages of bullet points and I started trying to come up with a plan on how to do this and uh my plans just never seem to work out very well. And uh I gave a couple of talks, couple of practice runs at home and I said I'm going to get sober right away, you know, and that way I have time to share more of the miracles that have taken place.
And and I I had no problem doing that. you know, five minutes into the talk and I'm sober. Uh, five minutes later, I found out I'm drunk again.
And I say, "Oh, what' I do? I intended to stay sober." So, I would I would get back and I'd get sober again. I'd start, you know, next thing I knew, I was drunk again.
And that's pretty much my story. You know, if if you summarize it, I came to a thinking I was going to get sober right away. And, uh, kept getting drunk over and over and over again.
Um, I've come to believe that uh the only way I got to where I am today is that I had to go through everything that I went through. I'm going to try and go through it as quick as I can today, but um there's only one way for me to have gotten where I am, and that's to have gone through the things that I've done. And while some of it's a little bit tragic, um if I had the opportunity to go back and change any of it, I wouldn't change a single thing.
I would not be willing to take the chance that I wouldn't have the life that I have today because it's truly more than I could have ever imagined. I was born in Akran, Ohio. I need to qualify myself here a little bit.
Akran, Ohio, birthplace of AA. I think they may have seen me coming. Now, I say that jokingly, but part of me believes it.
I maybe that qualifies me as being self-centered enough to be here. Um, I had a pretty normal childhood for an alcoholic, which means that my uh childhood was just about as dysfunctional as the average alcoholics. My parents were divorced when I was five.
Uh, my mother remarried, my stepfather who was an alcoholic, and we moved around a lot because of his job. I grew up living in trailer parks. I never felt like I fit in.
I was always the new kid on the block and I was always being picked on. Uh, first time I was picked on, I didn't understand why. I just couldn't understand why.
I didn't fight back. What did I do wrong? I couldn't figure out what I did wrong.
Um, we'd move again. Same thing had happened. Same thing had happened.
I never could figure out what I did wrong. Um, of course it had to be me. Something I was doing or not doing.
Um, had a little resentment over that when I got older. uh age 13, we moved into a town and uh we settled down. We settled down roots and I got I was a good student, almost a straight A student, probably did well at school.
That was my way out of where I'd been, at least I thought. Um I got involved in sport judo and I excelled at it. And in about a two-year period, um age 15, I had taken third in the nationals.
I had an opportunity to go to Japan to the Kodakon on an exchange program. And for a guy that uh grew up in trailer parks, I mean, this was just amazing, you know, this opportunity to to travel. Every time I got on the mat, bowed in, got ready to compete, I never uh I never saw the opponent that I was facing.
I would close my eyes and I'd bring back memories of my stepfather. I'd bring back memories of all the bullies that picked on me and I fed those resentments that I had and and I was quite successful when I got out there because I had a lot of rage inside and I let it out. Had I any idea the price I was going to pay for that later, uh the damage that it did to my soul was just tremendous.
And when I took my first drink, I found oblivion. Uh within u two years, the obsession and the compulsion. And I didn't know what that was about when I got here.
I I didn't think I had a compulsion. I just drank because to get drunk because I like to get drunk. Um I could quit drinking on Sunday and not drink till Friday.
I mean, I could do it. I told myself I was going to do it several times and on Sunday I would quit for the entire week. I had never uh actually made it the entire week.
I always changed my mind by Tuesday or Wednesday. Um by the time I'm 17, I passed up my trip to go to the Kodakon. I told all my friends that I didn't think I'd enjoy saki.
Truth of the matter was I was out of control and I knew it. I dropped out of high school. I wound up in jail.
Um, they told me I wasn't going to walk out of there, but I could march. So, that's what I did. I joined the army.
And I've got a lot of drunk stories about the army. One time I was drunk on tequila and bet somebody I could chug a quart of tequila and I turned it upside down. Wound up uh with alcohol poisoning and um almost killed myself then.
But uh for the most part um I was pretty much under control in the army. When I got out, I started to go into college on the GI Bill. Um almost didn't make it through college, like I said, uh because of the stage fright uh that I experienced.
I I couldn't get up and talk in front of a group, but I did finally make it through that. I found a set of uh I found a group of people that drank the way I drank to hang around with. I mean, the big book talks about us leading a double life, and I was certainly no exception.
I had my college life where I was studying and going to school, and then I had my drinking buddies. And I'm a kind of an overachiever when it comes to everything. So, when I chose my drinking buddies, I wound up hooking out up with a motorcycle club.
Perfect. perfect for an alcoholic. Uh the more antisocial I was, the better I fit in and I could go out and just go full guns and uh get up the next day and go to college.
There was something wrong, something missing inside. And I didn't know what it was. And uh I looked around.
I realized what it was. Was I'd always wanted a family. And I started looking around.
I found the right girl. And I told her if she got pregnant, I'd marry her because I wanted a family. And she did and we did and we got married and I was out one night with this motorcycle club and um ran outside of a bar because everyone had had vacated for some reason.
And I got out there and there was a guy in another motorcycle club with a pistol pointed in my face and the gun was shaking and I'm looking down the barrel and he's asking his buddy, should I shoot him? Should I shoot him? And before his buddy replied, I I had the wherewithal to answer for him.
And I looked at him looked him dead in the eye and said, "No, you definitely should not." Uh, and he didn't. And uh, you know, that didn't really shake me up while I was drinking. No guns were fired.
No gunshots were fired. I'd been shot at a couple of times before that. But I went home and I looked at that little baby girl and I thought, you know, she really needs a father.
and made a decision at that point to change my life and we packed up and moved to Houston, Texas. Um, my alcoholism was pretty much at bay for the next 7 8 n years and the only thing I can attribute that to is for the first time in my life I put someone else's welfare ahead of my own. And I think that's part of what's working today.
Big part of what's working today. I put other people's welfare sometimes a little bit ahead of my own. For the next uh seven or eight years, I started doing what I call uh climbing mountains.
You know, I wasn't right inside. I needed to find a job. If I found a job, I could support the family.
Everything would be okay. I looked around. I found a job.
Everything was okay for just a little while, but that didn't seem to do it. There's still something missing. Well, if I became a CPA, you know, then I'd be happy and satisfied.
And the book talks about this delusion that I will be happy and satisfied if I just manage well. And I would look and I say, 'What is it I need? What is missing in my life?
Ah, there it is on top of that hill. If I just get that, I'll be happy and satisfied. I wanted a son.
If I had a son, I'd be happy and satisfied. Had a son. That didn't do it.
Um, more education. I went back to school for an MBA. They wanted me to get up and talk in front of people, though, so that didn't work.
I got a masters in accounting. It's good enough. You know, that satisfied everything it seemed like for a couple of weeks.
And then I looked around. What is it that's missing in my life? There's something missing in my life.
Oh, we've been living in apartments. If we just had a house, everything would be fine. We saved up money and put a down payment, bought a four-bedroom house.
Um, the list goes on and on. I don't know if you have a list of what it's going to take for you to be happy and satisfied. Um, you know, that delusion is still persistent today.
I still fight that. I still think I'll just I'll be happy and satisfied if and when I get to the top of whatever hill it is and I get to the top of that hill and I'm not happy and satisfied and I look around and I say, "Oh, there it is over there. I climbed the wrong hill." See, when I manage my life, one of two things happen.
Either I don't get what I want and I'm disappointed or I do get what I want and I'm even more disappointed. Happens over and over and over again. About this time the marriage started falling apart and I I found another mountain to climb.
If I become a lawyer, you know, then I'll be happy and satisfied and she'll never leave me. Becoming a lawyer is going to solve all my problems. Um, and I'm working 55, 60 hours a week doing tax work and going to law school.
And my marital problems got solved about my second year of law school. Uh, she filed for divorce. Wasn't the solution I was looking for, but they were solved.
And uh, I went out on a bench. First time I'd gone out on a bench since I'd gotten to Houston. I went out with abandon and I just said I'm going to get totally wasted.
And I had no idea of how the disease had progressed or could have progressed. I had no idea what I was went in for when I went on on that first vendor. Um I not only left off picked up where I left off, I believe I picked up where I would have been had I been drinking and using the entire time.
Um, I had accumulated money in the bank I thought was going to make me secure. I had a retirement account. I had a good job.
Uh, family. It was all gone within a year. I mean, within a year, everything had disappeared.
I'm uh on my way back to um a four-bedroom house with four big jugs of uh water, um, bottled water. I had four big jugs filled up with water. Somebody had been good enough to give me a ride back there.
And I was carrying that water back to the house to flush the toilets with cuz the water had been shut off 2 months earlier. And I go in and I flip on the light switch and and I'm wondering how in the hell did they get past the Rottweiler in the backyard to cut off the power because it was 3 or 4 months overdue and they hadn't been able to do that before. Then I looked around the house which was uh virtually empty.
I think there was still a couch there. Everything else was pretty much gone. And there was stuff piled up in the driveway.
The family was gone. Uh the job I was hanging on to just by a thread. And uh I received what you call the gift of desperation.
And I was willing to do anything. They've been trying to get me to check into treatment, but I didn't need to do that. Well, when the gift of desperation came along, I decided I would do anything.
And that's what I did. I checked into my first treatment center and uh was there for 30 days and I did everything they told me to and and more and they cured my alcoholism and my addiction. Uh all except for the drinking and drugging part.
You know that went on for oh I don't know another three three and a half years. Uh they did uh also diagnosed me as being uh clinically depressed and they gave me an depressants. Now those didn't seem to work for me.
They worked for some people. They didn't work for me. Um when I quit putting everything I owned in the pawn shop on a weekly basis though, my clinical depression just seemed to go away.
Uh funny how that happens. They took me to my first AA meeting and I walked in the meeting and I looked around and the first thing I did was I sized everybody up. I I said, "How can all these dumb people help me?" You know, I can tell by looking at them they're not as smart as I have am.
They haven't accomplished the things I've accomplished. How can all these dumb people help me? And my only choice was uh to either sit there or go back to the lockup board.
So I decided uh to take a seat and I sat down and they opened the meeting up. They read how it works. One of the lines in there is u half measures availed as nothing.
I think my mind picked up on that and I thought I wonder what I can get with 51%. I found out uh wonder what I can get with 60%. I find found out that too.
But I'm sitting there in the meeting and they asked if anybody was new and I raised my hand and they told me I was the most important person in the room. With that, I immediately realized they were a whole lot smarter than I'd given them credit for. Yeah, maybe there is hope for me here.
The first meeting, I'll never forget the topic. It was on being terminally unique and people would go around the room and they all shared about how when they got there they felt they were different than everyone else that they couldn't relate and how that feeling of uniqueness almost killed them and I couldn't relate to anything they were saying you know and they asked me at the end of the meeting if I wanted to share and I I told them that basically that I couldn't relate to anything they were saying and they started laughing they had me Um, well, that gift of desperation that I walked in with uh was somehow magically dissolved in that meeting. And I left there with renewed hopes that I'd be able to stay sober.
There's a paragraph in Bill's story that starts off renewing my resolve. You know, he winds up drinking again. And that's what I did for about three, three and a half years.
I'd come back into meetings and I'd renew my resolve to stay sober and I was literally uh dying to stay sober. Uh just couldn't do it. I kept trying.
I kept trying. I did four steps. I made amends.
I did uh you know I applied myself to that like I'd applied myself to everything else. A lot of self-will, self-determination, hard work. If you could do it, I could do it.
And I saw people who couldn't do half the things that I was doing getting sober and staying sober. They must be cheating. They're getting help from someone somewhere.
Sure enough, they were. Um, I didn't want anything to do with the spiritual part of this program. I was later told there isn't any other part, you know, but uh to me, God was a crutch uh that weak people use because they just didn't have the willpower to do things on their own.
Um I'd thrown God out when I got rid of Santa Claus. You know, making a list and checking it twice. You know, it seemed like pretty much the same thing.
God was just a Santa Claus for for grown-ups. And they actually had some of these grown-ups still fooled, but I could tell they really didn't believe there is a god because if they really believed what they were saying, they wouldn't be acting the way they were acting. Uh, at least that's how it appeared to me as a kid.
And I just kind of blew the whole thing off as something that the Catholic Church had created to control the ignorant and superstitious masses. And that's a pretty hardline view. I believe God created the earth and that's what God was.
he was the creator and he was off somewhere else in the universe creating another world and hopefully doing a little better job of it than he'd done here. Uh but as far as a god that actually had some personal interaction, that idea was just foreign to me. Like what I heard yesterday, it was what I knew for certain that almost killed me.
And that was one of those things that I knew for certain. I mean, I just knew it. Um I started uh opening my mind to spirituality when I saw people that couldn't do the things that I was doing getting sober.
I um argued with people about whether or not I needed the spiritual part of the program. I'd argue with them till they went away and uh that meant that I won the argument and then I'd go get drunk. Finally, someone got my attention.
He said, "Kenny, maybe you don't need the spiritual part of this program." And I said, "Finally, someone that understands where we going from here." He says, he says, "Well, the only way you'd need the spiritual part of this program is if you happen to have a soul. If you don't have a soul, you probably won't need it." And then he asked me point blank, "Kenny, do you have a soul?" And I thought about that one for a while, and I realized that I did. You see, when these crazy thoughts were going on in my head, there was something inside of me that said, "Hey, these are crazy thoughts." We all recognize we have a body and if your body's sick, you don't make good decisions.
You It's pretty much accepted today that people can be mentally ill. If you're mentally ill, you're not going to make decisions. Well, if you have a soul that happens to be sick, what kind of decisions would you be making?
You see, I had a soul and it was sick. I started thinking about what kind of condition my body would be in if I laid it on a couch, told it to be quiet, don't say anything, don't get up, watch TV, and handed it a bag of potato chips every day or two to eat. And uh just told it to sit there and I realized my body be in pretty bad condition.
And and that's basically what I'd been doing to my soul for as long as I could remember. You know, I told it to sit on the couch, be quiet, and I would get busy, busy, busy doing one thing or another, so I didn't have to pay any attention to it. And when I needed a break, it would start to speak up, and I'd pour a little alcohol or other chemicals in my body to shut it up because I didn't want to hear what it had to say.
My soul was sick. And if you don't think this is in the big book, and I mean, it certainly is. It says, "Bride in airplane as can be.
when the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. So, I opened my mind a little bit to this God thing and I tried to make myself believe in God. And the more I tried to make myself believe, uh, the more I got to make believe God.
I became willing to pray and ask God to help me stay sober. And that didn't work. Didn't work a bit.
I did that for a year and a half. Finally, um um my plans have degenerated. I had a plan for staying sober when I got here.
I developed one shortly, you know, afterwards when I was in treatment. Um and then I would drink again. And then I would look back and see what mistakes I made and I would make a new plan.
And then I would uh uh get drunk, realize what I did wrong, and make a new plan. And I must have had 50 or 100 plans uh over those three and a half years. And finally someone pointed out said, "Kenny, what's it?
You got a new plan?" I said, "Yeah." And they said, "What's the odds of it working based on your history?" The odds of it working were not very good. You see, uh, lack of planning was not my dilemma. Lack of power was my dilemma.
You know, you can have the best plan in the world, but if you don't have the power to carry it out, it doesn't mean squat. Um, I eventually wound up with a plan that I refer to now as the one day at a time plan. And what I would do was after a 3-day binge, I'd make sure that I had two bottles of wine in the refrigerator.
And at 11:30 sharp, the alarm would go off and I'd drink those two bottles of wine. So that by 12 12:00, start of the new day, I hadn't had a drink. And I would pass out.
I would wake up about 2:00 in the afternoon, get something to eat, and I'd go back to sleep. And and that was my one day. And the problem was I couldn't seem to get day two.
You know, I could just get that one day at a time. I'm uh rocking along like that and I'm starting to feel pretty hopeless. And some people who were in AA uh who worked right out of the big book were about the only ones that were still hanging around me.
And they told me, uh, Kenny, uh, if you keep trying to stay sober, you're going to die. They asked me, they said, Kenny, are you ever get this feeling that you're hopeless? you know that you're never going to be able to stay sober.
I said, "Yeah, I do. I get that feeling from time to time." And they said, "The reason you get that feeling that you're hopeless is because you are." They didn't give me hope. They talked to me about my fourth step, you know, and they didn't tell me I needed to learn to love myself.
They said, "Uh, Kenny, uh, when you did your four steps, and I know you've done quite a few of them, did you ever get a feeling of guilt and shame?" And I said, "Oh, yeah. I got an overwhelming feeling feeling of guilt and shame." Said, "Well, we can tell you why you felt that way." I said, "Really? Why?
Why is that?" He said, "Well, if you're like us, you're probably guilty of doing a lot of shameful things." There are a lot of acronyms in AA for uh God, G, group of drunks, good orderly direction. But I believe the one that I relate to most is uh the gift of desperation. And those guys uh were the messengers from God to help bring me that gift of desperation.
And I thought that was a rather strange way to try and help somebody get sober. And I started looking in uh the chapter on working with others. And it says couldn't find anything in there on giving the guy hope, but I I found something in there that says that the more hopeless your man feels, the better.
The more likely he is to follow your suggestions. Now, I paraphrase the big book a lot. Um, I had memorized how it works uh before I got out of treatment.
Uh, I knew uh I could quote it uh today. All I do is paraphrase it. I'm worried more about more concerned about what it means than you know the exact words they use.
So, u a lot of my quotes in here are not going to be exact, but uh hopelessness. Um I'm reminded of a line that Dr. Silkworth uh uses in I think it's aa comes of age and he talks about hopelessness as being the black soil out of which every vital spiritual experience is grown.
Um and uh I started feeling hopeless. I'm on my one day at a time program. Uh I've got almost two days.
One day I got a new sponsor and he's bringing me back uh to my apartment and I say goodbye to him and I'm doing just fine. I'm alcoholic. Of course I'm doing fine, right?
Uh I'm doing just fine and and I'm excited because I know if I just go into my apartment, I made it through the 8:00 meeting without leaving. You know, I I'm going to get too. All I got to do is go into the kitchen and make something to eat and go to sleep and I'll have two days sober and it had been a while.
I said goodbye to him and I walked around. I walked down the aisle, got to the door of my apartment, I unlocked it and a thought came over my head, you know, you ought to give those guys a call and see what they're doing tonight and I locked the door back up. I said, "That's a crazy thought." And I unlocked the door and then I locked the door.
Then I unlocked the door and I locked the door and I don't know how long I stood there, but the insane thought won out again. And I'm out for another three-day binge. And uh anyway uh after that binge to give you an idea of the progression of the disease I've got two go college degrees and I'm I'm sitting there at uh 3 in the morning.
Uh no one will answer their phone. I can't figure out why. Um no one's coming to the door anywhere I go.
So I turn on the TV and what's on at 3:00 in the morning? There's a show called Cops and they show a little marketplace not far from where I live and a car will pull up and the car will pull up and the window will roll down and money exchanges hands. The car starts to drive off and the cops come in and they arrest everybody.
They got a camera on the other side of the building. Same thing happens. Car pulls in, window rolls down, money exchanges hands, cops pull in, they haul everybody off to jail.
And with my keen alcoholic mind, I realize I know where I can find something. I only need one more and then I'll be able to quit. And uh I knew this was insane and I argued with myself the whole way there.
Um that convinced me I couldn't trust my thinking anymore. Um got home. Um, just one more and I'll be able to quit.
That thought was still alive. That lie was still alive. And I'm sitting there in my bedroom and I got my big book out and uh um set it on the bed and I started opening it up and I said, "Well, this doesn't work.
I don't need to read that." I started to pray. In fact, I said the third step prayer and the seventh step prayer and I asked God to help me stay sober and that didn't work. And out of desperation, I looked up and I said, "God, if you're out there, you're going to have to show me you're there." I I knew part of my problem was that I couldn't make myself believe.
And I said, "God, why aren't my prayers working? I've been praying for a year and a half for you to keep me sober." And this line in the big book came back. It says, "We're careful never to pray for our own selfish ends.
It doesn't work. We've wasted a lot of time doing that." And I started thinking about my prayers to ask God to help me stay sober. And while I didn't say this, what I was really meaning was, God, please help me stay sober because if I can't stay sober, I won't be able to get what I want.
That was the bottom line. God, please help me stay sober because I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired and I don't want to be sick and tired anymore. It was all about me.
You know, I think when some people say that prayer, you know, they have every intention of going out and helping other people and doing good things and all that kind of stuff, but uh not me. You know, I just wanted to get sober so I could get what I wanted out of life. And it was a selfish prayer.
And maybe that's why my prayers hadn't worked. I left out of there uh with a feeling more desperate and hopeless than I ever had. And I uh walked across the street to make a phone call because it was almost 9:00.
the liquor store was going to open and I had enough money for another bottle of wine if if no one answered the phone and I looked up in the sky before I made that phone call and I said, "If you're up there, you're going to have to do this thing for me. I can't do it." Uh I realized uh on that walk across the street that uh I had done everything humanly possible that I could do to stay sober and if there wasn't a God, I was going to die. And I opened up my heart and I reached out with everything I can.
Not because I believed God was there. I just believe I I kind of came in through the back door. I believed if there wasn't a God, I was going to die.
And I said, I don't want to be the pitiful piece of whatever that I had become. Piece of work. Let's use that.
Um, and I asked in the name of Jesus Christ, please help me. And that's something I had never done before. And I don't know if that uh was significant or not or if it was just the fact that I was willing to do anything.
But uh I'm not willing to take that chance. I'm a Christian today of my own of my own understanding. But that's uh that's just for me.
I don't think that's necessary. In fact, I know from hearing other people that it's not. And as I looked up in the sky, I uh said that prayer and I asked God to take my life, make me of some use to somebody somewhere.
I didn't want to be me anymore. I was pitiful. And I looked uh something caught my eye and I turned and I looked out in the in the road.
Uh you know how when the cl the clouds part just a little bit and a beam of light will come down? Well, that that didn't happen. There's this beam of light shining down in the road and as the clouds continued to part that beam of light came right up to me and I was totally immersed in blinding white light.
And every time I testify to this, I get covered in goosebumps like I do right now. And I was covered in goosebumps then. Uh, and it felt like electricity.
And I I remember coming out of it and looking down in the foam was hanging still. So I knew this had taken more than a moment. There was something there with me.
And I can't explain what it was. I took a couple of steps and I realized that I felt half the weight I had felt before. I felt like I weighed 100 pounds.
I felt like I was walking on air and I knew there was a God. I mean, I just knew there was a God. And I picked the phone up and I called my sponsor and I my new sponsor.
When I say my sponsor, I'm talking about any one of 50 to 100 people. I I went through a lot of them, you know, during this trip. and uh he said, "Well, uh pack a bag for 2 or 3 days.
I'll come pick you up, but be there when I get there." And I said, "Fine." And I went over the house and I packed a bag and and he came and he says, "I'm surprised you're still here." And I said, "Yeah." Yeah. And he uh picked me up and he says, "Uh uh I need to run a couple errands, but I've got somewhere to take you. You mind riding along with me?" And we started driving around and there had been a hurricane, one of the biggest hurricanes ever hit Houston.
uh for the last couple of days before that. I'd missed it. I'd missed it.
I mean, there's trees down in the middle of the road, you know? I mean, the place is a disaster. And we go help a couple people and move some furniture because, you know, water gotten in everywhere.
And whatever he said to do, we went and did it. And then he went and bought me lunch. And and as we were talking, he says, he says, "Something kind of strange about our conversation today." And I said, "What's that?" He says, "You haven't asked me where we're going." And before that, if you were going to take me to check in somewhere, I want to know, first of all, can I smoke?
You know, how clean is it? What are the qualifications of the people that run the place? I mean, I had a list of criteria for any place that you were going to take me to.
And I remember looking across the the table at him and and saying, "Well, uh, I'm not running the show anymore." And I wasn't. I wasn't running the show anymore. Anywhere he took me was just fine.
and uh he took me to a halfway house and I walked up on the porch, asked him for a push and uh they told me to come in and stay a while and that's what I did. And I checked in there and I tried to help the guy that came in behind me because I couldn't stay sober. And I knew I couldn't stay sober.
Something had happened, but I couldn't stay sober. I started doing what they'd been telling me to do for a long time, trying to do it. They said if I took care of God's business, he'd take care of mine.
And that's what I tried to do. I told myself that the next guy that came through the doors, I'd try and help him. And the next guy that came through the door uh was a bigger problem than I was.
Trying to clean up my language here a little bit. And I got off in the bedroom and I prayed and I said, "Well, God, what do you want me to do? I don't want to work with this guy.
You know, he's worse than me." Um, and the answer came back, we'll take three of them. And that's what I did. The two guys that came behind him and him were were my designated people to help.
And I wrote their names on a little mirror, you know, and when one of them fell out, I picked up the next guy that came in. And all I did was I went and checked on them every day, you know, how are you doing? How are things going?
Sat there, made myself available. In fact, I had a sponsor, the one I still have now actually, who tells me that availability is more important than ability. A lot more important.
And I made myself available. See, I've been listening to sponsors for, you know, since I got there, and I was following their instructions, and I'd watch their lives get better, and I'm dying of alcoholism. How's this work?
You know, I mean, that's what happened. I'm doing everything they tell me to do and their lives are getting better and their their lives are getting so good they hardly have time to meet with me and I'm dying of alcoholism. What's going on with this?
And I finally realized that uh the one thing all the sponsors I had in common I had had in common was that they were willing to take time out of their day to work with me. And maybe if I didn't pay quite as much attention to what they were saying as to what they were doing and started doing what they were doing, maybe I'd start getting what they were getting. And that's kind of my story.
I checked in there with no recovery and started trying to help somebody else for the first time. I started thinking back to all the guys that had tried to help me. Uh after meetings, I'd go into meetings and I'd be dying of alcoholism and I'd say, "I need help." 15, 20 people would come up to me after the meeting, man.
They'd stay there and they'd try and help me. And uh the first one would say, "Turn left." The second one say, "Turn right." One would say, "Let go." One would say, "Hold on." I mean, if you tried to do everything uh they told you to do, you'd have to tear yourself into a thousand little pieces. And I concluded that maybe they didn't really know what they were talking about.
But the one thing they had in common, which I finally got, was they were all willing to stay after the meeting and try and help me. And maybe if I didn't pay as much attention to what they were saying as to what they were doing and start staying after the meetings and trying to help the new guy who came in, maybe I'd get what they got by doing what they were doing. And that worked.
um share a little of my experience with the with some of the steps. Um step 11, I I told you before that a asking God to help me stay sober didn't work out very well for me. Um I'm about 2 or 3 weeks sober and I'm standing at the bus stop in a bad part of town.
and I just uh left law school trying to get back to the halfway house and um this uh knot starts building in my stomach and I know what's coming next and I ask God to help me stay sober and then I remember that doesn't work. Well, what does the book say? Book says uh praying only for knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry that out.
So, I got myself out of the way, which I can do for about a second and a half, and I asked God, "What do you want me to do?" And the first thought that came in my head when I opened my eyes was, "Pick up the trash." And there was trash and cigarette butts all around this bus stop. Now, I'm in law school. I'm a CPA.
You know, I got a master's in accounting. God's will for me has to be something more grandiose than this. But that's what came into my mind was pick up the trash.
And there was a McDonald's bag and I grabbed it and I started picking up all the trash. And I worked my way around out from this bench where I was sitting. And uh when the bus finally came along, I got on the bus and I heard someone running for the bus saying, "Hold the bus." I mean, I swear I heard someone just plain as day, hold the bus.
So, I stuck my arm in the door as he was getting ready to shut it and said, "Wait a minute. Somebody's coming for the bus." And I looked out and there wasn't anyone there. And I looked back to that area that I had cleaned up.
And I got this good feeling inside. It looked so much better than it looked when I got there. I thought, "Wow, that's neat." And I sat back down and the the thought of drinking and using had just totally gone away.
first time in my life I asked God, you know, what what do you want me to do? Give me the power to do it. And it was pick up trash.
But it worked. I stayed sober. Um I had a little trouble with step three.
I do my my third step and then I do like a lot of people do. I immediately call my sponsor and ask him what God's will is for me. He'd ask me uh he he asked me, "Penny, why is that?
Why are you asking me that?" I said, 'Well, we just did our third step prayer last night, trying to turn my will and my life over to God. Uh, and I'm praying for knowledge of God's will for me and, you know, power to go do it. And he said, "Kenon, you've got several degrees.
You've been to all kinds of classes. What comes after three?" Certainly not 11. Um, and so many of us do that.
I al always used to do that. I get to step three and next thing you know I jump into step 11. He says, "I am not certain of this, but I have a sneaking suspicion that God's will for you after doing step three is probably to do step four." Now, there are only uh three kinds of people in this world.
There are those that know how to count and those that don't. And I've just proved which one I am. Anyway, like I said, I've got a dry sense of humor.
Um, step seven. You hear I hear people in meetings all the time talking about how step seven doesn't work. You know, God's going to remove these defects of character when he gets ready to remove them.
And that's not been my experience. Of course, I had to question everything. What is a defect of character?
I mean, uh, persistence is a defect of character. I mean, if I didn't get my way, I would persist and I would persist and I would persist until I got in. It was clearly a defect of character, but if I didn't have persistence, I'd never keep come kept coming back to AA for three and a half years.
So maybe it wasn't a defect of character. And I took my definition from the sevenstep prayer where it talks where we ask God to remove every single defect of character that stands in the way of our usefulness to him or our fellows. And for me, for this drunk, a defect of character is just that.
Anything that stands in the way of my usefulness to him and my fellows. and he and I think uh it's pretty useless to ask him to remove the other defects of character. I've tried that.
I've heard people in meetings share who've tried that. I mean, the defects of character that I wanted God to remove were the ones that stood in the way of me making more money. They were the ones that stood in the way of my being more popular.
um there were the defects of character that stood in the way of my having better relationships and nothing seemed to happen. But my experience was this. I'm uh working I'm living across the street from where I work because um I'm I'm down to to riding the bus.
And u I I kept riding the bus for my first year of sobriety because I didn't know how long I was going to stay sober. And I I had these pretty severe parking problems. Uh when I did drink, I'd be driving along 60 m an hour and I'd wind up parked in the back of someone else's car.
Um so I'm living across the street from from where I work. I get home from work and I'd made a commitment to go back down to this halfway house two or three times a week. And if God would keep me sober, I would carry the message down there to tell these guys that he had done for me what I couldn't do for myself.
And I'd get home from work and and the last thing I'd want to do some days was go down there. And I don't know if it was my selfishness, my self-centeredness, if it was laziness. I couldn't put a label for you on what character defect it was.
But if I would be willing to get on my knees, say the sevenstep prayer, when I stood up, that character defect was more or less gone. I would be full of energy. I'd feel like going somewhere.
I wouldn't want to watch TV. I don't know why. What am I going to do?
Well, I guess I'll go down there like I was supposed to. And it worked over and over and over again. Um God removes the defects of character that stand in the way of my usefulness to him.
when I'm trying to do his will. And it seems like only then does it seem to work. Coming up on a year of sobriety, I was asked to tell my story.
And I've suffered from terrible stage fright. Um I told him I'd have to pray about it and I did. And the answer I got was yes, you need to get up and do this.
So I did. And uh um God removed uh the fear of pe speaking in front of people uh when I got up to share my experience in front of those guys at the halfway house. That fear of public speaking was uh more or less totally removed.
And I've gotten up in front of groups of four or 500 CPAs and attorneys and talked on technical subjects since then. And and while it didn't give me the experience of being a fantastic public speaker, I think experience is something that you have to get on your own. The stage fright for the most part was completely totally removed and it hasn't really ever come back.
Um, now I'm a good alcoholic and being a good alcoholic, if I find something that works, you know, I'm going to find a way to use it. And I've been trying to get God to remove the defects of character that stood in the way of my having better relationships. And you know what happened every time I asked.
Absolutely nothing. Not a thing. You see, I had identified a lot of those.
I was not a good listener. I was not understanding. I was not empathetic.
Um, when you're when the other person is talking, I'm thinking about what I'm going to say. Anybody out there relate to that? Um, but I figured out how this step seven thing worked.
And uh, what I started doing was before I would work with a new guy, I would go into the men's room and I get on my knees and ask God to make me a better listener, make me more understanding, make me more compassionate. And then when I went out and started working with that new guy, those defects of character started to just melt away. And as a result, I became a better sponsor.
And as a result, my relationships with the opposite sex also got better. Um I uh getting close to running out on of time here. Um how much time do we have left?
Uh not much. Uh I opened up uh my part of a eulogy uh with that question. It was for a dear friend of mine by the name of Jim Jim B who was also an attorney and CPA.
And um Jim was interesting guy. He'd been sober about 15 years when I came to the program. And he used to always talk about the ABCs of recovery.
And it was a go to meetings, B don't drink, C repeat and B. And I used to sit in the back of the room and think, where's this guy coming from? Was he really an alcoholic?
You know, what's he what's he saying? How's he staying sober? And I put two and two together, and it didn't take me too long to figure it out.
You see, uh, Jim would drive, he would lead a meeting on Friday night at that men's halfway house. And he'd done that for 15 years, and he drove 30 miles across town in Houston traffic to get there, and 30 miles to go back home. And I started realizing that if I wanted to have what Jim had, I didn't need so much to listen to him.
I needed to start doing what he was doing. And that's what I did for about the next 12 years. as I led one of the meetings, a Sunday night meeting, charity speaker meeting uh there at the uh at the men's halfway house.
I quit listening to what he was saying and I started watching what he was doing and when I did what he did, I started getting what he had gotten. Now, Jim was also involved in a CPA pure assistance program. It was kind of a fledgling program.
It had been around for 15 or 20 years. It had never really gotten on its feet. They had an annual convention and it was a free trip down to South Padre Island and the hotel was paid for and the food was paid for and it was good aa.
So, so I kind of jumped on on the bandwagon and got in there with it. Um, actually I did it because I was trying to do what Jim was doing. So, I went down there and I got involved in it and I tried to help out a little bit and as things would have it, um they wanted to take this program to the next level and they needed to get funding uh from the state society of CPAs in order to do it.
And what they had decided to do is they had gotten a slot on the annual convention uh for someone uh in the program to get up and tell their story, how they gotten drunk, where it took them to, how they recovered. And this is a career killer. I mean, this is not telling your story in front of a bunch of alcoholics.
It's telling your story in front of uh all the top dog CPAs throughout the state of Texas. And the firm I'm working for, you know, has several of those top dogs who were past presidents who are currently involved on committees. And I prayed about it because I I knew it was a stupid thing to do.
But I prayed about it and it seemed like the right thing to do. And I've figured out uh that my intelligence will only get me so far. And if I trust God, uh the things he has planned for me are better than anything I could have ever imagined.
And um I've had so much experience with that that's been successful that I put my name in the hat. I said if they draw it out, they draw it out. And sure enough, they did.
And I went to uh the state convention and got up there and basically told my story where my disease had taken me and how the people in that program, Jim in particular, had helped me recover. And I remember getting up in front of the audience saying, "God, I hope you know what the hell we're doing here." Because I really didn't know why I was up there. Uh, but I did it and it was successful.
And the uh the program got uh a massive amount of funding. Um, and they decided to take the program to the next level and they wanted to hire someone as a program director for the pure assistance program. and they came to me and they proposed that I might undertake this position and uh I said well that sounds great do aa for a living and they said well um there is one little thing here's the salary that we have in mind and there are no benefits and it was over a 50% cut in pay uh no medical benefits they wanted to keep my hours under 35 a week so they didn't have to cover me on any of their employee plans and I'm thinking man, this would be a really stupid thing to do.
But I prayed about it and the answer was you might be able to help somebody go do it. And that's what I did. I took a 50% cut in pay to uh become the first program director for the Texas Society of CPA's peer assistance program.
I'm good at keeping track of my hours. been doing it for years and years and years. They wanted me to keep my hours under 35 hours a week and I did.
I got a lot done. Um wondering, you know, God's going to take care of me. I know God's going to take care of me.
He always has. And um I had been in the estate planning field and they had repealed the estate tax probably five or six years earlier. It was on a phase out so there were less and less people.
Well, in fact, no one went into the industry. Uh, people were dropping out left and right as they kept making changes to how they were going to repeal the law. And no one knew was certain what was going to happen.
And the services I provided and knew about and had specialized in became very valuable. And people came up to me and said, "Hey, can you do a set of wills for us?" I said, "Sure, I can do it, but I'm real busy with this new pro project uh, you know, for the for the CPA peer assistance program. I really don't have time." And they said, "Well, we can't find anybody else that we trust to do it.
Will you take care of it for us?" And I said, "Sure, but it'll be about 10 hours and it's $150 an hour." And they said, "Well, fine. When can you start?" And I said, "Well, I need a retainer." And they said, "How much?" And I wanted him to go away. So, I told them $1,500.
And they wrote me a check. Two weeks later, there's a guy comes up and he needs some trust set up. He needs some other work set up.
I tell him because it's more work, it's going to be about 25 hours worth of work. I tell him $200 an hour and he writes me a check for a retainer and I knock it out in a weekend. You because that's the way I work.
I work 12, 13, 14 hours. So anyway, long story short, um when I took care of God's business, um he took care of mine. The year I took over a 50% cut in pay uh to take care of God's business, I made more than three times the amount I've ever made in my life.
You know, it's just amazing. Totally amazing. I've been telling God that uh uh working at this halfway house that if he gave me the resources and the opportunity, I would I would set up a place of my own.
And he did that for me. and uh gave me the resources and the opportunity and I opened up a place called the Powerhouse Recovery Center about 3 years ago and I tried to do everything I myself of course being a good alcoholic and I would break down I would say God I can't do this all myself and the answer would always come back the same you're not supposed to you know and I'd look around there were plenty of people there to help and uh >> 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.
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