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Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> Hello everybody.

My name is Ralph and I'm an alcoholic. >> And not only this, I'm also a German alcoholic. And to make things worse, I'm also a mathematician.

So we get to a lot about, you know, I will paint some formulas and numbers tonight. And after the show has finished, Mickey and I will actually ask you whether you understood what he was talking about in the first part. And please be reminded there's only one accident.

We are two strong guys. So if you didn't listen tonight, if you don't learn, you know, you think I'm kidding. No, you probably know Rowan Atkinson, Mr.

Bean. I mean, everybody knows him. He's that kind of physical comedian who walks.

He doesn't have to talk much. You just see him and you will laugh. Even if you're not high, you will laugh about him because he's a great physical comedian.

In many movies, he has proven this one. He's what he's doing is comedy. You may know Jerry Seinfeld who happens to be an US comedian.

There is nothing physical about him. If you see him somewhere in the If you see Mr. Bean somewhere in the city, you will laugh.

If you see Seinfeld, you won't laugh. He's going on stage. He's talking.

He's a master of talking. I mean, he's throwing out sentences. ex put an exaggeration on it and another one and another one and another one.

He's also a comedian. So both are comedians. Both make you laugh but they have nothing in common.

One is a physical comedian. One is the talking comedian. So what is comedy about?

You know people would normally say comedy is it makes people laugh. But that's not what comedy is. That's what the result of comedy is.

You feel better when they make No, but I mean that's what comedy is. Food makes me feel better. But food is not comedy.

And I I feel it often enough how uncomy food can be if I eat too much of it. So people then may want to ask what is it then what comedy is. I mean I don't want don't worry I don't want to go into it's not a comedy presentation tonight.

Suppose we will get back to alcohol but it's part of my story why I talk about it. You know, comedy is basically you put people in situations that they are not used to, where they don't have the tools to deal with it. Like Mr.

Bean, he's an abnormal person. You bring in normal situations, he doesn't have the tools to deal with it. So, it's drama, which we all like, of course.

And you let this per this person run in a situation where he doesn't know how to deal with it, and that's creating the comedy. He does it a physical way by trying to buy something in a supermarket. Seinfeld does it by explaining how he walks along an airport trying to end an airplane and how it's creating havoc in the whole airport.

So let's assume that you want to learn about comedy. You would go somewhere look around where are their clubs? Where do they meet?

Where can you find these people to understand about comedy? You may attend the class and so on and on a you would want to meet people because you don't know anything about a comedy and you want to be a comedian. You would find out places where these people meet and you get to ask people what is comedy and they will tell you well you have to slip on a banana and somebody else will tell you well you have to run against the wall.

If you do this often enough slipping on a banana running against the wall your life will end before you become a successful comedian. So that's not going to work. So at different places people will tell you different stories about the same subject and you know eventually you know you ask 10 people they will give you at least 11 different answers definitely.

So you know nothing about comedy eventually but then you start looking around and you may find a place where there are a few people who don't tell you what comedy is by explaining what happens if you are humorous if you know how to make people laugh but they explain to you what comedy is what the basics are what the algebra of it is and actually how to do it. So you may actually pick one of these guys and say, "Okay, teach me. You you're a successful comedian.

I want to be like you. I want what you have and I'm willing to go to length to get it." And you ask this guy. And eventually by meeting those people on a regular basis, sharing your experience with them.

They share their experience with you. You will become a successful comedian and make money with it. Be happy.

Find a lot of girls which all comedians want to have eventually. I mean the big book is saying we all have sex problems. We would not be human if we wouldn't.

I'm not human. So, so there are places actually where you can learn a lot about all this and if you find good people have done it before you, they will teach you. Let's assume you're an alcoholic and you want to stop drinking and you don't even know what your problem is.

Because as Mickey explained earlier when I when I drank I never knew why I was drinking. I didn't have a reason to drink because I didn't need a reason to drink. People always say I drank because of and then comes a long list of reasons.

A reason you normally have when there is doubt when you need to explain something to yourself or to other people. I never explained anything nowhere. So let's assume you have a problem and you want to stop and let's assume there is a place where you can go to and talk about your problem and you get solutions not other problems.

I had this I had this one dream and that's actually part of my story. I won't go so much into the details of my drinking but a little bit more afterwards. I had this one dream and this is that we all work the same program the same way because if we don't we have nothing to share with each other.

I was born about 50 years ago. I know I look much younger. There are many things that kept me young.

One was alcohol life and women of course but I don't want to go into that detail right now. When I was about 18 months old I was brought to hospital for 6 months. I was now to see my parents who I had a childhood trauma.

Probably some other people had it as well. And I lived a relatively normal childhood which means I was growing up in a terrible place. I was growing up in the most terrible place a human being can grow up.

I was growing up in my own mind, in my own head. I didn't know how to deal with people. I had been removed from my parents.

I didn't believe in myself. I was convinced my parents are bad because they had thrown me away after just one and a half years. And when I came back home after 6 months, my young brother was born.

So not only had my parents thrown me away, they even had replaced me in the meantime. They didn't want me back. They had gotten something better and they didn't want me.

I mean, when you are 18 months old, I didn't come home saying, "Okay, my parents psychology, they didn't know what to do back then, and nurses and the whole system wouldn't work like this." I was convinced I'm a piece of for otherwise my parents wouldn't have thrown me away. And my parents must be evil because parent don't do that. So my whole life, like for many alcoholics, was based upon trying to please people.

And that's all I had to do. I was afraid of being thrown away again. So I did whatever I had to do in order to convince you I'm a good guy.

I didn't develop myself, no self-esteem, no nothing like this. So I pretty much lived the night the life of a very normal alcoholic, people pleasing, trying to get the love of you, trying to get your attention, and doing whatever I had to do. So I had to develop survival skills at a very young age.

Nobody ever taught me to find myself to know what is it that I'm supposed to be on this planet. What's the roles that I'm playing in the society? Just pleasing people.

And eventually I became disloyal because I didn't have the tools to deal with all this with what we call life. And so I had to find a way how to get things done. So I was stealing, I was lying, I did everything wrong that I possibly could do wrong.

But I was also gifted like many alcoholics with a certain amount of intelligence and tools that I had. So I studied eventually. I became very successful.

But I was this insecure man my whole life. And whatever I did went pretty much good on one side, bad on the other. I didn't live my own life.

I always lived the life of what I thought I have to be so you would love me. And the more I lived in this shell, you know, I was very wearing expensive suits, but my whole life I felt like this empty suit. There's nothing in this suit.

I always had to present something that I wasn't while at the same time having to perform my duty. So the discrepancy between what I should have been and what I was and what I had to play became so big that eventually I had to drink alcohol because it was the only way to keep myself halfway sane. I couldn't stand, you know, this whole living, this whole discrepancy with my feelings.

You know, I did I didn't know any of this. You know, when we talk about feelings and how things what the impact of life on me was, I didn't know any of this. None of what we usually hear in AA meetings did I know.

I didn't know anything about why I drank. I didn't even know that alcohol isn't a truck. I didn't know that alcohol makes addictive.

I learned this only in AA. I mean, actually, I'm one of those guys. I never took any drug other than alcohol if you don't count cigarettes.

Everything I know about drugs today, I learned in AA. and nowhere else. So I started drinking when I was around 25 years old.

Before that I never had a problem with alcohol. I could go to a party, get wasted, could get wasted several days and there was no craving afterwards. No longing for alcohol, no obsession, no nothing.

I could drink pretty much like anyone else could. And afterwards it was okay. When I was around 25, I started drinking on a regular basis.

And I remember one night I was laying in bed drinking two beers and I was saying, "Jesus, you drink two bottles of beer every day." There have been years in my life where I would have been happy if I would have been able to stop after just two bottles of beer. But I was already some somehow knowing back then that it would become worse. I then continued my drinking.

I became international. I was living on a variety of continents. Pretty much everything except Africa.

became very successful making lots of money living in a in big cities being driven around and drinking got worse and worse and worse. I don't want to go through details right now. Eventually I stopped drinking in Miami about 8 and 1/2 years ago.

I had reached a point where I normally would drink about 15 20 25 cans of beer every night. I was a beer drinker. So I had reached a point where I had to drink in the morning already to just calm down so I could make it through the day in order to go to 7-Eleven was a shop which was just across the street.

I needed 1 hour preparation every time to just walk there for otherwise I would have had a nervous breakdown. I needed to drink to just make it to the shop to get more beer. And then something happened which many of us have experienced.

I would normally drink like three cans of beer and everything was fine. You know, the world was okay, I was okay, future looked bright, the past didn't haunt me anymore. And then I just would continue drinking 15 20 more cans of beer because I started already.

I remember one day I was sitting in my apartment in Miami Beach and I drank these three cans of beer and nothing happened. The pain was still there. I did not calm down.

There was no ease, no light-heartedness, no nothing. So I blamed it on the bad food or maybe I had a flu or something like that. I continued drinking and basically wrote the day off, went to bed that night.

And this next day, the same thing happened again. I couldn't drink anymore, but I had to drink. And I mean, it created a lot of fear.

Didn't know what to do. I called a friend. He brought me in contact with a doctor in Miami who happened to be a sober alcoholic.

When I spoke to him at the phone, he knew right away what's wrong with me. And I told him, "Please, I need to go to a hospital. Put me on ice for like 48 hours so I can straighten out my nurse and afterwards continue my life." I didn't know that I had an alcohol problem and he brought me to hospital and you know was I got heavy sedatives.

The next morning I was brought into a room where a lady asked me to tell my story. So I briefly told my story and eventually I was saying, you know, I drink because I have problems. That was more or less the whole agenda of my story.

And she looked at me and she was a tiny lady, blonde, strong, you know, like this Russian kind of nurse that we see in all those bad movies. I mean, she could actually fight a tank just by the sheer look in her eyes easily. And she looked in my eyes and was saying, "Ralph, you don't drink because you have problems.

You have problems because you drink. You're an alcoholic." You know, she didn't give me any pretext, no preparation. She wasn't saying like, "Ral, wouldn't you consider about you know, diseases and perception and you know, disease, allergy of the body and no pretext because if she would have start to prepare me for telling me that I'm an alcoholic, I didn't listen back then.

I was just hearing physically. But if somebody told me something, I would try to find out what are the next two sentences that are likely to come. So I could prepare even two more sentences.

And the moment you start breathing, I would jump in right away to let you know what you are going to say and what my answer will be on what you are then will be going to say. And there was no pretext at all. She put it straight into my face.

You're an alcoholic. I didn't know what an alcoholic was back then, but I knew that there was an explanation as to why I'm doing the things I was doing. And she told me, I asked, "What can I do?" And she was saying, "After you are released from the hospital, go to Alcoholics Anonymous and things will get better." And even the doctor suggested to me that I would go to meetings.

He took me to meetings in the hospital. And so I did. I left the hospital, detox after a week, and went to AA.

The reason why I came to my second, third, fourth and so on meeting was because I like the crowd in there. I like the people in there. I liked them very much.

So I came back. I liked this whole social I mean meetings in Miami are different than they are in Germany at least for the weather and for the people over there. And what happened to me was the obsession to drink had been removed in the first night already.

The next day I woke up. I mean I was still on sedatives of course for about a week but since then there has been no obsession anymore. I never wanted to drink again.

There was no urge, no longing for a drink. And what happened then on the outside everything just got better. I went to AA meetings.

I worked the steps. I had a sponsor. I got my business back.

And you probably already recognize one particular word, the I. The I. The I.

The I. on the outside everything was just going fine. So I thought wonderful I have everything control because I go to meetings I make service I do this that and the other and everything was going fine.

I later on moved to Los Angeles then because my previous partner that I had in my company I had kicked out replaced him by a new partner alcoholic of course who was 4 and a half years so not working the steps. I mean what else should have happened and business I mean God has a strange sense of humor. business failed and I came into into the fellowship in sobriety with quite a lot of money which lasted about one and a half years or so.

Then I had no more money left. So eventually I had to return to Germany. I had been exposed to AA to probably I don't know 1200 meetings within 2 and 1/2 years.

So I did all the 90 meetings in 90 days. I mean I wanted to be a good alcoholic. I did 172 in 90 days.

I had a I had a sponsor but pretty much for formal reasons because everybody had a sponsor so I have to have one. He was like a little toy for me like property. I didn't want to walk around say I have no sponsor.

People would have asked me. I worked the steps with him which for me meant every couple of weeks I would invite him for sushi and talk to him down there in Miami. In LA I didn't have a sponsor.

After two and a half years I moved back to Germany. And what happened then was I pretty much received a cultural shock. I went to meetings in Germany and the difference between what I was exposed to in the states and later on found in Germany was no steps, no big book, no sponsor.

And I asked once a person what do you do here and they are saying well we are working the steps sorry we are working the program of alcoholics anonymous. And I asked him okay then let's work the steps and he was saying we don't do the steps here. So I asked him what do you do here in order to stay sober and what I mean what's the program you are working and what I was told is we go to meetings and throw our problems on the table and that's it.

So eventually that's what people did and that has been the first time where I started doubting that AA was good. I mean I confused AA and the people in AA. I confused the program with the people working or not working the program.

So what then happened was I mean I always called it a decision that I went back to Germany. But I mean a decision means you have at least two alternatives to choose from. I had no alternative to choose from.

I had I had to go back to German. But I always like to call the decision. It makes me sound that I have everything under control which I had very often in my drinking days.

I mean there are several stories that came to my mind how how I thought I had things under control. So I was now back in Germany and not having a program not having people around me who would work the program the same way I wanted to work it. I didn't have a real good solid foundation because I had stopped somewhere around step five.

I had not done a proper fourth step. Eventually my fifth step could not have been solid and I didn't know anything like Mickey explained it earlier about powerless about fully conceding to my innermost self that I'm an alcoholic. I didn't know what an alcoholic was.

And now I was in a situation where I would go to meetings. I was looking for a sponsor and I found a sponsor actually and he told me, "Life, I only can work with you if you work the steps. I'm a step sponsor." And I wanted to go down to my knees and say, "Thank God that I found a sponsor in Germany works the steps with me." Because I was already so out, knocked out for about a year or so.

I had seen a psychologist already who couldn't help me because he didn't know what the disease was. a good well-meaning man who really helped me a lot because at least I didn't commit suicide during that time and I mean you know if you want to stay sober staying alive it's actually a mandatory prerequisite for it you won't be able to have much happiness joy and freedom if you don't stay alive so I tried to work with this man so we took a walk the following week and I asked him about step one and he was talking about something else he was evading the issue so I I thought I did something wrong and I waited a while and asked him again and eventually I found out he never worked the steps because no one taught him to work the steps. So I was again at this situation at this point where I wanted to do something.

I was already willing to start from the scratch again right from the start. But again I was left with people big meetings like 70 80 people in one room everybody talking about many many different things like a cat peeing on the couch and then people explained what happens to them as a result of it. I mean I felt more sorry for the cat than for the people sitting in the meeting playing complaining about the cat.

Who would treat the cat? And you know I was sitting there I remember one particular time one day in the office when for the first time I felt something is happening and it came right out of the stomach and just lasted a few seconds. It was fear.

Fear like I had never known it before. And it started to come back and to come back and to come back. And one day I was sitting in a meeting where everybody was talking about problems.

And you know I call this BMW meetings, the bitching, moaning and whining meetings. Because you know there is no sense in going to a meeting talking about problems. If I want to listen to problems, all I have to do is go to my apartment, close the windows, sit on the couch, listen to myself.

And if I run out of problems, I invent problems. I have no problem. No problem.

Of course, no problem in inventing new problems. I was sitting in this meeting and I had this feeling. It's only seconds.

It's only seconds and I will stand up in this AA meeting, go to a bar and drink. I had no desire to drink, no longing, no nothing. But I simply had this fear something very, very bad is going to happen.

How was my life back then? The outside circumstances were great. You know, I told you when I came to sobriety, I had money, lost everything.

I had to give the car away, apartment away, sleeping on a friend's couch for a few weeks, which turned out to be 6 months, and then moving back to Germany, starting as a regular employee again, setting up my own company again, making very good money, living in a good area, wearing the expensive suits. But every morning I would wake up, go into the shower and within 60 seconds I wanted to bang my head against the tile just to make that pain go away. These voices which are there before I even wake up.

You probably notice you are in bed, you want to sleep, you still want to rest a few more minutes. And these voices already keep telling you you need to get up. You need to get up.

And another voice would say stay in bed. It's okay to stay in bed so I would get to work later during the day. these permanent voices keeping talking to me and this pain that no matter what I do, I mean was tearing me apart.

I didn't know what to do. I had to perform every day. I had to go to the office, you know, be the funny guy, of course, because I always want to be funny, make people laugh, be the clown.

I had to make presentations standing there, you know, my legs were shaking and I was standing there with a smile on a face. I mean almost like bearing a mask which is later what the fourth step is to to take this mask off to see who I really am. And I was standing there.

I was shitfaced. I was afraid. I wanted to cry.

I wanted my mom back. I wanted to just my mom to hold myself because I wanted to cry like never before. And of course I had to be the successful manager, you know, the consultant everything, the mathematician being around the earth, having done so many different things.

And nothing nothing absolutely nothing worked. And I had no solution. Absolutely no solution.

And what made it really worse, you know, I knew how to recside from the big book. I'm definitely eloquent. I know how to talk.

I know how to present myself in front of other people. I knew all that. I would go to meetings and talk the talk.

I would know I didn't have to look at a particular page. I knew where the words were in the English big book and in the German big book. I did both and I would actually make fun of it and use that against me and other people.

I would sit in meetings, present to everybody what a good alcoholic I am, how good the steps are, how good this program is, how good this fellowship is. And I was just lying. I was just lying to everybody in the room because I was trying to convince myself if I am able to let you know how good I'm working the program, eventually it would work for me.

And there was nothing. I could be among one million people all well-meaning, all loving me like only God can love me. and I would complete feel completely lonely.

Marlon Brundo is quoted of having said when he enters a room with 200 people and one doesn't like him, he has to leave the room. He cannot stand it. He's focusing focusing on the one guy who doesn't like him.

The other 199 who might love him, adore him, admire him doesn't count at all. Nothing at all. And I was sitting in these meetings talking, crying for help on the internet.

did not know what to do. When I tried to establish something, it didn't work. People weren't interested in it.

People simply were not interested in it. And I did not have a solution. So eventually it came to the point where through an interesting chain of events.

I was brought back. I mean it was it was a really interesting I went back to English-speaking meetings because I had been at one particular German meeting. I mean I don't want to talk bad about German meetings or about AA in general.

It's just my particular experience which is basically making me doing what I'm doing today for example being here tonight talking about this experience because I do know from my experience that I'm not the only one who is suffering from this loneliness within a group of people who apparently have a solution and I cannot get attached to the people and the solution. I was sitting in a meeting in a ch and I ran away from this meeting. I knew if I stay in these meetings, I will drink or commit suicide.

I didn't want to commit suicide, but neither did I want to live anymore. You know, there is a fine line between not wanting to live and wanting to commit suicide. I don't know whether it's just an artificial land that I'm making up.

But somehow I wanted to live. I just did not know how. I could not stand the pain of living anymore.

I had no solution at all. So I went to to some English speaking meetings which brought me in contact with international AA conventions. English speaking.

I went to Netherlands to Beltovenen and I met an American over there and I told him, "Yeah, I was living in Santa Monica. Where are you from?" And he showed me his patch which was saying Santa Monica. So he came from the very town where I was living back then.

And I told him my situation that it's impossible to find a sponsor in Germany. And he was saying, "Oh yeah, I know a guy in Santa Monica who actually does long-distance sponsoring." And I was saying, "Great. Who's that guy?" He was saying, "Mickey Bush.

Do you know Mickey Bush?" And I was saying, "Of course I know Mickey Bush. Every halfway s alcoholic in LA knows Mickey Bush. And he handed me a card of Mickey.

And you would think I would call would call Mickey right away after being home. No, I did not. There was still there was still so much pride in me.

I could not pick up the phone and tell someone about the desperation I was in, about the pain was in. It took another bad meeting where I had I mean, you know, when I tell these stories in Germany, they usually don't let me talk that long. And I left this meeting, went back home, and you would think I picked up the phone, called Mickey.

No, I first tried to call a man, my former sponsor, where I knew exactly couldn't help me. You know, I wanted to find the easy way out again. having someone talk so he would make me feel better and I could at least sleep one night.

He didn't answer. Then I called another guy where I knew he wasn't really working the steps and he didn't answer either. So I had one option left.

It was the last bullet that I could use and then I caught actually Nikki and this was to this day the best thing that happened to me because since then I have learned a lot. I didn't know what it was to be an alcoholic. I didn't know what it was to be powerless and all those things.

I still remember I was telling Mickey about my situation about all these voices that I was hearing this, you know, this tormenting storm in my head throughout the whole day that sometimes I couldn't even concentrate. I mean, when I went jocking, I started to chuck in the gym on this running belt because if I would chuck outside the gym, run outside the gym, I would run into a bus. I would run into people.

I mean, it's a nice way to meet people, but they don't want to see you again if you run into them too fast. And I'm running very fast because I had to get rid of all this energy. And I remember I told him that I want to continue making amends, which is step nine.

And he was saying that's good, good idea, but let's talk about step one for a second. And it took only a few seconds. And I wasn't even on step one of our program anymore.

I was before I was at this first step in recovery. And from there on it took me a long time, quite a long time to do all the work. Has it been easy?

No, it has not been easy. The hardest part for me was to let someone know what I was doing through the years to tell people. I mean, it took me one year before I could sit in a meeting, whether it was German or English, and tell people that I'm working the steps without mentioning I worked them before.

because I always had to say yes, I'm back at step one, but I worked in him before. Not really good that I worked before. It took me one year before I could leave away the second part.

I mean, we talk about pride being a real problem. Why it's actually heading the list of the seven deadly sins. That was a big problem for me.

And what I learned is I don't want to blame anyone. Eventually, I am responsible for my own recovery. And that's the hardest part I had to learn.

I had to stop all this blaming crap like bad meetings in Germany. They didn't do this. They didn't do that.

They should have told me in the United States much better and so on. You know to come down to the point where I had to see I am responsible for my own recovery. I have to do the I mean I don't want to go to back too much into this I word again but you know eventually I have to do the work.

It doesn't come from alone. I hear I hear people say if you don't work the steps the steps will work you. That's crap.

That's mental rubbish. The steps don't work me. My disease works me all the time.

It's just waiting for me to say something like this. For example, when I say I have problems and I, you know, yesterday I was talking to a lady. She was saying, "Yes, there is a disease, but there's also that we create trauma in our life." And we all love the trauma.

You know, if you don't have any property, if you don't have anything at all, at least I want to have drama. At least I want to have problems. You know, even the poorest men, if you have problems, you better be something you can talk about and share with.

And that's why all the exaggeration we love so much in our life. And I spoke to her after the meeting. I was saying, "Yeah, you think that it's you creating the drama, but that's just the disease making you believe that you are in charge of even creating your own drama." And that's not true.

I mean, I had to learn that I need other people. the hardest part since I mean I was working the steps and I basically took the steps put them right here and walked away and I was saying okay I have the steps now that's my solution all I have to do is work the steps work the steps work the steps and all the rest basically it's two words where the second word is off which I normally would say to people or think to people I didn't need know the German a group anymore in the English speaking meetings in Germany they are good unless there are German people in It's again just my experience that very often English speaking meetings are being used. So you don't have to talk in your own language which is carrying the advantage.

You don't have to do do anything. You can always behi hide behind the inability of not talking this language which the meeting is run in which I was also using for quite a while I have to admit. So I was pissed with AA because nobody was working the program.

I wanted it to be worked. So I took the steps, took them to myself like my possession. I would run around, work the steps, work the steps, work the steps.

Not to the best of my ability as I learned very fast, my abilities suck. And you know, I also hear people say, "God doesn't give me more than I can handle." And that's not true. If God would only give me as much as I can handle, why would I then ask him to help me?

>> If he just gives me as much as I can, I wouldn't need him. He gives me far more than I can handle. And so I have to ask him.

So what happened then is I mean I had understood and learned you know the basics about the program that I have to do something like doing the inventory being rigorously honest writing everything down discussing with another human being and God but what then happened is no matter how hard I tried I was still in the I program I had the steps now but I had no fellowship ship. So what happened was I felt a bit better for a while, for a few years just and eventually I began going down again, sliding down again. You know, the demons came back.

I had the fear attacks all of a sudden again. Not so bad that I had to hide under a bed or somewhere, but bad enough to make life miserable. And I didn't know what to do.

So I was trying to work the steps harder, put more effort in the inventory, rewriting the inventory and all these reading more but staying away from meetings. I had one particular meeting and that I still liked to go to where people didn't want to work the steps the way I would have wanted them to work the steps. So I became a ruler of the meeting.

The difference between leading and governing is the one who governs makes principles. A leader follows principles. And I did both.

I made the principles that later on I was following and you know I wanted to I mean I was well-meaning but what I was not doing I was not trying to help I was not trying to identify myself with the people and you know if you living in a certain limited space the way I was down there in Munich and still am I eventually came again through help to the point I have to do something about it because I need two different things I need to work the steps which basically helps me to change but I also have to live in a community in a fellowship of alcoholics anonymous because it is here where I can do the work where I can basically share with you what I have seen so far what I used to be like and this was no good what happened which was no good and what I'm like now which is much better the truth is that's my experience it's not enough to just go to meetings and sit there. You know, when I have a problem, a physical problem, and I go to my doctor, I don't just talk to my doctor about the problem. You know, if he tells me do something about it, and I come back a week later just talking about it, it doesn't solve any problem to just talking about them.

I have to do something about them. And it's not I, it's not me alone. It is we, we have to work it together.

And that's why it is so important that we all have the same understanding and the same principles by which we live here in our society. That's why it is so important that we all know what it means to be an alcoholic. What it means to be powerless that we also encourage each other to talk about the real problems that we have.

not bringing a shell into a meeting, you know, like this empty suit that I was, you know, bearing the looking good, just presenting to everybody how good I feel, how good I'm doing, how great everything is, walking outside the meeting, and usually it takes 5 minutes until I'm at the bus stop and I want to kill people already because, you know, it happened to me often enough that I would go to meetings just to make you believe I'm doing well because I didn't have the courage to talk about the real problems that I was having because everybody else was just talking about how great life is I always felt like an idiot like a dumb idiot when I went to meetings and everybody was saying how great they feel and I didn't believe a single word I was hearing I mean people with like a few month of surprise they had everything back and they felt great dancing and whatn not out and I was saying Jesus why don't I have this why don't I have all this until I eventually found out they are lying as good as I was lying the whole time it's sad in a way it's sad in a way but I mean my experience is today when I'm going to meetings and talk about those fears that I have within the fellowship within meetings that I can sit in meetings feeling alone totally alone that people identify with that you know I always thought the last days of my drinking were extremely marked by fear fear like I never had it before in my whole life when alcohol stopped working I thought I knew everything about fear it took me 5 and 1/2 years of sobriety to learn what real fear is. I had reached such a point where suicide did not look like an option anymore. I mean I was afraid if I take my life, if I end my life, if I commit suicide, things would get worse and you know that's nothing you know committing suicide or people say don't talk about it.

Why not? I mean many people commit suicide especially when they are sober. People say it's easier to stay sober than to get sober.

If that would be true, we wouldn't have as many relapses as we have. I mean, the success rate is so low. I would not buy a car if the car would have a success rate of 5%.

Because 5% of us make it in the long-term sobriety. I wouldn't even walk near a street if cars would have the same success rate that we have. So, there must be something wrong with this statement that it's easier to stay sober than to get sober.

It's simply wrong. It's not easy to stay sober. It's not a never- ending pink cloud.

Things are good and get bad again, get worse again. You know, I always thought, yeah, eventually it's about better thinking, better living, you know, being of service, praying to God, yada yada yada. And I eventually forgot about the fact that it all comes down to not drinking.

Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. So the moment I come back to this that I know what it really is, what it is about the staying sober and I don't stay sober just because I move my ass into a meeting like people say if you want to take a drink, move your ass into a meeting. It's not even the last thing that I would do.

If I want to take a drink, call your sponsor before you drink, not after you drink. If I want to take a drink, I don't call my sponsor. Not because I know what he's going to say.

That's not on my mind anymore when I take a drink. I mean obsession like being said earlier is a thought excluding all else including recovery. I don't think about anything.

If I want to take a drink I take that drink no matter where I am. And I I mean when I was living in Asia I was normally drinking only the good beer, the good stuff. In Asia I would drink beer.

You open the can and you had the feeling it was taken out of the toilet. That's how it smelled. Would this stop me from drinking it?

No. I drank it no matter what. If I want to drink, I drink no matter what.

And I had to learn and this was the hardest part so far. I cannot do it alone. I somehow have to trust something that's way bigger than me.

And I had to start again with the fact it's the group. It's those very people where I thought you don't know what you're doing. I mean to a point of still I don't want to go into this word now but I have to know it is something outside me that's keeping me sober.

It's not me. And that why it is so important for me that we all learn to work the same program the same way to use the same language the same words the same meaning behind those words so if we say alcoholic we know what it means and not defining a variety of different things around it because eventually it is about being happy choice and free what's about our dreams that we have anybody having dreams here I mean I don't mean nightmare dream I mean like real dreams I was talking about comedy earlier. Four weeks ago, July 10th, I had my first public appearance as a comedian in Hamburg in an open microphone show.

That's one of my dreams that I have. I never thought that I, as a mathematician, I mean, people normally ask me, Ral, if you're a mathematician, you sit behind computers, how can you possibly go on stage being a comedian? And I eventually found out how can I as a comedian hide behind a computer as a mathematician for 25 years.

That's impossible. That's simply impossible. You know, it is a dream to be be a comedian.

I don't know where it will end about. I will try it. I don't want to not do things anymore because I'm afraid of doing them because I might drink.

What will my mom think? I mean, I don't ask my mom anymore. She doesn't ask me either.

But you know, I don't want to limit my life because I'm afraid of doing things because what will people think? I might lose all my money if I go into this direction. I don't know it, but I want to give it a shot.

And dreams, I mean, I'm pretty sure we all have dreams, many dreams, lot of dreams. I mean, I have the dream of driving a Porsche. That's also something I learned.

It is not that I want to have a Porsche because there is no action involved in having. I want to drive it. That's why I want to.

But I mean, today I can do things that I never dreamed of being able to do. You know, I'm not afraid anymore standing here telling you how it felt to sit in an empty shell, in an empty suit in a meeting, behaving like um like I'm the best the poster boy, the a poster boy. I'm not afraid anymore to say all those things how it was because the real work starts once you don't have to drink anymore.

That's when the real work starts. The intense work starts when all the feelings come back. The inability to deal with life.

And that's why we should do it together. So my dream really is that you walk into a meeting, you have a problem, you talk about it and because all people work it the same way. Somebody can come to you after the meeting and talk to you about a solution.

It is solutions that we should share with each other. The problems we need to share to identify to know, yeah, he's coming from the same, you know, type of problem I'm coming from. But it's eventually about solutions.

When I go to a doctor, I don't want to hear problems. I want to have solutions. When I pay a consultant, I want to have solutions from him.

I don't want him to tell me how difficult it is to find the solution. I pay him for it. That's what he gets the damn money for.

And my dream really is that we all understand why it is so important that we all work the same program the same way. The content of your fourth step and fifth will be different. I hope I'm not on your fourth afterwards but some of you might be on mine but it is just very important to understand why we have to do all this and why we have to learn the basics.

And that's basically why I'm traveling around going to international convention conventions doing workshops talking at meetings. And if you have have dreams where you don't even dare admitting it to yourself, get a sponsor, work the steps. If you don't have dreams, I mean, that's even more important that you get a sponsor to find out what your dreams are.

And that's basically what I'm here for. Life has changed a lot. I still have issues in life.

I still have problems. I know I'm I'm self-employed. I don't know whether I will have a job in in October and when I will have the next job.

But I don't have to drink over it anymore. I no longer have to manage everything to the point that I get a job that I have everybody know why. And today I simply can say I have to do everything that I can do and possibly even a little bit more to just stay sober.

If I focus on that and if I'm able to carry that message to other alcoholics, it's just about the not drinking. Then the problems are still there in my life, but they are not these big demons anymore. They don't cry at me as bad anymore.

Things are just getting better and better because the problems are not as big anymore. And that's why I keep traveling around here. And I would like to thank everybody for letting me be of service.

Thank you. >> Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message.

Until next time, have a great day.