>> Welcome to Sober Sunrise, a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience, strength, and hope from around the world. We bring you several new speakers weekly, so be sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-sunrise.com.

Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> >> So, um when I rang my sponsor earlier to say if there was any advice he could give me, he said, "Make sure your trousers are done up.

Make sure your nose is clean, and tell the truth." Um so, obviously I rang someone else to see what they said, and they said, "Step three, step 11. That's all you need to know." Um I have a few notes because uh generally don't talk for this long, so um Hello. My name's Tarik, and I'm an alcoholic.

And uh definitely feeling like an alcoholic at the moment. Um What's the acronym fear? Face everything and recover, or excuse my language, everything and run.

And I do swear quite a lot, so I apologize now. Um that's been my story, run. Yeah, run from my emotions, run from situation, run from anything.

Um so, this is very different today. Um I'm going to just explain who I am, what I do, a bit like how it was, how I got into this mess, how I got into recovery, and what it's like now, and what it's been like through recovery. Um I am not a circuit speaker.

Um and obviously in the last few weeks I thought I'd better train to be one very quickly. But, I found a reading that said it all to me, which was, "Never talk down to an alcoholic from any moral or spiritual hilltop. Simply lay out the kit of spiritual tools for his inspection.

Show him how they worked with you. Offer him friendship and fellowship." Simple. And it's not about preaching.

So, I'm 8 years sober. I have a sponsor. I have a home group.

In fact, I have two sponsors because I'm an alcoholic. Um I have a home group, which is SoHo Sober in London. It's a meeting there at 6:00 on a Tuesday night.

I do service. I am secretary of the meeting straight after that one. And I'm involved in AA quite strongly now.

That wasn't always the case. I have sponsees. Some of them even ring me.

Um and um that has been the making of me. I have passing the message on to others because that's when I knew I knew something about what I was talking about. The That's when I knew the program had settled in me, when I could pass that on.

And when I freely gave that information out or those feelings, I felt amazing. And I'm just a conduit. You know, I'm going to use the word God in this speak speak, you know, talking today.

I'm not entirely sure what God is. Actually, I don't really care anymore. I used to, but it's just fine.

It's not me. It's something bigger than me. It's a higher power.

So, God's just an easy shorthand for me. And I believe it's that work just works through me and helps others. I'm just a conduit for that.

Obviously, I feel good after I've done it, and sometimes I feel even feel a bit proud proud, but um something normally comes along and slaps me for that one. Um I believe I've been an alcoholic since day one. I call it a a condition, a genetic.

I don't really intellectualize that anymore, but ever since I can remember I've displayed the traits of being an alcoholic, an obsessive. I've never felt comfortable in my own skin. I've never felt comfortable in the company of others.

I've always felt that hole around here, here, or wherever it is, and it's something I've always needed to fill. Um and I've used many, many things to fill it. The thing that worked the best and the thing that nearly killed me was alcohol.

I have been into drugs. I'm not going to go on about that today, but anything, work, sugar, sex, you name it. Yeah, people pleasing is spoken about before, anything to alter the way I feel.

I've run away from things of feeling from my life. And I was sitting there with Tom and little Hugo and looking in little Hugo. And I have two children of my own.

They're a bit bigger now. I felt like crying. I felt I really miss my kids.

I'm only away for nights, but I really miss them. I really love them. That's obviously very easy to do when you're looking at a little baby and you think of your kids at home rather than telling you to go away or not going to bed, but I have feelings now and I'm really comfortable with them.

And that is a direct result of doing this program. Before I came into recovery and a while into recovery, I was a I was a brick wall. I didn't want to know or I was crying at the news.

I didn't have emotions in the appropriate places. I was I was upside down. And if there's some new people in the room, forgive me for the next bit, but it will make sense.

The 12 steps. I used to live the the opposite. And my Swedish is so good I can read those.

No, it's not. Um so I lived the complete opposite of those steps. When I first came into the rooms, I looked at them and went, "Yeah, alcohol's not the problem.

It's you lot." Um my life is not unmanageable. It's everybody else. There is nobody greater than me.

I am pretty much God. I step three, there's no God, I told you. So, I'm not going to hand my will over.

Step four, don't think about things too much. Just act on instinct. Step five, certainly don't tell anyone what you're up to.

Ever. Step six, those character defects are assets. I'm a warrior.

>> >> Not a worrier. Um step seven's irrelevant. Step eight, never apologize.

They're all idiots. Step 10, again, act on instinct. Don't think about what you've done, just get to the next day and smash through it.

Step 11, sorry, I did talk about there was no God. Don't you remember? Don't pray, and meditation's for hippies.

And step 12, don't help anyone cuz they're only out to get you. And >> >> And that is towards the end of my drinking, the perhaps the last four or five years, was exactly what I was training myself to think and feel. Cuz pain was too much to even approach anything that was spiritual or self-developing.

The truth is, I was so scared and so broken and so frightened that that was a good way to live as far as I was concerned. In the last few years of my drinking, I was aggressive. I was a daily drinker.

I drank to some form of blackout most of the time. I held down a very, very successful job, which kept going up, believe it or not, but my mental state was going down in an equal measure. I was married to I still am married to the same woman.

Quite how that's happened, I don't know. She's she's as mental as I am or a saint or maybe both. I'm not sure.

Um And I had everything. I had money in the bank. But the Do you want to know what bailiffs are?

You know, the guys coming around to collect the money that I hadn't paid for tax. But I had money in the bank because I was too frightened to open the envelopes that came in the post. Yeah?

Um People wouldn't talk to me anymore. My parents Actually, let's talk not talk about my parents. People were actively avoiding me.

Um I was going out in the evenings trying to have a fight with guys in the street. I was going to bars and pubs occasionally trying to have affairs, thankfully failing abysmally. Um I'm really glad of that.

But what what woman in her right mind would want to go with some guy that's drunk and desperate? Actually, maybe there's quite a few, but >> >> Sorry. Um Um But I was trying to smash up my life more than I had already.

I didn't know what to do with myself anymore. Um I'm just going to rewind slightly. My first taste of alcohol was from my mother's and father's drinks cabinet, and I think I remember that being about the age of nine.

And that was it. I totally understood what this substance did for me. I totally understood that this was the path to go down because for the first time in those tender nine years, I felt okay.

And I continued to do that. And my history is of like I say, of drugs and alcohol, but alcohol always did that job. Um And And it stopped working.

So, the best friend turned into the enemy. Um And I'll just say none of what I say is very original. It's something things that I've learned from many people in many meetings.

From people who've been around longer than me or people who've been in a couple of days. This is not cleverness. This is just the absorption of being in a lot of meetings over the last 8 years and listening, which is something that I've become fairly good at.

Um Alcohol stopped working and I I just want to explain the process that I was in towards the end. Which was and we'll take it from the start of the day. And the start of the day was wake up come to, as they say, not wake up, just come to.

And the first thought it was either I've done it again or kill yourself, you piece of And I used to have these rafters above my bed and um they were great for a piece of rope, I thought, and one day I might just do it. Um then it's like get yourself up and get to work. So, I used to get to work and that's all I could do is drink and work, really.

I'd end up going right, today you're not going to drink. And this is 5 7 8 years of this thought process almost every single day. Right, you're not going to drink today.

Get to afternoon and you think, actually I don't feel so bad, maybe one. I work hard, I'm a good guy, I look after things, I earn loads of money, da da da da da. And wine is food, isn't it?

Yes, it's a food group. Um and start warming up to the idea of going home and starting to drink again. And my drinking's very very boring.

Yeah, it is. The last few years were at home, on my own, and I'm Please forgive me. A beautiful wife upstairs waiting for me to come upstairs and me sitting down with my bottles and sometimes my drugs.

Not wanting to know about her or what she wants, and just sit in front of the TV watching things I probably shouldn't watch. And that's all I wanted. And if you'd said that you could live the rest of your life with a good amount of money and you could I could sit in a darkened flat with a TV and a box of pizzas and a load of wine and a lot of marijuana, I'd say that's a pretty good life.

Um and that is the truth. You know, that's what I wanted and that's how I operated. But something inside me kept getting me up and going to work and kept me going.

I knew there was something wrong, but like I say, it wasn't alcohol, it was society, it was politics, it was somebody else, it was the fact that I was married, it was work, it was the man, it was my upbringing, it was No, I didn't believe in God, sorry, so it wasn't God. Um and I tried everything. I And And none of the things I mentioned from this point on I criticize, but for a practicing alcoholic and drug user, they're never really going to work.

So, I decided to become a Buddhist for a bit. And then I tried kinesiology, which is where somebody presses your limbs to see that you need more potassium or something. And I didn't need more potassium, I just needed to stop drinking.

I tried healers, I tried meditation, I tried yoga, I tried a lot of things. And they didn't work, funnily enough, because I basically was crazy. Um and I drank maybe three bottles of wine every single night and maybe more at weekends.

And I thought I never really believed it was the alcohol. Never. I didn't want to believe it.

And one of the things I used to say to people was if it all goes wrong, as long as I can afford a bottle of wine and a McDonald's, I'll be fine. You know, every day. That's a complete lie.

You know, one bottle of wine, forget it. It needed it it had to be three or four. And and that's as a 30-something-year-old man is where my mentality was, which was is a prison.

Prison of my own making. And that same process every single day. Wake up, want to commit suicide, or I you hate yourself, or how did I do that again?

And I never really associated the what I took and what I drank with my state of mind. I now know, of course, that alcoholism I can be an alcoholic without a drink. But for that first process, that first part of recovery, I never made that connection.

And I'm going to just fast forward a bit. I I ended up having a breakdown and meeting a therapist who was 20 years sober, who used to tell me for 10 months I used to go to a see her every month, every week, sorry. I used to pay money and she used to go, "You don't need to pay me any money.

You just need to go to AA." And I go, "Yeah, that's really interesting, but I've got a serious problem." And she went, "Yes, you have. It's called alcoholism, and you need to go AA to AA, and you don't need to pay me." Yeah, but can we just go on to the thing about my parent? No.

Why don't you just stop drinking first? Well, I not really appropriate. Um you don't understand uh this, that, and the other.

And this woman was 20 years sober, bless her, and she she saved my life, really. Um Eventually, I went just to shut her up. And that first meeting was a complete disaster.

I was in a basement in a part of town where I live. Um a drunk guy fell down the stairs and nearly killed the greeter. Um and I didn't know what was going on.

I was listening to people. Um and I was scared. Some of the words were going in, some were bouncing off, but a couple of sentences just stayed with me.

And the ones were, once I have one drink, I can't stop. I was like, that's a bit like me. Yeah, if I don't drink, I don't drink.

But if I have one, then all bets are off. And that stayed in my head. And that sort of little just kept me going back once a week for the next couple of months.

And I totally ignored all the suggestions. I didn't get a sponsor. I didn't speak to anyone.

I was buying a bottle of wine on the way home, but then something happened. I did stop drinking. I stopped drinking for 3 months still with no sponsor, no program, nobody, not speaking to anyone.

I used to scuttle into meetings at last minute and then run out the next. And the one time I did speak to a guy, this annoyingly good-looking, sort of athletic guy who said, "Yeah, I'm an alcoholic and a risk junkie." And I went, "Why can't I be a risk junkie? That sounds far better." Um But I sort of chose to ignore him.

Um And I like I said, I stopped for a few months. Um but no program, no nothing. So, it was an interesting period.

It was like, "Wow, I can actually stop, but I don't feel very good." And I went away on holiday, had one glass of wine with a meal, and then was out for the next year and a half. Um And for my my lesson in progressive illness, and you mentioned it earlier, is that it is a progressive illness because even that brief period that I stopped, when I went back out, my drinking was took on a ferocity that it hadn't had before, and it was bad before. It was like I couldn't get enough down my neck.

I wasn't so much throw up as sort of leak. And it was I would lie in bed with red wine sort of pouring out of me. It's a strange thing to watch and my wife was horrified.

Um and then my bright idea was that actually, and this is the last time I mention drugs, that heroin would be a cure for alcoholism. That's amazing thinking, isn't it? That's right.

Seriously intelligent thinking. Heroin as a cure for alcoholism. Um thankfully there was enough fear in me to not make that happen for too long.

Yeah, it it was a it was a relatively short thought process. Thank God because actually if I think I'd gone there fully, I wouldn't be standing here today. And the fact that I'm actually standing here today is a miracle in itself because in those days I wouldn't fly, I wouldn't get on the subway, I wouldn't get on a bus.

I'd only travel by taxi. I was so I didn't go to the theater, I didn't go to the cinema, I didn't go out unless there was a drink in it. And certainly I even going to parties was a a huge torment for me because actually I couldn't drink like I the way I wanted to drink and the way I wanted to drink was lying on a sofa till I passed out or like I say in that flat with the curtains down and the TV with some things I shouldn't watch and the pizzas and that's how I wanted.

I wanted to be completely alone, completely cocooned and switched off, anesthetized. Um so yeah, it is a miracle that I'm standing here today. I was in Italy last weekend, I'm here this weekend.

I've traveled all over the world this year and in the last eight years life has opened up. I'll come to that in a minute. So I ended up going to rehab.

Thankfully a 12-step program within the rehab and then I came straight into the arms of AA after that. And I got my first sponsor at that first meeting that I came back to. And that was Soho Sobel, where I you know, I've been secretary and washer-upper and greeter and treasurer and a few other things.

Um and through those years, I mean it's not a long time compared with some of you in this room and it seems like an impossibly long time compared to others, I'm sure. But in those years, it has been an amazing, wonderful journey. There have been me digging my heels in and totally refusing to do stuff or avoiding it in my case cuz I'm so much of a people pleaser, I'd just sort of avoid the issue.

There have been amazing revelations. There's been periods of intense pain. But throughout the whole process, I've been carried by the people in AA.

And I look at my recovery in two ways, meetings and the connection I have with the people in AA. The people that because it is a disease of perception, the people that tell me how I am looking at things, yeah? Because one part of my brain manufactures and the other half buys it.

Yeah? And so on a any given moment in any given day, that transaction's going on and I have no concept of reality. So I ring up somebody, mainly my friend Andy in AA and go, "Andy, I'm thinking this." And he goes, "Yeah, you're an alcoholic.

Um how about thinking of it like this?" And I go, "Oh, thanks, mate." And that's how it is these days. It's just like check in. I'm thinking this.

Yeah, you're mad. Thanks. Thanks, mate.

I know. Cheers. I run most things by people in AA.

I have daily contact. I go to three to four meetings a week. I have a therapist still um who I see once a month now, but she's 20 I don't know, she's 28 years clean and sober.

Um and that is the framework that I have to live in. Um because no matter how long or short I've been clean and sober, it's still there for me. Certain fundamental things have changed massively, but the fear and anxiety is still there.

It's far smaller than it used to be, but and we'll come on to this when I go through my version of the steps again, but my defects are still there and they're something I have to work on on a daily basis. My perception is still altered at times, but that's getting better. But if I don't go to a meeting for maybe three or four days, I'm straight back.

Not fully, but enough. And my I say that the recovery is in two sort of parts for me is is that daily contact with the people that keep me sane. And that contact with the meetings and the message that reminds this alcoholic who has the brain of a goldfish who forgets on a daily basis what's good for him, you people remind me.

The people in my home group remind me. My friends remind me. My sponsor reminds me.

Because no matter how many times I say it to myself, the next day I seem to forget some of it. And maybe that doesn't happen when you get into 20, 30 years, but certainly still happens for me. And the other part of my recovery is the steps, which allow me to work and operate within the life on life on life's terms.

They provided the psychic change that allow me to that allows me to stay sober on a daily basis. They have allowed me to grow up. I was 30 36 when I came in.

And I think the last 8 years have been when this man has actually grown up. Yeah, when my ability and we were talking Um, Tom and I were talking about it earlier, the tools to operate with life, operate in life, have become available to me and it's like that reading that I've actually learned how to live life on life's terms. Still don't like it sometimes.

But and that comes as, you know, we come back to 3 and 11 with those things. Um I've jumped a few things, but I will go back and I'm sorry it's not a linear chair, but um that's the way my mind works. I have to speak sort of from my gut and my heart.

If it's really scripted, I don't feel it. And the thing is, in this program, every step of the way I've had to feel what's going on. My intellect has have been very little use to me in this program because intellectually I'm amazing, I think.

And intellectually I got to the situation where heroin was a cure for alcoholism. And that drinking three or four bottles of wine every night was a good thing. And so you see where I'm going with that.

And it's a huge amount of humility that and humility in the good sense of the word that I've had to learn, which is I don't know a huge amount. What I do know has been taught to me or I've picked up in some of these books. And then actually that's a wonderful thing in itself because the burden of knowing everything when I was an active user was so hideous that of course I had to keep drinking.

Yeah? The fact that I I've finally admitted I didn't know what to do anymore. I've finally admitted I needed help.

And that I didn't have the power to deal with this alone was what got me got me clean and sober. The fact that I could actually go, I don't know what to do. I'm Excuse my language, I'm I don't know where to go with this anymore.

I've tried everything. And nothing's working. I want to die.

So, that's why I have to feel this and that's why steps that some people talk about that worked immediately for me have taken months if not years to work. My amends didn't pay dividends for some time until I understood the process. I made the amends and then time later, I came to peace.

That's my story. Some people get it straight away. I have actually changed sponsors in the time and I think my new sponsor works in a slightly different way to my old one, but what I needed with my old sponsor was what I got what I needed.

I got a fast track into the program because frankly, if he hadn't have been a bully and hadn't have pushed me through it, I would have wondered off. Yeah, I would have decided that my attention Well, my attention span was not long enough and I would have wondered off and had he not beat me over the head with it, even though I didn't have a full understanding at times, I would have gone. So, it was the right thing for me.

Um I've talked about the meetings and staying close to those. Um I'm lucky I live in London. There's 600 meetings a week.

I have to try really hard to miss one. Uh Still do occasionally. Um And the fellowship of those has kept me on straight narrow and the service in particular, I've rejuvenated my recovery in the last couple of years by being very active in service.

Because actually, I want to stand just outside that door with one eye looking in. That's where I'm more comfortable and I don't want to have to look at anyone in the face or actually get involved because not cuz I'm too good, just cuz I'm frightened. And the familiarity of regular service in AA keeps me in the middle of the room and it keeps me all interested.

It keeps me in contact with people. And I've seen it time and time and time again over the years when people just start to distance themselves, they disappear. It happens too often.

And you can see it. You can And I've done it. When I start sitting at the back, and then I'm disappearing a little bit early, and I don't go for coffee.

And I still, to this day, get a little bit funny about going for coffee. Well, I've got too much to do. I'm a bit busy.

I better go back to the office. Kids haven't seen me today. I need to go for coffee.

I need to go to that second meeting. I need to go to that first meeting because everything I put in front of this tends to go wrong. Now, part of me hesitates to say that cuz I have an incredibly busy, successful life these days, but recently, I've placed a little too much emphasis on the work.

Funny. I still go to my meetings, but this is on sometimes. And I'm texting, and I'm not really listening.

And guess what happens? I start reacting from my defects. I don't take notice of the fellowship.

I start responding to things like I used to do. And as Tom and I have had a My new best friend, who I've known for how many hours? >> >> I've been in Stock- I was in Stockholm 5 minutes.

We're walking around, and we're already sharing each other's intimate secrets. Only in AA. It's amazing.

But as we were discussing, anything you put in front just tends to go wrong. I'm very materialistic. I like my toys.

Yeah? Work's going amazing. I'm earning loads of money.

That's not a way to live for me anymore. It's I still like to have a good income, but anything I put before my spiritual journey, and I'm not Buddha by any stretch of the imagination. Um anything I put goes wrong.

That's And actually, those things that are more important are my relationships with people. Yeah, that's it. Because as one of the previous speakers said, it's people have been the problem.

People I can and I I was again, I was going to come to resentments towards the end, but resentments. I have lived on resentments all my life. It's always It's always been your fault.

And in my life would be perfect if it wasn't for that person over there. And you make me feel bad. And it it's a clichéd saying, but why do I let people live rent-free in my head?

They I have an amazing life today. But my brother-in-law lives in my head and his four children and his wife and now his bloody dog. He only got the dog last week.

I already hate it. I haven't even met it. And I'm being slightly silly, but that's the way I can operate.

Yeah? I can ruin my own life all on my own by having resentment because people I they've let me down or they frighten me or I'm jealous and it all comes down to that self-esteem and fear for me. The fact that he once dented my self-esteem.

I've never let him forget it. Not that I've ever told him. And so I have to pray for that situation to be lifted on a daily basis.

As far as I can tell, that's an ongoing process because I'm sure once that one's come to peace, I'll find another one. But this is a program of um action and I put that action in. It's also progress, not perfection.

And around my fifth year, I really decided that I'd got it nailed and I wasn't going to tell anyone when it was going wrong. And I've made a decision over the last couple of years, doesn't matter how long I've been around and eight years is not long, but I'm going to tell in any meeting that I can when I don't feel right. When I when things aren't going right for me, or I share it with my sponsor, whichever's more appropriate.

If I have the solution to it, I tend to share it in a meeting, but if I don't, I share it with my sponsor or my friends in AA. Yeah, I don't tend to dump in meetings. I don't criticize anyone that does, but for me it's more appropriate because again, meetings are for the newcomers.

And if there's newcomers in here today, share it, good, bad, or indifferent. Get it out there cuz it's that stuff that keeps you sick. It That's what kept me sick for a long time.

And around my fifth year, deciding that actually I was a superhero of AA for a bit, made me very ill, made me very very unhappy. And when I let go of that, and we come back to 3 and 11, when I let go of that stuff, what a amazing feeling. I'm perfectly imperfect.

Yeah, I'm not going to say God is perfect cuz like I said, I don't have a concept of what that is, but what I do know is the program's perfect. It seems to work every time. I'm not perfect.

I used to say I up, or I got it really wrong. I just go, "Some days I don't quite understand the process, and I have to have some help." Yeah, I don't criticize myself for getting things wrong. That's a lie.

I do, but I'm gentler. Yeah. Got to have a hobby.

Um I'm gentler on myself. I had a very harsh upbringing. That didn't make me an alcoholic, but it certainly made me miserable.

Decided to be gentler. And my sponsor today, he's an ex-priest of 25 years clean and sober, is one of the gentlest, most understanding men I've ever met. And he takes me under his wing almost weekly, and he gives me not a physical cuddle, but a mental cuddle at times.

And that's what this alcoholic needs. At the first, I needed harsh I needed to be told. I needed to be slightly slapped into shape.

These days, I need a bit softness and understanding. I let my wife, who is in Al-Anon, >> >> Sorry. Um slap me into shape these days.

Um And we again, Tom and I have been discussing that, living in recovery as a family. God, I hated it at first. When she got recovery, her own recovery.

She's not an alcoholic, but she's in Al-Anon. Um I'm so glad for that, because it has saved our marriage, saved our relationship, and it makes my recovery stronger, the fact that somebody in my life who I see every day knows, understands, understands what I'm going through, understands I understand what she's going through. And understand together that we're committed to a certain way of life that makes us feel better.

And we both help others. Now, again, not because we're wonderful spiritual people, because it works. Yeah, we've been shown a way that actually works for us.

And the 12 steps are hugely important in our lives, and I'm just going to go through how they've affected me. Um Step one, admitted we were powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable. That was a no-brainer in the end.

Alcohol was constantly there, and it stopped working. And the fear that that engendered in me when alcohol stopped working, when I could put no more physically in my body, and I still felt the fear and the anxiety, and it didn't go away. And I did through the big book the way to do it.

I I I listed those events. I listed the ways my life become unmanageable through through a sponsor, I should say. I came to believe a power greater than myself ourselves could restore us to sanity.

I struggled with this for a long time because of my natural atheism. And but once I decided that it was something I shouldn't need to worry about and just accept that life was going to take its course and I would hand it over and see the outcome, it worked for me. I went through a religious period.

Today, it's not like that for me anymore, but it's still as special and as cherished. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. That was tricky.

To turn my will How do you do that? How do you actually physic How I couldn't understand that for a long time. And my sponsor, bless him, just said, "You've just made a decision.

You don't actually have to package up your will and your life and give it to somebody." He said, "You just make a decision. This is a program of openness. This is a program of being willing to change." Whereas I was not willing to change before.

And step three, I say the step three prayer every evening. And it's the bit that always I wake up from when I'm doing it like a parrot is um where I my way of life would be a message to others. And that's hugely important to me is um and I'll just go off slightly.

I don't admit to many people I'm an alcoholic outside of these rooms. I tell plenty of people I don't drink. And the ones that just go, "Yeah, that's interesting." and walk off.

And then there's the other ones that go, "Really? How do you do that then?" And that's my version of anonymity. Um I'm here to pass the message on.

I'm not here to expose myself in front of people who may use that against me. I don't feel comfortable. Maybe 40 years down the line I won't care, but at the point this point in time I do.

Um but I'm open about not drinking and not using. And people go, "You look well. You've changed." Yeah, I stopped drinking a few years ago.

Oh, that's interesting. And it's amazing how many calls come back. Um you know, you said you stopped drinking.

Um I've been thinking about that. It happened twice last week. Two people.

How do How do How does that How does that work? Then Oh, well, you know, stopped for a bit. I I go to meetings.

You go to AA? Yeah. Okay.

I've been thinking about doing that for a while. Well, come with me. Here's my number.

And that's as complicated as it needs to get. And it comes back to that reading, you know, just show people attraction not promotion. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

For me, that was really easy. I was ready to beat myself up and criticize myself on paper. >> >> And I actually, according to my sponsor, thought I was a lot worse than I actually was.

But it was painful enough. And I'll be super honest with you. I didn't spend months on it.

I did it like the day before we were supposed to meet for step five really quickly. But in fairness, I had been thinking about that stuff for most of my life. You know, I was thinking about the time I wronged that person or that person did something to me.

Thinking about that occasion. And those were things that kept washing around in my head, keeping me sick, making me need alcohol, need an anesthetic. So, step four was quite easy for me cuz it was a constant process in my head.

Step five wasn't so much easy. Um wasn't so easy. However, once I had shared it with this human being and this higher power and admitted it to myself, I worried all day about this man going and broadcasting it on the BBC.

And he chose to remind me that nobody'd be interested. And I wasn't that important. Which was a bit of a shock.

But I do remember that day, which is 7 nearly 7 and 1/2 years ago, very, very clearly. I remember finishing that step, addressing step six and step seven and sitting and kneeling and doing a prayer with him. And I remember feeling at that moment this enormous weight lifted from me.

Which descended back on me the next day, but it was the start of a freeing process. It was the start of a process of understanding how I looked at the world and how I judged and balanced things. It was understanding that actually I wasn't an evil person trying to be good.

I was just a sick person trying to get better. And that was a massive relief for me because I thought I'd become evil. I mean, that's a very strong word to use, but I thought there was I was beyond redemption.

I thought that I was just a nasty piece of work. And a lot of my actions reinforced that. But in under the care of this sponsor, yeah, thanks.

Under the care of this sponsor, I realized that actually I was just sick. I had a condition called alcoholism, which was affecting me mentally, spiritually, and physically. And actually, if I put alcohol into my body, it would kick off those things.

It would be a chain reaction. And the fact that resentments came out of that, and the fact that my anger came out of that, the fact that my anxiety came out of that place, the fact that my fear came out of that place. And so, I remember that day super clearly.

And I it's one of the things that I love most about when I'm sponsoring is when we finished five and we sit and we talk and we go over six and seven, we pray. And again, praying to what? Who cares?

It's just a declaration of my intent, quite often. That's what prayer is for me. It's communicating and saying out loud what I would like to be, what I need.

Um and it's not a new car. Um cuz it used to be. Um and that's the piece I enjoy.

I enjoy that enormously. And I've been through it I I don't know how many people I've done it with the to this point, but every single time has been a hugely rewarding experience. Very emotional for some.

Some, like me, felt it a bit later on. But it's been it's an incredible thing. Um Six, we're entirely ready to have God remove all of uh all of our these defects of character.

Maybe not all. Um and that's the truth. It's For years I've hang on to anger cuz it actually works for me, I think.

Coming to this point in my life, it doesn't work for me. It makes me isolated. It With people withdraw from me.

And I don't feel good about that. Um so over the years, defects have come up and come down and gone. And the ones that have stayed has been anger, like I say, because it's the way I'm programmed to deal with life.

Um I'm still a six-year-old stomping around in my dad's shoes. Yeah. And now I've got I've grown up a bit, got my own shoes, and it feels better.

Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings. I do. Not on a daily basis, because sometimes I'll be honest with you, my head is just about catches on to step three, just about catches on to the Serenity Prayer, and my head's too full.

And that's why we come to sort of step 11 later is taking the time. But at that point in my step work, I did ask it to remove my shortcomings, or her, or it. And then came the interesting stuff.

Made a list of all persons we'd harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. So, my list was this long. I wanted to say sorry to everybody.

My sponsor cut it down and said, "No, you only need to do it to these people. Those people don't care who you are. Yeah?

They've forgotten about you." Again, you're not that important. And me having to realize that going off and saying sorry to the girl and the boy and this and the government and Arthur Scargill and other things was just not appropriate. Yeah?

It was just not going to work. And it actually came down to, for me, a very small group of people. The people that I least wanted to say sorry to.

Thanks. Cuz I'd actually have quite like to say sorry to the girl 20 years ago and that, but not to these people. And so, like a lot of alcoholics, that took time to get the courage.

And obviously, I wanted to have a firework display, some dancers, maybe an elephant, and do the whole thing as as a as a show, but it they turned out to be very simple events where I grabbed these people to one side and said, "I'm sorry." And I made my amends. And thanks to my sponsor, I just didn't expect any response. Yeah, he said, "Because if you expect them to break down and go, 'Oh, I always wanted to hear that.

I love you.' You're going to be very disappointed." My father just went, "Really?" And my mother just said, "Were you on cocaine at your grandmother's um birthday party in 1985?" And I was like, "Probably. Um no, I wasn't, Mom." And those are quite underwhelming responses, but for me it's clearing my side of the street for actually totally recognizing what I'd done, accepting it and taking responsibility for it, and moving on. I won't go on about my parents.

They're both quite ill people in their own way. I could have used that against them for many years. And oh no, I have used it against them for many years.

But I've actually unbelievably reached a place of peace around that. And that started with those amends, and they were heartfelt amends. I meant them at the time, and that's why they were so difficult to do.

They were There have been others as well. I continue to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. Ha.

Um I'm going to just fast forward to what it's like today. And it's it's a progression from not being able to do it to being able to do it almost too well. Again, people people trigger me.

Situations trigger me, but people trigger me more. And I know where I'm coming from these days most of the time. If I'm operating from my defects of character or my fear, then I'll react to people in a certain way with aggression or lies or people-pleasing.

Quite I'm a big liar. I have been a big big liar in my life, and I don't mean big lies. I mean constant, regular incessant lies.

And that keeps me sick. And the big battle in my recovery has been to strip that stuff back and just a be completely honest and admit when I've done something wrong. Yeah?

Admit when I've made a mistake. Admit when I've lied yet again. And it is progress not perfection.

The personal inventory, those spot inventories are hugely important to me because particularly in the way I work, which is very intense, not a workaholic at all. Um but I'm addressing that one. Um that it can a day can go by very easily without addressing without doing on spot spot inventories.

And for me it's really important to just stop myself and go, "Right, that was wrong." Sorry about that. And it also feeds into the phrase of when somebody asks you something and my immediate thing is to go, "Yeah, I know about that." And actually go, "I have no idea." "I'll find out for you." That's given me a huge amount of ease in my work life and my personal life is rather than making something up on the spot, I just go, "I don't know." That's very much part of step 10 for me because it's that mental process of going you want to lie, you want to say it's okay, but actually you don't. Stop.

Say you don't know and things will be a lot easier because you can bet your ass by mid-afternoon after you've said you know about it, it's far more difficult to turn around and go, "I have no idea." >> >> I do that with my children as well. I was brought up to the parents were never wrong. They were the ultimate authority.

I tell my children when I'm wrong. They can blame me later with their therapist. It's fine, but I feel better.

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for our knowledge uh of his will for us and uh the uh power to carry that out. Like I say, I pray I morning and night and that for me is a contact. It's a statement of intent and it's a reminder.

It's like a meeting almost to remind me what my purpose is and to what to I to do. And I'm going to just say that this all sounds like I'm brilliant. I make mistakes on a daily basis with this stuff and I might not have my porridge or my prayer and go out the door and go ah and shout at the bus driver and be horrible.

But at some point during the day I will stop and go right, you didn't meditate, you didn't pray this morning, you didn't have your porridge. Yeah, it's those things are really important to me now, you know, to go to out to the day prepared for what life is going to be and those things are like putting my clothes on now. Um I never go out without my clothes on though.

Um as my second sponsor says, step 11, hugely important because that feeds into the thing that I'm not master of the universe and if I hand over to the universe and she says yes, no or maybe, that takes the pressure off me for trying to push the whole universe into the position I want it. And that was the stuff that used to make me cry at the end of the day that I couldn't make things I wanted to do and that's why I drank. One of the reasons, one of the many reasons.

I also drank cuz I was happy. I drank cuz I was sad. I drank for everything.

I'm an alcoholic, for God's sake. Step 11 takes the pressure off me as does step three. It takes the pressure off that I have to put in the action, that's all I have to do and let go of the outcome.

Hugely difficult in this day and age I think, massively difficult, but for me when I can link into that way of being, life's a lot easier. I'm more relaxed. I can get on an airplane.

I just go well, all I need to do is buy the ticket, show my passport, sit in the right place, put my earplugs in, definitely do up my safety belt and stop trying to fly the plane from my passenger seat. Makes the flight so much more fun rather than weeping into your ready meal. Um having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we try to carry this message to our colleagues to practice all these these principles in all our affairs.

On a selfish level, if I don't give this stuff away, if I just do one and 12, I'm sunk. If I do all of these steps and come to 12 with a sound knowledge of what this is and why I should do it, and giving it away is keeping it, and all the phrases that we've heard a million times, then I'm in a good place. And nothing for me is better than seeing somebody who's so broken and upset and scared, willing to die, miserable, whatever you want to call it, drunk, coming into recovery, getting it, and the light's going on.

And I've seen it time and time again. There's a woman in my meeting in Soho that and I'm not breaking anonymity cuz you won't know her. Um, but she used to come into the meeting snarling like a wild cat, but she still sat there.

And as the years have gone on, I've seen her soften, open up. She's a strong, independent woman, don't get me wrong. Yeah?

But the life coming back into her. She was She used to always wear her hair over her eyes, and she used to snarl. And if she scratched you, you wouldn't be surprised, but she did.

And she the humanity has come back into her and the humor, and she's now a stand-up comedian. Cuz that's what she always wanted to do, and she's done it in recovery. And she's one of the most warm, loving people.

She's got 4 years less than me. She makes more sense than I do. In fact, you should have had her here tonight.

I'm rubbish. But I love seeing that stuff because it helps me remind me of the journey. I was saying again to Tom, my new best friend, um, that I sometimes how awful it was, how desperate, how crazy.

I used to cut myself. I used to tear try and pull my hair out. I remember running full blast into walls just to feel some something.

Yeah, serious. Pain, anything. I started kick but I've always been into martial arts, but I started kickboxing with really big guys.

That's why I wanted fights because I needed to feel something and I was just broken mentally. I mean, it's quite funny now, but I forget how crazy I was. And especially after eight comfortable years, you know, I sit back and when I see the newcomer, when I see people like my friend, this this lady, I go, "Okay, that's why you do it." Not because I had a bit of a drink problem.

It's because I was nuts. And I'm making light of some of this and I'm sorry, but this is a killer illness. We know that.

They we probably don't You don't want to see us speak listening to me for an hour if it wasn't, would you? It's it destroys lives. It destroys families.

It destroys happiness. I always say that I truly believe that my life was on a course of several courses it could have been. It was either going to be I would kill myself by hanging or shooting or something like that.

Throwing myself under a bus or a train or something dramatic. Or I'd kill die through alcohol di- you know, disease. You know, my liver was already failing slightly when I came in.

I still have a few little problems these days. You know, something just to remind me, just enough to remind me how bad it was. Or I would lead a low-level miserable life for the rest of my my Probably the worst out of the lot in some way, that that life would just be miserable and barren and loveless and dull for the rest of my life.

After coming into this program, that has proven to be anything but the truth. Life has opened up massively. It's scarier at times.

It's definitely more intense and I feel way, way more than I like to sometimes, but it's definitely not dull. I still fantasize about killing myself if the going gets tough, but instead of the voice being here in my face, it's a couple of rooms down the corridor. I like, "Thanks very much.

Shut up now, please. I've got something to do." Yeah. It feels like a good place to start winding up, to be honest.

I'm sure there's a load of things I would have loved to say, but that's it. This is the single best thing I've ever done for myself in my life and for my children. One of whom was born just before I came in and one of them was who was born in sobriety.

Hopefully, they will never see me drink. They'll see me being a They'll see me dancing badly, but they won't see me drink, I hope. My wife, bless her, has found her own recovery and our relationship, though it's troublesome at times, is closer than it's ever been and we do other things, you know, to to reinforce that.

But for me, I truly believe that life was a drudge, yeah, and that I would never be free of alcohol or depression. I'm not saying that uh AA cures depression, but it certainly made things a lot easier. It is the single best thing I've ever done.

I hope I do it for the rest of my days, but I'm definitely doing it today. Probably do it tomorrow. Beyond that, I haven't really got that much of a clue.

Because I don't try and live too far in the future because experience has taught me that if I do, invariably it's a different anyway. My higher power, fate, the universe, he or she has got something else. She's got a plan.

He's got a plan. I'm just going to let them get on with it. But I'm going to do the right thing in the meantime and see what that plan is.

Um it's been amazing coming to Stockholm. Um and I really want to thank Tom and Vicki for inviting me. I'm really glad to meet little Hugo as well.

Um I was incredibly nervous when I arrived. Um but I feel good. And I really, really appreciate you inviting me into your fellowship here.

So, thank you very much. >> >> 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. >>