Derek's Journey: From Misbooks to 7,000 Days Sober

Well, my name is Derek. I'm an alcoholic and I'd like to thank Nate for asking me to a lead or speak tonight

I've been told never to turn down an AA request

But you know the difference between a requested it request from an AA is sometimes hard to discern

You know just a quick story before I get started

I got a call at about 4 in the afternoon from this guy and I go hey, how's it going?

He goes hey, you're speaking tonight, right and I go. Yeah. Yeah, but I didn't recognize the name right off and he goes

Yeah, thank you. Thanks for saying you'd come to the table and speak tonight at 8

I'm like did I double book or something like that?

I go I don't I don't get it and he goes he

Confused me with someone else at a meeting that was at this morning on Saturday and I thought maybe they were

Franchising my speaking out because I get to speak it a lot is becoming like Gallagher where they could do it

You know with a sledge omatic and things like that, but it's the Otter God thing

You know that always strikes me is that you know

I'm always worried about how I'm going to feel and because he told me that I was already like thrown off, you know

And then I was like I'm supposed to be here tonight, right? I'm pretty sure you don't you get older you start to forget things

So I'm very grateful to be here Nate and then they said he couldn't be here and I am I totally understand and I think all

Of you for welcoming me

It's always an honor and a privilege to speak and lead at a meeting while called synonymous and I usually get up dressed up

Anyways, it was a reminder because no one ever gets offended if you overdress for AA

But I appreciate the structure like you said and thank you Scott for for leading the meeting to and welcome anybody who's new

I don't think we did any newcomers here

But if your new arm is new once - you know, my sobriety is May 1st 2006

That puts me as something like seven thousand and forty days if you count the days like I do this like a thousand five

Saturdays in a row without a hangover, which is a big deal for me is every Saturday

Well, I didn't have a hangover on Saturday

That's for sure because I was drunk but on the Mondays that I would wake up from the weekends of drinking

It was terrible and you know what when I got here tonight, you know, Mariana was kind enough to introduce me

And I like that feeling of a welcomeness in alcoholics anonymous. I don't care where I go the head of alcoholics anonymous when it's out there

it makes me feel comfortable and I never thought I would say that because I'd been to AA a long time ago from

DUIs when I was a kid 18 and 22

But I never thought it was an alcoholic saying because I just thought I had a problem with drinking, right?

Now I have a sponsor his name's Ken and he always asked me to pray before I come to these things

so I make sure to do that and

Hopefully what I have to say will help people tonight whether you be a rumor here or a zoomer on the screen there

I don't I don't care which one it is because to me it's always about recovery again

These words like you said Scott didn't mean anything by the way, honor God my belly button birthday is September 26

So congratulations on that, you know God that never ceases to amaze me in the things that he does for me

But I never thought of God that way when I was before I came to AA

God to me was a celestial butler that you know

If I prayed really hard and did the right things he would provide for me what I needed and if I didn't do the right

Things look the other way, you know, it's always about look at me. Look at me. Don't look at me

What are you looking at? Because I was so afraid see that's really what this comes down to for me is fear

I've always been afraid from a little kid. There's pictures of me terrified, you know

Loud noises would make me go crazy. My daughter's at Disneyland today, you know with her boyfriend

And when I was a kid at Disneyland, they'd have taken to the car because I couldn't take the fireworks going on loud sound

I was just always afraid it doesn't surprise me because I grew up in a very chaotic household

My dad drank and when he drank it wasn't pretty and the thing was is everyone said I was just like my dad

But they never said in a good way or rarely

It wasn't like boy you show up on time for things and all this it was always why are you so angry?

Why are you so stubborn and I didn't realize then that the anger that I was expressing if his little kid

Was out of fear fear turned out words becomes anger fear turned in words becomes a sadness or depression

And I have this thing talk about honor God, which I have never been diagnosed with but I looked up

It's called oppositional defiance disorder ODD odd

So if you tell me up my first response is down, you know and in my house because it was so chaotic and crazy

I try to do control everything saying I had to be the opposite and my mom said she goes I don't get it

You know used to be such a happy kid ago cuz you dad were so screwed up

I had to do something to cover that, you know, and my dad eventually quit drinking

He never went to AA but he eventually quit drinking just when I started otter God

All right

And I started drinking around 17 and the first time I get a little for a very first beer

I had I was like 15 and I was with my dad and he goes you're drinking out of the app

But I'm not like you I'm not gonna drink like that, you know, cuz that's the kind of jerk

I was you know showed my dad met you

Well, I ever wanted really to be was him and to show him what a you know, great guy

I was so he would love me and I you know, I didn't like the taste of it. So I go see

Right. I even tried to show off to a girlfriend. I had we were up at Victoria Station Universal Studios

I was 17 years old. I ordered a carafe of wine to show

And the guy goes it's a carafe, sir, and I go whatever just bring it and I didn't like it and I go see

I'm fine until she broke up with me and I was 17 years old and my buddy and I split a 12-pack

Cut drunk off his six beers that I go. Oh my god

Is this what it's like to be drunk it I had this smile like the Joker on my face and he looked at me goes

Yeah, and I'm doing this all the time. What was I thinking because immediately I felt that release that fear was gone

I didn't have to do oppositional defiance disorder anymore because I didn't care

I just felt like everything was okay and I chased that buzz for many many years in different ways at first not every day

You know because I couldn't I was 17

but I would find places that would sell me and I would get drunk at school and I almost got kicked out of school because

I learned very early on that if you did the right things in school

They would leave you alone when I was drinking. I didn't care and I went on a field trip was down at Alvera Street

I did this much tequila with this much orange juice and I brought it on the bus with me and I got really drunk and

I wound up

you know going off the top of City Hall peeing off the top of City Hall and then running into the

Museum down where that was at and the print the teacher that was with copy and he goes what's wrong with you?

And I go, oh, I think someone spiked my drink, you know

I'm trying to get out of it and he goes I'm gonna have you expelled like you can't I've accepted the college next year

I got it continue school. And so I said I promise I'll be the best student and I sat in the back of the room

And totally behaved I still got drunk but not at school. You see that's the thing about me is I'm an alcoholic, right?

you know I find excuses to drink and

Reasons not to right and the and the idea for me was that if I you know could say, okay

I have to behave at this so I'll not drink here, but I'll drink over there

My first experience was a with a is because I got caught at school at college at UCLA when I was in the dorms

And I ate I lit off the fire alarm because I wanted to see like the girls run out and they're not going to stuff like

That and the guy goes you got a problem with alcohol. You've been causing a lot of problems here

You need to go to a and I'm like, but I'm not an alcoholic. I'm only 18

So I didn't know so I go to this a a meeting and it's done at Westwood and I'm like totally in fear because I'm sober

And the guy goes, you know, no, no, I'm just here for like research or something like that, right?

He's like well, this is something that he said that has always stuck with me

If you ever have a problem with alcohol, this is the place to be

I'm never gonna have a problem with alcohol. So who cares but it's stuck with me and you know after that

I thought that this is a pretty good thing

And and then I got a DUI in Burbank and I had to go to like six meetings and I went to this big hall

As I guess was called Angelino. I didn't know it at the time

This is back in the 80s and you know, everyone who's been sober for a long time goes

Oh, yeah, I know that place but I didn't I just knew that I could drop my card off there at a big meeting and leave

It and go drink and come back and get it, right?

So it didn't help very much that I had those six means because I got another DUI in Burbank about three years later

And then I had to go to 26 meetings now

The first DUI all I did was like throw up verbally on the cop not literally and said oh my dad's gonna kill me

You know, he would told me not to drink and all this stuff and I didn't realize I record everything you say

So it pretty much convicted me the second time though. I was a pro right? I didn't say a word

I knew how to do the test and everything like that. They had me on video and and and the guy even

There's like hey nice job thumbs up on that, you know because at that point my tolerance for alcohol was so high

It didn't really matter but they sent me to 26 meetings and I'm like, this is ridiculous

I don't know why I have to go to a am not an alcohol

So I go to these meetings and I just decide I suppose I say about alcohol. It's being clever and funny

You know like an excuse for everything. I know what the problem is

I shouldn't drink and drive in Burbank

So I won't do that anymore cuz they pull you over just for sport, but that wasn't the problem

and so I continue to drink and I was in Burbank and I met my wife at a bar there and we got married and

we had a great, you know wedding and we went on to

Tahiti for our honeymoon. It was fantastic all you could drink Wow. This is perfect and she almost left me there

You know because just married not on purpose

but because I

Was just so I was falling asleep in the gift shop peeing over in the corner. People were just like a nice husband

You got there and all this kind of stuff, you know in their 20s if you're drinking like that

You can almost get away with it. You can say I'm just young everyone drinks in their 20s, right?

And then you know as I got older it became worse and we had a kid, you know

My daughter was born and I was in my 30s and then my dad at that time

It was 27 years ago two days ago three days ago. He did the worst thing that could happen

He died not because it was like anything bad that happened to me

It's just my whole life had been fighting against being him that opposition applies

compliance disorder and now I had nothing to fight against and I became him and from August 6 1998 to

Pretty much 2006 when I stopped drinking. It just got worse and worse and I still didn't think I was an alcoholic

I thought you guys were still the problem not you specifically but everyone around me because I couldn't see that the real problem was

Looking me at the mirror every morning. In fact by the time that I was done drinking

I couldn't look in the mirror in the morning

I'd shave like kind of sideways because all I could see is this person in the mirror and I say you're pathetic

And I hated myself and towards the end of two or middle of 2006. It was actually before in 2005

On my birthday that we had a big party and I was so drunk. Well not at the party

I kind of behaved myself

Like I said, but on my actual birthday I go to this bar and I'm just so drunk when I come home that my wife

Takes a picture of me

You know

Thank God waist up with my pants down and put it next to the cake that her and my daughters I had two daughters at

That time had made and said happy birthday. Wish you were here and I was pissed. I'm like really is this how we're gonna play now?

Okay

I'm gonna show you what drinking really is like I was hiding it before

Alright, but I thought and I just was for the next six months just on the tear. I don't remember most of that time

I remember off and on moments. I was blacking out a lot the same routine of drinking, you know

Waking up the moonlight choking down a couple of beers

I had this breathalyzer so I could keep my blood alcohol a certain level I blow into it and make this loud noise

I have to go in the garage put covers over my head and you know

my wife would catch me sometimes in the garage and she goes you go to the garage like a lot of work out there one time

The garage door was opening and I had a beer in my hand and I said honey

I'm not drinking because see it's not touching my lips and it's just beer so it's not really, you know

That's the denial that I was in that I could lie to myself so

Much that I could try and convince you and everyone knew it and as the month of April rolled around

I stopped drinking for a month in March of 2006 and I told my wife I'm gonna stop

I'll behave because she was just it was just getting back and then in April of

2006 I almost made the 30 days about 28 days and my buddy turned 40

So we went to have the wrong ghost out there where they were, you know, I just started drinking and it got bad

We got a big fight being this guy who's like come to blows. He was so drunk

I was so drunk we made up but it was like I just didn't care anymore and the whole month of April was pretty much

A blackout I remember my you know

I was married in April and I had a half a glass of champagne to show again

Then I could stop and all I could think about was that other half a glass that I should have drank, you know

I wish I could have drank it. I didn't realize the mental obsession

It goes along with alcoholism see all this stuff like you say you learn in AA

You know, that's what I love about the big book on page 30

It talks about chapter 3 more about alcohols. We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics

This is the first step in recovery and I had to learn that I just learned how to get away with drinking as much as I

Can until you would let me drink again so I can get back to the way I'm not feeling in fear

But if you're an alcoholic like me

The worst thing happens is that the alcohol doesn't take away the fear anymore and the fear comes back

Even more so you are at that jumping off place that it talks about the big book where I can't drink enough

I drink myself sober now

This is this is how terrifying it is to me and come that last week in April when I was trying to you know

Show that I was a good dad. There was a 5k over at that see Sun not far from my house

I was so bad. I was shaking so bad

I had to down a couple beers to get through that race and then after the race I ran all the way home which was

Another mile and a half just so I could beat my family there so I could drink out

So I just got to loosen up right, you know, my wife and I went out to Ventura that night

And I just you know, I was just it was terrible when I got back that weekend or Sunday night

I remember what someone told me if you have a problem with alcohol. This is the place now

I looked online at that time, you know, there were some meetings and they didn't have you know the video stuff yet

So I printed out all these meetings and I tried to find one as far away from my home in Northridge as I can studio city

Sounded pretty fault, right? So I went to this meeting at 9 in the morning on Monday

Everyone's happy and cheerful, you know, they're all laughing and everyone knows each other much like here and I'm just sweating in freezing cold weather

I mean it was cold that day in May 1st and I'm sweating and just want to die and I'm like

there's no way I'm gonna do this for the rest of my life and about three years prior to that it started to go to

Therapy because I had these anger issues and she kept saying go to a a go to a a and I'm like

Why does it want me to go to a I'm not an alcohol

I couldn't get it but she knew and and I went and so that that first meeting I couldn't handle it

But something told me to go back. So I went back to Burbank to try and find that meaning but there wasn't

It was just a very small meeting in a church much about the size of this room. There were six people there

They went around the room for everyone to share and I'd never been to a meeting like that

Cuz all the meetings I'd gone to were big so I could hide and then it came around to me

They said would you like to share and I was just like I got nothing and I didn't realize how true that was

I mean, I was still married

I still had a you know house and and kids and a family and a job but inside I had nothing cuz I drank it

All the way I had no emotions. I had no spirituality. I had nothing but yet I could hear people talk in those meetings

And I heard some guy say how angry he wasn't that I could relate to and me too. They're taking away my drinking

How am I going to to live without drinking and he had nine months and I thought you're supposed to be cured by nine months

I mean, I did not know about a a right. I thought that was it

So I I liked it and I went back to my therapist and I said I think I might be an alcoholic

She laughs and I go wait you knew didn't you she goes? Yeah, I go win and she was minute you walked in here

I go, why didn't you say anything because you guys all lie

So you got to figure it out for yourself and I did and I started to go to more meetings

Started going to the Valley Club. I heard one of the first things I heard in a was look for the similarities

Not the differences

I heard that and I started to listen to people more about what we had in common than where I was different from them that

Opposition defiance disorder was just I couldn't do it anymore

I couldn't immediately react to that and I started to hear people talk about me now

It wasn't always exactly I would go to a lot of speaker meetings in the early part of my sobriety because I wanted to hear

People tell my story and they get to a point where it's like em. It's like in my 40s

I stopped drinking. I mean me too and a wife and me too and then I go and then I started do heroin and I go

Okay, well, I'm not that kind, you know, and I would still shut down trying to find every reason why I wasn't alcoholic

But you said do the steps you said get a book which is the same book that I've had you said get a sponsor now

Okay, I thought I would try something different and actually take direction like I was joking with Nate, you know

I go you the only guy in a who takes, you know direction from your sponsor

because I found this guy early on and he was really good guy and he and he

It was at the 530 meeting that I go to on a regular basis. They just started it's um,

530 a.m. And I couldn't sleep so I go to this meeting and he was really kind

He seemed to know something about a so I asked him be my sponsor if what he what anything was like being new

You know, he said, you know, I really have learned to trust God clean house and serve others

Yeah, I don't know why but I saw the steps and it just was like that's the steps right trust

God one through three clean house four through nine serve others ten through twelve, right and I go this is easy

I just broke this down into six things because what this guy said I didn't realize it was in the book

In fact, there was a plaque right behind him. This is a trust God clean house serve others, you know

But on page 98 it says trust God clean house and that's the chapters working with others and I go I think I could do

These steps in fact, I looked at the steps and said those first three are kind of I did it

I know I'm powerless over all called my life's unmanageable. I have a God in my life, you know

So what do I need step two for and I guess I made that decision when I felt like that Sunday night

I had lost a bet with God, you know

And I told him you like my life so much

Show me something and he came to you of course when you get to step four and you say maybe searching for this one

inventory

What does that mean? You know, I think I need a sponsor because at step five it talks about that

They've been to God to ourselves in another human being. Oh, that's code, right? That's code for sponsor

I get what you guys are trying to do here

I they check your work at five and then after that you just say you did the rest of this stuff and everyone will be

Happy with that and I can go on my merry way and I really want to get to the steps with this guy and he's

Like what's your rush buddy? You're not getting out of here alive. I'm like what and he goes this is a lifelong thing now

I didn't plan to be here for the rest of my life. I didn't plan here to be for more than 30 days

I really wanted to get this thing and get out of here because I liked drinking

I loved drinking and I say this a lot not just in you know sharing but all the time means if you don't drink you

Don't get drunk say but for a guy like me who loved being drunk

That was like the opposite of what I want to drink so I can get drunk. That's the whole point, right?

I needed something else in those days

I had a pager in 2006 and I did I had it cuz I didn't wanna give anyone my number

But people were handing me numbers, you know, and I would get their number and I would call them and they would say yeah

Who is this? And I go you I just met you at the meeting

You told me to call you because yeah, but nobody ever calls like I don't know the rules, you know

I just did what you said every time I talked to a drunk. I felt better

I don't know what it was and we could talk about anything

In fact, this old guy who was at that first mean area went to a bird egg named doy

He said Derek. I don't know what it is about a a but two drunks can be talking about pig farming and something magic happens

I found that to be true. So I liked calling people and I liked getting to know people in a a you know early on

I met a guy he was brand new. I thought we'd be sober buddies forever, you know at 30 days

I took the chip

He took a chip a week after me and then he was gone and I was like what's going on?

And then I saw people leave it, you know, and it was the weirdest thing and I went up to this guy

I go am I doing this wrong?

You know am I supposed to relapse or something like that because it seems like because what's wrong with you?

I don't know. I don't know what the rules are here. He goes you're doing the fight right thing

Don't worry about whatever else anyone is doing. Do you feel better?

Yeah, then keep doing what you're doing. I kept doing and about 60 days into it. I met this old guy

He was coming to meetings. He was crying. I thought he was new so I went up to my go you okay?

He was out of my dog and because I just haven't been to a meeting a long time ago

How long is that about ten years ago ten years? How long you been sober and he goes 23 I go

It's that legal. Can you really not go to a meeting that long?

He liked me and he started calling me every day and then I found out I said Ken

Have you ever gone through the steps and he goes? Yeah, I got this guy

I'm working with right now isn't going fast enough

Do you think you can get me through these steps and he laughed and he goes why don't we do them together?

And that changed everything because this is the first time where someone wasn't trying to tell me what to do

They wanted to do it with me and we started doing the steps together and at the 60 days, you know

I started doing step one the poor guy, you know, cuz I'm still like fighting this thing and he goes are you an alcoholic?

What's an alcoholic? What is an alcoholic, you know for five ten minutes? I'm going around

Please just say you're an alcoholic. Okay. I'm an alcoholic great step two

Let's go, you know

And he got me to that fourth step and I started to know I had already tried the fourth step

And a four step study place called studio 12 and I gotten so angry doing this four step. I was 30 days sober

I didn't get what was going on because I wrote down all the resentments

I wrote down about my dad I wrote down about my wife and all these people and I was so mad

I had to go to another meeting and I started to raise my hand to share like a good newcomer and you know

And they're good. Would you like to share? Yeah, I'd like to share. I'm 30 days sober. I'm doing my fourth step

I'm more angry now than I've ever been and you guys suck and they're all like yay. Keep coming back

Yeah, and I'm like what's going on here? You know, what's wrong with you people?

I'm very upset here. And so when Ken took me through these things he told me he goes, you know

You need to write these things down so you could look at your part save a page for you and I did and in that

Fourth step I saw the exact same things that I was mad at my dad for was I was mad at me

You're not a good father. You're not around, you know

He's drinking and I was like freaking out because it's kind of magic trick and when I told Kenneth stuff

He just said two words that changed everything as well. He said yeah, me too. He said me too

What do you mean? He's same relationship with my dad, you know, the otter. God thing that happens is he's the same age as my dad

They're a month apart. Okay. I'm the same age as his oldest son who he didn't have a relationship with who's happens to be named

Darren, you know these things these coincidences that occur to me all the time in a I just take him for granted now

I just know that that's God showing me and say I get it. I get it

You know there's things happening here and that's the beautiful thing about this is as I got closer for these steps

I got closer to God and understanding that I never really had not as God as a celestial Butler

But as a newfound friend as it talks about the book and kid told me I need to do six and seven right away

Because I got a lot of pride and if I ever drank again

I'd never come back and I go how can you say so like that because you're the kind of guy that wouldn't come back to

AA but I've never tested the theory like you said, you know me first is my sobriety date

But I did all my relapsing before I came to AA. It's like I tried a stone. It's just something happened in AA

That made me stick and I think it was like I said the people in the fellowship and the process of the steps and of

Course come and as I started to do the amends and I said, yeah

I made I made an amends to my wife. You know, I told her I was sorry and he goes, yeah

Wasn't that enough because that's all what she said it

I told her I was lying about all the drinking and I told her all these things and he goes whatever news

She's really upset. She said, you know, you lied to me and I thought I said I thought you knew she's like no

I did it and that was it, you know, and you'll see because you didn't do it the way in the book tells you

I'm sorry. I was wrong. What can I do to make it right see that's the immense and I go but I wasn't wrong

She was you were wrong and I go how am I wrong? She was you were wrong period don't worry about your wife

Cuz my wife says go to Al-Anon not an alcoholic she drinks, but he always told me this is your program

You run your program and you watch what happens and amazing thing is after 19 years and three months. She's gotten so much better

she is just fantastic, you know because of me because I've gotten better and I have not much but enough because I have to keep

Doing this all the time as it says in step 10 continue to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it

I'm married. So I'm wrong all the time, you know coming here tonight. She I know I tell her I'm gonna go speak Saturday night

That's the only night I get you and now you're gonna go speak on Saturday night and oh, yeah, right

You know, I'm just are you keep you I'm not drinking what's wrong with you, right?

It's because I forget I'm such a fantastic guy. She wants to be around. Hmm

Maybe not but she knows that that's our thing. You know, we hang out on Saturday nights and my daughter's out of town

And so we we have the night to ourselves and it's like, you know

But I said instead of saying, you know the excuses that I make I have a reason I go

You know, I do it because I do what I say and you know that about me. I have integrity now

Sorry, the steps gave me that it's not about being honest anymore because like I said when she put which she saw me with that

drink I was being honest with her as like I wasn't drinking because honestly I wasn't right but the truth is as soon as you turn your

Your head I'm drinking and I'm gonna drink until I pass out and then I'm gonna wake up and drink some more

That would be the truth

Honesty is not very important to me because usually it's about people tell me how they feel, you know

People say can I be honest with you Derek? You're a jerk. You go. That's being honest. Okay, it's important to be honest with myself

And once I'm honest with myself, I can be honest with you and then I have integrity and I do what I say

I show up for these things you guys taught me that show up to a few minutes early

and again, like you say it goes out into the rest of the world - when I go to

Like I take classes for continuing education. I show up I greet the teacher

I say thank you so much and I stay afterwards and I clean up they go

Well, you're a great guy and you get to make connections and then maybe I should get your card and let's do that

You know and it works. It really does think it says that in the book to page 88 line 8

So 10 step into you take personal inventory when we're wrong promptly admitted it

And so yeah, and then I have two daughters and I'm wrong all the time because I exist, you know

When they were teenagers, it was just shut up that you know, my youngest daughter

I tell the story a lot and I love it because when I was you know going through this she said, you know

I'm sorry all the time and I'm like, mr. AA now my honey. You can't say you're sorry. You have to say I'm sorry

I was wrong. What can I do to make it right?

She was okay dad I'll try and then we were going to the dentist and I press the wrong but you know

We were running late and I was so upset. I just said the f-word out loud and she's like

I'm so sorry and she was you're sorry and I go yeah, I said, oh, I'm sorry

I was wrong to say that and she was and what can I do to make it right?

She was buy me an iPad because they just come out at that time, right?

And I go really that's the amends that I need to make it doesn't work that way

You know and it taught me a valuable lesson about making amends to people is that you don't have to do what they say right away

Because there's some people who might tell you why don't you just get out of my life forever go kill yourself because you were that bad

You're not gonna do that. What I've said to myself is what I can't do that right now

What can I do and they might just say just go away and sometimes that happens but most of the time it doesn't when I?

Went back and made the immense to my wife the proper way

She's just I'm glad you're sober just stay sober and I do

And I'm very fortunate that because of that I can do step 11 and that means I get to pray and meditate all the time

I love the 11 step prayer cuz it's always about the solution right whether it's darkness

Let me bring light and all that good stuff

But when I pray and meditate I ask God, why do I keep making these mistakes?

I fall asleep, but I wake up spiritual

I have a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps and I try to carry this message try to carry this message

To other alcoholics and to practice principles in all my affairs and that's why I'm here tonight

You know is because this message that I have is my story and the funny thing is I was about five or six years sober

And I was speaking at a meeting and and I suddenly realized I'd been want heard what I finally want to hear the speaker who?

Knew my story it was me and because of that now I can say, you know

Maybe there's someone out there who will relate to you and maybe now, you know, I have no power over that

That's up to God but the beauty part of is the more that I do this the more of it is a reminder to me

How grateful that I am, you know that first year sobriety was really just about staying sober. I'm like, dr

Bob he says in the big book first two and a half years of sobriety first two and a half years

I almost always thought of drinking it was just plain not drinking for him

But he threw himself in the service and he said I had schooled myself that I had

You know ruined the privilege so much that didn't behoove me to go around

Squawking about not being able to drink and he threw himself in the service and that's what I did. I got commitments

I started the going meetings as much as I could in the first hundred in the first 90 days

I went to 180 means cuz you told me 90 meetings in 90 days in my opposition the fine stores

I'll show you a little 180 and it won't work, right but it did and I started to feel better and that second year

I started to sponsor people and it worked and I started to feel better and I started like AA and I started to go to

meetings at about three and a half years sober by my it was 15 years ago this this this

Month that my father-in-law passed away. My aunt had passed away six months

Prior from cancer. This is my dad's sister who when he died, I was drinking when she died

I was there for her it was sort of an immense

He didn't like her that much but for me it was and the idea was that you know

I realized I had to stay sober that long three and a half years

To be there for her and almost four years

So that when my mother-in-law and my follow-up passed away my mother-in-law said I want to move in with you

I was ready for that and you know 14 years ago this we're not 14 is it 2011?

Yeah, 14 years ago this month. She moved in with us. We got a house five years ago this month

August just seems to be a terrible month for me. I don't know what that is five years ago this one

She passed away wasn't from COVID was during COVID

She had cancer and it was it was a rough time and there have been times in my life all along the way where I get

To that point where it's almost like I forget all the stuff that I learned

But I was five years sober my wife said, you know when you act like this

It's like you're drinking and I got pissed. I was like really you want to see drinking?

I'll show you drinking but you know what she said was it's just you scared me when you're like this, you know

The the thing I love about her now is she teases me a lot

You know and makes fun of me and I go when did this start?

She was when you stop drinking because I'm not afraid of you anymore. Yeah at ten years sober about the same thing happened

I was running around like a maniac and it was like, you know, what am I gonna do?

And and she looked at me again. She's you know when you act like this and I go I know she didn't say it

She said it's like you don't take your own advice and that hurt even more

Because by that time I was ten years sober and you think I would know better

I learned you never think that hey, hey, you're never cured. In fact in the big book on page 85 it says we are not cured

Of alcohol what we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the mains of our spiritual condition

So at about 15 years sober, I guess it was closer to 14 when this lockdown happened

You might have heard of it. It caused this whole zoom thing and something like that

I totally freaked out because they're taking my meetings away

What am I gonna do and this time my wife said, you know what to do and I got to you know

I never heard of zoom in my life and someone told told me it was a way the drug addicts get together to do drugs

like was that true, you know, and I don't know if it is or not, but it makes a great story and we started doing a

Zoom meeting and it's still going at the 530 mean just like this is and I realized that the cool part about thank you

The cool thing about recovery is that it can happen anywhere and it says that in the big book, right?

It says that on the end of chapter 4 modem to modem or face to face alcoholics and honest, but more importantly

I think it's the end beginning of chapter or the forward of chapter 3

It says each day if recovery begins when one alcoholic talks to another it doesn't say you go through the steps

It doesn't say you have a sponsor go through the big book. Those are important but ground level a to me is talking to another

Alcoholic, how are you doing? Is everything okay?

What's going on in your life and you get to know people you get to care and because of that caring it allows me for my

Sharing to open up my life in a way that before I didn't want you to know these things again. Look at me

Don't look at me. I didn't want you to see the shameful things. I don't have to live in guilt or shame anymore

I don't have to live in fear. I still get fear. I was afraid like I said today

I did I double booked the meeting am I gonna I'm always afraid of how I'm gonna feel - am I gonna be too tired?

It's Saturday night. It's late

You know this God help me God help me and he does and like I said my sponsor told me to pray and so I went

In the bathroom just said a quick prayer

So if I said something tonight that you know helped you or did where the side I said something like you didn't like when God

Cuz I prayed but if I say something like that help you playing God because I did it's always like to close with this part

Of the big book that helps me a lot because if when I was new it's how I felt on page 152

It's it talks about in the vision for you

And I love the way the book set up because the first chapter is Bill's story and it talks about identify

You know how to identify with him and there's a solution is about step one

Chapter two step through chapter threes is really about the incentive proceeds the fourth fourth week

Which is step two believe that I could be restored to sanity step

step two is in chapter four chapter five talks about the

Step three and into step four and then the I'm sorry

I have to turn the line because my eyesight is just not working tonight

There we go. And then chapter five is into action. No chapter five is how it works chapter six is into action

That's five through eleven then the whole chapter about working with others chapters

that's chapter seven is all step twelve and then you've got two wives family afterward and

Two employers, which is the second part of the twelve step. They made this book perfectly to follow the steps

Right, then you get to a vision for you

Which is if you've done all the steps then you build a fellowship now why they only have eleven chapters in this book when they?

Have twelve of everything else, right? I don't know but when they do the fifth edition, which will be releasing soon

I'm sure they'll have chapter 12

It'll be as Derek sees it and it'll be it'll be one page that will say whatever but this page in a vision for you

Tells me something that I need to know always he meaning the alcoholic cannot picture life without alcohol someday

He will be unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it them

He will know loneliness such as you do who will be at the jumping-off place. He will wish for the end

We have shown you how he got out from under you say yes

I'm willing but am I to be consigned to a life where I should be stupid boring and glum like some righteous people I see

I know I must get along without liquor. But how can I have you a sufficient substitute? Yes

There is a substitute is vastly more than that is a fellowship and alcoholics anonymous there

You will find release from care boredom and worry your imagination will be fired

Life will mean something at last the most satisfactory years of your existence lie ahead. Thus we find the fellowship and solely you

Thank you. You know, that's a promise

There are many promises in the big book not just on page 83 and 84

That promise to me means that no matter where I'm at sobriety the best years of my existence lie ahead of me and I have

To hold on to that now because after being sober for 19 years, it kind of gets, you know routine

You just start to take it for granted and I can't every day that I wake up and I pray and I thank God that I'm

Sober, it's a reminder every time I come to a meeting and I say I'm Derek. I'm an alcoholic. It's a reminder

It's not just to tell you guys what I am but to say Derek

This is what you are and you must do these things to keep it in check again

We are not cured of alcoholism

What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the main source spiritual condition and because of this meeting and all of you

You've helped maintain my spiritual condition and I can't thank you enough. Thank you for letting me share