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Sober Talk SA - Bjern · Sober Talk SA

• 0:00
  Welcome to Sober Talk. I'm Dennis and I'm an alcoholic.
• 0:04
  Soap to dear thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous.
• 0:08
  If you or anyone you know is struggling with alcohol, please
• 0:11
  call Alcoholics Anonymous on 1300 double 22222.
• 0:17
  I'll visit their website ata.org dot AU.
• 0:24
  I'll just run through the preamble of Alcoholics
• 0:27
  Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous is a
• 0:29
  fellowship of people who share the experience, strengthen hope
• 0:33
  with each other that they may solve their common problems, and
• 0:37
  help with us to recover from alcoholism.
• 0:40
  The only requirement for membership is the desire to stop
• 0:43
  drinking and no dues of fees. Fair membership.
• 0:46
  We are self supporting through our own contributions.
• 0:50
  He is not allied with any sect in immersion politics,
• 0:54
  organization or institution, does not wish to engage in any
• 0:58
  controversy, either endorses or oppose any causes.
• 1:03
  Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other Alcoholics
• 1:07
  are chiefs of Brady. Hi, I'm Bian.
• 1:09
  I'm a grateful alcoholic. It's really lovely to be at this
• 1:12
  meeting. It's one of my favorite meetings
• 1:14
  in Adelaide Wednesday nights, sort of a fan at the come Very
• 1:17
  it's really wonderful to be here.
• 1:19
  It's beautiful to have a meeting where it feels genuinely safe to
• 1:24
  talk about God, you know, and I get the, I get the, the sort of
• 1:28
  tension around that, you know, when I was new and I came in, I
• 1:33
  was, I found fancied myself a militant atheist.
• 1:36
  And you know, I used to, I used to use it as a way to
• 1:39
  demonstrate my sort of intellectual prowess, to tear
• 1:43
  apart the concept of God and religion.
• 1:45
  And today, as a result of going to the 12 steps and staying in a
• 1:50
  a but for six years, God is woven into almost every aspect
• 1:55
  of my life. And another day goes by, I
• 1:58
  think, where I don't say quite too a higher power of my
• 2:02
  understanding. And that's the beauty of a A.
• 2:05
  And if you're new and you know, you're worried about the the
• 2:08
  candles and the stuff on the wall, it's it's not a cult.
• 2:11
  And that's the beauty of it. It it has no leader.
• 2:14
  And that's it's it's organized anarchy in a way.
• 2:17
  It's it's a whole bunch of people from the ground up who
• 2:21
  are broken, who are helping in through that protocol That's
• 2:24
  broken. It's yeah, I'm, I feel like I'm
• 2:26
  only a baby in a, A like it's the you, you sort of do the
• 2:30
  steps and you get rocketed into the 4th dimension and life is
• 2:33
  just spectacular and shiny and bright.
• 2:36
  And then the problems start kicking in.
• 2:38
  And then, you know, you realize just in a life.
• 2:41
  And that's where all the things that John just wrote read out
• 2:45
  this sort of spiritual toolkit that gives us is so useful.
• 2:50
  And yeah, my sponsor says that, you know, it takes a good ten
• 2:54
  years to, to really clear up and, and thaw out.
• 2:58
  And when I first heard that I went, oh God, that's so long,
• 3:02
  you know, but I, I kind of get it now and, and it gives me a
• 3:07
  lot to look forward to. The last six years has been the
• 3:10
  best in my adult life, hands down.
• 3:13
  It's been really beautiful. And it's had had the odd hand
• 3:16
  grenade thrown in there. Like it's been some difficult
• 3:19
  stuff, but I've had a community of people that have wrapped
• 3:22
  around me in a a that have helped me to go through those
• 3:26
  difficulties. And I'm I'm a more mature person
• 3:30
  as a result. And that's something I didn't do
• 3:31
  when I was drinking. I didn't mature.
• 3:34
  It was like this pause button on my maturity.
• 3:36
  I hadn't patches of maturity and you know, I was good at feigning
• 3:42
  being an adult. I could, I could, had a very
• 3:44
  good, good game going on and pretending to be in a bit deep
• 3:48
  down, emotionally at least, and spiritually.
• 3:50
  I was, I was pretty much the age that I was when I started
• 3:54
  drinking. And for me, and I'll, I'll just
• 3:55
  sort of, I'll try and format the talk of, you know, how it was,
• 4:00
  what happened and, and what it's like now.
• 4:03
  I started drinking at a really young age, but I never thought I
• 4:06
  did. I heard people go, oh, I started
• 4:08
  drinking at 13. I'm like, God, that's young.
• 4:10
  And then the, the memories start coming back And I, I thought
• 4:15
  today, when's your, when was your first drink?
• 4:17
  And I had a chuckle to myself because very telling.
• 4:20
  My dad was a, he was a manager for an airline company, for the
• 4:24
  Dutch national airline. And you used to get standby
• 4:27
  seats. So you pay a very small
• 4:29
  percentage of the fare, like 2%. And then they just fit you
• 4:32
  wherever there was space. And sometimes that meant you
• 4:35
  were at the back of the plane, sometimes in the middle,
• 4:37
  sometimes in the cockpit and sometimes you're in first class.
• 4:41
  And I was travelling with my mum and we got bumped up to first
• 4:45
  class and she fell asleep. And they walk around with these
• 4:49
  trays of orange juice and champagne and he gets juice,
• 4:52
  juice and champagne. And I was seven years old.
• 4:57
  I very, that would not, not a, you know, with, with with no
• 5:01
  hesitation, just help myself to the champagne And she was
• 5:04
  asleep. And I, I polished off the first
• 5:06
  champagne. I thought, this is wonderful.
• 5:08
  And I put it down. I, you know, I pretended I was
• 5:10
  some some practiced old gent and then my mum woke up and the
• 5:15
  stewardess came back. Would you like enough glass of
• 5:17
  sharp acts? My mum was horrified, absolutely
• 5:21
  horrified, but there was that was a common occurrence.
• 5:24
  And then I remember, you know, I had this beautiful grandfather.
• 5:27
  He was a this pilot in the war and he worked for Ansett, which
• 5:31
  the airline company that was went bust, but used to be around
• 5:34
  when Qantas and, and he retired. And what he did was he looked
• 5:38
  after a small hobby fine at farm and, and drank whiskey.
• 5:41
  And that's he wasn't an alcoholic.
• 5:43
  He was a, he was a regular heavy drinker.
• 5:45
  I never saw him drunk. You know, I saw him go periods
• 5:49
  of time without alcohol and no big deal.
• 5:51
  But his answer to everything was whiskey, wine, which was a
• 5:55
  little bit of whiskey and a bit of water.
• 5:57
  And, you know, I remember I sprained my wrist as an 8 year
• 6:01
  old. He's like, oh, whiskey wine will
• 6:03
  fix that up. So, you know, he gives me the
• 6:04
  whiskey wine. And that became a bit of a
• 6:07
  ritual with him. We'd sit in front of the fire
• 6:10
  and eat cheds biscuits and drink whiskey wine together.
• 6:13
  But the problem itself is 8. You know, it was lovely.
• 6:19
  And this, this continued, this continued into my 20s.
• 6:25
  And it was until the day he died.
• 6:26
  We we, we hung around and had the whiskey wine and I have a
• 6:32
  bit of a different story with alcohol than than a few people
• 6:35
  I've heard in AI didn't have the allergy to begin with, or at
• 6:39
  least I wasn't aware of it. I could drink and I could enjoy
• 6:43
  it and I could stop and but I'd always drink the most at the
• 6:49
  party. I was always the one that got
• 6:51
  completely written off at a horrendous hangover.
• 6:54
  Its day was the one that vomited, you know, But then
• 6:57
  there'd be long periods of time without drinking and, but that
• 7:02
  changed and I remember the exact edge I was, I was travelling
• 7:07
  around Australia on a motorbike, you know, sort of like a gap
• 7:09
  year when I was 18. I've been working at different
• 7:12
  stations, cattle stations, drinking quite heavily.
• 7:15
  And I remember being without alcohol because I was camping
• 7:19
  out Bush and this strong, powerful urge to have alcohol in
• 7:23
  my system. That was the first time I really
• 7:26
  recognized that that's not the craving, but the obsession
• 7:29
  around alcohol. Like, how was I going to get the
• 7:31
  drink? Should I get on my bike and
• 7:33
  travel into the nearest Tavernal pub to, to get to get some
• 7:37
  booze? But then the, the day that I
• 7:40
  remembered the, the phenomenon of craving kicking in, I was on
• 7:43
  the top of the Land Rover. We were travelling through
• 7:45
  Namibia with friends and it was a warm day.
• 7:49
  And in Africa they drink warm beer and it's just, it's a
• 7:52
  thing. And I had an empty stomach and I
• 7:54
  drank a warm beer and it just lit me up it from my toes to my
• 8:00
  head. I just felt this overwhelming
• 8:02
  sense of euphoria. And I went, this is it.
• 8:06
  Like, I've got to do a lot more of this drinking on an empty.
• 8:10
  And, and within, you know, a couple of beers later, I was
• 8:14
  shirtless dancing on the top of the Land Rover to Tina Turner.
• 8:17
  And it was like this. It was like, this is great.
• 8:20
  This is really good, but I can really relate to that phenomenon
• 8:25
  of craving because when it hit me on the empty stomach, the
• 8:29
  first thing that came to my mind, I want more, I have to
• 8:32
  have more. And then started the the daily
• 8:36
  drinking and the regular thing. And I just remember the shift
• 8:39
  between being tense, irritable, anxious, constantly feeling not
• 8:45
  comfortable in my own skin, to having the first strength and
• 8:49
  just shoulders going. Just that sense of ease and
• 8:52
  comfort that they talk about in the big book.
• 8:54
  I really relate to that. And yeah, that's when the chaos
• 8:59
  didn't start early on. There were some really good
• 9:01
  times drinking, like I was always the last on the dance
• 9:04
  floor. And you know, I had a wild
• 9:06
  upbringing. I was, I was born in the
• 9:08
  Philippines. I grew up in Ghana, Pakistan and
• 9:11
  Kenya, travelled the world and done all sorts of crazy things
• 9:14
  and got into a lot of trouble and, you know, walked barefoot
• 9:20
  through the lion country and travelled across deserts with
• 9:24
  motorbikes and all that kind of stuff.
• 9:26
  And that was fun. And drinking was a part of that.
• 9:28
  And it was always, you know, do wild stuff, get drunk, get into
• 9:32
  trouble and get away with it. But then the drinking on my own
• 9:37
  crept in and I remember the the the group of friends grew
• 9:40
  smaller, the need for alcohol increased.
• 9:44
  It's a progressive disease. It gets worse and never better,
• 9:47
  even though there's periods of time where it can look like it's
• 9:50
  getting better. And then the benders come.
• 9:52
  I just remember that that one of the lowest points in my life, I
• 9:55
  was in Berlin working for a start up and I was so stressed.
• 10:01
  I just, I didn't know how to do the work.
• 10:03
  I was too mature. I'd bitten off more than I can
• 10:06
  do and the only way that I could cope psychologically was to
• 10:10
  write myself off and, and in Berlin, you know, a litre bottle
• 10:14
  of beers, like a euro, it's cheaper than water.
• 10:16
  And, and not that that would have stopped me if it was more
• 10:19
  expensive, but it was just everywhere.
• 10:20
  Like you could drink on public transport, you know, that you'd
• 10:24
  go out clubbing and you wouldn't come back till three days later.
• 10:28
  And it was just an excuse to really let myself RIP.
• 10:31
  And and that's where the dark side started to come out of the
• 10:35
  quantities became gargantuan. I remember drinking 12 beers
• 10:39
  before getting onto a flight. This is just, I started drinking
• 10:42
  against my will before it was on that edge of like, I'm pretty
• 10:46
  wild and this is what I do and this is how I have fun to then
• 10:50
  going. And this is actually really not
• 10:52
  A and I, I was starting to move towards a nervous breakdown.
• 10:56
  And that was the first of several that I had where my
• 10:59
  nervous system simply couldn't cope with the cocktail of high
• 11:05
  stress work, drugs, coffee, cigarettes, loads and loads of
• 11:09
  alcohol. Yeah, I had this break.
• 11:11
  I just had this moment where I'm like, I can't keep doing this.
• 11:14
  And I went to my first AA meeting in Berlin, an English
• 11:17
  speaking AA meeting. And there were a few of them,
• 11:19
  but not many. And I just wasn't ready.
• 11:22
  I, I, the message I heard was just don't drink and you'll be
• 11:26
  all right. And for this alcoholic, that's a
• 11:28
  disaster. A disaster.
• 11:32
  I need something. If I put down the, the alcohol
• 11:34
  was keeping me alive. If I put down the alcohol, I
• 11:37
  need something to replace. And I had nothing to I just
• 11:39
  remember I went six cups of coffee a day, smoking 2 packs of
• 11:42
  Diaries and looking out of my apartment window going, God, I'd
• 11:45
  be risked to jump out. I had the courage.
• 11:47
  And I remember I called my dad. I hadn't talked to my dad for a
• 11:51
  while. I had this harebrained idea that
• 11:53
  I was going to go to Afghanistan and, you know, introduce low
• 11:56
  cost laptops to war zones and everything.
• 11:59
  And he kind of cut me off. After that, he stopped.
• 12:01
  If you want to go and kill yourself, go for it.
• 12:03
  Then I called him up and I said, you know, I'm in trouble.
• 12:06
  And he said, what do you mean? So I've got a drink and we
• 12:08
  talked for a while and he said beyond you sound like an 80 year
• 12:11
  old man he's given up on. And that was where was that?
• 12:13
  This is like a soul there. I just all the things I loved
• 12:16
  and that were worth living for had slowly shrunk.
• 12:19
  My life had gotten smaller and small and smaller to all that
• 12:22
  was left was work, caffeine and alcohol.
• 12:26
  And it was just this cycle that kept on spiraling downward and I
• 12:29
  just I wasn't there like I couldn't I went, I went to the
• 12:33
  meetings. I sort of said what I thought
• 12:36
  you wanted, wanted to hear. It wasn't real.
• 12:41
  No one was talking about the steps.
• 12:43
  There was one guy who had a sparkle in his eye and he'd been
• 12:47
  through the But I, I learned I hadn't hit a rock bottom yet.
• 12:49
  I wasn't desperate enough. I still thought I had a few
• 12:52
  tricks up must and yeah, I went to my boss and I said I'm I'm
• 12:57
  screwed. I have a drinking problem.
• 12:58
  And she did one of the nicest things anyone ever done to me,
• 13:00
  which is she bought me a one way ticket to us and we'll be fine
• 13:02
  with that. It's really a beautiful act of
• 13:04
  generosity. And I got home to you know, got
• 13:08
  into my parents base, of course, hated being that kind.
• 13:11
  Went to a a meetings and it just again, it wasn't sticking.
• 13:13
  I couldn't hear the message. I didn't get the spiritual side
• 13:17
  of it. I just thought a A was
• 13:19
  fluorolites, bad coffee and desperate people.
• 13:22
  Turns out it's exactly those sticks.
• 13:25
  But there's all this this magic and beauty that comes with it
• 13:30
  once you get the spiritual side of it.
• 13:31
  And I haven't got the. So I checked myself into a rehab
• 13:35
  at great expense thanks to my father.
• 13:36
  It was some the pseudo luxury rehab run by a gambling addicts.
• 13:42
  You can imagine what that was like and look, it probably saved
• 13:46
  my life. Like I shouldn't knock rehabs.
• 13:48
  I like the answers in a a but rehab, it kept me dry for a
• 13:52
  while and it brought me back to brought me back to life like it
• 13:57
  allowed me to dry out and I started laughing again.
• 14:00
  You know, some friends started coming back into my life.
• 14:03
  But I remember this day like it was yesterday.
• 14:06
  I was asked to come to the rehab to do a dodgy carpentry job
• 14:09
  because the gambling and I didn't want to spend the money
• 14:12
  on the field carpet to start sitting there fixing this
• 14:15
  partition in a wall and across me was my Madelaide.
• 14:20
  And so you could hear the music was right, right opposite the
• 14:24
  the Parkland my Madelaide music festival was on.
• 14:27
  And I just felt this, just this, I don't know, this sadness.
• 14:31
  I'm like, I could never do that ever.
• 14:33
  I'll never be welcome because I cannot safe around alcohol
• 14:37
  because I hadn't I hadn't found the solution today.
• 14:39
  I can genuinely say like I can go where any free person go.
• 14:44
  I might not stay as long as others.
• 14:46
  I exit sooner, but I I do not feel that we've got alcohol in
• 14:51
  the house. You know, we have dinner parties
• 14:54
  regularly. I'm free, but I wasn't that day.
• 14:58
  I'm just, yeah, trapped inside this body and this mind that
• 15:03
  couldn't have its solution and was just left with me.
• 15:06
  And it wasn't a pretty place to be.
• 15:08
  Somehow I managed to stay dry for a year, but it was just one
• 15:14
  big bust waiting to happen. Then I remember I sprained my
• 15:16
  neck and I went into the doctor and he said, oh, here's a box of
• 15:20
  Valium that'll sort it out. And then began the the Valium
• 15:24
  addiction. And before I knew, I was on a
• 15:27
  plane to Cambodia, you know, racing motorcycles through the
• 15:30
  jungle with Red Bull and vodka. I was, I was on again.
• 15:34
  And then, you know, I blew through huge amounts of money
• 15:36
  and yeah, just carnage back on the tips and, and I saw the
• 15:42
  crash land. And this time I had a horrific
• 15:45
  value in addiction and the two were just poisonous.
• 15:48
  And a crash landed back into Adelaide.
• 15:50
  And somehow, I don't know how I did it.
• 15:52
  Somehow I managed to pull back a career, pull, pull a career
• 15:58
  together. I got married.
• 16:01
  I had my first child. That's when, that's when
• 16:04
  sobriety had to kick in. But I had this five year grace
• 16:08
  period where I could get by on a six pack and a bit bit extra.
• 16:11
  I don't know how it works, but I was doing a lot of exercise.
• 16:15
  I was trying to look after myself as best as I can.
• 16:18
  No, I knew all too well that I had AI, had an alcohol problem.
• 16:22
  It's pretty serious because that phenomenon of craving was there.
• 16:25
  But I don't know. I don't know how it works.
• 16:27
  I never will. Somehow that progression slowed
• 16:30
  down and and I became ACEO in that time.
• 16:34
  And that was that was a recipe for disaster for because I'd
• 16:38
  started to develop that really low self esteem and huge ego.
• 16:43
  And you give someone with a low self esteem, a huge ego, the
• 16:45
  title of CEO. That's just and I started
• 16:48
  becoming really tough. That turned into a nasty human.
• 16:51
  My the start of my rock bottom happened when I was in Adelaide
• 16:56
  and the chairman of the company called me up.
• 16:58
  He said go and get on the next week and I thought I was going
• 17:01
  to get a promotion or even though I see, I thought I was
• 17:03
  going to get like a bonus or something like that.
• 17:06
  He was going to, you know, lay praise all over me and he sat me
• 17:10
  down and for four hours he read out this list of complaints, my
• 17:15
  staff, and it just broke me. Like the person that he was
• 17:20
  describing to some monster. And that's what I'd become.
• 17:22
  But I'd still, I had the ego in the facade.
• 17:25
  So I thought who I was was that person that I was projecting to
• 17:29
  the world. But the people closest to knew
• 17:32
  what I'd really become. A dark and twisted kid.
• 17:35
  Yeah. I lost the job.
• 17:35
  It was probably the best thing that could answer.
• 17:38
  And it was done really, really beautifully.
• 17:40
  I really gracefully the the chairman, the really smart guy
• 17:44
  and kind of seen a lot of this. Turns out he's an alcoholic.
• 17:48
  Yeah. We had this really beautiful
• 17:50
  last meal together in Sydney. And, and this is after I'd got
• 17:54
  into recovery. I Justin, I'm an alcoholic.
• 17:56
  And he said I'm too. And I've been, I've been
• 17:58
  baffling alcoholism all my life. Good on you for going to AA.
• 18:01
  And that was it. I kind of never saw him again.
• 18:03
  But he since, you know, he's gone on to do a lot of things.
• 18:06
  But I hear it on the Grapevine that his toxicity has started to
• 18:10
  creep into the organizations that he runs.
• 18:13
  And people started believing and all these bad reports, I think.
• 18:17
  But that's when the rock bottom started.
• 18:19
  You know, I lost that. I lost the thing I was clinging
• 18:22
  onto, which was the title. That was the last way that I
• 18:25
  could show that I lit together. And yeah, I won't bore you the
• 18:28
  details, but I just there was a again, there's this soul death.
• 18:32
  Like I looked in the mirror and I was, I was doing everything.
• 18:35
  I was trying everything. I clinical trials of Baclofen 30
• 18:40
  times the recommended dose because it was supposed to help
• 18:42
  me with my alcoholism. I tried all the different
• 18:45
  medications for for alcoholism. I got a psychology degree
• 18:49
  because I thought that would help me like I'm lit
• 18:52
  hypnotherapy meditation courses. I always thought and that the
• 18:58
  problem is they'd all work for about a week or month.
• 19:01
  And then the reality of alcoholism, this gun Ganchem and
• 19:06
  beast, which I have no hope of ever overcoming powerless that
• 19:11
  would always win. So a a was the was the last
• 19:13
  resort. It was what I turned to when
• 19:17
  absolutely everything else that I knew I could try failed.
• 19:21
  And I just, I had my hands thrown up.
• 19:24
  I'm beat. I don't know what to do.
• 19:26
  And I saw it all happened. There was this little flicker,
• 19:28
  this little kind of moment of chance.
• 19:31
  I saw an image of a guy that I went to rehab with.
• 19:37
  Rick is in AI saw his face and there's something about his
• 19:40
  face. And underneath that he said just
• 19:42
  come back from convention in Sydney and I knew what he was
• 19:45
  talking about. It's something like privilege to
• 19:49
  live this spiritual life or something.
• 19:51
  And there was he was tired. You could see he'd been, you
• 19:53
  know, up all night doing this a a stuff and he was tired.
• 19:57
  There was something that says gentleness and contentment in
• 19:59
  his eyes. I want that.
• 20:02
  And I called, I called him the next day and I said, would you
• 20:04
  spawn? And he said, I don't sponsor
• 20:06
  like other people watch out. And he tried to warn me off.
• 20:10
  And, you know, I I said, look, I'll do any.
• 20:12
  And by this time my wife would give our beautiful son the first
• 20:16
  of two kids. I remember the day so well.
• 20:19
  You know, it was, it was I was overjoyed to be a father, but
• 20:21
  never felt so much love surging through me.
• 20:24
  And I was glowing and I held this boy in my arms and I'm
• 20:28
  like, there is no way I'm drinking because of this, this
• 20:32
  beautiful thing. Think within three days.
• 20:33
  So and then there there was the yet there's no way in hell or
• 20:38
  ever drink drive even in the back.
• 20:40
  Within a week I was driving in blackout with through the city.
• 20:43
  No recollect. And the yetts go on and on and
• 20:47
  on. And it's the beginning of the
• 20:48
  end. Yeah.
• 20:49
  I'm so grateful, you know, my son didn't didn't get me sober,
• 20:53
  but he got me back into AAI just knew something.
• 20:56
  I just knew it couldn't continue like with the loss of the job.
• 20:59
  And then my son and I was just and my body was thrashed.
• 21:02
  Like, I've got my passport photo shows me peak alcoholism and
• 21:08
  yellow and red at the same and bloated and my eyes are
• 21:13
  bloodshot and I just look like this wild thing that came out of
• 21:16
  a trash dumpster and and that was me, you know?
• 21:21
  Yeah, it's, it's whenever I need a reminder, I pull out my
• 21:23
  license. She was so, yeah.
• 21:25
  Long story short, he's like, look, mate, you got to go
• 21:28
  through the steps. And he was part of this quite
• 21:31
  hardcore by the book speakers group where they've got
• 21:34
  workbooks and they slam you through the step and look like
• 21:37
  there was a lot wrong with it. Like a lot of it wasn't a A it
• 21:41
  was certain, you know, the head sponsors version of a A but it
• 21:45
  worked. I've learned not to lock knock
• 21:47
  this some there's different strokes for different folks.
• 21:50
  I tried a sponsor before when I walked all over them, you know,
• 21:53
  I just I was so sick. I just any form of gentleness
• 21:57
  and compassion towards me. I would use against you to get
• 22:00
  my how I would manipulate and I needed someone who was quite
• 22:03
  tart kind of whack me and I I threw myself at the steps.
• 22:07
  I knew this was the last chance. Remember staying up late at
• 22:10
  night, smashing through step four and and then doing Step 5,
• 22:14
  you know, thinking that I would get it's kind of gentle.
• 22:16
  Oh, you have a good person. You know, I'll instead I got
• 22:19
  now, actually, Ben, you're quite bad.
• 22:21
  You know, the stuff he does really wrong.
• 22:26
  And if you're lucky, you might get a chance to write this.
• 22:29
  But it's what I needed, exactly what I needed, because I needed
• 22:33
  ego deflation at depth. I walked into a with a gashment
• 22:37
  ego, really, really big, grandiose and entire.
• 22:41
  And that was killing me. Ego for me is like it's at the
• 22:45
  center of a A and that, that death, that of the ego and it
• 22:50
  always reforms for me. Like it's not a permanent death
• 22:53
  of the ego, but the steps for a while, it just knocked my ego
• 22:58
  out of place and the ego didn't know how to reform and, and that
• 23:01
  was enough for God. Somewhere along the line, I
• 23:04
  think it was, you know, around step 9 when men's I had to do
• 23:07
  men's all over the world, you know, trains, buses, planes, my
• 23:10
  and my carnage was global. And somewhere along the line it
• 23:13
  happened and I was camping on a little beach on the furrier with
• 23:17
  my my wife and my son. I just stepped out to walk along
• 23:20
  the beach and I stopped and it was just this moment where this
• 23:25
  proper clouds parting God stuff like I just dissolved.
• 23:29
  I was not there. It was pure of it and I had
• 23:34
  tears rolling down and I started laughing because I never felt
• 23:37
  that and I did not know where it was.
• 23:39
  It was a gift and it didn't last.
• 23:42
  It was just a glimmer of what what could be.
• 23:45
  And I've since understood that there's a big difference between
• 23:49
  the spiritual experience and the spiritual awakening.
• 23:52
  Spiritual experience is the taster.
• 23:54
  The awakening is usually comes about with a but that's where it
• 23:58
  started. Yeah.
• 23:59
  I really struggled with step three.
• 24:01
  Like Step 3 was the mother of all steps for me because the
• 24:04
  idea of handing my gargantuan ego and my will, most powerful
• 24:09
  strong will that have turned me into ACEO and four properties
• 24:12
  that, you know, it's like I thought I was the man and there
• 24:15
  was broken. And the idea of handing that
• 24:18
  over so that something bigger than me to work is really, I
• 24:23
  could do it maybe a day or an hour at a time.
• 24:26
  But my sponsor was really clever.
• 24:27
  He said, why don't you give this a go for six months?
• 24:30
  And if you don't like it, you can have you, you can have your
• 24:33
  ego, you can have your will back.
• 24:34
  And I've got, it's fair enough. I can do that.
• 24:37
  And and yeah, they started this dance between I will and God's
• 24:42
  will. You know I'd hand my will over
• 24:44
  completely and the magic would happen every time I have a
• 24:47
  surrender. Life becomes mystical.
• 24:50
  These serendipitous things start to doors start to open people
• 24:54
  start to come. My heart starts to fill with
• 24:56
  love. I start to become connected to
• 24:58
  the people around me and then I start taking credit for it and
• 25:02
  that's where my ego and my will start to reforming and I just I
• 25:07
  suppose I'm getting a little bit better at that evident recognize
• 25:10
  hold on. I'm not sure you're welcome
• 25:11
  here. Get get into the backseat.
• 25:13
  Please get this surrenders the time because a bit longer.
• 25:16
  I still list sort of running out of time.
• 25:19
  So in terms of what it's like now yeah, the last six years
• 25:24
  I've got a home. It's full of plants pets, 2
• 25:27
  beautiful kids who are pain in the ass.
• 25:30
  But you know there's so much love there.
• 25:33
  My wife and I cherish each other.
• 25:35
  We have deep respect for each other.
• 25:37
  We've been through a lot to She's now part of Al Anon.
• 25:40
  But she needs me. But it means we're walking the
• 25:44
  same path and they can talk the same.
• 25:46
  Yeah, my my career has never been more meaningful.
• 25:49
  I'm not big shot anymore, but I get to do stuff that's deeply,
• 25:54
  deeply rewarding. My work feels sacred.
• 25:57
  I light a little candle at the beginning of each morning to
• 26:00
  invite God into my work. I need to because otherwise my
• 26:03
  ego creeps. And yeah, like it's slowly and
• 26:06
  this, there's a lot that's still to come.
• 26:09
  I'm only just starting out on a deeply rewarding, I mean, if and
• 26:13
  if you knew like it's just kind of strapped in because it's
• 26:17
  sometimes a wild and wonderful ride, but it's it just seems to,
• 26:21
  this is the best way I can describe it.
• 26:23
  And I'll leave on the I'll stop on this.
• 26:25
  Alcoholism is a progressive disease and it gets worse and
• 26:28
  that sobriety and this is absolutely my although it's got
• 26:32
  ups and it trends upward, it tends to get better over time.
• 26:36
  Even if you might not have all the material things, your life
• 26:39
  becomes a richer, deeper and more meaningful.
• 26:41
  And for that, I'm forever greater.
• 26:43
  A A As more than two million recovering Alcoholics throughout
• 26:48
  the world. In Australia there are about
• 26:51
  18,000 members. They're made in over 2000 local
• 26:56
  meetings spread around the country.
• 26:59
  Meetings range in size from a handful in some areas to
• 27:03
  hundreds or more in larger communities.
• 27:06
  And once again, if anyone you know is struggling with alcohol
• 27:11
  issues, please call Alcoholics announcing 1300 Double 22222 or
• 27:17
  visit their website on aa.org dot AU.