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Sober Talk SA - Rick · Sober Talk SA

• 1:09
  Hi, I'm Rick, I'm alcoholic there.
• 1:10
  Rick, it's a privilege and honour to be asked to, you know,
• 1:13
  do service in a a because, you know, I wasn't being asked to do
• 1:16
  much at the end of my drinking. I certainly wasn't being asked
• 1:20
  to functions or to things. And yeah, my sobriety that is
• 1:23
  the 13th of April 2011. So you know, I'm coming up on,
• 1:27
  you know, 15 years of sobriety, which you know, is a fair, is a
• 1:30
  fair stretch. You know, there's, there's,
• 1:31
  there's some work to be done in that.
• 1:33
  There's got to be growth, you know, there's got to be periods
• 1:36
  of there's highs and lows through that, you know, there's
• 1:39
  good times and bad, you know, and you know, a A is a solution
• 1:43
  in fair weather and foul, you know, I drank in fair weather
• 1:46
  and foul, good times and bad times.
• 1:47
  I always reach for the drink, you know, to feel better, to
• 1:52
  celebrate, to commiserate, you know, the effect produced by
• 1:56
  alcohol did something for me. And, you know, and just, you
• 2:01
  know, a bit of a bit of back story, you know, I, I took my,
• 2:05
  my first memory of having a drink was at nine years old at
• 2:08
  a, at a family BBQ, you know, and I absolutely hated the
• 2:11
  taste. But I took enough in that first
• 2:13
  mouthful to give me what I know. And what's described in the big
• 2:16
  book is I've got an effect produced, You know, I've got a
• 2:19
  sense of ease and comfort that comes at once.
• 2:21
  And, you know, that effect outweighed the taste of Carlton
• 2:25
  draft or whatever my dad was drinking at that time.
• 2:27
  And you know it also. And I'm one of the poor
• 2:31
  unfortunates or I had the allergy straight from the get go
• 2:34
  to, you know, and my I wanted more.
• 2:37
  I needed more. And I went back and I went back
• 2:39
  and I went back and, you know, I had my first blackout at nine
• 2:42
  years old. And I woke up the next morning
• 2:44
  with my first bout of guilt, shame and remorse.
• 2:47
  And I swore off that stuff. You know, I was a water wagon
• 2:49
  guy. You know, I was always going on
• 2:51
  the wagon for keeps. And, you know, I trotted along
• 2:55
  that path for about 3 or 4 more years, you know, until I was 13
• 2:58
  or 14. And I was uprooted from, from,
• 3:03
  you know, my circumstances where I'd been living, where I felt
• 3:06
  reasonably comfortable. And I was, I was moved from,
• 3:09
  from Adelaide in a school where I was, you know, fairly popular,
• 3:13
  you know, and all that stuff. And I was uprooted.
• 3:15
  I was moved to the, to the mid North.
• 3:18
  And I was the poor kid on the wrong side of the tracks in a
• 3:20
  small country town, you know, and some, some friends.
• 3:24
  I made some, some friends quickly.
• 3:26
  And, you know, they were a few years older than me being in a
• 3:28
  small country town. And you know, we started nicking
• 3:31
  a bit of grog and having having a drink.
• 3:33
  And you know, the same thing happened.
• 3:34
  You know, that effect produced. I went again, you know, because
• 3:38
  I was a wound up. I was wound up like a spring.
• 3:41
  And you know, fortunately or unfortunately, the doctors did
• 3:45
  what they could to try and help that situation, but nothing did
• 3:48
  it the way that alcohol did it. And, you know, Fast forward a
• 3:54
  long time until I come into AI, every time I took a drink was a
• 3:57
  spiritual like experience. I, I've, I've got that ease and
• 4:00
  comfort. I felt connected.
• 4:02
  I felt a part of, you know, my mind calmed down, my soul was at
• 4:06
  rest, you know, I just, it just gave me, and I was obsessed with
• 4:11
  that thing. My greatest obsession was to
• 4:12
  feel normal, you know, and to control and enjoy my drinking.
• 4:17
  And you know, there was lots of, there's lots of fun times.
• 4:21
  I'm not going to sit here and say that every, every drinking
• 4:23
  experience was bad. I got some of my greatest
• 4:26
  memories out drinking with my mates at 161718, you know, just
• 4:31
  having a laugh being lads. But you know, when they started
• 4:35
  to get partners and girlfriends and grow up and get jobs.
• 4:39
  And you know, I was hanging on by a thread where I was living
• 4:42
  out my my apprenticeship was hanging on by a thread.
• 4:44
  You know, I made AI met a girl at 19 and, you know, and she put
• 4:49
  up with me for for six years, you know, and, and I come to IA
• 4:52
  about six months after meeting her, you know, she asked me to
• 4:56
  come to a A and and so did my mum and I did.
• 4:59
  And it was a Thursday night in a little church on Melbourne St.
• 5:02
  I don't know if that meeting is still there.
• 5:04
  There was a guest speaker out the front.
• 5:06
  I was terrified, absolutely terrified, you know, and I just,
• 5:12
  I just wanted to be anything else but alcoholic and, you
• 5:16
  know, schizophrenic, whatever. I don't mind, you know, that's
• 5:19
  a, that's a, that's a fun time, you know, with all the different
• 5:21
  personalities going on. But alcoholic was, you know, was
• 5:25
  not the thing that I've put my hand up and, and chose to be in,
• 5:29
  you know, Fast forward, you know, a couple more years.
• 5:32
  I, I tried to get sober at 22. I didn't try very hard.
• 5:37
  I spent one day with the person from Alcoholics Anonymous and I
• 5:40
  didn't want what he had to offer.
• 5:42
  And, but I did to, to appease my partner.
• 5:46
  And at 25, you know, we're a couple of months out from being
• 5:49
  married. We're engaged.
• 5:51
  And, you know, she said that's enough.
• 5:53
  And I got back into IA and I had enough desperation, you know,
• 5:58
  and I had enough evidence behind me to to realize that I could
• 6:02
  not do this thing. And I certainly couldn't do it
• 6:05
  alone. And I got thrown into IA.
• 6:08
  You know, I jumped in two feet. You know, some people are gonna
• 6:11
  Remember Me from those from those days.
• 6:13
  You know, I was AI was a whirlwind.
• 6:15
  You know, I was at 7 or 8 meetings a week.
• 6:17
  You know, I was on every committee.
• 6:18
  I was at camps. I was, you know, I was running
• 6:21
  around a a like AI don't know what, but you know, I was pretty
• 6:24
  bad and and you know, I, I got, I got sober, you know, I got
• 6:31
  into the big book, I got into the steps and you know, I, I,
• 6:38
  you know, they got that, you know, spirituality and God and
• 6:41
  all that stuff. You know, I didn't want no part
• 6:43
  of that, not even in a a not even for the first five years.
• 6:46
  I don't think I wanted any part of a spiritual thing, religion,
• 6:51
  whatever I old ideas I had about God, creator of the universe,
• 6:56
  nothing like that. You know, I was just sort of
• 7:00
  very mechanical and very if I'm in a a I'm going to be OK.
• 7:03
  And if I, you know, if I do the steps and if I sound great, if I
• 7:07
  all of this stuff and, and you know, and that was OK for a
• 7:12
  couple of years. But, you know, as I got further
• 7:15
  down the line and, and life started to happen, you know, I
• 7:18
  started to get some nice things in AAI started to, you know, I
• 7:21
  started to recover physically. I got quite fit.
• 7:24
  You know, I could certainly talk to talk in AAI.
• 7:28
  Don't know that I was really walking the walk.
• 7:29
  You know, I never drank, but you know, I certainly wasn't acting
• 7:33
  or living along a principled line.
• 7:37
  You know, I could sit in a a for an hour and sprout off all this
• 7:40
  wonderful stuff. I could recite the big book
• 7:42
  backwards. You know, I'd go home and I
• 7:45
  would have a Barney with my wife and I'd put a hole in the wall,
• 7:49
  you know, or on Christmas because I couldn't understand
• 7:52
  why someone would love Christmas because my Christmas was
• 7:54
  destroyed when I was 12 years old by something that happened
• 7:57
  to me, you know, and I'd snap the Christmas tree and throw it
• 8:01
  out the back door and smash the glass baubles at three years
• 8:04
  sober, 28 years old, you know, there was no, there was no,
• 8:09
  there's no real spirit in me. There was no principles.
• 8:12
  There was no discipline, you know, and, and I very nearly
• 8:16
  picked up a drink at a couple years sober.
• 8:18
  And, you know, far Long story short, you know, I, I changed
• 8:24
  sponsors and I, you know, I, I found a guy who was very calm
• 8:28
  and very serene and, you know, and I, I wanted what he had.
• 8:31
  And he, you know, he never seemed to have ups and downs
• 8:33
  even he was, you know, he was, he was very steady.
• 8:36
  And I believe he still is that way today.
• 8:38
  And but, you know, rightly or wrongly, he, he, you know, he
• 8:43
  helped me in some ways and, you know, got me praying and got me
• 8:47
  doing some things and doing some some more readings.
• 8:49
  And, you know, and one day he said, maybe, why don't you just
• 8:53
  maybe go and speak to a priest, you know, maybe just try and
• 8:57
  change your perception of this spirit or gold or whatever it
• 9:00
  was. And my I still wasn't ready to
• 9:02
  hear my mind snapshot like he wasn't my sponsor for much
• 9:05
  longer. This is a a if you know, how
• 9:08
  dare you, you know, and and you know, and by this stage, you
• 9:13
  know, I'd been married in AAI was almost divorced.
• 9:17
  You know, I almost lost my home in a a my business nearly went
• 9:21
  bankrupt, you know, all sober. You know, my partner's never
• 9:24
  seen me drink. You know, we're living in
• 9:26
  separate houses By this stage, You know, there is very little
• 9:30
  God in my life, you know, or high power.
• 9:32
  There has to be some form because I'm still I'm not
• 9:34
  drinking, but I'm not connecting to it.
• 9:37
  I'm certainly not asking for guidance and direction, you
• 9:40
  know, I'm certainly not asking for God's will for for me.
• 9:44
  And you know, and I and I found, you know, when the student is
• 9:49
  ready, the teacher will appear. They say, you know, and you
• 9:52
  know, and I found a guy who was, and I needed this who was a
• 9:56
  strong enough character who didn't put up with any bollocks.
• 10:01
  You know, it was you want my help, you follow these
• 10:03
  directions or, you know, you put out the fires by yourself, you
• 10:06
  know, and you know, I got thrust into a a sponsorship line and A
• 10:12
  and a Home group and a lineage, which was very, very mechanical,
• 10:17
  very mechanical. You couldn't really do too much
• 10:19
  wrong because you're in so much mechanics of AI.
• 10:21
  You know, it was half an hour, an hour of prayer, meditation,
• 10:24
  doing step work, step 11 in the morning.
• 10:26
  You know, there was an hour at night doing that.
• 10:28
  You know, it was 5 five or six meetings a week.
• 10:30
  It was conventions, it was zoom and start to come along by this,
• 10:35
  you know, it was very, very mechanical, which you know,
• 10:39
  which was fantastic. And it saved me a lot.
• 10:41
  And I did, I did an inventory, which I don't know many people
• 10:46
  that do, or maybe they do, I don't know.
• 10:47
  But it was like it was in Step 2.
• 10:50
  It was an old idea. I went back through the steps
• 10:52
  and it was older, an old ideas inventory about a God or what I
• 10:56
  thought was God. And, and like the first column
• 10:59
  was, you know, what's the problem?
• 11:00
  It's God, you know, and what are my old ideas about this thing
• 11:05
  called God or whatever? And you know, my old ideas were
• 11:08
  like that. He is unavailable for a guy like
• 11:11
  me, you know, he's score keeping, he's judge mental.
• 11:14
  He's you know, if there was a God in the world, why is all
• 11:18
  this stuff happened in the world to people?
• 11:20
  Why have I, why have I had these?
• 11:22
  Why have I, why have I suffered? You know, why have I suffered?
• 11:26
  I was always a victim. Why have I suffered?
• 11:29
  You know, because I went to AI, went to a losing school.
• 11:32
  So I learnt about God, whether I liked it or not, I didn't like
• 11:35
  it. And you know, and I had these
• 11:39
  old ideas about what, what a God could, would be, could be.
• 11:44
  Yeah. And there was a, there was a
• 11:45
  long list of these things. And you know, I went through
• 11:48
  the, I went through the in column three.
• 11:53
  I went through like the instincts and how it affects all
• 11:55
  my instincts. And then over into column four,
• 11:57
  it was, you know, what are my mistakes or, and what are my new
• 12:01
  ideas gonna be about a, a, a higher power or a God or a, or a
• 12:05
  loving creator. And, and also in that time I
• 12:10
  worked out my old ideas about God were exactly the same way
• 12:14
  that I was living, you know, so how could I hand my will of my
• 12:19
  life over the care of God, higher power, if I thought God
• 12:23
  was all those things? I thought I was God and I was
• 12:26
  acting that way. So there's no way I was ever
• 12:28
  going to hand my will of my life over to this thing.
• 12:30
  And I, I wrote down on a piece of paper.
• 12:33
  And unfortunately in AI, when you write it on a piece of
• 12:35
  paper, it gets out of this magnificent thing we have going
• 12:41
  on up here and it gets put down in black and white.
• 12:44
  And when I write something down in black and white, I can either
• 12:47
  choose to accept that's what it is and that's the way I'm going
• 12:50
  to go, or I can just discard it. But I can't Unsee it when it's,
• 12:56
  once it's written down. And I, it was put to me that,
• 13:00
  you know, maybe God was loving, maybe he would be patient, maybe
• 13:06
  he would be kind, maybe he could be forgiving, maybe he had time
• 13:10
  for a guy like me, you know, maybe I wasn't too far down the
• 13:12
  line. And, and I wrote a few other
• 13:16
  things on there, which was helped by my sponsor, you know,
• 13:21
  and, and it, it shifted the, this idea of a higher power and
• 13:26
  a loving, loving creator in, you know, in Alcoholics Anonymous.
• 13:31
  And it was also put together with some information.
• 13:33
  And, and I'm just going to read a part in diagnostics because
• 13:38
  diagnostics describes me to, to, AT that is on, on that type of
• 13:43
  alcoholic. And it's on page 52.
• 13:45
  And, you know, lots of people probably heard it, but this,
• 13:48
  this blew my mind. And this was put to me that this
• 13:51
  is what spiritual depression is. It's, it's the bedevilments.
• 13:56
  It's a page 52, not 42. Sorry.
• 13:59
  Is it? I should be all right.
• 14:05
  Thank you. Yeah.
• 14:09
  So this, this was put to me what spiritual depression was.
• 14:11
  And this is this is exactly how I was suffering it five to seven
• 14:15
  years sober. We have to ask ourselves why we
• 14:18
  couldn't apply this, our human problems to the same readiness
• 14:21
  to change our point of view. We're having trouble with
• 14:24
  personal relationships. We could not control our
• 14:28
  emotional nature. We were prey to misery and
• 14:30
  depression. Not pray as in we didn't pray as
• 14:33
  in the bird of prey, as in I would find misery and
• 14:36
  depression, you know, because I felt comfort in misery and
• 14:39
  depression. I know how it is misery and
• 14:41
  depression. I know what's going to happen.
• 14:43
  I'm going to be down. I'm going to be sad.
• 14:44
  I'm going to be miserable. People are going to try and
• 14:46
  cheer me up. I'm going to tell them to bugger
• 14:47
  off, you know, and there's some new ideas going to come along
• 14:50
  and I'm going to have hope for just a little period of time.
• 14:54
  I'm always going to come out of that.
• 14:55
  But what is on the other side of that?
• 14:58
  Hope, joy, freedom, love, patience, tolerance, kindness,
• 15:03
  you know, Cedar, courage, energy, determination and
• 15:07
  assertiveness. When I have those in my life, I
• 15:09
  have the definition of spirit. I don't like that That's scary.
• 15:13
  I like it today, but it was very scary concept for me.
• 15:18
  We could not make a living. We were we were we had feelings
• 15:24
  of uselessness. We were full of fear.
• 15:26
  We were unhappy. We could not seem to be of real
• 15:29
  help to other people. Was not this our was not this
• 15:32
  the basic solution to these bedevilments more important than
• 15:36
  we should see news rules of lunar fly, you know, and you
• 15:40
  know, and the and the living was I couldn't I couldn't get on
• 15:42
  with people. I couldn't get on with people.
• 15:44
  You know, there was there was no there was no grace in my life.
• 15:47
  And and then it was my sponsor pointed me over to this.
• 15:52
  Where is God to be found? He's deep down inside every man,
• 15:56
  woman and child, but he's obscured by calamity, pomp and
• 15:59
  worship of other things. The calamitous is how I live my
• 16:02
  life. I'm very undisciplined.
• 16:04
  I'm unmanageable, I'm unreliable, I'm unstructured.
• 16:08
  I'm untrained, you know, And also what I allow other people
• 16:12
  to put upon me. Hey, Rick, it's 5:00.
• 16:15
  Can you go pick up this thing for me?
• 16:16
  I've got an appointment at 5:30. But yeah, because I'm a people
• 16:19
  pleaser, I'll go pick it up. I'm 45 minutes late from my
• 16:21
  appointment. I blame that guy.
• 16:23
  I'm angry at the world. They won't see me today.
• 16:25
  And I abuse the lady at the counter.
• 16:28
  And that's the calamity I allow other people to put on to me.
• 16:31
  Pomp, the greater thoughts of oneself or or lower, you know,
• 16:37
  and, and worship, you know, the worship of other things.
• 16:41
  And I worshipped absolutely everything, you know, everything
• 16:45
  was just to the 10th power for me, you know, and you know,
• 16:50
  money, power, prestige, property, you know, women, all
• 16:55
  of that stuff, you know, and they obscured me from this, this
• 17:00
  connection that I crave so much. And I take 1 drink and
• 17:04
  everything all of that disappears.
• 17:06
  I'm instantly connected. I instantly kind of know what
• 17:11
  I'm here for. You know, I'm actually a really
• 17:14
  nice guy between 1:00 and 7:00 beers, I'm really nice guy, you
• 17:19
  know, I'll do anything for anybody, you know, I'm polite,
• 17:22
  you know, I don't drink drive between 1:00 and 7:00 beers, you
• 17:25
  know, I don't abuse people. Nothing like that.
• 17:28
  When I tip over the edge, I'm, I'm not the nicest guy to be
• 17:31
  around. But yeah, that, that great
• 17:35
  reality was deep down inside us, you know, But how do I connect
• 17:38
  to that, you know, how do I do that?
• 17:40
  How do I live a spiritual way of life?
• 17:43
  How do I, how do I, how do I connect to this thing that I've
• 17:48
  been searching for my whole life?
• 17:51
  They've blessed those with the first, you know, and I thought
• 17:53
  it was the first for drink, but it's the, the 1st for spiritual
• 17:57
  knowledge or connection, you know, and I've had that my whole
• 18:00
  life. I've had that first to find, to
• 18:04
  seek, you know, to, to know more.
• 18:06
  I just, it's just, I've been just looking in the wrong spot.
• 18:09
  You know, I've been looking out there.
• 18:11
  I've been looking over there, I've been looking here.
• 18:14
  It's, it's, it's, it's within me.
• 18:16
  The power is within that that thing that I crave so much is
• 18:21
  within me. That's a very hard concept to
• 18:23
  get your head around what it was for me.
• 18:26
  You know, I struggled with that, You know, I thought it was all
• 18:29
  out there. And, and you know, and slowly,
• 18:34
  slowly, it's been a very long journey of unwinding those old
• 18:37
  ideas, those old behaviors, those old, old thought patterns,
• 18:41
  you know, and we're, I can't remember if it's Eddie or Arthur
• 18:45
  says that, you know, if we're, if we're living a spiritual path
• 18:48
  or a spiritual way of life, you know, we're going to have
• 18:51
  conflict. We're going to have stuff that
• 18:52
  goes on. And this is where the rubber
• 18:54
  hits the road, you know, am I really, is God an actual power
• 19:00
  in my life? Or is he an idea that gives me
• 19:02
  temporary relief that, you know, is he really a power in my life
• 19:07
  or is he an idea that gives me relief?
• 19:10
  And, you know, and when certain things go on, my actions will
• 19:15
  tell you if he's in power in my life or if he's an idea, you
• 19:18
  know, and, and there's things that come up and there's been
• 19:21
  lots of stuff through, throughout my recovery that have
• 19:23
  come up and I have no idea how to handle those situations.
• 19:26
  No idea, I, I miss the keys to life or I just haven't had that
• 19:30
  experience and people in my life haven't had that experience, you
• 19:34
  know, and there's and, and my understanding of, of spirit, you
• 19:38
  know, the spirituality and, and that stuff is I have a pause
• 19:44
  when agitated or doubtful button.
• 19:46
  And that's what the steps have given me.
• 19:48
  I pause long enough when agitated or doubtful, which is a
• 19:52
  filter, if you like, because I have never had a problem with
• 19:57
  coming up with solutions, how to fix things.
• 20:00
  But I've reacted rather than responded.
• 20:02
  I've fired before. I've aimed, you know, I hear a
• 20:05
  little voice in my head. It, it warns us about that in
• 20:08
  the 12:00 and 12:00 that our subconscious sounds a lot like
• 20:12
  God or is, or is it our own? I'm, I'm, I'm buggering up the
• 20:16
  words, but I'm paraphrasing. Or is it our own?
• 20:18
  Is it God or is it our own reason or conscience?
• 20:21
  You know, and God sounds a lot like my own voice.
• 20:25
  You know it's OK to. Do that or, you know, abuse that
• 20:29
  guy or, you know, but the steps that the steps have given me a
• 20:32
  pause, you know, and the pause up until very, very recently,
• 20:37
  like I'm coming up to 15 years sober up until about a year ago
• 20:42
  or six months ago was dial the phone, call my sponsor, you
• 20:47
  know, but at some point I have to break free from the, the
• 20:50
  dependency on my sponsor as well and become reliant upon this,
• 20:53
  this connection and my, and that's where I, that's the phase
• 20:57
  of the, the, the development that I'm in now.
• 20:59
  You know, I couldn't do it. I, I couldn't do any of this for
• 21:03
  like the first five years. The next 5-7 or eight years was
• 21:07
  I had enough pause in me, enough knowledge about how I act and
• 21:11
  respond to, to call my sponsor, you know, and now my sponsor is
• 21:15
  breaking me away from that. And he said, you've got to
• 21:18
  listen to that quiet voice inside, you know, at some point
• 21:21
  you've got a man up and grow up and listen to the intuition, if
• 21:26
  you will, that voice inside, you know, because it's there.
• 21:30
  I just don't like what it has to say when it says don't say that,
• 21:34
  Rick. But the other voice is saying
• 21:37
  you're justified. You're, you know, you can
• 21:40
  rationalize, justify, minimize anything, you know, and I don't
• 21:44
  say something and then the outcome is solved, you know,
• 21:47
  without me even saying anything, you know, and you know, long,
• 21:51
  you know, Long story short, there's, you know, I don't, I
• 21:54
  don't know how to handle, I don't know how to handle things.
• 21:56
  And I'm getting better at that, you know, and you know, a few
• 22:01
  instances over the last few years have, have really, you
• 22:05
  know, a really grow or go moments, you know, you know, my
• 22:09
  wife, my wife was pregnant. You know, we were the but we
• 22:13
  didn't know if we were going to have kids.
• 22:14
  You know, we had a very rocky marriage for 1st 10 years.
• 22:18
  You know, she's never seen me drink.
• 22:21
  You know, she's an Al Anon. She works a very strong Al Anon
• 22:23
  program. So she's got her own, you know,
• 22:26
  her own, her own thing. And and you know, we, you know,
• 22:30
  we didn't know whether we were going to have kids.
• 22:32
  And you know, she was, she was getting to the point of she was,
• 22:37
  she was at that age in her life that if she she really wanted
• 22:40
  kids. And I was saying, no, no, no,
• 22:42
  you know, and she was someone up, does she stay with me or
• 22:45
  does she find someone who wants kids, you know, and that's, and
• 22:48
  that's where we, that's where we got to, you know, and that's,
• 22:50
  and that's, that's facts. That's facts.
• 22:52
  And, you know, she fell pregnant and it was the greatest moment
• 22:59
  of my life when she told me. And she was actually scared to
• 23:01
  tell me because she didn't know how I would act or react, I
• 23:04
  should say. And Long story short, we lost
• 23:07
  that little 1 you know, So I had, you know, I had to dig
• 23:11
  deep, you know, do I blame God for that?
• 23:14
  I did for about 5 minutes until I realized what actually was
• 23:17
  going on. The human body did what it was
• 23:19
  supposed to do. You know, God didn't really have
• 23:21
  too much to do with it. You know, the human body took
• 23:25
  care of what it needs to take care of, you know, and my job
• 23:27
  was to be there for my wife and, and nurse her and help her
• 23:30
  through that, you know. But what it brought us to a
• 23:33
  point of being able to do was sit down and have a
• 23:35
  conversation, you know, do we want to be parents?
• 23:38
  You know, do we believe we want to give this thing a go?
• 23:42
  Do we wanna try? Do you know, and we have to sit
• 23:45
  down and, you know, and I had to bite my tongue, you know, I had
• 23:50
  to listen to what she wanted from a family, how she wanted to
• 23:53
  raise her children, what her beliefs worth.
• 23:55
  I got to say my part, you know, but we, we had to me and my
• 24:00
  wife. We, we, we do this under a
• 24:02
  nearly like a group conscience experience.
• 24:04
  You know, we every, every Sunday we have a business meeting, you
• 24:10
  know, and that's how, that's how our marriage functions.
• 24:13
  And that's the same principle as, as, as a, as a group
• 24:17
  conscience. But what I'm saying is, you
• 24:20
  know, by or having a connection and being able to listen and to
• 24:25
  understand what my purpose in life is, you know, I was able to
• 24:28
  say, yes, I want to, I want to be a dad, you know, and I was, I
• 24:32
  was able to accept whatever the outcome was that with that, you
• 24:35
  know, and we felt pregnant or she felt pregnant very short
• 24:38
  after that, you know, and we have two beautiful children now,
• 24:42
  you know, and, and that's something I could not have done
• 24:47
  and I could not be a father without a connection to this
• 24:50
  thing. I'm just not naturally wired
• 24:52
  that way. I'm selfish, I'm self-centered.
• 24:54
  I don't do very well without sleep.
• 24:56
  I don't do well without my own personal time.
• 24:58
  I don't, you know, and that's just the way I'm wired.
• 25:00
  It's not right or wrong. It's just, it's just the box
• 25:03
  that I got given, you know, and I have to invite this power into
• 25:09
  my life to help me to be a better father, to be more
• 25:11
  understanding, you know, and to understand that those kids do
• 25:15
  not belong to me. They're unloaned to me, you
• 25:18
  know, and I've been given a, a, a task, if you will, a job to
• 25:22
  raise them, to nurture them in, in a, in a loving, spiritual
• 25:27
  way. And I could not do that with
• 25:29
  anything. I'm not that guy, you know, And
• 25:32
  a, a has a, a has brought that about and, you know, over that
• 25:38
  hurdle and, you know, you get a little bit of peace and then the
• 25:41
  next hurdle comes along, you know, April 10th, 2025, I get a
• 25:46
  phone call 1:00 in the morning. Your business is on fire.
• 25:51
  My business burned to the ground in the middle of the night.
• 25:53
  You know, what do you do with information like that?
• 25:56
  You know, by the time I got to Meadows from Aberfoyle Park, we
• 25:59
  were homeless on the street. My children have been taken away
• 26:02
  from me by, you know, because I couldn't afford to, couldn't
• 26:05
  afford to feed them, you know, I was back out drunk.
• 26:08
  No, I wasn't really. I didn't have that thought.
• 26:10
  That's an exaggeration, you know, Never let the truth get in
• 26:12
  the way of a good story. But, you know, that's where my
• 26:15
  mind goes within the space of 20 minutes, you know, And what do
• 26:18
  you do at 1:00 in the morning, 1:30 in the morning?
• 26:20
  You know, I, I did, I rang my sponsor, but he, he didn't, he
• 26:23
  didn't answer. He's sleeping.
• 26:24
  And that's fine, you know, But he rang me back at 4:00 when he
• 26:28
  seen the missed call. He woke up in the middle of the
• 26:29
  night to go to the toilet and he rang me at 4:00, you know, and
• 26:33
  you know I'd already touched base with a couple of ackees by
• 26:35
  then, you know, I'd calm down emotionally, you know, and since
• 26:41
  then has been the biggest shift in my recovery on where is God
• 26:48
  in my life, you know, where is he, you know, is he a part of
• 26:52
  it? Am I connected to it?
• 26:54
  You know, to have trust, to have faith, you know, and being in a
• 26:59
  A and attempting to live principled and doing things the
• 27:03
  right way. You know, I had insurance, I had
• 27:06
  everything in that workshop checked and signed off within
• 27:09
  weeks of the fire. You know, the fire is like this.
• 27:12
  Small businesses don't operate this way.
• 27:16
  You know, I've had the test and tag, I've had the things, I had
• 27:18
  the gas checked, everything was done.
• 27:21
  And they're like, this just doesn't happen, you know, and
• 27:25
  that's, that's I said, I mean, I, I felt like saying I'm in a A
• 27:30
  and you don't know what my sponsors like, you know, you
• 27:34
  know, when he first met me, I run my business on the back of a
• 27:36
  beer coaster, you know, literally like I had notes on a
• 27:39
  beer on the, on the thing, like all over my workshop.
• 27:42
  He said, you can't run a business that way.
• 27:43
  I'd no insurance, you know, I was charging people on how my
• 27:46
  emotional state was. If I needed the customer to like
• 27:49
  me, I'd do it too cheap. You know, if I needed bills to
• 27:52
  be paid, they'd get charged three times what they should
• 27:54
  have for the job. This is all sober with no
• 27:57
  emotional regulation, no principles, you know, And so, so
• 28:03
  since April last year, it's been the full on rigidity of
• 28:08
  mechanics of a A are great for a long period of time, but my
• 28:11
  experience is that the mechanics won't keep me forever in
• 28:17
  Alcoholics Anonymous. At some point, I have to shift
• 28:19
  from being mechanical, rigid, dogmatic, So still having that
• 28:23
  in my life, but flowing into the next phase of my development,
• 28:28
  which is this connection with this higher power, which I've
• 28:32
  craved for for so long. But I've just not been willing
• 28:37
  or not been able to open up or not wanting to be vulnerable to
• 28:42
  the same weak to ask this thing to guide and direct me.
• 28:47
  And, you know, the 12 and 12 talk about constructive
• 28:52
  imagination and I have a lot of that, but it's normally non
• 28:56
  constructive. You know, it's normally you're
• 28:59
  this, you're that, you're this, you're that, you know, and I've
• 29:02
  been trying to have plans and dreams and ideas and, you know,
• 29:12
  I need to be the architect. I need to know what I want.
• 29:15
  And if I allow, and if it's God's will, God will create it.
• 29:18
  God will build it the way people are put in my life, the
• 29:21
  opportunities I get, you know, and our insurance still hasn't
• 29:25
  fixed the workplace, you know, and, and you know, the money's
• 29:30
  running out or run out and, you know, it's, it's, you know, what
• 29:34
  do I do moment? You know, and I'm, I'm, I'm
• 29:37
  practicing this stuff and, you know, and like, within a space
• 29:41
  of three or four days, these three things come across my
• 29:44
  desk, you know, and so for nine months I've had nothing like,
• 29:48
  there's been no opportunities. And within a couple of days, I
• 29:52
  get 3 different opportunities to, to, you know, to do and, and
• 29:57
  you know, we're back up and running for three weeks, you
• 29:59
  know, not the, not in the same place, not the same business,
• 30:02
  but the same industry, you know, and funny enough, this business
• 30:06
  up, the one I took, the one I chose to take, come across my
• 30:09
  desk a week after my, my workshop burned down.
• 30:13
  But I was not in a mental state to grab it and go forth, you
• 30:18
  know, and lo and behold, you know, the business is back.
• 30:24
  I'm running busier than ever, you know, and, and I, and that's
• 30:29
  all through the, the grace of a, a, you know, if I had, of got my
• 30:33
  hands in there and got messy and demanded and abused insurance
• 30:38
  company because things weren't happening or abused my landlord
• 30:41
  because he was the assault that, you know, I don't believe this
• 30:46
  stuff, this stuff would happen, you know, and, and because I've
• 30:49
  been in here and because, you know, and not to, I'm not trying
• 30:55
  to brag or anything, but I have a reputation in the industry now
• 30:58
  of, of being someone who is trustworthy, someone who pays
• 31:01
  his bills, someone who will rectify a mistake if it's made.
• 31:05
  You know, I, I, you know, 5 or 6 years ago, I, I took a contract
• 31:12
  on, you know, on a, basically on the back of a, on the back of a
• 31:16
  beer coaster. I was still running my business
• 31:18
  on the back of the beer coaster. And, you know, I couldn't
• 31:20
  fulfill the contract. I took the money.
• 31:22
  I couldn't fulfill the contract for two years.
• 31:24
  The guy chased me, finished the job, finished the contract.
• 31:27
  Yeah, I can't. I'm busy.
• 31:28
  Rah, rah. I didn't loop my sponsoring on
• 31:32
  any of this. You know, I got this, you know,
• 31:35
  and and he threatened legal action with me.
• 31:37
  He threatened legal action. And, you know, it was one of
• 31:40
  those moments. It's like, oh, my God, I've got
• 31:42
  myself in another pickle. You know, I rang my sponsor.
• 31:45
  He said kid. He used to still call me kid
• 31:47
  because fair enough. I was still quite childish.
• 31:50
  They called me kid. He's like, he goes, you got to
• 31:53
  pay that money back. I was like, what?
• 31:56
  I was like, that was all my savings.
• 31:57
  That was everything. You know, we're in the middle of
• 31:59
  trying to build a house, you know, and I've sat on it.
• 32:05
  I did the, I did the inventory, you know, I, me and my wife are
• 32:09
  partners. You know, I've, I've done, I've
• 32:12
  said this, you know, I've done this.
• 32:14
  I've made this mistake and you know, this is what I owe.
• 32:18
  This is what it's going to take to rectify.
• 32:20
  You know, I said we've got the money.
• 32:24
  She's like, all right, we paid this huge amount of money back,
• 32:29
  you know, huge amount enough to put a deposit on a house.
• 32:32
  And the moment the money left my bank account, the freedom I got,
• 32:39
  you know, the freedom I got from that I knew.
• 32:43
  And The funny thing is my, my business had never been busier
• 32:47
  up until it burnt down from literally the moment the money
• 32:49
  left the bank account, the phone started ringing.
• 32:52
  We want you to do work for us. We want this, we want that, we
• 32:54
  want this and that. And that's, that's trusting in a
• 33:00
  higher power, having faith, you know, has this thing got my back
• 33:03
  or not? Am I supposed to be doing this?
• 33:06
  Is this the right Ave. for me? You know, and if I just
• 33:09
  continuously live principled and, and practice this stuff,
• 33:14
  you know, the opportunities or the OR God's will comes across
• 33:19
  my paths, do I have enough discernment to see it and catch
• 33:23
  it? What's God's will for me?
• 33:25
  I don't always see that stuff. Sometimes I get another
• 33:27
  opportunity, it comes back past again, you know, the same as
• 33:30
  when that guy was drowning and he asked God to save him, you
• 33:33
  know, and the boat come past, you know, No, no, God's sending
• 33:37
  someone or something laugh, raft drifts past.
• 33:40
  No, no, God's gonna get me, you know, you know, 3 or 4 things go
• 33:43
  past. Do you catch that?
• 33:45
  What's getting put in your path? You know, and you know, to be
• 33:49
  able to, to be able to see the truth for, for what it really
• 33:55
  is. And you know, I, you know, I
• 33:58
  love IAI owe my life to IA. And, you know, and you know, in
• 34:01
  a month I'll be 15 years sober. And you know, I used to take a
• 34:06
  lot of credit for that. I used to take a lot of credit
• 34:08
  for, for that because I've done the groundwork.
• 34:10
  I go to meetings, I do the step work, I go to conventions, you
• 34:14
  know, and, and yes, I do, yes, I do do that stuff.
• 34:19
  But my understanding nowadays is God.
• 34:24
  You know, they say God move mountain, but bring the shovel.
• 34:28
  You know, I've got to put in the groundwork for the and then God
• 34:31
  will take care of those moments in time when I have no defense
• 34:36
  against making a wrong, rash, poor decision.
• 34:40
  It doesn't always mean drinking. It can be the pause when
• 34:43
  agitated or doubtful, that moment when you just shut your
• 34:45
  mouth or you turn the other way, you know, or you say no to the
• 34:49
  business deal that you know is tangled with the wrong stuff.
• 34:53
  You know, those are the God moments that keep me from
• 34:57
  getting in self-imposed crisis, you know, because my my disease
• 35:00
  is not sitting in the corner and do push ups.
• 35:02
  What it what I do is I get tangled up in self-imposed
• 35:05
  crisis, you know, and then I need something to pull me out of
• 35:09
  that. And if I do too many of them, if
• 35:11
  I live too dishonest, you know, the 12 and 12 tells me if I
• 35:15
  live, it says I, I is a set of principles.
• 35:20
  If practiced and lived as a way of life will render, will render
• 35:27
  us happy and usefully whole or something like that.
• 35:30
  You know, if practice is a way of life, you know, and that
• 35:33
  doesn't just mean in here for an hour and a half or half an hour
• 35:35
  while I'm talking on that thing, you know, it's to live it.
• 35:39
  And I have a A members in my life today that spend large
• 35:42
  amounts of time in my home. You know, we have lots of people
• 35:46
  out. They can see that that's the way
• 35:48
  that I live, you know, you can't.
• 35:50
  You can only fake it for so long is what I'm getting at, you
• 35:53
  know. And yeah, so, you know, I love
• 35:56
  IA. There was a few more readings I
• 35:59
  wanted to read, but, you know, I don't want to look too much like
• 36:01
  a nerd. So because unfortunately, the
• 36:03
  only thing I've ever studied is IA, nothing else.
• 36:09
  But, you know, I have a thirst for what IA has to offer.
• 36:14
  You know, it's growth and it's freedom.
• 36:16
  It's understanding and it's accepting a way of life, you
• 36:21
  know, And I was dealt a certain hand.
• 36:23
  I was dealt a certain hand, you know, and my makeup is a certain
• 36:26
  way. And that's OK, you know, But I
• 36:28
  have ways to move forward and to grow through that stuff.
• 36:32
  And hopefully I'm not so abrasive, you know, Hopefully
• 36:35
  I'm not so cold. Hopefully I'm not so arrogant,
• 36:38
  you know, and assertive, you know, But I still need to be
• 36:41
  assertive in certain ways. But not in when, Not when it's
• 36:44
  uninvited, you know? And, you know, my grand, my old
• 36:48
  grand sponsor used to speak about, yeah, courage, energy,
• 36:51
  determination and assertiveness. He said if you've got those
• 36:54
  things in your life, you have spirit, you know, when they're
• 36:57
  lacking or missing. I'm living in the governments,
• 37:00
  which is all the way back to Step 2 and then Step 11.
• 37:04
  And the spiritual aspect comes alive on page 84 and 85 between
• 37:09
  step 10 and step 11. This is, I'm not gonna try and
• 37:13
  recite it. I'll butcher it.
• 37:14
  Go and read it. You'll find it.
• 37:16
  So yeah, thank you for having me.
• 37:17
  I hope I haven't chewed up too much time.