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Sober-Talk -SA- Eddie Mac-Brompton Beginners · Sober Talk SA

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Welcome to Sober Talk. I'm Dennis and I'm an alcoholic.
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Soap dear. Thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous.
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If you or anyone you know is struggling with alcohol, please
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call Alcoholics Anonymous on 1300 double 22222.
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I'll visit their website ata.org dot AU.
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I'll just run through the preamble of Alcoholics
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Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous is a
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fellowship of people who share the experience, strengthened
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hope with each other that they may solve their common problems
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and help with us to recover from alcoholism.
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The only requirement for membership is the desire to stop
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drinking and no dues of fees. Fair membership.
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We are self supporting through our own contributions.
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He is not alive with any sect, denomination, politics,
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organization or institution, does not wish to engage in any
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controversy, neither endorses or oppose any causes.
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Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other Alcoholics
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are chief sobriety. Good evening friends, that is my
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name. I'm an alcoholic member of the
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Brompton Beginners Group and my sobriety dates 28th of October
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1977 and by the grace of God through the fellowship of a a
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haven't needed a wanted to drink in that period of time from
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which I'm very grateful. I didn't get sober by myself and
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I can't stay sober by myself. I'm an alcoholic which is in the
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the the present tense, not an ex alcoholic.
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I'm a recovering alcoholic but I'm not ex.
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I'll never be an ex alcoholic but I'm grateful to be alive
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today. I believe I've lived 2 lives.
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I lived the life of the madness of a practice and alcoholic and
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I believe I was suffering an ignorance of the disease.
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And when I said that, I mean not knowing because alcohol had a
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blind spot when it came to alcohol, I couldn't see it.
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There was many red flags in my life.
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My mother said to me, you know, she said you're an alcoholic.
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She said that's why that's why you drink the way you do.
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And I said, well, I'm 16 years of age, how can I be an
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alcoholic? She said, well, you are.
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And the priest used to come round to the house and he said,
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what's what's he been up to this time?
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Because I was getting in trouble all the time.
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I wouldn't listen at school. I just, I was rebellious right
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from the very beginning, early, early days of my life was into
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shoplifting, always trying to, you know, go against.
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I didn't want to live a long life.
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I thought if I get to the age of 30, I'll be happy.
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I, I didn't, I just couldn't and wouldn't fit in with the normal.
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I don't like normal either and I never have done.
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I suppose I'm still not normal. But I didn't understand that was
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mentally and bodily different from a fellow man.
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I had to learn that in the fellowship of 18.
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Well, my first meeting was 1975 in Sydney and the a, what's by
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the power of attraction? It's not, it's not evangelizing
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or anything like that. What I was seeing in people, I
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saw people who were very down to earth and they were real.
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And this man, he worked for Holmes a Court, Scotch Danny, he
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was the first guy introduced me to the fellowship.
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So I went along to a meeting there and Seaford and Span is
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talking guy called Schooly Jack. He said, if you're an alcoholic,
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you keep drinking, you're going to lose everything.
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I thought that's a bit of an exaggeration.
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That's not going to happen to me.
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Oh, thank God. It did happen to me.
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And I'm grateful for everything that happened in my life.
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And I look back on it and, you know, I didn't set out in life
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to wreck the, the, the lives that I did with my type of
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relationships, that I had toxic relationships.
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And that's what it was all about when I, before I came to
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Alcoholics Anonymous, because I, I fell into the trap, I guess,
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of the, the, the honey trap. And there's 2 I believe.
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And I think that's why the traditions are the way they are,
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you know, the, the money and the honey.
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I thought that equalled happiness.
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If you've got the right woman and you get the right position,
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they're living in the right address.
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I was living in Sydney at a time then that would equal happiness.
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And that was the most unhappy period of my life.
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But I just continued to drink, you know, and I drank till I
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could drink no longer. And in the end, you know, in
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desperation, I was given the gift to call out to God for
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help. Now I just didn't want to go and
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see a psychiatrist because I was very good at lying to doctors.
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I had a seizure when I was 21 years of age in Scotland.
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And there was a nurse that was there and she saved my life.
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She took took my tongue out the back of my mouth and I woke up
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in an ambulance. So there was 3 specialists
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there. And I said, do you drink a lot?
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And I said no, 21 years of age at this time.
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No, I said it's been 12 days since I've had a drink.
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I was defending the thing that was killing me.
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I didn't know that I was defending the, when I put
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alcohol in me, I put a murderer inside of me and, and I think
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it's my best friend. That's the grave emotional
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mental disorder that I have towards alcohol.
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So anyway, these doctors say, well you're not epileptic, we've
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done all these tests on you, Do you drink a lot?
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We'll ask you again. I said no, so I'm defending it.
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Well, I had to continue to drink for another 12 years after that.
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So I reached that point of desperation, I said, and I was
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led trembling into the neutral baby in 20th October 1977.
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And by the grace of God, I haven't neither wanted to drink
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but and I wanted to stop the suffering because they say once
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you take the brand out the fruitcake, it left with the
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fruitcake and that was nuts, absolute nuts.
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My head was going to 300 miles an hour.
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The guilt of my past was before my eyes, the fear of the future,
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both these things, Arthur calls it the tyranny of of this the
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superego. I know what he means by that
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today. I was being tortured by that all
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my life and it wasn't the drinking, it was the times in
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between drinking because once she withdrew the alcohol, the
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alcoholism started to take, you know, started to take its place.
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But broken old Jack was a very good help to me because I was
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listening to his story. When he said when he first came
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in, he said when he first meeting, he said thank God my
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defects of character were not working against me when I went
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to that meeting. I could have thought they said
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when these people were talking, the older members, he says.
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I could have thought, what were these mugs?
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No, I'd rather die than listen. But he said he thought that
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could be right. And that was the biggest gamble
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of my life, especially the third step.
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I thought if I take that third step, honestly, I have lost all
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control of my life. I never had any control of my
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life. And I look back on it.
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But if I turn my will and my life over to the care of God and
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I didn't think God cared. I thought God was a a dictator.
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I took the worst the Catholic faith.
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I grew up as a Catholic and I've got the fear.
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I've got this fear. I thought I'm going to hell.
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I might as well go. I might as well go.
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My hung for a sheep is a lamb. That was that was my philosophy.
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So I just went and done exactly what I wanted to do, but I
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didn't understand there's a consequence for not obeying
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defects of character. And I know today I'm not
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punished for my defects of character, but I can be punished
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by them. That's very clear in my, in my
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mind today. And I'm not a sin in any way,
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shape or form. And I said to Broken Hill, Jack,
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I said, got to get in touch with my conscience.
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He said, yes. He said, oh, your conscience
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won't stop me from doing the wrong thing, but it'll stop me
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from enjoying it. And that, that was good for me
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to hear because I started to get the consequences of my
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behaviour. It's my behaviour.
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And then later on when I'm reading the big book, they said
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if a behaviour continues to harm others, we're quite sure to
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drink. God, I thought what a statement
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that is. And I know today the insanity
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part of it was the fear I had. That's why I never went to
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psychiatrist. I thought if I go to a
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psychiatrist, he'll lock me up for the rest of my life if if I
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tell him the things that I'm doing.
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When I get drunk, I'm climbing on top of buildings, I'm jumping
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from one building to the other, start raving mad.
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And in Scotland it's all slate. Well, if it's a wet day, you'd
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be straight right down onto the ground.
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But I was like Spider man. I wasn't insane when I was
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drinking. But I know today that for me,
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that insane part of it, I said the broken of Jack, am I crazy?
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Said no, you know crazy. He said that step was not
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talking about insane being crazy.
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He said you would never have found your way to the meeting.
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But for me, I believe this is my belief.
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Insanity for me means emotions out of control.
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That's why people kill each other.
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I believe. And I've got an extreme nature.
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Not many people. If you if you get a resentment,
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you want to burn their house down and kill their dogs.
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That's the way I was, that deep seated anger that was deep
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within me and bitterness at life as well.
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Better it being a failure because I failed at everything
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I'd done in my life. I failed at being a son.
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I failed at being a husband. I failed at everything I tried
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because I was doing it my way. I had no connection with a
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higher power. So anyway, thank God I had a
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beautiful sponsor, Roy from Mossman.
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He was a secretary of the Mossman group.
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So I said, can you help me with the steps?
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He said yes, OK. He said the number one step is
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if you ever walk away from me and you'll deny the first step,
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you'll take the power back again.
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If you're you're not admitting you're powerless over alcohol,
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that's the one he said you have to do perfectly.
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And then the second step of the program for me was about the
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group of people because as Jack Brennan points out, there's no
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mention of a higher power than that step.
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It's all about a power greater than self.
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Well, the group was a power greater than myself.
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And they said things like, hey, we'll introduce you to yourself
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in the hope that you and yourself can become friends.
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And the Scottish poet Robbie Bonds, I think he puts it
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perfect when he says, oh, what a gift that God could give us to
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see ourselves as others seers. I started to see myself and
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other people. I started to see that liar, that
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manipulator, that person who was full of fear, putting on a front
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all the time, dressing up the cosmetic recovery, Giorgio
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Armani suit and the Rolex, you know, Mr. Big coming into
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meetings. But what I was hiding and there
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was I was hiding my alcoholism. Alcoholism is a problem, not the
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alcohol today, but I'll tell you what alcohol isn't.
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Alcohol will become the problem if I stop coming to meetings.
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So they told me this is a simply beautiful program, beautifully
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simple, and if you don't leave the meetings, you'll never need
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to come back. I took that advice on board.
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And then when it came to the third step of the program, I
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thought, this is going to be the biggest gamble of my life, if
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I'm going to be honest about handing my will and my life over
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to the care of a God that I did not understand.
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Then I said, if that fails, time's up.
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Well, I knew time was up anyway, my life was over when I came
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here. I was, I had no money.
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I had no nothing. I was, I had five days without
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eating. I was a skeleton, malnutrition
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and all that type of thing was was there at the time.
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So and then I said to him, tell me something I said about the
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fourth step. He said, well, you have to take
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the third step before the 4th step.
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That's how this works. So anyway, I get what he means
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by that today. And as I said, well, and they
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told me, they said, if you've got an unmanageable life, what
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do you do? If your money's unmanageable?
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You go to a money manager, don't you?
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You get a manager. He said, if you turn your will
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and your life over to the care of God, he says you somebody
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will be managing your life for you.
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And I saw in the members of Alcoholics Anonymous, they had
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AI could see God and a lot of people, they were lovely.
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They were, they were, they were God like people.
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They were kind, they were loving and and they were practical and
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down to earth and speaking the ugly truth.
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I thought the truth was a nice thing.
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But I know today the truth about me is not nice, not nice at all.
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So I'm starting to hear these home truths about myself.
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And then, you know, they said reservations are for Indians.
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I'm not. I never got over that one from
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the beginning. And one reservation I've seen
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happen to so many Alcoholics. Oh yes, I'll stay sober.
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But and then my sponsor said to me, you know what he said?
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There's a big difference between resignation and acceptance.
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Now that's the reason I needed a serenity prayer because hood my
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walk into a name and say I'm an alcoholic.
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Yes, I'll accept that and I'll turn my will and my life over to
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God. No, then work that way for me.
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Excuse me a minute. I've just got a bit of a dry
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throat. Resignation.
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Resignation for me means, yes, I'll stay sober for now and see
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how long that happens, you know, and that's not acceptance at
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all. So I began to say the Serenity
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Prayer and I was praying for acceptance and I said to Broken
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Hill, Jack, Jack, how do you become willing?
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People talk about honesty, open mindedness, willingness.
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What is willingness? He said you ask God to make you
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willing to be willing. He was trying to tell me you're
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powerless. You don't have any power at all.
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He said you ask God to do that and he will give you that.
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It's a gift. The sobriety is a gift for me.
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The whole thing is a gift. And that's why I believe it's a
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different life. It's not the old life patched
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up, it's a brand new life. I knew completely different way
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of seeing things. All my life I was in conflict
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with people, places and things. Why?
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Because I couldn't accept myself.
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I couldn't accept other people. I couldn't love anybody until I
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learned to love myself. I used to be in love with
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myself. I used to walk about looking at
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the mirror all the time. They'd have a look at the
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Peacock in the mirror. You see, Mr. Handsome Mad Start
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grieving mad, you know, that's that's crazy.
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And somebody sent me a, a, a thing one time of a Peacock and
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and you know, you know, the hubcap of a car, the Peacocks
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looking into the mirror. And I thought, yeah, that
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that's, that was me when I was drinking, thinking I'm grander
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or better than everybody else in the world.
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So as I say, thank God, it it reduced me to the mental level
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of an imbecile. And this and Jack used to say
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you can be too smart to get sober, but you can't be too
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stupid. I'm glad I heard.
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I'm glad I heard that type of talk because that made an awful
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lot of sense to me. So I just kept on going and you
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know, along on the journey and as I was turned daily turning my
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will and my life over to care of God.
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Well, it's in the the 12 by 12 is the last sentence that Bill W
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wrote the serenity prayer because of the power I lack
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power in my life. So when I connect to the higher
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power, I'm functioning the way that I should be, then I can't
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accept people, places and things.
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I fairly offer prayer when somebody annoys me.
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They told me if you spot it, you've got it.
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So if I'm trying to, if I'm angry at somebody, they're not
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the problem. I'm the problem because I'm not
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accepting that person, place of thing, the way it's meant to be
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for this very moment. So life has been really good.
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And you know, after all the abuse that I had of women and
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all the rest of it, I thought, if this is a loving God, I
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wonder if he can forgive me. So when I done the 4th and the
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first step, I don't my, in my case, I done it with the
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Catholic priest. And there's a reason for that in
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my case, and I only speak for it for myself, it says somewhere in
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the big book, those who belong to religious denomination can go
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to whose authority as to receive it somewhere in the book.
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Anyway, Anyway, I went to a Catholic priest and it was good.
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It's a very, very good thing and something I found out about
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that's never, ever shared this at maintenance, but it's very
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important for me. So after I'd done my first step,
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I said to the priest, I said, tell me something.
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You see, I was still going back to the old ideas.
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I'm the Sinner. I didn't know I was sick.
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I thought I was a Sinner, right? And he said, well, I said, what
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commandment was that breaking when I was drinking the way that
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I was? Well, he said if you were a
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drunkard, you'd be breaking the 5th commandment because just
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shalt not kill. But he said that doesn't apply
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to you. I said, tell me why that is.
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He said because you're an alcoholic, you have a sickness.
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He said that's the reason you were doing what you were doing.
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You're not a bad person. He said you have a you have an
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illness. I know he was saying the the
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drunkard does this deliberately. And I said to him, what?
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What's the evidence that of that?
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He said, well, you're sober now, aren't you?
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I said, yeah, So he was telling me God's given you a gift.
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He gave you a gift of sobriety. He removed the compulsion to
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drink and that tantalizing never going away feeling of having to
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wake up every morning and think, here we go again.
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What kind of lock up is it going to be this time?
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What husband's going to come looking for me?
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Am I going to be fighting with the police again and again and
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again? A horrible way of life and not
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only that, the guilt of the past that was in the mind all the
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time. That's what the first step I
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believe does for me. I removed that and the fear of
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the future, that living in fear is a horrible place to be.
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Fear. I didn't even know what fear was
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and it says in the big book it's an evil corroding thread.
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Doesn't come from God at all. Fear.
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Fear isn't. Fear isn't.
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And I'm talking about ungrounded and unfounded fear.
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I mean, I don't, I'm afraid to cross the road or see a bus
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coming, that type of thing. But that fear of people and
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economic insecurity to talk about in the big book, That's
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what I was about all my life. I'll be OK when I've got the
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right woman. I'll be OK when I've got the
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right money. And again, it gets down to the
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money trap after that. Talks about it in the
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traditions, property and prestige can divert us from a
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primary purpose. I've seen it happen to so many
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members of Alcoholics Anonymous. And yeah, I've been in the
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company of billionaires and millionaires in the fellowship
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in the South of France. And it's not the money, it's a
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problem. It's the love of the money
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because it can take, it takes so many people away because my
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primary purpose, my number one, is to stay sober.
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And I can't sober anybody up. I don't have the power to sober
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in the up. If I did, I would have sobered
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my brothers up. All my brothers died of this
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disease and they were good men. They weren't bad men.
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It's an illness. It's a, it's a, it's the most
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ridiculous illness in the world. I think I've seen many people
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die in an operating theatre, but I've never seen people die the
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way the alcoholic does. If you die of cancer, the nurses
17:24
are all around you or a poor person in the family.
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But when an alcoholic, I'm not saying all nurses do this, but
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when an alcoholic who's misunderstood by the people,
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they say he'd done it to himself.
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That's what happened to my brother.
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He'd done this to himself. I don't remember when he was in
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the right hospital. He was, he was dying.
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What happened to him was his esophagus started to bleed and
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he was going down into his stomach and, and the blood was
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coming up through his nose and his mouth.
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That's how he died of it. It's a horrible disease,
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alcoholism. But you know, the recovery is
17:54
very important for me and I can't recover by myself.
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My sponsor says to me, go and listen to the older members,
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don't judge them. He says go to school and the
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older members listen to the message, he said and don't judge
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the messenger. Very important that I adhere to
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that principle today. So when I listen to the other
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people, people teach me what to do in the fellowship and what
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not to do. Equally important.
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And they said don't get involved in an emotional relationship,
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especially in the early part of your sobriety.
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Well, I didn't, I listened to that, but God did a, a good plan
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for me. I got married to a beautiful
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lady. We had eight children.
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She had eight children. Three of the boys now are sober
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in the fellowship and that's the that's my family.
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As I said, I didn't sober them up.
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If I did, I would, I would apply that to my brothers.
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But life has been very good for me and it's been so many
18:44
blessings. But I need the connection with
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another alcoholic. I always drink an alcoholic
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every day in my life. So I always make that connection
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and listen because I'm a type of person.
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I'm an alcoholic, so that means I have a head instinct like
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diabetics, you know, they get together or if I'm don't come to
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meetings, I'll go to the pub automatically because I need to
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be with Alcoholics. They say the birds of a feather
19:10
who flock together. My emotional relations.
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I relate to Alcoholics. I relate because I know what
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that quirky makeup is and I think I came out the circus out
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there and I came into the zoo and I know it's like a zoo.
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There's one of everything and it's a beautiful thing.
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That's the lovely thing about it.
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We've got we've got every type of person in this fellowship.
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There's nothing boring about it. I don't know.
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And what I was just talking about before the meeting.
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Boring is a sin in many ways. They call it Enu.
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I've been bored all the time. That's what I was like when I
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was drinking and then I thought the best way to fix boredom is
19:45
just drink the anaesthetic of alcohol, not knowing that it's a
19:48
toxic poison that kills with abuse.
19:50
Doesn't say that in Johnny Walker Black Label, doesn't it?
19:53
No, they don't do it. They wouldn't market it, but
19:55
they were saying that on it. But I had no idea what I was
19:58
dealing with when I came in here.
20:01
But life has said it's been, it's been a, a wonderful life in
20:04
the sense that I'm not talking. I'm not happy, joyous and free
20:07
every day. But I've had so many times of
20:10
peace in my life. I know how to get peace today
20:14
because you taught me that. You taught me that peace comes
20:17
through prayer, prayer and meditation.
20:19
I'm not talking about yoga now. I'm not talking about
20:22
Transcendental Meditation for me.
20:24
And I only speak to myself when I'm talking.
20:26
I read that step clearly and it couples it together, prayer and
20:30
meditation. And I love to hear the Saint
20:33
Francis of Assisi prayer. That to me is the opposite of
20:36
self. It's in giving the receive.
20:39
It's in pardoning my pardon. And that the thing about about
20:42
forgiveness, I'm just closing this.
20:44
I'm getting very close to the time now.
20:46
I said to my sponsor, when I'd done the fifth step, I said, I'm
20:49
having a terrible problem forgiving myself.
20:51
I said, well, God's forgiven you.
20:53
You think you're better than God.
20:54
You think you're above him. He said he's forgiven you all
20:57
the things that you've done in the past.
20:59
Not only that, he said, he's given you a wonderful gift.
21:02
And I said the way you keep it is to give it away.
21:05
Just keep going to meetings and meetings and meetings and
21:08
listening. I didn't know that listening was
21:10
a, was a spiritual thing. I didn't know the spiritual
21:13
malady. That's why I'm thank God I
21:15
didn't attack it from a mental point of view because I've got,
21:18
I've got an alcoholic mind. So I, I, I, I do the spiritual
21:23
thing for me, I'll let go and I let God.
21:26
And that's the, that's the easiest thing in the world to do
21:29
and the hardest thing to practice.
21:32
I mean, it's the same as words. It's easy to talk words, but
21:36
action, they told me was the magic word.
21:38
Action is joining a group, service to the group, being
21:42
connected to that. I've always been a member of a
21:44
group in all of my sobriety. And because they tell me it's
21:47
not the person that makes a group, it's a group that makes a
21:49
person all these little things that you hear.
21:52
And then when it when it comes to practising the steps for me
21:56
that told me is to save you from killing yourself.
21:59
That's what it's to do. It's not to get you to heaven
22:01
around like that. But the second part of it is the
22:04
traditions. It's to stop you from killing
22:06
other people and that's a fact because society is in danger.
22:11
If I drink, I get behind the wheel of a car and I'm start
22:13
raving mad. Off goes my head and on goes a
22:16
pumpkin. And it's Halloween everyday.
22:18
That's what it is. It's all madness.
22:20
And we're talking crap and the pubs and we're all kings of the
22:23
world. We haven't got enough to get a
22:25
bus fare home. And what we're talking about,
22:27
we're going to buy houses and do it.
22:29
And Oh my God, and we're going to give somebody else a chance
22:32
to talk. And thanks a lot for listening
22:33
to me. A A has more than two million
22:37
recovering Alcoholics throughout the world.
22:40
In Australia there are about 18,000 members.
22:44
They're made in over 2000 local meetings spread around the
22:49
country. Meetings range in size from a
22:52
handful in some areas to hundreds or more in larger
22:56
communities. And once again, if anyone you
23:00
know is struggling with alcohol issues, please call Alcoholics
23:04
Announcing 13 under 000000 or visit their website on aa.org
23:12
dot AU.