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Sober Talk SA - Adrian 2 · Sober Talk SA

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  Welcome to Sober Talk. I'm Dennis and I've lived
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  experience of alcohol. If you or anyone you know is
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  struggling with alcohol, please call Alcoholics Anonymous on
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  1300 double 22222 or check out their website on aa.org dot a U
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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 men and women. We share the experience
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  strengthen up with each other then, but so there come problems
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  and help others to recover from alcoholism.
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  The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop
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  drinking. There are no Jews of faith for a
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  membership. We are self supporting through
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  our own contributions. A is not allied with any sect,
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  denomination, politics, organization or institution.
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  Does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses or
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  oppose any causes. Our primary purpose is stairs
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  open up whether Alcoholics achieve sobriety.
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  And we've got arguing with it and Paula and Sharon my system.
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  And since the Sharon's been having 20.
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  Years up and. Just seeing the emergency, so.
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  But Adrianna, I'm an alcoholic, three years so, but they were
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  send the 4th already Thursday. Thank you, I agree and.
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  My name Paula. I'm an alcoholic and sobriety
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  tonight, the 28th of July. 2018 and my Home group is Henley
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  Beach, 12 Promises and Sunday Night Exeter.
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  Thank you, Paul. Hi.
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  My name is Sharon. I'm an.
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  Alcoholic I've. Got nearly three years up and
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  surprised. And my time.
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  Group is poured out the right. OK.
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  Wait out then you know how it works.
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  Preliminary. A little bit of the chapter
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  which we do in an all meeting away.
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  I think I agree. I see.
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  Fortunately, Chapter 5, How it Works.
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  Rarely have we seen it first failing.
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  It was, sorry, signed out. But in here they're covering
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  people who cannot hold or really give themselves to be simply pro
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  there. You don't know whether they were
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  constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.
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  They are unfortunates. They are not at fault.
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  They seem to have been gone that way.
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  They are naturally incapable of graphing and developing A manner
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  of English demands rigorous honesty.
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  The answers are both an average there are those, too, who
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  started from grave emotional and mental disorders.
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  Many of them do recover if they had the capacity.
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  To be honest, our story is closed in a general way.
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  What we used to be like, what happened and what we are like
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  now. If you decided you want what we
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  have and are willing to go to any lakes to get it, and you
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  were ready to take certain steps and some of these we bought, we
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  thought we could find it easier to solve the way, but we could
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  not. With all the osmos at our
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  command, we gave you to be furious and Sarah, from the very
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  start some of us have tried the whole world where all that is.
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  And there was always Neil. Until we let go, absolutely.
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  Remember that we deal with alcohol, cunning, baffling,
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  powerful, without help. It's too much for us.
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  There is one who has all power. That one is God.
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  May you find it now I believe that the bell is nothing.
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  We're still at the turning point.
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  We are seeing protection in care with complete abandon.
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  Here, in the steps we took, we suggested as a program of
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  recovery One. We will powers over alcohol that
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  had a lot of it become unmanageable.
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  Tend to believe that a power greater than ourselves could
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  restore us the sentence. Right, right.
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  We were sitting down to. Turn out well and a large under
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  the care of God is under certain.
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  Could you say the right someone fight?
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  It's. His hair and four made a certain
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  feel. The small inventory of ourselves
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  5. Go to ourselves and to another
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  human being. Exactly our longs.
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  Six. We're entirely ready to have God
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  remove all these defects of character.
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  So humbly asked him to remove our school company.
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  It may rest of all persons we've helped and became willing to
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  make amends to the law. Nine.
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  We made the recommends to such people where the possible,
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  except for him to do so with injure them or others 10.
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  Continue to take a personal inventory and where were they
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  wrong? Hopefully 11 sought for a prayer
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  and meditation to improve our conscious compact with God as we
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  understood Him, playing only some knowledge of His will for
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  us, and with all to carry that out well.
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  Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we
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  try to carry this message to Alcoholics and practice these
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  principles in all our affairs. Many of us explained what an
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  order I can't go through. Not be discouraged.
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  No one of others has been able to maintain anything like
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  perfect adherence to these principles.
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  We're not states. The point is that we are willing
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  to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we get is down
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  the guides to progress, the kind spiritual progress rather than
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  spiritual perfection. Our description of the
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  alcoholic, the chapter to the angle State, and our personal
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  adventures before and after make clear three cousins ideas a that
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  we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.
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  The old emotion How could have relieved our alcoholism see that
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  God could handle it if it was sought good thank.
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  You and that was well done my name.
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  Is Adrian. And I'm an alcoholic.
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  I say I'm an alcoholic because it's part of the seclusion to my
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  drinking problem is admitting that I've got a problem.
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  Yeah, well, I I had drank for 25 years.
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  It seemed to me that at the start that it was a wonderful
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  way to escape. I found people at situations
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  difficult and anxiety inducing it.
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  And when I drank all the, the fear went away.
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  And yeah, I thought, oh, here's the real me at last.
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  Yeah, this suave guy with such yeah, it wasn't true.
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  Well by the end it was crashed cars and and Carlson.
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  I mean feeling of dread and impending dream that wouldn't go
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  away. Yeah, I I got sober in 2020 just
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  before Kobe. My my first a a meeting was.
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  A couple of years before that I admitted to my pain specialist
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  how much I was drinking on top of the the method that he was
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  prescribing me for chronic pain. And he said me got me to to to
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  to draw hell. Quixma and I went to an A a
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  meeting there and yeah, well, if I had to admit I had a problem,
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  I mean. I was a wreck.
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  I was on the stage where I was always very disappointed to wake
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  up in the morning, in the morning, and yeah, so yeah,
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  that's right, me out. And I went to a couple of other
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  meetings after that and I didn't.
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  I didn't mean I was an alcoholic, but.
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  That wasn't enough. I didn't identify with what I
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  was hearing in those meetings. I'm always carrying such a a
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  weight of despair and cynicism and business and just, yeah,
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  really bad attitude. That's I I just couldn't be
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  bothered to continue to come to meetings and see if it would
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  actually work. No, I.
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  Yeah, So I continued to drink for not two years until I was
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  about to be thrown out of my while out of the place I was
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  living, the kinds, the last few people in the world who still
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  care about me because I've made. I isolated myself when I've made
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  enemies of friends. Yeah, they took me in and they
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  made sure I got the meetings every day and things.
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  Yeah, because I was sick and tired of being sick and tired
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  and because I was there day in, day out, eventually dawned on
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  me. That's that that what everybody
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  ended me. I had.
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  I could have to. And yeah, what I found was
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  people who were able to non drink and be happy about it.
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  And yeah, when when it was suggested to me by a friend
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  couple of years before I got server that I should not drink
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  since I've admitted I'm an alcoholic.
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  You know, I just looked at him like he suggested I take a sword
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  and cut off my my, my head and then.
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  On my other hand, somehow with an adult story, it was it's just
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  cool and horrible and and ridiculous and stupid and wrong
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  and broken. I couldn't.
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  Yeah, that really was what it seemed like, the idea of not
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  being able, not drinking. Like it was just impossible.
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  I couldn't do anything without a drink, but when I was.
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  I smashed and glinting about on a walking stick and when I was
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  being brought to meetings daily, yeah, as I was saying, I found
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  people who had something that I wanted.
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  I was able to admit to myself that I wanted.
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  And I was. They gave me a glib of hope that
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  I could get it. The head was they were, they
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  were comfortable in their own skin.
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  They didn't leave anything to be, okay to cope, to flourish.
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  They didn't need any outside substance.
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  They didn't even seem to need anybody else's approval.
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  I mean, yeah, the people I mean are very inspiring.
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  That's it. And yeah, when it was said
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  yesterday do something about a A's program, I went okay.
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  I can take suggestions and I did.
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  I found someone who particularly had what I wanted and then I
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  could relate to and this dude used to just radiate color and I
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  was at that point, the opposite. And yeah, I'm I'm on stage so if
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  you'd be my sponsor And he said can you pray?
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  It doesn't matter if I don't know what to do, because I'd
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  been a call atheist. You know, Millicent very calling
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  on Christian chat rooms on the Internet, yeah.
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  And he said, no, it doesn't matter if you don't know what to
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  Can you pray? And I wonder God, can you
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  Immediately. That's the man we were wearing.
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  I don't know. It's just about him though.
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  So Cody go coded here and there were the meetings.
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  Well, all of a sudden. So you mean.
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  I mean, I needed something because, yeah, my head, I could
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  never cope with it. I had to drink to put it for my
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  feelings until the drink wore off.
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  And then I drink again for more further.
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  I couldn't stand being me so. Without a drink, I needed
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  something and there's some kind of magic that goes on in the
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  meetings and it just calms down. I mean, even if I'm bored or
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  annoyed or I think the speaker is full of it, it still works
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  just amazing in itself. Yeah, that's my my sponsor.
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  Yeah, he took me down the beach and.
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  We sat in the ocean and thought about philosophy and
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  spirituality and I was quite skeptical, took him a few weeks
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  to told me around to the point where I could actually start
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  putting the steps into my life. But yeah, between the fact that
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  I wondered what I had when what he had rather and.
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  Or something. He pointed out that my own way
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  of looking at the world and thinking of things had got me to
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  a pretty bad place and I might need to try something else.
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  So keep getting and doing what you've always done, and you'll
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  keep getting what you've always got.
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  Hi. Reminding me right?
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  And so. Yeah, yeah, I I mean, it sounds
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  weird to me. Still saying out loud and I
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  still work. And these days I do it on a
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  daily basis, twice a day. But I got down on my knees and
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  handed myself over to God. And that's, I mean, in this day
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  and age, this post creature society, this very weird thing
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  to do, really. But.
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  And at the time, it felt kind of like throwing out and throwing
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  myself out of an aeroplane and not knowing you, playing a
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  parachute. But yeah, it turns out that that
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  God can do for me what I can't do for myself.
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  Because I've gone without a drink for over three years and I
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  well, I'm happy about it. For a star, I'm just been a much
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  better place than I could have imagined.
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  Before. Because yeah, that's what I
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  seems to do. Takes people like me who are
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  broken and helpless, couldn't stop drinking, and turns them
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  back into, well, turns them not back, but turns them into brand
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  new flourishing humans. I so yeah.
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  What happened after after that was I about my sponsor and I
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  went through the The nightmare, the horror movie that used to
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  play in my head all the time. All the stuff in the past that
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  used to just come up and smack me in the face all the time.
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  The fears that I draw out of the future and and all the hatreds
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  and resentments and. Integral things that had
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  happened and not sounded dumb and went through them all and
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  had a clear idea in this new perspective that a spiritual
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  approach to things gives, and it was difficult and painful, but
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  afterwards I felt like a new man coming away.
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  Stress levels went down. Way I was the one that I'm
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  choking on my own cortisol and adrenaline like they used to
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  every day. And because of all my pain
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  levels went down. I was able to go and get some
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  physio. I wanted to get my leg back, my
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  leg that I ruined in a drunken car crash, actually in 2010.
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  Yeah. So yeah, I'm going to say I had
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  a better position than I could have ever imagined.
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  And what it's like now is everything is greased, this
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  spiritual meal. Everything is part of this
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  journey of recovery of learning and growing and we are a bit of
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  a more useful Adrian and and like I get to get to be like
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  it's all. Do cool things.
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  Things that I had me ever done while I was too busy hiding from
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  the world and drinking and drinking and going out and
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  making a nuisance of myself and then waking up and gagging in my
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  own shame and going back to hiding and drinking again.
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  Yeah, these days I get to go out and meet people and do things
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  and going see the pro wrestling. Signed up a smallish mountain.
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  Had to repeat a pound and travel all over the place and and not
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  be held back. At least not completely held
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  back by my own fears all the time.
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  You know, still have progress to make considering to start with I
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  was practically unable to leave the house without a drink.
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  I've come quite a ways and yeah. And this, this method for
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  dealing with the things that come up that made me angry.
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  There's a certain amount of sitting with these feelings and
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  then there's a process right in the mouth of kind of things in
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  the story, I'm sure. Who did what?
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  Yeah, Who did whatever. What if I'm putting these how to
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  say to me and what part I played in that and see where I'm
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  putting my own. Priorities my own I emphasis and
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  in this this process of self reflection and prayer and
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  meditation. My my God isn't religious by the
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  way it's it's purely personal individual thing as it is with a
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  lot of OA members it's yeah but in this in this process I mean I
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  find such peace. I mean I used to have to take
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  drugs to feel this peaceful and. I get to, yeah, just do normal
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  things and be relaxed about it and enjoy life and sort of,
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  yeah, with a bit of stay, listen, hanging out with felony
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  recovering, recovering Alcoholics, I find that I'm very
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  thankfully able to not pick up a drink.
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  One day at a time. We have local meetings for the
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  full week in the local area. Monday is Gala meeting at 8:00
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  o'clock, Tuesday is Elizabeth E at 8:00 o'clock, Wednesday is
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  Elizabeth E at 8:00 o'clock, Thursday is 2 Wells at 8:00
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  o'clock, and Friday is Salisbury at 8:00 O'clock.
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  There's a meeting at Devon Park at 12:00 o'clock and on Sunday
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  there's a meeting in Salisbury at 7:00 o'clock and many of the
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  meetings in the area. For details of your local
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  maintenance, please phone 1300 double 22222.
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  And once again, if anyone you know is struggling with alcohol
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  issues, please call Alcoholics Anonymous on 1300 double 22222
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  the website isaasa.org dot a U.