David H. – AA Speaker – Sharing his POWERFUL story of recovery!

Ginger: Alcoholics Anonymous is not, after all, a personal success story. It is instead the story of our colossal human failures now converted into the happiest kind of usefulness by that divine Alchemy, the Loving Grace of God. Each day, somewhere in the world recovery begins when one alcoholic talks with another alcoholic sharing experience, strength and hope. Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened. And what we are like now.

Today David H from Colorado will share his entire psychic change. A personality change, sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism. Welcome to the podium, David H.

David H:

Hi everybody. I’m David. I am an alcoholic and I’m so grateful for the opportunity to meet with you. I know we’ve had the opportunity in the past to meet with several of you as we went through chapter four and chapter five and it was a nice slow ride. And it’s nice to have you back. Ginger has asked me on this the last day of 2018 if I would take some time to share specifically what I was like, what happened and what I’m like now. And I will probably go until about 12:45 or so. And that will allow a little bit of time at the end for questions or brief comments.

So my sobriety date is September 20th, 1984. I do have a home group and the Denver Thursday night group. It’s been my home group I believe for 24 years. I take it back almost 30 years now. I had asked a guy to sponsor me. I will probably tell a little about this story. I’ll go ahead and tell us a little better right now. I was about four years sober. And I had started working the steps again with a different sponsor and that we done to the fourth step. And it was intense. I thought I knew what I was doing and this trip through the steps was really hitting me at a deeper level. And in the middle of this is this four step inventory. And, this guy tells me he’s moving to Oklahoma.

His Dad had won the California lottery and had bought him a farm in Oklahoma and he was leaving. And, you know, my thought was, well, what about me? I’m sitting on this fourth step and you’re leaving town? And he suggested that I call two guys in Denver. One was Bob and the other`s Don. Don has since passed on. Such a beautiful cat. And I called them both and Don called me back first. And he said; “meet me at the Denver Thursday night group,” which I didn’t really know this meeting. He said, “I’ll pray about it and we’ll talk.” And that began my experience with my now home group. And also a sponsorship relationship. A step-guiding relationship, with a really amazing person. That`s Don P.

So when I say I am an alcoholic, what do I mean by that? You know, in 1984 and I started drinking when I was about 14 years old. The very first time I drank I split a pint or a half pint of pure grain alcohol with two other friends. We mixed it with pink pineapple, grapefruit juice and we drank the whole thing. I got sick; I threw up all over the place. I fell down a flight of stairs and that’s the way I drank the first time. And, that’s the way I was drinking every time in between that. And September, actually 17 was the last time I had any alcohol, 1984.

So in that period from the time I was 14 to the time I was 31 years old, I drank like there was no tomorrow. And I drank like it was my job. And I drank like there was a real destination at the end of every drink. And it’s always the way I drank. I was dying from alcoholism and didn’t even know what it was. I came in to Alcoholics Anonymous in 1984 and I was, I think two or three years sober before somebody grabbed me. And brought me into the big buck and work the steps with me. But I’m dying of alcoholism.

I don’t even know what it is. And so when I say I’m David and am an alcoholic, part of what I mean is what’s referenced in the beginning of the big book. And then the doctor’s opinion. This idea that I have an abnormal reaction that alcohol. Dr. William D. Silkworth called it the phenomenon of craving. Basically in the way he describes is. Once we start drinking, once we put alcohol in any form in your body, we may not be able to stop. And that was my experience and I didn’t realize that. I thought I changed my mind. I thought I said I was going to have one and then it tasted so good that I needed a few more.

But I found out working with a sponsor, working the steps, reading the doctor’s opinion. Read more about alcoholism. Dale`s story great description of what happens to an alcoholic. And when I sat down one on one with a sponsor and we read the big book word for word. And he showed me when it was time to work a step. He explained here’s the direction for the first step, page 30. I never knew.

I believe, you know, almost every meeting that I attended had that poster on the wall that showed the 12 steps. And I believe that I’ve been going to meetings for two years in reading that poster that I had worked the steps. I didn’t understand that something much more than that was required. This in depth understanding, which continues to grow as the years go by, I’m now 34 years sober. And it just seems you get deeper and deeper. The more I work with others and the more I worked the steps myself.

So, I’m kind of back up a bit and talk a little bit about my drinking. Oh, I’m sorry. The other thing, so that’s the abnormal physical reaction in order to understand that abnormal physical reaction I had to understand what is a normal physical reaction. And the normal physical reaction. And I’ve met people like this and they are absolutely baffling to me. But the normal physical reaction is they drink they stopped drinking when they feel it.

Right now there are some hard drinkers and there are people that drink for a buzz who isn’t alcoholics. But for the most part they say bizarre things. So they say things like, no thanks. I’ve had enough. I’m beginning to feel it. Or no thanks, I have to drive. Or no thanks I have to be at work early tomorrow. None of those things ever stopped me from continuing to drink. Once I started drinking it seems something takes place that I completely forget what I was going to do before. And I seem to be incapable stopping. The big book calls it the desperate experiment of the first drink. This time it will be different. And then what always ensued in my case for the 17 years that I drank, once I started, I seem to have little ability to control it or stop. That’s one thing, but the book tells me that the real problem is if I just stay away from alcohol, I agree as much like other people.

But I can’t stay away from alcoholic, it seems there’s something wrong with my thinking, something’s wrong with my brain. The book says, I think the words are that the problem centers in his mind. So while I have this abnormal body, wow, there is this problem. It’s the mind that brings me back to the drain. That’s why I need the psychic change. I need to have a new mind. I need to have a new way of relating to things, not just alcohol, but to the world and to the people in the world and to my thinking, a new relationship. So my first drink is this, a half pint or a pint of pure grain alcohol, probably could die. I was awful sick. Mom came and picked me up the next morning.

He took me home. He didn’t say a word to me, didn’t say a word to me for 27 years off away. I know I was sober when she told me that she had asked my stepfather’s should I say anything he smelled like at the story. And my stepfather told me, [inaudible] leave the boy alone. And so she never said anything to me about it. And as sick as I was, terrible advice fell. I couldn’t wait to do it again. And so I continued to drink like, in college, we, we, I drank every chance I could get. I have a little job flipping burgers near the University of Colorado. It was easy to get to those, her grade level job and whenever I got paid, the first thing I did was buy a half gallon but a half gallon of Bourbon and a half gallon of vodka.

I needed to make sure that was the very first thing before I bought anything else. And I’m going to school full time and I’m working part time and that’s just how I live. That continue to, I manage to graduate college. went out, did some work and drink, moved to New Orleans. It was easy to drink in New Orleans. I love that study that you can drink and you can have an open container and cars as long as you weren’t drunk and drive at that time. Man, I thought that was a civilized place to live and I decided that I would go back to school. I decided I wanted to be an attorney at this time. I’m about 26 years old. And, I finished one semester and then I did well, but I had a friend of mine who was a drug dealer, my tuition money, and he was giving me one second semester, rolled around. It came time to paying for, to wait and the heat and have it.

And so I left and I joined the oil and gas and I have no idea what I was going to do. And, my step father got me a job that oil and gas industry. By that time I was about 26 years old. And as I drank at the end of the concerned about my drinking, I began to see that the answer my life, which seems to be the most harmful, the most damaging to my relationship. The greatest risk to my health and well being are all involved around boots. And I started thinking, well, maybe I’ll, I’ll, I had absolutely no success on being able to talk back. And I began to say to myself, maybe I’ll stop drinking. Then I began to say to myself, I have to stop drinking. And I tried that for about

One and a half, five years, and I would go to bed at night and I was saying, I will not drink, I will not drink, I will not drink. And the next morning I would wake up and it has to get them to tide me over. I would have to get to calm my nerves. I’m still working in the oil business at that time. I’m going to court courthouse and doing research. And I’m going up there and thinking, nobody knows. I found out later that wasn’t true at all. A lot of people knew what I was doing. I was the last one. And I wound up in about March, 1984 and I was pretty desperate. I’ve been working a job and well I me and towards the end of March, no several feet. And I said that I got to get somewhere warm. So I took a job and I was also pretty concerned about my drink and I called my friend John who was on this job and he got me on this crew

And, I got to do something about my drink and drug abuse. And he said, no. He goes, don’t worry, I’m on down here in south Texas, you know, we’re just kind of across the border, but out of car, we’re in Victoria, Texas. And he says, we stay clean down here and come to find out, there’s plenty of stuff. Not very clean. But, so I go down here, I’m going to make a fresh start and I’m going to be a new man. Unfortunately I brought me with me and I had no solution at that point. And so my drinking got worse and my drug abuse and September, 1984 rolled around. Yeah.

I had spent almost every evening I would tell myself I will not drink, I will not drink. And there was things I was going to do that would change my life. I was going to start and I was going to take better care of my job, a number of things and none of it ever happened. And it all started with an down in Texas. You can buy wine at the grocery stores at that time. So I knew the liquor store that I did my business that wouldn’t be open till that first thing in the morning. I’d go to the grocery store and I’d buy a bottle of wine and I started drinking Mad Dog 2020 back then 2020. The label says the wine of the century, four or five, which means add additional to and I could drink a pint of that man that really that me ride.

I could go about my day, I get go to war or have you talk to people and all that good stuff. Every once in a while it didn’t work out and I’d be, I find myself drunk and slipping and sliding around. And so I was desperate and I said, I will not do it again. Or well, not yet. And every morning I figured out a way to do it. Don’t do it in the morning. I might make it to lunch. And then I’d go out to lunch and I start drinking. And once I start I can’t control it and I can’t. And so there’s an afternoon and I would make a total four or five o’clock in the afternoon and I would tell myself, well, I’m going to go into the bar, strike up a conversation. We had a large crew working there and there were guys from other crews and you guys were petroleum land men and they’re just a lot of fun to talk to all of the fuel. A lot more talking than we does. Less than that. It was fun last night.

And I’d go into that bar and I think I’m really not going to drink. I’m just here to you have conversations. Oh, the bartender for a glass of water. And I say, would you bring me a glass of water? And that bartender would turn around. It’s time and time and time again as he turned around. And when you bring me back a shot to go with it and there I go. I’m often yes. And this one weekend, I decide I’m going to take a trip back home form shitty where I’d gone to high school, junior high school.

See my friends, several of them are in the oil business and we’d worked together and we were having a ball. We had money to spend. Then I thought I as part of the problem is this Victoria, I need to get out of it taxes for the weekend and have a good time in Oklahoma City with my buddy. And of course, once again, that might’ve worked except I took me with me and when I got there, they picked me up and the first thing we did it early in the morning, 9:00 AM 10:00 AM we might draw a bar where we drank. I don’t think the split and went in, got a couple of soda pops and started relaxing little bit early in the morning.

My Dad walked in to that bar. Her, my dad had a pretty good reason to be there. He would wholesale liquor salesman and that was one of his accounts. But I was pretty ashamed of my behavior. Assessed time, not about to let him know I was anywhere near him and certainly hadn’t reached out and I didn’t really want to see, I didn’t want him to see me. I wasn’t allowed to go see him, but I didn’t want him to see me because about a year or two before, something very similar happened in Stillwater, Oklahoma. and I had a, I am not told him I was there or something, like 30 miles away from his home, going to get my work done and get out of there and then tell him I didn’t have time to contact. And I went down to the McDonald’s. I had a bought a bottle, peppermint flavor. I thought nobody would know. I was drinking peppermint and a, except that I was acting like an idiot. So they might’ve suspected. But I’m driving back from McDonald’s. I’ve got that bottle up to my list going back to my hotel room, I pass my father and various figures lie and Ma’am just like we in a big part of the draft together.

And I looked at him and he looked at me seven o’clock in the morning. She sees me with that bottle off to my left, embarrassed, so ashamed, shame that hadn’t called him up. Shane. I was calm. I was drinking in the morning, went back to the hotel, talk to him for a few minutes. He never said anything about the bottle. And now here I am, two years later sitting in this bar and in walks my dad again, there was never going to happen again. There’s a bunch of stuff in my life that because of my relationship with alcohol, it was never going to happen again. And I began to drink pear to have no ability to control or stop. And there’s no telling what’s going to happen with friends. Jail for drinking and driving, over and over always is the wrong place at the wrong time when I’m drinking. I remember I place just up until I realized, and so after that we’ll deal with dad and he said Hi. And he had to go to his neck and he said, well, try to call me while you’re here. And, and, and off we went and I spent the next 48 hours drinking

And, I couldn’t, I found myself in all kinds of crazy situation. I felt horrible about myself. I’d become something that I buy. And on Sunday morning as I’m thinking about checking the plane back to Victoria.

Early in the morning I’ve had a couple of bloody Marys’ already. Part of that misery is leaving me a little bit part of recriminations and me just five myself has loosened up a little bit, but I know currently is really wrong with me. I’m clear on that. And I go, I can’t quit. And, my friend came to visit, I was staying with another friend, a guy, Ken.

And he had a serious problem with alcohol and drugs in the past, from an early age college in Colorado. We renewed our friendship and we renewed our could take Barbara got as bad as Karen. I would do something about my drinking and when Ken saw, he looked at me, I’m standing in the bathroom, I’m working on my second or third bloody Mary and Kim, And I said, Ken, I’m doing very well. And he goes, whoa, what is, and I told him, I don’t seem to be able to quit drinking. He goes; I may have a solution for you. It took a while and he spent over an hour with me and he talked about how he’d gotten sober and 10 was the guy that if I ever got as bad as him, I would do something about my drink. And there he was sober.

And, he told me that he’d found sobriety and alcoholics humor. And because Karen and I had this shared background of drug abuse, I said, well, what about that? And he said, yeah, I don’t do any drugs either. I’m completely sober. She had about 90 days of sobriety. He told me his story and he followed the directions in the big book of how we approach these guys, main and main. And Man, I don’t, I don’t think he’d read that chapter, but he did it exactly the way you supposed to do it. And he intrigued and I thought it could do what I could do. And he gave me a bag and I took it back with me to Victoria. The next day I attended my first meeting.

I went into the clubhouse, in Victoria, Texas. I had called up alcoholics anonymous. They were in the phone book, the phone book, the phone book, and I found out that there was a meeting that night and I walked into that building, sat down and people started talking. They were introducing themselves. This one guy was talking about how his wife, every time she drank, she went out on him, cheated on him. And I have that. I’d been dating for years. Man, I didn’t like hearing that. And but I thought that Kim said, this is where I needed to just got to say in this gal next to me, looked at me and she said, honey, are you here for the AA meeting? And I said, yes ma’am. I sure haven’t. She said, well, it’s through those doors over there. This is all about, and I walked through these double doors, man. And people were standing in there with coffee cups and scrape her raps and everybody’s talking and nobody’s listening. It work like the Barnes, I was hanging out as a man. I felt comfortable there. I walked in and that first night, three guys spoke, they had a format and these guys told their stories and they were all about my age. One was five years older; one was five years younger,

And they told how they and they all had between five and 10 years of sobriety or mind blowing. And as I listened to these guys tell their story, one guy told about let them on a truck and his wife was pregnant and the children’s unborn child, we had a, had a relative in the back of the pickup truck and he was, he went to jail on a vehicular homicide charge and he got sober in prison. And the other guys told their stories and they told stories a lot, losing jobs and losing families and, and, and, and the miracle in that first meeting and the miracle of that, that, that honest sharing from those guys for me was, I didn’t here, I’m not like them because I hadn’t experienced most of the stuff those guys talked about most of that law.

Instead, what I heard was this is in store for me. All these things are in store for me. They just haven’t happened yet. And I’m so grateful that that’s what went through my head when I heard we tell their stories. after the meeting, I went up to a guy and I said, one of the guy who spoke and I said, I think I’m an alcoholic. And he said, yeah, that’s how most people get here. That is brilliant. How did he know? And he began to talk to me and he said, listen on denied and pray to a god. You probably don’t believe that. And then that least, cause I slept with a bottle and I couldn’t get through this without a drink. So I slept with a bottle so I can wake up in the middle and guys take a couple of things and then go back to sleep.

I went home that night and I prayed your way. You told me to. I said, God, if you’re up there, I can’t stop drinking on my own and I need help. You’re going to have to do it for me. Please can be sober through the night? And I swear I heard a voice that said you never have to drink again. And in fact, in my case, that’s true. I never did. So it was September 7th, 1984 and I ended up having to change my sobriety day because I mentioned I also had a problem with those, substances. And, so I, some heroin, these AA meetings and claims cause nobody said you can’t do heroin. And then I realized my head look out, kill me. I realize the brain that it allowed me to do that. We’re not around me and I locked my door and I hear, and I asked you to guide your mirror ride to this AA meeting. He gave me a ride and I met my first sponsor that night. I ask him to sponsor me. I told him what had happened. He said, Oh, you’re going to do is change your sobriety date.

And two, September 20, I will tell you that guy’s name was, and bud was a beautiful man. I mean, he just showed me the most simple thing, how to go out and eat in a restaurant without drinking. how to talk with people, how to afterwards, after the meeting to go to the meeting after the meeting he told me who to hang around because he knew, the guys who were working in the program and he had a frustration about those or weren’t working in a program. And man, it started off. It was just beautiful. I will laugh to be around people with a solution and everything you guys said just blew my mind. How could you know that? Where did you learn that? Hey, worse in or of alcoholics anonymous. I still am. I’m just blown away. I got my first 90 days of sobriety, in Victoria, Texas. Then I moved back to my home. I have an apartment in Denver. The job was over. I wanted to come back and, 90 days sober, I came back to them. Now Bud was not a four footsteps out of the book guy. I was not a read the big book too, you kind of guy. But I was just so happy to be sober.

We would talk about what I read, but we didn’t talk about what steps looked like or where the directions are or anything like that. Or if he did, I didn’t hear, but he was great for me. He was just perfect. And when I got back to Denver, I about two years sober, I still hadn’t worked. Staff I thought I had is that then reading those words on the, on the poster and I thought, man, I’m not the got it by Osmosis, you know. And but I began to attend meetings down in south Denver place called happy way. These guys had some heavy hitters. These guys were trained and how to take people through the big book about the auction on May believe that as a result of working these, yeah, she followed the directions. You would have an awakening. And so I knew there was something different about these people you could tell for by people share. And then one of these guys are like, there’s something going on, I’m not going to get, no matter how many meetings I go to. And one of them, a guy named Jerry, see, I asked him, Jerry was your sponsor, me and he took me through yeah.

Was 32 years or so, maybe 31 years ago? And my wife since then I have the promised awake. And my life has been more involved. That’s the big bucks to be able to take and people through the big park to be able to take our time and read it slowly. basically those who’ve never had the privilege of being able to do that in a long, slow journey through the big book, understanding exactly where the directions for each and every step promises, how we feel before we go into the staff thank before we go in to eat and what we cover, right. Recovery looks fine. And so, probably when I was four or five years sober, we add, I’d attended workshops and I invited a bunch of guys that I sponsored and their friends and they will see you. And we’d met in my basement. And then I did my first big book meeting where we all walked through the big buck. And, I’m having a love affair with those kinds of needs and those experiences and those friends that I’ve met, through my participation, a dedication to the big book, her work. And it changed me,

And I got alcoholism. I still, offer, if I’m not in the middle of the book working with other people and if I’m not working, went by, I’ve had done died a number of years ago and I asked the guy in Denver, I think 24, maybe 25 years, and we’ve worked with Steph and about five years ago, he said, I could make it as time for us to work the steps. And he said, I’ll be happy to do that with you, but,

I will only do it if you tell me that you’ll meet, be again in a year. And I said, sure, I’ll do that. There were a whole lot of times I said to make sure, sure, I’m not going to argue with him, but I don’t know what I’m to do yet. This one, one of them son murdered that. He’s got a direction for me. It’s probably worth following. And I said, sure, I’ll do that. Over the last five or so years we’ve gone to, every year we do have a kind of near my birthday and

What I found is that having had a spiritual awakening or the results of the staff and it turns out that an awakening, I believe this is my experience of working the steps and the results are that I can work the stuff multiple times and I can have multiple ways. In fact, I that I pose the question to myself, I guess, David, how long does it take for an awakening to become an old idea? Because the book tells us until we let go of our old ideas or results that we’re talking about change. And, I’m not sure how long it is, but what I know is I continue to change at an accelerated rate as I continue to work the steps while I continue to bring other people through the steps with a deeper and deeper understanding of my own spiritual experience. And the big book of alcoholics anonymous.

The other thing that I would say as rocket and to the fourth dimension of existence, you know, I love some of the phrases they use in the book. You know, there had been rocketed into the fourth dimension of existence of which would not even dream, right? We have entered the world of the spirit really. I feel like I walked through the front door and walked out the back door. Right. What does it mean to be in the world of the spirit? Well, that may be a new awakened that may be rash years awakening or two years ago has become an old idea. And so I think it’s the old idea and keep on the sober instead of one thing I know is the way my sponsors have taken me through the big bucks every time we do it. Every time we worked the steps together, a new closeness, a new awakening, has been provided.

But one of the things that accelerated once again an instruction from my sponsor, Mickey, David are you willing to get serious about that? 10 and 11 are you willing to get six then about when these things crop up, we ask God to remove that. Once we talked to someone in the or, we will make amends and then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Are you willing to get serious about that? I need to call me and over the, and it took a long time and I was going for a long time before I had about any kind of consistent, pattern of actually doing a temp stuff.

And I do a lot of them was making and I do a lot of them with a circle of friends that I’ve met that we share 10 steps with each other and I was at a meeting on Saturday 11th step meditation being that we wrapped up with everybody read a 10th step or if they haven’t written it down, they just and we share that in the circle after we talked after we all new stuff, Paul pain. The other thing is the nightly review of the 11 when we retire and then we constructively review our day and I’d be done to answer all those questions. Then he told me to start doing that 20 years ago and it took me a up until about five or six years ago, they developed for practice and what has happened as a result of developing that consistent 11 practice, the nightly review, I believe Bill Wilson in the 12 and 12 where he said, hey, 10 separate examinations.

And prayer and meditation provide much benefit and we, hey Jean, staff roadway examining. Yep. Yes. The nightly review. First step, 11 exam taken separately examination in prayer and meditation much to benefit when they are logically interconnected.

Logically, a former Knight Foundation for life. My meditation practice is one that, I fell in to 30 years ago. I worked for a guy that, you’ve been here a year. I’m going to pay for you to get trained in meditation and quiet usually twice a day. I haven’t met sit for 30 years and I’m, and yet my growth and my medication as a result of logically interconnecting examination, this prayer and meditation loaded.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t have no, I mean, I don’t listen to this alcoholic mind that I don’t fall into worry, remorse, morbid request. No, I do those things and I have a way out. That’s a big book gave me and the other people have guided me. And so I think we hit just about 45 minutes. I want to tell you what a thrill is for me to be able to finish out. 2018 number of you were with us as we went through chapters four and five. That nice slow ride. And, to be invited back and share my story with you. I love alcoholics anonymous. I love alcoholic. I know that I am never more like God intended me to be and when on mean day. I love you all.

Ginger: Thank you so much David H.

David H: Oh, you’re welcome.

Ginger: So if anyone would like to ask David a question or share comments again. You push four star slowly to unmute the line and come on.

Jean: This is Jean from Boston. I have a question.

David H. Yes.

Jean: Great. Okay. Thank you so much for your story. What a privilege it really is. There are many things that rang true to my heart with your story and your recovery and what a delight. I do have one question about the work that you do every year because I do that as well and I’m just wondering how you go deeper. Like do you, I don’t think sponsors, but like how do you focus on different things in terms of your powerlessness and unmanageability obviously fourth step is, is this thing that I’m just wondering, like how you have, how you set aside everything you think, you know, for a new experience with the work and.

David H: Sure. Thank you very much. Great question. When, Mickey and I go through the steps now and first of all, I’m almost always doing one of these big reports. And so I work with my group when we’re doing it, which includes inventory, we right inventory and then we would meet as a group and share, one piece of our in the toy. Everybody gets to share. One piece is there. And so all I have some inventory and I’ll read that to Mike and he’s aware of, you know, what I’m doing. But when he and I, we start on page 52, and, so we look at how am I doing in my life.

And anybody got in front of them by chance. Okay, we were here, we’d go. And I say, yeah, I mean I’m not really, except for when I do write and I go from being loving and kind to others to may or not get all defensive and it may be somebody I didn’t understand what you said. And so I go, yeah, okay. I taught by there we couldn’t control our emotional nature. Sure I can until I came and all of a sudden, my nature, my emotional nature controlling me.

We were praying and misery and depression are pretty, for the most part, a fairly even keeled. But all I can wake up in the middle of the night and think my large show now that’s her clinical depression. But it’s a mind taking me down, you know, we couldn’t make a living. I had a great job one time.

You should read this, couldn’t make a living. And I thought that didn’t apply to me. I have a tremendous ability, to, to make 11 or take care of my family. And, this guy that I worked with, we were both vice presidents in this very small company and he said, he, I was telling him that I was up stub with our own and he looked at me. We had just received the biggest farm if we ever had you looked at me and he goes, I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but before you ever go talk to the owner about working on your mind, I want you coming here to chocolate first. And I realized, holy cow.

That inability to make a liver, I will build up this structure, pull the whole thing down around my head in and, I have a motion. Oh my gosh. Now all this stuff’s starting to make sense to me. This is first we had a feeling of uselessness.

Wait, you got kids. You know that word comes up, you do your best, and then you’re, and you think, what in the Hell is wrong with me? Or if you’re foreign term people, Gosh, am I have no use to anybody, which is a little bit pity him, but there’s also some truth. Then how do we work forward? Fear not until I am. So anyway, you know that’s where we start and it’s all first step stuff. And he says, if this stuff applies to you that day, I’m powerless over my mind, bill it to try to take me down 30 years of medic people through the steps, then sober 34 a year. And if are not on guard, God’s not in the middle of my life. It’s God’s not in the middle of my trying to be closer to God.

Then Bill Wilson called them the God given him. My instincts take over and it’s about power and control, security and survival, section of steam approval, and they run my life. And so, and Marie over there, am I powerless over my own ability? I have no power to change me at any fundamental. So step one applies, and that’s where we start. And we take all these steps and we go, okay, and then I had a drink in 34 years. But where are you atheist or agnostic in your life today? Where do you not trust and rely on God today? Third, are you willing to give everything to God? Look at the areas where you’re holding on and on and on and on. We walked through the steps present test. Does that make sense? Or did I even begin to answer your question?

Jean: 100% makes Sense. We are on the same page. Thank you so much.

David H: You’re very welcome, same to you.

Ginger: Who else would like to ask David a question or have a comment for start? Well David, this is ginger and Colorado alcoholic and thank you so much for your service and I’m just curious. The book tells us clearly that everything centers in our mind, my meditation practices, big medicine for this mind of mine. Just to quiet it down. Thinking below the side and again, like you just mentioned, getting back to what’s most important, this power that keeps me and protected. So do you think, okay with someone who’s new to get them going into a meditation practice or introduced that?

My belief is they’re eventually going to have to get her. I would guess that there are exceptions to that. This guy, he was just amazing kids. My experience or my relationship with him, very sad about the behavior. Good or bad. She went with the lean up here. So he may tell a guy one day something and the next day you go over here and telling somebody something different. And it was because you didn’t have in my sponsor, it was always hard and fast. But, he called them spirit before he answered the question. And while I think there’s very few people who wouldn’t benefit, I know I started praying right away and then two or three years, four years in the sobriety.

I had a technique where I only 20 minutes twice a day. So, which was a lot different than just, God, I’d like to have this or keep me say or, or, or do I see there’s anything wrong with getting somebody started on some travel quiet time? I think for the most part that answer’s going to be yes. I also say no, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that at all. I think is probably a great idea. Or later, you’re going to have silence with your Creator or later you’re going to have to approve that conscious contact. I shut him out for a while and so, eventually we’re going to have to be there and as long as we’re bringing spirit, God be in great reality into the equation, less me quiet. We’re going to have pretty good direction. We will have that direct. I hope that helps. Thank you so much. And we’re about to the top of the hour and the recording.

God bless!