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Source: Aaron J – KY State AFG Convention 2024 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: aaron-j-ky-state-afg-convention-2024-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:45:36
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Hey everybody, I'm a member of Al-Anon, my name is Aaron J.. My home group is One Purpose Al-Anon Family Group in Charlotte, North Carolina. We meet on Thursday nights at 8 o'clock. We study a step each week, a tradition on the fourth Thursday of the month, and a concept when there's a fifth Thursday, and we're still doing Zoom hybrid things. So if you're interested in checking out a great meeting, I love my home group, let me know.
Anybody on the committee can give you my info and I'll get you that link, we'd love to see you. I do want to thank Julie and my wonderful host, Lynn, and her wonderful husband, John. And I'm just really grateful to be here. This has been an incredible weekend. Every speaker has been amazing. Those two workshops were two of the, I mean, Gordy and I didn't have to do anything. We just turned it over to the crowd, and the crowd was, it was a great crowd, first of all, but the input, it was just two of the best workshops I've seen in a long time.
So I've just really, really enjoyed myself and very glad to be here. Let's see, what I've been asked to tell you here, in a general way, was what I was like, what happened, and what I am like now. And I try to focus on that as much as possible. I do qualify for Al-Anon. My life has been affected by alcoholism and relatives and friends. But it's equally true that the defects of character that made my life so completely unmanageable when I got here, and still can today if I let them, the self-pity and the self-centered fear and the resentment and the rage and the overblown sense of responsibility for everything and everyone but myself, I don't remember a time that my life wasn't run by those.
I wasn't going along acting and thinking like a normal person, and then I met an alcoholic and went crazy. I've seen that happen. It does happen. It's just not my story. You know, I usually start out by saying I needed a meeting long before I picked up my first drunk. I am here because I've got a problem, and it's me. So, yeah, I'll just dive right in. I was born oldest of five kids in Charlotte, North Carolina, into a home that, I mean, by any reasonable standards, it was a solid, good, loving home.
But my standards had never been reasonable, and I was a miserable kid. All that love always came with fear, and it wasn't fear of each other. It was fear for each other. If you loved someone, you worried about them all the time. You were afraid for their well-being and their safety and their health. It's kind of how we measured how much you loved someone was how worried you were about them all the time.
And my mom is truly the most loving person I've ever met in my life, and it sounds like a joke, but she really is. She really is. I felt very overwhelmed by her love, very smothered, very suffocated. We were really not allowed to do anything outside of the house and church, and it was Mom's way of protecting us from the devil that was waiting around every corner to get us, and I did not appreciate being loved on those terms.
And the other thing that was a family joke from my earliest memories is that Mom needs to save the universe. So there's five kids, eventually, but I also have foster brother after foster brother after foster brother who come live with us, and then I have a brother, and then I don't. There's homeless people at the table and always strangers and the maroon that Mom's taking care of, and these are not bad things by any means.
But being selfish and self-centered from a very early age, I didn't like it. Why are all these strangers getting Mom's unconditional love? I want it all to myself. What is wrong with me? I developed an early perfectionistic streak. Maybe I'm just better. I can get Mom to love me the way I want to be loved. Like I said, we were at church all the time. I went to a tiny little church school from preschool on, and I was just, like I said, just miserable, painfully self-conscious.
In Al-Anon, I, for the first time, really looked at those words, self-conscious. And to me, what that means is I'm conscious of me. I'm thinking about me all the time, and I think you think about me all the time like I do, and I don't think anything good about me ever, so I know you're not thinking anything good about me. And this is a loop in my head from my earliest memories, just horribly uncomfortable in my own skin.
Felt like, you know, everybody had the plan and I didn't. But going back real quick, you know, I didn't like Mom's way of loving me or loving everybody else. And it may not surprise you to know that the only real problem drinker that I knew growing up was my mom's mom. Now, she was the fun grandma. She wasn't the one that made me go to church. She was the one that would sip me a sip of every beer I'd bring her at the party and act inappropriately in public, which is a lot of fun until you're a certain age.
And it is not, I mean, for a kid, a granny sitting on a stranger's lap at the restaurant again, that's hilarious. Why does nobody else think that's funny? So, and like most problem drinkers I've known, she was talented and gregarious and so much fun to be around. But maybe my mom, growing up as the oldest child of this problem drinker,
[00:04:59]
maybe that had something to do with Mom's way of loving and this need to rescue and save.
[00:05:06]
But of course I didn't know anything about the family disease back then. And this is not about blaming anyone. It's about how this family disease can affect us all the way down the line. I ended up getting kicked out of 8th grade at that church school for nothing in particular. I was just, I'd skipped a grade. I had straight A's from that perfectionism. But I was so angry all the time, arguing every day.
And they finally gave up and my mom, my mom prefers to this day that I say I was asked to leave. Because that's different than being kicked out of school. So I was asked to leave halfway through 8th grade. Then I was homeschooled for a year and a half. And that was awful for everyone involved in that. And then for grades 10, 11, and 12, they sent me off to another small religious private school that they really couldn't afford.
But again, this is Mom's way of loving me and protecting me. And I didn't see it that way. And I hated it. I rebelled at every turn. And now I'm a year younger than everybody. I'm 14 in 10th grade. I've had a year and a half of almost no social interaction with anyone because I'm homeschooled. And I walk in and these kids all seem to have a lot of money and we didn't. They seem to dress the same and have the same haircut and I didn't have any of that.
And I just decided they're going to hate me. So I'm going to hate them first. I'm going to keep them from rejecting me. I'm going to reject them first. I was looking through my parents' attic the other day for something. I found a plaque from my senior year from that school where I was voted most talented. But I don't remember that because I was so busy feeling sorry for myself that I had no friends.
Those kids liked me. They at least respected me. It blew my mind when I found that. I truly have no memory of this. I thought I had no friends in high school. Anyway, that's an aside. But yeah, I'm miserable and still in trouble all the time, but still making the straight A's, which is the only thing that got me through high school. And I found my solution. Halfway through that year, she blew into that school out of nowhere.
And boy, she was like nothing I had ever met in my very, very sheltered existence. I had her hair dyed all pink, which was slightly less usual in the early 90s at a private religious school. She dressed in crazy clothes. I know today I could have picked her out blindfolded. I'm just really good at finding these people who need my help. And she really seemed like she needed my help. So we started dating.
She was an older woman. She was 17 and I was 15, so that was exciting. And it was insane. It was exhilarating and terrifying, and we've all heard it. Lied about everything for no reason. Was drunk all the time. Was never where she said she was going to be. All the stuff that we know about. But I had a full-time job now. I don't have time to sit by myself and wonder what's wrong with me. I have someone to take care of.
I have someone who desperately needs me, clearly. And, you know, I don't think she was looking for someone to save. But through inventory, I know for sure I was looking for someone to save. I'm sorry, I don't think she was looking for someone to save her. I was looking for someone to save. Mom had taught me, without meaning to, that to be a good person, you go out, you find the sickest people you can find, you hold them down and help the hell out of them whether they want it or not.
And that's what good people do. You don't take care of yourself, ever. You help and rescue. And that filled a hole that I didn't know existed until I met this girl. I mean, I remember at 15 years old. I was trying to think about 15-year-olds today. 15 years old, she's 70. How fulfilling it was every time I got to hold her hair while she threw up. Because look at this good guy. This person is sick. She needs my help.
I need to help someone, and I need to be needed. So it was nuts, as you can imagine, and we graduated the same year. She was 19, I was 17. She did the quote-unquote normal thing. She went off to college in Tennessee. I said, I hate school, I hate authority, I hate my parents, I'm never going to school, I'm moving out. And, you know, I've always said I hated that stuff, and I did, but that was almost entirely fear-based.
The idea of going off to a college with thousands and thousands of people. I think there were 61 people in my high school graduating class. It's probably how I won most talented. But the idea of going off with all these people that I didn't know terrified me. There was no way I could do that. So I moved out. I got to choose for the first time in my life who I was going to live with, and this is who I chose.
Two guys, well on their way toward probable alcoholism with these other issues thrown in. And the fourth roommate, I'm still friends with him today, is one of these weird people who's not an alcoholic,
[00:10:02]
but also not whatever is wrong with me. And he did not last long in that house. Someone rented four 17, 18-year-olds a house, which is mind-boggling. And it was actually a pretty nice place for like three hours, and then it was not a nice place anymore. I mean, it was insanity. And my good friend said, I can't live like this. I don't even think he lasted a month. I had to go to work in the morning.
He moved back in with his mom, and I was infuriated at him. How could he do that to me? How could he leave me here with these drunken idiots? Why is it always my job to make sure the bills get paid and the holes in the walls get patched and the cops get talked to when they're here every other week? Why is that always on me? Why can't they just get their act together, maybe for a week, and give me a break, give me a rest?
And I think that's a crux of my insanity. For my life to be more manageable, someone else has to change. And as long as that's true, I've got no hope. And the other thing that's crazy is it never occurred to me that I could find somewhere else to live. I don't mean I thought I could live somewhere else and, oh, that's not an option for whatever reason. It literally never occurred to me that I could change something and my life could get slightly better.
Someone else has got to change. We had to find a fourth roommate, and we met this really old guy who was probably, like, 29. He seemed like he had a lot of money. And he was blowing through town, and he needed a place to stay, so a stranger met out at a bar somewhere, buying everybody drinks. I'm like, yeah, move in with us, old man. And he did, and to his credit, he did pay the rent, but also the reason he had so much money is he was not only probably an alcoholic with these other issues.
He was selling these other issues out of my house. And then things got really insane. Now I have hundreds of people a week coming in and out of my house. Every rave after party in Charlotte in 1993 was in my house, I swear. And it was, oh, man, now things are, now I'm out of my mind. I'm kicking people off the bathroom floor in the morning so I can take a shower to go to work. I'm stalking around the house with a shotgun.
I'm scaring people. I'm just out of my mind. Why is my life so unmanageable? I didn't know that term at the time, but why is my life so miserable? Because they won't change. What are those roommates? We had gotten to be pretty close, and we would hang out and talk a lot. Neither of us went out a lot, and we drank a lot together. This is usually where I remember to say that I was right there with these guys doing a lot, not everything, but a lot of what they were doing.
If any substance had ever worked that magic that I've heard thousands of alcoholics describe over the years, anything that ever just made me feel okay, I'd probably be dead. The only thing that came close to that was finding someone to obsess about and take care of. Anyway, he got hooked on the stuff the new guy was selling, and it was like he was a different person overnight. It was devastating. I must have read about Tough Love somewhere, and I sat him down one day.
He was the other one who was still 17. We were two 17-year-olds, and I was like, I love you, man, and our friendship means a lot to me, but if you keep doing this stuff, we can't be friends anymore. He looked me dead in the eye and said, okay, bye, and I was devastated. How could he do that to me? Doesn't our friendship mean anything to him? I'm so grateful in Al-Anon to know today that nothing out there has anything at all to do with me, but back then they were all doing it to me.
My girlfriend was going to visit for the first time from Tennessee. We've been trying to do a long-distance thing, and I'm looking forward to this for weeks. I'm a planner because I'm a control freak. I had the whole weekend planned out, and this is just a testament to the type of place I chose to live. She finally got there. She walked in the door. Someone immediately handed her a substance. She did what she always did, which was to ingest that substance without bothering to ask what it was, and, you know, I got plans.
Her plans for the evening now involve sitting in the corner for the next 8 to 10 hours looking at her hands. That's what she's going to be doing tonight, and I was devastated. How could she do that to me? Doesn't she know that I've got plans that I've been looking forward to seeing her? And that was not the first of the hundreds of times she had done something exactly like that, but, again, that's my insanity.
This time it'll be different. This time they'll love me the way I want to be loved. This time they'll behave the way I think they ought to behave, and when they do the exact same thing they've always done, I'm shocked. I cannot believe they just did the exact same thing that they've shown me 100 times. That's my insanity. I don't know why that was the final straw, but it was. I had it in that relationship, and I'm not proud of this, but I was…
Relationship. And I'm not proud of this, but I was scared of her.
[00:15:00]
She was physically violent, increasingly so. And so like a real man, I waited until she was back in college in Tennessee and broke up with her over the phone. And I'm not proud of that, but that's the truth. And she did what I expected. Her roommate was calling me saying she just punched out a window and she broke her hand and she's going to cut herself with the glass and you've got to change your mind.
And somehow I said no. And that was a miracle. I never said no about anything. If I was going to get a pat on the back or just feel like a good guy, I put myself in insanely dangerous situations because I could not say no. I put, I didn't put the money down, but I put my ID and my signature on a $10,000 bond for acquaintances of a sort of friend because none of them had driver's licenses. Because that's what a good guy would do, right?
That's what a complete idiot would do. The guy did show up to court, but that's just an example of my inability to say no, thank you. I don't think I will involve myself in that, but somehow I was able to say no. And I never talked to her again. I moved around a lot in my late teens and early 20s and she never had my number, but she had my parents' number. And it would always be three in the morning when she's calling them and they tell me the next day she's calling again.
Yeah, never had any contact with her. I talk about her a lot because A, I chose her. She didn't choose me. First, I believe alcoholic, that I chose on purpose. And I hated her when I came into Al-Anon. She did a lot of terrible stuff. I mean, she really did. And I thought she had ruined my view of love and women and relationships. I was halfway, no, I was done with my eighth step. I was working on my ninth step and I found out that at some point she did end up taking her own life.
And I am so selfishly grateful that I had some recovery when I found that out because if I had not, I would have done what I always did, which should be to somehow make that about me. What could I have done? Maybe if I had taken one of those phone calls. And I wouldn't have seen the incredible arrogance and ego of me thinking that I could have had some power over this disease that she was powerless over.
It's just how I thought all the time. When I found that out, I was completely free of the rage, resentment, but I also didn't have any overblown sense of responsibility for that. And that freedom, I never got to make amends to her because my sponsor and I didn't know where she was. But the willingness that the eighth step talks about, all that freedom came straight from making the list of them all and becoming willing to make amends to them all.
And we didn't move on. That's just my experience. We did not move on to nine until both alls were checked off there. And so again, the incredible freedom of amends is one thing, but just that willingness. I was totally free. I didn't hate her. She wasn't a horrible person. I believe she had a horrible disease. And I felt sorry for her for never finding recovery, and I felt terrible for her family. But going back very briefly, I promise, now I'm 18, I guess, and I find out real quick that I can't not be with someone.
Now I'm back to I only have myself to sit around and think about. So it was a matter of weeks or months. I reached out and grabbed my next one. Her older sister, her older sister had alcoholism, I believe, was destroying her family life. And she was still in high school. We moved in together. I think she was 17, I was 18, and lived together off and on, but mostly on for the next four and a half years, 18 to 22 and a half, of what I hope are the worst years of either of our lives.
First two people who hated each other, or hated themselves, we didn't hate each other, but hated ourselves, and therefore weren't going to have any respect for someone who wanted to be in a relationship with us. I mean, it was rough. We had some good times. We came through Kentucky. We got a VW van and spent months living on the road. And I was trying so hard to be a hippie. There are a couple of things wrong with that.
First off, it was the mid-90s. But mostly, I found out that people like me, who desperately need Al-Anon, make horrible hippies. It's time-oriented, control freak, it's my van, we're doing it my way, and I mean, I had the red beard literally down to here, and the long hair, and I had the look, and I could never grasp, I just couldn't relax. The seeming ease of comfort of that lifestyle was so attractive to me.
I wanted it, and I just couldn't do it. I was the worst hippie in the history of hippies, so it's really bad. Anyway, so we had some good times, but mostly it was terrible. But I stayed for the same reasons I always stayed. It's never going to get any better than this. I don't deserve any better, so I better hold on to what I've got. And I stayed not just in relationships. I did friendships like this.
[00:20:00]
I did jobs like this. It's never going to get any better. Stick with what I've got. I truly believed that she needed me, and I still needed to be needed, but I think more than anything, the abject terror of just being alone was worse than the worst relationship you can imagine. So we were going to get married. We found a place in Colorado up above Boulder, a place called Nitterland, and we were going to start our magical journey together.
And what happened was I met Annie. Annie and I had been working together for a few years and had gotten to be really close friends. And she would say stuff like, you know, I just, every morning I've got to decide everything or God is nothing, and I just believe if I seek God's will and do the footwork in the direction I feel led, things are going to work out the way they're supposed to. And this was so different from the dogma that I rejected from my childhood.
I know a large part of what I fell in love with was the program Alcoholics Anonymous. She was about four years sober at this point. And what happened was somehow right before I was leaving for Colorado, we realized that we were both just head over heels in love with each other, like we'd never experienced and didn't really even believe existed this type of love. But fiancé, I have a fiancé. So I had to end that relationship.
That was terrible. And it's so embarrassing why that was so hard for me to do. I just didn't think she could live without me. I had zero self-esteem, no sense of self-worth whatsoever, but I convinced myself that someone just couldn't live without me. That's nuts. She's fine, by the way. She has told me. So I think she's thanked me twice for ending that abomination of a relationship. But yeah, at the time, just didn't think she was going to make it.
The other awkward thing was we had packed up everything. Our little duplex was empty. Everything was in the car. We had a friend who lived in Colorado who was staying with us who, before I broke up with her, we told him, when we go get married, we'll drive you home because we're driving to Colorado. Well, if I say I'm going to do something. So one very awkward morning, the three of us piled in that car with everything we owned.
I drove straight from Charlotte to Boulder. For some reason, I remember it took almost exactly 24 hours. I wouldn't let anybody else drive. We stopped a few times for gas and gas station food. Because if I'm going to do something difficult, I'm going to do it in the most insane, dangerous way to get it over with. Dropped him off at home, dropped her off with some friends she had there, gave her everything we owned because that's how I dealt with guilt.
I was so overwhelmed with the guilt and shame, shame of breaking up with her. And took a 23, I think, 22 and a half, duffel bag and a pillow, everything I owned in the world, got on a Greyhound bus, 44-hour trip back, that was a lot of fun. And got to the, you know, the bus station at what, 3, 4 in the morning and Annie picked me up. And we moved in together because that's how I date, apparently. Now Annie does like me to remember to say that there really was no infidelity and that's the truth.
We literally moved in together before we had our first date. Not the way to do it, but that is actually what happened. Because Annie's like, I was four years sober at the time, what are people going to think about that? Sometimes I forget to say that part. Anyway, and it was just bliss. Like I said, neither of us ever experienced anything like this and I'm going to open AA meetings with her and meeting these young people who love recovery, you know, and I obviously love drunks, I've just never met sober ones.
It turns out I love them too. And I read, you know, I read the first 164 pages of her book and just think this is great stuff for people that need it. And then I remember I heard her give her AA talk and I was like, oh, she needs it. Because this woman she's describing that she was is not the woman I fell in love with. And so it's just going along. And this relationship immediately became my higher power.
I didn't have one. I thought this was the only good thing that had ever happened to me in my life. I truly delusionally convinced myself of that. And yeah, this was my God, this relationship. And so what happened was we were visiting some friends, actually that original roommate that I'm still friends with, he and his girlfriend were in Wilmington, North Carolina. We all four go out to a restaurant that was also a brewery and Annie's assured me she's fine being around alcohol, four years sober.
So we're going to order a pitcher of beer for the three of us. And they're bringing us shot glasses of beer to see what kind of beer we want to order. And Annie reaches over and swigs a shot glass of beer. I'm not here to tell a story, but she's given me permission to share that clearly she had stopped doing stuff she's got to do on a daily basis to maintain her sobriety.
[00:25:01]
And she was ready to drink. And I had no idea. She was waiting for us to say, hey, it's about time, join in. That's not the reaction she got. I was appalled. My friends are just very confused because they know she's sober. And Annie played it off and slid it back across the table and said, I was just fooling around. There's more alcohol in a banana than there was in that shot glass of beer. And that's all I ever saw.
That's all I have ever seen her drink. And everything crashed. And I was about to learn about some of the other symptoms of alcoholism that don't involve the overconsumption of alcohol. We got back to Charlotte. And I was a little bothered by it, but I'm still on this pink cloud. And again, she's given me permission to share. She had a new sponsor. She's working back through the steps. And as kind of an afterthought, she says, I had literally a swig of beer a couple months ago.
And her sponsor said, oh, well, OK, you're going to need to change your sobriety date. Welp, that did not go over well. That woman that, you know, a woman I fell in love with loved AA so much and loved her sponsor and the fellowship and the program. This woman was angry and resentful and saying stuff like, if I'm going to pick up a white ship, I'm going to go earn a damn white ship. And I was terrified.
First of all, it was all my fault, of course, because I'm that powerful. If I had not taken her there and ordered that beer, this never would have happened. But even more than that, I'm thinking, I want to spend my life with this woman. How am I going to live the rest of my life walking on eggshells, monitoring her mood, keeping an eye on her, following her to meetings to make sure that's where she's going?
How am I going to live the rest of my life to make sure she never even thinks about drinking? Like I said, I really thought this relationship was the best thing that ever happened to me and she's a completely different person. She's angry and resentful and I'm getting blamed for stuff that has nothing to do with me. Where did all of this come from? You know, I learned about, like I said, some of the other symptoms, I believe, of alcoholism that have nothing to do with the consumption of alcohol.
And I was at the end of my rope. I was at my own jumping off place. I couldn't imagine life with the alcoholic and I couldn't imagine life without the alcoholic. Not with her like this. Why can't I have the woman back that I fell in love with? But I definitely can't imagine life without her. And I was literally ready to check out. And I was describing this insanity to a friend of hers in AA who did a very loving thing.
As a member of AA, she said, have you heard of Al-Anon? And I probably said something like, yeah, I've heard about that Al-Anon stuff. My view of Al-Anon came from the uninformed opinions of some members of AA. And it was just ignorance. But yeah, I was like, yeah, it's not for me. And again, she didn't push it. But as a member of AA, she said, I've been going. It's really been helping me with some issues.
You might want to give it a shot. And I was just desperate enough to try one more thing to prove that this isn't going to work either. Nothing has ever worked for me. I'm too broken. I'm too crazy. And thank God for that desperation. So one night in June or July of 1999, and nobody told me to write it down, so I didn't. But it was definitely summer of 1999. I went to my first meeting. And I looked around there.
And I was even more sure that I didn't belong in Al-Anon. I mean, I still had a big red beard down to here and the long hair and probably cut off jeans. And I mean, it was 95% women. The median age appeared to be about 102. I mean, I was 23. I was 23. Everybody looks really old when you're 23. I'm the old gray guy now. I'm way more than twice 23. But I thought, there is no way I can have anything in common with these women.
And they welcomed me with open arms. They said, you're in the right place. Nobody asked me if I was looking for the other meeting downstairs. Please don't do that. I would have figured out if I was looking for the other meeting eventually. What I was looking for was a reason to not come back. And nobody would give that to me. I cannot tell you how much I didn't want to be here. But nobody would give me that reason.
So yeah, I started going. And Annie and I did get married in January of 2000. And the first while was nuts. She describes it as a long period of dry drunk. She wasn't drinking. But she just could not get back to spiritual sobriety that she had had before having to change her sobriety date, which she did do, by the way. And we went through just about everything I've ever heard described in active alcoholism without the alcohol to blame it on.
And I'm not going to go into details because that doesn't matter. But it was horrible. It was horrible. And they told me in Illinois, yes, she is insane, but so are you. And you better find a way you can be okay no matter what she's doing, which was an absolute impossibility. That idea was just nuts. It's the opposite of love, right? I'm supposed to be okay if someone I love isn't. Yeah, it's kind of the point.
Big point, at least, of Al-Anon. So, we're going along and I'm so glad I landed the meeting
[00:30:05]
where first of all, they weren't talking about alcoholics. They were talking about themselves, their defects of character, you know, their spiritual life. But I'm also so glad they were talking about the steps. I love the fellowship. I love the meetings. Can't live without them. So, for me, just for me, it's the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery. And if I'm going to get better, I'm going to have to work this program, which means I'm going to have to ask a man to help me. And, I mean, with my arrogance and fear, that was one of the hardest things I've ever done. But one of the single best things I've ever done for myself. This guy and I had absolutely nothing in common. He wore a suit to meetings and I definitely did not. He was probably my dad's age. I have no concept. But he had something I wanted. I finally got all my courage up and said, will you be my sponsor?
And he said, yeah, I'd be happy to work for you. But I got to tell you, I'm also a member of AA. And I didn't know that. In most of our meetings in Charlotte, we ask members of other anonymous fellowships to maintain their anonymity so we can keep the focus on the Al-Anon program. And he respected that. And I'm glad that he respected that. But, you know, my first thought was there were like 40 people at a meeting. I could still pick a drunk. Just love these people. But then it would have been really awkward to say, oh, well, never mind. So, I said, let's. And I, we got started. And I thought I had taken the first step. I knew my life was unmanageable. I mean, and I knew I couldn't control anything Annie was doing, drinking or otherwise. So I was like, let's move on. He had me do something that's very helpful for me. And this isn't really in any of our literature. He had me write down every single thing, every person, outcome, institution, everything that I'm powerless over. But much more importantly than that, he had me write down specifically how my life becomes unmanageable when I'm trying to control those things. That's the connection I needed to see. My life's not unmanageable because I'm powerless over alcohol and alcoholism, alcoholics. If that were true, I wouldn't have any hope. I'm always going to be powerless. It only becomes unmanageable when I'm trying to control that stuff. And that's the connection I needed to see because I'd lived my life with this delusion that if I love you, obviously I can't be okay unless you're okay. And of course you being okay means you're doing what I think you ought to be doing, not doing the stuff I don't think you should be doing. And if you're not applying my solution to what I think your problem is, the only reason for that that I can imagine is that I haven't explained it well enough yet. I mean, because obviously I love you and I have your best interests at heart and obviously it's really clear that your behavior is not okay. So I will explain over and over and over in slightly different words this really simple concept I'm trying to get through to you with this delusion, and that's the only word for it, that one day you're going to get it. And you're going to apologize for not getting it sooner. That's always part of this fantasy. Oh, what you're saying is so clear, I can't believe I didn't, you know.
And that's so silly. And then, and only then, am I going to be okay. And that's not just unmanageability. That's the insanity I lived my whole life with. And so I really needed to look at the dumpster fire that results when I'm trying to run the everybody show for me to think about this power greater than me. And I came in with a lot of prejudice against the God of my upbringing, and it was all preconceived notions and contempt prior to investigation. And I'm so glad I got to just start over. It doesn't even say God.
It doesn't even say it's a being. It says there's a power, some power greater than me that could restore me to sanity. I wasn't quite arrogant enough to say whatever's keeping the planet spinning couldn't restore me to sanity. And that's all I had to do, move on. And Paths to Recovery has a line which to me is hilarious. It says, having come to believe it naturally follows that we would make this decision to turn our will and our lives over.
I'm glad if that was your experience. It did not naturally follow for me to make this decision to turn my will and my life over. And it was all about control. I was terrified of giving up control. My sponsor had to explain it probably a million times. I am never being asked to give up control. I'm being asked to give up the delusion of control. I don't have any control to give up. If I think I have control to give up, I need to take another look at that thorough first step that I worked. And so with his help, I finally got that through my thick skull, and I got on my knees, and I prayed a third step prayer, and we launched into action. We have a lot of different ways to do inventory in Al-Anon. I don't think there's a right way or a wrong way. The way he did it for me, very simple, you know, and that worked very well for me, resentments list, sex conduct list, and fears list. And that resentment list is a great way of tricking someone like me into taking my inventory because first I get to write down all these terrible people. And then next to each one of those, I get to write down all the terrible things they've done my whole life that have ruined my life. And then it gets a little harder because I have to look specifically how was I affected by that, and just fear, fear, fear all over the place, shot through with it.
[00:35:03]
But then it gets really hard because I got to turn the page, set all that aside, and look at my behavior. First, I suggested maybe they were sick. Maybe I ought to think about forgiving them and praying for them, and not for their sake. They don't care. Maybe if I want to be free, I ought to think about letting that stuff go. But then like I said, we got to put it all aside and look at me. Why did I consistently make decisions based on self that put me in those positions to be hurt? And that was painful. I couldn't blame anybody anymore. This was on me. And I got to see in black and white my defects of character. But the great thing about that is if it's me that's blocking me from the sunlight of the spirit with the help of God and my sponsor, I can do something about that.
If I still think it's them, I've got no hope. And so we did that inventory, and he sent me home, reviewed the first five proposals to make sure I had been as thorough as possible, and I believed that I was, and got on my knees, prayed a seven-step prayer, and went to bed and got up in the morning, and nothing had changed. I don't know what I expected to happen. I even called him, which is very silly. And I just don't feel like I've still got all the defects. And he probably said something very loving like, did you read any of the words in those two steps? Because it says nothing about the defects being removed. It says I'm entirely ready, and I humbly ask God to do it. And a big part of that humility is like everything else is not going to be on my time. It's going to be on God's time.
It's probably not going to be the defect that's making me uncomfortable at the moment that gets removed next. But the readiness that the sixth step talks about, that's an action for me. That's not some nebulous concept of am I ready, am I not? It's an action that I've got to take every day, and usually I take that by acting differently than I did in the past or than I want to in the current moment. God has never removed my resentment if I keep doing for someone what they could be doing for themselves. I can pray and pray and pray. For me, it's never happened. I've got to ask for the courage to stop doing their job for them. Then the resentment is removed. God has never removed my self-centered fear if I refuse to do stuff that terrifies me like public speaking. When I was first asked to speak in just a meeting, my home group, I got up there maybe 15 minutes. My legs were shaking. I was terrified of people when I got here. I could barely read a step off a piece of paper being passed around a circle because my hands shook so badly. But I had to say yes. I was told I needed to learn how to say no to a lot of things, but Al-Anon requests were not on that list. So I said yes, and I got through it. I survived. Then the first time I was asked to speak at something a little bigger like this, and they give you like a year to think about that every day. I mean, I would think about that multiple times a day for about a year and have literal physical pain right there. It physically hurt.
The fear was so overwhelming. I pray, God, to me this is just self-centered fear. I'm afraid I'm going to get up there and not make any sense, fall off the stage, whatever. Please remove that so I can do your will, which is just to share to the best of my ability what God and my program had done in my life. And I can tell you, I prayed that every day. And when I got up behind that podium, I was just as terrified as I'd been every day of that year. But the point is, the next time, it got a little easier. And the time after that, it got a little easier. I still get nervous. I'm like, I'm sweating. It's ridiculous.
That's not a defect. It's not keeping me from doing God's will. And I'm not saying I can remove my own defects. Absolutely not. But I've got to participate in the removal. That's been my experience. I want God to remove the defect first, and then I'll do anything God wants me to do. God, remove this self-righteous indignation that I've got towards this person because I just hate him. I hate him so much. And God goes, no, you've got to treat that person with love and respect that they deserve as a child of God. And in doing that and participating, that defect is removed. Just been my experience. Making amends. I told you a little bit about that eighth step, so I'll skip over that because that first girlfriend was the main part of that. But I'm so grateful for strong sponsorship at every step of the way. I would have screwed this up so badly, and my sponsor just took me through them one at a time. Here's what you did. Here's what you're going to say. And I was free. Not just of the guilt and shame, but the resentment was gone too. Just gone. That little church school, if I had to drive past it, I would drive literally a block out of the way so I didn't have to see a brick building because of how it made me feel. That's ridiculous. I can go anywhere and do anything today because of the power of these steps. And I never have to carry around that junk with me anymore if I continue to take personal inventory and when I'm wrong
[00:40:02]
promptly admit it. And to me, this is more broad. Eight and nine talk about harm. This just says when I'm wrong. I can go months without harming someone. I'm wrong at least once a day about something. And if I'm willing to promptly admit that, I never have to feel like that again. I didn't know how to pray when I got here. You know, we prayed all the time growing up. And mom was so full of fear, and I just wondered, if that's what prayer gets you, why are we doing this? And then we prayed for outcomes. And then I didn't get what I asked for, and it's just more proof that God hates me, and I'm never going to be good enough. So grateful for the beautiful simplicity of praying only, only for knowledge of God's will and the power to carry that out. That means I don't have to figure out what I need so I can pray to get it. I don't have to figure out what you need so I can pray for you to get it. I don't know what anybody needs. But if I'm seeking God's will, like I said earlier, and doing the footwork in the direction I feel good, that means whatever the outcome is, I'm going to be okay. And that sentence kind of sums up the spiritual awakening that were promised as the result of these steps. And there's stuff in our literature that sums it up much more eloquently than that. But just the idea that I'm going to be okay no matter what. Having been given this complete psychic overhaul, I'm asked to do a couple of simple things. Try to carry the message to others and practice these principles in all our affairs. And I'm not going to get into how I do that, but I am an active member.
I try to do what I'm asked to do and I try to act like an Al-Amanah member outside these rooms and I fall short all the time. But a long time ago I used to say one of the definitions of practice is to learn through repetition. And I love that. I'm never going to be perfect. I'm learning. I'm learning these principles. So what my life is like today, I did go back to school eventually. I got a little two-year degree and got kind of a grown-up career now.
I have a wonderful, beautiful relationship with my mom. I'm so grateful for that. Her health is really in decline. So grateful for that. And the rest of my crazy family, all of whom desperately need recovery. And none of them have it and that's none of my business. I've been able to carry the message to them when asked, even though they've never come to a meeting. My mom came to one. And just on and on and on down the line. All this good stuff in my life is a direct result of this program and the God of my understanding that I was able to find here. Annie, like I said, did pick up that white ship. She's got 26, 25 or 26 years of continuous sobriety. I'm so grateful for her program. I've learned so much for her over the years. But look, we're promised a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. We're not promised things are going to work out the way we wanted them, the way we thought they were going to. And Annie and I had some really good years and we had some really, really rough years. And back in 2015, we just decided we cannot make this work. We're trying to apply the principles to our marriage, but they were going to, you know, workshops and it's just not going to work. And so we made the very painful decision to split up. And it was excruciating. I mean, I never felt like Al-Anon failed me at all, but I definitely felt like I failed Al-Anon. How am I supposed to go give a talk in an Al-Anon meeting when I'm going through a divorce? And I'm so grateful for the people in Al-Anon who had been there, who reminded me, Al-Anon doesn't always save relationships.
Sometimes it does and that's beautiful. For me, it saved my life. Sometimes Al-Anon saves, sometimes Al-Anon, sometimes relationships die, sometimes they change, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And because Annie and I were and are trying to practice these principles in all our affairs, we not only got through that very painful separation and divorce with dignity and grace. We are great friends today. We text all the time. She's up in Philly with her boyfriend and I'm babysitting our five cats. I don't know what we're thinking. Drive across town two times to take care of five cats, but she did get stuffed with them. So that's only fair. But I'm so, I wouldn't trade the 17 years we had for anything, but we're exactly where we're supposed to be. And I'm so grateful for that. That spiritual awakening, there's a quote in the Conference Group book that sums it up beautifully for me. Some people call these the steps of Al-Anon. There is no such thing as the steps of Al-Anon. I know that. But look, anything, I'm sorry, the steps, I just said steps. Promises, let's go with that. Some people call these, that makes a lot more sense. Some people call them the promises. There's no such thing as the promises. But to me, anything in our literature that says if you do this, this will happen, is a promise. Our closing says if you try to keep an open mind, you will find help. To me, that's a promise. So I do not wish to engage in any controversy, so I will call this page 269 and 270 out of the Cal book.
69 and 270, out of the Cal book, From Survival to Recovery, the original version, and it just lists, it says something like, and I'm paraphrasing, if we willingly surrender ourselves to the
[00:45:03]
spiritual discipline of these twelve steps, our lives will be transformed. And then it goes on to list the ways that that will happen. And I think my favorite one, it says something like peace and serenity will have meaning for us as we allow our lives and the lives of those we love to flow day by day with God's ease, balance, and grace. My life had no ease, balance, or grace when I got here, and the fact that that promise, and so many others has come true in my life, is an incredible miracle for which I will be forever grateful.
Thank you so much for letting me share.