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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 799 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: don-f-toronto-ca-meeting-2009-04-25.mp3 Duration: 00:36:34
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Now for the speaker portion of our meeting. Our speaker has been asked to share in a general way what they were like, what happened, and what they are like today, and to remember to meet again at 9 p.m. If you have a problem with cocaine or any other mind-altering substance, we hope you may pause and listen to his personal story and say, Yes, that happened to me. Or, more important, yes, I felt like that. Or, most important, yes, this program worked for me, too.
And I'd like to welcome from Edmonton, Narc. Wow. Wow. My name is Don. I'm an alcoholic. And a very good friend to see here. Very good friend. I'm very impressed with the speaker. Very impressed. And I'll tell you why I didn't use drugs. And I honestly believe if I did, I'd be dead today. And I'll tell you later on. I'm sorry. But first of all, I am really impressed. And to be able to come here from Edmonton, it's an honor. It really is an honor.
And the people that I've met are just unbelievably nice people. Unbelievably. I'm a big book thumper, right? And I do the big book, right? I didn't start out that way. And the reason I… I guess thump is a bad word for it, but… I really, really believe… See, I've seen this book work for so many people who have different problems. It's not just for alcoholics or cocaine addicts. It's for everybody.
And I've seen people change through what we call a spiritual experience. And I've devoted my life to do it. To help people. Because I… To keep what I got, I have to give. And that's really upside down. In other words, to keep this, I've got to give it away. And I had to die to live it. I am a bit overwhelmed. But I'll get into my story now. I grew up here in Toronto. I… At the age of… At the age of 14, I experienced my first strength.
When I stuck it down my throat, into my stomach, it gave me such a feeling like I've never had before. And it gave me that don't care feeling. Many people know that don't care feeling. And… But when you use and you drink and you get this don't care feeling, you… You end up harming yourself and you end up harming everybody around you. And at the age of 15, I started doing it. And the reason I did it, and being honest with you, I couldn't handle life then.
I couldn't handle life the way it is. I couldn't handle reality. I couldn't handle anything. But when I took that drink, I could handle everything. And I'll go through my story pretty fast. I ended up getting married, because everybody got married. I had two kids, had a house. At the age of 21, I didn't know what a sober day was. To live in this world, I had to be drunk. And you didn't know if you were drunk or sober.
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I just drank and drank and drank and drank.
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But before I got married, I… I bumped into this guy and… And… We were going to go do drugs tonight. And he said there was some good stuff in town. And I ended up… So I was going to do them that night. The both of us were going to do them. And this was a long time ago. I'm 33 years sober. This was a long time ago. And… So I… He said, you know, he had some. So I said… So we were doing these drugs.
We were taking his sister out. So I ended up taking his sister out. And I ended up marrying the woman. So this is why I said this is so. But he took them and… It wasn't good stuff. He overdosed on these drugs. And he's in whiskey right now. So that was my first experience with drugs. And during that time, he… You know, he did drugs. He really tormented his family. So I was drinking a 26 or a 40 ounces.
So I just said, well, I'm going this route. We'll go that route. And… And I've seen the damage that he did. The damage I did was just bad. But the damage he did was really, really bad. So… That was my… And I honestly believe that was done to me. God is telling me not to use. I shouldn't be using drugs. Because I might have never been recovered. And I feel that. I believe that. So I'm really impressed with these guys who have recovered.
I'm impressed. I ended up drinking. I ended up losing my house. I went on the left. And I drank away a house. And… I ended up… Trying to commit suicide. All that good stuff that goes with social drinking, you know. And… I tried to jump off a bridge. I came in the black at one time. And I shotgunned him in the mouth. You know, I was clicking it. And I went, oh, you know. I didn't stop drinking, you know.
Went up there, checked everybody was okay. Everybody was. All I remembered was an argument, a fight. And… When I did end up sobering up… I… I was on a long binge. And… I was just beat inside. Just so beat up inside. And… And I had been going to AA for… For six years. Slipping and sliding. People were saying, you know, don't hang around with Donald. You know, like… You know, he eats bad news.
And… The last day I drank… I was in my… My sponsor's bedroom. I was sitting on the floor. And… And he just said to me… I think you're just going to die, you know. You're not sick, you know. And then I had… When he said that to me… I had this feeling inside me… That I was going to stay straight for just a little while. That was my spiritual experience. Just to stay straight for a little while.
Because I didn't know what it was like to stay sober for a day. And… And that was the moment… Of clarity I had with God. And I believe… I honestly believe… That when we start on this journey of recovery… The start is the second. It's not a long time. It's just a second. And you feel…
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Like you're going to be okay. For a little while. Not a long while. Just a little while. So if anybody's got that feeling here tonight… That… That feeling that you're going to be okay for just a little while. And I've spoke to a lot of people… And I've seen that second in their eyes. And the reason why you have to do this step… Is after you get that little feeling… That special little feeling…
You have to know how to maintain it. Like I spoke to a lot of people… And I always say… They all come out of the chute good. They're just a humming and a buzzing. They're so happy. They just love it. And I'm sitting across the table… And I'm happy too. Because I think for some strange reason… I have something to do with it. But I had nothing to do with it. Nothing at all to do with it. When I came to this program…
Everything was given to me. I had nothing. I thought I had a lot of shit. But I had nothing. And… That's what I believe. And it's telling the book… You look for the second in the step. They become a second. They don't go five years… Four years… Three years… Two days… It's a second. It has to be a second… Because you know when it's over… It's a day. Now they're not recovering for four years.
No. It's a second. God touches you in a second. And if it says… If it says that… If it says anything different… Come and show me in the book where it says. And… See with me… Then I sobered up. Then I sobered up. And then my friend was gone. And God put me through so much torture. For twelve years. Because my friend was gone. Because I couldn't get that don't care feeling back. I had lots of care feelings.
Everybody was telling me… Oh you better care for the kids. You better care for this. You better care for that. I was caring for them. I couldn't look after them. But I wanted that feeling of the don't care. You know where I got that feeling from? When I went to a meeting. Because you beautiful people… Didn't care what I'd done. What I was doing. Or what I'm going to do. You couldn't throw me out.
You didn't want to throw me out. I was in heaven. And for a lot of years I went to three meetings a day. Because I had to get that don't care feeling. But once I walked out that door. I started caring again. I started worrying about this. Worrying about that. Worrying about all kinds of crap. And I did that for twelve years. And… And I didn't tell anybody. I lied. How are you doing today? And… Then I came to meetings.
And I hear all these stories. And some of them are really impressive. Like really impressive. Then I had my stinky little story. So I thought… I better make it a little better, right? So these guys would accept me. So I'd make it a little better. And then I started believing in me. I don't know if you guys understand this, but… Yeah, that's what happened to me. And… And I did. Sometimes I still think, did I do that, or did I not do that?
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But, and that's where I was, right? And, because I wanted, I loved this program so much, but I wanted to be accepted. And I felt that these guys wouldn't be accepted. I had very low, I just think, what do you call it, self-esteem? Is that what you call it? And, and then I'd have anxiety. And I wasn't stupid. I was insane, but I wasn't stupid. And, and that's where I was for twelve years. And, at the end of the twelve, well, I guess it was around seven or eight years, I had six bosses.
And prior to that, I built everything else because I lost. I had a small engineering company. I had, I was in mining in that, designing in that. And I lost it. I lost the house. I lost the kids. I lost the place. Does anybody here feel like a loser? Well, I was a loser. But the weirdest part about that, I was a loser and I was sober. That's even worse. Because I was supposed to have all my shit together because I was sober.
And I didn't know how to manage shit, you know. But I let all these guys know that I did. That's where I was. I had six bosses. I tried to jump off a bridge. And I prayed. And this little thought came into my mind. And I honestly, even today, this little thought, I just don't drink. And I believe God told me that. Today I do. And I didn't drink. I continue on being crazy for another five years. And how I got out of all of my trouble was being an engineer.
I'd just grab a contract and go up to Yukon or go here, go there. Get a sports car. Get in a relationship. Get out of a relationship. I ended up coming back to Toronto here. Messed up. Sober. Stay in a pub. And I'd been here before a few times. Never sobered up here. But I always went back and forth because I had family here. And I bumped into this guy. He was nuts. Completely nuts when I left it. The last time.
And he was put together. Really put together. And I looked at him and I said, What happened? And he said, I got busted. I said, what the fuck happened? And he said, You need to go to 88, right? I said, well that's not right. I can sleep up here. And he says, this guy's called Dewey. So I went seeing this guy Dewey. And how I used to get out of all this anxiety and crap, I used to do five, right? And I'd tell someone.
And we'd all leave. Then I'd go right back and fill up the pot again, you know? And then do it again. And finally, you know, you don't know if the pot's full or empty. And so I seen this Dewey guy. And I went out for coffee with him. And I was going to do the pot. And he looked at me. And, you know, the humbling thing. I didn't want to do it. So he was only around for six years. So he looked at me and he said, How would you like to be 20 years sober and not recover?
I said, you can't be recovered. He says, what do you mean you can't be recovered? I said, if you took the word recover out of the big book, you'd have no book. In those days, everybody were always saying, I'm recovering. That'd be like saying, I still got the flu.
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Now, he said to me, do you want to get better or do you want to stay sick? Or do you want to die? He said, dead. Have any of you people seen the movie Sixth Sense? It was a great movie. Because I didn't see what was going on when I seen that movie. And the young kid was talking to Bruce Willis. And he said, I see dead people. And they don't know they're dead. They only see what they want to see. They live in a fairy tale.
My drinking, I was always in a fairy tale. Because I didn't like reality. And my mind would automatically go into this fairy tale. And when it went into this fairy tale, I didn't know the truth from the false truth. And I found out I was there sober and drunk. There was no difference. And if I stay there, I'll always be agent. And I need someone to walk me out of this fairy tale. Huey walked me out of this fairy tale.
And he said, and I said to him, I'm sober 12 years and I'm not recovering. And I finally believed in someone. And I finally trusted someone. Because when you're in that fairy tale, you don't want to trust anybody. And in fact, I believe you go into a fairy tale more when you're sober than you are when you're drunk. Because you need to ease that pain. And I was recovered. I didn't see that in the movie.
So I know every morning, I've got to clear my head even a little bit more. But I went through the book, and then things started to happen. I used to suffer from anxiety, like real bad anxiety. I wondered why one day I'd go to work and I could handle the project, handle people. And the next day, I'd walk in there, and I was afraid to walk up to a place and measure a piece of steel. I didn't understand why one day I was okay, and the next day I was not okay.
And I wasn't stupid. But I knew I was insane because I'd been on the AA for 12 years, and you told me I was insane. But when I went through the step, I received that sixth sense. Before, I had the fifth sense. I had a relationship with my higher power. My own relationship. There's one solution, millions of relationships. And I knew it was possible because I've got two kids. I love them both, but I've got different relationships with each of them.
It's not the same. All my friends are different. I have different relationships with everybody I know. So God has that same relationship with me. And He sobered me up because it tells me in the big book, I have to be touched by God to be sober. So if anybody's in here straight, you've been touched by God. Already, you don't know it. Some of you don't know it, but you have. Because it's impossible to stay straight without it.
If you're an alcoholic, or a cocaine addict, or a food addict, or a jelly bean addict, I don't know. You need to be touched. That's that second. Once you get that second, you're on your journey. And it is a trudging journey. But you're on that journey, and you're starting to get back into the alcohol. You're getting out of the fairytale. See, I'm still in the fairytale. Every morning I wake up, I've got to get out of that fairytale.
Because if I don't do my stuff, I'll automatically go into that sickness. The disease I have. There's an old fellow in Edison, he said, My name is Harold, and I'm an alcoholic.
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And it's no fault of my own. It's a disease. It's a God-given disease. So in other words, he gave this disease for me. So I get to know him. Personally. Not like the Pope knows him. Not like the minister knows him. And I die. And that's the only way it works. That's the only way it works. Then I went through the book. Then I went through the book. And then I thought I knew something. You tell an alcoholic when you know something.
Cocaine addict. I've booked a lot of these guys. You're the same. But, I thought I'd known something. And, when you say, I know the big book. It's like losing your gum in a chicken coop. I thought I bumped it three times. Three times I thought. I just got hit up with an awful taste in my mouth. Can I explain it any better than that? And that's the truth. I thought I knew something. I have a friend.
I have a friend in Manhattan. He works in the drag. He works in the drag. Do you want to give me a glass? He works on the drag. And he's worked with hard cases all his life. Beautiful man. This is what God's done to him for doing this. He's given him three heart attacks. And a stroke. That's a paycheck, eh? And he's happy. It doesn't bother him. And part of his brain is gone. And people are scratching at this guy's door.
And I go to meetings and I… It happened once. I seen this guy come in. And this guy was still my guy. Massive guy. Tattoos everywhere. When he walked in, everybody went… And he sat down. And then he spoke. And he talked like a choir boy. About love and all this stuff. And I knew he bumped into Dougie. And that's how powerful this man is. And all he does is kill. So… That impresses me. I've seen so many miracles there.
And there's miracles in this room. I've seen it. I have the privilege of being sober a long time. I've seen a lot of people who were crazy before. And I see them with very constructive, beautiful eyes. And when someone recovers… One person recovers… One person recovers… That affects five people. Five people are blessed by that one recovery. At least five. That's just an insanity. And the peace that comes out of that.
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And then you, when you go through the book, you become possessive. You ever heard the word possessive? When I took my first drink, I was possessive. When I had sex the first time, I was possessive. When I ate jelly beans, I got possessive. So that means you have no choice but to do it. But when you do it, it feels good. And the big book says, you become possessed with a new way of life. You can't stop doing this stuff, eh?
And I got booked over 20 years ago. I gave up my profession and everything. I just went out booking. Because I loved the feeling of it. And you know what the feeling was? It was the don't care. God blessed me with the don't care. But I didn't harm anybody. I didn't harm anybody. Something would happen to me and I'd go, yeah. But I would look after the situation. The way I wanted it to be all my life.
You know the cool dad, nothing bothers you? God gives you that. It's no big secret. He's been doing it for thousands of years. He gave us this book. Bill didn't have the knowledge to write this thing. It was written by God. He gave us this book. The formula in it. And it works. I know it works because it works for me. And I've seen it work in others. And it has nothing to do with me. The reason why I keep on saying that is because if I say it had anything to do with me, I start losing my power.
He says, oh, you did it, did you? I'll leave you alone for a while until you go crazy. You know the reason I know that? Because I've done it so many times. And he's a loving God because he always takes me back. And when I had slips, when I first came in the AA, he always took me back. There was another organization that always took me back to the AA. And I know these guys do it here too. Always took me back.
Never left me out there. And I know it because I've gone through it. A lot of times I thought he left me, but he never left me. And I get into this thinking thing. But he's always there. You've got two more minutes for me. So you newcomers, this is the first time you've heard about booking or mucking or whatever you call it. And these words came from these guys. They didn't come from me. They came from these guys.
Because that's the type of guys we have. I have friends called Six Buck Larry. You know, I found him on the street with Six Buck. So he's stuck with that name all his life. So he's stuck with that name all his life, eh? We had one guy come to the meeting. And we said, Who are you? He says, I'm Eddie's brother. You know who he's called after that? Eddie's brother. Can we hear from Eddie's brother? I got my name!
But that's what happened. So, you newcomers, when you're coming in, if you want to try and find out who knows the program, and I classify an old-timer as someone who's gone through the steps. Not the timing, but someone who's gone through the steps. Someone who's gone through the steps.
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Bob went through the steps in two weeks. He was out booking right away. He was out helping people. And this world is so full of sick people. You know? So sick. They're all in the fifth dimension. So if you're blessed and you go through the steps in the sixth dimension, you're really better off than anybody, isn't it? Because they're all, there's a fairy tale. And you're in reality. So when something happens, you can step aside.
And don't get burnt no more. When I was drinking in youth, and I kept on hitting the same door, never thought of going out the other door. That's who I was then. And I was smart. So, I'll use new people. I'll show you how you can identify someone, an old-timer, or someone who's done the steps. There's two things you can notice about them. The second thing is they're very forgetful. And the first thing is…