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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 836 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: jonathan-s-recovery-center-speaker-meeting-2011-06-11.mp3 Duration: 00:53:50
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Tonight, Chris will be introducing our speaker. My name is Chris. I'm very grateful we covered alcoholics. I'm so glad I don't have to talk tonight. This is the moment. All I have to do is introduce. This is pretty good. I've known Jonathan for years. Our paths didn't cross forever. I came to work out this direction about a year ago and started sitting in meetings with him. I've got to tell you, I couldn't believe the stuff coming out of this guy's mouth.
He's dead nuts on the solution. We've since got real good vibes. We're gay now. I just can't not do that. He's an absolutely good friend and we're in for a treat. Thank you very much. I told Chris not to say anything in front of Marcia. I'm Jonathan. I'm a drug addict and alcoholic. Wow. So many people here. I was telling my sponsor and Marcia, I don't speak irregularly. I've spoken quite a number of times.
When I come out here, I'm more nervous. I think one of the main reasons, other than my ego, is that this is where it started for me. This is where that shift happened. I'm really grateful too today that I can introduce myself as a drug addict and alcoholic and understand what that means. Because for the longest time, I went to meetings. I've been going to meetings since 1994 or 5 and that's when I first met Chris in Mark Houston.
I just didn't understand what I was saying. I was saying what I heard everyone else say, but I had no idea what that really meant. I thought it meant that I drank too much and I used drugs too much. I want to thank Wayne, Chris, Marcia, and anyone else who helped finagle me to be the speaker tonight. It's a real honor. I'm very humbled and grateful to talk anywhere, but especially here. I'm not a worshipper of any men or women, but I definitely have heroes.
A little over three years ago, I sat right where you residents did and heard Mark talk from this podium. For you that don't know, I was on the other side where the women are now in 2008. For all the residents, I know what it's like. I've been there. And for all the families, just so you kind of get your bearings on where I'm coming from. I always try and think about a direction that I want to talk.
I never really make notes. J.D.'s recording this and I made him promise to delete it if it sucks. I've never really been a note maker when it comes to this. I've spent my whole life worshipping my intellect and my organizational skills. To me, it really draws away from intuition and God for me to have written notes. I'm going to talk a lot about God and I'm going to talk a lot about the steps. Because those are the two things that matter in my life.
My story, my life, I'm 43, born and raised in Texas. Spent 10 years in North Carolina. But my life can be categorized, if I need to do it that way, as being kind of before being introduced to AA or to recovery. That happened in 1994, 1995. And then being introduced to the fellowship from 1995 until 2008 for the next 13 years.
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And then from 2008 until now, really coming to that concession within and realizing that there's actually a recovery program to go along with the fellowship. I like to focus, I love step one. I just love step one. And I'm not an expert on any of the steps. I'm not an expert on God. I'm an expert in doing things my own way and then reaping what I sow. But I like to talk a little about my past misunderstandings.
But I like to talk a little about my past misunderstandings of step one. And then my current understanding of step one. And, you know, for the longest time, guys, remember, I started going to meetings in 1995, I think it was. That's when I went to a little place in the hill country. And believe me, I'm not telling you guys that I didn't hear what might have been shared with me. I might have just been deaf to and unable to hear.
So I'm not saying that for sure I didn't hear any solutions. But I'm just telling you for how awake I was, I didn't hear any solution. My understanding of step one for the longest time was, again, that I drank too much alcohol and that I did too much drugs. And that if I really was working a thorough step one, then that means I wasn't drinking or using. And that's about the extent of it. You know, you hear sometimes in contemporary age say, you know, the only step you need to do 100% or 100% perfectly is step one.
And I really interpreted that to mean as long as you're sober, as long as you're abstinent, then you're A-OK. And that was my understanding of step one. There was really no understanding of the last half of step one. Nothing about unmanageability. Nothing about my internal condition. Everything about my step one awareness consisted of when I drink, when I use, I can't stop. So really just the physical craving, the phenomenal craving, the physical allergy, that's all I got.
And I had lots of experience getting that, you know. Growing up, I grew up in a real loving family. My mom and dad, they're divorced now, but they were together for like 35 years. They were very supportive of me. They told me I could do whatever I wanted. They told me I could be whatever I wanted. There wasn't any molestation, you know. We were just average middle class and growing up. So, you know, that automatically pokes one hole that I wanted to hang my hat on, and that is something bad happened to me when I was little, and that's why I drink and drug the way I do.
Because I don't have that to hang my hat on, you know. I had a good childhood. I do remember, and I think this is a real fundamental basis of my personality and maybe other addicts and alcoholics too, and that is I always, always growing up I saw things differently. And now looking back, I know that I saw things incorrectly. I have a disease of misperception, and I have ever since the beginning before I took the first drink or the first drug.
Some examples of that, you know, I was surrounded by people that loved me. I really was. I was told that I was loved. I was told that I had friends. I was told that I was good at things that I did. But that isn't how I saw it. And I could have interviewed a lot of people, and they all would have agreed. Jonathan, you're totally loved. Everyone likes you. You're really good with people, blah, blah. And I just couldn't see that.
You know what I mean? I guess, you know, here's the circle, and I'm out here. I don't know how I got out here, but I'm out there. And I'd like, I'd desperately like to get back inside, but I'm too scared to tell you I really want to get inside. Or to even admit that I'm out there in the first place. So, you know, I took my first drink when I was 15 or 16, and very soon after I started drinking, I started overshooting the mark.
You know, there was lots of blackouts. There was lots of fights.
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There was some law enforcement interaction, you know, that went on. And that went on, you know, through college. I went to, I went and did my undergraduate school at the Citadel, which is a military school in South Carolina. And it was all mailed in. And they're really good at churning out at least problem drinkers, you know, because that's what there is to do. You know, there's an all-girls school there.
There was when I was there. And that's what we did. We chased women and drank, and that's what we did. And, you know, this was in my 20s. And already there, I noticed that I drank differently than the people that I was with, you know. I could drink more. And really looking back, and believe me guys, I didn't know this at the time, but looking back, like the book tells me, I had lost the power of choice and control long before I knew that I did, you know.
After alcohol, there was a long 14-year love affair with opiates, you know, Vicodin and Percocet and Dilaudid and all that. And, you know, I did lots of rummaging through people's cabinets, you know. I'm sure no one in here has done that, but sometimes if you like to take opiates, you like to go to open houses, you like to go to rent houses, you know what I mean, and kind of just help yourself. And, you know, the thing is, remember how I told you I grew up.
I didn't grow up. I didn't grow up amoral, you know. I knew what stealing was. I knew that stealing wasn't a good thing. My parents taught me to not steal, and I believed that 100%. You know, the book tells me, right. I got codes of moral, philosophical convictions galore. But somehow, like I would never actually steal, right. That's what I tell myself. And, you know, all of a sudden, it's not that I changed my mind and I thought stealing was okay, you know.
It was, though, I need what's in that cabinet more than whoever's cabinet that is needs it. You know, and I ran with that. And I've done that, you know, countless times, and it's always been around dope and alcohol, you know. I don't ever look and think, I need that guy's vitamins more than mine. You know, more than he does. I don't have that phenomenon with vitamins. You know. I met my ex-wife while I was at the Citadel in like 1990.
Shit, I can't remember. 1989, something like that. And we got married in 1992. And I got married to her. I got married to her because of that internal condition that I was unaware of, right. Because there was something wrong in here. I couldn't put my finger on it. Somehow I felt less than and not worthy. And here was a girl that was just totally in love with me. Now, there's all kinds of inventory and amends around that that have been made.
Because I married her because she would have me. And that's pretty much it. And if you can imagine forming a relationship on that basis, that relationship lasted ten years. Ten years. Ten years. And obviously, again, I'm a good guy. I don't like to hurt people's feelings. But how can I live with myself when I know the relationship is all one-sided? You know. So the drinking and the drugging just escalated while we were together.
And then finally toward the end of our relationship in 2000, we had a son, a baby boy named Wyatt. Who actually flew into Austin today and is staying with me and Marcia for a little while this summer. But, you know, I really, really put that woman through hell, you know. Now, if you would have asked me five years ago whose fault it was, Whose fault it was? It was 100% hers. You know?
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If I had had a more understanding spouse, who didn't nag me as much, you know, and who just understood all these dark, complicated thoughts of mine, my perspective and stuff, then I probably wouldn't have had to use as many drugs, therefore she wouldn't have been hurt as bad. You know? That's the way that I think, that's the way that lots of guys I work with think. Alright? There was lots of lying and manipulating and viciously trying to hurt feelings.
And so I just need to own that, you know, in front of you guys. After the Citadel, I went to vet school, and that's actually, my ex-wife helped put me through vet school. I'm a veterinarian, I think most people in here know that, maybe not. But in vet school, I was kicked out of vet school, six months short of graduation, because I stole a bottle of morphine from an intensive care unit and was shooting morphine.
And, you know, I always like looking back, you know, again, let's count the ways, Jonathan, let's count how many times most people, 99 out of 100 people, would have said, you know what, that's probably sufficient reason, why don't you go ahead and stop. You know, three and a half years, hundreds of thousands of dollars into school, I get kicked out for stealing morphine. Now, to any outsider looking in, that would look like, huh, I guess he doesn't want to be a vet anymore.
Right? That's what that would look like. But that's not the truth. I still desperately wanted to finish school. I still wanted to be a veterinarian, you know. But the thing is, if you're a real alcoholic or a real drug addict, you have a progressive disease. You have a progressive disease, and anything that stands in the way of that disease progressing will be carved out of your life. That's my experience, that's the experience of lots of people in this room, you know.
It has nothing to do with whether I want to be a vet or whether I don't. I mean, why does my addiction care what I want one way or the other? You know what I mean? It wants to be fed, and that's it. So, I finally reapplied, got in. I'm actually a pretty good vet, because I went to school way longer than most vets. You see what I'm saying? Most vets go four years. I actually went five and a half. So, anyway, in 1995, like I told you, that was when I stole the bottle of morphine.
I was sent to the treatment center, and I had absolutely zero desire even to do anything other than get people off my back, you know. And I used the day that I got out, you know. You know, I've had multiple sobriety dates, and I'm sure some people in here have too. And, you know, one of the biggest delusions that I just now kind of got clear on is that, at least for me, that I pick my sobriety date, you know.
Let's see, I've had April 15th, I've had June 7th, you know what I mean? Here's the truth, for me and for the guys that I know. I believe that I was separated from cocaine and alcohol by the power of God on May 13th, 2008. That's what I believe. Now, I've had previous separation events, you know. We can go to jail, we can go to rehab, we can get kicked out of the house, we can run out, we can OD and go to the hospital.
There's countless different ways that we can be separated from our drugs and alcohol. What I noticed in me and what I've noticed in the people, the guys that I work with, is that the minute that that separation occurs, there's a window that starts closing. And it closes at different rates for different people. You know, I've seen people kind of bounce around and stuff and the window doesn't really seem to be going, but it's always going.
Then I've seen some people get separated and boom, if they don't get their ass in gear real soon,
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they're smoking crack or drinking again, you know. So, am I sober by the grace of God? For sure. But am I also sober based on my willingness? Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? I've said this before, but I think that God's grace rains down just like a rainstorm evenly on all of us, you know. The problem is that we all have umbrellas and the umbrellas are self-will. Some of us have big umbrellas and some of us have small umbrellas.
You know, for the longest time, for 40 years of my life, God's grace was there, but I had a big old parasol, you know what I mean? I wasn't going to get wet at all, you know. And what happens is, you get your ass kicked enough and you let that umbrella down. And until your ass is kicked enough, you'll keep the umbrella up, even if it's slight. You know what I mean? Tilt it, you know. So, anyway, I know I kind of drifted off track with my story.
I'm going to get back on it here in a minute, but I want to tell you one more thing first. About a month ago, I was here, and I used this analogy, and it's been so profound to me and my work, working with other guys and stuff like that. I just wanted to put it out here again, especially since there's families here, as well as guys and girls that can't stop drinking or drugging even though they want to.
Me and Marsha went to a continuing education for me a couple of months ago, and there was this lady that made me look stupid, who had like 17,000 letters at the end of her name. Biochemist, neurobiophysicist, something. And she was using an analogy, and for some reason it just clicked with me. She didn't use it in the context I'm about to give it to you guys, but it just floored me when I started thinking about it.
And that is that, let's say that I have you, and by you I mean whoever I'm talking to here. I have you, and we're in a body of water, and I shove your head under water, right? Automatically there's a part in your brain that's going to do what? Right? Hold your breath. Hold your breath. But as the time goes by, and as the carbon dioxide kicks up in your brain, right? That part of your brain knows, if I take this deep gasp of breath right now, when I'm surrounded by water instead of air, I'm going to drown.
Therefore, I'm going to keep holding my breath. Right? Everyone with me? Okay. If enough time passes, and you get uncomfortable enough under water, you will take the deep gasp of breath. Right? Isn't that how we all drown? Anyone that drowns? Now, do you think that the person that drowns thinks right before they gasp, I bet I can breathe water. Of course not. Right? They don't. But they get so uncomfortable that it's almost reflex to gasp, even though they know it's about to take them out.
It is the exact same way with me and drugs and alcohol. If I stay untreated with my head held underneath the water for long enough, it don't matter, mom and dad, how much I don't want to. It don't matter how much I love you. It don't matter how much I want to be a veterinarian, how I want to keep my job, how I don't want to have my kids gone from me. At some point, the book says at certain times, I will take the deep gasp underneath water because I have to.
And that's it. That is it. That is step one to me in a nutshell. You know? Now, family members, people that aren't addicts and alcoholics, may have a hard time with that analogy. That's fine. I really don't care. That is the truth. And you can ask anyone around here that's a real addict or alcoholic, and they get that. They get that. And for the family members that aren't,
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if you guys can think outside the box and entertain that as a possibility, then all of a sudden, your addict or alcoholic's behavior sure seems a whole lot more plausible. You know what I mean? I never hated my kids. I never hated my job. I never hated my wife. But if I had lined up 100 people off the street and said, look at what I just did to them, they all would have said, ooh, you sure hate them, don't you?
You know? So, in 2002, I got fired from my job for embezzling more injectable narcotics. And was sent to a nice treatment facility in Atlanta, Georgia that catered to doctors and lawyers, veterinarians, dentists, pharmacists, since we have a unique version of addiction and alcoholism. And they proceeded to treat my unique version for the next, I don't know, 12 or 13 weeks. And it was all, guys, it was all about, and believe me, if you've got problems with something I say, you come talk to me afterwards.
I'm just telling you my story. So if this kind of treatment has worked for you, thumbs up. Thumbs up. They would try and get me to add up the cost of my addiction. I was like, really? And I looked around the room and I actually saw people get emotional when they saw the numbers. And I was like, WTF? 1,500,000, they'd be like, oh my God, I've got to quit. You know? And I just was adding up the numbers and I'm like, I don't really understand the point of this exercise.
It just doesn't do anything for me. I mean, it's interesting. Addiction, subtraction. I mean, it wasn't anything beyond that. They did a whole lot of that. They did a whole lot of, look, John, what we've got to do here is when you feel like using or drinking, you've got to think about something else. And I was like, I'm right with you. I'd love to be able to do that. Just give me the secret. I need a secret because when I think about drinking or drugging, you don't understand.
I mean, it's like a millisecond until I'm doing it. You know? I'm not going to sit there and list the pros and cons. I've got to call my sponsor. You know? I mean, I'm on it. That's it. I'm gone. So, the one, you know, kind of profitable thing that happened while I was there is I met Marcia while I was in that treatment center. And guys, listen. I've been making jokes, but I'm serious. When I was there in 2002, my life and my circumstances, my addiction, my alcoholism had really got my attention.
You know? I wanted to stop. I wanted to stop. I wasn't there screwing around. You know? I had had a whole lot of stuff happen in the previous seven years, but I couldn't. You know? I just couldn't. So, I met Marcia there, and they found out that me and Marcia were talking, and they at first asked us not to keep doing that. And, but like good addicts and alcoholics, we kind of just tried to fly under the radar and keep talking, and pass the notes.
Really, we were just stupid as that. I was like 13 years old. You know what I mean? But that's what we were doing. I mean, and so, so they eventually said, okay, Marcia, we need you to go to a women's facility, and Jonathan, we need you to go to a men's facility for three months. And that really was going to be inconvenient. You know what I mean? We had just met, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we were talking, and we had just met, and we had soulmates.
You know what I mean? I mean, we couldn't depart that soon after meeting. So we kind of just gave the whole heave-ho to the place and walked out, you know, with
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like $400 in a car that was about to get repossessed, and that's the way that my period of abstinence started. Now if you had asked me at the time, I was a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous, you know what I mean, because I went to meetings and because I wasn't drinking. So I was fulfilling the requirements, you know what I mean. Me and Marcia kind of orchestrated our days and nights around going to meetings and kind of getting back on our feet, you know.
That lasted, I'm not even going to go into it guys, that lasted from 2002 till 2008. I got three years during that stint of abstinence-based sobriety, I think Marcia got two, and you know we started doing pills together, we started drinking together, I introduced her to recreational opiate use, she introduced me to powder cocaine use, then I went up to her and introduced her to crack cocaine use. And you know, our experience with crack cocaine was roughly 100 days long, and it started in January of 2008, and it ended at the end of April of 2008.
At the end of 2007, and believe me guys, there's some more rehabs thrown in the middle of that abstinence-based death. But at the end of 2007, me and Marcia both went to another facility to try and receive treatment, and this was a place in North Carolina, and it lasted six weeks. Marcia went first, and I went second, so six weeks back-to-back. At the end of that 12-week session, you know, essentially combined, again, I was offered the opportunity, John, we really think that you need to go to a men's, at least a sober house.
And I said, okay, I hear you, but here's what's going on, you know, first of all, you all have prevented me from seeing my wife for the last 12 weeks, right, second of all, I've got an animal hospital, I've got kids, I've got people that are depending on me, so check it out, this is what I'm going to do, I'm going to leave your facility, I'm going to go home, because I deserve a rest, and I'm going to spend the night with my wife a couple nights, say hi to the kids, this is like on a Sunday, and I'm going to be at your sober house on Wednesday, I guarantee it, alright?
You guys think I was there? No. And it just went downhill so quickly, guys, and I'm not telling you at all, I've been around enough treatment centers, I've been a resident in enough treatment centers, I've talked to you guys, I was out here carrying the message for about a year, talking to guy residents, you know, I've heard it before, I'm not saying at all that that treatment center, that the other one, or that even Mark Houston recovered, is the be all and end all, and are direct representatives of God in telling you what you need to do, I'm not saying that, alright, that's obviously an impossible thing to assert, but what I am saying is this, the fact that I was so resistant, and so full of my own opinions and ideas still, after theoretically hitting bottom, that is what's the problem, you know, the fact that I still feel like I have ideas, the fact that I still feel like I think I know what this should look like, that is reflective of a problem with numero uno, alright, it really is.
So, again, getting back to the thing, January 2008, we had a Mercedes, a nice Mercedes, a nice tricked out Yukon Denali, we had a big house with a pool, we had five kids between the two of us, Marsha had a lot of practice, and obviously a lot of license to go along with it, I had a vet practice and a vet license to go along with it, and this is the picture in January 2008 after I said, I'll be there, but just give me a few days, by the end of
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April of 2008, all those things I just mentioned were gone, house foreclosed, both cars repossessed, Marsha's law license taken, my vet license taken, all five kids removed, hospital shut down, law of the shut down, that's a hundred days, now I'm the last one to sit here and tell you that circumstances and bad things happening are going to get you sober, you know, but it talks about it in the first of the book, circumstances make me willing, and those circumstances made me willing, and it wasn't just those circumstances in those three months, it was the previous 20 years, you know, I interpret that like this, well me knowing for sure that stuff's going to happen again will keep me sober, hell no, but the discomfort that I felt in May of 08, catapulted me into a state of willingness, and I didn't even know I was there at the time, you know, when I came in here guys, in May of 2008, I just figured this was going to be another place, you know, and it has the potential to be, this could be just another stop, you know what I mean, you can keep going, I really really thought, ok, well, I'm here, I usually do well in rehab, you know, I make like, I make aids, I say what I need to say, you know what I mean, I look good, I show up well, JD right here was my program director, I'm still sober despite of that, you know, and I do that, and I show up well, but then, you know, Bob D. says it so well, when I get out, and I start feeling a little better, then all of a sudden, the first thing that comes back is my opinions and my ideas, you know, and that's the last thing that someone like me needed, you know, especially in the summer of 08. So again, I walked through these doors May 12th, May 13th, I can't remember, I sat in that little room, it's Chris' room now, did my intake with JD, I don't know when it happened guys, but sometime between the beginning of May 2008 and the beginning of July, something shifted in me, and it wasn't any kind of bright light, it wasn't like, oh my gosh, yes, now I know I'm going to be sober the rest of my life. No, it wasn't anything like that. It was some subtle thing that happened, but yet very powerful, deep within me, that allowed me to follow directions truly because I was broken, truly because I didn't think I had a better idea, because you see, I love following directions to make you think that I'm done, you know what I mean, to make you think that I'm buying into it, but I'm really not, but there was a difference that time, there was a real difference, and that's not, lots of that information I'm sharing with you now is because of people that relayed that to me. I didn't see that. JD and some other people here that were here back then saw that, you know. Anyway, I'm real clear, Mark did such a good job talking about theater, the lie, the kind of roles we play and stuff like that, I am real clear today of why I got sober when I got sober. Because I'm a smart guy, you never would have caught me saying, no, I'm worshipping Marsha right now, no, I'm worshipping my vet career right now, no, I'm worshipping the Mercedes right now, but that was the truth, you know what I mean. All these roles that I assigned myself and these different gods that I put on a pedestal, all of a sudden weren't there anymore. See, I was no longer a homeowner, I was no longer a husband, I was no longer a father, I was no longer a veterinarian, I was no longer really that much of a smart guy, you know.
All those things that I had hung my hat on were gone. I'm not going to tell you they were taken from me, it was really a pretty good crack deal, you know what I mean. You want my kids, take them, I can smoke crack the way I want. How bad is that? I love my kids, anyone that knows me knows how much I love my kids, you know. But you put that in my body and you let me get going, especially you put me and her together and get us going,
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it's dirty, you know what I mean. We're going to roll through some people, you know. There is so much that I can say in trying to wrap this thing up. There's so many things that I am able to do today that are definitely not of my power, you know. I really, really don't like talking to big crowds of people. I really don't, you know. I really don't like to admit when I'm wrong. I really don't like to look bad, you know. There's so many things that have happened, so many people placed in my life, so many opportunities disguised as coincidences that really aren't. One of the most powerful ones that I think everyone in here can relate to, and I don't know if too many people know it, I think some people do. At the end of April, beginning of May 2008 when me and Marsha parted ways, I was driving the hot Mercedes that was wanted through all these counties, you know, in North Carolina and on my way to Texas. But before I left, I went ahead and got me some more crack and some whiskey, some Jim Beam, and I was making little pit stops obviously along the way.
Marsha, we had gotten in a fight and I had broken her phone so I had no way to get in touch with her. She was kind of walking the streets of Asheville wondering what to do, you know what I mean? Not literally walking the streets, she was on the street, walking down the street. And some of her friends picked her up and they took her to this place in Atlanta where she had her little separation event. I remember was coming from North Carolina and I stopped in Atlanta, but I had no idea Marsha was in Atlanta. And finally about 10 or 10.30 that night after I really had my game on, been drinking Jim Beam and smoking crack for a really long time, Marsha called me on my cell phone from some other cell phone and she was throwing a hissy fit on the lawn of the intake place. And she really, really wanted me to come get her. Now remember where we had spent the last four months, I mean we were using buddies. I had a lot of dope and I had a lot of whiskey. And if there was any way that I could have gotten to Marsha, I would have. And if I had gotten to Marsha, you would have a different speaker probably and you would probably have a different employee here, you know. Fast forward about nine months, I said I can't find you, we're in Atlanta.
There's like five million people here. How the hell, you can't even tell me where you're at. She had been drinking so she was all drunk too. Nine months later maybe, six months, nine months later, we went back to where she went to try and, I think it was some function of the treatment center she went to. And we, she pointed out the lawn that she was on. And the lawn that she was on was right outside the balcony of the hotel that I was drinking and smoking crack. So in a town of five million people, me and Marsha for one brief moment of a half hour or an hour could have reconnected. Do you see what I'm saying? We could have reconnected. There's some reason why I didn't look outside. There's some reason why she didn't see my car parked essentially right next to where she was throwing her hissy, you know. Things like that, you know, the book talks about when we look back. And I've seen so many things like that happen. You know guys, I want to kind of wrap up with what's going on today, these days. You know, I celebrated three years of recovery on May 13th of this year. And I cannot tell you all the things that have changed, you know. I don't know. For a year after I got out of here, I wasn't a veterinarian. I was a veterinary technician making nine bucks an hour, cleaning up dog poop, taking orders from veterinarians, mopping, sweeping. It was good for me. I never
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Would Trade That, It Allowed Me to See Things From Entirely Different Angles, But About Two Years Ago, I Had Already Tried to Get My License Back Once and I Couldn't, Where They Said No and That Was Fine With Me, I Wasn't About to Throw a Hissy, Call Lawyers, I'm a Twice Convicted Felon, There's Bylaws in the Veterinary Statutes That Say I'm Not Supposed to Be Practicing With Any Felons, But I'm Practicing, I Don't Know How That Happens, One of the Key Things That Happened, Was I Was Able to Go Sit in Front of the Veterinary Board and Mark Huston Came and Sat By My Side and Talked to the Board, They Really Made a Quick Decision Without Any Hesitancy, Go Ahead Dr. S., You're Good, We Won't Keep an Eye on You for 10 Years, But You're Good, So That's Another Thing That Happened, You Know, Me and Marcia Spent About 8 Months Separate, Then She Came Back and Then There Were Probably Another 4 or 5 Months Where It Was Just Me and Marcia, No Kids, No Kids, I Had Not Seen Sheldon, My 6 Year Old, That's Me and Marcia's Together for a Full Year and Then in April of 2009, Marcia's Mother Called and Said, It's Time for You to Come Get Your Boy, You Know, So We Drove Out to North Carolina and Sheldon Came and Then Brooks and Abby Came and Then Came the Phone Call to Bo, My Oldest Stepson, Who I Physically Assaulted Toward the End and Things Are Good with Us Now Too, He's Coming to Visit, I Told You Wyatt Has Come Out Here and Wyatt, Whose Mother I Mentioned Previously, I Mean She Took a Walk Through That House That We Call the Home in April or May of 2008 and Saw the Devastation and the Wreckage, The Broken Windows, Glass Pipes, You Know, All the Stuff That Goes Along with Drinking and Smoking Crack, You Know, She Had Every Reason in the World to Never Let Me See That Boy Again, You Know, and For Her to Put Him on a Plane Unaccompanied to Fly 1200 Miles Out to See Me, That Doesn't Have Anything to Do with Me, You Know, That's All Power of God Stuff, Just Yesterday I Told Marcia, This One Still Kind of Gets to Me, My Mom, You Know, Whose a Real Great Al-Anon By the Way, The Only Way I Was Able to Get to Texas from North Carolina, See What I Really Wanted Her to Do is Send Me $500, Right, You Think I Would Have Left North Carolina if I Got $500, No, Just Keep Going and Going, So Instead of That, I Don't Know How She Got This Brilliant Idea, But She Kind of Hansel and Gretel'd Me, All the Way from North Carolina to Texas, She Say, Jonathan, You Got $25 in Atlanta, So I Had to Go All the Way to Atlanta to Get my $25, Now, What the Hell, I'm Already There, I Don't Have Enough Gas to Get Back, and She Would Just Give Me Small Pieces Enough to Either Get Food or Put Gas in the Car, and She Did That, All the Way Through, You Know, Mississippi, Alabama, You Know, All the Way to Louisiana, Anyway, So That Kind of Gives You an Idea of the Trust Level that Was There, Between Me and My Mom, Yesterday Morning, I Got a Call on the Way to Work, and She Said, Jonathan, I Got a Favor to Ask You, I Said, Sure, Mom, What's That, She Has Her Mother, My Grandma, Is in a Nursing Home in San Antonio, and Is Very Ill, She's Probably 95 Years Old, That's Another Thing I've Been Able to Go Down and See Her, Sometimes She Knows Me, Sometimes She Doesn't, But the Point of the Story is This, My Mom Calls and Says, Jonathan, Me and Bob, Her Husband, We're Going Out on a Cruise on June 23rd, I Don't Know Where They're Going, But They're Going on a Cruise, We're Not Going to Be Back Until July 3rd, Would You Mind Being the Contact Person for the Nursing Home, Now, Mind You, I Have a Totally Competent, Normal Sister in the same town, that she could have called, you know, but she asked me, she asked me to be the contact person if my grandma dies, if they have to make any kind of big decision, she wants me to handle the call and then kind of communicate to her, you know, stuff like
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that doesn't happen to people like us, you know. Me and Marsha have kind of an 11 step meeting at our house every Wednesday, started out over a couple years ago with 4 people, now it's like 15 or 16, and we're not trying to be exclusionary, but we just can't fit more than that people in our house right now, you know, and people really want to come, I mean, right now we're studying them at Fox, Server on the Mount, you know, we've gone through the book, we've gone through Big Book Awakenings and that little tight knit group, you know, it's been a very powerful experience. I sponsor a whole lot of guys, I'm very involved in service work, I have a home group, GSR the home group, to kind of give you an idea of what is going on, let's say tomorrow, tomorrow morning I got someone coming over at 8.30 to go through some of the men's cards, then at 9.30 I'm listening to a 5th step, mind you my son got here today, I worked all day and then now I'm out here, my son's at home with his siblings, you know what I mean, tomorrow morning I will do that service work and then I'll hang out with my son, that may not be the way other people do it, that's the way that I do it, and that's the way that I feel led to do it, because I'm real clear today that for me to have any kind of effective relationship with my son, for me to have, be any kind of an effective veterinarian, husband, friend, that is 100% dependent on me staying in fit spiritual condition, which is going to keep me in that position of neutrality, safe and protected from more Jim Beam or crap. So I, and you know guys, I follow the dictates in the book, I try and live by spiritual principles and you know, my whole life has just turned around, you know, and it all started right here. The, you know, I've talked lots about the tangible stuff, you know, the things that I have, the things that came back in my life, including kids, I mean that's a tangible thing. I was thinking about it and you know, there's two primary things that being recovered has given me.
One is peace of mind, which I've always sought and never found, and the other is a real sense of direction and purpose. Again, I always sought and I had never found, you know. Nothing brought me into the present moment with no worry about yesterday or no worry about what's going on tomorrow than a shot of Jim Beam and a hit of crack. Boom, I'm 100% there, you know. That leads me to believe that not only is that where I long to be, that's where I need to be right now, right now. So if I can't find a way by living in spiritual principles, working with others, staying sober, being involved in this recovery process of being present, then I'm going to go back to what gets me present, you know.
This is a tremendous ride. You know, I wouldn't trade it for the world. You guys, there's so many people in this room that have been a part of it, I can't even begin to begin to name them, but I love this recovery center. I love AA. I definitely love God in the steps and helping others, and thank you for listening.