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Source: Jared D – BOX OF CHOCOLATES – 2026-04-09.m4a File: jared-d-box-of-chocolates-2026-04-09.mp3 Duration: 01:12:16
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Thanks for that special introduction. Can everybody hear me okay? Thumbs up? Okay, right on. It showed me an unstable connection, so I just want to make sure if we end up glitching or something like that, somebody wave wildly or whatever it might end up being. Thank you, Ramona, for that introduction, and thank you for pulling me out of Zoom retirement to come back and speak at the Box of Chocolate Group. I've got to say, before we get going on anything, that's probably the most amazing introduction, meeting introduction with the Jets and Sweet Home Alabama, and I mean, I've heard a lot of talks, and I hear like a whole lot of chanting and like, hey, we love you, and blah, blah, blah, but you know what? Jets and Sweet Home Alabama, I think, is where it's at, probably by far my favorite, so thank you to everybody in the group, and thank you, Ramona, for the invitation. I think it's just simply miraculous that we get to do these things. I get to come here and speak to you guys, and though it sounds kind of crazy, I know some of you probably have heard it before, I live a life of imitation, and I get to do these things. Life has changed from a have-to to a get-to, and I'll maybe elaborate on that a little bit later. My name is Jared D., and I am a recovered alcoholic. God separated me from alcohol in the summer of 2015. For that, I'm very grateful.
I've got a couple of Rugrats here at home that are pretty grateful that that daddy's alive and he's present, my wife also being one of those people. I introduced myself as recovered because it's the truth. I don't suffer from some sort of fall. I'm going to be. I'm always recovering. I've taken 12 steps. I've had a spiritual awakening as the result of those steps, and I no longer think about drinking. Moreover, I no longer think about not drinking.
So if you think about back when the obsession was on us before it was real. Jared, you're breaking up really bad. Jared, you're breaking up really bad. Uh-oh. I wonder how we can remedy this. Hey, Jared, do you want to stop your video? Sometimes the bandwidth will be saved from that, and we can hear you. Oh, heavens, I'm sorry. That means I got to start all over. Is that any better? Yeah. Should be. It's coming in and out. There's times when it's just messed up.
Oh, well, I hate to turn off my video because… No, you just keep going. If it gets worse, I'll turn off my video. Just let me know. I had another computer nearby, so maybe that was taking care of things. So sorry, where did I… Let me turn off all the Wi-Fi in the house. How about that? Maybe that'll help too. Okay, where did I leave off? Oh, yes. So if I come to in the morning and I'm untreated, this obsession is still on me, I'm thinking of two things. How can I get it or how can I stay away from it?
Either way, that obsession owns me. I'm a slave to that. And I don't care who you are in the world. Slavery sucks. And what's even worse is when you put yourself there. And that's kind of what alcoholism is, right? I did not plan. I said a whole lot of prayers, but I didn't plan for the talk that I was going to give tonight. Because we all know about the three different talks, right? There's the one that you think about before you go do the talk.
There's the one that you actually give. And then there's the one that you give on the way home or whatever. And you're thinking, oh, man, I should have said that. That would have been cool, you know? And no, I say just a simple set of prayers. God, guide my spirit, my words, guide their ears and their hearts. And whatever he gives me, he gives me. And so we might get a grab bag, right? It is the box of chocolates meeting.
You never know what you're going to get. But I'll qualify myself a little bit first. I grew up in Midland, Texas and had, you know, most of everything that a kid could ask for. You know, I grew up playing soccer. I grew up in theater. Had clothes on my back, shoes on my feet, food in my belly. Didn't go through any traumatizing events or anything as a kid or even as a teenager or as an adult, besides what I put myself through, I guess, with drinking.
But at a very early age, I had a knack for performance. And I knew that I could get a lot of people's attention if I was the life of the party, if I was the class clown. And, you know, a lot of people end up in their story.
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They may say that, you know, they didn't feel like they were good enough or, you know, that they perhaps weren't worthy or they, you know, that they didn't feel like being a part of. See, I feel like in a way I'm kind of the opposite. Like I knew I was a part of, but in some ways I was so egotistical and so arrogant that I felt better then. And, you know, I carried this ego for a very, very long time.
And through performance and stuff like that, I realized what I could do to get people's attention. And I really honed that, that level of, you know, not just being a class clown, but manipulation and, you know, probably deceit and things of that nature. I didn't really drink until I was maybe a junior in high school. And of course, you know, the first time I really got drunk, I had some bad things happen.
I'm going with a date to the high school football game and we had put down some, I want to say it was a six pack of Coors Tall Boys and several bottles of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill. If you know what Boone's Farm is, I know, I know a handful of people do. Yeah. All right. Heavens to Betsy. That grape never touched it, I promise. Anyway, unfortunately, she fell down the bleachers that night and I came to her rescue and the cops scooped us up and, you know, instead of going to jail, we got in school suspension for like 94 days.
And so, you know, this isn't even the nip of the ringer, but for someone as extroverted like myself, it was kind of like being in Alcatraz and I, you're in like a little, you know, four foot by four foot cubicle. And I remember making notches on the, in the paint of how many days I'd been in there, that kind of thing. Um, this wasn't even the nip of what I would end up going through a little bit later, but suffice to say, alcohol was still working for me.
You know, if I felt like the life of the party and better than before alcohol, then it only, you know, made it, uh, made it worse. Well, it made it better. I would say that. Why? Because, you know, the effect that the book talks about, I locked that into long-term memory and these things were working. Uh, I could talk to any girl in the room. I was a way better dancer, which was beneficial for the ladies.
Um, and, uh, you know, I felt like I grew muscles and all that kind of stuff. It was great. And so for a number of years, it worked and, you know, I got some, some bumps and scrapes along the way. Uh, I mean, another silly situation without going into too many war stories, cause I'll stop with this one. Um, was that a, uh, it was in college in Denton, Texas, and it was a costume party. And like any good alcoholic, I waited the last minute to get a, uh, a costume and, um, went to the local costume shop.
It was all taken over where everything was taken. And so I find the one costume that I think would still work. And it was a one piece Spider-Man leotard, two sizes, too small. Still went to Spider-Man as Spider-Man that night. Okay. It was great. Everybody laughed. It was awesome. I'm going to get this later off me. Um, and, uh, I was getting in my car, getting ready to be the responsible guy and go home after just a few drinks.
And all of a sudden I hear a knock on my car window. I look over and, um, short story is I get arrested by a bicycle cop that night and I went to jail as Spider-Man. Now, uh, no, I didn't have any backup clothes to, to switch into my Peter Parker disguise. Uh, but I certainly hit an all time low, at least at that time. And I'm, you know, getting my fingerprints done and there's people banging on the glass and they're like, me and I, Spider-Man come save us, get us out of here.
You know? And I'm like, Oh boy, this is, this is rough. But unfortunately I would still go a number of years before things would get truly bad because alcohol was still working, you know? And, uh, you know, I discovered some, let's just say some outside issues that are legal in most States now. Uh, and I put a bandaid on drinking for a long time by just doing that, but it got to a point where that didn't work anymore.
And then I just resorted back to drinking and around, let's say 2010 ish, perhaps. Um, you know, I was, I started drinking a lot. I had decided not to major in theater and I ended up moving into, into the film business where I, I am currently, and I got a job as an assistant director and in big book terms, I, I run the show. I managed the set and, uh, but unfortunately it's very hard to do, um, whenever you're
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blacked out. Right. And, uh, in a very short amount of time, I got blacklisted from the film business because, you know, I, I just can't, I can't show up the way that I'm supposed to. And just to backtrack a little bit, you know, I'm, I'm drinking a lot. My wife notices and she's like, you know what you, uh, you've been kind of drinking a lot. Do you think you can just wait until I get home after work to start drinking?
And I'm like, well, honey, of course I love you so much. I'm going to, I'm going to try that. And that lasted probably two days. And then she said, well, why don't you wait until the weekends to, to start drinking? And I'm like, you know what? I'm going to try that. And that probably lasted two days and my life started turning into, um, hiding it. We got any hiders in here. Yeah, that's me. Um, and what I would do is I would come to in the morning.
I'd look for the bottle that I hid and I'd find it, I'd consume it. And then I'm looking to see how I can get more. But, you know, of course I'm hiding it in a blackout. So I hide it from myself, you know, and I'm ripping up the entire house, just trying to find it, you know what I mean? And I find whatever it is. Fortunately, I'm tall. So I would put it up in the gutters in my house, you know what I mean?
And I'd be able to just reach into the gutter and pull it out. Kind of ridiculous. But, uh, suffice to say, you know, perfectly legal substance and I'm hiding it. And what I'm starting to realize is anytime I would drink, I would, I would just keep going until the bitter end. I wasn't able to, you know, to control it. There might be times when I would say, okay, I'm only going to have a couple. And I would try to wait for my wife to get off of work or whatever, but it just wasn't happening.
You know, every drink led me to the next drink. And so this, this loss of control was pretty apparent early on, but, you know, I still felt like I had the ability to try to manage it in other ways. And that's when I wound up in my first treatment center. And, you know, it was, uh, it was kind of a shock because it was one of those places where they took your shoestrings and they took your, uh, your drawstrings and your pants and stuff like that.
And I was just like, man, this is, this is crazy. And, um, you know, of course I didn't stay sober after that one. It took me another, uh, four or five, uh, up until I got to a point where things were just getting extremely bad. And I would drink from the moment I came to, to the moment I passed out day in and day out. I could not live with the drink and I could not live without the drink. I had to drink to live and it was killing me.
And, uh, you know, by this time, my poor wife is beside herself on, you know, how to handle me, um, which is pretty apparent for anybody who's got a family member. I mean, like the book says, it's enough to drive anybody, uh, any parent or child neurotic. And that's the God honest truth. And, um, you know, those things would come and bite me in the rear a little bit later on in life. Um, but to get to the point is, uh, I think my fifth treatment center, I wound up at a place where, you know, the lights were on and these people were talking about the big book and, um, two men gave me some instruction that later saved my life.
And one of those men is in this room today. And they told me, it's like, look, Jared, if you're going back to, you're going back to Dallas, you need to get hooked up with the primary purpose group. And sure enough, I did went back and, um, that's where I found my sponsor and he's still my sponsor to this day. Did I stay sober? You know? Uh, no, I didn't because I still had a whole lot of research to do.
And what ends up happening is that, you know, uh, the book tells us on page 30, we learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost self. And what does that look like? A long time ago when I had, when I knew I had a problem, I could admit that to you intellectually. Right. In my mind, I could tell you, yeah, of course I have a problem. Yeah. I'm an alcoholic, but where I couldn't admit that is in my innermost self, in my heart of hearts, in my gut, in my spirit and all of the things that I went through.
Every single, uh, you know, bump and bruise or getting my teeth kicked in day in and day out was absolutely necessary for that information to travel from my head to my heart. And so, you know, went to one more treatment center after that, doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, um, not counting ER visits, jail visits, you know what I mean? All of these things, which understandably are not a prerequisite to being an alcoholic.
And I want to make that perfectly clear. Um, when we look at what this unmanageability looks like, it is not the consequences. It is, uh. It Is, Anybody Who Drinks Copious Amounts of Alcohol Is Going to Get Into Some Trouble, Right?
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And so all of those things are just results of my drinking. They don't – that's not a link to my unmanageability. When we look at this unmanageability piece, it's simply can I manage the decision to stay away from it to save my own life? And at that point, I certainly couldn't. I'd make firm resolution after firm resolution, and what am I doing 24 or 48 hours later? And on September the 5th, 2015, I met a level of desperation that since then hasn't been matched.
And I came to that day, and I realized that I had only two options. It was get sober now or die, and that was it. There was no door number three. It was just those two options. And so I called up my sponsor, and I'm like, hey, dude, I'm ready to do this, and it's – hold on. I'm going to be a little bit more honest. I was more like, JK, I need your help. And I'm all snotting and sniveling and – you know what I mean?
And he's like, all right, big boy. I've heard this before. Let's see what your feet are going to do. All right. That was a Sunday. On Tuesday, I met him at the group. We recapped some step one stuff. We hit our knees, and we did a third step prayer. He gave me my instructions for step four, and he said, you have a week to do this or else. And or else meant go away because for one-and-a-half years, two-and-a-half years at least, I had been going in and out, doing one, two, and three or making it to four and then going out and whatever.
You know what I mean? I was wasting his time, time that he could have been using to help somebody else who seriously wanted it because I certainly didn't at the time. He said you got a week to do this or else. And on day nine of sobriety, I met up with him in the morning. We did our fifth step, went home – sorry. I went home before lunch, did – spent my hour of quiet time. I did six and seven. And at the lunch table, I'm making an eight-step list, and I got his permission, and I secured my wife's permission to go off and make some amends later on that afternoon.
And as I was driving home from making one of those amends, one of my buddies called me, and they said, hey, dude, we're going to go to Homeward Bound tonight. Homeward Bound is a wind-up joint that we got here in Dallas. And he said we're going to go carry the message here tonight. Do you want to join us? And I was like absolutely. I wouldn't miss it for the world. And sure enough, did I have anything to share that day?
I don't know. I really don't know. But those guys asked me who I was, and I told them who I was, and I told them what I had done that day, four through nine, or at least starting with nine, all in half a day, almost a full day. And they were amazed because as many of us have the experience, people say, oh, you've got to take your time. You've got to be – you've got to do a step a month, which is not found in our book anywhere.
The steps are meant to be worked rapidly. They give us all sorts of words at once, quickly, vigorously, all of these things, which means if I want to get well, how quickly do I want to get well? All it requires is honesty, fearlessness, and thoroughness. And so I walked – I was driving home, and though it sounds cliche, I felt like my truck wheels kind of didn't touch the ground. But I had one thought and one thought only, and that was that I didn't ever have to pick up another drink after that.
And that was the beginning of my first spiritual experience. But the fortunate part, and it's been said before, that we don't live off of one spiritual experience. I can't live off the food I had yesterday. So every day is a day when I've got to continue to go into the spiritual gym, lift some spiritual muscles, and search for the next spiritual experience. And so the cool part about when we get the chance to tell our story is that, yeah, we talk about what we were like, living life on self-will.
We talk about what happened, deflation at death, spiritual experience, spiritual awakening. And then we get to talk about what we're like living in the sunlight of the spirit. But the cool part about that is that that part of the story isn't over. That story – that part of the story continues, and that's the cool part that keeps changing and changing and changing and changing. And I guess I would like to talk about that most importantly because I feel like oftentimes we hear people telling their story, and it might be war stories for 95% of it.
And then it's like, oh, yeah, and I did the steps. Step 12 is pretty important. See you guys out there. And I feel like we do it a disservice whenever we should probably be talking about 1 and 12 the entire time.
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And throughout this process, I harmed – well, back when drinking and being untreated before and after, or dearing, excuse me, I had harmed a lot of people. And I became proficient in making amends because I had to do at least 177 direct face-to-face amends. And I screwed over a lot of people. Excuse my language. And that wasn't something that just happened overnight. I had stolen a lot of things, and what did I have to do?
I had to secure my wife's permission. Why? Because if I was to go back to a place that I had robbed and got arrested, guess what? More people were going to be hurt. My kids wouldn't have a dad around. My wife wouldn't have someone to help pay the bills, and she'd be left all alone, similar to how it was when I was drinking. And there were plenty of shop owners and stuff who looked at me like, what on earth are you doing showing up here with money?
But then they understood exactly what I was doing. One store in particular, the local Albertsons, I don't know if you all have Albertsons where you live, but the shop owner caught me shoplifting. She kicked me out back when I was drinking, and I showed back up with a sum of money to repay her and to make amends. And I made the approach. She remembered me because it was our family store. She knows my kids by name, you know what I mean, that kind of thing, or just my daughter at the time.
And she said, you know what? A lot of people may say they're sorry, but I've never met one person who will ever try to make it right. And this means more to me than you could possibly know. And you're more than welcome to come back and shop in my store at any point in time you wish. And we did, you know what I mean? And I've been able to – at one point in time, it's just like I'm just out making drive-by amends.
I'm only going to – I've scheduled to make one, and somehow there's five other people who are in the same place at the same time. And it's like, all right, God, I see what you're doing. Let's just go for it. And we're just knocking them out. Get some. And it was a great feeling. And this was all within the first couple of years of sobriety. Nine months into – no, not nine months into it. It was two months into it that I got the first guy that I was able to sponsor, that God gave me, and we hit it off great.
And after that, I've been blessed to work with hundreds of men and take hundreds of men through the work. And some in places that I wouldn't even dream of thinking about. I had a guy from New Delhi call me and ask me to take him through the work. And I was just like, okay, where are you on the map now? I had to go look and brush up on my geography and stuff like that. And I mean we know where New Delhi is, but he was outside of that.
But did I do any of that? No, I didn't. God did that. And because I was continuing to chop wood and carry water and living in the spiritual disciplines of 10, 11, and 12, trying to remain right sides, things were happening that I couldn't possibly dream of. People – someone gave me a shot to get back into the film business, and sure enough, I did. And now I get an opportunity to be, I guess, a staple in a lot of the shoots that happen here, out of town, out of the country.
People trust me now, which is great. As I said earlier, I live a life of imitation. People ask me to go places. And there was a lot of times before that people would call ahead and, your husband's not coming, is he? That kind of thing. But now I get a chance to go places, which is great. There's a couple of stories that I do want to share, and one of them, in full honesty, is something that has kind of happened ever so recently.
And so I recently, back in September, celebrated 10 years of sobriety. And something that had recently come to my knowledge is I'm starting to kind of have a few problems at home, and problems with everybody at home. I'm having problems with how I interact with my wife. I'm having issues with my kids and stuff, and how they were viewing me. And I had to really sit back and take a look at that. And what I realized is that a piece of ego had reemerged.
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Though I'm sitting here doing 10, 11, and 12, every day there was still a piece of something that I fell asleep to. And what that was was exactly how I'm showing up to the people who are closest to me. That's my wife, and that's my children. And what I mean by that specifically is stuff like my wife brings a problem to me. I'm dismissing her, thinking I'm the top dog of the house. I call all the shots.
Being defensive when she has a problem with that. And suffice to say, not showing up in the way that my vows had laid out in a simple marriage. But the problem was is that I wasn't having any issues with anybody else. It was all happening at home. And somehow it was very easy for me to fall asleep to. And my kids were getting to a point where it was like I was becoming demanding. I was becoming a drill sergeant at home.
When we get up in the morning, I'm getting ready for school. It's like, all right, you've got five minutes to do this, and we've got to do this. Brush your teeth, comb your hair. And I'm just becoming not a pleasant person to be around. But I didn't see this. I was blind to this. And it took more work within the steps to be able to wake up to those things. And as a little sidebar, the coolest part about this program is that it is a spiritual program of action.
It is not a religious one, even though some of the early pieces of this stem from some religious backing. What we have is a broad and roomy spiritual program. And if we just put – I hate to put it in a box, but if I was to define it, I would say that spirituality is really just about waking up. I think Anthony DeMello wrote about doing things asleep. People live their lives asleep. They go to work asleep.
They have kids asleep, so on and so forth. And not many people truly get a chance to wake up. And for a long period of time, I was awake, but I fell asleep again. And if it was not for many men who held me accountable and my wife holding me accountable and doing some intensive work through the 12 steps, meaning personal inventory and 10 steps as well and continuing to bring things to prayer and meditation, I wouldn't have been able to see what I had fallen asleep to.
And I was asleep dreaming that I was awake. So that brings me now to the present day. The book tells us that we've entered a long period of reconstruction, and of course that's back in the chapter into action when it comes to making amends. But you know what? That still continues for our lifetime. And what I had also fallen asleep to was all of the damage that I had done in the past, even though I had made amends for still created lasting damage within my relationship.
And so I had to look into the ways of healing those types of things, the division that I had created between me and my wife, the division that I created between myself and my children. And was I truly being the man that I wanted to be? Was I truly being the man better yet that God would have me be? Because in my mind, and this is part of the reason that I fell asleep, I was being the person that I wanted to be.
But I wasn't being the person that God would have me be. And when you wake up to that, it becomes kind of scary. You know what I mean? And I had to take a long look at myself. It's like, am I a fraud? I'm out here, you know, trying to take guys through the work and, you know, talking about to them, you know, hey, you know, you got to be doing this, you got to be doing this. And there are things that I'm not even doing.
And I had to take a long look at that, you know, was I was I reaping what I sow? Was I, you know, doing the walk and the talk? That kind of thing. Fortunately, now on, you know, on the path to healing, we have now developed a better form of communication. My wife and myself, we've developed a better communication on how I interact with the children. And a lot of it comes from patience. Right. And I will tell you this right now.
The book when the book talks about pausing. Right now the book when the book talks about pausing when agitated or doubtful pausing when agitated or doubtful can save can save a lot can save a lot in just the most minute
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arguments you know um and it's there for a reason and so um sorry I lost my train of thought um I think the coolest part is that now I get to kind of formulate a new relationship with my wife and in the way that um that we both set out to to have and I get to be true to the you know to the vows that we created for each other and not only that I get to support her in the way that she needs to be supported because for the longest time I'm only supporting her and how I think she needs to be supported and it's always about what I think what I feel and it's not really about what anybody else thinks right because my word is the last word and um so ego ego took another hit which is is great you know what I mean not many people get a chance to say that but it was great you know now I get to wake up to the things that I was asleep to and so you know what I think we'd like to I'd like to move into is that to show you how God is actually working in my life currently is that I have at least six or seven men who have a spouse or have a girlfriend and interestingly enough part of the way that I became started to come awake to this is that some of their issues that they were calling to 10-step about were some of the issues that I was having and you know anytime someone of my one of my guys calls me um and I see you know shows up on caller id or whatever I just say a quick prayer right because I don't want to be the one to show up to help them with a 10-step I want God to be able to speak through me and the interesting part enough is that all of the things that came to me in the times that I'm helping these gentlemen uh try to get redirected to God were stuff that were applicable in my life too but it wasn't coming from me it was coming from God working in me and through me and only in living life forward and understanding it backwards did that become really apparent and so um all of these things that God had given me to give to other men I was able to apply into my own life to be able to start repairing some of the damage that I had done um and that's such a miraculous thing I feel like you know um oftentimes um I'll I will tell you this in living in a life of invitation I've been asked to go to to many different places and I don't say that in a bragging way I say it as as just another uh notch in the belt of the miraculous things that God is is able to do I've been asked to go to many different countries and uh talk with you know with plenty of people and that's not something that I probably could have brought about um it's something that that only God has brought about and I would have to say that I've had really good teachers I've had a I've had an amazing sponsor I've had men in my life like the one I mentioned who's in the room right now who um have set an example as to how we how we carry ourselves as recovered alcoholics as to the program and how we approach it and not only that and how we continue to um uh live these principles and now here's the thing I'm not putting anybody on a pedestal because we know we all know that it's dangerous to do that um but I would like to give credit where credit is due and what I mean by that is that um without a good teacher I could be lost and I feel like you know that's something that every person needs uh Bill Wilson said I want to say it was in uh it was in 1942 our chief responsibility to the newcomer is to deliver an adequate presentation of the program I even have a fancy sticker that shows it right and um that is every one of our responsibility I feel like you know when someone a new person walks into the room we can't just automatically accept that that person might be an alcoholic because they may not be um it's our responsibility and it's our obligation to qualify the newcomer and oftentimes people look at that as the dreaded Q word but the book tells me I have to do it right tells me I need to do it and if you don't believe me you can go into the chapter working with others right it gives us tons of instructions
[00:35:05]
on what to do on our first meeting and then it asks us if you are satisfied that he is a real alcoholic begin to dwell on the hopeless feature of the malady right I need to be satisfied that who is sitting in front of me is a real alcoholic and that's why it's important not only to be properly armed with the facts about myself but the facts about the book we bring to the task our combined experience and knowledge and so I need to know exactly who I have in front of me do I have a you know a little disco drunk do I have a a moderate drinker do I have a heavy drinker in front of me right uh or do I have a real alcoholic more importantly as we begin to see that more and more fellowships uh are growing out and around us with problems other than alcoholism do I have a double winner in front of me do I have somebody who has a problem other than alcohol but they just wound up in here to get the good a a sobriety quote unquote right um and so I have to know the questions to ask and one thing that my sponsor had me do is we have a lot of friends uh here in Dallas uh who are in another fellowship DAA I'll let you you know take a look at what the acronyms mean but these guys uh are some big dogs here in Dallas the first um meeting in the United States uh for that group was started here in Dallas um its inception was late was earlier in Sweden but the first one in the United States happened here in Dallas and those guys do great wonders working with drug addicts and often times more often than not I end up disqualifying more people than I end up qualifying why because I ask the right questions and I took the time as my sponsor had asked me to do to figure out what a step one experience looks like for a drug addict versus what it looks like for an alcoholic and understand try to understand um from their experience what that looks like so here's the thing the book tells or it it has been said not in in this part of the book but we can't be all things to all people and oftentimes we should get somebody to show up who who um you know who wants our help and we desperately want to help them but guess what if I cannot uh match my experience with their experience then what I'm going to ask them to do is to cordially ask for a second opinion I'm going to hand them a number of somebody who might be in DAA CA NA whatever any of our respective sister fellowships are why because I don't have any experience in anything else but alcohol right and me um trying to think that I could probably help somebody when I have no experience of putting a needle in my arm or a pipe to my mouth is deadly and it's dangerous and I'm not trying to sit here and talk down to anybody I certainly don't want to act as the world's foremost authority on any of this but I've learned from bitter experience about what the truth is behind this it's important you know the book tells us that we have you know a lot of levity between us we can have fun we can laugh but underlying all of this is a level of deadly earnestness right we have to be serious I'm not willing to barter somebody else's life on a on a wind that maybe I'm just arrogant enough to be able to help somebody who I have no experience with and that's why this qualification process is absolutely is absolutely important which speaks to our singleness of purpose the book talks about in in many different ways what our purpose is if I think back and back in the day what it looks like untreated right my life is looking for purpose I'm looking to connect I'm looking to be a part of now I had to lose my life to gain it to gain a new one and now my life has meaning and it has purpose and that's to go out and help other alcoholics and that's my primary purpose to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety so now I have two purposes that we talked about we got a singleness of purpose we got a primary purpose what's my other purpose the real purpose which it talks about in the chapter into action and that's to fit myself to be a maximum service to God and the people about us fitting myself not being fit right fitting myself and what do I do that by continuing to work the spiritual disciplines of 10 11 and 12 which unfortunately in in some of our rooms have been cast out as just extra credit as optional right but what I'm here to try to tell you and to try to reinforce and reiterate is the absolute how paramount 10 11 and 12 are they feed off of each other they're reciprocal right I can't do
[00:40:05]
one without the other why because if I do one without the other I become top heavy in one thing right if I come become top heavy and going out somewhere and carrying the message and I'm I'm doing great at doing this but I'm not doing 10 and 11 guess what what do I have to transmit you know I'll paint a picture that will hopefully sum all of this up and kind of bring it to the forefront so in Bill's story he had talked he described Ebi as his roots had grasped new soil right and as we emerge out of our fifth step and we induce six and seven right and we we stand before God and we're ready to have these things removed and we ask him to be removed the the these character defects to be removed we're now on the first step for life right and now I have been pulled up root and branch and I've been placed a new soil and I'm continuing to tend to the soil right I'm repairing things around it I'm bridging the division between myself and God the division that I made by bridging the division between me and his kids the closer I am to God's closer I am to God's kids the closer I can get to God right and now we approach 10 11 10 11 and 12 and oftentimes people think 10 is just oh well it's just doing four through nine over and over again that that might be doing it a disservice why is that because I've already done a you know a fourth and fifth step right and I am now awake to what these things look like I'm awake to what resentment looks like to what dishonesty looks like selfishness self-centeredness fear all of these things right and so what I continue to do is I continue to prune the tree in 10 to remain right sized but I also continue to feed and water it in 11 right so that it can then reach the sunlight of the spirit feed and water through prayer and meditation how much time am I spending with God in the most important relationship I will ever have in my entire life how much time am I spending with God think about it if you were in a relationship with your spouse boyfriend girlfriend whoever it might be and you just said hi to them in the morning and hi to them at night and that's it how long would that relationship last it wouldn't you know why because I'm not contributing anything to it I'm not finding out more about this person and it's been said that everything that I think I know about myself will keep me from learning anything new about myself but moreover anything I think I know about God will keep me from learning anything new about God and so that's why I continue to contribute into this relationship so that I do remain at right size so that I remain a vessel an open vessel to be able to receive whatever might come my way because it might not come from a burning bush moment it might not be you know God talking to me in prayer Jared listen no it may not show up like that what it's probably going to show up to is me sitting knee to knee with another drunk and somebody has something to say it may show up from my sponsor doing a 10 step it may show up from a stranger who I have met on the street and somehow God works through them to be able to get to me but I wouldn't receive it if I wasn't awake to it but now what we have is the 12th step right an extremely important step that gives us three different things that we need to do having had a spiritual awakening right as a result of these steps we carried we tried to carry this message to who other alcoholics right alcoholics anonymous is for you guessed it alcoholics right and to try to practice these principles in all of our affairs right in all of our affairs means not just at the AA meeting when I can you know sound off something and look hip slick and cool for an hour sound like Moses right but what am I doing when I go home right what how am I treating my wife how am I treating my kids something that I had to take a long look at right um a more as the book says a more important demonstration of these principles lies in our homes occupations and affairs right it says homes first right um so going back to the the rest of this 12 step um having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps tried to carry this message to other alcoholics practice these principles to Carry This Message to Other Alcoholics, Practice These Principles in All of Our Affairs.
But more importantly, what do I have to transmit?
[00:45:02]
If I'm not doing 10 and 11, the book tells us in Vision for You, we can't transmit something that we haven't got, but I can transmit what I do have. And if that's nothing but sickness, if that's Jared working Jared's program and not the program, then what I transmit could be iffy, could be fatal. And if you're working Jared's program, oh my God, wear a helmet, because it's going to get ugly pretty dang quick.
But if we're in the precepts of V program, and I am living in 10 and 11, then what I have to transmit, what this tree that has grasped new soil, that's been pruned, that's continued to be fed and watered, that produces good fruit. And anybody who eats of that fruit, guess what? Gets an opportunity to be able to live again. But what we're talking about is freedom. We're not talking about relief. Relief is just me getting the blowtorch backed away from my butt for a few minutes, whatever, a few days.
But what we're talking about is pure freedom, right? Being able to go anywhere on God's green earth, head up, shoulder square, an effective agent for God, right? Not ducking and dodging people, not hiding, right? We have recovered and been given the power to help others. It's not a struggle every single day, despite what you see on social media or whatever. If anybody is struggling, please reach out, right?
Reach out to someone local. I'll put my number in the chat. Give me a call. Let's get you the help that you need, right? So that you can get well quick and join us as we trudge the road of happy destiny. So I will wrap up with this. Probably one of my most favorite sentences in the book. Back here. Let me get there real quick. All right, page 124. Now, I kind of touched on it just a second ago. Everybody's always taken issue with the recovering, recovered part.
And you know what? The book asked me to introduce myself to the new man as someone who has recovered, right? The book tells me to do it. It's a program of precise instructions. And so if I want the same results as the founders got, then I need to do precisely as they did. Straying from any of that is Jared working Jared's program. As we talked about, those results are iffy. So I believe once the obsession is removed, we have recovered and been given the power to help others.
Even you might hear people say, oh, I'm always going to be powerless, you know? I feel like that does the newcomer a disservice. And I don't subscribe to that defeatist attitude. Why? Because it tells us in a number of places what our job is and the power that works in our lives. Is it my power? No, it's God's. So check this out. Page 124, cling to the thought that in God's hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have, the key to life and happiness for others.
With it, you can avert death and misery for them. That doesn't sound like powerless. That sounds like great power. And again, it's not my power. That's the power of work of God working in me and through me. And thank goodness, we have a set of precise instructions that will keep me right sized at any point in time, at any point in life, right? That'll keep me down the path. So with that, I want to say thank you again to the group.
I want to say thank you to Ramona for having me and inviting me again. I appreciate it. It's good to see some new faces, and it's certainly good to see some old ones. I love you guys. And if I can be of service to anybody, please don't be afraid to holler. Thank you very much. Love from Dallas, Texas. Thanks, Jared. Thank you so much for joining us tonight where you never know what you're going to get.
We will just have to keep coming back. We surely hope to see you here next Tuesday where our special guest is. Where is he? Did he leave? There he is, Bill W., right up there. He's just started to hang out with us now. That's cool. Okay. If you like this meeting, please do as Bill Wilson always said, pass it on. You can help others right from your phone or computer and tell them about this special
[00:50:04]
meeting. Everyone is invited to hang out on the back porch with us after the meeting. And Jared, do you have any closing remarks or would you close us out with a prayer or a response? Whatever it is you want to close with. Well, I actually have a Scottish jig that I think we should all take part in. No, I think a prayer would be nice. Let us close with the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. Feel the power. Everybody can talk. Jared, I know. Thank you, Jared. Thank you, guys. Appreciate you. Thank you, Jared. Good seeing you, buddy. It's very good to see you too, sir.
Thank you for everything. Thank you, Jared. It was a great story. He's the one that helped me a lot too. He and his brother. So, when you said that, I was going like, I know who it is. I know who it is. I know who it is. And he gets scared when he comes to Alabama or anywhere around here because I chase him down. We call that stalking in Texas. We call it stalking in Alabama too, Chris. It's just…
Okay. It's just busking. It's the same all over. Alabama rules. Yeah. Same in Los Angeles. I was the guy, when I got sober, I didn't even own an address book. I didn't have any friends. I pushed everybody away. You know, and all of a sudden, you know, you stay sober a little while, you look around, you got… I mean, look at Zoom. I mean, we got friends all over the world. Pretty cool. Yeah. It's amazing.
Pretty cool. Thank you, Jared. Good to see y'all. Have a wonderful rest of your weekend. Let's do the same, Vivian. Thank you. Yeah. Happy Vivian. Jared, she came on one night, and the speaker didn't show up, and I said, oh, Vivian's here. She's our speaker. Thank you. Jared, before we lose you, I want to double check. You're okay with me, Cindy? Yeah. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good.
I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. It was a pleasure to have you with me, Cindy, recording two recovery speakers and recovery tapers. I ask only because I did hear you say both first and last name. Yes. Absolutely. Go ahead. Okay. Thank you for asking. I appreciate that. She'll probably send you to the other stuff. We have to send speakers to everywhere because we have even a—Lord, I can go through 30 names on one day.
Bill got trapped being here. That's a good thing. Sometimes being trapped ain't so bad. Yeah. When Chris introduces you as his friend, that's what happens. Yeah, right? Okay. I totally understand that. It's like you— I heard it. Okay. Yeah. What he said. Yeah. Yeah. All right. He's our friend too. I love Chris and Myers. Yeah. Those dudes are cool as hell. Yeah. They are. Melanie, did you want to say something?
I see you're unmuted. Yeah. The speaker tapes are how I found you guys. That's wonderful. I was trying to find a tape for somebody. I'm the chair of Upstate next year. I was trying to find a tape of one of my speakers, and it was from you guys. Then another one of my choices was from you guys. I looked it up, and I was like, hey, I can make this meeting because I can't make the one at my group on Thursdays because it's too early.
I was just like, I'll just come in. Awesome. You come right on in. Come in every weekend. Yeah. That's cool. I have to miss next week. I'll be here every week. I have to miss next week. That's right. I heard Bill's feelings. Look at Bill. He's getting all sad over there. I'm just kidding. I'm sorry. I'm just teasing. You'll be able to catch up to listen to his talk whenever it comes out.
[00:55:05]
I do plan on making it my Thursday regular. That's good. It's nice. It's good. It's good. It's good. It's Thursday regulars. Jared, this is Paul in Atlanta. Hey, Paul. I'd like to reach out to you. I've got somebody in Houston that has been calling me, and I need to try to get him face to face with somebody. If you've got a connection in Houston, that would be wonderful. I absolutely do, as a matter of fact.
Do you know specifically what part of Houston? The Sugar Land area, southwest. Okay. Yeah. Feel free. Give me a call. Shoot me a text. Whichever. I am happy to help get you set up or get you some numbers, any way I can help out. I really appreciate it. I used to be there 10 years ago, and most of the people I know have either passed away or have moved on. Ah, got it. Yeah. We'll see how we can help out.
Okay? Thank you. Hey, Jared. Thank you. I'm going to send you my contact information, too. Righteous. All right. Let's do it. Yep. And you're in St. Louis? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Cool. And I'm part of a really big home group up here. Well, I mean, big for us, anyway. It's about 100 people. Nice. There's usually about 120 people, and anytime you're in St. Louis, I might get you to speak at our meeting.
It's modeled after Clancy's Pacific meeting. Oh, okay. So we have three speakers every Friday night, two 10-minute and one 40-minute. Sweet. Nice. What's the name of the group, Bill? What's the name of the group, Bill? Even if that doesn't happen, I'd love to come. Oh, yeah. Thank you. What's the name of the group, Bill? Into Action. Into Action. Yeah. Sweet. And Godspeed next week, brother. Oh, yeah.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. My first Zoom talk. Come and join us. Feel the power. Come and join us. Annette, Bill H said hello, too. I see him almost every Monday. Yeah. Yeah. I missed the last one because I got tied up doing some other stuff for the family, but yeah. He's a sweetheart. I love his wife. She is so funny. Tina, my wife is a sweetheart, too. Yep. She is nice.
Yeah. It was Harold Long's birthday yesterday. Yesterday. Really? Yeah. At 39. So, 39 years. Yeah. I'm a red light, too. I tell you, there's some wonderful people around this world that we've got to meet because of this. Mm-hmm. It's wonderful. This is A.L. on the Rocks. Yep. This is A.L. on the Rocks on Wednesday. Yeah. I was there last night. Yeah. Did you go hybrid? No. I was there. Listen. Oh, okay.
Yeah. Lulu spoke. Oh. I don't know if you know who Lulu is. I've heard the name. Yeah. She's- I went with Harold to- … around the circuit a little bit, and she was part of the Pacific group in California. Very sweet. I went with Harold to a treatment center online a couple times. There? Yeah. He goes every week. He goes every week to a treatment center in St. Louis, and he had it online. Yeah. Yeah.
Sina Lake? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's really close to where I live. I live in Arnold, which is a suburb of St. Louis, and it's in Dittmer, Missouri. Ah. It's like Cedar Hill area, which is kind of in the sticks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll tell you what, there's a lot of places in the sticks. That's a habit.
That's a habit. Well, I helped to go so I can pack to get on the road to go meet Stephen and Annette in Birmingham. Yeah. I have to go there, too. We made it. We were 30 minutes long, but traffic jam. Stay here. I'll tell you what, you guys enjoy your trip, then. Yep. Yup. Everybody. Every trip is always a blast. We get the opportunity- Thank you so much for having us. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us. We're telling our delegate what to do. I'm just kidding. We're just- Yeah. We're just giving them the information. We're bossing him around this weekend. Old man on the totem pole. Lowest in the room. That's right. Yeah. Well, I'll see you guys next week, and hopefully the kids don't cause any problems next week.
That's not- I got them by myself next week. You can't change your your date. I've already had one.
[01:00:04]
I'm not. I'm not going to change. I'll be here. I just might have a seven and eight year old button in every once in a while. Well, you know, that's where we get in all of our affairs. You just start talking about all of our affairs over and over again. Commentary. Let me take a demonstration, demonstration of all of our affairs as they're in action. That's right. That's you guys. Take care of yourselves. Thank you. Love you. Love you. Bye.
All right, guys, I got to go pack. OK, Melanie, I bet you really think you're upgraded from Ruston to here to with us, right? Really nice. I mean, it really is nice. No, I really do like it. I really do that because I'm originally from South Louisiana and I graduated undergrad at LSU so I can do that. I can send that stuff. I did undergrad here and then did my upper at LSU. Oh, so you're going to reverse good. Good job. But now it's a big difference there.
Yeah, now I did. Now I live back in my hometown, but it it's different. It's different when you go back. It's very different. It's very rural and we only have like one a here. Yeah, we used to have two. So there's no there's no young people's program on campus. Well, they're starting one. They will have one. I'm I'm not a young person. Yeah, but there is going to be one, but it will be limited to it will be limited students.
Well, I thought you were students. No, no, I did. I did undergrad. No, I'm 43 or 44 now. Somehow, you can still be a student. You look like a baby. No, God, I'm old. No, but no, I did. But we only have one here and they moved the time to well, they added a meeting at 530 and everybody goes to it. And so like eight is pretty much like two people. And so and like, usually, they just close the meeting. Yeah, have it unless a newcomer comes. So I'll go over there at eight and then it's not a meeting. Well, you know, they should read that we carry the message to the alcoholic. Yeah, it does. If there's a new person that shows up, we'll have a meeting.
You're still an alcoholic, right? Yeah. So you showed up, let's have a meeting. But it's so, so I usually just like do other things. So I found girls tapes, I found Cushing and Carolyn out of out of British Columbia. I was trying to find tapes of them that weren't service talks. Because my committee doesn't want to have service talks. Are you talking about Cushing Phillips? Yes, he's amazing. He did the traditions and we've had him do the concepts. We had him do his story here. Yeah, he did story because I found that because I was trying to find one where it was not Icky Paul because I'm trying to find tapes that the content won't immediately disqualify them from the speaker panel. And if it is a service tape and they or a Icky Paul tape, I found that it's like, no, we don't want to consider them.
No, okay. Well, I don't know. I don't know how much you know of his background. He is a past delegate. I do have my service sponsor. That's his sponsor. Okay, good deal. Good deal. So are you on Facebook? I'm on Facebook. It's Melanie Shrell. S-H-R-E-L-L. I was going to say, if you click on where I put my name in there, give me a second. Let me see if I can grab it again. I can add you to LAR, which is Lower Alabama Recovery. Hold on one second. It's good. This is my work computer. So it's automatically going to my work, my work
[01:05:02]
Facebook. And the reason I say that is so if you want to go through, like if you go once you get on LAR and you hit features, you can look at each flyer and you go to the chat part of the flyer and each one of them has the speaker that spoke in that flyer. Okay, just added you as a friend. Okay, give me a second. I'll add you to LAR. All right. I'm going to add my butt to packing up. Well, have a safe trip. Okay, you have a good weekend. All right. Bye-bye and keep coming back.
I will. Two weeks. I won't be here next week because I got district. All right. I've got area. Yeah, we had ours two weeks ago. Yeah. Yeah, we did two districts last month because we normally would meet this time. We did. We did. We did ours last week month on Wednesday and like only three people showed. So we're moving it to Thursday thinking more people will show. I don't know. We'll see. It may go back I don't know. We'll see. It may go back to Sunday.
Okay, I invited you to the LAR Facebook page. Okay. So once you get in there and you hit the featured. Wait, where did it go? If not, I can send a I can also send a link in messenger to you. Send a link in messenger. Okay, it'll make it easier. Yeah, because of work. I have like six profiles. I understand. I do. And so my notifications is like a total bog. I understand. I really do. I want to just making sure I'm spelling it right. And then there it is.
Make sure I got it. Yep. Okay, I just sent it. I sent this flyer in in messenger. So it should take you when you it should take you straight over to LAR to accept invitation. Cool. And so if you see over there that where it says featured. Join. There we go. Cool. Okay, once you've joined, if you go to featured, because you were looking for a speaker, you wanted to hear tapes and stuff. Yeah. Underneath the flyer, there's only one under that one. But you can scroll down underneath all those different flyers where the chat is. And you click the chat like you're going to write something. And that'll take you straight to their their talk. Okay, you see what I mean? Yeah. Okay. Just trying to make it easy for you. You've got to you know, the names unless they changed and we had to put somebody else in there that should be the same names that are on the flyer. Awesome. Cool. Thank you. And most all of them are their own talks. Very few unless you go way back when 2020 in July when we did that. All of them will be more about talks then like a workshop or whatever. Oh, cool. Yeah.
Thank you. Helps. Awesome. Thank you. I don't know what's coming up. Welcome, sweetheart. It's nice meeting you. It's nice meeting you. I'll see y'all in two weeks. Two weeks. Y'all have a safe trip. We will be in New York. When you make it back on the next time, it's going to be the first time we missed in six years. Wow. So we're going to New York and we're going to miss but we're going to the service conference with our delegate. We're plus one. Oh, fun. Yeah. Well, my, my delegate J will be there. Sweet. Yeah. So you'll have to tell me you met me.
I mean, Melanie, I'm sorry. Trouble from district three. He'll know who he's talking about. Trouble from district three. Trouble from district three. Yeah, because I, I, I restarted our district. That's awesome. Our district was like dark for 15 years. That is awesome. That is a great job. So trouble. That's amazing. So, so it's been a lot.
[01:10:10]
Sometimes I wish I had done it. But, but, but, but yeah, well, you'll have fun. Have fun in New York. Yes. Well, we're over here in Alabama in the lower part of Alabama. Where is that part of Louisiana? We're about less than an hour from Arkansas. So we're, we're really close to Arkansas. Yeah, we're, we're within, we're like, we're like dead center in the state and like almost Arkansas. Oh, wow. You are your way up there. I was, because we're really close to New Orleans and sometimes we'll hit some meetings headed that way. Yeah, no, yeah. We're at, we're, we're closer to Shreveport. So when you get the, when you, if, when, or if, or when you get a flyer for conferences and stuff. Yeah. Put those in LAR. That's all that goes in there is meetings or conferences. Cool. I will. Y'all have to come to upstate. And we might just do that depending on the timing, but this time with us going to New York, it's going to cost. It's not for another year. See, we might be able to do it next year. That's for sure. Yeah. But yeah, we just had it.
We had it at the same time as our PCA. So I had to do double duty. I was zooming and, and running co-chairing at the same time. We do a lot of that kind of thing. Cause we do a lot of hybrid things, but, but it's nice meeting you. I'll see you in the next few weeks. Yes. Nice meeting you, Melanie. Nice meeting you. Is it dinner time, Scott? What's happening? That's all I'm just, I gotta go. Love you guys. I love you buddy. Have a great week. All right, sweetheart.
We'll be up there soon. All right, great. Can't wait to see you. Bye. I did.