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Source: Jeff H – BOX OF CHOCOLATES – 2026-08-06.m4a File: jeff-h-box-of-chocolates-2026-08-06.mp3 Duration: 00:50:25
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Hey everybody. Jeff Hart of Alcoholic. I am from Dallas, Texas. My home group is the Chicago group in Dallas, Texas and Jimmy Dean is my sponsor. So that's how you guys got me. But you know I told you yeah I was ready to go. I started a new job just recently, a month ago, and it is about an hour drive. And if traffic, it took me about 90 minutes to get home the other night. And so in case I wasn't ready to go, I had a sponsee, a backup for you guys ready to go. So we were prepared for tonight. He had the Zoom codes, said I will text you if something happens and I'm stuck on a tollway. So y'all were gonna get a speaker is either me or my sponsee. But before I get rolling here, I haven't spoken on a Zoom meeting in a long time and it reminded me of, of course, COVID when all that happened. And our home group, if you're ever in Dallas, come check us out. We're a 90 minute meeting. We meet once a week on Wednesday nights and our format we stole from a group in Chicago. So that's how we're named the Chicago group. But we do like 20-25 minutes of call up participation. Our topic is the same every week. How is AA working in your life? And then we take a break and then we have a main speaker like this. So that's the format of our meeting. But when COVID hit and we went to Zoom like everybody else, I had a little bit of trouble sitting here paying attention to the speaker. You know, I might be on a different screen shopping for something on eBay or I was listening, but just sitting here paying attention was not a skill set that I had at that time. So my sponsor, who y'all know, y'all heard him speak, Jimmy Dean, he asked me, so I had the great idea. I'm like, I'm going to turn my camera off and I'm going to lay down on my bed and close my eyes like I'm listening to a speaker tape so I can pay attention to the speaker. So after a couple of weeks, he saw me doing that on Wednesday nights and he goes, why are you turning your camera off during the speaker? And you know how he talks, if you remember. And I said, well, Jimmy, I turn it off so I can focus on the speaker. And he goes, a Zoom meeting is a real meeting. When do you get to turn your camera off and lay down when we're in person? He goes, you don't get to lay down at a meeting in person. You do that camera on and you sit up and you put your collared shirt on just like you're showing up at a real meet. I mean, at an in-person meeting. I hate to say real meeting, in-person meeting. So I got scolded. And from then on, I couldn't go lay down on my bed and listen to the speakers anymore on Wednesday nights. But let's get going here. How much time do I have? The whole time is mine. OK, so I want to get started. I'll get rolling here. I think about, I'm just talking about that job I just got, just start there before I get going into it. I've been complaining about that job because it's far and I don't like driving. And then when I want to whine to my sponsor, he won't listen to me. And he'll ask me, how far did you use to drive for a drink? And so I have to dial it back a little bit because I think about when I was drinking and I lived in San Marcos. That was when I was in college. I went to college in San Marcos. There's a college there called Texas State, and it's kind of in the middle of everything. And when I was down there, I'd hear about a fun bar in San Antonio. Off we go. A fun bar in Houston. Off we go. Clubs in Dallas. Off we go. I had no problems getting in the car and driving for that. For some reason, this is not fun to me. And so he always reminds me, I'd get in the car for that. Whenever I get asked to speak somewhere, it seems like I never get asked to speak anywhere near my house.
I'm always having to drive an hour or two to go speak somewhere. But you know, I grew up down in Austin. Y'all heard of Austin? And so my mom was born and grew up in a little town called Taylor, Texas, which is east of Austin, northeast of Austin. There's nothing there. There's starting to be some more stuff there. But she grew up in an alcoholic home. My grandfather was an alcoholic. He died of this disease. And she grew up in a home where nobody paid a whole lot of attention to her. I believe that my grandmother married my grandfather back in the day because they had to get married. She was a nurse, and she always chose to work at night when the husband was home and her daughter was home. So she was always out of the house. She'd be home during the day when everybody else is out of the house. My grandfather, being the alcoholic that he
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was, when my mom would come home from work, he'd throw her in his, he had an El Camino and pickup trucks, and he'd throw her in the truck with her. And off he'd go to the local beer joint or pool hall and sit her at the counter, order a hamburger, do your homework, and he'd play pool and get drunk all night. So they weren't paying any attention to her. Nobody knew how bad her grades were. They'd drop her off.
This is a little town where the elementary school, they had one elementary, one middle school, and one high school all on the same street. So she had failed eighth grade, and they're dropping her off at the high school, and nobody knew. She'd wait till the car drove away and then run back across the street to the middle school. And so my dad comes along and pays a little bit of attention to her. And I don't know really much about his side of the family. Never met any of the people. His mother never met them. All I know is that grandmother was in and out of prison for a lot of shady stuff. And he met my mom. They were 17, and they got married about six months after that, and moved to Austin, and had me when they were 18 years old. Both dropped out of high school and had me with no plans on how to do any of this. And, you know, my parents divorced when I was in third grade, and I don't really have any memories of really what it was like until my dad left. But I remember what it felt like when he was around. And if he was around, I was, your stomach was in knots. You're always anxious, like you're on pins and needles, like you're gonna get him upset. Because if you did, you were gonna get thrown around the room. You were gonna get beat up. There were times he took off his belt and whipped my mother. Guns were pulled on people in our house. He'd pick up a plate one time at dinner and smash it on our head. And we'd have to get in the car and flee and go hide at the neighbor's house and call the police. And, you know, I talk about this because none of that made me an alcoholic. I didn't know that wasn't normal. That's just how I was growing up.
And my brother, who was two years younger than me, who was right there in the middle of all this, he's had two beers his whole life and that's it. And he didn't like the taste of it, he said. And I had to explain to him, you have to get past that awful taste in the beginning to get to the good stuff. I didn't like the taste of it. You've got to push through. And so I still, I never liked the taste of beer. But when my parents got divorced, my mom was still pretty young.
She'd had me at 18. And so I remember she, what was that diet drug that everybody took back in the 70s? Fin Fin or something. She took some diet pill, lost a bunch of weight, and now she's like going back out and dating and having people over at the house. And she had gotten in a lot of trouble in high school. Running around with boys, stealing cars. And she was trying to, like, she was trying to do good and didn't want me to do those same things. And so she wanted to make drinking okay. Like, if I wanted to have a drink at home, she'd let me have one. And if she had these parties at the house, little happy hours, she'd get the blender out and make margaritas, I could have one. But I would be right in the middle of that. And so if I saw you had, like, half one left, I'm like, let me get you a fresh one so I could finish theirs off on the way to the kitchen. And then bring them a fresh one. So, you know, I never got drunk doing that. I was probably 13 or 14 years old. But I got that warm, tingly feeling, you know, that mmm. It just felt so good. And I felt so calm. And I knew there was more to this than she was letting me have at the house. So as soon as I turned 15, I don't know how it is where you guys live. But in Texas, if you're 15, you can get a hardship driver's license. Because my mom was divorced, I had to take my brother to school. I already had a part-time job, so I got this driver's license. And the first car I got when I was 15, I hated it so much. And I wish I still had it now. Because it was a 1970 Chevrolet Impala. And it was as big, for the people who are, for the people who are young, you don't know that, what that car is. But the cars are not built the same. It was a tank. And so the way it was, it was basically like a sofa in the front seat and a sofa in the back seat.
And I could put eight kids in that car. Because there were no shoulder straps in the day. Just little lap bands everywhere. So we could load up. I had that driver's license. And I had a fake ID. The drinking age was 18 at that time. And so I would take that car to the local drive-thru beer barn and load it up with cases and
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cases and cases of beer. Because that was what you had access to. And I just remember when I was, before I discovered that tequila at the house, you know, something I've heard almost every speaker I've listened to. We all have that same common experience. It seems like, most of us, that we all had that feeling of feeling different. That we didn't fit in. And I can remember that as far back as third grade. Just looking at other little kids and thinking, thinking I was uglier than them. I was stupider than them. I was fatter than them. I had all those feelings that I carried with me for a long, long time. Until I discovered alcohol. And all of a sudden, you know, we get taller. We get funnier. We get better looking. All those things happen. And I've also heard a lot of speakers talk about how they were social drinkers and their alcoholism progressed.
I was never a social drinker. I didn't like the taste of it. I drank to get drunk from the get-go. I like the effects produced by alcohol. And so we get those cases and cases of beer. And we like to go to neighborhoods that had houses under construction. And we would just sit in there and hang out and get drunk in there. Or we'd go to a neighbor's house, a friend's house, where their parents were out of town. There were also, I don't know what they, what the initials stand for, but there was the SPJST Hall in Austin. And you could get in there if you were underage. And so what they would do, is they would staple a little ticket on your collar to let the bartender knew you were underage. Just like a little, like a raffle ticket, they'd staple it on there. So not a real safe measure. We'd rip those little tickets off as soon as we got in there so we could drink. And it was a different time back then, because this was in the 80s, early 80s. The cops would pull me over lots of times. And they would just say, get home safe young man. Don't do this again. Sometimes they would follow me home to make sure I got there okay. One of those times at the SPJST Hall, I was with a friend and he had a pickup truck. And we see the sirens on behind us. And so we start panicking and we're throwing beer bottles out the window that he can see flying out the window. Pulls us over, sends us home without a ticket, without getting arrested. The only consequence I had back then was, you know, my mom yelling at me every weekend, coming home drunk and grounding me. And I'd swear I wouldn't do it again. And I did it every single weekend. I wasn't a daily drinker in high school. You know, I was just a big binger on the weekend. But I thought I was going to in high school. I thought I was gonna head off and be like a big music major and a band director. I played saxophone in high school and I thought I was gonna be a band director. I was all state jazz when I was in high school. I was real competitive. And all of that went out the window when I discovered alcohol. I didn't have time for any of that anymore.
It was way more important to sneak alcohol into those football games on Friday nights and get drunk in the stands and then go to those after parties than doing any of that other stuff. And I don't think I'm doing anything wrong. Like I said, there's no consequences. I go off to college in San Marcos and I think I'm just living like every other college kid. We're all just getting drunk. We're just partying. And if you've ever lived in a town, I hear people talk about Texas State as a big party town, a party college. I mean, I kind of think, aren't they all? But that one specifically was. And there was a reason for me to be somewhere every single night. And like Monday nights, I don't know, 75-cent margaritas at the Green Parrot. Tuesday nights was a dollar pitchers of beer here. So I had plans to be somewhere every single night. And you know, when you're living like that and doing those things, it's hard to get to class. And I waited tables. I was a waiter. And so I'd go to class in the mornings, wait tables at night. And if you worked in the restaurant industry, we like that industry. There's lots of us there. And so we'd start drinking before the restaurant closed. The restaurant closed like at 10 o'clock and you have all that cash. Then we'd all go to the bar and shut that down. And back in the 80s, there were some substances that are illegal now that had just come on the scene that were not illegal then that you could buy from the bartenders that would keep us up all night long. And then we'd go off to, I try to get to class when the sun's coming up, but I didn't make it a lot. And so, you know, it took me a little over six years to get out of college. And I was kind of ashamed about all that back then. And I would tell people, you know, About all that back then, and I would tell people, you know, I had to pay my own tuition,
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I had to work, so I couldn't take very many classes at a time. Those things were kind of true, I mean, those were true, but it shouldn't have taken me that long. But I kind of believed my own lie, but the problem was, I wasn't going to school. You know, I drop all these classes, I'm paying for these classes, and I'm dropping, I'm just not showing up. You can't get there at 8 a.m., and when I would get there, I still had those stinky bar clothes on half the time, and when they used to put those stamps up and down your arm from the clubs, falling asleep in class.
But I finally mustered out, but, you know, I'm there six years later, and all my friends are long gone. They've all gone and got jobs, and they're married, and they're having kids, and Jeff is still down in San Marcos. And all my cars, I kept wrecking my cars back then, and my mom was just like, those roads are really bad in San Marcos, aren't they? Yeah, it's the roads down there, I said. And so I finally graduate, and I move back to Austin, and I just can't figure out what's wrong.
I can't figure out why I'm so sad, I'm so depressed all the time, and I never thought it had anything to do with drinking. That's really not even my radar at this point. I'm just like, okay, I have the job that I wanted. I was a school teacher at that time. I've got my own apartment in a nice part of Austin. I've got my own car. Like I had the things that I thought I needed that were going to make me happy.
I was always chasing things, and the only thing I could think of that was missing from my equation to make me happy, I was single. That's the problem. I got to find somebody, that's what's wrong here. And so nowadays, they've got all those apps and all, Match.com and all that. Back then, there was none of that. It was kind of like the wild, wild west back then. We had the Austin classified ads. And so it was the Austin Chronicle, and I remember you could go on there and there were no pictures.
It was just somebody posting the ad, describing themselves, what they were looking for, and you'd call this number, and you'd leave a voicemail. And then they'd listen to it and call you back. And if you liked each other over the phone, you'd meet in person, sight unseen. It was crazy, crazy different time. And so that didn't work out so well. So the only other place I knew to go looking was at the bar.
And so that's where I went. And it didn't take me long to find another alcoholic, coke addict. I don't know what else, but I met this guy at this bar, and he did all those things. And it was a ton of fun at first, because he drank at a level that I had never drank. He did drugs that I had never seen before, and it was up all night, all the time. And let me just tell you, you can't have two crazy people in a relationship together.
It does not work. Two crazies. The yelling and the fighting, that was mostly just me. But, you know, throwing stuff around the room, the breaking up, the getting back together, and staying up all night long. And at this point, I'm teaching high school. And I'm driving to work from his place, still in those sneaky clothes, and I take a quick shower in like the boys' locker room, and I was teaching high school math.
And I don't know how I never got in trouble, but I'm still probably drunk. I'm not hungry. I'm still probably drunk rolling into that school. And so I would go to the library and check out one of those TVs. Remember when they strapped those TVs under those big metal carts? And I'd wheel that off to my room. And I'm supposed to be teaching math, but I'm showing them like natural geographic animals of Africa all day, and just kind of nodding that at my desk.
And I got away with it. But so I couldn't take the chaos. And I'm still not thinking I have a problem with drinking, because now I have somebody else who drinks more than me. Everything that's wrong, now I can blame it on him. And I finally had enough. I get out of that. He relocates to Dallas. And if you've ever done that, been in one of those relationships that ought to get off again, remember when it's off, all you can remember is the fun stuff.
You don't remember why it's off in the first place. So you know, a couple months later, I knock on my front door, and I'm like, it's going to be different this time. I quit my job, sold my house and moved to Dallas too. And when I got here, it wasn't different this time either, it was the same thing. And it wasn't working. And the only solution I could figure out was, you know, let's buy a house together and really try and make it work.
So we did that and dug in a little deeper.
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And the drinking is worse. I'm alone up here, the only person I've got is him. I don't know anybody in Dallas, but I'm like, if I get rid of him for good, then life will be just fine. And so I did that, finally ended it after several years, and things didn't get better. I was up here, and I was miserable, and I didn't know anybody, and the only solution I had was to drink more. And my drinking escalated, and I thought, I need to meet some friends in Dallas.
I need to meet some people and be social, that'll help things. And so what I did was, I'm going to look at my clock here. I joined a volleyball league up here to meet some friends, and I don't play volleyball, but I joined a volleyball league. And the volleyball league was called the Dallas, it's a gay volleyball league. It was called Dallas Independent Volleyball Association. So it was called DIVA.
So I went and played DIVA volleyball on Friday night. And again, I found my people. There were like different levels in this group. There were some real competitive athletes out there that could really play volleyball. I wasn't one of them. I was on like the lowest level, and it became just a place where we met on Friday nights to decide where we were going to go drink, and then where we're going to go drink the next day.
And I'm going to jump ahead real quick. When I finally got sober, some of those friends that I had made back then, playing volleyball, drinking, all of a sudden I realized, we're not friends. I don't know if you had that experience when you got sober. We're not friends. We didn't have anything in common. All we did was drink together. But I'm starting to think that maybe I do have a problem drinking.
I'm starting to question. I'm starting to look at it. Because at my age, the falling down on the streets, the constantly having to go back the next day to find where you left your credit cards in, the just the hangovers that I can't take anymore. It used to be just I could bounce back. And now I'm constantly calling in sick on Mondays because I just can't get there. And I'm still hungover on Tuesday.
And I'm thinking I'm not an alcoholic, kind of, because I wasn't a daily drinker. I was just a weekend drinker, except my weekends got really long. They'd start on Thursdays and wrap up Mondays a lot of times. I could hold it together for two days. And so, you know, I'd go out with these guys, I'm like, and I talked to them, like, I think I have a drinking problem. And all my drinking buddies assured me I did not have a drinking problem.
So I kind of let it go for a minute. But I started going online. And before I got sober, I like to Google two things. I Google, I like to Google why AA doesn't work. And there's a whole lot of articles about their people bashing us. And I kind of read them now, sometimes, but I don't engage with them because I know that's somebody who never came in and really sat down. Somebody who never got a sponsor, who never read the book.
And that was me for a long time. But I also went on to those sites, you know, do you have a drinking problem where there's like 30 questions on there. And what I learned after I got sober was people who are not alcoholic are not going online taking that test. Nobody's sitting at home thinking if they have a drinking problem and just randomly taking that test. But the book tells us my favorite chapter in the book is we agnostics.
But at the very beginning, I don't know the exact verbiage, but can you control the amount of alcohol? Can you control your drinking once you start? No, I could not. And can you honestly stop when you want to? No. Doesn't matter if you're a daily drinker. In my head, the alcoholic gets up every day with the shakes. And it really made a difference to me one time when I was at a meeting because that's what I saw.
I got sober in a real small group and it was a real transient group. It was on a bus stop and a lot of walkers, a lot of people court ordered in there. And I thought, I'm not like these people until a retired lady who used to work for the city of Dallas was in there. And she said, I don't remember what all she said, but I just remember saying something real country like, you don't have to ride the elevator to the bottom floor.
You can get off anytime you want, she said. And she had a similar experience to me. She still had a job. She still had a house. She still had a car. I had all those things. On the outside looking in, my life looked fine. But inside looking out, it was a mess. You know, I was like, when I finally showed up in these rooms, I was like $50,000 in credit card debt. And I made plenty of money. I don't know where it went.
I had no friends anymore. I was completely dead inside. I wasn't suicidal, but I didn't care if I was here or not anymore. And all the little things in life that used to bring me joy, just like, I want to go get an ice cream cone. I want to go to the, nothing that, it was all gone.
[00:25:01]
It was just sitting in that house by myself. And there were so many times I would like try to talk to myself and say, don't do this today. And I didn't want to do it. I just didn't know how not to do it. I didn't know how to be sober. And I'd go like see people at the mall or at the grocery store and they're just doing life on not on anything. And I just wanted that. And I didn't know how they could do it.
And I would stand there in my kitchen and that other part of my brain would kick in is like, it's okay, Jeff. Go ahead and do it today. We'll worry about this tomorrow. We'll stop drinking after your birthday or after spring break. It was always sometime in the future I was going to stop. And I would make these ridiculous plans. You know, the book talks about, you know, did you swear off never to drink this?
Did you go to the sanitarium? Did you do this? Did you do that? I didn't know I was doing all those things, but I was doing all those things. I, you know, I said I was only going to go to the bar and drink beer because I don't like beer. That would slow me down. And that worked up until a point until you feel good. And then it's like, let me have what I really want. Or I'm only going to go to dinner and just have one drink tonight.
Then I'm going to go home. And I had a lot of friends that could do that. I could never stop. I could never get home no matter where I went. The sun is always coming up the next day. So my thought was, it's these bars and these friends going out at night. That's the problem. So the other thing I thought of was, I organized these ridiculous, I didn't like to start out drinking by myself. I've got a lot of sponsees that have, they used to sit at home and just drink and drink by themselves.
If I was drinking, I would get in the car and I was going somewhere. The only time I drank at home was to get ready to go drink. So I organized these little brunches on like in this little cold part of Dallas at a place called like Taco Diner. And we'd go on Saturdays like at 11 and start ordering pitchers of margaritas. So I'm like, I'm just going to drink during the day instead of at night and that'll fix it.
And again, they could go do that and go home. But it just moved on my drinking time to the middle of the day. And I'd go to the bars and the bars aren't really fun on a Saturday afternoon. There's some real serious drinkers in there. And I remember I had a dog and I'd go home and take care of him, change clothes and go back out and I just couldn't get it. And so I start Googling AA meetings. I'd gone to some therapists and some of those psychiatrists that are supposed to specialize in drug addiction and this and that.
And, you know, they've listened to me and they validate my feelings, but they never offered me anything that Alcoholics Anonymous has. They never were able to give me a solution. And a lot of times they would send me, recommend me coming to AA and I would tell them, no, that is a great little self-help group for those people, but I'm not like them. And I knew I didn't know really anything about AA other than there were some God stuff in here and I wanted no part of that.
So I wasn't coming over here. But after enough of them directing me over here, I started Googling like AA meetings and there's a ton of groups in Dallas, ton of meetings. But because I'm gay, I thought I had to go to the gay group. I thought that's where I was supposed to report for my meeting. And so I went there on a Monday at noon because I never went to work on Mondays. And so I'd go there Monday at noon and I don't remember what they talked about, but I remember at the end they asked if anybody wanted a desired chip and I didn't want that chip, but everybody turned around and looked at me like, get up and get your chip.
So I took the desired chip. And I don't remember if I said my sobriety date at the beginning, September 21st, 2015. So I'm getting close to 10 years, I mean, 11 years. But at that meeting, when I got that desired chip 11 years ago, 12 years, 13, that was probably 13 or 14 years ago. I didn't know this was bad. I know how bad this is now. I got the desired chip and I got asked, got on a date from somebody in that group at that meeting and I'm like, oh, AA is pretty cool.
I like it here. And so I started going to that group and I started hanging out with that guy and all his friends. And again, I didn't get a book, I never got a sponsor. I just went to all the open meetings that he took me to with his friends and the speakers and they had a lot of game nights, they had a lot of dinners, a lot of fun stuff to do. And I didn't want to drink in front of them because they were all sober.
And so I'm trying to keep it together for as long as I can, but you can only keep your crazy in check for so long. You're Crazy in Check for so long. And finally that blew up.
[00:30:00]
But in my head I'm thinking, I'm not an alcoholic. Look, I did this for two whole months over there, three months, whatever it was. I didn't drink. I don't need that. And after I got out of that, the next Saturday I was back at the bar doing shots of tequila and it felt so good. I'm just like, what was I doing over there wasting my time with all those losers? I thought all they do is talk about when they used to be fun.
So but the following weekend I'm in a blackout drunk and several friends of mine said they tried to get me to stop driving and told me they would pay for Ubers, whatever, cabs. I don't remember any of the phone calls. All I remember is waking up in downtown Dallas on top of the train tracks. My car was on top of the train tracks, our subway system, our light rail system. I was stuck up there on top of the dark train tracks and I came to out of the blackout.
And I should have been scared about the train coming, but I wasn't. I wasn't worried about my car. I wasn't worried if I had killed anybody. All I was worried about was how am I going to get off these tracks? I'm not finished drinking. I'm not where I want to be right now. And so if you've ever seen any of those train tracks up close, they're deep. You know, that night I didn't realize how deep they were.
And all my tires were busted and flat. The car was torn up. I didn't know any of that because I'm driving up on these rocks to get to the train tracks. And so my plan was I need some traction to get over these train tracks. So I'm wearing cowboy boots and jeans. And so I don't have a lot of stability on these little rocks everywhere. But my plan was to take the floor mats out of the car and I'm trying to drape them over the train tracks and tuck them under my tires so I can drive over the train tracks.
And in the meantime, I lose my balance and I end up grabbing a windshield wiper and it slices my hand. And so blood is all over me. And I'm still just tucking those floor mats. And then the sirens show up and the cops show up. And they cuff me and throw me in the back of the police car. And the weirdest thing happened. I wasn't panicked. I didn't freak out. The sense of calm came over me because, you know, the book talks about the Alcock leaves a double life.
My friends at work, you know, I had my drinking buddies and then I had my friends and they were all real separate. My family was all down in Austin. Nobody knew how bad things had gotten for me. And I thought, it's all going to be out now. Everybody's going to find out what happened. And I'm finally going to get some help. And I felt a little relief until the next day. I didn't really get arrested.
I found out I just got thrown into the drunk tank. And because the cops were real busy in Dallas that night, it was the Super Bowl in Dallas. And so they were real busy. And so all I got the next day was a ticket for reckless damage to the train tracks and a ticket for public intoxication. I got a lawyer and all that got thrown out in court because the cops are too busy to show up for those little things.
And so nothing was on my record. And so, you know, the sting of that when that happened, like all of us, I'm going to stop now. That was a really big wake up call. And so I did. I slowed down. And but then gradually, when the sting of that wears off, everything just picked right back up. And at the same time, that's all happening. I had a herniated disc in my back and this real bad sciatica down my leg where I could hardly walk sometimes.
And I had told my doctor this is again a long time ago when they would just give these out to anybody. He's like, let me write you this script for some pain. And I'm like, and I took that stuff and I'm like, oh, this is wonderful. I like this stuff. And I did not take it as prescribed. I took a lot of that and I'm like, and I started having a plan. This is going to help me bridge the gap on those days that I can't drink.
And I'm going to start spacing out my drinking days and take this. I thought that was going to help me stop drinking. It's a bad plan, but it was my plan. And what happened was I couldn't get enough of that. And so I'm stealing out of people's purses at work. I'm raiding people's medicine cabinets. And I was really tired at work one day and a teacher said, here, why don't you take one of these? I'm like, what is this?
And she goes, you know, it's what we give kids to help them pay attention. And I took that. I'm like, you know what? I like this too. I don't like it as much as I like that back medicine, but now I had a better plan. And my plan was, I'm going to take this and get off that back stuff. And then when I got the back stuff, then I'll figure out the drinking and stop that and it'll all be good. And so I go to one of these little ADHD clinics out in the country, that's like in a little
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strip center. And I got and I got fake diagnosed with ADHD and got my hands on that. And I will tell you, that was the lowest point of my life. That was the worst. I've got friends who are not in AA who think they know about AA because they watch some TV shows. And they're always like, what's your bottom? What's your bottom? Well, I don't have a that I can pinpoint like that. But I can tell you that was pretty bad, because I couldn't keep up with all that.
And I'm going to different doctors and lying about this and that and stealing and trying to keep track of everything. And doing that was harder than anything I've ever been asked to do an AA, but I still was not wanting to come in here. But finally, I'm driving to work one day. Oh, it's oh, it's 642. I got to get sober real quick and tell you all the good stuff. I'm driving to work one day. And I see in this little tiny old building, I lived in a like a little historic part of Dallas.
And there was some little old building with the circle and the triangle in front of the like, when did this get here? And so I had that thought, like the book talks about, you know, that decision that jumping off a point. And my thought was, how much money do I need to keep living like I'm living until I just pass away? Or do I really want to go sit down and give AA a try? So I went to that little group again on Monday at noon, like I did.
And everybody was so nice to me. And they gave me a book and a phone list and all these pamphlets and they circled up around me afterwards. And I walked out of the meeting and I threw it all in the trash and like they are nuts just like that other place. But I was so beat down. I went back the next week. And then I went back on a Tuesday. But I will tell you what happened this time. Somebody in that group, they didn't just hand me a phone list or a pamphlet that next time I went.
This guy got my name. And I remember his name was Steven. He goes, I'm going to be here tomorrow at noon. Are you going to be back here tomorrow, Jeff? I'll be here if you're going to be here. And so the next day, I didn't want to go back. But I'm like, Steven's expecting me at that meeting. I better go. And then he said, come sit with me. Somebody invited me to sit with him. I was like, this is my assigned seat now.
I was crazy back then. One time I came into that meeting and somebody was sitting next to Steven had taken my spot and I wasn't happy about it. But you know, so like, I remember like the third day, I think it was about the third day. And this little group, it was a small meeting. And they just read the daily reflections every day. And they'd go around the table and talk about it. And I don't understand what these steps are about.
I don't understand what these little lofty topics are. And I remember that topic that day was about how expectations can cause resentments. I just want you to tell me how to get sober and stop drinking. Why are we talking about this stuff? And so they get around to me. And as soon as Jimmy became my sponsor, I was no longer allowed to cuss in meetings. But Jimmy wasn't my sponsor yet. So I was cussing that day.
Then they said, Jeff, would you have anything? Do you have anything to share today? I said, yeah, I have some stuff I think you guys need to hear. And so I said, I have some effing expectations that somebody in this room is going to help me, that somebody is going to tell me how to get sober. And I'm yelling and I'm cussing. And the guy who's chairing the meeting is like, he freaked out. He was like, stop talking.
Somebody will get with you after the meeting. And sure enough, this guy who had just moved to Dallas after me, he gets up and runs around the table. And he asked me, is anybody working with you yet? I just said, did that sound like anybody is working with me yet? And so he said, you're going to meet me tomorrow morning at seven o'clock. I'm like, 7 a.m.? But we met at 7 a.m. and all we did was talk.
And he told me about himself and he asked me some questions. And I'm so ready for this. And I'm writing everything down. He says, and our hour is up and we both have to go to work. And I said, what do I do until I see you again? And you know what he told me to do? Y'all's opening prayer. He gave me the set aside prayer that day. A little different version of it, but the set aside prayer. And I said, but I don't believe in God.
He goes, I didn't ask you if you believed in God. Here's the prayer you're going to do. And so that exchange went back and forth. I don't believe you're going to do the prayer until I gave in. And I didn't believe in God, but I didn't know what else to do. And when you're sober and you're new, the days are really long and they're really uncomfortable at first. And I would just sit in my office and shut the door and kind of tear up.
And I would just read that prayer over and over. I don't know what I thought it was going to do, but I did it. And so we just met every day. We didn't have any fancy worksheets, any workbooks. We just read through the book as outlined and took the steps one after the other. And I was really worried about those steps two and step three, because my sponsor was
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a very devout Catholic, very religious. But when we got to those steps, you know, we start talking about God. All he asked me was, can you 100% say that there's nothing out there? And I'm like, well, not with 100%. And you know, before I got here, I would never say I was atheist, you know, just in case I was too scared to say that. But I couldn't say there's nothing, especially when you like been to Colorado and see the mountains or just see the stars at night and just think about nature and babies.
I'd like so I couldn't say there was 100% nothing. And so that was all we did. He said, good. We're moving on. That's enough. And so the door was cracked and we kept going and I kept doing those rope prayers that felt so uncomfortable. And I think it was about six months in. All of a sudden, I didn't feel so uncomfortable doing those prayers. But about the same time, I realized I'm not thinking about drinking anymore because every day I would wake up and I think I'm not going to drink today.
And at night, I'd pat myself on the back. You didn't drink today. And I realized I'm not even thinking about it anymore. The obsession had been removed and I had tried for so long on my own to stop. And I came in and finally sat down and surrendered and it worked. And I spoke at a meeting. I don't know how long ago it was, but I told people, so if you're like me and you don't believe in God, you don't believe this program works.
We don't care about any of that because it's going to work whether you believe it or not. And it did for me. And so but I want to tell you real quick, you know, like I said, I was crazy. That guy who got me as a sponsee, I was his only sponsee because he just moved to Dallas. And so I thought that's how it worked. You were a team, you're sponsoring your sponsee and that was it. And then he got another sponsee and I was not happy about that either.
And so I was real competitive. I thought I was I was trying to like win a and show everybody how spiritual I was at my home group. And I would ask him things like, what step is Michael on? Or and I wouldn't sit next to him in meetings. I wasn't happy about any of it. But you know, we just progressed through the steps. How much time do I have here? I want to tell you some of the good stuff. You know, we did that inventory.
I'm not going to talk about all the steps. But I just remember sitting and writing and writing all that stuff on my four step. And I wrote there. So I don't know if you have this experience, but there are so many things I was asked to do in early sobriety that I didn't know why I'm being asked to do these things. And I didn't understand the significance of any of it until six months, a year down the road, why that mattered.
And the same thing with an inventory, I'm just writing all this stuff and I'm thinking it's going to help him understand me better, why I drink the way I did. And we sat down and we did that fifth step. And I didn't feel relieved or anything taken on my shoulders. I felt defeated because he was taking notes and hand me this report card at the end of it and basically said, you know, you're selfish, you're self-centered, you judge and punish people, you cut people out of your life and that'll live up to your expectations.
All these horrible things he told me. And it was it was really new information to me, even with me writing that stuff down and seeing it in those columns, I didn't see the pattern. I needed somebody else to show it to me. And then he sends me home to do that six and seven where you ask God to remove all the things which you now find objectionable. I didn't find them objectionable yet. He just told them to me an hour ago.
I didn't find them objectionable. So I did what I was told. I did that six and seven, but it took a long time in sobriety for me not to want to be that same person that was on that inventory for those defects to actually start bothering me to not want to be that person that stirred up gossip at work. I still love hearing about the gossip at work, but I don't need to be in the middle of it anymore. I don't need to start it.
I have learned in sobriety how I don't, you know, I don't have to take everything so personal. I'm able to walk away from arguments and shut my mouth when I never could. I don't have to respond to those angry emails anymore. Life is so much better. But I was running around making all these amends to everybody. And part of the amends process is explained to me as I'm supposed to report to this person how I have changed.
And I really hadn't changed. The only thing that happened was I'd stopped drinking. And so my mom got tired of hearing me make these amends, and I'd go back and repeat the same behavior. My mom wasn't a good son then. I just couldn't be bothered with her. One time she had this cancer on her face, just a small bolt. She had to get taken off a long time ago, and I took her. a long time ago, and I took her, and I took her home, and I'm like, my part's done.
And she just wanted my time, wanted me to just sit there, and I just couldn't be bothered.
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I had friends to go be with, I had drinking to do, and you know, and I still kind of repeated some of that, but thank God for this program, because you know, I stopped making amends, and I just started trying to be a better son. And we would argue when I'd go down there and fight, and that was me. You know, we grew up like siblings, there was a lot, we were a loud house, let's say, me and my mom, and, but I'd go down there for Christmas, and Jimmy told me one time, he's like, you do realize, he goes, you have all the power in that situation, you're the one with the program.
And he said, and I see that you know how to honor an AA commitment, treat your mother the same way you would an AA commitment. So when you go to her house, you're a guest, and you shut your mouth. And I did that, and I had to call him a few times for the bathroom. But I do that, and at the end of the one Christmas I was in there, she hugged me and teared up and said, I don't know what's different, but this is the best Christmas we've ever had.
And that's all because of this program. And I'm going to say, I'm going to wrap it up here in a second, but my mom used to, she's passed away now, but she used to, she likes to worry, if you know anybody like in your life like that, she worries when there's nothing to worry about, she'll find something to worry about. And one night I called her, and she was just, I don't think your brother's happy.
His wife's not treating him right, and I don't think he likes his job, and this and this and this and this. I said, do you worry about me like that? She goes, well, I don't have to worry about you anymore. She goes, Alcoholics Anonymous has saved your life. And you know, that's a gift, and I got to be there for her. She got older and stopped working. I didn't live down there, but I got to help her.
She got a little dementia towards the end. I got some calls in the middle of the night where she'd get those days and nights mixed up. And you know, and I got to help her with her banking account because she couldn't really keep track of that much anymore. She wasn't good at that. And you know, she called me, I was at an AA conference outside of Dallas, and she called me at four o'clock in the morning, they had turned off her cable, and you thought the world was going to end.
She goes, I need you to get back on for me now. And I said, okay. The old me would have just hung up, called my brother, wouldn't have dealt with it. I'm like, okay. Said, who's your cable provider? She goes, well, I don't know that. So it's four o'clock in the morning. I'm in a cabin in Oklahoma. There's not that many cable providers. I found one. They didn't want to talk to me because I didn't have her account number.
I'm like, I don't want any information. I just want to pay her bill. But I got to finally be that son for her at the end that I wasn't all those years when I was drinking. I got to be there when she passed away. I got to show up for her. And that's all because of this program. But now in this program, I get to do things like this tonight. I get to speak to you guys when I want to think about something else.
I've got several sponsors that keep me busy. I try to stay involved as much as I can in service work. And my sponsor, like I said, no, Jimmy will not let me say no to a commitment. I cannot tell him I'm tired. He does not care about any of that. And I will tell you, I don't have my book in front of me, but there's another paragraph from the we agnostics that basically just says, you know, when we saw others solve their problems by the spirit of the universe, we had to stop doubting the power of God.
And I know that to be true. I didn't believe in God then now, but I know if I don't stop and just do a quick prayer meditation in the morning, my day is drastically different. You know, I don't do a big prayer meditation room. I talk to God throughout my day and I'm connected. And to me, that's amazing for somebody came in and believe anything to talk to God before I go into work at a meeting, before I have to do something I don't want to do.
I use God and my life is drastically different. And as I know, as long as I continue to stay as plugged in as I can, I never have to live the way I used to again. So that's all I've got tonight, guys. Thanks. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. You never know what you're going to get. Just have to keep coming back. We surely hope to see you here next Thursday. Our special guest is Jim Kay from Shenyang Province, China.
That sounds pretty interesting. I can't wait for that. If you like this meeting, please do a bill with us and always said, pass it on. You can help others right from your phone or computer and tell them about this special meeting. Everyone is invited to hang out with us afterwards in the meeting after the meeting. Jeff, do you have any closing comments and would you please close us out with a prayer or reading of your choice?
I don't have any closing comments. Just thanks for having me here, guys. I appreciate it. It was fun. And let's just close with the Supreme Serenity Prayer tonight. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the
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things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, guys. Jeff, notice that lady that just spoke to you because she's already asked for your number. Who's going to ask for my number? She's already done it. Vivian.