Audio
Transcript
Source: Karl H – BOX OF CHOCOLATES – 2025-10-23.m4a File: karl-h-box-of-chocolates-2025-10-23.mp3 Duration: 00:49:58
============================================================
Thank you, Ramona. Hi, friends. My name is Carl. I'm an alcoholic, and it's good to see some old friends on here and some new friends. The title of this meeting is appropriate because I don't even know what I'm going to get when I'm talking. I don't know what's going to come out. I don't know what. I say a prayer and I ask God to help me carry a beneficial message of Alcoholics Anonymous. And it always seems to work out pretty good when I do that.
You know, when I put my hands in there and I get my what I want to say in there and things like that, it usually gets all messed up. And so I've learned that if I just ask for help and just ask for the Creator to come in and that whatever comes out be helpful to somebody. And that really is my primary purpose. My home group is the primary purpose group in Rochester, New York. We meet on Wednesday nights at the central office here in Rochester.
I've been a faithful member of that group since I moved back here to Rochester. My sobriety date is October 25th of 1993. So God willing and the creek don't rise this Saturday in two days, I will celebrate 32 years of continuous sobriety. So that, you know, the last couple of days have been a little emotional for me. I was thinking earlier today, I was sitting out in my car and I had to go meet with a client and I turned the music off a lot of times when I'm driving now and so that I can spend quiet time. And I was thinking about what my life looked like two days before I got sober in 1993. You know what, what my life looked like, what I what I felt like what was going on, what was happening in my life. Obviously over the last 32 years, a lot of changes have occurred. But I was living in an apartment down in the city of Rochester in a one bedroom apartment. And I had a mattress on the floor. And I was eating with plastic fork and knife, drinking out of a styrofoam cup. I didn't have any dishes left to my name. I didn't have any furniture left. I had sold everything I had. The apartment was in disarray. And my my daughter, my youngest daughter came to visit me. And she was sleeping and I got like one two o'clock in the morning.
And she was sleeping and I ran out of booze. And I was thinking, you know, the after hours place is not far. If I could just sneak out, I don't want to wake her up. I don't want to take her down there with me. If I could just sneak out and go get what I need to get and come back. She won't even know that I was gone because she was sound asleep. And I had that battle going on inside of me. Should I go? Should I not go? Should I be responsible and stay home, but I need a drink. But if I go, she might wake up, but I got to have a drink. You know, that battle that goes on whenever I have that battle inside of me. Should I drink? Should I not drink? I can't drink, but I want to drink kind of a thought pattern. I always lose. Always. I shouldn't say always.
There's occasionally that I may have sufficient power, but 99.9% of the time, lack of power is my dilemma. And I end up giving in to and succumbing once again, to that desire, especially when the physical phenomenon of craving is on me and, and I drink. And I made a decision that night that I was just going to run over there real quick. And I was going to come back before she woke up. And I came back and she was gone. She had woken up and was looking for me and couldn't find me. And she went out into the hallway and was walking up and down the hallway, yelling, dad, dad, daddy, where are you? And the woman across the hall heard her. She was about 75, 70, 75 year old woman at the time. And she took her into her apartment, kept her safe. And when I came back, she must've been looking at the people or saw me come in or something like that, because she stepped out into the hallway when I came in. And as I was looking for her and she said, I have her, she's here with me. And you know, today, when I think of that situation, and I think of the consequences that could have happened, and how my drinking, our book talks about how the lives of others are affected
[00:05:05]
by our drinking and how the life of my daughter could have, I mean, she doesn't, to this day, she doesn't remember that. She doesn't remember that night. She doesn't remember that happening. Not that I sat down and discussed it with her or anything like that. But I did mention it one time and she said that she didn't remember that ever happening. But, you know, that this is where my drinking had taken me. You know, we talked about the material losses and the material things that happened in our lives. And for me, my bottom was not an exterior thing. My bottom was not, I had lost another job or I lost another wife or I lost a, you know, another car or any of those things.
My bottom was an interior situation. It was an interior, something that happened inside of me, that anger and the fear and frustration and remorse and the guilt had built up to a point where alcohol was no longer working in my life, where alcohol was no longer doing the job. I used to be, you know, drink to oblivion and be able to shut this thing off, you know, and get to a place where only heart and lungs were working, you know, and that remorse and that guilt, I couldn't shove it any more, any further down inside of me any longer with another drink of alcohol. And I carried that stuff, the anger I carried with me, like a cheap suit, you know, I wore anger and fear like a cheap suit.
And I kept people just far enough away from me that they couldn't come in and hurt me any longer, you know. And for me, you know, it took me many, many inventories over the years and many years to learn the fact that inside of me is, and I'm only talking about me, I, you know, it's all I talk about is what's happened in my life, what I've discovered in my life. Through the inventory process, I've discovered that inside of me is a little boy whose mom left when he was eight years old. And there's this fear inside of him of abandonment. And there's this fear that you're going to leave me and there's this fear of, you know, I'm not going to live up to whatever it is and, and, and I'm going to get hurt again, you know. And so my whole life, every relationship that I ever had with women, whether it was a serious relationship or not, with bosses, with people in my life, with my own family members, was a relationship based on a fear that I was going to be, I was going to get hurt. So I would not let people close enough to me to hurt me. You know, there was just that one wall that was there. I would let them in a little bit, I would let them in, you know, here and there, but not let somebody in completely enough where I was vulnerable enough and they could hurt me. You know, and that, that creates when you, when you drink on that stuff, that creates an environment where drinking took me all kinds of places. And my drinking career was one of oblivion. And there are a lot of years of my life that I barely remember, just because I was so drunk consistently on a regular basis for months and months at a time. My ex-wife one day was telling a story, we were at my daughter's house for her birthday party. And she was telling a story of a trip that her and I went on. And she looked at me and she said, Do you remember that? I said, No. And she started to cry. Because this was one of the few fond memories that she had of our marriage. And when I said that I didn't even remember going on that trip with her, it crushed her. Because it was something in our marriage that she held on to that was a fond memory of our, of our relationship together. And, and she was hurt by the fact that I didn't even remember it any longer. You know, my drinking started at a young age, like a lot of people. I grew up in a family of seven boys. My dad was a schoolteacher in the city school district here. Raj Suri was a World War Two veteran. My oldest brother was off to Korea and Vietnam when I was growing up. And my drinking career started at a very young age. I remember junior high school walking around with a seven up can with booze in it. I had a shop teacher once who said to me, Man, you like seven up an awful lot. You always got that stupid can in your hand, you know. But, you know, I have a lot of brothers and a lot of them are older than me. And they were already drinking and things like that when I was growing up. So I mean, just for me, to drink was to fit in, to drink was commonplace. It was what we did. We hung out together, we drank together, we got trouble together. If one of us got in jail, and we couldn't get you out with some of us to try and get in there with you. You know, I mean, that's just, that's the way it was, you know. And as far back as I can remember, I drank for the
[00:10:06]
effect produced by alcohol, and that I needed to get to that place of oblivion. And the best way I can describe that physical phenomenon of craving is, when I was a kid, my dad used to burn garbage in the backyard, he had this big drum, this metal drum that he burned garbage in. And my brothers and I were running under the sprinkler one day, and I went to look into the barrel to see what he was burning. And I got too close to it. And as I got close enough to it, my stomach stuck to the side of the barrel, it was so hot. And as I pulled away that day, the skin on my stomach actually peeled off and stuck to the side of that barrel. And I had very severe burns on my stomach. And I can tell everybody that's on here that, you know, I've never ever needed a 12-step program to stay away from fire. You know, there's something inside of me that says, fire will burn you, stay away from it. That switch that works really well when it comes to fire, doesn't work when it comes to alcohol. You know, because I can convince myself that, you know, I'm on the other side of the country, my sponsor won't know, my home group members won't know. You know, I can get away with drinking this weekend, because it's not, I don't fly home until Monday. And, you know, everything will be all right. And, you know, I mean, just that, that obsession that, that when, when I'm not spiritually fit, and that, that alcoholism, that thought of alcohol can creep back into my life, doesn't happen very much anymore. But it does still happen occasionally that, that fleeting thought of, you know, geez, a cold beer would be nice today, you know, or, you know, a shot of tequila, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll drink beer. We used to, when I was younger, we used to go to Canada and drink Molson Bredors in Canada, because that was the only place you could get them. It was a much more alcohol content than the Molson Bredors. So we would go to Canada, I'd say, geez, I'm gonna go to Canada and drink beer this weekend, instead of drinking tequila, and I'll be okay. You know, I'll be, I'll be fine. And what happens is when I pour alcohol in me, something happens inside of me that doesn't happen in the average tempered drinker. It makes it virtually impossible for me to stop. My mind says I'm gonna stop at 930. My mind says, I got to go to work tomorrow. My mind says, babe, I'll be home at 930. And once I pour alcohol in my system, all bets are off, because now I'm drinking to overcome a physical craving that is beyond my mental control. And I drink that way every single time. And I never knew that. I just thought I got dealt the bad hand. I got thought, I got dealt the bad cards. I thought that, you know, my, if you had my family, you would drink the way I drink. If you, you know, had my wife, you would drink the way that I drank. And I started drinking that way at a very young age. And it continued. And I got a girl pregnant when I was a senior in high school. And my dad said, you marry her. And there was no ifs, ands, or buts about it. You know, in our house, you did what dad said, he ruled with an iron fist. And there were no questions asked, you just did what he said. And he said, you're going to give that baby your name. You know, that's the right thing to do. So I married her. And I was a senior in high school married with a kid. I know that's commonplace today. It wasn't so common when I was in high school, I can assure you that, you know, and, and I was a runner, you know, I need to get out of here, I need to get away, I need to get away from, from, you know, the people that I'm with the situations that are occurring in my life, the bad, you know, if I could just go over there, things would be better. You know, if I could just get away from these guys that I'm hanging out with, things would be better. And, you know, my sponsor told me once he said, You know, Carl, you can take a jackass and put them in a cardboard box and ship them to Alaska. And when he gets there, he's still a jackass. You know, and that's me, you know, no matter where I go, I take me with me. And I take that physical phenomenon of craving with me, because our book says we have moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we can't live up to them, even though we would like to. And that was me, I know that Rocky music would start to play in the background, and I'm going to pull myself up by my bootstraps. And I'm gonna, and I'm gonna, and I'm gonna, and I'm gonna, you know, in that spring inside of me gets tighter and tighter and tighter, and I get angrier and angrier. You know, the boss is a jerk, and he just wouldn't leave me alone. And so what I took Friday off, it was payday, who cares? And I was hungover on Monday. So what, who cares? And she's nagging on me because I'm not going to work and I'm not bringing home the paycheck. And if you had my family, and the kid won't shut up that spring just gets tighter and tighter. And what happens is, I am powerless, I don't have sufficient power to say, I cannot, and I will not take a drink, I walk into the saloon, and that spring is so tight, I order a shot of tequila, and I throw it back and I just go a Tequila, and I Throw It Back, and I Just Go, Now It's On, Now It's On, You Know, Now
[00:15:06]
All Bets Are Off, Because Now I'm Drinking to Overcome a Craving, Physical Craving That's Beyond My Mental Control, and That Is Repeated Over and Over and Over and Over Again, No Matter Where I Go, No Matter What I Say, No Matter What I Do, and In The Doctor's Opinion It Says This Is Repeated Over and Over, Unless This Person Can Experience an Entire Psychic Change, There's Very Little Hope of His Recovery, Psychic Change, and If You Look Up The Word Psychic In A Dictionary From The 1930s, It Talks About The Psyche, and If You Look Up The Word Psyche In A Dictionary From The 1930s, It Talks About The Spirit, or The Soul, So For Me, and This Is Just For Me, I Need To Have A Spiritual Awakening, an Awakening Of My Spirit, Awakening Of My Soul, In Order To Overcome The Spiritual Malady That I Suffer From, So How Does That Happen, I Mean I Drank, I Was In The Army, I Had Bad Experiences In The Army, I Was Blacking Out, Punching People In The Faces, Getting Drunk, Not Showing Up For Formations, All Kinds Of Crazy Stuff Was Happening In My Life, and In 1983 I Came To Alcoholics Anonymous, and I Came To Meetings Late, and I Left Early, and I Had A Bottle Mad Dog 2020 In The Bushes Outside, You Know, Because When I'm Sitting In A Meeting, I'm Not Hearing What's Going On In The Meeting, I'm Not Listening To The Spiritual Solution That You Guys Are Offering, My Mind Is Drawn To That Bottle That's Out In That Bushes, and How Quickly That Clock Goes By That Hour, So That I Can Get Outside, and Grab That Bottle, and Do What I Need To Do, You Know, and I Didn't Stay Sober, and I Stayed Sober For Four Months Actually, When I Got Out Of Rehab The First Time, I Stayed, I Actually Stayed Sober For Four Months, and I Did The Most Insane Thing That I've Ever Done In My Life, I've Done A Lot Of Crazy Things, and I Can Sit Here For Hours, and Tell You Stories Of The Crazy Things That I've Done In My Life, In 1983 I Did The Most Insane Thing I've Ever Done In My Life, and That Is Knowing That Alcohol Was Destroying My Life, Knowing That If I Took A Drink She's Kicking Me Out Again, Knowing That My Clothes Are Going To End Up On The Front Lawn Once Again, Knowing That The Boss Is Going To Fire Me Once Again, Knowing That My Life Is Going To Go To Chaos, and End Up In Chaos All Over Again, Knowing That All Those Things Were Going To Happen To Me In My Life, I Walked Into A Saloon, and I Took A Shot Of Alcohol, and I Poured It Down My Throat, and It Was The Most Insane Thing I've Ever Done In My Life, See I Suffer From Insanity When It Comes To Alcohol, So Lack Of Power Is My Dilemma, and I Suffer From Insanity, So What's My Solution, A Power Greater Than Myself, What Is The Avenue By Which I Can Come In Contact With A Power Greater Than Myself, I Ended Up In A Halfway House In Watertown, New York, It's Up Near The Canadian Border, and I Walked Into A Room One Night, and There Were Six Guys Sitting Around A Table, and One Of Them Walked Over To Me, He Said, Sit Down Kid, I'll Get You A Cup Of Coffee, You Might Hear Something In This Room Tonight That'll Save Your Life, and I Thought, Yeah, Okay, You Know, I Must Have Had That Newcomer Look On My Face, You Know, When I Walked In There, and His Name Was Frankie D, and I Will Never Forget Frankie D As Long As I Live, and I Sat Down, and I Listened To What They Were Talking About, and These Guys Shared Something, They Didn't, They Didn't Tell Me To Sit Down, and Shut Up, and Take The Cotton Out Of My Ears, and Stick It In My Mouth, or Any Of That Goofy Stuff You Hear In Alcoholics Anonymous Today, What Those Guys Did For Me, Was They Shined A Light So Bright From Within, That I Wanted With Every Fiber Of My Being, To Find Out What They Had Found, and How They Had Found It, Because They Talked About Their Drinking, They Talked About How They Drank, They Talked About Their Family Life, They Talked About The Consequences Of Their Drinking, They Talked About How They Felt Before They Poured That First Drink Down Their Throat, They Talked About All Those Things, They Didn't Tell Me What To Do, They Shared With Me Their Experience With Drinking, So I Knew That They Drank The Way That I Drank, and These Guys Told Me About A Solution That They Had Found, and I Wanted With Every Fiber Of My Being To Find Out What That Was, and I Got To Tell You, Right Here, Right Now, A Couple Days Short Of 32 Years Later, That Fire For Sobriety Burns Inside Of Me Stronger Now Than It Has Ever Burned In The History Of My Sobriety, That Need, and Want, and Desire To Stay Sober, and Do Whatever I Need To Do To Stay Sober, Burns Inside Of Me Stronger Today Than It Has Ever Burned Before, You Know, and That, I'm Blessed With That, It's Called Willingness, and That's A Blessing, That Comes From A Power Far Greater Than Me, Because There's A Lot Of Days I Don't Want To Do It, I Don't Want To Go To That Meeting, I Don't Want To Go Meet With That Sponsee, I Don't
[00:20:01]
Want To Go To That Committee Meeting, They Don't Know What They're Talking About Anyways, You Know, All That Stuff, You Know, But I Go, and I Do, and I Serve, and My Friend Ramona Sends Me A Message, and Calls Me, and Says, Hey, Carol, Can You Come Out and Do A Box Of Chocolates Again? My First Thought Is, That's The Least I Can Do, You Know, So I End Up In This Halfway House Up There, and One Of The Guys That Was In That Circle, His Name Was Emerson, and Emerson Died With Over 50 Years Of Sobriety, Emerson Knew Bill and Lois Personally, Bill and Lois Used To Come Up Route 81 Up To Northern New York, and Meet With Emerson, and Stay With Emerson and His Wife For The Weekend, and Helped Them Start A Lot Of The Meetings In Upstate New York, and Alexandria Bay, and Clayton, and Messina, and Watertown, and All Those Areas Up In Upstate New York, But Bill and Lois Would Come Up and Help Emerson Start Meetings Up There, and I Used To Go Sit and Have Coffee With Emerson, and He Would Tell Me Stories Of The Early Days Of Alcoholics Anonymous, and What They Did, and How They Did It, and The Book, and How They Would Read The Book, and How They Would Do With The Book. A Lot Of People, You Know, My Sponsor Told Me Once, He Said, You Know, Carl, What More People In AA Suffer From Than Anything Else, and I Said, What? He Said, Untreated Alcoholism, You Know, and That Really, To Me, These Guys, Like I Said, They Didn't Tell Me What To Do, They Showed Me, You Know, They Showed Me, and When I Was Probably Two To Three Months Sober, I Was Still Living In The Halfway House, and I Couldn't Make One Of The Committee Meetings One Day, and They Made Me The Literature Chair Of Jefferson County, and They Said, I Said, What Does That Mean? What Do I Gotta Do? They Said, Well, You Gotta Take This Backpack, and It's Full Of Pamphlet Literature, and You Gotta Go To The Rehabs, and You Gotta Go To The Corrections Department, or The Corrections Foyers, and You Gotta Go To The Libraries, and The Hospitals, and The Probation Departments, and The Courtrooms, and All The Places Where We Have These Literature Racks, and You Gotta Fill Those Literature Racks Every Week. You Gotta Go From Spot To Spot, and I'm Like, I Don't Have A Car, How Am I Gonna Do It? He Said, We Don't Care How You Do It, but That's What We Want You To Do, and I'm Walking Through Around Watertown, New York, in The Wintertime, with This Backpack On, Filling These Literature Racks. These Guys Don't Know What They're Doing. I Got Problems.
You Know What I Mean? They Don't Understand. The IRS Is Looking For Me. I'm Going Through A Divorce. I Don't Know Where My Kids Are. My Family Doesn't Want To Undo. I Got A Lot Of Problems, and They Got Me Filling These Stupid Literature Racks. They Don't Understand, but The Thing About That Is They Did Understand. They Knew Exactly What They Were Doing. They Knew A Guy Like Me Needed To Get Out Of Self For A Little While. They Knew A Guy Like Me Needed To Think Of Somebody Else, and Do Something For Somebody Else, because I Did Nothing But Think About Me My Whole Life. Didn't Do Nothing But To Do Anything For Me. If There Wasn't Anything In It For Me, I Wasn't Doing It My Whole Life, and They Started To Teach Me Little By Little. They Didn't Tell Me What To Do. They Showed Me. They Would Call Me, and They'd Say, The AA Bus Will Be There At 7 O'Clock. Get Ready, and I Would Be Standing In The Doorway Of The Halfway House, and This Car Would Pull Up Full Of People, and They Would Scoop Me Up, and Put Me In The Middle In The Back Seat On The Hump, and The Gas Tank Had A Hole In It, and They Could Only Put $5 Worth Of Gas In It At A Time, and The Radio Didn't Work. They Had This Big Boom Box That They Had Bungee Corded To The Back Window, and We're Driving All Over Upstate New York Through Snowstorms, and Everything Else. We Drive Down To Sandy Creek, and Walk Into This Meeting, and There's Six Of Us Walking Into The Meeting, and There's Only Three Home Group Members There, and They're Going, Geez, I Only Live A Couple Miles Down The Street. You Guys Drove 50 Miles To Get Here To This Meeting, you know, and We Would Have So Much Fun In That Car On The Way To The Meetings, and On The Way Home From The Meetings, you know, and God Touched Me Many, Many Times In That Car, and They Didn't Just Tell Me How To Get Sober. They Showed Me How To Get Sober. They'd Take Me Out For Coffee, and I Would Sit With Emerson For Hours, and Listen To Stories Of The Early Days Of AA, and Bill, and Lois, and Things Like That, and, you know, that stuff Has Stuck With Me Over The Years, and What Happened Was, I'm Going To Get Sober Here.
I Got A Phone Call From My Dad One Day, and My Dad Was Very Sick, and He Needed To Have, He Had Cancer, and He Needed To Have An Operation, and He Wanted Me To Come Home. He Had Heard Through The Grapevine. See, My Dad, and I Didn't Have A Relationship For Many, Many Years. We Had The Hatred That This Disease Can Breed Between A Father, and A Son. My Dad, and I Would Fight Physically, and Verbally, and, you know, and I Hated My Father, and, and He Had Called The Halfway House, and Said, you know, I'm Really Sick, and I Need To Have An Operation, and I Want You To Come Home, and He Invited Me To Come Live At His House, and I Went, and I Stayed With My Dad For A Little While. I Left The Halfway House, and My Sponsor Talked To Me About, you Know, How Sometimes In Sobriety, We Have To Take What's Called As A Leap Of Faith. We Have To
[00:25:00]
Trust, and Believe That Everything Is Going To Be Okay, and I Gotta Tell You, Over The Last 32 Years, I've Taken A Lots, Lots, and Lots Of Leaps Of Faith. So, I Went, and I Stayed With My Dad For A Little While, and He Came Through The Operation. He Was Okay, and I Figured I Gotta Get Out Of There, and Get On With This Thing Called Life, you Know, and I Ended Up Going, and Applying For This Job, and I Ended Up Getting The Job, and What The Job Was, What They Advertised As A One-Bedroom Apartment. I Went, and I Go, and Get The Job. They Didn't Have A One-Bedroom Apartment Available For Me. They Gave Me A Two-Bedroom Apartment, and I Ended Up In This Two-Bedroom Apartment, Living There By Myself, and I'm Going To Meetings Like My Sponsor Told Me That I Should, and I'm Getting Involved In A Home Group, and I'm, you Know, Involved In Service Work, and I'm Involved In The Area, and Things Like That, and I Got A Phone Call One Day, and It Was From A Little Girl That I Had Left Behind In That First Marriage. That Little Girl That I Had When I Was In High School. She Wanted To Come, and Visit Me, and She Came To Visit Me, and We Started To Develop A Relationship, and She Knew She Had A Father Who Was Sober. She Knew When I Told Her I Was Going To Buy Her A Pair Of Sneakers, That I Would Buy Her A Pair Of Sneakers, and She Knew When I Told Her I Was Taking Her To The Carnival, That I Would Show Up, Take Her To The Carnival. You Know, Because I Had Made A Lot Of False Promises To A Lot Of People Over The Years. I Had Made A Lot Of Promises I Had No Intention Of Ever Fulfilling, but I Was, You Know, Sober Now, and When I Told Her I Was Going To Do Something, She Now Knew That I Was Going To Do Something. That Little Girl Is 45 Years Old Now. She's A Head Principal In One Of The Local High Schools Here. I Put Her Through College, and I Walked Her Down The Aisle, and She Got Married, and She Has Two Grandsons, My Grandsons, and She's A Very Important Part Of My Life Today, and You Know, Her And I Over The Years Have Developed A Relationship That A Father And A Daughter Should Have, and She Knows She Can Count On Me. She Knows That I'm There For Her, and Her And I Go Out For Dinner, and We Talk, and We Share Things, and She Comes To My Home Groups Once A Year. We Do An Anniversary Meeting At My Home Group. We Call It Friends and Family, Where We Invite People From Our Community To Come To Our Home Group. We Bring A Speaker In, and We Were Always Taught That We Should Not Be So Anonymous That We Don't Know Who The People In Our Community Don't Know Who We Are, or How To Get Ahold Of Us, so We Have A Friends and Family.
In Fact, My Wonderful Friend Ryan Who's On This Meeting Tonight, Him And His Wife At My Invitation Came And Shared Their Stories At Our Friends and Family This Past Year, and What We Do Is We Invite People To Invite Their Pastor, or Their Rabbi, or Their Doctor, or Their Family Members, so That They Know Who We Are, and What We Are, and Where We Do It. So That If They Know People In The Community That Need Our Help, They Know How To Get Ahold Of Us.
You Know, So Once A Year We Do Our Friends and Family. We Put On A Big Meal, and We Invite Wonderful Speakers To Come And Speak, and It Really Is A Good Time, and It's Well Attended. And What Happened, I'll Just Tell You A Quick Story. What Happened One Year Is The Pastor Of The Church Came To Our Meeting, and I Was Always Taught When You Start A Meeting, You Should Always Give The Pastor Some Of Our Pamphlet Literature, and A Copy Of Our Big Book, so That They Can Look Through That, and Know How, You Know, What We Do, and How To Get Ahold Of Us, and People, In Case People In Their Congregation Need Our Help. And I Gave The Pastor A Copy Of Our Book, and Some Pamphlet Literature, and He Came Through Our Meeting One Night. He Says, Carl, Come Here. I Got To Talk To You, and I Said, What?
Immediately, My Thought Pattern Is Somebody Stole Something Out Of The Church. We're Going To Get Kicked Out Of Here, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah. You Know, My Mind Automatically Goes To That, You Know. He Said, I Want To Show You Something, and I Said, What? He Opened His Hand, and He Had A Six-Month Coin In His Hand, and I Thought Maybe Somebody Had Dropped It On The Floor. I Said, Oh, Where Did You Get That From? He Said, I've Been Reading That Book You Gave Me.
See, You Never Know. You Never Know Whose Life Is Going To Be Affected By Our Book. It Says, Many Lives Are Affected By Our Alcoholism, and I'm A Firm Believer That I Can Be A Positive Influence, and A Positive Factor In My Community Today, and Many Lives Can Be Affected Positively By My Sobriety Today, and By People Knowing That There's A Way Out, and That There Is A Solution, and That If They Want That, There Are People In Our Fellowship That Will Bend Over Backwards To Help Them Attain That, You Know. So, I'm Living In This, In This Apartment, and My Daughter Decides That She Wants To Go Back With Her Mom, and Live With, and See Her Friends, and Miss Her, She Missed Her Friends, and Things Like That, and I'm Back Living In This Two-Bedroom Apartment By Myself, and I Get A Call One Day, and It's From My Sponsor, and He's Still In Watertown, and He Said, You Know, I Hate It Here, The Weather's Cold, I Don't Know What I'm Going To Do, and I Said, Well, Geez, You Know, I Got This Extra Bedroom, If You Want To Come, and Live With Me, You Can, and I Want To Tell You, If You Ever Want To Take Your Sponsor Down Off That Pedestal You Got Him On, Have Him Come, and Live With You For A Little While, No, Because They Come Down Really Quick, You Know, and You Know, I Still Have The Same Sponsor Today, I've Only Ever Had One Sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous, When I Came Here In 1983, I Never Got A Sponsor, but I Still Have The Same Sponsor, and Although I Have Many Friends, Who I Talk To, Many People Who I Confide In, and Do Inventory With, and Share Things With, My Sponsor Doesn't Presume That He Knows Everything, and He Has An Experience, A Lot Of Things That Are He Knows Everything, and he has an experience of a lot of the things that I've been through, like raising a child, he doesn't have any children.
He told me that I need to go elsewhere with that stuff,
[00:30:02]
I need to talk to other people in AA that I can trust and share that stuff with. He's never been married, you know, so the marriage thing and all that stuff, he never dealt with any of that stuff. So I have other people in my life in Alcoholics Anonymous who I go to and have dinner with and share things with, stuff like that, besides my sponsor. My sponsor is still my sponsor, and I will love him till the day I die or he dies, because he saved my life, and he will always, always be my sponsor.
But there are other people in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I have a circle of people that I share things with and confide in and things like that. So my sponsor comes to live with me for a little while, then he moves out. My wife at the time wanted a divorce, and she called me, she said she wanted to get a divorce, and she didn't know what she was gonna do, and I said, jeez, you know, we get the divorce, I'll pay for it, but I'm gonna file for custody, and she said, do whatever you gotta do, so I did.
I filed for custody of my youngest daughter, and I got custody of her, and I raised her in Alcoholics Anonymous. She used to sit on my lap in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous with her coloring books, and color in her coloring books, because I didn't know what, you know, I mean, she would get up and go to school in the morning, I would go to work. She'd get home from school, I would cook dinner, I'd do her laundry, I'd help her with her homework, and then we'd go to a meeting together, because I didn't know what else to do, I needed to get to meetings, so I brought her with me.
And there were a lot of people in Alcoholics Anonymous that would pull her aside and color with her in her coloring books, or play with her toys with her, so that I could get in a meeting. You know, and I always tell, especially single women in Alcoholics Anonymous, don't be afraid to bring your kids to meetings, to open meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. My sponsor told me that it's selfish of me to deny my family of the spiritual principles that are keeping me alive one day at a time.
You know, my daughter grew up in AA, and she lives on Cape Cod now, and she's married and has children of her own, and every once in a while she comes home, and the first thing she'll say is, Dad, can I go to a meeting with you? Not because she needs a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, she doesn't drink like we do, but she wants to go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous because she wants to see all of her friends that she grew up with in AA, you know?
And the spiritual principles that we talk about, she practices in her life. She does prayer and meditation, she does inventory, she does service and self-sacrifice through helping others in her community, and things like that. They had a little old lady that lived next door, her husband died, and this woman was in her early 80s, and her house was becoming dilapidated, and the paint was peeling and all that stuff.
So my daughter got her children, and they went to Home Depot, and they bought a couple of buckets of paint, some rollers and some paintbrushes, and they went over and they painted the woman's house. Not for no other reason other than it just needed painting. And I said to her, why did you do that? She said, Dad, well, that's what you guys taught me, to help others and to think of others. And she goes, and I want my children to learn that.
So that was a lesson that she was teaching her children. And you guys gave me that, you guys gave that to her, that gift, by her sitting in meetings with Alcoholics Anonymous and listening to what we talked about. So I raised her in AA. And what happened, my life started to change. And at 40 years old, I was working for that realty company managing condominium complexes and apartment complexes and things like that.
And at 40 years old, I got a phone call from a headhunter, and he said, you want to change careers, you can come and do this if you want to do that. And I said, well, geez, I might want to try that. And at 40 years old, I went back to school. And that was difficult. And at 50 years old, I went back to school again to get letters behind my name. See, I was just a high school dropout. I didn't have any education other than high school.
I went back and got my GED, because I needed the GED to join the army. And I was taught that we become active in our communities, that my sponsor told me, Carl, you need to give back from the community that you stole from for so many years. So what happened was I bought a condominium, and I became involved in the association. I became the board president of the association, and I became involved in what's called the Community Associations Institute out of Washington, DC.
And they're a community of people across the country who live in condominium complexes and share ideas and share things that are happening in their community with each other and things like that. And we had a big tax thing here where I live, and the town was assessing our properties at outrageous prices. So we hired a good tax attorney, and we took him to court. We ended up winning the case and got a refund back for a lot of people who live in the community.
And this Community Associations Institute, I had been a member of it for many, many years, and the head of it was in Washington, DC, and she called me, well, she sent me an email. When I first got the email, I thought it was spam. I thought, this is crazy. So I called her, and I'm like, what's this all about? She said, well, we heard what happened up there, and we'd like for you to come down to Washington, DC and go to the House of Representatives and address Congress about what's going on up there.
Now, I'm a huge American history buff.
[00:35:00]
I love American history. To be able to go to that Capitol building and the history that's in that building, again, I thought it was a joke, but she was serious, and they wanted me to come down there and address Congress and talk to some of the senators and have meetings with senators about what had happened and what we did about it. And I said, well, what am I gonna have to do? She said, well, you're gonna have to go up to a podium and address Congress, or can you do that?
And I said, yeah, I do public speaking a lot. I got no problem with that. But all the way down there, it's a seven-hour drive to Washington, DC from here, and all the way on my drive from here to Washington, DC, I was so afraid I was gonna walk up to that podium and go, my name is Carl, and I'm an alcoholic. I mean, that was a fear that I had. I didn't do that, but I got really emotional, which I found later on by talking to some of the senators that that's not uncommon because it's a great honor and a great privilege to be able to go there and speak to some of the most powerful people in the world.
But I got emotional because when I was standing at that microphone addressing them, I wasn't thinking about where I was or who I was talking to or what I was gonna talk about. I was thinking about Alcoholics Anonymous. I was thinking about the people whose faces I see on the screen here tonight. I was thinking about the people like Emerson and Frankie D who were instrumental in my early sobriety. I was thinking about those guys and how they helped change my life.
And what a great honor that was that I got an opportunity to do that. One of the things that I wanted to talk about tonight and that I've been thinking about the last couple of days is when I came back to Alcoholics Anonymous, I thought for sure that I had no capacity for faith. I thought that the guy in our book, it says, we thought we had, Bill talks about how he had neatly evaded the God idea. And I thought that that was me, that I had neatly evaded the God idea that God didn't want nothing to do with me and I didn't want nothing to do with him.
In fact, I didn't want God to know where I was. Actually, when I got sober, I had done so many wrong things that, and I just thought that I had no capacity for faith. And when I read the chapter of Egnostics with my sponsor, it talks in there about reasonable assumption as a starting point. And I said, what do you mean by that? He said, well, let's look at that. He said, when you walk into a room and the room is dark, he said, what do you do?
I said, I turn the light on. He said, you reach over and flip the switch, right? And I said, yeah. He said, do you think about how the electricity is produced down at the, here it's called Russell Gas and Electric, at the RG&E station and how it goes through the power lines and goes through the substation and comes through the transformers and into the building and downstairs through the breaker box and back up to the switch so that when you flip the switch, the power goes up to the light and it illuminates the light.
And he said, do you think about all that stuff when that happens? And I said, well, no. He said, well, what do you do? I said, I flip the switch on. He said, so when you flip the switch on, what do you expect to happen? I said, I expect the light to go on. He said, what is that? What reasonable assumption? He says, is it reasonable for you to assume that when you flip the switch on, the light's gonna go on?
And I said, well, yeah. He said, what is that, Carl? I said, I don't know, what is that? He said, it's faith. You have faith that when you flip the switch, the light's gonna go on. Do you know how it works? Can you explain how it works? No, but you assume that it's gonna work. He said, when you get in your car and you turn the key, can you explain to me how a small combustion engine works and how the gasoline goes into the combustion chamber and the spark plug ignite the gasoline and it turns the pistons and the pistons turn this and the transmission and the wheels turn and you get to go wherever?
Or when you get in the car, do you just turn the key and it goes vroom? And I said, well, yeah. He said, is it reasonable for you to assume that if you do that, the car goes vroom? And I said, yeah. He said, what is that? But faith. He said, you have faith that if you turn the key, this is what's gonna happen. He said, so do you think it's reasonable for you to assume that if you do what we did, that you can get sober too?
Reasonable assumption as a starting point. It was reasonable for me to assume that if I did what those guys told me they had done, work the steps, do inventory, do service and self-sacrifice to helping others, do prayer and meditation, all of those things. If I did all of those things, was it reasonable for me to assume that I would get what they got? Yeah, it was. Excuse me. And what my sponsor taught me was that I had a capacity for faith.
I thought that I had no capacity for faith all of those years. And what I found out was that I had been living by faith
[00:40:00]
and little else my whole life that I did have a capacity for faith. And really what that did for me, excuse me, was open a lot of doors. It opened, the hoop that I had to jump through to come in contact with a power greater than myself was a lot bigger than I thought it was. And I went through those steps with my sponsor and I had a spiritual awakening as the result of the steps, not as a result, as the result, like it says in the 12th step, it's a direct correlation between working the steps and having a spiritual awakening as the result of the steps.
And what happened for me was my spirit was awakened. And over the years that I've been sober, I'm part Native American and the Native Americans believe that everything on this planet goes through cycles. Everything on this planet goes through the seasons. Like right now we're in the midst of fall. We're at peak season in fall right now. The colors here are vibrant and they're beautiful. And soon the trees will drop all of those leaves and the trees will be barren and we go into winter and we stay in winter for a long time.
And the trees shut down and all the plants and the animals, I mean, the salmon spawn and the elephants traverse Africa and the wildebeest traverse Africa and the whales go from Alaska down to Hawaii. Those things happen cyclically on this planet. Every living thing on this planet goes through those cycles. And that me as a human being, as a part living thing on this planet, I go through those cycles also.
Sometimes I'm in winter. And I don't think that God has forsaken me or God doesn't listen to me. I hear people come up to me and they say, Carl, I'm going to meetings and I'm working the steps and I'm calling my sponsor and I'm doing all those things that I'm supposed to be doing. I'm just not feeling it right now. And that's natural. It's natural to go through those cycles because soon what happens to the trees?
The trees in the spring, they start to bud again. And then in June and July, they got full leaves on them and they're beautiful and they're in full strength and they're wonderful to look at and all those things. And they're providing oxygen for us to breathe and all those things. And then all of a sudden what happens? The leaves start to change. And all of a sudden the tree is barren again and it's in winter.
And I go through those and I have to allow myself to go through those cycles. It's not like God has abandoned me. It's not like God has forsaken me. It's not like God doesn't want anything to do with me. And I also tell people, a lot of people come to me and they say, Carl, I went through the steps again with my sponsor, but I'm not feeling it. And the wonderful thing about that is you hear people in AA a lot say, when they take that first drink, how it explodes in their stomach and they have that spiritual boom that alcohol provides and they chase that their whole drinking career.
They chase that feeling and they can never get it back. Well, a lot of people do that with the steps. They go through the steps the first time with their sponsor and they have this spiritual awakening and this pink cloud, we call it in AA. And all of a sudden that goes away and they're like, I'm doing something wrong. I'm not feeling it. And they're chasing that just like they chase the drink over and over and over again.
And what I tell them is when you go through the steps again, allow yourself to experience and feel and go through those steps wherever you're at now, you're never going to experience again like you did the first time with your sponsor. Never again will you experience that because you're not, hopefully you're not in the same place. I'm in a different place 32 years later than I was a long time ago. And if I'm not, I better get busy.
You know, I'm not one of those who holds with, I'm just as close to a drink as I was 30 years ago. If I'm just as close to a drink 30 years later, I better get busy. And I think we mislead the newcomer by saying stuff like that. Because if I'm a newcomer and I hear somebody say that, I'm thinking to myself, what do I want to stay here for? If I'm going to be just as close to a drink 30 years from now as I am now, why do I want to stay in Alcoholics Anonymous?
I got to tell you, I'm a hell of a lot further away from a drink than I was when I got here. Does that mean I'll never drink again? No, I'm not that crass. I'm not that egotistical. I understand what I need to do on a daily basis to engage a power greater than myself in my life on a daily basis that grants me the gift of grace, of sobriety every day. But there's certain things I need to do. You know, I need to continue to do prayer and meditation.
I need to do inventory. I need to help others. I need to do service and self-sacrifice. All the things that AA teaches me that I need to do. And I've got a few minutes left. I just want to share a quick story with you and it's… I had this guy in my life and he's… I had this guy in my life and he's been in my life for probably 25, 30 years, close to 30 years now and he was in and out and in and out and in and out for a long time back and forth and up and down and
[00:45:02]
he would drink again and I sponsored him for a little while and I told him that you know maybe he needed to get help from somebody else because I just something was missing you know but we've remained friends and and I get those phone calls at two o'clock in the morning that he's punching holes in the wall again and he's beating her up again and he's drinking again and the kids are screaming again and he lost another job and they don't know what they're going to do for groceries and I got to go over there and take them grocery shopping so the kids got something to eat and I've been through those all those ups and downs that in the chapter working with others talks about you know you got to answer the clock the phone at three o'clock and been through all that with these people and watch their kids grow up through all of that so last year I get a phone call from one of his daughters and she said to me Carl I had somebody who asked me to marry them we want to know if you'll perform the ceremony for us and I said well I'm not ordained she said well can you find out what you need to do to get ordained so I did I did a little investigating and I went and I got ordained and this past weekend I was able to watch her walk down the aisle with this guy her father and I married the two of them it was a beautiful outdoor ceremony and in the woods and the full beauty of the fall in this area and we were at the reception and I asked her I said why did you want me to do your wedding she said I couldn't think of anybody else that I would rather do it than you she said you know you've been a part and part of our life for so many years now and I've watched you go through hell with my dad and you've been so helpful to our family over the years that I don't want anybody else to perform this and I was honored I was a privilege and I was honored by the opportunity to be able to wed this young couple that our soul had over heels in love with each other and my point in telling that story is sometimes you know when we go answer that phone call at two o'clock in the morning or we go sit at that restaurant with that sponsee who's struggling once again or has picked up a drink once again doesn't know what they're going to do or any of those things you know we never know how we are affecting not only their lives but the lives of the people around them their children their spouses their parents all of those things by just showing up and doing what we can to make sure that we're doing the right thing by just showing up and doing what we do in Alcoholics Anonymous and that is just our primary purpose we stay sober and help others to achieve sobriety you know and I've had an opportunity to do that many many different ways and many different opportunities to do that in people's lives and you know today my primary purpose is sharing that with others sharing the hope sharing the solution sharing what we have to offer in Alcoholics Anonymous with anybody and everybody who wants to hear it because that fire for sobriety burns brighter inside of me today than it has ever burned any day of my life and I have you to thank for that thank you.
Thank you Carl that was great thank you so much for joining us tonight where you never know what you're going to get you just have to keep coming back and we surely hope to see you here next Thursday our special guest is Trenton H from California and he's a newlywed so there's a his he said he's a newlywed he's he's a pretty cool dude if you like this meeting please do as Bill Wilson always says is to pass it on and we hope that you can help others right from your phone and computer and tell them about this special meeting. Carl do you have any closing comments in which you close us out with the prayer of your choice please. I put my name and phone number in the chat if anybody would like to talk or anything like that you're more than welcome to take down my number I would prefer that we just close with a moment of silence followed by the serenity prayer please. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference thank you so much.
Great job thank you thank you you should all be able to thank you Carl. See you Ryan. Great talk Carl thank you very much thank you.