vol 303. Every Day Gifts with Jim T.

Show Transcript

We believe that alcoholism is a disease, and that Alcoholics Anonymous is one solution to that disease. I'm here to bring you the voices of its members. Everyone that comes on the show, including myself, is an active member and has found recovery in the rooms of AA. As you listen, please take what works for you and leave the rest.

My name is Jim. I am an alcoholic, and my sobriety date is September 15th of 2010. I heard in a meeting one time somebody gave their sobriety date, and he said that that wasn't his fault. And that's something that has always kind of stuck with me because so much of my sobriety is not neither my fault nor my doing things right or doing them properly.

I've always done things the best I can. Sometimes that doesn't necessarily look all that great, but um I do believe that my higher power seems to work in spite of my best efforts sometimes. And so I've always kind of liked the idea that you know my sobriety date is not because I have been perfect or done things exactly the way they're supposed to be done. So just a quick background on me.

So I was born the day after Christmas in 1969. The only reason I like to bring that up as part of my story is because uh we do talk about a lot about resentments being the number one offender, and I jokingly at this point now it's a joke, but at one point it wasn't a joke. I I carried that resentment for a long time because having your birthday around Christmas is a very difficult thing, and so that was a source of resentment for a long time for me. So that's one of the reasons I like to start out with that, because I jokingly think that I was born resentful because of my birth date.

So the ironic part of that is that I never gave thought until a few years ago about the fact that my mom had spent Christmas and the holidays in the hospital so that I could be born. I was focused on myself, which is pretty alcoholic in its nature. So I like to start out with that and remind myself that that was my beginning. And I think I was set up for alcoholism from the very beginning, and that was a good example of it.

So I was born in Northern California to really good parents, and I say that they were good, not in the sense that they were perfect, but they provided an environment for me that was safe, that I was able to truly be a kid. Um, they definitely had their issues that I've had an opportunity to work on, both through AA but as well as outside of AA. And I think that's an important part for me that I like to make sure people understand, because I think sometimes I walked around with this misperception that if I needed help outside of AA, it meant that I wasn't doing AA correctly. And I've come to understand for me that that's not the case.

Outside help has helped me a lot. I've done a lot of it, whether it's therapy or other things, and and what it's really done is it's just taken my AA, the results of the work I've done in AA, and just for me, it's it's just made them more impactful over the years, and it continues to do so. So I think it's an important point for me and my story to really highlight that because there's nothing more painful for me to hear than somebody who uh maybe didn't uh wasn't able to find the resolution that they needed within the program, and uh they weren't willing to look outside because they didn't think that that that was something that they could do. And I so it's important to me.

My brother was was one of those people, he got to a point that he had some other mental issues and ended up taking his own life because he wasn't willing to get help for it. So I think that that's an important factor. So, anyway, so we grew up in in Northern California and and my mom was a stay-at-home mom, and so uh the biggest crime that she committed was she was home all the time and a little bit too controlling. And my dad worked in corporate life and we moved every three or four years.

And so the challenge for me related to that was I never had the basis anywhere long enough to feel comfortable, although I was never comfortable in my own skin from the beginning. When I've heard people talk about, you know, not relating necessarily to all the circumstances that they hear people talk about NAA, but relating to the feelings and the way that they felt and and things like that, that's always resonated to me because I never felt like I belonged ever and never felt like I was a part of ever. And and that still can be a struggle for me today at times. I've learned how to cope with that with the helps of the steps and my sponsor, but but it's still something that will plague me from time to time.

The the things that my head will tell me sometimes uh are difficult. And so we moved around. We finally landed in Dallas, Texas, when I was about 13, I think. I was in junior high.

And the most impactful thing about that was it was a complete departure from California. It was very much culture shock for me, and I wasn't prepared for what life would be like in Texas versus California. That's not saying it was a bad or a good thing, just was very different. I went from a culture and a lifestyle in California to one that shifted significantly in Texas, and so I went from feeling like an outcast in California, and that exemplified that uh became bigger when I moved to Texas.

And so I remember feeling very, very much even then, uh, even more so uh apart from and really uncomfortable. And so, you know, I attended school, did the usual stuff. I remember one time on the bus, somebody talked about, I don't know how old I was, probably in seventh grade. I remember somebody talking about drinking and and and testing drinking alcohol and talking about blacking out.

And I remember being very drawn to that idea of being able to escape mentally from my environment and who I was. And I don't know why that stuck out to me other than the fact that it did. And so when I was between leading into you know 13, 14 years old, my friends and I started to experiment with drinking out of our parents' alcohol bottles and replacing it with water and that kind of stuff. Nothing real significant, of course.

Um, drugs are not really much of my story, other than the fact that if I couldn't drink, I might smoke some pot, I took a drug here or there, but quite honestly, it was never the same. So for me, drinking was my drug of choice, and it really was my drug of choice. I I never related to the drug thing. So drugs really aren't part of my story other than just maybe smoking marijuana here and there.

But but anyway, I still remember the first time I really got drunk. I was about 15, I believe I was 15 years old, and a friend of mine was getting his driver's license, and we had a little get together during the day at one of, well, it wasn't one of my friends, it was a friend of a friend. And so I think we had probably oh, a cooler full of beer, and I remember drinking a few of those beers, and all of a sudden I felt normal. And what I mean by that is all of the things that plagued me emotionally and mentally just seemed to disappear.

Now, leading into that, I had taken sips of alcohol and and things like that, but never really felt the effect of it because I never drank enough to have that happen. But I still remember that first time really getting the effect of drinking and feeling extremely drawn to it, as if I had never been drawn to anything before. I really don't know how else to describe it other than I felt like I had I felt like I had arrived at home. And in fact, I left that little get together, I wouldn't call it a party, but I left that get together, I went home to eat dinner, and I don't know if my parents noticed that something was different or not, but I went home to eat dinner, and then I went out to another this was an actual party and proceeded to get drunk again that night.

And I remember waking up the next day and I used to get hellacious hangovers. I've always been envious of people that would talk about the fact that they would not get hangovers, and quite honestly, uh, if I hadn't have had hangovers, I'm not sure, I'm not sure I would have ever quit drinking because it was one of the only things that really affected me. But anyway, so I went out and got drunk again that night. And I remember the next morning I woke up with this hellacious hangover, my head was killing me, I was nauseous, and I went downstairs and and my mom knew that I had been drinking and looked at me and said, Well, how are you feeling?

And I said, Oh man, I feel really rough, the whole thing. And she said, Well, I bet you won't do that again. And I remember saying to her, Oh, yeah, I won't do that again, but thinking, I can't wait until I can do that again. And quite honestly, the rest of my drinking career was chasing that feeling because it never was as good as that ever again.

So basically, my high school years, I I I drank every chance I got. Now, my because my parents were as controlling and involved in my life as they were, that did not look the way I wanted it to. Uh, whether it was trying to spend the night at friends' houses so I could do it, or it was uh my curfew was two o'clock in the morning, so I would come home and I would try to mask it, either by I I remember I tried drinking vodka, so because I somebody had said one time that the smell of vodka wouldn't show up, and so I tried that and that didn't work because my mom would wait up and smell my breath and then we'd have a whole thing at home. Uh, one time I remember I was trying to figure out how I was going to cover it up, and I actually walked through the drive-thru at McDonald's and got a cup of onions and ate a cup of onions trying to hide it.

These were some of the ways that I was trying to make sure that I could drink the way I wanted to drink, even though the circumstances of my life were trying to prevent me from doing that. So I spent a couple years doing that in high school, and then at one point I was evaluated by drug and alcohol counselor because my mom was concerned about my behavior, and her mother was an alcoholic of the more traditional kind in the sense that very unpredictable behavior, and my mom was terrified of me and my brother growing up in an alcoholic home. So she and my dad purposely didn't drink virtually at all around us. And so my mom had me evaluated by this by this counselor, and leaving that meeting, she had asked me to attend seven AA meetings, and so this was back in the in the late 80s, probably 1986-87.

And at that time, AA was pretty popular, it was it was pretty prevalent. And I remember the third meeting I went to was a speaker meeting, and at the time you could still smoke in meetings, and my parents hated smoking, and I knew that. And I remember getting in the car and he said, Well, how was it? And I said, Oh, please don't make me go back.

Those people are crazy. And in the very, very most caring, enabling way that he could, he patted me on the leg and said, Don't worry, Jim, we won't ever make you go back. And I remember thinking, Man, okay, I got out of that. Like I just I wasn't interested in AA at all, and I just wanted to do the things I wanted to do.

So, anyway, so fast forward, I graduated high school and I went to Texas Tech for a year and basically failed out because all I did was drink and not go to class. So I failed out of Texas Tech after the first year, and I came home, and my parents had loosened up their restrictions because as an adult, I guess they felt like I was over 18 and they could do that. So I had uh I had been out with some, with actually one particular friend from work, and we were out, and I had this new truck that we were driving, and he was driving because I was drinking and I didn't want to get in trouble. So my best decision was I let him drive my truck, and somewhere along the way he he barely hit a taxi, and so I said, forget it, I'm gonna drive.

And so I proceeded to drive the rest of the night. So fast forward to later on in the night, I had dropped him off and I was headed back to my friend's house. I don't know exactly what time, but it was after everything had shut down, and I was completely plastered, and I lost control of the car turning the corner, and I drove into a backyard, and I came to with my truck on its side, and I was standing on the driver's side window looking out through the windshield at a bunch of people who were there looking at me because obviously it caused commotion in the in the neighborhood. And so the result of that was I I had driven in the backyard and hit a diving board of a swimming pool, and the diving board threw my truck back, and when I came to, I was looking out through the windshield at these people, and so they they then took me to the hospital to check me out, and I was okay physically.

There was nothing wrong with me physically, but while I'm sitting there, uh a Richardson, Texas police officer came up to me and said, Hey, Mr. I just want to let you know that when they finish checking you out here, we're gonna take you into the police station and book you for DWI. And I remember thinking, man, I need to get out of this. Like I need to figure out how to get out of this bad situation I've created.

So I looked at the police officer and I said, I think I have a drinking problem. Do you have any suggestions? And the police officer looked at me and very calmly just said, Well, I've never been, but I've heard that AA works for a lot of people. And I looked at him and I said, Do you have any other suggestions?

Because that was the last thing I wanted to do. But anyway, they ended up booking me on DWI and ended up going to treatment as the result of that. And I was 20 at the time. This is I'm 20 years old.

And I remember thinking, man, my life is over. Like, because all I knew was drinking. It was the only thing I was interested in. And I remember thinking my life was over.

And so I go to treatment and I ended up doing outpatient treatment there in Texas, in Dallas, and and that was an interesting experience. The first night of treatment, it was interesting. We were there, and and they're kind of talking about how alcoholism was a family disease. And the funny thing is, I had talked to my dad later on, and and I remember thinking in that session, oh, thank goodness they're gonna fix my mom.

And my dad told me later that his thought was, oh, thank goodness they're gonna fix my wife. Now, my parents didn't stay together and they got divorced later, but I just kind of chuckle about that. But I remember them talking about it being a family disease, and in my first reintroduction to AA was kind of through this treatment center. I remember one of the conditions of being released from treatment was I had to go to AA, which I thought was a really horrible thing.

And so I started attending AA at a group called Dallas North, which Dallas North at the time was really known for having a lot of young people. One of the things I wanted to do was get connected with some young people in AA because again, my social life was important, just like any 20-year-old at the time. So I started attending meetings, and and I I really, my recovery ended up staying sober for a year, went back out for a little bit, and then I came back in and I had five years. And that period of sobriety for me was really very fellowship-based.

And the reason that this is important for me to bring up is there was nothing wrong with it, and and and it really, really planted the seed for me to know where to go later on when I needed to go back. But my sobriety was tenuous at best because it was completely contingent on the people I was hanging out with and the fellowship of the program. It really wasn't based in anything spiritually or principally led. It doesn't mean, I mean, I went to meetings consistently, I had sponsors, I worked steps, I did the best that I could at the time.

The challenge for me was it really was a social group, and it wasn't really, I hadn't reached the point where AA was a a life or death life or death situation for me because really I had entered the program to get out of a sticky situation as the result of being in treatment. And so I didn't have what what I hear people refer to as the gift of desperation, which will come later. And so and so when circumstances went awry, so I was living in Dallas and ended up leaving Dallas and moving to Fort Worth. And I remember moving to Fort Worth and I didn't get involved in the program.

And all of a sudden I got these resentments towards these friends of mine in the program who weren't calling me like I thought that they should. They weren't as attentive to the fact I wasn't around anymore like they should. And I ended up drinking again. You know, the the the part where it talks about resentment being the number one offender, I will tell you, it was it has been the number one offender in my life and was for a really, really long time.

I walked around very resentful and not even really understanding the source of it, but that that came later for me. But anyway, so I moved to Fort Worth and I ended up going out and drinking, and then I had a period of going in and out for a while. That was probably when did I that was probably maybe 98, 99, and then I moved to San Antonio from Fort Worth to San Antonio, and I did that to escape a relationship that had started in AA that wasn't founded in AA after that. But anyway, I moved to San Antonio and to to do a geographical break.

And during that time, I reconnected with who now is my my ex-wife, but we reconnected. She was a high school love of mine that I had, and so uh she moved to San Antonio, and I lived in South Texas until 2003, moved from San Antonio to Corpus and would have periods of sobriety, but inevitably what would happen is I would get resentful. Usually it would be it would start with resentment, and then I would end up going back out. And it's interesting because in my early days of sobriety when I was at Dallas North, I was very judgmental about people that went in and out because I wasn't one of those people yet.

And my experience of going in and out has made me a much softer person and really, really endears me to people or endears people who go in and out to me in the sense that I feel a connection to those people that I never had prior to that, and I know how difficult it can be to come back in. So uh I lived down in South Texas until 2003, going in and out of the program, which it at that time I so so and and my wife at the time and I had she had a uh a child from another marriage that I had adopted, and then we had two kids of our own. And so we moved up to Arkansas in 2003, where I currently live. And it was funny, I was sober at the time that we moved up here, and holy cow, that was quite the shift for me.

I uh I moved up here, and man, the AA was not what I liked at all. It wasn't anything that I was used to. And I remember I called my old sponsor down in Corpus after I moved here, and I was complaining about the meetings up here and about how they didn't do it right up here. And uh this this guy's name was Mark, and I'm talking to Mark, and Mark said, Well, well, Jim, all you got to do is get a coffee pot in a room and and go start a meeting.

And I thought, well, it's not that bad, like I'll just power through it. But I wasn't willing to do that much work. But anyway, so moved up here in 2003, and again continued to go in and out of the program. Got divorced from her in 2005 or 2006.

Met my second wife who was in the program of AA and spent some time with her and then subsequently got divorced from her. In the process of that, I ended up attending a spiritual thing outside of AA that was very helpful for me. I won't go into specifics other than to say up until the time that I did this spiritual retreat, it was not religious, but until that time I really struggled with steps two and three and connecting with any type of higher power. And following this program, it really helped me.

It's one of the things that I really encourage people to do is if you're struggling with that, don't hesitate to look for other avenues to try to make that connection. So I came out of that thing with a renewed uh connection to a higher power. But what was interesting is at that time I was sober, I was two years sober, coming up on three years. And all in this thing really resolved a lot of these circumstantial things I struggled with.

And all of a sudden I started thinking, man, like maybe I can drink again. And I know it it sounds really silly saying it now, but I will tell you, I genuinely thought, man, all of these things that used to plague me don't plague me anymore. And maybe I can, maybe I'm not alcoholic, right? So I started thinking that, and sure enough, I got I was in a I was in the Denver airport on a work trip, and I got stuck in the airport on a layover, and it just made it very convenient for me.

I walked into a bar, I sat down, I got a beer, and I remember the first sip, I took a I I had a sigh, and I felt like, oh man, like it was a sigh of relief. Now, the sigh of relief wasn't from like it used to be. The sigh of relief was just, okay, now I can quiet my head and I can quit asking myself whether or not I can drink or not, and whether or not I'm alcoholic, because now it doesn't matter, right? So that was the beginning of my last in and out period that lasted about that lasted about three years or four years, whatever it is.

Anyway, so during that time I got remarried to my third wife, which I made that decision when I was drinking. So that'll tell you the kind of decision making I have when I drink. And then right before I got sober this time, uh, I had decided to separate from her and get divorced again. It was clear that that was not the right decision, and that actually ended up being the right decision, even though I made it while I was still drinking.

But that was right before I got sober, and I spent probably about 30 days of just destroying my life. And when I say destroying it, not circumstantially, but just I drank constantly. I literally drank constantly, and I and I I remember I woke up one morning, so September 15th is my is my sobriety date. I don't remember if this was the 14th or the 15th, but I remember waking up, I'm staying in my buddy's house because I was separated from my wife, getting ready to get divorced.

And for anyone who's seen the movie Leaving Las Vegas, I woke up and I couldn't hold a pen steady enough to write anything. And there's a part in that movie where Nicolas Cage goes into the bank and he tries to sign a check and he can't do it because his hand is too shaky. So he leaves the bank and he goes and has a couple drinks and he comes back and he signs the check, puts the pen down and looks at the teller and says, steady as an ethn rock. And I remembered that line in that movie, and I remember thinking, Jim, you've got to do something because I had reached a point that living the way I was living wasn't an option, but I didn't think I would be fortunate enough to die.

And so I called a buddy of mine down in down in Dallas that I had hung out a lot with in my early days, and I I felt like it was important for me to go down to Dallas and pick up a desire chip and be accountable to the people that I had been sober with before. So that's what I did, and that's and that's when I restarted my journey this time in September of 2010. Now, the the important thing here is I I started that time and I met my wife about 30 days into sobriety, and that's a whole other thing that I don't want to take time on, other than to say that she's been a real gift in my life. But for seven years, my first seven years, my sobriety again was it wasn't rooted in solid, principally led things, not because I didn't make the effort.

Like I did step work, met with sponsors, I did the best I could. When I hit, I think it was seven years, I went to a speaker meeting, and my current sponsor told his story. And there was something about his story that I thought, okay, this guy's gonna help me. Now I don't know about anybody that's gonna hear this, how this up here, so in some of the meetings we do, they'll say, if anybody's willing to sponsor, raise your hand.

And I will tell you, this guy could have blatantly said he wasn't sponsoring people. I wouldn't have cared. Like I needed his help. I knew I needed his help, and I felt drawn to do that.

So I asked him if he would be willing to work the steps with me, and he said he would. And he did with me what I did not recall anybody doing prior. And I again, I'm not faulting anybody prior. It's possible they tried, and maybe I just wasn't willing to do it.

I don't know, but for whatever reason, I was open-minded and willing enough to do it. And so what we would do is I would meet with him before or after a meeting, because you know, he was like, Listen, I'm not gonna meet with you outside of that because I'm gonna go to the meeting anyway, and then that way if you flake out and you don't show up, I'm not wasting my time. And he wasn't callous or hard about it. He just was basically saying, Listen, if you want to, if you want to do this with me, this is how we're gonna do it.

And and I remember sitting down with him and and him describing to me that, hey, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna start on the first page of the book, and we're gonna read page by page. I'll read a page, you read a page, and when we get to things that are interesting, we'll talk about it. And when we get to the step in the book, we'll talk about what we're gonna do then.

And that's how I worked the steps this with him, and that's what changed my life. And and again, circumstantially things had changed, but the thing that really had changed was I was in a spot that I was so tired of living the way I was, and remember, I was six or seven years sober at this time. I wasn't I wasn't like fresh off of the off of destroying my life. But I remember going through that process with him, and it was it was an extraordinary experience.

You know, one of the assignments, step two, so we got to step two, and the the step two assignment I I had always had was okay, I want you to make a list of what your higher power, what you want your higher power to be. That was always a challenge for me. It never worked for me. Number one, I didn't have the context of the book leading into that usually, but the other thing is I just had no concept, and so the idea just didn't stick with me.

At the time I did my step two assignment, uh I was estranged from my daughter. We had had a falling out on something, and she was getting ready to graduate. And I remember I would ask, I would ask John, you know, well, what's gonna happen when I do this, right? So my step two assignment was I had to have seven coffee dates with guys and talk to them about their experience with step two.

And I remember thinking, oh, this will be no big deal. I'd have coffee with people all the time. It was really weird when I had to schedule it with somebody and tell them that it was focused on this activity. It was really weird.

So, so anyway, um, but I remember I went through those seven coffee dates, and there was one in particular where I'm in this circumstance with my daughter where I wasn't sure that I was even going to attend her graduation. And I'm meeting with this friend of mine, a guy I've become close with since, and he's describing to me a circumstance with his dad, where his dad came to an event and he hadn't invited his dad, and he didn't talk to his dad, but his dad's presence there was everything to him. And I felt like, sorry, I'm getting emotional thinking about it because I had never had a connection to my higher power in real life like this. And I remember him telling me this, and I thought, okay, like it's the message is clear when I'm supposed to do with this thing with my daughter.

And I subsequently went to her graduation, and and even though that relationship doesn't look like I would like it to look, it looks exactly the way it's supposed to, which I'm reminded of by another good friend of mine. Anyway, the the rest of the steps played out just like that for me in the sense that in the sense that I I opened up and sobriety connected with me in a way that it never had before. And I'm glad that it did because in the in the coming years, my wife got breast cancer. We went through COVID.

I remember during COVID and when they shut down, when meetings got shut down, I remember thinking to myself, man, if my sobriety was based in fellowship right now, I'd be in real trouble. Because we couldn't go to in-person meetings and and the the virtual meetings just never stuck with me like in-person meetings did. And I still remember the first time going back to meetings that really hit me. Um we were giving out chips in in in my home group, and I got emotional thinking, man, I really missed this.

And and so I guess for me that if I was to to really hope that that anything comes across related to this is number one, don't give up, keep going. And you just never know when something's gonna I just never know when when something is going to hit me that I need. And all the main thing for me is I just have to remain open to it and willing to just pay attention. And so I guess I guess with that I'll wrap it up.

I'm really, really grateful for the opportunity and and appreciate the opportunity to to share my story. I always am grateful for that. Thank you very much, Jim. That was lovely.

One part that I really want to hear more about that you touched on briefly a few times, and that is your spiritual journey. It sounds like it has been a journey with some ups and downs, but you sound at peace with it today. I would love for you to elaborate if you're comfortable on what that looked like um over the last 16 years. And even before 2010, if if you would if you would like to share.

Yeah, I would love to. And the reason that this is important to me is because I struggled with it for for so long. And the struggle was this like I would I would be around people that seemed to be really naturally accepting of it, and it just never felt that way to me. So it was always a source of real struggle.

And and I never really had any idea what it meant for me. And so I did the best I could to coexist, I think is the best way to put it, until I went to this outside thing, and and when I got a chance to connect with that, it was it was a way that resonated with me, and it was completely non-religious. What's interesting about this for me today is this is how it looks for me. When I reach a difficult point in my life, like take my wife's breast cancer, for example.

When I sorry, get get emotional because when when my wife and I went through that, and I say when we went through it, we really went through it together because she she's not alcoholic, she has no connection to AA like I do, other than the fact that it she attended a few meetings with me. But I remember during that time I would meet with my sponsor and we would talk about what was going on, and I would go home and I would be able to be there for her in a way that I couldn't have otherwise. And the way that my spiritual life looks today is it's not, it's it's really nothing about what I know. It's really just more the idea that I just don't need to know.

And I think that was the thing for me that really helped the most was because I went from feeling like I had to have the answers, and and I don't mean for this to be cliche because it's really not, but I went from feeling like I had to have control of everything and create the right outcomes that I thought were supposed to happen, to being able to say, you know what, I don't know what's gonna happen, but whatever it is, I know that I will be given the strength to to get through it. And and so it's just been a complete shift because because I don't I I I don't struggle like I used to, if that makes sense. It does make sense. It makes so much sense.

Um the the thing I hear you describing without using the word is faith. You don't need to know and you trust that you'll have all of uh the tools necessary when whatever happens comes. Yeah, and and what's funny is my spot so I actually met with my sponsor this morning and we were having coffee and we were talking about faith, and it wasn't Tite A, but he was sharing with me that one time he heard somebody say that that you can't have faith without doubt. And and what I loved about that for me is is I have the freedom to have doubt and uncertainty because I have the faith that no matter what's going on, I will be okay.

I don't know that the circumstance will be okay, but I know that I will be okay. And I think that that's that that's the thing that has has comforted me the most is that when I reach those those times that man, I'm just totally I feel totally lost. I just remind myself that feeling lost is okay. Like that's not a big deal.

I don't need to worry about it. And I don't need to fix it. Yeah, that's where the real peace comes in when I'm in a state of acceptance and faith. I I don't have to try to fix and control everything and know everything and work it out in my head and all of that exhausting mind games that happen, kind of like you were talking about when you took the beer, you're like you were negotiating it and debating it for who knows how long.

So finally when you drank the beer at the airport, you're just like, fuck it. I don't have to, I'm just doing this now. 100%. Yeah, it just it was yeah, and and when it comes to this this faith stuff, like it's well, it's it's like so much of AA has been for me.

I can't explain to somebody what it's like to feel completely uncertain about a circumstance, but completely at peace. You know, I I I hear people talk in meetings a lot about what drew them to AA. And I remember what drew me to AA more than anything was these old timers that I would go to meetings, and they just had this peace about them, and it wasn't fake or contrived. You could just tell, and I remember there was a guy in Corpus who I just love this man dearly, and I was talking to my sponsor about him one time, and I and I was saying, Man, I just love when this guy shares, and he he's so at peace and he's so solution-oriented.

And I remember my sponsor looked at me and said, And you never know he has prostate cancer, because he never talked about it, and it wasn't in that braggadocious John Wayne kind of, I'm above this, I'm gonna power through this. It was just, you could tell he have a he had a level of acceptance about his life that was very attractive to me because it was so elusive to me for my whole life. I had another sponsor that used to tell me that for all spiritual growth, the pain is necessary, but the misery is optional. I never understood how those two things could live in the same space until I understood how those two things could live in the same space.

Yeah, and you know, I have heard the expression and I've said it probably a lot of times on here, that faith and fear can't exist in the house at the same time. But then you said I'm I'm kind of pivoting here to to something, um, but you said you really like the statement you can't have faith without doubt. So juxtapos opposing those. Faith and fear can't live in the same house, and you can't have faith without doubt.

Um I'm having a hard time processing the second one. Well, and I I think for me, all that means is just I I think the reason it resonates with me is that is that I have to have the ability to question things and contemplate things so that I can have faith about them. And it's not enough for me just to have somebody tell me I'm supposed to have faith and just have faith. I have to kind of work it through myself, I guess.

I don't know if that's if that answers or or has anything to do with what we're talking about. But it because I get the idea that fear and faith can't really exist in the same space. I get that, but at the same time, I'm not sure that that resonates with me in the sense that faith doesn't mean I'm not afraid in my mind. Faith just means I'm willing to move through it even though I'm afraid.

And I'm not trying to contradict anything in any way, and I'm not saying that for me those that that that that idea isn't true. I just I'm not sure I'm not sure that it's a hundred percent true just as a statement for me. Yeah, it it makes me think of um when I hear the you can't have faith without doubt, it's almost like you can't appreciate peace if you've only ever known peace. Yeah, no, well, and on that note, so it's funny because when my wife first got her breast cancer diagnosis, and the here's the funny thing about that process was there were certain periods of unknowing that were really unbearable.

They were really tough. And I will tell you that that circumstance has made my wife and I exponentially grateful for lots of stuff that we couldn't have been grateful for without it, because we'll have times that we've had times we've we've kind of gotten twisted, not with each other, but with circumstances since then, where every once in a while one of us will look at the other one and go, well, at least we're not dealing with an un with a diagnosed uncertain cancer diagnosis. Because that's what it was. It you know, we knew she had cancer, but we didn't know what the extent was, or we didn't know if they were gonna find something new, or we didn't know if it was gonna be in a lymph node, and there were periods where we just she was terrified, I was terrified, and I had to just and I had to just move through it anyway, and she did too.

So kind of along those lines, like that circumstance has given us an appreciation for things we wouldn't have had otherwise. Yeah. Yeah, this is this is a good conversation. I'm enjoying this.

I actually just said last night driving with the kids um that's not true. I said to my sister-in-law at the end of the day, we're talking about mistakes and having hard days, and and I said, sometimes at the end of the day, all I can say is, you know what, I didn't drink today, and that is an accomplishment. And and that is an accomplishment. It is, and I get the sentiment that, well, if all I if if all I'm doing is not drinking, like the the people that say stuff like that, and and here's what I'll tell you if I'm in the middle of the shit, for me not to drink, that's a big deal.

Because if I'm in the middle of it and I'm so far deep into it that I just I can't pull myself out of it, or I can't connect with my higher power in the moment in a way that can pull me out of it, if I don't take a drink in that moment, that's that's in and of itself a bit of a miracle. Yeah. Yeah, I like how you said that. I like how you said that much better than I did.

The the funny thing is I was in a meeting the other day, right? And um and I think it was uh we were uh it was on the four step, and for me for me, you know, I you he I I hear a lot of people talk about the the gifts of amends. And I get the idea of that, but here's the thing amends for me have not been this magical thing that I hear people talk about. And maybe I'm just doing it wrong.

I don't know, but I'm not really worried about it. But the thing is that the inventory process for me was where I used to hear early on that once you become a pickle, you can't go back to being a cucumber, right? I used to hear that a lot. And I was sharing in a meeting the other day that that the inventory process was really where that started.

And I said, you know, the only way I'm ever going to shut that off is I will have to drink it away because I can't think it. I like I can't I I will never be able to be the same person that I used to be now that I've gone through that process of working the steps this way. And so I I am convinced that if I pick up a drink again, it will be because I need relief from myself. Wow, that really hit home.

That statement is so powerful and so true. And we have to do the all of the things to keep the to maintain the relief from ourselves. All of the things, the steps, the fellowship, the program, the spiritual connection, the being of service, the the things, the principles of this program. Are we doing all of those to protect ourselves from ourselves?

Well, and and this is where I, you know, one of the things that shifted for me. I remember my uh one of the most impactful sponsors that I had early on used to tell me, he said, Jim, your mind's a bad neighborhood and you have no business being in there by yourself. And this is an area what we're talking about now is really so when my head takes me to places like here's what'll happen. I'll sit in a meeting and I'll hear somebody talk about, oh yeah, when I get in trouble, I start calling all of my, you know, my network of people.

And my first thought is, well, you never call me. And I always have to chuckle at myself because I'm I'm like, oh, that's about as selfish as it gets, right? But but I'm thinking, well, you don't call me. And then I'll and this is where my mind goes, as they go, well, and in fact, that guy doesn't call me, and that's Von Sequit working with me.

And this, and next thing you know, like I have convinced myself that I don't really need to go to AA anymore because I don't really need it, blah, blah, blah, right? And then here's what'll happen is something in my head will shift, and I'll have a thought of, but Jim, you're not here just for you. And all of this stuff that your head is telling you, even if it is true, it doesn't matter. Because when I went through the process of the inventory with with this last sponsor, and and when I do it now, the focus is different.

It really helped me to see where all of my thinking and actions were getting me results that really weren't helpful at all. And that was really helpful for me in in having that level of awareness and probably more acceptance of, yeah, like you don't need to be relying on yourself to be getting the solutions. I don't know if any of that made sense, but it just it it makes sense to me. No, it makes really good sense.

I want to go journal about all of this. This is giving me some some new colors to draw with. You know, I've reached a level of appreciation for AA that I never had before, and it's not what I thought it would look like. And at 15 years, yes, you're have 15 working on 16.

You're at that spot where we don't see a lot of folks with your time. We see the you know, single digits and twenty and above, but there seems to be a gap, at least in my community, with that middle mark. So the fact that you're continuing to grow your your knowledge and program and spiritual awareness and all those things, and you're getting new experiences 15 years in is very what I'm trying to say is very um reassuring, I'll say. And he and I talk frequently, we talk almost every day, and and we meet when we can.

And I looked at him, I said, So what do you think we ought to do? Like, I feel like I need to be doing something. And here I'm expecting him to come up with a book we should read or whatever that looked like. And and his suggestion was working with other people, and that's kind of where he is in his journey.

And one of the things I dearly love about this guy that I'm working with is he frequently hits me with the thing I don't expect. I'll go into a conversation thinking he's going to tell me something, and I leave going, wow, like that wasn't what I thought it was going to look like. But it's spot on. Like I'm at a point, and I and I think because I remember at Dallas North, you look at the birthday board, and exactly like you mentioned, up until five years, five, ten years, you got a lot of names, and then you'd have more names after you hit 20 or whatever, but that 10 to 20 gap, people tend to drop off.

And I will tell you, I almost went there because my brother committed suicide three years ago, and I went dark. And I will tell you, I I I struggled for about six months. But here's what's funny I was at a meeting, right? I was struggling for months, and I was not wanting to have anything to do with the spiritual solution being offered up by AA, but I was still moving through the motions, right?

So after the meeting, I'm talking to a guy who his brother had committed suicide, and I don't even remember the conversation, other than I remember I haven't struggled with it since. And to me, like that's the best representation of AA that I think you can give. Is I walked into that conversation, I was honest with him about the struggle I was having, and because he shared his experience, strength, and hope with that circumstance, I haven't struggled with it since. That's an AA miracle that we see on a daily when we show up.

Not sure. Not to diminish that experience that you just shared. It's so powerful. But it was so simple.

The thing is, it was so simple. Like, like I I I I'm sure somewhere along the line, my head my head might have told me, well, hey, just start sharing it with people. But you know what? I wasn't there.

And it's funny because the the the line out of the book, most good most good ideas are simple, I think, or something along those lines. It's the simple stuff that's the most impactful, usually. Agreed. I agree.

I wish I can just learn it once and not have to learn the simple stuff so many times, but I'll dig I digress. Okay, we are we are at a point where I probably have three more questions. You talked about a desire chip. I would like to hear more about that.

I have some guesses, but it doesn't matter what my guesses are. And then you also talked about a unique activity that your sponsor, I think current day sponsor, had you do, and that's go on seven coffee dates for step two and and talk to people about their experience. Um that is very interesting to me. I would love to hear about maybe one or two other unique things that that sponsor had you do as you were working through the steps.

So if you can start with what is a desire chip, and then move into um some of your experiences with the other steps. Yeah, so I I I've had many desire chips. And I I I laugh at that because uh uh I've had a bunch, but I remember the first time I ever picked up a desire chip, I was at a meeting, sitting the back of the room, and at least in Texas, I don't know about other places, but in Texas they do these desire chips, and basically it's just there they describe it as an outward symbol of an inward desire to stay sober for one 24-hour period. In some places it's a a white poker chip, and in other places it's a silver 24-hour chip.

Either way, I remember thinking, yeah, I'm not getting up in front of all these people. It was a speaker meeting that had about 150 people in it. And the only reason I was willing to go get it was somebody else got up and got one, and I just followed them up to the front and got it. The the most recent one, the last time I picked up a desire chip, I went back to Texas and and I did it where I originally sobered up because I thought it was important to be accountable to the folks that that knew me early on.

I th I felt like it was an ego check that I needed to do. For me, the the importance of a desire chip to me is this it's nothing more than a physical expression of my desire to start the process. That's really, and that's really what it was for me in that moment was was a physical expression that I was gonna give up the fact that I knew everything and I was gonna keep doing the gym solution of things. That doesn't mean that that died quickly, but it was at least the beginning of that.

So um, I don't know. Did that answer that one? Yeah, that did. Okay, so so the coffee date thing was the first, I think the first real unique thing that that he had me do.

The thing that was interesting about work in the steps with John initially, and and I I continue to do that, is John John walked me through page by page, word by word, line by line, in a way nobody had done, right? And so that in and of itself was a different experience for me. Because in in work in the steps prior, like I would have sponsors we'd meet, and they would just give me an assignment without the context of the book. We might read a line or two, but I was given an assignment without the context leading into it, and which I think the context helped me during that process of reading everything together.

So the second step coffee date thing was very different because again, the the assignments I had always done prior were much more in line with what I've heard. So then when I went in to do my fifth step, there was just something different about my fifth step. And the funny thing about working the steps this time was it went from being a quantity exercise to a quality exercise. And what I mean is I quit worrying about the volume and I and and I made sure that I was perfectly honest.

I remember writing out my inventory, and John gave me sheets to do it, and it's the same thing I do with my guys now. What it did was it took the emotional editorial piece out of it and it just laid it out. It was kind of like that old dragnet line, just the facts, ma'am. It took my emotional spin out of everything and really gave me a chance to simplify it.

And I remember early on doing an inventory, and and and at the time my sponsor was a guy named Bob, and he said, We're just looking for patterns, Jim. And it never resonated with me until I'm doing the four step with with John writing this down. And I'm seeing myself write the exact same thing in the same columns. If you take the first two columns out, everything else looked very similar, and all of a sudden my terminal uniqueness then went away.

And I'm like, man, like I'm just repeating the same shit in different circumstances all over my life, and it's playing out exactly the same all over the place. That was very eye-opening. And then when I did my fist step, there it was interesting. My second wife, when that marriage broke up, it was it it destroyed me.

And I carried that through, and I did this fist up, and my my ex-wife made a comment to me one time. She said, You know, I'm not angry anymore. And I thought, well, what did you have to be angry about? I was like the best thing that ever happened to you.

And I genuinely thought that. And and so I do this fist step, and we're going through this, and in that particular part of my inventory, he said something related to that circumstance that all of a sudden I knew what she meant when she said she wasn't angry anymore. And all of a sudden, all of my bitterness and anger towards her went away. And all of the hurt feelings I had went away, and all of the victimhood that I had in that went away.

And it it was just, it was, it was one of the only times that that's happened for me. The the other thing I want to mention in step work was then I took my inventory and he gave me a six-step tick sheet where I listed all the character defects, and when I went through my inventory, I had to put tick marks next to the character defects that tied into each thing. And I will tell you, it became very hard for me to ignore the volume of tick marks next to about five different things where it was obvious the character defects. That's why when I hear people in meetings say, Well, I'm still trying to figure out what my character defects are, my first thought is, Well, you haven't had a sponsor like mine that gave you an opportunity to see it real clear.

Yeah. It was it was crazy how clear it was to me when I did that. And I had never done it like that before. I like the cleanliness of that and and the the notion or this idea of taking the emotion out of it, just the facts man, and and we're looking for the patterns, and really the emotions kind of get in the way of that.

Yeah, I I I tend to I tend to editorialize all kinds of stuff, and it really helped me not do that. Yeah, yeah, I'm with you. Okay, I've come to the final two questions. Uh we're gonna pause and see if anything comes to mind that you left out or that you would like to share.

I don't think that there is. I mean, I I really I could I I I'm a talker by nature, so I'm sure I could spend lots of time talking, but there's nothing that I I that's coming to mind that I feel like would make a difference in in what we've been talking about before. In that case, um I want to um share my condolences about your brother. And I didn't realize it was so recent.

I'm so sorry. Oh, thank you. Yeah, thank you for that. He he had struggled.

You know, one of the hardest parts about that was he he went to a place that I just didn't relate to, and and he really became mentally ill in a way that I think needed professional help. And I think that his thought that AA was supposed to fix it, because he really was trying to stay sober and work the steps and go to meetings. And I it's one of the reasons that I I do have very strong feelings about if if somebody, for example, talks about having depression, it it kills me to hear somebody say, Well, you shouldn't take medication if I hear something like that. I'm like, no, no, no, unless you have MD behind your name, like you don't you're not qualified to to say anything about that.

Because I will tell you, there are there are things outside of alcoholism that do need outside help. And I and my brother was a a glaring example of that, and so I appreciate you saying that, but I will tell you this. Um he needed peace, and and I truly believe that he had the opportunity to do it, and it or he had the opportunity to receive it because he was really struggling. Hmm.

Thank you for for elaborating and sharing, and I appreciate the the call out for outside help. Okay, we have come to the final question. For the listener that is suffering with or without sobriety, just listening and suffering, what message would you like to leave them with? Yeah, for some reason I got emotional when you brought that up.

Um I guess the biggest thing I would say is this. I've been around long enough that I and I talk about this sometimes in meetings when I hear people. I heard a I was in a meeting one time where a guy said, Well, if you drink, you can always come back. And I spoke up and I said, Well, that's if you live.

And I'll tell you what I would say is this there was a guy I used to go to meetings with, he was a reverend, and I he was the sweetest man. Sorry, I'm getting emotional. And he's he used to say, Don't have a permanent I it was something along this lines of don't don't use a permanent solution for a temporary problem. I mean, here's the thing as hard as it can be at times, and as difficult as life can be, the phrase, this too shall pass, really applies in the sense that you know, my mind will tell me things are never gonna change, they're never gonna be different, and it's always gonna be like this.

And I'll tell you, it my experience is this, that's not it's not always like this, and it does change, and it's it's okay not to be okay. Like it's you know, it's and I don't by any means want to say that, oh yeah, you can come back if you go out and drink, because it is true, if you if you live, you can, and I've known a lot of people that didn't make it back. But if I I would say this, if it for anybody who's struggling outside or even more importantly, inside the runes of AA, like keep keep coming back, just stay open-minded. I I think open-mindedness is is one of the most important things for me.

I I have to be open-minded to the idea that I that that maybe what I think or or or you know these ideas that I have, maybe maybe they just don't matter or or they're just not true, and I just need to keep pushing forward, and and whether it's one day at a time, one minute at a time, whatever, like things will change. It's not permanent. And and I guess I'll I'll finish with this. One of the favorite bump bumper stickers that I that I saw one time is it said, don't take life so seriously, it's not permanent.

And as a as a guy who's 56, who never thought I would be 56, it means more to me now than ever in the sense that, man, like like I'll tell you, just every day is a gift. It really is. It's not a cliche. For more information, read the first one hundred and sixty-four pages of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, or visit keepcoming back.net.