Casey R. - AA Speakers - Young Person in Alcoholics Anonymous - THE M2 THE ROCK SHOW - Michael Molthan

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Y'all see me. All right, Oh yeah, all right.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
My name is Casey Reid.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
I'm recovered alcoholic. And I never thought, oh yeah, here go.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
I never thought that I sound Southern until I came
up here.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
I have people in Texas tell me all the time, well,
you don't sound like you're from the South. I came
up here and I was. I stopped mivinsense was like,
oh my god, I sound like I'm from Texas. And
I came up I saw the T shirts, the Wicked
Soba T shirts, and I was like, what the hell

(01:01):
does that mean? Down South?

Speaker 2 (01:08):
We just say fucking sober?

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Okay, all right, So my sober date, my sobriety date
is May thirty, first of two thousand and three. I
got sober when I was sixteen, and my first drink
didn't do you know.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
I remember when I felt the magic.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
It wasn't the first drink, but I remember specifically when
I felt the magic. But even before I felt the magic,
I still drank like an idiot. I mean I still
even before I took a drink, I just had this
notion it was gonna be something good. And I went
to this party when I was in high school, and
I had a clear diet Doctor Pepper bottle of tequila

(02:00):
that I had stolen from my dad's liquor cabinet, and
I remember looking at the girl next to me in
the bathroom. See, I went to the bathroom to drink,
which started and tied like this kind of pattern of
showing up at places, going into the bathroom and drinking
like I never quite wrapped my head around the people
that stood around the keg with the red cups and

(02:20):
just kind of sipped on their alcohol because I was
drunk before I got to the party, and if I wasn't,
the first question was may I use your restroom? And
then I went and took.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Shots out of your little Dixie cups? Y'all know what
Dixie cups?

Speaker 1 (02:33):
All right?

Speaker 2 (02:36):
And well who knows Yankee cubs?

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Right? And I just drank by myself, and I looked
at this girl and I said, how much of this
do I need to drink to get drunk?

Speaker 2 (02:50):
So I want to know? And you know that night was,
I mean, it felt a little different. But I specifically
remember when the magic happened.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
And I was about a month and I was sitting
in my house with my best friend at the time,
who was far advanced in her alcohol and chemical career
than I was, which made her super cool to me.
And we were not sober at the moment, and she
looked at me and she said, I have to show

(03:19):
you something. I think you're ready. I got all excited,
and she walked over to the stereo and opened it
up and put a CD in and slid it in
and turned on Waiting for my Rooka by Sublime, and
all of a sudden, I felt like my heart was
moving to the beat, and I thought, oh my god,
this is amazing, and it was the most amazing thing

(03:42):
I'd ever experienced.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
And that's when the magic happened, because all this and
she looked at me and.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
She was like, yeah, we were.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Kind of stoner's too.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
And I remember thinking that I had discovered this whole
new world, like she had just given me permission to
enter this new world that I never knew existed. But
I must have been looking for it my whole life,
because something righted right then that had been wrong for
a very long time. And like most alcoholics, I grew

(04:13):
up feeling like I wasn't a part of I'm not
good enough, I'm not tall enough, I'm not skinny enough.
I'm not tan enough, I'm not blonde enough whatever well
in the South, not tan enough. I'm not blond enough.
You know, whatever it is that you have, I'm not
enough of it. And if I was enough of it,
I wouldn't feel the way I feel. And the thing
is is that I never I always was in the
middle of everything. I had tons of friends, I was

(04:36):
very popular. I was popular with the popular kids. I
was popular with the jocks, I was popular with the geeks.
I was popular with everybody. But I still never felt
good enough. And so.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
I like, have this awful cough, which is just wonderful.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
And so something righted right then when that magic happened,
and it was like I had found my niche in
society for the first time. I found something that I
was good enough at that I had a personality in that,
I had an individuality in that for the first time,
and it just it did things for me. Nothing ever didn't.
I remember, you know, when when Bill's story says I

(05:17):
had arrived, that was one of the first things I
think I circled in my big book. I had arrived,
because I specifically remember, I think this only happened in
my mind, but I specifically remember showing up to a
party and opening the door and walking in, and I
specifically remember everybody in that party turning their head looking

(05:38):
at me and going, Casey's here, and it rippled throughout
the whole house. Casey's here, Casey's here, Casey's here, and
everyone was so happy to see me, and it was like, guy,
Casey's here.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
And did that ever happen to anybody else when they
went to parties?

Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah, I swear that's how I felt, and not even
felt like that's literally what I thought happened.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
I specifically remember I been.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Looking at the door and going gay when I walked in,
and to me, that was case easier. So I had
been drinking for about two months before I was introduced
to what the Big Book refers to. It's pitiful and comprehensible.
Demormalization quickly became my mo. It's just I want to

(06:25):
get drunk, and I want to get drunk fast. And
I knew nothing about alcohol at this age, and so
I remember just asking my friend to get me some
and she said, well what do you want. I said, well,
whatever will get me the drunk is the quickest.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
She's like I'll get you some Ever Clear, all right.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
So I get myself this bottle Ever Clear, and it's
New Year's even. I go to the bathroom and I
start taking straight shots and ever Clear, and I feel
like I'm drinking rubbing alcohol. And when I'm good and
liquored up, I come out of the bathroom and I
just I just commenced to make a complete and utter
fool of myself. And this happened every time I drank.

(07:01):
I mean I never had like the moment when I
started being an idiot. I was an idiot every time
I drank, falling down, screaming, doing things that I wish
I hadn't in the morning, making a complete and total
fool of myself.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
And I remember.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Waking up, well, I got caught that night, and I
remember going home and I'm sitting at the table, and
I found something out that night that served me well,
which is, if you act really angry, you appear more sober.
So I just started screaming about how it wasn't mine
and this is BS and I can't believe somebody put

(07:39):
that in my bag, and da da da da dah.
Because if I just get angry enough, could you look
irrational when you're angry. Anyways, I was afraid if I
tried to sit there, I'd be like so I just
tried to make lots of big movements and then storm
off to my room. And I hated the way it
felt to be drunk a lot. I hated the way
the room spun, I hated.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
The way I just whenever.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
It was like. When I was sober, I just wanted
to get drunk, and when I was drunk, I just
wanted to sober up. And I remember taking lots of
showers because for some reason, I thought that a shower
would sober me up. So I remember being in the
shower drunk at three am, and you just start crying
for no reason. It's just weird. And so I remember
waking up in the morning, and when I read that

(08:23):
part of the Big Book that said put upon incomprehensible demoralization,
I knew exactly what it meant.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
The Big Book speaks my language.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Because the only way to describe that is when you
wake up the morning after.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
And all you can think is this. There's not even
any words for it.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
You just you put your head in your hands and
you go.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
And you just there's no words for it.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
You put your head in your hands and you think,
and I remember the feeling of gratitude. I felt that
it was Christmas break and I wouldn't have to face
anybody for at least a week. So I kept drinking.
I mean, that was a great experience. So I kept drinking.

(09:12):
I got involved in a lot of outside issues, if
you catch my drift, badly and hardcore, and they brought
me to my knees and stuff. I don't talk about
them from the podium, but they are a part of
my story, so I just mentioned them. I went to
an all girls, private Catholic school in Dallas, Texas.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
I can tell you why. Girls in plaid skirts and
bows like people and all black.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah, so this school, and I just became angry, like
I just became so angry at everything. I hated everything.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
And so I'm drinking, and I drink a lot.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
And this thing happens when I drink, which is I
can't seem to get drunk enough no matter how much
I drink.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
I can't seem to get drunk enough. And I drink,
and I drink, and I drink, and I.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Tell myself the next drink and I'll be drunk enough,
the next drink and I'll be drunk enough. And I
drank that one, and then I say, the next drink
and I'll be drunk enough, and I do that tall
black out and so that's how I drink, and it
starts to cause all these problems. And I eventually ended
up getting kicked out of this private school because I
threatened to burn it down. Well, actually I was suspended

(10:28):
pending a psychiatric review for something else that is not
which is a great story, but I can't tell it
from up here. And I was so mad about that
that I walked back to religion class and wrote I
hope Ercelin burns to the ground up on the blackboard.
And apparently that's a threat these days. So they called

(10:52):
me all my suspension and said you can just not
come back. That'd be great.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
So I had been the Catholics all my life, and.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
I thought I was a badass. Personally, I suspected I
was brilliant, and I suspected that I was probably a badass.
And so I went to public school. And I don't
know how public school is up here, but there's a
little thing we call DSD in Dallas. It's probably the
worst school system you've ever seen in your life. And

(11:24):
I remember walking in there and having the most complete
culture shock of my life. And it was like putting
jet packs on the back of the progression of my disease,
because all of a sudden, I realized, Hey, nobody notices
when you're not in school here. And so things progressively
get worse to to this point where I start skipping

(11:45):
school to go get hammered, and and you know, if
you skip too much school, you're truant, and if you're truing,
your parents find out, and then the shit hits the fan.
And I just couldn't have that happen because if it
hit the fan, and they were gonna stop my drinking,
and I couldn't let that happen. So I'm freaking out
every day about I'm like, I've got I'm balancing, like

(12:08):
I can't I can't do my homework, but I have
balanced how many absences I have, how many fake notes
from the doctor I can steal, and exactly how many
absences I have left. So I'm doing that and I
would wake up every day and say, Okay, I have
to go to school today. I have to go to
all my classes today. Because if I don't, I'm gonna
be truant. My mom's gonna find out, she's gonna send

(12:29):
me away. It's not gonna be good. I have to
go to all my classes today, and I couldn't make it.
I could not make it through eight hours of school
without leaving. And I didn't have a car because I
was too drunk to every little license. So I had
a friend that had a car, and I would say
every day, I'm not gonna leave school today, and I

(12:51):
would I would plan out trips and see. I thought
I was nuts because I didn't realize that anything to
do with drinking. I just thought that for some reason,
I couldn't control my physical behave. I was like, I
don't know why I can't stay in school. So I
would plan I knew the way she took from class
to class, and I would purposefully take a different route
because I knew if I ran into her, if I

(13:13):
saw her, if she even if the thought.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Even entered my mind that I should.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
Leave school and get hammered right now, I was going
whether I wanted to or not. And so I would
see her and I would be like, oh man, So
we'd walk together and I'd say, you know, we really
got to stop skipping school, and she'd say, yeah, I know,
we really got to stop skipping school. And I'd be like,
I'm gonna get in trouble. I'm gonna get in trouble.
And this conversation would continue as we hit the crash
bar to go outside and get in the car, because

(13:39):
it was it was just that nuts and so and
I had the same problem with sneaking out of my
house at night.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
I couldn't figure out why.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
I couldn't stay in my house because the moment and
I had this, I was such a guiver man. I
had like I didn't want the phone to ring, so
I would like go back to the computer room and
like mess with the wires on the back of the
computer and plug a phone line that I had hidden
in the part of the house in the back of
the internet line, and then I would hold a pillow
over it so when it would ring, I could answer

(14:06):
it and people would be like, let's go let's go
out tonight, and then the same converence, I can't really
go okay, and I would for a while, I just
walked out the front door. Then I walked out the
back door and then I started using the windows and whatnot,
and every night I would say, I can't do this
again tonight, I can't do this, and every night I would,

(14:30):
And so.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
Came time when I got caught.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
One night, Well, I went out and I got caught, and.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
Then I had all these consequences.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
And I was always a fan at sixteen of thinking
that the consequences were the reason I was so miserable. Right,
if I could just quit sneaking out and quit getting caught,
I wouldn't be so miserable. If they would just get
off my back, I wouldn't be so miserable. So I
come home and I'm caught or whatever. So I'm like, okay,
now we're really can't sneak out? And they asked me,

(15:02):
how are you getting out of the house? I mean,
how are you getting out of the.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
House, And like a good alcoholic, I lie. And here's
the thing, I'm looking back.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
This is how I knew when it came time that
I realized I had lost control, because at this point,
I'm like, you know, the way I get out of
my house is I crawl out the window, I walk
down the street, A friend picks me up, we go
get hammered.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
Now, when I'm asked how this is happening and what's
going on, I said.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
Well, I walk out the back door. I walked down
the alley, just kind of walk around the neighborhood for
a while. I mean, that's my story, right. So we
probably get an alarm system on our house to keep
me in, but they don't put one on the windows.
So I start going out the windows whatever.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
That's why I didn't tell them. I went out the windows.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
And so I keep doing this, and it got to
the point where I'm thinking in my head.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
I don't want to do this. I don't want to
do this. I really don't want to do this.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
And I'm thinking this as I'm scaling down the walls
of my house, as I'm getting in the car, as
I'm sitting in a rave, as some weird dude is
giving me a back massage, I'm like, I don't want
to be here. I don't want you to touch me.
I want to go home. It's cold. I hate raves.
We are in the middle of a field in Texas,

(16:18):
and I want to go home, but I would do it.
I mean, it was like a prisoner walking to the
execution booth you know what I mean, just resigned the
fact it was gonna happen. And so I had this
I got really heavily involved in some outside issues that
I told myself was only gonna be a spring break thing.
And then spring break turned in three weeks and I

(16:41):
had this thought, you know what, I'm gonna leave.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
My house tonight, just this once, right, just this once.
I won't do it.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
After this, it'll be fine. So I go and in
the interim, the cops get involved, and I run and
I hide. And if you ever tried to, if you
ever lay, I was laying down on some dead leaves
and a bush, and I remember trying not to breathe
because I felt like my heart beat was causing the
leaves to crinkle.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
My heart's moving, and I'm like, stop my heart, stop
my heart, Stop my heart. So I don't get caught
by the police.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
And they send my friends home. But the problem was
the house I was hiding in the backyard of was
like a friend of mine's your grandmother catches me and
I cry, like I always cry because I'm a girl,
and I just start the water works and say, please,
I've never done anything like this before. It's the whole
It's the same thing every time. I've never done anything
like this before. It's so and so, and I just
and so. She's like, okay, well, I don't know if

(17:36):
I'm gonna tell your parents not. So I go home
that night and see, I've already been told if this
happens one more time, your life is over.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
And I'll never forget this. My mom walks in on me,
and I was in the bathroom and I was crying
on the floor. She said, what's wrong?

Speaker 1 (17:50):
And I don't. You know, sometimes you say some things
and you look back and you're like, why did I
say that? But it's almost like it's almost like God
allowed you to speak what was in your heart, even
though you on the capacity to. It's kind of like
talking about saying I need help and then be like, wait, wait, wait, wait,
I don't know why I just said that. Take back
never mind. She walks in and she's like, what's wrong,
and I start crying. I tell her I said I

(18:11):
snuck out last night, and I said to her, you know,
I know, I don't like the consequences of my actions,
but it's like I forget how bad it sucks to
stuff for the consequences when I go to make the
decision to do the action. And my mom my eyes
got real big as she backed up, and it was
that moment she occurred to her there was like an
addiction problem, because I think they just thought I was sinking.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
Out of the house and hanging out.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
And I'll never forget this was the turning point because
I looked at her and I said, I think we
need to put an alarm on the windows, which is funny,
but when you think about it, that's the moment when I.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
Said to myself, I can't stop.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
I can't stop doing what I'm doing. And I keep
telling myself I have control over and I can stop
when I want, and you know, I'll curve it before
it gets me in real bad trouble. And I flight
out told her. I was like, I'm not gonna be
able to stay inside the house. You're gonna have to
put locks on the windows. And so they do that
and everything's fine and until I get drug tested, and

(19:14):
then everything is not fine. And that's when I go
into my first rehab and it was a seven day
detox program and I was nuts, Oh my goodness, I
was crazy.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
Like I remember sitting in here, and.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
I remember specifically, you know how they do body checks,
like when you go into a psych ward, they have
to look at it, like every inch of your body or.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
Whatever, looking for scars and stuff.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
And so I remember standing there and having this moment
and it's like you're just standing there, there's nothing, but
I used to wear like all this hymp jewelry. And
so I'm standing there and this woman's looking at me,
and I've never felt so humiliating my life. And she's
looking at the bruises on my body, and she's looking
at how I don't have enough weight on me, and
she's looking at the scars on my wrists, and she's

(19:56):
looking at me cause I had recently lost all my
hair off in a moment of thinking that I was
gonna shed some emotional baggage by cutting my hair or
know that wasn't until later, but I did do that,
and I remember just having this moment and I just
started crying. And so I go on this place, like

(20:19):
at one point we were only allowed these pencils, like
these big charcoal pencils, and this one, this one girl's
complaining about how like she can't turn in her homework
if she doesn't do it in pin she did, she can't,
and the big old nurses like, well, honey, you can't
have a pen.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
And I don't know why, but I just snapped and
I looked at this nurse and I was like.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
That's not how you treat sick people. And I just
started screaming and crying and freaking out.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
And they were like, go to the bathroom and clean
yourself up.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
So I went to the bathroom and I just could
not something snapped and I could not stop crying, and
so then they said, let.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
Me be the quiet room. And I went laid on
that little like cot well.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
In the one room with the window and the camera,
and I just cried and shook, and so I get
out of there, and I remember having this moment. I
forget if it was after this or before this. See,
I didn't believe in God. I went to Catholic school
for eleven years and then got kicked out. So I
had a big problem with any sort of idea of

(21:28):
God because the way I looked at it, is God's
goodie two shoes, and he wants to give me a
bunch of arbitrary rules.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
So I don't ever have fun.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
So I'm I'm just not gonna believe in God because
that's stupid, and that's stupid. And I remember having this
night when something happened and I was laying on my
floor and I had another one of those breaks, you know,
you just break start solving, and I was laying on
my floor and I just remember being in so much

(21:57):
immense emotional pain and I was crying and laying on
and like in the back corner of.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
My office, of the office and the fetal position.

Speaker 1 (22:09):
I remember saying, I specifically remember saying, God, I don't
think you exist, but you've got to help me.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
And so.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
Can't stay sober, not even for a day, not even
for eight hours, to go to school. And things are
just falling apart around me. My body's falling apart. Things
are falling apart. And April tenth of two thousand and three,
I woke up in the morning and it was supposed
to be my first day back to school, and I
get a phone call at six am and it's my

(22:42):
boyfriend at the time, and this was you know the one, right,
you always find thee one when you're sick. And he says, Casey,
I'm on.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
An airplane and I'm going to Utah and I don't
know when I'm coming back.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
Some men in handcuffs woke me up this morning and
told me I was going away, and I lost it.
My life was over at that point, because that was
that relationship was the only thing keeping me sane at
that moment, because I'd already been informed that I had
to get sober. I mean, I'd been put in rehab.
I'm out. I have to go to ninety meetings in
ninety days, and now I don't have a boyfriend. And

(23:23):
there were multiple times during that day I would be
walking to school and I just fall like I would
just fall on the ground and start sobbing. And so
I go to my first AA meeting and I walk
in and I felt like I had walked into a
scene from Fight Club where he goes to all those
like support meetings. It's dank, the walls were yellow, there's

(23:44):
old men there. And I sit down and I just
started bawling because I had this whole plan for.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
My life worked out. You don't understand. I thought everything
was fine.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
As soon as I get old enough and people get
off my back, it'll get better. I'll move to California,
I'll open up ahead shop, I'll live on the beach,
and life will be great. And at that moment, and
I felt like looking at my life was like looking
down a long hallway. You know, I kind of had

(24:15):
a plan, and I was okay with that plan, and
that plan kept me sane, and sitting in that AA
meeting having to wrap my head around the fact of
waking up and having to be sober tomorrow, I felt like,
all of a sudden, that hallway became a brick wall
three inches from my face. And that's the only way
I know how to describe it, because I I remember thinking,

(24:36):
you don't understand that I can't do this, And that's
all I can say. I couldn't explain anything else that
I fell inside of me except no, you don't understand
that I can't do this. I can't wrap my head
around this. I can't do this. And that's a hard
place to be. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?
That just I can't No, you don't understand that I

(24:56):
can't do this. But at the same time, you have
to do this. And this guy pulled me out, This
guy that I went to school with pulled me out,
and he took me out in the hallway because I
was crying, and he said, you know, he just kind
of looked at me, and I go, what am I
supposed to do when I'm sober? He looked at me,
bless his heart, and said, I mean, it's a it's

(25:20):
kind of boring. We played video games and I was like, oh, huh,
like I just lost it. So I got sober and
I had a new plan. New plan. I'm gonna stay

(25:40):
sober till I get out of college my sophomore at
this time, and then I'll now I can do whatever
I want. Fine, I'll stay sober for the next two
and a half years and I'll do whatever I want.
Last a month and see what happened was when I
was in treatment, I honestly didn't think that my drinking
had anything to do with how much my life sucked.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
And when I was in treatment, they cleared my head
enough for me to be able.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
To piece together some things some things, and I pieced
together I can't stay in my house at night, and
then they well, what do you do when you go out?
Get hammered? And I was like, oh, so maybe it's
not that I can't not sneak out. Maybe it's I
can't not get hammered. You know, same thing with leaving school,

(26:26):
and same thing with Wow, every time my friends pick
me up and we don't get hammered, I get pissed
cause that was just how That's just what happened. I mean,
you just assumed that's what we were going to do.
And so I made some connections and I thought, Okay,
well here's what I'm gonna do since I don't want
my life to stuck. And I've tried, I've made a
logical flow chart of when I do this, this happens

(26:47):
and I don't like it, and so I'm not.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
Gonna do this.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
And I'm like, all right, you know what, I'm not
gonna drink, I'm not gonna lie I'm not gonna sneak out,
I'm not gonna skip school, and I'm I'm not gonna
lie by where I am. Good plan because then if
I stop doing those things, I won't have consequences. Then
life will get better, right, I mean that makes perfect
logical sense. So I do that. And the thing is

(27:15):
is that I thought when you get sober things were
supposed to get better.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
Things got worse, a lot worse.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
I've never been so miserable in my entire life as
going to a meeting every day and wanting to do
nothing but drink. And I have no clue what any
of these people are saying has anything to do with me.
And they told me get a sponsor. I was like,
I just kind of was like, all right, And I
remember I was sitting with these two ladies and I
was like, Hey, well, what do y'all be my sponsor?
And they go, oh, well, let us give you our number.

(27:49):
So I never called them because I never cared anyways,
and I was just miserable. That was the most miserable
month of my life is that month at sixteen when
I was sober, and so I thought, I we'll screw this.
If this is sobriety, I'm getting drunk. And so I
lasted a month and then it was and then I

(28:12):
had a really good reason, though, I had a really
good reason for breaking my month of sobriety, and that
was it was my best friend's birthday, and you just
need to celebrate on your best friend's birthday. And so.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
We got a bottle of wine and I went to
this hotel room and I had every intention of going
home on time and not lying about where I was.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
And I started to drink, and it's like all the
other resolutions just go out the window, because before I
know it, that feeling starts to hit me. And all
I can think is this is good. I need to
amplify this by about a thousand and so I'm drinking
and I'm drinking, and all of a sudden, time comes
and goes when I was supposed to leave, and my
ride's like, you're ready to go, and I'm like, huh, Sea,

(28:51):
I will find a ride home. So they leave and
I call my mom and I'm sitting on the phone
with her and it's raining real hard and I'm like, listen.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
Mom, I'm on my way home, but there's.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
This huge storm and I really want to be safe
and she's like, we're all you and I'm like, I'm
pulled over it a Applebee's allok, across the street and
we'll come home as soon as it lets up.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
Well, okay, honey, you just be careful. And I remember
sitting on the.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
Phone looking out at this storm, and I had this
thought and it was a casual thought, and the thought
was didn't I say I wasn't gonna do this anymore,
didn't I say, I was done with this. And I
remember just being amazed for a moment at the fact
that here I was again so quickly that there was
no premeditation, there was.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
No thought, there was no It just happened, and I thought,
that's funny. There only mean much to me at the time.
It was just a thought that I had.

Speaker 1 (29:44):
So I proceeded to get drunk, and then I just
started to get real drunk all the time. And then
a month two months after that, so I got drunk
for a month, and then I got sent to my
second rehab. Here's the thing about my second rehab. I
knew that if I got caught again, I was going
to like residential long term, Right, anybody's parents have ever
threatened that I'm sending you away if you get caught again.

(30:07):
So I do it again anyways, and I get caught,
and I remember my parents are divorced, and you know
you're in deep when you walk into your living room
and both your parents are standing in there. I walk
in and I'm like back away slowly, and my mom's crying.
She's like, you're going in the morning store, which is
like the name of this podunk little trailer in Oklahoma

(30:30):
where they sent me and my mom lied and said
I'd be there thirty days. I was there eighteen and
a half months. Yeah, and I learned a lot of
things here. And here's the thing. I learned a lot
of stuff in treatment. I learned a lot of stuff
about my inner child and my ego states. And we

(30:55):
had aa, well, we had a lot of discussion meetings
where we just kind of talked about what treatment we
were working on. And I mean I could I could
seriously fill three hours talking about eighteen months in treatment.
But I kind of feel like doctor Bob where he
has that one sense where he's like, I will not
relate to you all of my soylemn experiences.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
So I was in rehab for eighteen and a half months.
We'll leave it at that.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
I went in hating my life, and you know that feeling.
I woke up every morning and as my lids parted,
reality just rushed in and I had this sinking feeling,
Oh my god, this isn't a dream. And I had
this like zero point one thousands of a second every
morning of pure bliss before reality rushed in and just
ruined it all. And so.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
Needless to say.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
I start making consequenceless and I start doing treatment, and
I start going through packet steps, which is the steps
with packets.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
And.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
I can't figure out why fourteen months I want to drink.
I've made so I've done so many Step one packets.
If you showed me one, I've probably done it. And
I cannot not want to drink and I can't figure
out why. And I started to get worried. At fourteen
and a half months. I haven't had a drink in
fourteen months, and I'm thinking, crap if I don't figure out,

(32:10):
because at this point, I kind of want to be sober,
you know, like I've seen that I can't keep doing
what I'm doing if I ever want to be happy.
Right I may be sixteen, but I'm going nowhere, and
I'm going nowhere fast. And I never woke up and
said I'd like to be a fourty year old crackhead
one day. But I finally made the connection that I
was gonna be one, whether I wanted to or not,

(32:31):
because I was under the delusion one day I was
gonna wake up.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
And just not want to drink anymore.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
And I was just waiting around for that day, I thought,
maybe it would be when I went off to college,
maybe it would be when I graduated from college.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
But at some point I would wake up and grow
up and.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
I would have a husband, and I would have a
dog and two point three kids, and I would have
a picket fence, and that was what I wanted. But well, no,
I wanted to hedge up on the beach, to be honest,
but at some point I wanted to have some normal
semblance of a life, right. And so I've realized my
life ain't going that way. And I've made so many
consequence lists that I could recite them in my sleep,

(33:10):
and I still want to drink. And I start getting
real worried thinking if I don't start waking up wanting
to not drink or not wanting to drink, I don't
think I'm gonna stay sober. And they told me lots
of things like play the tape through and give yourself
a mirror affirmation and all these kind of things, and
I can't figure out why. I just it's like they

(33:32):
used to that the reality of your disease is not
sunk in.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
Well, hell no it isn't. I wish it would, and
I just want to change.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
At this point, we had this prayer that someone gave me,
and all I remember is the first line. It said,
Dear Lord, more than anything in the world, I just
don't want to be sick anymore. And I would say
that every day, and I just I started to realize
I've gotten They kept telling me the solution was God,
and I've got to have this fundamental change.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
I've got.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
Every cell in my body has to molecularly change for
me to have a chance to wake up in the
morning and not want a drink.

Speaker 2 (34:06):
And it ain't happening.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
And I'm going all around and trying to figure out
how to happen, and it ain't happening. And so it
eventually happens. I have this change, and I leave wanting
to be sober. But here's the thing. I leave wanting
to be sober, terrified. Got this fear in my heart
that goes, I'm gonna do it again, or it's not really,
You're gonna do it again, aren't you. Yeah, you are.

(34:28):
You're gonna treat this like you treat everything in your life.
I felt like I was on the first week of school.
First week of school in the assembly where you're like
you're all punch. You're like, I'm gonna get straight a's
this year. Right by the second week, you're like bees.
Third week, seas, fourth week, you're like, I'm gonna pass.
You know, good thing the teachers like me, maybe I

(34:52):
need to get real nice to somebody in the registration office.
And so I just knew I was gonna do sobriety
the same way. My motivation for it would fit because
that's how I do everything. So I get out and
here's the thing. I went to meetings. I want you
to a lot of discussion meetings, and I talked. I
liked to talk, and I thought I knew what I
was talking about.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
And here's the thing. We had these sheets where you
had to do stuff every day.

Speaker 1 (35:14):
You gotta read, you gotta do this. And we had
to read one hundred pages I mean sorry, ten pages
of the Big Book every day. And I was in
treatment for eighteen and a half months, which works out
to five two hundred pages of the Big Book that
I had read by the time I graduated from this
treatment center.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
I could quote it.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
I could tell it to you frontwards, backwards, I could
tell you what was italicized. I could tell you the
page number and the punctuation at the end of that sentence,
and I had no freaking.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
Clue what I was talking about.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
And so I get out and I'm kind of mutzing around,
and I'm going to meetings, and I get myself a
boyfriend because that's a good idea, and I get a sponsor,
and like, we do a Step one packet and a
month later we do a Step two packet. And at
the same time, I had a friend that followed a
guy over to this meeting called Primary Purpose. Yeah, and
I hated them. Hated them because they said stuff like

(36:05):
there's one way to work the program, and they would
do big book studies and they would go through the
big book line by line and they would go through
how to do a ten step and I'd be like,
you think yourself, I don't really do that. But I
would tell people I've done the steps, I work the program,
and I don't really do that. And the thing is
is that I had all these I had. I remember
sitting into counsel's office crying when I was out and saying,

(36:27):
I don't think I'll ever get the piece I had.
One I was in treatment. Can't know about you, but
I was happy in treatment for a long time. I
do well in institutions, and the thing.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
Is is that they gave me all these tools to
deal with the things that drove me nuts.

Speaker 1 (36:40):
The problem is when I got out in the real world,
those tools are stupid. Like if I was afraid that
people were judging me in treatment, I could raise my
hand at any point of the day and go, are y'all
judging me, and all fifteen smiling faces would go, no, OK, see,
we're not judging you. Awesome. If I had an overflow
of fear or you know, emotional whatever, no matter where

(37:04):
I was, I could stop and say I need to share,
and I would share and I would get it out
and I would feel some relief.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
If I was a I mean everything, I had a
tool for everything.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
But the thing is, you can't exactly stop in the
middle of your senior year in school and go, are
y'all judging me? So instead the thought stays in my
head and rattles around and makes me sick because I
don't know what to do with it. And I'm convinced
everything is about me in a bad way, sometimes in
a good way. And so I start going to primary

(37:35):
purpose and I don't like anything they say, and I
think things like, well, you know what, my program works
just fine for me, and there is many ways to
work the program, as there are.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
People in it, all these real cool things.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
I've heard, and I think, you know what, you have
no right to tell me how work my program.

Speaker 2 (37:49):
My program works fine.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
And then I go home and cry because my program
doesn't work fine, because my life is starting to suck again.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
And I'm starting to lose the motive.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
And I was under the impression that you went to
meetings to hear somebody say something inspirational that would motivate
you and inspire you to not do something stupid until
you went to the next meeting, and then hopefully some
old fart would say something inspirational in that meeting and
you could hang on to the next one. And so
I don't know why I kept coming back to Primary Purpose.

(38:24):
It's like I would leave every night pissed, and I
would come back for the next meeting. And the more
I went to Primary Purpose, the more I sat in
my other meetings and went these people are sick people
talking about their bosses and their cats peeing on their
carpet and their mother in law coming in for the holidays.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
So at some point I fired the sponsor.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
I have and I get a new sponsor and she
sits me down and she says, we're gonna go through
the steps. I'm like, all right, cool. She tells me
to well, I go, and I asked her to be
my sponsor. She's like, yeah, read from the preface to
page forty four and call me when you're done. And
for some reason, when I come out of treatment. When
I came out of treatment, I was like, you know

(39:13):
how you have ranks and treatment. So I still had
all this ego.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
From treatment, like I'm a Phase three senior client.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
I will have this reading done tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
And so.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
I get it done and I call it the next
day and she's like, awesome, come in, we'll talk. So
she starts talking with me. If you have a big
book and it's with you, let's go to the doctor's opinion.
Because she starts talking to me about what step one means. Yeah,
I'm a quoter. Somebody asked me that last night. I
was like, I'm a big book thumper. They're like, are

(39:45):
you a quoter? I'm like, yeah, I am, all right.
So she says, well, let me explain to you what
step one is. And the thing is, I think I
know what step one is because I've done nine hundred
packets about it. I've answered forty four questions. I've done
a sassy test and it says I'm an alcohol dependent

(40:07):
sassy test.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
Y'all ever did those? They're what they gave you to
psych wards.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
They are like forty four questions and then they come
back and they're like, well, according to your score.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
So she says, your power's over alcohol because you have
physical allergy to alcohol, and so do I says.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Doctor's opinion says, we believe in those suggested a few
years ago that the action of alcohol on these chronic
alcoholics is the manifestation of an allergy, that the phenomenon
craving is limited to this class and never occurs in
the average tempered drinker.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
And she said, you know, I drink, I drink the
way I.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
Drink because I'm an allergy, got an abnormal reaction to alcohol.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
And she even got scientific on me.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
She was like, my liver in my pancreas doesn't secrete
the necessary enzymes to metabolize alcohol like a normal person.
And I had always thought that that thing allergy to
alcohol was just like a cute metaphor that gave you
in treatment, so that if you're ever sitting in a
bar and someone asked you if you want to drink,
and you say no, when they say why, you go, I'm.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
Allergic, and apparently I really am.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
And here's the thing. She says that to me, and
immediately I know she's telling me the truth. And immediately
I know that I have that because I look back
on all the experience I have about how I can't
get drunkn of how about how I take a drink
and I need another one right now, and I need
it strong, and I need to make it myself. And

(41:24):
when I'm too drunk to make my own drinks, I'm
telling other people, just make me one more drink and
I'll be fine. Just make me one more drink and
I'll be fine. And I don't really And come to
think of it, I don't ever recall the end of
a drinking like I don't ever recall putting the handle
down and being.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
Like, WHOA, I'm good.

Speaker 1 (41:42):
I can think of maybe three times where I just
took a couple drinks in my whole drinking career. But
for the most part. When I set for a sitting,
I didn't stop till I blacked out, passed out, ran out,
or got caught. I mean I really and I got
creeped out when I thought about that, because I was like,
oh my god, I do have an allergy.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
I have a craving for alcohol.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
When I start to drink, I crave the next drink,
And when I have that second drink.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
I crave the third drink even worse. And I knew
she was telling me the truth.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
So this, she says, it's not the bad news. Awesome,
she says. Open your book to page twenty four. She says,
the fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure,
have lost the power of choice and drink. Our so
called willpower becomes practically non existent.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
We are unabled at certain.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
Times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the
memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week
or a month ago.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
We are without defense against the first drink.

Speaker 1 (42:38):
And I get pissed at this point because I spent
eighteen and a half months trying to get the reality
of my disease to set in.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
By making lists of my.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
Consequences, and I can't figure out why if I've written
essays about it, I've written life stories, I've written all
sorts of things to try and get me in touch
with the emotional consequences.

Speaker 2 (42:59):
Because if I can just get in touch with step one,
I won't want to drink anymore. I mean, that's what
I thought.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
And so all of a sudden, this makes sense to me,
because this says there's something wrong with my head, clearly.
But what's wrong with my head is that I can't
recall with sufficient force how much it sucked, which is
what I said when I was sixteen years old, crown
on the bathroom floor and says, I don't like the consequences,
but I forget how much consequences suck when I go

(43:26):
to take the action. God, my accents come out really bad,
isn't it. I don't even think I sound the Southern
when I'm in the South, And.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
So it makes sense to me.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Finally, that's why, at fourteen and a half months of sobriety,
I still want to drink. That's why I lay in
my bunk at night and replay fantasies about what used
to happen when I used to drink. The good ones,
the good kind and it makes sense to me. And
here's the thing. My brain is depleted in that area
because the human brain naturally has these little like lights

(43:59):
that go I kind of envision it like nuclear meltdown
with the light start flashing. It goes h You know
what I mean when I go to do something that
in the past has caused me pain, Right Like I
fell off of a horse when I was seven, and
I will not get back on a horse because if
I walk towards the horse and I get near horse,
my heart starts to beat. Those lights in my brain

(44:21):
start to light up. They're like, this thing will kill you.
Back away, And to this day I have this emotional
reaction to that. My body protects me from getting hurt again.
But I go to take a drink and nothing happens.
In my head. My head goes, whoo, this is a
good idea. The doctor's opinion tell me that the mental

(44:45):
obsession of alcohol is that I can't tell the difference
between the true and the false. The true is that
things should be going off in my head that say
this is not a good idea. Here's another I thought
about this one time and I was like, well, ain't
that funny? Because if you ever taken a drink, like
say you'd drink a screwdriver and you get really, really
really sick and you can't and after that, if you

(45:07):
even smell orange juice, you want to puke. Why is
it you can drink orange juice. You can't drink orange
juice the next day, but you can sure as heck
drink the vodka.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
I mean, think about that.

Speaker 1 (45:19):
My brain will associate that orange juice with the misery,
and I recall with full force the misery and the
suffering and the humiliation.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
Attached to that smell, sight, sound, and taste.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
But it doesn't do it to the vodka. I don't
smell vodka and go h. I mean usually, you know,
But I do it to whatever it is I drink
the alcohol with like that clearly shows me that there's
something not happening right in my head, that I have
a mental obsession that I can't if I get a
week or a month away from whatever bad consequence it

(45:54):
was motivating me.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
Out of fear or inspiration to stay sober, all of
a sudden, it wasn't that bad, and it's gonna be
different this time.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
And here's how. And you know what, I was making
a big deal out of this, and it's not that
big of a deal. And if I just drink beer,
or if I just don't do it this way, if
I just don't do it with him, it's all right.
And one of the reasons I get so fired up
about what the book says is because for a long
time I was told something different, and I remember trying

(46:25):
so hard to bring about some sort of change in me,
and it wouldn't happen, and so and like my first
sponsor said, Casey, it's real simple. You just gotta want
to stay sober more than you want to drink. And
I thought, my god, if that was true, I'd be
sober a long time ago. And the book clearly states
the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely

(46:47):
no avail. Now, where the hell did she get that?

Speaker 2 (46:52):
It's moving on step now?

Speaker 1 (47:02):
I spent a lot of time on Step two and treatment,
making higher power collages and listening to the characteristics of
my higher power. You know how miserable it is to
be in a position where you know you're gonna die,
and you know the only solution is to believe in God,
and you just don't believe in him. You feel like
you're trying to will yourself to believe in Santa Claus
because you just can't will yourself and to believe in

(47:23):
something you just don't believe in. And I remember the
whole time being like, I'm willing to believe in him,
but he just ain't there. I mean, I'm sitting outside
waiting for some fuzzy feeling to overcome me.

Speaker 2 (47:33):
Then it ain't happening because I didn't understand that.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
Step two says that I came to believe that a
power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. He
could if such a power existed, theoretically, he could stormed
me to sanity. I don't have to believe in anything
in step two.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
Step two is a simple conversation, how do you feel about God?
Pretty good? Okay, moving on.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
Because even if you don't believe in God, you can
agree that if a power ruled the entire universe, he
would have enough power to resup to remove my obsession
to drink right, whether you believe in God or not,
And that's fine. And I was willing to put aside
all the.

Speaker 2 (48:08):
Prejudice I had from going to Catholic school about how
God is a goody two shoes and wanted to put
arbitrary rules on me, so I had no fun. Fine,
I'll put that aside. So then we go on to.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
Make this third step decision. And I always read the
third step wrong. I mean I always read that, you know,
step three turns your will and your life over the
care of God as you understood Hi, right, I mean, so,
I've been trying to do that for a long time.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
But that's not what Step three says page sixty three.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
I know it, but I feel compelled to turn to
the page anyways. Step three says, I'm gonna make a
decision to turn my will my life over.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
Now, clearly I don't know how.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
To do that, because if I did, I'd be sober.
But going through with the rest of the steps is
what's gonna bring about me learning how to turn my
will my life over and bringing my will in line
with God's will. I'm just making a decision. I'm gonna
do what this woman tells me. And I always wondered
because if you read Step three, it talks about how
we're the actor who wants to run the whole show,

(49:07):
and how I'm selfish and self centered and I read that,
and I remember thinking, wellum, kind of like that. Yeah,
And I always wondered how many of y'all here have
done a fifth step? All right?

Speaker 2 (49:19):
So I always wondered why Bill did all this stuff about.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
How we're selfish and self centered, we're the actor at
the third step, because you never understand it till after
your fifth step, like after your fist.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
If you go back and read, you're like, holy crap,
this is me. I always always like, why did he
put it the third step?

Speaker 1 (49:36):
And then I realized one day that the third step
doesn't say that I'm making a decision to turn my
alcoholism over the care of God as I understand him.
Because there's no such thing as just turning your alcoholism
over and having it removed. It ain't gonna happen. I
have to turn over everything. And in order to turn
over everything, I have to realize the sink is ship
of the sink is shipping, the ship is sinking, you

(49:58):
know what I mean. It's not just if I get sober,
stop drink and everything'll be great.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
Because if I start.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
Looking and I put aside the alcohol question, my stuff's
jacked up, and I start reading about how he may
be kind, consider it patient, generous, even modest, and self sacrificing,
all right, And about how you know, I still am
trying to make arrangements, and I'm still trying to get
you to do what I think you need to do

(50:23):
for me to be okay. And sometimes I was malicious
and sometimes I was sweet, but when it came down
to the end of it, I was trying to get
everything to go the way I thought it needed to
be for me to get what I needed to be okay.
Because if I didn't do it, if I didn't arrange
everything and everyone to how I needed it so I
could get what I need to be okay, I wouldn't
gonna be okay because if I don't take care of me, nobody.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
Will take care of me, right, and I'll just float
off into the abyss.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
I thought that. So Bill introduced all these concepts about
how alcoholism isn't the root of my problem. Selfishness and
self centeredness is the root of mine problem. And I
have to get God to remove the selfishness and self
centeredness if I want to have a chance of that
mental obsession being relieved.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
Because selfishness is directly linked to my.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
Mental obsession to drink, which is why if I continue
to live selfishly, I will.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
Not stay sober. I wonder it wasn't sick, Okay.

Speaker 1 (51:23):
So I read it and I half understand it, and
I take this step and make this decision and so,
and you know, it's funny because it says neither could
we reduce our self centeredness much by wishing or trying
our own power.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
And I was reading that, I was like, that's why.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
That's why. For eighteen months, I'm trying to bring about
some fundamental heart change and I can't make it happen.
So moving on. So step one two three happened. In
one sitting, I sat down with this woman. She talked
to me about the physical allergy and the mental obsession,
and she wanted to know if I understood that I
was screwed. And I did. I understood that I was

(51:58):
gonna drink myself to death. I specifically remember this moment
in treatment. We got this girl in.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
She was detoxing very badly, and.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
I mean she fell out and started like having convulsions,
and then she didn't know where she was and then
she thought she was four, and I mean really she
was like she thought she was she thought. She was
like really scared and freaking out and tweaking out, and
then she hit her head and then all a sudden
she was like, I'm four, and they'd take her to
the hospital. I was like, hm, that was weird. So
then we had this meeting, because when you're in treatment,

(52:26):
you have to have meetings and process things.

Speaker 2 (52:28):
So we're going around.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
The room in this dining room and everybody's saying stuff
like this, you know, I just really, I just really
got in touch with the reality of my drinking watching her,
and the next girl goes and she's like, you know,
I've just I've never seen it from this side before.
It's so horrific. Next girl's like, I'm just so glad
to be sober, you know, it makes me happy to

(52:51):
be sober. And the next girl's like, you know, I
just I finally see.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
I finally see, and I says to me, and I'm like,
I want to drink. He he makes me want to
take a drink.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
I see that she's experiencing something not in this reality,
and I want it. I want to suck it from
a porse.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
And I know she's not enjoying herself.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
She's scared to that she's in treatment for goodness sake,
and I know she's gonna be here for a long time.
And every day I walk around going onh're happy to
be sober, and I see this girl fall out, and
I'm like, I wanna get drunk. And at that moment,
I stood up and I walked down the living room
and I got on my knees and I just started crying.
And that was the moment it occurred to me it

(53:36):
was never gonna get so bad that I was gonna
wanna not drink because I kept waiting around for the bottom.
One day the consequences get bad, and I'll just wake
up and I'll not want to drink anymore, and then
I won't drink. And that was the first time it
occurred to me, these thoughts aren't leaving, not without a fight.

(53:57):
They're not leaving no matter how bad it gets for me.
I will wake up in the morning and think, you
know what I want what she has and she's drunk.
And so when when we talked about this, I understood
what the mental obsession meant, and I understood that I
couldn't remove my selfishness by my own power, and that
I was completely helpless. So then after this we stood up,

(54:19):
we said a prayer, I gave her hot She handed
me some four step sheets because it says next we
launched out on a course of vigorous action, the first
step of which is a personal house planing. You haven't
really done much until you get to the four step,
because they called the.

Speaker 2 (54:32):
Fourth step the first step. It's the first step of action.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
I haven't I haven't even gone off the couch yet. Right,
I've made some I've had some ideas and it was great. Anyways,
Oh my god, has it already almost been an hour? Wow?

Speaker 2 (54:51):
Time moves fast out here. Okay, all right, I'm.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
Gonna have to pick up speed. So I start making
this four step, right, and I go down and I
make this four step, and I do it exactly the
way it's outlet of the book. Right. I have a
list of people I'm angry at, I have a list
of things I'm afraid of, and I have a list of.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
People I've hurt by my sexual conduct. And I do
it exactly the way it is in the book.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
And I don't have time to explain how it is
in the book.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
But you have a book, read it. Okay. So after
I have my four steps sheets done.

Speaker 1 (55:20):
We have no time for applause. I've got my four
step done. And I go and I do my fist
step and I sit down. And I had a week
to do my four step, by the way, and I
got it done. I sat down, I do my fist step,
and instead of the first fifth step, I did a
treatment where.

Speaker 2 (55:35):
She told me it was gonna be okay, baby, It's
gonna be all right. Had me on the back. This
girl looked at me, what you are the.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
Most selfish, self centered, egoistical, dishonest.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
And I had every defect that on, every one.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
And I remember getting done with my fist step and
driving home and taking the corner to go to my house,
was driving up Midway Road, took a right.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
On Forest and it hit me, I am screwed.

Speaker 1 (56:00):
Up, followed by a joy that I have never known
in my entire life and a thought that goes and God.

Speaker 2 (56:08):
Can fix it.

Speaker 1 (56:16):
And I went back and I read the promises of
the fifth Step where it says that I'm gonna be
walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe.
And I always thought that the promises in the Big
Book were just poetry, and they're not. If you could
have asked me right there, if I had never read
the Big Book and you would have asked me how
I felt, I would have said to you, I am
walking hand in hand with the creator.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
Of the world. Right.

Speaker 1 (56:34):
So I go home and I take my hour out
like the book says too, and then I get on
my and then I do six and seven. And it
always cracks me up when they have discussion meetings on
step six because I don't know what people talk about
for an hour. It takes longer to read the paragraph
about step six than it does to take step six,
because step six says, are you willing to have God

(56:55):
remove all those defects of character? And I had a
pretty good fifth step, so I was like yes. And
then I got on my knees and I said the
seventh step prayer another one we can't talk about for
more than about five minutes because all it is is
a prayer. And I said that prayer, and the prayer
just reiterates the what the third step says. But it's like,
now that I've done my fifth step, I actually understand
what I'm signing up to do.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
And I do that, and I got up off my knees.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
And then I took my fourth step, and I took
all the names of the people on my fourth step,
and I put it on a piece of loose leaf paper,
and that was my eighth step amend's list. And then
I added all the people that weren't on there. And
this is, I mean, this is two settings so far one, two, three,
did four for a week, came back, did five, went home,
did six, seven, and eight.

Speaker 2 (57:41):
Came back and met with.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
Her and when he went over these amends, and she
told me which ones to make, and I went out
and I started making amends. But before I started making amends,
she flipped over to the ten step, and she said,
here's the deal with the tenth step. When you have
a resentment or fear, or you're selfish or dishonest, you
do what the ten step says.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
And the ten step has specific directions.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
So if you're wondering do I do a ten step,
you don't. You know, I call my sponsor every two weeks,
not a ten step, because the Big Book says a
ten step.

Speaker 2 (58:12):
Is I'm walking down the street, I.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Start thinking, here's a real life example. I'm laying in
bed and I start thinking that stupid guy.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
I can't believe he said he was gonna call him.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
He didn't ask if he ever does call, you know
what I'm gonna say. And then I go on my
head about what no, No, even better, I'm gonna say, right,
so resentful clearly, And what the Big Book says to
do is is number one, I ask God to remove
the resentment, number one step one of the ten step.
I say, God, this is probably a sick man. He's

(58:43):
gotta be ain't calling. I'm kidding, Please save me from
being angry. And then I call my sponsor. I say, listen, Darah,
I set up last night, thought about all the mean
things I was gonna say to this guy if you
ever called. And that's a resentment, and I said, I
said my prayer to remove it, and I'm gonna go

(59:05):
be helpful now.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
So that's that's what else says. It also says in
making amends, if I've harmed anybody, And.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
Then the most important part of the ten step that
completely makes the ten step obsoletely if you don't do it,
I go help somebody, because if selfishness and self centered,
I don't say I need a meeting, because if selfishness
and self centered is the root of my problem. How
is going to a meeting and talking about me gonna
help it? I mean, that doesn't make.

Speaker 2 (59:29):
Sense to me.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
If selfishness and thinking about me is my problem, the
solution is I need to go think about others. I
need to go work with a drunk. I need to
go down to a wind up joint. I need to
go pick up paper off the side of the road.
I need to go up to the group and pick
up cigarette butts. I mean, I just need to do
something to not be in me right now. Okay, So
that's what a ten step is, and I start doing
that as I do the nights step, because the Big

(59:51):
Book says we do it as we clean.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
Up the past.

Speaker 1 (59:54):
So then she also explains the eleventh step to me,
which is that I wake up in the morning and
I do a specific list of questions, and I spend
some time with God. And there's a specific list of
questions you're supposed to ask yourself an eleven step on
page eighty six. And I do that every morning and
the night before I go to bed, I do a
specific set of questions every night. That is that is
the eleventh step. And then all throughout the day, if

(01:00:15):
I get angry or irritated or agitated or doubtful.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
I'm supposed to pause and just not do anything and
shut my mouth for once. So I do this eleventh step.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
Then she introduces, I have sixty seconds to talk about
the twelve step.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
All right, here goes she had.

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
It is the twelve step, and the twelve step says
that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as
intensive work with other.

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
Alcoholics, since practical experience shows us that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
So I don't know where in our fellowship we got
I need a meeting, and I don't know where in
our fellowship we got. Listen. I know the topic is
step four, but I just.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
I'm having a problem. It's like, then, go talk to
your f and sponsor, because and here's the deal.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
Here's the deal. The most important person is that person
who's sitting in the meeting detoxing, thinking, somebody better tell
me how to not take a drink today.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
And here I was talking with somebody last night.

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
And here's the thing that we do sometimes is that
we have these meetings and we walk out like God,
it's a good meeting. That was fuzzy, and that was
spiritual and a lot of times, see it's not enough
for a meeting to be solution based.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
If that's not enough, it can't be just solution based
because everybody has a solution.

Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
Just because it feels warm and fuzzy doesn't mean you
just walked out of a solution based meeting. It means
you walked out of a warm and fuzzy meeting. And
here's why. When we share our opinions and alcoholics anonymous,
it kills people. And here's how I know.

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
Two examples real quickly. One I told my story.

Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
I told I was doing the steps of a group
in Dallas and there's this woman who picked up a
desire chip and I got down and I went and
talked to her when I was done, and she looked
at me and she just had that look about her,
that dead in the eyes, desperate to do something look.
And I said, well, what do you think is She's like,
I hate this place.

Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
And I said, well, why she goes? This is not
my home group.

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
She goes, I'm about to lose everything. I got here
at six thirty for the meeting. Before I sat through
the six thirty meeting, I had to leave and go
take a shot and come back because I can't stay sober.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
And she's never been to AA, so it was a miracle.

Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
She said that she goes because of the topic for
the sixth thirty discussion meeting was finances, like how to
increase your earning potential or something, and she's like, I'm
sitting in this meeting, I'm thinking, I don't need to
increase my earning potential.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
I need to get sober.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
And the thing is is that I spent a lot
of time in treatment trying to figure out how to change.
And I went to people and I said, how did
you change? And they said, well, I prayed for everybody
in the meeting every night.

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
So I went and did that. Nothing happened. Happened for her,
didn't happen for me.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
And then I went to the next person, what did
you do, Well, I'm meditated for thirty minutes every.

Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
Day, so I'm meditated for thirty minutes. Nothing happened. And
the problem is, just because it happened for you doesn't.

Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
Mean you should share it because you don't know it's
gonna be that way for everybody else. Now I know
for a fact that if it's in this book, it'll
be that way for you, because it was that way
for seventy five people who wrote it, and it's been
that way for every person who has worked it exactly
the way that it was written in this book.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
So even though I may have and here's the other
thing it gets me.

Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
Whenever I talk about stuff like this, there's always that
one person that's like, well, case, because if it's not
in the big book, I don't think it should be
in a meeting of autcosts anonymous. And there's people that
come up to me and they say stuff like, well,
you know what, case. You know you said ninety ninety
was BS. But you know what, if I hadn't gone
in ninety meetings in ninety days, I don't think i'd
be sober today.

Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
And I'm like, great, God's working in your life.

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
That's what that means. That's what that means. It doesn't
mean ninety ninety works. It means God is working in
your life. Because if you walked into AA and for
some reason, the reason a man hit on you was
the reason you stayed around. That doesn't mean a band
should hit on newcomers because that's how we stay around.
That means God used whatever was in that room at
that moment. To keep you there, I will go over

(01:04:13):
two more minutes because here's the thing. We want to
stay here. And I'll here's why where I get this.
I get this from the Big Book. This is justified
in the Big Book. On the first page of There's
a Solution.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
It says, you know, we're blah blah blah blah blah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
We're like a shipwreck. It says the feeling of having
shared in a common peril is one element and the
powerful cement which binds us, But that in itself would
never have.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
Held us together as we are now joined. The tremendous fact.

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
For every one of us is that we've discovered a
common solution, a common solution. Now there are things that
I do that my sponsor tells me to do that
aren't necessarily in the book, Like she'll say, well, what
I think you need to do about that situation is
this is in this, But we don't share that in
meetings because that's her personal experience and personal advice to
me that she has permission to give. From the part
in the Big Book where it says, having had the experience,

(01:05:09):
you can give much practical advice to the person you
are sponsoring. But she doesn't ever talk in a meeting
and say, well, I just think that you should know
we have a way out on which we can absolutely agree,
So we can absolutely every person in this room agree
on this solution.

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
I don't know so much.

Speaker 1 (01:05:24):
That we can absolutely agree on much of the stuff
that's shared, it says, and upon which we can join
in brotherly and harmonious action. This is the great news
this book carries to those who suffer from alcoholism.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
Because every time we go into a meeting and.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
We start talking about ourselves, there is somebody sitting dying
from alcoholism thinking I wish this person would shut up,
because I just want someone to tell me how to
not take a drink today. And that's what's important. And
I mean I go to a lot of meetings. I
mean I think I'm sound sometimes like I don't like meetings.
I love meetings, but I don't go to a meeting
because I need to get some relief, because I get

(01:06:05):
my freedom from the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics anonymous and
helping others. I go to a meeting so I can
find another newcomer that I can bring into the solution.

Speaker 2 (01:06:19):
Okay, I could talk for hours.

Speaker 1 (01:06:21):
But clearly I've already gone over time, so I want
to thank y'all for having me. I appreciated the other
speakers pretty much told my story already, so I just
want to thank y'all

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Casey R. - AA Speakers - Young Person in Alcoholics Anonymous

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