SPEAKER_00 0:00

Uh I'm Patrick. I'm an alcoholic. Um first and foremost, I want to say thanks, Jeff, for inviting me here. Um I always find this to be um one of the greatest honors and privileges that we have in this program. Um it also makes me a little uncomfortable because I really don't care to talk about myself very much. Um so um yeah, I'm gonna tell a little bit of my story tonight, my experience and how I arrived here and what my life is like today. Um I have a sobriety date, it's November 28th, 2021. Um I have a sponsor, his name is Mark M. I have a home group, it's the winner circle at 7 a.m. at Suburban North Club. I'm looking around tonight and I see a lot of familiar faces. Um thank you all for showing up. I um I owe you guys my life. And um I've been fortunate enough to be asked to give my lead a few times now. And um as I've progressed in my understanding of what a lead should be, um I continue to fall back into this idea that it's really a thank you. I owe a debt of gratitude to the people in these rooms, people like you, um, for sharing your experience with me when I was way too stubborn and I was way too special, and I was the unique one that was never gonna understand this until I got to hang around with people like you who taught me the way. Um I know these leads and how they're supposed to go, right? It's you know what it was like and what happened and what it's like now. And um I'm really here to talk about the solution that's been provided to me, right? I um I think of the steps as a bunch of exercises that I'm constantly doing throughout the day in my life. Um, the exercise of giving my lead is an interesting one, no different than when I share my experience with a sponsee or when I share in a meeting. Um it feels like I'm talking about a different person. You know, I I've sat up here a few times and tried to recollect on the way that I was feeling when I was drinking and the things that led me to behave the way that I was behaving, and all the things that, you know, the events that happened in my life. Um and it makes me pretty uncomfortable because I really I feel like I'm thinking about someone else's life. You know, I know I was there. Um I know I did the crazy stuff that um that I'll always remember at some point. But I I do. I feel like I'm talking about a different human being. Um so I'll do my best. Um, I don't want to, you know, come up here with a a diary of all the crazy stuff that I did, and um, but I'll try to qualify myself as much as possible simply because some of them are pretty funny um looking back on them. But um I really do like to get into the solution. Um so um I'm from Northern California. Um I grew up in a middle class family, um, big Irish Catholic family. Um we were all tied to the hip and loved each other, but no one talked about anything. Right? Pretty classic Irish Catholic. Um I have a younger sister. Um I have two parents that um they worked their asses off to give me the things that I needed. Um I have a pretty complicated relationship with my dad. This program has certainly helped with my perspective on that. Um, but my parents made sure that I didn't really want for anything. Um and I love and appreciate them to this day for basically doing everything that they could to provide for me. Um I um when I was a young kid, I um I was terrible. I I was terrible at playing team sports. I um I wanted to blame you for everything, and it was never my fault. And so I gravitated towards playing golf. And um, my parents, they didn't come from a golfing family. I have absolutely no idea why I ended up playing golf because I was a terrible T ball player. I could hardly hit the ball off the T, right? Which made no sense at all why I would gravitate towards golf, but um I loved the individual aspect of it. And so I started playing and um I loved it. I loved it more than anything. Um I'd spend all hours at the golf course trying to get better. Um and I got good enough to be um to qualify for the men's varsity team in my high school, um, which was a very, very competitive team. And I knew that I wanted to go play collegiate golf. Um and as I said before, my parents, my relationship with my parents was quite complicated. So I knew I wanted to play college golf as far away from California as possible. Um, but we didn't have a lot of money and I wasn't able to travel around and I didn't receive a lot of scholarships. And what's funny is up until this time, um, you know, I'm not gonna speak for my dad, but I'm, you know, he might be an alcoholic. There might be a few other people, but none of that interested me when I was a kid at all. I was around it, I saw it, I saw my dad would be, he would come home from work, he would have a beer and a shot of Jameson, and he would do that until he fell asleep. And it was rinse and repeat every day. Um nothing about that was attractive to me. Never tried it, never was interested, didn't hang out with friends that really did it. Um went basically all through high school playing golf, trying to get a D1 scholarship to go play collegiate golf, and um really never touching alcohol. Um, never interested in it. So um I had a friend of mine who graduated from my high school, went to go play golf at the University of Illinois in Champaign. And um he put in a good word for me with the coach, and the coach offered me at the time, I think it was a 12% scholarship to come play golf at the University of Illinois. And I was thrilled because it was the only coach that ever responded to any of the VHS tapes I sent. Right? So I sent 55 VHS tapes to all these D1 coaches, and he's the only one that responded. Um, and he said, maybe I can give you 12% to come to Illinois. And my dad said, You're gonna be in debt for a while unless you can play well enough to get a full ride. Um, so I was 17, graduated from high school, came to the University of Illinois, not knowing anything about anything, um, 2,000 miles from home, right? Exactly what I wanted. Um, my freshman year, um I didn't touch a sip of alcohol at the University of Illinois, which is commendable. Right? I, you know, I think it was it was 19, and it still very well might be. It was 19 to get into bars at the time. So everyone had fake IDs for 19, not even 21, just because once you got into the bar, it was all you could drink anyway. Um, but I didn't touch it. And I was an all-American and I was all Big Ten and I was an all-freshman. I was um considered one of the best players in you know, the world at the time. Um, and my coach pulled me in and said, We're gonna give you a hundred percent scholarship. And I was like, This is fantastic. My life is going the direction that I want it to go. Um my junior year, um, I had a guy who transferred in from Minnesota to come down to the University of Illinois, and this guy liked to party. And I remember my team, my junior year wasn't going to be that great. So my coach had this idea that I could redshirt. I could redshirt right in the middle of my college career, and I took the opportunity of redshirting to decide this might be a good time for me to try to party a little bit. Um, it turns out, whatever is inside of me, um, the first few times that I drank, my solution to the feeling hung over the next day and all the stuff was to just keep going. You know, and guess what? It was available. So if it's available, why would we stop doing it? And looking back now on those moments, um, it's pretty clear to me that that thinking, that thinking disease was um more is gonna be better. It's always gonna be better. Um so I redshirted. Um, I missed the first three weeks of class that year because um I had woken up the first uh day of class in a bush outside of Follinger Auditorium at 7 a.m. to the bell ringing. Yeah, missed three weeks of school, um, lied about everything, but I was still a good enough player. My coach was gonna keep me around. Um I ended up playing the next two years, was still all Big Ten, was still an all-American. Um, but every minute that I wasn't on a golf course, I was consumed with the idea of how fast can I get off of here and how fast can we start to party. Um, I still had the dream of I'm gonna get done with the University of Illinois and I'm gonna play professional golf. Um, I was lucky enough my junior year there to meet the woman that I'm now married to. Um, she played on the women's team. Um she's stuck with me through more than I deserve. Um I got done with the University of Illinois. I was a finance major. I decided I'm gonna turn pro. I want to play golf for the rest of my life. I spent five years um playing professional golf, which consisted of making sure I had enough drugs every week to get by, making sure that I could drink the way that I wanted to drink. Um I lived in Orlando, and if there was a 20% chance of rain, I was not gonna hit balls or practice. I was gonna smoke as much weed as I could, and I was gonna drink my face off. And funny enough, my dream of trying to compete with a guy like Tiger Woods or a guy like Ernie Ells or a guy like it didn't exactly correlate with me behaving that way, right? Um I've got a friend in the program who sent me a he sent me a list the other day of like Tiger Woods, and it's funny because Tiger's not exactly an angel, but um his like work habits, right? It was like wake up at seven, go hit balls, go do this, go run. You know, mine was you know, wake up at eight, um, look at the weather forecast if there was a chance of rain, you know, take a huge bong hit, sit and watch The Godfather one, two, and three, you know, just that was my day, right? And um I thought in my insane thinking, like I'm still good enough to probably do this as a living. And um five years on the road, um played in a bunch of PJ tour events, but I um I came home one winter um and looked at my wife and said, I think I'm done doing this. And um I had I wasn't resilient. I knew that this would be a struggle, but I wasn't willing to do it. Um, I was so consumed with um escaping my life. You know? So something had happened along the way where I um I knew that drugs and alcohol allowed me a mechanism to escape whatever it is was I was feeling, right? The disappointment of not getting the things I wanted, fear, as I now know it, right? Um, my life not going the way that I planned. And um I wanted to blot out the sun. So I came home with no plan, um, no idea of what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, but I told my wife, I'm done playing competitive golf. Then things got really hard, right? Then I had to figure out okay, there's this thing that I'd been doing and striving for. What was I gonna do? Um, I was a finance major, I didn't really want to go into that. I didn't want to sit behind a desk, I hated sales, all of the things. But um my wife wanted to start a family. And um we tried for a long time to have kids, and um, we were unable to conceive a child. And um we couldn't really figure out why, but I know why. I mean, I polluted my body for years and years and years. It probably had something to do with it. Um so we had to go through IVF. And um, if any of you have been through the process or known anyone that goes through the process of IVF, um it's extremely taxing and extremely stressful, and it's all of the things. But what's funny about IVF is my wife wanted to live a clean lifestyle in order for us to have the highest probability and chance of having a kid. And uh I did too, but I didn't want it to mess with my drinking, you know, because at the time I I my drug dealer was pretty unreliable, which is shocking. Um and I I had found that, you know, a CVS, I knew what time they opened, and I knew what a bottle of you know vodka or a bottle of bourbon would do. And um, you know, I I had my life, like that was my escape, right? Life, my life hadn't gone according to the way that I wanted, and um I was gonna drink over it. So I had to evolve, and I had to get really, really good at hiding it, guys. I had to I had to lie, I had to hide it, and I was an all-day drinker, guys, sunup to sundown, right? Um and here I had this beautiful woman in my life that wanted nothing more than to start a family with me. And um I did too, sort of, right? As long as it didn't affect me the way that I wanted it to affect me, right? And it boils down to this idea, which I know now is like I'm just an I was an unbelievably selfish person. And um by the miracle of God or whatever, um, through a few of these IVF treatments, we were able to get pregnant with our firstborn. And, you know, you would have thought maybe like you're not you wouldn't have thought you're alcoholics, but most people would think that this would, you know, something like that happening in your life would be a wake-up call. Like this will be the thing that changes you. And um, my firstborn, Brady was born, didn't change my behavior at all. We went through a second cycle of IVF. Vivian was born. I was sneaking um vodka into IU North Hospital when she was in the nursery. Um the target was always moving, guys, right? You know, when I make a certain amount of money, like maybe then I'll slow down. When I have a bigger house, maybe then I'll slow down. When I have a couple of kids, like that'll be the wake-up call for me to figure it out. But I had absolutely no um intention of slowing down. I uh I towards the last couple years of my drinking, I remember reading my life insurance policy to make sure that if I drank myself to death, what would it look like for my kids? Would they get paid out? Right? Um I was so dissatisfied with my life, right? Right, why would it like who wouldn't be dissatisfied, right? Beautiful wife, kids, all the things, right? Um you know, my life didn't go the way that I wanted, so um, I wanted out. Um we went uh we went to French Lick for the Polar Express in 2021. Um and I went about a day without drinking, so we had to drive down there to do the Polar Express. I drove back home. Um I woke up the next morning feeling really funny at like four in the morning. Couldn't fall back asleep. My kids woke up, came downstairs, we started playing Candyland, lights went out. Right? I had no idea what happened. Um, woke up in an ambulance, lights went out again. Woke up in an ICU. Woke up in an ICU handcuffed to the bed. Um woke up with a wife yelling at the doctor about how like I didn't have a drinking problem. There was no way that it could be alcohol. No way.

unknown 16:41

Right?

SPEAKER_00 16:41

I've got no history of epilepsy. Doctor's a pretty smart guy. He's like, I think you need to go home and look at his computer and see what's going on. So she goes home. I'm still in the ICU. She sees five different bank accounts with a whole bunch of money, me spending every day the same thing, going to the same couple CVSs, the same, all of it, right? Bottles of vodka. You know. Um after five days in the ICU, I went into uh, I was given the opportunity to go to landmark um for 30 days. Um that was the first time in my life walking into landmark and sitting down and talking to people like us that um I had interaction with another alcoholic, with other addicts, right? And I knew something about that interaction was different. Um so I spent 30 days there. I got out um right before Christmas of 2021. Um I I remember meeting my wife, she came and picked me up, and um we went out to breakfast, and she laid down a list of rules. The things that I was gonna have to do in order for me to see my kids and be able to live in the house. And um AA was a part of that list, and I didn't know anything about AA, guys. Didn't know I didn't know what the 12 steps were. Um, I thought it might have been a religious program, all the things, but I knew that it was the key for me to get my stuff back. Right? Selfish dude. Like, I want to be a better dad, sort of, I want to be a better husband, but man, I want my life. Um I want it to be easy. So, like, maybe I'll go to A. So I stumbled into the old building, suburban north. I thought my life was over. I was a 37-year-old kid. Um I thought this is the end of my life as I know it. I'm gonna be stuck going to this building in Noblesville with these people at 7 a.m. who were laughing about God knows what. Like, what is so funny about any of this? Um like people people were smiling like this is a this has to be a cult, right? Yeah, this whole thing was a means to an end for me, right? How do I get my stuff back? Funny enough, you know, I was scared to work the steps. You know, I I thought, I remember my wife knew just enough about AA. So I I had been coming in for a couple months and hadn't gotten a sponsor, hadn't started to work the steps. I was your classic sit in the corner, bolt the moment I'm not saying the Lord's Prayer, I am out, like hit the door running. Um and uh my wife said, Hey, I I don't know much about AA, but I know like people get sponsors, right? Like people work the steps. And I was like, Oh, this isn't good. Like she's knows enough, right? And um, she had been going to Al Anon a little bit and uh she'd come back from Al-Anon and it would be terrible, right? It'd be like, oh my God, like all these people at Al-Anon, like they all have, you know, all their loved ones have gone back out and they're all like drinking themselves to death. And and I thought, man, you need to stop going to those meetings, right? Like I and I didn't care, I didn't care about her as much as I didn't care. Like I didn't want to answer for all of that. Like I wanted the easy way out. I didn't want to have to deal with all that stuff. Um, so I had to get a sponsor, and um there was this guy that I had gone to the Suburban North Club with a little bit, and some stuff he said it kind of resonated with me. So I thought I'm gonna give him the honor of sponsoring me. Right. Like he's gonna be a lucky dude, and um, you know, I'm gonna change his mind. And um so I started working the steps, and I told Mark really, really early on, like, man, what if I do all that I can do? Right? I'm gonna be honest, I'm gonna be open, I'm gonna be willing. I don't know about the God thing, man. I don't think that's gonna work for me, but I'm gonna do all this stuff and I'm gonna get to the end of the steps, and nothing will have changed. What happens then, Mark? Right? Um, I heard very early on in a meeting that a guy told me, he goes, This is great news for you. Like nothing in your life has to change right now. Nothing outside of you. And I thought, man, that is absolutely bogus. Right? Like I was convinced that I had played the hand that I was dealt the best way that I knew how. You know, I was smarter than you, I knew better. You know. My my mom told you should tell me uh a tiger doesn't change their stripes, right? Or a leopard doesn't change their spots, or some big cat, right? And I was convinced that like I was unchangeable. You know, this is what I was gonna be, this is how. I was going to go. I was going to die an alcoholic drinking myself to death. So then I'm sitting here in this room going, these steps are never going to work for a guy like me, ever. I'm never going to get it. So Mark said, well, let's start with step one. And I started working the steps. You know, I used to, I used to swim in California on a swim team. And uh I don't know if you guys have ever like gone out in a pool deck really early in the morning when you know the water is freezing. Freezing, right? And uh you've got to jump. And you know it's not gonna kill you, right? It's like uh cold plunging these days, right? The doctors can tell you all the good things that it does for you. It's gonna be the greatest thing. Steps in your life are gonna be the greatest thing that you can do. All you gotta do is jump. And I fought tooth and nail to jump, guys. I didn't want to do any of it. Steps two and three, a god of my understanding, turning my will over, like no way. Um I was such an arrogant prick working the first few steps. Um somehow my sponsor did just enough to convince me that maybe moving on was going to be a good idea. And then I got to steps four and five and had my first spiritual experience, right? I did step four and I did it to the best of my ability, right? And I wrote out all my things and all my resentments and my part in them, whatever that was. Um and I thought I was gonna tell my sponsor in step five exactly why I had behaved the way that I had behaved, and he was gonna buy it. Right? He was gonna sit there nodding his head in approval of like, I get it, man. I get exactly why you did what you did. I would have done the same thing as you. Um funny enough, I sat down with him in five, and he looked at me and he said, Um, I see your life completely different than you see your life. You know, and you can be honest and you can be willing and you can be open, you can be all those fun things, man, but you can be wrong. And I thought, that's not good. Like, what if I was wrong? Right? So I'd worked steps two and three, and I'd heard in meetings this idea of surrender and all the, you know, you just you have to, you know, you can't dip your toe in the water, you gotta dive in, right? And I wasn't convinced, you know. And then I got done with five, and I had this moment, and man, it felt like I, after three hours of giving a step five, it felt like I had been a knockout drag out with Mike Tyson, right? I walked out of that room thinking, can this be right? Like, can I be wrong about all the stuff that I've thought? You know? And that was enough. Right? That little bit of humility, just a little. Just like cracking the door open just enough to assume maybe I had gotten it all wrong, guys. Maybe the way that my life was was a gift. And I was the luckiest person on earth, right? My next uh so six and seven. Funny enough, right? I jumped in the pool. I thought, yeah, okay. Like I've been proven wrong. Um maybe I'll start listening a little bit more. And maybe I'll start sharing a little more, and maybe I'll actually start talking to these people, right? Maybe I'll hang around the meeting longer than two seconds and actually get to build relationships. Maybe I'll actually start working the steps as best that I knew at the time, right? Um and then came making the amends to my wife. So, you know, I love you guys to death, but this idea of like expectations and amends and all the things, I was like, you gotta be kidding me, right? Of course I'm gonna have expectations. Like, I've got to make this amends to this woman who I I had an affair with with alcohol, lied to her about everything, hid everything. Um I knew that my relationship with her was never gonna be the same, right? And I had to make this amends to her. And, you know, I went to my sponsor and we tried to figure out, you know, and he had ideas about how to do it and all the stuff. And um I remember sitting down with my wife and trying to give the amends to her, and I had this I had this narrative built out in my mind of exactly how it was gonna go, right? I was gonna say this and I was gonna say this, and I was gonna say this, and she was gonna start to understand, and all these things would happen, right? And I was I I played it out in my mind, and I remember saying a couple things and her stopping me in the middle of my amends and saying, uh, I've got a question to ask you. I was like, ooh, this will be good, right? Um uh she said, uh, was I on your resentment list? To this day. I mean, I almost get emotional thinking about it. And she wasn't. But I didn't see that coming. Like that was not in the list of things that I had conjured up in my mind on how this amend was gonna go, guys. Like it threw me for a gigantic loop. I uh I was wrong again. Like twice in four steps. I'm wrong again. Like, how is that a possibility, right? Um I thought maybe, maybe, maybe. Um maybe I can be wrong. Maybe I don't know as much as I think I know. I can't read your mind. I don't know what you're thinking unless I ask you. And maybe I should shut up every now and again. It's funny. I I think back on this idea of the white light moments and spiritual experiences and all of these things. And um most of the time, my my spiritual experiences have been these instances that have come about by um me assuming and expecting something and receiving the complete opposite of what I expected to have happen. You know, this program in my life. Worst thing in the world, right? I walked in the old suburban north club thinking this is the end of my life as I know it. Um turns out, as I sit here today, this has been the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. I uh I was I was isolating, I was on my own. Um my last feet, I was drinking by myself in parking lots. Moving the car around, because I'd been there long enough because the sun now is shining in a different side, and I wanted to be on the other side, right? Like that's what I was. I mean, that's what I was. And I had a seizure, I woke up in the ICU, I stumbled into Suburban North Club not knowing anything about anything, and um it's turned in to be the greatest gift of my life. And it's really only because of people like you, right? I sit up here and I I act like this is all some original thought and all these things that have, you know, that have happened in my life, but um you've taught me everything that I know. I read this book a little while ago, and um, it was called The Choice. And um, it's phenomenal. It's by this woman who um she's a Holocaust survivor, and um her life is filled with more like it's almost unbearable to think that I experience any level of suffering compared to what she experienced in her life. And um, she has this great quote and this idea that like suffering for all of us is a universal thing. Like we all experience suffering at some level, right? But um like victimhood, that's optional. Like that's a choice that we all make, right? Um It was funny, I was talking to Jeff, you know, as we sat here earlier, and um this opportunity of the program working in my life today is the idea that like I get to choose every day how I see my life. Right? I get the opportunity to I can I can view it as a pessimist who I have all the stuff going on and poor me and um how how you know how can I handle this? This is way too stressful, all of that BS guys, right? Or I can see my life as the gift that it is. You know, an opportunity to go help someone, an opportunity to sit in front and talk to you guys tonight. Like to be a friend, to be a husband, to be a dad, you know. That's a long way from looking at your life insurance policy, wondering, you know, maybe me dying is gonna be good for my kids. Maybe it's gonna build like some resiliency in what they are, right? Like that's insanity. Right? I get to show up today. Um, there's a good friend of mine who now, he's he moved to Carolina, but um he had this great story when he used to sit and talk to his sponsor about, you know, all of the things like my my life didn't shake out the way it was supposed to, and I should have gotten this, and this should have happened, and all the stuff. And his sponsor stopped him and said, Um, John, you know, thank God I didn't get what I deserved. And I really feel like that in my life today. Like this is all so much better than I deserved, guys. It's so funny, right? I I I wake up and I pray and I meditate and I go to sleep and I pray and I meditate. Those are things that I never thought in a million years I'd want to do. Um I'm no longer the center of the universe in my own life, right? God, this thing that I'm living, and like I it's not about me anymore. Right? This whole thing that I'm doing here is it's so much bigger than I am. Um I've got a good friend named Kirk who says, you know, do the right thing. Um it never needs justified or rationalized if you just do the right thing. And man, that is so different than what it used to be for me. Yeah, so today, I mean, I I have friends, we go to breakfast, we hang out, we meet each other's families. I have people over to watch football games, I interact with their kids. I mean, I um I have friends. Like, I didn't have any of that. God, I can control my effort and my attitude. That's it, right, guys? Man, and I thought I was so disappointed in that. You guys said the serenity prayer, and I was like, this is such pogwash. Like, I want to play the gray area, man. I want to like, I can manipulate it and I can do this and I can do that, and I can dictate outcomes. There's a line in uh how it works that I love. Um, and I think it's the hardest ask for me in the program. And it's this idea of like letting go absolutely. And man, absolutely is a brutal word. Like that's a big word. You know, I remember hearing it the first time, and I think I blew it off, and I listened to it every time that How It Works is read, and I think, man, absolutely, like all the stuff that I think I know, all the things that I think I want, like I've got more than I will ever need. You know, and I truly believe that today, guys. I've got a uh I go to the Dry Eagles meeting every now and again on Wednesday nights, and uh there's this woman there who's got, I don't know, 45 years of sobriety. And uh she always closes her lead um with the excerpt from page 475. And uh I always think, you know, geniuses, you know, steal other people's work. So I'm gonna sit here and steal hers because I think she's a rock star. Um and I've come to believe that this is about as true as it gets for me. Um page 475. Um some years have passed, and as I look back from the clarity of this moment, I know that the way here for me could not have been by an easier path. I would not willingly have stopped the course my life was on. I needed harsh reality to see the damage that alcohol abuse causes in so many ways. I needed to be forced into acceptance and humility. My physical being has certainly undergone a transformation, but the major transformation has been spiritual. The hopelessness has been replaced by abundant hope and sincere faith. The people of Alcoholics Anonymous have provided a haven where, if I remain aware and keep my mind quiet enough, my higher power leads me to amazing realizations. I find joy in my daily life, in being of service, in simply being. I have found rooms full of wonderful people, and for me, each and every one of the big book's promises have come true. The things that I have learned from my own experience, from the big book, and from my friends in AA patience, acceptance, honesty, humility, and true faith in a power greater than myself are the tools I use to live my life, this precious life. Today my life is filled with miracles, big and small, not one of which could have ever come to pass had I not found the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous. Thank you guys for letting me speak tonight. I um I love this. I'm Patrick, I'm an alcoholic.