vol 60. Sobriety Date 6/6/2019 (Benjamin)

Benjamin shares his Experience, Strength and Hope 2 years into a fresh new run of sobriety. A well-trained psychotherapist today, Benjamin brings his knowledge and expertise subtly into his share.

His first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous was at the young age of 22 years. Prior to that he was hooked on sports, which balanced his life well . . . until an injury in college, when he quickly went down the road of pot, pills, booze and suicidal thoughts.

In the rooms, Benjamin has turned his shame of behavior and choices into understanding the disease of alcoholism and addiction. No longer does he run from memories, instead he uses them to get closer to love and humility.

Quotes
“The dark side of life really exists in those stimulants and in alcohol, where it’s just horrible, it’s like a living hell.” 

“Normal is not boring for me, it was a fulltime job staying loaded . . . and all I did was hate myself.” 

“God has gotten me through things that nothing ever could, and certainly my logic couldn’t get me through, my intellect, my rationale . . . nothing could get me through my illness except for the program, the people, going to meetings and then my spiritual relationship—and without that, there was just no chance, I don’t see how I could have recovered without AA.”

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SPEAKER_01 0:01

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

SPEAKER_00 0:25

So my name is Benjamin. My sobriety date is June 6th, 2019. That's that's this sobriety date. I've had several sobriety dates over the years. Um my first introduction to recovery was I'm 42 years old right now. My first introduction to recovery was when I was 22 years old, and I had I had like sequestered myself in a hotel room and drank around the clock for four or five days, and the room was just destroyed, and you know, beer bottles everywhere. It was like total abuse, total self-abuse, and everything. And my dad had come to pick me up. I ended up staying the night outside, I think. I got kicked out of a hotel room. Um, and they saw what I'd done to it. I mean, it was just disgusting. And um, I stayed the night outside that night, and then my dad came and picked me up the next morning and was just like horrified. So I was not in good shape, like pretty young. And um my mom and dad actually took me to a AA meeting the next day, which was just a nightmare. Your mom and dad take, and I was DTing so hard from so much alcohol over the previous week or so. Um, so I was red in the face and sweaty and anxious as hell. And I mean, I just wanted, I don't know what I wanted, but I didn't want to be in a freaking meeting with other people. And we were in um this church in the back in uh a circle, so we were all facing each other. What a nightmare, right? And it wasn't a big meeting, there was no place to hide. It was like seven or no, it was probably ten of us, and so in my mind, which is actually probably true, I'm sure it was true. I was just on, I was the shining, like, you know, disgrace in there. And people, I think you know, when we have that kind of thing in the in the rooms where someone is like you really get to see the illness, you know, someone's in the middle, and it's like, wow, this is like a sickness. This is really a sickness. Um, it's not like I was high bottom or anything like that. I mean, I was young and I was on a death march, and I remember this old biker guy who who was like, Um, I don't know about you guys, but did any of us come in here on a winning streak? Everybody kind of like laughed. And of course, we've heard that, you know, like you hear a lot of the same sayings in AA, but that was my first AA meeting, and I said, Okay, well, I guess that kind of helps, but you know, um, it was so bad, and I was in such denial that I didn't even identify as an alcoholic that day. You know, everybody came around, and here I am. I should be really in a medical detox, probably. And everyone said they're an alcoholic, and and I just said, Hey, my name's Ben. Um, but that was my first intro. I did not want to be there. Um I'll I'll reel it back a little bit about my childhood. So I grew up, you know, a lot of people talk about feeling kind of estranged or something as kids, and um I guess that's true. I mean, I look back on my on my childhood, and I definitely had my my little like social traumas and things like that. Um I was angry, like if you asked my parents, I was really angry and sarcastic at a very young age. I don't know how uncommon this shit is, though. You know what I mean? Like, I don't have a frame of reference for other people's childhoods, but you know, it's a common thing that we hear in the rooms is that they never really felt like they belonged. I struggled, I you know, I really changed when I was um like about 12 years old, and I got just hooked on um some a sport that that I showed like kind of a proclivity for. So I got addicted to this sport and I re and I started playing it around the clock. You know, it was soccer, and we had a big grassy um uh yard in the front. My dad built me a soccer bowl and I just played nonstop. And then my parents said that they noticed my attitude change and things like that, and and I got a lot of uh social reinforcement and self-esteem and a feeling of belonging and everything from getting good at that. So I became good at that, and it and it offered a lot, you know, kind of balanced my life out to a degree. So um in high school I drank, you know, but not really, you know, sports was so much more important to me than anything else that I drank and that was fun, and it was like, well, it was exciting, like what it could do for me, you know. But it wasn't like this, oh my god, I finally belonged to everything in the whole world. Like some people say it was such a spiritual experience for them. I drank so hard my first time, I was I was violently sick. I mean, I I um I drank alone. So my friends at at school, I was probably 15. My friends at school had shared how um they had gotten drunk at a party with these older kids, like seniors. And if you're in high school, it's like social acceptance is number one. And so they were I kind of felt left out. They had gotten drunk, I hadn't got drunk. So when I got home that day, nobody was home. I have three brothers and my mom and dad, and nobody was home. And I said, Well, I'm gonna take this opportunity to see what this alcohol thing's about. And I've and I got a glass, uh not a glass, like a big plastic cup, and I just put a bunch of different types of alcohol from my parents' liquor cabinet all together. Gin and tequila and and Captain Morgan's and you know, and sherry and any all kinds of gross shit that you never mix. And I filled the cup up, so it was like a water glass that I filled up with all this hard alcohol, and I just pounded the whole thing, which was the most disgusting thing on earth, as you guys could imagine. And I was just couldn't believe anybody would drink that, and it floored me so hard I was underneath the ceiling fan, staring up at the ceiling fan, just like drooling and like pushing my tongue through my teeth, and super fun until you get the spins, and all of a sudden it's not fun, and then you're throwing up like crazy. So that was that was my first experience with alcohol. Maybe it was kind of a deterrent during high school, but I smoked weed and I drank on occasion during high school, and then I went to college and I played, I played soccer in college for a Division I school in California, and uh and when I was this is where shit really took a turn. I think I was 20, I was 19 or 20, and I had a really bad injury that that took me out for the season and really ultimately just ended my soccer my sports career. But I didn't know that at first, so but initially I was in a cast for six months, and um and during college, and no one really bats an eye about smoking weed, and I had this was before the opioid crisis, so I had um limitless amounts of like oxycodone and norcos and all that shit, and um and then alcohol, so so uh I had a very legitimate excuse in my mind to drink and use, and I had zero education on abuse. I didn't know anything about alcoholism or drug addiction at all, which is horrible. So my kids' mom and and myself are both, I have two girls, the two young girls are four and six, and their mom and me are both alcoholics and and recovered recover in recovery or whatever. So they're at high risk for alcoholism. And one thing, and I still am not gonna scare the shit out of them and freak them out and put all my baggage on them, but they are going to be educated about their family history and about alcoholism and drug addiction and addiction in general, and they're gonna they're gonna have that knowledge, and I'm sure they'll still experiment and that kind of thing. I can't I'm not gonna try to deprive them of the world or whatever because of what I've been through, but they are going to have the knowledge, and that's something I didn't have. And so I just stepped right into like devastating addiction, and I started drinking myself. That was the first time, I mean, that first episode when I was 14 or 15 was just like an experiment. But when I was 20, that's when it became like an anesthetic. That's when I started drinking to escape smoking weed around the clock and those pills, which I didn't really think much of, were uh, you know, a regular thing. So within a year, I had dropped out and I had good grades. I had like, you know, I was like a scholar athlete and I had a normal life. I mean, I was doing well. And within a year, I had dropped out of college and went home and started the like wreckage, you know, around in the family dynamic. And I'm sure you guys know, like, whoever's close, whoever's closest to you when you're really in your active addiction is gonna get damaged, right? It's the tornado from the big book. It's like and it ain't a grand that it's the wind stopped blowing. Well, the wind wouldn't stop blowing for years in my situation, and I started tearing through my family's life. I have you know, three brothers and my mom and dad, and extended family, a very close extended family, and I just started being a shit show everywhere. So drunk in the morning, drunk on Christmas morning, you know, like there's the part in the big book where it says like an alcoholic has like a tendency for getting tight at exactly the wrong time, or you know, so like I would pick not on purpose, but like the most important occasions, like you know, Easter at church or some shit to get fucked up and just ruin it, you know what I mean? Just oh my god. So I mean it's a weird thing, thank God for the step work, because like there's so much shame, you know, and I think I mean there's not shame anymore. Now there's just like memory, and and it's like, yeah, that's that's alcoholism, you know, that's addiction, and I remember it fine, but I don't have this the shame associated that I did forever. And that shame really kept me drinking, it kept me running from reality. When reality is I'm an alcoholic. That's reality is I'm a drug addict and I'm an alcoholic, period. And I've done a lot of horrible shit and a lot of very um embarrassing and you know things I would like to forget, I guess. Now I don't really care because I've done my step work and I've come to terms with reality. I've come to terms with my past. I don't have to run from it anymore. Um, so it's not like this post-traumatic stress, like stay away from my own brain, stay away from my own good luck running from your memory. If it's true, you're fucked. You know, the only thing you can really do is come to terms with it. And that's the that's the inventory, you know. That's the you know, that's the prayer, that's the inventory, that's the making amends, that's the developing uh a spiritual life, you know, having God in my life now, as somebody who wasn't raised in any kind of religion, wasn't raised with any concept of God, where God is so far-fetched, which I get it. And when I'm talking to people who aren't don't have like a God concept, they have all very strong reasons to not have it, and I understand those reasons. It is does sound very far-fetched with the mind. Sounds far-fetched. But when you are drowning and there's nothing else keeping you going except for you know, you're paint completely painted into a corner, and God works, you're not so picky, you know. And there's some evidence there too. I don't even care about baiting people, it has nothing to do with other people. Like my spiritual life is very personal to me, and I don't feel the need to grandstand or anything like that. But the fact now is that God has gotten me through things that nothing ever could, and certainly my logic couldn't get me through. My intellect, my fucking rationale, it was so twisted. Nothing could get me through my illness except for the program. So people in the program going to meetings and developing those relationships and just going regularly to the same meetings, you become friends, you make friends. Like it's it's hard not to. And and then my spiritual relationship. And without that, Jesus, I there there was just no chance. I don't see how I could have recovered without AA. Maybe if I was like deeply embedded in some kind of church out on an island where alcohol didn't exist, I don't know. But thank God for where it is, you know. So where was I? I was in my 20s and the shit show was like in full swing, and it was disaster after disaster, you know, self-imposed crisis, one after another, for like two full years, two full years, disaster. Um, until I wasn't welcome at my parents' house anymore. And if you knew my family, that is saying something, you know. Um, that took a lot. And I went to rehab when I was 23, and that was my first like strong introduction, like where I got 30 days sober in a residential facility in Santa Cruz, California. And I kind of bought in. I was like, wow, okay, like I thought my life was over. I had been suicidal, intensely suicidal in my in my addiction, right? I mean, alcohol is like a horrible thing if you're deeply in alcoholism. Like the suicidal ideation for me came out like really strong. Um, so to get sober and have the solution in front of me, you know, and have all this support for staying sober, learning about alcoholism and addiction, I kind of felt like there was new hope. Like, wow, maybe my life's not over, maybe I'm not, maybe I could actually still have a life. And but I was naive, you know, and I see people now, you know, part of my job, I'm a psychotherapist now, if you can believe that. Um, it's just weird how things turn out. But um, you know, I'll meet with people who are alcoholics sometimes, and I I won't see them like if they think that therapy is going to cure their alcoholism, I'm very quick to let them know that's not gonna happen. And I won't even see them under that context. I would see them for therapy if they were deeply involved in a 12-step group as like an adjunct to their recovery, but I would never see them in lieu of their recovery, it would never work. Um, but I'm not even sure where I was going with that back in. So I had my my 30-day rehab, I was naive, right? I was super naive, and I see that in people who are new, just like circling the wagon, their life isn't working, they know they need to stop drinking or change their drinking, but they just have no idea like what it takes. And so they think if I just get like a gym membership and go to the go to the gym every day, or I'm gonna do like a self-improved, I'm gonna just like read the secret and start living by them like you're so fucked, like you don't even know it, you know. And they think, no, I can I'll like it can still do this, they're still hunting for the solution where they can keep drinking, but I see that they're the real thing, they really are an alcoholic, and so it doesn't even really matter what I tell them. I and I don't pull any punches, I tell them I think you're an alcoholic, and and I think you don't understand really what it takes, you know, like where you're at, and I so I think it's gonna have to get worse for you, um, which is sad, it doesn't have to. I tell them, you know, if you wanted to tap out, you could, and there's a solution right now. Um, but AA is not very attractive to people who are not hopeless, I think. I think once you're hopeless and you are like I you just don't who wants to go? Like, why would I want to go if I didn't absolutely need to go? And then when I do and it works, and I see that wow, there's like normal people here that were just like me. They were destroyed, they were destroyed because I've heard their story and they're back on their feet now, they're successful, they're they have healthy relationships and marriages and kids and job, they're like back, and they're like normal, and they were like me. Then that's a testimony that maybe this thing works, and then you feel all that camaraderie and belonging and solution and no more obsession of the mind. I actually have a defense, then you want to go to AA, then it becomes like you know, a good thing. All my best, closest friends are from Alcoholics Anonymous over the years, which I've been in for 20 years now. Um, even though my sobriety date currently is only two years, you know. I did have 10 at a certain point, I had about a decade at a certain point. Um, so and the solution never changed during that time. It I just drifted, and I could talk about that a little bit later. But um so I was really when I got out of that recovery center when I was 23, I was just naive about the what it would take to stay sober, that it really does need consistent attention, that it needs to be number one. It's not like a maybe, you know, kind of go once a week and think about it and do, you know, kind of maybe do your step work and maybe don't, but chase girls and you need to work and go get a job, stupid. So that was where I was at was I, you know, I could finally participate because I was sober, so I was more interested in girls and maybe making some money than I was in program, even though I did go a little bit. So there's just a shelf life to that. The euphoria kind of like ran out, the disease took over, and then it started with um like some doctor prescribed medications, and like how many people have that story, you know? Well, the doctor prescribed it, it's like the oldest, stupidest excuse in the world, you know. It's like, yes, but it's a narcotic, and I know it's a narcotic, and I have a very similar reaction to narcotics than I do to alcohol. And it's not long after I start using Xanax or Clonapin or Valium or Atavan or Norco or Oxycontin or who keeps who knows what narcotic hits me high that I start using alcohol, and that's what happened then. And as soon as I drink, I'm just off and running, and that was a bad day, it was a corona, I remember, and I was hanging out with some people that I met in rehab. Great, and they also were not taking it very seriously, and so before long I was drinking and I started smoking crystal meth, um, which has like this kind of upper middle class white kid from Northern California that you know cocaine was something I would never touch to sitting and like smoking crystal meth with these people in Santa Cruz and drinking, it was a really bad scene. And I was so I was on that for um about a year, and during that year I committed a lot of crimes, and I went to jail twice for commercial burglary. I was terrified, and it makes you angry and terrified and schizophrenic, and all. These things. So the addiction, and if I didn't have that, so I would be scared into putting that down. I'd put that down at last like a week or something, and then I would pick up alcohol. So I was bouncing back and forth between methamphetamine and alcohol. I finally um and and program was really nowhere to be found in there. And it's like the devil, I mean, you know, the devil, evil, whole, you know, the dark side of life, it really exists in those stimulants and in alcohol too, um, where it's just horrible. It's like a living, it's like a living hell. It really is. And this is why people, I think, say that they're like grateful alcoholics or grateful, you know, addicts. Is when when they've recovered and they're still alive, like they didn't commit suicide, like a lot of people do, who are in addiction. So they didn't commit suicide, and they got out of that state, they got out of that living hell where you are completely taken over by this compulsion and you feel horrible, you're hungover, you're in under the influence of these horrible substances, you're hanging out with horrible people, you hate yourself, you're crazy, you're doing things you never thought you would do around the addiction. My morals just were gone. They were not important. Like what was important was drinking and getting my drugs. So I would be a great person until something got in my way of my drugs and alcohol, and then I would do anything, didn't matter. And so good luck keeping your self-esteem intact when you're acting like that. And also, oh my god, so it's a hellish existence, like, and to be free of it, um my god. So it's like, okay, if I'm not gonna kill myself, which I didn't thank god, and I'm able to get out of that and just lead like a normal life, normal, quote unquote. People are like, that's boring. Not for me, it's not boring for me. Okay, like I've I've like used to wake up with you know, in jail, or I used to wake up wanting to blow my brains out, or I used to wake up and I'd have to run and go get hard alcohol, and it was a full-time job staying loaded, and all I did was disappoint people and hate myself. So a normal life for me where I like to sleep at night. I have two beautiful daughters asleep in the other room. I have a I have gamefully employed, I have a job that I love, I have a car and it's all registered and paid for and shit. That's normal, but for me, that's like a really, really big deal. And it's and I don't take it for granted. I it feels great. So I'm grateful in that sense that I've escaped that living hell. I think maybe I appreciate things more. I don't know. I'm I'm deeply satisfied with my life and I'm grateful for my life on a regular basis. And I say that in my prayers in the morning when I'm doing my step, you know, step work, prayer, contact with God, I'm grateful for it. But I think another reason people are grateful alcoholics is that they're much more than they were. I think the people that I meet that really have like depth of character have gone through heavy shit in their life. They've gone through trials and struggles, and it is and they so they're wiser. They know about pain and they know about shame and they know about some other things that people who haven't had to struggle, um, grief, you know, and and healing and the strength of the human spirit, and you have to go through the ringer and come out of it to have that kind of depth, and also to um I don't I think they see life in a different way, people who have struggled and people who've gone through brutal addictions, like myself and probably a lot of the people who are listening. I think um maybe they're grateful because they have more appreciation for life. They have more appreciation for the normal things in life, and they and it I think it stands to reason. I definitely, I definitely do. I'm not the same guy that I was before recovery. I'm not even, I'm not, I don't really identify with that guy. I am that guy, but I'm much, much more than I was because of everything that I went through. And I'm much bigger than I was spiritually, mentally. I'm just deeper, much deeper, and I'm much more capable of having um like real conversations and intimately connecting with people. And I'm not afraid to be vulnerable. I'm not, I don't shy away from talking about love or talking about pain. You know, I don't uh I don't have to look a certain way because my ego, I don't have, you know, I'm the spectrum of life is much more available to me now because of all the suffering, but then because of the recovery, because of all the vulnerability that people share in 12-step rooms all the time. You know, looking cool in AA is does not look cool. Looking cool in AA looks fucking lame and shallow. Like nobody wants to look, you know, vulnerability looks cool in AA when people share about their pain and how brutal it was and their connection with God and maybe the damage, you know, or their amends, right? Their amends. You want to like cut to the chase of AA. Look at look at the cleaning up of the wreckage. That is like that is something else, man. I had no idea the world would be as forgiving as it was. And and that was um a nice surprise because I ran from my amends forever. I just never wanted to face it. I didn't want to make it real. You know, if if I went back and apologized, that actually was like I was admitting guilt. That was an admission that I had done that thing that I never wanted to admit. But it's a vital part of you know, of getting clear again is is facing the past head on. This did happen, this is reality. I am responsible for the things that I did when I was loaded, period. Hey, I'm sorry that I fucked you over, but I was really drunk during that time. That's not an amend. That's that's like passing the buck onto my addiction. I I look him straight in the eye, so this is what I did. You know, I know how horrible that is, and I will never do that again. And is there anything else that I did that hurt you that I'm not mentioning? That's like a catch-all. But I don't blame the addiction. They know anyway, I'm sure, but I'm I'm taking full responsibility for what I did. Okay, well, most people are not used to somebody coming forward and owning their shit so hard. So they're like a little stunned. Most of the people I did amends with, they're like, okay, no worries, man. Or they like really appreciate it because it's so uh uncommon, I think. But God, the burden that gets lifted, and I'm fully prepared to them for them to tell me to fuck off. I'm fully prepared for them to say, yeah, if I never see you again, that's too soon. And that's fine. I would I would get it, be like, okay, so I'm prepared for that, but it almost never happened. You know, there was some amends that my sponsor told me not to make, to make in other ways, and but not to address the person directly because it would it would probably hurt them. So um, so but I was willing to do them. That was the big thing with the amends, is you have to pull off the band-aid and and don't try to control the outcome, don't listen to all the excuses not to do them. You know, just put your faith in your sponsor, put your faith in the program and do what it says. It's like, okay, I'm gonna just abandon and just do what the program says, do what my sponsor says, then that is a very healthy spot to be in. When I'm keeping things to myself, or when I'm picking and choosing, I'm taking the big book like piecemeal, I'm taking my sponsor's direction piecemeal. It's a very bad, very bad idea. I might last a while, or I might even stay sober, but probably not, and I'm not, I'm still getting my ego is still running the show. Everything in AA for me was like an ego crushing thing. Crus your ego, starve it. Starve the ego. Like it's not about you. Let it go. Like make your life about other people. Humble yourself. Nobody cares. Like, shut up. It's like be something about being small made me alive again, you know. Um so it's a bizarre paradox, but um, so I ended up, you know, I'm not sure where we're at here, but I ended up um in a bunch of weird places after Santa Cruz. I lived at a to try to escape the methamphetamine thing. I moved up to this yoga center where everybody, it was like an Ashtanga yoga center with a guru, a silent guru, and all kinds of weird shit going on. And I still couldn't stay sober. So I would drink alcohol with all these yogis. I mean, they didn't, or I would drink it privately and then go out and be drunk around them. And then if I didn't have the alcohol, I would be using meth and tweaking out around these like spiritual people. It was so weird. And finally they like kicked me out after like six or seven months, which I can't believe they let me stay there that long. And I left from there and I hitchhiked to this other community in Big Sur, California, and that's where I was able to not ever use meth again. So I when I left that yoga center and I went to this other community, Essel and Institute and Big Sur, I was able to not use the meth, but I had no solution. I didn't have a solution, I didn't have a God in my life, I didn't have a sober community, and so I was using other substances a lot more like LSD and ecstasy type of. I was just escaping. You know, it's gonna cross over. If I don't have a solution and I take one drug or or drink away, I will pick something else up, you know. If there's no drugs, I'll pick up sex. If I if if there's no women around, I'll pick up gambling about anything, you know. Let's bet if it's gonna rain today or not, you know, and I'll bet my life savings to make it interesting. Um just some kind of escape. So I didn't stay sober then. I met a woman who was moving to Santa Barbara, California. She wanted me to move with her, and I did. Um and then after about six or seven months in Santa Barbara, I overdosed on a prescription pill on accident, but and I landed in the hospital on like a 5150. And then when I came out, I moved into a sober living house. I got out of that relationship, which was very unhealthy, and I moved into a sober living house. And so I was able to work, I got a job at a health food store full-time, big deal, $12 an hour, like it, like winning at life. That was a big deal for me. Um, full benefits. I had this like benefit, and I didn't have a car but rode my bicycle to the job. But I lived in sober living, so I had accountability for meeting attendance. I had to have a sponsor. I um I would get drug tested or breathalyzed, so I had that accountability at that place. And um, that was where I like to start to get grounded. And Santa Barbara has a phenomenal sober community. I mean, there are so many meetings, and it is such a strong sobriety there. I went mostly to men's meetings, but I mean I went to four or five meetings a week for years. I mean, I was in sober living for almost two years. I just did, even after like a year where I was like felt so good, things were finally good. Um, I was scared to live on my own. I was scared to not have that accountability. So I stayed in sober living for a couple years, and then I moved out with a couple sober people, had a phenomenal sponsor. Everything was really about recovery, and it was very good. It wasn't like it wasn't like lacking. Like, your life's all about recovery, that sounds so lame. It wasn't. There was plenty, there was like so much shit to do, and tons of friends, and we lived by the beach and catch meetings, grab coffee, you know, go to the rock climbing gym, go do something else, work with a sponsee, you know, talk to her. It was just a very full life. And I went back to school because I had dropped out back before, and I was 26 at that time. So I dropped out back when I was like 21. Went back to school and Santa Barbara City College, and I got a drug and alcohol counseling credential that took like two years, and I got a job at the school as a drug and alcohol counselor and ran like their drug and alcohol awareness program. So I give speeches like telling my story and kind of educating people on um responsible drinking versus addiction, you know, all kinds of health-related stuff. It was a great job. So I did that, and I went to another university and got my my in town, and I got my bachelor's degree and stayed and got my master's degree in clinical psychology. And um, and all the while just working like working program, AA was number one, and everything else just fell into place. And I met this um woman in recovery who um I fell in love with, and she moved in, and that is when, and then um we decided to get married after like two years. We were together, we were together for a year, and then she moved in for a year, and then and then we decided to get married. And she worked a strong program, I worked a strong program, and the relationship was going well. And then um we got married, which was great, in Santa Barbara at the um at like the sunken gardens in Santa Barbara, if you guys know it, it's beautiful. And um it was funny because there was drinking at our wedding, but so many of the people there were sober that like we had just as many sober people as we had like family and friends that drank. It was it was a really fun party. But um, we got pregnant with our first daughter. Yeah, I can hear one of them moving around in the other room, but it's very early morning on a on a Sunday on Father's Day right now, just to put it in context. But um, but we so my program actually started to suffer a bit during that time. So when I had my first daughter, and I was newly married, and I we were looking to move into Northern California from Santa Barbara to be closer to my family. True of my brothers, my mom and dad, aunts and uncles all live up kind of and um outskirts of that. And money goes much further up there than it does in Santa Barbara, so property values and stuff. So we looked to move, and my program was not suffering a bit after the baby. We just, you know, it was I was very tired and working all and I was still working very long hours. We moved up here, and this is where I made a horrible mistake. So we moved, and um, when I got up here, I took a job for a major hospital, and I was doing drug and alcohol research for the hospital. I worked for their division of research, and I was at a rehab in this area, and it was it was just like I was so underutilized. It was like a grant-funded project, and so they there wasn't a bunch of urgency about how to use the money, and so I ran like two groups a week, and then it was like I didn't have anything to do, and so I was just kind of bored, and boredom is a horrible, horrible thing for somebody like me. Like I I had spent my whole sobriety being extremely busy, you know. I always sponsored people, I went to a lot of meetings, I worked long hours, which I but I loved it, you know. I worked out all the time, I always exercised, so I'm used to being very busy. So to put me off in this job where I made more money than I had ever made, um, my wife got pregnant again, so we had our second daughter on the way. I was in a new area. Um, so no one knew me. I mean, I was pretty well known in the meetings down in Santa Barbara because I went so much, you know, and so I had a lot of friends and a lot of social support. When I moved moved up here, nobody knew me. It was kind of weird. Move in, nobody's yeah, I don't know. I just did not have the belonging because it takes reps, right? If nobody knows you, you keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going. Duh. That's like how you meet people and how you make friends. But I had so much other shit going on that I lost sight, right? I'd be like, I've been sober like 10 years at that point. I thought there's I mean, come on, I'm not gonna get loaded now. But that's how it happens, right? Is you drift from the program, other things become more important. My relationship with my wife was not going well, you know, it was not going well. I think we were neglecting each other. We were much more stressed. I don't know. It we grew apart for sure, and um, and then I started taking a prescription pill, right? Under that guise of it being doctor prescribed. So dumb. I don't know how, with all the education and everything that I had and experienced, the it still took takes over. That's the thing. It's like if you get enough, if I get enough distance from the program, it doesn't matter what I know, I'll forget it. And I will make horrible decisions. And that's because I distanced myself. I distanced myself. I didn't go enough, I didn't have the message in my ear, I didn't have the accountability with an active sponsor, I wasn't involved, and so you just kind of forget, no big deal, and then take something like it's no big deal. It's nuts. Whereas in the program, what I did would have been a massive deal. I never would have done it, I would have shared about it and it and I would have been safe from it. But being outside of the program, I took it like it was no big deal, and then three years of drug use followed after that until June 6th of 2019. So two years ago. I just celebrated two years again, and that was a horror show, it was a torturous, you know, thing where I I transferred jobs. So I worked with for the same hospital but in a different pro different department. So what I did uh during this last run that was like three years, was I I worked for another department in the hospital, the psychiatry department. This is where it just gets fucking nuts. And I um I worked 60, 70 hour weeks, something like that, in an impossible situation. There was just never-ending clients. They they took on way more people than they could serve, was understaffed, and I had really incentive to stay out of my home, you know. Things between my wife and I were horrible at that time. You know, she knew something was wrong with me, and she really became like the police officer, and I was the bandit or the criminal or something, so I was avoiding her at all costs, and I was um ashamed of myself. I didn't want to be around my little kids and stuff while I was using these drugs, and I had the excuse in my mind that she didn't work. I needed to provide for the family, so the more I work, the better, which is just really faulty logic, but in a really simple, like addictive mind where I just kind of want to stay away from the house. Um, I had plenty of work to do and I had a private practice on the side. By then I was a licensed. Psychotherapist using drugs, working for a major hospital, and um and like diagnosing people and doing like psychiatric assessments all day long. Crazy. And so I got to a point where it was not working anymore. I was doctor shopping, I was ordering things off the black market online, I was putting myself in very risky situations. And so it was coming to a head where something horrible is gonna happen. And I talked to my friend and I said, dude, I'm like fucked, you know, and he knew some of the I said, when I stop, I get horribly depressed where I can't even do anything if I I but I can't keep going either. And and I was talking to him about LSD, that you know, I had read all this stuff on microdosing of LSD and that it could help with like depression and addiction recovery and all this, and so he got me like 50 hits of like really strong LSD, and microdosing of LSD is like one tenth of one dose every fourth day for like six weeks, so it's a very, very small dose, and just like an alcoholic within no time, I had used all 50 of those hits in one month, so I took like almost two hits a day for the month of March in 2019. Okay, so I guess my alcoholism can transfer even over into hallucinogens. I don't know. But I came out of that situation, I mean, just with no, I mean, I had to take a break from work. I mean, my family either thought I they knew I had been using some things, but they're like, maybe he's like bipolar, he's mentally ill, something's wrong with him. So March, April, May, June. So I had three months there where I was going to meetings every day. I went, I went to meetings all the time, but I was still loaded and I was not getting any real sobriety. And then June 6th was my day that I completely stopped. So I had completely stopped that day. And there was a meeting um kind of close to my house at the time there. I and I said, I just need to live here. So I went every morning at 6 a.m. And then I would go to other meetings like during the day sometimes. So I hit a ton, a ton, a ton of meetings, and I was just an anxious mess and dealing with all this like shame and guilt from losing that time that I had. So I had all that time and I was such a sober guy, and then falling off, I had all this shame about how dumb I had been and all this stuff. But some people relapse, man, you know, and it's like my ego was keeping me from going back. My ego was keeping me from the solution. So I can't go back because that's so that's just the ego shit. So I just had to humble myself and go back. And I met a good sponsor who took all this time with me. I mean, he he took a ton of time with me, and we became really good friends. Great guy. Um, and I did my step work again, and I did it very, very, very thoroughly. And and this time around, I would say my higher power had become more of a priority because my you know, when I went when I got sober when I was 26, it was um it was suggested and it was something I always kind of worked on, but it wasn't like this time. Like this time, it was you know, praying and talking to God and developing a spiritual relationship was like begging for my life. That's what it was. I mean, I something horrible was gonna happen, and I don't know if it was gonna be suicide or if it was gonna be I run off and just abandon my life, or if it was some, you know, I don't know, but it was like impending doom in every fiber of my body. So God this time around was was really me praying with desperation, and it was my one solace, like in in madness. It was my one solace was God, and it stayed that way over the last two years, is that that's one thing that I always do. I talk to God, I pray. You know, I'm grateful for not having the obsession of mind anymore. I go to meetings regularly. Um after I gotten sober, um, my wife, my wife at the time stopped doing program when we moved up here. Like when we moved from Santa Barbara, we both stopped doing program. When I went back to program this time in June of 2019, she still didn't, she didn't go to program. I started doing psychotherapy every week, and I've done that for two years in addition to my program, not instead of it. Um, and we just really grew apart. You know, she and I grew apart and we broke up, and I left the marriage in um this year in February. My wife and I um just we really grew apart and we it was like the I don't know, we just really grew apart. It was like me doing program and my thing kind of made the relationship not really work anymore. We were in like a a very codependent sick thing there for several years, and and um me getting sober and kind of being autonomous, you know, being more autonomous. Um it it and she's a great lady, and I actually love her a lot still, but as partners in the same house, we were not good together. So we broke up, but what has been a blessing is that is that she is so focused on our kids, and I am so focused on our kids, like we both have a number one priority, and so nobody gets thrown under the bus. The kids are number one for both of us, and so it's been um it's been a very difficult transition for both of us, but it's been a healthy transition, and I can say that with total confidence. And the thing with me is I've had so much support through this situation, and I've had so I mean, I just have so much scaffolding in my life now with with my sober guys. You know, I have my sober guys from Santa Barbara, I have my sober guys from up here, I have you know, a host of people that were there for to me for me to bounce things off of because going through something so intense is like a divorce, it's hard to trust what you're thinking. And a lot of times my thinking was not great. And so I have these people that I could talk to, and they always gave me good advice, you know. Sometimes they would just listen, but they could I could always count on them to give me good, like high road advice instead of going like low road and being mad or resentful or jealous or anything like that. They always pointed me in the right direction. So so anyhow, I'm grateful to be sober. That's kind of my um talk. I didn't go so much into the steps, but I've done all the steps, and um obviously that's essential. Meeting attendance and program points me towards God and relieves that obsession to to do this the horrible worst thing I could ever do would be to take a drink. And I know that. And now I'm not scared to drink, and I'm not, I don't crave it. I have like I just know that I would never I I can never do that. But I also know if I stopped being involved, I would forget that again, which is nuts. So I stay involved. That's all I have for today. It's an hour.

SPEAKER_01 52:01

That was fabulous. Thank you. Thank you, Ben, Benjamin.

SPEAKER_00 52:05

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 52:06

I I appreciate the way you were able to go through your whole share, but as you were doing that, you were constantly bringing the program and the rewards of the program in from the beginning of of speaking. And uh sometimes we have to listen to how bad it was before we can get to how great it got. And you did a really great job of of staying positive. It does not surprise me that you're a psychotherapist now after listening to your story. Your wisdom came through and your training as well. When you were talking about the are the girl are the kids okay? Do we have time for a couple questions? Okay. Uh when you were talking about the well, a couple things I related to your the you were talked about the the madness and the darkness that was and how your only solace was was God. And you you know you also mentioned that your your belief is private, that you're you know, you're yeah. So what do you do today to maintain your connection with your higher power? You mentioned praying. Is there is there anything else that you can share with the listeners on how you maintain your unique relationship with your higher power?

SPEAKER_00 53:38

Well, so prayer is essential for me, and it's the first thing that I do in the morning, not as like uh you should go to pray because that's like your 11th step or whatever. It's not like that. I pray because it works immediately. I pray because I you know, I have a thing where I wake up and I put coffee on and then I sit and I do my prayers on my knees because it feels really good. I do it because it works right away. And I say my serenity prayer, my my third-step prayer, my um um um Lord's prayer, and then I'm trying to learn the 11-step prayer, the St. Francis Prayer, which is really long. So, and then I'll say anything else that I'm grateful for, or any direction that I need, or pray for anyone else that I'm thinking about, and I'll just take that time first thing in the morning with God, and it gets me going on that track. So I do that. Um, but also not being ashamed to talk about it in my day is a big deal. So if it is private, I don't push it on anyone, but if I'm talking with program people and I know that they believe in God and they talk about God, you know, I talk about it with them. And that like strengthens my conviction. It feels like a spiritual experience, you know. If one of my guy friends is saying, and most of my friends in AA are guys, just because I've gone to mostly men's meetings like my whole life. But um when I talk to them and I'm like, well, where's your prayer and all that? And I love it when people talk to me about it. Like, how's your how's your faith in God right now? I'll be like, oh, cut, cutting to the chase. You know, and so I surround myself with people who not everybody, like not all my friends. I have friends that believe in all kinds of different things and that are atheists and stuff. But when I am talking with somebody and the conversation goes that way, I bring it up, I pray every day, I live with integrity, and if I don't, I'm out of my spiritual connection. If I don't keep my word, I won't feel connected to God. My conscience will it will be on my conscience because I'm sober now. And if I lie on purpose, say that say something that's false, I will be blocked. That is not okay. If I ignore people, I cannot be a bad person now, or I'll be blocked from my spiritual life.

SPEAKER_01 56:25

For more information, read the first 164 pages of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, or visit keepcoming back.net