RedneckRoo

Part TWO Journey to Peace RedneckRoo

After my stints with many different officials in many areas and my expert drunken approval of how they did their job it was time for the light to awaken me from my stupor. The light of that day where you wake up and say WHY?

Well my day of awakening to change my ways was when I realized I was being judgmental and blaming everyone or everything around me for where I WAS at. And to blame and point made sense to me but I figured I was doing something wrong when I was where I was and those others I pointed at at least were not in a cold cell asking Boss can I get a blanket and a pencil? They were the same people not facing charges to send them away from society for more than 2 years. They were not the ones pronounced dead 3 times, in a cardboard box making a passive aggressive joke about living in a 6 million dollar home which was a bridge. I was. That turning of events and wakening to seeing the clarity for a brief yet changing moment was on a date like no other and so brief I do not even recall but that moment is where I decided to see if I could find that angel from the hospital and get her name to thank her and change my life. I decided to go to an AA meeting that night and I went.
The normal meeting which was the first one the nurse took me to was a discussion group except one day a month. Low and behold I picked the night which was a speaker meeting, the one day of the month they choose to do speaker other than a discussion. I was blessed. I did not have to speak, I would not be noticed, it was open so I could deny being there as an alkie i could say I am here for the open policy for support of the speaker. I did sit in the back and listened, I dont know how much I heard as I shook so bad I couldnt hold a cup of coffee until this old guy came over and told me...."Son, I know why your here, i understand, I used to come here too when they brought the coffee for free but the trick is dont fill the cup and no one will notice your shaking, fill it half full and stick around til the end when everyone leaves and only some of the older ones are around we bring in the cake and sandwiches". The cake and sandwiches made sense to me and I was willing to take a risk. He sat beside me and said just pretend to listen. As I listened the speaker told a story about him being a preacher and that was almost the end for me right there. The guy grabbed me told me sit down and just listen and dont pay no mind to what or how he did things but see if there was ANY part of the story that I could see as how I was even if the smallest part not about if i done same things as the preacher as i did not look like a preacher to him. This made sense to me. I stayed for the whole speech. The story. The experiences. I then woke up to find my view was a little off. The view how I pointed was having 3 fingers pointing back at me, the view that the blame of others also I had to own part of it as I was there or it wouldnt include me, the living arrangement of the box under the bridge was mine as I packed it with the anger and resentments when I left at a young age and kept hauling it. The simple truth was...I put myself there through sheer will power and pride and a small degree of help from my addiction. The addiction is not the crutch but rather the excuse I was using to justify all the other things I was not wanting or choosing to own up to or do.
This meeting ended and it did keep em sober THAT DAY. It did not keep me sober the next day as I CHOOSE to be resentful about so much truth from one preacher which had similar stuff he had done drinking as i did like black out and forget, guilt, shame, headaches , harming another, and blaming.
That preacher was Father Mike, he had 35 yrs in the program at the time and I would come to meet him in many years later before his passing when I kept coming back. As this was a 1-2-3 dance for me coming into the rooms and leaving I could handle step one and two and had no issues there I knew those just not as soon as everyone around me knew them, I had to lose all those people before I learned. The step 3 is where I would leave and say it was a cult for bible thumpers who hid the wording in code so they would not say the bible but i knew better. I had to try many times from 1999-2004. I think I tried about 20 times or more as I lost count of the one day chips and the the couple 30 days.

It was March 15th, 2004. I had moved to the USA from Canada in 2002 to marry a woman cause i met her in an AA chat room online and we talked for 4 months and I was wise enough to know I was going to get a fresh start at life in a new country with a new family and my new found peace of 60 days soberity as of august 2002. Well lets say I was wrong. I managed to bring my disease across the border with me.

March 15th, 2004 was my ex-wifes brothers birthday and we had started drinking the 14th and went bar hopping, and driving to the big city through the mountain roads of Tennessee. The night of the 15th, we went to a bar to this day I do not recall which one but we were high class when every table had table cloths and wine glasses and we were the only ones in there in less than a 3 piece suit and they spelled country club with a C not Kountry Klub like i knew since moving south. These table cloths lasted about an hour til they cut us off for being obnoxious. I decided I would tell them since they were all staring at us I would give them a show as we were the entertainment and I was the magician. I would make the table cloths disappear and I did...I pulled a bunch before they tackled me into all the broken glass shards from the tables. We did a quick exit left, into the car we went and rolling some other substances into combustibles to calm our nerves for the ride home. We drove off using no headlights so the cops did not see us into the mountain rodes and needless to say it would scare me today sober to drive those same roads without lights but drunk and without lights is true insanity. After a short drive we got almost home and her brother stopped and said we needed to use the restroom and grab some pints from the trunk. I did not know but he had intentions of waking me up for being a drunk that night for his sister. It did not happen as he planned and I drove home. He came into the house after we returned about an hour later from the back seat and told his sister my ex, that he would never return as long as I was there. I had managed to destroy her closest relationship by sheer coincidence, I dont know what I did but do know he was never back while we were together for the next 3 years. I had managed to frighten him and he told her she needed to getaway from me fast and i needed to quit drinking.

She gave me that speech of you have to quit drinking or me and the kids are gone. The dreaded speech I knew would come. Thats when my intellectual mind kicked in and said I cant do it now as it is the 15th and thats the ides of march and insisted she read Juluis Caesar so she knew it was a true omen to do major changes like that. I wanted the stopping too so i told her.....but she had to be smart enough to know not the 15th, as it was an omen and i had a headache and there was still 12 beers in the fridge. I would quit when the beer was gone as I was only going to drink those to kill the headache not to get drunk, and I would quit on the 16th. She agreed through lots of pleading. Well yes I was so damn smart I forgot that March 17th is a special day for all you friggin Irish men out there....Yes I was bitter but i held true to my word and quit drinking March 16th 2004. I held a resentment for 6 months about the irishmen getting st patties day, green beer, the ex wife making me quit on the 16th and not the 19th cos the 18th I would need for recovery drinking day. I was real vocal about it at everyone of my meetings. After relocating, from Canada in 2002 to Minnesota, to Tennessee in 2004, 2005 South Carolina, 2006 back to North Dakota. I was told moving is not good for children, a wife, and stability is something they desired and it had nothing to do with she had desired the man she met in the same chatroom we met in 5 yrs prior to and he lived a half hour from where we moved to in 2006 in North Dakota. Needless to say, we divorced in 2006 and south I went. She may have taken half the possessions, the kids, the one vehicle but i kept my dog, my bed, my computer and my soberiety. She couldnt take my soberity as i had almost 2 years by then...sometimes good...sometimes bad but broke, without a home or job or stabilty I moved south as I was sober and there was warm sunny beaches and lots of meetings for me. I was southbound yet again out of the snow.
I went back to Tennessee and started a job. I got an old house to rent and easy to go to work from. I got a few meager material items to support my self. I had stayed sober through all this through friends in the program, sober chat lines, sober forums, telephone calls everywhere and anywhere from my book I kept from day one the old guy gave me at that meeting where I shook so bad. It had his number, his sponsors , Father Mikes, and about 10 other numbers in there all wrote god bless or no worries bud i tip my timmies (coffee) to ya and their number with their soberity date ad broke down to years to that date they gave to me so I could not misunderstand they all had more than 10 years a couple over 20 and a couple over 30 and one who had 43 years who I never did get the pleasure to meet besides a tape recording version of his story later on. I was now proud, I was gaining myself a place in life. I had a home not fancy not even a nice one but it was mine and not a bridge, I had a bed which i had not had of my own in a longtime, and I even had food in the fridge which was unheard of for me. I had BILLS. I had responsibility. I was ACCOUNTABLE for my actions. I was on cloud nine and loving it and yet in most peoples eyes I was the guy who had nothing and always asked if i needed something during those holiday drives. It was time when holiday drives meant they would drop off to me not collect from me. This was where I could not handle it, pride reared again and I gave to people I knew who were still on a path of misery but not seeing what I seen. I shared what I had, what I was given freely, I gave back. That was worth more to me than anything words can describe as I am filling with tears as i type this part just thinking of it.
Days went on, work continued, and I paced myself forward through many moves again to different cultures, areas, states, and jobs. All for better reasons now though. I had come along from that day to a point where I was moved into a nice home and started a business which I kept on and people trusted me. They trusted me enough to invest in my company and my visions. They invested more than 700,000 USD. I built a company where I then bought out a public traded company in Canada. I was now in the high seat of being a President/CEO of a publicly traded company on the Canadian stock market. This was my life dream, where my ego and pride thought I should have been when I lived under the bridge because I am so special, so intelligent, so smart, and most of all....the world owed me. Damn. I woke up fast. I realized how delusional I was for chasing and ignoring people who advised me not to do it. I learned that the dream I chased was not what I was wanting. It was not power, prestige, and ego pride I wanted to have all that time. I was lonely and ungrateful, unsatisfied, and totally beyond any point of happiness there. I was seeking the attention of having those materialistic possessions and the desire of being loved because i had the material items. The feelings of being wanted, loved, and envied by those who had less and done me wrong all those years simply didnt fill my heart.
After a while in my own demise and unhappiness. I came to realize from many meetings, many talks, many arguments with my sponsors and I say plural as I FIRED MANY...one even had the guts to fire me. I found online of all places, but since i was working to kill the hours away from my addiction and working the 18 hour days 7 days a week living inside the factory so I did not return to a home and miss what I could do at work. I found a wonderful lady who filled my dreams, my heart, my desires, and everything a man could want. The lady was in the USA. She was everything I had been looking for and not found. I talked to her for about 6 months online, and many hours each day at work on the phone. It got so bad where I delegated every task I had at work to another until all I had was time for was her and friends we both knew online. I asked her to move in with me, yes to move to Canada and into an office inside the Factory that the employees had no idea I turned my office into a home. They thought i just worked late and then stayed at motel next door and showed up before they arrived so I let them believe that. I explained I had few possessions, I had little money as it was invested in the company, I had only an air mattress and an office space to share with her. She took the offer to my surprise. She said those famous words I will never forget " I would live in a tent with you if thats all we would afford and had" and those brought back those memories. It brought me to held back tears so she had no clue how much that meant. I immediately arranged a business trip and drove from Quebec to Ohio to pick her up never meeting her in person beforehand only conversations and the pictures she had sent me of her from shoulder up. It was the inside of that woman who I fell in love with and felt that same feeling back as she spoke to me. That was in 2013.
We stayed in that office and air mattress for one year. A prestigious job, public stock market, more than 5.3 million net worth and I am sleeping with the love of my life on an air mattress in a factory. The irony of it all. I was happy doing it, but more importantly so was she. At the end of 2014, we decided to take that company to the private sector and get off the public trading sector. We did just that. Now with being on the private market, and myself owning more than 73% of the company I had the majority control of the company. I did not need to have shareholder approvals. I then used my control and closed the company. We sold the assets and then took what we had for personal assets and the intellectual property of the company with us to USA. We still hold the public shell, the trademarks and brand names to a national product if we choose to open again and the knowledge we learned. By moving to the USA January 1, 2014 we bought a foreclosed single wide mobile home, run down and needing work but it was ours. we are still together and happily enjoying building up a small business together. We spend our days together and have a much more relaxed comfortable home, have the time for one another to sit and talk, watch movies, and go fishing just like old people do, even though I am 46 yrs old now, I have been pursuing the life where it is not working for the money to compete against who has what, but rather work for enough to be able to do things with the ones I love and treasure without suffering keeping up our responsibilities. This is Life. This is a beginning of the promises coming true whether sooner or later, a true blessing from someone greater than me whom I keep to myself for not offending or chasing those off who are god fearing.

This is my journey to Peace Serenity and tranquility. I have the bumps and bruises from the path I chose but also the blessings and contentment within to show it was path worth taking. The journey has not ended and I look forward to seeing the rest of my travels throughout these years and God willing I am hoping they are sober one day at a time. There will always be those days where I recall or desire the drink but it is my chose and learning experience from the rooms, the members, and friends and family that I see that choices and opinions are simply thoughts and not actions or regrets we have to take on. Those thoughts leave as quick as they come and for those new who think that isnt real....try thinking about having a nice ice cold frosted mug...as you do that...close your eyes and think for 15 seconds about sex with someone you love...sorry you lose...that thought is gone and happens everytime if that offends some than pray for me instead of holding the resentment as it works for me and has for many days when i struggled and if it works than dont change what works as it may not be for all.

Soberity Date of March 16th 2004 10yrs plus and still counting.....

May you all have a sober 24 and hope for many more for you....

Thank you for allowing me to share my experience strength and hope with you all and your patience. Coffee and Donuts are at the back table on the left, please pick up any ashtrays or coffee cups and garbage dispose of it as you would. We are a self supporting group so give as you can and for those who cant feel free to help yourself to a free coffee and some good times talking to others. Remember Service is the key and the door is never locked if you carry a key with you.