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Source: DICOBE-00102 – Bob B – 34TH CENTRAL NEW YORK AREA CONF – 1985-05-12.mp3 File: dicobe-00102-bob-b-34th-central-new-york-area-conf-1985-05-12.mp3 Duration: 01:05:25
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I'd like to open up the spiritual speaker's meeting. I'd like to open it with a moment of silence, followed by a serenity prayer. Amen. God, grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. AA Anonymous. I just love to see people like that last panel, and in a way I kind of call that, you know, part of my rewards is to see Jody and Mike there get married and make it good in AA. I got to see two weddings last year, people in AA that got married that are still doing good, and to me that's part of my rewards, to see this, and maybe in a little way be part of it.
I think a lot of the moderators that spoke that had this last panel, there's something that I want to mention that I feel might help some of you too. There was a meeting, it was called Double Trouble Group in the Valley, it was held upstairs in a union hall. You could get there from the front stairway or you could go up the back fire escape. This one day I went up the fire escape and went in this room and there was one woman there, it was our moderator's mother for the last panel there, and she said, gee, it's a beautiful day out. Now it was a miserable, nasty, rainy day out, and yet she said it's a beautiful day out. I've heard people say when it's raining, oh, it's a miserable day. When it gets hot, oh, it's so hot. I get a picture flashback of her saying, gee, it's a beautiful day, and you know that's how my day goes along better, by having that picture there in my mind. That's what's the spiritual part of this program, and I'll always be grateful for that. I hope John won't mind me telling about that. I'll always remember it.
I come to a convention and right off the bat the woman that I picked up at the airport told me she was from London, originally. I think back over in London, I said I don't need God. I come here and I hear a woman from Philadelphia, Jane I think it is, was from work there one time, mentioned Philadelphia, and I think of, I heard of a Navy officer drowning in Philly, and then I go back, what did I say over in London? Don't need God?
Over in London during World War II, at night you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, and this one night I thought I was going up the gangplank to the ship, and I walked right off between the dock and the ship. Now something wanted me to live, and I think of what this woman said, this Navy officer drowning in Philly, Philly was lit up real good. Something wanted me to live. Come together at a convention like this and to see these people remind me of the things that happened and that I do need the higher power all the time. I don't call on them enough, but it sure helped me in one way to hear John last night. I've heard his story in 82, I saw him in Toronto, and from his child life that I heard him tell about, I could relate where my resentment and hate started, the things that happened to me, and I carried them until I come into AA, and to hear about resentment and hate has helped me to let go of a lot of it. Not 100 percent, but because every time I go up through rebel territory, those things are still there to remind me, but it's helped me to let go of a lot of it. You know I thought I hated myself too, but from this program
[00:05:09]
it's helped me to, as John mentioned, love. I like that when I hear about love. I heard it at my first banquet. A man said that he went to work and his boss said he had his work all done, but the boss said, good, I want you to take your briefcase home and dump them out on the living room floor and see if you got your work all done, and one of them was love. You know I went something like 18 years, I went 120 miles from here, I went down to Scranton and heard another link to that. A man clowned through his drinking story and when he got to the good part, he rattled it off, good, giving his love, love is giving, love is God, and I like that. Through the AA program, it's helped me to love myself first. I've got to love myself and then to share it with others.
Now I'm going to get to the part I'm supposed to do, introduce our speaker. I met this fellow in Binghamton some years ago and I'd been up to the meeting that he was telling me he still makes the coffee there and I think that's great, I think that's great. I used to pick on him a little bit and tell him, well, the night that I pulled one trick and it's the wrong way of picking on him. I'm a rebel, I'm always doing what I shouldn't do. One night I went into the heart of Syracuse and I parked and I went out and drank and when I got ready to go home, I drove right out to the main street, right down through, never stopped for a red light. I got away with it and I'd pick on him about it. But I heard him in 83 on a panel and you know, I don't use these things the way I should. Back in August, I went to a general service meeting in Cicero and coming back, I heard Bob tell about, listen to thy voice. I heard a voice say, take this cut off and work your way over to Salina Street, down through Salina Street and get back up on 81 and I didn't pay any attention to it. And I took that deep tour and it was raining and I come up on these cars a little too fast and I stepped on the brake and I went in the skid and I hit a sign.
And they put a good dent in the fenders and I've been up through there since and I thought they would put a new pole in because boy, I really done a number on that. But all they did was bend it back up. I think they left that there, you know, just to remind me that I hit it. But I think a lot of this fellow, I know he has a good message and it's a privilege to me to introduce John B. from Syracuse.
Well as we were talking and people were talking this morning here, I got the idea that when we're talking about spirituality, we're talking about being joyful or feeling good. And you can think that even if it's raining outside, that it's a great day and we're all part of creation and all those sort of things. So I thought in order to get you in a spiritual mood this morning, I might tell you a spiritual story. It seems that a permanent deacon and a Catholic priest died at the same time and they were up in the Pearly Gates and St. Peter was there and he looked at them and he says, you fellows seem to be pretty good fellows.
He says, I wonder if you'd do me a favor. And I said, sure, what do you want? He said, well we just had an earthquake in Japan and it's an awful disaster and we're going to be very, very busy up here. So I would ask you to go back to earth for a couple of weeks and I'll then send an angel to you and tell you when it's time to come back. And I said, sure, we'd be glad to. And he says, you really don't have to go back as a deacon and a priest if you don't want to. Is there anything else you'd like to be? And the permanent deacon says, sure. He says, I've always wanted to be a free spirit. I've always wanted to be like an eagle so that I could fly any place that I wanted to fly and that I could feel great and soar through the air and all. St. Peter says, you're an eagle. Go ahead. And he says, I'll send an angel after you to tell you when it's time to come back. Turns around to the priest and the priest turns all around and sees there's nobody around.
He says, St. Peter, I've been celibate all my life. For those that don't know what that
[00:10:04]
is, he's been with a woman because of his priesthood involved. And he says, I would like to go back to earth as a stud. And St. Peter says, you're a stud. Go ahead. He says, I'll send the angel to you and tell you when it's time to come back. So they got all of the mess cleared up from the earthquake and things had died down. So St. Peter got a hold of an angel and he said, it's time for that deacon and that priest to come back up here.
He says, I want you to go out and find him. He says, now you're not going to have any problem with the deacon whatsoever. He's a big eagle and he's flying right now over to Grand Canyon. Go down and tell him it's time to come back. He says, the priest you might have a little trouble with. He's a piece of metal about that big and a firestone tire and a car in the state of Mississippi. You know, I've heard since I've been in AA that the first thought that we have is an alcoholic thought. And it's something like what Charlie was talking about here. I think this is my third time down here for a convention in Elmira and of course the first time I was down here I got introduced to Mount Savior, a monastery close to here. And so through the years I've come down many times on a Sunday morning to attend the services there with my wife and with some other people that I've introduced Mount Savior to in AA. And so I know how to get here. I go from Syracuse to Cortland and I take 13 out of Cortland and 17 into here. Well, I get a letter from Charlie and it says take 13 down to 17 and then that will take you right in and he showed me how to get to the hotel here. So the first thought that comes to my mind is 13. Where's 13? Well, in my ministry for the Diocese of Syracuse I go to Camp Brasilia and Camp Georgetown and talk to the prisoners there through AA and so I know how to, that 13 is out around the Ryder someplace. So I go out through Fayetteville and Manlius and Cazenovia and the Ryder and I get on 13 and I'm coming and I said, gee, this probably is a shorter way and I come down 13 and finally I get to Cortland. Now I've done about 60 miles, I guess, coming to Cortland and I see a sign there that says Syracuse 28 miles. I said, what am I doing here? So then it was a beautiful ride through the countryside and the green and the cows and all of the different things and it was just like I had God sitting in the front seat with me taking him for a ride. That's the way I felt all the way. About 20 miles out of here something starts going wrong with the car. Now I was glad God was in the front seat because I'm in my conscious contact with God. Please, God, don't let this car stop. Start going up the hill and it would start to lose power. I just about make it to the top of the hill and pull over to the side, put the thing in park and wonder what I'm going to do but the car keeps running. So I finally slip it down into gear and I go again and I go maybe five or six miles or so and the same thing is happening all the way down here. So it must have taken me about an hour to get here. One of the times I stopped the sheriff pulled right up behind me and when he found out that I was a police officer from the city of Syracuse and he started to help me a little bit and tell me what to do. So finally I got here and I hope that it's going to run on the way home or God's going to keep it running. But I wondered why did this happen? This had to happen for a reason and it was last night when I was hearing John talk that I realized that why it happened was that this is what I'm going to talk about this morning is spirituality and spirituality is a journey and it's not always a nice point to point journey. A lot of things happen.
Getting to where most of us are in this room today. Getting to the point of wanting a spiritual life and working at a spiritual life which simply means loving people. Being able to give of yourself to other people without expecting anything back for it. That's what love really is. We have different things that we talk about when we talk about love but that's the real love. When I'm willing to give of myself to somebody else without expecting anything back in return and that wasn't my life. My life has always been full of shortcomings and defects of character, selfishness, jealousy.
Acts of Character, Selfishness, Jealousy, Cheating, Stealing, Everything, Even Though I Was Supposed to be a Pillar of Society, a Syracuse Police Officer for 33 Years.
[00:15:09]
So, uh, Spirituality is a Journey. It's a Trip. And it's actually a Hive, a Tank. When we're really feeling good spiritually, we know that it's there. Now, what is this thing spiritual? Where do we get it from? Now, I happen to be a Roman Catholic, so in order to show you that I'm not evangelizing, I've got here the Jewish Old Testament and the Protestant Bible. And I just want to read a few lines out of it here.
It says here, In the beginning God created heaven and earth. Now the earth was unformed and void, the darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters, or over the universe. Spirit. Then God said, God's words, let there be light. And there was light. Now, what is God's Word? According to the Protestant Bible here at the beginning of John, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, or through the Word.
Later on he says, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Like we see the Word turn into flesh at our AA meetings. If I'm practicing the third step for me, making a decision to turn my life and will over to the care of God, I do that by making a decision to go to a meeting. Because at this meeting, God will put words into people's mouths there at that meeting that will help me get to my next meeting without a drink. As long as I'm willing to listen to him. And that's how simple that third step is for me.
Now for years I tried to turn my life over to him. What does that mean? I tried to turn my will over to him. I found out by finding something out about God that for no reason whatsoever can I make him take back my free will. He gave me a free will, and I have to do with what I will do with it. He will not take it back. But there are words in there like care of God and so on. So everyone thinks differently about that step. But that's the way I understand the step. That if I go to a meeting, I'm turning my life and my will over to God's Word that comes to me through the people who are willing to talk at that meeting.
And then he says, let us make man in our image. Let us. You know the word that's used here is Elohim, which is the plural for God. This is in the Jewish scriptures. El was the word for God. They call it Elohim. So it's like God incorporated, the family of God, or something of that sort. Three things, mental, physical, and spiritual. Because when the word came down, it was physical. Now, what are we told when we come into these meetings? That we have a three-fold disease. A mental, physical, and a spiritual disease. So if God is some sort of a trinity, then I feel that we're some sort of a trinity.
To the likeness of God, God is good and God loves. I can be good and I can love. The image of God, mental, spiritual, and physical. That's if I'm looking in a mirror, I'm looking at God, I'm looking at myself. And I'm capable of doing a lot of the things that he does for people, only I'm doing them in his Word. And that's where I feel spirituality ends up. And spirituality ends up, as far as I'm concerned, on the day that they throw dirt in our face, we no longer can get drunk. So it's one day at a time. And that, to me, is the state of sobriety. And the beginning of our spiritual life, which we know nothing about yet, that we can only guess and we can only hope.
Now, being a journey, I have to look at my own life to see how I got to where I am today. I was born in an alcoholic family. My father was a police officer in the city of Syracuse. He also drank alcoholically until I was about 16 years old. I didn't know this and he didn't know that. Because of his alcohol, I was never able to satisfy my father. He must have loved me. He gave me a home, he gave me clothes, he gave me food, he saw I went to Catholic school, I was baptized, and all these different things. All material things, except a few spiritual, but nothing of himself.
[00:20:15]
There was no fishing, there was no sports, there was no communication. All of those things were missing because he wanted to be at his corner bar playing cards and drinking with his friends in all his spare time. I tried to do all different kinds of things to make my father notice me or be a companion to me. And as a result, what I started to do was to break down these Ten Commandments that I was given in school. And I was told in school, if I didn't pay attention to these Ten Commandments, the terrible things were going to happen to me because this is a punishing God we get.
And so I grew up with that idea. And the things that were happening bad to me in my childhood and my adult life, they were necessary because I wasn't right. I wasn't doing the things that I was supposed to do. So therefore, that's why these things were happening to me. Because of the alcohol, I promised my mother that I would never drink as long as I lived. Never would I drink. I hated alcohol. I hated what it did to us.
I was thinking the other night about a time when my mother and I stood in our house like a couple of crazy fools, clapping and cheering. It was some sort of a holiday. I can't remember what it was. But my father and my uncle, who lived with us, ran out of booze. So my father says, I know somebody who's got some hard cider. So they took off to get this hard cider. And my mother and I were cringing, afraid what was going to happen. They were already so far gone that they didn't know what they were doing whatsoever. And here they were going after more.
And my father was constantly yelling at me to get a job and to do this and do that. And I was only a young boy at the time. And so they pulled into the backyard in the car. I could see that they were having some sort of an argument over the gallon of cider that they had. And my uncle, being younger, won out. He got a hold of the jug and he got out of the car. And as he started to walk around the car, he hit the bumper of another car with the bottom of the jug and the jug burst open and all the cider went down on the ground.
And I can remember my mother and I standing inside of the house looking out the window, clapping and cheering and having a hell of a time. So, I mean, it was things like that as you're growing up. They grow up with a lot of what we call inhibitions later on in life, but actually what they are is defects of character and shortcomings. I looked at other kids and I saw that they were going fishing with their father, going to ball games or this and that, or their father was coming to watch them in athletic events.
And all of these things weren't happening in my life. And so as a result, I'm growing up with an inferiority complex, which made me extra bashful and shy. I was afraid of authority and I was afraid of people. I spent an awful lot of time in my own room with books, mostly detective and cowboy books. But once in a while, I would be able to get a hold of the E.W. Edwards catalog or the Sears and Robux catalog and turn to the pages where the girls were wearing the slips and the brassiere and masturbate in my bedroom.
I became a pervert. I was doing all these things all the time. That was a dirty book in my age. Some of these younger fellas, they don't know what it is. They got the thing all laid out to them today in these books and magazines. We had to search for it. So I spent an awful lot of time in my room. I was afraid to go out. I was afraid of the dark. My mother would send me to the store and I lived near the Polish section in town.
Some of the Polish kids were pretty tough kids, so I knew where they all lived. So I walked all the way around the block so that I wouldn't come in contact with them to go to the store. I'd go miles out of my way sometimes to do things, like I did yesterday, come down here. I was afraid. I was really a coward. Everything was wrong with me. I didn't know anything about girls other than what I saw in those magazines.
I suddenly was president of the junior class by one vote. That meant that I had to go to the junior prom and that meant that I had to ask a girl to go. I was afraid to ask a girl to go because I was afraid of rejection. I'm sure she was going to say no like John got rejected when he asked Mary to go out with him. Total rejection. I couldn't stand that. I wouldn't be able to take what he took. I don't even like rejection today.
[00:25:05]
As a result, I had to go to the nun and ask her if she knew somebody who might want to go to the dance with me. Then I was fortunate that I had a cousin who showed me how to shuffle my feet around. Of course, all we had to do was just kind of move around a little bit and we were dancing. Not like today, they jump up and down, turn around, go down on one hand. That sort of thing. I've never been able to do any of that.
So I got to the dance and suddenly I was 18 years old and graduated from school. What was I going to do with my life? I wanted to be a priest. There was no money for me to go to college. In 1941, they weren't giving out any scholarships. I had more or less in my mind thrown God away because I didn't like this punishing God. He was just like my father was and I wanted no part of him. But still I had that feeling that I was being called to the priesthood.
But I didn't have the guts to get out and get a job and work my way through college and do the things that I was supposed to do. I was too immature. So I saw a sign one day, join the Navy and see the world. That was for me because I was living in a fantasy world anyways. I was always fantasizing things. Always seeing how things were going to turn out ten years from now or five years from now. And actually getting engrossed in books and cowboys and detectives and so on.
The detective work probably helped me later on in my career as a police officer. I was a detective for about 17 years of that. So there was some sort of preparation for further life anyways. But I joined the Navy and promised my mother, Ma, don't worry, I'm not going to drink. She stood there at that depot that morning. I remember the tears coming out of her eyes as big as horseballs. Just really, really crying.
She thought I was going to turn out like a cousin of mine that had gone into the Navy and got a dishonorable discharge and everything because of drinking. This is what she figured was going to happen to me. And I don't know why because I had never had a drink up until then. And I never intended drinking. Besides that, at Catholic school I promised in my confirmation that I wasn't going to drink until I was 21.
And I was going to keep that promise. Well, I got in the Navy and the same thing happened to me that happens to most people. You start going around with a group of people that you like to hang around with. I was no longer a loner. I had some people who seemed to care for me. I went into town with them. They walked into the Hot Browl restaurant in Detroit, Michigan. They picked up the drink and I picked up the drink.
And I wasn't only going to tell these guys that I never had a drink in my life. I was going to make them think that I was a terrific drinker at 18. So I looked around, I'm wondering what I'm going to order. I didn't even know what to order in the place. But they had a big sign up there that said, Zombies. One dollar a piece, one to a customer. So I thought, well, I'll show these guys. So I bought a zombie, a dollar.
I got my friend to buy one for a dollar. I remember drinking both of the zombies, but I don't remember anything that happened after that. I'm still trying to figure out today, I must have got sick a lot of times during the night in order to get that alcohol out of me or it should have killed me. Because if you remember, some of the older people do remember, the zombies were 14 layers of rum. That was 14 shots of rum and they had one glass for a buck.
That was quite a drink. And a lot of alcohol. But I woke up the next morning with a terrible hangover and I was so sick from that rum, I didn't touch rum for almost a year and a half. And it was only because we ran out of other stuff that I drank the rum, that thing. But I turned over in bed and I was in bed with a lady. Changed my whole life around. I not only was able to ask a girl to go to a dance, I asked one to go to bed with me and she went.
I don't remember what happened during the night, but this is what makes me a man. I was immediately psychologically addicted to alcohol. And religion and spirituality and everything was out the window. I'm going to take care of that. Selfish bad. And that's the way my life ran for the next 29 years. Everything I did was for my own pleasure. I cared about nobody else. I went one time for three years without even writing my mother in the Navy.
I was in the Navy for seven years. I never got a promotion in the Navy other than when they promoted the whole squadron, which was twice. So in seven years I come out of there as an AD-2. I started out as an aviation machinist mate, but after the war, World War II, they call us airplane designation or something like that, second class. I called it airplane demolisher because that's what I was when I came to be a mechanic.
That's what I was when I came to be a mechanic. And I was sent to flying school while I was in the Navy, and I flunked out of that because of drinking.
[00:30:04]
I met my first wife at the end of World War II, a 17-year-old beautiful, wealthy girl from Kentucky. I was almost 23 years old and a drunken sailor in Corpus Christi, Texas, but she thought I was some kind of a war hero because I told her I was. And so I married into that family. And I know today that I married into that family for the money. Selfish. Don't care about anybody. And so we got married, and my father-in-law used his political influence to get me out of the Navy, bought me a home in Louisville, Kentucky, just up the street from Churchill Downs, where they have the Kentucky Derby, and I entered the University of Louisville and was going to become a doctor.
I went to the University of Louisville for two years, not drinking whatsoever, doing what I was supposed to do, going to school summertime and all. Suddenly, I started to get the disease that most of us seem to get. Plum. P-L-O-M. You've probably heard of it. Poor little old me. Feeling sorry for myself. My wife doesn't appreciate me. My son's making too much noise at night, I can't study. The classes are getting too tough.
The teachers don't like me. I don't have any friends anymore. I've got a right to stop and have a couple of drinks and relax. And that's what a couple of drinks does to us. It lets us relax and makes us feel on top of the world, but we can't stop at a couple. You've got to go further on and really get into problems with it. And so I stopped. I had my two drinks, which were Boilermakers, so actually that was four.
Two shots and two beers. I weighed 170 pounds, started to put this part of my brain asleep up there that has my willpower in it. And I look at the watch and I say, gee, my wife doesn't have supper ready yet, so I've got time for one more. Another shot and a beer. Geez, it seems to me like she's cooking chicken or pork chops today, that takes longer to cook, so I've got time for one more. Another shot and a beer.
Well, she'll keep it in the oven for a half an hour, so I've got time for one more, another shot and a beer. If I go home now, she's going to call me a drunken bum. I'm going to call her a name. The boy's not going to be able to get any sleep. I'll wait until she gets in bed, then I'll sneak in the house and she won't know what time I came home. You see, that's where the alcoholism comes in. I have no control over that.
I lose that control because I put this part of the brain asleep up there when I drink that stuff. That's why I'm powerless over this stuff. There's nothing I can do to break up that chain once I do it. So, I got thrown out of school for not going to school. I was spending all day in the bar, and if you saw one flew over to Cuckoo's Nest, you saw the next eight months of my life. I ended up as a drunk in a mental ward in the lockup ward of Louisville, Kentucky's Veteran Hospital.
They diagnosed my case as schizophrenic, split personality, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. But I wasn't truthful with them about my drinking, so they blamed us on my so-called war experience. And they gave me the electric shack treatments and the whole thing. Now, the way I figure it, I went in there with my emotions in control of my intelligence or instinct, being a drunk. I was in there eight months and didn't have anything to drink.
When they tested me, I come out with my intelligence and control of my emotions, and they let me go home. I went home with my wife and kid, and I came back to Syracuse, and I got a job during the second week I was there. I got paid and went on my way and went on a nice big binge. When I come out of it, my wife had left me with my son. Completely selfish, completely didn't give a darn about anybody, only take care of myself.
I took the test for the police department after she left me, and I was appointed June 1st of 1952. In 1953, I got married again, and I had two daughters by that marriage. And all through their life, until I stopped drinking 14 1⁄2 years ago, one day at a time, when my oldest daughter was 16 and my youngest daughter was 8 years old. The damage was already done to them. Both of them have had their ups and downs in the AA program because of me, because of what I did.
But anyways, coming on this program, I walked into AA as a perfectly selfish person. I walked in from a night before where I actually was sitting on my couch with my gun in my ear intact, ready to blow my head off. I had used suicide many times in my life to get my family back on my side.
[00:35:01]
And if God would let me remove anything from my life, that would be the thing that I would remove, because I still have the guilt and the nightmares over that with my two daughters. My wife would say, get out of this house, get your bag packed, and I never want to see you again. I'm not going to go through all of that trouble. I'll take care of this the easy way. I'd make sure the two daughters were home, and I'd go get the gun.
Sometimes it was loaded, sometimes it wasn't. They didn't know. And in those days, I could get it down on my belt, or in my back pocket, and I would walk to the cellar like I was going to kill myself. And my two daughters would come over and get down on their hands and knees and grab a leg, and they'd beg me and scream and holler, please don't kill yourself, Daddy. My wife would take pity on the kids, tell me to put the gun away, and I'd put it away, and we'd start all over again, and you know that it wasn't any time at all when I would be back into the drink again.
I've worked for seven chiefs of police in the city of Syracuse. I've been in trouble with five of them because of my drinking. But I was only in trouble with each one once. That's how cunning and powerful we can be. I'm not going to drink while this guy's still chief. When I changed chiefs, then that allowed me to go out and drink, and I'd end up getting in trouble again, because we know that it's always progressive.
So that was the kind of a life that I led. A thief, stealing from the department, stealing time, getting drunk on a jab, stealing from my wife and my family. When my kids had holes in their shoes, I would take cardboard and put cardboard in the bottom of their shoes instead of buying them new shoes, causing them to go through the anguish and everything, just so that I would be able to stay in that house and be enabled to drink.
And that's the way I was, and that's the way I see a lot of people who come into AA. We come in here and we find out that we've got a mental and physical and spiritual life. And I'm sure that the same way with me, that when I stopped drinking, I started to get better physically. I said to my sponsor, how can I stop drinking when I can't stop shaking? He says, you can stop shaking by sitting on your hands.
And so that's what I did. I'd sit down and I'd sit on my hands. If he told me I had to jump over a table, I'd jump over a table. I did what I was told to do, or what was suggested for me to do. And I think my sponsor had to tell me. And so I did those things. And in a couple of weeks, I didn't shake anymore. You know, you'd shake and sit down. And some way or another, with me, it was the warmth of my arms up against my body, around my hands, and the shakes would go away.
And I'd be able to get up and operate for a while, and then it would happen again. And then it was the mental part. I went to the meetings and they said, well, you've ruined yourself mentally, baloney. How could a cat be mentally deranged? At the same time that I was thinking about this, you know, I had had it in my mind several years before this. I was going to quit the police department. I was going to run a pet store.
So I started out with a bowl of guppies and I ended up with nine large aquariums in one room of our house. The water was all evaporating, take the paint off the outside of the house. No way was I going to paint it. The house looked like, it looked terrible. All the fish started to die when I got drunk again. Stunk up the house. It took an awful time, an awful mess of it. I started with Siamese cats.
I was going to raise them. They ruined all the lamps in the furniture. I got dogs, a wire-haired terrier. Every time he got loose, my daughter taught him to run and chase her around the house and grab her by the leg and knock her down. Every time the dog got loose outside, he'd grab the school kid by the leg and knock him down. Have to take the thing to the veterinarian for seven days. And at the time that I came into AA, I was sitting there with 17 birds in my kitchen.
17 birds. And I wasn't mentally deranged at all. We had 25, but I put too many males in with the females and they fought each other and killed each other, the males did. Canaries, parakeets, I even had a minor bird. That's like having a pony in your kitchen. Every night you got a big pile to clean up. And of course I didn't clean up, my wife had to clean up. So when she'd come home from GE, every night she had that to clean up.
How she stood this, I don't know, but she did. Stayed with it. So you see, spiritually, nothing. Didn't care about God, didn't want to know nothing except when I was in trouble. And then it was like Aladdin. You take out the lamp and you rub the lamp and, please God, do this for me and do this for me, God, and I'll do this and I'll do that. I can't ever remember him ever turning me down,
[00:40:00]
but I can't ever remember doing the things that I said that I would do back. Wouldn't keep my end at all. And so I had a right to be punished. I had a right to live the life that I was leading because I wasn't doing what I was supposed to do. So this particular night, it came to this particular night when I was spiritually, mentally, physically, and financially bankrupt. Sitting on my couch in the living room, as I say, I waited until the family went to bed, I got the gun, loaded it, and put it in my ear.
And I said, God, I don't understand this. I never wanted to end up this way. I said, I always wanted to help people. That's why I was in the Navy and that's why I was on the police department. I wanted to help people, not hurt them. And all I ever did was hurt myself and other people. You know, they talk about an alcoholic hurting five people. I hurt my first wife and my son and her mother and father.
My mother and father. My two brothers and my two sisters. My second wife and my two daughters. Seven chiefs of police and I've hurt five of them with my drinking. So sometimes it's a lot more than five, but it averages out to five per alcoholic in this country. And in that particular night, while I was talking to God, apparently, for the first time in my life, I must have got some real faith. Because like what Jan was talking about last night, was when you get some faith is when you're willing to take a risk.
And in between these saints' names that were coming to my mind, like St. Peter, please don't let me go to hell. St. Jude, please don't let me go to hell. In amongst all of these names came a police officer's name to my mind, who I didn't like. But I knew this guy was kind to drunks. And for the first time in my life, I was willing to admit that I was a drunk. And I guess I had faith enough that God was telling me to go see this guy.
Because I put the gun away and I took the risk of living one more day. And that's what it was. And when I got up in the morning and I decided to go see this cab, I thought, maybe this won't work, so I'll go to AA. I went to the telephone book, and I got the number for Alcoholics Anonymous out of there. Now Alcoholics Anonymous, I thought, was like the Salvation Army or the rescue mission, like what Jan was talking about last night.
Because one night I got a call, the guy was flat on his back on a lawn, and I went up to him and I see that he was all right. He said, you can't arrest me, I'm going to an AA meeting. So I thought, what's this guy talking about? The AA is like the Salvation Army or the rescue mission, and no way can he make it, so I ended up locking him up. He at that time held a record for arrest anyways in Syracuse for public attacks.
So this is what I thought about AA, but I told my wife that morning, I said, Ada, today's the day. I said, I'm going to go see this cab about my drinking, and if he can't do anything for me, I'm going to go try this AA. Now I may have to go away because I figured they'd put me in a place like the Salvation Army or the rescue mission. But I said, maybe it'll help me. So I went down to the station and I told this guy, I said, I think I've got a problem with alcohol.
Now, that's a big step. This guy starts laughing out loud at me. I'm standing there in a police department on the fourth floor, and this guy's laughing at me. But he was laughing with joy that he knew that I had a problem. And he was doing something spiritually for somebody. He wanted to show his love for somebody. He wanted to give himself to me without expecting anything back. And that's what it was all about.
He says, I want you to drink today. He says, I want you to come with me tonight to a meeting. It's called Alcoholics Anonymous. I said, geez, that's funny. I've got the number in my packet, I'm saying. So he brought me to my first meeting. And there was where I heard the word powerless over alcohol. And fortunately for me, it was just like a flashback to a TV program where Frederick March was playing Dr. Jekyll, and he drank this liquid, and he turned from the Dr. Jekyll into Mr. High.
I know Spencer Tracy made a picture too, but before him, Frederick March did. And I saw this picture. And that's what I had figured for myself. I'm a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. High. I take a drink, I turn into something that nobody can change. I can't even handle him. If you ever heard Lloyd E. talk from Nedrow, he talks about having the little man up in the back of his head. Pedro, he talks about having the little man up in the back of his head in a cage, and the key to that cage is a drink, and when that guy gets out of that cage, he takes over,
[00:45:01]
even though he's very, very small, and that's more or less what happens to me, and I saw that from that first night, so I really haven't had to have that much problem about taking a drink. Now, yeah, I used it for a weapon, my wife get mad at me a couple of years later and bring up the pastor or something, I said, you've forgotten what it's like to have a drunk around here, go out and jump in a car and take off, make her think I'm going to go to a bar and get drunk, I go to the open house or the fellowship hall, call up my mother and say, call up the kids and tell them I'm not drinking, but don't tell my wife, still being selfish.
So eventually, by going to the meetings, I started now to be the big shot, just like I always was, you know, you just stop drinking, you don't change overnight. So I start to read the pamphlets, and I saw them up there before, on some topic and go to the meeting with the idea somebody's going to say, anybody got a topic for tonight, I was going to raise my hand and talk about what I just got through reading, so I would know all about it, and these people would say, boy, this guy's really something, he's only been AA for a couple of weeks and he knows all this already.
But I don't run the meetings, we don't run the meetings, there's only one authority in an AA meeting, and that's a loving God that expresses himself through the group conscience. So in those days, we always had somebody new, first step, regardless of what I was going to talk about, or the leader would say, what are we going to talk about tonight, Jan? What are we going to talk about tonight, Joe? It wasn't, does anybody have a topic, and then you have your second moment of silence.
But in those days, they'd come right out with it. So I never got to pick out a topic, and in the years that I've been there since then, I never pick out a topic at an AA meeting. One of my first sponsors told me if something's working, don't change it, don't try to change it. So it's been working for me that I let somebody else pick out the topic, and I've been staying sober because I've been listening to the words that were said at the time.
So then I started one night to brag to the local priest, Father, I found out this program, and let me tell you something, if there's anybody in this parish who wants to stop drinking, you make sure you call me. So shortly after that, I got a call from a priest. There was a guy, I told you, one guy had the record for arrest in the city of Syracuse, there was a second guy who was second, and he lived in our parish.
So he was talking to the priest one night because his sister called the priest, and he said, well, yeah, I'd like to stop drinking, Father. He was a street person who every once in a while lived with his sister. And so the priest got on the phone to me, Bob, I got a guy who wants to stop drinking. Oh, great, Father, the first time I'm going to be able to help somebody. We all know what that feeling is.
And so I got so excited about being able to help somebody that I forgot to ask the guy's name and address. How was I going to pick him up to go to a meeting? So I had to call a priest back, actually, and I said, hey, Father, you forgot to give me the guy's name. Well, when he gave me the name, here was a guy that I arrested 20 times at least, I said, this guy can't stay sober for five minutes, Father.
Well, he said, you said that you would help him if he wanted to stop drinking. So I got a ride over there, the guy was giving me a ride to meetings, because I didn't have a car at that time. I sold my car just before I came on the program so I could drink with the money. And so I went over there, and no, I was going to quit AA. I went to my sponsor that morning, and I said, the first time God asked me to do something, I can't do it.
I said, so I'm quitting AA. He called me a dirty name and said, hey, he said, you told a priest that you would take this guy to a meeting if he didn't take a drink. So he said, you go over there, you know he can't get through the day without a drink. He felt the same way I did. He said, you go over there, you smell his breath, and you tell him, hey, pal, when you want to go to a meeting, stop drinking.
It's as simple as that. You turn around and walk out. And you've done everything you said you were going to do. So I walked over there, and when I saw this guy standing there, I fell out of love with myself and fell in love with this guy and with Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's what the rest of my life has been about since I've been in AA. Going around and taking people to meetings, going to halfway houses, going to jails, and so on.
I was excommunicated from the Catholic Church because I was married twice. In 1975, they again examined the case of my first marriage that my wife had put in for a nullification of the same down in Kentucky many years before.
[00:50:02]
They decided that they would get a hold of my records from the Veterans Hospital, and they would look into my alcoholism, and eventually, in May of 1975, they nullified my first marriage. So that allowed my second wife and I to get married in the Catholic Church, which we did June the 7th of 1975. And shortly after that, they started looking in the Diocese of Syracuse for permanent deacons. Now when I first saw the paper, permanent deacon, I thought, what's a permanent deacon?
Never heard of that in a Catholic Church. Well, as I looked into it, I saw that it was ministries. And at the bottom of the list, they had ministry to the alcoholic and to the imprisoned. And that's what I had been doing with my life since I was in AA. And so I thought, is there some reason that God might want me to do this? So 11th step, 11th step. Keep after that 11th step. Find out what God wants you to do for Him.
Because that's what it tells us. For the first time to pray, and the first time to start seeking out and see what God wants you to do for Him, for what He's done for you. And in this particular case, the voice that Charlie talks about that comes from inside of you, that says, put in for it. How can I put in for it? I'm only back in the Church three months. And already I want to be clergy? I want to be the big shot again?
So I filled out the application, several, well, quite a few pages, plus a biography. And I told them everything that I told you this morning. And among the first 14 out of the first 100 that was interviewed, I was one of the ones that was picked. I went through a formation program for three years, weekends, one weekend a month, four hours on Friday night, 14 hours on Saturday, and eight hours on Sunday of theology and Old Testament, New Testament, and the whole bit.
At the end of the three years, I was accepted for candidacy, and I was ordained by Bishop Harrison in the cathedral in 1978. So I'm coming up on six years in the diaconate with the ministry to the alcoholics and to the imprisoned. And so this is a spiritual journey. I started out receiving the Spirit and the whole bit. I found out the rules and regulations as far as God was concerned. I disregarded them.
I went completely the other way. I went almost to the depths of hell, and then eventually pulled out of there by my fingertips and eventually learned how to love, how not to be thinking about myself all the time, how to be doing things for other people. And as it's worked out, it even worked out in my job in a department. If the guy upstairs has got something in mind, it happens. For years, I've been working in records division in the police department, and I asked to go into the records when I found out about my alcoholism because I didn't want to arrest anybody anymore.
I haven't arrested anybody in about 14 years, other than one time here recently when I had to go out with a state trooper on one of these raids. They didn't have enough policemen to send out, so they sent me and I had to arrest somebody, but actually the trooper was arresting him and I was along with him. So for years, I've been working in records and going into schools as they asked me or to different groups.
The chief would let me go, but when I came back, I had to finish my job in the records division. Two years ago, he decided to put me in a program, something like an officer-friendly type program where I just go into schools and I talk to kids in the schools about alcohol and alcoholism. I go in there to all grades, kindergarten and on up, trying to combat our kids being brainwashed on TV with this alcohol.
As a result, spirituality in my life this past year, since September, I've hit 91 schools in the Syracuse area and I've talked to 20,000 kids. So this is what can come out of our life in this program. Your life, like mine, has been a spiritual journey. Spirituality has nothing to do with religion whatsoever. What it has to do with is love. God is love and if you are practicing love, then you are becoming a part of that God or the spirit of God.
Thank you very much for listening. I really enjoyed that. He mentioned animals. Any of you who know that I love animals a lot, I started accumulating animals after I got sober. In fact, around the second year of sobriety, I had 47 mouths to feed, 47.
[00:55:03]
There were chickens, geese, ducks, pigs, dogs and cats and I probably left something out there. But thanks again. Again, I'm Gwen and I'm an alcoholic and I'd just like to kind of wrap this up with just a few thoughts that have been going through my head for quite a long time. One of the things was that you were there when I needed you and I never felt that so much as I have this weekend. It's been quite an experience for me.
One of the wonderful things that happened all weekend long from the beginning to the end was that every time I passed people in the hall, I would get pats, hugs and kisses, words of encouragement and this continued the whole time. I don't know if you realize what that does to somebody. It was just fantastic. I needed that. I really did. Not from the standpoint of it going to my head, but from the standpoint of humility because I wouldn't be here today if it weren't for Alcoholics Anonymous.
I drank for, I can't really tell, about 24 years and I functioned in my work all those years, but I got to the point where I needed you and when I reached out, you were there and I'm grateful for that. That's really for me the essence of AA is the hand that reaches out and the hand that grabs it. There were a lot of things that happened over the weekend that were funny. I have an alternate chairman.
He got into the wrong room on Friday. Some of you know what room that was. Other things that happened along the way, funny remarks, things that don't quite work out but then do, if you know what I mean, things that arrive late but you know they'll get there. Something will work out. At no time during the past nine months that I have been chairman have I ever lost the faith that it would work out. I never had a negative thought towards that.
I knew that it would work. When the job was handed over to me and I accepted, my first reaction was, why did I do this? And that panic, what have I done? And then I got this feeling that I've had all through my sobriety that God wouldn't give me more than I could handle and I knew that immediately. And then it was acceptance. I accepted the fact that this will be and I'll do the best job I can. I was sitting at my kitchen table a few weeks ago or I guess it was last week.
My kitchen table, by the way, has been my office. It's near the phone. It's been covered with notes and notes and notes for the last quite a while. And sometimes my husband, I wonder if he wonders if food could be served, you know, it's just full of things. But I was sitting there writing down some words that kind of reflected on how I have been this past year. You know, when I was in treatment, we were sitting around at a group therapy meeting one night and the counselor, who happened to be Chuck A., who played the guitar Friday night, said to this group of ten, I want you to give me the name of a feeling.
And we all sat there and we sat there for five minutes in silence. And finally one person said, anger. And for all of us at that particular point, anger was the only feeling that we could even think of naming. But since then, wow, a lot of things have happened. I've experienced exhilaration, anxiety, gratitude all the way, gratitude in many ways to all the wonderful people who have helped me, to God, and just to the fact of being sober today.
I went through a few times when I needed to call people and talk to them, people who have been through this before, and such words of encouraging, trust your higher power, I heard that all the time, no matter who I called, that the higher power was mentioned every time. And I have been. I've been praying a lot. And it's helped. I've asked for strength, and the strength has always been there. I've learned more about humility.
I've learned a lot about enthusiasm. I am normally a pretty enthusiastic person, and my whole committee has been enthusiastic, and it's been like that all the way through, and that's carried us. And then there's been great joy. And then there's been great joy, just joy of being together, joy of experiencing the legacies of recovery and unity and service, all three of which have been working all along.
[01:00:01]
And commitment, I committed myself to something, this is something I could never do when I was drinking, I would commit myself to many things and then end up an hour before calling it off, saying I couldn't come or I just wouldn't show up. And this is one of the changes that I made early in sobriety and have tried to improve on ever since. The faith that's been with me that things would work out, as I said, has always been there.
In the last month, there's been sleeplessness, a lot of that, and some very crazy dreams. When I would finally fall asleep, I'd dream about the convention. You can't believe how many things I dreamt about that could go wrong. And none of those things happened, thank God. I also did a little bit of shorting out, which I tell some of my friends. My mind would get so scrambled that I'd start shorting out, but that's okay.
And actually, last night, I was thinking a week ago how nervous I would be. I wasn't. There was a peace that came over me, which was marvelous, and I know where that came from. Again, my higher power, whom I choose to call God. And then the love of all the people who have pitched in to help and all the love of all of you people who are here and supported this convention. Last night, when I was thanking committee members, I omitted one name, and I really felt bad about it.
And I do want to mention Dave S., who was our literature chairman, so faithfully out in that hall every one of the days. I don't know if he's in the room right now, but I did want to say something about that. I knew I'd forget somebody. I was sitting down there writing the list, and I knew there was one missing and couldn't find it. But that, I hope, will be okay. I do a lot of reading, and I read somewhere that it's not the results that count, it's the trip along the way.
And I really believe that, because to me, recovery is a trip. And I don't know what the results will be, because I try to live one day at a time, although that's been hard to do in the last year when you're working on something like this and have to plan ahead anyway, many months at a time. Just one special thought, that it is Mother's Day. One thing I'm grateful for is that my mom's here today. She and my brother came up from Philadelphia yesterday to be here with me for this weekend, and I really am grateful for that.
About a half an hour after they arrived, there was a knock on my door, and the maid gave me a bouquet of flowers, which was from my son and his wife. They live near Philadelphia, too, and they arranged to send the flowers here to me for Mother's Day, and it was beautiful, you know, these kinds of things, the thoughtfulness of other people. This morning, another fellow that's sitting back here in the group handed me a cup of saucer with a flower arrangement in it, and it was just beautiful, you know, and it made me think that, biologically, my family is very, very small.
I have a very small group of people within my own personal family, but look what's here. I have the biggest family in the world, and I know they love me, and I love you all, too. One other thing I'd just like to share, because I can't help this. I'm going to be a grandmother in about four weeks for the first time, and I am so excited. I heard it said somewhere the other day that a grandmother is a mother who has a second chance.
I'll tell you, I've been looking at the baby clothes and all these things, and I'm grateful for that. My son, when I first came in the program, wrote to me from Okinawa, and he said, Mom, I'm so glad that you're doing something for yourself. I'm so proud of you. This was a son who, when he was 15 years old, used to write notes and put them on bottles, which I thought were hidden. The notes would say, Mom, I think you ought to go to AA.
This really hit me. I didn't stop drinking at that point, but I talk about it now, and I've mentioned it to him since then. It's the family. It's my family. It's your family and the whole family of AA. I really want to thank you for being here, for supporting this convention, and I hope I see a lot of you around, and I guess this is a wrap. Thank you. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
[01:05:04]
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.