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Source: Mark B – Steel City Woodstock (2023) – Speaker Talk – Date Unknown.mp3 File: mark-b-steel-city-woodstock-2023-speaker-talk-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:51:20
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Good evening, everybody. My name's Mark. I'm an alcoholic. And Bill here said it, you know, by the grace of God, truly by the grace of God, AA, a bunch of people like you in a bunch of different churches and basements and, you know, showing me the way through these Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. I haven't felt the need to put a drink or a mood altering chemical in my body since February 21st, 2012. And that truly is a gift.
It's funny, a friend of mine, last week I celebrated 11 years and he made note of it that, you know, it's kind of funny when, and I feel funny if people congratulate me on any lengths of sobriety. And he says, you know, it's kind of like congratulating a kid that got the bike he always wanted on Christmas. Do you know what I mean? Because it is, it really is. This thing is a gift. It's a gift. It's not something I did. It was, you know, and him and I were texting and I said, you know, the more I do this, the more grateful I get, grateful for truly the people because you guys, what you helped me do, what you did for me is you helped me get me out of the way. And, you know, Tim, he texted me back and he says, you know, but there's no us without God. This whole thing is because there's no AA without God. You know what I mean? So you people are here because of God, you know? Ah, man. So it's funny, I guess I've known about this for a year. And listen, a year ago I wasn't sweating this thing. Because a year is a long time. And I'll tell you what, what happens in sobriety for me, things keep getting better. You know, life gets real good and under all circumstances I get to live with gratitude. But, man, time goes quick.
You know, these last 11 years, you know, my kids have grown up and, you know, all these things but, man, you know, it starts coming around. It's like, you know, Christmas and, you know, then it was January, February and I'm like, man, this thing's coming up. And, you know, it's finally here. Thank God. Now I get to rip the Band-Aid off, you know? And, truly, my whole thing is, a friend of mine, John Miller, spoke for me. John, I think he's got four decades, 40, 41 years. And he spoke for me in my home group about six months ago. And he explained it so well and it just hit home for me. You know, listen, kind of like Billy said, I'm willing to do anything AA asks me. I can't do enough for AA. Whatever I'm asked, I do. And I know I owe AA.
But what happens is the further and further I go, like that doesn't get closer to me paying it back. It gets further. It keeps giving. This thing just keeps giving and keeps giving by me doing these things that, these suggestions and following these principles that were, you know, laid out in this book, the first 164 pages. So I guess, you know, I'm one of the lucky ones. I get to tell you my lead, tell you in a general way what I was like and what happened and what I'm like today and in a general way. And I'm going to do that to the best of my ability.
So I'm, I got to say something else. Yeah, Billy, you know, Billy gets to host this thing for me. Him and I, you know, we're driving out here and I've known Billy since we've been friends since we're like best friends since we're like 18. We've known each other since we're like 13. And him and I, you know, we ran together and you know, driving out here on a Friday night, like four or five o'clock. This isn't what we were going to do. Him and I, you know, we changed in the hotel room together. Listen, last, matter of fact, I remember the last time we got a hotel room and we were about 20 years old. We weren't, him and I weren't holding hands praying together. You know what I mean? It's an amazing thing and, you know, and to have him here and host that and his wife came and his wife I've been dear friends with since I'm 19 and, you know, my wife gets to be here. We're going to be celebrating 19 years of marriage come the end of this month and, you know, we have 11 years sober together. You know, we had eight years, you know, that gave us a gift of desperation to change the way we were. So many friendly faces here. You know, so many people here thank you for coming, you know, and were such an integral part of my recovery. But the ones of you that I don't know, you're part of my recovery now, you know, and I truly appreciate that. You know, this energy in here, you just can't, I wish I could bottle it up and give it to some people.
You know, it's just a beautiful, beautiful energy. So I'm born and raised here in Pittsburgh. I was born and raised in a place called Penn Hills. Wonderful parents, truly, you know, salted earth people, no drugs or alcohol in my house. Alcoholism runs deep in my family. You know,
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my parents were that generation trying to do different, trying not to, you know, they didn't want me, my sister and I to have that upbringing that they had. And they're the type of people that, you know, never paid bills late. They work really hard and really taught me all, you know, the big book talks about, you know, these moral and philosophical convictions galore, you know, but I couldn't live up to them no matter how hard I tried. They filled me with those things.
And they kind of, they live by those. Like, they're truly like pillars of the community, you know, they're just super good people. And I had a lot of shame and guilt because as a young kid, you know, it's funny, I was thinking about this the way I was as a kid. I had a cousin that grew up a house down from me, and we were three months apart. And I was the older one, so I used to use that a lot. You know, I like things to be about me. I was the first grandkid. I used to get all the attention from my grandmother. But my cousin was the smart one. He could take apart a radio and put it back together at like three, four years old, you know what I mean? Just was really, really good at that stuff. And I had, you know, those resentments early on about how, you know, and the same thing I was thinking like how school, I didn't do well in school at all. And I was always saying and thinking like school was really hard for me. Well, you know what, school's hard for somebody when you don't try. Do you know what I mean? And I had that resentment.
And listen, some of you may be here, but you know those people that they didn't have to work real hard could just get good grades. I wasn't one of those people. And I was mad about it. And I was resentful of that, you know what I mean? That's not fair. So what I did, I just didn't do a lot, you know? So yeah, school was real hard. So as a, listen, I know the isms. I had alcoholism before I picked up my first drink, at least what I think for me, you know what I mean? I had all that. I had that fear. I had, you know, I remember wanting things always to be different. No matter where I was, I wanted to be somewhere else, you know, those things. And just with relationships with kids being young, I was, you ever heard that saying? I'm sure you have that, you know, that day they went over how to live life. I was absent that day, you know? But the reality was I don't even know that I didn't know that. I was just so worried about what everybody else was thinking like.
And I was always so worried about trying to be two or three steps ahead so I could, you know, position myself real well to get what I wanted. Like it was never thoughts about, you know, me being there for people or me trying to help or me trying to be anything other than just seeing what I could get. I was a taker from when I was young. You know, I just was really, I was a taker. I was a taker of time. I was a taker of your energy. You know, I just really, really, I couldn't get out of my own way as a young kid. I also think about this quite a bit.
Like during my years of abusing alcohol, I would go to any lengths to get that and to get that feeling, that ease and comfort that I needed. But more so than that, before I ever picked up a drink, I would go to the ends of the earth to protect this thing called an ego that I had. I spent so much time and so much fear that you were going to try to make me feel less than or you were, you know, you were looking better than me. You know, all those things that this ego that I had no idea that I had. I just, I literally, from the time I woke up until in half the nights, I couldn't even go to sleep. I was so worried about what was going to happen in school. You know, where I was going to be, who I was going to be with. It was protecting that ego.
So I get to, you know, this is another thing I like to talk about too. I remember as a kid, like I really, I had trouble going to sleep. I just couldn't, you know, because of the anxiety. I suffered from that anxiety and that fear. And I remember my dad, and my dad's a big dude. He's like 6'4", he's like 250 pounds. And he was, you may have heard this. He said, I brought you into the world and I'll take you out. And listen, I believed him. I believed him every bit until I was about 15 or 16 years old. But I would lay there and I would like, I would rub my foot in between the sheets. And he could hear it, you know, across the hall. And he would get, he would get mad. And he'd come in a room, he's like, if I hear you rub your, I'm going to rip your head off. It was one of his sayings. But I remember that. I used to wear out sheets.
My mom would get mad. She'd have to replace sheets like sooner than you would have to. But I remember laying there and just that, man, I just, I just couldn't, I couldn't have that, no ease. You know, so for me, my first, it wasn't my first drink, but my first drunk, I was 13. A buddy of mine's sister bought us a six-pack of Iron City, you know, if you're anywhere close. They used to make that from the Allegheny River before they dredged it.
And she bought it for us on a Saturday in August about noon. And she said, make sure you don't let mom see that until, you know, you don't take that out until, you know, she goes to bed. And we hit it out in the woods all day. So it sat out in like 90 degree temperature. So, and listen, we got this
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and we were each going to drink three. And, and I remember grabbing that first one and drinking it, man. And it was that ease and comfort. It's just like it talks about in the big book. I was for the first time in my life, I was right where I wanted to be. I didn't want to be anywhere else doing anything else. And I was in his basement and it was a basement. It was musty and moldy and stinky and dogs down there. And I didn't want to be anywhere else. And I knew at that point, this, I don't know that I thought like I want to drink all the time, but I knew that was going to be, what happened, it talks about that in a doctor's opinion, that obsession, that obsession, that phenomenon of craving set in. And I didn't drink all the time from there. I couldn't. I was 13. I couldn't get it. I couldn't, you know, I had my dad. I was always worried about him catching me, but I always knew it was coming. So that kind of sufficed. That kind of gave me like a solution because I knew whether it was the next weekend or whether it was, I knew that was coming. It gave me a little bit of that ease and comfort. And by the time I was 15, you know, again, the other stuff was coming in. I was blessed when I was getting sober.
My sponsor liked heroin a lot, you know what I mean? He was one of those guys. And he said to me, and I was worried because I did a lot of that other stuff too. And he says, listen, it talks about this stuff on page 22. 21 explains the real alcoholic. And that page top to bottom explains me the Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde. Down to the special abilities and aptitudes and promising stuff for the family and only to come ripping it down with senseless set of sprees. That was me.
And then you get to page 22. It talks about like trying to taper off from the stuff, going to doctors and sanctuaries. I have never been to a sanctuary, but I've been to a bunch of other institutions. But getting stuff from doctors. And listen, some of the doctors I found were bar stalls in corners of the streets, you know? So that helped me a lot. That really helped me identify the alcoholic that I was. So I was, again, just barely, you know, I think I made it mostly through school because teachers kind of liked me and they pushed me through. But I was a junior in high school and I knew at that point I had no, listen, I wasn't going to college. I wasn't, you know, I never wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer or, you know, I never wanted to be anything. You know, the funny thing was a joke and we still joke about it today. When I was a kid, I'd see the garbage man driving and the guy hanging off the back. That's what I wanted to do. I thought that would be cool. And I actually did that for like, I did it one day and I couldn't take it. That was like a ten hour day. And I didn't do it because I wanted to. That's the only job I could get at the time. I was almost unemployable. So the army recruiters were at school. I was a junior in high school. And listen, it was one of those points, man. I hadn't suffered any consequences legally. And, you know, there was trouble in school and, you know, with my family. But I just, I didn't want to be that way. I didn't want to, listen, I always had good intentions. Always. I just was never, I never wanted to hurt my parents or hurt people. So I always had these good intentions. But like for some reason, my actions just never met up to that.
You know, I just always would go a little bit this way. And, you know, and my mother, I remember being upset with her when she'd say this. She'd say, oh, this is what I want to say. So my cousin, right, my cousin that was three months younger, he'd put, he would have matchbox cars and he'd have the nicest containers. He'd almost wax the things. And me, man, I had a bucket with them. I'd throw them in there and I didn't care about, you know what I cared about? I cared about this drawer that I had that had a bunch of ace bandages and Band-Aids and I had crutches there. I liked that.
I wanted to have Band-Aids and ace bandages. You know why? Because I liked the attention. I liked it. My sister broke her arm when I was about six and she was three and I remember all the attention she got. People writing on her cast and, you know, oh, what happened to your arm, you know? And I remember wanting that. That's what I was concerned about. My mom, we laugh about it today. I had this drawer and I had to have so many different, all the different sizes of Band-Aids, you know, for little ones and big ones, all the different kind of ace bandages. That's what I wanted. That's the way I was. So when I was a junior in high school, the Army recruiters came to school and they started talking about it and I started talking to them and there was a split entry program. And listen, this is kind of something that became a pattern in my life.
Never thought, I just didn't know. So I didn't know about changing stuff on the inside. I always thought about, you know, listen, if I can
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you know, can put me on line, it can keep me straight, that was the first thing I did with this, would join an army. And I went to boot camp between my junior and senior year and, you know, it's funny because I just, you know, of course, I've been thinking about this stuff a lot. I went to boot camp and I came out. I'll never forget my dad and I having a conversation. And again, listen, what kept me out of a lot of trouble was my dad. It really did because he scared the heck out of me. And he, listen, and I make it, my dad just wanted me to do the right thing. Like, they weren't crazy people, like super, I thought he was the hardest guy and no, he just wanted me, listen, try at school, brought home C's, he was fine with that. He just didn't want F's, you know what I mean? That's not asking a lot. Just wanted me, you know, when I was asked to do something, to do it. Wanted me to like be respectful, just normal stuff. And I thought he was like so mean and tough.
So when I got out of boot camp, a couple of things happened. Listen, you know, and listen, what they do, they train you to, you know, hurt people. You know, that's what they do. And I came out real good shape. I had a chip on my shoulder, but I remember my dad, without saying it, he just said, listen, you know, you're 17. He's like, you're in the military now. He was in the military, my grandfather. And without saying it, just said, listen, you're on, you're good, you're an adult. And what that meant to me was I could drink the way I wanted to drink. And I didn't have to worry about consequences. And within six months, I was down in the county jail, the old one here, and had eight charges and seven of them were felonies. And, you know, the reason I tell that story is because I remember him picking me up. I remember him picking me up, and I was expecting him. He had to go, you know, it was like a $50,000 bond. He had to get $5,000 to get me out, and that wasn't that easy at that time in 89 for him. And I was expecting him to rip my head off. You know, that's what he does when I do that stuff. And that's not what happened, man. I just remember looking. I remember walking on Grant Street, and the look of despair in his face.
You know, the look of, like, he was afraid. And he's like, what happened? What's going on? Whatever we have to do, we're here for you, you know? And so I start through the legal process, and the attorney says, listen, your best option is to go to rehab right now. And that's what I did. This is something else. I had cousins that, older cousins, and they quit school in eighth grade, and both of them spent their life in and out of prison. And they were like heroes of mine at one time, you know, when I was young, because they were big, tough guys. They were bikers, you know? But I remember them telling me, like, they were giving me lessons. They were like, listen, man, don't get caught up in a prison system, because, listen, you're on parole, and then you get busted again. Then you've got to do your clean time on the street, and you've got to do all that. And I'm sitting there thinking, like, listen, if I do the right thing, I don't have to worry about going back to, you know what I mean? It's that simple.
Of course, when I'm doing the wrong stuff, I've got to worry about that. You know, and that's what I couldn't understand, and that's the path I was heading when I was young. And what happened from 1989 to July 11th of 1994, I was arrested eight times for a whole bunch of stuff, got very blessed that I didn't have any prison time or felony stick, because, again, my dad knew some people. But here's what happened. The reason I know that date is because it's his birthday, July 11th, and he was working up in Rhode Island. He was a good dad. He was a good provider and wanted to be there for his family. So he'd work until 2, 3 o'clock on Friday and then drive 10 hours home from Rhode Island to spend time with his family. And this Sunday, his birthday, he just went to golf that day, and then he was going to drive back to Rhode Island. Well, he ended up getting a call that I had to be bailed out of jail again. And he came and picked me up, and the look on his face was completely different from that first time. It was a look of just utter disgust. It was a look of, you know what I mean, he was done. And I kind of saw myself in his eyes. I kind of saw where I was and what I was becoming. And that had an effect on me. It didn't clean me up. By this time, I was already in my third rehab, detox, and you know what I mean?
What I started was, it talks about on 25, it says, if you're as serious as an alcoholic as me, you'll find there's no middle-of-the-road recovery. And that's what I started. I started that middle-of-the-road recovery. And then with that was a geographical change. And I ended up going and getting another thing. I went and got my commercial driver, because I was delivering pizzas, and I was in sales, but it wasn't legal sales, you know? So I had not much stuff going on. And you know, my dad, the business we were in, and I can make some money driving a truck, so I went and got a commercial driver's license. And I moved up to Connecticut, is where we were at that time. And I always think of this.
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What I would do, any time I would clean up, because I'd always get into these jam ups and I'd have to clean up, I'd always go to the doctor. You know, the doctor, I was seeing psychologists and psychiatrists since I was young, so I could go there and get all kinds of stuff, because I couldn't picture life without putting something in me. So I'd go to the doctors and take whatever they give me, I'll take. But here's the thing, driving a tractor trailer with untreated alcoholism isn't the best thing, especially having road rage like I did. So that venture lasted about six months. I just never thought about the company name being up and down this big trailer and the phone number being on there. So by the third time, I was about six months in, that was the end of doing that. And I ended up, and see what happened to me, when I was 22, I grew up in a business, I tell people I was in the health care business. And what I did was the laundry, you know what I mean?
We got dirty, crappy sheets cleaned. I was in the laundry business. So I was one, as I got older, and I grew up in this business, both my grandfathers weren't at my father, I was one, I would, listen, I was blessed my whole life with opportunities, always. God's grace was always there for me, but boy, I would get in the way. I was somebody, I fell uphill. Like I'd fall into a bucket of crap, I'd come out smelling like a rose, like how does this happen? And this played in real well, this working in this business. I got into management, and I would move to a new place, and I loved that, man. I'd move to a completely city I didn't know anybody. And I could start over, this is gonna be the place, this is gonna be the time. And I'd get in there, and then these laundries, I learned how to manage, and I did well. I just had aptitude for that business, and I could do it well. I'd go in, this place would be a crazy house, it'd be like the inmates running the asylum. And man, whenever it was so crazy and all this commotion, I could just see clearly.
And really what it was, it was a solution to my alcoholism, because I wasn't putting stuff in me like I was before. I was trying to walk the clean, the straight and narrow. But the same thing would happen, the same thing would happen over and over. The company would start getting things together, and then there's this, I think it's called irritable restlessness and discontented. And I'd always, to say that, man, some people, I'd always start to feel like, you know what, I think I'm being underappreciated. So no matter what they did, it was never good enough. I did that for the next 12, 14 years. I didn't get fired much, because I quit before they fired me. I knew it was coming, and I was a runner, and I liked to run. So finally, in 2004, I ran through it, and it's a pretty small knit industry. Everybody knows everybody, and I just didn't have many, many opportunities.
The funny thing was, the opportunity that I had that I ended up taking was a place called Saratoga Springs, New York. And about two years before I took this last option, I had a guy ask me, he was offering me a lot of money to move up there. And I said, listen, you could offer me four times as much. I'm never moving up there, ever. And I ended up moving up there, because I had no other choice in 2004.
So I moved there, and listen, again, it seemed like such a good situation, a good scenario. I moved to a place called, actually, it was Boston Spa. It was a little town next to Saratoga. And this was the largest employer in that town. So I couldn't get myself in trouble. I had 200 people to work for me. It was half the town. And I couldn't go to the bars, because I'd get in trouble. So it just seemed really, really perfect.
You know, the same thing happens. I go in there, things are going real well. I have this cute neighbor that I keep seeing all the time. And just this one day, I happen to be walking home, coming home from golfing, and this little two-year-old girl says, you want to play ball? And I'm like, yeah, let's play ball. Her mother comes out and says, you want to have a glass of wine? I said, sure. And we drink the bottle. I'm like, you want me to get another one? She's like, no, no, that's good, just that. And I says, how about we go out? And she says, well, listen, I don't have a babysitter. I was like, well, that's all right. I says, let's go to Six Flags, take the kids. You know, she had a five-year-old, too.
So I took her and the kids to a great adventure Saturday. I moved in Saturday night, and we were married three months later. Alcoholic stuff, man, to the core.
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But you know what? The thing was, I had been in relationships before. I was a runner, and I just would run away from them. We met, and I just knew. I knew we had just the same ideals and backgrounds. She was coming off a bad marriage, and I was coming off another rehab, and we were both on this rebound. That rebound thing. But what it was, it truly was, it was this meeting of, it was her and I together against the world. I knew somebody was there and would hang in there. Listen, I'm going to tell you, we had, for as bad as it was, and there were some bad times, we had a beautiful.
So before we get married, she had a great job, I had a great job, but about a month before we get married, it's a long story, but they were trying to, this was a non-union place that I was running, but all the other facilities were union. So the union for my business knew me well, and they heard I was up there, so they started trying to organize the place. And listen, there really were unions for people like me, because listen, if you didn't do, I would gun for you. If you hurt my ego, you hurt my pride, I'm going to get you. So I'll never forget, so they're corporate, it's a big corporation I work for, they're coming in, they're like, we're behind you, we're going to get this all straightened out. We all meet in the morning, we have this plan, and by noon, they call me in and they say, you know what, we're not firing you, but you can't work here anymore. So a month before I'm getting married, and they gave me an option, listen, they had a facility in Jamaica, Queens, in Jersey City, and at that time, it just wasn't the nicest place.
So that's how our marriage starts, you know what I mean? I'm jobless, that's the things I do, that's what I do. So her and I are on this ride together, you know. I end up getting a job, if you ask me what I wanted to do at that time, I want a job, you give me a real big expense account, you give me a lot of money, and let me go bull crap to people all day, you know what I mean? That's like the ideal job, and I end up getting this job.
It was selling equipment for this industry that I was in. And more and more, I think about this all the time, I think about how delusional my thinking was, that's what I love about this big book, and Bill talking about, he doesn't talk about being in denial, man, he talks about being delusional. And that's completely what I was, I was just completely delusional. And it says, am I a victim of the delusion that I can wrest satisfaction and happiness if I could just manage well? That's what I always thought, that's what I always, always thought, you know? So I get this job, and it was capital equipment, and it's real expensive equipment, and they had just let go a guy that was there for like four years, and the guy, he didn't close business well. But with capital stuff, it takes years, you know what I mean? It's not something you go in there and sell. So I take this job, and listen, and one thing I was good at, I was good at closing, but I was the worst person in the world at getting anything set up. I can't, you want to talk about something three years from now? Come on, I can't do that. So I go in there, and I just, and listen, it was all because of what the guy did before me. He had a bunch of stuff set up, and I went in and closed a bunch of business. So again, that's that, you know, I'm like the best thing since sliced bread for this company, you know what I mean? They actually give me New York City, I got this prestigious territory, New York City to Boston, Montreal, Quebec, the whole thing, Ontario. Youngest person in the company to ever sell a million dollars, and you know, and again, it's like I still, I'm underappreciated, you know what I mean?
So I, you know, what do I deserve? I deserve to be playing golf. I lived in upstate New York, and I played 160 rounds of golf my second year of being with that company, which is, that's a hard feat. But needless to say, that's, you know, what ends up happening. They're smart to that fact, and you know, as that pipeline's drying up, and I'm not, you know, showing any results, and I've got nothing on the horizon, the pressure's on. And now I've got, we got three kids, we got this puppy, you know, we got this new house, and when I say we got a house, it was her house, because I filed bankruptcy like it was my job every other year, and they said when we were getting a mortgage, your name's better off not being on there, you know, on that mortgage. So it was her house.
So it was her house, and I remember, see, I always think I'm a little bit smarter than
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everybody. I'm a little bit smarter. I says, you know what? I'm sick, guys. I got some psychological issues. So that's a way to save my job. And there's this thing called FMLA, you know, protects me. And I went out on FMLA. And I remember searching, man. Like, they tell me I'm manic-depressive. And I remember searching all this stuff. And that's when Google was, like, big. And, like, man, all these symptoms, all these symptoms. And all of a sudden, I wanted to know, what causes it? And there's, like, no cause. It's just symptoms, you know. And I never could find that. What ends up happening, I go back after three months. And actually, in those three months, like, I got myself, I think I quit smoking cigarettes. I kind of got into some shape. And, you know, I was actually doing physically well, better than I had in a while. And I go back in there. I was like, all right, man, I'm ready to go. I'm ready to take, start running with this territory. And they said, well, listen, you know, we're not, we can't fire you. You know, you're on FMLA. But what we had to do was, we had to fill your position. We had to cover that territory. So we've started a new territory for you. This territory is in Newfoundland and Greenland. And I don't know if you know geography at all. But I'm going to tell you, there's not a lot of prospects up there, right? So that was the end of that. And that's what I do. I quit. And then, well, you know, what I do is I, you know, I go to try to see, I think you guys owe me. I think you owe me. You know, I think I got one of those things from Social Security that said the money that I made and what I could collect on disability. And I says, well, you know what? I got manic depression. You guys should be paying me. You know, paying me that thing called disability. And then, of course, you can't work for a year. So I got, you know, two capable bodies. You know what I mean? Two capable, fairly smart people, neither of us working, not paying a mortgage. We got letters coming that the house was going to be foreclosed. And her family, they're just scratching their head, like, what are these people doing? And I got these kids. I can't feed the kids. So we go try, you know, we get government assistance. So we end up losing that house. And the only reason, we were homeless.
And the only reason I had a place to stay, her grandmother had passed away. And her family said, listen, you can, you know, pay the taxes. You can stay here for a year, get your stuff together. And, of course, we were there two years. You know, you tell me. I'm not going to be out of there in a year. But I, and I like to tell this story just because this is the type of friend I was. This is the type of guy I was. So we're living in her grandmother's house. I'm not working. You know, I'm in sweatpants. I had hair back then. My hair never brushed it. It was everywhere. You know, just a mess. And my friend Billy at that time was, his mother called me. He was on his roof with a shotgun. And she said, listen, can you talk to him? And he was going through stuff, him and Chrissy. And, you know, I said, Billy, you got to come up to New York. Now, I wanted Billy to come up to New York.
There was a selfish reason because I wanted him to bring some stuff that I couldn't get up in New York. You know? But the real reason was I didn't want him to get in trouble. You know what I mean? Not thinking that I knew he was going to drink the whole way. I knew he was going to be doing other stuff the whole way. But I wanted to help him. You know, and his mom had asked me to help him. But I remember him coming up. And I just remember him sitting there, like, beside himself. Like, literally, like a man lost. But I remember the feeling like, man, I'm not that bad. You know what I mean? And I'm being a good guy. I'm being a good friend. I'm helping him. You know what I mean? And there's me, you know, unemployable.
But just that feeling. And I couldn't see that. It's the delusion. You know what I mean? This is going through this process of working these steps that I got to see what type of human being I was. So what ends up happening is, that was 2007. 2009, you know, we had to get out of that house. And the state of New York certified me bipolar. And they gave me a check to get out of the state and go back to work. And we were able to come to Pittsburgh. And I tell you, I bought a house. You know what I mean? But I couldn't buy a house because I couldn't put anything in my name. My dad put it in his name. You know what I mean? I just happened to put the down payment on and making a payment sort of thing.
And came back to Pittsburgh. And came back. You know, my wife, I don't know that she ever, you know, thought one day she'd be moving to lovely Lower Borough, Pennsylvania. But I know that wasn't number one on her, you know, agenda. But we ended up coming back here. And the same thing. And the same thing happens. I just, I'm able to get some stuff together. And I, you know, get this business going. And you know, everything's great. Everything's, you know, if you ask me what I wanted in life, I had everything in a world that I thought would make me happy and I wanted. I had this wonderful family. Wonderful family. Well, much more than I deserved. I say this a lot. You know, Billy's in the same boat as me.
Him and I are those guys. You remember Thanksgiving, you know, the wishbone? Him and I got the bigger
[00:35:00]
pieces of the wishbone with our relationships. You know what I mean? We got these women that are much, you know, they got not the good end of the stick as we got. But I just remember like this fear. Like I had the business and I had, you know, all this stuff. And I just felt this, I lived in this fear, man. I lived in this fear and this anxiety. I knew it was going to be gone. I just knew it was going to be gone. And this is another thing I always like to think about. About six months before we got sober, there was a meeting by my house and it was on Wednesdays. And Billy would go to that meeting and he'd stop by our house after. And I just remember him coming and being like all fired up from being at a meeting and this AA stuff and him trying to, you know, try not to promote but, you know, attraction.
And as soon as he'd leave, man, I remember her and I looking at ourselves and just being like, man, poor Billy's all caught up in that stuff. He's all caught up in that stuff. And I'll tell you what the funny thing is, six months later, the call went out to Billy. You know what I mean? There was a whole series of events that happened and it was leading to that incomprehensible demoralization and, you know, what happened was, and it talks about in the big book that, you know, what was my solution for all those years? You know, I always think of this like I didn't suffer a whole lot from alcoholism but everybody around me did because I had a solution for my alcoholism. It was alcohol and it was other substances, you know. And that stuff stopped working. That stuff stopped. I'm putting stuff in my body. I'm putting a lot of stuff in my body and I'm more anxious. I'm more full of fear and all these things. And, you know, what happened was this day was like the day of reckoning. I was ready to leave. I was ready to go out west and get a job in a laundry business. I was real happy with myself. I decided, you know, without a fight, I'd pay her whatever child support and alimony she wanted. She was ready to head back to New York and I walk in for, you know, ready to just get this fight going and done. And I don't know, and it's her story, but she says, listen, I don't want to fight and I don't know what you're going to do. I love you. But the alcohol, everything has to stop now.
And I'm a quick thinker. So I'm sitting there thinking, okay, she needs some help. And, you know what? I felt let off the hook a little bit. You know what I mean? Now this is okay. Let me get some time to regroup. And I says, well, listen, we'll call for rehabs. And, listen, Billy goes to the AAs, you know, goes to meetings. We'll get Billy to take you to a meeting. And that's what we did. We called Billy and Billy took her to a meeting that next night. Listen, in that moment, in those moments, I had, there was, and I had been, like I said, in several rehabs, detox. I had probably been to 120 meetings in my life.
Never did anything. I remember one of my first, when I was 18, I remember out of rehab, I remember this guy, Bill C. He was my sponsor. He was like appointed my sponsor through my aunt and his sister. And, but I remember him telling me, he said, listen, do you, you understand that, you know, our problem isn't drugs and alcohol. That's the solution to our problem. He says, our problem is, is a spiritual problem. It's called a spiritual malady. And the only solution for a spiritual malady is a spiritual solution. And it's in those 12 steps. Listen, that just meant religion to me. I wasn't ready to hear that. I was not ready to hear that. What happened, Billy took her to a meeting on Friday night. And when she was gone, I, I didn't, I remembered some of the steps. I hadn't been to a meeting since 97, I think it was. And I remembered there were promises. I don't remember one word of one of the promises, but I remember there were promises. And I remember Googling them and printing them out.
And she gets home from this meeting and she's literally a, she's, she cried for months, which this was the start of that crying. And I remember her laying there and I remember, I remember reading these promises to her, you know, and I, cause I wanted her to hear, I wanted her to feel better. I don't want her to feel so bad, you know what I mean? But I read these things and you know who heard them? I heard it, you know? And, and so I, I called, I said, Billy, I, I, I'm ready to go to a meeting. And, and I went Sunday and I went to a meeting and I remember it was a Sunday morning at 10 o'clock and I remember walking in, do you hear this stuff? You know what I mean? It's no different. Walking into this meeting, Sunday morning at 10 o'clock, the last, I can't tell you, it was decades since I felt okay, Sunday morning at 10 o'clock. But walking in there and seeing all these people and seeing this energy and see, I wanted that so bad, but I felt like so disconnected.
I was at this point in my life, I had said it was like me and my wife against everybody for a long time. But those last months, it was me against everybody. I was all, I was
[00:40:02]
all alone. I was so isolated. I felt like a man without a country. I really did. And my, my wife's sobriety date is, is the 19th and, and that's the day, that was that Sunday. So mine's the 21st, you know, if you could do that math, there's a separation there. And I like to tell this story simply because what it did for me. So Monday, I remember I, Billy's sponsor, I asked him, he was, I was waiting for him to ask me to sponsor, you know, to be his, for him to be my sponsor. Didn't happen. But I asked him, I says, listen, what do I do, man? He's like, listen, we'll get rid of everything you have. Get, clean your stuff out, get rid of it. And I went through everything and, and I ended up for some reason, there was this piece of hash that was in a corner of my drawer that had been there for every bit of a year and a half or two years, because I hadn't remembered it in a pipe. And, and, and I remember I didn't throw that away. And I, and I go to a meeting Monday night, I come home and she's asleep and she hadn't slept for years, you know, and she was out, quote, I'm like trying to wake her up. She wasn't waking up. And, and I said to myself, you know what? Let me get one last one in, you know? And I take this thing, I sit at my table and I take five pulls off of this thing. And you know what it tastes like? Like hash that sat in a drawer for two years. And, and I didn't get high. I didn't get any, nothing. And I remember sitting there going through this like, all right, so I didn't get high. Listen, I was a master at justifying and rationalizing. Do you know what I mean?
And I'm like, I didn't get high from this thing. So, you know, and it's not alcohol, so I can still, what happens if I'm a year sober? And I had a coin there, a 24 hour coin that said to thine own self, be true. And I was, I was the biggest liar to myself my whole life. And I just, and I slept on this thing. And I remember getting up and I called Billy and I said, Billy, I, you know, Billy's like, well, you just, just tell Tom it's a new sobriety date. But here's the reason I tell that story. It was the first time I was willing to be honest with myself. Because I'm going to tell you, I could have done that.
None of you would know. She wouldn't know. He wouldn't know. I would know. And that was the first time for me. That, that, that's what it took for me. It took all that pain and all that, that stuff to, to, to just give me that gift, man, to give me that gift of desperation. You know, I never, in any of these things, I, I get to a meeting, a guy's meeting on Tuesday nights, you know, my, my sobriety date. And this guy says to me in his driveway, he said, who asked to be my sponsor, he says, you know, our problem isn't drugs or alcohol. Drugs and alcohol are a solution, are a problem. He's like, our problem is a spiritual problem. It's a spiritual malady. Verbatim, what I heard when I was 18. But you know what? It says it in the big book. It says, you know, we're approached by people who the problem had been solved and, and, and people properly armed with facts about themselves. And listen, he just won my confidence just a little bit, just a little bit, just enough, just to, and he says, how long do you want to stay sick? And I knew I was so sick and I didn't want to be sick anymore. He says, listen, you take these steps with me, I promise you, you will never feel the way you feel now again. One of the truest things that's ever been said to me in my life. I've never felt that way, ever. I've felt bad, but nothing like that. And I started getting in action. I started doing this work.
This is a blessing this weekend. I mean, I love this, going over these steps. These steps, in having been in, you know, in the, in the program, when I say in the program, just coming out of meetings, I always say, why wouldn't I work those steps? You know, listen, I wouldn't work those steps because I was afraid of the change. I wanted to know how it was going to change. You know what I mean? I wanted to know the outcome. I was not willing to let go. But listen, the pain was great enough. I was willing to let go. And, you know, we started talking about this step one and we have to succumb to our innermost self that, you know, we can't drink like normal people. I'm going to tell you, I could not say that.
I couldn't say it here, but listen, my actions were saying differently because I was willing to, he told me to pray morning and night. You know what I mean? He told me to show up at a meeting every day. He told me to call him every day. I was doing that. So you know what? I really had succumbed to that fact. What, what, what I thought before wasn't true is now I believe is true, that I need this help. Step two, again, we talked about it and this is, this is one that really hit me. I was going over to Billy's house. I was going to an eight o'clock meeting every morning because I wasn't sleeping. And then he'd get home from work at 12, 31 o'clock and I'd meet him in his house. And this day, as I'm about two weeks sober, like we just start talking. We're talking for like two hours and talking about like people we met and met and the change that it's happened and, and people we'd known that had come in here and gotten sober. And like two hours, we're talking about good stuff. And listen, there's a lot of time in our lives we didn't talk about much good stuff. You know what I mean? It wasn't that kind of stuff. And he just stops and he, and he looks at me and he's like, don't you see this? This is a power greater than us. It's a power greater than Mark. It's a power greater than Bill.
Greater Than Mark, It's a Power Greater Than Bill. Right here, this is a power greater than us. This is tapping into the power. And he said that, and it made sense. For the last two hours, I didn't feel insane. That insanity thing, I think
[00:45:06]
it's Einstein that came up with that, you know, trying, doing the same things over and over again, getting a different result. No, insane is to not be of sane mind. No peace in my head ever. It's like a hamster on a wheel. But for two, two hours talking about some good stuff, I had a little bit of sanity. And man, that, that's the start of this thing. I went, I remember we were going to do the third step prayer a couple days later, me and my sponsor, and I was weirded out by that.
I was weird getting on my knees and praying. I remember hearing getting on your knees and praying, but I thought that was just a saying, just to pray. I didn't know get on your knees and pray. But I started doing that because he said to get on your knees, and it felt weird to me. It just did. It just felt weird. And now I'm going to do this third step. And, you know, Billy laid the land a little bit to me. He says, you're going to get down on your knees and pray with this guy.
And I didn't want to do it, you know. But I was willing. I remember going over his house and I says, listen, I, I'm going to do this, but I need some, I can't, you know, the group and a chair and a doorknob, I can't use that as his higher power. And I, he says, listen, you can use mine. And he turned, I think it's 46 in agnostics. It talks about this creative intelligence, the underlying totality of all things. Man, that was so broad. Still is. I understand it less now than I ever did. I keep under, and that's okay. But we walked outside and it was a Tuesday morning at 10 o'clock and it was a super bright day, but you could see the moon and you could still see some stars. And he says the clouds, and he's like, just look at all that. Can you just for one second, wrap your mind around the fact that you're not responsible for that? And I didn't. That was the start of it.
That was the start of the willingness. Just a little, and it, well, I think it says it not long after, amazing things will start, will start to happen. And that's what happened. And I wrote that, I wrote that four-step, I think about that all the time too, with that, that on 63 or 65. That looked like hieroglyphics, Chinese hieroglyphics to me. Do you know what I mean? I kept asking, what are these columns in this? He's like, listen, just write down resentments one after another. And then when I was done with that, just write down what the cause was and just write down one of these five. Thank God he took me through it like I was in kindergarten, you know. And listen, what I know now, and it says it, that, that's, that's data gathering. I don't need to understand that. That's just, listen, doing an inventory, you just gathered the data. All that other stuff comes later, you know. So then I do this, we set up this fifth step and we, we do this, man, we do the fifth step. And listen, the same thing, I, I remember hearing, I would always become a perfectionist when it was something I didn't want to do, you know. And I remember hearing somebody saying, somebody saying, there's a five-syllable word for perfection, it's called, it's called the procrastination. And that's the way I always was. And, and I, and I remember we, we did this thing and he said to me when I was done, he said, can you honestly say that you didn't purposefully leave anything out? And I could answer yes. And man, I felt like a million bucks, not because I understood anything on that, but because I did it. I didn't do that stuff, you know. And in six and seven, you know, he talked about the, I don't know how they say it, and you know, he, he gets in a, I was on a 14th fairway of a golf course, and he jumps in the car and he says, this is what separates the boys from the men. He's like, are you ready to have these removed? You're gonna humbly ask them. And I started saying a seven-step prayer after this third step prayer I was already doing. Still today, I, I say, I say those prayers. I say a third, seventh, eleventh-step prayer every day.
You know, I want the, the bondage itself to be removed, and God, please remove my shortcomings so I'm better to you, better to everybody else, you know. And then I made that, the amends list and, and, and started making those amends. And it's true, those ninth-step promises started happening. My whole attitude and outlook upon life completely changed. Step ten, and you know, step ten, I love step ten, the fact that that's the gift that you guys gave me. Not some of the time, all the time I realize and know that I'm the problem. You know what I mean? That's what I learned through that fifth step, after, way after. Listen, all those things, all those resentments, none of them are there if I don't do what I do. You know, it says in the big book, you know, some people may have wronged us, but listen, if I don't do what I do, it's just, it's not there. It's not there. And I don't find myself in that situation when I'm acting right, when I'm living by these principles, the way you guys lay it out. Trying to be kind, loving, tolerant, peaceful, trying to think of others. Listen, my problem, it says it on 62, selfishness and self-centered is the root of my problem. The only cure for that is being other-centered. And that's what I always got to think of. That doesn't come natural to me. I have to think of that. And it's you guys that, you know, taught me that. You know, I want to say, before I go, I got to say, I have this shirt, it's a, it's a, it's a French cuff. And I didn't know you needed cuff links for it. And I got a gift. If you could do the math, I was taught, I never had a job more than like a year and a
[00:50:01]
half or two years of my life. I, I've been at a job now because of you guys for eight years this past November. My, my boss, Sam is his name, who's been a blessing in my life. His father had 42 years, 41 years in his fellowship, and he passed away. I got to see him. I got to, I got to be with him at the end. I get to watch him live with cancer and come to meetings. And so I said to Sam, I said, Sam, I, just out of the blue, I said, you have any cuff links? He's like, yeah, I got cuff links. I got, my dad gave me cuff links. So I get to stand up. Are you talking about being grateful? I get to wear Bill Coombs' cuff links. You know what I mean?
And again, my, with this guy, his wife's here, his wife's 18, just 18 years of sobriety. Last Tuesday, she's been just blessed with this, this whole thing, man. This, this is a life beyond rocketing into the fourth dimension of existence. Guys, if nobody told you they love you, I love you. Thanks for listening. Transcribed by https://otter.ai