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Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Multi Speakers – TURNING POINTS Turning Points – RS 06354.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-multi-speakers-turning-points-turning-points-rs-06354.mp3 Duration: 01:17:51
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I have strict instructions from GSO that we will start on time, and probably more important as far as you people are concerned, we're going to end on time. I'd like to open the meeting this afternoon with a moment of silence and as requested that we all remember with a great deal of gratitude those who have recovered through the 50 years of Alcoholics Anonymous's existence. Would you all please join me in a serenity prayer?
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I've asked to make two announcements. One of them is merely a reminder that tapes of all of the activities here in Montreal, including this session here, will be available at the various booths in the hotels and also at the Convention Center. One other announcement.
If you leave the room for any reason whatsoever, the hotel requests that we not bring coffee or soft drinks back into this room. There will be water brought in, in a short period of time, and that will be available. However, please go along with the hotel's request on the coffee and soft drinks. My name is John, and I'm an alcoholic, and I'm from western Massachusetts, and I feel it's a good deal of pleasure to be able to chair this little session this afternoon.
I've looked forward to this convention for many, many years, and I'm sure everybody here feels the same way. And with the exception of the mass chaos at the dance last night, it seems as though everything is going along great, and I know I'm going to enjoy the weekend. I hope you all approach it with that same feeling, and that you do go away from here with a grand feeling about Alcoholics Anonymous, not only as it pertains to you, but as it exists throughout the world and in the various places that we know that it is present today.
I do not believe in flowery introductions, and it's good that I don't because I have met the three speakers that are here this afternoon for the first time. So I think that it would be very fitting if each speaker, as he or she starts, tell you a little bit about themselves before we get on with the subject. And the subject that we're going to cover this afternoon is turning points. And to start, I would like to introduce to you, and will you please welcome Rosemary Peay, and she is from where in New York?
Penfield. Penfield. Thank you. Hi, everybody. I'm Rosemary Palmeri, and I'm an alcoholic, and I'm a member of the Penfield Friday Night group in Penfield, New York, which is a suburb of Rochester, and that will place us. I was told if I didn't mention my home group, I'd be crucified, so I made sure I got that in. A little bit about myself, I will try and incorporate into the topic of turning points.
When our delegate, Jim Dee, asked me to do this a few months ago, he said, would you mind doing an Alc-a-thon? And Alc-a-thon, where I come from, is kind of like a continuous AA meeting, and there's someone up at a table that calls on people, so I said, sure, no problem. I had no idea it was going to be a panel type affair. I got the letter from New York, the loving invitation, and they had a topic, and I put it away.
I didn't think too much about it, and then a few weeks later, it dawned on me, topic. They want me to speak on something in particular. Up to that point, I had never really gone through my life or looked back over my life to determine where my turning points were, and so it caused me to start to do that, and I attempted once to sit down and write, and nothing came. So I put the paper and pencil away, but looking back over my life, hindsight is wonderful.
It's a beautiful tool, and I use it, and I used it in the beginning of my sobriety quite a bit. That's what helped fortify my trust in God, but looking back over my life, I categorized my life into now three areas, had been two before I came to AA, and the first two areas
[00:05:03]
were prior to my being married and then after my being married. Before my marriage, the way I grew up, I was the youngest of three children, the baby of the family, the one who didn't know anything, the one who had no experience, the one who was under everybody's thumb, or so I thought. I had no opinion that was worth anything, and I learned very early to keep my opinions to myself and keep an awful lot of feelings inside and internalize them, and that's what I did.
But it was always in my mind that when I got married, and I think I hear this in a lot of people, when I get married, that's going to set me free. I'll no longer be under the thumb of my parents, teachers, brother and sister, family. I'll be on my own, I'll be grown up, I'll be sophisticated, and that's what I expected to happen when I got married. In a way, it happened. In a way, it happened. I guess all of those outer things did change, and in that way it was a section of my life.
But as far as a turning point itself in my life, it wasn't. I still felt as though my opinions were worthless. I was intimidated by just about everybody, not only people who had authority over me, but just people in general. Other people were more intelligent than I, other people had more personality than I, other people were prettier than I, other people had better husbands than I, just on and on and on with all this material outer garbage.
And so I felt pretty much the same way. I felt childlike, I guess, is maybe one of the ways I could describe it. My drinking during that time, after I was married, was when I started to drink daily, and it was quite a few years after I was married before I started to drink daily. I don't know, and I couldn't tell you, at what age or at what point I crossed the line into alcoholism. I'm not sure whether I was ever a social drinker, that's really not important.
The important thing is that when I did drink, it didn't matter anymore that I had no personality, I had no looks, I had no money, I had no anything. I could go on and on with that. It just became okay. It didn't make it better, it just became okay. It was my acceptance tool. The problem with that is years later, when I did make some attempts to control my drinking, not to stop my drinking, but to control my drinking, to control being drunk, which is what I didn't want to become, I didn't want to be.
I only wanted to drink to make things okay. I didn't want to shoot over and black out and pass out and all the other garbage that goes with that. In the time that I was married, as I say, my drinking became daily. There were times when I would think to myself, I'm an alcoholic. I used that word, it sounded so much better than I'm a drunk. But I took that with a kind of resignation. I'm an alcoholic, it's somewhere in my family, so it must be hereditary, I've got it, and what do you do but drink?
I never really entertained the thought of giving it up, of stopping it. I would have loved to control it, I would have loved to control it, but I wasn't able to. There was a short period of time when I was living out in California. I was only living out there for about a year and a half, I think. My husband became ill and that brought us back to Rochester, New York, a place I never wanted to go back to and which I love today.
But that brought us back to Rochester and when we came back, my husband died of cancer and my life obviously changed on the outside again. All of these changes were all on the outside.
[00:10:02]
During that time, I tried suicide a couple of times and that put me in touch with my psychiatrist. With him, I was point blank. I walked into his office and I said I was an alcoholic and he asked me why I drank and I told him to sleep and so he gave me some sleeping pills. Told me not to drink while I'm taking them and I knew enough that you didn't mix pills and booze so I did that. I tried to follow instructions and I left the booze alone and took the Librium and the Delmane for one month and that was not the same.
That did nothing for me. There was even a time within that month when the Delmane wouldn't put me to sleep. I said, the heck with this stuff. I put the pills away and I went back to my booze. That was the only thing that made life and its miserable circumstances seem okay. But then I would shoot past that into drunkenness and then I'd pass out and at the end of my drinking I blacked out daily. When I went to him and told him that and he gave me the pills, he also mentioned by the way you should go to AA.
I didn't want to go to AA because I didn't want to stop drinking and I knew the people in AA didn't drink so that wasn't the problem. The problem was getting drunk and I couldn't seem to get the connection that for me I had to stop drinking in order not to get drunk. He was the one that planted the first seed though. I fought it for several months and when, oh I guess it was about six months into seeing him and hearing this every so often, you should go to AA, I finally was pushed into going to AA.
I walked into the rooms and I felt very comfortable with you people. I knew you knew me. I really didn't care to know you but I knew you knew me. I was so self-centered and intensified within myself that that was really all that I could respond to. After a period of going to AA meetings and still not putting down the drink, I attempted suicide again and that landed me back in the hospital in our wing which is the mental section of Strong Memorial Hospital.
This was the third time I was in there. My psychiatrist was in there and he said I can't help you Rosemary anymore unless you stop drinking. So he never put it bluntly like that before. He never told me that he was going to leave or not take care of me anymore. I needed to be taken care of desperately. I didn't know which way I needed that. I was sent out to treatment and I believe that my turning point, my real turning point came when I left that treatment center six days after I got there.
When I was coming back home to Rochester on the airplane, six days later, tail between my legs, scared to death because nothing worked. AA didn't work. I had been trying it for eight months and psychiatry didn't work. I had been trying that for a year. Religion didn't work. I tried to go back to religion and now this thing called treatment also didn't work. I had nowhere else to go. I knew if I picked up another drink I'd be dead.
I knew I didn't want to die at that point. It was a moment of total helplessness, total hopelessness, total desperation that brought me to a point of surrender where I could be willing to look at this getting sober process. That I believe was my turning point. I came into AA, officially you might say, because now I had a very strong desire to stop drinking. And I proceeded to do what I was told to do and that was get busy in the steps, get active in the steps, get active in service.
And I feel very fortunate that I had people around me when I was first getting sober who pushed service. They didn't say, well you wait a while dear, you have time to work on the steps and then you get into service. At seven months I became a GSR. I do not recommend that for everybody. It worked out well for me. I needed something to do. I needed AA involvement and contact. And for me personally at that time I needed to be busy on Sundays.
I needed to be busy on Sundays, and that was why I did it. It was not so that I could
[00:15:02]
give back to AA, but I found what I got out of that was what AA gave to me. And from that point, from seven months sober in AA, I have been privileged. It's been a privilege and an honor and a blessing that God has given me that opportunity to be available for service work. I attend many, many workshops, district workshops, area assemblies, forums, and the like. And this is where I find I get back from AA what we are supposed to be putting into it. And I am richly blessed, and I thank GSO for their loving invitation, and our area delegate, Jim Dee, for asking me to do this, and you for being here in this weekend's convention.
Thank you, John. Thank you very much, Rosemary. You know, I noticed in going through this program that these names that were submitted by delegates, the delegates are not chairing any of the meetings where those people are speaking. I don't know if they're trying to point out something or not. And as usual, I have made my mistake. It says that this will be read and explained at all meetings that are open to the public. Now, we did not have anybody outside checking secret passwords or handcrafts or anything like that, so I will take the opportunity to read what General Service Office would like us to put out relative to our anonymity tradition.
There may be some here who are not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films. Thus, we respectfully ask that no AA member, speaker, or indeed any AA member be identified by full name or photograph in published or broadcast reports of our meetings. The assurance of anonymity is essential in our effort to help other problem drinkers who may wish to share our recovery program with us. And our tradition of anonymity reminds us that AA principles come before personalities.
That should take care of the requirements that I have, so I should not make any more mistakes this afternoon. Our next speaker is from Flint, Michigan, and I'd like for you all to welcome, please, Lloyd H. Hi, everybody. I'm an alcoholic and Lloyd Hosner is my problem. You know, I had a talk here. I was going to lay on you. I was going to have you people feeling so sorry for me he's going to take up a collection. And I thought coming clear up here in Montreal, there wouldn't be a soul I know, you know, and I could tell you anything I wanted to tell you and I, you know, so damn if I don't have to keep it honest. You know, there's a, I think any one of you could have handled this project, Turning Point, if you think about it, because I think we all had a turning point in AA. And when I first got the letter, I almost panicked because I did not know what they meant because I wasn't thinking. And I was going to call the New York office or whoever the committee was and ask them what they wanted me to talk about, you know. And I started thinking about it and the more I thought about it, the more it started coming to me, you know, that hell, I know what the turning points of my sobriety was and the events that have led up to where I'm at now.
And so I'm going to give them to you. I know probably most of you people speak French, you know, but I've had a learning experience the last few days being here in a French speaking province. I've tried to, tried hard to pick up the language, but I'm not having too good a job. I even had to take a young lady to lunch with me today so she'd read the menu. But I have learned two words in French. I learned two words in French and they'll go on and they'll say okay, and I know what okay is. That's about the extent of it. But I'm going to keep trying. I think the, back to turning points, my life went on up to the time I become in engaged in AA. I was a pretty self-centered person and I'd done what I damn
[00:20:02]
well pleased and to hell with everybody else. But there was one person that really turned me around 180 degrees. I was very reluctant. His name was Judge Newblatt. And Judge Newblatt knew I was going in the wrong direction. He wanted to turn me around. So this is the alternative he gives me. He said, Lloyd, you either sober up or you're going to jail for six months. Now that kind of turned me around a little bit. I did not want to go to jail and I told him I didn't know how to sober up. I'd tried several times. So he said, go down to the National Council. And I didn't have the slightest idea what he was talking about. The National Council. A National Council on what?
You know, they've got now all kind of National Councils. And I was, I was up on a trial for drunk driving. Drunk and disorderly. I tried to beat up a cop that was 6 foot 5. Weighed 250 pounds. I'm 5 foot 8 and I weigh 150 and I was going to take him on. That's, that was my last bout with the law. Anyway, we got out in the hallway and I asked, I asked my lawyer, what is a National Council? And he almost said, you are as dumb as you look. You know what? He explained to me what it was. So I went, I made an appointment to go down to the National Council. And they had a counselor there and he talked to me for about three hours. And I kept denying that I had a drinking problem. And he never once said I had a drinking problem. He never once told me I was an alcoholic. We talked about all the troubles I'd been in, the trials and tribulations. And after about three hours, he said, let's get off this bullshit and you admit you've got a drinking problem. He said, now I've talked to you long enough and I'm sick of it. And I made a commitment to myself that I must be an alcoholic. So that was one of the, my greatest turning points. When that judge and that counselor told me to go to AA. I went very reluctantly, but I was very fortunate. Someone said something, a very first meeting I went into, in which my second turning point. This man said, you know, Lloyd, you wouldn't get into all the trouble that you'd get into if you didn't drink so much. You know, he said, if you'd just stop drinking, he said, you know, the first drink gets you drunk.
If you'd stop drinking, you wouldn't get in all that trouble. God is so simple. And I never thought of it. So I kind of think that was a turning point. And this, this man played a big part in my life, my, my sobriety. He turned me around a lot of times. He was my sponsor. I'd only been in AA a few, very few times, a short time, a few days. And he told me that he was going to be my sponsor. And I didn't have the slightest idea what a sponsor was. So I asked him. And he told me in these specific words, he said, Lloyd, you don't look too bright. And he said, I haven't had a challenge in a long time. And he said, if I can't help you, he said, I can't help nobody. So he started to help me and we went to meetings together. Yeah, I kept getting ahead of him because I wanted to go to more meetings than my sponsor did. And I would call him up and ask him if he was ready to go. And he said, why don't you go without me tonight? I went to meetings for over two years every night, three on Sunday. I was afraid not to. I was afraid what was going to happen if I didn't go. And lo and behold, I was in AA about, oh, maybe sober a year or so. And I didn't show up at my home group meeting one night. I very seldom missed it. And I don't remember why I missed it. It was on, we met on Monday and Wednesday. And I went on Wednesday and my sponsor came up and shook my hand and said, congratulations, you are the new GSR for this group. And I said, when the hell did I become that? He said, Monday when you wasn't here. We took a vote. You are the GSR. You know, I never missed a meeting after that. It was really ironic. But then that was, that was really neat. It got me into service and it kept me busy and it kept me from thinking
[00:25:01]
about myself. And most, I'm like most alcoholics, I think about myself as bad business. That was a turning point, being forced into service, more or less, Shanghai. That's how they do it in Genesee County, Flint, where I come from. I think the next turning point was when I become committee man, and that was another Shanghai job. They have a steering committee. We have what we call a unity council, which is the county, the unity council, the old-timers. It's more or less a steering point. And they pick out the likely candidates to be committee man for that area. We don't have a voting system, you know, by the manual. They will pick out a certain person that they figure is interested in service, interested in doing a good job, that has the experience, and they'll appoint him committee man. They go to him and they tell him he is the committee man and these are the groups. And then one of the older committee man will take you by the hand around to each group and tell the group, this is your committee man. Never run any trouble with that. It worked perfect because nobody really gives a damn, so it worked good. That was a turning point. It was just a little more responsibility and a little more thought of what I had to do. And one of the biggest, one of the biggest, I don't know, honors I think I had and one of the biggest thrills I ever had when you people elect to be delegate from Central Michigan and give me an opportunity to go to New York as a delegate. It was an experience that I'll never forget, and it is really a turning point. Any past delegates here and I know there must be, you know that when you go to New York it turns you around. You don't know how humble and insignificant you are until you go to New York as a delegate. It takes all the big-shot itis you might have ever had out of you and it makes you practically a nothing. And that's just what I wanted to be, but nobody picks on a nothing.
So these were the turning points I figured in my life. I've had other opportunities to make turning points, you know, to turn my life around, but I finally become wise enough to know the good ones and the bad ones because when I was drinking, turning points would hit me and I'd go with the crowd and always end up in trouble. So when I become sober and I would notice a turning point that was going to turn my life around in a different direction, I had a decision and I was able to make that decision with a clear head. Do I want to do this or don't I want to do this? You know, am I making a big mistake? And I have done pretty good about making the right mistakes and going in the right direction. A couple times I've kind of been swayed a little bit, you know, about going the wrong way, but I've pretty well kept myself out of trouble by just stopping and thinking, is this right or is it wrong? Being a delegate in New York, I don't know, I think I had one of the greatest opportunities to turn my life in the wrong direction and fortunately there was someone, some people and one person in particular, smarter than I was and knowing that's not the direction I should be going in and they turned my life around in the other way because I was really heading in the wrong direction. Another turning point in my life and maybe no one has thought about, probably some people in here can relate with the same turning point, is getting their wife or their spouse into Al-Anon because without my wife going into Al-Anon, we would have went separate direction years ago. We still fight, but it's fair, it's a fair fight now. It didn't used to be fair, you know, because I know some of you fellas know that your wife can dig shit out of the closet that happened 20 years ago that you cannot remember and throw it at you, you know. My wife only goes back about 10 years now, you know, things I can remember. You did this and you said that and you know, but now we can fight fair and they don't last as long either. It was one continuous big blow. So I don't know, I don't really know why I was even picked to come up here because I know a lot of you people could probably do a better job and if you think about it, your turning points in life, what turned you around? Maybe alcohol turned us all around, without a doubt, and sobriety turned us all around. Maybe Doubt, and sobriety turned us all around. Maybe a judge didn't turn you around. Maybe it was your employer, you know, that made the decision for you that you should be turned
[00:30:03]
around and going the other way. And that's about all I've got to say. The man said keep it within 20 minutes, and I've tried. Thank you very much. Thank you, Lloyd. The way we're going here, we're going to have to have a lot of speakers from the floor. Oh, we've got to go an hour and a half, and we've used up 31 minutes so far. It's unfortunate that the person who had been selected and agreed to be our third speaker is unable to be here today, and her delegate approached another person and asked him to fill in, and he graciously accepted. And I must apologize that I was introduced to him, and I forgot to remember his name. That comes with it, so will you please?
Thank you. My name's Roger, and I'm an alcoholic. This is definitely a turning point for me. About five or six of us were sitting around in my kitchen Tuesday morning right outside of St. Louis, Missouri, and we were getting prepared for the trip, which is about 1,100 miles, and my sponsor hands me a little note that says, turning point's July 5th, 3 o'clock to 4.30, and I said, what's this? And he said, well, Barb was supposed to speak there, and he says, so I submitted your name. And I have finally got to the point, I think it happened about a year ago, that I just started doing what my sponsor said, and there's a lot less complications in my life when I do that. But I'd like to say on behalf of Barb, she's young, and she's pretty, and she definitely wanted to be here, and she has a good program of sobriety that she could have shared with you folks today. And she's a member of my home group, which is Group 81 in Bridgeton, Missouri, and I'm sorry she couldn't be here. She was supposed to travel with us, but she is doing what this program is about. She's being responsible. She is a student as well as employed today, and before she came to the tables, she didn't have either one of those, and that's why she's not here. She's doing what we come to this program for.
Just a little bit about myself. I'm just a little bit over four years sober. I drank for 16 years before getting here. The past couple of weeks have been unbelievable. I've celebrated my fourth birthday on June the 24th. I celebrated my 10th wedding anniversary on June the 21st, and today is my 39th birthday. It's unbelievable. I know if I was still drinking, I'd be dead from the celebration. I know if I was still drinking, I wouldn't be here today. On June the 23rd in 1981, the position that I was in, I can't feel the position that I was in, but I can remember it. I remember the fact that we were foreclosing the company that I had an interest in and worked for, which was also my family's only sole means of support. I had asked my partner the night before out in the field as we were proceeding to get drunk like we did just about every day and every night. I had asked him if our insurance policy was still in effect, and the reason that I did was because I knew that there was a clause in there that paid off on suicide. He got mad when I asked him that question. I thought he might want to join me or something, but he was not an alcoholic. Apparently, he was able to look at things and somehow understand that this too will pass. For me, during those days, I just knew my life was over because this company was going down and I had an unhappy marriage.
[00:35:02]
I had a three and a half year old boy at home that I wouldn't come home at night because all I wanted to do was drink. Thank you. That's a good idea now, too. My life was a mess. The only thing left for me that gave me any sort of satisfaction or release from my fears and anxiety and everything else was drinking and smoking dope. On June the 24th, I came into work as usual about two hours late. My partner and I were sitting down. We had a lot of problems.
We knew that we were being sued. We were going to be sued. There was a lot of chaos. We were also thinking about starting partnership number two after the fall of this one. He said to me, it was myself and him and another person, and he said to me, Roger, I don't think that I can go into another partnership with you because of the way that you drink. I looked at him and I said, well, I've done most of my drinking in the past couple of years with you. What are you talking about? I was mad because he was pointing at me and saying I was an alcoholic. Looking back on that, it was a very dangerous time. I don't call that an intervention, but I think for lack of a better word, that's what it has to be called.
He pointed at me and he called me what I was. I was an alcoholic. He also told me that I was sick. He told me that I didn't drink like he drank, which was true. He didn't want to fight people six foot five, and I did. He didn't go to jail for his drinking, which I did. And he didn't, there were other things that he did that were similar to mine, but I knew I was an alcoholic and I knew it didn't matter really if he was an alcoholic or not.
I knew I was. I left that meeting with him, which lasted about an hour, and the other partner came in and talked to and also told me that I was an alcoholic. And I knew that one thing was just about to happen unless I did a desperate move. I was about to lose my source of income. And so I made a vow. I said, if I ever have another drink, we will consider this partnership dissolved, and that's whether you find out about it or not. And I was being a saint. And I knew that the two of them were going to tell me on that day that we don't want you to come back, we don't want anything to do with you. And that was my way of trying to save the situation so that I would have a paycheck the following week if that was at all possible. And they also told me that, they said, by the way, we went to a meeting a couple of weeks ago with your wife and she's leaving you. And that wasn't a big surprise, but hearing that from them, I didn't appreciate it too much.
I left that meeting, I went home, and I remember closing my fist and I had to be driven home. My car wasn't at the office. And I was refusing to cry. And one of the, the third partner was a woman, and she had told me she had prayed for me that night, the night before, and that she wanted to come up and hug me after this meeting because I was just about to, you know, fall to pieces. And I just shook my head no. I was afraid to open my mouth because if I did, the tears would start flowing. I just, I didn't want any part of it. And I drove away, or I was taken home, where I told my wife, I said, I understand you're leaving me. And I said, I just had a meeting with John and Jeanette, and I think I'm going to take a drive. And at the time, I had no idea what I was going to do. What I did was I went to a movie, because they didn't serve booze in a movie, and I thought it was a smart thing to do. And I came out of the movie, and at this time, I was bankrupt in every area of my life. I wanted to commit suicide, and I was, if not agnostic, somewhere between there
[00:40:00]
and atheist. And I was driving, I came out of the movie, and I said, I was thinking, well, you know, I can't stay in movies here for the rest of my life. And I only have so much money in my pocket. And I got on the highway, and my car started going on automatic pilot to go over to Bogart's, where the pinball machines and the Miller was there. And for some reason, I hadn't done this in probably those 16 years that I drank, for some reason, I just said, if you're not there, I'm dead. And I don't know why I said that, but I was afraid. I don't remember very much about the next six months. I went home, and I told my, I remember I walked in the door, and I came back, and my wife was very quiet. I was aware of this at the time, but, you know, during that time, I was unaware of most things because of my drinking. But my wife had been in the fellowship for 90 days by that time. And she had already learned a little bit about detachment. She had already learned a little bit about, I have to be willing to get help if I'm going to get help. And there wasn't a whole lot that she could do about it. She wanted me to go to AA, and I didn't want to go to AA.
And I remember she was saying, well, then go to counseling. And I said to her, I said, fine. I said, I'll go to counseling as long as the counselor is a Vietnam veteran and an alcoholic. And she pulls a phone number right out of her purse. I went to this man for approximately six months, and we talked about a lot of things. He's the first person I talked to ever in my life about my fears and about my shortcomings. It was not a fifth step that I did with him over that period of time, but I poured out, and he understood.
And after those five or six months, whatever it was, he said to me, do you believe that you're an alcoholic? And I said, yes. And he says, well, alcoholics go to Alcoholics Anonymous. He says, you can continue to pay me, or you can go there and get help. And he left the area, and within a week or two, and turned me over to another counselor, and I chose not to go to the other counselor. I chose once again to be on my own and figure out my own problems. And after about 30 days of that, I had come home for the who knows how many, what time, and had said again, this job sucks. Those people are after me. They hate me because of all the things that I did before, and they're planning to kick me out of the company. And, you know, just a long list of things that I was dissatisfied with.
And my wife said something on that day that I know saved my life. She had mentioned to me before, and it even tricked me into going to four meetings during this six month period of time. At least that's how I looked at it at the time. She said to me on this night when I come home complaining again that, she said, why don't you go up to St. Joseph Hospital? There's an AA meeting up there. It might make you feel better. She didn't say go change your life. She didn't say go join Alcoholics Anonymous. There was a lot of things that she could have said. She could have said quit bitching or get the hell out of the house, you know, for one thing. But she said that, and it made it tolerable enough, it made it easy enough for me to go to the hospital to this open AA meeting, which was a newcomer's meeting. And at that newcomer's meeting, I knew a person, I knew the person that was talking. I had, she was in the fellowship, and my wife knew her, and I knew her very, you know, not very good, but it was nice that there was somebody there that I knew. I also knew at these meetings that they read How It Works before the speakers talked. The guy that was chairing the meeting thought I had been around for a long time, and he brings up the copy of How It Works to me, and it's about ten minutes before the meeting starts, and he says, walking back to his chair, and I started reading this thing out loud, and people are still coming in. They haven't started the meeting yet. And, you know, all this time I'm trying to act cool.
And he let me get, I think, through the first paragraph, and he said, you might wait till the meeting starts.
[00:45:03]
And that was the beginning for me, and it humbled me, it humiliated me. I walked up, I walked up to him after the meeting, and I said, I've been sober for six months, and I can't take it anymore, I need help. And, you know, he didn't think I was that sick when I walked in, I guess. But what he said to me was, he says, I belong to a step, a closed step group, and we have meetings every Thursday night.
I'll take you to a meeting. I'll take you over there if you want to go. And he's one of these people that believes that if a person wants help, they will ask for help. And that's the way that he treated me at that time. I met him, I went to that meeting, and I kept going to that meeting with him on Thursday nights. I went to other meetings with him. And after a while, I had another turning point. A turning point to me, it means nothing more than surrender.
My life, as long as I lived it, was a one direction toward self-destruction. Alcohol made it tolerable. And June the 24th was a turning point, a very selfish turning point. I wanted to save my income. When I came to AA willingly, that was another turning point for me. But I still had a lot of the pride, the false pride, that I wanted to do things myself. I was still, even though I had said that, if you're not there, I'm dead on my first sober day, I still, I was being taken care of, I think, by my higher power in spite of myself.
But after a couple of months, I heard the people in my home group say that you need a home group. Not to me personally, but just in the group. And they talked about sponsors, and so finally I signed up with this group, made it my home group, and I asked this man to be my sponsor that had taken me to that meeting. About a month later, I asked him to be my sponsor again, because I hadn't called him. And about a month or two later, I said, please, will you still be my sponsor?
And I said, I promise I will call. And a short time after that, I did. Because the crisis, I guess the emotional crisis, were just getting to be so big in my life that I just couldn't take it anymore, and I surrendered again, and I had to start talking to somebody. After I was sober about a year, I knew I was going to drink again. I was, I think, setting this up in my mind, because things were still pretty deep.
I knew that everybody hated me, my wife, my kids, the people I worked with, and I didn't think so much of them either because of the way they treated me. And in desperation, I did the third step on my knees while no one was at home. And I had been reading in the big book about the fourth step, and I had been listening to a tape about the fourth step. And I got up from my knees, and I went to the table, kitchen table, and it was late at night, and I sat down, and I wrote my fourth step.
And a few days later, I did my fifth step. And my life, you know, I walked away from my fifth step, and I said, What's the big deal? I don't feel what I think I'm supposed to feel. And I learned that that's a common thing. But my life changed after that because there was one person in my life that really knew me, that knew about the things that I have done that no one else knows about. And at that time, I think I was put into a position to start dealing with my resentments and dealing with my fears and my anger.
And I actually thought I would become a saint and, you know, have all this serenity after doing my fifth step. And I didn't know that you had to continue working and you had to continue doing these things. But it put me in a position to make amends to my partners from before, these people that I hated. And I said, How can I make amends to them when they've done the same things to me and they still hate me?
[00:50:03]
They hate me more than I hate them. And my sponsor said, The only reason for amends is to clean your side of the street. It's not to clean theirs. And he said, You might think about forgiving them for what they've done to you and just go to them and tell them that you're sorry for what you've done to them. I did that to the best of my ability. And the amends were accepted. And six months later, one of the partners left by that time.
Of course, I thought she just couldn't take me anymore, so she went back to North Carolina. And about six months later, the other partner said to me, Roger, I've decided that I don't want to be partners anymore. And the old fears came back. I've always had this fear, but I was threatened once again with losing everything, what I thought was everything, which was that job. And I immediately got very sick.
I'm sure that some of it was physical, but I know that a lot of it was emotional. I went into a walking pneumonia. And for about a month, we had very little contact, but we were in the process of dissolving our partnership, and what happened was I ended up going into business for myself. It's the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I've come to believe what my sponsor told me from day one. Every time I brought a problem to him, he would say, have you asked for help yet?
And I knew what that meant to him because he's a very spiritual man. What that meant to him was to ask my higher power for help. I always had a hard time doing that. I don't today, but I did for a long time. And I just forgot where I was, but I think that's okay. He would say to me, ask for help and then get out of the way. And during this crisis, you know, it's interesting. We had two companies going, and they were two very distinct things, two very distinct things that we did, and we were basically salesmen.
And he gave me the choice. He says, I don't want to be in business with you anymore, but I'll give you the choice of which one you want. And I think if a lot of people would have had that choice, they would have probably said, I don't want either one of them. But he did give me a choice, and I had decided on one thing. I had spent all this time working on it and working out charts and all this happy stuff, and I knew I had to make the perfect decision.
And one night, and I had continued going to meetings, and one night I was sitting at the kitchen table with all this information on the table, and it literally covered the table. And I'm trying to make a decision on which one to pick. And I got mad, because once again I couldn't decide. And I just took my arm and I knocked everything off the table. And there was no one at home, and I was storming around the house, bouncing off the walls, because I had to make a decision today.
It had to be today. And I went into the living room, and I got down on my knees. And I decided getting down on my knees wasn't good enough, and I got down prone on my living room floor. And I said, God, I can't do this. I just can't do it. I'm just going to have to let you do everything, and I'm going to get up from here and do whatever you want me to do. And I got up from there, and I had to make a phone call to one of two places and give my decision.
And I got on the telephone, and I called this guy in Dallas, Texas, and I told him the situation of the split up. And I said, and I've picked you, and I'm going to represent your firm. And this guy said to me, Roger, that's a mistake. He said, I would love to have you instead of John, because you started this thing. He says, but you're making a mistake. He says, take the other one. He says, it's a better deal.
And I couldn't believe it. I just wanted to hold the phone like that and look into it and said, God is talking to me through this telephone. And I find that experience hard to talk about,
[00:55:04]
because that's how I understand my higher power today. If I ask for help, I'll get help. But it's up to me to accept it. It's up to me to follow. My sponsor says to me all the time, after you ask for help, get out of the way. That's been the problem all along. I used to ask for help and didn't want to hang in there with my hands on the controls and still take care of things. I got to a point, I believe Alcoholics Anonymous is restoring me to sanity.
I'm not restored by any stretch of the imagination, but I think it is restoring me. And I found that I've had to do things different since coming in Alcoholics Anonymous. I think change is hard for alcoholics, and I know it's hard for this one. I walked out, and my wife and I had a fight one time. I walked out of the house. I was leaving forever in my mind again. It's pretty hard to go someplace when you don't drink when you're leaving forever.
I was full of resentment and bitterness, and I wanted to tell her what for. I was driving down the highway, and I'd left for about an hour, and I decided to go back. On the way back, I see this guy about a quarter of a mile up the road, and he's selling flowers on the side of the road. I'm sitting there mad and wanting to really do who knows what, and a little bell rings in my head and says, in AA, it doesn't matter that this person has offended you and hurt your feelings and all of that.
You can go to them and clean your side of the street and say, I'm sorry. I just had this magnetic pull to these flowers to go over and buy one and take one home, and I drove right on by it. I was about 100 feet by it or so, and I said, you just missed your chance. You had your message, that's what to do, and you just missed your chance. I went up and I did a U-turn, and I couldn't believe I was doing it.
It was almost like the car was under its own power, and I drove back and almost had an accident getting to this guy where the flowers were. I bought a little deal of flowers, and I went home, and I walked in the house, and my wife's back was to me, which was good. And I walked up to her, and she turned around, and I held the flowers out, and I said, peace. And that's all I could manage. And I handed her the flowers, and I walked out in the backyard and sat down.
And I think that was an incredible turning point in our family, because I said earlier, we've been married for 10 years. The only time we ever talked about separation was in sobriety within the past four years. And that was good, too. I think those conversations had to happen. It started us talking, that's for sure. We were both thinking about that when we were celebrating our anniversary, that what was the most important thing in our marriage.
And I think it has come down to the point that we now have something in our life that allows us to communicate with each other. And it was just a couple of days before our anniversary that we were not communicating. I know everything doesn't last forever anymore. And we were not communicating, and I could just feel it, that we were going to start having one of these conversations that might bring up the words separation or something like that.
The words were already there, if I don't like you, and I don't like what's going on here. And we couldn't come up with a solution. As hard as we were thinking, we couldn't come up with a solution. And I said to her, there's only one thing left to do. And this was the first time I think I'd ever said this to her. I think we should get down and ask God for help. And we did that. And that's a turning point in my family's life today.
Not only in my life, but my family's life today. Thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous and the guy that got me here, I have the willingness to do that today, to seek a solution that doesn't come out of my own head. Come out of my own head. I'd just like to share with you part of my saying thanks at
[01:00:00]
night. It took me a couple of years in the fellowship to start praying in any situation that was not a crisis. I didn't believe it was necessary unless you were in a crisis. But I finally did get to the point of praying on a daily basis. I'd just like to share with you what I try to remember to say every night. Sometimes I don't. I have a hard time believing people that say that they do certain things consistently and all the time. It's not in my nature. I thank my higher power every night for what he has given me. He's given me the four best years of my life. He's given me ten years of marriage. He's given me two children that are beautiful. He's given me an opportunity to be responsible and go to work and earn an income because at the end of my drinking I was unemployable except by myself and that was a bad boss. So I thank God every night for what he has given me.
I thank God every night for what he's taken away. He's taken away my demand to be my own boss. So far he has taken away my desire to drink. He has taken away all the, not all, but he has taken away the fear that I had of paying all my bills before because I couldn't handle it. He took those things away. And I thank God today for what he has left. What he has left me with is a healthy family. A year ago our son was going to be checked out to see if he had leukemia or Hodgkin's disease. My wife and I didn't have to drink over that.
That's a miracle. He was in the hospital for one day and they found out that he was fine. There have been other things that have happened. And my sponsor has said and I finally have come to believe him that this too will pass. These will pass. You may not have to drink over it. And I found that that's true. You people gave me evidence that things can happen in your life that you don't have to drink about. And now I have the evidence that things have happened in my life that I don't have to drink about. So I thank God with what he has left me because it's pretty good. Thank you all. Thank you Roger. You know we have some time left so I think I'm going to tell you about two turning points in my life. And they're strictly things that have happened since I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. You know like everybody else I thought just staying away from the drink was the purpose and what I had done by agreeing to come to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I was fighting a battle and suddenly two or three friends of mine who had made much better progress in this fellowship than I had made even though we came here at the same time said to me that you know they're starting a big book study group and I think maybe we should go to it. And I know now that they thought that we should go to it because they knew that I should go to it. I don't think they needed it as much as I did. But you know I must stand here today and say that that was the turning point in my sobriety because I came to believe right then and there that the big book in the process of studying it and I don't mean to imply that it was all done in one night it was over a period of several months of going to a weekly meetings where I suddenly realized that the whole program of Alcoholics Anonymous are 12 steps and everything else pertaining to sobriety is right in that one book. And that was certainly a turning point in my life because I suddenly knew why I was here. I suddenly knew that there was things available to me if I was willing to pursue them and if I was willing to apply myself to the steps as they're listed in the book. And I also fortunately came to believe and very much so that you know there's nothing in that book that allows me to deviate whatsoever from the fellowships from the program that's there. A lot of times you know we hear about people who are trying to find an easier softer way and I found out that there isn't any such thing. And I found out for this alcoholic that I can't deviate one bit from it. And that was the first turning point that helped me out in my sobriety. And two of our speakers have very
[01:05:04]
definitely pointed out that a turning point in their sobriety was their involvement in service work. And fortunately I had a person who was interested enough in me to say hey John there's more to this than just sitting there and listening doing the coffee the ashtrays and so forth. Why don't you get involved in service work? And you know it's been about ten and a half years of continual and very very much involved in it because I did manage to survive the turmoil so to speak of being a group chairman and that's no picnic. You're trying to run a meeting the way it should be run and everybody else wants you to run it the way they want it to be run so you've got a conflict of opinions there. And you learn a lot of little things about humility you get rid of the ego you know I didn't know everything. And then from there it was on to district work and so on.
Like Lloyd I was very fortunate to eventually be elected delegate from our area. And you know the service work is probably the greatest thing to help a person's sobriety out. We can become complacent if we get to the point where we think that meetings and meetings alone are enough. If we don't realize that we've got to give this precious gift that we have away then you know we're hurting ourselves. But the thing that worries me most about it is the fact that if we don't get involved in service not only to benefit ourselves you know this fellowship that we cherish so much could be in trouble in years to come. I personally don't have any children but I hear people say time and time and time again that they just hope that nothing ever happens to make it such that this fellowship is not available to their children and their children's children in time to come should it ever be necessary. And I feel that we all should get involved in service work. There's many areas that we can get involved in. We don't have to just be a GSR or DCM or anything like that. We have a PI program that's necessary. And you know it does so much for everybody that's involved in it that it's impossible to put a value on any phase of it.
We have some time left and in order to fill out the time allotted I would like to open it up to any comments or discussion that there might be from anybody in the room here today. And if you have questions about turning points and it surely was a strange subject to me as well as to the speakers but if you have any comments that you'd like to make please feel free to raise your hand. We'll recognize you and I'll warn you that if anybody is talking at 28 minutes past I'm going to be very impolite and tell you to keep quiet. Anybody have any comment at all? Any question that you'd like to ask anybody up here on the platform?
Those are the turning points. I lost faith. I lost anger. I lost resentment. I lost fear. Those were the things that I didn't know how to live without. I didn't know what it was to live without. And those were the turning points. And when I managed to go there I found that I had something to give. And it took me a long time to figure out how to do that. My name is Maxine and I'm from Pennsylvania. I'm married.
And an alcoholic. And an alcoholic. I've been in this program for 12 and a half years. And I can't get along. And I asked for help. That was a turning point for me. I really didn't understand the program. I was not ready. The right things were happening.
[01:10:00]
But I asked for help and I did. I got into rehab for the first time. And now I understand what it was like to come to this point. I'm sure that I'm not alone. I'm just sharing that with you. I had no idea how good I could feel. How free I could become. And I'm just glad that I got to be able to do what was happening to myself. And that's just my journey. My journey. When you look at the other side.
You're all about here today. Something I can't comprehend. With all of you here. Yes. My name is John. I'm an alcoholic. Hello. I looked in the schedule and saw this topic. I really wanted to come up with it. I've had different turning points. And I'm sort of at one of them right now. I've been in the program two and a half years. I've always been quiet. Except for when I was drunk. I know I'm not too quiet.
But it just got to the point where the pain and sobriety was getting to the point where I knew I had to do something about it. I raised my hand. I'm getting through it. I never thought I would. I've gone through a lot of conventions. I just finally realized a short while ago that I got to the point where I liked meeting people. I never liked that. I like to be quiet. Where the sun flashes, talk down low so people really have to live.
But now when I think about it, I really enjoy meeting new people. I'm at the point where I have to keep reminding myself about it. For me, to raise my hand is good therapy. I just taught myself a new way to say it. The only reason I couldn't do it before is because of this. I'm really glad to be able to. Thank you. Back there, yes. Can you speak up just a little bit please? It's all about being condemned by the devil, having a cell phone down, having a brain tumor, not answering your phone, taking you on a trip.
And that's what it's really about. And I'm not going to allow anybody to meet me there until I'm through. So, and that's the turning point. That's the one I… I used to believe that, you know, maybe there is something to it. Maybe it's not. Maybe it is. I'll keep coming. And a year later, a year and a half later, I got the news and I left. And that's the major turning point in my life. I left five seconds later by checking my phone.
And you know what? It's useful. I didn't have to. I didn't have to because I didn't have to live in a world where I had to be that blessed. And what happens is you must be that blessed. And once you're blessed, you are blessed.
[01:15:13]
I think the bottom line in this whole thing is the fact that the turning point is when we really realize what is available here for us. And also the fact that, you know, it's all for us to do with what we wish to do. If we put the effort into it, it's here. I know people have come in and they've talked to me and they, you know, they almost refuse to believe what you're saying. And yet you can cite examples, some cases not necessarily an example in your own life but in other lives that you have become close to.
And, you know, when you realize exactly what can happen when you get yourself involved in this, I think that's the real turning point in everyone's life as far as sobriety is concerned and within Alcoholics Anonymous. Anybody else? We do have a few more minutes. I have been known to close meetings early. I hate, like hell, to have people get up here and just ramble on because the meeting is supposed to end at a certain time.
So, I don't know if it's okay with you. Yes? I just want to say I'm afraid of what's coming up. From where? I do like to think that you think you're doing the right thing. But I don't think that you're doing the right thing. That reminds me that as a gospel offering to you as a member of the Church, you are encouraged to do what you have to do as a member of the Church, and you can't just postpone what you might have to do after that.
Thank you. Anybody else? Well, with that, I think that I would like to personally thank Rosemary and also thank Lloyd and Roger. And I got much out of this. I wasn't enthused over the topic when I received it either, but I think a lot has been said here that if we take it with us, it will help us in some future date. Remember, the things that you don't think are pertinent today can be very pertinent in some future date.
And again, thank you for being here with us. And I would like to close this meeting with a large prayer. And before we do, I'd like to wish every one of you a terrific weekend here. I'm going to have one, I know that, and I hope you feel the same way.