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Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Unknown Speaker – SECOND JOURNEYS IN SOBRIETY – RS 06344.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-unknown-speaker-second-journeys-in-sobriety-rs-06344.mp3 Duration: 01:31:29
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usual quiet time please followed by the serenity prayer God to accept the things I cannot change change things I can hi my name is Theodora I am a grateful recovering alcoholic there may be some of you 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 to maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV, and film thus we respectfully ask that no A.A. speaker or indeed any A.A. 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 A.A. principles come before personalities I guess you all know by now that tapes of this meeting are available at the tape sales booth in the convention center are there any other announcements?
well I'm really grateful and pleased to be able to share our birthday here today in Montreal it's hard to say how profoundly grateful I am for the 50 years that A.A. has been in existence and how grateful I am for all the sobriety that that 50 years represents it is because of all that went before my time that made sobriety available to me and it is our sobriety that makes sobriety available to those that follow us it is just an honor and a privilege to share all this with you our workshop today is very provocatively entitled second journeys into sobriety there may be some of you who believe this is going to be a drunk-a-log about slips and I'm told by our speakers that it is in fact about life after sobriety I take great pleasure in introducing our first speaker Don P. from British Columbia thanks Theodora hi friends my name is Don and I'm an alcoholic kind of nice to talk to 50,000 people what happened to the rest?
you know when I got this thing from New York saying that you're going to be talking you're supposed to talk on maturity and I thought it said maternity and I thought they got the wrong guy then nobody knew what second journeys really was and I ran it by about 10 people especially my sponsor and a couple of others and I got 10 different answers and the one smart guy said well if you're in trouble just tell what it was like what happened and what it's like now I was born in a little town in Ontario not too far from here and I moved out to British Columbia I was born in 1935 the same year that AA started so really you started this program for me but it took me 30 years to find it long journey the first journey long leg of that journey I drank for 30 years I drank hard for 30 years a lot of that drinking was by myself towards the end and it was a terrible trip I was married, 3 children big business, beautiful homes, all the toys in the yard and I had to lose the whole thing I remember a guy saying he said well maybe you're at the right place this is the millionaire's club
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and I thought well I sure qualify for that
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cost me a couple million to get here and I guess looking back now it's something that I would do all over again I'm in the travel business I like telling people where to go to start with so I don't know really where to start maybe some of the problems when I'm looking back over my life on it I don't think the drinking and I was a maintenance drinker I drank a couple of bottles a day and I was maintenance and I never got drunk I just was kind of in that glow all the time and I had a drink if I didn't drink I'd shake if I didn't shake I'd sweat so I'd start off with a few belts in the morning and that would keep me going until maybe 10, 11 o'clock by noon I knew I'd have a few more and then I'd see a lot of head shaking on it and everybody used to ask me are you drinking too much?
what are you talking about? as if it was at any rate my problem wasn't booze my problem was bottles my god I don't know about you people but I had a hell of a job getting rid of them and I was the type of drinker that instead of going for 40 answers I was on to Mickey's because I was always going to quit like that went on for 15 years and I'm down to Mickey's and I'm buying 4 Mickey's a day and it was just a terrible time trying to get rid of them I don't know about you people but glass doesn't melt it just stays there like forever at any rate I had a fairly successful business about 6 or 7 years ago I'll give you an idea of when my drinking so instead of keeping in suspense I quit drinking on January the 2nd 1982 and I haven't found it necessary or desirable to have a drink since then I go to 8-10 meetings a week because I was pretty sick to get here and you people taught me how that I didn't have to drink again the rest of my life a day at a time so in my office with these bottles it was a real problem I had bottles in the morning and by 3 o'clock in the afternoon I had 3 Mickey's and I knew I couldn't put them in the garbage pails I was paranoid that everybody was watching me so I finally found a job I was president of my own company I had fairly large staff I found a job where I could get rid of my bottles and that was I became the mail boy and at 3 o'clock everyday I did the mail and that became paramount not sending people all over the world not doing all gigantic things but the mail was my primary thing and the reason for that is I would drive by the post office in Vancouver and there's a slot where you can drop it in from your car the mail and another one there's another slot where you could drop it in so I thought terrific so at 3 o'clock everyday there's the old man taking the mail out the staff were so proud that I was able to do that and I walk up to that post office and at 3 o'clock everyday I drop the mail in one and I race to the next one and I drop my Mickey's in the next thing 3 o'clock everyday for 10 years I was speaking at a at a meeting in Vancouver a couple years ago and I was telling this story and this guy said you're the guy he said I was the postman downstairs we knew when it was 3 o'clock I don't know how they tell time now at any rate when I come to that point where I got tired of the bottles and I got tired of everything else in life and I became a recluse I'd go underground from my office underground to a little apartment and that little apartment happened when I arrived home and I don't know where I'd been I'd been away and my family said my wife first said I have to go and you have to go too I said I'm not leaving defiance you know part of my illness and I got 3 kids 2 tall sons big guys in their 20's and they tried to move me out of the house and I wouldn't go I was just defiant and my daughter came along and she said you can't stay here anymore we don't want to have anything more to do with you and there was a lot of tears and a lot of the whole tragedy now I can I can see is unfolding and finally it was my daughter that said
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that convinced me that I had to leave and just like a dog you know alcoholics when we're drinking we're just like I was anyway just like an animal and I left and I got a little apartment and I was going to become the guy I always wanted to be have all those freedoms and it came to the point after about a year I was hiding bottles of myself anybody ever done that? like I'm living alone I'm a recluse and I'm hiding bottles of myself and I'm angry because I'm hiding bottles and I can't stop like it's quite a habit at any rate a guy phoned me he had no my first sponsor he had absolutely no patience with anybody and he waited for seven years and he phoned me at the time when it hit my low when I said my god I just can't take it anymore and he phoned and said he said those magic words I know you're not alcoholic but I'm going to a meeting why don't you join me?
I thought well he's right on the first part so I went to the first meeting and then I went to my second meeting and in the second meeting when it came time and I said my name's Don and I'm an alcoholic that was the most courageous thing I've ever done in my whole life and since that time I still say it two, three, four times a day as often as I can because I denied it for all those years and now that's been my greatest asset I've been sober I'm now working on my fourth year and I've been privileged to take in meetings pretty well on a global basis from Singapore and Bangkok and Hong Kong and we're the same all over the world alcoholics, we're exactly the same in Rome I was in Rome a couple of weeks ago and it was just like coming to this meeting in here I found I guess on my second journey a happiness that I had no idea that life would be as sweet as good as it is right now I was three months sober and I went to a meeting and it's funny the briefest meetings can be the most important and the briefest meeting was in a man's Jordan where it said there was one loaner a woman's name and a phone number and I phoned her and I said and this was the whole meeting folks I said my name's Don and I'm and she said and you're three years too late and hung up and I panicked because I didn't know if she'd gone back drinking or what she had done as it turns out when I got back to into New York and I checked at central office they said yeah we figured she's gone back drinking because she doesn't answer any of our mail and over that period of time now I found it important to phone wherever I'm traveling to the second meeting I went to in the Middle East was in Jerusalem and there was a Jewish fella who could speak Hebrew only unusual but that was the case an Arab guy, now this was in 82 and there was a lot of fighting going on an Arab guy could speak Arabic only now these two and an Elanon lady who was the interpreter now the Jew didn't like the Arab and the Arab didn't like the Jew and none of us liked the Elanon lady but after an hour at the meeting there was tears we all kind of knew we'd maybe never see each other again or share that moment but it was a special precious moment and it kept me sober after I quit drinking I had a real problem with weight I put on about 40 pounds I don't know if any of you have and then I got hooked on ice cream I became an ice cream addict you know I had to quit vanilla and quit strawberry and finally I got down to spumoni and I'm going all around town getting one spumoni ice cream cone and finishing the ice cream going around the block and getting another one doing it four or five times oh my god I'm trying to look good and my suit's got ice cream all over it a guy said in the program if you don't keep it light and keep it simple you're not going to make it done and I kind of had to do that you know I got a friend of mine I saw him in the morning we used to go for coffee and he said how come you're always happy I said well the guy told me to be happy because I don't feel like being sad he said but how come you're always making such a big deal of things and it just dawned on me that my car, old car had just about come to 100,000 miles anybody had a car that's gone 100,000 miles I'll tell you it takes an alcoholic to look at those things you don't know what happens when it goes 90 near 99 I said come on we'll go I knew what I was doing when I was going to con this guy to get excited about it it's 8 o'clock in the morning we just had coffee we jump in the car and we're driving along and I said hey it's coming up to the 0-0-0 he said my god what do we do I said when it happens we'll stop the car I said I got a jug in the back oh don he said so the car hit 0-0-0
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of the car, I opened up the trunk, I had a bottle of Perrier and two glasses and we poured ourselves a drink, and somebody came along and said, look at those guys drinking at eight o'clock in the morning. Had a friend of mine that, a guy that I sponsor, posed a question to me not too long ago, and he said, he's sober maybe two or three months, and he said, you know, Don, he said, I could be no problem for me to have one glass of scotch, you know, and he's waiting for my answer and I didn't have an answer to him, I didn't know what to do.
I thought about it, I was concerned about it, I finally went to Jack, my sponsor, and I said, Jack, this is what this new guy has posed to me, what, you know, what's the answer? Well, he said, you know the answer, I said, no, what's the answer, and he kind of kept me waiting, you know, waiting for that one word to drop, he says, one word, I said, what, he said he's going to have a glass of scotch and wouldn't have a problem with it, he said, the word is why, why on earth would he have one glass of scotch, what good's it going to do?
You know, it took me two days to figure that out and to go back to the sponsor, but the guy's still sober, so the night before we left to come out here, another friend of mine, Gordy and I, went on a call, we went, we were going to have dinner before our regular meeting, and I met him at the restaurant and in the communication that, call that we had made, he had had a call from a friend who was very sick, so we had to skip the meal and I thought, first I thought, well, let's have the meal first and then we'll go make the call on this poor drunk.
We didn't. We went there just at the time when the guy opened the door and his nose was bleeding and you know the scene, many of you have experienced it many times, and we went into his house and his wife was crying and the kids were crying and the guy was, said he hadn't had a drink for four months, pretty obvious, you could smell that, and I, we sat there and the guy was violent. Now, they'd been fighting and he was violent and we didn't know what to do and Gordy says, well, what do we do?
I said, we don't do anything, we just sit and we'll wait until that, that rage subsides. So we waited two hours and then the guy quietened down and he said, I'm sorry and I'll apologize to my son and I'll be back in a meeting and, and we left and after, and we felt kind of badly, both myself and this new man and I thought, what good did that call really do? So both Gordy and I talked about it and we said, well, we didn't really do anything and I took a guy home that's an old-timer and I told him the story to it, oh, he said, you carried the message to the most important person going.
I said, who? The guy didn't listen, you know, he said, you carried the message to yourself. And that was very important for me. You know, when I first came into AA, I was, I had so much to learn and I had so much ego, like everything was me, everything was big shot, everything had to be done in just terrific grand style. You know, I can remember talking to a group and I just over a short time and boy, did you people teach me, I'll tell you.
I was speaking to a group at North Shore, group, and hey, I'm part WAP, I like butter, you know, I quit drinking, but I'm not going to give up butter. I'm sitting down at the head table on there at the dinner meeting, I'm speaking to these people. There's about 400 people in the audience. I said to the kid that brought in the butter, I said, just bring me another pat of butter. No, he said, just two pats per customer.
Well, I said, no, no, I said, just bring me some more butter and kid went away and geez, I'm waiting and I'm getting anxiety and I'm, you know, I'm thinking and finally I went back to this kid. I said, hey, come here. He said, what? I said, look it, bring me some more butter. I want some butter. No, he said. I said, hey, do you know who I am? Kid says, no. I said, I'm the guest speaker here. Bring me some more butter.
And the kid looked at me and he said, do you know who I am? I said, no. He said, I'm the kid that controls the butter, two pats per customer. I've had a long, exciting journey the last few years and I wouldn't trade this sobriety for anything. And perhaps I'll, I'll close with a note that I got from my daughter and many of you here wonder why your kids aren't back or, and to, to fill in my story.
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After I was sober a few months, my wife phoned and said, hey, can we talk? And a couple of years ago we celebrated our 25th anniversary in Honolulu and we're very close as a family. My sons and I are probably as close as, as men would ever get. My daughter and I took a while. She just wouldn't have anything to do with it. She said, I'm glad you're sober, but I don't want to have anything with those funny friends you got.
And this year in January, I got this. She came to my cake. As a matter of fact, January the 2nd, dear dad, thanks so much for such a wonderful Christmas holiday. Now she wouldn't talk to me before, especially about alcohol. I really had a terrific time. The meeting was so enlightening. I never imagined it to be so inviting. Those poor people who don't go, don't know what they're missing. They're a great bunch of people.
I'm glad you're involved. Thanks again for everything. Love, Marina. Thank you. Thank you, Don. Well, for our second leg of our second journey into sobriety, we have Debbie M. from New York. Debbie. Hello. My name is Debbie and I am an alcoholic. Hi, good to see you. And you know, like Don, when I first got the letter, first of all, asked me to speak, I was absolutely thrilled. And then when I got the letter that said, second journey into sobriety, I was in a state of shock also.
And I wrote to Vinnie, who was the lady who booked us, and I said, what do you mean, second journey into sobriety? I said, does this mean that you think I've had a slip? Because this was my first reaction also to it, you know. And she wrote back and she said, no, no, no, no. She said, it means maturity. Now, that was my second resentment. I don't think that was nice, maturity. But anyway, here I am and I haven't matured yet, but I'm sure trying every single day and having a good time.
And like Don, I also talked to, I think everybody that I've had dinner with the whole time we've been here, giving them this title and asking them what they would speak about. And like you, it all ends up to, I think I'll tell it like it was and like it used to be and like it is now. But I think I'll break it up just a little bit. I always did anyway when I spoke into sections of what it was like before, what it was like during and what it's been like since.
But again, working with this title, I broke it up into a couple of other sections. So I hope as I just kind of describe these sections, you might see some of the journeys that I've been taking during my sobriety and also some of the things that got me here. Number one, I'm one of these people who, and I'm sure we've got a whole carload out there who had drinking in the family. I lived in foster homes as a child and then when I was around 13, went to live with my real mother and stepfather and thought it was going to be glorious and said it was horrible because he was an extremely active alcoholic and so was she.
And so it was ugly. And I ran away at 16 years old because it was either run away or get killed. And I say that with humor, but it wasn't funny. Those of you who've been through that sort of thing know what it was like. And there was only one way for me to make a living and that was as a singer. I had a tiny bit of talent and my friends always pushed me. I went to work at John Hancock, by the way, and my friends who were there kept saying, you know, why don't you try to be a singer?
Why don't you try to do music? Because that's what you love the best. And I did. They had a contest in Boston and it was for those of you who are from Boston. It was for something called the red feather. I don't know if you do this here in Canada, but they'd have a fundraiser and they'd put either a thermometer or something. In this case, it was a red feather. And as the money came in, the red would go up, you know, the feather as the money came in.
And they were looking for three girls. This was also called the community chest. They were looking for three girls who would be Miss Red Feather or, as we jokingly said, Miss Community Chest. Now, I was not drinking at this time and what happened was this contest went on and on and on on television in Boston and people from the New England area kept sending in votes and the person who got the most votes would go on television the next week and this would
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keep going on and on and on. To make a long story short, I came in first and I sang a song called Little Things Mean A Lot. Some of you may remember that from a long time ago and you remember that kind of style. Now, the girl who came in second was an opera singer. She sort of spoke like that and she sang a song called Someday We'll Come Along, The Man I Love, and she looked like Dolly Parton. I mean, she'd never play accordion, never.
The girl who was third in this group, who won third place, the only way I can describe it is she sang like Johnny Cash. She played guitar and she sang a song called Have You Talked to the Man Upstairs Because He Wants to Hear from You. Right? Now they put us together as a trio singing harmony and it was the god awfulest thing you'll ever know. This is when I started to drink. We traveled all over the New England area singing this song that was promoting trying to get money.
Where I used to work at John Hancock, it would come feed down through the speakers. It was on television every five minutes. It was on radio every five minutes. It was so god awful. And we were here with these white dresses with these red feathers stapled all over them. Oh, we were so cute, you know, if you could just picture that trio. And we sang a thing called This is for Whether to Wear Your Red Feather.
That was in harmony. And then I would say give more, Lorette would say give more, and the third one would say give now. No wonder I drank, right? Now just to show you how I progressed and whatever, I went from that, now I started to drink. I started to drink and my drinking was not social drinking. My drinking was, I guess maybe it was, but I really never socialized. I was always working. Working a day job, working a night job, singing at night and working in the daytime.
And Peggy Lee or Patty Page or someone like that would come to Boston and I would go to Blinstone's, remember? If anyone's from Boston, remember Blinstone's? And some of the other nightclubs there. But it was really to hear the singers so that I could learn from the fine singers of that time. And however, I started to drink. And from the drink, first drink I ever had, I'll never forget, was a Tom Collins and I drank it like it was orange juice.
I didn't know any better. And I had my first blackout and I remember, I don't remember how I got home. I threw up all over my beautiful dress. It was disgusting. But, you know, what I thought was it was this date that I was with. She would make anyone do that, I thought. And I had absolutely no idea what alcoholism was or what alcohol was. But I could take that first time I ever drank and bring it right through to the last time I ever drank, which was nine years later.
And it was always the same, except that along the way, I started to take pills, prescription pills until I was taking 45 pills a day. And that's the end. I must say, I quit my day job. I went on the road with Big Band, remember Big Band? And there was a lot of drugs going on in the Big Band. It's funny, you know, I'm one of those funny people, you make vanilla ice cream illegal, I won't eat vanilla ice cream.
Boy, those bad guys were on the band, they were taking all these drugs. But I was Miss Nice Girl, so zonked on prescription drugs and booze, I couldn't even see straight. But, you know, it was a thing, I would never take anything that was not prescription. But, you know, when you're on the road with Big Band and you go to the doctor every single place that you hit, after a while you get a good collection of pills.
And I got a combination, dual addiction. As I said, I sang, I was on the road with Big Band for about eight years. Anyone who's ever been on the road, that's a long time. Then I came to New York for an in reverse geographical cure. I figured if I came to New York City and I settled down, took a job that was in one place, then I wouldn't drink like that, right? Make a long story short, I came to New York, I was very lucky, I got a job singing at Hotel Pierre in New York, any of you might know that beautiful, beautiful hotel.
And I sang there for another eight years. And everything was great, except I was dying. Make a long story short, it was here that I got my sobriety in 1961. When I got sober, I met a lot of wonderful people here, including some ex-singers. And just to show you how my sobriety progressed and how I came along, we put together a trio. There was a girl named Terri, a guy… A girl named, uh, Terry, a guy named Tom, all in the program, and myself, who's Debbie.
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So we put together this little trio. Maybe some of you from the New York area might remember. Debbie, Tom, and Terry, we called ourselves the DTs. Now, have I progressed? Can you see where my journey is going? And we would go around the New York area, and we would sing, and we would play at meetings, and at conventions, you know, in the local area. It would be really a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun showing how you can really have a ball, be sober and have a ball.
You know, I have to tell you where my journey is now. I live in Rye, New York, and, uh, you know, you can tell what age level I'm in when we speak about maturity. And, um, I put together a group of girl singers, my age and older. And we, uh, we do doo-wop-a-loo-bop-bam-boom, thank you. And, uh, we call ourselves the Ryeettes, seeing we're from Rye. And we insist that it's not spelled R-I-O-T-S. But sometimes we say, so if you could imagine a group of girls our age getting up there and doing that doo-wop-a-loo-bop.
But we're having a great, great time. Uh, from a singer, uh, when I first got sober, I have to say, being alcoholic, I guess, I had to learn everything there was to know about alcoholism. I had to know what it was about myself. I had to know what it was about my stepfather and my mother. I just had to learn. And I was very, very lucky. I studied very hard. I got a scholarship to the Rutgers Summer School of Alcohol Studies.
And I had a chance to do that. My husband, thank goodness, was in the field of alcoholism doing press relations. And, uh, we were fortunate. And, uh, we did the press for the last three conventions previous to this one. And that was a joy and a pleasure. Since then, he's gone with the Smithers Foundation. Some of you may know that here in New York. And now I teach during the day at a, uh, alcohol rehab place.
I teach adult education. So you see how you can grow from nothing and take the experiences that you've learned and hopefully help, uh, someone else. And it's wonderful when an alcoholic goes through that rehab. And I know that they can go back out on the street and maybe get a job from some of the things that they've learned, uh, in this, in this place. Uh, when I first got sober, I have to tell you that I was deadly, deadly sick.
All those pills, all that booze, all those one-nighters, all the swinging was too much. And I, I was very, very ill with tuberculosis. They put my first year of sobriety was spent in a tuberculosis hospital. Uh, my meetings were brought to me from people in AA. It was one of the most wonderful things that could ever happen. Uh, I learned a lot lying in that bed. It was as if God said to me, you gotta stop.
You have to sit still for a little while. It was very hard. I'm a goer, I'm a goer, I'm always nervous. It's very hard for me to sit still in a bed for 365 one days at a time. But you showed me how to do that and I got well. I was sick, some other things. I had to have a lot of operations before I finally got myself straightened out. I had a wonderful son, Jamie, who was born to my husband and I, a gift of our sobriety.
Uh, I had a daughter, Jennifer, who was born to us, who died. That was very hard. She died several months after she was born. I'm still not over that, as you can see. My son, it's here that I use this program. You talk about the maturity. Not that I want to drink, I don't. But that terrible feeling when someone you love dies. You use the program, this is when I use the program, to get through, a day at a time, the things that are hurting, you know.
And you grow, you do mature. And this is what I think Vinnie's talking about when she's talking about maturity. That you learn to handle, not only the good things. I remember the good things. First, when I first got sober, I thought, my God, what's wrong? My God, what's wrong? All of a sudden I realized, don't get happy if it's going to upset you. What was happening was, I was feeling good. Everything was going fine.
You know what I mean? And it frightened me because things had not gone good for so many years. So I always remember that, don't be happy if it's going to upset you. And when I get a little nudgy because things are going great, I say that to myself and then I say, hey, just enjoy it. Because there are going to be those times when it's not so good, like the time when Jennifer died. Or, a very quick, funny thing that happened recently.
I'm going to show you where I am in my journey right now. Two things happened. Number one, about four weeks ago, I had an accident. I had a very, very bad cold. And I'm not prone to go to doctors. I did all that when I was three. And my husband kept pushing me to go and I did not want to go. And it got really bad cold. And he said, will you go? And I said, no, no, no, I'll do it myself. So I said, I'll go up to see, does that sound familiar?
I said, I'll get out the vaporizer and I'll take some cough syrup and then I'll be up.
[00:35:03]
So he went down and got me some non-alcoholic, non-narcotic, non-sugar cough syrup. I have to tell you, it was the violent stuff you ever tasted. It was disgusting. But anyway, he went and got that for me and he came back. And I got out the vaporizer and the inhalant. And the inhalant said, deadly poison, do not ingest. Just put it in the cup of the vaporizer. And I put it in the cup and I put it by my bed.
And I took this rotten medicine, I put it by my bed. And then I pulled out my light plug to plug in the vaporizer. And I reached over to take my medicine in the dark. Now, you know what I did? I drank, I took a slug, I took a slug of this because it tasted so terrible. But instead of taking the cough medicine in the dark, I took the vaporizer. Make a long story short, five days in intensive care. They almost lost me, convulsions.
And I'm sitting there and they're pumping my stomach, but I'm awake. I'm convulsing, but I'm awake. And they don't realize it, but what I'm saying to myself is, my God, the memory came back like that of when I was drinking. Because when I was drinking and I was on the road, it wasn't always pleasant. I would overdose and I would have to get my stomach pumped. And all this would be ugly. This has not happened in my 24 years of sobriety.
But I'm sitting there, I'm saying to myself in this ugly condition, I'm saying, stone-cold sober, I don't believe this. Oh, they're pumping my stomach and I'm stone-cold sober. Thank God I'm stone-cold sober to enjoy being here. And believe me, I'm glad to be here. But you see, these things happen. And in the meantime, I was sick off my feet for two or three weeks and I'm just finally getting back.
And again, you use the program. And last but not least, I said about my little son, Jamie, who's now six feet tall and darling, and is starting to test beer. This is making me very nervous, very nervous. For those out there of you who are parents, who have children and you're a little nervous, I don't know whether he has a problem, I have no idea. Or he's just testing. You know, all kids, I shouldn't say all kids, but most kids, they test.
But I tell you, my reaction to it is not good. It's funny how the old feelings come back. If my son comes in at night, and this doesn't happen all the time, just once in a while, and he's smelling a beer, or if I see he's a little tipsy, it's as if I was still waiting for my father all those years back. Those feelings come back. So I've been going to Al-Anon meetings and AA meetings, for the both of them, you know.
And I said to myself, how wonderful this is. I'm going for me, not for him. I'm going for me. We're going to have to see what happens with him a day at a time. I really don't know. But I thought, you know, how wonderful this is that I have not only the one program, but I can also use the AA program. I can also use the Al-Anon program, and with my life even as it is today. And so with everything, I want to thank you very, very much.
Without you, I wouldn't be here at all. My husband wouldn't be here, and my son wouldn't be here. And we're so, so grateful, because you are our way of life. Thank you. Okay. And now for the final leg of our second journey into sobriety, we have Jim G. from California. Hello, everyone. My name is Jim G., and I'm an alcoholic from San Francisco area, California. I don't get a chance to speak a lot, and I tend to get nervous, even though I know that there is absolutely no way of failing at an AA meeting if you're sharing your experience.
But I did get a little nervous before this meeting, and I found myself over at the other AB lounge trying to talk this lady out of coming to the meeting, because I thought I was going to be in there. And during another part, I found myself in the middle of the ladies' room instead of the place I was going to go. Over the years, I've heard a lot of AA stories, and my general impression is always, this is the stuff that great films are made of.
Always seems like the stories are, there's enough content there to really put together a marvelous film. And so my ego gets carried away, and I started thinking, well, how about a film of your life? And I realized that it would be the dullest film on earth. Because to sum it up, if I give you a picture of the end of my drinking, I was a home drinker, and home drinkers don't get a lot of dramatic stuff going on, especially if there's no one around to hassle you, and there was no one.
And the entire picture of the end of my sobriety is I would sit in a green velvet chair, a Victorian chair,
[00:40:01]
and I would drink, and I would cry, because I was a great crier. And it just seemed that my life was just so absolutely sad, and that it was over. And so when I interpret today's topic of the second journey, I interpret, did AA, in effect, give me an opportunity to live a second life? The typical day at the end of my sobriety would be I taught in a school, and I taught in what was considered a tough city school.
And I would come home, I would first of all get up in the morning, I would look in the mirror, and this absolute hate for myself would come back. I would just loathe the person I was looking at. I would then go off to work, teach in the school, come home, and even though I had vowed in the morning that I would not drink, I would come home in the afternoon saying to myself, you have had a tough day at the school.
You deserve a drink. And I would have one drink. And as soon as I was halfway through that first drink, every gear in my head would shift. And it made absolutely perfect sense to have the second drink, and the third drink, and to sit in that chair just thinking about how sad and sorry my life was. And I had some favorite songs. One of them, which I would sing to myself, by the way, out loud. One was I'm Always Chasing Rainbows.
Some people look and find the sunshine, I always look and find the rain. And somebody reminded me of another one last night, Born to Lose. So I would just sit there and feel real sad. About a year before I came to the program, I had done the usual routine of calling the central office and asking for some literature for a friend who might have a drinking problem. And you hear that, that voice that you just want to rip the phone out, are you, do you want us to send this to your friend, or do you want us to send this to you?
And you know that the person at the other end of the central office, I knew that she was onto my game. But I had it sent to me because I was going to deliver it. Now I read that literature, and I don't know why I could identify with what was described in that literature. We don't hear too much talk about how the literature got us here. We hear a lot of talk about how something happened between people and they got us to this program.
I got this literature, and I put it in a suit in the closet. I don't know who I was hiding it from. But I had to keep hiding it in this suit in the closet, and every so often I would take it out and read it. In 1965, I went to one AA meeting, and it shattered all my illusions about what it would be like if I had to ever approach this organization seriously. I was, I was… or whether my friend might have to approach me.
And I went to that one meeting and I came back, I guess it broke all my impressions of what it would be like, because my impression was, well, what would happen if I stopped drinking? I didn't know that the drinking was causing me to feel so sad. The way I saw it was I was sad and the drinking made me feel better. The drinking would give me the lift. What I didn't realize is the drinking was also cycling me back through the depression.
So it was the drinking that kept bringing me back to the same point of sitting in the green chair, crying and singing Born to Lose to myself. It never appeared that way. Just as it never appeared like if I had one drink, it would automatically lead to the second one. It just, my thinking was totally distorted. So I thought, well, if I stop drinking, I will simply, I had been very impressed with zombie films as a child.
I really loved going to zombie films. And I, but I didn't want to be a zombie, you see. And I figured if I go to, if I stop drinking, I will simply enter this land of the living dead. These people who exist, nothing happens in their life, where every day is simply a series of gray days, light gray, medium gray, and dark gray. Now you can imagine how distorted the thinking was. Here I am sitting in the green chair, crying and singing Born to Lose.
I am afraid to stop drinking because my life might be dull. Life Might Be Dull.
[00:45:03]
I started planning my suicide, actually I planned three ways because I knew that I heard so many stories of people who had failed using one particular approach, that I had put together this thing that I was going to do three things at one time, you know, when the clock struck I would jump off the ladder, blow my brains out, and do something else, I don't remember what. And in order to be sure that it worked, the only thing that was, there was something that happened as a result of that one meeting, and the result of reading that literature.
Now I think people in my mind of the things I thought I needed to really be happy in my life. And I had gotten them all, you know, a reasonable job, and a lot of, reasonable amount of free time if you're teaching, you get a reasonable amount of free time, somebody to care about who cared about me, a reasonable income and a nice place to live, and I had everything I had on my list, and I was sitting in that chair wanting out.
But fortunately I decided I would hang around and see what might happen, and so I came to these meetings and somebody, fortunately, convinced me to take all the conditions off trying Alcoholics Anonymous as a way of life, and to simply do it, do it, and not insist on being comfortable. And so I started on this program on July 66, and I have been here ever since then. Basically it has given me, not a second run at my first life, but a totally different life, and a wonderful life.
The first couple of years were very rough, because I like the definition of alcoholism that Marty Mann uses, that definition that says if you have a major problem in any single area of your life, and alcohol is related to that problem, quite likely you're an alcoholic. Well, a lot of people have problems in the physical area, and so when they stop drinking it takes a long time to recover physically.
Some of you have a lot of problems in the legal area of your life, and so it takes a long time to work those things out. Or in the financial area, or the vocational area, or some other area. All of the symptoms of my problem were in the emotional area. I was an emotional basket case. I was depressed all the time, I was crying all the time, I did not want to see people, I did not want the phone to ring.
I had this thing that looked beautifully managed, that people looking at me would say, my God, you've got it all perfectly together. You don't have a problem with drinking. But I knew that I was sitting there in that chair and nobody else knew. And so when I came to the first step, I really had to sit down and write out my answer to that. I had to write out why I was perilous over the alcohol, after coming home for hundreds of days, vowing to have one drink, having the gear switch and have the other one, and finding myself drinking and at one point out on a second story painting window frames with a martini in one hand and a paintbrush in the other.
Sometimes I did get out of the chair, I guess. And finding that I thought I had everything perfectly managed, my sponsor convinced me, look, it doesn't matter how much you've got, how well managed this thing appears. If you've got everything and you do not want to live your life, it is not managed well. And so I stayed here and met so many wonderful people and learned a lot of lessons along the way because, you know, nothing that we say, any of us say, really is new stuff.
It's stuff that was handed on to us from someone else. And often the voice of any higher power comes through human beings rather than any, I've never had a direct line and sometimes I have a lot of trouble listening to the other human beings through whom God is trying to communicate. Anyway, I decided to stay here and I found myself in early sobriety going to lots of meetings, doing everything that was recommended, but finding myself on certain days in the pit of despair again, where I would look in that mirror, I would hate myself, I would want to be off the planet again.
Now everybody doesn't go through that, as I say, if people are having trouble in other areas of their life, then they have to work on those areas and be patient to solve those things. If you're one of the few people, or I don't know that it's so few, who have a lot of problems in the emotional area, a lot of problems with depression, it takes time. I would see, convince myself that, look, I'm running to all these damn meetings, I'm talking to people, I'm willing to do coffee, I'm willing to do anything at all, I feel terrible, I
[00:50:03]
want to kill myself, it's not working for me. It was a very short step from not feeling good to it's not working for me, why bother? And I had to be willing, through really other people convincing me and running into other people who had been through severe depressions, I had to be willing to hang in and ride it out. Because when you're in the middle of one of these things, it always feels like this is the worst one, this one will not end, this one is forever, there is no way out of this depression.
That's the phenomena of a depression. And so I would hang in and it would indeed pass, but the next time it would feel just as bad and just as hopeless, it's like being in a big black pit. After a year went by, I noticed, and if there are any newcomers here, I'm not trying to scare you away, I'm saying that the basic message is this thing will work, you will be able to lead a second life, at least that's my experience, and that these things will get corrected gradually.
Gradually is probably a key word there. Because I would find myself going to bed in a wonderful frame of mind, home from an AA meeting and waking up in a pit of despair. By the way, these things finally disappeared, they went away. Now I can still get depressed, but it's not the same kind of thing. Those things would descend on me, I would experience them, and I would not know why they were there. And it's a little confusing, I think, for a newcomer, at least it was for me, because people keep saying to you, just keep coming to these meetings, folks, it gets better and better, and they never explain what that means, you see.
They never explain that what it means is you will get better and better at being able to lead your life and have all the wonderful experiences and the troubles, as Debbie shared, to go through it, to let it happen, to live a life. That's not the way I heard it, it gets better and better, I'm supposed to feel wonderful every day, and I wasn't feeling wonderful. So it was tough to hang in there. Over the years, a lot of other people have shared things with me.
There was this wonderful friend, Norman, just a guy with a lot of spirit, the kind of person if you saw, you just could get drawn into his orbit, because he was so enthusiastic about sobriety and about Alcoholics Anonymous. I rarely find that my ears get tired, but if you were with Norman, he would talk AA until you were backed up to the wall, and my ears would literally want to fall off. But he was so funny about it, and he shared so much.
He was the kind of guy who had an arrangement with his eyeglass person, because he would always go in blackouts when he was drinking, and he had an arrangement where he lost, I don't know how many pairs of glasses, but all he would have to do is go by the eyeglass door and raise one or two fingers, depending on how many pairs of glasses he could afford at that time, and the guy would make him up some new glasses.
He also found himself in the middle of Polk Street in his underwear one night in a blackout. But he was the kind of guy who had so much enthusiasm and so much spirit. He had what I wanted, and yet at times he would describe on certain days that he would be home on the floor in his apartment in self-pity and praying for some relief from it, or some relief from pride. I got the message that there are times, days in which you're doing everything you should be doing, and where you simply do hang on by your fingernails.
You pray, you talk to people, you go to meetings, but there are some times when you simply just hang on, and that it is possible to do that. I would also then find other people who had been through these depressions, and they shared what they did, and it's a sharing thing, and as a result of the sharing, things do indeed get better and better. I have been given a life that I would never have had. I am sure that if I had not gotten here, that I would have killed myself.
It was that simple. In the ensuing years, it's really been wonderful. I began to wonder, I wondered if I could travel, and I traveled. I went all over Europe, and you have some unusual experiences, as Don mentioned. I remember going late into a meeting in Lucerne, and I didn't have an opportunity to find out what was going on, but 80% of the people at the meeting were sitting there with a bottle of beer in front of them, and I thought, what in the hell is going on at this AA meeting?
Well, it turns out it was alcohol-free beer, but I didn't know that, and I was in total
[00:55:03]
shock when I walked into the meeting. I wondered if I could change my job, and I went back to school, changed what I was doing. I wondered if gratitude would ever come to me. It seemed to me that it was a long time coming. People told me I needed it in order to stay sober, and yet it wasn't a part of the experience, and what happens, of course, when you're in one of these problem areas, I always have answers for people who are in these troublesome states.
At the time, I'm not, but when I'm in there, then often I don't have the right answer, but it took a long time for gratitude to come along, and again, it was a case of waiting it out and letting it happen, letting this program actually operate. One day, I guess I was such a psychological masochist that I even joined a group called the Gratitude Group as my home group, even though I was feeling no gratitude, hoping that maybe that would do it.
Time did go by, and I found myself one time, this is my favorite gratitude story, where I had applied for a doctoral program at the University of Arizona, and they called me for an interview, and this is after I was sober a few years, and this is a guy who never feels gratitude. For some reason, the guy asked me why I was interested in counseling, why I was interested in this particular field, and I started talking about being an alcoholic and recovering, and I don't know whether you've ever experienced this thing where an emotional wave will come weeping in on you, and you just, you lose control of it.
Well, I started talking about alcoholism and recovery, and I started talking about AA, and here I am sitting in this hotel room with this guy who's making an evaluation of me in terms of, is this a good candidate for our program? Well I started talking about AA, and this wave came in from I don't know where, absolutely overwhelmed me. And you remember folks, I told you I was a crier, right? These tears welled up in my eyes, I was so grateful.
I didn't care whether they wanted me or not, I was just so happy to feel that kind of gratitude after so long wanting to feel grateful. And it was a wonderful experience, and fortunately gratitude has stayed with me. It came slowly, first there was none, then there was gratitude at just the head level where I could look at my life and know that I had things to be grateful for. But as time passed, then it moved from my head down to my stomach, and to the real feeling level so that now I am indeed truly grateful for everything and for having an opportunity for a second journey, for a second life after coming to this program.
In terms of my professional life, I do have an opportunity to work with people who are seeking some kind of recovery from alcoholism. I know there are other ways to stay sober, and in spite of all my exhortations that Alcoholics Anonymous is the very best way, they don't always follow my directions. And they do indeed stay sober, but there's something missing. I observe this, I'm in an unusual opportunity to observe that there's something different, something missing there.
In my opinion, Alcoholics Anonymous is the very, very best way for anyone who's an alcoholic to stay sober and learn how to live a life again. You know, it's been really wonderful for me. I've learned a lot of difficult lessons, but I've learned them, and that's the wonderful thing, as the other speakers have shared, what this program does is it gives us the opportunity to go ahead and have it happen, to live through it, that what I've got to do is to not take a drink and keep breathing, you know, those are the two bottom line things.
And in doing those, the easiest way, at least for the not take a drink part, is to participate in Alcoholics Anonymous, and to share this wonderful program, and to be here, at least for a little while, and just have an opportunity to share what's happened to me, and to encourage anyone who isn't feeling great, because sometimes someone at a podium will say, are you having a good time? And it may be that thirty-three percent.
And it may be that 33% of the people on a particular day are having a fantastic time. And the 33% are kind of in the middle where it's okay and it's not okay, and where there's 33% who are feeling kind of bummed and wondering,
[01:00:02]
what in the hell am I doing coming to this thing? I am supposed to be on another planet. And I think it's im- for me, because I hate conventions, but I avoid them, that I think it's important for me to look around and to look around for people who are uncomfortable and either allow myself to talk, to move closer, or if the person needs a little space, then back off. It's hard to, there's no real formula.
But I think if you're here, that's the most important thing, that you are here together and that we are all trying to share and develop together and to have a second journey, to have a life sober, and that we can do that as long as we are together, because that's what it's all about. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. That's a wonderful story. We have some time left, so if any of you have a question that you would like to ask any of the panelists directly, or make a comment of your own, you're welcome to do so now.
Just step right on up to the microphone. Identify yourself and make your comment. Good afternoon. My name is Gene and I'm an alcoholic. And I thank God and the members of A for my sobriety. And I want to thank the panelists for sharing, because I come here to identify with the life that I went through and didn't manage too well because I was ignorant of the fact that I was powerless and I drank besides.
The second journey is the sunlight of my life. The first part of my life was the darkness. And that was parted when I came to the realization through all the trouble I had through the use and abuse of alcohol and my attitudes and my ignorance of my natural instincts going astray, making me defective, giving me shortcomings, character defects. When all of this came to bear on one moment, when the judge put me out of my house, because my wife called me an alcoholic and that was the worst thing in the world, and my son came down and split my skull open because he thought I was going to kill his mother for calling me an alcoholic.
I was just that way. My mother-in-law called the police and they took me out in handcuffs. When they put me out of my house, I looked at the track record and alcohol was my problem. And that was the spiritual awakening because I decided to do something about it. And when I picked up that phone, that's when the sunlight in my life started. I was now on the journey with an open mind to do something about my drinking.
And I didn't know when I got here that the only requirement was the desire to stop drinking. And that was my answer. And then they told me, if you stay away from one drink one day at a time, you can't get drunk. That's been happening now for a little over 12 years. So the sunlight started when I had a desire to stop drinking and a willingness to do something about it. And then they told me how I'm going to keep doing this.
I said, I can't drink, I've got a disease. Simple enough. Next thing they said, now you've got to relate to other people. And so I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and I thought it was a little weird for the first couple of months I was here. I'd never heard people talk about themselves this way. But I did come to believe because I had a desire to stop drinking. So staying away from a drink, they started restoring me to sanity because I wasn't going crazy as I was before.
And slowly but surely the attitudes were changing because I had a desire to stop drinking. Then they told me, if you want to stay stopped from drinking, you've got to have power of reason yourself. So my sponsor said, you make the decision once and you keep going. I made that decision to turn my world and my life over to the care of God as I understood Him. And now I had the foundation to surrender the alcohol in me to a power greater than myself.
And then I took a look, as my sponsor directed me, at the fourth step and it told me what to watch out for. Because I'm subject to change without notice. And my thinking kept me drinking. But in that fourth step they said, hey, take these seven things and be aware of them no matter where you go. Because no matter where you go, it's the first drink that will get you drunk. And so I knew what to watch out for and I shared it.
And then I was willing to have God remove all this stuff
[01:05:01]
and I asked Him. So the journey into sunlight, the second chance of sobriety, continues when I make meetings and I listen to you tell me about those feelings that could make my life unmanageable. And when I find out through you and your sharing, I humbly ask God to remove it, Sometimes I get a little upset and I say a surrender prayer. Because I'm powerless. I can't drink. And then after that, I made some journey back into the human race by making some amends to my wife, son, and so forth.
Then my sponsor surprised me. He says, now you're ready to stay sober. I said, what? What have I been doing? He said, you've got to take the whole package because the twelve steps is the entire package that you must use on a daily basis to stay sober, learn to live sober, and enjoy sobriety. And to move in this passageway to sunlight to those promises on pages 83 and 84 of the Big Book. So he said, now when you're wrong, promptly admit it.
When I was wrong, I'd never tell you. I had to find some way to make you wrong. But it was a freedom that gave me more sunlight in my head and in my heart that I could tell another human being I was wrong and feel good about it. And when I was right, I learned these rooms to shut up. Ooh, that was difficult. But I'm learning because this is a school for drunks so far as I'm a drunk and I'm in the right place.
And I don't have to pretend who I am because I don't control me anymore. I don't have anything to defend. The higher power is my big sponsor. And then my sponsor says, now you have arrived at where you have to be every day. Pray and meditate for the knowledge of this world and the power to carry that out. Oh, beautiful. And then in the meantime, you know what God's will. Don't drink, make meetings, and help another alcoholic and to practice these principles in all my affairs.
So no matter where I go, I'm powerless over alcohol. I can't drink and I got to be cool. I've always wondered where I was going in my life. And Alcoholics Anonymous gave me the answer. I know what I'm going to become. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. Thank you. Hi, my name's Mary. I'm an alcoholic. And I just have to say thank you to the gentleman in the green. There's a guy back from the island in New York and they call him It Takes Guts to Live Tom.
And I walked in here really cranked out and everything. And I just feel so good. I was one of the 33% sitting here cranking out. And thank you so much for sharing that. That's how I feel better. Thank you. Hi, my name is Bob McCormick and I'm an alcoholic from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My sobriety date was 38 years ago last May. And I just… I just want… It's customary in my area to give your sobriety date.
Apparently it isn't here. At any rate, I just want to tell you you're all super speakers. And the chairlady is really great. I enjoy you too. I have enjoyed a comfortable sobriety in AA. And this program is just super. It's wonderful. I've discovered that if you, like the speaker in the green jacket, if you just don't drink and go to lots of meetings, those are the really two bottom lines. Thank you.
Hi, my name is Larry from Cleveland, Ohio, powerless over alcohol and drugs. I really enjoyed your sharing this afternoon. I was expecting something on relapse. What I need to say, I guess I need to say for myself. Maybe it will help somebody else. I don't know. I was around the program for six months prior to getting sober this time. And I was doing everything, I believe, like you were talking about.
I was on my knees in the morning and at night taking new people to meetings, going to a lot of meetings, doing everything. And then I went back out. And for me, I was an intellectual, I thought, anyhow, I'm a college grad. I understood the 12 steps. And I had to analyze what happened to me coming back into the program. For me, I had to do that,
[01:10:00]
even though it wasn't really that important. In the final analysis, I never took the first step, honestly. And today I understand what powerless over alcohol is. Because I felt it in my guts when I came back, when everything in my life was totally removed. I knew what powerless meant. And the honesty with that, that therefore I can never safely take a drink or a drug again. And that's where my sobriety started again.
And the first three steps, I can't, he can't, I think I'll let him. Hey, it's a great way of life. Thank you. God bless you. Hi, everyone. My name is Dorian. I'm an alcoholic. I want to thank everyone on the panel. You're terrific. Thanks very much for speaking, especially the fellow in the green shirt. I can really identify with you. My first year of sobriety was a nightmare. It was real tough. I was going through a legal battle, and I just couldn't let go.
I was going to a lot of meetings, and I was doing some selective sharing. I wasn't being totally honest with everyone, especially with my sponsors. And I came closer to suicide than I did of picking up a drink. And after 13 months, I ended up back in a rehab. And that unlocked Dorian. I finally found myself, and I took a good fourth and fifth step. The first year, I'd been going to a lot of meetings, and I'd been reading the steps, but I wasn't working them.
I was doing the two-step thing. And all those steps in between, I forgot about them. And they mean the guts of the program. And when I found out at the rehab, I was down at Father Martin's Ashley down in Maryland. And after I took my fifth step, I took it with a Presbyterian minister. What he basically told me was, Dorian, you're a nice guy. Stop beating the hell out of yourself. I think we're all pretty good at doing that.
I know I was, but I was an emotional basket case. You know, it's nice to be able to smile and laugh again. It's nice to be able to love again. And that's what I, I just love everyone here. Thanks very much. My name is Horst, spelled H-O-R-S-T. And I have alcoholism. I kind of relate it to a friend in the green shirt. I worked very diligently on my depression. Had a hell of a time trying to stay there.
I was a crier. I came in crying. I came in not dressed very nice. I didn't look very nice. I didn't smell very good. I wasn't as pretty as I am tonight, this afternoon. But the biggest thing, the thing that I had to really work on very hard was learning how to listen. It was hard. I wish I would know right at this moment as much about AA as I did 15 years ago. I don't. 15 years ago I would get up here and come and forget who the speakers were, you know.
I thought I was the speaker. So I would come in for a whole half an hour after they'd done the talking. Thanks for your speech. My name is Mark and I'm a drug addict and alcoholic. Hi everybody. I just want to thank the speakers too. I just dropped into this meeting not really sure what to expect just because it was the closest one when I happened to get here to town. I thought it was going to be on relapse too and I haven't had a relapse and hope not to.
But it turned out to be something that I could really relate to, something that I really needed to hear. I especially related to Jim because the story of his drinking and his early recovery sounded very much like mine. I can remember wondering. I can remember wondering, you know, what the problem was. I had my job. My family still accepted me. I had a place to live. There was someone who cared about me. And no one
[01:15:00]
else knew that I was spending all my free time sitting alone in that apartment with the door locked and the phone unplugged and the blinds drawn, afraid to go out in the sunlight. And it got to the point where I knew that suicide was the next step. And Easter Sunday morning in 1984, I reached out on the slim hope that somehow, somewhere, it might be able to be different. And it has been. A lot of times I think it's not different enough. I made so many choices that put me in a position today that I'm not comfortable with. And I wonder, am I going to have the courage? Am I going to have the resources to be able to make some of those changes in the way I live, in my vocation, possibly in the place that I live? And it just gave me a lot of hope to hear you folks share about the simple patience and sticking with the basics of the program and all of those things coming in time. I just really wanted to thank you very much for sharing.
Hi, my name is Florence and I'm an alcoholic. I have a cold too. I can't take anything. I wanted to thank Jim for his sharing about his battle with depression. I've been in AA ten and a half years and for the first seven years I did my best to be Miss AA and did everything I was supposed to do, especially in service work. I'd always had a battle with depression and I was always fighting it. After seven years I drank and I fell into a… I got sober again. But I spent three years in a really horrible depression. I stayed sober 15 months and then I drank. Then I stayed sober 11 months and then I drank. Now this is my fourth time back and I have nine months. It just seemed like the days and the months turned into years of just feeling the hopelessness and despair I felt even though I was going to AA. I was trying to control my depression. I found that I was as powerless over my depression as I was over my alcoholism. It was very hard for me to reach out to help for AA people because I had so much pride because of the previous variety I had and so many people I'd helped and all this stuff. Finally my sponsor directed me to a wonderful psychiatrist who has a hospital in Maryland who treats alcoholics and especially alcoholics with depression. Finally with his help and taking a minimal dosage of an antidepressant and promising to take antibiotics for a year I've been able to stay sober. I really didn't want to take an antidepressant but I found it really saved my life. I've tried to commit suicide two times in the last three years and became closer each time and I realized it was inevitable that I would kill myself because I just felt that I could never get sober again, that AA would never work for me. When you talked about the big wave of gratitude you have, it's taken so long to feel grateful again.
My name is Gordon R. I'm from Thompson, Manitoba. I live up north of 55 there. It's quite a ways north of Winnipeg. I remember in 1958 I used to live in Vancouver. I looked at AA in those years. The doctor I went to, he sent me to a psychiatrist, a mental hospital there to see
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what was wrong with me. They told me to keep coming back and I just didn't bother coming back so I just kept on drinking and drinking. I tried AA in 1958 and it didn't seem to work. They were saying this was the second journey and I had four journeys. In 58, 63, and I went all the way from 63 right up to the 70s. There were some real horrible experiences, blackouts, vials. Like Jim was saying there, I attempted suicide about two or three times. I just feel grateful for AA. I was darn nervous. I had never spoken to a big crowd before because the group we had up in Thompson, they called the Nick group. I got into AA March 6, 1977 and I haven't looked back since. I remember my daughter there. She was born in 1964 and I went into the hospital at the same time as my wife had depression. It was an odd thing, the wife down one end of the hall and I was at the other end. She could never figure out why I was in there. That was one of the trips that was almost going to take my life because I asked the doctor to abort my wife because I didn't know what to do. I didn't have any kids because I was too brief. Irresponsible. I was covered up so many times there at work. My general foreman, Doug Cameron, he used to cover me up. I just don't know what happened. I'm so grateful for you people there, for my society. Thanks very much.
I'll keep it short. My name is Ralph West and I'm a grateful alcoholic. When I first walked in through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous, I was forced into choosing a way of life that would save my life. I didn't realize it at first because this was the last place I ever wanted to be. For me, I'd just like to share something with you. Second Journeys into Sobriety is an experience and for me today is here and right now. After sitting in the Big O last night and hearing what I heard and feeling what I felt, I've never felt or experienced anything like that in my life. The only thing I knew and understood was the promotion of my alcoholism from Halifax to Vancouver, from Maine to California, and all of Southeast Asia. And then I came back to end my career here in Montreal as an active drinker. After what I'd seen last night and what I feel right now, it starts with an emotional high and somewhat of an understanding of something that I could not comprehend at a group level. You start with hope. You start to learn. You obtain some measure of sobriety and then you become and experience part of what we are as a unified group of recovering alcoholics today. And boy oh boy, what a nice and enjoyable way to live a life. Thank you.
I'm Jeff and I'm an alcoholic. I'm really grateful to be here. I feel a need to say thank you to you people and everyone in this room. I'm just approaching three months of sobriety and I tried AA once before, twice before. Once hardly sincere at all. The second time was sincere, but I only wanted to listen to you people partially. And I had to go out and get some more tragedy. But I came from a very bad place, you know. Jails, nuthouses, loss of everything
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that ever meant something to me. Wife, kids. I don't know if I'll ever get it all back, but it really doesn't matter today because I have you people and I have God like I never thought I would. And I am really grateful and I feel it in my heart like the gentleman in the green said. And I love you all. God bless. My name's Hal from Baltimore, Maryland. And I'm an alcoholic and a grateful one. And the man in the green shirt told part of my story. I had a three-point backup plan for self-destruction. The shotgun root, which seemed pretty messy.
Poison, which bounced. It came up. And suffocation, which got so stuffy I had to come up for air. So I know the feeling. I came to AAU under handicap conditions. I've never wrecked a car, never lost a job, never been in jail overnight, never been to a shrink, never went broke, never been to a loan company, had all my bills paid. Isn't that a terrible way to come here? You ought to be broke, drunk, on the bottom. President of a very successful engineering company in Baltimore, which is the proof that you can hold down a big job and be dying of our disease. And I came in under the 12-step method or mode that Bill W. used on Dr. Bob.
My sponsor came to me. Bill went to Dr. Bob. Dr. Bob was under the table. And I had just gotten out from under the table. And I can always relate back to a quickie prayer that kind of oozes out of me that Friday night. I don't have an anniversary date because it changes. Good Friday changes every year. March, April, or May. So I have a floating anniversary, but I don't have to float with it. But it was Good Friday night of 1951 when that prayer oozed out of me. God help me. No strings attached. No religion. I'm a scientist.
I'm too practical to be religious. I tried so many dead religions. It was pitiful. A bunch of dead gods get you dead drunk. But the next day my neighbor came over. My next door neighbor. And he had marks of mileage on his face, but he smelled good. And that was different. And he told me about this outfit. And I had read the Jack Alexander story ten years before in the Saturday Evening Post. And I had a good image of A.A. I thought if you went to A.A. you never drank anymore. Isn't that weird? And I haven't.
That's even weirder. When you battle booze for 29 years, walk into a meeting and chop it off for 34 years, that's amazing. But that's what happened. They gave me a simple program. And I said I haven't lost anything. They said if losing things is your hobby, get a jug and have fun. But if you don't want to lose anything, you don't have to. A day at a time. Go to meetings as often as you drank. Pray. Help another drunk.
Latch on to the higher power of your choice, but make sure you get a live one. And your chances are you won't drink. And my sponsor had this thing boiled down in a real neat set of words. Find God. Clean house. Help others. And I have, and I do, and I don't drink. I had a three year thirsty trip in A.A. See I've had about three chances in this outfit. I didn't know this afternoon what this subject meant.
Afternoon, what this subject meant, and I thought it meant maybe a retread or a slipper, and I can't speak on the subject by experience, but I can by thinking, because I saw a slip many a time, but they grabbed me and ran with me to AA before it happened.
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I had a drill sergeant for a sponsor. He didn't ever invite me to a meeting. He said, I'll pick you up at 8 o'clock. That was every night. But for three years I was thirsty. I was sober but not recovering. And then I had to make a decision. Do I want to be miserably sober as long as I live? Or do I want to be happy like some of these old timers? I had a personal god. See, I was religious. I didn't want any more of that dead god stuff. And I didn't know you could find a live one. I'm steeped in the world of science. I don't know anything about this personal god stuff.
But one night one guy said to me, do you have a god of your own? I said, no, I don't, really. Well, he said, if you don't have a god of your own, borrow mine. If you can't believe, make believe. Fake it till you make it. That's done on my level. I was an educated idiot when I came here. Product of four great universities, and I didn't know anything about living. Just about how to make a living and how dreary, dreary, dreary, drab that one is.
I said, but I don't know how to get with a personal god. He said, well, Bill W. told how it was with him. The room lit up.