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Source: Various S – Once an Alcoholic Always an Alcoholic – RS 17672 – 1990-07-04.mp3 File: various-s-once-an-alcoholic-always-an-alcoholic-rs-17672-1990-07-04.mp3 Duration: 01:17:01
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My name is Sharon, and I'm an alcoholic. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions.
AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, nor institution. Does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and to help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. There may be some here who are not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level which states, and I quote, Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion.
We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV, and films. And thus we respectfully ask that no AA speaker, or indeed any AA member, be identified by full name 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 AA personalities.
I would like to advise all present that this marathon meeting is being sound-taped, not video, but sound-taped in its entirety. I have asked Vickie Yess from Restaurant in Washington to read how it works for us. I'm Vickie and I'm an alcoholic. Hi Vickie. How it works. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program.
Usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault. They seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.
Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way, but we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start.
Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil until we let go, absolutely. Remember that we deal with alcohol, cunning, baffling, and powerful. Without help, it is too much for us, but there is one who has all power. That one is God. May you find him now. Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon.
Here are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery. One, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. Two, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Three, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. I should have this memorized by now. Four, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Five, admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Six, were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Seven, humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. Eight, made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Nine, made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Ten, continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. Eleven, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. Twelve, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Many of us exclaimed, what an order, I can't go through with it. Do not be discouraged.
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No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas.
A, that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. B, that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. And C, that God could and would if He were sought. Thank you, Vicki. Our speaker this evening hails from Philadelphia. But in our journey from the airport out to his hotel, I learned that his AA journey has taken him many, many places and has earned him friendships that are indeed international.
So it's with a great deal of pleasure that I give you Roland D. from Philadelphia. Thank you, Sharon. My name is Roland. I'm an alcoholic. And I'm from the Parkside Group in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And I would like to extend a right hand of fellowship to all who care to come down. If you're in Philadelphia, stop by the Parkside Group and I'll make you feel as warm as all of you made me feel here.
I found this fellowship to be something that's beyond my wildest dreams. The word that everyone is using now is awesome. I had a big thrill. I think I'm ready to go home now completely satisfied because there's a friend of mine that I met here today that we meet somewhere in the world at every convention that AA has. And that's the type of relationship and friendship we have acquired since we met in New Orleans at that international.
And when I seen him today and if you were here earlier and you heard all that ruckus going over there is when he ran over and charged me in the corner. And I guess we stood up like two little school boys until we went outside and began to talk. I look forward to that and we'll probably spend the whole day tomorrow together. Alcoholics Anonymous has been my life. I happen to be one of those fellows who were fortunate to have grown up into Alcoholics Anonymous.
I founded it at a very, very early age and I've been here ever since because it seems to me that it's given me everything that I need up to date in order for me to be able to live a very comfortable life with myself. But it always wasn't that way. And I'd like to take you on a little journey if I may and deal with a young man who had everything in life that basically poor people could have. A mother and a father and somewhere in the family structure I was number seven so I knew where my position was.
I had an older brother and a father that I sort of worship and idolize and they never disappointed me in every way. Every chance that they had to take me and teach me something they would do it and I would listen very, very, very carefully. Which brings me to what I want to say to you tonight about my drinking. It was basically in defiance of something that my father had told me when I was a little teeny boy.
And what I had seen one time that was shocking was that I had to go and talk to him about it. One thing I can remember is that I can remember the first drink that I ever had and I can remember the last drink that I ever had. And the first drink that I had was a mild drink in a tall stemmed glass in a nightclub in San Francisco. And the last drink that I had when I was the runner for the winos I lost my position in a group and now they were kicking at me and chasing me and making me go get the wine.
But before I hit every rung in that ladder of alcoholism to bring me to that state of mind there was an awful lot of things that happened in my life that I'd like to sort of share with you. And one thing that happened that played a very, very important part there was two things. One was that I wanted to be a fighter because in my family my oldest brother was a fighter and since I was number seven I wanted to be just like him.
That there was anything like my oldest brother anything that he wanted to do I wanted to do. And the next thing was that alcohol. You just can't be a fighter and you drink because it'll make a bum out of you. So between those two things I sort of stayed away from alcohol for a long, long time. But one thing that impressed me more when I was a youngster and I snuck into this circus and I can always remember this because they had this thing booked as the wild woman from Barneo and me hanging around, hanging around
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wanting to get in to see this show the barker called me up and we had a little conference before and he says, look, I'm going to call you up and I want you to act like you're hypnotized when I hold this snake in front of your eyes and that's what I did. When he held the snake in front of me I acted like I was hypnotized and that's how I got inside to see this thing. And when I got in the people that already paid admission to get in were around this big circle and inside was a great big canvas hole and there was a woman inside of there and there were at least 15 or 20 snakes down in this pit with this woman and the same fellow who was selling the tickets and doing the barking came in with a big stick and he began to poke at this woman and he began to tantalize this woman and he began to beat this woman and it seems to me this is what the crowd paid to come to see to see this woman get beat in this pit.
But the shocking thing was when he went out and when he came back the people knew what was going on more so than I did and he came back with a chicken and he took this chicken and he folded this chicken's wings and he threw it down in that pit to this woman and she grabbed this chicken and acted like she was praying and went through all of this gyration with it and the thing that shocked me more was when she bit the chicken's head off and began to suck the blood out of it and it seemed to me that the people got a big charge and I was frightened because I'd never seen anything like chicken blood and feathers and the chicken hollering and fluttering all over the place and the people screaming and all these snakes and this woman it was just a sight that just sort of stuck with me and I can remember running home frightened and afraid and talking to my father and telling him about what I'd seen and he sat me down and he explained it to me that what I'd seen was what they call a geek and the key into all of this was that they didn't pay this woman and they carried her from city to city in this circus and she performed this act, this lewd act and the only pay that she got was a fifth of whiskey he said they gave her very little food but they kept her entrapped with this whiskey and I remember telling him do whiskey do things like that to you?
he said you've just seen it he says alcohol will make you sell your soul so the best thing for you to do is not get involved with it at all so therefore I had that healthy fear I had that healthy fear against getting drunk in alcohol because what my father said he said you just don't drink and then besides there was this image in my mind that my mother had sort of implanted there when she would mention this word alcoholic and being a little young fellow she would say this person is an alcoholic and I can remember standing and looking around to see who she was talking about there was always somebody stumbling up and down the street that was dirty and nasty and so I had two images of what an alcoholic was either they were working in circuses sucking on chickens or either they were drunk and dirty so I couldn't be an alcoholic when my problem began to start because of my age and I hadn't extended myself to that so far well the other thing that was very very important in my life was that the part that I played in the ring and I guess probably you would say that I was a fine tuned machine in those days at least I thought so my home was in Philadelphia but they brought me to California and that was the scheme to have a few fights in California and then bring me back home with this fabulous record and you know fighters basically are two things they're very clandestine people and at least in the way that I was trained I was very prejudiced one of the things that I had in my mind always in training that I couldn't be beaten by anyone in my division and I couldn't be beaten by a white man that was a thing that I trained by well let me tell you about this sad mistake that I made I got beaten by a white man down in San Francisco and on top of all of that he was a southerner so imagine how I felt that night being beat up by a southerner in that ring but I experienced something that I experienced a few years later drunk that standing in that arena with all those people that night nobody understood me and all those thousands and thousands of people there I was all alone I had that same identical feeling laying in a churchyard drunk in a short period of time I can remember leaving that arena feeling totally helpless and worthless and misunderstood and all alone 3,000 miles away from home and going down to this Howard Black Shores nightclub and everybody who was on that card that night was there in the nightclub having a good time and I sat there this young kid all the way from home not knowing which way to go had lost his first fight had never tasted defeat before but I was raised to know that it took a better man to lose than it did to win I used to hear my father just say that but for some apparent reason it just didn't apply to me and I remember sitting there watching everybody drink and I ordered a drink that night and it was him And I ordered a drink that night, and it was in a tall stemmed glass, and I can remember the sensation that I got.
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I can summarize everything that I'm going to say in the next few minutes by saying this, that that drink that I had that night in that nightclub in San Francisco was the only drink that I ever had in my life. Let me repeat that. That was the only drink I ever had in my life. Every drink that I took after that was trying to recapture that sensation and that feeling that I got from that first drink. And the more I drank, the more it eluded me. I could never get it again. I could never get that feeling again.
And so I began to realize the higher I got, the higher I got, when I came down, the lower I began to stoop. And that's to begin the road of me and alcohol. In the beginning, it didn't have that effect. That first night, that sensation that I had, all those things that I told you about, that my father had taught me about, were all wrong. That this stuff really, really is a magic potion. It was a panacea.
This is the thing that would help me through any problem that I might have. Sitting there, smiling and grinning to myself, knowing this feeling that I had and this glow, that nothing else mattered as long as I had that. But to tell you this, that in that drinking, and from that day, there was a lot of blood, a lot of sweat, a lot of tears, a lot of anguish and pain that I caused on myself and other people because of the lifestyle that I was living.
I had an ego as big as this room. Being in the fight game, you had to have that ego. And you had to be good with people, and you had to be good with words. You had to be able to handle yourself in any type of a situation, and you wanted people to follow you, and you wanted people to stroke you, and that was the type of life that I lived for a short period of time. There's something that happened coming out of the fight game.
I bought this Cadillac, and that was a status symbol, and plenty of clothes, and a lot of friends. And in the beginning, everybody was on roll, and everybody was Roland's friend, and we'd get in this car, and we'd put the top down, and we'd go across the bridge into New Jersey and we'd raise all kind of hell over there. The problem was that I got drunk one night with this car, and I wrecked it. The car was two years old, a convertible Cadillac, and I sold it for $35.
I didn't realize that until after I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, because I was ashamed of that. And I took that $35, and I got drunk. Because by this stage in the game, I was willing to let everything go. It didn't make any difference. It had to go. But don't take the alcohol away from me. By now, it was just crutch, you see, and I was beginning to be dependent on it. On the right hand, everything that I worked for, everything materialistic that I had in this world that I loved and I cherished, I wanted to hold on to it.
On the left hand, when you gave me a drink, I just didn't give a damn about anything. There was something happening inside of me that I just couldn't explain. So the idea of me getting married, and so I did, figuring that this would stop me anything besides giving up the alcohol. The marriage basically was doomed for disaster because of me. Because of some things that I carried over from my childhood, and it was things that were happening in my life.
And the things that I was doing, I knew that I was wrong. And I'd want to look at my wife, and I'd want to tell her that I was wrong. And I didn't mean to do these things. But the words would come out of my heart, and come right up in my throat, and I would choke. And I would cry and whimper like a dog on the inside, because being raised the way that I was meant don't cry. No matter what happened, you show no tears.
You just bear whatever you have to bear, and you don't cry. And having a marriage living like that, where I couldn't express myself emotionally, not even to shed a tear, it was doomed for disaster. Because I'd become very self-centered and very egotistical, you see, in my drinking. And quite natural, living a lifestyle like that, you see, no woman, basically, would want to put up with a man who lives through broken promises.
And that's what I was doing. But there was something wrong with me, and deep down inside, again, I just couldn't explain what was wrong. I would know that when I would go out and start to drinking, that all hell would break loose, you see, and some of the things that I would do. And I know that the physical part had begun to take place. I'm talking about the blackouts, because there was something else that I couldn't explain.
There were periods of my life where I couldn't explain where I was at and what I had done. And that's the part that used to hurt. In the beginning, it was fun. But then later on, when people began to tell me things that I've done, then that was a hurting part, because I wasn't aware of the time that I had spent on this planet, and couldn't explain what I'd been doing, simply because of drinking. And it hurt.
I knew that I had a problem. I knew this. Because every time I would start off with beer, and then it would go on to something stronger. One night, I had a quart of beer, and it seems to me that I'd become so darn restless, I could Jekyll and Hyde, schizophrenic.
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And I knew where the fellas had the wine at, and this was all in another part of town. And I can remember thinking, if I could only get down there, if I could only get down there, I'd feel much better. But prior to that, I used to suffer terribly when I laid down to go to sleep. I'd become nocturnal. The time I was supposed to be fast asleep, I was wide awake. The time I was wide awake, I was supposed to be fast asleep.
I'd become so disoriented in my life and in my thinking. If I happened to lay down to go to sleep, I would have nightmares. I would fall through space all night, wishing for someone to wake me up, wishing for somebody to jar me, wishing for somebody to call me. So the whole night that I would be there, I'd have this feeling of struggling against something. And quite naturally, when I'd wake up, I'd be dog-tired because of what was going on inside of me.
I never could lay down and get a good night's rest. Another thing that used to happen to me when I would go to sleep, I'd wake up soaking wet. Night sweats. Soaking wet. Dehydrating, really, that's what I was doing. Catching hell out there and calling it fun. Not knowing. I knew that I had a problem when I ran and I walked and I trotted all the way down South Philadelphia to get some wine. And stumbling in this room, there were about 20 guys in this room up over a chicken store and they had an old overcoat.
An old overcoat across the window and a big potbelly stove in the middle of the road and a big pile of raw ashes over in the corner. And this is the way that they were living. And I just left a nice clean home. I left a nice clean bed and I ran and walked to be down here with these people. And I just didn't understand it. And that's why I say every drink that I took and every time I got drunk, I went with lower and lower and lower people.
But I found myself sitting in this room, reaching for this wine bottle and these guys laying all over the place. And then feeling utter disgust about where I was at and what I was doing. That you've got no business in a place like this. And all those thoughts remained until I took the cap off that bottle. And when I took the first swig out of that bottle, it went down and I still felt the same way.
And when I took the second drink out that bottle, I felt the same way. And between the third drink and the fourth drink, I began to change and look around and say, Hell, this ain't a bad place after all. You see? This ain't a bad place after all. Here again, this thing was beginning to change. And so what I began to do is proceed to get drunk, put the cap back on and find my place on the floor with the rest of these fellows in a fetal position.
The next thing that had to happen is that I had to come out and face the sunlight and face reality. And so the thing tell me, don't go back. You don't want to go on. How are you going to explain this to your wife? What are you going to say to her? So finally when I did struggle home and I did see her, that's when all hell would break loose again. And I'd look at her with all the sincere and all honesty and tell her that there was something wrong.
And it was always this pleading thing in the center of my stomach. There was always screaming out and always asking for help. And I would look at her and again, the tears would come and I'd cry on the inside because men don't cry. You see? My life just couldn't go on. And then I began to be arrested. And then she would have to come down to the police station to get me out. All these things used to hurt.
All these things used to hurt. And I just couldn't understand it. I'd fallen over into a churchyard one night drunk and I couldn't get up. I laid there on my face and it rained on me all night long. And I can remember trying to get up and falling back down and tasting the blood and tasting the dirt in my mouth and not being able to do anything for me. And something said, I'm going to drag you right straight down to hell.
And I had that feeling and for some apparent reason, everything in my brain used to be vivid. Everything used to come alive and yet I couldn't manage to do anything about it. These pictures would fly and come into my mind over and over and over again. I remember jerking myself up. Jerking myself up and standing there and I got that same identical feeling that I had when I was a kid standing in that ring in San Francisco.
That I was all alone and I was confused and I didn't know what was going on. I remember stagging up the street and my wife was coming out to go to work and we met on the porch and we both stood there and she started crying and I looked at her. I said, there's something wrong with me but I wouldn't cry because men don't cry. All hell broke loose in the house and quite naturally she had to leave and I was satisfied.
And talking about the insanity, talking about the insanity that began to creep in. And the death wishes that I had and the violence that I had gotten involved with. Now I don't have a car, now I got a bum and I began to go down, down, down and down
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and I began to lose my position in place. I beat an old man up and I didn't want to do that. God knows I never wanted to hurt this man because he had offered me to his house at a Christmas party and I don't remember anything. I never tried to explain this to anybody other than anyone who was an alcoholic about a blackout and what had happened because I know there are people here who understand that what I went through that night, that it's possible.
And if I say to you from the bottom of my heart, I had no idea what happened, I know that you would believe me because I was drunk out of my mind. And it seems to me that when they were telling me what had happened, this picture began to develop, to develop and develop. And so I believed it and I wanted to be put away because now all these concepts of what an alcoholic was because I know that when I drank water nothing happened or whenever I drank soda nothing happened or whenever I drank milk nothing happened but only when I drank alcohol.
And you have to watch how cunning and baffling this illness is because as long as I can switch from one to the other I was satisfied and when I say switch from one to the other it meant that when I went out and did something bad and I moved from the wine over to the whiskey and I moved from the whiskey back to the beer you see and I realize now that the body didn't give a damn about whiskey, beer or wine.
All the body cared about was the alcohol. And as long as I could play that head game with myself and continue to do this thing I would always find myself in trouble. Then came this thing about people, places and things. I didn't know these things because I would go back into the same haunts and sit there and tell them look I'm not drinking, give me a soda. I'm not drinking, give me an orange juice.
And then sooner or later about two hours in this place I'd say I'm not drinking, give me a beer and the whole thing would start all over again. That was the way it went over and over and over again until something had to be done. I found my way into Alcoholics Anonymous. I staggered down there and it was in December between Christmas and New Years. December between Christmas and New Years that I found my way into Alcoholics Anonymous.
And when I got there I found just a small group of people who were willing to sort of help me to do something about the problem that I had. No one told me that I was an alcoholic. Nobody told me that I was an alcoholic. They gave me 12 suggestions and said look take these over and you read them for yourself. If they apply to you good and if not, you know. And I began to read these 12 suggested steps.
And the first step was the only step that dealt with alcohol. The rest of them dealt with the things that was inside of me that needed to be fixed. And they said look if you're willing to go this far to work on you then you got a half way chance because self doesn't want to be disciplined and that's what it took. I had to find some way of separating me from alcohol. Up until that time there wasn't any way.
I needed a buffer and Alcoholics Anonymous supplied that to me. And what it did for me is it gave me a whole new world of life and a whole new philosophy and a set of principles and standards that I can go by. And ever since that day up until this I have been doing it. They told me in the beginning there's certain things that if you don't complicate this thing you can do it. And you can do this and you can follow step by step and I still apply it today.
That whenever someone reaches out for me or reaches out for the A.A. I want to be there and I still practice that. I still practice that with all humility. I don't know how many people I was able to sort of, I'm not going to say save, I don't know. But whenever I go out if I could only help one person to let them know that it's useless to try to go back and recapture something once alcoholism sets in.
That what you have to do basically is find something else because it will kill you as sure as I'm standing in front of you. They told me, listen, if you're constant attenders of meetings, keep coming back, keep coming back, keep coming back. If you keep an open mind when you come to an A.A. meeting, if you keep an open mind, if you learn to live and let live, you might have a chance. If you give a person the right to their own opinion when they're sharing it in an A.A. meeting, let them go ahead and say because what they're saying might be the thing that they need to save their lives and you don't want to stop that.
If you can't say anything good for a person, don't say anything bad. And if you can't help a person, don't try to hold them down. These are the principles that they told me in the beginning and these are the things that I found true today. Another thing that they told me about when you come into rooms, mind your own damn business. Stay out of other people's business. Leave other people alone. You've got enough taking care of your own troubles and your own problems.
If someone asks you for advice, then go ahead and give it. But stay out of other people's business. And this is a code basically that I carry with me. Business and this is a code basically that I carry with me and that's what I like to pass on to anybody else that would like to have it. I travel an awful lot me and my friend
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over here, just about any place in the world because I've found that that's the only way that I can do it is by giving it away. I surely love this life and I've worked very, very digitally with the Twelve Steps. I've applied them to my life and when I get around to twelve I've got to start back over again because I know that as long as the blood runs warm in my body and every day there's going to be a new set of problems and so what I use the program for is to help me to cope what goes on outside of the AA rooms and so it becomes a way of life to me. I found the program to be life saving as well as it is life giving.
Thank you very much. I don't want everybody to get up and run now but if you have to go okay. We're just beginning to get into the best part of this and that's to hear other people share and so what I'd like to call on is Jeff G here. Jeff? Okay. Hi everybody. I'm an alcoholic and my name is Jeff. Hi Jeff. Hi. Four years ago, August 3rd, my idea of recovery was a Budweiser and two aspirins because my story starts out long before my first drink. You see I was brought up in an alcoholic family and an alcoholic environment. It's the only life I knew. My thing really starts out my first day in school because this is basically, I'd like to say a little bit about why I drank, why I had my first drink. I was destined to have it but it was a build up right from my first day. I walked in and I had a haircut and it was the shortest one and the other kids laughed at me. So right away I figured I have to please these kids. I'm going to be with them for a long time. So it made it really easy for me to want to be accepted and to do anything to be accepted because I didn't want to be laughed at. So I tried my hardest at doing everything and I noticed, all the adults around me and everything, I noticed that the easiest people were so comfortable when they drank and it seemed to me that everyone got what they wanted when they drank. So when I was offered my first drink at 13, I said, like Roland spoke about blackouts, I had a blackout on my first drink because right away I drank the whole bottle of wine and I got to kiss a girl. So I figured this is acceptance. Now this is my ticket, this is my answer and I used that answer and I kept using it and I became arrogant and I started to become hateful because I looked at that as a cool, cool way to drink. The more you could drink, the more arrogant you were, the cooler of a person you were. Like I say, that was my life goal, to be accepted by everyone. So I went on and I started to get a lot of attention when I would give the police a hard time. So, see I come from Martha's Vineyard Island, which is about 50 square miles and there's not much to do, so we would all hang around on Main Street and taunt the policemen as they walked by. So, it wasn't long before my taunting got to pretty physical violence and I would start spitting at them and this is all stuff that I would hear in court later on after I'd wake up in a jail cell because I would drink so much that it would always be a blackout and then I'd laugh about it the next day because I had no, life had no value to me. I hated everyone, including myself, but I didn't know that. On
[00:35:04]
the outside, I didn't know that. On the inside, I was scared and I knew this was wrong. I knew that my attitudes towards my future, my attitudes towards women, I was a real stereotype and all this on the outside, I had to put up this facade to be accepted with the people I hung around with. So, I went on and on like this and pretty soon, I was out of high school and my boss at the time, after I was late for work one morning because I had woken up in jail and I had to get bailed out, my boss at the time had a friend in the AA program. He said, well, maybe you should go to a meeting with this guy. I think you might have a problem. So, I went to the meeting and I walked into the room and there was about 20 people in there and there was no one my age. So, I looked around and I said, I still got a long ways to go. So, right away I said, and besides, it doesn't matter to me anyways. I'm not going to make it to 18. I used to set death times, like 18. Then I'd make it to 18, then it would be 20. Then I'd make it to 20, 25 and so on. So, I went to that meeting and about three or four years later, after a whole bunch of court incidents and getting into trouble, it was always drunk and always with my arrogance towards the police and authority. I can remember once I got, I can remember the feeling of my face in the mud with the pouring rain with the police, well, with bounces from a bar holding me in the mud, waiting for the police to get there and then waking up in the jail cell with no clothes on and wondering where my clothes were. I'd rattled on the bars and everything and then the jailer came in and threw me my pants. I said, what's the story? He said, you tried to hang yourself. I said, well, I guess if he says so, I guess it's true. So, then a psychiatrist came in and I was a real good con artist. So, I conned my way out and I went from there. I went straight to a package store and got a six pack of beer. It's like I say, that was my cure. That was my recovery. So, after a bunch of that, the court finally decided that I should go to AA. So, I used to go, I used to have to go to three meetings a week and have my slip signed. Now, the unmanageability, by now I was married. The unmanageability was, I didn't know what that word meant because I thought I was managing just fine. Get up in the morning, go to work, get out of work and have, like I say, the stereotype I grew up with, have every man's right and that's Miller time. It's very commercialized too. So, I would go home, drink my Miller or Michelob or whatever and then expect the wife to do the dishes, you know, and take care of the kids. The kids would come in, I'd say hi and that was about it. So, anyways, so I'd go to my court meetings and I'd go to counseling and I'd walk in and the counselor would say, you still drinking? I'd say, yeah, I have a six pack out on my moped. That's what I was driving, a moped. It's a little bicycle-like thing that has a motor on it because I lost my license for drunk driving. So, as soon as I got my license back, the insurance went up so high. I says, well, I'll beat that. I had an answer for everything. I said, I don't have to pay insurance on a moped. So, I drove a moped for two years through the snow to save $100 worth of car insurance that it would have cost me more because I was arrested. So, after that, the court and being like that, being arrogant and everything, like I say all the time, deep down inside I knew that I was an alcoholic. I knew I had a family and I knew I wanted to get out of that, but I didn't want to admit it. I didn't want to surrender. It was like Roland said, I was looking for that first time. I was looking for that high, the fun. In the meantime, none of my friends would hang around with me anymore. So, I ended up being alone. Now, my whole idea of God was he was doing
[00:40:09]
this to me. It was all his fault. He was making me get into trouble and he was making my wife mad at me and all this fun stuff. I used to sit there on my moped all by myself and I'd look up into the sky as I'm guzzling down a beer and I'd say, why are you doing this to me? Why are you continuously ruining my life? And then I'd go home and have another drink. So, after a while, I had a new boss and he was a member of the program. Now, by now I didn't even notice I was losing everything because I didn't care. So, I was going to fix everything because I was having real trouble with my family life. So, I decided to move out and I was going to fix everything because she'd miss me so much and she'd want me back. So, I moved out and I moved in with one of the last people that would drink with me and that was my dad. And so, we were taking care of each other for a month and I was seeing my children on the weekends because it was my fatherly duty.
So, all of a sudden at the end of the month, I woke up in a blackout one morning and I'm sitting there at the table drinking peppermint schnapps with my dad and it's about eight o'clock in the morning. I called up and I asked my wife, I said, when do I come and see the kids? And she said, don't you remember you got a restraining order last night? So, now I couldn't see my kids. I looked at my dad and I said, what am I going to do?
And he pushed the bottle in front of me. So, I kept on like that and then a little bit later on, I was going to lose my job. So, I went to work to tell my boss I was going to kill myself. I was going to kill everyone else that it was their fault too. You know, I couldn't decide which I was going to do first, kill them first or myself. So, anyways, I woke up three days later in a hospital bed. Now, I'd been still going to AA for the courts, swearing up and down that I didn't care. And I woke up in that little room and for the first time in my life, I realized that God wasn't doing anything to me. He was keeping me alive while I was doing it to myself. And I can remember the feeling, all of a sudden, all the stuff that I said I wasn't hearing in AA, all the stuff that I said I didn't need, filled me. And I remembered one thing and that was get on your knees.
And I had a choice. I could put on my shoes or get on my knees. I got on my knees. The first higher power I had was a hospital bed. I'll never forget the prayer that I said. That was, God, whoever you are, wherever you are, and whatever you are, I don't want to figure it out anymore. It's all yours. And since that day, I've learned so much in this program, how to let go, how to accept, how to continue to grow. The 12 steps are a lifetime thing to me.
Did this, I don't graduate from AA. There's no graduation point. And I'm glad because I'm glad to go to meetings. I'm glad to come all the way across the country. This is the furthest I've ever been away from that place. And I, when I was active, it was, it was, if I got as far across as Boston, that, that was something I didn't want to do because I was quite satisfied just sitting there all by myself drinking. Um, so, okay. So, uh, anyways, um, I'd like to share one, one thing about the, uh, the, the crying. One of the, one of the things that helped me to accept this program the most was when I went into my first detox meeting and I cried out 26 years worth of tears.
What I'm going to ask you to do now is that we're going to call on, on volunteers. Um, anyone who would like to share their experience, strength, and hope with the, with the group would like for you to take maybe five or six minutes to sure. Come on up here. Sure, come on up here. What time is it over here?
[00:45:06]
Hi everybody, my name is Mark and I'm an addict. Hi Mark. I'm from the same town as Jeffrey, Martha's Vineyard, same island. I came in here under a little different note. I was married, had gotten my wife pregnant, told her I'd marry her if I got her pregnant. And I decided to do that, being a typical man. I was married for a couple of years and had a couple of kids. And I was starting to get out of hand.
I didn't drink or drug every day. It was when I did drink and drug what would happen to me, what would happen. I wouldn't come home, you know. It was every couple of weeks I would use. And when I did, I would use pretty good, you know. I would go out for a couple of days, then I'd come home and beg for forgiveness. It was really, I felt like a little kid, you know. I was one of the kids. So finally after a few years of this, my wife told me to get out.
And she used the F word, I don't like to swear today. But she said, get out or go to AA. And I decided to come to AA. And I came and I didn't take it, I didn't come for myself. I came for my family in the beginning. So what I did was I came around for about three months. And I decided I had to go do a little bit more experimenting and I did. And it was only going to be a half gram. One little bit, little bit of cocaine.
And then before you know it, it was five in the morning and the birds were chirping. And I was in a van in the woods and I knew, it was my bottom. I knew I should be home and I couldn't go home. As I always say, it had me, I couldn't go home. That was my bottom. And it was just like any other bottom that I've heard around here. But it was with cocaine, whatever it is. To me a drug is a drug. I did plenty of drinking too.
So I knew when I got home at whatever time it was, seven in the morning. The wife had gone off to work. And I went to bed and I just vibrated for eight hours in that bed. Because in this cocaine there's a lot of speed. And I couldn't sleep. Plus I was scared because she was going to come home and divorce me. She did come home eight hours later or whatever and said that this was it. And I said, please, one more chance.
And she did give me one more chance. And I did get sober. I went into AA with the real gusto, the real thing that I needed. I got active. I started sweeping floors. There's a big meeting up, not a big meeting, but kind of an old-timers meeting up in Tillmark. It's another town and a lot of old-timers go. And they made the suggestion, sweep floors, do service work, do whatever you have to. Do what I tell you.
And that's what I did and that's what it took. So I got sober. I learned how to live in Alcoholics Anonymous. I always thought I was a high-bottom drunk, but it turns out I wasn't. I was just like anybody else. It was what it was, what it did to me when I was active, when I was using. I got to be a secretary and it was a small group so I had to run the checkbook too. And I had never written a check in my life.
I didn't even know how to put my address on an envelope. These guys are the only people who have heard my story so I don't feel funny about telling it. I have really learned a lot. I didn't even know how to put my address on an envelope. Today I can do all that stuff. I have a small business. I never used to brush my teeth. And I thought I was a high-bottom drunk. I had two cars and a garage and animals and I thought I had it all.
I had a little money in the bank and I didn't have anything. I learned a lot in this program. How to talk. I'm slightly dyslexic. I would go to this step meeting every Tuesday night and I would tell myself, I want to learn how to read and today I have the resources. And I would sit there and I'd read and I'd sound like a fool but it didn't matter because I wanted to learn how to read. Because I have this new power that's going to get me going.
[00:50:00]
It's incredible. It's changed my whole life. And again I'll say I thought I was a high-bottom drunk. But it was in here for me. It was in my head and in my heart. I love this here. It says how it works. Really we've seen a person feel thoroughly followed our path. And that's what I've done. Last meeting a guy talked about doing the steps out of the big book. And that's the way I did it. I went really, really thorough.
I went all the way back as far as I could remember and I did a very thorough fourth, step, fifth and on through. And I continue to do that every day. But I watch. I watch today and I see people come in and out and they keep redoing this and redoing that, their steps. I mean I continue to do mine but I just got to say that I've done it thoroughly. And for almost four years now I've had serenity, have serenity.
I've lost my wife since then, not through death but divorce. And sometimes I think that's worse. She left me and I was crushed, two kids, two little girls. Lots of things have happened. It talks about in one of the books we meet the acid test. I swam the acid river. As I said I have a small business and my brand new building I had built burned down. And everything I owned was in it. And I made it through that stuff.
Today I can make it through anything with the people of this program and my higher power. I didn't mention that I have a real good connection with my higher power. And I call them God. And I love them and that's what helps me make it through. You guys, the steps and the higher power. And it works. So I'll end it there. Thanks a lot. Thank you very much. Do we have any volunteers? Okay. The lady in the back.
Bill, you're next. No, she. Come on, you're next. Him and you. I'll get to you. We'd like to get as many people to share as possible. And I want you, June is it? Yes. Okay, I want you to give June a welcome so she can share. My name is June and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, June. Hi, everybody. I can't believe I'm doing this. I had my first drink at 16 and my last drink at 56. And I just, you'll be able to figure out how old I am.
I've just had my 12th anniversary. That was great. I used to think there wasn't much in my drinking days that was really very horrible, except, of course, an occasional blackout or some humiliating experiences with my adolescent children where I would fall down and things, you know, simple little things like that. And I didn't remember until I'd been sober three years that I'd had two automobile accidents, alcohol-related in my 20s, you know, that sort of thing.
But I like really to concentrate on and think about recovery. I've been living a sober life now for 12 years and it hasn't been easy. The first few years, the problem of having other people adjust to the me that was trying to change was terribly difficult. I think it's the hardest part of getting and staying sober is making the changes, the difficult changes that we have to make in order to live healthy, sane, sober lives.
And it means rearranging our relationships, the way we think, the way we react, the way we do everything. It means sort of redefining ourselves. I had a very bad marriage, three children in a dysfunctional family. I married the wrong man at the wrong time for the wrong reason. Sound familiar? And so it was really just a pretty sick situation. After a while, he got sick and he went into treatment. And then we began to work together.
First, I telling him how it should be done, you know, because of course I knew.
[00:55:01]
I think my only real suicidal episode was when I ran into this stone wall of not really being able to change this man. And it's the ultimate temper tantrum, I think, or it was for me when I got to that place. And I left this absolutely wonderful tape. I was off down at the shore by myself and crying about how nobody loved me. And I tried so hard, you know, and I was going to find some way to end it all.
And, well, this was actually I forgot during my drinking days. And, of course, I was getting drunker and drunker and drunker. I have not been able to locate that tape, but I think it would be interesting sometime to hear it. I'm happy to say that I'm still married to the same man. We have I don't like the word husband now. He's my partner and friend. And we have made many changes. Our children have grown up and left.
One of them was an alcohol. One of them was alcoholic. One was gay and one was a high school dropout. There were days when I said, where did I go wrong? You know, but we we became a really healthy family. I remember down at the shore walking on Fourth of July or something down to the water. And there was a man standing, you know, at party time with his teeny on the on the second apartment balcony. I used to have a terrible time watching those people on that on the second floor having their teenies.
And he was saying, God bless America, you know, and raising his glass to us. And here was this wonderful family who had grown and come so far. And and we were going down because we wanted to be together. And and we had all worked hard to achieve that. Last November, my wonderful son, Nick, died of AIDS. One of the blessings of this program is that my husband and I were a team and were together to support him and help take care of him.
He and his lover, who was also sick. It was very, very precious time. Living a day at a time. Every day was different. No day was what it was expected to be. There was always something different. It was a tremendous drain emotionally and physically. And trying to savor all of the moments, even the bad moments. And realizing that we also realizing that my son was not going to die in the way that he according to my rules, you know.
And after 12 years, it's hard to think that that I still have a problem with control. But he gave us. He taught us many things about living. What is really important. Most of which I I thought I knew because of this program. He taught us. He taught me that I had to let other people live their lives. He had already taught me that many years before. He taught me that I couldn't change things. I couldn't change the fact that he was going to die.
It was the most horrible and the most exciting and the most spiritual time of my whole life. I was in Washington at the time that he was sick and I went to meeting Washington DC. Went to meetings there. Those people as everywhere are wonderful, wonderful people. They carried me through. They allowed me, allowed me. I felt comfortable enough with these people that I barely knew to say what it was I was feeling and thinking.
To say what it was I was feeling and thinking and what I was going through and they were there for me, you know, this, this group and my groups at home have sustained me and loved me and gradually make me see or at least make me believe that at some point in the next months or years I will
[01:00:17]
truly want to get back into my own life and meanwhile I am here and this is my third convention and I hope to make the next one. Thank you. Hi, I am Nancy and I am a recovering alcoholic also. Hi, Nancy. Hi, I have been trying to get sober since 1986. I am back again coming upon 90 days soon and at one point I had 15 months sober and thinking that I can control it once again and anyways I gather some time and then I try to get sober again.
And anyways I gather some time and then I lose it and the last relapse consisted of two beers. I thought well maybe this time I am not an alcoholic. I have got four months clean and maybe this time I can just have two beers and I had the two beers and I didn't have any more. I didn't go back to the store or anything but the alcoholic in my head was still there saying have more, have more. So I made myself go to sleep and the next day I came back and it is like that has laid the groundwork for me for freedom today. I don't want to drink today. I am an alcoholic and I am willing to go to any lengths to recover and I like to live in solutions. I have lived in problems most of my life and when I got back to AA this time my husband had left me.
I am soon to file bankruptcy. I am cleaning up the wreckage of my past right now and that is hard and I am going through a lot of pain but I am happy on the inside. The outside stuff is just things that I have created being as sick as I am. I am spiritually sick right now. I am emotionally sick. I can accept that and that is okay. I am living in solutions and I am powerless over alcohol. My life is unmanageable. I am following direction today. I believe if I don't work the steps I am going to die. I believe that if I pick up the first one it is going to get me and I am scared to pick up the first one and I am grateful for that. I believe I have to have access to a power greater than myself and I believe by the grace of God I am standing here today sober.
I hope each and every one of you ongoing recovery and God bless. My name is Dick and I am a very grateful recovering alcoholic and this week I am celebrating 15 years of uninterrupted sobriety. Nancy it works honey. Absolutely guarantee it. There is magic in this room. I am magic. He is magic. He is magic. There is magic here darling. It works. Just hang with it. I can relate to everything I have heard here tonight. A young man got up and talked about fighting this program. I spent 15 years in and out of AA before I was able to come out of the chute and put 15 years sobriety together.
But I learned 30 years ago that AA was a good way to get people off of my back. I went in because I was an irate judge. I didn't have a problem. I went because I had an irate wife. She had a problem. I didn't have a problem. One of my favorite words at that point in time was that I was my own higher power and I have talked to some of the old bulls that were there back 30 years ago that are still alive today and they were sitting back in the corner making a book how long it was going to take me to crash and burn every time I would come in.
But the thing that did rub off on me was when I reached that point that this young man talked about when the fear was so terrible, when the pain was so bad and I talked to my higher power and I made a deal and I gave it all to him and I came back to this program because I wanted to be here.
[01:05:20]
Not because a judge wanted me here. Not because my wife wanted me here. Not because my boss thought I had a problem. I wanted to be here because I had a problem. I could not manage alcohol. I could not drink. My life was totally, completely unmanageable. I gave it to my higher power and we made that deal. He said, fella, you take care of today. Don't worry about all that nickel and dime garbage. Don't worry about the rent. Don't worry about those things. You take care of staying sober today and I'll take care of all that nickel and dime garbage you got out there.
Well, that's worked to this day for 15 years and Nancy, you might try that a little bit. Let your higher power take care of those nickel and dime things, honey. Take care of the important things, staying sober today. Now, those problems, you know, they're all still there. In life today, I've managed to grasp a little tiny measure of serenity, although my BA, that's my beautiful Al-Anon down there, wouldn't exactly agree to that.
But those problems are still the same ones I had back when I was drinking. Not some of the same ones. Police don't stop me anymore. I don't get accused of erratic driving, such things as that. I don't vomit all over my clothes. I don't burn myself and burn my clothes and burn everything around me with cigarettes, going to sleep with cigarettes in my hand. You know, those things, those problems don't exist. But the other problems do. But the difference being today, I can cope with those problems, no matter what it is.
A problem comes up and I can pick it up and look at it and take a good close look at it, and if it's something I can deal with, fine, I deal with it. If it's something I can't deal with, I throw it in the corner and come back to it later when I can, and I don't worry about it until I can deal with it. They just don't get insurmountable that way. The only thing that's enabled that is sobriety. I could never deal with something like that. Drunk, the problems would come up, and that was the key to going out and getting a good drunk. That solved all the problems, to get drunk, and they all went away for a little while until you woke up with a classic problem on top of it, a roaring hangover and burnt eyeballs.
It's no good. It doesn't work that way. But this program does. I'm so glad to be in Seattle today, to look around the city and walk around the streets and see so many of these green tags on people. Now, this city of Seattle doesn't exactly know why it hit them, but I know why it hit them. I've heard various reports from people, bars were worried that they wouldn't get any business out of this convention, but there's one damn thing for certain about Seattle. Their drinking habits will never, ever again be the same. Never, ever again. It happened to New Orleans, it's happened to Montreal, it's happened to other places, and I can absolutely guarantee you they'll never be the same.
If we have people drifting in and out here tonight that wonder what AA is all about, you don't know whether you want to get into this program or not, stick around. You're drinking screwed up for the rest of your life. It'll never, ever be the same. You can't come into one of these meetings and go back out to that same world. You just can't do it. You can't look around and see these people that smile and are happy. You can't walk these streets and see people, perfect strangers, that aren't strangers. I don't think any two AA's ever met anywhere on this earth that were strangers. And somehow or other, we always seem to be able to find one another.
Shortly after getting into this program of sobriety that I have, and my work entailed a hell of a lot of travel worldwide, and I worked in an industry that was noted for hard drinking, hard playing, fast living, fast life, and the petroleum industry. And I was scared to death to go back into that world, to get on those airplanes and go back to those same places with those same people that we go out and drink and play all night and go work all day. And I didn't really know how I was going to cope with it. But there again, my higher powers said, baby, you take care of the day and I'm going to take care of that nonsense.
Well, I got myself in places where AA really wasn't over in the Middle East, because over there, you know, Alice says nobody drinks and therefore there can't be any alcoholics, so AA programs were illegal. But to give you an idea just how insane this program is, and I don't worry about it because I'm certifiable, I take chapters of the big book and read it into my tape recorder and play it back to myself, and that was my meeting. But they worked, and that's what it means when you say you'll go to any steps, you'll go to any lengths to attain and keep your sobriety.
[01:10:05]
And that's what I meant when I made that deal with my higher power. I was ready to go to any lengths to maintain it. If it meant standing on my head in a hammock on a windy day, I was going to do it, whatever it took, because I couldn't take that life, that other life anymore. So it works. Nancy, keep coming in, hon. It's people like you that keep banging at the door that keep me alive and sober today, darling, so keep coming back, will you?
Thank you so much. It's been a long time since this sort of program, the program do work. It has worked for me up until today, okay? Harry, will you take two and a half minutes for me? Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. My name is Harry, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Harry. I'm going to ask the gentlemen to let me know if they pointed to me, because I'm legally blind and I don't see anything. What I wanted to share with you is I came in to Alcoholics Anonymous June the 1st, 1950.
That was 40 years ago, and I wish I could say I had the 40 years straight through sobriety, but the first international convention I went to was in Miami, Florida in 1970. That was 20 years after coming in, and I had known, I had met Bill Wilson before I went down to Florida, and on this particular occasion, Bill and Lois was down there at the Fountain Blue Hotel in Miami. And I went up to Bill, and I told him, I says, you know, I have been 17 years without a drink, and I haven't been sober one day.
I said, what the heck's the matter with me? And he said to me, how often did you read the big book, Harry? I said, I never. He said, well, let me tell you something, Harry. Now, this is not Harry saying this. This is what Bill Will told me and several other people that was in the lobby of the hotel at the time. He says, until you read the big book and reread the big book and study the big book, he says, you'll never get sober.
He says, stopping drinking does not sober me. He says, this program of Alcoholics Anonymous is a new way of life, and you have to learn how to live it. So, I said, what should I do? And he says, go home and read a chapter a day. He says, every 11 days you'll go through the big book. You'll go through it 35 times a year. So, I did what Bill said. I went home and I read a chapter a day, and I did it for 13 and a half years, which comes to some 500 and some times.
I flipped through the big book page by page. And then my eyes, I had a stroke and I lost my eyesight in 85. Since then, I bought the tapes. They're beautiful. Anybody has a tape deck in their car. Instead of listening to that beep-bop music, you put the tape on, you learn something, and you hear something. And I listened to that tapes, I guess, at least 500 times. And I do it today. And this is a today program.
I listen to the big book two or three times a week. My wife died, so she used to say to me, you're going to drive me nuts with that tape. Because that's all she'd ever hear would be the man speaking on the tapes. But it worked for me, and it'll work for you, Nancy. On the 27th of this month, I'll have 18 years of continuous sobriety. Not dryness. I'm sober now. And God is that beautiful. In that 18 years, in the last, I guess, 15, I had four heart attacks, three strokes, open heart surgery, lost my eyesight, just lost my wife of 56 years.
I was with her for 62, married to her for 56. I can't say anything. It's the greatest institution I was ever in. It was the most beautiful thing I ever had was my wife and my married life. No thanks to me, thanks to her. And all these things can happen to you. Some people call them problems. To me, they're not problems. The book says the only people who have problems is negative thinking people. These are things that happen to people all over the world, these kind of things.
And as long as I keep coming to Alcoholics Anonymous, I found out that there's nothing so bad in my daily life that a drink won't make it worse. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening.
[01:15:15]
I'd also like to thank my greeter and reader, Vicki, and thank each one of you who shared from 90 days to the many years that we have all put together. Also thanks to each one of you who attended. It's been my privilege and I'm very grateful that we could celebrate sobriety together. So I'm going to ask Bill to lead us in the serenity prayer. If you stand, if you'd care to hold hands with the first person, you can catch.
Bill, just give up the microphone, you start us off. Can we just have a moment for the self-suffering alcoholic, please? Thank God, grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, encourage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. If each one of you would look down and maybe on your way out you could pick up your trash preferably somebody else's trash. We've sort of left our calling cards behind us.
Thank you, we would appreciate that. Enjoy the rest of your evening and the rest of your convention. Oh, this is grand. This was just grand. Thank you. Super strong. That concludes our program. Thanks for listening.