Audie M. on Dual Addiction, Crack Cocaine, and 36 Years of Sobriety

Welcome back, my friends, to AA Recovery Interviews.
I'm your host, Howard L., and I'm an alcoholic.
Sober since January 1st, 1988, one day at a time.
I'm grateful you've joined us.
AA Recovery Interviews is the podcast where Alcoholics Anonymous members from around the world
share their timeless and extraordinary stories of experience, strength, and hope.
As of this date, there are more than 175 interviews in this podcast series,
all of which you can enjoy on aarecoveryinterviews.com and all other podcast apps.
Celebrating 36 years of sobriety on the day of this interview,
my guest, Audie M., recorded this episode of AA Recovery Interviews during some free time
between meetings at a men's AA retreat.
Audie's proclivity for drinking was influenced by his father's alcoholism
and his mother's helplessness in dealing with it.
Audie took up the family gauntlet and became a regular drinker
and a regular drinker.
His growing use of alcohol fed the disease until it was in hot pursuit of his psyche.
Like many of us who are functional alcoholics,
Audie held the disease at bay while he managed to sustain a job and marriage.
But soon, crack cocaine entered the picture.
In short order, the dual addictions of booze and crack began ripping his life apart.
By the time he had his moment of clarity, he was teetering on the precipice.
Providentially, it was rehab followed by AA,
that pulled him back from the edge.
Early and constant work in the program resulted in Audie's long-term sobriety,
making him dedicated to the steps and the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Audie's calm demeanor displays the gratitude and humility of a strong AA member.
His experience will be both helpful and encouraging to those in every stage of sobriety.
So please, enjoy listening for the next 68 minutes
to this episode of AA Recovery Interviews with my friend and AA brother,
Audie.
My name is Audie, and I'm simply an alcoholic addict.
Hi, Audie. Thanks for being with me today.
You're welcome. And my sobriety date is April the 5th of 1989.
Oh, that's great.
We're going to talk a little bit about your sobriety today.
And I appreciate you taking the time.
We're actually recording this interview at a Holy Name Retreat Center,
Men's 12-Step AA Retreat.
And we've had the opportunity to take a little while to get to know each other this way,
because I don't believe we've really known each other.
No, we just met over the weekend.
We met over the weekend, sitting around, sharing,
you know, breaking bread together, doing, you know, breakfast, lunch.
And doing lots and lots of meetings.
Lots and lots of meetings, but having an opportunity to connect
in just general conversation.
Yeah, that's what this is all about.
So it's a really special, special day for you today, isn't it?
Yes, sir.
Today, I celebrate 36 years of uninterrupted sobriety,
something that I'm not necessarily, I won't say proud about, but I'm grateful.
Grateful.
I'm grateful.
I let y'all be proud.
Yeah, that's right.
Let others be proud.
Let others be proud.
Stay grateful.
Me be grateful.
Being proud means you're taking credit for something.
Being grateful means you're giving credit.
Exactly.
And if you've stayed sober for 36 years, first of all, it's a miracle for an alcoholic to stay sober
one day, let alone 36 years.
Exactly.
And so you've done it 36 years, nonstop, since you first got sober on this day, 36 years ago.
36 years ago today, I remember the calendar.
Specifically, April the 5th of 1989 was on a Wednesday.
It was in the middle of the week.
It was a beautiful day.
And it was the day that I went into treatment and became acquainted with the 12-Step Fellowship.
I had made a phone call to St. Joseph's Hospital and got some information.
Now, if we were able to go back in a time machine and talk to the Audi of, let's say, 40 years ago,
or even as a child, and someone were to say to you,
36 years from now,
you're going to be sitting in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, what would you have said to them?
They must be out of their minds.
Why is that?
Well, because I kind of had what you would consider to be a normal childhood.
Did you?
Yeah.
I have a mother and father.
My mom was a schoolteacher, retired schoolteacher.
My dad worked for the post office.
Two-parent household.
I got a younger brother.
I'm the oldest.
We're nine years apart.
I thought we were just...
Living like folks do, part of the first generation on the street I grew up on.
My childhood sweetheart lived next door to me.
Idyllic.
Yeah, just a normal deal.
Had no clue.
When you said the word normal, I was thinking, yeah, I guess that would be what normal looks like.
For some people.
For some people.
I mean, I didn't have a normal childhood.
I had a horrible, horrible experience with childhood.
But hearing men talk about having an ideal childhood, I'm always wondering, well, how come you're an alcoholic then?
The book talks about that there are certain things that were already in place before the drugs and alcohol came along.
So there was a manner of living.
And sometimes I think we don't know what to call it till we get on the other side.
Yeah.
You know, I can look back now and see that what I thought was normal was really living under dysfunction.
Dysfunction becomes the new normal.
My dad drank.
My mom didn't.
But they were married.
Normal household.
Go to school.
Get the good grades.
Play Little League baseball.
Baseball in high school.
Graduate from high school.
Go to college.
Everything that you, you know, we see every day that we, you know, we see it on television.
It's just a norm.
Yeah.
But didn't really discover till I got in the recovery process that when I was able to see things for what they really were, we were living in a dysfunction.
I get that.
And a lot of people who come into the program come in after a period of time that they spent drinking and using drugs.
And they're not even able to get through the things that were bugging them since their childhood.
What was there about your childhood that might have predicted that one day you would be an addict and an alcoholic?
I don't really know if I could really pinpoint it on something in specific.
Because as a teenager, we kind of did the same stuff that most teenagers do.
Now, there was a time period where there was a little experimentation.
But one of my friends, they lived across the street from me.
Summertime, parents at work, you know, kids just doing what they do.
You know, smoked a joint.
Really didn't like it.
Like, uh, because I'm like, I get quiet.
And then the next thing I know, an hour later, I'm eating everything in the refrigerator.
And I'm like, I don't like this.
Yeah, I get that.
So it just wasn't a, you know, there was no way that I could really predict it.
But as I'm able to look back, I can see that, you know, your parents do the best they can.
It wasn't fun.
It just wasn't fun.
So it wasn't a big, big thing.
How old were you when you first took it?
Probably 13, 14 years old.
That was on marijuana.
How about with drinking?
When was the first time you took a drink?
The earliest I can remember is my parents having parties at the house.
And they'd be playing games and card games and that kind of stuff.
And after the party was over, helping clean up and, you know, peeking around the corner to see if my parents are watching.
Just kind of curious.
Because they used to have this beer called Country Club.
It used to come in this little.
Yeah, yeah.
And just, you know, pick up one.
You could feel that there's something in it and kind of take a sip and like, mmm.
And I did that until I turned up one and it was cigarette butts.
Oh, no.
Wow, talk about aversion therapy.
Yeah.
So it just, you know, the curiosity, the things, you know, I wish it wasn't a turning point.
Obviously not.
My thing didn't really happen until, like, two years ago.
Two years ago.
Two years ago.
I got into college.
And when you get into college, you know, you're trying to find your way, so to speak.
So things were kind of uneventful when it comes to drinking and getting into trouble and using marijuana or other drugs until you get into college.
Yeah.
It still had the same outcome.
What were the circumstances under which it started?
Just normal stuff, hanging out.
There was one incident I remember.
A young lady I dated in high school.
So I got to know some of her friends because we went to two different high schools.
And I got to know a couple of her friends.
And so many of them lived on the north side of Houston.
And so we, you know, from different events kind of during the summer and dating her, we kind of got to know each other.
And so when we got to college, she went to a different school.
She was still here in Houston, but she went to U of H and I went to Texas Southern.
And when you're on a campus, you know, new experience.
You have gotten out of high school.
Now you're on college campus and you're trying to find your way.
So you're still looking for people you can connect with.
And I think we kind of came together around lunchtime.
Were you both living at home or at school?
We were living at home.
So you were commuter students, but you got together over lunch.
Yeah.
So we're, you know, hanging out at lunch or in the game room.
We're talking about all, you know, stuff that happened on the summer or just different things.
And somebody ended up having a party.
And it was on a Saturday.
And, of course, we go.
Have the fun.
Do what we do.
Drinking's going on.
No big deal.
But something happened behind one of those bottles of alcohol.
Not that anybody fell out or anything of that nature.
I just remember that when I got back to class or we got back to school on the following Monday.
And I'm walking up just like I normally had been doing.
And I'm getting all these kind of looks.
And I'm like, what the heck are y'all looking at?
You don't know?
Like, what do you mean?
This is before social media.
They went on to explain my behavior.
During a blackout.
Possibly.
Because I didn't really remember.
And I was like, what?
And he said, yeah.
You just da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
You did this.
You did that.
And I'm like, nah.
But that was the beginning.
It was just an event.
It was something that happened at the time.
Really didn't make a big deal out of it.
Another event.
Homecoming during the football season.
And homecoming on most college campuses.
You know, there's multiple events that are going on.
Other than just, you know, the big football game.
There's a bonfire and homecoming week there.
Have different kind of activities.
All this kind of stuff going on.
And homecoming came.
We had the big bonfire.
And there was an organization that I was a part of that was called the University Cultural Council.
They were an organization that put on different type of events.
Just through the years for the students.
Which gave me a new outlook on some things.
Because there were some things that I hadn't learned.
But they exposed me to.
And one of my brothers that was a part of that organization.
We had the big bonfire.
And we're coming across the campus in the back.
And I look up and he has this paper bag.
And I'm like, man, what you got in the paper bag?
And he just handed it to me.
Because he already had a beer in his hand.
And when I opened and looked in it.
It was a 24 ounce Slit Smart Liquor Bowl.
I was like, oh.
It's like that.
Big time.
Big time.
And continued to consume.
Ran into another friend of mine.
And I just remember we drank so much beer that night.
We never really left the car to go into the dance.
And the only time we left was we left the campus to go get another six pack.
Remembering that.
And talking about that.
And I think that was the beginning.
And then just life events.
I had another family member that.
Call it what it is.
He was a drug dealer.
He was a close family member.
I think I remember stopping by.
And it's just, you know, time frame.
We're talking 78, 79, 80.
And we're just talking over a four or five year period of time.
You know, the time that it takes, you know, to go through college.
And, you know, working part time.
And just still living at home.
Not recognizing or understanding about the disease of alcoholism as I know it now.
And not needing to.
Well, not needing to understand it.
Because you weren't having any problems with it, were you?
What I thought, it wasn't causing a problem.
When I think back to when I started to drink, it never crossed my mind that even as I was overdoing it then, that it would turn into a problem.
But every time I did it, I overdid it.
And it wasn't until it became a real problem and right in my face that I was able to acknowledge it.
But even then, I avoided it.
Even when going out to one of the parties on the north side and getting drunk and coming home.
I'd fallen asleep at the wheel and my car had gone over the Esplanade and I woke up.
I was probably about 20 feet from actually going.
So your car was in the middle of the Esplanade?
Yeah.
And I'm like, okay, possibly or even worse, going over the Esplanade because there was a bayou there.
So I'm going down a bayou.
Woke up, glad it was late.
Glad it was our Houston police officers were not around.
Glad that U of H security was not around.
I sat up.
I kind of looked around and realized what was kind of going on.
And when I realized how close I was.
To going into the bayou, just kind of saying, oh, okay, is the car drivable?
And I lived only around the corner.
So I was like, well, can we make it home?
Did it do any damage to the car?
You know, you don't see any damage.
You can still breathe.
No big deal.
Okay.
We got through that one.
When you think back to how you were feeling immediately after that happened, did you have any sense to thank any power or God or whatever for your situation?
Or was it, what was your feeling at that time?
Yeah, I guess, you know, thank God that it wasn't any worse, but that was kind of it.
Not really getting drawn off in the, you know, okay, well, thank God it wasn't worse.
Thank God we ain't having to, you know, do this report or call this person or, you know, have the police or what have you show up.
You dodged the big bullet on that one.
Exactly.
So that set your alcohol consumption and your drug usage, set that in motion from that point?
I believe that they begin to come into motion because of what I now know as some deficiencies as in the coping skills that we don't have that we get an opportunity.
To develop when we get on the recovery side, beginning to utilize alcohol and drugs to compensate for those feelings or those understandings, break up with the girlfriend.
What's the best way to get rid of them?
Go drink behind them because you don't have to feel.
So breakup of girlfriend, that's one set of feelings.
What other feelings were you having at the time that were being dealt with by the alcohol?
Probably low self-esteem, not believing in oneself.
I don't know, dealing with pressures of being in college.
My mom's a cop.
My dad's a college graduate.
My dad's a government worker.
My childhood sweetheart is an OBGYN.
Her parents were teachers.
She went on to medical school.
The comparisons that we do from looking at ourselves and comparing ourselves with other folks and not measuring up.
Well, they're moving ahead and pulling away.
Moving ahead, doing things, pulling away.
You're kind of stuck, so to speak.
So were you stuck at that time?
I think I was, but not knowing.
Because, you know, they say hindsight is 20-20.
So now that I can kind of look at it.
Yeah, being stuck.
Now, at the time, what did you think would be the way to get unstuck?
Did you have any sense of what it was that you needed to commit to do to become unstuck or to deal with those bad feelings?
I don't know if it was about dealing with the bad feelings, but I kind of felt like that if I could do something different.
And I remember talking to my parents and telling them that I wanted to withdraw from school and pursue beginning to work full-time.
And my godfather...
My godfather, who was an entrepreneur, had a couple of different conversations.
And one of the things he had shared with me, he said, don't be so eager to get out into the work field.
Because he said, work is always going to be there.
You really probably need to do whatever the changes that you need to make to stick and stay in school.
And I listened to him.
I appreciated him.
But I said, Uncle Bill, thank you, but no thank you.
I'm going to do what I wanted to do.
And in making the adjustment and trying to pursue that.
I can see now, it was not the right thing to do.
But that's what I did.
At the time that you were going through what you were going through, your godfather is telling you, don't rush into it.
But what was there that was drawing you away from school and towards business?
Change.
Different.
Figuring that whatever was wrong, this could fix it.
For me, it was always about, I want to be able to do my own thing.
Using drugs and drinking.
While my friends were going on to graduate school and law school.
And to good careers.
I was saying, I just need to make enough money to be able to continue to support my partying lifestyle.
Well, if it wasn't so much the partying lifestyle.
Just be able to earn enough income to do what I want to do.
How I want to do it.
When I want to do it.
Because I was still living at home.
But I was contributing at home.
And as long as I felt like that if I could cover whatever bills or take care of my car or what have you.
As long as I could do that, y'all shouldn't be worried about what I do, how I do.
How did your mother take it?
She, she took it hard.
And I think she took it hard because of the fact that my father drank.
And because of Alcoholics Anonymous or the 12 Step Fellowship, it gave me some things to kind of look back upon and I could see some things.
My parents had a unique love relationship between the two of them.
Even though after about 18 years they got a divorce, my parents were still, to the day we buried my dad, my mom and dad lived two blocks away from each other.
Mm-hmm.
Still attended to school.
Mm-hmm.
Same church.
Mom sat on the seventh row on the right side.
Dad sat on the eighth row on the left side.
They still did church together and different, you know, Bible studies or whatever went on in church.
They did still a lot of that together, but they were divorced.
And I think because of the experience that she had with my father and alcohol, beginning to see how this was affecting me and I remember when it really got to a
low point of her sharing at church and screaming out, my child is on drugs and it don't seem like there's any hope because I have a younger brother who is a college graduate, who is an entrepreneur, who is a, I don't want to use the term big time officer, but he is an officer with a company.
Matter of fact, the company that he works for is a former client because he was doing some training and teaching as an entrepreneur and this young lady.
Uh, as he helped her grow her company and she got to a point where she kind of become stagnant and needed to grow even more.
And the solution for that was she decided to hire my brother.
So he was quite successful.
The boy wonder.
So at the time in your life when you were riding the coaster down, he's.
He's on the upward swing.
It's kind of like most parents like to talk about their children because their children make them proud, make them smile.
Well.
She could talk about my brother in one breath because of the things that he's doing, but I'm not moving, she can't talk about the best way I can explain that there was an episode of Oprah with Tim Allen who used to do tool time and he was explaining to her about his mother and I think he has a older brother and sister, you know, he ended up doing some prison time behind drugs and alcohol and he talked about how his mother could talk about to family members.
Well, his sister's doing this and doing that.
Oh, but when it came to Tim.
Oh, well, let me tell you.
Tim got a new cell.
Not talking about a phone.
Yeah, we're not talking about a cell phone.
We're talking about he got a new, you know, cell, in prison cell.
And, you know, so when I heard that, that helped me understand the embarrassment that my parents were feeling.
You mentioned earlier about your dad's use of alcohol.
How did it affect the family and how did it influence you one way or the other?
I think it affected the family on an emotional side.
My dad was always a great provider.
Even though he drank, he was a functional.
Or what we consider to be or what we know as a functional alcoholic.
Dad still got up and went to work every day.
My dad had a janitorial business on the side as well.
I don't know anything about lights being off or no food in the refrigerator or not being able to have school clothes or different necessities at home and in some of the extras.
I didn't know what that was like until after I saw my mom and dad get divorced.
So dad was a great provider in the midst of.
I remember at a young kid.
Having to go out and a dad had had an accident and we, my mother, I remember her calling a family member and I was probably about six, five or six years old.
So the picture's just vivid, but I remember having to go and pick up my dad and I remember the location where he was at wasn't far from the house where we were living at the time.
And I remember him getting him in the car.
I think my mom, somebody had, I think they had a tow truck or somebody pulled the car kind of out of the ditch, bring it home.
And I remember my dad.
Had a gash kind of over the eyebrow where he was bleeding from and how they were trying to stop the bleeding.
And I'm standing there as a five year old kid looking at this and I'm like, wow, fast forward disturbing emotionally from just not being able to have the emotional support from a father that you would normally have if everything was quote unquote normal, so to speak.
You said earlier about things being normal in your childhood.
But it sounds like maybe your dad's alcohol use was in the way in some of that.
Is that true?
I would say now to be able to look back on it, I would say yes.
But when you're in the midst of it, you don't, you don't know because you don't have the identifiers.
A lot of the identifiers that didn't come until getting into the recovery process.
Do you remember your mother ever, any discussions between your parents about his drinking or any fights or arguments?
One that comes to mind was the pastor to the church that we attended that he, matter of fact, lived in the neighborhood and having a conversation with him and my mom present and talking about that.
And I remembering him talk about my parents divorcing, asking me about that.
And I was like, it's uncomfortable because I want I don't want to see my parents get divorced.
I want to see them stay together.
How old were you at that point?
Probably 14, 15.
He talks to them about that process.
Alcoholics Anonymous begins to come into the picture because I do remember that my dad had come around the fellowship.
My dad had gotten sober.
He had been sober about two to three years.
Did you acknowledge his involvement in AA at the time?
At the time, I didn't because I had no clue what it was.
He was going to meetings.
He really didn't talk about it at home.
I just know that I saw a change.
Early stages of recovery.
I lived with him for a while.
There was about two to three years of sobriety.
It appeared that things were going for the better.
But they still ended up getting divorced.
Remember, my dad moved out.
What did your mom tell you about that at the time when you asked the question why?
She just basically kind of said that, you know, with your dad's drinking, I can't take this anymore.
We need to do something different.
So your dad's drinking was a factor.
Was a factor, yeah.
Yeah.
I remember us for a time period.
We moved, my mom and I and my brother, we moved out.
At that time, my dad still stayed at the house.
I remember us moving to an apartment complex.
It wasn't far away.
Then I remember moving in with her brother, my uncle, who lived in Cashmere Gardens.
Big change.
Big change in what way?
Big change in from what was used to the norm.
You're now having to get up and go.
You go to school, but you're living at your uncle's house.
Not that he didn't love you, not that he wouldn't take care of you, but it's not home.
But he wasn't your dad either.
And he wasn't my dad.
What kind of relationship did you have with your father when they split?
It was challenging.
In what ways?
Things like getting angry with him because of the fact that football season, high school, going to the football games.
And he wasn't sober at this point.
No, he wasn't sober at this point.
And communicating with him, the dad, the game.
It ends at such and such a time.
But to make sure, I'll call you.
And having to call the house multiple times before the phone gets picked up.
And you got your best friend that you grew up with with you.
And you guys are standing outside the stadium.
The lights are cutting off.
Police officers are asking, well, you guys got our way home and you're telling them yes.
And you've already used the phone a couple of times.
And then the delay.
And then finally arriving.
And then you can look at him and see he's been drinking.
So he was drunk when he picked you up?
Is it safe to say your relationship with him was contentious at times?
Yes, it was.
I'm still grateful for the recovery process because once getting sober and getting on the other side,
there were things that we were able to work on.
How long did he stay sober when he was in AA?
I would have to guess and say somewhere between two to three years.
We had a discussion about that in latter years,
and what he shared with me was that getting sober and thinking that if he got back involved in church,
everything would be fine, and it was or appeared to be for a short period of time.
Yeah, church does tend to become a big culprit for people that are,
their disease is looking for another reason to pop up, to reenter their lives in a big way.
And, you know, if you're in a Bible study or in a church group or active in your social clubs or whatever else,
there's lots of reasons why you cannot go.
I can go to your meetings, and anything I need in life,
I can get out of Bible study or out of a men's church group.
Well, one of the books of literature of the 12-Step Fellowship,
and this comes from Narcotics Anonymous, talks about going off on a religious zeal.
And what I understand about that is there's things that we learn about God as far as Alcoholics Anonymous,
or the recovery process, I should say.
And there are many people that they had shared about, you know, getting back into the mainstream, so to speak,
and they get connected with their church.
But they don't know how to separate religion from spirituality,
and get caught back up into the religion, thinking it's the same thing,
and thinking that, well, I don't need the 12-Step Fellowship, if I just do this, everything should be, you know, okay.
What's your perception been on the way that clergy responds to people who are in the program,
and they're getting more and more involved in church, and it's clear, let's say, to the clergy that they're pulling away from AA?
Do you have any sense of how the parishioner is being talked about?
Do you have any sense of how the parishioner is being talked about?
Do you have any sense of how the parishioner is being talked about?
By the clergy as to should they continue to do AA, or is it sufficient that they're getting what they need from the church?
By the clergy as to should they continue to do AA, or is it sufficient that they're getting what they need from the church?
That, for me, would be two-sided.
In what way?
In two-sided in the fact that there are those that simply believe that the church can do everything,
that the church can do everything,
God can do everything through the church.
It has what it has.
However, on the other side, I've seen pastors that respect the 12-Step Fellowship.
They see some things.
I remember a particular pastor that had...
pastor offered an opportunity for one of the fellowships of Cocaine Anonymous to start
having meetings because they were looking for a place to have meetings on the southwest side of
town. And this pastor sat down with a couple of individuals and he listened to the conversation
because they had gone to other churches and those other churches turned them down. And so this
particular pastor listened to what the people, those two gentlemen had to say. And his real
only question was, is this going to help somebody? And they said, yes. He said, what do you guys
need? And he just said, we just need a meeting space. And so they began to have meetings at that
location. So this particular pastor had a different respect for the recovery process, but they didn't
come immediately. He was willing to open up the doors, but through the years of them having
meetings at this location, growing and doing celebrations and different things, and then
inviting him to participate or at least to come and attend. And so him being in those meetings or
him being a part of those celebrations.
He saw something different. I think he began to see how the 12-step fellowship could actually become an asset.
Well, yeah, he gets to see how a few or many of his parishioners who participate in that 12-step program,
their lives are saved by it.
That's pretty much what happened.
It doesn't take a genius to look at it and say, life is being saved by providing a room for cocaine anonymous.
It's a no-brainer, isn't it?
Seeing that and experiencing that, I think, had an effect, an understanding.
Understanding that the church just wasn't the only way that God operated.
The same God that he's come to know, love, serve through his education, through school, ministry, and what have you,
is the same God that was doing stuff for these folks over here through the 12-step fellowship.
It can be mutually beneficial.
And I think that's what he saw.
Let's go ahead and switch gears here a little bit, Audion. Talk about from the time that you started working until, let's say, the time...
How old were you when you got into AA?
I was 28, about to turn 29.
Okay, so you had a period of time, let's say 8 to 10 years, when you were actively in addiction and alcoholism?
Mm-hmm.
Tell me about that period of time.
What sticks out to you in your mind as some of the pivotal points, either downward or upward, during that period?
Just really trying to want to do my own thing.
Don't want nobody to tell me what to do.
Thinking that I could control whatever it was that I was doing.
The drinking didn't really appear to be too bad.
It didn't appear to be too much of a problem until I got introduced to crack cocaine through a family member.
This same family member I was speaking of earlier that was selling drugs.
This was my godbrother.
We had known each other since we were, I mean, kids, you know.
And had gone by one day.
He says, I got something I want you to try.
And I'm thinking, okay, what else is it than what you're selling?
It turned out to be crack cocaine.
He mushed it up and put it into a marijuana cigarette, what they call the Primo.
And all I know is one hit, the endorphins and all that stuff that they talk about in the recovery process, I felt all of that.
And from that, it was like an explosion went on in my brain.
And I was doing everything that I could to continue to try to experience that feeling.
Mm-hmm.
From that.
And it didn't crack cocaine.
It didn't take long.
It accelerated the process.
Because if it had just been strictly alcohol, probably would have been out there a little bit longer.
Is there a physical addictive quality of crack cocaine?
Or is it more you want that high?
Does it physically get involved in your body?
I think it's a combination of that as well because I also notice the responses from people because of the weight loss.
But also what I discovered, I was chasing that feeling.
That high.
That boom.
That orgasm.
I have a friend who talks about that.
I asked him about heroin one time.
And he says it's like a continuous orgasm.
That you're chasing.
That you're chasing.
And you never quite catch up to it, do you?
Never.
So how old were you when you tried crack?
I was probably 26.
So only a couple of years away from sobriety.
That's what I'm saying.
Swiftly.
Swiftly.
I had a predecessor who was sharing at a convention recently that talked about using heroin.
And he started using cocaine to stop the heroin.
But he also talked about how when he started using cocaine, how it accelerated him to the recovery process.
And one of the reasons why so many of the rehab facilities have a lot of young people in them is because of how quickly the disease accelerates the downward spiral.
And that's because we can stay alcoholic for years and years before we start spiraling.
But when you're doing crack cocaine and some of the other drugs that are out there, the demise is very, very quick.
The demise is very, very fast.
It's like getting paid.
Just imagine getting paid on a Friday and not being able to buy a water burger on Monday.
The acceleration.
The mind tricks that you play on yourself.
Telling yourself, I'm not going to spend all my money.
Giving it to a parent to hold for you.
And then becoming like a demon because you've run out of money or run out of dope to go get that which you gave to them to get back.
Fooling yourself to put it in one pocket or put it in a safe place in the house.
And then telling yourself that you're not going to.
And then getting to a point where you can't even stop that.
Depending on your free will to do the job that's being completely counteracted by the crack cocaine.
You're following the directions.
You're following the direction of something that really doesn't have a taste, smell, but is commanding you to do.
And a lot of different people, as you hear in their drunkologues or their stories, those that are able to really get honest can tell you about the degradation of the lengths of what it brought them to.
When you compare the drug addiction, let's say, from crack cocaine to the alcoholism, do you perceive a difference in the level of shame between the two?
Somewhat.
And when I say somewhat, because of the lengths that I've experienced and the stories I've heard of others that they experienced because of the use of cocaine in any form.
Of what it did to them as far as from selling their bodies to having garage sales at 3 o'clock in the morning.
To the things that they would, you know.
In one of the TV movies with The Temptations.
One of the lead singers had a crack cocaine deal so bad that he showed up at the dope house and he's spending money and what have you.
And then he realizes, you know, he wants to get high again.
And he tries to give the guy some tickets.
And the guy looks at the tickets.
Man, these tickets were for yesterday.
And he realized at the point that he had missed another engagement.
And then he turns around and says, OK, I got keys to a brand new Lincoln outside.
Take these.
So you're giving individuals, literally giving not only all of the finances they need.
All of the finances that he had.
But now he's selling the car.
And from selling the car to selling items out of the house.
Everything, you know, that's not nailed down.
You're getting it to going to the pawn shop.
Having items that you go back and forth to the pawn shop.
If you go to the pawn shop long enough, eventually they're going to keep it.
And so watching that, experiencing that.
Because somewhere I think deeply spiritually you know that something is wrong.
You just can't pinpoint it.
You just know that there's something wrong.
But you keep moving in a particular direction that that drug is pulling you.
Yeah.
Is that perception between knowing something is wrong because you're drinking alcoholically.
But you know something wrong because you're using crack cocaine.
Is one or the other a stronger compulsion?
I don't think so.
Because when you look at the disease for what it really is.
The disease is the disease.
And from my perspective, I understand that the different 12-step fellowships.
Have their language, have their understanding.
But at the end of the day, when you look at the steps, you can put them up side by side.
Step one is still step one.
We're still in the disease whether we call it alcoholism or drug addiction or whatever.
It is making you do something that you don't want to do.
Yeah.
Now, alcohol might take a little longer.
Crack cocaine or cocaine may take a little shorter.
But you're still under the command of something that you can't pull away from.
We'll be right back.
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And we're back.
So tell me about the downward spiral for you during the last couple of years before you came into AA.
And what was the turning point for you into the program?
Different experiences.
I was working for an engineering firm.
Had started that job through a personnel service.
Did well.
Got promoted on that job.
While you were continuing to use.
Continuing to use.
But I began, as I'm able to look back, began to see how the disease could be so cunning, baffling, and powerful, what The Big Book says.
At that company, they had an employee's club.
And in the employee's club, we had different vending machines throughout the building.
And so the employee's club would basically go to places like Sam's to get the snacks for the vendors.
Vending machines.
But also at the same time, they had a cash box.
So that if you were short on your check a little bit or during the week had a little hard time, you could actually come in and write a check.
Take cash out.
And then when you got paid, bring back what you took out.
Well, the only problem with that is that became a regular thing.
And I'm trying to figure out why these folks are looking at me kind of crazy.
I'm like, where are y'all getting your money back?
But it was what was being driven behind that.
Having access to a company vehicle.
Bringing the vehicle back to work on Monday morning but not being able to fill up the tank.
Just things of that nature.
Coming to an understanding of trying to stop on my own.
And going to a company function.
I remember them having a big crawfish boil because at that engineering company, we got early on Friday making the decision to stop.
It stopped for a couple of weeks.
No problem.
They have the company function.
I attend.
They had these big tubs where they had, you know.
Wine on ice.
Beer on ice.
And I just remember eating and everything is fine.
And somewhere in there I decide, you know what?
I'm going to take a couple of beers.
Take them home.
Should be able to have a beer and relax.
By the time I got home, Howard, from what I understand about the disease began to take effect.
By the time I got home, I had that beer and it didn't take long for something to be activated in my body.
That, okay, this is cool.
But you want more.
And now your brain gets to thinking.
And the next thing you know, you're off to the races.
This was a period where you were stopped from the alcohol and the crack cocaine.
Yeah.
So you were not doing any of that during this really short period of time.
Correct.
And so what did you come away from that couple of weeks having learned about yourself or about the disease?
Was there anything there that may have prompted you to say I need some help or was it a while until that occurred?
It was something that was prompted because I remember having a conversation with my personnel manager and sharing about having an issue and that I needed some help.
And he was kind of reluctant.
But he did try to point me in a direction or try to give me some information where I had to make, you know, several different phone calls over a short period of time.
To try to find out.
And EAPs weren't big back then.
At that time, on the job that I was on, they had a drug policy in place for employees that worked in the field.
I didn't work in the field.
I worked in the office.
So you weren't subject to that.
I wasn't subject to that.
One of the senior vice presidents said, Artie, I don't have a lot of answers.
There are some things that I have to research because you don't fall up under we have a policy in place for employees that work in the field.
We can drug test them.
Yeah.
On a regular basis.
But we don't have that same policy for individuals in the office.
I got to go look and see what's on the books and how to do this.
There were multiple treatment facilities all over.
I was in treatment for two weeks.
However, there were others that I had gotten to know over the years who had been in treatment for a month, 30 days.
There were some facilities where they would extend it to some people being in treatment for as much as six months.
Yeah.
Whatever the insurance would pay out.
Whatever the insurance.
I saw individuals do the 30 days, be clean for a little bit of time and then go right back into treatment a second time.
And the company happened to because of the insurance being, you know, having to cover it for another another 30, 60 days.
I was in treatment for two weeks.
The vice president I'm talking about had given me an order and the order was simply I needed to call every Tuesday.
And just check in.
I believe that was part of a process to see how I was going to respond.
So I was in treatment.
I didn't know anything about recovery.
I started attending aftercare.
When I went to treatment, they had 12-step meetings available.
They had Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.
I didn't believe I was an alcoholic, but I accepted the part about being an addict.
Would not go to AA meetings, but would go to the NA meetings.
I'm still grateful.
Because I also learned.
I learned something.
I had a childhood friend that I played Little League Baseball with.
That was in my very first Narcotics Anonymous meeting.
I believe God had him there for me that night.
I saw him, sat down beside him.
We conversated a little bit.
And then he just turned around and said, it's time to listen.
And I began to see from people's experiences of trying to express some things they were doing to get away from the drugs and alcohol.
Now, is that your sobriety date when you went into treatment?
No.
I went into treatment and I picked April the 5th because that was the day that I was introduced to the 12-step fellowship.
Like I said, I had been clean the day before.
The last day that I used was April the 3rd, which was on a Monday.
It was the last $25 that I had.
And I got pissed off because when I tried to get high, it didn't work.
Matter of fact, Wednesday when I showed up to St. Joseph's Hospital, when I got into the office.
That's a two-week program.
Well, that program was as much as your insurance would possibly recover.
But for me, it was two weeks.
And when I entered the building and told the person that was at the front desk what I was there for,
the intake person came out and told me, she says, we've been waiting on you.
They took me up to the unit.
The direct care worker introduced themselves.
I introduced myself.
We had a little conversation.
And basically, they had a big, huge chalkboard.
And they had the different groups and modalities listed and where you were supposed to be.
They said there's a wake-up time.
These are the modalities that are available to you.
And it's up to you to make sure that you get there.
We will come by and wake you up.
But beyond that, you have to be responsible.
And for the first time, having to be responsible for self.
Saw different things go on in the treatment facility.
People take weekend passes and return and their urine is dirty.
And I'm like, if you're in treatment.
Why don't you go out to go use and come back.
And now you're dirty.
And now you can't do certain things.
So I just kind of became a sponge.
I couldn't put my finger on it, but I could see something was different.
And when I attended my first 12-step meeting, as I listened to people share,
I knew it was something different about these folks.
I just didn't know what it was.
I didn't know what was involved.
But I knew that if I continued on the road,
continued on the road that I was on,
I kind of had an idea of what might be in store for me.
And I just knew that I needed to do something different.
I did continue to attend meetings.
Now this is after the two weeks.
This is after the two weeks, going into aftercare, actually coming out, going home.
Were you going to meetings every day in aftercare?
Yeah.
From aftercare, aftercare was like three days a week.
But every day it was still going to a meeting.
It was still NA.
Yeah, this was NA.
This was early in recovery, still going to NA meetings.
Experienced something three weeks later from the day that I went into treatment.
I'm out of treatment for a week.
The group that I attended that was named Alive and Kicking.
And that particular Wednesday, which was April the 26th, which is my natural birthday.
So that particular night, they had a birthday night.
And I saw individuals not only between then pick up, you know,
the desired chip, 30-day, 60-day chips, between.
Birthday night left an impression.
I saw people picking up big metal chips, the heavy metal chips, for one year, two years, three years in front of me.
And they expressed about their process.
So it really impressed you, didn't it?
It impressed me enough to the point where I made a decision that I didn't know I was making.
I just knew I wanted what they had.
Do you have any sense of...
Just even thinking back to the people you were in aftercare with or even in the hospital program,
do you have a sense for how many of those people stayed sober and are still sober?
Or would you say most of them are not?
I would have to say most of them are not sober.
My good friend, Butch, as you mentioned, that's where we met.
We met in aftercare.
Our sobriety dates are exactly two weeks apart.
And Butch confronted me in aftercare, which was allowed to be done because we had a facilitator.
But I was approaching the time when it was going to be released from treatment facility.
And I would not acknowledge about being fearful.
And we went round and round and he said some stuff and I said some stuff.
Not to say that we probably weren't too far from fighting.
But it got heated.
It got real heated.
But in the 12-step meetings, the Narcotics Anonymous meetings, at that time you could smoke in the building.
And we sat in the non-smoking section and we used to sit near each other all the time.
And I didn't know that that was a budding friendship, that was a budding brotherhood that was beginning to develop
because we've been a part of each other's recovery for the last 30 years.
For the last 36 years.
That's amazing.
And so in addressing that fear, I began to understand and take a, because I had never been exposed to this.
So I'm okay.
And so once I began to acknowledge that and to start to look at things a little bit different,
because we were part of aftercare for over a year.
There were individuals that were a part of the recovery process early that I just remember them in aftercare
and I think in one of the modalities.
One of the modalities talking about the percentages.
And I remember them kind of making statements about looking to the left and looking to the right.
About a year from now, as full as this room is, it might be three of y'all that might make it.
What a great thing to have happen to you early in sobriety to have God put another man into your life
that you could go on parallel courses into recovery.
It was a development of a relationship that I didn't know.
That it was going to turn out to be how it has become as of today.
We were just, I think at that stage of the game, just really concerned about just getting and staying sober.
And begin to understand some things about what to do.
And it was important about going to meetings.
And at the time, I didn't have a car.
He did.
That car wouldn't get reversed.
But we would go to meetings.
And we got stuck in some places where we'd have to get out, push the car, turn it around.
But we got in it and we went to meetings.
And we went to meetings all over this city.
Because we found out the importance of how important it was to attend.
So we're talking about a transition from NA meetings to AA meetings?
Well, combination.
Combination.
Because we were also going to, there were different groups that had developed from an AA group.
Because their predecessors there had started to come in.
Because they had come in because of cocaine.
But the meetings that were available to them were,
were Alcoholics Anonymous.
So they started attending.
Well, the old timers there, which we would consider to be real alcoholics,
was real firm on the steps.
And real firm on the traditions.
And so, long story short, when they began to start sharing.
And there was some of them that kind of went to war because of what is in the doctor's opinion.
What ended up really happening is those individuals were still coming.
Some of the old timers from one particular group got together with those folks.
And said, okay, we need to do something here.
And what we're willing to do is, you guys really need to go start your own meeting.
And what we're willing to do is to do what we can to assist you.
So they helped them start a meeting of Cocaine Anonymous, one of the first ones in the city.
The group at that time moved their noon meeting back to 11.
So that this group could have their meetings at noon.
So that the individuals could still come to the 11 o'clock meeting and then still go to Cocaine Anonymous meeting.
That's great.
Through the years.
Those two groups supported each other in various ways.
And so, some of the predecessors began to help Cocaine Anonymous grow throughout the city.
So we had meetings all over.
And it was about getting to meetings.
You're still looking at the individual that did not believe he was an alcoholic.
But what saved me was in Narcotics Anonymous preamble at the very bottom.
It says, thinking of alcohol as different from other drugs has caused a great many addicts to relapse.
We cannot afford to be confused about this.
Alcohol is a drug.
So from the Narcotics Anonymous perspective, they put alcohol and any drug of your choice in the same category.
So you went from being a drug addict to being an alcoholic.
Not quite.
I'm putting them in the same category.
I'm coming into a new understanding.
So, but not only that.
I got a live visual picture.
Of what that looks like.
Because I experienced being in meetings hearing about individuals relapsing.
When those individuals shared their story.
They did not talk about going directly.
Not all of them talked about going directly to their drug of choice.
They talked about drinking first.
And then, because of what happens.
The insanity.
The phenomenon of craving.
Because the phenomenon of craving doesn't take place until I put it in my body.
And so what was happening.
They put alcohol in their body.
Setting off the phenomenon of craving.
And in that process, they ended up going back to their drug of choice.
So I had a live visual picture.
I got tricked into going to my first AA meeting.
Butch knew that we were about going to meetings.
He just eased up to me and said, hey man.
They got a meeting on the southeast side of town.
I think we need to go.
They got a lot of sobriety over there.
I'm thinking this is one of what we've been doing.
Get to the meeting hall.
Didn't realize it was Alcoholics Anonymous until somebody started identifying.
I got up and walked out.
But I had to ask myself a question.
Where were you going to go?
Because I was riding with Butch.
I turn around.
I go back inside.
And literally as I'm crossing the threshold.
A voice comes to mind.
My original sponsor.
And he just simply said, Audie.
In any meeting that you attend.
Listen for the similarities.
Not the differences.
He didn't say any.
AA meeting.
He didn't say any NA meeting.
He didn't say any CA meeting.
He said in any meeting.
I walk back in.
I block out the portion of alcohol.
And just sat there.
And I began to listen to those folks.
Got encouraged to continue to come back.
And then I continued.
Because I began to listen.
To the information that they were sharing.
What I was looking at.
That I thought determined to me to be an alcoholic.
Was totally different.
Than what they were expressing in the rooms.
Yeah.
I get that.
So in the rooms.
They were talking.
They weren't concerned about how much you drank.
But their concern was about what happens to you.
When you.
I began to read the literature.
More about alcoholism.
Starts to talk about.
That we have to look at ourselves.
Because we become.
We are bodily and mentally different.
From other folks.
Yeah.
I began to look at my family.
I'm a lot like my dad.
But my mother could take a bottle of wine.
Pour a glass.
Drink the wine in the glass.
But the whole bottle go bad.
Before she.
Sure.
Made my story.
So I saw.
That I was bodily and mentally different.
And as I continued to attend that group.
I began to learn more.
You mentioned a sponsor too.
Did you get a sponsor immediately when you went in?
Not immediately.
It took me a little while.
To acquire that sponsor.
But what I did do.
Was.
To get names and phone numbers.
Of individuals that were part of my home group.
To learn how to maybe develop.
The relationship with them.
To find a comfortability.
So that eventually.
I knew I would get a sponsor.
My first focus was just really.
Just trying to just get sold.
So the sponsor helped you work the steps.
And get acclimated.
And settled into the program.
Yeah.
36 years is a long time.
And a lot of stuff happens within that period of time.
And one of the reasons I like to.
I told you earlier.
One of the reasons I like to do these interviews.
Is because often times.
The period of time between when somebody got sober.
And right now.
Can be months.
Or years.
Or decades.
And in our case.
The two of us.
It's decades.
And so.
One of the things I wanted to ask.
Has to do with.
High points and low points.
During your years of sobriety.
And where you can clearly see.
A power greater than yourself.
Working in your life.
In those situations.
Let me express it this way.
From the first point of April the 5th of 89.
To right now.
36 years later.
How it has been the most wonderful.
Exciting.
Scary.
Rollercoaster ride.
Feelings up.
Down.
From getting sober.
To.
Seeing how you can be.
Sober.
But still living your life.
But still living somewhat in the insanity.
To.
Understanding.
That there are things that.
I can be okay with.
But God is not.
To.
Coming to an understanding.
The literature that you're reading.
That you're learning how to implement that into your life.
And to learning how to change.
And learning how to adapt.
To.
Hearing an individual in the meeting.
Talk about getting married.
And then having this.
Thinking about it.
And then having the same desire.
And then finding myself two years later.
Being married.
Prior to our first year being married.
My ex-wife.
Marguerite.
Had.
A daughter.
From a previous marriage.
But Tawana's dad died when she was about six months old.
So when we got married.
I became a husband.
A father.
And a grandfather.
All in one I did.
But leading up to our first year.
Of marriage.
Tawana dies.
And the experience.
The experience that I experienced at that time.
The feelings that I went through.
I'm grateful for.
The fellowship.
Because I remember being in a meeting.
And hearing a gentleman talk about.
What he did.
With his daughter to die.
This gentleman's daughter died.
But he talked about.
What he did.
To stay sober.
With his daughter dying.
I just remember.
Wow.
Hearing that.
And trying to implement that.
Trying to do what I heard.
Coming to meetings and talking about it.
Talking about it till.
People are tired of me talking about it.
Talking about it with a sponsor.
Learning how to utilize the tools.
To write about it.
About how I feel.
And what's going on up here.
Learning how to agree.
Yeah.
Because everybody's processing.
It seems like whenever those really major events happen.
Catastrophic situations.
Like deaths.
Or divorces.
Or financial ruin.
Our disease tells us.
That now's the time to drink.
But if we've been going to enough meetings.
And hearing enough people talk about.
Getting through those things.
It's just.
It's just.
It's just.
It's just.
It's just.
It's just.
It's just.
It's just.
It's just.
It's just.
It's just.
It's just.
It's just.
It's just.
And I see that happening to you.
There is a culture.
We let go and we keep trying.
But our body types.
Of what the family needs.
Us.
Using us.
And not doing.
It.
Which.
We want to do.
But we let it go.
But it's just.
But it's just.
It's just.
We want to。
But it's just.
It's just.
It's just.
It's just.
Let go.
And we choose to do.
But we let it go.
Right.
MT- Yes.
gave us the keys to a brand new car because we qualified.
So it just wasn't about negative things.
It was about living because people do this every day.
There are people who get promoted every day.
As these gifts start to show up in your life
over the years, was there ever a time
at which you started to feel like the accumulation
of those gifts was enough that you didn't have
to do as much work in the program?
No, because being in meetings enough,
I heard people talk about that stuff.
Which is why people need to, I always
say, if your life is going really well,
you need to go to a meeting.
It sounds counterintuitive.
It's like, if your life is going so, you know,
you get to AA because your life is going so badly.
But you work the program, your life improves to a great extent.
And then you hear somebody say, you
need to go to more meetings.
It doesn't sound right.
Well, my experience in that has simply been,
the question that comes up for me
is, if I'm learning how to do something,
and I started doing it.
And when I start doing it, things start working for me.
What is it that comes in my brain that says
that I got enough that I can stop, or I should stop?
If it's been working for me and is working for me,
why would I want to stop it?
Well, that's why being a day away or two days away
from your next meeting, and being a phone call away
from any number of different men who are influential
and pivotal in your life, that's when those things give you
the, give you what you need at that point
to answer that question.
The predecessors that I had at the time,
because of the meetings, the way they were,
used to always say, the best time to go to a meeting
is when you want to go.
The best time to go to a meeting is when you don't want to go.
And the best time to go to a meeting is at 8 o'clock.
What I got from that, they're just trying
to stress how important it is.
A sponsor is great.
Supporters are great.
But nothing can meet the numbers when you consistently go
to meetings.
And the best time to go to a meeting
is when you're not going to go to a meeting.
And that's when you're going to be able to go to a meeting
and you're going to be able to talk about it on a regular basis,
to have an issue, to be afraid to raise your hand
and talk about it, and then having the strength
to put it out there and allow God to work through those people
to give you a solution.
To sit in meetings and to hear people
talk about their challenges, the thoughts that
go on in their brain, what they're feeling,
that they some kind of way made a decision
and to begin to follow through.
And as I begin to continue to keep coming to meetings
and observe the changes, to read the literature,
to begin to see that those things that
were in the literature begin to jump off the pages
and become alive in my life, I did
what they suggested for me to do.
I suit up and show up.
Now, at this stage of the recovery,
many people do like you said.
They all talk about what happened before,
but they're kind of reluctant.
They kind of talk about the day-to-day type stuff.
Well, and the thing about it, when
people talk about what it was like before,
it's unlikely that anybody in that room
or listening to them talk knew them at that point
or observed them at that point.
When they got sober, again, a certain number of people
might have been at their first meeting.
But if you're active in AA, then people
are going to be following your life a lot more closely
than they previously did.
And so whenever I know something,
somebody who slipped or has gotten away from meetings,
I know it.
They know that I know it.
And hopefully, I can say something
that is pivotal to them deciding to go back to meetings.
And that kind of thing happens all the time, doesn't it?
It happens all the time, but I just simply
need to try to be an exemplary example.
And when I say exemplary, not that I'm something special,
but I continue to go to meetings.
One of the reasons that I believe I have long-term sobriety
is I keep working at it.
I keep utilizing.
I keep learning how to use the tools.
At different stages, different things have occurred.
One of the most devastating things
that have happened in the recovery process
is getting the divorce, because I didn't ask for that.
The woman that I got a divorce from was a prayer to God.
I asked God for her.
He blessed me with her.
He gave us 20 years.
My previous wife had adopted children
before we got married.
That's why I said I became a husband, a father,
and a grandfather, all in what I do.
The relationships that were built there.
And so when the divorce happened, like I said,
it wasn't something that I asked for.
And I had to go through the process of fighting for that,
her not willing to do.
She wanted to do something different.
I was reminded by one of, I remember one of my predecessors
sharing with me early on that a person has a right
to make the decision to leave a relationship whenever
they get ready.
And so from having that relationship with that individual
and sharing with me that information
to going through the divorce, to getting to a point
to be willing, to learn how to practice a little humility.
Because I came home to a letter.
At the time, my electricity was off.
She said that she was going to do some things
and have her to practice the humility to pick up the phone,
ask her in a calm voice, not screaming at the top of my head,
hey, I'm in between paychecks.
Did you follow through on what you said you were going to do?
Because right now, I need you to do that for me.
Will you take care of that?
Yes, I will.
She went ahead and did what she did.
Five minutes later, my lights are back on.
But having to still deal with the feelings,
now having to talk about it.
I didn't immediately call my sponsor.
The person that I called who was closest to me, which was Butch.
And I talked to him on the phone about it.
And his response was, are you going to the meeting?
But you just don't understand.
Marguerite just left.
She's da, da, da, da, da, da.
Are you going to the meeting?
I don't think you understand.
And my voice plexus is going up.
Are you going to the meeting?
After about the fourth time, I got what he was talking about.
So met him at the meeting.
But after the meeting, he let me cry on his shoulder.
He hugged me.
He held me, told me he understood.
He was there for me.
And we had traveled together with our wives and everything.
And this was one of the most challenging times.
To support me, to help me not so much point the finger,
but to love me.
And to help me look at me.
I've gone through the process.
I've worked.
I've written.
I've worked the steps through it.
I've looked at the part that I played.
I've stopped doing the playing game,
meaning if you had done this, then I would have done that.
And began to learn from the tools how to simply take
full responsibility.
And in that process was when I looked at the part
that I played, I still owed, even though she left,
I still owed her an amen.
And I'm trying to figure out how we're going to do this.
God, that's for me what I can't do for myself.
Narcotics Anonymous has a thing for just for today.
And I had the app on my phone.
And when I looked at it, it talked about making amends.
And it gave me the full rundown.
I would suggest to anybody that is trying to make amends,
don't do them on your own.
Go make sure you have a conversation
with your sponsor.
But I read what was on there.
And a couple of days later, she was coming in town
because one of our grandsons was graduating
from high school.
She came by the house.
We began to have a conversation.
I started crying.
She says, what is this from?
I said, what you don't realize is that I've
had some pent up emotions for a long time.
And now is an opportunity.
And they're coming out.
I said, I'm just simply trying to be responsible for the actions
that I have taken that may have made a decision at some point
where you made a decision that you didn't want
to be married to me anymore.
So I'm cleaning up my side of the street.
I'm being responsible for whatever actions
that I took.
I apologize.
And the most other question that I'm afraid to ask you,
but I'm going to ask you anyway, what can I do to make it right?
Because many times, we want to apologize
and think that that's OK.
But the literature tells us, I need to ask the question,
what can I do to make up for it or correct the error of my way?
She just basically said, continue to be you
and continue to recover.
And that's what I've worked on and tried to do.
I've had to look at my marriage from a different perspective.
I have a different perspective than what she has.
I've had to look at different opportunities
of where my gratitude comes from.
Because Marguerite did something for me,
or God did something for me through her with my father.
We decided to, but Daddy was beginning
to show issues of dementia.
She helped me take care of him.
She found adult daycare to take him to.
She helped me.
She helped him get reinstated because he was a veteran.
And so the care that he was able to receive, the things
that we were able to do, that I did the best
that I could to take care of my dad in his latter days.
But I have to thank Marguerite because of what she did for me.
And something set those wheels in motion.
And for me, listening to your story today
has made me realize that there were all sorts of things that
set wheels in motion in your sobriety.
Sobriety in your life, in your journey of getting to AA.
We're on the same wavelength.
You believe in going to meetings.
I believe in going to meetings.
You believe in helping others and being of service.
I'm the same way.
And what I think people need to hear
is that the longer you stay sober,
the more you need these things.
Yes.
In the beginning, there's just simply tools that you use.
To survive.
To survive.
Right.
But as you acquire sobriety, as you maintain sobriety,
you begin to see.
You begin to see that these are tools
that you have to utilize in order for you to live
and for you to experience.
Because it talks about these spiritual tools.
The book talks about these spiritual tools
being laid at our feet.
Just like any other tool, they don't work
until I put them into action.
And these are all spiritual gifts
that we are given to give away.
To give away.
Everything that they talk about in the fellowship works.
The idea of one of the greatest tools
that Bill talks about in the book that
can work for another alcoholic is for you
to go work with another alcoholic.
Whether they be newcomer, whether they be old timer,
or somewhere in between.
Because what happens in the process,
my mind comes off of whatever is going on with me, big or small,
because my focus is trying to help that person.
And when you see that in action, you
begin to see how things can change for you.
Two of the best things that this fellowship has given me
is a relationship.
A relationship with a power greater than myself
that I call God in a fashion of good, orderly direction.
The second thing is an attitude of gratitude.
Is that no matter what my circumstances,
good, bad, indifference in between,
having an attitude of gratitude.
And does my gratitude show when my world is turned upside down?
The God that I've come to learn about loves me unconditionally.
I have gratitude that you made a decision
that you wanted to interview me.
I'm grateful that it is my 36th celebration.
I'm grateful that something has been
shared that can make the difference in somebody else's
life.
You have painted for me a picture of a program
well worked and well lived.
Your passion comes through loud and clear.
And it's something that I really respect and I honor you,
and I love you as a brother in Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I wish the very best for you as you proceed
on in your journey as we go on as brothers.
Well, in the famous words of a DJ that used to say,
right back at you.
Howard, thank you.
You're welcome.
A thousand times over.
And may the God that I serve continue
to bless you in ways that you haven't even had
an opportunity to experience.
Thanks, Adi.
Well, my friends, that's a wrap for today's episode
of AA Recovery Interviews.
I want to thank my guest, Adi M., for sharing his story.
And thank you for tuning in.
If you've enjoyed the interviews in this podcast series,
please share it with others.
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