Emotional Maturity Froze at Eighteen and Nobody Told Me for Thirty Years – Hank J.

Hi everybody, my name is Hank Johnson. I'm an alcoholic and I'm from Palmdale, California and I am from Marina del Rey, California. I'm form Torrance and Hermosa Beach and a lot of other places. I used to drink so I moved quite a bit. I don't know. But it's good to be here in Boise. I had an opportunity yesterday to walk around the town and see some of the things. It's really a nice, clean little city, and I was interested this morning. I looked into the river, and it's actually water in the river. That's unusual for a Los Angeles boy to see water in a river. So I drank for a long time. My first experience with alcohol, I guess, was when I was 13 or something, you know, behind-the-gym type drinking. But I hit the big time when I turned 18 years old. I went into a bar in Los Angeles, and you have to be 21 in California, and I passed for 21. I ordered a drink. They served me. Immediately, I became a man. That's what I wanted to be, a man, and a man can buy a drink over a bar without being asked how old he is. And I graduated right then and there, and from that time on, the focal point of my life was when I was going to get the next drink. I like to drink, and I just went back to that bar every opportunity I had from then on. From then on, I drank on a regular basis. I could play the jukebox over in the corner just as good as the rest of the guys. In fact, I thought my selection of songs were a little better than most. I could sit at the bar and look at myself in the mirror and get better looking after each drink. And I just liked it in that place. Sometimes you hear people say, came to AA and I just felt so comfortable. I just thought like I came home. Not me. I didn't feel that way at all, but I sure felt that way in that bar. I knew that was the place for me and I belonged there. And I went back every opportunity I had from then on. And I met my wife in a bar. Where else do you meet girls? and we got married and started a turbulent marriage and I always thought you know we bought this little house and I couldn't make the payments on the damn thing and I used my money to drink with the payments would come due and I'd think well I'll wait until next month and double up on the payments next month it'd come along and my God I couldn' t come up with a payment I'd stiff all the other creditors and somehow I'd make the payment, get caught up, you know. And we almost lost that house several times. We finally sold it and moved in with my father for free. If anybody would have asked me, Hank, what is your problem? I would have said money. Money is my problem, you knows. You don't go to work to help out a little bit. I don't know how I got involved in this business. I mean, I don' t pay enough, you kno. And money is my property. And instead of going to work, it turned out she was pregnant. She already had a baby by her previous marriage. And now the number two is coming up. And I didn't start saving for that baby until about a week before it was due. I just couldn't come up with the money. So I went to the beneficial finance company and borrowed the money to pay for the hospital and medical expenses when my wife had the baby. And, you know, when my son turned 25 years old and I finally got sober in AA, I finally Got Beneficial paid off. I don't know about you people, but I always had a crisis in my life. I'd almost get those guys paid off and something would happen and I'd have to go back and consolidate my bills again. I'd total them all up and I'D borrow that amount of money and I was only going to have to make one payment. And somehow, I never figured it right or whatever it was, they didn't give me enough. Besides, something would happen to part of that money on the way home and I'd get home and there wasn't enough money to pay all the bills. So then I'd have to go to the Pacific Finance Company and borrow the rest. Sometimes I had a bank loan going at the same time. I used to wonder at income tax time when you total up all your interest and everything, that's great to deduct all that from your income tax. But he said, what the hell am I buying? What is it that I'm purchasing? I'm making all these payments. I wasn't buying anything. I was just making payments. That's all. And it turned out after I got sober for a couple of years, I finally figured it out. What happened to me is I financed about 25 or 30 years of drinking. Every time I took a drink, I paid an extra 15, 20 cents in interest to beneficial finance. I don't have to do that anymore, thank God. And so my drunk-a-log is really very boring. I used to just sit around and drink. I mean, I'm sure everybody out there in this audience has a more exciting story than me. I used watch a lot of TV. Play old phonograph records. Reminisce. And sometimes I'd read a book. book. Nothing very heavy, just some condensed version in the Reader's Diary. And I'm kind of an observer of life. I just watched you live. You know, I didn't participate in it. I just watch you. And a lot of people in AA nowadays have dual problems. They're alcoholics and drug addicts, and they're alcoholic and overeaters, they're alcoholic and cis, and In fact, I'm an alcoholic and a procrastinator. I always figure if a thing's worth doing, it's worth waiting until tomorrow to even consider doing it. As a result, I just postponed 30 years of drinking. I postponed 30 tears of living, I mean. And you see what happened to me, I am sure, is I'm positive of one thing, that when I preserved that drink at that bar when I was 18 years old, that's when my emotional growth stopped right then and there. And I dealt with life for the next 25 or 30 years. I dealt life with an 18-year-old set of emotions. And no wonder I was a rotten husband. No wonder I wasn't a rotten father. It's okay to deal with life with an 80-year old set of feelings and emotions if you're 18 18 or even up to 21 or 25 or something. But when you start getting in your 40s, well, then it gets to be a drag to those around you. And I just, if it didn't happen during those years when I was about 18 years old, it wasn't any good and I couldn't accept anything new that came along. And so I had a difficult time in life. And And so my wife and I used to fight a lot, and she didn't like my drinking for some reason. It used to irritate her. And so she'd come home from work and see that I was intoxicated, and she'd kick me out of the house. It never occurred to me to say, wait a minute, you can't kick me out of my own house. I'm making a payment here. What do you mean, kick me off? You can't get me out. No, I just had no self-worth at all. she said leave, I just left I packed my matching Albertson's shopping bags and split you know and I'd never get very far from home though then I'd work my way back in I was in and out, back and forth and she divorced me three times the last time she divorced forced me, I wound up in Hermosa Beach, California. It's a little beach city there. And I ran into this little garage place that they had made some living quarters. And, uh, I figured this has got to be great. It was only a half a block from the water. I'm going to get up in the morning. I'll run five miles along the ocean edge every morning. Then I'll dive in the water and I'll ride a few waves in. And jeez, I really feel good. Then I'll go to work and I'd be able to really produce and do a good job. As far as I know, the water was down there. I never really got around to checking it out. I'm sure it was though. I used to smell the ocean breezes every now and then. And I only lived there four years where you expect I what I actually used to do is wake up late be 10 o'clock 1030 in the morning I'm already an hour late to work oh man I throw my clothes on get in that car weave in another traffic I had to get there you see I should have worked yesterday I left all these papers all over anything and if the boss were to find some of those papers that he'd get excited actually what I would do is I was racing the boss to my desk because I knew if he found some of his papers they were a month old some of them were months old I should have completed a month ago and I had and they were too old to turn in if I turned him in I'd be fired for holding them so long if I did I'd be fired. I knew it was going to happen today. And I'd get to work and check everything out, and everything's the same as yesterday. Saved again. Go back and get a cup of coffee in the coffee room and come back and sit at my desk and shuffle papers and make excuses to my customers. And at a respectable time, I'd go to the bar that was conveniently located located right next door to where I work. And they sold martinis over there, and I like martinis. They sold double martinis during the lunch hours for a dollar. The regular martinis were 75 cents. I figured, hell, you're going to have two anyhow. Who ever heard of having one martini? You're going have two anyways. You might as well order the dollar one you'll save 50 cents. God knows you need the money back and I'd order the dollar one. And I'd get to sippin' on it and kind of, I'd kind of compare my drink to the guy sitting next to me and he'd have a 75 cent. And then I'd say to myself who the hell do they think they're kidding? This is no double. It's a little larger than the 75 cent, that's all. So I better have another. And And I'd have another one, and I'd call the office and tell them, I forgot to tell you, I'm going on a lot of calls this afternoon, take messages. I'll be back tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock. And I head towards the beach and stop and buy that cheapest bottle of vodka I could find, whatever was on sale that day, is what I bought. And I get home about 2 or 2.30 in the afternoon, and I change into my pajamas, and sit on the edge of the bed, untapped that cheek box and I take a big, big jolt out of it, several swallows. And I'd say to myself, well you've done it again today. This cannot continue. You know you're not the only guy that's ever been divorced. You're not your only guys ever been in debt. Why the hell don't you do something about it? All you do is sit around and talk about stuff. You never take any action on anything. Then I put one of those old 78 records on the turntable. Something like Billy Eckstein I'm singing, who can I turn to? And then I'd go into my fantasy, you know. Starting tomorrow morning, it's all going to be different. Starting tomorrow mornin', I'm going to get up at six o'clock. I'm gonna get down to that damn office by seven. I'm gunna knock out paperwork for a couple of hours. When that phone starts ringin' tomorrow, I'm ganna be ready to do business. Starting tomorrow, a whole new life starts. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to mark it right on my calendar. Big X. Starting tomorrow morning, I am going to work for 365 days in a row. I am not going to take a day off. I am just going to drink for the next year starting tomorrow. It is all business. Starting tomorrow I am getting caught up once and for all. I am tired of living like this. I can't do anything about that marriage but at least I can get caught up financially. Wow, what a great idea. See, sometimes I surprise myself when I have such wonderful ideas. I don't know about you, but when I had a great idea like that, I got a cause to celebrate, so I have another drink. And then I have an other one, and then I plan what I'm going to do because I'm on a trip with my income. I'll be out of debt in no time. And what am I going to deal with all the money? And, you know, then I'd look up at the clock. It's 10 minutes to 11. My God, it can't be 10 minutes till 11. and I just sat down here on the edge of this bed. I'd call the operator, 10 minutes to 11. Jesus. And then I realized I was almost out of food. So I'd throw my clothes on over my pajamas and I'd run two blocks to the liquor store. I'd close at 11. I had to get there by 11. That's when I first started jogging about that time. I had a gift there. Get the guy just as he was closing up. Bottle of Schmierdachs. Always bought some better brands right around where I lived. I wouldn't want them to think I was cheap right there in the neighborhood. And I could stroll back to my shack with peace and contentment and security for the rest of the night. And I'd get back there and fantasize a little more, play some more of those old records. And, you know, start rehearsing the speech I was going to give because I knew I was going to be salesman of the year. And somewhere in there, I'd pass out. I'd wake up the next morning. It'd be 10 o'clock. More than an hour late to work. Oh, man. And I'd throw my clothes on and get in that car and weave in and out of traffic. I had to get there. I'd race my boss to the desk, and I'd beat him. And, oh, man, you know, I'd go get a cup of coffee, go back to my desk and shuffle papers and make excuses. And at a respectable time, I would go to the bar that was conveniently located right next door to where I worked. I'd grow there and make my big decision of the day, whether to have the dollar one or the 75 cents. Then I'd have another one, then I'd Have Another One, and then I'd have another one call him and tell him I forgot to tell you I'm going on a lot of calls take messages I'll be back tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock head towards the beach and stop and buy the cheapest bottle of vodka I could find get home about 2 or 2.30 put my pajamas on sit on the edge of the bed unpack that cheap vodka take a big big jolt out of it several swallows and I'd say to myself well done it again today yeah this cannot continue you know you're not the only guy that's ever been divorced you're also not the only guys ever been in debt why the hell don't you do something about it all you do is sit around and talk about stuff you never take any action on anything and i'd put one of those old records on the turnstile something like billy ekstein saying who can i turn then i'd go into my family starting tomorrow morning it's all going to be different starting tomorrow in the morning i'm going to get up at six o'clock i'll get down that damn office by seven knock out paperwork for a couple hours when my phone starts raining tomorrow i'm gonna going to be ready to do business. Starting tomorrow, a whole new life starts. I'm going to mark it on my calendar. I am going to work for 365 days in a row without taking a day off. I want to get squared away financially once and for all. I not even going to drink for the rest of this year. Maybe I'll go to a New Year's Eve party, have a couple, but outside of that, I'm gonna go for 365 day in a roll. I didn't do that once or twice. I did that hundreds of times, and I managed to keep my job. I don't know how really. The only... I realize now the only way or reason I kept my job is that was my last little bit of respectability that I had left, is my name on a... I worked for a large company, and they put my name one of their business cards, and that's who I was. And that, you know, and that's all I had. If they took that card away from me, I'd be nothing. And because I had drank away my wife, my kids, my house, everything else. And so I hung on to that job, and I managed, you now, so I worked for them drunk and sober. And I managed to put in 25 years with that company. Recently retired out of there before they found me out. But about that time, my wife and son moved in with me. You know how that is. One day she came down there and we got to talking. talking. One thing led to another, and we admitted that we were miserable people, but we seemed to be more miserable apart than we were together, so why don't we try this thing one more time?" And she started promising me stuff, and I started promising her, and she promised me, and... We spent the whole afternoon promising wonderful things to each other. I'm sure we knew we couldn't fulfill those promises, but we really had a good time that Sunday you know and one of the things she promised me was that she wouldn't fight me on my drinking anymore in fact she's joint I should have been suspicious but I wasn't to see she never drank while I was married to her and little did I know that she had started drinking during that two or three year period that we were apart and she became an alcoholic immediately she was an alcoholic from drink one and that's it turned out the reason she didn't drink before she was always afraid to drink because she knew she her father was an alcoholic and she was afraid to drank as she knew she'd be one too and she would write and my case I drank for a long time I you know booze was a social lubricant for me it enabled me to dance and romance and and do all the things that normal people seem to be able to do, I needed a few drinks just to get started. And I was all right once I got going, but I needed a few drinks. And it enabled me to be social. So it was my friend. It was my friend for a long, long time. I had a wonderful time drinking. Sometimes I hear people say from the podium how they hated booze and all that, and they drank for 25, 30 years. That's one of them. Why in the hell did they drink it? They hated it. It was wonderful. I'd still be drinking if I thought I'd get away with it, you know, because it was instant serenity. I'd take one drink and I was fine. But anyway, I crossed that so-called invisible line into alcoholism. I can't tell you exactly when, but 10 years down the road, maybe 20, I don't know. All I know is I became an alcoholic. I became allergic to it. Same thing happened to me with penicillin. I took penicilin several times, did the job it was supposed to do. It always worked. The last time I took tenacillin, I wound up in the hospital for eight days. I almost died. The doctor told me, whatever you do, don't ever take penicilli again. And I said, what are you talking about? It always work before. And he says, well, you've become allergic to us. and he says and I can't promise you that if you ever take another shot of penicillin that you won't die no kidding she said I promise and I'm proud to stand up here this afternoon and inform you people that I got about 32 and a half years off of that stuff I haven't had to go to one meeting about it I haven'T had to get a sponsor or anything thing. I don't even know if they've got penicillin anonymous. They probably do. They've got every other kind of an anonymous. And it hadn't been necessary for me to call anybody up at two or three o'clock in the morning and say, I've got this uncontrollable desire to take a shot of penicilin. I just quit cold turkey and it hadn'T been necessary to have a shot of that substance. It turns out that the allergy to penicillon and the allergy alcohol is just a little bit different. You know, I just never, ever had had a craving for a shot of penicillin. And, but nevertheless, I'm allergic to alcohol because I didn't know it. Our life was really, after she started drinking, things got really bad then. They weren't all that good before that, but once she started drinkin', it was bad. And we just could not drink together. You know, some people should not drink. She was one of them. She was just not a social person when she drank. And because as soon as she took one drink, all the pent-up emotions and hostilities of a lifetime would come out in that first drink as she was blacking out. And she used to do bad things to me. I'm not going to tell you all the things that she did and could do. But, well, I'll share a few. you. It'll help you understand my case a little better. She did stuff like throw the Christmas tree lights and all out the back door. She used to break my old 78 records if she thought I played them more than once. About the tenth time, she couldn't handle it anymore. She just, bing! She'd break them. Don't break that record! It's a collector item. Can't replace it. Good, I'll never have to hear that again. I get hung up on music. I love to drink and listen to music. Sometimes I get hang up on a trumpet tooth, you know, when he's wrecked. I lay that needle in there. Tooth! Oh, man. Lay it in there, tooth! Oh! It drives her crazy. She walked over to the phonograph one night and just bent the arm arm up. I don't know where she got her strength from. Next morning, I got a pipe wrench and hammer and pliers down to try to straighten that thing out, and I couldn't straighten it out. You know, geez, it was a metal arm. I didn't know how she did that. But that's the way we lived, and it was rough. And I used to stand there as she was destroying the place and I'd say, don't do that. Oh, honey. Never occurred to me to stop him, you know. And so I finally asked her, I said, you know, I allowed you to kick me out of all those other places, but this isn't working out. You divorced me, remember? We're not even married. What the hell are you doing here? So I allowed her to kick us out of those those other houses. But I moved here first, therefore you go this time. And I'm going to go to my brother's house and stay all night with him. And when I come back tomorrow morning, I expect you to be gone. That's more time than you ever gave me. And so I went to my mother's house. I drank with him all night, got up and philosophized about the world in general. And while I was gone, she decided to commit suicide, which was no no big deal. She always used to commit suicide on me. And, you know, she was suicidal. She was suicidal right into AA. She had about eight months of sobriety. And something bad happened. I don't know what it was. She could never remember later. But it was bad, we know that, because she was going to commit suicides for God's sake. Then she remembered she couldn't because she wasn't the cookie lady at the meeting that night. You know, sometimes you You wonder why they give some of us flakes, some of the jobs they give us around here, you know. Well, hell, they're a life-saving job. That's why. Her sponsor finally got to her and told her, you know, you better knock that crap off. One of these days you're going to hurt yourself real bad. And so... But that night she decided to commit suicide before I came home. And she went in in a blackout. She went into the closet though first where my clothes were hanging, and just took a knife and slashed every bit of clothes I owned. Just ripped everything to pieces. Cut the pant legs off my pants and cut up my shirts and ties and all that kind of stuff. There's a lady nodding out there. She probably did it too. And went into my dresser drawer and even cut up my shorts, took a knif and stabbed my damn shoes. Just made a complete shambles out of everything. And she threw that stuff all over the place. And she drew phonograph records and pictures and lamps and just destroyed that place. And then she turned the gas on, the kitchen oven, and went to bed in the little place we lived in. You know, she tried to put the rags that she had made and put them around the doors and the windows, try to make the place airtight. Turned the gas off, kitchen oven and went for bed. The next morning she woke up. Nothing happened. That old place we lived in was a half a block from the water, and a wind used to whistle through those boards. You could just turn the gas on ten of them to never smell it in there. She survived one more time. Only this time was different. She looked around. She knew she had been the only person there that night, and she looked around at that destruction that she had done. You know, she didn't remember doing any of it, and yet she knew she had done it. And she just couldn't believe what she had learned. And then I came home, and I had trouble believing it myself. And then our son came home and he thought we were moving again. And we had hit bottom. And that was our bottom. You know I'm from a good family, she's from a big family. When we got married, we were going to do a lot of wonderful things together. We had great plans what we were gonna do in the future and how we were gonna wind up. And we were gunna live the good life. But all we had managed to do was sit around and slowly drink every bit of goodness out of our lives. And from then on it was bad. From then on, it was terrible. It wasn't all that That's good before that, but it got worse. And this is the part of the story where most people say you hit bottom, so I called AA. Some nice guy came out and took me to a meeting. Everything's just been wonderful ever since, you know. Not me. I didn't know enough to do that. I just kept on drinking. But we had gone to group therapy just a little bit prior to that. The therapist asked me, Do you really drink as much as she says? I said hell yes I drank a lot who wouldn't marry to a woman like that I've got two of the worst children you could possibly imagine I got this pressured job my god the pressure on that job alone to make a person drink but what so what's the big deal so I drink they've never missed a meal they've always had a decent place to stay they've also had medical medical attention. They've always had whatever they needed, braces on their teeth, whatever, you know. So I drink. So what? I'm not hurting anybody with my drinking. Maybe myself a little bit, but it's worth it. It's the tab I got to pay because I need the drink to relieve the pressure. And he said, have you ever thought of quitting? As a matter of fact, I have. Thought about, you know, I did. I thought about it every night. Sorry, tomorrow I'm not going to quit today, tonight, but I'm going to quit starting tomorrow. And he said, have you ever thought of AA? And I said, thanks, but no. I've already been to AA. And I had gone to a meeting one time. It was one of these meetings where they pass out chips for various lengths of sobriety. I don't know if you do that here or not, but the leader that night said, has anyone just finished their first 30 days of sobriete? If so, come up up and get a chip and uh here comes this guy got his chip my name is joe blow i'm an alcoholic i'm really proud to get this 30-day chip i know this is a spiritual program that i found god when i walked through the doors of aa the lights in the eyes of the people that just turn me on and keep me coming back these meetings and i just love every single person here just before i came to the meeting tonight i got a call from my employer he's made me general manager down at the plant It's a wonderful, glorious way of life. And for all you newcomers, keep coming back. We love you. And I thought, oh, yes. Anybody else? Here comes this lady up. My name is Mary Smith and I'm an alcoholic. I'm really proud to get this chip. And I know this is a spiritual program that I found God when I walked through the doors of AA. The lights in your eyes are the people that just turn me on and keep me coming back to these meetings. I just love every single person here. Hate is no longer a word in my vocabulary. I love everybody. Not just the people in AA, but everywhere. All over the world, I love everyone. Just a short time ago, my children were failing in school. Now we're getting letters from all the major universities throughout the United States offering free scholarships. It's a wonderful, glorious way of life. I wake up in the morning. I reach over and I grab the hand of God and I walk through the day hand in hand with God. Wonderful, glorious way of life we have here. Twelve wonderful steps for all you newcomers. Keep coming back. We love you. Oh man. I never went back, I'll tell you that. I could hardly wait to get the hell out of there. I needed a drink and I needed it back. And I got one. too, I'll tell you that. So this guy suggested AA and I said forget it. I've already been there. It's some kind of a spiritual thing, a religious cult or something of some kind. It's okay for them, it's just not for me. So through a doctor, a doctor advised me to go to AA too and he said that was the only thing that saved his wife. His wife was an an alcoholic, and they had tried everything, known the medical science for her. They had tried rest homes and sanitariums and treatment centers and psychiatry and anesthetics, the whole thing. They tried everything with her. Nothing worked for her that worked temporarily. You know, she'd be sober for 30 days while she's in the treatment center. As soon as she gets out, she's drunk again. But she's got seven months in AA, and that's what he recommended tonight, I just go to AA and maintain your sobriety. And so I just shrugged that one off. But my wife had been with me and heard all that stuff, and she went back to the doctor, and the doctor said, why don't you go to some meetings with my wife? She'd be happy to take you. And so that's what happened. That's how I happen to be here today, is because I tagged along. She went to meetings, and every once in a while I'd go with her. And I had a rotten an attitude about the whole thing I couldn't believe that she was going to AA for God's sake she didn't drink all that much I agreed that she shouldn't drink but hell if anybody should keep going it should be me and I sure don't need it so I thought it was ridiculous that she'd gone but I went every now and then just to be a good guy I had a lousy attitude and I refused to listen and I'd be damned if I didn't get the message anyhow it just doesn't seem to make any difference you know in my case it isn't anything anybody said I know that now I just kind of absorbed I just got sober one day that's all and I got sober thousands of times I don't know why I stayed sober this time but everybody gets sober That's no big deal. Staying sober, that's the trick, you know. But I stayed sober two or three days, or two or three weeks and, you know, I realized what had happened. And I couldn't drink anymore, but I had quit drinking. And then anger set in. I just completed about 30 years, 25-30 years of drinking. And anger set in. I had this rotten wife, two of the worst kids you could possibly imagine. Pressured job. I owe money to everybody. It's all past due. I don't mean past due last week. I mean past do. And I've got all this pressure on me and now I can't even drink. What the hell am I going to do with the rest of my life? Nothing. That's what I'm going to do. Absolutely nothing. There is nothing to do if you are like me, you know, there is nothing if you don't drink. I have to drink. You know, my life is over if I can't drink and never be able to go to a nice restaurant ever. You can't go to any, no, you can't go any place where they serve booze you know so i'm stuck at denny's for the rest of my life although i was in a dennis the other night and a day and they served beer and wine in the one i went to so i but you can't go to a nice restaurant if you go to a nice what is it they want to know the first thing you walk in there what do they want to know? They want to know would you like a cocktail before dinner and you can't say to them well yeah I'd like one but you see I've got this disease and it's of a two-fold nature it's an analogy of the body coupled with an obsession of the mind if I take even one drink I can't predict my behavior if it wasn't for that I'd sure have one I used to think you had to explain all that stuff to people I used to spend 90% of my day back then explaining things to people. If I was standing on a street corner and somebody walked up, I'd start explaining what I was doing there. I had no self-worth back in those days at all. And I had explained just what little bit of space I was taking up in this world. And that's one of the things I'm trying to do now, is to quit explaining. It's hard. It's harder not to explain. But I'm working on it. But every once in a while catch myself explaining something to somebody and I always start from the day I was born when I started explaining bring them up-to-date and all the ramifications pros and cons both sides of the story and on and then I catch myself sometimes catch myself some times with what I'm doing so I stopped right in mid explanation you know the sad part of this whole thing is they never noticed the difference it turns out no one's listening to your explanations no one wants to know why you haven't done something you were supposed to do in the first place and I'm trying to quit all together but it's hard and I've got you know I'll call it synonymous is not all fun and games but it it is a lot of fun And there are a lot of games and I enjoy being sober, you know. But there's some hard parts to it too. I'm very glad that I got a sponsor when I did. I had about four or five months of sobriety when I got a sponsor. I was miserable in my sobrietry up until that time. And I couldn't take the third step. I just didn't, you know, I couldn' t surrender. And I was sober but I didn' t really understand why I was and how come I didn't drink. I don't know. I was just in limbo there for a while. But I got a sponsor, and that's when my AA life really started. And I got an A-type sponsor. You know, if you get a good sponsor, he or she is going to insist that you work the steps. And that's what my sponsor did. He insisted I work the stops, and I worked them, and he helped me maintain my sobriety while I did. And I'm very grateful to him. and because you see you never know when the chips are going to come down because being sober while it's wonderful most of the time it's you know it's life it's what it is being sober is life I never lived life at all until I got sober every time I ever had a feeling in my life I drank immediately good or bad I don't want anything to do with feelings when you're sober you've got to feel all this stuff happening to you you know it's like that's what life is and life hurts sometimes times. But if you have the steps like I do, I have the steps in my background now and I can cope with stuff. Not always good. You don't have to look good coping. You just cope, that's all. I mean, it's nothing said you have to look classy doing it, you know. But I've managed to cope now for a little over 19 years and I'm very, very grateful for that because a lot of things happened and And my wife got sick with cancer, and she was sick for five years. And, you know, that was a very trying period for me, and for her too, of course, but I was able to be of some help to her. The day I found out that she had cancer, I went to a meeting that night. That's what I've been taught to do. When you're in trouble, when you've got problems, go to a meet-up. Don't stay away from the meeting. That's why I'm here. That's the way I've always been told to. And so I went through my regular meeting that day. night and that night they read sometimes they do I don't know if they do it here but in southern California sometimes they read a vision for you it's in the last part of the vision for you and they say in there asking your morning meditation which you can do for the alcoholic who still suffers obviously you cannot you're I can never quote it right but obviously can't help anyone unless your own house is in order and I thought that had a big impact on me that night you know because i was always wondering have i really worked these steps right am i really working am i a good aa am i yeah i don't know but when i heard that you know obviously you can't help someone unless your own house is in order i thought by god that's right and my house is in order our house was in order we were up to date everything that needed to be said had long been and said, we were current in our relationship. And I was current with all my bills. I was correct in everything. I was currently at work. If anybody asked me, Hank, what have you gotten out of AA, outside of your sobriety, of course? What is it? And I would tell them. I got caught up by them. I was always dealing from way back. If I was on vacation, I should have been at work If I wasn't at work, I was thinking about vacation. If anybody asked me to do anything, I couldn't do it because I had about 15 things I should have done first. And I was always working from behind, and AA has made me current. And I'm current in all my affairs. And I Was able to be of some assistance to my wife. I was responsible by then, you know, and dependable and all that. And so when she died, it was a terrible thing. it, but I'm not guilty today. I can stand up here today and say, you know, I don't have to think, oh, geez, if I should have done this, I should've done that. If only I would have said that. I don' t have to do that because I did it and I said it and everything was okay. And so when she died, now I've got a problem. The only problem I've got here i've got two things i can do i can mope around and uh you know and people can feel sorry for me because my wife died what a shame you know she had 16 years of sobriety and she worked with a lot of women we had an aaa marriage and we had some good years in sobriete and uh what a shame you know and or i can choose to live and i've chosen to live and i'm having the time of my life i've decided i'm going to have the best time i could possibly have with the rest of my life and one day at a time and stay current you know that's what i do and that's my that's what how i live today and i haven't got time to go into a lot of a lot more but i just want to i wanted to say that I've met a lot of wonderful things. I've met a lot of wonderful people in AA. All the people that I wanted to meet, you know, out there in those bars. They've all sobered up and they're all here in AA. And God it's exciting people. And I bet, you know, I thought I wouldn't trade places with any of them today. 19 years ago I traded with anybody. But not today. I'd prefer to be who I am today. And that's a wonderful thing that happened to a person. My son used to look at me real funny back in those days. Part of the reason he was looking at me so funny was that he was stoned out of his gourd. And I'll be damned if he didn't turn himself into AA when he was 21 years old. And last May the 27th, I watched him take a 15-year cake. and he's got 15 years and a half years sobriety now young guy my grandson my daughter's son is 22 on February the 4th of this year took a four-year cake and the three of us are sober in AA and every Wednesday night we go to the Pacific group in Los Angeles which is the largest group in the whole world and And we celebrate our sobriety together every Wednesday night. And that's really pretty special. My daughter and my daughter-in-law both send you greetings from Al-Anon. And we're an AA family. And we weren't any kind of a family 19 years ago. We're still not the best family on the block. I wouldn't try to kid anybody here in AA. But we've all got this program to work if we choose to work it. And my children, thank God, are self-supporting through their own contributions. And they learned that on the program. Not from me, that's for sure. I was a dependent type of person. If you had it, I'd take it from you rather than earn it myself. And they're autonomous. And we're not emotionally bound either. you know and and so we're able to live our own lives and sometimes we intertwine and sometimes get a little mixed up but on all we are able to stand on our own feet and be sufficient self-sufficient so I'm very very grateful about the only thing now I can say far as wisdom is what I heard that first meeting just that I went attended and that is this really does turn out to to be a spiritual program. You know, I know that I found God when I walked through the doors of AA and it's the lights in the eyes of the people that have turned me on and keep me coming back. Thank you very much.