Fourth and Fifth Step Dreams: When the Stargazing Turns into a Memory of What I Did Drunk – Lou F.

At this time, I should briefly qualify.
Requirements for chairing a meeting at Central are one year of continuous sobriety,
at Central is your home group, and I've attended a group conscience meeting.
And I'm Suzanne, I'm an alcoholic.
My sobriety date is 8-18-87, just a reminder of what God can do with a drunk like me.
It's only through God that I stand here tonight.
And I have attended a group conscience meeting very actively.
And if you ever are bored on a Sunday, it's a great place to come and grow up.
So I'll share on that.
You know, my sobriety is really a gift to me today.
And I think the longer I stay sober and keep doing the deal and trudging the road like we talk about,
I realize what a gift I really have.
And we have a friend that passed away this past weekend as a result of picking up a drink.
He had had...
A number of years, he was in his teens in sobriety,
and I guess he hit one of those dark spots that I think we all hit in sobriety.
And the thought of a drink, I guess, occurred, and he picked up a drink.
And we are going to go to his memorial service next weekend.
And, you know, that's what we...
That's what I was told when I first got here.
I was told to get a nice suit.
I wasn't sure why.
They said, you're going to go to a lot of weddings in AA,
and you're going to go to...
You're going to go to a lot of funerals in AA.
And it's been true.
It's been my experience that I've gone to a lot of weddings,
and I have gone to a number of funerals.
Not all funerals are because someone picked up a drink.
And I had the experience of watching a memorial service unfold last year for my sponsor
after 30 years of sobriety who passed away.
And that was the gift of AA, that I could be there sober and participate
and send her off with love.
And that's what AA has taught me.
But primary...
Every morning, I remind myself, just for today, I'm not going to drink,
and I'll do whatever I need to do to stay on this road.
And that's why I'm here tonight.
So the gift of doing the Saturday night meeting is that I get to pick speakers,
and I also get to piss people off in the asking of them to speak for me.
And I asked a good buddy of mine, Lou, from Lincoln, to...
I guess it was like three or four weeks ago, if he would speak.
And he said, I'm not going to speak.
And I said, oh, well...
Well, thank you for saying yes.
That's so sweet of you.
And he goes, no, no, I haven't talked in a while at a meeting, at a podium.
And I said, well, this is perfect time.
And then he found out he was going to be taped tonight,
so if I'm beat up in the parking lot, just go after him.
Lou saw me in my very early sobriety.
I think I was about a year and a half when we first met.
And he watched me go through many struggles, trials, and tribulation.
As I told someone outside, it was like a country song gone bad and gone backwards.
In and out of love, messed up, miserable.
And he would just stay the course with me and just love me through it.
He's been like a brother and like family to me, without any further ado.
Thank you, Lou.
I'm Lou, and I'm an alcoholic.
Hi, everybody.
And today's the best day of my life since yesterday.
And we'll get to that a little bit later on.
Before I get too started, I'm a big-ass crybaby.
So if we dig the handkerchief out, just wait a second.
I'll get back with the program.
Like everybody else, I didn't get here for singing in church.
I drank too much too long.
I can remember very vividly the first time I got drunk.
My dad was...
Somewhat liberal.
He'd let me have that much out of each bottle of beer as he finished it.
And I got in the nice habit of asking him when he was about that far.
And then it got a little closer to the top.
And, you know, I could always have whatever I wanted to drink when I was at home as a kid.
I started at...
My earliest recollection was about five years old being drunk.
And I enjoyed it.
It was fun.
I enjoyed the feeling.
I got...
Silly drunk most of the time.
I didn't get into the nasty drunk until a lot later in my career.
You know, it was...
It just felt natural.
It felt like something I should do.
So I did it.
Chuck.
Pardon?
I was just identifying.
Oh.
And, you know, it wasn't...
It wasn't through my high school years.
It was a lot of drinking.
But when I did go out to drink,
I got drunk.
I can never remember once
that I left the house to go out and have a few drinks.
I did not go out with the intention of getting drunk.
Drove drunk as a teenager.
Had a job when I was 16 in New York State
driving on a learner's permit at night,
which was also illegal without an adult in the car.
And I was working in a restaurant.
And they used to keep the beer in the back.
Well, you know, you had to go back there and get stuff out of the back room.
So you'd pop a beer and stick it behind something
and go back and get a little more beer a little later on.
And pretty soon you were half lit going home.
And it was like that most of my early drinking career.
Went into college and it changed somewhat.
They had beer blasts back when I was there.
And beer was cheap.
And I had some money.
I was fortunate I had some money.
We could drink.
We had beer.
We had whiskey in the apartment.
We had whiskey in the apartment.
And it just kept on and kept on.
Well, through college, it was none of that bad stuff.
It was always good times that I remember.
All the incidences.
We used to go to, myself and three other guys,
we used to go to the JV basketball game
with the pretense we were going to stay for the varsity game.
But, you know, there was beer just down the street.
Down there, right after the JV game,
we never did make the varsity.
And never really made it to my house.
I always ended up at my buddy's place
sleeping it off that night.
And his dad was a member of AA,
which I did not realize at the time
until sometime later.
But he'd always get up in the morning
and greet us with a rather large,
hello, and how was everybody this morning?
And, you know, we're scratching our heads out here.
And that's okay.
Still a good time.
Still nothing bad has happened.
No reason to change my way of doing things.
I met a little girl while I was in college
and we decided to tie the knot.
So I, well, let me back up just a little bit.
My senior year at the University of Buffalo,
my uncle was living across the street
and he had lots of booze in his place
and he liked to drink scotch.
And I had never drank much scotch.
Well, I got a little bit of scotch.
I got a little bit of scotch.
I got tangled up drinking scotch with him.
And it was my last semester.
It was finals week.
I was on probation.
And the night before the final,
on the course that I was failing,
I went over to Bee Gees' apartment
and we polished off at least two bottles of scotch.
I don't remember going back to my apartment.
I do not remember getting up the next day
until five o'clock in the afternoon.
Now, I'm on academic probation
and I figure, okay,
I'm going to go right out the back door to college
and the Army's going to draft me
and I don't want to go in the Army.
So seeing I flunked out of school,
I'll go join the Air Force,
which, needless to say,
enthused my father to no end.
And so I did.
I went and joined the Air Force.
Two days before I had to report for duty,
I got my final report card.
The course that I was failing,
I got a C-plus on.
I don't remember taking the final.
I don't remember driving to the school.
But I must have done something
because I got an A-plus on the final,
which pulled me from an F to a C.
Still nothing bad is happening while I'm drinking.
Everything's going good,
except they make a stupid decision
that I spent four years in the Air Force.
But, you know, the Air Force,
I don't know about the rest of them,
the military branches,
but I can tell you what,
the Air Force can help you become a good alcoholic
if that's the way you're headed.
We had the five-cent beers at the NCO Club.
You could go in there
and you could just drink and drink and drink.
And it wasn't near beer.
I was stationed in New Jersey
and used to go in there and drink a lot,
an awful lot, according to my wife.
She said I came home more nights drunk
than she'd like to talk about.
I managed to get through the four years in the service
without getting written up,
without getting in any trouble for the drinking.
The military's a great place to drink.
It really is.
They tolerate it really well.
You know, she, at that time,
was getting a little irritated with my drinking,
but nothing major.
She was more irritated with my smoking.
She was a registered nurse
and she just knew that the smoking was going to kill me.
The drinking was okay.
It was a problem.
But the smoking was going to kill me.
And we had two children
while we were in the service,
while I was in the service.
And I remember those days
because I didn't drink every day.
I remember my boys being born,
which was really a good thing.
You know, I mean, I was there.
This changed as my drinking changed.
Come out of the military
and move to Florida,
move to Lakeland,
back in 1971.
And it was a time when
we didn't have two nickels to rub together.
She was a registered nurse,
so she got a job at the hospital
and was making enough money
to at least put food on the table.
And with the help of a realtor
whose wife's life she saved,
we managed to buy a home.
I had nothing to do with it.
I was,
I was working as a used car salesman
at the time.
And drinking only on occasions
because we didn't have a lot of money.
But, you know,
I still remember the boys
through those years.
I still remember them coming up.
So we went,
we went like that for a couple of years.
And then I took a job
as an insurance agent.
And in 1972,
I was bringing home
three plus a week.
And back then,
that was pretty good money.
With what she was making,
that was,
we were doing really well.
We were living pretty high on the hog.
And I started drinking a little bit more.
I started drinking more frequently,
almost every weekend.
Still, every time I drank,
I drank to oblivion.
We threw parties for friends of ours.
I remember she had a bunch of friends
that were nurses and ambulance people
and like that.
And one night,
we lived in a cul-de-sac.
It was a BYOB.
And two ambulance drivers showed up
and they're buddies
and they brought a bottle.
And everybody's drinking
and having a good old time.
And the ambulance drivers
got pretty shit-faced,
excuse me,
but they got pretty drunk.
And they didn't get a call,
but they decided at 2 o'clock in the morning
they were better to report in.
So they went out
and cranked up the ambulances,
the sirens,
and drove slowly out of the neighborhood,
which made us real popular the next day.
You know.
And,
we used to throw New Year's Eve parties.
And as I look back on it,
it was really kind of funny,
almost hypocritical funny.
You got invited to our New Year's Eve party.
If you came in
and I thought you had too much to drink,
I'd take your keys away from you,
but I'd drive you home.
I don't ever remember getting back,
but I drove a lot of people home.
You know.
And we had a good time through those years.
It changed.
I was 32 years old.
And things had changed
and my drinking had gotten a lot stronger.
And I can remember
literally sitting down one Thursday evening
and going,
you know,
if that's all there is to this friggin' life,
and I have so much fun drinking,
guess what?
And that was the last sober breath I drew
till I was 44.
I drank every day.
I drank a lot.
In my late drinking career,
I could put away,
on an average,
of two cases of beer a night,
and on a good Saturday,
I could do two cases of beer
and a bottle of whiskey.
The kids used to count my drinks
until they knew,
they counted until
they said until I got to 18 drinks.
And when I got to 18,
they'd leave the room and leave me alone.
I don't even remember them leaving me alone
because I was drunk,
but because I was such a nasty drunk.
And at somewhere around 18 drinks,
I got really nasty and really bitter.
I don't remember a lot of this.
I don't, you know,
when I first come around to fellowship,
they said that people were talking about blackouts.
And I said to the wife,
I said, you know, that's funny.
I said, I don't know anything about blackouts.
Well, there's 12 years of my life I don't remember.
They're gone.
Literally.
It's just, there was two occasions during that 12 years
that I didn't drink for three days at a time.
And that's when I was babysitting my alcoholic uncle.
He was drinking, but because he was an alcoholic,
I wouldn't drink around him.
And I was with him twice and for three days.
He died of cirrhosis of the liver.
We managed to get through that,
that 12 year period of my drinking.
I'm not sure how.
I know that it was not my fault.
It wasn't nothing I did.
I've been told that I would chase her around the house
in a drunken stupor and tear her down.
This hurts.
I never hit her, but I would belittle her.
Give her the pain that I was feeling.
Hang on a minute.
This is what alcohol did for me.
It gave me pain.
Actual pain.
I wanted to hurt people.
Not physically hurt them.
No, that was temporary.
I wanted to belittle people.
I wanted to make them feel really shitty.
Make them think that they were lower than I am.
Okay?
And I was good at it.
I was good at it, they tell me.
She told me that in the divorce court.
So, we're getting through that.
We get to the near end of that 12 year period.
And I'm thinking there's something wrong with me.
I don't know what it is,
but there's something wrong with me.
Three days before I arrived at the day,
at the doors of AA,
my oldest son put a shotgun in my belly.
And he said,
you know, I'm going to shoot you.
You're a drunken bastard.
You know, Father, you're a drunken bastard.
The bad part is I'm praying he'll pull the trigger.
Thank God he didn't.
He's a friend today.
He's more than a son.
Both of my boys.
Then I'll be playing with my grandchildren.
It was a miracle.
Back then, they didn't want to be around.
And I don't blame them.
It was...
Those are painful memories.
That's one of the reasons I don't go back out.
I don't need that shit.
I've been there.
I've seen that city.
It ain't for me.
So anyhow,
I get through this.
And I quit drinking at that point.
Three days later,
I'm sitting in the house.
And I'm shaking like this.
And I'm crying.
And the next minute,
I'm laughing and shaking like this.
And I'm going absolutely out of my mind.
And I said,
you know,
maybe you're an alcoholic.
Maybe there's something wrong with you
because you're not drinking
and this is what's happening to you.
So I called the 2720 Club.
And Don Cody,
and I use his name
because he's passed away sober.
I told him what was going on.
I told him what I thought.
He says,
hmm.
He says,
you got any alcohol?
I said,
no,
I don't.
No,
I'm sorry.
He says,
you got any Gatorade or honey?
I said,
are you out of your mind?
Who drinks Gatorade and honey?
He says,
have you got any alcohol?
I said,
yeah.
And Suzanne can verify the bar I had.
She saw it was empty when she saw it,
but she can tell you I had a bar.
And we talked for a minute.
He says,
well,
I'll tell you what.
He says,
pour yourself a big old glass of booze,
drink it,
and come on down.
I said,
God dog it,
I'm home.
These people are doing what I want to do
and they're going to show me how to do it.
So I drank the glass.
It was almost a full water glass that size.
And I went down.
And I drove to my first meeting at the 2720 Club in Lakeland.
I showed up in a year old,
27 foot motorhome.
Okay.
Now,
before I even get to the door,
they're taking bets that I'm not going to stay sober
until tomorrow morning,
let alone any longer than that.
We went to a meeting that night.
Myself,
Don,
and a good friend of mine up in New York,
Nick.
And that was how I got introduced to AA.
So I'm sitting around the club
and my sponsor worked at the club.
He used to get there about 5 in the morning.
I'd get there at 5 in the morning.
If he was,
if he was there,
I was there.
Went to a lot of meetings at the club.
And I'm in the DTs.
I am shaking.
I am literally unable to take a whole cup of coffee
and get it to my mouth.
I'm carrying a bottle of Gatorade and honey with me,
by the way,
because when it got really bad,
I'm drinking the Gatorade and honey.
I was 21 days sober.
And I walked in shaking.
And I said to Don,
I said,
how long do these things last?
He said,
Lou,
how long did you drink?
I said,
oh,
hell no.
No,
no,
no,
no,
no,
that's not going to happen.
I shook for two more days.
25 days after I got sober,
I went to an ears,
nose,
and throat doctor.
I had a really severe sore throat.
Good friend of mine.
He did his examination.
He looked at me.
He says,
Lou,
he says,
now this is July 27th.
He said,
if you don't quit smoking,
he says,
you're going to send me to Europe by Christmas
because I'm going to cut your voice box out.
You're going to have cancer.
I said,
it's that close.
He says,
it's that close.
So here I am,
25 days sober,
and now I'm going to quit smoking
four packs of cigarettes a day.
For anybody to sponsor somebody,
don't let your,
don't let your sponsor do that.
Whatever you do,
don't let them do it.
There's no way to win with that.
If I felt good,
I wanted a cigarette.
If I felt bad,
I wanted to drink.
If I felt good,
I wanted to drink.
Or if I felt bad,
I wanted a cigarette.
It didn't matter.
I wanted one or the other.
There was no winning.
I remember my one prayer that I said
for the first six months of my sobriety.
Please today,
no wine,
whiskey,
beer,
booze,
cigar,
cigarette,
pipe,
that's it.
For six months,
that was my only prayer.
Every morning.
It worked.
It worked.
Thank God.
The cancer never appeared,
has never appeared.
Every time I get a sore throat,
I get scared to death,
but you know.
So now we're at July 27th.
July 30th,
my mother gets diagnosed with,
well,
back up.
July 3rd,
my,
now ex,
moves out of the house,
moves to Tampa,
and says she's had enough of this drunken bastard.
July 30th,
my mother gets diagnosed with brain cancer
and is given a short time to live.
My partners in the business that I started
and brought them into
decided that on the 15th of the next month,
August,
that I could have as much time away from work as I needed
to try and get myself straightened out.
They gave me 10 days.
And that didn't quite work out.
But the funny thing was,
it must have been just coherent enough
that I started asking questions.
Because at the end of August,
they offered to remove me from the partnership.
And I said,
okay,
that's fine.
So that rocked on.
My mother passed away in October.
My wife filed,
my ex-wife filed for divorce
in August.
It became final
five days before our 25th wedding anniversary.
That was in September.
My mother passed away in October.
And
my dad wanted nothing to do with me.
My partners had thrown me out,
which was well over a million dollars worth of income
in the next 10 years.
My last year's son,
my last year sober,
my income tax bill was $49,000.
That's what I paid the government.
My first 12 months sober,
my gross income was $10,000.
And I'm driving around in a year and a half old motorhome
that drinks about five miles to the gallon.
Yeah.
We ate peanut butter and jelly.
But I kept thinking,
you know,
all that money I spent on booze,
I'll have a lot of money when I finally get a job.
Well,
it's,
it was
a year,
well, it was actually 1990.
Let's go back to 1990.
And I met the lovely lady, 1991.
I met the lovely lady I'm married to today.
She's not here.
And that's by my choice,
I want to say.
I have never been a believer.
And somebody's sharing their story
that spouses,
unless they're a member of the fellowship,
should be there.
That's just me personally.
I'm not telling you you should do that or you shouldn't.
She is not in the fellowship.
I met her one day.
She was working as a guard at the
mobile home park where her
parents live.
And I drove in.
We're selling golf course equipment.
That was a nice job, by the way.
That was sweet.
I played golf on some of the best courses in the state of Florida
for free.
I enjoyed that.
I didn't pay well,
$10,000 the first year,
but I had a lot of fun.
I played the new Disney courses before they opened,
which was also very sweet.
And anyhow,
I drove in.
She was working the gate.
And I said,
you know,
I like the looks of her.
So I went in,
did what I had to do with the superintendent,
made my presentation,
drove out,
asked her for a date.
She says,
well,
I have a policy against dating anybody
the first time I meet them.
I said,
okay,
I understand that.
I'll go back by there for three weeks.
And then I went by.
She said,
where have you been?
I said,
ah,
I've worked.
And we've been married since 1993,
coming up on,
well,
next year will be 20 years.
Anyhow,
she never knew me drinking.
The years since then have been good to me,
beyond belief,
good to me.
As an old timer at a fellowship said,
he said,
I got here and I threw crumbs out on the water.
And I said,
I've gotten ham sandwiches back.
I've gotten ham sandwiches back.
I got a job in 1993 in Baton Rouge,
Louisiana as the national sales major for a factory.
Do you know what the first question they asked me was?
Now,
they knew me from the 80s.
The first question,
are you still drinking?
And I said,
no.
I said,
I haven't drank since 1988.
Now,
did I get the job because of it?
I don't know.
I think so.
You know,
I really do.
Good things will happen.
They do happen.
But we've got to get out of the way.
We've got to clean up our act.
We've got to quit drinking.
We've got to quit whatever other substances we use.
We've got to lay off those.
And the good things will happen.
That's why today is the best day in my life since yesterday.
No matter how bad today is,
it's still better than yesterday because I'm sober today.
Well,
I had the job in Louisiana.
I got to travel over all of the southeast from New Mexico back this way,
all the way to the Canadian border,
except the New England states and Pennsylvania and Kentucky.
I got to get over to AA meetings in all those states.
Every one of them.
Meet people like you wouldn't believe.
I went to a little meeting just outside of Dallas, Texas.
Excuse me.
And there was a guy there,
and I just turned a liking to him right off the bat.
He was about my age now back then.
And I had to be in that area about every six, eight weeks.
And I got to know him pretty well.
He was a farmer.
A wealthy farmer.
A very, very wealthy farmer.
And he's still sober today.
I got to meet a guy in Coleman, Alabama.
Stands about six foot four.
He said when he came to the fellowship,
he weighed about 87 pounds,
and green stuff was coming out of every orifice of his body.
We stay in contact weekly.
Haven't seen him personally.
Well, I drove up and saw him a few years ago.
We haven't gotten together personally in some time.
But we have one thing in common.
That's his fellowship.
That's being sober.
Even that far away.
Just hearing his voice and knowing he's still alive.
I'm not the only alcoholic left in the world.
It's a great thing.
He says, well, you're my sponsor.
I said, I'm too far away for that.
But you know what?
If he's got a problem or I've got a problem,
we can talk about it.
And he's just been a good, good friend.
Really good friend.
Back to the job in Louisiana.
We lived down there.
We had a little house down on the river.
We'd go out on Lake Pontchartrain on the boat.
We'd go out on the Mississippi River if we wanted to.
Great times.
Things that I always thought I'd like to do,
I got to do them.
Sober.
And I can remember them.
Unlike that 12 years of my life
when my boys were growing up that I don't remember.
The things that happened,
some of it I'll never know.
You talk about doing a fourth and fifth step.
Almost without fail.
It's less frequent today than it was.
But once a month,
something will come to me in a dream,
in just a moment of stargazing,
you want to call it,
that, you know,
you did that drunk.
You actually did that to them.
It's scary.
I drove all the time.
Cute story today.
I knew all the state troopers based in Lakeland.
I knew all the sheriffs because of the business I was in.
I knew them personally.
They came by the shop and bought stuff from us.
I had a pickup truck.
There was always empty beer cans on the dashboard.
They got thrown up there
because I always had to have two or three beers
to get me on that 20-minute drive home.
I rear-ended a guy just off the interstate
and the trooper showed up.
They had the two teenage boys.
And I remember telling him,
you know,
I really can't have this go on my insurance.
He says,
okay.
He says,
will you fix that guy's truck?
I said,
sure.
I said,
oh,
this is a bumper.
I'll buy it.
The guy almost got a ticket for giving the trooper a hard time.
He let me ride without a ticket for anything
because I knew it would pay for it.
Why didn't I get a DUI?
I never got one while I was drinking and driving.
I deserved one.
Every time I got behind the wheel,
I deserved one.
There was no doubt of that.
You know,
I've seen reports of people with blood alcohol,
a count of four.
I know I was there.
You don't drink that kind of booze and not get there.
It's impossible.
Sober breath,
there wasn't many of them for 12 years of my life.
I miss the memories.
There's a big blank in there.
I just miss it.
It's like,
I tell my sponsor,
of course,
you know,
the one saving grace on this whole thing is
I'm really not 68 years old.
I'm only 56 years old.
So I've got a lot of life left in front of me.
He keeps telling me I've got funny math.
The ride sober is just unbelievable.
As long as I do a few things.
Get up in the morning,
say my prayers,
and get the hell out of the way.
And I have to put it that way
because I have to get out of the way.
I have a class A ego.
And it gets in the way.
If anybody can fix it,
Lou can fix it.
There's no doubt in anybody's mind.
You guys all got doubts,
but none in mine,
so nobody's got a doubt.
You know.
Right?
Just ask me.
I'll tell you I can fix it.
Yeah,
she's been a thorn in my side,
but a good thorn.
She helped me through some hard times
just by her example.
Anyhow,
had the job in Louisiana,
still not drinking,
and everything was going good.
The company decided that
we needed to part company,
and that's a long politically involved story
with bad politics between myself and the comptroller.
Anyhow,
I'm not going to bore you with all that junk.
We parted company.
My wife and I started a business.
Now, mind you,
she had been single for 17 years,
so pretty much on her own,
running her own little business.
Now, all of a sudden,
we opened a business in Louisiana.
We're together 24-7.
We have been together 24-7 since 1998.
If we're awake,
we're together.
We still own our own business.
We still work it together.
It's been an interesting run.
Not a run that would have ever happened
if I was still drinking.
Never would have happened.
And we're doing okay.
We really are.
For a couple of old people,
we're really doing good.
Life is good today.
Suzanne and I go back,
she said,
23 years.
22 and a half, 23 years.
And I know there was times I irritated her.
Deliberately.
Shock, right?
She's always been a scrappy young lady.
But she's always been a lady
since I've known her.
And she's been good for me.
She really has.
We went through some hard times together.
She helped me.
I helped her.
At least she says I did.
I don't know.
Maybe I did.
Maybe I didn't.
Today,
I don't think about drinking today.
I don't see bars
when I drive down the street.
I don't see them.
There's nothing.
I was coming over
and there's a ton of billboards
on the side of the road
on the interstate.
And I did notice just because
I was thinking about the meeting
and thinking about drinking
and all that,
you know,
and the times when I was drinking.
And I saw one sign
that was relevant to alcohol.
That's the first billboard
that I have noticed
with alcohol on it
in a long, long time.
I don't see that stuff today.
It holds nothing for me.
What it holds for me,
I don't want.
You know,
I came here to get happy.
I came here to live joyous and free.
Maybe not the first day,
but that's what happened
in the first six months.
And that's the way it's going to stay.
I just don't need that.
I know where that pain is.
I know where that misery is.
I know where that SOB
that's hiding up here
in the back of my head,
I know where he lives.
I know how to access him.
I don't need to go back there today.
There's nothing to tell you
that tells me
I have to go back there today.
There was a big old burly Canadian.
He was a heavyweight champion,
boxing champion in Canada.
He stood about this tall.
And I was about 30 days sober.
And he came into a meeting.
He started with,
My name is Jim
and I will never drink again.
And I thought,
I never heard what he said after that.
I said,
Well, you arrogant SOB.
How can you sit there
and say you will never drink again?
What I didn't hear him say that night,
I did the next night.
If I go to meetings,
read a big book,
and got a higher power.
Oh yeah,
just don't forget about the sponsor.
You know,
it's that simple.
It really is.
Unzip that zipper.
Let that sponsor look inside of you.
That sponsor knows before you know
that you want to drink.
They know before you know
when your thinking is getting stupid.
We all get stupid.
My sponsor,
all summer long,
is up north.
I pick up the phone and call him.
And he just,
that quick.
Okay, what's wrong?
What's your problem?
You know.
What do you think is wrong?
Yeah, my problem is Lou.
I get in the way.
My thinking gets in the way.
That's what happens.
I've,
I don't want to brag,
but I don't see anything out there
that alcohol can give me
that this fellowship can't give me
five times better.
Just five times better.
You want the pain?
Go ahead, go back out there.
I was working with a woman
many years ago.
Her boyfriend was drinking Listerine,
claiming he wasn't an alcoholic.
I gave her 40 bucks.
I says,
go buy him two bottles
of the best whiskey he can get.
She said,
I can't do that.
If he drinks the whiskey,
he'll think he's an alcoholic.
I said,
what do you think he is?
What?
What?
Come on.
On the other hand,
you have guys like my,
my godfather's nephew,
who,
him and I go fishing together
on different occasions
up into Canada
to the island.
And then,
after I got sober,
the first time we went up there,
I was about three and a half years sober.
We got up there
and we went fishing
and we went fishing
and we went fishing
and we went fishing
and we went fishing
and we went fishing
and we get into Canada
and we get over,
we go over to the island
and pick up some food.
And he says,
Lou,
he says,
can I,
can I buy a case of beer?
Yeah,
you can buy a case of beer.
I says,
I prefer you put it,
put it in the fridge
and you know,
put it in the back of the fridge.
Don't leave it in the door
where I can see it
the minute I open the door.
He says,
Okay.
So that was on a Sunday.
Thursday evening,
he says to me,
he says,
Lou,
he says,
do you think I'm an alcoholic?
And I got up
and I walked over
there was 14 beers left in the refrigerator
I said no
I don't think they're going to qualify
I'm not sure
he might someday
but he's got a long way to go
I guess it's funny
I remember that Thursday night
making that decision
to just go ahead and quit fighting it
and just drink
the manager
for the Publix grocery store
where I bought my
natural light beer
came to me three weeks after I got sober
I was in there buying some groceries
he came to me and he says
did you quit drinking?
I said yeah
he says I got 22 cases of natural light beer
back there waiting
for you
he says I got 22 cases of natural light beer back there waiting for you
what are we going to do?
I said well you send it back or sell it
I don't know
but I'm not drinking anymore
my youngest son
he came over to the house
two days after I got to the fellowship
and he says
what are we going to do with the booze?
I says we're going to throw it out
which the old timers back then
that was a cardinal sin
they would have taken the booze
put it in their trunks
and carried it around to help the alcoholics
that they ran into
they ran into a different
breed of alcoholic
that we see today
as far as where they're at
and they're drinking
today we get them out of recovery centers
and they're pretty well sobered up
but anyhow
we dumped
five
big
trash cans
full of whiskey bottles
out of that bar
yeah
I had a well stocked bar
and it was a big one too
and I built it just for that purpose
to have it there
and I enjoyed it
you know
like I said
my early drinking days
they were good days
then alcohol turned on me
and it started to control me
and that's when the fun ended
that's when I should have quit
but it took twelve years
of active hard drinking
before I figured it out
would I change it?
probably not
because that's what I had to do
to get through it
to get where I am today
and be able to enjoy the blessings
that I've got in my life today
thanks