Halfway Through the Ninth Step the Promises Kicked In Exactly Like the Book Said They Would – Joe F.

At this time, the chairperson should qualify briefly. Requirements for chairing a meeting at the Central Orlando Group Saturday night speaker's meeting are one year of continuous sobriety to have Central as your home group and to attend a group conscience meeting. Again, my name is Heidi. I am alcoholic. My sobriety date is March 18, 1987. Central is my home group. I have attended many group conscience meetings here at Central. If you are a member of Central, you might want to attend one of those business meetings. We have some wonderful, dedicated people who serve this group tirelessly. And it's worth seeing. Promise. I drank until I didn't want to drink anymore, and I continue to drink. Through God's grace, I was intrigued. I was introduced to AA and the fellowship, and the fellowship introduced me to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, which reintroduced me to the God of my understanding. I'm very grateful to be here. I've had a beautiful life, and I believe that the best is yet to come. And that's enough out of me. Thanks, Heidi. The group has asked me to remind you to please make sure your phones are off. Right now. Okay, thanks. And to refrain. Thank you for moving around or talking while the speaker is sharing. At this time, I will introduce our speaker. I've asked a gentleman, and I mean gentleman, to speak for us tonight. I don't know him that well. Just kidding. I've only heard him share a few times. I'm very unfamiliar with his story. I just like his energy. I like how matter-of-fact he can be. I like his little bit of edge, even though... He looks like a Republican. I'm very interested to hear him. I've heard he's got a great story. I hope you enjoy it. I'm sure that I will. Joe from the small room. I'm Joe. I'm an alcoholic. Hey, Joe. Yeah. It's great to be here. Thank you for the... I think that was a good introduction. Thank you for the introduction. Welcome to... Jake and Russell and Danielle and Tom and Greg, all you guys, gals, who are here for your first couple of meetings or early on. This is a special place. I love this place. The best stuff I've ever heard in my life has been said by the people really here and in the little house that used to be right next door, which we knocked down to move over here. The best stuff I've ever said, I've said here, and maybe... Maybe I'll say some of that stuff tonight, and maybe not. It's an honor to be asked. My boss happens to be in the program. I've got a bunch more time than him, which is kind of funny. He said, oh, you've got to come to this meeting. This girl, it's just great. It's like old school AA. You're going to love it. I know what a hardliner you are. You're going to just love this. She said... She's from Spain or Switzerland or something. I don't know. And, of course, it's at 10 o'clock on Tuesdays, which, you know, us Republicans, we work, you know. So we can support all the rest of y'all. So it's hard to get to, but I did get the opportunity to get to that meeting a couple of times, and sure enough, I mean, I got to hear Heidi, and I've heard her a few times, and it is... It is the real deal. And the meeting, if you haven't had a chance to get there, get there. She chairs a great meeting, and she has... She's just the real deal. It's the real AA deal, which I appreciate. I can't get enough of that stuff. My sobriety date's May 10th of 1990, and I still can't get enough of that stuff. I still can't get enough of what you guys have to offer. You know... People who are hurting, and the new people, and people who've been here a long time. I cannot get enough of it. And I said I love coming to this place. I don't know if other people will agree with me. I don't know if anybody... How many people out there are really happy to be here, really like being here? I do. And somehow that happened to me because I didn't like it when I got here. I hate... You know, I had to go. I got to go. And I don't know if any of you have to be here tonight. I saw the vans out there. I don't know if, you know, they threw you in the van. And you had to come. But I hope, I hope and pray that somewhere along the line, what happened to me will happen to you is you will start to like to come here. And start to love to come here. You know, I have made lifelong friends here. We've got some of the AA royalty here. You know, when I was really early on, you know, like probably most of us in my first year, I mean, I just wanted to have a lot of time. You know, I just wanted to have, you know, 10, 20 years right then. And I just, God, if I could just have 20 years. And, you know, now that I do, I didn't realize, you know, I had to get 20 years older to do that. And I used to look a lot younger. I'm going to try and pay tribute to some of the people. Because, you know, I read something that this was sort of compared to early, you know, I read something that this was sort of compared to early, you know, early Christianity. And I'm not a religious guy. And I'm not going to sell you any religious bill of goods. But, you know, that's, you know, two guys got together and just, I mean, the one guy was doing it, Bill, because he had to. And the other guy was doing it because his wife made him. And he didn't want to. And they were going to talk for just a few minutes. And they just had that spark. Just that magic, that thing that happens when two alcoholics share their experience, strength, and hope. And they started passing it on. And they started doing it. And they started passing it on. And I feel so honored and privileged to have been part of that chain of people. And, you know, probably some of you know, but one of the guys who was in the original stories in the big book, Clarence Snyder, came here. And he passed his story on to people. And there have been just so many wonderful, wonderful people who have allowed me to be here. And this is just my opinion, I guess. But I think this is the greatest place on wheels. I think this is the world center of sobriety. The way some people, no offense, Mike, the way some Catholics think of the Vatican, that's the way I think of this place. You know, this is where... When I was growing up, we were Lutherans, and we were going to Lutheran catechism. I remember we were reading the Apostles' Creed. And which came from the Nicene Creed. And I remember asking Pastor Swenson, well, why are we doing this? And he said, well, that's what you believe. And I can remember thinking, do I believe that? I'm not sure that I do. And I'm still not sure that I do. And that's one of the reasons why I love AA so much, is nobody's going to tell you anything that you have to believe. You don't have to believe anything here. We come to believe. Over a period of time. And you may not believe any of the things that I'm going to tell you tonight, except they're true. And you know what? It doesn't matter to me if you don't believe them. It's because I've experienced them. And while at a church or places like that, where anybody else speaks on philosophies of life, you know, I'm a pretty skeptical guy. My usual thought when anybody says anything is bullshit. It's just how I am. It's how I'm wired. But, you know, even I can't deny my own experience. And I have experienced the things that this program has promised. I have experienced the power of a God of my understanding who has done for me things that I am completely incapable of doing for myself, which you'll hear about if I ever get to it. Which I may not. I may just keep going here. I heard early on from one of my AA... He sort of passed on Roy B., Roy Brooks. Probably a lot of you know him and remember him. He was a funny guy. And he was a spiritual guy. He was an amazing guy. And one of the guys that said something that hit me, because I didn't want to be here. I thought this was bullshit. Excuse me. I didn't understand what the deal was. And he said, you know, if you were going to go climb a big mountain like Mount Everest or something, would you want to go and be guided by a guy who had read every single book on mountain climbing but had never climbed a mountain? Or would you want to go with some illiterate guy who'd been climbing mountains all his life? That was pretty easy for me to understand. And for you new people out there, we're the mountain climbers. We're the people who've done this. We're the people who've been through what you've been through. We're not the people. I'm not the person that's going to say, you need to drink less. You're just drinking too much. Because that's what people told me all the time. And when I got here, people would say, I did that too. I had that happen. You crashed a car. You lost a job. I've done that too. And it was pretty clear to me that they weren't doing that anymore. And that was one of those early on things that really helped me. But to break down the barriers of this is bullshit and you're all full of shit, to think these people know what they're talking about. I'll start out by saying that, and this may be obvious by now, that I am somebody who has always been lacking in social graces. Not particularly good with people. But I always had the ability to look at everybody else and think they were doing a little better than me. Seemed to have a few more friends than me. Seemed to be getting more out of life than me. That's just the way I was wired. I don't know if up there in heaven or wherever, when they put embryos together, they were union democrats and they were on break that day and the wiring just got... just got twisted around a little. Because whatever that thing is that gets in people, and I know people, I know people who just feel good about themselves. Naturally. They just feel like they're the shit. And not even in an arrogant way. They just have a confidence, a sense of themselves. They're optimistic by nature. They look at the world, you know, it's going to be a good day. And man, I'm not that way. I'm not that way. And, you know, I don't know if this added to it, but I guess I was, you know, sort of a little smart or something. And so when I was in first grade, my parents decided to move me a grade ahead. So in first grade, I was just five and I'm there with kids six, seven. And it was all that... Whoops. Whoa. Sorry about that. It was like that. That would be great. You know, whoever... Whoever gets the tape of this, they'll be going, about to ready to fall asleep at this point. And then they'll hear like that nuclear explosion on the tape. What the hell was that? But, you know, so all through high school, grade school and high school, I was competing with kids who were much older than me in my class. And, you know, again, I don't know about anybody else, but I was just scared shitless all the time. And, I mean, that's not something you ever want to admit. You always want to go around. You always want to go around acting like you're not. You always want to go acting like you're badder than bad. You know, and I played sports, which is a really hard thing competing against guys who are much older than me. But I was very, very shy, painfully shy. I could never talk to pretty girls. And in my junior year in high school, Cumberland Valley High School, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, for anybody who's from around that area, out of the blue, have no idea, I made the varsity basketball team. I was a junior. It was what would be the biggest class school here. So, I mean, there were a lot, I mean, you know, tryouts of 50 people. And all of a sudden, I'm nobody, and now I'm somebody. And all the guys on the basketball team, they would tell these stories about going over to Harrisburg, which was the town, and they would go to what would be the equivalent of the Paramore section, and they'd all get drunk. And I'd hear these stories, and I could not wait to, to get included in that, and I finally did. And, again, I can only speak for me, share, you know, my experience. But all of that stuff went away, all of that insecurity, all of that fear, all of it instantly went away with the drink. All the stuff I always wanted to be, at least I thought, you know, I thought I became all the things that I wanted to be. I could talk to the pretty girls. I would, I thought I was funny. I had confidence. It was just, it was just, you know, just a wonderful thing. I mean, it's one of those things, there was a precursor. Probably a lot of people would have understood this was maybe bad things coming, but I wrecked my dad's car. I still had a junior, we used to call it a Cinderella license. I was out on my Cinderella license, going over, getting drunk, wrecked my dad's car, and was just puking disgusting sick after drinking four quarts of Miller beer, just guzzling them down, down, down, down. But, you know, couldn't wait to do it again. I know I've heard that, you know, so many times, you know, and it is one of those things. If I ate, I can just eat anything pretty much, but, you know, my wife ate coleslaw and got sick. It was just bad coleslaw, and it was throwing up. She's never eaten coleslaw again. I mean, that's the normal reaction that normal people have to stuff like that. That's how they are. I have met people. My grandmother. People we would hang around with, they would start drinking, and I can remember them saying things like, oh my, I'm starting to feel a little, I'm starting to feel this. I better quit. You know, and I think that's really how they looked at the world. And, you know, when I start feeling it, I want to feel it more and more and more and more. And I was, I don't want it to be, you know, just drunk-a-logs, but, you know, I drove a car through a telephone pole when I was 16 years old coming back from my high school girlfriend's house, just shit-faced. I mean, that's a good sign maybe there's an issue. And my dad knew the police chief in the little town we lived, and so no consequence, nothing happened, which was sort of a story of life, too. Somehow the consequences took a while to catch up. We would go to a country, a country bar down on the Connery, going to Creek, the Creekside Inn. And we didn't have a lot of money back in the day. And when the country band would come out and start playing, all the country people would get up and dance. They all would get up and dance. And we would go around to their tables and drink their drinks while they were dancing. I mean, that's a, you know, if anybody wants to go out, that's an easy, cheap way to get drunk. You know, just a little, little, little tidbit. Yeah. But, you know, and I thought nothing of it. It was just, that was how I was. That was the people that I hung out with. That's the way we did. I went to a little college up there for a while. A place called Lebanon Valley. I played basketball for a while. Didn't really, didn't really like it that much. And kind of dropped out of everything. Me and a couple of guys were, drinking. I got a job at Wendy's, flipping burgers. That was a good job because it didn't, they didn't open back then until like noon. So I could, you know, I could be out all night and not have to get up early. And three buddies of me, we just got shit-faced every night. We had a Monopoly tournament. And we would just drink. And we played, three of us, one guy, the winner, the winner of Monopoly got two points. The second place guy got one point. And we played to 300 points. So you can imagine how long that took. And that's what I did for basically a year. I played a drunken Monopoly tournament with two losers in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Until my, I was living at home and my parents had just, they had had enough. And I guess, I don't know if any of y'all have ever had this, but people were always telling me, and I was really hearing it at this time, you know, you have got so much potential. You are wasting, I still hate that word, potential. I don't hear it much anymore. But they were just disgusted. My family was just disgusted with how I was living. And they said, you know, you've got to do something. And I'd heard about the school that was the number one party school in the nation at the time. And it was three to one girls to guys, Florida State University. Wow. That is my kind of school. And so me and one of my Monopoly buddies applied to Florida State. And I got in, and for whatever reason he didn't. And I wasn't going to go, except my parents had other ideas. I mean, they just packed the car and pointed and said, you're leaving. And so I came down here. And I've been, I've actually been down here ever since. I feel very fortunate to have gone there. I did very well at Florida State. I mean, I drank and partied, but everybody drank and partied in college. You know, most of the people that I know who went to college who drank and partied, you know, when they got out of college, they quit drinking and partying to that extent. And I didn't. And I ended up going to law school after that. And real good, I got in at a place called Dickinson, which is a pretty good school up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. And Georgetown and Florida State. And I put my best thinking cap on and thought, you know, Florida State's going to have a really good football year and I think it's going to be warmer. And I know some people down there and they party a whole lot better. So that was my choice. And that's probably turned out to be a good thing too. I don't regret that at all. And I got to one of the points and there have been several points. And I know some other people who've had this happen. But, you know, I got into law school and, you know, just fear of just the stuff they do to you there. Kind of, I mean, I was actually, you know, going to class and doing the work. And I was doing very well my first year. And I was asked to get on a law review and did. You know, it was just getting ready to take off. I mean, my life was really just getting ready to go. But it really, really got in the way of drinking. It got so in the way of drinking. And when anything ever got in the way of drinking for me, drinking would win. And I just loved doing it. And so it ended up I almost, I mean, I barely graduated is the bottom line. I had to beg a professor my last year of law school to give me a D so that I could graduate because I hung out in bars and nightclubs. I mean, not nightclubs, you know, all nightclubs, bottle clubs, Tommy's, Tommy's Southern something on Tennessee, where you take your bottle when the bar is closed. That's where I'd go. And when you have 8, 9, 10 o'clock, that's not compatible with 8 and 9 o'clock classes. So the professor that I had to beg when I went in to take the final, he literally said, who are you? Because I had never been. I had never been to the class. But I did graduate and got a job as a prosecutor in Sanford. And Mayberry, at least it was at the time. And in a bit of an ironic twist, for a while there, I was the lead DUI prosecutor there. And they used to do things, and again, I had wrecked a bunch of cars by now already. And I'd been stopped many, many times for DUI. Back in the day, when I was a prosecutor, the prosecutors, and they don't do this anymore, and I'm not sure that I'm the reason why they don't. They would give you a badge. You got a badge, like a cop. And so I would put my driver's license in the badge. And so anytime I'd get stopped by anybody for DUI, and they'd give me their license, I'd just whip out this badge. And they'd always let me go. It would always happen. And this is another point where life was getting ready to take off. I was doing really well at the state attorney's office. There, I developed a reputation of being halfway decent at what I did. We, you know, it was kind of the lie that I told myself was, you know, we work hard, we party hard. And we partied a lot. And, you know, there were judges that did that, and there were defense lawyers that did that, and there were police officers that did that. We'd all be out doing it together. And just, I mean, I had just been moved into the felony division pretty quickly. And I was out, it was December 22nd of 1984. And it was a, I had had to work that day more, they had a Christmas party, and so I was feeling like I deserved, I was feeling pity, because I, you know, I had to work, I had to work. And so I was going to party that night, and I was at a, a place with a bunch of people and was leaving just wasted and ran into a car in the parking lot and, you know, did what all good citizens do when you do that, you drive off. And there was a policeman in the parking lot who followed me and stopped me and I showed him the badge and we started to do the drill where they're going to take me home, which they'd done a number of times. I'd been stopped by the Sanford Police Department a number of times. Really good folks. They were great people. I put them in a really bad spot. You know, I mean, I was the one that, you know, today you couldn't get away with it. But on this particular night, December 22nd, 1984, they're all just getting ready to cart me up and put me in a car and take me home when who shows up, but I'm not going to mention his name because I know we're being taped and I did that before and I thought, I'm going to get sued because I had to do this guy. But he was a reporter for the Orlando Post. He was Sentinel, the police beat reporter who listened to the police band radio at three in the morning. And that guy had a real life. No resentment. No resentment. Actually, actually, you know, today I am very grateful for that guy. That guy, finally, finally, I don't know what would have happened without him having listened to that and showed up on the scene and these police officers who were ready to take me home and, you know, just wash it all under the table, couldn't do it because the reporter was there. And so they had to arrest me. And I don't know what would have become of me but for that. I mean, that's absolutely true. And so I got in the paper. It was on the front page of the local and state section of the Seminole Sentinel. And we were just there. And the state attorney that I had been hired under, Doug Cheshire, just lost the election to another guy. And everybody was worried we're going to keep our jobs, we're going to keep our jobs. And we had a big meeting like this. The whole, everybody at the state attorney came in and met the new state attorney and he went to say, and don't anybody worry, you know, there's not going to be any turnover. Everybody's going to keep their jobs. Everything's fine. Okay, y'all can go flood. Why don't you stay? And shockingly, I lost that job. Apparently, they did not want their DUI prosecutors actually being the DUI prosecuted. And so that was that. And so that, another, you know, opportunity kind of out of the way. You know, another, we talk a lot about what incredible coincidences have occurred, you know, like when Ebby went to see Bill, how did, you know, and Carl Young, you know, got Roland, who got Ebby, who got Bill, who got Doc Bob. And I've had a bunch of that stuff in my life. Happens. Happens too. And one of the things happened then. A guy named Joe R., he looks like Santa Claus. He goes, he still, he goes up in Lake Mary. And he was a lawyer who I knew. And for a while, he had an office at the flea market. But he's actually a wonderful guy. And he was actually a very good lawyer. Just, he's a different guy. He's a different guy. And he came and he took me to lunch after this DUI that got publicity. And I thought he was taking me to lunch to offer me a job. Because he knew I was going to lose my job. And he started talking to me about his drinking. And it sounded very familiar to what, you know, the way I drank. And he gave me a chip, a plastic chip. He took me to a meeting. I can, my recollection of it, by the way, was something like, are you going to get to the job part? When do you get to the job part? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Get to the, you know, yeah, drinking. I'm going to quit, I'm going to quit drinking. Don't worry about that. But, and he never did offer me a job. But he did take me to my very first AA meeting at Rebos. And I just hated it. It seemed, it was just smoke filled and old and nasty. And, you know, gosh, it was just way more than I needed. I didn't need anything that, that was way more than I was willing to do or needed. And he was just, I got to say, he was a wonderful example of the AA. The 12th step and how you're supposed to do it. Because, you know, he told me his story. He told me about AA. He told me it was available. He took me to a meeting. And, you know, he never bothered me again. He never bothered me again. He never called and asked how I was doing. I didn't go to any AA meetings. I decided that I was going to quit. I don't know if y'all have ever done this, but I did. I quit for about seven or eight months. I quit. I was really serious. I wasn't kidding. Man, when I say I'm quitting, I mean it. And it was the worst seven or eight months of my, I just hated every second of it. I've described it before. It was like somebody was following me around, running their fingernails down a blackboard in my ears, just everywhere you went. That's what it was like. I would, you know, when I came into AA later and read about the boy whistling in the dark, you know, how you say, oh, I feel better. I don't miss it at all. I work better. It's just great. That was me. That was it. How they could have pegged that, you know, from the 1930s, that was exactly how I was. It was all lies during that seven or eight months when I was drinking. I guess I should say that during this time, I had friends that used to, they gave me as a joke, it was called the, the Joe Flood Family Planning Manual. Yeah. And you'll probably see why some are chuckling in a minute. But the family plan was, I'd gone up to my sister's wedding and met this girl who was sort of cute, who was engaged to some other guy, who two weeks later showed up at my doorstep in Florida and ended up moving in there. And then she was pregnant. And then we got married. Yeah. Really. Try it from this side. Oh, that's just the start. That's just the start of it. And really, I mean, really, my intentions were never bad. And I don't know, that's kind of a theme too. You know, my intentions were never bad. I did these despicable things, things that I'm not at all proud of. But it wasn't because I was trying to be mean. I was trying to, you know, be okay. But I just wasn't. And I would be, I was drinking all the time. And so we get married, trying to do the right thing. I mean, that's what you're supposed to do when you get somebody pregnant. And we had this beautiful daughter, just incredible, gorgeous daughter. She's about ready to graduate from law school, by the way. And unbelievable. And of course, I hated her. I didn't like being married to her at all. And so I would do everything that I could do to be somewhere else. It was another one of those things. You know, I had this beautiful, beautiful daughter at home. And if you ask, oh, that daughter, she's the most important thing to me. I just love her like nothing else. It's like a whole new life. That's the shit that I'd say. Except every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Was I home with that little girl? No. I was out somewhere, catting around, getting drunk, trying to pick up some other I don't know what. And I was up in Tallahassee one time taking clients to somewhere. There was another something there that I picked up and got her pregnant. Well, I'm still married to that one. And hence the family planning manual. And I'm truly not proud of all this. They say that AA is a place where miracles happen. And I'm true proof of that. And hopefully, you know, I ended up having an absolutely fabulous family life. You know, with two beautiful daughters. I have a beautiful wife that I've been with now for over 20 years. And I hope you can see that my own power, me on my own steam, that's not possible. I'm not capable of that. Because what I'm capable of is getting a girl pregnant while I'm married to another girl with a kid. That's my best doing. And so all that was going on. As I'm losing this job at the prosecutor's office, I lost another job in the middle there. I don't know if Lee's here or not. He said, most of you, do you know Lee? Why he makes all the tapes? And all the girls know him because he looks like Superman. When I was new in AA, every time I was wanting to 13-step and go up and find some really good-looking girl, I'd go, oh, that's Lee's girlfriend. A year later, oh, Lee's girlfriend. Off limits. But his and my... And he talks about this, but his and my story, they crisscross. And it's kind of, I don't know. I think it's kind of interesting. It's... But... I had lost my job. I was working as a criminal defense lawyer now, not a prosecutor. And the first big case I got, there was this husband and wife who had burglarized houses in... Probably some of you were victims. I mean, just everywhere. Just in Orange, Seminole, Osceola, Volusia County. It was a burglary ring. And this was a case that I got to defend. And I go, and I go in the jail. Now, in the jail, this guy has been reading this story about this prosecutor who loses his job because he's a drunk and got a DUI. And who walks in to represent him but that guy. Me. And so I can remember looking at him and going, you poor son of a bitch. You are going to be in prison for the rest... For the rest of your life. You know? I mean, there is just... This is going to be awful. You're just so screwed. At the same time, he's getting sober and he's in what I think was called the task unit there. And he's really taken to it. And I could really tell there was something about him. Something real different about him than his wife. And he's looking at me going, you poor son of a bitch. Because you are so screwed. You are a drunk. And you don't know it. And you've got so much bad stuff coming down the pike. And he was right. I was wrong. And it was one of... I'll tell you that in defending them, trying to work all this out in all those counties, and he and his wife had done these burglaries together. Everything together. And at the time that if you stole a gun, that made your burglary a life... Yeah, a life felony punishable by a man. By a man. By a man. Minimum mandatory three years. Minimum mandatory. He had to do it every single day. No gain time. Well, his wife had got caught on a bunch of them. And they had her fingerprints on guns. And they didn't have it for him. And so she ended up actually going to prison for quite a while. I've always sort of felt bad about that. But he didn't. He got this incredible thing. And now you see the life that he's got. So if you think there aren't miracles that happen, then that's... That was one of the true miracles. I wanted to say, and did for a long time, that it was my incredible legal skill that did that. But it wasn't. It wasn't. It was some bizarre power, strange power out there, working in a guy's life to give him a life that's inexplainable. Without a God, what happened with him is inexplainable. It's just not possible. Same thing with me, by the way. Four or five more years go by. I lose the job as a criminal defense lawyer. Again, I'm drinking. When I say I'm drinking, I didn't drink all the time. But I drank a lot. I loved to drink. And when I would start to drink, there was just no way. All bets were off. All bets were off. And you never knew what was going to happen. And it was getting to the point, that there had been times where I could kind of space out those periods of ridiculous drunkenness. And I was having a really hard time doing that. They were getting lots closer and closer together. One of the real ironies, you know, is I went out, I started drinking because I was shy and had a hard time talking to people and had a hard time especially meeting girls and talking to girls. By the end of my drinking, I was like George Thurgood. I drank. I was like alone. Nobody wanted anything to do with me. I had no life. My life was so narrow. It was so tiny and small. I can remember one of my last drunks before coming into AA. It was like the frat bar, something like that, out on Colonial. And I was just by myself and I was going and sitting at tables telling people that I was waiting. People who I was supposed to meet hadn't got there yet. There was nobody to meet. That's how pathetic. My life had become. And when it got unbearable, I called Joe R., the guy who had come take me to lunch when I lost that job at the prosecutor's office. And I still always remember this, that it was late at night. I'd actually been earlier that night because I didn't have any money and my second wife, we were in the middle of a divorce and I was in a little apartment and I didn't have any money. And I wanted to drink. I'd been drinking the night before, used all my money and I was actually out in a dumpster, in it, looking to see if people had thrown out alcohol bottles that they hadn't finished. And that was not the glamorous lifestyle that I'd sort of planned and thought I might have in store when I was growing up and going to college and going to law school. But that's where it had taken me. That's what I'd become. And I called Joe R. And he, he didn't say, you know, call me tomorrow. He didn't say, I'll meet you at a meeting. He said, come over right now. And I went over like, and we talked for several hours and then he brought me to a meeting, brought me to a meeting here at Central. That was in May of 1989. And I wish I could say I've been sober since May of 1989, but I haven't. I've been sober since May of 1990. It's funny, for somebody who was, you know, pretty shy and pretty negative, I was also very arrogant. And I truly, I came in with another guy. We came in the same month. He was a furniture salesman. And I mean, I was sure that I was just going to smoke him in AA. You know, that I was just going to show, just, I mean, I've said this before. And I really thought that I would be the 1989 AA rookie of the year. You know, people would be sure that they, you know, that guy, what a quick study, man. No one's ever gotten that sober so fast. And what actually happened was a year later, Mark was picking up his one-year chip. And I was working on my fifth white chip that year, which was quite a lesson. And I went down, I had to go down to Aruba for something with an old drinking buddy. And I don't know, I don't know anybody. I always thought, I always thought, and I'm supposed to be halfway smart. I know all of you are really smart. I always thought it would be different. I always thought it was going to be good. And I really thought, I can remember really thinking, in Aruba, that it's going to be great. I am going to go out. I am going to gamble. I'm going to go to the casino. It's going to be like James Bond. I'm going to meet a girl. This is going to be so cool. And, um, um, the following morning, I came to literally in a gutter, in a gutter. I puked all over myself. I didn't know where I was. And I was beaten and broken. I was, you know, I knew this thing would work for you. I'd seen it work for you. I'd seen it work for Mark. It wasn't working for me. And I was sure that it never would work for me. At that moment, you know, I conceded to my innermost self that I was alcoholic. And I knew that that was how it was going to be for the rest of time. This is the way my life would be. I went, I went back to the hotel room and was blubbering, calling my then sponsor, Bernie. Oh, crying. And I was, I would have done anything at all to stay sober that day. Anything at all. Anything Bernie told me to do. Anything at all. If he had told me to swim back from Aruba, I would have done it. Because the only thing I cared about that day was to be sober. I didn't care about my job. I didn't care about my family, the divorce, nothing. I'd never been like that before. That was the only, there was a singleness of purpose to me. And, you know, it still gives me goosebumps to think that that was the last time I've ever had a drink. May 10th, 1990, there in Aruba. I mean, you know, never. The blessing, the gift of sobriety is a thing that was so elusive and impossible for me. You know, I've been blessed to have since that time. I would like to say that, you know, I jumped right in and dove, right into the steps. You know, I didn't, I'm one of those people and I, it's worked for me. I don't know that it's the best way to do it. But it worked for me. But the only reason that, the only reason that I ever did this stuff was when I had to do it. I had to, I had to do step one because I was going to die. And I kind of did step one, two, and three. But I went two years without doing step four. And my life during those two years was in, my good friend, Mike W. here, he remembers those days. I was going through a divorce. They were, I mean, these people, these newbies would be coming into the meeting going, you know, I'm 30 days sober. I got a new relationship. I just got a job. I just moved into a new great apartment. Life is so wonderful. I just wanted to take an Uzi and waste these people. Because I'm, I'm a year and a half in. And I'm going through this bitter divorce from the daughter of Satan. I am, I would, I would come, I would come to every meeting every single day and go, alright, I am not going to talk about the divorce today. I'm going to talk about something spiritual. Get down, you know, Mike, Chuck, Joe. Joe, an alcoholic. Ah, bitch! I want to die! Bitch! That's just how I'm, in addition, in addition to, in addition to that, I was, I had, my house was foreclosed on. My car was repossessed. I went bankrupt. I lost the custody fight in that divorce. That's, you know, how sobriety was working with me. And, I was at a point where, you know, we've, I've seen people die and I've seen people take their own lives in AA. And, you know, I know what that, I can, I can, I know what that would be like. I was this close. I was so through of being able to stand being inside of my skin. I just, there was, and it came down to a choice and it talks about it in the big book. You know, we had but, you know, two choices. And I could either decide I'm going to do that fourth step or I'm going to kill myself. Those really were the choices. I was not going to drink. I was not going to drink. And it's funny now to think that was a, that was one of the toughest decisions I ever made to decide to go ahead and get out a piece of paper or a pencil. And, I found a wonderful sponsor. I, I have a wonderful sponsor now. I'm so blessed. He's sitting here. I wanted to say too because I want to give tribute to Mike. You know, I've been so blessed with the people that have touched me. But, during those two years he had to listen to me coming in and whining about all that. And, out of the blue one, and he knew what, he knew how, how terribly I was struggling. And, just out of the blue one day in the mail at my apartment a little booklet called Partnership showed up. And, he had sent that to me. I don't know if, I don't know if they have the booklet anymore but they have a CD of it. And it, you know, described the partnership of us and God. That kind of a partnership. And, it was again one of those watershed things that meant so much to me. And, I would highly recommend that to anybody, people who are struggling because it made a huge difference about, you know, what my role is and what God's role is. And, I always had them very much confused. But, I went ahead and did the fourth step and, with a sponsor. And, I got to say, again, the only reason I did that fourth step was because I had to. If I could have just slid along doing one, two, three, and I see a lot of people do that. I see a lot of people do that for a lot of time. but, and then went on with the rest of the steps. And, it was a life, it was a life changing event. It was, I can't recommend it enough to find a sponsor who has a sponsor. My experience was, my life didn't get better. And, this was another one of those incredible moments because it's in the book. And, how, you know, the Bible people who are biblical talk about the prophets, you know, they prophesied this. I don't know whether that's true or not, but they seem to think that that's a really, you know, that Elijah would prophesy Jesus was coming someday. Well, I'm doing my ninth step and my life's still shit. And, I'm about halfway done with the ninth step. And, I start realizing that, man, I'm starting to feel a little better here. You know, I don't have a whole lot of money, but I'm not so worried about it. I went back, yeah, you know, and kind of have a due outlook on some things here. My past was, wasn't really good, but you know, I'm not really regretting it so much. And it, like, the light went off. We will be amazed before we are halfway through. Halfway through the ninth step is when my life started turning around. Just an amazing thing to me, how, and, I am a huge believer in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm a huge believer in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Like my sponsor, Chuck, I'm a huge believer in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's, it's just the greatest show on wheels. Fast forward a little, a little bit. Maybe you'll remember this someday. Early on, my first year or so, a guy who was a giant in AA, a guy named Bill Oakley, he used to say his name. He's passed on now. Some may know him. I heard him speak at the old Central Clubhouse and heard him say, bring your dreams to AA. And I can remember thinking, what a crock of shit. That guy doesn't know, you know, I'm going through a bank, a bankruptcy, a divorce, foreclosure. I mean, bring your dreams, bite me, you know, get out of here. What are you talking about? And he would, he said something like, if you'll just focus on the program of AA, if you'll just put your energy into the program of AA, everything else will work out and your dreams will come true. And again, I'm not buying any of this. And fast forward seven years or so after I get sober, into my 70s, seven, eighth year, and all of a sudden I realize every dream that I had in 1990, every single dream that I had, had come true. All of them. I was about ready to lose my third job in about four years. And in about year seven or eight at this incredible law firm that I had somehow stumbled into getting a job, you know, a downtown firm on Lake Eola here. I was made a partner at that firm. I met this incredible girl who I'm now married to, we've been with forever. And incredibly blessed. You know, the kind of life that I'd always hoped that I could have, but just wasn't capable of it. I mean, I would try so hard to, you know, have the life that it looked like everybody else was having and, you know, be working to try and, you know, have a house and a family and work and be a regular guy and I just couldn't do it. I just was not capable of doing that. And seven, eight years in, I was that guy. You know, I was that guy. And so maybe somebody here, maybe somebody here in 15 or 20 years will think, yeah, there was this old, fat, Republican-talking guy and he said, bring your dreams to AA. What a crock. And, you know, maybe you'll remember that and maybe it'll come true because it can come true. I am living proof. It is not possible under human power. It is not possible under my power to get from the person that I described because that was a real guy. That guy who got girls pregnant and lost jobs and wrecked cars and got DUIs and that was my life. You know, that was, it's not possible for that guy to get to the guy that's here today where I've been, you know, at the same job for 25 years with the same girl for 20 years raising two beautiful daughters who are doing okay. who are doing okay. who are doing okay. who are doing okay. In spite of all my efforts at the outset. And that is all a gift, all a gift from the God of my understanding. You know, we live in, we live in such, it's a funny age these days. You know, when I was growing up everybody went to church every Sunday. Probably a lot of you were too young for that but I mean, it was a time when religion and God were a big part of our life and you know, now, atheism almost is the national religion and really smart people would just get bombarded with that. And it is such a blessing to be able to come to a place like this. A skeptic like me who does not believe in stuff. I'm not a joiner who can come here out of necessity and be given this wonderful life, find a power, a God and I don't, it's a God that I've experienced. That's what I want to say. I've experienced it and you can experience it too and once you experience it nobody can ever take that away from you. Nobody can ever say that doesn't exist. It can't happen because you know it's happened to you and I know it's happened to me. I am and always will be forever grateful to this deal. I'm so glad my friend Mike S who's sitting here who I've been knowing since, I have known him so long that when we used to go out to dinner there was a time many years ago that he would actually pay. That's how long that's how long ago but he said one day and I've always remembered how grateful he is that he stuck around. You know, I've got an incredible sponsee, an incredible sponsor and if I wouldn't have stuck around you know, I wouldn't have gotten to get asked by Heidi to speak and I would have missed so much and I'm so grateful that I have stuck around. I think I will keep sticking around. I love this deal and I appreciate you all mostly, mostly staying awake.