Most of My Life When I Stood in Front of a Podium with a Tie on I Was Called Defendant 🤣 — Pearce M.

All right, let's have an AA meeting.
My name is Preston, and I'm an alcoholic.
Welcome to the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers Meeting at the NAVA Club,
where a member of Alcoholics Anonymous with one year or more of sobriety tells his or her story.
Trey, and I'm an alcoholic.
And tonight, I'm going to introduce the speaker.
We've been trudging this road a few years together,
and I'm just going to throw out a good definition of insanity.
Me, Daryl, and Pierce, we do a lot of traveling together.
The first trip we made together, we went to Jazz Fest in New Orleans.
You know, we're having a good time, and Pierce gets this call,
and then, you know,
after the call, we see he has a long face, and we say,
What's wrong, Pierce?
And he's like, Man, they fired me.
I'm like, Damn, that sucks, dude.
Don't worry about it right now, man.
Well, you know, we know how to do this, man.
We're just going to trudge right through.
We're going to get to the other side.
You'll get another job.
You know, God's got your back.
He did.
He got another job.
We came back.
He got another job.
We go on another trip, deep-sea fishing trip.
Me, Daryl, and Pierce.
He gets a call.
He's like, What's wrong, man?
Did you get fired or something?
Yeah, man, I got fired.
Yeah, dude.
Well, we've been through this, so let's just get up.
Got to fish, and we'll figure this out when we get back to Atlanta.
You know, we did.
We fished.
We had a good time.
We come back to Atlanta, and he's a go-getter, man.
He'll go straight to the library, and he'll hunker down, and he gets another job.
So next time, we're in Puerto Rico.
Me, Daryl, and Pierce.
And he gets a call.
Didn't even have to ask him.
We knew what the deal was.
But, you know, he's someone that I've seen.
He goes through this with dignity and grace.
I've only seen this given to people that come in that have been through what we've been through.
They're going through the 12 steps.
He's a great friend of mine, and I give him Pierce tomorrow.
Thank you.
Hi, my name's Pierce, and I'm an alcoholic.
That was quite the introduction.
I can add on to that.
So, my sobriety date is June 10, 2010.
So I've just managed to celebrate nine years of sobriety.
You know, that is a grace from God and the company I keep.
You know, my mother always said, you know, show me your friends, and I'll tell you who you are.
I look around this room, I see a lot of my friends.
You know, a lot of people from my home group here.
There's a lot of, you know, I got a lot of texts today.
I got a lot of calls.
You know, basically, Pierce, I can't make it, but, you know, break a leg or whatever, you know.
And that means a lot to me, you know, because when I showed up in Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, I showed up pretty beaten up.
You know, there's some people in this room tonight that were here when I got here.
And, you know, they'll give testimony to it if you need it.
You know, I came in basically friendless, brokeless, moneyless, jobless.
And, you know, and I have all those things today, you know.
And that's, you know, that's not.
That's not the life that, you know, that I live most of my life.
Most of my life, basically, I was a shucker and a jiver, a hustler and a, you know, basically, you know.
I already tell people, if you're going to hang out with me, it's going to be expensive.
You know, so don't come without money, you know.
So, you know, I'm supposed to tell my story, you know, what it was like, what happened and what it's like now.
So I was, you know, I was born to two poor sharecroppers in the Bronx.
And, you know, I was born and raised in the Bronx.
I grew up there until I was 21 years old.
The Bronx was an interesting place to grow up.
You know, it was, you know, you had to be a tough guy.
You had to be, you know, on your game constantly because people are always trying to take you down.
And to this day, I still, you know, have that fight in me.
You know, and I'll tell a story about just recently what happened where, you know, I'm doing some crazy stuff.
But, you know, so my drinking started relatively early.
I started drinking probably when I was 10 or 11 years old.
You know, my father died when I was 11.
And the first time I remember really drinking was my brother decided, my older brother is 10 years older than I am.
He decided to take me camping.
And so we're driving into upstate New York, you know, and there's a six pack of warm Rheingold on the floorboard of his car.
And, you know, he's like, oh, no, you know, he goes, you know, you want a beer?
I'm like, yeah.
And, you know.
You know, and the thing was, he says, well, yeah, let's get him cold and we'll drink them later.
Right.
So so we ended up basically getting cold.
And I remember drinking those beers.
And I don't know how many I had, but I remember we were in a like an inflatable raft and we're in a whirlpool.
And I was it's really the first time in my life I was ever able to sleep.
I remember just, you know, feeling the calmness and warmness that comes over you.
And, you know, if you would ask me, you know, 10 years ago, I'd have no recollection of it.
You know, it's amazing.
It's amazing how your memory gets better the longer you've been sober.
So, you know, so my drinking started relatively young.
When I was in eighth grade, I broke my leg.
And so you have an eighth grade graduation.
And so my friends went to the VA hospital and they stole a wheelchair so that if I got drunk, I wasn't on my crutches.
You know, so, you know, this is this.
This was, you know, people ask what it was like growing up in the Bronx.
It was kind of like the Bowery Boys meet Goodfell.
Those, you know, it was a lot of fun.
But then there was a lot of crazy stuff that went on.
So that pretty much sums it up.
So then they are stealing a wheelchair out of the VA hospital because the VA hospital was up the street from us and there were wheelchairs everywhere.
So, you know, so they're pushing me around.
I'm drinking.
I'm in eighth grade.
You know, we're getting drunk.
You know, eighth grade graduation.
You know, life is good, you know.
So, you know, and then, you know, you know, drinking was was a sport in the Bronx.
Basically, was it wasn't it was used as a verb in and out.
Are you going drinking tonight?
Which mean are you getting drunk tonight?
It didn't you know, it wasn't you know, there's nothing social about our drinking.
You know, we bought quarts of beer.
We bought, you know, and then with the drinking age was 18.
So even when you were like 12, you had an older brother that was 16 that going to go and go in and buy booze for you.
And so, you know, you're you're you're pretty much set.
And so finally, when I was like 15 years old, I was able to get into the bars.
And, you know, that means I.
I arrived, you know, I'm in, you know, in New York City, there was a bar in every corner.
And previous to that, you know, I was in the bars as a kid because my father used to, you know, stop at every bar.
We'd be in downtown Manhattan and he'd stop at every bar on Third Avenue going home.
And, you know, everyone knew him.
You know, he was a big drinker, you know.
And and so I was familiar with with bars.
You know, one of my first jobs was as a kid.
I was a shine boy.
I go.
We would go into the bars because everyone wore shoes then.
And right.
One night, Johnny Rossi would sell the daily news because all these husbands were saying, I'm going out for the daily news.
They had a night owl.
The paper came out at night.
They'd go to the bar.
They would drink and they had shoes and they had to be shined.
So he would sell the newspaper.
We'd buy the paper for a dime.
We'd sell it for a dollar.
These guys had to cover their asses.
They were alcoholics.
Yeah.
Give me that paper.
Right.
And it's just shining shoes, you know.
So I was always from an early age in and out of bars.
And, you know, so.
I was familiar with it.
And then, you know, finally, when I was like 15, you know, you could get into the neighborhood bar.
So we'd go to mass at like 730 and then the church would get out and then 830 you're in the bar, you know.
And then I'm good for another week until I go to mass again, you know.
So.
So, you know, that's my drinking started pretty early and it started and it was frequent.
It was not, you know, I hear people say, you know, I started when I was young, but I couldn't get it again until I was 18.
Now, that was not my story.
Basically, it was.
It was consistent.
It was.
It was flowing and it was always there.
When I was 17, I ran into a guy that gave me the magic elixir because I was already starting to have problems with alcohol at that point.
I'm starting to get blackout.
I'm starting to get drunk.
I'm starting to get sloppy.
Well, guess what?
He said, oh, try this stuff.
What is it?
Oh, it's cocaine.
So it's the great elixir, you know.
And I realized, oh, God, this is the greatest stuff in the world.
And so I ended up, you know.
And doing it, doing as much cocaine as I possibly could.
And my mother died when I was 17.
So at this point, basically, as I am, neither of my parents alive.
I'm the youngest of seven.
My oldest brother, my oldest sister at the time was 30.
So, you know, in hindsight, you know, she probably should have known better.
But I was on my own since that point.
So I ended up, you know, making all my all my own bad decisions were my decisions.
But all my good decisions were my decisions.
God had nothing to do with my life.
It was, you know, this is this is who I am.
So, you know, there's, you know, like so.
So when I was 17, I get an apartment with with with Sal and Rob.
Everyone from New York's got a friend named Sal, don't they?
You know, right.
So we get an apartment.
Right.
And so the party is on.
It's the party house.
We're partying all the time.
I got a little bit of money from an inheritance, you know.
So we decided to go down to the USS Intrepid.
Does anyone know what that is?
It's a museum in New York.
It's an old World War Two aircraft carrier.
So I was up for a couple of days.
Doing what I do.
And then on the way down, we took some two and alls.
Right.
So all of a sudden I get I get I get on on on the ship and I I realize I'm starting to feel a little woozy.
Right.
I'm like, I got to lay down.
All right.
So so I look into the hull of the aircraft.
Right.
And I say, you know something, I have a really good idea.
I say, you know, if I can climb to the back of that and I can't see them sticking their heads in, they can't see me sleeping in there.
So, you know, I figure I'm just going to lay down for an hour and, you know, let those guys, you know, explore the ship.
And then.
Things like that.
Well, I wake up like eight hours later.
Right.
The ship is closed down.
This thing is empty.
There's nobody on it.
It's dark out.
Right.
I'm eight stories up.
Right.
The gangplank is gone.
It's like just normal life appears.
Right.
So I'm on top of this thing saying, hey, get me off of here.
Right.
So security guard comes in through the ship and says, how did you end up here?
It's like I gave him some cock and bull story.
And, you know, and and and, you know, he took me through the bowels of the ship and got me off at street level.
You know, but, you know, the thing is, in hindsight, I'm thinking, you know, my friends might.
You know, they had no concern where I went.
That's that.
That's the sad part of it was it was like, you know, I show back up.
They're like, where were you?
And I'm like, well, I was out.
And so they had no concern about me.
So, you know, that's that tells you a lot.
So, you know, that's that's one instant for my team.
So then when I was 21, I'm sitting in manions on Fordham Road.
It's an Irish bar.
All right.
And John Fitzpatrick, otherwise known as Fritzy, is sitting next to me and two stools down.
It's.
It's his father, John Fitzpatrick.
And two stools down is his father, John, his grandfather, John Fitzpatrick.
Right.
And I look at them and I see my life.
All right.
And I said, you know, you guys are left.
I said, I'm out of here.
I'm never going to leave.
You know, so a couple of days later, I knew there was something west of the George Washington Bridge.
And I drove and I drove to California.
So I get to California.
I hit Sacramento, California.
I'm like, this is not from the early 80s movies that I that I pictured.
So I get on I-5 and I go south and I get to the Mexican border.
And I'm like, well, I don't speak Spanish.
So I lived in San Diego for about a year.
Well, a couple of years, as a matter of fact.
So, you know, unfortunately was, you know, that was my first geographic cure.
And I've had, you know, basically there were there were there were incidences in New York where I got arrested, things like that.
But, you know, is there were there were there were my I was a budding alcoholic at this point, a real budding alcoholic.
So I moved to San Diego and I'm hanging out with the same people.
I'm hanging out in the same dive bars.
I'm hanging out in, you know, just, you know, you know, I'm I'm working shitty jobs and I'm just.
You know, just getting through life, you know, I'm just plugging along.
Then all of a sudden, you know, I start getting an attitude.
I'm like, this sucks.
That sucks.
You know, comparing everything to New York City.
Right.
If I want to order five star Indian food at four o'clock in the morning, why can't I have it?
Right.
I would never order five star Indian food at four o'clock in the morning.
But that's my mentality.
Why isn't that?
Why isn't that?
So I said, I know what my problem is.
I got to move to a bigger city.
So this is like 1984.
So the Olympics are going on in L.A.
So I'm like, oh, cool.
I'm going to go to L.A.
So I moved to L.A.
Right.
It's a bigger city.
And I still have that same mentality.
Right.
But the place I could live was in the middle of South Central L.A.
If anyone remembers South Central L.A. from the 80s.
Right.
So I'd be out walking in the streets and the cops would be like, what are you doing here?
I was like, I live right over there.
Right.
And then I'd be in the supermarket and the black woman would be like, white boy, what
are you doing in here?
I'm like, I live right over here.
You know.
And the problem was, is that I grew up in such a, when you're in a pile of garbage and
you don't realize it, seeing somebody with grass like they have in L.A., you're like,
oh, this is a nice neighborhood.
So, you know, so.
So I lived there, you know, I lived right across the street from the L.A. Coliseum and
I was on Figueroa and Martin Luther King.
You know, you're in the worst part in town when you're living on Martin Luther King.
And so somewhere along the way, when I was living in L.A., it dawned on me that New York
was not, was the exception, not the rule.
And, you know, that was probably the first acceptance I ever had in my life where, OK,
I can accept this.
Right.
So then I ended up moving to Northern California for a while.
And then my sister, she, she invited, she was going to the University of Colorado at
Boulder and she invited me out there.
So I show up with a bag about this big, you know, for Thanksgiving weekend, you know,
and I, 20 years later, I was still there.
Typical alcoholic.
Yeah, I'm staying here.
You know.
So this is where, where my consequences started happening.
I, I wasn't there probably a year.
And I remember there's an area of Boulder called The Hill.
And Boulder's a college town.
And all the college students hang out up there.
And it was, it was right around Thanksgiving.
And I'm driving home.
And two cars behind me, I see a police car.
And, and so, so that car stops.
I stop in the car, in the front, in the car in front of me stops.
Right.
And I'm figuring, well, they're after somebody else.
They're after me.
I haven't done anything wrong.
Right.
And the cop gets out of the car, tells the guy behind me to leave, tells the guy in front
of me to leave.
And then it's just me.
And it's like, oh, my God, they wanted me.
Right.
So I ended up getting my first DUI.
And, you know, and that, you know, in, in Colorado.
Right.
And that was basically was, you know, it was, you know, pay a fine, you know.
And it's funny.
Because here I am standing in front of a podium with a tie on.
Most of my life, when I stood in front of a podium on, with a tie on, I was called defendant.
You know.
So, so that, that, that would, so, you know, I, I did what was required of me.
And, and, you know, and it wasn't that big of a deal.
Not sure, not that far later, I got a second DUI.
Well, guess what?
The consequences get worse.
You know.
And now it's like, you know, they, they're talking about, you know, putting me in, in
work release.
And they're putting, you know, they're talking about.
You know.
And so, I had a probation officer.
Her name was Nancy Higgins.
And I remember this.
She tried 12-stepping me.
You know.
I remember this after I got sober.
You know.
She's like, do you think, you know.
And, and, but I wasn't, I wasn't ready to hear any of it.
You know.
She, you know, because they never sentenced me to alcoholics and arms.
They sentenced me to education at first.
Then they sentenced me to therapy.
And my attitude was, this is all just born of the punishment.
They just want my money.
Anyone else know that feeling?
You know.
And, and I wasn't, I wasn't willing to receive what they were trying to give me.
But I, I, you know, it was just part of the punishment.
Then after I would go to education, because I had to go weekly, like for 50 weeks or whatever.
I'd go to the bar and I'd drink and I'd bitch about it.
You know.
That's what I got out of the education part of it and the therapy part of it.
You know.
I remember the therapist telling me, because I told her, you know, one of my big things
was, why I drank was I couldn't sleep.
Anyone else?
Well, she's like, just get into that gray area in your brain.
I'm like, I don't have a gray area in my brain.
You know.
So.
So, you know, it's.
So, you know, the, the, the, the, the circumstances started getting worse and worse and worse.
Like, so finally, after like my fourth DUI there, they put me on, you know, they're like,
okay, we had a, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, he went one, he went two.
He was in work release.
He, he, he got through that.
Then he was in work release again.
Like, here goes a great story.
So you, so they, they sentenced me to work release, right?
Problem was I didn't have a job.
Right?
So.
So I, so I had some time from the time they sentenced me to the time I had to go to work
release.
So I got a job, right?
And so I had to go talk to one of the vice presidents of the company, explain to them
that the sheriff's department is going to be calling you to confirm my employment.
Well, she goes to the president of the company and tells him that story.
You know, I think people should be covering up for me and basically just buying into,
into who I am.
And, you know, this is no big deal.
This is just, you know, who I am.
And I remember the president of the company calls me in his office and he says to me,
he says, you know, how come this didn't come up in the interview?
I said, would you have brought it up in the interview?
You know.
So.
So then I got another DUI and this time they said, so what happens is I call my sister
up.
My sister's the one that's always been my enabler.
She was, she was living there, you know, basically when she was on bail, I'm out of jail.
She's like the one coming to get me.
She was the one that, you know, when I was on work release, basically I had it so that
I was out of jail seven days a week.
And on the seventh day it was, I have to go to church, you know, and I had that all written
in my schedule and things like that.
So she, um, she, she, so finally I get this last DUI and she says, I'm not coming to get
you, right?
Figure it out.
So I ended up going back to court and, you know, I was like, okay, are you out of jail?
And, um, so I ended up agreeing to a year of home detention.
And what that encompassed was having a breathalyzer in my house.
The only problem with that was you had to have a landline for that.
I didn't have a landline, but I'm like, yeah, sure, I can do that.
Right?
So, so they put this, they put an ankle bracelet on me and they put a breathalyzer in my house
and that breathalyzer would go off when I walked in, it would go off first thing at
eight o'clock in the morning.
And I didn't understand the whole thing about eight o'clock in the morning or seven.
o'clock in the morning when you started moving.
But then I, I realized people, you know, they're drinking the night before, it's going to catch
them that way.
And so I managed to get through that sentence and I didn't drink that whole time, but I
did a lot of drugs because the breathalyzer wasn't checking for that.
And so when I, when I finally finished my sentence, it was, it was Memorial Day weekend.
I remember I called them up and I said, listen, you gotta, you know, I'm going to come and
drop this stuff off.
They're like, oh, we're closed on Saturday.
It's a holiday.
I'm like, really?
So I said, I'm cutting it.
I'm cutting your bracelet off.
And they said, if you cut that off, you're going to have to buy it.
I'm like, okay.
Right.
So I disconnected all their stuff.
And I, and that, that, that, that weekend I started drinking again.
So my sister comes over to my house, the same one, you know, she's like, Pierce, you haven't
drank for a year.
Why are you drinking?
I said, Karen, you don't understand.
It wasn't that, you know, that, that, that they would stop me from drinking.
I was counting down the days till I could drink, you know, and you know, that's, that,
that, that was a reward for getting through all this was drinking.
So, um, fast forward a couple of years.
You know, um, you know, there, there's been girlfriends that came into my life, you know,
fiancees, you know, um, I had one fiancee, Kaylee, you know, she, she would, she used
to call me Boozerini.
That's not a good name.
I don't know.
And, you know, I'd come home and I'd have a case of beer and a bottle of Jameson's and
I would take the cap off the bottle of Jameson's and I would throw it in the trash.
She goes, what are you doing?
I said, does it look like I'm putting this back on the shelf?
You know, so I wasn't.
And, um, so, you know, my,
my main mistress in my life was alcohol.
It was my best friend.
It was my, you know, my confidant.
It gave me, it gave me the strength that I needed.
It allowed me to, you know, do things outside.
Like, you don't know how many job interviews I've been on, on the phone where I was, I
was half in the bag.
I did very well with those jobs too.
But, you know, but it was just, you know, I was drunk every, every chance I got.
And, you know, they was, and, and, and I didn't realize it until I came into Alcoholics Anonymous.
What I was doing was I was burying my feelings.
You know, when I was younger, when I was a kid, I was,
you know, I, I had shame and guilt.
And, and shame and guilt, when you become an alcoholic and you start drinking a lot,
turns into anger.
You know, it manifests itself one way or the other.
It manifests itself into, into anger with me.
And, you know, I was an angry person.
I'm still an angry person, but I'm getting better, I think.
Um, and, you know, I had a lot of shame and guilt.
I don't know what, what, what, what, you know, I can't put my finger on it today.
I don't know what it was, but it was the feelings I was having that I can recognize today that
it was shame and guilt.
It turned into anger.
And, you know, and that's one of the reasons, you know, what I was drinking over was I was
burying those feelings.
It was, you know, I, you know, like I remember when I was in high school, right?
And they, you know, the, uh, the teacher was like, I want to talk to your father.
I'm like, you can't.
He'd be like, why?
And I'm like, well, he's dead.
Right?
And then they're like, I want to talk to your mother.
Well, you can't.
Why?
She's dead.
And they, I was there to make them feel bad about it, you know?
And, you know, it was, you know, so there was a lot of shame and guilt that I had as
a kid that, that I carried with me.
I carried on as an adult and then I became an alcoholic and then basically it turned
into sheer anger.
That's what it turns into.
And I can identify those feelings now as a recovering alcoholic.
But, you know, if you would ask me 10 years ago, like, you know, no, I, um, I don't, you
know, I don't identify with that.
And, um, you know, here, here goes how it still manifests in myself.
A couple of weeks ago, I was out doing a walk at like nine o'clock at night and you might,
I live in Chamblee and I'm sitting on the bench and I'm talking to my sister.
I got earbuds in my ear and I got the phone in my hand.
And, um, so what happens is these two guys walk up to me and one guy comes and just grabs
the phone out of my hand, right?
I'm 57 years old.
You would think I would say, okay, well, that's no big deal.
It's just a phone, right?
My sister here is MF on the phone and then the race is on.
I'm chasing this guy, you know?
So somewhere along the way, I don't have that flight gene in me.
I got the fight gene in me, but I don't have the flight gene in me.
And, and, and I need to get better at that.
You know, I've had things, a lot of, a lot of circumstances in my life where things like
that happened where, you know, sometimes it's better just to walk away and I can't, you
know, so, you know, um, oh, geez, I'm talking really quick.
So, you know, so, so I, so finally I ended up moving to Georgia, right?
Now I was involved with this woman for eight, eight years or so.
It was a long distance relationship.
And every time I came down here, I was drinking just the way Pierce drinks.
And so I ended up moving into her house, right?
And everything was hers.
And, you know, I had nothing.
You know, and I got down here in, in, in, in December of 2006.
Well, if you remember 2006, the economy is tanking and tanking in the, in, in the ground.
And for the last 10 years, I worked as a, as a loan origination, a mortgage broker.
And guess what?
Trying to get back into that business, you know, was creating a new business in 2006
was not the place to do it.
But previous to that, I worked in technology.
So I got a job and it took me a while to get the job.
I, you know, I finally got it in, you know, March or April or something like that.
So I was here for quite a few months.
So I felt guilty about it.
So I gave him my first few paychecks.
But meanwhile, I'm still drinking the way, the way an alcoholic drinks.
And she's getting concerned about my drinking.
And so finally, you know, I gave her my paycheck, gave her my second paycheck.
And, you know, I kept a few bucks for myself.
I got to, you know, protect the supply somehow, you know, so I got the money.
And she, she calls me when I'm coming home one night.
She says, all your stuff is packed and it's in my sister's car and she'll take you wherever you want to go.
Problem was, I knew nobody in Georgia.
I had a job.
I had.
I didn't have a car.
I didn't, you know, I really didn't know anybody.
You know, I was dependent on this person, basically.
And so she's driving me around to these different hotels.
And I'm like, no, no, no, no.
So I ended up basically, you know, renting a room in the Holiday Inn on La Vista Road for a month.
Right.
And the first thing I did is liquor store next door.
I don't want to introduce myself to the guys in the liquor store.
I said, I'm going to be here a lot.
And, you know, so that was one of the reasons why I picked that hotel was it's a liquor store.
And I am.
And so so then all of a sudden after a month, I'm like, OK, I can't afford to live in a hotel the rest of my life.
Right.
So I ended up renting a room in somebody's house.
And this worked out really well because he worked nights and I worked days.
So I came home and I drank and I drank for three years straight.
And that's how, you know, you know, I had a room like I remember holiday weekends.
So what happens, I got tired of bottles.
Right.
So I started buying beer in the cans and the only bottles I have are like bottles of booze and things like that.
But they weren't clunky.
Right.
So it'd be a holiday weekend.
And I'd have a trash can filled up with cans.
Right.
So I'm like, well, how am I going to get more beer cans in there?
So I'd step on top of the trash can and pound them down, you know, just trying to make more room for it so I could drink more.
And so I so I went to work every day and every day I would get up and I would swear I wasn't going to drink.
I'd be like, no, I'm not drinking today.
I'm not drinking today.
I'm not drinking today.
About noon, I would go to lunch.
I would start feeling better.
Right.
By three o'clock, I'm taking inventory in my head.
Do I go to the liquor store?
Do I go to the bar?
Do I what do I do?
You know.
And by six o'clock that night, I am drinking again.
You know, I just thought that I felt better and changed my mind all those times.
I didn't realize I had to drink because basically that's what alcoholism is.
It's a mental obsession, physical allergy that once I start drinking, you know, when I'm not drinking, I'm thinking about drinking.
In this case, it was like, I'm not drinking.
I'm not drinking.
I'm not drinking.
And then I'll say, maybe I'll drink, you know, so that's the mental obsession part of this thing.
And then once I start drinking, it's like, you know, I just can't have one or two.
I got to have every drink that's that's available to me.
Either I pass out.
You know, physically separated from the alcohol by going to jail or something like that.
Or I just straight up run out.
Those are the only only reasons that would ever stop me from drinking.
So.
So that job I saw you about, I had it for about three years and I ended up getting fired from that job in in May of 2010.
And what happened was we got a new boss and we were all commissioned salespeople.
Right.
And so they'd be like 20 of us standing around every every Monday while a vendor would come in and train us on their latest and greatest.
And I was always hung over and I was always doing this and holding my breath this way.
People didn't smell the booze coming off me, you know.
And so they hired this guy as the executive vice president.
He would come to these sales meetings and then he'd start asking questions about things that went already went into life.
Well, me being restless, irritable and discontented, I told him, I said, you know, that's great.
You have questions, but I don't have time to learn up to put up with your learning curve.
I said, you got those questions.
Ask him when the 20 commission salespeople standing around.
And I walked out.
So then that was like in February.
Then in March, I got a real resentment against him and I called in sick for the whole month.
Right.
And, you know, so I saw him.
I'll show them I'm not going to show up for work.
And I called in sick for a whole month.
And so what happened was in that month I was drinking the way I want to drink.
And so I'm drinking 24 seven.
Right.
Well, I have stomach problems.
And so I got to the point where.
I drank so much that, you know, my, you know, my stomach is, you know, my, my, I, I, every, every time I, every time I try drinking, nothing would go down.
The problem is, is that, that when you, when your esophagus closes down, you can't, you can't breathe because you can't swallow.
You got to clear your lungs somehow.
And so I end up in the hospital.
Now I got a note.
So I go back to work.
I got a note.
Right.
The problem is I was a salesperson.
So in April, my numbers didn't crash.
But in May, my numbers crash.
So that, that executive vice president, I had a problem with.
He ended up firing me.
So then I went home and I drank and I drank and I drank and I drank and I couldn't even get sober enough to go get unemployment.
That's how drunk I was.
The plan that I came up with was to kill myself.
And what that looked like was I was going to go get a rope from the Home Depot.
I was going to hang it from the pipes in my bedroom and I was just going to kill myself.
And I had that plan for quite a few weeks.
You know, the problem was with that plan was the liquor store was always closer than the hardware store.
So I'd be going to the hardware store and I'd pull into the liquor store.
And I, okay.
I'll go home and drink this and then I'll deal with that.
And I ended up, you know, um, you know, so finally it got to the point where I, that same sister in Colorado, the one who, who, who has, who has been a savior to me in a lot of ways.
I called her up and I said, I'm turning it because my mother, my mother drank what she was a binge drinker.
She would be in a bedroom for two, three weeks at a time, just drinking.
And then for another three weeks, she'd be Mary Poppins, you know?
So, but, but, so I was turning is that, so I called my sister up and I, and I tell her, I said, I'm turning it to mom and I'm going to kill myself.
Well, my sister.
My sister knows me well enough to know that I'm not, you know, and anyone here that knows me knows I'm not a drama king.
You know, I'm not one of these people that just tastes shit for the, for the reaction.
She got scared.
She calls the DeKalb County Fire Department, the police department.
I end up in Peachford Hospital.
Anyone here been to Peachford?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, so, so I ended up in Peachford Hospital and I, um, you know, so I go there, you know, and, uh, and, and the, the only thing I really had left was health insurance.
And guess what?
My job.
So I, I, I had the health insurance, you know?
Um.
And, uh, I, so I, I checked into Peachford and then about day four, they came to me and they said, you know, Pierce, you know, we're going to send you home.
And I said, you know, and this, and this was God doing for me what I can't do for myself.
I looked at them and I said, I can't go home.
And they're like, why can't you go home?
I said, because to go home is to drink and to go home is to die.
That's what was going to happen because I still had no solution.
I didn't, you know, I, you know, I knew nothing about staying sober.
I knew nothing about, about, about AA.
I knew nothing.
I just knew that I have to go.
I was going to die.
And so I, um, they, I, so I, so they ended up getting my insurance company to extend a few days and then I ended up going into a halfway house.
And so that halfway house, my sister found it because it was, she knew where I lived and she called on the phone and she spoke to them and she paid the upfront fees and things like that.
So about three weeks into it, the director calls her up and says, oh, I'm just going to give you a report on Pierce.
And, um, so she's like, okay, so he's there.
So he gives the report and says, yeah, he's doing better.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
He says, oh, by the way, it's going to be $5,000 a month for him to stay here.
Right?
So my sister says, well, that's great, but you need to talk to Pierce about that.
You know, she would, you know, she was having no part of that.
And, uh, so me and the director sat down and we talked about a realistic number and it wasn't $5,000 a month.
And what, but what they did was they took me to a lot of meetings.
Um, I remember sitting in the back of this meeting when I was new and I'd sit in the back row and it's the 11 o'clock meeting and people are getting up and getting coffee and walking around.
And one guy's pointing at people, Hey, you need coffee.
And I'm sitting there saying, don't these people realize I'm trying to get sober?
Right?
So I call my sponsor up and I'm bitching about this.
I'm like, you know, you can't believe these people are not sitting down and doing, you know, they're there for coffee.
They're there for every other reason but to get sober.
So he says to me, he says, well, why don't you just change your seat?
That's why it's good having a sponsor.
They have a different view on things.
You know?
So I changed my seat and here I am.
Um, so, you know, so one of the things they did at that halfway house was they made me get a sponsor.
And, you know, and I had a laundry list of what a sponsor should be.
Basically it was, it's got to be somebody that's smart.
And I am, that's gone through things that I haven't gone through that, you know, drank, you know,
there was a situation in the life camp that they didn't drink over that I could, I glossed on to.
So I heard this guy telling his story over, we used to go to preacher house on Wednesday nights
and I heard him telling his story.
And the halfway house had given me pressure because we'd stand around the room every night at 10 o'clock
and they'd be like, Pierce, you got a sponsor?
And I was like, no.
You know?
Then it would, you know, so finally it was like, yes, I got a sponsor just to get them off.
Right?
So this gentleman actually did something very good for me.
And I don't know if anyone here is in a halfway house, but he,
he broke me away from that.
He broke me away from that pack mentality.
He came and he picked me up.
And we sat down behind the church that the home group was meeting in.
And we started working the steps.
We were going through it word by word, the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And, you know, we read where it said read and we wrote where it said wrote
and we prayed where it said prayed.
So then I was on my fourth step.
And I just left that halfway house.
I'm living in a three-quarter house down on Beaufort Highway here
because basically it was, you know,
they say, you know, you need a sufficient substitute for your drinking.
And also, so the halfway house filled in for the sufficient substitute for that while I was there.
But then there were things I wanted to do in AA that the halfway house was interfering with.
So I moved into a three-quarter house.
People in that three-quarter house were doing crazy stuff.
They were getting drunk.
They were doing drugs.
They were being housed there.
There was a lot of things going on.
But I wanted to get sober.
And I came to this meeting.
I came to the Biscayne room.
I came to my home group.
I lived.
AA in the first year. In the first year, people say, oh, go to 90 meetings in 90 days. I probably
went to 1,500 meetings in the first year, if not more. I got involved in my home group.
I was doing service work. I was, you know, at this point, so the sponsor I had, so I'm
in the middle of my fourth step. And so he comes to me sometime, I think it was in December,
I got sober, November or December, and I got sober in June. So I was like four or five
or six months sober, something like that. And he says to me, he says, Pierce, I'm moving.
I'm like, okay, people move. And I think, you know, I got, you know, we got time to
get through this, you know. He goes, no, you don't understand, I'm moving tonight. I'm
like, oh, shit. So what happens is, so I just left the halfway house I was in. I'm living
in a three-quarter house, right? I'm at one of those crossroads in my life where do I
continue what I'm doing or do I say, I got this, I can handle life going forward, right?
So that night, I asked another man to be my sponsor. I really didn't know him very well.
I heard him share from the podium. I liked what he had to say. And probably within three
weeks, I was doing the fifth step at his house with him. And, you know, he's been my sponsor
ever since, you know. And, you know, he met all my requirements and more, except I didn't
know it because, you know. And, you know, and that's the reason why I'm still sober.
You know, it's my network of friends that I have in AA, but more importantly, it's my
sponsor. When I'm, when the, you know what hits the fan, he's the guy I go to.
So here goes a great story about him. So last December, I lost my job again, right? So at this
point, basically, I've been sober now eight, eight and a half years or so. You know, I have things
now. I got a new car. I got a house. I got things like that. You know, my life has gotten better.
So I see my sponsor and I say, you know, I need to go to the psychiatrist and get Xanax. He said,
what do you need to go to the psychiatrist? I said, you know, I got, I think this is anxiety
I have now. I don't know where I got it, but I got anxiety. I learned anxiety from you guys in AA.
So his response is, he goes, why don't you go home and do an inventory, a fear inventory,
right? So I said, okay, I'll give that a shot. So I go home and I start writing, you know,
and you know, I'm like, what is, what is, how's this going to help me? And as I'm writing this,
I'm texting him, you, you SOB, you knew, right? Because that's just it. It's your sponsor knows
better than you do. Basically, my, my solution was to get a chemical, you know, enhancer,
which would have been Xanax or something like that. And I'd be popping up and I'd be like,
right now, as I'm speaking to you guys, um, but like, yeah, everything's good. Life's wonderful.
You know, yeah, just chill out, man. So, so, you know, and then, you know, so now I got, so,
so I did that. I got through it. And it was funny because, you know, the fear wasn't losing what I,
you know, the fear wasn't, you know, the fear of what I figured out the fear was,
it was a fear of losing what I have, which is a totally different fear than I came in here with.
Well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't
know. But, you know, what I did was pay my rent when I got here, you know, now I'm afraid of
losing stuff. So we got through that. And then, you know, then I started doing a job search this
year, you know, and, and it was humbling, you know, um, I, I work, I work in sales. I work in,
you know, in, in, in medical sales, dentistry to be exact. And, and I've had quite a few jobs in
that. And so I'm interviewing with all these companies and, you know, um, the first interview,
the second interview, but then I never hear back. Like I have one company flying me to California
interview me, fly me back home, put me up in a hotel,
and I still haven't heard from him.
You know?
So, you know, and, you know, here's a humbling experience.
So, when I was living in Colorado, I picked up a felony along the way.
Right?
So I decided, okay, I need some income coming in.
So I apply to Uber.
Uber, I'm driving my own car.
I'm an independent contractor.
So they run a background check on me, right?
And it wasn't all the DUIs they were concerned about.
They were concerned about that felony from 1993.
I'm like, what's, you know, so I can't even get a job where I'm an independent contractor.
So this is how God works in my life.
So about three years ago, I left a company to go work at another company.
And my old boss calls me up, and he says, Pierce, you know,
he goes, I don't know what you're doing now, you know,
and I didn't tell him what I was doing.
So he says, you know, I have a job, and, you know,
the company you worked for three years ago is a different company now.
It's a software company.
He goes, I think you'd be good at it.
You know, would you want to?
Come talk to me about it.
So I said, so he's there.
You know, can you come in on Thursday?
I said, how about Tuesday?
Because it's like on Monday.
I'm like, yeah, I can get in tomorrow.
I'll clear my calendar for you.
You know?
So I, you know, so I met with him.
I met with the team leader.
You know, we sat down.
You know, we came to an agreement.
And, you know, and I've been there ever since.
So, you know, that's how God works in my life, basically,
is because I got to the point where I was, you know, just praying to God,
please, please, please, please, please.
I was begging.
I was like, get me something.
Here comes this just totally out of left field.
That's how God works in my life.
I see God in the rearview mirror.
God doesn't talk to me directly.
He talks to me through you guys.
He talks to me through old bosses calling me up saying,
Pierce, I have no idea what you're doing,
but I think you're going to be good at this.
You know, that's how God works in my life today.
You know, I, you know, so, so, you know,
I've had bottoms in sobriety.
You know, I've had, you know, and that was one of them, you know.
And, you know, but no matter what was, I never drank.
It wasn't, you know, I, you know, you know,
when I was first getting sober, you know,
my goal was just not to drink.
Like, here goes another story where my home group,
we used to have, go have a meeting,
a big meeting on Saturday nights.
We have a speaker meeting.
And then we'd go have pizza.
And then we'd go bowling.
Well, so, this is a hot, a July day like today.
It was hot, you know.
So, and I have, you know, I'm sober now over a year.
So, I go, so I go walking into the bowling alley, right?
And all these guys,
my home group are there, right?
And I walk in.
The only thing I can focus on is those big cauldrons of beer they have.
You know, you know, that they serve in bowling alleys, right?
The bubbles are going up.
The condensation is going down.
I get the obsession to drink, right?
So, it's like, okay, this is not a good thing right now.
This is God doing with me what I can't do myself.
At least he put me surrounded by people that weren't going to let me drink.
So, I go to this guy, Steve R.
And I said, Steve, I want to drink.
And he goes, yeah, we all do.
Steve was sober 17 years at this point, you know.
It's like, what do you mean we all do?
And, you know, he thought I meant, you know,
so he didn't realize I wanted to drink at that point.
So, then he starts teasing me.
He's like, watch, they're not going to finish it.
Sure enough, they didn't finish that cauldron, you know.
Then he's like, you know, if we were all drinking,
we'd have one cauldron each lined up for us.
I'm like, son of a bitch, right?
You know, so then, so what happened was I stayed out.
And, you know, I stayed out late enough where I, you know,
I could not buy any alcohol.
I was, you know, so I, the next morning I got up and I called my sponsor.
And I said, you know, I said, I said, I'm doing A, B, C, D, and E.
And, you know, his response was, he says, Pierce, that's all great.
He says, what are you doing in step six, step seven, and step 11?
God was nowhere in my program at that point.
I was busy, you know, involved in the fellowship.
I was busy involved in the actions.
But I wasn't busy in the part with God.
And so, since that time, I've had a better relationship with God
because basically as I invited him into my life.
And that's, you know, that's the miracle of this program.
Was that, A, that I didn't, I didn't back down that impulse
because if I would have drank that night, I'd probably be dead right now.
And I didn't.
And then I had the fortitude to basically call my sponsor up the next morning
because it would, you know, and I'm still talking about it
because it still bothers me the reaction I had to it.
I wasn't expecting it.
It was just, you know, I'm sober a year.
Well, you know, and it just came out of left field.
It was like, you know, I was just at an AA meeting.
I just had pizza with you guys.
And here I am thinking about drinking.
How does that happen?
And, you know, I have one white chip.
I was 48 years old when I got here, you know, and I'm proud of that.
I am, you know, basically was, you know, but I did a lot of my, my, my, you know,
I didn't come in when I was 20.
I didn't come in when I was 30.
I didn't come in when I was in my early 40s.
I finally got my ass kicked enough where I showed up when I was 48 years old
when basically I had the desperation of a dying man because I was dying.
That was the solution I had was to kill myself.
And, you know, I, I really, you know, enjoy, you know, the life I have today.
You know, it's, it's not a perfect.
It's not a perfect life, but it's a better life than I've ever had.
And with that, thank you all so much and have a good night.
Thank you so much for your, for your, your share tonight and for, uh,
and then talking about steps six, seven, and 11 reminded me of, uh,
reminded me of this, uh, message that I heard like a speaker tape from Sandy.
Some people may know when he said, uh, you know, the chapter we agnostics,
we can sum it up in three words, change your mind.
Okay.
I was a child
Things moved out of my way
Running so fast and wild
Half the time
It's almost up to me
Found a way
To blot it out
Blind as I could be
Every time I got it going on
Knocked back down the stairs
What's the use in hiding now
Stop to realize
Stop the big debate
Stop the big debate
Stop the big debate
Stop the criticize
Love has got the power
There's nothing more you need inside
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender to the Lord
Surrender to the Lord
Surrender to the Lord
Sprout
Sprout
Sprout
Sprout
Sprout
Sprout
Sprout
Sprout
Sprout
Sprout
Sprout
Sprout
Find yourself somebody
Don't be all alone
Arm in arm we walk along
Love will carry the load
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender to the love
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender to the love
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender
Surrender
© transcript Emily Beynon
© transcript Emily Beynon
© transcript Emily Beynon