Sober at Twenty-Two — the Old-Timers in That Basement Taught Me Checkbooks, Amends, and How to Grow Up – Greg C.

My name is Greg and I'm an alcoholic. I've got to come down here tonight with my dad. So am I telling your story tonight or my story tonight? We're friends nowadays when, you know, when I was young, we were on the best of terms. We've come a long way with that and it's been through a lot together. So I'm glad to have you as a friend, as a father to travel with and do things with. Today we got to do some plumbing. I got to put a sink in his house and we got it through in first try. Miracles never cease. That's a part of being a service, helping somebody that needs some help and being there for somebody in recovery and our family. You know, because Bob, a big part of my recovery is I got sober so that I could be there for my family. That was a part of it. They were there for me, you know, when I was young and when I was strung out on alcohol and other things and now I'm able to be there for him. And I can say that none of my nieces and nephews ever saw me drink and they're having kids now and they never saw me drink. Let's see, let's start it. My name is Greg. I'm an alcoholic. I am 67 years old. Started drinking when I was 13. Son of an alcoholic that's in recovery that's been sober 48 years. I found out about recovery because he left a big book sitting on the coffee table at home and I picked it up and I picked it up and started reading it and I threw it down on the table and said, this is something that she's going to start trying to tell me how to live. And I moved out the next day. Proceeded to bottom out in three years. I was full fledged from 18 to 22. I was white. I'm a grandson of an alcoholic on my own who was also violent. I've got it in my blood. I come by it honest. But I also was introduced to recovery at a relatively young age and for some reason or another in 1981 after trying to quit drinking on my own, I'd already been trying to quit drinking by 22 for three years, you know, and I could quit for a day or a few days, but you know, I'll pick up another drink. And be right back in the blackouts. I disappeared in Athens, Georgia one time. A friend of mine loaned me her car and I showed back up four days later. Don't remember any of it. And her car was in one piece, thank God, but I have absolutely no recollection of it. The last night that I drank, I had not been drinking for a little while and went to spend some time with some friends and picked up a drink. Woke up 30 miles from the last drink. I was in a car and I was in a car in the last place I remember being in a hotel room and literally had to go out and number one, see if my truck was out in the parking lot and number two, do a walk around around it to see if it was in one piece or if I killed somebody or something or wrecked it because I had no recollection from the time I picked up that first drink to the next morning when I woke up in that hotel room. That day I was feeling really, really bad and I actually decided maybe I need some help. So I called home to see if I could find out where one of those meetings was because I had actually been to a meeting. He invited me to come to his birthday. I think it was his second birthday. And I went and I was loaded. I was drunk and I gave him this medallion. It's that storefront on Bible Avenue. So I knew that there was another way. So I called home and he was out of town on the road working. But my mother-in-law was out of town on the road working. My mother knew where a meeting was. So she sent me down to that meeting. There's almost this many people in there. I was 22 and everybody else was in their 50s to 70s. The smoke was down to here because back then you could still smoke. It was in a meeting. It was in the basement of a church. This was early 80s. So I was bottoming out in the 70s when everything was prevalent. I went to this meeting and they welcomed me in there. And after the meeting, I asked this, there was one guy that was in his 30s. And I was like, did you ever smoke? He's like, yeah. I was like, did you ever try and quit drinking and keep smoking? He said, yeah. I said, what happened? He said, I got drunk. I was like, damn it. And then I went outside and this older man that was actually my dad's sponsor at one point in time, Roland Chester, sat me down on a swing outside the church after the meeting. We started talking. He said, boy, are you cross addicted? I'm like, what does that mean? He says, were you drinking and doing drugs? So I rattled off the list of drugs I'd done in the last month. You qualify for being here, but you might need to know about this other meeting going on that just started here called the NA. So he sent me over there. So I've been going to both for 45 years now. Both fellowships saved my life. But tonight I'm in an AA meeting and that's what we're here to talk about. But that's a part of my story. And that's how I'm still alive. It's a combination that it took to work for me. So in 1981 in Megan, Georgia, I started going to meetings. That man that sat me down recommended that I go to a meeting every day. My dad got back in town that week and we sat down and talked and he's like, I've got three recommendations that helped me stay sober. One is go to 90 meetings in 90 days. Two is try and find a sponsor, somebody that you can talk to. That can help guide you through the steps. And number three, I ain't it. You know, I can't do it because that ain't going to work. And I knew that wasn't going to work. So I started going to meetings every day. I was fortunate. I still had a job. I still had a roof over my head. But when I picked up alcohol, I lost my mind. People and Alcoholics Anonymous basically raised me when, you know, when I got here. I had no idea how to handle money. I had no idea how to take care of my spiritual life. I had no idea how to take care of my physical life, to fix food for myself or anything else. I had no idea what a bank account was and how to do those things. So what did they do? After when I first got there, they was like, well, you need to get involved. So it's like, go pick up those ashtrays after the meeting and empty them, wash them. They were nasty. And clean up the coffee pots, wash the cups. Keep coming. Show up next week and do it again. They got me involved right from the beginning. And that helped. And then in about nine months, they were like, well, you've been opening up and helping do a meeting. You need to be the treasurer of the group. I was like, I don't even know how to go to the bank. They were like, well, here's this woman's name. Go down to the bank. Here's the signature. Here's your card. Fill this out and show it to her and ask her if she'll teach you how to balance the checkbook. So I went down and did it. And she taught me how to balance the checkbook. And before it was over with, I was treasurer of the state at one point in time. Did groups, areas, all the way up through the service structure. That was a part of staying sober. The people here helped me learn the life skills that I needed. First, they helped me learn how to stay sober. Then they gave me these steps to work through to start clearing up the wreckage of my past and set a game plan to move forward to have an incredible life. If you had asked me when I walked in here what my life was going to be like, I would have went, I don't know. I'll probably have a couple of kids. I didn't have any kids, but I wound up. I was an incredible wife. I was married once for a few years, but then I married a second time. I've been married 30 years now in recovery. Met her in a meet. We still go to meetings. We still go together sometimes. Usually we go to different ones so we can work on ourselves so that when we're back together, we can be together. We travel and go to conventions. Sometimes we'll go with Daddy. Sometimes we'll go by ourselves. We travel around the country. Our spiritual journey is very similar. This summer, we'll start in Georgia and go to Maryland and Indiana and North Dakota and possibly down to Nebraska. Then I'll go to South Dakota in the middle of all that for part of our spiritual path that works for us. Early on, I asked this man to sponsor me. I started working with him through the steps. I've always had a real hard time writing anything. I sat down with him and we would sit down, and I would write it and read it to him right then. He took the time to teach me how to work steps. The growth from that for me. When I got here, it was pretty easy to do the first step that was powerless over alcohol because I had been trying to quit for several years on my own. The part that I had a problem with was coming to believe that a power greater than myself could be restore me to sanity I've been insane for a while I've been living real crazy for a while and had lost a concept of the God of my understanding by then then after a while of reading the big book and spending time with a sponsor and listening to people in meetings share their life experience with how they came to find the God of their understanding and power greater themselves I finally started developing one and the very beginning the closest I could get was the people in the meeting because they were collectively doing what I hadn't been able to do on my own which was stay sober one day at a time and it continued to evolve from that and I had a couple of close friends in recovery that encouraged me to explore different avenues of spirituality and connecting with God I was raised southern baptist and that just didn't work real well for me at that point in time there were some things that happened that that just didn't work but I was able to hear what these people suggested and started finding different spiritual traditions to explore until I found one that works for me that's been probably 38 years now that I've followed the spiritual path that I follow pretty amazing I've seen some amazing miracles and I've seen some amazing miracles and seen a lot of the country doing it because I travel a lot I go out and help sing for ceremonies and help lead ceremonies it's a lot of fun a lot of hard work but I've gotten a lot of blessings from it it's been a big part of my life and a big part of my my wife's life we had a house full of people this past week by listening to what the people had to say that allowed me to make a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understood I had to find my own understanding first and that took a while and that's okay i didn't have these steps when i got here so i got till i'm gone to keep working on them and that's all right at that point my sponsor encouraged me to start working on the fourth step look at the good parts of my life the bad parts of my life the people i'd hurt and all that and make that moral inventory i finally did that that took a while to even get willing to do it it took a while and then to do it took longer and that was all right you know i was still going to meetings on a regular basis one thing that i've found through these years in aa is that if you go to meetings on a regular basis you can stay sober no matter what and so that's what i tried to do go to meetings and i've done that successfully for a long time you it's ingrained now that when something tragic in my life happens or something makes me really angry or i get out of sorts the first thing i do is go to a meeting or call somebody that i'm close to from meetings until i can get to a meeting and that helps me stay on a center path instead of falling off the mountain so after i finally got the steps written up written i took some time i've gotten the four separate i took some time and then sat down and went over the fifth step that was hard i'm not gonna lie to you it's it's hard to sit down and tell somebody some of the things that i had to tell them the cool thing was is that usually the things that were really hard they start laughing to go yeah i did that you know or tell me about something that they had had to go through that they were scared to write about and talk about so it wasn't as bad as i had built it up in my head to be it was a lot he put me at ease and helped me through the hard parts and i'll forever be grateful for that then at that point it was time to do some praying to ask god to help me remove all those defects and to spend time getting willing to let go of those defects that's a process too i'm still working on that one it will be from now on but that's all right but then i got willing to ask god to help me remove those shortcomings at that point it was time for me to make a list of people that i'd harmed it wasn't a short list yeah the scroll would just keep going but by doing that and making that list it's funny when i got willing to do the list the people that i needed to make the amends to started showing up in my life that i hadn't seen in years that's magical part of AA that i don't have any understanding of you know it's like okay well i guess it's time to do this because there they are and i hadn't seen them in seven years that was a powerful part of my recovery it changed my outlook on the steps when i started making some of those amends and some of the people didn't want to hear it and that's okay i did my part i wrote about it and i tried to address it and others like very receptive and very forgiving and willing to give me another chance in a relationship in their life my favorite step nowadays is the 10th step taking that personal inventory on a daily basis and helping me it's like my thermometer of where i'm at on any given day some days i do pretty good at managing my character defects some days i have a bad day and i'm a jerk to anybody and everybody around me just because you have a bad day and you don't have a problem you don't have a problem at all and i need you to help me you're the one that can make me happy you know and you're helping me and you're helping me now that i've learned how to do it sometimes i'm a little rough around the edges it's not nearly as bad as it used to be it's a lot more balanced i'm grateful for that because that allows me to be in a relationship 30 years with my wife number one That's something that I have incorporated into my daily life. I have a set pattern of things that I do first thing in the morning, and that's a part of it. And I really feel like, to God, my understanding has guided me and given me a lot of direction since I came into these rooms. I've had multiple careers. When I first got here, I was working in a factory and then started working in a treatment center down in Macon and moved to Atlanta and worked at a treatment center and several treatment centers. And then went to massage therapy school and was a massage therapist professionally for 20 years. And then standing in a line at a barbecue shack, talking to a firefighter, and I had a fireman in front of me in Pauling County 25 years ago about his career. And it sounded interesting. And I was like, well, how'd you get into it? And he said, well, I started volunteering there. And they still had volunteers, so I went and started volunteering and decided I liked it and went to EMT school and firefighting school and then decided that I really liked it and started putting applications to get a professional job and wound up working with the fire department. I've been in the fire department up in Cherokee County for 15 years on fire trucks and ambulances. Most of my career, I was in some sort of a helping profession, which is a good thing, but it also has consequences. I had to go and deal with some of the things that you deal with there. It leads to some traumatic experiences. So I went and did several years of therapy with this woman that was amazing. Helped me look at issues in my life that even going through the steps I'd missed or had to do something. I dug deep enough into, she understood recovery and I truly believe that she helped save my life because there was a couple of times that I was having really hard times and wasn't getting quite everything that I needed from the rooms. And she helped me make some changes that helped save my life. Helped me not pick up that first drink one more day and continue to grow. I'm actually 80s now and I got to go see her a couple of weeks ago. So I spent some time with her and that was a lot of fun. So the 12th step is having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. We tried to carry this message to alcoholics and practice these principles in all our affairs. From early on, my dad and other people started taking me on 12-step calls. So I was introduced to that very young in recovery. That's an important part of AA. We keep what we have by giving it away. And that can be as easy as... Greeting somebody when they come in the door and making them feel comfortable. To go in. If you're ever going to go take a call, take somebody with you. I made the mistake one time of going by myself. I'd already been up for about 18 hours when I got on the call. And it's somebody that I knew from meetings, but they were having a hard time. I dozed off on his sofa and woke up to a house full of smoke. Got loaded while I dozed off and dropped a cigarette on the sofa and it started burning. And I almost lost my life that night. I woke up and was able to get him and me out of there. When they say going 12-step calls with a partner, things like that make you think about going by yourself. It's like, let's go take somebody with us. If you're wondering if AA is for you, like I did when I got here, the best thing I can say is give it a chance. Try going to a meeting every day for a while. Try spending time in the big book, reading the big book. Get a sponsor to spend time with. If those things don't work, that bottle will still be out there in three months, six months, nine months. But give yourself a fighting chance. You know, that's what they encouraged me to do, was to make 90 and 90 to try and give myself a fighting chance. And for some reason for me that day, it worked. You know, I walked in that first meeting. They made me feel a part of. They brought me a cup of coffee because I was a little bit shaky. And it was that 12 and 12 group down in the basement of the church in Megan. And they were sitting around the table, so I had a spot to sit in my coffee. So I'm really grateful that y'all asked me to be down here. I know that AA has helped save my life and a lot of my friends' and family's life. If I can ever do anything for any one of you, please let me know, because it's all about each one of us helping the other ones not drink today. As long as... I have somebody to continue to do that with, then I'll continue getting just a little bit stronger and a little bit further away from that last drink. After all these years, I've seen a lot of people come and go. 99.9% of the people that go back out drinking are the ones that come around and then quit coming. You know, every once in a while you'll get one that's constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. I've seen people come to meetings on a regular basis and has some other issue or something that keeps them from staying sober, but my experience is that's very, very rare. If you're willing to come to meetings on a regular basis, change your playmates and playgrounds... It's kind of hard to do it sitting in a bar, but if you change your playmates and playgrounds and come to meetings on a regular basis and interact with the people here, my experience was... I had a fighting chance. And I was a kid, you know, I was 22 when I got here. They gave me a safe place to be and a safe place to grow up and mature and now to grow older. It's still a safe place for me. I still have a home group that I go to on a regular basis and still have a spiritual life that I go to and participate in on a regular basis. For that, I'm grateful because it's given me a way of life that's just unbelievable. I was 85 when we got to go to a world convention in Montreal. 84, 85, something. Mid to early 80s, when I was drinking, I never got to go out of country. Number one, I didn't have the money to go because I was spending my money on drinking and other things. And number two, I wasn't going to go that far away from some of my connections. And number three, I probably couldn't have gotten across the border. So I got to do that. The first couple of years that I was in recovery, I got to go on a trip to Mexico with some people in recovery. I got to go on a trip to Mexico with some people in recovery. And have an amazing experience. I've gotten to go to Europe and travel several times now, plus all over the United States. All those things. And I've made meetings all over. I've made meetings in Mexico, Canada, Europe, South Dakota. There's really people there. Not many, but there's some there and there are some AA meetings there. Nebraska, it's a lot of fun. I enjoy recovery. I enjoy life. And have a lot of fun. And I cut up and tease with people a lot. And that is a blessing. When I was 20, I never thought I'd see 30. I made it way past that already. So I'm grateful. Love y'all. Thank you for letting me share.