The Saturday Afternoon Big Book Meeting – Bobby C.

hello my name is Bobby and I'm an alcoholic through the grace of God and sponsorship in the 12 steps I've been sober since June 2nd of 1988 for that I'm grateful I always add silver my neighbors they're very grateful I'm sober I do have a home group it is to Franklin town group about walks anonymous that's like in ben franklin uh we meet at 2044 fairmount avenue we're right across the street from the eastern state penitentiary on wednesday nights at 6 30 we do a speaker meeting on saturday afternoon at 5 30 we'd do a big book meeting and sunday mornings at 9 30 we do a step meeting with the last sunday of the month being the tradition and god forbid if we ever get back to normal whatever normal is if you're ever in a neighborhood please stop by i thank carl for inviting me to participate it's always an honor towards the end of my drinking the only time i was invited i was invitee to leave i wasn't invited anywhere else and uh so but it's a privilege to participate so i have about 40 minutes or so to share in a general way what my life was like as an alcoholic what happened to be and what my is like today as an active member of alcoholics anonymous and uh i kind of usually have like like the same talk usually what what it was like what happened and the only difference usually from my experience is like what's it like now and these been a crazy crazy eight months for me so but uh just let me qualify quickly because i really just like to focus on what's going on now so born and raised in Philly I'm one of eight seven siblings you know there was eight of us in the ten-and-a-half year span I have a sister who is 11 months older than me I am 11 months older my next sister my mother being pregnant for almost 11 years didn't drink she abused prescription medication my father who never had a had drank in his life, didn't have any booze in the house. His parents, my paternal grandparents lived about a corner from us and that's where I had the first drink. I was just a kid when I had that first drink, I didn't get drunk. It was just running around the basement bar polishing off the AFMTs. My drinking really took off in high school. I only drank on the weekends and that's for one reason only. I wasn't allowed out on school nights and I'm sure if I was allowed out on school nights i would have drank them too but i drank on the weekends i i went to an exclusive private uh jesuit high school uh for boys uh i felt um me and just a couple of kids from my neighborhood went there there was about eight of us like through the four years a lot of these kids this school was in the inner city we used to walk to the school so right away we had a reputation from the kids from the suburbs and you know i did a lot of crazy things just because to cover up my own inadequacies my own fears you know and one of them was like just acting like an idiot you know um and that's what i did you know that that's where i probably first start like uh being an actor you know uh we thought we were tough guys we weren't we were just, we just took advantage of the kids in the suburbs being naive. You know, I tell people we saw football poles and if you hit we wouldn't pay off and they kept coming back buying them. If you want to buy a particular substance, we sold you a substitute substance. They kept coming Back and buying from us. I mean, we went through more oregano than a pizzeria. And, you know, we thought we were gangsters. We're idiots and nothing gangsterish about it you know we just you know bullies and it's amazing because i always went through life not like them always but if i'm being honest with myself that's what i was during that time so when it came time to graduate from the prep i really had no desire to further my education and i knew that would cause some problems at home because my parents didn't have much both sets of my grandparents were immigrants and so my parents knew one of the ways to was to make it in this country by his education so they made a great deal sacrifice to provide this quality education for my siblings and i with the expectation we would further it i had no desire to going on to college and so the only option i thought available to me was the military i enlisted in the air force and not to talk politics i just wanted to set the scene real quick jimmy carter was the president uh even though the war in vietnam had been over for several years to fighting um you know at jimny and one is actually his first day in office after he got inaugurated the first thing he did he would he parted the draft dodgers and the military wasn't popular at all uh but you know that that was the only place i was 17 years old i thought that was the only price i could go you know i mean i went from high school we would then went down senior week when you go down to jersey shore so i went to wildwood for a week and like two days after senior week i was in basic training and uh you know after all my training i get some overseas and that's what my drinking really took off i mean i never messed around with all the substances i never even smoked a joint uh but you know and and even though i only drank on the weekends in high school but i you know i i drank enough to numb the pain and there were a lot of things that went on in the house that we just don't tell people you know again part of being the actor you know the house could be on fire standing outside and say how's it going it's not it's going all right top it you know because we just don't you know people want to talk about the irish you know not talking about our feelings but in my family my neighborhood no one talks about nothing it's all surface stuff you know and in my house once you moved out of the house whether you went away to school or you get married you were no longer privy to the secrets of the family everything stayed within the walls of the House and everything stayed inside you you. And that would be how I would, I would say handle things, but I really didn't handle why did you just stuff things? So I was overseas, there was a training accident in which three of the guys there was there was A group of us and three of the Guys in our group were killed. And I don't know how to handle that. You know, and even though in retrospect, I realize now that there was opportunities to, you know, address this grief. But, you know, you just don't do it. And so I just drank, you know, when I was on duty, I did my job and when I was off duty, I got loaded, you know, my enlistment was up and why came home and then I finished stateside of my list moves up. I took a couple civil service exams, I enrolled in school, I went to St. Joe's, it was like the feeder school uh jesuit university in philadelphia i went to st joe's prep so it was the feeder school for the college just went to saint joeís 15 20 kids in the classroom tops same thing not making the dean's list but not failing that either just doing the bare minimum effort required to get by and uh you know uh i was okay with that like mediocrity was my goal like i really didn't want any attention, good attention, bad attention. I just really hope I didn't get noticed. I just wanted to do enough work to keep the heat off my back and then when I wasn't getting noted all the other times. One of those civil service exams kind of panned out. I got a job with the city and the same thing trying to reinvent myself. I lied about everything. You may find this hard to believe. I even lied about my ethnic heritage. Now, one look at me, you can tell I'm as Irish as Patty's pig. Eight days a week, there's no denying it, right? Well, in my neighborhood, we had a lot of social clubs from the different ethnic groups. And my experience with social clubs and veterans posts, they really just tend to be speakeasies, places to go to drink when the bars are closed. So we have one in my neighborhood, the Ukrainian American Social Club, the Yuki Club. and i was in there one day and drinking and i wasn't questioned and but for some reason i kept i was compelled to tell the bartender that my mother was ukrainian don't know why i just needed to do that and i know you can laugh at that but it really kind of pathetic because like i had no sense of reality you know and always constantly reinventing myself and you know because i didn't think you would like me for who i was you know and so i give it another thought a few weeks later my brother brian and i we're going to at the up club as soon as we go in the bartender says ah it's poppy the hooky my brother's head snapped so quickly so what the hell did you tell this guy i said i don't know if they've ever seen him before but you know because being a liar you need to have a great memory what did i say last time it's just nuts you know and um you know and drinking was just a way of life for me and the handwriting was on the wall i was at work one day and my immediate supervisor pulled me off to the side and he said you know what kid he said that that booze that's going to mess you up in one ear and out the other i'm at a family function one night my uncle was there he was the boss on this job and he pulled me off to the side he said bobby i'm hearing stories about you in one ear and out the other after i got sober on two separate occasions i ran into my uncle and that supervisor in the rooms of alcoholics anonymous and i realized at that point that they were trying to 12-step me and i remember going out to my uncle jimmy's your walk how come you didn't tell me and he just gave me one of them old timer smiles and said bobbie you just weren't ready yet we just show goes you showing it all the drinking and all the nonsense that with them were necessary for me to hit my bottom you know and uh the the bottom i hit quickly you know i was uh you know it's it just got ugly quickly uh i i was a there was a situation um and one thing led another and i thought uh i needed to do other substances and my use of other substances is very short 15 16 months if that and uh and i would never do this like i mean i started like i would drink on the job i would ever do this i was squared away and i wouldn't you know make stories up well i need to like maintain some sort of illusions people don't know who i am so that's how you justify drinking and i worked with men and women who did the same type of work and they did the job without drinking and then one night because i was so my judgment was so impaired by alcohol i was put in a position where i thought i needed to do other substances and now you want to do another substances i mean at this point i never even smoked a joint and i had a i had preconceived notion about those who did drugs as a man but that's where alcohol took me you know it was a memorial day weekend 1988 Guys I worked with, we were in trouble. We wanted to get our story straight. Turned one thing into another, just another drinking nightmare. And this one guy, he needed to go home, so I gave him a ride home. And, you know, and the kid riding towards me on the bicycle decided he was going to play chicken with this kid. I don't know why. I'm just an arrogant guy. I'm always showing off. So I want to show off my driving skills. And, unfortunately, at the last second, I ran this kid over. and as he lied bleeding on the hood of my car i got out of my cart and i was going to like assault this kid like i thought he was like going to milk me or you know at the city for an insurance claim and i took this kid off the hood in my car through us i threw him all the side of street like a piece of trash pulled his grumble bicycle from underneath my car like a peace of trash and drove back to the bar made some sort of smart awkward mark and i continued on drinking When I came to the next day, I realized I was in serious trouble, but I didn't think anybody would help me because I'm such a creep. And believe me, I'm a creep in all areas of my life. So I need to tell you a little before this, not much more than a month or so maybe, I'm reading this at the Daily News and at the end of the article there's a series of questions. problems drug problems marital problems depression thoughts of suicide and I was like four out of five because I was single and I'm sure if I was married I've been batting a thousand they talk about the moment of clarity as soon as it came it quickly left so I stopped I cut that out and I stuck in my wallet continued on drinking no more so fast forward a month later Memorial Day weekend of 88 you know I run this kid over so the next day I come to and I realized I was in serious trouble. But no one would help me because I was such a creep, you know. And so what I did, I checked in the hotel with some alcohol and some other substances with the courage for the attempt to build up the courage in my life. I guess I only have money for a couple days because a few days later they're not going to do it to kick me out. You know, I wanted that in my life. And I walked over to the window and I opened up the window and i want to jump out the window that's my life and i opened up the window i was on the fifth floor and i was scared of heights you know and uh you know it's amazing because and you know i just i i just had this fear of heights and so i went in the bathroom and i filled the bathtub with water and a blow dryer i was going to pull the blow dryer into the tub to make it appear an accidental electrocution. I mean, how you accidentally electrocute yourself with a blow dryer in a tub, I have no idea, but that was my, it just shows you how, you know, just unraveled while I was coming. And every time I would pull the blow dryer it would come unplugged. So I got one foot and then lean and trying to plug it in and that didn't work. So the only other tool that I had left was my car. So I took one last sprint through my neighborhood and I wanted to see where I went to grade school, St. Francis Xavier. Wanted to see the corner I hung on 21st and Parish and you know, I want to get all these sites and I start up at the Falls Bridge, I come down East River Drive which is a widening road along the Schuylkill River and with the intent of going to oncoming traffic because I knew that would do the trick and this was like at midweek, it had to be either Wednesday, it was a couple days into Memorial Day So it was either Wednesday or Thursday, whatever. And it was like late morning, 11-ish or so, because if it were any other time, I probably would have succeeded because this is a heavily traveled road, you know? And the speed limit is probably 25 and I'm probably doing 50 and I've cooked them out of my mind. And I would realize later that I really couldn't go into oncoming traffic. Now, that's not me thinking at the time. This is what I would later find out would be God because I just wanted to end my pain if I hurt someone else, so be it. But I realized God intervened and knew that I could not inflict that type of damage on an innocent family. So I figured I'd wrap myself around one of these trees. These trees tend not to move. Actually, if you catch the tree right, you could split the vehicle in half. And then I'm surprised I didn't get into an accident by accident because I had no control. At the end of East River Drive is Boathouse Row, And I threw my car up on the sidewalk and I just cried like a baby for 10 minutes or so. And in my glove box was a wallet. And inside that wallet was that article that had cut down the daily news, you know, maybe a month before. And this is no longer there. But at the end of the boat house, this boat house is one of these old glass enclosed phone booths. And I went over and I dialed that phone number up. And the woman who answered the phone, I spoke to this lady like I spoke to no one in my life before. I told her the truth. I told him everything was going on in my sad, miserable life. And God bless her, she listened patiently. You know, and when I got done, and I was, like, crying. I was just really a mess. She said, listen, why don't you drive over to Hahnemann Hospital? They'll talk to you. And it was about a five-minute drive. I drove over. They admitted me to their 10th floor psychiatric unit. They kept me there about two or three days, got me kind of stabilized. From there I was transferred to the VA hospital out in West Philadelphia. And I spent about four to six weeks in our flight deck. And from there I got transferred to VA hospital in Coatesville where I would spend another few weeks in their flight deck before I got put into the alcohol and drug ward. When I pulled over that day and made that phone call, Alcoholics Anonymous was the furthest thing from my mind. I didn't think I had a problem with alcohol. I thought maybe it's the short use of all the substances. If I let that crap alone, I'd be okay. Maybe I got this mental illness and I heard this from my mother. Maybe I've got this stress disorder. I got these from the service. I got those from the job. Maybe it's a neighborhood I live in. Maybe it is the fact that I'm a mummer. I don't know, but it can't be alcohol because I am a beer drinker and there's no way you could be an alcoholic drinking beer. I mean, the only time I drank hard liquor was like on St. Paddy's Day or new year's day or payday but i was a beer drinker and beer really doesn't even count as alcohol you know in my head so when i finally got into the alcohol and drug ward at the va it was the first time about maybe eight weeks there's handles on both sides of the door and it's amazing how quickly the arrogance comes back into a guy like me so i gotta scout the layla land and i wander into the day room and up in the day room they have the large window shades on the of the steps 12 steps and the 12 traditions on the wall and as it drew those steps i have about half of them done cd men's they're screwed that's not happening that's my neighborhood no man said that's a sign of weakness that will definitely not be happening and later that night two men came up and they were i would later find out that they reported a treatment facility committee i didn't know that then and the moment that that speaker said something about his background that i didn't like couldn't identify with or didn't relate to i would immediately tune them out i was too busy listening to the messenger and not the message and i started looking around the the community and realized the decision to do something about my drinking was premature i mean christy guys were 30s and 40s there may have been someone in their 50s i said oh my god what am i doing here there's older guys guys talked about how their wives hated them support issues kids you know i had no they just never married no children you know i'm looking for the differences and not the similarities but what bothered me the most was at the end of the meeting when everyone got in a circle and held hands and said the lord's prayer i now know what and i'm sure that this is what the chairperson said he said for those who care to join but because of my misdirected resentment against organized religion i could not hear that and i hated god and i hate god for a lot of different reasons and in my sick mind they we're all justified. And but one of the reasons I hated God the most is my mom had a mental illness and we never know what the diagnosis was, because we didn't talk about that stuff. I guess having eight children in 11 and almost 11 years may have something to do with that postpartum depression. But we're not talking about that, you know, the silver, we were all born in either the 50s or 60s. So parents aren't talking about that. So when I was a kid, my mom's hospitalized a lot. My father said it was all serious. We will later find out it was for psych issues, you know, and she was in the charismatic moment. She thought she could speak in tongues and things like that. Long story short, I was 15 years old, I came home from school one day. I'm in around the house 1015 minutes, I go down to the basement for something I figured what I found my mother she had to let her rest and i remember she looked up me she said bobby help me and i looked down and i said good for you and i walked out of the house and i got an older guy to go to the state store to get a bottle and i came home later that night my father told me what happened i acted surprised so yeah how about that so that happened when i was 15 i got sober when i was 27 that's 12 years of resentment towards god and it'd be a few more years before i would even address this issue so i'm not holding hands and i'm not saying any prayers but i couldn't even respect your right to pray like i would kick the chair i made noise i would let you know that i was uncomfortable you know and the nurse came up to me the night before i got discharged and she had to be a member of al-anon she was just a beautiful lady who saw through all my bullshit excuse me all through my nonsense and that's what it was it was just like a defense mechanism that or keep people's arms off the way she said you need to go to alcoholics anonymous and i need to tell you that's the best piece of advice i would get and that's where i would my recovery i got it in aaa i didn't get it at the va hospital but the va house well they did tremendous work they drain the oil they tighten the bolts i mean they hook me up you know but uh i would get my recovery in aa i go to aa every single day two three times a day depending on when i'm working I don't drink coffee. I've never drank a cup of coffee in my life, so I don' t make it. Just the type of guy that I am. I don''t smoke cigarettes, so I do not empty any ashtrays. I know that's not a big deal now. 32 years ago, that was a service position. I'm not going to empty any Ashtrays Big book meetings, step meeting, traditions. I believe at the break, something more important to do. I was interested in war stories and the moment that this speaker said something about his background that I didn't like, couldn't relate to, didn't identify with i immediately tuned them out but i was a maiden maker and i was crazy as a bed bug i was just not and i managed to get some time together i remember my my first anniversary in my home group you would tell your story and i got done speaking it was amazing thunderous applause the blind could see the lame walked it was truly miraculous and people came up and patted me in the back and say way to go bobby you're doing so good i lied during my entire story i identified myself as an alcoholic because that was the group conscience but i didn't believe i was enough i thought it's my short use of all the substances i thought maybe i had mental illness maybe it's a stress disorder maybe it saw my mama i don't know but it can't be alcohol in fact on the course of my story a bottle of beer appeared in my head but you guys want to hear that you want to hear all the quotes and the nice thing about getting sober young enough i didn't fry all the cells so i'm sure it sounded like this second comment of bill wilson hence the accolades you know i was 23 months sober and i beat another man with a baseball bat i used to flippantly say i forget what step i was working that day but i realized that flippant remark takes away minimizes the viciousness and the ugliness of the attack stone cold sober making regular tenants at meetings in the rooms of alcoholics anonymous i beat another human being with a baseball bat i struck him four times in the face ahead and shoulders you know my second anniversary came i didn't celebrate it one month after my second anniversary i want to end my life the same pathetic film i had 25 months before about 25 months before i'm loaded with drugs and alcohol here i am want to take my life safe to assume my life was unmanageable did i say i didn't have a sponsor you guys i i don't know if i added that i didn didn't haven't sponsored you know i hated everybody but you know i hate it the most i hate to know people people say they're the most important person in rome it's not or not i mean like if when i first got out i remember a husband and wife speaking they both had 10 years her wife had one more day than her husband she constantly reminded him that throughout her story i said okay 10 years i don't think so maybe you drink in jersey go over jersey and drink on saturday night keep your pennsylvania time i don' know but i can't believe 10 years of sobriety i just just couldn't understand that but there was a guy from my neighborhood his nickname was troubles And he was sober like two or three years at this point. And I thought he was dead or in jail. I had not seen him for years. But I didn't talk to him. I just gave him the nod. That was it. So here I am two years sober, and guys coming behind me. So now if I'm two years and you say you got 10, I say, okay, I've known you too. You say you've got 10. I'll spot you the 8th. Okay. But these guys behind me are getting better before me. And I have a problem with that because I'm a union guy we had seniority so if i got two years i need to get better than the personal one year and just the way that works right and but these guys they come in i mean they can't speak complete sentences i mean their just complete morons and here they are they get better in front of me and you know like they're you know they can speak complete senses and they go to the dentist and they get their driver's license and they're off probation and god forbid they're even dating somebody oh my god how did he do this you know i'm sober two years i got my home on you know the reason they got better before me they were willing to do some work that i just refused to do serene people scared the hell out of me we only taught my shared in a meeting if the meeting was too serene i could get my hand up it was usually to cross talk someone i because i didn't have anything to offer i i didn t carry the message i carried the disease i was just nuts so a month and so 25 months over with the strong thoughts about end of my life i'm at this meeting and troubles is there and i go up to them afterwards i said bobby because he didn't want to be called troublesome believe me he was a mean dude he'd be called whatever he wanted and he allowed it he had a lot of jail saints but he wore long sleeve shirts and he didn t use any profanity i used the f word as a noun a verb and an adjective i mean he just and he had friends both male friends and female friends because he treated people with dignity and respect i was a creep with everyone you know and i went up to him at the meeting said bobby i need some help i said would you be my sponsor and he looked me dead in the eye and said bobmy i've been watching you these past couple years and i'm sticking my chest out there he kind of likes me he says i need to tell you you're full of now that's not the response i'm looking for he said i'm going to be your sponsor under certain condition you're going to call me every single day you're gonna go to a big book meeting you're going to go to step meeting you want to go to a men's meeting you don't leave them women alone and you're one of these awful coffee commitment and i'm talking myself who's he talking to i'm so i'm 25 months over i'm selling the great minds i got it going on but what i did i said okay and i went back to his house and it's amazing for a dude who never cursed i went backwards house that night at the meeting every other word was you have to know with me but he knew because my neighborhood which was like a very gritty neighborhood was getting gentrified and you know how the yuppies come in and ruin everything so i was running circles around the yappie so he was running his circles around me again me being a bullet right so uh he told me i didn't know anything about that he introduced me to the bed book he told him i didn t know anything actually just shut up and listen and that night we went through the first two steps and then when we got done we got on our knees to do the third step prayer and then when we get off our knees he said by me the way we do a third third step paper and pen up into a fourth step i said whoa easy does it let's keep this simple how about i just go to a meeting and just don't drink and i know the slogan serve a purpose but i'm using them as an you know as an excuse not to do any work and obviously since i only have 15 minutes left I'm not here to do a step lecture but I then got involved in the steps in the program of Aquahawks Anonymous if they're and I'm sure there are some new guys here I wish I could tell you differently I wish i can tell you came in AA and I did the steps and 90 days and but that's not my experience and how I got through without picking up a drink I have no idea it's only by the mercy of God actually when I got done my fourth step when I was going to do my fifth step with my sponsor i was just like two or three months shy of three years i don't recommend that uh those first few years were very tumultuous obviously by my description of wanting to end my life you know it was it was just an ugly existence i didn't wake up one morning and decide i was going to be a decent human being and got bottom steps i got involved in the steps not through any volition of my own through pain and desperation i mean it didn't have to be but that was the road that I traveled. Thank God I was fortunate enough not to pick up a drink long enough because who knows what would have happened. I start doing the steps, you know, and even though things not always around me got better, but then I got better and things started happening. You know, it's things start falling into place and, you Know, time flies and, You know I'm doing the young people's thing bouncing around doing that. And you know things are really cool. you know i'm jogging but but but i'm an alcoholic so we don't jog so i'm running 15 miles a day three times a week because my goal is to do the boston marathon because god forbid we just go for a jog around the neighborhood right and one day i tripped on folks i'm not the most graceful guy either and i wear size 13 so i tripping hurt my shoulder was throwing my throw my stride off And I said, well, I got to go get this checked out. It wasn't the trauma from the fall. It was a tumor pressing against my lung cancer. I never smoked in my life. I'm 33 years old. I'm sober six years. I'm in the best shape of my life, you know. So I go to get a second opinion. And I get the second opinion, I actually threw up. I got sick in the doctor's office. So I bounced back, you Know, went through some treatment that did okay, got sick for a bit and it was just i always made meetings i mean we have 1800 meetings a week it's no excuse not to make a meeting but then for a while i couldn't make meetings just i just wasn't healthy enough and people came in the house to carry the message of alcoholics anonymous i mean you're looking at a liar thief and cheap i took from everyone the only thing i gave was heartache and misery and people come to my house to hear the message about alcoholics anonymous. And I'm just not talking about my friends, I'm talking to people who actually they're a couple of times strangers, none perfect strangers didn't show up unannounced. They hate someone else, they usually accompanied someone. So but it was, you know, life on life's terms, you know, then I you know I go back to school, you don't pledge a fraternity at the age of 36. You know that that that's that something. Then I'm 40 and Christ, then I'm 50. And my friend Billy, he's on. So we were actually in Arizona. It was my 50th birthday. And I had a very tough time because I'm comparing myself to other people. And guys my age, I mean, married with kids, and some of them are even grandkids, I said. But I'm not worried about the coil name. I mean my brothers, you know, some of have more kids than they have teeth so the coil names getting carried on so i'm not worried about that but you know the next day i was okay but i just think it's only natural on birthdays or anniversaries to take stock but the problem is i was comparing myself to other people and that was the problem i had but the next year i was a cool with that i said okay i'm pissed then i won't marry won't have children and i was ok with that you know the old adage you want to find out god has a sense of humor tell him your plans So it was March of that year. It was March 2010. There was a conference in Nebraska called Lucky the Irish and my friend Billy, Billy was supposed to go but it was a board weekend And so he couldn't go. So I pitch it for him. And so I used to date, I dated long distance and I'll tell you why I did because there's safety in long distance, you know? It's pretty tough to be committed not only when you're 3,000 miles, but when you also want a different time zone. I can't call her, it's too early, too late for the case maybe, but it just shows you how shallow I was. But I dated this girl. I met her in 2002, Libby, from Omaha. And I met at the Cornhusker Roundup and we had a whirlwind romance for about a year, but things were just getting too, too good, too close, whatever. So I had ended, of course, God forbid, I commit. But my sponsor lived in Nebraska, so I would see her several times a year traveling back and forth. And she was out there dating someone or I was dating someone, but I always regretted that. you know and so Billy and lucky Irish he couldn't make it I go in this place and Libby is because she's the local they had the local choose to Thursday night speaker and I guess I was Friday or whatever and so you know in shoe speaking I need to let you know there's a there's a slight age difference depending on what time of year it could be either 19 years or 20 years so uh it all depends uh so actually right now it's 19 years maybe she just turned 40 a minute so i met her i knew when she was 22. so uh but i mean so here she is though so it's what eight yeah so eight years whatever she's eight years older but here she's at the podium and uh and i don't want to sound patronizing but she was like all grown up and And I mean, I met her. She was 22. She was sober a year. I think she had a year and a week, but she had at least a year, but you know, and like, even though I thought I may, I cleaned house before, but we had a good talk that weekend and really cleaned house. And that's all it was. It was just talking the fact that she had her boyfriend, they had something to do with that. So the next month it was April and she had called me up. She said, listen, David and I broke up. Yeah, I need to get out of town. Can I come to Philly? I said, actually, I'm going to be in Orange County this weekend. Speaking at a conference, you know, I'll fly you out there. We'll hook up there. And she says, no sex. Don't do anything stupid. I need you to get me out of here. Get out of the town. Now, I might embarrass to tell you that I'm 50 years old, and this is probably the first time in my life that I actually listened to somebody else's feelings, you know because i'm always out for myself you know and so uh we went out and we had a great time and you know uh we really did and so on our way back to the airport i told her i said listen i said i want to marry you but not like a you know like your date a couple weeks ago no i said i i want to date you but i want the long-term goal i'm gonna marry you i just won't let you know now it's like i'm 50 like i got i ain't got time to waste but i'm sure i didn't say it as crass as that and she said don't talk nonsense like that and then the next night when you know I would call her every night and once she got back to Nebraska I get back to Philly and she said listen if we get married I'm not going to get married in a church it's cool so but this is April of 2010 we date almost a year before there's any physical contact because we've already had that i actually dated her and she came to philly at least once a month or i went to nebraska and later that summer she came the philly for a couple weeks to see if she can cut it in the city and she did very well for herself so long story short on november 21st of 2011 i got married at the age of 51 for the first time in my life and hopefully the only time I love my wife getting married besides getting sober was the best move I ever made I'm glad I waited as long as I did because if I did it one day sooner I would have blown it you know and uh so we have a great life you know and she never wanted to have kids and she moved here she started hanging out with girls her age they all wanted to be kids and so we tried unsuccessful of course that had been made the age difference to cancer all the chemo radiation so i go through i go get some testing done doctor says i'm sorry you can't have children not naturally there's other things you can do this like two years ago i said okay i call home until libby she says no i'm not interested in that it's okay way. So August of last year, so I returned 59 in September, August I come home from work she meets me at the door and she's holding three of those sticks in her hand. I said what's that? She said you know what the F that is? For those who don't know she had very colorful vocabulary. I say what does that mean? She says you know the f that means and pregnant you know and when things were cool we were she was well in her second trimester 23 weeks in december and when she had a miscarriage and it was a tough time for us but we didn't celebrate christmas i've learned more about miscarriages than i ever cared to learn you know i understand how frequent they could be in the first trimester running the second trimester very unusual especially as late as Libby was unfortunately what had happened her water broke at work and so I met her at work I took her to the hospital and unfortunately not to talk politics but Pennsylvania has some very archaic rules laws and the fact that the baby still had a heartbeat that we needed to wait 24 hours before we could have a procedure and it was it was just so brutal you know and people ask me what are you made i really wasn't mad i wasn't there and then i wasn t mad at all just sad but really deeply sad for her and meant for myself but you know i mean we had the gender we had to name we had the clothes and you know things happen and we get through that one day at a time and that's what aqua hawks dominance does you know so a number of years ago i got involved in organized labor i became the president of the union that represents the municipal employees for the city of philadelphia the professional employees and that was a fluke the way that happened long story short but uh i got elected and then just last year i got re-elected to another three-year term with like 80 percent 75 of the vote and all this stuff had to cover the social unrest civil unrest here in the city and just some really crazy things so but libby and i when we made when we made certain life decisions based on being parents and one of them was my term was up next year that i wasn't going to run for re-election i'll be 60 in september max my pension maybe do something else but i wasn't going to run for re-election but after all this unrest and again not to talk any outside issues just there's just been a lot of unrest in the city which has transitioned into my job and i just didn't want to do things i saw some things i just did like and it was i just wasn't gonna do them so uh i i'm stepping down in fact i've already told my board my next board meeting is august 24th so i'll be i'll be resigning from my position uh you know people are shocked that i don't think they had a president resign before they've had a couple removed in handcuffs but they never had anyone resign on his own without an injury so but i just uh and i'm gonna go back to my old job in which doing the eap so i'm actually home now uh until august twenty fourth so i have no work to do i'm just running my time but then on august 31st i go back and do something else you know we got through that grieving process and now now we're doing the in vitro and it looks like we have some success there so uh you know what uh god has been good beyond my wildest dreams you know uh the story i talk about running that kid over because i i know today for some reason i don't know if it was the hour because it's like 11 23 it's a past my bedtime and i want to use that as an excuse but for some reasons i sense i was a little scattered tonight but that kid on the bike i got to make amends to him he really wasn't hurt that seriously i didn't know him personally he was the same age as one of my younger siblings it was amazing because there were eight kids on our block we were not the biggest family on the block it was not unusual i mean uh there were the kids i mean there were two families on my street that had one at 14 and the other had 12. i mean back in the day we just had big families so but i had an opportunity to make amends to him he wasn't hurt that seriously you know listen i make mistakes i don't want to give you the bad you know the impression that i'm the poster boy of alcoholics anonymous i mean there's a couple guys a couple people on this meeting who know me very well uh i'll tell you one story and then it gives you an idea how human i am so a number of years ago i get invited to speak i'm in the sunday morning speaker at uh at clark dupont the great lake regional conference of young people that yeah it's indianapolis me my friend billy billy not not this billy not billion but billy s from philly we fly from philadelphia newark and then we're supposed to ago from the work to Indianapolis. So as we're walking through Newark, I see ah there you have meditation room usually you see chapels but I never saw meditation so check that out. He said do you want to get one says now I'm hungry. So we go get it and so this is all prior 911. This is when you can act like an idiot in the airport. So I go and we ordered sandwiches. I said that Billy I got me check the gate. And it's taken a long time. You know, I'm not the most patient guy i'm hungry i'm irritated words exchange and i'm getting mad and and they won't give me uh they won'T give me my money back and they WON'T give ME my sandwich i said oh you can't help me huh well my did i say i'm on my way to it the spiritual speaker at an aaa conference i reach over the counter and i grab the keys out of the cash register and i start running through the airport with the keys now what the hell am i gonna do i have no idea well i'm running to the airport and then like a passenger he says yo there's a guy and it's like this short guy heavy guy he's running behind me god forbid he has a heart attack and then i'm charged with manslaughter i got the keys in my hand i throw them in a trash can i get to my gate they had already boarded the door was still open but everyone was already on the plane i jump on the plane i sit down so now our friend steve steve c from dc he joins us so it's steve by the window billy on the aisle and me uh and i get the middle seat and billy turns to me he said bobby where's my sandwich i turn out so you know billy f you wouldn't have that sandwich now steve has never steve thinks i'm the greatest thing since i spread i don't think he's ever heard me curse before he shot but then i'm peeking waiting for like the cops to come on the plane after the plane takes off i tell these people i tell this story yeah i and i'm well hold on i tell billy what i said i'm writing a letter i can't believe i they owe me my money and billy says well where in that letter are you going to say you took the keys out of the cash register so but i told that story from the podium that sunday morning because sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the hype say wow he does this he does listen man i'm just a regular guy from the neighborhood and i make mistakes but making mistakes doesn't get me loaded it's justifying those mistakes or defending those mistakes that will lead to the errors that will link to the drink you know uh i just try to do the right thing and for the most part i'm pretty good and then for those days when i'm off i'm lost but you know not proud of it i just trying not to have too many off days i'll finish with this this whole zoom thing i you know i'm not the most tech savvy guy Billy, he could attest to that. So the first week, so we've been shut down. Philly shut down on March 16th. We were in red for four months, right? So maybe a week later after a week or 10 days into it, Libby says, are you going to do any of those Zoom meetings? I said, no, I'm not doing that right now. Contempt prior to investigation. And so about a few days after that, she said, listen, or you could do one of those zoom meetings and i knew what she was telling me in her tactful way so i started doing zoom meetings a man i love it i mean i've been zooming all over but even in the philadelphia area to see older gentlemen when i got sober that guys are still alive i got shocked to find some of these guys but they no longer get the meetings because they may not be healthy they don't drive at night time for one reason or the other but it's pretty cool i mean been traveling all over the world and the only complaint is i'm just not getting credit for the miles but here to be a convener on sunday night i mean i don't know if i would ever have that opportunity you know and carl and i had been at conferences together carl has caught my act so he knows you know we're only supposed to say in a general way hey i'm not here to do a fist step but listen i try to do the right thing and i'm glad that alcoholics anonymous has given me a blueprint to have a life beyond my wildest dreams and that i do i love alcoholics none so for you guys that are new i see you sitting in a group there i don't want you think like sobriety is like a lottery and today the wheel falls on you and it's your day to drink i hear people say i did the steps i drank well they must have the misprint edition because nowhere in my steps as i say go out and buy a 40. so but i do know this that if you're new i say these controversial remarks i've got a minute left get yourself a home group get yourself a sponsor make sure your sponsor has done the steps if he or she has not done the step so he or she has no business sponsoring you how do you find out they did the steps i know it's a test you ask them and you will hear two things yes or no the person says yes that's your person they take you under their wing they share their experience strength with with you you get to have the experience you take a newcomer underneath your wing it's been working that way for almost 85 we're a little over 85 years since juneteenth 1935. why you need a dirtball from south philly come here until you do it any differently i have no idea so thank you very much carl it's 11 30 and that's all i got Thank you.