Thirty-Three Years Sober and I Still Participate Very Well in My Character Defects – Reese D.
About This Speaker Tape
Reese D., sober since June 5, 1982, shares a thirty-three-year story shaped more by childhood abuse and compulsive pursuit than by alcohol itself. Raised in Brunswick, Georgia, the son of a Jewish mother from New York and a local father, he grew up singled out, beaten, and molested, learning early to go numb. He drank, used IV drugs, chased women, got hepatitis at seventeen, bounced through counselors, Georgia Regional Hospital, and multiple treatment centers before landing at Willingway in 1982 — where an affair started during family week triggered the overdose that finally became his bottom.
He describes the first year as ego-driven trophy-hunting for sponsors, caffeine and cigarettes swapped in for drugs, and a near-marriage he blew up by telling the truth about his sexual identity struggles right after the invitations were ordered. The pivot came at about seven years: standing at his mother's sink, rinsing his mouth and spitting as a deliberate act of resentment, he realized the wreckage underneath the drinking was still alive. A night in Gainesville — driving home crying after sex that no longer worked — stripped him of every remaining symptom and left him face to face with himself.
Recovery deepened through a maternal sponsor from the other program, a close non-romantic friendship with a lesbian AA member, and finally a wife whose six-year-old spit food at him and whose three-year-old handed him a playground rock out of her overalls as a peace offering. He talks candidly about fighting with a six-year-old until he saw himself in her — needy, impulsive, dishonest, the kid who used to get beaten for exactly those traits. A new job in early 2015 has surfaced every old insecurity again, and he leans on prayer, meetings, and the newcomer to keep the lead jacket off.
Topics
Timestamps
Full Transcript
Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women in our room tonight and listening later on
aabloochipspeakers.org, desperately in need, will hear our speaker and we believe it is
only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that any of us shall...
aabloochipspeakers.org, desperately in need, will hear our speaker and we believe it is
only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that any of us shall...
Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women in our room tonight and listening later on
aabloochipspeakers.org, desperately in need, will hear our speaker and we believe it is
only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that any of us shall be persuaded
to say yes, I am one of them too, I must have this thing.
So, tonight, Reese D. was very gracious in accepting a last minute invitation.
We had another fellow, which we will be bringing to the podium in the future, soon, but he had
a conflict.
Anyway, I think I've asked Reese a dozen times.
I've known him about seven years, maybe.
I can tell you.
About four years ago, I had just had surgery and had a tumor removed, a stage four cancer
tumor.
The second day in my recovery there, Reese came to see me and he came back more than
once that week and I had to, like, walk around the floor and this was a busy man.
And he would come in and I know it took him 45 minutes to walk me around the hospital
floor and that's just the kind of guy he is.
I think there's 23 or more guys that came down from Gainesville to support Reese in
telling this story tonight and that's on a last minute notice.
That's the kind of guy he is.
I'm very proud to call him my friend and please come up, Reese.
For short, people, I'm Reese Daniel, alcoholic, everybody.
And I will acknowledge that NAVA's charter provides that meetings here are a singleness
of purpose, recovery from alcoholism.
And I have a desire to stop drinking and I have for a long time.
Sobriety dates 6-5.
June 5th, 1982.
And my story contains alcohol, drugs, sex, you know, just those kind of things, food,
you know, all that stuff, all that good stuff.
But I won't tell y'all all.
You know, in the big book it says our liquor was but a symptom and that's what it meant
to me.
I mean, think about that.
If I would have known what that really meant when I got in recovery, I wouldn't have been
scared to death to know what I know today because it was what it meant to me and what
it means to me now is my drinking was just hiding things that I needed to be paying attention
to.
And I was born in South Georgia, Brunswick, down there.
And my life started out difficult, confusing and all those things, but I can't tell you
it was confusing.
I didn't know that until I got in recovery.
My mom was Jewish and my dad was whatever.
You know, he went to church once, I think.
And so, but bringing a Jewish lady from New York to South Georgia in the 50s, it was not
good.
I mean, we were picked on all the time and we didn't even go to synagogue or anything,
but just people would hear, they're Jewish, you know, it's kind of a secret thing and
my grandparents hated my dad.
They love my dad, but they hated that he brought a Jewish woman from New York to South Georgia,
you know, because it was embarrassing to them.
So it just shows you right off the bat what I'm dealing with.
My early life was filled with a lot of abuse, you know, physical, sexual, you know, those
kind of things.
And I mean, early life.
And so, and y'all, when it happens long enough, you come to think that it's normal.
And, you know, when I got in recovery.
I can remember doing my fourth step and this was the fifth time in recovery.
And I remember doing my fourth step and I just said it all, said it all, did my fourth
step and said it all.
It didn't affect me at all.
And the reason it didn't affect me is because I've become numb to it.
You know, it was such a normal part of my life that I had become numb to it.
Little did I realize after a little time in recovery, that was what I was going to have
to deal with, you know, all that abuse and stuff like that.
And when I first got in recovery, I was, you know, step six and seven have been very, very
important in my life.
And the reason they have been is because of character defects.
I am loaded with character defects.
I got 33 years in recovery and I can still participate very well in my character defects.
And you know, one of the things that I came to realize, and you know, it's funny, I realized
this early on, but I still can hear the voices in my head sometimes telling me that I'm not
good enough.
I'll never be good enough.
I'll never amount to anything.
You know, those kind of things.
And that's what I mean.
Our liquor was about a symptom.
That's what it was covering up for me.
All those feelings that I didn't want to feel.
And I, I did not like my mom.
My mom was extremely abusive.
She was an alcoholic and a drug addict.
And I was that kid at an early age that said, I will never be like my mom.
Never.
And I wasn't.
I was a lot worse than my mom ever thought about being.
And, um, and, and y'all, I hated my mom.
I still don't like her that much.
She's still alive, um, because she's still not a happy person and, but I can't control
that today.
I can do what my part is and all that.
And that's calling her regular.
I pay her bills, not with my money, but I pay her bills, uh, for her, you know, cause
she can't do a lot of those things anymore.
So I try to be helpful, um, and give back to what she did give to me.
Cause my mom did give me some good things.
I don't want people to hear.
That it was all negative because she did.
She taught me how to cook, taught me how to wash my clothes, taught me different things
like that, that it came in handy when I, uh, got in recovery and got out on my own.
Um, I was, you know, a drug user at an early age.
I drank, I love to drink, um, I love drugs and I love women and I loved those things.
And you know, it was funny.
My wife asked me after we got married, this was a long time ago.
She said.
What do you miss the most about being single?
And I said, now that's a heck of a question.
And I said, well, I miss the women.
And she said, well, what do you mean like that?
I said, you know, what's funny, I missed that chase.
Same thing I did with drugs, that chase, same thing I did, you know, when I would go get
a fix.
I missed that.
And she said, so what do you miss the most?
I said, the interaction, the chase, the things like that.
And I said, you know, the funny thing about it is I never caught that many women.
You know, that was all in my head.
You know, it really was, I re I was a whole lot better in my head than I really was in
real life, um, or hope that I wanted to be anyway, I, uh, I, I was the kind of person
that in the.
10th grade, my, uh, dad sent me to a private school.
Now I'm going to say it like that sent me to a private school was the first year it
was open.
I'm the first person got kicked out of the private school.
And um, the reason what would happen is my dad cut my hair.
Now what was that 10th grade, 16 years old, 15 years old, 70, 1970, right?
And then my dad would cut my hair.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And he would say, if you would pass, you could grow your hair long and he'd cut my
hair and it made me mad.
So I didn't pass and he'd cut my, so we can keep, it just shows you the kind of mentality
I had back then, you know, the kind of thinking I had and the loser y'all was always me, you
know, but I was going to show him, you know, that kind of thing.
And that, that just goes back to what my thinking was.
My thinking was kind of screwy anyway, I, uh, at 17, I got hepatitis.
I got hepatitis for the first time.
And the reason I say that is because I was easily influenced and I put myself in positions
I didn't need to be.
It was an IV, um, you know, hepatitis and, um, y'all, I was, I was at that stage in my
recovery that I didn't have to use every day and I saved up a bunch of drugs and alcohol.
I had them all up under the water bed.
Some of y'all remember water beds?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, young people probably don't.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, but I, I put all, and I had a coming out party, you know, it was it, but it was
just that kind of thing that I would save and I would save and do all those things.
Anyway.
Um, I went to treatment for the first time and I, let me tell y'all about my first treatment
because y'all appreciate this and I, his first name was Howard and Howard was a counselor
in Brunswick and Howard worked for the mental health system.
My parents would got to get recent pro help for drugs.
Um, and I was 17 or 18, I can't remember which one.
And so every week I'd go see Howard.
Now Howard loved to smoke pot.
So we would go talk about my drug and alcohol problems while we were smoking pot and, um,
everybody needs a counselor like that.
You know, it's, uh, um, but it didn't work for me, y'all.
I didn't get in recovery, but I will tell y'all what I remember.
I remember they brought a speaker in.
Um, and he was, uh.
Uh.
He was, uh, a recovering heroin addict and alcoholic and I never forgot where he talked
about he got recovery.
Never forgot about it.
My first introduction to Alcoholics Anonymous, I was in Georgia Regional Hospital in Savannah
and not, uh, not as a worker, but as a patient and, um, you know, back then y'all, they used
to give you Valium to, uh, withdrawal, you know, from the alcohol and the drugs and stuff.
And they, you know, the other guys, you know.
I'd bring liquor in and they would trade me their Valium for, you know, the liquor and,
you know, stuff like that.
But y'all, the miracle when, as I got in recovery, I started realizing the things that God was
doing for me, what I couldn't do for myself.
So I'm in the, um, and they take us to an AA meeting inside, you know, they won't let
you out because it's a locked facility and here comes walking in these six or seven people
and one of them was the head narcotics officer from Brunswick.
Now two things went through my head.
One is, are they here for me?
That's how my ego was, you know, are they here for me?
And y'all, he was there to lead an AA meeting.
And it was my first introduction to Alcoholics Anonymous, um, was the head narcotics agent.
And it was really, he knew me, I mean, and I don't mean he had arrested me, but he knew
me.
And, um, you know, so it was interesting.
Back then I couldn't understand the impact of what was happening at that time.
It took me a little while to get to a place that I could.
Um.
It wasn't too much longer that my dad, um, we had a cemetery and, um, he brought this
guy's brother died and he brought this guy over and this guy 12 stepped me.
Now I was still about 18 years old, but these are all the little things that were happening
that were for me today was God doing for me, you know, cause I never forgot this guy is
Hilton Hilton Lowe was his name and y'all, this is 50 something, I mean, not 50, 40 years
later.
I still remember that man, you know, for coming over for taking the time to come over and
take me to meetings.
Now, I did not take it seriously.
And, uh, you know, in the big book it talks about if, if the person that you're working
with does not take this thing seriously, move on to the next.
And he moved on to the next, uh, always remembered me and he'd come talk to me anytime he saw
me on the farm and everything.
I went through, um, several treatment centers and in 1982, 81.
Um.
I, I got, um, I went to treatment for the last time I was in treatment and, um, it was
down in Statesboro and, um, the, uh, it was at willing way hospital.
And, you know, I would love to tell you that I got in recovery.
Um, but what I did do for a change, because I had nowhere to live anymore and my dad had
made sure of that cause he'd got me out of jail so many times that he finally said, I
can't keep doing this.
And, um, the, so I went up there and of course, what do I do in treatment?
You know, cause I take this treatment stuff seriously.
I, I met a woman and, um, I met this woman and her husband, I, you know, I didn't know
she was married at first, but her husband came to family week and brought pot with him.
And so that started a relapse for me and it started, I had a major overdose and, uh, and
that was June 5th, 1982.
So I went up there and, um, I met this woman and her husband, uh, you know, I didn't know
she was married at first, but her husband came to family week and brought pot with him.
And so that started a relapse for me.
And, um, and y'all, my, my thinking was so insane at that time.
I had, I was so terrified and I didn't realize how terrified, except when I was without alcohol
or without drugs, you know, and when I was, I was a raving maniac, you know, in the big
book, it talks several times about that, that I am willing, that I am willing to go to any
length to stay in recovery.
And then I think about what, um, Ryan read.
Yeah.
It said, if we are painstaking, you know, about this phase of our development now, this
time in 1982, when I finally got in recovery on June 5th, um, I, I wanted, I didn't want
to be the way I had been for so long.
I was 25 years old and, um, I did not want to be that way anymore.
My ego was such that I probably had at least three sponsors the first year.
And I would love to tell you that it was because I was growing.
And I was doing a lot of work.
I was doing all these things, but it was because the first one was the circuit speaker.
The next one was a higher up in a company.
And the next one was just a very well like guy.
And I was doing it for me, for what you would think about me.
And that, that started showing me the pattern of my life is I was more worried about what
you thought about than what I was thought of that I thought about, about me.
And, uh, and it took me a long time to get to a place that, um, I had some comfort with
who I am a long time.
Um, I was excited.
I was excited.
I was extremely resentful when I got in recovery.
I didn't know how resentful I was.
I, y'all, I hated everything and everybody.
And you know, in a big book it says we seized fighting everything and everyone.
And it took me a long time to get to that place.
Um, I was in Statesboro, I was living there.
I was doing, you know, basically I was doing what Reese wanted to do, but I was, there
was some things that were consistent this time.
And one of them was prayer.
You know, one of the things.
Y'all, I did not believe in God.
I didn't believe that, you know, in a higher being at all.
But one of the things that the guy told me, uh, one of the first sponsors was just pray,
just pray.
And he kept saying it, just pray.
And at about four months in recovery, I had a spiritual awakening.
Now it wasn't this major overwhelming white light and everything.
It was, uh, a garden of the, what is it?
The garden variety?
Uh, who?
Yeah.
Um, you know, I had the spiritual awakening and all it was y'all was there is a God.
That's it.
There is a God.
I, uh, it was tough for me for a long time because when you grow up in the South, especially
far South as I did, you know, the Bible belt and everything, there's expectations of how
you're supposed to believe in God.
And that was really tough on me.
Um, especially growing up the way I did, but you know, it seemed like everybody wanted
me to be a Christian.
You know, I didn't want to be a Christian and have a Christian God.
And it was funny that one of my young, my next door neighbor who was a Christian when
I was growing up, he used to walk around and say one way and all that stuff.
And you know, two things, one, I admired him because of his thinking, you know, that he,
he was willing to put himself out there.
The other was that when I got in recovery, I took a copy of the big book to him.
Uh, I've been in recovery about a year, um, when the, his brother died and I took a big,
a copy of the big book to him.
And I asked him because I needed acceptance and that's me, I was just needy and I needed
acceptance.
And, uh, he called me on the phone, which I think is the only time I've talked to him
in all these years.
And he said, that's the most profound pieces of literature I've ever read.
And this is a guy that doesn't have an alcohol, don't drink, doesn't do anything, uh, to say
that.
And, uh, as time went by, I did the thing, the normal things that you do when you get
in recovery.
Um, if you take something out of your life, I put something back in my life.
So what I ended up doing was I took alcohol and drugs out of my life.
So I started caffeine, lots of caffeine, lots of cigarettes, um, and the girls, you know,
that kind of stuff.
I could not stay out of the women's halfway house.
I couldn't stop.
And, um, and y'all, it was one of those things that I'd love to tell you that it was just
part of my thinking that, that you would say, I'm just not going to do that anymore.
But I couldn't not do that the same way with my drugs and with my alcohol, I just couldn't
not do that.
And so what happened was I had about three months of recovery and you know, that old
saying about a year without emotional involvement.
Well, they told me that, but one of the counselors at the hospital I worked at evidently thought
I was cute.
She had about three years in recovery and, um, so she stopped me out and, and y'all,
it was sick.
I moved up to Atlanta to live with her because she moved up to Atlanta.
I followed her up here and, uh, we almost got married.
We were engaged, getting ready to get married.
And I'll tell you a little bit about that story in just a minute.
If, if I remember, um, if you ever listened to a talks when people say, I'll tell you
about that in a minute, a lot of times we forget.
So, uh, um, the thing that remained consistent with me is that I continue to go to meetings
and I'd love to say, I want to say something else when, uh, we, when you were walking in,
uh, I was walking in and I was walking in and I was walking in and I was walking in and I
was walking in and I was walking in and I was walking in and I was walking in and I was walking in.
And that young fellow was sitting out front and greeting people, Derek, good job, wherever
you are.
Um, that's one of the things that my sponsors always said to me is everybody smoked in a
back then clean the ashtrays, put the chairs up and greet people coming and going.
And y'all that that's what they demanded of you or of me.
Let me say that.
And maybe it was because they thought I was sicker.
That's what happens sometimes.
But, but a lot of times.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A lot of people thought that stuff, you know, and, and I, I think that even myself, I don't
see that as much as I used to, you know, to people sticking around to help, uh, clean
up and do stuff like that.
Um, I continued with the, the women, my women, the women, after a year, I quit drinking caffeine
and I quit smoking and all I had left in my life, y'all was two things, Alcoholics Anonymous
and women.
And I'd love to tell you that the latter went away and I started getting healthier and all
that stuff.
I started getting better and all that stuff pretty quick.
And, and, but I didn't because I was so insecure.
Uh, I was so afraid to let y'all see who I really was, um, that I had to put other things
around me.
Um, you know, I use the analogy, um, that like I had a lead jacket on me and I had this
hook right here and anytime I had a compulsion, you know, a, um, the physical allergy and
the craving and y'all, it could be about anything.
Every time I had it, this hook would go in and somebody would start turning this winch
and it would pull me and I wouldn't be able to say no.
And, um, and by the time I probably had four or five years, I felt so weak, terribly weak.
And y'all, what I was doing in recovery was I was doing everything I could to make you
think how healthy I was.
If you looked on the outside, it looked really good, but I was kind of like that duck that
looks all nice and calm on the lake and he's paddling like hell underneath, you know, and,
and that's, that was me.
And, uh, because I was so terrified.
I had to let people know who I really was.
The funny thing was I didn't, I didn't even really know who I was.
So I started doing stuff, um, after I moved to Jacksonville for a geographical cure.
And in the process of all this, y'all, all this sex stuff that I told y'all early on
that happened when I was a little kid, it started coming up and it had to be dealt with.
And, uh, so I had to start dealing with it and it was, it was tough stuff.
I mean, it was stuff that most people would say, you know, was identity, sexual identity
stuff.
It was cravings.
It was everything.
And, uh, and it was very, very hard for me to deal with.
And, uh, to the point of almost killing myself, you know, because I just, I don't want to
do this.
I don't want to have to do this.
And, um, but something continued to remain consistent was Alcoholics Anonymous.
I went to meetings and I had sponsor.
When I moved up to Atlanta, uh, I moved in with the girl I was telling y'all about.
And, and, and y'all, I really did like her.
I mean, I loved her.
I wanted to marry her.
I wanted my, my mind.
All I could picture was a white picket fence and peace and happiness, you know, because
that's what I'd craved my whole life was peace and happiness.
And, um, so I moved in with her.
We were getting married.
We got the invitations done and we done that.
And, and finally I had gotten to the place in recovery that I, it was very hard for me
not to be honest.
You know, first principles, honesty, but it was very hard for me not to be honest about
stuff.
So.
I, I sat her down one day and, um, told her the truth about what was going on with me
with all this, with all my thinking and everything.
And she said, couldn't you have told me before we ordered the invitations?
Cause invitations were expensive.
And, um, so y'all, the person that I was involved with, she was, she was my mom without the
physical part of it.
She was, she was, um, but, but the thing that I have to remember y'all is it was me that
attracted her.
So if she had stuff she was dealing with, I had stuff that I was dealing with cause I
don't want to put a lot of responsibility on her.
You know, I can sit back and say she was sick and she was this, you shouldn't have done
that.
You know, I can say that, but this woman turned out to be the catalyst for what changed my
life.
And, um, anyway, we, we didn't last, but about another month or something like that.
And of course we, you know, how, how I do, you know, you go back, you can't leave, you
go back, you leave.
You go back, you leave, you're thinking that it'll happen this time.
She's the one it's, um, and y'all, it never did.
We, we, even our friends at Biscayne room and Skyland, they were all saying, y'all need
to get apart.
And, um, and I just, you know, it was almost impossible to do, but the, the thing that
happened to me was I was sitting in the apartment where we lived in snow mountain and I had
a motorcycle and I remember this, that I picked the motorcycle helmet up.
Now I had nowhere to go.
I had nowhere to go and said, I'm leaving.
And, and that was, that was it.
I left and I went, I called a friend and went and moved in with him in a one bedroom apartment.
And, um, it, you know, that began the start of my life because what happened y'all was
I ended up getting so despondent, um, because I finally had to deal with all those resentments
that I was telling y'all about at the first, all of them came up except for one.
And when I had to leave, I had to leave.
I had about seven years in recovery.
I was standing in the, I invited my mom up.
Now I told you what I think about my mom.
I invited my mom up to visit in, um, um, wherever I lived, Chamblee.
And, um, I asked her to come up and visit.
And so she came up and I cooked her dinner.
You know, I did all that stuff I'm trying to impress.
And, um, I stood over the sink and I put some water in my mouth and I rinsed it out and
I spit in the sink.
Now my house is a little bit, I don't know, I don't know how to say it.
I don't know how to say it.
I don't know how to say it.
I don't know how to say it.
I don't know how to say it.
But I said, little kid that you got beat for that.
And she looked at me and she said, why did you do that?
And I said, because I can now, you know, I got a resentment.
And, uh, that, that was the start of, with the breakup of the relationship and that issue
with my mom, that was really the pinnacle of everything.
And y'all, I want to tell y'all that I was doing lots of things.
So you would look at me like, wow, isn't he the coolest?
And I was dying inside and I was doing sweat lodges.
I went out to this place for 16 days in California to learn all about, of course, miracle.
I was doing all this stuff just so you would say, isn't that the coolest thing?
And y'all, what I was doing was searching for God, you know, and I, you know, in that
song, searching for love and all the wrong places, you know, I could say I was searching
for God and all the wrong places, but they really were all the right places.
It's the thing that finally got me to a place of enough pain that I wanted to be different.
Um, I, the one thing that was concealed that I couldn't stop.
And it, and it ended up being just like my, um, drugs and alcohol was, um, the women and
y'all, I left Shambly one night, um, about eight or nine o'clock and I went up to Gainesville
just before I lived in Gainesville and I went to have sex with this girl and I left there
crying and what I was crying about was it wasn't working for me anymore.
And y'all, that was the first time in my life that the whole slate had been clean.
Everything.
That nothing was working for me.
Our liquor was but a symptom.
You know, I was, I came face to face with Reese and I had some major work.
Now that one of the great things about it was I had one of the best sponsors around.
Um, he went to the other program and everything and, but he was one of the best sponsors that
I could have ever had.
Uh, one of the most maternal men, uh, that I'd ever met.
And he was till this day.
Uh, and it was exactly what I needed.
It was, you know, it's again, one of those things.
It's realizing that God's doing for me what I can't do for myself.
Um, and he and I became best friends.
We rode my motorcycles all over the Southeast and, you know, we did that stuff.
But in doing that stuff, we spent time with each other.
And the, the thing that always scared me about men, y'all, and, and most people, well, that's
not fair.
A lot of men, especially me, would say things.
It's just easier for me to talk to women.
You know, it wasn't easier.
I was scared to talk to guys.
I was scared because of what had happened to me as a kid.
I might have feelings about and have to deal with this stuff.
And it was terrifying to me.
And, um, so getting this guy in my life.
And then right after that, a woman came in.
Now, this was a non, this was a lesbian.
And we had the best relationship, you know, that, that you can have.
Well, not sexual.
Um, we had the best relationship that, but it was what I needed in my life.
And it was so funny, y'all, that, and I've learned this in recovery, is the healthier
I get, the healthier the people are around me.
And it's amazing how that happens.
And it doesn't mean that the people that I sponsor, that I don't get reminded time and
time and time again about me, you know, about my thinking and about what got me to the place
that I'm at.
Um, it took a long time, you know, for me to realize and to, uh, understand why sponsorship
was so important.
I knew why it was important to me, you know, because you're helping.
And, you know, I am the most important person, you know, and that's the way my mind thought.
But it wasn't until later when I really understood what giving back meant.
Um, you know, and it talks in here about, um, giving of ourselves selflessly.
And, um, you know, and y'all, I, I wish I could tell you, I did that all the time.
I don't, um, I wish I could tell you that, um, I was close to perfect with 33 years.
I'm not, um, you know, and the thing, one of the things that I know that if I were to
salt my recovery, the way I salt my drugs and alcohol, I probably would have been a
lot further along because again, it says if we're painstaking, you know, that's not, well,
if I feel good about this, um, I, I didn't feel good a lot about, about a lot of things
in, um, I quit, um, dating women, uh, for a while.
And I, I'd love to say that it was that thing.
Um, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,
I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, yeah.
Somebody said, you know, don't have an emotional involvement.
It was, and it just did, it wasn't working for me anymore.
And I just didn't have any feelings out of it.
And, um, so, not long, I can't tell you how long, could have been a year, could have been
two.
Uh, I met a lady up in Gainesville.
I moved up to Gainesville at that time.
And, um, and, and y'all, she was incredible.
And, and I'm, what I mean by that is, um, this was a lady that I, you know, I just happened
to run.
into her. And it was interesting that I had this was she worked in public relations and I had a
different person over our account. And all of a sudden they put this lady over our account and I
met her and I was terrified. I was terrified because I wanted to ask her out. And when I have
no buffers, when some of this most of the symptoms are cleared out, I didn't know how to say, would
you like to go out on a date? See, I mean, that's pretty easy, but it was not easy. And it took me
about six or seven months to ask that question. And the only way I asked it was, you know, time
went by and I saw her at a Christmas party and she was where I mean, I tell you what she was
wearing, you know, to this day. And I finally got enough nerve to ask her out. And we she had two
daughters. One was, I think, four or five. And one was one was just turning three. And, you know,
the first time I saw her, I was like, 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. 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. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't
three year old had never really known her dad. Her dad, he just wasn't a good guy. I mean, he was
he was a nice guy, but he was very lost. And and he still hadn't been found. But, you know, he was
very lost. And so the three year old attached to me and y'all, I had always wanted kids.
And one of the things that my wife today wouldn't do was she never introduced me to her to her kids
until we've been dating about six or seven months. She would,
not let me see him. She was smart enough to say, my kids will get attached to him, and
he'll get attached to them, and then it won't be about us. And so, I mean, right there,
I'm telling you that the person that I was involved with was thinking pretty good. I
can't see. Okay, we've got two hours left. So, anyway, the six-year-old was, y'all, she
hated me. I mean, hated everything about me. And what she hated was that they had been
together four years without a man. And here this man was coming into their lives. And
y'all, she spit on me. She threw food at me. She did all these things. And it was
terrible. And it was terrible. And it was terrible. And it was terrible. And it was
God-awful. And I'm sitting dying inside thinking, I love this woman, but I hate this kid. So,
anyway, I mean, I was to this point of saying, I can't do this. We were sitting in the waffle
house. She had already spit food on me. And anyway, I was just defeated. And I walked
out the door. And I'm getting ready to get in my car. And this little girl comes up to
me. And she...
Out of her overalls, out of this pocket, she pulled a rock. Because she knew how important
rocks were to me. She pulled this rock. And y'all, it was a rock off a playground. But
it was that important to her to give to me. It was kind of like a peace offering. And
so what happened as a result of that, we got married. My wife and I did. And when we moved
in together, in the first year, my six-year-old...
I was seven, whatever she was at that time. I was angry. I was mad at her. And not about
any of that old stuff. And let me tell y'all what I was mad at her about. You know, let
me see. I was married at 87, I think. So I'd been in recovery about 14 or 15 years. And
what I was mad about, because my wife said stuff like, you're fighting with a six-year-old.
You know, and I was having these feelings. And y'all, I was...
What I finally came to realize about this little girl was she was me as a six-year-old.
Needy, insecure, emotional, and dishonest. And that was me. Those were the reasons I
got beat as a kid. And impulsive, because I was extremely impulsive. And when I finally
realized that, it was a spiritual awakening. It was one of those things, one of those gifts
from God that I finally realized.
My part in this, you know, I'm fighting with a six-year-old. And there wasn't any reason
to. What I was looking for, y'all, was to make somebody love me. Like my mom was trying
to do with us. Make... You're going to love me. I'll buy you stuff. I'll make you love
me. Anyway, you know, we got married and it was a good wedding. And y'all, I have, by
far, my opinion, the best wife ever. And you know what I think is... And I don't know what
God's will is for anybody. I really don't. And... But I wish everybody could have a relationship.
It doesn't matter, male, female, whatever, like I do with my wife. And, you know, all
the... The way that I look at a lot of things today is that everything was just a rung on
a ladder. And it was just moving up, getting closer to God. And I can't imagine, you know,
if I live another day, what's in store for me. I'd love to tell y'all that... And I've
been successful.
And in a lot of areas. And the one thing that I'd love to tell you is a lot of my problems
today are a higher quality of problems. And, you know, but don't ever let the quality of
your problems make you think that they can't lead you back to a drink again. You know,
I've seen people drink over the most stupidest things. And they're stupid to me, but not
to them. And I have to remember that.
And, you know, I got a job in February. And, y'all, this has been the hardest job that I've
ever had. And part of the reason it's been so hard is because I'm doing stuff I don't
know how to do. And I'm insecure about it. It's bringing all those feelings up. The healthier
part of me today realizes that I will get through it. And I can't tell you I'll still
be working after I get through it, but I will get through it. And that's what track record
shows me.
And that's why going to Alcoholics Anonymous is so important to me is because if I go in
the door of Alcoholics Anonymous, I am going to hear something I need to hear. I am. I'm
going to see somebody in there. You know, the neat thing about Alcoholics Anonymous
is you can find anybody in Alcoholics Anonymous that's been through what you're going through.
Anybody. I've never seen it fail. And the good thing about it, y'all, is my ego's not
that big to where I have to think I know all the answers.
You know, I wish I did because that would make me look better. But I don't know all the
answers. I don't know what you need to stay in recovery. I know what I need today. And
I need y'all. And y'all, I don't care if it's your first meeting here today. You know, one
of the things that we say in our group, and maybe y'all say it here, is the most important
person in the room is the newcomer. You know, and if I can always try to remember to remain
a newcomer, I think I'll do okay. You know, I think I'll do okay. I think I'll do okay.
I think I will. And it goes back to, again, if we're painstaking. And y'all, I love Alcoholics
Anonymous. I love recovery. And you know, the funny thing about it, I'd love to tell
y'all that my mind thinks that way all the time. But y'all, I can go out and meditate
during my meditation. I can go out and my mind will start talking to me and saying,
you know, is there really a God? You know, if there was a God, you know, it'll start
talking to me. But I have choice today.
My choice is, what am I going to do about it? I have the power today to talk in a different
way. And I don't mean tongues. I just, I mean, talk in a different way and hear different
things out of my, in my head. And y'all gave me that gift. Y'all told me how to do those
things. And I'm grateful for that. You know, in these last few months in this, this job
that's been so difficult for me, the things that I have done is what y'all have taught.
Now, this is with time.
The things that y'all told me to do at the very first is pray, reach out to people. You
know, um, our, our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety.
And I forget that sometimes because if I get so wrapped up in myself, like I do, I forget
and I want to think about me. So I, I appreciate y'all, Tim asking me, um, to come down here
and talk. I appreciate y'all being here tonight. And, uh, thank y'all.
Thank you very much, Reese, for, for being here and sharing your story with us.
Thank you.
I appreciate y'all.
.
.
And I thank y'all for being here tonight.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Ain't never enough.
I know how it is to live and die.
Always fearing that I'm gonna run out.
Keep the curse strong to myself.
Hide it from everyone else.
To save it for a rainy day.
If you wanna have it all the time.
Gotta give it away.
All I had was love.
Kept it on a shelf.
And you showed me how to love you well.
Till I could do it myself.
If you want love all the time.
Give it to someone else.
I want everyone around to see.
Just how much your love means to me.
Baby wear it on my sleeve.
It'll never leave.
If I give it and just don't take it.
If you want love.
If you want love.
If you want love.
If you want love.
All the time.
Give it away.
If you want love.
All the time.
Give it away.
If you want love.
All the time.
Give it away.
Give it away.
All the time.
Give it away.
Give it away.
If you want love.
All the time.
Give it away.
Give it away.
Give it away.
Give it away.
Give it away.
Give it away.
Give it away.
Give it away.
Give it away.
Give that away
Give that away
Give that away
aabloochipspeakers.org, desperately in need, will hear our speaker and we believe it is
only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that any of us shall be persuaded
to say yes, I am one of them too, I must have this thing.
So, tonight, Reese D. was very gracious in accepting a last minute invitation.
We had another fellow, which we will be bringing to the podium in the future, soon, but he had
a conflict.
Anyway, I think I've asked Reese a dozen times.
I've known him about seven years, maybe.
I can tell you.
About four years ago, I had just had surgery and had a tumor removed, a stage four cancer
tumor.
The second day in my recovery there, Reese came to see me and he came back more than
once that week and I had to, like, walk around the floor and this was a busy man.
And he would come in and I know it took him 45 minutes to walk me around the hospital
floor and that's just the kind of guy he is.
I think there's 23 or more guys that came down from Gainesville to support Reese in
telling this story tonight and that's on a last minute notice.
That's the kind of guy he is.
I'm very proud to call him my friend and please come up, Reese.
For short, people, I'm Reese Daniel, alcoholic, everybody.
And I will acknowledge that NAVA's charter provides that meetings here are a singleness
of purpose, recovery from alcoholism.
And I have a desire to stop drinking and I have for a long time.
Sobriety dates 6-5.
June 5th, 1982.
And my story contains alcohol, drugs, sex, you know, just those kind of things, food,
you know, all that stuff, all that good stuff.
But I won't tell y'all all.
You know, in the big book it says our liquor was but a symptom and that's what it meant
to me.
I mean, think about that.
If I would have known what that really meant when I got in recovery, I wouldn't have been
scared to death to know what I know today because it was what it meant to me and what
it means to me now is my drinking was just hiding things that I needed to be paying attention
to.
And I was born in South Georgia, Brunswick, down there.
And my life started out difficult, confusing and all those things, but I can't tell you
it was confusing.
I didn't know that until I got in recovery.
My mom was Jewish and my dad was whatever.
You know, he went to church once, I think.
And so, but bringing a Jewish lady from New York to South Georgia in the 50s, it was not
good.
I mean, we were picked on all the time and we didn't even go to synagogue or anything,
but just people would hear, they're Jewish, you know, it's kind of a secret thing and
my grandparents hated my dad.
They love my dad, but they hated that he brought a Jewish woman from New York to South Georgia,
you know, because it was embarrassing to them.
So it just shows you right off the bat what I'm dealing with.
My early life was filled with a lot of abuse, you know, physical, sexual, you know, those
kind of things.
And I mean, early life.
And so, and y'all, when it happens long enough, you come to think that it's normal.
And, you know, when I got in recovery.
I can remember doing my fourth step and this was the fifth time in recovery.
And I remember doing my fourth step and I just said it all, said it all, did my fourth
step and said it all.
It didn't affect me at all.
And the reason it didn't affect me is because I've become numb to it.
You know, it was such a normal part of my life that I had become numb to it.
Little did I realize after a little time in recovery, that was what I was going to have
to deal with, you know, all that abuse and stuff like that.
And when I first got in recovery, I was, you know, step six and seven have been very, very
important in my life.
And the reason they have been is because of character defects.
I am loaded with character defects.
I got 33 years in recovery and I can still participate very well in my character defects.
And you know, one of the things that I came to realize, and you know, it's funny, I realized
this early on, but I still can hear the voices in my head sometimes telling me that I'm not
good enough.
I'll never be good enough.
I'll never amount to anything.
You know, those kind of things.
And that's what I mean.
Our liquor was about a symptom.
That's what it was covering up for me.
All those feelings that I didn't want to feel.
And I, I did not like my mom.
My mom was extremely abusive.
She was an alcoholic and a drug addict.
And I was that kid at an early age that said, I will never be like my mom.
Never.
And I wasn't.
I was a lot worse than my mom ever thought about being.
And, um, and, and y'all, I hated my mom.
I still don't like her that much.
She's still alive, um, because she's still not a happy person and, but I can't control
that today.
I can do what my part is and all that.
And that's calling her regular.
I pay her bills, not with my money, but I pay her bills, uh, for her, you know, cause
she can't do a lot of those things anymore.
So I try to be helpful, um, and give back to what she did give to me.
Cause my mom did give me some good things.
I don't want people to hear.
That it was all negative because she did.
She taught me how to cook, taught me how to wash my clothes, taught me different things
like that, that it came in handy when I, uh, got in recovery and got out on my own.
Um, I was, you know, a drug user at an early age.
I drank, I love to drink, um, I love drugs and I love women and I loved those things.
And you know, it was funny.
My wife asked me after we got married, this was a long time ago.
She said.
What do you miss the most about being single?
And I said, now that's a heck of a question.
And I said, well, I miss the women.
And she said, well, what do you mean like that?
I said, you know, what's funny, I missed that chase.
Same thing I did with drugs, that chase, same thing I did, you know, when I would go get
a fix.
I missed that.
And she said, so what do you miss the most?
I said, the interaction, the chase, the things like that.
And I said, you know, the funny thing about it is I never caught that many women.
You know, that was all in my head.
You know, it really was, I re I was a whole lot better in my head than I really was in
real life, um, or hope that I wanted to be anyway, I, uh, I, I was the kind of person
that in the.
10th grade, my, uh, dad sent me to a private school.
Now I'm going to say it like that sent me to a private school was the first year it
was open.
I'm the first person got kicked out of the private school.
And um, the reason what would happen is my dad cut my hair.
Now what was that 10th grade, 16 years old, 15 years old, 70, 1970, right?
And then my dad would cut my hair.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And he would say, if you would pass, you could grow your hair long and he'd cut my
hair and it made me mad.
So I didn't pass and he'd cut my, so we can keep, it just shows you the kind of mentality
I had back then, you know, the kind of thinking I had and the loser y'all was always me, you
know, but I was going to show him, you know, that kind of thing.
And that, that just goes back to what my thinking was.
My thinking was kind of screwy anyway, I, uh, at 17, I got hepatitis.
I got hepatitis for the first time.
And the reason I say that is because I was easily influenced and I put myself in positions
I didn't need to be.
It was an IV, um, you know, hepatitis and, um, y'all, I was, I was at that stage in my
recovery that I didn't have to use every day and I saved up a bunch of drugs and alcohol.
I had them all up under the water bed.
Some of y'all remember water beds?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, young people probably don't.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, but I, I put all, and I had a coming out party, you know, it was it, but it was
just that kind of thing that I would save and I would save and do all those things.
Anyway.
Um, I went to treatment for the first time and I, let me tell y'all about my first treatment
because y'all appreciate this and I, his first name was Howard and Howard was a counselor
in Brunswick and Howard worked for the mental health system.
My parents would got to get recent pro help for drugs.
Um, and I was 17 or 18, I can't remember which one.
And so every week I'd go see Howard.
Now Howard loved to smoke pot.
So we would go talk about my drug and alcohol problems while we were smoking pot and, um,
everybody needs a counselor like that.
You know, it's, uh, um, but it didn't work for me, y'all.
I didn't get in recovery, but I will tell y'all what I remember.
I remember they brought a speaker in.
Um, and he was, uh.
Uh.
He was, uh, a recovering heroin addict and alcoholic and I never forgot where he talked
about he got recovery.
Never forgot about it.
My first introduction to Alcoholics Anonymous, I was in Georgia Regional Hospital in Savannah
and not, uh, not as a worker, but as a patient and, um, you know, back then y'all, they used
to give you Valium to, uh, withdrawal, you know, from the alcohol and the drugs and stuff.
And they, you know, the other guys, you know.
I'd bring liquor in and they would trade me their Valium for, you know, the liquor and,
you know, stuff like that.
But y'all, the miracle when, as I got in recovery, I started realizing the things that God was
doing for me, what I couldn't do for myself.
So I'm in the, um, and they take us to an AA meeting inside, you know, they won't let
you out because it's a locked facility and here comes walking in these six or seven people
and one of them was the head narcotics officer from Brunswick.
Now two things went through my head.
One is, are they here for me?
That's how my ego was, you know, are they here for me?
And y'all, he was there to lead an AA meeting.
And it was my first introduction to Alcoholics Anonymous, um, was the head narcotics agent.
And it was really, he knew me, I mean, and I don't mean he had arrested me, but he knew
me.
And, um, you know, so it was interesting.
Back then I couldn't understand the impact of what was happening at that time.
It took me a little while to get to a place that I could.
Um.
It wasn't too much longer that my dad, um, we had a cemetery and, um, he brought this
guy's brother died and he brought this guy over and this guy 12 stepped me.
Now I was still about 18 years old, but these are all the little things that were happening
that were for me today was God doing for me, you know, cause I never forgot this guy is
Hilton Hilton Lowe was his name and y'all, this is 50 something, I mean, not 50, 40 years
later.
I still remember that man, you know, for coming over for taking the time to come over and
take me to meetings.
Now, I did not take it seriously.
And, uh, you know, in the big book it talks about if, if the person that you're working
with does not take this thing seriously, move on to the next.
And he moved on to the next, uh, always remembered me and he'd come talk to me anytime he saw
me on the farm and everything.
I went through, um, several treatment centers and in 1982, 81.
Um.
I, I got, um, I went to treatment for the last time I was in treatment and, um, it was
down in Statesboro and, um, the, uh, it was at willing way hospital.
And, you know, I would love to tell you that I got in recovery.
Um, but what I did do for a change, because I had nowhere to live anymore and my dad had
made sure of that cause he'd got me out of jail so many times that he finally said, I
can't keep doing this.
And, um, the, so I went up there and of course, what do I do in treatment?
You know, cause I take this treatment stuff seriously.
I, I met a woman and, um, I met this woman and her husband, I, you know, I didn't know
she was married at first, but her husband came to family week and brought pot with him.
And so that started a relapse for me and it started, I had a major overdose and, uh, and
that was June 5th, 1982.
So I went up there and, um, I met this woman and her husband, uh, you know, I didn't know
she was married at first, but her husband came to family week and brought pot with him.
And so that started a relapse for me.
And, um, and y'all, my, my thinking was so insane at that time.
I had, I was so terrified and I didn't realize how terrified, except when I was without alcohol
or without drugs, you know, and when I was, I was a raving maniac, you know, in the big
book, it talks several times about that, that I am willing, that I am willing to go to any
length to stay in recovery.
And then I think about what, um, Ryan read.
Yeah.
It said, if we are painstaking, you know, about this phase of our development now, this
time in 1982, when I finally got in recovery on June 5th, um, I, I wanted, I didn't want
to be the way I had been for so long.
I was 25 years old and, um, I did not want to be that way anymore.
My ego was such that I probably had at least three sponsors the first year.
And I would love to tell you that it was because I was growing.
And I was doing a lot of work.
I was doing all these things, but it was because the first one was the circuit speaker.
The next one was a higher up in a company.
And the next one was just a very well like guy.
And I was doing it for me, for what you would think about me.
And that, that started showing me the pattern of my life is I was more worried about what
you thought about than what I was thought of that I thought about, about me.
And, uh, and it took me a long time to get to a place that, um, I had some comfort with
who I am a long time.
Um, I was excited.
I was excited.
I was extremely resentful when I got in recovery.
I didn't know how resentful I was.
I, y'all, I hated everything and everybody.
And you know, in a big book it says we seized fighting everything and everyone.
And it took me a long time to get to that place.
Um, I was in Statesboro, I was living there.
I was doing, you know, basically I was doing what Reese wanted to do, but I was, there
was some things that were consistent this time.
And one of them was prayer.
You know, one of the things.
Y'all, I did not believe in God.
I didn't believe that, you know, in a higher being at all.
But one of the things that the guy told me, uh, one of the first sponsors was just pray,
just pray.
And he kept saying it, just pray.
And at about four months in recovery, I had a spiritual awakening.
Now it wasn't this major overwhelming white light and everything.
It was, uh, a garden of the, what is it?
The garden variety?
Uh, who?
Yeah.
Um, you know, I had the spiritual awakening and all it was y'all was there is a God.
That's it.
There is a God.
I, uh, it was tough for me for a long time because when you grow up in the South, especially
far South as I did, you know, the Bible belt and everything, there's expectations of how
you're supposed to believe in God.
And that was really tough on me.
Um, especially growing up the way I did, but you know, it seemed like everybody wanted
me to be a Christian.
You know, I didn't want to be a Christian and have a Christian God.
And it was funny that one of my young, my next door neighbor who was a Christian when
I was growing up, he used to walk around and say one way and all that stuff.
And you know, two things, one, I admired him because of his thinking, you know, that he,
he was willing to put himself out there.
The other was that when I got in recovery, I took a copy of the big book to him.
Uh, I've been in recovery about a year, um, when the, his brother died and I took a big,
a copy of the big book to him.
And I asked him because I needed acceptance and that's me, I was just needy and I needed
acceptance.
And, uh, he called me on the phone, which I think is the only time I've talked to him
in all these years.
And he said, that's the most profound pieces of literature I've ever read.
And this is a guy that doesn't have an alcohol, don't drink, doesn't do anything, uh, to say
that.
And, uh, as time went by, I did the thing, the normal things that you do when you get
in recovery.
Um, if you take something out of your life, I put something back in my life.
So what I ended up doing was I took alcohol and drugs out of my life.
So I started caffeine, lots of caffeine, lots of cigarettes, um, and the girls, you know,
that kind of stuff.
I could not stay out of the women's halfway house.
I couldn't stop.
And, um, and y'all, it was one of those things that I'd love to tell you that it was just
part of my thinking that, that you would say, I'm just not going to do that anymore.
But I couldn't not do that the same way with my drugs and with my alcohol, I just couldn't
not do that.
And so what happened was I had about three months of recovery and you know, that old
saying about a year without emotional involvement.
Well, they told me that, but one of the counselors at the hospital I worked at evidently thought
I was cute.
She had about three years in recovery and, um, so she stopped me out and, and y'all,
it was sick.
I moved up to Atlanta to live with her because she moved up to Atlanta.
I followed her up here and, uh, we almost got married.
We were engaged, getting ready to get married.
And I'll tell you a little bit about that story in just a minute.
If, if I remember, um, if you ever listened to a talks when people say, I'll tell you
about that in a minute, a lot of times we forget.
So, uh, um, the thing that remained consistent with me is that I continue to go to meetings
and I'd love to say, I want to say something else when, uh, we, when you were walking in,
uh, I was walking in and I was walking in and I was walking in and I was walking in and I
was walking in and I was walking in and I was walking in and I was walking in and I was walking in.
And that young fellow was sitting out front and greeting people, Derek, good job, wherever
you are.
Um, that's one of the things that my sponsors always said to me is everybody smoked in a
back then clean the ashtrays, put the chairs up and greet people coming and going.
And y'all that that's what they demanded of you or of me.
Let me say that.
And maybe it was because they thought I was sicker.
That's what happens sometimes.
But, but a lot of times.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A lot of people thought that stuff, you know, and, and I, I think that even myself, I don't
see that as much as I used to, you know, to people sticking around to help, uh, clean
up and do stuff like that.
Um, I continued with the, the women, my women, the women, after a year, I quit drinking caffeine
and I quit smoking and all I had left in my life, y'all was two things, Alcoholics Anonymous
and women.
And I'd love to tell you that the latter went away and I started getting healthier and all
that stuff.
I started getting better and all that stuff pretty quick.
And, and, but I didn't because I was so insecure.
Uh, I was so afraid to let y'all see who I really was, um, that I had to put other things
around me.
Um, you know, I use the analogy, um, that like I had a lead jacket on me and I had this
hook right here and anytime I had a compulsion, you know, a, um, the physical allergy and
the craving and y'all, it could be about anything.
Every time I had it, this hook would go in and somebody would start turning this winch
and it would pull me and I wouldn't be able to say no.
And, um, and by the time I probably had four or five years, I felt so weak, terribly weak.
And y'all, what I was doing in recovery was I was doing everything I could to make you
think how healthy I was.
If you looked on the outside, it looked really good, but I was kind of like that duck that
looks all nice and calm on the lake and he's paddling like hell underneath, you know, and,
and that's, that was me.
And, uh, because I was so terrified.
I had to let people know who I really was.
The funny thing was I didn't, I didn't even really know who I was.
So I started doing stuff, um, after I moved to Jacksonville for a geographical cure.
And in the process of all this, y'all, all this sex stuff that I told y'all early on
that happened when I was a little kid, it started coming up and it had to be dealt with.
And, uh, so I had to start dealing with it and it was, it was tough stuff.
I mean, it was stuff that most people would say, you know, was identity, sexual identity
stuff.
It was cravings.
It was everything.
And, uh, and it was very, very hard for me to deal with.
And, uh, to the point of almost killing myself, you know, because I just, I don't want to
do this.
I don't want to have to do this.
And, um, but something continued to remain consistent was Alcoholics Anonymous.
I went to meetings and I had sponsor.
When I moved up to Atlanta, uh, I moved in with the girl I was telling y'all about.
And, and, and y'all, I really did like her.
I mean, I loved her.
I wanted to marry her.
I wanted my, my mind.
All I could picture was a white picket fence and peace and happiness, you know, because
that's what I'd craved my whole life was peace and happiness.
And, um, so I moved in with her.
We were getting married.
We got the invitations done and we done that.
And, and finally I had gotten to the place in recovery that I, it was very hard for me
not to be honest.
You know, first principles, honesty, but it was very hard for me not to be honest about
stuff.
So.
I, I sat her down one day and, um, told her the truth about what was going on with me
with all this, with all my thinking and everything.
And she said, couldn't you have told me before we ordered the invitations?
Cause invitations were expensive.
And, um, so y'all, the person that I was involved with, she was, she was my mom without the
physical part of it.
She was, she was, um, but, but the thing that I have to remember y'all is it was me that
attracted her.
So if she had stuff she was dealing with, I had stuff that I was dealing with cause I
don't want to put a lot of responsibility on her.
You know, I can sit back and say she was sick and she was this, you shouldn't have done
that.
You know, I can say that, but this woman turned out to be the catalyst for what changed my
life.
And, um, anyway, we, we didn't last, but about another month or something like that.
And of course we, you know, how, how I do, you know, you go back, you can't leave, you
go back, you leave.
You go back, you leave, you're thinking that it'll happen this time.
She's the one it's, um, and y'all, it never did.
We, we, even our friends at Biscayne room and Skyland, they were all saying, y'all need
to get apart.
And, um, and I just, you know, it was almost impossible to do, but the, the thing that
happened to me was I was sitting in the apartment where we lived in snow mountain and I had
a motorcycle and I remember this, that I picked the motorcycle helmet up.
Now I had nowhere to go.
I had nowhere to go and said, I'm leaving.
And, and that was, that was it.
I left and I went, I called a friend and went and moved in with him in a one bedroom apartment.
And, um, it, you know, that began the start of my life because what happened y'all was
I ended up getting so despondent, um, because I finally had to deal with all those resentments
that I was telling y'all about at the first, all of them came up except for one.
And when I had to leave, I had to leave.
I had about seven years in recovery.
I was standing in the, I invited my mom up.
Now I told you what I think about my mom.
I invited my mom up to visit in, um, um, wherever I lived, Chamblee.
And, um, I asked her to come up and visit.
And so she came up and I cooked her dinner.
You know, I did all that stuff I'm trying to impress.
And, um, I stood over the sink and I put some water in my mouth and I rinsed it out and
I spit in the sink.
Now my house is a little bit, I don't know, I don't know how to say it.
I don't know how to say it.
I don't know how to say it.
I don't know how to say it.
I don't know how to say it.
But I said, little kid that you got beat for that.
And she looked at me and she said, why did you do that?
And I said, because I can now, you know, I got a resentment.
And, uh, that, that was the start of, with the breakup of the relationship and that issue
with my mom, that was really the pinnacle of everything.
And y'all, I want to tell y'all that I was doing lots of things.
So you would look at me like, wow, isn't he the coolest?
And I was dying inside and I was doing sweat lodges.
I went out to this place for 16 days in California to learn all about, of course, miracle.
I was doing all this stuff just so you would say, isn't that the coolest thing?
And y'all, what I was doing was searching for God, you know, and I, you know, in that
song, searching for love and all the wrong places, you know, I could say I was searching
for God and all the wrong places, but they really were all the right places.
It's the thing that finally got me to a place of enough pain that I wanted to be different.
Um, I, the one thing that was concealed that I couldn't stop.
And it, and it ended up being just like my, um, drugs and alcohol was, um, the women and
y'all, I left Shambly one night, um, about eight or nine o'clock and I went up to Gainesville
just before I lived in Gainesville and I went to have sex with this girl and I left there
crying and what I was crying about was it wasn't working for me anymore.
And y'all, that was the first time in my life that the whole slate had been clean.
Everything.
That nothing was working for me.
Our liquor was but a symptom.
You know, I was, I came face to face with Reese and I had some major work.
Now that one of the great things about it was I had one of the best sponsors around.
Um, he went to the other program and everything and, but he was one of the best sponsors that
I could have ever had.
Uh, one of the most maternal men, uh, that I'd ever met.
And he was till this day.
Uh, and it was exactly what I needed.
It was, you know, it's again, one of those things.
It's realizing that God's doing for me what I can't do for myself.
Um, and he and I became best friends.
We rode my motorcycles all over the Southeast and, you know, we did that stuff.
But in doing that stuff, we spent time with each other.
And the, the thing that always scared me about men, y'all, and, and most people, well, that's
not fair.
A lot of men, especially me, would say things.
It's just easier for me to talk to women.
You know, it wasn't easier.
I was scared to talk to guys.
I was scared because of what had happened to me as a kid.
I might have feelings about and have to deal with this stuff.
And it was terrifying to me.
And, um, so getting this guy in my life.
And then right after that, a woman came in.
Now, this was a non, this was a lesbian.
And we had the best relationship, you know, that, that you can have.
Well, not sexual.
Um, we had the best relationship that, but it was what I needed in my life.
And it was so funny, y'all, that, and I've learned this in recovery, is the healthier
I get, the healthier the people are around me.
And it's amazing how that happens.
And it doesn't mean that the people that I sponsor, that I don't get reminded time and
time and time again about me, you know, about my thinking and about what got me to the place
that I'm at.
Um, it took a long time, you know, for me to realize and to, uh, understand why sponsorship
was so important.
I knew why it was important to me, you know, because you're helping.
And, you know, I am the most important person, you know, and that's the way my mind thought.
But it wasn't until later when I really understood what giving back meant.
Um, you know, and it talks in here about, um, giving of ourselves selflessly.
And, um, you know, and y'all, I, I wish I could tell you, I did that all the time.
I don't, um, I wish I could tell you that, um, I was close to perfect with 33 years.
I'm not, um, you know, and the thing, one of the things that I know that if I were to
salt my recovery, the way I salt my drugs and alcohol, I probably would have been a
lot further along because again, it says if we're painstaking, you know, that's not, well,
if I feel good about this, um, I, I didn't feel good a lot about, about a lot of things
in, um, I quit, um, dating women, uh, for a while.
And I, I'd love to say that it was that thing.
Um, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,
I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, yeah.
Somebody said, you know, don't have an emotional involvement.
It was, and it just did, it wasn't working for me anymore.
And I just didn't have any feelings out of it.
And, um, so, not long, I can't tell you how long, could have been a year, could have been
two.
Uh, I met a lady up in Gainesville.
I moved up to Gainesville at that time.
And, um, and, and y'all, she was incredible.
And, and I'm, what I mean by that is, um, this was a lady that I, you know, I just happened
to run.
into her. And it was interesting that I had this was she worked in public relations and I had a
different person over our account. And all of a sudden they put this lady over our account and I
met her and I was terrified. I was terrified because I wanted to ask her out. And when I have
no buffers, when some of this most of the symptoms are cleared out, I didn't know how to say, would
you like to go out on a date? See, I mean, that's pretty easy, but it was not easy. And it took me
about six or seven months to ask that question. And the only way I asked it was, you know, time
went by and I saw her at a Christmas party and she was where I mean, I tell you what she was
wearing, you know, to this day. And I finally got enough nerve to ask her out. And we she had two
daughters. One was, I think, four or five. And one was one was just turning three. And, you know,
the first time I saw her, I was like, 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. 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. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't
three year old had never really known her dad. Her dad, he just wasn't a good guy. I mean, he was
he was a nice guy, but he was very lost. And and he still hadn't been found. But, you know, he was
very lost. And so the three year old attached to me and y'all, I had always wanted kids.
And one of the things that my wife today wouldn't do was she never introduced me to her to her kids
until we've been dating about six or seven months. She would,
not let me see him. She was smart enough to say, my kids will get attached to him, and
he'll get attached to them, and then it won't be about us. And so, I mean, right there,
I'm telling you that the person that I was involved with was thinking pretty good. I
can't see. Okay, we've got two hours left. So, anyway, the six-year-old was, y'all, she
hated me. I mean, hated everything about me. And what she hated was that they had been
together four years without a man. And here this man was coming into their lives. And
y'all, she spit on me. She threw food at me. She did all these things. And it was
terrible. And it was terrible. And it was terrible. And it was terrible. And it was
God-awful. And I'm sitting dying inside thinking, I love this woman, but I hate this kid. So,
anyway, I mean, I was to this point of saying, I can't do this. We were sitting in the waffle
house. She had already spit food on me. And anyway, I was just defeated. And I walked
out the door. And I'm getting ready to get in my car. And this little girl comes up to
me. And she...
Out of her overalls, out of this pocket, she pulled a rock. Because she knew how important
rocks were to me. She pulled this rock. And y'all, it was a rock off a playground. But
it was that important to her to give to me. It was kind of like a peace offering. And
so what happened as a result of that, we got married. My wife and I did. And when we moved
in together, in the first year, my six-year-old...
I was seven, whatever she was at that time. I was angry. I was mad at her. And not about
any of that old stuff. And let me tell y'all what I was mad at her about. You know, let
me see. I was married at 87, I think. So I'd been in recovery about 14 or 15 years. And
what I was mad about, because my wife said stuff like, you're fighting with a six-year-old.
You know, and I was having these feelings. And y'all, I was...
What I finally came to realize about this little girl was she was me as a six-year-old.
Needy, insecure, emotional, and dishonest. And that was me. Those were the reasons I
got beat as a kid. And impulsive, because I was extremely impulsive. And when I finally
realized that, it was a spiritual awakening. It was one of those things, one of those gifts
from God that I finally realized.
My part in this, you know, I'm fighting with a six-year-old. And there wasn't any reason
to. What I was looking for, y'all, was to make somebody love me. Like my mom was trying
to do with us. Make... You're going to love me. I'll buy you stuff. I'll make you love
me. Anyway, you know, we got married and it was a good wedding. And y'all, I have, by
far, my opinion, the best wife ever. And you know what I think is... And I don't know what
God's will is for anybody. I really don't. And... But I wish everybody could have a relationship.
It doesn't matter, male, female, whatever, like I do with my wife. And, you know, all
the... The way that I look at a lot of things today is that everything was just a rung on
a ladder. And it was just moving up, getting closer to God. And I can't imagine, you know,
if I live another day, what's in store for me. I'd love to tell y'all that... And I've
been successful.
And in a lot of areas. And the one thing that I'd love to tell you is a lot of my problems
today are a higher quality of problems. And, you know, but don't ever let the quality of
your problems make you think that they can't lead you back to a drink again. You know,
I've seen people drink over the most stupidest things. And they're stupid to me, but not
to them. And I have to remember that.
And, you know, I got a job in February. And, y'all, this has been the hardest job that I've
ever had. And part of the reason it's been so hard is because I'm doing stuff I don't
know how to do. And I'm insecure about it. It's bringing all those feelings up. The healthier
part of me today realizes that I will get through it. And I can't tell you I'll still
be working after I get through it, but I will get through it. And that's what track record
shows me.
And that's why going to Alcoholics Anonymous is so important to me is because if I go in
the door of Alcoholics Anonymous, I am going to hear something I need to hear. I am. I'm
going to see somebody in there. You know, the neat thing about Alcoholics Anonymous
is you can find anybody in Alcoholics Anonymous that's been through what you're going through.
Anybody. I've never seen it fail. And the good thing about it, y'all, is my ego's not
that big to where I have to think I know all the answers.
You know, I wish I did because that would make me look better. But I don't know all the
answers. I don't know what you need to stay in recovery. I know what I need today. And
I need y'all. And y'all, I don't care if it's your first meeting here today. You know, one
of the things that we say in our group, and maybe y'all say it here, is the most important
person in the room is the newcomer. You know, and if I can always try to remember to remain
a newcomer, I think I'll do okay. You know, I think I'll do okay. I think I'll do okay.
I think I will. And it goes back to, again, if we're painstaking. And y'all, I love Alcoholics
Anonymous. I love recovery. And you know, the funny thing about it, I'd love to tell
y'all that my mind thinks that way all the time. But y'all, I can go out and meditate
during my meditation. I can go out and my mind will start talking to me and saying,
you know, is there really a God? You know, if there was a God, you know, it'll start
talking to me. But I have choice today.
My choice is, what am I going to do about it? I have the power today to talk in a different
way. And I don't mean tongues. I just, I mean, talk in a different way and hear different
things out of my, in my head. And y'all gave me that gift. Y'all told me how to do those
things. And I'm grateful for that. You know, in these last few months in this, this job
that's been so difficult for me, the things that I have done is what y'all have taught.
Now, this is with time.
The things that y'all told me to do at the very first is pray, reach out to people. You
know, um, our, our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety.
And I forget that sometimes because if I get so wrapped up in myself, like I do, I forget
and I want to think about me. So I, I appreciate y'all, Tim asking me, um, to come down here
and talk. I appreciate y'all being here tonight. And, uh, thank y'all.
Thank you very much, Reese, for, for being here and sharing your story with us.
Thank you.
I appreciate y'all.
.
.
And I thank y'all for being here tonight.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Ain't never enough.
I know how it is to live and die.
Always fearing that I'm gonna run out.
Keep the curse strong to myself.
Hide it from everyone else.
To save it for a rainy day.
If you wanna have it all the time.
Gotta give it away.
All I had was love.
Kept it on a shelf.
And you showed me how to love you well.
Till I could do it myself.
If you want love all the time.
Give it to someone else.
I want everyone around to see.
Just how much your love means to me.
Baby wear it on my sleeve.
It'll never leave.
If I give it and just don't take it.
If you want love.
If you want love.
If you want love.
If you want love.
All the time.
Give it away.
If you want love.
All the time.
Give it away.
If you want love.
All the time.
Give it away.
Give it away.
All the time.
Give it away.
Give it away.
If you want love.
All the time.
Give it away.
Give it away.
Give it away.
Give it away.
Give it away.
Give it away.
Give it away.
Give it away.
Give it away.
Give that away
Give that away
Give that away
More Tapes You Might Like
Discussion
Be the first to share your thoughts on this tape.