Tom F. on the 12 Steps and Mending the Family

I'm an alcoholic, a member of the Phoenix Birds of a Feather group of Alcoholics Anonymous, and my name is Tom. Hi everybody. What a nice looking group. Boy, this has been a great convention up until now. I've enjoyed it. It's been very nice. My wife mentioned to me that this has become a very comfortable, comfortable convention. and easy going. We've had a chance to relax, some good meetings, good fellowship, and that's nice. Some conventions are very hectic. There's a lot of action, and I like this. This is more of a vacation for us. We're having a wonderful time. Had a chance to spend the first week. Before I talk, I'd like to say something. And I'd like to see that we're thoroughly enjoying Spain. We've been here a week and I had a chance to tour up through Girona, saw Tim's area, and then up into France and back down and I come here with my sponsor and his wife and my wife. Doreen, would you stand up? Let the people see you. This is my wife, St. Doreena of Apache Junction. I want to thank Tim, both Tims and Paul and all those that are involved in putting this together. It's a lot of work, and we're talking about helping others. That's service work, and it really takes a lot OF effort and a lot Of time. And Tim contacted me almost a year ago and asked me if I could do this, and I said no, I couldn't. I said I'm sorry. I'm building a log cabin up in the mountains in Arizona, and I thought I'd be right in the middle of the build. I can't do it. And then I thought to myself after I told him that But, you know, I usually don't say no. And I don't know why I'm doing it now at this point, saying no. You know, and I've been asked to have an honor like this. So I emailed him and I told him we were coming. And I'm glad I did. It's well worth it. Well, let me see. Garrett was very good this afternoon. And I was kind of rummaging around in my head as to how I was going to put this together. I've spoken before, and he said that one of the things that we do in Alcoholics Anonymous that's very effective is that we share our experience, our personal experiences. And that's the sorrows and trials and tribulations of being an active alcoholic. Then we get some identification, and we can go on from there. and when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous just before I arrived I thought I thought I was having mental problems I thought I was going crazy I thought I was gonna get locked up someplace and I didn't know it was alcohol I thought that alcohol was the one thing that gave me some comfort you know a lot of things going on in my life you know I wasn't happy with the politics in America and my company had fallen on hard times and I had a cutback in my job and my salary was reduced by 50% and my lawn wasn't cut and, you know, my family life wasn't very good. So the only comfort I had was my drink. And if somebody would ask me, you know what are your hobbies? What do you do on your time off? I'd tell them that I drank. i drank that was my hobby and uh i had no idea what the ramifications were or how bad you know was affecting my life i knew it made me drunk and i knew that i felt bad in the morning and i know i did things that i was ashamed of but you know the good seemed to outweigh the bad at that point in my life well So it started, I don't remember if somebody gave me a sip when I was a child or not. I have no idea. All I know is that my father took ill right after I was born. He had multiple sclerosis and he became paralyzed and was hospitalized. And so we lost him as part of the family. And so he was a very gentle, kind, loving Irish dad. And let's go along with the rest of the speakers here at the convention. And so we went into the hospital. My mother went back with her family and brought me along as an infant. And I was raised in a German family, my mother's side. And I had an uncle. It was a bachelor uncle who lived with us, three maiden aunts, an old grandfather, my mother, and me. And my uncle was kind of a rough, gruff fellow. And on the weekends he would drink. And when he drank, he was happy and fun, and he would dance and joke and throw me around. And I knew whatever he was doing, whatever that was that he was drinking did wonderful things for him. So I stored that in the back of my mind. And when I was 12 years old, I stole a bottle from an aunt and I went off with two other fellas and we drank it. It was whiskey. And it tasted terrible, terrible. But when I drank that, something very special happened to me. And I think that's the difference between an alcoholic and a non-alcoholic? Something very special happens when you ingest that stuff. And I remember that first drink. I don't remember my first communion, but I rememberthat first drink and I felt something I had never felt before. You know, as I say, it's like, uh, it was like Christmas and Hiroshima and deep throat all at once. I knew, yeah, I knew that I was going to do this again. Of course, at that age it was difficult to get a hold of and, you know, it wasn't available. So whenever it was, I was able to get back into it, you You know, in my first year in high school, I started drinking. And I became a casual drinker. I had some goals. And this was, I always had goals right up until the time that alcohol took over my life. I was able to, maybe I wasn't an alcoholic, I don't know, but I was unable to put it aside for periods of time, get done what I needed to get done and then get back to the drink. And trouble started very early on. I was a very skinny kid, and I was trying to play football, and I finally made the football team. And one Friday night I got a hold of a bottle again and went out, and I got so drunk it was my first alcoholic illness the next day. I couldn't get out of bed, andI couldn't go to the game that I was supposed to play in. And I was thrown off the team. And that was my first trouble with alcohol. I went to college, a university, and I didn't drink during the week. I only drank on the weekend. And Friday night I drank, and it was Friday night drinking beer with the boys and Saturday night was for dating. And maybe on Saturday night I drunk and maybe I didnít, but it was far more important that I take care of my social life on Saturday nights. And that's the way it went. And there were periods of drunkenness in there. I would get drunk from time to time, and I liked being active at that point in my life when I was drinking. I liked action. And there was a lot of fighting that went on. And people played basketball and baseball, and I enjoyed street fighting. Maybe it could be a sport, street boxing, you know. But we'd drink and I'd get a half a load on and come walking down the sidewalk and I would pick on someone and we'd punch it out in the street and it was kind of a sport for me. I was fairly good at it. I didn't get hurt too often and that was just a sign of what was to come with my drinking. I had a few run-ins with the police. I was arrested a couple of times for drinking, but I wasn't prosecuted. I went to jail, but it only went for a few hours, and they released me, let me go. The goal was to finish school. As I said, I was drinking on the weekends, I was dating on the weekends and I was studying during the week And I finished college And I had a chance to go in the Marines You'll hear a Marine tomorrow night And I knew Lyle in the Marine Corps But this was the biggest thing of my life I had an opportunity to go to the Marines I had the chance to Go to flight school And I talk about an alky I was going to lunch With a friend of mine in college and we went to the cafeteria to have lunch and I had no thoughts of going in the military and there were Marines standing there with their nice snappy uniforms on and there was a big poster with a blue sky with a little gray jet going across the sky and I walked over before I went in to get my sandwich and I asked him, I said, can I fly that jet? He said, Can you see well? And I said yes, I have good eyes. He said, just sign here. I signed. I signed there, and that became my next goal, to fly that little gray jet across the blue sky. And I graduated from college, and off I went to Florida to go to flight school and to fly the gray jets. And I got my snappy uniform, and I bought a little sports car. And I remember I was 23 days a lieutenant, an officer and a gentleman in the Marine Corps, and I lost my sports car in town. And I asked the shore patrol if they could give me a ride back to the base because I couldn't find my sports care. And the next thing I know, I was standing in front of the commanding officer in trouble because of drink. And it started again for me. There had been a hiatus there where I hadn't had trouble. Just trying to think of the sequence of these things. I got rid of that sports car because I thought it may be trouble. but I got a little bit faster one. I bought a Corvette and I got caught for speeding in reverse on the main street in Pensacola, Florida. When I got out of the car to explain it I had a strange accent and my tongue was caught in my teeth And I was put in the back of a police car and I was taken down And I had to go to court I lost my right to drive in the state of Florida for two years I also lost my rights to drive on a military base And so I would have to goto class Now, I'm going to flight school learning to fly airplanes But I can't drive a car and I would have to walk from where I was living to the flight line to go to school and people would pick me up and feel sorry for me and they'd say, what's the matter, Lieutenant? And I'd say my Jaguar is being tuned up or something. I didn't tell them my Jaguars my Corvette was in the drunk lot and I couldn't drive. Another sign along the way. So all through my drinking career, I was having these little things happen to me. And I thought it was just an occupational hazard of being a heavy drinker. I didn't think it was alcoholism. I never considered alcoholism in my life. I had little bouts here and there. Doreen and I got married, and we started a family. We had a son. and then shortly thereafter I was to go overseas to the Far East and I was there for 15 months away from my family and strange things started to happen. And it was a memorable date for me was on Christmas Day in 1964. Everybody was feeling down in the mouth that we were away from our families and we had plenty of time left to go over there before we could get home again And we decided to have a Christmas party. And we bought a wash tub in town, and we filled it full of all sorts of alcohol. I don't even know what went in there. And there was a lot of drunkenness that day. And I got drunk every day from Christmas Day until sometime in April. Every day I got drunken. I got drink at night. I shouldn't say every day. I get drunk at night, I get up in the morning, I was sick as can be. At lunchtime, I had a bowl of tomato soup, a strawberry milkshake, and promised myself that I would eat that night. And then at the end of the day, I would end up, instead of turning right into the chow hall, I would go left into the bar, and I'm going to have one or two good promises, and I couldn't stop. During that period, I went to the flight surgeon in the squadron and I asked him to take my appendix out. And he said, are you having a problem? What are the symptoms? And I said, well, I don't have any symptoms. I just want you to take me appendix off. He said, why? And I say, well it's a useless organ. We don't use it anymore. someday someday I could have appendicitis and I've got time on my hands you're not doing anything now this was not just a casual request what I was doing here was I was looking for a detox and i didn't know what a detox was i couldn't stop drinking every day i promised myself i wouldn't drink that night every day I did that and I couldn't do it and I thought if I get in the hospital I won't be able to drink and I'll have a period of time where I won t be able to take a drink and i can get off this I can break this cycle and he wouldn't do He told me to get out of his office, and I thought I was stuck, but the government saved me. We went to war with Vietnam for some reason or other, and sent me there, and we got there. There was no officers club. There was not alcohol. If you didn't bring it with you, you didn t have it. i didn't know that and uh i was in detox it was 110 degrees down there and uh and i sweated out and i got sober and uh you know i was sober uh oh without a drink for about five weeks if i remember correctly and the navy ship came in And they delivered cases of booze to Chulai for us. And, you know, I knew during that time, I said, I feel good. I haven't had a drink. I feel great. I feel healthy. It's hot. It's sticky. It's dangerous. But physically, I'm feeling good. But as soon as that alcohol arrived, I had no more defense against that. I hadno idea that I shouldn't pick up that drink. And we drank all the alcohol in about three days. It was all gone, you know, and then we were dry again. But I picked that up with no thought that I shouldn't take that drink. I survived that situation over there, you Know. I came back. I was one of the fortunate ones, and I came home. I was thinking over there that, You know, this is a crazy life. It wasn't. I don't blame anything on the war. It was just a stage of life that I was going through, you Now, that the alcohol was taking over. It would have taken over in America or over here, wherever. You know, it was just happening to me, but it happened to be happening over there. And I thought, honestly thought, that when I return to America and I get out of the Marines, I'll return to a very normal life. You know? I'll stop this foolishness. You know. I'll get a job. I'll work 9 to 5. I'll have the weekends off, a week off in the summer or two, you know, to go to the shore or what have you. And I'll be a family man and this craziness will be over, this drunkenness, this wild stuff that was going on. Well, I got back to the States and I think most of my comrades did return to a normal way of life. But I didn't. I didn' And I think I had crossed over that line someplace. And now I was having, I got a good job and I was traveling internationally. I had a lot of time off. My family was growing. And, you know, if I didn't tell you anything about alcohol, you'd think that I had an idea. I had had a career that was going along very normally and life was good. But now I'm starting to feel it inside. I returned right back to the Far East after I got back. I got a job and took my family and moved to Hong Kong, and we lived there for two years. During that period of time, I was experiencing trouble with alcohol as usual. But now with the time off, and I had a lot of it, certain things were happening to me that I didn't understand. I had some accidents. I had a motorcycle accident over there and I did a slide for life at about 50 miles an hour and I tore all my clothes off. I ended up with my fruit of the loons on in the street and I had skin off everywhere, you know. and I remember my friend whose motorcycle it was helped me back to my apartment, and my wife, St. Doreen, rolled the rug back on the living room floor because there was a new rug, and she didn't want blood on it. And he laid me on the floor, and the doctor came over. We had an English doctor that lived nearby, and he came over, and I asked him for something for the pain. and he said you've got enough in you to deaden any pain that i have seen and uh off i went to the hospital the next thing uh some months later was uh coming home from uh from the prison club that i uh was a guest member at and uh i i said i was run off the road by a lorry coming up the mountain and uh to this day i don't know if i was ran off the road or not, to tell you the truth. I don't know if it was that or I had one eye closed trying to get home but I hit the end of a stone wall with my Volkswagen and went through the windshield out onto the front. Then I got back in and I had to lay across the front seat because I had dislocated one shoulder and the fingers on the other hand so I had to lay cross the front seat to turn the key on and I drove home. Knocked on the door because I couldn't get the key in. My fingers were dislocated. I couldn t get the key in the door and my wife opened the door. She said, What now? So I was thinking to myself, you know, what's going on with me? What's happening? I said, You know what? I think I'm becoming a masochist. not drink it wasn't drink I thought you know I'm going to end up in some sleazy hotel room somewhere with somebody beating me and I'm gonna be enjoying it anything but the truth well we got back to the States and it was only a matter of a year or two, and I had reached my end. Last day of my drinking with December was January 7th, 1972. And for most people, it wouldn't be worthwhile even noting this, but for me, it was the start that broke the camel's back. Very small thing. It wasn't an arrest. It wasn't a fight. It wasn'T an accident, a crash or anything. It's just the fact that I woke up on my couch in the living room and my wife was standing over me when I opened my eyes and my son, my 8-year-old son, was standing next to her and she was shaking me. She said, your son wants to ask some questions. And I was very sick. I had been drinking for about seven days. I had a period of time off, and I think I started around New Year's Day. And every day I'd gotten drunk, and every morning I had gotten sick and then gotten drunk again. So it was day seven. And she said, Your son wants to know why don't you sleep in bed anymore? Why do you sleep on the couch? He would like to know why you sleep with your clothes on He would Like to know Why you smell so bad You know it's very unfair For a man in my condition To be asking me these tricky questions The only thing I could think to say at that point Was it's none of his business It's none Of his business You know I put the roof over your head And the food on the table and I'll do what I want around here. You know, whatever it was, that was the straw. You know I must have thought that he had never seen me drunk before but that was one of those mornings that I was so disgusted with myself and if I were to say one word why did I come to Alcoholics Anonymous? It was disgust. I was totally disgusted. You know, I looked at myself and I said, what have I become? That day I had to do honeydew because I was coming off the drunk. And Doreen asked me if I would drive her to the doctor's for some sort of an appointment, a checkup. And I couldn't say no. When I had been drinking and was asked to do something, I didn't say No because I didn't want her talking about what I had just been doing and drinking. And so I drove her, and I dropped her off, and said, I'll be back to pick you up. And I went to a telephone, and it was like out in the country. It was a telephone booth, and I was looking for a very anonymous place to go. And I called Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, I didn' t know anybody that was sober. I didn't know anybody in Alcoholics Anonymous. When I was 10 years old, my aunt had worked for Department of Corrections in Boston and the man who ran the department was involved in AA and he had all the secretaries go to an AA meeting so they would have an idea of what he was trying to do with the alcoholics around Boston. I was ten years old and she came home And I remember the dinner table, they said, what was that AA meeting like? And she said, you know, she said a bunch of old men came in and they drank coffee and smoked cigarettes and talked and then we went home. Now why would I remember that? That's not noteworthy. Why would a young person remember something like that? But I remembered that it was a place for drunks. I didn't know what you did in Alcoholics Anonymous, but I knew it was for drunks. And I knew maybe my problem was I was drinking too much. So that day I called AA, and we were talking about it today. When I went to call, I didn' t have a dime. There was a fire station. I went and I borrowed a dime from a fireman. And I came out, and I put the dime in the phone, and I called, and it was more than a dime, it was a long-distance call. It should have cost a dollar or something, and the lady told me later that they don't accept collect calls at the AA office, and I don't know. To this day, I don' t know how that call went through, but my dime came back out of the phone, and l was connected to Alcoholics Anonymous. This lady with a very husky voice answered it, answered the phone. and I wasn't quite sure if it was a man or a woman. And she said, can I help you? And I said, I had this lump in my throat that I could hardly speak. I was devastated. And I says, the only thing I could think to say was, I'm 32 years old and I'm all screwed up. Can you please help me? And she says, I understand how you feel. and i said how do you understand how i feel and she said i'm an alcoholic i know how you feel and when she said that to me i had my first ray of hope i just the the air came out of me i just i said i i just had a feeling that things may be all right She understood how I felt. That day was the first day I ever said I was an alcoholic. I hated the word. I didn't know what it meant, but I thought it meant that if I admitted it or I had it, I would have to do something about it, I guess. That day, she gave me hope. She said, go home and give me your name and number. And I told her I was Tommy Smith. And I was going to be anonymous because I was a very important person, you know. she said go home and I'll have a man call you and I picked up my wife and we went home and I sat by the phone and I remember I sat on the floor next to the phone and I don't know why I sat on the phone but I sat down on the floor and waited until that phone rang thank God he called me if he had dropped the ball and not called me I don' t know where I'd be but the phone rang and this man called me and he said And how do you feel? And I said, not very well. He said, well, don't drink today. And he said, at 7.30 tonight, I'll pick you up and we'll go to a meeting. I said okay. So I got all dressed for this first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I took a shower. It's one of those days. You know, I've been drinking for seven days. And you develop like a coating of oil or something on you when you don't wash and if you drink too much, things come out of your body, ooze, you know. I took a couple of showers, and then I got dressed, and I put a suit and a tie on. And I had my best suit with the salt wings under the arm, had that on, and my necktie and my red face. and this man picked me up and he took me to my first meeting I sat there and I sat in the middle of the room and it was a torturous thing because at that time in that particular meeting they served coffee and I know they do this through England and Ireland but they serve coffee in china cups with saucers and I had the whips and jingles and that's when you shake and then a nerve announced in the way it goes. About halfway through the meeting, I had coffee all over the front of my suit and I was ringing the bell in the saucer and I gave up. I put the cup down. It was too much. But people spoke at the meeting and it was a speaker meeting. It was several speakers and I sat in the middle of the room And I remember I kept putting my head down Because I was so embarrassed I felt terrible And I was thinking to myself Woe is me A nice guy like you In a place like this With people like these If I had only known You know if I had known What was going to happen to my life I would have broken down the doors To get in this place No idea. Just had trouble with booze. After the meeting, the man who brought me there took me up to the front and introduced me to the speakers. And I thought they were paid speakers, to tell you the truth. And he introduced me everybody and he'd say, this is Tom, he's new, it's his first meeting. And i was trying to make believe I was a recorder for the local paper with the suit on. And I had a question for him. I said, Neil, how do you keep from getting drunk? Now my definition of drunk may be probably the same as yours was when you were newest. Drunk was when you fell down and you couldn't get up or you got tongue tied and you could speak or you couldn t remember anything that was happening. I didn like that i didn't like that you know i liked having the buzz you know the buzz that we went through so quickly and out the other side off but it had been a long time since i had the buzz and uh but i wanted to know how to keep away from that drunkenness and he said to me this is a program of abstinence and I said my God I've overreacted I didn't know you didn't drink in here I don't know what I thought but I didn' I didn''t know that and he said but I'll tell you what the way we do it he said what I'm gonna do for you he said I'm going to take you home tonight and drop you off and I want you to go in the house and don't take a drink don't drink go to bed he said tomorrow morning when you wake up you will have your first day of sobriety now I understood that that I understood that came through and I knew what he said and he looked at me Neil Sullivan God rest his soul my friend Kurt and I I shared him as a sponsor for all the years that he was alive. And Neil got right up close to me in my face, and he probably got a nice whiff of me. And he said to me, how do you feel? I said, I feel terrible. I feel awful. He said, you know what? He said, I got good news. You never have to sober up again. That I understood. And I never have. I never had to sober up again, what a blessing in my life. He was right. I took those couple things with me from that meeting and went home and the next night he picked me up and he took me to another meeting and the following night and the follow night And I was without drink for about a week, and I had to come over. And I remember I had go to Frankfurt, Germany, and they sent me in first class. And I said to him, you know, how am I going to do this? When I come over to Europe and I'm in first classe, I always drink. He said, when you get up in the morning, he said, you make a decision. He said, you decide, not me. He said decide whether you want to drink that day or not and just handle it that day. It's one day at a time. So I got up that morning and I decided I'm not going to drink today and I got on that airplane and I get on that plane in New York at Kennedy Airport and sat in first class and the gal came around with the tray and she said, well, would you like to drink? And I said, coffee! and I looked around first class and I think I was expecting a round of applause. I was so proud of myself, said coffee and I stopped jingling, you know and I got to Frankfort and I found a meeting went to a meeting with Alcoholics Anonymous I found it. I went there, and that day I admitted out loud that I was an alcoholic. It was a discussion meeting. We went around the table. Everybody said they were an alcoholic and got to me, and I was afraid not to say it. When I said it, I got a great sense of relief that I had said it. I'm an alcoholic, and that was the beginning of my life in Alcoholics Anonymous. Good things have happened. It's been a good life for me. I went to a meeting every night. I might have missed a few just because of time changes, you know, and going to Europe or I was spending a lot of time in Africa where I couldn't get to meetings. But any place there was meetings, I was at a meeting at night. I went through a meeting. I think I went though a meeting for the first time. I went into a meeting ever night for the 1st year that I was sober. My wife says the 1s 5 years that I were sober. The truth is in there someplace, I think. I get active with my group. This is helping others. I get involved in service. My sponsor was very active. When he sponsored somebody, he was a very active sponsor. His wife was the lady that answered the phone at the AA office. So now when anybody called from down in that area of Massachusetts where I lived that was new and looking for help, they'd call me. and I was taking people to meetings. I was sitting up at night with people. We didn't have rehabs at that time. We had a few detoxes around, but mostly if you wanted to get sober, you came into AA and stopped drinking and that's the way it went. So I was dragging people around. I was only a month sober or a few weeks sober and I had people in the car and we were traveling in groups And I felt good. Meetings were an hour and a half at night. When I was at the meeting, I was comfortable. I was among friends. I was safe. I loved it. As soon as I went out the door, I wasn't comfortable. I was vulnerable. And I didn't feel safe. So I had an hour-and-a-half of peace every day when I went to a meeting. And then I started getting a little more comfortable in my skin. I made it to a year, a year without a drink. And I thought they were going to give me a cake for a year in the group. I was the first pigeon in the groupe, sponsee, some people call them. I was a pigeon. Everybody else was long-term sobriety, three years, four years, 20 years, one of the guys. And I said, this is hokey, getting a cake, you know, celebration. What's this all about? My sponsor said, you know, it's not an award you're getting. You know, you're supposed to be sober. But we do this to show people that are new that you can stay sober a day at a time and put some days together. And it amounts to a year or several years. He said it just shows people that, you Know, this program works and it works a long time if you stay active. So I got up and they presented me with the cake And, oh my gosh, I got so gushy about that. You know, I thanked my sponsor in the group and Bill Wilson and Hope. Man, I was just, I were so proud, you know. I had that year. It was about a week later. I was home, and my wife told me that she liked me better when I was drinking. How could this be? You know, here I am out every night sitting in these smoky church basements with people I hardly knew trying to lift a program, and she liked Me Better When I Was Drinking. And I thought, I'll show her what it was like. I'll give her a demo of what it was like and I could remember how to do that. So I told my sponsor my plan. He said, you know, I think I have a better idea. He said we have got to get into the 12 steps and we've got to start learning about them. And he said, you'll find that it will make life a lot easier for you. My problem was that I was a great AA angel house devil. You know, I'd come in the room, I would shake hands with people, get hugs, tell them how well I was doing, would talk AA, drink coffee, smoke. I started smoking cigarettes because everybody else was. And, you know, this was wonderful. But when I got out the door, I didn't bring anything out the door with me. I left it all here. You know, I was hearing it, but I didn' t know you were supposed to take it home or I just wasn' t bringing it home. So we started a step group and it was he and his wife, the lady from the AA office, and myself at his dining room table every Tuesday night. We would sit there and we started step one. We started going through the steps. And they were very good, especially her. she was very very good with the steps and i started learning that i had to do some changing in my life and then things started to change at home when i realized that i had to bring this home now i was still taking a lot of guys to meetings i was picking them up and taking me i was patient and kind and loving and caring with these people I had guys wetting their pants in my car, throwing up. I had one guy that was a pig farmer and he didn't really want to go to meetings and he'd go out in the pig pen and slop around with his boots on in hopes that I wouldn't put him in the car with me because he smelled so bad but i would take them you know and with all that going on i'd sit at the dinner table at night and if one of my children spilled a glass of milk it was intolerable you know i wouldn't stand for it you know I'd reach across the table or I'd send them away or would have a big argument you know but I had I had all the time in the world for alcoholics other alcoholics But I didn't know how to bring it home. So with the steps, I started to learn how to bring the program home. At least I was starting to see myself. And what I got in the steps was a good mirror. I had a nice mirror to look in. Once I did my fourth step and figured out who I was and who I wasn't, and then the fifth step, I talked about it. Now I had something to work with. We talked about honesty day and seeing ourselves and and seeing who we were you know the nice guy part that's easy you know but look at look at what a jerk you've been or how irresponsible you've been that's a lot harder you know i started seeing those things in my life and myself and uh i was able to correct them a little bit life life started to get good now for For the new people, I don't want to discourage you, but my sponsor said something magical happens at five, five years. And he said, You're not sober until you hit five years, and I thought, Oh, my gosh, yeah, right, easy for him to say, but it happened. Right about five years I noticed that we were having very peaceful dinners. Everybody stayed at the table. Nobody was sent away. There wasn't any yelling. And my family was starting to really heal at the five-year mark, and whatever that is. There's certain things in AA they say, 30, 60, 90. Things happen, 30.60 and 90 as far as going to meetings. But they also say 30. 60 and 90 are touchy times for new people, right when you hit those spots. Watch out, you know. Get the meetings. Stay close. I managed to stay sober over these years. It's been a wonderful experience. People talk about good things that happen to them, like being able to go to foreign countries and go to conventions and roundups. We were fortunate enough to get to the 50th anniversary of Alcoholics Anonymous up in Montreal, and that was pretty exciting. I went because I thought 50 is a big thing. I really don't want to go. I have no desire to go to this thing, but if I miss it, then I'm going to say to myself, why didn't you go? I went up there and I was blasé about the whole thing. And we drove around, got a hotel room, and we were walking around. And I was walking up these steps and a guy came down. We wore these name tags and it said, where are you from? And there was a swarthy-looking gentleman coming down the other way. and I looked at his name tag, and he was from some Polynesian island way out in the Pacific that I had never heard of. And I thought, oh my God. You know, I drove up from Massachusetts to Montreal. This guy probably took a boat to an island where he could get an airplane to get to another island to get a big airplane to get through the United States to come to this thing. And all of a sudden, I was into the 50th anniversary. You know, I just thought, wow. Then a whole motorcycle gang came roaring up on Harley-Davidson's with all tattooed and black leathers, and they jumped off their bikes, and they were hugging everybody around. I said, this is great. You know? It's been a wonderful experience for us. families healing, healed. They should be healed by now. I should be. It's a daily reprieve, though. You know, it's a day of reprieves. Character defects don't necessarily go away. You can hold them down in constant vigilance is the price of sobriety, I found out. I have three children. One of them, my youngest one, happens to, I don't know what it is, I think she has her mother's genes, but she has the ability to say and do the right thing. I mean, she's a kind, loving, caring person. She doesn't have a problem with alcohol. My other two are Duke. I have a son that went into the alcohol program in the Marines when he went in the Marines, and I have an older daughter that's, I don't know what her status is right now, but she's had a problem with cocaine and alcohol. I've talked to her. She disappears, and then she'll reappear living someplace else. And she's, I'm crazy about her because she's so much like me. But she sounded good. I talked to her on the phone recently and she sounded like me She's been exposed to Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, because we're in AA doesn't mean our children are not going to be afflicted with the disease. I think if we're an AA, our children will have a big book to read. They'll have us to read at least they'll know where there's an answer. Back in my home group back in Massachusetts before I moved to Arizona, families would always come to the AA anniversaries. It's a family disease. It's family recovery. And my wife and children would always comes to my AA anniversary and share in the cake, and I thought that was a good thing. So when it came time to do something about their problems, they've done it. My daughter's been to AA, she's been to NA, and my son's been to AAA, so they know where to go. What's been happening lately? I don't know. Life's been good. Life's been very good. I still go to meetings. I forgot I was looking at this gentleman, he's 26 years, he got 9,490 days. I was trying to think, how many days have I got? I don't know. I've got 30 years. I don'T know how many days that is. I still feel sometimes like a newcomer. I have one fear. One fear. Enthusiasm. You know, I worry that I'll lose my enthusiasm for Alcoholics Anonymous because over the years I've watched people that have gotten a period of sobriety and just drifted away. Stopped going to meetings, and off they went. The next thing you know, people are asking, Where's Joe? Where's Jane? Have you seen them? They're gone. Terrible things happen when you get away from the program and you forget who you are and what you are. And I'll be sitting at meetings, and I'll say to myself, I know you don't do this, But I'll sit in a meeting and I'll say to myself, oh, brother, I'm going to listen to her again. I know what she's going to do. She's going be whining about something, you know, and I will be saying to myself yeah. And he has got the same old lie. He says the same thing every meeting. Brother, keep me out of here, you now. So, you know, I'll get away from that meeting. I'll be driving home and I'll say to myself, oh God, oh, I'm doing it. Help me, please. And all I ask God for is enthusiasm. I say, please, please God, help me with enthusiasm. Help me get it back. You know, a funny thing happens. It seems to be that I'll go back to that meeting and that whiny girl will open her mouth and she'll say something so profound that I'll have to take it home with me. You know, or the guy that I'm sick of listening to will come up with something, you know, and I'll say, wow, where'd that come from? And it's back, and I feel good, and I'm charging again. I'm back enjoying the meetings again. I've never gotten away from the meetings, but I've gotten bored, and I've lost enthusiasm, but it's come back and I'm asked for help. Now, I've done the same thing all these years that I was told somewhere in the first week of my recovery. And my sponsor used to say to me when I was brand new, you know, we'd be sitting in a hall this size. A lot of the meetings were very big. And he'd say, you know what these people do? You know, these sober people? And I'll say, what? and he'll say they get on their knees every morning and they ask God to keep them a drunk away from a drink for the day and then at night they get back on their needs if they've been successful and say thank you out of common courtesy I said they do and he said yes you know I didn't know that maybe somebody in that room didn't do that I just took him for his word that everybody in AA did that so I figured If you drunks could do that, then maybe I ought to do it. So I started to do that and I decided that I'm a creature of habit and if I break a habit, it's like working out. You're working out, you're very enthusiastic and you catch a cold and miss a week and the next thing you know you haven't worked out for a month or two or three or you drop the whole thing or your diet's gone or whatever. So I decided I will not get out of bed under my feet and from that first week that I've been sober I have never missed a day never never of getting on my knees right out of bed and asking God to keep me a drunk away from a drink for the day I have not never forgotten to put my drawers on in the morning either but it's more important that I ask for help than put my draws on I'll tell you that no big feat but I haven't forgotten And at night, I get on my knees and I thank him for the day of sobriety. And some days are a lot more fun than others, but I still thank him. And God's been good to me. And I sometimes wonder, you know, I say, why me? Why has he been so good to make? A God that I don't really understand. A God That's So Vague To Me. I wish I had a real clear picture. I wish I was a very religious person, you know. But I have a vague picture of God, and I wonder why he's kind to me. Why has he given me a life that I never dreamed of? And, you Know, I think it's because I thank him for a lot of stuff. I thank Him all the time. I don't ask for specifics. I don' t ask for specific. I'll just say, you know, please watch out. You know, somebody's sick. I'll say, just take a look at so-and-so or watch me on the road or watch my in the air or something like that. I don't say protect me or make me well. But I do thank him. I don' t forget to thank him and I'll see a sunset and I' ll say, thank you, God. Oh, nice job. and uh i think he appreciates that because he knows he knows he's going to get some thanks from me and uh life has been good it's been a wonderful journey wonderful journey and uh it's a day at a time it's not a lot of time and they say if you want to be an old-timer in aa don't drink and don't die I want to thank you very much for inviting me for information on the next international convention in Spain near Barcelona log on to the AASpain website at www.aaspain.org You can also see lists of all English-speaking meetings in Spain on the AA Spain website.