Why He Needed a Sponsor Who Spoke a Foreign Language – Bob F.

My name's Bob Francis. I'm a drunk from the Humble Group in Cleveland. My sponsor used to say he joined the Humble Group because he's not. Man, wasn't that good food? Man, you people put together a good party. This is all right. I was sitting with my buddy Jack over here, and Jack, you see those tomatoes in that plate over there? Jack had those tomatoes on his plate, and he says, I'm going to throw these at you, Bob. When you're up there talking, I stole it off his plate. He ain't throwing it at me. I'm not as dumb as I used to be. I'm getting better. Don Cassini was supposed to be here tonight. Don's an old friend of mine. Don was around when I came around. He helped me a whole lot. He'll get a copy of this, so I'm not going to say any of the usual things I say about him. He's not feeling real well. His son Johnny was in the hospital last week, and he would really have loved to have been here. He talked about this for months. He couldn't wait to come here, but he's just a little too ill right now to make the trip. He's done this to me before. You know that end of the month? End of the month meeting? I come out to one of the roundups. I've come to the roundup for, this will be my 17th year when I come out here this year. I come out one year, and Don said, bring a soup with you. I've got something for you to do. When I got out to the roundup, he dragged me over to some guy, and he says, here's your speaker for the end of the month meeting. Okay, yeah? Don would do these kinds of things to me, and he thinks they're really funny. I do too, actually. So anyhow, through God's grace, and because this simple program works in my life one day at a time, I had my last drink January 18th, 1985, and for that I'm grateful. I'm truly grateful. My mom's grateful. My brothers are grateful. My... My... My daughter's grateful. My old drinking buddies are grateful. I see them guys from time to time, and they say, you still go to the MA meetings? And I say, yeah. And they say, good, stay there. You know? And these are... I picked my buddies because they drank like me, and around a bunch of guys who drank like me, I stood out. That tells you something. And last but not least, my wife's grateful. And I married my wife in sobriety. She's never seen me take a drink. But she says a drink will not improve this picture. She's right. She's right. I still to this day don't believe I ever had a drinking problem. I had a drinking solution. I'll tell you what I had. I had a sober problem. I didn't do sober well. I was bored. I learned sober. Went to grade school sober. None of that stuff worked. I took my first drink when I was 12 years old. A late bloomer compared to some of the stories we hear. But I started drinking at 12 years old, and it just like, it clicked. It clicked. I'll tell you what, I still have a sober problem. That's why I go to five meetings a week. I don't do sober well yet. Ask my wife. She'll tell you. One time she said to me, she said, you have to go to all them meetings. Can't you cut back on a few? And I said, sure. I'll start cutting back one meeting a week until I get drunk, and then we'll know how many I have to go to. And she said, now you better go. You better go. And she's never seen me drunk. She's heard the stories. I don't like to tell a whole lot of drunkologues. They call them drunkologues. I like to tell soberlogues. You know, all my drunk stories, the majority of them are secondhand stories. They're what judges told me, police told me, friends told me, therapists told me, psychiatrists told me. They're all, and I embellish some of them. So I'll just give you a brief rundown of what it was like being me, and then after I got drunk, I'll tell you what I did. I'm a drunk. I'm a drunk. I was 17 years old, and then after I convinced you of how dumb I am and that won't take long. You'll understand. I usually tell this story, and when I was 17 years old and what I lived on the east side of Cleveland. I used to drive over to the west side of Cleveland to West 170th. There was an A&W there, and we used to pick up women. And so we were headed over there on the shore where it was private property with adventure there, and this was your hotel. Why? Everyoneват, right? We always stayed. on the shoreway and we had like we had like a case of beer in my car and and we were smoking pot and you you know you get that big cloud in there you can't roll the windows down so we're driving we're driving out the shoreway and I seen the lights in my rearview mirror and I'm like oh boy so I pulled over the cop comes walking up to the car and it's like we have a roll the windows down I'm looking oh boy I rolled the window down out come this huge cloud you know how are you officer you know and he says can I have your driver's license he took my driver's license and he said he looks at and he goes oh mr. Francis how fast do you think you were going and at that time this is like 1968 or something I remember I think I that's I'm going 60 60 I was doing 60 and he laughed you and so he says guess again 70 he laughed harder he made me get out of the car and got out of the car and I walked up to his cruiser that was before the LED readouts they would have like a speedometer on the on the steering column and it like locked in at your speed you were going and so he says look in there and tell me how fast you were going and you know you know how we to see something in the condition we're going in the car and we're going to the engine we're talking about hundreds of miles Camper cool you know it's us right he put it on there from President five thousand miles it's a fair margin for failure first Watson were out and next exercise a it's really cool and then after we're back to practice at this time that I found one of the first things I saw was you don't know here's the steering wheel and she told me no fiveAND three explains he said well this is how you're going I had just put it on without carrots So what he did is he took my driver's license, and he took everybody else's IDs, and he says, I'm going to give it to the guy who relieves me, and you guys had still better be sitting in this car when he comes back. And we were, but we had a case of beer. Why were we going to leave? So we drank the beer, and we waited, and the second the other cop come back, like maybe 1 o'clock in the morning, and I had to walk a straight line, and I could pretty much walk a straight line at that point. And the guy says, here, he gave me my driver's license back, and he says, go back to the east side, don't come back here. So we went back to the east side, and we didn't come back there for a couple of days. Stuff like this, I mean, all my friends would laugh and joke about this. You know, my family members, they would say things like, well, that's Bob. You know? He does stuff like this. You know, I would always get myself in some kind of, it just was nuts. I'd get in strange situations, and they would always end up with some bizarre circumstance. When I was 25, I came down with a thing called diabetes, and it was pretty serious. And nobody in my family ever had it. Actually, what the doctors finally told me is my, I drank so much alcohol, I killed the day. I was a little bit of a man thing. And pretty much that was what it was about. But I had, I come down with diabetes, and I have to go see a doctor, and I go see this doctor. And I'm a minute drinker. I'm not a daily drinker. I'm like every minute. I drank a lot for a long time. And I remember sitting in the doctor's office, because I'm like half sober at the time, and I'm sitting in the doctor's office, and he's asking me questions to see how bad my diabetes is. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to die. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to die. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to die. And he's saying things like, have you ever found yourself on the floor, and you just kind of wake up and open your eyes and wonder how you got there? Have you ever lost track of time for a day or two? Have you ever fell down and hurt yourself? My answer to that doctor was, a couple times today. I mean, he was describing how I lived. But he was trying to figure out how bad my diabetes is. What he was actually figuring out is how dumb of a drunk I am. You know? Because these things happen to me all the time. I got arrested one time in a hotel. What they told me the next day in jail is that I was in the lobby on the telephone for about an hour and a half, screaming into this telephone. And so, every day. And I was scared. I was afraid to come near me. So they called the police. And the police came. And the police walked up. And one guy, I guess, grabbed me. And the other guy grabbed the phone and put the phone up. And there was nothing on the phone. To this day, I don't know if I was talking to anybody. And they call my father to come get me. And my father says, I'm not coming to get him. He does this stuff all the time. Just keep him in jail. You know? But my mom, she went and got me. And the police told them that they're not sure what I was doing. But I was screaming in the lobby of a hotel. And, I mean, just stuff like this. You know, I always, I remember telling my first sponsor one time, I said, you know, when I was a kid, I didn't fit. And that's why I drank, because I just didn't fit. And they said, well, let's talk about that. When did you start drinking? I says, around 12. He says, what were other 12-year-old kids doing around you? I said, well, they were over at Roosevelt Field playing baseball and playing on the swings and doing all kinds of neat little things. What were you doing, Bob? Well, at 12, I started to break into houses in the neighborhood. I stole my first car at 13. And I was stealing booze out of this guy's house behind me and drinking it. And he says, and you've got a question of why you didn't fit. You know? That's why. I didn't do what other kids did. Period. And it was like that from the age of 12 to the age of 37, this is what happened. I mean, that's what I did. I just was always doing something that was a little irregular is how my mother used to put it. I've got two older brothers. I'm the baby boy. I'm the older brother. I'm the younger one. And they're going to be together. And they're going to be together for a long time. brothers. I'm the baby boy. Boy, I hated that when I was like 20 years old. This is my baby boy. Man, I'm 59 now. She calls me baby boy, and I go, that's me. That's me. I'm her baby boy. I like it now. Then I didn't like it so much, but she's got three boys, and at that period, when I'm like 18, 19 years old, you know, my mom would be walking down the street, and somebody would stop her and say, how's your oldest son Evan doing? Oh, Evan's doing great. He's flying all over the country. He's in sales and does this, whatever it was at that time, and he's just got a great family. His kids are doing well. Everything's wonderful. How's your son Jerry doing? Oh, Jerry's the vice president of a racing tire company. He flies all over the world. He's doing great. How's your little boy Bobby doing? Their head would go down. Did you happen to drive by the house yesterday when the police were taking him? He was in his underwear and handcuffs. Did you happen to pick up the Cleveland Plain Dealer? Did you see his picture on the front page when he was holding a gun at a warden that was coming to arrest him, and they had him down on the ground in front of the house? I mean, I was a total embarrassment to my mother. I dragged that woman through the dirt. I mean, I dragged her through the dirt, and the only reason I was able to do that, she loved me. She loved me. I never suffered a consequence until probably my last six months of drinking. My mom suffered consequences. My brothers suffered consequences. My first wife suffered consequences. My daughters suffered consequences. I never suffered a single one, and I didn't consider going up. In 19, I think it was like 77, I was standing in front of a judge. I was standing in front of a judge. I was standing in front of a judge, and he said, you're going to jail for 90 days unless you'll go to 90 AA meetings in the next 90 days. And I said, I'll go to jail. I went to jail. Three hots and a cot, catch my breath, be back out in the streets looking good. So I went to jail, 90 AA meetings. Wow. Isn't that a little rash? I was locked up in a lot of places. I talk slang all the time, so you have to excuse me, but I spent time in the Ha Ha Hilton, the Hilton with the bars, and I never spent time in the refrigerated Hilton yet. But I've been in a lot of places, and I didn't mind. I used to jail well. Boy, I jailed well. I would say, what, six months? Great. I'd tell my buddies, I'll be back. Great. I'll just graze through this one. In 1979, I got a DWI on a horse. Yep. Yep. I used to, on Saturday mornings, I used to ride a horse from my house up to the corner and hitch him up out front. This was out in the country, and then I could drink all afternoon, and if I can get my skinny butt up on that horse and kick Stormy, Stormy, go home. And one day I ended up in the back of a police cruiser, and Stormy, the one with horse sense, he went home, and I went to jail. And the next, I had to stay in jail all weekend, and Monday morning I go in front of the judge, and the judge is looking at this, and he goes, DWI, on a horse? I went, I'd like to argue this. And he says, good. What do you got to say? And I says, well, I was drunk, but I just happened to be on the horse's back and he was going home. And the judge laughed, and he dropped it to public intox. I went, one for Bob. You know, got out of that one. When my daughter was like 13 years old, if I was like really drunk, she'd drive me to the store to get more beer. So I didn't have my coffee and I went home, and this is singed like all you say, like arandout of hotт balls and beer in only 18 minutes. And, you know, song. I was going to talk it through it. 1979, I bought alcoholic dream come true. I bought a bar in downtown Cleveland. People said, oh, you were the bar's best customer. Best? I didn't pay nothing. You know? This will work. So I bought a bar. The name of the bar was the Cockroach Inn. That was the name. It was the name of the place. That was it. I bought the bar, I think it was around 78, 79, something like that. And I had the bar until I got sober. The last about four or five years that I owned the bar, I wasn't allowed in the bar. The barmaids barred me from the bar and took my keys because they said I was too much trouble. I caused too much trouble. And so I would go into the flats in downtown Cleveland, and I had buddies who owned bars, and I could hang out in theirs bars. And then if I started going... Going up the hill to where my bar was, somebody would walk in the bar, and they'd say, Bob's coming. And the barmaids would say, lock the door. And so I'd go around the back door of the bar, and I'd beat on the door, and somebody would say, what do you want? I said, what do you mean, what do I want? You got to think about this? Hand me something out the door that's drinkable. And so they would, whatever they had, a pitcher of beer, a six-pack, open bottle, whatever. I didn't care. Hand me something. And I would drink that, and I'd end up... Like, sometimes I had a... The bar had a great lunch trade. People from City Hall used to drink in my bar. And they'd be coming to the bar for lunchtime, and they'd, like, have to walk over me on the tree lawn next to it. They'd be climbing over me, and somebody would go, who's that? This is the guy that owns the place. You know? And I didn't care. What's the difference? I came around AA in 1981. I came to AA through a power greater than self, which I choose to call judge. Judges. Yep. There was a couple of... There were several judges in Cleveland that sentenced me to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm standing here telling you it worked. It took a while. I joined the Humble Group in 1981. And I'm still a member of the Humble Group. I joined in 1981, got sober in 1985. So much about the only requirement for membership. I continued to drink. Basically because I couldn't stop drinking. That's where I had went to. I get a kick... I hear people say this all the time. Whatever you do... Don't take the first drink. If I could not take the first drink, you'd be listening to someone else tonight. I'd be at home in Cleveland, riding my motorcycle or playing with the dogs. I wouldn't be here if I could not take the first drink. Unfortunately, I'm not capable of that. I will always take the first drink unless I'm with you people. Unless I... I'm here because I work the steps. I've got a sponsor. I go to meetings. And I've taken this up as this is the way to be. So that's the only reason I don't take a drink. So 1981, I started going to meetings. I was in a lot of trouble. I was in a lot of physical trouble. I was in a lot of legal trouble. I was just in a lot of trouble. Trouble. Big trouble. My sister-in-laws, God bless them, they came down to my bar on several occasions. And I had some vehicles left. And they took my pickup truck and my Cadillac. And they took them and they hit them. They took them back out to where we lived like 40 miles away. And they took those and hit them. But they didn't know I had a Buick Skylark, an old Buick Skylark, that I had hidden a couple of streets down. And I had that. The only problem is I lived like quite a ways from the bar. But the Buick Skylark, all it had was reverse. So I wasn't driving on the freeway with that. But I drove around downtown Cleveland with it. I'd go to bars and the cops would go, what's, that's Bob. People would say, that car flying by in reverse, what's he doing? It's Bob. You know. It worked. So I stayed in downtown Cleveland. I had a room above the bar. The bathroom was the window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Cleveland police, they thought I was funny. They liked me. . . . They liked me. They used to lock me. If I was really causing trouble, they'd lock me in my little penthouse above the bar. They would lock me in there. And then I would like climb out the window and I'd fall down and hurt myself. But I'd be well enough to get to the next bar. They wouldn't let me in my bar, so I'd go down to the corner to another bar. And when they found out that I kept getting out of there, when they started to take me up and lock me in the room, they started taking my clothes. So I'm like climbing out the window naked and walking down the street to a bar and going in the bar naked. And one thing you need to know is that at the end of my bar, it was a gay bar. And I'd walk in naked and con somebody out of a pair of shorts or something. And once I got a pair of shorts, then I could go down the street and drink. That's what I did. I mean, it was like I had to drink. That's what I'm telling you. I was at a place I had to drink, period. There was no not drinking. I had to drink. And that's what I did. I did whatever I had to do to drink. January 18, 1985, that was the shortest New Year's Eve party I ever went to. You know, New Year's Eve goes all the way to St. Patrick's Day. Doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. St. Patrick's Day goes all the way to Fourth of July. I mean, hey. So that party was over fast. January 18, 1985, I woke up on the floor in my bar. And I had kicked down the back door, so the story goes. I was laying on the floor in the bar. I guess I kicked down the back door, and I was in there, and I was drinking. And the barmaid come in in the morning and stumbled over me and kicked me a few times until she realized that I was alive. And she, and this I really need to remember, because this was important to me. She looked at me and she says, do you know what you did yesterday? And I says, no, that's what blackouts are for. You know? I don't want to know what I did yesterday. She says, well, we let you in the bar three times yesterday. And the three times we let you in, you stayed in here for maybe a half an hour each time. Maybe an hour. And she says. We finally got you out the third time, and we didn't let you back in. You must have kicked the door down. She says, but while you were in this bar yesterday, she says, I kept count. And I says, oh, good. I don't want to know. But to this day, she said I drank 28 beers, a fifth and a half of Jim Beam, and two-fifths of Kahlua. And my only remark was, Kahlua? What was I doing drinking that? What was that about? And here's the story. You know, it sounds like, boy, couldn't Bob drink a lot? Three days before that, I was down at my buddy's bar in St. Clair, which was about a quarter of a mile from my bar. And I walked in the door. I'd gotten out of my penthouse and went down the street and went into his bar. And his barmaid was sitting there. She looked at me, and she goes, man, you look bad. I said, yeah, not good, huh? You know? And she says, you need something to drink. And I says, well, I'd been up for about an hour, and I ain't had nothing yet. And so she opened me a can of Pabst, and she handed it to me. And I took, like, three slugs out of that Pabst and passed out. Boom, to the floor. To the floor. And if you know anything about this disease we got, when your tolerance starts to fluctuate like that, you're ready to go out for the count. You're in serious trouble. And that's where I was. I was in pretty serious trouble. I mean, the wife I'm married to now, I've still got T-shirts from the bar. I've got one T-shirt from the bar. We had these T-shirts that we used to sell. And I had one. And I showed my wife a picture of me standing behind the bar with my then-wife. And I got this T-shirt on, and it's kind of like hanging on me. And my wife says, well, you didn't look that bad, because I told her I looked pretty bad. I said, yeah. And I put it in the cupboard, and I got out this T-shirt that I was wearing when that picture was taken. And I hold that T-shirt up, and it's about this big. And it's hanging on me. And my wife goes, my God, what was wrong with you? I drank too much. I mean, I'm 6'2 now. I was 6'2 then. I weigh 205 pounds now. At that period of time, I weighed 126. 126 pounds. And thought, man, I'm lean and mean. You know, guys that would see me walking down the street, they'd tell me to zip your coat up. It's windy today. We'll find you in the next county. I was not a picture of health. I was not in good shape. So I wake up on the floor in there, and I don't know what hit me that day. But, I mean, I'd been going to meetings. I was always going to three, four meetings. I'd go to three meetings a week. Well, I mean, half drunk all the time. Drinking in the meetings. And just because I couldn't stop. I couldn't stop. And so I woke up on the floor that day, and I says, could you come call somebody to take me home? I lived a long ways from there. And I didn't go home much because I remember I was going to AA. In 1981, they had a guy. He came out and visited with me. Well, it was actually in 1984. 1984. And Don knows the guy. Ed Fabian. Ed Fabian shows up at my house, and he takes me to a meeting. And Ed has a bunch of old timers come over to the house. And the old timer said, we're going to clean out your house so that, you know, so we're getting everything out of the house so you'll be okay here. So they got all my stashes. And, I mean, I used to keep a case of NyQuil. 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. Hell, it comes with a shot glass. I had NyQuil, and my youngest daughter, Shannon, would take them through the house, and she's showing them everything. And they're getting rid of bottles that are hidden behind stuff. And they said, well, we got everything out of the house. And my daughter Shannon says, you ought to go out in the barn and check the barn. I wanted to kill her. They found my stash in the barn. My stash was 50 cases of Pabst. You never know what might happen. And somehow those 50 cases of Pabst disappeared. I don't know if it changed somebody's sobriety date or what. But everything in my house was gone. And they said, and Ed said, well, you won't drink at home anymore. And I said, boy, you're absolutely right, because I won't come back here. And I never went home again. And so I'm living in that little room above the barn, because I could get to something to drink. And so I. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. And he came and picked me up in his pickup truck, and he drove me home. And he took me out to the house, and this is, I had this house built. And it was a beautiful home. It was, it cost a couple hundred thousand to build. It was in a nice area. It was on some property. I had a barn. I had horses. And everything, it was just, when I ended up back, I had a house. back at that place on January 18th, 1985, actually January 19th, 1985. There was no oil in the tanks, January. There's no heat in the house. There's no electricity. There's no phone. There's no nothing. There's no family. My oldest daughter at that time was in juvenile. She was locked up in juvenile because she's like her dad. My youngest girl, my sister-in-law came and got her and took her out and she was living with my sister-in-law. And they took me back out. He took me out the house and dropped me off there. And while I was in the house just sitting there wondering what I'm going to do next because I know I got to get a drink pretty soon or something's got to happen and I'm thinking maybe it's time to stop drinking but I don't think I can make it because I can't stop. And I walked across the street to a neighbor's house and his wife was standing there going, you're not going to make it. You're not going to make it. You're not going to make it. You're not going to make it. You're not going to make it. You're not going to make it. You're not coming in here. Don't let him in, Don. He's not coming in our house. And I begged him. I said, please, can you call my brother or let me in and call my brother? And so Don called my brother. And my brother went and hooked up with my other brother. And both of my brothers came out to the house to see me and to see if I was finally done. And I was a little, you know, I was thinking maybe I can but I just, I wouldn't leave the house. I wouldn't leave. And they says, okay, we'll keep an eye on you. We'll check on you. And they called Ed Fabian. Ed Fabian come down and he was checking on me. And they were taking to me some meetings and stuff. But I stayed at that house, I think another two or three weeks. And finally, my brothers came out there one day and they said, what do you got left in the house? And there really was nothing left. The house was a shambles, beautiful house. It was a shambles. There was nothing left. They grabbed all the clothes that I had. I had a pair of Levi's, a pair of tennis shoes, and a t-shirt and a leather jacket. And I'm telling you, that's all I owned. That was it. And they put that stuff, well I was wearing it except for the leather jacket. And they put me in there. And I was there for a couple of weeks. And I thought, this is a lot of money. And I said, I'm going to pay for it. And I said, I mean I'm not going to ask you for the money. I'm saying, actually, I'll sell it to you. And they put the money in there. And they took me to my mom's house in Mentor, Ohio. And they moved me into my mom's basement. They laugh about it today. Say, we'll put you in the basement in case you jumped out the window, you wouldn't hurt yourself. So, for two years, I lived in my mom's basement in Mentor. And that's where I started this journey of actually not drinking. Really not drinking. And I was just a kid in the morning, and I was drinking. And I think about drinking all the time. I was just a And I was just blown away by this because, I mean, I'm broke. I'm totally broke. One of my uncles came over to see me, and when he shook my hand before he left, he had a $20 bill in his hand. And I says, hey, Uncle Wally, Uncle Wally, I don't need this. He says, you put that in your pocket. Well, I didn't put it in my pocket. You know what I did? I put it, I hid it in my wallet. And the reason I hid that $20 in my wallet was just in case your thing didn't work. I had $20. I could go get a drink. That's how sure I was that I probably couldn't do this. I really, I was sold. I later, before that, previously at one point, and I like to remember this, I was seeing a psychiatrist, and the psychiatrist said something to me that I say to people a lot today. You cannot outperform your own self-image. You can't. I had no self-image. I believed I was done. I wasn't worth anything, that nobody needed me around. And you can't outperform that. You're stuck there. And thank God, you people came and got me. You came and got me. And people started coming over to my mom's house and picking me up from my mom's house and taking me to meetings. Every day. And then my mom, there was a place called Night and Day Club in Euclid. And my mom was still working. And my mom would, she'd pack me lunch and give me a dollar. And drop me off at the Night and Day Club. Here's a guy who wouldn't leave the house without a couple thousand dollars in his pocket. You know, because you never know what we're going to do. And I'm taking a lunch and a dollar. And I'm going to Night and Day Club. And I put the dollar in a coin changer, I get four quarters. Which means I can have three cups of coffee. I can eat my lunch during the day. And if I get everybody really mad at me, I got another quarter I can call my mom and she'll come and get me. A couple times I had to call her. Yeah. It was not, I wasn't the happy camper. So I'm going to meetings. I'm hanging at the club. And basically, I used to sit on the dumpster. Behind the club that first summer. And I was sitting on that dumpster behind the club every day. And they, guys used to joke about it. They used to tell people, that's Bob's other home group. It's the late night trash can discussion group. And they said, what do you discuss Bob? And I said, you, when you walk in. And at that time, Ed Fabian had retired and went to Florida. And Ed assigned me another guy. A guy named Bob. And he was a guy named Don Scott from Cleveland. And Don Scott was, I was sitting on a dumpster one day. And he says, what are you doing up there? And I said, well, I told you. I'm taking people's inventories. And I'm smiling. And he says, that's a good idea. And when you get really good at it, you can take your own. And that's what I did. I practiced on you people. And when I got really good, because Don used to tell me, he says, what did you find today? And I said, well, this guy does this and that guy does that. I don't like this guy because of this. And he walked me into the club and into the bathroom and stand me up in front of the mirror. Not tell that to him. Because basically, everything I saw about you that was wrong was actually me. I was taking my inventory. I started taking my inventory then. I was seeing in you actually what was in me. And I was blaming you for being all wrong when I was all wrong. And I got to know me that way. And there was an old timer I love to talk about. This guy named Larry. Jim Clare and Larry Lawrence. And Larry Lawrence was like my hero. I don't know why I liked him so much. Because some of the things he did to me, I probably should have just killed him. I used to walk in the club and I'd go in there to get a cup of coffee and I'd go back out to my dumpster. And while I'm walking in there, Larry used to say, See the guy walking in the door with the beard? That's Bob Francis. He's new. He's not going to make it. Hi, everybody. I'd walk in, get my cup of coffee and go sit on a dumpster. And then I'd go to this group called the Sister Ignatia Group. And I'd go to Sister Ignatia Group and Larry would meet me at the door. And he'd walk me up front and he goes, You have to shake people's hands. I said, I don't shake hands. He said, No, you're going to shake hands. And so he'd walk me up. There was like 100 people at that meeting at that time. And he'd start at the first table and he'd walk me up. And he goes, each person, he'd go, This is Bob Francis. He's new. He's not going to make it. Shake their hand. Go to the next person. This is Bob Francis. He's new. He's not going to make it. And he'd take me through the whole place like this. I was a year sober. January 18, 1986, I gave my first talk. And it was at that club. It was called the Midnight Special. Saturday Midnight Special. And I gave my first talk. And when I got done, you know, I didn't stand up there and puff up and let everybody come up and tell me how great I'm doing. I ran off that podium. And I ran over to Larry's table and I got in his face and I said, I got a year today. Larry looked back at me and said, I bet you don't make two. I was sober around three years. And I walked into the club one day and Larry says, Come here, Bob. And I walked over and he said, Sit down. He said, I want to apologize. And I says, Yeah? For what? He says, I was pretty rough on you. He says, But you're a rock head. You needed it. And we talked about it. He was right. He was right on the money. There was one time I was sitting in the club and I'm probably six months without a drink, not sober. I had a co-sponsor, a woman. She says when I was my first year, that was actually sobriety. I said, What? I said, I was just dry. And he said, I was sitting there and I was talking about this one day. I says, You know what? One day I was sitting here and I thought, This ain't working. I don't like this. I'm going to get drunk. And I got off, got up from the table and I walked to the back door and I walked across the parking lot. There was a rut in that parking lot. Went right over to the lakefront cafe where half the guys who would decide they were going to drink again used to walk over to the front door and they would drink. And I walked back again and used to walk over to this bar. I get over to the bar. I grab the door and the door is a big mirror. And the door says on it, Lakefront Cafe. And I'm looking in this mirror. I grab the door handle. I see my body and Larry's smiling face. And I look at that face and I say, You ain't winning. And walked back to the club and sat down. And made it another day. And there were other instances that happened. I'm telling you, you know, if you sponsor somebody, you probably shouldn't do this to them. But they did it to me and for whatever reason it worked for me. This is my story. And so they did these kinds of things to me because I was really, I was not a happy camper. I'd walk into a meeting and somebody would look and they'd say, Wow, you're improving, Bob. You're just angry today. You know, I mean, I was beyond angry. You know, I was livid. I just like, I hated you, everything you said. I hated everything about your lousy meetings. I couldn't stand the people that talked at them. I didn't, you know, there was nothing I liked. I'm sober five years and Don Cassini, he's got a thing he calls, your first five years is an apprenticeship. And I walked up to Don and I'm like, got my chest pumped out and I'm walking up to him. Hey, Don. He looks at me. I know you got five years. That's right. He says, well, in your case, it's ten. Okay. Walk back. Sit down. I mean, stuff like this. I'll tell you, I was sober probably six months and I'm sitting at a table in there with a bunch of old timers. And one old timer, John Maxwell, looks at me and John says, what are you going to do, Bob? I said, I got a plan. He said, what's your plan? I said, well, it's 1985. You can get on Social Security disability for alcoholism still. And you could get $492 a month and they'd mail it to the bank next door and I could live in my pickup truck behind night and day and I could drink a lot of coffee, eat donuts three times a day and have all this money to go live this luxurious life in the back of my pickup truck. And John looks at me and he goes, bad plan. We're not going to let you do that. So I'm just, okay, what do you want me to do? So John says, you graduate from high school? And I says, yeah, 66 I graduate. Did you ever go to college? He says, yeah, I took some college classes here and there. I did. Every once in a while I take college classes. And he says, well, you're going back to college. I says, no, I'm not. And he says, it's not. It's not. This ain't open for discussion. You're going to college. He took me, they took me and they enrolled me in Lakeland Community College. And they used to drive me to school. They used to do my homework. They take, they sign me up for classes. They sign the classes up. I didn't even have a choice in that. And they're, you know, put me in these classes and things and I'm going to college. You know? I'm going in my mom's basement. I'm going to college. And I'm thinking, I don't know what this is about. But I guess these guys got a plan. And for some reason I let them work their plan. Thank God, huh? Man. In 1989 I got my first degree from college, an associate's degree. So I started college in 1967. I got a two-year degree in 1989. Takes me a while to do things. And I got this associate's degree, an associate's of applied science. And that's an AAS degree. My sponsor said they misspelled it. He was right. So I got this associate's degree. And then I says, okay, I'm done. Now what do you want me to do? I'm done. I'm not doing this no more. They said, well, you got to get a bachelor's degree. And I said, no, I don't. And so they put me back in college. So I'm going to college. I remember the first time I got this associate's degree and I'm bragging from the podium about, you know, and I graduated from college. Some old timer gets up in the back and he says, you know, Bob, they put degrees on rectal thermometers. Do you know where they stick those? I went, okay. I'll stop bragging. They got me my first job. They got me a job at a place called Harbor Lake Detox. And they said I have to go scrape clothes off these old drunks from the street and get them into the shower and clean them up. I says, not me. I'm not doing that. Are you nuts? That was my first job. I worked there for a while. And it was awful. I did not like that job. And I didn't like it. I didn't mind going to college too much. A lot of young girls. Way smarter than me. So I'm going to college. I'm doing all this stuff. And my first wife, God bless her, she, when I got sober, she didn't. She got sober in 1992. Got sober the hard way. She's buried now. She got sober the hard way. So I'm in Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm going to college. I'm working. And all kinds of things are happening in my life. And the things that are happening to me, and this is real important to me, are not my plan. Not my plan. These things that happened to me happened because somebody else took the step. Somebody else took the steering wheel from me. And I did what they told me to do. And I'm amazed today that I let them do it. That I did what they told me to do. I'm absolutely amazed at that. I was sober about, my sponsor, Don Scott, at that time, he had very serious health problems. And Don had to find me another sponsor. Because I don't know. And in Cleveland, if you look at our meeting schedule, it's the oldest meeting schedule in the country. In the world. And if you look at the last page of the meeting schedule, under central office it tells you how you're supposed to get a sponsor. And the call for help goes out to the central office. The central office calls the closest meeting to you, and the secretary of that meeting looks down the home group roster and finds somebody to assign you to. You know, I have a problem with people who are just trying to get sober. tells them to go out and look around and find a sponsor. This thing's not working right. Do you know what I'm going to find? Somebody who talks like I talk, who thinks like I think, who does what I do. I don't need that. I needed somebody. When these guys would assign themselves to me, Don Scott, I thought, spoke a foreign language. I didn't understand a word he said. He'd tell me to do these things. I'm saying, what are you talking about? What are you talking about? Don Scott assigned me a guy named Rick DeCappin. Rick DeCappin became my next sponsor. I can talk about him now, George. I'm getting a little better. I won't cry this time. Rick was, boy, he was just, he was so perfect. He was so perfect. I, Don Scott, I used to ask Don, I said, Don, can I start dating women? And Don would tell, because I was divorced from my first wife. And I says, can I start going out with women? And he said, no, it's not a good idea. So he wouldn't let me go out with women. I'm sitting with him and he's sitting with a new guy at a meeting one day. And he's telling the new guy, the first year, no, I had over a year then. And he said, for the first year, I don't want you with me. I don't want you with me. I don't want you with me. I don't want you with me. I don't want you with me. I don't want you with me. I don't want you with me. I don't want you with me. Many women stay away from women. And I took an attitude on that, because I grabbed Don after he was done talking to him. I took him over to the side. I said, how come you never told me to stay away from women for the first year? And he says, Bob, every time you walked into the club and you got a cup of coffee and you sat down at a table where there was a couple of women at, within two minutes, they got up and left. He says, I didn't have to tell you. I didn't think you could run fast enough to catch one. He was right. He was right. They stayed away from me. I didn't have a problem with that. So I'm under Rick's control now. And I tell Rick, now, I'm like eight years sober then. And I says, Rick, I'm eight years sober. Can I go out with a woman? And Rick says, OK. He says, you can probably date now. And I says, good. I'm going to start looking around. He says, wait, wait. I didn't tell you to look around. I told you you could start dating. I said, well, how am I going to date? And he says, you do what we do every day. How we do everything else in AA. You pray about it. And so I did. I prayed about it. I prayed about it. And I didn't believe it, but I prayed about it. And that's when I met Virginia. Virginia came into my life when I was praying about it. And I didn't orchestrate this or nothing. She ended up in my life when I was praying about it. She appeared. And I was going to marry her. And so I told, I gave her a ring on Christmas. And I said, and I thought I could like being engaged maybe for three or four years. And she says, no, you're marrying me this year. I says, this year? And she said, yeah. She says, you got two dates to pick. Her two favorite things is 4th of July and Halloween. And I didn't want to get married on Halloween. So it was 4th of July. We were going to get married on the 4th of July. So I take my sponsor out to dinner. I take Rick out to dinner. He's a dago. My wife's a dago. I can sit them down and they can probably pow wow and things will be great. So I take him out to dinner to introduce him to Virginia. And Virginia's sitting across the table from him. And I'm sitting over here and we're eating dinner and he's shoveling down his pasta. And my wife-to-be looks across at him and she says, Rick, if Bob ever starts drinking again, what should I do? Rick didn't miss a beat. He's shoveling the pasta and he looks up and he says, change the locks. And he continued to eat. I went over to Rick's house the next day and he says, what do you think what I told Virginia? And after I thought about it, I said, you probably gave her the best information you could. You know, because nobody deserves that. Nobody deserves to have to live like that. Short while after that, my wife owns her own business. And my wife calls me up and says, can you come down and fix some of these sinks? And I go down to fix the sinks. I got some tools. And I walk in. I go, Rick, I want to talk to you about something. I want to talk to you about something. And I'm in the back door. And I go over to the sinks. And I'm cleaning the sinks out. And I'm getting everything working. I get it all done. Pick my tools up. And I go to walk out the back door. And there's an older lady underneath the dryer. And she picks up the dryer and she looks at me and she goes, your sponsor, Rick, is a great guy. And I went, thank you. And I got to the door and I says, wait a second. How does she know my sponsor? So I walk back over there and I pick up the thing and I says, how do you know Rick? And she goes, well, he's a great guy. And I go, well, he's a great guy. And I go, well, he's a great guy. And she's in here talking to your wife two, three times a week. Into my truck, over to Rick's house. What are you talking to my wife about? You're my sponsor. And he says, Bob, you don't think I believe all that stuff you tell me. He said, there's two sides to every story. The truth is somewhere in the middle. He says, I don't believe all this crap you're telling me. He says, I go talk to Virginia. She tells me her story. You tell me yours. I'm not passing judgment until I can figure out where we're at. And you know what? I learned something. That's the way to do things. That's the way to do things. You do things. You know, Rick was just perfect for me at that time. Rick got very ill. About a year and a half ago. It was a year ago, March 4th. That Rick passed. Rick was in hospice for a while. Home hospice care. And I was with Rick every single day. Every single day. I used to bring him coffee and stuff. My wife and I, my wife's also a dog trainer. And we do rescue. And we've always got a bunch of dogs. And they're therapy dogs. And they work in hospitals. They're Rottweilers. And they work in hospitals. And I used to take Gina over to see her. And she used to take me to the hospital. And she used to take me to the hospital. And I used to see Rick all the time. And I'd take him coffee and a donut. And I'd have Gina with me. And Gina would get up on the bed with him. And he'd pet Gina. And one day I went over there to see him. And I'd just come from work. I didn't have time to go home. I had a cup of coffee. I had a donut for him. And he looked at me and he says, where's Gina? I said, well, I didn't have time. She said, oh, go get her. Okay. So I went home and got Gina and come back. And that taught me another one of those little lessons. I'm a messenger. I'm a messenger. I carry the message. He wanted to see Gina. He saw Gina. That's the job. So I'm with Rick every day. A little selfish part of Bob, one day I looked at Rick and I says, Rick, you're my sponsor. What am I going to do? How am I going to get a new sponsor? Rick looked at me and he said, it's not your job. It's my job. While Rick was in the hospice care at home, he said, I'm going to get a new sponsor. Rick looked at me and he said, it's not your job. It's my job. While Rick was in the hospice care at home, he was interviewing people to be my sponsor. Rick told me one day I'm over there having coffee with him and Rick says, I want you to talk for me at the funeral at the church. I was like, Rick, I don't do that good. I says, I had to do my father-in-law's eulogy. And my wife had to come up and get me off the podium because I was crying. I said, I don't want to talk. I'm an emotional guy in recovery. And I says, I can't do it, Rick. And he says, once again, Bob, like every other conversation I have with you, this is not open for discussion. You will do this. And Rick passed on a Saturday morning at 8 o'clock in the morning. 10 o'clock that morning my cell phone rang. Speaking of cell phone, I didn't put mine on stun. Wow, I forgot about that. My cell phone rang at 10 o'clock in the morning. It was a guy named Bill Tanner. Bill Tanner says, I'm your new sponsor, Bob. We need to have coffee today and see where we go from here. And that's what works best for me. I've never picked a sponsor. And Bill is perfect, just perfect. Rick said, I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about. I meet him every Sunday morning at the night and day club at 830 in the morning on Sunday mornings. And we talk for an hour and a half about my program and where I'm at with my recovery today. And what's going on through the week and how things are at home. You know, he always asks me, he says, how are things at home with Virginia? I said, well, as long as her denial holds out, things are great. I'm the weak link in this relationship, you know, and he knows. He knows. You know, my wife went to Al-Anon once. A couple of times after we got married, some people took her to Al-Anon. She went to like two meetings and decided she didn't like it. Thank you, Jesus. Oh, I didn't say that. She didn't take to it well. So, but she does work one of the steps. That one where you make direct amends to the mall. She does that once a month. And I think one 12-step program in my house is plenty. You know, when I do something wrong, I'd rather be a jerk. You idiot. Why did you do that? I like that. I don't have a problem with that. It's better than what step is that? You're going to take an inventory of this? I'd rather be a jerk. That's easier. So Bill, I meet with him, and then I'll say, you know what? Virginia and I had an argument last Tuesday. We had this big argument, and he says, I already heard about it. What do you mean you already heard about it? He said, I talked to Virginia on Wednesday. Same thing over again. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it works. It works. I'm getting ready. I'm getting ready. November of this year, I'm retiring. I didn't say stop working. I said I'm retiring. I'm going to start collecting my retirement and stuff. I was a Teamster for some years, and I can collect my Teamsters retirement. But I thought, you know, when I told my wife I'm going to retire this year, they said, I'm going to retire this year, the end of this year. And she says, aw, great. I've got so many things for you to do. And all I can think about is I wake up in the morning and roll over, and I'm looking at the boss. That ain't going to work. That is not going to work. I don't care if I've got to put a suit on in the morning and drive to McDonald's and sit there all day. That's what it'll be. No, I'm going to continue to work. I'm going to continue to work. I'm going to do contracts. I'm going to do contract work. I've already got it set up with a couple of agencies and things that I'm. And my wife and I are actually going to start a business in the prisons in Ohio. The guys that are in for a long time, they work with dogs. And they train dogs, basic training stuff. And while they're training these dogs, they're beginning them in service. And then the dogs have to go out for training after that to learn all the real service, like working with the blind and working with different problems. But I like that so much that I work in community corrections. And community corrections is like a prison outside of the prison. I get guys that are coming out of prison. And we're going to start a dog thing with these guys working with dogs in community corrections. Because all the guys that I've worked with that have come out of prison, that have come out of prison and worked with dogs, they were different. They were different than the guys that didn't. When they would come out of prison, there was something about them that those dogs could touch. And they were different. And I want to continue to do that. So my wife's going to help me with that piece. And we're going to put a program together for that. But I'll tell you what. I'm an emotional guy today. I've had some things happen to me that aren't good. My heart's been broken. I've had a stroke. I've had lots of struggles. And I've had lots and lots of good things happen to me. And, you know, I'm just so thankful that I can feel. That I can feel. Because I was a rock for a lot of years. Didn't feel. You know, there's something about being able to cry when I'm hurt that's good. That's okay for me. And it's that, you know what that's about? I can feel. I can feel. I know what it's like to feel. And I never felt. But I do today. And that's just a really, really neat thing. I mean, I've got just such a great life. And once again, I'm going to take you back to what I said before. It was not my plan. Everything I got today is not my plan. Man. I'll tell you what. If you're new. If you're new, I am so glad that you're here. You know? I'm really glad that you're here. Because without you, there's no me. There's no me. I need you. And if you've got more time than that new person, make sure you tell that person they belong here. And help them. Help them along. And if you've got more time than I've got, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Thank you for putting up with me when I couldn't put up with me. Thank you for loving me when I didn't love me. Thank you for just taking me by the hand and leading me down this road. Because I'm a blessed guy. I'm a blessed guy. God did me more good things because of you. I'm in these rooms because of you. And I'm so glad to be here. Peace. Thank you.