Why the Compulsion Was Lifted After Four Months – John C.

my name is John and I'm an alcoholic I would say I'm happy to be here but actually was a lot happier last night when I was sitting down there but I am happy to be here and I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me to come here this is just a fantastic conference I've been hearing about this conference since it started but this is the first time I've actually made it I guess that's the only way you could get me here was invite me to speak but um i uh a lot of dayton people come down here you know every year and uh it's it's a great conference that last night i the energy in here just really was uh you know just it really uh touched me um i hadn't been to the last conference i was at was the international back in uh 2015 in atlanta and um uh and i'm just reminded how much fun they are so i'll have to have to make sure i get to some more by the way I'll give an advertisement for the next international. It's 2020 in Detroit. If you've never been, start saving your money. I went to my first one in 95 back in San Diego, and I haven't missed one since. It's just a wonderful experience, so I encourage you to go. I'd also like to thank Kerry for hosting me. He's been, you know, my wife Gail and I have felt really well treated here. We've had a really good time and really appreciate that. I wanted to comment on the leads last night. They were great. I laughed so hard my sides were hurting. In fact, when I heard Dave, after Dave's lead, I went back to the room and I thought, man, I feel sorry for the guy who has to follow him. And then I heard Doug, and I said, man, I follow him! But my lead's not as dramatic as theirs, but But nevertheless, I'm going to tell you my story. I also want to thank Howie, and I don't think I see Howie. Is Howie here? That bum. He got me on the list to come here and didn't show up. Here's what happened. I got a call here about six months ago from Kerry, and they said, I am Kerry. I am from Rule 62. You know, I wanted to talk to you about coming down and speaking. And I said, oh, okay. And a couple weeks later, I ran into Howie, who I have the dubious distinction of sponsoring. And Howie said, oh, by the way, I tossed your hat into the ring for Rule 62. I don't think they'll call you or anything, but I just wanted to let you know. Anyway, they called me. But I appreciate the fact that he asked me. I've been sponsoring Howie for, I don' know, a few years now since his sponsor, Gabe, died, who's also a fine fellow. and um but uh my sobriety date is uh is january 23rd 1980 and um that was the day that uh that life began for me really and i hope to tell you a little bit about that um i uh one of the things i usually do when i speak out of town which is not that often but when i do i always try to think about that town have i ever visited there and frankly more often than not i got drunk there at one time or another. And I've never been to Hebron before, I don't think other than the Cincinnati Airport a couple of times, but I have been to Newport. And back in, well, I can see some of you've been to new port too. Back in the 1970s, one of my favorite activities was going down and watching the Cincinnati Reds. And of course, doing what you do when you do that. And after that, staggering over to Newport. And I think Newport, I was down there not long ago. It seems like it's been gentrified. It's pretty nice, kind of cleaned up. Back then, it was a pretty wild town. And there were a lot of, we used to call them go-go bars there. And so we would go down there and I would usually go with my best friend. His name was Jim Ling. Jim was a great guy. We grew up together learned to drink together wonderful man and uh but when jim drank he got pretty wild now i'm kind of a little guy i'm pretty smart and i figured out i started getting wild i'm going to get in trouble in fact i did have a few tussles over the years but but i was always quiet when we went down there but jim wasn't and uh that the owners of these places were kind of like shady characters was my impression and you didn't want to you know do anything you'd regret down there but we ended up getting tossed out a few times. We survived that. I'm sad to say Jim survived that, but he died of our disease. He was down in Houston, Texas on a geographical cure. Some of you are probably familiar with those things. And I had always been waiting for the call. When Jim called me to say, how'd you do it? How'd you quit drinking? I was going to jump on the first plane, head down to Houston and 12-stepping. Well, I got the call. I was sober three years in one week, and I got The Call, but it was from his sister-in-law. And Jim, the night before, had died drunk in a car fire. And I was obviously pretty upset. In fact, I was kind of angry with God, to be honest with you. But God came through for me then, as he always does. A couple days later, they had the funeral up in Dayton. And his wife and I got together before the funeral, and she said, John, I've got a big favor to ask of you. My brother is in treatment, and they're letting him out of treatment to come to the funeral. And I want you to kind of stick by him so he doesn't drink. Well, you know, I had to stick by Him. I couldn't drink." And so it got me through that. Now, Tim, the brother, didn't get sober at that time, but eventually he did. He lives out in Seattle now. He's sober over 30 years, and I see him every few years. He'll stop in my home group. But anyway, when I was thinking about this lead, I was thinkin' this, in a way, it's gonna be an honor for Jim. He was a good man. But let me tell you about my story. I was a guy who grew up in a pretty normal family. My parents didn't drink much. I think I saw my dad drunk twice, and that was when he had like his third beer. My mother would have a glass of wine every now and then before she went to bed. But all of the men in my mother's family were alcoholic. And some of them I didn't even know. Most of them, I didn' t grow up around. But when I figured that out, I believe that's why I drank the way I drank. Because I'm one of those guys that from the very beginning, one was too many, a thousand wasn't enough. I drank it all from the Very Beginning. And it always puzzled me. And I was probably sober about five years before I finally figured it out. And I know last night we were talking a little bit about, you know, it's not important why you become alcoholic, and I think that's true. and i'm not trying to let myself off the hook but when i found out about that about my mother's brothers i walked a little taller you know because up until then i thought if i were more of a man i would never have let that happen to me and uh and when i figured out that at least part of it i think was that genetics it just made me feel a little bit better about myself so if any of you are new and struggling you know it you might look and that could be a piece of it um i my first drink was when i was 13 years old uh i was uh went to an all boys high school up in dayton chaminade high school and uh we had our first dance they used to call them sock hops back in those days and uh one of my buddy's brothers older brothers got us some three two beer and um we uh we got drunk and uh boy when i had that it was the magic elixir of life i loved it uh i felt i felt good enough i was one of those people who never quite quite felt like they fit in which i want to say that by the way you know this is the one place i feel like i fit in you are my people it was kind of like last night when i walked in it was i'm home uh i feel that way every time I go to an AA meeting, I feel that way. You know, you're the people that understand me. I understand you and I love it. But I didn't when I wasn't drinking. But once I had that first drink, that was it. That was the answer for me. And for the next few years in high school, I drank it when I could. The only really significant event I remember in high school that was important in relation to this was I had my first blackout. And what happened was I went to a wedding of a friend's uh older sibling and they didn't have any beer and so i drank scotch well i drank Scots the way i drank beer and uh next thing i know and i this was i don't remember much of this it was kind of related to me but i was it was in the middle it was about this time it was august it was a hot summer day saturday and and i had been invited over to the the family's house after the wedding the reception and everything and i was laying out passed out on the front yard in the hot sun people walking over me and i heard later i burned a few holes in their carpet and things like that and i was just shocked because you know three hours or so i lost um of course i blamed it on the scotch i said yeah if i just stay away from that darn scotch I won't black out and the truth was that's what happened i i pretty much was a beer drinker through my drinking and that was why was because that was one reason anyway because i i felt like I could control it a little bit more. Now, toward the end, even the beer was blacking me out. I then went off to college. The place I picked for college was in a place called Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Now if you're older, you remember that was the headquarters for three out of the four major beer companies in this country. Pabst Blue Ribbon, Miller High Life, and Schlitz. And that's why I went there, which is kind of dumb, but that's Why I Went There. and uh i uh i had a good time while i was there i was here for a couple of years till i bombed out due to drinking um one of the significant things that happened and i i hadn't thought of this story in a while but my wife mentioned it to me the other day and i thought well i'll mention that because it was pretty significant i guess i uh during the middle of the week i had uh a big paper due and it was due uh the next day and a woman had asked me back then that we had boys dormitories and girls dormitory and uh she she lived in the girls dormitorium she said hey i'm having a surprise birthday party for my girlfriend and i'd like you to bring some guys over from the dorm to you know for the party and i said sure i can do that and uh so i thought you know grab some guys we'll go over i'll have a beer or two come back work on my paper my the way i used to do papers was i this was going to be about a 10 or 12-hour project, was I'd start about 7 or 8 o'clock, work all night, type that last key right at just in time to take it to class. Well, next thing I know, it's 11 o' clock the next morning and I'm waking up. The class was at 9 that morning. And what had happened was I had gone and I, of course, I didn't stop at one or two. I ended up closing down the bar. You know, We left the party, went to the bar, closed it down. And what I learned then was when I started, I couldn't predict what was going to happen or when I was going to stop. I further learned when I start, I didn't want to stop, you know? One of the benefits that I have had is I learned that very early on and figured that out. And like, you'll hear a lot of people in the program, they'll say, yeah, I talked myself into having just one or two. I never had that problem. I never wanted one or two, I mean, if I couldn't, you know, I mean give me a 12-pack at least to get started. But if I couldn't have that, I would just rather not start. So that was significant. In my third year, halfway through my first semester of my junior year, I woke up one day and realized I hadn't been in class since the first week. And I ended up dropping out. And that was kind of the story of my life. I would leave, whether it be a job or a relationship or college or whatever before i was asked to leave i just had that six cents and so i took uh what was probably i guess my next geographical cure and that was back home um and uh uh i um i by that time i was already on this kind of slow decline you know my story wasn't dramatic it was a slow decline i just you know when i read the big book first and i saw saw statements like pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. I saw statements like terror, bewilderment, frustration, and despair. Boy, those really hit home for me because those were the kind of feelings that I was starting to have even way back then. And it was this slow decline for me. During that period, I went through several years where I was in and out of a couple of colleges. I ended up at one point, if we have any veterans in here, you'll appreciate this story. The Vietnam War was winding down and my parents were kind of tired of paying for me to go in and out of these colleges, so I needed to figure out an alternate way to do that. And I knew drinking was a problem. I knew I was already, drinking was serious problem for me and I knew it. And, uh, I was working at a bank in downtown Columbus, Ohio. And it wasn't a bad job, but I didn't like it at all. But I came up with this idea. They came up With this new thing. I had beaten the draft. I had a real high draft number. I wasn't going to get drafted. They came Up with this new Thing called the All-Volunteer Army. And I thought, you know, if I join the army, I'll have like a couple of months I won't be able to drink, You know, while you're in basic training. Get some money to go to college, You know? Probably lose a little weight. I was a beer drinker. I was a little chunky at that time, and this was a solution to my problem. So what I'm telling you is I joined the Army to get my drinking under control. Now, if there are any veterans in here, you know this is about the stupidest idea I ever had. It turned out to be a three-year drunk, but I don't regret it. You know, I got to see the world and, you know, as they say, had some good times. But it was – I remember when they took me to my first duty station. It's out in Monterey, California. And they were giving me a tour of the barracks, and they went down to the basement. And over in the corner there were two Coke machines, and we went over closely. One of them had Coke in it. One of him was full of beer. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I mean, it was really – it was a great time. But I also had problems, some problems. And I started having the physical problems, had a lot of – I used to get diagnosed with gastritis. You know, they always diagnosed me with gastitis. But I did a lot OF reading and I got worried that maybe something else was going on there, that drinking probably wasn't too good for me. But at that time I also got a letter from my mother. You know part of my thing was, you know I drink a lot but you know I show up for work most of the time. I pay my bills pretty much. uh what's the problem um and um but i got this letter from my mother and i was over in korea i spent about 18 months in korean and um she said uh i hope you don't have to go through what my brothers have gone through because i was the kind of guy you never necessarily knew i drank till you saw me sober i was pretty much always drinking and she had not realized that until this last leave when I was home, how much I drank. And I thought, oh man, I don't want to hurt my mother. I'll get this under control by the time I get back home. Well, of course I didn't. Got back home in and out of another college and during that time, I had met a woman overseas that I'd become engaged to. Another not one of my best decisions but she came over and we got married. And of course, up until then, you know, if I slept till noon or stayed out till two is no big deal. If I wet the bed, no big deal. Which happened about two out of three nights. But now I got this woman in my life. And the good news about it was it got me sober. I had started going to AA a couple years before that When I'd been staying back with my parents and they were clearly, I was getting that sixth sense. They were about ready to ask me to leave. And I came to AA. And I spent three years in and out of AA. And I think it's an important part of my story because there's probably, you know, if there's any new people here who've been struggling in and out. Of course, I was the last guy in the door before the meeting started. First guy out when it was over. God forbid I get a sponsor. Didn't want anybody telling me what to do. The 12 steps, you know, I had no idea what those were. But I was listening and I went to lead me. That's the only place I would go are lead meetings. And I was hearing some stuff. And, you Know, there was a part of me that really wanted to get sober, but there was a part Of me that just couldn't imagine life without drinking. And this last time it wasn't too dramatic. My wife had an evening job. I had a day job, which was great because she wasn't there to nag me when I started drinking after work. But she got home and, of course, she would start a nag. And then this time I said, I'm going back to AA. And I did. And it wasn't too dramatic again. One of the things that had happened, I should mention, about a year or two before that, i had gotten i was getting a physical for a job and um i was already working at the job and uh i had uh somehow they neglected to give me the physical i was working for the va worked out at the dayton national cemetery digging graves kind of an interesting job for an alcoholic but um uh i um went in for this physical and of course i knew i was getting a so that morning i cleaned up pretty well visine couple kinds of mouthwash you know some gum stuff like that just to make sure the doc didn't have any hint that i drank and i go in and he starts feeling around my gut and the first thing he said was um how much do you drink and i said oh it kind of caught me off guard i said oh you know doc as much as the next guy and uh but the rest of the physical my mind was the wheels were spinning he knows something how does he know it and uh i uh got to the end of the fiscal and i said doc i gotta be honest with you said i did get to drinking a bit when i was in the army but uh but i said i got it under control i'd been out of the service probably a year or two by this time i got het under control now and he looked at me and he said son you got an enlarged liver you better do something about your drinking i was 25 i think um it scared me to death i quit drinking for like 24 hours and uh you know i mean that's but you know when you're facing death what do you do so you know you start drinking again so um but anyway so that brought me up to this last time and and so but it did plant another you know another fear in my life you know about that uh someone said the other night i think it last night at the lead someone talked about we figured we'd last till 30 or something i had 32 was what i figured i figured 32 is probably about it for me just because i help things and um so uh but i did uh i was able to um i did i did go back to aa and uh the third night there i was at a lead meeting and the same thing happened that had happened many times to me when i was going to aa meetings about halfway through the lead the guy starts talking about his drinking and i start getting thirstier than i already was and i decided as soon as the meeting's over i'll be polite i'll leave i'll go and i'm heading straight to the bar um but something different happened this time i pulled up to an intersection i'm on my way to my old home bar brownie's tavern and um i had this thought maybe you don't have to drink tonight why don't you go home if you really want to drink you can come back out and i did i went home now today i look back that was god working in my life at the time i was an agnostic didn't even believe in god but God was working in my life even back then. And I went home, and the next night I went to a meeting that I'd only been to once before, but I had met a guy there who was really nice to me. He's a young guy about my age, and I went there and asked him to be my sponsor. And that's the first time I ever had a sponsor. And he became my temporary sponsor, and he was a guy, he saved my life. His name was Bob. He saved my live, but Bob, after about a year and a half. Bob was only sober about a year himself. And after another year and a half or so, Bob went back out drinking. And I run into him every now and then. Haven't seen him in a few years. I don't know if he's still alive, if he ever got sober again, but he saved my life. And, uh, I'm, I'll be forever grateful to him. Uh, the story we heard last night, um, that, uh... that Doug told, you know, about his friend, you know, who ended up dying. I... You know, we see that a lot. It's too bad. And it could happen to any of us. I've heard Clancy talk about that, you You know, it could happen to any of us, you know, that we go back out. I don't want to forget that. You know? I'm one drink away from a drunk just like the person who's here for their first day. And if I don' t treat my disease, you now, that can happen. The first four months were really, really tough. I thought about drinking every day. And I just assumed I would be thinking about drinking everyday for the rest of my life because I had been thinking about drinkin' everyday for last 15 years. But I went to a meeting everyday, everyday twice on Saturday, twice on Sunday. And about four months into this, I had this revelation. I had not thought about drinking in about three or four days. I was shocked. And today I look back, I think the compulsion had been lifted. But I know if you're new and you're still struggling with it, Dr. Bob, I think it took him two and a half years. But it can happen. It will happen if you keep working a program. You'll lose that compulsion. Some good things happened during that time. When I was sober 30 days, I got my 30-day token. And there was a guy at that meeting, and he wasn't talking to me directly, I don't think, but he said, you can't keep it unless you give it away. And I panicked. I mean, it had taken me three years to get that 30-Day Token. And I didn't want to lose it. And I ran home and I called my sponsor. And I said, what do I have to give away? I don'T want to loose it. And he said – well, he said you can get to the meeting early, help them set up. You can stay late, help him tear it down. If you see somebody standing by themselves after the meeting, go over and stick your hand out. You've got a car. If you hear somebody needs a ride home or something, offer them a ride. He explained to me there were all kinds of ways I could be of service even back then. And, of course, that's what I learned was how important service is. In fact, I really kind of want to talk about some of those things, about the things that keep me sober today, and service certainly is a big one. And, you know, and whether it be making coffee or setting up for the conference. You know, doing this conference, I've got to tell you, I've been involved with some things like this, not any quite on this scale, but several. You know I was the head of our banquet breakfast committee for a couple years, things like that. And it takes a lot of work. And I really appreciate, you Know, all the people who have put this together because it does take a lot Of work. But it's really worth It. And, of course, I know all you know, you're the biggest beneficiaries of it. But you can do that. You can give people rides to meetings. You can be on the answering service if you happen to have one of those. You can get involved in general service. You can take meetings to prisons. I know we had a prison in Dayton. It's a women's prison now. It used to be a men's prison. And for seven years, four of us went out there every Wednesday and did a meeting. Now, I had never done any prison time, and I was kind of nervous about that. Man, I've never done anything in prison time. Am I going to be accepted? But it was great. It was a great experience for me. And, you know, met a lot of good people there. Some of them even have seen in the room since they left. But service is so important. Another thing that's been very important in my sobriety is discipline. You know, I think a lot of the daily disciplines in particular are what help keep me sober. Morning program. My first morning program, I told you I was an agnostic, and I talked to my sponsor about it, and he said, well, that's not a problem. He said, I do have a suggestion for you, though. Every morning when you get up, why don't you say, if you're there, I'm here, please help keep me sober? When you go to bed at night, if your still sober, if they're there I'm hear, thanks for keeping me sober. It's my wife, she's an Al-Anon. Forgive her. She's usually at her Al-Anon meeting right now. And anyway, so I said that prayer and lo and behold, I was one of those who came, I came to, and I came To Believe. I came TO Believe that there is this God in my life who manages my life um but that morning program now i spend it's rare that i don't spend 30 or 40 minutes every morning in prayer and meditation a lot of readings and that kind of thing um i've just a couple of examples of what i do i read the big book every day i read two pages i start at very beginning title page read two stages a day takes about 11 months i get through it uh do the same with the 12 and 12. do the same with always have an aa history book i love aa history if you never read any it's worth reading uh i probably the third or fourth time right now i'm on dr bob and the good old timers it's a great book i read two pages a day takes me a while but i get through it and um and then some other you know kind of spiritual readings meetings are important for me um i have three regular meetings i go to i rarely miss them i miss my home group right now it started about 10 minutes ago uh the heart street group but uh but i'll be back there next uh next Saturday. Gail and I, my wife and I we do a meeting down at the Salvation Army lead meeting every Sunday night. I chair the meeting she bakes the cookies. She bakes what is it 17 dozen she baked every Sunday afternoon she baked 17 dozen homemade cookies to take to the Salvation Army. In fact it's kind of a funny story really I think. What happened was I was the chairman of the Treatment Facilities Committee on Intergroup in one year. And my job was, was when a treatment facility wanted a meeting, they'd call me up and I'd go, you know, get the lay of the land, see what they wanted. And well, the Salvation Army called us up. Well, we had been kicked out of the Salvation Army a few years before. It was one of the oldest meetings in Dayton. But one of our male members started offering to sponsor female members of the Solvation Army. And they didn't take too kindly to that and they kicked us out so we'd been out a few years and they're asking us back and we really wanted to do this right you know and because we really wanted back in there and the man the guy told me he said we need a we'd like the lead meeting on Sunday night just for the residents and kind of my the way I did it was when I'd get a request like that I'd go kind of do a chair a meeting or two get the lay of the land then find somebody to do it well Gail and I were relative newlyweds I'll tell you about that a minute, but we were relative newlyweds at the time. We've been married about a year, I think. And she said, can I come with you? And I said, yeah, I guess you can come with me. So she came with me and after the meeting, she said you know, I bet there are some people here that never had a homemade cookie. She said, I thinks next week I'm going to bring some cookies. I said you might be starting a dangerous precedent. Well, that was 12 years ago and we're still going every Sunday night she's baking those cookies um but it but it's for us it's been wonderful you know it's a great uh just a great service thing for both of us um and i get to hear a whole lot of leads i get to you know hear everybody in town pretty much um but anyway those kind of disciplines those regular things that i do i think are really important another thing is sponsorship being a sponsor having a sponsor i'm sober i think doug said he had eight sponsors i've had four um over the years my first sponsor i told you left went out to do more research my second second sponsor i had for a while and then i we somehow one of us changed work shifts or something and we weren't connecting very often so i got another guy and um uh eventually our past kind of went different ways and i went back to number two and he was my sponsor for many many years he passed away with 49 and a half years of sobriety just uh just a couple years ago bob Wilson. Wonderful man. In fact, I remember I used to drive over to Bob's house, particularly in those early years, and I'd pull in his driveway and I started to feel better. It was like the load started to lift. I knew I was going down in that basement and I was, I was gonna, I was gonna be listened to and I wasn't gonna be judged and I was gonna feel better and, uh, and now I have Tom Maloney and And Tom – Bob was Tom's sponsor. Bob – or Tom is sober 51 years, another wonderful man, just a good man. You know, these days I don't talk to my sponsor about issues that often. I don'T have that many issues. Once you're sober for a while, if you work in a program, hopefully you've made healthy choices and a lot of those issues go away. But life still happens. And my rule is if I have a major decision to make or something has been bothering me, it doesn't go away, that I talk with my sponsor. And I'm so blessed to have that. In fact, that's one of the things I think we have in AA that not everybody has. Probably most people don't have. We have the expectation among each other that we'll listen to each other and that we won't judge. And that's such a gift, or at least it has been for me. And being a sponsor, you know, what an honor to have somebody ask you to be the person that they choose to share themselves with. You know, their deepest, darkest secrets. It's a real responsibility, but it's a really great honor. It's such a real honor. And I have learned so much from the guys I sponsor. In fact, a lot of the guys i've sponsored have been sober 20, 30 years, you know, and you kind of end up sponsoring each other in a way, you know, and I've had some great friendships come from that too. um i have some prayers that really have helped me out over the years um one of the things that i do run into i think we all run into from time to time is i might have a situation where i think maybe i should say something but i'm not sure if i should saysay something um and my prayer is god if i need to say something give me the words if i keep my mouth shut help me do it and uh it works really well. And I use that, you know, pretty often. Another prayer is, it's a paraphrase of the big book, but it's, God, take away my fear and direct my attention to what you would have me be. Because fear still can plague me if I'm not careful. I got to tell you, I was a little afraid coming up here, to be honest with you. But another prayer that I love is, I believe, help me in my unbelief. Because as much as I believe—there's still a little doubt every now and then for me. I remember when Mother Teresa died, they found her journals, and she went through a lot of faith crises in her life where she doubted the existence of God. And I got to tell you, I took great comfort from that. If Mother Teresa can have doubts, I felt pretty okay about it. But I believe about 99% of the time. Another prayer I have, or I heard one time from a lady. And this is kind of my ultimate fallback prayer. It's, God, give me what I need and help me understand. I, you know, so often, particularly when I'm in one of those places where I just don't know what to do next. One of the things that I've learned is important for me is trying to live a life of integrity, to try to walk like I talk. You know, I mean, I've been around for a long time, and I've certainly done things I shouldn't have done, certainly done things that went against what I believe was right, and I'd always had some rationalization for it. In fact, I remember one time, just an example of this. I'd had a really good job, but I hated it. And I had decided to go back to graduate school to change careers. And I left my job, and And I pulled out my retirement. I worked for the government, had a good government job. I'd been – had 10 years in with my military time. And by this time, I was living on my credit cards and I got to a place where – or my wife at the time, this wife that I brought over from Korea, she was working as a server at a restaurant. Well, they had just – it used to be they didn't really pay much attention to tips. Well, They just started looking at tips. So – but I couldn't figure out a way to figure – I was doing my taxes. I couldn'T figure out how much she'd been tipped. So I thought, you know what? I mean I'm making – I made less money then than I'd ever made in my life. I had a dramatic income drop because I quit my job. Well, about a year later, I get a letter from the IRS. So what happened was I just blew it off. I'm not going to count that, you know. And about a year later, I get a letter from the IRS, you know, saying, you knows, we noticed here you didn't count these tips, da-da-da. You owe us. Not only do you owe us, I think it was $1,000, but there's like $1 ,000 in fines. Well, $2,000 at that time, I mean, it's always a lot of money, but it was really a lotof money then. And I got so angry. I was, you know, I was really upset. And I'm upset and angry, and I remember sitting up in bed. It's like 2 in the morning, and I'm cussing out the IRS and you know all those big corporations they get away with all this stuff and then it hit me. You cheated on your taxes and you got caught and that really was the answer. I had cheated on my taxes and I got caught. And one of the things I learned in is don't cheat on your taxes. But the life of the, that's what I mean with the life integrity is if I believe something is wrong, you know, I shouldn't do it. And when I do that, I sleep a lot better, life is a lot better. Of course, sobriety does bring hard times. You know, I think there was that part of me that thought, oh, once you get sober, life is going to be a picnic from here on out, but I've had hard times like anybody else. I know a lot of people have had a lot rougher than I've been, but i've had some deaths. I mentioned my friend Jim. I had a great friend, Mike McArdle, wonderful guy. This guy sponsored about 10 years ago, I think it was he uh was struck with cancer and when they stuck a tube in him to feed him while they did the the treatment he got an infection and he died like within a week he was 50 years old sober 15 years but he was i considered him my best friend um i a lot of uh i think a lot of people probably consider mike their best friend he was a great guy lived down in florida used to go down and visit him every year but that though that was a tough time um one of the things that uh one of the things that happened you know just kind of getting back to this relationship thing i you know i got divorced fine it took seven years well let me let me back up when i got my my first sponsor the first question i said was when can i get divorced and he said whoa hold on there cowboy he said uh we don't do that this way that way here in aa he said he said give it a year then we can talk about it well i gave it a year and it still wasn't very good and um for the next seven years, you know, I was alternately trying to make it work or getting separated and you know that kind of thing. And eventually we were able to, we ended the marriage. And it was very difficult, I got to tell you. You know, divorce I don't think is ever, even though I initiated it, I don'T think it's ever pleasant. It certainly wasn't for me. But you people loved me through it. I can't tell you how many times, at three o'clock in the morning, I'm down at the Alco AIDS Club because I couldn't sleep. And I'd find somebody to listen to me talk about that, you know what i was going through um i then met a woman in aa uh who actually she was i'd known her for a while she was a good friend of mine and um eventually we you know we became a couple her name is louise she's a wonderful woman um from the time we becamea couple uh till she passed away it was 13 years um she got cancer and uh she got it and it went away for a long time that it came back and um but it was a for me it was it was just a wonderful relationship and one of the things that came out of that um was she had a daughter and her daughter was a teenager when i came on the scene and she was as we say beginning to work on her lead and uh so this was not a marriage made in heaven i mean with the daughter and me and um so we had some pretty rough times but she got she found recovery. She's been sober now for, I want to say 29 years. She got sober at 19 and which is a real blessing. Toward the end particularly after Louise passed away we became very close and her father was kind of missing in action. I mean you know he'd show up every couple of years and wasn't very involved in her, wasn't involved in our life at all really and I became her dad. And I walked her down the aisle for her marriage. She married a wonderful guy. He's like a son to me in a lot of ways. He owns a barbershop. I got my hair cut there Monday. He opens up Monday morning so he'll cut my hair, and he kind of talks to me. Anyway, he's a good man. Carol has three children. I was in the delivery room for the last two. In fact, Cameron, And my grandson, Louise, died on September 7th, 2011. Her funeral, by the way, was on September 11th, not 2011, 2001. Her funeral was on Sept. 11, 2001 at noon. You might remember that day. It was kind of an interesting day. And we didn't know if we were going to be able to have the funeral. But anyway, we did. And two months later, Cameron was born. He's 16 today, kind of the apple of my eye, great kid. And I've been very blessed that I've been able to spend almost every Friday for the last, I don't know, 15 years or so, picking those kids up from school and taking them golfing and kayaking and movies and museums. And we just do all kinds of stuff in the summer every Friday pretty much. I have them all day. Now my granddaughter is now a sophomore in college and Cam's going to be a junior. But I've spent a lot of time on it. To me, I've always looked at it as God's way of allowing me to have some of that parenting kind of stuff that I didn't have because I didn' t have biological kids of my own. But when Louise passed away, it was tough. Bob, when Bob died, you know, that was tough I've lost, I've had some jobs that went away and things like that. But I've also had, you now, I' ve had hard times. I guess the one thing I want to say about the hard times is I've always felt like the people in AA love me through them and I'm sure there's some people out there having some hard times What I tell you is, you know, don't be the kind of person who drifts away from the program when tough times come. Be the one who comes closer. That's what I did. And the people here love me through it, and they continue to do that. Had a lot of really good times in my life. And just to kind of bring you up to date on what my life is like today, I have a really good life. um i uh on interestingly two years to the day after louise died i met gail my wife gail we met on the internet of all places and um she uh it uh it was kind of a interesting beginning but anyway we got together and uh well i'll tell you what happened was uh i had been i'd been dating some girls like you know on and off i think girls are women i guess really but uh they uh yeah yeah they were like my age okay maybe a few years younger uh but um anyway i i dated a few women you know here and there a couple months you know nothing real serious and uh um i uh i was going out with this one woman and i went out with her in fact i counted later i had gone out with her six times in eight weeks we'd gone to some concerts things like that and one day she called me up and she said i was i was sleeping i worked kind of late and i was asleep it was about eight in the morning and and i woke up and he said when were you going to tell me you hate kids i said what and uh she repeated the question and i said well what are you talking about well what had happened was i i was on the internet you know one of these you know yahoo.com or something, you know, I can't even think of the names of the sites now, but where you meet people, opposite sex. Hadn't met anybody, hadn't gone out with anybody, but I was on there. I'd been on there for a while. Well, one of her girlfriends had seen me on my profile or something. So this girl, I guess, thought there was more going on than there really was. And she had kids. She had a daughter who was 11 years old. And one of the questions they ask you when you're on these sites is, do you want kids? Do you want kids who are grown and gone or would you prefer no kids? Well I put no kids or kids who were grown and gone. The reason being these grandkids were a huge part of my life at that time. I mean particularly then when I wasn't partnered up with anybody and I didn't want that to go away and I figured if I married somebody who has young kids that becomes the priority. So anyway it just shook me up. I just said see you lady, that's it. And I went in to the computer and got off those websites. I said, I'm getting off of this. I don't want to be on these websites. Staying away from this stuff. So meanwhile, though, Gail and I had been kind of talking a little bit on the computer. And so every few days, I get a little note saying you have a note in your mailbox. So I wouldn't pay any attention to it at all. Finally, I looked at it, and it was Gail. I says, oh, shoot, I forgot about that woman. And I wrote her and I said, hey, look, I had a really bad experience on a computer and I'm getting off of that. And she said, she invited me for dinner. And I was kind of taken aback. In fact, her kids were really taken abac. I mean, she invited my for dinner at her house. And the kids are thinking, you know, what if I'm an axe murderer or something? You know, she doesn't know me. But, and I was a little nervous too i i went and to to my poker game with my aa buddies that night to kind of get an alibi i went to the game you know over at hank's house and the guys were there and i said look i'm gonna be gone for about two or three hours and i'll be back and um so you know so i'd kind of have an alabi you know and um if something or gail you know claim bloody murder or something you know but uh anyway we ended up uh getting together and uh and having a great time and uh in fact at about three months she said to me i'm uh she said i think i'm gonna spend the rest of my life with you and i said whoa hold on there sister and i didn't say that but uh but the truth was i was thinking that too you know because i really liked her a lot but i have i'm a therapist and i work with people and one of the things I always recommend is that you wait at least a year before you even talk about moving in, much less get married. And I had to walk like I talked. Plus, I would tell that to the guys that I sponsor. And anyway, I told that to Gail and she said, well, you know, I can live with that. You know, she felt pretty good about herself. She knew if this was really going to work, we'd both still be there in a year. Another thing I told her very early on was In the interest of full disclosure, I said, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous is a very important part of my life and that's not going to change because I felt she had a right to know that. Because I'd seen people before get together with somebody who wasn't in the program and next thing you know they're not going on meetings or they end up splitting up. Gail's answer was she started going to Al-Anon. Now, she was mostly trying to impress me, I think, but it worked really well. She fell in love with Al-A-Non. And she fell in Love with Al Anon the same way I'm in love AA. And so she's usually at her meeting right now, 10 o'clock on Saturday morning. And she sponsors an Alateen group now, and she's very involved in the Al-Anon program. And we both have the 12 steps. We both have this same design for living. And it really helps a lot, I think. It helps us. But so that's been just a wonderful, wonderful part of my life is Gail's and my relationship. We have a great, great marriage. and along with the deal she brought three kids and six grandkids so between the two of us we have four kids nine grandkids and one great grandkid now and um and that's that's just a joy in our lives you know that we have those those kids um other good things that have happened you know one of the things for me i was uh i was a guy who lived in fantasy a lot and i used to sit on that barstool and I would fantasize about these trips I was going to take you know I always wondered I always liked traveling but when you're drinking it gets a little tough first of all I never had much money but secondly back in those days anyway you never knew like the state you were going to what their liquor laws were like and stuff like that remember I got stuck in Oklahoma one time and I couldn't buy any liquor and because you had to have a license or something to go in the restaurant and uh anyway so you know you're kind of careful and so all I did was fantasize Well, now we travel. We just got back last month. We took a two-and-a-half-week trip out to the national parks. We went to six national parks out west. Had a great time. About three or four years ago, we were out at the Grand Canyon and a couple of other parks, and we said, how is it we're in our 60s? We've never seen these places. I'm telling you, if you've never been out there, go out to those places. We wentto Yellowstone and Glacier and Mount Rainier, Yosemite, a bunch of them. Had a good time. Great time. And then we ended up in Simi Valley, California, where Gail's son and daughter-in-law and grandkids live. And, you know, that's what we try to do these days is figure out vacations so we can end up in Simi Valley. Which I went to a meeting out there and another one in Oregon. You always go to meetings when you travel, or at least I tried to. Another thing that happened for me was when I got sober, I was digging graves, as I mentioned. I was working in a cemetery, which frankly was a pretty good job when I look back on it. But I was ashamed of it. You know, I'm so worried about what people thought of me, you now, that kind of thing. And, of course, I never was able to get through college because I could never pass the bar on the way to school. And finally when I got sober, I was ableto finish college. And then eventually I got a better job but I didn't like it and I managed to get in the career I'm in now. um and uh i for the last over 30 years i've been working uh as a therapist with uh alcoholics and addicts mostly uh i've had some times where i did did some other general stuff but um but i always come back to it um god has had his hands all over my my life certainly with my career i'll just tell you one story about it and i'm getting ready to wrap up here in just a minute but um here's what happened i was in a job in the counseling business usually if you want to move up make more money you have to go into administration you know where you're the you're negotiating contracts and boss and people around stuff like that and so that's what happened to me i'd gotten to a spot where i was doing that and i didn't care for it i was like a square peg in a round hole and let's think man what should i do well what i remembered was that the job i well what happened was i i went down i go to a retreat every year silent retreat down in gethsemane right down the road here in Bardstown. I go every year. In fact, this year I'm going and about a month I'll be there. And one of the things I do is always do some inventory, a lot of writing. So I was down there. This was 1996, I think. And I was unhappy at my job. And so I started writing. What is it? If you could do anything you wanted, what would you do? And first thing I figured out, I liked working in the drug and alcohol counseling field. That's what I liked. That was going to be a big pay cut off. I went back to that, but that was something I could do. I could do direct service. Then I thought, what else could you do? Well, maybe you could run a program. If you've got to be in administration, at least be with Drug Acts Now College. I was in the EAP counseling field at the time. And then I thought you could teach. That's something – you know a lot about it. Maybe you could teacher somewhere. I thought gosh, you could probably have a private practice if you want to do that. That is certainly a possibility. I thought maybe you could do some lobbying. You know, they have lobbyists that go to Columbus and Washington and stuff like that. And there might have been a couple of other things. I forget. But anyway, so I wrote all that stuff. And my life went on. And things started to change in my life. And about six or seven years later, I was down there. And I was going over some of the stuff I'd written. And I came across this. Everything I wrote down there, I had done every one of those things. The local community college called me up and said, hey, how would you like to teach down here? So I was teaching part-time, drug and alcohol counseling classes. I had become very active in my professional association. I became the president of the State Counselor Association in Ohio. Part of my job was to be a lobbyist in Washington. We would go every year to Washington and go around and knock on the doors of the senators and the congressmen. I had a guy, a friend of mine in the program had closed his business. He had a drug testing business, and he did some little bit of counseling in it and asked me if I wanted to take it over. I took it over on a part-time basis, and next thing you know, it was a full-time counseling practice. I owned my own business. During the interim, I had been hired to run a drug and alcohol treatment program, just a small one. It was a one-man show, so I was doing direct service. I was back doing that. So all those things had happened. I hadn't really tried to do any of that stuff, But it just kind of fell in my lap. And I just say that for any of you who are struggling with the same kind of issues, I think particularly when you're young and you struggle with a career, relationships, things like that. I shouldn't say just when you'RE young. Let's face it, we struggle with it all our life. But God will take care of you. He certainly is taking care of me. And when I can remember to turn it over, he takes care ofme. um only other thing i'll say uh is uh we also have a good life outside of a you know gail and i do a lot together uh we go to a lot of concerts a lot OF ball games uh of course a lot of stuff with the grandkids um you know um i remember hearing a guy in a lead say one time he said if you're not having fun in aa you're NOT doing it right and i really believe that you know you know if you'RE NOT having fun YOU'RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT particularly if you'Re young just keep coming back come to stuff like this you know obviously you guys are here so preaching to the choir here but uh but there's so much to do and uh there's so much out there to live in life um i feel today like i have a purpose in life my purpose in Life Before I Got Here was basically is to make sure i had enough alcohol to take care of me that day and some left over for the next day that was pretty much it you know i i was it was about pleasing john Today, I really believe that, you know, it's yesterday in Daily Reflections. They quoted that line from page 77 in the big book says something like our purpose in life is to fit ourselves to be a maximum service to God and our fellow human beings, something like that. And I really believed that today. And the irony is, is when I do that, I'm a much happier guy. and I owe it all to AA and to you people and I think if the only thing I would say is if I keep AA first kind of my philosophy is if I Keep AA First I'm going to have a good life want to thank you all for inviting me and thank you for listening