An AA and Al-Anon workshop titled

okay welcome false alarm telemarketers

and Bob and I will call it

through the grace of god the power of a I haven't been to the tenth of December nineteen sixty seven and for that I'm very grateful

it's good to be back

congratulations to the people who are

got the big books and I hope that one of the things I I wish we would start a tradition in AA is when they get those books as I have them back the next year hoping that they are celebrating their first year of sobriety

sometimes we give those books so many that we don't make that request I always wish that we would use that kind of leverage the specialist

of that and have them come back and maybe give it to the person who's got one day and say that I was in the audience with one day and I got the book and I was able to stay sober that would be very powerful

we have had a wonderful time you have been wonderful host and I think what has been most wonderful is watching a a an operation

I travel all over the United States and I have traveled to half a dozen different countries for more and given talks but

when you see

the same book the same steps the same program the same sponsorship you know it just just there's something so wonderful about seeing that and all the different places it just kind of the universality in the sameness of it enough and the power that came out of our program our program was

four years old a little over four years old when the book was published in April nineteen thirty nine

and we only had a hundred members but after the book was published our growth became exponential you know within a matter of two years we were in a thousand members in March of forty one after the Saturday evening post article because of the book because we can send the same message

the people and start groups with the same program prior to the book we have a have a body we have to have someone who is over go do that and that was slower so it is wonderful to see the energy on the growth of the metallic that I see here

tonight

much of what I'm going to talk about in my a truck I've already talked about today I'm going to pretend I didn't talk about it today

and I'm just going to give a talk

Linda would you stand up this is my wife well we referring to from time to time

thanks for

she has thirty six years now and then and that's been a great

a great comfort in a great support to me

I started drinking when I was thirteen years old I was that insecure kid I was four foot eleven I was a second smallest kid in my high school class I weighed ninety five pounds mostly mouth

and as I said I felt like everybody else got to school early and held a meeting to decide what to do for the day and I always missed the meeting because I felt like everybody else you know what to do and I didn't know what to do I was you know

that most of us feel that way I didn't know that I thought I was the only one who sold his interest you're invited

I wanted to belong to one of the B. and B. in the in group you know I got to be a marginal member of the younger

hi I was on the group's thinking that as long as I did what you wanted me to do I could be in the growth

and then I when I when I had my first drink and when I had my first drink my life change it was just wonderful it was just I didn't feel like I was a member of the group I felt like I owned from that from that time I became a social drinker

anytime anybody else that I'll have a drink because of social life

the

I went to a military high school very strict on a college campus and we drink a lot

I had a class of a hundred and twenty men

and then a hundred and twenty men I think we have twelve members of Alcoholics Anonymous there was a lot of lot of drinking but a lot of recovery the sounding of the recovery

I got into a lot of trouble I didn't think you know everybody was telling me I had a problem drinking I thought my problem was I was under age

because when the police caught me or my father called me I got in trouble

and I thought how you can get in trouble having one drink when my father called me or the police caught me I never wanted to get in trouble having one drink so I you know when I drink I drink a lot and I thought I drank a lot because of it didn't matter how much you know you're gonna get in trouble you might as well have a good time

and

by the time I finished high school I had a reputation as a drinker I was a fellow with the false ID cards and I would dress up and put a tie in a Shkodran you know they didn't reach puberty July was thirty so I didn't look very old

I drink a lot and I thought when I when I had a chance to go into school and I wanted to get away from the place and away from my parents and away from the strictness of it

and I thought that one you know my heroes were those second World War people that came back my father and his friends they were the group that went in on during the second World War and they made life look wonderful they were you know they started businesses they have big families they just you know they drank hard and they played hard and they made life look easy and and they were our models they have cocktail parties they had parties with bartenders we have you know when we copy that was like playing house you know we would you know we would you know stick moves out of our parents parties you know I go to that

and when I went away to school my drinking got out of control my drinking didn't get normal I all of a sudden I found myself

I drink my way out of the university of Notre Dame middle of my senior year I mean I'm I'm in the yearbook I have my class ring and I don't finish school I am not I'm the class struggle the use my room is a study hall because I'm never in a

and

my parents didn't think that was so funny

the thing I will mention is that if sometimes your shows will be revisited ideal we have three boys that are in the program of a and that's how my my my last my middle boy that's how he went to school that's a repayment that's karma you know for what I did you know that I have to have him

I

I just couldn't shut my drinking down I didn't you know some guys could drink on the weekends and so I thought I had a I just drink all the time and I was

it was a sad kid I just didn't you know I didn't like school because I wasn't doing it I was going to school one day a week you know it's kind of hard to take twenty five credits in civil engineering going to school one day a week

kind of tough to bluff your way through a thermodynamics exam gonna even for an alcoholic

and finally I just had a quick

and when I quit I was due to be commissioned as an officer I was in ROTC and I had to get a medical release or it would have been drafted as a private

and the medical release I got was for alcoholism I was diagnosed an alcoholic when I was nineteen

not too many psychiatrists are people who are nineteen were off on holiday but I ran into one who was better informed than the average psychiatrist when he does some work with alcoholics and he would you could make up for that

traffic

and he diagnosed me as an alcoholic and recommended that I have to go to treatment which there wasn't much treatment but the we have the rich hazel and a few other places

or that I go to Alcoholics Anonymous I thought that was stupid

my idea I didn't think you know I was looking for a diagnosis like Mirotic that would get me out of trouble but not make me quit drinking and

you know so I I left school I came home and when I got home I finished I went to another university and I finished at the university and when I finished my father asked me to leave the house you should we love you but you're a mouse under there six other children in this house and we don't need a mash as an example around the other kids

and

I am with my college degree and my new freedom I went out I got a job at a liquor store

yeah and

I was

you know I'm in trouble again everywhere I go I'm in trouble

thank you

I can't figure out what's wrong with me my friends you know I think I drink like my friends well I don't think like my friends I drink every night of the week most every night of the week my friends drink one or two nights of the week I drink after my friend to go home you know I drive my friends online there's one or two of us that are out drinking after everybody else's home I don't but somehow I think I'm not different I think I'm the same and I'm not to sure

and I know I'm different but I'm I'm just so I'm happy I don't know what the hell's going on they tell me that my problems drinking well

I have juries right didn't drink before I went back to school I was almost killed I got

in trouble got beaten up then I got robbed and I got rolled and I got pistol whipped I got shot at I got thrown out of the second story of a hotel

and

I was ended up in a hospital and they were put me in a psych ward there were going to evaluate me and I'm not let me go back to school

and I talked my way out of the psych ward and they let me go back to my junior year of school

and I didn't drink and I didn't become an a student you know they were telling me if you don't drink you're gonna be fine if you don't drink your life's going to be okay your problem is you drink too much don't drink it'll be okay

it was absolutely not okay

it was horrible and

it was even worse you know that I'm sitting there not drinking and now I can't do

you know at least before I could blame it on my drinking now I've got nothing to blame it on other than me and I don't really know what's wrong

you know it's just a hopeless and so I have had periods of sobriety periods of abstinence and they they didn't work and so I didn't believe people when they told me that I was the blues is my problem I thought blues was my answer you know I thought those were pretty well it was a pretty good friend of me for those ten years that I drink

so this was during the Vietnam War and during the last year of my drink and I was trying to figure out what branch of the service to get into and so I wasn't doing much with my life both because I was a drunk and because I was

trying to get in different branches of the service

and

I took a job as a waiter I worked at the tables and I'm drinking a car today I'm just a mass no one knows where I am my family hasn't seen me in five or six months there which is fine with me I didn't want anybody to see me I am

I get into a fight at a party I get my face messed up and they fired me as a waiter they don't want me as a waiter serving food looking the way I look

so now I don't have a job I have no place to go I go back to my family and ask them if I could move back in the house

and they don't know what to do there at the limit should be they have tried they've tried to get me every kind of help that a family can get some they've tried psychiatric help they've tried church shop they've tried legal help they've tried medical help and there's you know it looked like I was trying to kill myself I mean it was baffling about you know why are you doing this to look like I was suicidal that it once or twice a year I crack up a car ride you know get beat up for it all do something stupid and I had the my family was a why are you doing this to me my father which and I'd say I'm not doing it to you news save baloney you're not doing that to me you said you left this house over you promised me you were going to drink you said that you're going to drive my car you weren't going to drink you come home at four o'clock in the morning so drunk I couldn't walk I had a drive in

and he thinks sometime during the night I said

the hell with you I'm going to drink

that didn't happen to me sometime during the night I thought I'll smoke a couple cigarettes all have two drinks and no one will know it's eight o'clock I'll have two drinks I'll be home at midnight and no one will know I had a drink

I took the two drinks in the person who took the two drinks didn't remember anything about the conversation he had with his father

the person I talked to two drinks didn't remember anything about the last

hundred ninety two times I had took two drinks

then all you have to be in any apps that you know where that's going to end up but I was an idiot and I didn't know where it was and

and I moved back in the house tonight and now I'm the family drunk and I'm the problem everybody just giving me the lock you know my brothers and sisters are giving me the look I have a sister who to graduate school at the Sorbonne and brother was Phi beta Kappa in law school and I'm lodged in between those two show us on the

and I don't look very good

I tried to change my life I thought that if I could get back together with Linda Linda nine going together for a couple of years and

broken up for the last year my drink and I thought if I got back together with Linda and we got married that would help straighten me I thought if I could get a real job that was straight me out and so I got a job as an executive trainee

at this manufacturing company I bought my first car and I thought wow what's good now if I'm going to be a grown up only

I couldn't stop drinking now I am in awe

now I'm at a corporation and they want me to work on Monday they want me to stay on Friday they want me to not drink during lunch and I am in trouble nine the company grow I'm falling asleep at my desk I mean I'm I'm in bad you know if I'm out of control this is not working well

and I know I'm in trouble and it was I leave the job and I get a sales job

and now I am showing and I'm not you know

I'm a mess one of my friends gets married we go out in about a week drunk

and I wake up on Thursday afternoon haven't been to work in three days haven't talked to Linda for a couple of days and with the girls were giving us the rings back you know what they were upset with us and they were kind of on the edge I didn't know she was just still going to be my fiance

and my family hadn't seen me in a couple of days I thought maybe they throw me out before I got married

and I all of a sudden the recommendation that I call AA didn't seem like such a dumb idea I was out of ideas

one of those days where you look in the mirror and you just can't quite believe who you are and where you're what you're doing with your life

and I called Alcoholics Anonymous and they sent two men out to meet me at a cafe

and

after I had talked to them I was I called work and find out I had a job in garland and found out I had a fear of saying

the call home and found out I still had a place to live and I thought why the hell did you call a

that's that's an overreaction on the

but I was curious to see what an alcoholic look like

so I went to go meet these two guys

I really love this there was no denial with me I just wanted to go straight

and when you're young and in trouble if they put you in front of a lot of experts and when you're in front of the experts

the experts always ask questions and they talk about you but they don't talk to you and your your not part of the conversation your family may be part of the conversation but after they ask a bunch of questions that come through the recommendation

and I thought these two men we're going to be like that when I went to meet them I thought they were you know going to be like experts or something

and I want to go meet them one man have six months of sobriety and one man have six years

and they sat me down in a booth and they should work from a

they said we had a drinking problem than a help this gets over we're here to share how we got sober we hope it helps you but if it doesn't help you for some reason it helps us

you know they weren't getting a toaster for signing me up and there wasn't a multi level marketing deal we're just a tall stucco these two men sat me down in a booth and they told me they're drinking straw

and I have in all the times that I have talked to people to try to help me I had never talked to another person who had a drinking straw

in a matter of a half an hour they had me captivated

and when they were done sure they're storing they had changed my life

they changed my life there's a power in sharing your life with another person

I'm glad that we have a tradition of not sharing our ideas or R. or our philosophy

that we share our experience and our strength and our whole and there's a power in that

and there's a magic in those two men changed my life and they asked me to go to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous at night and I was in August

July or August of nineteen sixty seven and I didn't

I drink twice after that night once on a business trip to the west coast and I got in trouble I didn't go to a I was told to go there and I didn't

and once on our honeymoon I had three months of sobriety and I think I planned to drink on a hunting one all the time I didn't have a consciously but I had a kind of server side

when we honeymooned in Mexico and you know where the divers dive off those cliffs in Mexico I don't watch those clips from my western

I was in the audience watching the world high diving contest I thought god that's not sure

and

I don't want the public landing swam over climbed up you know took off I had a swim suit on underneath my remit as I split my some should I cut my leg Linda is going absolutely nuts

and I get up about eighty five or ninety feet and I'm stuck I can't get up I can't get down and I'm watching the waves come in and out and I've been off trying to figure out whether the jump or dive and I'm trying to figure out the hell with it my dole got watches after fools and drunks because I mean

and

ten years later what we we started vacationing down there with the kids ten years later I my tenth anniversary Linda gave me a picture of the chasm a lock a broader

and on the bottom of should there but for the grace of god

and you know

and head I jumped I would have died

I didn't know that

you can dive you have to get out almost thirty seems to have a chance I didn't I may have known that by looking at it but I didn't know what as information

you know so jump by di dive I may die

you know and I said the lender that's the stupidest thing I've ever done and Linda said Bob it's not even in the top ten

so we have a different view of life I don't

a few years ago I was gaining weight I said I have to exercise I think I'll get a bike I got a bike and she got upset with me I got a Harley

yeah

so even when I try to please write on always losers so it doesn't

the

so I had my last drink on the airplane on the way home from hunting so we haven't had alcohol in our house I mean we've had alcohol for friends and Linda drinks but we haven't I have not been a drinker since December the tenth nineteen sixty seven

and

I was ashamed to go back to the group and understood all for goodness sakes call your sponsors right when I got off the plane I call my sponsor and he was very nice and we got together and

I went back to the meetings

and when I went back to the meetings I was always when you're young and in trouble they always talk to you about potential I don't know if they talk to you about potential in Iceland

but when you're not doing much with your life to talk to you about that you have so much potential you should put in two years

and I was I didn't put much to use I was holding it in reserve and

I thought that it now that I knew what was wrong with me that my life would blossom I thought that now that I you know I got the problem age got the answer if I've got the problem in a has the answer all these other things that our problems are going to go away

you know and hello they should you know

maybe go away in a year well my problems didn't go away and one year and they didn't all go into yours and they haven't all gone away and thirty searches

I had a stellar problems along with my drinking that were horrible but ordinary I have I have problems getting up in the morning I I later found out that he had to do was when I went to bed but at

but at that time I did not know that

I have serious financial problems

and I spent about three hundred dollars more a month than I made in nineteen sixty seven but it's not much money today but in nineteen sixty seven it was a lot of money

and I later found out that you can get in depth by spending more money than you make

I didn't know that then but I

I now know that

I had as time went on I have some issues with marriage that Linda had expectations of me because of her experience at her home that we're different than mine you know she had a father that came home every night after work and they sat around and they talked and they went in on

I would kind of pass through you know I would

I would come home at about five thirty or six cylinder would broil something because all she could do was brought you know as long we could have it as long as you're good broiler and she was a nurse and she was get up at six o'clock in the morning to go to work and I'd still be in bed I go to the a meeting every night I come home at midnight and she would be a slight

she saw more of me when we were dating then when I was over

and so she wasn't all that happy with all this aid stuff she was happy I was in there she was happy I was sober but she did she thought this was odd enough is enough this is a little too much

and then later she thought maybe I had a practice to program at home which I thought was none of our business and our

and and she's and she's going to Allentown and she's not very happy about going down she she doesn't we're not married and she doesn't know why you know well I guess by this time were merry

and she thinks that she doesn't have to go on she's not very happy but she's gone and then we started to have kids and I have trouble

a little bit with being the father not so much immediately but later when my kids were section seven and eight years old I was loud impatient angry and sometimes violent with my children I'm not proud of that fact that that was

my father was sometimes violent with me and I I don't say that to blame my father I say it is a piece of information my father was my hero he was a wonderful man

but a human man not a perfect man

and I broke the chain of alcoholism in my family I am the first generation of college

my father got sober in a after I got sober

my children are getting sober shot that they're with our our family now has a different way to deal with alcoholism than drinking themselves to death like my great grandfather do

I also hope that through the program I breaks the chain of rage

I break the chain of excessive anger I break the chain of physical abuse you know that there isn't that that would be it also a wonderful contribution and a good use of the program and all the affairs and I think that there's that possibility on that hole in that

and I had a gambling problem it was more of a hobby for five hours a day for five days a week

but I made between five and ten thousand dollars a year playing back and it was kind of like a second job I'm in a really like a second job

and I had all of these problems from the day I walked in there and I never noticed and during my first year of sobriety

I mean it's really unusual that seems stupid to me now but I I was on a honeymoon for my first year I came in and I was so excited about Hey at next stops and everything I heard and I was on a honeymoon and I had I didn't have much insight into my life I did a fourth and first up but none of those problems I just told you were on my fourth and first I didn't do the formula of the book I did it my other message

in my first four step was kind of a system was kinda recitation of the worst things I have done

it was helpful to me and I wouldn't go back and redo it because if I did it with a good attitude I just didn't have the right form and

Joel it was during my second year now I'm going to five or six minute meetings a week I got a sponsor to sponsor

and I'm working I'm working on the program to work on the steps and I did by the end of my first year I started to get a sense of what my defects of character I started to get a sense of my money problems of my marital issues of my work issues

in the next year or two of my children would come I started to get a sense that I have some anger around that you know I didn't they were still so young that I really didn't that wasn't an issue with them

and so little by little I started to get a better sense of what was not working and I started to try to work out and I thought well I'm in a is going to be okay because their program's gonna restore me the sanity and that scared me as a young person because there was no place I wanted to be restored I said don't take me back any place I've gotten take me someplace no I don't wanna go back to any place in my life that I have been

you know that isn't okay and

but what happened to me is I would work on these issues and I would make a little progress and during my second year I identified my problems are my third year and fourth and fifth year I worked on a pretty hard and I didn't make much progress

and by the end of my neighbor started under my structure seventh year and I'm not sure of all these times

I was very unhappy I was in as much trouble as seven years of sobriety as I was at one year when I came in I had paid off all my debts and I was back in depth of seven years of sobriety as much as I was when I came in

my job was in trouble

I used to say but I didn't have marital problems and Linda said yes you did you just didn't know what

but there was nothing was working very well and I and I started to lose my hope because I'm doing what I think I should do

but it's not working

when I started to think maybe there's something very wrong with me maybe I have to go to gamblers anonymous maybe after

you know if I had to go to a program for every problem I had I was going to be a busy kids on the

it all

and

I know part of the answer was was to get a better spiritual program and the problem I had with the scripture program was that I'd go

ask god for help and god would say what do you want to say I want help I'm you know I'm seven years sober my pants are on fire and I need some help

and he's going to say I'll help and then I'm going to say what do I do and god's gonna say get up in the morning go to work

stay at work work at work

don't spend more money than they may get on a budget

I hate that word I think that's in Allentown work budgets is a tough

be kind and loving to your wife became a loving your children to stop gambling

don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what you think god's going to tell you to do

and I thought how if I could do all those things I wouldn't even go

so my problem was what's the sense of going to god for help if you can't do it god's going to ask you to do

I was stuck in a place for about two years

and that's not a joke I was struck bad

and around the time I may hear sober I'm thinking about suicide

then that great eight years over you know thirty two years old everybody is thank you think I have the world by the tail but I I'm thinking of killing myself

then out of desperation I went back to the steps when I found out what step one had to do with me eight years over what I'm manage ability powerlessness and unmanageable I was very powerless and my life was totally unmanageable

the step that blew my mind raced up to

I believe that for you to put my hand on a lie detector and should you believe god's going to restore us to sanity and I'd say yes and the lie detector would not move at all

but if you said you believe god's gonna restore Bob's standard

the answer is no because I mean you're sober my life's going backwards I lost a believe the guy's going to restore me the sanity

when you're in trouble you either get more active or less active and I got a little bit more active and I started to see

people with smiles on their faces with bigger problems than I had walking through those problems that I was trying to avoid

with dignity and I started I came to believe again the guy to restore me the sanity

I took step three on my knees with my sponsor in his office we didn't do much of that in those days was done more today but I didn't want to miss anything

you know

digress for a minute

I talked about this earlier today but I have built a wall up between

myself and you I had built a wall up so that you couldn't see what was wrong with me the first thing drinking rob me I was a little bit extra than it took to be a success and anything that I did and then I started to take the hop off my fastball and I started to cover up so you couldn't see the bad

and the thinking that went on behind the wall should you like me but you only like what electricity

if you could see everything about me you hate me because I hate me and who knows more what a lousy cramming insufficient person I am than me I was walking around comparing my inside with your outside

when I first went through the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous I tore down that wall

I felt very unique one of the things that is very hard when we come in one of the things that kills most alcoholics we commend Alcoholics Anonymous is the feeling of uniqueness if you feel you need

you're not going to identify you're going to look for the differences if you don't drop that sense of uniqueness you're not going to stay thanks well sometime during the early part of my experience I tore my wall now and I said Hey come and get me I don't care who you are where you come from but come and get me and help me not be who I am anymore I can't stand me five more minutes and for the first time in my life I shared everything in my system

now prior to that I would kill you with the P. shouldn't have

you'd come to me and you say Bob I think you should do this and I say well there's a bunch of things about me you don't know all

I'm not gonna tell you what you don't know

and because you don't know I'm I can I don't have to take your advice

and I have no one knew everything about me so I could neutralize anybody who tried to help me

but when I came to a college anonymous I tore my walls on a shared everything about me and I made a discovery I'm not unique

my personality may be unique but not my own us not my behavior not my experience not my feelings and I started when I tore the walls on it started to have a sense of hope that would would work in your life can work in my life

prior to my chair in that wall down I believe that was different

when I tore the wall down I became enough alike that I thought would work for you can refer me

but during the next years and I'll probably not on this when I was sober and had problems I built that wall back up so over going to five meetings a week I would have problems with sex I didn't want to talk about him I put a break up thank you I'm in my drinking problem instead of my marriage data my work stay out of my brick by brick sober in a

I built this wall back up

now I'm I have a sponsor I'm talking to my sponsor I tell my sponsor about sixty five percent of what's going on I know what I've shown your telemonitoring and I think

very good

but I was telling him sixty five percent I was only telling myself sixty five percent

I wasn't honest enough or in touch enough with my life to be able to really even know exactly what was going on that's how stupid I wish

yeah and

it was too painful I was not strong enough for I mean I we're all strong enough I didn't think I was strong enough I was denying the stuff and pushing it away closing my eyes are not dealing with the stuff in my life hoping it would go away

and so now it's eight years seven or eight years of sobriety I am reached around her my my problems are back in spades I am powerless and manageable I have to admit the fact that I don't believe god can restore me the sanity I have to re find the second step I rediscovered the second step I took the third step on my knees with my sponsor

and I was like no in a I took my first up

and I did my first job with my sponsor my prior to systems were with clergy which was the way we did it where I'm from

and when I was done with my first job I should be careful whatever you recommend me to do I'm going to do I said I feel like I'm dying of thirst lying next to a lake

that's what I feel like I know all the answers

but I can't live with

you know I know where the water is I can't get to it

and I said I am so tired of being me I am so tired of not being able to live a life that I just can't tell you how tired I am I am I think I'm ready to do whatever you would have to do

you want me to go to a psychologist I did not want to go to a psychologist I thought that was an admission that my program and fail but I put I told my goal so I went

psychologist got my wife involved in what my wife involved it was

you get your wife involved it's hard to lie