Sober-Fest 2004 in Jamestown, ND

My name is Bob Darrell. I am alcoholic. Hello. It's a hello that'll blow your hair back. I'll tell you.

And because of Alcoholics Anonymous and God's grace that I've accessed through the actions of the fellowship and the 12 steps and good sponsorship or commitments and lots of newcomers. I haven't had a drink or any emotion or mind altering substances since Halloween 78. I've found nothing that I in the last little over 26 years that I've needed to do to treat my alcoholism except the actions of Alcoholics Anonymous. Even though it looked at times, there was like a lot of other things I that looked like would work quicker. Alcoholics Anonymous has kept me in good stead for all that time.

It's really good to be here. This is a a great group of enthusiastic members of AA. You don't see that everywhere. There's there's some I've I've talked to groups that looked like cardboard cutouts. I mean right?

I mean, this is they were, I don't know. I think they were between medication runs. But this is a this is a really strong, group of Alcoholics Anonymous. You can tell the people here are awake. Not perfect, but awake.

And that's the way my home group is. We're an awake bunch of people in action. I really wanna thank the committee for having me here. It's, been a great weekend. Mike, it's been a stellar host.

Picked me up at the airport, waited. My plane was a couple hours late, waited there. Gave him a time to think deeply, which I think he needed. Gotten the his truck, fanciest truck I ever saw. Tricked out truck.

I mean, if a pimp ever drove a truck, that's the truck he would drive. I'm telling you. This was it's a truck. I never saw a truck like this. It was an amazing truck.

Drove up from Fargo, late Friday night. Got in late, late, late, late. Heard more about Mike than I ever wanted to know. Got here. It's been a good weekend.

Nice basket in the room. People have been very hospitable to me, which sometimes I'll tell you something. Even though I, I still, after all these years, still have remnants of the way I of that low self esteem that I've always had. It it's like sometimes I catch myself feeling emotionally when people treat me well and, like, they treat me like they're glad to see me, like I wanna look around and see who they're talking to. Right?

Because I still have remnants of that feeling that I came in here with, that feeling of coming from behind, that feeling of not measuring up. I, heard heard some speakers this weekend that were great. Jeff was, Friday. I really enjoyed him. I really liked is he here?

Saturday. Or Saturday. Saturday. Yeah. There you go.

I enjoy your sense of humor, which doesn't speak well of my mental health, but I really, really enjoyed your sense of humor. And Mary Mary, I really enjoyed your talk. I I listened very carefully, and I I I really got something that was very clear to me. You shouldn't drink. Drinking's bad for you.

That's a bad deal. I I'm glad you're sober. Sober things seems to be working out good for you. My sponsor, Saturday night, I always love hearing him. I can't hear him enough.

I probably heard him, oh my god, 40 or 50. I don't even know how many times. And it's all we're both very busy guys in AA. It's always a a great thing when we get to hang out a little bit together. And recently, we've been together a lot, and it's, which is to my delight.

And then last night, I went to I got stuck on a hot seat with a bunch of, guys that were very asking me every question every question that I've asked myself over the years. It was amazing. I could have been in that audience asking those questions. And I you know what? That spoke to me is that I really I really got it, that I was in the middle of a group of people who understand the 2 prongs of our primary purpose.

That that they're what their that that's what their life was about. Not only just to stay sober, but also to help the other alcoholic. Because a lot of those questions were about concern about some of the new guys that come in here and and how do we help some of these guys that are hard to help. And and I knew I I I knew that I was in a group that was like minded to my home group. My home group's really about our primary purpose.

We, we know that we we don't delude ourselves, even though that they're members of my group that are very successful, well off people. We do not delude ourselves that god got us sober so we'll have great lives. That's a byproduct, but we know that we got sober because we were given a purpose. We were plucked from the abyss and given a purpose, and the purpose, is to help other alcoholics who suffer like we suffer. And the the the wonderful thing about that for me is that all when I get that, all of a sudden, everything in my life makes sense.

All the horrible things I struggled with, all the things I did that I was so disgusted with myself and ashamed of, all of a sudden, all of that makes sense and becomes useful in trying to help a guy that just walked in the door that is convinced that he's gone too far, that no one will ever understand that his case is different, and I'm I'm destroyed and broken worse than you are. And then all my experience can tell you, no. You're not. How much we are alike, how much we come from the same place. I, I didn't come from an alcoholic home.

I know a lot of times in alcoholic anonymous meetings, you hear people talk about there there's terrible childhoods that they had as if there's an implication that the alcoholism came from that. And I don't think that's the case because I came from a home that where my parents weren't didn't weren't alcoholics. My parents loved me. I often sat in in the early days in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and listened to people talk about their tragic childhoods and how they were mistreated and often envious. Like, I wished I came.

I wished I had somebody to hang my weirdness on, but I was loved and taken care of as a kid. And I still turned out like like the like awful. And I just think I had a propensity to be the way I am. A hunger and a yearning and a incompleteness that drove me before I ever picked up a drink. I was a driven little kid.

I was a I was a driven kid in grade school. I was the guy that whatever I had, it wasn't it. I was restless, irritable, and discontent as far back as I can remember. I'm the kid that that at Christmas, gets all these incredible presents. And then within no time at all, the shine has worn off every one of them.

Right? And now what's next? What's next? And I it's almost as if I have this insatiable hole within me that the more I try to fill it, it doesn't fill. The hole just gets bigger.

And I'm stretching it out to infinity, and I can't seem to I I can't I'm never satisfied. I I never seem to be settled or fit anywhere. When Silkworth says that guys like me are restless, irritable, and discontent unless we can again experience the ease and comfort I'd once found in alcohol. I was that way before I ever found the ease and comfort in alcohol. There was something wrong with my spirit.

I didn't feel the way other people looked. I was seemed to have an inability to mix with you the way I so often saw you able to mix with each other. And so I become the pretend human being. I'm the guy who who tries to mimic you and and walking around all the time with a an anxiousness about being found out. As if someone, someday, is gonna see through the facade and know that I'm a I'm a I'm a phony human being, that I ain't anything that I'm showing you, that I'm something else that I don't want you to see because I don't like it.

And I am absolutely convinced that if you really knew about me, you would feel about me the way I feel about me. And the truth was I wasn't very big on me. When I was 12 years old, I drank for the first time, and I I didn't drink to drink. I didn't I just was with a bunch of kids that were older than me. They were the they were the tough kids in our neighborhood.

They were the kids that were always in and out of juvie. They were, like, 14, 15. The one the oldest kid was 16 years old, and I and I they were the kids with the black leather jackets and the switchblades. They were the kids that were they were the kids that had power. You know, that kind of power when they'd walk down this the halls in school or or at the football games, people would move out of their way.

And when you're when you're secretly weak and pathetic and inadequate like I I am, man, those guys had what I wanted. If I could have that kind of power. And so I I'm hanging around with these kids, but I'm feel like them. So I'm I'm the coming from behind driven kid. And one day, we make we we pull a burglary in the neighborhood where I live.

We broke into somebody's house, and one of the things we stole was some bottles of whiskey. And I didn't I really I I didn't know much about I didn't know anything about it. I'd never seen my parents drunk. I I did all I knew about it really was it it was for adults. I don't you know something looking back?

I don't even know that if I got it that it made you high or not. I don't even think I got that. I didn't have any experience with it. I'd never seen anybody drunk. I I don't know.

But what I do know is I wanna fit with these kids. And when you're coming from behind and you're a pretend human being, you watch people. And you watch them and you become a mimic. So what they're passing around this quart bottle of Seagram 7, and I, what I'm seeing is that the bigger hit you take off the bottle, the more attention you get from the other guys. So by the time it gets to me, I'm in.

I don't know. I could it I'm just glad it wasn't. I would have drank whatever. I'm glad it wasn't cat urine. It would I would have just I would have been in for anything, because I want their approval.

And I took a big hit off this this court bottle of Seagram 7, and I'll tell you, I felt like it was my insides were on fire. It was awful. And then after couple minutes, the burning stopped and something happened to me that would change the course of my life. I started to feel so good and so a part of so integrated with those kids. For the first time, I could come out and play.

For the first time in my life, I could just relax around them, and I felt like they looked. And I never felt like anybody else looked. In alcohol, it made me feel so good that that the way I was gonna be without it from that moment on would never be enough for me again. And when you're 12 and 13 and 14 years old, 15 years old, you can't drink every day, but I drink every chance I could get. And I lived for it.

It's how the the effects of that was the thing that I yearned for. It was the thing that caused I that I shop lifted for. It was the thing that I acted tough for. It was the thing I smoked cigarettes for. It was the thing I drank initially for.

Something that awoke in my spirit and allowed me to integrate myself and be a part of, to able to fit with you. And when you're when you've gone through your whole life in that state that Bill Wilson talks about, he calls it anxious apartness. And you're you're lonely, and you you that that separation thing, man, something that overcomes that, That's the thing I've been looking for all my life. But I'm a I'm an alcoholic, and I don't know it. And I got that phenomena of craving.

I got that allergic reaction to alcohol. I had that from the first drink. I have never taken a social drink in my life. I have never had the experience once that nonalcoholics, Al Anon's, people who don't have this disease have all the time. And that's been sitting at a party, maybe drinking and smoking stuff or in a bar drinking and been drinking for an hour or so and have the bartender combined say, Bob, would you like another drink?

I have never once sat there and thought honestly to myself. Nah. This is just right. Not once. Not once.

I never get but you know what I get? I get so close to just right, it makes me crazy. I get a feeling and a sense of urgency that I'm about to be just right maybe on the next drink. So I'm that guy that drank a drama driven drinker. I'm the guy that's I if I if I got a bottle of whiskey and it's half gone, I'm already planning the next getting the next one.

I'm the guy that's gotta keep it coming because I'm almost gonna touch magnificence. It's all it's just beyond my fingertips. And, there were times in early drinking where I got so close that it was magic. I I think from my experience in talking to a lot of people, I think for some kind of level when alcohol on a some kind of level created a spiritual awakening or experience within me. I remember and it you know, there are people I've said that in meetings and people have bad wrapped that and said, it's just an illusion.

I'll tell you something. I don't think it is. I remember times when I would walk into places and I could I would start drinking. I walk I'm walking into parties and dances, walked up inside myself, just feeling like I'm dying here. And after a few drinks, man, I could come out and play.

After about 7 drinks, I get that feeling like I love everybody. I love you, man. Remember that feeling that just you just I remember times with the guys I hang around hung around with where I'd feel so connected and a part of, it almost bring tears to my eyes, the feeling of camaraderie. I would drink in those days, and I'll tell you, I could shoot pool better than I could ever shoot pool. I could dance, and I can't dance.

I could I could be funny and sober. I'm not a funny guy. Sober, I'm I'm a I'm stupid, boring, and glum. But but half lit up, man, I could come out and play. I could be fun.

I could be deep. Remember 3 in the morning deep? Remember deep cracking the secrets of the universe? I'd say stuff that would blow my mind. You know?

Wow. I could talk to girls. I'll tell you something. If it wasn't for alcohol, I'd be celibate to this day. I had never ever gotten anything going with a woman.

I just couldn't I remember junior high school. I went to a dance. Sober. Stuck up against that wall, watching everybody dance. There's a girl in my class I had a crush on.

I remember watching her thinking, god. I'm gonna ask her to dance. I'm gonna ask her to dance. Not now. Not next song.

Next song. Next song. Next song. Come on. I'm gonna okay.

I'm gonna oh, oh, no. Next song. Next song. Finally, a half hour of that crap, I finally mustered up enough courage. I'd walked across that long gymnasium, got over to her to ask her to dance, and she turned me down.

I remember walking that 7 or 8 miles back across that gymnasium, and and know everybody felt like everybody in there is looking at me, and everybody's thinking, what a pathetic loser he is. And I remember walking over there and slinking in that corner just till I couldn't take it, and I had to bolt out of that place. I'm telling you, if it wouldn't have been for alcohol, I'd never tried that again. But not too long later, I'm at a dance and I under the under the power of 151 rum and Coca Cola, and I could ask anybody to dance. And girls would dance with me because I had a confidence about me.

There was the awkwardness was gone. I wasn't the creepy guy anymore that that that that just made you look like, what's wrong with him? I had a smoothness about me. And if someone turned me down, I could walk away with them and know within side myself beyond the shadow of a doubt that, boy, are they missing something. And what a tremendous transformation that is for a guy like me.

Tremendous. But as as alcoholism, unfortunately, is a progressive illness. And and what that means, in my experience is it's a disease of diminishing returns. In the beginning of my drinking, there was a tremendous amount of ease and comfort, a tremendous amount of effect. It almost it was as if alcohol put me in some kind of zone that connected me to some flow of energy in the universe where everything was just clicking.

And it was awesome. But as the years progressed, my ability to achieve those effects diminished and diminished and diminished. And at the same time, in my desperate, frantic effort to achieve those effects, the futile effort, the price I'm paying for continuing this is going up and up and up. And it was almost as if when I drank, every time I'd go on a run, it was like spinning a roulette wheel. And on that roulette wheel, in the early days, there was dancing and drag racing and jam sessions with the guys and, singing acapello music and shooting pool and rough housing and laughing and carrying on and getting laid and partying.

Little bit of throwing up occasionally, little bit of going to jail once in a while. But really, for the most part, yeah, I'd spin that wheel and come up party. But as the years progressed, some some sadistic force moved into my life as the disease progressed and started changing the things on that wheel and putting up more jails and wet pants and broken noses and and and blackouts. Oh my god. I was a any blackout drinkers in here?

Any oh, yeah. My people. It's it's tough going through life when other people know more about you than you do. It's, that's a hard deal. And I I never did anything good in a blackout.

Nobody ever came up to me the next day and said, oh, Bob, you were so helpful last night. You peed in our kitchen. You hit on my wife. You broke my lamp. You stole my stash.

You sideswiped my car. You you passed out on my front lawn. You told everybody at the party last night you beat Bruce Lee in a karate match. Boy, you'd hear that stuff the next day. I just wanna die.

I couldn't get drunk quick enough, and I became the guy that started drinking because I was drinking. I needed to drink, and it fueled it fueled my alcoholism. And as the disease progressed more and more, I had more horrible and horrible things happen to me. And the harder at the same time, the harder it was to stay sober, the more uncomfortable abstinence would become, and the more awful drinking was becoming. And it's a it's a tragic thing.

I think one of the worst things that alcoholism ever did to me is over the years is it ground away my life. I finally got to a point where I'm thinking about killing myself, and there's nothing left of any value within me or without me. And at that point, not only is is am I reduced to nothing, but the disease has pulled the plug on the party. And I entered into that stage, the last stages of our chronic alcoholism, that stage where most of us die. And it's not it's it's it's not from anything you think.

It's not what the worst part of alcoholism is I get to a place that it talks about in a vision for you where I can't live with it and I can't live without it. I get to a place where I know a loneliness such as few do. The book says I'll be at the jumping off place, and I'll wish for the end. And And I got to that place that no matter what I drank or took or the drugs I threw into the mix to try to keep the party going, I couldn't jump start the party. And now I've become the kind of drinker who I drink by myself even when I'm around a whole lot of people.

I'm by myself. And I I I feel sorry for myself, and I go on crying, Jags. And I'm pitiful. This is not a party. This is awful.

And I get to the point where I don't care anymore about myself or my hygiene, and people don't wanna be around me, and fine. Because I don't wanna be around you anymore because I I feel you just everything that you are just points out the stark relief how how wrong I am in here. I don't know what's wrong, but something's wrong. And the only thing I've ever known that seemed to overcome that and give me a sense of integration of feeling that I was a part of doesn't work anymore, and I don't know why it doesn't work. And so I get sober over and over and over again.

And I get sober over and over again because abs because every time I enter into a state of abstinence, something happens to me that I don't understand, is that I start to get sick of spirit. And people well meaning people in institutions, from the time I was a late teenager till I finally got sober in 1978 for for 7 years kept telling me that alcohol and combinations of alcohol and drugs was my problem. And there were times when I wanted to believe that because I could I could see that the arrests are as a result of that. I could see that that I'm in detox as a result of that. I could see that I'm having seizures as a result, and I could see that I lost this stuff as a result of that.

But that's really not the problem, really. And I knew that with everything in me. And I knew that because I would get sober over and over and over again. And something is really wrong with me when I'm sober, and I don't understand what it is. But I don't fit very well sober, and I'm prone to look to these depressions sober that I don't understand, and spin in my head almost to the degree of panic.

And I go to these AA meetings, and I pretend. I go to the AA meetings, and I try to act like I look like you people look, and it's awful. I know what it's like to sit in the middle of an of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting being surrounded by people that I understand intellectually care about me and wanna help me, and feeling so distant and apart from you. I used to have this feeling. I'd sit there so removed, a feeling like as if it's all of you and then there's me in this state of anxious apartness.

And the only thing that ever overcame that doesn't work anymore was 5 shots of Jose Cuervo. And the problem is now I'm in a stage of alcoholism that's bleak and that Jose Cuervo doesn't work anymore. I, on my last second to last run, I got arrested for a hit and run DUI in a stolen car. It wasn't really stolen, but they borrowed it. And I ended up in a county jail cell, and I'm facing 2 years in a state penitentiary.

And I, I'm at one of the low points in my life. I remember they gave me a phone call, and I can't even describe the sick feeling I had when I realized that there was no one I could call. My parents my and my parents loved me. But I I'll tell you something. I got I pushed them and forced them into a position where they wouldn't have anything to do with me for just as for their own survival.

Because I I gave them such an emotional battering over the years. And one of the things I did to them is I would get back up on my feet, and they would get their hopes up that I was gonna be okay. And then 6 months or 6 weeks later, I've trashed their hopes one more time. And I did that to them for years. So they just couldn't take it anymore.

But I'll tell you, it never sat well with them. My mother, who's not an alcoholic, was seeing a therapist and taking tranquilizers because she the angst she couldn't she could never really get away from the anxiety of of caring about her son. My father slept 15 or 16 hours a day because of what was going on with me. I didn't have a girlfriend to call. I I I guess I I would've like to have a girlfriend, but it's hard to get a relationship going when you're homeless.

It's a I mean, that's a you know, what do you say? I mean, you wanna come baby, you wanna come back to the TV room in the halfway house? There's not a lot of panache in that. I mean, really, I don't have any running partners. There was no one to call.

I tried some so I tried calling bail bondsman. But do you know? They want you to have, like, an address and a job and all that stuff. I don't have any of that stuff. So I sat in that county jail cell for close to a half a year waiting to go to trial.

And in that time, I went to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in there, not because I wanna recover from alcoholism or I wanted what I kinda wanted what you want, actually, is the reason I went there. And what I what you had that I wanted is you had cigarettes. And I I knew that the people in Alcoholics Anonymous would have cigarettes, and I had a tremendous cigarette addiction. And they used to the the state would or the county or whatever would give us that bold Durham and that, you know, we'd roll it, and that stuff's awful. And you guys had tailor made cigarettes.

And I knew from past experience, from being around Alcoholics Anonymous for for years in institutions, that some of the people in AA were wealthy and very well connected. And I had a little hope that maybe I'll find someone that would go my bail or know a judge or something. You know what? I'm always got an angle. I'm always the guy that's shooting the angles, because it's all about me.

And I go to this this AA meeting, and I'm sitting in the room waiting for the do gooders from Alcoholics Anonymous to come in here and tell us how wonderful their life is. Oh my god. It's hell. And here comes this guy, Woody, And I had I didn't wanna see Woody. Woody is the last guy I wanna see.

Woody is one of those kind of guys that I can if I'm if I'm doing better, I can kinda tolerate him, but I ain't doing very good right now. Woody's one of those happy, grateful for everything members of Alcoholics Anonymous that talks about god and the steps. And, you know, one of those guys that just when you're doing really bad, make your skin crawl. You know what I mean? One of those guys, you know, just old man, not Woody.

And here he comes, that big smile and, you know, all eyes and teeth and just, you know, he's just coming at me. And, man, here he comes. And I just shake his hand, and I go into my spiel. I tell him, I said, oh, Woody. I'm so sorry.

I let you and all the guys in AA down. You know, as if Alcoholics Anonymous has gone into mourning because I drank again. I said, I I I'm gonna beat this. I'm gonna get out of here. Boy, if you could help me or one of your friends, I'd sure appreciate it.

I gotta get out and get attorney and get out and get bail, and I'm gonna get into a good halfway house not like that one that took advantage of me. I'm gonna get no good one, and I'm I'm gonna get some I'm gonna go to the government. I'm gonna get some of that voc rehab money. I know there's that money's available. I'm gonna go back to school, and I'm gonna make something myself.

And maybe I'll be a a doctor, an attorney, and I'll and he's looking at me funny. And I say, I I knew something was wrong. And I said, oh, I said, oh, and I'm gonna go I'm gonna go to your meetings and work your stairs and do all that stuff. And Woody looks at me and he's shaking his head, and he says to me, he says, kid, who are you trying to kid? You're not gonna stay sober.

Kid, you haven't hit a bottom. You're not done. You haven't surrendered. Are you kidding, kid? And I stood there, and I didn't say nothing to him because I don't like confrontation sober.

But on my head screaming at him, and I'm thinking to myself, who the hell are you to say that to me? You don't know nothing about me. I don't need that negative stuff. I need positive reinforcement here. I don't need that negative stuff.

You with your what do you mean haven't hit a bottom? What do you mean haven't surrendered? You well, you with your big Cadillac and your house and your kids and your good job, you don't know nothing about me. You don't know not surrender. Surrender what?

What? There's nothing left of me. 2 years ago, I had something to surrender. I had a job and a girlfriend. I had some stuff I could.

There's nothing left to me. But I didn't say any of that. I just glared at him. I went to the meeting and sat there, and I didn't hear nothing in that meeting because I'm just grinding away in my head of the things I should say to him, you know, to explain it to him how wrong he is. And I went back to my cell that night, and I ground away in my about him, and I hated him.

And I want you to know that, Woody was absolutely right. Woody could see something in me I've saw in probably a 1,000 guys over the years in in detoxes, in the county jail, and in the prisons, in the in the heart of my Alcoholics Anonymous program. He saw a guy that was dying of alcoholism, insisting on having his hands on the wheel of his own ship, insisting on it. And, see, I'm dying of alcoholism because I can't give up the one thing. The one really, the only thing.

You can you can give up this if you can give this one thing up, you don't have to lose nothing else. But I can't give up the one thing. Some people never give it up. Some people give it up early. They give it up when they still make it a $100 a year, and they're living in nice houses, and they've never been to jail, and they've never lost nothing.

And they give it up. They surrender the one thing, and their life changes so dramatically that they never have to be like they were again. And then there are other guys like me who lose everything until I'm stripped to the bone, and I still can't give it up. Son, there's guys like me that go past that and we die of alcoholism because we can't give up the one thing. And we die like like friends of mine who put pistols to their head, blown their brains out.

Or we drink till we pass out, then we throw up while we passed out. We drowned in our own vomit. And I've watched a lot of guys die of alcoholism over the years, and it's awful. Because by the time it's such a slow, tedious process as alcoholism grinds away your life that by the time it kills you, you have wished you were dead for a long time. By the time it kills you, everybody you've ever loved or wanted their approval hates you, and they're gonna be real glad you're dead.

I don't I can't imagine a lonelier, more emotionally distraught way to die than of alcoholism. And I couldn't give up the one thing. I didn't know what the one thing was for a long time. The one thing is my self reliance, my will. I'm one of those kind of guys I can turn my my life over to god all day long, and if I retain my will, it's a useless proposition.

Because if you retain he he said, you know what you're doing when you're making your last will, you're really making your last judgment. You're judging these people to be okay. They're gonna get something. You're judging these people to be idiots. They get nothing.

Your your will is your judgment. And I thought about and I was the guy I'm the guy that can get on go on a run, and alcohol will strip me to the bone. I end up in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the first thing I get back is my opinion and my judgment. And I'm the guy who is dying of alcoholism. And, yes, I want help, and let me explain the kind of help I want you to give me.

It's hard to get people in a to cooperate. It's really hard to get them to go along with that, because I'm still the great I am. I'm the guy who still knows. I'm dying of alcoholism, but I know, and I can't surrender my will. And that's a futile proposition trying to turn my life over to god.

Because if you do that and you retain your judgment and you wanna be the guy who knows, then god hears my life and be patient, god. There's a list coming of how it should go, because I'm still in charge. I, I went before a judge. He sentenced me to 2 years in a state penitentiary, stayed the commitment, gave me a break, put me in a place called the ARC House. It was the only place left that would take me because I've been in every treatment center in in Western Pennsylvania.

And this wasn't really a treatment center. It was more of a it was like a mission, really. It housed about 200 guys like me that were dying of alcoholism. And I went into that place with a determination not to drink because I don't wanna do the 2 years. I'm required to get good UAs, good PO report, make the restitutions, all that stuff.

The judge said, if you can do that, you come back before me in a year. And if you've done everything and you're cool for a year, we'll reduce this to a misdemeanor. If not, it's a felony, and you go do 2 years in the state penitentiary. So I'm in this place, and I'm trying not to drink. But I'm the guy that talks about the big book.

No matter how tremendous my resolve is to not drink, the emotions of untreated alcoholism gradually grind away that resolve. If you're an alcoholic of my type, the the question is not if you're gonna drink again. With untreated alcoholism, it is the question is when. And you can throw stuff at it and prolong it for weeks months and sometimes years. But if you're a real alcoholic, an alcoholic of the type it talks about in the big book, with untreated alcoholism, without God's grace, without the steps, without helping other people, without a sponsor, the next drink's coming.

You can slow it down, but it's coming. And because of that, my lack of power, I'm hanging on by my fingernails. And I I I tell you something. I was under an illusion for a lot of years that I would hit the ultimate bottom, that I would get to a place where I would want to stay sober badly enough, and then I would be able to do it. For bit for a lot of years, I just wasn't there yet.

And now I'm in a place where I really wanna stay sober because it's not fun anymore, and it's killing me. And I'm facing 2 years in prison, and I don't wanna live like that anymore. I wanna change. I really wanna change. But lack of power is my dilemma.

I don't have what it takes to change. Isn't it awful when you're in a spot where you know your life's in line, you have to change, and then you realize you can't? It seems so unfair. And I'm in this place, and I'm hanging on, but I can't I I can't overcome my alcoholism. And I've gone to a lot of meetings, and if going to meetings was a treatment for alcoholism, I suppose that would be my sobriety date.

But I'm getting sicker and sicker in here. I'm becoming more restless, irritable, this discontent. I'm battling with depression and anxiety, awful, awful feelings of loneliness. And I don't know what's wrong with me. And this this restless, irritable, and discontent thing that Silkworth talks about that always brings me back to to yearning for that sense of ease and comfort, the thing that activates obsession with alcohol.

I mean, my obsession with alcohol is never with alcohol. My obsession with is with the effect of alcohol. And when I feel restless, irritable, and discontent, it just starts gnawing on me. You know, it's it's very, very much like because I saw this in a movie where there's these, the the communists had captured an for days, and he won't give nothing up. This is a tough spy.

And finally, after days of beating this guy with rubber hoses, they bring in this little old Chinese doctor. And he comes in and he bows, and he says, oh, you tell me everything. And the spy says, yeah. I'm not gonna tell you nothing, doc. Go ahead.

Have do whatever you want. You wanna put electrodes on me? You wanna beat me some more? Go ahead. He says, no.

We not beat you. We drop a drop of water on your forehead every few seconds. The guy says, you think you beat me with rubber hoses for days? You think a drop of water is gonna make me tell you something? Drop hit me with a bucket of water.

Go ahead. The guy says, no. Not a bucket. Just one drop. And he starts to drip into the water as the guy's tied there on the guy's forehead.

The guy's laughing. Yeah. Go ahead. Hit me with another one. Hit me with another one.

But after about a week, he'll tell him anything to get it to stop. And my alcoholism's like that on some low level. And the thing that that's that's deceiving about where the spiritual maladies, it goes right below the horizon. It goes right below the radar, and this restless, irritable, and discontent is often something I can't really put my finger on or see. It's just a low level gnawing within my spirit.

And I'm the guy that no matter how tremendous my resolve is to not drink again, my alcoholism will gradually gnaw away at that resolve. Until one day it gets down to the bone, and I got a screw it switch in my head. When the screw it switch goes, I'm going. I'm going. And I drank again.

And I had busted out of that place, and I was on the run running from the cops. And now I'm living in an abandoned building in a park, and I don't know what to do. And my life's over. So with a bottle of Richard's Wild Irish Rose, I walked out onto a bridge for the purpose of taking my own life. And I walked out of there just because I I just I couldn't go on like this anymore.

This is awful. And I'll tell you, I am not a suicidal guy. I'm sometimes a homicidal guy, but I'm not a suicidal guy. I've made fun of suicidal guys. I think they're wimpy guys.

But I'm a suicidal guy now, and I'm a pseudo suicidal guy now because you put a awful, suicidal start looking like a good idea to a guy like me. And I'm standing on this bridge trying to get up enough courage to jump and just stop this. And I break down and I start sobbing because I'm because I'm a coward. I don't have what it takes to jump. And I remember hammering my fist on this piece of metal on that bridge till I I sprained or broke my hand, and it swelled up.

And and I'm I never felt so pitiful in my life. And if you'd come along and you would have said to me, Bob, what's wrong with you? Is alcoholism? Nah. Wasn't alcoholism.

I thought it was some kind of mental illness or something, and I but I'd been to therapists, and I tried medications, and I tried everything, and nothing seemed to work for me. I wouldn't have believed it was alcoholism. I if I would have been honest with you, I might have told you I felt like I was dying of loneliness because I don't fit anywhere drunk, and I don't fit anywhere sober, and it's killing me. And all I wanna do is feel good again, and I can't get it back. And I couldn't kill myself, and, little did I know that that that was gonna be my last run.

Little did I know that I was about to be, as Bill says in the book, rocketed into the 4th dimension of existence. I didn't know what the it's funny. I it's a little sidebar. I didn't know what the 4th dimension was. I was sponsoring a guy 20 years ago or so.

There was a scientist and a teacher, and I said to I said, Rob, what's the 4th dimension? And he said, well, he said for years, science thought there were only we thought there were only 3 dimensions. The dimension of height, width, and depth. And then he said there were some physicists, scientists that came along, started to postulate that there was actually 4 dimensions, and the 4th dimension is time. And Einstein was one of the people that started to believe that the 4th dimension was time, that this book's so many inches high, so many inches thick, so many inches wide at certain time, and then it changes because the universe is fluid and in motion.