The Austin Recovery Men's Center in Austin, TX

Bob d from, Las Vegas, Nevada. My name is Bob Darryl. I am alcoholic. Alcohol. Through the grace of a very loving god who seems to be crazy about me and has no taste.

The 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous as they're outlined in this big book. Good sponsorship, committed committed and dedicated home group, and Bushel's the new guys. I haven't had a drink or any mind or emotion altering substances since Halloween 1978. Thank you. I I shouldn't be here.

I got a bad taste of alcoholism. Guys like me should be dead. And I suspect if you're like me, what I'm looking at is a lot of dead people sitting up because you probably shouldn't be here either. I I suspect something. I now I want you to know what what I'm gonna try to share with you.

I'm gonna try to share as honestly as I can about my personal experience. That's one of the most powerful things we have in Alcoholics Anonymous. You can argue with my opinions and you can argue with the things I believe, but it's hard to argue with the guy's experience. It may not be yours, but it's his experience And that's what I could got to share with you. It's the only thing I have of any value really.

I suspect that I was born with the disease of alcoholism before I ever got high. I was like a freeze dried alcoholic waiting for alcohol. And I believe that because I look back at my childhood and the only thing I really remember with any clarity is me. I don't can't tell you how about my mom and dad, what they struggled with, less it had to do with me. Or my sister, less it had to do with me.

I was the center of the universe. Everything revolved around me. It was my focus. It was the only thing I paid attention to was me and my feelings and my life and what do you think of me and me me me me me. And and as a result, internally focused, self obsessed guys who live up here have a hard time fitting out here because the truth is I ain't out here.

I'm up here, disconnected from life itself. And because of that, I I had a before I ever picked up a drink, there was something wrong with my spirit. I didn't seem to be able to connect with other people the way they so easily connected with each other. I felt like I was always coming from behind and I had to act a little tougher, swear a little more, and do all that stuff. Not to be better than, but just trying to be equal to.

I was a driven little kid, and I the disease of alcoholism, was touched within me when I was 12, almost 13 years old by alcohol for the first time. An event that would change my life. And I'll just tell you, basically, I could tell you a lot of things about it, but the most important thing is that it made me feel so good that the way I would be without that effect from that moment on would never be enough again for me. And I live for it. And it seemed like from the first time I ever got lit up, getting lit up moved into the most important spot of my life.

It is like it seemed like from that moment on, I just existed doing time between opportunities to party and get lit up. And it became the the focus. It became the deal I live for. And when you're 12, 13, 14, 15 years old, you can't get drunk every day. But I tell you, I got drunk every chance I could get.

I'm 15, almost 16 years old, not standing before a juvenile court judge for the 3rd time. And I'm standing before this judge, and my family is about at the end of their rope trying to keep me from being locked up as a juvenile. And I'm standing before this judge because there's something wrong with me, and I don't know what it is, but I get in trouble a lot. And what it is now is what I know exactly what it is. I had alcoholism but didn't know it.

And because I had alcoholism, every time I go out to party with my friends, I have an inability to shut her down when you should. And I always take it to the wall. I always get whacked. And guys I party with like to get messed up. They like to get loaded, but they always would kinda wanna stop right before it got a little too bizarre.

But I start and there ain't no stopping. Matter of fact, I've had that condition ever since I took the first drink. I didn't know that it was a condition that only exists in people who have alcoholism. It's an allergic reaction to to the effect from alcohol. And I had it from the very beginning, and not everybody has it.

My sister is not an alcoholic. And I've watched my sister the last little over 28 years that I've been sober. I've watched my sister drink on many occasions. I've watched my sister drink like a guy will watch like a cat will watch a guy eat a tuna fish sandwich. I mean, I've watched my sister drink.

I've even looked at her eyes. Wait. I wanna see the effect. You know? I wanna see her light up.

And something happens to her when she drinks that, to me, is bizarre, but it's because she's normal. She is not alcoholic, and her wiring is not alcoholic wiring. So when my sister drinks after about a drink and a half, two drinks, and she starts to get that glow in her. In her wiring, it goes, woah. Woah.

Woah. And she shuts her right down. She gets to feel like she's losing control. In my wiring, which is alcoholic wiring, the allergic reaction to alcohol that only alcoholics get is that as I start to feel the effect from that, it lights me up and I go, oh, yeah. Come on.

And I can't get enough. Come on, man. Come I and I get a feeling like I'm getting control. I get a feeling like maybe on the next drink, I'm gonna be so goddamn wonderful I'm gonna blow the mind of the planet. I get this feeling like I'm gonna be there.

And it's consequently when I start, I can't stop. But I don't know that that's going on because every drink the next drink seems like my idea. And I didn't understand that the phenomenon of craving uses your own mind against you to bend around any rationalization or justification necessary to make it seem to the alcoholic like the next drink is my idea and seems absolutely appropriate. That's why I could never see the phenomena of craving, because I always seem to satisfy it. And it used it drove my own mind to a where I could never see it.

And so I'm the guy that once I start, I I can't stop. I'm the guy that I can drink myself to a point where I can't get off the ground. But if you'd bring me a drink, you know, I'll be much obliged. Because I'm the guy that once I start, I ain't done as long as I'm conscious. And so I'm standing before this juvenile court judge.

I'm not even 16 years old, and I'm in a lot of trouble. My parents are at the end of their rope, and I had to go someplace to live for a while. And I guess it was a it was a lesser of 2 evils of another place that could have sent me. And I'm not in this new place. I'm not even there.

I don't think much more than a week. And I'm talking to this older kid. He's one of the hip kids here. You know, one of the real hip guys knows that knows stuff, and he's, like, older. And I'm telling him about the trouble I'm in.

And he's listening, and he says to me, he says, so you like to party, don't you? I said, yes, I do. He said, but you drink that liquor. That'll make you stupid. I said, oh, man.

I don't know. I like that liquor. And at that time, I was into 150 51 rub, man. I like the way it lit me up, man. And he said that stuff makes you stupid.

I said, I don't know. I like it. I like that stuff. He says, listen. What if I told you that I could give you something, make you feel about that good, maybe better?

Can't smell it on your breath. Won't make you slur your words. You will not stagger. Nobody will even know you're high and you keep a whole week supply in your shirt pocket. What would you say to that?

Sign me up. And introduce me to drugs. And I'll tell you something. I'm an alcoholic. Alcoholics should not do drugs.

We are pigs. It was a bad deal for me. And every drug I ever picked up, I took it to the wall, man. I did it alcoholic ly. I just whacked my life with everything I ever touched.

In in no time at all, I graduated out of marijuana, out of pills, I'm into shooting speed. But I don't just shoot speed. I shoot speed with such a fervor that the tweakers that have been doing it for 10 years are telling me to cool it. I've done it to such an extent that if you left me alone in your car to go in and get a pack of cigarettes, by the time you come out, I will have dismantled your radio looking for microphones from the FBI. I mean, I've I've turned myself into a paranoid schizophrenic or some shit.

It's whack. I can't even put 2 sentences together after about a year of that stuff. I'm just speared in my head. A guy comes along and he says, man, you're messed up. And I said, yeah, but grandma, I hate the glasses on the quarter.

You know, I'm just nuts. I'm crazy. And he says, try some of this. And he hit me up with something. I'll tell you.

When the throwing up stopped, I could think straight, man. I was just everything just went up. And he introduced me to heroin, but I'm an alcoholic. I'll tell you, alcoholics shouldn't do drugs because we're pigs. And I just took that to the wall and burnt my life down with that stuff.

And then methadone clinics and then on and on and on back full circle after I ripped everybody off, after I got no veins left, after after several years of that full circle, back to alcohol. And I I believe that my several year dance of death with drugs, I did it for the same reason that our cofounder doctor Bob did drugs. Doctor Bob did high powered sedatives every single day of his life for 17 years. You know what kind of a barbitchwood habit that is? It's unbelievable.

But doctor Bob didn't do drugs because he was a drug addict. Doctor Bob did drugs because he is an alcoholic. And because every time he went to drink, the phenomenon of craving was so strong in him, he would whack himself. As a matter of fact, the day that the the original guy, Bill Wilson, tried the to 12 step doctor Bob, he couldn't see because he was taking a nap underneath the dining room table. You gotta love a guy like that.

You know what I mean? Right? I understand it. Because I'm the guy. You don't give me some kind of stimulus.

I'm in a bar drinking. Before the night's over, I'm taking a nap under a booth somewhere because that's the kind of guy I am. I just I just keep it's more more more more more. And I did drugs because drugs I couldn't control the alcohol because of the phenomena of craving, but yet I had an itch I had to scratch because I got the spiritual malady of alcoholism. And I and up here, if you got this thing right in the center of who you are, you're gonna scratch this itch one way or another.

The great psychiatrist, Carl Jung, in the early 19 sixties, wrote a letter to our founder, Bill Wilson. And he said to Bill that something he had not told anyone else. He said after years of experience with alcoholics that he always he came to the conclusion that the alcoholic's thirst for alcohol was a low level thirst of his being for unity, for connectedness, or as expressed in medieval or religious terms, a union with God. I I drank alcohol and did drugs because I had a an inability to fit and be comfortable in this planet. And in the early days of my drinking, alcohol and combinations of alcohol and drugs was tremendous, tremendous treatment for alcoholism.

I mean, it was a magic treatment. You take a guy like me who doesn't fit very good, who's locked up in his head, who doesn't mix well with people, and you send me into a party or bar and after 4 or 5 drinks, I come out and play. After 7 drinks, I get that feeling with the guys I'm running around with like, I love everybody. I love days where the hook is set, alcohol did something for me I could not do for myself. I could drink and I could be funny, and I'm not funny.

I could drink and get deep. Remember deep, 3 o'clock in the morning, cracking the secrets of the universe? I I'd say shit blow my mind. I just I it's like all of a sudden, they could see the big picture. It's like I'd say, we're thinking, oh, this is what Buddha saw.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, and then the next day, you're just back to being you again, the dumb guy, the bump on the log, the guy that doesn't fit too well, nowhere. I could drink and I could play the guitar and sing better than I could play the guitar and sing. I could drink shoot pool better than I could shoot pool.

I could drink and dance. I can't dance. I'd tell you something. I this sounds funny, but I tell you it's the truth. If it wasn't for alcohol, I think I suspect I would be celibate to this day because I could never overcome my self centered fear and of rejection and walked through that and never connected with a woman.

And I I'll tell you what experience I had. I was in junior high school, and I went to this dance. And I I went to this dance because there's a girl in my class I got a crush on. So one of the guys in school showed me a couple dance steps. A little awkward for me.

But I go to this dance because I wanna dance with this girl, and I'm I have this fantasy. And I'm already picking out the colleges for our kids and stuff. You know how we are. I just let's go there. And I go to this dance, and I'm standing up against the wall of this gymnasium with that and I'm sober with that sick feeling of anxious apartness, that feeling like it's all of them, and then there's me.

And I'm trying to psych myself up with asking her to dance, and she's out there dancing with her girlfriend and I'm I'm just scared to death. And I don't know that I'm afraid. I just am uncomfortable. And I'm telling myself, okay. I'm gonna ask her.

Next song. Next song, I'll ask her. The next song coming. It's oh, man. Oh, next song.

Next song better. Next song. I did that for about a half hour. Finally screwed up enough courage to go over and ask her, walked over and ask her, and she said no. And I gotta walk back across that 12 mile gymnasium, and it feels like everybody's looking at me.

And do you ever imagine sometimes I used to think I knew what people were thinking about me. And as if they're looking at me and thinking, oh, what a loser that guy is. I went back over to my wall. I stood there and spun in my head for about 5 or 10 minutes, so I couldn't take it anymore and bolted out of that dance and went home. I'll tell you something.

I did never ever done that again. Except later on that year, I was in a dance under the power of 151 rum and Coca Cola. And I must admit, I was smooth. And I had a confidence and a suave affair about me, and I could ask those girls to dance. And most of them were saying yes.

And if one said no, man is she missing it. Now that's power to actually change my experience on this planet. That's power to change my whole world. So is it any wonder that a guy like me who goes back to being himself again when he gets sober and doesn't fit very good, is awkward, and it tries to have to be a pretend kind of cool guy, where he knows in his heart that he they ain't none of that. Is it any wonder that the one thing that took me there, I would become obsessed with it?

I became obsessed with it because of the magic effect, but I don't know that I'm alcoholic. I don't know that I have a progressive disease that is fatal. It'll it'll kill me eventually which is a tedious process, but in the progression of the disease what that really means that as the years go on my ability to reap the effect and the fun out of getting high gets more and more elusive and more and more difficult. I'm starting to have problems jump starting the party. I'm starting to have problems getting back to the days when I'm playing with the bands and I'm all lit up and I'm a part of.

And as the the effect is diminishing, the problems are increasing. And I see it it seemed like when I first started getting high as a young teenager, I it seemed like there was a tremendous amount of fun and effect. Little little bit of problems occasionally. A once in a while throwing up. Once in a while, a little allocation with the police.

But for the most part, it's a lot of fun. And it was as if every time I went out to get lit up with my friends, it was like spinning a roulette wheel. And on that roulette wheels a lot of good stuff in the beginning. There was dancing, there was drag racing, there was roughhousing with the guys, there was sitting in with the bands, There was, men laughing and carrying on. There was just great stuff, a little bit of throwing up and stuff.

But most of the time, you spin that wheel, it comes up a party. And then as the disease progressed, it seemed as if some hideous force snuck into my life and started changing stuff on that wheel. And now they're putting up jail, wet pants. Wet pants is a bad deal. Yeah.

If you're 3 years old and you have diaper rash, it's cute. You're 20 years old and you have diaper rash, it's not cute no more. It's embarrassing. It's humiliating. When you finally meet that girl that just lights you up and she invites you over to her apartment, she's punching you in the head in the middle of the night because you've wet her bed.

That is there's no panache in that. I mean, there's there's the that's not a for a good first impression. Getting arrested more. I'm getting sick more. I'm developing a lot of remorse, a lot of shame, a lot of guilt because now I'm doing things that I can't I I'm becoming at times the guy that I wouldn't couldn't stand.

I'm becoming that guy. I'm doing things that if if I knew somebody else who was doing them, I'd I'd just think they were I'd hate them. And I'm doing those things. I'm doing them to the people who love me, my mother and father. I'm breaking the heart of my kid sister who thought I was her hero.

Every woman that ever tried to love me seemed to get punished by it. Bosses that were really good people and gave me chances I didn't deserve, and I made them regret it. This isn't happening a little bit. It's happening. It's progressing in my life and it's getting worse and worse and worse.

And I'm a blackout drinker. Ain't blackout drinkers in here? Oh, man. My people. It's hard going through life when other people know more about you than you do.

I'm telling you. That that's not a good deal. And, you know, if you're like me, you've it's never the next day somebody comes up to you and says, oh, Bob, you were so helpful last night at the party. It's never like that. It's always you peed in our kitchen.

You hit on our you hit on my wife. You broke my lamp. You stole my stash. You sideswiped my car. You passed out on my front lawn.

I had a guy one morning come up to me. I was sick and I was shaking. And I'm on my way to get a drink. And he comes up to me and he says, do you remember telling everyone last night at the party that you'd beat Bruce Lee in a karate match? And you just hear that I just wanna crawl under a rock somewhere, you know?

It's and so what happens is now I my alcoholism is fueled. Now I'm drinking over my drinking. I'm drinking because I sober up, and I can't stand what I've become. And now I gotta drink over my drinking. And then they say that there's no perpetual motion machine.

I'm telling you this is close. And it's a self feeding proposition. And once you get to that point, you're you're real close to getting the morning drink because you can't you can't wait no more. You're just you're just the shame and the guilt and the want to jump out of your skin and start to eat your lunch. And now I can't go to 5 o'clock.

I can't go to noon no more. Now I I come to, and I'm in the presence of the guy I can't stand the most. And so my alcoholism takes a turn into the last stages of alcoholism. It's the critical stages. The stages where most of us were we don't even know how close we are to pulling the plug.

It's the stage of alcoholism work. It's all delusional now. The truth is the reality, there's no fun left. I drink, and I feel sorry for myself. I drink, and if nobody's around, I might go in a crying jag.

I drink and punch walls and sometimes end up in the emergency room because I I fall in or through a window or some I'm just pathetic. I drink and I don't bathe because I don't care no more. This is not a party. This is blotting out your life until you die. This is just going on to the bitter end, blotting out the miserable state I'm in.

And yet the delusion part is you you stick me in a treatment center and you get me sober for 5 or 6 months or 5 or 6 weeks even. Because of the way I feel sober, which is not really good, I start imagining that I can drink again like I drank when I was 18 years old. I start it's it's the self delusion is psychotic, wishful thinking. It's all of realities. The party's over.

It's turned on me. This is pathetic. It's awful. But I don't want it to be awful. For God's sakes, I want it to be like it was when I was 18 years old, and I want that so desperately, and I need that so desperately.

I start imagining that it's gonna be like that again even though the last 5 or 6 times I tried it, it wasn't. And what that's and and I think every once in a while, some of us have a moment of clarity. It's as if a curtain opens and you can see the truth. And I had one of those moments. I it was a horrible moment.

I I've been, I've been in a halfway house, and I I've been sober for about 10 months and my life is awful. I'm sober really for that length of time because I'm living in Pennsylvania And it's wintertime, and I got nowhere else to go. And if I pick up a drink, I'm out on the streets and there's like 2 feet of snow. And I know what it's like to walk the streets when it's 5 degrees out. You can't even sit down.

Because if you sit down, you'll fall asleep. And if you fall asleep, you're a dead man. So you walk all night long. Doesn't matter how sick you are, how rummy you are. It doesn't matter how tired you are.

And you hope to get into a bathroom in a gas station until the manager comes and rouses you out of there. So I'm in this place and I'm hanging on and I'm not drinking, basically, because it's wintertime. But I got alcoholism. And if you're a real alcoholic your your disease really starts where the bag in the bottle ends. That's why most alcoholics in in spite of of an education, how that's just killing you, as I did many times, make up my mind and really mean it this time, I'm never gonna touch that again.

Ned, I mean it. But 7 or 8 months later I'm back at it again. I didn't do that once or twice. I did that for seven and a half years. And I'm in this half I'm in this halfway house and I'm sober several months and I'm just getting it up to here with being sober.

And I don't know what's wrong, and the counselor one day said, Mike, I guess I looked like I was a little depressed, and I ain't drinking. He says he says, Bob, what's wrong? But I guess I said something like, oh, nothing. I'm fine. And I remember sitting in the day room thinking to myself, what what the hell is wrong with me?

And I don't know. It because there's nothing specifically that's wrong. It's just that nothing's right. I feel like a fish out of water. I'm the guy that doctor Silkworth talks about when I quit drinking I I'm restless, which means I can't get settled anywhere.

It's like it's it's a vague sense that wherever I am, it ain't where I should be. Now I don't know where I should be, it's just not here. Do you ever watch a dog circle a room looking for its spot to lay down on a dog who can't find its spot. Restless. I'm irritable.

I don't mean to be. But I get sober and you stop medicating me, I just become acutely aware of what's wrong with everybody. And I just become people just irritate me. And I just and if you're restless and you know what's wrong with them, you gotta tell them, which makes abstinence a lonely business. And the last thing is I'm discontented.

I think alcoholism is a disease of chronic malcontent. I got this hole inside of me that I cannot fill, and I don't even know where it is. It just seems to be in the center of who I am is this vacancy. This abyss. And so I get I'm not drinking and I don't drink day in and day out and I don't there's something wrong with me and I my mind works overtime trying to figure out what will make it better.

I'll see a girl, and I'll say, oh, man. Oh, man. If I was with her, I'd be there. I'm I'm convinced if I'm with her, pigeons will fly out my ears, man. She's the one right there.

And I get with her, It's not even it's not even a month. I start realizing what's wrong with her. And what happens is, subconsciously, I think I start to compare what it feels like to be with her to what it felt like that 5 shots of tequila. Now it's like, my wife what a what a disappointment she is. I had this friend who got this job in a steel mill making big money, big money back in those days.

He got himself a Harley, a boat, He's gonna buy a house. And I remember and he seemed happy. I remember watching him thinking to myself, man, if I was worth making that kind of money, I'd have a boat and a house and a Harley and a sports car and I have 2 or 3 pretty girlfriends. I I'd be there. And I got that job in that steel mill and I wasn't even there 3 weeks until I realized how they were taking advantage of me and how that I was working harder than everybody else.

I started to build that little case because I'm irritable. People rub me the wrong way. I'm also judgmental. I'm restless. It's along the guy that's leaving.

Absolute inability to make my life good enough on the outside to consequently make it good on the inside. Some of us blow our brains out in $3,000,000 homes because we are victims of this delusion that we can rest happiness and satisfaction of this world if we only manage well. But a painful truth that every alcoholic faces eventually is no matter how good you get it out here, if it ain't no good here, it ain't no good. That's why guys in big homes blow their brains out Because they got everything they want on the outside and nothing of any substance or value on the inside. And I understand that and I I'm the guy I'm restless, I'm irritable, I'm discontent and what happens to me is no matter how tremendous my resolve is, I'm never gonna pick that stuff up again.

The desolation and the and this vacancy inside of me will gradually wear away that resolve. Until one day in the face of overwhelming experience and knowledge that the worst possible thing I could do would be to pick up a drink or any kind of chemical. A key turns in my head and all of a sudden it seems that make perfect sense again. I didn't do that once or twice. I did that over and over and over again.

And I'm in this halfway house in Pennsylvania, and I'm planning my last second to last drunk. And I don't know it's my second to last drunk, and I I call up this guy that I've been in detox with because I thought he was back to party, and he was. And he's telling me, he says, man, you ought to get a get a weekend pass. Come on down here. I found this rock and roll bar with incredible bands and just awesome women.

He says, I got some tie stick. He says, man, come on down. I said, yeah, you bet. I'm I'm over ready. I'm sober about 10 months or so at this time.

I'm over ready to party because I've had about as much restless, irritable, and discontent as I can take. I've had about as much of this low level depression and this feeling like I don't fit in this boredom that I can stand. And I don't wanna hurt nobody. I don't wanna burn my life to the ground, man. I just I just wanna have a good time for a day or 2.

I mean, I've been a pretty good sport up to now. And so I plan this run and I get this weekend pass out of this joint, and I'm I'm gonna go down there. I'm gonna party all Friday night, all day Saturday, late Saturday night, shut her down so I can get back to the halfway house so I don't lose my bed so I hang out in the street. Seemed like a good plan to me. See, because I'm still the victim of a delusion.

And the delusion is under the right set of circumstances I could control and enjoy my drinking. What that means is I think I'm gonna jump start the party and get back to the way it was when I was 18 years old, and that I'm gonna be able to control it enough to keep the damage down to something I can live with. And I remember I went to that bar with that guy. And I'll tell you, the best part of that run, as it was the last 3 years was the hour or so on the way to getting high. The anticipation was amazing.

And then I get to the bar, and I'm ordering double shots of 100 proof with a beer back because if you only got a weekend you gotta get downtown now. Right? And I'm trying to jump start the party because, man, I wanna go down. This guy's down here that shooting pool and laughing and having a good time. There's some brods over there that are dancing, man.

I wanna get over and get a mix in with that stuff. I wanna have some fun. And I'm throwing down these double shots trying to jump start the party, but it don't jump start. All that's jump started inside me is a phenomenon of craving. Now I'm just frantically throwing another one down hoping against hope that I'm gonna be able to come out and play and have some fun, but it ain't.

I'm starting to feel sorry for myself. I'm starting to sink into a deep depression. I'm sitting there and I'm really feeling horrible as I watch everybody in the bar having a good time and wondering what's wrong with me. Because I could remember when I was all about that. I can remember when I was having that fun.

I can remember when alcohol did the magic for me that it won't do no more. And it's breaking my heart. And the window opened, the curtain opened, and I could see the truth. This is reality. This is not the fantasies of partying like the good old days.

This is reality. You ever saw the movie As Good as It Gets? There's a scene in there where Jack Nicholson's walking through this waiting room in the psychiatrist office. Everybody in there's a mope. Everybody in there's depressed.

Everybody's doing poorly. And he stops it. He gets everybody's attention. He says to him, what if this is as good as it gets? And they all go, oh, no.

That's exactly how I felt. When the curtain opened, I could see the truth. I could drink myself to death, but this is as good as it gets. And that is untenable to me, because this is miserable. This is depressing.

This is self pitying, and this is a loneliness that is awful. This is the loneliness that at 4 o'clock in the morning, you're trying to call up ex girlfriends lonely. This is that you're calling the helpline to have somebody to talk to. You're calling AA for god's sake just because they'll answer the phone. This is it's a pathetic pathetic way to live.

I never did make it back to that halfway house. Monday morning, I came to in a county jail facing 2 years in a state penitentiary for a hit and run DUI in a stolen car. In my own defense, I didn't really steal the car, but my friend was passed out. And passed out people cannot refuse to loan you their car. And I'd run out of booze.

And I I'm the kind of guy if I'm if I'm still conscious, I ain't done drinking, so I had to borrow this guy's car and a little bit of money to go out and get some more to put myself to sleep. The next thing I know, I'm waking up in this, county jail, And I hope I never forget the feeling that I had when they offered me a phone call. And I realized there was no one to call. And I don't know how that happens to a guy who had had some amazing girlfriends, a guy who had a mother and father that would have done anything to help me, A guy who had a little sister who was I was her hero. A guy who had a pack of friends that we were like this.

How does that happen to a guy like me? Except alcoholism gradually rubs away everything decent in your life. Slowly, tediously, until it gets you exactly where it wants you, all alone. And I understand why people commit suicide behind this deal. Because you get in a trap you can't spring.

You can't get no more relief or fun. You can't jump start the party, and yet abstinence is just it's untenable. It's too much. I I remember asking in this period, that halfway house, asking an old timer one time. I was so depressed and bored and lonely.

I said I said, though, I said, what do you guys do when they ain't for fun? He says he keeps a big smile, and he says, oh, we go to a lot of meetings. I thought, oh, man. What? Do you do anything else?

He says, oh, yeah. Twice a year, we got an AA dance. You ever been to an AA dance with untreated alcohol? Oh my god. You remember I used to drink quick.

Oh, it's all of those people in AA, and then there's you. It's a horrible thing. I can't imagine life without something. To me, a has good news and bad news. The good news, well, maybe if I went to 1,000 of these stupid meetings, I'd stay sober the rest of my life.

And the bad news, I'm gonna live a long time. Because I can't imagine life without something really. So I, I go before a judge who sentences me to 2 years in the state penitentiary, cuts me a break, says if you get it, go to this place called the Ark House. It's not a treatment center. None of the treatment centers will take me anymore.

I've been in all of them. I burn them all out. It's the only place left. It's it's the bottom of the food chain for treatment. It's a place down on Skid Row in the north side of Pittsburgh houses about 200 guys like me, homeless guys, or guys out of prison.

It's run by a member of Alcohol Exotics and the judge says you go in there, you stay a year, get good UAs, good field report, make the restitution, you come back in front of me, we'll reduce this down to a misdemeanor, and you're good. But if you can't do the year and there and get the good results, it's a felony. You're gonna do 2 years in a state penitentiary. So I go into this ark house with a determination not to drink. This time, I'm really really mean it.

If making up your mind once and for all, this time for sure was enough to overcome alcoholism, that would have been my sobriety date. Because you couldn't make up your mind any more than I did. That I'll never touch that stuff again as I did with that point. As a matter of fact, I bet you there's a lot of people in this room that have had points in their life where they swore to themselves and meant it that you'll never touch that stuff again, and you did. That's called alcoholism.

The problem with alcoholism is that we ask ourselves the wrong questions. It's not you know, it's it's like, well, if I don't work the steps, don't get a sponsor. Do don't do AA. The question is, if I'll drink again. Question's not if.

The question becomes when. It's an absolute inevitability. And I it was an inevitability for me because lack of power is my dilemma. The most incredible resolve to not drink is of no avail for a guy like me. And I went into this place and I hung out as long as I could.

I just I toughed it out. I got like a mule in a hailstorm. Just all those emotions and loneliness and low level depression, I just took it. Day in and day out and week in and week out and month in and month out till I was just up to here with being abstinence. And the and the and the sad thing about it is I know there's no more relief in the bag and the bottle.

But I don't I my emotions are putting the screws to me, and I don't know what else to do, and I gotta feel different than this. And so I tried the frantic futile attempt again to jump start the party, and it don't jump start. And I start feeling sorry for myself, and I'm sick, and I'm pathetic. So with a bottle of Richard's Wild Irish Rose, I go to a bridge, and I go there to take my own life. But I don't really wanna kill myself.

I'm not a I'm not a suicidal guy. I just can't do this no more. And I'm not a suicidal guy, but you put me in a trap I can't spring. You put me in a place where drinking is depressing and pathetic and lonely, and not drinking is depressing, pathetic, and lonely. Suicide starts looking like a good deal to a guy like me.

And that's where exactly where I'm at. I'm on that bridge, and I'm getting ready to leap and end it all, and I I'm a coward. I can't do it. And I break down and start sobbing and I I I roll smash my hand up hitting it on this piece of metal on that bridge cursing myself for being a weakling. And little did I know that within a few days, I would end up 25 100 miles away in a detox in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Little did I know that something was gonna happen to me that starts on the inside. But I ended up in this detox and I after they cleaned me up and they got me away from seizures and all that stuff and they got me some clothes because I had no clothes. The clothes I was in, they were he couldn't wear them. They were awful. I mean, they had human waste in them, and I mean, they're just terrible.

They got me some clothes. I started going to these a meetings in this in an institution, in this treatment center. Members of Alcoholics Anonymous spot meetings in there. I never suspected that with the people I met in AA when I was in institutions were the cream of the crop. I never suspected that because though I didn't get it.

They you know what? To me, it seemed like they were the people that didn't have a life, that they had to come into places like this. I didn't know that those were the people that really had bought the whole package, that understood the primary purpose, and that they existed to give away what they had found. These were the people who had bought the whole package. And I I sat in those meetings, and for the first time in seven and a half years, something happened to me.

I sat there, and as people shared I remember my first sponsor sharing his story. And I remember sitting there and I was nodding my head. And I'm thinking to myself, my god. I'm like this guy. I felt like that.

I I drank like that. I failed like that. I got sick like that. I ruined my life like that. And it was an amazing experience.