The Newburgh Group in Cleveland, OH

For me, we'll turn the meeting over to Jerry, our Chairman for the month of January. All usually.

Thank you, Marty.

Surrender, surrender, surrender. Don't drink, go to meetings. He answered all your problems.

Blessed today.

Tonight my lead is a very good friend of mine.

I was just thinking of the leads and equal opportunity destruction,

no prejudice.

Anybody's welcome into this group

and my lead tonight is a very good friend of mine

and

his name is Larry Van Dusen and his Home group is Berea Men's Group. And I know that if you listen, you'll hear something that's useful. And if it doesn't ring a bell, put it on the shelf as partly used to say, and I'm sure you someday you'll be able to use it. Thank you, Larry. Thanks, Chair.

There's a third one here.

My name is Larry Van Dusen. I'm an alcoholic. Those that care too. As you join Minister. Any perk,

God remind me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know that there's something I appreciate having the invitation to come over and share with you tonight.

Being able to do that,

whatever the meeting is, whatever the occasion is. I think that's one of the benefits of of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I think it's one of the necessities to share when we can with others. Being a big group, medium group or small group sitting in the parking lot, you know, in a meeting and before meeting, after a meeting, trying to reach out to somebody else to pass on to them. What's been given us, whether it's our first week, our first year, or whatever it happens to be.

That's part of my understanding. Last drink I've had up to the moment was approximately as I can remember, about 10:00 in the morning on November 11th in 1975 up in Madison, WI. And that's the day a guy picked me up and took me for a ride down to a small town about 1/2 hour away called Stoughton, WI. And I met with a guy, a person who was the director of a rehab place. I didn't know why I was going,

what it was going to be about. And

he decided he wanted to keep me and I haven't had a drink since. And so after being in a program and, and after coming down to Cleveland about six months sober, that's when I got into our meetings around here and I heard things like sponsorship and home groups. Now, maybe I heard that in Wisconsin, I don't know, but I maybe I just too new to understand. And so once I understood about a Home group, I, I got my myself a Home group and I've had one ever since.

And once I understood about a sponsor, it was a fellow in the area that my understanding of a sponsor was to, you know, work with somebody smarter than you in a, a well, when I was here, I looked around everybody smarter than me. But she has to be willing to admit that. Some of us aren't willing to admit that

one of our Westside guys that knows a lot of people here, Harold Jacobson, was my first sponsor and I remember asking him. It was at the midnight meeting over in Puritan.

So by the time after the meeting had to be about one 1:30 AM and I asked Carol to be my sponsor and he was my sponsor. The day died and the day they had the service and the reception down at Stella's, a fell in the car was riding with me by the name of Eddie Door and I from our Bree area and Eddie had started to Bree amends my Home group and and so I asked Eddie be my sponsor. And the day he passed away, he had 52 years in our program uninterrupted sobriety,

which meant then I needed to have another sponsor because I believe in the concept of sponsorship.

And so there's another area, another felony area very active used to run with a lot of the old timers and Gus Pataki's and and Ted Rusnaks and people like that and the name of Kenny and I asked Kenny if you'd be my sponsor and he said yes. And Kenny and I and my wife had dinner last night. I I try to be in touch with him every week, whether we just talk or whether we meet at meetings that but I take it upon myself to make the contact with my sponsor on occasion. He'll do that with me. But

but I I look at as my responsibility to make the connection and I asked him to be the sponsor. So I need to keep in touch with him. And what I find with the sponsorship is just real simple as I'm talking about it is two things that became important. One was I had somebody in my life that I could totally trust, totally trust.

My early years wasn't anybody like that because you see, I'm not trustworthy, so why would I trust you? And then after getting sober for a while and starting to learn about that. And then the second factor was confidentiality. When I shared things with with any of my sponsors, which I've done many times, I never had to qualify it by saying, listen, I'm going to tell you something that I don't want you to tell anybody else.

That just has never come up. And so when I share something with Ken or with Harold or with Ed, I never concerned about going beyond that source.

And I hope the guys that I sponsor have that same understanding with me. But those are some of my basics as I look at my life today.

Everything that's in my life today is because of sobriety, recovery, God in my understanding and a program called Alcoholics Anonymous

when I was at my bottom and I destroyed everything in my life. Not touch a little bit on that, doing it Larry's way, which didn't work, and hating and resetting everybody and drinking over it. I was on a downhill slide. Once I was introduced to the program and the people. You gave me a whole new way of life. I've adopted that. I don't have any second, third or fourth program that I feed into that, that that's allowed my whole life

change so I can look back on everything that's in my life today. It's got a whole nother relationship to in a positive way because of not drinking, because of the quality of sobriety, a program of recovery called Alcoholics Anonymous and all those steps and principles. And a God of my understanding now that's very clear to me is I'm not looking for something else, another way to live.

And I've got good books and I got big books and I got our literature. And that's my guideline.

And so far it's worked. And I'm not taking a vacation from something allowed me a vacation. And I'm not going to retire from something allowed me retirement. I was in the athletic business, the football minutes for 41 years. And I know this. There's a theme. Don't underestimate your opponent. If you do, you're allowed to get whipped.

And I spent years underestimating alcohol and it beat me time and time and time and time again, and I never even identified it as the enemy or the opponent at the time. Everybody else was the opponent, the wife, the authorities, the doctor, the in laws, the outlaws, all that.

They're the opponent. And alcohol was the teammates that I put in my system to give me the strength to give me the wisdom, to give me the courage to give me the whatever to go ahead and deal with that.

And I misjudged it

and I lost that, the guy said to me, I had a long losing streak when I came here. The guy told me one time, you know,

Larry, if a team beats you all the time, every time you play them, like around here, like Pittsburgh and the Browns

just recently. Not, not in the old days,

But he said, you know, if you had an opponent that beats you all the time, you know what to do about it. When I was looking for his wisdom, what do you do? He says get them off the schedule.

You don't play them and they don't beat you.

Think of the wisdom of that. And so that's not a loss. And when I finally figured out he's talking about alcohol and getting them off the schedule meant don't drink. If I don't drink, I at least got a chance. And that's what they told me. I have a chance to recover and and others have done it if I'm willing to do what they've done. And so as I look at at my life, you know, I was six months over somebody off me a job over in Brea, Ohio, and, and he took a chance on me

and 28 years later, I finally retired. And in that process of life and events, like they say, the pieces of life will come back together, not necessarily original pieces. And so my first wife never came back, but I, I met a lady in the program Maryland and some newer and she was just a dynamite lady along with being a great a A.

And unfortunately after 10 years, cancer took her out of a out of our life.

And then another lady I met going back to a high school reunion and we married and spent 18 years later.

She knows nothing about AAA. As a matter of fact, Aaa's overwhelmed her in the beginning.

She didn't understand who we were or what we're like. And we go places and they grab her and hug her and shakers a little bit

of what are these people doing? See, I tell you something to caught her eye one day, all just before we got married. Her dad died in South Bend IN

about 3 1/2 hours from from Cleveland and I'm down there for a visitation. Like I say, we're engaged, we're not married. And all of a sudden through the door

came three or four AAS that drove down from the Cleveland area,

all the way down there, found that Funeral Home, came into that Funeral Home, walked over to her, walked over to me. And the relatives are saying who's that? And they came down to pay their respect

and she said, well, why would they do that? And about the best I can do is that that's what a as do. They're concerned about others. They're there about half hour and they go back and get in the car and drive another 3-4 hours home. Now a lot of people would not do that.

They knew nobody except me and had met Barbara,

but out of their, their love and concern and habits, they execute it and they came down, they had their meeting down, they had the visitation, the meeting back and all those guys are sober to this day. Isn't that interesting? And so that exposure to us was a a whole new way of life. But you know, we, we have a house that's paid for. We got a couple of cards. I've never been a money guy. So don't let me give the impression it just, you know, going to work and doing what you're supposed to do and saving what you can and paying

you can't. And all of a sudden I've got two daughters and A and a son and my wife has two daughters and and her husband. We got 11 grandchildren, you know, and I'm grandpa to all of them. We don't separate his and hers and ours and and I'm a sober grandpa. A good friend of mine said in the meeting one time, you know the terms, grandpa and badass just don't go together.

And I found that so true.

So true. You know, on Friday, I was 71. I had continued to be 71 years old. On Saturday, I became 72. I never figured out how you can live day by day and all of a sudden after midnight a year went by.

But when I got home and answered the phone, I had one of those little soft voices. Grandpa, happy birthday, I love you.

Click now. What do you have to do to earn that

say so Just one of those little reward things. As a drunk, I don't get that call. The thing just doesn't happen. So it's very clear to me what was wrong, who was wrong, and what to do about it. And I've just been trying to do what others have done. I don't have original thinking or or great philosophy. I just try to follow those that have been going ahead. Like our book says,

seldom see the person fail who is thoroughly followed the path.

I've been trying to follow the path. I am not one that's trying to come up with a new path or a shortcut because that doesn't work. I remember watching a World War Two movie one time, I think it was with Clint Eastwood. I'm just watching a war movie and the guys come up, There's a minefield and, you know, Clint's going to get across,

so he's marketing it. And he gets to the other side and he looks back and says, you know, just step in my steps and follow me across and you'll be OK.

And I'm thinking chapter five, first sentence, the first guy gets across, second guy gets across, third guy gets the fourth guy. He's got his own agenda, goes for a shortcut. Boom, he doesn't make it.

And to me, that was the program in action through watching a war movie from crying out loud. They asked us to follow the path. There's already been a lot of bodies along the way. Some were buried sober and some were not buried sober. And Janelle were buried. And so I neither stay on the path and go to the far end of it. Like a guy told me one time, he said this is a marathon, Larry. This isn't some short Sprint. You're in here for the long haul.

This race goes on on a daily basis

and so that's the preparation for that. Me not knowing any of that, me not knowing anything about alcohol, alcoholism. It wasn't in my family, it wasn't in maybe there were people around me. I didn't notice that at the time. I just grown up

and so once I left home, I never had a problem. I knew what my mom and dad's rules were. You did this and you don't do that. And I knew what the coaches rules were. We always had training rules. You do this and you don't do that. Now I went to to Sunday school. They had rules and regulations. And since a little kid, I, I, I heard what they said, you do this, you don't do that. I have never had a problem knowing the rules.

However, on occasion I've had trouble following the rules and I know when I would violate mom's rules, the coaches rule that there are usually some kind of punishment or something that goes along with that. And so as a as a kid early on, I'm learning already when I violate your rules is to try not to get caught. And one of the first things I learned was lie.

You know, don't admit to it, Come up with a different story, blame somebody else.

I'm just talking about as a kid, I hadn't even tasted alcohol. So I think that's instinctive with a lot of us in here way before we started to put it down. Once I started to do that, then I had to exaggerate and I had to come up with better stories and bigger lives. It could have stopped, but I didn't think about that. And so somehow I get through the the high school years and off to college and that's when I got into the series drinking at a couple of ex teammates of mine that were older.

There were men in my eyes,

they were my new heroes and they asked me to go into Chicago with them one time and I went

going anywhere with it being included. And I've seen to be a a person that long time has always had some self doubt, always kind of felt inferior in certain areas. And I don't know about you, but there's times I felt superior. You know, if we're on the ball field or we're on the on the corridor, we're on something that has to do with that. I'm OK. But you put me in a classroom, you put me with wealthy or smart people and I feel, you know, way out of place.

So that maturity was a long time coming. I'm not sure it's there yet. And so John and Lou asked me to go in Chicago. I did. They drank, I drank. Then I, I like to look back at as a time at I was introduced to the magic of, of alcohol. All of a sudden I got the glow, I got the feeling I got the the benefits, the what seemed like positive benefits from drinking.

And I like that because now I felt confident, I felt assured, I felt cool, all that stuff.

And I don't know about you, but when I feel that I'm looking to do that again and then I want to do it again and I have a tendency, you might find this strange. I have a tendency when I'm drinking sometimes to over drink

and I might go past that peak and then I wake up in places and the people say you did this, You said that we're blackballing you, your car smashed, you're flunking out and what happened? I'm still looking for that, that that perfect evening, you know, that evening when you went out and you were at the peak of all your qualities. Maybe you got lucky that night or whatever it was that you were doing and, and wake up the next day and I, I, maybe I got a little hangover, maybe a little sickness

and I like what it was last night, but I'm not that way now.

But I don't want you to know I'm not like that. I don't want you to look at me and not see who I thought I was last night. So now I got to pretend. And when I pretend, that means it's not real and I'm a phony. And I don't want you to know I'm a phony. And so you start your swagger, you start your talk, you start your action, you start doing whatever it fits your image. Look at all the disguises we bring into these rooms when we first get sober.

We hide behind the clothing. We hide behind the beards. We hide behind the hair. We hide behind anything I can put on to hide behind.

When you look at me, that's what you see. But what's inside I don't want you to see

because that's where the phony is. And after we get sober and clean up our different versions of our life and become more

mature, so to speak, and get back into life and living with the the qualities of principle, we talk about, wow, what an adventure that is. Because now I don't have to apologize or look back at all. Just get her going. And, and I didn't know that at the time. And so I look back in those early drinking years and I can see negative.

Happenings in my life, socially, academically, athletically, family wise, I was causing difficulties and somehow skipping by. It's It amazes me how some of us can stagger forward in life and look like we're advancing on one side by the world standards and yet we're destroying ourselves on the other. The Invisible site

Because in the next five or six years I'm jumping from job to job to job up my ladder of success.

I've got a goal, I got aspirations, I got things. I wonder, and I'm getting closer to that

and I'm working for you. I give you everything I got. You want 70 hours, You want 80 hours? You want to go 7:00 AM, midnight, whatever day, I'll go for you.

And then afterwards I'd go out and drink and I'd go out and party and I'd go out and do that X-rated stuff that I got to happen to doing. And and so I don't tell you about that. And so as I'm working up on the one side, I get there at the at the peak back in Chicago. And if you say to me, how you doing? I said, well, here's the wife, here's the house, here's the cars, here's the job, here's the title, here's a responsibility. Looks good.

I don't tell you last night. I can't remember how I got home.

I don't know how that car got smashed. I don't know how many mornings I woke up and had to interrogate my wife to find out the details of last night without her knowing that I don't know

so that I can get some idea in case I go back with people I was with and they always seem to know more about what I was doing. And I did, and I heard a guy in a program that made sense to me. Never talk to somebody knows more about what you did last night than you do, especially if they got a uniform.

And I understood that right away

because I'm I'm trying to defend myself. I went from the office to the defense and you got to be on guard and people would bring up, hey, last night when you when you drove those guys off the road, they went in that ditch. You know, they get got out of there, we going to be in trouble. And I'm saying what Cardinal, what, what ditch? You know, I'm in a blanket. I've had blackouts since I started to drink. I didn't know that's what they were, but

I had extended time. And so I don't tell you about those things. What I do is I get to a place where it seems like you're going to get caught. Remember that time when it seems like they're they're finally getting close enough to you, Whether it's a wife, whether it's the boss, the community, whatever. It's just about ready to fall

and I move.

I got a chance to come to Ohio. I came to Ohio. I got a fresh start, new beginning, good looking props.

And we go out to a big convention in New York and I go out and I meet a former college friend of mine and we go out on the New York City and I come back stumbling, fall and crawl and puking into the end of the hotel.

And the next day I wake up in my room in my bed. That was an accomplishment. And and I'm sick and I'm hungover and I wet my shelf and I've wet that bed and, and I got to get all those things squared away that you do. And try not to let my roommate, a regular adult male person, find out that I'm doing that and, and you take care of that. And then I going down the hall and you see somebody and they just shake their head at you and

you know, everybody saw. You might have been one person, but in my mind, everybody saw me.

So I and I knew the boss is going to say something. He's going to hear it sooner or later. You know, people like that don't keep that stuff a secret.

When you mess up, they like to pass that on for you in case you forget to tell somebody. And

so we're driving back and the boss said, hey, I heard about the other night,

understand the word. I heard. He did not see it. So he's going by what somebody else said,

and I didn't ask him what he heard. Like I say, I learned that a long time ago. And so I just admit to it. I said, yeah, you know, that was a bad one.

That kind of neutralized them for a second or two, say. And then I came up with my new philosophy. I said you don't have to worry about that anymore because I'm not drinking anymore. And I went on Larry's way of not drinking for 3 1/2 years. And I thought I had good sound reasoning for that. One of my coaching duties was to ask the athletes not to drink. And I was a rule enforcer. I had the bar checks and I went through kit a lot of bars in Kent and end up joints in the front door to back door.

Find out all the hide and seek places. Same ones I would use and and,

and if I caught you, it could cost you a scholarship. But I thought I'll, I'll set the standard. Therefore I can ask you to do that. And if I set the standard, that's a, that's a manly way to go about that. And so that was my answer. I had nothing to do with alcohol, but drinking with alcoholism. You know, I never heard of a a couldn't have found it in the phone book was not part of my thinking.

Don't ever think it was ever mentioned. So Larry went on his way of not drinking. I never three years and and those are familiar. Back in the 70s we had some shooting and killings and stuff and didn't drink through that martial law and then I changed jobs. I end up back up in Madison, WI and then I got a new setting of people around me and new atmosphere and the new behaviors taking place.

And I'm just a new guy on the staff and I'm included what everything we're doing.

And as I look back or seem like there's a lot of drinking, a lot of drinking occasion, a lot of boosters this and and out is here and social and and there was maybe some chasing going on and big shot in all that kind of stuff. And I know today I can be influenced

because I'm there for six months. Within six months I'm by late in certain principles of marriage sober without taking a drink. I can make errors a living sober. I don't have to be drunk to do it all the time. And then one night we're out at a place a group of listened. My friend had a drink and it was a very, very small glass. And I can vividly remember that say. And he had it sitting beside me. It was up dancing, sweet talking

and I reached down after 3 1/2 years without touching alcohol and when I picked it up I took a sip. Understand the word.

I took a ship of his drink,

just a little taste just to get I don't know whether it's curiosity or what it was. And and I know tonight what happened. I didn't know then what was going to take place. But as soon as I took a ship 3 1/2 years of no alcohol whatsoever, a taste touch my lips and taste my tongue and into my mouth. And all of a sudden the the alcoholism that was dormant and I didn't know was there. All of a sudden it just

fire.

And

as I look back after I got familiar with the doctor's opinion in the Big Book, I became a living example of that explanation

where he says in there, there's a group of people that when they take the first drink after a period of not drinking, they take the first drink. They never define the first drink. They didn't say it had to be a glass of this or a shot of that or barrel. They just said the first string. And some people, they get what they call a phenomenon

of craving,

and they give examples for that.

And as I look back, I'm one of those people. When I took a ship, my physical system seemed to activate and I wanted to have more. And that big book says on page 21, I'm on there, says the real alcoholic. Now I look back, I was alcoholic and didn't know it. The real alcoholic is one that can't control the consumption. To me that means the amount once they take the drink.

It doesn't say how much of a drink

it says a drink, a sip, a taste for some. That's I added that and I look back sober in the early sobriety and I fit both those descriptions. All of a sudden I I took a ship and I wanted to have more, but I got this image as a non drinker. And you know, I always worried about my image, worried about what I think you think about me, whether it's true or not that they're making is what I think you do.

And and I excuse myself that night because I don't want to hurt the image. And I went out to the liquor store, got a supply, and I'm drunk that night.

3 1/2 years of not touching alcohol. I took a ship, the flame was lit, the fuse was lit, and I'm drunk that night. Wouldn't be any different than taking one of those paper matches one match and go ahead and like that match and set the curtains on fire. Maybe it burns down the front of the house, may have burned down the whole house, maybe a set of fired half of Colorado's going, I don't know. It didn't take much in my case. And from that time on, I never was able to stop drinking again.

I had a lot of events happen, you know the the events of a drunk.

Some of us are similar, some are different, some are more tragic, some are less. Some are humor, some are not. You got your own. That's not what I see as having in common is the behavior after we get drunk. Maybe some similarities, but all of a sudden my behavior is a drunk caused the boss to call me in after the second season and fire me before the holiday. I never been fired before. And all of a sudden I'm out of a job. And when he fires me, I get a, a strong dislike for him.

And because I don't understand that. And then, you know, I had my incidents. I had the the, the DUI and it was in a small town. And when the chief of police found out, he made arrangements to get that charge changed so that the local newspaper wouldn't blow the story up and embarrass it. And the day I heard about how he got that changed, I got drunk that night.

Out of the appreciation for somebody doing me a favor, I got drunk that night.

And then the other events that took place in the car wrecks. And finally the wife had had enough of this bizarre behavior. And you know, I'm not working. I'm not getting a job. I got fired three times in a row. I finally got to a place in my life where I was unworkable. But we're working down towards that. And I remember one time I was substitute teaching a little elementary school, and I went over the residential section and I parked the car. I went into school. I had some drinks early in the morning because if I don't have drinks early in the morning, I kind of get sick.

I want to eliminate that. And by about 10:00 in them in the morning, I was starting to feel that comeback. So I had a little break. So I dash out of that school. It's just in a residential section. I got out to my car. I had a little Maverick at the time, little TD Ford and and I had the bottle underneath the passenger size and the sack. So nobody knows what it is. And so I get in my car, I dash under my seat, I get that sack out. I'm underneath the dashboard trying to get as much as I can without anybody seeing me. Get that back, put that back

back into that school and get rest ready for the next part of the day till noon so I can go do it again.

And today that strikes me. That's probably not social drinking,

but you'll understand this. It was necessary drinking.

If I don't have it, I come apart

not knowing that that's alcoholism and withdrawal. And so I'm having that on a regular basis. And finally I, I had a another job and, and I got drunk while I was on the job. I left a job. I end up the next day waking up, I got a smashed car. I got to involved with a double hit and run and all that stuff. And

and I don't deal well with those things say and I hide the car out and finally after a part of a week I go to get it fixed. No big news on the radio and the TV or the news. And within 1/2 hour, I got a a call from a police officer saying I need to come down to the station with a lawyer and I have to ask him why

I figured had something to do with the car. And he said your car was involved with a double hit and run the other day.

So I got the lawyer. I came down and I looked at the report and I could see that was me. I know that street. That's where I came into work. That's the way I left work early. I banged one on the side, bounced off, hit the one behind and bounced off, drove into the sunset. Nobody got hurt, just some damages and stuff like that, which I of course I'm thankful for that today and cost me points, cost me money, cost me insurance, cost me all that stuff.

But that didn't stop me from drinking, being fired, domestic trouble, going to the nut ward,

having a double hit and run. None of those things stopped me from drinking. As a matter of fact I probably increased to drinking because I got more problems and difficulties in my life. And finally the wife says enough and I get drunk one more time on our couch and she discovers that. And then and some cop comes by with a letter, says I have to leave.

And I say I'm not going. And he said, yeah, you will. And they left. He left. And for some reason I had a shotgun in the back of my trunk. I I'd seen a cowboy movie and I'm not a hunter. I'm not a shooter. I'm not sure I ever loaded one, you know, but seemed like a thing a guy ought to have see. And so I grab it and go in the house. I'm going to protect my homestead. And nobody come knocking, nobody come over and I blow holes in the family room and I'm

create fear and other people and hate and other people and threaten other people and nobody's paying attention for crying out loud. The neighbors didn't know it. And you know, and then I, I run out of booze and I get sober enough to wake up. What the hell did I do? I, you know, I'm not like that, but I was that time. And so I leave and go hide out someplace and apologize. And I wasn't allowed to be over there unless there are two cops there and, you know, as a good shot of drunks. You got to test that once in a while,

make sure they mean that they always meant it. I just took me three or four times to be convinced that as I look back, you see I'm on a long losing streak and I don't know it. I'm losing everything in my life and my family, my job, my career, my money, my the whole deal. And I haven't identified the problem. And I'm fighting as hard as I can fight and drinking and I isolating myself in an apartment and my body blew up like some kind of Buddha and I'm drinking. I get up in the morning and grab

bottle, step over to barf bucket by the bed. You understand that you're going to get sick in the night. You don't have to get up to do it. Just, you know, and then the end of the bathroom and I'm drinking to make the sickness stop and drink and make the shake. Stop drinking because just get settled and come back in and sit in my chair. I'm not going anywhere. Got nothing to do nobody to see

just getting ready for the day

and then somebody Labla call you up on the phone the phone would ring priest you could have a heart attack for that that's before all the messages and stuff and somebody walked down the hall and you can hear them start and your heart go faster faster, faster they get closer they go by take that drink. That's a condition I was in for a a period of time, Total fear, total anxiety, total

alcoholic without identifying. And that's what it was like in a general way, guys.

And my life changed. What was it like? You know, I had a knock on the door

uninvited guest and at this point what I share, this is very important to me. So I will try to share it to you with that importance in mind

that I had an uninvited guest come by down to one person in my life, brought a newspaper, almost never happened and then left after she checked on me and I looked at the sports section. Some of those guys were talking about in kitchen about some sporting stuff. I would look at the sports section first. All my life. I did it this morning

and just by chance, understand, just by chance, as I turn that page, there's a picture.

Now you see, I'm already got my morning drinking everything shuttled. So I'm under the influence and I'm glancing at a picture, not the headlines or the words. It's on the inside, not the title, not the front page, not the metro, but the sports section. And there's, I recognize that picture. And he was the first black pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers back in the 50s. And it was big time news in my my lifetime and, and I knew it right away. And I glanced at a story and his story talked about how he had lost everything due to

and how life was better. And there's a number to call for help.

I'm sitting by the phone

to this night. I can't tell you what I identified with, but I dialed the number. It was in the Bronx, NY.

My kids are one of my anniversary. Found that copy out of a paper, sent it to me. I have it at home now. I never had to. I never kept it and it changed my life. I called the Bronx, NY and somebody on the other end, out of their wisdom said something this simple. Sounds like you got a problem. You ought to call somebody local.

The world they going to do for me in the Bronx, NY. I'm in Madison, WI

fed it right back to me. And then I had one of those those flashbacks.

Who do I know that knows anything about this? I'm not even sure what the details were. And I remember I was at a golf outing on one of those fundraiser deals and I came in off that 18th hole into that clubhouse and a friend of mine said, Larry, come here, I want you to meet somebody. And I got to meet another baseball celebrity. He says, this is Ryan. And I could have told you that Ryan had been with the Yankees. He was a relief pitcher. He had Coke, bottle of thick glasses, etcetera. They always went through the same MO on him. And I was meeting a celebrity and I visited short time

drinking and I left three years later. Somebody in Bronx, NY. Just call somebody local. And I remember that introduction. My friend never mentioned baseball. He says this is Ryan. He's the director of an alcohol rehabilitation center in Stoughton, WI. That was the introduction that I immediately dismissed.

And three plus years later, that seed had been planted and all of a sudden it blossomed.

And I remembered his name, his location

and his title. And I picked up the phone book and I called that number and he was working there. He wasn't in that day, but the lady said, would you talk to somebody else?

When I said, yeah,

I hadn't talked to anybody else for so long. You know, another guy guy thing and a fellow called me by the name of Bill W Billy Welch. And Billy invited himself over. I know today did a 12 step call on me. And he came over and and I didn't drink much while he was there, just enough to keep my my hands from shaking and stuff. And he told me his story, been a World War 2 fighter pilot and all that stuff. And he'd gotten sober three years before that place and he recommended it. And he says I'll get back to you.

And he left.

And Ryan talked to him, talked to me, said I want him, bring him down here. And so on November 11th, like I say, approximately 10:00 in the morning, Billy picks me up. I don't know where we're going, don't know why we're going, don't know anything about except Ryan said he wanted to see me and Billy's my taxi. And he drove me down there in that little farmhouse. And Ryan called me in his office, just about the size of a closet. And Ryan told me some stories about his deal and his alcohol and stuff like that. And he said, Larry, I'd like to put you in our treatment facility.

And I made my first surrender. As I looked back, I said, whatever you want to do,

I was done. I had no fight. I had no argument. I had no reasoning. I had a faintest idea what's going on. I'm whipped. I give up. I chickened out. The yellow streak spread. That courageous, whatever term you want to put on that. But he had something in his eyes and he had something in his voice and he had something in his mannerism, and there was some kind of a, a magic in that little closet office. And he walked me across that street and checked me in