Western Wisconsin traveling intergroup Speaker Meeting in Prescott, WI

Hi, I'm Bob. I'm an alcoholic server through the gates of God and sponsorship and ACE of the 10th of December 1967. For that I'm very grateful.

Umm, yeah,

I went over this morning with my wife and visited my sponsor and he it's 89 years old, needs 54 years sober

and still active, still going to meetings. And the sister came over to take him to lunch and she is 94 years old and 56 years older. So the two, the two of them had 100 and 110 years of sobriety going out to lunch. And

that sounds pretty cool.

You've already heard a lot about A, A and Al Anon and do this so well. Do our best to try to cover some territory that wasn't covered before

I Prescott brings back a lot of memories to me. I did a lot of drinking and Prescott as a young man, but it was a long time ago. I went down that street down by by the river. My next door neighbor's family had a big compound right on the river and Danny and I have. We snuck down there, and during the winter when the place is supposed to be closed, you know, we'd come down here and drink in the winter time, bring girls down. And

yeah, so I have a lot of memories. But they were 45,

50 years ago, so brought back just driving down the street brought back a lot of memories. I started drinking when I was 1313, fourteen years old. I was a small kid when I entered high school was 4 foot 1195 LB. It was second smallest kid in my class, biggest mouth but smallest body. And,

you know, you feel insecure. You're never quite good at the sports. I was one of seven kids. I think Mom wanted us to get to school early. So, you know, I think I got, I was on the cusp of where you were, whether you go to school that year or not, you know, but she wanted us to go. And I always felt like everybody else knew a little bit more about living than I did. I felt like they had a meeting every day to decide what they were going to do. And I always missed the meeting.

Everybody else, kind of,

I was comparing my insight with their outside and I went to a high school, went to a military high school on a college campus. We drank in high school like most people drink in college. We had fraternities. I don't know what it was really odd, but when we drink our brains out. And of my five closest buddies in high school, four are in a A and ones in Alamo. I mean, you know, of my graduating class of 124, we have a dozen members of a A, I mean, that's a pretty high. We had a lot of alcoholism. We had a lot of recovery.

I loved alcohol. When I had my first drink, it was just like,

it was kind of more than an improvement, kind of like a sex change operation. I just, you know, it just kind of altered everything. It just everything looked differently. I was, I had a sense of ease and comfort that I had never experienced before. And all of a sudden the kid who maybe was a little bit awkward and was worried about what you thought of me, I didn't, you know it. I just start from that point on. I just drink as much and as often as I could. And by the time I finished high school, I had a reputation, you know, as a heavy drinker and I'd been in car accidents. I made

cards. I you know, my whole personality was kind of built around my drinking. And my heroes were the Second World War guys that came back. You know, my dad and his friends, you know, they worked hard, played hard, had a good time, started businesses. They were active in their communities. And they were attractive men and women, cocktail parties with the order of the day. And, you know, much of our booze we stole from our parents, you know, and, and then we made false ID cards and all that. I didn't think I had a drinking problem. I thought my drinking problem was because I was underage. And if

caught either by my father or by the police, you know, no one, no one gave a damn if you got 3 drinks or 30 drinks. You know, I never wanted to get caught with three drinks. I never made sense to me. So I thought my over drinking had to do with the fact that I really wasn't allowed to drink. I went away to school and part of how I made that decision was to kind of get away from the authority in my life. I was at a meeting this morning and I got a kick out of

and it's a, we call it issues and tissues. It's a, it's a problem solution meeting and there's a lot of young sobriety in it and they bring up problems

that they have. And I mean, how the young guys react about being told to do anything, you know, I mean, they all feel like, and there were new guys they were talking about how they felt like a a was like they still had their mother looking over their shoulder. You know, they had to go to meetings, but they had to, you know, it was, you know, and I, I think of today what an opportunity it is. I mean that it's a freedom producer rather than a, you know, the opposite. And

but I went away to school. My drinking didn't get normal. You would have a different talker tonight. I drank my way out of the University of Notre Dame in the middle of my senior year. I was in the yearbook with my class ring and I walked out in the middle of my senior year, which is kind of all our story. We're

we're good enough. We interview well. We just don't work well. You know,

we can get in situations that we can't stay in. You know, we can get in marriages, we can get in jobs, we can get in schools and we can get in churches, but we don't always do a very good job of finishing things. And I was a class drunk. I had three guys petitioned to have me removed from engineering school. They used my room as a study hall. I was just never in it. I you know, I just

I mean, it's just a joke Today. I think of my God and I had, you know, my wife and I my wife Linda, who was almost grilling on speaker.

She has 39. She has 40, almost 42 years in Al Anon and a neat lady. And we have three kids that are almost 4038 and 28 and they have

90 years of sobriety between the three of them or no six, I don't know what they have. The oldest is 22 of the middle one is 18 and the other child has

11. And so my wife was a carrier. I think

I had a well, well, none of us were alcoholic when we met her, you know, So I, I don't

kind of like Tom, you know, Tomaine Mary or whatever it was. And

but I got to experience the other side of that when you're, when my kids were little crap heads, you know, who I, you know, would go to school and you know, and what I did to my parents. I just, I just couldn't shut my drinking down. I, it was too important to me. I had, I had tried, you know, I got diagnosed and alcohol when I was 19 years old. I didn't believe it. It didn't make sense to me. I mean, alcoholic to me was someone

I couldn't even identify whether it had to be someone who was a lot older, it had to be someone who had a lot more serious problems than I did. I, 19, didn't fit with anything

that I did

when I left Notre Dame. I came home. I finished school at Saint Thomas University. I was when I finished school, my dad asked me to leave the house. He said I love you, but I don't like you.

Wasn't quite that brutal, but I you know, he said you're just a pain in the neck. He said we got 7 kids in the family. You don't follow the rules. You don't. He said you got to leave and I got a job at a liquor store and have to use your gifts and

and this turned out to be the last year of my drinking. I'm 22 years old, 23 years old. I'm, I'm kind of

at odds trying to figure out what I'm going to do. I was supposed to be in the service. I was, I was drafted. I was an Arrow TC was supposed to be commissioned as an officer when I left school and they would have drafted me as a private had I not done something. So I got into officer candidate school and I'm waiting to get, you know, to go off to Vietnam, wherever the hell they're going. And they lost my physical. Guard unit opened up and they lost my physical. I took it to get the 4th time I took the physical. They failed me. I mean, you know, how lucky was that, that I didn't have to go to Vietnam

and but during my last year, I worked at the liquor store for four or five months. I'm drinking 1/4 day. I'm living in an apartment with a couple of guys. I'm,

I'm driving drunk. I'm in bad shape. I'm, you know, no one. I lost touch with the family. And a lot of, you know, we tell funny stories about alcoholism, but mostly they're just kind of tacky stories. You know, how you treat women, you know how you are physically, how you treat, you know, just you just, that's the high cost of low living. You're just a, you know, a bum, which is kind of what I was. I got, I lost a job at the liquor store I worked over. I went over to Minneapolis,

took a job as a waiter. I'm living not on Skid Row, but a pretty close approximation of it. I'm shacked up with waiters and waitresses. I'm drinking a quart a day and

I got fired as a waiter. I got into a fight at a party and a guy kicked my face in and I didn't look good enough to serve food. So they asked me to stop doing that and

when that happened to me I went home. I hadn't been home in like 6 months and I went home and asked my father. I had no place to go. I was tapped and I went back and my dad allowed. He said you can move back in the house if you don't drink and I promised I wouldn't drink. I of course lied. I didn't know you could get in trouble stopping drinking. I was drinking 1/4 day for the better part of

that last year and when I started, I stopped drinking. I came apart, I was hallucinating. I went to the doctor. My liver, I had an extended liver. You know, not too many 23 year olds have a

enlarged liver, but I did and I moved back in the house and I just kind of drink. I just kind of drank my way through my withdrawal. And when I moved back on the House, I tried to change my life. I had, I thought if I could change the circumstances of my life,

that's what I thought was wrong. I didn't, you know. So I got back together with the girl that I had gone with and woken up with for almost a year and we became engaged, remarried. And today she's still my lovely wife, 41 years and I've been a constant source of growth for her. And

the I don't,

I have. I don't think she'd have half the program today if it wasn't for me. I just think I have,

but I'll tell you, it's a hell of a treasure to have a partner in the program. It is. I don't know. I'd like to think we'd be married today if if we both weren't in the program. But I, I, I know that the happiness of our marriage and our relationship certainly has to do with the fact that we are both in the program. It's just a

wonderful deal that you tend to look at your own part in it rather than turn the laser on your wife or your wife turning your laser on you. And it really has been

a a a great deal. And then there are three boys in recovery. That's been a blessing that's beyond anything we could ever could imagine. But I got back together with Linda. I got a job as an executive trainee and a manufacturing concern. I bought my first car. And I thought, wow, it's finally going to happen. You're finally going to become an adult. Only I couldn't stop drinking.

Instead of the, you know, school drunk, I'm the company drunk. I'm in a company of engineers. I mean, I stand out like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I am, you know, corporations are tough places for young drunks. They like to have you come in on Mondays and,

you know, like to have you stay on Fridays and, you know, lunch hours. I mean, there's a lot of rules and I,

I used up my sick leave in about the first two months I'm there. I mean, I am sleeping at my desk. I am, you know, I'm the mess. I'm really a mess

and I after about five months, I quit that job.

I remember I went back to that man to make a man when I was early in AA and he said I just couldn't believe it. He said, you interviewed so well. I mean, it was. So that's the story of my life. My mother always said, Bob, you're not very bright, dress well. And I have a,

I have tried to do that. And

so I, I, I leave that job, I get a sales job thinking it would give me more flexibility. And I'm

working at the sales job and a buddy of mine gets married and weddings were always good for about a week and I went out in a three or four day drunk. I woke up Thursday and

July of 1967 and I was tapped. I was my moment of clarity. You look in the mirror. I mean, you're about to discuss it with yourself as you could possibly be. Hadn't been to work in three days. And I'm in the same suit that I've been in for a couple of days. And I'm if you ever felt like a horse's ass, that was certainly the time. And all of a sudden the recommendation of my dad and my psychiatrist that I call a A didn't seem like such a dumb idea. And I called Alcoholics Anonymous

and

I was worried about the girls were given the rings back in those days. We were, they didn't think we were that good of a catch. And the But I, you know, found out I was still engaged and I called work and found out I still had a job and my parents were still going to allow me to live at home. And I thought that my calling a A was kind of an overreaction. And

what you think of it in in 67, not too many 23 year olds

would identify with. Now that's just about the time that the treatment phenomenon started to go on when we started to get a rash of younger people. We didn't have many younger people, but I called AA and I was curious to see what an alcoholic looked like. So I went and I met these two guy, it was a Saint Clair broiler in St. Paul, MN and I2 guys came up and talked to me and

one guy had six years and one guy had six months. And when you're young and in trouble, you get put in front of a lot of people to try to help you. Judges, lawyers, Indian chiefs, policemen, judge, you know, psychiatrists, psychologists, bishops, nuns, priests. I mean, I had been helped a lot. And but you're generally the subject of the conversation, but not a participant in the conversation. You're the

But I never talked to another person with a drinking problem. And that

day I went out and I talked to these two guys and they said we're from AA, we had a drinking problem. We found a solution to our drinking problem. We want to share it with you. We hope it helps you. But if it doesn't, don't worry. For some strange reason it helps us talking to guys like you

and I thought that's, you know, pretty good. They weren't trying to wasn't a multi level marketing deal. They weren't getting a toaster for signing me up

and they told me their drinking story and

it changed my life. We have many traditions in Alcoholics Anonymous are probably the most wonderful one of witches that we share our experience, strength and hope. Not our thinking, not our ideology, not our philosophy, not our dogma. We share our we share our lives.

There's a power ensuring your life with someone. There's an authenticity in it. And I found the similarity. I identify with those guys about halfway through their story and I went that night. I went to my first meeting, Develop College Anonymous. I drank twice after. They called on me once after

a month. I went out on a business trip to the West Coast and I was told to call a A and I didn't. And I drank and then I had almost three months sobriety in my and I, Linda and I got married and I, we in Mexico,

you know where the divers dive off those clips and I drove off those cliffs on my last drunk.

I was,

I was in the audience watching the world high diving contest. I thought, God, that's not so tough. And I drove off the public landing, climbed up to about 85 or 90 feet, split my swimsuit, cut my leg. My wife is going absolutely nuts. Here's this horses ass stuck up on top of this Cliff and I'm trying to decide whether to jump or dive. I'm looking at the waves and I'm much too drunk to climb down

and you can't. I couldn't climb up and the finally I figured out screw it and I dove and God watch it after fools and drunks because I made if I would have jumped, I would have died.

You have to get out 30 feet to hit the center of the channel. You can't jump that far now. I don't know. I didn't, you know, did not know that fact, which is a pretty good fact to know.

And

for a number of years we went down vacation down there with the kids at that same hotel. Like I brought it my wife at my 10th end of our 10th anniversary. My wife gave me a picture that said there but for the grace of God and it was a picture of the chasm at Lack. Abrada and I were watching the divers and he said the dumbest thing I've ever done. And she said, honey, it's not even in the top 10.

So

I don't know how you can share a life with someone and see it so differently. You know, I have

number of years ago I was gaining weight and I wanted to get some exercise. I told my wife, I mean, I'm going to buy a bike and she said fine I so I got a Harley and

and she got irritated. I mean, you know, I said tougher to please as time went on and

but I came home, I had my last drink on the airplane December the 10th, 1967 and I came back. I was embarrassed to go to the meeting, She said, oh, for God's sakes, call Warren. I called Warren went to the meeting.

I can remember going to my first meeting about now. This is I have the same sponsor that I had walking in a 1967 and that's, you know, that doesn't happen all that often because people die and relationships change and you know, and it's more of a father son relationship today and a family relationship. We go over there and it's like kids visiting dad. It isn't like,

you know, the, it isn't quite like it was when it, when we were starting out, but I wouldn't change it for the world. And I'm, and his wife was my wife sponsor and Alan. So there was this wonderful relationship that we had over years and years and years. And I have had the privilege to do lots of things in Alcoholics Anonymous, all of which are results of copying my sponsor.

I mean, my sponsor was a mailman, but he was the 12 step champion of the Uptown group of Alcoholics Anonymous

called I'm more damn people than you could shake a stick at. It was just the amount of, you know, they give accommodation to the paper for policemen that would save one or two or three people's lives over a career. And if I think if we could really count the number of lives that my sponsor has affected, it would be an astounding number. But I can remember when I came in and met Warren, he tried me down and he said Bob,

he said alcoholism is a disease

physical, but it's also mental and spiritual. Once you cross the line from problem drinking into alcoholism, your alcoholism effects you all the time when you drink and when you don't drink.

Now, the idea that alcoholism can affect me when I wasn't drinking was like rocket science. It was not. It was not an obvious idea. It was a whole new idea, He said. We do an Alcoholics Anonymous once we take our last drink of drug is we use the 12 steps to change to find a different way to live that's better than the way we live before so that we don't have to go back to drugs or booze or do something for us that we were unwilling or unable to do for ourselves. If you don't change.

You're not going to stay.

So he ever quit. I said yeah. He said did it work? I said no, so it didn't work for me either. He said there's a difference between abstinence and sobriety. Sobriety is abstinence with the program, with the fellowship, with the steps, with the change, with the sponsorship. So there's, when we say sober in a, a, we don't mean just abstinent.

There's a, there's, there's more involved with it. That was like the Gettysburg Address of alcoholism. I can remember the chair I was sitting in when Warren told me that. And I got real active. I went to a hell of a lot of meetings. And in those days, in this late 60s and early 70s, that was when that parade of young people, they started diagnosing alcoholism. We started to have all the treatment that we did when we were in Minnesota, you know, kind of the biggest treatment center,

I think. So I had a chance to do a lot of tossed up work.

Uh, well, my idea was I was always a guy who, like I said, my mother said, you're not very bright Dress well, I always look good. You know, I was, I did, I interviewed well, you know, but I, I didn't perform well. And over a period of time, I thought I had like a built-in failure mechanism. It could it get tired? I mean, if we went around this room and started talking about all the things we never finished,

I mean, we'd have a long conversation.

And it isn't for lack of talent. It isn't for lack of ability. I mean, it, it's,

you know, alcoholism costs you your life. It's, it's a many of us never got a chance to use the gifts that we were intended to use in the process of our lives. The boxes were still under the piano, still wrapped with the ribbon on top. That's not a small cost that you never get to be who you're supposed to be in your life

because of the disease of alcoholism. I said, OK, I'll buy it.

I'm an alcoholic and alcohol, he's anonymous, has got the answer for alcoholism. Well, if I'm an alcoholic and you got the answer,

I got a half a dozen other things that are going on in my life and you got the answer, those ought to go away and it might take a year.

From what I can tell, it takes over 41 years to have

to have all your defects of character removed.

But I was a young guy and I had a lot of unmanageability in my life. I was how I supported my drinking and notertainment. I was a gambler. I was a pool player, I was a card player. I was the background player. So I had I my list of problems were that I had a pretty serious gambling problem with more of a hobby. Four or five hours a day, four or five days a week, wasn't it?

But I was making five to 10 grand a year, gambling, playing backgammon. It was like a second job, and I spent more money than I made. And if you do that over a long period of time, you're going to end up in debt. I just want to report it to you in case you don't know where that was, where that one goes.

And we have started to have children and I, I had great parents, but even great parents make mistakes. And I wasn't going to make the mistakes they made and I didn't. I made all the mistakes they made in a bunch they never thought of. I was loud and patient and mature and sometimes violent with my children. I'm not proud of that, but that's an accurate description of how I was.

My wife

and I had a work issued. I had a little trouble. I had trouble getting to work. I had trouble getting up, which later I found out had to do with when I went to bed. I did not know that

at at at at the time that I was

as a young guy. So I had trouble getting to work. I and I had some trouble staying at work and I had some trouble working at work. Other than that, I was a pretty good worker.

And you laugh at that. You know, it's really funny. You can't have much of A life if you don't know how to work.

And there's a lot of people who don't have that issue. You know, we all, it seems like we leak in different places. I mean, there are guys that and gals that have had good work ethic all their life. I didn't have that. I was, I don't know what I was. I was spoiled or a candy ass. I'm not sure. I mean, I worked on construction crews. It wasn't like I didn't know how to work, but I'll explain a little more about that later. But I had very serious problems. And these were not problems that happened monthly. They happened all the time,

not any of the issues. I just mentioned that you made my first inventory when I did my first 4th and 5th step. My first, 4th and 5th step

was a recitation of the worst things that I had done in my life. It was. I didn't have much insight into the causes and conditions of my alcoholism. It was until later that I

so I got real active in a The most important thing for me in my early recovery was that breaking down on my alibi system. I built a wall up between you and me so you couldn't see what was going on in my life. Said you like me, but you only like what I let you see about me. If you could see everything about me, you'd hate me because I hate me. And who knows more what a lousy, crumbling and sufficient lousy person I am than me. I'm comparing my inside with your outside.

So I built this wall up

when I called AI got sick enough and tired enough and afraid enough behind that wall that I said hey come and get me. I don't care who you are, where you come from but just come and get me and help me not be who I am anymore. I can't stand me 5 more minutes

and for the first time in my life I tore the wall down

and I shared the whole deck of car. I never shared the whole deck of cards with anybody. My family had part of it, my wife had part of it, but no one had all of it. And I'd kill you with the piece you didn't have.

But when I called AA and continued in conversation with my sponsor, when I took my 4th and 5th step, my wall came down. I made a discovery. And discovery was as I'm not unique. My personality may be unique, but not my illness, not my behavior, not my experience, not my feelings, not my problems. And I started to have a sense of hope that would work for you, could work for me. Most of us come in here with a profound sense of uniqueness. If you don't lose some of that sense of uniqueness, you are not

stay. You're going to look for the differences rather than the similarities.

And I, after I tore that wall down and I committed myself to my sobriety, I had a honeymoon of 6 to 9 months in alcohol. He's anonymous. What the circumstances weren't great the 1st 6 to 9 months, but I was, it was wonderful. I, I asked a question, I get an answer. Then after I was sober about nine months, I'd ask a question to give me an answer and I wasn't sure you were right. My ego started to come back and

I didn't have a very good list of my defects of character during my first year, but during my second year I I compiled a pretty good list and I started to work on the things that the work habits and the money problems and the gambling issues and the. My wife was arguing with me because I was so active in AM going to 6-7 meetings a week and she's seeing less than me. She's a nurse she's getting up at six and she's coming home and she's in bed. But when I come home from the meeting and we're like ships passing in the night and

she thinks all of a sudden I'm this a, a fanatic and I don't, you know, I want to hang out with 60 year olds and we're 23 and,

you know, all this stuff.

And

so one by one, I would take these issues down and I try to work on them. And it was like I didn't have a full appreciation that these were things that were supposed to use the program on. It was kind of like, you get me sober and I'll learn how to be a husband or you get me sober and I'll learn how to work. You get me, you know,

and I didn't know how to do those things. And so I kept having these problems. I remember I was, those problems started to bother me in my first, second or third year of sobriety. My 4th and 5th year, they started to bother the crap out of me. And my 6th and 7th year, they started to eat my lunch. And my 6th and 7th year, I started to think maybe I, I might have to leave Alcoholics Anonymous because it's not working. I felt like I was making. I had sponses making more progress

than I was making. Didn't seem fair, didn't seem right. I remember the new guy come in with a bushel basket full of manure and I'd get him a cup of coffee and we'd sit down after the meeting and he'd share all the problems. And I'd say, hey,

as bad as it is and as hopeless as it seems, you're in the right place.

You're just where you're supposed to be. Don't worry about it. Just get a cup of coffee. If you find a sponsor, get into the book, do the best you can with the steps and stay here and don't drink. You're going to be fine. You see that guy over there two years ago? God, he was a mess. I said, today is knocking it out of the park. I said, you're going to be OK. And I get in the car and I drive home 11:00 at night. And I say, Bob, when are you going to be OK?

I mean, you're sober five years, six years, seven years. You just bought a $400.00 Sport coat at a store that you had a $400.00 bill at. When are you going to stop buying things with, you know, that you can't afford with money you don't have to impress people you don't like. I mean, you know,

you know, doesn't have a very good answer for that one.

When are you going to stop gambling? When are you going to learn how to work?

And

I didn't have a very good answer because I'm sober seven years and I'm trying pretty bloody hard to change those things. And I'm feel like I'm on the down escalator walking up.

I kind of knew what the answer was. The answer I think had for me had to do with finding out what God had to do with Wednesday. I had a lot of good examples of recovery and the people who had what I wanted, who really had the whole deal, had a quality to their lives that I didn't adept to their lives I didn't have. And it had to do with something spiritual. And, and I was so glad that I was taught the difference between religious and spiritual

because I was Catholic and I went through all the Catholic education. And I think had it been too religious, I would have not stayed it would, you know, because it would have conflicted or whatever the hell, even though I wasn't a very good practicing Catholic at that time,

but they had a spiritual quality that I could detect. And they really understood the relationship of the program and the relationship of God to what they did in their daily lives. And I didn't and or I didn't fully understand it and I sure as hell wasn't able to implement it to, to the degree to effectively because my life, if that's all there was, it wasn't enough.

It wasn't enough. I had AI had to do with these issues. I had to learn. I mean, I had to be able to support my family. I had to be, you know, and I'm trying pretty hard and it's not working.

And

so I

out of out of. But the problem I had is I went to God. If I went to God and turned myself in, you would not have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what God would want me to do if I had the conversation with God. God say, what do you want? I said, I want to turn myself in. Why? Well, I made your sober. My pants are in fire. That's why I you know, and will you help me? God says, yeah, I'll help you.

Now I'm going to say to God what everybody says to me when they come over to the house

with all their problems. What do I do? Because that's what we want to know. What do I do

now? You know, stop gambling. Go to work, stay at work, work at work.

Hello

it on a budget that's AI think that's a harsh I think it's an al Anon term. It's a harsh word that I'm not sure applies to alcohol. Examine and

be kind and loving to your children and your wife and stop gambling. And I'm going to say hell, if I knew how to do all those things, I wouldn't need God. What the hell do you think I've been trying to do for the last eight years? That's exactly what I've been trying to do, and I haven't been successful at doing it.

So what's the use of developing a relationship with your God of your understanding if you can't fulfill the conditions of the relationship?

And I was stuck in that place for three years.

And I think out of fear, you know, and I thought, God, would I have to go to a program for gambling? Do I have to go to a program for spending? Do I have to go? I mean, I thought you're going to be a busy guy. I mean, already I'm more busy than my

and again, it kind of felt like the rest of my life felt, I felt like you did a great start, but you're not a good finisher. You're just, this is where you always end up. You always, everybody's patting on the head telling you what a great job you're doing and you're, you know, you're not doing a very great job. And

so out of fear,

and if you're both getting drunk and at a fear of discontinuing to be a sober jerk, I went back through the steps. Third time I went, step one was a no brainer. I was powerless and unmanageable. You didn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out. What fooled me? Step 2, I believe that for us, but not for me.

I really believed it for us. I mean, I was a pretty good 12 stripper, but I lost a belief for me because I make your sober and you know, I'm on the down escalator, baby, it's not working. And I had to regain the second step. And I started to see men and women in my group with bigger problems than I had with smiles on their faces, with dignity walking through the walls that I was trying to walk around. And I regained a sense that I believe that God was going to restore Bob

to sanity. I did the third step on my knees with my sponsor in his office. We didn't do that much in those days,

but I started to go to conferences and I would listen to people in California and I thought, well, I'm going to try it, you know. So I little awkward, but I did it.

And then I did a four step and I said my previous ones I've done with clergy. And I said to him, when I'm done with this fist up, I should be careful because whatever you recommend to me, I'm going to do. I said I feel like I'm dying a thirst line next to a lake.

I am so God damn sick and tired of being mean. I can't. I just can't tell you how tired I am. And we did my 4th, my fifth step.

And you said to me, Bob, you have a lot of problems are up, work, money, success and failure. My dad was a pretty successful guy and he was kind of my hero. And I thought I'd never going to be as good as my old man,

he said. I think you got to go to a psychologist who works with people in business. I did not want to do that. That kind of felt like there was something odd with me, you know, something that my program wasn't good enough. You know that. Hello.

So I I did, I got a referral. I called up the psychologist and he said will you get your parents involved? I said no. I said my my parents have been over involved in my life. If you can't help me without getting my parents involved, please refer me to someone who can't. We get your wife involved and then oh crap.

Well, they see it so differently.

So much different conversation when your spouse is in the room than when you're in the room alone.

We get your kids involved. I did not want my children involved. I was embarrassed and ashamed of my sometimes rage. But I said yeah. And I went to that psychologist. I don't know, 6-9 months, six months with my wife and children.

And I made one of the most important discoveries in my recovery with that, with the help of that psychology.

And what I discovered was fear.

You know I had done 3 inventories. My fear inventory had to do with snakes, dogs and tall buildings I had no insight into.

I remember one day I was, I was telling them that I was, I had this small company that I was working with and it was going broke. And I

best when I asked 2-3 hours a day, but it's just not working and

any any any. And he said to me, why are you so afraid of failing? I literally wanted to punch him. I was as close. I literally wanted to Jack him. I just,

and I said to him, look, you're a doctor. I said, you know, well, you go bankrupt. You know, you just take your little sign, walk down the hall, pound it on another door. In six months, you're making 100 grand again. I said I'm a guy. I'm about, I'm, I'm in the real estate investment business. I'm about to lose everything I had. I said nod your head up and down if you understand that

I'm going to lose everything I am.

He looked at my wife and he said, Linda, if Bob lost everything he had, would he lose you?

My wife said no, it wouldn't lose me.

And they ask the kids get said Nope,

if you can't lose, you can't play.

And what I discovered is I was scared to death of life. I was afraid of being the responsibility of being a husband. I was afraid of being a father.

I was afraid of failure.

I was afraid of success.