C.A.T.S. in Cleveland, OH

Bobby's McDonald's Mad

Thanks Jenny, We get this started with the Serenity Prayer. Please

accept the things I cannot change, courage change things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. How many? John said my Home group is don't make across the street there. My sobriety date is October 4th, 2002.

I was raised with parents that gave me what I needed,

and somewhere along the line I decided to become a juvenile delinquent. I started hanging around with juvenile delinquents and we were all studying to be hoodlums

and somewhere around the age of

17, I probably did like all good hoodlums and it was time to go to jail.

But this was in 1969, and at that time the courts were letting you join the

armed forces rather than go away to jail.

I joined the Marine Corps. The next morning I was at Parris Island Marine Corps boot camp, and six months later I was sitting on a hill in Vietnam, and I had wonder how it got so bad so quick.

And I remembered my parents and I remembered my teachers.

I remember the judges and the police all tell me, straighten up, kid, you're heading for trouble. And I was there. I was in trouble.

They sent me from Vietnam to Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. I was grateful to be alive. I was grateful to be back in the United States and and I wanted to change.

I didn't know how to change.

But at that, at that hospital, they had massive every morning.

I was raised Catholic, so I started attending Mass. I started helping some of those less fortunate patients there. And one Friday morning they came in and they asked me if I was ready to go home for the weekend. I said, yeah, I'm ready to go home.

That afternoon I flew from DC into Cleveland.

I took to wrap it up to University Circle and I took the bus a couple a couple of blacks from my parents house. And I was walking that last couple of blacks and and I saw somebody I had growing up with and he drove by and he beat the horn and he raised a beer out the window.

And that scared me.

You know, when you're overseas, you miss a lot of things of emotion. You miss your family. I was finally going home to my family. It was a Friday night.

I don't know why they were all home, but they were.

I was visiting with them about an hour.

The people found out I was home. They came over, they brought some beer. Somebody cracked a beer and gave it to me. And he said welcome home, Bobby. I drank that beer. They gave me another one and they said, hey, let's go down to the to the bar and celebrate. And all those good intentions I had done at that hospital were straightening out and doing the right thing. Went right out the window

because I was back. I was back with the boys. Now. We stayed out that whole weekend. I should say I stayed out that whole weekend

and the and the more guilt they felt about staying away from my family, the more I drank to kill that guilt.

I showed up back home about an hour before it was time to get on the plane, not to the airport, and got back to the hospital. I remember that that look my mother gave me that night as I was leaving because I was going to see that look again and again and again.

I finished up my tour in the Marine Corps.

I came back to Cleveland Heights.

Things had changed. All the hoodlums had turned into hippies.

The neighborhood had changed.

The only thing that hadn't changed was the feeling that whiskey gave me. I mean, that whiskey became real good friends. My father told me. Take a little time off. Decide what you want to do

and I'll help you.

I ended up taking the next 6 1/2 years off.

I stayed drunk the whole time

and I remember at the end of those 6 1/2 years people that were once saying good to see you Bobby were crossing the street to avoid talking with me. A friend of mine that have been overseas, he was out at the VA drying out.

He called me up. He said, hey, I'm out here. It seems to be helping me once you try it out. I went out to the VA. I learned about alcoholism. I learned how I was a drunk.

I learned how to deal with it, what to do

at the end of those 28 days. They said when you go back to your neighborhood tonight, go to an A a meeting, stand up and and tell them when they ask for the new guys, tell them your name and and tell them you're an alcoholic. Me and that friend of mine went back to the neighborhood that night. We went to the a a meeting and just like they said at the end, they asked for the new people to stand up and give them their names

and my body nudged me so we got to stand up. I said I'm not standing up.

He stood up. He gave him his name. He said he was an alcoholic. He pointed to me. He said so is he

and and everybody in our room turned around to see who the guy was that wouldn't stand up. I didn't stand up because I was willing to do any change in there. I stood up because I was embarrassed

and because for the first time I didn't have that willingness to do something I didn't want to do. Nothing changed,

and if nothing changes, nothing changes.

I continued on with my drinking and other things, but because this is Alcoholics Anonymous, I'll I'll stick to the alcohol. Anybody wants to talk after meeting, I'll talk.

I'm not going to bring it to 25 year Drunkalog, but I'll tell you

I swap it up when I was 51 years old. I was out there bumping into walls for a long time,

bringing up to

one thing when I was out there that hit home with me. I was out in Denver, Co when I had been arrested for DUI and, and I remember

the cop waking me up in a jail cell and asking me if I knew why I was there. And I told him, no, I don't know. And he turned around, he walked away

and I started thinking, why am I? I had no idea why I was there. He came back short time later. He says. You know, a guy like you one of these days is going to hurt somebody or kill somebody

drinking.

And years later when I got arrested in my neighborhood and I know where they put the drunks in

tank there, I wasn't in that drunk tank and I was all by myself and

in a jail saw there and and and I was thinking, why isn't anybody coming and talking to me? Why isn't somebody coming to bail me out? And and I remember what they cops it and then releases one of these days you're going to kill somebody. And I remember thinking, is this the date of going to come and tell me that?

I'd like to tell you how was the last time I drank, but I didn't.

Up to my last drunk

I've been working. The people at work were fed up with me.

He had been trying to kick me out the door for a long time and they finally did. The

things were wrapping up for me. Things were getting bad real quick.

I remember I was going to meetings. I got no sponsor. I got no Home group. Like it said, you got to get honest and I hadn't gotten honest.

I was sitting at my sponsors Home group with him one night

and what I had taken before the meeting wasn't working

and as the meeting started I started sweating

and I started getting scared and I knew what was coming. I knew what was coming. I just wanted that meeting to get over with

and I remember getting real fidgety in that seat and looking at my sponsor and he was drinking a cup of coffee.

He wrote someone a cup of coffee and he put it in front of me and it said surrender.

You know, at at that moment I was, I was, I had always had a backup plan on what I was going to do. The dead light in that chair at that meeting, I didn't know what I was going to do. I had no backup plan

and I remember asking what am I going to do? What am I going to do?

I'd seen that word surrender a lot of times, and I had heard it a lot of times. But that night in front of that, on that coffee cup, I know what that word meant.

I went home that night and I started

a detox and I knew how to detox because I had detached many times. I knew how I was going to feel on a second day, the second hour and the second minute. And after three days I told myself I

I'm not an alcoholic because an alcoholic couldn't go three days without drinking. And on the 4th day I get blasted.

This time I knew something was different.

I did those three days and have four days started and and the fear was there

and a misery was there and I was sweating and I was sick

and every bad thing I had ever done was going through my mind

and this disease was telling me pick up the phone and get some relief.

And I remember saying, God help,

I remember that disease told me again. Pick up the phone and get some relief.

And I know if I picked up that phone,

I'll be right back in that misery, right back in that fear, right where I was there.

And that fear kept on and I was scared.

I know went on for I don't know how many days.

One thing every time I got that thought about picking up that phone, I remember saying God help me

and had fear. Finally succeeded,

Wasn't quite as scared. I knew something was different.

I knew all those other times I had picked up that phone and gotten every week.

This time I had done that,

and I knew what the people and Alcoholics Anonymous were going to say. When I came back to the meetings, they were going to ask me a question I didn't like. What are you willing to do, Bobby?

And I never answered him. I never told him what I was willing to do because I wasn't willing to do anything I didn't want to do.

And this time I knew when I went back I was going to have to tell him. I was going to have to have an answer for him. What was I willing to do?

And he asked me what do I want to do? I said whatever you tell me.

Somebody said you got to do everything

because if nothing changes, nothing changes.

I remember coming to meetings,

I remember people asking me before, stand up and read the steps and I'd say sure. And I think about standing up and reading the steps and I think I can't do that, put them down on the table. And I walk out of the meeting because again, I wasn't willing to do anything

that I didn't want to do,

as they say. This time things were different. I went to a meeting, somebody asked me to stand up and read those steps, and I don't want to read them.

Kept thinking about that last detox, all that fear, all that misery.

Read No steps scared me, but

picking up that drink? Terrified.

I read those steps

and I remember about 11 months sober.

Somebody asked me to leave. Nice. Oh hold on, I gotta check with my sponsor right now.

I remember asking my sponsor

if he thought I was ready to lean. He said, yeah, that's a good idea.

And I told him. I said, you know, this isn't working for me.

I said I still hate these meetings. I hate these people. I hate everything about this

and I remember him saying when's the last time you were sober? 11 months,

I said I'd never been. So over 11 months

system don't tell me this don't work. Just keep doing what you're doing.

Remember that night of that Lead Johnny's Home group there? I was scared. I didn't want to do that and this disease kept telling me get out of there.

I knew if I left that meeting, I knew what was going to happen.

The thought of that drink terrifying, the thought of that lead scared me.

I gave that lead and,

and I remember since that, since that time

when I'm asked to do something Alcoholics Anonymous, I do it because I don't want to go back to that fear, that misery, that life I had.

This is a much, much easier way of life.

Do things you don't want to do, but if you don't change, you're going to stay exactly the way you are. And we all know what that's like.

Because of my sobriety,

I was able to take care of my mother last three years of her life. I had no idea how to do that. But you people and Alcoholics Anonymous, you, you told me, you taught me. You showed me what to do

and you told me you do this and you'll have no regrets and I don't. I don't have any regrets for listening to the people of alcohols. And

there's things today I still don't like doing,

but I tell you what I remember.

I remember that last drunk and I do him because I don't want to go back to that way of life.

Sponsored people today

go to as many meetings as I can.

I pray ever God of my understanding

and I I help drunks.

I think that's about all I have to say. Thank you for asking me, Johnny, we say to our Father.