Steps 1-12 at the NCCYPAA Young Peoples Conference in Raleigh, NC

No love for me. No. Just kidding. Hey, I'm David Robinson. I'm a recovered alcoholic.

Thank you. It's very kind.

A guy can get used to that, believe me. Again, my name is David. I'm a recovered alcoholic. I'm grateful to be alive and sober and at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I want to thank the committee for inviting me to come down. This is a huge, huge honor. You know why Chrissy recommended me to do this? I'll never know. I do know that when a phone rings, you never say no because the life you save may be your own. You never say no to service, you know? And I take that sign very seriously when anyone anywhere reaches out for help.

I want the hand of AAA to be there. And for that am responsible, you know, And if for nothing else, it's like at the end of Doctor Bob's story, you know, duty, sense of pleasure in doing so, you know, I take out a little assurance against the next slip. And I'm paying back the men, the men, the many thousands of men that did it for me, you know, and I can tell you that I'm here today a sober, recovered member of Alcoholics Anonymous because thousands and thousands of people help me. You know, no man is an island. And Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, I really do believe that. The most important word in all the 12 steps.

First word of the first step, which is we, you know,

again. So I want to thank the committee for inviting me to come down. I want to thank Sarah. Is Sarah here? We did the corrections workshop today. Sara's in the back there. Thank you very much. We did it. Yeah,

we did the, we did this, the the corrections workshop together this afternoon. I did my little bit about corrections correspondence and she got up and blew my doors out of the water. She's done more. She's done more in six or seven years of sobriety that I've done in, in, in a, in a twelve few years I've been around. My sobriety date is May 25th, 1994. My sponsor is David Joyce, the Lieutenant. His sponsor was Frank Wright, as she said Bay Group Franks were a Frank Wright sponsor was George Lundy, and George Lundy's sponsor was Bill Wilson.

Three of those guys were members of the Sheepshead Bay Group in Brooklyn, which is, you know, where I got sober and my sponsors and I, well, actually my sponsors fortunate enough to have actually been to one of Bill Wilson's anniversaries, you know what I mean? I consider that kind of special be sponsored by a man like that.

I grew up in a Brooklyn waterfront. It was just me and my sister. My dad was a Marine who, you know, I'm not going to call him an alcoholic. Let's just say that when he drank, he was very free with his hands,

very loose with his lips and very free with the furniture around the house. You know, it wasn't. It wasn't. Father knows best, believe me. I'm not going to say he was an alcoholic, but you know, by the end of it, you know, my mother basically ran out of the house.

There we go. We'll have them in a couple years.

He, he was, he was very free with his hands. And you know, he used to, he used to bat my mother and I around and my sister. And you know, that's not why I'm an alcoholic, you know, but it's a very big part of my story. We basically ran out of the house when we were when I was four years old and I never saw him again alive.

You know, I never saw anybody on my father's side of the family. And that would come years later as a result of a miracle in a ninth step.

Don't let the miracle tonight step. Let me diverge for a second. I get to my room yesterday and there's a dozen roses on a table. And I had a rough trip. Now Ernesto slapped me three times. I work on Wall Street, I run a computer department, and we have a server farm down at Boca Raton that I had to shut down and turn back on again. And then I had the the privilege of flying into Hurricane Ernesto or Tropical Storm Ernesto yesterday, sat in Kennedy Airport for three hours and that a flight was delayed. I get down here and by the way, there's a tree in my yard and my power's off

in North Jersey, where I live right now. But so I come into the hotel room and I'm all bedraggled for my trip and there's a dozen roses, right? A dozen roses sitting on my table. And I'm walking in and, you know, I have a little bit of fear around this. I can be honest with you. You know, I have enough, you know, terror in me to light up the city of Chicago right now. You know, and I and I walk into the room and I see a dozen roses on a table right with this card says remember

faith

second step proposition. God is everything of God is nothing. What is our choice to be, you know, price It's all about faith. What am I worried about? You know, and I run downstairs and I go up to Rob and I thank him profusely. I go that's wonderful a dozen roses and I don't worry about it. No problem. Did you get your basket? And you know, he walked away and then I found out 1/2 an hour later. This is from an old high school sweetheart that I know up in Virginia. You know what I mean?

So

I never did get my basket though, but that's OK.

So, so we grew up in a Brooklyn waterfront and it was just, you know, my sister and my mother and I and it was rough. It was rough. You know, my mother had to work a couple jobs and she warned me very early. It's like in in a book, you know, where, you know, Bill was warned about the dangers of I mean, I was warned about the dangers of alcohol. Alcoholism runs in my father's family. And you know, the big book makes no case for geneticism and Alcoholics Anonymous. And I have no opinion on that issue. But but I do know that my mother,

me, you know, that there was in my family, it was magic in a flat of water, you know, stay away from it at all costs. Otherwise you wind up just like your father. You know what I mean? In those words, man, that's like hammering nails through my heart. You know, you're just like your father. Those were like the five most profane words I can imagine hearing when I was growing up, you know, because he was a violent, you know, heavy drinking man, you know, and I'm not going to call him an alcoholic. So we grew up and I always felt inferior. I always felt less than I was always, you know, I was the only, basically, I was the only white kid in a Puerto Rican neighborhood,

you know what I mean? So I used to get the tar kicked out of me because I had blonde hair, you know, And then I'd go up to Bensonhurst to play baseball up there and I was the only blonde haired kid in Bensonhurst. So they'd bat me around and I didn't really fit in anywhere, which didn't help either, you know. And it's all set me up for the first drink, you know, I picked up my first drink. I was 14 years old. Anybody remember the great blackout in 1977, George? You probably remember the blackout in 1970, right? I think it was

July 17th, 1977. I actually go look that up.

It was me and two other kids. We went to Sunnydale Grocery on 3rd Ave. and 68th St. in Bay Ridge and we chipped in and we bought a six pack of Valley Forge beer. Valley Forge beer, I kid you not, it was made in Staten Island. The tagline on a bottle was brewed on a shimmering Shoals of the Kill van cull, right? It's like it was like Panther urine. It was most obnoxious, obnoxious chemical you could imagine. And I loved it. I loved it. You know, I loved everything about it. I loved

the crack of the bottle, that noise it made. I love the way it burned my throat. I love the way it hit my belly and I

I was looking for that arm my entire life and I found it and I could not imagine why the other two guys weren't standing directly underneath the rest of them with me. You know, I had five, the other two guys had one. And I remember exaggerating the stagger as I was leaving a park and I left this is, I left Owls Head Park in Bay Ridge. We come outside the park and I look down 3rd Ave. towards the Trade Center

and that's that's another story towards the Trade Center. And I watched the lights go out down 3rd Ave. And then Manhattan goes black

and we're in a blackout and guess what? So am I.

You know what I mean. Go figure. I don't really remember what happens. I do remember that I had my eye on his bicycle for quite some time. That was in a bicycle shop window down in Owls Head Road. So apparently

I, I, I, you know, I freed this thing from the bicycle store. You know, I liberated from this guy. And all I know is I wake up the next basically, I barely remember. I'm I'm I'm riding home on his thing and I'm wobbling and apparently this is all second hand to me and basically everything before my the age of 30 is secondhand to me, but I'm trying to sting along and Mike the cop

who's dating my mom, not Mike the cop from Abbott Costello, by the way, it's just Mike the cop from the neighborhood. He says, K kids, where'd you get the bicycle? And I told him I stole it from the store, right. And he was very funny getting a car. I'm taking you home. It's dangerous. So I get home and I wake up the next morning and there's blood in the bed. I'd cut my hand. I'd puked all over the floor and this mic to cop the door, right. Apparently somebody had saw Mike the cop being accomplished to the crime and call the police station. So Mike had to come get me get the bicycle. It was just a mess.

And my mother said the five magic words, you know, you just like your father, you know, And those words, they cut me to the quick. I drank for, let's see, for five more years. Five of the best years of my life were spent in high school, by the way, not four, but five. And, and just to show you, just to show you where I was,

I had the second highest. I went to a high school called Brooklyn Tech,

and if anybody's, if I heard a book, anybody here at Brooklyn Tech, Any Brooklyn Tech alumni? Yeah, five, right. It's actually the second largest high school United States. And my dream was to be an engineer, but I just couldn't pull my. I don't know how people did it, man. I mean, he's the other kids got up, they put on clothes, they went to school, they sat in class. I mean, I was always worried about going out and getting the next drink. I don't know if I'm different from my experience in a park, all I could think about was getting loaded. That's all I could think about. I don't know how these kids were able to focus.

I mean, you know, I was cutting class when I left that school in disgrace by the way, I left 4 1/2 years later with my head down. I had the second highest IQ in the school and the second lowest grade point average at a 64 average, 64.9 when I left Brooklyn Tech. You know what I mean? That shows you where I was. You know, I just couldn't pull together and I had this big gaping hole inside of me. I mean, nothing I put inside of this whole worked, man. I didn't know it at the time. You know, it started out with, you know, comic books,

junk food than junk books, and then booze and booze was the only thing that fit, and even that stopped working for a while. So I left Brooklyn Tech and I was devastated because it was my first real failure, you know what I mean? I mean, my drinking was starting to have some consequences. You know, the first couple of years it was fun. Then I started being fun with consequences and I had to go to the local zone school, Fort Hamilton. That was like the badge of shame. And Tech was such a good school, actually, that I had enough credits to graduate but didn't have the time.

So I took eight periods of typing right for one semester to graduate. And it's funny, you know, you never, you never know what God's plan is for you.

But now I work with computers and I can type 80 words a minute. So there you go. So it kind of worked out. And then, you know, being the alcoholic realist that I am, I saw officer and a gentleman. I said, that's it. I'm going to fly Navy jets. That's what I've been missing. That's what I'll do. And believe it or not, I, I went to the local, I better get sober soon. Look at this. I I went to the local Community College, New York City Technical College,

and I didn't drink. I just stopped drinking. I put it all down. I was smoking 4 packs of cigarettes a day. I was going out with about 15 girls. I was eating about 30 boxes, Donuts, but I was sober.

I was fine, you know?

Yeah, it's true. I was filling that hole up with anything I could grab, you know what I mean? And the more I fed the whole, the worse it got. Can anybody identify with that? The more I fed the beast, the hungrier the beast got. Nothing worked, man. Nothing. I was dead inside and the world was just raging around me. You know,

I get uncomfortable thinking about that time because I don't feel like that today. Thank God. So I pulled it together. I went to New York City Technical College. The first couple years I did it 3.63.7. I made the Dean's list. I said that's it, I'm on my way. I'm a genius here, this is it. All I had to do was knuckle down, you know. So I went to a school across the street called Polytech and they are very serious over there. You know there are a lot more serious than a Community College.

3.02.82.6 Anybody see where this is going?

My last semester of college I was actually not doing too good. There wasn't quite enough Donuts and women around to take care of what was really wrong with me and and I was just out of control. My attitudes was out of check. Excuse me, attitudes were out of check. You caught me a little Brooklynism there. And never forget a bartender called out sick. That's the day to change my life. I'd been waiting tables in this place called Nightfall. This is being taped right?

This local neighborhood establishment

that was owned by a local tough guy. Let me put it to you. That way

I forget about it,

if you know what I mean. So.

So the bartender was off that night. I'm behind a bar and I'm cleaning the bottles. And I said, you know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna join a Navy. I better learn how to drink Scotch.

I don't know where that thought came. I don't know. To this day, I don't know what I thought. It was like this little black Angel was sitting on my shoulder because I was thinking about, you know, I'd seen some John Wayne movie or something where they hit a bottle of Scotch and a torpedo tube. I'm going to be around torpedo tubes. I got to know how to handle the equipment. So let me see what this one tastes like.

The next thing I know, my mother is leaning over me, screaming at me. I'm in a pool of vomit. My bed. You just like your father. And I never went back to school again. I had never went back to school again, man. I was just like, it was like gasoline on a flame. And I took off. When I took off, I took off like this.

I was 22. Actually, I was 23 years old because of the delay in high school is 23 years old

when I left college and the next

seven years I lost 52 jobs.

I went from job to job to job. I waited tables. I attended bar. I was a bar back and I worked at some pretty swanky joints. I worked this is being taped again, right. OK, but I worked at I worked at three and four-star restaurants. The line on David Robinson was this David great guy, great with the customers when he sober, but you can't pay him. You can't give him any money because I didn't know that's that's that was the deal. You can't pay him. If you pay me, we'll come back right. I didn't know you're allowed to go home with money in your pocket at the end of the night.

Thought. I thought you had to go to her. Well, Hurley's his clothes. I can say that one. All right. I thought you had to go to Hurley's on 50. I think it's 53rd St. or 51st St. and 6th Ave. And he had to knock down 15 or 16 double s before he went home. That's what I thought. And, you know, at 25 years old, what's the 16 double S is 1/4 Scotch. I didn't think there was anything wrong with that. It's a good man's fault, right? Burns your throat a little bit. You know, what's the big deal? Nobody's getting hurt. Well, let's see. You dropped out of college. You got no money in the bank. Oh, and my requirements for

were very high. You know, for a woman to be involved with me, she had to drink enough so that my drinking wasn't so bad, but not quite so much, you know, that she couldn't pay the rent for us. And that was my requirements for relationship. You know, that shows you what a suave and debonair kind of guy I was.

So here we go. I'm romping through the 80s here, you know, not doing too good, thinking on the cat's meow, man, I thought I had it together. I just thought I had a string of bad luck. String of bad luck. At one point I was living in a YMCA driving a cab and I couldn't pay the rent. That's where I was, you know, and I used to say that's what alcohol did did to me. But it's really, it's what I did to myself. You know, alcohol was the last weapon of choice

and a long list of weapons I had used to destroy myself to fill at home, right? So where we going with this? So

a guy 12 steps to me, right? I work and go work in a restaurant that's still open. I'm not going to say a name of it, but it's in the time life building on 6th Ave. Manhattan. And this guy, I come to work and it's just getting harder and harder. I mean, you know, God bless you guys for coming in so young. I mean, at I was never, I'll tell you this, I was never so old as the day I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. That's the oldest day of my life. I never felt so old as my first day in a A. But I come to a A and this guy's looking outside the office and he's looking down at me and he just shakes his head and he goes back

starts laughing. And I have like my eyes are red. You know, I haven't slept in three days. I mean, I have to work a double and I just I got the I got the the heebie jeebies and the win lands. And I don't see what's so funny. So I asked him what's so funny? And it's like, dude, you don't got to live like this no more. Why don't you come with me? And on a way downstairs, I had one last drink. After I had that drink, I walked up to a manager. I kissed him on a lips and I asked him if he could ever forgive me for sleeping with his wife. This guy

was not the type of guy that was married, by the way, if you know what I'm saying. So I was out on the street with with my locker. They cleaned out my locker and that was it. That was my last day of work.

And this is the only time, by the way, that anybody ever lied to me in Alcoholics Anonymous. The guy said, you know, if you come to me with three meetings, I'll get you a job back, is what the guy said to me. It's the only time anyone ever lied to me. And, you know, my story is really, you know, I have two tails in a A, I have a A before, you know, I got into work and I have the tail after I got into work. You know, this guy took me to a place on Midnight St.

on Housing St. in in a city called Midnight Madness

and his attitude was take what you need and leave the rest. That was his battle cry. You know, easy does it, you know, stay away from the God freaks. You know, you're going to you going to meet these people that called big book Nazis. You want to avoid them at all cost. Their fanatics. They're going to shave your head and make you chant out of the big book. And you know, just, you know, go to here's a meeting list and call me if you need any help. You know, and, you know, I found out later that this guy probably wasn't the best guy for me.

I was 28 years old, you know, and,

you know, I used to blame him for that for years, especially after I found this message that we have in the 1st 164 pages of our book. I was very resentful that this guy didn't just grab me by the back of the hair and drag me through the book, you know, with the pages on fire. But the reality is, I probably heard somebody, you know, talk about the book. I just wasn't ready to listen, you know what I mean? And we were talking about this earlier today. I really believe God's grace falls evenly on everybody. It's up for us to reach out and embrace the grace if we want to get sober.

So, you know, I spent six months in AAA and I was amazed that I wasn't drinking. Desire to drink was ripped out of me, you know, and I really believe that God graces everybody when we first come in here. He gives us just enough time to get into the work, just enough time just, you know, to give us the opportunity to say yes, I want this thing. I must have it too. Like it says in our book, you know, So I went to meetings for six months and you know what? They became a little inconvenient. You know, I started dating. Oh, it was love. This is it. That's what I was looking to fill a hole with. I started dating this girl and.

I started dating this girl when I was six months sober and we started seeing each other more and more. Six months turns to seven, you know, seven turns to 8. My sponsor dropped out of my life. I stopped calling him. I stopped going to meetings. 10 months sober. It's Christmas Eve 1992. I think I got it going on. But inside I know I'm falling apart. I mean, the beautiful card always wanted, you know, I filled my life up with the phones and I've only had a nice car. If only I had a nice house. If only I had a nice girlfriend. If only I had a nice job. If only, If only. If only these things were making full until my dismay,

none of it was working. All the things I'd wanted my whole life were not working for me. I was just basically a kid who wanted a nicer room.

That's really all I was, you know, And this girl became the center of my life. And my sponsor likes to say anything, you know, that's your number one priority in life is your higher power. So I made this girl my higher power. Did I mention she had a baby? I didn't mention that, did I? You know, I never asked her where the father came from, where the baby came from, by the way. It just never came up in a conversation. I did it to this woman for four months and never asked her what a baby came from. I found out, though,

Christmas Eve I'd left work and I rented a Santa Claus outfit

and I got some gifts for the baby and I went over the house and we're going to stay home and have a nice quiet evening. No sooner than I get through the threshold at a house, the phone rings and it's the baby's father, right? Just released from Danna Morris State Prison, you know, and for some pretty nasty stuff. By the way, we're not talking about trespassing and loitering. This guy was in for like, armed robbery with intent to kill or something. I don't know what he was in for, but he was a big guy and he was outside the door. You know, she made me go out, you know, the back window

and God, it was only the 2nd floor, you know, and I went out that back window and my world, my world ended the moment I went through that window. My my world can crashing down. There was nothing left. And I went out that window. I didn't have a meeting list in my pocket. I didn't have a sponsor I could call. I didn't have a prayer in my heart. I had nothing except the same idiot I brought into a A10 months earlier and my bag of nonsense. I was without defense against the first drink. I had nothing between me and it's and we all

know what it is. And it was like I was watching a movie, you know, I, I walked out to my car. I put the car and drive. I went right into the city. I went to this. It's closed. I can say no. I went to a place called Sally's on 6th Ave. which was an adult entertainment establishment with alcohol. And I sat and little Marie, the bartender, right, who'd been my bar mistress for, for, for whenever I had money in my pocket. Actually, I actually hold a record. I'm the only guy in buildings that was ever thrown out with money in his pocket. By the way, that shows you what kind of drunk I was.

But I went in and I went to my chair and I wasn't going to drink. This is key. I wasn't going to drink. I was just going to go in, you know what I mean? And sort of sort things out, maybe say hello to the girls and say hello to guys. I just wanted a place to, you know, schmooze and looking at some companionship and conviviality, I guess. And I go walk in and I sit down and without saying a word, Marie slides a double grammar name in front of me with the Rolling Rock back, says good luck. And there it was.

There it was. And I sat transfixed with this glass in front of me for about an hour. And I was staring at it. And, you know, my life flashed before my eyes. My life flashed before my eyes. I don't recommend this to anybody who's not prepared for the experience.

I mean, there was number lying anymore. And I remember sitting down saying I'm not an alcoholic. I've had a drink in 10 months. And I started thinking about it. Well, maybe I am an alcoholic, but I'll tell you why. You know, I'm an alcoholic because my mommy didn't love me and my daddy hit me and I got fired from 52 jobs actually make that 53 at this point, right? And my girlfriend threw me out of the house and I I did this for about an hour and I reached out and I said

the very last two words they said I would ever say if I picked up a drink again. And

I'm a gentleman. I'm not going to say what those two words are, but I said those two words and I inhaled it. And every little bit of good that a A had shoved in me in 10 months came sucking out of me like a vacuum. And I was right back in the next two words where I'm back. Those were the next two words that came. Let's go. You know, I'll never forget that feeling was better than any. It was so,

so we can we can better start moving this along. So

let's see I met one of the girls. She came home for a visit, introduced me to something else which I had never experienced, and

within six months I was living in Alsat Park in Brooklyn. And the last six months of that run, I was actually drinking Listerine and boosting car radios. Right. And don't laugh when you hear Listerine. It's actually 86 proof. It's actually the same proof as Scotch. OK, I got to fess up here. It wasn't Listerine. Actually, it was Duane Reade mouthwash, which is the local drugstore. It's a little cheaper. It's, you know, $0.99. And my breath was not minty fresh, I assure you.

My mother and various members of Alcoholics Anonymous attempted to throw a net on me,

and I said no. These guys are all suckers. Look at them. They get up, they go to work, they come home from work with the same nonsense as high school. Except I was drinking. You know

what saved my life was

May 25, 1994. They found me face down in my box. They pronounced me dead at the scene in the ambulance again. Apparently I went into cardiac arrest seven times. I was 117 lbs and I was suffering from scurvy, if you can believe that, because I hadn't any fruit and vegetables in close to six months. I had lice in my in my eyes and my ears. I guess they call them ear mites, right? Is that within the ears? But, and I woke up in a hospital

handcuffed to the wall.

Handcuffed to the wall. I should backtrack a little bit. My stepfather, who's going to kill me when he hears this. I got to be careful how I say this because it's being taped. Let's just say it up my my stepfather knew some boys in the neighborhood that had me constrained against my will for a couple of weeks. And one of these guys was a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous who stayed outside my door for two weeks. And Vito's job was to break my legs if I went out for a drink.

So you might say I had an intervention.

True story. So I woke up handcuffed to the wall. And I remember my first time around in Alcoholics Anonymous. This is important. My first time around, debating the various levels of surrender one must transcend through to get to the Nirvana of the second step. Can you imagine? Can you imagine this kind of tripe coming out of somebody's mouth? But this is the way it was. I sat in the back with the psychologist and inventory row in the back. This is what we talk about.

And I remember looking up at the wall saying, OK, I get it,

what's next, What's next? And I'm hanging on the wall here. I mean, I'm gonna try, you know, trying to sleep with your arm up in here like this. But in through the door walks Joe with the big book under his arms. Excuse me, with a big book under his arms. Now tell you something about Joe. Joe is the guy that used to sit in the front of the room and talk about God and scare the crap out of me. You know what I mean? I remember, you know, one time sitting in a meeting with Joe at Home group and getting really upset. The more he talked about

God, the more it would hop my chair away from them. I just run for myself literally to the other side of the room. See, I'm not going to water around. I'm sorry about that, guys. And Joe comes up to me one day. He goes, kid, you look perturbed. What's on your mind? I said, you know, it's it's against my constitutional rights to hear about God and the country that professes, you know, religious freedom. He goes, really, what's the matter? Don't you believe in God? I go, no, he goes, you know, for something you don't believe. And you're getting awful angry is what he said to me. And all I could say was, oh, you know, I can think of nothing really

say to him about that. So Joe comes into the hospital with the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous under his arms. And I was expecting to get a lecture from him. And he said, kid, how you doing? And I said, I ain't doing too good, obviously, what are you doing? Because I ain't doing too good either. I just found out I have throat cancer and I'm going to die, kid. And I got to work with somebody, you know, I'm going to drink. Goes. Do you mind if I tell you my story?

Do you mind? I still get goosebumps. Do you mind if I tell you my story? He did no preaching. He didn't speak down to me from any intellectual mountaintop. He told me his story. Rice, you know, and Sarah, you know, God bless her, you know, she was talking this morning or this afternoon about being jealous of people that are able. This guy drank until he was like 50. I couldn't believe it. How do you do that? How do you how do you drink till you're 50 and not wind up handcuffed to a wall? That's really what I wanted to know at that point,

how can I do this and not wind up handcuffed to a wall?

So Joe told me his story. And, you know, his story couldn't have been any different than mine, but they couldn't have been more similar, you know, And finally, you know, we got the end of, like, wow, what do I got to do? He said, I'm glad you asked. And he took out the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And we read the book paragraph to paragraph. And you think the son of a gun would let me off the wall? But, you know, they were keeping a pretty close eye on me.

We read the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous in 14 days. And God bless him for doing it. It changed my life, You know what I mean? He said, you know, put a star next to everything in that book that reminds you of yourself. I had 267 stars in that book. I still have that book,

1st 63 pages. Basically asked me one question over and over and over and over again. David, are you a moderate drinker? Are you a heavy drinker or you real alcoholic,

you know, for real alcoholic, you know, Bill used all kinds of foreign alcoholic type alcoholic of a variety alcoholic of our description on and on. But are you one of us? If you are, you screwed. You know, unless you may want to try what we found that might help you. So we got to the jumping off place page 63 because, kid, are you in it or not? And you know, I did it. And here's the thing. Here's the big secret. Here's the thing. I was looking for my first time around in a, a

I set a third step prayer to a God I didn't believe in on page 63,

but he believed in me. That's the miracle of this thing. I felt like a total fraud getting down on my knees and saying that prayer with him. I felt like a total fraud, you know, and I got up from that and he handed me the notebook and we got to work and we did that fourth step, you know, and we did the four columns just like it's outlined in a book, you know what I mean? And when it got time to do that, you know, I thought I was going to get to tell us, man, my life story. He's like, kid, I don't care about your life story because you've been telling your story your whole life. Read me that 4th column. Where are you selfish, self-centered,

honest and fearful? That's all I care about. You know, fear is evil and corroding thread. And he beat into me over and over again. Page 62 you know, selfishness and self sentenced that we think is the root of our problems. He beat them to me over and over again and they let me out 14 days later I was out making nine step immense, you know, and I got to tell you it's kind of difficult to make nine step amends when you live in a Brooklyn men's shelter. You know, I spent six months in the Brooklyn men's Shelter and then six months in a furnished room. And Joe made it to just about my first

before he passed on, you know, but he got to give me my coin at my first anniversary, you know, which was very cool.

That's what it was like. What happens and what it's like now. Well, let me tell you a little story. I started working with another guy, a man by the name of David Joyce, who I mentioned earlier. And we worked, we've been working with David since 1995. So I guess he's been my sponsor for the last 11 years. And he was a real good influence on me. And he couldn't have been any more different than I was. David's a retired New York City Lieutenant,

You know what I mean? And I know some of you may not identify with this, but I got a little problem with authority. You know, I don't get along well with cops. You know, God love them. You know, I'm not one of those idiot cop haters at meetings if there are any troopers or policemen around. I mean no offense, but I just have a real problem with authority. And it's just like, again, our stories couldn't be any more different, but we couldn't be any more identical and we couldn't love each other more, you know what I mean? So I work with David a number of years and we we took a big book meeting into a correctional institution in New York City.

And that alone was an experience because you know, every, every every three months, we take a hundred men, split them into two groups, read the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, go through the 12 chapters and go through the 12 steps, kick them out and do it again. And it was one of the most enriching experiences in my life. And the only way you can do that is if when you get to the 4th to the 4th step, you know, the 5th step, actually just look at that 4th column. And I'm not telling people not to look at the third column. Obviously that's vitally important. But when you got to work with that many men, that's how you get through to work where you selfish, self-centered, dishonest and fearful,

you know, it's very helpful. So we did this for a number of years and my life began to change. You know, I went from, I went from collecting bottles in sobriety to washing dishes to waiting tables again. I started tinkering around with computers. We got to remember something 30 years old. I thought my life was over. You know what I mean? I thought it was the end of the line. I mean, wow, I couldn't get any worse than this. I'm 30 years old and I'm in a, a, you know, I mean,

you know what I mean. And we don't have a young people's organization up north and I'm aware of, so I mean, I was in there with, you know,

and that is a lot more young people in AA, thank God. But there wasn't many around when I was getting sober. So I went from, you know, really collecting bottles to washing dishes, to waiting tables to tinker around the computers, to fixing them and then to repairing them professionally. And about five years ago, I got the job I have now, which is I work on Wall Street and I manage a computer department, you know, and that's, that's not bad for God used to wet his pants and sleep in a box, you know, And I really, I, I owe that.

I owe that all. Well, not since not since I drank actually about, you know, when it went in the bed, but I all at all to alcohol synonymous. But I tell you, one of the greatest events of my sobriety was when I was seven years sober,

feeling very much the accomplished sober member of alcohol synonymous. I got in front of my Home group and I took my coin and I thank my sponsor and I told everybody how wonderful it was to have gone through the steps so many times with so many men. And my sponsor interrupted me. It was about 150 people in a room. And he said, excuse me,

I said it's it's wonderful to have gone through the steps so many times. He said have you actually finished your 9th step, David?

What do you mean? Have you finished it? And I go, well, no, he goes then sit down, you know, because he was getting pretty fed up.

And the reality is, here's the reality. The reality is that I was coasting and, you know, I ride a bicycle. Any fellow bicyclists in here? Anybody like to ride the bicycle? I'm a cyclist. I'm I'm, I'm an amateur one, but I love to ride. And the only way you can coast is downhill. You don't coast uphill. You know, I, I had just bought, you know, my first car in sobriety. And it was a luxury German automobile. And I bought it basically so I could, you know, cruise in front of the sober coffee shop and look cool. That was really why I bought the car. To be perfectly honest with you, I could tell you that five years down.

I mean, talk about an ego. I mean, how'd you like to get sober with this guy? Right.

So, so that's where I was going. I just bought my own apartment and my sponsor, you know, I actually had to take a look at my 9th step again and I still owed about $50,000 in 9th step immense. And all these people are on a $20 plan. Like I was saying this $120.00, that $120.00. And my sponsor suggested that, you know, I get honest financially and I, I cleared my bank account out and I paid back everybody I owed, you know, and I got that back like 10 times.