The Paramount group in Paramount, CA

Pleasure to introduce our main speaker, Josie from San Diego.

Hi, everybody. Joe Conroy, alcoholic.

I made it again. Thank you, Michael. Nice to see all you guys up here.

I completely forgot what I was going to say.

Oh, no, no, no. It was pretty cool. I watching you like you get up in red tonight. That was pretty neat. And you're a newcomer. Yeah. Sonia, right? Yeah. Michelle, thank you. And Rocky giving out the tokens. That was pretty cool man.

I've been sober since January 1st, 1989.

Took my last drink on New Year's Eve 1988. I grew up in Boston. I know you guys don't like Boston right now after last year, but

yeah, and I moved out here right after Thanksgiving of 88 loaded and ended up in San Diego, I bet hardly ever since. And I I love coming up to the screw This is this is I I was talking to Joe in the way update. She's riding up with me, Joe. It was the quickest ride we ever had come up here. Jesus Christ, I don't know if everybody's home for the Oscars, but my God, I wish they would stay home half the time.

Wow, we just flew up here, you know, and I forgot what I was going to say again, this is a trip enrollment. Thank you for leading this thing too. You know, and I just know that's what I was talking about. This group is so enthusiastic. I don't know if you guys know that. I'm sure you do. But if you're new Owen, I know back. Is it Owen, the kid that took the the the newcomer He was? You just don't want to be here. I was loving it

and I called him out again. He's

you know, but I hope you'll come to this, you'll come back to this thing when just just on fire for Alcoholics and others, because when I got here, I hated everybody. I didn't like AA at all. It was the biggest bunch of boobs I'd ever met in my life. You know, I didn't like I was so scared. I didn't know what that I was so riddled with fear when I first got here was just awful. What happened was I was drinking a lot. I still like drinking to this day. I like drinking. I've been watching, you know, my cable box broke, so I've been watching Netflix in this some great shows on Netflix. My God, I've been going crazy watching this

and there's a show called Jack Taylor who's about this. It's an Irish show about this Irish cop who's not a cop anymore, but he's a drunk and incredibly bad drunk. And I don't know who's writing this thing, but they pitch perfect with and he's in a a too if he can't stay sober, you know. So it's it's just this great story, but but he talks about drinking and he talks about what happens before we take that drink. That, that, that obsession of the mind,

you know, when somebody's not drinking and they're not really practicing the principles and they're not going to a, they're not being sold, but they're just soba. I don't know if there's anybody in here tonight that's just soba, you know, really just miserable, you know, why am I not drinking? Christ, this is awful.

And you know, he starts talking about what it's like that that, that romancing the stone of romancing. Like, I'm not going to start talking about it. One guy raised his hand. He said he doesn't want to be here. But, you know, I, I start watching these TV shows and they're all drinking whiskey

in a nice short glass with ice. Holy crap. I haven't had a drink in 30 years and it is so attractive. You know, that's what I think we try to do in here. We try to make AA attractive and sometimes we fail terribly. You know,

sometimes people are leaving meetings to go get drunk because they go, my God, I can't. I can't stand being sober. And I don't want to be like this boob up there telling his story. So I hope I'm not like that tonight. I hope I don't drive anybody to drink tonight.

Wouldn't be very good idea, you know. But when I first got here, that's the way it was for me. I sat in rooms with my arms crossed with you. People drive me nuts. My head was so busy, it was just crazy. And you know, if somebody would ask me anything, they'd go. It was usually like how you doing?

Why are you asking me that? I mean, it would be really. I'd be completely on the on the defensive right away. Why? What do you need from me? Jesus, I just said. How you doing? Going to shake my hand. Come on. Enjoy being sober. Oh, God. No. You don't know how it is. Like, this is crazy up in here. This is crazy. And I wish I had a gun. I wish I could kill all you people. It's just not. How about the guy over there? Would you like to share? No. You don't want to hear what I have to say. Sure, I would love to. No, I can't. I have nothing to say. I'm scared

I was just when I was new. It was just crazy. If, if you guys know that if like walking into an, A, a meeting sober when you don't really want to be here is

torture. It is just, it's just a just don't just you just holding on, you know, and they, you get in here and they say, why don't you let go? And you can't, you don't know what you're holding on to. But it's just this, this old idea that I don't need you guys to be happy, joyous and free. I'm happy right now. I don't need anybody and Alcoholics Anonymous to make me feel good.

This is what's going on. You're not saying anything, right? You're just sitting there like this, just judging. Just like everybody. Everybody that shares you just can't stand.

Yes, you just hate everybody and it's just awful. And they start reading how it works and how it works can be like 1/2 an hour long when you're new.

Jesus Christ, They read it last night. I know how it works. You read it last night and you're probably going to read it at tomorrow night's meet. I know how it works. My God, will you stop with the how it works? Who would like to read the traditions tonight? No bang. You know, I was like, not the traditions, just like just like. So Joe, would you like to share? And here it goes again. I'm just I got I got nothing to say, but you're busy.

That's the way my head was when I first got sober was so uncomfortable being sober. It was so uncomfortable just not having that drink. But you know what's weird for me? I'm going to type alcoholic that used to drink at home before I went out to drink. I used to get lick it up and I'd sit there and I'd roll a lot of pot And I and I and I, I told you I grew up in Boston. So Boston was a wonderful city to drink in. It's still to this day is one of my favorite places to drink because you didn't really have to drive anywhere. You could take the subway if you wanted, but it was a great place to walk

and go from bada bada bada bada bar. But usually was when you start out drinking, especially if you're drinking at home, and then you start out drinking and then you go from bond about, about, about by the time you get to bad about about the end, you're so far away from home.

Oh Christ, I can't go home now, you know, So you start to walk home and it's a long walk. You know what it's like after how many beers, how many shots of absolute vodka, which I absolutely loved.

Fernando, I don't know why I'm looking at you, but it was so much fun. It was like it was like it was like it's like like like, like like that was for me. It was a bottle of Becks, an absolute vodka.

It was heaven. It was it was, it was it was just it was but but but but about about so met way at the end of the night. And I'm just like,

oh God, this is way before Uber,

way before that stuff, you know, and nobody would take a cab. What are you nuts? I'm not taking a cab.

Cab drivers, I don't like cab. Cab drive. Buses are gone, so you have to walk home.

And I'd start walking home. Look it up low. But it loaded, loaded, you know, And I would never ask anybody for help. You know, it's like Joe. It's like a ride home.

Fine.

Then I start walking home and that walk was like, oh, and I when I first heard the word trudge the road of happy that every night I trudged home, it was like, and it wasn't very far, but when you're loaded, it's you know, when everything's closed, everything's closed tomorrow. Thank you, man. You just gave me the best water I've had today. By the way, everybody, tomorrow, tomorrow. Thank you tomorrow

she really I but but that that that trudge home was just so much work and I would I would Rocky. I hate to tell you this, but my favorite sandwich train in Boston was called Rockies and it was about 1/2 a block from my house. So it always Rockies was like the bear can or the the cheese you would hang out in front of the whatever you know, to keep people moving. So wrong. I'm going to make it to Rockies. I'm going to make it to Rockies because I would go to Rockies and I would get a roast beef sandwich with cheese and mayonnaise. No, I don't want any mustard. Just give me mayonnaise and a nice

bread please. And a bag of Fritos. This is like cold winter nights and I used to have that

old Big Blue, blue Jean jacket with the big pockets and everybody goes, why do you wear that jacket? I didn't want to tell him because I would put the Rocky sandwich in one pocket and the Fritos I would pour out into the other pocket

and I'd be walking home. And then from Rockies to my house was about a half a mile. And that half a mile. That was torture because I would wake up in the half of the sandwich would be on my shirt and the other half would be in my pocket and Fritos were crunched and dead. And I'm like,

and my house is full of cockroaches and I didn't know why I said the apartment building is so dirty. It's not me, has nothing to do with me, right? But I would come home and they would literally, I would turn on the lights and the cockroaches would go.

They were everywhere. And this went on every night of the week,

every night of the week for the longest time. And I don't know why I didn't I, you know, I love drinking to this day. I mean that, that I've told you a sick story, you know, and some I'm not going to tell you the stuff that, that I want you to tell you here to tell you, because there was some stuff that happened in between

that, you know, I, I don't know what happened to my pants. I don't know what happened to the pants, but they, they, they disappeared somewhere in between, you know, And

then I said one night there was a guy, I attended Byron in the comedy club in Boston. And it was a guy named Dick D Dick was a sober member of a A. And if you're, if you're new tonight, you, you know, you don't want to be here. I know you don't want to be here. I love the fact that you don't want to be here,

but they'll come a time when you probably want to be here and it probably won't have nothing to do with you. It'll have something to do with somebody else because somebody else is going to come up to you and say, hey, it's really good to see you here. You make me feel like I belong to Alcoholics Anonymous. You make me feel, Owen, like I belong to alcohol and you're going to go, you don't understand. And I go, Noah, because I, I've gone to a lot of meetings. I don't feel comfortable for some reason. You said hi or something like that happens and you don't know when that's going to happen because you're sitting there with your arms crossed. Stay away from me. I don't need anything you guys have.

It's somebody in the room. Somebody in the room is identifying your seemingly hopeless state of mind body. Somebody on the other side of the room, somebody somewhere is identifying that that that the old idea that you are having you're suffering with because they let go of that old idea and they go. That's the sort of stuff that that that gets people rocketed into that 4th dimension of existence. I forget where I was going with that before I started, but I'll probably find it somewhere along the way.

So it was like, so I guess it wasn't stick to. I was talking to Dick T and he was he was in the bar and it was like, I didn't, I didn't trust people who didn't drink,

which is a weird thing to say in an Alcoholics Anonymous me because most of us ain't drinking here tonight, right? And I'm expecting you guys to trust what I'm saying. I'm expecting you to trust what I'm saying because this is my story. This is this is what I was like. This is what happened to me. And this is what I'm like now. And if I tell you what I'm like,

hopefully somebody can can do what I just talked about. They can identify with the seemingly hopeless state of mind, of body. I don't know how many people are in the room, but you're not all going to identify with my story, but you're going to be able to identify with something.

I forgot your name.

No, not Chuck, the guy over there that read the traditions. Wayne. Wayne was talking to me earlier. He says, he says I, I, I I've never heard a bad speaker. Everything I hear, there's always one thing that a speaker says that makes me feel good. And I said I might have already said it today. I don't know if you know, but but but I understand exactly what you're saying. There is there is like I've never heard a bad a a meeting as as long as I'm out of my head.

But what I'm in my head

and I'm in an A a meeting. Every one of them sucks.

Every single one of them. Because this thing,

Doctor Paul called it the magic magnifying mind, Bill Wilson says in our big book, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, in her mind, in our mind. It centers in this is just last year Michael called me. He says, Joe, would you come up and speak of the paramount? You have it up here. I said I would love to Michael, but I'm in the hospital.

I had the worst year of my life last year, worst year in my life was in the hospital for in and out for a month of I forgive April or something like that with hot conditions. My mom died in January 17th. She's 100 years old. Back in Boston. I got 22 compression fractures in my in my lower spine when they when they, when they hit me with the paddles to revive me. So they gave me these two compression fractures and then I got shingles. If you guys have never had shingles,

trust me, it's the worst thing you could ever have in your life.

If you have a doctor that has a has a vaccine for shingles, I would tell you young guys don't have to worry about it. But you older folks, whoever you are, I don't know how old old is, but if you can get a shingles vaccine, get it because it'll just the pain was just ridiculous, just ridiculous. And then and then I was like, I lost my job at the same time, 27 years at the same job. We don't want you anymore.

Oh, really? Really,

really. Wow. What's going to happen? You know, it's and I, I, I don't know

why I'm why I'm standing here today. I don't know why, because because there was, there was a, there's been periods of my life with a fellowship picks me up. People in my, there was people in my, I was going to say my hospital bed, but they were in my hospital room and the, and the nurses to the, the nurses said, they said, who are you? I know, what do you mean? Who am I? I mean there was people like way too many people. I'm in there for a hot condition, right? Every time somebody would come in, my heart monitors would go crazy.

They were monitoring them from the third floor and they would call down to the to the floor I was on and they say, hey, what's going on there? He's got about 18 people in there now and people waiting to get in,

you know, and they're all looking at, they're laughing and joking. And I'm just like trying to be OK, trying to be a maximum service, right? And they're going, what are all those numbers, Joe? I go all my heart rate's about 195 weeks a minute. I'm on medication to bring that down. And I wish you guys wouldn't ask me these stupid questions because you're really getting me kind of anxious.

So they were coming and everybody has to go. Everybody has to go. You know, they go, Nah, we don't have to go. We're an alcoholic synonymous.

But it was just like I got to the point where they actually stopped people from coming in. I was so great

because we're not the brightest bulbs in the world. You know? It's like, you know, you're in there dying and they go, how you doing? Well, I'm dying for Christ sakes,

you know what I mean? How am I doing? Look at me, you know, but I was, I was so grateful that that the fellowship, because this is when I tell you, when I came in here, I hated you guys. I hated everything about you. I hated how friendly you were and how happy you were and how joyous and free you were. And just like Jesus get away from me, you know, and, and then when you're when you're down and you're out and you need help and you can't say those words, I need help. People just show up.

How'd you find out I was sick? Well, everybody, you know, I, I'm not on Facebook or any of that crap. And,

and everybody found out about it, you know, and I was really kind of grateful. I was incredibly grateful because it was a, it was a pretty low point of my life. I lost the job 1st and I was fine. I don't need the job anyway. I hated that job before it passed 40 years, you know, I didn't need that job. Little did I know I needed that job because it, it caused a lot of stress and it blew my heart out, you know, and, and then I'm in the hospital, you know, and, and I'm alive.

If you haven't figured that out yet, you know,

but I am so grateful for, for, for, for what happened along the way. And I have to tell you that what happened along the way is the 30 years of sobriety, the 30 years of coming in here and hating you people, the 30 years of coming in here with my arms crossed, with my judgment, sitting here. I can't stand any one of you. And then everyone, every once in a while, somebody would come up and go. How you doing, man? I haven't seen you at this meeting. What's your name? Joe? Jesus Christ. It's good to see you, Joe. Did you go to any other meetings? No, This is the only meeting I need.

How are you working the steps? There's no need for me to work the steps. There's nothing wrong with me. So I would have to have all this negativity going on in my life. And these people that were had processed, had recovered from that seemingly hopeless state of mind and body, had recognized my seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. They recognized where I was going, where I wanted to be, and they helped me uncover, discover and discard this, this person

that was dying from alcoholism inside of Alcohol Extens. I think there's a lot of people like that, and I think that because I say I'm coming from my own experience,

a lot of people inside of Alcoholics Anonymous are dying from alcoholism and they're afraid to say I need help. They're afraid to say I need help because they just want to be just a little bit different.

And I just was a little bit different just to the wrong people. And the wrong people are the people that identified my seemingly hopeless state of mind, of body. And they would say something like, you want to go to Denny's? What? Are you out of your mind? Denny's. Yeah, but I don't have any money. And I say, did I ask you, do you have any money? No, you didn't have it. I said, would you like you want something to eat? I said, yeah, I'm stopping. Well, come on, I'll buy you some dinner. But I don't have any money.

I can't pay you back. They ask you to pay me back? No. What do you want me to do? Well, they'll come a time when somebody else, you come to a meeting and they can't have food at dinner and you look up the moon go. Would you like to go to Denny's? And they're going to give you that same negative reaction. Now, I don't want to go Denny's, you know. Are you hungry? I'm starving. I'm starving. Let me take you out, buy them a dinner and I go. That's. I can't do that. I'm not working. It'll come a time when you're done. When you're done and you get free from this old idea that you're not any good

for Alcoholics Anonymous and you help that other person, that's why I say their zone. It's not about me. It's about some other person in this room that's going to recognize you somewhere else. It might not be tonight. It might be in another meeting tomorrow night. It might be over the weekend. It might be weeks from now. It might be just all of a sudden when somebody goes, wow, I saw you at that meeting on Sunday night and I really hope that I can get what you have and you're going to go, I don't have anything. Well, I just saw you get a 30 day token.

Well, 30 days is nothing. Well, it is to me. I only have a day. I can't stay sober. I've been coming in and coming on. I can't seem to help. I can't get to help. I can't get the message. The message is all crazy. It's all muddled.

It's nuts. Then somebody says, well, let me take you to Denny's. We'll go get some to eat. Let me show you the meetings that I go to. Let me show you the means that I got the gift. Let me show you the meetings that I that I learned how to live in the moment. Let me show you the meetings that helped me recover from my seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. And you stand there and you go, OK, all right. You want to say no. You desperately want to say no because you don't want anybody. You don't. I don't need anybody's help.

There's no need. I don't. There's nothing. There's nothing wrong with me

dying. I'm just, I'm just like, I hate everybody and everything. And they go, I know, I know. Let me show you how to get through to this other side. And then they help you get to that other side and you go, no, what do you want me to do? Then they'll say something stupid like, I want you to go help somebody else. I don't have the time to help anybody else.

What are you doing? Well, I'm trying to find a job. Are you interviewing? I'm not. I'm looking, you know, but I'm not actively looking. I'm not having interviewed for a long time,

but I really got some great skills and I hope maybe they could, they could give me the job. But I, you know, I, I'm so afraid I can't. Once you go to the meeting tomorrow and tell everybody you need a job, I'm not going to do that. Why not? Because they're going to think I'm a loser. Let them think you're a loser. Why don't you just go and tell me you need a job? Most of them aren't listening to you anyway.

Do you understand that, Joe? Most of them aren't listening to you anyway. So I remember going to the job and going, going to the meeting the next day and I go, hey, my name is Joe. I'm an alcoholic and I need a job. You know, I, I need a job desperately. I'm a, I'm a trained deep sea hard hit diver, underwater welder. I need a job and it's just, I need a job really bad and I, I need

please, I need some help

as pathetic as that, right? This girl comes up to me after the meeting. This is God's honest truth. She comes up to me after me and says, listen, I work for a company downtown and they're hiring desperately hired people. They'll hire you tomorrow. I says, really? I said, she says, here's the number. Go down and tell him I sent you and they'll interview and they'll probably give you a job that afternoon. I said, you know, I'm underwater welder. She says, I don't know, I understand. She says you this will probably be just a temporary job, but maybe you see what you can do. So I went down to this place and I and I went in and I opened the door.

It was, it was a place called International Mail MALE and they sold men's underwear. That's what they sold

and

on the phone.

I'm in the construction trades and I

what kind of underwear? Well, you know, it's like Fruit of the Looms. Well, kinda like Fruit of the Looms, you know? And

do you want a job? Well, I need a job. This is what we're hiring. If you want, you could start tomorrow morning. Underwear, huh? So I would like,

I need a job. So I started selling men's underwear on the phone downtown San Diego, a block from where I bought them down a block from where I bought them down. And I put a headset on and people would call this 800 number and they'd have this stupid magazine they got in the mail. And there was these really physically fit

models and, and wearing thongs

and it was really embarrassing. And it was.

And they would. They would, they would,

they would like the sound of my voice. That's really what it was. Usually these guys were calling from all over the country and they go, Joe, are you in the catalog? I go, yeah,

that's me on page 32. Usually I think it's just see me there with the Fritos, right, and the, and the Rockies, the Rocky sandwich and, and, and that's really you. I go yeah, yeah.

And they would get really excited, actually,

like really excited folks. Like

I would turn to somebody. I says I think this guy's whacking off on the phone.

He probably is. He goes and we worked off a Commission right? And I, I was literally making fight alls in $0.25 an hour. Now I told you I was an underwater welder and I could make a lot of money finals and $0.25 an hour, but it was .25% Commission on anything over $10,000 that we sold, which was still really minuscule. So, so they go, they go. I said the guy's getting really excited on the phone here and they say well, well, guide him towards the leather jackets.

On page 50 says you can get a heck of a Commission off the leather jackets. And I go, I'm also on page 50 wearing the leather jacket.

So I would sell him a leather jacket that he didn't need and I would get Commission. And it was, I would, I would feel really guilty for that about that long because I'm trying to calculate. I just made like $1.36

and I stayed there for two years, 2 1/2 years. I'll never forget. The whole room was full of sober people in a, A because the people that were,

that were newly saw, but we're getting that same sort of reaction from other people. You need a job. They're hiring down here. Once you just, it's, it's a temporary job. Temporary for me. It's 20 years, right? But I was there for 2 1/2 years and it taught me how to just actually taught me how to be sober, taught me how to show up, taught me how to sit down and shut up and listen. It taught me how to do that. OK. And it was a really a godsend for me. And then, and then I, then I, then I got a job. I got a job at the law firm

that I lost the job last year after 27 years. So it was just really, really a, a,

a godsend that people and Alcoholics Anonymous will help you if you say you don't have to say the words I need help. You don't have to say those words. You have to sometimes say, I need a place to live, I need a job, I need transportation, I need these things. And that is saying I need help. And somebody in the room was probably talking to their sponsor that morning. And their sponsor said to him, if somebody in the moment reaches out for help, I want you to stay. I can help you, whatever it is,

whatever it is. And all of a sudden people start having this, this, this connection. One alcoholic talking to another alcoholic is a connection is a spiritual experience where you can go, wow, if I didn't say anything, I wouldn't have gotten what I've got. If I sat in a a meetings and said I don't have any problems, I wouldn't get any solution. And I did that for a long time and I did that for a long time when I was drinking. And when I came into AAI brought that old idea into a a that's what I tell you. I had my arms crossed and people that saw the arms crossed, people that saw my

angry puss, people that saw that that scared kid were able to identify and they would come up to me after the meeting and goes you want to go talk about something? I'm fine and you know what fine is right? But I'm just like I'm and then they would, they would talk,

they would talk, they would talk, they would talk, they would talk and they would talk. My usual fuckers, when I'm saying I'm fine is like I'm ready for a drink. I'm ready for a drink. I'm ready for, I'm ready for a drug. I'm ready for some other thing other than this, this, this Alcoholics Anonymous, happy joys and free stuff. And all of a sudden they would take me someplace where I never wanted to go. That was usually right here and right now.

They would take me right into the here and now. They would take all this fear that what I didn't know what fear was. I thought fear was for me going into battle,

Fear was going underwater and welding and stuff. Like that's what I thought fear wasn't. But fear for me was like going up to somebody for the first time. It said, you know, I need a sponsor. Can you help me? That's a tremendous amount of fear. That's a huge amount of fear when you walk up to somebody and go. I really, I really like we.

I really like what you have.

And the person's going.

Do you need a sponsor? Oh, Christ. Thank you, man. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And all of a sudden you got you got two people that are actually on a plane, not a not a flying plane, on a plane together there, eye to eye, they're going, let's, let's, let's do this thing. Let's do this deal. Let's let's walk hand in hand. I don't want to touch you,

you know, but just like, let's just walk hand, hand the broad highway. We'll see where we can go. We never know where it's going to go. We never know where where that first relationship. Michael talked about the sponsorship thing. You never know where that sponsor is going to take you. It might might be years down the road, you guys together, it might be months, it might be days. You don't know. God puts that person in your life and God also takes that person out of your life. There's like, it's almost like, it's almost like he gives you an opportunity to change. Maybe one thing, it might be everything. But some of us are so resistant to change.

Some of us are so, so resistant to change. We'll hold on to the last minute before we surrender. We will hold on to

let go, Joe let go. Holy shit, what's going to happen if I let go?

My buddy TJ, who lives in the Bronx, We hang out a lot. He's, he's a, he's an ex.

We call that a cop

and he's huge, right? And he used to, he calls, he calls me car. He's just disrespectful. He calls me Conroy. He says Conroy and I, I didn't realize I was always like this. I didn't realize I was always like this. He says I need you to put your arms down by your side.

I go, well, why? He says, because you'll be easier to hug that way. This is a big guy.

Oh, I don't want that, you know?

Oh, shit, really? Don't know. Oh, that's that's uncomfortable. I can't do that.

You feel? Oh, that's hurts. You know, there's just lice like this, Like I'm fine, I'm fine.

Oh, that hurts, you know, And it's really true. It's so it's so

it's so it's this is a wall. This is a wall. You know, it's very hard to embrace somebody that's just unembraceable. And then when you do this, when you go, wow, people can come in and it really is kind of like it's a, it's a, I think that's a transformation. It's like it really is a transformation process that happens in here. We take this old scared kid that walked in here, that alcohol took away that fear. Alcohol took away the and it gave you, it gave you courage. It gave you this false courage. It gave you this belief in,

it's like alcohol. I'm sitting at home just drinking and I'm listening to Willie Nelson. I used to listen to Willie Nelson all the time. And Willie Nelson is, you know, I could like just stick something anywhere. And it was just like Willie, you know, and I'll be sitting there. I'm just kidding. I'd be just getting depressed just, and I'd be drinking red wine, right? And I'll forget my brother. I called him. He lived up in Santa Barbara. He still does, actually. And I remember calling him.

I said, Jerry, I'm really, really, really, really sad. He goes, are you drinking? Yeah, of course I'm drinking.

He says, what are you drinking? I said red wine. He called the crybaby wine. And I go, yeah, the crybaby wine. And he goes, do me a favor, put up, put the cork in it and go out, go out and enjoy the city. OK. It sounds like a great idea. And I think I was ready for that. And then I would go out and like, I would go into the bars and they'd be packed, but I knew everybody. I was like, I'd walk into a bar and and there'd be hundreds of people and I'd see my Becks beer coming up over the crowd,

right?

I'd I've arrived and then I would stand there and go

because you know, it's just, it takes, it takes a couple more to get the edge off. It just takes a couple more and, and, and absolute in a crowd, it's tough to get, it's tough to get. And Oh my God, I would start thinking if somebody would just clear away the end of the bar, if I can just snuggle up to that counter, there it is. It opened up and my spot would open up and I'd be looking in the mirror

and your head is crazy.

But the music is playing, the people are talking, the bar is busy, the Bex is cold, the vodka is smooth.

Shit, I can't stay here. I got to go somewhere else and I would just like go out a spiral. I go out of control and I need to go somewhere else because I never. This is a weird thing for an alcoholic. I never wanted anybody to see me drunk.

That odd. I never wanted anybody to see me drunk. And I would go from joint to joint to joint to joint. And the last joint I always hit was was Sully's tap. And I would get over to Sully's. My buddy there was at Sully's a lot, yeah,

And I'd go over to Sully's

will be good for a second

there. But for the grace of I grace of God, you know, you know, it's a

thank you.

You know,

we're in Oklahoma synonymous meetings. Then it's a shame. You know, it's like when somebody's disruptive like that. That's that's the thing. The thing to do is say, come on, let's go out and talk about this stuff. They're not hearing anything. You know, I don't think I could have ever gone to an alcoholic synonymous meeting with alcohol in me. I could go to a bar with alcohol me, but I was just starting to tell you, I would get to the point where I never wanted anybody to see me drunk and I would go to another bar and I would go to another bar and I would go to another bar and I would go to the last bar. By the time I got to the last bar, it's like alcohol. Your body craves

alcohol. What happens when you put the, I'm not going to get into this technical stuff. You put that drink in your body physically starts to crave alcohol. It starts to crave the sugar content and it starts because that's that's why you keep drinking. It sets off the, the mental obsession, makes me pick up the goddamn thing and drink it.

Oh, my God. And once I drink it, the physical allergy is triggered and nothing can take that allergy away except more alcohol. But we don't know how to filter that. And by the time I was at the last bar drinking, I was, I was, I was. I was no longer drinking Becks and no longer drinking absolute vodka. I'm drinking the sweet shit. I'm drinking Grandma. Yeah,

and now if you've never had grandma, grandma near is like like, like sugar.

It's just like pouring sugar into your system. But I didn't know this was my body was so Craven. There was nothing that could take that craving away. Nothing. My friend Henry tended by at this place and he used to say to me, Joe, some nights I see you walk in and you're it's really good to see you. I can see you opening that door and I know you're going to be a wonderful customer. Another night sake walk in. I can tell you've been drinking whiskey and I can tell you're in a miserable mood. And I can tell you're really angry.

I can tell the Bob Axe and the people at the door. Keep your eye on him,

but he's your friend. He says, I know he's my friend, but he's an alcoholic. He's of the hopeless variety. And he's, and he's at a point right now that anything will set him off. And it used to set me off, used to set when I drank whiskey, my whole system was changed. That's when I say when I stop watching these stupid TV shows and they're drinking whiskey. I was not a happy whiskey drinker. But there's something about that whiskey that's incredibly attractive to me. And I think it's the way it changes my, my, my mind

that that the way it changes the way I think about stuff. And I didn't think that Alcoholics Anonymous was going to do that for me. I didn't think that working the steps was going to do that for me. I didn't think that maybe understanding what the traditions were was going to do that for me. I didn't think that it was going to change my mindset. I didn't think it was going to transform me from a, from a alcohol craving whack job. And I mean whack job to somebody that wants to be of maximum service to God and his fellows. I didn't, I didn't know that was going to happen. I didn't believe that was going to happen. I

want that to happen. I just didn't want to drink. I didn't want to feel the way I was feeling. And this guy Dick D, this is how I started this story a long time ago. This guy Dick D, when I was working in that club and I didn't like him because he didn't drink and I didn't trust him because he didn't drink. I didn't want anything that he had because he didn't drink. And I said to him one night, Dick, I am in trouble. I need help with my alcoholism

and everything changed from that point on. Everything. Why would sit with my friend Melvin every night of the week?

Every night of the week we get crap

shit faced. I love that term. I haven't heard it in a long time. We got shit faced every night of the week, right?