
(0:04 – 1:46)
My name is Bob Darrell and I am alcoholic. Through God’s grace, sponsorship, the 12
steps of Alcoholics Anonymous as they’re outlined in the big book, and bushels of
newcomers I’ve been sober and free from all mind-altering, mood-altering, and emotion altering chemicals since Halloween 1978. And that is a miracle.
I want to thank Reggie and members of the committee for asking me to come down here
and share with you. It’s a privilege to participate in Alcoholics Anonymous and really to
share with you the life that you’ve given me. And I want to thank Gary for being such a
great host and driving us around and he’s just been a hoot to be with us.
It’s been a really good time. I want to welcome all the people that are reasonably new. If
you’re in your first year of sobriety, I’m really glad you’re here.
I also want to tell you that if you’re in your last year of sobriety and you don’t know it,
I’m real glad you’re here. There may be some people here that are leaving Alcoholics
Anonymous and your mind is already gone, your body’s still here. I want to tell you I’m
real glad you’re here.
Maybe you’ll hear something this weekend or see something this weekend that will ignite
a fire in you and your heart for AA and that you will get to stay here. I didn’t want to
come to Alcoholics Anonymous. I went to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in
1971.
(1:47 – 12:05)
I was a young kid. I wasn’t even old enough to take a legal drink. I was in an institution.
I was made to go to that meeting. And I didn’t finally get sober until 1978. And from
1978, from 1971 to 1978, I kept ending up in AA meetings.
And I don’t know what that was about. But I knew it wasn’t, that’s not my problem. So I
went to a lot of therapy.
I couldn’t think it was alcoholism because when I stopped drinking, it didn’t seem to get
any better. And so I was in therapy with some great guys. I was in therapy with Albert
Ellis, the founder of Rational Emotive Therapy, and Ed Silverman, a contemporary of Fritz
Perl’s.
I was in transactional analysis. I had primal screened. I’ve done all that stuff looking for
an answer out here for something that would fix this thing that I don’t know what is quite
wrong with me.
And as the years went on, booze isn’t making it as better as it used to. And I’m looking
everywhere out here. And through all of that, I kept ending up in AA meetings over and
over.
And it’s not that I’m an alcoholic, but every time I drink, I end up where all the alcoholics
are at. I don’t know what that’s about. And I didn’t know that God was trying to tell me
something.
I’m looking everywhere else for an answer, and the answer is being put in my face
continually. And I’ll tell you a little story. It’s a true story.
I read this probably 20 years ago. When I read it, I just thought, I thought, that’s exactly
what happened to me. And the story’s about this guy that grew up in South Africa back
in the 1800s, and he inherited a farm from his family.
And it was a nice little farm. He could have made a nice living off it, but it was at a time
in South Africa when people were discovering diamonds. And there were people that
were getting mega rich overnight.
And he started watching these people become rich, and he became dissatisfied with his
farm, and he didn’t really work the fields, and he kind of started to ignore it. And finally,
he was so obsessed with becoming rich and finding diamonds that he sold his farm. He
took the money that he got from the sale of his farm, and he went out into the bush to
search for diamonds.
And he spent his whole life out there. And he died poor, broke, alone, miserable,
frustrated individual. And the farm that he sold turned out to be the largest diamond
deposit ever recorded in the history of the world.
And it was bought by these two brothers who were developers. And then when they
discovered all these diamonds on his property, they formed a company to market these,
and mine these diamonds. And they named the company after that poor idiot that died
out in the bush, and his name was De Beers.
And to this day, it’s the largest diamond producing company in the world. And I’m that
idiot. I’m the guy that’s looking everywhere for the answer, and it’s right there in front of
me all along.
And I couldn’t believe that AA, even though I keep ending up in AA, is what I needed
because Alcoholics Anonymous, to me, didn’t make any sense. I’ll tell you the kind of
drunk I am. I’m the kind of guy going to run, and alcohol will strip me to the bone.
It will take everything away from me, and I end up in Alcoholics Anonymous, and the first
thing I get back is my goddamn opinion. It’s my opinion and my judgment of what you’re
presenting me that kept me from getting everything that you would ever give a guy like
me. And I couldn’t get it.
I was too offended. I think, from what I’ve learned about alcoholism, that I was an
alcoholic before I ever picked up a drink. I was like a freeze-dried alcoholic waiting for
alcohol.
And I believe that because of what it says about alcoholism in the big book Alcoholics
Anonymous. It says that we are bodily and mentally different from our fellows, and there
was something wasn’t quite right about me, even as a little kid. And I can’t blame it on
my family.
I didn’t come from an alcoholic home. I came from a family that loved me, that took very
good care of me, that were always on my side. I sit in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous
sometimes, and I listen to people talk about how terrible their childhood was, and
sometimes I’m envious.
I wish I came from an alcoholic home. Then I could hang my weirdness on somebody. But
there was nobody to blame.
There was just something about me that wasn’t right. And even though, intellectually, I
understood that I was loved as a little kid, there was something about me that couldn’t
feel it. I was that internally focused, even as a little kid, that I was disconnected from the
stuff going on around me.
Now my sister could feel it. She always experienced and felt the love in our family, but I
was very self-involved, even as a little kid. I’ll tell you a little story.
I was thinking about this at dinner tonight. When I was about three, maybe four years
old, I went with my folks one day on this outing, and on the way back to the house, we
stopped at this farmer’s market. And we stopped there because my dad wanted to buy
this horseradish that he’d heard about, that had won all these awards, and it was hotter
and spicier than any other horseradish.
So I’m going in there with my folks, and I’m listening to my dad brag to my mom about
this horseradish. And I’m a little kid. I don’t know what horseradish is, but I’m hearing the
commercial.
So they get some, and we’re on our way out to the car, and I’m saying, Papa, can I try
some? And he said to me, he says, Rob, you can’t have it. It’s too powerful. It’s too
strong.
It’s only for adults. You can’t have it. Well, there’s something about me that I may not
really want something until you tell me I can’t have it.
Then I just can’t stop thinking about it. To this day, I can barely make it by a do-nottouch-wet-paint sign without going like, there’s something about me that’s like that. And
here I am, a little kid.
I waited till my folks weren’t around. I snuck in that kitchen, got that jar of horseradish,
got a big spoon. I sat on the floor of that kitchen, opened that jar of horseradish, stuck
that spoon in there.
And this was before LSD, but I think I saw God that morning. Snots pouring out of my
nose, and tears are running down my eyes. I spit horseradish all over that damn kitchen.
Sick, sick, sick, sick, sick, sick. That was over 40 years ago. I have not once sat with a jar
of horseradish, big spoon, didn’t need no sponsor, no meetings, no 12 steps, nothing.
But I got to tell you, square business, if that horseradish would have done for me what
alcohol did for me, I’d have spent the rest of my life making myself sick with that crap
every chance I could get. Because I was born with a hunger, and an incompleteness, and
an itch in my soul that kept drawing my attention into me. And I didn’t know that I had
alcoholism.
And my disease of alcoholism was touched by alcohol for the first time when I was 12
years old. And I’m with a bunch of guys, we pulled a little burglary in our neighborhood,
we stole some stuff, and one of the things we stole was some whiskey. Didn’t know
about drinking, didn’t really want to drink, I just wanted to fit with these guys.
And I was the kind of kid that was driven by a vacuum inside of me that I’d have done
anything to fit. And we’re passing around this bottle of whiskey, and after the burning
went away, I got to tell you, it made me feel so good that the way I was without it, from
that moment on, was never enough again. And I live for it.
And when you’re 12, 13, 14, 15 years old, you can’t get drunk every day, but I got drunk
every chance I could get. I’ve never had a social drink in my whole life. I’m the guy that
Dr. Silkworth talks about in the big book when he says that we have this phenomenon of
craving, this allergy to alcohol.
When I drink, something happens to me where I just break out this phenomenon of
craving. It’s just one drink just says, yeah, oh, more, more, oh yeah, more. And not
everybody’s like that.
And I didn’t get that. When I first got sober, I knew that I was the guy for some reason I
couldn’t start, because once I started, I couldn’t stop. But I didn’t understand what
Silkworth meant when he said that we are different, that this phenomenon of craving
differentiates us and sets us apart as a distinct entity, that it never, ever occurs in the
average tempered drinker.
I didn’t understand that, because to me, my alcoholic life seems the only normal one. So
I just assumed, and why wouldn’t I, that everybody who drinks gets the same effect from
alcohol that I get? I wouldn’t think anything else. That would be like trying to, I’d like to
be imagining that strawberries taste different to you than they do to me.
It never occurred. And I don’t really get it until I’m about four and a half years sober. And
I’m dating this gal that’s not an alcoholic.
And we’d go out to dinner, and she’d order a drink. I swear to God, it’d take her a half
hour to drink one drink. I mean, she’d sit, sip, forget it’s there, talk, stir it.
I’d just sit there sometimes and watch the ice melt. That’s like alcohol abuse, you know
what I mean? I asked her one time, I said, were you ever drunk? And she said, one time
in college, and it was awful, and she’d never do that again. I was at her apartment one
night.
She pulls out this glass case, and it’s got a marijuana cigarette in it. And she told me the
story. She says, yeah, a couple months ago, I was at this party.
(12:05 – 15:11)
Some guy gave me this marijuana cigarette from Thailand. So I took two hits off of it. I’m
saving the rest for New Year’s Eve.
You might not live that long. I never saw her drunk. I remember one time, no, probably
two or three occasions when I was with her, I would see her have two drinks.
I’d see her order the second drink, but I can never remember one instance where she
ever even finished the second drink. She drank two-thirds of it or half of it or part of it.
After a while, she’d push it aside.
She’d say, I don’t want any more. I’m starting to feel it. It’d be easier for me as an
alcoholic to have sex, and after two strokes, say, I don’t want any more of that.
I’m starting to feel it. And do that with two drinks of alcohol. And I started to get it from a
contrasted experience.
What Silkworth was talking about when he says that these people aren’t like us. You see,
when my friend, who’s not an alcoholic, took two drinks, she got a feeling like she was
losing control. I take two drinks, I get a feeling like I’m getting control.
Alcohol does something fundamentally different down to the core of my being than it
does to normal non-alcoholic people. And I remember saying one time in a meeting that I
liked alcohol because it took me there. But you know, the real truth is, is that most of my
drinking it didn’t.
It might have in the very beginning, but what it would do is it would take me so close to
being there that I could almost touch it. And it would make me crazy. And that’s why I
think I drank with such a sense of urgency, because I got a sense through most of my
drinking that maybe on the next drink, man, I’m going to be there.
And so I couldn’t get him down me quick enough, and I drank with that sense of urgency,
and I was a pig, basically. I’ve never had the experience that a non-alcoholic has. And
non-alcoholics will frequently go to a bar and be sitting there drinking for 45 minutes,
and the bartender will come by and say, Bob, it’s like another drink.
And sit there and go, no, this is just right. I’ve never been there. I have never had one
moment in all my drinking where I ever was just right.
It’s always about to be, maybe on the next drink. And that’s what it is to have the
phenomenon of craving. Now, if that was all there was to my alcoholism, then in 1970 or
1971, when I started getting into places where they started telling me about alcoholism,
I would have quit drinking.
I could have done the Nancy Reagan program of recovery, just say no. But there’s
something about me, I can’t, I can say no. I’d say no good for a while.
(15:11 – 18:00)
I’d say no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. All right. And for an alcoholic of my type,
there is a yes in every barrel of no’s.
And it might be on the top, and it might be on the bottom, but it’s in there. And it’s in
every barrel of no’s for a guy like me. And I can’t stop that thing.
And I started coming in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I tell you, I know what it’s
like to get to that point where I just, I don’t want to do this anymore. And I would swear
to myself, I’m never going to, I don’t want to touch this stuff anymore.
And the problem with me is, is that no matter how tremendous my resolve is not to
drink, the emotions and the feelings of abstinence gradually grind away my resolve. And
sometimes they’ll grind it away a week after detox, and sometimes it’ll be six months
down the road. But it’s like, every time I put down my last drink, it’s like lighting a fuse.
And it’s coming. The drink’s coming. And I can’t stop it.
And I, I was a short fuse kind of guy. And I have friends that are, God, they could just
tough it out for years without the steps and sponsorship and without AA. My friend Billy,
he talks about going seven years dry on his, without any, without the steps or nothing.
Seven years. I can’t, I can’t imagine that. I’ll tell you the kind of guy I am.
I, I saw this in a movie when I was a kid. There was, I saw this movie about, it was during
the Cold War and the Russians were, had captured an American spy and they were going
to torture secrets out of this guy. So they had him strapped naked in his chair and they
had this doctor with these electric wires and they’d put these electric wires on this guy’s
nuts and he would scream and yell and wither and just be in such pain.
And they would do that to him for hours and hours and hours. And eventually, after a
couple days, he would give up and tell them what they wanted to know. I’ll tell you the
kind of guy I am.
I’m the guy you just show the wires to. And I don’t like being that way, but that’s the kind
of guy I am. So when, when the emotions of abstinence starts putting the screws to me, I
don’t have the, I don’t have it to stick it out and tough it out.
I go get some relief. And sometimes I, I, I, it’s not, I don’t always run out and get a bottle
of whiskey. Sometimes I’ll go crazy and go to a psychiatrist’s office and he’ll put me on
medication.
(18:01 – 18:47)
The problem with me and medication is, is that medication gives me a little bit of relief
from alcoholism, but a little bit of relief has never been enough for me. And it just starts
a slow burn inside of me and eventually it’s not enough and I got to go get a jug of
whiskey or something stronger. Sometimes I would just get to the point in abstinence
where I’m just going crazy and I’d, I’d get a couple bottles of NyQuil.
It’s not that I got a cold, but I can feel one coming on. And I’ve started runs that way, you
know, thinking, well, I’ll just drink NyQuil. That’ll be all right.
And then I’d be off. Next thing I know, I’m drinking Quartzer Richard’s Wild Irish Rose
again. Oh, a homeboy.
(18:47 – 20:08)
I have a special love for Richard’s Wild Irish Rose. If I ever go out again, that’s probably
what I’ll drink. It’s, it’s a, it’s, it’s terrible going down.
It’s better coming up. It’s a good, it’s a good thing. I, so here I am.
I’m going in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous and I, I can’t stay sober and there are
times when I make up my mind I’ll never drink that stuff again and I go back to it and I
sit in AA meetings and sometimes I try to listen to you people and, and try to understand
what’s going on here and nothing I hear or see here makes any sense. And the more I’m
exposed to you, the more convinced I become is that I am not like you. Because what I
see in AA on a regular basis is I see people who stop drinking and they’re magnificent.
They’re wonderful. They’re happy. They’re, they, they love life.
They have great relationships with people. They just seem to mix. They laugh a lot.
Their life is really good. I sit there in the halfway houses in the AA meetings listening to
people from the outside come into the meetings and listen to an endless procession of
miracle stories. Of, of stories of how wonderful your life is.
(20:10 – 20:34)
And I come to a conclusion that whatever’s wrong with you can’t possibly be the same
thing that’s wrong with me. Because I quit drinking and I’m prone to deep depressions.
And I quit drinking and I’m full of such, I’m so full of anxiety and, and feelings of
restlessness and, and, and I, I don’t fit anywhere.
(20:34 – 23:27)
It’s almost as if when I, when I stop drinking as if this invisible yet impenetrable barrier
exists between me and everyone else that I can’t seem to break through or surmount. As
if everything in life of any meaning or substance just seems to be just beyond my
fingertips. And I live in a world where it appears, especially in Alcoholics Anonymous,
where you people got it.
And whatever you got, I don’t got. And the only time I ever had even any kind of
semblance of what you have was when I’d have about five shots of Jack Daniels and the
barrier would come down and I could come out and play and I could fit and I could be a
part of. And one of the things that I didn’t understand in Alcoholics Anonymous is that I
kept getting the message that alcohol was my problem.
But on some very deep level I knew that alcohol wasn’t my problem, it was my answer.
It, for some reason, it was an answer that I could no longer jump start. But it had been
the only answer I’d ever known.
And if you have the same disease that I got, you, you remember the times when alcohol
was the most immediate and effective treatment for alcoholism that you, that there
exists. It was awesome. I remember in ninth grade, this kid in our high school, his
parents went out of town.
He lived in this big home and he invited everybody in the high school there for a party.
And I remember walking up to the front door of his house and walking inside and
standing inside the front door and looking over in this one room and there was a whole
bunch of couples sitting on the sofas in there making out. And then over in this other
room, this family room, there was a bunch of people dancing.
And then way in the back of the house in the kitchen, there was a bunch of guys, a lot of
the real popular guys and the guys from the football team and they were around this keg
of beer and they were laughing and telling jokes and stories and the laughter was rolling
through the house. And I remember standing inside that front door with this sick, lonely
feeling of separation, a sense as if it was all of them and then there was me. And I
wanted to run and bolt out of there.
That sickness of separation was overwhelming. And instead of leaving, I slunk around
that house and I found this coffee table, this card table that had a bottle of 151 rum and
some glasses and ice and coke and I made myself a couple 151 rums and cokes and
man, within 20 minutes, I’ve got a girlfriend, I’m dancing. Later on, I’m back in the
kitchen with the guys from the football team and we’re like lifelong friends.
(23:27 – 23:40)
It’s just awesome. At that point in my alcoholism, alcohol was a treatment for my
alcoholism. It was the most immediate and effective treatment I ever found.
(23:41 – 24:01)
Because when I walked into that party, I walked in there suffering from the soul sickness
of alcoholism. My spirit was depressed and alone and sickly and a couple rum and cokes
vitalized my spirit. And it was a tremendous treatment.
(24:01 – 24:16)
But alcoholism is a disease of diminishing returns. The big book of Alcoholics Anonymous
says it’s a progressive illness. And as the years went on, the fun and the effect got less
and less and the problems got more and more.
(24:16 – 24:44)
And it was like every time I’d start a run, it was like spinning a roulette wheel. And in the
beginning days, on that roulette wheel, there was like a slot for getting laid, dancing,
going to a party, shooting pool, laughing with the guys, making new friends. There was
one in there for jail and there’s another one in there for getting sick.
But it was a lot of fun stuff. And as the years went by, somebody’s slipping in there and
changing the deals on there and they’re putting jail in there more often. They’re putting
detoxes in there more often.
(24:45 – 25:32)
I’m spinning that wheel knowing there’s got to be a good one in there somewhere. And
it’s coming up. It ain’t coming up party no more.
It’s coming up all bad stuff. And I can’t seem to change it. And I tried everything that we
all try to control it.
I tried mixing drugs in with it. I tried eating right. I tried vitamins.
I tried everything. I would have done anything to jumpstart that party. But one of the
cruelest blows of my alcoholism is that as the years went on and as I’m losing everything
of any value, my family, my self-respect, my ability to work, my freedom as they
sentenced me to two years in the state penitentiary.
(25:32 – 25:58)
As I’m losing everything of value, when I finally got to the very end and there’s nothing
left of me, the saddest thing of all is that I can’t even get high right no more. I can’t even
have any fun. It would have all been maybe worth it on some kind of weird alcoholic
balance scale if I could have still got an hour every once in a while of fun like it was in
the old days.
(25:59 – 26:17)
And at the very end, I’m drinking because I can’t stop and I can’t stay away from it. And
it’s not fun no more. Now I’ve entered into a phase of my alcoholism where I’m just as
miserable and lonely and depressed when I’m drunk as I am when I’m sober.
(26:18 – 26:36)
And I go through the last period of my alcoholism where I’m in and out of halfway houses
and I’m one of those homeless guys and I get sober and sobriety. It feels like I’m doing
time and I can’t stand it because I’m so restless, irritable, discontent. I’m so depressed,
sober.
(26:38 – 27:00)
Feelings of shame and guilt for all the things I’ve done to my family and the people that
have cared about me. And abstinence is unbearable until I can’t take it anymore and I
seek relief in the bottle one more time, one more futile vain attempt to recapture
something that was unrecapturable. And I start to run and it ain’t no party no more.
(27:00 – 27:35)
And I start to run and now I’m just as depressed and lonely and sick of spirit drunk as I
was when I was sober. And that brought me to a point in my alcoholism where I started
to think about suicide. In 1970, 1977 I was sober for several months.
I was in a halfway house. I was sober about as long as I could stand it. And I was at that
point where I just, I used to get to a point where I used to get so lonely and so
depressed, sober.
(27:36 – 27:50)
I would just feel like my God if I don’t do something to change the way I feel I’m going to
lose my mind here. And there was a guy that I had been in a detox with that had been
back to drinking. He had a little trailer down in a little town called Aliquippa outside of
Pittsburgh.
(27:51 – 28:14)
And I called him up and he told me about this new bar that he found, this rock and roll
bar. And he said there’s a great band there and there’s great women there and it’s just,
it’s awesome. And I’m like drooling.
You know, I’m sober about as long as I can stand it. I’m ready. So I get a weekend pass
and I go out with the intention of going down there and I’m going to have a good time
that weekend.
(28:14 – 28:49)
Drink Friday night all day, Saturday, Sunday morning, sober up so I can make it back to
the halfway house Sunday afternoon. Still a victim of the illusion that I can control and
enjoy my drinking. Now I’m not an idiot.
I know that there’s probably a chance here that it might not be exactly like I think it is
going to be. That I could, something bad could happen. But I thought what’s the worst
case scenario here? They find out I was drinking, I get thrown out of the halfway house
so I get down to the Hope Rescue Mission or the Salvation Army or I get in another place.
(28:49 – 28:52)
It’s not a big deal. Not the end of the world. I can live with that.
(28:53 – 29:04)
Acceptable limits of casualty here. Okay. I start that run Friday night and I got to tell you
on the square the best time of that whole run was the hour before it started.
(29:07 – 29:18)
It was awesome. The anticipation was just incredible. And then I started drinking and the
minute I started drinking that phenomenon of craving kicked in.
(29:18 – 29:26)
I couldn’t stop and I’m not coming out and playing. I’m not mixing it up. I’m not dancing
with nobody.
(29:26 – 29:38)
I’m not shooting pool with the guys. I’m drinking myself into oblivion. Looking at
everybody else in the bar that’s having a good time and wondering what’s wrong with
me? Because I could remember the days when it was like that.
(29:38 – 29:51)
I could remember the days when it was a party and I knew a truth about me that I did
not want to know. I knew that the party was over. And man, I got to tell you, I didn’t want
to know that.
(29:52 – 30:29)
And I didn’t want to know that because if that’s true, what’s the use of living? Because
what do I got to look forward to? Sobriety? AA dances? Potlucks? Oh man, to me, AA had
good news and bad news. And the good news is, well, Bob, maybe if you go to thousands
of these stupid meetings, you’ll stay sober the rest of your life. And the bad news is, Bob,
you’re going to live a long time.
(30:34 – 30:44)
See, I’m the guy that they talk about in a vision for you. I can’t imagine life without
alcohol. I can’t imagine with it anymore because it’s killing me and there’s no more fun.
(30:44 – 31:05)
But I can’t imagine life without it either. And I was stuck and I was at the jumping off
place. And I started this run and my intention to be back at the halfway house Sunday,
Monday sometime I’m coming to in this county jail and I’m facing two years in a state
penitentiary for a hit and run DUI in a stolen car.
(31:07 – 31:15)
Unacceptable limits of casualty. I went before a judge after. I tell you, I’ll never forget
this moment.
(31:15 – 31:32)
I’m in that county jail and they came down and they said that I could have a phone call.
And I can’t even describe the sick feeling I had in the pit of my stomach when I realized
that there wasn’t a person on the face of the earth that I could call. I was totally alone.
(31:33 – 31:38)
I had burned out my parents years before. They wouldn’t take my calls. I had no more
friends.
(31:38 – 31:44)
I had no more running partners. I’d used everybody up. And I was totally alone.
(31:44 – 31:52)
So I started calling bail bondsmen. And bail bondsmen are weird. They don’t want you to
have like an address and a job and stuff, you know.
(31:52 – 32:02)
And I don’t have any of that stuff. So I sat in that county jail for several months until I
went before a judge. And I went before this judge and he knew a lot about me.
(32:02 – 32:12)
He had all my record there. And he sentenced me to two years in a state penitentiary.
And I got to tell you, when I heard that sentence, I thought I was going to die.
(32:13 – 32:18)
See, I don’t jail well. Some people jail well. I don’t jail well.
(32:19 – 32:31)
I hate it. I’ve always hated it. I hate having to go in there and put on that phony gorilla
outfit and act tough in front of those crazy people and act like when I’m secretly just a
scared little kid inside.
(32:32 – 32:46)
I still got scars on me, several scars on my body from beefs I’ve got in in county jails with
guys where I had to stand up and swing at them to show them I’m not afraid. I hate
living like that. This judge said two years.
(32:47 – 32:55)
And I thought, my God, I can’t do two years. I’ll be the guy that hangs himself. And then
he cut me a break.
(32:55 – 33:07)
And he said, we’re going to stay your commitment. We found this place that will take
you. It’s the only place that would take me because I would burn out every other
treatment center and place in that part of Pennsylvania.
(33:07 – 33:12)
It’s a place called the Ark House. It wasn’t really a treatment center. It was run by a guy
in AA.
(33:12 – 33:32)
And they housed about 200 skid row winos and guys out of prison. It was just like that,
one of those kind of places. And the judge said, if you go in there and you can stay in
there for a year, get good UAs, good PO report, make the restitution, and you do
everything you’re supposed to do, you come back before me and we’ll take a look at
whether you do the two years or not.
(33:32 – 33:45)
But if you can’t do all that stuff, you’re done. You’re gone. So I went into this place and I
got to tell you, if sincerity and desire was enough to overcome alcoholism, that would
have been my sobriety date.
(33:46 – 34:06)
But I’m the guy that they talk about in the big book when it says lack of power is my
dilemma. No matter how powerful my desire not to drink, eventually the emotions and
the feelings of untreated alcoholism will grind away my resolve and desire to be sober.
And I can’t help that.
(34:06 – 34:25)
I can’t stop that process. And I’ve hated myself for years for being that way. And I go into
this place and I’m determined now I’m not going to drink and I’m not picking up day in
and day out and week in and week out and month in and month out and I’m just getting
it up to here.
(34:26 – 34:39)
And I’m so irritable and uptight and depressed, I just can’t stand it. And I’m scared
because I know what’s coming. I’ve been down this road before and I don’t want to drink
no more.
(34:39 – 34:54)
I don’t want to do the two years in prison. I don’t want to… It’s not even any fun
anymore. And I went on my last… One guy in AA tried to help me, tried to tell me about
the steps.
(34:54 – 35:00)
I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at the steps when you’re in a place like that. They’re
bleak. Oh, jeez.
(35:01 – 35:10)
I mean, I look at the steps and I say, oh, man. And it wasn’t that I was philosophically
opposed to the steps. I mean, they look like a nice set of actions.
(35:11 – 35:20)
I mean, if I ever got my life together, I could do something like that. I might join a gym
too. Who knows? But that doesn’t seem to affect me immediately.
(35:20 – 35:48)
It doesn’t seem to apply to what’s really going on in me. And so I went on my last run
and on that run, I couldn’t even get any more relief. And I took my bottle of Richard’s
Wild Irish Rose and I walked down to this bridge out in Pittsburgh and I’m standing on
this bridge looking about a hundred feet below down on these railroad tracks and I’m
sobbing uncontrollably and I’m out there to kill myself because I just want to stop it.
(35:48 – 36:04)
I just want to stop this madness. And I’m stuck. I’ve got to tell you, when abstinence
sucks and drunkenness sucks, suicide starts looking like a good deal for a guy like me.
(36:05 – 36:20)
And I’m on this bridge but I’m there to jump but I’m a coward. And I’m facing the
dilemma of alcoholism when you can’t drink, there’s no relief in the bottle and
abstinence is unbearable. You’ve got a dilemma here.
(36:21 – 36:53)
It’s like neither alternative works and that’s when suicide starts to look like a good idea.
If you don’t know what a dilemma is, I’ll tell you a story. The first example of a dilemma I
ever saw was, I heard this as a little kid, I’m around the schoolyard one day and this
guy’s telling this story that he’d heard from his father about the Japanese during World
War II were going to torture, were going to kill this American spy and instead of killing
him they wanted to give him an alternative to death.
(36:54 – 37:38)
So what they did is that they immersed his private parts in a concrete block that was
part of the foundation of a wooden building, covered the wooden building with kerosene,
gave him an old rusty hacksaw and lit the building on fire and he had a choice. Now
that’s a dilemma. And that’s the spot that a lot of us get to when by the time we get to
Alcoholics Anonymous we know we’ve got to stop drinking but it’s like, oh man, stop
drinking or die, if somebody would have said to me, Bob, if you keep drinking you’ll be
dead in three days.
(37:39 – 37:48)
Oh, good. Give me a jug. The problem is to die from alcoholism sometimes takes a long
time.
(37:49 – 38:26)
I’ve been real active down on Skid Row in Las Vegas and detoxes and I’ve seen a lot of
people die of alcoholism and the problem is that it takes such a long time and by the
time you’re dead everyone you’ve ever loved or cared about or wanted their approval is
all glad you’re dead. They’re so sick of you and you die in such shame and loneliness and
feelings of self-hatred and I don’t want to die like that. I’m going to die someday but I
ain’t going to go that way.
(38:27 – 38:41)
And here I am on this bridge and I want to kill myself but I’m afraid. I really want to die
but I’m afraid it’s going to hurt. Or even worse, with my luck I might not die.
(38:42 – 39:04)
I might end up paralyzed from the neck down in some charity ward stuck there for 50
years while members of Alcoholics Anonymous bring their newcomers into the hospital
room and I get to hear them say well this is what happens to you when you don’t work
our wonderful 12 steps. And I’m paralyzed I couldn’t even give them the one finger
salute. I’m just stuck there.
(39:06 – 39:59)
And I’ll tell you something when you can’t drink successfully and there’s no relief in the
bag in the bottle and you can’t stay sober and abstinence is unbearable and you don’t
have the guts to commit suicide I was in California in 1978 and I came off that last run
on the run from the police trying to make it to California and as far as I got it was Las
Vegas, Nevada. And I ended up there in a detox and I got into the place again and my
drinking as I always got to where I couldn’t drink anymore. Physically I couldn’t keep it
down and I used to be it’s detox time because I’m one of those kind of guys that has
seizures and all that stuff and I got into Las Vegas and I was reintroduced to Alcoholics
Anonymous one more time.
(40:01 – 40:39)
And I don’t know I’ve thought about this a thousand times over the years and I’m
wondering what happened to me. Why all of a sudden I sat in those meetings in those AA
meetings in that detox and I could hear things that I could never hear before and I’ve
come to the conclusion that maybe for whatever the bottom is maybe the view is
different from the bottom. And all of a sudden I sat in those meetings and all the that
mechanism that defense mechanism inside of me that always kept me separate from
those people by my judgment was gone.
(40:40 – 47:02)
And all of a sudden I’m sitting in the meetings and I’m nodding my head and I’m
identifying and I’m realizing that I’m like these people. And I was I was sober not very
long and a guy after a meeting I grabbed him and I told him about some of the problems
I was facing the two years in prison and the I didn’t have any place to go and I was
unemployable and unemployed and I had nothing to my name and he told me something
that I guess I was just ready to hear it he said to me he says kid he says none of that
stuff is any of your business he said if you will make Alcoholics Anonymous the center of
your life and put it in the place in your life where staying drunk was and you make it the
most important thing in your life he says I guarantee you all this stuff will take care of
itself. And he said when Joe said that to me I sat there and I thought what the heck I
don’t have an answer to how I’m going to stay out of prison I don’t have an answer to
how I’m going to get a job I don’t have an answer to how what I’m going to do with all
these crazy insane emotions and this weird mind that I have that won’t shut off that
spins out of control constantly and I said okay and I guess that was my moment of
commitment to put Alcoholics Anonymous the center of my life and I’ve never undone
that I’m sober over 23 years I still go to 8 to 10 meetings a week I have a sponsor I
sponsor guys I still get physically on my knees every morning and every night I try to do
a 10th and 11th step every day I read something out of the big book on a regular basis
I’m an active I have commitments 4 commitments a week in Alcoholics Anonymous in
Las Vegas I’m an active vital member of AA because I have alcoholism not alcoholism I’m
not the guy that comes in here and as the years go on I got a little bit less alcoholism
today than I had 5 years ago so I don’t have to do as much Alcoholics Anonymous I’m the
same I came in if anything I get a sense that maybe I got more alcoholism today at least
I seem more sensitive to it when I was new I got this 2 years in prison hanging over my
head and I am just I’m I’m scared to death I don’t know what I’m going to do and I’m just
I can’t I’m ducking I grabbed this guy in AA one night after a meeting and I told him
about it he said he said you’re going to have to turn yourself in you’re going to have to
contact them write them a letter and then followed up by a phone call talk to your PO
and offer to come back there at your own expense and do the 2 years and anything they
would tack on and I thought no man no hey I’m not drinking here you know I’m doing
good aren’t I huh he says you got to do that and I said what do you mean I got to do that
he says well he says do you really think you’re going to stay sober with that hanging
over you he says you’re never going to be able to get a job you’re not going to be able to
use a social security number you’re not going to be able to get a driver’s license how
long do you think you’re going to be able to stay sober hiding out I thought oh man Jesus
I don’t want to go to prison I don’t want to do 2 years in prison this other guy chimes in
he says to me he says well Bob he says you know from our experience I don’t think
you’re going to have to do the 2 years in prison unless there’s somebody in there God
wants you to help I thought what kind of crap is this I don’t want to help anybody in
there Jesus Christ these people in AA are just off the charts I mean but they convinced
me to do it and so I did what they told me I wrote a letter I told them I was in AA I said I
wanted to change my life and I’m willing to come back and do the 2 years and anything
they wanted me to do and I sent them the letter and about 10 days later I called up my
PO and he was expecting my call and he had talked to his supervisor in the courts and
they said I don’t have to come back and he had it all set up with a place called CRS and I
was supposed to go down there and he had signed me to a PO and I had a payment
schedule and I was free and I remember coming away from that phone call thinking man
this might work for me and I never forgot years later see this guy is sober 16 so it would
have been 7 years later I went to skid row detox and he asked me to sponsor him and I
said sure and we started talking and he was a three time federal loser and he was on
federal parole and he committed some additional crimes and he’s facing a minimum of 5
years in the federal penitentiary and he’s telling me all of this so I can’t wait to tell him
so I said here’s what you have to do you have to write your PO you have to follow it up
with a phone call and he’s looking at me and I’m getting a kick out of the way he’s
looking at me and he’s looking at me and I told him you think you’re going to be able to
stay sober and he said I don’t want to do this and I said Eddie I don’t think God’s going to
have you do the 5 years unless there’s somebody in there who wants you to help and he
looks at me with this look and I got his face printed on my mind and he did what I told
him to do and the federal marshals came and locked his ass up.
(47:02 – 48:03)
I couldn’t believe it. I get the phone call from the treatment center and you could hear
this big oops and I tell you what happened. The federal marshals had to come and get
him because the paperwork was already in place and he was violated and they took him
away and they held him for several weeks and his PO went to bat for him because his
federal parole officer was impressed with his sincere desire to change his life and they
unviolated him and about several years ago he got his record sealed and now he’s the
general manager of one of the larger car dealerships in Las Vegas and he just bought his
second huge house up on this group of this hill where all the big homes are and he drives
around town in this Mercedes convertible and he’s free.
(48:04 – 48:33)
And he’s been waiting for years for somebody that he can tell the same story to. I found
that as the years go on it seems like I’m more and more sensitive to my own alcoholism.
You hear people say that the road gets narrower.
(48:34 – 49:01)
I don’t know if that’s true because sometimes it seems to get broader and I get
tremendous freedom in my sobriety and then there are other areas where the road
seems to get so narrow and my choices seem to diminish. And when I took that third
step in early sobriety and I said to my father, I said, God, I offer myself to thee to build
with me and do with me as thou wilt. From that moment to this, God has been working
on my life.
(49:03 – 49:34)
it’s sometimes it’s very hard for me to see his hand in my life. Sometimes a long period
of time has to go by and I’ll be struggling with something and all of a sudden one day I’ll
look at some area of my life and I’ll realize it is different than it has ever been and I
didn’t do that. And I guess I’ve come to trust and believe in this power that we call God
here.
(49:34 – 49:49)
The only way a guy like me could is to actually experience his grace in my life. I’m not
one who believes because you tell me. It has to be real for me.
(49:50 – 50:06)
And I’ve had things happen to me, so many coincidences happen to me over and over
and over and over again in my life that I’ve become convinced. I’ll tell you one of the
ones that really impacted me a lot. I was in early sobriety.
(50:06 – 50:17)
I was about a year and a half sober and I was going through a really tough time. I was
ending my first sober relationship. I’ve got to tell you something.
(50:17 – 50:43)
There’s not a human being on the face of the earth that is more self-obsessed than an
alcoholic ending a relationship. You can go up to a guy like that and say, I just came from
the doctor, I have terminal cancer in two weeks to live, and he’ll say, and you know what
else she said, man? I am nuts. I am going through this nuts driving by her house in the
middle of the night to see if any guy’s car is there.
(50:43 – 50:55)
I am just insane. I’m at this late night meeting and I’ve been asking God for help. And
there’s this guy shows up in this meeting who’s from California and he’s sober 28 years.
(50:56 – 51:11)
And after the meeting we go out to a coffee shop. And we sit in that coffee shop and for
20 or 30 minutes I’m telling him about this relationship. I’ve told him about this
relationship until his eyes are glazed over.
(51:12 – 52:25)
And he sat there patiently and listened to me go on and on. And when I was done he said
some things that just blew my mind. want to know what you worship? He said worship
just simply means to lean your consciousness towards.
(52:26 – 52:46)
He said do you want to find out what you worship? At the end of the day make a pie
graph of everything you’ve been thinking about during that day. And the thing that has
the biggest piece of the pie is what you keep leaning your consciousness towards. And
when he said that I imagined in my mind this picture of a pie with a little sliver for AA
and a little sliver for work and the rest of the pie was her.
(52:51 – 53:17)
And on page 55 of the big book it talks about an inner source of power. It calls it the
great reality which is deep down within us. And it says I will find that great reality in the
last analysis after I have looked everywhere else and I will find it after I unobscure it that
it is obscured by calamity and by worship of other things.
(53:18 – 53:54)
And I started to get a glimpse of what separates me from God and what separates me
from that part of me that just is in love with life and in love with you that allows me to be
the external that allows me to live right here right now with you right this moment. And I
started to look through the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous at the things that obscure me.
And I wish I could tell you from that moment on that I haven’t worshipped anything else
or been obsessed but I have found myself in that exact same position and sometimes it
is the job that has the big piece of the pie.
(53:54 – 54:02)
Other times it is a resentment. Other times it is prestige. It is what you think of me.
(54:02 – 54:12)
It can be a lot of things. It can be money. And my job is to unobscure the source so that I
can be an instrument.
(54:14 – 54:40)
Oddly enough in step three it doesn’t say in the third step prayer I am not asking God to
take away my difficulties so I will be happy or so I will be wonderful or so I will impress
you. It says take away my difficulties so that victory over them would bear witness to
those I would help of thy power, thy love, thy way of life. May I do thy will always.
(54:41 – 54:59)
And I finally after several years of sobriety I understood the basic truth that Alcoholics
Anonymous is not a self-help program. It’s a program of self-abandonment and service.
That for some peculiar reason I was given a blessing called alcoholism.
(55:00 – 55:23)
And that blessing has put me in a place in this universe where I cannot fill my holes with
anything. And it’s not like I haven’t tried. I don’t know a group of people on the face of
the earth that haven’t put more time and energy and effort into making themselves
happy than we have and the end result is we are the most miserable people on the face
of the earth.
(55:24 – 55:39)
And in Alcoholics Anonymous you guys taught me that I had it backwards. That I will
never fill my vacancies in the hole in my soul by anything I can bring into me. You can’t
love me enough to make me whole.
(55:41 – 56:14)
But when I start caring about you, it feels like the way I always imagined it would feel if
enough of you loved me the right way. And I love the theme of this conference, giving
rather than getting. If you’re new here and you’re full of fear and you don’t feel very
good, I hope that you have a sponsor that will push you against your better judgment
into taking actions of self abandonment.
(56:15 – 56:32)
And you will find that you will cross a line in Alcoholics Anonymous from being a taker
into being a giver. And if you can cross that line, you will find everything there is to find
here. You will never find it by being a taker.
(56:32 – 57:00)
There’s not enough money, there’s not enough love, there’s not enough attention,
there’s not enough well wishes in the universe to fill my holes. God knows I know.
Several years ago, I sat in my living room one day in a deep, deep depression
wondering, wondering if maybe I should, maybe some of that Prozac stuff would be okay
with a guy like me.
(57:01 – 57:19)
And I sat there in this deep depression in a big house looking out over Las Vegas in the
garage. I had a brand new Jaguar, a brand new Corvette, a 740 IL BMW, and two custom
Harley Davidsons. I had more money in the bank than I knew what to do with, and I felt
desolate and alone and vacant.
(57:21 – 57:54)
And you know what had happened? Unbeknownst to me, my life had become the center
of my life. And I had a great life, the problem was that it’s all about me. And I’ve also had
the same experience in early sobriety of driving a $100 car with the door tied shut and
the electric windows all stuck in different positions, full of new guys from the Samaritan
house, and we’re going to meetings and we’re laughing and we’re more alive and vital
and happier than I’ve ever been.
(57:58 – 58:22)
And it’s only through God’s grace, sponsorship that pushes me into actions that are other
centered. And the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous that allows me to live with a
terminal illness called alcoholism. When I can be concerned with you and I’m out of the
way, God’s grace works very well in my life.
(58:23 – 58:40)
When I’m concerned with me, I feel shut off and abandoned. And what changed?
Nothing. I’ll tell you, one of the earliest experiences I had in sobriety that really gave me
the first glimmer of this deal called self-centeredness.
(58:40 – 58:49)
I was at this meeting one night and I had a great day. I mean, I’m working as a cashier in
a store. I’m making about four bucks an hour.
(58:50 – 58:54)
The customers are treating me well. The boss is not on my back. There’s no big problems
in my life.
(58:55 – 59:11)
I had dinner with a couple guys before the meeting. I’ve had a great day. This guy comes
up to me before the meeting starts and he says, Bob, how are you doing? How are you
really doing, Bob? I said, fine.
(59:11 – 59:32)
I sat there and the meeting started and I thought to myself, what does he know? And I
started thinking about it and I thought, Jesus, I bet you something ain’t right here. Maybe
I’m in that denial thing that they talk about. Now that I think about it, I don’t even feel
very good.
(59:34 – 59:42)
That job that I thought was so good, it’s really going nowhere. I’m going to be old. I’ll be
60 years old making four bucks an hour eating alpo out of a can.
(59:44 – 59:55)
I started looking around the room and it just became really apparent to me that
everybody there was happier than I was. Everybody was getting laid more often than I
was. Everybody had more money than I had.
(59:56 – 1:00:08)
And I just started sinking into this abyss and what had changed? My perception. That is
all. My sponsor talks about alcoholism being a disease of perception.
(1:00:09 – 1:00:39)
And it is the actions of Alcoholics Anonymous that are designed to take a guy like me
and do the same thing that five shots of Jack Daniels were designed to do. I could walk
into a bar so locked up in me and so depressed I wished I were dead and five shots of
Jack Daniels and I could come out and play. And if I can’t find a way to externalize myself
and get free from the bondage of self and sobriety the way alcohol got me free from the
bondage of self I will die of alcoholism.
(1:00:41 – 1:00:54)
And I guess that’s the main reason I’m an everyday member of A.A. Because I have
alcoholism every day. And not everybody in A.A. is like me. It took me 15 years to realize
that.
(1:00:54 – 1:01:04)
There are some people in A.A. that all they got to do is just stop drinking. And they’re
fine. But I’m not that type of alcoholic.
(1:01:05 – 1:01:27)
I’m the guy that’s a member of A.A. because of the tradition the membership
requirement in the long form of the third tradition where it says all the membership
should include all who suffer from alcoholism. And but for the grace of God, people like
you, rooms like this, and sponsorship, I would die of alcoholism. I want to thank you for
my life.