Welcome to Sober Sunrise, a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience, strength, and hope from around the world. We bring you several new speakers weekly, so be sure to subscribe. We hope to always remain an ad-free podcast, so if you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-onrise.com.

Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. This is a good thing here.

My name is Joe Anna Hansel and I'm a recovered alcoholic. >> >> I love each and every one of you too because it's necessary. Uh Amy, thanks for asking me down here.

This this is I'm not going to strip. Um >> thanks for having me here. You know, this meeting really means a lot to me, a a whole lot.

And uh as I tell my story within the hour here, you'll find out why. Um the last couple months, I've been asked to speak at places that I've uh told my story nine years ago out in Oregon and eight years ago down in San Antonio. And it's caused me to reflect on my life on what's happened in that period of time.

And uh I've been doing this talking at meetings like this around the country uh because I'm one of the sicker members of AA. God sends me far far away to hear things that I he knows I didn't hear Wednesday in my home group because I'm a slow learner. But I started out doing it 19 years ago at the 26th International Young People's Convention in 1983.

>> And that's how it started. I just start sharing my story. They go, "You got to hear this goofball.

This guy's nuts." And uh so my story, my traveling around the country and being exposed to other people that have helped me grow spiritually started with this convention in 1983. I was asked to be a a speaker. They wanted somebody that got sober young in a local area to be a kickoff speaker on Thursday night.

And I thought, well, who's going to be there on a Thursday night? And there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. It just blew me away.

And it seemed like everything unfolded from that. Uh I was sober 4 and 1/2 years. My wife was 6 months pregnant with our first boy.

And uh if you would have told me that my life would have unfolded the way it has the next 19 years from that day in 1983, I would not have believed you. There's no way that I you could have gotten me to believe that I would become a happy, whole, and useful human being most of the time. You just couldn't have got me to believe that.

Uh, I would tell you a little bit about myself before I get going. I've been sober since October 5th, 1978. Uh, I've had the same sponsor since I walked in the doors of Alcoholic Anonymous on April the 10th, 1977.

Uh, I've lived in the same house the last 17 years. I've been married to the same woman for 22 years. Uh, my two boys are 17 and 18 years old and I've been on the same job with the same company for 22 years.

And I just wanted to share that with you because I had no idea that I was going to be coming around here 19 years later to report back to you on what my life was like in 1983. And sometimes I forget to tell people what my life is like now and what, you know, where I live and who I live with and all that stuff. And I just want to tell you that and get that stuff out of the way first.

That's who I am. That's where I live. My wife, my kids, my job.

I've had the same home group since I started coming to it in in 1977 called the Giant East Fourth Street Group of Alcoholics Anonymous. And uh we meet in Kentucky now. We did meet in Cincinnati and we got too big and moved over to a a clubhouse called the Promises Club.

And um I'm just glad to be here. I'm glad John came down. He calls me a sponsor.

And Bill Bill's anniversaries today. He's celebr asked me to be a sponsor. And it's been a real joy knowing the guy over the years.

We I think we've helped each other out pretty much, both of us, back and forth, just by knowing one another. Um, I grew up in the 60s and uh, they were a wonderful time to grow up in, man. There was a lot of stuff happening.

I just loved it. Every day something different was happening, you know, and I know you're young, but puke smells like puke in the 60s, just like it does in the 21st century. All right.

And uh, in 1963, I remember Kennedy got killed, the president got killed. I just, we couldn't believe it. I had just blown away.

And then a a few years later uh in 1968 his brother got killed and Martin Luther King got shot and they had the uh Democratic National Convention in Chicago and they're beating the hell out of all these people and they have college campus riots all over the country protesting the Vietnam War. 1969 they went to the moon. I mean Walder Kron kites bringing in the Vietnam War every night 6:30 every night into the living rooms of everybody's homes watching the news.

something was happening every day and it was a wonderful time to grow up in and I grew up as a kid in the 60s and 70s and I looked at all that stuff and I couldn't wait to jump in somewhere. It was exciting to me. It was fantastic.

And uh everybody in my family's alcoholic. We all weren't sick at one time. Three out of four of us are sober and that's pretty good.

My mother's sober 31 years. My brother's sober 18. I've been sober 23.

My father's never found sobriety, but we all weren't sick at the same time. Everybody got sick at different paces, you know, and there was nothing out of the ordinary about my life. I didn't I wasn't one of those disadvantaged kids.

I didn't grow up feeling weird and looking weird. I mean, I had this hair my whole life. I I wasn't cool till Jimmyi Hendris came along, but I just I don't think I felt any more weird than any other kid growing up.

I think feeling weird's part of puberty. And uh thank God I didn't have to experience puberty till I was in my 20s and aa you know. Thank God for alcohol and drugs.

And uh nothing really seemed out of the ordinary in our family. We had some weird relatives. My mom's dad, he was a drunk.

He was a heavy drinker for years. He drank 40ome years and and quit because the doctors told him he had poor circulation in his leg. So he just stopped.

I thought he was weird. You never stopped just cuz a doctor tells you. You know, I could see myself saying, "No, get me a wheelchair.

I'm not done drinking yet, doc." Rolling up to the liquor store with no legs. I mean, the doctor telling me to stop's not going to do it. But grandpa stopped because a doctor told him to.

But before he stopped, grandpa was entertainment for us. He would come down the street. We lived on a little dead-end street.

Today, they call them culde-sacs. There are no outlet deadends where I grew up. And uh we lived the fourth house from the end.

Everybody knew everybody. If a strange car come down the street, we knew they didn't belong there. I mean, everybody just knew everybody.

And my grandpa was a heavy drinker. He drank Echo Springs whiskey almost every day. And he had a buddy of his that was a yellow cab driver.

And they used to like to get drunk and come down our house. And they would come down the street in a yellow cab. And my dad would go, "Oh god, Jubel, your father's out there.

Get him. He's drunk." And she'd go outside. Me and my brother, we're about 10, seven to seven and 10 years old.

We're looking out the window and dad's just pacing cuz grandpa's drunk. They pop the trunk on this yellow cab and they have a possum on a leash and he's walking it around drunk in a neighborhood and this buddy, the yellow cab driver's walking with the with the possum and my dad's going, "Oh god, GET YOUR MOTHER AND YOUR GET your grandfather. Get your father.

Get somebody. Get him out of here. Everybody's going to see.

Get get him. Get him. Get him." He was freaking out.

And me and my brother going, "That's cool. THAT'S COOL. GRANDPA'S GOT A POSSUM ON A LEASH." HOW HOW MANY PEOPLE'S GRANDPA DO YOU KNOW HAVE A POSSUM ON A LEASH?

I MEAN, BUT WE DIDN'T THINK anything about that stuff. I mean, I I was grandpa. And then on on my uh same thing on my mother's side of the family, her mother's mother lived in what we used to have estate mental institutions.

And she lived there for 40 years of her life because of alcoholism. She was 24. She died when she was 64 of ovarian cancer.

But we'd all used to go out visit grandma. You know, we summertime everybody pile in the car, aunts, uncles, cousins. We'd go out to the state institution to visit grandma and grandma' be sitting there babbling, spitting on herself in the commissary.

She'd be all buzzed out on pills. And uh I didn't think anything about it. I thought everybody had somebody weird in their family and sick.

And I come to A and I found out we do. EVERYBODY I KNOW IN A'S GOT SOMEBODY SICK IN THEIR FAMILY. But I didn't think anything about that.

I didn't feel inadequate. I uh I'll be honest with you, I was a happy, positive kid. I was I enjoyed life, man.

I had a zest. I had an adventure for life. My mom had a hard time holding me back because once I got my idea on what I was going to do, there was no stopping me.

I mean, that's just the way God built me. I can't help it. I was born positive.

And uh I guess I was about 10 or 11 years old. Joined the Boy Scouts. That's what kids were doing in 1966, whatever.

And uh had fun doing that. It was fun. By the time I was 14 years old, I was an Eagle Scout.

Had God and Country award in the church. General West Marlin, give me my Eagle Scout award. That was pretty cool.

He was in charge of the Vietnam War. It was his war and uh he called it my army. And then I had a guy that was my sponsor as a young boy, President Langson, the University of Cincinnati.

He offered me a free college education at 14. But what I didn't know at that time was I was alcoholic. And it didn't matter what people's plans for me were.

Alcohol alcoholism had a different plan. I was 13 years old. told the guy across the street 16.

He says, "Hey, there's this girl over at the high school wants to know if you want to come to her party." I said, "Well, who is it?" And he tells me, "She's 18 years old." And you know, when you're 13 and she's 18, that's called opportunity. And I says, "Yeah, I'll go." You know, it's like I'm not worthy. Yeah.

What are we going to do? We said, "Well, her brother's over in Vietnam and he's sending a pillowcase home of marijuana once a month and she's got a new pillowcase. You want to try it?

I'm 13 years old. I go, "Well, yeah, I'd seen that stuff on TV. I saw all those hippies, you know, I saw them all rioting and marching and protesting.

I thought I'd try it." I didn't know what that stuff was. Now, believe me, I know this is Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'm not here to disrespect Alcoholics Anonymous, but my god, when I was 13 years old in 1967, I wasn't sitting there going, "This will piss him off in the next century in AA. >> >> I was a 13-year-old kid, okay?

I was innocent. It was 1967. People were trying that stuff out.

I tried it out. I went over there and they're they're smoking these cigarettes that look like American flags. And some of them are brown, some are yellow, some are pink.

And uh before you know it, you know, I got these headphones on. I'm listening to James Gang Funk 49. and I'm smoking and stuff.

All of a sudden, I opened my eyes. I went, "Oh my god, look at that." I mean, it was like my senses were on volume 10. And it was like, "Wow, this is like going to a carnival.

Never had to leave my seat. Woo! Look at that." But the first thing I noticed was, man, my mouth was dry.

Wow. My tongue is sticking to the top of my mouth. I said, "Do you have anything to drink?" And they SAID, "YEAH, KID.

COME ON IN HERE." And went into the kitchen, had one of those swinging kitchen doors and and somebody knocked a can opener on the floor. They're all high on this Vietnamese pot and they thought that was the funniest THING THEY'D EVER SEEN. THEY'RE ALL LAUGHING ABOUT THIS CAN OPENER AND I'M LAUGHING ABOUT THE CAN OPENER.

I can't believe I'm laughing about a can opener. And this guy says, "Here, kid. Have some of this if you're thirsty." And it was one of those big bottles of Valley High wine.

Oh, you too, huh? I love that. The hair on my arm kind of tingles when I think of Valley High.

And I start I crack the top. It was one of those big bottles, one of them big round ones. And I start hitting on that and they're still laughing at the can opener on the floor.

And I'm hitting it and they're still 15 minutes went by and I took the last swig out of that bottle and they looked around and go, "Hey, you're what?" I said, "You're supposed to pass that around." I said, "Well, NOBODY TOLD ME. I'M 13 YEARS OLD. I DON'T KNOW NOTHING.

I drank that whole bottle. It tastes like fruit punch. You ever drink one of those big peanut butter malts and you can't stop sucking on till you get down to the bottom?

That's the way I was with that valley high. And you know what I remembered? I remember feeling like a million dollars.

I remember these older people accepted me into their crowd. I remember like Bill talks about in his story, he felt like he had arrived and was accepted by his peers. Now, looking back on it, I know that's not what happened.

I know there were a group of 18-year-old guys going, "GIVE THE KIDS SOME WINE. WATCH WHAT HE DOES. HE'S LIKE A MONKEY.

You know, the more you give him, the more he does." They were using me for entertainment now. And I didn't know it, but I felt like one of them. I felt like I'd fit in.

Uh, and I didn't become alcoholic overnight. I didn't become obsessed. I didn't start stealing money out of my mother's wallet yet.

You know, I wasn't there yet. Uh, some guy come along, I'm 14, he says, "Here, try this LSD to give you a better understanding of yourself in the world you live in." Wow. You know, in 1968, people were trying to find themselves.

They were trying to find the truth. And I said, "What does it do?" They said, "It makes you see things that aren't there." I said, "Really?" He said, "Yeah, and you're the only one that's going to see them." I said, "Well, what will you be seeing?" He said, "I'll be seeing something else. I said, "Really?" He said, "Yeah." He said, "But that's why you take it, to see things.

And remember, if it gets too hairy, it wears off in about 8 or 10 hours." So, whatever you see, just remember it's not there and enjoy it. And I says, "Okay, I'll try one of those." That that marijuana stuff. That was like going to a carnival.

Let's try this. I am bizarre. I love that.

Did it about 400 times. I loved it. Just thoroughly loved it.

And uh it was the era that I grew up in. And I'm sharing these things with you because I want to make a point. Doing drugs doesn't make somebody an alcoholic.

I mean, I did a acid 400 times. That's not what makes me an alcoholic. It's what happens when I drink.

That's what makes me an alcoholic. I've done it all. Got hooked on crystal methadine, did masculine, did soapers, did did it all.

Stole some thorazine out of somebody's cab at one time. I'll never ever do that again. Ever.

Ever. Ever. You know how we are.

If one's good, two's better. And they were 500 mgram, 1,000 mg. And I'm laying on my mother's patio at 9:00 in the night on the stones on the on the on the floor outside.

She goes, "Why don't you come in and go to bed?" I said, "If I could get up, I would." WOW. I JUST THOUGHT, "OH, IT just I never did that. It hurt.

It just achd. Oh, I never did that again." And the whole time the drinking's picking up. The drinking's picking up.

You know, my hair is out the hair. I had one of these big afro. We turn your head and the hair moves.

It catches up to it. And uh my drinking's picking up. We're drinking Boon's Farm Apple Wine.

>> Yes. Damn. That felt good when people That is neat.

Strawberry Hill, Keiante, Thunderbird. It's just It was wonderful. It was wonderful.

And I don't know what people drank around here in the ' 60s, late60s, early '7s, but Stros beer was the big thing back then. And everybody had quartz of Stros. Everybody's drinking Stros.

And I'm I'm having a wonderful time. And I'm doing all these other drugs, but the drinking's starting to pick up just a little more. Little just it's working its way in there.

And before you know it, I'm running away from home at 16 years old, having a bad day. Got in an argument with my mother. I didn't like what she said.

I said, "Bye." and I hitchhiked to Miami Beach with nine cents in my pocket in February, no coat. And uh I wasn't taught that in the Boy Scouts. I My emotions were getting scrambled from drinking all this wine and doing all these drugs.

And you know, one thing about LSD and black mollies and all that stuff, they let you drink and you can just drink and you don't fall down. You just keep going and going and going. And uh my thinking and my decision-making process was fried.

just fried. And if something didn't go my way, I'd say, "Bye." And I'd go all the way to Florida, going to find myself. I found myself in a trailer park down there, North Miami Beach.

I'm a bus boy in a Chinese restaurant at 16 years old. I have hair out to here. I'm the only white guy in there.

Everybody else is Chinese. I'm going egg roll. Ah, I mean, I didn't I mean, how do you go from President Lansom offering you a college education and General West Morland saying, "I like young men like you in my army." to egg roll.

I don't know, but that's alcoholism. And I kept trying to brush it off. Brush it off.

I'd hitchhike back to the trailer park, get picked up by weird people that want to do weird things. And I'd say, "Nope. Let me out this light." And I go, "That didn't happen.

That didn't happen." And all of a sudden, I'd get homesick. I'm 16 years old. I go back home.

I'd run away when things aren't going well again. I'm 16. I just turned 17.

It's 1971. I get thrown in jail in Cordial, Georgia for hitchhiking. I had hair out to here.

I mean, it was out there. And the guy with me had hair down to his butt. And uh they didn't like that in Georgia.

They uh they didn't like anybody if you weren't from Georgia. And this guy that pulled me in, this guy that was hitchhiking over, he was big and fat. had the mirror glasses on.

He would walk waddled up to me and goes, "You wide or black boy." And uh I didn't know your rectum could tighten up that fast, DUDE. OH MY GOD, WE'RE IN TROUBLE. AND YOU DON'T REALIZE I just seen THAT MOVIE DELIVERANCE.

YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN? And I I could hear that banjo whailing in the background. I thought, "Oh, oh my god." You know what they're going to do to us?

you know, and uh the other guy, he was a skinny sheriff sheriff's deputy and he said, "We tie these boys up, throw them in the swamp." Nobody know a thing about it. And I thought I thought that movie again where he goes, "Sure got a pretty set of lips on him, DON'T HE?" WE'RE WE'RE REALLY IN TROUBLE, YOU KNOW, cuz that movie was made 60 miles from where they picked us up. And I thought, "This stuff's real, isn't it?" I mean, and they were having fun with us.

They knew we were a bunch of runaway kids. They were they were just toying with us. But it scared me to death.

And the point was I didn't know why I was there. I was sober. I couldn't even give you an honest explanation of why am I in jail in Cordal, Georgia, being hassled by a fat guy with mere glasses.

I don't know. I couldn't say, "Well, I was trying to find myself because that didn't pan out." Uh I didn't know my decision-making process had become scrambled by alcoholism. And uh I went back to Cincinnati again.

And I ran away again. And and finally, I got in so much trouble. It was either go to prison or go into the military.

I went into the military. Make a long story short, I signed up for four years. I could only handle a year and a half.

And I had to get out. I didn't know I needed a drink until I got out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. That's a bad place to find out you need a drink.

I'm in the bottom of a ship. I'm in the bottom of a ship with boilers and turbons just and I'm sweating and I'm working 16 hours a day and I'm standing on a 4-hour watch getting 4 hours of sleep and I'm going, "This is a bad idea. I don't know why I did this.

I don't know why. I I don't know why I went into the Navy. I should have went to jail." And uh I I told this guy, he says, "I made a bad decision getting in the Navy.

I think I'm going to get out." And he laughed. He said, "You can't get out of THE NAVY. ONCE YOU SIGN UP, THAT'S IT." And I thought, you watch me an alcoholic.

You watch me. I'll show you. And I went through the buper manual.

I found the discharges. And I went through them and I found flat feet. And flat feet.

I thought I have weird looking feet. I can do that. And I played the game to get out.

Alcohol said you're going in the Navy. Alcohol says you got to get out of the Navy. I didn't know that back then.

I thought I'm going home to help my mother. My mother had been sober and Alcoholics Anonymous for about five years at that time. And uh I went home to help my mother and I didn't know that I was a drunk.

I didn't know that once I start to drink I couldn't control how much I drank or what happened. And I just really I ruined her life. I ruined a girlfriend's life.

I would go to work and I didn't know what the hell was wrong with me. I didn't know I had a physical allergy that once I start to put alcohol in my body, game over. I don't know how much I'm going to drink and I don't know what's going to happen.

That's what makes me alcoholic. And I didn't know I had that allergy. I would I would make up excuses of why I'm doing what I'm doing because I didn't know what I was doing.

You know, I remember getting a job one time. I went to work every day for two months. I started to drink.

I didn't show up for work for two weeks. I couldn't stop. I I couldn't stop drinking.

I'm going to go to work tomorrow. I'm going I'm I'm going to make it. And all a sudden, I wake up and it's 10:00 in the morning.

The birds are chirping. I'm going, "Oh, no. I I did it again.

I I I can't I can't get to work." And the phone rang after two weeks. And this it's my boss. He's calling my mother's house.

He says, "Do you still work here?" I go, "No, as a matter of fact, I'm glad you called." I made a career change. I'm going to school to be a truck driver. I'll be in to pick up my check.

Thanks. I wasn't going to truck driving school. But you got to have something fast to tell them because if you don't have something fast to tell them, they think you're nuts.

They think you're crazy. What am I going to do? Say, "Ah, well, I can't come in.

I can't stop drinking. Don't know when I'll stop, but I'll be in when I'm done drinking." No, you they think you're crazy. And I always tell this story because it's so true.

Drunks like me have to have fast answers cuz they don't know what's wrong with them. I remember passing out with my pants down around my ankles at a party one night. Oh, come on.

This is Hey, don't act shocked. Some people even had their pants on. But I I woke up one time with my pants down around my ankles.

And the girl says, "Well, how come you had your pants down around your ankles?" I said, "I was hot. I didn't even think about it. It was the first thing that came out of my mind.

But I wasn't going to say they were down around my ankle. Oh my god. Cuz if you let people know, you don't know.

They're going to think you're nuts. I had to rationalize and justify and come up with lies fast, fast, fast to make you think that there's nothing wrong with me. And you know what?

Everybody around me knew there was something wrong with me. Employers, my family, girlfriends. It got to the point where my mother had to kick me and my brother out because now I was violent.

I went through jobs. Uh I'm coming home at 3:00 4 in the morning and mom's 6'2. My mother's about 5'2 and I would tower over my mother in her kitchen at 3:00 and 4 in the morning calling her all kind of names.

Names that you have used yourself because you drank like I did. Watching the tears stream down my mother's cheeks because she was afraid of me and she was sad that I was dying in front of her eyes and she knew there wasn't anything she could do. I would come home and I'd throw lamps and just throw them up against the wall and break them.

I would throw fans that were plugged and on. Didn't care, you know. I'd put fist through walls, tear doors off of hinges.

And uh my mother finally got to the point she says, "My god, Joe, I can't live like this anymore. The people in a tell me I don't have to live like this anymore." I said, "Those people in A are crazy." I said, "Just because you join Alcoholics Anonymous, we have a drink once in a while, you got to kick your damn kids out. Those people brainwashed you.

You're nuts. Dad was right. You are crazy.

I mean, that's the way I would talk to my mother. It's sad. But that's the way.

And I could hear myself saying it and I'm going, "Oh my god, what' you say that boy?" But I was like, I was watching myself and I couldn't turn it off. It was like I was on a movie and I couldn't change a channel and I'm saying these things to my mother and I'm feeling terrible on the inside, but yet they're coming out on the outside. She says, "You and your brother are going to have to get out of here.

I I can't live like this anymore." And she kicked us out. She changed the locks. She got restraining orders on us.

We weren't allowed within 100 feet of the house or we were going to jail. That's pretty bad when you get restraining orders on your own kids. But that's what my mother had to do.

And you know, it took my mother talking to members of AA, a sponsor and a social worker, it took her two years to come to the conclusion that the best thing she could do for her sobriety and the best thing she could do for her boys was to kick us out. I thank God that was one of the best things my mother ever did for me in my life is she kicked me out because by allowing me to live there, this is just my case. I don't know about anybody else.

By by allowing me to live there, she was telling me, "It's okay. You can kill yourself. You can live off a woman.

I'll pay your bills. You can flop out. You don't have to go to work.

You can tear my property up." That's what she was saying by letting me live there. And what she said when you got to go was, "No, I can't do this no more." She said, "Joe, I hear a siren. I think they got you again.

You're always in these wrecks. You might not be driving, but you're in the wrecks." She said, "Joe, the phone rings." I thought, "Oh, God. They've got him downtown.

They've got him down to jail. Somebody says, "You got to come get I can't live like that anymore. You're coming at 3:30 in the morning.

The garage door is going up and down. You got strange people coming in. I don't know what you're doing out in the garage, but it's waking me up.

You know, I'm dealing out in the garage." And uh so I had to go. And I got a sleeping room in No Hope, Kentucky. Nothing personal.

It was in Covington, Kentucky on 15th in Scott. And I always talk about this because alcoholism took me there. An old roachinfested sleeping room on Scott Street.

I had a bare mattress on the floor for a bed and a cardboard box turned upside down for an end table. I had a light that hung from a wire on the ceiling. I had curtains, plastic curtains with grease on the blinds.

I had a sink in my room. You know what I used for? You drank like me.

This is aa I would come in and hit those lights. Boom. Those roaches would start running all over.

I never had any food in there. I thought, "What the hell these roaches doing in here?" But alcohol was still working for me. You know, when alcohol's tearing your life open, it's still working.

It's still making everything okay. I'd come in and this is how alcohol is still working for me. Now I'm living in a roachinfested sleeping room across from a laundromat on Scott Street, downtown Covington.

I'm the only guy in the building under 65. holes in the walls. I have no food, no nothing.

But alcohol is still working for me. I hit the door, the lights make all the roaches move all over the place. I slam the door, fall out on my mattress.

And you know what alcohol says? Don't worry about that mattress. You hang in there.

We're going to get you box springs and sheets one day, but right now you just hang in there. And I'd say, well, all right. and I'd just pass on out.

Or I'd look over at my my box, my end table, where I'd put my room key and my six cents, my change. And you know what alcohol would say? Hey, hey, don't worry.

It's a member of the wood family. We'll get you real wood one day. You just hang in there.

All right. And I'd say, well, all right. And I'd just go on out.

Or I'd be laying there and all of a sudden one of those little critters would come up and I'd open my eye and they'd be giving me one of these in my eye and I said, "Well, everybody's got to have a place to live." All right. Alcohol made an unacceptable situation acceptable. That's alcoholism.

It changed my perception on where I was. It was kicking my butt and it was making me like it. And I loved every step of it.

As long as I was drinking, I felt all right. It didn't matter what problem I had. It was okay.

You know, I really love Alanon. If it wasn't for Alanon, I wouldn't be married right now. But the non-alcoholic does not understand that alcohol makes the alcoholic like me feel in control.

The non-alcohol, I'm not drinking. I'm not in control. And the non-alcoholic, they go, "Oh, IT MAKES ME FEEL SO OUT OF CONTROL.

I DON'T KNOW WHY they want to feel out of control." It made me feel in control, man. I was the center of the universe. I felt like a million dollars.

And I'm living like this. I'm tearing people's lives up. They don't want to have anything to do with me.

I'm living in filthy conditions. And I'm going, you know, isn't this great? Nobody to complain about my drinking.

I don't have to hear my mother whine and complain about how I'm coming in drunk anymore. This is beautiful. And as time went by, I I lost the ability to work.

I was there in 76. I'm 21 years old. I turned 22.

Now it's 1977, January the 18th, 1977. 25 below. Windchill 70 below.

I was out there in that cold weather. No hat, no gloves. Ohio River's frozen.

People were walking across the river that year. And all of a sudden, I find myself going from a bar downtown or a bar out in North College Hill. Now I'm downtown Cincinnati looking up at the crew tower and it's about4 to 4 in the morning and the wind's howling.

I have no glove, no hats, and I'm in the middle of the Ohio River going across the bridge. And if you just said, "Joe, do you think you might have a problem with your drinking?" I said, "Well, hell no. I don't have a problem with my drinking.

I've got 30 cents, but the buses aren't running." What do you mean a problem with my I I don't have a problem with my drinking drinking? No, I you know, my problem's at mother. You know, if she wouldn't have got sober and alcoholic synonymous, my mother father wouldn't be divorced.

I'd be a college graduate by now. But no, she had to go to that damn AA. I you know, that's really my problem.

My problem is the Navy. You know, if id got a job at a in an air conditioned room, nice white clothes like a radar man, maybe I'd be a lifer. I'd have been a career man by now.

No, I was in that damn boiler room. I know what it is. It's because I have a GED.

I I don't have an education. That's why I'm out here. It's the girlfriend that dumped me.

It's the car they towed away. But it can't be the alcohol. The alcohol is the main thing that made me feel like a million dollars.

The alcohol is a thing that let me dance at that high school dance. You remember what it was like feeling all geeky at the high school freshman dance? You know, it wasn't that you didn't know what to say.

You couldn't get the words out. Alcohol took the fear away. Sh, I danced with the guys.

I didn't care anymore. You know what I mean? Anything that makes you feel that good can't be the problem.

It's got to be all these other things. And uh I came to AA for the first time as a young sick man at 22 years old on April the 10th, 1977. I had a spiritual awakening.

I had called Alcoholics Anonymous and the person who answered the phone was my mother. Yeah. And uh I says, "Mom, this is Joe." She says, "What do you want?" I says, "How how do you stay sober?" I I I I something inside of me says, "I don't have to drink anymore." I had this profound spiritual awakening.

And she puts me on the phone with a guy at the AA Clubhouse and says, "Uh, hey, you think you might have a problem with your drinking?" I said, "Well, I might. I mean, I really didn't know. He says, "Why don't you come down to the meeting tonight?" I says, "Well, I'll tell you what.

I'll be right I'll be down tomorrow. I'm just wore out. I'm cooked.

I'm dirty. I want to go home, get cleaned up. Go back up to the community bathtub that all 10 of us use that are up on the second floor and get cleaned up and go to bed.

I'll be down the next day." And I went to my first meeting on April the 10th, 1977. I had hair out to here. I had bib overalls on with absolutely nothing on underneath.

No shirt, no underwear, no socks. an old pair of worn out Earth shoes. And when I walked in, I knew somebody was going to say, "Man, why don't you get a haircut?

You look you look a little wild. Why don't you take a bath? You stink.

You can't wash wine out of your pores that's still coming out just because you stopped drinking the day before." I smelled bad. I had that wine smell. Uh I knew somebody was going to say, "Why don't you get a job, man?

Where's your card? Where is your underwear at, man? Where is it with the BVDs?

Huh? I knew they were going to say that to me cuz, you know, that's what I said to myself every day. I woke up in that sleeping room on Skid Row.

When are you going to get a haircut? When are you going to get a job? Where the hell is your underwear?

What happened to your truck? Jeez, I Oh, I just, you know, and I I could never come up with any answers. I didn't know what was wrong with me.

And I knew these people were going to say the same thing. And you know what? a guy 55 years old came up to me and he walked up and he shook my hand.

He says, "Welcome. My name's so and so. It's really glad to have you.

Why don't you come on over here and have a cup of coffee with us?" And I thought to myself, "This guy's just being nice to me because he knows my mother." I was sober five years in Alcoholics Anonymous before I found out on that day he didn't know who my mother was. He saw a drunk that was sick and need a need of help and he came up and he stuck his hand out and he says, "We don't know if you're an alcoholic like we are, but if you are, you're in the grips of a progressive fatal and incurable illness. Never gets any better without spiritual relief, you know." And then another woman, she was really old.

Christ, she was 40. You know, I'm 47 now. 50 is mild, but when you're 22, 30's gone.

Okay, she was 40. and uh she said, "You know, if you want to find a way up and out of your problems, we'll share with you how we did it." She didn't say, "We'll tell you what to do." And thank God she didn't because I don't hear tell. There are some people who are humble enough in AA to let someone tell them what to do.

I would have told you to go, "Well, you know what I would have told you? I didn't have underwear. What did I have to lose?" And uh you can't give instruction to people who don't have underwear.

I can tell you that. And I heard a guy tell a story that night, Don M, and he'd get a sponsor. Get a sponsor.

And he'd been to prison. And he looked like he'd been to prison. His nose was way over here.

And oh, he looked bad. And but I could identify with the way he drank. I could identify with the way he treated people.

I could identify the way he felt when he got sober. And after the meeting, I didn't know what a sponsor was, but I immediately started making decisions based on lies that helped me. I looked around, all these people were old.

I thought, "They must all be sober." Wrong. Most of them weren't. I looked around.

I thought, "Well, they must all have one of these sponsors." Wrong. Most of them didn't. But in my head, I thought that's the way it was cuz they were all old.

So, I turned to the guy next to me. I said, "Would you be my sponsor?" And he goes, "Yeah." And he's been my sponsor ever since that day. I didn't pick him because he knew the big book.

I didn't pick him because he was happy. I didn't pick him because he was an active member of AA. I picked him because he was there.

I >> >> and he sat there and he he was one of the very few people in the Cincinnati area that was my age. He was about nine months older than me. And he says, "Well, these are the things that I do to stay sober in AA." And it was almost like this guy's too happy.

He was like Disneyland happy. You know, he would laugh, you know, in the warp, sick, twisted mind of the alcoholic, everything's exaggerated. I'm cooked.

I don't have underwear. And this guy's happy about not drinking. Okay.

Laugh. He's going, "You I'm going. You know, you're nice, but you really can't be that happy about not drinking." All right.

Uh, and this guy talked to me about going to meetings and he talked to me about what he did to stay sober and and he talked to me about having a sponsor and talked about having a home group and and taking those meetings into the jails and the hospitals and the psychords. And I thought, "Well, this guy's nice, but he's obviously stupid. cuz I don't have underwear.

I don't need all those things. I really need a job. And he hands me this book called Alcoholics Anonymous.

And he says, "I read this and I try to do what it says to do. You might want to try it." And I open this book up. Remember, I have no shirt on, no socks, no underwear.

And I breeze through the book just to appease him. And I'm thinking, there's not one damn picture in this book. You know what?

you. I would have thought there'd be like one of those diet ads, you know? At least they have one of the co-founders passed out in the bathtub or something, you know?

Here's Bill drunk. HERE'S BILL SOBER. CHECK THAT OUT.

I GOT TO GET SOME OF THAT STUFF, MAN. Wasn't a picture in that book, you know? And I thought, well, this guy's nice and he's going, you want to go out and EAT WITH US?

OH, MAN. NO, I'm uh going back to my room. And I came back to AA not knowing what's wrong with me.

And I did everything he suggested that I shouldn't because you know what? I didn't really believe I was powerless over alcohol. I had this profound spiritual awakening that introduced me to AA.

But I didn't come to A because I had a problem drinking and my life was unmanageable. I came there because I had an education problem. I thought if I just go to college for four years, I'll be 26 and I can get on with my life.

You know, I have no underwear, no shirt, no socks. I'm thinking about my education. I mean, I I had no clue what was wrong with me.

I did everything but what he did. I read books like Think and Grow Rich, uh, Psychocybernetics. That's pretty good for a guy with no underwear, isn't it?

Um, Pyramid Power. I thought I was psychic. Jose Silva's mind control.

That's deep, isn't it? That's deep. Um, I read all that stuff.

And, uh, after about 89 days of going to meetings, I went to my sponsor. I said, "Well, you know, I might have had a problem with alcohol, but never really had a problem with pot. What do you think about that?" He says, "Well, if you haven't had a problem with it, I suggest you smoke it." You know, I thought he might be goofy, but he's the best sponsor in Alcoholics Now, you know.

And I started smoking that stuff. And what made me think I could smoke dope and drink Diet Pepsi? I have no idea.

I've never done that before, you know. Sounds kind of boring really. And I end up getting drunk and coming back to AA.

I went in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous about between 20 and 30 times. I was sober 89 days, once, four months, once five months the next time. I went to a meeting every day for five months.

Chaired the fifth month, the last day, walked out of the meeting, walking down the street and I thought, you know, a bottle of MD 2020 be really good right now. And uh my head said, well, you know, y'all just go get it. What's stopping you?

I thought, yeah, that's a good idea. And I went and got that bottle of MD2020. And I'm halfway through this bottle.

I'm thinking, you're one of those people that are constitutionally incapable. You're a loser. You're never going to amount to nothing.

Other people get the brinks. You're just a flatout loser. You're nobody.

You're nothing. Look at you. You just You've been to five months of meetings every day and you're drinking MD20.

Does any of that stuff make any sense? It just it doesn't make any sense to me. And I went in and out of Alcoholic synonymous.

And I didn't know that my state of sobriety would be October 5th, 1978. It was no different than any other time. I I still didn't have any underwear.

I had acquired a t-shirt. I smelled funny. I look funny.

I'm shaking. I got hair out to here. No job, no money, no car.

And I'm sitting in my sponsor's car after a meeting. And he says, "Joe, I want to thank you. You helped save my life this past year." And I'm thinking, I can't believe he just said that.

I'm smelling. I'm shaking. there's obviously I there's something wrong with me and this guy's saying you helped save my life and I said well what do you mean by that?

He said, 'Well, my mother died of leukemia and I watched her die. And he said, "Uh, I made a deal with God, Joe. If you save my mother, I'll stay sober.

She dies. The hell with you, the hell with my sponsor, AA, my home group, everybody. I'm drinking." And she died.

And he said, "Just about the time I was ready to go back out and drink, you drank. And I saw how I was tearing your life up. I just want to thank you.

You really teach me a lot." And I, you know what I thought? He's using me. THIS GUY'S using me.

He's hustling me. How can you hustle somebody with no underwear? HOW DO YOU DO THAT?

And I thought, you so And I walked out of his car and I thought, I'll show you. I'll I'll show you. A doesn't work for people like me.

I'm going to go to the same meetings you go to, smoke the same cigarettes, eat the same food, read that dumb book that doesn't have any pictures in it, and try to do what it says to do. And when it doesn't work out, I I just like everything I've tried, even up to a I can say, "Told you so. You're wrong." And I've been sober ever since then.

October 5th, 1978. I had no idea that what you were offering me here on that day was this. There was it was impossible to even fathom the idea of feeling like a happy, whole, and useful human being without alcohol.

I was just so hurt. I was so confused. I felt so bad.

My self-esteem was so low. I would do anything to get the approval and pray and praise from my sponsor. Anything because I I had no selfworth of my own.

And uh I was sober about three days. And I was sober 23 years last October. And this just came back to my mind.

I swear to God. I was sober uh about 3 4 days. I'm so in the first week or so of sobriety.

And I'm sitting in my sponsor's car outside the A meeting. And before he turns the ignition in his car to take me home to my room, he says, "I got to tell you something. I owe you I owe you this as as your sponsor," I said, "What?" He said, "I promise you, as sure as we're sitting here tonight in my car, Joe, that if you make Alcoholics Anonymous and staying sober the most important thing in your life, you won't ever have to worry about money.

You won't ever have to worry about a job. You won't have to worry about relationships. you won't have to worry about a car.

He said, "It'll all be taken care of for you. I promise you." And for five seconds, I looked at him and I believed him as sure as I'm looking at you right now. And 5 seconds after that, I said, "Come on, man.

I got laundry to do. Let's go." All right. It's like it just went out of my mind.

But from that point on, I did everything because he made that promise. And I was out to prove, "Hey, it wasn't going to work for me like that. I'm sober 30 days.

I'm getting cages. I'm reading this book. I'm reading it.

I know how to pronounce the words, but I don't understand it. I'm too warped. And I says, "Mike, I'm Ky.

Well, when am I supposed to write this inventory?" He says, "How soon do you want to get happy about being sober?" I said, "Well, like right now." He said, "Then I would write that inventory." I said, "Well, I read that stuff. I you know, I I read it. You know, we listed people, institutions, and principles with whom we were." What does all that mean?

I don't get it. He said, "That that means just put down people, places, and things that you're mad about." Oh, well, why didn't they say that? I know.

He just smiled at me. He knew I was cooked. And uh he says, "You write down what's bothering you.

You're going to automatically do what this book, Alcoholics Anonymous, talks about. It's impossible not to." He says, "Write down the things that make you mad. Write down the things that you're afraid of.

And write down that sex inventory. Everything you were never going to tell anybody, you write that down." I says, "Okay." And I walked away. And I thought, "You need me to stay sober like you say you do?

I'll freak him out. I'll tell him the truth." if you probably ever want to hear this again. And I wrote all that stuff down.

And I want to say this about the inventory. AA was designed for sick people to get well. You're looking at one of the sickos.

In the 70s, very few people were talking about the big book. They called us big book fanatics in in in Cincinnati or anywhere you went. And then in the 80s and 90s, they had big book seminars.

like that's advanced people, places, and things or something, you know. And I I remember this guy in the 80s or 90s coming up to me that I sponsor and he handed me this outline and I says, "Well, what is this?" He said, "It's a guide to the fourth step." I said, "You need a guide to the guide." I said, "We have a guide right in here." This is the guide. And when I looked at it, it looked like a computer flowchart.

You just plug in your emotions here. It's like two resentments equal a fear squared and one low self-esteem. It's like god damn.

Wow. Whoa. I mean, that was all I could do to put down about the buffalo from Billings, Montana.

All right. I did it with the buffalo, you know. And I'm here to tell you if you're here in your first year of sobriety, understanding this is not a requirement for staying sober.

A willingness to try it. And I will I will promise you if you write down how you feel, what you're mad at, what you're afraid of, the things you're never going to tell anybody about your sex life, and if you could see anywhere where you're at fault in that, and even that's not really important in the beginning. The big thing is getting that crap out on paper.

It's not the columns. It's not the form. It's the content.

It's what's in the columns. You know what I The buffalo from Billings, Montana. That's some embarrassing stuff about your sex life.

Does it matter what column the buffalo is in? Come on, man. Give me a break.

You know, my sponsor says, "Well, where were you at fault with the buffalo? I lied to the buffalo. I love you.

Does it matter what column that's in? I don't think so. I come to find out everybody's got a buffalo and aa and it don't matter what column it's in.

And I went I went on with the rest of the steps. And I with 30 days sober, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Because I didn't believe it was going to work, but yet he promised me it would.

And every time I did something in AA, he let me know that I was on the right path. And it was almost like it was almost like good kid. And I don't want to say it like that, but my sponsor's approval was so important to me because I didn't have anything on the inside to approve of.

There was nothing in there. And if he said that, that's one of the best things you've done for your sobriety, Joe. You keep doing that.

I'd go home feeling good. It would gave me something to feel good about. I'm sober two months, three months.

I'm laughing. This guy says, "How long you been sober?" I go, "90 days." He's been sober two and a half years. Just unhappy.

He goes, "People sober 90 days aren't supposed to be that happy." I said, "They're not like I was in trouble." You know, when you're 90 days, 2 and 1/2 years is God. So, I went to my sponsor and I said, "This guy told me I wasn't supposed to be that happy at 90 days." He says, "Well, where's that in the big book?" I says, "Well, I don't know. I haven't ran across it yet." He said, "It's not in there." He said, ' The next time somebody tells you that, ask them to show you where that's at in the book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And when they can't find it because it's not in there, tell them to go to hell and get another friend. >> We're not here to tear each other down. We're here to prop each other up.

We're here to help one another. This is a we thing. But before he let me off the phone, he said, this is where he slid the big book big book in on me about when people offended us.

This is what we did. He said, uh, but before I let you go, put yourself in his place. How would you feel if you were sober 2 and 1/2 years and there's this guy sober 90 days and he's happier in a bug and a rug?

What would you be thinking? I said, well, I'd probably be thinking, what's he doing that I'm not? He said, that's right.

Don't forget that. And he hung up. He helped me to have some kind of compassion for other people that didn't know about being happy, joyous, and free.

That we insist on having fun and enjoying life here. That's what sobriety is all about. Not drinking is good for staying sober, but Alcoholics Anonymous is about enjoying life and being happy about being sober.

And that's what my sponsor shared with me. I started working with other alcoholics and you know what I find people work with drunks the way they saw their sponsor work with drunks. That's just the way I've seen it happen.

And uh my sponsor got me involved. He got me involved in intergroup. He got me involved in the jails.

He got me involved in the psych wards. Got me involved in the prisons. Got me involved in 12.

I was just the more I did the better I felt. And all of a sudden, I realized I don't have to wait till I'm four months sober again. I don't have to wait till I'm sober five months again to feel good.

I can feel good right now. That feeling good and being happy is about right now. It's not about years and years and years.

If you're happy and you're sober 6 months and you're happy, you're no more or less happy than I am at 23 years. How happy is happy? How sober is sober?

I've had an opportunity to make more mistakes than you. That's about all. Well, I have the same steps, the same fellowship.

You know, I was sober 3 months, my sponsor sober four years. I go, I want what you have. He says, you can't have it.

I says, why? He says, because I've been making mistakes and learning and growing spiritually for four years. How are you going to get four years of mistakes stuffed into 90 days?

He said, but what AA will do for you is this. It'll help you be grateful for your life. And I thought, wow, I never thought about that.

I never thought about being happy with the life I had. I got so I got married when I was sober two years. I was the guy that's going to start his group called Sex Without Partners.

I I just couldn't BELIEVE I GOT MARRIED. IT WAS It was a wonderful thing. And uh I learned to fly a plane.

I got a pilot's license. Uh sober five years. My wife had a baby.

We named him after my sponsor, Mike. Uh and that boy, he's 18 years old now. A year later, on the same day, my wife did it again.

Uh, she had a baby. I told her, "Whatever you're doing, knock it off. Every year on November 20th is making me nervous." All right.

And we named him after my sponsor sponsor Bob. And we thought that much about the people who had been put in our lives. And uh, we named our children after these people.

And I don't know many people that do that. And I just felt like that was the thing I I was compelled to do. And these these boys are a joy.

I I remember uh the second boy that was born, he had his feet on upside down. He was severely deformed. And I'm riding to the meeting that night and I talked to my sponsor sponsor before the meeting.

I says, "Bob, I was thinking on the way to the meeting, am I going to have what it takes to raise these kids? I got a kid with his feet on upside down. I got a one-year-old.

Uh am I going to be able to do this? Is they going to let me do this?" And he laughed and he said, "Joe, remember this. your children aren't going to grow up because of you.

Your children are going to grow up in spite of you. He said, "It's your job to enjoy them." And I thought, "Well, that's easier for you to say. You don't have a crippled kid." That's what I thought in my mind, but it stuck.

And that boy's had operations on his feet, many operations and braces and stuff, and now he's 6'2, 230, and uh he's just fine. Smart guy. Whatever God didn't give him in feet, he gave him in brains.

A few years ago, um, in 1998, I, uh, reading an article in a travel magazine and, uh, it was about a group of people from Starbucks coffee that traveled to Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in central Africa. And, uh, it looked like fun, so I thought I'd try it. And somebody said, "Well, why did you do that?" I go, "Well, hell, I've already been to Gatlinburg.

I thought, might as well go to Kilanjaro, you know." And um so my son went with me 14 years old at the time, the one that's 18. And uh it was like 24 miles up, 24 miles down, and uh about the fourth or fifth day into it, we got to about 15,500 ft the night before. We were supposed to push to the summit, and he got altitude sickness, and he got afraid.

And he says, "Dad, I can't I can't think straight. The back of my eyes are pounding. I can't breathe right." I said, 'Come on, get your pack.

Let's go. We'll walk the same nine miles back down to the last camp. So, we walked 18 miles that day.

And on the way back down, I could tell he was disappointed because he thought he had ruined our vacation. And I says, "Let me ask you something." I said, "Uh uh, would you have come here if you would have known last year you were never going to get to the top?" He said, "I probably wouldn't, Dad." I said, ' Let me get this straight. You would have missed seeing Amsterdam.

You would have missed seeing Nairobi in Kenya. You would have missed seeing the Masai warriors out on the Serengeti plane and Mount Kilimanjaro. All because you wouldn't have got to the top.

I says, I owe you this as your father. And I says, you probably won't ever remember it, but I owe this to you. Sometime life's not about getting to the top.

It's about being happy on the side of the mountain where you're at. And I thought, where do Wino learn to talk to a kid like that? I >> >> uh I think I think it was Bill.

I think it was somewhere right after I got underwear. I haven't nailed it down yet, though. And uh I thought, well, where did I hear that at?

I heard that at the Giant East for street group at my home group in Cincinnati one day. And my sponsor says there's no leveling off spot. Alcoholics Anonymous teaches us to be happy on the side of the mountain where we're at.

We're either going up, we're going down, we're either comfortable or uncomfortable. We're going to find a way to be happy and useful right where we're at. That's what aid does for us.

And I never knew that I was going to spit that back out halfway around the world years later to my son. Never knew that. And that same son was in a car accident last month.

Broke his hip and total the van and all that. They they were coming from church. I said, "You need to get another church." He didn't like that.

He didn't get the joke, but uh a whole lot of things happens when when people are under pressure, you really find out what they're made of. And uh he had he was working two jobs waiting to get into the electrical workers union. You just got accepted into that yesterday.

And one of the jobs he had was Subway. And this one girl cussed him out and made a fool of him and embarrassed him in front of a bunch of people. and he says, "Look, I don't really like being talked to like that." He says, "I tell you what, I'll finish the day out, but I'm not coming back tomorrow.

Nobody talks to me like that." And uh he was in the wreck and uh I remember in the hospital at the emergency room, he's crying going, "Did I kill my best friend? Did I kill my best friend? Is he still alive?" And I remember him telling the state trooper when a state trooper said, "Did you have your seatelt on?" He always wears his seatelt.

That night he didn't. He said, "No, I didn't have it on." When the doctor said, "Did you have your seatelt on?" He goes, "No." And when he came home from the hospital, I says, "I need to tell you this as your father." I says, "I really I got to see something the last couple weeks that made my heart sore." He said, "What's that?" I said, "Uh, you you have good selfworth, son. You have an honest honest appraisal of your self-worth as a young man.

You don't like people talking to you like that." And you told that person and you had enough dignity to finish out the shift. I said, 'Th that tells me you've got dignity. And I said, 'When your friend, you thought you killed your friend?

I said, 'Th that tells me you have compassion under fire.' And I says, when you told that cop that you didn't have your seat belt on, you didn't have to tell him that. You could have lied, but you're honest. And I says, you know what I see?

I see a young man that has compassion, dignity, uh, and good self-esteem. I says, "I no longer see a young boy, and I want to let you know as your father, I approve of the young man that I see. I love you very much." Now, what meeting did that happen at?

What step was that? What line was that in the big book? I don't know.

I'm going to close with this story. I've talked exactly 60 minutes, and this is how I'm going to close. The last time I spoke here was 19 years ago.

My oldest boy was six months in in the in the oven. And um that did come out all right, didn't it? And uh here I am 19 years later and I'm sharing a story with you because it goes back to what my sponsor said in the car.

I uh I wanted to take my youngest boy somewhere because I had taken the oldest boy to Africa and the youngest boy had the bad feet, but he's bright. He did he did real well. He's doing real well in school.

He's just straight A. He's He's bizarre. He does things like read the directions before he does stuff.

He's goofy, you know. He's a up. He'll read the direction on a Nintendo game, then he plays the game, but he never forgets the directions.

He's me. I'M GOING THIS DAMN GAME. YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW, you know, and he's just looking at me like, "Well, if you just follow directions." But that's the way he is.

So, I told Bob, "Where would you like to go?" He says, "Dad, I do good in German and I would really like to go to Germany." I says, "Well, let's let's do that." But then I started feeling guilty. They go, "God, what am I going to do with my wife and my oldest boy?" But the oldest boy did well in French. I said, "Well, where would you like to go?" He said, "We'd like to go to Paris.

This sobriety stuff's tough. I know it. I'm just sharing it with you." So, on the same day, we left and we we left Cincinnati.

We went to Europe. Me and Bob started out in Zurich, Switzerland, and my wife and my oldest boys started out in Paris. They didn't say anything about where they were going to be after Paris.

They said, "We're going to stay three days in Paris. We'll meet you the last four days in in Schaeanaga and the Heg on the North Sea in, you know, in Holland. We were going to spend two weeks there.

So, we're traveling. We don't know where the other two are at. We're traveling along.

We're going through Lassern and Switzerland and Interlockan. We went to Munich. We went to Docau, the death camps.

We went to the Hoff Brow House. Everybody's high and buzzed on these big mugs of beer and singing and all that. And we went to the We went to uh um couple different places in Germany.

and we had two days to kill before we were supposed to meet my wife and my oldest boy in Holland. I said, "Where would you like to go?" He said, "Let's go to uh Brussels, Belgium." He said, "I was there when you and Mike went to Africa. I want to show you these these artists on the street.

You won't believe it." I says, "Okay." So, we start riding. We're riding on hours on a train. And he goes, "Let's would you stop in Cologne?

There's a beautiful cathedral here I saw with my mother. I want to share it with you." So, I said, "Sure." got off, looked at the cathedral for a couple hours, got back on, wrote a few more hours, and I says, "Bob," I said, "Let's go to this little town on the map called Bruge. It seems closer than Belgium of Brussels.

That way, when we go to Holland, we won't have that far to go." He says, "Oh, okay." So, we get off at the train station. There's no currency exchange. I had to talk a Cab into taking me downtown, getting currency exchange, finding a place to stay.

I mean, it just seemed like there was one obstacle after another. And I'm going, I really wish this day would be be over. Okay.

And there's thousands of people in the square in Bruge. Thousands. I told Bob, I really miss your mom and your brother.

I had a dream. I saw your mom last night. It was so damn real, Bob.

And he looked at me and he's very pragmatic. Verge is on atheist. And uh he says, "Dad, even if they were here, how would you pick them out of these thousands of people?" I says, "I was just telling you I I missed your mom.

I I miss your brother." And I uh and we got to walking and my legs started bothering me. We sat down a little park for 45 minutes. Let's go up get some muscles.

We went up and got a kilo of muscles. He had a bucket of muscles. I had a bucket of muscles.

Everybody, the square was like twice as big as this room and all the little cafes. The people were sitting looking out watching people as they eat. And we got done eating our muscles.

And I thought, there's a discrepancy in the bill. seems more expensive than what I thought. And I went up to the Mater D and he said, "Oh, that's because of the sauce." You know, I Whoa.

Okay. And I heard a voice down the street go, "Hey, Killer Joe." I thought, "Who in the hell knows me in Belgium." It was my wife and my oldest son. They had had a bad time in Paris.

They left. They went to the city we were in for four days and they went looking for us. They thought we were going to go to Roderdam or something like that.

They couldn't find us because we weren't there. They spent the night in Amsterdam. They got on the train.

They had to get off. There was a gas lake that delayed them by 5 hours. They got back on.

They came back, stayed in the same place they stayed before. And my oldest boy says, "Hey, mom. Let's walk down this street.

We've never been down this street before." And there we were. of all the days in my life and all the days in their lives of all the cities in Europe. There we were at that cafe at that time at that day.

And I stopped and thought about what happened had we not got off in Cologne to see the church. We would have missed them. Was stopping off in the church in Cologne good or bad?

It was neither. It was necessary. Was not having the ability to get currency changed in the train station good or bad?

It wasn't. It was necessary. Was the trip that went sour in Paris for my wife and other boy good or bad?

It wasn't. It was necessary. Was that gas leak on that delayed that by five hours?

Good or bad? Neither. It was necessary.

Everything that happened from the day we went to Europe to the day we met in that city of all the cities in Europe had to happen. It was necessary for us to meet at that time on that day in our lives. And I say to you, the people who are new in your first year of sobriety, this is all necessary.

Every step that we've taken to get here, every step that we've taken got us here to this point tonight. There was no accident. All the rotten crap you think you did in your sobriety, all the people you hurt and the toes you stepped on, it was necessary.

All the things you worried about, it was all necessary. Every bit of it was necessary. And I'm going to make a promise to you people in your first year of sobriety, just like my sponsor promised me.

If you make AA and staying sober the most important thing in your life, I promise you, you won't ever have to worry about a job. You won't ever have to worry about money. You won't ever have to worry about relationships.

You won't have to worry about all that because it'll all be taken care of for you. I promise you. But you will worry.

You will worry because it's necessary. Thank you very much. >> Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise.

If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message. Until next time, have a great day.