AA Speaker – David R. -Raleigh, NC – 2006
AA speaker David R. shares his story of hitting bottom at age 30, working the steps intensively, and the transformative power of ninth-step amends in his recovery from alcoholism.
David R. from Raleigh, NC got sober in 1994 after years of destruction—losing jobs, living in shelters, and ending up handcuffed to a hospital wall. In this AA speaker tape, he walks through his journey from active addiction through intensive step work with his sponsor, and how making amends reconnected him with his estranged family and freed him from the obsession to drink.
David R., an AA speaker, describes his story from a violent childhood and early drinking at 14 through 10 months of failed sobriety and a relapse that led him to homelessness and a near-fatal overdose. He shares how reading the Big Book in 14 days while hospitalized and working the steps with his sponsor transformed his life. His talk focuses heavily on the ninth step—making amends—and how the process of facing those he harmed, including reconnecting with his father’s side of the family after 50 years, lifted the obsession to drink and brought him spiritual recovery.
Episode Summary
David R. opens with gratitude for service and the principle of never saying no when AA calls. He traces his story back to a Brooklyn waterfront childhood marked by violence—his father’s drinking and abusive behavior forced his mother and sister to flee when he was four. His mother warned him early about alcoholism running in the family, but those warnings felt like hammering nails through his heart, especially when she’d compare him to his father.
His first drink came at 14 during the 1977 blackout in New York. He stole a bicycle that night and woke with blood in his bed, sick. His mother’s words—”you’re just like your father”—cut deep. He spent the next five years chasing that first feeling, unable to focus on school despite an exceptional IQ. He left Brooklyn Tech with a 64.9 GPA despite having the second-highest IQ in the school, a striking portrait of the hole inside him that nothing could fill.
David describes his twenties as a blur of 52 lost jobs, waiting tables, tending bar, and relationships based on finding women who drank enough to make his drinking seem normal. He lived in a YMCA, drove cabs, and couldn’t keep money in his pocket. At 28, working in a restaurant, a coworker saw him struggling and invited him to a meeting, though the sponsor’s approach of “take what you need and leave the rest” and warnings against “Big Book Nazis” left him unprepared for real recovery.
After six months sober, he stopped going to meetings and working with his sponsor. He met a woman with a baby, made her his higher power, and at ten months sober on Christmas Eve 1992, her baby’s father—freshly released from prison—showed up at the door. David climbed out a back window, and everything collapsed. Without a meeting list, a sponsor, or a prayer, he was defenseless. He walked into a bar, and though he told himself he wouldn’t drink, the bartender slid a double in front of him. He spent an hour staring at it before inhaling it. Every bit of good AA had given him in ten months came pouring out.
What followed was brutal. He moved in with a girl who introduced him to drugs. Within six months he was in Alad Park, drinking Listerine from a drugstore because it was 86 proof and cheaper. He was stealing car radios. His mother and members of AA tried to intervene, but he refused. On May 25th, 1994—his 30th birthday—they found him face down in a box. He’d gone into cardiac arrest seven times. He was 117 pounds, suffering from scurvy, covered in lice. He woke handcuffed to a hospital wall.
His stepfather had arranged for someone to watch him—a sober member of AA whose job was to break his legs if he tried to leave for a drink. That’s when an old-timer named Joe walked in with a Big Book under his arm. Joe was the guy David used to fear at meetings, the one who talked about God and terrified him. But Joe came with his own story: he’d just been diagnosed with throat cancer and needed to work with someone or he’d drink. He didn’t preach. He just told David his story and asked if he minded. Then they read the Big Book paragraph by paragraph for 14 days straight.
David put stars next to everything that reminded him of himself—267 stars. The first 63 pages asked one question over and over: “Are you a real alcoholic?” When they reached the jumping-off place on page 63, Joe asked if he was in or out. David said a third-step prayer to a God he didn’t believe in, but “he believed in me.” That’s the miracle, David says. Then came the fourth step. Joe wasn’t interested in life stories. He wanted to know: “Where are you selfish, self-centered, dishonest, and fearful?” Fear was the evil thread. Selfishness and self-centeredness were the root. Joe beat this into him from page 62.
Fourteen days after starting the Big Book, David was out making ninth-step amends from a Brooklyn men’s shelter where he’d spend six months. Joe made it to his first anniversary to give him his coin before he passed.
David then began working with a new sponsor, David Joyce—a retired New York City lieutenant, the complete opposite of David in background but identical in his story. Together they took Big Book meetings into correctional institutions, working with a hundred men at a time, splitting them into groups every three months. That work changed David’s life.
His journey shifted from collecting bottles to washing dishes, waiting tables, tinkering with computers, then managing a computer department on Wall Street. At seven years sober, feeling accomplished, David stood up at his home group to thank his sponsor for going through the steps with so many men. His sponsor interrupted: “Have you actually finished your ninth step?” David hadn’t. His sponsor told him to sit down. David was coasting, and coasting only happens downhill.
He owed about $50,000 in ninth-step amends on a $20 plan. His sponsor suggested he get honest financially and clear his bank account to pay everyone back. Within a few years, David says, he got back ten times what he gave.
The real ninth-step stories came next. Years earlier, at his cousin’s wedding, David got drunk and his behavior caused his mother and sister to stop speaking for ten years. Five years sober, he visited his aunt to apologize. They didn’t want to hear it at first—it took three calls to get in the door. When he did, they showed him pictures and video of him urinating on a wedding cake. He’d blacked out and had no memory of it. But he made the amends, told them he was sober, and asked what he could do to fix it. The relationship began to heal.
At the end of that visit, his uncle pulled him aside. His uncle knew where David’s father’s sister was—in Jacksonville, Florida. She’d been lost to David for 50 years. David called her nervously, introduced himself, and his aunt Margaret answered. She was pleasant and gave him the family lowdown. Then she told him something that made him smile: his father had a twin brother, Uncle Gus, and that day was Uncle Gus’s first day in rehab. David started taking his uncle to AA meetings every other month. His uncle looked like his father, acted like him, sounded like him—except he was small.
The last major ninth-step amend involved a Brooklyn deli where David worked in the late 1970s. He was a cash-register thief, taking change from deliveries and never bringing it back. His sponsor did the math: David owed about $1,000. The original owner had passed away, but David found his wife in Staten Island. It took three phone calls. When he finally saw her at her job for the phone company, she was cautious—who was this guy and what did he want? David told her what he’d done and offered the money. She’d lost her husband (a helpless and hopeless alcoholic), her daughter’s prom had been cancelled for lack of money for a dress and car. David handed her the envelope. He went back to his car and wept like a baby. “I actually felt physically removed from alcohol,” he says. “The desire to drink was ripped out of me.” He was recovered.
From that day forward, David says, AA has been serenity. He graduated from Pace University as the second-oldest student in his class and second in his graduating class. He’s now studying for a graduate degree at Columbia. He’s got a terrific life. It’s not about cash and prizes—it’s about his relationship with God. He tries to walk with God and be a loving example of his healing power.
Notable Quotes
When the phone rings, you never say no because the life you save may be your own.
The most important word in all the 12 steps is that first word, the first step, which is we.
I said a third step prayer to a God I didn’t believe in on page 63, but he believed in me. That’s the miracle of this thing.
Fear is the evil and corroding thread. Selfishness and self-centeredness—that’s the root of our problems.
I actually felt physically removed from alcohol. The desire to drink was ripped out of me. I was recovered from alcoholism on that day.
Coasting only happens downhill. You don’t coast uphill.
Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
Big Book Study
Hitting Bottom
Spiritual Awakening
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Steps 8 & 9 – Making Amends
- Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
- Big Book Study
- Hitting Bottom
- Spiritual Awakening
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
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.
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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. No, I'm just kidding. Hey, I'm David Robinson.
I'm a recovered alcoholic. Thank you. It's very kind.
A guy can get used to that, believe me. Um, again, my name is David. I'm a recovered alcoholic.
Uh I'm grateful to be alive and sober and at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and uh I want to thank the committee for inviting me to come down. This is a huge huge honor. You know, uh why Chrissy recommended me to do this, I'll never know.
Uh I do know that when the phone rings, you never say no because the life you save may be your own. You never say no to service, you know. And I take that sign very seriously.
When anyone anywhere reaches out for help, I want the hand of AA to be there and for that I am responsible, you you know, and if for nothing else, it's like at the end of Dr. Bob's story, you know, uh, duty, sense of pleasure in doing so, you know, I take out a little assurance against the next slip and I'm paying back the men, the men, the many thousands of men that did it for me, you know, and I can tell you that I'm here today a sober, recovered member of Alcoholics Anonymous because thousands and thousands of people help me. You know, no man is an island in Alcoholics Anonymous.
You know, I really do believe that the most important word in all the 12 steps is that first word, the first step, which is we, you know. Um, again, so I want to thank the committee for inviting me to come down. Um, I want to thank Sarah.
Is Sarah here? We did the corrections workshop today. Sarah's in the back there.
Thank you very much. Uh, we did a Yeah, there we go. We did the uh we did this the uh the corrections uh workshop together this afternoon.
I did my little bit about corrections correspondence and she got up and blew my doors out of the water. She's done more she's done more in six or seven years of sobriety than I've done in in in the 12 few years I've been around. Uh my sobriety date is May 25th, 1994.
Uh my sponsor is David Joyce uh the lieutenant. His sponsor was Frank Wright as sheep said Bay Group. Franks were a Frank Wright sponsor was George Lundy and George Lundy's sponsor was Bill Wilson.
Um, three of those guys were members of the Sheeps Head Bay group in Brooklyn, which is, you know, where I got sober. And, uh, my sponsors and I, well, actually, my sponsor is fortunate enough to have actually been to one of Bill Wilson's anniversaries. You know what I mean?
I consider that kind of special, be sponsored by a man like that. Um, I grew up on a Brooklyn waterfront. Uh, it was just me and my sister.
Uh my dad was a Marine who, you know, I'm not going to call him an alcoholic. Let's just say that when he drank, he was very free with his hands, very loose with his lips, and very free with the furniture around the house. You know, uh it wasn't uh it wasn't uh father knows best, believe me.
Uh I'm not going to say he was an alcoholic, but you know, uh by the end of it, you know, my mother basically ran out of the house. There we go. We'll have them in a couple years.
Um he was uh he was very free with his hands and uh you know he used to he used to bat my mother and I around and my sister and you know that's not why I'm an alcoholic you know but that's a very big part of my story. Um we basically ran out of the house when we were when I was 4 years old and I never saw him again alive. Um you know I never saw anybody on my father's side of the family.
Uh and that would come years later as a result of the miracle in the ninth step. Um, talking about the miracle of the night step. Let me divert for a second.
Uh, I get to my room yesterday and uh there's a dozen roses on a table and I and I had a rough trip. Now, Ernesto slapped me three times. Uh, I work on Wall Street.
I run a computer department and we have a server farm down in Boca Raton that I had to shut down and turn back on again. And then I had the uh the privilege of flying into Hurricane Ernesto, a tropical storm in Esto yesterday. Sat in Kennedy Airport for 3 hours.
And the flight was delayed. I get down here. And by the way, uh there's a tree in my yard and my power's off up uh in in North Jersey where I live right now.
But uh so I come into the hotel room and I'm all being draggled from my trip and there's a dozen roses, right? A dozen roses sitting on my table. And I'm walking in and you know, I have a little bit of fear around this.
I got to be honest with you, you know, I have enough, you know, terror in me to light up the city of Chicago right now, you know. And I and I walk into the room and uh I see a dozen roses on a table right with this card says remember faith second step proposition. God is everything or God is nothing.
What is our choice to be? You know rice it's all about faith. What am I worried about?
You know and I run downstairs and I go up to Rob and I thank him profusely. I go that's wonderful. A dozen roses.
He go I don't worry about it. No problem. Did you get your basket?
And you know he walked away. And then I found out a half an hour later, this is from an old high school sweetheart that I know up in Virginia. You know what I mean?
Um, so I never did get my basket though, but that's okay. >> So, uh, so we grew up in a Brooklyn waterfront and it was just, you know, my sister and my mother and I. And, uh, it was rough.
It was rough. You know, my mother had to work a couple jobs. Um, and she warned me very early.
It's like in in a book, you know, where uh, you know, Bill was warned about the dangers of I mean, I was warned about the dangers of alcohol. Alcoholism runs in my father's family. And, uh, you know, the big book makes no case for geneticism in Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I have no opinion on that issue, but but I do know that my mother warned me, you know, that there was uh, in my family there was magic in a fire of water. You know, stay away from it at all costs. Otherwise, you'll wind up just like your father.
You know what I mean? And those words, man, that's like hammering nails through my heart, you know, you're just like your father. Those were like the five most profane words I could imagine hearing when I was growing up, you know, cuz he was a violent, you know, heavy drinking man.
You know, I'm not and I'm not going to call him an alcoholic. So, we grew up and I always felt inferior. I always felt less than.
I was always, you know, I was the only basically I was the only white kid in a Puerto Rican neighborhood, you know what I mean? So, I used to get the the the tar kicked out of me because I had blonde hair, you know, and then I'd go up to Bensonhurst to play baseball up there and I was the only blondhaired kid in Bensonhurst. So, they'd bat me around and I didn't really fit in anywhere, which didn't help either, you know.
And this all set me up for that first drink, you know. I picked up my first drink. I was 14 years old.
Anybody remember the great blackout in 1977? George, you probably remember the blackout in 1970, right? I think it was uh July 17th, 1977.
I actually go look that up. Um there was me and uh two other kids. We went to uh Sunnydale Grocery on Third Avenue in 68th Street in Bay Ridge and we chipped in and we bought a six-ack of Valley Forge beer.
Valley Forge beer. I kid you not. It was made in Staten Island.
The tagline on a bottle was brewed on a shimmering Scholes of the Kill Van Gull, right? It was like it was like panther urine. It was the most obnoxious obnoxious chemical you could imagine.
And I loved it. I loved it. You know, I loved everything about it.
I loved the crack of the bottle, the that that noise it made. I loved the way it burned my throat. I loved the way it hit my belly and that I was looking for that ah my entire life and I found it.
And I could not imagine why the other two guys weren't standing directly underneath the rest of them with me. You know, I had five, the other two guys had one. And I remember exaggerating the stagger as I was leaving a park and I left this is I left Alad Park is Al's Alad Park in Bay Ridge.
We come outside the park and I look down Third Avenue towards the trade center and that's it's another story. Uh towards the trade center and I watch the lights go out down Third Avenue and then Manhattan goes black and we're in a blackout and guess what? So am I.
You know what I mean? Go figure. Uh, I don't really remember what happened.
Uh, I do remember that I had my eye on his bicycle for quite some time that was uh in a bicycle shop window uh down in Alad Road. So, apparently uh I lied I I I you know, I freed this thing from the bicycle store. You know, I liberated it from this guy.
Uh, and all I know is I wake up the next and basically I I barely remember um I'm I'm riding home on this thing and I'm wobbling in this and apparently this is all secondhand to me. Basically everything before my the age of 30 is secondhand to me. But uh I'm driving this thing along and Mike the cop who's dating my mom, not Mike the cop from Albicus by the way.
This is just Mike the cop in the neighborhood. He says, "Hey kids, where'd you get the bicycle?" And I told him I stole it from the store, right? And he goes, "Very funny.
Get in the car. I'm taking you home. It's dangerous." Uh, so I get home and I wake up the next morning and there's blood in the bed.
I'd cut my hand and puked all over the floor and there's Mike the cop at the door, right? Apparently somebody had saw Mike the cop being accomplice to the crime and called the police station. So Mike had to come get me, get the bicycle.
It was just a mess. And my mother said the five magic words, you know, you're just like your father, you know, and those words, they cut me to the quick. Uh, I drank for, let's see, for five more years.
Uh, five of the best years of my life were spent in high school, by the way. Not four, but five. And, uh, and just to show you, just to show you where I was, um, I had the second highest I went to a high school called Brooklyn Tech.
Uh, I don't know if anybody's ever heard of Brooklyn. Anybody here Brooklyn Tech? Any Brooklyn Tech alumni?
Yeah. Five. Right.
It's actually the second largest high school in the United States. And uh my dream was to be an engineer, but I just couldn't pull my I don't know how people did it, man. I mean, these the other kids got up, they put on clothes, they went to school, they sat in class.
I mean, I was always worried about going out and getting the next drink. I don't know from from that my experience in the park, all I could think about was getting loaded. That's all I could think about.
I don't know how these kids were able to focus. I mean, you know, I was cutting class when I left that school in disgrace. By the way, I left 4 and a half years later, uh, with my head down.
I had the second highest IQ in the school and the second lowest grade point average. I had a 64 average, 64.9 when I left Brooklyn Tech. You know what I mean?
That shows you where I was. You know, I I just couldn't pull it together. And I had this big gaping hole inside of me.
I mean, nothing I put inside of this hole worked. Man, I didn't know it at the time. You know, I it started out with, you know, comic books, then junk food, then junk books, and then booze.
And booze was the only thing that fit. And even that stopped working for a while. So, I left Brooklyn Tech and I was devastated because it was my first real failure.
You know what I mean? I mean, my drinking was starting to have some consequences. You know, the first couple of years it was fun.
Then I started being fun with consequences. And I had to go to the local zone school, Fort Hamilton. That was like the badge of shame.
And uh Tech was such a good school actually that I had enough credits to graduate but I didn't have the time. So I took eight periods of typing right for one semester to graduate. And it's funny you know you never you never know what God's plan is for you.
But now I work with computers and I can type 80 words a minute. So there you go. So it kind of worked out.
And then you know being the alcoholic realist that I am I saw officer and a gentleman. I said that's it. I'm gonna fly Navy jets.
That's what I've been missing. That's what I'll do. And believe it or not, I uh I went to the local I better get sober soon.
Look at this. I uh I went to the local community college, uh New York City Technical College, and I didn't drink. I just stopped drinking.
I put it all down. I was smoking four packs of cigarettes a day. I was going out with about 15 girls.
I was eating about 30 boxes of donuts. But I was sober. I was fine, you know.
Um, yeah, it's true. I was filling that hole up with anything I could grab. You know what I mean?
And the more I fed the hole, the worse it got. Can anybody identify with that? The more I fed the beast, the hungrier the beast got.
Nothing worked, man. Nothing. I was dead inside and the world was just raging around me.
You know, I get uncomfortable thinking about that time because I don't feel like that today. Thank God. So, I pulled it together.
I went to New York City Technical College. Uh, the first couple years I did it. 3.6, 3.7.
I made the deans list. I said, "That's it. I'm on my way.
I'm a genius here. This is it. All I had to do was knuckle down, you know." So, I went to a school across the street called Polytech.
And, uh, they're very serious over there, you know. They were a lot more serious than a community college. 3.0, 2.8, 2.6.
Anybody see where this is going? my last semester of college, um I was actually not doing too good. Uh there wasn't quite enough donuts and women around to take care of what was really wrong with me.
And and I was just out of control. My attitudes was out of check. Uh excuse me, attitudes were out of check.
He caught me a little Brooklynism there. And um I'll never forget a bartender called out sick. That's the day that changed my life.
I'd been waiting tables in this place called Nightfall. This is being taped, right? uh this local neighborhood establishment uh that was owned by a local tough guy.
Let me put it to you that way. Um forget about it. Uh if you know what I mean.
So um so the the bartender was off that night. I'm behind a bar and I'm cleaning the bottles and I said, "You know what? I'm going to I'm going to join a Navy.
I better learn how to drink scotch." I don't know where that thought came. I don't know to this day. I don't know what that dog it was.
It was like this little black angel was sitting on my shoulder cuz I was thinking about, you know, I'd seen some John Wayne movie or something where they hit a bottle of scotch in a torpedo tube. I'm going to be around torpedo tubes. I got to know how to handle the equipment.
So, let me see what this one tastes like. The next thing I know, uh, my mother's leaning over me, screaming at me. I'm in a pool of vomit, my bed.
You're just like your father. And I never went back to school again. I had never went back to school again, man.
I was just like, it was like gasoline on a flame. And I took off. And when I took off, I took off like this.
I was 22. Actually, I was 23 years old because of the delay in high school. 23 years old when I left college.
In the next 7 years, I lost 52 jobs. I went from job to job to job. I we waited tables.
I tended bar. I was a barback and I worked at some pretty swanky joints. I worked uh this is being taped again, right?
Okay. But I worked at some I worked at three and four restaurants. The line on David Robinson was this.
David, great guy, great with the customers when he's sober, but you can't pay him. You can't give him any money. Because I didn't know that's that's that was the deal.
You can't pay him. If you pay him, he won't come back. Right.
I didn't know you were allowed to go home with money in your pocket at the end of the night. I thought I thought you had to go to her Well, Hurlies is closed. I can say that one.
All right. I I thought you had to go to Hurley's on 50 I think it's 53rd Street or 51st Street and 6th Avenue. And you had to knock down 15 or 16 doubles before you went home.
That's what I thought. And you know, at 25 years old, I What's the 16 doubles is a quarter scotch. I didn't think there was anything wrong with that.
It's a good man's fault, right? Burns your throat a little bit. You know, what's the big deal?
Nobody's getting hurt. Well, let's see. Uh, you dropped out of college.
You got no money in the bank. Oh, and my requirements for a relationship were very high. You know, for a woman to be involved with me, she had to drink enough so that my drinking wasn't so bad, but not quite so much, you know, that she couldn't pay the rent for us.
And that was my requirement for a relationship. You know, that shows you what a suave and debonire kind of guy I was. So, here we go.
I'm romping through the 80s here, you know. Uh, not doing too good. thinking on the cat's meow.
Man, I thought I had it together. I just thought I had a string of bad luck. String of bad luck.
At one point, I was living in a YMCA driving a cab and I couldn't pay the rent. That's where I was, you know, and I used to say that's what alcohol did to me, but it's really it's what I did to myself. You know, alcohol was the last weapon of choice and a long list of weapons I had used to destroy myself to fill that hole.
Right? So, where we going with this? So, um, a guy 12 steps me, right?
I work in go work in a restaurant that's still open. I'm not going to say the name of it, but it's in uh the Time Life building on 6th Avenue in Manhattan. And uh this guy I come to work and I mean it's just getting harder and harder.
I mean, you know, God bless you guys for coming in so young. I mean at 20 I was never I'll tell you this, I was never so old as the day I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. That's the oldest day of my life.
I never felt so old as my first day in AA. But I come to AA and this guy's looking outside the office and he's looking down at me and he just shakes his head and he goes back and he starts laughing and I have like my eyes are red, you know, I haven't slept in 3 days. I mean, I have to work a double and I just I'm got the I got the the heebie-jebies and the whims and I don't see what's so funny.
So I asked him what's so funny and he's like, "Dude, you don't got to live like this no more. Why don't you come with me?" And uh on the way downstairs uh I had one last drink. Uh after I had that drink, I walked up to a manager.
I kissed him on the lips and I asked him if he could ever forgive me for sleeping with his wife. This guy was not the type of guy that was married, by the way, if you know what I'm saying. So, I was out on the street with with my locker.
They cleaned out my locker and that was it. That was my last day of work. And uh this was the only time, by the way, that anybody ever lied to me in Alcoholics Anonymous.
The guy said, you know, if you come to me for with for three meetings, I'll get you your job back is what the guy said to me. It's the only time anyone ever lied to me. And uh you know my story is really you know I have two tales in AA.
I have AA before you know I got into the work and I have the tale after I got into the work. You know this guy took me to uh a place on Midnight Street uh on House and Street in a city called Midnight Madness. And uh his attitude was take what you need and leave the rest.
That was his battle cry. You know easy does it. You know stay away from the god freaks.
you know, you're going to you're going to meet these people. They're called big book Nazis. You want to avoid them at all cost.
They're fanatics. They're going to shave your head and make you chant out of the big book. And, you know, just, you know, go to here's a meeting list and call me if you need any help, you know.
And, uh, you know, I found out later that this guy probably wasn't the best guy for me. Um, I was 28 years old, you know, and uh, you know, I used to blame him for that, uh, for years, especially after I found this message that we have in the first 164 pages of our book. I was very resentful that this guy didn't just grab me by the back of the hair and drag me through the book, you know, with the pages on fire.
But the reality is, I probably heard somebody, you know, talk about the book. I just wasn't ready to listen. You know what I mean?
And we were talking about this earlier today. I really believe God's grace falls evenly on everybody. It's up for us to reach out and embrace the grace if we want to get sober.
So, you know, I spent 6 months in AA and I was amazed that I wasn't drinking. The desire to drink was ripped out of me, you know, and I really believe that God graces everybody when we first come in here. He gives us just enough time to get into the work.
Just enough time to, you know, to give us the opportunity to say, "Yes, I want this thing. I must have it, too." Like it says in our book, you know. So, I went to meetings for 6 months and you know what?
They became a little inconvenient. You know, I started dating. Oh, it was love.
This is it. That's what I was looking to fill a hole with. I started dating this girl and uh I started dating this girl when I was six months sober and uh we started seeing each other more and more.
6 months turns to seven, you know. Uh seven turns to 8. My sponsor dropped out of my life.
I stopped calling him. I stopped going to meetings. 10 months sober.
It's Christmas Eve 1992. I think I got it going on. But inside I know I'm falling apart.
I mean the beautiful car I'd always wanted. I filled my life up with the ifonies. You know, if only if only I had a nice car.
If only I had a nice house. If only I had a nice girlfriend. If only I had a nice job.
If only, if only, if only these things would make me full. And to my dismay, none of it was working. All the things I'd wanted my whole life were not working for me.
I was just basically a kid who wanted a nicer room. That's really all I was, you know, and uh this girl became the center of my life. And my sponsor likes to say anything, you know, that's your number one priority in life is your higher power.
So, I made this girl my higher power. Did I mention she had a baby? I didn't mention that, did I?
You know, I never asked her where the father came from, where the baby came from, by the way. That just never came up in a conversation. I did it to this woman for four months and never asked her where the baby came from.
I found out though, uh, Christmas Eve, uh, I had left work and, uh, I rented a Santa Claus outfit and I got some gifts for the baby and I went over the house and we were going to stay home and have a nice quiet evening. No sooner than I get through the threshold of the house, the phone rings and it's the baby's father, right? just released from Danamara State Prison, you know, and for some pretty nasty stuff.
By the way, we're not talking about trespassing and loitering. This guy was in for like armed robbery with intent to kill or something. I don't know what he was in for, but he was a big guy and he was outside the door, you know.
She made me go out, you know, the back window. And God, it was only the second floor, you know, and I went out that back window and my world my world ended the moment I went through that window. My my world came crashing down.
There was nothing left. left and I went out that window. I didn't have a meeting and list in my pocket.
I didn't have a sponsor I could call. I didn't have a prayer in my heart. I had nothing except the same idiot I had brought into AA 10 months earlier and my bag of nonsense.
I was without defense against the first drink. I had nothing between me and it. And we all know what it is.
And it was like I was watching a movie, you know. I got I walked out to my car. I put the car in drive.
I went right into the city. I went to this it's closed. I can say now went to a place called Sally's on 6th Avenue, which was uh an adult entertainment establishment with alcohol.
Uh and I sat and uh little Marie the bartender, right, who'd been my bar mistress for for for whenever I had money in my pocket, actually. Um I actually hold a record. I'm the only guy in buildings that was ever thrown out with money in his pocket, by the way.
That shows you what kind of drunk I was, you know. But um I went in and I I went to my chair and I wasn't going to drink. This is key.
I wasn't going to drink. I was just going to go in, you know what I mean, and sort of sort things out and maybe say hello to the girls and say hello to guys. I just wanted a place to, you know, smoo and looking for some comp companionship and coniviality, I guess.
And I go walk in, I sit down and without saying a word, Marie slides a double gram in front of me with the rolling rock back says, "Good luck." And there it was. There it was. And I sat transfixed with this glass in front of me for about an hour.
And I was staring at it. And you know, my life flashed before my eyes. My life flashed before my eyes.
I don't recommend this to anybody who's not prepared for the experience. I mean, there was no lying anymore. And I remember sitting down saying, "No, I'm not an alcoholic.
I haven't had a drink in 10 months." And I started thinking about it. Well, maybe I am an alcoholic, but I'll tell you why. You know, I'm an alcoholic because my mommy didn't love me and my daddy hit me and I got fired from 52 jobs.
Actually, make that 53 at this point, right? and my girlfriend threw me out of the house. And I I did this for about an hour and I reached out and I said the very last two words they said I would ever say if I picked up a drink again.
And I'm a gentleman. I'm not going to say what those two words are. But I said those two words and I inhaled it.
And every little bit of good that AA had shoved in me in 10 months came sucking out of me like a vacuum. And I was right back. And the next two words were, "I'm back." Those were the next two words that came.
Let's go. You know, I'll never forget that feeling. It was better than the It was.
So, so we can we can better start moving this along. Um, so, uh, let's see. I met one of the girls.
Uh, she came home for a visit. Uh, introduced me to something else which I had never experienced. And within 6 months, I was living in Alad Park in Brooklyn.
And the last 6 months of that run, uh, I was actually drinking Listerine and boosting car radios, right? And don't laugh when you hear Listerine. It's actually 86 proof.
It's actually the same proof as scotch. Okay, I got to fess up here. It wasn't Listerine, actually.
It was Dwayne Reed mouthwash, which is the local drugstore. It's a little cheaper. It's, you know, 99 cents.
And uh, my breath was not minty fresh, I assure you. Uh my mother and various members of Alcoholics Anonymous attempted to throw a net on me and I said, "No, these guys are real suckers. Look at them." They get up, they go to work, they come home from work.
It was the same nonsense as high school except I was drinking. You know what saved my life was um May 25th, 1994, they found me face down in my box. Uh they pronounced me dead at the scene in the ambulance again.
Apparently, I went into cardiac arrest seven times. I was 117 lbs. Uh, and I was suffering from scurvy, if you can believe that, cuz I hadn't any fruit and vegetables in close to 6 months.
I had lice in my in my eyes and my ears. I guess they call them ear mites, right? Is that within the ears?
But, um, and I woke up in a hospital handcuffed to the wall. Handcuffed to the wall. I should backtrack a little bit.
my stepfather, who's going to kill me when he hears this. I got to be careful how I say this cuz this is being taped. Let's just say that my uh my stepfather knew some boys in the neighborhood that had me constrained against my will for a couple of weeks.
Uh and one of these guys was a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous, uh who stayed outside my door for two weeks. And Veto's job was to break my legs if I went out for a drink. So, you might say I had an intervention.
Um, true story. So I woke up handcuffed to the wall and I remember my first time around in Alcoholics Anonymous, this is important. My first time around debating the various levels of surrender one must transcend through to get to the nirvana of the second step.
Can you imagine? Can you imagine this kind of tripe coming out of somebody's mouth? But this is the way it was.
I sat in the back with the psychologist in inventory row in the back. This is what we talk about. And I remember looking up at the wall saying, "Okay, I get it.
What's next? What's next? And I'm hanging on the wall here.
I mean, I don't if you try, you know, trying to sleep with your arm up in here like this. But in through the door walks Joe with a big book under his arms. Whoa.
Excuse me. >> With a big book under his arms. Now, tell you something about Joe.
Joe is the guy that used to sit in the front of the room and talk about God and scare the crap out of me. You know what I mean? I remember, you know, one time sitting in a meeting with Joe at home group and uh getting really upset.
The more he talked about God, the more I would hop my chair away from him. And I just harmed myself literally to the other side of the room. See, I'm not going to water around.
Sorry about that, guys. And uh Joe comes up to me one day, he goes, "Kid, you look perturbed. What's on your mind?" I said, "You know, it's it's against my constitutional rights to hear about God in a country that professes, you know, religious freedom." He goes, "Really?
What's the matter? Don't you believe in God?" I go, "No." He goes, "You know, if it's something you don't believe in, you're getting awful angry." Is what he said to me. And all I could say was, "Oh, you know, I could think of nothing really profound to say to him about that." So Joe comes into the hospital with the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous under his arms.
And uh I was expecting to get a lecture from him and he said, "Kid, how you doing?" And I said, "I ain't doing too good, obviously. What are you doing?" Goes, "I ain't doing too good either. I just found out I have throat cancer and I'm going to die, kid.
And I got to work with somebody, you know, or I'm going to drink." goes, "Do you mind if I tell you my story? Do you mind?" I still get goosebumps. Do you mind if I tell you my story?
He did no preaching. He didn't speak down to me from any intellectual mountaintop. He told me his story, Rice, you know, and Sarah, you know, God bless her, you know, she was talking this morning or this afternoon about being jealous of people that are able.
This guy drank until he was like 50. I couldn't believe it. How do you do that?
How do you how do you drink till you're 50 and not wind up handcuffed to a wall? That's really what I wanted to know at that point. How can I do this and not wind up handcuffed to a wall?
So Joe told me his story and you know his story couldn't have been any different than mine, but they couldn't have been more similar, you know, and finally, you know, we got the end like, "Wow, what do I got to do?" And he said, "I'm glad you asked." and he took out the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and we read the book paragraph by paragraph and you think the son of a gun would let me off the wall but you know they were keeping a pretty close eye on me. We read the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous in 14 days and God bless him for doing it. It changed my life.
You know what I mean? He said, you know, put a star next to everything in that book that reminds you of yourself. I had 267 stars in that book.
I still have that book. um first 63 pages basically asked me one question over and over and over and over again. David, are you a moderate drinker?
Are you a heavy drinker? Or are you a real alcoholic? You know, for a real alcoholic, you know, Bill used all kinds of alcoholic of our type, alcoholic of our variety, alcoholic of our description, on and on.
But are you one of us? If you are, you're screwed. you know, unless you may want to try what we found.
That might help you. So, we got to the jumping off place, page 63, goes, "Kid, are you in it or not?" And, you know, I did it. And here's the thing.
Here's the big secret. Here's the thing I was looking for my first time around in AA. I said a third step prayer to a God I didn't believe in on page 63, but he believed in me.
That's the miracle of this thing. I felt like a total fraud getting down on my knees and saying that prayer with him. I felt like a total fraud, you know, and I got up from that and he handed me the notebook and we got to work and we did that fourth step, you know, and we did the four columns just like it's outlined in a book, you know what I mean?
And when it got time to do that fourth step, you know, I thought I was going to get to tell this man my life story. He's like, "Kid, I don't care about your life story cuz you've been telling your story your whole life. Read me that fourth column.
Where are you selfish, self-centered, dishonest, and fearful? That's all I care about. You know, fear is the evil and corroding thread.
And he beat into me over and over again. Page 62. You know, selfishness and self-centeredness that we think is the root of our problems.
He beat that into me over and over again. And uh they let me out. 14 days later, I was out making nstep amends, you know, and I got to tell you, it's kind of difficult to make ninestep amends when you live in a Brooklyn men's shelter, you know.
I spent 6 months in a Brooklyn men's shelter and then 6 months in a furnished room. And Joe made it to just about my first anniversary before he passed on, you know, but he got to give me my coin at my first anniversary, you know, which was very cool. Um, that's what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now.
Um, well, let me tell you a little story. I started working with another guy, a man by the name of David Joyce, who I mentioned earlier. And, uh, we worked we've been working with David since 1995.
So, I guess he's been my sponsor for the last 11 years. and he was a real good influence on me. And he couldn't have been any more different than I was.
David's a retired New York City lieutenant, you know what I mean? And I know some of you may not identify with this, but I got a little problem with authority. You know, I don't get along well with cops.
You know, God love them. I, you know, I'm not one of those idiot cop haters at meetings. If there are any troopers or policemen around, I mean, no offense, but I just have a real problem with authority.
And it's just like, again, our stories couldn't be any more different, but we couldn't be any more identical, and we couldn't love each other more. You know what I mean? Um, so I worked with David a number of years and we we took a big book meeting into a correctional institution in New York City.
And that alone was an experience because you know every every 3 months we'd take a hundred men, split them into two groups, read the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, go through the 12 chapters and go through the 12 steps, kick them out and do it again. And it was one of the most enriching experiences of my life. And the only way you can do that is if when you get to the fourth the fourth step, you know, the fifth step actually, just look at that fourth column.
And I'm not telling people not to look at the thirdcom obviously that's vitally important but when you got to work with that many men that's how you get through the work where you self-centered dishonest and fearful you know and it's very helpful. Um so we did this for a number of years and my life began to change you know I went from I went from collecting bottles in sobriety uh to washing dishes uh to waiting tables again. Uh I started tinkering around with computers.
Um you got to remember something 30 years old I thought my life was over. You know what I mean? I thought it was the end of the line.
And I mean, wow. It couldn't get any worse than this. I'm 30 years old and I'm in aa, you know, I mean, you know what I mean?
Uh, and we don't have uh a young people's organization up north that I'm aware of. So, I mean, I was in there with, you know, and now there's a lot more young people in AA, thank God, but there wasn't many around when I was getting sober. So, I went from, you know, really collecting bottles to washing dishes to waiting tables to tinkering around with computers, uh, to fixing them, uh, and then to repairing them professionally.
And uh about 5 years ago, I got the job I have now, which is I work on Wall Street and I manage a computer department, you know, and that's that's not bad for a guy who used to wet his pants and sleep in a box, you know, and I really I I owe that I owe that all well, not since not since I drank actually about, you know, went in the bed, but I owe that all to Alcoholics Anonymous. But I tell you, one of the greatest events of my sobriety was when I was seven years sober, feeling very much the accomplished sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I got in front of my home group and I took my coin and I thanked my sponsor and I told everybody how wonderful it was to have gone through the steps so many times with so many men and my sponsor interrupted me.
It was about 150 people in the room and he said, "Excuse me." I said, "It's it's wonderful to have gone through the steps so many times." He said, "Have you actually finished your ninth step, David?" He go, "What do you mean, have you finished it?" And I go, "Well, no." No, he goes, "Then sit down." You know, cuz he was getting pretty fed up. And the reality is, here's the reality. The reality is that I was coasting.
And you know, I ride a bicycle. Any fellow bicyclists in here? Yeah.
Anybody like to ride the bicycle? I'm a cyclist. I'm I'm I'm an amateur one, but I love to ride.
And the only way you can coast is downhill. You don't coast uphill. You know, I I had just bought, you know, my first car in sobriety, and it was a luxury German automobile.
And I bought it basically so I could, you know, cruise in front of the sober coffee shop and look cool. That was really why I bought the car to be perfectly honest with you. I I could tell you that 5 years down the road.
I mean, talk about an ego. I mean, how'd you like to get sober with this guy, right? Um, so uh so that's where I was going.
I I I just bought my own apartment. Um, and uh my sponsor, you know, I actually had to take a look at my Ninstep again, and I still owed about $50,000 in Ninstep amends. And all these people are on a $20 plan.
Like I was sending this one $20, that one $20. And uh my sponsor suggested that, you know, I get honest financially and I I cleared my bank account out and I paid back everybody I owed, you know, and I got that back like 10 times. That's the amazing thing, you know, um in in a few short years later.
I mean, it's like this thing in AA, you know, you put a quarter in a meter so you get back $10. It's just unbelievable. No matter how much you give, you always give get an overwhelming amount back, you know.
Um, so I want to talk about a couple of my my final ninestep stories real quick if I could. Um, the last wedding I remember my family inviting to was my cousin's wedding and uh I got very drunk and I don't remember anything except that my mother and my sister stopped talking for about 10 years as a result of my behavior at the wedding. Uh, and so about 5 years ago, I went to visit my sister and uh, you got to remember something.
I'd been looking for my father my entire life. I mean, that was a very big point for me, you know, not being separated from my dad when I was young. I didn't know my uncles.
I didn't know my grandparents. Um, so I went to visit my uh, my aunt and my cousin to apologize for the wedding. And at first, they didn't want to hear it.
You know, it took three phone calls to get in the door. You know, this is why step I'm so used to pointing at the steps. I'm sorry.
This is why step nine's on the bottom. You have to be ready for it. Good and bad.
You know, I did the easy ones first. The hard ones are the ones that really bring you home, you know. Um, so I went and I made the amends and I went to the door and at first they didn't want to let me in.
Then they let me in, but they were heming and honging and then they showed me the pictures of me. Any small children in here taking a leak on a wedding cake and they had this they had this in black and white and video and they made me watch it over and over and over again. Um, I mean I it's I I don't even remember it.
And uh the thing about crow is, you know, crow is best eaten when it's fresh. When it's 10 year when it's 10 years old, it's really ugly and it gets rancid. And I made the amends and I I told them that I was, you know, a sober member of Alcohol Anonymous and is there anything I can do to fix this?
I mean, I know I destroyed your wedding, but is there anything I can do to fix it? And they were actually pretty cool about it after the point. And the night went, I'm not going to tell you it was peaches and cream.
And they welcome me back the first day, although that relationship has been repaired. But my uncle Jimmy pulled me aside at the end of the day. And he goes, "David, if if your mother knew that I gave this to you, she'd kill me.
But you know, your mother and I haven't spoken in a number of years. I know where your aunt Margaret is." And he knew where my he knew where my my my father's sister was. And she was in Jacksonville, Florida, as is the rest of the family.
So, I ran home with this number and I sort of felt a little bit like the dead zone with Stephen King. Like, I had this number from 50 years in the past, you know what I mean? I didn't know if it was the appropriate thing to call it.
So, I called it and I introduced myself to my aunt Margaret and she was really pleasant. She gave me a low down in the whole family. She goes, "But I got something to tell you.
It's kind of embarrassing, but you have a right to know. You know, your father had a twin brother, Uncle Gussy." I go, "Really?" She goes, "Yeah, and today is his first day in rehab." You know, I said, "Oh, that's wonderful." You know what I mean? So she didn't she didn't get the joke, but uh I thought it was pretty cool.
So I so I went down a few weeks later. I met the entire family and uh you know it was wonderful except for Uncle Gus who was you know in rehab and washing school buses. Apparently you know the state of Florida had a had a thing in him also.
And uh I went down a month later I met my uncle Gus and it was cool. I was spending every other month in Florida taking my uncle Gusy to AA meetings and it was a lot like taking my father to AA because he looked like my uncle my father he acted like my father and he sounded like my father you know what I mean? He actually identical except he's about this big you know what I mean?
Um, the last Ninstep amend I had, which was huge, was um, there was a there's a uh, a deli I used to work for in Brooklyn back in the late 70s, and I was, you know, I wasn't a big-time robber. I was a cash register thief. You know, I used to go out on deliveries with change for 20, and I never bring the change back, you know what I mean?
And the 12 and 12 talks about alcohol as being a rapacious creditor, and they were wrong. My sponsor's a repacious creditor. My sponsor charges 30% interest on loans.
So, we sat down. We did the math and we figured out that I owed owed this guy about $1,000, right? So, I actually had to go look this guy up and it turns out that this poor guy had passed away a couple years earlier, but I found his wife in Staten Island and his wife agreed to see me after three phone calls.
Again, you know, think about nine step, you got to be careful. I mean, you know, we do wreckage in our past. You know, these people aren't exactly happy to see us.
You know what I mean? We have to make a case in some cases except when to do so, we injure them or others. But I I didn't even tell her I was in AA initially.
I just told her that I was, you know, at a point in my life where I was re-examining my past behaviors and I just wanted to to clear things up and would she mind, you know, make some time for me. And I went and I saw her at a job in Brooklyn. She worked for the phone company.
And uh she came over to me very trepidaciously. I can tell that she was a little concerned. Think about it.
Some guy wants to see you with, you know, what the heck does this guy want? And uh I told her what I had done to her. I offered her this money and I asked her if there's anything else I could do to make things right, you know, for the harms I had done them.
It turns out that not only did they lose that delicate testin, but the father died a helpless and hopeless alcoholic and uh she had a daughter and a son and they had just just cancelled the daughter's prom cuz they didn't have any money for a dress or a car. So, I was able to hand this woman money, you know, and uh I'm not going to say she was grateful to see me, but I am going to say she was grateful to have that envelope in her hand. You know what I mean?
And I went back to my car and I wept like a baby. I wept because I actually felt physically removed from alcohol. The desire to drink was ripped out of me.
You know what I mean? Like our book says on, you know, page I think it's 84 or 85, you know? Uh we're placed in a position of neutrality.
Neither, you know, uh neither fighting nor afraid. You know what I mean? That the feeling will just come.
We don't have to fight for it. You know, I was recovered from alcoholism on that day, you know. And uh AA to present day is, you know, if I was any more serene, I'd be dead.
You know what I mean? Uh I got a terrific life. Uh, I just got my braces off 6 months ago.
Huh? Just for the new people, you know, when you're spiritually pure, your teeth straighten out is what happens. Actually, I stole that from Clancy.
Actually, that's not mine. Um, I graduated from Pace University. I was the second oldest graduating student in in in a graduating class.
I I also Yeah, I graduated second in my class. And I just started Columbia University for my graduate degree, which I'm very pleased at. And it's not about the cash and prizes.
Thank you. It's not about it's it's not about the cash and prizes and it's not about the fancy cars. It's about my relationship with God.
You know, I walk with God. I got this. I try to walk with God.
I do my best to be a loving example of his healing power. Um again, this card and a dozen roses. Remember, faith.
Faith is what got me here. Faith is what keeps me here. And faith is what keeps me coming back here.
And uh I got to tell you, you guys have been so wonderful, so loving, so terrific, so supporting. I want to thank the committee. I want to thank the taper.
Tapers never get thanked enough. And I want to thank you guys for letting me tell you my story. Thank you so 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.