Sober Sunrise – Bill C. – Charlotte, NC – 1988
Bill C. from Charlotte, NC shares how his childhood in an alcoholic home, peer pressure, and decades of drinking led to a spiritual awakening in AA. An AA speaker on self-discovery and surrender.
Bill C. from Charlotte, NC grew up in an alcoholic home, used alcohol to escape unbearable feelings of powerlessness, and spent years caught in cycles of denial and failed attempts to control his drinking. In this AA speaker tape, he traces his entire path from childhood through hitting bottom in 1967—and how one moment in his first AA meeting unlocked a spiritual shift that changed everything.
Bill C. describes growing up in an alcoholic family in North Carolina and developing a mental obsession with alcohol at age 15 when he first felt its effects. He details his 15-year drinking career—blackouts, broken promises, job loss, and marital crisis—until his wife found Al-Anon and a sponsor named his sponsor finally got him to his first AA meeting on June 3rd, 1967. In this AA speaker meeting, Bill explains how discovering fellowship and the 12 steps shifted his core problem from alcohol itself to self-centeredness, revealing that the antidote to selfishness is service and responsibility to others.
Episode Summary
Bill C. opens with raw honesty about his fear before speaking at a major AA conference, then takes the audience through his entire recovery story—one that begins long before his first drink. Growing up in Greensboro, North Carolina, he witnessed his father’s alcoholism destroy the family’s peace and security. His Baptist upbringing taught him alcohol was evil. Yet at 14, peer pressure and the desire to belong to a group of older “cool kids” overcame his fear and contempt for drinking. That first real drunk at 15, when the alcohol made him feel like “enough” for the first time, marked the beginning of his mental obsession.
Bill explains the distinction between the physical allergy and the mental obsession—he had the obsession from day one. What alcohol did for him was provide control and relief from unbearable feelings. Years followed of escalating consequences: blackouts he didn’t recognize as abnormal, inability to predict how much he’d drink, marriage to a woman who loved him but couldn’t understand his drinking, military service as a psychiatric technician while secretly battling panic attacks, and eventually constant drinking from morning to night in a cycle of desperation.
His famous mint julep story illustrates the recurring pattern all alcoholics know: the idea that he could drink differently this time, that he’d found the secret—only to spiral into chaos again. By 1966, his marriage was collapsing, his job prospects were dismal, and he was living in constant terror and shame. When he finally called an AA answering service, a man named his sponsor answered and made a deal with him: don’t drink today, go to a meeting tonight. Bill’s wife, who had gotten into Al-Anon through his sponsor’s wife, helped break his cycle by refusing to enable his drinking anymore.
On June 3rd, 1967, Bill attended his first real meeting at the Starmac Group in a Presbyterian church in Greensboro. He had been sober one day. What happened that night was what he calls a “grace of God” moment—he believed every word a stranger on the podium said about hopeless drinking and recovery. He had no intellectual reason to believe, but he did. That immediate connection to the fellowship, not yet to steps or theology, is what hooked him on AA.
Bill spent the next years watching “winners” in the program—men in their 40s who had what he wanted, that look of peace. He studied them, cornered them with questions, and discovered they all did the same things: went to lots of meetings, talked about the Big Book, expressed their spiritual life freely, worked the steps, and carried the message to suffering drunks. He got a sponsor, an older man he called Grandad, and made Twelfth Step calls together, sometimes spending entire nights with newcomers in crisis.
Then came the turning point: one night while sitting with someone who was hurting worse than him, Bill felt something he’d never felt before—he cared more about someone else than he did about himself. For just a moment, his self-centeredness lifted. That feeling became his greatest revelation: his problem wasn’t alcohol or bad genes. His problem was self. The entire 12-step recipe for living is about emptying himself of ego and filling himself with God. The emptier he is of himself, the fuller he is of God.
The rest of Bill’s talk is about living that principle. He shares how he raised children in AA, made tough decisions like asking his daughter to leave home during her troubled teen years, faced being fired from a job while active in the program, and learned that losses often clear the way for blessings. Everything good in his life came through this fellowship and the 12-step recipe for living—nothing else.
Notable Quotes
I was tough enough and smart enough and good-looking enough and included enough—I was just enough when I was on this stuff.
The same stuff that makes them feel they’re losing control was the only thing that gave me any semblance of control.
I believed every word this rank stranger said to me. He had no reason to have any credibility with me. Most of us in here call that the grace of God.
For the first time in my life, for a couple of seconds, I cared more about someone else than I did me. Just for a little piece of that—it is the best feeling I ever had.
The emptier I am of me, the fuller I am of God. If I come to a big deal conference like this, I got to realize this is a big deal, but I ain’t a big deal.
Everything that’s good in my life and thanks to you—that’s much—everything of value, everything worth showing you, is direct result of this program. There are no other tricks up my sleeve.
Sponsorship
Step 12 – Carrying the Message
Self-Pity & Ego
Spiritual Awakening
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Hitting Bottom
- Sponsorship
- Step 12 – Carrying the Message
- Self-Pity & Ego
- 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 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 I’m Bill Crawford and I’m an alcoholic and sometime you’re more nervous than others when you do this I’m scared to death tonight John helped me a lot with that though that relaxed and one thing this is a big deal it’s something to be nervous about 22nd Las Vegas annual roundups a big deal I didn’t know it would be uh th90 people paying God knows I don’t want to hear what you had to pay for a plate of food in here but it’s a good crowd it’s an up crowd first time I ever heard checkbook get an Applause really and I’ve been there a lot of these things so I know I can’t screw up too bad if somebody will give a clap for a lost checkbook the thing I regret most about this conference is I have and I’m going to miss uh too much of it I missed Hank’s talk which I heard was just excellent Friday night because I didn’t get here to late and it was the only way I could make plain connections and I’m going to miss Mary’s talk in the morning and I’m very unhappy about that but I got to fly out at 7:24 that’s the only time they get me to Charlotte in the morning I and I don’t like that but I certainly have enjoyed today’s events in today’s figure that Ruby was just absolutely beautiful uh I sat in on the alathon meeting and enjoyed that and I thought the panel on I thought relationships what are they talking about but it was just beautiful and just every one of them read my mail and I just enjoyed the people you know you come here you’re kind of apprehensive because you don’t know anybody but then you soon know people the the committee in particular Karen has just treated me like royalty and just just tended my every need and I’m I’m certainly thankful for that and I thank you for asking me to come and speak with that I think I’ll just sit down I’m telling you I just while I was talking I took the opportunity to count this crowd I I was born 50 years ago in greensbor North Carolina and I was born in an alcoholic home I know the power of alcoholism from that other side you know if alcoholism is anywhere certainly in a family it’s in control it’s a powerful thing and it controlled us now we didn’t realize that we couldn’t appreciate that but I know in retrospect folks like you have taught me that what owned our family was my daddy’s disease and even when he wasn’t drinking we were dreading when he was going to drink and when he was drinking you know and my daddy was a good drunk he was uh he was not violent or abusive or or or mean like I later came to be he was a good drunk but he was embarrassing and unreliable and drank at the wrong time time and that insecurity that goes along with that was there present in our house there also a Baptist uh I don’t know if y’all have heard of that out here boy once you get that that’s terminal too I’m tell you that’s hard to get out of that you know I still got a lot of that in me and Baptists are not very complimentary to beverage alcohol at least that didn’t used to be and so from from what I lived my experience in my home plus my religious training was alcohol was a bad thing I didn’t know anything good about alcohol you know my childhood Heroes didn’t drink now you young people are not not going to know who I’m talking about but some of you will I can see the you know the white heads out there uh I’d go down to the movies on Saturday afternoon watch lash laroo and Johnny M Brown and the Rango kid these were the B western cowboy stars and if you remember they didn’t drink not the good guys bad guys have drink but the good guys didn’t drink so I had a negative view of Beverage alcohol coming up I knew that I’d never drink I knew that I would never I knew what was wrong with my daddy and I knew what was wrong in our home or at least I thought I did it was his drinking and if he would just not drink things would be okay but Along Came something called peer pressure and I didn’t know it was peer pressure I know now I’ve you know read a lot of stuff like Ladies Home Journal and stuff like that with where you learn stuff like that and I know now it was peer pressure and it’s a little story I usually tell in my talk I was in Downtown Greensboro back when people came to downtown greensbor now they all out at the malls and shopping centers but at that time everybody on a Saturday was down there and I was down there and out in front I was about 14 years old out in front of Manzo Henry drugstore with three of the finest looking boys i’ had ever seen in my life older than I let me tell you how they looked they stood there and the shirt collars were standing straight up they pant their hair was com back on the Sid and squared off in the back and there wor the britches real low and the britches were real big in the knee and real small at the cuff these are great britches that was the greatest thing I’d ever seen in my life you could tell they were Rebels and I got up with somebody and I said what is that and they said they’re cats that’s what they’re called I wanted to be a cat worse than anything in the world I had already this peer pressure thing had been at work in with me all along i’ learned how to smoke Lucky Strikes and I and I was doing a pretty good job of inhaling too it was important to inhale back then I don’t know if you remember that or not and I remember I worked real hard inhaling didn’t come natural to me I remember I had to really work at that I I I can remember it hurt me so bad to inhale that only do it if somebody was looking I don’t know if you can identify with that if I’d be with the gang and we all had our luy lit if somebody would turn my way i’ grab a post and inhale a big drag and look cool so I was inhaling pretty good and I was sort of uh you know sort of tough and that kind of thing and there were the cats so me and Ola and I’m I’m sure you wouldn’t mind my using his name being old Charles dely he sort of advised me on how to be a cat I don’t want to dwell on this too long but I’ll just say I became a cat pretty quick I got me some pants with the big knees and the little bottoms and I got my mama to St starch my shirt collar so they’d stand up had a little hair problem I had real fine hair still do it just would that was in the day of Wild Root cream oil if you remember that put a half a bottle on it it still would just kind of fall down and oh old dely introduced me to a product called Pomade I had to much you know Pomade uh the blacks of that in that period were using pomade and of course we us some of us cats used it too let me say this about Pomade in case you’re too young to know what Pomade you may have seen the final net hairspray ad on TV and they got the gal with the hairspray and she goes through a real rough day and at the end of the day she’s pooped her hair still in place that tickle final net to death that that hair stayed together Paul made hold your hair for three months you know I say if a train hit you and if they found your head uh your hair would be in place I say all that to say this I I made my way down there front of Manzo Henry with ar rest of those cats and you know what what all this means or what I’m leading up to the drug of choice or the drug that was available then was was beverage alcohol and I began to drink simply because the need to be like these people to be included with these people was greater than my fear of the drug alcohol and that took a lot because I was really afraid of alcohol I really had a contempt for alcohol but the need to be included in this bunch was more important a stronger pull if you will and so I began to drink and this is my social drinking period I’m kind of proud of this it didn’t last long uh so you have to listen I drank and I don’t remember what it was it might have lasted two months it might have lasted three or four months it was that period that I took a little swallow of this or a half a can of that and until I reached that night when I was 15 and a half years old that I got enough in me to feel it i’ never felt it before and it did something for me that I wouldn’t attempt to describe to any other group of people and I’ve had the privilege of talking to groups of professional people and the Rotary Club and all those things that some of us end up talking to and I never attempt to describe you know about half of you or a little over half of you know exactly what I’m talking about it did for me something that it was like something had been missing there was a hole there that this filled up and I’ve heard you describe it in much the same way and it just you know I just assumed it did this for everybody I assume for everybody it put the world out where it belong it made them a part of it made them enough you know I was I was tough enough and smart enough and good-look enough and included enough I was just enough when I was on this stuff and that’s what I thought it did for other people I sense have learned better only about one in 10 of us apparently get this at some point in I drinking this wonderful reward and so I became preoccupied with with drinking with alcohol right then didn’t know it I would be if we use our description our definition of alcoholism out of our book of experience the big book and we believe that alcoholism is that physical allergy coupled with a mental Obsession a mental compulsion then I was half an alcoholic from the very first I was down at the old downtown Cemetery there in Greensboro where we’d sneak down there and do all sorts of things and we were sitting down there drinking old Mr M line and I felt it and the moment I felt it I was half an alcoholic the mental Obsession was there that night and I didn’t realize it I know now looking back on it that I set about to drink at every opportunity and when I wasn’t drinking I was looking forward to drinking I made sure that I went where drinking was going to be going on and I made sure I associated with only those people who drank half an alcoholic the physical wasn’t there in the beginning didn’t take long my whole drinking career was not a long career because I hit the ground running I didn’t have that period like some of you had you know where I drank okay for 15 years or whatever and then I crossed the invisible line I standing on that invisible line when I was at that old cemetery and felt it for the first time and life went on now there was that nagging fear and guilt that that that there was that I shouldn’t be doing this this is bad it’s not only evil and I’ve learned that religiously but it’s also something that’s going to get me like my father it’s something that may turn on me like my father but I would rationalize and say I’m not going to do this for bever I’m just having a good time and when I’m older and when I set out to be a man I’m not going to drink or I’m going to drink like those people I’m learning about that don’t drink and have trouble I’m going to have that mix drink and have the great D dog at the fireplace or whatever I thought you know grown people that suceeded in drank but I would put that day forward and life went on and I’m going try not to bore you with a long drunk along log but because I don’t have a long drunk a log but I I life went on and and I it was still doing great things for me you know what it does for us is what gets us in trouble with it and what it does to us is what gets us here hopefully and then it was doing a lot for me the scale seemed to be tipped way in favor of the reward and not the price I doing right much vomiting and stuff till I got it right there were those things and I had some embarrassment and I and I had some scrapes with authority situations and circumstances that I wish hadn’t happened but basically it was doing so much for me and very little to me and L Peter when or when it seemed to be demanding its price when it seemed to turn on me I just almost missed it now the blackout for that Amnesia I had right from the beginning I didn’t know that I was having Amnesia or blackouts in the beginning I just thought people who would mix me up with somebody else I don’t know if you had that I’d get a report on something and I something i’ done or something I had even been there amazing things but they’d always have a witness you know I would say no it wasn’t me and theyd say well come here Joe and tell Crawford here that it was in I would hear this thing and I’d say well I I did I was there and I did that and I forgot it but see I didn’t know that that was peculiar to alcoholics I didn’t know that this blackout thing was something that we get and normal drinkers don’t get I just I wanted to think that all drinkers when they drink too much forget I started at one of the things that was sort of subtle or seemed to be I started being less and less able to predict the amount I was I was going to drink I would set out to drink a little and I wouldn’t drink a little I drink a lot and by then I I I’m married you know we always do that don’t we always that’s how it becomes a family disease you know very few of us will go off and be an alcoholic on her own we got to take some hostages in there and uh screw up everybody I had uh gone to a very little bit of college and I know now how much my drinking or the alcoholism interfered with any kind of education I might have gotten but I went into the military it was something you better do in my time or you couldn’t get a job and I join the Army and they made it just so you’ll know you’re hearing from a professional tonight I’ll just say this to impress you they made me a neuros psychiatric technician I can I see a look of all on a lot of faces most of you can’t even spell NEOS psychiatric techniques and I was one uh now what that is that’s a keeper in a nut house is what that what that is and by then I’m a I’m rocking along with with with a lot of I mean my alcoholism is going full of course now to give you an idea of a what a neuros psychiatric technician is in army so you can picture it if you had walked on one of these Wards let’s say at the old Valley Forge General Hospital up there in Phoenixville and now you just walked in cold you didn’t know anything the nuts were in blue pajamas and we were in white clothes and we carried cheat so if you’d wondered who to back up against the wall with we were in white and they taught me I remember I went through a training course and they taught me just enough psychology to worry about it I don’t know I I don’t I don’t know if you ever had that kind when I hear about things like schizophrenia and I know C my God I feel that way you know uh but you can’t let you know what you can’t let them know and that’s a big secret to know and I’m just as crazy as these nuts and i’ stand there on that Ward about to go have these panic attacks and some of you know what that is I said be ashamed to flip out and it switch my suit you know and it embarrassed me in front of the other people but that night when I would leave the ward and go to the club things will change and this is where I if I think of it and I just thought of it I stop and give a quick little educational course on alcoholism some of you want to go to work in some of you already working in the field and making you living at it and some of you aspire to do that so I stop and give a quick bachelor’s degree because they’ve done a lot of research on us you know gotten rats drunk for years and studied us and this kind of thing and I’ve always thought it was interesting all these billions of dollars they spent on they should I mean we have a disease so it should be res I always thought it was interesting that with all that money they researched on us they’ never spend a dime researching them non-alcoholics you know so I’ve taken it upon myself since there’s no government grants coming down for the study of non-alcohol ISM and it’s been fairly simple cuz I’m married to one of the worst cases of non- alcoholism you’ve ever seen in your life I mean this is I mean latter stage non- alcoholism you what me and ask has she she’ll drink a little now you know we’ll go out to a restaurant maybe two or three times a year she’ll have a half a glass of white wine or something and over the years and we’ve known each other for 100 years but been married 29 years over the years she’s probably drunk enough to feel it four times maybe and you know what she does and this is going to disgust the newcomer so brace yourself for this one you know what she does when she starts to feel it she stops that demands research so I’ve looked into it you what she says and I ask her and I’ve analyzed this thing and basically what she says the bottom line is she quits because she doesn’t like that feeling you know what she thinks when she starts getting that feeling you know how you get the pilot lit you know when you get that you know what I’m talking about when she gets her pilot lit if she even has one she feels she feels like she’s losing control when I would leave that nut board and go up to the club after thinking I’m going to fly apart all day and they’re going to learn my secret I would start ingesting that stuff and for the first time that day I would be in control you know I’m satisfied all kid in the side I’m satisfied that that’s all the difference I need to know between me and them is that same stuff that makes them feel that they’re losing control was the only thing that gave me any semblance of control and even when it was clear it was doing these things to me at times and later on it got at times clear I still had to have that control it seemed to get me because was the only thing I had so I would I I would I was losing control of my drink and I didn’t know that I didn’t know that I was losing control I just think i’ screw up now and then yeah well are I just did didn’t mean to do that I didn’t mean to stay out all night I didn’t mean to drink that much I didn’t mean to start drinking liquor I wanted to just drink beer could happen to anybody you know this kind of another thing and I think this is a real similar with all of us or at least if I understand the stories you’ve been telling me over the years I started losing control of my behavior too I could not predict my behavior I might be funny and and life of the party which I wanted to be but more and more often I was becoming hostile and mean and I was doing and saying things that I didn’t want to do and say and there’s the shame and the remorse the guilt set in because of this and it became evident to me at times that something’s wrong with my drinking that it would come become evident to those around me real a lot sooner did there’s something wrong with my drinking and I begin to get the fingers pointed or at least that’s the way it seems why do you drink so much don’t drink so much when we go tonight don’t drink so much why don’t you drink like so and so this kind of and I would I I I would I would resent that and I would defend and all that kind of stuff and they were attacking me and everything but secretly I would say well I’m going to do that I’m going to correct it I’m going to be better I’m not going to let that happen again by go I’m not going to do that again I’m not going to that place again I’m not going to embarrass myself like that again then I started getting those hangovers along in there some I thought I’d been having hangovers but what I’d been having wasn’t a hangover at all there was a whole new thing waiting out there for me and you know some of you know what I’m talking about a real hang the hangovers that make you look back fondly on what you used to call hangovers it’s like like I’m non-alcoholic hangovers you know you you know if you got anybody you work with or any in the neighborhood the family of N and they go out on New Year’s Eve whenever those people drink and they really tie one on there there six and a half drinks or whatever they had and they they brag about them hangover boy was tell you say I woke up New Year morning I was just dying my head was thring my tongue felt like a foot I could barely eat my waffles you know that’s that’s a serious thing over to those guys but I’m talking about those Real Deals you know what where you come to and you don’t wake up and every fiber of your of your being is screaming for more of this stuff whether you know it or not and the only person in the world was me and the fear and terror is Indescribable and I got in the morning drink and I discovered the morning drink that’s theer I discovered the morning drink thank God by the way I discovered the morning right I’ve heard a lot of stories from podiums like this and heard you know I lost 15 fames a lot of sad stories but the saddest thing the thing that really gets my gut is those of y’all that never discovered the morning drink I I want to grab you and hug you after you talk I tell you I couldn’t have stood that now of course the morning drink turned into the and and I’m going try to hurry through this thing a little bit and it became Bender drink I’m not talking about somebody in his 40s or even his 30s I’m talking about somebody in his 20s and since Greg who was with me in Texas a few years ago who heard me talk at it a con asked if he was nice enough ask me to tell one of these stories I’m G tell it because this sort of goes along with my this part of my drink in this period of my drinking I was looking for ways like we always do just like we were heard out of chapter 3 I was looking for ways to have it what it’s doing for me without paying that price of what it’s doing to me I had to have what it was doing for me but what it was doing to me was becoming bigger and greater and more severe and I was looking at all kinds of ways and every once in a while I would discover ways to drink and not get in trouble I don’t know if you know that feeling it’s the most wonderful feeling in the world you know it’s like discovering beer you know and that you can’t be an alcoholic on beer beer and this kind of thing well I was uh I was about 24 25 young fell married with a couple of children and I’m looking through Esquire magazine and they have all little nice ads in there and I opened up Esquire to a double page ad and they didn’t even have a pretty girl or the guy with the graying temples or anything there was no people in there it was just a glass with a green liquid in there and crushed ice beautiful little dooble of sweat going down the glass you know how that is and it said mint julip and it was advertised I don’t know what it was advertised I advertised one of these sour mash Bourbons or was advertising the brand the cream the mint I don’t know but I was so impressed and it even gave a little recipe over there you took a of the cream to Mint and a of the sour mash Bourbon and you you know did that and you had your mint Jew I was talking at some deal a few years back and some lady said this was a bad recipe for mint juls but my God it was a rean Esquire that day so I just couldn’t wait it was a Friday and when I left the office I stopped by the liquor store and I didn’t get the Rebel Yell or the wild turkey or what it was I got me a pint of George steep stag old stag was a little bit cheaper and a pint of cream to Mint and headed home with my Brown Sack to do some dignified drinking now my I then I’m getting a lot of trouble with drinking and when I walked in with that familiar looking sack Kay gave me that look she hadn’t seen me at and she thought I was going to get drunk and I said no we’re going to have in CL including her we’re going to have mint Jews I said I’ve been getting drunk Friday nights and all weekend but I’m not going to do that anymore I’m going to sit and drink some mint jewes a warm we lived in apartment complex and it was a warm summer evening and the other couples young couples were uh some of them were sitting out back and I remember there was a couple of gals there and I hollered out the screen door would you GS like to have a mint Jew well they would the like I said I’ll mix you one and Kay wouldn’t have any part of it didn’t have an ice crusher but I wrapped with a dish towel around the ice and beat it with a hammer de in it and beat up some ice and made three mint julips and I walked out and join these G out and we shipped our mes and I remember the feeling that I’m drinking okay now in fact I kind of hated the taste of that cream to Mint and I kind kind of felt like you drinking something you didn’t like it was kind of nicer and so I drank I can remember I drank mine faster than they drank there and I went back for and as a matter of fact I can remember how their crushed eyes kind of lumped up to one lump it just stayed in there so long melting and and I may have had two or three before they were able to get this down I offered them another one no they didn’t want any more but I continued to have mint jewels and and I felt good about and I can remember along about the sixth one I beat holes in that towel and I and I and K want me to beaten up any more town so I said I said you know in the end it was crushed ice but you know the cubes chill it just as well put the cubes in there swirl that stuff and sipped on it not 10:30 I ran out of ice but you know what I discovered you could just put a of each warm it was fine sort of a mint you look tidy it’s a good lost the glass about 11:30 you know my glasses a roll under things you know what you could do though you could take a slur of the of the bourbon and Chase it with the cream and it mixed just as good Kar is going to get drunk the Keith stayed green for about a day and a half so you know I like the all of us have Untold number of stories like this the craziness that crazy way that I’m going to do it different this time and life was bad life wasn’t funny and life was sick and my family was becoming sickened by this disease like my family of origin had become sickened by this disease and we were all doing crazy things i’ had gone away I was working in some crooked company because I had gotten my employment my resume was getting a little weaker and I was working for this crooked company I was up in St Louis and I stayed drunk up there for two weeks and I came back and I was in trouble and I knew it and I was sick and I just knew I needed and I came back and I was in trouble and I knew it and I was sick and I just knew I needed to do something and I needed to make some grandstand move I needed to make some promise to her to get the heat off do something say something and I was and she left the house for some reason and I called alcoholics Anice and this was in the middle of of the summer of 1966 and by then you know I’m I’m standing i’ always drink down to my underwear you know and I would get that morning tonight around the clock pipe drinking Bender drinking and I was in that underwear that I always in I just didn’t there was two things that I didn’t do while drinking two things that are ruin a bugs and most of you know it booze I mean uh baths and uh food and I didn’t take any basss and I didn’t eat any food and of course you know you can imagine what my breath was like from the no food and you can imagine how gamey the rest of it was from the no bath and my wife Aunt Pearl as a joke would make this funny crazy underwear she’d give all the men in it’s a joke yeah hearts in the r some obscene stuff I won’t even share with you but lace around them just kind of a joke was no joke with me I was not investing a lot in underwear so this is all the under where I had was just a an accumulation of Aunt Pearl shorts which she’ made over the years for Christmas and if I picture myself it’d be in Aunt Pearl’s drawers with a crotch down at my knees oversiz and a t-shirt I had in changed a little vomit down the front and this day in that condition I called alcoholics and and a fellow by the name of Bill in who was and is an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous he called me back I connected with the answering service there in Greensboro and he called me back and we talked and I was tapering off you know about tapering off yeah some of you not tapering off my daddy used to taper off I later got real proficient at tapering off and I would drink and then I knew I just couldn’t quit abruptly so I would taper off I would you know what I’m saying y’all know what I’m saying but Kay didn’t know what I’m she would confuse tapering off with drinking I don’t know if you know anybody that you know the difference but see she she just didn’t have that kind of mind where she could could understand that you know she say than you said you were going to quit drinking yesterday and I I did quit drinking yesterday today I’m tapering off it’s a whole I’m just giving myself a beer every hour or something course a couple of times I did have a dosage problem there get Plum drunk tapering off I don’t know if that ever happened to you and of course nothing to do but start over so I might pull a three-day drunk and then taper off for two more weeks and I wasn’t getting to work every day under these uh conditions and things were bad and so I called AA and Bill and I talked and he could tell I was tapering off and he was about as narrow-minded as K was about t off and he didn’t want to rush to my Aid we made an agreement that I was going to be back in touch with him and we were getting ready to leave town okay you know how wives and husbands and family of alol plan all the trips and everything like things in norm and she had planned God love her the beach trip we were going to go down the next day and spend a week and he said when you’re down there at Long Beach call AA it’s down there when you come back call me and here’s my name and here’s my number and I wrote it down and when K came back to the house I had it a name and a number from somebody at the an Anda to show her before she can open her mouth I said I have called the a here’s the man’s name here’s man’s number hush now he and I agree I’m not ready yet but he said he said should I be he wanted me to call I said hold on to this if you drink like I drank and you hand your wife or anybody a number and a name or somebody might help you you don’t need to tellal him the old on of this she’d have let the young go first she that that name and number was going to stay there and of course I did not call him back but at one of those times in my home and I don’t need to tell you what that’s like one of those desperate times one of those painful times she called and this was maybe four or five maybe even six months after I’d made that original call and she called and she got him on the phone and she explained who she was and I had talked with him some months earlier and he listened with empathy and and he listened as we do but he did the big thing the important thing when that other that family member called he said hold the phone he went and got live his wife who was big and alanine and she uh got on the phone told K about alanine the game changed I’m going tell you if you’re drinking and your spouse gets an alanine it probably won’t cure you drinking it’s not designed for that but it’ll break your Rhythm out I guarantee that than change she began to change now what she began to do is begin to recover from alcoholism she begin to be free of my disease that’s all it was that’s all you know if somebody somebody in that mess gets into recovery things is going to be better better things have going to change and God Lov she did alanine has as much more to do with my finding this program than anything else because although I could not appreciate what was going on I was watching somebody get well right before my I was watching alcoholism lose its grip on someone even though that’s not I didn’t know that’s what I was seen on June the second in 1967 I’m sitting there coming off another one of these grunks it’s not even a particularly exotic one I’ve been in a hell of a lot more trouble on others maybe even sicker on some others I don’t remember but I was just there again and the only person in the world and full of that Terror and full of that pain and I turned to her and I said let’s call that man again and she had learned enough in alanine that she wasn’t supposed to do it for me but she also knew when I was coming off those drunk I back when the telephon had them holes in it you know didn’t have the button and she knew I couldn’t run her around seven times like that so she did dial and got him on the phone and handed me the she handed me the phone and I can remember what he said so he knew about me he knew about the disease anyway but he had kept up with me through Kay and Li he said are you about ready to throw in the towel now and I said yes I am I think I was telling him the truth as much as I knew the truth and he said I’ll see you in the morning this was a fairly load hour and he came to that h i was a homeowner that’s part of my denial I’m a homeowner now the mortgage company was working real hard to change that we were about two weeks from the courthouse steps if you one of those houses and I he came into that almost foreclosed upon pun house and sit in that little old living room and did what we do and he did it beautifully but the main thing he did is he made that deal we always I hope we’re still trying to make that deal I know a lot of us are rushing out now see they got Blue Cross so we can throw them down there in treatment but the fir first thing I think we ought to do is try to talk to him about alcoholics andness and that’s what he did and he wanted to be the example that he was proof that and and he was and and I couldn’t deny that he was pretty clean cut and nice looking F and things seemed to be going well for him and and I was convinced of that he made that deal that I hope we always try to make number one that I would not drink that day and this was a Saturday morning and that I would go to Alcoholics Anonymous with him that night ain’t that what we try to do and I agreed i’ agreed to anything I was about ready for him to leave you remember when they came to see you you know you just talk and talk and talk that’s what it seems like and it’s just time for them to go my attention span was short and so you know he just said well we you know we have to take your ears and deposit I should fine cut off here you see I was too sick to go to a meeting that night I I I wanted to go I was going to go next week I was $ on check but I kind of had a feeling he didn’t want to argue about that so I just send him we could explain to him later but see Kay heard that deal she had her ear pressed to the door so we had to go so I got the Old Mercury that lovian bank was trying to uh take back from me and we went over to the starmac group on June the 3D of 1967 there was a speaker meeting most meetings were in greensbor at that time I all the meetings in town only two were discussion meetings or what we call closed meeting the rest were speaker and I went into a meeting in the stor out Presbyterian Church that I want to tell you just a little bit about and I hope I never get a Podium between my hand that I don’t talk about this meeting you I think everybody has his or her first meeting it may not be the very first one you go to but the first one that that lights your fire and maybe the 50th for me I think through this moment that my first meeting was my first meeting I walk I remember Homer key was chairing the meeting and he was greeting people that that came in and I walked in a most small meeting 18 19 no more than 20 people and I walked in this real nice room and the people got up and did what we do like they did tonight and read that stuff and an old boy got up to some Applause and told the story that I’m telling tonight and the story that I’ve heard 5,000 times in between the story We Tell and two big Miracles occurred in my life that night and I couldn’t appreciate him in the present time I know in retrospect two big deals happened in my life now I had been sober one day remember what that’s like anything I was hearing I didn’t need to be tested on but number one I understood this old boy’s message what he was telling me and those 18 or 19 other people was that he had drunk alcohol hopelessly that he’d come here to this thing and he wasn’t drinking and life is good I don’t remember how long that was I just remember that was the message and number two a bigger miracle was that I believ everyone said and I had believ anybody or anything in so long I couldn’t tell you I didn’t even believe in God I certainly didn’t believe in do gooders or self-help programs or any of this stuff but I believed every word this Rank Stranger said to me he had no reason to have any credibility with me now psychologist could have a big time with that I guess most of us in here call that the grace of God I was hooked on Alcoholic Anonymous without knowing it in much the same way I was hooked on alcohol without knowing now I didn’t have a whole lot of other places to go now I deal with a lot of people now that have to schedule in Alcoholics and off I didn’t have to explain down at the Country Club what I was going to be doing on yeah this was not my problem I did not have a job I did not have a society now the first thing that hooks us is the fellowship that’s what Alcoholics Anonymous is first didn’t it you know when we read the Preamble alol anom of the fellowship if they have said if you had said to me we’re going to make you some steps in a book here and you work those thing you’ll be fine and I couldn’t have made it I had to get hooked on you all and you hooked me after we finished that thing I didn’t pick up one of these starter chips I didn’t going to play at kg I didn’t want to pledge anything that night but we made our way from that room over to what they call the fellowship hall of church and they had cake out there and had all this coffee and they was standing I hadn’t had coffee in a long time coffee made me nervous that’s what I tell people that off me no no say coffee makes me NSE and it did you know sometime just getting around it maybe know and I you know and I didn’t like sweets you ever noce when you talk to I don’t like sweets never had this kind I didn’t eat cake and I didn’t drink coffee but all of them did you know they all had them a cup of coffee big old cup and a honk of cake it look like it’s about a qu of a pound of cake and they come up and say something spit them crumbs out I mean you can tell I enjoy slop some coffee in there behind it and that was my first ambition it wasn’t even to get one of those big cars I saw in the parking lot I want to eat me some cake and drink some coffee been B long don’t drink for about a week or 10 days I had me a new con I spitting cake crumbs on him tell don’t keep coming back The Fellowship of our colonics the society the men that surrounded me in this program you know when one of the old sayings that we hear and we still hear and it’s a good one pick the winners the winners picked me I guess I I don’t know if I could have determined who was a winner or a loser right there from the start I think doesn’t take long to make that determination but these guys much my senior I was 29 years old and these men were uh at least in their mid 40s and so almost old I am now and they took me up and down the road with them they were committed to Sur committed to this pram and these men had what I wanted these men had that thing that sure they had nice cars they had jobs and they had suits and pants that matched and all that b but they had that look that we try to describe that look of Peace you it didn’t take long and it doesn’t take any of us long to separate who the winners and who the losers are you can be around here for a couple of weeks and no Oldtimer has to get you off the corner and say that guy vomiting over there’s a loser and that guy over there with you know sponsoring a half a dozen people is a winner you know that you can compute that and I wanted to have what these winners had want to interview them you know and I would Corner them and made it that’s good and I wanted somehow in fact Greg and I were talking to today in my room uh not Craig but Greg and we were talking about a mutual friend and and we were talking and he’s never made the program not really and he he was the type that wanted me or someone else to do the program for him you ever heard of that kind they want me to go to the meetings or want you to go to the meetings and work the steps and then then come talk to you and let you osmosis it to him and I wanted that kind of thing and I discovered that thing I hope we all discover all winners do the same thing there’s no secret I knew they going to tell me something you know after 6 months called me other the side and said Crawford you know we work these steps and we go to the meetings but when there’s a PO we take a dead cat and bury it in the backyard you know I mean it was some mystery they weren’t sharing with all just everybody that came strolling in the door yeah but that didn’t happen and then I discovered that thing that all winners are doing the same thing you look around take the people that if you’re new take the people that have that thing you want to have take the people that you admire use as example those people that you’d like to be in their shoes and even though you think as I thought well they just got it made if they had my troubles you know they wouldn’t be feeling that good and walking around grining all the time even though you think that just take all these people and make a list of what they’re doing and I bet you’re going to find out what I found out all winners go to a lot of meetings and they’re active in the meetings you know they’re not just there they’re not spectating they’re there as part of it they’re members you know they’re sharing the group they emping the Astros and they’re taking an active part all winners talk about this book that we call the big book and even can even sort of know what says I don’t mean big book quoters but sort of have a gist of what’s in there and all winners Express the spiritual feature freely we talk about God and the spirituality of this program and all winners I think work the essence of this program which I believe is the 12 step spiritual uh part of the program in one way or another and most winners will carry this message to a Stills suffering drunk under any reasonable circumstance at any time because I discovered what really what alcoholics andom was all about after going through a lot of Agony and pinning down some of you Old-Timers that I thought really had it and interviewing you and trying to learn secret and following you around and trying to hear what you’re saying see if I couldn’t sit in your chair and get some of that stuff to rub off of me and all those things I had a sponsor then I’ve now moved from that town to have a new sponsor but the first 15 years of my sobriety I had one sponsor old rert called him Grandad and rubber’s a 12 second junk and he would carry this message to some of the god aest places you’ve ever seen in your life and we made a lot of mistakes doing that 12 I know now looking back on it we you know I remember one guy we kept drunk for about three days trying to P for him off you know I remember those days there weren’t so many places you could dump them detox places and we kept old Sam about killed me and old Homer rert had us over there pulling shifts with old Sam Sam look like a million dollar singing Rock of Ages on his front court and I came over at shift change with Homer and both of us had dark circles under eyes we’ve been up with Sam for about 3 or 4 days and I said uh Homer let’s go home I won’t tell Reaper if you want we’ll let Sam’s doing fine and we went home and Sam got sober we kept doing it we we quit Doling out that liquor to him but old rer would call me and he didn’t ask what I thought the person might be motivated or anything he would just call me and say I’m going to come pick you up we’re going to go and it might be the grin to tail or something a rotten place where nobody ever wanted to get sober but that we’d go if if the call came in through answering service and I don’t know how many calls I made with him and how many people I would sit over at his house he’ bring them to his house and we sit out in his backyard or in his kitchen and talk to that drunk maybe all night long about this progr and I’m sitting somewhere at some time with somebody who’s hurting worse than me and a strange and new but beautiful feeling overcame me and ain’t know what it was and it didn’t last long and I couldn’t really identify it until sometime later till I got away from the situation and I looked back on it and I realized for the first time in my life for a couple of seconds I cared more about someone else than I did me just for a little piece of CH it is the best feeling I ever had now I’m not talking about since drinking I’m talking about in my whole life I had never cared more about you than I did me for any period of time and that’s when I discovered what y’all have been trying to tell me all along that my problem self self-centeredness selfishness it’s not the kind of booze I drink it’s not the kind of jeans I got from my alcoholic Daddy it’s none of these things my problem self and this whole recipe for living implied in these 12 steps is is a is is a the business is eliminating me getting ready of show now I can have that feeling anytime I want it anytime I need it all I got to do is reach out all I got to do is be responsible all I got to do is understand what the 12 step means and I can be free of me the formula is simple for me the emptier I am of me the Fuller I am of God if I come to a big deal conference like me this I got to realize this is a big deal but I ain’t a big deal and if I start thinking it’s up to me that this sat Saturday night banquet goes well then that’s back in the cell and I’m going to kill myself once again with that that’s the cancer that’s going to eat me up if I allow it if I get away from this this this regimen that you’ve taught me so many good things have happened to me in Alcoholic Anonymous I raised my children in Alcoholic Anonymous and I was talking in alanon we raised our children in the program and I was talking to somebody I can’t remember who but I was talking to somebody earlier here that had small children or they were talking about small children I said yeah but watch out they’re going to turn into teenagers you know they do and until somebody comes up the way to freeze them or something then thr them out later that’s what yeah so I don’t get into advice but I’ll give you just a little bit of advice if you got children that are hiding into the team and you don’t like this program find yourself some program cuz you need something but we did that and we survive that I can remember that our 18y old daughter when she was 18 had to be kicked out of our house and that was the toughest thing we ever had to do ever had to do and I won’t go into all the details about that I’ll just say now at age 26 she and K are each other’s best friends they talk to each other every day on the phone Kelly’s and greens and we’re in Charlotte and have been for quite a few years the closeness to love is beyond our loudest imaginings and we were able to make the decision and and tough decision of asking her to leave the house or make making her leave the house because of this program and the reunion the recovery from that was simply because of this problem many tough thing I’ve been fired since I’ve been s you know I thought I’d never been I’d been fired drunk Lord that was no big deal i’ just get sometime I’d be fired not know it I just hadn’t Dro back by you know so that was no big deal bu girl I got bar sober I’ve been sober two years and three quarters doing a beautiful job in AA too I like to say saw an AA poster child at that time you know the kind I was cheering a lot of meetings and making talks and sort of sort of the pillar of the discussion groups you know I kind of had I had no more to say and I was really active made coffee and they fired me the company fired me didn’t ask me how many meetings I going to I have been talk was he fing because I wasn’t doing anything there part of the thing was to take my car cuz the car was part of the job it’s kind of like being in jail I had one phone call and I called my wife to come pick me up cuz they fired good AA like me I walked out there on the corner of the lot and this is the ego corner of the lot it was about 11 o’clock in the morning and I was waiting for Kay to come pick me up and it occurred to me that people driving by would promise suspect I was fired this the kind of eag I I swear so I started looking in pet I checked my watch you know look busy and just kind of stood up straight yeah i’ just been fired I had a mortgage and two young ones and I my biggest worry is some guy will drive by and punch his wife so I bet that one fired so I got in the car and wh and everything then important thing about that incident was that I hated that job I should have quit a long time ago they should have fired me a long time ago and that thing opened I don’t mean the next afternoon or the next week but over the years that opened up for me job life employment life things beyond my wildest strength and a lot of the so-called losses that we experience the so-called tragedies the so-called pain are just those things those things that force me to drop something that’s killing me anyway to be rid of some yoke or some burden anyway and only when it’s so painful to hold on will I drop it to clear the way for for beautiful and wonderful things everything that’s good in my life and thanks to you that’s much everything of value everything Worth showing you is direct result of this program is nothing else there are no other tricks up my sleep or anyone else is that I’m know this Fellowship that I describe the recipe for living the therapy implied in those 12 steps and that’s what it is Dr silkworth calls it a moral psychology but God I found you if you that I thank you 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