From Detox Patient to Detox Director – AA Speaker – Bobby M.
AA speaker Bobby M. shares his journey from street life and homelessness to 25 years sober, working in detox treatment, and finding a relationship with God through the 12 steps.
Bobby M. from Cleveland, Ohio spent years on the streets—homeless, incarcerated in his choices, stabbed, and cycling through failed attempts at recovery. In this AA speaker tape, he walks through hitting absolute bottom at the city mission, finding surrender with a priest, and how 25 years of working the program transformed him from a detox patient into the first Black director of that same treatment center.
Bobby M. shares 25 years of continuous sobriety after a life of street addiction, multiple rehabs, and a transformative moment of surrender at a Salvation Army facility. This AA speaker discusses how connecting with a Higher Power, finding sponsorship, and consistently working the 12 steps pulled him out of rage, resentment, and self-destruction. He speaks to the power of service work, carrying the message through humility, and building a life of purpose—showing that recovery changes not just the person, but everyone around them.
Episode Summary
Bobby M. opens with a striking statement: he’s grateful he became an alcoholic, because without it he never would have found Alcoholics Anonymous or the people in the rooms who taught him how to live. That gratitude runs through the entire talk, even as he lays bare the details of a life that had almost no bottom.
Born in Birmingham, Alabama during the civil rights era, Bobby M. grew up in a loving but strict household where education and church were sacred. He was a bright kid—graduated high school at 16, an honor student. But something happened to him as a child that he carried into adulthood as rage and hatred. He drank his first significant drunk at 12, and by his late teens he was running from everything: from his mother’s death from cancer, from his own pain, from himself.
The streets of Cleveland became his home. Bobby M. doesn’t shy away from describing what that meant: theft, sexual survival, violence. He was stabbed in the heart outside a bar and survived open-heart surgery only to spend those recovery days planning revenge. He’s direct about it—not to shock, but because he’s learned that shame keeps people isolated, and honesty is what sets them free. Unlike many in AA who use blackouts as cover, Bobby M. says he knew exactly what he was doing. That’s the disease: full consciousness of your own destruction.
His introduction to AA came through a television commercial. Bleeding, desperate, with nowhere else to go, he called the number. A man named Herman (known as “Hooks”) showed up and became his first sponsor—a “little bulllegged black guy” who spoonfed him the program without grandstanding, without trying to impress him with how much he knew. This is a crucial detail in Bobby M.’s talk: he learned early that recovery isn’t about intellectualizing or performing sobriety. It’s about action and humility.
The turning point came when Bobby M. found himself at Harbor Light, the Salvation Army detox program, after surrendering completely to Father Gregory French. No more fighting. No more trying to win against alcohol. He was done. In that moment—broke, homeless, stripped of everything—something shifted. He got sober. And instead of leaving as soon as he could, he started going back to the detox center every morning to help other people coming off the streets. He washed clothes. He cleaned up after sick people. He carried the message by showing up.
Within five years, he became the director of that program. Not because he was special, he insists, but because he stayed connected to his sponsor, went to meetings, worked the steps, and showed up for people. He’s watched women who walked in from the streets get master’s degrees. He’s watched people transform.
A big part of Bobby M.’s message centers on his relationship with God. For five years he refused to say the word “God”—he said “higher power.” His sponsor made him pray anyway, even while angry. Then one Christmas came that was genuinely good, and his sponsor told him: “No more higher power. God.” Bobby M. got it.
He also speaks to the power of letting go of resentment through service. He talks about the man who stabbed him later asking for change on the street—and Bobby M., after two years in the program, no longer hated him. The man died from alcoholism. Bobby M. lived. He didn’t drink over it. That’s what the steps do.
There’s a beautiful thread about his daughter, Ashley Nicole. She’s never seen her father drunk. That’s what staying sober gave him. He also talks about caring for his aging parents—his mother dying of cancer, his father losing his dignity. He was able to do that with presence and love because the program had removed the self-centeredness and rage.
Bobby M. credits specific people: his sponsors (he’s worked with three, lost two), Phil Burkhart (an old-timer with 35 years who broke down the steps for him), and the fellowship itself. He talks about wearing sobriety “like a loose garment”—not rigid, not superior, just at peace. He talks about Hulk (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired) and why meetings matter. He talks about how his sponsor insisted he shake the hands of people who wronged him—and how seven years later, one of those men came to him asking for amends.
The message is consistent: don’t drink, don’t drug, go to meetings, pray, help another drunk. It sounds simple because it is. But Bobby M. has lived it for 25 years. He’s employed. He’s a good father. He’s at peace. That’s not luck. That’s the program working.
Notable Quotes
There’s a God, and I’m not it, nor are you.
Hate does nothing to the person you are hating but destroys you.
Alcoholics Anonymous works. It’s an action program. It’s like love. Love is an action word. You can’t talk about me and beat me up and call me names and tell me you love me.
This is the slickest thing I’ve ever done—coming to Alcoholics Anonymous.
I’m okay. Not perfect, not having all the answers. Sometimes I don’t know what the questions are, but I’m okay because there’s nothing that God, myself, my sponsor, my home group that we can’t handle. Nothing.
Life is not what you’ve accomplished. All that material stuff, you’re not going to take it with you. Life is what you overcome.
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Hitting Bottom
- Sponsorship
- Step 3 – Surrender
- Spiritual Awakening
- Service Work
People Also Search For
▶ 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. If you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-rise.com.
Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. I'm an alcoholic and my name is Bob Moore.
Hi. >> Hey, guys. The enthusiasm in this room is awesome.
And I certainly before I start running my big mouth, I want to thank the committee honestly for really asking me to come out here and share your 30th uh roundup, the Gopher State roundup. >> >> And as I look out among you, I want you for me to give yourself a hand because you're some beautiful people to me tonight. I told Ed, "We clean up well, don't we?" Now, 25 years ago, Dave, wherever Dave is for keeping in touch with me and Betty.
Uh Peter for picking us up at the airport. Uh Ernie L. uh was an honor to meet you wherever you are.
Ernie, I hope to get to see you uh some more of this conference before I leave. And last but not least, Ed. And Betty and I get to go a lot of places and they're no strangers.
You know, as Ed talked about the language of the heart, they're no strangers. When you wear your sobriety like a loose garment, I'm okay. And I've never been okay in my life.
I am okay with 3,000 people here tonight. I'm okay. And that's the joy of this wonderful program.
Couple of things I learned early on. There's a God, and I'm not it, nor are you. Some of you think you are, and Alcoholics Anonymous works.
Uh, I got a lot of ambivalence as I sit here because I I was touched tonight and and and my daughter has grown up here going to Alanon and AA and uh she thinks she has a sobriety date, but she hadn't drank yet. So, let's hope she never wets it, you know. But I just got through going I was telling the other about going through something with my dad.
I thought I hated my dad's guts. And I don't know if a lot of you can identify with that, but I come in the alcoholic synonymous hating. Hating everything.
Everybody and everything. Everybody had ever done anything to me. I hate it.
Hate does nothing to the person you are hating but destroys you. God was at the top of the list. And for five years in Alcoholic Anonymous, I refused to say God.
I thought God was sitting up there on his high and mighty throne. Why would he let all of this stuff that was going on in my life? And for five years, I said the higher power.
I thank God for wonderful spe sponsorship because my sponsor would say to me, I want you to pray every night and thank God for that day of sobriety and get up in the morning and ask God to go with you. I ain't talking to him. Okay?
And so my prayer like that would go, okay, whatever's watching over my sponsor, watch over me. get up the next morning, whatever, watching over my sponsor, watch over me. And for five years, I did it in my fifth year, one of the best Christmases I'd had since I was a little boy growing up in Birmingham, Alabama.
And I have a gospel singing friend of mine by the name of Jean. And I called Jean and I said, "Jean, God did this. God did that beautiful Christmas.
God Jean said to me, "No more higher power. No more higher power." emphatically God. Tonight, as I stand before you, I watched my dad, a proud, proud man who had 35 years in the army, having to me to pick him up and take him to the bathroom and clean him.
And my daddy looked at me one night and he said, "I never thought, son, that I'd ever see one of my kids would have to clean me." And I thank God and I said, "Dad, it's okay." But I thought about us because sometimes we're very unkind and mean to people in Alcoholics Anonymous. I've thought sometimes about us, how we treat people, and sometimes we do it in recovery because you don't know before you leave here who's going to have to give you a glass of water or to clean your behind. It taught me something.
I was really really into watching my daddy because because of Alcoholics Anonymous I could do that for my dad. I did it for my mother and I thought I hated my father. My journey in Alcoholics Anony began in Birmingham, Alabama.
I was born when black wasn't beautiful. I ain't like being black and I didn't want to be another color. But it was horrible times for black folk.
If you grew up during the time I grew up, clu marched through the community kept us in fear. But we were proud proud proud black people. My mother always would say education was going to be our out.
And my grandma my mother got pregnant with me at about 12 years old. And I remember hearing my grandmother say, "You don't bring bastard babies into this world." No offense to no one who has a child out of wedlock. My story that time, different time, different era.
I grew up during the time you got your fanny tan. It was not called child abuse. >> >> And we did not come out of a dysfunctional home.
That's a treatment jargon. It was the norm. You got out of line, my mama hit you.
My mother Yeah. My my grandmother catch you in midair, you know. But it was what I call mutual respect.
You knew what to do, where your place was. Everybody raised you, the teachers in the community, the people in the community, the teachers. You went to church whether you wanted to go or not.
There's an African proverb that says it takes a village to raise a child. And that's the way I was raised. I was raised right.
I was raised, grew up in Zion Baptist Church, baptized by Reverend Martin. And in that church, if you smoked cigarettes, you were going to go to hell. You drank alcohol, you were going to go to hell.
You had sex and wasn't married, woo, you going to burn in hell. Now, before I come to you, I'm doing all of the above. And we going to have a good time on the way to hell.
I got drunk with some kids about 12 years old. My first drunk significant consequences. That's what alcoholism, addiction is, consequences.
I was telling my friend bringing me over here today, if we could drink successfully, most of us would drink. I couldn't do it. And thank God for Alcoholics Anonymous.
But I had a nononsense mother and these kids brought me home. They dumped me on the porch and they ran. They knew my mother.
Couple of things happened. My mother beat my butt. She broke a broom over my head and she ran in the house and got her gun.
Now, at 12 years old, I guess over real quick, trust me. Would she have shot me? I doubted it.
She scared the hell out of me, though. I know that. But my mother said something to me that night that I'll take to my grave.
Sunny, before I see you like this, I would rather see you dead. Now, 12 years old meant nothing. But 30 and 35 and I'm walking the streets of Cleveland doing anything.
Now you let your little minds run rapid. And I know you're sitting out there and said, "Well, I wonder, did he?" Yes, I did. No, Bobby Moore did.
Yes, I did. Know a little nice lady. I just said he didn't do that the hell if I did.
Unlike a lot of you. Unlike a lot of you who don't want to talk about it. That is the freeing process.
That's what makes me okay tonight. I can talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly. You know, I don't do like a lot of you.
Oh, thank God for blackouts. I wasn't in no blackout. I needed some money.
I'm not in no blackout. I'm f to steal something. Then I'll go in a blackout after I get it.
But before then, I'm wide awake. I know what I'm doing. I'm doing anything on the streets of Cleveland.
You want me to steal for you? Give me a drink. Want me to lie for you?
Give me a drink. You want me to make love to you and I hate your guts? Give me a drink.
Alcoholism. Alcoholism. that a liquid would cause you to do and become anything because of the need.
Now, one of the things if you didn't do it, don't sit out there and judge me. I will not be judged by you. I will be judged by God.
Skidro is a state of mind. You take it to suburbia. Puke is puke.
Fighting and raising hell is I don't care where you are is raising hell. I wouldn't look at the evidence. Graduated from high school at 16.
An honor student, most likely to succeed. Smartest dude in the class. Best looking dude in the class.
Got to say that one. Stuff had started happening to this little boy when he was a little boy that my mother died. Didn't know.
Thank God for Alcoholics Anonymous because I hated some of those people had done things to me. I work in treatment. I work in psychiatry.
And when you see macho man comes into Alcoholics Anonymous, he's fighting. He's angry. He wants to beat up the world and he's got to play daddy and play husband and he was gang raped in the penitentiary.
It's hard for him. It's difficult for him. It's difficult for him in relationships with the opposite sex.
This is the cleansing process here. And that's where a lot of you let it go right over your head. It's not what you think of me, it's what I think of you.
It's not what I've done, it's what I do today. You know, I'm under new management today. >> >> I'm hanging around with people.
Went to school with my mom and dad and a lot of stuff happened to me. Shouldn't have happened. I was very angry and very bitter.
Went to Chicago at the age of 17 and I come back from Chicago and I think I'm grown at 17. Had no clue about life, dealing with life on life's terms. Responsibility.
If it feels good, I want some more. That's why I drank so much. That's why my sexual conduct was out of out of order.
You know, I come back from Chicago. My mother is remarried to her husband in Detroit. My grandmother is there and I had to get a job.
And if there was a time I drank successfully was during this period of time. Now, we just don't stay there at that mellow mode. You know, when we crossed that imaginary line, I don't know when I did it, but my drinking got on a roll.
And my grandmother would say I was acting ugly, you know, cuz I'd get drunk and talk about your mama, your daddy, and people don't don't take kindly to that. A and uh everybody saw me grow up in that community. So when I would act ugly, as my grandmother would term it, granny got it before I got home.
And I'm sick of these nosy people in my business. I had no business. My business was about getting high.
I'm young. I bounce back, get a letter from Uncle Sam, and I'm ready to get the hell out of Dodge. I do my basic in Fort Chaffy, Arkansas, and I ended up in Osburg, Germany.
Strange customs, strange booze, and the first thing I say when I get off the ship, now I can drink like I want to. Them nosy neighbors can't dip in my business. You know, my business was about getting high.
I meet people like me in Germany. Water seeks its own level. You know, I'm stationed around the University of Munich.
I have friends of mines who are attorneys today, doctors today. I'm in some guest house, some horror house. I'm somewhere drunk.
Story of my life. Got wonderful pictures. My wife is going through the scrapbook and she said, "Why do you look like that?" I said, "I'm drunk.
>> >> I'M DRUNK. EVERY, YOU KNOW, we want to take pictures here. Grab me, you know.
Better take my picture when I get drunk. And story of my life. Booze was rationed.
Cigarettes was rationed. I typed out the division stamps to to get the booze and the cigarettes. We sell the booze to the Germans.
Sell the cigarettes to the Germans. I'm drunk every day. Everything I do is drug affected.
I'm drunk every day. Now, I had met Dr. Martin Luther King long before he became prominent.
The movement was in the black community. My pastor was a part of that. And every Monday night, Dr.
King would come into our one of our churches there in Birmingham. Now, I'm in Europe and his picture is plastered all over the European paper and they're kicking his butt. They're throwing him in jail.
And there's nothing worse than a drunk with the cause. We are dangerous. We are dangerous.
You know, sobering comes out right. You know, I could articulate my feelings, but when I get high, it comes out wrong. My second sponsor used to talk about an old BB King song.
Same old story, same old song. Goes all right till it goes all wrong. Same old story, same old song, you know.
And there was a time I could drink successfully. I could do things. I was smart.
I was intelligent. But once I got high, I was capable of murder. My journey.
My journey. Angry people don't have fun. People who hate don't have fun.
people who are and I'm sitting there and the more I drink and I'm hating and I'm angry and and and everybody in the EM club one night is shaking their booty, they're having fun and I'm not having no fun. The more I drank, the more pissed I got. And I leaned over to a guy next to me and I said, "Someone of another color called us a name we don't like to be called." And one of the worst race riots erupted.
I'm responsible. And that don't go well with me because I was raised differently. I used to go over to the boarding group.
Don Cassini comes to I think he's been there a couple of times for you guys. But Donald group is a boarding group on a Monday night. And there would be a lot lot of old-timers over there.
And I'd go over there just to hear these old cajes. And they'd be sitting up there talking and I'd be sitting up there trying to hear what they were trying to say. And I remember one night one guy stood up and he said, "Isn't it wonderful to be sober?" And I looked at him, I said, "Hell no, it's not wonderful." You know, I'm wearing Salvation Army clothes.
Just before that, I got sprayed for bugs at the city mission. You know, my life is not wonderful. You I'm wearing Salvation Army clothes.
Oh, no. Oh, it is not wonderful. But ladies and gentlemen, as I stand out here and look at your beautiful faces tonight, I am so grateful to God that I became an alcoholic.
Because had I not become an alcoholic, I would not have met you. I would not have found Alcoholics Anonymous. Had I just put the plug in the jug, I would have still been hating.
I would have still been hating. and I wouldn't have had your wonderful 12 steps to get rid of the garbage. I give the garbage to the garbage man.
I dump the garbage. I don't hate no more. One night I'm over there and the guy says a pickle is a cucumber before it becomes a pickle.
I'm still listening. Once it becomes a pickle, you can't put it back on the vine, become a cucumber again. In essence, once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.
You don't hear a lot of that stuff like you used to 25 years ago. Hey, it's like riding a bicycle. As long as you pedal the bicycle, the bicycle will move.
You stop pedaling, you fall off. First guy I saw get drunk in Alcoholics Anonymous. I had three months.
Ernest M had 16 years. He got drunk. And I asked a guy named Papy.
I said, "Pappy, what happened?" Ernest had 16 years. He said he got he graduated Bobby Moore. He stopped going to meetings.
So I knew at 3 months I got to go to a lot of meetings cuz I didn't want to get drunk like Ernest. I'm up there one night and God said, "A was like sex. If you're not enjoying it, you must not be doing it right.
>> >> I'm up there in THE HEISMAN. HEY, BOBBY MOORE, I GOT A good one for you. Aa is like the mafia.
You leave, you die. >> >> After those guys got killed, I didn't feel good about myself and I started drinking during the day. I broke every law God's in man and I should have been kicked out of the army.
But but for the for the grace of God, I got an honorable discharge. I leave the army. I stop off in New York.
I got money at home. I've sent bonds and sent the money I made selling booze to the Germans home to granny. and I go back to my grandmother's house there in Birmingham, Alabama.
And I move back into the room I went to high school out of. I pay no rent. I buy no food.
And I'm drunk every day. Alcoholism has now set in. It deadens all of that motivation, that drive, that incentive to do anything that is right.
I remember I I watched a movie down at the the treatment center and and they were talking about uh drinking up. This woman was talking about she dranked up her willpower. Said, "Do you have some willpower?" She said, "No, I drank my willpower up.
I just drank up everything. It just destroyed my life. Just destroyed my life.
I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy the things that I went through. It is in remembering that I stay." So, you know, I'm around Birmingham and I got money. I got bonds.
I got a lot of rental friends. And if you don't play my game, you don't act the way I want you to act. Then I get rid of you and I get some more people.
I got money I'm buying. And if I buy, you dance to my music. It's a controlling issue.
I love it. You know, I'm in charge. I'm the man in charge, you know.
And we drinking, blowing this money, running to the bank like an idiot. And around this time, we get a letter from my mother's minister. The logistic of the letter was my mother was dying.
Had a beautiful mother. And I went to the army remembering my mother as this pretty lady with long hair who used to get out and play ball with my brother and myself. And I get on a train.
I go to South Pittsburgh, Tennessee. And my mama ain't pretty anymore. She's skin and bone and dying of cancer and I feel helpless and I feel hopeless, but I know how to spare relief.
I sp I sell my mother's house and I go take her back to Alabama and I watched her die a horrendous death. Cancer stinks and it smells and it robs you of your beauty. A and my mother my my grandmother was ill.
My brother's in California with my dad and I got to clean my mother and my mother resented the hell out of me seeing her naked. But I'm so grateful to God that I did that. I'm so grateful that God allowed me.
Didn't stop drinking, but she was priority. And I go all over the United States running my big mouth and invariably someplace there's a guy who say, "Hey, Bobby, well, let me tell you about how I took care of my mother." You know, I I take my hat off to these guys. But I did it because I loved her.
She was priority. I'm an alcoholic, but I do what I have to do. So my ritual for two years, I got to clean her, clean the bed, and when I clean her, clean the bed, feed her, and she fall asleep, then I drink myself to sleep.
And one Saturday, I leaned down to kiss her and she was no longer with us. Remember a friend of mine who went to high school went to me. He put his arms around my shoulder and he said, "I know how you feel." And I said, "No, you don't.
Your mama's still living." 25 years later in Alcoholic Anonymous, if I hadn't walked in your shoes, I don't say I know how you feel. I can empathize. I can love you till you learn to love yourself.
I can care for you all I want to. But I don't know how you feel if I hadn't walked in your shoes. Your mama died call me.
I know how you feel. And I drank three bottles of wine and I went to that funeral to show them the mythical them how I felt. Always showing them, always trying to prove to them and never knew who them were.
But I had to show them how sad I was. In sobriety, I've gone back to funerals and a very dear dear aunt. I I just watched how beautiful and how peaceful she was in death.
And I view dying differently than I did when I was drinking. My perception is off. I don't see things clearly.
Dying is a part of living. We're all going to go there. But between birth and death, there should be some good living.
That's what this stuff in Alcoholics Anonymous is about. >> >> enjoying life, doing the things that you enjoy doing without booze, without drugs, and just enjoying life. Remembering who's running the show.
There's a God, and it's not you. And I'll say that a couple more times before I leave you. Just keep that in mind.
There's a God. And you have to find that for yourself. Those of you who are new with us, your sponsor can't do that for you.
Nobody can do that for you. That you bond with a power greater than yourself. You found a God of your understanding.
And I found out in Alcoholics Anonymous that God works through people with skin. You know, the people who love me the most were these little white women from Lakewood, Ohio. And I'm hating.
So if if if you're sitting out there and tall, thin, and black ain't in, you ain't heard nothing I said tonight. I was hating and those little women in Lakewood, Ohio love me until I could learn to love myself. An incredible journey.
God works through people with skin. My mother dies. Traumatic.
Just traumatic. My brother comes home for the funeral and was in Cleveland, Ohio. And that's how I got to Cleveland.
Early 60s. Some of you kids weren't born. They have an affectionate name.
They call Cleveland now the plum. Wasn't the plum when I got there in the 60s. Bunch of dilapidated buildings.
And I'm ready to go back to Birmingham. I know every nook and cranny. But there's an area where my brother live, and I'm sure there's one in Minnesota like it is.
Years ago, we used to call it the red light district. See, I heard them. They They know.
They know. 107 to 55th in Uklip was lit up like Las Vegas. Prostitutes worked all night long.
Pretty girls. I don't know how they make money today. I don't.
Beautiful girls. They were look good, smell good, and I became part of. Now, if you haven't been on the streets, if you haven't been on the streets and you don't understand, don't judge me.
Don't judge me. An alcoholic, male or female, would do what he or she has to do to get what they have to get. And thank God that somebody bought you booze and you didn't have to go out there.
I ended up being a street person doing anything on the streets of Cleveland for money or for get high. I'm not ashamed. There's no shame to my game today.
That is the beauty of this program. When you wear your sobriety like a loose garment, that person is no longer with us. But when I take a shower and I see the gunshot wounds and the beatings and the cutings and the stabbings, I know I know every scar on my body.
Either I'm in the process of getting some money or I'm trying to do something to get something to get high off of. The story of my life. God stabbed me in the heart and live in a bar called the Down Bar off 105th in Uklid.
This was the third or fourth time that my lights were almost put out. And I remember coming out of that 8 and 1/2 hours of surgery, open heart surgery, and I'm laying up there with tubes coming out of every conceivable part of my body. And all I can think about, I'm going to kill this guy.
I'm going to kill this guy. I'm going to pay somebody to kill him because I know how it's done. To show you how this stuff in Alcoholics Anonymous works, I had been with you for two years.
This gentleman, and I'll use that word loosely that cut me, was on the 105th in Uklid on a cane and walked up to me and didn't know who I was. I had been with you for two years and I no longer hated this man. And he asked me for 50 cents on a bottle of wine.
Needless to say, I hadn't gotten that well. I needed 6 months later, this man dies as a direct result of alcoholism. And if I live to July 26th of this year, I will celebrate 25 years of uninterrupted sobriety.
>> >> And all I do today is suit up and show up. I don't know. I The guys I sponsor, they expect me to tell them something profound.
And when I tell them something as simple as don't drink, don't drug, and go to meetings and pray. Aren't you going to say something profound? That is the most profound thing that I can say to you.
Alcoholics anonymous work. get in the middle of the bed as my sponsor would say to me. You know, I'm out there on the streets doing anything and everything.
A and my introduction to Alcoholics Anonymous goes like this. I get sick out there. I'm bleeding from the mouth and rectum.
I don't go to ER. I don't find a physician. Had a friend friend of mine that lived across from Cleveland Clinic, one of the largest hospitals there in Cleveland.
And I'm across the street in Cleveland drinking vodka, chasing it with beer. Guy had a television set in the corridor. I would have to pass this TV set to puke my guts out.
30th, 40th time, who's counting? One of the times I come back by that television set, channel 43 there in Cleveland had a commercial from our central office. Do you have a drinking problem?
Oh, did I? I know nothing about Bob Bill Aa 12 steps big book rec. I know nothing.
But I call that number and I'll be eternally grateful because I believe God intervene in my life. I don't believe I did it by myself. I believe God was instrumental in that.
What makes the guys that I ran the street with, most of them are dead. Other prostitutes, most of them are dead. I'm walking down Huff Avenue, a guy shooting at me, shoots the guy next to me, he dies.
I'm still here. And sometimes we don't know what God has for us. We don't write the script.
Had I written the script, I would not have put this conference in that script. What a Mr. Blessing.
I called the central office on that television set and they sent out my first sponsor, a little bulllegged black guy by the name of Herman Wayade Alias Hooks and I'm eternally grateful because it was this little giant that brought me the message who spoonfed me Alcoholics Anonymous. And he wasn't running around trying to show me how much he knew. He wasn't a big book thumper.
And no offense to no one who is. I read the big book for 25 years. It is not to impress you.
It is for me. You reap the benefit of that. My relationship with God is none of your business.
You reap the benefit with me being connected with God by the way I treat you. You don't have to tell me what you are and what you're doing. You show me.
That's what this program is. It's an action program. It's like love.
Love is an action word. You can't talk about me and beat me up and call me names and tell me you love me. It's an action component.
And that's what you got to do in this program. You got to get it for yourself. It works if you work it.
And if you don't work it, you're not going to get it by osmosis from your sponsor. My sponsor took me out to Brexville VA Hospital. And I meet the second man that's to affect my life for the rest of my life.
Little short white guy I am hating. We're sitting in pajamas like you guys are watching me. And he walks up to this podium, little short white guy like my sponsor.
My name is Phil Burkhard and I have 35 years of uninterrupted sobriety. And I lean over to the guy next to him. I say he's telling a damn lie.
I couldn't envision anyone standing sober for 35 years. But as I've done so in Alcoholics Anonymous, and it's an acquired quality, you listen to learn, learn how to listen. I heard what that little giant said that night, he asked us, "What's the most important thing to us?" and allowed us to respond.
And the guys would say the wife, the car, the house, the job, money, sex, and we went down these lists of things that were important to us. When we were done, this is what that little giant said. If you let sobriety play preference in your life, if you put the sobriety above all of those things, Ashley is 5 years old.
Wednesday night, I look up at the clock. We're playing games. And she said, "Daddy, please don't go.
Please don't go." Daddy goes to Wednesday night unity every Wednesday night. We're watching cartoons on a Saturday morning and I look up at the clock. It's time to go to my second home group, the VA Saturday group on a Saturday morning, 10:30.
Last 25 years I've been there. If I'm not sick or out of town and she'll say, "Please, daddy, don't go. Don't go.
Daddy, daddy goes to VA hospital every Saturday morning. My home group members know I'm here. Every guy I sponsor know where I am.
They got sale number. They know I am here at your conference tonight. That's how I sponsor.
They know where I am. My sponsor did it to me. The joy of this program, you know, he said, "Because without the sobriety, you will lose all of those things that were near and dear to you." I knew that.
I got out of the army. God said, "Let me take you to New York, do this for you. I'll call you." and I got a glass of booze in my hands.
Come out to LA, Barbara. Let me do this for I'll call you and I got a glass of booze in my hand. It won't let you.
It just won't let you be that person that you were created to be. You know, we are very creative and artistic and intelligent people under the influence of alcohol. We're capable of murder.
You know, booze and drugs will not let you rise to your full potential. like to say I stayed sober, but it didn't. I'm drinking going to the meetings, you know, and and around Cleveland, we comment.
I know you guys don't comment, but when we get a new man that's commenting too much, I know that was me, you know, cuz I drink some vodka and then I go to your meetings and they say, "New man, yeah, right here, right here, over here." You and then I want to thank you people. You wonderful people. you know, we get real proper and and I want to thank you for this alcoholic son and I'm drunk.
You know, I'm full of vodka. And one night they couldn't wake me up and they kicked me out of the program. Overshot my mark.
I'm back on the streets trying to do my thing and my thing is stealing and lying and any kind of way that I can get some money. And people don't take kindly to you when you're trying to rip them off and do things and especially when you're drinking. I gone back to college and it wasn't to get a degree or pursue a career.
My GI bill was about to run out and I got good money to go to school. I played tennis at one of the schools and I had a white bag with a strap. I used to house my racket, my my changing underwear and incidentals in there.
And now this bag houses everything I own. We hear stories of guys coming in the alcoholics anonymous with a brown paper bag. I had a beautiful white leather bag.
Beautiful. But everything in it was funky, filthy, dirty, and nasty. And so was I.
So was I. I was just rotten to the core. You know, it's an incredible thing when I stand and tell my story and my daughter looks at me and she doesn't know that guy.
When I tell you what it was like and all she know that I'm the best daddy since sliced bread, but I got to be the good daddy because of you. I got to be the good daddy by watching men in Alcoholics Anonymous, watching my sponsor who was an incredible father. I got to be a good person by imitating you and walking the walk like you walk the walk and talking the talk like you did.
It paid off. I had some wonderful teachers. Many of them are gone.
I've lost two sponsors. I'm working on the third one. But My third sponsor is just afraid.
All of them die by me. And he's a priest. He's a priest.
I've scared the priest. I like to say I stayed sober, but I didn't. I just played all the games.
I played them before I got here and almost didn't make it, but God allowed me to come in the doors. You know, my last drinking was done in an apartment building on Chester Avenue where everything boozewise, drug-wise, and sexwise went on. And I'm a part of I could always duck and I could always blame him.
When all else fail and you catch me doing something, they picking on me because I'm black. Well, I'm still black. 25 years later.
I ain't been to jail in 25 years. I've been employed for the past 25 years. I'm dependable these past 25 years thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous.
Told one of the guys in that that apartment building, I said, "Man, I got to get out of here. I feel like I'm losing my mind, but I'm homeless. And he said, I know where we can go.
And we went to the city mission. I don't know if you got one here. We We got old one.
They got a new one they just built, but I went to the old one 25 years ago. Cockroaches bigger than me up in there. You know, you got to fight them to get in bed.
And and they make you sing for your supper. And you got to sing those hymns and eat those hard donuts, drink that lousy coffee. And when you go through all of that ritual, then they make you take all your clothes off and then they spray you and your clothes for bugs.
And that was the most degrading thing that had happened to me since I had been drinking. And I lay in that bunk naked and my life just like a VHS tape going through my head. What happened?
What went wrong? All I want to do is have a little fun and then I'll go back to school. All I want to do is have a little fun, then I'll settle down.
My brother had three beautiful kids in old beat up Chevy and went to work every day every day and I called him a square. But I'm laying on his couch eating my sister-in-law food and I don't have a pot or window. You know what to throw it out of.
But I'm the slick one and he's the square one. And for all of you slick people out there, this is the slickest thing I've ever done. Coming to Alcoholics Anonymous.
Dumb me up. Yeah. >> >> 4:00 the next morning they put us out.
No money, no insurance. I go to the hospital where I'm employed. St.
Vincent Charity Hospital. One of the oldest treatment centers in the country. Rosary Hall.
Sister Ignatia was there. I go up on the second floor like the television set. It's awesome when you sit back and see how God has moved in your life.
You can't see it when you're drinking. I go up on the second floor, a priest comes out of his office. Why didn't he come 10 minutes early, 10 minutes later, Father Gregory French later became a dear friend.
I didn't know who Father Greg was. Then I saw the collar and I ran over to the good father and I said, "Father, help me. I'm an alcoholic." I'd been to your meetings and I got drunk.
I'd been in treatment many many time I got drunk. I go lay up at the Brexville VA hospital three months at a time and I got drunk. But that morning that morning with Father Gregory French and many of us we know what we are.
We will admit sometimes we don't accept but that third and very crucial one is a surrender. I had a butter man around Cleveland by the name of Vic Zubé. Vic is all is going to that meeting in the sky, but every time I chair a meeting, Vic Zublick was going to lead for me.
Wasn't what Vic said, it's what Vic did. This is how you get to Alcoholics Anonymous. And he throw both hands up.
Surrender. That morning with Father Gregory French. I surrender.
No more fighting. Mr. Alcohol, you are the winner.
No more fighting. And I stopped boxing. My arms are too short.
I couldn't box no more. I come out of the ring with Mr. Alcohol.
Father Greg sent me to Metro, no beds. I ended up at Harbor Lightite, the Salvation Army, Harbor Light program, 18th in prospect, one of the worst parts of town. And I got sober and I stopped drinking there in that worst part of town.
When the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear. I got sober under horrible circumstances, but I got sober and I'm still here. I went into Harbor Lightite and I walked into Harbor Lightite and there was a woman there who knew me when the money was good and I looked good and I smelled good and she said, "Hi, baby.
How are you? I thought you were dead." And she reached for this bag of funky, filthy, dirty, nasty clothes. I didn't want her to see those clothes, but this woman grabbed the clothes.
She went over to the washing machine and she washed them. I finished the detox phase and I went up to the seventh floor to a 3/4way house. And every morning that God let the sunshine, every morning I got up, I went to that detox center and when a drunk would puke on the floor, puke on himself, puke on me, may I wash your clothes.
And I've been giving back to Alcoholics Anonymous ever since. You don't always have to be up here. Everybody called me the card man.
It was a beautiful woman in Alcoholics Anonymous who's no longer here. She just sent beautiful cards. But she affected my life.
And when somebody would do me wrong in Alcoholics Anong, boy, I'd send a lot of cards. You know, I sent a lot of card. But somebody gets sick, I send cards.
I go to the hospital. I go visit old-timers and nursing homes. That's carrying the message also.
That's carrying the message also. You know, I went in that that that that that treatment program of drunk from the streets and 5 years later I'm the first black director of that detox center. And that's not exclusive to me.
That's not exclusive to me. I've got hookers that walked into our home group. And that's why I harp on that because sometimes we get too squeaky clean and we look down our noses at people who just come from the streets.
I've got hookers in my home group who have come in and get a master's degree and defy you to call them anything but lady today. And that's what this is about. It's not what you've done.
It's not what you've done. And I know what goes with that is a lot of shame. It's not what you've done.
And you young people who are here, stay here with us. Please stay here. Get an education.
Stay here and grow. I don't care if you're 16 or 60. Pain is a great motivator.
16 or 60. This program will work. Alcoholics Anonymous works and you found a God of your understanding.
Find somebody who has a working knowledge of the big book in the 12 steps. Get your home group. I've been homeless so I know what homeless mean.
Get your home group and dummy up. I don't care how many degrees you got. Forget them.
Dummy up. >> >> Intellect. Intellectuals are the hardest to get this broken.
They are. They are. They're the worst.
Oh god. I lost that job. It wasn't because of incompetence or the d the executive director said I did a marvelous job.
There were people that I thought everybody in AA loved you and everybody that kisses you with that kiss of death sometime. And it's not always earth people that do the dirt to you. And they did it to me.
But it taught me something. It taught me something. I had incredible sponsor.
My sponsor said, "You're not working. You go to more meetings." I said, "I don't want to go to the meetings cuz the folk did it to me in the room." She said, "I want you to shake your their hands when you go in there." I don't want to shake their hands. I want to get my pistol and blow their brains out.
Said, "Shake their hands." I remember one night one of the guys who had done it to me, I went over there. Welcome to my home group. He said, "Don't shake my hand if you don't mean it." I said, "I do not want to shake your hand." My sponsor said, "I must shake your hand.
I don't want to shake it." This same guy about 5 years later, I'm in the kitchen cuz I'm still here. I'm still sober. I got a better job.
And he comes into the kitchen and he says, "You are something else." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "You are something else." But I want to say to you that I'm sorry for what I did to you. I want to make amends to you seven years later. I said, "I'm okay." And you heard me, ladies and gentlemen, when I stood up before you, I'm okay.
Not perfect, not having all the answers. Sometimes I don't know what the questions are, but I'm okay because there's nothing that God, myself, my sponsor, my home group that we can't handle. Nothing.
I lost my dad and my baby got hit in the by the by a car within a month of the same thing. I'm still here. I don't drink.
I don't drug. And I just get up, put on my suit, and go and do what I have to do. Every guy I sponsor when my daddy died is calling me every day.
I'm walking through Atlanta taking my daddy to the VA hospital and there's a tall lanky black guy running. Hey, Bobby Moore. Bobby Moore.
I got sober in Cleveland. I'm still sober. I said, "Okay, God, thank you.
There's one of our little angels." He puts the little angels there. And sometimes we block the blessings. Pedal Leel wrote a beautiful book, Don't Block the Blessing.
Sometimes we block our blessings by the way we act and the way we treat people. You know, don't block your blessings. I love gospel music.
And I kept listening to a gospel song over the radio. There's a blessing on the other side of through. And I couldn't get it.
I couldn't get it. There's a blessing on the other side of through and finally it hit me. When you go through it, the divorce, the cancer, the loss of job, the loss of a breast, a leg, a arm, devastating when you go through that stuff.
There's a blessing on the other side of through. God takes us through that. And when you're connected with God, you realize that that God takes us through that.
You have to form and get that personal relationship with God yourself. Now, if I run you out of here saying God, them streets and that alcohol will run you back in here. Incredible teachers.
My first sponsor will talk about math, meetings, activity, and prayer. Action is the name of the game, Bobby Moore. Get in the middle of the bear.
And when you get to ripping and running and going and doing to remember Hulk, an alcoholic is not to get too hungry, too angry, too lonely, or too tired. My second sponsor looked like Ed, big tall guy, psychologist, smart, commander of the English language. If anything was to happen to him, he had instructed his secretary to call Barry Brooks, Bobby Moore, Father Joe McMahon.
My sponsor was not sick. He went into our doctor's office, had an aneurysm. Barry was the doctor and died.
I'm in St. Vincent Charity Hospital on the fourth floor and the phone rings and Barry says to me, "Are you standing?" Yes. Sit down.
Rudy is with me and he just died. And I drop the phone and I run over to the old building to tell my sponsor today, Father Joe McMahon. Barry Brooks, Bobby Moore, Father Joe McMahon, I just don't think things in Alcoholics Anonymous happened by chance.
This is a moment in time that will never happen again. Rudy believed that you lived each day as if it was your last, and it was his last. That day, everything in Alcoholics Anonymous was a celebration.
And certainly tonight, your 30th convention is a celebration. I'm extremely honored. I'm extremely honored.
I'm honored that you deem me worthy, that you felt I had something to come out and share with you, and I thank you for that. I remember in my third about three months in the program, we comment in Cleveland. I know you guys don't comment around here after the leave.
And there was a very angry, very bitter man in the room THAT NIGHT. WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T LET YOUR WIFE GO TO THAT DAMN ALANON. I don't listen too well.
You know, by 10 years sober, I married one of them, you know, Alanovar. I'm not I'm going to be nice. She's here.
There are times I want to cut her heart out though because she forces me to work the program. I still want to control. And you don't do that to an Alanon in good standing.
You don't do that to an Allan. Yeah. from that union is my heart.
She's a joy of my life. God gave her to me and she almost died coming into this world. She's a gift from God.
She's beautiful. She's a dancer. She's an honor student.
She's daddy's baby. And as long as I stay here with you, Ashley Nicole will never see her daddy drunk. She will never see the police beating him up and cutting them off to a police car blooded.
All she know is that my daddy loves me. And for a long time, we would say our prayers together at night. I'm so grateful to God for Alcoholics Anonymous.
You gave me my joy back. I'm so grateful to Alcoholics Anonymous. You gave me my peace back.
I'm so indebted to Alcoholics Anonymous. You taught me how to love unconditionally. Life is not what you've accomplished.
All that material stuff, you're not going to take it with you. Life is what you overcome. It's what you go through and you don't die.
You don't commit murder. You don't get drunk. You don't kill nobody se yourself and you don't kill yourself and nobody else.
That's how you get to be an oldtimer. You don't die and don't drink as you continue your journey here uh your celebration here tonight. Dave, wherever you are, I want to say thank you to the committee for asking me.
It has been a treat, a joy. the wonderful speakers that I've met that I look forward to hearing. I'm just blessed and no matter what I'm going through, the blessings are there.
God gives me what I need. He takes me to places that I need to be and people that I need to meet and he takes me there and they come into my life to give me just what I need. I am so grateful.
You know, I used to think when I'm out in the streets, if I got all the money and all the sex and I got all this stuff that I would be okay and that hole never got filled. It never got filled. But to have less money and and to do more with what I do and just to be okay, just to be in an alcoholic synonymous meeting was sometimes acting a nut with those members.
That's what I love about this crowd because we act like this at my own group. We get loud and crazy and we have fun. We just don't sit around and be sober and just waiting for God to come for us.
They kill me. I'm waiting on God. I ain't waiting.
No, I want to have some more fun before he comes for me. I'm not ready to go. >> >> Got to share one more thing.
That little guy, Phil Burkart, was an incredible man. Had 35 years when I met him. My first anniversary said to me, "Let no one sway you, Bobby Moore.
The 12 steps of our program." And he broke them down to me. Step one through three is acceptance. Four through six is house cleaning.
7 through9 is building and 10 through 12 our maintenance steps. So much 25 years later I didn't understand it's crystal clear tonight. I don't drink.
I don't drug. I go to meetings on a regular basis. I pray to God every night and every morning and I help another drunk.
My life has gotten better and I and that I owe to alcoholics and others. I want to thank you again for listening to me and those dear people that I met that I hope stay in my life. You, my friend, and all of you.
I don't meet strangers. I got enough love in this little skinnybody in this little heart to love a lot of folk. I want to thank you for allowing me to be with you.
May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hands. 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. >>