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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. >> Good evening.

My name is David Mchack and I am an alcoholic. >> That is the single most important thing I'll say here tonight. That beyond a shadow of a doubt in my head, but much much more so beyond a shadow of doubt in my heart today I know that I'm an alcoholic.

Could you please join me uh in getting started here with the serenity prayer? Okay. As I mentioned, uh uh my name is David Manichek.

I am an alcoholic. And that is truly the most important thing that I'll say here tonight. Um for a long long time, I argued about that.

I debated about that. I philosophized about that. I theologized about that.

I had hands laid on me. I was wrinkled. I was douched.

I was dumped. I was locked up in rooms without doorork knobs on my side. All kinds of crazy things would happen to David Mandy as a direct result of my inability to accept the fact that I was an alcoholic.

So for me, the most powerful thing that I will say tonight is that beyond a shadow of a doubt in my heart today, I know an alcoholic. Uh I also have a tendency to be a nervous alcoholic. Uh that has never ever ever changed for me.

Uh when I'm called and I'm asked to be here, I jot it down. I first of all I say yes simply because I have the kind of home group that would break both of my legs if I said no. I it's not any great virtue and and so I I say yes.

I mark it on my daytimer. I stick it on my calendar and I have one of those support group home group sponsor crews that knows in my business. They keep track of where I have to be, when I have to be there, and what I have to do when I get there.

And then they show up with me to make sure I get there, and don't check out before I'm done doing what I'm supposed to be doing. So, it's not a lot of virtue. It's just the way that I was sponsored in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Uh, but I get nervous. I get anxious. I get scared.

Usually selfish, self-centered kind of fears. Like one of these nights I'm going to stand up here, open my mouth, my dentures are going to. You're going to see how terribly flawed I really am.

And and like you may not like me. My god, what would I do if you didn't like me, you know, and this is the last house on the block for me. So, uh, you know, it's important that you like me.

At any rate, I get here I get here very nervous. I get here anxious and and and tonight was no different. And as we were driving down here, the butterflies turned into black birds in my stomach.

And and and as we got closer and closer to my heaven to come up here, uh I began to feel my heart pounding in my chest and and I can feel my pulse throbbing in my shoes and my hands are cold and clammy and sweaty and there's sweat running down under my arms and I use deodorant twice before I left the house today. Signs and symptoms that I today refer to as start raving terror. That's how I get here.

That has never ever changed. But I'll tell you what, you people have taught me that it is very healthy signs and symptoms for David. Because you see, there was a day and a time and place in West Morland County, Pennsylvania, May 26, 1981, when I was incapable of feeling anything.

My wife and my mother-in-law helped me into the emergency room of the West Morland County Hospital. They wheeled me in. I was swollen up all over the place.

The nurse kept arguing with me and I kept arguing with her. She kept saying, "Dave having a heart attack." And I kept saying, "Lady, you don't know what the hell you're talking about. This is alcoholism." I knew all about it.

I had been detoxed before and I knew all about what was wrong. I drank too dang much. And she said, "David, you're having a heart attack." By noon that day, I was in the intensive care cardiac ward.

My heart was three times its normal size. My liver was twice its normal size. The digestive system would shut down completely.

It looked like a little rubber band down the center of the X-rays. I would go into a brain fever would set in. I would go in and out of a coma for the next 14 days.

They would pronounce me dead twice. >> All as a direct result of my use and abuse of drug. And so, you see, it's very healthy that I can be here tonight.

It's very healthy that I can tell you that I'm sucking air tonight. It's very healthy that I can tell you that I get scared and anxious and nervous when I have to do these kind of things because I'm alive today. By the grace of God and the fellowship of alcoholics and others and the 12 steps and the traditions, I have a place to go when I can be alive today.

Um, I'm asked to give you in a general way what I was like, what happened, and what I'm like today. And I hope to be able to do that this evening. Born and raised in the Pennsylvania mountains, I was a skinny, scrawny little hillbilly boy.

I knew the effects of alcohol on a family very early in my life. My old man drank. My old man drank abusively.

And I share that with you because when he drank, he got abusive. And and the only reason that I need to share that fact with you is because he became David's first great resentment in life. I hated my old man and I feared my old man.

I grew up in a hunting area. I would, although I didn't hunt, I would help my my cousins who did. And I knew what it was like to to to uh clean deer and rabbit and squirrel.

And I knew what that worn, sticky blood kind of feeling was. And as a youngster, I used to fantasize a lot. I don't know about you, but I fantasized a lot.

Usually, I fantasize being Tarzan or Mr. Atlas, you know, someone who really grew up with a man name. And and and I would fantasize that warm sticky blood feeling on my hands and I wanted to be the old man's.

Uh, I would fantasize homicide because I hated him and I feared him so dearly much. Uh, as a result of fearing and hating my old man so much uh, I I ran around with my mother. She became one of my best friends and she was a devout Catholic church goer and I became a devout Catholic church goer and I went to two different Catholic churches in town.

Uh, I was an alter boy and one of them I uh, I lined up very very hard at trying to be a good little boy. Uh, I ran to the church to hide. I didn't necessarily run there uh to a god of my understanding as I was young.

I ran there because it was a safe place for me to run to. I ran there because uh when I got there, I could be okay. You see, they would dress me up in those little alter boy robes.

And the little bubbas would come into church and they would pat me on the top of the head and they'd say, "Oh, isn't he cute? Isn't he sweet? Isn't he holy looking?" And I would suck that up.

Yeah, I'm cute. I'm sweet. I'm holy looking.

I mean, they were the only strokes I got. You see, as I grew up, I made promises. I promised my mama I'd never drink like the old man drank.

I'd never smoke like he smoked. And I would never make her cry like he made her cry. But the other thing that I did growing up is I always compared my insides to your outsides.

And nobody ever bothered to tell me that when you walk out the front door, you dress up your outsides. And and I would look at you and you were the glamorous people in the world. You were the the football players and the basketball players and the baseball.

This is not the body you play football with. It really isn't. You know, I would get mistaken for being the football.

You were the the valadictorians of the class and I flunk third grade. It's like how do you flunk third grade? You know, I was the flunky.

I was the stupid one. I was dumb. I was skinny.

I was scrawny. I was little. I was inadequate.

and I was inferior and people left me know. They stepped up to let me know those things. And so I would walk around feeling all that and I was terrified most of the time.

And then I would look at you and you seem to feel life and you seem to be a part of life and I looked at life like I was observing it, like I was never a part of it and I just never fit. And so when I ran into church, I ran there to be okay. I ran there to be safe.

I didn't have any skills at living life on life's terms. And as I grew up, uh with the help from the priest of the church, I began to believe that maybe, just maybe, these feelings of being very separate and very different than everybody wasn't necessarily different bad. And that maybe these feelings were different good or better than even.

And that maybe, just maybe, God had some very, very special. Now, maybe what I really ought to do is when I graduate from high school, I ought to like give away all my worldly possessions. I was a very stupid, naive little hillboy, pack myself into twomp shopping bags.

And if you can remember, you got a real good idea how old I am. A, and go off to a monastery, become a Catholic priest. So, upon graduation, that's exactly what I did.

I gave away all my worldly possessions. I cashed myself into two am shopping bags and off to a monastery in Newton, New Jersey I went. I get to this lovely monastery.

I looked around the room. There were nine other young men studying for the priesthood in this place and this priest. Now, I'm going to share with you what I saw that night.

I'm not going to share with you the truth because I don't know if I really know that. What I saw that night was I saw nine other young men who were 6'6 in tall. They were football players, basketball players, and baseball players.

They were validictorians of their class. You could tell just by looking at them, they were smart. They But what was worse was they were wholesome and holy looking kind of guys.

They were the kind of guys you looked at and you just knew they had never said the word Their butter would not melt in their mouths. They were so wholesome. And then there's me, the one who fantasizes homicide with the old man.

It's like I DO NOT FIT HERE. I really do not fit. And and along came the priest and he said, "Gentlemen, if you chip in for pizza, I'll bring the beer and we'll have a celebration to celebrate everybody's return to school." And I dug deep in my pocket and I chipped in for pizza.

And I came to their little party and that priest walked in with two sex car black label Tims. Now some of you have tried Carlin Black Label out of a can. At any rate, I had kept those promises that I had made to my mama all those years.

I knew the pain that this stuff caused in our home. It didn't slow me down one bit. Everybody reached out and grabbed a piece of pizza and so did I.

And then they grabbed a can of beer and so did I. I popped the top of that can of beer and I began to guzzle my first beer. I had no idea what I was in for.

I Oh, it was nasty yeasty tasting crap. I mean, it burned in my mouth and then it burned in my throat. And then I kept getting this tear in my eye that I had to keep blinking away so these macho dudes didn't see me cry.

And then I got this bubble right here. And this gas bubble kept going from here to here. I figured I'm going to puke all over these guys at any given point in time.

And and so I'd drink a little more and shove it down in there somewhere. I I hated it. I hated absolutely everything that was going on.

And then somewhere somewhere in around the first half of that first beer, I had what I refer to as my first religious experience. Now, my first religious experience went like this. I got this warm glow right in the pit of my stomach.

And it began to grow. It began to get bigger and bigger and bigger. And I began to roll my shoulders.

I began to feel myself growing up to be 6'6 in tall. I became a football player, a basketball player, and a baseball player. I became a blue-eyed blonde.

I became the valadictorian of my class that night. I looked around the room at all those other guys, and I figured, hm, I could walk better, talk better, sing better, and dance better. Uh, and I proceeded to do all that night in the monastery in my underwear.

I had my first cigarette a camel non filter and I inhald from the beginning. Uh, they tried sticking me to bed in the room and spin and then say put on the floor. I put both feet on the floor.

I loved what was happening to me. I fell madly and passionately in love with drug alcohol from the get-go. I would sneak out of bed.

I would run touchdowns down the hall. I yodled at the top of my voice 3:00 in the morning. They frown upon that shitman.

I had arrived for the very first time in my life. I felt like a human being for the I had found my solution. Please hear that I found my solution to life.

Life was my problem that night. I found a solution. I mean like all of the promises came true in one night.

I intuitively knew how to handle everything. I mean it was wonderful. I had arrived in the human race and and and it was a guarded thing for me.

It truly knows. That night I I I made a fool out of myself and I did do all those crazy things. I danced through the monastery halls and my underwear and and all that stuff and eventually they caught me.

They stuck me in bed that I stuck and uh and passed out, went to sleep, I don't know. And and uh in the wee hours of the morning, I rolled over and I wasn't blessed with a blackout that night. Uh there would be many nights that I would, but it wasn't that night.

And as I rolled over and I looked up at that tile ceiling every morning, I remembered all those embarrassing shameful things that I had done. And then I remember those wholesome and holy looking guys and the feelings of shame and guilt and remorse were around me and I thought, "Oh god, what am I going to do? I don't I didn't have any skills at living life on life's terms." And and and there's no more alcohol to make these feelings go away.

And and I just didn't know what to do. And I panicked. I crawled out of my b my little bed and I went across the hall of the laboratory.

I dug through my shaving equipment. and I found a single-edge razor and I proceeded to commit suicide. Two of those young men came in and found me with a razor to my wrist.

They took the razor away from me. They took me back into that little monastery bedroom. They tied me down in my little metal c.

The next morning they came in and they untied me and they said things to me that people would say to me for a long, long time. They said, "David, you don't drink like normal people. David, you ought not drink alcohol.

David, you have a drinking problem." And I said to them just as clearly as I'm saying to you tonight, "But you don't understand. But you don't understand. I never drank before.

All I have to do is learn to get it right. All I have to do is learn how to to control it. All I have to do is I I had found my solution and I knew it.

I wasn't about to let that solution go. By the end of that school year, I had acquired a taste for alcohol, preferably yours. Uh, I wasn't I wasn't picky about what you were serving, how you were serving it, you know, out of the out of the bottle, out of a brown paper bag, beer, wine, whiskey, I really didn't care.

Um, as long as it was yours, you were serving, I was drinking, it was getting me there. I was cool. Um, at the end of that first uh, school year, they informed me that the bishop was going to send me to this very straight laced, conservative place in Pittsburgh.

I knew that was going to be a problem. You see, I had already acquired a a need for alcohol on a regular basis. And and I knew that very very straight lace place was going to dress me up in those long black robes with that little piece of plastic.

They used to slip my heavens apple off. And and it had these great big deep sleeves and these great big deep pockets that were like for your prayer books and your hinds and your your uh rosary beads and my pints and my quartz and my anything else that I decided to smuggle into the monastery. That's exactly what I began to do.

I took up carpentry. They did not offer it on the curriculum. I found out in my little bedroom there was a bed and a desk and a chair and a sink and a medicine chest.

And I found out you could open the medicine chest up, take all your junk out of it. You could take the two screws out of the back. That whole thing came right out of the wall.

You could tie a string around the neck of your bottle, slide it down between the two 2x4s, tie it off on a nail, stick the medicine chest back in, put all your crap back in. And when they when the prefect came around and searched your room, he couldn't find your bottle. They couldn't figure out how this little monk stays so drunk all the time.

They wanted me to sing at 7:00 in the morning. Now, obviously, you've never heard me sing. I don't sing well sober.

I certainly don't sing well drunk, but I sang louder drunk. And so, I would make sure that I was good and drunk and I a few good double headers. And then I'd go into chapel and I'd just be singing my little heart out.

They'd be up there searching my room. You know, this this went on quite often. And and the part that I really need to remember about that is that you people eventually taught me that I had the three-fold disease.

Physical, mental, and spiritual. I'm here to tell you, please, please, please remember I got spiritually sick first. And it didn't matter where I was living.

I was living in a monastery. I was living in a church. I was in chapel two and three and four and five times a day.

My prayers were no less sincere then than they are today. I had a disease called alcoholism. I chose to put alcohol in my body and I got spiritually sick.

Now that spiritual sickness began to show itself in the form of being very selfish and very self-centered. I began to point the finger at all those hypocritical Catholics that come to church on Sunday morning. I mean, I took everybody's inventory and said Davis.

I began to point the finger at those hypocritical Catholics that would come to church, shake your hand, and say, "Peace be with you, brother." And run you over in the parking lot. And then I started to point the finger at those nuns and those priests. And and and you know, I I'd love to be able to stand here and tell you all about the politic playing in the church.

and and and this great big god that they have on a great big throne up there with a big black book and he's marking off X's and O's and you're going to go to hell in a hand basket and all that crazy stuff. That's what I'd like to be able to stand here and tell you about. What I need to be able to stand here and tell you about in order to make amends to the church is that that's all I could see in my spiritual sickness.

In my spiritual sickness, all I could see was the negative in everyone. Anyone. I couldn't see any positive in me.

I couldn't see any positive in you. It doesn't it didn't fit my purpose. I needed to continue to be able to drink in the manner in which I wanted to drink.

As a result of that, I got very very spiritually sick very quickly. And two and a half years after entering that monastery, um I decided I used to have brilliant ideas back then. My sponsor doesn't let me have brilliant ideas today, but uh I had brilliant ideas back then.

and and I I decided that Holy Mother the church and I were not seeing eye to eye. She was wrong and I was right. And with all of the arrogance that I could muster up, I packed myself back into my AMP shopping bags and off to a monastery or off to the the campus I went.

Uh I I moved on campus to finish up the last year and a half of my college career. The best thing that I can take about that is that I stayed drunk. I I mean I got drunk in the morning, I got drunk in the afternoon, and I got drunk at night.

Uh, I met the young lady who was to eventually become my wife. She was relatively sane when I met her. I'd love to be able to say the same for when we parted.

Uh, I'll tell you what, that beautiful, beautiful lady that helped me into that emergency room that I described earlier sat at the foot of my bed for that 14 days. And she prayed and and and and she didn't pray that her husband get better. And she didn't pray that I die.

What she prayed was, "Dear God, let this living hell end." Uh uh when I met her in in that um senior year of college, when I met her, she was a beautiful little blue-eyed blonde. She was a graphic artist. She was a kind of of kid that looks at the world and sees form and art and beauty and color and all the wonderful beautiful things that an artist sees when they look at the world.

And and then I happened in her life. And and as she sat at the foot of that bed praying, uh she would pray that dear God, let this hell I mean end. And she would look on every night on her way home from that hospital.

She would look at every oncoming trucker or bridge as an opportunity to maybe slam her car into it and end it for herself. She was suicidal two years before I hit. And she didn't drink and she didn't drug.

All she did was dare to love a practicing alcoholic without some kind of program of recovery for herself. I met her in um around Christmas time. Uh by Easter time, she informed me that we were going steady.

Now, what did I know? I was drunk. So, I said, "Okay." And uh and then she informed me we were going to her mother's house for Easter dinner.

I thought, "I'll have a couple double headers for that one." And I did. I had a couple double headers and off to mama's house we went. Now, I walked in the front door and I fell in love.

Not with her and not with her mama. I fell in love with the kitchen counter. It had just some of whiskey on it, some of this top shelf stuff.

I found out this was a family with a refrigerator on the front porch with nothing in it but beer. I had a ride. I'll tell you what, I got drunk that day.

I made a fool out of myself that day, too. Nothing new. And and uh for some reason, they even invited me back.

I graduated from school that May. They threw me a little graduation party. I thought they really understand the caliber of person they've got here.

And and I went to their own graduation party for me. I packed myself into my my two AMV shopping bags. I moved into their living room.

I parked myself on their couch and I stayed all summer long. They didn't invite me to stay all their daughter went back to school to finish up her college. I stayed with her family.

I thought this was a real pushy deal. I eat their food, drink their booze, and sleep on their couch. Uh they finally like midsummer they convinced me like look you graduated you got these things called degrees like maybe you ought to do something productive with yourself like get a job I hadn't put much thought to that but see I had a degree I had a degree in philosophy a degree in theology and a degree in all the degree in philosophy entitles you to sit on a stump and think that does not pay much.

It really doesn't. So I I put some thought to it and I figured well with a degree in theology about the only other thing I could do is teach religion. So I figured I would get a job at the local Catholic high school teaching the good old Catholic kids about their good old Catholic God.

And that's exactly what I did. I got a job teaching religion in English, the local Catholic high school and teaching the good old Catholic kids about their good old Catholic God. And I did it stoned out of my mind.

Now I was alcoholic. I wasn't necessarily a student. I knew that I couldn't go to this upright Catholic school wreaking a booze every day.

So, I did what Dr. Bob does in Dr. Bob's Nightmare.

I found those lovely white tranquilizers to keep the shakes away during a professional day. And I would pop those suckers in. I would zoom off to work and I would teach.

I found out that my home room was on the third floor of that building. I could at 307 the bell would ring. I could close my room up.

I could get down three flights of stairs out the door, across the parking lot in my car, out of the parking lot before the senior students. No teacher had ever accomplished that. There was a bar down the end of the street.

I'd go down there, get about three or four double headers and peppermint schnops. Nobody can smell that. I couldn't be a go back to school to be able to sign my name legibly.

And so that's what I would do. That four years was to see me try to control my drinking every way I could. I went from cocktail lounges to beer bars with shots and beer.

I I I I did the kegger out in the woods with the kids. I did I mean anything. I went from beer to wine, from wine to whiskey for I tried I tried confidence.

I married that young lady to control my drinking and she didn't do a very good job. I told her she didn't do a very good job of it. Her family said that if she was just better in bed, a better cook or a better housekeeper, her old man wouldn't drink the way he drank.

And I had no concept about the the family disease of alcoholism. Just none. She felt bad because she couldn't control my drinking.

She truly did. Uh and anyway, she and I were, you know, we had we had all kinds of crazy stuff begin to go on. I I I learned some extremely powerful coping skills at that time.

I didn't know they were coping skills, but I I don't know about you, but I used to wake up in weird places with weird people doing weird things and and and all of it was inappropriate. But um I mean just and you learn to survive those kind of things, you know, they're degrading and and embarrassing and shameful and and and you just learn to survive. And one of my survival techniques was anytime I began to come to, I would lay there very still with my eyes very tightly shut, very still, thinking, I wonder where I'm at this time.

And and I'll tell you what, it never never failed me. I would begin to get some and I would smell plain sheets. I knew I wasn't at home.

Uh a and I would lay there waiting to hear some kind of sound that would give me an idea of where I was this time. And and and it would inevitably I would hear that little bell ding and I would hear that lovely little nurse come on the PA system and she'd say, "Doctor so and so, report to thus and so and I'd say oh god I landed in the hospital again." And I would struggle to get up only to find out they'd strap me down with those big leather straps again. And then I would struggle to get up and I would look to see what damage I've done this time only to find my wrist slit and soaked in blood again.

And I would lay my head back against that plastic lining pillow. And my heart would sink down into the pit of my stomach. And I say, "God, why?

Why me? How could I have landed here again? We were going to count swizzle sticks.

My wife was going to count my drinks. They were going to shut me off after a couple. How could I land here again?

God, not again. And I'll tell you, they would keep me for 3 days, 5 days, 7 days, 14 days observation. They would tell me what a terribly nervous person I was.

They would give me what a Valium deficiency I had. They would give me an open script for Valium and send me home. And I would be off to the I mean, I knew that Valium was a very dry pill.

takes at least a case of beer to wash it down. I would drive that on the way home and I would be off to the races. And and and it would go on like this.

It went on like this for four years. Uh finally, four years into this, the school decided that they were not hiring me back for a fifth year of teaching because I wasn't state certified. It doesn't take a PhD to figure out you can't be a statecertified religion teacher.

There's a division between church and state in this country. I couldn't have been statecertified in religion if I wanted to be. Uh they used that excuse to save my professional reputation and I owe the church a very great deal of thanks for that.

Um at any rate they let me go. I now had more great resentments. Uh and and I did anything and everything for the next two and a half years to get booze.

If you can think of it, I did it. Immoral, illegal, fattening, I did it. Uh my wife and I would fight.

We would argue. We would go into these crazy She would confront my drinking. She'd say, "This is addiction.

You're drinking too much." and and and and and she happened to love Harley Quinn romances. And and when I hit bottom, she had 2,000 Harley Quinn romances. And and she would I would wake up on my dirty little couch in the living room and and one day I woke up there and there was two of my vodka bottles there with a little note on it.

And the little note said, "This is not liking to drink. This is addiction." So I was furious when I woke up. So I took my note off my bottles and I took it upstairs and I stuck it on her Harley romances and I said, "This is not liking to read.

This is addiction." And and I mean we would go through this insane crazy back and forth wars that we would do and and always always get myself in trouble. I'll tell you. And then back then I would have like I said brilliant ideas.

One day she confronted my drinking and I figured I know what I will do. I will call ANA. See, I knew about you, please.

I knew you was out there. I'll call that ANA place. Uh, I knew I used to tell my senior students in religion class, if they ever have a drinking problem, you call this ANA.

It's a subversive underground organization. They will pick you up, take you to a couple of their subversive underground meetings, and they will teach you to drink right. So, I figured I will call ANA.

So, it was a hot, muggy, miserable July morning. It was one of those mornings in the Pittsburgh area where you're sweating before you ever get the sheet off of you. I mean, I crawled out of bed, I picked up the phone, I dialed ANA's number.

Now, this lovely lady came on the phone and in like 30 seconds flat, she's insulting my dignity. She's asking me stupid questions like, "Can you go for a whole day without a drink?" I said, "Lady, you have absolutely no idea who you are talking to here. I am a dignified professional in the community here." She said, "Listen, Mr.

Dignified. None of those twisted up little cigarettes, no pills, and no booze all day long, and we'll send someone around to pick your dignified little butt off the table." So, I hung up the phone after giving her my pertinent information with my first AA resentment. I didn't know that that's what it was, but I had an AA resentment.

And uh to meet that resentment, I had another brilliant idea. I had a brilliant idea at 8:00 in the morning that I was going to get dressed for this AA meeting looking like I didn't need to people. I'm going to get go to this meeting looking like the dignified professional that I am.

Now, uh, I decided I would go into the bathroom and shave. That was a novel feat back then. I was shaking on the outside.

I'm shaking on the inside. I go into the bathroom. 45 minutes later, I emerge with blood running under.

I mean, there's tissue paper all over me. I'm still shaking. I'm still sweating.

And I decided I will get dressed in my best three-piece suit. So, I get dressed in this best three-piece suit. And here I am pacing back and forth at 11:00 in the morning.

It's 90 in the shade. The humidity is 87%. I'm sweating bucket after bucket of sweat.

And I'm dressed in a three-piece suit. Uh, look, waiting for an AA meeting at 7:30 tonight. Now, you got to get the picture.

This is the three-piece suit I had drank in for well over seven years. It had not been cleaned in. It reaped a booze bio and vomit.

There were like little burn holes from seeds falling uh fall out. I mean, it was bad. It was really bad.

And and here I am waiting to go to this gentleman comes by and his threepiece suit didn't quite smell like mine. His car didn't look like any alcoholic car I had ever seen. And and off to this ANA meeting we went.

Now, we got to this meeting in Monroeville. It was a great big old meeting. And we got in the back door and I took one look around that room and I gasped this silent relief.

Thank God I can't possibly be alcoholic. There was not a man in that room a year younger than God. I'm too young to be an alcoholic.

I knew it. And they drugged me down here in what they called the dummy row. I really resented that.

And then they started to pour me one of these lousy cups of AA coffee. Now, I'll tell you what. I didn't like coffee back then, but I certainly didn't like your coffee back then.

And then they dumped sugar in it, saying they didn't take the shakes away. I don't take sugar in my coffee. And then they dump cream in it, and I don't take cream in my coffee either.

And I figured, uh-huh, I know what these old farts are up to. They can see what a nervous condition I have, and they filled that cup of coffee right up to the brim. They want to see me try to pick it up and store it so they can laugh at me.

I'll sit here and die of thirst. And I'm sitting there dying of thirst. And this old battle axe gets up there and she's battling on.

And 45 minutes later, she's still up there battling on. I am dying in the worst case of cotton mouth I've ever had in my life. And I figured, you know, I I kind of slide that styrofoam does not slide under.

And the coffee went everywhere. and they took their ankle teeth out and they mopped it up and they said, "Keep coming back, kid. You're a great kid." I cussed the skinny little ones out out loud.

The big guys I cussed out under my breath. But for some reason, for some reason, I actually kept going back to ANA meetings. Now, my ex-wife and I figured it out.

It's because that old fart showed up every night and drugged me to another meeting for the next nine nights. At any rate, I decided I really, really would try this stuff. So, I went cold turkey.

And I'll tell you what, I had an experience in nine days that I refer to as the beginner's guide to serenity. If you want to know what the beginner's guide to serenity is, it goes like this. >> Drink long enough, drink hard enough, drink heavy enough, totally saturate absolutely every cell in your body with a cellular craving for alcohol and then cold turkey it.

>> You will shake apart from the inside out. Your stomach will feel like you swallowed ground glass. You will shake on the outside.

You'll shake on the inside. You will know where your liver ends and your pancreas begins. I mean, you will sweat bucket after bucket after bucket of sweat.

You will vibrate right off your dirty little couch like I used to. You will run to the bathroom. I mean, emergency run to the bathroom.

You will not know whether you should stick your head in or sit down on the commode. I was very lucky. We had a very small bathroom.

I could sit in the commode and throw up in the sink. So, that began my sobriety. And uh I was going to these meetings and feeling like that.

And suddenly on the ninth day, all of that shakiness went away. The shakes went away. The sweats went away.

I felt human again. And I thought, "Aha, that's what the NAAS are talking about when they're talking about serenity." And I got it in 9 days. This has got to be some kind of record or something, you know?

I'm going to go to the beginners meeting tonight at Sunday meeting and I'm going to tell all the newcomers that if they keep coming back like I kept coming back they could get this serenity stuff too. I mean how hard can it possibly be? I got it in 9 days, you know.

And so I went to the beginner's meeting and and I got up there and I told them all about this newfound serenity that I am. And this old-timer looked at me and shook his head like they shake their head at us. And then he shook his finger at me like they shake their fingers at us.

And he says, "Man, Jack, I get real scared of alcohol withdrawal seizures whenever you shakes go away that sudden." And I looked at him and said, "I ain't felt this good in 10 years. What are you talking about?" And I'll tell you what, we got up from the beginner's meeting. We're on our way out to the regular AA meeting.

And I was somewhere right up around there when I went into a 20-minute Grand Mall alcohol seizure. I'm here to tell you that I remember very little on that meeting. I remember coming vaguely to on a very, very cold tunnel floor.

It felt like I was laying on marble. There was sweat running all over me worse than it is right now. I could feel every square inch of my skin.

And it felt like there were ants crawling all over me and I couldn't move to rub them off. There were there were people standing around me and I couldn't make them out. I couldn't focus very well and and and I could hear them but it was all garbled.

I couldn't make out what they were saying. And they had stuffed something in my mouth and I couldn't talk. But what was worse was in my head I could feel my brain snapping and sizzling and and and crackling in there and I couldn't shake it off.

I couldn't make it go. I couldn't maintain my dignity and get up and and walk out of there. And and they took me out of that meeting in an ambulance.

They took me to the East Suburban Hospital east of Cleveland. Uh they kept me for 9 days. They poked me, prodded me, scanned me.

They told me there's no such thing as an alcohol withdrawal seizure. They told me I was terribly nervous. Person could use some valium and some sleeping pills.

And they sent me home. Uh I bought that case of beer. I was off to the races.

6 months later, my uh old lady said, "Uh, do something or else." And I hated the way she said her else. Uh, and I said, "I'll do anything." In those moments of insanity when we said, "I'll do anything." And she said, "Good. I had this place called a detox." Uh, and they said, "You sounded like a likely candidate.

We're going to take you down to St. Francis Hospital detox in Pittsburgh." And I said, "Okay." And they took me down there. And they kept me for 9 days.

And they didn't tell me that I was a nervous person. They didn't tell me that I had that deficiency either. What they did is they brought my beautiful wife, my my little sister, who was 13 at the time, and a little blue-eyed blonde, just the most adorable thing, and my mama.

They they invited them into my detox room and sat him on my detox bed, and they sat me in a little plastic chair, and Dr. Torski walked in and he put his bony little finger right in the center of my chest and he said, "David, I want you to look into the eyes of these women who love you while I tell you what I need to tell you." And he proceeded to tell me that I have what is known as an alcoholic cardiomyopathy, an alcoholic heart. That should I choose to put a mood mind altering chemical in my body again, I would be dead within 6 months.

I heard I felt my heart sink down into the pit of my stomach and I heard my voice in my ears say those things that I had said for years. Things like, "I'm sorry." And I watched those three women cry. I never meant to hurt you.

And they cried harder. I'll never drink again. And they cry harder.

I promise. And they cried harder. They had heard these things.

They had heard these things over and over and over and over again. They meant nothing. They meant nothing coming out of me.

I left that hospital that night. It was November 17th of 1980. That night I was drunk.

The next night I was drunk. The night after that, I was drunk. By the end of December, I was worse than I ever was.

By the end of January, my wife had begun to abandon our apartment. By the end of February, I had begun to swell up. By the end of March, I had acquired a collection of garbage bags through the living room, through the kitchen, into the bathroom, filled up the tub.

By the end of March, I was swelling so badly I would kind of manipulate people to bring 16 Stony's returnables and stick them in the fridge for me. My wife had begun to uh stop by once a day to see if I was dead yet. Uh at one time she had two cats.

The cats had kittens. The kittens had kittens. We had 17 cats in a four room apartment and no clean litter boxes.

What I would do is I would con and manipulate people to bring me my stony, stick it in the refrigerator, and as soon as they were out the door, I would roll off my filthy couch. I would use my arms because I was so swollen I couldn't walk on the bottoms of my feet anymore. I would drag myself on my stomach through that cat to the refrigerator.

I would palm a bottle of that Stonies between my two paws because I couldn't use a bottle opener anymore. I would lean against that refrigerator because it felt so good against my back. It was so cold.

And I would shove that bottle up under the bottom drawer handle and break the top of it off. And I would lean lean there and I would lift that broken bottle to my mouth and I would begin to suck down some of that beer. And I didn't care that the bottle was broken.

I didn't care if there was glass in it and I didn't care that my lips were bleeding and there was blood running and there was beer running and it didn't matter. I needed a fix. I needed to I needed to make this sick feeling go away.

I had to get enough in my stomach to just be able to crawl back to my filthy couch. And when I would get back to that couch, I would look into the bottom of that bottle and I would curse God and myself and my church and my education and my family and anything that was ever sacred in David's life because I didn't want to drink. I needed to drink.

It was no longer a matter of David, would you care for beer? It was a matter of getting the hell out of my way. I need a fix.

I stayed in what I heard a gentleman at Punderson one time call the loneliness of loneliness. At one time in religion class, I had learned that hell was the total absence of the presence of God in your life. And if that's true, I don't know if that's true, but if it is, I truly knew hell because I knew the absence of the presence of God.

He couldn't get through my arrogance, my ego, and my pride. I wouldn't let him in. I blocked even the grace of God.

I stayed that way until May 26th. Uh at that point uh the day that I described earlier uh when my wife came home to see if I was dead yet. Uh and she looked at me and she asked me would I please go to the hospital and she and her mother took me to the uh West Morland County Hospital.

That was when I argued with the intake nurse and she said I was having a heart attack and and and my blood alcohol level was47. Uh I went into a in and out of a coma for the next 14 days. They pronounced me dead twice.

uh when they pronounced me dead, I did uh the first time I experienced being up in the corner of the room watching them work on me. The second time I did experience a warm and wonderful white light. I do not believe that's a miracle in David Manich's life.

I do believe that was God teaching me to learn to live life on life's terms and I'll talk about that in a minute. Uh I came out of the coma after 14 days and for the next four or five days they found out I could walk a little bit, I could talk a little bit, I could feed myself and I could go pee all by myself. tremendous seats for an adult male of 29 years of age.

Uh they asked me if I was willing to go to treatment. I said yes. I have no idea why.

Gateway had come up with treatment for me, Gateway Rehabilitation Center, and they were ready to put me up for 28 days. They sent me to treatment and I'll tell you what, I remember very little of treatment. I remember them getting me there and I was very very sick and and they gave me this thing called the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and then they told me it was a text and you needed to study it and the English teacher popped right out of me and and I began to diagram sentences in the book.

I told them how ill written the book was, how illited the book was, how if they gave me half a chance with all my degrees, I could really rewrite this book for you folks and and so it would really work. And they promptly took my big book away from me. They told they told me I was going to have to go to AA meetings and I was going to have to be loved back to life by these book big books that were sitting in the rooms about college anonymous.

And I said, "But I have degrees." And they said, "So does a rectal thermometer." And you know what? And and then they said, "David, we're going to send you to a halfway house." Well, I had no clueless to what a halfway house was, but the old lady had made it abundantly clear she was not taking me home. So no home.

halfway home. No home. I mean, it was a no-brainer even for me.

So, I figured, okay, I will go to this halfway house. And then they lowered the boom. They said they were going to send me to some god- aful place called Pville, Ohio.

I mean, you got to be me. Painville, Ohio. You got to be kidding.

I mean, that can't possibly be good. I didn't know anything existed beyond Pennsylvania and and I really didn't want to know about it if it did. But Kingsville, Ohio, oh, I'll tell you what, they packed me into two AMP shopping bags.

They dropped me off at Lakeous's porch and and back then it was gray and dirty looking and and and then they beat me out of town before I could change my mind. And there I was stuck in Painsville. I walked in there and the place was dirty looking and the floor it had this matted down green carpet with coffee stains all over.

The walls were filthy looking and the residents were filthy looking. Some of these guys had been to jail. I mean I wasn't I was convinced I was going to be raped, beaten, and mocked all in the same I against the door just for protection.

I mean, this place was run by a woman. How good could it possibly be? To insult to injury.

She was black. You insane people in Ohio sold blues in grocery stores. I couldn't even go to convenient without running it.

Right across the street from this dump was a bar. How in God's name am I supposed to get clean and sober in a dump like this? Needless to say, my defects of character sobered up long before my grains ever did.

And I owe a very very great debt of thanks to Julia McGrder, who was the beautiful, beautiful black lady who ran that halfway house at the time. She sat me down. Uh, she let me know that it didn't matter that I was the wrong color.

I could get sober anyways. She also let me know that I could keep my big mouth shut, not drink, go to meetings, call my blessing, say my prayers, find a sponsor, work the 12 steps of alcoholic sober, or die. >> We have not gotten off to a great start.

You people terrified me. They sent me meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting. I didn't know if I was going to a meeting or coming from a Marshall Parker at every meeting.

I like you always pick the worst people to read. I mean, I think you made me sign these things that you sent around and I knew they were contracts and one of these days you're going to call in my markers and I am not going to be able to pay for all these meetings that I go to and my soul is going to be in talk and then you people wanted to touch me. Oh my god.

You said stupid things like keep coming back and and you said things like if you I didn't want what you had. I the way you touched and grabbed and kissed at each other and I figured it had to be a social disease like don't touch me and you scared me to death. You just terrified me.

I wanted to become like a flower in the wallpaper somewhere. Just leave me alone. Don't touch me.

And then you gave me this idiot for a sponsor. Oh god, he was so stupid. He knew like a box of rocks.

He tried to convince me that I would stay sober cleaning out ashray and picking up chairs. I mean, he was nuts. I mean, it was in absolutely insane.

And and I said, "David, you need to start working on things steps." And I'll tell you what, I had no problem with step one. I knew that I was powerless over alcohol. I knew that my life was unmanageable.

I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt in my heart that I was tragically flawed. I knew that I did not drink like other people. I knew that my way did not work.

I didn't think your way would, but I knew my way didn't. A and that faced me with steps two and three. And I had a terrible time there.

You see, I knew God could restore me to sanity. I did not believe that God would restore me to sanity. Not me.

Not after taking the beautiful talents that God had blessed me with, the beautiful priesthood that he had blessed me with, taking it and and dragging it through the filth that I had drunk it through. Certainly, he might bless you. He might restore you to sanity, but never me.

And the old-timers were so kind to us back then. They said things like, "Man, Jack, that's nothing but pure unadulterated ego. Now you think you're beyond the grace of God.

Get off God's throne. He isn't done with it." And I said, And and they said, "Man, you need to start talking to God." And I said, "I don't have anything pleasant to say to God." And they said, "Good. Say something unpleasant, but he loves to hear from strangers." And one of them handed me this gold watch.

And he said, "I want you to go back to that halfway house. I want you to find an empty chair. I want you to drag it up to your bedroom.

I want you to sit on your bed and put your concept of God, whatever you conceive him to be. You picture him in that chair. And you talk to him for 15 minutes every day.

I don't care if you nag, you gripe, you complain, you cuss, you do whatever you need to do, but you talk to God for 15 minutes every day and you get all that grumbling out of you. And I looked at him like he's nuts. Nobody gives me gold watches.

I hopped in. Anyway, I was willing to try just about anything. And so I I took his watch and I found a chair and I began to talk to God for 15 minutes and I grumbled up a storm.

and and and it I'll tell you what, some astounding things began to happen when this little hillbilly began to talk to God for 15 minutes every day. And it didn't matter what I was saying. It didn't even matter how I was saying it.

I got grumbled out. It started to turn into 10 minutes of grumbling and five minutes talking to God. And then it turned into five minutes of grumbling and 10 minutes talking to God.

And then it turned into 15 minutes of just talking to God. Just my heart to his ears. Just dear God, please help me do what these people are telling me to do.

Help me to turn my will and my life over to their care because I see a light in their eyes. I can see their soul and I haven't seen my soul in my eyes for a long, long time. God, help me to do what these people are telling me to do.

And that's where step two began to happen for me, where I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. And and it was astounding because I could confuse a onecar funeral back then. And the old-timers told me that they were not going to allow me to do that.

And and they said, "We're going to teach you very slow and we're going to teach you simple little kitty stories." And that's exactly what they did. They they made me just learn little lessons from simple little things. They told me the story about the gentleman who goes to Niagara Falls with and he stretches a tight rope across Niagara Falls and he hops up in the falls and he sits a little wheelbarrow down and he walks that tight rope pushing this little wheelbarrow all the way to Canada and a great crowd had gathered and and they and he hops down and they're cheering and shouting and he asks them two questions.

Do you have faith and do you trust that I can do that again? And they all said, "Yeah, we have faith and trust you can do it. We saw you do it." He hops up in the wire, puts the little wheelbarl down, pushes it all the way back to the to America and and that crowd had gathered and they're all cheering and shouting and and he hops down.

He asks them the same two questions. Do you have faith and do you trust that I can do that again? And they said, "We saw you do it twice.

Of course, we have faith and trust that you can do it again." And he hopped up on the wire and he sat the little wheelbarrow down and he turned to the crowd and said, "If you have faith and if you trust that I can do it again, get in the wheelbarrow." And the old-timers said, "David, step three is that simple. Just have faith and trust that no matter how shaky it gets out on the wire, stay in God's wheelbarrow. Whatever happens out on that wire, no matter how scared you get out on that, if if the greatest things in the world happen to you, if you win the lottery today, it's God that's going to get you to your pillow tonight, clean and sober, just stay in God's will.

Just suit up, show up, and stay in God's wheelbarrow. If if the worst tragedy happens, just stay in God's wheelbarrow and he will get you to whatever you through whatever you need to do. Whatever end you need to get to, he will get you there.

And and that's step three. And that's how they began. And I'll tell you what, those of you who know me know that three years into my sobriety, um I got a phone call one Sunday that my house was on fire.

That that a gentleman that I had sponsored got drunk. He broke into my home. He lit my house on fire and split.

Uh, I couldn't I I I I come charging across Payneesville. I saw 4ft flames leaping out of the roof of my home. I couldn't even get in to get the dog out.

I learned a whole new concept of powerlessness at night. And and I'll tell you what, you people showed up. You people held me and you hugged me and you said it'd be okay.

And and and I you told me I wasn't allowed to kill him. Uh I mean, it was it was astounding the love that I got that day. You took me home with you.

You said, "Here's a telephone. Call your family in Pennsylvania. Tell them of this terrible tragedy that has befallen you.

And here's a towel and a watercol. And here's the bathroom. Go in there.

Wash the tears of self-pity out of your eyes. We're going to make you We're going to take you to Menor Sunday tonight. We're going to make you read the steps.

I looked at you and said, "My house just burned down. You want me to go to a dang AA meeting? Are you insane or something?" And you drugged me to Menor Sunday and you made me read the steps and I cried all the way through those basket case.

And you held me and you hugged me and you said it would be okay. And and you said things like, "I got a dress here and I've got some china for you and you know, my son just grew out of here, so I'll bring you soon." I had a better wardrobe three days after the fire. You people dress me in Jordash jeans, Britannia tops, the outfit that I wear tonight.

I wear in honor of the oldtimers of Alcoholics Anonymous because I did I needed to lead Lake County Tuesday and I didn't have a decent outfit to do that. Some old-timers took up a collection. Sent them some eleons out to the mall to buy this outfit for me from the skin out.

That's what a did for me. When I was naked, you clothed me. When I was homeless, you took me in.

And when I was hungry, you fed me. God, I'll tell you what, astounding things happened. When I put steps one, two, and three in my life, and I stay in Grow Barrel.

Uh, two weeks after that fire, I got a phone call from a nurse in El Tuna, Pennsylvania. She said, "David, if you'd like to see your brother George alive, you'd better come now. He's dying of myoblastic leukemia as a result of Agent Orange from Vietnam.

I didn't have a car that could make it to PA. Um, I made one phone call from work. Seven of you AAS pulled a B&E at my house.

You broke in. You went through a window. You invaded my privacy.

You packed my underwear for me. You packed my clothes. You packed a big book.

Uh, 12 and 12. You had an acceptance part uh and a partnership pamphlet. You had an AA sitting in the driveway with his car full of gas and a week's vacation to take me to Pennsylvania and to sit with me while I watched my brother George died of leukemia.

Now, my brother George at one time was one of you big guys. He weighed in at like 230 240 lbs. And when we buried him, he weighed 86 pounds.

As I looked at him in that bed that week, he he was just a skeleton with skin stretched over it. And as I stood over top of him, I remembered I remembered back to that beautiful, wonderful warm white light that I had experienced when I was in the coma. And I had never ever talked about it because I figured if I told anybody, you would tell me I'm crazy and you'd lock me up in Laurel Wood and I'd never get out.

And and I was terrified of that. And and my brother looked up at me and he he instead of asking for water, which he usually did cuz he had tubes going everywhere and his mouth would get dry, he looked at me and he said, "What are you thinking?" And I shared with him that warm and wonderful white light experience that I had. And he looked at me and I watched his soul light up in his eyes.

And I watched him say, "It was not a dream." And then he said the words that AA had said to me, "It will be okay." I believe I had that experience just to help my brother George die peacefully. I believe I had that experience just to help him learn to live life on life's terms. And death is a part of life.

It's a part of life that every one of us is going to have to go through. Start raving nakedly alone. And there are going to be those times like a few years ago when I had to sit with my sponsor in the intensive care ward and I had to watch the machine get shut off and I had to watch him slip away and and there was nothing I could do about it.

All I could do is be there and to be loving and caring as I watched my sponsor slip away. those beautiful miracles in our life that we have an active part of being a member of our own lives and and and death being a part of that just a part of life on life's terms when I put steps one two and three in my life I can look at an inventory I can share that inventory with God myself and another human being without fear I can I can look at defects of character and humbly ask God to remove them and have faith and trust that if God can remove from me the compulsion to drink. He could remove any defect that stands in the way of my usefulness to God and to my fellows.

And and to look at the inventory and the amend steps. And you know, when I got to the amend steps, I wanted to tell you about my old man. I wanted to tell you how he used to beat us in drunken rages when we were little boys and we didn't deserve that And and and you people sat me down and said, "David, I don't care what kind of old man you had.

What kind of son were you?" And you made me write out an inventory of what kind of son David was. And I wasn't proud of the results because what I learned was I learned that my father had fed me, cluh clothed me, and housed me for 18 years of my life. Never once had he ever seen anything come out of this son other than hate, remorse, bitterness, vindictiveness, and fear.

I owed my old man amends for my neighbor, not his. When I was able to make those amends, astounding things happened. I was able to be with my dad before he died of a long and lingering bone cancer.

I could clean him up. I could feed him. I could nurture him.

I could love him. I no longer wanted his warm sticky blood on my hands. That's the miracle of alcoholics and numbness.

That's when I knew that spiritual awakening as a result of these steps had happened. That educational variety that we read about in the second appendix in the back of the book that that that said, "I'm not like I used to be. My feeble attempts at at trying to work these things called steps had changed me.

I no longer wanted his warm sticky blood on my hands. I don't do things the way that I used to do 27 years ago. For some reason, the grace of God has transformed me with your help, those 12 steps and the 12 traditions into somebody I've never ever been.

I've never been capable of dealing with life on life's terms. And as long as I suit up, show up, and stay in God's wheelbarrow, astounding and wonderful things happen. I believe in having fun in sobriety.

I love events like this. I'd love to congratulate the home group on many, many, many, many years of carrying the message of Alcoholics Anonymous. Those of you who know me know that I still have a home group in pain.

I still take newly sober people in. I'm really crazy sometimes. Uh, they teach me much more than I could ever possibly teach them.

Uh, I believe in going to the dances and the Pundersons and the conferences and all of those coupons that we pick, the anniversaries, these wonderful gifts that we have. Uh, I I believe in in celebrating this thing called life because we're living it, we're breathing it, and it's great. Those of you who know me know that a little over a year ago, January 26, I went into a massive heart attack in my living room.

If you really want to know the power of Alcoholics Anonymous, I go into a massive heart attack in my living room. There are three AAS there. One knows how to dial 911 and clear the way for the paramedics.

And the other two were certified at CPR. They began to do exactly what they were taught to do in CPR. And without them, I would have been dead.

Three members of Alcoholics Anonymous breathing life back into me once again as God did 26, 27 years ago. Why they breathe life back into a worthless drunk, I have no idea why they sent me to Alcoholics Anonymous and you people taught me to live this life. I have no idea.

But I am forever grateful that you are a great part of my life and I need you as much today as I have ever ever needed you. Thank you for all of the beautiful things that you have given me. Uh I also believe in enjoying this this recovery stuff.

Please get in the middle of the bed, enjoy sobriety. If uh the one of the the old-timers out our way used to say, "Working a 12step program of Alcoholics Anonymous is kind of like having sex. If you're not enjoying it, you're doing something wrong.

Get yourself a sponsor. Get yourself a big book. Get yourself a home group.

Do the steps. Work out of that book. And believe me, you will come to enjoy your sobriety." He used to also say that being asked to speak at a meeting about knowledge synonymous uh was kind of like being asked to have sex.

It's always an honor to be asked. At my age you worry a little bit about your performance and you know when it's over you're going to feel good. Now for the most part it's over and I feel a dang sight better than I do alone.

But I would like to thank you. It is great that we can laugh together, that we can cry together, and that we can walk uh trudge this road of happy destiny together. Thank you.

Do we close with the Lord's prayer? >> 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. >>