It’s an Inside Job – AA Speaker – David M.
David M. shares his 22-year recovery story from resentment and anger to finding peace through the 12 steps. An AA speaker tape on service, step work, and spiritual change.
David M. grew up in Philadelphia with alcoholism running through his family, carrying deep resentments from childhood trauma that followed him into his drinking years. In this AA speaker tape, he walks through hitting bottom after nearly destroying his marriage, finding his way into the rooms, and discovering that recovery—real recovery—is an inside job built on the 12 steps and service to others.
David M., with nearly 22 years sober, shares his story of childhood resentment, decades of drinking that nearly cost him his marriage and life, and his transformation through Alcoholics Anonymous and working the 12 steps. He emphasizes that recovery is not about external circumstances but about internal change—how you feel on the inside—and demonstrates this through his journey from anger and blame to acceptance and service. As an AA speaker, David illustrates how steps 4 through 10 literally changed his perspective, moved him from victim mentality to personal responsibility, and gave him the tools to stay active in the fellowship through service work.
Episode Summary
David M. opens his talk with gratitude for Alcoholics Anonymous and the fellowship that saved his life. He doesn’t start with his bottom—instead, he traces the roots of his drinking back to childhood, to things that happened before he was even a teenager that left him angry at life itself and, by extension, angry at God.
Growing up in a large, loving Philadelphia family, David experienced trauma outside his home that shaped him early. By age seven or eight, he’d withdrawn from life, unable to accept the love his family offered because he felt shame about things he couldn’t control. That shame turned into resentment—a massive, unacknowledged resentment that he carried like a weight for decades. He lost God early, convinced that God wouldn’t protect him, so why worship?
At thirteen, he found alcohol. It was the answer to everything: a way to fit in, a way to escape the anger, a way to numb the feeling that he was somehow fundamentally wrong. He describes those early drinking days with his neighborhood friends—cheap wine, hot rods, no real ambition—as the only place he felt he belonged. Nobody qualified you around a bottle. You didn’t have to explain yourself. As long as you had seventy-five cents, you were in.
What strikes David in his telling is his own awareness, even then, that something was wrong. He’d lie awake at night thinking, “I don’t want to be drunk like the rest of my family.” But he didn’t know how to stop. So he just kept going—through high school (good grades), through his first meeting with his wife Denise (who came from a completely different world, with nice things and stability), and into adulthood.
The drinking escalated. Better alcohol, harder drugs, longer hours away from home. His wife worked one shift; he worked another. When she was awake, he was gone. When she was asleep, he was drunk. It was a perfect arrangement for an active alcoholic—except it wasn’t. After almost seventeen years, his wife walked out on a Sunday morning. And David knew, watching her leave, that he was responsible.
Sitting alone in his apartment, David experienced suicidal ideation. He drove to a bridge where he’d gotten drunk a thousand times and decided to jump. He got out of the car and started walking. Then he had a moment of clarity: he couldn’t swim. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so tragic.
The next morning, he called a supervisor from work—a man who’d battled addiction himself and become a born-again Christian. This man told David he’d take him somewhere that would change his life. David expected counseling. Instead, he found himself in an octagon-shaped church during a baptism ceremony—the only Black man in a sea of white people in white robes. He was terrified. But the people at that church prayed for him, settled him down, and convinced him that he needed Jesus to recover. For a moment, it felt like hope.
Then he got to the Benjamin Franklin Bridge and his alcoholic mind kicked in: one more night. He got drunk again. And the next morning, he woke with what AA calls the four horsemen—bewilderment, terror, frustration, and fear.
This time, he turned himself in to his company’s employee relations office. His supervisor sent him to Chitchat, a rehabilitation facility, and his family took him. That ride—the nuclear silos, the cornfields, his wife scraping gears on his sports car all the way there—felt like the end of the world.
But something shifted at Chitchat. After two weeks of fighting the program, a tiny woman asked him point-blank: “Are you a drunk?” When he hedged, she told him to get the hell out. Something broke in him—shame, maybe, or just exhaustion. He admitted, in front of sixty people, that he thought he had a problem with alcohol and didn’t know what to do. The group clapped. He became a model patient. On May 15th, 1986, he came home on his wife’s birthday.
He came home to a house that reflected her anger—unpaid bills, no electricity, no gas. But he also came home to a group called the West Oak Lane Group of Alcoholics Anonymous. They told him to sit for six months and not say a word. Just listen. He hated it—he thought he had something to offer—but he did it. He made coffee, set up chairs, and absorbed everything. The people in that room loved him unconditionally until he could love himself.
The 12 steps, David explains, gave him what no amount of willpower or therapy could: a design for living. Step 2 taught him sanity—learning to separate principles from the bullshit. Step 3 taught him to surrender his life and will daily, not just once, but every day. But it was Step 4—taking a moral inventory—that changed everything.
David realized in Step 4 that it wasn’t God who’d let things happen to him. People had let things happen to people. God didn’t do it; people did. And suddenly, he could let go of his resentment toward God. He could see, finally, that he’d been blaming everyone—God, his family, the world—when he needed to look at what *he* had done to others.
In Step 5, when he shared his inventory with his sponsor, something remarkable happened. His sponsor, nearly blind, asked David to redo it—and this time, to tell him what David had done to other people, not what others had done to David. When David’s pen started moving, he started feeling. And he felt better than he ever had in his life. At work, writing this, everything changed. His sponsor looked at him and said, “Dave, for a guy like you, it doesn’t get any better than this.” David didn’t understand at first. “Just going to meetings?” His sponsor shook his head: “I think you missed the ticket here, fella.”
That ticket was service. From that day forward, David has stayed involved—not to gain anything, but because he knows that when he steps out of service, he starts obsessing on himself. And that’s where the disease lives.
David has been sober almost twenty-two years. He’s made amends to his employer, his wife, his kids, and his mother. He still carries a list of amends he may need to make when God permits. He walks into jails and Yale universities alike, carrying the message. He and his son build hot rods together. His daughter wraps herself around his pinky. His wife—who almost left—is still with him.
The core message David returns to, again and again, is this: **It’s an inside job.** It’s not about what happens to you. It’s about what you feel inside. Before recovery, he hated walking in his own skin. Today, it fits him right—a little tight maybe, a little wide—but it fits.
He closes with a question that echoes through recovery rooms everywhere: “How do I get here from there?” His answer is simple: through a loving God, through Alcoholics Anonymous, through the fellowship, and through the willingness to do the 12 steps every day. Not perfectly. Not to his sponsor’s standard—that would be impossible. But to the best of his ability. And that’s been enough to carry him from the bridge to hope.
Notable Quotes
I hate walking in my own skin.” And then, decades later: “Today it fits quite right. A little tough and a little wide, but it fits.
It’s an inside job. It’s got nothing to do with anything I’m ever going to do exterior to my life. It’s about how I feel and where I am.
When my pen started to write, I started to feel a lot better than I ever felt in my life.
If I’m not doing anything, I start doing me. That’s not a good deal.
How do I get here from there? Through a loving God, through Alcoholics Anonymous, and through this wonderful fellowship.
Step 5 – Admission
Service Work
Resentments
Hitting Bottom
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
- Step 5 – Admission
- Service Work
- Resentments
- Hitting Bottom
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> Good morning everybody. First of all, I'd like to say my name is Dave.
I'm a grateful recovering alcoholic. >> I'm serving through the grace of God and fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. And for that, for that I'm truly grateful.
And uh I want to thank the committee for inviting us here, you know, uh and Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm I'm willing to go anywhere and everywhere for Alcoholics Anonymous because this fellowship saved my life, gave me a life, and gave me a family as you just heard, you know. But I just want to take a moment to thank the committee for allowing us the hospitality to come here, you know.
Uh I love the Northeast cuz it's always cold here. You know, we we don't get much snow where we live, you know, and uh I get to see old friends like Woody that I've seen for years. watched him in all kinds of business meetings argue with people you know you never forget Woody you know but you know uh I am truly grateful and blessed to be here you know uh you you've heard a lot about me through my other half and you know uh when I stumbled upon this young lady in 11th grade she was my diamond in the rough you know uh it just needed polishing and she helped me polish it you know uh and and and I never want to forget that because uh what she said was the truth And I don't deny any of it.
You know, uh because of uh Alcoholics Anonymous and Allen, I can stand here before you and say that what she shared was the honest truth. You know, if you want to know my story, you need to hear hers first, you know, cuz she'll tell you the parts I might want to leave out, you know, but the truth of it is, you know, uh alcoholism has been in my family from since the day I was born. My my dad and his family, they were functional alcoholics, you know, construction workers, you know, worked hard, drank every weekend, you know, and like didn't like a lot of it going on in the household, but I had no choice.
You take what you get, you know. I come from a family of nine, uh, five sisters, one other brother, and a mother and father. A loving family.
You know, the one thing we had, we may not have had money, but we had a lot of love. And they made sure you knew it. Every night before you went to bed, you had to hug every one of your sisters and brothers and tell them that you loved them.
I hated it, you know, right from the beginning, you know. Uh, you know, my life growing up was like I spent most of my time with my dad, you know, fishing and, uh, from the early on, I had things happen in my life outside of my home that, uh, made me real angry with life. And, uh, I I kind of withdrew from life at about seven and a half, eight years old.
You know, I didn't like people, period. not even my own family, you know, for things that had taken place in my life. And I I I know today that that something happened that's not the person that who I am today, you know, like uh I I resented people.
I resented everything, you know, and and I I went through life with a chip on my shoulder early on in life. like how could God let things happen like that to me, you know, and like uh so I lost a God real early on in my life, you know, and uh and the bottom line is that as much love as my family wanted to give me, I could not accept it, you know, and so I went through my early childhood just evading everything and everybody, never wanting to be close to anybody because like if you knew what what the things that had happened, you you wouldn't want to know me, you know, and like the bottom line is that I'm not responsible for other people's actions, but you know, I felt like I was responsible for the whole weight of the world on my shoulders. And so I I just had a major resentment.
I didn't even know that word back then, but I had a major resentment from like the age of eight on, you know, and always thinking that I would get even, you know, uh and I'm glad I found a drink first, you know, at the age of 13. I found a drink. uh hanging around with the fellas on the corner playing basketball and we used to buy a couple quarts of Boones Farm uh wine and you know it was it just looked like something I needed to do to fit in cuz up to that point in my life I the only person I fit in was with me and that's pretty bad company when everybody around you in the city block and you get on with nobody you know uh but I I wound up hanging out with these guys you know and we started drinking boons for them and and we love hot rods we love nice women and we love to just raise hell and have fun, you know.
And uh it just seemed like something I wanted to do cuz it took me away from what everything I knew at that point in my life. And uh so at 13, I started hanging around the stable. They had horses around there and they built hot rods on the other side of the stable and like uh I said I could do this for the rest of my life, you know.
I don't know what I was doing, but you know, just getting drunk, you know, and looking up at the horses and and the race cars watching maybe I'll become a race car driver or something, you know. uh had no real ambition in life period, you know, but my dad was one of these guys that wanted you to work hard even though you didn't want to work hard, you know. Uh so I I I was this go get it boy until I, you know, until I got of age not to go get it, you know.
Uh and he uh he taught me a lot of principles about working and working hard, you know, and I uh I just didn't want to do type work he did, you know. So I I would disappear early on in the morning, you know, before he got before he came too. I was gone, you know, cuz I got tired of pushing wheelbarls at 11 and 12 years old.
You I just thought this was not a job for a kid like me, you know, and he thought it was a great job for a kid like me, you know, cheap labor, you know. But the bottom line is that it was unconditional love and he wanted to just keep me out of trouble cuz I grew up in an era where there's a lot of gang fighting going on. it was the end of the Vietnam War and everybody was doing everything and just celebrating and he just wanted me to be safe at all times and uh the bottom line is that uh I was a kid 13 years old walking around couldn't figure out what I wanted to do in life and figuring out why God had treated me so bad so early on in life and like uh my I asked my mom one Sunday I said do I have to go to Sunday school anymore she said that's your choice I said I choose not to you know cuz I figured why should I go worship something that you looking out for me, you know, I knew it right off that he didn't have a plan for me to put me where I was at a young age like that, you know, like uh the bottom line had major resentments against God and everybody else, you know, and like the bottom line is that I uh I found Boon's Farm and I found 18 friends and these 18 friends would become the guys that I would go would die with, you know.
Uh, and that's so I thought and uh, but it it was they didn't care who you were, what you did, or what had happened to you. As long as you had 75 cents, it didn't matter who you were, what you were, it just didn't matter. And, you know, uh, I felt most comfortable around a barrel of fire and a bottle of booze because nobody qualified around a bottle of booze.
As long as you didn't guzzle or burp in the bottle, you were okay, you know, cuz they watch for that, you know. Uh, you know, and I learned early on that if you want yours, get it where it's going cuz it ain't coming back, you know. Uh, I learned that about drinking real early, you know, and like, uh, and, you know, I thought there was nothing wrong with that, you know.
like uh throughout high school, you know, I I tried to be the best person I could be cuz that's what my parents taught me to be, you know, but on the weekends and after school, I love getting high, you know, and and basically whatever it took to do that, I would do that, you know, and like uh I wasn't a bad guy. I I really I hated fighting. I hated gangs, you know, and I had a large family in Philadelphia that belonged to a lot of different gangs that had been shot, paralyzed, and all that type of thing.
So, everywhere I went, they just beat me up and send me home. So, you know, I I caught a bad break early on in life, you know, well, that's such and such's cousin. Let's beat him up and send him home, you know, and like I got beaten just for being somebody else, you know, and like, well, there was really nothing to look forward to in life.
And I mean, at that time, we had a a real tough uh cop squad in Philadelphia at that point in time. It was the Rizzo area. And like uh the cops were notorious for just beating kids up and stuff like that, you know, like uh you can't be protected by the cops.
You're getting beat up by the gangs. other people are bothering why live, you know, and like uh so why not just stay drunk and forget everything, you know? And that's basically what I thought, you know, when I get out of here, I'm getting out of here.
I'm moving as far away from Philadelphia as I can, but I never moved anywhere. That was all in my mind, you know. Uh the things I thought between my two ears were were magn magnific, but they never happened, you know.
Uh in high school, uh I got good grades in high school, you know. Uh, and in my 11th year, I asked uh my my wife Denise to go to prom with me. And uh I was actually going out with my best friend's uh sister, and she had an attitude.
So, I asked Denise to go to prom with me. It seemed like a good thing to do, you know. Uh why deal with an attitude when I could just go to the prom, you know?
I just wasn't willing to deal with people's attitudes at that point in time, you know. Uh but you know uh and like she said I I I drove a 1963 Dodge with no mufflers and headers on it and you know would wake up the whole block you know park in the middle of the block create a disturbance take off again you know until I met her dad you know uh he he was this real tall fella you know like I'm kind of a short guy you know and like he looked pretty stern so I I tried to be somewhat decent around him but after 9:00 all the bets was off cuz once I had a few balls of booze in me. I didn't care how tall you were, how big you were, you know.
Uh I was I was out on a mission to destroy myself and anything else in my path, you know, and like uh I used to think about that at night, you know, like how did I get here? I don't want to be drunk like the rest of my family. And like uh and and I had I had I had a lot of unhappiness in within my own self, you know, and like uh the bottom line, I was my own worst problem, you know.
So um so we we hung around, we did a lot of great things. We we went to Atlantic City. We parted with some high school friends, you know.
I had a great I had a a I taught her how to drive so I wouldn't have to drive drunk. So that was a plus in that whole relationship, you know. Uh she didn't drink, she didn't smoke, so that was more for me, you know.
So that was a a whole deal for me, you know. And to be honest, you know, like uh she her life was totally different from mine. And I'll tell you that, you know, like in my house, you know, uh with seven kids, you know, it was tough.
And my dad didn't work all the time because of rain or whatever, you know, and we had like in our China closet, we had the Welch jelly jar characters and her china closet, they had stuff with gold rims, you know. I was fascinated when I went there, you know, like and we only grew up a block from each other. She grew up on this end and I grew up on the other end of another block right next to each other and you know and even from a young kid you know I knew her and like uh but would never say anything to her you know until that night I asked her to go to prom with me and that's when the first night she asked for trouble you know uh she bought trouble that night you know because you know what we do when we go to prom we get drunk and have fun you know and that's what I proceeded to do but I think I was somewhat of a gentleman that night you know uh but uh I could see you know She used to put on her little major red outfit.
They great, you know what I mean? Back then, you know, I never participated in sports, but I was I was I would always go watch the majorettes and the cheerleaders, you know what I mean? I was a real supporter, you know?
Uh I really in my neighborhood, you really didn't play sports because if you played it in the playground, if you tackle somebody too hard, they'd pull an axe out on you. So, I realized I didn't want to play football, you know what I mean? Uh I and basketball.
I I tried to play basketball and you just get beat up playing basketball. I was too short to, you know. So the only thing it was for me to do was build hot rods and act like a nut, you know.
And like that fit in real good cuz nobody really cared, you know. Uh but uh life went on, you know. We uh we started uh hanging out, dating, and uh I asked her to marry me at 21.
And also at 21, I was working in a hospital called Fisto Mercy Hospital from 4:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. A great alcoholic's hours, you know, cuz you get off at 1:00 p.m.
and you can drink till 9:00, go to bed till 3:00, and go back to work. Nobody notices anything. So why would she see me?
You know, uh when she was working, I was drunk. When she was home, I was sleep. And when she was up, I was gone again.
you know, uh, it worked out perfect, you know, and, uh, and and the nuns used to tell me at the hospital, she, you know, they said, "God's really got a plan for you." And I'm thinking, "Yeah, he's already given me a plan in life. I don't want the next one, you know." But the truth of it is, I had no idea what I wanted. And uh, I got a phone call one day from a friend of mine asked me if I wanted a a real job.
And I said, "I got a job?" Yeah. He says, "I'm in a real job working for a real company." And I said, "Sure." And so I I applied uh put an application in for this oil company and like uh about 6 months later they called me and I was in a drunken stouper and the lady says uh this is such and such oil company and I said well I don't need any oil today honey. It was like 100° outside.
What I need with oil? She said no uh we finally uh got your application. We want to know if you uh would like to come work for us.
And I and I just stood up, you know, cuz uh I don't know. I just knew something else had taken place. And I I I thanked the nuns for that.
I really did, you know. I didn't believe in God, but I thanked the nuns for it. The ones I used to see at 4:00 in the morning getting beat up by a buffer and they would say, "Son, are you all right?" And the buffer would have me all up in the corner, you know.
I think they knew what was going on, too. But I I never let on that I had a problem, you know. And the bottom line is that those nuns used to pray for me every day cuz like some days I couldn't get out of my own way, you know.
I'd be wrapped up in extension cords. Like I hope nobody's awake, you know. But the bottom line is that, you know, uh there are a lot of people praying for a guy like me and I didn't even know it, you know.
Uh had a lot of good friends that just wanted me to stay out of trouble, not get locked up, not wind up in the penitentiary like a lot of my other friends did, you know, and like uh I managed to do that, you know. Uh occasionally I had some overnight stays, you know, uh not that I wanted to, but they offer me unconditional terms, you know, you either stay here or you go somewhere else, you know, and like uh I was okay with things like that, but you know, uh my family uh they love me unconditionally even though I couldn't love them at that point in my life. And uh I don't know, life took on a new meaning when I got that new job.
The only thing happened is that I went from Boone's Farm in Tiger Roos to Tangare, you know, and other substance I say in passing, you know, and like I think I just got drunker faster and I got sicker quicker, which bought me to Alcoholics Anonymous a lot quicker. And I I like to say that, you know, cuz I don't like to spend a whole lot of time on my drunk a lot cuz that's the that's not the solution for a guy like me. The solution was realizing that that day she walked out on Sunday that for almost 17 years I had watched a person destroy themselves from within.
And I knew when she walked out that she was not the person that she was that I had married, you know, and like uh I knew something was wrong. I think we all come to that jumping off point to where we know that, you know, what used to be so bright and cheerful now was great. And when she walked out that Sunday, I knew something had taken place and I knew I was responsible for a lot of it.
And uh it wasn't like when she walked out the door during the rain that I went to get her cuz I had no skills how to deal with something like that. So I just let her go. You know, I figured she'd be better off.
You know, there's a lot of things I thought like that. I can remember driving across the Strawberry Mansion Bridge and getting to the bridge in Fairmont Park and bridge I used to go get drunk under a lot, you know, and I was thinking, well, if I just jump off here, she won't have anything else to worry about. I drove up there one night, two sheets to the wind, and I got out, I started walking, and I had a moment of clarity.
I can't swim. So, I I got back in the car and went home, you know, uh I wanted help but didn't know how to ask for help. And uh that Sunday morning, I woke up.
I told her I was going to call a supervisor of mine that had had a problem with other substance, drugs, and alcohol. And uh and he'd become a a refined born-again Christian. And he was always in my corner at work.
And he said, "If you ever need help, you called me no matter what time of day." And I kne I knew that I could look this guy straight in the eye and I could call him. And I called him. He said, first thing he asked me, "Are you drinking?" "No." I got a glass in my hand, but I'm saying no.
He said, "Can you get to my house?" I said, "Sure." And I I got to his house in Gibstown, New Jersey, and it's right around the corner from my job. And like uh he says, "I'm going to introduce you to a group of people that's going to change your way of life." And I said, "A group of people. I thought you were just going to do this." And uh so uh we get in his car and we're driving down these back roads, no lights, no nothing.
We pull into this octagon looking church. And I'm like, "Oh, this don't even look good." You know, there's no lights outside the church. What kind of group of people am I going to meet?
You know, uh so we go into church and I'm I'm in total fear right now. You know what I mean? I'm sort of like right now.
I'm the only black guy in a place where there's a lot of white guys and white women, but the funny part is everybody's dressed from sheets from the neck down. And I'm like, whoa, something's wrong here. You know, and like uh he says, "Don't don't panic." He says, "This is just a baptismal." I said, "I can't do that." I said, "I'll burn in hell if they try to baptize me." And uh that picture, if you could just put picture that in your mind, I was shaking with fear.
and he knew it, you know, like it was worse than when I needed a drink. And uh I I sat there and he says, "When they get done, they'll talk to you next." And like he bought all these people over. They were singing and praising the Lord.
And I'm like, "Oh no." You know, like I don't want any parts to this praising the Lord thing. And you know, like they came over and prayed for me and settled me down and they got my confidence. They got my confidence in less than an hour and a half.
And they told me that I could be just like them if I did exactly what they did. And they said, "Did they turn their life and will over to care of Jesus Christ?" I said, "Oh, they not doing that." You know, uh, but I sat there and they convinced me that if I was going to get help, I needed to get help through the Lord. And uh, my mind kept saying, "Well, God knew this, God did that.
It didn't it didn't compute, you And the bottom line is that I left that church with a feeling that maybe for once in my life I could get help. I got to the Benjamin Franklin Bridge and my alcoholic mind says if we're going out this way, we might as well have one good night and I was drunk again, you know, and like uh I thought God's message really didn't work. It lasted as long as I was under his roof.
And uh I woke up that next morning, as only alcoholics know, with the four horsemen, bewilderment, terror, frustration, and fear. And you know, like uh I was sick, sick and tired of being sick. And I I turned myself into the employee relations office.
And he told me that night, he said, "Tonight is between you and my friends." He said, "Tomorrow is between you and the company. So if you happen to choose that route," he says, "I will support you all the way, but I will never say what happened here tonight." you know, and and he's been true to that word ever since, you know, and and I'd like to thank that guy for that, you know, like uh they sent me to a place called Chitchat, a Karen found Foundation place, and I said, "What's a chitchat?" I said, "What do you do there?" They said, "You go and chat." I said, "What am I going to chat about?" They said, "Your uh alcoholism and your drug addiction." I said, "I don't have that problem." The lady says, "I think you got more than that problem, but you can start off with just those two things, you know, and uh like she said, my uh mother, my wife, and my a couple of my sisters took me to this institution and they dropped me off and you know, the counselor says, "Well, who is it?" I looked at them and they were all looking at me, you know, like they they just disappeared. You know, it was like the longest ride of my life that day.
I passed the nuclear silos, all these corn fields. I said, "This must be the end." You know, like, and you know, I had bought this beautiful little sports car. I mean, a a Toyota Celica with two-seater with four people in the family.
So, you know, I really wasn't thinking about family. And it was a stick shift. And she really didn't know how to drive it, but she showed me she could drive it leaving that parking lot.
You know, I heard gears for like two miles just scraping. I think that was a little bit of anger to be honest with you know but uh you know uh I stayed there for 28 days and uh I learned the nature of my disease and there they taught me that uh an alcoholic like me doesn't stand a chance unless I find a new way of life or I I use the 12 steps in my life and uh I know for two for two weeks I was fighting them tooth and nail that you know maybe it was just a little bad luck like that c that client uh character Lionus with the blank blanket with the cloud over his head. I thought I just had that for 17 years, but it would change, you know, and they told me it wouldn't.
And uh the lady said to me, she looked at me eye eyeball to eyeball. She said, "A drunks like you probably going to die in the street if you don't find our way of life." And like uh I saw that in her eyes, you know, like uh for some reason next morning I woke up, I was willing and we had this little circle thing where you sit in a circle. So they asked me to sit in a circle and I was like cuz I wasn't a willing participant up to this point and this little young lady about 2 foot two stood up and she says are you a movie star?
I said nope. Are you a sports figure? I said I'd like to be.
She says are you a drunk? I said not too sure. She said well get the hell out of here then.
I mean like and I think that was God's breaking the wall down cuz it embarrassed me in front of that group of community of 60. And I said, "Well, the only reason I'm here is cuz I think I got a problem with alcohol, but I don't know what to to do about it." And uh that was the start of me surrendering to this disease. And they all clapped and stood up like something had happened, you know, like and they told me to go sit back outside the circle now, you know, I could finally be a part of them.
And uh and I became a model patient for the next two weeks. And uh you know uh I left that rehab with all the intentions of never surrendering to this disease again. And uh I left there on May 17th of May 15th of 1986.
I came home on my wife's birthday. That's what I gave her a birthday present coming home on her birthday. You know somewhat half silly.
And uh I came home with a lot of fear as she told you. She was marking the calendar. And uh I came home and I was scared, a lot of fear.
And uh I I got into the house and it was funny because uh she had got so angry so she just let everything go the way it was supposed to go so I could get get my attention. And I sat on I turned the TV off and they went back off. I was like, "Wow, it must be unplugged." She said, "Well, if you paid the bill, you probably could turn it on, you know." Here was the sarcasm side coming out of her, you know, like uh and and I remember thinking all kind of ways I could beat the electric company, you know.
And then I'm thinking now I guess I got to go make arrangements to to have electric. And then the gas company showed up and uh it was like one company after another and I met this old wise character in AA. He says you know utilities have programs and if you follow the steps they too will be more real in the hill.
So the next morning I went up made a company and uh the gas company. I fig well it's spring now I can hold off to at least September. I'm still thinking like an alcoholic, but uh I belong to a group called the West Oak Lane Group of Alcoholics Anonymous, which is up in West Oak Lane area, Philadelphia.
And uh there they taught me how to recover using the 12 steps. They took all the butt, woods, and coulds out of my vocabularies. They told me that I would sit here and I would sit here for six months and I would not say a word.
And when they called on me, just say my name just to let everybody know I was still here. And uh you know, as much as I hated it because I thought I had something to offer, I didn't say anything. I became a sponge and I absorbed and I I watched these people uh I became part of setting up the chairs, making the coffee and stuff like that.
I was willing to do anything besides go home at night cuz I knew she was pissed off, you know. So if the meeting would have went to 6:00, I went straight to work from there, you know. I was just still running, you And the bottom line is that those people love me unconditionally till I could love myself.
And uh at the 6 months they asked me to say something. I had nothing to say. You know, I don't get it.
You know, they make you shut up for 6 months and then you don't have anything to say when it's time to say something, you know, and like uh I had my first 12step call after 6 months and the guy says, "You tell exactly what you know." And I said, "What's that?" He says, "Nothing, just your name." And I said, "I can do that." You know, uh he said, "Cuz it's a personal friend of mine's daughter." and I don't want you to screw this up. So, just tell her your name and tell her that you're happy to be here." And I told her that and then off we went to a rehab. And he said, "That was a successful job.
Neither one of us got drunk. I'm not going to worry too much about her right now, but we didn't get drunk." And like I said, wow, that's how it works. I can do this.
And the bottom line is those were the early days where, you know, I did what they told me to do. I stopped fighting. I ceased fighting everything and everybody like it says in step 10.
I started to become willing to be a part of Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous started to infiltrate my life to where I started to have a design for living. I started to want to help others.
I started being more considerate of others and less considerate of myself, you know. Uh I started to see new hope beyond the light, you know, and like I started to dream greater dreams. And it was just waking up without a drink.
For me early on my first year just waking up without a drink was like I'll tell you what when that six month went past you know like I was happy and I thought the group should be happy and they said well you've been doing it for 6 months what's so different about the day like really busted my bubble you know cuz I thought they was going to give me some alkalade for being sober for 6 months they said that lady been over there sober for 52 years what's your problem you know keep coming back kid that's what they called me a kid at that point you know and like uh the bottom line is that uh I've gotten what I in and alcoholic synonymous what I could have ever got anywhere else. Uh I've been restored to sanity sanity in step two is where I took all the bull out of my life and I dealt with just principles. In step three, you asked me to surrender my life and will over to the care of God on a daily basis.
And I do that on a daily basis because I know it works. In spite of what I think about God, I know it works. And step four, I found out in step four, taking my moral inventory that it was me, it wasn't God.
You know, I've been blaming people for everything in my life. And I finally realized that God doesn't let things happen to people. People have made things happen to people.
And so, I was able to let go of my resentment to the God of my understanding at that point in time. And and that bot that that bottom line of the fourth step carried me into a whole new adventure, you know. Uh and the fifth step, I shared it with my sponsor.
He was at that time almost legally blind. So I printed real real small. I forgot they got copies.
He said can blow it up cuz I I had I didn't want him to know what was in my fore. And he blew it up, sent it back to me. He says, "I think you need to redo this." He says, "Forget about all the good things that happened in your life.
Tell me what you did to other people." And for once, he made me look at me. It wasn't about what everybody else had done to me, you know, and like uh and when I when my pen started to write, I started to feel and I started to feel a a lot better than I ever felt in my life. And I remember being at work writing this forep and things just changed that next day cuz I was willing to share that with him eyeball to eyeball.
And he looked at me, he says, "I think something has changed and I think you better hold on to it." And uh he told me, he says, "Dave, for a guy like you, it doesn't get any better than this." I said, "Just going to meetings?" He says, "I think you missed the ticket here, fella." And so, uh, from that day to this day, I still take a daily inventory of myself. But what has helped me is, uh, steps four through 11, you know, because I I I still have an amends list. I still have a list of people that I still may need to make amends to.
I've made a lot of physical amends to my employer, my wife, my kids, my mother, you know, uh but there are people out there I still need to make amends to and I'm willing like it says in the six and seven steps. I'm willing to do that whenever God permits that, you know. And the one thing that I do do is like I I stay involved and I stay active so I don't forget where I came from because the key to my my life existence is service, you know.
I don't know about you, but if I'm not doing anything, I start doing me. That's not a good deal, you know. Uh but when I whenever I'm involved in service, it seems like the higher power takes over in my life and I can actually call him God today.
He takes over in my life and he takes me to do different levels of where I've never been before. It may be the same day. Nothing different may happen, but I feel different on the inside.
And I finally understood what this one old-timer was saying the first couple Saturdays I met. He says, "Son, what do you got going for yourself on the inside?" I said, "Well, my wife, you know, uh, cuz at that time she was my guy, and I understand that this is an inside job. It's had nothing to do with anything I'm ever going to do exterior to my life.
It's about how I feel and where I am, you know, and today it's all about the inside job for me. You know, I can gain a lot of things in life, but if I don't have peace from within, I have nothing." And that's one of the things I've been searching for all my life is to be peaceful from within. You know, before I came to you, I hated walking in my own skin.
Today, it fits quite right. Little tough and a little wide, but you know, it fits quite right. You know, uh, and that's all because I've accepted my devastating weakness and my handicaps, you know.
I've been able to be reborn into the fourth dimension of this program. I've been able to walk walk and look through a new pair of glasses, you know. And when I realized that where a drunk like me came from came from May 18th, 1986, you know, how do I get there from here?
as to the love of Alcoholics Anonymous and a God of my understanding and at the wonderful fellowship called Alanon, you know, uh that's how I got here. There's no real secret. I just had to follow the 12 steps in this program, you know, and the traditions allowed me to become one among many.
So, it doesn't matter if I look different. As long as I feel the same, I'm okay with me, you know, and I've been able to take that through life in every area I go in my life. You know, a lot of times I, you know, like being sober, you know, I have a lot of opposition to people that are just normal, you know, and I I look at that same principle that I'm just one among many.
So, a lot of times I don't have to tell you that I'm different. I just feel the same and I go on with life, you know, because it's about what I feel that keeps me going, you know. It's not about my differences.
You know, I had a friend of mine early on in life told me. She says, "Whenever you look across the table and if you see anything different besides an alcoholic, you're in the wrong place." And I said, "What do you mean?" She says, "We don't have any color boundaries." She said, "We have alcoholics. We have people with other problems, but if you find yourself different, maybe you're in the wrong place." I haven't found myself different yet, you know.
And I'd like to thank that to the God of my understanding who I choose to call God today because he has done for me what I couldn't do for myself. You know, he's given me a family. He's given me hope.
Uh when my wife was sick with our daughter, like I I was not happy. How can you be happy and drunk and high all the time? You know, I was searching for something.
I was searching for happiness in every area of my life and never found anything. I found a lot of people that I bought along the way. And I'll tell you, I I've been sober almost 22 years.
Next week it'll be 22 years. And I've had one friend, two friends out of 18 that I grew up with call me in 22 years. I had a lot of friends.
So I thought. And the reason most of them won't call me because most of them are in the penitentiary or dead because their last drink was alcohol. You know, I'm a living example that you don't have to die from alcohol.
Even if he tells you you don't. I follow the 12 steps every day of my life. you know, the best of my ability, not to my sponsors cuz I can't even live up to his shoes, you know, and I ain't I'm not even going to try cuz it's like a 6'9 deal and I can't make it.
You know, I got a long way to reach. But what I have in the inside will compare with any alcoholic on this earth. I have the experience of buying my higher power.
I have the experience of hope. You know, uh I have experience of life today. You know, when I woke up this morning, you know, I would have rather been in Tom's shoes done, you know, but I'm in my own shoes, you know, and like uh I was only given a gift to carry the message.
And I I went to this workshop called Carry the Message and Not the Mess. I totally believe in that, you know, like uh I'll help you do anything anytime, but I will not carry your mess for you. Because I think we have to separate our own mess from our own self.
That's the way we get help and we find out who we are and what we are. And through the 12 steps, I've been able to find out that, you know, like I had a desire to drink, but I have a desire to work with others more than I have a desire not to drink. And that desire to work with others carries me to a lot of different places from Yale to jail.
I get to visit more jails than the overnight stays that I stayed, you know, uh, and it's okay cuz when I walk out, you know, like I feel good, you know, not that they feel any different, but I got some freedom here today, folks. I have freedom that carries me beyond my wildest dreams. When I look at my two kids today, like I just say, but for the grace of God, that loving daughter that I really wasn't a part of my family at that time, she's wrapped around this pinky of mine.
Probably got half my arm, you know. She says, "I want, I say, I will." You know? Uh so whoever marries her, they got a tough deal to go through.
You know what I mean? My son, God bless him, is uh he's an angel, you know. Uh I have been truly blessed.
I have two beautiful kids. is I have a son that that's almost 30 and he drinks but not like I do. He remembers that well dad needs this and he does it.
If you'd have told me to do something at 30 I couldn't do it did anything for you and we have a loving relationship so we build hot rods and custom trucks together and we can go places. He said isn't this out of your league? He said but come on anyway you know and like that I'm I'm able to join in with his friends and they they look at me and said Mr.
Madison well if the music's too loud tell us to turn. I say have fun man. I know what it's like to be in your 20s.
Don't stop because I'm sitting here, you know, uh I'm able to blend in anywhere and everywhere. Today, I'm not that elephant they talk about in the room, you know. I'm I'm a guy with a loving heart.
You know, Alcoholics Anonymous giving me what I could not give myself. And it's only through the grace of God that I've been able to come to this point in my life and know that, you know, there is a God of my understanding. And I want to thank all you for being here.
you know, like uh I don't know, you know, uh how do I get here from there? And I'm going to tell you once again, it's through a loving God. Thanks.
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