Alcohol Was My Solution — Until AA Gave Me a Life: AA Speaker – Jeff V. – Aberdeen, SD
AA speaker Jeff V. from Aberdeen, SD shares his story of deep emptiness, multiple suicide attempts, and finding life through sponsorship and step work.
Jeff V. from Aberdeen, SD got sober in 1992 after years of suicide attempts, failed college attempts, and a deep conviction that something else was wrong with him beyond alcohol. In this AA speaker tape, he walks through how a no-nonsense sponsor and working the steps transformed his terminal uniqueness into a life he never thought possible.
This AA speaker meeting features Jeff V. sharing his 15-year recovery story from Aberdeen, SD. He describes his pre-drinking emptiness, multiple suicide attempts including a failed overdose on vitamin C tablets, and his journey from attending meetings without engagement to finding a sponsor who demanded action. Jeff walks through how sponsorship, step work, and service transformed his life, including marriage, children, career changes, and developing a relationship with God.
Episode Summary
Jeff V. opens his talk with a powerful observation about the paradox of alcoholics — people whose disease is rooted in selfishness and self-centeredness, yet who genuinely want to see each other succeed. He describes the electricity in AA rooms and the genuine happiness alcoholics feel watching newcomers celebrate early sobriety milestones, suggesting this desire to help comes from understanding “the hopelessness and the despair and the pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization” they’ve all experienced.
But Jeff didn’t always know he belonged in these rooms. From childhood, he carried a profound emptiness and loneliness he couldn’t articulate. “I just knew I felt funny. I just knew I felt goofy and odd,” he explains. He describes feeling like everyone else got “a manual on how to live life” that he never received, spending his time “standing on the outside of a bubble” watching others connect while he remained isolated and anxious.
His racing mind analyzed everything, turning innocent greetings into threats. In first grade, while other kids naturally paired off as best friends, Jeff felt like “the odd man out.” He threw himself into activities — sports, band, theater — searching for something to fill the void, but “nothing seemed to fit” and he’d quickly become “restless and discontented.”
When Jeff discovered alcohol at 15, it became his solution, not his problem. “Every emotion, every situation that I’ve explained to you, alcohol has the ability to fix and change it for me,” he shares. That first night drinking Canadian Windsor, he blacked out but heard stories of picking fights, asking girls out, and crying — experiencing “the gamut of life.” The attention felt good; people who didn’t know him were calling him a “wild man.”
Alcohol transformed his painful social anxiety into confidence. Sitting at parties sober, he’d analyze his wrong clothing choices and expect rejection. But drinking would make him think “I am making this party” and turn intimidating people into opportunities for confrontation. He’d rip off his shirt “Hulk Hogan style” and corner the girl he’d been secretly admiring, convinced they were “destined to be together.”
The problem was Jeff couldn’t control his drinking once he started. “A drink starts taking a drink and I just take off,” he explains. This led to consequences, firm declarations to quit, and the discovery of “a mental obsession of the mind to drink alcohol.” His sponsor later explained this wasn’t constant craving, but a mind that “will block out all ideas to the contrary as to why I should not take that first drink for the insane idea that it will be different this time.”
Jeff’s attempts to manage his drinking were absurd. On a road trip, after telling everyone he’d quit, he grabbed a beer six miles out of town, explaining to his concerned friend, “Well, I did when I’m in town. But road trips are a whole different thing.” The logic only had to “make sense long enough to get that first drink into my mouth.”
College brought no relief from the cycle. Despite sincere pledges to quit and focus on studies, Jeff would blow off academics for drinking. His rock bottom came during a grandiose, alcohol-fueled marriage proposal to a woman he’d been stalking. After sharing his unedited life story including constant suicidal thoughts, she told him he scared her and she wanted him to leave. In theatrical fashion, he declared he was “going home to kill myself.”
Jeff’s suicide attempt with what he thought were sleeping pills turned out to be vitamin C tablets, landing him in a psychiatric ward for what he calls “kind of a weeny way to end up in the psych ward.” His other attempts were equally unsuccessful — trying to freeze to death by opening his dorm window in winter, only to turn the heat back up when it got cold and eventually crawling into his warm bed.
These experiences weren’t humorous at the time. “I genuinely didn’t know any other way to cope with life other than to try and check out,” Jeff reflects. After two years of struggling with willpower to quit drinking, his final drunk came after attending an AA meeting. Panicking at home with roommates, he realized “I can’t function in life without alcohol” and saw himself as “completely dependent upon alcohol to function.”
Waking up March 15, 1992, with “this terrible sense of dread that if I ever drink again, I’m going to die,” Jeff called his mother and entered treatment. But early sobriety was rocky — no home group, irregular meeting attendance, no sponsor, and no relationship with a higher power. At six months sober, he left his house planning suicide but ended up at an AA meeting where a woman gave him life-saving advice about finding a home group, getting a sponsor, and focusing on not drinking just for today.
The sponsor Jeff found had just moved to town and been instructed to “find some new people, preferably sick ones.” Jeff qualified and made “a deal with the devil” — agreeing to meet weekly, get involved in a home group, and work through the Big Book. His sponsor had him arrive early for cleanup committee, teaching him service while tricking him into recovery actions he wouldn’t have taken if told upfront.
During sponsor road trips to speak at distant hospitals, Jeff found himself trapped in cars playing Bill Wilson trivia games, thinking, “I am not spending a Saturday night in the back of this car in the middle on the hump playing the What the hell did Bill write this in game?” But as he notes, “Alcoholics Anonymous doesn’t care what I think. It cares what I do.” Despite himself, he started getting better through the right actions with the right people.
At one year sober, Jeff resisted working with others, convinced he’d “screw them up more than they are already screwed up.” His sponsor taught him he only needed to give two things: money (which is replaceable) and time. Starting with simple actions like giving rides and asking questions, Jeff learned that service was just “trying to give of my time a little bit.”
Jeff’s relationship story reflects his recovery growth and challenges. Meeting “another her” at work, he quit his job when his sponsor said dating coworkers wasn’t wise (“you got to be specific”). Three months into dating, he and Heidi started marriage counseling before even getting engaged because their relationship had become so dysfunctional. Most couples would recognize this as incompatibility, but “not me and Heidi. We’re going to stick it out.”
His fear of abandonment made relationships especially difficult. Jeff needed his partner to “treat me special every day for the rest of our lives” while bringing inconsideration, selfishness, and manipulation to the table. He’d create drama over perceived slights — if Heidi didn’t say “I love you” when entering a room, he’d escalate until she did, then complain it didn’t sound sincere, then that having to ask made it disingenuous.
Recovery through sponsorship and step work helped Jeff mature, though he describes bringing “two years sober and a 2-year-old mentality” to marriage. They worked through it, had children, and Jeff discovered something remarkable: “I don’t know that I’ve ever been a bad father.” Understanding these were “God’s kids and I’ve been entrusted with them,” he learned parenting skills that mirrored sponsorship — being a good example, listening, explaining, and giving advice.
His son’s choice to use only a pen that said “sobriety, the great life” throughout first grade showed how AA speaker meetings on sponsorship and carrying the message had become central to their family identity. Though Jeff balances this by sharing his son’s recent observation: “Do they know when you talk? It seems like a hundred years.”
Professionally, Jeff learned hard lessons about keeping recovery first. As a marketing manager, he became too invested in his job’s importance, hanging onto it “with a tightness that just doesn’t belong in my life.” When things move ahead of recovery, “I’m going to lose them.” Being fired devastated him initially, but after 48 hours of growing resentment, a spiritual experience in his sun room changed everything.
“I started crying uncontrollably and I didn’t know why,” Jeff recalls. “Every direction I looked at in my life looked beautiful.” He realized he wasn’t defined by his job or bank account — “I’m a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. That is the most important thing in my life. Period.” This understanding freed him from fear, resentment, and hate, allowing him to “finally experience what it is God wants me to experience all along, which is love.”
Jeff’s spiritual journey evolved from having his sponsor as his higher power, to viewing AA as a whole as his higher power, to developing a personal relationship with God that continues growing like any relationship. His current job working for someone in AA reflects his commitment to service over ambition.
He closes with a powerful metaphor from holding his crying infant daughter. Thinking he’d give her everything she needed — changing, cleaning, feeding, warming — he realized “Doesn’t it stand a reason that God is looking at me in the same way?” imagining God saying, “Just relax. I’m going to give you everything that you need.”
Jeff’s message to newcomers emphasizes that AA is about “second, third, and a hundredth chances.” Despite taking actions while drinking and sober that would deem him unworthy, he’s found AA to be “the best, safest, most hopeful place that I can ever be.” Similar themes of transformation through sponsorship appear in Chris R.’s story about how just going to meetings almost killed him and Don C.’s experience with sponsorship changing everything.
Through 15 years of recovery, Jeff learned that his illness “has to be treated spiritually, mentally, and physically” through actions in Alcoholics Anonymous. His purpose is “to get up every day and be teachable, not have the answer” because “I need Alcoholics Anonymous now more than I ever did.” His story demonstrates how the emptiness that once drove him to multiple suicide attempts transformed into a life filled with family, purpose, and service to others who suffer from the same disease.
Notable Quotes
Alcohol is not my problem. Alcohol is my solution because every emotion, every situation that I’ve explained to you, alcohol has the ability to fix and change it for me.
I have a mind that will block out all ideas to the contrary as to why I should not take that first drink for the insane idea that it will be different this time.
Alcoholics Anonymous doesn’t care what I think. It cares what I do. And I was in the car and I was taking the right action and I was around the right people.
I’m not about my job. I am not about how much money I have in the bank. I’m a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. That is the most important thing in my life. Period.
Doesn’t it stand a reason that God is looking at me in the same way? Just relax. I’m going to give you everything that you need.
Sponsorship
Early Sobriety
Spiritual Awakening
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Full Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
Good afternoon. My name is Jeff Anne Lanningham and I am an alcoholic.
Due to the grace of God, actions in a sponsorship, my sobriety date is March 16th, 1992. I'm very happy to say that this mic is kind of odd. I want to thank the committee for asking me here. I certainly appreciate it and it's nice to be back up in my neck of the woods, if you will. I want to thank Don for leading the meeting. Don's my kind of alcoholic. He immediately proceeds to veer off of the format and then after a couple minutes of that says, "I'm going to try not to veer off the format." I've always had kind of this shoot first, aim later mentality towards life that gets me into a lot of trouble. So I identify with that, and I hope I say something helpful in this talk that will curb that resentment.
Don did say something though. He said, "I want to be where you're at." And I would concur with that opinion. I certainly want to be where you're at because this is the one thing that I have ever found that seems to work for what is wrong with me. It's a funny thing about alcoholism. I'm assuming most people here are in AA, and if you have alcoholism that means you have a disease that our book tells us is rooted in selfishness and self-centeredness. Think about that. We have a group of individuals here who for the most part are only concerned about themselves. And supposedly we help each other, but only because I get a benefit from it. I'll help you to ensure that I don't take that drink, and I'm not going to do it unless I'm getting something for it. I think that's kind of a shallow way to describe Alcoholics Anonymous sometimes.
Because I think that when we get together and when we are gathered, there seems to be this power, this spirit that you can literally sometimes feel it in the air. What is that? If we are selfish and self-centered by nature, if all we care about is ourselves, then why, when we get together, do we feel this electricity in the air? I've come to believe, and I know that Bill Wilson used to talk about it, that alcoholics have a deep-seated belief and desire to see each other succeed. Not because I benefit in any way, shape, or form. I just want to see a fellow sufferer get out. I want to see a fellow sufferer find a way to pull themselves up and make it. Because we understand each other as few do. We understand the hopelessness and the despair and the pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization that we've all been through, and we want to see each other succeed.
I think if you know where to look sometimes, you can start to see that ethic shine through in Alcoholics Anonymous. For example, if we had anyone here celebrating a sobriety birthday, I can assure you that this place would erupt into applause. And the lower the birthday, the more enthusiastic the applause. Why? If somebody had a year, we go crazy, you know. We're not clapping because I benefit in any way, shape, or form. It's because I'm genuinely happy to see someone get this thing. Why is it at my home group, and I would bet yours, that when someone gets up to read how it works or the traditions and they're stumbling and they're having a tough time, the applause are always a little louder for that person than someone who reads it flawlessly? Because we appreciate the effort. Because we all know how difficult it is to get up and do this thing sometimes.
I think the place where you can most see it is at sobriety countdowns. I've been fortunate enough in the last few years to be sitting up here. This is a really high stage, by the way. I hope I don't fall. I could do serious injury to myself. During sobriety countdowns, as we go down, down, down, I like to watch the alcoholics in the room as they scan the room because there's a glow about them and a look. As we get down to one month, three weeks, two weeks—if we have somebody here with one day, we explode into a standing ovation. Why? Because we want to see each other succeed. And so I want to be here in Alcoholics Anonymous because this is the place I belong, and you are the people that I belong with.
Now, I didn't know that, of course, my entire life. I didn't aspire to join Alcoholics Anonymous when I was younger. Being an alcoholic wasn't even on my list of anything to do. But I have known for a long time, and I want to make this very clear: I knew I was an alcoholic. I knew that. I don't mean it was a theory. I don't mean I thought maybe I wasn't. I knew that I wasn't. And that deep-seated belief almost killed me. The reason I knew I wasn't an alcoholic is that there's something else wrong with me.
I have known that for a long time. I have had problems long before I ever drank. I have had an emptiness about me that I could never describe. I'm going to set down my name tag for now. I've never felt right in my own skin, and I've never been able to articulate this to anybody. I've never been able to come up and say, "Can I explain to you what's wrong, and perhaps you could help me?" Because I never knew. I just knew I felt funny. I just knew I felt goofy and odd.
It seems like people get this manual on how to live life, the basic principles every human being needs to be a human being. And I don't have that book. I've never read it. I spend a lot of time feeling like I'm standing on the outside of a bubble and you're all in the bubble. You know you're in there, and I'm out here, and I can't figure out why. I spend a lot of time comparing the way I feel to the way you look, and I never seem to come up. Nobody ever looks like I feel. So I am terminally different and terminally unique, and nobody has any of the problems that I have.
I have a racy mind that just races uncontrollably. I'm analyzing everything and looking at everything and wondering what's going on. I'm wondering why people are knocking things over. It's just always going, and I can't seem to shut it off. I'm extremely sensitive by nature. When I say that I am sensitive, I don't mean that somebody says, "Hey, Jeff, you're stupid. Oh, that hurts my feelings. I'm sensitive." At least that would make sense. I mean people saying things like, "Well, hello, Jeff, and how are you?" Well, what the hell did "and how are you" mean exactly? What are you trying to imply? And I got to go sit down and analyze that.
When I got into school, when I was in first grade, there were 21 of us. I'm not going to chronologically go through every grade, by the way. I say that because there might be people in the audience like me. It's like, if this guy goes through every grade, I'm leaving at seventh. But in the first grade there were 21 of us, and it seemed to me—and this isn't of course what happened—that everybody had paired up to be best friends. You and I will be best friends. You two be best friends. You two be best friends. And I kind of felt like the odd man out. Nobody was mean to me. Nobody did anything. They were pleasant. They were nice. But I hadn't connected with anyone like everyone else seemed to do.
And you know, again, I felt ill at ease and out of place and anxious. That's another thing I was always anxious about, except I didn't know what. I would get waves of guilt and I would not know what I'd done yet. Like I almost had this premonition: I'm sure I'm going to do something bad, so I'm already feeling bad about it. I don't know.
I set off, as I think most of us do, to fix what was wrong with me. I don't like feeling that way. I don't like the way that things look and the world feels. I want to change this. My attempts at changing things involved me going out for a lot of different activities. I went out for sports. I was in football and basketball and track and wrestling. I went out for band. I went out for theater. And nothing seemed to fit. Nothing seemed to work. Nothing ever made me feel like, "Ah, this is it. This is what I've been missing." It made maybe for a little while, but I would always become restless and discontented with things very quickly and move on.
So that's kind of how I grew up. I don't want to paint you a childhood that was totally horrible or anything. It just seemed like overall things kept getting worse. Whatever this blackness was inside of me was continuing to grow and continuing to need a solution that I couldn't seem to find.
I didn't grow up in an alcoholic home. I grew up in kind of a pathetic home from a drinking perspective. My dad—I've never saw him drink. He drank once when I was very young. I don't know if I was even born, but he was in Vietnam and he blacked out and he woke up the next morning and he was scared that he blacked out and that he'd lost control. And so he swore off alcohol and has never drank again. What's that all about? You got to quit, you know. You got to stick it out.
My mom would have one glass of wine on Christmas Eve and she wouldn't finish that. When I became of age, I would finish it. When I say of age, I mean like 10. And she gave that up my first stint through treatment. So I didn't have any examples. I didn't grow up even thinking about drinking. In fact, had you asked me back then, I would have said, "No, I'm not going to drink. I want to be a good kid. I want to do something with my life. I want to be a good person, and I'm going to join clubs that promote not drinking."
But anyway, so I had no example of drinking. But when I was 15, I was introduced to alcohol for the first time. What happened was we'd gone out. I used to say that we had stolen some alcohol. I call that now kind of podium fluff. Because I don't know that it was really stealing. I mean technically yes. But what it was is I went to my grandmother's house, who kept a bunch of alcohol. They had some old bar downstairs stocked with all these old bottles. And I just said, "Hey Grandma, I'm just running down to grab something. Don't worry about me." So if that constitutes stealing, but it wasn't as cool as I made it out like we'd done a heist with ski masks or anything.
So I ran down, grabbed a bottle of Canadian Windsor, and had an opportunity to drink alcohol. And alcohol is not my problem. Alcohol is my solution. Because every emotion, every situation that I've explained to you, alcohol has the ability to fix and change it for me. It is a magic elixir to me. It literally unshackles me and allows me to get into the game of life like I have never been able to get. I can do things I cannot do sober. My thinking clears up when I'm drinking. It gets crystal razor sharp, and I can see things and I know things and I'm going to share them with you, and I can't wait because your life is going to be enriched too. It's a beautiful thing happening here.
That first night, my first drinking experience, I drank way too much, way too fast. I passed out for most of it. I blacked out for most of it. But I had the night relayed to me in chunks, bits and pieces. And I'd done things. I'd picked fights with people. I'd asked girls out. I'd started crying at one point. I just apparently lived the gamut of life and gotten out there. And I remember on Monday, people I didn't even know knew me and were coming up to me and telling me what a wild man I had been and telling me how crazy I had been. And it felt good. It felt like I belonged.
The second time I went out and drank, I took it a little slower, and I found the effect that alcohol has on a person like me. And for years I have struggled to try and find a better way to say this, but I really can't. So I'm just going to stick with what I know works because this is my experience and this is my story.
When I would go out, you have to remember how uncomfortable I am in my own skin sober. And so by my nature, I would just stay at home. By this time, I'm 16, 17 years old. The world had become so painful I didn't even want to go out anymore. I mean, it's tough to be in this world when a look can just devastate you. You ever said hello to somebody and they didn't say hello back happily enough? You know, like, "Hey, how are you doing?" "Oh, hey, Jeff. How are you?" That kind of stuff just kills me. And I don't want to be that guy, and I don't want to put myself in that kind of position. So it would be easier for me just to stay home.
But some friends of mine dragged me out to some party, and I remember sitting there and thinking to myself, why am I here? I don't know why I'm here. Just nobody likes me here. I know that. And I'm an idiot. I just know that. I'm the only guy here in a long sleeve shirt, and it's the middle of July. What the hell is the matter with me? Why would I do that?
And then some guy would walk in, and I was always jealous and envious of guys because they had this camaraderie and bond that I could never seem to have. And I see the cool high fives and cool nicknames for each other and stuff. And that guy would come in and I would think, that guy is going to want to fight me. I just know it. I'm going to mouth off or do something stupid.
And then she would come into the room. I've had a she in my life since I was 5 years old. And she is the girl that I am pursuing. And if I could just get her, everything would be different. Everything would be different. I know this to the core of my soul. If I could just get her.
Now, when I say I am pursuing her, in no way do I mean I'm taking any action whatsoever. But I'm staring at her a lot, and if she by chance looks my way, I quickly turn away. So dating is not a big part of my story.
And then I start drinking, and somewhere along the lines a magical transformation takes place. The first thing that seems to happen is I stand up a little straighter, and I'm looking at the same room with the same people and the same things going on, but it all looks different to me. The first thing I'm thinking to myself is, I am so glad I came here. I am making this party. It'd be dead without me.
I go up to this guy that had intimidated me an hour before. And I'm no longer full of fear. I'm not inadequate. I'm not anything. I let him know that if he is looking for trouble, look no further than right here, baby. And I look in the mirror and I'm like, "Yeah, I'm wearing a long sleeve shirt. That's kind of silly of me. I won't be needing that." And I rip that off Hulk Hogan style. I wouldn't do that now, I'll tell you.
And I go up to her and I let her know that we are destined to be together, and she doesn't seem to reciprocate my feelings. So I'm not the least bit embarrassed or hurt by that. I lock her into the bathroom till the poor woman can come to her senses, you know.
And that's how it is for me. I seem to, when I start drinking, lose the ability of control. And what that means is that when alcohol goes into my system, a drink starts taking a drink and I just take off. And I didn't really ever have that much ambition to stop. But I do know that I seem to overshoot the mark a lot. When I go out drinking, I just want to get there. I just want to get comfortable and feel okay. And yet I was always getting so drunk.
And the problem with that is if you drink like that long enough, you're going to start to develop consequences. And eventually, if you develop enough consequences, the fateful day will come where you make the firm declaration that you're not going to drink again. And that's where I discovered the second part of my illness, which is a mental obsession of the mind to drink alcohol.
When I was new in Alcoholics Anonymous, my sponsor was taking me through the doctor's opinion. I remember saying, "Yeah, that doesn't apply to me. I didn't have a mental obsession of the mind. I didn't sit around shaking needing a drink all the time." But he explained to me that's not what they mean. They mean I have a mind that will block out all ideas to the contrary as to why I should not take that first drink for the insane idea that it will be different this time. And you can fill in the blank on what that insane idea is. And I had a lot of them.
I remember I was one of these people that thought the more people I told I would quit drinking, the better my odds were. And that doesn't work, but it does make you look like a jackass later on when you start drinking. But I was always telling everybody, "Don't be offering me alcohol. I'm done."
And one time we were on a road trip and I don't know, we were like six miles out of town. I grabbed a beer. And my buddy, who's trying to be helpful, he's like, "Well, I thought you quit drinking." Like, "Well, I did when I'm in town. But road trips are a whole different thing, you know." And that made perfect sense. Made sense to him, too.
It only has to make sense long enough to get that first drink into my mouth. When that happens, a reaction takes place that seems to crave more. I end up drunk and I wake up the next day remorseful with a firm resolution not to let that happen again. And I was caught on that cycle and I could not get off.
I fell prey to the fallacy that if I change my environment, everything will be different. And I went off to college. I was convinced, you know, it's my problem. I've got this reputation I have to maintain. I got these bad-seated friends that are bringing me down. I'm going to college and it's all going to change. I'm going to finally buckle down. I'm going to apply myself for the first time in my life. It's going to be beautiful and I can't wait.
And in fact, I'm going to just be married to the library. That's what I'm going to. I'm going to be a nerd, because see, back in 1989, people that spent a lot of time in the library and studied and worked hard, I called them nerds. Okay? I don't call them nerds today. I call them boss and sir and things like that. But boy, I was cool in 1989.
Anyway, I got down there and totally blew it off. I mean, my whole freshman year was just a joke. And I mean literally, I think I completed four credits. The old withdrawal was my best friend.
So I got down for my second year. Now it's all different, and it's all going to be better. And I remember I'd made the most sincere pledge that I personally believe I'd ever made, that I was going to quit drinking. And God, I believed it. It was the first week of school. I was sitting at my desk and some friends of mine came by and peer-pressured me into drinking.
You tell me if you could withstand peer pressure like this. They came by and said, "Hey Jeff, we're going drinking. You want to go? Wait for me." And off I went.
Our book says we don't have an effective mental defense against the first drink. I don't even have a mental hesitation. I just go. And I went off. Nothing new. Got way drunker than I planned to. Everything was the same old, same old.
She walked into the room again, and I remember I was feeling so good. And I thought, you know, I'm going in, and I went over to her and I just started telling her about destiny and the fact that we were destined to be together. And I remember telling her, "You know, I've been following you around," and they call that stalking. I call it love.
And then I had this thought pop into my head that life's too short. And as I've said, you can bet your butt that when an alcoholic has the phrase life's too short go through their head, a big life-changing decision is about to take place.
And I decided I didn't even want to ask this girl out. I'm just going to propose, you know? So I asked her to marry me. And then I remember telling her, "No, no, don't answer yet. I want you to know who I am. I'm not a weirdo."
And so I started telling her my story, the long, unedited version. And I'm going on and on about how I think about suicide all the time, but I won't do it now. And you know, what's not to love there?
Anyway, she let me babble on for a while, and finally she looks up at me and she says, "You know, look, you scare me and I want you to leave."
And I was just devastated by that. And I decided in kind of a grandiose, theatrical fashion that I would leave. And I remember telling her, "You want me to leave? Fine. I'm going home to kill myself. And I think somehow I'm making a point there, although I've yet to discover what the point is I'm making."
And so I told her I was going home to kill myself. Went home, grabbed a bottle of sleeping pills, took a handful. And in a strange, sadistic way, kind of proud of myself. I just made this big scene and told everyone I was going to kill myself. And by God, I've actually done it. So at least I'm going out doing what I said I was going to do. That counts for something.
A friend of mine showed up and I told him what I had done, and he's like, "God, we got to get you to a hospital because you have to talk to a priest or your soul can't be admitted to heaven." And I was so drunk that made sense. I'm like, "Let's go." And I'll drive.
And so I drove myself to the hospital and got there. A nurse came down, I handed her the bottle, she took it, she started laughing. And I remember thinking, I know I'm drunk. I know that I'm really drunk, but laughing seems a little unprofessional to me.
And she held up the bottle and she's like, "Well, Jeff, what you took were vitamin C tablets."
And it didn't dawn on me yet that I wasn't going to die. And she said, "Well, now by state law, we have to keep you here." And I said, "I'll go peacefully, but I want my own room." And she said, "Oh, you'll get your own room." All right.
And boy did I. It was a beautiful room with padded walls and curtains on Velcro and a bed that was bolted down and eye slits in the door. And I was in the psych ward. Kind of a weeny way to end up in the psych ward if you think about it.
You know, what are you here for? Well, my dog was telling me to kill the mailman. I took too many vitamin C tablets.
Anyway, I got to thank Will, by the way. Will and I are on the end of an 800-mile track. We were down in Iowa last night at a convention, and we've had a great time. We've gotten a chance to talk.
By the way, in Iowa, I want to tell you what they're doing down there. I don't know if this is violating the traditions or not, but I think it's cool. They had Bill Wilson read "How It Works." They flashed his image up there and they had a recording of Bill reading "How It Works." This is the craziest thing I've ever seen. I was just mesmerized by the whole thing.
Anyway, I just wanted to share that with you. Oh, suicide. I was always thinking about suicide. I'm not making light of alcoholic suicide attempts, by the way. I had a lady a couple weeks ago accuse me of that. In no way am I making light of my alcoholic suicide attempts because they were so ridiculous.
But I gotten it into my head. I was thinking to myself, well, I want to die. I know that. And I started going through my head all the different things that I could do.
And I decided that obviously I can't overdose. I've botched that. I can't cut my wrist because I can't stand the sight of blood. I don't want to hang myself because I understand that you lose control of your bodily functions. And I don't want that to be the last image of me. I want people to think highly of me when I'm dead.
And I'd read that freezing to death was a beautiful way to die. It's painless and angels come and just take you away. And I thought, that's for me.
So one night, drunk on a bitterly cold night, I went back to my dorm room. It was like 20 below. And I opened the window and shut the heat off in my room. And then I sat down in my chair and I thought, "Okay."
After a little while, I'm like, "Woo, it's getting cold." They didn't mention that in the book.
So I turned the heat up just to take the edge off a little. Still I was kind of cold. I'm like, well, boy, my bank looks nice. So I think I'm going to go curl up in that. And what'll happen is this room will slowly get colder and colder. I'll be asleep and I'll be dead by morning.
And yeah, that didn't happen. I woke up, my room was freezing. I can tell you that. And I had a terrible cold. Could have used some vitamin C.
But anyway, the bottom line for me is that, and I say these things in all earnestness—I mean, they're humorous now, but they weren't humorous then. I mean, I genuinely didn't know any other way to cope with life other than to try and check out.
And what happened for me was I'd been introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous. I had gone to a meeting and I was convinced I don't need this kind of help. If I want to quit drinking, I just got to put my mind to it and I'll be fine. And for the next two years, I struggled with my own willpower to try and quit drinking and never could.
My last drunk was on a Thursday night. I'd managed to go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was very proud of myself. I really was, because it was a hard thing for me to do. A lot of times I would drive by with the intent of going and then something just wouldn't let me stop the car and I'd take off again. And then of course I'd wait till 8:01 and think, "Well, the meeting started. I can't go now."
But anyway, I'd gone to a meeting. I was very proud of myself, and I came home that night and my roommates—it was a Thursday night. They weren't doing anything special. They'd had some friends over and I panicked. I panicked like I've never panicked before.
And I remember thinking, I can't function in life without alcohol. I can't talk to these girls. I can't talk to these guys. I have to have it. My friends weren't even looking to party that night. And I started pushing the idea. Let's go drinking. Let's get some alcohol. Let's go drinking. Let's go. No, no, Jeff. Let's just hang out. Let's just be cool tonight. No, no, I'll buy.
And I was absolutely stripped away of any remaining ideas as to who I was. I saw myself for exactly what I was. And I was a person who was completely dependent upon alcohol to function.
And I got drunk that night. I got drunk Friday, and I got drunk Saturday. And I woke up somewhere I'd drunk into the night on Sunday morning. And I woke up on that Sunday, which was March 15th of 1992, with this terrible sense of dread that if I ever drink again, I'm going to die. I've never experienced anything like it. It scared me to death.
And like any good alcoholic man, when I am faced with that kind of fear, I do what we do. And I called my mom, because in the end of the day, I am a mama's boy.
And I called her. She was very calm and collected, which was unlike her. Because I didn't sugarcoat it. I said, "Mom, I think I'm going to die. If I ever drink again, I think I'm gonna die. And it scares me because I don't know if I can't not drink."
She got me some help. She got me into treatment. Treatment got me back into Alcoholics Anonymous. By this time, I was 21, and convinced I was the youngest person in the history of the world to sober up.
And I started going to meetings. Now let me tell you what I did not do in the early days. I did not have a home group. I did not have a commitment in a home group. I did not have any regularity to my meeting attendance. I went when I felt like it. I was given the philosophy that you can take what you want and leave the rest. And I invoked that liberally because but the problem is if I knew what I needed, if I knew what I needed, then the chances are I would have already done what I needed to do to get better.
I didn't have a sponsor. I didn't have any kind of an unemotional point of view in my life. And I certainly had no relationship whatsoever with anything resembling a higher power. Nothing.
I attended meetings. I took up space. I judged people. I was negative. I was cynical. And I was on the fast track right back out the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Now, I'm a guy, as I said at the beginning, that alcoholism—or I've been convinced that alcoholism is not my problem. And even in AA, it seemed to me that that was not my problem. At 6 months sober, of not drinking, I was convinced more than ever that alcohol is not, I am not drinking now. I am six months sober, and I left my house with the idea of killing myself. Once again, that's always an option on the table for me: drinking or trying one last time.
And by the grace of God, I ended up at Alcoholics Anonymous one last time. And a lady gave me some advice that saved my life. And she said that I needed to find a home group and get involved in it. And I needed to get a sponsor. And I needed to quit worrying about not drinking the rest of my life and just try not drinking for today.
And luckily for me, I went and I started. I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to get a sponsor." And I went and I asked somebody and they said no. And I asked another guy and he said no. And God was bringing me to the person I needed to be with. He brought me to a guy who I would have never asked to be my sponsor and I certainly would have never listened to him. He brought me to this guy who was all fired up on Alcoholics Anonymous bad.
And I found out later that he had just moved to Minet and his sponsor had said, "I want you to find some new people, preferably sick ones, and start working with them." And I qualified big time. And so his eyes lit up. And I sat down with him that night and I made a deal with the devil.
He said to me that I'm going to ask you to do some things and I'm going to ask you to participate in your recovery, and if you think you can handle that, then yeah, I'd be happy to sponsor you.
And I had nowhere else to go. Ultimately for me, I tend to make the right decision when I have no other decisions to make, because if a bad one's in the mix, that tends to be the way I lean. But I didn't have any other decisions to make. I didn't have anywhere else to go. And I told him that yeah, I will try it your way.
First thing he said, we're going to meet once a week. And of that once a week meeting time, I got 15 minutes to whine about whatever it was I wanted to go on about. And believe me, I used all 15 of that. And then the last 45 minutes were going to be spent going through the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous because apparently someone had hidden the instructions on how to work our steps in there. Who knew that?
He said that I had to get involved in his home group and that I had to get a job in it, or a commitment as he called it. And I remember he would make me go early. Our meeting started at 8:00 and he would have me there at 6:30. I was like, "God, you know, this is ungodly early."
Now, I don't know how your mind works, but if you go early, you get to leave early, right? Yeah. Let me tell you, I wasn't flying with him at all. I was staying late. So he's got me involved in this meeting. He's got me on cleanup committee. And I'm cleaning up messes I didn't even make.
And I found out drunks are very inconsiderate of the cleanup guy, let me tell you.
And I'm going to Alcoholics Anonymous now. And I'm meeting him, and I would meet him. We'd sit down, have a cup of coffee, and he'd say, "Well, tell me about your week." Boy, will I ever. I got on the bus and people were looking at me funny. And I walked into class and two girls were laughing and I know they were laughing at me. And he'd let me go on and on for a little while, and he'd say, "Okay, well let's read the book."
And so slowly but surely I started to incorporate some basic principles of recovery and I started to learn a little bit about the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he took me through those things. And all along the way it seemed to me he was kind of tricking me into taking actions that I wouldn't have taken had he told me up front.
I remember one night he said we're going to go speak at the hospital on Saturday. You want to go? I'm like, yeah, I suppose. He's like, well, I'll pick you up at 5:30. You know, the meeting's at 8. That's really early, but I suppose we're going to stand there like idiots and greet for two and a half hours.