The Last Room on the Last House on the Block: AA Speaker – Joe M. – San Antonio, TX
AA speaker Joe M. from San Antonio, TX shares his journey from multiple suicide attempts and state hospital to recovery through step work and amends.
Joe M. from San Antonio, TX survived multiple suicide attempts, 82 days in a state hospital, and years of psychiatric medication before finding recovery at Club 12. In this AA speaker tape, he walks through his dramatic bottom, the amends process that changed his relationship with his ex-father-in-law, and how sponsorship and service work became his lifeline to sobriety.
This AA speaker meeting features Joe M. sharing his recovery story from severe mental health struggles and multiple bottoms to finding sobriety through the program. He discusses his experience making difficult amends, including a powerful story about his ex-father-in-law’s unexpected response. Joe emphasizes the importance of sponsorship, service work, and staying active in fellowship meetings for long-term recovery.
Episode Summary
Joe M. opens his talk at Club 12 in San Antonio by calling it “the Ellis Island of Alcoholics Anonymous” — the last place desperate alcoholics come when nothing else has worked. His own story proves this point dramatically. From childhood, Joe felt different and isolated, attempting suicide at just nine years old. When he first drank at 14, stealing beer from a neighbor’s garage, alcohol temporarily solved his emotional turmoil and gave him a sense of belonging he’d never experienced.
What followed were decades of escalating alcoholism marked by failed marriages, psychiatric hospitalizations, and increasingly desperate suicide attempts. Joe describes his behavior during his daughter’s birth — getting drunk during labor, accusing his wife of cheating because she was shivering after delivery, then crashing his car and ending up in the hospital himself. These weren’t isolated incidents but part of a pattern of “untreated alcoholism” that left destruction in its wake.
The depths of Joe’s bottom are staggering. After being thrown out of Club 12 for disruptive behavior, he attempted suicide with a bungee cord outside the meeting hall. Later, he took 38 Xanax and drank heavily while making threatening phone calls, leading to another hospitalization. His final psychiatric stay lasted 82 days at the state hospital, where he weighed nearly 400 pounds and was on 14 medications daily. Living on disability payments in subsidized housing, his prognosis was grim — doctors believed he could never handle the pressures of normal life.
The turning point came through a Navy veteran named Kate who worked at the treatment center. She had 17 years of sobriety and told Joe directly: “If you’re an alcoholic, this is your only hope. There’s no place else for you to go.” She connected him with Jim as a sponsor, and Joe began doing everything asked of him. Within months, his transformation was so dramatic that he was released early — something that wasn’t supposed to happen.
Central to Joe’s recovery was working the steps with rigorous honesty, particularly the amends process. He shares a powerful story about attempting to make amends to his ex-father-in-law, who initially responded with vicious rejection, telling Joe to “drop dead and die.” But the amends process wasn’t about the response — it was about Joe’s internal transformation. Looking in the mirror after that phone call, he saw someone he hadn’t seen since he was seven years old, someone tender and forgiven.
The miracle came later when Joe received a notarized document releasing him from $10,000 in child support. The notary signature belonged to the same father-in-law who had cursed him on the phone. As Joe puts it, “There’s something bigger than us” working through the program and its people. These experiences of grace became foundational to his understanding of recovery, connecting to the wisdom he learned from old-timer Ralph: “God is, things are, face reality.”
Joe’s commitment to AA speaker meetings on sponsorship and carrying the message runs deep. He describes sponsoring groups of men in Big Book studies, creating the “PIGS” group (People Interested in Growing Spiritually), and later “HOGS” (Helping Others Grow Spiritually) for those ready to sponsor others. His approach to service work is intense — he sees it as the “tether that keeps me grounded” rather than just a meeting obligation.
Even with years of sobriety, Joe faced challenges that tested his program. He describes getting caught up in business success, becoming greedy, and neglecting meetings — classic “untreated alcoholism” behavior that led to bankruptcy. His recent fourth step revealed 64 resentments and 91 amends, showing that recovery is an ongoing process requiring constant vigilance.
The tragedy of his best friend Mike, who died from relapse after 16 years sober, reinforces Joe’s central message: “The very things that brought me in here will eventually take me out.” Mike had gotten resentful, stopped attending meetings, and the snowball effect led to his death. This loss deepened Joe’s conviction that staying in the middle of the program isn’t optional — it’s survival.
Joe’s relationship with his current wife Suzanne represents another miracle he never thought possible. As someone who describes himself as having been “an abuser” and “horrible” with women, finding a healthy, loving marriage seemed impossible. Yet through working the steps and maintaining his program, he’s discovered what he calls “intimacy and vulnerability” — being known completely and loved anyway.
A beautiful full-circle moment occurred years later at an AA conference when a woman approached Joe’s book table, then walked away upon seeing his name tag. It was Kate, the Navy veteran who had first told him about AA at the state hospital. She had been praying for him every day for years. These moments of connection across time reinforce Joe’s belief in the spiritual dimension of recovery.
The talk is filled with humor despite its heavy content. Joe describes himself as someone who “cries at supermarket grand openings” and shares absurd stories like trying to retrieve a sponsee’s prosthetic leg from a bar during an AA conference. His ability to find laughter in his pain reflects the healing he talks about from page 132 of the Big Book: “We think cheerfulness and laughter make for usefulness.”
Joe concludes by reading a passage from the AA Grapevine that captures his relationship with the program: AA “has brought light where only darkness dwelt” and “given purpose to the trackless and shelter to the lost.” His gratitude runs so deep that he tells the audience, “There is nothing I could ever do to repay you for the life.” This sentiment drives his continued service work and commitment to helping other desperate alcoholics find the same grace he discovered.
His message resonates particularly with those who feel too damaged or different for recovery. Joe proves that no bottom is too low, no mental health struggle too severe, and no past too shameful for the transformative power of the 12 steps when worked with a sponsor and lived through service to others.
Notable Quotes
This is the last house on the block, but let me tell you, I think it’s also the last room on the last house on the block.
God is, things are, face reality. Either God is or he isn’t. God is either everything or he is nothing. What is your choice?
A farmer doesn’t grow anything. He creates a fertile environment so that growth can take place. We perfect and enlarge our spiritual life through constant work and sacrifice for others.
I know more about who I really am and who my creator is when I’m working one-on-one with an alcoholic than any other time in the world. That is my conscious contact.
The very things that brought me in here will eventually take me out if I don’t stay in the middle of this program.
Steps 8 & 9 – Making Amends
Sponsorship
Service Work
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.
Welcome to Sober Sunrise, a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience, strength, and hope from around the world. We bring you several new speakers weekly, so be sure to subscribe. We hope to always remain an ad-free podcast, so if you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-sunrise.com. Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker.
My name is Joe McBen and I'm a very grateful alcoholic. My sobriety date is June 14th, 1993. I say that in a celebratory salute to this club and all of you out there because if it weren't for people like you, I wouldn't be alive. When you hear the things that Club 12 has done for me, I'm getting choked up. The other thing I have to tell you is when I sobered up, I cry. I'm a crier. I cry at supermarket grand openings.
This club—I know it's not politically correct to say this is the mecca of Alcoholics Anonymous. But I will say this is the Ellis Island of Alcoholics Anonymous. We should have Bill Wilson in a flowing robe like the Statue of Liberty on top of Club 12, and he should have a big book, a first edition big book. And at the bottom of it, the same thing that's written on the Statue of Liberty: "Bring us your wretched refugees."
Just like Ellis Island, when the immigrants come in and they get status and they become citizens, they start wanting to lower the standards. I remember having a couple years and I'd sit here and start saying, "These newcomers aren't sincere the way I was. Listen to that half-measure crap out there. Oh my God." And then one day I was in my self-righteous mode, and I said, "You know what? There's a big funnel out there that brings all the sick people and all the lowest people and the half-measured people and it just comes right through the front door there."
This newcomer looked over at me and said, "Yeah, and only the sickest of those sick ones, they sober for two years." So I never say that anymore.
I would like to thank Pat and Chris for inviting me to come and speak. I spoke last weekend out in San Diego and I usually don't get nervous when I do this, but I got to tell you, my knees are knocking. My knees are knocking because these are the people that saw me at my worst. They saw me.
You know, we read the ABCs this morning. You ever notice that there's no facility, there's no hospital, there's nothing out there that says you can go to and say, "Well, AA referred me to you"? There's nowhere for you to go. They used to say this is the last house on the block. And that may be true, but let me tell you, I think it's also the last room on the last house on the block.
I came here with nothing that worked. This was the last place in the world for me to come, and you people treated me like gold. If you're new here and people are excited to see you and they walk in and say, "You're the most important person in the room"—let me tell you, it's so true. They treated me that way 17 and 12 years ago.
Alcoholics Anonymous is a strange place. It's the only place in the world where you can walk in, be the most important person in the room, and be treated like gold. And if you stick around and you get one of those hard-hearted sponsors and you work the steps and you do service work, you can work your way down to trusted servant.
If they're treating you nice and you're saying, "What in the world is wrong with these people?"—let me tell you, I did that. And they know something that you don't know yet. They see who you are more than you do.
In Alcoholics Anonymous, when I'm doing this—when I'm working one-on-one with an alcoholic at my home, out of the big book, when I'm sitting in a meeting, when I'm driving to a penitentiary to speak or just carrying the message to a county jail on Monday nights—I know more about who I am and who my Creator is than any other time in the world. That is my conscious contact.
I'm sober only by the grace of God. If you hear me speak today and it sounds like, "Oh, he's a big book aficionado or he's really working a good program," let me tell you, I need a lot of grace.
That word "grace"—I never knew the roots of that and why we say "the grace of God" and all of that. That came from Bill Wilson. There was a guy at Clinton Street that didn't show up for three meetings when they had their meetings there in New York. They asked Bill, "Well, where's Joe?" It happened to be his name. Bill said he had slipped. They said, "What do you mean slip?" He said, "He slipped from the grace of God."
I came in here, and I was prayed into this fellowship. That grace of God opened up to me when I came here. I hear this once in a while: "Don't get too well too soon. Work a step a year." I got involved right here at this group with a group of doers. They were maniacs for service work. Page 28 in the big book says, "We seek recovery with all the desperation of a drowning man." And boy, let me tell you, thank God for those people.
The other thing is Bill Wilson in the Doctor's Opinion. It talks about during the course of his third treatment, there's a man who came in and became sold on some ideas. Part of those conceptions was that he would pass on those ideas to others, and they would pass them on to others. This has become the basis of this rapidly growing fellowship. Then he went on to write that these men and their families appear to have recovered. He said these were people who had failed at every other means.
I would hope that if you were to come out to Bastrop, Texas and follow me around, you would see that I'm not just a member of Alcoholics Anonymous when it's convenient. I'm not just doing AA between the Serenity Prayer and the Lord's Prayer. AA is something that I live, something that I do.
My home group is the Away Out Group of Alcoholics Anonymous in Bastrop, Texas. We have a closed big book meeting Saturday mornings at 9:00. We've got a step study Tuesday nights at 7:00, and we have two noon meetings, Tuesday at noon and Friday at noon. Y'all are welcome to come there. We've got some very good AA.
The other thing is, I just want to say for those of you who are taking votes, it means a lot to me. There's no way I should ever have a relationship or marriage, and it's working. So please leave her alone. The ether hasn't worn off. Let's not break the denial.
I would like for my daughter and my wife to stand up. I just want you to see them.
I'll get into my story now. I'm a guy that's not supposed to be alive. I'm not supposed to live free in society. I'm a guy who always felt a little different. As far back as I can remember, there was something wrong with me. I felt weird, different, unique. I felt like there was a great big circle and you all were in it, and I was in this little bitty circle and I could never fit in.
I don't know what that was about. I felt that way all through my life. I remember trying to hang myself at 9 years old. I just said, "Man, I cannot do this. I cannot do this." I remember going through life just saying, "How in the world can I make it through another day?"
It was like the hairs on a 220-volt wire. If you were to strip the coating off that wire and you were to let the wires arc, that's the way my emotions were. I went around my whole life feeling that way, and I don't remember ever not feeling that way until about 14 years old.
We broke into Mr. Mahoney's garage when he was at work and we stole some Mets beer. I had never drunk before. My friends in the neighborhood were sitting around and we put it in the creek and they started letting it get cold. We were acting goofy and swimming and diving off the trees into the creek. Then all of a sudden they said, "Hey, it's cold enough. Let's drink it."
Little did I know that something was going to happen that was going to alter the course of my life. Little did I know that the absence of that feeling would be intolerable—more intolerable than it had ever been before. The 12 and 12 talks about how sometimes the pain and suffering and humiliation in sobriety is more constant and more acute than when we were drinking because we took away our medication.
I drank that and all of a sudden I got these little needles sticking out of my nose. All of a sudden I wasn't this fat, roly-poly stutterer. All of a sudden I felt like I was enough. I was in that circle and I felt great. It was a good feeling, and I rode that for a long time.
That feeling is what the Doctor's Opinion talks about. Men and women drink essentially for the effect. I didn't drink. I hated the taste of it, but it just felt so good. I would do whatever it took to get it for many, many years.
I eventually got married. I met a girl whose daddy owned a car dealership. Now, where I come from, that's what we call love at first sight. I began to court her and we got married, and my drinking escalated. I was not equipped to be a husband. I was not equipped to be a father.
Before I give you an example, I just want to say one thing. This Club 12—they're talking about it. My sponsor asked me to join Club 12. He said, "This is a way for you to become responsible." He sold me on that idea. I went up there and I paid those dues and every month I'd come up. It would be hard some months, but I went up there and I felt like I was responsible. I took ownership of this club, and I just want to put in a little plug. That's a good thing.
The other thing is, you know, we've got the singleness of purpose and all. One day when I was new, I came in and I said, "My name is Joe. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a food addict. I'm a sex addict. I'm a manic depressive. I'm a drug addict. I am an obsessive compulsive."
My sponsor was sitting in the room and he says, "That's not good." He says, "For God's sakes, what are you doing?" I said, "Well, I didn't know."
He says, "Listen, you got to find yourself within the confines of those first 164 pages. You've been outside that circle your whole life. What you're trying to do is keep yourself feeling different, weird, unique, and saying you're special. If you can find yourself within the confines of that first 164 pages, there's going to be hope for you. So from now on, out of respect, you introduce yourself as an alcoholic."
He said, "You don't go to the Catholic church and say, 'I'm Southern Baptist.' You change your homily to hellfire and brimstone." I said, "All right."
Well, one day I pulled up to the club and he wasn't there. And I'll tell you, here's my time to shine. I introduced myself and I got to tell you, I think this is true. I introduced myself and I said, "My name is Joe and I'm a pig. I'll drink it, snort it, sniff it, shoot it, smoke it, fight it, or have sex with it if it'll change the way I feel about me. I bet you we have some other pigs out here, right?"
Well, I sponsored a group of guys and every Sunday night we'd have about 20 or 30 of them and we would be having a big book study over at my place. We said, "We got to name this group. We got to name this group." They were saying, "You know, we really like the pigs thing."
I said, "All right, well, let's call ourselves the Pigs group." And we did. We were a group of pigs. We were People Interested in Growing Spiritually.
And I had this wife who says, "You keep your hammy hands off me. You drink like a pig and you run around with a bunch of other pigs." And I wear that as a badge of glory.
Then we decided that once you work through the steps and you become a sponsor, you should be something more than a pig. He said, "Yeah, why don't we have hogs? That would be Helping Others Grow Spiritually."
This program of Alcoholics Anonymous for me isn't a self-help group. It isn't a program that I go to to get well and feel better. It isn't a program where I can go and meet a woman. It isn't a program where I can go and get my job and keep that.
If that's what I was coming for, Alcoholics Anonymous would give me that and then I could go. Alcoholics Anonymous is a program that got me to where I could go there and help others grow spiritually, perfect and enlarge spiritual life. That's what keeps me grounded. That's the tether that keeps me grounded.
When I was married up in Kansas City, I married this girl and she was going to divorce me. So I did what any good self-respecting alcoholic would do. I got her pregnant. That kept the marriage together.
But this is an example of my thinking. When she had our daughter and we were up there, she was doing this Lamaze—they called it back then. "Give me ice chips." You know, here's what an animal I was. I said, "For God's sakes, here's the ice. Come on now. Come on. All right, how far apart are the contractions?" Then I'd say, "I'll be right back," and I'd go downstairs and drink.
I'm not proud of this. When she had our daughter, I was really snared. When they pulled the baby out, I did not know this then. I wish I would have. For those of you out there, I want to let you know that when they pull the baby out, the mother's temperature drops and she starts to shiver.
This is how sick I was. I kissed her on the cheek and she was cold and shivering, and I said, "You've been cheating on me." They threw me out of there because I made a scene. I went and I got drunk and I got in a car wreck. You can't make this up.
My Facebook page has a picture of me sitting in a wheelchair with a neck brace and her standing behind me, and we're looking in the aquarium where they keep all the babies. The nurses don't treat you nice. I mean, for God's sakes, women give birth 24 hours a day. I got in a wreck. That happens what, once, twice a lifetime? They treated me mean. I just didn't understand it.
Her father came up and told me that she was going to divorce me and how horrible I was and he hated me. He had every right to do that. I had written him a check because his bookie was coming down on him and he didn't want his wife to know about it. I wrote him a check for $5,000 and I put "loan" and he put "hyphen payment" on it.
I tried to get that back when we were separated, and he said, "No, no, no." He character assassinated me.
The reason I'm telling this is for two reasons. First off, that is sick behavior. That is sick. But I want to talk to you for a moment about untreated alcoholism. If you're new out there and you're thinking, "Can I ever get this? Can I ever stay sober? Is this real? I know they're talking about this higher power, but they're talking about Jesus." If you're out there and you're saying, "Oh my God, I have to find a God after all the things I've done. There's no way I'm ever going to be able to stay sober," my talk today is to you.
If you're out here and you have many years and you're saying, "You know, this guy's up there talking. It's funny, but my checking account's $600 overdrawn. My wife hates me. I go to meetings and it's the same thing over and over and over again," my talk is to you.
This lady—we got a divorce and I came to San Antonio swearing never, ever, ever to drink again. I want you to know I made that promise and I kept it for two days.
Now, this thinking that I have—you know, when you sober up a drunk horse thief, what do you get? You get a sober horse thief. Five years ago, it was my wife's AA birthday and we go to LaRange to celebrate it. That's our district out there. She gets up there and she starts crying and talking about all the friends she has. I had like 12 years sober at that time. She comes and sits down next to me. I said, "You didn't say anything about me. I'm ashamed."
My sponsor tells me I must tell this. I left her there and I went home. She caught a ride with some friends of ours who she likes better than me. I called my sponsor and he said, "You did what?" I said, "Well, yeah, yeah, yeah."
That's untreated alcoholism. That's where I go back.
The other thing is I want to tie into this wife who had my daughter, my oldest daughter in Kansas City, and her father-in-law. When it came time for me to make my amends to her father—my ex-father-in-law—I called him and he wouldn't get on the phone and talk to me. I talked to Jim and he says, "We'll call again." I called three times. Finally, he agreed to talk to me Sunday at 1:00. Not 12:59 and not 1:01, but at 1:00.
I called him and I said, "Bill, I'm a member of a fellowship and I'm trying to get my life in order. I've been living life pretty bad. I've done some things to harm you, and I can never get over my alcoholism unless I clear away the wreckage. I'm calling you to make it right."
This was the last amends I had to make at that time. He said, "You want to make an amends to me? Drop dead and die. I hate your guts. You've ruined our family. Don't you ever call me. I don't care if you get sober. In fact, I wish you'd die." And he hung up on me.
By all accounts, that was a horrible amends. Let me tell you why. What happened? I walked into my bathroom and I was shaking and my jaw was going like this and I had these tears coming down. I wasn't angry. I wasn't sad. I didn't know what it was. I looked in that mirror and there was somebody I hadn't seen since I was 7 years old looking back at me.
That's what Alcoholics Anonymous has done. It got me tender. It got me fresh. It got me feeling forgiven.
One of the things we had to do at that time was clear away $10,000 in child support. I thought I might be going to jail sober. Jim said, "You need to go down there and you need to start making payments and you need to find out."
Well, I went down there and I found out what the state of Texas wanted me to do because they were up in Missouri and I had to go through all of this. I called up my ex-wife and told her the deal and everything. Four days—a year later, it's still going on—and I get special delivery and I get a FedEx and I open it up and it is a notarized release of the $10,000 in child support, which was down to nearly $5,000 at that time.
I looked at it and I said, "Wow, manna from heaven. This AA stuff's great." But here's the kicker, and this is why this story is so important. I looked and it was notarized. And guess who the notary was? It was her father. He notarized that.
You see, when we have this moment of silence in here and we're trying to quiet our mind—and this is the beautiful thing about Club 12—there's people who have passed on and are over in the ethereal who have helped me. I sure hope I get around to telling you how much they meant to me. There's something bigger than us. Ralph Waldo Emerson calls it the Oversoul. There is something here at Club 12. There is something here that is magic, and it is working in, through, and as each and every one of us.
The Second Tradition is so powerful. That tells me the 11th Step is great. It's our prayer and meditation. The Second Tradition right now is to the group what the 11th Step is to the individual. I'm not aware of it, but God's going to touch somebody's heart by something that I'm saying, and I don't even know what it is. I'm not going to be narcissistic and pretend to know.
When you're sharing and when I'm in here, God's coming through y'all. My job is to sit here and be unclogged.
Right over there, there was an old-timer. Most of you know him from the Broadway group. His name was Ralph. He'd come up to me all the time and he'd say, "Joe, God is things are. Face reality." Every time I saw him, "Joe, God is things are. Face reality." I'd say, "Why do you keep telling me this? I'll write it down in my big book. If you'd like, I'll write it down on a piece of paper and give it to you so you won't have to memorize it."
Well, I sat down right here and I said, "Ralph, why do you keep telling me that?" He says, "Someday it's not going to be about anybody else."
The big book says, "Either God is or he isn't. God is either everything or he is nothing. What is your choice?" He goes, "You need to make that decision right now for yourself."
God is outside of space and time. It doesn't exist to him. The language of God is silence. "God is things are. Face reality." Affirm your choice right now, ahead of time. When the screws are down and the heat is on—right now, ahead of time—decide that God is everything.
That's what "God is things are" means. Everything. Everything that happens in God's world right now is exactly the way that it's supposed to be, and everything that's happened is carving a way for you to fit in the big scheme of God's.
He said, "Face reality" is simply this. It talks about in the big book that the great reality is deep down within. He says you need to keep that open and you need to keep that flow from being clogged. We cannot have room for resentments and fear and anger.
I lived in Washington DC for a little while and I used to go to meetings at the US Capitol with one of my AA heroes, Hal Marley. Howal gave me this at the US Capitol. His sobriety date was February 24th, 1964. Bill Wilson asked him to write in the Daily Reflections on February 24th, 1964. He wrote on gratitude, and he said that gratitude is an action—that AA is something that he does and he lives, not that he goes to.
He talks about when he gets up in the morning, he hits his knees and he thanks God for three things: that he's alive, that he's sober, and that he's a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Then he goes about with an attitude of gratitude. He said it's a law of physics that two opposing things cannot fit in the same space at once. A heart that is overflowing with gratitude doesn't have room for fear, resentment, and anger and those petty little things.
I want to tell you that I hope that if you're here today, you just get a little piece of what I wish I could give to you. I have a love affair with Alcoholics Anonymous. People say, "Joe, you drop names," and I do, but I will never apologize for having heroes. There are giants of Alcoholics Anonymous in this room who have come up to this podium.
I dress the way I usually wear tie-dyes. I spoke in Louisville last year on Dr. Bob's birthday, June 10th, and they asked me to wear my tie-dye. I said, "Well, no, I always like to wear a coat and tie to show my respect for what Alcoholics Anonymous has done for me." They said, "Yeah, but we'd like to."
The story behind that is that I had a very, very, very low bottom. It was dark and gray and black most of the time, and there was nothing that would make my life feel worthwhile. Ever since I came in here and I worked the steps and God removed that defect of drinking—and when I work the steps, he removes the ones I'm working on. I put myself in a position for him to remove them. My life is bright and colorful, and I'm around a lot of people who are.
You see, through the windshield of my perception, I don't see things as they are. I see things as I am. I can go around and I can have the windshield on the outside and all the things out there looking great, clean, squeaky clean and everything, but it's not the things on the inside that are dirty. It's my perception on the inside. And thank God we have a way out. We can clear that away. Clear away the wreckage of our past. We don't have to be our past. Our past does not have to equal our future. We have a way that that personality change that is sufficient enough to overcome alcoholism is just incredible.
I never thought that I could be up here today. Now, a little bit about that is I had been going in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous for a long time. I am a suicide drinker. I'm a guy who drinks too much and I drink to die. I don't want to feel. I drank and I drank and I drank.
There's some humorous stories that went along with that. My daughter was in Durango, Colorado with us and I got drunk because her mother was not treating me in a fashion which I wanted to be. So I went out and I got drunk. Some drunk Indians in Durango, Colorado rolled me, left me in my underwear and t-shirt. The police came. They were going to arrest me for drunk in public.
I said, "You can't arrest me." They said, "Why?" I said, "I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. They're rolling on the ground." I said, "You call them and they'll let you know. They'll call the office there. I'm somebody. They know me at Club 12."
And now they're laughing. They call two guys. They come over and they 12-step me. The sponsors and sponsees come because it's one of the first playoffs where Michael Jordan is playing and they're there. "What man? We're going to get you to the general league. You get there, we want to get back."
I said, "What page is that on?" You see, I can memorize things, but I can't live it.
They take me over and my daughter sees me and I'm talking to my dead brother and I'm crying. I don't have a dead brother. The marriage is over. I come back and I'm trying to commit suicide to prove my love to this woman. She just doesn't get it.
Finally, she has enough of me and I'm going in and out of treatment facilities—Laurel Ridge. Lori is here and she was one—in 2000 she checked me in. She was my admitting nurse. She said, "You know, AA was good, but I think they're a little strict about this not drinking stuff. You know, they take that a little too seriously."
She kept telling me about my drinking. But it wasn't my drinking that was a problem. It was the odometer laws. It was the women. It was things like that. She kept talking to me about my drinking. I would go home and I would promise her. I went to seven Acts retreats with the Catholic Church. I took everything I could. I'd say, "Baby, just wait. What about the kids? Come on, honey." I worked every deal, and that woman went way further with me than she should have.
There was a lady who goes to this club named Susan, and her husband was the chief of police. She would call—my then wife would call—and they would come over and throw me out or say, "I think he's dead," and they'd call the ambulance. The police would come over. They put me on a gurney, and my children saw me go through that over and over and over and over.
Now, why I came to Club 12? I came to Club 12 and I listened. When Pat and Chris asked me to speak, I said, "Isn't there a bylaw about having a guy speak at your anniversary who you've 86'd out of the club before?" Well, I don't think so.
I threw a chair at Dade Rayfield. For God's sakes, he's sitting there. I can lip sync to this very day Dade Rayfield's drunkalogue. I say, "My God, you people are talking about not drinking. There's no way you could be sober for 40 some years. Jesus Christ. I'm sitting here. I can't believe it." I hit this chair and it knocked over and it hit Dade.
So I really didn't throw it. It was just he was in the wrong place. This is going to be my one cuss word. Jill—a couple of his ass-kissers, now you all call them sponsors—asked me to leave. They did so in this way: "Get out."
So I left and I went down to Boytown. I got drunk. I spent all my money. I somehow got back here and I said, "You know, nobody loves me. Alcoholics Anonymous. My own people have turned on me."
So I was out there. I got a bungee cord. I don't have a belt because I think I sold it for gas money on the way or something. I find a bungee cord. I wrap it around my neck a couple times. I go out there to the front door.
This is why you pay dues. Where's a guy going to commit suicide if this place closed? I wrapped a bungee cord around my neck and I sit there. They're going to be sorry.
You know, in Huck Finn, Huck faked that he drowned and he was up in the balcony of the church and all the people were going by. "Oh, poor Huck." I started thinking about that. I said, "I'll do that." And I said, "Whoa, you'll be dead."
Well, that keen alcoholic mind. I hung myself right there and little Robert right here passed out. Well, I had a horrible crick in my neck and a bad headache. He woke me up. He says, "Joe, we're going to call the police. You need help."
I said, "Robert, they'll put me back in the state hospital and they'll only eventually send me here. Please don't do that." I went over there and got a desire at the 7:00 a.m. meeting.
You know, we talk about on page 132—the theme of this is—we recount and almost relive. It's not that I wish I had come in here and met Jesus and everything was wonderful. I did eventually, but I'm just telling you, I am a crazy mad dog alcoholic and I have to seek recovery with all the desperation of a drowning man.
I had one more bottom, and that was simply this. Remember when Oral Roberts was going to lose his university if God didn't strike him dead if he didn't raise millions of dollars? I had t-shirts made and was laughing at everybody and it said "LD"—an acronym for "Let Oral Roberts Die."
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I drink 38 Xanax. I drink a half gallon of Reunite. That's my wine of choice for death. I get on the phone and I call Oral because he needs money. I'm telling him that I'm going to die and I'm going to pee on baby Jesus's feet and I'm going to be the best satanic angel there ever was. Then I pass out.
What I didn't know—and for those of you out there—they call suicide prevention and they come knock down your door. That really makes your wife angry. They took me to the state hospital. But before they took me to the state hospital, they took me over to Bear County Hospital. I was in ICU.
I woke up from that and I said, "My God, I can't even kill myself." I ripped out everything out of my arms, my nose. I had all this black stuff—charcoal—and I said, "You know what? This is it. I can't even kill myself." I run over, I open up the window, and I jump out. I'm trying to slide through. For God's sakes, I'm on the first floor. Swear to God.
They put me in a straight jacket. They take me in a padded van. They take me over to the state hospital. Dr. Coven had been there 37 years. He knew Bill Wilson. He was a very good friend of Dr. Seals.
I need to speed up my story. As part of this, Dr. Seal asked me when I had 6 months sober to speak up at Starlight. I'm there and I'm speaking and I'm really having a great time. Someone came up as secretary and said, "Joe, Joe, you got 5 minutes. Why don't you get sober?"
When I'm in the state hospital, I'm not in the alcohol unit. I'm not in Go's Hall. I'm in Colorado unit. There's people that I was in back in '92. I was in the same ward with people who are still there today. I went and I met with the psychiatrist and I told Dr. Coven, "Dr. Coven, I've been to Alcoholics Anonymous. Please don't tell me to go there."
I cried and I begged him and I said, "Dr. Coven, would you please give me a lobotomy?" Now, that sounds funny, but I'm telling you, I was serious. "I've been to Alcoholics Anonymous, and it didn't