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-onrise.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. >> Thank you everybody. Uh my name's John.

I'm an alcoholic. >> My uh I haven't had a drink since uh May 19th, 1973. and I'm a I'm a member of the Young Men's group of Philadelphia.

That's probably the three most important things I'll say here tonight. That tells you who I am, what I am, and where I belong. Before I start, I'd like to thank you, the group, for having me here tonight.

It's always an honor and a privilege to be asked to participate in your own sobriety. Uh, I'd like to especially thank John uh for being so such a gracious host. I didn't see him.

And Matt for taking me around to meetings. Uh, that's a an example of what service is all about. You know, I I I've heard it said that uh the door to the sick mind opens from the inside.

And laughter is a key to that door. You see, when you laugh, you relax. And when you relax, the door opens.

And that's when we stick the message in. So, I'd like to tell you a little story about another guy before I start my story that lived down my way. I I live uh on an island in uh Wildwood, New Jersey.

I don't know if anybody knows where that's at, but this guy uh this guy lived on the beach. He was homeless and he uh he was a drunk like me. He woke up one morning.

He had that cotton in his mouth uh taste and he needed a drink real bad. So he started walking down the beach and uh he seen a bottle floating in the ocean and he thought, "Well, maybe there's a mouthful in there enough to hold me till I can get a drink." And he walked over and he picked up the bottle and he pulled the cork out of the bottle and a big puff of smoke came out of it. And the next thing you know, there was a genie standing there beside him.

And the guy said, "I'm the genie of the lamp, and I'll grant you any two wishes for letting me out of this bottle." Apple that he was, you know, cunning, baffling, and powerful. He said, "I thought it was three wishes." You know, alcoholics always want more. He said, "It's my bottle.

I'll I'll make the rules. It's two two wishes." So the guy said, "Well, when I found you, I uh I was looking for a drink. I needed a drink bad." He said, 'Could you give me a bottle of wine, a good bottle of wine that no matter how much I drink, I'll always have something there, a mouthful or two for the morning.

And the genie said, 'Th that's no problem. And another puff of smoke. And the next thing you know, the guy standing there with a bottle of wine in his hand.

And the genie says, "Well, that's it. What's your second wish? Let's go." And the guy said, "Wait a minute.

I want to make sure this works." So he took that bottle and he held it up to his mouth. It seemed like forever. And uh when he let it down, he looked at it and the bottle was full.

And he said, "This is all right." So the genie said, "See, it works. You know, let's uh let's go. What's your second wish?" And the guy said, "Wait a minute.

I want to make sure that this thing really works." So he took another big swig, another big swig, and he put it down and he looked at it and the bottle was still full. So the genie says, "Well, let's go. You know what?

What's your second wish?" The guy looked at that bottle and he looked at that genie and he looked at that bottle. He said, "You got another bottle of this wine?" Now, see, I don't want to alarm you, but if you laughed at that joke, you just might have a problem with alcohol. Cuz I've told I've told that joke to people that aren't alcoholics or don't have a problem with it, and they look at you like they're cra you're crazy.

Like why would a guy want two bottles of you know? But we know, don't we? One's too many, a thousand's not enough.

So before I get into my story, uh, I've heard it said in Alcoholics Anonymous and and around Alcoholics Anonymous that if you don't put a drink inside you, it can hurt you. Well, I'm here to tell you that's a lie. See, alcohol don't just hurt the carrier, it hurts everybody the carrier comes in contact with.

I had a problem with alcohol long before I ever drank it. I had a problem with it when I drank it, and I still have a problem with it today. See, I uh I come from an Irish Catholic background in Philadelphia.

Uh first generation born here in this country. My father and my all my uncles were from the old country. And uh I I was always a frightened child.

I never knew why I was frightened. You know, I went to Catholic school. I was afraid of nuns.

And uh I I was afraid of my older sisters used to beat me up. I was the last one born in my family. Uh so that made me a mommy's boy.

You know, the last one born's always mom's favorite. But I lived in this constant fear and and and uh like we never used the front door of our house and the shades were always drawn and we we always went up the back alley. I could stay over other kids' house and uh and eat supper, but they could never come to my house and eat supper.

I could stay over their house and sleep overnight, but they could never come to sleep over my house. You know, I remember coming home from school and I uh I would go up that back alley and I'd open that back door and I'd yell to my mother and if I didn't hear my mother's name uh voice, I didn't go in that house. You see, I knew the horror that waited for me inside that house.

A a typical Friday or Saturday night in my house would be my my father and my all my uncles and my cousins would be sitting in the kitchen drinking uh Jamison whiskey and stout beer and plotting to overthrow the government of England. And my mother, my aunts, my sisters, they would all be in the living room in a circle kneeling down in a circle saying the rosary for the guys in the kitchen. So, you got to understand, not only was I a frightened child, I was a confused child.

I didn't know where I belonged. You know, I didn't know if I belonged in the kitchen or or uh in the living room. Uh you see, I just what I just described to you is an alcoholic house.

And you don't need alcohol inside you for it to hurt you. It affected my whole childhood. It changed the way I seen things or thought about things.

I lived in constant fear. We always we always kept a a bag packed under the bed. Friday nights we would all sit there in the kitchen huddle around my mother staring at the front door because we never knew who was coming through the front door.

We didn't know if it was going to be Dr. Jackekal or Mr. Hyde.

I say my father drank alcoholically because uh he was 48 years old when he died. My father was 6'3, weighed 64 pounds. He picked up a drink one day and got what they call a wet brain.

Never regained consciousness of who he was. This was back in the 50s. So the only thing they did for drunks at that time is they put you in a hospital and just keep you in a bed until you died and got rid of you.

And I swore up and down that that was never going to happen to me. I was never going to drink. But I was a product of the 50s, you know.

I was a teenage kid on the corner. In them days, what we used to do in my neighborhood, we would get a 55gallon drum and we put it fully full of wood and paper and light it on fire and we'd uh we'd stand around uh and try to harmonize. If you can imagine harmonize like the platters.

If you can if you can imagine five white guys trying to sound like four black guys, you know, and they always had a brown paper bag and they they would pass the bag around. Now, I really didn't know what was in the bag that day. I knew it was alcohol, but I I didn't know what the name of it was.

I come to find out later it was a bottle of Thunderbird wine. Uh, but I wanted to be accepted by my peers. I wanted to be one of the boys.

So when the bottle came my way that day, I I took a mouthful. And I I no sooner that bottle of wine no sooner left my lips and something amazing happened to me. I I uh that fear that I carried around inside me all my life left me like that instantly.

I wasn't afraid of anything or anybody. Nobody was ever going to tell me what to do again. The other thing I lost that day with that one mouthful of of wine and I didn't know it until I was sober five years in AA.

God went right out the window. I wasn't going to school anymore and listening to them nuns. I I wasn't praying anymore.

I I wasn't doing the things that good good kids did. I was to live the next 17 years of my life self-willrun riot. I remember I was 14 years old and and my mother asked me to leave the house and I was her favorite.

I was the pride of the fleet and uh I remember her standing me on the steps and saying, "Look, I put up with 22 years of that off your father. I'm not going to watch my son die the same death." I didn't understand that now. I understand that is tough love.

That was the hardest thing in the in the world that w woman ever did because I was her favorite. But that's the way alcohol affects uh the the drinker and everybody around them. But at 14 years old and I'm on my own, I thought I was super cool.

You know, I uh I got an apartment and uh I got a job and I would let the kids bum school over my uh apartment and I I'd con them out of their recess money and uh give them a bottle of beer and send them on their way. Alcohol always told me I was smarter then, a notch above. You know, when I was 14, I was hanging with guys 20 21 years old.

By the time I was 21, I was flagged in every bar in my neighborhood. You uh it wasn't long. You I tried working for a living, but I I that didn't work for me.

For some reason, I just I couldn't catch on to that working thing. You know, I get amazed when I come to AA and I hear guys say that they retire with 20 years at the same place. I said, "How do you do that?" You know, like I couldn't make 20 days.

See, I was the type of alcoholic. I I would get a job and they would have what they call lunch hour halfway through the day and they would go all go outside in in in my neighborhood and they would have the brown bags and they'd sit up against the wall and they'd eat their sandwiches and I would go down to the nearest watering hole and I'd have a couple drinks and I'd never go back to work. I forget where I worked.

Yeah. I remember one time I I I worked for this uh company, Spangler Sign Company, and and I I I drank my way out of it and like six months later, I'm on a load and I I walk into this Spangler Sign Company and I'm looking around and a guy said, "What are you looking for?" I said, "I'm looking for my time card." He said, "We fired you six months ago." See, that's the way I drank. But it was very shortly after that when I as I I I found I suffered from another disease and that was called entitlement.

You see if you had something I want I thought I was entitled to it and I was going to get it. So I went from being a a worker to a thief and that's how I supported myself most of my life. But I was about 17 years old.

I started to experience what Alcoholics Anonymous calls blackouts. I used to call them lapses of memory. I just couldn't remember from time to time where I was at or what I was doing.

And I woke up on a a train one day going to Fort Jackson, South Carolina. And when I got out there, uh, I found out I had joined signed some papers in Philadelphia to join the army. And I told the guy out there that there's a mistake.

if they just give me Carfair back, you know, we'll call it even. That's basically what they did. They laughed, you know, and uh me and this guy got I I found out later he was a sergeant.

Me and him got into a a fight right in the company street. I spent my first seven days in the army in a stockade. I wasn't to become a stranger to that.

There's no army story here. There's no war story. It took me three and a half years to complete two years active duty.

When it was all said and done, I had 387 days awall time. Uh 14 months stockade time and the rest of the time I would be shipped from one camp to another. Uh I went awall from uh from the army and I was I was home on leave and I never went back is what happened.

And uh I knew the army would be looking for me, but I figured they wouldn't be looking for a married man. So I grabbed one of the girls from the corner that I had dated before I went in the service. And uh and we got married.

We went down to the local uh uh church and uh we got married. It wasn't out of love. I had no feelings or emotions at this time.

Alcohol had robbed me of that. It was out of convenience. She was 16 and wanted to get out of the house.

I was 18 and wanted wanted to hide out. It was like a marriage made in Kensington. That's where I'm from.

The the rocks in my head fit the holes in hers. You know what I mean? And uh and the marriage uh the marriage lasted like six or seven years.

to produce three children, none of which I was home to uh to raise. I tried a couple times, but I just alcohol wouldn't let me be a father or a husband. See, I was a type of drunk I I would uh I would go out on a Monday morning to to go to down the bar for a drink and uh she would see me six months later when I got locked up and my lawyer would say to me, "John, go home, get the wife, get the kids, show up in court.

It looks good. judges like to see that. Get a job.

And I would do all that and then uh you know I I'd beat the rap and on the way out out the courtroom steps I give her some money and I say I'll be home later. She might see me six months from now. And that's the way that marriage went.

I think it was about she got a divorce. I think it was about three months after my divorce on a Christmas Eve. I decided uh I have three children.

I I got a right to see them. I ain't seen them all that time, but now now I got it right. And uh the truth of that story was I was in a bar on a Christmas Eve.

I don't know if you ever been in a bar on Christmas Eve, but the only ones in a bar was me and the bartender. And I had about two bucks in my pocket. So I figured if I go around to my ex-wife's house and uh she would either give me a bottle or some money to get rid of me.

And I went around and I did what most alcoholics do. We cause confusion. That's what we do best.

I wasn't there 10 minutes and I kicked the toys across the kitchen floor and that the the tree went through the front window and uh my brother was there and me and him got into a an argument and he broke a whiskey bottle and put over 400 stitches and me, cut me from head to toe like a piece of meat. And I remember them rushing me in the hospital that night. My left leg was cut at the kneecap.

my toes was on my chest. And and the funny thing about that, for years, I thought I won the fight. But they took me in there and they uh they said they were going to have to amputate the leg and I told them they weren't allowed to just sew it back on.

I'll drag it around with me. And they put me in a they did and they put me in a body cast. And this woman that I caused all that problems to, my ex-wife, she came and took me back in her ha her house and nursed me back to health.

She fed me and she ran for my bottles of whiskey every day. And she uh my six-packs and she bought me a wheelchair and she encouraged me to go to therapy to learn how to walk. And the day I walked, the very day I took my first steps, I walked out of her life again.

See, that's the way I repay people that were kind to me. And I went back to them upholstered sewers that I lived in. Now, I didn't I don't know if I told you or not, but I I used to drive a truck for a living.

I was a night truck driver. I drove other people's trucks. Of course, they didn't know I was driving them.

I think they call it hijacking. But anyhow, I got I made a couple scores in hijacking. And I, you know, I'm I'm getting into my mid20s now.

And I said, uh, I said to a friend of mine, I said, you know, like, uh, you know, I'm getting a little older now. It's time I become responsible to myself. I I think I'm going to buy a business.

So, I had a pocket full of money, about 35,000, and I I said, uh, I'm going to buy a business. So, I bought a business. I bought a bar.

What else would a drunk buy? And I'll tell you the kind of bar I had. Four doors from my bar bar was the Iron Workers Union.

Around the corner was the roofers union and right up the street was a teamsters union. And that was the kind of nuts I attracted to my bar. And I thought I had the sharpest nightclub in the city of Philadelphia.

And now the abnormal became normal. I got crazy. It would be a Friday night.

I had a go-go girl dancing, a three-piece band playing, and the front door locked, and I was the only one in there. People would be banging on the door trying to get in and I'm in there drinking by myself and then I would break into my own jukebox, take the money and call the cops and say I was robbed. Got crazy.

I started to do crazy things. I remember I went up to after hours club one night and uh and I told a friend of mine up there, I said, "You know what my problem is? It's this bar.

I have to get rid of this bar. It's taking up too much of my drinking time. I said, they want me there in the morning to open the place up and then they want me to come back at night and close it up, you know.

So, I went down and gave the bar away. And I went on like a uh 11 month tear or load, constantly drunk. And uh a good friend of mine came.

I I wound up down to Skid Row. I liked Skid Row. they don't care where you're from or you know as long as you put the money on the table they'll serve you you know and a friend of mine came down and got me he said you don't belong up here and he took me back up into my neighborhood and make a long story short I made a couple scores again and I was back on top and I bought another bar now I I the second bar I owned as you walked in the door of my bar the first stool right right on the bar was two Sears and Robot cataloges and People would come in there, have a drink, go through the catalog, make out an order of what they wanted, and give it to the bartender, and you stop back in a couple days, it'll be there cuz that's the kind of guys I hung with.

They're all hijackers or thieves or whatever. Matter of fact, they just wrote a book about my my guys, the guy guys I hung with. It's called Confessions of a Second Story Man, if you ever get around to reading it.

But anyhow, uh I at this bar again, and you know, I'm out on a tear. I'm I'm one of them kind of guys. I go out on like three, four week tears at a time.

And I'm with this friend of mine and we're in another bar drinking and this friend says, "John, if you ever need any money, this guy here will loan you whatever you want." And I said, "Oh yeah, give me a,000 bucks." And the guy whipped out a,000. Now, this guy don't know me from a can of paint. You know, gives me $1,000.

And I said to the guy with me, I says, "This guy nuts." So I drink up the thousand. I'm back there next week. And I said, "You got another thousand?" and give me another thousand.

Make a long story short, I owe this guy like 16 grand. Now, I now I didn't need that money. I had that much in my pocket or in my car because I'm hijacking three, four trucks a week.

But I thought it was crazy. This guy just handed me money and don't even know me. And I walk in his bar one day and I said to him, "I hope there's no hard feelings, but I ain't going to pay you that money." And he, you know, you he didn't like that too I said, "Well, you got to be crazy to give me that kind of money." And I don't know, do they have any lone sharks here or not?

I don't know if they had lone sharks here or not, but they're not like uh, you know, they're not like a finance company, you know, or a bank. They don't uh put a lean against your house or come in the middle of the night and steal your car, you know what I mean? They have their own way of doing things.

He sent two guys over to my bar one day and they they uh put me in a car, drove me down to the Delaware River, put a 32 slug in my chest and threw me in the Delaware River. Now, lucky for me, uh I don't know if you know anything about the Delaware River, but at low tide, it's about one foot of water and five foot of mud. And uh that's what it was that day.

They threw me in the river that day and I crawled out of that river and and uh about a block and a half down from where they threw me in was a bar. Now I walked down, if you can imagine, I walk into this bar, I got mud from here down and and blood running down the front of me and soaking ring wet. And I said to the barmaid, "Give me two shots of whiskey." And the next thing I know, I wake up in one of these plastic tents in a in a hospital, you know, with tubes all over me and my nose and my my arms.

And I got a friend of mine, I don't know how long I was here. I don't know, a week, 10 days, something like that. But I got a friend of mine to go get me some clean clothes.

And uh he helped me pull the tubes out of my arms and my nose. And uh I got dressed and me and him walked down the back steps of the hospital. We left the hospital, went over to this bar where this lone shark was.

I sat down beside this guy and I said, "Look, there's no hard feelings. Loan me a couple hundred bucks, I'll buy the bar drink." See, that's where alcohol would takes me. I spent the next 18 months of my life working for that guy to to work off the 16,000 I owed him.

I was going out and doing to people what he tried to do to me, you know. But now it, you know, it became to a point where uh, you know, I could no longer uh, I could no longer work. I could no longer hijack the truck.

The guys I hung with that I stole with all my life, they would have a job going and they would say, "John, look, here's here's some money. Wait here. We'll be back to pick you up.

We got something going." And they'd never come back. Or they'd give me an address to where a party was, where there was no party. Nobody lived at that address.

My friends didn't want nothing to do with me. The thieves I stole with didn't want nothing to do with me. I now the big money was gone.

The bar was gone. Uh I found myself uh filling the beer cases in the morning for for some bartender so he get me a shot in beer or running for a cup of coffee for him so I'd get a a shot. I was sleeping wherever I could sleep.

Abandoned houses, empty cars. Uh, make a long story short, I wound up on a railroad sighting in an abandoned car with wine sores and body lice all over me. Now I'm 29 years old and I'm shot out.

And that fear that I lost when I was 14, now it's back 10fold. I'm afraid of everything that I'm afraid of the wind blowing in the middle of the night. Scared to death of people.

I had long lost contact with my family, but my somehow my sister one, my one sister, she was a nurse. She came and got me off that railroad sighting and she brought me back to her house and she nursed me back to hell. Now, my sister was a a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I knew nothing about Alcoholics Anonymous. Never heard of all the prisons and joints I was in. Nobody ever mentioned Alcoholics Anonymous.

But uh I knew there was something wrong with my sister Ray as I came into her house because she didn't have a drink. And for a member of my family not to drink, it was something different. And she had these signs on her kitchen wall.

Easy does it. First things first, let go. Let God.

And uh and they would play these tapes, this this Bill Wilson guy, and uh her sponsor would pick her up every uh this I thought it was her girlfriend pick her up every night. We played a cat and mouse game for about a week. you know, uh, they would tease me about going to a meeting and and and and I would get back at them by, uh, by, uh, borrowing $20 off or going down the bar and getting drunk, you know, and they would tease me.

I did I'd get up in the morning to to go down to the kitchen and they'd have the 12 and 12 on a toilet seat and I throw that down and then I'd I'd go down to get a cup of coffee. They had the big book beside my coffee cup, you know. And uh my sister conned me one day.

She said, "John, I I made arrangements for five girls to come and pick you up and take you to a meeting." So I really didn't know what AA was about, but I, you know, like I said, I was a product of the 50s. And I remember watching the James Kagny movies and the Humphrey Bogart movies and they always had some kind of a waterfront scene and they they would always have one of these brotherhood missions where the guy stood at the the door and they handed out the hymn Bibles and then they would go in and they would sing and then they would feed him a bowl of soup or something. I kind of thought that's what AA was like, like the Salvation Army or something, you know.

And I remember telling her, I said, 'Look, Carol, uh, I'll go to your meeting, but I ain't singing. And Carol said, 'You don't have to sing. She had five girls come pick me up and take me to a meeting.

On the way in the meeting that night, there was a guy there named Tom S. Tom Shark. I could tell his name now.

Tom Sharky. Yeah, I knew for sure this guy was a drunk because when I owned the bars, I wouldn't let him in my bars. That's how bad he was.

He was one of them 8:00 in the morning, you'd be walking in the door, you say, "Yo, Tom, take it somewhere else. You know, don't come in here." But anyhow, Tom said, "Are you new, John?" And I said, "Yeah." He said, "Well, it's important you get phone numbers." And he wrote his name and phone number down. Now, I'm an uncaring alcoholic.

I'm in acute stages of alcoholism. I have no feelings or emotions for anything or anybody. I took that piece of paper and crumbled it up and put it in my pocket.

said, "Yeah, I I'll catch you later, Tom." And I don't remember anything about the meeting, but I'll tell you this, I'm a fast study. You could put me in any room with any kind of people and within a half hour, I'm going to be talking their language. So, on the way home, I made sure I got five more phone numbers.

You You got it. The next day I called one of them numbers and the girl hung up and my sister called me back and said, "John, it's not that kind of program." So me and my sister got into an argument. I said, "Look, this is a crazy world you live in." And my sister was 13 years sober at that time, started the first woman's group in Philadelphia, very dedicated alcoholic.

Uh she said, "It's not that kind of program." I said, "Well, you know, like I'd rather be back down in the neighborhood than uh than live under these crazy rules." So, she convinced me that if I was going to go back to drinking, at least leave my gun with her cuz I always carried a gun. I I don't know if I said I was on the major crime list in Philadelphia for a lot of years. But I, you know, I said to her, "Yeah, I I'll leave my gun with you." Because I knew I could get down my neighborhood and get a gun as fast as I can get a drink.

And I did. I went down the neighborhood. I got a a a gun and I went uh and I got a drink.

I was about 4 hours into my load and I got a phone call saying that my sister had just shot herself with my gun. Now I'm an uncaring alcoholic. First thing I did was left town.

The cops would not would not like anything better to find out that that was my gun. I figured if they find out it's my gun, I'm going back to prison for the rest of my life. But Carol didn't die.

I got word she didn't die. And I came back to Sarah and I asked her, I went to the hospital. I asked her why she shot herself.

She said she had a desire to drink that day and would rather be dead. Now, I don't want to confuse or hurt anybody in this room tonight. That is not what Alcoholics Anonymous is about.

This is not about dying. This is about living. But you got to understand, I was attracted to people like that.

And I thought, boy, this AA must really have something if you have to commit Harry Carrie. That's dedication. But I stayed drunk for another four months.

It was a Friday night. I had just hijacked a truckload of Botney 500 suits off a place called Daryls. That's what I did for a living.

Stole trucks. It was a Friday night. I had a brand new sharkkin suit on.

pocket full of money could choke a horse, you know, and I'm in a bar. I'm I'm in one of the the watering holes that I, you know, them upholstered sewers that I hung in and uh and I got the crying trunks. I don't know if there's any real Apple hawks in the room tonight, but every real apple hawk knows what the crying drunks are.

We all get them. I don't I don't know what what I'm crying about. I can't stop crying.

And I'll tell my fistep to anybody who'll listen. And I don't even know what the fistep is. But I'm telling this barmaid, you know, I'm crying in my beer and uh and I'm telling this barmaid that my whole stad tale of wo how life dealt me a bad hand.

And she listened for a while and she took my drink and my money and put me down with some of the roofers that I used to drink with. and they listen for a while and they got tired of it and they picked me up bodily and put me out on a park bench outside the bar and they locked the doors to the bar. Now it's late at night and I got to crying drunks, a pocket full of money and I'm sitting on this park bench and I, you know, like I say, I'll tell my fistep to anybody and there's this little nurse standing there waiting for a bus and I start telling her my whole sad story.

I remember when the bus came that night, the bus came and the doors opened. She ran in and ran to the back of the bus and said to the bus driver, "Take off. Take off." I mean, I guess she was never so happy to see that bus come, you know.

Anyhow, I'm sitting there, you know, feeling sorry for myself and I reach in the pocket of this suit that I just stole not five hours ago and I pull out an old wrinkled up piece of paper and it says Tom S. Now, why would an uncaring drunk save an old wrinkled up piece of paper for five months? See, I used to try to explain that at AA meetings.

And I know today, if you believe in God, no explanation's needed. And if you don't believe in God, none will satisfy you. You can call it odd, you can call it God.

I don't care what you call it. I didn't know what it was then. I know today it was divine intervention.

It was God working in my life when I didn't even believe in God. And I called that number and a guy answered, "Young men's aa." I said, "I got the wrong number. I'm looking for Tom S." He said, "Oh, he's here." And Tom got on the phone and he says, "Uh, you want to get sober?" I said, "What else would I call you for?" See, I got to cry.

I got to crying drunks. I I just want to talk to somebody till I can get a drink again. That's what I want.

And I'll tell you anything you want to hear. So, he says, "I'll be right over." And he he came over to get me. And uh I I'll tell you, I really don't remember too much of what Tom said that night.

I'll tell you what I'll remember for the rest of my life what he didn't say. He didn't say to me, "How much money you got in your pocket?" He didn't say to me, "Do you have any medical coverage?" He didn't say, "Where do you want to go?" He said, "Get in a car. I'll take you someplace beyond your wildest dreams.

And he did. He took me to this place. It looked like an old uh old store with the big storefront windows and double doors.

And I took three steps in and I immediately knew I made a mistake. It was like an abandoned room, abandoned building. And there was bodies all over the floor.

There was no furniture in the place. There was a a desk over in one corner. Uh in another corner there was a guy I later found out his name was Depression Tom and he had his wallet and he was talking to himself saying, "Spock beam me up." There was another guy they called Jimmy one eye.

He was in the middle of the floor. He had one glass eye and he had a a football trying to bounce it like a basketball. The only thing missing out of this room was a was a big Indian and nurse Ratchet.

It looked like the daycare center of a mental institution. And I uh I you know I backed against the wall. I said you know like just stay away.

I these bodies I thought you know I got a pocket full of money and new suit on. You take my hair to roll me. That's what these bodies are you know.

So I backed against the wall, told him to stay away from me. And somebody came out and banged on that desk and it was like Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. These bodies all got up simultaneously.

They started setting up these $5 Kmart chairs and they had what they call a meeting. Now I really don't remember much about the meeting. I I wasn't listening to what they were saying.

I figured I I was trying to get out of there. I kept looking out the window. I do remember this.

The sun was coming up when the meeting was over. That's the kind of meetings these guys had. But I I do remember this.

After the meeting was over, there was about 35 guys in the room and they all walked over and shook my hand said, "Keep coming back." And that was the hook that got me into Alcoholics Anonymous. You see, nobody but nobody once you caught my act, they never asked me to come back anywhere twice. And these guys were willing to accept me just the way I was.

And that was my first conscious try at stopping drinking. I said, "That's it. I'm not going to drink anymore.

I'm going to make meetings like these guys. I'm going to do what these guys do. I'm going to be all right.

I know what I have to do now." See, that's a joke. When an alcoholic says he ain't going to drink anymore, that's a joke. See, if I had the power to say I'm not going to drink, I wouldn't need alcoholic synonymous and I wouldn't need God.

But I don't know that. See, when an alcoholic, a friend of mine up the city says when an alcoholic says he ain't going to drink anymore, that's like having sex with a gorilla. It ain't over till the gorilla says it's over.

But I'm sincere in my efforts. I slept on that floor of that group for four months. I made meetings around the clock.

Now that group, they don't allow anything in that building except AA literature. No outside contact with the outside world. I ate, breathed, and slept a hawk and I got off that floor after four months.

I went out and got a job. Uh I went to work every day. That's two different things, having a job and going to work.

And I did that. And uh and I got uh I got a car with four hubcaps on it. I got some folding money in my pocket.

I got an apartment. I got a little honey. And about eight months later, I got drunk.

And I was more shocked than anybody cuz I told myself I wasn't going to drink anymore. And that was good enough for me. See, I know today that you can't stay sober in self-nowledge.

And prayer alone won't keep you here. This is an action program. I didn't know that then.

I know it now. And I'm not and I'm not one of them drunks that pick up a drink on a Friday and come back here on a Monday saying, "Uh, I I had a load. I had to go to a rehab." And that's not what you're looking.

You know, you're looking at a drunk. You know, when I pick up a drink, I ain't done drinking till I'm done drinking. And I ain't done drinking till I can't physically put that stuff inside me anymore or I'm in incarcerated where I can't get my hands on it.

I'm the kind of drunk, you know, like uh uh I don't know if it's Friday or New York. I'm laying on the floor of some bar throwing punches thinking I'm winning the fight. You know what I mean?

I stayed drunk for 14 months. didn't draw a sober breath for 14 months. Lost the desire to ever want to get sober.

I used to I used to be on a bar stool and I would call I I would call young men's and somebody would answer the phone. I bust out in tears and hang up. I couldn't say come and get me.

It wouldn't come out of my mouth. I was in the grips of alcohol. Lucky enough, two of them guys from my home group came and got me one day and they caught me with them crying drunks and they took me back to the group and I'm laying on the floor and everybody's gathering around telling me what I did wrong.

I know what I did wrong. I've been doing wrong all my life. I don't need any help with telling me what I did wrong.

I didn't know how to do anything right. And there was an old-timer there, a guy named Joe Brown, and he said to me, "John, it's not your fault." Now, that's the first time in my life I've ever heard that. You know, all my life I heard, "It's your fault.

If something's missing in the neighborhood, John has it." You know, if something got broke, John did it. This guy's telling me it's not my fault. He says, "You're an alcoholic, and without help, there's no hope." And I said, "Well, if what you tell me is true, John Joe," I said, "I'm going to die a drunk." And a guy standing next to him, a guy named Chow Guitar, everybody in my group had nicknames.

Guy named Chowi Guitar said, "For what it's worth, John, I never heard of a drunk getting drunk that asked God in the morning and thanked him at night." And I said, "Wait a minute, Charlie. Stop right there. I don't want to hear that God I've been sprayed over, sprinkled over." I said, "I was a little older boy.

I got a sister's a sister's a Catholic nun. She'd been hitting them beats for 20 years. That don't work, Charlie.

Charlie told me something that changed my whole life. He said, "You can pray in disbelief." He said, "You can pray to a God you don't even believe in, and a loving and merciful God will help you in spite of yourself." In my group, they call that fake it till you make it. Act as if until the miracle happens.

So, I'm armed with something new now. And now I'm making meetings every day and I'm praying to a God I don't even believe in. And I'm doing pretty good.

I'm back on track, but about seven or eight months sober, I get that call the wild again. I'm alone in my apartment and I'm pacing the floor. Now, the big book says when an alcoholic ain't drinking, they become restless, irritable, and discontent.

And that's what I was. I'm pacing the floor and I'm rehashing my whole life. And I don't like what I see.

I get up to the part where I'm sober eight months. I'm still hijacking trucks for a living. I'm three years behind in child support.

I got three body warrants for my arrest. And some people want to put me back in that river. I'm a liar, a cheat, a thief, a con artist, and a cheap chisel and mooch.

It's kind of hard to blame a bottle of beer for that when you ain't had one in eight months. It's kind of hard to blame alcohol for that when you ain't drinking. Cold hard reality.

See, I'm the one that's causing that problem. It's not alcohol. It's me.

I can stay just as sick sober as I can drunk. Thank God for the old-timers. I knew I knew I was going back to drinking.

And uh I didn't like old-timers when I first met them. I didn't know what it was, but I found out today that they're truth tellers and I couldn't stand the truth. But anyhow, I I go to this old-timer and I I I talked to him.

Uh this guy I went to, this guy didn't have a kind word for me for the first three years I was sober. No matter what I did, I couldn't get in this guy's brace. I remember when I had six months sober.

Now you get proud, your chest is out, you want to let it let the world know you ain't had a drink in six months. I run up to a group one day and they're up there playing peanuckle. They're He's always playing peanuckle, you know.

I run up the steps and I say, "Frank, guess what? I'm sober six months today." He didn't even turn around. He said, "So what?

Nobody here likes you." He said, "There's people in this group praying you'll get drunk and never come back here." six six months sober and I said, "Can I talk to you for a minute?" And I I told him what happened that my experience about my life passing through me. And I said, "Frank, I'm not going to make it. I I think I'm going to drink." He said, "John, when are you going to get get in the program?" I said, "Frank, I'm making meetings every day.

You know, I'm making three, four meetings a day." I said, "I'm dragging drunks off the street." I said, "I want AA's best salesman." Yeah. He said, "I'm not talking about the fellowship, John. I'm talking about the program." See, I never knew there was a difference.

See what we're doing here tonight. This is the fellowship. It's not the It's not the program.

I didn't know that. I know it now. Frank introduced me to program autonomous.

He said, "It's in that big blue book." and he got that book and he uh he guided me through those steps. And uh when I got to the third step, he uh he took me into a men's room of that that that group and he said uh he turned to page 63 and he said, "Get down on your knees." And I got down on Well, I'm glad nobody came in that bathroom that day. But he read that prayer to me, that third step prayer, and then he had me read it.

And then when I got up, he said, ' Do you understand what you just did? And I said, 'No, not really.' He said, 'Th that means the rest of your life is none of your business.' He said, 'You had your days and you ruined them. These are God's days.

And he walked me through those steps. Now, I don't know about anybody in this room, but when I read when I seen that big book for the first time and I seen them steps, I said the same thing that guy said in the fifth chapter. What an order.

I can't go through this. I didn't like the big book, first of all, because it didn't have no pictures in it. And them steps, them steps were like totally against everything I I believed in in my life for my whole life.

The very first step says, we admit it. I had lawyers tell me for years, don't admit to anything, John. And the second step, I could identify with that being crazy.

And and a third step, turning my life over. I would have turned it over to anybody that wanted it. But that fourth step, then they tell me to write it down.

I lawyers tell me whatever you do, don't ever put it on paper. I'll tell you how whacked out I was when I first got sober. We used to, my home group used to do a thing at St.

Luke's Hospital, a meeting. I would get up there about an hour before time and I would go to the hospice, people that were going to die, and I'd ask the nurse, "Is there anybody going to die tonight? And then I would go and talk to that person and I would I figure if I find somebody who's going to die tonight, I'll give him my force fifth step, you know.

I figure he's going to take it to the grave, you know. Because there was things in my fourth and fifth step that could have landed me in jail for the rest of my life, you know. So, you got to understand these step and and a nice step, make amends.

I thought that meant get even, you know, a and and the 11th step, you know, I I I was just so disattached from God. And that 12 step was totally against everything I believe. You know, if if you want to keep it, give it away.

Makes no sense whatsoever. It's AA arithmetic. It doesn't add up anywhere but in these rooms.

You tell somebody out of these rooms, you want to keep something, give it away. see what they say to you. Yeah.

But Frank guided me through these steps and slowly but surely my my life started to take a change for the for the better. And and today I know the difference between the fellowship and and the program. And I know I need both of them, all of them.

And I know this is a program of action. Prayer alone won't keep you sober. It says in our book, Faith Without Works is dead.

I didn't understand that. I got a fifth grade education. I said,"Frank, I don't understand what that's about." And he said, "Well, let me tell you a little story." He said, "There was a guy uh he owned a house and next to his house was an empty lot." He said, "And all the kids in the neighborhood threw all their junk on it, old tires and bottles and and and and trash." He said it was a a terrible mess.

He said, "And the guy got tired of it one day. Went out and cleaned it all up. Got rid of all that trash.

turned the earth over, planted some little trees and some flowers, put a white picket fence up there, a little park bench, and he sat back uh on his porch to watch to enjoy the fruits of his labor. And uh a priest came by one day and he stopped and talked to the guy and he says, "What a beautiful job you and God you and God did with that lot next door." And the guy said, "Yeah, you should have seen when God had it to himself. See, this isn't about what we say when we're on our knees.

It's about what we do when we get on our feet. This is a program of action. If you don't do anything, you could sit in that chair, the cows come home, and you're not going to get anything.

You got to do something. Friend of mine up the city of Fishtown, Chow, he always says, "You can't think yourself into good actions. You got to act yourself into good thinking.

And I know it's getting late. I'll close with this. I'll tell you a little story about a farmer and his son working in the field.

And one day a guy came along with a big black limousine. And he stopped and he uh he talked to his father and the kid seen some money pass hands. And uh the next thing you notice this guy's putting up this big bullet board with this fiery ring with a a tiger jumping through it and clowns on it.

And he said, "Dad, what's that?" and he says, "Oh, the circus is coming to town, son." And the kid had never seen anything like that. And he said, "Dad, can I go see the circus?" He says, "Sure." He said, "If you're good and your grades are in school good," he said, "when the circus comes to town, you can go." Well, the day the circus came to town, the kid was all excited. He said, "Can I go?" And the father said, "Yeah." He gave him 50 cents, 50 cent piece.

And the kid walked three miles to town. Now, that circus was unloading a a train of of all the things and they were setting up a big tent on the other side of town and they were they were bringing the stuff all right through the main street. So, the kids sat on the curb to watch and they brought the lions and the tigers and the elephants and they paraded them down the street and then this the circus axe, you know, the high wire axe and they all came and at the end of it was the clowns.

The clowns were all in full gear and at the end there was a one clown and he walked over to the little kid and tipped his hat and the kid threw 50 cents in there and he got up and walked away. Walked three miles back to town back to the farm and his father says, "Uh, did you see the circus, son?" And the kid said, "Yeah, Dad. I seen the circus.

I seen the circus." That's a sad story. That's a sad story. See, the kid didn't see the circus.

He saw the passing parade. Don't be fooled by the passing parade. It's good to have the fellowship, but the program is more important.

Thank you. Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message.

Until next time, have a great day. >>