Tommy's Journey: From Sensitivity to Sobriety

Well, I don't like it.

I don't like the room.

I just don't like it.

You know what? We like a lot of people.

We like the people.

People I've met in Alcoholics Anonymous, not with me,

and not all like me,

but I've met people who

like, who I truly

love because they've been there

for me, and without that connection

with people, I would not

know what I know about myself, and I would not

feel sober and clean today.

I'd be probably dead.

Or very miserable.

I'd be sniveling.

Sniveling.

I saw that. It was like so many voices in my head.

I was like, I'm serious.

Please teach me how to do that.

It is miraculous.

I met a public speaker.

I was really nervous coming here.

I never left.

I'm sure it's like

very professional.

Thanks a lot.

My life, prior to coming to

Alcoholics Anonymous, my life was

very unmanageable, and

until it became unbearable,

it wasn't going to stop.

The unmanageability, like, the unmanageability

for me was something that I felt

throughout my life as a kid.

You know, very

hypersensitive, very sensitive.

I was, I was, I was promoted.

My mother would say, you're very sensitive.

But when I came to AA, they promoted

me to hypersensitive.

But you do get promoted in there.

You're a drunk asshole and you become a sober ass.

But she would say to me, you know, people would say to me, you're very sensitive.

My mother was very sensitive. Everything kind of

stopped. Everything kind of broke. I don't know why.

It's just the way I was. I think it's just the way I was born.

I think it's probably, you know,

really, you know, being

being sober for 27

years and coming up in 28 years

and I've learned a few things about myself.

And I feel like

I can just start to learn.

I'm still learning. It'll still be,

there's no graduation.

But what I do know is, you know, that

that sensitivity was there from the very beginning.

That there was something, I felt

like there was something not right with me

before I ever drank. I can't blame it on

alcohol. But I can tell you that in the center

of my brain, there was something in my thinking

that was just a little bit

different, I think, to normal

people. And when I asked

normal people, were you like that? They were like,

no, you should see somebody.

Did you lie in bed as a

kid and think about, like, where do you go when you die?

They were like, no, I'm thinking about school.

I'm like, okay.

Some things happened when I was

a kid that shouldn't happen to

kids. A lot of different abuses.

And my reaction to all of

that was probably far worse

than the events themselves. I mean, they happened

in minutes and hours and months.

But the

onslaught for me, the

reaction for me went on for

years.

So my reaction to whatever

happened is usually far

greater than the actual event.

And my sensitivity at the age

of 10 was

my perception was

because of some of these events

and my alcoholism, it just

my perception was warped.

People, places, things.

And my reaction

to that was to flight. Was to run.

Was to get away from you.

Was to blame you.

And, you know, if I can get away from here.

And just very,

very miserable on the inside.

I also knew as a young child that I was gay.

I knew that because I was

told that. Not in nice terms.

It wasn't like, well, you're gay. Welcome.

Like, why are you

don't do that?

I spent years, like as a kid, checking,

checking, watching you and thinking for you.

You know, I can annihilate you in a second.

I will see your weakness in a second.

I can take out the room in a second.

I walk into a room. I look for the one who's not happy.

I see that. I sense it.

It's like a second sense.

It doesn't serve me well, really.

But it's been there from the very beginning.

Got me into a lot of trouble.

But it also protected me from you.

And I was kind of wired like that.

So that was my wiring as a kid.

And that doesn't really set you up for a good career.

Unless you want to go to jail.

Or become an alcoholic.

So my father died when I was 10.

My reaction to that was

I remember leaving the funeral

and I said that

I said to myself walking home

that nobody will ever tell me what to do again.

Nobody will ever replace him.

And how humiliated

that he would die.

Because I knew that at the end of the summer

I'd have to go back to school

and stand up in front of the class

and tell them what I did for the summer.

And I was humiliated.

Because this big guy who used to go away for six weeks

and work at oil rigs

and my dad worked

and then he was gone.

So I was humiliated.

I took it very personally.

And then after that it was off to the races.

In the west of Ireland you start drinking when you can swallow.

If you can swallow

at least when I was growing up.

And I drank because I was told not to.

Everything I was told not to do

you shouldn't do that

you're not old enough

I want to do it.

I want to do it and I'm going to do it.

There were people who would do it before me

and I called everybody doing everything

that they shouldn't be doing

and then I would usually just join in and do it.

But the difference between me and them was

I would take it to the complete extreme

and if I liked something

I would keep doing it until I'd abuse it to death.

People, places, things.

I would just milk it for everything

and become completely addicted to it.

And it takes me away from reality

so I can't, there's no calm down.

Including coffee.

So by the age of 11, 12

we were drinking barrels of beer

in the west of Ireland.

We were just going to the back of the bars.

I don't like to call for a pizza.

We went to certain bars that are no longer there.

We didn't even buy our own beer.

We were like into one of the bars

and took one of the beers

and hit the spot of the drinks.

And that was it.

That was it.

That's all there is to it.

But again,

I think it's all about

having a big supply of glue.

We lived in a grandmother's house

and it was 22 minutes away from the house

with a chicken.

who needs to go down at eight o'clock in the morning because he sits at the end of the bed

with an attitude like get up like my mother would be down there in the morning on a washing machine

that didn't want water and five beds to be stripped and I would go down like why are you

so happy? I'm just having a drink. That's the only thing I'm saying. But my first drink which was

which is I was talking about my children. I went to two rooms and people asked me that again

and I hated it. I had a panic attack. I didn't like it. I did not like the effect but you know

there was something about the

there was something about the

there was something about the

there was something about me that when I was you know I was such anxiety, stress, fear,

internal fear about you know irrational fears about death, dying, just something terrible is

going to happen. I'm going to get fucked out. You know they're going to find out what happened,

what was done. A lot of a lot of secrets you know. I mean we talked about that says to me your

secrets keep you sick. What are your secrets? I thought well if they're if they're if they're

secrets why would I tell you they're not going to be secret. What kind of stupid questions? I'm not

I'm not telling you my secrets because one I grew up with alcoholics in your you know your for your

lives. I mean you're going to tell everybody because that's what you do and two they're my

secrets and I've been sworn never to reveal and I swore and take these to the grave and and I you

know I went around my head like that. I've had a head problem in Ireland in meetings they don't

say how are you they say how's your head because you know they say maybe it's the head doctor.

So I was I had a head problem and and when I started using when I started

when I would drink uh it would it would like it would relax me and I needed to be relaxed.

Probably needed horse drink for the rest of the day. Alcohol just kind of just relaxed me and

made me feel alive. It made me feel normal and gave me strength and courage to do whatever I

wanted to do and uh communicate with people, look them in the eye, tell them what I really thought

of them and uh and put on a show. A lot wasn't on shows so I put on a little show uh and I would you

just love I love being kind of in a blackout. I love being out of my head. I was told from the

very first night of drinking uh at probably the ages 13, 14 you know you shouldn't drink.

Did you see what you did last night? Did you like why did you say that? You shouldn't you

better never go back there. I mean it was just trouble. It was like you know they talk about

the allergy of the body. I'm allergic to alcohol. When I drink I break out in handcuffs. When I

drink I get arrested. It is destructive drinking. It may not appear to be to you because publicly,

I will go out with you. We'll have a couple of drinks uh in some speaky speakeasy. I like slimy,

dirty bar rooms. I don't like I would not drink in Beverly Hills. I would go there when I'm drunk

but I would start out with some speaky, some sneaky little bar room down by the docks where

I grew up and and get drunk there and then head off and do kind of show. Um alcohol um I ran away

because of my thinking. I ran away from them from Ireland. I went to London at the age of 15.

I arrived there with no plan. I just knew that when I got there I wouldn't be there

and that that seemed to me to be a better plan. Uh I truly believe that you find money on the

streets of London. I truly believe that when I got there that that they were who they are but

they're that they were going to say welcome and uh they didn't. I woke up in in uh in Victoria

Station in London, 15 years old, no plan except I knew I wasn't going back and I'm going to show

them. I did get on the boat in Ireland and I remember throwing a pint at the at the country.

And uh with a lot of profanity and I said I will I will show you. I don't know who you are and I

will show you. You will be sorry. I will be back. You will see. I will you will see. I and I think

what I was saying was to myself was you know I will be happy. I will be I will be sober. I will

I will overcome all of this fear and internal war that was going on in me because I had set

up to war remember at the age of 10. I had decided that nobody was going to tell me what to do. You

can try and live like that you know as far as I'm concerned. For me to live like that doing what I

want to do is disaster. It's just like yes it's going to be a disaster. So uh so I had that recipe

for disaster and all I needed to do was fuel that with alcohol. And it felt great for years because

it allowed me to sleep out. I was homeless for a long time. I had no I no plan to get a room or get

never even thought about it. I just knew that I could find somewhere to sleep and um and I had

ways to get places to stay. Uh and I did that in London until I got back to London and I was like,

I'm going to go back to London. I'm going to go back to London. I'm going to go back to London. I'm going

to go back to London and I did that in London until I got picked up by the police and sent back

to Ireland. Then I would go back to London and I'll go back to Ireland. At the age at the age of

16 I went back to Ireland on a final trip and uh decided that I was going to admit drunken stupor

that I was going to kill myself. So I went to the middle of the town and uh stood on the bridge

because that's where everybody committed suicide to jump in and I got down there and had my like

Duran Duran white clothes on that nobody in the town wore. I'm not sure how they knew I was gay,

but anyway. I was standing there with my Duran Duran white clothes on. I was standing there with

my Duran, my hijab on bridge I have with me. It's not water, and there's rocks and I'm like I'm

not jumping on them. Getting this on video...

Even the parking ishum will be... I jump in and don't drive..

I will lie there to the people over there, that's where they say, we love you.

and what happens is the body bag, you know, you go to the morgue and there's a funeral.

I mean, that's it.

So, but that was my kind of video.

My head was like, well, it's going to be a good ending no matter what.

Anyway, thanks for all the time.

It was out.

The cops were there.

They said, come down, come out the bridge, we'll help you.

And they took me to the, to see the head doctors, to the mental institution.

There was two in Ireland.

One were in the city of Bruin, which had pool tables and table tennis.

Because I'd been there many times to see my uncles who were rocking and rolling for alcohol,

dementia or tremors and DTs.

And we'd go there not to see them, to play pool.

And everybody in Ireland stood at table tennis and pool.

But they didn't.

They sent me to the middle of the country, to a huge mental institution, which had an

alcohol unit, 15 week unit.

I was 16.

And it was pretty brutal, but I kind of enjoyed it.

I thought, you know,

I woke up and there was like all these old people with dementia and depression.

And I'd be like, after a couple of weeks, I would tell the psychiatrist, he was a complete pig.

He was horrible, horrible human being.

And I knew that too.

I said, this is not the way to treat people.

And, and I said to him, these people are screaming all night.

Like I can't sleep.

He said, they're screaming to go home.

You haven't had to leave since you got here.

What's like, what are you doing here?

Like, what is wrong with you?

I'm like, I'm an alcoholic.

He's like, what?

This is a mental hospital.

You don't belong.

You need to go home.

You need to go to the alcohol unit.

So I did this unit and, uh, did it for 15 weeks.

And I don't remember really, I don't remember.

And it seems like, like an old lifetime ago, which I guess it was really, but, but I was there and it just, uh, I did that unit.

I don't remember.

I don't remember anything.

I just remember that the way that these therapists spoke, counselor spoke to me the day I met them from the, you know, the rapport from the very beginning, when I walked into the room, I said, I will never speak to these pigs.

Like the way they spoke to me.

I guess that's why the walk-in is important for me because the way they spoke to me, they were like, why are you a good black guy and sit down there?

I'm like, so what happened?

What's going on?

Why are you drinking so much?

I like cider.

I like the taste of it.

You know, it's you too.

It's the music, the music.

I can't stop drinking.

I hear the music.

And, uh, so I left there and, you know, uh, didn't, didn't share with nobody.

I would, people would go to AA meetings and, you know, really it was all, it was a lot of, you know, great people that were much older.

I was 17 and they were saying, oh, you're so lucky to get it when you're young.

And I'm like, what, whatever.

And then they had like white shirts and gold watches and played golf.

And there were, you know, far as I was concerned, the roles dying, afraid of God.

And we're like making penance with God and there's no God, but there's steps and God is all over them.

And, you know, to me, it was the church.

I thought this is the church.

They're just revamped it.

And, you know, you don't have to pay to pass the basket.

Of course you pass it.

Plus there's always an age, right?

There's always money.

So, uh,

I didn't, I just didn't connect with it.

I didn't see that.

I had, I thought that, you know, it was family issues and it was because of this happening and that happening and all that stuff.

And, um, that certain stuff certainly needed to be sorted out.

But my reaction to that was to keep drinking and live a very chaotic, unmanageable life, which went contrary to everybody else who was around me.

The people were like people my age at that time were, were working, were going to school, were, had structure, were paying bills, had apartments.

And I was, uh, just avoiding any responsibility.

Because I didn't know how to do that.

I had no idea how to get an apartment or room.

And I wasn't going to ask anybody and people would say, get a room.

And I'm like, why?

I'm not going to stick around.

Why?

But when you've been here a year, I mean, you might, might get a room, you know, why don't you get a winter jacket?

I don't like jackets.

And, uh, so just stuff like that.

I was kind of like wired differently.

So, uh, fast forward, my worst drunk, uh, got sober at 19 for 18 months, went to AA meetings, got a job, didn't work with people.

I got a job in a refrigerator.

I was packing shelves.

Didn't have to deal with people at all because I was an equal opportunity.

I didn't like anybody really afraid of people.

And I still am, but, uh, but I'm not scared of you, but I was afraid then and scared, but I didn't want to mix with you.

And I got a job in the fridge and, uh, I went to meetings and I liked people in the meetings.

And there was a guy there who I thought was really helping him a lot.

And he was my sponsor.

And, uh, I thought he was really like a lovely guy, but kind of lost it.

And, uh, he, uh, I went to meetings every night.

And after 18 months, I was sitting on my bed, my laundry was done.

I've done my weekly laundry.

I looked at my life and I thought my life is manageable.

I mean, I've, I've, I've got, I'm managing, got some money.

I've got a little motorbike, a job managing my life.

So I, I really don't need it.

And I missed the bar and I missed putting my name up on the pool.

I want to listen to Madonna come out with an album.

It was a really good album.

And I thought, I want to go out.

I want the nightlife.

I want to go out, have some fun, you know, and I still come back to the meetings.

I see Richie.

I think.

And, uh, he understands that I had to go back.

And, uh, I, I thought it was something I could just pick up and put down that I had like choice over.

And up to that point, I was choosing because I'd kind of chosen to stay sober.

And I went drinking for a couple of days and I burned the room down.

I got rid of the bike.

Yeah, of course.

All the lucky clothes were destroyed and I got great joy in like making my life very chaotic, very quick.

Uh, cause all that stuff in that 18 months of being sober just came out while I was drunk.

And, uh, I was, you know, I was also a self-harmer through the whole drinking career.

Cutting and jaywalking, standing on bridges, walking ledges, hanging off trunks, hanging off trains.

I mean, just destructive living, destructive drinking, uh, reckless sexual conduct.

I mean, just complete crazy demoralization.

And somehow I got off on it because I kept doing it and it, it suited my head.

It matched how I felt inside my head.

And it seemed to be okay.

My perception was completely warped.

My life was completely warped.

And, and I still to the very end.

Believed that I was, my job was to manage it and not really accept help from anybody.

And, uh, that night, uh, I went drinking.

I put my head through a window.

I was in a bar and I, and the bar was good.

The music was good.

And I remember Freddie Murphy was sitting over in the corner with some of his friends.

And I went over to his security, gave him a slap because he was huge.

And I thought, what are you looking at?

He was like, I'm going to kill you.

I'm like, mother, I'm sorry, Ray, I'm like a good alcoholic.

And, uh, and I went outside and I thought, I hate my life.

I can't wake up like this.

I can't do this.

I can't do this.

I've been to AAF.

I really arrogantly thought that I had tried everything.

I tried really nothing.

I mean, I applied nothing that they said in meetings to, you know, meeting with people and talking to people.

I just wasn't ready.

So I threw myself through this window and I woke up going to the hospital in the middle, center of London, 1991, January the 7th or whatever it was.

And, uh, and I woke up and I was bleeding and I thought, I'm dying.

I'm going to die.

Oh my God.

My father died from brain aneurysm.

And my head was bleeding.

So I thought, I'm going to die.

I'm going to die tonight.

I was like, you got to save me.

Do you know who I am?

They were like, you're not what they got.

They're going to the hospital.

They've been here three days, three nights in a row.

But then I said, can you understand that?

You have an accident, you have a burn.

You can't wake me up.

You can't wake me up.

You can't wake me up.

He said, you need to get out.

You need to get out.

You don't want to die.

I woke up that morning and I said, I need to go to, and they said, you need to go to psych.

You need to go to psychiatry.

You need to stay in hospital.

I said, no, I've been in hospital.

What they said was true.

Well, I get it.

I get it.

I really get it.

I need to go to an alien meeting.

I went to an alien meeting.

There was a woman there.

She saw the state of me.

I inflected myself.

I said, you need to go to the hospital.

You need to go to treatment.

You need treatment.

You're sick.

Tell me about your childhood.

She asked me public questions and she could, I don't know who she was, but she obviously

knew what she was doing.

She said, you need to go to a treatment center.

I don't think you're ready to join the human race yet.

I don't think you're ready for the working life.

I don't think you're ready to be sitting in a room on your own.

I think you need to go out and speak to some people and get some treatment and not be punished.

So I went to treatment and when I was driving there, I thought, when I was going there on

the train, I thought, maybe I should cut myself because I looked pretty good when I was sober.

I'd wake up in sidewalks, many of them, and they would say, so what's going on?

I said, I was too drunk.

I don't remember.

They said, well, you seem okay.

Are you depressed?

I went, no.

I've got this morning's table tennis.

They were like, you seem okay.

You're not really, you know, didn't really diagnose me with anything.

And they would say, well, just don't drink.

So I would leave and I would just say, okay, I'm not going to drink.

And then I checked, we'll come and I get drunk.

So I bounced back quickly at like 17, 18, 20.

And so I went to the treatment center and I thought, I look too good.

I look, I look like an alcoholic.

And I went there and the intern counselor

he listened for about 10 minutes and he said, you should stay.

You should stay.

Don't go back to Luck Lake, forget Luck Lake, just stay here.

So I stayed and thank God I stayed.

I stayed for six months with no insurance.

It was strict because it was just normal life.

And that to me was strict.

Like, you got to make your bed.

Like my mother said, what's strict about that?

I'm like, that's tough.

Every day, like every time I get into it, I got to make it.

And she kept pretending to have a free year.

And now you've got to get up at a certain time.

I mean, that's just, that's, that's strict.

And I went to treatment and they were, I stayed there for that time and they taught

me how to live in the day sober and they privately spoke to me about everything

that I'd been through and everything I put myself through and everything I put

everybody else through and I had to write letters there to myself and start writing

on the steps and talked, learned about the manageability and the chaos of my life

and my dreams and there wasn't really many dreams to be honest with you.

I just wanted to keep on the move and just keep away from whatever it was that was going to get me.

And they helped me to understand this disease, that it was a family disease and that it wasn't my fault

and I didn't need to be touched, that it needed to be treated.

I couldn't think of a way to treat it.

And the good news was it was really simple.

It was really an easy treatment plan.

But the bad news was that I probably wouldn't want to do any of it because it's just the way it is.

Simple stuff that you just don't want to do.

Like make your bed.

You know, pay your rent at the end of the month, not the second, the end of the month.

Why? Because they want it at the end of the month.

And I had fights about God.

Like, why do we have to thank God?

He just kept this little nun in there.

She said, it's his name.

Just get over it.

Like, it's just his name.

Your name is Tommy.

His name is God.

Get over it.

We're not going to change his name for you.

I mean, there's billions of people on the planet.

You're the only one that comes along and changes his name.

Just get over it and let go and try and just let go and be a member.

Just be just try and be and be just be a member here.

You're not you're not in charge.

Yes, we know you want to be the counselor, but you're not the counselor.

You're not the nun.

You're not the spiritual guide.

And you're just you're an alcoholic.

And you've got how many days?

Just count your days and cherish them and try and enjoy being sober.

Try and be honest with yourself when you go to bed and ask yourself, is this better than what it was?

Is this better?

Is this a better deal than what it was?

Because if I really believe in my innermost self, then it's not.

I don't know if I'd stick around, but I've never felt that 28 years.

I've never felt that this is not better than what I put myself through drunk and sober, that this is not better than the degradation of not going through the window.

That was like the greatest thing I probably ever did.

But being in Dublin in the middle of the night and running away from home because somebody called me ginger.

I'm like, my reaction to that was to leave the whole country or kill myself.

It's just like way over the top.

And normal people don't deal with problems like that.

They like they would just take the person who said that.

And again, it's like, I don't know.

So I'm very mixed up and very sick.

And they told me, you're not a bad guy.

You're a good guy.

You've got a good heart.

You know what?

You've got a good, soft, sensitive, not a gay heart, a human heart.

You're a good guy.

You've got good and you've got not any good intentions.

But you're good on the inside.

I'm not a psychopath.

I do have compassion.

I do care about you.

I do care about I do want to be happy.

I just don't know how to do it.

And I don't know how to trust you.

And I'm too afraid to do that.

And I don't know what that's like.

So they were like, well, how is it here?

And I'm like, it's good.

It's nice.

It's like people are people are friendly.

You know, you should get rid of a few of them.

But people are friendly.

So I stayed there.

And that was my introduction to Alcoholics Anonymous.

I said, you need to go to meetings.

We're going to help you.

We're going to reintroduce you to meetings.

Meetings.

It's not about playing golf.

It's not about being afraid to die.

It's not about any of that.

Meetings is really what happens in meetings.

They said to me was in that room.

There is a power when you guys come together.

He said, you know, when you're in the middle of the night and on the beaches

in London and in the west south of England and two o'clock in the morning,

you're terrified and you're on your own and you're disconnected from everybody.

And he said, that's what meetings are not like.

When you're in meetings, you are connected.

Even if you don't want to be, you're just

connected. There's this we call it spiritual.

We call it bringing your spirit into reality and bringing it into a meeting of other drunks.

It doesn't get more real when they're sober.

So just sit in the room and then you're being this is the treatment.

You're being healed.

It's like there's like they're plugging the IV spiritual treatment and you don't even feel it.

But it means like in a cold and you're being treated whether you want it or not.

It doesn't matter.

This is so powerful that whether you want it or not, you're being treated just like

if you live with an alcoholic, whether you want to get sick or not,

you're going to get sick if they're an active addiction, they will destroy you.

They will.

They will.

The first day they'll annihilate you, they'll kill you or you'll kill yourself.

And and the same in treatment and in meetings, there's a treatment.

And if you if you go there and get your treatment, you can get well.

If you stop going, you get sick.

There's no moral applied to it.

It's not about being good or bad.

It's not about the only requirement is the desire to stop drinking.

There's nobody in charge, including you.

You're never going to be in charge no matter how long you're

sober, you're not here to ram it down anybody's mouth or you're in here to get

your treatment and and go out and live your life.

And every meeting that you go to is an assurance that you'll be returned

to sanity, that you'll be able to handle situations which is the best for you

and everybody around you and simple things like, you know, I come to a meeting

and I say, hey, I'm thinking about getting a job.

And my spouse would say, get a shitty one because you're going to get fired.

He's like,

it'll kill you for two years old or to kill you.

And recovery is the same.

You're never too young to die.

That's what I was told.

You have to be put in the box.

So you're not too young.

I was over 21.

I've stayed sober ever since.

And through the grace of God, I have no idea because not easy out there,

as we all know, and staying alive is hard enough.

No, I'm staying sober.

So but I was told that that's the treatment.

And if you keep going to meetings, you'll be restored to sanity.

Bring your body. Your mind will follow.

My therapist said to me, he said, you've been here six months and he was also an AMA.

He's also an AMA member.

He said, give yourself 30 years of

recovery, he said, from what I've seen, it takes about five to ten for you to kind

of like come to terms with denial and work through the first couple of steps and learn

about your unmanageability, sober and learn about what happened to you.

He said, steep yourself in your problem.

Talk about your drinking for the first year.

Talk about what alcohol has done to you, what it's done to your life.

Really see the problem for what it is,

your problem, not their problem, your problem, what it's done to you.

And try and come to terms with that.

And then while you're doing that, you're coming to

and you're starting to believe that there is a life, there is a powerful life,

sober, that will restore you to feel happy about being on the planet sober and being

returned, living sane, making sane decisions.

And staying sober is the proof of sanity for me.

When I stay sober, it proves that I'm sane.

For me to pick up, all it needs is some sanity.

And if I don't go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, I start getting sick and then I

will be insane and I will decide it's best to get sober.

I'll get drunk because I need to be treated.

And alcohol would treat this disease, not in a good way, but it will treat it.

So that's how I kind of learned it.

If I got it wrong, guys, you're all to blame because you did this to me.

Nothing. And you've done this to me all over the world.

You've done this to me.

You know, it kind of just went on like that.

You know, days turn into weeks, into months, into years, into decades.

And it's not easy out there, but it's there's no option for me.

I did.

I decided that if I drink, I knew in my inner self, if I drink alcohol or sniff

killer or use drugs or anything, if I do this to this head, if I mix any chemical

with this head, I'm going to end up dead and it won't be from probably not from

cirrhosis and it'll probably be from my jumping through a window or jaywalking.

Now I drive. Can you imagine?

So it would be just it's destructive drinking.

There were good times, but bottom line, it was destructive drinking.

And even if, you know, there's times in sobriety where I think maybe it was, you know, maybe I've never drank tequila.

I was in Mexico for my honeymoon this year and I thought, I've never had a handle martini.

I didn't have that back in Ireland.

You know, maybe it's because of the abuse.

Maybe it's because of this.

Maybe.

But as alcohol is concerned, my drinking was destructive drinking.

My drinking was never not destructive.

It was it was predicted.

It was predictable.

And I remember telling my mother in treatment, I said, Mom,

she said to the counselor, what's wrong with him?

He says, well, he's an alcoholic.

And I said, we have a dysfunctional family.

I was kind of like a little bit of blaming her.

We're dysfunctional because of you.

And she said, we don't find that you arrived, but you're in the woods,

you're in the middle of life and I'm worried about you.

Where are you?

Is he dead? Is he alive?

You come home with a bag of clothes, an alcoholic, and then you come home sober with money.

And you'd be like, you're not an alcoholic.

And then you come home and say you're straight and you're gay.

And then you're gone.

And we didn't.

We were as confused as you.

I'm glad you're locked up in here because

that's why she was like, well, it's wrong because we've been through this so many times.

What she didn't understand was the cycle of addiction and the way of life that goes with it.

So anyway, what it's like now.

So I came into Alcoholics Anonymous when I was 21 with a bad attitude.

He told me to take a seat.

And people who were not nice to me, they didn't come back to me a second time.

So I didn't suffer.

I didn't like being told what to do.

I would just tell them to go away, leave me alone.

And I had a couple of women who were old timers.

I don't know why, but they took me under their wing in Bristol in England.

And they said, you know, you can suffer six months and you need to work.

We've got a job for you in a coffee shop.

And I said, okay.

And I went and worked in this coffee shop.

I was not good in a coffee shop because, I mean, when you ask for a second cup, I'm like, don't you have any gratitude?

I mean, there's other people here, you know, tree cups.

Are you kidding me?

I mean, no.

There's a really odd, just bad attitude.

And they took me under their wing.

And there was a couple of men at the meeting, old timers.

They would say to me, hang in there.

I would say to them, I don't have any money, I have no work, I have no money, I have no cigarettes.

The gas is off at the house.

I sleep on a coffin.

I call my bed a coffin.

It's like getting out of a grave, the alcoholic apartment.

I loved it in meetings, but when I would leave meetings, it just felt like hell.

What the hell am I going to do all night?

I have no money.

It's just desperation on the inside.

And I wouldn't even go to get the cookies.

In a meeting like this, if I came in here hungry, I would be too humiliated to go down there because you would all see me taking the cookies.

And then you would be talking about, did you see Tommy?

He's like, you weren't doing that at all.

It's just my ego, my disease, my just alcoholism.

And eventually, you know, it just becomes painful enough sober that I just start to reveal myself to you guys.

I start to say, tell you what's going on.

And people would slowly, you know, my sponsor, my first sponsor, I'd see him twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays at seven o'clock.

He would make a cup of tea, Irish tea.

He'd have a saucer and a cup and he'd turn off the phone.

And he would say to me, you know, he'd ask me about my week.

We take it week by week.

I need to apply the steps to my life.

I look like he would say, how are you treating the stores?

How are you on the buses?

What's your behavior like?

And I just started chipping away at it.

Trying to live sober day at a time was never easy for me or you.

And, you know, I always say to myself, anything is possible.

I came to the States in 2010 with no papers to stay, with nothing but a car that broke down the day I arrived.

Good riddance of raptor.

And I've become a citizen since I've been here.

I've done four degrees since I've been here and finishing my doctorate, you know, for a redhead, blue-snipping psych patient.

He's not even inside of a doctor.

It's the journey of it all, you know, it's not the destination, the journey of living sober, really about not picking up a drink, day at a time, and what applied to me then applies to me now.

And it stands the test of time.

I just said I did 90 and 90.

The best time this year I've had is the last 90 days of coming to a meeting every day and just getting back into the booths and getting some commitment and following the structure of the meetings and just being a new member again.

And it's a very good time.

Thank you guys so much.