From Church to Wine: Robert's Journey to Sobriety

I'd like to apologize to Oscar and the meeting. I wish I could offer you a legitimate excuse, but I can't because I have no idea what all those people are talking about.

Anyway, I'm here, but I didn't see anybody raising their hands for a little bit of PR. I'm just going to go ahead and give this to you. I'd like to walk you out the door.

You know, I have a very, very good life today, another type of life. I didn't even know I wanted this life, this good life. I had no idea how to get this life, you know.

Also, if you're new, I know when I was new, I thought they paid the speaker, you know. They don't pay the speaker.

And when I'm done with this, you'll say, well, hell, I wouldn't pay for that either.

You know, basically, I have no authority. First of all, I was born and raised in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. There's no reason.

I have great parents. My parents, they were married for like 53 years, you know, and I had three other brothers and two sisters.

And my parents, they were very religious people, and they would go to church every Sunday.

Needless to say, we had to attend church also on Sundays. On Mondays, I had choir rehearsal.

I had to join the choir, and I cannot sing, you know.

So I had to join the choir.

So I had to join the choir.

And on Wednesdays, the prayer meeting.

And Thursdays, I don't remember, but it seemed like we were always in church, you know.

My parents, like I said, very, very good people.

I love my parents.

My father, it just seemed to me, Dad would tell us certain things he didn't want us doing.

And it seemed to me, everything that was fun to do, it seemed like it was a sin to do.

Like the blues.

I love the blues.

I love that music.

I remember my parents said, there will be no singing the blues.

They say, that's sinning music.

You will not sing that in here.

And I was quite young when I was looking at my mother.

And I asked her, you mean, if I sing the blues, I'm going to go to hell?

She says, that's right.

I said, well, I just have to go to hell, because I like the blues.

My father also.

I have never, never seen either of my parents like alcohol.

There was never any alcohol in my home.

My mother didn't even want.

You know.

My father, he told us, you know, like I said, there was four of us.

I had three brothers.

There were four boys.

He spent a lot of time with us.

And Dad would tell us, he said, you know, I don't want you boys out there drinking.

He said, I don't want you out there cussing.

He said, don't look nice for a young man to be squaring up there.

I don't want you boys doing that.

Dad said, that's pesky.

You know, Mr. Stanley.

There was a guy named Mr. Stanley that lived in America.

I met him in 2000.

He said, now, I'm going to give you the younger.

I've got the younger you're going to be.

I'm going to give you the younger you're going to be.

So he was there for the rest of his life.

He used to be a doctor.

He was a doctor.

He spent a lot of time with us.

And Dad would tell us, he said, you know, I don't want you boys out there drinking.

He said, I don't want you out there cussing.

He said, it doesn't look nice for a young man to be swearing up there.

I don't want you boys doing that.

Dad said, that's risky.

You know, Mr. Stanley, that was a guy named Mr. Stanley that lived in my neighborhood.

Mr. Stanley was a real drunk.

You know, Mr. Stanley was always very dirty, very smelly.

Always had a half pint of booze in his back.

He never walked straight.

You know, it wasn't uncommon to see Mr. Stanley laying over in the ditch, you know, holding a nap, rather.

You know, my father said, that's what whiskey will do for you.

You don't want to grow up to be like Mr. Stanley.

I remember that very well.

That was my idea then of somebody having a problem with alcohol.

And my father also, when he told us he doesn't want us to drink, he had to know that my father believed in capital punishment, you know.

So that was another reason for me not to drink, you know.

I really did for many years.

I was an athlete.

I played basketball.

I played football.

I ran track.

And my best sport was baseball, you know.

And I was told I was a youngster.

But if you're going to participate in sports, you don't drink and you don't smoke.

So I didn't do either.

You know, I just participated in the sports and had a great time.

Now, the first drink I ever remember taking was my last year in high school, getting ready to graduate.

And they were having a dance in the gymnasium that night, a big dance, final dance of the year.

And I went and I was with my friends.

And they all got together and said, Rob, you've never had a drink with us.

Someone didn't have a drink with us.

Someone didn't.

I was going away to college.

Someone was going away to the military.

Let's just have a great time.

You're the first who got the best of me.

And they passed a bottle of wine over to me.

And I remember taking a big swig of that wine.

And I remember how it made me feel.

I walked into that gymnasium where the music was playing, you know.

And that music sounded so good.

And my whole body was kind of moving, you know.

I felt then in those days, I felt that I was too shy to talk to girls there.

But what I know today is I was so obsessed.

That's what it was.

You know.

So.

That music was playing.

And I looked over to her.

And I thought I was a pretty girl in there.

You know.

And I asked her if she wanted to dance.

And she said yes.

So we stroll out there on the floor.

And I'll never forget that record that was playing.

It was this record by Smoky Robinson and the Miracles.

You really got to hold on.

I'm just messed up, you know.

And we just dancing.

And I'm just whispering sweet nothings in the music.

And I'm like, man, no wonder Dad didn't want me to drink that stuff.

You know.

It was a great time.

The music had ended up still locked up there.

You know.

I never forgot.

I left high school and I went to baseball school.

And I would go to school.

I would play baseball.

And before I had dances or whatever.

I remember.

I remember that one incident.

I started talking to Edward Corkwell about drinking beer.

You know.

Everything was cool.

It just made me.

I didn't know that alcohol didn't affect everybody that way.

I had no clue.

During that time, the Vietnam War was going on also.

And they were drafting young men into the military.

They got drafted into.

The military, you're going to go to the Army and you're going to go to Vietnam.

If you were in school, you could get a deferred.

So for some reason, I didn't think I had enough stuff.

There wasn't a lot of work in Arkansas.

So what I would do, I would drop out of school and move to Chicago.

I start working there, you know, get to work and buy myself some nice clothes and everything.

And then I got a letter from the draft board and they said, well, Robert, what are you doing?

I rushed back to Arkansas and I had to enroll in school.

I said, well, I'm in school, you know, and I had played this game for about four years, you know, finally.

So you hear about order, a report for induction into the United States Army, and I thought, I cannot do that because they're going to send me.

So I rushed down to the Air Force office and volunteered to the Air Force.

I volunteered for the Air Force and the Air Force was really good duty.

And my first assignment was in Amarillo, Texas, both basic training and tech school.

I'll never go to Amarillo.

I don't like Amarillo.

It's not fun.

I don't ever forget the first time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Weekend pass.

I got together with a bunch of guys.

You know, we went downtown.

What do we do?

We go into the bar.

We started drinking and it was just a lot of fun.

You know, just a lot of fun.

I had no clue anything was going on.

You know, I finished the training down then.

I mean, I stationed out at Edwards Air Force Base.

Good duty assignment, because I had a brother and a sister living down here in Los Angeles.

So I was at Edwards Air Force Base and I used to come down to visit my sister down in Los Angeles.

And she introduced me to a young lady.

about six months later, the young lady and I got married. And it was a year later, my first son,

Demetrius, was born. And that's when I got sent to Vietnam. Demetrius was seven weeks old. I

received my orders to go to Vietnam. And I'll tell you something about that. By this time,

I'd already lost some classmates, really good friends in that war. And I was really afraid to

go to Vietnam because I knew with every fiber of my being that I was going to get killed over

there. Any time I had a feeling that strong, things would happen. I just knew I wouldn't make

the same. But I couldn't tell anybody that I'm afraid to go to Vietnam because I'm supposed to

be a man, whatever that is. I couldn't let you know I'm afraid. So I ended up, I didn't have a

choice. I went to Vietnam. And when we first arrived, we stepped off the plane. And I was

put there with a couple of guys. We went to the Airmen's Club. And I remember what alcohol did

to me, sitting in that airman's club. It made me forget I was in a war zone when you listen to that

moment.

And just having a great time. Alcohol was working for me. I'm really, really grateful for that at

that time. I was pretty fortunate. I only had to stay in Vietnam for about three or four months

because I had a brother, Benny, who was a little bit older than I. And he came to Vietnam so that

I could leave. Because during those days, two brothers didn't have to leave. My brother came

specifically so I could leave. And I'll never forget him for that. So I left Vietnam and I

got assigned to a station in Thailand. And when I arrived in Thailand, I wasn't really

clear on what my job was. And I found out the commanding officer wasn't real clear on it either.

You know, so what I did, I asked a lifer in there. And I said, listen, I'm not clear what I'm supposed

to be doing. He got me the suggestion. He said, what do you do? He says, put a pencil behind your

ear, put a clipboard in your hand, and always walk like you're going someplace. You know,

while in Thailand, we could go downtown every night. I was not awful.

I never thought of anything of it back in the day when I was going downtown. But every night that I

went downtown, I always had two bottles of booze in my hand. And everybody that was hanging with

me had two bottles of booze. I wasn't going to hang around with guys when I'd have booze. We'd

always come back without it. I just thought there was nothing wrong with it. I remember I used to

take pictures downtown and write letters to my wife and send these pictures back to her.

And I remember she looked at the pictures and she wrote me a letter. And she said,

Robert, what are you doing? Are you drinking yourself to death? Every time I send a,

you know, picture home, there's booze on the table. I just stopped sending her pictures.

I completed my tour of duty in Thailand. They separated me from the military back to civilian

life. And I came back and I got this wife and this child that I need to support. And I had an

older brother, Ed, who's a member of the Los Angeles Police Department. And Ed suggested I

apply to the police department. And I did. So during that time, the police department was 20

weeks of intense training. So I applied to the police department. And I got a job. And I got a

job at the police department. I got accepted into the, and I'll never forget, I really wanted this,

you know, so I quit drinking. I really quit my drinking. I was able to get through it. 20 weeks

later, here I am now. I'd be the police. I'm the man. Or I could see me now. Now, every time I tell

somebody a question, they ask me, well, did you shoot anybody? And I never shot anybody. I came

close to shooting that one morning. I'll share with you what happened. At this point in my career,

I've been on the job seven or eight years. I don't remember. I do know that my drinking had

escalated. I was drinking a lot. I showed up on a Sunday morning for roll call. And the first good

thing happened to me that Sunday morning, I checked the roster. So they had assigned me

to work with a rookie. You see, that's good for me. Because if I'm working with this rookie,

I'm going to be the wheel man today. He's going to keep the books. Because if I'm no wheel man,

you're going to go down all these streets where there's absolutely no activity. So we're not

about to do any police work. So we're sitting in roll call. And they give us information on a

robbery suspect. It's over a description of the guy, his vehicle description, where he lives and

everything. We have all the information we need on him. So me and the kid, we go out and we check

the blank. He looks at me and goes, hey, cookie. I go, yeah. He goes, let's go scoop him up. And

he goes, who? He says a robbery suspect. He's over there in our area. So this alcoholic brain

of mine starts turning. I think, yeah, OK. This fellow knows that we know who he is. He knows we

are. He's not going to be there. Great idea, kid. Let's roll over. We go to this location. I get on

the horn. And I request about six black and whites to meet me at that location. I request a couple

of sergeants to meet me there. I'm at this location. And I'm out of my car. And I'm directing

traffic. You two guys go around here. You two guys go around here. Hey, serge, you come with me.

I think they're thinking, look at old cookie doing this police work. Go to the door. We knock on the

door. And a voice from behind the door goes, who is it? We're going to start police. Open up.

The guy goes, well, wait a minute.

My wife don't have any clothes on. Give me a minute. So we give it a minute. And we think,

we better go. So we do. We kick the door. And these officers are running around in this

apartment. They're looking for this guy. And I was still standing at the door. Perhaps I should

be looking, too. So what I saw, I saw one of the officers come out of the bathroom. And I thought,

now, there's a good, safe place for me to look. So I walked into the bathroom as if I'm looking

for this. But in the bathroom, over the bathtub, there was a shower curtain. Pulled back all the

way about that much.

Something told me to peek behind the shower curtain. And I pulled that curtain back. And

there he was. I did a very, very good job at it. I didn't realize that my drinking was getting

worse. And it was getting worse. I had no clue what was happening. I started taking extra time

off from work. You know, just what I know today is I was calling off drunk, you know,

because I had been drinking. So I take a sick day, you know. And finally, what happened to me,

my attendance got bad. I didn't want to work the streets anymore. I was still a relatively

young officer. I started working the front desk. That was for the old-time river. I would work

the jail. Finally, I come into work one morning. There were two sergeants that met me at the back

door. And they said that the captain wanted to see me in his office. I knew that was a problem

for me because you're only going to the captain's office for two weeks. You're going to get

accommodation while you're in trouble. I hadn't done anything in years to get accommodation.

But I walked into this captain's office. And what he did, he said,

he said, I'm not sure. He said, listen, I got 20 questions. One of the speakers mentioned that

they've seen those 20 questions. I'd like you to look at them and answer these questions as

honestly as you can. And I looked at those questions. And I asked those questions and

gave it back to him. And he looked. And I got to tell you, that's one of the few tests I passed

in my life. That man looked at me and he said, Robert, the way you answer these questions,

you are an alcoholic. And I thought, I am not an alcoholic.

Mr. Stanley is an alcoholic. I'm 20. I took a shower this morning. No, that's not what I said.

What I said, oh, really? Because he's just calling me an alcoholic. And I really don't know what to

do with this information. But what he told me, he says, they have a meeting for a law enforcement

officer downtown on 6th and Spring Street. He said there was an AA meeting down there. Now,

I don't know where I am here. This is in the late 70s. But I didn't really know Alcoholics

Anonymous really existed. I thought it was a...

I went to that, my first AA meeting was downtown on Spring Street. It was a big church. You sit on

the corner there. You go to the rear of the church downstairs and to the basement. And I walked in

there and there were about 20 people in there. And they all seemed to be very happy. They were

laughing. They were talking, smoking and drinking coffee. And a couple of them come charging in my

direction with a half cup of coffee slathered into my hand. They told me I was welcome there.

I gave my little bonus. I said, well, thank you. I didn't want to be there.

I wasn't sure what I was in there. And I sat at that meeting and a lady got up to share her day that had been like,

what she had been going through. I could identify with the feelings. I understood what she was saying

because I had felt the same way. The thing that turned me off that woman said, but I didn't take

a drink. I go, oh, no. I honestly thought, sent me to AA and said, you drink in this situation,

that's no, you don't. I really didn't know. Robert C, Quality of Life, Alcoholics Anonymous,

I said, no, you don't. I really didn't know. Robert C, Quality of Life, Alcoholics Anonymous,

I said, no, you don't. I really didn't know. Robert C, Quality of Life, Alcoholics Anonymous,

I said, no, you don't. I really didn't know. But my drinking continued to get worse. I showed

up again and the two sergeants met me at the back door. This time what they did, they put me on the

breathalyzer in full uniform. I was really, really familiar. I still had no idea I was an alcoholic.

I didn't know. I didn't believe it. So I never will forget, they put me on that breathalyzer. I

blew on it. I was on the way coming down. Actually, I blew on that breathalyzer. I blew a .23.

And the sergeant looked at that and he would look at that.

And then he started calling other guys. Hey, come here. Come here. Look at this. Look at this.

I'm even happy. I'm proud about this. I'm smiling at the back of him.

They suspended me from that job for 10 days. It was 10 days when I came. And I thought,

I'm a victim. I thought I was being mistreated. How could they suspend me from this job? There

are guys that do far worse. They go to bars and they shoot out their service revolvers. I don't

do that. I thought they were picking on me. So I tried to figure out how am I going to get back at

them. Robert C, Quality of Life, Alcoholics Anonymous, So I was off the

10 days when I came. My first day back at work, I complained the whole day. At the end of the day,

I went out and I played basketball. I ended up twisting my ankle. The next morning when I woke

up, my ankle was pretty swollen. So I called my job. I called the department. I told them that

I had twisted my ankle while I was working yesterday. So I could make the same injury

on duty, you know. So they told me to go see a doctor. I went to see a doctor. And the doctor

looked at me and said, you have a pretty severe sprain here. And what he said to me, you know,

something I was happy about. He said, well, Robert, tell you what you need to just take off

as much as you think you need. Now, that's good information for a guy who don't want to work and

just want to drink. I took him at his word. Take off and go. I don't think I had plans of going

back, you know. So what happened during that time, the police department could pay you a sick visit,

you know. And I was sent in this recline. I would see them as they would drive up in the

black and white company to pay me a sick visit. So I would sit in this recline and I'd get a couple

of ace bandages and I'd wrap them around my ankle. Then I'd put a sock around my ankle and I'd put a

sock over the ankle. I had that ankle looking about that big, you know. And then I'd put a

crutch on the wall and as recline, I'd put the band leg up in there so it makes it really good.

You know, and the guy looked at me and said, well, Bobby, how are you doing? I said, I'm not sure.

I think they might have to cut on the same. The guy looked at me and said, Robert, I don't know

who you think you're pulling. The last time we were here, you had the other ankle up in there.

That captain said, Robert, I understand. I understand you have a problem. I understand you

have to drink alcohol just like I have to drink water. At that point in my life, that was very,

very true. You know, he said, but you're a good officer. We want to take care of, help you out.

So what they did, they took me down to the city of Orange. It was a care manager down there,

21 day program. And I went to that program and what they did, they told me more about alcoholism.

They started taking us to outside meetings and I would go to these outside meetings and I would

listen to the differences, not the similarities. Robert C, Quality of Life, Alcoholics Anonymous, AA,

sobriety, sponsor, home group You know, there was an old guy my age now, you know,

standing up there talking, you know, and he says, well, I lost my house. You know,

they will check and lost my house. I lost my car. They will check. I lost my car. And you say,

I lost my job too. Not me. I'm the police today. And then the guy goes, I lost my wife. I lost my

wife and I didn't want to do it. So I really did think I was an alcoholic. I really did.

Robert C, Quality of Life, Alcoholics Anonymous, AA, sobriety, sponsor, home group

I stayed there for those 21 days. Robert C, Quality of Life, Alcoholics Anonymous, AA, sobriety,

sponsor, home group I left, went back to work and for 90 days,

I had nothing to drink. But also for 90 days, I never made contact with another

sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I never thought about reading a book,

calling another sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous because I had not drink for 90 days.

I thought I got this. You know, it was one Sunday morning. Absolutely nothing bad going on in my

life. Nothing good. Just an average day for a guy like me. A thought hit me, hey Robert,

you can't drink no more for the rest of your life. Robert C, Quality of Life, Alcoholics Anonymous, AA,

sobriety, sponsor, home group And I remembered in some of

those meetings I had attended, they said, if you think you're going to drink, call somebody,

talk to somebody, they said. I remember them saying that.

So the first thing I did, I went to this liquor store, bought myself a bottle and I put it underneath

my car seat. I said, I knew I had to discuss it. I know I have a committee here, so we thought we'd

discuss it. We're both saying no, yes, no, yes. Then we all agreed that I should drink.

I ended up drinking. I ended up losing that job. As a result of that, I ended up

not contacting my family. Robert C, Quality of Life, Alcoholics Anonymous, AA, sobriety,

sponsor, home group me. Because it wasn't that my family had turned their back on me. It was that

I felt too bad to go and see my family. You see, my life was so bad after that because I had no

idea what I'm going to do for a living. At this point in my life, I knew, I knew that I

knew how to stop drinking. I knew I had been to AA meetings and I could look at you. You said you

were alcoholic. You had problems stopping drinking, but I would look at you and you looked good. You

looked happy. You looked clean. That's not the way I, you know, I thought that you were doing,

you're drinking those cocktails, the little thing in the air, the syrup. I'm the type of guy,

I'm out there drinking that hot vodka from one of these, you know, and I've got to drink that

vodka. I actually remember going to get booze. I could wake up one day and have no mind about

it. Guaranteed, I'd find out already. I felt inhuman. You know, this is why I wouldn't contact

my family. When I walked down the street, if I walked past you, I couldn't look at you because

I was afraid you would look at me and you would know that I am nothing. I am nobody. You know, you

can't stand who I am. That's the way I felt about myself, myself. So I couldn't look at you.

I was very, very fortunate. I remember I used to drive around the streets in this old lady car on

my birthday. I would pray. I would cry. I would turn on my steering wheel. I would pray. I've

always believed in God. And out of the clear blue, I really was a friend of my cousin. He said to me,

he knew I had a father. He says, Robert, they have an excellent program at the VA hospital.

Robert C. And I first thought, here's a guy, I had to go to a VA hospital. I had to go to a VA hospital.

And I first thought, here's a guy, I had no place to live. I wasn't taking a shower or anything.

I was thinking out loud. This guy said, you can go to the VA hospital. And I think, man,

I don't want to go there. It's just a bunch of drones. You know, that guy talked to me. He took

me to the VA hospital. I am so grateful for the VA hospital because they accepted me. The VA hospital

gave me a nice, I will never take a bed for granted as long as I live, sleeping in a car

underneath the newspaper. VA hospital gave me a nice clean bed to sleep in. VA hospital gave me

clothes to wear. I was able to take a nice shower as many times a day as I wanted to.

The most important thing that the VA could have done for me and that they did, they took me to

an anonymous meeting. And this meeting they took me to, this group reminds me very much of it

because those people were so friendly to me. They were so kind to me. They came up and they talked

to me. See, I didn't feel worthy to take a seat here next to you. I didn't feel like I deserved

that. But you told me I was welcome. Robert C. And I believe that I was able to sit in these

meetings. I was able to hear people talk about what they were like. Because you see, when I came

here, I thought, it's no way you know how I feel. And I believe that. It's no way you know how I

feel. You come from a different place. I was able to hear you talk about what it was like for you,

what happened to you. And I started to believe, just believe, maybe, maybe I could do it.

Robert C. At some point, compulsion to drink was removed because you see,

when I, before that, every day I woke up, I had to drink. It didn't matter what. It was, it was,

even with the two children that I loved dearly. It came between them, a drink, I would take the

drink, you know. But you were very, very kind to me. That's how I was sober. About nine months,

I got a call from my attorney. My attorney said, the city of Los Angeles have been ordered to

rehabilitate you. They've also been ordered to give you your pension because they terminated

you illegally. You were ill. You know, so he asked me, what is it you want to do when you grow up?

And I'd always wanted to go into the computer industry. I would never tell anybody that,

because I was afraid they'd say, why don't you do it?

Robert C. I got a chance to do that. I went straight to my sponsor.

Many sponsors are very, very important. I went straight to my sponsor and I told him about this

opportunity. My sponsor asked me, what is it I would like to do? And I told him. He said, well,

let's give it a shot. You know, and I, I did. I started going to an electronic school out here in

the Valley. I was attending school every day, but I was having problems in that school.

I learned at Alcoholics Anonymous, if you're having a problem,

if you tell somebody about it, you can get help. If you don't tell anybody what's going on,

it's a very, it's a very slight chance you're going to get any help. I would go to my meetings

and people will say, well, Robert, how are you doing in school? And I would say,

I am not doing very well. And that's something that's really on my chest. I said, I'm not doing

very well. I don't know if I'm going to be able to get through this school or not. There were people

in those meetings. At that time, our meetings would all start at eight o'clock at night. They

were always in, they were supposed to end at 10, but they were always in after 10. There were

people that after meeting, they would come home with me. They said, you probably just need to be

taught how to organize. And these people came home with me, taught me how to study, how to organize,

and I was able to get through that. With the results of these people helping me. After

completing that school, I got sent out here and I was in Woodland Hills for my first interview at

Xerox and I went out there and I took the written test and I passed that. And they told me to cut it

back that afternoon for an oral interview. And with that lunchtime, I got a lot of time to think,

you know, this head starts going, you know, hey, you don't need to go back. You don't know what

you're doing anyways. They're not going to hire you, you know, you know, since you're wasting your

time. Better than done yet, you know, since you're wasting your time, you know. So, but thankfully,

I had been trained to call my sponsor. And I called my sponsor and told him about these thoughts. And

what he said to me is, Robert, results is not up to you. It's not up to that management after you.

It's up to God. He said, that's it. I believe that. I bought into that. I showed up for the

interview and walked in this room. I looked in this man's office and he had all these plaques

around the wall, golf plaques and golf trophies. I figured this guy must play golf, so do I. You

know, so he said, well, Robert, tell me a little bit about yourself. I started telling him about

the little hands-on training I'd had at the school and a little bit I knew about electronic. And I

said, and my hobby is playing golf. You know, so we talked about 20 minutes and he gave me a job,

you know, and I started working there, you know, and I was like, well, I'm going to do this. And I

worked there for about five and a half years. Then another opportunity came up working at a

different computer company. And I thought this is probably a good idea, but I checked with my

sponsor and my sponsor told me to look into it. And I did. I looked into that and that was a,

that was a great gig. The company that I went to, I used to get a chance to travel a lot.

And I'll tell you the first trip I ever took was back to Boston. I had never been to Boston before

in my life. You know, they treated me very well. You know, I went back to Boston on this trip and,

you know, prior to that, you know, when I was a kid,

growing up, you know, I'd be watching these old black and white movies and,

and this guy looked like his name was Jim. Jim would come home in his business suit and Jim

would have his briefcase and Jim had been out of town on business, you know. So there I am in

Boston. And what happened, I was going to be there for three weeks. I sat there in my room and I

started to feel really lonely. I said, no, don't know anybody. And I started thumbing through the

material that was on the table. There was a phone number for Alcoholics Anonymous. I called that

phone number for Alcoholics Anonymous. And the guy asked me,

hey, can you get here? Do I need to pick you up? I said, no, I have wheels, I can get.

So I drove to that meeting. When I pulled up to the meeting location,

I knew I was in the right place. And there they were again.

I was smoking and drinking coffee, you know. But I was a little apprehensive because,

you see, I'm used to my home, I'm used to my peers, you know. These are my peers.

And a thought occurred to me, they're just a bunch of alcoholics. So I did what I've been taught to

do. I went there and I just started walking around. Hi, my name is Robert. I'm visiting here.

There was a man I introduced myself to. He went in his pocket, put his business card out,

and wrote his home number on there. He gave that to me. He said, Robert, you can call me

anytime. If you think about it, I don't know any other employee or any organization where a perfect

stranger put your eyes on you for the first time. He'd give you his home. I don't know any place

to be. And I did call that guy. And I hung out with that guy. And I went to meetings there.

And I got done with that school successfully. When I came back, I went to my meetings,

and my friends said, hey, Robert, where you been? And I said, hey, Robert, where you been? Because

we really missed you. I've been out and down on business, you know. I'm not going to stand here

and tell you that every since I've been sober, everything in my life has been perfect, because

that is not true. When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, you didn't promise me a perfect life.

You didn't promise me a wife, a car, a house. What you promised me was sobriety. What I heard you say,

if I put Alcoholics Anonymous first, everything else will know. I lost my mother in sobriety.

Robert C. You know, my father called,

and he said, you'll need to come home. He said, because I don't think your mother's going to last

very long. And I went back home to see my mother. You see, my mother had seen me go through all this

crap that I did. She had seen my dreams and didn't know what was wrong with me. You know, she also

got a chance to come out here and go to a meeting with me and see the people that returned her son.

I went home to see my mother. My mother had lung cancer. And she looked just totally different,

just broke my heart to look at my mother in that condition. That's why my mother was always very,

very vibrant and beautiful woman. You know, to see my mother the way she looked, I could not

control myself. I was finally able to get myself together and go back in and look at my mother and

talk to her. And my mother looks up to me, and she pinched me on the chin. She says,

my little boy's going to be all right. You see, you gained my mother's son back. She got a chance

to feed him. Chances are, if I was still drinking and my father still come home, I would not have

gone home from my mother's funeral. It would have been very, very difficult for me to live with that.

That's the way I am. In sobriety, I got married in sobriety. I got divorced in sobriety. Life

goes on. That's life. No animals. That's just life. That brother I told you, Benny,

when he came to Vietnam, Benny passed. Benny was only 57 years old when he passed. You see,

I had a grandmother living to be 102 years old. And my father just recently passed. He was 100

years old. You know, and so I thought Benny was going to be around here eons. You know,

lying about how he used to play baseball and so forth. But he went to the hospital and he never

got out. At his funeral, there were people in my group. They had never met Benny before. They went

to Benny's funeral to support me. My phone kept ringing. Guys I sponsored called me. People in the

room said, is there anything we can do for you? And I started going to meetings. I stepped up my

knee. The thought of drinking had never really occurred to me. Alcoholics Anonymous is what

occurred to me. I got sober in October. I'm sorry, in January of this month. I got sober in January.

January of 1983. I've been sober 35 years, soon to be 36. I have had a very, very, very good

sobriety. I can honestly say that in that 35 years, I have never said that I hate being sober.

I've only been grateful that I'm sober. I am so grateful for a program like this

because I didn't know what to do. I knew that drinking that alcohol wasn't good for me,

and I couldn't do it. I knew that. I didn't know that this would work.

I was able to come in here and listen to you talk about the 12 steps. I was able to follow

those 12 steps. I got a sponsor that I trusted. I absolutely trusted. And he gave me directions

of what to do. And I'm so grateful that I had been given the gift of willingness to do what

that sponsor said. That son, Demetrius, that I mentioned earlier, he ended up with the same

disease. I thought, okay, that's cool. We'll just try that. We're going to have a destiny together.

It didn't exactly work that way. It was very difficult for Demetrius.

Today, he is sober for five years, but Demetrius has been around this program for 15 or 20 years.

He's sober today. He used to live out here in the valley. I love my son. His life is going well. I

have another daughter, older daughter, and she's got these three little girls and a little boy.

I get a chance to spend a lot of time with my grandchildren. I have a total of 13 grandchildren,

and nine of them live very close to me. And I get to spend a lot of time with them. In fact,

five of my grandkids were at my home. I had a lot of time with them. I had a lot of time with my

grandkids at my home a couple of days ago. We had a great time. I got to tell you, my house is a

mess when they left. It ranged from ages seven months to 25 years old. She's got a couple of

twins there. My youngest daughter had twins. I'll tell you, I love my kids. I love my grandkids,

and they love being around me. You see, my children have always... I didn't know how to

receive a lot of them. I had no idea what I was giving them. I had no problem giving them. I

didn't know how to receive a lot of them. These kids have just been the apple of my eye.

Now, I'm going to wrap this up with this little story I like to tell at the end of my talk,

because it kind of reminds me of drinking in the community. These two little boys

live next door to me. One was seven years old. One was five years old. So the little seven-year-old

looks at his five-year-old brother and says, you know, we're old enough to start a company.

And the five-year-old goes, okay. So the seven-year-old says, I'm going to use the word

hell, and you use the word fighting. And the brother goes, okay. So the next morning, they go

to breakfast, and the mother looks at the little seven-year-old, and she says, well, honey,

what would you like for breakfast this morning? He's scrappy. He goes, oh, hell, just give me a

bowl of Cheerio. And she does not have it with this response. Throws him up from the table,

throws him into his room, slams the door behind him. This five-year-old is sitting here looking

at this, aren't you? You know, so, honey, what would you like for breakfast this morning? He

said, I don't know either, but you can get your fat ass on a Cheerio. You know, I'm so grateful,

and I appreciate it. Awesome.

Robert C. Right.

Robert C. I appreciate each and every person answering,

because it is people like you that gave me the life that I want. It is people like you.

You took time out of your day. You took time out of your day to talk to me, even when I didn't

believe, even when I was able to believe. You gave me your time. You can't beat that. I am

so grateful to Alcoholics Anonymous. Thank you all so very much.