Frank's Journey: From 30 Years of Drinking to 40‑Year Sobriety

- My name is Frank. I'm an alcoholic.

- All right.

- Thank you, Scott, very, very much

for having me here tonight.

Marianna, that was wonderful.

You're a hard act to follow.

I'm glad to be here tonight.

I spoke at this meeting seven years ago

when Elizabeth was secretary,

and Elizabeth and I and Scott, I guess,

knew each other from the convention planning committee

that we served on at the time.

And I gotta tell you, when I came to that meeting,

and that was the meeting that was down the back alley,

and I didn't get mugged or anything that night,

but when I got there, I had no idea.

I'd never been to this meeting before,

and I pulled up, and there was a bigger group at the time,

as you know, but there was a group of ladies,

about 10 or 12 ladies, that were in a circle,

and they're all holding hands in the parking lot.

And I wasn't sure if I had the right place or not,

but anyhow, I got in there, and I found out later

that these ladies were praying for the young lady

who was gonna be the 10 minutes speaker that night.

So I didn't know, when I pulled up here tonight,

and I was so impressed with her, I really was,

'cause after I left that meeting,

I was telling all my friends about that great meeting

down there in Sherman Way, and the spirit of that meeting.

But when I pulled in tonight, there was a group of guys,

and I hope you guys were all praying for me tonight.

(audience laughing)

Anyhow, I wanna preface my remarks

that I'm not a circus speaker, I'm an alcoholic

who's been asked to share his experience, strength,

and hopefully with you people.

And I wanna watch the time.

I remember several years ago, I was speaking up in Ojai,

about a group about like this, a real friendly group,

and there was a break during that meeting,

and one of the guys, one of the old times that the break

came up to me, he says, "Look, this meeting ends at 8.30,

"and if you're not done, you're gonna be here by yourself."

(audience laughing)

I don't wanna be in that situation here tonight.

Anyhow, I didn't get to this program by any accident.

I drank for 30 years, I was 48 years old

when I came into this meeting.

Back up a second, my sobriety date is September 19th, 1984.

My home group is the Stags of Sobriety,

which is a men's stag at the Cabrillo House

in Colonel Clark, and that's been my home group

for about the last 11 years.

My first 26 years in the program, my home group

was a men's stag meeting that went from home to home.

And what a wonderful feeling that is to host a meeting.

We had anywhere from 15 to 25 guys,

and some days we had either rent chairs

to get the people in that meeting,

but what a wonderful feeling that was.

And we stayed together for 20-some years,

and because the problem with that type of meeting

is that we did not have our name in any kind of directory.

It was just, and so we lacked bringing in newcomers.

That was our fault.

And all of a sudden, we were down to about four or five guys

because other people had either moved away,

started a new meeting of their own,

and so forth.

So we made a group conscience to dissolve our meeting,

and then I found the stag sobriety here in Colonel Clark.

I'm not going to get into a big drunken log,

but I want to assure you that I burned my seat

in this program.

I drank everything under the sun.

I'm originally from Cleveland, Ohio,

where actually I'm from the rural part

of Cleveland farmland.

And in Ohio at that time,

they had something called 3/2% alcohol beer.

I don't know if anyone calls that or not.

I'm going back in time.

But I, so I didn't drink while I was in high school.

I didn't smoke, but I certainly made up for it

when I got out of high school,

and I drank everything I could get my hands on.

When I got out of high school, I had no,

there was no intention or discussion, I should say,

in our family about going to college.

And Marianna, I think that's wonderful

that you put yourself together.

So I went to work, and I went to work at that time.

Actually, I was working part-time

for the last two years in school as a part-time dishwasher.

And I stayed with that company for the next 16 years.

I went to work after I got out of high school

as a dishwasher, and one day I talked to my boss,

and I just told him that I had some desires

to stay in that industry.

This was a big cafeteria that I worked at.

And to make a long story short, he said,

"Well, if you're interested in the business,

you're going to have to learn how to cook

or have a knowledge of cooking.

You don't have to be a chef,

but you have to know a knowledge of cooking

because of recipes and that type of thing."

So he said, "But," and I was working

an eight to 4.30 shift as the porter,

washing dishes, mopping floors, putting stores away,

so on and so forth, and I enjoyed it.

He said, "Well, the cooks start at 5.30 in the morning,

and if you want to come in and work with the cooks, fine.

I'll let them know, and they can show you the ropes,

and you can work with them.

But there's one thing," he said,

"because of our budget, I can't afford to pay you."

This was going back into the '50s.

So I came in at 5.30, and I worked from 5.30 to 8,

8 o'clock with the cooks, doing breakfast,

short order work, bringing up sauces and things like that.

And then at 8 o'clock, I turned into the porter.

I wasn't paid for those first two and a half hours,

but I did that for a long time.

I stayed with that industry.

I was in management by the time I was 20.

I was in supervision when I was 27.

This was a big national food service chain.

And I wasn't only an alcoholic, I was a workaholic.

And two kind of went together, whether there was food,

there was alcohol, and I learned how to tend bars.

So I was also a part-time bartender,

and one for the customer, and one for me.

It seemed to work that way for a while.

In any event, you know, I met a young lady.

I have to tell this story, my wife's not here tonight.

She's, my wife has Parkinson's,

and she doesn't get around like we used to,

but we'll talk about that.

And she's a tough bird.

She's the love of my life and my best friend.

My wife's name is Sandy,

and Sandy and I, in April, were married for 62 years.

We still like each other.

We're still friends.

She's the love of my life, and she's my best friend.

And you know, with the pandemic this past year or so,

we've been kind of all cooped up together.

And I don't know about you people

and the married couple in the back,

and you know, do you get on each other's nerves?

Well, my wife and I, even after 62 years,

get on each other's nerves,

and we made a pact among ourselves

that we're only going to have one argument a day.

And my wife says, "You better make it a good one."

So moving on to the drinking portion.

We were married young.

We started a family.

We had two sons a couple of years apart.

We got married in 1959.

In 1969, after I had moved up the ladder with this job,

and I had a good job,

I got a little burned out,

and the alcohol was taking over my life.

And I had a job offer to come to California

to change locations 180 degrees.

I was going to go to work for a company

who was starting up in the training computer

and making educational films.

I knew nothing about this.

I didn't know a computer from microwave oven.

And so, but I, at that time, again,

the alcohol was taking over my life.

And my wife was, we sat down and we talked about it.

And she said, "You know, sweet person she is,

whatever you want to do, we'll do."

So we packed up in June of 1969.

We drove cross country with the two boys

who were at that time, nine and seven.

We got to California.

I started a new job and it wasn't long into that job.

I was bored stiff.

I was doing office work.

I was like, I was a clock watcher.

I could hardly wait to get out of there.

And I used to put it in 10, 12 hour days

when I was back in the food business.

And I didn't object to that at all.

And finally, after the boring man,

a lot of drinking and a lot of disruptors,

just a lot of damage to the family during that period.

I talked to my boss and I told him I needed to leave.

And he says, "Fine, if you want an interview,

just, you can stay here as long as you want to stay here."

So after about six months, I says, "Sure."

That's my boss.

I says, "I have to, I really have to go now."

And fortunately, very fortunately, I interviewed

for a job up in Tacoma, Washington,

which is between Seattle, excuse me,

Federal Way, Washington,

which is between Tacoma and Seattle.

And it was with the same company

who I worked for back in Cleveland,

but they were a national company now.

And they were opening up a major food service

for a major lumber company.

I won't mention the name

because I did some damage up there too.

But I had the best of all worlds.

I had stayed with that company

for 16 years back in Cleveland.

They rehired me within a year's time.

I went up to Federal Way, Washington.

I opened up this gorgeous, gorgeous cafeteria.

It had executive dining rooms on the top floor.

We entertained the governors and the senators.

And at that time, Richard Nixon was vice president.

He came out and toured the facility.

And when they came out, my cook stayed over

and she did the cooking for these people.

And I put on a little gold jacket.

It became the bar counter.

I loved that job.

The bar was crossed as big as the case

where we kept all the liquor.

When it started to focus at the sofa,

but six feet high, it all glanced in.

And the vice president said to me,

"Here's the key."

It was a locking key.

There were only two people who had access to that booth.

And it was me and him and I.

And he says, "The one thing you have to know,

we don't ever want to run out of milk."

Well, he's talking to the right guy.

So whenever any of the alcohol got down to a short level,

I made sure that I went out and replaced it.

But all those partial bottles in a brown bag

ended up in my apartment.

And I had my whole countertop was full of those.

So I was only up there for six, seven months.

It rains.

If anybody survived with that area geographically,

it rains every day, every day.

And there's probably a lot of alcoholics

up there because of them.

I fit right in.

So I came back and I, fortunately,

I was able to change jobs in the same field.

But here's what happened.

Because of the drinking continued and continued,

I found myself after putting in 16 years,

and I found myself changing jobs every year

because they didn't want to do it my way.

And my wife and I went through some marital problems

at that point.

We were married about 14 years.

We had a third child.

Shortly after we came out here,

I thought my wife was carsick when we drove out here

and I planned out here, she's pregnant.

So eight years later, we had number three.

And, but the kids were kind of ignoring dad

and my wife and I weren't getting along well.

Jobs, I was changing.

Fortunately, fortunately,

I was able to piece my employment together

within a reasonable period of time,

but I had to change my resume.

I had to fake it a little bit.

I don't know if anyone's ever done that,

but a good alcoholic knows how to do that.

So I, my, and I jumped around from job to job

and my last employment before I did retire

was I was the food service director at a major hospital

in Pasadena, Huntington Memorial Hospital.

I was there for 16 years and I had a staff of 125 people.

All I had, I had five people to manage.

Those were my assistant managers.

But let me go back just a bit.

I drank a lot and that's what I'm here to talk about

a little bit.

And I drank everything and anything,

but towards the end of my drinking career,

as I call it, I really concentrated on drinking martinis.

Now, I'm not going to take a group conscience

if there's any martini drinkers here,

but I just want to share with you

what I call my perfect martini.

I'm going to take a little sip.

(laughing)

Anyhow, the perfect martini for me,

because I was a planner all my life.

I could plan things, plan menus, plan operations,

plan purchasing, and so I was planning my drinking.

And before I leave the house in the morning,

I'd have made sure there was at least

one of those big eight ounce tumbler glasses

that I would put in the freezer

'cause I wanted to chill glass.

Made sure I had enough vodka.

Made sure I had the vermouth.

Made sure I had ice.

Made sure I had olives.

'Cause you need a little nourishment, you know?

(laughing)

So I'd come home after what I call a tough day.

And again, I had a great job.

I made it tough.

I was a great finger player, but I survived.

So I come home and I'm going to have that perfect martini.

And I take the glass out of the freezer

and I get the ice cubes and put a few in there

and I take the vodka and I don't know measuring.

I just pour that boy right over.

And then I take just a dash of vermouth

'cause you don't wanna waste it.

That's a sin.

And a few olives again for the nourishment.

And I slug that boy down.

And then I have another one.

This is all before dinner.

'Cause dinner I may have a little glass of wine

and after dinner I'm gonna have a beer.

But so that was my perfect martini.

But after a while I'm gonna tell you

what that perfect martini turned into.

You know, I didn't need the frozen glass.

I didn't need the ice.

I didn't need the vermouth.

I didn't need those rotten olives.

And I'd come home and I'd drink that vodka

straight out of the bottle.

Soon as I got to the kitchen,

ran out of the cupboard to drink it.

And you know, after a while,

I guess the booze wasn't taking hold.

It wasn't doing what I thought it was supposed to do.

In fact, I thought my wife, who I love dearly,

I thought my wife was watering out my vodka.

So one day before I left for work,

I took a pen, I marked the back end of that bottle of vodka

'cause if she'd water it down,

that's gonna be up a little higher.

So I'd come home that day and I'd bottle it

and say, "Come in the kitchen."

So it's never gone.

They've marked it.

Everything is the same.

She wasn't watering down.

Is that the vodka and alcohol was not working for me anymore.

But that didn't stop me from drinking.

And I don't wanna go into all the,

some of the trouble I got into because of my drinking.

Fortunately enough, I was able to hold my job

and things like that.

You know, I got here, as I said before,

when I was 48 years old

and I've been sobering out for 37 years.

So if you do the math,

I turned 85 years old in October.

And I am getting a little,

I don't wanna say the same thing now.

Just someone, I heard a speaker on Sunday

who was a little younger than I and he says,

"I'm not old, I'm just seasoned."

So I'm seasoned, believe me.

So I wanna tell you, I remember my last drunk

as if it was yesterday and that's been 37 years.

And that was 13,583 days.

If I still remember that, it's clear as a bell.

And that happened on the 18th of September, 1984.

I came home from work.

And once again, I started complaining about my day,

my job, and all those other people.

And they don't understand the blah, blah, blah.

And here, started with that martini, started helping.

And my wife said,

"We're having company for dinner tonight."

One of the ladies I worked with and her husband,

they're coming over.

And at that time, Robin, we lived at the Christmas tree.

We lived that street right around the back of it on Friar,

which was near Pierce College.

And we had a nice backyard and a barbecue.

So they came over and I knew them.

And we had drinks before dinner,

during dinner, and after dinner.

And then, you know, in the conversation,

I'm starting to slur my words a little bit.

And he's starting to catch up with me.

And I, the fella was as nice as anyone here tonight.

He was a nice guy.

And I didn't like something.

I didn't like he said something that just rubbed me wrong.

And I got very belligerent.

This nice guy with a shirt and tie tonight,

I got very rude.

And I didn't ask him.

I told him to leave.

I told both he and his wife to leave.

My wife is so embarrassed.

My wife was ready to kill me.

And I didn't kid her

because I'm just going to have another drink anyhow.

So I'm sure some of you people

may have been in situations similar to that.

Obviously my wife and I spent the rest of the evening

arguing.

One thing led to another.

I didn't stop drinking.

I don't know what time we ever went to bed.

I ended up in the back bed to know that for some time.

But anyhow, I woke up the next day and I had a hangover.

My head was as big as this room.

I don't know how I managed to get up to drive to Pasadena,

which is about 30 miles, 35 miles.

And I was just so scared to death.

I was shaking.

I don't know how I drove that fire.

I held onto that wheel as if it were the end of the world.

In any event, I got to work.

As usual, I'm the boss.

So good morning, good morning.

And I make my rounds.

I say hello to everybody.

And I go out to a coffee pot,

which is just right around the corner on the trade line.

And I pour myself a cup of coffee.

And by the time I got back to my office,

which is like from there to here,

I still have to already, because I'm shaking so bad,

so terrible.

And I knew right then and there,

but I couldn't make it the rest of the day.

I just couldn't.

So I called my assistant manager in and I said,

you know, I can't, I have to leave early today.

I think I have a touch of the flu or something.

Well, you know, she knew, my staff knew,

everyone knew that I was a drunk, except I didn't know.

I didn't know I was an alcohol.

I knew I drank a lot.

And every time I drank, I got in some kind of trouble.

Financially or at home.

But anyhow, so I go back home that morning,

about maybe about 10, 11 o'clock.

And my wife, she had stayed home that day from work

because we were up to all hours of the morning arguing.

And so she stayed home.

And by that time she was in the back bedroom,

door closed, obviously.

And I had to go in there and make amends, I guess.

So I went to the back bedroom and she was ignoring me.

And by this time Sandy and I were married for 25 years.

And I'm sure my wife would have liked to have a nickel

for every time I opened a conversation with, I'm sorry.

You know, this is where my story gets a little corny

because I'm sitting at the edge of the bed

and rather than saying, I'm sorry, I says, honey,

I think, I think I'm an alcohol.

Now why and where are those words ever came from?

I'll never know.

It was a gotcha.

And she said, why don't you lie down for a while,

get some rest and we'll talk about it after you get up.

And I did.

And I lay down in that bed, Scott,

and the room is spinning and I want to get out of here.

I'm sick.

And I said, God, get me out of this one.

I'll never take another.

God must've been listening to me that day

because it's been 13,583 days since I took that last drink.

And I got up around, I guess around four o'clock

and you know, I thought, I thought wrong.

I thought that maybe cold beer might be the answer.

You know, well, no, rather than that,

I had a little common sense

and I went to the telephone directory.

And again, I knew nothing about alcoholics.

Absolutely nothing.

How I even, so I started thumbing through the directory,

alcoholics, called out, called central office.

And then I saw alcoholics.

And I said, I don't know if I even said my name

or anything, I says, I need help.

And I talked to a charming, charming lady

who I've never met.

Her name was Phyllis.

Phyllis kept me on the phone for about 20, 30 minutes.

And she knew more about me at that,

after that time that I knew about myself.

She explained a little bit about the program

and how it works and things called meetings,

silk sponsors, being of service and so forth.

But all I knew is that I drank a lot

and I wanted to get the heat off at home.

So she didn't ask me,

and we lived in Woodland Hills at the time,

she didn't ask me if I wanted to go to a meeting that night.

She says, I'll have someone pick you up tonight

at seven o'clock, be ready.

That was it.

Knock on the door at seven o'clock,

gentleman who maybe about five, six, seven years older

and I get involved, he had a glass eye.

He said, my name is Jack, I'm an alcoholic.

I'm here to take you to your meeting.

Fine, so we walked, get in Jack's car.

First thing, he looks over at me with that glaring eye.

He says, did you drink much?

And I said, well, I had a couple.

Well, few days later, I thought about what Jack had asked me

and I went, had to go back to Jack and say,

Jack, I really drank more than a couple.

I said, very heavily.

He says, you know, I knew that,

but I wanted you to tell me.

He says, this is a program of rigorous honesty

and before you can be honest with anyone else,

you have to be honest with yourself.

So Jack took me to my first meeting,

which was a big speaker meeting on Lindley Avenue.

56, 57 Lindley Avenue, there was a church in front,

the big meeting hall in the back.

And that's where the convention planning committee

has met for years and years.

But anyhow, I went to that speaker meeting

and I was amazed.

I walked into that, over a hundred people, I'm sure.

And I, again, know nothing about alcoholics.

And here's what I saw.

I saw people smiling and laughing and hugging each other

and having a good time and whatever they had,

that's what I wanted.

I didn't want the life that I had before.

My life was near ruins when I got here, believe me.

And I saw this and I loved it.

I saw the steps on the wall and it said,

we became unmanageable and our life was powerless

over alcohol and our life was on there.

And that was me.

That was me and I didn't have to look at any other steps.

That was it.

I knew I was in the right place.

But Jack took me home that night and my wife had stayed up

'cause she wanted to hear about the meeting.

And Lois said it was a speaker meeting.

And every once in a while, the speaker would refer

to something about almost telling my story.

Jack would nudge me.

He says, "Did I remind you of someone?"

He was my guardian angel for the first 30 days.

But Jack took me home that night

and he gave me two pieces of literature.

The first one was something called 20 questions.

Maybe some of you are familiar with it.

You know, it asks some very embarrassing questions here.

And he asked me to fill out this 20 questions.

Some of the questions were,

is drinking making your whole life unhappy?

Have you gotten into financial difficulties?

Yeah, we were gonna declare bankruptcy.

I wonder if that's what he meant.

Is drinking jeopardizing your job?

Yeah, every year it was jeopardizing it.

Do you drink to build your self confidence?

I had no self, I had no self esteem either.

Well, and if it says, if you answer yes

to one of the questions, you may be an alcoholic.

And then if you answer two or three,

but if you answer three or more,

you're definitely an alcoholic.

Well, I had 17 yeses and I lied on two others.

I was qualified.

He then picked up, he showed me,

he gave me a directory, AA directory.

And he said, look, here, he went through the directory

and he circled where he was gonna be the next six days

in a West Valley.

And he says, here's where I'm gonna be

for the next six days.

And I want you to meet me if you're serious about this.

And he said, look, you're 48 years old.

You know how to find all the bars and the booths.

You find these meetings.

And I did.

And I go to my second meeting and there was Jack.

He'd be at the other end of the hall, meeting hall.

And I'd walk in the door very sheepishly and he'd say,

hey, Frank, come on over here.

We want you to meet Frank.

He's got one day of sobriety.

And he had a voice that you could fill this room with.

And he would do that the next day and the next day

and the next day.

And I was so embarrassed.

And I said, you know what?

I saw some of the same people on Wednesday,

which was my first night,

again on Thursday and again on Friday.

And these people just kind of, this is great.

So I, you know, I resist this.

In 37 years, I've never had the desire to pick up a drink.

Never.

I've been to probably some of the same stuff

that you've been to.

Lost both my parents, lost some close friends.

When my father passed away in 1988,

I was four years sober at the time.

And I loved my dad.

Loved him.

He had a stroke in November.

And I went back to see him like right around now

in the early December.

And I knew he wasn't gonna make it.

And he passed away in February.

And I got a call from my brother.

You better, you need to come home.

Which I did.

My wife and I went back.

And when I got back, both my brother who's,

my brother's two years older than I, he's 87 now.

He's living in Florida with alligators.

In any event, both my brother and my sister,

who's a few years younger than I,

they said, we're glad to see you because you're in charge.

We can't handle this.

And you know, I accepted that.

And I did just what you people and others have taught me

in this program.

I suited up and I showed up and I became responsible.

And I did whatever I needed to do

to help with my father's service and burial and so forth.

And nine years later,

I went through the same thing with my mother passed.

Both my brother and sister says, you're in charge.

We can't deal with this.

And you see, by that time too,

I had some program behind me.

I, maybe I knew some of the things that I've heard about

over the years that I could relate to.

And even though it was really difficult, losing my folks,

like I'm sure you folks have gone through,

I knew how to handle them.

I knew how to deal with certain things.

And it was a program taught me that.

School didn't teach me that.

Alcoholics, anonymous problems.

I've had, I'm watching the clock too.

I've had 37 great years with a few bad days fixed in.

Thank you.

You know, I've had a lot of help.

I've had a lot of assistance.

I got involved years ago when I was like a major sober

in a convention planning committee.

And I did everything.

I poured coffee, I 12 floors.

I worked in hospitality, I was a big breeder.

In one year, my wife says,

what are you gonna sign up for?

And I says, you know, I've done all these other things.

I think I'm gonna run for chairman, and I won.

That was an experience.

Yeah, and that's a big deal.

That's, you know, you're dealing with maybe 2,500

to 3,000 JC's have their own versions of how things should be.

But I met Scott and I met Elizabeth, what a charm she is.

And I met them at the convention.

And I did not partake this past year

because of the virus and so on and so forth.

But I did stay on that planning committee for 29 years.

And I have done service work at central office for 22 years.

But I've had just a great experience.

People, I got four, I'm on my fourth sponsor.

I've had good sponsors, hard but good.

And my first group that I talked about early on

was Men's Stag, we met in homes.

There was a bunch of golfers.

And we met at the local golf courses every Saturday morning

for about 15 years.

We played nine holes of golf, come in,

complain about our golf games, have breakfast,

tell a few jokes.

And then we left and we all said,

I'll see you tonight at such and such a meeting.

And that's how things work.

Life has been good for me.

And I have to come back to and say,

I've not only had good sponsorships,

God's been in my corner.

And I've got a wife that is the best.

You know, she's my best friend.

I love her dearly.

And she wanted to Zoom on tonight.

And I said, no, because if I flub up tonight,

he will tell me about it.

Okay, I want to say thank you so much

for having me here tonight.

Let's not let another seven years go by.

Anyhow, hope you all have a wonderful holiday.

Stay safe.

God bless you.

I guess we'll all see you, remember that.

(laughing)

- All of them, all of them.