A Legacy of Sobriety: Family, Sponsors, and Emotional Growth

Frankie, I'm an alcoholic. Thank you, Elizabeth. Thank you, Nate. It's good to be here. It's

good to be sober. I feel as if I'm among friends, and that's the way I felt the neighboring

alcoholics in an anonymous meeting I've ever been in. I've been to a few different places

around the world. Just got back from the international up in Vancouver where there was 35,000 alcoholics,

and I don't think anybody got arrested for misbehaving. Not that I know of. I have a

sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous. His name is Tom B. He's been my sponsor for very, very

close to 35 years, and that's not because I have done everything perfectly in Alcoholics

Anonymous. That's because he choose not to fire me when I screwed up. Basically, that's

about it. He's a great influence in my life, and he doesn't walk on water, and he doesn't

pretend to walk on water. He talks about emotional sobriety, and for a lot of years, to be honest

with you, I didn't have, I couldn't conceptualize what emotional sobriety meant in terms of

an alcoholic of my type, and it took me a little while to actually formulate this program

and incorporate all the steps and the traditions into my life. So pretty much today, I'm pretty

comfortable wherever I go. I've got no angst. I've got no angst to grind, and I come from

a place of love, come from a place of recovery, come from a place of empathy for alcoholics

as opposed to apathy. When we were up in Vancouver, I tell you, you know, I knocked around Europe

for a good few years, London and places like that, and we were in some pretty gnarly bars,

but within three minutes of driving around that gas town in Vancouver, my heart almost

went grey. I saw more crap in that three minutes of driving around that town. My kid brother

Sean, we were up there together, I said, "That's enough of that." And 30 years prior to that

there, we'd been in gas town, and it was a little crusty old part of town, you know,

where, you know, people like you and me used to hang out, you know, the bars where you

could smell the bars, you know, a couple of doors down and, you know, if you needed to

go and cop something, you were able to go and cop something, and if you needed to go

and sell something, you were able to go and sell something, you needed to go and buy something,

you were able to go and buy something. That's not the deal that I saw up there, you know,

so I have a huge amount of empathy for alcoholics of that type, and you know what, I don't know

where you can get from there, you know. I come from a long line of alcoholics. I'll

just go through the numbers for you briefly. My brother Jim has got 38 years, my brother

Tim has got 36 and a half years, I've got 35 years, my brother Sean has got 30 years,

my brother Alby has got 7 years, he relapsed after an act of sobriety. I've got three nieces

and two nephews in this program, they live in London, and I've got one out in Tennessee,

we're now into our second generation of Alcoholics Anonymous, and for the most part, in my immediate

family, you know, we all had drinking problems, you know, we're all, most of us are alcoholics,

I've got a couple in London that are, I call them functioning alcoholics, you know, they

stay away from the vodka during the week, they may have vodka or a little bit of whiskey

on the weekends, but they know what hard liquor does for them, and for the most part, they

stay away. Having said that, you know, the list of gratitude that my immediate family

owes to Alcoholics Anonymous is, you know, it's a lot, and I don't forget it, and if

someone asks me to come and do a little thing like this for 45 minutes, it's, you know,

it's in a heartbeat. Used to be a fella knock around here, we were talking about Larry,

Larry T, used to be another fella, you know, Johnny, Johnny H, Johnny Harris, and Johnny

would get up on the podium, every time he'd get up, I just loved hearing the man talk.

True humility, you know, Johnny never thought of himself as, you know, other than an alcoholic

sitting in the room trying to get sober, even though he had a huge amount of sobriety, and

he would always say at some point during his talk, if alcoholics calls up and they ask,

and it's free on the calendar, it belongs to Alcoholics Anonymous. He says my life is

that simple, and I've always loved him for that to hurt. So if you're new here today,

or you're new on Zoom, by the way, I love Zoom, I heard some great, great talks on Zoom

during the pandemic, it was, I heard some massively flippin' fantastic talks of men

when they're three, four years sober, and you just go, oh my god, three, four years

sober. There was one girl and she got up and she was giving such a talk, and she said she's

three years sober, so automatically I off switch, goes off saying to myself, she can't

no crap at three years sober. Three quarters of me through that talk, my jaw had dropped

and what a depth of knowledge that girl had of the programme, true humility that she had,

and that's why, you know, some people will bah hum bah Zoom, but you know, I heard more

good stuff about alcoholics on Zoom that I really needed to. Anyway, growing up in Belfast,

my father was a longshoreman, he worked down at the cold key, they were probably some of

the highest paid workers in the north of Ireland. Brutal work, they worked all hours, they worked

in all conditions, and you know as a child you always have your mind's eye. My mind's

eye at Belfast are always two different days, it's either a summer day when we're off school

and it stays light until almost eleven o'clock at night and the kids are all out in the street,

or it's November and it's like you got that misty cold November rain and you know what,

I'm going down to the Walch's bar at the bottom of the Falls Road and I'm, you know, putting

my head around the corner and I'm trying to catch my father's eye because my mother sent

me down there and she says, go down, see if you can catch his eye, see what he says, there's

no money in the house, there's probably six kids by that time, and I'd go one or two S.

One way would be he'd call me in and the men used to drink in what we used to call companies

back then, you know maybe two or one table together and all the men would sit in a circle,

they'd all buy their drink and he'd call me in and he'd say, here, take that up to her

and tell her I'd be up in a minute, and I absolutely loved that because all the men

at that table would give me a little bit of cash, they'd all say there you go, his name

is Frank and my name is Frank, he'd say there you go, Frank'd say there you go, there you

go, and I absolutely loved that, go up there, I'd say everything would be great. Or the

other way, where the cars weren't running, the horses weren't coming in, and he was in

the process of drinking everything he had before he came up to that house. Now my father

was a good, good man, a good, good human being, but I do believe he was one of us, and I do

believe that he didn't understand what we understand as you know, like he's phenomenal

with gravy, you know what I mean, that was first couple of drinks I knew when he sat

down and he had that money in his pocket, he used to get the pay packets, he didn't

sit down there with the intention of coming up to that house at 11 o'clock at night after

having gambling, after having drank all the money and he having six kids, but he did it

all more times than enough, and then the next morning would come around or he would come

in, the dinner would be in the oven with the plate on it, we'd all be upstairs, my mother

was the violent one in the house, my father wasn't violent, he'd come in and she would

give him his dinner, and invariably before she would give him the dinner she would throw

it past him, it would end up against the wall, then the screaming would start, and she'd

probably hit him a few digs and he, you know, was able to handle himself, and then the next

morning when they got up there was absolute silence in that house, absolute silence, everybody

walking around on eggshells, you know, we knew what the deal was, and there would always

be either my father's wedding ring, my mother's wedding ring, or his dress suit, and that

was given to me, put it in the bag and they would say go down to the pond and get what

you're going to get for that, and the man in the pond knew me, and sometimes he would

give me the look that was okay, and other times he would give me that look of you again,

you're coming here again, and that was the first time as a child that I experienced shame,

not shame for anything that I'd done, but shame for who I was, I was shame, and that

stuck with me for a lot of years all the way through my drinking, my father ended up getting

black lung, he died at 39 years of age, and we watched him in the house go from a robust

man that could lift, you know, 100, 150 pound bags all day long, and literally he just shriveled

in front of us, and of course as an altar boy then I went to St. Gold's school in West

Belfast and, you know, I suppose I was taught to have a conscious contact with, you know,

God or whatever you want to call it, and I would say those prayers, and I'd really mean

those prayers, you know, I knew my father was in trouble, and knew our family was in

trouble, and I would say those prayers, and I would really mean those prayers, and when

my father died, as a 10 year old, unrealistic, I walked away from anything spiritual, anything

to do with religion, don't come near me with it, we ended up having to leave Belfast because

my mother was 38 at that time, convention was in the community, in the culture that

we grew up in that, you know, okay, her life was effectively over, you know, and that's

not the way she wanted to be.

After about six months after my father died, my mother just didn't want to get up out of

bed one day, in fact what she had, she had a nervous breakdown, and understandably, she

had, you know, six kids, she had no husband, there was no real support, I mean all her

sisters, her grandmother, all the houses were incredibly small, there was, you know, there

was a welfare statement, but not a welfare statement as you understand it, you know,

there was never any money in arms, you know what I mean, and I just, I don't say that

for any petty fact, there was a lot of houses in West Belfast that were a lot worse than

we were, but there was never any money in arms, and one day she woke up and she wouldn't

get out of bed, they called the doctors, and you know, they called the ambulance, and mother

was taken off to the general hospital, the psych hospital in the north of Ireland which

was called Purdy's Burn, and we were put into a car by this nice kind lady, and she says

I'm going to take all you boys and I'm going to get you some ice creams, we all got into

the back of the car, we were all, you know, a little bit confused going on, what's going

on with the mother, what's happening here, you know, our father just died, so you know,

there was, you know, we were scared, I was frightened, we were frightened children, and

they took us to get ice cream, and after she took us to get ice cream, they dropped us

off at Nazareth House, which was a house run by nuns for orphans, now they did the best

that they could with us, but they were four boys, and we were just wild in that place,

you know, we didn't want to be there, we didn't know which way was up, so you go from having

a father, having a mother, going to your school, to being in an orphanage, your father died,

and your mother about to get electric shocks to see if they could actually wake her up,

you know, so I didn't like the word, I didn't trust the word, and boy, I started to get

angry, and I think I stayed angry for about the next 25 years, you know, as a young man,

I was seriously pissed off at the word, so I haven't had a drink yet, me, Jordy McCarthy,

Mickey Oberlin, Sammy Murphy, we're 10 years of old of age, when we get a bottle, it's

a, we used to call it an eight glass bottle of, it's what the winos used to drink, and

we stood on the corner, and we chuggled up the three ounces of this liquor, as a note,

as a child weighing about a hundred pounds, you know, you can't drink anything, you're

going to cop a bus, you could cop a bus smelling liquor, never mind drinking liquor, you know,

it was the first time in a long while that I was able to take a breath, and I knew what

the magic was, I knew what those men were doing down in the bars, and by the way, there

was no women allowed in the bars, it used to be a little snug around the corner, it

used to be a little bit bigger than this here, maybe two women could sit in it, all the bars

were all men, the women never drank in the bars by themselves, but as soon as I got that

drink into me, that feeling of well-being that we get, we get that glow just around

the ears, and, you know, you just be able to take that one deep breath, and, you know,

I think subconsciously I knew, okay, this is it, this is the answer. We ended up having

to move out of Belfast and go to London, and the English treated us really well, the people

in London, you know, there was both, there was more Irish in London than there was anything

else at the time, so, you know, it's like immigrants coming here where you go and you

stay with your own. I went to school in south London, Henry Compton, I was a runner, I was

a jumper, I was a boxer, you know, you can see that by the ear, I used to get boxed a

lot, you know, I was just doing it at that age, and I'm not, I'm drinking probably 14

or 15, on my last year at school I was 15 and a half, and it was, you know, we were

able to go into the bars, and the bar man would always say the same thing to us kids

going into the bar, we would always say, stay in the corner, no shorts, that meant no spirit

drinks, close your mouth and behave yourselves, and by the way, put some money in the jukebox,

so that was our way of getting by to go and come into those bars. So by the time I'm 15,

they tell me I can leave school, I leave school, we're living in a foreign country, we moved

all around London, Kilburn, Shepherdsbridge, Goldwalk Road, Ballam, wherever it was we

moved, you know, because, not to say that anybody didn't want us, but, you know, my

mother had ended up getting with the man, Albie, who became our staff father, and he

knew a lot of people, a lot of friends in London, because all the men immigrated from

Belfast to London to find the work, so, you know, we were able to get somewhere to live.

At that school, no qualifications, no direction, you know, the house that I grew up in, you

know, it wasn't, it wasn't a touchy feely house, I mean, you were allowed to have emotions

as long as it was anger, but you really couldn't talk of any other emotions, other than that,

you couldn't say I feel less than, you know, I'm shy, I don't think I'm going to measure

up here, it was just, you know, you just, those conversations just never went on. My

sister worked for a studio down in South London, and she said, if you behave yourself, I might

be able to get you an interview for, to come and work at you at television, and probably

16 and a half, 17 at the time, no direction in my life. The only direction that I had

in my life was hardly accumulate enough money to be able to drink the way I want to drink,

and to be able to have enough money the next morning to start the next day off again. So

I said, okay, I went and I got hired for, at you at television, and if there was ever

an environment that you could bring a young man into, 17, that was just 100% designed

for, you know, a budding alcoholic of my type. All the men and women that were in that company

were all what I call professional drinkers. They didn't see anything wrong and having

to drink at 12 o'clock in the day. They didn't see anything wrong and having to drink at

six o'clock in the evening. They didn't see anything wrong and having to get a cab home

because they're absolutely slush. So I'm a 17 year old and I'm getting brought into this

environment and I absolutely love it. I'm earning good money, I'm drinking every penny

that I have, but I'm still able to function at a certain level. I can work well. I'm sliding

by. I still have no direction. I still have no goals. I have no, this is what I'm going

to do. I want to be married by the 21 and 22. Sometimes when I hear, you know, young

men and women talk like that, I'm just absolutely baffled. That was not me at 18, 19 years of

age. And at this time there was, you know, I ended up getting with a girl, Sally, and

I quietened down the drinking a little bit. You know, that's when I started to, by the

time I was like 18 and a half, 19, I started drinking in the morning. And that started

in a funny way. I went in to work one Monday morning and we had what we call a tabletop

where we had, we were working for a German company and there was food on the tabletop

and they had cameras over the top of it and you had to move these bits of food really

and like kind of paint them and everything was really tight and I'm like that or I'm

just shaking, rocking and rolling. I like to drink Southern Comfort and Southern Comfort

leaves you very, very sick the next day. It really tears you up. And that was my drink

of joy, Southern Comfort and Heineken ladder. And I'm like that and Martin looks at me,

the director, he says, Frankie, he says, give me a key. He says, go up to the Gold Room,

get yourself a couple of drinks, sit down there for five minutes and come back down

on the floor and start to work. I need you to be able to work today. So would I do that

for an 18, 19 year old today? I don't think I probably would. You know, I don't think

it would be the best of ideas, but you know, it's certainly worked for me. And that was

when I knew what we called the cure and if you were sick in the morning and say, you

know, where are you going to go? I'm just going to go out here. I got to get the cure,

you know, and that, that was the, the morning drink. And of course I can't behave myself.

I ended up drinking the, I ended up doing the impossible. I ended up drinking my way

out of a company where absolutely everybody in that company loved me. You know, even when

I, even when Keith was, was, was letting me go, he turned around and says, Frankie, actually

what he did was, I was still living with Sally at the time and he took me over to Hammersmith

Hospital and he set me down, he didn't set me, but Sally set me down in front of a psychiatrist

and the psychiatrist starts asking me about feelings and about what I drink and why I

drink and what I feel like when I'm not drinking. And of course I lied to him. I'm not telling

them, you know, 80% of the stuff that I'm doing or 80% of the stuff that I'm drinking

or taking. And at the end of that conversation, he says, oh, you've got a highly addictive

personality. If you don't watch yourself, you're going to have trouble way later in

life. He says the way that you drink and what it does for you, he says, you're always going

to have problems if you're drinking. So basically he told me I was an alcoholic. By that time

I get fired, I get fired from yours. And even then Keith says, you know, if you straighten

up Frank, he says, I'll always have you back. I'll always have you back. And funny enough,

even to this day, when I get stress dreams, I get stress dreams and I'm back at you. It's

and Keith, I'm in Keith's office and I'm asking him for that job back. And this is as you

can get out the head works even to this day. Sally kicks me out. She says, you know, you're

frightening me. I didn't know when you're going to come home. I don't know if you're

going to come home. I don't know what state you're going to come home in. And I just,

it's, it's, it's not a way that I want to live my life. And we had a beautiful little

house in and full of the fallen palace road in Southwest London. And I said, okay. I didn't

ask her for anything out of the house. One suitcase. I left that house. I left that girl

and I went in and for a year I was able to pay rent. I was able to work as a freelance

and pay rent. I could probably scrape by. I was pretending to function, pretending to

be a citizen, pretending to be working. But for the most part, my, my only, my only function

and my only purpose was, was to get what I needed to get where I wanted. And I'm standing

at that point, I'm standing in front of a judge and this judge does something for me

that I was never able to do for myself. And he sentenced me to three years and I no shape

or form that absolutely saved my life. He took me out of an environment that was absolutely

impossible for me to walk away from. But that time I, you know, obviously I'd been drinking

every day for as long as I could drink for every day, as long as I had the money for

drinking every day. And now I've picked up a 10 year Herrmann habit. And along with the

Herrmann habit, I picked up 155 milligrams of methadone daily and try kicking that. So

when he put me into jail, I detoxed in a little place called Brixton. It's a large Victorian

person in the South of London. And it was the only place that I could have actually

gotten some clarity. It was the only place that where I, you know, there's no way that

I would have been able to say, okay, I'm going to do this of my own volition. It was just

impossible. I couldn't have done it. I ended up going to a prison up in the north, up in

the middle of England, a high point prison. And same as everywhere else that has its,

has its rules. It's just a different society. They have different sanctions for you break

those rules. Not only about the screws, but the people that are in the prison. So, you

work with those set of rules. So when I was 18 years of age, I was working with people

like Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart, Elton John, all those kinds of guys. And there I am at,

you know, 31 years of age, you know, doing the three year prison sentence and actually

almost being, at the time I wasn't getting that, but it definitely saved me. My brother

Jim came out to California and he had gotten sober in the Pacific. He sent me a letter

and he says, I'm going to come to see you. Sent me off a visit and I was hugely excited.

You know, my kid brother was in Southern California and he was going to come to visit and I knew

I was going to be able to get some money off and something often, you know, prior to him

going out to California, you know, I was the kind of big brother where it was anything

that I could, you know, that I was selling that I didn't want to sell to anybody that

would come back to me. I could sell it to my family. You know, I sold him a load of

stuff that, you know, it was just not, I wouldn't have sold it to anybody else, but I was able

to sell it to him. And I says, yeah, sure, Jim, come on over. As they say, he walked

into the, to the visiting room and he looked, he looked great. And my kid brother looks

like an Italian. He always dressed well. He had the loafer shoes on, he had the linen

slacks on. He had, he just looked, he just looked like a million dollars. And you know,

I just, I just lit up, you know, here he comes, you know what I mean? This, this is going

to be great. You know, I'd already prepped my trousers, my attire, so I would be able

to secrete whatever I'd gotten off him on my person when he got off and he sat down

and he looked at me and as soon as he sat down and he looked at me, I knew there was

something different about it. He had a clear look in his eye. He didn't smell of alcohol.

He didn't stutter and he had, he had this blue book with him and he just put it, yeah,

he just put it on the side of the table. So he asked me the question, how are you doing?

When are you getting up? Are you staying out of trouble in here? I was almost staying out

of trouble. I came close to catching another case, but I did stay out of trouble. That

close. I says, okay kid, this is what you do. Fold up two 50 pound notes, keep them

in the palm of your hand. Just leave them on the table. Just leave it there and I'll

take it off you and everything will be great. And he says, I'm not going to be able to do

that, Frank. He says, but what I will do, and then he started tapped on the book of

alcoholics. He says, if you read this book, he says, I think you're an alcoholic. I think

you're an addict and I think you've been an alcoholic since you were 17 years of age.

You're going to die if you don't stop. He says, I've been sober for two and a half years.

And then he mentioned my brother Tim. He says, Tim has been sober for a year and a half.

And Tim was a monster. Tim, I had never seen my brother Tim getting, getting drunk. Tim,

he would be in the bar at 10 o'clock at night. And if I walked into the bar and I saw him,

I turned around and I walked out of that bar. I didn't want to be in on credit and none

of his names. And I just looked at him and I went, what? You've come 7,000 minutes. You've

got this stupid book that you're going to give me. You're talking about me being an

alcoholic. He says, that's not what I need. Give me the money and everything will be okay.

He says, I'm not giving you the money. What I will do is if you want to come out to California,

I'll send you a ticket. And at that point in time, I totally switched off. F you, screw

you. Away you go. I went back on that landing and he says, don't forget the big book. And

I walked off a visit with the blue book of alcoholics anonymous under my arm. And I kicked

it up and down that land. And as soon as I got back on that landing, but he had planted

a seed. Remember I told you there was something different about it. I sat down and I went,

what is it? What's different about it? I think somewhere in the back of my mind, I realized

that he wasn't drinking. He wasn't using. I got out of that. I got out of that institution.

It was up in the Midlands train station was in Newmarket. Went to the liquor store before

we got on the train. Got myself a little 10 ounce bottle of smart off red label. The good

stuff. Yeah. Got myself a little 16 ounce bottle of Coke. Poured out half the bottle

of Coke. Tapped it up with the smart off. Do not remember getting off that train at

King's Cross. Do not remember going to cop. Do not remember sticking another needle in

my arm. Do remember waking up two days later with two cracked ribs with a girl that I was

staying with at the time. Just every time that I would stop breathing, she would hit

it. You can talk about God, blessed, grace. I'll take all three. It certainly wasn't karma

because I had done nothing to get any good karma for. Somebody, something was looking

out for me and I woke up out of that and I was absolutely terrified. You know, proud

of that. There are a lot of guys, a lot of gals, you know, that you know, were, it was

in just in the, in the eighties doing it all and age was just coming out and you'd see

one guy one time. He had looked great and you see him six months later and he just looked

all sucked up and you knew he was going to die. It was just, I ended up, Jim sent me

that, that, that ticket. And to be honest with you, I don't know why I didn't cash in

that ticket. 99% of the times having that money in my pocket, I would have, I would

have cashed that ticket. But for some reason I didn't. And I said that prayer, you know,

I want to live. I want to have a life. For many years before that, the drink and the

drugs weren't working. There was just something that I did on the, on the daily basis. I did

because I didn't know any better. I came out here at June 1st, 1990. I stood in an immigration

line at LAX. I had $60 in my pocket, but I had a bucket full of desperation. I wanted

to live. I wanted to have a life. I didn't want to go the way all that my friends have

gone and there was just a glimmer of hope and there was just a thimble full of willingness

on my part. I was what they called an illegal alien at that time. I didn't like being around

anybody with any kind of uniform, uniform on them. I ended up going to work for a catering

company and I ended up at the same time going to work for a lot, a lot of guys that was

in the group and these were not self-help dudes. You know, I worked for one guy Kenzo

when he was a plumber and I watched Kenzo wrench open the two inch pipe that must have

been in the ground for about 80 years. We were in a house in Venice one day and we walked

out of the house in Venice and he just stopped and he put his arm around him and he says,

Nancy, just so you know, if I ever get a phone call from one of my clients after we've been

in a house of anything that's gone missing from that house, you're going to have a problem

whether you took it or not. I thought that was a bit harsh at the time, but it was absolutely

the one thing that I needed to know. Slowly but surely over a number of years I've walked

the steps. I've got a spiritual awakening of my own understanding within the confluence

of alcoholics anonymous. You know, my understanding of a higher power is not organized in any

way, shape or form. I was always taught what to think, working the steps, doing the amends,

looking at my defects of character have taught me how to think for myself and how to be authentic

to myself. I don't get my validation anymore from what anybody thinks of me. I don't get

my validation anymore about how much money I've got in my pocket. You know, I've been

able to say to Elizabeth yesterday, no, I'm not going to do that. I wouldn't be able to

what I call look at myself, you know, every day that I can get up when I go out and I

can look at myself in the mirror, not because I'm a great AA, but because slowly over the

years working with a sponsor, working these steps, looking at my glaring defects of character,

suave, judgmental. I'm a thief by nature. Doing the amends, I went and I did the amends

with Sally and the first time that I did the amends with Sally, I wanted to be able to

go and do that. And I went to her and everything was great and it would all sound great at

the podium. And I called her up and the first 10 seconds of that conversation, she turned

around and she said, ask you, how could you do that to me? Obviously she thought I was

dead and I just called her up out of the blue after 25 years with not a single thought for

that what that woman would go through. I went back to my sponsor. I told him what I'd done.

And you know, a few times in my spot, he's given me that look and he gave me that look.

And he's one of the few people that actually whose opinion of me actually matters, you

know. And I said, I'm sorry, Tom, I f'd up. He says, boy have you f'd up. He gave me instructions.

I followed the instructions to the letter. I ended up getting a letter from Sally saying,

here's my address. This is where I'll be. Tell me when you get into London. I was able

to go and put myself in front of that girl and say, you know what, Sally, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry for the way I treated you. I'm sorry for making you fearful. I'm sorry for making

you that you couldn't sleep at night. See, I never thought I was a thief from anybody

in my family. I was a terrible thief. And what I stole from them was their peace of

mind, whether she was not able to go and sleep at night. And when we were always about seven

years sober and my mother always loved alcoholics and none of them since she would always say

the same thing. She says, I can sleep at night, you know, and that was the same mother after

her getting out of Purdy Spring were given six different sessions of electric shock.

She didn't ask for a mirror. She didn't ask to see if she needed a perm. She didn't ask

to see if she needed her nails done. The first thing that woman says was, where's my sons?

Where's my kids? You know, if you're new here today, this is for me, it's a relatively simple

program and it may sound funny, but it really is monkey see monkey do. It really is that

simple. It's not any more complicated than that. You know, I've cleaned house, you know,

I try on a daily basis to give back whatever I can give back. I am vastly overpaid. You

know, when, when I hear my nieces and nephews with two or three years of a sobriety hearing

the kids today are just, they're still with it. They just, you know, they can, they take

on the mantle of sobriety so much easier than, than what I thought I did back in the day.

You know, as I say, you know, working these steps, working with a sponsor, good neighbors,

alcoholics anonymous has turned a man who had absolutely, there's absolutely no purpose

to my life other than me killing myself on a daily basis. And today I think this turned

me into a decent human being. I can look at myself in the mirror. Most time I can walk

down my streets. My neighbors know me. I don't hide from anybody. And you know what? It wasn't

for AA. I could have missed it. Thank you very much.