Frank's 40-Year Sobriety Journey and Lessons Learned

My name is Frank. I'm an alcoholic. Glad to be here tonight, glad to be sober.

I want to first of all thank Nate for asking me to speak here tonight.

This place is not a stranger to me because I spoke at this meeting, believe it or not, ten years ago.

And I know that because I was looking around for some paperwork that I wanted to refer to tonight.

And I had written on the back of this Morning Questions, which I'm going to talk about later,

that I spoke at this meeting on January 10th, 2015.

So I'm good every ten years, but I may not be able to get around here again.

But anyhow, I'm here to share my experience, strength, and hope.

My sobriety date is September 19th, 1984.

I cheated myself. And that's a lot of days.

And back last September, I celebrated 40 years on this program. 40 years.

I'm not going to get into a big drunken log tonight. I think all of us know how to drink, but I do want to qualify to let you know that I am an alcoholic.

I'm originally from Cleveland, Ohio, and my wife and I were married in 1959.

We were married for 64 years before her passing, and we moved out here in 1969.

I had the bug to change jobs, and a friend of mine was starting up a new business out here that was totally foreign to me.

But he says, "Come on, Frank. Give it a go for at least one year." Well, we've been out here for 55 years now.

In any event, I came to California, and, you know, I was a heavy drinker back in Ohio.

Heavy drinker. I was in the local JC's, Junior Chamber of Commerce. I was with them for 10 years.

And there's a great organization, don't misunderstand me, but they know how to drink.

And if you don't know how to drink, you join the JC's and you'll learn.

But so I came out here, and you know what? I knew I knew my life was going downhill before I even came here.

But I brought something with me that I regretted, and that was I brought my alcoholism with me.

And so I went to work here, did some job hopping here and there, and my alcohol was getting worse.

My wife and I weren't getting along from time to time.

The kids, the children, this time we had three children. They were kind of ignoring Dad.

And I, and work, you know, I had a good job. I had an excellent job, but I could always find fault in whatever was going on.

But I brought the alcoholism with me. And my life, too, was getting worse on a day.

If there's any newcomers here tonight, or Ben mentioned that he was fairly new, you know,

all I can tell you right up front is that this program works, and it works very good.

But you got to give it a try, and you have to work it yourself. I didn't get here by any accident.

I drank for 30 years. I was a, I drank, I was a social drinker, and I went from a social drinker into a stumbling, falling down drunk.

And my, my story doesn't talk about drugs at all because I never, never had any drugs that weren't prescribed to me.

So I'm one of a, I'm a purist. I'm one of a few breed that's out there that just drank.

But I can tell you, I drank everything and get my hands on everything.

So I was in food service business all my life.

I started as a dishwasher, and I worked myself up to being a director of a major hospital here in Southern California handling the food service.

But along with, along with the food, food end of things, they also did a lot of catering, party work, manager meetings.

And we also served food and alcohol at those events. And I was in charge of the alcohol.

And I would, I'd make sure that everything was set properly.

And I was the last person out of the meeting, and that alcohol came with me.

I was, at one time I was transferred up to Federal Way, Washington.

I opened up the food service for the warehousing company, which was a major, major facility.

Beautiful operation. It's Federal Way is between Seattle and, Seattle and Tacoma.

And it was a beautiful five story building, manmade lakes on each side, swans were floating.

I went up there to open up this operation.

Coincidentally, it was the same company I used to work for when I was back in Cleveland, but there was a lapse of about two years.

But they hired me back without any question. I went up there and I was on my own.

And it was a gorgeous facility. They did a lot of open houses for organizations because it was a showplace for Pacific Northwest.

And Richard Nixon, who was a vice president at that time, he came out too and toured the facility.

And once again, the food and the booze went hand in hand.

And I'd get a call sometimes at two or three o'clock in the afternoon from the vice president of warehousing.

He says, Frank, we're entertaining six or 10 people tonight.

Could you take care of us for dinner and have a bar?

And I said, certainly. So I keep my cook over that night.

She would take care of all the food and I would have a little gold jacket to put on and I was the bartender.

And at the end of the evening or after a period of time, I should say,

if there was any booze left in the bottles, that booze found its way back to my apartment.

And the vice president who I reported to at warehouse, he said, Frank, I don't ever want us to run out of alcohol.

OK, well, they were talking to the right guy. So anyhow, I says fine.

So when anything ever got down, I just went to the local liquor store replenish the need.

But I say I have a whole bottle, whole shelf full of partial bottles in my in my I was up there for only about six months.

I couldn't deal with the weather. And I was I was corresponding to a couple of foods management companies back here in L.A.

So fortunately, when I did end my employment up there, I was able to come back and I had employment immediately.

In any event, my drinking continued over all the years there was and I was back in Ohio and out here.

And it got worse, got worse and worse. And one day I found myself surrendering, surrendering to this program.

And just to back up a little bit, what really brought all this on is that I got home from work one day about six o'clock.

My wife was already home from her job. And she said, honey, there's a couple who I worked with are coming for a barbecue tonight.

So they'll be here in about an hour. So why don't you get cleaned up and and so forth.

I was drinking dinner those days. So they came over and I knew the people and we had drinks before dinner, during dinner and after dinner.

We sat outside and we talked about this and that. And I think politics got involved.

And I didn't particularly care for one of the things that this fellow had to say.

And I had enough alcohol in me that I was able to tell him what I thought. Well, that didn't go over well.

In fact, I even asked him to leave both he and his wife. Now, my wife was so embarrassed and so mad at me.

Needless to say. So they left. I sense it made amends years ago. But so they left.

And my wife and I spent the half of the night arguing. I, needless to say, I slept that night in the back bedroom.

Maybe there's a few other people here who have found that same course.

But I slept in the back bedroom and I don't know how I ever got up in the morning because I had such a hangover.

The room was spinning just like those fans. But in any event, I got up, I got cleaned up, put the shirt and tie on.

I was a director of the food service at Huntington Memorial Hospital, 600 bed facility.

I had a staff of 125 people. I had five assistant directors and all I had to do was manage five people.

So I drove to Pasadena, which was like about 35 miles.

I was living in Woodland Hills at the time and I don't know how I ever made it.

I don't know. I was gripping. I had that steering wheel in my hand. I was going to break it off.

In any event, I got to work and I felt terrible and I knew I couldn't make it.

So I called in my assistant, Ann. I said, "Ann, I think I'm coming down with the flu or something and I'm going to have to leave and go home for the day."

Now, Ann and most of my staff knew my problem. The thing is that I didn't know the problem, but I was an alcoholic right then and there.

So I drove back home and my wife didn't go to work that day herself because she had been up half the night arguing with me.

And she was in the back bedroom with the door closed. By that time, my wife's name was Sandy.

Sandy and I were married for 25 years and I bet she would like to have a nickel for every time I opened a conversation by saying, "I'm sorry."

Well, you know, I didn't do that. I sat at the foot of the bed and rather than say, "I'm sorry," I said, "Honey, I think," and all of a sudden a tear started falling down my cheek.

And I said, "I think I'm an alcoholic." Now, I was really in bad shape. I was really in bad shape.

She said, "Why don't you lie down for a while and take a rest, take a little nap?" It was early.

And when you get up, we'll talk about it. So a few hours later, I woke up and again, the room was spinning again.

I was sicker than a dog. But I did, you know, my first inclination, believe it or not, was maybe a cold beer would help me.

Well, no, I didn't. I didn't do that. I don't know what prompted me.

And I think I want to say maybe this is a God shot. But I said, "I think I need help. I don't know how to get it. I don't know where to get it."

I had heard about Alcoholics Anonymous, but I didn't know anything about Alcoholics Anonymous, who they were, what the purpose of, so on and so forth.

So I went to the telephone directory, the Yellow Pages. Some of you people may remember we had telephone directories then.

Now we have cell phones and walkie-talkies and everything else. But I picked up the Yellow Pages.

I thumbed through it and I found the word alcohol, Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I called Alcoholics Anonymous about, I don't know what time it was, maybe two o'clock in the afternoon.

And I talked to a lady by the name of Phyllis, I remember that. And Phyllis kept me on the phone for about, oh God, 20, 25 minutes.

She knew more about me and I knew about myself. But in any event, she didn't ask me if I wanted to go to a meeting.

She said, "I'll have someone pick you up tonight at seven o'clock."

And seven o'clock, knock on the door and open it up, and the gentleman there by the name of introduced himself.

He says, "My name is Jack with Alcoholics Anonymous. Come on, we're going to a meeting."

And I introduced myself to Jack and said goodbye to my wife. I'll see you whenever.

In any event, we're backing out the drive and he says to me, "Frank, did you drink very much?"

I said, "Well, I used to have," Bill's smiling, "I used to have, I used to have, I had a couple."

So I went to the first meeting, which was over on 56, 57 Lindley Avenue.

It's a church meeting. It was a big speaker meeting, about 125 people.

I walked in and I was, I wasn't nervous. I'm nervous tonight.

But I was scared to death because I didn't know what was happening.

Number one was my life, you know, what is this thing called Alcoholics Anonymous? But I didn't know who was an alcoholic and who wasn't, anything about it.

But I walked around the room a little bit and I saw the steps up here that you have.

And I saw the first one where it says, "We admitted we're powerless over alcohol, that our life had become unmanageable."

That's it. I'm home. I'm in the right place. I know nothing about this, but where else do I go?

So Jack, we sat and it was a speaker meeting and every once in a while Jack would give me a nudge because the speaker was saying something that was probably something that I could identify with, which I did.

And he says, "Does that remind you of anyone?" I said, "Yeah, me." He said, "Okay." That was it.

So we went home. Jack came in the house, introduced Jack to my wife and the three of us sat up for another bit or part of an hour.

And he pulled out a little yellow card that maybe you're familiar with.

It's the 20 questions and it's kind of a little quiz and it's kind of embarrassing, embarrassing questions they ask an alcoholic.

And this is actually put out by the John Hopkins University Hospital to determine if one of their patients is an alcoholic.

So anyhow, it asks 20 questions. It says that if you say yes to one, you may be an alcoholic.

You say yes to two, your chances are you are an alcoholic.

And if there are three or more, you are an alcoholic.

And they ask questions like, "Is drinking making your home life unhappy?"

I'm just skipping around here now.

"Have you gotten financial difficulties as the result of drinking?" Bankruptcy, does that count?

"And does your drinking make you careless of your family's welfare?"

Yep. "Do you drink alone?" I drink alone or with anyone or everyone, I should say.

But anyhow, these are the 20 questions. Jack says, "Fill that out and we'll talk about it."

And here I had 17 yeses and I lied on two others.

So I had passed my first test. I was an alcoholic.

And so Jack then pulled out, we used to have little pocket directories then, so I had one.

And he pulled out a little directory and he says, "Frank, I'm going to circle the next six days as to where he was going to go to meetings."

And he said, "I want you to meet me there." And the address, the time is right here.

And he says, "I'm not going to pick you up, though. You know, you were able to find the bars.

You should now be able to find the meetings of alcoholics anonymous if you're really and truly interested."

So I took Jack to heart.

One of the things Jack told me earlier when we were backing out of the driveway, he asked me if I drank much and I said, "A couple."

Well, a week or so went by and I had to go back to Jack and I had to clarify that.

And I said, "Jack, I drank more than a couple. I drank constantly."

He says, "You know, I wanted you to tell me that. I knew that, but I wanted you to tell me that."

He said, "But this is a program of rigorous honesty. And before you can be honest with anyone else, you've got to be honest with yourself."

So I shared that message with a lot of newcomers today, because honestly, we've all had problems with that issue.

So I went to the meetings. Jack would always be there before I was.

And I'd walk in and the meeting hall was maybe two or three times this.

And he called me over, "Frank, come on over. Come on, I want you to meet some people."

And he says, "Here, say hi to Frank. He's got two days sobriety."

This is his second day. And the same thing happened on the next day.

This is his third day. And he'd holler and let everybody know this is an alcoholic.

So that was my initial introduction to Alcoholics Anonymous.

It came Saturday. I went over to a, I think it was a speaker meeting over at Commercio, which is out in Woodland Hills.

And I believe that was the speaker meeting also, I believe. My memory bank is a little thin.

But anyhow, that's the first show like they did here today, a show of newcomers under 30 days.

So I very sheepishly raised my hand. Now I was sitting in the back row where nobody could really see me.

But there was one other fellow who raised his hand about the middle of the, gee, that's nice.

So at the end of the meeting, I said, "I'm going to go over and introduce myself."

So I did. I said, "My name is Frank. I'm an alcoholic." He said, "My name is Jim. I am too."

He said, "Are you a newcomer?" I says, "Yes." He said, "I didn't see you raise your hand."

I said, "That's because I was hiding out in the back row and I saw you raise yours."

So talk to a Jim. Jim, I find out, had only 21 days of sobriety.

But I latched on to Jim like, I don't know what. He says, "You want to stop for coffee?"

"Uh, sure." He says, "And we can talk." Here's a guy with 21 days of sobriety and I was at his back.

So I called my wife and I said, "I'm running a little late. I'm stopping and having coffee."

In any event, we couldn't find a coffee shop on Ventura Boulevard at that hour.

We went to, I forget the name of the bar and grill. We went to the bar and we drank coffee there.

But anyhow, so his name was Jim. And Jim and I had a great relationship.

We knew each other for about the next 18, 20 years. And later on, Jim passed away from cancer.

But I needed to have Jim in my life at that point. Even with 21 days of sobriety, I had someone to follow.

I had someone to follow. "I didn't get here by any accident," I said. "I drank for 30 years."

I didn't find a drink that was improper at the time. And again, I haven't drank for 40 years now, 40 years.

A newcomer says, "How'd you do it?" "Very easy. I made a commitment."

And the commitment was between myself and God, and you people. And I plan to honor that commitment as long as I possibly can.

I took this program, and I still do, very serious. I don't get to as many meetings as I used to.

And Nate, I really appreciate you calling me. But I used to go to meetings, like maybe Ben talked about, or six, seven meetings a week.

Conventions I went to. I hooked up with about 12 other guys, AA guys, and we used to play golf every Saturday morning.

Used to play nine holes of golf at various courses here in the Valley. And stop for breakfast, tell a few jokes, and leave.

And last thing we said to each other, "See you at the meeting tonight." So it was just a natural.

My sponsor, who I'll just back up a little bit, when I talked to my friend Jim, he says, "Oh, and also," he says, "Where do you go on Wednesday night?"

Now, Wednesday was the day I came in. So I said, "Well, I don't have a meeting because that's where I went to."

He said, "Well, I'll tell you where there's a great Men's Stag Wednesday meeting that he's been going to for three weeks.

And that's Men's Stag. It was the Rovers. They met in different homes every week.

And I give you the address and the guy's name, and I can't make it.

It was right there in the Jewish holidays, and he had to go to a service of some sort. His wife was Jewish.

And he said, "I'm going to be there late, but you go over there."

So I was petrified, and I went over there and knocked on the door and introduced myself and said, "Come on in. The meeting's about to start."

I walk into this big room. They got his house, and there was about 20, 25 guys here. And I don't know what was happening.

But his name is Art. Art became my first sponsor. Jack was my part-time sponsor.

I've just now changed to my fifth sponsor. So I've had a lot of good sponsors over the years.

Some have passed away. Some have left the state. And like I say, I just recently changed sponsors about a month ago.

So I do take this program very seriously. And you know, you probably are way ahead of me, but there's so many things that one can be doing in this program other than stop drinking.

You know, you want to play golf? Guys, my home group is Stags the Sobriety meeting on Monday night in Canoga Park.

And there's a bunch of those guys who go fishing, golfing, surfing, square dancing, bingo, and it goes on.

There's all kinds of benefits to doing something with our lives. It's just not quitting drinking.

Nate pointed out to me the format of this meeting to end at a certain time, 8/25 if I'm not mistaken.

And then these lights, Nancy said, will come on and off. So I'm going to probably plan to beat that.

But years ago, years ago, I was asked to go up to Ojai, oh God, 15 years ago, at least.

And I spoke at a nice small group like this up there and meeting ended at 8/30 like this one does.

And this old timer comes up to me and I wasn't cold at the time. He says, Frank, this meeting ends at 8/30.

And if you're still talking at 8/30, you're going to be here by yourself.

So I don't plan on being here by myself. I assure you that I do take this program serious.

I retired at a fairly early age. It was 26 years ago. I was 26 and I needed something more to do than just retire and play golf and et cetera, et cetera.

So I volunteered at Central Office and most of you know where Central Office is and the function of it and so forth.

And I answered phones at Central Office for 22 years, once a week.

And I also, because I still had some spare time, I went over to West Hills Hospital because I worked in hospital facilities for years.

And I always said when I retired, I want to give something back to hospitals, too.

So I volunteered for 22 years at West Hills Hospital and I was a gopher.

I did whatever needed to be done, errands and deliver newspapers and food trays and et cetera, et cetera.

I loved it. When the pandemic hit, they didn't use volunteers then because it was not healthy.

So I stopped volunteering several years ago.

But at that time, my wife had come down with Parkinson's disease and she was in no condition to volunteer.

She volunteered for 20 years over there. So I was kind of the homeboy for some time.

Last February 5th, my wife passed away as a result of Parkinson's.

And thank God that my daughter, bless you, was with me and we were with my wife the whole last week.

She came home and she was on the hospice program. They took real good care of her, real good care of her.

But if you're familiar with Parkinson's, it's an incurable disease, totally incurable.

And we had been to doctors on top of doctors.

But when she passed, you know, I often had wondered, hearing all the guys share over the years,

what they've been through and what they're going through, the loss of their family members and so on and so forth.

And I used to ask myself, how would I deal with that if it were to hit me like it did?

And to make a long story short, I was very sorrowful. It hurt a lot.

My wife and I were married for 64 years. So that's a lot of days, too.

When I do something, I'm going to do it for a period of time.

So anyhow, again, thankfully, my daughter was with me that whole week before Sandy passed.

But there was a couple other, and I can't say enough about my daughter, how helpful she's been to me over this period of time.

She's also my driver, my dietitian. I'm on a diet and it's working thanks to her, but I can't have any cookies, cake, sugar, salt, no fun.

No, I'm being a little humorous.

So the other two things that really held me together in no particular order was the church.

And Kristen had been going to a church on Roscoe Boulevard directly across from Northridge Hospital where my wife was.

And she had been going there for a short period of time, and she convinced me that I should obviously come with her.

She said, "It's not my church. It's our church."

So we've been pretty regular at that church on a Sunday morning.

And I can't say enough about the congregation. It's a small congregation, non-denominational.

They really pulled me through, believe me.

And the other thing that pulled me through is you guys, you people, and my home group.

I couldn't get to regular meetings on a regular basis for about the last two or three years because of my wife's condition.

So I did a little zooming, but then that got a little careless, too, and I had to really be with my wife constantly for 24 hours.

So I had missed. I was at the Cabrillo meeting for about 13, 14 years.

And then I missed the last couple of years because of my wife's condition.

So when I went back after my wife passed, like you guys here, there was a big turnover in AA.

So there was a lot of new friends, and I felt like an 88-year-old—I was 87 at the time—87-year-old newcomer.

But they welcomed me back, and it's been a godsend. It really has been a godsend.

I just can't say enough nice things about Alcoholics Anonymous.

Someone will say, "Where did that 40 years go?"

I don't know. Thirty-seven years, is that correct, you have? Thirty-four, excuse me.

I was trying to make it look a little better. No, you know, time flies. Time flies.

I knew I did the right thing at the right time in my life, but I was 48 years old when I came into this meeting.

And I look at some of the newcomers coming in who are in their 20s and even less, and I admire them and respect them.

And I try to make a point to talk to them at the end of the meeting or during a break time and let them know the opportunities that are lying ahead of them.

And forget about all the stuff that we have a tendency to go through. We all go through that. We all have that crap, but it's how we deal with it.

My wife passed. Neither my wife and I were drinkers. She used to—well, I wasn't—but she used to occasionally have a bottle of wine if company came or something like that.

But there's not a drop of alcohol in the house.

We have three children. Our oldest son and his family have moved to Tennessee, and he took his business with him and everything, and he set up shop.

And my son, Jeff, is celebrated in March, 34 years clean and sober. And it wasn't me.

He had called me one night after I was on the program for a bit. He said, "Dad, I got a little problem." I said, "What's that?"

He said, "Well, I think I have the same problem you have, but maybe a little different." His biggest addiction was drugs.

I said, "Well, I'm going to suggest—this was a Thursday night—I'm going to suggest that maybe you go over to Mason-Lassen."

That was a big speaker meeting at one time. It's not there anymore. I don't know why.

But anyhow, I said, "Why don't you get to a meeting, pay attention to what's going on, and give me a call tomorrow. We'll talk about it."

And he called me, and he said, "Dad, I didn't go over there, but I did go because a friend steered me."

He went to an N.A. meeting, which he felt more at home.

But as time went on, this home group that I used to have of revolving at different guys' homes, he eventually, my son Jeff, eventually joined that group.

So he's a purist in alcohol. He's moved to Tennessee. He's following the direction of the sponsor. He sponsors guys.

He's been there for about two years, and he's started two new meetings, so I think he's off and running.

And my other son, Brian, who lives up in Oregon, he's keeping course in business.

But you know, I got to tell you—and I joke about that—I've never seen that young man drunk. Never.

He must drink like his dad, but I don't go there.

You know, they say the hardest people to convince about the program is your relatives.

So he's okay. He's okay. He's a hard worker.

In fact, I like to tell this story because I'm running out of time.

Several years ago, my wife and I were up visiting my son in Oregon, and we went out for lunch that day, and I happened to compliment.

I said, "You know, Brian, you and your brother, Jeff, I have the highest respect for, and I'm so proud of both of you guys.

You're both hardworking young men." And he says, "Dad, you taught us that. You taught us that."

I mentioned before about, you know, things to do on the program, and I see my first lights on.

And one of the things I—I was about nine or ten years sober, my sponsor at the time, John W.

John says, "Come on, we're going to a convention planning meeting tonight."

I didn't know anything about conventions. I knew when I was back in Ohio, the JCs had annual conventions and periodic conventions and drinking conventions.

Boy, I was right at home there, too. But I was ten years on that, in the JCs.

And anyhow, so life is good. How's my life today? It's different. It's different, thank goodness.

I still have people like yourself that I could respond to.

I don't go to meetings as much as I do. I don't have any major health issues.

I went through a period of 20 years that I had 16 surgeries, but none of them were heart or brain or anything like that.

They were more back, hips and shoulder, knees.

So my daughter said to me the other day, about a week ago, she said, "Dad, you know, you're coming up on your 89th birthday in October."

I said, "Yeah." "Well, when you hit 90, when you hit 90, we're going to Hawaii."

So there's my challenge. You know, I want to—again, I can't say enough about this program.

There are various things that I've skipped through that I probably should have been talking about.

But don't sell it. Don't sell yourself short. You know, in order for any of us to keep this program, you have to give it away.

You have to go out and talk to people. You have to go out and talk to the newcomers.

The newcomers are the lifeblood of this organization, because before I sit down, I just want to say it's been a pleasure.

Thank you all very much for not leaving, even though it's a nice, cool evening.

And I want to say, too, that 40 years has been a great run.

And if the good Lord's willing, next month, September 19th, I'll take the cake for 41.

But, you know, even with that period of time that I have and what I've been through and so forth,

I've had the pleasure of chairing the convention back 18 years ago.

So I've done everything except sweep the floors, but I think they got a broom for me this year. Maybe not.

But I just got to say, and I mean this from my heart, I need this program today more than ever before, more than ever before.

than ever before. God bless you. Have a nice evening.