Seven Years Sober
My name's Jerry. I'm an alcoholic. Thank you all for being here today. My sobriety date is the 22nd of April, 2014. I just had seven years a little while ago, and I'm here to share my story with you with the hope it can inspire you — whether you're just getting started or whether you've been going at this forever, longer than I've been alive, and you're looking to stay motivated with it.
What I'll start off with today is remembering that about seven years ago, I had just come into AA, and my mind was telling me I should just drink. I should just get it over with, because there's no way I'm ever going to be able to stay sober for any period of time. I'm glad I didn't listen to those thoughts, because I've got over seven years today, and seven years ago that looked impossible. Like, why even try? Why try? Just get it over with and drink again. Accept your fate. Now, I hope that if any of you today are feeling like "I can't do this, it's too hard," you will be amazed at what you can do.
What's awesome is that once I worked these steps and this process in my life on alcohol, I looked at every other aspect of my life like, man, if I can see that kind of change getting sober, let's do this for my diet. Let's do this for my relationships. Let's do this for my family. Let's do this for how I think, how I talk — everything. I'm so grateful today that I am an alcoholic, because it's shown me how powerful I am — with all of your help, with a higher power — that I'm not alone, I'm not hopeless, I'm not helpless. And that's exactly how I felt when I came into AA.
Growing Up with an Alcoholic Father
So I'll tell you my story here in chronological order. We'll start with how I got to being an alcoholic and then how I got sober. I was born in Michigan near Detroit in 1984, which puts me — I just turned 37 yesterday. Yes, thank you. I chose a father who was an alcoholic, a drug addict, and a gambler with some sex issues. And I chose a mother who was just getting out of an abusive first marriage, hadn't signed the divorce papers yet, and was looking to get pregnant with little me. My dad was not on board with that. But I thought, these two parents — you two will be just perfect. I can help you, and you can get me into this world in a good place.
My father got sober when I was six years old. He quit drugs when I was a year or two old. He got kicked out of the house where we were living. My mom had lost her job because of having me, and she was living with my father's parents — and my father got kicked out of his parents' house. So when I was a baby, my dad wasn't around until my mom went in the Army when I was about a year old. My dad said he was going to get sober with his aunt and uncle. My mom flies down to Texas, got little me ready to go for the Army and a fresh start — and my dad has a couple of beers to celebrate and show her how good he's doing. It was a wild ride from there. My dad got into all kinds of things with his drinking.
He finally had his moment when I was about five years old. My mom was an officer in the Army in Japan at the time, and there were a lot of men there, not a lot of women — men were lining up to be with my mother at work while my father was just going down the drain. He was selling at this market they had, and my kindergarten teacher came by his stand to buy something when he had a hangover. He'd been drinking rum and Cokes the night before and was looking, as he put it, like a bag of assholes. And my kindergarten teacher, Miss Bone, gave him this disgusted look for a moment. Like, ugh. It was like she could really see him. For some reason, after all my father had been through — suicide attempts and all the insane things he'd been through in his life — for some reason that really got to him. And he never drank again after that. He passed away in 2014.
I saw my father drink and smash things and the insanity of his drinking, and I saw the next morning when he'd be so sorry and take us shopping to go buy a new clock to replace the clock he smashed the night before. And then I saw him sober — no more mornings where he was sorry and "let's take you all out to eat." It was just right on edge. You spill a glass of milk: "What the fuck did you do? Jesus Christ, Gerald." He just snapped. You never knew when dad was gonna go off like a bomb. He didn't like Alcoholics Anonymous — he had gone when he was in the mental hospital earlier in his life and he got a bad opinion of it — and he just got sober doing it on his own somehow, and stayed sober. He stayed at home and was there for me every day. My mom went and worked, so every day when I got home from school, my dad would be there. He made dinner, he took care of everything, and my dad is one of the most positive forces in my life.
My dad kept me completely out of trouble until I was 18, and completely sane when it came to alcohol. I even went to a few parties in high school and I'm like, I don't want any of that alcohol shit. I remember how my dad was. I don't want to be like that. And I remember filling out a top secret security clearance to go to work with my mom for an internship, and it asked all these questions: Have you ever smoked weed? Have you drank alcohol? Have you done all these things? And I put no — just no after no. And I'm like, who does all this dumb shit? Who gets into all this trouble?
College and My First Drink
Then I went to college. My parents were up in Virginia, and I went to college at the University of South Carolina because, long story short, that was the best scholarship I could get. Just a little bit of time away from that loving, protective atmosphere at home, and my mind started to change about a lot of things. I started to progressively let out and see how bad I could act. I made it through the first two thirds of freshman year without drinking, saying things like, "I don't need alcohol to have fun." In fact, I'd be the DD and act dumber than my roommates at the party because I knew people were drinking. I'm like, I can get away with really letting it out right now. This is awesome. And then I can just get in the car sober and drive home. Like, this is great. I don't need alcohol.
There was this girl down the hall, and I used to think, sober, she is such a bitch. She's just not fun. She's not friendly. And she gets a few drinks in her, and all of a sudden she's awesome. I don't know what happened, but at some point I realized I was looking in a mirror like, damn, that's how I am. I'm a dick normally. No wonder people don't want to hang out with me. I'm not fun.
So I had a girl I was trying to hook up with — I'd failed a bunch of attempts to hook up with girls sober. For some reason, my sober mindset and their drunk mindset didn't work well together. And I thought, what? I just need to get a few beers in myself and I'll be more fun. I got some Miller High Lifes — and I knew exactly who to ask to go to the gas station, even though I hadn't drank. It's like I'd been keeping an eye on all these things, and as soon as I made the decision, I knew who to go to. I drank two and a half Miller High Lifes and had this girl over that my friend had already hooked up with. Up to that point, losing my virginity seemed like the biggest deal. And after two and a half beers, I didn't care about that anymore. I felt so damn good. I just laid on the bed, numb. Like, oh, this is awesome. Euphoria. This is a feeling I've been looking for. I can't wait to do this again. And yeah, the girl's confused as to why I didn't seem interested in her anymore after two and a half beers. It's like, well, I don't need you. I've got alcohol.
The First Hangover
It continued to progress. The next time, I plotted on going to this party, and I got hammered. About two weeks later, I just drank a bunch. I'm like, if two and a half beers was that good, let's really put it down at this party and see what happens. And I did. I drank a bunch of beers, a bunch of shots, and it was all good until 2 a.m., when it all came up. The room started spinning, and I was as miserable physically as I'd ever been in my whole life. I had the worst hangover I've still ever had. I threw up. I didn't know all these little hangover remedies, like drink water and try and get some food down and take several Advil if you can choke those down. I just went through this hellacious hangover.
It was Easter weekend, and I remember just wishing I was back home with my parents and had my Easter basket, crying in my dorm room bed. And on the cable network, they had Pay It Forward on. It was as if the universe was trying to tell me something — it's like I had to keep watching it. And I'm like, I'm not like that at all. This has nothing to do with me. I'm not hiding liquor bottles. I'm just having a hangover. At the time, I thought, oh my God, I'll never do this again. This is utterly miserable. Nothing could be worse than this amount of pain. It took two days to feel better. And I'm not sure what exactly happened, but after I felt better, I started to get this idea in my head: maybe if I just don't drink that much, I can have the fun without the consequences. And I did that for most of a year. I would mostly just have three or four, five or six drinks, and cut it off.
Fun Without the Consequences
I told myself, all right, I want to have the fun without the consequences. And I did. I'd go to a party, have a few drinks, and think, okay, that's it — don't want to get sick. Then I don't know exactly when it flipped. At some point, I got drunk with my friend sophomore year, and all of a sudden it was, forget it — let's get drunk all the time. Screw the consequences. I'll take the hangover. It's worth the fun times I'm having. From there, it was a progression downhill.
When I went to college, I felt pretty good about myself. I hadn't done anything you might think of as wrong. Although I really didn't like my sexual side — I felt really ashamed about that and really frustrated. That was kind of the one thing that made me hate life: trying to find a girl and dealing with my own desires. Other than that, my whole life, my mind was pretty good. But the more I drank, the more I kept picking up all these other reasons to hate myself. It would be a drunken night of doing something stupid. I'd gamble hundreds of dollars away and wake up the next day — and in college, that was weeks' worth of money — just disgusted with myself. I'm such an idiot. How could I do that? I'd email PokerStars and tell them, I've got a gambling issue, please ban me from the website. And then I'd go create an account on somebody else's computer the next day. I'd get my bank account banned. My life suddenly went from where I was kind of guiding it and had some control to where it was just flowing, and I didn't get to say what I did anymore. I'd make a decision — I'm never going to gamble again — and then I'd have a drink, set up another account, start gambling again, and wake up the next day thinking, not again. This time it's $500. That's a month of my money. I'm screwed now. What am I going to do for money this month? I just lost it all.
One night senior year — the night I lost that $500 — I got so mad I smashed my whole dorm room apart. I broke the keys off the keyboard. I picked things up and threw them all over. I smacked and punched everything. I woke up the next morning with the lights still on and blood everywhere because I'd cut my hand somewhere, and I thought, I am not waking up to this right now. I just tried desperately to go back to sleep, woke up again — oh my God. And every time I did that, I dug myself into a deeper hole. Now I didn't get to drink just to have fun. Now I had to drink just to feel normal, because I was starting to hate myself so much that I didn't even want to deal with myself sober anymore.
By the end of senior year, I was drinking every day. I'd have several shots at a minimum, and I'd often get drunk at least half the week. I was selling liquor to the freshmen, too, in my dorm room. I'd bring cases of handles in and sell it to them, and when they'd get in trouble, I'd make sure they didn't squeal on me. And I progressively kept feeling worse. There were some nights that really scare me — nights where I was on the edge of doing serious harm to someone, often for no reason other than it's 3 a.m., everybody's asleep, and somebody needs to die now. You'd look at me today and think, I don't see how that's possible. And yet if you'd seen me 15 years ago in college, you'd be scared and confused. Why is this young man, who's had such a nice upbringing, hating himself so much and on the edge of violence?
Into the Prison
From there, things got even more interesting. I really wanted to understand. I felt like there was something wrong inside of me, and I thought I could be clever about it by going into criminal justice for my major — if I could figure out what's wrong with other people, I could discreetly figure out what's wrong with me without anybody knowing about it. So I went into criminal justice, and I ended up being a correction officer in prison. I was in with the juveniles — in with the murderers, the rapists, the worst ones in the whole prison. And it really struck me: the only difference between you and these kids is that you were loved growing up and these kids weren't. You came into a nice situation; these kids came into a nasty situation. But for the grace of God, I'd be in there and they'd be working there instead of living there.
In that prison, I was drinking before work because I needed some relief — I couldn't even stand going to work. I saw other people who'd come in drunk to night shift, and I thought, hell, if they can get drunk, I can have five beers before I come in. Those night shifts were miserable, because there's nothing like sitting in prison feeling your buzz wear off and knowing you can't get any more until you get off — and you've got to deal with these kids when they wake up first thing in the morning, and then your co-workers too. The co-workers were as bad as the kids.
I made it out of that prison only because I got so physically sick with mono that I couldn't keep working there. I took several weeks off, got sober, and pulled my life back together — by this point, I'd done that a few times. When things got bad enough, I'd think, I'd better get sober for a while and fix this mess up before I go all the way down the drain. The last three months working at that prison, I was sober, and it was a completely different work experience than when I worked there drinking. I was getting along with these kids. Some of the kids were actually starting to respect me and look up to me.
The Cycle Repeats
As soon as I got out of there and got a job as a police officer, I started drinking again, because I thought, I'm not that bad — corrections was just rough. I just needed to take some time off. I'm going to drink reasonably now. I can go out with my friends. I'm going to behave better this time. And again, same thing. I started drinking, blowing my girlfriend off. She goes to leave me, and I get suicidal. All of a sudden I need to get sober again — I can't drink now or I'm going to kill myself, because I'm barely staying alive sober, and if I get drunk right after she cheated on me and left me, then I'm probably going to actually do it. That lasted for three months, until I found a new girl to keep me company. Then I thought, well, I'm over her, I can drink again, I won't kill myself now. And the cycle repeated again.
I got another job — my dream police job, working at the university where I'd been an undergrad student. It was one of the highest-paying police jobs in town, and very nice work too. The only two real downsides were micromanagement and boredom. If you could handle those two things, it was the perfect police job, and I could. And I managed to stir up all kinds of trouble at that police department. At first, there were no issues — I would just drink with my friends. But the longer I kept working there, well, I had never worked a night shift and gone really hard on my drinking since corrections. And it got real scary: blowing my whole thousand dollars at the strip club multiple times, drunk driving all over town — literally doing the same things I policed. I'd arrest somebody for drunk driving at work, and the next night I'd be driving just like them, off duty, drinking.
A Gun on the Bathroom Floor
One night I was in the strip club in Columbia. I'd gone out with a couple of other officers and I had my gun on me, and the stripper's dancing all up on my leg. She asks, is that a gun? I say, no, it's my wallet, while I'm slipping it around behind my back thinking, how did she know? Then I walk into the bathroom of the strip club and my gun falls out on the floor, in the middle of the bathroom. These were just things I took for granted — this is just what happens when I drink. My gun's on the floor and I'm standing there thinking, what is wrong with me?
Another night I was out at the bar — thankfully I'd left the gun in the car this time. A girl walks by and spills a beer all over my shirt, which was not a nice shirt by any means; it was some cheap shirt that was not working to pick girls up. I start in on her right away, cursing her out. This guy stands up for her right next to me, and within five minutes I'm telling him, I'm going out to my car to get my gun — come out of this bar and I'll shoot you. And I'm sitting in my car waiting for this guy, thinking, come on. Thankfully, he stayed in the bar and left out a back door, and some kind of sanity came over me: why don't you take yourself home? So I went home. I woke up the next day thinking, I just told this guy I was going to shoot him. What if he sees me at work one day? "Oh, that's the guy who said he was going to shoot me." And I kept racking up all kinds of things like that.
After three years total in corrections and law enforcement — a year and a half at this department — I made my best arrest. I found this suspect they'd been looking for forever. I went the extra mile and located him. They called me back to headquarters, and I thought I was going to get a celebration — they were going to thank me for my good police work. I came back to headquarters walking in triumphant, and like eight officers jumped out of nowhere, grabbed a hold of me, told me to stay still: we're going to take all your weapons, and you're going to talk with us. This whole time I'd been thinking I'd gotten away with all the stuff I'd done while drinking off duty, and I was shocked at all the things they did know about — the Facebook messages I'd sent that scared people, when somebody knew I was a cop and reported me to the department over them.
I'd had little inklings of these things before, like out at the bar with my friends, hearing conversations. But I was shocked at the list of things they'd amassed. And they said, "What are we going to do about this?" And I said, "I'll just quit." They said, "Good, that'll make it simple for all of us." I moved home with my parents, and my dad said, "Boy, do you think this had anything to do with your drinking? Are you going to quit?" I said, "No, no. It was that police department. They were crazy there." Some of the things that were complained about were a little over the top of what I think really happened. Others were spot on. But I told myself, no, it was this department, it was that crazy lifestyle. I'm going to go to graduate school. I'm going to settle down. I'm going to find a nice woman and I'm going to drink reasonably. And my parents said, "Well, that's great. No drinking while you live with us."
I was able to go most of the time with my parents in 2009 and 2010 without drinking and be pretty happy most of the time. I lost weight and started to feel good about myself. Then I shipped myself off to USF, and I felt like I had a fresh reset. I can drink, I can enjoy life, I can date — my life is great. But there just kept being these weird things happening. I'd get out at three in the morning and I'd have my gun, thinking, maybe I'll find something to shoot right now. I'm lucky for all the things I almost did that I didn't do. And I'm glad for those things today, because I have empathy and compassion for somebody who actually did do something — murder. I can have compassion for about anything anybody's done because of all the things I've almost done. All the times I was in a really bad spot, murderous raging, nobody came across my path, and I was able to just go back into my room, go to sleep, and nothing bad happened.
The Right Woman Was Supposed to Fix Everything
Then I met my wife, and I'd set this thing up in my mind: if I just had the right woman and a nice job, and if my life was all just right, I would have no problems. I thought, once I move in with my wife, I'm going to stop all this dumb shit. There's not going to be all these drinking escapades and spending all this money at strip clubs. And I moved in with her and was extremely disappointed to see that nothing changed on my part. In fact, I was shocked at how my behavior looked from her point of view. What to me didn't look that bad — yeah, I stayed up all night screaming at the TV while I played Call of Duty — to me seemed like a good night of my drinking. That was about as good as it got. Nothing crazy happened. To her, that was totally unacceptable. I could see, wow, I'm a lot worse than I think I am. My idea of what's reasonable is her idea of insane.
We had a real rough night of yelling and screaming — another night of me walking around the apartment looking for something to shoot. Thankfully, she rescued me again, and all the wildlife hid, like, oh shit, let's get out of the way here. And I woke up the next day thinking, holy shit, dude, I'm fucked up. I'll never drink. This is real bad. So I swore to her, I said, "I swear to God, I'll never, ever drink again. I'll be sober." This was at the end of 2011, going into 2012. We'd been dating less than a year.
Plotting a Relapse
Then my friend's wedding came up. I didn't go to his bachelor party, but I went to his wedding, and I felt sorry for myself. Poor little Jerry can't drink. This is so depressing. All my friends are having fun. I'm missing out. And I cried, and I bitched, and it was an awful wedding. Then we took a trip for Christmas, and on some subconscious level, I plotted a relapse. I plotted ten days away from my wife during Christmas, which she was remarkably gracious about. I plotted that right at my weakest point, I would go visit my friends I really liked to drink with. And sure enough, for Christmas, they got me a bottle of my favorite: strawberry Smirnoff 70 proof vodka. I remember calling my wife the next day on the phone, after nothing bad happened except for the usual hangover I endured. I remember calling her, crying, driving back from Columbia, South Carolina to Sarasota, Florida: "I'm sorry. I'll never do this again. I'm so stupid."
I got back, and I stayed sober for five months. That was the longest I'd been sober since I started drinking. No meetings, no other kind of change — just focus on my work, focus on my school. And man, after five months, I somehow talked myself into believing the real issue was drinking and having fights with my wife. So if I could just go to Columbia to hang out with my friends, then I could drink there without causing problems in my marriage. I told my wife this great plan, and she said, "Well, it didn't work. Don't come back to me crying about it." I was like, it's going to go great. In my mind, this was her supporting me. And I called my dad up when I was sober, right before I drank, and my dad was just beside himself. "You've been doing so good. What are you doing? Why are you doing this? Try something else. Can't you just hang out with your friends without drinking?" I just didn't get it. I said, "Dad, this is good for me. Don't you understand? I've been really busy. I really need to just let it out."
I drank with my friends and had a great weekend. Nothing bad happened. I thought, awesome, I can make this a regular thing. So I started driving eight hours to Columbia, South Carolina to drink, for several months — I'd go about once a month. Then in about October, I thought, well, it seems kind of stupid to drive eight hours to go drink. I might get in an accident or something. I might hurt myself. It's expensive. I might as well just drink at home and control myself. After a year, all the lessons had been forgotten, and all of a sudden I was back drinking at home again. From there, it just went straight downhill. At first, it was fine from my point of view. From my wife's point of view, it was completely unacceptable the whole time and pushed her idea of how far unacceptable could get. But from my view, staying up late yelling at the TV was not a big deal.
When My Dad Died, It Went to a Whole New Level
Then my dad got sick and died. And that's when things really went to a whole new level. All of a sudden, drinking was only bringing up the devil every time. Now I didn't feel like I had any choice at all — I had to drink whether I wanted to stay sober or not. There was another wedding, more bachelor parties with my friends, more shame, more throwing a bunch of money at the strip club, spending a whole bunch of money on their dinners. My wife was just like, "What are you doing?" And I'm like, "I'm just going to stay sober all the time? Why?" One night, I had six drinks, and she told me, "That's enough. Stop." And I said, "Well, this doesn't even count now. This doesn't even count that I had a night of drinking. Now I need to get drunk tomorrow night — I was going to be sober tomorrow." She said, "I don't understand how six drinks isn't enough." And I told her, "That's not even half of where we were going tonight."
Finally, after my dad died, I had a few really rough nights just at home, screaming. One night, my dad, his dad, and his dad — who are all alcoholics and all died — all appeared to me. And I screamed at them for an hour at five in the morning. "Fuck you. You weren't there." Just screamed at them for an hour. My wife thought I was taking some other kind of drugs. But no, that's just what happens when I drink a lot sometimes. I don't need anything else to get that crazy.
At that point I was trying to stay sober, and by the end of April 2014, I wasn't even telling anybody when I was trying to get sober. I'd say in my head, I'm going to get sober, but I wouldn't tell anybody about it because I didn't want to have to tell them I was relapsing. So I'd make it a day, I'd make it two or three days. And I kept having this vision in my head of how my life was going to go. While at this point I'd somehow been faithful to my wife, I realized one night while I was drinking that I was going to be unfaithful to her. I was going to go down to one of these Asian massage parlors — there were a bunch of them; we lived near the airport. I could see that one night I was going to do that, and then I was going to feel so bad that I was going to shoot myself rather than deal with it, because I'd already nearly done that a bunch of times over less egregious violations. And I realized that's where I was going, and there was no choice. Clearly, the only way I was going to be faithful to my wife was to get sober. And clearly, I couldn't do that.
The Last Night I Drank
The last night I drank was April 21st, 2014. It started out like any other night. I went to work, went to the gym — I'm being productive today, I did my good, now I can drink. And I drank all afternoon and all evening till like five in the morning. I played a whole bunch of Call of Duty zombies and just drank vodka and Dr. Thunder — two shots a cup, putting one or two of those down an hour, all night. My wife finally had had enough. She said, "I can't be here with you drinking anymore." And I said, "That's fine. Go. I don't care." She said, "I'm going to go stay with my parents." I said, "That's fine." Then I remember talking to my friend about it: "Do you ever think about being unfaithful to your wife?" He was kind of horrified with that whole line of discussion. And then, to top the end of the night off, I found a website in China where I could use my credit card to put $500 on and gamble. I hadn't gambled online since 2006, and I'd thought I'd never do that again. And I thank God I gambled that night.
Desperate Enough to Ask God for Help
That night removed any illusion that I had any amount of control at all. I woke up the next day and threw up blood. I realized I'd lost $500 on a credit card — I'd be paying interest on that for months, and I didn't have $500 to be pissing away. And my wife said she was going to leave. I said okay, and I thought, holy shit — I can see where this is going and I can't stop it. I'd proven I couldn't get sober no matter what I said, no matter what I did. I was going to drink again. And that got me desperate enough to go to God and say, "God, please, I'll do anything — anything — to get sober."
And I had a little thought that came after that. The thought was: well, maybe going to one of those AA meetings would be a part of the "anything" you just offered. And that seemed pretty okay to me. I'd been imagining it would be worse — when you offer anything, you don't know what you're going to get. I thought, that doesn't seem too bad, I can do that. So I scheduled a meeting for the next week, figuring I could surely stay sober until then. And I planned it deliberately, because my dad's memorial was that weekend and we were driving to Mississippi. I realized the day after I came back, it was either drink — you're going to get drunk — or go to AA. There were no other options. I wasn't going to just stay at home and be sober somehow. That was my day to go to AA.
My First AA Meeting
So I went to AA, and I remember walking into the meeting scared, feeling like a total failure. I'd really blown my life up. I came into AA not knowing what to expect, and my first impression walking in was: why are all these people so happy? It felt like walking into a family, except I didn't belong. All these people were happy and shaking hands and hugging, and I thought, what the hell is this? This is not what I expected. I expected something more like the prison environment I'd worked in. Instead it was like, oh, this is great — I feel at home here.
I sat down, and they asked if anybody was new. I stood up and shared for like five minutes before they'd hardly done anything in the meeting. Now I smile when anybody does that — I'm like, hey, there I am, that guy's just like me. I don't remember what anybody said at the meeting, but I know the chairperson, Ruth, suggested I ought to get some phone numbers. And I said no, thanks. Because in my mind, what were these creepy people going to do with my phone number? I don't know any of you. I don't trust you. You're going to sell my phone number or want something from me? No, I'm not giving my phone number. And Ruth said, "I did it that way a lot of times and it didn't work so well for me." So I said, all right — I'll put my name in the book, I'll put my phone number with it, I'll put my name in the membership book that says I'm a member of this group.
I don't know exactly what happened, but I walked out to the car after the Lord's Prayer, having put my name in the membership book, and I finally felt better. And I cried. I felt like my dad, who'd passed away four months earlier — I could finally, clearly feel my dad. And it was like I could feel all those prayers people had said for me too. As long as I kept them all away — "I'm not interested, I don't want it" — I couldn't feel any of it. But now, all the nights my wife had prayed for me, and my mom — I could feel all of it. I just cried in the car, saying thank you, thank you. I'll come back. I'll definitely come back.
Two Meetings a Week and the Illusion of Being Fixed
So I came back two days later. And in my mind I said, well, I drink like two days a week, so I'll go to two meetings a week. That'll work. Of course, by "drink two days a week" I meant I'd drink from noon until four to eight in the morning, have a God-awful hangover the next day, have one day sober, then do it all over again — and consider myself functioning. I was getting my work done, spending time with my wife, going to the gym. The key thing I suggest now when sponsoring, when people ask, "Well, how many meetings should I go to?" — I tell them, you'll know if you're not going to enough. And for me, going to two meetings was enough for the first two months, because two meetings versus zero is a big difference. I actually bought the book two months after coming into AA — I couldn't believe it took that long. I looked at my Amazon history: two months after my first meeting, I bought the book. And then I actually started reading it at some point after that too.
But after about 90 days, I was in the middle of the insanity. See, when I came in, I realized: okay, I'm powerless over alcohol. If I have even a sip of it, I don't know if I'm going to have my definition of a good night, where I just scream at the TV, or a bad night where I almost land in prison. That's powerless — you don't know what kind of night you're going to have. You can't decide to quit. That's powerless. But I didn't get the other half of the first step — that our lives have become unmanageable, especially our sober lives. Without a drink in me, there were some serious mental and emotional issues going on — so bad that I thought having a drink was the best thing I could do with my day, sober. And that's what was shocking me after about 90 days. I was going to AA, telling everybody how sober I was. I was giving my wife the chapter To the Wives — "this isn't for me, this is for you to read, and you might want to consider going to Al-Anon in case I relapse." That's the state I was in after 90 days.
The Obsession Comes Back
My wife would be at work all day while I worked at home with my own business. For the first couple of months I had some kind of protection — the obsession was removed. I still wished and hoped and felt bad for myself that I couldn't drink, but I wasn't obsessed with having a drink — until July 4th, when I'd been sober just over two months. A week before, at my in-laws', my wife's parents had this dog — still do — a little dachshund, and he was just barking at me and barking at me. And I finally snapped. That dog called me out, and I yelled, "Shut the fuck up" — even louder than that — at the dog. And all of a sudden it was like the beat dropped, and Laura's whole family turned to look at me. Instead of feeling, deep down, "oh shit, they just saw me," I thought, y'all are assholes — y'all are all assholes right now. Mind you, they'd seen me come over crying, drinking, a mess — but now they'd seen me sober, screaming at their dog. There was no "oh, I was drunk" to hide behind. So instead of owning what I did, I set up the story that "your family's assholes and I don't want to be around them."
On July 4th, Laura said, "All right, I'm going to go spend July 4th with my family" — because I'd been saying her family hadn't been very nice to me lately. When really, her family had been telling her, don't leave so quick. I found out later the reason Laura didn't leave that last night I drank is because she called her mom, and her mom said, "You don't just leave your husband when he's having a little bit of a hard time and come stay with your parents." I was so moved when I found out about that, because I can't imagine telling my daughter that. I'd have been like, "Forget him — come on home, I'll help you get rid of him." And this was the family I'd said were assholes.
As soon as Laura left, the obsession to drink just crushed me. It came out of nowhere. I'm sober, I'm doing — oh God, I want to drink. And I could drink all day. She's going to be out of town. She deserves this. I need this. And all of a sudden, all those things people said in meetings made sense. I thought I'd come to AA and gotten fixed — you see a lot of people come in thinking that just by sitting in a few meetings they're fixed. And I realized: not only am I not fixed, it doesn't seem like anything's changed. If anything, I'm worse. I'm worse than when I came in, because I haven't drunk in a few months, I know drinking is poison, I know it's just like committing suicide — and I still want to do it anyway. God, help me, please.
From there, for I don't know how long — a week or two weeks — it was the longest few weeks of my life. The entire day, all day, every day, went like this: God, please, I'll do anything to stay sober. But my wife's really been being a bitch. She's at work. I think now would be a good time for me to drink. I'm going to go to the liquor store and get some vodka — no, I'll go to Walmart. God, please, I want to stay sober, please, I really mean it. But what if I just drink? Maybe I can just drink today. It was miserable — every single thing. I had personal training scheduled: I can't go to personal training, I'm going to go to the liquor store. I'll skip personal training — let's just go to the liquor store right now. Well, why don't I go to personal training and then decide afterwards if I go to the liquor store? No, because if you go to personal training, after you've worked out you're going to feel better, and you're not going to want to go to the liquor store — so just go to the liquor store now. God, please help me. All right, let's just get in the car, because then we can go to personal training or the liquor store — either one — either way, we need to get out of this house. And at some points I literally just stood in my house, telling myself: I'm safe right here, right now. I can't drink.
Getting Honest at a Meeting
I'm just going to stand here because I know I'm not going to hurt myself or do anything stupid. Every single little action I'd take, I'm asking, is this going to get me closer to a drink or farther away? And meanwhile, I'm not going to have a drink. Well, now you're right — I'm going to have another drink, right? And at some point I'm thinking, what's wrong with having one extra meeting? I got my two meetings a week and I'm battling. Finally, at one of the meetings, I raised my hand and I got honest. They asked, is anybody having trouble staying away from a drink today? That used to seem like a joke when I first came to meetings. I thought, ah, we're all cured. We came to AA, of course we're all good. And then it was my turn. They're like, Jerry? I said, I'm Jerry, I'm alcoholic, and I've wanted to drink all day really bad. I barely got to this meeting today, and I'm going to drink tomorrow. You all said don't drink today, you can drink tomorrow. I'm going to drink tomorrow. I just wanted to let you all know. This was Thursday, and I'm planning in my mind that I'm going to get drunk tomorrow, but I've got to tell them since I'm a member of this group. I'm going to tell them, and then I can drink the next day.
And again, I don't know if anybody said anything in particular, but I got this little feeling of hope that it didn't have to be a miserable, drink-yourself-to-death kind of life — that maybe something else was possible. I started to believe something could restore me to sanity. I had no idea what it was, but I started to believe. What if these people are sober? They communicated to me that they'd been where I'd been. I knew that they understood. They understood what I was going through. And I could see they weren't obsessed with a drink. I thought, maybe if that's possible for them, it can be possible for me. And I just kept getting through one day at a time.
The Parking Lot: Massage Envy or Publix Liquors
Finally, the last day I had the obsession to drink, I'm thinking, I need to relax. I'm so stressed. My mind is just going constantly, I'm so miserable, I have to relax. This is a real big problem. I've got to find a way to relax. And my mind's like, drink, drink. You know that'll work. Drink, drink. And I'm like, yeah, that might work, but I think I'm going to kill myself if I drink. And I said, God, please help. And I remembered this lady at a meeting. She said, oh, I just go get a massage, and it's so nice. I just relax, and I leave feeling so refreshed. At the time when I was listening to her, my mind said something like, this dumb bitch probably gets played with or something. That's because I'd watched Sex and the City, and Samantha said that massage therapists were going down on clients. So in my mind, that's what happens in a massage. And therefore, in my mind, I'm like, I can't go get a massage — they're going to give me a hand job? I can't do that.
And then I just kept praying to stay sober. And I finally negotiated to go to the parking lot where there was a Massage Envy and a Publix Liquors. Because I figured either way, I'm going to get some relief. And they are literally right next to each other. I'm in my car, and I'm looking at both of them, like, all right, I know. And I finally was really honest with myself. I looked at the Publix Liquors, and I thought, I am terrified to go in there right now. I know if I go in there, I've got misery that I can't even comprehend. I know my wife's leaving. I know I'm ending my life. If I go in there, that's what happens. And I looked at the Massage Envy, and I felt the same way about it. I'm like, well, that's dumb. I know why I'm afraid to go into Publix Liquors. But why am I terrified to go in the Massage Envy? How bad is it going to be in there? It's going to cost $70 or something. I'm sure I can set boundaries. I'm going to go do the next right thing, like people said. I was terrified to go in this Massage Envy, but I was not going to sit in that parking lot and suffer. I'm not going to go in that liquor store. I'm going to take this lady's suggestion that she said works for her, and maybe it'll work for me.
Three Clear Thoughts
So I go in there — again, scared shitless, don't know what I'm walking into. And at some point during the massage, my mind stopped, and I really completely relaxed. And I got three really clear thoughts that came into my head. The first one was: you're going to ask Tony to be your sponsor — because I had no sponsor at this point. And this was not the sponsor you would have picked out for me. This man was a construction worker who fell off a three-story construction building, caved part of his head in, and was considered mentally handicapped. But that's what the very clear voice — that was not my own thoughts — that came into my head said: you're going to ask Tony to be your sponsor. You're going to read that book. And you're going to go to five meetings a week. And I'm like, holy shit. Was that you, God? Wow. Maybe all this stuff people are saying in these meetings is true. And I just felt this reassurance that there is some power greater than me that's looking out for me, that is here to guide me if I will listen to it.
And I followed those exact instructions immediately. I'm like, okay, which five days a week can I go to meetings? Let me ask Tony to be my sponsor. Let me finish this book that I've started, the Alcoholics Anonymous book. And the best part about Tony was that Tony kept things ultra simple for me, which for a complicated motherfucker like me, that's what I needed. He said, God loves you. That was pretty much all he said. And I felt safe starting my fifth step with him because the way my mind rationalized it was: look, he's mentally disabled. You can tell him whatever you want to. And if he tells anybody, nobody's going to believe him anyway. And that's exactly what I needed, because I was so paranoid about telling anybody any of these things.
The Fifth Step: Tony and Ty
And one of those murderous rage nights came up. I had written an inventory of my life. I'd written pretty much what I've told you here. At one point in the first 90 days or so, I just felt like I really needed to write one day. I don't remember sitting down thinking I'm going to do the four steps. I just remember: I need to write an honest story of my life, where nothing was omitted, where all the most relevant and emotionally powerful things were included — like suicide attempts, like insanity at work, and all my drinking stuff. And I wrote all that out. Then I was sitting in a meeting one day, and one of these nights that I've already described — one I swore I'd never tell anybody about because it was proof of how awful I am — came up. And I realized: you've got two options. You're going to tell your sponsor this right now, or you're going to go get drunk. I'm like, shit, okay, well, I'll do my fifth step. And I felt so vulnerable. And the only reason I felt safe is because he is mentally handicapped. I'm like, it's got to be safe to tell him. And I told him, and he said, God loves you. I'll pray for you. He was not moved at all by what I said. And that's exactly the response I needed.
And the same thing happened a few days, maybe a week or a few weeks later. I thought, good, I did the fifth step. I'm rolling right through these steps. Oh, no. Another day, I'm sitting there and my grand sponsor, Ty, who's passed on, shared some really inappropriate joke. I was the only one who laughed at it, and I laughed at it really loud. And then I got a flood of buried and repressed memories from childhood — and from adulthood also — all kinds of things that I hadn't shared or uncovered so far. And again, I could see my options. I'm going to go get drunk right after this meeting. I'm not even going to go home. I'm going to go straight to the liquor store after these meetings. These thoughts are so horrible, I need to immediately do something about these thoughts. Or I'm going to talk to Ty right now and do my in-depth fifth step.
And Ty was dying of cancer at the time. I walked up to him and I said, Ty, I'd like to talk to you. And he said, no, I'm fine — he thought I was trying to cheer him up. And I'm like, Ty, I want to do a fifth step right now. And he said, okay, let's go. And he sat down with me in the back, and I laid everything out with him like I had never laid it out with anybody before. I described all the worst memories that came up in my mind, in the opposite of minimizing. I made them look the worst possible way you can imagine. And I laid them all out on Ty. And Ty's like, what? Let me tell you about my life. And my God, he told me about his life. And his life bothered me for days. The things he'd been through, especially as a child — I'm like, that shouldn't even be possible. That is so horrible. And his perspective left me feeling like, what? I'm okay. There's nothing wrong with me. In fact, I've had a fairly ordinary human experience.
Life Keeps Getting Better in Sobriety
After that, I've repeated that process a bunch of times — with counselors, hypnotherapists, another sponsor, people that aren't even my sponsor. And my life has just gotten so much better. And it keeps getting even better. I am continuing to improve every single year. I thought about how I recorded this last year, and I'm like, I hope this one's better than last year. It's like I'm competing with my speaker meeting from last year. I want to have a better message to share. I want to share every year. And I've been through so many things in sobriety now. I went through having two kids born. I went through my business blowing up and making me a big deal online. And I went through it failing and being in the worst financial situation of my life. I went through my mom falling off her horse and almost dying. I went through my mom not wanting to live anymore, and going from someone who supported me to someone who cursed me constantly. And I worked through that with Ty and with my sponsor. And they told me about what they'd done and worked through with their mothers.
Calling My Mom by Her Real Name
And Ty's like, call your mother by her real name. And if she's not in a good place, that'll really piss her off, and that'll push her over the edge. So I called my mom up and said, "Hi, Kathy." "What the fuck are you doing? How dare you call me Kathy?" And she was in a place she didn't want to live in. She was hurting, and that's all she had to give. And I was able to lovingly separate from my mom for a month. And now we have a better relationship than ever.
A Life Better Than I Ever Fantasized
I've seen things. My life today is better than I ever would have fantasized about before. I play video games for my job — it's how I earn my income. I have two wonderful kids. I have the same wonderful wife, and we have a better relationship than ever. I have great relationships with almost everyone. I love everybody in my life, and the ones I don't actually get me a little excited and curious. Like, hmm, you're different. You're different than the rest. And I actually like that.
I hope by sharing this today that no matter where you're at, you get a sense that a life better than you can even imagine at this moment is possible. That you might not even be able to fantasize or picture how good it could get. In fact, if I could look at one major defect throughout my life, it's a failure to set my sights high enough — a failure to aim as high as is possible. I used to just aim like, well, I hope I can just get by today and not cause any trouble.
Aiming to Be the Ambassador for Earth
I've progressively raised my sights. Today, I want to be the ambassador for Earth and take a faster-than-light spaceship to go to another planet. That's where I'm aiming at today. Because if I don't get there soon, so what? That's what's possible in my mind today. Because from what I've already seen, anything's possible. If you want to see more of my story, I share it in my Life playlist.
So thank you all for being here today. Love you all. And thank God for another day sober.