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Sober Talk SA - Ian J. & Snowy · Sober Talk SA

• 0:00
  Welcome to Sober talk. I'm Dennis and I have lived
• 0:03
  experience at Alco. If you or anyone you know is
• 0:07
  struggling with Alco, please call Alcoholics Anonymous on
• 0:11
  1300 double 22222 or check out their website on aa.org dot AU.
• 0:20
  I'll just run through the preamble of Alcoholics
• 0:23
  Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous is a
• 0:26
  fellowship of men and women who share their experience,
• 0:30
  strengthen hope with each other. They must solve their common
• 0:33
  problems and help others to recoup from alcoholism.
• 0:37
  The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop
• 0:40
  drinking. There are no dues of fees for
• 0:43
  AIR membership. We are self support through our
• 0:45
  own contributions. AIR is not allied with any sex
• 0:49
  denomination, politics, organization or institution.
• 0:53
  Does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses or
• 0:58
  oppose any clauses. Our primary purse is stir
• 1:01
  someone help other Alcoholics achieve sobriety.
• 1:05
  We have two speakers this evening, Ian J and Snowy.
• 1:09
  First up is Ian J. I'm Ian J or Ian Jamison because
• 1:15
  I'd like to everyone know my full name in case they want to
• 1:17
  see me afterwards or post me a letter.
• 1:20
  But I'm a grateful alcoholic that came into this program
• 1:26
  through Hillcrest Hospital in 1966.
• 1:30
  One of the things I've heard all all this morning is you know how
• 1:34
  we get and how we come to IA. And my place to to get there was
• 1:40
  at Woomera Hospital, a doctor that only came up as a reliever.
• 1:47
  I think he came up on the night before I was admitted to the
• 1:51
  hospital again for the umpteenth time for some valid complaint.
• 1:57
  I always had something when I ended up in that hospital that
• 1:59
  was a meningitis, laryngitis, hepatitis or whatever.
• 2:03
  I always had something to to enter that hospital.
• 2:07
  But basically I was there because of my drinking and this
• 2:11
  doctor came in the next morning, had all my notes, I think, never
• 2:15
  seen it before, and he just said the words to me that would have
• 2:19
  changed my life. It wasn't a diagnosis I
• 2:24
  expected, but he said, Ian, do you think Grog might have
• 2:29
  something to do with your problems?
• 2:33
  I looked around to see he was talking to actually, But for the
• 2:37
  first time in my 20 years of drinking, I was finally
• 2:40
  confronted with a Doctor Who was willing to, you know, say it
• 2:44
  like it was. I don't know.
• 2:47
  I don't remember saying yes, but I was shaking that much.
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  He took that as a yes and disappeared and 10 minutes later
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  he came back and he said, Ian, I've just called Doc Robbie in
• 3:00
  Adelaide and there's a bed at Hillcrest Hospital if you're
• 3:04
  willing to go. That's when I started to back
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  out and I would say no, the boss won't let me, I'm needed up here
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  and all the rest. But the the boss was willing to
• 3:13
  let me go and my wife was willing to let me go.
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  And that's where I ended up in July, just about this time in
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  1966. And in that hospital, I believe
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  that's where I first heard of IA.
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  My wife tells me that in 1957 she had a bloke come out to see
• 3:34
  me from the entrance. He was one of the first people
• 3:37
  up in the entrance. He was an insurance bloke.
• 3:39
  I forget his name, She'd remember it.
• 3:42
  But I must have been in a blackout when it came because I
• 3:45
  can't recall the thing. But she tells me he came to 12
• 3:48
  Step me and but as I say that asked me there when I first
• 3:54
  heard about a A Well, he came but I didn't hear.
• 3:57
  But I did hear when I got to Hillcrest because that hospital
• 4:01
  I believe was the best in Australia, if not the world in
• 4:05
  the way Dr. Salter, a non alcoholic, had constructed.
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  He started it in 1952 after hearing about a A in all places.
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  He was at a conference in England.
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  Bill Salter actually came from a wine family.
• 4:21
  Salt and Wines is a family business and he was also a
• 4:25
  member of the the Beef and Burgundy club.
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  So at a Beef and Burgundy club in London he got talking to
• 4:31
  another psychiatrist from America who told him about how I
• 4:35
  I was working in the hospitals there and how successful it was.
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  So when Bill came back to Adelaide, he searched around and
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  he found I, I was operating in, in Adelaide.
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  And he asked them whether they would like to start a meeting at
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  the hospital. And Keith, who actually was
• 4:54
  working in the hospital, unknown to Doc, would be the first
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  secretary. That was in 1952.
• 5:02
  Bill Sultan knew that he couldn't get through to Alkies,
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  but he knew the alkies sure from the meetings that they, they had
• 5:09
  this empathy with them. So over the next few years as
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  the patients came through, if they showed any ability, Bill
• 5:15
  asked, would ask them would they like to do a psychiatric
• 5:18
  training course with them. So that when I ended up in that
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  hospital in 1966, we had an alcoholic doctor, Doc Robbie,
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  who'd been through the program, and 9 male nurses who were
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  psychiatric patients. Try and tell them porkies and
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  get away with it. It just couldn't because they,
• 5:35
  they can sit you down in flames. So for me, that's where I, I, I,
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  I found IA and became a, a stand up member of this fellowship.
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  I was unfortunate. And I say unfortunate because
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  one year after that and I left that hospital, I did pick up one
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  drink and I didn't want it. I didn't ask for it and didn't,
• 5:55
  didn't need it. But, but that is another story.
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  So my sobriety date is actually December 1967, but I would say
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  that that it was a one drink and it was the last.
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  And that's the end of that now for me.
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  From the very start, I was intrigued about Alcoholics
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  Anonymous because after I left Hillcrest, I had to go back to
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  Woomera and spend a year where there was no a, a absolutely on
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  my own, The dead heart of Australia, the rocket range.
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  Everyone drank more or less, I thought, but you know, it was a
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  drinkers place and I had to do a day at a time on my own with the
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  only thing I had. My mother bought me a big book
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  while I was in in hospital. And so that was my, you know, my
• 6:41
  meeting, that meeting in that book.
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  And I read that book from cover to cover and, you know, as best
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  I could. And and during the reading of
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  this book, I came across one particular sentence that to this
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  day stands in my mind. And I had the second edition
• 7:00
  book. It was 66 book and and there was
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  a story of author, traveler, scholar words to that effect.
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  And in reading that book over and over again, I came across
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  these lines. I wanted to Rome again.
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  So I got a job on an Australian packet.
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  When I came home to Australia to see my people, where I was born,
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  that bloke was the first Australian sober.
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  He got sober in Akron in 1937. When I read that, I, I was
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  absolutely dumbfounded. You know, I, you know, it's this
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  that there was an Australian over there at that time when I
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  finally got back, as I say, into AI properly, when when I was I
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  came down from Wombat and that I got a transfer out of there and
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  that there was a story in that in itself.
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  But when I I got back down to Adelaide and and became a a
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  fully paid up member of the Salisbury group, I was straight
• 8:07
  away thrust into service. Salisbury Bill, who was the
• 8:11
  founder of founding member of the group and also one of the
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  first members of in Adelaide that was still active at that
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  time. There was a bow tie elf Betty H
• 8:22
  who actually came from Melbourne.
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  She was one of the old Talk H members and the other names are
• 8:30
  Pauline, Pauline and both of these these people were still
• 8:35
  active and they were the of of the originals.
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  They got hold of me Salisbury Bill.
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  It was his meeting I took as my Home group and Salisbury Bill
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  from when I got six months, I gave me the key and asked me to
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  be secretary and after a year asked to represent them at the
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  delicious meeting. And from the very start I knew
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  no one in in in Adelaide. I I became my my home, my social
• 9:02
  club, my, my everything. And I took to the service, you
• 9:07
  know, as, as a, you know, the, the thing that I believe saved
• 9:12
  my life because it, it gave me an interest.
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  It gave me a not only an interest, it, it gave me
• 9:20
  something to grow with whatever I did in a a over the years.
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  And I, I could honestly tell you I'd never volunteered for
• 9:29
  anything. I will always happen to sit up
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  the back and you know, I would, I would have still been sitting
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  up the back only for these people who actually came, you
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  know, thank you, Sir. And they, they came and, and,
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  and got me to do these things. And over the years, I have been
• 9:44
  able to fill in every position that is available in the a a
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  structure. And in doing that, I, I, I, I
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  only say that in whatever I did for AII have been repaid a
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  hundredfold. It's allowed me to grow up,
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  mature those things that I would never have done otherwise.
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  It it proved me and my job prospects and everything else.
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  And so for the newcomer, for the the person today, I would
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  implore them to get involved with service.
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  Service is the key. And I'd like to close on this
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  Doctor Bob's last words. When it's all boiled down, it's
• 10:23
  all love and service. I thank you our.
• 10:29
  Next speaker is Snowy. My name is snow and becoming a
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  alcoholic addict and and by the grace of God, being able to be
• 10:39
  here today and alive. And I think a lot of us could
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  say that I come to IA at the age of 25 and you know, it was
• 10:47
  through the gap between the age of 15, the age of 25 that I'll
• 10:51
  never forget. Pick my drink up at the age of
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  15 and going from there. I thought they'd become a man
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  and I used to practice with two way mirrors to try and, you
• 11:02
  know, get the smoke coming from the nostrils like Al Capone or
• 11:06
  Frank MIDI and put the twin twinkle suit on.
• 11:09
  And you know, I pretend I was a tough man And then a big twin
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  stops the twin spin custom line cars come in and you know, damn,
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  where we were, you could cut the sleeve shirts out of your shirt
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  and pump the muscles up and put a bit of cream on the side and
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  put the arm on the side of the door and try and, you know,
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  influence the girls that you, you know, her next boyfriend
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  rather. And all those sort of stuff that
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  I had a real emotional madness of knowing what a man was.
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  And I thought I'd found it when I picked my first drink up as a
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  as a Bender drinker and the wine drinker, mainly whiskey.
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  And the reason I just say drugs is because I used to take ups
• 11:47
  and downs to go to work the next day.
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  So I am, you know, I look back at where alcohol took me and all
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  I can remember is one guy got up in a meeting and he said in
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  Adelaide it's sad to see the end results of chronic alcoholism.
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  And I reached the chronic stages at the age of 2022.
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  And you know, it just makes me sort of smile.
• 12:09
  I'm here in Sydney today and I remember being stationed in
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  Sydney in the army, a device from a father.
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  He said if you go into the army, son, it'll make a man of you.
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  After he tried to tell me just to just to drink stout, He said
• 12:21
  that that'll be all right. But that didn't work.
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  And so I went into the army at the vice of my father and got
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  stationed at Ingleburn in to finish here and I used to come
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  on and leave in to Sydney would have made a mine.
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  And we used to just be private. So we aren't even scorpals or
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  siges or anything. We used to get this jungle green
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  shirt from the Army and Naval Naval Store and we used to have
• 12:43
  the paratroop wings on the shoulders and go to the dance in
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  Parramatta and tell the girls were a paratroopers and I hadn't
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  even been up in an aeroplane. And the reason I say that
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  because I've heard about a bit about Catholics here today and I
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  finished up, I pinched a Catholic priest car in one of my
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  mad alcoholic seizures and I drove it to Port Lincoln.
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  And you know, I got sentenced there by a very strict Catholic
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  judge and he'd give me an extra three or four months on top of
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  that. And I come to, I would a bit of
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  resentment against Catholics, which I don't have today.
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  But, you know, that was my first ride, an aeroplane handcuffed
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  with detectives. So there's a lot of things I can
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  smile at. But, you know, between the
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  sadness and the smiles and, you know, being able to look back
• 13:26
  and reflect and not regret the past as the promises.
• 13:28
  What I is about. And, you know, is is like our
• 13:31
  first lady. Speaker spoke today.
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  To be able to lift your head up and know that, you know, you
• 13:36
  cleaned your slate with God and that you have a purpose in life.
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  Because for me, life had no meaning left in it, no meaning
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  at all. Had another drink and you know,
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  I was one of the youngest members that came into a A at
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  the age of 25 in Adelaide along with Adelaide Arthur and we
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  were, we started the young people's group up there and it
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  was through my last drink that I was introduced to my turning
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  point through a prison chaplain and I was in my last drink.
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  It took me in a blackout up up the river in a place called
• 14:06
  Renmark where I flaked out in the back of the car and my whole
• 14:10
  body was convulsing. And when they put me in the
• 14:12
  cells and then they sentenced me and my whole body was gone into
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  reactions in my mind because I'd been two weeks on a Bender and
• 14:19
  that was a mixture of alcohol and drugs together.
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  They should have died. Actually with that last Bender.
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  They put me in a prison hospital and was probably didn't know
• 14:27
  about what alcohol was about in those days like we do today.
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  And it was in the prison hospital after the prison doctor
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  would see me at prison chaplain come to see me and I broke down
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  and I started to cry. And he he said, you may be an
• 14:39
  alcoholic. These a a members visit this on
• 14:41
  the jail panel this, this, this jail here.
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  He said, maybe if you go along next weekend and have a listen,
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  he said you might be able to find some help.
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  And that's where I I stood at my turning point.
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  So I wanted his advice to the to to the meeting.
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  And I sort of sat at the back between two other people and I
• 14:57
  never forget this guy got up to share is one of the visiting
• 15:00
  members of a A2. Guys were talking while he was
• 15:02
  sharing and he and he and he really got angry and he leaned
• 15:05
  the chair forward in a very controlled anger and he curled
• 15:08
  the lip up and he said, one of you here may want to hear what
• 15:10
  I've got to say. I'll never forget it because I
• 15:12
  was always tried to look like Al Capone.
• 15:14
  And he looked like at this day, I'll tell you.
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  And they shut right up. They didn't make another noise.
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  And he went on and his name was Checker and he said, you books
• 15:21
  don't have to go around around the clock.
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  Like I haven't spent all this time in jail like he had.
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  He spent a lot of years in jail. This man and I knew for the
• 15:28
  first time what we talked about in his room.
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  Experience, strength and help was coming through you know.
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  And then I went back to my cell and the next day at a prison
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  chap and come up and he talked to me and said how did it go?
• 15:37
  And I said oh that was a good meeting.
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  I said but I'm going mad every time I'm in my cell at night I
• 15:41
  just feel so insane. My voice is in my head.
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  I said I just don't know what I'm going to do.
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  I said I just feel so ashamed and crazy and and he took me
• 15:49
  through my first 4th and 5th step and I never forget laying
• 15:51
  on the floor of the cell in the jail in the Cadell, laying on
• 15:55
  the floor crying and sobbing. After I got to the part where I
• 15:58
  was speaking at my fifth step, I I was talking about my dad who
• 16:01
  couldn't put up with me anymore and I said I hate him but I love
• 16:04
  him 'cause the rejection was there.
• 16:05
  We talk about in his rooms and I just shook from here to do and I
• 16:08
  can't explain it, but I sobbed and I sobbed and I cried and he
• 16:12
  had his arm around my shoulder. He said like velvet, son, like
• 16:14
  velvet. And I'll never forget that man.
• 16:17
  And he talked to me about Christ and love and things that more
• 16:19
  than probably to people might sound religious.
• 16:21
  I just accepted what he said. And it was where when I had this
• 16:25
  tremendous turning around within, something changed within
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  here. My sponsor used to say it's an
• 16:30
  inside job. If you want to rob a bank, it's
• 16:32
  good to know what goes on the inside and I agree with that.
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  You know, and the whole thing is this that's led me to the point
• 16:39
  where I walked out that jail in 65.
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  If you told me I would have got married and have 4 little
• 16:42
  snowies and two of them are 6 foot five, you know, and would
• 16:46
  make sense help. I've been able to produce a bit
• 16:47
  more than a hangover. That's my wife and I love her
• 16:50
  very much. And you know today, well, you
• 16:53
  know, the other week I went to my daughter's wedding and being
• 16:56
  a father, they they asked me to share as being a father about my
• 17:00
  daughter and I got up in the sitting conclusion.
• 17:03
  My real name's Canal and the the guy she married was a cook.
• 17:08
  And I said, how do I've got to get it right?
• 17:11
  I said, I said, in conclusion, I said my daughter was once just
• 17:16
  just a minute ago, she was a canal.
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  Now she's a qualified cook. And I pray to God she brings
• 17:20
  forth a few cookies with Mark Self, who's a head cook.
• 17:26
  And you know that that's that's the things that I today I have
• 17:29
  the joy of seeing a family that can see a father that silver.
• 17:32
  We've got four children. I know what it means to have a
• 17:35
  son that's, you know, gone through the madness of this
• 17:37
  disease. Like somebody said here before,
• 17:39
  they're coming in with a drink in one hand and a drug in the
• 17:40
  other. And my youngest son is almost
• 17:43
  destroyed by it with alcohol and speed together and he's alive.
• 17:46
  Thanks for the medical help and new people in these rooms.
• 17:49
  And the other thing I'd like to mention is this, that I said
• 17:52
  this in a meeting the other night and said that, yeah, I was
• 17:55
  always confused. They'd let go on and hang on at
• 17:57
  the same time. And I'll just conclude, conclude
• 18:00
  the message. And this is that years ago, 20
• 18:02
  years ago, I was at my place 1:00 in the morning.
• 18:06
  I was staying asleep in bed. It was a hot summer's night.
• 18:08
  My daughter and my youngest son had just come back from a dance
• 18:11
  and they walked up to our place in Elizabeth and sometimes a
• 18:13
  pretty rough place at times. And there's these two guys were
• 18:17
  harassing them both and one of them got my son and started to
• 18:20
  punch him up. And I was in bed.
• 18:22
  My wife said quick, quick, quick, get out.
• 18:23
  She said there's a fight out the front.
• 18:24
  So he jumped out of bed and just look at his back to me.
• 18:27
  And he, he was a pretty big bloke, I'll tell you.
• 18:29
  And I didn't even have a time to say what an order and I I jumped
• 18:33
  on his back, grabbed him around the neck and I'm hanging on like
• 18:36
  that, but I had my pajamas with no elastic in them and they
• 18:38
  started to slip down. And the two, the two messages
• 18:42
  that come from this is that you, you can hang on and, and let go
• 18:45
  at the same time. And the, the, the point I'm
• 18:49
  trying to make here is this that, that you know, I, I says
• 18:53
  more to be revealed. And the other thing too, is you
• 18:57
  don't have to go to renew this comedy to do it.
• 18:58
  You can come here and reveal yourself to another alcoholic.
• 19:01
  You know, that's sort of. But in conclusion of that, when
• 19:04
  I was hanging onto this guy's neck and my son got away and got
• 19:08
  a kick and they, that we finished them, they, they just
• 19:09
  left. They left because, you know, it
• 19:12
  takes more than it takes more than one to handle this joint,
• 19:14
  which is the disease. That's what I'm talking about.
• 19:16
  If you hang, when I see the speaker standing up here, I'm
• 19:19
  seeing somebody that's hanging around the, the neck of this
• 19:22
  joint, which is called alchemism.
• 19:23
  So somebody can get a kick at it so it doesn't destroy them.
• 19:25
  And I don't mean in a violent way.
• 19:27
  I'm talking about because it's an aggressive disease and we
• 19:31
  can't be passive with it. We've got it.
• 19:33
  We've got to go forward together.
• 19:34
  That's what I was told in, in, in the beginning of a recovery,
• 19:37
  that unity is, is where we get our strength is being together.
• 19:42
  And you know, I know we don't all agree with everything each
• 19:44
  other says, but the common bond I've got in my life today has
• 19:47
  come from a higher pilot and introduced me to my first
• 19:50
  meeting with a A when I I heard my first members of a A speak.
• 19:53
  You know, I could speak about numerous people that you know,
• 19:58
  of helping them my life and the checkers, the Blues, the Broken
• 20:02
  Hill Jacks and so many that you know, go on and on.
• 20:06
  But you know, to have this life today and not have this
• 20:10
  compulsion and forced to drink against my will.
• 20:13
  That's that's got to be God, you know, and I love my high pie
• 20:16
  today because even though I've never been able to handle all
• 20:19
  things as easily as as the average person out there, I can
• 20:22
  handle things that once they could never handle.
• 20:24
  And that's the promise is what IAS says for me.
• 20:26
  For that, I'm very grateful. Thank you.
• 20:28
  We have local meetings for the full week in the local area.
• 20:33
  Monday is Gala meeting at 8:00. Tuesday is Elizabeth E at 8:00,
• 20:40
  Wednesday is Elizabeth E at 8:00, Thursday is 2 Wells at
• 20:45
  8:00 and Friday is Salisbury at 8:00.
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  There's a meeting at Devron Park at 12:00 and on Sunday there's a
• 20:54
  maintenance Salisbury at 7:00 and many of the maintenance in
• 20:58
  the area. For details of your local
• 21:03
  meetings, please form 1300 double 22222.
• 21:10
  And once again, if anyone you know is struggling with alcohol
• 21:13
  issues, please call Alcoholics Anonymous on 13 under 000000.
• 21:21
  The website isaasa.org dot AU.