Latest / Sober Talk SA / Sober Talk SA - Stephen C

Transcript

Sober Talk SA - Stephen C · Sober Talk SA

• 0:00
  Welcome to Sober Talk. I'm Dennis and I'm an alcoholic.
• 0:04
  Soap to dear thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous.
• 0:08
  If you or anyone you know is struggling with alcohol, please
• 0:11
  call Alcoholics Anonymous on 1300 double 22222.
• 0:17
  I'll visit their website ata.org dot AU.
• 0:24
  I'll just run through the preamble of Alcoholics
• 0:27
  Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous is a
• 0:29
  fellowship of people who share the experience, strengthen hope
• 0:33
  with each other that they may solve their common problems and
• 0:37
  help with us to recover from alcoholism.
• 0:40
  The only requirement for membership is the desire to stop
• 0:43
  drinking and no dues of fees. Fair membership.
• 0:46
  We are self supporting through our own contributions.
• 0:50
  He is not allied with any sect in omination, politics,
• 0:54
  organization or institution, does not wish to engage in any
• 0:58
  controversy, either endorses or oppose any causes.
• 1:03
  Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other Alcoholics
• 1:07
  are chiefs of Brady. How are you going, people?
• 1:10
  I'm Steve. I'm an alcoholic pillars.
• 1:13
  I don't know what to share. And when I when I when I share,
• 1:16
  I always before. Yeah, well, before I share, I've
• 1:21
  got all these things going through my mind that I want to
• 1:24
  say, and as soon as I think of them, they go away.
• 1:28
  You know, the thought, everything I want to say, I've
• 1:31
  already forgotten it. So I'll just start from the
• 1:34
  beginning. A little kid remember being a
• 1:41
  little boy and a lot of, you know, a lot of kids I know they
• 1:45
  used to used to act tough to me like when I was a little boy, I
• 1:50
  used to get punched in the stomach.
• 1:51
  And, you know, I got kids at school used to call me call me
• 1:55
  names and, and I don't know whether that sometimes they,
• 2:00
  they'd call me horrible things. And, and I, I, I, I, I, I grew
• 2:07
  up with a in public school and, and some of the kids were pretty
• 2:10
  tough back then. And I remember 11 kid that we
• 2:13
  were scared of any here's to get the cane because I had the cane
• 2:18
  back then and all the kids were afraid of him.
• 2:22
  And he'd get it suspended and suspended and finally expelled.
• 2:26
  And this is junior primary. And, and, you know, I remember
• 2:30
  parts of my childhood being, being, you know, winded and
• 2:33
  punched in the stomach and shoved and, and, and I had to go
• 2:38
  lessons to, to exert my, you know, my, my energy.
• 2:43
  Instead of getting angry. They taught, I was taught to,
• 2:47
  to, you know, to say no or, or stop or.
• 2:53
  And my, my dad put me in self defence.
• 2:57
  And, you know, there was a martial arts teaching and, and,
• 3:02
  and I did that and I, I, I practiced that for, for, for a
• 3:07
  while And, and you know, I did this other martial arts when I
• 3:10
  was a teenager and did two different types of it.
• 3:13
  And, and you know, that was, wasn't because I wanted to bash
• 3:20
  people or hurt people. It was because I wanted to, I
• 3:24
  wanted to be able to defend myself.
• 3:26
  I, I felt helpless against these other kids.
• 3:28
  And, and, and so I started to defend myself and, and very
• 3:36
  quickly I started becoming a bully.
• 3:38
  And, you know, I, I turned from the, the kid that was being
• 3:41
  teased and hurt and needed help and into, you know, being in, in
• 3:47
  high school when a kid, you know, pushed me in my face and,
• 3:51
  and when somebody pushed me, I, I started, you know, I'd ball up
• 3:54
  all of this, I'd ball up all of this, this anger inside of
• 3:59
  myself and I, and I couldn't let it out.
• 4:01
  And if somebody really messed with me, I'd explode.
• 4:06
  All of that, all of that stuff that I bought up inside, I'd
• 4:09
  explode and I'd bash them or, and, and very, you know, my
• 4:18
  altruism, you know, that that's, that's, that's sort of another
• 4:23
  story of a mental side of things.
• 4:24
  But I remember the first time I experienced alcohol, I wasn't
• 4:33
  drunk, but the effect that when I was a little kid, I was at a
• 4:37
  family party and, and I remember popping up over the tables and
• 4:42
  just having little sips out of there, you know, through the
• 4:45
  elixir and central pay and all those cask wines that my family
• 4:48
  drink. And, and, and I wasn't drunk,
• 4:53
  but I remember the effect, my alcoholism.
• 4:56
  I can, I can remember it now. I can see the alcoholism inside
• 5:00
  of me that wasn't there yet. But when I had those little
• 5:04
  ships, I felt fantastic. I, I felt like, like I'd like,
• 5:09
  I'd rebelled against my parents or rebelled against the people
• 5:13
  in my family or the people around me.
• 5:15
  And, and so, yeah, I, I went through school and, and you
• 5:32
  know, I always, I never felt like I fit in with the other
• 5:37
  kids. I never felt like I was like one
• 5:41
  of them. And I, and I knew it.
• 5:42
  I, you know, I, I felt outcasted.
• 5:45
  And that's probably my story of drinking and I going into drugs
• 5:50
  as well. But I never, for a long time
• 5:53
  after I was a kid, I didn't want to be me anymore.
• 5:58
  I didn't want to be Stephen. I wanted to be someone else.
• 6:01
  And I found drugs more than alcohol.
• 6:07
  I found drugs in high school and marijuana was my drug of choice.
• 6:12
  And when I smoked it, I didn't, I didn't feel like Steven
• 6:16
  anymore. I felt, I didn't feel I didn't
• 6:19
  want to be me. I didn't like who I was.
• 6:23
  I didn't I, I, I felt like someone else and I felt
• 6:27
  fantastic. I didn't, I turned into this
• 6:29
  totally different person than what I was, you know, falling
• 6:34
  asleep in class. Going from somebody who got
• 6:39
  awards in in high school to somebody who just barely passes
• 6:44
  year 12. And you know, I smoked dope all
• 6:47
  the way through year 12 and I smoked cigarettes.
• 6:51
  And the only time I drank while I was in school was I got taken
• 6:58
  to a hotel and it didn't take me much to get drunk.
• 7:02
  I think it was about 8 drinks and it was test tubes of UZO and
• 7:07
  it was beer. And I know now looking back in
• 7:14
  hindsight that I had an allergy then.
• 7:18
  Like my allergy was there because I, I didn't take much to
• 7:22
  get drunk. And when I did get drunk, I was
• 7:24
  vomiting. I was passing out, I was
• 7:27
  blacking out, I was falling over in the ground and woke up in my
• 7:34
  house with my mum with a cloth over my head and a bucket next
• 7:37
  to me. And that was my first drunk
• 7:40
  experience with alcohol. And it is an irrational disease.
• 7:44
  Why do I want to smack my head against a brick wall and say it
• 7:46
  feels good and keep on doing it? What, knowing that it doesn't
• 7:49
  feel good? But you, you'd think, oh, if,
• 7:51
  if, if you had that experience when you're a teenager, that,
• 7:56
  that you wouldn't go back for more, would you?
• 7:58
  It's pretty strange. It's irrational.
• 8:00
  Why would you go back for more? It is like in pain, bad stuff's
• 8:05
  happening. And, and, and yet for, for the
• 8:08
  next few years, I, I didn't drink very much, but when I was
• 8:13
  19, I found nightclubs and then I found speed and I found LSD
• 8:20
  and cocaine and lots of alcohol. And I found that when I was in a
• 8:27
  nightclub, I couldn't handle my alcohol.
• 8:31
  I couldn't handle it at all. But when I had speed, I'd, I'd
• 8:35
  have amount of speed and I was able to drink as much as I want
• 8:40
  without passing out and, and I could handle it when I had that
• 8:43
  adrenaline in my body. And again, I didn't want to be
• 8:50
  me. I was in the nightclub.
• 8:54
  I got the opportunity to do whatever I wanted to do.
• 8:57
  And I'd made myself into, into someone else.
• 9:01
  Again, I'd, I'd, I'd turn to another person and always
• 9:05
  chasing little things like what do I want to be a dancer, a club
• 9:10
  dancer? Or do I want to do?
• 9:11
  I do, I want to you know, who, who am I going to associate with
• 9:16
  that that will make the gratify my own, you know, my own ego.
• 9:20
  And and so I drank a lot. I wasn't a morning drinker and I
• 9:27
  wasn't an afternoon drinker. I and I wasn't a daily drinker,
• 9:30
  but I was a binge drinker. And I don't think maybe once
• 9:35
  not, but I don't think I ever had a drink where I wasn't
• 9:40
  drunk. I think every time I drank, I
• 9:44
  was drunk and I didn't drink because it smelled or tastes
• 9:50
  good. I didn't drink because it went
• 9:52
  good with food like cheese or whatever, or, or like meats or,
• 9:57
  you know, have a glass of wine with a, with a little cheese
• 9:59
  platter and sit there and enjoy your wine.
• 10:01
  And it's very strange to me why I, I sad to my family.
• 10:06
  They have one beer and stop. My sister has a glass of wine
• 10:09
  and that's it. And then she he stops and it's
• 10:11
  like I my alcoholism today, you know, I know that it's very
• 10:18
  strange to me why somebody can drink and not get drunk.
• 10:25
  Being drunk was, you know, I I had that ISM inside of me and,
• 10:30
  and, and when I drank, I drank to ride myself off.
• 10:37
  And there were good times. There were times when I had a
• 10:41
  good time and I went home and I went to work the next day and
• 10:45
  that was it. But most of the time, you know,
• 10:49
  I didn't sleep for three or four days.
• 10:51
  I wasn't eating. I couldn't eat because I was on
• 10:54
  drugs. And you know, I was very getting
• 11:01
  very sick very, very, very quickly.
• 11:03
  And, and in, in, in about at the age of 2021, I pretty much rode
• 11:16
  myself off completely, pretty much cooked my brain completely.
• 11:20
  And I almost drank myself to death.
• 11:22
  And I didn't know what to do anymore.
• 11:25
  I wanted help and I didn't know how to ask for it.
• 11:27
  And, and I sat on my parents bed and I was crying and I remember
• 11:31
  doing this and, and I said, look, look, mum and dad, I, I'm,
• 11:35
  I'm sick. I don't know what's wrong with
• 11:37
  me. I'm sick.
• 11:37
  I can't stop drinking. I can't stop doing the things
• 11:40
  I'm doing and I need help. And for me, I needed to be put
• 11:46
  in in, in in a ward where they could monitor me because I was
• 11:51
  my brain was fried. I did so much speed and cocaine
• 11:57
  and and needles and and everything I could put in my
• 12:00
  body to turn myself into someone else.
• 12:03
  I did. And so for a period of two years
• 12:08
  I was an outpatient and I'd be put in and I'd go home.
• 12:11
  Mum and dad would visit me, that my family would visit me, they'd
• 12:15
  detox me. I'd go home sometimes on a on,
• 12:21
  on a daily on, on, on a sometimes on a daily basis and
• 12:25
  I'd spend time with my family. I was very lucky that some of
• 12:29
  the things I did were very criminal and I think I was being
• 12:32
  lean, shown leniency for what the things I was doing when I
• 12:37
  was using. I had no idea I was breaking the
• 12:39
  law. I had no idea that I was doing
• 12:42
  the wrong thing to others, what the things I was doing that I
• 12:44
  was doing criminal activities. And the thing about it is, is I,
• 12:49
  I thought it was normal to do that what I was doing.
• 12:51
  And no, it's not normal to to do the things we do when we drink
• 12:56
  and drug and, and so when I walked into these rooms, I
• 12:59
  didn't want to be here staring people down.
• 13:03
  I had, I had every excuse under the sun why it was nobody else's
• 13:09
  why, why it wasn't my fault that it was everybody else's problem
• 13:13
  and that it was, it was their fault and and they were judging
• 13:17
  me and, and there was nothing wrong with me.
• 13:18
  And and, you know, there's that, that ISM telling me that even
• 13:24
  though everything's gone, everything's broken, there's
• 13:27
  nothing good left. My activism tells me to keep on
• 13:31
  drinking, even though I know, you know, just to get that
• 13:35
  effect. And so I remember somebody when
• 13:39
  I walked into the rooms, like I said, I didn't want to be me.
• 13:42
  And, and when I came in the rooms, it was a member that
• 13:45
  walked up to me and said he said hello.
• 13:48
  And I said, I'm Steven. He said the best thing you can
• 13:51
  do is be yourself. And I didn't know what that
• 13:55
  meant at that time, but today I know that when I come into in
• 14:00
  these rooms, I'm given the opportunity to be honest and to
• 14:04
  tell the truth. And when I'm being someone else,
• 14:06
  I'm not honest and I'm not telling the truth.
• 14:12
  So I, I began on the journey of two years of older members
• 14:17
  talking to me. And you know, in those first two
• 14:20
  years, I was physically clean and sober, but mentally my mind
• 14:22
  was in the gutter. And I had to get my mind out of
• 14:25
  that alcoholic gutter. And that meant disconnecting me
• 14:28
  from hotels, nightclubs, pubs, anything late at night.
• 14:33
  The closest I get to a hotel is going out for dinner and that's
• 14:37
  it. And then I'll leave and that'll
• 14:39
  be with members. So I've started to do the
• 14:47
  program for the best of my ability.
• 14:49
  I'm lucky. I had a father in these rooms
• 14:51
  that was an alcoholic. He passed on about six or seven
• 14:54
  years ago, and that was snowy. And he, he helped me for more
• 15:00
  than a decade, helped me to understand the program and to do
• 15:04
  it to the best of my ability. And I've met a lot of members.
• 15:09
  I've seen a lot of members come and go, and I've seen a lot of
• 15:12
  old members pass on. And the best thing I ever did
• 15:16
  when I stepped into these rooms was listen to what people to
• 15:20
  open my ears and listen to what they were hearing because I
• 15:23
  don't hear anyone else but myself.
• 15:25
  The only when I, when I stepped into a room, when I was stepping
• 15:28
  into the rooms, you were talking, all I could hear was
• 15:31
  myself. I couldn't hear you.
• 15:34
  And so I, I started to listen and I started to hear what I
• 15:40
  needed to hear to, to get, to get to get better, to get clean
• 15:45
  and sober. And I have no compulsion to
• 15:49
  drink or use one day at a time. I'm here of my own free will,
• 15:53
  which I'm lucky I think that I am here of my own 3 will because
• 15:59
  I did some pretty gnarly shit when I was drinking.
• 16:01
  And and I, you know, I, I, I, yeah, yeah.
• 16:07
  But mum, mum's still alive and I have my family today.
• 16:12
  But worse than I ever did was say to my mum, fuck off, bitch.
• 16:16
  And that's the worst thing I ever remember doing.
• 16:19
  You know, I never hurt my mother, but you know what I was
• 16:23
  drinking, I was drinking a six pack of Woodstock when I said
• 16:26
  that. And she was telling me to stop
• 16:29
  and, and I was at my friend's house and one of my mates said
• 16:34
  to me that I used to know back then he said that's your mother,
• 16:37
  Steve. And you know, that really cut me
• 16:41
  deep when I remember doing saying that to my mother.
• 16:44
  And all through this, my father seemed to keep his cool.
• 16:52
  I never seen the man. Nobody could sway my father.
• 16:56
  You couldn't, you couldn't get him.
• 16:58
  You like you, you could get angry with him.
• 17:00
  You could say horrible things to him.
• 17:01
  But yet you, you, he was like a rock like he never, he never
• 17:06
  reacted. And me personally, if you know,
• 17:11
  I've I've seen people in these rooms, they fight each other,
• 17:15
  they try to bash each other. You have a go with each other.
• 17:17
  But if I'd have done, if my dad had done some of the things I
• 17:24
  did to my mum and dad, I probably would have bashed him.
• 17:28
  And that's what he didn't do. What he did was he gave me, he
• 17:33
  was a loving father and he gave me the opportunity to prove
• 17:36
  myself. He gave me the opportunity to
• 17:37
  better myself. And I, I've been clean and safe
• 17:41
  for 23 years and I have a life. I have a bank account.
• 17:50
  I'm, I'm going overseas. I'm going to conventions.
• 17:53
  I'm going to Interstate. I'm going out for dinner.
• 17:55
  I've got money in the bank. I've got, I've got, you know,
• 17:58
  I've got I, I'll go home tonight and put the bin out.
• 18:01
  I never thought it was possible to put it back in.
• 18:03
  Bin out. I'm washing the dishes.
• 18:07
  I'm putting the clothes off the line.
• 18:08
  I'm, I'm working out. I'm walking an hour a day.
• 18:11
  I'm definitely not in the alcoholic gutter anymore.
• 18:17
  I'm still an alcoholic. I'll wake up tomorrow and I'll
• 18:22
  be clean and sober one day at a time.
• 18:23
  But when I wake up tomorrow, even though I'm not drinking,
• 18:31
  I've still, I'm still an alcoholic.
• 18:33
  I've still got that genetic disease, that alcoholism inside
• 18:37
  of me. And it'll always be there
• 18:38
  because it's like I said, another, another meeting that
• 18:42
  it's like, like what? What is that STD?
• 18:44
  It's called syphilis or something.
• 18:47
  Like you get it, it goes away, but it's dormant.
• 18:50
  Like it stays in your body forever.
• 18:53
  And that's what our acrylics like.
• 18:55
  It's dormant. When we get clean and sober,
• 18:57
  it's dormant. It goes away, but it's always
• 19:00
  going to be there. That genetic disease will always
• 19:03
  be inside of me. And if I think that I'm better
• 19:06
  than any of you, if I think that I'm smarter, if I think that I
• 19:11
  can outsmart any of you and say it's your fault and it's not my
• 19:14
  fault and I can drink, I'm kidding myself because I will do
• 19:18
  that. You know, my alcoholism will
• 19:20
  tell me to do that. So, you know, if I don't come to
• 19:25
  a meeting, it might be a might be a month, it might be a year,
• 19:30
  it might be a week, it might be years.
• 19:32
  But my mind will go back to the way it was.
• 19:36
  And eventually I will have a drink because my alcoholism, my
• 19:40
  dormant alcoholism will resurface.
• 19:42
  And so tonight I had sweet and sour chicken and Tom Yum soup
• 19:49
  and if I was drinking and drugging I'd have no money and
• 19:56
  all my money would be spent on on on drugs and alcohol and I'd
• 20:00
  probably be a bludger off my parents and just hurting the
• 20:05
  ones I love. And I don't need to do that
• 20:07
  today. I can be me.
• 20:08
  And when I said before, I wanted to be someone else.
• 20:12
  To the bottom of my heart, I don't want to be anyone else
• 20:14
  anymore. I want to be me and I like being
• 20:16
  me because Steven, you know, I'm, I'm a functioning adult.
• 20:22
  I'm functioning with other adults and I'm living an adult
• 20:25
  life. And when I put a drink in my
• 20:27
  system, I'm not an adult anymore.
• 20:28
  I'm a little child and I want to get my own way.
• 20:31
  And, and so I have a life that is great.
• 20:37
  And no, I don't know what else to say, but I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm,
• 20:45
  I'm grateful to have people around me like, like, like Eddie
• 20:47
  and Arthur and, and John and Peter and Rolf and Larry and,
• 20:51
  and, and the older timers that I don't want to listen to
• 20:57
  sometimes. But I do, I, I, I, I do, I, I, I
• 21:02
  have to listen to these people because the first two years of
• 21:05
  my sobriety, I wouldn't listen to them.
• 21:07
  And, and my mind wasn't getting any better.
• 21:09
  So today I listen and I and I do what they say within reason.
• 21:15
  So I'm glad we'll be clearing. So one day at a time.
• 21:19
  I think that's about, I've got nothing else to say.
• 21:21
  But one thing I will close on is that if you guys weren't here,
• 21:26
  there wouldn't be a meeting. I wouldn't be here.
• 21:29
  I wouldn't have known that I that there are other people like
• 21:32
  me that I could get help that I could, that I could mingle with
• 21:36
  you people and you could understand me and and and and
• 21:40
  and Bob and Bill that you know, we've we've got people around
• 21:43
  us. Them two just started off just
• 21:46
  them two. What what kind of a hard job
• 21:48
  that would have been just having two people, not not having
• 21:51
  anyone else. But we're first 100 people
• 21:54
  started the big book and and wrote it.
• 21:59
  And today I'm understood and I'm understood because I can be me
• 22:03
  and I'm grateful. So thanks.
• 22:05
  Thanks guys. A A has more than two million
• 22:09
  recovering Alcoholics throughout the world.
• 22:12
  In Australia there are about 18,000 members.
• 22:16
  They're made in over 2000 local meetings spread around the
• 22:21
  country. Meetings range in size from a
• 22:24
  handful in some areas to hundreds or more in larger
• 22:28
  communities. And once again, if anyone you
• 22:32
  know is struggling with alcohol issues, please call Alcoholics
• 22:36
  announcing 1300 Double 00000 or visit their website on aa.org
• 22:44
  dot AU.