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SOBER TALK SA - Jack · Sober Talk SA

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Hello my name is Jack and I'm an alcoholic and I'm very grateful
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to be able to share my my boring story on this program.
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I come into Alcoholics Anonymous in in 1989 on the 18th of
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February. I had my last drink in 1989
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prior to that I was I had a very mixed up life.
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I grew up in a family, a good, a good family it was.
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I had eight brothers all up, probably not all at one time in
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the same house, but at least five at the same time.
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One house. I grew up very close to my 2, my
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two older brothers and yeah. And it was a good, loving,
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loving family. We never had a lot, a lot of
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money, but I do remember that when we when we were kids, the,
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we had a lot of as a country place.
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I'm mad out in the country, in South Australia and we had a lot
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of, a lot of party funds with, with, with my family and
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extended family. We always had birthdays, we had
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anniversaries, we had parties of all sorts, you know, and it was
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all good with a lot of singing and drinking of course, and a
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lot of just general good time. And it was never a problem.
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I was only young, of course, but when I was a kid, although I
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come from a big family, I come from a family of eight boys.
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As I said, I always felt lonely and I always felt less than.
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I didn't really felt like I belonged anywhere.
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I always suspect that I was adopted, but I looked like my
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other eight brothers or seven brothers, I should say.
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But yeah, I, I found it hard to make friends.
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And when I did make friends when I was a kid, that seemed to be
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the wrong ones. And I always seemed to have to
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bribe them with lollies, et cetera, for their friendship.
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I remember I had an old push bike we called the Changa, which
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is built up from several bikes from me dad.
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And it was a particularly fast bike, apparently, and I used to
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lend that out. And so with these just posing
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friends and that break and that sort of stuff.
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And yes, I was always, I was always out there trying to buy
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friendships. I was an attention seeking kid
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from a very early age. I had a brother who I got, I can
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remember I had a brother Brian, and he was, and he was, he had,
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he had crooked feet. When he was born, his feet were
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pigeon toed and he had to go to Adelaide Hospital on the plane
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or the Minifer, the old boat and get, get his get his feet
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attended to. And he'd come back in calipers.
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And I remember him sitting on the kitchen table and, and that
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mum and dad had to manipulate his legs and it was very painful
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for him. But I was always jealous of him
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for getting too much attention. So I used to do stupid things
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running around the house with underpants on my head and like
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an idiot and try, try to get attention and fall over.
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And you know, I just generally made it made a Dick of myself.
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Like I said, it was a good, it was a good family and and it was
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a loving family. We never had much, but I just
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seemed like I did not belong and I went through my life just
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seeming like I didn't belong anyway.
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I just didn't, I just couldn't, couldn't play.
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So I, I call it, I had, I had a hole in the pit of my stomach
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that I could not feel. Is that emptiness the most bit
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of my stomach I could not feel, could not feel.
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I went to a reasonably good private school where I learned
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about religion, I learned about discipline, and I learned about
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a lot of that stuff that, that that did me good in the future.
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I, I enjoyed that, that, that school for a period of time it
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was we had, we had a few ups and downs there, but generally it
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was a good, it was a good, it was a good upbringing, a good
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school. I went to the when I went to the
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high school, we, we left that school, had to go to high school
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in, in this town. At the time I felt very afraid.
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I felt again that I didn't belong.
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I was no confidence. I was very shy.
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Girls eluded me. I had no idea what a girl was
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because I had eight brothers or seven brothers, a family of
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eight boys. And I found it very hard to
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communicate them. But something drove me and I
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wanted, I didn't know what was going on, but something was
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telling me when I was, you know, 1314 years old, that I should be
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communicating with them. So gradually all I had to learn,
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I had to grow, to try and talk to these strange things.
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So, but I still always felt less than or inferior to everybody
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else. I had no confidence.
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I had no, no confidence in school.
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I was too frightened to play sport because I thought I might
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fail and all that sort of stuff was running around in my head
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the whole time. It, it, it was a very, very, I
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looked back and it was a very, this is a silly way to live, but
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that's the way I was. I couldn't help that.
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So I, I again had this, this empty feeling in the pit of my
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stomach. I was frightened at what people
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thought about me. And through, through meeting a
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couple of girls, through a couple of mates, I started to
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develop some social skills. I started to look around and
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learn how to talk to girls and look, talk to other people and
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develop friends. I started to grow emotionally
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and then developed a lot of friendships and at that school
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it was always, you know, it was always good to get to school.
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I'd look forward to going to school and never done that
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before. So I was starting to grow and I
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was starting to look forward to my life ahead of me.
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I was always a little bit tubby, so I exercised to lose weight
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and through that I gained a little confidence.
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I started to play sport. I played a lot of hockey I was
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quite good at, though I never thought I was.
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I never had any confidence and I was never thought I was any good
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at. But apparently I was pretty
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good. So people told me later.
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And, and I particularly remember I had a particular girl at the
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school that I had a bit of a shine to.
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She probably didn't know that, but I used to, I used to start
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the exercise. So I'd run past her place every
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morning. You get really early in the
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morning before I went to school and, and run around the oven.
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I'd run past her place where I am, come back and I found out
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later she didn't even live there.
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So that was a bit of a waste of time.
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But I did lose a lot of weight and, and I found that I could, I
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could communicate with other people.
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I remember when I was went, I was playing hockey.
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We went to another town. We had intertown hockey
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competitions. So we used to go up to different
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towns and, and travel up beyond the bus.
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Bus for men and women or boys and girls.
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That stage was probably about 14 or 15.
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And I remember coming up, going, coming, going up there.
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I played goalkeeper. I did a good job and I come
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back. I was in the bus and I was
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sitting in the back of the bus and I was feeling my normal my,
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my, my normal sort of inferior self and sitting back and
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wouldn't talk to anybody. And people tried to talk to me.
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And the more they tried to talk to me, the more I shrunk in the
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corner. One of the older boys there, we
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probably numb there. Well, we're of any age to drink,
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but we found somebody, found some cans of beer, and they gave
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me a can of beer. Now I drank that can of beer and
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all of a sudden, all of a sudden, I don't know what
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happened to me, but my perception of life and the
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people around me completely changed.
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All of a sudden I had confidence.
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All of a sudden I could talk to other people.
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I seemed, I seemed to lose about about 20 lbs.
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I got a bit of blonde long hair and I know I was looking good
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and I could talk to anybody I wanted to.
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I was communicating and it was a marvel.
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I'd never ever experienced that in my life.
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Then I didn't have many much to drink after that.
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But it really, really made me think about, you know, what had
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happened to me. To me it seemed to be the magic
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elixir of life. The first time I really got
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drunk was at a wedding. It was my cousin's wedding and I
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can remember that wedding a little bit anyway.
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Not much of it, but I can remember towards the end of the
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wedding, I can remember all the beer being on the table, the
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jugs of beer and they're trying to clean up me and another young
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fellow. I was probably about about 15 I
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reckon, me and another young bloke.
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We were cleaning up the jugs and we were drinking as much as we
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possibly could before they kicked this out.
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At that particular time, I was like I said, I was 15 and I got
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home and I, and I, and I laid down in my bed and, and, and,
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and I got up and felt a bit sick and then I laid laid back down
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on bed. And, and the first time I've
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ever experienced this and, and, and, and, and I believe some of
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us do experience this, that when, when, when you had that
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much to drink, you lay down in bed and either the bed starts
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spinning or the room starts, starts spinning.
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And this brings on a massive nausea.
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And I didn't realize that and I went to sleep and I woke up the
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morning and I had spray painted the walls and I dirtied the
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sheets and I'd done everything with spew and God knows whatever
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it came out of my body and I and I and I staggered inside and had
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a shower. Mum went out in the room and she
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was a good mum, my old mum still going.
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And she cleaned up for me and, and I remember lying out in the
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on the front lawn and I was crook as crook as crook for me.
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Bit of sunshine. I'm laying out my front lawn at
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a home, my mum's house and dad's house.
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And I can remember her standing above me and saying, well, I
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hope that teaches you never to drink again.
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And the weird thing was, is that I could, I could not seem, my
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head could not get around the fact that I was sick because of
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drinking, because the drinking gave me that beautiful feeling.
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It gave me that feeling of confidence, that feeling of
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well-being, that feeling of I belong somewhere.
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And I could not, I could not connect drinking with being
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sick. And she was talking about not
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drinking again because I come from a family that drinks a bit
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and, and, and, and, and I could not, I all my head was getting
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around was the next weekend when I could access alcohol again.
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It was a long weekend that weekend.
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And I can remember the next day we went surfing.
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I tried to be a surfing. I had all the gear.
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I had blonde hair, I had, I had everything and I had a surfboard
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and I, I couldn't stand up on the board, but I looked good.
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So I he mates picked me up to go surfing and I remember sitting
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in the back seat of this whole EH Holden and I could smell
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something and it smelt, it smelt I don't know what it was, it
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just smelt rotten. And what I realized after it was
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it was even I was surfing, I was out there I could smell the
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smell. It was alcohol coming out.
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I contaminated myself so much of alcohol that was coming out of
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the pores of my skin and I just stunk.
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But I didn't matter. I still had a few, few drinks
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the following weekend. I was a pretty big lad at 16 and
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I managed to be able to get into the pubs right here on the chest
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and all that sort of stuff. And I could walk a bit tall and
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I was able to get into the pubs. And back then them days back,
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you know, that nobody, nobody really took much notice of
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underage drinking because, you know, the culprit come along and
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kick us out and give us a boot up the butt and say, you know,
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don't come back again till next week.
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But I can remember I was in the pubs drinking and it, it, it,
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the effect it had on me, it was I was, I was, it may be 6 foot
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tall and bulletproof basically. But while the time I was 18, I
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could walk into the pub, I could open the door, I could walk in.
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I'd look around the pub, pub and be people sitting at table,
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people in the bath. And I'd feel less than.
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I'd feel like nobody loved me. I feel like nobody liked me.
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They're all me enemies. I didn't like that person
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because that person was that person had more than me and this
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person had less than me and that bugger was probably talking
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about me and all this stuff going in my head.
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My head was a complete mess. It just was all the time running
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around and round and round, bouncing around, liking like a
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like 2 marbles in a can and somebody shaking it.
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It was just bang, bang, bang, bang the whole time.
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I'd go to the bar, I'd pull up a chair, I'd get a schooner, a
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beer. I put the first one down me,
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down me gallop. And then I'd have another
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schooner of beer and I'd look in the bar mirror and all of a
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sudden I was starting to get better looking.
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I'd look up there and that, Who's that?
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That's you, Jack. So I had another beer.
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And the more I drank, the better looking I got, the more
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confidence I got. And after about four or five
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schooners, I could turn around. And all those people who walked
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in the pub, all those people I, I hated and didn't like, all of
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a sudden they were my friends. So I went over and talked about
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by that time, of course, I was too drunk and they'd probably,
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you know, tell me to rack off or something like that.
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So, so I, I had big trouble with, with, with girls at that
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stage and trying to, trying to communicate with, with girls and
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young ladies because by the time I got enough confidence to talk
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to them, oh, just a drunken nuisance.
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So I could walk into a pub, a tubby little insignificant,
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inferior, lack of confidence sort of bloke.
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I could walk in there and then I could walk out of there after 5
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or 6 schooners and I could, I could just kick the doors open.
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I'll then be 6 guns and blazing like John Wayne.
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That's the effect it had on me. It made, it did that to me.
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It made me feel like that I and, and to me, most people, alcohol
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is a bit of relaxing, a bit of a downer to me, you know, it's an
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upper. I have a wife and she doesn't
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drink much. She will go out to, out to tea
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down the pub and she, and she'll have a Brandy and a Brandy and
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coke 1/2 a Brandy and coke and, and, and, and she'll sit on that
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for about an hour. She'll sit there, look at that
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for an hour and she'll stir it around the bloody straw and
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she'll look at it and she'll suck on it and she'll suck the
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ice cubes. I'm thinking, my God, Bob, what
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are you doing with that drink? So you know, it's almost what
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she does to a drink of Brandy and Coke is almost alcohol
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abuse. I think it's not.
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It's not, it's not right because I could not stand having that
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sitting there for that long. I would have to drink it down
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straight away. I never understood the concept
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of light beer. I considered a waste of time for
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because for me to drink light beer, it was I might as well
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drink lemonade. I only drank for one reason in
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the finish and that reason was to get drunk.
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I needed to feel that immense wave of confidence and and get
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rid of the self loathing. It filled that hole and in the
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pit of my stomach I had when I was a kid and it was just to me
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it was just a magnificent thing. It did that for me.
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I then after a few years of drinking with Australia, there a
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good place over there because nobody knew you went there for
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12 months. I came back, drank heavily over
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there and I was starting to find that when I started to drink, I
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found it very hard to stop and that and that, that was a bit of
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a twinkle. Probably about the age of 20.
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Some of my friends had got gotten girlfriends and then the
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blokes I drank was they drank the same as me, but when they
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had girlfriends, they got themselves a good job.
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They they seemed to stop drinking or cut right back on
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their drinking because drinking never had the effect on them.
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It had the effect on me. They'd have two or three drinks
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and they'd want to go to bed. I'd have two or three drinks and
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I'd want to go to town. It had a completely different
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effect upon them and what it had on me, and I could not
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understand. I didn't know that because I
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thought everybody was like me and I could not understand why
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the heck they would want to stop drinking.
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I could not. What, what, what, whatever.
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It just changed my perception of life.
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I would drink. I'd get a bit.
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I'd get about about about 3 or 4 inches taller.
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I'd get a bit slimmer. I'd, I'd, I'd appeared, I would
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get better looking. And, and this was my perception
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of myself. I realized now that nobody else
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seen these transformations. It was just me.
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To me, I was just, to me, I was just magnificent creature to
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other people who I was just a drunken fool.
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And and this is, this is the dangerous thing about
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alcoholism. It changes my perception on
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life. I didn't know I was an alcoholic
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at that stage, but I was definitely on my way.
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I got married and had some kids, had three kids, had a beautiful
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young lady. I married three beautiful kids.
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I was not a nice person when I drinking.
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I felt trapped when I was when I was, when I was in that
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situation, I would go down to the pub on the way home.
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I was a Shearer at the time. I'd go down to the pub on the
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way home and I would say to myself, I'll just have one.
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And once I had one, I couldn't stop.
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So I was on the road. I'd cross that in what we call
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that invisible line into alcoholism.
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And I'd come home. And as I come home, I would
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feel, I felt angry and I felt savage about having to come
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home. Why should I have to come home
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to this mob? And this mob was my family.
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You know, it was, it was a weird feeling and it was not a nice
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feeling. I eventually my marriage was was
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pretty well on the rocks. I went to my first AA meeting
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because I had a friend in a A at that stage I was, I was drinking
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very heavily. I was shearing and drinking
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heavily and I actually I had a friend and he was he'd lost his,
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he'd lost his license for drunk. This is this is this is
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alcoholic thinking. He'd lost his driving license
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through drunk driving. Every time we scared the scrub
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and go shear and come back home every night.
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So it's probably about half an hour to an hour's drive every
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day. And on the way home, we always
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used to have have a six pack of beer.
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So he'd lost his license for drunk driving.
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So he then would pay me a six pack a night because he couldn't
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drive, you know. So we'd, we'd, we'd drive home,
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we'd drink his six pack on the way home.
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And it was just total insanity. And I know today I look at it,
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it felt quite normal at the time, but I know today that it's
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just total insanity. So my marriage is on the rocks.
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I had a mate in a A and he suggested that I might go to a
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a. He was actually me drinking
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mate. He actually he actually bought
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my first drink for me. And so so he was he he he was my
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first place introduced with Alcoholics Anonymous and he and
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he said I could be an alcoholic and I didn't know what an
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alcoholic and he told me what an alcoholic was.
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He said an alcoholic to a person who thinks that alcohol is going
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to solve all solve all their problems and fix everything.
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He said but when they have a drink, they find they can't
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stop. My head was a miss.
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It was all over the place. I'll be ratty as anything.
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I would just would not be able to get a straight thought in my
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head. But if I had a drink, it all
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seemed to go away. Alcohol seemed to treat my
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mental condition, but then when I started drinking in a a, we
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call it the physical allergy. I'm allergic to alcohol in that
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when I start drinking, I can't stop and and that's what was
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happening to me. So I went to a in my little
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town, there's nice little group. It's fantastic.
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It was the first time I sat down with them, other people and
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listened to them and they told me about alcoholism and I could
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not believe there was other people like me in there.
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I could not believe. I thought I was the only person.
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I thought I was pretty unique. I was terminally unique.
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So that was my first experience with that.
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And I stuck around there for about 12 years, 12 years in a A
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and and I never drank, but I developed a lot of a lot of a
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lot of hatred towards other members.
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We had a very small group and the people that didn't do what I
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wanted them to do, I'd go away from IA for a period of time
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and, and I'd come back to see if I'd improve their attitude if I
19:57
hadn't, I believe and all that sort of stuff.
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I was pretty full of myself. Actually.
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I was sort of going to Jacks Anonymous, not Alcoholics
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Anonymous just so I I was in I was in confronted with a thing
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that that that that alcohol involves what what we call it in
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in our in our IA big book, a book called Alcoholics Anonymous
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is. It's, it's a mental obsession
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combined with a physical allergy, which then leads to a
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spiritual malady. So I was obsessed with drinking.
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Now if I couldn't drink, I couldn't get a bit in my head.
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My head would go crazy and I would do stupid stuff.
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So I started doing other stuff and I started, I started
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collecting stuff, which is OK, but I started collecting cast
20:46
iron. I was just shearingly scared the
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farmer. So I'd, I'd go out and find out
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all this stuff was on the weekends, I'd see the farmer,
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I'd go out and take my Ute my trailer and I'd bring her back 2
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about two tons of cast iron, all different wheels and all
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different stuff. And, and that was my obsession
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for a few years. I then started a business in
21:03
resentment with starting a good thing and Matt Lynn was my was
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my next obsession. But it never ever, ever fixed
21:11
the problem. I still felt less than I feel
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threatened by everybody. I thought everybody was talking
21:16
about me. So nothing had changed.
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They're going to a A for eight years and I was still nothing.
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After 12 years, my wife was starting to to to think those
21:26
bikes mad. She thought the problem was
21:29
fixed because I'd stopped drinking, but obviously it
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wasn't. Alcohol wasn't the problem.
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It was my thinking that was a problem.
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So she'd often slipped me 20 bucks and say, for God's sakes,
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go in the pub and have a drink. You're a better person when you
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were drinking because something was treating my alcoholism.
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I never did that because I was too proud of my first sponsor
21:51
said I should have done that. Well, I might have got, I might
21:54
have got well, well, quicker. But that was, that was, that was
21:59
not a good journey for me. At the end of that, before we as
22:02
my wife is again ready to kick me out, the kids who got older
22:06
then we had trouble in the family with the kids and that
22:08
sort of stuff and all that sort of shit going on.
22:11
And it was, it was not, it was not, it was not a good thing.
22:14
I did a lot of damage. I'd go to an IA meeting and I'd
22:17
be a good bloke and I'd come out and be a mangle.
22:20
Now I used to go down the pub and be a good bloke and I'd come
22:23
out and be a mangle. The only thing that changed with
22:25
me was that I did not drink. I was very fortunate that I, I
22:31
managed to come in contact with some people in Adelaide and
22:37
they, and I was at an IA camp. I went to an IA camp and I went
22:42
there when I actually went there to save some other people.
22:44
And, and I and I and I fell into other people that talked about
22:49
that, that talks about stuff I'd never heard about it.
22:52
They talked about recovery, they talked about the 12 steps, they
22:56
talked about the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, which I
23:00
had, I had one of them, but I used it for a, for a, for a
23:03
thing to put my bed lamp on was about the right height to read
23:06
with never read the book too much And I was there, but I was
23:10
there when 11 particular girl got up and spoken.
23:12
She was six months sober and she had done the steps of Alcoholics
23:16
Anonymous. She was on something like her
23:17
9th or 10th step and, and she had something I wanted and that
23:21
really that really annoyed me because I was 12 years sober and
23:25
I, and I had not, you know, I, I, I, I had not changed.
23:28
And what my first sponsor said to me, he said you stopped
23:32
drinking at 33 years of age. He said you started around about
23:35
15 or 16. He said, so when you stopped
23:38
drinking, you had the emotional values of about a 15 year old
23:42
child. I thought that one very nice,
23:46
but I, it was true, he said, because every time when I was
23:50
young, every time I had an emotion, whether I was happy,
23:52
sad, glad, mad, I would have a drink.
23:56
So I never ever learned to grow. I never learned to grow
23:59
emotionally. So I was 33 years old and
24:01
carrying on like a like, like, like a tantrum I was having and
24:04
I was a big boy. I was cheering.
24:06
I was really, I was fairly, fairly muscled up in it and I
24:08
was and, and, and, and I was having tantrums and throwing
24:11
stuff around, getting angry all the time.
24:14
So I, I got on this bike and he and he, and he told me about the
24:18
big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
24:19
He read the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous to me and
24:22
he and he taught me about it and he told me what my problem was.
24:26
He said you've got a threefold problem.
24:28
He said you've got a mental obsession.
24:30
He said that's coupled with the physical allergy.
24:32
So I'm obsessed with alcohol. Alcohol is a problem.
24:34
So I drink the problem, which creates the problem.
24:36
So then I'll go in that circle. He said then when you start
24:39
drinking it, you can't stop. He said.
24:43
He said then that that creates what we call a physic, a
24:47
spiritual malady. Malady being an illness.
24:49
So I have a spiritual illness because when I'm drinking like
24:51
that, when I'm doing all that damage to my kids and to my wife
24:55
and the people around me, there's no way in the world that
24:58
I can have any form of goodness or spirituality in me.
25:02
So he took me through the 12 steps and that's changed my life
25:05
completely. Today I have many, many, many,
25:08
many good friends at IA. I'll get a bit emotional because
25:14
it's, it's saved my life, probably saved my son's life.
25:19
And it's just a, you know, if you got a drinking problem and
25:25
if you've been there everywhere else and you can't and, and you
25:27
can't get it right and you're still mad and you still think
25:30
you're crazy and you still pick up and you can't stop.
25:32
And you see my problem, my problem was not stopping the
25:38
drinking. My problem was stopping,
25:41
starting. I could not stop, start and
25:44
drink. I could stop, start, fall over.
25:46
I could stop because my wife would say, if you do this again,
25:48
Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick do this a lot.
25:49
So I would stop. But my problem was starting
25:53
stop. I couldn't stop starting, but
25:55
we've got a problem with alcohol.
25:57
You can't stop starting. Then the only recommendation I
26:00
could ever give anybody in that condition would be to come back
26:04
after Alcoholics Anonymous to find a person in Alcoholics
26:08
Anonymous who has done the 12 steps and done it through the
26:12
big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
26:13
Because that to me has saved my life.
26:15
It's the only story I've forgotten this gig, and I tell
26:17
you what, it's a great one. I've met people that I never
26:21
ever thought I would talk to because I, I, I had, I, I had,
26:27
I, I had great, I had great aspirations about myself.
26:31
I thought I was pretty bloody good.
26:32
You know, I thought, you know, that person done this and this
26:35
person done that. That person doesn't like me and
26:37
I don't like him. But today I have, I have an,
26:40
even, I have an even key like I can sort of look at people and,
26:43
and, and you know, I just love the people in IA.
26:46
It's just a fantastic fellowship.
26:48
Everything that alcohol gave to me, the confidence, the
26:52
well-being, everything it gave to me except getting better
26:56
looking was given to me through Alcoholics Anonymous.
27:00
This program, this program works.
27:01
You know, I cannot recommend it highly enough to anybody who's
27:06
got a problem with alcohol. And you can come to an IA
27:08
meeting and nobody's going to call you an alcoholic.
27:11
But if you can hear people talk and you can hear people tell a
27:14
story that you can identify with, that you can say, yeah,
27:17
when I started, I couldn't stop. My head told me that I needed a
27:21
drink. I would go into a pub and I
27:25
would know that I had an appointment with my wife and I
27:27
would go into a pub not even not even intending to have a drink.
27:32
I would pick up a drink at 5:30 in the afternoon after work and
27:36
I would leave there at 2:00 in the morning with that's without
27:40
intending to drink. That's alcoholism.
27:43
That's me. Obsession of the mind coupled
27:45
with the allergy of the body. I really, really thank you for
27:49
allowing me to talk. I hope I've bought too many
27:52
people and I can thoroughly, thoroughly recommend Alcoholics
27:55
Anonymous. It's not a cure.
27:57
It's not a cure from alcoholism. No way in the world.
28:00
But I tell you what, what I get is a daily reprieve from
28:03
alcoholism contingent on my spiritual condition, and I just
28:07
take it a day at a time. Just one day at a time is all I
28:10
need to take it. I've been in this gig for 31
28:12
years now and it's always been a day at a time.
28:15
I don't know what tomorrow's going to bring, and I don't know
28:18
what the next day is going to bring.
28:19
What I know today is the day that I need to concentrate on
28:24
and that's all I need to worry about.
28:27
We have local meetings for the full week in the local area.
28:31
Monday's gala meeting at 8:00, Tuesday is Elizabeth E at 8:00,
28:37
Wednesday is Elizabeth E at 8:00, Thursday is 2 Wells at
28:43
8:00 and Friday is Salisbury at 8:00.
28:47
There's a meeting at Devron Park at 12:00 and on Sunday there's a
28:51
maintenance Salisbury at 7:00 and many of the meetings in the
28:54
area. For details of your local
28:59
maintenance, please phone 1300 double 22222.
29:05
And once again, if anyone you know is struggling with alcohol
29:08
issues, please call Alcoholics Anonymous on 1300 Double 22222
29:15
or check out their website on aa.org dot AU.