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Sober Talk SA - Mark S 2 · Sober Talk SA

0:00
Welcome to Sober Talk. I'm Dennis and I've lived
0:03
experience of alcohol. If you or anyone you know is
0:06
struggling with alcohol, please call Alcoholics Anonymous on
0:10
1300 double 22222 or check out their website on aa.org dot AU.
0:19
I'll just run through the preamble of Alcoholics
0:21
Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous is a
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fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength
0:27
and hope with each other. They must solve their come
0:30
problems and help others to recover from alcoholism.
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The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop
0:37
drinking. There are no Jews at fees for a
0:39
membership. We are self support through our
0:41
own contributions. Is not allied with any second
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denomination, politics, organization or institution.
0:49
Does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses or
0:53
oppose any causes. Our primary purpose is stairsome
0:57
and help other Alcoholics achieve sobriety.
1:01
Hello my name is. Mark, I'm a recovering
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alcoholic, currently 34. Years sober, 66 years old, so.
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Most. Of this recording today I'm
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going to do in the hope that sort of someone out there might
1:15
hear something on in this recording that helps them to
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sort of say perhaps I could sort of do what that man has done and
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I could get on. And have a really.
1:24
Good life. You have to fight for your life,
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but it's still going to be a really good life.
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I'll start sort of at the beginning, I was a really
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awkward, shy, fearful kid. I bullied.
1:36
I was small. I was a runner.
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I didn't like school. I didn't like authority.
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My parents didn't understand me. They just kind of thought, you
1:48
know, what's wrong with this boy?
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And that's the question I got asked by Mum and dad quite a lot
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when I was young. We had a great life, We lived by
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the beach and I love fishing, I love adventure, I love the ocean
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and you know, I spent a lot of time out there.
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But when it came to studying, retaining information, being in
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a classroom, being asked questions in a classroom, all of
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that stuff just terrified me. And most of the time I would
2:17
just look out the window. I had no sort of ability to
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retain information. I was a really poor listener.
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I was a daydreamer and spent most of my time daydreaming,
2:28
looking out the window of the classroom.
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I was really body shy. I was a skinny.
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Kid. Hated swimming and places where
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you had to strip off and. Yeah, I was just.
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I was very young and maturity and and puberty, whatever else,
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and life was just pretty horrific.
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You know, I was always on guard checking to see with some of the
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guys that from local gangs that chased chased me around.
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So you you were living in this sort of state of trauma, you
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know, as a child. Wish to know, wish Today I know
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is, you know, that's alcoholism in a child.
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I believe it's genetic. I believe I was born with it.
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We've got other family members with alcoholism who died with
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alcoholism, gangrene and other things.
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So it was there. It was there right at the
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beginning. Traumatized my life right from
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the beginning, changed my personality, ruled me until I
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was about sort of 16 years old. I'd flopped out of school, Mom
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and Dad got me apprenticeship and eventually I.
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Got sort of. Friends with some of the other
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apprentices and the first time I got enough money we went out to
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have a drink and just a hooner around really to to hang around
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in the car and drive around and be young man.
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And I bought my my first drinks two at a time and there were big
3:56
flagons of beer in those days. New Zealand and the other guys
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in case of you know, why'd you buy two of them.
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One will get warm while you're drinking the other one.
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But I just knew. I knew.
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Before I even drank this, this was.
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Going to be something special. And as I drank that beer, as I
4:13
went down, as I guzzled into my flag and didn't really like the.
4:18
Taste but this magical. Thing happened.
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Every neurotic muscle in my body.
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Relaxed. I had arrived.
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Finally, I didn't care about all of those.
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Other kids that would chase me. Finally, I didn't.
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Care about? Fighting.
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I wasn't afraid of anything. Finally, I wasn't.
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Sort of worried about how people saw me.
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Alcohol set me free. It was the most beautiful thing
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I'd ever. Come across and it.
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Was going to be my friend and hopefully until I.
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Died because. Well, I drank and you know, I.
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Could talk to girls, I could be part.
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Of things I could stand up for myself sometimes, or stand up
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for other people. At other times.
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It was just such a confirmation or such a such a change in the
5:10
way that I saw the world when I drank and and I loved it.
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I've always been a non conformist and a loner.
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I've had friends and that along the way, but I've always sort of
5:22
gone my own way. When I drank too much.
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I would always drive myself home.
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And my my parents who were sort of they didn't know really how
5:30
to deal with me coming home at 4:00 in the morning sort of
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totally pissed off my head and and putting my fingers down my
5:37
throat in the front garden and throwing it up and and to to
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them I was just wasting my life and.
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Wasn't all that. Long before they put me on a one
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way ticket, one way flight to. Australia.
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To grow up. Supposedly they found me a job
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out of a place. Called Kenamble and.
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I went there with my tools. I was really frightened.
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I've never lived away from home before.
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Ended up sharing a a caravan with a a married guy who was
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over from New Zealand as well and we worked on the school.
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Got paid a lot of money, did long hours and my drinking
6:12
really took off, you know, and I really loved it.
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Was doing crazy stuff like crashing glasses in my hands and
6:20
just to prove that I was a man. I was always trying to prove
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that but I wasn't really. I was just a boy drinking and
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ended up sort of hanging around the streets of Sydney, ended up
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sort of just really, really getting lost on my own and being
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very, very lonely just in my drinking.
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I didn't know what was wrong. I.
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I didn't have a clue. As to why my life was going down
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the toilet when my brothers and sisters were all doing all
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right, I didn't know really why my family put me on on that
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airplane and said don't come back.
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I I had no sort of way of sort of understanding what was
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happening to me. I was just completely lost.
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I was having lots of blackouts, lots of memory for periods of
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times. I was doing things to people
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that girlfriends and things that I would never have ever done
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without alcohol. Alcohol had become, you know, my
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life. I obsessed about it.
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I drank it. I I just thought about it all
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the time. I couldn't imagine life without
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alcohol and I was having it by then.
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I was a heavy daily drinker. I I met this girl my brother had
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dumped and and I tried to rescue her.
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It was sort of like 2 broken people getting together really.
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And we got together and I had another hit and run and said we
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we stashed the car underneath the building.
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I've done a Greyhound bus and came to SA and started all over
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again. You know, I would get a job,
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make it always made good money in the building industry.
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We would build up a little place, get a little bit of life
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going, and eventually my wife sort of had children and we had
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a little boy and a little girl and I was working seven days a
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week in the building industry, drinking for an hour every
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lunchtime with. All the other boys on the the
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site. Heavy drinking at lunchtime,
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drinking on the way home from work, drinking.
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My usually I started off at 8 bottles, but by by not long
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after we had children. My wife had sort of had me on a
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two night 2 bottle a night curfew trying to sort of snap me
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out of it. I guess all that made me was
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sort of more determined to drink, more righteous about my
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drinking. I was sneaking stuff.
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I couldn't be sent down the road to buy sort of something from
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the supermarket without drinking huge amounts of UDL or straight
9:02
straight liquor. One way or another, I just had
9:06
to have it. But I I didn't realize why.
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I flat out just lied to her thousands of times about, you
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know, how much I'd had to drink. I didn't have any real
9:21
involvement in my children's growing up.
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They were, they were there. I was working seven days a week.
9:27
I never went to any of their school functions.
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I didn't really know them. They were just there because
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because my love was alcohol. It came first, second, third and
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4th and there wasn't any room for family or anybody, in fact
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most of the time as my alcoholism progressed.
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I thought I would be better off without them.
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So the alcoholism was changing the way I was thinking, because
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most normal people ever came to sort of a choice between your
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children, your wife, your marriage would choose the
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children, wife and marriage. But but me, it was never a
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choice, you know, my alcoholism had me and it had me in its
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grips and I couldn't not drink. There was no choice, and my wife
10:16
and my family would eventually. Go.
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As they did, after years of promises of I'll Do Better and
10:25
some ceremonial dumpings and all sorts of things, finally, at the
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age of 29, I ended up sort of without a family restraining
10:37
orders in place. Living in a $50 a night.
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Down the Pier Hotel like we're now rooms.
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Too scared to go out of the room peeing in a bottle in the room.
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Just dirty magazines. Just.
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You know. Daily diarrhoeic very thin.
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Didn't look anybody in the. Eye didn't.
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Talk to people. Could still work, but that was
11:05
only to make money for the drinking and you know, the.
11:09
Party was over, the alcohol wasn't doing what it.
11:12
Once used to do. For me, there was no party
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anymore. It was just.
11:16
Heavy daily drinking and grinding.
11:20
It was in that. Room at the pier.
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Hotel that sort of. I reached the point.
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Where? I thought to myself.
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You know, I've had enough. I I don't want to go.
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On I think I'm going to have to sort of kill myself, you know,
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This world is just a cruel place.
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And and I never belonged. In it and.
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For some reason I dropped my knees in that.
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Room in that stage of I've Lost. Everything.
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There was nothing left. There was nothing to to pretend
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that you were OK about everything that you had touched
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was gone and gone in really painful fashions.
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So I got on my knees and just sort of said very simple you
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know if there's anything out there, please help me.
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Later on I was to learn that sort of any sincere prayer
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doesn't go unheard, and obviously I.
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Wouldn't be here making this tape of if?
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Mine went unheard because suddenly things started to
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happen for the better in my life.
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I I didn't. Sort of know how to stop drink.
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I didn't have a clue. I had no information.
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I never even wanted the information.
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But for the first time in my life, I was willing to stop.
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It was me. Who was wanting to?
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Stop and after that prayer for some reason my wife.
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Sort of died not knowing why she did it.
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Because we never ever did get back together properly.
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She put in a cord archway porch, the a a helpline and they asked
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somebody from Glenelg to come down and to see me at the Pier
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Hotel. So that person.
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Was a wonderful. Man called Huey from Glenelg and
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he came down and sort of said, do you want to come back to our
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home around the corner from where I was?
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Staying and and and. I'll tell you my story and and I
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was. Have always been a people
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pleaser and whatever but. But I just said yes, any any.
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Defiance. Any sort?
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Of smart ass stuff. It was all gone.
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I just said yes. Yeah.
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And we went around to his house. It was Christmas time.
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Christmas Tree was up. His daughter and son were clean,
13:45
healthy, happy children. His wife.
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Was just beamed of. Beautiful smile, you know,
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alive. And I kind of sat there on his
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floor. Feeling like a grub.
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Like a dirty grub or something that shouldn't be in this nice
14:03
clean world. He told me a story.
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I didn't really sort of take in too much of his story, but the
14:11
result of that was I I thought I I'll give it my best.
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I will try to go to this IA and do these meetings and and give
14:23
it a go. I'll just give it a go instead
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of, you know, my other way was I'd rather dive and listen.
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So anyway, yeah, Huey talked to me and I looked at what he had.
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I looked at the family, I looked at the, yeah, the cleanliness of
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their life. And I thought, you know, I will
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crawl over broken glass to have a life like that.
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That's all I had ever wanted. But when I was drinking, there
14:49
was no way that was ever going to happen.
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It just was an impossibility because the drinking was just
14:55
dragging me into the darkness and into a nightmare, a
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terrible, painful, fearful nightmare with my alcoholism.
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And I made it. Into I stayed sober for three
15:10
days and made it into a rehab called Archway Port for me to
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stay sober for three days. Was a miracle on its own.
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I had never stayed sober for three days for many years, and
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yet I had. I did stay sober for three days
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on the the the last of those three days.
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I was doing my washing at the laundromat down there at the Bay
15:34
and I just had a that. I had to describe it.
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An. Indescribable ecstasy of joy.
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I had some. Sort of spiritual awakening.
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Something I didn't understand but I.
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I certainly understood that. At that moment, I could have
15:57
just danced out of that laundromat.
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I hadn't. Had any joy?
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In my life for so long. It was so.
16:03
Foreign to? Me.
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But I was filled with it for a short period of time.
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Today, I think that was the creator of the universe saying
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hello, Mark, you know I'm going to help.
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You don't have to do this alone. So it was.
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But I didn't understand it. Then I went back to the.
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PO Hotel My car which had been. Stolen was found and.
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Returned and I headed off Dashway.
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Port sort of wondering. What on earth was going to
16:30
happen from here? So I made it into outright port
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and I made friends with a an AI member.
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His name was Eddie. They called him Fast Eddie
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because he's a bike rider. And I found out about
16:45
alcoholism. I got a a very rude awakening
16:48
about alcoholism because I found out that alcoholism wasn't about
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the way you drank or what you drank or how much you drank or.
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Where you drank it or how you. Hid it.
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It was about the inability to sort of live without it.
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Alcoholism had been actually sedated by the alcohol.
17:10
All those years that I had drank, up until the age of 30 it
17:16
had been sedated. But now that I wasn't sedating
17:19
it, I went back to this very immature sort of 14 year old boy
17:24
who worried. It was nervous as anything.
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My nerves were shot. I couldn't sleep.
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You know, I couldn't buy it, buy a couple hours sleep.
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You know, I was just in this tormented stays.
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And you know, this is what alcoholism is about.
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It's not about how much you drink.
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It's about the inability to be. Happy.
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Without it. And that's what Alcoholics
17:47
Anonymous actually sort of approaches that actually, sort
17:50
of. Alcoholics Anonymous is a.
17:52
A long term support structure for people with alcohol problems
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where they can do sort of two meetings, three meetings.
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Maybe even 4 meetings a day. If they want to in order to stay
18:04
sober. In my mind, it would have been
18:07
an impossibility for me to do this on my own, even though the
18:11
disease, which is in my thinking, was always telling me
18:16
that, you know, these people were no good and, you know, you
18:18
don't belong here. That's another thing about the
18:22
disease. You know, I kind of thought, you
18:25
know, after a while and I I, you know, I have.
18:27
Alcoholism, but after? About six months, I realized
18:31
that. Alcoholism had me because my
18:33
thinking was a shocking I was negative.
18:36
About everything, I scoffed. At a lot of.
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Information that could. Have been really really helpful
18:45
today. I I just understand.
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That, of course, alcoholism. Wants you to drink yourself to.
18:50
Death. It wants you.
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To die in that little room on your own, you know, in a filthy
18:55
state with nobody. Loving you it's it's like the
18:58
ante, whatever. It's like the Dark Side and the
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dark Side had been running the show for a long time and wasn't
19:06
about to let me have a little romp and walk.
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Away from it so. Staying sober was really, really
19:12
difficult. I got myself a sponsor who was
19:17
an older. Member who was riding.
19:19
And doing meetings every day and I had a car and was doing some
19:24
work so I could. Pay for petrol and we were doing
19:28
meetings every night eventually. I got a a car load of four guys
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and we'd all be sort of. In the same boat, we're all new
19:37
and IA except for Peter, my sponsor, and we we.
19:41
Would get together. Every night I would ring those
19:44
guys. And I would pick him up and
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Peter would say, let's go to. Hack him.
19:48
Tonight and we would go because it's.
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I didn't even have the. Capacity to sort.
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Of say no to anybody. I'd never had had that capacity
19:56
and we would. Go to hack him.
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And all the way to hack him it would be, oh you know, shitty
20:01
world and child support and and taxation It's not.
20:05
Fair just. Tons and tons of negativity and
20:09
and and sort of, yeah. Just just negativity and we'd
20:18
all arrive at the meeting. Rolling there and.
20:23
We'd do the meeting. Which was 90 minutes in those
20:26
days, 90. Minutes is long time.
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To sit still if you're an alcoholic because.
20:29
My body and. Mind I'm I.
20:31
I traveled 1000 miles an hour. Once the alcohol was out and you
20:35
had to sit there for 90 minutes. So I counted bricks.
20:38
I counted heads. I looked at people.
20:40
I did whatever I could just to stay in those meetings.
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But something happened in those meetings that was unexplainable.
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Something happened to all of us in that car that that couldn't
20:51
be put down. Some sort of psychic shift
20:53
happened there in that 90 minutes, because when we got
20:55
back in the car, quite often it was row, row, row your boat.
20:59
And we're all be singing, except for the person who had a
21:02
resentment because they weren't called.
21:04
They weren't. Singing.
21:05
They were still shitty, but what was happening was that we were
21:09
making a dance into the darkness.
21:12
You know, it was just a pinhole of light.
21:15
In my life. There's a pinhole of hope that I
21:18
could do this. Yeah, there's a chance I can
21:20
live without alcohol. There's chance.
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So I can be happy with that alcohol.
21:25
Alcoholics Anonymous has a really wonderful recovery
21:29
process called the 12 Steps, which if you take them into your
21:33
life, you know you can actually head in the direction, become
21:36
the person you want to be. It's not the person you have
21:39
been and you're drinking, it's not the not even the person you
21:42
were born to be. You get to orchestrate this
21:46
beautiful spiritual journey. You get to become the kind of
21:50
person that you want to be, not not the person that your parents
21:53
wanted you to be or any other persons.
21:57
So it's the 12 steps about you coming back in harmony with
22:00
yourself. I kind of thought for the first
22:03
five years of a A that, you know, it was about taxation,
22:06
paying bills, paying child support, because my life was
22:10
just smashed. In so many ways.
22:12
And then there was no way to sort of face it all.
22:16
But I I sort of had answers for that too.
22:18
It was one day at a time, you know, prayer, imitation, say
22:22
thank you every night to the boss, whatever your boss is.
22:26
And my boss was a loving father figure that, you know, my church
22:30
was a A. And my loving father figure was
22:33
there. And while I was in that church,
22:35
I felt it too, that sort of the possibility of a change was
22:39
there. So because it started to become
22:41
more positive a person, I still had to fight every day.
22:47
My mind, my thinking, the negativity, the disease just
22:52
doesn't want to let you go. And my marriage finished.
22:57
Other relationships happened. I learned about myself in
23:00
relationships. I built relationships and
23:04
friendships in A A and tried to maintain them.
23:07
I called people all the time, and I slowly started to get
23:11
well. I started to laugh again.
23:13
I started to fool around eventually because I'm running
23:21
out of time here. Eventually, I met this beautiful
23:23
woman. I was 25 years sober.
23:27
She was most loving little lady I could ever have.
23:30
We've been together for 10 years now.
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Our house is full of music. I have a boat.
23:38
I go fishing. I would never have had a boat if
23:40
I was drinking and would never have got out of the bar stool.
23:43
I would. Have been dead anyway.
23:45
We own our own home, the music goes.
23:48
My wife is quite often singing All of these things would never
23:53
have ever happened if I hadn't have sort of stuck my heels in
23:56
it and said I will crawl over broken glass to do whatever
24:00
needs to be changed to me so that I can have a wonderful
24:04
life. Alcoholics Anonymous is just the
24:07
the the whole of miracles, the home of Miracles.
24:10
I have seen so many destroyed people come into Alcoholics
24:14
Anonymous and get their lives back together, actually become
24:20
spiritual human beings. The older members just had so
24:23
much love. I knew it should me through all
24:26
those early years. I knew it should other people.
24:29
Later on. I was of service to the Lord
24:34
because the Lord had given me this wonderful gift.
24:37
I had children afterwards. I was a good father to my
24:41
children. My last daughter, Billy, I knew
24:43
everything about her. I did horse riding with her.
24:47
I became the human being that I wanted to be.
24:49
I had my own integrity. I didn't want to drink.
24:52
I didn't want to backstab people.
24:54
I didn't want to be a nasty persons and all of these sort of
24:58
things I try to do one day at a time.
25:01
Sometimes I'm really successful with my day and sometimes I'm
25:05
not. But I just continue to try one
25:07
day at a time and if I can do this, I figure anyone can do it.
25:11
So if you're out there listening to this, give it a go.
25:15
Go and sit in some AI meetings. The miracles happen there.
25:20
If you don't like it, your misery will be fully refunded.
25:25
But go for it. Open your mind.
25:28
Open your heart. There is a way out.
25:31
You can beat the disease of alcoholism.
25:35
If you really want to join Alcoholics Anonymous and Travis,
25:40
the Merry road to sobriety. Thank you.
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Bye, bye. We have local meetings for the
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full week in the local area. Monday is Gala meeting at 8:00,
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Tuesday is Elizabeth E at 8:00, Wednesday is Elizabeth E at
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8:00, Thursday is 2 Wells at 8:00, and Friday is Salisbury at
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8:00. There's a meeting at Devron Park
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at 12:00, and on Sunday there's a meeting in Salisbury at 7:00
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and many of the meetings in the area.
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For details of your local meetings, please phone 1300
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double 22222. And once again, if anyone you
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know is struggling with alcohol issues, please call Alcoholics
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Anonymous on 1300 double 22222, the website isaasa.org dot AU.