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Sober Talk SA - Fin · Sober Talk SA

• 0:00
  Welcome to Sober talk. I'm Dennis and I have lived the
• 0:06
  experience of alcoholic. If you know of anyone is
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  struggling with alcohol, please call Alcoholics Anonymous on
• 0:13
  1300 double 22222 or or check out the website aaorg.org dot AU
• 0:24
  and I'll just do the preamble of Alcoholics Anonymous.
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  Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who
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  share the experience strengthened up with each other
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  that they may solve their common problems and help others to
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  recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for
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  membership is the desire to stop drinking.
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  We are no dues of fees for a membership.
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  We are self supporting through our own contributions.
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  Is not allowed with any sex denomination, politics or
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  organization. Does not wish to engage in any
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  controversy, neither endorses or oppose any causes.
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  Our primary purpose is to stay sober and how other Alcoholics
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  achieve sobriety. My name is Ben.
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  I'm an alcoholic and I was a practice an alcoholic for 15
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  years. I, I started very young drinking
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  and I did in the ancient Navy of 15 1/2 and I seem to get into
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  trouble sprayed away with alcohol.
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  I, I sent the Alcoholics Anonymous at the age of 22 and
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  of course I didn't want to be there at the last place I wanted
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  to be, but and I was in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous for five
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  years in that term, that five year term, I, I deteriorated
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  with my drinking. It never got better.
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  It got worse and I was introduced to Hillcrest
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  Hospital, Robertson House and that was a ward that if doctor
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  or tried to help Alcoholics, most of the therapists that were
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  there, nurses were non practicing Alcoholics.
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  So they could identify quite easy and I could identify easy
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  with them, but to no avail. I, I was in there three times
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  and eventually I'd start drinking again, you know, four
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  months after I left or whatever. And I continued to drink until
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  the age of 27. I was 27 years old and I got
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  into Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, in a in a sort of state
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  that I was absolutely in a mess. I was a massive palpitations of
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  the test and my head shifting side to side.
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  My nervous system was virtually completely gone.
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  And that continued for for three years, these palpitations and my
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  head shaking. And in the meantime, I, I got
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  married and my wife said, why don't you go to the doctor and
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  he'll send you to a heart service.
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  There might be something wrong with your heart.
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  So we did that. We made the appointment, We went
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  down there and he put me on the traveling machine and patches on
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  the chest and checked me all out.
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  And he said there's nothing wrong with your heart, the
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  nervous system, it's completely sucked a bit.
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  And slowly but surely that went the way.
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  But I, I was a real mess when I came, came in the last time to
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  our college and, you know, all my travelling at sea and stuff
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  like that. When I was in the Navy, I never
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  saw anything. You know, I just, I'd go sure
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  and drink in the first bar and just absolute mess, you know,
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  eventually I started missing ships and I'd be there with
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  overseas and just an absolute nightmare.
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  And, but at the age of 27, I, I, as I say, I stopped drinking one
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  day at a time and I haven't drank since, you know, but I
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  attend Alcoholics Anonymous and I always be happy, you know, I,
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  I suppose if everybody come into Alcoholics Anonymous and I
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  stopped drinking straight away, I wouldn't have identified there
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  was a lot of people that had gone out, you know, tried again.
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  I, I have friends all over Australia.
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  I travelled quite a bit when I got sober.
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  Eventually when I retired, I met some wonderful people, you know,
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  not just in a a, but just general public.
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  You know, some people call them ordinary people that haven't got
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  problems, but I, I just treat them as other human beings.
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  You know, once I stopped drinking, I was the person that
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  that had to accept my problem. And that's one of the worst
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  things for an alcoholic. We, it's the only disease that
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  our head will say we haven't got.
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  It's very cunning. It's very baffling and, but I
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  enjoy my life today. I, I have a fairly normal life.
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  I, you know, I'm mixed in society.
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  I actually played soccer when I started to get further and I
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  enjoyed that part of my life. But if it wasn't the Alcoholics
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  Anonymous, I'd be dead. I would have been dead years
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  ago, you know, So I got a second chance at life.
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  And the reason I attend Alcoholics Anonymous all the
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  time is because there's no difference, you know, I'm an
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  alcoholic. And the key to this is to
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  continue attending. I've seen a lot of people stop
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  and sadly, they go back to the real way.
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  And it's pretty sad to see really.
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  Some you'll never see again, some die.
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  And since I've been associated with Alcoholics Anonymous, I was
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  a member of the Hillcrest group for a long time after I got
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  sober. And I've seen hundreds and
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  hundreds of people come in, Some go, some come back and some
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  stay. So I'm very privileged to, to be
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  sober. You know, there's, if you feel
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  the we'd have to have pretty big maintenance of everybody that
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  was an alcoholic and DIA, you know, there's, there's millions
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  of people with this problem, one of the worst problems in the
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  world. I, as I say, I love going to a
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  AI. There's no, there might be other
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  areas where people can get sober, but they seem to become
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  whatever they're sort of trying to deal with some other step
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  thing or whatever they, they seem to become, I don't know
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  what you'd call it it. They seem to be they, they get
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  very institutionalized. You know, they just, they don't
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  live a normal life. So I, you know, in, in society,
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  you know, people say, oh, people don't understand, you know,
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  Alcoholics will say nobody understands the alcoholic.
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  The only person that understands the alcoholic is the alcoholic,
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  another alcoholic. Sadly, people try and people are
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  very good trying to help you know that, you know, I, I find
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  that I can't, you know, you can't go to the pub and say
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  look, virtually I'm banker, you know, they'll, they'll call an
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  ambulance for you usually. And I'll say he's a bit sick
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  that, but he's a bit mental, you know, and, but they, that's one
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  of the greatest things, you know, and, and a lot of people
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  most probably know that it started with one wanted to drink
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  and one didn't want to drink. And one of them, his doctor told
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  him to ring this part, he doesn't want to drink and you
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  want to drink, then you talk to him.
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  And by the end of that conversation with that two
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  people, the one that wanted to drink, didn't want to drink and
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  the one that wanted to stop drinking, stop thinking.
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  And that's how it started. Very simple.
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  You know, I, it's a great, it's a great fellowship.
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  If people stumble and fall, we don't discriminate against them,
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  you know, we don't tell them, you know, you're idiot or
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  whatever. We welcome them back to make
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  them feel it ease. And I remember being at meetings
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  when I was young and an older member would come up to me in
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  the meeting and say to me, can you make this man, his name is
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  Jimmy, can you make him a cup of coffee?
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  And I'll say yes. And then he'll call me back.
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  He said, but just make it half a cup.
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  You know, he would have the, the shapes, the delirium premise,
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  That's what they call. And I couldn't understand this
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  half cup. But again, the full cup,
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  everybody would wear it. So I, I continue to go.
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  I continue to go. I continue, I don't continue to
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  go because I, I want to maintain my society.
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  I want to maintain my, you know, spiritual growth through this
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  program threefold disease. And that's in many ways my
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  doctors can't, can't help it or cure it or whatever, right?
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  They're, they're dealing with the physical part getting you
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  well, but the, the mental part they can't deal with.
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  And I find, I find that if I hope the people learning to be
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  counted, I quite often do that unless by the mental health to.
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  And so I, I, we need talkers at the, these people that have been
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  retreated to deal with people with alcoholism.
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  And they say, you know, what do we do?
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  And I said, well, the last thing you do is ask them how much they
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  drink. If you ask them how much they
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  drink, they'll just say, I've had a couple.
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  And the, the best thing for these mental health people when
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  they're on a course is ask what happens when you drink, not how
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  much you drink. And if you wanted any more
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  information, I'd say it's, it would be pretty hard to do.
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  But if I could shrink you into a little, like a little needle
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  head and put you in my ear into my brain, you'd know what an
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  alcoholic was. If you did that to a practice,
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  an alcoholic, you'd identify straight away because you'd be
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  living the life with them, you know, And it's amazing really.
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  It's I have lots of my friends, an Alcoholic Anonymous are
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  they're they're an extended family.
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  You know, you know, your loved ones might understand, but they
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  don't understand fully. But it's better that you take
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  your loved ones, say to to a meeting and let them listen.
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  Or they can join Alan on the organization that helps partners
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  and children of the alcoholic. The, the main aim is to, to be
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  able to live life happily. And I'm not saying I'm happy
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  every day, you know, I'd be fine if I said that.
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  But I, I get through the days without having a drink.
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  I have no thought of a drink I haven't had for many, many
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  years. And that's absolutely amazing.
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  Really. It's a miracle.
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  It's a miracle that these people get up and walk, you know, and
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  it's really good. I, I will say that Hillcrest
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  Hospital was very good. It was extremely good.
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  It's a pity that Robinson House isn't there anymore.
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  But maybe people will get to a, a quicker without going to
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  rehab. You know that you can always
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  look at it that way. There's a lot more advertising
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  done now and the where it started in America.
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  I mean, you can walk down any street in New York and talk to
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  the second person you meet on the street and say, look, you
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  know where there's any a, a meetings and they'll tell you
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  where it is, whether an alcoholic or not.
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  If it's so developed there now, you know, it's been going for a
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  long, long time and it's sort of, it's really well known and
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  it's respected the fellowship. So I don't know how much longer
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  I can talk. You can ask Dennis.
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  I'm usually pretty good at talking.
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  I'll go over time, but I I sort of get stuck on the phone like
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  this, you know? Yeah, Finn, what about what
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  about when you were in the Navy overseas, did you see many
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  countries? No, I never really saw nothing.
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  I I would be sure and hit the first bar and that was it.
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  I don't know how many times I've been around the world.
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  One of the biggest cities I ever went to was Stadio, and the
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  ships were usually anchored out there, you know, and bad just
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  come along. And we used to go through what
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  they called taxi boats. And I was actually, we dropped a
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  large boat and we decided we'd taxi people ashore.
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  And I got the job of steering the lifeboat to this small walk.
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  And at the end of that walk there was a little Burr.
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  And every time I'd bake people ashore, I'd run up to that bar
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  and start drinking and then I'd go back on the boat if anybody
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  was waiting there to go back to the ship.
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  I started at about 9:00 in the morning and I was doing it until
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  about 10:00 at night. And the last board I, I fell
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  off. I fell off the last boat and I
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  was steering the last boat. And of course I was in the water
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  in, in Tokyo Bay at night in the dark, nobody could find me.
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  And both running around all over the place trying to find me.
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  You know, they got me eventually, but I've, I used to
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  steer ship to the harbour pilot when the harbour pilot would
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  come on board and we were in Singapore and I was steering the
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  ship to the harbour pilot. We were going out and I
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  collapsed over the wheel after they shut the harbour pilot off.
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  And the officers, actually the officers were in the chat room
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  and they could hear the compass, they could hear the kick, kick,
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  kick to the compass and fuss they could feel about turning
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  and the boat. Actually, at the time they got
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  me up, you know, shoot me, we were going back to Singapore,
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  but we weren't going to the same channel.
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  We were going across the reef because it was pretty close to
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  having problems like that. And, you know, I've been missing
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  ships. So I was six months in Italy
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  just, well, I was in the gutter. I was in the gutter.
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  I I remember 1 ship I was on, I went to to India, the Kerchin in
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  India and it was after the just after the Pakistan, an Indian
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  uprising. And there was things, the kettle
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  trucks coming onto the wall with people in them.
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  And then they got off the kettle trucks and they had to walk
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  along the walls in line and there was two big stanchions.
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  There was people up on them and one was putting a hose on the
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  people. And the next Stunson was a guy
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  putting glass in powder on these people.
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  And I said to myself, God, if I ever get like that, you know,
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  two years later in London, I take off the ship in Liverpool.
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  And I went to London and they were scraped.
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  The police were scraping me off the, the park, the Hyde Park.
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  And they'd take you back to the police station and they'd
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  actually give you a share. And I start selling this powder
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  over here. And when I think back, you know,
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  those people, previous trials of people, I didn't want to be
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  like, that's what happened. You know, I came from a good
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  home. I came from beautiful parents.
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  I was crucified, you know, and I the sea life, the voice said to
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  me when a mate of mine and one of the He said, if you want to
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  stay in this career, you've either got to touch your
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  drinking down. You can't do that.
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  You've got to stop altogether or leave because you'll end up with
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  nothing. And that was very true.
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  You know, I ended up with nothing with my sticker.
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  And, you know, I was on good money.
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  I was earning more time, more money than my father was in it.
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  He was a Carpenter. Yeah.
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  But they said, yeah. I mean, I, we used to climb when
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  we were coming back on board instead of going up again.
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  We used to have bears, you know, and we'd climb up the headlines,
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  you know, that we're attached to the wall and posted for, you
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  know, one blood was killed. Yeah, if you hit the horns part
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  of the bail on the lattice ship that I was on.
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  But you know I the first ship I was on was £8000 to carry a few
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  ways. It's a fell off that ship.
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  You'd never survived because it was always followed by sack,
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  because you'd be putting, you know, dead sheep over and stuff
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  like that. So there was a trail of yards
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  behind the ship all the time. So I fell in a hole in Port
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  Adelaide. It had brain in it.
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  Luckily I was near the ladder and I get backed up.
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  But the took before we were carrying scrap, scrap metal.
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  So I would have been killed, you know.
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  So definitely, you know, Alcoholics know what hell is and
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  they, they actually, they live a lot of hell.
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  There's no doubt about that. Most Alcoholics should be been
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  with some of the problems that they caused, you know, to
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  themselves and other people. So it's it could be very
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  mentally bad, especially for family.
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  My mother I lived in Elizabeth Vale and my mother used to walk
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  out of the house in a night vest and follow the path and Crete in
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  Elizabeth Vale and should be calling my name out.
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  My father and brother. I'm another member to look for.
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  You know, so many times when I come home, I never knew where my
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  mother was at home or whether she was dead because I never
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  wrote letters. Nothing.
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  I went away once for two years and my parents never knew where
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  I was. That was the only child.
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  I put them to hell and see they lived to it and I banked her.
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  I, I, I was getting oblivion all the time.
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  I was just, I'd go into blackouts sometimes I'd come to
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  that at least blackouts walking around just like any normal
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  person. And you know, I'd lose days,
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  absolutely days. I was in a hotel once in Port
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  Adelaide. It was more than once, but I
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  came to, I was standing at the bar and I was blackout.
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  And I said to myself, it was summertime.
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  I knew that. And is it morning or is it
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  night? You know, the, the way the, the
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  nights are a little bit longer, you know, in the summer.
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  And I didn't know. So being a being a genius as an
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  alcoholic, you know, I said to myself, well, if it gets dark,
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  right, it's days like it's day and.
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  And I said to myself, well, what day is it?
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  So I couldn't ask anybody what day it was.
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  So why there was a boat studying the, the horse racing and in the
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  newspaper. And I looked at the date on the
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  top of the on the top of the page.
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  So that's the way it works. You know, if an alcoholic does
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  in factors in alcoholic goes on holiday, they don't think when
• 20:41
  they come home, they they forget most of the stuff they did, you
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  know, terrible really. So I've got a great deal more to
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  say and very privileged to be able to do this.
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  I I think it's the wonderful thing, this radio channel, even
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  if you help one you've succeeded, you've done it.
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  You know many people try and help, but even if I got 1, you
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  know that was pretty good. OK, not a problem.
• 21:19
  Thank you very much. Welcome back.
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  We have a number of local meetings in the area.
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  There's a meeting every night in the in this in the Salisbury
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  area. There's one Monday night meeting
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  at Gala at 8:00 PM. Tuesday Elizabeth E at 8:00 PM
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  Wednesday Elizabeth E at 8:00 PM, Thursday at 2 Wells at 8:00
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  PM. Friday in Salisbury at 8:00 PM,
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  Saturday at Devron Park at 12:00, Sunday in Salisbury at
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  7:00 PM. And for further details of your
• 21:58
  local meetings, please call 1300 Double 22222.
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  Once again, it's up to anyone you know struggling with the
• 22:08
  alcohol issues, please call Alcoholics Anonymous on 1300
• 22:13
  Double 22222 or check out their website ata.org dot AU.