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Sober Talk SA - Mark S · Sober Talk SA

0:02
Welcome to Sober TALK. I'm Dennis and I'm an alcoholic.
0:06
Soap dear. Thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous.
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If you or anyone you know is struggling with alcohol, please
0:13
call Alcoholics Anonymous on 1300 double 22222.
0:19
I'll visit their website ata.org dot AU.
0:26
I'll just run through the preamble of Alcoholics
0:29
Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous is a
0:31
fellowship of people who share the experience, strengthen hope
0:35
with each other that they may solve their common problems and
0:39
help with us to recover from alcoholism.
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The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop
0:45
drinking and no dues of fees. Fair membership.
0:48
We are self supporting through our own contributions.
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He is not allied with any sect in omission politics,
0:56
organization or institution, does not wish to engage in any
1:00
controversy, either endorses or oppose any causes.
1:05
Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other Alcoholics
1:09
are chiefs of Brady. Mine's marked.
1:11
I'm an alcoholic. I've already handed over this
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talk to God because I was told whenever you have to approach
1:16
something difficult and hand it over before you get going.
1:18
So yeah, I came from middle class family.
1:21
There was no reason I should be different.
1:23
But I was certainly different in our family.
1:24
None of my brothers, sisters, my parents were.
1:26
Dad was a rugby player in a boxer or I had fear and I knew
1:29
it from a very young age. Fear ruled my life until I took
1:33
that first drink school. I couldn't concentrate.
1:35
I had some sort of a fair blockage.
1:37
If I was asked a question, I just couldn't get the answer.
1:40
I couldn't access the answer. Mainly what I got from my
1:43
parents over many years was, you know, what's wrong with you
1:46
Mark? And I wish I could have
1:48
explained what was wrong with me, but it it seemed like an
1:51
overpowering fault anyway. And eventually I came to the day
1:55
where I picked up that first drink.
1:57
I actually bought it 2 at a time without even knowing I was an
1:59
alcoholic. And they were a big flag and a
2:00
beer. And the other guys in the car
2:02
sort of said, well, why not get cold?
2:03
What are you drinking? The other one, as I grabbed that
2:05
flag and it went down, every neurotic, uptight, fearful bone
2:10
in my body just melted. It's just the most wonderful
2:13
experience. And from that day I fell in love
2:15
with alcohol. Pretty much most of my life was
2:18
taken up by thinking about it, getting it, drinking at, you
2:21
know, parties, trouble. I straight away grabbed out to
2:25
the local gangs and a lot of trouble came home to mum and dad
2:27
and they were very, they were old school.
2:29
They didn't say anything unless I meant it.
2:31
But the time I got to 20, mum and dad actually sort of saw a
2:35
job in, in Australia, Facebook Kanambu and they rang up and got
2:39
me that job and I came home from work and just said you're flying
2:42
out tomorrow to Kanambu. Go and grow up.
2:46
And you know, I had never lived away from home before and it was
2:49
quite a rude awakening. But I still didn't have any
2:52
ability to say no. No, but I had a girlfriend.
2:55
I had all sorts of stuff where cars and things and so earlier I
2:58
found myself on a plane out at Canambo and I was greeted with
3:00
the reading that outsiders sometimes get when they go to
3:02
country places. I was headed over to the disco
3:05
in my John Travolta here with their little thing and whatever
3:07
else and sitting there having a couple of drinks.
3:09
The next thing I was on the floor, somebody come and bailed
3:11
them inside their head and knocked me out the stool and I
3:13
kind of thought, well, welcome to Australia.
3:16
I never knew much more about that night, but I just got on
3:17
drinking anyway. Happened a few times in my
3:20
drinking. Yes.
3:21
The way I put it is that the boy took a drink, the drink took a
3:23
drink and the drink took the boy.
3:25
Because I was only a boy, I hadn't developed emotionally.
3:28
I was very immature person and here I was out in the world and
3:32
my best friend was alcohol. So out there you started early
3:35
and you're usually got up at 3:00 and in the pub and drank.
3:38
Just got into that heavy daily drinking thing.
3:41
I had some back outs and I had back outs before in New Zealand
3:43
as well. But really it was a, you know,
3:46
it was a a lot of anger inside me that my parents had actually
3:48
sort of sent me away. I actually, I've had my 21st
3:51
birthday out at Kanamble and I didn't get a card from mum and
3:55
dad. My other brothers and sisters
3:57
had all had sort of fancy dues and all sorts of things.
4:00
And yeah, so I had a lot of anger inside me and drank with
4:02
that anger. And when I got paid off at
4:04
Kanamble, I ended up in Kings Christ.
4:06
I was a 20 year old in Kings Christ.
4:07
And Kings Cross in those days was pretty violent sort of
4:09
place. There's a lot of murders going
4:10
on, a lot of stuff going on. And here was this sort of really
4:13
gentle person wandering around and amongst all of this things,
4:18
you know, drinking, going to clubs.
4:20
I stayed in a place called People's Palace.
4:22
And then then when I ran the money there, I went to CB
4:24
Chambers. And then I ended up sleeping in
4:25
the back of an old Valiant that I had.
4:27
But I had no conception what I would like to be a confident
4:31
person, what it would be like to have, you know, your confidence
4:33
in yourself. And I got jobs, got paid and
4:36
woodwork was never something I enjoyed, but I did it in the
4:38
whole of my, my drinking career. I met a woman that my brother
4:41
had dumped. I felt sorry for her, so I
4:44
thought I'd rescue her. She had come out of a, a really
4:47
horrific childhood because she had been put in a girl's home by
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a mother who was a lesbian and was jealous of her when she got
4:53
to a certain age. So she just got rid of her.
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I was home. So she had a lot of problems and
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I had a lot of problems and, and we got together and yeah, it was
4:59
just heavy drinking. And that relationship really
5:02
plays such a huge role when we get into a A.
5:04
It was so violent in so many ways.
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She was a very, very jealous girl whenever we'd be drinking
5:11
or whatever it was quite sort of got used to be wearing a glass
5:13
of wine or something. You look at that woman's this.
5:16
We ended up having having children because like Arthur was
5:19
saying, we I did a runner after it and another hit and run.
5:22
Another car walked off it probably at the 5th or 6th car
5:24
at that point had a runner from Sydney with her to South
5:27
Australia to stay with her ex boyfriend's grandmother.
5:30
So it was a well planned alcoholic escape.
5:32
Like in the beginning, this woman, we turned up at her
5:34
doorstep. So who are you, you know?
5:35
So we stayed there for nights and a bit and then we went and
5:38
lived in a a DOS house on Carrington St. where it was a
5:41
mental for people with mental illness.
5:43
I didn't realize that I had it at that point, but yeah.
5:46
So we used to go out and steal food at night and eventually we
5:49
had children and my drinking was just getting every and every.
5:52
I worked seven days a week in the building industry and, and
5:54
the real Groundhog days. Wake up in the morning feeling
5:57
really seedy morning smoke at work, having our tomato juice
6:00
and saying, right, I've got my vitamins for the day.
6:02
And then 11:30 all of the boozers and the and the on the
6:07
building, the Hyde Hotel at the time, we'd sneak out off the
6:09
right and we'd go and knock down 67 pints and cut the shooters or
6:12
if we could and come back and we were the you know, we thought we
6:15
were the kings of the world. While I was doing all this
6:17
stuff, this what you might call criminally neglect of my wife
6:20
and children, because even when I was at home, I was thinking
6:23
about alcohol and swapping, but was hiding scene for it.
6:25
Yes, it was certainly the love of my life until the family was
6:29
gone, the money, whether gone, the car was gone.
6:31
I was living in the Pier Hotel at when Elk for the Grand is $50
6:34
a night room. I was shaking like a leaf.
6:36
I carried a spare set of underpants around because I have
6:38
daily diarrhea. Wait about 7 stone.
6:40
I look at the ground, my whole lot, look at anybody in the eyes
6:43
in case they saw what I felt inside.
6:45
The shame mediation. So the way I was living and what
6:48
I was, I was in one of those rooms one night.
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I just dropped to my knees the first time in my life and I had
6:53
a lot of reason to drop to my knees, been locked up, beaten
6:55
up, all sorts of things over the 15 years, my drinking.
6:58
I dropped my knees and just said if if you're out, they're gonna
7:00
help me. It was no flash of light or
7:03
whatever impact. I was sort of quite disappointed
7:05
because got up the next day and I was still frightened, but I
7:08
had to go to a place called Archway Port.
7:10
There's a rehab actually. I'm sorry, I'm out of order a
7:12
little bit. This is quite important to me
7:15
anyway, and this is a special concert meeting was for some
7:17
reason my wife, who had a restraining order on me and
7:20
hated my guts, rang Archway Port on my behalf.
7:23
And they rang Huey from Cornell and he came to the Pier Hotel
7:28
and asked me to want to stop drinks.
7:29
So that prayer, it happened, I didn't think anything God was.
7:33
So I stayed sober for a couple of days.
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I went down arts where Roy Bryant said you need to be sober
7:38
two days to sort of get in here. Or the daily drink, a heavy
7:40
daily drink. Man, I thought then there was
7:42
two days I was shaking like a leaf, but it was sort of a huge
7:46
feat. 2 days for me. I'd never done that before in a
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long, long, long time. But on the final day when I was
7:52
due to go there, I went down to do some laundry stuff, which is
7:55
unusual in itself and while I was doing it really difficult to
7:58
explain. Arthur explains it better than
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anyone I know was was filled with an undesquivable ecstasy.
8:03
It was like somebody inside me said, Mark, it's OK it's
8:07
beautiful. It's almost skipped out of that
8:09
joint. My car had been stolen a couple
8:11
of days before I walked into the beer hotel.
8:14
The police have just rang us. The car has been found down at
8:16
Brighton. They had all my tools in it, all
8:18
the money in it. It was down there and I hopped
8:20
in my car and they drove down its way port and met my
8:23
emotional relatives and it bought his sort of bum in your
8:26
life. A lot of it for me has been done
8:28
through the people that he has put in my path.
8:30
He put a guy called Fast Eddie in my path.
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Fast Eddie was had issues, mental issues of sorts, but but
8:36
he was a meetings person. And for me, when I stopped
8:39
drinking, I reverted back to the 14 year old boy afraid of
8:43
everything. For me, stopping drinking was
8:46
like the start of the jail sentence or like I kind of
8:49
thought stopping drinking would be like being freed from jail.
8:52
But for me, there was ISM all the fear that the anxiety, all
8:57
of the stuff that alcohol, that alcohol puts to sleep was back
9:01
and I couldn't sleep. We get about two hours a night,
9:04
a trap set on my door and had someone come in and tried to
9:07
rape me in the rehab. I had my mind spinning 1000
9:10
miles an hour. What can I do about my marriage?
9:12
When will I see my kids again? What am I doing here?
9:15
How is this sort of going to work?
9:17
Millions of questions just I used to call it a can of worms
9:20
and I, I, my mind was a can of worms.
9:22
And somehow I managed to to stay there and parted up with Eddie.
9:26
He was a meetings person. So I became a meetings person.
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He was one of only two people doing meetings in those days.
9:31
And I don't know what happened in the end, but I felt that
9:34
special love that alcoves have for each other, special bond.
9:37
That is just such a beautiful thing, you know?
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It's just such a powerful thing too, because I'm an islet out
9:42
there. I live on my own.
9:44
Nobody knows what I'm doing, what I'm thinking, whatever.
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I was just stone faced and and and nobody nobody got in.
9:51
But you know, you come to Alcox anonymous meetings and you're
9:53
asked to sort of get up and share.
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It's a really overwhelming thing because I didn't even have the
9:59
phone just for who I was. I never really had had the idea
10:02
of who I was. So I did, but I had always done
10:04
and I coffied people. I threw a part of broken old
10:07
Jack. I took a part of Eddie.
10:08
I took a parts of all sorts of people and I thought a A was
10:11
about being good. So I became really good and and
10:14
those days they said fill your car if you've got a car.
10:16
I had an old piece of crap Kingswood full of Hungry Jack's
10:21
rope floppers and coke after meetings, meals and and a guy
10:25
called Peter T just came up to me one night and they said I'm
10:27
going to be your sponsor. And I said OK, because those
10:29
people please her anyway. And we heard about a little guy
10:33
called Leo. Leo had lost his vocal cords and
10:36
had different writers like me and he swat when he walked, he
10:39
had to swing his legs. It was a little Italian man.
10:42
And we went and picked him up from North Adelaide in this room
10:44
he was staying at and he became one of my cosy Carlo Leo.
10:48
Then we got Big Paul who really didn't want to do meetings, but
10:52
the woman he was living with made him whenever I whenever I
10:55
rang him up, I'm eating my dinner and ballot in the
10:58
background. You just get out there, you
10:59
know? And then we had Rockabilly
11:01
Bryant, the last of our crew, who was a friend of Fast Eddie.
11:05
It was the initial man who brought me to meetings.
11:07
And then we were being called the Looney Carload.
11:09
I'm sure when we turned up meetings, people sort of like
11:11
thought, oh God, here they are again.
11:12
I'd remember Stan sort of saying to me once when he saw they'll
11:15
stand from probably stand from down north.
11:18
So my car fell up there one night.
11:19
Old kings whenever who's this parking in the a, a car park and
11:22
now hot, brutal Jack Norma and blowing down and they were my
11:25
three people. I I became like a taxi for the
11:28
old people. I love the old people of AI had
11:30
never ever sort of had the slightest inclination to can
11:32
them. I thought I felt safer with them
11:34
than I'd ever felt in my whole life.
11:36
I felt safe with them and my parents, my own family,
11:38
whatever. And they loved me.
11:40
And I knew I was being a really careful love because there were
11:43
no strings attached. All those people wanted to do
11:45
was for you to succeed in life, for you to stop drinking.
11:48
And they were passionate, passionate speakers.
11:49
And those. I said there's no sort of
11:51
political correctness. We had people getting up and
11:53
contradicting each other and, and telling you this is what I
11:55
believe, you know, you can take it or leave it.
11:58
Yeah. So here I was in a a sort of
12:01
being good and running people around and Peter and I started
12:04
to bump the beginners and Peter pushed me out fans and I'd be
12:06
shaking like a leaf. I'd have a dust of water and I'd
12:08
be going everywhere and and and just really detested being
12:11
pushed out front. I'm sort of person who liked to
12:13
hide hideaway on the back. Even Broken Hill Jacker became
12:16
my sponsor over Peter. He put me in the front row.
12:18
He said you sit there, you concentrate as as well as you
12:21
can for the whole 90 minutes. You look at the speaker, you
12:24
listen with your ears and and your heart will tell you where
12:26
you're gonna help you in front of you.
12:27
And so I became that yesterday, Mansfield Park.
12:29
You couldn't see the speaker for the smoke anyway, it was a small
12:31
prefab. Everybody smoked and I was
12:33
smoking about two packets a night.
12:34
Was a non-smoker. So there you were sitting in the
12:38
front row sort of doing, my mind would be 5 seconds, 5, 50
12:43
seconds on what the speaker was saying and back into my own
12:45
life, my own problems, and another few seconds darting
12:48
around every counting bricks, you know, 90 minutes, all the
12:51
media. And that seemed like an eternity
12:53
to sort of have to sit still and listen in a meeting.
12:56
But they were building a, a was building a new tolerant and
12:59
tolerance for some people in AI. I've heard 1000 times, maybe 2
13:02
or 3000 times, but I still listen to the same and cause
13:04
broken. They were really, really smart
13:06
people broken or Jack was one of the smartest and most observant
13:09
man that I have ever met. He had a the first time I
13:11
actually went up to Jack, I kind of was afraid of him and thought
13:13
he would say, what are you doing?
13:15
Come up here, you whatever. But I went up to Jack and he
13:17
said, oh, hello, Mark he wow, but jeez, I didn't even thinking
13:20
you all existed. And then he said hi, come on,
13:22
let me you speaking to your man. I'm talking to your wife and
13:24
your kids. He said, how's that?
13:25
You know talking? They're actually listening to
13:26
what I have to say. No one ever listens to what I
13:29
have to say and I very rarely listen to what anyone else had
13:31
to say either. But that was one of the most
13:33
sort of, we're going to talk about sort of spiritual
13:36
journeys. It's the restoration of my
13:38
spirit. The end of the reading on
13:40
acceptance. It says absolutely nothing's in
13:42
God's will by mistake. Now, I had a huge amount of
13:45
stuff going on. I had an ex that was being
13:48
visited by some of the guys from H Way Port trying to get in with
13:52
her and telling the lies about what I was doing but I was still
13:55
in my car up every night just doing meeting and treating mail.
13:57
I wouldn't hurt either. Then it took her a whole year to
13:59
ring me so I waited for that call for a year and that's why I
14:02
bought 11 1/2 months and my I will never drink again in my
14:05
little black book. The phone went and and that was
14:08
what I've been waiting for. She said come home, you can come
14:10
home to the Vanessa, my daughter's birthday party and I
14:14
went with her and after about 3 days of living with her, she
14:18
said I liked you better when you were drinking without alcohol.
14:21
I was just like this. I was saturated by I needed to
14:24
be saturated by if ever a brain needed to be washed, it was mine
14:27
and I didn't mind having it washed because living with a a
14:30
dirty brain, not without alcohol, the quiet it anyway
14:32
wasn't for me. So anyway, eventually last week
14:35
on the Grand Prix, at the time on the Grand Prix, VIP Hearts is
14:39
in charge of putting those up and I knew they were going to be
14:41
full of booze, but we went to the Grand Prix and I had two
14:43
cans of beer with her. You know, she doesn't care what
14:45
should I? Nothing happened at 5:00 the
14:47
next morning wide away. I have to get down to those
14:50
Hearts and get all 11 and answers during two meetings a
14:52
day, just about saturated by it, surrounded by sober people and
14:57
two cans of beer unlocked it. And five hours later I'm down
14:59
there putting all the wine in one shed and having like sort
15:03
of, I don't know if you have that feeling of like periphery
15:05
booze and a bit of this and a bit of that and got absolutely
15:08
smashed at work. Hopped in my car, always ran up
15:12
W terrace. There's a little yellow car in
15:13
front of me turning onto W terrace, but they had to stop
15:15
for some reason. Bang, bonded up, got it out,
15:18
fear back. I'm going to jail.
15:20
If I get caught here, I'm going to jail.
15:22
I back off there and the lag is and we're just come screaming.
15:25
We're just come from a funeral and I back off there.
15:27
The guard was against the wheel and some guy came out of panel
15:29
beater shop. I drove down the long side of
15:31
the road and came out of panel beater shop and pulled the guard
15:33
off and I drove home. So the fair returned 11 1/2
15:36
months of doing a meeting. One day I had to pick up a
15:39
drink. I was back and helped and how I
15:41
was the secretary of the Kilburn meeting, which was an infield at
15:43
that particular time. I had to sneak up there with
15:46
this whole car drop off over here just before meeting.
15:48
So I'm late and so someone turned up to pick it up and
15:51
yeah, on I went. But as the journey's gone on
15:54
from that initial, initial prayer to God, and I'd say what,
15:57
which was a pretty much a told like understanding of a
16:00
relationship with God, you know, I started praying every night.
16:03
And anyway I could pray was to actually get on my knees.
16:06
But laid in bed, I couldn't get through the serenity prayer
16:08
without my mind shooting somewhere else.
16:10
I just couldn't stop it. I'm doing that so I would
16:12
symbolically get on my knees and and pay to go for help and it
16:15
really didn't feel like I was getting that help.
16:17
The first year of sobriety, I think I was to be traumatized
16:19
and thing I did a meeting every night.
16:21
I didn't know what was going on. My motions were everywhere.
16:25
I just didn't know what was happening to me.
16:26
I was trying to pay to God and it seemed like God has abandoned
16:28
me, but the journey had started. I guess I think it's Arthur.
16:31
He says what watch out if your life is too too calm and
16:34
peaceful. God's forgotten you.
16:36
My mind was never that not long after I got sober and quite well
16:39
back in Archway my wife came into came into IA and ran off
16:43
with the guy I was helping in a a that sort of really the
16:46
resentment got going put it that way.
16:48
I had two children. My wife was out there living her
16:50
own life at the No, not blaming my wife years later when I got,
16:53
I'm talking about years later, 25 years of recovery later, I
16:57
realized that I should never have been with that woman.
16:59
I didn't love her. I only wanted sex.
17:01
And you know, I deprived her of a big chunk of her life by
17:04
marrying her under the pretense that I loved her.
17:06
But that's the sort of stuff that comes up sometimes later on
17:08
in recovery. But in that early recovery year,
17:10
she ran off with this guy. He left AAI never saw him again.
17:12
Steve was but there's lots of Steve.
17:14
So don't worry. I'm not giving away anyone's
17:15
anyone's down to never seen. Yeah.
17:17
And I started the journey. I really came to enjoy meeting
17:20
enjoyed what happened to me during the meetings like we with
17:23
our car load of people all the way there.
17:25
It was a bloody child's report and taxation and speed cameras
17:28
and cops and and drama and we're sitting in that meeting and
17:31
we're just going to happen. Peter Taylor's got to hack them
17:33
tonight, not have to pay for it. And we'd go.
17:34
But it didn't get a resentment. We're all going to that meeting,
17:37
shitty, unhinged Alcoholics, all just fighting for our lives.
17:42
You know, it's a real, you know, you're fighting.
17:43
It's an entity that's been around since the beginning of
17:46
time killing people. You know, it's it's powerful.
17:48
If you got to we're going to this meeting, It's like, you
17:50
know, you go in there shitty and come out like calmer, you're in
17:53
a better mood. And quite often it was so calm.
17:55
Row, row, row your boat. And for a group of guys like us,
17:58
we were really a strange Carlo to people.
18:00
We all come from different sort of backgrounds, but funnily
18:02
enough that Carlo did get a meeting at night every year.
18:05
We all stayed long term sober Allstate long film so, but just
18:08
got that grounding, that spiritual bank to prepare even a
18:11
lot of tempers. That's when the fun really
18:13
started. You know, I can remember my
18:15
sponsor Mary W being at Brom Place right there was about two
18:18
years and shaking like a leaf from hanging on for dear life.
18:20
And then got up there and sort of said, I'm 14 years sober and
18:23
this has been the worst. And I'm sitting there thinking,
18:25
however, did it be 14 years sober?
18:27
That's the worst part of your recovery.
18:28
You know, I'm sort of like there, but when I got to 14, I I
18:32
realize that you're starting to get honest with yourself and it
18:35
hurts, you know, it really hurts a lot of stuff.
18:37
I had all sorts of things, all of those children that I've
18:39
basically neglected as a father when I grant all ended up with,
18:42
you know, severe mental and emotional problems.
18:46
I tried to be a better father for them when I was sober.
18:49
I used to have, I had a little one bedroom flat and I used to
18:51
have American Weekend, but I didn't really have any tolerance
18:54
at all for children in those times.
18:55
So it's quite hard for them. Yeah, I did my best.
18:57
I paid my child support. I was offered a pinch but didn't
19:00
take it, went back to work and then paid the Child Support and
19:02
did the best I could. And really most of my recovery
19:05
is just that. I just have done the best I
19:06
could. Further down the road, when my
19:09
my daughter is 15, she gets him with a pedophile guy that's a
19:13
drug dealer and he he takes over her life with drugs.
19:16
And then she I had had a little boy called Tobias and she'd
19:20
already had a daughter, Katie. And one day I just got the call
19:23
from her said Tobias is in hospital.
19:26
He he's on life support. Turned out that sort of the
19:29
boyfriend and her who were on ice and he'd spent most of the
19:32
day in bed. Anyways, the boyfriend had been
19:33
left the line with him. He had shaken baby basically sit
19:36
against the wall and he had put him outside.
19:38
Anyway, I had to go down to that hospital and be with that little
19:41
boy, everybody else who was on drug, whatever, but I was sober
19:45
AA. So yeah, when eventually this
19:48
time came and they turned up five support, I was holding that
19:50
little boy, just praying for him and letting him know that you
19:52
know, someone, someone cared for him.
19:55
It was someone who cared and thought that he was special.
19:57
It was really difficult because at that time I was, I was there
20:00
building a Mccubby house and he didn't leave my side the whole
20:03
damn time. He knew that this person wasn't
20:05
going to harm him. I'd come there about two weeks
20:07
before I started the cubby house and they were in bed sort of, if
20:10
you know anything about. And that they were in bed a lot
20:12
of the time and he came up and he grabbed hold of my leg and he
20:15
just held on my leg and had a wet nappy on and whatever.
20:18
And I went and went and got her out.
20:19
But I don't know whether she got up and saw it to him.
20:22
But after he was killed, I just felt so ashamed of myself that
20:25
I, I didn't pull that kid out of there.
20:27
He came to me and just held on my leg, hung to me.
20:29
And I didn't want to cause her trouble.
20:31
I took the easy path and I've had to live with that one that
20:33
you have to live with a lot of things in, in recovery, a lot of
20:35
choices that you make that are painful.
20:37
So, you know, as a result of that, I was working in my own
20:41
little business. I'd done a nice small business
20:43
scheme. I was working as a Carpenter.
20:44
And I got the call sort of two days after Tobias had died that
20:47
Katie was going to be put in Foster Femme and would I be
20:50
interested in coming to the meeting?
20:51
Katie was the little girl she had lived in amongst all that
20:54
stuff. And and so I went to the meeting
20:56
and no one else put the hand up. So I put my hand up and I took,
20:58
Katie was five years old, very, very thin little shy girl,
21:03
really sort of bad impacted by what she saw going on.
21:06
And, you know, I had to stop working at that time and become
21:10
a, become a dad to this little girl.
21:12
And it was difficult. You know, it was really
21:14
difficult, sort of I didn't have money in place or anything
21:16
really going on. And so I fathered her.
21:19
And sometimes I was, you know, a bit like a bit sharp, I suppose.
21:22
But I looked out to her in a year and a half.
21:25
I studied in that time and IoD and eventually my daughter
21:29
passed all the tests and she took Katie later on.
21:31
She was to lose her all over again.
21:33
So what happened when Tobias died?
21:35
The the boyfriend was the person who was left with him and was in
21:37
my mind, obviously the person that had killed him and my
21:41
daughter being so sick on drugs had stayed with that guy, had
21:44
two more children with him. So we had Katie or Katie,
21:48
Malachi and Shiloh. Malachi and Shiloh were the two
21:50
children shared to him. And so, yes, as a father, it was
21:53
very difficult to deal with the fact that when eventually she
21:56
lost all of her kids, like we, we took Malachi and Shiloh on,
22:00
Karen, my wife and I, So we took these two little kids on that
22:03
were really badly damaged and loved them as best we could.
22:07
My daughter was still out there sort of with this loony bin sort
22:09
of guy doing drugs. All sorts of horrible stuff
22:11
happened to her as well. So yes, we've done a few years
22:14
of looking after children and this is all if you think about
22:18
the God component of things, absolutely nothing happens.
22:20
Some guys were by mistake. God, you know, got me sober and
22:23
I could be a dad to then help out these kids as far as it's
22:26
being able to cognize holding that little kid even today.
22:30
I don't know how I did, but I did yes.
22:31
So I had a couple of relationships after that in the
22:34
fellowship. I went down the fellowship
22:36
because Brokenal Jacqueline Jack said to me was Mark, you have
22:40
relationship and the fellowship lose my number because that's
22:43
they knew our pressures. Everybody was an AA in those
22:46
days and Jack had passed on at that point and I decided that
22:48
was lonely. When have relationship.
22:50
It wasn't a good relationship. It was 2 old keys together, a
22:52
lot of stuff going on and we're at the point of calling out
22:56
quits after a year or so. It just didn't like anybody and
23:01
she was pregnant. There's no way me after being
23:04
could be 10 years in a a is wanted an abortion and my other
23:07
wife could have bought it. So, you know, part of me was
23:09
thinking, well, I'd already done sort of 12 years of child
23:12
support. I was going to do another 18 of
23:14
it. Part of me and the other part
23:16
was saying I'm not going to let this you know.
23:18
So God gave me a gift. He gave me Billy.
23:20
I was sober, low on the queuing when Billy popped out.
23:23
She had the umbilical cord around her neck and the doctor
23:25
said make yourself useful. And he handed me Billy and kept
23:29
the cord. For the first time in my life I
23:31
felt connected level. I had never connected to
23:33
anything at any real, real level.
23:35
But Billy. You're not going to try and
23:37
speed Dad. So something I thought it was
23:39
going to be really bad about child support and whatever else.
23:42
Turned out I got a second chance and I did spend a lot of time
23:45
with Billy. I did know what fame, what
23:47
colors she liked. I did buy her a horse and go and
23:50
sit out there in the paddock every Sunday while she got angry
23:53
trying to lunge this horse and ride this horse.
23:56
I saw Billy painting his swimming lessons and just
23:59
brought me to tears. And that's this little girl had
24:02
and he's flying everywhere and it's just such a a powerful
24:04
thing. That love for Billy sort of
24:06
saved my life and and years ago. Hey, hey, Billy has grown up now
24:10
and she's 26 and she came as a fellowship herself at off her
24:13
own back. And she did a couple of years.
24:15
But at the moment she's out thinks she can do it another
24:17
way, psychologist, psychiatrist or whatever else.
24:19
But along the way, there haven't been too many nights where I
24:22
haven't said, thanks, mate. There've been too many nights
24:25
where I walk into any situation without knowing that God was
24:28
walking with me. I used to hear that thing in the
24:30
Bible and I'm David and Goliath and David just doing this and
24:33
says I didn't go in there. I went in with Lord and I have
24:36
walked into some really, really Frederick painful.
24:38
I have a fellow friend called Dez and a fellowship.
24:41
Dez was a guy with the Kadena and I've met him for sort of I
24:45
was working with ACS at the time.
24:46
I met him at Northeastern Hospital.
24:48
He was brand new and I met his mom and I'll befriended and I
24:51
love the lovely person. I've got 4 minutes.
24:52
I love Dez and he rang me every day for for eight years and he
24:56
brought people down a meeting and we spent a lot of time
24:59
together and had a lot of fun together.
25:01
Probably the first man that I had ever sort of loved in that
25:03
kind of way. We had fun together.
25:04
He came to me one night and gave me a big cuddle and said I love
25:07
you and went and took his own life.
25:10
Broke my heart again. But having a broken heart is not
25:12
the end of the world because I made a deal with God right at
25:16
the beginning. He's sober.
25:17
However, I was with my grand being a server recently, two
25:21
years ago. We had six deaths, my son, my
25:24
father, my mother-in-law, Janine, my wife's, Janine's mom
25:28
and I went into grieve just went into like a dark room.
25:31
It was like the power was out and I didn't know when it was
25:33
going to be tilt with God and whatever, but it was really a
25:36
sad heart. Grievous.
25:37
I know it's about the way I love people and I do love people.
25:39
It's all come from the love I have.
25:40
How that didn't happen anywhere else.
25:42
My family doesn't even know me. None of them wanted to know me.
25:44
I forgot sober. I rang my sister recently and
25:46
sort of said, oh, I've just been 35 years and she said, oh, you
25:48
still have the odd beer though, don't you?
25:49
So just don't get a saving grace because God gives me you poo
25:52
beer. Nobody ever sort of understood
25:55
the complexities of me or each other and how difficult it is to
25:59
stay on this path that we all need to support each other and
26:02
love each other and you know, normal.
26:04
I finished on Norma's thing. Norma's thing was one of her
26:07
things. You know, we had a lot of
26:08
things. Always our partner slips.
26:09
She said a a is the healing pond because as we know Alcoholics,
26:12
alcoholism is an owner that has an healing pond.
26:15
Every time you sit in that healing pond, the diamond is
26:18
getting a little polished that every time the Moyers and
26:21
eventually outcomes your beautiful.
26:23
Eventually you realize that you are a good person, that you can
26:26
love, that you are good, clean, awesome citizen.
26:30
Takes so long to feel that way about myself.
26:32
I was so far at war with myself. I hated myself that much, you
26:35
know, those first 10 or 15 years.
26:37
It's so difficult sort of living with me living with yourself in
26:39
that state, but a a probably more likely that first bro mate
26:43
to God help me. Here's a range and attack there
26:46
how it had to be for me and I don't have any.
26:48
I think it's just magnificent where I am today.
26:50
I have a beautiful wife, a happy Barbie little woman who's look
26:53
after anybody. She's a cuddler.
26:55
I had never cuddled before I met her because I never cuddled as a
26:57
she's a cuddler. Just come up and give me because
26:59
I'm about that big. But and he loves now she just
27:01
loves everybody. We've got my 32 year old
27:04
schizophrenic sort of soundly. We've been out in the streets on
27:06
drugs for a long time and and Kara and there's like a six foot
27:09
to size and big and there's little Kara and five foot two
27:12
cuddling him and talking him in the kitchen and and loving him,
27:15
you know, so you've got anything to say, you know, allow your
27:19
heart so cop whatever comes your way and stay sober.
27:22
I think there's one of my cliches.
27:23
I hang up down at Salisbury. So sort of says there is no
27:26
problem in life that a drink will make better.
27:28
And over the years I haven't thought about drinking, but I
27:30
might have thought about nacking 2 times.
27:31
It's been quite hard. But thanks to you all here I am
27:34
high quality life, tired golfer, bowler, fisherman, father.
27:39
How's all of that stuff off off the cards the way I came into
27:42
AIA and even say that I'm reasonably sane most of the
27:45
time. So thanks for listening.
27:48
A A has more than two million recovering Alcoholics throughout
27:52
the world. In Australia there are about
27:55
18,000 members. They're made in over 2000 local
28:01
meetings spread around the country.
28:03
Meetings range in size from a handful in some areas to
28:08
hundreds or more in larger communities.
28:11
And once again, if anyone you know is struggling with alcohol
28:15
issues, please call Alcoholics announcing 1300 Double 00000 or
28:22
visit their website on aa.org dot AU.