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I was born in Washington, DC to two people who there as opposite as night and day. My Mother was from a little town in Mississippi, Scooba, and my Father was from Lynn, Massachusetts. It is a damn miracle I can talk at all. My Mother was a Southern Baptist and my Father was Irish Catholic. I didn’t know I was in a dis-functional family until I came into AA. It seems all the families in our neighborhood were dis-functional. I was most likely born into a dis-functional neighborhood. I say all this not to blame my parents or the neighborhood I grew up in. To me it was the greatest neighborhood in the world and I had a Mother and Father who loved me, and did their best in keeping me from killing myself. We had lots of friends and playmates. We played ball games and when it snowed we would slide down some of the best hills in DC, and the Maryland area.

My Mother would have a drink a year – if that. My Father was a hard working every day drinker. On weekends I would go out with Dad and we would always end up at a bar. I loved it. The men would talk about sports, politics, and the laughter was great. If a fight broke out it ended with a handshake, and someone buying the other guy a drink, and everyone just went back to talking sports and politics. I would get a burger and a cherry coke, and life was good. I loved the barroom environment.

When I was four, we went to a farm. All the kids were given salt and pepper shakers, and told to go at it – eat all the tomatoes you can eat. I don’t know how many I ate, but on the way home, I got so sick. I had my head out the window throwing up all the way home. After that I didn’t eat tomatoes for twenty years.

I was a social drinker for the first thirteen years of my life. As kids, we would try different types of booze that we found around our parents’ homes. At the age of thirteen I became a weekend drinker. Firs a couple of beers – then three – then a six pack. I drank whatever we could get. It wasn’t until I was sixteen that I had my first drink in a bar. I was working at a five and dime one summer. The head stock-boy came and said we’re all going to lunch. We went to a bar in DC known for its cold beer and great pizza. Being sixteen, I was sure I would be carded. After ordering the pizza, we ordered drinks. My heart was going about a million miles hour as she went around for drinks. Each guy ordered a FROZIE. She looked at me, I said FROZIE. She didn’t blink an eye, just went to the next guy. FROZIE – a mug of cold beer with a 1/8 of an inch of ice covering the mug, golden brown beer of pure delight. As she carried the beers across the barroom floor, I was glued to the mugs. Anyone of any importance could have walked by, and I wouldn’t have seen them. I could almost taste these beauties. The barmaid laid my mug in front of me. I pick it up the cold mug. I could feel the cold glass hit my lips on what was a hot summer day. The beer flowed over my tongue, to the back of my throat, down to my stomach. I had never tasted anything so refreshing in my life. I just new life could not get any better then this. This was what all the guys in the bar got so happy about. This is what drinking in a bar was all about. I was a “MAN.” Now I understood why my father and his friends spent hours in a bar. I was laughing and talking – I was on the top of the world. What a great lunch. Then, words no Alcoholic wants to hear. WE’VE GOT TO GO. AAAAAAAA!!! NNNOOOOOO!!!! I was ready for a whole day of this.

A few weeks later I had my first “DRUNK”. I am not sure how much I drank. I just know by the end of the night my head was out the window throwing up all the beer I had drank that evening.

The next day I didn’t remember thinking “I’ll never do that again.” NNOOOOO!! I said, “I’ve got to work on this. Last night was FUN. I would die if I couldn’t do that again.” And, of course that is just what I did. For the next eighteen years, that is exactly what I did. My tolerance went up. I didn’t always throw-up, pass out or get in trouble. But, when I did, well that was just the price you paid for having a great time. I tried to remember to eat before I drank, or to only carry three bucks with me. You just can’t get drunk on three bucks. I got a DWI, so I moved closer to the bar. I didn’t know it at the time, but drinking was something I had to do. I was powerless over alcohol.

I lost – or should say drank my way out of – every job, marriage, relationships with my family, and friends. Not even the drunks wanted me at the end. I passed out in places I wouldn’t think of sleeping in or at today: out in fields, in the back seats of cars, in the beds of women that I didn’t know or have any feelings for. A good night was to spend it on a friend’s couch. Eating was not an option. Sex was a thought, and only a thought.

The career I had chosen after two years in the U. S. Navy was a career as a Police Officer. The U. S. Capital police had openings for police officers. It was right after the Capital building bombing. They were hiring anyone who could walk and talk. I was one of the first to be hired. We had two week of origination. We were told go out and not hurt anyone. We would come back in six months for full training. I just knew this was the career I would retire from. I loved this job. I would meet and see some of the most powerful people in the world. I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize this career.

One night after a day of helping my Mother get to the doctor, I stopped off at a local bar for a few beers. I sat down with seven other police officers. I also had plans to go out with the bar maid, after she got off work. In a booth on the other side of the bar sat three marines. I was called over and informed that if I took the barmaid out, they would rearrange my face. Finding out that that they happened to be from a station fifty miles way, in Quantico Virginia, I informed them that the four of cops I happened to be with had jurisdiction in PG county, and I was sure if I mentioned what they had said, I was sure they could find a reason for them to send the night in jail. I went back to my seat and they finished the drinks they had and walked out. Game over.

At closing time I walked out of the bar with a 12 pack under my arms, only to be greeted by my new friends, the three Marines. One asked, “Where’s ours”? I said, “It’s inside and I would be more than happy to go back in and get it. Just let me put this in my car.”

Well, I opened the car door, threw my 12 pack in, jumped behind the wheel, locked the doors, and started the engine. One marine was setting on the hood; the guy next to the drivers’ door hit the window. I waved good- bye, and drove off. I did a donut, and drove by them, and to the back of the bar to pick the barmaid up. She was getting in the car with other police officer, and down the road they went. I headed home.

In the morning I received a call from my Sergeant. They would like for me to come in. I said it was my day off. They had a complaint about me, and would like for me to clear it up.

When I got in they informed me that the three Marines had threatened to press charges if I didn’t resign. They would proceed with the charges. They seemed to agree that it was unbecoming of a police officer to try to run people over with a car. So, I was fired, and the career I would do anything to keep was gone.

You would think that was enough, but no. I had to keep fighting for the right to drink. I then decided to try marriage. It was a marriage that shouldn’t have happened. I married a woman who loved me for reasons I’ll never know. I was not a good husband, friend or partner. I was a user, cheater, thief, and liar. She could have done so much better than me. When I say this marriage shouldn’t have happened – look at the way I asked this beautiful lady to marry me. Eating breakfast one morning, I asked if she had given marriage much thought? She looked at me as if I had asked the dumbest question in the world. Which I had. She answered by saying, “Why do you think I’m living with you”? I answered with, “You want to marry me”? So, we married a few months later. Not the most romantic way to ask someone to marry you. I left her seven years later, in tears.

A group of women I had known for the last ten years (yes, while I was married) and who cared more me than I did for myself did a twelfth step on me. Becky had been talking to someone at intergroup. He said if she could get me to a meeting they would do the rest. If I wouldn’t go, she should put me back out on the street because I may need to do some more drinking. He said, “If he is drinking, let him drink and talk to him in the morning”. That night, Becky told me to drink all I could, and we would talk in the morning.

For the next day I was so sick I crawled across the floor to the bathroom to do something I had been doing every morning for the last nine months, and that was throwing up. I knew I wasn’t pregnant. The guy at intergroup must of told my female friend to talk real loud, and she said I had two choices, at the top of her voice. She said I could take everything I own (which fit nicely in a Safeway paper bag), or I could go to AA. And they would try to help me get back on my feet. To show you how sick I was, I lay there on the bathroom floor and give that a lot of thought. I didn’t know which was worst – going back out on the street or going to an AA meeting. Being the user I was, I thought if I went to one meeting and showed the whole world that this program doesn’t work, I would have a couch to sleep on for a week.

We went to my first meeting. Yes I said we. It was her idea – so I felt she should go through as much pain as I was going to go through. We picked a speakers meeting. On the way to my first meeting, I was trying to get out of going to my second meeting. The only thing I could think of was I had met one of you, and didn’t like you. I had met a man from AA at the ASAP program which the Virginia courts order me to after my DWI. Bob, the guy from Alcoholics Anonymous talked about “GOD”, and said that GOD was the only one who could remove my obsession to drink. Who had an obsession? I just liked to drink! Plus, I was an atheist, and proud of it. Full of ego, I said, "IF THEY GIVE ME ANY OF THAT GOD NONSENCE, I’M GOING TO WALK OUT”. As if AA would closes their doors and give up.

We got to church and walked into the meeting room. Someone greeted us and offered us some coffee. I couldn’t hold a cup of coffee, much less drink one. We sat in the middle. I looked around at all the losers. I thought: “These are the people that are going to help me? I don’t think so.” Someone started the meeting, some people read something and they said they had two speakers -- a lady and a man. The lady said she drank in a closet, and only came out of her house to buy booze. When she got to AA she didn’t think she was an alcoholic. Well if she asked me I would have told her that anyone who drinks in a closet has a bigger problem than alcohol!

She sat down and the next speaker got up. He was well dressed, spoke clear, and looked great for a man at his age. And, he told my story. He said he loved the taste, smell, and affects of alcohol. He was mostly a beer drinker, but would drink the hard stuff on special occasions. Here’s where I compared out – he said that everything he was looking for in alcohol, he found in the rooms of AA. If you are new and think alcohol may be the problem, you are in the right place. If this is so, please go to one more meeting. Pick up a cup, a chair, an ashtray, and someone well see you are asking for help.

As we walked out of the meeting, Becky asked what I thought. I didn’t know where this came from, but I do today. I said, “I don’t know, but I have to go another one”.

At the next meeting I met a man who – down the road of recovery – became my sponsor. He gave me my first “Where and When”. He let me know the meetings he and some other guys went to. He asked if I had a ride. I said quickly “YES!” I didn’t want these guys to know I was homeless, and sleeping on a couch. I said I was busy this week, with softball practice, a game on Monday, and wasn’t too sure about the rest of the week, either. He looked at me as if to say, BS, and circled the rest of the week. He looked up and said, “You just don’t sound like you’re ready. So I suggest you go back to where ever you came from and drink as much as you can. Which, by your looks is about a week, if that? If you are alive, and want what we have, which is: we don’t drink, we go to meetings, listen, and for you pray for someone other then yourself. For you are most likely too self-centered to pray for yourself. If you want what we have and you are ready to listen, you’ll find us at these meetings.” They all walked away. That was one of many spiritual awakenings I received

For the next six months I ran with these guys. We would ride to meetings all over DC, Maryland and Virginia. We had a meeting on the way to the meeting, and a meeting on the ride home. They had me going to a beginners meeting, speakers meeting, a treatment center meeting, a step meeting, and the rest of week to closed meetings.

The Grace Group became my home group. Between my sponsor and his sponsor I was getting what seemed to be every service job in AA. I became the co-coffee maker at my home group, program chairman at the beginner meeting, set up guy and the greeter at another meeting, and secretary at the step meeting. I remember saying “AA was lucky to get me when they did or nothing would get done.” These jobs did two things – they kept me busy, and kept me at a meeting every night.

My sponsor had me meet him every week to go over the Big Book. The Big Book is the book of Alcoholics Anonymous. We would go page by page. He would not let me read the book on my own. He said I was an AA lawyer, and I would look for loop-holes, ways to miss meetings, to not work or live the steps, and to work the program on my own. We would read each page and he would stop me to ask: “What do you think this means?” He never said I was wrong, but would say, “Let’s look at it this way.” If I made sense he’d ask, “Why did you say that?” By the end of four months we’d finished the first 164 pages and the twelve steps of Alcoholic Anonymous. At this point I thought we had finished. He said we had only gotten started. Now we have to learn how to live the twelve steps.

He showed me where each step was in the Big Book, and where the Promises are. Not just the promises on page 83 and 84. He showed the good ones and the ones in how it works. “Half measures availed nothing”. The forgotten promises are found on page 75. I love these. See if you can hear them:

“We pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past. Once we have taken this step, withholding nothing, we are delighted. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at prefect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. We feel we are on the Broad Highway, walking hand in hand with the Sprit of the Universe.”

Did you hear them?

At this point I realized I had more to do. I could see how I was powerless over alcohol, and that there was a GOD – and it wasn’t me! I felt part of Alcoholics Anonymous. Service work was not a job, but a privilege. Did this come easy? NNOOOOO!! I still had to go through some growing pains. I got married two more times. My Mother and Father passed away. My Father and I had an up and down relationship. He had written me out of his will and for the first year in the program would not see or talk to me. He blamed me for my Mothers death, and never forgave me. So, even though I had done a 5th step, asked God to remove my defects of character and remove my shortcomings, I had made a list of all the people I had harmed – but I had not built that bridge of forgiveness and peace. To get the other promises, I had to forgive those I had thought harmed me, and find peace with those that would not forgive me. I had to come to peace with my Father, and with anyone else. I had to live a life as it’s written in “How it Works”. Yes, there is a long reconstruction ahead, and the spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it. As God’s people we stand on our feet, we don’t crawl before anyone.

At my Father’s deathbed, I told him I loved him, kissed him good-bye, and felt at peace with our Creator. At this point I could picture the guy at my first meeting saying everything he was looking for in a drink he found in Alcoholics Anonymous.

My grand sponsor said this at the end of very meeting he lead, and to day it fits me to a tee.

I sought my soul and my soul eluded me

I sought my God and my God I could not find.

I sought my Brothers and my Sisters and I found all

three in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I have a heck of a lot more to say, but I’ll pass. Thank you.

Dennis H_____

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