The Sober Experience
Recovery and mental health, spirituality and life. We will be sitting down with people in and out of recovery who have helpful tips and shared experiences to provide better love and understanding on this earth. There will be a wide veriaty of topics discussed and after each interview there will be another reflection episode where I can analyze what we spoke of and what sticks to mind.
The Sober Experience
Journey from Brooklyn to Sobriety: Joe's Tale of Resilience and Recovery
When Joe, a Brooklyn native with a life as colorful as the borough itself, steps into our studio, you can bet that the tales he spins are nothing short of extraordinary. Our latest episode on the Sober Experience is a tapestry woven with threads of laughter, nostalgia, and the sobriety journey that binds us. You'll be captivated by Joe's recollections of his unexpected arrival into his family, the landmark moment the first television crossed their threshold, and a Pepsi mishap that's as endearing as it is sticky.
Navigating through the labyrinth of alcoholism's impact on family life, Joe and I get real about the deceptive nature of this disease, the nuanced challenges of acknowledging addiction, and the patience it demands from those it touches. Our conversation is a candid exploration of the communal exodus from Brooklyn to the uncertainty of New Jersey, with a poignant pause to honor the resilience it takes to raise a handicapped child against the backdrop of personal recovery stories.
As a vessel for change, the Sober Experience podcast offers not just narratives but tangible lifelines. Our episode is a testament to the transformation that's possible when one makes the leap from the clutches of alcoholism to the embrace of recovery. Joe and I delve into the profound influence of mentorship within Alcoholics Anonymous and the sweeping impact of community and selfless support. The heartfelt dialogue shared here is but a preview of the inspiration that awaits in our full conversation, promising to leave listeners with a renewed sense of hope and the reminder that, in recovery, we are never alone.
Hello and welcome to the Sober Experience, formerly known as the Spiritual Experience, where we share stories of overcoming problematic situations in life through triumph and working together, as well as recovery topics and all other forms of spirituality, self-help and the like. I'm your host, jay Lewis, and here we go. Hey, what's up everybody. Welcome back to the Sober Experience. Don't forget to subscribe and share on all podcast platforms, including our new YouTube page. We could always use the support and we appreciate all the feedback that we've been getting. And today we have a wonderful guest who I have been wishy-washy, wanting, been nervous about asking him to come on, because he's always been such an inspiration for me as far as somebody's recovery that I've admired for a long and, you know, as we've gotten closer to be friends so but he's here to. We're honored to have him. I don't want to go crazy with all the flowers, but, um, everybody say hello to my good friend, joe. Joe say hello.
Speaker 2:Hello.
Speaker 1:All right, joe, beautiful Joe. First things first. Where are you from?
Speaker 2:I'm from relatively rare these days. I am a native of Brooklyn.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. Where did you grow up? What neighborhood?
Speaker 2:Oh, in Windsor Terrace.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nice, did you have brothers and sisters? What was it like?
Speaker 2:I had two older sisters, nine and ten years older than me, and when I was younger I could never figure out why God visited older sisters on you.
Speaker 1:So were you like a surprise baby or your parents just took a 10-year break?
Speaker 2:Those are questions that I never asked, but it'd be hard to. It's hard not to believe I was a surprise, right.
Speaker 1:What kind of a kid were you? Did you play sports? Were you good at school? What kind of a kid were you? Did you play sports?
Speaker 2:Were you good at school. I was okay in school, I mean, I did well. I was never good at sports, never particularly interested in them.
Speaker 1:Right, what were your main hobbies?
Speaker 2:What did you like to do? I watched television, believe it or not. I remember when my father brought the first television into the house, when nobody had televisions. I remember going to the kid's house whose family had a TV.
Speaker 1:What did you think then, when your dad finally showed up with one?
Speaker 2:Wow, it was amazing. I sat down and stared, stared that's what you did Stared. Everybody was in the living room. It was a little screen and you had to at the time. Wow, I haven't thought about this in years. You had to make the antennas, set up the antennas. They were on top of the TV. Like manually, you had to go and Right, yeah, you would have to do that before they got antennas on the roof and things like that. Wow Was it like cohesive.
Speaker 1:Cohesive would have to do that before they got antennas on the roof and things like that. Wow, so was it like cohesive cohesive meaning that like okay, we're all going to sit down and watch tv together.
Speaker 2:Oh, well it. It was cohesive, uh. But I have a very firm memory of I wanted to watch Wyatt Earp and my sister wanted to watch Eddie Fisher. And I got to watch Wyatt Earp and my sister poured a bottle of Pepsi over my head as I was sitting on the floor watching Wyatt Earp. So I don't have too many memories of arguing, but that's an unforgettable memory. That was it.
Speaker 1:What kind of work did your dad do?
Speaker 2:That was it. What kind of work did your dad do? He was a manager of a warehouse.
Speaker 1:He worked for Sterno Incorporated.
Speaker 2:Also in Brooklyn. Also in Brooklyn, down in what was called Bush Terminal and is now called Industry City Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, yeah yeah. When I drive through there they have like those trolley tracks.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Those cobblestone in between the buildings, like I guess there was like a huge place down there.
Speaker 2:I remember as a kid every single building was full of people and businesses. It was bustling, yeah, and the trolley tracks were being used. Wow, yeah, that was part of the whole deal about Bush Terminal People. They'd bring stuff in over the water and they'd move it in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:All of that level of industry has left Brooklyn, right that I know of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this I understand. Over there now it's like fancy town.
Speaker 2:Yes, so I gather I haven't been there in a while.
Speaker 1:There's sushi bars, abc carpet, so I gather I haven't been there in a while. There's sushi bars, abc carpet and like all this other stuff. I mean there's a few manufacturing things that are there, but they're not like making thing things. I mean yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, the whole world has changed.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Yeah, the whole world has changed. Actually, sterno Incorporated. Sterno was the famous thing for chafing dishes. Do people even know what Sterno is anymore? I don't know.
Speaker 1:The only thing I know about Sterno is those flame things that you put underneath. Is that what they are? That's what they were. They were what made chafing dishes and all sorts of hotel equipment function, yeah, so, yeah, it's funny, because my mom would say don't forget the sternos, right, yeah, that's funny, Okay. So then, as you're growing up, you know, did you come from a family of drinkers, or what was the story then? What was the atmosphere?
Speaker 2:I never saw my father finish a drink Wow, never once. They'd pour him a cocktail, you know, and he'd sip half of it. But I had a lot of uncles and aunts who finished a lot of drinks. Yeah, uncles and aunts who finished a lot of drinks, yeah, it was around me, but I never saw my father finish a drink. I never saw my mother take a drink.
Speaker 1:So what happened with you when you started Like how old were you?
Speaker 2:Well, that's one of the interesting things to me, sure.
Speaker 2:I have no idea. Everybody seemed to be drinking when we were 15, 16, 17, 18 at parties, and my memory is that everybody seemed to be drinking a lot. I'm not at all sure that's an accurate memory. What happened? I don't really, to this day, understand. Everybody who was drinking a lot seemed to not give it up, but let it go. Not give it up, but let it go. By the time they were mid-20s, 25, 26, they let it go. My friend Dougie and I didn't stop, we didn't let it go. I truly don't understand it. I mean, what I would say, and I still say, is I love to drink.
Speaker 1:I loved it. I loved it From the beginning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's my memory. You know, among the things that I am sure of, I am absolutely sure that if I picked up a drink today, I would be drinking alcoholically.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, for me it fits like a glove. Oh yeah, it may be like you know, even if it's like the left-handed glove on the right hand, I'll get it on there, don't you worry.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I have no doubt about that. I have no doubt that I would be drinking alcoholically if I picked up a drink.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you started, were you drinking alcoholically right away, or was there a progression? What was it like?
Speaker 2:I think there was a progression, you know.
Speaker 1:He said it started out at parties here, and there.
Speaker 2:And I can remember. One of the very firm memories that I have is I had two little boys. My oldest son was handicapped.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And I'm sitting.
Speaker 1:When were they born?
Speaker 2:Oh, let's see. Well, the oldest boy would be 40. He's passed away. He'd be 45 now. I think Right yeah 45 or 46, and my youngest is 40 now Right and I remember sitting in my chair. My wife was out and I was drinking downstairs. They were asleep and I remember thinking, if something happens, I'm not going to be able to get up out of this chair.
Speaker 1:That was like a cognitive thought.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's a big bridge between oh, we're 16, 17, 18, drinking at parties to now you're an adult. How old were you when you think you had that thought?
Speaker 2:Let's see, let's see. Well, I must have been like 39, something like that. I came into AA when I was 40.
Speaker 1:Right, so between 18 and 40, it was just every day.
Speaker 2:No, it took some time to get to every day. It took some time to every day.
Speaker 1:You were progressing in life, though Obviously you started a career, you had a wife, had some kids.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:No, that's the idea of the down-and-out alcoholic. You know it's not the alcoholics I hung out with, right? No, that's yeah yeah, you can go a long time before you. You know you can't keep drinking. You can go a long, long time.
Speaker 1:Right. What was your relationship like with your wife when that was going on?
Speaker 2:Well, my memory now, because the memory is different than the reality at the time but my memory now is she and the kids would go up to bed. What I remember now, it seemed to be earlier and earlier. What I remember now, it seemed to be earlier and earlier. And yeah, that's the other memory I have with my wife. I went to my first meeting. I used to go to work hungover.
Speaker 1:What kind of work did you do?
Speaker 2:I was a manager. I was a manager of a pretty large office, right.
Speaker 1:You would go to work managing a large office hungover.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, I mean I can remember. There's so many wonderful memories of like getting on the subway and thinking I'm going to throw up on this guy in front of me. You know which you know, I think, when I look back, I think the insanity of the second step is for real, yeah.
Speaker 2:The insanity of the second step is for real. Yeah, Any normal person would go. In fact, one of I've never forgotten. I worked with a woman who had the same job I had, and she was one of these people who never finished a drink, you know. And I asked her because one of the things I did as an active alcoholic was I never, ever talked to anybody about my drinking Right, never, never talked to. I was not a bar drinker where everybody was BSing each other, things like that.
Speaker 1:Did anybody ever ask you or talk to you about your drinking?
Speaker 2:That's part of the story too. Actually, I mentioned I was from Brooklyn.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And people won't believe this. Yeah, and people won't believe this. But Brooklyn in the 70s was going down the toilet. It was over. It was over. Everybody was moving to Long Island, new Jersey or something like that.
Speaker 1:Brooklyn was going down the toilet literally. I heard there was like a bar on every corner. People would say that, oh, there was.
Speaker 2:I mean, and I lived in a very nice neighborhood then, but there was a bar on every corner.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:If you know Brooklyn 7th Avenue, there was a bar on every corner from Flatbush Avenue to Prospect Avenue.
Speaker 1:That's over about 20 blocks.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Including all the name streets Right.
Speaker 2:And every I mean that's.
Speaker 1:And it's walkable for those of you who don't live in New York Right, you can stumble from one block to the next in a couple of minutes.
Speaker 2:Right, and every block had their own bar.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:I mean the bar at the end of the block was the bar where, if you didn't go there first, it was where you ended up.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:If that makes any sense to any, that's funny. Are there any non-alcoholics listening to this? Would that make any sense to them? I don't know.
Speaker 1:That's incredible, yeah. So did people start asking you Say hey Joe, what are you doing with yourself?
Speaker 2:Again, memory was a friend. Again, memory was a friend. They're still friends of my. The husband of one of my wife's best friends asked her if she wanted him to talk to me about my drinking when I was like 25, 26, something like that. Right, and she told me and I said to her we had all gone out. I was talking about people leaving Brooklyn, we had all gone out. One day, to the first couple that bought a house in New Jersey, which is I still don't understand why anybody goes to New Jersey, but that's all, and I have a way with words, and I said, no, no, that's not necessary. The only reason I was drinking a lot was because it was hot out. Right, that was it.
Speaker 1:How old were you when the kids were born?
Speaker 2:Let's see. So I was 30. I was 40 when my second son was born. So I was like 34, 35, somewhere when my first son was born.
Speaker 1:So if we're doing the math 10 years before kids show up. Somebody's asking somebody else to ask somebody else to talk to you about your drinking, right. This is 10 years before you end up in the basement, 15 years before you end up in the basement, Right, with them going upstairs, and it's already a problem in your mid-twenties.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, when I look back, absolutely, Absolutely In fact, when I go out and I'm at some relative's house and I'm looking around, I can see. I mean, I can see. I mean alcoholics don't even hold a glass the same way as a normal person does. You can pick out the alcoholics easily. They're holding a glass like somebody's going to take it away from them.
Speaker 1:I'm not kidding, yeah, glass, like somebody's gonna take it away from them. You know, I'm not kidding. Yeah, I um, I recognize my alcoholic face in other people when I see it and I'm like, oh, that guy, he's he, yeah, he's not having a good time, right, you know, and I can look at somebody if we're in a gathering and I can be like this guy's wife is busting his balls about his drinking, right, because you can see he's like drinking at whatever, I've seen that and it's on our face, but my face can feel his face.
Speaker 1:It sounds very crazy, but I can look at him like, oh, he has potential, we'll save him a seat. He has potential. So you're in your mid 20's, this is going on. There's a big flight from Brooklyn. You are staying put.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah yeah, buying the house we're in was the best idea I ever let my wife talk me into.
Speaker 1:Did she work at the time or no?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we both worked all the time. Right, we both worked all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah so you're young people. You buy. Both worked all the time. Right, we both worked all the time. Yeah so you're young people. You buy a house. She's already asking her friends to talk to you about your drinking. Next thing you know, some years go by and it's the same old roller coaster yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:One of the things I will tell newcomers in AA is if you walked in the door, you're an alcoholic. Nobody nobody comes to AA in a whim. I mean, I've never nobody comes to AA by mistake. I've never met anybody who. I've met a lot of people who don't stay, but that doesn't mean I guess they're out there. I haven't met everybody, obviously.
Speaker 1:I think they're also out there doing 12-step work. They're in the bar telling people they should go back to AA because their life is miserable. Yeah, I mean one of the conversations I have with people, not all the time but periodically, when somebody will say things like oh, you know, back in the day, aa 50, 75, 80% of people would come in and they'd get sober. And now we're at like half of a third, of a percent or whatever kind of BS that they're saying right of a percent or whatever kind of bs that they're saying right. And my uh defiant reply is that the reality is, is that people back in the day really had to be desperate to go to a meeting? You know, I mean no internet, no cell phones, no this, no that right, and even before then, in the 50s and the 40s and the like, you know they're mailing each other books in the mail, so whatever.
Speaker 1:But the program has evolved so much so that I think part of it works like too good. Where in you come in and if you go to a meeting a day and try not to drink, in 90 days you're going to forget that you was a drunk. You know, you cleaned up a couple of bills. Your significant other maybe is not so mad at you anymore. Your boss is off your back. You maybe ate a couple of meals with nutrients and you know, not liquid lunch every day, and then you'll forget that you can never drink safely ever, and then you'll go run back out, that you can't never drink safely ever, and then you'll go run back out.
Speaker 1:I've seen that happen more often than people thinking the program doesn't work. I've seen people come in and do everything they're supposed to do and then I'm like, oh no, you forgot that first part of the first step. And then, next thing, you know, they're back out there. And then they're like, yeah, they find out how patient the disease is. It's not just whatever cunning, baffling, insidious, all those sloganees, kind of words, but the disease is very, very patient. Very. It's just going to like like dormant, just hanging out. You don't get rid of it, and then, in the right environment, it's like a fungus poof. Here we are. Yeah, remember me, you know so. You were still drinking. You said, uh, your, your oldest son was handicapped. He was the first one born.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So what afflictions did he have? If you don't mind me asking he was severely handicapped.
Speaker 2:It was the result of a very difficult birth Right. Maybe he could function as a five-year-old, and he had trouble walking.
Speaker 1:How did that affect you?
Speaker 2:Ooh.
Speaker 1:I think about him every day of my life. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Especially then. You were still drinking when he was born, right, right, and that's not something you can just put in a drawer somewhere.
Speaker 2:No, no, I honestly believe that if it wasn't for my wife and children, I had a real shot at drinking myself to death. That was.
Speaker 1:Sincerely.
Speaker 2:Oh, sincerely, yeah, yeah, I've never forgotten. Walking down the block I live on and there was a guy sitting in an airy way. Do you know? Most of the people in the country don't know what an airy way is.
Speaker 1:Explain to the listeners.
Speaker 2:It's usually a concrete. It's in front of your house. Between the sidewalk and your house. There's a concrete part where you could go out and put a chair out there, and the entrance to the basement is usually right there, yeah, off the airway. So the guy is usually off the airway. So the guy's sitting in the airway and he's sitting in this ratty old beach chair and it was the summertime and he was in Bermuda shorts and there were running sores down his leg.
Speaker 1:Sores like S-O-R-E sores, sores, right Wow.
Speaker 2:And he's got a 40-ouncer in his hand and I thought to myself I remember it because it was so vivid, and that's part of the thing about sobriety and AA. You get the message where you get the message. There's lots of messages.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:And I remember thinking that could have been me, that could have been me.
Speaker 1:Was he older than you could have been me.
Speaker 2:Was he older than you At the time? I saw him Probably. But you know one of the things about drinking and smoking dope and stuff like that, is it really ages you? Yeah, really.
Speaker 1:Because sometimes the reason why I ask is like you see a guy like that and you're like, oh, he's pickled right. And he's like, yeah, I'm 34, right exactly. And you're like Jesus, sir, right, yeah, but that you know, that stays in your mind yeah, I've never forgotten that guy.
Speaker 2:Wow you know that. I know it rankles some people, but there, but for the grace of God, you know, go on Sure, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So you have this one boy, and then, a couple years later, you have another kid.
Speaker 2:Right, right, who's a wonderful? He's a wonderful man, he's a wonderful man.
Speaker 1:What was that like in between each child? Were you scared to have another kid? Were you having those kind of conversations with your wife Like, hey, you better get your drinking under control because we have this person, this young child with special needs?
Speaker 2:No, no, I don't think I was. I guess I was working my way up to it and I was sneaky. That's another fond memory of alcoholism. You can't make this stuff up. I remember not just me, but lots of people used to carry an attache case to work. I switched from a soft-sided attache case to a hard sided attache case, a leather one to a. The reason I did that is because in the hard sided attache case my wife couldn't see the bulge of the Gordon's gin bottle when I was coming into the house, because that you know Gordon's gin bottle for those of you who aren't a gin drinker is square.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it fit nicely in a natashay case, yeah. That was hard-sided, I could get it into the house, so like.
Speaker 1:Were you drinking around the clock at that time?
Speaker 2:Well, I was drinking. No, I mean, I didn't. I never drank around the clock like a real alcoholic, right, I was never. I drank a lot all the time. I drank a lot all the time. I've run into people who ended up alcoholics, who never drank, you know, anywhere near as much as I drank right, I mean you're they were the real deal yeah, you're changing your briefcase so you can hide your booze, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, looking back, it's like uh, you know me, I drank so much Gordon's one day that I never drank again that Gordon's gin.
Speaker 2:And that was my drug of choice.
Speaker 1:Listen my parents as they became more affluent. Then the Bombay came to the house right the blue bottle, but I already had the bout with Gordon's that I even did. I give you your water.
Speaker 2:No, you didn't Hold on.
Speaker 1:Hold on, guys, let me grab the waters. I thought I gave you the. Yeah, they're over here. Sorry about that. It's okay, call, all right, we're back. So point is is that I had such a bout with Gordons that I couldn't. On the left side of my house where I grew up, we had these pine trees and if I stood too close to the pine trees I would smell that pine and it would remind me of the Gordons and I would want to puke. You know so Gordons, I know pretty well.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it looks like you're on your way. You know this other kid comes along. How does that change things for you?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, that's a really good question. I All I can think of is you know, I knew I had to stop. I knew I had to stop, I knew I couldn't keep going on and this sounds very severe and I got to downstairs, like I said, and, yeah, I remember opening my eyes and cursing the day and that's never happened since I came into AA. I've had the worst day of my life in AA but I've never cursed the day, if that makes any sense to people.
Speaker 1:So how did you go from being downstairs separated emotionally, mentally, whatever from your family to getting into recovery?
Speaker 2:What happened? I think it wasn't any. I think it was waking up, cursing the line I don't know how to describe it realizing that this can't go on. In that sense, it's a gift. Sure, it's a gift.
Speaker 1:That was a gift. How'd you get to your first?
Speaker 2:meetings. Well, one of the things I haven't mentioned is that I had an Uncle John who was a real old Irish drunk.
Speaker 1:And compared to you.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right and he was. He got into AA and he talked about it all the time with my mother when he was over, and I remember thinking.
Speaker 1:Is this like your mom's brother or your?
Speaker 2:dad's brother. Yeah, my mom's brother.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And yeah, I've never, just I never saw my father or his brother take a drink, right, so something was going on. I have, absolutely, by the same token, both my parents were Irish and I never heard one happy story about Ireland Not one, not ever. That's funny, yeah. And so where were we?
Speaker 1:Yeah how did you get into AA? So was there like an incident or something you said, all right, that's it, I'm over? Or was it just gradual and you're like one day, hey look, I have to go to a meeting. Uh, yeah, I'm not?
Speaker 2:sure there wasn't. There was a pile up of uh, of being hung over, going into work hung over uh. One of the things I remember learning how to tie your tie when I was working I was, it was, everybody was wearing a suit and tie and I could tie my tie without looking at myself in the mirror, things like that. That there was no big incident, just working just reminded me of I never, ever, recommend anybody talk about being an alcoholic on the job. Now, if you need to go to rehab and they'll get you to a rehab then you might have to talk about it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But I don't recommend it unless.
Speaker 1:You're ready to get some help, yeah unless you're ready to get some help.
Speaker 2:But the reason I say that is some help, yeah, unless you're ready to get some help. But the reason I say that is I went to my boss and I had lied to him on a regular basis.
Speaker 1:That was part of Part of the job description. Right, I had lied to him.
Speaker 2:There was a period when I was the only one doing the job that I was doing and he'd ask me if this had been done. I'd tell him this has been done and it hadn't been done while I was drinking. And so I went to make amends and I told him you know, I'm sorry that I said I'm sorry that when you were asking me whether such and such had been done, I had told you it was done and it wasn't. I'm sorry, I was such a pain in the ass I don't think I used those words. And he said well, thank you for talking to me about this, because I didn't know what was wrong with you. I thought you were crazy. I thought you were crazy, and the reason I bring that up is they don't know what's wrong with us. They think we're crazy.
Speaker 2:Why is he lying to me? Why, you know it's like normal people don't know what it's like to be addicted to alcohol, you know, or addicted to anything else. I am so old that I actually you actually knew the junkies in the neighborhood. You know, when I was growing up. Now I always tell people the world changed when the guys came back from Vietnam, that's. It's another world. Now you know it's another world. Now it's another world now. I don't think there's anybody in AA who hasn't used, or it seems that way to me, but AA has changed For the better, for the better, for the better, for the better.
Speaker 2:I think it's much broader and open.
Speaker 1:So when you start going to meetings and you start putting some time together, what kind of impact did it have directly, like on your life? Well, I got first of all, what year did you get silver?
Speaker 2:1984 1984 I got well cared for and I tell people I know how AA works. It works by the love of one alcoholic for another alcoholic. That's how AA works. I walked in. That uncle, who was the alcoholic, was in the meeting. I walked in and he said what are you doing here, joe? I said I think I got a drinking problem. Oh, you're in the right place. I've never been pushed around in AA. I've never been told what to do. That's why I remember that. That was all he said. Oh, you're in the right place. And when I'm talking to a newcomer, I tell him you know, if anybody starts pointing their finger at you, and this is what you've got to do, this is how you've got to do it. This is how we work. The 12 steps just walk away. Just walk away. Maybe it works for some people, but it wouldn't have worked for me. You know that's.
Speaker 1:And yeah, we're an odd bunch.
Speaker 2:No, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's. I always make the joke that, as a people, there's nobody more offended by help than us. Oh, that's true, right away. You want to help me? Fuck, no, meanwhile, life is burning. I'm like no, no, I'm okay.
Speaker 2:Was it that long ago I was at a meeting. There was a new guy there. He said he was new and I walked over to give him my phone number and you could see. It's like what's this old guy walking over to me for? Why is he giving me his phone number? It's like okay, okay, it still works for me, by the way. Taking calls from newcomers still works for me. It taking calls from newcomers still works for me. It proves to me it hasn't gotten any better out there.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I mean, I think my experience also is it doesn't happen a lot for me, but it does happen where we'll bring a new guy to the diner and we're going to buy the new guy a burger and then at the end he goes on the speech saying you guys, thank you so much. I promise next time I'm going to pay all of you and this whole thing. We're like, listen, we're just going to buy you a burger. Nobody owes anybody anything. One day you'll do it for somebody else. Oh, yeah, you want to take a pee break? We'll take a pee break. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Alright, guys, we're back're back. Bunch needed pee break. Listen, this guy's been sober 40 years. There was a pee break, yeah, so we're talking about like the magic of, of aa and of recovery and just.
Speaker 1:You know the non-transactional. Well, I think it. It is in some ways for me. It was taught to me like it is a transaction, but it's like a pay it forward transaction. Like my first sponsor would tell me I'm helping you just so you can help somebody else. That's the main reason why I'm helping you, because we need you to help somebody else. I don't need anything back from you. You know what I'm saying. So it was just like I used to thank him Like you know, thank you so much, man, you're helping me. He's like don't thank me. You know he says I'm helping you so you can help somebody else. That is the main focus, you know, because there's no governing body. You know, this is not like grade school where somebody's like you know there's no exams. We all got to help each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think that's like the most important thing, where you can see as the world has changed, even like what you're talking about from Vietnam changed even like what you're talking about from Vietnam but just even now, where, like, people are really missing that selflessness that we've been fortunate enough to live with for so long for me 20, for you 40 but, like I know how good humanity can be like. It's not like a theory for me and I see miracles on a weekly basis where, like some people, they don't, they don't have that in their life and that's like a big effect on me that I see these miracles, these new guys calling the new guy wanting to pay you back for a freaking hot dog. You know I always joke that, like you know, uh, we, uh, we laugh when we, we, we, um, we clap when you get your kids back. It's the only place on earth AA where we clap when somebody gets their kids back and it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's like. I say that's how I've been treated. I've never been pushed around talking about your sponsor, one of the things asking somebody to be my sponsor, asking my first sponsor to be my sponsor, what was that like? That was one of the most important things I've ever done in my life, because there's I haven't said this in a long time, but I mean, if you asked a man for help, all you could get from a guy would be bullshit and sports talk and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:I was aware that asking somebody to be your sponsor was you were asking them to help you, and I've never forgotten what he said. I called him up. I liked the way he talked, I liked the way he looked, I liked him in the meetings and I got his phone number and about six weeks later I called him and I said oh, I'm sorry it took me so long to call you. And he said no, no, no, you're right on time, and that's how I've been treated all the time I've been an AA. No, no, no, you're right on time, and that's how I've been treated all the time I've been an AA. No, no, no, you're right on time.
Speaker 1:What does it feel like for you to be able to give that to somebody All the love that you received? What is it like for you to be able to give that to people?
Speaker 2:It's an extraordinary blessing. Extraordinary blessing, you know, I've seen.
Speaker 1:Just to tell somebody listen, it's okay, you're right on time, you're in the right place All of these very like hokey things that you're talking about to be able to give somebody that exhale breath.
Speaker 2:Right right. I've seen people get married and have children and I've seen the children grow up and all in AA I've seen that's one of the things I've realized is we can change generations here. I've seen people who've come from terrible situations become loving parents. You don't have to relive the past. It's funny sometimes we go to an AA meeting and you think well, rehashing the same story over and over again. But that's not true. You come until you start having your own story and then, if I had to describe in one word what describes AA, I'd say listen, we listen. We listen to each other. We listen to the guy who has one day we listen to the guy I was in a meeting idea who's going to save your life in AA. This guy, eddie. He was a longshoreman and he would listen to me.
Speaker 2:I'd be going on. This was early on in my time in AA. I'd be going on telling them all sorts of stuff. The meetings in those days ended. Almost all the meetings were at 8.30 at night. So the meeting ended at 9.30, and it'd be 10 o'clock at night and Eddie would be getting up at 5 in the morning to go work on the docks and he would sit and listen to me. I've never forgotten what he sometimes, when I'm going on in my own head, you don't get, you know, it still goes on. I'm making circles around my head now and he'd say Joe, joe, how important is this, how important is this? He was real Brooklyn and I was so consumed with myself I thought Eddie just doesn't understand. And it was only as I got sober that I thought Eddie just doesn't understand. It was only as I got sober that I realized, my God, this guy loved me. This guy loved me. He was going to get up and he sat and listened to me Because he was absolutely devoted to AA. He was devoted to AA.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's incredible and I think that's the whole key. Yeah, looking back, that you don't realize what somebody's doing for you, and then, as you evolved, you can look back and be like, holy shit, this guy loved me.
Speaker 2:The other thing. You're bringing me back to the past. The other thing I remember is this guy, steve the Fisherman.
Speaker 1:Oh, him I've heard of. Oh, he was something. He was the guy he used to make the whales.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly. And one day we're talking and I'm talking about something was going on at home and I've never forgotten what he said. You know when your spouse or your mate or your friend is not an alcoholic. And he said you've got to understand that they don't understand. And you know I'm the sober one, I've got to understand that they don't understand. They don't understand. Yeah, they didn't sit in a chair in the middle of the night drinking like a pig. They don't understand that.
Speaker 1:Against their will.
Speaker 2:Against their will. That's the other thing that I believe for myself that I could not get sober unless I took responsibility for every single drink I took, and it's nobody's fault. It's nobody's fault. And I've seen people who stayed sober and they're still pissed off at their mothers. They're like 70 years old and they're pissed off at their parents. Maybe they're sober, but I don't want that.
Speaker 1:I don't want that either. I'm grateful that after I got sober, my parents they still spoke to me. The way I treated them and everybody else yeah, and that's, we'll wrap up on this. But yeah, the longer you stick around, the more your story changes. You stick around, the more your story changes. Not so much the actions that I took, but my perception of what was going on really changes. So it's like when I first came around, sure, everything sounded funny and if they were doing it was this, them and them. And then the more I got closer to God and the more I did the work and the more I faced myself, I'm like, alright, maybe it was 3% them and 97% me. You know it's like, yeah, 93% them and 97% me. You know it's like, yeah, they were doing the best they could.
Speaker 2:And my response to that led me to where we are right now, right, right, yeah, you got to be.
Speaker 1:Somebody said this I don't know where I was said even victims have to be responsible for their actions. Somebody said this I don't know where I was said even victims have to be responsible for their actions. It's heavy.
Speaker 2:Very heavy.
Speaker 1:But it's true. It's true. All right, guys, we're going to wrap it up. Joe, thank you so much for hanging out with us. Dude, you did an hour. You did fantastic. Don't forget, everybody like and subscribe on all podcast platforms the Sober Experience, Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Google, everywhere. And, yeah, listen, I could stay talking with you for another three hours. I always enjoy your insight and the simplicity of your spirituality. It's always impressive. All right, we're going to sign off. All right, guys, have a great day.