Hi folks,

I'd like to introudce myself, my name's Bruce, and I'm a recovered alcoholic.

How it was.

I'm long winded, especially today, after finding this place, and I'm writing this part last. Just like an alcoholic, huh, can't do things in order.

My parents were divorced when I was 6. My mother remarried to a man in the Air Force a year later. Then she died in a car accident when I was 10 and I was raised by my step-father who eventually remarried to a woman who had two children from her first marriage. So there I was, no mother, no father, living in a place where I really wasn't wanted at all. At 17 I decided I wanted to join the R.C.A.F. "Why?" my step-father asked. "Your not my father, she isn't my mother, and those two are not my brother and sister. I don't belong here, I just don't fit. You know it, and so do I. I want out!"

I worked on a farm that summer to get some money. My first drink, in September 66, was a beer on the train going to Montreal to get my birth certificate so I could join the R.C.A.F. I ordered a Coke, but the guy across from me said, "No, not a coke, here take this.", passing me one of his "extra" beers. The waiter just raised his eyebrows and walked away. Gave me a nice buzz that did, but worse, it gave me a "taste" for more.

For the next year in Montreal I tried to gain weight, as I was too thin to be accepted in the military. I found a job and I was drinking every chance I could get. In January 1968 I was finally accepted into the Military, and for the next 18 years I drank my way through life. I lost my wife and three sons because of my drinking. But I kept on drinking.. This part of the story is so similar to many you may have heard, loosing everything, except my job, somehow I wasn't turfed out.

You know that old joke: Of all the things I've lost, it's my mind I miss the most! Well, that's me, and it's no joke, believe me. I lost the power of reasoning, I lost touch with my morals, my friends were all drinkers. And I honestly didn't trust anyone who didn't drink. I cannot count the number of good people who told me I had a drinking problem. But I plowed on. Until one day, two people who didn't know each other, and on the same day, gave me "something".

After my wife had left with my three sons, their babysitter ( a neighbour daughter) came over, to talk. I gave her a coke and when she saw the beer in my hand, she said, "Please don't, I like you so much better when you are sober!", so I got a coke too. That evening, a friend from work came over, to told me basically the same thing. I had the desire to stop drinking! And for the next three years I drank off and on, not wanting to drink, not being able to stop. Not liking myself because I couldn't stop. Until I met someone in AA, although I didn't know it at the time, who finally brought me to my first meeting.

What Happened.

In May of 1986 I went to my first AA meeting, in Barrie, Ontario, I felt like a secret agent, I didn't want anyone to see me going in there. The room was set up with rows of chairs. I sat with the person who brought me, and listened as someone shared his story. And I got really angry, I was sure the person I was with had told the speaker everything about me, because he was telling everyone about me. When it was over I had words with that person who just laughed and said that it was indeed his story, I was just "identifying" with him. BULL! I didn't believe it.

Three days later we went back to the same place. Something different, the chairs were around a bunch of tables in the middle of the room.

"What's this?"

"Oh, tonight we all speak." Oh no, NOT me, NO WAY! I went and sat on an old couch along the wall and picked up a Reader's Digest that was there and "pretended" to read as I listened. When the meeting broke up a man came over and asked me how I liked the meeting.

"Don't know, I was reading."
"Really, then why is the book upside-down?" Looking down I realized he was right! CAUGHT!
"Don't worry about it, you come back and read all you want." And he walked away. I was so embarrassed I never said a word on the way home.

The following week I went to a meeting, by myself, in the little town where I lived, Angus, and when it was my turn to "speak", I broke down and cried after admitting I was an alcoholic. The room went silent, and the man next to me told me to take all the time I needed. I didn't want to be an alcoholic, I didn't want to be what mt father was, but there I was letting it all out through my tears.

When the meeting ended, the man, I can't remember his name :( , asked me if I belonged to a group. "No."

"OK, join this one," and he took me to the chairman of the meeting, I gave him my name and when he asked for the date on my last drink I had to tell him I didn't remember, just that it was in January.

My new friend said, "Take the 15th, that way you have a 50-50 chance of being sober that day, and I'll be your temporary sponsor until you find someone else." So my AA birthday became the 915h of January 1986 on the 9th of May. 1986, (it's in my BB, see below) just three days before my "other" birthday, and my temporary sponsor was with me for a couple of years.

I really put him through the hoops too, creating a riot at meetings to justify leaving because "they" had the nerve to say some of the things I need to hear, but didn't want to hear! I was in a level of sub-conscious denial for two years, but I didn't drink, and was always welcomed back! I didn't read the Big Book, even though I had one, a gift from my "temporary" sponsor.

Ahh, wait one, he signed it. There it is:

Easy Does It Bruce
Ed *****
(phone number)
Then I signed it with the date: 9 May 1968

And on the back page of my BB:

4 - 7 Sept. 1986 - 2nd Annual - 1st Canadian Big Book Seminar
by: Paul Revere Group.

Signed by:
Joe M*****, Little Rock, Arkansas
Charlie P*****, Maysville, Arkansas
John W***** , Pompano Beach, Florida
Willie B, Texas
Jack E. B******, Greensboro, North Carolina

As I read those names, I remember them fondly. Joe and Charlie had my rapt undivided attention, I remember having a short private conversation with them on day 2. And Willie B, enchanted us with her Texan drawl and wisdom. She was great, they all were!

Now if only that had stuck, I would have saved myself a lot of misery. But one "friend" had to tell me her version of what was said at the conference and I had better listen because she was an authority! So, confused and angry, I lost track of the message.

Three years later, a year after doing my Step 4, I signed up for a 28 Day Program, because something still wasn't right. They interviewed me, and accepted me. That was my personal turning point. That's where Bruce faced Bruce, and started to understand the hows, and whys of things.

I remember walking to lunch one day and one of the guys said I was scaring the other people in the "28'er" and that I should keep quiet at the meetings. So what did I do? After lunch in a group session, I brought that out, and told them all if they didn't like what I was saying to deal with it, I was there to get help, and they were not going to stop me!

We lost 3 people on that Program, and on Day 28 quite a few of the rest came and thanked me for being there.

My last three years in the Military were "sober", well lets see here:

sober v.
     1: cause to become sober; "A sobering thought"
     2: become more realistic; "After thinking about the potential
        consequences of his plan, he sobered up" [syn: {sober up}]
     3: become sober after excessive alcohol consumption; "Keep him
        in bed until he sobers up" [syn: {sober up}]

In one (#3) out of three ways at least.


What it's like now.

I've never looked back, been sober and semi-healthy since. I semi-healthy meaning in mind. Sometimes I still get in my own way. Hey. I'm sober, not perfect!

Nine years ago I moved to Argentina.  I started going to one of the two English meetings here in this humongous city.   But they talked very little about AA,  just one old guy who kept on repeating over and over, "Don't drink, go to meetings" the rest were talking about girlfriends, bosses, their jobs and position in life.  So I stopped going.

Later I went to a Spanish speaking meeting, where they were threatening one man with going to the police, another group of people telling a lady's they were going to tell her husband what she said at the meetings.  Not my kind of AA.  So I stopped going.  This is my first "meeting" since then.

  Five years ago I married the love of my life.  So I'm happily retired, sober and totally in love.

Thank you Bill and Dr. Bob.

This meeting is now adjourned