Alcoholism Recovery Stories | Tony Hopkins | Getting sober

alcoholism recovery stories,tony hopkins,getting sober,sober stories,alcoholism recovery,aa speaker tapes,recovering alcoholic stories,sobriety stories,alcohol addiction,famous alcoholics,how to stop drinking,sobriety,stay sober,quit drinking alcohol,quit drinking alcohol benefits,aa speakers funny,aa speakers best,alcoholics anonymous,open speaker aa meeting,anthony hopkins,aa speaker meeting,AlchoholMasteryTV,quitting alcohol,aa,sober james Hi, I'm James, and in this video we're gonna listen to a speaker tell their story. In the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, a speaker will share their story with the group about their experience, strength, and recovery. This speaker, whose name is Tony, is not only a recovering alcoholic, but a well-known Hollywood actor. If you haven't considered, consider subscribing. I'm here every Saturday. Enjoy the audio! "(AUDIO RECORDING) Please join me and give a warm Laguna Beach welcome to tonight's speaker Tony from Palisades hello my name is Tony I'm alcoholic it's a fun place alums have said that the world's a safer place that we're all in here think Rob would have enough from you or took a drink tonight we take Laguna apart I never drank like that people Amy my name's Tony I'm an Archon honey how to mind the works and how everything I was thinking was I got sober December 29th 1975 and the speaker that night was Chuck C and he lived around here and so you I know knew him and my life was transformed my life has changed that night all newcomers welcome what happened to me was uh you know I have no Lindy away over I never know what I'm gonna say but when I came in here tonight it all came back to me sometimes she goes from patches I came with patches where everything just becomes kind of beaten and I came in here tonight and I don't know why but I heard it all over again and freshly as far as back 25 to almost 25 years ago and I don't know what that's about the hearing Lee chapter 5 being read the traditions and soon people coming up here to reminded me back of the old days but I remember the heady experience of when I came into a a that night it must come to our College anonymous but I came into that meeting on that night on the Pacific Palisades closin December 9th it was a Monday night and Chuck C was speaking that night and there's another man speaking was a doctor from Palos Verdes and he looked like an alcoholic to me and he sounded like not how he's my Madonna look like something from The Lost Weekend and I think he was a search of his doctor and I think he said his moment of truth was when he came to in the middle of an operation and the theater sister said no darky gonna show her up because she was gonna operate again and everyone laughed and I thought they're all crazy you know but that's what got me so by the laughter and fun and I was swept away by this whole thing because I wasn't a joint and the ironic thing is whatever the higher power is oh god what if you want to call it he she or it around all being collected consciousness whatever it is God has a very strange sense of humor because I never joined anything I drank because I didn't like people I dragged cousins and like crowds I wasn't exactly a lone drinker but I I was a lonely person I was lonely man and I kidded myself I was a loner my heroes were Humphrey Bogart and John Barrymore all those people and the writers like scott Fitzgerald all died of this chronic illness those are my heroes and I thought they were very clever and I thought I was clever but the ironic thing was being a loner and hating crowds I never joined anything I would join a club and how should I get so buffers to be swept away by the crowd or by the mass enthusiasm of that first night when so many coven said my name is Chuck I'm an alcoholic and everyone said hi Chuck and I was engulfed in this wave of light because that's what it was I'd been avoiding it all my life ever since I was a little kid I felt like I was a nun offshore island with a pair of high-powered binoculars looking at the mainland zina that was my life I never joined in anything Mars born in South Wales is good weed you're drunk all the world should run you know the Welsh were the Irish who couldn't swim I hadn't it didn't juggle a non-violent my first few years and then I went to school age of four and I I knew I was on the wrong planet because I didn't know what they were talking about i sat at the back of the class and my school my whole school career I had one expression on my face that's how I reviewed the world I didn't know what was going on all my life until I came into this program I thought I heard my father say to my mother once in next-door bedroom he said there's something very radically wrong with this boy which isn't a way to encourage yourself to grow up with confidence you know I felt radically wrong there's something wrong with me I just probably was as they say maybe dyslexic or a DD or one of these newfangled versa is this stupid coming cuz I didn't know what they were talking about I had no idea my first encounter with God was from miss Thomas who was our school teacher and she made a save the Lord's Prayer our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name I didn't know what she was talking but when she's our Father I thought she'd been in heaven I thought she died and I didn't know what to make of it and the Lord is my shepherd know that and I remember going on my father said the load of rubbish don't believe in all that nonsense and so he closed the door my faith because my father was a self-educated man and he's great characters for that wonderful man but he was Navy a store so he professed to be he was diagnosed a corne atheist he was what he called himself a free thinker Marxist and believed from the revolution ala but he was angry over all his life and he's a wonderful guy and I think I know it's not traditional to say this about another piece of the person but I think my father was an alcoholic as well I think he was although his drinking patterns were little different to mine he would know they weren't that different actually he was a periodic to come when he drank he would go through that personality changing he become very nasty and strange and I saw I guess he wasn't he died 19 years ago and he died in pain and from heart disease and was a frightened man but what happened to me I grew up I went to my life not believing in anything and I was because I was so slow at school a friend of mine is here tonight and she says don't call yourself dumb well I just say that again enough but I think I was different and I couldn't grasp anything and I was educated into believing that I was pretty stupid and maybe that's to do with the school whatever the society I lived in and it was after just during the Warriors and but I grew up very angry and very lonely because I couldn't fit anything together and I felt like a failure and all I had going for me was a kind of artistic streak I was I love music and I could play the piano nice to compose and I I couldn't write a little like a draw you know so I had an artistic streak which if you're in the rugby playing football playing society doesn't go down by you know so I never played with the other kids I was always on my own and I remember identifying with this when I heard in my first few weeks in meetings in AAA I remember all my my childhood standing on the corner of the street with all the other kids who were down the other end of the street or playing games nice they stand there like this all afternoon looking at my thumbnails and I still do things like that looking for my fingers my father's it's a ways where is he shooting my mother sees at the end of the street there she base strange boy is name what the hell is he thinking about I didn't know what I don't think I was thinking about anything really I just didn't want to be with anyone so big being kind of rejected I said well I'm not doing the psychoanalysis on myself but being rejected by other school kids because kids can be very cruel and I couldn't play sport I couldn't do anything and rugby is a national Welsh game so it's not like American football is a different game but it's it's a rough-and-tumble game and I couldn't play it and I right now to go out sometimes in play but once I caught the ball and all these guys are rushing towards me threw the ball up now in a masculine society that doesn't bode well they called me a few things nice to play these dirges on piano and read poetry the chair game doesn't go down well and so I became I thought they rejected which I probably was and I rejected myself and so I got B became more and more angry and I felt like the village idiot because that's the way I behaved my Lee started wearing the masks have been hopeless nervous and miraculously what happened about the age of 17 I left school and I had nothing else to do and I walked into a local YMCA place knowing they had an amateur acting group there and I asked if I could join in I felt comfortable for the first time they put me on the stage and I had a small part in this play and I remember the first line house being a disciple is about this time of the year I think yeah I think kind of Christmas play and I remember I had one line lessons there the meek for they shall inherit the earth and I remember standing I think I really fit in here sure beats working for a living I thought so I decided to become an actor and I studied too I went to college for a few years and I did what they call what you call the draft here we men england is called national service i went in the army for three years and i came under 1960 haven't been at all afflicted by alcoholism as such i never really was a heavy drinker i had a few beers on the saturday night but i didn't didn't have the money to afford that much and so i can get into any trouble but i felt i'm them talking about being in the military service I mean I felt really on the outside though this charmed I had this knack of falling on my feet like just like a cat and I had this job as a clerk in the main office there and I couldn't type I couldn't do anything I didn't know how I stayed in this job the guy who came with the job is to look at me but the kind of doesn't look like how the hell uh become you can't do anything sometimes it said they're typing away and even then I'd be telling now a look and I'd certainly be looking at me like this is how did you get how did he get slip through so I was very lucky anyway I came at the army and then I became an actor and I did some more training and I got some jobs in repertory companies know that and then like in 16 my drinking started to take a grip of me and I remember being ill and I would buy anyone a drink just to win some friendship because I felt so odd and I knew that they were all laughing at me I was classically paranoid but what I was really was alcoholic chronic alcoholic in its earliest stages and in the early 1960s I I started getting into trouble with it but I became in a very short period of time living about five years I became lucky I was lucky I got some pretty good jobs and I started working in London and the London theatre National Theatre and I was given some pretty good stuff to do and I didn't trust anyone and I thought what is what's their angle not realize until they're giving me a gift that they were giving me work because they thought I was talented but I suspected everyone and I would turn around and bite the hand that fed me and I was told about my drinking I was warned about it by the Big Cheese there a guy called logs live even though he was running this theater that I was in it I was troubled and he said to me so why are you doing this he said you know you're a talented guy so why were you doing all this for he sent me to a psychiatrist and he painted for one session of the psychiatrist Mouse told by the psychiatrist that I've suffering from some kind of creative tension called creative stress being an actually not a while yeah of course I said to my wife I was suffering with uncreative especially uh so you know not the bottle of wine I remember I was married my first marriage with the disaster mostly my fault and not of their managers producer little go and I left my wife after two years I couldn't take any more of it we were both crazy and then I met my second wife and we should go out and my second wife is a typically non alcoholic and very nice decent woman very reasonable and I'd say this with all respect not making any judgment at all but she is different and the non-alcoholics in this room are different to us we go out tonight have I said you'd like a glass of wine she said yes I'd like a wine she's ever glass of red wine and so I'd order two bottles she said but you want two bottles I saw yeah two of us she said but you know I don't want a bottle I said why not see well I don't need it well I drink it then and she used to do those weird things I say the soldier respectives I love non-alcoholics is what I like non-alcoholic people they are fascinating mirrors weird to me is that I am to them I've been in the restaurant with a Minney I live with my non alcoholic friends and they said you want a bottle wine no no I like buying we know making people out a good time if they won't drink fine and I've watched the way when the waiter comes up in they pour let it drop and they do this very nice and they smoke cigarettes don't even inhale it so and I watched my wife you know she takes o'clock every night she has a little glass of wine and it's on the table for about an hour I can't take my eyes of it and sometimes she says does not have a drink some I see us on the kitchen I would anyone leave it on the table mine was changed in my face I remember after I got sober in fact I came back I was I was in New York and I flying back I've been working on something in New York I flying back to Los Angeles is way way back 1976-77 mother and I sitting there and maybe there's a Thanksgiving I don't know maybe it was a special day but this week on the flight attendant she she looked like one of us should probably avoid she was passing this champagne out filling people to glass of champagne now I have knowledge juice or something I was reading a book and I was newly sober maybe have been so perlier and she came out and said would you like to drink the champagne there's no thanks not for me no I have an orange juice she said come on just a little champagne that's no no no thanks sure why not that's what I have to report for work next month and I don't know how that came out of my mouth I just have to go to work next month should I don't understand I should know what I'll do right and I don't understand to this day why I love drinking for the alcoholic who is out there the new one was tonight I love booze and I'm glad I drank cuz I'm not gonna be puritanical say you know I hate booze I love booze I loved alcohol and it did great things for me in the early years it got me into scrapes it got me a lot of trouble but it also got me through things he gave me a lot of confidence and I did some things which was all bad he's not ever some of them were good and I gave me a kind of confidence but it also gave me a lot of fuel for my rage and anger and I became more and more angry as the years went by and of course I I tried to quell the anger and to deaden the engine death and the feelings but of course make me more and more angry I mean I could empty an entire room I go to a party I could insult everyone and I've done it I did it people with more car goodnight know I take my wife what happened she said don't you remember eyes now you insulted everyone in the room I stood out she can't remember I said no and then about the mid-1970s I I um I was one morning I was very hungover and I heard on the radio of this but this weird thing called Alcoholics Anonymous I heard about our tourist and I heard a woman being inch of it she's here I drank for many years and she's denying our products numbers if some British BBC radio and she said my god so when I haven't had a drink since she said it's an illness I so isn't that sad why does it like to be narcotic and i was doing the television play i remember and i was playing an alcoholic in this television play and i i had lines like saying my dipsomaniac I'm an alcoholic and I love these lines of speaking I am an alcoholic sounded so rich it didn't realize that I was line and in this play I remember is called the arcades of promise and in this play I say to this woman I'm with I said it's I can leave the tickets when the first one starts then I've got a drink more and I said to the exercise Rotom and I said listen I say must be terrible to be an alcoholic well wireless dimmers tour stepping myself in a way I was being gotten ready for this program and then I came to America in 1974 and to New York and I was doing a production in New York and I it was September it was just after Watergate I remember now I remember arriving New York and feeling had come home and I always wanted to come to America and I dreamed of coming to America and I dreamed of sitting the American bars you know because I'd seen all the movies and I was brought raised on American movies I had watched more drinking Humphrey Bogart all that smoke and I loved it all thought fantastic and I I couldn't wait to get and I came to New York I remember first morning when I woke up I was pretty drunk but you have over and I'd look down Fifth Avenue and there was the apostate I thought in my home and I knew I come home I knew as clearly if anything that I come home and I never had to go back there to England I didn't want to go back and there's nothing wrong with the country but I just didn't want to go back I didn't fit in anymore and I was already becoming quite a successful actor and the ironic and weird thing was happening I was thinking more because I was more and more unhappy if there's a parable in this excess and all that stuff doesn't make you happy and I learned that the hard way I wasn't happy I was the unhappy but I couldn't figure out why because I wanted to be successful in my job but I was deeply ashamed of myself and deeply guilty and terrified and I discovered magical american bars you never seem to close down yeah you know they open all night they were in New York anyway I suppose the place called Charlie's and Jimmy Ray's God I they were terrible places but they were wonderful at the time nice to go over that night drink and drink until I fell out of the barstool endure but I still have a head full of wonderful knowledge because our self-educated because I'm too bright at school but I read books my ice know things that nobody else knew I knew distances and light-years about nearest galaxies and my knew all that stuff but I get lost in the bathroom and they never read Nietzsche sharpen her sharpen eyes make up things that show up in our supposed have said and never even read him one book I did profess to read was Carlos Castaneda the teachings have done one but I never really even read him in fact that's what got me sober because I was on my way to New Mexico to find that peyote but I never got there she's dead name is Mary Doris I'm not being and he she's to call herself married oil and she had a wonderful Irish that a sense of humor she stood after all my stupid jokes and and I know she had the spirit about her and she was a real program of attraction she seems to be warm-hearted and share this great love and I know she smoked and had to go on a wonderful woman she's and so he told me Senor Maris an alcoholic I said really Missy and she I she I said she's never drunk they said no she's not Alex anonymous I saw that's really sad I thought well no wonder she smokes a lot because she'd have to do something and she says smile at me at that a a smile how are you okay she says come over the bar with me sometimes that she'd have a coffee and I'd sit there nice and would you like a bitch no I said well oh but she don't drink at all no she just used to especially no and she'd look pitiful at me and you know serve this with Holland towards the end of the run in New York in 1975 is in the summer of 75 and I was about to leave New York and come out but to California I had some work to do here and I was in a party and I was so smashed that night I think I've been given I think I smoked a bit of glass and I wasn't into that I was I'm a gesture drunk I'm Marco Holika I didn't I'm a drug addict with him if that's all it is is not a form of narcotic but um I was so smashed that night in such bad shape and I asked Mary if she would help me so we went out next day and we had lunch and she described to me the nature of our tourism but this is in fact an illness I thought well that's interesting and she says threefold mental physical spiritual illness spiritual oh I didn't want to know about that and she said if you don't take the first drink you won't get drunk well that's very insulting to a man of my supreme intelligence you don't take there my little child knows that though she would you like to come to a meeting ice no I'll do it myself typically having asked if she would help me I turned the government she offered to help but I just fine that's okay maybe you're not an alcoholic she knew damn well I was but she she's talked about me to her husband every night's about how I you know fallen town on stage and all that not exactly falling down but I did six weeks stay dry and in that period I think something happened to me now whatever this design is this divine intervention whatever it is that God has plans or whatever I was very comfortable in those six weeks I was very comfortable I feel fine it had no craving I thought that shit let's build up you in the book says no one because hang high and I soft knowledge that's why I needed and I was in great shape and drinking gallons of tap water coke establish Goldman says smoking cigarettes but I don't wanna find out energy drink good don't be a narcotic six weeks that's as much as I could ever manage six weeks try but this time I wasn't white-knuckle I felt fantastic I had energy I energy and power and all that I was working well on stage and you know everything seemed fine people remarked on the difference they said God you look so well I was well fantastic energy I was like a stone job I would walk down the street haha ego in the arrogance you know I hadn't made nice and look at married with such forget oh those poor woman she just nod at me and then the last night in New York I went to a party and there's like a farewell goodbye party for me and I was going off to California with my wife the next day June 1975 and it was big geeks table full of booze full of alcohol and I thought well I've got a diet coke here whatever I was drinking and not the world one whiskey won't hurt and he doesn't drop in man and don't remember any more that night got on the plane next day flew to California feeling very ashamed dehydrated really hungover it bad that we always had the shakes and I tried another few days dry fourth of July I went to a party and I thought well you know I tried to simply notice about to pour another drink and somebody said ah ha ha this friend of mine she said don't take that drink and I wanted to kill I and I would have taken her head off because she got in my way and what happened was I I was working on a TV thing and achiely filmand this woman I was working with she was at the end of the day were in Century City and was cocktail hour the beautiful long shadows shall leave in Sun coming and a wonderful time which is the best time for our tonics and she had a paper cup of polystyrene cup and some ice and that ginger oniton before you come I said no no no I better go home she said watch this one ice no no I think I'm trying to give it a break you know I am trying to knock it on the head I think I've got a bit of a problem she said ok I said what is it she's tequila I love tequila because it does it my mind and tequila got me into our car synonymous tequila is my best friend because I had loose Nathan on it and I started getting quasi-religious ya bishes I saw Jesus walking on Malibu beach and I sterling Palm Springs and the stones down around Idlewild were talking to me and I was there making and I talked to the beach I went through the Milky Way and back I looked at the Stars when I tells up at Malibu after janko's I looked at the Stars and I went right through the Milky Way back it was only that close looking all the stars go I told this guy that I said you know and start the reading paper and yeah she's okay I started loosening and so I drank that tequila that night and six months they take him doghouse - who had the worst rollercoasters the worst time in the best of times I was a menace to work with I was trouble to work with people who didn't trust me and I turn up in the morning and for work and people would look at me hi Tony how you doing okay and they'd give me that look you know I heard somebody say to the cameraman once then he said we better get him before lunch because he's just fooling around they actually talk in the base of you because I was I wasn't fit for anything and yet the director said to me sir why don't miss Tony you know you're so talented why it's up to you but why they gave me that lecture you know why he doing its content you think you should cut down a bit and I was given those lectures now Tony it's such a shame he gonna kill yourself your liver and everything you're gonna kill yourself well I was more scared of as the driving nice to get my car and drive over the canyons and I didn't know where I was going and I'm next and I would never remember the next day where I've been and I checked the front of the car see if there any dents on e blood or anything like that because I didn't know I could have killed someone and the police never caught me I hope no policeman gets nothing called me I was so lucky they never caught me and I should have been thrown in the slammer many many times and I was and I was just lucky I got away with it and what happened in Christmas 75 my wife took off for England to see her folks and I took it to the airport and I said to her I said I think I'm a narcotic she'd been very cold on me because she's wrong maybe you are it's up to you and I heard it and I talked her at the airport and I got out the car that little Kosovo have a good time Christmassy Angeles waterway and I watched as she walked into that the rival early or late departure area not Obama I think I've lost everything I find that it can tell you everything all my friends have gone kinking everything out of my life it's like I'm pushing the way the very Feast of life for us and I got back to my apartment and I was very depressed and a couple of days later I drove down to Palm Springs I was on my way to they drove down to Arizona I was on my way ready to Santa Fe I wasn't go down to the New Mexican I wanted to find Carlos Castaneda I wanted to find that peyote because Busse wasn't working for me anymore I wanted to find those magic mushrooms or that they were and I got as far as Phoenix and I stayed in some crummy hotel and I sat there in that bar that night it was Christmas Eve as i sat there just remembers yeah I said and I saw there's no fashion jukebox I kept putting the court in the jukebox whatever it was I kept playing Neil Sedaka's solitaire and drew out the boats and changed our Burt Bacharach song over and over again and I remember these two big guys sitting on the bus and say he's gonna put the same basin this they changed the tone last don't you like it yeah but not 15 times come on now went up to my room and I felt the despair is loneliness night I decided I was gonna become a country-western singer I don't know why you think that's funny and that another great sigh was Tom T halls little children's dull dog sniffing some watermelon mine that was my favorite it's great hadn't been a holiday of course Billie Holiday but anyway what happened to my whole children when I wrote on a piece of paper I found myself in Phoenix Arizona I thought that would be good Kris Kristofferson not until all that Sigma I gave rights arising that night put the piece of paper on top of me covered it now white put it up there nobody would find it probably still there but I think of sending a message to myself and next day I I phoned my wife in England and early morning their time and I said happy Christmas shared you well I I said in Phoenix Arizona oh I'll have a good time she put the phone down on Deficit I thought well I've really lost everything the one person I could trust in my life is gone and he trusted me she put everything she could into this marriage I've just destroyed it and betrayed everything and I felt that deeply my job back make my way back to Los Angeles December 27 75 and I sat in my apartment in Berkshire Boulevard and had everything going for me I had career and I had why don't think I had a wife left anymore but I certainly of my I was losing my life and I was aware of it I will get another bottle of tequila and I said in that apartment and um but at that time the plateau songs this Twilight hum again or whatever is gold I know and I felt the loneliness that I guess we all feel at that point of desperation the phone rang and I was invited to a party and I went to this party up and home we sat under the piano most of the evening which is not a place for social detail because lies that I made trouble and as a friend of my own agent and he said come on Tony's time he went home they stood me on the doorstep of the house I remember vaguely some people saying is he okay and night they were told mummy and I I said I've lost my car somebody's stolen my car it's no they didn't nobody stolen it you left it in the middle of the street with the lights on and we saw you and rescued you and your car's back in the apartment we took him back to me brought you here for your own safety I said anything not that I saw what you did it nicely oh there's one thing I don't know is I'm an alcoholic and then heard very fast and something went on I like turned on inside me and I looked up the cheese that was ripped his taste I thought somebody up there really likes me I thought about the movie with Paul Newman somebody up there likes me and I thought suddenly up the nice because I should have died years ago I should have been killed or I could have taken out the whole family in the car in a car smashing Auto smash and I said this fellow should I am I need help and I need to phone I'll call astronomist I went up to his house and he got me the number when I stayed I slept on the sofa thing tonight next day to drop me at my apartment and I said well good luck and I didn't bother to phone ahead until be open on Sundays but I waited until the Monday morning and I formed a a and that was the Western it was the West End sort of branch office of this in Westwood Boulevard ins and I found and I said don't mind this one side alcoholics banana knocks can I help you yeah my name is Tony and I think I'm now gonna kind of a nice elderly voice of a lady sitting okay me how can we come and get you I said no I said I'm at the end of my rope she's well that's beautiful I said I'm finished I'm washed up no that's great just great I said I want to say she said where are you I should not come in and see you it's I got the address my took my car my poor battered car after this long journey from Arizona and I thought it just south of these those old weird road tracks they used to have that nonsense Monica Boulevard we started walking up that way and Westwood Boulevard and I thought maybe I'm making too much of a big thing of this you know I'm an actor after all I mean I may be a melodrama Tyson listened and another voice in means went off like a little whispers has just get to the place and do something for yourself for once don't be such a jerk and I reckon to this office is up the stairs I think I remember and I expected to see a bunch of old people in rags holding on to each other so I thought you know Joe would say teased us okay - you could drink tomorrow tomorrow I will come out with you make sure you don't drink too much and then it's my turn tomorrow I had no idea and I walked in this office there were no lungs lying on the floor just nice clean Pinewood little artisan this nice elderly lady called Dorothy I came in I said my name's Tony hi Kenny and I thought I meant within the Christian Brigade now in Encino and Salvation Army and that's wonderful but I didn't want any part of it because I hated Christianity Church whatever system to do with worship and she said i sat down she gave me coffee she said that she described the nature of our colors and she came up with that stings do be trace if we don't take the first drink you won't get drunk these people are citizens and she said give me a phone number and you know and I'll get some real versus you and I'll phone you and take you to a meeting as a meeting yes immediately I said is it religious she should know I didn't know I was calling because I'd already seen Jesus walking on Malibu a beautiful milky way I'd seen the angel sings out sold as I got up to go she said the most astounding things she sprung the terrible three-letter word on me and she little dim little maybe her name is Dorothy why can't you just come home and rest honey and I looked at her nice gut feeling this terrible I thought it's gonna cry but she said just like those swallows coming home to Capistrano she's won't you come home and rest I thought I've been out there so long I'm so tired I'm so weary am so fed up with everything I'm so desperately lonely and and then she said something which is really terrible she said what you just trust in God and at that moment the gates opened and something happened and I grabbed hold of her because I knew within the spinners like a fast-forward microchip don't shoot right through my life backwards I thought everything I've tried has failed let her why not one g.o.d night settlements churches looking at stained glass windows and wondering what it's all about and I won't turn on the street and west with boulevards probably about ten o'clock in the morning and beautiful sunny morning and everything brightened up - had this big powerful voice rapper on sound said it's all over nice with your life it's all been for a purpose so don't forget one moment of it now go about your business and there's that clear and the craving to drink laughing at that very moment this never comes back so I take it at that moment I came in contact with a power which is so fascinating and so infinite and soul all consuming I was taken my first meeting that night and man called George pick me up he phoned me up he said my name is Shores I'm an alcoholic and I picked me up there you slammed the phone down what you got the address I thought damn I can't stop and coming we'll turn there was George real alcoholics and understand I took my hands broke my hand thanks George I'm not calling this girl friend Lila she chewed gum 1 - Ethan no yes no really and they sat in that ky7 the baton they didn't shut up from the moment we left WestEd and some gutter fallacy I thought I'm really in with the cuckoo birds and I was taking my meeting and I said in the cherry trees use two people Bob and George and napkins done here - down hard hard near the voice like a chocolate and you look like he's being dragged by chocolate machine use the surgeons and the other man was Chuck see and he's a man shot him not ours I'd be sobered by the grace of God 30 years as January after he must be must brain-dead how can i and I state enough to see him after meeting and I thought and as i sat there I thought have come home I sat in that room that night and there's a big room and in all since its Corpus Christi Church and they must have said things this night I sat in that room and I thought I know I've come here come finally come home because all my life 37 years I felt like the outsider I knew that everyone sitting in that room rubbing shoulders with each other we're all the same and that we all felt the same nicely with the outsiders was not a damned it could never get their act together and somebody said to me that night they said you need never try to get your act together you never will and I these two men took you know the next thing I will drive up in any second I went out next day with these two men and they discussed it over lunch and I said I feel so inadequate and one of them said at the other thought of the fact that you are inadequate as no missile you are you have no power and it made such total sense I have no power and powers and I have no power of prediction I can't tell you what's gonna happen next three seconds except I'm gonna shut up any minute but I changed that this the best thing that's ever happened to me and it's the simplicity that's got to me I mean I've done I talked to half the things that I'm told other people do but I can't describe to you what it's like I do not want to drink to not have any desire to drinkin to get up in the morning and I don't you know I think I get up come on I've got a meeting with and ie I could have early morning meetings most of the time and I get to at least five meetings a week to keep me comfortable peeps are you I still go to those meetings that yeah why because I'll die if I don't they said come on ice no I do that so I don't explain I don't I don't have any arguments of people or not all bollocks I don't try to explain the program but that's what's happened I keep it simple and I have a lot of fun with this and that's it I can't describe dies I I can't examine things I can't analyze the big book I can't sit around being scholastic about it I know some people are experts on of things I tried that and I can't do it I don't have that mindset because I'm yeah dummy you know I'm not too bright so I can't examine this but all I do is get up in the morning and go to bed at night saying much obliged thanks laughs she in the morning go to sleep it's incredible I should have been dead years ago I should have been paying a fortune to psychoanalysts create this sort of death and I've come here for free London for free cost me a dollar - Belinda basketball the best education million dollar education a dollar at the time and I've had the best life I could ever I can't describe these people the wasp and his most liked being so much that I can't even begin to tell you how does they work I said very well thanks Thank you...Happy Christmas."

Channel: Soberdelic James

Views: 360,184

Keywords: alcoholism recovery stories, tony hopkins, getting sober, sober stories, alcoholism recovery, aa speaker tapes, recovering alcoholic stories, sobriety stories, alcohol addiction, famous alcoholics, how to stop drinking, sobriety, stay sober, quit drinking alcohol, quit drinking alcohol benefits, aa speakers funny, aa speakers best, alcoholics anonymous, open speaker aa meeting, anthony hopkins, aa speaker meeting, AlchoholMasteryTV, quitting alcohol, aa, sober james, addiction

Id: 34iZt4B_DU0

Length: 45min 17sec (2717 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 13 2019