ESH: Anthony H - 2 Years

SPEAKER_1 (0:06)

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Anthony H (0:27)

Everybody, my name is Anthony and I'm an alcoholic.

Always nervous when I come up here. So, yeah, I did a talk like this last fall, about in September, and my family and I were moving in July. So I wanted to do one more before I left. So I told Greg and Eric, like, you know, if that were possible, please put me on the list. And they said they would, but they were pretty booked up. But if someone drops out, then they would put me on. And then not a week went by, and someone was unable to do it. And that night was tonight. And just as luck would have it, tomorrow is my two years' variety birthday.

So, you know, through the grace of my higher power, my family, namely my wife and AA, I will, unless something goes off the rails tonight, I will be so over two years tomorrow. So, you know, I say grace of a higher power, that word grace always sounded very religious-y to me, and always kind of freaked me out, to be honest. Then I looked it up. What it means is the spontaneous unmerited gift of the divine favor and the salvation of sinners. I mean, more simplified way to say that is someone is looking out for me or something is looking out for me. So, as I go on, you know, there's some grace, maybe, you know, I used to call it good luck and bad luck, but I'm thinking now that it might have been grace. So, you know, I'll start by talking about what it was like, just kind of background and qualifications.

My mom was very much an addict and an alcoholic. She was in and out of jail most of my life, or most, you know, while she was still alive. And I was raised by my grandma and didn't meet my dad until much later. But I was raised by my grandma. And, you know, all kind of throughout my childhood, middle school, those kind of things, I kind of felt, you know, I didn't feel like completely different. I was able to make friends and those kind of things. But I always felt super anxious, cared what people were thinking about me, like making up these delusions in my head that people were talking about me. And, you know, those kind of just not feeling like I fit in, felt like I was kind of on the outside and, you know, just kind of focused on what I didn't have instead of what I did and how I related to people.

And when I was about, I think I was a sophomore in high school, so I was about 14 or 15 is when I first, you know, had a drink with my friend. It was like nine o'clock in the morning.

It was this butter, butterscotch snops that, that is parents had in their liquor cabinet. And I still can't smell that today. I hate butterscotch now.

We drank a whole bunch. And, you know, proceeded to get completely messed up. And then my grandma came and picked me up afterwards. And as we were driving, I was like, she's like, you don't look well. I was like, oh yeah, I'm sick. Like I had told her we were playing like football, pick up game of football. So I was like, I got hit in the stomach really hard. And that's what's wrong with my stomach. So when I threw out, threw up out the window and it smelled like butterscotch, that was the reason, right? So just right away, I was just kind of lying about what, you know, have been trying to cover up my tracks. So not a good start. You know, and the point was like, I stopped caring what people thought once I had that drink. And I was able, at least I felt like I was able to live in the moment instead of always worrying about what's happening next or what happened in the past or what I could have done differently. I can just be like, take a breath, you know, just relax.

So, you know, right away, I didn't drink like other people. I was always up until the last beer was drank. I was the last one awake at a party, always trying to get more, those kind of things.