BeinǗ Truǃ tȆ OuȨselveȮ

WOW! What a title. On the back of the AA Anniversary Coin, it reads TO THY OWN SELF BE TRUE. Why I love this slogan being an Alcoholic: All my life, I was a liar. Never True… Never Honest… in fact, I believe, I was born an alcoholic because I was feeling this way when drinking milk with Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup! Even as a young kid, I manipulated people for things I wanted. After my Mother divorced my Father, and Dad left the house, my Mom started to have boyfriends over to our house. My birthday is in October and by the time Christmas rolled around, I had a BeBe Air Gun, a Bicycle and Lionel Electric Trains as presents from my Father and Mom’s boyfriends, who were all vying for my attention. Playing my Father’s affection, for me, against Mom’s boyfriends was a game, a hustle. I was just a kid, an only child, and my family’s first grandson. I had it all … I was on a roll. More, More, More.. sound familiar? This is so alcoholic. A spoiled brat; selfish and self centered. My Mom always said, “I don’t know where Anthony gets this from. He has Champagne-taste and a beer-bottle pocketbook”.

whether to wind my ass or scratch my watch. TO THY OWN SELF BE TRUE was as foreign to me as speaking Russian. Glasco was the Secretary at Roosevelt. I used to drink with him when we pinched coins together on the Block to buy a pint of liquor from the Liquor Store on Nassau Road. Glasco had disappeared from the corner. We thought Glasco had died or gone to jail – we hadn’t seen him in years. Glasco got sober by joining the Roosevelt AA Group 5 previous years to me arriving there. He did it the old fashioned way – he walked into AA off the streets. I got to AA via Detox Hospital & Rhinebeck Rehab upstate New York. The Old Timers called us the 30 day Wonder Boys.. Some of us got there to get their Judges Court Cards signed… Winton, an elderly gentleman was there. He knew my Mom & Dad when they were girlfriend & boyfriend. Then there was Donald J., one grade ahead of me in high school – I never liked him. He was a bully to me. As I walked into the meeting hall Donald screams out, here he comes, Mr. Top Shelf – We’ve been waiting for you! I reply, what in the hell are you talking about Donald? I drank Thunderbird, Night Train & Mad Dog 2020 so proudly. I also drank Bourbon, my favorite, Vodka, Gin, & Scotch (which I hate to this day). I think Scotch is the nastiest booze I could drink. But in my lifetime, I drank enough Scotch to float a Battleship. So much for my Hate. Needless to say, Donald J. gave me my first AA Resentment. How dare he call me out of my name; Top Shelf. I can’t make this stuff up. It was here, where my roots were, growing up in Freeport, Long Island, NY, that I became True To My Own Self – at Roosevelt We

At this young age I was becoming a Bull Shit Artist, and a good one. The dilemma of many alcoholics is that we are so good, we believe our own bullshit. The NY AA Old Timers alway said, ‘THE ONLY STRANGER I EVER MET IN AA WAS MYSELF’. Bingo! When I walked into my 1st AA Home Group Meeting, We Care, Roosevelt, Long Island, NY, they knew who I was. Me being a notorious People Pleaser. I had no clue who or what I was. I didn’t know

Care Group. On one street, Grove Street in Freeport Village. your ass up, put it in a plastic bag, drag it to a meeting and learn to There was Grove Street Middle school where I attended from 6 sit another way. Don’t Drink Between Meetings, and Don’t Die. years old to 9. At the end of Grove Street sat Freeport Detox Hospital where I ended up at age 40 years, as a patient and Alumni And one day, a day at a time, you too will become an AA old Timer. from Rhinebeck Rehab Upstate New York. A block from that And always shake the hand of a newcomer. Because one day she Hospital sat a Church I found in Nassau County AA Meeting Guide. or he might be your Sponsor. AA is a 24-hour program and I went to my first AA meeting @ 7pm on a Wednesday listed in whoever got up earliest this morning has the longest Sobriety. that guide. My whole life began on that Street. From Grade School to an adult Detoxing from Alcohol to my 1ST AA meeting. ALL my TonyT/San Francisco, CA – Last drink, April 4, 1979. experiences on Grove Street. Lavern W. was the speaker. He was a huge Black man with a loud forceful voice. He looked like Theolonious Monk, the Jazz piano player. He was originally from Chicago, IL. 8 years sober… a god to me. This was an anniversary meeting. A meeting I never heard of. At smoking break time I went up to Laverne and told him I like his share and this was my first AA meeting. I just got home out of Rehab today. Where do you live? I said in Freeport. Laverne said good. I live in Freeport. He drove me home. Now he knows where I lived. He came by at 7pm for the next 2 days taking me to AA meetings. Now it is Friday night and he asked me what was I doing tomorrow? My smart ass said I work in Manhattan and off on the weekends. He said good, go to Roosevelt WE Care Saturday 10.30 meeting on Centennial Ave. I did, catching the Bus there, and Laverne became my 1st Sponsor and Roosevelt WE Care became my 1st Home Group. Thanks to Zoom, with me living in San Francisco, CA for 35 years, I can still attend Roosevelt WE Care 10.30 Saturday Morning Meeting. This group is still enabling me to continue To Thy Own Self Be True. If it works, Don’t Fix It. Many people ask me, how did I get to be an old timer? I tell them what was told to me when I asked this question: Don’t Drink. Even if your ass falls off, you pick

BeinǗ Truǃ tȆ OuȨselveȮ…

The reality of those words probably hit me in the face when I attempted a step four for the first time and had to follow through on a step five with my sponsor. In those early days I thought by getting to step 12 my drinking problem would be solved and my fabulous new life would begin. So when presenting my step four to my sponsor imagine the despair I felt when he calmly asked how much of this is really true? I can remember going back over that first attempt and realised a lot was BS clouded by the way I saw and felt at the time. My life up until then was built on a multitude of lies and self-deceptions and in reflection all these years later in the programme I still have some grey areas of things and events that I am not at all sure really happened, These were the lies I told myself and then fabricated them somehow to the outside world. My sponsor said many times that it would be our secrets behind any relapse that would be the real cause. I had difficulty with that then and still today where I found some stones that I left unturned. I became really good at covering up things and hiding the truth by developing a whole fantasy life story, but at the end of the day they soon catch up with you. Now I understand why I have to keep re-doing all the steps! The key, or rather one of the many, is self-acceptance, and I keep changing the lock here rather than moving on. I have never got on with the real me, sometimes I am comfortable and other times I am toxic to myself – very Mr Jekyll and Hyde. So, little wonder the truth gets lost in the translation. My saving grace was that I landed up sharing a house with my sponsor and it was during this period that I learnt how to tell the truth for the first time in my

life. We often hear people say “To thine own self be true”. Thank goodness for this one day at a time programme, and that’s all I have to do today – be honest. The cunning, baffling power of this disease often trips me up, and although picking up a drink is far from my thoughts, I am quick to pick up on old habits (or stinking thinking as I call it). Speaking my truth to my sponsor was probably the most liberating thing ever, and now I get to do that on a daily basis with my higher power and of course when I get to meetings. I am probably not the best example of an AA member and as much as I get right I get wrong as well but it remains my truth. Love T.