Sober 17 years 9/12/1990, Joe's wife Tammy is in AA as well.
He goes to the Atlanta Men's Workshop at Rock Eagle, GA regularly. About 300 men join together there twice each year since 1982.
He was a victim of other people's opinions. His first drink was at a high school dance and the magic happened.
"I went to four different colleges in four years and never got passed being a freshman. I stopped going when my parents stopped paying."
That was at 20 years old. He never went back to school. At 30, all his friends had real jobs, real families and showed up for work on Mondays.
He opened a bar in South Miami Beach in the disco days. It was a busy, infamous bar but he drank it to the ground. He was almost unemployable.
He did not think he had a problem with alcohol or drugs, he thought he didn't have enough of them.
(1 hr 11 min) (24.6 MB) (id#1632)