Sober 12 years since 8/8/1977, now 65 years old, born in 1925 in Worchester, MA to immigrant Irish Catholics, Joe went to seminary for nine years until he decided to ask to be relieved of his vows and joined the 1st Airborne at Ft. Benning, GA.
He married the first woman he dated and they had six children - it is what happens when a practicing Catholic marries a passionate Protestant.
He did not start drinking often until he got into broadcasting sports - but when he did he drank it all.
He became the sports announcer for Holy Cross in New York. He loved it and was good at it.
He decided to move to Savannah to escape his drinking environment but found the bar that closed at 4 am on his first night there.
In 1976, he was sued for divorce. He dated a woman who was sober at first then drank and eventually died drinking on top of Antabuse. Joe did not go to the funeral.
He married another alcoholic and went to the bottom until on 8/8/1977 he came into AA in Columbia, SC.
In 1980, he left broadcasting and became the a Counselor and Program Director at treatment center in Lancaster, SC - a job he was totally unqualified to perform. The Center did well and Joe took credit for it until he reached a terrible dry drunk in 1984 that he barely survived.
He wound up in the intensive care psychiatric unit 24 hours after giving a lecture on substance abuse.
He was told to take the Steps off the wall and put them in his life.
His 2nd wife divorced him. He was devastated.
While making amends to his first wife, they got back together and he remarried the mother of his six children November 1985.
He was recently diagnosed with Parkinson's.