Mark spent years blaming war, prison, violence, and fear for the way he drank, until alcohol stopped working and AA showed him the problem had been deeper all along.

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Mark B. shares a raw, funny, and deeply spiritual AA story about growing up in Quincy, Massachusetts, finding relief in his first drink at 14, carrying fear through Vietnam, psychiatric hospitals, jails, prisons, homelessness, and years of trying to survive with alcohol, pills, and anything else that would quiet him. After a year and a half of sitting in AA meetings while still medicated and terrified, Mark finally heard his own fear and loneliness in another speaker, got on his knees, found a sponsor, took the actions in the Big Book, and discovered a life built on sponsorship, corrections work, service, and the truth that Alcoholics Anonymous is not an intellectual exercise but a spiritual journey.

Mark B. from Navarre, FL speaking at the 49th Florida State Conference at the Wyndham Palace Resort in Orlando, FL - August 2005