Apparently There Are 24 Things in Alcoholics Anonymous and I Cannot Remember a Single One 🤣 – Earl H.

About This Speaker Tape

Earl H. shares his story at a young people's conference in Monterey, beginning with his first drink at age 12 after being sent to a boarding school for gifted but troubled boys. Abandoned by his family without warning, he discovered that drugs and alcohol were his first tools for living — violence being the other. He traces his progression from marijuana and wine at 12, to pills at 13, psychedelics at 14, and intravenous drugs at 15, all driven by a single motivation: killing the self-centered fear that made him unable to feel comfortable in his own skin.

At 16 he dropped out and was institutionalized. At 20 he was diagnosed with malignant cancer and told he would die. On his 22nd birthday, his family's plane crashed in Mexico, killing his mother, father, and little sister while he lay paralyzed watching them bleed to death. He swore never to love again, renounced Higher Power, and launched a three-and-a-half-year final run of daily drinking and using that left him at 215 pounds, yellow, psychotic, with 75 broken bones and nearly 700 stitches.

A moment of clarity — not a dramatic bottom but the experience of being completely alone — brought him to his knees. He entered a rehab in Long Beach under Dr. Vicki F. and heard one thing: if you don't want to die, go to AA. At his first meeting, a 65-year-old ex-boxer and ex-wino spoke about waking up with his head chewing on him and going to meetings not to take but to give. That man gave Earl hope. Earl got a sponsor, the late Donald M., whose spiritual lineage traces through Norm A. and Chuck C. back to Bill W. Donald showed him how to become a human being through the 12 steps.

Now 16 years sober, Earl describes the three sides of the AA triangle — unity, recovery, and service — and walks through all 12 steps with plain-spoken clarity. He shares that he has two stepdaughters who call him dad and spent Father's Day with him, something he once believed impossible for someone like him. He closes with a vivid, hilarious recreation of what it is like inside a newcomer's head at a meeting, urging new people to bring everything — anger, fear, terror, hopelessness — into the rooms, because that is where it gets transformed.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction and Earl takes the podium, mentions first drink at age 12
• 3:00 Sent to boarding school at 11 without warning, father drops him off and drives away
• 7:00 First fight with Tiny, discovers violence as a tool for masking fear
• 10:00 First drink and drug experience behind the dorm — the phenomenon of craving hits for the first time
• 15:00 Rapid drug progression: pills at 13, psychedelics at 14, shooting dope at 15
• 22:00 Plane crash on 22nd birthday kills mother, father, and sister; Earl is paralyzed on a mountainside
• 30:00 Final three-and-a-half-year run, 72-hour detox sanitariums, cycle of swearing off and relapsing
• 38:00 Moment of clarity, enters Long Beach rehab, first AA meeting — the old-timer who gave him hope
• 48:00 Sponsor Donald M. and the spiritual lineage; hearing Donald's tape years after his death
• 55:00 Walks through all 12 steps plainly — me, Higher Power, and you — the design for living
• 62:00 Stepdaughters call him dad, Father's Day — love he swore he would never allow again
• 67:00 Hilarious recreation of what it is like inside a newcomer's head at a Saturday night meeting
• 75:00 Closing message to newcomers: bring everything into the rooms, wishes them peace