The Fear Killer That Kept Him Alone in the World – Earl H.

Hi everybody, my name is Earl Hightower and I'm an alcoholic. Hi everybody. First off, I want to thank the committee for asking me to come share here. It's always an honor and a privilege to speak at any Alcoholics Anonymous function. Dinner was nice, huh? Oh jeez, God. God, a lot of you in here. So what it was like. I didn't start drinking until I was 12 years old. That's like a late start these days, you know what I mean? There's people getting sober at 12 now. I didn'T start drinking. I didn' t start drinking till I was twelve. I got sent away to boarding school I was 12 years old I weighed about 104 pounds and I had basically no tools for living whatsoever but I didn't need any I mean what do you need it was mom, dad, sis, the dog I would walk up the block to school they'd ask me a few questions I'd answer them, I'd walk home that was it I needed no tools it was basically covered for me I didn't have to make any decisions. I was just kind of wandering around the planet doing my thing, which was being restless irritable and discontented I would You know, I I was always pretty sure that something was wrong I had no idea what it was but I was Always the kind of kid that was real quiet and shy and withdrawn and Um, I didn'T really talk to people unless they came up and talked to me and if they did it scared me I always felt like the odd man out. I mean I'm never really comfortable anyplace When I was 12, my father decided that it was time for me to become... Well, basically they took me and they had... They took me to get an IQ test. I had a bunch of tests done. And they discovered that I had this very high IQ. I don't have it anymore. We took care of that. But I did then. So they said, well, you know, this kid, we got to do something with this kid. So my father decide it was the time for him to become a man. I was twelve. Well, that was a joke. And they took this test and it got me admitted into this think tank school, this boarding school for boys only. There were 250 kids in this school. And it had been from 9th grade to 12th grade for like 50 years. And this year was the first year they were going to have an experimental class of 8th grade students. They were goingto be the first five-year men in this schoo. And they scoured the earth and they found 16 kids kids to put them into this eighth grade class, and I was one of them. And so we got in the car, and I didn't even know where we were going. We get in the card, and we drive to this place, and we get out of the car. My father puts a suitcase down next to me, and he shakes my hand, and he says, this will make a man out of you, and then they got in the car and drove away. Well, I mean, this blew my mind. I had no idea what was going on. All I remember feeling was terror. As I would find out, I was the youngest and the smallest kid in this school of 250 kids, and this was a disturbed crowd, these 250. This place was like Lord of the Flies, you know what I mean? Looking for ways to cause problems. It's a lot of problem children, and I needed to find a way in life. I mean, I had been launched into the universe by myself, and i was clueless. I had no friends. My family, to my best way of thinking, had just throwing me away. And I had no idea why they'd done that. I was mortified. I remember feeling like I'd done something terribly wrong, and I had no idea what it was. I mean, I just didn't get it. And I remember after about two days in this place, coming through these painful two days of homesickness and wanting to go home, thinking to myself, you know what? If they don't want me, I don't want them. I've got to find a way in this world by myself. So I stopped talking to my my family, and needed some tools for living. Like I said, and I started out slow. A couple of days, three days into this school, I'm walking around and I met Tiny. Every high school's got a guy named Tiny, right? He's like 6'4", 240, plays guard on the football team. And he was the bully of the campus. And she was like, I don't know what to do with you. And I'm like, he found me and he walked up to me and said, how are you doing punk? And slapped me in the back of the head and sent my books flying. Well, I went from terror to absolute terror meeting Tiny. And i had no, I mean, I didn't know how to deal with this. And so you ever had those like out-of-body experiences where you, you know, where you're watching yourself do something and your head's saying to you, this is a very, very bad idea as you're doing it, right? And I walked up to Tiny and I belted him as hard as I could. Just jumped up and smacked him and then stood there because I was, I'd already gone past anything I knew anything about. I was pretty much up to tiny now. You know what I mean? I don't know what to do next, you Know? And I just stood there looking at him. He looked down at me and he said, you got a lot of guts. And then he beat the shit out of me and I remember I remember thinking as I'm taking this beating that this is going pretty well it is because I know about beatings I took a lot of them at home I know that I know how you handle it but what was important was was that the fact was I was terrified of this guy and he had just said to me you got a lot guts it worked hitting this guy obviously was the correct thing to do as far as I was concerned. Because what I tried to do was mask the fear. That's my job. I got to hide the fact that I am absolutely afraid of everything and everybody. It's what I got To do. So I was taught to do and that's what I'm going to do. And if hitting you'll do it, then I'll hit you. My first tool for living violence works. A couple of days later, and words, of course spread like wildfire across this little little campus. Watch out for this little Hightower kid. He's crazy. He attacked Tiny, right? So now I got this reputation as this madman and now I have a reputation to live up to that has absolutely nothing to do with who I am. I'm a frightened little boy, right, who now has a reputation as an insane person. And so I naturally am attracting those kind of people. Now they're all coming around. They want to see who the new wild man is. So Matt swings by and Matt says, yo, you want to to smoke a joint. And I said, absolutely. And I didn't even know what it was, you know what I mean? But somebody was coming up to me and said, do you want to come with us? And I, yeah, I want to comes with you. It doesn't, it would have made no difference what these guys were up to. But I was alone in the world, and these guys were asking me if I wanted to come with them. You bet I'm coming with them! So he said, you want a smoke a join? I said, yeah. So we went, and on the way we picked up Steve. Steve had this Tupperware container that was wrapped in aluminum aluminum foil. And the way he was holding this thing, we went behind the dorm and behind out into the trees and we're standing by this tree and Steve starts to unwrap this aluminum foil and you can tell by the way, he's doing it that what's in this thing is really important. He's unopening his up, you know, again, this is going to be good when I get this open and he gets it open and it's just a little Tupperware container filled with cheap red wine. And this was the big news. So Matt, Matt lights the joint and takes a hit and I just did what he did and handed it. and then Steve took a pull on the wine and handed it to me and I took a Pull on the Wine and we got this little circuit going here and I'm just kind of staring at these guys because I don't know how to talk to anybody and they're kind of looking at me like, you know, this new guy and it's going around and all of a sudden, man, it happened. It happened. Secret to life. Suddenly this feeling came up over me and I thought, you now, this is gonna work out. This is gonna be okay. I can do this. I have two, these are my dearest friends. You know, we've said nothing to each other, but I mean, I'm having this experience with these guys. I'm feeling very close to these people. And I'm feelin' great. And I can't describe, it's indescribable to anybody but you what happened to me right there. I mean I'm convinced that there's a line that we crossed, I crossed it right there because the feeling that, I mean, it was a secret to life. I just discovered the secret to life. It was the thing that nobody had been willing to tell me, that this is how you get even. This is how your ability to talk to other people. This is what you're able to do and this is why you were able to get rid of the fear and feel all right standing where you're standing doing what you are doing. I thought, this is wonderful, man. I don't know if it's this pot, I don' t know if this is wine, but I'm doing this as often as I possibly can. And I did. I did it every day for the next 16 years. And I talk about drugs in my pitch because I'm a child of the 60s and that's what was fashionable and that's what we were focused on identify as an alcoholic because that's who I am and that what got me here the alcohol is the thing that that kicked my ass anyway so I started on my journey you know what I mean and and 13 was pills any kind of pills you know to get another guy walked up to me said you know would you like a couple of these and I said well yeah what is it said well these are three grain pharmaceutical toenails and I I said, well, you know, like that meant anything to me, right? And I said well, all right, you Know and took him and then you know waited a little while and fell to the floor and was very happy about what had just Happened. I was very Happy about that How do you feel fine? What are you doing nothing? Doing nothing. I like it like that No 14 with psychedelics and you know I was 14 years old and I was on a pass from the school and I's hanging out with an older woman woman. She was 15 and a half. Her name was Debbie. She was a bad girl. I was really impressed with Debbie. And Debbie said, do you want some acid? And I said, well, yeah. What is it? And she said, Well, here. She handed me this lipstick, one of those lipstick deals, and she pulled the top off of it and spun it, and the lipstick came up, and there was this little pill on the end of the lipstick, which I thought was incredibly clever that she had concealed this like this. So I just took it off the end end of the lipstick and put it in my mouth and swallowed it. And she said, uh, did you take that whole thing? And I said, well, yeah, it was a very tiny little thing. You know, I'm used to bottles of booze and, you know, joints and these big, you knows, horse pills. You don't know what I mean? She hands me this little tiny thing. And I says, yeah. I took all of it. She said, well, that's three hits of white lightning. Ah, a little identification in the room, huh? huh? Yeah, everybody goes, ooh. Well, needless to say, for those of you that don't know about that, the next two days were very, very interesting for me. We decided that we were going to play that we're married and we went to the supermarket. Decided we were married so we could get the cart and we're going down there. I'm going, yeah, we need diapers for the baby, you know. You know, what do you want for dinner tonight, honey? Chicken? Good. Chicken, you know. We're loading up the cart and going through the cart playing with married people. To this day, I have difficulty going to the supermarket. It got very strange in there. Fifteen, I started shooting dope. A guy walked up to me and said, would you like me to stick this in your body? And I said, well, yeah. What is it? And he explained to me, we were now entering into the family of opiates, and he jammed that into my body, and I did this. and I was really happy heart and lungs working you know what I mean that was all I felt I mean I was just alive that was what I was I was alive I was breathing and I wasn't doing anything else I'd just spent the next three months like that every time my head had come up off of the table jam another needle in me back down on the table it's the best party I ever went to in my life I didn't feel a thing I didn'T talk to anybody I didnT do anything I was JUST loaded and like I said I talk a lot about drugs but in retrospect because that's what I was focused on at the time that's why everybody else was talking about so that's what I talked about but having done my inventory work and looked back any information I have about my life is in retrospect anyway I had no idea what I was doing at the moment I was just doing it I look back the drugs would come and go they would come and go one day this one day that one day this one day that what was always on the table was a bottle of booze booze was always there and the reason for that is is because it is the most reliable drug I've ever taken in my life you never know I mean you go get cocaine or heroin or LSD or all this stuff you never know what you're getting I mean I have never gone to a dealer to buy you know half an ounce of cocaine since the house of cocaine and he's that's okay they don't say that it's like oh it's the best never nobody's ever said anything but it's the best the great how's he at all it's greatest how's the heroin that's the the best we've ever had. Oh, great. Nobody ever says, ah, it's junk. Come back next week. They don't tell you that. I mean, you have no idea what you're getting. You know what I mean? So you get the cocaine and you figure it's drunk like it was last week. You do up half of it right there. All of a sudden, you can't get your mouth open anymore. You got that booze there, the great equalizer to resolve whatever problems you may have. You can't gets your mouth opened anymore. You suck a little gin through your teeth, he'll get you back to where you need to be and you can go on partying. Heroin's not good enough to get you through the night? Jack Daniels will finish the job because that fifth of Jack Daniel will do the same thing every single time. It's a very reliable thing this booze. You know acid gets a little too spooky? Don't worry about it. That gin ease you back into the comfort zone no problem. Take care of business. Very very Very, very reliable stuff. So I counted on booze from the beginning and eventually got rid of drugs entirely because I found them to be extremely unreliable and I was overdosing all the time. So I just stuck to booze. It's bad when you... You know you've been doing a little bit too much with the drug thing when you come to an ambulance one more time and the guy looks at you and he says, Hi, Earl. Yikes. I'm becoming known in the wrong circles So anyway I'm still in this school And four and a half years into this school I decided that four and half years of Latin was enough I'd used it a lot And I decided I needed to get out of this place So I just closed my book one day It just sort of came over me It's like this idea hit me That I don't want to do this anymore So I'd just close the book And went down and said I quit quit. And I dropped out of high school. My father came back in my life and said, you're obviously insane, and threw me in my first nut house. And I'm in the nut house, I get committed for three months of observation and a year of rehabilitation. And got asked the stupidest question I've ever been asked in my lifetime in that facility. I mean, I've been loaded since I'm 12 years old on a daily basis. I'm 16 and a half, I'm in the nuts house, and every day the psychiatrist would come into my room and he would sit down and he would look at me with that face on you, that face that I'm here to help you face. And he would look at me and he'd say, Earl, how are you feeling? How the hell would I know how I'm feeling? I've been loaded since I was 12 years old. I have no idea how I feel. I feel fine. Can I go home now? Well, no, we better talk about this tomorrow. Right. So I decided I should escape from the nuthouse. And I remember I was sitting in the cafeteria and we were having lunch. I've just been shuffling around in this hospital for like weeks and I'm sitting there and I said this is the time to bust it they got them here those red exit signs they said they were green in this particular hospital they're lit up like that and that's the word right that's all you want to do when you're in the nut house is exit so I'm spotting that I'm sittin' in the cafeteria and I decide I'm outta here this is my day I'm makin' a big break right so I'M SITTIN' AT THE TABLE AND IT'S READY READYY GO And I'm hauling ass. That's as fast as I can go. I got the arms working. I mean, I'm going. And that's it. I'd forgotten, you know, the three cups of pills a day they got you. You know what I mean? There's some interesting stuff in those things. And that is as fast As you go. I thought we were just all shuffling around in there because, you Know, it's what you do. Nope, that's It. That's high speed. That's It, right? And the demoralizing moment is that, You know, you're going for the door and you hear over the loudspeaker station From the nurse's station, you know, the loudspeaker, you hear, Ed, when you got a second, do you want to grab Earl? He's making a break for the door. You know, and you look over, you Know, and I'm working, And I'm over my shoulder looking for Ed, you Now, And Ed's in there seating a sandwich going, Yeah, yeah, I'll get him in a minute. Going nowhere. So they come and they get you, And they take you back to your room with no doorknob, You know? And you just start putting another plan together. So tools for living. And at this point in my life, I've got drugs, I got alcohol, I got violence, and I got to run. But if you're going to live my life and get thrown into mental institutions, you need to know that if you are going to escape from the mental institution, you've got to get out before they get the pills in you. Because if they get them in you, you leave when they say. That's it. They've salted your tail. You're not going anywhere. So the next time they threw me in the nut house, I was in the intake process. You know what I mean? And they had thrown the net over me one more time and I'm sitting there and they're filling out the paperwork working. My mother's sitting there crying, you know, and there's big nurses coming down the hall to take me to my room. And I said, yeah, I'm really glad I'm in here. I'm really glad you got me. It's terrible out there. Hey, look at that. Hauled ass. This time, man, I're moving down the hall, and I'm following the signs, and I end up in this backyard, and I'm running for this fence, and I got an intern right on my tail, right? We're hoofing. I'm going for the fence, and I think, at that point in my life, I'm like 17 years old. I'm an alcoholic. I drug addict I'm a high school dropout at any moment, hopefully an escaped mental patient. That's my life Right, that's my line and I'm thinking if I make that fence. I don't have a problem right I Don't have any problems if I the fence because I'm going to be drunk in 20 minutes And that's all it matters. It's all the manners because I drink or use no matter what Which is why I personally mean if you do this and it works for you God bless you I think that's great. For me, it doesn't work. There's a saying around my neck of the woods where they tell newcomers just don't drink or use no matter what. I think That's nuts because I drink or used no matter what if I could not drink if I can just not drink or using that's like just say no to me. I mean, if I get not drink or using no matter what I guarantee you I wouldn't be here tonight. I wouldn' sponsor the guys I sponsor. I wouldn go to all the meetings I go to. I wouldn take out the panels. I wouldn read the big book. I wouldn work the steps. I wouldn anywhere near that four step. I wouldn do any of that stuff. I just wouldn't drink or use no matter what. Because it takes a little bit something extra for me to stay clean and sober because I was never, ever, ever able to do that. Anyway, so 15, 16, I'm doing the nut houses. Escaped that place, spent three years out on the streets doing what you do to stay drunk. Just doing what You Do. I thought it'd be real romantic and dramatic, me and Jack Kerouac going to hit the road, but it wasn't like that at all. It was pretty nasty. But like I said, I drink or use no matter what. So I was willing to pay the price. It's the only thing that ever worked for me. It was the only things that ever... It classified as the fear killer in my life. It killed the fear that I felt wherever I went no matter of what I was doing. And fear is the thing that I feel more than anything else in life. I mean if I've got this barrel of emotions inside me, swimming around on the surface of this barrel are all the feelings that I've felt since I got here. fear. I mean, I'll feel confusion, irritability, contentment, happiness, lust, on and on and on. I'll all these things, but they just kind of come and go and come and go and go. Way down in the bottom of that barrel, that deep undercurrent that's running my life, that's fear. And that's the thing I drink and use it. That's why I drank for the effect from the very beginning. That why I drink to get drunk is that's the last thing I'm going to feel and that's a thing I am aiming at. You're drinking to get drunk. Get rid of the feelings. They've got to get rid of all the feelings That's why I've been a blackout drinker since real early on Blackouts became real acceptable to me You'd come out, bang your back and pretty comfortable with it. Just, yep, did it again Every once in a while though, it's a little bit nuts Like I came to on Speedway in Venice, California Not a real nice place In a conversation with four police officers And I remember, it was just bing you know and I was back and there's four cops standing there and we're having a conversation I have no idea what we're talking about and you could learn though I learned you don't you just stand there you know a nod like you're in it you know and just wait till somebody eventually they'll let you know you know why they wanted to talk to you I mean what else are you gonna do you can't just say excuse me officers I just got here I just arrived It's this little trick that I do Oh no So you just get used to doing it But it surprised me I was willing to pay I was going to do it After three years When I was 19 I got accepted at college Through a series of circumstances That are just beyond description I ended up going to college I got excepted At this business college I was a high school dropout And I went on an interview interview and they accepted me based on the interview. I went back to my father and said, look, I got accepted to go to this college. If you'll write me a check for the tuition, I'll leave town. He said, beautiful. Wrote me the check. Me and this woman I was seeing at the time piled all our belongings in eight pounds of hash in the back of this truck and went to Northern California to higher learning. And she got it. We got this little apartment and she set up, she got a straight job. And I started dealing drugs on campus because I didn't know how to do anything else. I had no morals, I had ethics of any kind. I'm capable of telling the truth to anybody for any reason. And so I started selling drugs to these rich kids on campus and I was going to school and I studied marketing and production and distribution and I'm applying these things to my business and business was booming so I left college you know so I'm going in and learning all this stuff and applying it. Thank God they never asked me to do any you know community work or anything. I'd have probably told them all about my business and how impressed I was with them. And when I was 20, I got diagnosed to have malignant cancer. And I got shipped back to L.A. and did a major surgery on my back and did the nuclear medicine thing and they prepared my family for me to die and they told me, you know, this is probably it for you. And all I could remember thinking was you have no idea who you're talking to. You have no ID who you are talking to, could die. That's already coming up like twice a week the way I'm living. It was getting thick, you know what I mean? My life was getting real rugged. But I didn't know any other way to live, and this is a thing that had worked for me better than anything it ever worked for my life, and I wasn't giving it up. When I was 21, by the time I was 22, I was a junior, I had a high school diploma, taking my GED exams and gotten my high school diploma in the file there, and had my high college thing going. I had an early acceptance to go to USC Law School. I was editor-in-chief of the college newspaper. paper i was a very successful drug dealer in northern california i mean i had all this stuff out here that said i'm running my life just fine don't get my face about the way i drink and use just don't do it and uh but the price was getting higher and higher and hire me the only people around were people i did business with um i didn't really have any friends i had really had no contact with my family for almost 10 years and uh but that was okay with me because i was able to drink and using that's just what i needed to do um when i right before i turned 22 my mother called me and said we haven't been anywhere as a family in 10 years and we'll go anywhere you want to go let's just go as a family and was crying and doing all that you know using those mother tricks and i said uh yeah yeah all right all right all so i flew back to la on my 22nd birthday um the night before um got loaded all night long showed up at my parents doorstep at six o'clock the following morning was one of of those mornings where I was unable to get my mouth open. You know, it was just locked. And I walked in the door, hi mom! You know hair out like this, you know what I mean? Beard out like this. I just, you know, psychotic. And my mother looked at me and just thought, you know, he's doing that again. You know, get in the car. Get in the car. So we all got in the car and we took off on my father's plane to fly to Guadalajara on my 22nd birthday. And on the way there the plane crashed. And my mother, my father, my little sister were all killed healed and I wasn't. And I woke up on this mountain in Mexico and I was banged up pretty bad. I had my skull was fractured, my back was broken in three places, my left arm was crushed, my right leg was crushed. I was paralyzed from the waist down. I had massive internal injuries and I was awake. And they were all laying there in front of me and I couldn't do anything about it. There was nothing I could do. And i watched them all bleed to death. And I mean, I'd been faking it since I was 12 years old. But faking to the... I was doing the best I could. Trying to play the game. Trying to get along. Trying to do the stuff that other people did. Trying to be a part of. Never feeling that way. But doing the rest of my life. Doing the best that I could and I quit that night. I said, I have absolutely no interest in a God that would take my little sister. We were very close. She was mine. She belonged to me. When she had a problem, she came to me and when she wanted to know about boys, she came to me. When she had problems, she came to me She was 15 months younger than I was and we were extremely close She was poetic and an artist and a writer and a designer and she was just this talented, creative, loving young woman and God took her and let the lying, cheating, thieving son of a bitch like me on this planet I saw no justice in this, no equity in this I had no interest in a God that would do something like this So as far as I was concerned, God had nothing to do with my life. A long time later, the last thing my father taught me is he kept banging his right leg on the ground because it caused him a lot of pain to do that and it would have kept him alive longer than anybody else. And then he died and the only thing I could move was my right arm. So I started banging myself in the side with my right hand because my back was broken so it hurt a lot when I did it and it kept pulling me up out of the shock. The pain was keeping me alive. live. So I just kept doing that, and a long time later, it seemed like a long time to me, several hours later, these guys came up onto the crash site, and I thought, you know, I'm going to make it. I'm going to take it. And I took my wallet out, and I put it on my chest because I wanted to be identified. I wanted them to know who I was. And the guy came over, and he took my wallet off my chest, and they took the money out of my wallet and put it back on my chest and moved on. And these guys scavenged the plane crash and left me up on the mountain to die. At that point, I had no use for you either. So God and other people were out. I had absolutely no interest in other people. I had not faith or trust in you at all. And it was an easy decision for a guy like me to make because I had always been so filled with fear. You know, I was always afraid of you anyway. I'd never been any good at this thing anyway. So I took that information, applied it to everybody, and ran with it. I'm out of the game. If I get my ass off this mountain, I'm going to drink and use the way I don't want to use and if you don't like it, you can just get out of the way and that was it. I all pretense gone. A while later, the more people came up on the mountain, they got me off the mountain and they took me to this Red Cross station, Mexican Red Cross Station. They tagged my right toe and they waited for me to die and I didn't die so they took me to the hospital, kept me there for a few days, plastered me from the neck down and shipped me back up into the States and I spent a long time in a hospital up here always getting the bad news you know you're probably not gonna walk you're probably gonna have a withered left hand you're gonna be blind in your left eye blah blah blah and I was just real determined to walk out of there on my own steam and I did a long-time later I walked out of their on my own and I was real determined did not have any of the bad effects of that show at all I worked real hard nobody would ever know that I have any problem with my left left hand. Three of my fingers are numb, but nobody would know it. By the way, if I get real tired, it starts to curl up and I get real self-conscious and I work it and use a tennis ball, keep my hands strong. I have a limp, but when I'm tired and I'm walking on a hard surface, you can hear my gait that I have bit of a limp. And when I stand at the podium for a long time, I usually limp off the podium because I've been standing in one place for a longtime. But other than that, and I was real determined that nobody would ever know that there was anything wrong with me. I worked real hard at it. When I I got out, I got some money from the airplane insurance. And I just decided, well, what I'm going to do is I'm gonna drink myself to death. Simple. I wasn't any good at this thing anyway. I'm just gonna do it. So I went on my last drunk and it lasted for four and a half years. And i stayed drunk for four and a half years I gave up in the end I was having a lot of bad dreams and I was reliving the a plane crash a lot. And I'd go get high on drugs and I'd OD every time and off to the hospital again because I couldn't get rid of the pictures in my head. I couldn'T get rid of the nightmares. Whatever grasp or reality I had, I was losing. I couldN'T distinguish between fantasy and reality. Did I dream that? Did I do that? Was that in a blackout? What happened? I couldn' make anything, heads or tails, anything. And then I went down to the basement and I grabbed the fifth. It was J&B Scotch. I'll never forget it. I grabbed it and I just drank it down And I blacked out Passed out When I came to I'd been to that dark quiet place That I like to go to No bad dreams No reliving the plane crash No nothing Just out And alcohol became my drug of choice Right there And I used cocaine Just to keep me on my feet So that I could drink The way I wanted to drink And when I'd get so sick I couldn't drink anymore I'd eat about 150 milligrams Of allium a day So I got well enough To be able to drink again And that was my cycle For four and a half years I detoxed, detoxed a few times. So I never detoxed. I just retoxed. You know what I mean? You know, alcohol making you too sick, take Valium for a while. You know What I mean get to you. So I'm in the I don't there's this little place this little sanitarium in Hollywood. These places don't exist anymore, but you would walk in and it was 150 bucks cash. You give them 150 bucks Cash and they deal with you for 72 hours and you go in and you give them your big bottle of Valium and your gun and your wallet and your you know, whatever you were packing, you know what I mean? You'd put all your stuff up on the table. They'd take you in a room and strap you to a gurney and give you a shot of anticonvulsants and you'd ride for 72 hours. And when you were done, they'd either take you to the morgue or send you home. And you'd lay in there shaking and just kicking like a dog. And you'd think, God, if there is one, I'll do anything you say. Just get me out of this alive and sane. Because I was going crazy. and I get and I mean anything I believe everything I believed in and I'd get up off that table 72 hours later and I just stagger out there and they give you and these it was great I mean they give you back your valium and your gun and they'd give you all your stuff back and they say now you be a good boy or don't you drink anymore and I say yes ma'am yes ma'm and I'll be drunk that night I'm that guy in the book pounding on the table wondering how it happened that's me I would have have no idea how that happened the trick and i did that three different times before i finally got sober the trick for me is not stopping it's not starting again that was the trick for me i didn't know how to not start again um the last time when i finished i at four war stories war stories i've been shot at i've been stabbed twice i led a very violent life i was i've come to in different cities where i didn'T even know anybody in that city uh i've I've come to talking to the police, just in the strangest situations. When it came out of my last blackout, I weighed 215 pounds. I was yellow. I'd been to a couple of doctors asking them what was wrong with me, and they said, you're an alcoholic, and if you don't stop drinking, you're going to die this year. And I remember thinking, yeah, yeah. But why do I feel so bad? Denial is an amazing thing. I was bright yellow. I had hair out like this. I had a beard out like this, and I was psychotic. I came out of that last blackout, and there I sat with two broken hands, and I had the moment of clarity that they talk about in the program. To me, as far as I'm concerned, a bottom for a guy like me is dead. That's the bottom. That'sthe physical bottom. I hit an emotional and spiritual bottom. And what it was was that I had been alone for a long time. When I finished my drinking, there was no more money. There was no place to live. There were very few clothes. There was a car nobody else would get in, a little deathtrap Volkswagen with no brakes and no lights and no seatbelts and, you know, no nothing. And the family was dead. Health was gone. Unemployable. Out of my mind. Crazy. And alone. And I hadn't talked to anybody in a long time. There was no reason to talk to anybody. And my moment of clarity was that I was completely and totally alone in the world. And I had known this for a long Time, but I experienced the loneliness. When I came out of that last blackout, I felt completely alone in the world. And it was done. It was the most devastating feeling I ever remember feeling. That there was no place to turn, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, no friends. There was one guy left on the planet who would talk to me, but he wouldn't let me come to his house. He would meet me someplace because there was not telling what I would do. Albert Carl Davies. He's not one of us, but wherever you are, Al, I love you. And he's the one that just kept standing in front of me and standing in the middle of me. And I came in that blackout felt those feelings and said, take me to the hospital. And they called an ambulance and they took me to a hospital emergency room and they pumped my stomach and they said, get him out of here. He's going to die. And he took me by ambulance to another facility. They kept me for three days. I got worse. They put me in an ambulance on a free bed because I didn't have any money. And I came out of there as crazy as I've ever been in my life. I was 28 years old and I was clean and sober for the first time in 16 years. And I had no tools for living because all my tools had gone by the wayside. I didn't have any five left in me. I didn' t have another drink left in m Drugs were absolutely out of the question. It was over. It was all over. My life was destroyed. I came out of hospital and through a series of circumstances that only an alcoholic can create, I ended up in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous on a Friday night in the basement of a church. And I walked in there And I walked in there and I sat down in the back with my arms folded across my chest You know with my best get away from me look on my face And I was just as threatening as I could possibly be not being a tough guy or a bad guy This impressed no one and I remember sitting back there terrified Recognizing that I had absolutely no place else left to go that this was it And I didn't come here because I wanted what you had I had no idea what you had. If AA had crossed my path, it did it while I was in a blackout. I missed it. I had no knowledge of what went on in these rooms at all. I just knew that I couldn't live with what I had anymore. I couldn'T do it anymore and I came in and I sat down on this guy named Vegas. Vegas came walking across the room to me and it was about this distance to where the tables are and he was coming at me and I'm looking at him thinking, oh Jesus, look at this, you know, he's all everything matches, you you know what I mean? He's kind of shiny. He was kind of shiny and he's smiling. Well, I don't like him already. You know, I certainly don't trust him because I don'T trust anybody. I've already sworn I would never love another human being or trust another human being as long as I lived and there was no way I was going to tell you who I am. There's no way you're going to trust me or love me. It's just not a part of what I do. That's fine for you but I'm not doing it. And here's this Vegas guy coming at me and he walks over to me me, and he says, hi, I'm Vegas. I'm an alcoholic. And I said, so what? Me too, you know, and it's not exactly the highlight of my life that I'm alcoholic. I don't know what you're so happy about. Get away from me. And he just looked at me and he smiled and he said, keep coming back, man. And turned around and walked out. I mean, the only thing he didn't do was just pat me on the head, you now. You're a very frightening individual. Keep coming back. And then he walked away, and I remember thinking, jeez, my cover's blown already. You know what I mean? There's just no keeping these people off me So I sat in the back And they do what they do at AA meetings And they read something from a book Some book, you know Right over my head Because I was back there sitting quietly And that's this thing I have to remember this about newcomers You know what I mean? I meet these people that are new And they look fine They're nuts I was sitting back there If I had been honest When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous And you had said to me How you doing And if I had opened my mouth, all I would have done was scream. I would've just started screaming from the shit that was in my head. How crazy I was. All the voices just banging off one another in my hand. You know, and in the meantime, on the outside, I'm just sitting in the back of a meeting. And they read stuff and I missed it, you know, because they'd say rarely every scene. I'm thinking, rarely, okay, they're seeing something. They're seeing it rarely. They're saying it rarely, you now. And then I try to get back to what was going on and they'd be saying, God couldn't, what if he were sought? Okay, God, there's God in this place. All right. And they're seeking something and they've sought something. I don't know. It's a, it's a Jesus. I would really like a drink. I Don't know what the hell these people are doing, you know? You know? And then they got this speaker and they said, now our speaker tonight is you know what I mean? And I thought, oh great. Some speaking, you know, this is where they sell you something, you Know? I'm ready for them. I'm not buying shit. it. And the guy gets up and he goes, hi, I'm an alcoholic. This old guy, he's like 65 years old. Right off the bat, he says, I am an ex-boxer, a skid row bum, and I am a wino. And I thought, well, there you have it, you see? I am none of those things. What the hell am I doing in this place? Because what I notice, I notice the differences between you and me. I don't look for any similarities. I'm not interested in the similarities because it defeats my purpose. My purpose is to determine that you're different than me and that you don't get it It's all I'm interested in if you're a woman. You don't understand If you're if you gay you don' t understand if you are black, hispanic You do not understand if your five years older than me or five years younger than me you don''t understand And I mean so I was very successful just tightening those wagons up You know getting them closer and closer and Closer till eventually when about the time I got to Alcoholics Anonymous it was clear if you'r not Earl you don´t understand And just one swipe of the hand and you're all fools. You don't get it. No point in explaining it to you anyway. So I'm sitting in the back of the room holding true to this, and this guy gets up there and tells me these things. What was wonderful about it was that I am an alcoholic of the hopeless variety. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous destroyed. There was absolutely nothing in my life. I had no life. Alcoholics did not give me back my life, Alcoholics Anonymous gave me the first life I've ever had. There was nothing happening in my life. What was wonderful about it was is that I had no place else to go. I was gonna leave and go where? There wasn't any place to go, so I had to sit and listen to this fool who clearly did not understand me. And he got up and this guy said, and he blew my mind. I don't know how I heard it. It's a God shot right from the gate. First meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. This guy gets up and he shares his experience, strength, and hope. And I I understood two things about this guy. One thing was that this guy was telling me the truth about what was going on in his life and he was talking about how he felt as a man. And I'd never heard anybody do that before. This guy talked about feeling insecure and not feeling like he was enough and how he'd wake up in the morning and his head would get after him and while his head was chewing on him, he'd just go take a shower and suit up and go to work while his hair was... And I thought, whoa, that's impressive that this guys talking about how he feels. Something inside me was just dying to hear somebody do that, to find out that you could get it out. And this guy was up there just as comfortable as he could be telling me all these feelings. And I mean, I'd never heard... Where I come from, men talk about their genitals and their wallets. That's it. That's what they talk about. And they lie about both of them. So it's pointless talking to these guys. You know what I mean? I had no experience with men talking about their feelings. Here I am in my first meeting sitting in the back and this guy's doing it comfortably comfortably and it's feeding me in a way that I don't even understand at that point. It's feeding me in the way I don t even understand. And the second thing he did that really impressed me was it was obvious to me he could have cared less what I thought about it. He wasn't selling me anything. If I didn't like it, that was fine with him. I could go to another meeting, which is when I found out there are other meetings. And they had different speakers and they had all kinds of things going on in here. So this guy impressed me. But then they had always other stuff going on in the meeting and you hear all these people talking and you're trying to pick this stuff up and people are saying stuff like, one day at a time. All right? Okay. Keep coming back. Okay, where? Turn it over. Fine. Turn what over? Somebody tell me what the hell all this means. And they're throwing them at you. They got all these little sayings, you know what I mean? And they are saying them to each other and they are flying by and I am grabbing these things out of the air and I'm sticking them in my pockets and I think, I have no idea what any of this means but I'm going to keep it for later. And they say, we invite you to come back next week. And I thought, yeah, I'm gonna come back going to hear this guy again, man. This guy is great because I figured this is the meeting where this guy talks, right? I come back the next week, they got a lady talking. I thought this is incredible and I walked out of there with the first little tiny itty bitty teeny bit of hope I'd had in years. There's something happening here and I'm going to find out what it is. I didn't have, I had no preconceived ideas but there was something going on and I wanted to to find out what it was. Because this guy had been on, had led one hell of a life and he was standing up there having this clean and sober life, able to do the things that he was able to do from that podium. And I wanted what that guy had. I wanted it. Then I went to a bunch of meetings and I heard these, some of these, I kind of hooked up with these people in this one group and I was like this shadow guy. I wouldn't talk to anybody and I wouldn'T shake hands with anybody. I was really rap type. But they let me be that way and they'd say, well, They didn't say to me, these guys didn't Say to me Earl would you like to go to coffee With us after the meeting. They'd come up to me and they'd Say Earl we're going to coffee after The meeting. Cause see Now they got me. Cause now I mean Now if they had said To me we're gonna coffee would you Like to come I could just Say no But they just came up to Me and said we're goin' to coffee After the meeting Now to get out of this you have to have like A conversation with this person You have to explain to them why you're not Going. That they've made a mistake sake. They're a little confused. I'm not going to coffee with you because I don't know who you are and you scare the shit out of me anyway. I don'T, I'm NOT doing that. That's way over the top for me. I got, at this point, I'd gotten a job as a house painter, right? Which was the perfect job for a guy like me because they'd say, you know, it was just paint Navajo white on this Navajo white wall. So it was like this. I'd say great and I'd paint the wall and they'd said okay paint that wall and say beautiful and I paint that wall. And I would accomplish the only goal I had in life at that point which was to get tired enough to go back to sleep. That was my goal in life. I got to get tired. Every morning, I'd wake up and think, oh God. And it was just get tired enough to go back to sleep. And doing this house painting would do that for me. It would just get me tired. I had this blank screen in front of me all day long. There's this paint, right? And all this insanity could just pour out on this screen. Great job for a guy like me, right. But these guys that would take me out to these meetings, they would say, we're going to the... All right, all right. So I would go. I would sit. And nobody would ever... they wouldn't, they would leave me alone. They didn't ask me questions. They just let me be with them. I was like this shadow person in AA. They were wonderful to me. And eventually I got to where I could shake hands. I never took a chip. I didn't, I never, I didn'T take a cake until I was three years sober. I NEVER shared from a podium or participated in any way, shape, or form. The only participation I did was I showed up at meetings and I got a sponsor. I'd heard you need to get a sponsor, so I said, fine, what's a sponsor? This guy said, well, sponsor somebody somebody who's got what you want. I said, well, great. You know, another AA trick question. Okay. What do I want? Well, you want somebody who likes what they have in their life. Somebody who's happy with their life and doing what they do. The specifics of that life are irrelevant. If they're happy with what they're doing, sober, that's what you need. That's what I want. Go get somebody like that. So I found this guy who was nuts. He was nuts nuts. And he had about 10 years of sobriety and he was the most passionate human being I ever met in my life. This guy was really, he wasn't one of these James Dean dudes standing in the background, you know, kind of distant and aloof, you know? And not really giving it up at all. This guy was right up there in the game, man. This, this guy felt very strongly about a lot of things. And if you asked him about it, he would tell you. Alcoholics Anonymous was the number one thing in his life. He was very passionate about this thing and he'd tell anybody who'd listen to him. And I thought, I want, that's what I want. I want to feel strongly about something. I've gotten, and I got this little light flickering in me that I had since the first meeting, but that's it. I want what this guy's got. I want to feel that power. You know what I mean? I wantto feel strongly about something, feel committed. So I asked him to sponsor me and I went up to him and I said, excuse me, would you sponsor me? And he said, what? That's my sponsor, man. This guy's scary. And I said would you sponsor me and he said yes. That's how he talks. Yes. and I just started crying, because that was the, I didn't know it till I'd done it, but that was the first time I'd asked anybody for anything in years. I'd ask for help. Would you sponsor me? Would you help me? I'd just been hanging out in the back-end meetings for a while, and, you know, he waited until I finished crying, and he said, you known, I figured out, good, now I got him, he's feeling sorry for me, you known, I can work this, you kown, and then he said now, you don't have to like what I tell you, and you don' t have to think it's a good idea, you just have to do it. And all right, I can work that. So he says, we're going to a meeting. The next night was a Friday night. He says, I'm taking you to a meeting with me. So I met him and we go to this meeting and he says they make 550 cups of coffee here every Friday night and you're going to make them for the next year. And I said, bullshit. You've obviously misread the situation completely, pal. I'm nuts in case you haven't noticed. right? I'm ready to kill myself or somebody else at any moment. I could go off at any moment. It's a frightening situation. I'm terrified from the minute I wake up till I go to bed at night. The only reason I'm still on this planet is because I come to these goddamn meetings. That's it. I am crazy. Do you get it? That's a tortured life. And I come as a sponsor to help me with this incredible psychic pain that I'm in and And you say to me, make a little coffee. You've obviously missed it completely. To which he replied, make the coffee or drink. I thought, well, geez, you know, these old timers, they're impossible to talk to. You know, they just cut it right to the chase. They nullify anything you may have to say on this. It's just right to bottom line, boom, make coffee or make coffee. Make the coffee your drink. I said, all right, so I'll make the copy. So I made the copy there. there. Started feeling better Friday nights about six months into this thing, had no idea why. It was because he had given me one of the greatest gifts anybody's ever given me in my life and could have explained it to me in the beginning, but that would have been pointless because I couldn't get it. The fact of the matter was he could have said to me, look, Earl, you're a self-centered alcoholic. Self-centered fear is the chief activator of all your defects of character. You're always afraid you're not going to get something you want or you're going to lose something you've already got. I'm paraphrasing from the 12 and 12, step 7. And he said, all you've ever thought about is Earl. And when somebody else is talking to you, all you're thinking about is how does this affect me? How does this apply to me? I can't get out of here. I can'T get over to you. I'M not connected to another human being on the face of the earth still. He says, that's all you ever do. So what I'm going to do is I'm gonna give you the gift of service. You're going to be of service, you're going be responsible and accountable to other people every Friday night. And it's about a four and a half hour commitment because it's a big big meeting. And you're going to have to deal with all the things you need to deal with to see that that coffee's ready, see that that meeting's set up, deal with it at the break, deal with it as the end of the meeting, break it down, clean them up, put them away and leave. It's going to take you about four and a half hours. You're not going to be thinking about Earl, you're gonna be thinking about somebody else and you're gunna feel better. And it's something that you're gona be able to find out hopefully if you stay sober. You are going to apply this in virtually every area of your life. You'll have this available to you whenever you need it. Woodner understood a word of that so he He just said, make the coffee or drink. So if you're new and you're thinking, they asked me to do all these menial things around the program, that's not what people are doing to you. They're trying to give you a way to manifest, bring into your own life some of the spiritual principles that are afoot in these rooms. It's an amazing thing that it comes in such simple ways. All of a sudden those things like one day at a time, keep coming back, turn it over, those things start to have incredible depth and meaning. That's what's happened to me. I mean, it's been a remarkable things that go on in here. It's way past stopping drinking way past that It's about a design for living Anyway, so I'm going to these meetings and I'm doing this stuff and I got this sponsor And I'm you know rumbling along and I've got about two years of sobriety and I now shaking hands with people I've still nobody's ever been I got little one-room apartment Yeah My rents three hundred twenty five dollars a month and I having trouble making the rent But I mean where I'm at at that point in my life for two years a sobriete with no friends No, family a sponsor a couple of guys that I'll talk to a little bit out of these group of meetings that I go To with this group. I got this job painting houses It's got nothing to do with my credentials or anything, but I got way to make a living I'm self-supporting to my own contributions. I'm poor. I still driving that same beat up Volkswagen and man. I'll take it Never felt better in my whole life Never felt because I was getting to the point where I realized I might not have to go back into the madness madness I might not have to drink again I might be able to do this thing I might be able to stay here with you people this might actually work for me took me two years to get to that the two-and-a-half years I want my sponsor I do the last line I would draw on AA I went up to him and I said look I'll do everything you asked me to do in here I'll clean up I'll pick up these newcomers I'll deal with these people I'll shake hands I'll go to coffee I'll doing anything you ask me to but I will never ever ever speak from a podium of Alcoholics Anonymous because I'm not getting up in front of those judgmental sons of bitches and telling them who I am I've sat in the back and listen to how these people talk. I ain't doing it So you can just give me anything else, but I do and he said that's a lovely salmon roll You're gonna be the first speaker here next Saturday night Because that was the kind of sponsor I had every time I drew a line he knew it's time Step over the line because you got to be willing to go to any lengths Earl if you want what we've got You got to being willing to any links so I got up with this this meeting. It was young it was hip it was terrifying fine. Packed to the rafters, I got up and said, my name's Earl, I'm an alcoholic. They said, hi Earl, and I went into a sober blackout. Just, I have no idea what I said. It was one of these kind of podiums which was great because I got to hang on to it, and my legs were just under the, you know, I was vibrating behind this thing. I didn't pee on myself so it was a total success as far as I'm concerned. And I started my emotional sobriety that night. That was my emotional sobriety. That was me not using my old tools when faced with paralyzing fear. I had not been paralyzed by my fear that night because it was drink, get up there and talk or go drink. And I knew that that was true for me, that I had to do this thing without reservation. And that was the first time I didn't hit anybody, I didn' t drink, I didn''t use, I din' t run. I was terrified and I moved forward into the fear and I came out the other side, I was still sane, I was stiII alive and I was STiII sober. And I was absolutely flabbergasted. And it just took down a little bit of the wall that I had up between me and you because you were the only people that I was talking to. I didn't have, there wasn't anything going on out there for me. I mean, painting, they'd say paint that wall, it's okay. That was it. It was in here. This was where I was learning to come back to life. Right then things started changing. They started asking me to speak and stuff and I'd get up there and mumble some stuff and I would sit down and my sponsor and I were going to meetings meetings and this guy came up to me and asked me to sponsor him. And I thought to myself, oh man, this guy must be in really bad shape. You know? And he came, he says, I'd like you to sponsor me. And I said, okay. And i called up my sponsor and I said uh there's been a mistake. This guy asked me to sponsored him and I was calling to find out what I should say to him to get him to go get somebody to sponsor Him that had a clue, right? And my sponsor said well apparently it's God's will will that you sponsor this guy, so that's what you're going to do. He says, you might have to learn something about staying sober so you can pass it on to this guy. Ah, great. I get it. It's a setup, right? I mean, my sponsor is an amazing guy. I remember when I was brand new, in my little one-room apartment, I had an answering machine and I would turn off the phone and leave the answering machine on so you wouldn't hear the phone ring and you wouldn'T hear the outgoing message. Just all of a sudden there was this click and there there'd be this voice talking, and you'd know who was on the phone leaving you a message. It's the first thing you'd hear, right? So I remember one morning, it's about 7 o'clock in the morning, and I'm laying in bed asleep, and all of a sudden there's this click, and I hear, wake up! This is your sponsor, this is a bed check. And I'm like standing, you know, in the middle of the apartment. I'm going from laying to standing, and I went up to the bed, and I look around, and holy shit, they have wake-up calls. They check on you when you're housed. There's no escaping these people. That kills him to this day, that I actually was standing there paralyzed, realizing that he was everywhere. He was everywhere, or drinking as an option was gone. He would be there. He would me there and catch me. So, I mean, this is the kind of guy. This guy, he was the only person on earth that I trusted for two and a half years. He was it. I made a conscious decision to trust this one human being because I knew if I didn't hook up with somebody on that level, I was going to drink and I hooked up with this guy. And when I got ready for other people, he started handing me other people and I developed other friendships. And the reason, and I develop friendships with people that I could not be a friend to. They were friends to me. And that was how I learned how to be a fan. I was incapable of it. Absolutely incapable of. I had nothing to give in my mind, so I gave nothing. And these guys showed me how to be a friend, how to talk to other people, how to communicate, that it was safe for me to talk honestly and openly with other men on the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And that was how I started to grow. Things started really heating up for me. I got another job and a job turned into a career and I started making money and things started happening. And I was speaking and I was sponsoring guys and I Was taking out two panels and I WAS going to 79 meetings a week and I had commitments. And, I mean, I was just Mr. AA, you know? And I got six and a half years of sobriety and I Started getting real screwy again. again, real screwy. And I went up to this old timer, a mistake I made repeatedly in my early sobriety. I went out to this all time and I said, excuse me, but I'm feeling real, real, real squirrely again. I mean, it's like, you know those guys in the circus that have those plates and spin those plates? That was like my life, right? I mean I had all these plates spinning. I had this plate, I had the sobriete plate and I had work plate, you now, and I have the money plate and I had the relationship plate you know what I mean and I had the music plate going and I have all these plates going on my life and I would in there any one point in my life two of these plates would just be humming just bow they're just going really well in these areas of my life and I will point them out to you excuse me but do you see how well these areas of my live are gone you know look at how this is perfect everything is going so great in these area but excuse me I have to run because these plates are ready to kick off the pole in any second you know say I'm over here okay okay okay you know I obsessively work on these areas in my my life, you know what I mean? And I get them going and everything goes, this is good. This is good, but shit, these are all, and I got to run, you know, and like, I'm nuts now. I'm nuts. And I go to the old guy and I say, I am nuts. Why am I nuts? I'm doing all the things that other people do. I am doing it the way people are supposed to do it. God damn it, I am in charge. I am running this stuff, you know, eh, eh. And I'm getting crazy. And he, old timers, a guy said to me, Earl, I saw you come in. And if you don't get a program, you're probably going to drink, and if you drink, you're undoubtedly going to die. Now get away from me. He said, excuse me, man. Seven night meetings a week, two panels, sponsoring guys, speaking, doing, picking up newcomers, yada, yadda, yedda, what are you talking about? No program. He says, Earl, that's a lovely fellowship, and I'm really, really glad you got it because it's vital to an alcoholic to have a lovely, lovely fellowship in their life. You need that? I suggest you keep it. But that is not a program. The program you will find in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, is, get away from me. I thought, there's no talking to these people. You know what I mean? They just boom, boom, Boom, boom go away. Point was he had, he'd seen me and he had absolutely no interest in anything I might have to say, which made perfect sense. This was an, this was a reasonable man and he just didn't go, you know, until do it. You Know What I Mean? Go get drunk and die and stop bothering us or get yourself a program. I said, all right. So harboring my newest most resentment. I went and I got this guy who was my best friend now, and he is to this day. He's a remarkable man. And I went to Christopher and I said, you think we should do this? And he said, well, you know, I found something in here that I think is what this guy's talking about. I said what is that? And they said, well, they have a book. Christopher had eight years, I had six and a half. He says, they had this book, Alcoholics and Alarms. It's the text. Like, we should study this thing? I suggest we give that that a run. I said, I'm with you. I'm not having a very good time right now. So let's read this book. So we got together and decided we're new. We got into the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Remarkable. It's the best kept secret in Alcoholics Anonymous, you know what I'm saying? It's amazing. It's just they don't confuse you. You know what I mean? They don't have the library of Alcoholic Anonymous you know, we have 150,000 volumes of variety variety of opinions, go in there and find what you need. They don't, it's just to go, we have a book. We have this book. Read this book? You have anything else? We got a few other things, but read this book! This is the first thing you should read, read this blue one. All right, so we sat down. On the cover of the text, there's a circle with a triangle, ancient spiritual symbol, stands for mind, body, and spirit brought together as a whole human being, and that that's the balance a guy like like me, needs to seek. As this compulsive, obsessive, maniacal human being in sobriety, I use the plates as my example, I mean, just obsessive about everything, balance is the thing that I seek. And Alcoholics Anonymous adopted this symbol at Unity Recovery and Service. It's the same thing. Unity is the body. Bring it here. Like the old-timers told me, Earl, you need to sit down, shut up, and listen. Got it? I said, yeah, well, all right, I got it, I get it. I'll do that. that. That's all I got to do. I can't isolate. I can't do a meeting every now and then. I can't deal with meeting when I start to feel real, real, really bad because I'm way too far in the process at that point. I need to go to meetings on a regular basis. I go to meetings when I don't want to go the meetings. I go to a meetings when I want to meetings. I go the meeting. I do them on a regular basis because that's what works for me. Hour and a half a day, sometimes an hour, that's it. And what I get is a daily reprieve. I'll take it. So I gotta come to the meetings and be with my people. I I can go out there, I can go right outside into that casino, find myself a nice reasonable pit boss, sit down and say, you know, I'm feeling a little crazy today. He's going to look at me and say well so what? And I can explain till dawn the nature of my problem. He's not going to get it. He's like, I don't know He's got to be in here with the people who know who I am. When I walk in the room and you say how you doing and I lie to you like I often do and I say I'm fine and you said to me bullshit, sit down. You can tell you don't feel fine, you know? You walked over and put six sugars in your coffee and you don'T even drink coffee. Sit down. Little telltale signs that members of A pick up. If that's it, and if all I've got is a physical problem, a physical allergy, if that's the only problem, then that's It, right? All I have to do is go to meetings. I just put the booze down and come to meetings and I don't have a problem, right. Wrong. on. I got the obsession of the mind. That's the part about not starting again. I got this obsession in my mind. The book says to me that the persistence of this illusion, this belief in a lie, that I can drink like the normal individual and I can have one, like there would be any point in one. Like what's the point of one? I've never had one ever. I've got 16 years of experiences. There's no point in one." The only point in 1 is so that you got something in your hand while you're waiting for 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7. That''s the point in to want. That's just killing a little time and we can get to the real stuff. No point in it, but the persistence of this illusion that I can do that is astonishing and that many of us pursue it to the gates of insanity or death. I've been to the gate. I'm locked up. I have my toe tagged. I've had my toe tied. I don't want to go there anymore. I want to be there. I am ready to go. I don' t want to those places. That' s not the place I want to go, that many have us pursued to the Gates of Insanity or Death. And then that other part that says that you think you're like, or presently may be, has to be smashed. So I'm sitting here six and a half years sober, and I'm one of these presently maybe guys. I'm back at the beginning of chapter five, and we're saying, rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. I need to follow it thoroughly. It talks about people who are constitutionally incapable. I've started to identify. Thinking, maybe that's me. I don't know. I am in trouble at six and half years of sobriety. So it says, if unity is the body, and I need to bring that here. What's recovery? It's of the mind. Read the big book, the 164 pages where the 12 steps are outlined. And the 12 and 12 is a beautiful book and it'll tell me a lot about the steps. But if I want to know how to do them, I got to go to the big books. The big book tells me how to the first 12 steps, the 12 Steps. That's all I gotta know. What are the 12 steps about? The recovery of the Mind, relieving this obsessive thinking, this insanity, restoring soundness of mind. Gonna take care of this part of my disease for me. Great. So I go to of the book. Step one is, what's the problem? I got to know what the problem is fully and completely before I can get to any kind of a solution. I got to know that I am powerless over this thing. It says on page 30 that I must accept to my innermost self that I am an alcoholic, that that's the first step in recovery. Then that's what I have to do as an alcoholic. I have to be willing to admit that in my life, that I am powerlessover this thing, and my whole life's unmanageable as a result of that one thing. I accepted that. Step two says, if step one is the problem, what's the solution? Step two is my solution, that I could come to believe in a power greater than myself, that this power could restore me to sanity, soundness of mind. Lack of power is my problem, power is My Solution, a power are greater than Myself. And I'm going to get restored to sanity. It's going to relieve the obsessive thinking. It's gonna help me not start again. Cool. That's what I'm after. Well, it says in there self-knowledge avails me nothing. So I better do something about it. What should I do? Well, step three, I better make a decision to do something. So I made the decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of this power. Take it, man. And I had to turn right back on all those plates and just let them, what was going to crash, let it crash. I could no longer be in charge of my life. I had to go forward into these steps. So, I got on my knees, did the third step prayer with with my buddy. We got up, started the fourth because it says, okay, now we embark upon a rigorous plan of action immediately now. And they had this four step and this four step was I had this full column inventory on resentment, fear, and sex explained to me in the book. I went and I couldn't understand it. I want this other people who are knowledgeable about the book started to seek these other people out in the program who had this in the problem who had a program and they started to tell me this stuff and I did this inventory what I discovered was I had four five six seven eight nine laying in black and white right in front of me and that from this I could do those steps so I worked through those steps 10 11 and 12 and my life was changing my friend was kept saying to me you know it is phenomenal what is happening to your life the way you're responding to people the way you're dealing with people how your business is going the caliber of your ability to sponsor these other people the way share the thing you know the way you treat me as a friend the way think about other people instead of yourself he says this is remarkable to what it's like scary what's happening to you world And I said, you know, I was just thinking the same thing about you. This stuff is powerful. We need to be kind of careful. Maybe we're going too fast. We need to slow this up. He says, no, no. Let's go. So we go blasting. Of course, we had to do our own little variations. At one point, we decided, you Know what we should do? Is while we're doing this particular portion, we should go on a fast. So we went on a past for 10 days. We fasted for 10 days drinking this juice. juice. That's all we did. We drank water with lemon juice, cayenne pepper and maple syrup in it because we drank this stuff. That is all we drank for 10 days. It got real interesting. Sober. I mean, I am looking for support and I would call him up and I'd say, Christopher, I'm obsessing about Chinese food. Little did he know, little did I know that Christopher is locked in his house with cookbooks all around him and he is like planning meals for later, you know. And I am I'm looking at him to say, no, no. We got to stick with this. We can do this. And his response to me was great. Let's go. Knowing me and when I'd say, no, you're supposed to be supportive of me not doing this. We've got to do this we're going to do. So we did the 10 days. Damn near died while we're doing these steps. But we were moving forward. We were doing the steps. Our insanity was peaking up and exposing itself but we kept moving forward We got the 10, 11, and 12 Amazing! 10,11, and 12 is me, God, and you. That's the only Only people there are to play with. That's the only individuals about for me to engage on any level. Me, God, and you. That's all 10, 11, and 12 were. 10 was me and I got to keep my side of the street clean. 10 is how I do it. When I'm wrong, I promptly admit it. They put promptly in there for me particularly, I think. That's what they... They knew who they were talking to, man, alcoholics. We have to put promptly here because I'll wait. You know? I'll waited till July. Promptly admit it, get rid of it, get rid off of it. to keep my side of the street clean. 11 is God, and I've got to seek God through prayer and meditation. It's said at the end of chapter 5, that reading, it says God could and would if he were sought. It doesn't say God could or would if you were found. It says if you are sought, that it's my job to seek God. I've never met anybody that knows God personally. I don't know anybody that's seen the face of God. That's not what's relevant. It's not finding God that's relevant, it's that I need to seek God. I need to take that action. And I seek him through prayer prayer and meditation, trying to improve my conscious contact and the only way I pray is for knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry that out. That's all I got to pray for. I don't have to pray for lots of stuff. Just pray for that and let it happen like it's going to happen. Twelve, having had a spiritual awakening, having been restored to sanity like I was promised in step two, soundness of mind, the obsession to drink removed from me, I could practice these principles and carry the message to the third side of the triangle. Unity is the recovery. I bring it, unity is the body. I bring It into these meetings. This is the body for me. The recoveries of the mind, I've got to work these steps. This is my program. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of doing that, I can carry the message. Other people, me, God, and you, that's all there are. I was talking to somebody earlier. There's a tape back there. Well, it's got a guy named Franklin W. from Olive Branch, Mississippi. The first convention I went to was when I was five years sober and this guy got up and shared. And I had a special experience while the guy was talking. He said, I'll sum up Alcoholics Anonymous for you in six words. Those six words being, trust God, clean house, help others. That's it. That's everybody, me, God, and you. Trust God, clean house, help others. That's the way I got to live. Unity, recovery, and service, mind, body, and spirit. That's what I got. That's how I get the balance I seek. It was interesting when I did this process and I turned around and I looked back at the plates, everything was fine. Everything was just humming along fine. The plates that weren't supposed to be there were gone and the ones that were supposed to Be there were doing fine and there was a couple of new ones. Huh, this is good. I'll do this. I'll Do This. So what it's like today is I have the most amazing life. I have more fun. The things that I swore I'd never do, I mean, I couldn't talk to people and I swored I'd never speak, so what I do is I sponsor people and I speak a lot. You know? I face my greatest fears in here, you know, other people and being, you now, dealing with other people and being judged by them. That's what I've had to face in Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, everything on the outside is wonderful. I got married in 10 days. It'll be six months ago. I found out about a week before I left that my wife is pregnant. I'm going to be a father. Whoa! You know? And I can't do that. I can'T be with one woman. I cannot accept the responsibility of being a father that's far too great a responsibility for a person like me. I cannot go to work on a daily basis. I run my own company. I can'T do that, I can''T be responsible to other individuals on a regular basis. I cannot do that. I cannot tell you the truth. Hell, I can't get up at this podium and share my experience, strength, and hope. I can' t do it. I can''t suit up and show up on a regular basis. I can ''t do it.'' I can´t admit my innermost feelings to another human being. I can ´t do that, and I do all of that. I do All of that, and the reason I do it is because of Alcoholics Anonymous. I am a remarkably blessed, grateful human being I am an alcoholic of the hopeless variety. There is no saving me. there is no pulling me out of it there is not saving me I welcomed my own death I embraced my own insanity you cannot pull me out of it and you did you did, I had no idea how to be in the world, none and I am now I pay taxes, I have car insurance, I do these things that other people take for granted that I cherish doing I'm a member of society society. I'm not a part of the problem anymore. I get to be a part of the solution. I get to love and be loved, and I get to let go of that promise I made to myself on that mountain. I get to bury my family, and I get to create a new one. I get to be a part of life and the living of it. And most remarkably for a guy like me is I get to be right here right now. This is the place, this is the moment in my life that I avoid at all costs. I avoid now. obsess. That's why I'm compulsive about, used to be compulsive about every single thing that I do. It's because I've got to avoid now. This moment is no good. That's where I get involved in the struggle. I get involved in it. I'm not involved in the attainment of the goal and all that matters to a guy like me is achieving the goal. So I struggle and I struggle and I let no one into my life and I don't let no one get me off of this and I go and I go and get this because I must have it and I have this. I've got to have that. Get get me that. Get me this. I need this now. And I don't even know I got this anymore. I've got to have this now and I'll struggle and I will get this. So, I mean, happiness for me was just this blip on the screen. You know what I mean? Struggle, struggle, struggle, struggle. Happy. Struggle struggle, happy. By the time I realized this, I was 37 years old and I had been happy maybe six minutes my whole life. Because it's when they say one day at a time and be here now, this point right now, turn it over. I found out what that means? Turn your will and your life over to the care of God. That's what that means. I didn't know that. Being here is very difficult for me as an alcoholic. It's a hard place for me to get. There's a guy wandering around in the program who says, I just need to get between those. If I could just get in there, if I could get in here, I could be here. I understand that, man. I mean, I don't need to be right here. Where the hell is my life? It's right here, right now, this moment. This is my Life Now. This this is where God is. This is where you are. This is what loving and being loved is. This is were my dignity and my honor as a man is, my integrity is. This is wher I discover that to be a man for me is to be able to be gentle enough with myself and gentle with other people. I didn't know anything about any of this stuff and stuff that I could go on forever and ever and ever about. I didn' t know any of these stuff. I learned it in these rooms. If you're new, God bless you. Congratulations that you've been able to turn around and walk back into the teeth of your disease and put your shield and your sword down, man, and stagger into these rooms and try something new. Nobody... If you don't know what's going on, if you don'T get it, if you DON'T understand it, if it scares the hell out of you, if these people piss you off, perfect. Don't worry about it. It's not required. That is not required The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. That's it. If you want to stay, Today, there's a few other things you might want to look into. They're in this book. They're In This Book. And these people can show you what's in this book. We don't expect you to have faith in Alcoholics Anonymous. How could you possibly have faith in something you have no experience with whatsoever? It's not necessary for you to Have Faith In Something You Know Nothing Of. What you can do is the same thing I did. All you've got to do is make a conscious decision to trust somebody. You can make that decision to trust someone. And you'll stand there, and you're in that minefield of the first year, and you say, excuse me, pal. I'm standing over here, and I don't know where to step next. And the guy will say, well, based on my experience, I stepped over there,and it went pretty well. Take that step. And then the next one, and then the Next one, and then The next one. And at some point in your early sobriety, whether it be 30 days or 6 months or 12 weeks or whatever, you'll be able to look back over your shoulder, and you will see that your life has gotten better. That's your experience. You can have faith in that. That's something you can have faith in. So now you've made a decision to trust, you've taken some action, you have some faith based on that, and now you move forward like your life depends on it because if you're anything like me, it does. So if you knew, please stay. Find the miracle that's in here. There's lots of wonderful books you can go out there and read. You can go read the Bible and you can read the mustard seed and the Tibetan book of the dead and the way of the peaceful warrior and the sermon on the mount and all this great stuff. I've read them all. Great stuff. Availed me nothing. The magic that happens in here Is it one alcoholic gets down in the dirt with another alcoholic two people with a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body? They share their experience strength and hope with each other and they rise up out of that hopeless state And they lead valuable productive lives. They get to come to Laughlin, Nevada And hang out with a bunch of other alcoholics. I mean look at these people right don't let this pretty picture fool you You know but look at how I mean these are Alcoholics you know could not stop couldn't stay stopped We're all sitting in here with varying degrees of sobriety, you know, just kind of taking little peeks at contentment and peace and the promises that were read at the beginning of the meeting. This is a beautiful, beautiful thing and I for one am extremely grateful to be a part of this thing, to be an alcoholic that's a member of Alcoholics Anonymous over 12 years doing my thing, living my life. All of it's been a gift of Alcoholic Anonymous. Thanks a lot. Thank you.