A Frightened Child Facing the Spiritual Malady – Earl

Hi, everybody. My name is Earl. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Earl. Hi, everyone. It's an honor and a privilege to be here. Dude with the bird on his shoulder. Anyway. I want to thank the committee for asking me to share here. Like I said, it's an honor to do so. I want thank my friends for picking me up at the airport in Oakland and driving me down here. Good to see all you guys again. I spoke up in – where the hell was that? Where? Danville a little while ago, and we got to meet then, and here we are again. Thanks. And can I sponsor C-Dubs? Good to See You, man. Great. friends it's great yeah safe place so and i have on a coat and tie uh i said that for my sponsor i uh i didn't start drinking when i was 12. i waited as long as i possibly could i i had been restless irritable and discontented for some time prior to that um I had a tendency to engage in bizarre behavior. And my parents would test me, get me tested. I was sleepwalking and talking in my sleep when I was four. I'd get up in the middle of the night and turn on the lights as I'd go through the house and stand at the foot of my parents' bed and talk for a while, scare the hell out of my friends, walk back through the House, turn the lights off as I was going to get back in bed, right to the psychiatrist. The answer they had was every night before I'd go to sleep They'd give me a tablespoon of this liquid And I would drink this stuff and it would knock me out No more sleepwalking, no more problem And I think subconsciously I got the information very early in my life That if you don't like the way things are going Take something And it'll take care of the symptoms And I kind of filed that away for future reference And went into what I call the black hole in my childhood I don't remember a whole hell of a lot And I've stayed sober long enough to know that I don't go looking under rocks anymore. Something comes up, I deal with it. If it doesn't, I leave it alone. On to age 12, 12 years old, they did an IQ test on me. It turned out I had a very high IQ. I don' t have it anymore, so I'm not bragging. It's gone. So my father decided it was time for me to become a man. I was, after all, 12 years old, 5 feet tall, 104 pounds. And I was on the brink of manhood. And Dad decided it was time for me to get off from underneath my mother's wing and ship me off. What the hell are you all over on that side for? One lonely guy down over there. What's your name? What's her name? Charles. Charles is looking at me like, Why are you talking to me in the middle of... Somebody go sit with Charles, for Christ's sake. Thank you. I'll leave you alone now, Charles. I apologize. And I mean... I was like... Anyway. He decided it was time for me to become a man, So I got admitted to this boarding school, right? And the way I found out I was going to boarding school is my father walked in my room and said, get in the car. I got in the card, and we had a whole caravan of family members, and we drove and drove and driven. We drove to this place, and I get out of the car, and he got out ofthe car, and nobody else got outofthe car. He put a suitcase down next to me and shook my hand and said,"This will make a man out of you." Got back in thecar, and everybody drove off. and the fact was that I was being given an opportunity for a wonderful education held me in good stead to this very day the feeling was that I'd just been thrown away by the people who knew me best in the world and it was devastating emotionally I was mortified turns out that I'm in a school of 250 boys they've scoured the earth to find 250 of the brightest most disturbed young boys they can find it's like Lord of the Flies in this joint every guy in there There's 13 to 18. They're all teenagers, and me. I'm the youngest and the smallest kid in the whole school. And that doesn't mean anything to anybody except a 12-year-old. When you're 12, you want to be a teenager. They're also teenagers. They're not teenagers. I'm not. I lose. I hate this place. Right? So I call home for three days, just terrified of my own shadow. I call him around the clock for three nights, talking to my mother, saying, You know, please, you've got to come get me. You've gotto come getme. Big mistake, big mistake. No harm, no foul. Just come getmeme, you know, and everything's good. In the background, you hear my father, hang up. My mother's like, all right. And after three days, it was like something broke inside me, and I thought, you know what? You don't want me. I don't wants you. I turned my back on my family, and pretty much never went back. It was like some thing broke inside. And I had no tools for living. I had idea how to be in the world. I didn't know how to do anything. I was 12 years old, right? And I'm walking around trying not to make eye contact with anybody, and I met Tiny. Every high school's got a guy named Tiny. You know, he's 6'4", 240, plays guard on the football team. Actually, Tiny found me and he walked up to me and said, how you doing, bunk? And he slapped me in the back of the head, sent me and my books flying. And I had this like out-of-body experience where you watch yourself doing something while your head's saying no. It's a very bad idea. And I walked up and I hit Tiny as hard as I could, which, yeah, it was a good idea. It was like it had no effect on Tiny. Tiny just kind of looked down at me and she said, you got a lot of guts, kid. He beat the crap out of me, ran on the spot. And as I'm taking this beating, I'm thinking this is going pretty good because I'd taken the beatings before. Mine was not a fun-loving household that I grew up in. But the most important thing to me was that Tiny had said you got a lot of guts, kid. My violence had masked my fear. I was terrified of Tiny, but he didn't know that because I had attacked him. So my first tool for living was when frightened, attack. No one ever thinks you're frightened if you're climbing across the table at them. So that was my first tool for living. So I go back to my dorm room, and I'm in my dorm room just with knots on my head, waiting for the bleeding to stop, thinking my life sucks. And word spread across this campus in like 30 minutes, watch out for this little Hightower kid. He's a maniac. He attacked Tiny. Which I did not do. So now I've got this reputation as this little maniac, and it has nothing... I'm a frightened child. That's who I am. But I've Got This Reputation, so the cool guys start coming around, right? This is 1965. Right? And 1964. This is Matt. Matt came by. I didn't know who Matt was. It's this guy, right. Matt comes around and he sticks his head in my dorm room and he goes, yo, you want to smoke a joint? I just looked at him and I said, well, yes, I do. Yes, I did. And I didn' t even know what he was talking about, right I didn''t even know that meant. All I heard was, you want to come with us? And the answer was yes. I was alone in the universe. I had just been thrown away by the people that knew me best in the world. I'd been attacked by a very large person. Some guy walks in and said, do you wantto come withus? Yeah. He could have said, we're going to go kill the Spanish teacher. Do you wanto come? I would have said yes, I do. I will go withyou. And so we left and we went and we picked up Steve. And Steve had a Tupperware container wrapped in aluminum foil. And he was carrying it like it was real important. and we went behind the dormitory, me and two 13-year-olds. A 12-year old through two 13 year olds, Matt and Steve. Children! Children! You know, between the three of us, we shaved like once every other week, you know? And Matt fires up the joint, takes a hit, and hands it to me, and I just did what he did, and that was nasty. He's burned my lungs. It's like, you don't know, it's great, that's great. That's great." And then Steve's over there, and he's unwrapping the tinfoil, I'm very serious about this. And he's got a Tupperware container full of cheap red wine. I mean that cheap, no grapes involved red wine, you know what I mean? The fortified stuff, right? And he takes a pull and it comes around and I take a pull on the wine and it burns my stomach and I think, God, man, this is nasty. And I'm standing there and I'm thinking, my life sucks. I got knots on my head, you now. My family's throwing me away. I got the lungs are burning. The stomach's burning. I'm standing with these two total strangers, me and Steve. Tiny's out there somewhere. I hate my life. I hate it. I hate that I hate in my life, and I mean, it happened. That thing that makes me bodily different from my fellows occurred, you know? And suddenly I'm comfortable standing where I'm staying and doing what I'm doing with the people I'm dealing with. Never felt like that before in my whole life. Never felt that good. I was always greatly concerned. Not about anything in particular. I just had this all constant knowing great concern, you know? And it was just lifted off of me. And I don't know, is it the pot? Is it the wine? Is it that I'm standing here with my two very close personal friends, Matt and Steve? I'm feeling that connection. I am. I don' t know, and I don''t care. You know? I don ''t care." I feel good. You know, I'd heard all the stories. You know what I mean? You smoke that weed, man. And you're 30 minutes, you're on your way downtown looking for heroin. There's no need for heroin right then. You drink that evil, you know, that wine, man. You know, next thing you know you're deep in that rum. You're riding the rails like a hobo, shiftless, no good. I didn't feel like going anywhere. I felt very good right there. It was very good. The knots are fading off my head. I got my two bros right here. bring them on bring Tiny on I feel good I feel a new vitality and I go to sleep and I wake up the next morning and I'm fine no phenomenon of craving that I would hear about many years later nothing, just it worked perfectly everything I needed from it I got, no downside, no bad side it worked great I thought, I'm not an idiot, this works I need to do this as often as I possibly can and i did every day for the next 16 years no matter what i was given many many good reasons to stop doing the things i was doing along the way and i never even touched the brakes never touched the breaks because i don't get from alcohol what the normal man gets from alcohol i'm not there doing the same thing if they you know in that portion of chapter three when they say you know science may one day accomplish you know give us a pill that we can drink like normal man right if they ever develop that pill you can keep the pill i have no interest in drinking like a normal man. Absolutely no interest in two glasses of wine before dinner. I don't understand that at all. I really shouldn't even be commenting on it because I have no experience with it. I don' t know what that's like. But, I mean, my thing is I got this barrel of emotions inside me, right? And, I means, there's all kinds of emotions swimming around up on the top. And I can drink through those like that, man. That's easy. But I mean way down at the bottom of that barrel, that deep undercurrent of my emotional life is fear. That is the thing that ran my life. And that is what I am drinking at. I am drink at the fear. And if it is the last thing I feel, then I have to get drunk to accomplish what I'm there to accomplish. Social drinking doesn't do, all that does is fuel my desire to kill the fear, that's all it does, right? I got to kill of fear. I've got to get drunk. So I got drunk the first time I drank, and I got drunk the last time I drunk. And there were many times in the middle there where I didn't quite get drunk, but I was certainly trying to. It was my goal, I just didn't get there, that's all. I was intervened on by an outside source. I believe in the law, there's a law, a scientific law called the law of inertia, and i believe it's the law an addict. An addict in motion will stay in motion until acted on by an outside force. You know, whether that be God, program of Alcoholics Anonymous, police department, you know, a concrete abutment, you know what I mean? Something stopped, you know what i mean? There's nothing inside me that's able to stop the process. When I start drinking, I can't tell you how much I'm gonna drink, when I'm going to stop drinking. Can't tell you. I can guess, but inevitably, I'm quite wrong. And stopping never really has anything to do with me getting to a place where I can say, no thank you, I've had enough. If I can saying that, it's not true. I have not had enough anyway. Humble beginnings for me, a little pot, a bottle of wine and off I was running. And I'm going to this boarding school and one day a guy says, would you like a pill? And I said, well, yeah. I'll have a pill. Took a couple of pills. 20 minutes later, I'm laying on the floor very happy down there. Took a lot of pills to an all second, all Placidel, all that stuff, right? 14, I was on a 10-hour pass with a girl named Debbie. I love Debbie to this day. Debbie was a bad girl. She was a very bad girl And I have great respect for Debbie to this very day. Debbie was an eye-opener in many ways. And I was hanging out with Debbie, and Debbie said, would you like to drop some acid? And I said, well, of course I would, Debbie. And again, I have absolutely no idea what we're talking about. I don't know what that means. So she takes a lipstick tube out, spins the tube up, and on the end of it's a little pill, and I took it and swallowed it. She said, did you take that whole thing? Again, there's a woman over here who's like, oh, no. And yes, I said, well, yes, I did. She said, that was three hits of white lightning. This woman over here just went, no, that's wrong. Yes, it was. Two days, very, very disturbing couple of days. 650 acid trips later, I got classified legally insane by the military, but that's a whole other story. Fifteen, I started shooting dope, and the only reason I shot dope was I was on a boat in Marina del Rey, and a girl named Cammie walked up to me and said, would you like me to stick this in your body? And I said... yeah, I would. And she did, and I just did this. And on the way down, all I remember thinking was, oh yeah, man. That was like instant what problems. Now I'm talking about drugs and I want to qualify this. I identify as an alcoholic. Alcohol is what brought me to Alcoholics Anonymous. I am however a child the 60s. We were very, very focused on the drugs. Those 60s folk. And the thing is our parents were the alcoholics and we were trying to carve out our own identity. We weren't going to drink ourselves to death the way our parents said. We Were Going To Kill Ourselves In An Entirely New Way. So we were focused on drugs. But here's the truth we know and any real truth I have is in retrospect. I never had any idea what was going on when it was going on. But the truth is this. The drugs would come and go. My drug of choice is what do you got? You know, it's all anti-oral medication. I prefer down and out. I prefer alcohol, heroin, barbiturates, things like these. These are a few of my favorite things. Right? But if you've got a big bag of the cocaine, fine. Can't go down? Let's go up. I'm perfectly happy driving around decoding license plates all night. I mean, I'm happy to do that. I'm unhappy to do it. I'm not happy to do that, but see, the fact is, it's not about up or down, it' s about I got to get out of right here, right now, because right here, and right now I'm self-centered and I'm afraid. Right here, I am comparing my insides to your outsides and I lose every time, every single time. So that was the focus on the drugs, but the drugs would come and go. There was only one thing that was on the table every single day, alcohol. Alcohol was on the table every single day. And I believe the reason for that is, it's my opinion, drugs are completely unreliable. They are. They're completely unre liable. You don't know what you've got to, there's no quality control going on out there. You don't know what you've got till you get it in your body. Right? You do so much cocaine you can't get your mouth open anymore. You know? And it's 730 and the party just started. You've completely overshot the mark one more time, right? Don't worry about it. You got a fifth of gin? You suck a little gin through your teeth, it'll loosen you right up and you can go on with the party. You're fine. Gin is reliable, right. Acid a little too spooky tonight? Don't hurry about it, Jack Daniels will get you back in the comfort zone. Just start nursing that bottle, you'll be all right. So in the end for me, by the end I mean it was just, you know, three grams of Coke a day to keep me on my feet so that I could drink the way I needed to drink. And when I get so sick I couldn't drink anymore, I'd eat about 150 milligrams of Valium a day until I'd get leveled out enough I could go back to drinking. I never detoxed, I just re-toxed, you know what I mean? I was never about getting sober, it was just not an option for somebody like me. I'm wearing out the signers. I'm sorry. She just flashed me a little sign there, did you see that? Anyway, I – where the hell was I? Probably someplace I shouldn't have been. So anyway, yeah, I mean, ultimately when it got to the point in the process of my disease, it was all about alcohol for me because, I meantime, there was no time to mess around. You know what I mean? There was no more time to play at it anymore. It got serious. And when it gets serious and it becomes like breathing for you and you can't get up out of the bed without it, it's got to be alcohol for a guy like me. I've got to go with the big dog because if it's not the big dog, it's going to get me where I've got to get because I'm just way too strung out. Anyway, I dropped out of high school when I was 16, got committed to my first mental institution. They had me in for three months of observation and a year of rehabilitation, which I thought was a little excessive. and they got the signs here, the green lit up exit signs. That's what was in the nut house. They had those, which I thought summed it up nicely. It's all I wanted to do. Exit. They didn't like it in there. Three cups of pills a day shuffling around in there, you know what I mean? With people who were, you know, clearly insane. You know, I was just a little, you know alcoholic drug addict and they didn't know what to do with me so they threw you in the nuts. In the nuthouse, right? So I'm in there shuffeling around and I'm planning my escape and I am having all my meals with this lady named Kilday And Kilday was really nuts. Kildy was crazy. All you had to do to flip Kildi out was look at her and say, Kildly, how you doing? Wow! And she'd just freak out and run off in all the guards and everybody would run to subdue Kildey. So I used Kildays as my diversion when I escaped, when I tried to escape. And I got my little three cups of pills. I'm shuffling around in there and I'm at lunch one day and we're having lunch and I got Kildate flipped out. and she spun off that one and it's ready, ready, go! You know? And I'm hauling ass. That's all I got, you know? And it's this shocking moment when you look at it when you go to make your move and it ain't there. The arms are working and it is like what the hell, man? I got those little three cups of pills a day. You know what I mean? You got two speeds slow and stopped. And you hear from the nurse's station over the last week, you hear, Ed, when you got a minute, do you want to grab Earl? He's making a break for the door. And Ed's in there having a sandwich going, yeah, I'll get him in a minute. He ain't going nowhere. It's like completely demoralizing. And obviously, clearly, I did not have a complete grasp of the situation. Came back to the room with no doorknob, you know, hang out a little while longer. Finally get out, run around, do the stuff that I do. Get the net thrown over me again, back in the nut house. Now I know, I'm like 16 years old. My tools for living are drugs, alcohol, violence, and run. And now I know if you're going to get thrown in the nuthouse like I do, you've got to get out before they get the Thorazine in you or you're leaving when they say. So I'm in the intake process the second time in. And I'm sitting there and I'm going, yeah, yeah. I'm really glad you got me. It's really rough out there. Hey, look at that. And I take off and the whistles are going, you know what I mean? And I've got a guy on my ass chasing me across. I hit this door, and I'm out on this lawn, and there's a 12-foot ivy-colored chain-link fence over there. And I'm just running for this fence, and I got this guy right on my tail, right? At this point, I'm like 16, 17 years old. I'm a high school dropout. I'm an alcoholic. I'm the drug addict. I'm at any moment hopefully an escaped mental patient. This is like my resume, you know? This is what I've accomplished so far. And I think if I make that fence, I don't have a problem because I'll be loaded in 20 minutes to Los Angeles, you know? Not difficult. Make the fence them out, hit the streets for three years doing what we do. Go to a party, meet this woman, we talk for 20 minutes, so we're in love. We decide, well, we've got to build a life around this deep, meaningful relationship we're having now. So I go on an interview for a very good business college in Northern California, not far from here, across the way. And I get accepted on the interview. You know how we talk, you know what I mean? He was a musician, so I was a magician. You know, his favorite color is blue. That's astonishing. It's my very favorite color, blue. You know? He was lined up with him and he knew that I would be. I remember him saying, you'll be a fine addition to our campus in the fall. And I remember thinking, if I got this guy snowed. So I go back to LA and I said to my father, look, I got accepted to business college. Don't ask. Give me a year's tuition and I'm out of town. He said, beautiful. Wrote me a check. Me and my lovely wife-to-be, I actually married her for one day. I left after the reception she knew me pretty well it didn't surprise her at all her name was Rosemary they just said he's gone I mean I looked around the reception and I thought we've peaked I'm out of here and she she just like well that's her you know it was like no big deal to her she didn't expect me to stay I don't know what she was thinking about but she was the woman who used to say to me things like I'm too high So, I mean, I knew it wasn't going to work. It's not going to work. She's still alive. It's remarkable. Not many people back then are. Anyway, we move up north. We threw all our belongings and eight pounds of hash in the back of this truck and drove to Northern California. She gets a straight job. I'm going to college. They give me a year's tuition up front. The transcripts are in the mail. I go down to the local high school to get my GED because I don't even have a high school diploma and I'm gone to college, right? I've got this whole scam going with the college. I've become a drug dealer. I have no problem becoming a drug dealer because at this point in my life, by now, I mean, I have no ethics. I have No Morals of any kind. I have NO sense of family. I have 노 sense of community. I'm just out there on my own doing what I do, trying to find my way. I've Got like a head of state as a client. You know what I mean? I've GOT clients. I'm studying marketing, production, business production, distribution in school. My business is booming. I'm loving college, right? Show me all the little tricks of the trade. It's very funny, though, when you sit in a drug deal and start discussing with a guy who's just whacked. Start discussing Veblen's Law of Conspicuous Consumption. And they look at you like, huh? Never mind. I was real high in class one day, and that one stuck. And I'm 20 years old and got diagnosed with malignant cancer. So, I flew back to L.A., had major surgery on my upper back. They told my parents that I was probably going to die. They prepared me to die, and I remember looking at them and thinking, you don't even know who you're talking to. I'm twenty years old, and I've already overdosed so many times. It's like dying, it's like, you know, that comes up like twice a week the way I'm living. You know, it'S not really a threat to somebody like me. And so they put me, they do major surgery in my back. They put me in the nuclear medicine program, They called it back then, now it's chemotherapy. Then it was nuclear medicine. Very intense. And I used to make them come out in the hall and shoot me up with the stuff. I didn't like the buzz I was getting off their meds, so I stopped doing it. Went home and got loaded the way I get loaded, and I beat the cancer thing. I'm a long-term cancer survivor. Anyway, sailing along, go to USC for a while while I'm recovering from the surgery and get done. I come back up north here to go to school. I got an early acceptance to go TOSC law school. I'm editor-in-chief of my college newspaper, you know what I mean? I got a nice front set up. You know what I mean? People look at me going, you know, the way you're using is out of line. I'm going, hey, hey. I'm looking at cancer. You got malignant cancer? No? Right? Then you don't understand the stress I'm under. You going to law school? I don't believe you are. A lot of stress over here. Right? I got an newspaper to run. What are you talking about? I got all this stuff. People just like, all right, allright,allright,alright,and they just back off me and let me drink the way I wanted to drink. And that was all, all that stuff was for anyway, was to say to you, look what I'm doing. Leave me alone. Let me drink the way I want to drink. So my mother calls me and says, look, we haven't been anywhere as a family in 10 years. Your 22nd birthday is coming up. Let's just go somewhere as a Family, put this Family back together, crying, doing all that mother stuff. I said, fine. So I flew back to L.A., and I was having one of those, you know, jaw lock-up mornings. You know what I mean? It's been a long night. and i showed up just gacked and uh we got in a plane to fly to uh la to uh from la to guadalajara in mexico and on the way there the plane crashed and my mother my father my little sister were all killed in the crash and i wasn't and i woke up on a mountain in mexico and my mother was laying right over there my little Sister Kimberly was laying right over here and my father was laying right over there. And I had a fractured skull. My back was broken in three places. I had a crushed leg and arm. I Had a lot of internal injuries, I had metal sticking through my arm. Um, I was paralyzed in the waist down and I was awake. And the only thing I could move my right arm and I could not get to any of them to help them. I couldn't get, I wanted to try to help him in some way and I couldn t get to them. And l laid there and I watched them all bleed to death. And i had a little conversation with God and I said you know And any God that would take a kind, gentle creature like my little sister Kimberly and leave a lying, cheating, thieving, dope fiend like me on the planet, I got no use for a God of this type. And I renounced God. And then some guys came up and they scavenged the plane wreck. They took what they could find that they thought was of value, took the money out of my wallet, threw it back on my chest, and left me up there to die. And I had no more love for you either. I was out of the game, man. I mean, I'd never been any good at you. You know what I mean? I'd Never Been Any Good At You Unless I Was Really Well Medicated. I couldn't really even leave the house and get next to you at all, interact with you, exchange thoughts, ideas, feelings of any kind with you. I'd never been any good at other people. And now I saw absolutely no reason to even get into it with you at al. I was an extremely angry, hostile little alcoholic, 22 years old, dying on a mountain in Mexico. Man, I was just enraged. And finally some guys came up, and they put me in the back of a flatbed truck with my mother. and they drove me down the mountain and they tagged her dead and they tagged me dead and they sat there smoking cigarettes waiting for us to die in a Mexican aid station because it's a lot more paperwork if they actually take you to a hospital. And I didn't die. They finally took me to this place called Hospital Fatima in Los Mochos, Mexico. I've actually flown over it since last year. And they took me in there and I came around and there was a scene in that joint. seen in that joint. They found out my name, and that brought the Federales, and the Federalese interrogated me through an interpreter for three and a half days and wouldn't give me anything for paying because they wanted to know what I was doing back in Mexico, which is another story we don't need to get into here. A little difficulty with the Mexican authorities. Anyway, so I finally called a friend of mine in Northern California. I'm up here. An associate from Mexico City. who was living up in this area, and he called down to Mexico City and they flew in a plane and paid some guys off and plastered me from the neck down, smuggled me out of Mexico and got me into a hospital in Southern California. They told me I may or may not walk again. I'd have a withered left hand and be blind in my left eye. I remember it was just so rageful. I remember thinking, you don't even know who you're talking to, man. The way I've lived, there's nothing. I'm walking out of this joint. And I did. I got a back brace and I got cane. It was crazy. And I spent a long time in there. I came out of there strung out on Demerol and I went on my last run, and it lasted for six years. And you've got to understand, the way I was drinking and using, I didn't have any anchors. Do you know what I mean? I didn'T have a family I was trying to keep it together for or a job or a career I was trYING to keepit together for or a wife or kids. There was nothing in my life that said, You've gotto hold it together. I was just loose and letting it rip. And my job was to just be in the world and let you know how little I cared about what you thought. You got drugs, alcohol, sex, money, information on how I can get any or all of the above? Let's talk. You don't? Next. Step off. I don't want to get to know you. Why the hell would I want to gets to know YOU? They knew me better than anybody in the word and they threw me away. What would possibly motivate me to want to... Do not confuse me with someone who wants to hear about your day. I don't want to hear About Your Day. I've watched you all sitting around telling each other about your day. Not interested. Don't care. You having a bad day? So what? I don' t care. You want to Hear About a Bad Day? I'll tell you about a bad day. A bad day is sitting here listening to you. Get away from me. I mean, and I just, I sealed up tight, and I was alone, and I stayed alone. And I drank and used like a madman. I was sober on three occasions in the last six years. They were for 72 hours each. There's a little bootleg sanitarium in Hollywood you could go in, give them your wallet, your car keys, your gun, your money, give them 150 cash, and they'd take you and strap you to a gurney, shoot you full anti-convulsants, and let you rock. And you'd kick like a dog. And if you got out of it alive, they'd send you home. If not, they sent you to Morgan. They didn't really care which way you went. and I kicked like a dog in there three times I remember the last time I kicked in there I reintroduced myself to God and I said you know what I can't take the madness anymore man I can not take the violence I can take the extreme nature of this life I cannot take it anymore I know I am an alcoholic I know that I know my drug addict if you get me out of this sane and alive I will never ever ever ever drink again as long as I live and I mean that with every fiber of my being and I did and I got up off that gurney and I was still alive and I drank for another two years I could not stop drinking Couldn't stop. Could not stop. Could not be in the world without alcohol. Could not do it. In the end, I was drinking. I'd wake up. I couldn't go to sleep unless I had a bottle waiting. I couldn'T drink at all. If I woke up and there was no alcohol in the house, it was a terrifying experience for me because now you have to get up, get dressed, find a car, get to the liquor store, get the guy to open up, get the guys to open the door, get back in the car, crack the bottle, start drinking. It's too much. I can't do all that. I have to wake up and grab the bottle. And I'll do eight ounces of Jack, hold on to it as long as I can, throw it up. Drink another eight ounces, hang on to It as long As I can throw it Up. By now my stomach is anesthetized just enough that I can Throw another eight Ounces down and it will sit. And I can start to get the madness off Of me. And I could start to just, because I'm not Drinking to catch a buzz anymore. There's no buzz in it. I'm drinking to get to zero. I'm trying to get The pain and the madness Off me. I'm trying to get to zero, because that's as high as I ever get anymore. And I did that right up until the bitter end. And when I came out of my last blackout, I was 27 years old. Both my hands, I'd broken 74 bones. I had over 650 stitches in me. I'd been stabbed twice, shot at. The violence had been insane. They were deciding whether or not to charge me with attempted murder again. My family was dead. I had no friends. I had nowhere to live. And that was just the outside stuff, you know? That was the easy part. The hard part was that I had become such a soulless, dark, lonely, isolated human being. I wasn't connected to another human being on the face of the earth, and I hadn't been for years. And that's what broke my back. That's what absolutely broke my bank was that lack of connection. I just couldn't bear it another second. And I threw up two busted hands, and then I said, help. And they took me, and they pumped my stomach, and They took me to another place, kept me five days of detoxes, getting worse, get him out of here. They took me by ambulance to another place. It was a room at Long Beach General Hospital with 42 cots in it, 21 cots on each side of the room with a sheet drawn between them. And they were free. And my cousin, my second cousin, knew the doc who was running the deal, and they got me in. And how you earned your cot was you stayed in it. And you didn't get any meds. You didn't gets shit. Lay there and kick. That's how you earn your cot. And if you buck up right out of that cot and throw a seizure, They'll hit you with some anticonvulsants and throw you back up in the cot. How bad do you want this cot? That's how you, so I mean, hang on, I hung on to my cot, bucked right out, they gave me the anticonvolsants, threw me back in the pot, and I stayed 12 more days in that cot. And how you got out of detoxing into rehab was they'd give you one of those little styrofoam cups, you know, and they'd fill it about a third full with decaf. And if you could, with one hand, pick it up and get a sip without spilling any of it, On to rehab. You were through detox, yeah. And I remember I'm sitting in there and, I mean, you'd see guys break fingers, you know what I mean? Holding on to the chair they were sitting in. And they'd throw a seizure and just snap fingers, right? Nobody slept. Sleep with 42 guys in one room kicking? Please. You're not sleeping, right. It was Dante's Inferno in there, man. I mean you're looking around going, I belong in here with that guy. He realized, that guy's nuts. He's gone and you belong here with him. You fit right in with these guys, right? And you go on to rehab and you meet the doc. And I remember we were sitting in the room and I was just freaked out because I had nothing left. It was like, hmm, let's see, what will I do today? Right? Like I got some kind of a social calendar going on. You know what I mean? It's over. And then there's this doc, Dr. Vicki Fox. She saved a lot of alcoholics, man. She came walking in theroom. And everybody, she's the kind of woman, she walked in the room and all the little guys in there kicking just all went. She had like a hair up and a big beehive thing on her head, like a pencil stuck in it. Always wore a sweater and she had the glasses on the chain, right? And always had a stack of files with manila files on her arm and a cigarette. She'd stick a cigarette in the corner of her mouth and light it and just leave it there. Ashes on the sweater, you know what I mean? She walked in and she was from Georgia. and she looked right at me and I thought I was going to have a heart attack, man. She just went and I just and she walked over and she reached over and she put her hand on my cheek and it felt cool. She put her arm on my chick and I kind of went like a dog you know when she stuck her and she said baby you really do need to be here and I said and I was like yeah it was like my first direction It was like I was a puppy, you know. And he's like, stay. Okay, I got that one. I'll stay. And they said go left and I went left. And when I left, they said, Earl, if you don't want to die, you better go to Alcoholics Anonymous because that's the only place a guy like you has a shot at life. I said, okay. I had been beaten into a state of reasonableness by alcoholism. And I ended up in the basement of a church on a Friday night at 830 meeting of Alcoholics Anecdotes, Tri-God Group in Culver City, California. Walked in the back door, walked in, and I was nuts. Nuts. And I walked in the back, and I sat down in the back, my back against the wall, because I had kicked, but I had a head full of alcoholism, man. Just raging. Raging. All my old ways and all the ideas. I walked into the first thing I wanted to know was where are the doors and windows? I walk in the room, I want to know every way in and every way out. Now I want to know who's got the juice in here. Who's got the juice. So I'm watching these people operate and trying to find out who's the guy whose conversation I will be burglarizing. he's got the juice, he's got the power, he knows what's going on. I'll just slide up next to him and I'll listen to what he's gotta say and I will burglarize your conversations and get what information you have about how you live in this world and don't drink and then I'm out of here because I don't join stuff that was my big plan and to keep all y'all off of me alright? Don't want to chit chat don't like the chit chat thing and y'al chit chat a lot and I'm in the back and the guy All the old-timers, they knew who I was. I was a frightened newcomer. I'm no tough guy. I was just a frightened new comer. And they were all like, glad you're here, brother. Get yourself a cup of coffee and have a seat. I just, meh. Except for one guy, right? One guy saw me, and all he saw was, new guy! Because he had about nine months, and it just caught fire with AA. He's going to give it away tonight. So he comes racing down the aisle with me with his hand out, right. And I'm mad dogging this guy like crazy, right, like, do not come over here. Don't do it. Bad thing's going to happen. You come in this. I'm trying to get him off course any way I can. He's not having it. He walks right up and goes, hi, I'm Vegas. I'm an alcoholic. And I said, so what? Ain't exactly the highlight of my life. I don't know what you're so thrilled about. Get away from me. And he looked at me and said, keep coming back. And he got the three guys standing over there who all go, man, that was good. Did you see that? He told them to keep coming. Keep coming back is very good. You know, and I'm watching this thinking, this sucks. Right? Keep coming back. Right? I mean, when I'm pacing and getting my hour of sleep tonight, which is all I'm getting at this point, right? I'm pasting the room about to lose my mind. I'm sure that keep coming back thing is going to be really handy thanks to Las Vegas. Right? And apparently there's some deep spiritual significance to keep coming back. Those three guys commented on it. We all saw that. So you all know the deep spiritual significant to keep going back. I don't. You win. I'm the loser. I'm liking this AA thing so far. I hate you. Luckily for me, I got no place else left to go. Well, I gotta sit here and put up with you idiots. So I'm sitting in the back, right? If you're new and they do that to you, I hope you have more courage than I did where they come up and they go, hey, keep coming down. One day at a time. And my personal favorite, just turn it over, will ya? Step up. Say, excuse me, I don't understand the deep spiritual significance of just turning it over. Would you mind expanding on that for me a little bit? Where I got sober, if they tell the truth, about 75% of them would say, I don' t know what it means either. They said it to me when I came in. I'm just saying it to you. I don''t know what the hell it means. Hey, there's a guy over there who reads the big book. Let's ask him. Maybe he knows. Usually it's hanging on a scroll about three by seven feet right on the wall right there, right? Anyway. Just my opinion. So I stayed and I sat there. And this old-timer got up and he shared his experience, strength, and hope. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. I didn' t know that's what it was. Right? But I remember this guy getting up there and he had a grace and a dignity about him. He seemed to be comfortable with himself. And he just seemed to able to tell the truth about the feelings. his feelings as a man. How he would wake up in the morning with his head just chewing on him, you know? I mean, he would just open his eyes and his head would say, well, glad you're awake. We got a few things we want to talk to you about right now. First of all, you're a miserable piece of shit and you'll never amount to anything. You know, just incoming, you Know what I mean? It's just, it's on him. Right? And he would get up and say, thanks for sharing. You know what I'm meaning? Go take a shower and get dressed, go to work, give him an honest day's work, go get something to eat, go to a meeting early, right? Be there talking to him. And he wouldn't go to one meeting to see what the meeting had for him, what do you got for me tonight? He would go to a meeting to be of service to the meeting because he'd worked the 12 steps as outlined in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. He'd been restored to sanity, soundness of mind. He'd being relieved of the obsession to drink. He had had a spiritual awakening as the result of working on the steps and he wasn't there to take anymore. He was there to be of service, to give. So he'd come to meetings to be there for the newcomers to let them know that there was a light ahead. There was a life ahead and he would be there for them. And then he would go home and he'd be of services to them and he could go home and no wreckage. Head chewing on him all day, no wreckage. That was astonishing to me. All day, head chewing on you, no wreckage? Didn't snap at anybody, didn't hit anybody, didn't threaten anybody, didn't steal anything. I mean, a look can be a violent act. You know, some of us. I thought that's amazing. I mean I wake up, wreckage! It just happens every day because I'm so frightened all the time, right? I just create problems all around because you keep coming up to me and asking me questions I can't answer. Like, how are you? What's going on? How you doing? Jesus, man, I'm being put on the spot constantly. And I thought that's amazing. But I mean, I sat back there with my arms folded in my best look of disdain, right, thinking this is amazing. And then it was like he looked right at me and he said, you know what, I don't care whether you like what I got to say or not. You don't like it, go to another meeting. I thought, this is great. I love that. Because it made it clear to me, this guy's not selling me something, he's sharing it with me. If I want it, I can have it, it's for free. Don't want it? Cool, go to Another Meeting, maybe you'll hear somebody you can identify with there. Good luck to you. I though, this is cool, I'm coming back. And, I've never left. I've stayed with you ever since. If i don't do anything stupid, well let's just put it this way, I been sober 21 years, 11 months. And believe me, you're not applauding me or my best thinking, okay? You guys are applauding yourselves because the reason that I have 21 years and 11 months of sobriety has absolutely nothing to do with anything I brought to you. It has everything to do mit what you offered me when I got here. That's what it has to do it. Alcoholics Anonymous is the reason that I'm alive and sober and walking on the earth a free man. And I got here, and you guys made it pretty simple for me. You said, you know, they got it here. I mean, some of these things are strangely funeral-like. Which I, of course, took quite personally. You're going to die, Earl. and they've been telling me that since 1968. What the hell was I talking about? Not that it matters. Anyway, they got it real simple for me, right? There's like this triangle with a circle. Ancient spiritual symbol stands for mind, body, and spirit brought together as a whole human being. Therein lies the balance I sought my whole life and never had, drunk or sober. As a newly sober, I was a newly sober maniac. You take a drunk Well, I'm really trying to watch my language. Which is good. Screw it. AA adopted the symbol. It's unity, service and recovery. It's the same thing. Unity is the body. I bring it here. I couldn't get sober but we seem to be able to together. I do this with you. I do this in your company or I don't do it at all. Every guy that I know, every guy that I know that I've sponsored or worked with or been friends with who's gone out and come back, I ask them what happened. They all say the same thing. Well, first I stopped going to meetings. They disconnected from their fellows. I couldn't get, said we admitted we were powerless. Page 30 in the book, it says I must accept in my innermost self that I'm an alcoholic. That's the first step in recovery. Yeah, but the steps, we admitted that. So the unity is the body. I've got to bring it here. I don't have to like this. I don' t have to think it's a good idea. You have to do it. I have to have my feet end up here. I love the guy who shares in a meeting. I'm a lew alcoholic. First of all, I just wanted to say, screw you. Hate your goddamn meeting. You, you in particular, despise you. Sick of it. It's not going to work. Hate it. Thank you for letting me share. you know the meeting at that point goes all right excellent i love that guy because he's bringing what he's got he he was at home feeling that way he got up off his ass got in the car went to an a.a meeting does anybody have anything you'd like to share he said yeah well sure spoke his truth and then shut up and let other people talk. I'm all for that guy. Keep coming back, bro. It will change. It all does. It all Does. I love those guys. So unity is the body. I bring it here. I just got to keep coming. I got to stay connected to you. The recoveries of the mind, the greater aspect of my disease. I have to be... See, I know me. I know. Kicking and even half of it. If kicking was all there was, detox centers would be kicking out winners. It wouldn't be the Betty Ford Center. It'd be the Betty Ford Bed and Breakfast Center. You just go in for the weekend, you know, have a few nice meals, kick. You'd be cool and they'd say, now Earl, you know you're an alcoholic, don't you? Oh yeah, yeah, yes. Now you know that to drink is to die, don' t you? Oh yeah. I do. Now armed with this self-knowledge, Earl, you're going to be a good boy and you're not going to drink anymore, are you? No. No. No. So you go out there and you don't drink no matter what in the world. Oh, yeah. And I'm drunk in the parking lot. Is that Earl drinking in the park? In the parking lots? Yeah! If I can't get comfortable sober, I'm not staying that way. And the only way a guy like me is going to get comfortable clean is if I can be relieved of the obsession of the mind, the greater aspect of my disease. I can't have that beast whispering in my ear all the time. I can' t have it. I can''t fight that off every minute because they talk about these strange mental lapses that we have, these blank spots that we hit. They talk in the book about that time that comes when there''s no human defense against the drink, right? I can ''t be all day with the beast going, How you doing, boy? How you doin'? You all right, Earl? You allright? You know, I think you're having a bad day, bro. And I'm sweet. I've got to commit me cleaning up Ohio Street. My sponsor is standing right over there, right? And the beast is whispering in my ear. I'm looking at my sponsor. He's going, okay, now let's just keep this between you and me. Don't say nothing to him, all right? Smile and wave. Hey, how are you? Okay, that was good. Now let's go back to sweeping up. Now, I just want to talk to you for a minute now. You've been, you know, you've been – I don't know what it is, man. You're a nice guy. You're an amazing person. You're not a good guy. You're lovely person. And people have just been treating you horribly all day. I don't know what it is. It's like you've got a bullseye and you're shooting bullseyes all day long, making cracks, being disrespectful, being rude, being hurtful. I don' t understand. It's a cruel world, girl. It'sa cruel world. And I can see that you're very, very stressed out about it. And we all know the stress is very, very, very, it's not healthy, Earl. It's just plain not healthy. This is a health issue. The stress. And here's what we're going to do. We're just going to go out and have a couple of drinks. Take it easy. Don't overreact. We're just going to go have two drinks. Two drinks. We're going to do it in public. We'll have cocktails. Not even drinks, we'll have cocktails. They're lovely. Two lovely cocktails. In a glass, ice, everything. And we're just going to unwind and talk this through and get through this show because I'm here for you because I love you. I've always been here for you. And I'm sweeping up on High Street looking at my sponsor going, yeah, yeah. I can't have that on me all the time. Because life on life's terms is going to happen. You know what I mean? And when the shit hits the fan and I realize I'm not in charge of the fan, I'm going to start listening to this voice. I've got to be relieved of the obsession to drink. I've Got to quiet that voice down. The only way I know there's only a couple of ways to do it. The recovery of the mind, the greater aspect of my disease. What do I do? Work the steps. While I'm working the steps, what can I do when that's going on? I can be in the meeting and I can go, excuse me, Donald Donald Beast whispering right here. It's happening. He's doing it right now. i'm not i'm surprised you can't hear him because he's pissed now he's yelling at me we're talking to you if you're going to talk to him then we're not talking which is the idea so i got to work the steps the steps are simple the only way to be relieved of the obsession of drinks to work the steps step one is what's the problem lack of power is my dilemma I maybe have it together in every other area, but when it comes to the question of drinking, I'm nuts. Right? That's my problem. Alcoholism is my problem If that's my problems, what's my solution? If I'm powerless, if that's the problem, lack of power, what's My solution? Step two, a power greater than myself that can restore me to sanity, soundness of mind, relieve me of this obsession to drink. Take it off the table so that when I review the options I have available to me for whatever situation is before me, I don't see drinking and using on that table as an option to solve this problem because it will solve no problem that I have or have ever had, ever. It won't do it. So I know what my problem is. I know my solution is. Step three says you better make a decision to do something about this because faith without works is dead. You've got to take action. What action do I take? Get on my knees. Turn my will and my life over to the care of a God I may or may not understand. I don't know about you, but I have a little trouble wrapping my head around infinity. I've tried, you know. I get out there a little too far. I get spooked. I jump back. I don't need to understand it. I just need to see evidence of this power working in my life, which I do all the time. One of the great things about going to meetings is you see evidence of a power greater than us at work. Every day somebody's going, you know, I've had the obsession to use for nine years. God, I need to turn the will of my life over to the care of God. I haven't had the obsession to use in a week. I mean, you hear that stuff from people and you just go, wow. Not my experience, but very cool for you. You know? Evidence. It's there. So four and five is me, six and seven is God, and eight and nine is you. This action plan that I've got to embark upon. Four and five, I swallow large chunks of truth about myself, and before God, read them to another individual. I get them out. Six and seven, I hook it back up with God. Ask God to remove the defects of character because I'll remove the wrong stuff. Eight and nine, hook it back up avec you. Notice, you're last. First, got to get it squared away here. Hook it up here. Now, here I come. Right? Very, very sorry. Here's your money. Back in the house. you know no big lofty tales about hey get a load of me on my bitching little spiritual quest here when you when you hear this you're going to think i'm the greatest really you're gonna love me right no no i'm sorry for the harm and trouble i've caused i'm asking what can i do to make this right i'm sure i stole your car estimate the value of the car at five thousand dollars at time of the theft if that's agreeable to you i will give you a check now and a check every month until that $5,000 is paid and I will not steal a car from you and sell it to pay you for the car I stole from you. To make amends means to change. I've got to change, I've Got to change I'm going to anyway I might as well try to put a positive angle on things, right? 10, 11, and 12 keep me in the game because I've just made a pass at this stuff. 10 me, 11 God, 12 you same stuff. 10 I continue to take personal inventory and when wrong promptly admit it key word there 11 I seek God How? Through prayer and meditation. Why? How do I do that? Through prayer and meditation I pray for knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry that out that's it and I meditate to quiet the mind so that when the answers come I can hear them. Twelve is the third side of the triangle unity is the body I bring it here recoveries of the mind I work the twelve steps having had an awakening is the result of doing that restored to sanity soundness of mind relieved of the obsession of drink walk in the earth a free man I can be a service to other people because now I can give away something because I've got it How can I help? Not because I'm a good guy. Because I don't want to die drunk. I don' t want to die like that. That's why a guy like me that is absolutely terrified of flying will get up on a Saturday morning get on an airplane which is just an absurd thing to do. It's a big metal cylinder with jet engines on it. They just point it and just let it rip. Rocket across the sky at 500 miles an hour with little people in uniforms walking down the aisle smiling at you like, this is okay. It's completely wrong. Sitting next to me in a plane is a horrible thing to do. Because people will start bumping and I'll look at somebody and I say, you know this is wrong, don't you? And they go, no, no everything is okay and I go, well listen to this. By the time we're done they're strapped in so tight man, they've got no blood flow to their legs. It' s like, my number is up, my numbers up. But I mean I can get on a plane to fly here because I get to face my worst fear on a regular basis so that I know I'm willing to go to any lengths to stay sober. It's been a great gift in my life. People think it's like horrible. I travel as much as I do. I do like 100,000 miles a year for AA, right? I get the no. I get no. Other people have to wonder. I don't get no, but I'm willing to go any lengths and stay sober, and I am. I am because it's the foundation of my life if I walked here with a free man. I was a slave to drug and alcohol for 16 years, 16 years on a daily basis. I had no idea that I could live as a free man and I've been free for 21 years, you know, and my life has gone. I've had some terrible days sober, absolutely terrible days. Life has terrible days in life. There is suffering unavoidable and I have suffered sober for days. I have had 21 wonderful years. There's a big difference. If you're new. Take your turn. Come catch a buzz, man. There's a big serious buzz going on here. This ain't about just not drinking and using. This is a design for living. There are spiritual ideas and universal truths afoot here that have gone on since man's been able to write stuff down or communicate to one another. Thousands of years these truths have been presented to us over and over and again in many different forms. They've been put together in a way specifically for us. It's called The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's that doctor's opinion in that 164 pages and the 12 steps are outlying there. This process that we undertake that changes us, that allows us, alcoholics to walk the earth free men and women. It's an amazing thing. You've got to take your turn and you don't have to be good at it. This ain't about being good atit. We're about immediate gratification. I mean, when I'm using it, I think I can make any situation that's good, I can makes it better in six seconds. If I've got a bad situation going on, I can definitely have it. Eleven seconds, it's gone. No memory of that feeling whatsoever. You know how to do that. In here we go through the process of having that available to us at all times. Using, the best buzz I ever got was right up front. That bottle of wine, that cheap red wine in that joint. Best buzz I've ever had and I chased the tail of that dragon for 16 years. Slowly over time, the price I paid for that buzz got greater and greater and greater and the buzz I got became less and less and less, until at the end I was paying a horrible price just to get to zero. In here, you work real hard up front. It's the exact opposite. In hier, you struggle in the beginning. You got no tools for living. All you got is a genuine, well-deserved terror of that beast right outside that door. And you're scared to death you're going to have to go back into the madness because that's been your experience up to this point. So you come in here and you scratch and you claw and you wrestle with concepts that you're not really comfortable with and you don't know that much about, and you scrap and you claw and you get the unthinkable. The unattainable happens for you. You get a 30-day chip. Most powerful event in Alcoholics Anonymous in my opinion. You get that 30- day chip. And you get a little bit of buzz after a huge amount of effort. And then you get an 60-day ship and a 90-day trip and a 6-month trip and 9-month trip. And then you get the unthankable. A year of sobriety. And then you keep going, and you keep going, and you realize life is happening. While you're focusing on your recovery, your relationships are healing. Your mind is calming down. You don't have the yips anymore. You know what I mean? You're not just talking to people, you know, standing around just... Because your brain got momentarily confused and didn't know what to do and it said, shit, throw something. Your brain's calming down, you're starting to interact with other people. They come up and they ask you how you're feeling, and you can actually tell them. And then you do the impossible. You ask them, and how are you? And you actually stand there waiting for them to tell you because you're mildly interested. It's astonishing. You realize that the distance between us no longer separates us. It connects us now. You start catching the buzz. And all of a sudden, you don't need the peak experience. Out there, I need, the only way I could feel anything is, I mean, I had an exciting night if I heard a bullet go by. Well, that was exciting, right? Yeah, because I was so dead inside it would take an event like that that made me feel like, wow, that Was cool. Or I'm in an emergency room getting another 50 stitches thinking, I had a great night. In here you get to learn how to marvel in the ordinary. Last story. Stand in front of my house, Studio City, California. First house. Have a front lawn. Now, to somebody like me, this is like uncharted territory. You know what I mean? This lawn area. So I go out one day to inspect the front lawn area, and I'm standing on the front line, and there's like plants and grass and flowers and things, a little fence. The hose over there, clearly you turn the hose on, water comes out of the hose, and you sprinkle the water around, and I've driven by places and seen guys doing this, right? They hit the hose and I turn it on, I'm wrinkling the water around, you know, a little over there, a little there. And all of a sudden, catch the buzz. I catch the buzz, I go, hey, this shit's alive. They're taking in carbon dioxide and they're breathing out oxygen. I'm breathing in oxygen. Kicking out carbon dioxide. Got a little thing going here. Me and my brothers and sisters here. I give them water, they love me, there's a little for you, my brother. There's a little water. Huh? We got it going now. Sun's coming through the trees, a little dew on the grass, right? A little reflection, right. I've done my psychedelics, I'm digging it. A little prismatic effect going on. I'm buzzing, man. I got goose bumps. I'm digging the front lawn, right? Guy drives by, sees man on lawn watering plants. Absolutely not what's going on. Man on front lawn catching serious buzz. That's what's gone on, right, and that's life. I mean, you guys think nobody ever got high like you. Please. Right, this is a room full of dead people sitting up pretending they're paying attention to me, right. Out there, the normies, they run up to the edge of the cliff and they go, oh, the cliff! And they jump back. This room is filled with the people that don't even stop, man. They just run and leap into the abyss, right? And we land in hospitals and prisons and mental institutions, graveyards, and here. This is really the only place you can find us where we're loose. They shifted again. So all I want to say to you is come catch a buzz with us, man. Come marvel in the ordinary. Come find a design for living. It's way past not drinking and using. It's about having a good time. Take your turn. If all you heard today was wah-wah-wah, right? Perfect. You stayed. You stayed here. You rode the whole damn thing out, right, That's your victory. Those little victories are real. They count. The idea for everybody in this room is to try to get to bed tonight without getting drunk or loaded. And if we do, we win. We win. It doesn't matter. I don't care if the wheels fall off. If you're here feeling like you're ready to kill yourself or several other people at any moment, perfect. We get it. We get het. Right? You're here and you're afraid and you don't know how you're going to stay sober the rest of the day. Just say the hardest word to say for us. Help. Just say help. Just say health. We'll be there for you because we love you. We don't even know your name and we love you because мы know what you had to do to come in here and sit in that seat, right? We know. Nobody else knows. We know, we know. We love you for that. And we can move through this thing together, together so that great events will come to pass for us and countless others like it's happened in the past. Great events for us addicts. So don't think you're in here just struggling to get on through, man. Come catch the buzz and be with the rest of us. Peace. Thank you.