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

It is indeed my pleasure to announce tonight's speaker, someone that I personally, although I'm not awestruck, have been looking forward to hearing early. I'm an alcoholic. I run my fan club. I'd like to thank the committee for asking me to participate in this event. Always an honor and a privilege. Morgan, for his help, lovely dinner tonight. Old friends that I haven't seen for a while. It's great to see. Welcome to the new people. Congratulations. Buckle your seatbelt. You've had a great day. Today's been a great day. I didn't start drinking until I was 12 years old. I waited until I was 12 because nobody offered me a drink until then. First time I drank, I drank until somebody said, Would you like a drink? And I said, I had been restless, irritable, and discontented for quite some time. As a small child, I would sleepwalk in the middle of the night. I would get up and I would turn on the lights as I would walk through the house and I would go into my parents' bedroom and I'd stand at the foot of their bed and I'd tell them stories about places that I'd been and stuff that I'd seen and scare the hell out of them. And when I was done, I would turn around and I would walk back through the house and I would turn the lights off as I would go back through the house and I'd get back in bed. And they'd follow me in and ask me questions and I'd answer them. Which further... Frightened them. And so they took me to a series of doctors and had a bunch of tests done on me and they determined... What they came up with was that every night when I would go to sleep from that point on, before I'd go to bed, they'd give me a tablespoon of this liquid and I'd drink this stuff and it would knock me out. I was medicated every night. Solved the sleepwalking problem. And I think that I got the information very early in life that if things aren't going the way you want them to, take something. That was the message I got and I just sort of filed that in the memory banks and moved through my life. When I was about 11 years old, they ran... I did a bunch of more tests on me, educational tests, and they determined that I had a very high IQ. I don't have it anymore, so I'm not bragging. That's long gone. But they determined that I had this IQ, so they took a bunch of more tests and they ended up sending me to this think tank boarding school. And nobody told me I was going to boarding school. They just threw me in a car and we drove and drove and drove and drove and drove and drove. It seemed like forever. And we pulled the car over. And I was like... And I was like... And I got out of the car. My father got out of the car. Everybody else stayed in the car. And he came over and he put a suitcase down next to me and he shook my hand and he said, this will make a man out of you. Got back in the car and drove off. Now, the fact was, was that I was being given an opportunity for a wonderful education that would hold me in good stead. It has held me in good stead to this very day. The feeling was, was that I'd just been thrown away by the people who knew me better than anybody in the world. And I had no idea why. It was an emotionally devastating moment for me. It broke my heart. I couldn't understand why they'd just leave me there like that. And I called my mother on the phone, the little pay phone by the dorm, for three days and begged her to come get me. I didn't want to be in this place. And I didn't want to be in this place. It was 250 kids from all over the world. They had scoured the earth to find the most intelligent, disturbed young men they could find. And they'd thrown them all down on this campus. I was going to school with Tanu Sok, Tip Mabutra, and guys like this from all over the world. And we were way too bright for our own good. And we all came from what had just become broken homes, as far as we could tell. And we were a mess. And I called her for three days and said, get me out of here. I hate this place. I was the youngest and the smallest kid in the entire school. Everybody was 13 to 18, and I was 12 years old. And that doesn't mean anything to anybody but a 12-year-old. When you know that everyone is a teenager, which is all you want to be, and you're the 12-year-old, you're the loser, you're out, you know it's never going to work. This is a horrible hell you've found yourself in. I called her. For three days, she wouldn't let me out of the place. And something snapped inside me. And I was like, I hung up the phone that last time. It was like 72 hours. It was my limit. I said, you know what? You don't want me. I don't want you. And I turned my back on my family, and I never went back. And I had no tools for living. I was 12 years old. Who needs tools for living at 12? And everybody's telling you what to do all day long. You do it, or you pay the consequences. So here I am in this place, and I need some tools to get through. I didn't have any. Second or third day there, I'm walking along with my books under my arm, and I meet Tiny. Every high school's got a guy named Tiny. He's like 6'4", 240, plays guard on the football team. I didn't find him. He found me. And I was walking along, trying not to make eye contact with anybody. And Tiny came up to me. He said, how you doing, punk? And he slapped me in the back of the head and sent me and my books flying. And I had never had an experience like this. I didn't know what to do. So I had this kind of like out-of-body experience where you watch yourself doing something while your head's telling you to do something. And I had this kind of like out-of-body experience where you watch yourself doing something while your head's telling you to do something. And I had this kind of like out-of-body experience where you watch yourself doing something while your head's telling you this is a very bad idea. And I walked up to Tiny, and I hit him as hard as I could. And then just stood there looking at him. Like, you know, I don't know what, you know, you're going to have to figure out what's next, man. I don't know what to do now. You know, he looked down at me. He said, you know what, man, you've got a lot of guts. And he beat the crap out of me. And as I'm taking this beating, I'm thinking, this is going pretty well. Because, I mean, I did. I thought it was going pretty well because the truth of the matter was I was terrified of this giant guy. And he had just said, Well, you've got a lot of guts. So my violence had masked the fear. And I thought my first tool for living was violence. When in doubt, attack. Not because I'm a tough guy or a bad guy. I have never been either one of those things. But I have been extremely violent in my life as a result of being a self-centered, terribly frightened human being. That's what's provoked the madness that I have inflicted upon others in my time. So this beating occurs, and I stagger back to my dorm room. And I'm sitting in my dorm room, you know, waiting for the bleeding. It's stopped. And the word spreads like wildfire across this little campus. In like 30 minutes, it's, Watch out for this little Hightower kid. He's a maniac. He attacked Tiny. So I had this reputation as like this little maniac that had absolutely nothing to do with who I was. And it was like the hole was just getting deeper as I went. And the cool guys came around. And Matt came by. I'll always remember Matt. Matt came by. And he came by acting real tough and real cool. He was 13. And he said, Matt. You want to smoke a joint? And I said, Well, yeah, yeah, I do. And I had absolutely no idea what that meant. I didn't know what that meant. All I knew was, is that I was alone in the universe, as far as I could tell. And this guy was saying, Do you want to hook up with us? You want to come with us? And I needed to hook up that. So it would have made no difference what he had said to me. He could have said, Look, we're going to kill a Spanish teacher. Do you want to come? I would have said, I'm with you. Let's go. You know. So. I hooked up with Matt. And I'm down there chatting along behind Matt. And Matt, we swung by Steve's room. We picked up Steve. And Steve had a Tupperware container wrapped in aluminum foil. And the three of us marched off behind the dorm. These two 13-year-olds, Matt and Steve, and me, 12 years old, standing behind this dormitory. And Matt fires up this joint and takes a hit and hands it to me. And I just did what he did. And Steve was unwrapping the tinfoil. And you could tell by the way he was doing it that what was in there was real important. Very carefully unwrapping. And it was a Tupperware container. It was a Tupperware container full of cheap red wine. Extremely cheap red wine. No grapes involved. You know what I mean? That fortified stuff. Fortified stuff. And he took a pull on the wine. And the wine came around. I took a pull on the wine. And I'm standing there. I'm at a complete loss for what's going on. I have no idea why we're doing this. I mean, the stuff burns my throat. And this other stuff tastes nasty. And these guys are standing there going, yeah, yeah, man, yeah, man. And I'm standing there like, yeah, man, I don't know. And I mean, all of a sudden. All of a sudden, it happened. Just like that, it happened. That the thing that makes me bodily different from my fellows occurred for the first time. Those chemicals hit down inside me and just kind of wafted up over me. And for the first time in my life, I was comfortable standing where I was standing, doing what I was doing with the people I was doing it with. I was completely and totally fine right where I was. And I had never felt like that in my life. That is a spiritual experience. You know what I mean? And I went from completely baffled to thinking, hey, this might work out. This lady did not so bad. And I didn't know what it was. I didn't know if it's the pot, if it's the wine, if it's the fact that I'm here with my very close personal friends, Matt and Steve, here with my boys, you know. I didn't know what it was. I thought I'm doing it. But what I noticed immediately was there's no, and I have to remember to this day, nobody died that night. Nobody went to prison. Nobody got locked in a mental institution. You know? I didn't, the demons didn't come and visit upon me. It's just, I just felt better than I'd ever felt in my life. And I got up the next day and I went to class. No, there were no bad side effects. No real serious ramifications to getting high, which dispelled all the myth for me. I thought to feel that good and pay no price for it. Somebody explained to me why I shouldn't be doing this every day. And I began, I made a commitment. They say that we're non-committal people. I disagree. I made a serious commitment that night to do this as often as I could. And I did every day for the next 16 years, no matter what. I got loaded every single day for the next 16 years, no matter what. Given a good reason, I did not stop, which I believe is the difference between me and the problem drinker. You give a problem drinker a good reason to stop, he actually will. I know it's hard for us to believe. But they do. They do. You get another 502, another drunk driving charge, you've got to go before the judge again. The judge says to the problem drinker, I'm sick of you. I see you one more time. You're doing a year in county. We're not going to talk about it. We're not going to discuss it. You're just doing a year. The problem drinker thinks, I don't want to do a year. Actually stops drinking and driving. I start wondering what it's going to be like in jail, because I'm going. I'm going to jail. And I know it. I appreciate the information. Thank you very much. I'm going to pencil in a year here, because we're going to jail. So, I mean, it's humble beginnings for me. A little pot of wine, the magic happened, man. I was on my way, thinking no big deal. 13 was pills, any kind of pills. This guy walked up to me and said, would you like a couple of these? And I said, well, yeah. You know, I have no idea what they are. I took two pills. You know, 20 minutes later, I was laying on the floor, and I was very happy down there. I was just, oh, yeah. This is that real comfortable thing again. I like this. I didn't know that came in pill form. I know you could smoke it. I knew you could drink it, but I didn't know you could pop it like that. This is lovely. So, I did the little pill thing. You know, the second, all the two, and all the Placidil, all that stuff. I did all that stuff. 14 was psychedelics. I was on a pass from this boring school with this girl, Debbie. I had such respect for Debbie, man. Debbie was like 15 and a half. She was an older woman. You know what I mean? She was a bad girl. Right? And I was hanging with Debbie. I was real impressed. And she said, you want to drop some acid? And I said, well, yeah. I have no idea what that is. So, she took this lipstick tube out, and she spun the lipstick up, and there was this little pill on the end of the lipstick, which I thought was very clever that she did that. Oh, you can hide it in the lipstick. That's good. I'm like taking notes everywhere I go. That's good. I like the lipstick thing. So, I just took it off the lipstick thing and popped it in my mouth and swallowed it. And she said, did you take that little thing? And I said, well, yeah. You know, it was a little tiny. I said, pill? You know, I was used to these caps, these capsules. You know, those little things. And she said, well, that was three hits of white lightning. Which, again, meant a little identification in this room. Yeah. But I didn't know what that was. I thought, okay, fine. You know what I mean? And then that kind of like went away for a little bit. And I kind of, the next thing I remember, we decided that we were married. And we had gone to the supermarket, and we were shopping for the family. I'm 14, you know. She's 15. We're going down the little thing. We're going down the little thing with the cart. You know, and I look over and I go, are we, do we have children? She said, yes, we do. I said, well, then we're going to need these pampers right here. And then we got, get in the little thing. And then I just sort of blacked out. And the next two days were real interesting. And I did about 650 acid trips until I was, years later, I was classified legally insane by the military and several other medical organizations. And the. A couple of which still frown on me. You know what I mean? And 15, I started shooting dope. Only because I was at a party. And this girl walked up and said, would you like me to stick this in your body? And I said, well, yeah. I had learned to respond affirmatively to these things. And so she slammed me with this stuff, and I just did one of these. Yeah. And I remember on the way down, all I remember thinking was, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This will work. This will work. This will work. It's just like another color in the paint box. You know what I mean? It's like, you wake up every morning and you go, what will we paint today? You know? A little of that blue stuff, a little of the yellow, a little of the red. Now, you've got to understand something right here. I mean, it's a young people's conference, and I know there's a lot of, what are they, what's the terms that duly addicted people? I identify as an alcoholic. I'm a child of the 60s. I grew up in the 60s. We were carving out our own identity. Our parents were the alcoholics. I wasn't going to drink myself to death like those people did. We were going to kill ourselves in a whole new way. We were very focused on these drugs, and the drugs were what were important to us. And, yeah, they drink. We're the drug addicts. We were very proud of that. We smoked marijuana. You know, we shot heroin. We were bad in our own way. We were bad people. And we liked it like that. The truth of the matter is this. When I look back on my life through inventory work, which is the only reality I have to matrix down upon any of this, was that the drugs would come and go. There was all, you know, it was, I mean, heroin one day. I'm not a specialist. Do you know what I mean? I was not committed to one thing. My drug of choice was, what do you got? Because if I can get enough of what you got in my body, it'll kill the fear, and that's what I'm here to do. It's the fear killer for me. That's what, guess what drinking and using was all about. It was about allowing me to feel comfortable standing where I was standing, doing what I was doing with the people I was doing it with. It wasn't about meeting God. It wasn't about being better than. It was just about evening up and feeling all right just standing right here. That's all it was about. And lots of different things. We'll do that. I drank. I'm an alcoholic. I was a drunk from the first time I drank simply because a couple of drinks won't do it for me. I've got this barrel of emotions inside me, and there's all sorts of stuff swimming around up on the top that I can drink and use through like that. Way down at the bottom of that barrel is fear. Self-centered fear was running my life, and I got to drink all the way through all that stuff and drink at that fear. I drink to get drunk. You can't get rid of the fear in me without being drunk. I drink for the effect produced by alcohol, and what I noticed about the way that I lived was, was that I could do that with lots of things. However, it would be heroin one day, cocaine the next, pills the next, you know, Quaaludes the next, methamphetamine the next. It didn't make any difference. I'd go out to Connect for heroin. They'd say, well, that's it. They'd give me the cocaine. You know what I mean? I'm all set to go down. Ain't available? Then let's go this way. Because all that matters to me is I've got to get out of right here right now. I've got to get out of this place I'm in right now. I've got to get out of this place I'm in right now. I've got to get out of this place I'm in right now. And any of it's out. Just get me out. But I'll tell you this. It would all come and go, but there was only one thing that was on the table every single day, and that was booze. There was always a bottle of booze on the table. If we were fixing, or we were smoking, or we were popping, or we were snorting, or whatever we were doing, there was a fifth sitting on the table. And the reason for that is this. Drugs are unreliable. And alcohol is extremely reliable. I mean, I'm willing to go with the drug thing, you see. However, there's no quality control going on on the street out there. I don't know what I got until I've made my purchase, come home, cooked it up, done whatever I've got to do, gotten it in my body. How'd we do tonight? Well, we got burned. Cracked the fifth. You know? Cracked the fifth. I mean, that's the way it was. Or maybe you got lucky that night. You're at the party, and you've done so much cocaine, you can't get your mouth open anymore. You know what I mean? You just... You know, you're there. You overshot the mark by a long way. You know what I mean? Paralysis is setting in. Don't worry about it, man. Just suck a little gin through your teeth, man. It'll loosen you back up, and you can go back to the party. Keep going. Keep going. Because it was never about, you need to stop. You need to slow down. No, I don't. I just need to change direction. That's all I need to do. It's never about stopping, man. Just change direction. You take too much acid, got a little spooky? Don't worry about it. Jack Daniels will get you back in the comfort zone. Just start sucking on the bottle. Not enough heroin to get to where you need to get, man. That dark, cool, quiet, heart and lungs working place. Nothing else going on. You know what I mean? I mean, you can be on your way to prison, and you can't come up with a problem. You just can't. I can't. I can't. I can't remember any problem. Not enough heroin to get you there? Don't worry about it. Finish off the heroin and pick up a fifth of gin. It'll get you the rest of the way. You can count on the booze. Drugs led me to alcohol, and alcohol led me here. In the end, for me, it was about three, four grams of cocaine a day just to keep me on my feet so I could drink like I wanted to, which was a quart to two quarts a day in the end. And I'd get so toxic that I couldn't drink anymore. I'd eat about 150 milligrams of Valium a day just to get well enough to go back to drinking. It was never about stopping, ever. So 15 shooting dopes, 16 I dropped out of high school. They committed me to my first mental institution. For three months of observation and a year of rehabilitation, which I thought was a little excessive, I was having a few problems. I didn't see anything serious. It required 15 months in a mental ward. So I'm sitting in the... You got them here, the exit signs, the green exit signs. I love those signs. Because I used to sit in that place every day and go, well, there it is, right there. There's the word, exit. That's all I want to do. They boiled it down to one word for me. What do you want? I want that green thing right over there. I would like to exit, please. And they said, well, we'll talk tomorrow. We'll talk tomorrow. We'll talk tomorrow. We'll talk tomorrow. We'll talk tomorrow. We'll talk tomorrow. You know, and they're, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill. And nothing's happening. So one day I decided to escape. And I was sitting in the cafeteria. I used to have all my meals with this woman named Kilday. Because Kilday was a truly insane human being. And she was very fun to have your meals with because you could just say a few things real fast to Kilday and she'd just, ha, and she'd go. You know what I mean? She'd just jack up and she'd go crazy and talk about all kinds of wild stuff. And you'd sit there with your little plastic fork, you know, and eat your little lunch. It was like dinner and a show, you know. Eat a little meal and watch Kilday lose her mind. So I created... I created a diversion with Kilday. And I got Kilday going that way and I was sitting at the table in the cafeteria and I'm like, ready? I'm going to make my break now, man. Ready, ready, go! You know what I mean? And I'm hauling ass. That's all I got. I didn't know about the three cups of pills a day, you know, a little Thorzy shuffle going on there. You know what I mean? I'm thinking, the brain's working at a normal pace and I'm looking. I got the arms working. I'm looking. You know? I'm going very slow for an escape here. And you hear over the speaker system from the nurses, station, you hear, Lou, you got a minute? You want to grab Earl? He's making a break for the door. You know? And Lou's over there having a sandwich. Yeah, yeah, I'll get him in a minute. That's a very disheartening moment in your life, you know? So I learned. My tools for living at this point are drugs, alcohol, violence, and run. And if you're going to live my life and get thrown in mental institutions, you got to get out before they get the Thorazine in you because if you don't, you leave when they say. It's not up to you anymore. So the second time I got thrown in the nut house, I escaped the first day. And I blew out of this joint and the bells went off and the whistles and the interns were on your tail and I'm running across this lawn heading for a 12-foot chain-link fence. It was a place called the Westwood, West L.A., California. Since then it became CPC Westwood. Now it's for rent. And I've done business with that hospital since then. I escaped. I made the fence and I escaped. I was like 17 years old. And at that moment, I mean, at that moment, I was an alcoholic. I was a drug addict. I was a high school dropout. But I was at any moment, hopefully, an escapemental patient, you know? That was like my resume. That's what I had to say for myself. And I was thinking, if I make this fence, I don't have a problem because I'll be loaded in 20 minutes. And that's all that matters to me because I drink and use no matter what. Given a good reason, I don't stop. This is why I hate that little saying people say to new people. They say, just don't drink or use no matter what. I hate that. I hate that. Just my opinion, like all this is. I mean, I hate that. It's like it kills people. I mean, it's like saying, just say no to me. Or what's the new one? Just don't do it? Shut up. I mean, if I could do that, I guarantee you I wouldn't be here tonight. What the hell would I drive seven hours to come to Monterey for? I'd be home channel surfing, minding my own business. I wouldn't go to meetings. I certainly wouldn't do the 12 steps. I wouldn't go anywhere near the fourth step, fifth step. I wouldn't go anywhere near any of that. What for? I'd just be home not drinking and using no matter what. You know, I'd be able to do that. That does not address what I'm dealing with. That does not address the disease of alcoholism. That does not address the obsession of the mind and the allergy of the body and how those two things hook up in this spiritual malady that I have. That's how it manifests and just totally rips my life asunder. That doesn't get it. I can't do that. So, I mean, I'm having a very intense evening. I got to calm down. No, I don't. So, I hit the fence. I hit the street. I do three years out on the street. I do what you do to stay loaded on a daily basis. I do the things that you do out on the street to stay loaded on a daily basis. I thought it was me and Jack. I thought it was Jack Kerouac. You know what I mean? It was nothing like that. It was not this romantic, dramatic, you know, artistic, creative lifestyle that I was living, you know, as I thumbed my nose at society, you know, and the ethics and morals and community structure of my parents. You know, it was down and dirty and nasty and mean-spirited and evil and manipulative and lying and cheating and thieving and stealing. I mean, that's what it was about and that's how I lived. When I was 19, I met this woman and we, at a party, we talked for about 20 minutes. It went well. So we were in love. So we decided that we needed to do some kind of Ozzie and Harry thing. So I went on this interview to a prestigious business college in Northern California. I got accepted. We threw all our belongings and about eight pounds of hash in the back of this truck and drove to California to hire a learning. And she got a straight job and I became a drug dealer and I was studying marketing and production and distribution in business school. I was applying it to my business and business was booming. And I thought this was all great. I mean, I had no morals or ethics. I had no sense of family. I'd left my family. I had no sense of community. I didn't belong to anything or with anyone. I was completely alone in the world. I had isolated myself completely and with the amount of drugs and alcohol in me, I didn't need to hook up really with anybody else. So I lived like that. I mean, I'd been underground for a long time at that point. When I was 20, I got diagnosed to have malignant cancer and they flew me back to L.A. and they did major surgery on my back and prepared my family for me to die, told me I was going to die, put me in the nuclear medicine program. And I remember telling them, you know, you guys don't even know who you're talking to. You know, you might die. The way I'm using it at this point, that's coming up like twice a week. You know what I mean? For God's sake, Cheryl, don't take another one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was OD'ing quite a bit at that point. I mean, I was, you know, they were calling ambulances and picking me up and taking me to the hospital. I mean, I was, you know, taking me in and pumping my stomach and doing all that stuff. I got my stomach pumped so many times I could talk to you while you did it. You know, they'd run the tubes and it was like, you know, bad night, Earl? Yeah, it was a bad night. You know you're not doing well when they're loading you in the ambulance for one more time and the ambulance attendant looks down and goes, hi, Earl. I'm like, oh, man, not good. So I came back to L.A. and I did all that stuff and I didn't like the stuff they were shooting me up with, you know, for the nuclear medicine thing, the chemotherapy stuff. I didn't like it. So I went home and got loaded the way I get loaded, which was viciously at that point. I mean, we're talking morning, noon, and night, all day, all night, go, go, go. And I beat the cancer thing and I believe, personally, it's because I became so toxic that cancer could not live in my body. I became, the host became worse than the disease. So the cancer said, nope, and the cancer went and I kept blazing along and I was, about a week before my 22nd birthday, my mother called me and said, look, we haven't been anywhere as a family in 10 years, crying. She said, well, go anywhere you want to go, let's just go for your birthday, let's go as a family, somewhere together, we've got to hook this family back up. You know, and I carried a resentment for 10 years and I thought, you know, all right, all right, all right, you know. So I flew back to L.A. and on the morning of my 22nd birthday, we took off to fly to Guadalajara and on the way there, the plane crashed and my mother, my father, my little sister were all killed and I wasn't. And I woke up on the morning of my 22nd birthday, I was on this mountain in Mexico. That was a shock because I thought that was it. And I woke up and my skull was fractured, my back was broken in three places, my leg was fractured, my arm was crushed, I was paralyzed from the waist down and I was awake. And the only thing I could move was my right arm. And my mother was laying right over there and my sister was laying over there and my father was laying right over there and I couldn't get out of any of them to help them and I laid there and I watched them all bleed to death right in front of me. And, something broke inside me. Very quietly, laying on that mountain, just something just broke inside me and I swore that I'd never love another human being again as long as I lived and there was no way I was going to let anybody ever know who I was. There's no, so there's no way you're going to love me. I'm out of the game. No more need for pretense. No more need to do my little song and dance. None at all. I'm out of this game. I never really was good at this life thing. I never understood how to interact with other people. I didn't know how to get along with anybody. I was, I'd been a drug addict and an alcoholic since I was 12 years old. I didn't understand. And I said, you know what, I'm not doing this anymore. Some guys, and I said, I'm through with a guy. Anybody that would, any God that would take a kind, gentle, loving creature like my little sister Kimberly and leave a lying, cheating, thieving, dope being like me on this planet, I had no use for a God of this type. I renounced God. You're out. About a while later, I was up there a long time. Some guys came up, they scavenged the plane wreck. They took my wallet out. They took the money out of my wallet. They put my wallet back on my chest and they left them out and they left me up there to die. So I had no more use for you anymore either. So you were out. God was out. So I was going to, but I was angry now. I'm getting off of this goddamn mountain and I'm going to, I'm going to drink and use the way I like to drink and use and if you get in my way, we're going to have a problem and I'm going to enjoy it and I'm going to do it till I die because this is not my world. This is not my life. This is, there's nothing good that can happen for a guy like me. This is just, you know what I mean? And it wasn't this big, dramatic thing. It was this very quiet thing that went on inside me just, I said, you know what? This is your life. This is the way it's going to be for you. So just play the hand. And I said, fine. And I stayed alive and they got me down off the mountain and they took me to a medical station and they tagged my big toe and they waited for me, sat down and smoked cigarettes and waited for me to die and I wouldn't die. And so they put out their cigarettes, got back in the truck, drove me to the hospital. They found our passports. They found my name, which immediately, I'd had a few little problems in Mexico in the past. And there's another story we don't need to tell. We don't need to tell. We don't need to get into now. But that brought the Federales with an interpreter so they wouldn't give me anything for paying for three and a half days. And they interrogated me. The Federales had armed guards in my room with the military uniforms and the machine guns and the whole thing. And the interpreter grilling me for three and a half days. When they decided that was that, I called a friend of mine whose family lived in New Mexico, in Mexico City. I called a friend of mine up in Northern California where I was going to school. And he called his brother and they flew their company plane in and paid a few people off and got me on a plane and got me out of there. I spent a long time in a hospital in Santa Monica, California. And I came in. They told me I probably wouldn't walk again. I'd be blind in my left eye and I'd have a withered left hand. And none of that's true. I have a limp. And my hand curls up when I get tired. But I work real, real hard to make sure that nobody knew there was anything wrong with me. Nothing. If I wear hard-soled shoes, when I'm tired like this, when I walk, you can hear my limp. But it's real hard. It's hard to notice it. I mean, I worked real hard so nobody would know. And it became a big secret with me, which is why I talked freely about it from the podium because I don't need any secrets. They've never done anything but hurt me. I got out of the hospital. I was strung out on Demerol. I went on my last run. It lasted three and a half years. I used it on a daily basis. I was loaded every waking moment for three and a half years except for three occasions of 72 hours each. And those were times when I was strapped to a table. 72 hours each. I would go to the hospital. I would go to the hospital. I would go to this little sanitarium in Hollywood. They don't even have them anymore. Totally illegal. You walk in and you give them $150 cash, 50 bucks a day. You give them your car keys, your wallet, your bottle of Valium, your bottle, your gun, whatever you had on you. You give it all up to them. They take you in. They strap you to a table, shoot you full of anticonvulsants and let you ride. And at the end of the 72 hours, they either send you home or send you to the morgue. And they could care less which one. And you'd ride it out, kicking like a dog. And you'd scream up, you know, God, it's me again. You know, you give me through the sand and alive and I'll never use it again as long as I live. Ever, ever, ever. I will never drink again. And that's it. You'd make it. You'd get up off that table just weak as a lamb. You'd go out and you'd get your car keys and your wallet and your gun and your Valium and all your stuff and you'd put it back in your pockets. And the nurse would look at you and say, you'd be a good boy and don't drink anymore. And I'd say, no, ma'am. I'm done, ma'am. My ass is kicked. I can't take this. And I'd go on the way to the car, put about 40 milligrams of Valium down, think I've got to get rid of this shake. I've got to drive, you know. And I'd come to him in a different city three days later. Drunk out of my mind. Drunk out of my mind. Having no idea how it happened. Because I didn't know. I knew I was an alcoholic. I knew I was a drug addict. But I had no idea what I was up against. I did not know what it meant to suffer from the disease of alcoholism. I had no idea that for a guy like me it wasn't about stopping. I stopped a thousand times for an hour, two hours, three hours. But it was always, it was, how do you not start again? How do you not start again? I didn't know how to not start again. And I said, I always would. And this went on and went on and went on and war stories for days. I got war stories forever. I came to the last time out of the last blackout and this is what was sitting there. I was 215 pounds. I was yellow. I was dying of alcoholism. Body systems were starting to shut down. I had hair out like this. A beard out like this. I had broken 75 bones. I had almost 700 stitches in me. I'd been stabbed twice, shot at, brawled all, I mean, the violence was unbelievable. I was literally psychotic. I could not distinguish between fantasy or reality. I had no, my family was dead. I had no friends. I had no place to live. I had burned my life to the ground. There was nothing left to do but die. Nothing. And I threw up my two busted paws and I just said, help. I had this moment of clarity. And the moment of clarity wasn't so much that I had hit a bottom, because I think a bottom for a guy like me is dead. That's the bottom. He's dead. There, he hit the bottom. Clearly, it is a bottom. He is dead. The bottom for me was of an emotional and spiritual nature. I'd been alone for a long time. I mean, I hadn't talked to anybody in a long time. But knowing that and experiencing the aloneness are two completely different things. And I came to you when I experienced being completely, completely alone. And I had just been beaten to a pulp. The disease of alcoholism beat me into a state of reasonableness. And I took my hands and I said, help. And they took me by ambulance to an emergency room. They pumped my stomach one more time and they just laughed at me. I was a pathetic drunk. They said, get him out of here. He's going to die. They took me to another place called Olive View Medical Center and they kept me for five more days and I got worse. And they said, get him out of here. And they took me by ambulance. My cousin, my second cousin, Johnny, had known a guy who knew a guy who had heard about a guy who was pretty familiar with another guy who got me this free bed down in Long Beach General Hospital under the care of a lady by the name of Dr. Vicki Fox. And they took me down there and they put me in this place and they detoxed me for 12 more days and then they put me in a rehab for another 30 days. And I heard one thing when I was down there. If you don't want to die, you better stop drinking. And the only way a guy like you is going to successfully stop drinking is if you go to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I heard that. Nothing else made any sense. I'm sure it did. But I couldn't make sense out of it, though. So through a series of real weird circumstances, I had been living with this woman and we'd been evicted because I had attempted to murder the landlord, which I have no memory of. I have no memory of that. And so she was out and I was out and I ended up through a series of weird circumstances. My life just sort of meandered along and I ended up in the back of a, in the basement of a church in the back on a Friday night of a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I sat there with my arms folded, my best tough guy look on my face so you all stay away from me because I was terrified of everything and everybody because none of my tools for living worked anymore. I couldn't hit you. I couldn't run. I couldn't drink. I couldn't use. It was over. I just sat back there afraid of everything and everybody thinking, how is this going to work for a guy like me? If I tell these people who I am, they're going to throw me out and I got nowhere else left to go. I got nowhere else left to go. And all the old timers kind of stayed off me, you know what I mean? Because they saw they had a wounded animal sitting in the back. They weren't going to come up on me. So they crossed the room and they'd go, brother, we're glad you're here. There's coffee over there. You can get yourself a seat anywhere you like. God bless you. Glad you're here. Stick around. And I just kind of grunted at them and I thought, cool, just don't come up. You know, but every meeting got a new guy with like nine months who just caught fire with Alcoholics Anonymous, you know what I mean? And he's giving her away tonight. And all he saw was new guy, you know what I mean? So he came flying across the room at me with his hand out and I'm sitting there thinking, you know, oh no, who is this guy? I mean, I'm sending out serious violence signals, you know what I mean? You come up on me, I'm going to swing. I'll swing. And here's the ending, but he's just, you know, and he comes up and he goes, hi, I'm Vegas, I'm an alcoholic, you know? And I said, so what? Me too, man. It ain't exactly a highlight of my life. I don't know what you're so thrilled about. Get away from me. And he looked at me and he said, keep coming back. Which meant a lot to me. You know? Yeah, all right, buddy, I'll keep coming back. What a loser. You know? And the fact of the matter is is that what I thought was is that when he said that, I thought, you know, he understands the deep spiritual significance of keep coming back and those guys that kind of went, ooh, yeah, when he did that to me, they clearly all know that this keep coming back thing means something real deep, real meaningful. I have no idea what that means. Once again, it has been pointed out to me that I'm the loser, they're the winners, everybody knows what's going on, I don't know what's going on, I love AA a lot now, thanks a lot, I'm having a lovely time. I hated that, that knowing look, you know, that, I mean, we got a lot of those that we lay on the newcomers, you know, that keep coming back one day at a time. And my favorite, hey, just turn it over. What the hell, why do we say that to new people? I don't know why we say that to new people because they look at us like, yeah, okay, sure, I'll turn it over. What are you talking about? Well, turn what over? I have no idea what that means. If you're new and somebody does that to you, step up to the plate, man, be braver than I was. Just walk up and say, you know what, excuse me, you just told me to turn it over. I don't understand the deep spiritual significance of turn it over. Would you mind expanding on that for me a little bit? Well, in my neck of the woods, if they're honest, about 75% of them would say, well, you know, I don't really know what it means either. You know, they said it to me, I'm saying it to you, I don't know. You know, there's a guy over there that reads the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, maybe we should ask him. Just an opinion. Oh, man. I got a lot of those. So I sat in the back thinking, I hate this. I mean, I've been here 11 minutes and I hate this. And they did a bunch of stuff and a guy came up and he spoke and he was like 65 years old, he was a skid row bum, he was an ex-boxer and he was an ex-wino. And I thought, I'm none of those things. You know, skid row. You know, I couldn't find it. You know, boxer. Nobody's a boxer anymore, you just carry a gun. Wino, I didn't drink wine, unless that was all there was. Then I drank wine. You know, but I didn't identify. And I thought, he'd be 65 years old, he don't know about me. And I was very good at noticing the differences between you and me. I was very, very sure to notice the difference. If you're a woman, you don't know about me. You're black, you don't know about me. You're gay, you don't know about me. You're Hispanic, you don't know about me. Asian, you don't know about me. You're five years older, five years younger, you come up with something else. You don't know about me. You couldn't possibly know about me. I mean, I got the wagon circle so tight, but by the time I got here, it was like, you don't know? You don't know about me. I could spot the difference like that, man, between you and me. Just like that. I could see the differences. Because I didn't want to catch up, I didn't want to hook up with a similarity, because if there's a similarity, I'll connect to you. And if I connect to you, I'm doomed. If I get connected to you, you'll find out. You'll find out who I am. You'll find out that I got nothing going on. I got no sense of family, no sense of community. I got nothing but death and dying and disease and violence in my life. There's no way I can be in the world I can't do it. You'll find out and you'll throw me away and I don't have any place else left to go. I have to stay here. So I just sat in the back and it was beautiful. My life was destroyed and I had nowhere else to go. So I just had to sit and listen to this guy that I knew didn't understand me. And then over the next 40 minutes, he explained to me that he understood me perfectly. He talked so eloquently about his feelings as a man, about how he would get up in the morning and his head would be chewing on him before his feet hit the floor. He would wake up in the morning and he'd yawn and his head would go, we've been waiting for you. You're shit. And he would just go, just beating on him. And while his head's beating on him, he'd go and he'd get in the shower. Yeah, okay, uh-huh, uh-huh. Thank you for sharing. And he would get dressed and he would go to work and he would do an honest day's work. And he would go get something to eat and he would go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and check this out. He didn't go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and sit there and go, what do you got for me tonight? He didn't do that because he'd been through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. He'd had a spiritual awakening as the result of working those steps. So now he came to a meeting to see what he could bring to the meeting. To be a sober member in the room in case a new person came because he understood that the whole purpose of a meeting was to have a place where the new guy could come and have the message of hope brought to him, the new guy, by the guy who had already been through the process. And that there would be people in the room that the guy said, how do you do this? There were people who could raise their hand and say, I do. Here's a book. Let me give you some ideas on how we start doing this thing. And they would begin the process. Then he would go home and he would get in bed, head chewing on him the whole way. No rest. I was amazed. I never had a day like that. That was incredible to me. 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 love this. I love this because it made it clear to me he's not selling me something. He's not a salesman up there trying to convince me that AA's the way to go and I ought to come on in and join and be a member. Uh-uh. He was sharing it with me. He was sharing it. If I wanted any part of what he had to say, it was mine to take. I could have it. If I didn't find it, if I didn't find anything that was for me, go to another meeting. There's probably going to be somebody else that will speak that will be able to give you something you can identify with. And I thought, this is cool. I got to sit back there with nothing but disdain on my face and think, you know what? This is cool. I'm coming back. And I left that meeting with something I hadn't had in years that I truly believe is the greatest thing you can give another alcoholic and that is hope. He gave me some hope that maybe there was a way because I'll tell you, I couldn't stay clean for a day. It was being a member of Alcoholics Anonymous that afforded me the grace and the dignity of sobriety one day at a time. It was Alcoholics Anonymous that did that. I can't stay sober, but we can. And I started this in the back thing and I was terrified. I love the people that saw me when I was new come in that are still around. Because I speak a lot now and I carry it on all the time and I'm real active and I sponsor a lot of guys. People think, that guy, you know what I mean? This is easy for him. Uh-uh. I never took a chip. I didn't take a cake until I was 20. I was three years sober. I didn't open my mouth in AA until I was two and a half. I'm one of the real slow, terribly damaged ones that sat in the back and slowly over time moved up the room. The only reason that I took a chip or took a cake was because my sponsor said, you need to do this for them. This isn't about you. And I said, okay. And I took a cake for three years and he gave it to me. They said, get a sponsor. I got a sponsor. I got the late, great Donald Madden as my sponsor. It was a guy shout. I didn't know. I didn't know what an incredible human being he was. I didn't know the magic that was in that man's heart and in his mind. I didn't know about the ability that guy had to show me one-on-one how to become a human being, how to live in the world with any kind of honor or respectability or responsibility. That this is the guy that could show me about AA. And he showed me about it by what he did. By how he did it. Who could show me about living in the world. He was the one. He was the only man I trusted on the face of the earth for two and a half years. And he saved my life. He was one of the greatest examples of Alcoholics Anonymous ever. And he's my heritage. He's my family. I was with him longer than I was with my parents. I was with him almost 14 years up until the day he died July 25th, 1994. And the day he died it broke my heart. I didn't know how I was going to be in AA without him. Because I thought Donald Madden was dead. And I grieved. I mean it was bad. For two years. I mean it was hard on me. It was hard on me every day. Because when something good happened I needed to call Donald and tell him because I talked to him every day. When something bad happened I needed to call Donald and tell him. And he wasn't there. And I would reach six, eight months down the road I would reach for the phone and he's dead. And I would call my friend Christopher who had become my closest friend who was also sponsored by Donald. And we'd call each other and say there's a hole how do we fill this? There's a hole how do we fill this? About three weeks ago I was speaking at a meeting in Toluca Lake. And a gentleman by the name of Bernie and I talked about Donald at the meeting and there were people there that knew and loved Donald. And Bernie came up to me and said here's a tape of Donald Madden it's time you listen to him again. And I was terrified to listen to it. And I was driving home and I thought what the hell it's time. And I popped in the tape and I listened to Donald Madden give a talk at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I laughed and I cried and I got answers that I needed all over again and I found out the thing that delights me more than anything else. Donald Madden's not dead. Donald Madden is so alive and well it is unbelievable. Because he's in the hearts and the minds and in the hope and in the experience and in the strength of so many alcoholics out there who carry the message as he so freely and beautifully and eloquently gave it to them. And he's on tape and people still get helped by Donald. Donald Madden will never die. He'll just go on and on and on and on which I'm sure delights him that I win. It does me. And I realize that this is my family this is my lineage. I'm a product of Donald Madden as a product of Norm Alpey as a product of Chuck C. as a product of Bill W. That's my line. Those are my boys. And all my boys know about Donald Madden. And I gave a cake to a guy I sponsored for 11 years and he thanked he never even met Donald Madden. And he thanked Donald Madden when he took his cake because he knew that the message that his sponsor gave him he got from Donald Madden. And we keep each other alive and there's a sense of family and there's a sense of history and there's a sense of community that a guy like me never had. And slowly but surely over time I got the message that comes in the form of Alcoholics Anonymous and that it is a design for living and how this has impacted every area of my life. I have an absolutely amazing life and it's a result of doing all three sides of that triangle every single day. There's an ancient spiritual symbol it's a circle with a triangle in it. It stands for mind, body, and spirit brought together as a whole human being and therein lies the balance that I've sought my whole life and never had drunk or sober. Never had it. Alcoholics Anonymous adopted that symbol of unity, recovery, and service. Same thing. Unity is the body I've got to bring it here. I've got to be with my fellows. Recovery is of the mind the greater aspect of my disease. How do I relieve myself of the obsession to drink and use? How do I not start again now that I've stopped? Our work to 12 steps is outlined in the big book. Step one is what's the problem? Lack of power is my dilemma. Less of my own devices I drink, I use, I die. Alright, that's my problem lack of power what's my solution? Step two that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity soundness of mind relieving me of the obsession to drink. Knowing that what will happen? Well, knowing that I'll drink. I better make a decision to do something about this information. So, I do step three. What do I do in step three? I get on my knees and I say the third step prayer and I turn my will and my life over to the care of God. Oh, that's what you turn over. I can't kill myself anymore because it's not my life to take. I turn it over to God. So now it says all this means nothing unless I embark upon a plan of rigorous action. What's the plan? Four through nine. I do four and five is me six and seven is God and eight and nine is you. It's the way they always work it in here. Me, God, and you. Me, God, and you. They get me squared away and they let me near you then they hook me up with God and then they let me near you. Always in that order. You notice, first two steps, I'm sitting on the couch. Yeah, that's a problem. Uh-huh, yeah, solution, yeah. Oh, third step, better say a prayer. Sit down, get on the floor, prayer, get back up on the couch. They haven't let me near anybody yet. Four, said I embark upon this plan of rigorous action. I got to do this thorough inventory on resentment, fear, and sex. Four columns. Got to look at my part in it. All right? Okay, I do all that. Wow, swallowed large chunks of truth about myself. There, look at all that. All right, now they let one other person in the house and before God I read it to that person. I read it to him. That's step five. He leaves. Immediately. He leaves immediately. Six and seven, I hook it back up with God. Eight and nine, they let me near you. A lot of conversation in the book about eight and nine because they're going to let me near other people, really, for the first time. And I'm on with just enough information to hurt people. So I go out of the house and I got it clear. I'm very, very sorry. Here's your money. And I go back in the house. Not this, you know, I become this wonderful spiritual human being and I'm on this lovely quest and aren't I a bitching guy now and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. None of that. No, it's just, I'm sorry. Here's your money. Back in the house. And then they say, okay, girl, let us review. Four and five was you. Six and seven was God. Eight and nine was others. We're going to do that same loop but we're going to do it all the time. We're going to call it ten, eleven, and twelve. Ten is you. Eleven is God. And twelve is others. Ten, you're going to keep your side of the street clean when you're wrong and promptly admit it. Eleven step, an action step, you're going to seek God. How are you going to seek Him? You're going to seek Him through prayer and meditation. What are you going to pray for? Knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out. Why are you going to meditate? To quiet the mind so that when the answers come I can hear them. Step twelve is the third side of the triangle, the spiritual. Having had a spiritual awakening is the result of these steps that was the whole point to be restored to sanity, to be relieved of the mental obsession to drink and use. I can practice these principles and carry the message, be of service to other people. How can I help? Not because I'm a good guy. Because I don't want to stay sober. People tell me Alcoholics Anonymous is about love. Alcoholics Anonymous is about acceptance. Alcoholics Anonymous is about forgiveness. I disagree. To say Alcoholics Anonymous is about staying sober. And if you take the suggestions that are offered in here and do the things that a guy like me has to do in order to stay sober, what you're going to do is you're going to bump into all kinds of love and forgiveness and acceptance and tolerance and faith and hope and humility. And you're going to be a good guy. And you're going to be a good guy. And you're going to be a good guy. And all the wonderful things that we find in here that allow us to go out into the world and be productive human beings. A part of the solution as opposed to being part of the problem. I did all that. I had a spiritual awakening as a result of doing it. And my life's completely different. I'm 16 years sober. And I'm having a very good life. I have a lot of fun every day. I catch a buzz. On a daily basis there is a buzz that is available to me that's better than any crystal shield ship anything, man that I ever did. Because it's about right here and right now. It's about this moment. This is where my life is. This moment. To be comfortable here. This is where I find God. This is where I find my dignity as a man. The sponsor that I have now tells me just get between these. If you can get in there you're okay. Because that's where it all is. It's now. Can you be comfortable standing where you're standing doing what you're doing what you're doing with the people you're doing it with right now. You've got enough to eat right now. You've got enough money right now. You alright right now? Yeah. And so much of the illusion of life the career the relationship the problem the other problem all just sort of move away and there you are. And you're alright. And you're hooked up and the buzz is profound. The difference between getting high in here and getting high out there is out there the best buzz I ever had was right up front. And the longer I got high the lesser the buzz and the greater the price I paid for it. So at the end of my using I was paying an unbelievable price for a very small buzz. Very small. In here getting that 30 day chip is a bitch. You get a 30 day chip you're living in a state of grace man. I have more respect for a 30 day chip than I do that 16 year cake I just took. It's harder to get. It's harder to get. Because you don't have the tools. You haven't worked the 12 steps. You don't have a deep understanding of what these things mean. You're in here fighting for your life. You're in here because you got chased in by the disease and you don't want to go back out there because you remember real well what it was like. You just stay in here and slowly but surely you get some things in here and you find your own way. I have things in my life that are beyond my wildest dreams. Beyond my wildest dreams. Beyond my wildest dreams. I drove up here with two of them. See guys like me don't get to be parts of family. We don't get the respect of the young ones. Because they can tell the difference. And they don't respect disrespectful people. We don't get to have we don't get to love guys like me don't get to love and be loved. We don't get to be a part of a family. We don't get to be a part of a community. We don't get to. Because we drink and we use and we pillage and we plunder and we cut and we slash until we die. That's what we do. I got a two step two step daughters. Daughters of my ex-wife. That came up with me for the weekend. They came up with me for the weekend. They're 14 years old. They're absolute dolls. They're great. And I was so they don't know this about me but I was so excited that we were going to get to make this trip together. That they thought enough of me to want to spend a weekend with me. You know what they did for me this year? You know what those girls did for me this year? And they don't know that they do this for me. They're kind of like you know how 14 year old girls are. It's like going to spend some time with dad. Yeah okay. We'll give up a little time for dad. But they call me dad. I'm not their father. They both have living fathers. They both have fathers that are alive and local and well and all that sort of stuff. They call me dad. And you know where they spent they spent Father's Day this year with me. You get it don't you man? You get it. I mean that's I don't get that can't happen to somebody like me. I'm a dope fiend. I'm an alcoholic. I take from people. I hurt people. I can't get close to people. I swore I'd never love anybody and I'd never be loved again the rest of my life. And here I am loving and being loved. And being honored having the honor of being called dad by two young women that are bright and involved and engaged and got amazing lives ahead of them. And that I just want to participate in as much as I can. And they know they both know this. They know that I love them. They know every single day he loves me. I can screw up and he loves me. I can get in trouble and he loves me. I can say the wrong thing and he loves me. Because it's unconditional. I mean I love them no matter what they do. There's nothing either of those girls could ever do that could stop me from loving them. And I get to be a part of a family. We get to like pick each other. We picked each other. And I got friends like that. And I got a sense of family and a sense of community that's beyond anything a guy like me is supposed to get. I found out what the real buzz is. I remember sitting on a bus stop loaded out of my mind and watching this station wagon go by and there's the guy and his wife and these two kids in the back and there's ice cream on the kids and she's bitching at him and he's looking like he wants to shoot somebody and I'm sitting on this park bench and I'm watching these guys go by and I'm looking and I'm thinking what a sap as I nod off you know what I mean on the park bench. That's the real deal man. It's about being involved with other human beings. It's about being able to give yourself completely and totally and not hold anything back because you're afraid of being rejected or abandoned or you're afraid they're not going to understand. You just give the love. You just give the love. And where I got any love that's inside me is here. That's where I got it. I got it in here. I got it in here because other alcoholics gave it to me. And I've got to remember where I came from in order to stay here. And I've got to remember what it's like to be new now. I mean I take this guy Adam I take him to a meeting Adam's got 90 days. I hear that Al's speaking. Al's unbelievable speaker. Spiritual pearls just fly out of this guy's mouth man. It's just machine gun fire. It's unreal. You know what I mean? He just takes you to another place every time he talks. And I'm so excited that he's speaking and I'm going to take Adam and Adam at 90 days and I'm going to take Adam at 90 days is going to experience that. So we go to the meeting and Al's doing it man. He's ripping that night. And I'm looking down at Adam and I'm thinking isn't it wonderful that Adam can be exposed to the words that are coming out of this man's mouth. It took me 15 years to hear him and here's Adam in 90 days hearing him. I have to remember Adam and I are having fundamentally different meetings. Adam is not having the same meeting that I'm having. If Adam can stay in his seat the whole 90 minutes it's a total victory. Because it's loud in Adam's head. I've got to remember what was I like in 90 days going to a meeting. I used to go to Saturday Night Ohio Street when I was brand new. Big high energy meeting pulsing with energy. Young people. Very hip, very happening, very active, crazy meeting. And I used to pull up and the inside of my head was I'd pull up and I'd go okay good, good, I found it again, I found it again, it's good, it's good. You park and I'm going and they put the keys in the chairs here, they put the keys in the chairs. I'll find a chair, I'll find a chair, I'll put the keys down. How am I going to find my keys? I don't know how I'm going to find my keys. There's a guy with a red coat. I'll sit next to the guy with the red coat. It'll be good, it'll be good. I'll sit next to the guy. I'll find the guy with the red coat. I'll find the keys. I'll sit. I'll sit. It's good. Okay, they're ringing a bell. They're ringing a bell. What are we doing? We're doing. We're sitting down. Sit down. Good, good. Okay, we'll sit down. Sit down. Yeah, yeah. How are you doing? Yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. How are you doing? Okay, there's a guy up. He's reading a couple of things. It's good, it's good, it's good. This guy's reading. He's reading. It's a chapter. It's a chapter. Fifth chapter of some... It's a book, apparently. It's a book. And it's the fifth chapter. And this is good. And I'll be at this meeting and I'll listen to this. It's good. He's reading. He's rarely seen something. He's rarely seen something. I can't really... He rarely saw something. I missed that. I don't know. I don't know what that was about. He's reading. He's going, okay, this is pretty good. He's reading 12 things. There's 12 things. There's 12 things. Remember that. There's 12 things in Alcoholics and Arms. Remember. There's 12 things. Okay, he's down. He's down. I missed a lot of that, but it was good. There was 12 things. I'll try to remember that. He's down. Now there's another guy. He's up. He's up. He's talking. He says he's an alcoholic. Oh, that's good. He drank. He drank. Oh, that's good. I did that. I did that. That's good. It's very good. He's down. I didn't get much of that. He was down. He was down very quickly. I think, now they're passing a basket. They're passing a basket. Why are they passing a basket? There's money in the basket. Don't take the money. They're passing a basket. The basket is passing. That's good. Okay, okay. The basket's fine. It's good. It's good. It's good. We're going to know that everybody's getting up. Where are we going? We're going. We're going. Where are we going? We're going to smoke? Oh, for good. I smoke. We'll smoke. We'll smoke. We'll smoke. We'll smoke. We're going to go back. He's ringing the bell. Good, good, good. We'll go back into the meeting. Go back into the meeting. Sit down. Where's the guy with the red coat? Red coat. Red coat. Where's the guy with the red coat? We'll find the guy with the red coat. I'm sitting here. I'll sit here. I'll sit here. It's good. It's good. It's good. It's good. Guy's reading. He's reading. He's reading 12 things. Those aren't the same 12 things. Those aren't the 12 things. Apparently, there's 24 things in Alcoholics Anonymous. Oh, never the 24 things. He's down. He's down. This other guy's up. He's up. It's good. It's good. He's down. Okay. He drank. He drank. It's good. I did that. I did that. Oh, this is good. Oh, this is good. Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah. Yeah. You and me, man. You and me. You and me. That's very good. Yeah, you and me. You and me. I like this. It's good. It's good. He's down. I love that part. The guy's down, but it was very good. I've got to remember to thank that guy. That was very nice of him to get up and do that for me. It's good. Now he's up. He's up. He's saying, I missed that. I missed that. I missed that. We're all up. What are we doing? I know this prayer. I know this prayer. We'll say the prayer. We'll say the prayer. It's good. It's good. And then we would leave the meeting, and people would say, it was a great meeting. I'd say, it was great. It was a great meeting. It was a great meeting. And I'd go home, and I'd cry in the car on the way home. You know? Because I'm not going to remember the 24 things. I don't know. You know, I'd go to my little apartment and pace all night. You know? I'd get to sleep. I can't sleep. I've got to find out where this book is. I've got to... You know, and I wouldn't talk to anybody. I was just like that. And I've got to remember that that's fundamentally what happens to Adam as I'm sitting here thinking, that it's getting it. Here it is. It's from Al. It's good. And we leave the meeting, and I say to Adam, wasn't that a great meeting? And he looks up, and he goes, yeah, it was great. So if you knew, bring it on. Bring it on. If you feel like you need to kill yourself today, cool. Bring it in here. You real, real crazy tonight? That's cool. You're in the right room. Bring it on. Bring it on. You feel like you need to maybe kill two, three, four of us? Beautiful. Bring it on. Bring it in the room. Bring it in the room. Bring your anger. Bring your frustration. Bring your resentment. Bring your fear. Bring your terror. Bring your no hope state of mind. Bring it all in here. Bring it in here and be with us. We did not look like this when we got here. We were not sitting up acting like we were paying attention. That was not going on, man. We were as crazy as bedbugs when we got here. It's the rite of passage, man. It's the rite of passage getting in here. Take whatever you got and bring it in here. You think I'm lying? Come up afterwards and call me a lying son of a bitch. I will like you. Because I know who you are. I know who you are. Same guy I was when I came in. When I knew that old guy was lying to me. And he wasn't. And I ain't lying to you either. This is the best buzz in town. If you be alcoholic or doping, you cannot beat this deal. If you're new, bring it to us. Bring it to us. We get it like nobody else on the face of the earth gets it. And I wish you all something that I think is the hardest thing for people like us to find. I wish you peace. I wish you peace. Take it easy.