Doug R. at the Okanogan Valley Winter Roundup – 2005

Deb, I have something for you. This is a Listerine pocket pack and what can I say, after that raving endorsement. My name is Doug Rowland. I am a grateful alcoholic. Grateful to be an alcoholic and I'm grateful to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And the reason I say that is pretty much just to piss off the newcomers. You know, when you're new and you go, grateful alcoholic, grateful alcoholic, what the hell is that? I'm grateful. I'll be an alcoholic, but I'll be dandruff. I'd be grateful, but i'm not happy about it. I didn't want to be an alcohol. I didn' grow up to be a alcoholic. I didn't wanna be one when I got here. Grateful alcoholic, that's two words that don't belong in the same sentence. Guys, now he doesn't mean he's grateful to be an alcoholic. I know what he means. He means he's an alcoholic. He's incidentally grateful that he got his driver's license back maybe or maybe he's just grateful his family didn't throw him out in the street or something, you know? Maybe he's grateful that he got to keep his job or, you know, because, you know, hey, thanks for the terminal illness. What kind of crazy shit is that? I know the guy is misleading. A lot of people probably don't understand like I understand because I'm a figure-outer. This guy is an alcoholic who is incidentally grateful that he got his driver's license back so he'd go to his stupid grateful job and support his grateful damn family, maybe. But that's what was going on in my head when I was at my first meeting thing. You know, some lady would come up to me and say, well, son, just put the plug in the jug. And I wonder what she'd do if I stuck this cigarette in her eye. You know? I didn't come here to fit in. And not only that, I knew I wasn't going to fit in. I knew it wasn't gonna fit here. I never fit any place in my life. You know, that's what... I love your theme. New beginnings. New beginnings! We get to come in here and start over. That's what we do best, is start over, you know? I... Don't put it on a resume, but we know who we are, you now. Do you have any outstanding talents we might be able to use here? I'm real good at starting over I want to thank Deb for inviting me to come and do this I like doing this I know some really, really good speakers who don't like doing it but they do it when they're asked they have a really good spiritual message and steps and all that stuff but they don't Like doing it but they do it anyway because they have courage or commitment or something. I don't know what the hell they have, but they have something that makes them do it when they don't want to. I'm not like, I don' t know if I'm a good speaker and I couldn' t care less really, you know. I' m the guy. I' M the Saturday night guy, you knoW. So they already spent the money to bring me in from California. I mean, you kNow, like Deb said, you KnoW, if you don' T like me, take it up with Terry. but I like doing this to me, talking in an AA meeting is the most fun you can have with your pants on I wanted to be the speaker at the first meeting I ever went to but I was a little drunk that night here's a phrase you don't hear much in AA let's get the drunk guy to talk Deb called me I was in an airport and we were just talking I don't know if it was Portland or Denver or Phoenix one of those places where they fly you to so they can fly you someplace else excuse me and she said I got your name from Terry Martin and they'd say uh oh good you can blame it on him if they don't like me and I said yeah and she said well I'm calling from Okanagan, Washington and I'd say oh now that I got here and I got some local color I wish she had said, I'm calling from Omakanakanagan, you know. Then it would have sounded even weirder. Oh yeah, Omakenakanagan. That's in Hawaii, isn't it? It sounds like a Hawaiian saying, Omakinakanagan! And then she said, we're having a roundup here and I wondered if you could come and talk for us. And so, you know, I always, I said what I would say, yeah, love to. You want to come talk about yourself for an hour? Yes, I do. You know. So she said, it's hard to get to. Well, yeah, it doesn't surprise me that someplace I never heard of in Washington is hard to go to. It's hard not to get too. you know, so so I was I had the flu all week and I was just miserable guys that I sponsor would call me and I'd say, I got the flu oh, how do you feel? I feel like shit I got the flu, and I tell you what crankiness is one of the symptoms hang up you know I'll give you unconditional love tomorrow or sometime you know, and I'm sick now. And I was already recovering from a broken shoulder that I got for riding dirt bikes. One of my favorite AA speakers is a retired judge named Don Gates. Don G, they call him. Because we don't break his anonymity here. Retired judge has honored Don Gates but he's a big motorcycle enthusiast and so am I but he is like a dirt bike enthusiast So I went up there, and we went riding, and he said, you like off-road riding? I said, I don't know. I've never done any, you know, sober and on a dirt bike. I've done some drunk on a Harley, but it's a different thing. So I rode his dirt bike up this great hill and then down this. If I had stayed going up the dirt road, it would have been good, but I came down the gravel-twisting road. I don'T know how to do that. So I left the bike there and went flying over it, And I landed and broke my shoulder and dislocated it and tore the rotator cuff and everything. And then Don said, well, he got both the bikes going again. And he said, leave the one here and you can ride on the back of the bike. You think you can write on the bike? You can ride to the hospital and get your x-rays off. I said, no, you can't leave your bikes up here, Don. I think I can ride the little one down the hill. Oh, no. No, we can't have that. Oh, I'm sure I can. Well, if you think you could. Okay, so I got on the little one, rode it about 50 feet and went right off in a ditch. But the good news is I hit a mountain and it put my shoulder back in place. So there's nothing wasted in God's economy. So I'm recovering from this shoulder and then I get the flu and then I got to fly to Seattle to get a commuter flight over to Spokane and then drive four hours up to Omak and Okanagan and so I was all the way up hey thanks for the terminal illness but i am delighted to be here i mean i i love alcoholics anonymous i love being sober and i just love i am so blessed that i get to be invited to go places where i meet a lot of new alcoholics that i never met before and we're just like as i said you know that when i first came to aa i knew i wasn't going to fit and everybody was so nice to me and i just i didn't want to disappoint them but I know it's going to fit here because I never fit any place and this is the only place I ever fit in my life and I fit like a glove in AA you know I love a I go to about 8 to 11 meetings a week I'm 17 and a half years sober and I just love Alcoholics Anonymous you know uh um I friend of mine I had a sponsor at one time that some people would come into meetings and say, oh God, I'm so glad to be in a meeting. Oh God, I'm delighted to be here. I'm happy to be there. I said to my sponsor, I don't ever feel like that. He said, it's because you go to meetings. Listen to the people who come in and say I'm glad to have been here. They'll say I haven't been to a meeting in two weeks. And they go crazy. I came in crazy. I don' t need to go crazy and know where to go. When I came to my first meeting I was cool. I was very cool. I was so cool I didn't sit down I was too cool to sit there was another guy he was also too cool to sit he sat I was standing against the wall in the back and he was too we both kind of had our arms crossed we were so cool we didn't even talk to each other you know it's a big speaker meeting in Van Nuys, California at the Valley Presbyterian Hospital and Friday night speaker meeting. And I went there because somebody told me that was a cool meeting to go to. There was a lot of people and they had coffee and different kinds of coffee and cookies and stuff. And so I went over there and there was a whole lot of cool looking girls than there was. So I went and I saw everybody was hugging and laughing. And it seemed to me everybody was hugging and loving and laughing and going, isn't it good we're not drinking? You know, oh, I so hate drinking. And I thought, man, I love drinking, you know. And a woman came over to me and she said, several people came over to me actually. I mean, a number of people came, came over me that, and, and I remember three people, two men and a woman specifically that came to me instead, said, you're new. Yeah. Welcome. keep coming back. Keep coming back now I didn't know that they said that to everybody I kind of okay you can call it ego but I thought they saw my potential you know really and I thought class tells class tells so because people always told me I had potential So, and people in my life that knew me were not saying, keep coming back. See, that's why I was impressed with that. People in my live would say things like, don't come over here. Hey, it's Doug. Are you guys going to be home for a while? Because I thought I'd come over and visit you. Huh? No, we're not, Doug. We're just walking out the door, man. and I don't know when we'll be back. A long time, though. Hey, don't come over here. All right, then. Love you, Mom. And, you know, so I got uninvited to a wedding one time. I don't, I mean it's not like they forgot to invite me they invited me but then after I RSVP'd they had second thoughts you know I get the wedding is Bob and Carol getting married Saturday morning and Thursday night I have bought them a wedding present it's wrapped I'm way ahead of schedule it's wrapping sitting on the dining room table and I get this call Thursday night hey Doug it's Bob yeah how you doing Bob How are you and Carol doing? Well, okay. Are you guys nervous? Yeah. Yeah, that's why I called. Listen, Carol and I have been talking about it and we'd like for you to not come to the wedding. Oh, it's very funny, isn't it? you know and I think you know I think most people if they got a call like that would be concerned at least curious gosh I hope uh hope it's not something I did I mean well did you overbook the room or what I mean uh can we work this out I wasn't curious I understood completely. In fact, I thought, good idea, Bob. Because we had all been at a wedding the weekend before that. They had an open bar and I mooned the bride's mother. I don't know how it is in Washington. In California, it's considered a social faux pas, really, to stick your ass out at the bride's mother. And I know that I didn't go to that wedding with the idea of mooning the bride'S mother. I just, you know, everybody was having a great time. It was a lovely wedding and everybody was so happy and they were dancing and I was over there listening to the band and something in my head said, you know what it'd be funny you ought to show your ass man and so I just about the time the band stopped playing this one song and I was hey and boy you could have heard a pin drop it kind of surprised me because these people were friends of mine And a lot of them had a really good sense of humor. We joked all the time, but boy, I wish you guys had been there because you clearly see the humor in it. But it was real quiet, and that's when I, oops, my whole life is sort of centered around that oops factor, you know what I mean? Yeah, you know why I mean. And so really all you can do is kind of get dressed. Beam me up, Scotty. And friends of mine come over and pull me aside. Come here, Doug. Doug, what's wrong with you, man? God damn, you mooned the bride's mother, Doug! Excuse me. Sorry. I thought it was the groom's murder. Now, hey, come on. Hey, was that the reception? It wasn't at the wedding. What am I, an animal? Come on. Hey, we're in a ceremony for Christ's sake. So then they gave up on me. Somebody gave me the nickname Dougsgusting and it lasted for years. So you see, so for strangers to come up and say keep coming back, I was impressed, I'm I was impressed, you know. Some lady came up and said, You know, there are some seats right over here if you'd like to sit down. There's some seats just over there. I said, You know what, lady? I'm drunk, but I'm not blind drunk. I see the seats, and I see there's some other ones over there, some that don't have keys on them, but I don't intend to sit-down. I didn't come here to join up, you now. Like, Ooh, let's hug and laugh and talk about how happy we are not to drink. That's not really what I'm here for. In fact, I like whiskey. I like it a lot. I had some on the way here. And if I wanted to sit down, I'd be sitting down. But I'm not sure I'm going to stay through this whole meeting. And I don't want to break up your little meeting when I get up and walk out of here. So I'm just going to stand back here and sort of... I'm auditing the class, lady. I'm checking it out, all right? You know, I'll tell you what. I see that you guys are all joiners. I'm really not. I'm kind of a loner, all Right? You know I'm an outlaw. I'm a desperado. I'm misfit, if you must know, lady! I never fit any place in my life I didn't fit in school I didn' t fit the workplace I didn''t fit in my own damn family don''t even look around to see if I'm here where's Doug? I'll be gone I'm history I'm out of here, okay I'm long gone baby alright and she said alright can you kind of keep it down we're trying to have a meeting over here alright then stand back here with the cool section you know me and this other guy and some things happened at that meeting there was a lady They said, we have a birthday tonight. And I thought, huh, birthday, they have a birthday, you know? And so I thought that's kind of cool. They celebrate people's birthdays. They said Ruth has a birthday for 18 years tonight. Everyone's like, hey, Ruth. And I'm over there going, yeah, Ruth, I'm looking around for Ruth, some tiny hiney, you know, an 18-year-old. And Ruth gets up. She's 50 if she's a day. And my first thought was, Lord, if she's 18, she should stop drinking. And she didn't look bad, don't get me wrong, she looked good. She looked real good for 50, but kind of whipped for a teenager. And so, but I figured out there's no way this woman is 18 years old. She is 50 and she's been sober 18 years. That's what they're talking about. They don't drink here. Sober 18 years, it must be like a national record. No wonder they're so excited about it. So then just as I'm adjusting to that, now I don't know how you do it here in California, Southern California, man, they call them birthdays and not anniversaries. And at almost any meeting, you can go there and tell them you want to take a cake. And you can take a kick and put candles on it and light it and sing happy birthday. So these three girls came out with the cake. And everybody started singing so-called. Now, I have a musical background. And when I heard 200 people start singing happy birthday, not in tempo and in four different keys, and some of them were not committed to the original key they started in I was a little, whoa, excuse me I wanted to say, hold it there's a piano over here, somebody get on the box let's get this thing going, key of G 1, 2, 3, happy, but I already told them I wasn't staying so I got no lines alright, it's a short song I can handle it so they sing, happy birthday dear Ruth oh god, this is some level of lameness I never imagined existed. If I was going to make up stuff about AA to make fun of you, I wouldn't have thought of the singing happy birthday thing. And then Ruth comes up. I'm Ruth! I'm an alcoholic! Hi, Ruth! Oh, God, man. I'm so embarrassed for you people. I'm embarrassed for me and the other cool guy just being there. And Ruth says, I want you to know that over this last 18 years of sobriety, I have attended a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous every single day. Yeah, right on. That's what they said. Right on. Cool, you know? Yeah, Ruth! And I'm going, boy, you're a little slow, ain't you, Ruth? You are not the sharpest pencil in the box, honey. because I don't know how long it's going to take me to get this thing, but I know it ain't going to take every day for 18 years. I'm very sure about that. That's when Mr. Cool over here comes over and exposes himself, not expose himself really, but that's when I found out he was not cool. He was a member. I don' t know what he was doing there. Maybe he had like a newcomer catcher commitment or something. But he came over to me with that sunshine Jesus smile. Hand extended. Tell you what, you stay sober a year, we'll give you one of them cakes. you will will you sing be still my heart but I knew he meant well you know I knew the guy meant well I didn't want to insult him but it's just like I said, so I said you know what, I'm not really much of a pastry eater. If I wanted a cake I'd just probably go over to Safeway and pick one up for five bucks and then you know wouldn't even be out of my way I was stopping to get a six pack anyway or I could not drink for a year a year yeah good idea and then the secretary held up that book the secretary holds up this book, this is our big book this is out big book, Alcoholics Anonymous said it's the only authority on our program and it's a basic text if you're new, don't leave without this book if I was new I thought okay, I'll steal the book they had they had it sitting on a table with a bunch of other literature. They had a bunch and they wouldn't miss it and I figured if I picked it up and acted like I was fascinated oh look at that oh man I didn't know that walk right out the door and they'd just say let him go which I still think that would happen but then she screwed that all up by saying if you're new and you're financially embarrassed we understand that We've all been there. So we'll make very liberal credit arrangements, including nothing down and nothing a week until you get back on your feet. Oh, great. Now, if I steal the book, nobody's going to care. Everybody's going think I'm homeless. So I went up to that secretary that night and said, I'd like to buy one of those books you have, those big books. oh yeah she said it's $4.65 do you have it do I have it here's a five lady keep the change well yeah I'm on my feet lady I took that book home and sat down and poured a shot of whiskey and started to read this book not read it exactly but because I'm a busy guy and it's kind of thick book and I have a lot of reading time but I can skim pretty good as a matter of fact I have this ability to look at the title of a chapter any book and know everything that's in the chapter it's a gift that I have so I'm reading this book Doctor's Opinion I know what Doctor's opinion is boy you ought to not drink so much okay next chapter one Bill's story. Who cares? Chapter two. Chapter two, there is a solution. Oh man, I'm on such a roll here. I know what there is a solution to. It's a sales pitch, isn't it? There's a solution to the sales pitch. I was raised on television. I recognize him a mile away. Young man, there's a resolution to your problem. The 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous will give you a life beyond your wildest drunken dreams. Alright, next chapter three, more about alcoholism. Oh, fascinating, I hope to get around that sometime and then chapter 4 we agnostics we agnostic huh I'll tell you there was two things that I found irritating about AA when I first went there okay I acted like I didn't like the hugging and laughing but I liked the hugging and laugh and that was attractive to me but then there was two things I didn' like one of them was not drinking for long periods at a time. I thought that was excessive. And then there was a lot of God there. A lot of people talking about God, as we understood him, and power greater than yourself, and admitted to God, to ourselves, and humbly asked him with a capital H. And it's like, God, God God, I didn't know that. I though that AA was the secular way to get sober. My grandmother was a Pentecostal minister, and she had a skid row mission in San Pedro, California, Port of Los Angeles, down on Beacon Street. If you know that area, Beacon Street is a nasty little part of LA, and it's where the bums, in fact people used to get killed there almost every night in the 50s and 60s, but my grandmother's little white dove mission was down there, and she helped these wharf rats and winos to sober up by feeding them soup and Jesus. Actually, sober wasn't her agenda, but sober was part of finding the, you know, picking up the cross. And so I knew you could get sober on soup and Jesus, I had seen it done. It just never seemed worth it to me. So when I came to AA, I thought this was a secular way to get sober, the way the smart people got sober without God. And then I heard all that stuff, all that God stuff, and I thought, oh man, last house on the block and it's a Sunday school, you know? And I've just, I found it very depressing. But here was the big book, the only authority on AA the woman had said the basic text of the program with a chapter called we agnostics well let's read that sucker so I poured another shot of whiskey and I read chapter 4 in its entirety and when I finished I thought alright I'm spacing out here I missed the whole smart people stay sober without God poured another shot of whisky and I red chapter 4 again alright focus focus focus poured another shot read chapter four again I did this six times that night read this same chapter six times in succession with a shot of Irish whiskey in between each one and I guess the Bushmills slowed down my brain to the point where I could focus on the black part and realize that no matter how many times I read it this chapter is not going to say what I want it to say but in doing so I came across some stuff that I found pretty interesting for instance a little sentence in there that says we found that God doesn't make too hard terms on those who seek him I don't think most of us notice that so much when we first read it because it just sounds so true, we found that God doesn't take too hard turns on those who seek him, if there's a power that created the universe certainly wouldn't have some stringent ego that would make you come to him in a certain particular way and yet I was openly hostile to all organized religions when I got here because it seemed to me, well there was a number of reasons but the main reason was it seemed to me that every organized religion said we have the way that God wants us to get to him and you have to do it this way or you're in trouble. And somebody else said no, no,no that's not the truth. I am the way, the truth and the life. Come over here. You know when you go over there and then somebody says no, no, they're all wet. Do it this way. This is the way God wants us to do it and it seemed like everybody had their different ways so I just I just became hostile to organized religion and I mean openly hostile and called myself an atheist, I wasn't an atheist if an atheist is somebody who claims proof of the non-existence of God I never claimed that but I didn't like the term agnostic because it sounds like somebody that doesn't know what they believe and I didn' t know what I believe and knew I didn''t know what i believed but I don''t want you to know it I didn ''t want to call myself that what are you? I am someone who doesn''t what they belive you know so um it seemed to me that every organized religion said god does it see my grandmother's pentecostal church it seems said uh they said my name in less than a syllable over there we are very sure that god makes hard times on those who seek him boy you know in fact god will not even hear your prayers unless you are baptized. And I'm not talking about sprinkled on the forehead like some Methodist. I'm talking about total submission. So that's why we got this tank of water for Christ up here. Come on up here we'll soak you down and pull you up wash you in the blood of the Lamb. Praise Jesus all men. Somebody get the boy a towel. What? that's a little over the top for me grandma pretty much came for the music you know and let's sing in the garden or something you know I like to harmonize with them but I just had a shower before I left home but it wasn't just the Pentecostals if it was you'd go okay well Pentecastles are over the top but it seemed to me from my drunken perception of what organized religion was, that they all had some weird thing. My girlfriend was a Catholic. She had to go to confession, communion, confirmation, a bunch of other cons so she could learn how many Hail Marys and Our Fathers it took to cleanse her soul of the various kinds of sins. And Catholics got some sins, man. They got them categorized over. They don't have like, oh you sinned, oh no you sin, and this way you got cardinal and venial and menial and mortal. And some of them you don't even have to do them, but if you think about them express way to hell so okay i don't think i'm gonna go kneel at that pew you know and uh i like it they called it a pew you know you smell something in here it's a pew and but but julie would do all that stuff and her whole family did and they were happy to do it it made them happy to doing it so i didn't object to them doing it and but they'd do it and they still couldn't talk to God. You know what I mean? They talk to God's mom, right? Hello, Mrs. God. It's Julie. No, don't wake them. Just tell them I love them. Okay, bye. And they never understood that. My friend Michael was an Orthodox Jew and that was a happy family. The Orthodox Jewish family, it was a nice, warm, safe place to go over the Rothberg home. We all liked going there because it was a nice warm place. You felt happy and comfortable when you're in the Rothberg home. But they ate funny, and they dressed funny, so we made fun of them. And that's what we did. Michael would wear those little spit curls to school. It's like, okay, that's religious courage, you know. Mike, you know why they picked on you for centuries? The spit curls! But, you go over there, and his mom would say, oh, act like she's been waiting for you all week. Doug, oh Doug, it's such an honor to have you in our home would you like to join us in some wine and challah what would you like to join us in some wine and challah well I'll have some wine I'm not much of a pastry eater Mrs. Rostig thanks Michael and I went out for lunch one time And he ordered Michael orders I'll have the BLT Hold the bacon What do you order a BLT for If you're going to hold the bacon That's the B, man LT, you just ordered a salad on toast dude you know he said well you know to consume the flesh of the cloven hoofed animal is to offend he whose name cannot be uttered i said don't tell me that was hebrew that was american but i don't understand a damn word you said he's he said pork i can't eat pork okay why not it'll offend he who's name cannot be uttered. Who's that? Can't say his name. Jesus Christ! No, but you're close, he said. And then there were Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims. Oh my! And I just said, okay, I'm done. Put him over there. A friend of mine said, well, yeah, we objected to our Christianity and Judaism and our parents' religions, but we hippies had our own religions. We had our Nam-Yaho-Ringekyo and we were respectful of Native Americans' great spirit. I said, not me. Not me, I wasn't. I wasn'T one of those hippies. I was like openly hostile to anything that had anything to do with any kind of mysticism. That's just who I was. And so when I came into AA and they're talking about God and all that stuff, I wasn' t interested. But I liked that little part in the book that said we found that God doesn' t make too hard terms on those this season. I got my attention. And it goes on to say, you don't have to accept anybody's concept of God. Find one that you're comfortable with, and that seems to be okay with God. I never heard that anyplace else. It made it very comfortable for me. I'd have an epiphany when I read that, but once I understood it a little bit, it did open the door for me some. There's another sentence in there I like that says, to be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live life on a spiritual basis are a difficult decision to make. Well, that's because we're alcoholics. You know. Turns out that normies have no problem with that decision. It's true. It may surprise you. Earth people think that's kind of a no-brainer, really. Get yourself a clipboard and go stand in front of Walmart sometimes. Stop people when they're coming out. Excuse me, I'm taking a survey. Would you rather die an alcoholic death or live a spiritual life? See if they think that's a difficult decision. It might surprise you Because 90% of the people will just go get in the long line. You know, they're like, you know. Well, I'll take the spiritual deal. You know what I'm going to ask? A very inquisitive normie might say something like, okay, when you say alcoholic death, you're talking about where you puff up and turn yellow and choke to death on your own blood and bile, vomit. Yeah. you make it sound bad if you do that Walmart test you know when you found one of us excuse me, alcoholic death or spiritual life and you get this you're going to be here tomorrow so what happened was i started going back to aa i kind of like i kind of liked what i was getting about the spirituality here and i started to realize that it's it's not a religion and it's different than religion and uh and i and like i said i didn't come to believe i just it made it easier for me to accept what was going on here and and i decided to go back to and i the more i went the more fell in love with aa the more I realized that, yeah, you're people who drank like me. Oh, yeah. And you don't drink anymore. Yeah, I believe that. Because I had trouble believing that you were, first, that you are people that drank like my. Second, that you didn't drink any more. And you're happy about it. And I got that. And I also realized that the people who seemed to be happy in their sobriety were the people that talked about reliance on a higher power. Trust in God. And I... My first eight months in AA, I didn't have a home group. I went to a lot of different meetings. I didn't want really anybody to get to know me, and I didn t have a sponsor certainly. I didn d read the book, I didn take the steps, I did n have a commitment and I was drinking every day. But aside from that, I had a pretty good program going on, which was Keep Coming Back. was my program. And one day I was after, you know, anybody with less than 30 days, Doug alcoholic. Anybody in their first 30 days? Doug alcoholic, Doug alcoholic. We have any new friends with us in their 30 days. Doug alcoholic! After a while I got tired of that. Excuse me. And I just didn't raise my hand one day. I said, anybody in their first 30 days? Screw them. It's none of their business. It's embarrassing. It's downright humiliating to raise your hand day after day after day and if you're drinking every day, it's going to be a long time before you have 30 days. So I didn't raise my hands. And when I didn't rise my hand, there was a gal at the other end of the table who said to her friend, Doug's got 30 days. And I realized what happened. She didn't know I was being arrogant. She thought I was being serene or something, you know, and so I didn't want to make her look bad because I had this 13-step list and she was she had a significant spot on it and I wasn't dating any girls in AA because I didn' t want them to smell whiskey on me. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thanks Ed. Ed just brought me some water. So, I didn't want to make her look bad so I took a 30-day chip when they offered me. They said anybody for 30 days and I got up and took my 30- day chip and everybody went crazy there. Yay Doug! Yay Doug. They started clapping and I'm going oh it's nothing, no, nothing. And I felt a little bad about misleading them but they were so happy about it I thought I think I'll go take a chip over at Chandler Lodge tomorrow morning, you know. Went over there and took a chip and made them happy. I started taking chips all over Los Angeles. But then sometimes people, somebody would smell whiskey on me and let me know about it, you smell like whiskey. Well, it's hard to take a 60-day chip when somebody says you smell like whiskey, so I just like say, yeah. And I went out and said, well, don't worry about it, man. You're in a meeting, you're alive, that's cool. Yeah, but I feel like I let the group down. This guy told me, let us down, you didn't even surprise us. You want to surprise us, get a job. I was at this place called the Valley Club one time, and I was going to take a 60-day chip, I think, there. But I heard this girl before the meeting start talking to her friend said, my sponsor says I can't have sex until I'm sober for six months. So I took a six-month chip, you know. It's a bogus chip anyway, it doesn't matter. And I might get lucky, who knows. at this point I often think God I wish I had a picture of me, I wish I had an 8x10 or a full life photo of me at that time in my life I could not have gotten sober in a women's prison with a pocket full of pardons I was just like no I was not somebody you'd be proud to take home to the dog and so after about 8 months of this I came home from a meeting. I used to often buy a bottle of whiskey on the way to a meeting, and I wouldn't drink it before the meeting. I'd put it under the car seat and then either drink it on theway home or sometimes I'd make it all the way home. What restraint. Make it allthe way home and then drink it. This one night I did that, and I got home and I laid on the floor and turned on the TV and drank this whiskey until I passed out. Woke up about 3 a.m. That's very common. Bottles half full. Turned off the TV, 3 a.m., got my bottle, I couldn't find a cap, doesn't matter, there's plenty of them around. Crawled on my hands and knees across the living room, through the hallway, into the bedroom to go to bed. And some people call that beautiful and incomprehensible demoralization, you know. I just called it going to bed, and... Actually, it seemed kind of wise in a way, you now. Hey, you can't fall off the floor, and um... So this particular night I got in there, I stood up to take my clothes off and I lost my balance. I fell on my knees and I spilled this whiskey all over my bed. I picked up the bottle real quick and there was still some in there but most of it was in the bedspread. So I set that bottle in a safe place and I grabbed that bedspred. Don't get ahead of me. I started sucking for all I was worth. I'm sucking this whiskey out of his bed. just sucking for all I'm worth somebody said eww I hope that person is sitting next to somebody who has snorted cocaine off the floor of a public restroom I'm not asking for a show of hands but we know we're in here so Okay, but that's what you have to do when the cocaine falls on the floor. That's all. Okay, cat's out of the bag now. I did some illegal drugs. I know you wouldn't think it to look at me. but I only did I only used every one I ever heard of except for of course the ones I've heard of since I got sober and I remember hearing about ice you can smoke speed that's when you want to go hold on time out wait a minute but that's ecstasy I never used any ecstacy but that is a good name for a drug that's why you work with newcomers do you ever use any of that ecstasy yeah how was it I mean and the answer the bottom line is well I'm here so I mean how good could it be but I I don't you know I mean I never want to offend anybody, I'm enough of a people pleaser but I spoke at the Las Vegas roundup and it's a big convention about 4,000 people there and out of those 4,00 people one guy came up to me after my talk and said I didn't come to Alcoholics Anonymous to hear about drugs and I said well I'm sorry if you're offended, I really am he said well I don't know that I'm offended so much as I'm a real alcoholic and I says page 21 He said, exactly. Page 21, real alcoholic. I said, so you were sort of a Jekyll and Hyde in your drinking. That's exactly what I was. And you were kind of a tornado roaring through the lives of blameless children. That's right, son. And you are rarely mildly intoxicated, more or less always insanely drunk. Well, you got it, buddy. I said. And you used strong sedatives, did you? He said what? Yeah, on page 21 where it describes a real alcoholic, it says we use strong sedatives. What did you use? Heroin? Because I like them red devils, man. Just take a bunch of them and get all crazy and shit, you know. If you're new here, read that book! Read the book. It's just like, it's armor, you know, and I have ultimate respect for AA. I love alcoholics and it's the only place I ever fit. It saved my life and it gives me the most fun I've ever had in my life. I thought the fun was over when I got here. And I also think that if somebody is not an alcoholic and a drug addict, they should go to a different program. They're welcome here in open meetings but we need to accept anybody who's an alcoholic and anything else. If they're an alcoholic or an overeater or a gambler or a drug-addict, a child molester. If you're an alcohol, you belong here, you know? If I had... See, I don't want to offend anybody like I said, you don't mean to get on a soapbox here I get dizzy when I get on them but if you know if I had known, if I hadn't known I didn't know where my life was going to go you know first if I'd known somebody said to me hey man try this I would have said I would love to but I'm going to be speaking in an AA meeting in 30 years and I don't want to piss anybody off you know so yeah so I'm sucking this whiskey out of his bedspread and a voice in my head says hey man that ain't right you you thirsty there's whiskey in the bottle said I'm not thirsty I'm frugal I'll waste my life but I'm not the kind of guy to let whiskey evaporate in the bedspread overnight. You know, but I mean, I got the message. Here I am. There's whiskey in the bottle. I'm done drinking and I'm sucking whiskey out of a bedspred and I don't know what to do about it. I thought, God, I've been going to AA for eight months and I have not learned a part about not sucking whiskey out of an airbag. I'm not going to suck whiskey out of a bedspbread. Maybe I'm one of those hopeless losers. maybe I'm one of those guys you see hanging outside a lot of club for 20 years and they never get it they never see 60 days of continuous sobriety maybe that's my deal here maybe that's my job to be a bad example so guys can walk by with their sponsees and say well you want to be like Doug just keep doing what you're doing you know man you don't want to think that about yourself and I did if I did a funny thing something I'd never done, I said God if you're there please help me I shouldn't have done that because I didn't know my friend Doris from Pacoima Group says God is a gentleman and he never comes where he's not invited and I like to say if you invite him get the guest room ready buddy because he is on the way and the next day I went into a liquor store my favorite, my neighborhood liquor store. There's somebody from AA behind the counter. I go into a restaurant the next day over in Burbank and there's somebody and I start to order a drink. The waitress is somebody from EA. Everywhere I go there's someone from EA I'm in the supermarket and pushing a cart towards you know through the liquor department I reach up for a bottle. Somebody from EA is pushing a cart toward me. Hey hey one day at a time keep it simple beautiful life ain't it every day for two weeks every time I reach for a bottle somebody from AA is there I'm on the way to work after a couple of weeks of this just kill the half pint of Bushmills I don't keep empty bottles in the car in California they're illegal and you're useless to it and so I roll down the window and I start to toss this bottle and a guy from AA was driving towards me and he sees me and he waves 6.30 in the morning just as I let go of this bottle and he looks at me as he drives by whoa I don't know where these people are coming from there's not this many sober alcoholics in Los Angeles it's impossible and I remember that I had been on my knees and I had said God if you're there please help me and God had started helping me and I pulled the car over to the side of the road, and I thought about all these things that had been happening. That prayer that clearly had been answered, that God started doing for me what I couldn't do for myself. Little pain in the ass God jokes, you know what I'm saying? That I come to recognize as miracles. And I came to believe. I came zu believe that moment, sitting there in that parked car on the way to work, that there was a power greater than me and could restore me to sanity. and I didn't know I was at the second step at the time I couldn't have articulated that but that's exactly where I was and what happened and I went on to work and it was the beginning of my sobriety and I started to hear the music of AA and that's what I like to talk about the music of Alcoholics Anonymous because the words used to make me crazy give it away to keep it and surrender to win and some people say you gotta die to live and what the hell is that and somebody will say well the road gets narrow and somebody else say join us on the broad highway yeah you know so I don't know But once you start to hear the music, the words start to make sense. When I had 30 days of sobriety, I went over to the Burbank group Thursday night with their cake and chip night. And I had 30 days. Went to take my first honest 30-day chip. And they said, anybody for 30 days? And I got up at the Burbang group and went up. They got a stage like this. I went up and I said, my name's Doug. I'm an alcoholic. And they say, hi, Doug. And I felt like an AA member. and I had enough chips to open a casino it wasn't about the chip it was about the 30 days and it was being a member of Alcoholics Anonymous I sat down and watched people take 60s and 90s and 6 month chips and 9 month chips and 3 year cakes and 7 year cakes and 19 year cakes and I felt excited about everybody else's sobriety as I was about my own it was an unfamiliar feeling to me And at the coffee break, I started to get my coffee. A guy stopped me and said, you know what the secret is? And I said, no, don't drink, I guess. And he said, hang on. That's the whole deal here. That's what we do. You think you can do that? And I says, that's what I've been doing. He said, keep doing it. So I thought, I know the secret. They done told me the secret! I got 30 days and they told me this secret. I'm looking for some newcomer to screw up his life, you know? And I'm going to share my experience, strength, and And before I could find some unsuspecting newcomer, this guy at Burbank Group named Jim Bees, one of these glad-handed back-slapping alcoholics. He's got good word, you know, and a back-slap for everybody. Son, he says, congratulations on that 30 days. I said, thanks. And he said, you don't have to thank me. You know what the secret is? And I said yep, hang on. And he says nope, let go. All right, all right. Hey, I don't care. I heard the music and the words are not making me crazy anymore. The guy who, I understand it, the guy who said hang on is talking about keep coming back. Stay close. Stay in the middle of the herd they used to tell me. Don't get around the outside of the perimeters where you get picked off by the predators. Hang on. Hang on to that sobriety. And Jim B. that told me let go is talking abut let go and let God surrender. The war is over and you lost. You know? I understand. And I understood that in chapter 5 that's read at most meetings that was read tonight, I understand that when it says honesty, rigorous honesty, people who don't get sober seem to be constitutionally incapable. It used to make me very nervous. So I'm not an honest person by nature. Before I got sober, the most honest thing I ever did probably was when my first wife said to me, alright Doug I want the truth did you sleep with my sister you know I said not a wink and you know but you know what the deal is I'm 17 and a half years sober and sometimes I lie I only do it when I'm divinely directed praying for knowledge of God's will and the power to carry it out and sometimes I'm supposed to fib, you know, if your wife says to you, honey, does this dress make me look fat? Okay, this is not the time for rigorous honesty. Rigorous honesty would be some dumb shit like no, I think it's the Haagen-Dazs, honey. I don't know, the dress looks fine on the hanger. let's go try it on this skinny blonde next door if it makes her look fat, then there's something wrong with the dress that's rigorous stupidity you don't need to do that I lie to waiters I lie and I'm not going to lie I lie at a waiter's all the time because waiters say to me things like sir would you like a cocktail before dinner and I lie to them I say no thank you they don't need the whole story they're not trying to ruin my sobriety and my life they're just doing their job so I don't have to say what do you mean give me a drink I say no thankyou because if I had to tell them the rigorous honesty you know what boy there's a very intrinsic part of me that would like to have a double Bushmills neat and a margarita back. And I would like you to keep them coming all night long. I have a pocket full of plastic and I tip my ass off. We're going to party tonight, pal. No, don't do it. Come here. I'm just kidding. It turns out I actually have a disease. It's a mental obsession coupled with a physical allergy and spiritual bankruptcy. I don't think you want that in your nice restaurant, do you? So, you know what I'm saying? Listen to the music and the words won't make it crazy anymore. Let me tell you something else. People with considerable time will often, often, misquote the big book. That's why they decided to write it all down in black and white. It's not an oral tradition, you see. You know? I know we have people here that respect the Native American oral tradition, and so do I. But Alcoholics Anonymous, they wrote it down. So it'll always be the same right in the book. So you can read it. Now, I didn't want to read the book because you hear so much, well, our book says the big book says, I'm writing the big books, people always quote the big ones, and I figured eventually the whole thing would be quoted, and I have a pretty good memory, I'll just memorize it. I don't have much time for reading. But I didn't know that it gets misquoted. I may have misquotted it tonight. If I did, give me a call. 818-353-4607. Tell me what I misquoded. 818 353 4607 Sometimes I get those calls. I like them too. This woman said, our book says that our drinking was but a symptom of deeper underlying causes and conditions and it does say precisely that then she went on to add her own stuff and if you don't find your deeper underlying cause and condition you're going to drink again doesn't say that anywhere in the book but how would I know because I'm not reading it so I'm scared, I'm going oh man I don't want my deeper underlying, oh no it took me all this time to quit drinking and now I'm going to drink again unless I find my deeper underlying causing condition I was like shining that searchlight over my drinking career looking for whose fault it was because I didn't start drinking I never had a drink until I was 18 so I didnít start too young like a lot of you did in fact maybe I would never have drank except my friend Morris who is my sexual sponsor at the time said, you want to get in this girl's pants you're going to have to get her drunk. We went and parked at the railroad tracks in Garden Grove. We'd been there lots of times but this time I took a quart of Rainier Ale which was a national beverage of Garden Grove and we asked from up here isn't it? It tastes like dish water but carbonated I would have been happy I didn't go there to drink I had another agenda I would've been happy to say here drink this let me know when you're ready it just seemed kind of rude and I was a polite young man so I drank some passed it to her drank some we split that quarter Rainier Ale half a quarter Rainier will take you downtown no not exactly but if you've never had a drink it'll get your attention you know, and it turned out it was the first time I got high and my friend was right, it's the first time I ever had sex in front of a witness so that's how I started drinking there wasn't any deeper underlying cause and condition I don't think I didn't come from an alcoholic family either my dad was the kind of guy who would buy a six pack of beer and drink one and put five in the fridge leave them there for a week I don't understand that kind of drinking. It's okay, he didn't understand my kind of drinking, but I don' t think a refrigerator should get five and I should get one and so my mother may be an alcoholic, I don''t know. You can't tell because she won't drink. How would you tell? How wouldyou know? And I have asked her. I started looking for this deeper underlying thing. I find out if I've got a genetic predisposition and I said, Mom, why don't you drink? She said, what do you care? I said I want to know. Why don't your drink? Are you an alcoholic? She said I don't know. Maybe. It might be. She said when I was young I drank and every time I did I got sick, stupid, and obnoxious so I quit. I said you've got to drink through that. You know my mother does not have the tenacity to make this program. So I'm looking through my whole life to see what... Oh, I realized when I was 24 years old, I moved from Orange County, California, up to Hollywood to try to make it in the music business. And I moved up to Hollywood and when I went there, I went to see a show called Hair. And it just knocked my socks off. Man, it was hippies singing, dancing, getting naked, sex, drugs, and rock and roll set to music. And I was like oh, yeah, I called them the next day. I said, hey, I want to be in your show. And you know, if you did that today, if that happened today, they would say, well, have your agent contact us with a resume. In 1969, they said, what are you doing Friday at 1 o'clock? They don't know me. I said... You tell me. They said, you got an audition. Come down to the Aquarius Theater and audition for here. I said okay. Bring some sheet music, they sent. So Friday morning, I got my guitar out I'm practicing the song I'm going to sing because, you know, I've got to practice and I broke a string on my guitar and hippies were like, oh, bad karma, man. You know, so... So I went into my roommate's room to see if he had the string that I needed, the D-string, and it was right there on his dresser in this little envelope. Nothing else on his dressing, just the D string envelope. Ah, good karma dude. Picked that up and underneath it there was a little white capsule which I went, hmm, wonder what that is. Oh, because we didn't have a PDR. You pretty much had to swallow test everything and, you know, it's very effective, actually. If somebody dies, don't eat the green shit, you see what I'm saying? You know, and this turned out to be THC, which I wasn't going to fit here. the only way you can get the reaction that you just had in the real world is if you take a kitten to a PTA meeting and say, did anyone lose this kitten? And everybody goes, oh. In Alcoholics Anonymous, you say THC, oh, which is, if you don't know, it's a synthetic marijuana and it's nice little psychedelic. So 45 minutes later when I got down to the Aquarius Theater, I was floating, man. My hair was long over my shoulders and it swished when I walked. I had these hip-hugger bell-bottoms on, you know? Bells about that big. I mean, they swooshed. And I had no shirt on. I was like 50 pounds younger, too. No shirt on, just a vest with six layers of foot-long red, white, and blue leather fringe. Woo! Oh, it was a walking wind chime walking in there with my sheet music. And I stood around there with a bunch of other hippies, and they said, Doug Rowell? Is Doug RowELL here? Yeah. So I went up on stage, and I handed the sheet music to the piano player, and he opened it. Big smile. He winks at me, and he started to play. Bum, bum, bum. I said, I feel good. Went into this James Brown number. I thought I was the godfather of soul. and ended up down on one knee you know, and they said love your energy man they're like yeah, good, good they're nudging each other and they say can you do something a little mellower so we can kind of get a range yeah, so I went into an acapella version of Otis Redding's Dock of the Bay the piano player picked it up and fell in the pocket man, I made myself cry and they loved it and I knew I was in and then they said we just got to see you dance I don't know anything about dancing I never danced a lick in my life but hit it so the guy hits it he starts to play and I start to move I'm seeing my hair come around and the fringe on this vest is going, pa-chow, pow, whoo! And I heard somebody say, Jesus, can he dance? Because you know, alcohol and drugs did for us what we couldn't do for ourselves. If it didn't, why would we ruin our lives over it? You know, that's what they don't understand. My friend says, people don't understand us, why we have such a hard time stopping drinking. They think we want to stop drinking. So I got the job. They hired me, not for the L.A. show, they hired me for the Las Vegas show to go there and I ended up playing this part of Burger who is this obnoxious speed freak, sex crazed leader of the tribe. It was a stretch but I could do it. And we played Vegas for six months and then we left. We became the first national tour of hair. Traveled around the United States and Canada for three years. We'd go to some place and they'd put us on the radio the next morning or TV. Welcome to, hey it's good morning Pittsburgh. We've got the cast of hair with us. Hey, it's AM Cincinnati. They'd have us and interview us. What's it like being nude on stage? Well, it was beautiful man. It's natural. And I was the articulate one. somebody would come up to us after the audience would come up on stage after the show and people guys would come up say love you man you're beautiful here have some pot brother sense of me and Maui Maui Panama red Acapulco gold you know give us all this great dope somebody come you like acid man have some windowpane have some orange sunshine you know Osley purple age give us all this stuff some girl would come up and go God I love you take me okay. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll traveling around the country and getting paid for it is a pretty good job really. But I look back at it from my newfound sobriety and I thought they used me. You know it hurts when you realize what a victim you were. I was victimized. I called my sponsor. I said, hey man, hey, I found it. What did you find now, Doug? Found my deeper underlying cause and condition. Oh, let's hear that. Hair? Hair. How about if we cut your hair off, do you think you can stay sober? Not my hair. The show hair. Oh yeah, remember I told you I was a big star traveling around the country. Oh, I forgot about the big star deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he said, you told me you were loaded when you auditioned for that show. Yeah, see, I told him too much. So yeah, and he said let me tell you something. Most people, most non-alcoholic people when they go to interview for a job they really want won't take a drug they can't identify. And when he put it in those terms I could understand it I don't know what my deeper underlying cause is, and he said, I don' t know what mine is either. Don't worry about it. If you want to look for it, fine. It will give you something to do between meetings. Meanwhile, go to a meeting tomorrow. Call me tomorrow. And read that book tomorrow. I want you to start reading that book every day. You got a big book? I said, yeah. He said, read it every day If you can't read a chapter, read a page. If you ca n't read a page, read paragraph. But I want you're reading that book every day, and you've got the rest of your life to recover, we're in no hurry, but you cannot let up on it. What great advice! I never got better advice. You can't read a page, or you can't write a chapter, read a paragraph. I'm still doing that. That's what I tell the guys I work with. They change stuff in there. They put new stuff in just when you need it. And I've been listening to the music of this thing for a long time and if you're new and you're going what the hell is he talking about about the music of Alcoholics Anonymous stick around and you will hear it and it will make the lyrics make sense and if you share the laugh with us tonight you're already part of the music welcome to the band thanks a lot