Earl H. at the South Bay Roundup – 2021

Hi everybody, my name is Earl I'm an alcoholic Hi, nice to be here with all of you It's an honor and a privilege To do something like this I want to thank the committee for asking me To come share here Dave and the gang And it's been nice to reconnect with some people That I haven't seen for a long time The last time I was at this convention Was the second one I was at the second one in this room and there's that door right there and there is a light to the left of that door and I stood up against that wall with my arms folded, mad dogging everybody and I was five years sober and it was the first conference I had ever been to this was the 1st conference I ever came to and I came at the request of a guy I sponsor who is sitting right back there i was sponsoring at the time you say come on we gotta go in there i begrudgingly came here barely stood in the back a lot's happened since then i mean i look i started out i by the time i was four years old i was looking over my shoulder you know what i mean uh i was uh i knew trouble was coming You know, you had to have your guard up. My father was a, I grew up in a violent home. My father wasn't, you know, nothing unusual around here. My father as a violent man. Remorseless, violent, homicidal, cruel human being. The kind of guy who never should have had kids, but, you know, he wanted that. He married a woman and met her niece and divorced her and married the niece, and she had a daughter, so he divorced her and then found another, fired his secretary, married her. She had a son and he stayed with her till the day he died. He wanted that man child, that Earl Hightower Jr. that he could raise in his image. No thank you. That was the plan, man. He was going to beat me into a state of reasonableness, right? So I'm one of those guys that doesn't, you know, I didn't really have a childhood. I have little pictures, little freeze frames of things that happened along the way, little pictures. But I don't have any real sense of ever having been a kid or feeling safe or trusting in anything or anybody. I don' t have, it's just not a part of me, you know, growing up. At 12 years old, I did a bunch of tests on me. I started to act up a little bit. I ended up in boarding school. Now I ended up in boring schools. My father came into my room and said, get in the car. And I went outside and there were two cars and the engines are running and there are these people in them. And apparently these were my relatives. I was unaware of that. I had not met many of them. And I got in the car and we drove and drove and drove and drive and drove. We ended up at the base of this mountain in front of this building. And i got out of the car and my father got out the car. Nobody else got out of the cars. They didn't shut them off. They just kept them running. And he put a suitcase down next to me and shook my hand and said, this will make a man out of you. Got in the card left now. I'm 12 years old, about five feet tall, 104 pounds. Right. Like manhood is right around the corner. Right? Yeah. And i'm standing there like what the hell did i do you know because the the fact is i'm being given an uh you know an opportunity for a wonderful education held me in good stead to this very day but the feeling was is that i had just been thrown away by the people who knew me best in the world and i didn't know what i'd done to be thrown out right now i don't know about you but you know I don't much bother with the facts. I'm a feelings guy, you know what I mean? If it feels bad, it is bad, right? And this felt bad,right? Turns out I'm the youngest and the smallest kid in the school of 250 boys. They've scoured the earth to find 250 of the brightest, most disturbed young kids they can find. It's like Lord of the Flies in his joint, right, And there I am, you know, just a sitting duck, man. 249 teenagers and one 12-year-old, me. So I'm walking around with my books under my arm, you know, in this place the first week, you know, trying not to make eye contact with anybody because I'm scared of my own shadow, right? But I mean, you know, I've been fighting since I'm four years old, right? So I're ready. And I met Tiny. Every high school got a guy named Tiny, right ? Everybody got a rock. And that high school teenage rock swung by, you know what I mean? And he saw me and he thought he just, you know, introduced a new little guy to the, to, to the campus. So he just walked up to me and said, how are you doing punk? And he slapped me in the back of the head and said me and my books just flying, right? I sprawled out in a quad and tiny, I mean, you know, we ended up being friends. He was a great guy, but I mean he was just messing with the little new guy. You know what I mean He just figured he'd just slap some little kid. He didn't realize he had just slapped a guy who was willing to die over this. you know so i mean i just picked myself up and walked over and just belted him as hard as i possibly could right which had no effect on tiny whatsoever but he looked down at me and he said you know you got a lot of guts kid then he beat the crap out of me and i was one of those tough little kids man that you know i mean this was turf i understood right so he knocked me down i just pop right back up you know everybody's like geez he's on his feet again i mean and tiny's like bad decision bam down i go again i mean and i did that and it to the point where it just got embarrassing for everybody like tiny was like you know i didn't really mean for this to happen you know what i mean this kid won't lay down and then people are standing around just doing they're going just just dude this is this is ugly just stay down as i you know until finally, you know, he laid me out. And then everybody just went away thinking that that was all very unfortunate, right? And I got up and hobbled back to my dorm room sitting there waiting for the bleeding to stop thinking my life sucks, right, and word spread across this campus like wildfire, watch out for this little high tower kid, he's a maniac, he attacked tiny, right. I'm just a frightened baby, you Know what I mean? Now it's like, watch out for that one, right? So the cool guys came around. Matt stuck his head in my dorm room and he goes, Hey man, you want to smoke a joint? And I said, yes, I do. And I didn't even know what that meant. All I heard was, do you wantto come with us? I thought, man, I'm alone in the universe. Yeah, I'll go with you. So we went and picked up Steve, and Steve had a Tupperware container wrapped in aluminum foil of cheap red, you know, nitrate. You know what I mean? Fortified stuff. No grapes involved wine. You know What I mean ? That stuff. And so the three of us, two 13-year-olds and a 12-year old babies. We went behind the dorm, and Matt fired up the joint and took a hit. And I don't know how I... This has baffled me. I've thought about this a lot lately. it baffled me that it must be in my somewhere back in my family history somebody smoked a lot of weed because you know there's a way you pass a joint from one person to another and it's kind of like two or three motions that just turn into one move you know what i mean where you reach out with that index finger and you just just pop grab the thumb and just clap and you got it right now i'm 12 years old never seen a joint in my life and that takes a hit and holds it out to mean? I just went, and I got that thing. Just a naturalist, you know what I mean? Like I've been doing it all my life, right? And just like, all right, let's check this out, right. So I took a hit off that and that burned my lungs. That sucks. Then the wine came around and I took a pull on that wine. I mean, calling that stuff wine is being generous, but I took a big slug on that and it went down and hit the bottom of my stomach and that wafting thing you know just kind of wafted back up on me i was like whoa you know here give me that joint bag let's try that again yeah you know and i just stood there two total strangers standing by a tree knots on my head tiny's roaming around out there somewhere family's long gone and then just it happened that thing that makes me bodily and mentally different from my fellows occurred And suddenly I was comfortable standing where I was standing, doing what I was doing with the people I was dealing with. And I never felt like that before in my life. I believe I exhaled fully and completely for the first time in my life. And I don't know. Is it the pot? Is it a wine? Is it to me? Is it just the fact that I'm standing here with my two very close personal friends, Matt and Steve? Because these are my boys now, you know? All right? And I do not care what it is because I got to remember in the beginning, for me, it worked perfectly. It did exactly what I needed it to do. It was the fear killer. Because if you looked at me in my life at that time, there was this big barrel of emotions. I mean, I don't know anybody who feels one thing at a time and then they get kind of bored of that feeling and then feel something else. There's a lot going on. I felt 37 different feelings since I've been in this room. I mean that's the way it is, this big barreled of feelings. And I mean I can drink and use through that surface stuff quick. It doesn't take much. But way down at the bottom of my emotional barrel, that deep undercurrent that runs my life is self-centered fear. And I'm drinking at that. So to get all the way to that, I've got to get drunk. I've Got to get as loaded as I possibly can or I'm not doing the job I'm there to do. It doesn't feel like it's working. So I drink to get drunken. I get loaded to get high. I don't dabble. i'm not social about it i've seen social drinking i find it bizarre it's just not how i'm wired i'm fired this way our way you know and i took off running man and i woke up the next morning and what i also have to remember is i felt better than i ever felt in my life and nobody died that night. Nobody went to prison. Nobody went to the nut house. No blood was drawn. All those things were going to happen but they didn't happen that night so I woke up the next morning feel better than you've ever felt before in your life. Nothing bad went down I'm in. I'm all the way in. So I drank and used no matter what for the next 16 years. I was given many good reasons to stop along the way. Never even touched the brakes which is the difference between me and the problem drinker problem drinkers, you give them a good reason to stop they do it they can make that solemn oath, that pledge and follow through on it I'll make the solemn oath I'll take the pledge and I'll mean it for a minute and somehow it slips loose and I don't feel right and the screws start to tighten and I gotta get well and I only know one way to do that right so it oh you know it's on again right never made it through a day anyway so it was humble beginnings for me a little weed a little red wine you know no big deal right 13 was pills only reason I took a pills I was on a 10-hour pass and a guy walked up to me and I had a party and he goes you want to win a couple of pills and I said yes I do and I took him and swallowed him and said well what was that not the normal order of things for the normal person a normal person will inquire what do we got here that's secondary information for me these are pills all I want to know is should I lay down now or should I get ready to paint a house You know? What are we, what's going on? Because I'm cool either way, man. And that's another thing. If you're new, I just want you to know, if you're a specialist, and you did one thing right into the dirt, and you're here, God bless you, welcome, glad you're there, take a seat, buckle up. My drug of choice was what do you got? Now, I identify as an alcoholic because that's what took me to my knees and brought me to you. It was alcohol. Alcohol was killing me in the end. I only used to keep me on my feet so I could keep drinking. That's all that was about. But, I mean, given a choice along the way. I like heroin. I like barbiturates. I like alcohol. These are a few of my favorite things. I'm going down giving a choice I don't want to light it up I want to shut it down right in here my idea of a good night is sitting around checking my pulse I'm fine heart and lungs are working that's all I need I don' t want to feel anything but the truth is when I go to connect you don't have that I'll take a big bag of the cocaine. Can't go down? Let's go up. Let's get busy, man. I'm, you know, let's start driving those freeways decoding license plates. You know? A lot of tweakers in here. Yeah, yeah. All right, settle down. Bunch of freaks. I love you people. The only people in the world that will walk into a room and say, you know, I think I should take that television apart. Nobody else does that. And sometimes it'll work when you're finished. Anyway, you know again, you know, humble beginnings. 14 was psychedelics. I'm a child of the 60s, right? And I was on a 10-hour pass again. I met this girl named Debbie. Debbie was a very bad girl. i will love hurdle the day i die man debbie opened my eyes to the possibilities in life man and at some point during this process debbie said you want to drop some acid and i said well i sure do debbie if you're going i'm going all right so she took out a lipstick tube and spun it up on the end of it was this little pill and i just took it off and popped it in my mouth And Debbie said, um, did you just take that whole thing? And I said, well, yes, I did. That was a very tiny pill. And she said, Well, that was three hits of white lightning, son. Yeah, a little identification in here, huh? You all know the next two days were very interesting for me, man. I don't got a lot to say about it right here, but let's put it this way. You know you go into a market? Markets are nothing but decisions to this day for me. I'll go in with a list. I get what's on the list, I leave it. If it wasn't on the lista, I am not responsible for not having that. I just list, right? But you ever go in and you're going down an aisle and you see a cart just sitting there and there's an abandoned cart? I completely understand that guy. The abandoned cart in a market because the guy went in there and just went, you know, I got to get some corn and then it's corn on the cob and green corn and some kind of mixed corn thing. And it's just like, yeah, I'm coming back. Abandoned cart. That was part of my first... I did about 600, 650 acid trips, got classified legally insane by the military. That's a whole other story we don't need to get into here, but I did some tripping. Fifteen, I started shooting dope and the only reason I shot dope I've been drinking since twelve I waited as long as I could Twelve, I gotta have a drink But fifteen, I started shooting rope and the other reason I shot dope was I was on another pass a girl named Cammie, delightful girl and CammIE said, would you like me to stick this in your body? And I said, yes I would I'm getting how this all works now, right? So Cammy hit me and it was one of those shots where you just go huh and on the way down all I was thinking was if I'm not dead I'm doing this again because that was awesome just Cammy was looking at me like, right I'm going, yes Cammy, yes lead and I shall follow you know 16 in the nut house three months of observation year of rehabilitation talked my way out of that joint because that seemed kind of excessive hit the streets threw the net over me again brought me back in the second time I escaped on the first day because I had learned you got to get out before they get the Thorazine in you because if they get The Thorazin in you ain't leaving man you got two speeds slow and stopped that's it you know you see a guy just froze up in the hallway and you just gone another Thorazine brother how you doing man yeah how do they like you in the nuthouse calm that's how they like it right so I blew out of this joint called the Westwood in West LA that's a 12 foot chain link fence man I made it over that fence with with an intern just nipping at my heels man 16 years later I did business with that place i went back there to do some business that place and the same administrator was still there so we're in his office talking about stuff you know i'm trying to cut a deal doing all this every once in a while he'd say yeah your name is so familiar you know yeah well it's that kind of name you know right then i'm thinking practice these principles in all our affairs i i think this is one of those things you know and i'm like starting to feel a little uncomfortable about not coming clean with this guy so we got a deal everything's great. And he's walking me out. We're standing out in front of the place where I'm a little more comfortable now because I'm outside the wall, you know? Because I'm technically a fugitive from this joint, right? An escaped mental patient, right. So we're outside the wall. And I looked at him and shook his hand. I said, listen, man, I gotta be, I got to be straight with you. He goes, well, what is it? And I said I escaped from here 16 years ago. And the guy looked at me for a second, and he went, well, you seem to be doing okay. I said, yeah, I'm in that ANA thing now. Everything's going pretty good. And he's like, good for you, boy. Keep going, right? It's nuts. Called my sponsor up, told him what I did. And you just went, of course you did. Click. Then I was 20 years old. I got, I was up in college in Northern California. I mean, I I'd left home at 12 and said, you don't want me. I want you. And I turned my back on my family and I pretty much never went back. I was just loose from 12 on and I'd become a drug dealer only because that's what I knew about. AndI had no sense of family, no sense of community. I didn't have any morals. I Didn't have many ethics i had no compass i had no teachers i had no it was just loose in the world and i was just doing the best i could weird set of circumstances i ended up in a very good business college in northern california and i'm studying marketing production distribution i'm applying that to my business businesses boom and i think these guys are sharp around here right i'm going to college right and they have a health fair and i go to the health fairand this guy says you should go to a doctor alright so i went to a doctor and they said you have malignant cancer I was like well of course I do right so I flew back to LA and they uh said yeah you need to get your affairs in order man and that was the first time I kind of got brought up short you know and I thought wow I gotta get my you know I'm gonna die I'm like 20 19 20 years old I'm going to die and I got no you know i make a couple of phone calls we're good to go here you know what I mean I got I have a I've done nothing with my this life that's been given to me. I've done nothing. So they did major surgery on my upper back and they called it nuclear medicine back then, chemotherapy. And they shot me up with their stuff a couple of times and I just said, I need to let you guys know that your drugs suck. So I went home and got loaded the way I get loaded and I'm a long-term cancer survivor. My friends used to joke with me and just say early on. The only reason you made it is your body is so toxic, cancer couldn't live in your body. So I've been cancer free for a long time, man. And went back to school. My mother called me and she was crying, which is not fair by the way, to all you mothers crying. We have no defense with that you know that's a meatball in the mouth moment so my mother called me and she said we haven't been anywhere as a family in 10 years and we're going on your birthday we're getting together and we'll go on somewhere because we got to put this down we got to get this family back together and you and your father are gonna put your differences aside and we're gonna work our way through this because I say so and I just went all right mom you know I mean, I got hair down to my elbows, strung out. And I'm like, fine. So I fly back to L.A., and on my birthday, November 7th, 1974, we took off to fly to Guadalajara, and on the way there, the plane crashed. And my mother, my father, and my little sister all died in the crash. And I survived, and I came to, and it fractured my skull. My back was broken in three places. It's paralyzed from the waist down, crushed my arm and my leg. damn near broke every bone of my body and my mother was laying over there my little sister kimberly was right there and my father was laying right over there and the only thing i could move is my right arm so i couldn't get to any of them to help them i couldn'T help anybody i just laid there and i watched them all bleed to death in front of me and like wherever the deepest switch is inside you as a human i just switched it off i renounced god i had no interest in a god that would take a kind gentle poetic lovely creature like my little sister Kimberly who didn't belong to my parents she belonged to me she was mine she was 15 months younger than me and I mean I raised her I brought her up she came to me with her problems and I had let her down you know I had lived she had died and I have no right to be here I knew it some guys came by and scavenged the wreck took what they could find of value and left me there to die so I had no more love of you either I had no love of God, I had no love for my fellow man I was just an angry alcoholic busted from head to toe laying in the dirt and then some other guys came up, threw me in the back of a flatbed truck next to my deceased mother and I held her hand they drove us to a Mexican aid station and they tagged her dead and they tagged me dead sat there smoking cigarettes waiting for me to die and I remember in the afternoon light the shade and these fleas dancing in the truck and I kept thinking that was the rhythm of our deaths and that I was going to die laying in this truck next to my mother. And I just, I was just so pissed off. I just thought, you know, I ain't dying. I ain'T dying. You guys are just going to have to work this out because I ainT leaving. Took me to the hospital, Hospital Fatima in Los Mochos, Mexico. They took me there and then they found out my name and that immediately brought the federales in numbers, right? Let's just say Mexico was not happy to discover I was back in their country. There were some smuggling issues that were unresolved. And so they showed up and interrogated me, tortured me for three and a half days through an interpreter. And I just kept saying pilot error, pilot error. Pilot error, you know what I mean? Finally got a hold of a buddy of mine from Northern California who flew in a plane. They paid off a bunch of guys and they plastered me from the neck down and smuggled me out of Mexico. So ended up in a hospital in Santa Monica for quite a while. Got a back brace, called in a guy, got a custom back brace made. My leg was still in a cast. Got a cane. I was all sucked up, man. And I got out of there and into a car knowing I had to hook up right away because I'd been on maximum doses of Demerol every three hours around the clock for a long time. And I knew I got three hours. You know, the clock's ticking on me, right? But, I mean, I was blazing in 15 minutes, you know what I mean? and wheeled me out, put me in a car, and the guy in the back seat just handed the rig up front, and bam, here we go. And the next six years was madness. It was absolute madness because I had no family, I hadno friends, I hadnothankers of any kind, Ihadnodreams, ambitions, I had pictures in my head I knew I couldn't live with, I was just flat out of my mind. And I was trying to blot out the intolerable nature of my existence, like the book talks about. and I took the beating for six years on a daily basis and I came out of my last blackout and there were hundreds of them I'm one of those guys that comes to in different cities talking to people I've never seen before in my life with four cops standing in front of me again and nobody's got a smile on their face I don't know how to handle that I'm very comfortable in that situation You know, you just keep your hands where everybody can see them and nod. Oh, I'm sure that's true. Yeah, I don't know. I'm, I've, I, I I'm I'm not exaggerating that a bit officer. I'm just saying what else are you going to do? You know just say excuse me officers. I just got here. It's this little thing I do. I'm here. I'm Not Here. I'm Here. I'm NOT Here. you know so i just turn around now all right you know and i came out of my last blackout and i was 215 pounds i had hair down my elbows i was yellow my thyroid shut down my heart the pericardium around my heart was swollen my liver and my kidneys were just angry man they were just they'd had enough dying i was dying of alcoholism. I was dying, and I could feel it. You know that? Those of you who have been right to the line, you know that feeling where it's not going to be long. And I had that moment, and something happened in that blackout. I don't know. I'm a lightning bolt through the window guy, and it happened in the last blackout because I came out of the last blackouts and went, that's it. Please help me. I hadn't said that in years. I just said please help me and there was somebody in there was a police car outside and an ambulance because they were deciding whether or not to charge me with the attempted murder of david luboff at the time apparently i'd gotten a little upset about something and don't know what to this day all i remember was when they threw me the ambulance i was driving away david luboff was yelling at the ambulance you don't understand the ramifications of the situation and i looked at the at the attendant and i went you know he's right and i do not and they took me to uh um ucla emergency where they pumped my uh pump my stomach and they just said get him out of here he's gonna die from there they took me to olive view medical center for three three to five more days five five days and i just kept getting sicker and sicker sicker and they said get get him outta here and they took me by ambulance down to long beach general hospital under the care of a doctor vicky Fox. And, uh, it was a room with 42 cots in it. Old army cots with sheets drawn between the cots and kicking. It was in that detox. It Was called riding the cot. You know, nobody showed up at night ever to say, well, you, you seem a little anxious. Can I get you a little something for that? Can I, can I help you sleep? I never saw that guy. That guy never came. Right. And I know didn't come because i never slept i just rode that cot bucked up a couple of seizures you know where you just buck right up out of the cot and hit the floor and then they put you on a gurney wheel you into the hospital side shoot you full anticonvulsants then they check your pulse you know 180 over 95 good enough send you back in you're like i don't think that's good they're wheeling you back throw your bag in the cot you know great 47 days in that cot sick boy 52 days of detox and ray w called me into his office and i shuffled on in there and he said earl you got to go to the a&a boy and i remember sitting there thinking or because you can't that sentence just can't end right there I mean, I admit I've never been to the A&A, but I know a lot about it. And it ain't great, man. I said, put that plug in here. I'm going to go in and sit down. How you doing? I'm Bill. How you dealing, Bill? I'm new here. What are you doing, Bill ? Well, Earl, I'm not drinking. I kind of figured that, Bill, based on where we're sitting. What are You doing later? What's the plan? You know, what do you guys do? He goes, well, Earl, probably not going to drink later. Well, dude, I'm new. What am I supposed to do? I don't know what to do. Well, Earl. From the look of you, I think you better not drink. I really enjoyed our talk, pal. That was great. That's the A&A. There it is. That's all there is to it. And Ray looked at me and went, thanks for sharing. Just shut up and go to AA. Like, fine. So I ended up in the basement of a church on a Friday night, mad-dogging everybody, crazy, crazy. There are a few people around the West Side who watched me come in to the Friday night meeting of the Tri-God group in Culver City, California. Jeannie Johnson and Nick ran those meetings, and they remember, and there's a one... Like, a lot of the guys that I've sponsored for years, they love hearing about, what was he like when he got here? Because we've known him for 30 years, and he's still pretty crazy. what was he like and there's one woman that was there when I walked through the door and she doesn't even use words she goes, what was it like and she just goes, oh and she does it right in front of me man, I'm just like going, easy you know, Jesus right but that was the truth, man I mean, I just had no tools for living no idea how to be in the world I didn't know how to talk to people I saw you chit-chatting I hated you for your chit chat what are you talking about don't come don't come up on me and that I don't care about your day I don' t care how your day how'd your day go don't care please get away from me I don''t like you I don't. You know, I'm here because there's literally no place else for me to be. If I don'T figure out a way to be here, I'M DEAD. I'VE BEEN TOLD THAT IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS. REPEATEDLY. SO IF YOU DON'T MIND, I'LL JUST STAND IN THE BACK AND YOU ALL GO ON ABOUT YOUR LITTLE BUSINESS. YOU KNOW, AND I'LL SEE IF I CAN'T FIGURE SOMETHING OUT WHAT YOU GOT GOING ON. and they had the scrolls up on the walls of traditions and traditions were for the group. I went, not a group. Forget that. And then there's the steps. I read the steps and I went makes perfect sense. What else you got? As far as I was concerned I'd work the steps I read them I acknowledged it Sure. What else? Guy got up to the meeting I don't know who he was never seen him since got up shared his experience strength and hope and I just went oh oh yeah what he was like yeah me too what happened yeah something weird happened it just changed that what it's like now part you lost me there because I got none of that going on but two out of three that's the best I've heard in a long time and I didn't know anything about this so I thought you know I'm going to come back next week and hear that guy talk some more because I thought that was the meeting where that guy talked so I went back the next week sat in the back and people were like hey how you doing? Fine that was my newcomer mantra how are you? Fine just don't go any further no more questions how you doin'? I don't know what's goin' on? very unclear to me just leave, just go away yeah yeah yeah I know keep comin' back beautiful, lovely little slogan you got there. I was very friendly. Great social skills, right? So I'm sitting there and they're reading all the stuff and you know what I mean? Like me at the first meeting was just, you know, find a seat, go down the building, down the building, get a seat put the keys in the seat that's good, good, great guys are red coats Sit next to the guy with the red coat. Spot the guy in the redcoat. That's where you're sitting. Sit next that guy. How are you doing? Fine. How are your doing? Fine. Sitting down, guy gets up. Leader, leader, leader sat down. Didn't get anything out of that at all. Another guy getsup. He rarely saw something. Okay, he rarely saw somethin', 12 things. Rarely saw somethin' 12 things, ABC sat down, 12 things ABC. Got it, got it, he sat down and another guy got up. He drank, I drank, yeah, down real quick. I should probably talk to that guy there ain't a bell we're getting up where are we going we're smoking I smoke we'll smoke how you doing fine how you doin fine the bell's ringing the bell is ringing find the seat red coat red coat where's the red coat find the redcoat sit down I told you I was fine really we're gonna do more of that right sit down right another guy gets up he's reading 12 things those aren't the same 12 things 24 things ABC 24 things ABC guy gets up and then they said and our speaker tonight is Betty time out who the hell is Betty and what did you do with Bill the guy next to me goes you're new aren't you I was like not a good time buddy meanwhile Betty's like 75 years old got the hair helmet going you know what I mean in a little summer dress, she's motoring on up to that podium. Well, I'm trying to figure out what the hell happened here, right? She gets to the podium and she goes, Hi, Betty, I am an alcoholic. And I'm thinking, Hi, Becky. How the hell am I getting this hour of my life back? Betty starts talking, right, and I'm like, Yeah, yeah, great, all right. And all of a sudden in the middle of it she goes You know, in my day if you were a reasonably attractive woman and you could walk into a bar with 50 cents and drink for two weeks. And then broke down how you go about doing that. And I just looked at the guy next to me, and I went, you know, Betty's a badass. I would so roll with Betty, man. And now I leave in the meeting, I'm kind of freaking out now. I've been to two meetings, I'm identifying with 75-year-old women, guys I don't even know. What the hell is going on around here? But luckily for me, there's no opportunity to say you know what, I'll think I'll do the other thing because there ain't no other thing you know, it's A and A are dead right, so and I met a guy who said, you know we do this every day and I was like, alright you know this might shock you but I have no scheduling conflicts laughter laughter you know wasn't a lot going on Right. So all of a sudden, you know, meaning this is you got to get a sponsor. And I said, fine, what's that? And they said, somebody who's who's got what you want. And I says, well, I would like to drink. So maybe it's a little early to be throwing the ball back in my court. You know, yeah, you could. How about you? You decide. I don't even know who you are. It's going to be better than what I come up with. Right. And I've since come to believe you should get a sponsored who's got what they want. That's a pretty good definition of happiness. Just wondering what you have. And you can see the ones with the lights in their eyes. Those are the ones you slide up on. And I would go in these meetings and I'd see these guys that had the light. And I'd seen these guys, people all walked up to them, congregated around. You know what I mean? Because they had a message. They had something to carry. Fred Ellis. Thursday Night Brantwood Beginner's Workshop. I wouldn't talk to anybody. But at the end of that meeting, Fred would stand up by the podium. Guy was a walking miracle man. I mean, I could tell you stories you'd think that's not possible. It was for Fred and Fred would stand up there and I'd stand away from this circle of his guys who would talk to him after the meeting and I just burglarized the conversation. You know, I just try to pick up a little info and then slide on out the door, you know. And after a few weeks of that, I'm standing there just and all of a sudden, Fred turns around and goes, hi Earl and I just went who sold me out that guy knows my name how did that I mean I didn't understand right I mean they all those old-timers said oh look at that look at that keep keep an eye on that one that's gonna be interesting right because when I came in the old-timer stayed away from me the newcomers had come up on me and I'd just run them off and the old timers were like how you doing there partner from like 30 feet away how you doing there partner get yourself a seat and a cup of coffee good luck with all that you got going on right there you know yeah okay you know and i was like you know if it had been honest i would have been thank you thank you for knowing i can't do any more than the way you just did that that's the best i i can do and somehow you know that and And I don't know how, but thanks, right? And I just kept coming back, man. Five to seven meetings a week. Got the sponsor, got the vicious sponsor. Sponsor to the dam, the late great Donald Mann. Yeah, told me, you don't have to like what I tell you. You don't think it's a good idea. You just have to do it, baby. And I thought, I can work around that. No, I could not. he that guy saw me coming from a thousand miles away man he just i got no explanation for donald i'm gonna tell you about him even though what it does to me i never took a chip i didn't take a cake to us three years sober i didn'T say a word in here a polite word for two and a half years I was too broken and he I talked to him every day and I just did what he said and he knew keep the sentences short you know don't give him options just inform him what will be happening today and so I could just go do that. So he was Alcoholics Anonymous and he saved my life because he was the embodiment of you. He had this passion. You have to understand, Donald Madden was the last person on earth anybody would have ever said, well, that's probably a guy or a little pig. I was this type A dominant, hopelessly heterosexual, violent male and then all of a sudden this six foot two inch flamboyantly gay man flies into the room throws down a talk that just blew the roof off the joint because he was fearless you care what anybody thought about him he loved alcoholics anonymous and he was going to tell you about it what was possible in here for you if this is what you needed this is what would save you and I said I want that I want to feel strongly about something I'm dead inside and this man you know he's so powerful you know what I mean you know so I asked him to sponsor me I just said will you sponsor me and he said oh yes he said you don't have to like what I tell you and you don' t think it's a good idea you just have to do it baby and I said okay man let's go let's do this thing and he did every day he would call me up wake up we're having a day baby and then when I was two and a half he said I want you to give me a cake and I was completely flabbergasted it's like the biggest honor in my life and we went to the Wednesday night wrist slashers meeting because he knew I felt comfortable there boy that place was a trip man and he took a cake and he got up and he said mine and i sat down and he said my name is donald madden and i'm an alcoholic and the miracle of my life is that i'm sober and who needs to know that is me and sat out and it was like he branded that on my forehead six months later november 6th i was i was three years over and i said would you please give me a cake. And he said, oh, yes. And we went to the Wednesday night wrist slashers meeting and he gave me a kick and he sat down and I walked up to the podium. Never been at one. And I said, my name's Earl Hightower and I'm an alcoholic. And the miracle of my life is that I'm sober. And who needs to know that is me? Thank you. I sat down. And I sat down next to him and he looks over at me and he goes, oh that was wonderful. And I said, you just said that six months ago. That's exactly what you said. And he said, oh well of course I did. And you know, he was the guy. I mean I remember being I became homicidal, sober I couldn't take one more step I was done I wasn't kidding around man I had some outside issues called like severe PTSD survivor's guilt generalized anxiety disorder things that have nothing to do with this if you knew I didn't say any of that but I was a wrecking ball looking for a wall you know what I mean And I'd just run out of time, man. I'd run out of time. It was all caving in on me. And I was walking into a meeting early knowing that one of these jokers, one of these AA guys, these people who think they can just walk up to people and say whatever they want, just astonishing to me. I'm going to walk into the back of this meeting and some guy's going to go, your commitment's at 10. You're the cleanup guy. What are you doing here? And I'm gonna beat him to death. Like, that's what I'm not gonna do. So I walked in the back of that meeting, just jacked out of my mind. And Donald saw me. And he ran to the podium and he said, Earl! You know, kind of snapped out of it for a second. And he said – and I quote – it's 622 and you're late. you see what he did he saw I was in trouble and he saw I was looking for more and he informed everybody in that room, he was talking to me but he informed everybody in that room that I was there because he had asked me to be there so there was no need to ask me what are you doing here to set me off and I stood there in the back of the meeting and just started crying how do you know me like that how do I hide me from everybody I don't tell anybody who I am I've always introduced you to this guy you like him, great I'll take as much advantage of that as I can you don't like him who cares it's got nothing to do with me I don' t connect to other human beings it's not what I do yet somehow this guy knows me so well that from across the room he can save my life he can get in the way of me making a disastrous decision thinking of the other always thinking of the other and I had the sponsor to the damned man and I mean so far beyond the call of sponsorship it's unbelievable and I called him every day for 14 years up until the day he died and I was just lost And I could hear his voice in my head saying, call Al. Because Al loved him and he loved Alan. They were friends. It was just another seat at the same table. So I called Al and said, Donald's dead. Will you sponsor me? He said, of course I will, man. I love you. And he told me, look, you do everything, whatever I ask of you to do around here, but maybe you ought to check out meditation a little bit more. Here's a phone number. Call this guy. Check it out because you want a little tight, bro. you know and so i've meditated every day for 25 years since that day and if you're new you know what if youre new here's the deal here it is that's my story guys like me don't get to have the life that i have today guys like we dont get to grow up and be old and be at peace guys like me dont get the half family friends we don't get to love and be loved i swore i'd never love another human being again as long as i lived on that mountain in mexico and i've never ever ever tell you who i was there's no way you're ever gonna love me and all that aa picked my pocket like a thief in the night took all that away from me and brought me into life And you know how it did it? It did it. It's smooth as silk around here, man. There's some smooth running game in here. Because basically what you do is you chop the wood and carry the water of Alcoholics Anonymous. That's all you do. See, there's this circle with a triangle. Old spiritual symbol, mind, body, and spirit brought together as a whole human being. And therein lies the balance we seek and can never find drunk or sober. Alcoholics Anonymous adopted that symbol and it's the same thing unity is the body, I bring it here I can't get sober but we seem to be able to what's the first word in the steps? We we got to stick together man if you're new and you're thinking about well should I do that meaning or not yes that is the absolute end of that conversation yes come here a lot be with us be with your kind be with the people that understand you before you do it's what happens around here nobody likes knowing that what do you mean they understand me well, stick around you'll see I ain't lying unity is the body, we bring it here recoveries of the mind the greater aspect of my illness because this is not about stopping drinking for me this is about how do I stay stopped and the only way I'm going to stay stopped is if I can get comfortable, clean and sober. And the only way I have ever been able to be comfortable sober is to be relieved of the obsessive thinking, the obsession of the mind, the greater aspect of my illness. It's all in that book. What I'm talking about is all in this book. It's in that look that has been secured to this podium now. Can't shake it loose, man. it ain't going nowhere it's right there that book it's all in there so you worked at 12 steps to be relieved of the obsession of mind that's what they're for recovery of the mind so I can actually be free step one is what's the problem lack of power what's well if that's the problem what's a solution step two a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity soundness of mind relieve me the obsession drink and use right knowing my problem of my solution it probably ought to do something about that great step three get out on your knees turn your will and your life over to the care of a god you may or may not understand get back up on the couch don't be screwing around we got no time to lose here man let's go then it says in the book we embark upon a plan of rigorous action you know blah blah blah you better be serious and all this stuff and it's like now you tell me right you know and four and five is me six and seven is god eight and nine is you and there ain't nobody else to play with that's the whole team that's it's the show and think about it think about what we're being offered in here if you're new think about you look at your life and you go oh god what a wreck i mean it's let's face it somebody said that to me earlier they said if you'RE sitting in here the last year of your life not great. If you're brand new, right? And we get to like, we get to reboot. We get a fresh start. Do we deserve one? Hell no. Do we get one? Yes. Yeah. Alcoholics Anonymous says let's begin again. Let's identify the problem. Let us identify that We have a common problem and a common solution. We know the problem, we know the solution to that problem. We make a decision to do something about it. Then four and five, me, six and seven, God, eight and nine, you. I reframe, recalibrate, reboot, whatever you want to call it, reconfigure that relationship. I do an inventory and as well large chunks of truth about myself and before God and another individual, I get it out. There's a lot more room out here than there is in here. Six and seven, I hook it up with God, asking God to remove the defects of character because I'll remove the wrong stuff. No more cutting deals. Eight and nine, there's a lot of conversation in the book on eight and nine because this is the first point where they actually let you out of the house. You can do all that first part on the couch. It's just a guy comes in to read the fifth step, you know what I mean? He just says, good luck with that, and he's out, right? Eight, nine. I'm very, very sorry. Here's your money back in the house, man. I mean, it's just it's a real simple process that's outlined very clearly in the book how you go about it. Guided by a sponsor and that book, you change your life. Just chopping the wood and carrying the water of Alcoholics Anonymous. 10, 11 and 12 keep me in the game because, you know, I've just scratched the surface on that first pass. Right. 10 is me. 11 God and 12 is you. Same thing. Right. Ten, I continue to take personal inventory. And when I'm wrong, promptly admit it, right? Because I review my day in a tense step. And I know where I've messed up, where I said something unkind, where I say, you know, I've stretched the truth and I go clean it up. It's fun to mess with the normies. You're sitting in a conversation with a normie and you can just hear slowly what you're telling this person is just complete bullshit, right. and right in the middle and they're just looking at you like yeah alright well what's going on and right In the middle of it you go wait time out all that I just told you complete crap start over and you start over and the look on their face is worth everything because they just kind of start blinking a lot you know have I gone a little have I gotten insane or has he gone insane what happened I don't know what's happening and you just just clean it up man because how free do you want to be? You know? How big a buzz do you want, man? Because that's where we're off from. This is the big buzz, kids. This is real life, real time, now. This is the thing. Remember I talked about up or down didn't make any difference? Because I was about I got to get out of right here, right now, because right here right now I'm restless, I'm irritable, I'm discontented. Right here, right now I'm comparing my insides to your outsides and I'm losing every time. Every time. So drinking and using takes right now away from me a day at a time. It kills me. It takes my life every day, one day at the time. It just takes my light because it takes me out of now. The only place I can really truly live, the only place that can love you, the only please I can be a good man, the only places I can aspire to be something more than I am the moment before is now. And drinking and eating takes it away. Alcoholics Anonymous gives it back. It gives it back. Like my second sponsor told me, he said, all you got to do is get between these. Just get in there, man. Wait. Nope. Now. Right there. Here. This moment. Right now. Us together in this room. It's all that matters. It's what it is for us. This is us. Together. Family. Family. Bound by a spiritual path. Stronger than blood. Together. Love and tolerance toward others is our code. So we continue to take personal inventory. And we set things straight. Not just out there, but in here. We seek God through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact. Praying for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. Meditate to quiet the mind so that when the answers come I can hear them. having had a spiritual awakening is the result of working these steps having been relieved of the obsession of drinking use having been restored to sanity no longer enslaved by alcohol and drugs walking the earth a free man for the first time in my whole life I can practice these principles and carry the message I can be of service, how can I help? the whole point was to center me up enough heal me up so that I could be of service beyond me, that I can think of the other that I could consider the other. And then watch what happens. You think you've caught a buzz? Well, you start doing that. Well, you start sponsoring the guy that can't stop. Can't stop? You don't let him go. And all you're doing is what Donald told you to do. That's all you do. Next thing you know, he's the Friday night speaker at South Bay Roundup. And I'm sitting out there quietly thinking, shit, I've got to follow that. And then somebody said to me, you're not Earl H anymore. You're Danny D's sponsor, Earl. It's like gladly pass the torch, man. I've been doing this for a long time. Right now, I'm 38 years sober. A couple of months, it'll be a couple of weeks. Well, a couple months, it'll will be a few months from now. Right now I'm thirty-eight years sober And I couldn't stay sober for a day I couldn and the light that I have is beyond my wildest dreams I have all the all the outside stuff anybody in the world could ever want and you know what? I'm not attached to any of it I'm, not really i'm i'm not Attached to any other you know because I know what's important in my life. I know What my life is about my life is about chopping the wood and carrying the water. My life is about a spiritual path. My life ist about moving toward the absolutes that I will never attain, but I want to get as close to them, and I want the light that comes out of me to become as bright as it possibly can before I leave this mortal coil. That's all, you know, because, or what? Collect shit? Build model airplanes? You know, if you build them, sorry but you know what i mean i i usually use that example because i mean seriously how many people could i have offended with that one in here you know i mean two guys are going well screw you pal if you knew please stay with us just keep coming back man keep coming back stay with us only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking you got that welcome and i've you know i haven't sworn once whole time up i'm cursed i haven's said a bad word of course this is me letting you know I'm about to so I want I want to close with this if you've been having a hard time you've been struggling and you've in and out, but you keep coming back because that's what they told you to do. And you keep trying and you keep slipping up and you can try and you're slipping up. You keep trying. I just want you to know that personally, my belief is what I was taught and what I believe very strongly in is that the only thing you should hear from me when you walk through that door for the 50th time is hand out. Welcome. Got a seat? Got a big book? Got a meeting directory? No? Let me hook you up. Let's talk. You need a sponsor? Well, here's my number. Give me your number because it's far more likely that I'll call you then you'll call me no you know let's look at i mean that's my only job so if you're new and you come into these rooms and and people do this oh look he's back or they look down their nose at you or you feel that sense of not feeling real welcome i want you to do me a personal favor I want you to walk up to that person and I want you to say, you know, I heard this guy, Earl Hightower, and he said we don't shoot our wounded in here, man. We do not shoot our wound in here. And we treat each other with love and respect. Love and tolerance towards others is our code and that includes each other. When Dr. Bob gave his last talk, he talked about three things and one of them was we have got to be careful. We have got to, in this fellowship, avoid the gossip and the innuendo. Talking smack, not the word he used, I paraphrase. We need to be careful and gentle and kind with each other. I mean, you know, you stick your head up around here and I have people will talk about you and say absolutely horrible things. Hell, you've had me drunk five times since I've been sober in one year. I was drunk. I had AIDS. I was making pornographic films I was living I had moved to New York for very very unfortunate reasons and I had done the same moving to Chicago and I got up at the biggest gossip meeting on the west side of Los Angeles right with with the gossip crew that sat right up front right and I told them I won't repeat what I said to them that night but I will say this I told them that i said i'm standing right here and look you all right now and let you know that absolutely three of those are untrue watch those mean little faces going so if you knew come on in and expect kindness because that's what that's what you deserve when you come here. When you come in here, expect to be loved. Sorry if it makes you uncomfortable, but that's what we do. Get yourself a big book and this fellowship and you got your sword and your shield. You're ready. You are armed. You can do this thing. There's a lot. I know all the stats and I know there's some druggie buggies in here from facilities and stuff like that. You know what I mean? And there's new people, you know, and you hear the stats. Oh, five percent come to know this and seven percent make it to that. Let me tell you what I think. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. So what you might want to do is immediately find out what thoroughly means. Yeah, probably the best thing you could possibly do. And I'll tell you right now, it's in that book it's in that book and it's in the lights of the eyes of the people in rooms like this right so I want to thank you for being so kind to me it's been a joy and a pleasure to come back after all these years and say thank you for all you've done for me and I want to thank Franklin W from Olive Branch Mississippi who is the man who stood here on this day at the second conference of the South Bay Roundup and told me to trust God clean house help others and I had a spiritual experience standing right underneath that light, right back there. And I've been different ever since because of that man, him and Donald Mann, and maybe a few of you other guys. I love you. Peace.