Four and Five Is Me, Six and Seven Is Higher Power, Eight and Nine Is You — Nobody Else to Play With – Earl H.

My name is Roland, and I'm an alcoholic.
Thank you, Bridget, for asking me to come share.
Always an honor and a privilege.
Happy birthday to the birthday people.
Again, includes Bridget.
Bridget, I don't know if I want to be a ballerina or a detective bee.
I remember the first time I ever heard you share, and I just went, yeah.
I get it.
We like her.
I'm overwhelmed this morning.
Before I got up here, I said to Mark, do we have any Kleenex?
And she just kind of looked at me like, one of those days.
I can't think of any Kleenex.
Because since I've been here, just since I've been here this morning, I mean, I got up, I went about my business.
Now we drove down here speaking in another A&A meeting, you know,
begrudgingly.
Thank you.
A little jumpy this morning.
I have no idea what I'm going to say.
I never do, which is frightening to me.
But this morning, so many things have happened.
I mean,
drove up and ran to,
and Patty was outside greeting.
And I was at a meeting last night.
Patty was there.
And I've known Patty since the beginning.
You know, we had a little group where we got together.
Harvey was still away.
And we were kind of looking after Patty.
And we had this gathering of people.
And the purpose of this gathering, this is to give you an idea of my social skills when I got here.
A friend and I had decided that we didn't know how to talk to people at all.
We didn't know how to socialize.
We didn't know how to be around other people.
I was the first person she'd got in her apartment for years.
And we decided we would have, we needed some sort of diversionary tactics.
So we decided we'd play Trivial Pursuit.
So six of us would get together once a week on Saturday nights.
And we would bring, everybody would bring Chinese food.
And we would play this game and talk to each other for a couple of hours.
And everybody would leave.
And it was absolutely exhausting.
To just be around other people.
How are you? I'm fine. How are you?
And it's like, okay, we've done everything we know how to do.
Now what's going to happen?
I mean, and it was so much in the beginning just to be around other people.
And then I watched Bridget take a cake.
And I thought of the history of, that I've known somebody that long.
And I had no history with anybody when we got here.
And when we drove up, when we drove up, they told us to park in the thing.
And we parked.
And there was a woman picking through food she'd found in garbage cans outside.
And I was struck by something that the late, great Norm Alkey said.
He said the difference between me and that person is seconds and inches.
And I believe that firmly to this day.
That it's seconds and inches.
I mean, I've been shown mercy around here as opposed to justice.
I mean, if I'd have been shown justice, I'd have been dead a long time ago or still in a cage somewhere.
Instead, I have a life beyond anything I could have ever imagined.
To qualify, I drank and used for 16 years on a daily basis, no matter what.
I know that we tell people around here, just don't drink or use no matter what.
And I kind of feel, in my opinion, I feel that's an incomplete sentence.
If I could not drink or use no matter what, I wouldn't be here today.
It's Sunday morning.
There's football on.
Why the hell would I be at an AA meeting?
You know, why would I be doing something that lately has been very uncomfortable for me to do?
I wouldn't be doing it.
I'd be home not drinking or using no matter what.
Work a step?
I don't think so.
Call the sponsor.
Take a phone call from a whining, suffering newcomer at 3 a.m. in the morning.
Because they haven't done anything all day to do anything to promote their own sobriety.
But they think 3 a.m. is a good time to go on me and talk about it.
I'm not taking that call.
You know, because I'd be home just not drinking or using no matter what.
I'm the exact opposite of that.
I drink and use no matter what.
Given a good reason, I can't stop.
I can tell.
I've made many, many plans, solemn oaths, deals with God, with others, with myself, to stop at 10.
And I failed to mention 10 today.
Because it just blew right by 10.
And then it was midnight.
And then it was 1.
And then it was 6 a.m.
And then what's the point?
You know, come two, four days later in a different city.
All of which I've done.
I drank because I like the effect produced by alcohol.
That's why I drank.
It killed the pain.
It took the fear off of me.
It made it possible for me to be in the world.
And over a period of time, it became like breathing to me.
At 16 and a half years old, I had somebody tell me that I was an alcoholic.
And my response was, what's your point?
This is what I do.
This is how I get out of the house.
This is how I talk to other people.
So for 16 years, that's what I did.
And because alcoholism is a progressive illness, it progressed.
And there was absolutely nothing I could do about that.
There's a great speaker in AA who says there's three phases to alcoholism.
Phase one is fun.
Phase two is fun with problems.
Phase three is problems.
And I got to problems by the time I was 22 or so.
I stopped using them when I was 28.
When I was done, my drug choice is what you got.
You know, it's all anti-heral medication.
If I can get enough of what you got in me, I can kill the pain.
So, I mean, I've been...
This is an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
So, you know, I drank a lot of alcohol.
I drank a lot of barbiturates.
I shot a lot of things.
I snorted a lot of things.
I mean, if there was a way to get it into your body, that's what I did on a daily basis.
When I was a child in the 60s, we weren't focused on alcohol.
We were focused on the drugs.
Our parents were the alcoholics.
We were carving out our own identity here.
We weren't going to drink ourselves to death the way they had.
We were going to kill ourselves in an entirely new way.
So, we were focused on the drugs.
But the fact is, is that alcohol was my best friend.
I thought of myself as a heroin addict, a cocaine addict, a barbiturate addict,
a benzodiazepine addict.
I thought of myself as all those things.
But that stuff would come and go.
The only thing that was on the table every single day was alcohol.
That was the great equalizer for me.
I knew I was going to be okay if there was a bottle there.
You know, you do so much cocaine, you can't get your mouth open anymore.
And it's 7.30 and the party just started and you completely overshot the mark one more time.
Don't worry about it.
Put a little alcohol in your system, right?
It'll smooth you right out and you can go right on with the party.
No problem.
Not enough heroin to get you that just heart and lungs working place?
Don't worry about it.
Alcohol will take care of the rest.
It was my best friend.
By the time I got here, I got here the day before my 28th birthday.
I was 215 pounds.
I was yellow.
I had hair out like this and a beard like this.
I was psychotic and I don't use that term loosely.
I could not distinguish between the true and the false, like the book tells us.
I didn't know what was going on.
I'd broken 74 bones.
I had over 650 stitches in me.
The violence in my life had been insane.
My family was dead.
I had no friends.
I had no place to live.
I had burned my life to the ground.
There was no area of my life I could look at and say,
well, things are going pretty good here.
Let's focus on this, right?
But I didn't have that.
I didn't have...
I had no anchors.
I had no anchors to life.
I mean, I think the majority of people have something, you know?
They have a family that they kind of keep it together for,
or friends, or a career, you know, or some goals or aspirations,
a job, something, you know, to just say kind of, you know,
rein it in, keep it in check, keep it in check.
I didn't have any of those.
I was just loose.
I remember at one point in my drinking, I went into, yet again,
this bootleg sanitarium in Hollywood where they strap you to a gurney
and shoot you full of anticonvulsants and just let you rock.
You know, no going to the nurse's station and saying,
you know, I'm a little uncomfortable.
Can I have something?
You know, you're just kicked.
And it was ugly.
And I mean, 72 hours later, they need to send you home or the morgue,
and they didn't really care which way you went.
They had their cash.
And I reintroduced myself to God, a God that I hated, renounced,
had renounced the death of my family.
And I said, you know what, God?
You get me out of this standing alive, and I will never, ever drink again.
Or drink or use again as long as I live.
I can't take the pain.
I can't take the physical pain.
I can't take the emotional pain.
The psychic pain.
I mean, I was just losing it.
And I met it with every fiber of my being.
I'm an alcoholic.
I'm a drug addict.
I know this.
And if you get me out of this, I'll never, ever do it again.
And I'd never met anything in my life.
And I got up off of that gurney and went after my car,
and I went and drank for another couple of years.
I just could not stop doing it.
The beast had me by the throat.
And when I finally had a moment of clarity,
my moment of clarity was of a spiritual and emotional nature.
Years later, my sponsor told me that the bottom for guys like you was dead.
You had an emotion on the spiritual bottom.
And it was true.
I mean, I knew that I was not connected to another human being on the face of the earth.
And that was a direct result of me and my alcoholism.
I couldn't blame this on the feds.
I couldn't blame it on the cops.
I couldn't blame it on God.
I couldn't blame it on you anymore.
This was mine.
And if I wasn't going to die, I was going to have to make a change.
And I didn't know what that change was supposed to be.
After 42 days of detox in a free bed,
a cot in a free program down in Long Beach that doesn't exist anymore,
I came out of there sick as a dog.
Still sick.
Still kicking.
It's 42 days later.
Not sleeping.
Not being able to eat.
Scared to death of life and everything in it.
And this guy, Ray W., said,
if you don't want to die, you better go to Alcoholics Anonymous
because it's the only place a guy like you has to go.
And I just said, okay.
Okay.
I was beaten into a state of reasonableness by alcoholism.
And I ended up in the basement where Church Harvey and I were talking about it
before the meeting.
I walked in.
Harvey's now the secretary of the Thursday Night Brentwood Beginner's Workshop.
And that was the first meeting I walked into.
It's not the first meeting I attended.
I was crazy.
And I stepped.
I went around the building and I walked in the back door.
And I was sure there was at least a thousand people in there.
That's what it looked like to me.
And it scared me to death when I just stepped right back out and went home and shook.
And then Friday night, the next night, I ended up in the basement of a church on a Friday night.
There was only a couple of hundred people in that meeting.
In fact, there were about 45.
But, I mean, I hadn't seen that many people gathered together like this, you know.
Under healthy circumstances.
You know, in years.
And I sat in the back with my arms folded with my best tough guy look on my face.
Mad dog and everybody in the meeting.
Scared to death.
No tools for living.
No idea how to be here.
But I had my face on.
I had my mask on.
You know, so when you walked up and said, how you doing?
Fine.
What, you want to talk to me some more?
I don't think you want to talk to me.
And I was...
And I'm not a tough guy.
I'm not a tough guy or a bad guy.
I never have been.
I never will be.
What I was was an extremely frightened human being that knew that he had no tools for living
and no way to be in the world.
I didn't know how to do anything that was legal or profound or of benefit to anyone else in any way.
I didn't know how to do anything.
I came in here, blank screen.
And I sat in the back and this guy got up and he shared his experience, strength and hope.
And I heard the first part of it and I knew this guy didn't know a thing about me.
He was an ex-boxer, a wino and a skid row bum.
And I went, you don't know nothing about me, man.
I mean, I was great at recognizing the differences between you and me.
That's how my head worked.
That was part of my protection.
That was my defense mechanism.
If I can find a way to reject you on some level, I don't have to listen to you.
And you know what that does?
That leaves me stuck with my best thinking.
And I got to tell you, my best thinking didn't get me to AA.
My best thinking almost kept me from ever getting here at all.
That defiant isolation.
That loneliness.
That incredibly dark place where you can't ask for help and that's all you need.
You can't, you can't, on some level you just can't give it up.
You can't give it up because you don't know how.
I mean, I came in here with my fist clenched so tight.
When they said, okay, you need to let go.
Like, you know, okay.
How?
How do you let go?
I had no experience with letting go.
I don't have any experience with surrender.
I've experienced defeat.
But I've never experienced surrender.
Willingness?
No, I've been motivated.
You know, like when you run out.
I've been motivated.
But I've never been willing.
Honesty, open-mindedness, willingness.
I mean, my mind was slammed shut so tight, nothing could get in.
I was just a real tightly wrapped cocoon in here.
And I sat in the back.
And this guy that I had denounced, the skid row bum, the wino, the ex-boxer.
I mean, look, if you were a woman, you don't know about me.
And that was my head.
You're black, you're gay, you're Hispanic.
You don't know about me.
It's not a better or a worse thing.
It's just, you don't come up the way I came up.
Five years older, five years younger, you don't know about me.
You came up in something else.
I was so good at circling the wagons by the time I got here.
I was like, if you're not Earl, you don't know about me.
There's a difference somewhere, and I'll find it.
And then I don't have to listen to you.
But what alcoholism had done to me was it had destroyed me.
And I sat in the back, and all my phaser shields were down.
You know what I mean?
My mechanism of protecting myself was of no value anymore.
I had been stripped of it.
And I sat in the back, and this guy started talking, and I couldn't help but hear him.
I mean, I wasn't sitting back there thinking, I'm an alcoholic.
If I don't want to die, I need a new way to live.
Alcoholics Anonymous provides a new way to live.
So I'm going to listen.
I'm going to gather information, and I'm going to do what they want to say.
That would be the thinking of a reasonable man.
Mine was, I came in with my old best thinking.
The greater aspect of my disease, the obsession of the mind in full effect.
And I sat in the back thinking, shut up.
Don't tell them anything.
My mind worked the way it worked.
Sit in the back, arms folded.
Look where all the doors and windows are.
Find out who's got the power, who's got the juice in the room.
Slide up on them.
Burglarize their conversation.
Find out what they got in this ANA deal.
And then get the hell out of here.
And see if it will keep you alive.
It wasn't about joining up.
I didn't get it.
I mean, if you're new and you don't get it,
thinking, trying to decide whether to kill yourself or several other people, beautiful.
That's the way we get here.
We don't get here getting this.
We come here because of that.
Common problem.
We have the common problem.
If you're new and you're looking around, there's people standing here thinking,
these people didn't use like me, man.
Think again.
These people did not get here looking like me.
Like this.
I saw a lot of these people coming.
Trust me.
Not a vision for you.
There's another speaker out there.
Myself included, man.
It was nuts.
I ran into a woman at a 30-year birthday party for somebody not too long ago.
And she hadn't seen me since I was brand new.
And she walked up to me and she said,
Girl.
I said, yeah, hi.
How are you?
Right?
I remember her.
And she looked at me and she just put her hand up real slow and patted my cheek.
And she said,
Oh, God, you were so angry when you got here.
I don't remember being angry.
Because if you've been angry for 15 years, it's compared to what?
It's just where you are.
She said, how are you doing?
I said, fine.
You know, just eyes darting around your head.
Fine.
This is where I've been for a long time.
I have nothing to compare it to.
This is angry?
Okay.
Got me, man.
I wake up like this.
I go to sleep like this.
I'm just being there.
This guy got up and he shared his experience, strength, and hope.
And I didn't know that's what he was doing.
But he said two things.
There were two things that happened that blew my mind.
One was, he said, he talked openly and honestly about his feelings as a man.
And he did it with this dignity and this respect that was amazing to me.
I mean, I'd never heard it done like that before.
I mean, and it was, you know what it was?
It was unavoidable.
There was an unavoidable truth to it.
And addicts and alcoholics, man.
When it's real, it's real.
I mean, you can't avoid it.
It just hit me.
And then it was like he looked right at me and he said,
You know what?
I don't care whether you like what I've got to say or not.
If you don't like it, go to another meeting.
And I loved that.
Because it made it clear to me he wasn't selling me something.
He was sharing it with me.
And that was an amazing thing to me.
That if I wanted this, I could have it for free.
And I didn't have to jump up and raise my hand and say,
I want to be a member of AA.
Where do I sign?
I didn't have to expose myself like that.
I could sit back there with this.
Look at this stain on my face.
Like, yeah, yeah, whatever.
Right?
While it was piercing my heart.
And I thought, this is cool.
I'm coming back.
And I've never left.
I got here destroyed.
There was nothing left to do.
Nothing left to prove.
There was nothing.
It was the last house on the block.
I had to find a way to make AA work or I was a dead man.
And I haven't left.
Last November 6th, I celebrated 23 years of sobriety.
And I couldn't stay sober for a day.
I couldn't stay sober for a day.
If I was on my feet, it was on.
I couldn't do it any other way.
So that's how I got here.
That was my first AA meeting.
I love getting over the drunk a lot, man.
What?
Oh.
My wife's like, tell that boy.
Well, as you can tell, things have improved.
I may not have a wife.
Right?
Bridget's clapping.
She knows.
I got a wife.
And I often say, you know, as long as her denial holds, we're going to be cool.
But I mean, you know, I'm married to somebody that I love.
Openly, happily.
I'm married to somebody that I like.
I like her.
I've been married to people before.
Never to anybody I knew.
Never to anybody that I particularly like.
And I mean, when you're shut down, you're shut down.
To stand up and marry someone, thinking to yourself, you know, whatever.
I mean, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
You know what I mean?
It's paperwork.
Right?
So emotionally shut down, you can't connect.
Right?
When we got married, I was completely and totally present for the event.
I enjoyed my own wedding.
I'm looking around the room, I got all these people in this room that I love.
That I know love me.
And I'm all right with it.
I don't have to run and hide from the people.
I don't have to run and hide from the fact that somebody loves me.
Because when I was out there drinking and using, if you love me, I felt so bad for you.
I did.
Because you were going down.
There was a chink in your armor and I was going to control and manipulate things and
use this to my advantage.
Because this is never about you.
I'm self-centered and afraid.
And I could give you the job of making me happy.
And that's a job no one else can do for another human being.
And I would give lots of people that job.
And when they wouldn't do it, kill them and move on.
Explain to them that they don't measure up.
Shame them.
Belittle them.
Move on.
Wreckage.
Wreckage.
Wreckage.
Wreckage.
Wreckage.
Inability to connect with other human beings.
Now I got a wife.
I got friends.
I got people with history here.
And I look at them and I smile.
And I think, oh my God.
Right?
I look at Carol and, you know, we could be here until dark just talking about shared
experiences with Carol and I.
And the people that have been in our lives that have had a major positive impact on us
as alcoholics.
Just amazing stuff.
I have a home group.
I have a home.
I have a house.
With a wife.
And two dogs.
And lots of people flying in and out of the house.
Right?
All the time.
All the time.
Phone ringing all the time.
Life.
Connectedness.
Value.
Purchase.
Life.
Life.
Life.
Life.
Life.
Life.
Life.
Life.
Value.
Purpose.
Had none of it when I got here.
And this was what Alcoholics Anonymous Values gave to me.
This goes past so far past not drinking and using.
It's unbelievable.
What I found out was is that, you know the circle with the triangle?
It's an ancient spiritual symbol.
It stands for mind, body and spirit.
Brought together as a whole human being.
And therein lies the balance that I never drunk or sober.
Ever.
In my life.
I was a drunken maniac when I got sober I was a sober maniac because the greater aspect
of my disease, the obsessive nature of my mind was in full effect. I mean, people in
here, there's people in here, anybody in here is in a treatment center? Yeah, a bunch of
you guys. Welcome. Welcome. Treatment centers triage. That's where you stop the bleeding.
You go into treatment thinking 30 days is good. Right? Think again. Right? I mean, it's
a rite of passage. It's a rite of passage. If kicking, if not having any alcohol or drugs
in my body was the solution for somebody like me, I mean, detox centers would be kicking
out winners. 72 hours of free. And self-knowledge would avail me of something. People sign it
and they said it to me, man. I'd come up off that gurney in that bootleg sanitarium and
they'd say, you know you're an alcoholic, don't you? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't
drink? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, you know for you to drink or use, it's just a sexual
life.
It's a sexual life on fire, don't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So armed with this self-knowledge,
you'd be a good boy and you don't drink or use anymore no matter what, all right? Oh,
no, I'm not going to do that. And I'd be loaded in the parking lot on my way out because I'd
kick the physical phenomenon of craving I'd be relieved of, but the obsessive nature of
my mind would be in full effect and that beast would start whispering to me on the way to
the car. How you doing? Cunning, baffling, and powerful, man. I used to think, you know,
I'd be sweeping up on Ohio Street because they say there's no human defense against
the first drink and I'd think, oh, Christ, when's that going to happen, all right? I'd
be sweeping up, got a commitment, sponsor standing over there, sweeping up an NAA and
all of a sudden my head would just go, drink! And I'd just drop them off and run and think,
oh, here we go. It's over and it ain't like that. It's cunning, baffling, and powerful,
man. It's smoothed up. How you doing, Earl? How you doing, man? You seem very, very stressed.
I seem to be going through a lot. How you doing, Earl? How you doing, Earl? How you doing,
Earl? How you doing, Earl? How you doing, Earl? How you doing, Earl? How you doing, Earl?
You know, and I hate to see you like this because I love you, Earl. I love you. I'm
here for you. I've always been here for you. I've always been here for you. You know, and
I think the stress, the stress that you're feeling, the stress that you're feeling, man,
you know, this is a health issue. It's a health issue. And I think it's appropriate that we
address this. And you and I can do that. We can do that. Look, we're just going to go
out and have a couple of cocktails. Don't overreact. Don't overreact. We're just going
to have a couple. Unwind that emotional spring inside you and we're going to work this through.
I'm here for you. I love you. We're going to get our way through this. And listen, let's
just keep this between you and me. You know, I mean, you know, you have that feeling where
it's just like, what is this rolling through my head, man? I mean, I'm sitting in detox
because my life is on fire. And I got a head telling me, couple ain't going to hurt. And
the fact, and I look at my life and I go, you know, that's an interesting beast. I've
been using for 16 years on a daily basis and I've never had a couple in my life. A couple
won't do what I'm here to do.
I'm a fear killer, man. He won't do it. Only reason to have a couple of drinks is while
you're waiting for him to bring you another couple of drinks. Once you got six or eight
drinks in you, you're in the car and you're on your way downtown. Here we go. The madness
is on me, man. And the beast voice changes, too, doesn't it? It's nice and sweet. You
know, this is reasonable, right? It uses the words that will just get me to have that
one. Once I throw that stuff in my body, I reactivate the physical phenomenon of craving
and I'm up for grabs.
I'm in the car now and the beast says, thank you, now. Get a piece of paper and a pencil
and write this stuff down because we got some things we got to get done now. And you can
pretty this up any way you want to or you can rationalize this any way you want. You
tie a bow on it. You can decide, should I use? Should I not use? You work it off. Just
do whatever you got to do. But we will be using it, eh? We will be. After 16 years,
I'm thinking, I've been deciding and I look back and I go, you know what's interesting?
I never chose not using. I never chose that. I always chose this one. That's the nature
of the disease that I deal with. An obsession of mind and the allergy of the body. Unity.
Hey, hey, adopt it, that spiritual symbol in my body and spirit and it's unity, service
and recovery. It's the same thing. Unity is the body. I bring it here. I couldn't get
sober, but we seem to be able to together. I need to look at you. I can lie to them,
man, and they buy it all day long. How you doing? Oh, fine. Oh, good, good, good to see
you. I come in here, right, with a storm in my brain. I walk in and I see anybody that
knows me.
No, I walk in and they say, how you doing? I say, fine. And they say, hey, really? Good,
all right. Come on, let's talk. I can't lie to you. You know me. You know where I come
from. You know about the darkness. You know about the hopelessness. You know about the
madness. And you know the things that lie dormant within me. You know about them. Can't
lie to you. So the unity is the body. I bring it here. I go to regular meetings and regular
meeting nights because that's how I don't...
Remain anonymous in AA. I go to a different meeting every night for three years. And then
when I go drink, nobody's going to say, well, where's Earl? Because nobody knows my name.
Because I'm not a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm not in the fellowship at all. I've got
to come in and I've got to hook up. And that's what I did. And then they said, get a sponsor.
I said, what's a sponsor? They said, sponsor somebody who's got what you want. Have you
heard that one?
And I said, well, I'd like to drink. So maybe it's a little early to be throwing the ball
back in my court. You know what I mean? I have since come to believe that I want a sponsor
who's got what he wants. That's a pretty good definition of happiness, wanting what you've
got. Wanting what you've got. So I find a sponsor who's got the light in his eyes, got
a passion for living, who seems to no longer be... It's not about getting to bed, not drinking.
It's not about getting to bed, not using. It's not about, okay, I'm not drinking and
using today.
It's not about being something else. It's about being relieved of the obsessive nature
of the mind, being free of the beast, being able to walk the earth a free man for the
first time since I was 12 years old. That's what I'm looking for and that's the guy I
want. And that guy takes me through the process. Unity is the body, I bring it here. Recovery
is of the mind. I've got to address the beast. I can't walk around with that in my head.
That option floating right there like my breath, just waiting for me. The planets that line
up a certain way and life on life terms is going to happen and I'm going to find out
I'm not.
I'm not in charge of that and when it hits the fan and I find out I'm not in charge of
the fan, I'm going to look at my options and I'm going to be in a dark place because it's
life on life terms. I'm going to look at that and I'm going to say, let's see what options
have I got available to me. I can't see drinking and using there. I can't see that because
if I see that, I'm going to consider it and the day is going to come. I have to be relieved
of that. How do I get relieved of that? Work the both steps. That's what they're for. Step
one, what's the problem? Lack of power.
That's my dilemma. If lack of power is my problem, what's my solution? A power greater
than myself that can restore me to sanity, soundness of mind, relieve me of the obsession
to drink and use. Why I'm here. Cool. I know my problem is step one. I know my solution
is step two. Step three says you better make a decision to do something about this. Action
brings about change and that's what we need here. I need to change. Action will bring
that about for me. Contrary action will bring that about for me. So I feel this way and
I move this way.
Very difficult thing for somebody who's been ruled by his feelings his whole life. I pretty
much disregard the facts. They're irrelevant. It's how I'm feeling. I never got loaded
over the facts. I get loaded over how I'm feeling. I medicate myself to be rid of these
feelings. I got to find new ways to do that to address how I feel. Because it is life
on life terms. I'm going to feel good one day and it's great. My job there is to enjoy
it. If it's a bad day, my day is to move through this with some dignity and some honor and
some respect for self and others.
And get to the end of the day without having created a whole bunch of wreckage. When I'm
used and if I'm awake, wreckage. It just happens. Because I'm fearful and I'm driven by self.
You should see the inside of my head right now. It's a journey. It's a process too. I'm
a flawed man. I'm a flawed man. We all are, you know.
We all are. I'm a flawed man. But I'm getting better and better day by day by day as a result
of chopping the wood and carrying the water of AA. That's what it's about, about taking
the contrary action. Going in the opposite direction of how I feel. That's a completely
foreign idea to me. And it took fellowship and it took sponsorship to lead me in a direction
that I would never consider. So step one, problem. Step two, solution. Step three, make
a decision. Get on my knees and turn my will and my life over to the care of a God I may
or may not understand. I certainly did not understand. I got to do it. I got to do it.
You're fully professing that I did not believe in God. And I would gladly engage you in conversation
about that. Then my first sponsor, the late, great Donald
Madden, who absolutely enjoyed moments like this one, he just saw me coming, you know
what I mean? And he'd just pick up the two-by-four that he was going to hit me right between
the eyes with. And he would smile and he would say, Earl, you can't be mad at a God you don't
believe in. Yeah, that was me.
my reaction. Just, huh. I said, you know, if I had any idea what you meant, I'd probably
be pretty mad at you right now. I'm just going to go away. And I realized I had a relationship
with a power greater than myself. It was just a bad one, and that was on me. And so having
made that decision in step three, I embark upon a plan of action. Four and five is me,
six and seven is God, eight and nine is you, and there's nobody else to play with. That's
it. And I embark upon that. Four and five is smaller, large chunks of truth about myself
and admitted these things before God to another human being. Six and seven, I ask God to remove
my defects of character, because I'll remove the wrong stuff. Give it to God. Give it away.
Surrender it. Allow the process to begin. Eight and nine, hook it back up with you.
Very, very sorry. Here's your money. Back in the house. Nice and simple. Ten, eleven,
and twelve, keep me in the game. Ten, me, eleven, God, twelve, you. Same thing. Allow
me to continue.
To go deeper and deeper and deeper into the process of the relationships that these three
circumstances are based on. A relationship with self, a relationship with God, and a
relationship with others. And try to get this on some healthy level, even ground.
Having had a spiritual awakening is the result of working these steps. Having been restored
to sanity, soundness of mind, relieved of the beast, man, no longer an option for me.
It's not that I choose not to drink on a daily basis. It's not even an option. It doesn't
come up for me.
I'm not obsessed with drinking on a daily basis, and it doesn't even occur to me. Every
once in a while, I'll drive by and I'll see a billboard, and I'll think, I never had that.
It looks so refreshing. All I gotta do is just, you know, find newcomers. Did you have
the Zima? The Zima didn't look good, right? Probably didn't get any Zima. Probably didn't
get any Zima.
Right? I go, how is the Zima? He goes, stuff sucked. Thank you. It's the Zima. Right? I
mean, it's just, it's just new face, new twist, new spin, you know what I mean? Alcohol. Alcohol.
Kill me. That's what Zima will do. Kill me. It's not refreshing. I gotta rethink it. Right?
Still.
It's not obsessive. It's just kind of funny when the thought rolls by and you go, isn't
that amazing? Apparently, a shred of alcoholism remains. Probably should go to a meeting.
You know, that's the way I go to meetings. And so those were the steps. I did all that
stuff. I did what they said. I got a big book. Astonishing event for an alcoholic, I think,
to get a big book. Remarkable event. Read it. Text of alcohol. Read it. That's the program.
This is the fellowship. That's the program.
If I don't get a program, I'm going to die. That's me. I'm not a, I'm one of the lucky
ones. It's clear cut for me. I'm not one of the ones that wonders if I belong here. I
accepted my alcoholism 12 years before I got here. Step on it. Are you an alcoholic? Yeah.
Yeah. You guys have any ideas what we can do about that? That's why I'm here. That was
easy. What I didn't know is how far this goes beyond drinking and using. This is a
design. This is a design. This is a design. This is a design. This is a design. This is
a design for living. Things happen in here that you cannot imagine. There's no way. If
you're drinking and using out there and you come in here destroyed, there's, you have
no experience with what is yet to come. And I'm telling you, the buzz in here is so much
bigger than you can imagine. I mean, now I'm 23 years sober. I'm 51 years old. When I
turn, every birthday I go 51. I go, how amazing is that? I'm 51. Is that like middle age
or something? I'm like, I'm a middle aged man. Suddenly, I'm digging it.
My life's better than it's ever been. The trade-offs are exceptional. I'm comfortable,
more comfortable being in a room than I've ever been. You know, lately I've been going
through a lot of stuff. Some things have been hard for me. I've hated speaking. I've hated
it. I didn't want to, I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. Canceled out most of
it. I go to my meetings. I want to sit and listen. I got a legion of guys I sponsor.
I want to work with them. I want to be in the trenches and that's because that's what's
best for me. That's what I want to do.
But I've learned that. I mean, look, now I go to meetings and I can see it for what
it is. Sanctuary for somebody like me. Acceptance, like Bridget talked about. Love, right? Purpose,
value, possibility. And the one thing that I came here and I needed more than anything
else that I didn't have, there's hope here. There's hope here. You come in with a beast
in your head. Kicked, physically sober. The beast in your head. You come in with a beast
that's still alive. And things come up through your head that you can't believe. I mean,
making anything else a priority. The job's a priority. The kid's your priority. The wife
or the spouse is a priority. The job is a priority. AA has to come first because it's
the thing that sustains me. And then I bring a more balanced, more available me to the
job, the wife, the kids, the career, whatever it may be. So if alcoholics and anonymous
is number one, if recovery is number one for me, right, that's going to have a positive
impact.
That's going to have a negative effect on everything I do. If I drink, because I didn't
keep it number one, that's going to have a negative effect on absolutely everything I
do. It just fits at the top. That's where it fits. I remember being new and going to
Ohio Street. Look, I sponsor a guy named Louie. I sponsor Satan. Here's a guy with a shaved
head with two red horns of hair that go up like that, with a beard that goes down like
this, and the devil's tail tattooed up his back, and the flame tattooed up his legs.
So he's standing in the fires of hell, right? I'm speaking at a meeting one day, and this
guy comes walking up to me and says, dude, you have to sponsor me, which I found frightening.
And it's like, bro, what am I? I got on a suit and tie. I got the mask on. You got no
idea who's behind here. I got the whole rig going on, right? And you come up and throw
that at me? Why don't I throw it out there that's attracting Satan? I don't understand.
You know? And he comes up, and Louie's got 11 years now, and is an amazing human being,
kind, gentle, loving, amazing.
He's a human being that is of service to anyone who asks him. He's a fine example of
AA. And when he goes to the Midnight Madness meetings, and the little speed freaks come
tweaking in off the boulevard, right? I mean, 16, 17, 18 years old, and I mean, they're
here just in time, right? Permanent damage is taking place. They're getting here just
in time. They go flying into a meeting, looking around, and they go, holy shit, the devil
got sober. And they run over to Louie, right? And Louie puts his arm around him and says,
it's all right, little bro, you don't have to worry about it. He's a good guy. He's
a good person. I don't have to drink with you one day at a time anymore if you don't
want to, and I can show you how. And they go, cool. Cool. Had no idea. I had a whole
different picture, AA, when I saw you. And I can't get, I remember Louie brand new. We
go to meetings, right? And Louie's sitting there, and I'll be sitting there, and Al
asks and speaking, and he's throwing down the pearls of wisdom, and everything's going
great, and we're loving it, we're digging it, right? And I'm sitting there, and I'm
thinking, this is amazing. I get to be a link in the human game that's bringing all these
pearls of wisdom to Louie, and this is just wonderful. The truth is, me and Louie are having
a great time.
different meetings, right? I've worked for 13 years, right, to get to this understanding
of what the hell Al's talking about. Louie's been here for 90 days, right? Louie doesn't
know what the hell's going on. Louie's hanging out for his life. He's like looking at me
and going, that must have meant something because he seems impressed. I have no idea
what happened. And I got to remember, Louie gets his turn. The new guy gets his turn to
be here and not knowing what's going on, to be here and wrestle with it, to be here and
not understand, to need help and not be able to ask for it. I got to keep my eyes open
for those folks because I was one of those guys. I remember going to Ohio Street when
I was brand new sober. I mean brand new, and I'm going to Ohio Street, and I'm amazed I
even found it again. And I'm driving because it's so loud and crazy in my head. I'm driving
and going, there it is, there it is, there it is. Good, good, good. Park, park, park,
park. Park. Go in, put the keys on the seat. Put the keys on the seat. Put the key on the
seat. Put the keys on the seat. Sit next to the guy with the red coat. Sit next to the
guy with the red coat. Find the guy with the red coat. Find your seats. Good, good, good.
Put the keys on the seat. How you doing? Park. How you doing? Park. How you doing? Park.
We're starting a meeting. We're starting a meeting.
You did good, sit down.
Chapter 5.
Rarely Saw Something.
I didn't get a lot of it, but Rarely Saw Something.
Rarely Saw Something, I got rid of that thing.
Rarely Saw Something.
Something is rarer around here.
Reading The Steps, Reading The Steps, 12 Steps,
12 Steps Rarely, 12 Steps, 12 Steps ABC.
12 Steps of ABC.
Didn't get a lot of that, he's gone.
He's down.
I got some of that.
12 Things ABC
Another guy he's of, he drank.
I drank like that.
I drank like that.
That guy is great.
That guy is great.
I like that guy.
I like that guy.
He's down.
Wait, get that guy.
I like that guy.
No, no, he's dead.
He's up.
He's up.
He's another guy.
He's awesome.
There's something going on.
I don't know what's going on.
They're passing a basket.
They're passing a basket.
Don't take the money.
Don't take the money.
Passing a basket.
Passing a basket.
What's going on?
What's going on?
What's going on?
What?
We're going outside.
I smoked smoke?
I smoked.
I smoked.
I smoked.
I smoked.
How you doing?
Fine.
I'm fine.
They're ringing the bell.
Got to follow me.
Where's the guy with the red perché?
Where's the guy with the red porque?
Back off, Pat.
I'm fine.
things. There are 24 things ABC. 24 things ABC. He's down. He's up. He's up. He's another
guy. He drank. He drank. He drank. He drank. I felt like that. I felt. I love this guy.
I love this guy. I felt like that. This guy knows how I felt. This guy. He drank like
me. Yeah, but he knows how I felt. He knows how. This is amazing. This is amazing. I love
that guy. He's down. We're up. We're up. They're up. They got me. We're praying. We're
praying. I know this prayer. I know this prayer. And I've been trying to cry all the way home
at Pace. Remember, 24 things ABC. 24 things ABC. I've got to get one of those books. I
don't know what's going on. And that was a successful meeting for me. That was a successful
meeting because I sat on my ass and I sat there and I tried to get what was going on.
It bounced off my head. I was crazy, but I was there. I was committing. I was taking
action in defense of my own life. And when I sit there with Louie with 90 Days and we
get up and we walk out of a meeting and I say, Louie, what did you think of the meeting?
And Louie looks at me and says, it's great. I can smile. I know. We had one of those meetings,
man. But you know what? Louie didn't get up and run screaming out into the night. He didn't.
Louie sat on his ass, held onto his chair and stayed. Victory. Don't underestimate the
little victories. Don't underestimate the wanting to get drunk and not doing it. Not
calling the connection, calling the sponsor. Huge victory. There's going to be a day in
your life when you're going to be 23 years sober and somebody's going to say, how did
it happen for you, Earl? And you'll be able to go back into the beginning and you'll be
able to say, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I
Your sponsor said, instead of getting loaded, why don't you meet me in a meeting? And somebody
stepped out of their lives and it was of service to you like so many had been to them. And
then you said, okay. And 23 years got built on that. That decision. That little victory
that seems so small and so inconsequential and it's not. It's seconds and inches, man,
between me and that lady outside. Seconds and inches. And those inches are that, not
calling those seven numbers and calling the seven numbers. There it is. There it is. It's
those little things. So try and, you know, if you're new, God bless you, man. You know,
if you didn't understand a thing I said, that's fine. But you got to accept the fact that
I'm an alcoholic, I'm a drug addict, and I don't suffer from the disease of alcoholism
and drug addiction. I'm living, I'm walking the earth a free man. I'm loving and being
in love, something I swore on a mountain in Mexico I would never do again as long as I
live. Too painful. Too painful. They were all laying there dying in front of me. I was
like, man, I just said I can't live life. I can't do it. And I'm doing it. I'm doing
it. I had a therapist six months before I got sober tell me that I was damaged beyond
repair and they couldn't help me. And you know what? She was right. She couldn't. But
you could. I'm alive because of you. I'm happy because of you. I feel like I have a sense
of purpose and value because of the men and women I have met in alcoholism. I feel like
I'm not the only one that could understand where I had been and what it was I would have
to heal from the torment and the madness of that life. So I'm speaker boy this morning.
But you know what? What I am above and beyond anything else is a terribly grateful member
of Alcoholics Anonymous. Because without you, I have no purpose. I have no value. This is
the thing. I have no purpose. I have no value. I have no value. I have no value. I have no
value. I have no value. I have no value. I have no value. I have no value. I have no
that I stand upon.
So thank you for that.
I appreciate it very much.