Greg S. on Family-of-Origin, Long-Term Service, and the Inside Job

Welcome back, my friends, to AA Recovery Interviews.
I'm your host, Howard Elm, and I'm an alcoholic, sober since January 1st, 1988.
That's 13,050 days, one day at a time.
I'm grateful you've joined us.
AA Recovery Interviews is the podcast where Alcoholics Anonymous members from around the world
share their extraordinary stories of experience, strength, and hope.
If you've enjoyed the more than 130 interviews in this podcast series,
will you do a little service work by spreading the word about this rich and meaningful listening experience?
This show is another helping hand of AA we can all extend to alcoholics everywhere.
Today's show is my interview with Greg S.,
whose envied life before sobriety was one of booze, sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
Raised in California in a family rife with alcoholism,
dysfunctional behavior infested his home during his childhood,
and adolescent years.
Struggling to fit in among the kids his age,
Greg joined in their antics and began drinking and smoking marijuana by the time he was 14.
That, plus his passion for rock music, helped him through his teenage years,
though he drank much more heavily than his peers.
Greg started a successful band at age 18,
only to be fired from it by band members who he thought drank as much as he did.
His proclivity for overshooting the mark became a theme in Greg's life,
and early career, along with multiple divorces and trouble with the law.
Fortunately, his functional alcoholism, during his years as a drummer and later as a record company executive,
allowed him to evade serious consequences.
In fact, his very profession in the music industry seemed to tolerate and often ignore his deleterious behavior.
But the inevitable downhill slide accelerated in Greg's personal life,
until a drunken assault of a family member of one of his failed marriages landed him in trouble with the law.
until a drunken assault of a family member of one of his failed marriages landed him in trouble with the law.
until a drunken assault of a family member of one of his failed marriages landed him in trouble with the law.
until a drunken assault of a family member of one of his failed marriages landed him in trouble with the law.
Inpatient treatment, followed by court-ordered AA,
provided Greg with enough clarity of thought
to propel him into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, nearly 26 years ago.
He quickly embraced the program and found the guiding hands that drew him into an active practice
of AA recovery and continuous service to his fellows.
These days, Greg is as busy as ever,
though a reshuffling of his priorities over the years
has placed
though a reshuffling of his priorities over the years
and sobriety at the top of his list.
The spiritual awakening he has experienced
both informs his work with newcomers
and those he sponsors.
To hear Greg share today,
many might find his pre-sobriety story
nothing short of incredulous.
But like those who have shared on this show
and those who have listened to it on a regular basis,
nothing is surprising or unusual
about Greg's lively travails
on the road of happy destiny.
It's what we recovering alcoholics do.
So relax and enjoy the next hour and 10 minutes
of AA Recovery Interviews
with my friend and AA brother, Greg S.
My name is Greg and I'm an alcoholic.
Hi, Greg.
I'm so glad that you're able to join me today
on AA Recovery Interviews.
It's really a thrill and a pleasure to have you here.
Well, I always say I'm grateful to God and AA to be here
and I would say that holds for this conversation too.
So thanks.
Well, good.
It's nice to know that we think along the same lines
doing these interviews
is another way that I can give back
that which has been so freely given to me.
Now, you recently told me you had 25 years sober.
Yeah, my sobriety date is October 16, 1997.
So you're coming up on 26 years.
Yeah.
Amazing.
As my sponsor would always remind me
when I used to say,
well, gee, I'm almost whatever.
He says, so you're 25.
He used to tell me we don't front time in AA.
26 years ago or thereabouts.
Was that the first time you ever tried getting sober?
Yes.
I never really considered not using alcohol and drugs.
I'm one of those guys.
I like it all.
I mean, I have certain or had certain favorites,
but for the most part,
I was 37 when I quit drinking and came to AA
and I had run out of road
and I had never really thought about it.
My family is a,
CIA, Catholic Irish alcoholic.
So there were plenty of people in my family
that drank too much.
And I found out some years later,
quite a few had gotten into recovery,
but I didn't know anything about it.
So you waited for quite a while,
even though it was going on in your family,
but you didn't know about it.
That's interesting.
How about in your immediate family,
parents and that sort of thing?
Yeah.
So my mother,
both my parents are dead now.
My mother died.
A little over a year ago in their inner nineties.
And she was from a big Irish Catholic family,
the youngest of seven.
And her father was an alcoholic.
It took my mother many,
many years to share that with me.
She would see him passed out.
They grew up in Hollywood.
She'd see him on more than one occasion,
passed out on a bus bench on Hollywood Boulevard
and was always deeply embarrassed.
And then she had a brother and five sisters
and for the most part,
all drank and most of them married alcoholics.
Alcoholic spouses.
So remember as a young teenager,
my mother telling me,
you should never drink.
She didn't understand drugs yet.
It's a different generation.
She said,
you should never drink
because alcohol disagrees with this family.
That was her sweet little way of telling me
she had some experience.
Oh my gosh.
Well, you know,
every now and then there are people
I've known over the years
who whenever they introduce themselves,
they say,
my name is so-and-so
and I'm a recovering Catholic
and alcoholic.
Or I'm an alcoholic and a CIA.
What is there about that linkage
between Catholicism and alcoholism
and Irish that put that together
as a difficult place to tread?
Well, the longer I've stayed sober
and like some of us,
done a fair amount of research
about what the disease I have.
I always figured,
geez, if I had diabetes
or I do have asthma
or God forbid, should have cancer,
I'd want to learn about it.
And I know that we have,
I haven't found a specific gene
that links to alcoholism,
but it sure seems like
there's some that are very adjacent to that
and certain populations
seem to be more susceptible.
And I don't know
if that's physiological or environmental,
but we Irish don't mind a drink
and we can't,
my experience is
we don't seem to be able
to fend it off very well.
Some people just quit, quit maybe.
I wasn't able to do that.
So just through very practical,
practical experience,
not really any kind of formal research.
I sure have met a lot of Irish drunks
and thank God some of us actually got sober.
Some of the stories I've heard
from those same CIAs
is about a miserable experience
at parochial school.
I wondered if you had
any of that kind of experience.
So one of the nicer things
my parents passed on to me
was a very loose concept
of a higher power.
They grew up in a very oppressive,
Catholic environment,
you know, sort of World War II era.
And I'm pretty sure, again,
they never really shared it with us,
but that my mother and my father
married very young,
18 and 19, maybe 17, 18.
And pretty likely my mother was pregnant
and I think she was just looking
to get out of the house.
Difficult father, drinking,
post-depression, post-World War II,
everybody was broke.
I think now my grandfather drank away
whatever financial,
financial resources they had.
So my mother was dating my father,
who was pretty wild.
I'm pretty sure she was pregnant
and they were from Hollywood,
Hollywood High School.
And they went to,
bless the sacrament,
was the local Catholic church there.
And I think the church realized
or found out my mother was pregnant,
small town, even though it was LA,
small town kind of gossip,
and pushed them out of the church.
And I think they had
such a bitter experience
that by the time we came along,
I have a younger sister,
my sister, too.
Their attitude was a very sort of
Christian-centric home,
a belief in higher power was God and Christ,
but never pushed to go to church.
And I think because they were so bitter.
And all my cousins and her sisters
and everybody did go to church.
And they were all, from my observation,
pretty miserable, you know?
So that was one of the nicer things
my parents gave to us,
was the concept of a higher power,
but to seek God on our own terms.
I didn't have the grudge,
the grudge that people have
that are actually in the system,
so to speak,
that are either forced to go to church
or a catechism or Sunday school,
and the trauma of a confession
and different than our version of confess,
and different than our fourth or fifth step.
But it was a pretty easygoing part of it.
My experience with really trauma in my family
was really around the act of drinking,
people getting too drunk
and a lot of fighting
with my parents and a lot of my time,
my mother pleading for my father to stop drinking
and driving drunk, you know, with us in the car.
And I don't know if you ever got arrested drinking.
I certainly got arrested some amount of times,
but along with their sort of,
don't ever drink, it disagrees with this family.
And my own observation,
I mean, we had a Jesuit priest in the family
and he was the first guy I ever saw
fill up a water glass of whiskey.
So, you know, all the classic stuff,
the same time I...
And I'm not sure if it was environmental
or installed at the factory,
but really insecure, little boy for the most part,
I'm kind of outgoing.
But at that time I was really afraid to be out
mixing around the other kids.
I didn't want to go to school.
I want it.
My mother was to stay at home mom.
I wanted to stay at home.
I felt as we like to say, uncomfortable in my own skin.
I had no idea why
I just didn't wanna be me.
I just didn't feel like I fit in.
Now, when you were a kid, I mean, you're an adult, right?
a kid and you were seeing all the arguments and different things between your mother and father
over his drinking what did you know about alcoholism at that time if someone had asked an
eight-year-old or ten-year-old greg hey what's an alcoholic what was your conception of it was it
your dad or was it something else more of a family environment like a lot of families but big the big
family everybody would gather on the weekends my mother and her sisters were all very close and
all the uncles brother-in-laws would be there and and it was the classic party in the afternoon
would start out lots of fun the kids are swimming and playing and everybody's laughing and then
starting to drink you know and as the evening would progress the party would get louder
classic fun fun with prob is prom so it would the music would get louder it was the 60s so there was
music and the conga drums would come out and the maracas and tan everybody's it's great and then
uh then
then
then
the arguing would start it's time to go fuck you i don't want to leave you know everybody fighting
and and then trying to put the kids to bed and we're listening down the hall and everybody's
fighting and arguing and then watching people as the adults sort of fall asleep early which now i
know passing out and then going home driving home and really remembering my sister remembers
my sister may or may not be one of us she's never really put her hand up but
she's wrestled with alcohol and drugs but
we would share the story our brother's older he he was already out of the house but
driving home and then my parents arguing my father kind of bouncing off the curbs trying to
keep the car on the road and and my mother very clear memories of saying my father's name was ray
ray ray ray you can't drive you're falling asleep you're drunk you're drunk stop it
and my sister and i having a lot of fear you know like this ain't right so i couldn't connect it to
drinking but i knew that as the evening progressed things got weird how did that affect you and
when you were a little kid was it all fear or did you ever try and get your dad to stop no very
intimidated by my father we spent some time together when i got to be a teenager a young
preteen and then teenager we raced motorcycles together i always rode motorcycles with him
and it was one of the few areas that we really connected and um i was always intimidated by my
father he was you know kind of a get rich quick kind of guy always had ideas and schemes and
moved a lot changed jobs a fair amount and um very impatient with me and uh you know i was
struggling to find my way my identity i loved music which is part of my story changed my life
but i couldn't music was a refuge i didn't really i loved my mother i liked my dad i don't know about
the l word love i didn't he was and he worked a lot so i don't know if he was out partying and
said he was working or if he was really working but and then he would be sleep on the couch during
the weekend so again maybe he was drunk and he was like i don't know i don't know i don't know
maybe he was just tired i don't know but my mother was very specific about saying don't ever
drink it's a recurrent theme with her wasn't it very much very cautionary tale a cautionary tale
that made you want to do it more than ever absolutely correct and uh so how old were you
when you had your first drink by your own volition well my father was always okay hey have a sip of
my beer you know five six seven years old it was no big deal and then of course you know as i got
if he left his beer definitely take a couple sips off it so probably the first time i really got
serious you know going on on camping trips to ride motorcycles he i was probably 13 or 14 he'd say oh
you could have your own beer of course i loved it and then right when i started middle school
classic story the older kids drinking beer and smoking uh weed it kind of started almost the
same time for me you know i was of that era where they would come to the schools and
the police lapd would talk to us about drugs and that marijuana was a gateway drug and you
should never try it and everybody would laugh it was absolutely a gateway drug for me it led
beer led to harder alcohol for me i right away i tried whiskey whatever we could get and i loved
beer and i started smoking weed right away and immediately also loved it and the marijuana bone
was connected to you know speed and and i started taking
lsd when i was about 14 and everything i i liked changing how i felt i was uncomfortable
did it work every time for you or were there times when you expected it to work and caved in
absolutely i attended to overshoot the mark not every time but from early so 14 15 you know
getting a few beers together go hang out at the beach hang out in the park i i definitely blacked
out a few times you know and then woke up sunburn at the beach or late to go home or
but other times it was cool you know so it's like a false positive you know so i i didn't
have that i'm an alcoholic the first time i took a sip i thought okay i really like to get drunk i
love the feeling i feel suddenly cooler i felt uh not intimidated to talk to girls uh i felt like i
could hang out with the cooler kids which of course were just kids that were getting high
i loved rock and roll ever since i was a little boy you know
i used to think why are people not even as a six seven years old why aren't people stopping me on
the street to tell tell me how much i looked like one of the beatles i was obsessed with the beatles
right right of course like all of us as a pudgy little kid with you know short hair my ears
sticking couldn't understand but before i started drinking and getting high that was my pathway to
get out of the uncomfortable way i felt i would listen to music on headphones and that was my
escape first thing i knew i knew how to work the record player so i remember
only i could do this i don't even know what this was but do be in this world all the time
i would be cool and i would feel better about myself so that was that rock and roll thing
always around so of course i was attracted to that lifestyle i started going to concerts pretty young
smoking weed getting high taking acid drinking and you were a drummer i'm a drummer i didn't
start playing drums till i was about 15 so i wanted to do it before i actually did it
did your parents support you in in your pursuit of music at all
no no no no they hated it what was their response to your participation either in learning how to
play or going to concerts or just hanging out with people who are doing it outrage my father was
convinced that and i have no idea what his hang-up was if he was afraid because he actually his family
grew up in show business in the films and i think maybe he had a bad experience with his father
but they were outraged the first drum kit i had i brought it home they told me get it out i had to
set it up anywhere they begrudgingly let me go to a few concerts they usually said no so pretty
early on i got into the habit of lying saying oh i'm going to go with a friend to study or
whatever the uh you know sort of excuse or alibi du jour was i will say i also started getting
trouble right away getting caught drinking i wrecked all my parents cars i got my license
when i was 16 first week i had my license i got pulled over for an open container
speed i got arrested for drunk driving a few times as a teenager so i didn't understand that that was
pretty good evidence that i what like you said was overshooting the mark i just figured i gotta
adjust a little bit here so you had some consequences occurred early enough to maybe
indicate that you were having a problem with it how did those situations turn out did you get out
of it to the extent that you were able to say well yeah i'll get into trouble but i'll always be let
some big part of my story early on i kind of had a jacqueline hyde thing which i know we we do i had
some very straight nice you know scholastic focused friends and and um you know support
and i did i did well in school i i put a minimum of effort in and did very well i i like to read i
always not a math guy but history english literature art i liked it all so i didn't
have an issue with learning i just didn't like any kind of rules of defiant i don't want to be
aware at a certain time i don't like people telling me what to do so my first consequence
16 years old pulled over by the police they gave me a citation to appear in court they didn't arrest
me the first time you know i grew up in north glendale montrose a very small town kind of vibe
and so my mother had to take me to court you know because i was a minor and they kind of let me off
the hook i said well son you know you're too young to be drinking and you got to be careful when
you're driving it's a pretty bad thing to do and i was like well i'm not going to do that i'm not
privileged and that was it i think i got a fine my mother was outraged she couldn't believe they
didn't throw the book at me so my my experience was well okay you got to have a good story when
you get to court and if you overshoot the mark you just got to adjust and then when i was about
14 my parents found uh marijuana in my room i had stuff that a record album my mother didn't know
what to do she told me years later she had no idea how to help me she knew i was struggling
but she didn't know what to do and my father just got angry
he just yelled at me and said i don't understand what this drugs and you know berated me and shamed
me you know show me how you smoke this i want to know why you like it just crazy i think now after
some years he just didn't know what to say looking back greg what could they have done or said at the
time that would have changed your trajectory or was there nothing they could do or say i think
nothing that's that's also a great question i have thought about it and when my mother near
the end of her life said i wish i could have helped you
more because you know i struggled from 14 till and i get sober at 37 and when she told me that and i
had done a meaningful you know a nice step with her many years before and i thought about it i
said no mom i think you probably did the best you could she she did actually tell me you shouldn't
drink i mean i she didn't wasn't one of those families that said well as long as you drink
just be at home and we support they gave me a very clear understanding of what was the rules
of the road were for that home and i said well i'm not going to do that i'm not going to do that
at home in fact when i left home i was just shy of 18 they had found pills and alcohol and one more
time i crashed a car and i had just i started college i skipped a grade i was always ahead in
scholastics you and i had gotten accepted to ucla you know which was a big deal you know and our
family was humble we didn't have a lot of money and my father said you're you're blowing this
opportunity because neither one of them went to college and he said either you have to stop
drinking and doing all these other crazy things you're doing
and if you do stop you can keep living here for free and go to college we'll pay your tuition
or you have to get out my recollection was immediately said well see you later and i i
left you know and and dropped out of school of course yeah did that become a pattern for your
later life to a certain degree i've worked at my job for 32 years i've been in music a long long
time so i'm not really a quitter i just if i'm not comfortable with the situation i'm having
marriages and personal relationships then then professional i'll tell you the truth
so maybe you had enough at that point with your with your dad and you were willing to
say okay i'm out of here as opposed to okay i'll play under your rules yeah i get that
and he wasn't uh violent with me often every once in a while i mean i remember a christmas
eve i came home drunk i was probably 16 or 17 and you know he grabbed me by the throat and he did
punch me
which is clearly not OK. But it wasn't like one more time. I have a black eye.
It was pretty outrageous, which was not, you know, maybe a year and a half later, I was gone.
So what did you end up doing when you left at that point?
I hadn't dropped out of UCLA yet. I went and stayed with a friend. He had a one room apartment
and I slept on the couch and he was really my drinking buddy. He was a little older and
my mother always hated him. And he really taught me how to drink hard alcohol. You know,
I was using drugs and drinking, but he was, you know, let's go get a pint of whiskey or gin and
getting towards daily drinking at that point and consequences at school. And ironically,
I worked at a pharmacy, but I never stole any drugs there. I don't know why I didn't.
Maybe I respected some authority. I don't know. But I was working and then I was probably 18.
I fell down in a bar at a concert and tore all the ligaments in my leg and dislocated my shoulder.
And ended up in the hospital and had surgery. And then I figured, fuck it, I'm going to drop
out of school is silly. I'm not, you know, I did go home to mom because my roommate kicked me out
and I went home for a couple of months to recover. And then I left again and just, you know, did the
couch surfing until I got finally got an apartment. All the time I was building my musical career. I
was working as a drummer. That's what I wanted to do. So all of that damage that you did to your
body.
Took you out of circulation for what, six months, something like that.
Yeah, that's probably right. But I never connected. I mean, at that point, I had
crashed three or four cars. I'd been arrested three or four times,
had been hospitalized for auto accidents, drunk driving, you know, or driving under the influence,
you know, hospital again, falling down drunk. And it did not occur to me whatsoever that there was
a relationship. It was,
it was bad luck. I can't believe a cop pulled me over. Gee, I had a couple too many drinks. I felt
that, but onto the next one, I never thought I needed to look at any kind of long-term
moderation. Forget about quitting. No fucking way. I like the sense of ease and comfort,
man. I like getting high or getting tight as we used to say.
Yeah. Yeah. I get that. I never got arrested for drunk driving, though. I did it many, many times.
I'm wondering after,
after each one of these episodes and the consequences that occurred, either going to
jail or, you know, getting pulled over, whatever it was, the very next time that you started your
evening off, knowing that that's where you were going to end up, what, what kind of lies were
you telling yourself at the time to allow you to continue to do that? I'm not sure how, if I even
told myself anything other than here we go again. I don't know that I really contemplated cause and
effect, you know, cause and effect. I don't know that I really contemplated cause and effect.
Crime and punishment. I just, and if I did go to jail and I thank God I never had to spend more
than a weekend and it was always unpleasant. Every time I went to jail, it was down in LA,
downtown. And I think it was a sense of, I just need to take it a little bit easy and, or gee,
it could have been worse, you know, could have been worse. So, okay. You know, geez. And even
if I had crashed the car, I never had insurance.
You know, it's the seventies. So you could get off the hook pretty easy. So I would be hitchhiking
to work. I think also because I did tend to always have jobs, day jobs that it convinced me that my
drinking and partying, it wasn't really impacting my life. Even though every relationship I had
romantic was destroyed by drinking physical issues because of it's legal issues, financial,
no car, you know, who wants to in Los Angeles, take the bus or hitchhike.
That's how I got to work is I wrecked all the cars.
So you were still functional. You were able to still hold down a job, which for a lot of us,
alcoholics was proof positive that we couldn't be alcoholics because alcoholics can't hold a job.
So you're, you're functioning. Okay. That's what I did. And, and never once did I stop and think,
wait a second, you know, even though I'm working during the day, most of the time I'm working
hungover in the morning or leaving early to happy hour in the afternoon, drink at lunch, drink it.
Yeah. Or, you know, because I had to take,
take pills, take some, you know, take some speed or whatever. So there was always
just trying to come up with the right prescription to get through the day. And then
at this point, you know, starting from when I was about 18, I'm playing in a successful rock and
roll band. I'm playing shows. So all the things that I wanted, I thought I wanted when I was
this preteen and meeting girls now, you know, which I loved and it was fun. And I get to dress
how I want. And I, you know, my father would say, cut your fucking hair. All that's all gone,
you know, and I'm,
I'm out there and, and, you know, that alcoholic ego, big ego, low self-esteem. I don't, I know I
got some issues, but every night I get to go play a show and people are clapping and you sign an
autograph. It's great. Lifestyle and location played a part in that too. There you are in
Southern California. You're in a place where that kind of lifestyle is envied and you're,
you're playing in a rock and roll band where everybody around you, that is the lifestyle that
people seek from rock and roll.
You're living your, your dreams, so to speak.
If I'm, you know, driving heavy machinery or I'm a pre-med student or I'm, you know,
construction site or insurance, the job that I'm doing, I mean, I'm a mail boy during the day. So
it's not a lot of responsibility or working a job. My father hired me for about six months. I think
he felt sorry for me, you know, it was terrible, another bad experience. But by night I was doing
what I wanted. And you're right. It's an industry that applies to a lot of people. And I, you know,
I've had a lot of bad behavior, especially as a drummer, you know, Keith Moon and all those,
the great wild drummers. I was sort of like, oh, wow, great. You know, and the first girlfriend I
ever had was when I was, before I lived at home, very sweet girl. We were 16 and she was 17. And
we used to like drink beer at parties and smoke weed, you know, and she clearly was a normie,
but it was fun. And we started having sex and that was great. And, but one of the first amends I had
to make, she got pregnant when she was 17. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and,
and had an abortion. And it was, it's fairly traumatic. I don't think we even realized how
heavy what her parents found out. So they were a Hispanic Catholic family. So that was
not a lot of fun. I mean, it's not fun for anyone. It was terrible, but it was a consequence of
drinking, you know, lowering my inhibitions and drinking always impaired my ability to make good
decisions. And so I made some bad decisions and, but she was also the first person beside my mother
to say, you know, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that.
You know, when you drink or when we get high, I don't like you, you, you change. She was the first
one to say, my personality changes. And to me, my, I remember so clearly my answer and, you know,
I'm a little boy, I'm 16 was, isn't that the point? Why? I don't want to feel how I feel. I don't like
who I am. Of course I want to change. This is, this is working for me. And of course she finally
broke up with me and said, you know, I can't be around you. You're too crazy. You're not the,
not the guy.
I met, you know, whatever, three years ago. And that was the beginning of, of romantic
relationships. Really, really being dramatically impacted by my drinking and party while I was
playing rock and roll. I couldn't, I couldn't be faithful in any, I always loved having a
girlfriend. I don't like being alone. I'm bad with being abandonment. A core wound for me is
abandonment. I did some therapy, court-ordered therapy when I got sober and we did some work,
a woman, very interesting therapist, some early, early,
work, like earliest memory kind of stuff. And, and my mother and father had separated when I was
new, a newborn, six, up to six months. My father had left her. I think he had another girlfriend
and left the state. My mother was bereft and afraid. And, and so the therapist said, well,
it's likely during this period, she was trying to just figure out what is going to happen to me.
She had no job. She had nothing, just my brother and me. So early, early abandonment. And that
shows up over and over in my story as what I've been through.
I've learned is a core wound of being afraid to be alone. Now here's the contradiction with people
like me or like you and I, whenever I would have a woman or, you know, any partner that would commit
to a monogamous loving relationship, I would fuck it up. I would, I was incapable before I got sober
of being faithful, honest, monogamous. I couldn't do it because there was never enough, just like
booze and drugs. I also, there wasn't enough.
I didn't have sex or, or, or women or, or relationships. So no matter who was at home
waiting for me, there's always, it's rock and roll, baby. You know, did you seek out women
who supported your lifestyle? I mean, women who drank or used, uh, and what were the outcomes of
those types of relationships? Absolutely. The way I lived, you know, as a, as a drinker and a heavy
drug user, I used to say, Oh, I I've sought out lower companions after some years in recovery.
I realized I,
I was likely the lower companion and plenty of these women were, were sweet, but, but fellow
alcoholics, you know, I, I've been married four times, only once in sobriety. The first woman I
married was when I was 19, a workmate who asked me to marry her so she could stay in the country
to get a green card. Uh, and I got paid an amount of money, which I spent first time. I bought a
large amount of drugs. I used the money to buy a lot of cocaine. So that was a ridiculous,
ridiculous relationship. And, and, and finally, you know, dissolved that marriage.
How long did that one last? I mean, a year or so, just long enough to get the green card.
Then I lived with a couple other women, always fellow partiers using hard drugs, LSD,
cocaine, speed, alcohol, always together. And I would think that, Oh, you have a problem. I,
I'm going to, I'm going to try to help you get your shit together,
but you don't know how to drink. Like I do, you know, you really, you're very sloppy.
You're, you know, you're really, you gotta get your shit together, sweetheart.
So their problem was the way that they were relating to your problem.
Probably so. I think that's accurate. I had lived with a couple other women and I married a,
a country and Western singer, pretty well known a woman named Lucinda. We've worked a lot of things
that we've known each other from, we were kids when we got married, but you know, drinking
impacted our marriage for sure. And I can only speak for myself, but again, I thought, well,
I don't have a problem. Look at you. And clearly I had a problem.
How long were you with her?
Before you guys married?
I definitely already shoot, shoot aim. So, you know, we probably dated, dated for a couple of
weeks, moved in together, lived together for probably six months and got married and were
divorced probably three years later. Maybe if that, maybe two and a half years,
I like to squeeze it all in.
So there was nothing within that relationship during those early months that made you think
things would get worse if you got married or did you think they'd get better?
Yes, I did. She suffered from some emotional issues, you know, and was in treatment.
I had just started doing some therapy. Yeah, there was red flags everywhere. That's a little bit of
a theme to relationships I've had, minus my wife now, who I had to do a lot of work before
she would agree to spend any real time with me, was a crossroads when I would come to this place
where I would think, well, this relationship really isn't working for a myriad of reasons,
drinking, financial infidelity, whatever, on both sides.
And I would think, well, we've got to fix this thing. We should either break up or get married.
And I did that more than once, you know, and I did it with Lucinda. And then my, I have a daughter
who's 32 and her mother, I met soon after I split up with Lucinda and same thing, you know,
and she knows my story and recovery and she's been in and out herself. My first red flag was on our,
one of our very first dates. All we could talk about is how odd it was that neither one of us
drank. And that was the,
I barely drink with, so you don't either. Wow. It's so weird, you know, and do you use drug?
No, not really. No, neither do I. Not, Hey, we both were alcoholic and both had severe drug habits.
Why would you admit that? I mean, there'd be no reason to admit that. What was the thinking
associated with, okay, so this is how the relationship is going. Let's get married.
What did you think was going to change or let's say be improved by getting married
that you didn't already have in the relationship?
I think that that fear of abandonment, that the pain of breaking up was more frightening
than enduring a marriage that, that might not work. And because my parents had been,
they were married till, till my father died 55 years. I can't say happily,
I wouldn't call their marriage happy, but that was the, that was the blueprint. So maybe,
fuck it, let's get married. Maybe, maybe something good will happen. And, and I think,
I actually believe in, in,
I've been married for, you know, 20 plus years.
I deeply believe in the concept of marriage or a committed relationship,
but it took me a long time to understand how to honor a relationship
and how to be a good mate, you know.
I learned a lot of that at Al-Anon.
I joined Al-Anon a few years into my sobriety.
But, yeah, it was like, well, fuck it.
And then the woman that I was married to that was the mother of my daughter,
she had two children from another marriage
and had married her drug dealer, which, you know, she had a drug habit.
That's convenient.
Yeah, convenient.
So to me, I thought that was kind of weird, and he had joined AA.
So when we first were dating and then we were living together,
when she had custody of her children, I would go pick them up for her
and I would meet at an AA meeting.
And I used to think, man, this guy's really fucking weird.
Like, who?
Who would bring a kid to an AA meeting?
I had no idea that it was a nice—you know, all meetings are different, obviously,
but these meetings were a safe place.
And God bless him.
I mean, he knew I was getting loaded.
Was that your first exposure to AA?
Yeah, actually, you're right.
I never thought about that.
Yes.
Picking them up at a meeting, and I would kind of stick my head in the door,
and it was horrifying.
What was your perception?
What were you horrified by?
Well, first of all, for losers, you know,
the ultimate, you know, the paper bags and raincoats, all that kind of stuff.
I had no idea.
I didn't understand, you know, a mixed meeting or a stag meeting
or a family-oriented solution.
None of that.
It was just the ultimate end-of-the-road loser.
What an asshole to bring his kids when he's sick.
He's sick.
I guess in a way I was right, but he was getting better.
I was even sicker.
And how about the kids?
What was the long-term?
What was the effect of them going to AA meetings when they were young?
Sometimes kids get, you know, imprinted with that for the rest of their lives
that either they decide to either drink to prove that they don't have a problem
or they don't drink because of that.
My stepdaughter has now been sober three or four years,
but she was probably six or seven when we met.
She went on a long journey into addiction.
She was very, very heavy, and she shares her stories.
So she went to prison.
She lost three children to the court.
She had a very, very difficult story and an incredible survivor
and a story of redemption and sobriety in AA.
And she works in recovery.
So it's a great story.
And then her older brother, who still has mental health issues,
has bounced in and out of AA for, you know, probably 20 years.
She's in his 40s now.
So sometimes the credits don't transfer.
You know that.
Yeah, yeah, I know that.
I know that.
That was your second wife is the one that you had the two stepchildren with?
On paper, third.
But second, I really committed to trying to.
The woman that I married for the green card, we never even lived together.
It was really just a stupid move.
But that was good for her.
She was a nice woman, so she got to stay in the U.S.
We'll be right back.
My friends, if you're enjoying AA Recovery interviews,
I invite you to check out my latest audio book,
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And we're back.
Greg, when you were playing in the band,
to what extent were you traveling,
and how did that play into your relationships with the women
who were left while you were traveling and on tour?
Very important part of my story.
So my first band I was in,
when I first moved out,
out of the house,
was getting popular more locally
and up and down California.
Weren't traveling overseas.
And that was when I'm drinking and partying
and being high on stage.
And I got fired from that band.
I had started the band,
and it was very successful
and very cool,
critically acclaimed
and very unique in its field.
And I came to a band meeting
and they gathered around
and everybody drank and partied.
And they said,
your alcohol use is affecting your ability to play in this band.
They fired me.
And I wept like a baby.
I couldn't believe it.
I was shocked.
It's a really serious consequence for me.
It was a surprise to you?
I mean, usually people say something
before they pull that sort of thing,
just yanking the carpet out from under you.
Do you remember them ever sitting you down
and talking to you and saying,
look, Greg, you know,
this is getting a little bit over the top.
You need to cut down.
Probably.
In fairness to them,
I can't remember.
It's, you know, a long time.
It's more than 40 years ago.
But everybody in that band were heavy drinkers
and heavy drug users.
So it's, you know,
the kingdom of the blind,
the one-eyed man.
So I think that it's taken me a long time
to come to terms that even in a group of people
that can drink and use with some frequency,
may or may not be,
or it may not affect their life.
Either way, I was out.
And so then I formed my next band,
which still goes to this day.
You must have been really pissed when that happened.
Were you really angry about that?
I was very, very angry.
I was going to show them,
but it was my next band.
And heartbroken and embarrassed.
You know, I was very, very embarrassed.
Did you ramp up your use of alcohol and drugs
during that time?
Probably.
I don't know if I ever ramped down.
I think I just kind of was, you know.
Because, and also,
I didn't really take any responsibility for it.
So we formed a new band that did very well.
And I think that I didn't slow down on drinking,
but I eased back on the drug use.
I didn't know that I was,
you know, just using cocaine too much and I knew it.
That's why I could only be so angry because I knew it.
They weren't wrong.
You know, I couldn't perform because, you know,
we are sort of creatures that we want to fit in.
The next group of guys, the Stu band,
they all drank, but they weren't really drug users.
So there wasn't really an environment
where I could, you know,
use a lot of the cocaine and heavier drugs.
So I switched from, you know, beer to whiskey or wine to gin.
And I got the same.
Effect, but it was more socially acceptable with this group of, of guys.
So I just, I just drank.
Did they all drink?
Yes.
Yeah.
One guy's quit.
He'd not, probably not an alcoholic, but finally got an ulcer from drinking and quit.
He said, I can't drink anymore.
And then another guy was able just to moderate his drinking, not an alcoholic.
Now, to what extent did the people around you, the promoters, the managers, the roadies,
other people who were in your little sphere at that time, to what extent were
they?
Were they really enabling drinking and drug use for you?
Yeah, I think just no, no, other than that first band that fired me, really no consequences.
And you know, work hard, play hard and it's rock and roll.
And I have a recollection of playing a show, maybe I feel like it was in Kentucky.
It was a club.
We had to, in the old days, you had to play two sets, you know, you'd play two shows and
clear the house.
And I don't think I realized we were going to play two shows.
I discovered a new drink in the South, Rebel Yell Whiskey, you know, it was, it was great.
I remember seeing a picture of Keith Richards drinking, anything Keith Richards did was
okay with me.
I want to be like that, all my heroes, you know?
And so I was drinking at the bar and leader of the band came up to me and said, you know,
we've got to play another show.
Like, what are you talking about?
He said, you're too fucking drunk to play.
I said, ah, I'll be fine.
I was too drunk to play, but I remember telling my roadie, my drum guy, I said, you know,
and I had also discovered Jägermeister, I put a, you know, glass on, on my stand next
to me.
I said, just make sure it doesn't, I don't want to see it empty all night long.
Every time I look over, I want to see it full.
So I figured I would drink through, I was so drunk, all I could do is keep going.
Of course, halfway through the show, I passed out on stage and show was over and they had
to refund the money to everybody and, you know, fun with problems, but they didn't take
me out of the band.
I'm not really sure why, but it was a lot of that.
What did you learn from that?
If anything?
Nothing.
Isn't that something?
Just, you know, some days you're going to be drunker than others.
Another situation where you had the consequences, but they didn't really punish you.
Did they?
Right.
The consequences themselves.
You know, sometimes I think for me, the consequences, I was prepared to endure them.
You know, it was the notion of not drinking.
And again, I hadn't considered really stopping.
I would always think about moderation or again, switching from one spirit to the other.
Yeah.
Or really, I knew I had to stay off cocaine.
I was really, I knew that was bad and you know, there were some financial issues back
then in the seventies and eighties pre crack era.
So just to be out from a practical point of view, cocaine was very expensive then.
And so that may have slowed me down a little bit.
I was not a person that would steal to get money to buy cocaine.
I would just use drink, you know, I think first or last, always.
I've always been an alcoholic drinker, you know?
Yeah.
That's my story too.
I used marijuana and whatever drugs I took alcoholically.
So I think that's a fairly common, common theme for a lot of people.
So walk us down the road a little bit if you, if you wouldn't mind, Greg, on, on the years
leading up to whatever it was turned you around and turned you toward AA.
So the band that's still going to this day, we split up for a period of time.
We, you know, bands fight and we split up really for the nineties.
Yeah.
It was the end of the eighties.
I had married my wife at the time and when I had a daughter with, and I had gotten a
job at a music company, the company I work for today, they know I've been so overwhelmed.
They like it actually.
I'm a better worker.
So anyway, and I, I got a job, I had a little more money, you know, because at the end of
a band, unless you're, you know, really, really successful money, you run out of money quick.
Yeah.
So I went with my soon to be wife trying to raise her two kids, which, you know, I couldn't
take care of myself, let alone telling her how, you know, I love to tell her how to raise
the kids.
You're a terrible mom.
You need to do this.
Well, you know, and so my drinking really, really started to escalate because I now was
in the music business and you, you know, going out to concerts and, and spending time with
artists.
And I realized that a lot of the credits I had earned as a performing musician and a
rock and roll party animal.
They, those did transfer.
I now had some credibility.
So all these business guys that really didn't know how to hang out with musicians like these,
I know all these guys.
So I was back in the mix and I now had a steady income.
So the first thing I could do was afford cocaine again.
And I hadn't really used cocaine for probably three or four years, not, not with any frequency.
Again, that convinced me that I could certainly control and enjoy stop and start as I chose
to.
Yeah.
There were a lot of consequences in my life where I would use cocaine, have some really
serious consequences, broken relationship, go to jail, kicked out of a band, whatever.
And then some time would go by.
And that irrational thought that I could use cocaine with impunity would start to turn
into a more of an obsessive thought that of course everything's going to be fine.
So I would get back to the cocaine.
And so I was working in this company.
I was now an executive.
I was around other people that partied.
I thought they were quote unquote amateurs.
So I'm going to show them how real rock and rollers do it.
So I started using cocaine again and my wife also started using drugs along with me.
She liked more opiates and things, but we started living a pretty rock and roll lifestyle.
I had a lot of really well known artists that I spent time with, some that were pretty strung
out.
And so it was just, it was the coin of the realm, you know, work hard, play hard.
And I do things that other people can't do.
You don't know how to talk to the talent.
Yeah.
And so once again, Greg, this sounds like a theme, maybe a pattern.
You were led off the hook in an environment where there was no hook, right?
So there you are working in an industry where the very things that create consequences for
other people were just, you know, everyday standard business operating procedure.
They'd say, send Greg to the concert, send Greg to the meet and let him hang out.
He speaks their language, which is code for, you know, knows how to party with them.
And by the way, not every musician I worked with had a job.
I had a drug or alcohol problem, but for some reason, you know, we have that, that heat
seeking drug and alcohol radar.
We birds of a feather.
I found the ones that wanted to live like I lived.
So how, how long did that continue with, uh, you working kind of both ends of the field?
So sort of 1990 to 1997, uh, my wife, we moved in together and she got pregnant and then
lost the baby.
No, sorry.
Had an abortion.
We decided it wasn't time for an abortion.
It wasn't time for a baby to come into this.
Our family decided together, but again, some trauma and sadness around that.
And we decided to get married, you know, one more time, like, well, should we break up
or get married?
Let's get married.
Something, something's about something good will happen.
Maybe we'll both stop partying.
Uh, maybe I'll become a better stepfather.
Maybe we'll start our own family.
And she got pregnant again.
And then I got hired.
I was working at another music company and that's when it started picking up.
So I had a wife.
I had two stepkids that were living with us that had some trauma and a baby on the way.
And I found my alcohol and drug use, uh, ramping up again, escalating, ramping up, staying
out later, uh, going on more business trips, uh, not being faithful in my marriage again.
And never once thinking I knew, uh, that I, I shouldn't be living like this, but I, I
didn't care.
And I didn't understand the compulsion of the drinking.
I just thought I didn't care.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was thinking against my will, even though I had plenty of information and my wife pleaded
with me, I'd be gone for a few days.
I'd come home and my wife would say, look, look, kids, uncle, daddy's home for a visit,
you know?
And w which the painful, yeah, you saw the banana peel, but you stepped on it anyway.
Didn't care.
Didn't care to a certain degree.
Our marriage broke up a few times and we would go back here and I don't know if it was with
him.
Maybe just the consequences weren't severe enough to get my attention.
Yeah.
Because it's sick.
It's it's sometimes I think it's cavalier.
I'll say, oh, I, I just didn't care.
Yeah.
That's probably to speak about it with you and really be honest, I probably did care,
but I, I, I couldn't stop to be honest, you know, I mean, I like to say I chose not to
stop because I, I enjoyed it, but you know, we're now in just the problem zone.
So we're now in the mid nineties.
I'm still an executive, I'm, I'm having some success, not really what they're paying me
to do.
Yeah.
I'm a bad actor, but at that point still, still kind of keeping all the plates spinning.
Do you think if they had called you on that early on, I mean, if, if they were a standard
type of corporation and where drinking is not tolerated and that kind of behavior is
not tolerated, do you think you would have stopped sooner or was it, was that just the
case of your functional alcoholism being enabled by the very company that you worked for?
I can't answer that.
I'd love to blame them or that kind of goes to even what we were saying earlier on mother's
saying, I should have done more to help you.
I don't know that, that it would have worked.
I mean, I guess they could have fired me and I would have had another good reason to drink.
I mean, we don't really need a lot of great reasons if we're now drinking against our
will.
The compulsion has kicked in, you know, the phenomenon of craving.
And for me, the phenomenon of craving didn't necessarily look like every morning having
the DTs if I didn't get to the liquor store.
Sure.
Mine was just that I'm happy to have one drink or 10 drinks.
Yeah.
I can do no cocaine or cocaine for three days until I don't even know where I am.
Yeah.
So it's not even been straight.
It's just, it's unpredictable.
Like, you know, which kind of cancer do you have?
Well, I have the kind I've got.
Yeah.
But it sounds like you were managing your drug and alcohol use to the extent that you
were still able to carry on working and doing what you were doing.
And as long as you could do that, there probably wasn't much of a problem perceived.
Probably.
And, and other than people saying, Hey, you should take it easy.
And until, until our moment of clarity, so this is now 1997 and I'm, I'm a daily drinker
probably and certainly using other narcotics to come off cocaine runs, Ambien, uh, other
sleeping pills, you know, sleeping days at a time, uh, ending up in emergency hospitals,
slipping and falling cuts on my face, uh, you know, getting in fights, uh, in, in bars,
uh, by wife.
Probably not throwing me out because I'm a drug addict.
Yeah.
I was the sole breadwinner.
And she also was fighting her own drug and alcohol issues at the time.
So finally I crossed that line, you know, we, we say I'll never, if I ever crossed
that line, I'll get some help or I'll stop and you just move the line of course.
So, and so another line I had crossed was becoming violent in my home and toward a family
member.
And, uh, and my wife had called the police before and the police come out, you know,
bang on the door in the middle of the night.
I mean, the flashlight and what's going on here, is there a problem coming in counseling,
that kind of thing?
Like you guys can't, you gotta keep it down.
The neighbors are your wife called 9 1 1 is, oh, I've changed my mind, you know?
So now that's going on, it's happening not weekly, but it's probably having two or three
times over a course of six months.
So finally I had been on a, on a run, you know, with both my rock and roll friends and
pretty well known artists.
And, you know, again, having, I don't know.
I don't know.
Having artists that I knew that had very serious drug problems telling me you need
to slow down and having managers call me the artist managers and saying, stay away from
my artist.
That's now happening with some regularity, people that are well-known heroin addicts
and cocaine addicts and their teams are saying I'm a bad influence on them, which typically
would get your attention.
Of course I thought, well, that's ridiculous.
I love saying me.
What about you?
That's I love that.
I still fight with that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I had a selection of family member and my wife called the police again.
And, and that was my moment of clarity before the police got there, I was suddenly ready
to go get some help.
And I knew, I knew, you, you know, when you, you just feel like you're running out.
I was having violent dreams, a lot of entertaining, a lot of thoughts of self harm.
I can't say I was suicidal, but it just keeps escalating.
It's so dark.
The tunnel is so dark.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
realized that this was it i couldn't do anything i didn't know how to stop drinking and using drugs
i didn't even think about it i just was now to that place so before the police came i was gone
you know i got in my truck with probably one shoe and a pack of cigarettes and you know a t-shirt
and i and i got on my phone and i called uh the insurance i had an insurance card moment of clarity
i called insurance if you're experiencing a drug and alcohol crisis god bless my job i still had
this job and they said you said are you experiencing a drug and alcohol crisis i said yes i am i'm
getting fucking arrested here and yes i am experiencing drug and so they said well you
can go immediately to a place in glendale and because i did grow up in glendale i said uh i'll
go there of course still driving drunk drove to the rehab and turned myself in and you know they
did an intake eval at the end of this you know
crying and freaked out and you know trying to detox and i remember saying i was obsessed with
that i had become a drug addict you know and i said well do you think i'm a drug addict or crying
and i remember so clearly the counselor saying i don't know if you're a drug addict but you might
be an alcoholic you might have a problem with alcohol and it was like you know the classic
thing the brakes slammed on and everything in the back seat came forward and my mind was racing and
thinking of my uncles and my dad and i'm like
no fucking way the classic response not me i am way too cool to be an alcoholic don't look at me
i'm a fucking right you know i'd get high because i that's i'm outlaw baby and that was the first
time that someone had ever posed that question to me even my wife at the time said why can't you
just get off hard drugs and just drink beer and smoke weed like a gentleman i had no idea that
was even kind of big book stuff if i could just drink like a gentleman i was thrown out of the
house i stayed in this rehab in glendale for 30 days
it didn't make you want to split when that happened when they when the guy told you that
you might be an alcoholic did you feel like getting just getting out of there at that point
no i wanted to stay i and i don't know if it was because i was afraid to i knew the police were
looking for me and they protected my anonymity i knew i was getting arrested but i think i was
just ready because the theme the whole time i mean they were trying to arrest me and they had
served a warrant and my wife was angry and and you know the family member i
it was one of my stepkids i had i had assaulted their father was chasing me to get me arrested
the guy named and by the way it took me many years to understand them yeah they should have
arrested me it's okay sounds like the wheels were really coming off that wagon huh it all hit at once
and i called my boss at work who to this day has his own alcohol problems but has been my friend
and mentor he works somewhere else but he told me i called him for rehab from a pay phone of course
i was supposed to show up at a music convention in portland and there's a whole team waiting for
i was going to lead this team but you know a week's worth of meetings and i was the head guy
and i i before i this last night i had gone out and bought a quarter ounce of cocaine that was
going to be for the whole trip and of course used it all the whole night you know and that's when i
saw the family member he said what where are you scottish guy where are you junior he used to call
me junior where are you junior they're calling me everybody's calling where are you i was supposed
i said i'm in rehab and i remember so clearly he said to me are you sure and i said yeah i'm pretty
fucking sure so he called back the rest of the team they didn't understand you know what a crisis
it was for me and he called the kids they were like where's where's the boss where's greg and
and the big boss told him he said we've got a man down that was how he referred to me man down
so he made sure they didn't fire me and believe me if i hadn't gotten
sober this this run it's different getting your fifth or sixth time and trying to get sober in a
company they should fire two employers right but they gave me a chance so i stayed in i stayed in
the rehab and learned about aa they took us to meetings every night and i learned the notion
that alcoholism was a disease i learned about you know the obsession of the mind and the allergy of
the body i know no i didn't know any of this but i think i was just ready it sounds like you were
ready at that point uh from what they were telling you about alcoholics and on this
was a good thing while you were in rehab but what sense did you get of what was next with regard to
aa after you got out of rehab well they told me i had to leave rehab after whatever it was 30 days
and my wife said you can't come home you never never come home again you're out so i know where
to go so i had a sponsor i've gotten a sponsor and he helped me find a sober living and they had told
me that i had to do this a day at a time for the rest of my life and the the specter of nowhere to
time created some degree of motivation for me so and i was starting to feel better after 30 days
you dry out a little bit and i enjoyed the camaraderie i felt like i was part of something
because i always felt like an outsider even though uh i've been accused of being a social butterfly
and having lots of friends and acquaintances but always felt you know like an outsider inside you
know uh and and so something had started to click i liked the service work i like setting up the
chairs i learned a lot of things i learned a lot of things i learned a lot of things i learned a lot of
things i learned a lot of things i learned a lot of things i learned how to make my bed
they told me i had to get up at seven o'clock every morning and i i was shocked i had no idea
there were two seven o'clocks every every 24 hours i was more familiar with 7 p.m but they said no
there's one that happens in the morning and so i learned how to get up and sober living they they
continue to reaffirm that stuff and that changed my life and everybody was a teacher some guys died
when i was in sober living there were guys that that od to die everybody was a teacher some men
taught me exactly what to do how to build a program day at a time and some taught me what not
to do and so a day at a time i started feeling better and then of course i had to get an attorney
and go to court the attorney i sat down and told him what happened and he said well you're probably
going to go to prison he said i can help you with trying to keep you from going to prison for for
very long so what that's i can't go to prison i'm fucking rock and roll i have a real job i'm a
family i'm too cool for prison he said well
because you've told me you've done this and you know the cat's out of the bag you're i'm telling
you and there's evidence and witnesses you're going to go to fucking prison so he said if i
was you i would stay sober i'd go to as many a80 meetings as you can and take it a day at a time
so that it might not be as bad as it could be and he said you're gonna have to ask yourself
a question at some point can you stay sober in prison i had no idea this attorney had such a
feel for recovery and um and in that moment i said well you're going to go to prison for
i said i don't want to go to prison but i know i need to stay sober no matter where i am another
moment of clarity it was really heavy very very spiritual and i have no idea i didn't anything
around it but that's how it's 25 years ago i remember clearly so i started going to court
you had many court dates and um the judge was very sympathetic to recovery i remember going to court
my sponsor would go with me and my attorney and he would stand next to me and i would always try
to tell him how great i was doing and they'd say just be quiet you talk too much i want your honor
may i address the court and they're like you're an idiot anyway but man after man would come to
court and they got off easier than me they got shorter sentences they were sentenced to aa and
every time i'd go back the judge would say do another uh you know 25 meetings and come back and
and i was so angry even though i knew i didn't want to go to jail i was also angry that they
didn't understand how great i was doing
in recovery right right if you go to aa you're willing to do anything three weeks later you're
complaining about the coffee this coffee sucks man so i thought i was such a great example recovery
they should let me off the hook and my sponsor told me as i stood in that courtroom each time
he every time they extended my uh sentence they they were they hadn't uh ruled on it i decided i
would let the judge they said keep going to aa he said you should thank that judge he's saving your
life every time he sentences you to more aim
he's saving your life so finally they reduced the charges and after uh over a year i pled guilty to
a lesser charge and i didn't serve a single day in jail and and then after some years they expunged
my record so it truly was a miracle so somewhere along the way greg the court sentencing you to go
to aa and continuing to do that for a period of time was just long enough to get you set up in
the program that's right the attorney that represented me he's elderly now but i still call
my aa birthday to thank him for his support he's a defense attorney i call him every every year on
my aa birthday and thank him for helping me you know and he says no one ever calls him i said well
i'm i'm grateful and i i get very emotional about that because i was very close call you know i was
kicked out of my house so but i went they told me to go to the 90 meetings in 90 days and or more
and i i was going to as many meetings as i could two a day so you know whatever i could do sometimes
three if i you know had time off work and i was able to go to as many meetings as i could two a
day i was able to work and i went everywhere i drove all over the san fernando valley i'd go
anywhere there was a meeting uh and i drove other guys i drove other newer guys i took commitments
i loved it i loved the camaraderie and i felt like i was getting better i actually felt like
i was starting to physically heal and the h word hope i began to feel some hope and i knew i wasn't
going i knew my marriage was over and i was pretty sure i was going to go to jail but i still felt a
little hope sounds like you felt some enjoyment too i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't
mean i don't think we stick around aa if we're not actually enjoying it especially at some point i
mean there's the there's the deadly serious part of sticking around but then there's a part of
actually going because i enjoy going i loved it it's enriching my day in my life yes it was fun
to laugh right we're not a glum lot you know uh and for some reason and i did a lot of tears and
i felt like i could express myself you know the meeting before and after the meeting
i didn't even mind so much i didn't even mind so much i didn't even mind so much i didn't even mind
it was kind of freaked me out you know but i still did it i did it for almost a year
and my marriage it blew apart and then my wife asked me to come home for a period of time
i wasn't ready and then finally we were both ready and after a year or two that marriage
finally it just collapsed it just too much water under the bridge and i learned that sometimes a
marriage that begins in sickness may not survive health but i was ready i knew i would be okay and
i knew i could be a father i was not used to being a single father i was used to being a single father
the first time my daughter she's 32 now she was coming over her first weekend with dad alone
and i was really really scared i didn't know what to do so i never you know uncle daddy right
so i remember asking my sponsor what should i do i'm completely freaked out he said let's keep it
simple asshole every time you make a sandwich make two let's start there great advice great
advice keep it simple right so anyway that marriage finally collapsed do you know it was
a difficult uh divorce it was painful my ex-wife was very angry and for rightfully so she was
struggling with her own drug and alcohol issues but i kept i kept going to meetings i was sponsoring
men i never missed an alimony payment or a child support payment i wrote each check instead of
saying go fuck yourself i said i'm grateful that my daughter has a month even if i didn't always
mean it i did it anyway took direction you were heading in the right direction learning from a
situation that probably would have baffled you previously so over the years you said you were
sponsoring men and taking guys to meetings at what point did you start sponsoring and what
has sponsorship looked like over the 25 years that you've been sober so the first man that i
sponsored uh we had a mutual friend he came i was going to meetings in glendale we were at a meeting
together and it was a man who'd been sober some years uh and he knew both of us and uh this guy
had asked him to sponsor he said i can't sponsor you
he said we're like family so he brought him to me and said you're going to sponsor this man and i
was sober about nine months and i hadn't been through all the steps yet i probably maybe i
tried to do a step a month was my recollection i looked at him and i said you know i haven't
worked on the steps yet and he looked at me he said well i don't believe in god and the other
guy said you'll be perfect for each other that's great and to this day he's still sober he's
turning 25 years sober next week isn't that great and we've been doing that for a long time and i'm
together the whole time so that was the first one and of course i had many many men that didn't want
what i had and they were probably drunk before we hung up the phone our first conversation yeah
and other men that i've sponsored for a long time so my approach to a is relatively traditional you
know we work from the big book and i believe that the steps you know are there to help us have some
kind of a spiritual experience i believe that physical sobriety has to come first for all of us
and then you know we take those steps to
have some kind of psychic change spiritual experience i've had a spiritual experience
of the educational variety very slow over time yeah that's how it was for me too and it took me
getting through all 12 steps and looking back to see where god had been working in my life and
that's what convinced me that spirituality was mine all along i agree you know that the actual
work we can do in our 12 steps you know they say the spiritual part of our program like the wet
part of the ocean you know all of it right but but the fellowship and the spiritual part of the
we get and a book i'm reading right now the taoist book you know part of buddhism the dao de jing
and it's great it's just it's giving me some new things to think about again same god same universe
but different ways different apps i like to think of them as apps or operating systems to plug in
different things to consider and and today we were talking about in our meeting our third step
and you know turning it over and then leaving the results up to our higher power and i said that it's
glib and it's easy to say that but it's not it's not easy to say that but it's not easy to say that
and that is what we try to do but but to to really do the work the tools like the you know
the steps are like gardening tools to really do the work with no concern for the result that that's
i'm not quite there but you know i still think well i'm going to do it and something good will
happen but to be released and be not connected to that result our definition of good or bad just
just to do the work and then move on regardless of result boy i'm not there yet but that's the
kinds of things i'm trying to contemplate now
as as i move a little deeper into my sobriety you know you gotta grow or go baby right it's not
that's right that's right that's a beautiful thought and certainly uh something i think
could sustain a long-term program like the one you have right now and one last thing i want to ask you
if the greg of today could go back to the greg at any time in your life any age what would you say
to that greg based on what you have now that would make a difference in that greg's future
uh i would say
probably pre-teen just before i started getting loaded and the concept of it's an inside job the
god within the inner dwelling spirit that you're going to be okay we can't guarantee you that no
uncomfortable things are going to happen to you but you're going to be okay it's an inside job
it's not the things on the outside they're going to fix you and for me it was women and money and
drugs and alcohol and notoriety it's an inside job yeah it sounds like an opportunity that we
all have and it kind of comes and goes before we know it and then we're reflecting on it years
later yes sir this has been a really great uh opportunity for you and i to get to know each
other better greg i just want to tell you that that i honor and respect your sobriety i admire
your program and the fact that you're willing to be there to be of service to other men
is is really big and the way you've expressed the way you work your program i think is
inspirational to those people who might be wondering can i stay sober another day
let alone 25 years i think you've covered all those bases today and i really want to thank
you for doing that and as i tell all my guests i love you and i care uh about you as an aa brother
and know that this message being put out there if even just one person's life is touched man you and
i will have hit a home run so again i want to express my thanks to you for doing this
well let me thank you howard i feel the same way i love you too uh and set that
spiritual love we have as as brothers in aa and thank you for paying a big time 12-step
call on me today and and and letting me consider a little bit more about why i'm really here
thank you well thank you it helps me consider it for myself as well so god bless you with
that well my friends that's a wrap for today's episode of aa recovery interviews i want to
thank my guest greg s for sharing his story and thank you for tuning in of course you
can listen to all the interviews in this podcast series on apple podcast and on our website
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