Less Self and More Higher Power, Repeated Daily, Is the Whole Formula – Earl H.

Hi, everybody. My name is Earl. I'm an alcoholic.
I'd like to thank Sheldon and Jackie for coming to pick me up at the airport, wherever you are.
Thank you very much for that. There you are. Thank you very much for that.
I'd like to thank the committee for asking me to come and share.
Always an honor and a privilege to do this.
I have friends in the room. It is really nice to see.
I haven't been home in a long time, and it's really nice to be back.
All right, then.
I started drinking when I was 12 years old.
I had been restless, irritable, and discontented for some time.
For several years prior to that, it was way overdue.
But how it happened was that, well, actually, when I was a little kid, like four or five years old,
I used to sleepwalk.
I'd get up, and I'd walk to the house, and I'd turn the lights on as I'd walk to the house,
and I'd go and stand at the foot of my parents' bed and wake them up
and talk about all kinds of strange, mysterious things and scare the hell out of my parents.
When I was done, I'd walk back to the house, turn the lights off as I'd go back to my room and get in my bed.
My parents decided this is not normal.
I had a bunch of tests done on me, and the answer that they came up with was every night before I'd go to sleep,
they'd give me a tablespoon of this.
They'd give me this liquid and knock me out.
Answered the problem, no more sleepwalking.
And I think subconsciously, I filed the information at a very early age
that if things aren't going the way you want them to, take something.
Filed that away, went into the rest of my childhood, which was sort of a black hole for me.
I don't really remember that much of it.
And I've been sober long enough that I don't go looking under rocks anymore.
If I need to know, it'll come.
I ain't looking.
And at 12 years old, they did a bunch of more tests on me,
and they decided that I had this.
I had a very high IQ.
I don't have it anymore, so I'm not bragging.
That's long gone.
So they decided that my father decided it was time for me to become a man,
and they shipped me off to boarding school.
I was 12 years old, 5 feet tall, about 104 pounds.
I was a man.
And so they took me to this place and dropped me off.
I didn't even know where we were going.
It was just one of those days where he said,
get in the car.
And we got in the car, and it was like I had their uncles there,
and stuff was going on.
It was this caravan.
We drove for hours out of this place.
And we pulled up, and I got out of the car,
and my father got out of the car,
and nobody else got out of the car.
And he put a suitcase down next to me and shook my hand
and said, this will make a man out of you,
and turned around and got back in the car and drove off.
I was in boarding school.
And it turns out that there were 250 kids from all over the planet.
They had scoured the earth to find the brightest,
most disturbed young boys they could find
and threw us all on this campus.
It was like a think tank.
And I was the youngest and the smallest kid in the entire school.
Everybody was 13 to 18, and I was the only 12-year-old.
And that doesn't mean anything to anybody but a 12-year-old, right?
When you're 12, what do you want to be?
A teenager.
And everybody else was, and I was.
I'm the odd man out.
I was a loser the second I got there.
You know what I mean?
It's like, I don't belong here.
I don't fit.
This is crazy.
And I was nuts for like three days,
calling home, get me out of here, get me out of here,
get me out of here.
No, no, no, you're staying.
And that's about my limit for pain is about 72%.
And something just clicked inside me.
I said, you know what, you don't want me, I don't want you.
And I turned my back on my family and, for the most part,
never went back.
And so I was 12 years old in this new environment,
no tools for living.
I mean, who needed them at 12, you know?
And walking around my books, and I met Tiny.
And every high school's got a guy named Tiny.
You know, 6'4", 240, guard on the football team, you know?
I didn't find, Tiny found me.
I didn't find Tiny.
Tiny came up and said, how you doing, punk?
And slapped me in the back of the head.
Sent my books flying.
And I had this, like, out-of-body experience, you know,
where you're watching yourself do something
while your head's saying, this is a very bad idea.
And I walked up and I hit Tiny as hard as I could.
And then just stood there.
I mean, it had no effect on him whatsoever, you know?
He just looked down at me and I looked up at him.
And I was just sort of feeling like, you know,
you're going to have to take it from here
because I'm already past anything I know anything about.
And he looked down at me and he said, you got a lot of guts, kid.
And then he beat the crap out of me right on the spot.
And I remember thinking, as I'm taking this beating,
this is going pretty good.
It's going pretty good.
Because the fact of the matter is,
I was absolutely terrified of this guy.
And he had just said to me, you got a lot of guts.
The violence had masked my fear.
That was my first tool for living.
Something frightens you, attack it.
And I became an extremely violent human being.
Not because I'm a tough guy or a bad guy.
I never have been.
I never will be.
That's not who I am.
It's because I was a very, very frightened individual out there.
And I was like, I behaved like a cornered animal.
So I went back to my room.
I was sitting in the dormitory waiting for the bleeding to stop.
And word spread across this campus like wildfire.
Watch out for this little Hightower kid.
He's a maniac.
He attacked Tiny.
So it's just getting worse.
You know what I mean?
It's like now I'm getting a reputation as this little wild man.
And all I am is this petrified little child, right, getting beat up.
Yeah.
And the cool thing about it is,
you know, I don't want to be called a wild man.
You know, I don't want to be called a wild man.
You know, I don't want to be called a wild man.
And the cool guys came around.
Matt came by.
Matt came by and came in my room.
And he said to me, you want to smoke a joint?
And I said, yeah.
And I had no idea what he was talking about.
I had no idea what that meant.
What I heard was, you want to hook up with us?
And the answer was, yeah.
I didn't care where he was going, what he was doing, man.
As far as I could tell, I was alone in the universe.
My family had just thrown me away.
And they knew me better than anybody in the world.
They threw me.
Yeah, I'll go with you.
He could have said, we're going to go kill a Spanish teacher.
Do you want to come?
I'd have said, yeah.
Let's go.
Make no difference to me.
And we went by and we picked up Steve.
And Steve had a Tupperware container
wrapped in aluminum foil.
I had no idea what that was about.
So we go behind the dorm.
We're standing behind this tree.
Steve's 13.
Matt's 13.
I'm 12.
Matt fires up this joint and takes a hit off and hands it
to me.
And I just did what he did.
I don't know why we're doing this.
Steve very carefully unwraps the tinfoil.
And then we go.
And there's some cheap red wine in a Tupperware container.
No grapes involved, you know what I mean?
The good stuff, that fortified stuff.
Drink it through a straw and hallucinate stuff, right?
He took a pull and I took a pull.
And the joint's going and the wine's going.
And I'm looking at these two total strangers
thinking, what is going on?
And it happened.
That thing that makes me bodily different from my fellows
occurred, man.
This warm feeling went down.
It went down into my shoes and kind of came up over me.
And for the first time in my life,
I was comfortable standing where I was standing,
doing what I was doing with the people I was doing it with.
I had never felt that way before in my life.
Everything was just fine.
If you'd said to me, weren't you just deeply concerned
about 17 different things here just a moment ago?
I would have said to you, I'm sorry,
you've got the wrong person.
I have no memory of being worried about anything, man.
I feel great.
And I didn't know what it was.
I don't know, is it this pot thing?
Is it this wine?
You know, is it that I'm standing here
on the edge of a forest?
Is it the fact that I'm here with my two closest
personal friends, Matt and Steve?
I don't know what it is.
All I know is I'm doing this as often as I possibly can.
You know, all those little things, you know,
marijuana leads to heroin.
Drink and you'll end up in the gutter.
You know, all those things just went poof.
Because nobody went to jail that night.
Nobody died.
You know, nobody got cut.
Nothing bad happened.
Nobody went to the nuthouse.
I just felt better than I'd ever felt.
That's all.
There was no downside in the beginning.
And that was the magic that I chased for the next 16 years
on a daily basis, no matter what.
13 was simple.
13 was just pills.
The only reason I took a pill, somebody said,
would you like a couple of these?
And I said, well, yeah, I would.
So I took them, and 20 minutes later, I'm laying on the floor,
and I'm very happy there.
One more time, I'm really, really happy on the floor.
I didn't see if there was a problem.
I wasn't bothering anybody.
Nobody was bothering me.
It was very, very good.
And I mean, you know, 2-1-1, 2-2-1-1, Placidil, all that stuff,
did all that.
14 was psychedelics.
The only reason I did psychedelics was because I was
having a 10-hour pass from the sporting school,
and this girl, Debbie, Debbie, Debbie, I was,
Debbie was an older woman.
She was 15.
And she was a bad girl.
And I had such respect for Debbie.
I did, man.
Debbie was a brave new world, man.
And I was in awe of Debbie.
And Debbie said, you want to drop some acid?
And I said, well, yeah.
Once again, having no idea what people are talking about.
And she took out a lipstick tube, and she spun it up.
And on the end of it was this little, tiny pill.
And I thought that was very clever, the way she did it.
And she handed it to me, and I took it, and I put it in my mouth,
and I swallowed it.
And she said, did you take that whole thing?
And I said, well, yeah, it was a very tiny pill.
It was, you know, I'm used to these horse caps
I'm knocking down every day.
It's a very tiny pill.
And she said, that was three hits of white lightning.
Oh, I see.
There's a little identification in the room.
Two guys in the back just went, oh.
Yeah, the next two days were really weird.
Man.
We went to the supermarket.
I don't, you know, there's, never ask why when somebody's
telling you what they did on that stuff.
You know what I mean?
It's like, why'd you do this?
I don't know why I did that.
We went to the market.
We were pretending we were married.
I don't know why.
And we were going down the cart, and I remember looking at her
and saying, do we have children?
And she said, yes, we have two.
And I said, then we're going to need these diapers right here.
And I kind of went away right about there.
I don't remember much else.
I don't remember anything else about it.
But I know that to this day, to go into a supermarket
takes a real commitment on my part.
You know what I mean?
We're going in.
I have to have a list.
I have to know what I want.
I have to go get it.
Because there's entirely too many decisions
to make in those places.
I can go into a market and spend $300 and come out,
and there is not one actual meal that you could
make out of all this stuff.
Anyway, 15, I started shooting drugs,
only because I was at this party.
And this girl said, would you like me to stick this
in your body?
And I said, well, yeah.
So she did.
And I did like this.
And all I remember thinking on the way down was, oh, yeah.
That works.
That works just instantly.
What problems?
No fear, no nothing, right?
Now, I got to say, identify as an alcoholic.
I'm talking about drugs.
And I mean no disrespect.
I'm a child of the sea.
I mean, I got a lot of friends that were in the 60s.
We were very focused on the drugs.
Our parents were the alcoholics.
We were carving out our own identity.
We weren't going to drink ourselves to death.
We were going to kill ourselves in a whole new way.
We were, you know?
And it was like hip and fashionable.
And we were the drug addicts.
But I got to tell you, my drug of choice is, what do you got?
You know what I mean?
I was not a specialist.
You know?
I was not.
And I'll tell you this, though.
And having done my inventory work, I've looked back in my life, I'm still not a specialist.
I'm not a specialist.
in my life the drugs would come and go i'd go to connect for some cocaine and they didn't have any
so i'd say fine give me the heroin you know what i mean it's like we're all ready to go up can't go
up finally let's go down i was not committed to a particular direction you know what i mean i wasn't
committed to it simply because it wasn't that i needed to go up or i needed to go down the goal
was i got to get out of right here right now that's it i just got to get out of right here
right now because right here right now are these feelings and right here right now is this fear
and this self-centered obsessive state of mind and this feeling that i'm not enough and i never
will be all this stuff's going on right now and i got to get out of right now i got to get out of
here that's that was my commitment was out of here not to any place in particular just let's go
and the drugs would come and go and drug there was only one thing that was on the table
every single day and that was booze booze was on the table every single day and there's only
one reason for that as far as i'm concerned drugs are extremely unreliable
alcohol is extremely reliable extremely reliable i mean when what you've never gone and connected
for some heroin and the dealer you know yeah give me give me give me all that give me a couple grams
of that well you know what you know it's not really that good today why don't you come back
thursday we'll see if we can have something a little better for you that never happened
never happened it's always the best the greatest
you may have to step on this again be real careful with this stuff man it's why
nobody ever said that you don't know what you got till you get it in your body you go out and
get yourself a fifth of jack daniels you know what you got you can count on it it's the best friend
the guy like me ever had because there's the bottle okay now we're gonna mess around with this stuff
but i mean if i do so much cocaine i can't get my mouth open anymore just you know i've overshot
the mark that's not a problem man i just suck a little gin through my teeth and i get back into
a bar you know i'll be out going to the party count on the booze booze will do it for you not
enough heroin to get you to that quiet dark heart and lungs only working place you know what i mean
that place where it's just it's you've shut it down and it's good not enough don't worry about
it jack daniels will get you the rest of the way get you where you need to get
is there acid a little too spooky this evening don't worry jack's here
gets you right back where you need to be booze was the best friend booze was what i could count on and
That's all there was for me.
That's all there was for me.
In the end, I used cocaine to keep me on my feet
so that I could drink the way I wanted to drink.
You know, when I get so sick I couldn't drink anymore,
I'd eat about 150 milligrams of Valium a day
just to get well enough to go back to drinking.
You know, stop that shaking thing, you know,
Mr. Lobster walking in the room kind of days.
So anyway, 16, I dropped out of high school.
I'd had enough Latin, thank you.
Hit the streets.
Well, first they threw me in a mental institution.
My father said, you've gone insane,
threw me in a mental institution.
They wanted me for three months of observation
and a year of rehabilitation.
I thought that was a little excessive.
I tried to escape.
They had exit signs like they have here,
but they were green, those green lit up exit signs,
and I used to look at those and think, that's it.
They boiled it down to one word, man, that's all I want.
I want to exit.
I hate this place.
Taking my little three cups of pills a day
and my one shot a day and shuffling around these hallways.
You know, having lunch with Kilday,
who had made a conscious decision to go nuts
and was very entertaining.
Kilday was a very manic anime.
They couldn't calm this person down, man.
She was just zing all the time.
And I liked to have, I would have all my meals with her
because every meal was like dinner and a show
when you had them with Kilday.
You know what I mean?
It made it interesting.
And I used Kilday as my diversion when I tried to escape.
And I sent Kilday spinning in a manic phase that way.
And I was sitting in the cafeteria
and I'm going to break out of this place.
I said, ready, ready, ready, go.
And I'm hauling ass.
I mean, that's all I got.
And I'm going, you know, your brain's working fine.
You're going, what the,
that's the first like move I've made since I've been in there.
And I'm thinking, what's wrong?
And it's, well, it's how you learn about Thorazine, right?
And you hear from the nurse's station,
Lou, when you got a minute, you want to grab Earl?
He's making a break for the door.
And Lou's over there having a sandwich going,
yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll get him in a minute.
He's not going.
And I'm working.
Tools for living.
My tools for living were drugs, alcohol, violence, and run.
And if you're going to get thrown in the mental institutions,
you got to get out before they get the Thorazine in you
or you ain't leaving until they say so.
So the next time I got thrown in the nut house,
I escaped the first day.
And I was the time I was 16, 17 years old.
I was an alcoholic.
I was a drug addict.
I was a high school dropout.
As I'm heading for the fence,
I'm at any moment, hopefully, an escaped mental patient.
You know, that's like my resume.
That's what I had to say
in my life
because I've accomplished nothing.
But I'm running for that fence
and I'm thinking if I make that fence,
I don't have any problems.
I don't have any problems
because if I make the fence,
I'll be loaded in 20 minutes
and that's all that matters
because I drink and use no matter what.
Given a good reason, I don't stop.
I was 16, 17 years old.
I had already been given many reasons to stop.
I was estranged from my family.
I had halted an excellent education.
I was having difficulty interacting with people at all
unless I was heavily medicated.
The fear was growing.
The violence was growing.
My life was spinning out of control
at a very young age
and still, all I knew was
was that this life works for me
and if I can just keep doing this,
I'll be okay.
I hit the streets.
I spent three years out on the streets.
I ended up,
was I 19 years old?
I met a woman at a party.
We talked for 20 minutes.
It went well.
So we were in love
and we decided that we didn't really have
the Ozzie and Harriet kind of thing going.
You know what I mean?
And so what we were going to do
was I was going to go to college
and there was an interview for a business college
in Northern California
and I went on this interview
and he was a musician
so I was a musician.
His favorite color was blue.
It's amazing.
My favorite color was blue.
I just lined up with this guy
and by the end of the interview
he said,
you'll be a fine addition to our campus in the fall.
Now I'm a high school dropout
and I just got accepted to college, right?
Standard behavior for an alcoholic.
So I leave this interview
and I go back to see my father
and I said,
look, I just got accepted to business college
write me a year's tuition check
and I'm leaving town.
He said, great.
Gave me the check
and we piled all our belongings
and eight pounds of hash
in the back of this truck
and drove to Northern California
to hire learning
and she got a straight job
and I became a drug dealer
and we got a little apartment
and I did my GED stuff,
got my high school diploma
down at the local high school,
gave me a year's tuition up front,
told them transcripts were in the mail,
they said fine.
And after about six months
she couldn't take it
because she said
the way you use it is frightening.
And I said, bye.
And she took her stuff
and went back to L.A.
and I was using the way I like to use.
I was going to college
and I was dealing drugs.
I mean, you know,
things were pretty good.
You know what I mean?
I was studying marketing,
production, distribution in college.
My business was booming.
I thought, you know,
I thought everything was just fine, man.
I had no morals.
I didn't have any morals.
I didn't have any ethics.
I had no sense of family.
I had no sense of community.
I had no idea
what it meant to be
an honorable human being.
Truth was something
that was irrelevant in my life.
I mean, I lived,
that was how I came up.
I mean, I didn't know
about any of that stuff.
It was not a concern to me.
If you said to me you're lying,
I didn't, you know, so what?
What's your point?
I don't care.
I don't want to hang out with you.
Fine.
I don't care.
I didn't care.
I, interpersonal relationships
are not something that was going on.
I mean, I was a very solitary individual.
I ended up high school diploma,
junior in college,
editor-in-chief of my college newspaper,
early acceptance to USC Law School,
had all the outside ducks lined up,
had been diagnosed with malignant cancer,
flew back to LA,
had major surgery on my back.
Doctors prepared me.
They said, you know, this is not good.
Prepared my family for me to die.
I just looked at them like,
you have no idea who you're talking to.
Might die.
You know what I mean?
People say that to me like twice a week.
The way I'm living.
It's like not, that's again,
it's like, so what?
So what if I die?
You know what I mean?
I'm clearly not going to have like a normal life.
And I know this is my life
and I'm going to live it this way.
I made my commitments.
I made my choices.
And this is the way I want to do it.
So they put me in the nuclear medicine program
to try to combat the illness after the surgery.
And I said, you know what?
I hate these drugs.
So I went home and I got loaded
the way I get loaded,
which at that point in my life was pretty nuts.
It was getting nuts.
And I beat the cancer thing.
Basically, I believe I beat it
because my body had become so toxic.
Cancer couldn't live in my body.
I was on the other side of illness.
And I beat it and I went back up to school.
I was up in school and my mother called me.
My mother said, mother called me.
And my mother and I were very close.
My mother and I had a great relationship.
My little sister Kimberly and I were very, very close.
And the rift was between my father and I,
primarily because we were so much alike.
And she was crying.
And she said, we haven't been anywhere as a family in 10 years.
Your birthday is coming up.
We'll go anywhere you want to go.
Let's just go as a family.
I said, fine.
I got on a plane.
I flew back to L.A.
And I had one of those kind of all-nighter nights
before I showed up at 6 a.m. in the morning
ready to fly to Guadalajara.
It was one of those, you know, good morning.
Oh, man, I was a mess.
And my mother just looked at me and said,
go ahead, you're here, get in the car.
We got in the car, we get on the plane,
we go to fly to Guadalajara.
It was on my natal birthday, the day of my natal birthday.
And on the way there, the plane crashed.
And my mother, my father, and my little sister
were all killed, and I wasn't.
And I woke up on this mountain in Mexico.
And my skull was fractured.
My back was broken in three places.
I was paralyzed in the waist.
My leg was crushed.
My arm was a mess.
The only thing I could move was my right arm.
And my mother was laying right over there,
and my little sister was laying right over there,
and my father was laying right over there.
And I couldn't do anything about it.
I couldn't get to them.
I couldn't do anything.
My mother was screaming for her kids, like mothers do.
And I knew that Kimberly was gone.
And I just kept yelling to her, we're okay, we're okay.
So she'd be all right.
And my father, the only thing he could move was his leg,
and he kept banging his leg into the ground
because it hurt.
It hurt him so bad to bang it in the ground,
he'd suck in another breath because of the pain.
That was the last thing my father ever taught me.
And then he died.
I was alone on this mountain, and I thought,
well, you know what?
I have no interest in a God that would kill a kind,
gentle, creative, loving little woman
like my little sister Kimberly,
and leave a lying, cheating, thieving, dope fiend,
alcoholic like me on the planet.
I got no interest in a God like that, and I renounced God.
And I started, I took my arm,
and I kept banging it into my side
because my back was broken, and it hurt so bad.
When I did it, it kept pulling me up out of the shock.
Because I was angry, and I wanted to stay alive.
And I knew if I shot, I'd been hurt bad before,
and I knew if I shocked out, I was gone.
And some guys came up over the plane wreck,
and for some reason, I took out my wallet,
and I showed them my driver's license
because I wanted to know who I was.
And he took my wallet, and took the money out of my wallet,
threw the wallet back on my chest,
scavenged the rest of the plane wreck,
and then they all left the mountain,
and left me up there to die.
So I had no use for God,
and I had no more use for you either.
I was out of the game.
And eventually, some more guys came up to me,
some more guys came up onto the crash site,
and they carried me down.
They took me to a Mexican Red Cross station.
I got out of this, I was in the back of a flatbed truck,
and they tagged my right big toe, they tagged me dead,
sat down and smoked cigarettes for a while,
waited for me to die, and I didn't.
And so they finally took me to a hospital,
and they saw my ID,
and then that's when the federales showed up,
and because they wanted to know why I was back in Mexico,
but that's a whole other story.
And they interrogated me
for an interpreter for three days,
they wouldn't give me anything for paying.
And finally, they were finished with their interrogation
of me, and I had called a friend of mine up in the States
to call his family in Mexico,
and they'd flown their family plane in,
and I smuggled myself out of Mexico.
And they plastered me from the neck down,
and shipped me back up to the States.
I spent a long time in a hospital in Southern California,
and I came out of there strung out to the gills on Demerol,
and crazy as a loon.
I had a lot of money, I had a house in Bel Air,
I had cars, I had a basement full of booze,
and a pile of drugs,
and I went on my last run.
I was a very, very self-righteously,
self-centered, self-obsessed, angry, rageful young man.
And I went on my last run,
and it lasted for six years, six and a half years.
And the only time I drew a sober breath
in that last six years was on three separate occasions.
I got...
so sick that I'd go into this little sanitarium in Hollywood,
a little illegal joint where you give them $150 cash up front,
and you give them your wallet, and your gun,
and your rallium, and your car keys, and all that.
They strap you to a table, shoot you full of anticonvulsants,
and let you ride for 72 hours.
And when it's over, they take the straps off,
and they either send you home or to the morgue,
and they don't really care which.
And every time I would do that, the three times I did that,
I would lay there swearing, reintroducing myself to God,
and saying, you know what, you get me out of this sane and alive,
and I will never, ever, ever, ever drink again.
My ass is kicked.
I was just laying there whimpering like a dog.
I mean, I had no...
there was nothing left.
And I would get up off that table,
and they'd give me all my stuff back,
and they'd say, no, you'd be a good boy, don't drink again.
And I'd say, no, ma'am, not me.
I learned my lesson.
And on the way to the car, I'd take 40, 50 milligrams of rallium
to get the shake off me, because I've got to drive.
And then I'd come two, four, five days later
in Oakland, or San Francisco, or some other place,
and have no idea how I got there, or what had gone on,
or why it happened.
Blackouts were the normal fare for me.
I'd come to in lots of very weird situations.
Come to on Speedway in Venice, talking to four policemen.
No idea what we're talking about.
Just one of those, you know, and you're just, bing, you know.
Feels like real late at night, and there's four policemen,
and they seem very upset.
You know, and you know what to do.
You've done it a lot of times.
You just keep your hands where they can see them,
and you just nod at whichever one's talking to you,
and eventually you're going to find out what's going on.
You know, what I begin to do is say, excuse me, officers.
I just...
I just got here.
It's just...
It's the little trick I do, where I'm here, I'm not here,
I'm here, I'm not here.
Oh.
And I mean, and it's just, you know, war stories,
war stories, war stories, war stories.
You know what I mean?
By the time it was all over, I was 215 pounds.
I was yellow.
I was...
I had been told independent...
Two doctors independent of one another had told me,
if you don't stop drinking this year, you're going to die.
I was dying of alcoholism.
I'd broken 74 bones.
I had over 600 stitches in me.
I'd been stabbed a couple of times, shot at.
The violence had been extreme.
My family was dead.
I had no friends.
I had no place to live.
I was living with this woman in Venice, California,
and she thought I was entertaining her.
Both of her parents had convulsed to death from alcoholism,
so I was right up her alley.
The ambulance driver said,
first knew me by my first name.
I could talk to you while you pump my stomach, run the tubes,
and I'd sit there and talk to you.
I got used to it.
I had no sense of community.
I had no friends.
I had no dignity as a human being.
I had no idea what community meant.
I had no love in my life.
I was a completely and utterly low-bottom, hopeless alcoholic.
I came out of that last blackout.
Both my hands are broken.
I have no idea how it happened.
We were being evicted because I had attempted to murder the landlord.
I don't know why.
And they came and I just said, help.
And they came and they got an ambulance and they took me by ambulance
and they pumped my stomach at UCLA emergency one more time.
And they said, get him out or he's going to die.
And they took me to Olive View Medical Center
and they kept me for five days.
And they said, get him out or he's getting worse.
And they took me by ambulance down to Long Beach General Hospital
under the care of a lady by the name of Dr. Vicki Fox.
And I detoxed another 12 days there.
And then they let me out and they put me on a free bed
on the rehab unit, which was 42 guys.
And one big ex-barracks, army barracks type building
with sheets that were drawn between the cots.
And you get about an hour's sleep a night
because somebody was freaking out, you know, every minute.
And it was over.
I couldn't.
And they said, go left.
And I remember sitting in there trying not to throw another seizure
sitting in that chair, man.
And I just didn't want to feel like that anymore.
And Dr. Fox came walking in.
And she was from Georgia, man.
And she had a big head.
She had a hair.
She always wore a sweater with the glasses with the chain around it,
you know, hanging here.
Always had a bunch of files under her arm.
And always had a cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth
that never left there.
She just, she never took it out to flick that.
She just sat right there.
And where the ashes fell, they fell.
And she was a busy woman, you know what I mean?
And she came walking into that detox, man.
All of us just went, because she had that kind of thing,
you know what I mean?
There's a lot of people in here.
And she walked in this room.
We all go, who's that?
I mean, she was a powerful woman.
She was a powerful human being.
And she walked in and she looked around the room
and she locked on me.
And my heart stopped.
And she walked over to me and she leaned over to me
and she gave me the first direction I got in recovery.
She leaned over and she patted me on the cheek
and she said, baby, you really do need to be here.
And turned around and walked away.
And I just went, yeah.
Okay.
You know, and my counselor was a guy named Ray White.
And Ray got one thing through to me in 30 days.
He said, if you don't want to die,
you're going to have to stop drinking.
And if you want to stay, stop drinking,
you better go to Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I said, okay, Ray.
And through a series of weird circumstances,
I was talking about it at dinner with Jim.
I ended up going to a few meetings and hooking up,
but I needed to hook up with a group.
And I ended up in the basement of a church on a Friday night,
8 o'clock, 8.30 meeting.
And I sat down in the back with my arms folded
with my best tough guy look on my face,
which was all about don't come up on me.
Don't come up on me.
And all the old timers, they knew who I was.
You know, I was a frightened individual.
That made me kind of dangerous.
They were like, brother, there's coffee right over there.
And there's a seat for you right over there.
Glad you're here.
And left me alone.
You know, but every meeting's got that guy with 90 Days Sober
who just caught fire with Alcoholics Anonymous
going to give it away tonight.
You know who it was?
Jim was sitting right over there.
I mean, we go way back.
Vegas.
Yeah.
Vegas.
Vegas spotted me.
And all he saw was newcomer.
Man, I was throwing him every signal I could.
You know, you come near me, and we're going for it.
And it wasn't working.
And I just, inside, I was just going, oh, my God.
Man, look at this guy.
He's like, hair's all combed, and he's neat, and he's tiny.
He's got on a big smile.
You can't trust a person that smiles like that.
And he's coming at me with his hand out like this.
And he comes up, and he says, hi, I'm Vegas.
I'm an alcoholic.
And I said, so what?
Me too, man.
It ain't exactly the highlight of my life.
I don't know what you're so happy about.
Get away from me.
And he looked at me, and he gave me that very knowing, you know, thing.
He looked at me, and he said, keep coming back.
And turned around and walked away.
Now, I'm sitting there thinking, great, keep coming back.
What the hell does that mean?
You know, a couple.
A lot of the guys were standing over there and went, oh, yeah, you know,
he did the keep coming back thing.
Like this was some deep spiritual significance to keep coming back.
Okay, I get it.
You all know what keep coming back means.
I have no idea.
You win.
I'm the loser.
I'm real happy to be in AA now.
I'm sure it's going to help about 3 a.m.
when I'm snapping like a mad dog in my apartment.
Good to meet you, Vegas.
You know what?
If you're new, if you're new, you probably shouldn't listen to this, but whatever.
If you're new, and they come up, and they're laying a little AA slogans on you,
keep coming back one day at a time, brother, or my personal favorite, hey, just turn it over.
Just turn that over, right?
Step up to the plate.
Step up to the plate.
You can't ask a dumb question in here.
You can't.
I asked them all.
You can't.
Just say, excuse me, I don't understand the deep spiritual significance to keep coming back.
Would you mind expanding on that for me a little bit?
Well, where I'm from, my neck of the woods, if they're honest, about 70% of them would say,
you know, I don't know what it means either.
They said it to me.
When I came in, I'm saying it to you.
I don't know what the hell it means.
There's a guy over there that reads the big book.
Let's ask him.
Maybe he knows.
Just an opinion.
God.
But I said in that meeting, in this conversation,
a guy got up, and I've never seen him since.
He got up, and he was a speaker.
And he got up, and he did something for me that I didn't think was possible.
And I don't think he ever knew he did it for me.
But he got up, and he shared openly and honestly about his feelings as a man.
And I've never heard anybody do that with that kind of grace and dignity.
He was just very comfortable talking about his fears, his disappointments, his goals,
the tools that he was using.
I mean, this guy described the day where he would get up and his head was on him before his feet even hit the bottom.
floor you know good you never will be your worth of reason you know you know you know and and while
this head was going on he would get up he'd take a shower he'd suit up he'd get to work on time
he'd put in an honest day's work he'd go get somebody he'd go to a meeting of alcoholics
anonymous he didn't go to that meeting of alcoholics anonymous to see what they had for
him that night he had been through the 12 steps of alcoholics anonymous as outlined in the big book
and had a spiritual awakening as a result of doing that he was there to be a service to that meeting
now he understood that the whole point of an aa meeting was to have a place for a new person to
come and hear a message of hope for them he knew that so he would go to a meeting and be of service
to the meeting when he was done getting out of his own way not being self-centered not being about him
when he would get less self more god less self more god he would go work on that at an aa meeting
and then he would go home and get in bed head chewing on him the whole day no wreckage i was
amazed i had never heard of anybody doing that i'd never had a day like that i thought that was
amazing and i got to sit in the back with my arms folded with a look on my
face that said
inside going wow that's cool and then it was like he looked right at me and he said you know
what i don't care whether you like what i got to say or not you don't like it go to another meeting
i loved this i love this because it made it clear to me this guy's not selling me anything he's
sharing it with me if i want it i can have it if i don't want it go to another meeting maybe i'll
hear somebody that i can identify with and i thought you know what this place is very cool
i'm coming back
and i left that meeting with something i had not had in years i left a meeting with hope
i had some hope i had some hope maybe i don't have to die like a dog in the street
maybe and i thought i'm coming back because i want to hear that guy talk again next friday night
i came back the next friday night that same meeting and the lady was talking where's the guy
i didn't know i didn't know that you go and there's you know there's a different speaker
and then this one comes and this meeting they do a little participation thing and then they do the
book
i wanted to hear that guy because i thought that guy was great so i thought great now i got to
listen this woman i mean what does she know because i'm quick to notice the differences
you see i don't notice the similarities because i'm not interested in the similarities i'm
interested in the differences because if we're similar i got to listen to you and i really don't
want to you're frightening me now you know so i mean i can spot it when i was out there man it
was like you come up five years younger than me five years older than me you come up in another
deal you don't know about me you don't know what i come up through you're a woman you don't know about
me black you don't know about me gay you don't know about me hispanic you don't know about me
not better worse just different you don't know about me you're coming up in something else
i got it so good out there that i got the wagon circle so tight that by the
time i got here he's like if you're not earl you don't know about me
i don't even have to listen for a few minutes you know luckily a picked my pocket of that like it's
picked so many other things up out of my pocket like a thief in the night if you're in the room
you know all about me
there's nothing left to hide just the details and i guard those with my life
so i kept coming back and i kept coming back and they said you need to get a sponsor and i said
what's the sponsor and i said a sponsor somebody's got what you want and i said you know what i think
it's a little early to be throwing it back in my court you know what i mean i and this woman made
a suggestion marsha aka alexis gave me a woman had a tendency to change her name frequently
was she was a delightful person at all times and she mentioned this one guy's name that i had met
while i was out using and i thought that's weird and i went and i called him up and i asked him to
be my sponsor and he was my sponsor for almost 14 years up until the day he died and he saved
my life he was alcoholics anonymous to me i have uh power greater than myself in my life because
i saw one working in his life that he shared with me i learned how to be in alcoholics anonymous
not because he told me how to be an alcoholics anonymous but because he showed me
i would be sitting down with him and he would say i would he would call me up and he'd say
lou standing on the corner of six in santa monica pick him up and bring him to the meeting click
say fine you son of a i'll go get him i got about 18 months now you know so i go and i pick
up blue you know and lou gets in the car and lou's got seven days and lou's going hi i'm lou and i
just got my job back and my wife and i are back together and i got a raise on the job it's like
shut up lou
i hate you you got seven days you're doing better than me shut up i got told to come
bring you to a meeting i'm doing that but i don't have to talk to you if you want to ride back after
the meeting say so and i'll give you one but don't talk to me lou lou say okay
buckle your seat belt lou
and i would get lou to the meeting and who would be there setting up the meeting with
two newcomers with him but the late great donald
madden showing me how he went so far beyond the call of duty sponsorship
with me is unbelievable the gifts he gave me were unbelievable i was so afraid i had a commitment
on a saturday night meeting in ohio street and and i had two years of sobriety and i still didn't
talk to anybody see i'm one of those guys i never opened my mouth in alcoholics anonymous i didn't
want to be a speaker i didn't want to do any of that kind of stuff i didn't know how to talk to
people i didn't know how to be in the world i was a slow one and i had two years of sobriety
and i had this commitment
and i had no life i still had nowhere to go and my commit was a cleanup commitment at the end of
the meeting my commitment started at 10 15 and i'd get there at 6 20. 6 30. because i knew the
6 15 to 6 30 the coffee guys would get there start setting up the coffee and setting up the room and
have the little meeting before the meeting with all of the commitment guys and then they'd have
the regular meeting at 8 30. and i'd show up and i was so terrified that somebody was going to say
to me what are you doing here your commitment doesn't start till like after 10 and i was going
to have to hit him
because i couldn't tell him the truth i got nowhere to go i don't i don't have my family's
dead i got no friends all i do every day is work as long work to get tired enough to go to sleep at
night and i go to a meeting and i go home that's all i do because i just want to stay sober and i
would walk into a meeting that that hall it's like 6 22 and donald madden would run up to the podium
where the microphone was already on he'd say oh it's 6 22 you're late and that let everybody in
the room know
he had told me to be there and because he knew who i was and he would do things like that for me
that i'll never forget as long as i lived just those little things because he wanted me to know
i was safe there and i was okay i remember two and a half years same meeting standing in the
back of the meeting caving in it was just caving in i'd gotten as far as i could get i couldn't
get another step i had never opened my mouth in alcoholics anonymous i never took a chip i didn't
take a cake until i was three years sober i didn't say a word till two and a half only because he
made me but i stand in the back of the meeting just speakers up there talking i'm in the back of
the meeting head just running
raging you're not going to you never will be your worth of this yeah it's absolutely no point
doing this you might as well just give up you just don't even know why you bother trying and
i'm just going in man and he saw me and he got up and he walked up he got up in the meeting speakers
up there flailing away comes up to the meeting taps the speaker on the shoulder speaker looks
at him he just says this man the speaker steps aside he gets up at the microphone he goes oh
i'm i'm in the back and he looks at me he goes what's up
having a meeting yeah okay i'm in the meeting and you bring the speaker back and even go back and
even sit down and everybody in the meeting i've been there over two years and everybody in the
meeting's going who the hell is earl what is he because nobody knew me and i went up to him and
said i'll sweep up these meetings like i do i'll make coffee i'll go get the cookies i'll drive
these guys around i'll do whatever you tell me to do donald i've done everything he asked me to do
but i will never ever speak at a meeting of alcoholics anonymous i can't do that i'm too
afraid of it and i don't have to do that to be a member of this program thinking i had made my case
very well he looked at me and he said that's a lovely sentiment earl but if you want what we
got you i've got to be willing to go to any lengths you're the first speaker here next saturday night
and i did what he said because i always did what donald madden said
and i always will god willing i still he's in my head all the time
and uh that's about
somebody mentioned somebody made a startling revelation a friend of mine made a startling
revelation he said you know earl i've discovered something in alcoholics anonymous he said really
cool what is it christopher he goes they have a book i think we should check it out
i said whatever you say brother so we got us a book and we just started following around the
guys we'd avoid at all costs you know the step nazis the book thumpers you know we started
following those guys around
and reading the book who knew
there's like this circle with a triangle on the cover right used to be
right ancient spiritual symbol stands for mind body and spirit brought together as a whole human being
therein lies the balance i had sought my whole life
and never had it drunk or sober alcoholics anonymous adopted the symbol unity recovering service unity is the body you bring it here i can't get sober but we can
i got to be with my fellows i got to look you in the eye i got to see your growth
your revelations your joy your surrenders in your eyes so that i can i can know that they're happening with me cuz i'm with you we're all doing this together i'm just i'm real busy over here just trying to keep her a lot of trouble i but i can see it over there in you and i need to be with you and you can see it in me i can walk in home i'm going to fool anybody out there
how you doing fine
you know
while i'm dying inside
i can walk into a meeting and say how you doing
to any number of people how you doing i'm fine
yeah come here
you know
You're gonna help us clean up tonight and we're gonna talk afterwards, you know what I mean? They just put me right to work
Recoveries of the mind the greater aspect of my disease the mental obsession, right?
That's the second side of the triangle. How do I deal with the greatest aspect of my disease work the 12 steps out of the big?
Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. That's what they're designed to bring about a spiritual awakening
Give me the promise of step 2 right relieve me of the obsession
Restore me to sanity soundness of mind relieve me the obsession to drink
I'm all for that because I don't want that beast jumping back up on me again
I know what that feels like and I don't want any part of it. So I was so we did it
We did the 12 steps. That's very simple. We did them in in order
Shocking I know
But that's what we did. We decided we'll just do one and when you're done with one of them
Well, it's probably time to do two
Step one was what's the problem?
You don't know what the problem is. How are you gonna get the right solution for it?
You got a you got a flat tire screwdriver is a great tool
It's not gonna fix a flat tire. It's the wrong solution. You got to get you got to know what you're dealing with
What's the problem lack of power is my dilemma?
Absolutely powerless over alcohol my whole life's unmanageable as a result of it says on page 30
I must accept in my innermost self that I'm alcoholic. That's the first step in recovery
And I got to identify with those first chapters in the book as I'm reading through is this true for me?
Yeah, do I identify with this? Yeah, I do
That's my problem. If that's my problem, what's my solution step two?
if lack of power is my dilemma my solution is gonna have to be a
Power and since I've tried everything I know how to do lack of the power is gonna have to be something greater than myself
And it's gonna restore me to sanity soundness of mind. We leave me the obsession to drink. Um, yeah, that's my solution
I notice I haven't even got off the couch yet. I'm on the couch. Yeah, that's the problem
That's clearly gonna have to be the solution
Step three said well, you know what?
It's program of action
You better you got to make a decision that you want to do something about this. I
Said okay
So I got on my knees
Said the third step prayer kind of scared me
Got back up on the couch and then they tell you we hope you were serious about that
Why didn't you tell me that before?
You know, maybe I would have reviewed that a little more six more years I
Said okay, and they said okay now you got to embark upon a plan of rigorous action or that's a whole waste
That's all the waste of time those first three steps. You got to go now. Come on. Let's go. What are you gonna do?
I'm gonna do this action plan starts with four
I'm gonna do this fearless and through I'm gonna do it's inventory man fear fearless thorough moral
Inventory four columns resentment fear and sex. I'm gonna write down my resentment my resentments my specific resentments
The areas of my life affected by it and what my part in it is. I'm gonna look at me
I'm gonna clean it up five. I'm gonna read it to another person
Six and seven. I'm gonna that's about me. It's me God and you six four five six seven eight nine me got you
Four and five I got to clean up it here. I got a swallow large chunks of truth
About myself six and seven I'm gonna hook it back up with God ask him to remove my defects of character because I'll remove the wrong
Stuff I'd be very selective
You may have this one. I'm kind of enjoying this one right now
Maybe we'll swap next week
That's my way of looking at it
So that's probably not a good idea
Eight nine is I hook it back up with you. I'm very very sorry
Here's your money and I go back in the house not you know, I'm on a spiritual course
And I become quite a remarkable fellow and I'm here to just yeah, you know just clean it up
You know what they do with it's their business. Thanks. So I think this is great
I hate to get out of my house, whatever it is. They have a right to it. Nobody ever wanted my money back
They just wanted their money back
So I go back in the house right four five six seven eight nine man
I'm making some progress here me God and you ten eleven twelve keeps you in the game
Same thing me God and you ten is me eleven has gotten twelve is you it's nobody else to play with
You haven't got the money here is this. What do you say?
Oh, it's just that I've strong feelings so don't look good. Look good, so I got this who I got to work with
Damn. I got to continue to take personal inventory and when I'm wrong promptly admit it
Not in July cuz I'll get I'll end up. I'll borrow money from you
I won't pay you back. I will end up resenting you for how I'm feeling about this and I
Did you what happened to him? So I loaned him twenty bucks
himself. We don't know how, you know what I'm saying? I got to clean it up now. Clean it up
now for me. Resentment's the big killer. You know, I got to get free. Got to get free. If you ever
wonder what you should write down or what you should deal with, the way I look at it is I just
think how free do you want to be? How free do you want to be? I want to be free. That's what I want.
That's why I'm here. That's why I stay here. Because it's not about stopping drinking for me.
It's about never starting again. And how do I not start again? The way I not start again is those
three sides of the triangle. The unity of the body, I bring it here. I stay in my meetings. I go
to meetings. I have commitments. I work with my fellows. I do all the things around meetings that
are nothing more than manifestations of a spiritual path. The principles that are outlined in the
steps. Coffee commitment. Clean up. Greeter. All those really important jobs. Committees at
conferences. Being of service. Out of self, more God. Out of self, more God. Being of service.
Thinking of somebody other than me. Those are all ways to manifest,
what's afoot here for me. Third side of the triangle is step 12 is you. How can I be of
service? How can I help having had that spiritual awakening? Step 11 is my relationship with God.
It's an action step. I seek God. How do I seek God? Through prayer and meditation. What do I pray for?
Knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry that out. No more deals. Just straight out. Keep
it simple. Keep it simple. When I first got sober, and the meditation is to quiet the mind so that
you can hear the answers when they come. 12 is the third side of the triangle. Having had that
spiritual awakening, how can I be of service? How can I help? Not because I'm a good guy, but because
I want what's available in here. What I've seen in the eyes of those that go before me. That's what
I want. I want that buzz. I want to be one of those guys, you know, wearing sunglasses all the
time because you don't want anybody to see the light beams coming out of your head, you know,
because they've just... And they're in here. Those guys are around, man. I love those guys.
You ask them, how you doing? They say, fine. And you somehow, you know,
that guy just said fine differently than I've ever heard it in my life.
And there's something behind that. You know, there's a knowledge and an awareness and a light
behind that that I want to know about. That's the buzz. I haven't given up going for the buzz.
And that's the only buzz I can see, man. The ability to do the very thing I avoided at all
cost my whole life, which is to get to right here, right now. As my current sponsor says,
get between these. Just get between those. Get right in there. If you can get in there,
that's where God is. That's where your life is. It's all in this moment. It's where my dignity
is a man is.
My ability to be honorable. All those things is right now. I didn't know any of this stuff, man.
I didn't know any of this stuff. I thought, I'm going to come in here. And if I'm honest with you,
you'll be honest with me. If I give you love, you will give me love. And on and on and on and on.
I was wrong. I was wrong. I thought that was the gift. That's not the gift. That's not how it works.
The gift is much greater than that. If I am honest with you, what happens is that I become an honest
man. That's the gift.
If I give love to you, what I become is a loving man. Things that I never knew anything about. I
didn't know how to be like that. What I, I mean, as a result of working those 12 steps, doing the
things, you know, the unity, the recovery, the service, the mind, the body, the spirit, I have
more balance in my life today than I've ever had. Don't get me wrong. I'm a maniac and I know it.
It's an undeniable truth about who I am. I am always going to be a maniac. I am always going
to want the buzz. I'm always going to want to feel as much as possible. I'm always going to want to
feel as much passion as I possibly can. I am not going to really want to sit around and chit-chat.
I'm going to want to know, who are you? What are you doing? What are your dreams, your hopes,
your aspirations? Do you paint? Do you draw? Do you ride horses? Do you scale cliffs? Do you jump
out of planes? What gets you going, man? What gets your motor running? Is there a little juice there
for me? Let's play. Let's interact. What is your thing? Children? Are you a mother? You love your
children? Tell me. Tell me about loving your children. Tell me about the day.
Tell me about how they drive you nuts all day long and you're crazy and you often think,
I could get away with it. And then you put them to bed at night and you're watching them sleep
and like that it all goes away because you've never seen anything more beautiful in your life
than that child laying there sleeping. And all that stress and all that shit just is off you
because you're raising a human and it's right there. And you're feeling a love like you never
felt in your life. Tell me about that. Tell me about the stuff. You're alive. Tell me the stuff
that makes you happy. Tell me about the stuff that makes you happy. Tell me about the stuff that makes
you alive. That's what I want to know and that's never going to change. And you know what? I screw
up all the time because I'm an extreme human being. I screw up all the time. But I have the tools
available to me. And when I screw up, I can say, you know what? I'm wrong and I'm sorry. And I can
mean it. And I'm right here right now and I'm sorry. And you know what? And sorry, I know sorry
is not enough. And you know what? I'm going to do the inventory work and I'm going to look at it to
see that, you know, with any luck, with any help, maybe I won't do that again. So I don't have to
come to you time and time again over and over and over again to tell you I'm sorry for the same
damn thing.
Maybe I can grow and learn from my mistakes. And maybe you'll have the forgiveness in your heart
to do that for me, to give me that, the forgiveness. And maybe when the tables are turned,
I'll have it for you. And the result of that is, is that I have a family again. I have people in
my life that I absolutely love passionately. I have friends. I have family. I'm never alone.
I'm never bored because I'm not a boring guy. That's the only reason I think anybody ever,
if you're bored, it's because you're bored.
If you're bored, you're boring. Snap out of it, man. There's a lot going on. Looks all, I mean,
this is a room full of dead people. You know that? This is a room full of dead people. They're all
sitting up looking this way and probably 20% of them are paying attention. You know what I'm
saying? I mean, this is the group of people where, you know what I mean? Everybody thinks,
oh, wow, I got to get sober. The party's over. Guess again, brother. Out there in the world,
people run on up to the very edge and they go, the edge, and they take a step back.
This room is filled with the people that ran up to the edge and never even slowed down, just
jumped. That's who's in here. Oh, Lana. Hi, darling. You know, that's who's in these rooms,
right? And we end up in jails, institutions. We end up dead. And some of us, just a fraction of
us end up in here. And you get to come into rooms like this and you get to be in a human chain
where there's the link before you, like the late, great Donald Madden, like Cliff.
He's like a hero of mine. Like Clara sitting over there, right, whom I love to death. I mean,
these are honorable human beings that have given themselves tremendously to Alcoholics Anonymous
and have no idea the number of lives walking around in the world that have been positively
affected by the things that they say because they say them from the heart, because they say them
based on their experience, because they're telling you the truth. And truth, when it comes from one
of us to another, is an undeniable thing. We know when it's there and we know when it's real.
It's an amazing thing to be involved in. Amazing. I'm a product of the late, great Donald Madden,
who's a product of Norm Alpey, who's a product of Chexie, who's a product of Bill W. I mean,
that's my line. That's my lineage. And those are gentlemen that I honor every day of my life
because they passed on what was freely given to them to the next guy and to the next guy and to
the next guy. And I got a whole bunch of guys that I sponsor and they all know about Donald Madden.
Oh, I was going to get emotional there, but we know that is not allowed.
Because I am a man. How about those Lakers, huh?
Like, I even know what the Lakers are doing, right? I mean, I'm a big 5'5", 7". I'm a big
basketball fan. A guy I sponsor, I gave him a cake for 11 years not long ago. And he got up and the
first thing he said was, first of all, I want to thank my sponsor, Earl, for being there for me
all these years. And I also want to thank Donald Madden. And I just started crying. I was like,
why am I crying? Because it hit me. I'm in a human chain here. I mean, I'm in it. You know what I
mean? I got the ones before me that I honor every day of my life. And I got the ones coming up
behind me who honor me, right? And I try to honor them. And we live in this chain. And I need to
remember, if you're new out there, I mean, last November 6th, I turned 17 years sober and I
couldn't stay sober a day in my life. And I didn't, you know what? I didn't turn 17 years sober.
You guys forced me to.
I didn't turn 17 years sober because I couldn't do it on my own. I did it because I'm a member of
Alcoholics Anonymous because I had the love and support of the people in these rooms. And if
you're new, you get your turn. If you're out there crazy and you're thinking, you know, I may have to
kill myself and several other people around me before this meeting ends, perfect. You're in the
right place, man. If you're feeling hateful and angry and haven't been able to feel any love in
your life and hopeless and thinking, if you tell us who you are, we're going to throw you out,
no, we're not.
No, we're not. I personally have never done anything that terrible, but you wouldn't believe
what that gentleman right over there has done. It's horrifying. Yeah, he's looking at me like,
yeah, right. You get your turn. You get to find out for yourself. You get to be who you are and
you get to handle it the way you handle it. Just handle it here. If you're crazy, be crazy here.
If you're frightened, be frightened here. You can come here and feel like you're never going to get
it. Come never, just never get it here one day at a time for the rest of your life. If you're
crazy, just come hang out with us, man, and find out what's really going on because it's the tip of
the iceberg. There's a lot, there's worlds within worlds within worlds here. I remember me when I
would go to Ohio street brand new on Saturday night trying to go to a meeting. I mean, like I'll take,
I'll go pick up one of my guys. I got a guy that's got around 90 days and I'll pick him up because I
hear Al's talking and I want to take him to a meeting. And this is all, and I know every time
Al gets up, they're just pearls of wisdom. I mean, it's just spiritual greatness comes out of this
guy and I'm taking, I'm taking this guy.
So come on, we go to the meeting, little Ed, me and Ed are at the meeting and I'm thinking,
isn't this wonderful? You know what I mean? I'm 17 years sober now. I got Ed with me. Ed's got 90
days. Al's going to talk pearls of wisdom. I didn't even get a hold of what Al was talking
about till I was about 12, right? Ed's going to get the benefit of this at 90 days. I'm so glad
I could do this for Ed. You know, I mean, how wrong could I be? The meeting I'm having and
the meeting Ed's having are fundamentally different meetings and there's nothing wrong
with that.
And I have to remember that Ed gets his turn to have 90 days. I mean, me, 90 days going
to Ohio Street on a Saturday night was like, when I would drive up to the meeting, it was
like, okay, okay, okay, I found the meeting, I found the meeting. It's good, it's good,
okay, it's good. Park the car, park the car. Park across the street because it gets a little
crowded over there and in case you have to run, you want the car across the street so
that you can get out quick and you can run, you can go. All right, okay, I got it, I got
it. You go in, you go in, you put the keys on the chair, you save the chair, you get
the keys on the chair, you save the chair. Fine, fine, where am I going to sit? Where
am I going to sit? The guy with the red coat, I'll sit next to the guy with the red coat,
I'll find the guy with the red coat, I'll find my chair, what have you got? Okay, good,
good, good. Okay, good, I'm doing this, it's great. All right, I put the keys down. They're
ringing the bell, ringing the bell. What's going on? Ringing the bell. Oh, it's starting,
starting. Sit down, sit down, sit down. Sit down, sit down. Good, good, good, good. Sit
down. How are you? How are you? Fine, fine, I'm fine. I'm fine. All right? Fine. Jesus
Christ. Is there a meeting here, please? Guy's got, he's talking, he's talking, he's saying
something, he's saying something, announcement, announcement, announcement. Fine, fine, fine.
He's down. He's down. Another guy's up. Another guy's up. Chapter five, chapter five, how
it works. Probably, listen to that. Chapter five, how it works. Right, he's rarely seen,
rarely, rarely, rarely seen something. He rarely saw something. I don't know what it
was. I kind of missed that part. I missed that part, but that's all right, that's all
right. I'll get back to that. I'll find that. I'll find that. It's reading 12 things. It's
12 steps. All right, there's 12 things in alcoholics. No, it's 12 things. I'll remember
all 12 things. Good, good, good, good. There's an A, there's a B, there's a C. He's down.
I missed a lot of that, but there's 12, there's an A, there's a B, there's a C, there's a
B, there's a C. He's down. Good. Okay, it's all right. Fine. Another guy, he's up. He's
speaking. He's an alcoholic. I'm an alcoholic. This is good. I did that. I did that. I did
that. I did that. That's very good. That's very good. That's very good. Very good. He's
down. Okay, he's down. He's down. He's up. They're passing a basket. They're passing
a basket. Don't take the money. Don't take the money. Let the basket go by. Okay, good.
Good. The basket is gone. Good, good. Everybody's getting up. We're getting up. What are we
doing? We're going? We're smoking. I smoke. I smoke. We'll go. We'll smoke. We'll smoke.
I'm smoking. How you doing? Fine. How you doing? I'm fine. How are you doing? I'm fine.
I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. They're ringing the bell. Ring the bell. Go back in. Where's
my seat? Where's my seat? Where's the guy with the red coat? Red coat. Red coat. Where's
the guy with the red coat? Red coat. Fine, fine, fine. I'm sitting here. Score. This
is my seat, pal. Find your own seat. Okay, he's reading 12. They're reading 12 things.
It's not the same 12 things as the other 12 things. There's 24 things in Alcoholics Anonymous.
There's 24 things in Alcoholics Anonymous. There's 24 things. He's down. That's good.
That's good. This guy's talking. He's talking. He's talking. Alcoholic. Alcoholic. He's
an alcoholic.
I did that. I did that. I did that. Wow. I felt that. I felt that. That guy knows how I feel. I feel like that. I feel like that. This is amazing. That guy, he doesn't, I don't know that guy. He knows me. How does that guy know me? He's down. That was very good, that guy. Did you hear that guy? That was very good. They're reading again. They're reading. It's good.
And then I get up and I'm leaving the meeting and somebody said, what did you think of the meeting? I said, great. It was great. And I would go home and cry all the way home. Thinking, shit, I got to get tired now because I got to get some sleep because I got to go to work and I got to come back and hear this guy. I got to hear what the meeting is. That was me, new, at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I got to let Ed, I got to let Ed have his turn. You know what I mean? So when I'm sitting at the meeting digging out and the spiritual things, Ed's over here spinning like a top. He's spinning like a top.
And we leave the meeting and I say, because Ed gets his turn, I say, Ed, what did you think of the meeting? And Ed says, great. And you know what it was? Because Ed got through the meeting without hurting himself or anybody else. Ed didn't drink. Ed got, there's a little seed in there somewhere and at three o'clock in the morning, Ed's going to call me up and go, I love that part about, I'm going to go, good, Ed, good, good, good night.
Everybody gets their turn. We all get our turn. If you're new, God bless you. I got more respect for a nine,
a 30-day chip than I do the 17-year chip I took a little while back. I got a lot of respect for that
because you're living in a state of grace. That's the kind of deal we got going here, man. I mean,
like we've been in here, we've been laughing tonight. We're dead people sitting up and we're
all in here laughing and having a good time. We're talking about some crazy shit in here tonight
and we're all laughing and having a good time. I'm talking about doing stuff that sane people don't do
and 80% of you are going, yep, yep, uh-huh, you know.
This goes way past not just drinking and using, man. This goes way past it. This is like a gathering
of the tribes here tonight, you know what I mean? You get the, you know, we all live where we live
and we do what we live and we go sit around the campfire every night and we pass on this information
we have in this book, right, to the new guys as they come in trying to find some hope, right?
And we get up at the podium and we share our verbal history and we talk about what we're doing on a
daily basis to stay on the spiritual line, to live a new life, to have a new life, to have a way to live
and we all get together and we all get together and we all get together and we all get together
and we honor the ones that have gone, but we tell the verbal history. We talk about Donald Madden,
the late, great Donald Madden, who saved my life. And I'll love till the day I die.
We talk about the Christopher's and we talk about the Cliffs and the Clara's and the people that feed
our souls when nobody else on the planet could do it for us, but they could. We come and we do that
and then every once in a while the little tribes gather together and we have a big powwow and we
find out that all over the country they're doing exactly the same thing. They're doing the same
thing because I don't care what year it is, what time of the day it is, or what may
be the particulars of your life or your lifestyle, alcoholism is the same disease it's always been.
You don't care who you are or what you're doing, it will tear you to pieces. No matter how bright
you are or how strong you are, no matter who you are, it will rip your heart out and take your soul.
And what we have here is we have a common problem and a common solution and it's the same everywhere
because a couple of guys got together and started giving it to each other and started giving it to
others a very, very, very short time ago. So if you're new, come on in and get the real deal, man.
Get our money. Get our money. Get our money. Get our money. Get our money. Get our money. Get our money.
Remember the new sword and the new shield. Get yourself a big book and get yourself into the
fellowship. Program, fellowship. They're different. This is not the program. This is. This is the
fellowship. And hang with the ones that got the fire in their eyes. You know what I mean? Hang
the ones that are as passionate about this as they are all the other crazy stuff in their life. Get
out there and mix it up, man. You're free. You get to choose now. I choose to give my will back to
God, ask for his direction and what I should do and try to do that on a daily basis. And I get out
there and I rip it up, man. I rip it up. I'm having a very good time being alive on the planet,
on the natch, man. I don't have anything in my body to get in the way of me showing up. If you
walk up to me and say, who are you? Buckle your seatbelt because I'm going to tell you.
And I'm tired enough at this point. I've been on the road for 11 months. I got home Wednesday night,
passed out, got up, did Thanksgiving, threw some stuff out of the suitcase, threw some stuff back,
got on a plane this morning and flew here. And I was thinking, man, I can't wait to get home. You
think of any place I'd rather be than here with you. I've been running into people tonight that I
haven't seen in a long time that I really love and I respect. And I hope that they know that
because I think it's a good thing, man, to be telling people that I love you. And I do. And if
you know, I love all of you. I do. You know, I don't love you like I love you like let's hold
hands. You know, I love you because I know what it takes to get here. I know what it takes to get
here. We're in it together, not alone. It's a wonderful, wonderful deal. If you're new, come in
here, catch the buzz, man. It's a big one. Thanks.