My Parents Hired Private Investigators and Staged a Fake DEA Raid on My Apartment 🤣 – Randy L.

Welcome back, my friends, to AA Recovery Interviews.
I'm your host, Howard L., and I'm an alcoholic, sober since January 1st, 1988, 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.
There are more than 150 awesome interviews in the AA Recovery Interviews podcast series.
Listen to every episode on any podcast app or at the website aarecoveryinterviews.com.
Each story is a powerful testimony of the recovery available to all in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Today's an encore episode of my interview with Randy L., originally released on August 10th, 2021.
Randy has been a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous,
since July 1998.
My guest on today's podcast is my friend Randy L.,
a relatively young man who got sober before he was even old enough to take a legal drink.
Randy's childhood was ruled by compulsive behavior, limited attention, and hyperactivity.
Later diagnosed with ADHD, Randy was treated with meds that worked,
but left him craving a calmer and steadier mental state.
He soon found relief in alcoholism.
He was addicted to alcohol and marijuana.
Though the damage occurred only during his teenage years,
Randy's rise to full-blown addiction was both rapid and severe.
He exploited every opportunity to drink and use in high school and early college.
Increasingly isolated from his family,
his behavior soon deteriorated into that of a drug-selling addict and alcoholic,
whose flawed belief that he was getting away with it fooled nobody but himself.
Fortunately,
his family arranged a very dramatic rescue plan for Randy
that landed him in a 90-day treatment program,
from which he emerged into accelerating participation in AA.
At only 20 years of age,
Randy relaunched his life by getting a sponsor,
working the steps,
going to meetings,
and establishing a close fellowship in the program
with older men who taught him how to live sober.
Though Randy labels himself as a high-bottom alcoholic,
the work he's done in the past,
and the program,
demonstrates the deep dive he's taken
in understanding his own life
and the behavior that influenced his personal growth and success.
A particular insight was a highly traumatic event he experienced
when he was six years old
that greatly informed his thinking and actions throughout his sobriety.
Today, Randy's total commitment to AA,
his young family and the business he runs,
makes for a full and busy life.
But the men he's both sponsored and befriended,
tell you that he's a man of passion and empathy
who is always ready to help.
From first-hand knowledge,
I know that to be true,
and I'm confident you'll find his story
both compelling and uplifting.
So, without further ado,
let me introduce you to my good friend and AA brother,
Randy L.
Randy, I'm an alcoholic and addict.
Hey, Randy.
I'm glad you could be here today.
Thanks for joining me.
So, you're one of those ANDA guys, aren't you?
An alcoholic and...
and an addict.
Yeah, I...
You know, it's funny,
because I was an addict really first,
and found myself to be an alcoholic second.
I became a believer that at the bottom of the bottle
was my drug of choice.
Yeah, I get that.
You know, my story really was more one of...
compulsivity and addiction around drugs,
and, you know, that was the high that I wanted.
Uh-huh.
But when it wasn't available,
I would use alcohol as a substitution.
You've joined a really august group of people
who I've interviewed.
Maybe more than half of them have the same kind of story
where they started out maybe with both alcohol and drugs,
but along the way, especially as they were younger,
drugs were actually easier to obtain than alcohol.
First time I tried drugs, I was 16 years old.
Uh-huh.
Was at a party.
I had moved to Houston,
and was at a party with a lot of people I didn't know.
A Coke can was being passed around.
It was a drinking party,
but a Coke can was being passed around
where people were smoking weed with a Coke can,
and I'd heard about it but never seen it.
Uh-huh.
I just kind of jumped in line
because it was the thing to do.
Tried it the first time and literally had no effect,
but felt camaraderie, felt some acceptance, felt a part of,
and I was new to Houston,
at the time,
and quickly sought it out a second time,
and it wasn't because, you know, of a feeling of effect.
It was actually a feeling of acceptance,
but ended up the second time getting high
and just loving the feeling.
So you were doing it with the crowd when you first started,
and you were 16.
I didn't really start smoking dope until I was late 17,
almost 18 when I was about ready to go into college.
Lots of people start a lot earlier,
so prior to 16, what were you doing?
What was your family of origin like?
Do you have any alcoholism or drug addiction
going back in your family?
No.
I mean, what I would say is that there is definitely cases
of just overall compulsivity.
Uh-huh. I get it.
But I was, you know, I broke the mold in my family.
I was, you know, first to rehab, first to sobriety.
Uh-huh.
And in fact,
it wasn't until years later that I met a cousin of mine
who's actually further ahead of me in sobriety,
but Felice is a cousin of mine,
and we met at George J's.
Yeah, so it was, but, you know, it was,
I was the first one.
I didn't have a lot of experience.
I didn't know what I was getting into.
Uh-huh.
And in fact, for me,
the first drug I was actually introduced to was prescription.
You know, I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age
of 15, and what they did with me is they gave me prescription speed.
Okay.
And they sped me up, and I hated it.
Like Adderall or something like that?
So it was Dexedrine.
At the time, they prescribed it for me, and it worked great.
I mean, it definitely set me on straight
and made me super focused in school.
But the problem is I wasn't sleeping.
I wasn't comfortable in my own skin.
I was jittery.
And what happened was when I found weed,
I could start regulating myself.
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
So I could go,
I could go up with the prescriptions they were giving me.
Uh-huh.
And, you know, after school or at night,
I started smoking weed with friends,
and there was a lot that was going on there that I loved.
Uh-huh.
After moving here to Houston,
it was the feeling of acceptance when I didn't know anybody.
I could quickly adapt into the group.
Yeah.
As long as you were, you know,
sitting in a circle or passing around,
you know, you were instantly accepted.
But the other thing was is that I started that sort of
chemical balancing of myself.
And that, of course, escalated as time went on.
Uh-huh.
But I found a tremendous amount of comfort
in calming my mind and slowing myself down.
You were calming your mind and slowing yourself down
from the speeding up that you were getting from the dexedrine.
Yeah.
There are a lot of people of your generation,
I know that I'm sounding like an old man now,
but what I mean is that it seems like the ADHD and the ADD drugs
started to get really popular around your age.
Your age group with parents and that sort of thing.
Were you having a lot of problems in school and just in general
that you needed that immediately?
Or was that something they jumped to right away?
You know, the answer was I wasn't doing as well
as I should have been doing.
And it really did come down to focus.
Okay.
I mean, very clearly, I am a textbook case of ADHD.
Uh-huh.
What's interesting is later on in time,
Uh-huh.
as I got sober, it's actually become an incredible asset.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
If you learn how to live with ADHD,
if you learn how to multitask,
if you learn how to better yourself with it.
Yeah.
You know, in school, I would say I was not a highly motivated student.
I see.
I was more socially motivated.
You know, got tested, loved the extra time they gave you on the test.
Uh-huh.
And they started prescribing these drugs.
And I didn't like them.
Uh-huh.
I mean, I don't, even when I was doing drugs,
I don't like drugs in general that speed me up.
Right.
I was always, I always wanted to come down.
I always wanted to slow my mind.
Uh-huh.
I always felt like I had a very active mind.
You know, a lot of dreams when I sleep at night.
Uh-huh.
Very active in the day.
It takes me a lot to slow down.
Now, if you don't do the dexedrine, if you don't do that,
or you don't do whatever speeds you up, do you naturally slow down?
Or where do you, where does your mind go
when you don't have that med?
You know, it just goes to staying busy.
Busy.
Um, and so I have to have a lot of information flowing into me
from disparate points.
Uh-huh.
And I can harvest a lot of information at a time.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
And so what I've learned, and you know, I think as you get older,
there's, there is a part of you that matures.
Right.
Out of some of the negative sides of ADHD.
Uh-huh.
I get it.
But for me, first of all, being sober goes a long way.
And, and I mean that.
I don't, I don't mean, you know, dry.
I mean truly sober.
Yeah, I get that.
You know, part of slowing the mind is when I get a little bit out of sorts,
it's learning to identify that in myself.
Uh-huh.
Um, communicating with, about it.
Uh-huh.
Um, seeking guidance from others.
Uh-huh.
Honestly, kind of calibrating yourself.
Oh, yeah.
If you're doing those things, then I really feel that somebody with ADD, ADHD,
um, is really built to, to succeed because you can process, I think,
larger amounts of information versus needing to be very linear.
But you have to have a, a good way to function and a lot of support around you.
Mm-hmm.
In order to do that.
And, and I've had that.
I've, I've been really blessed to have a lot of people around me,
both in my personal life and my work, that understand me really well.
Yeah.
And, and allow me to sort of be the best version.
The version of myself, you know, I'm, I'm incredibly blessed in that way.
That's very cool.
So, for how many years did you take those meds,
or are you still essentially taking the same meds that you were taking back then?
No, no.
I have not taken a pill for ADHD since, um, getting sober.
Um, so.
You would have been what about?
I got sober at 20.
So, as I like to say, I've never had a legal drink.
Okay.
So, for five years, you were on the Dexedrine.
When, when that was prescribed to you,
did you do any other work, uh, psychological counseling or therapy?
I did light therapy.
Typically, it was the check-in, you're taking the drugs,
how's it going, how's school going?
Mm-hmm.
Uh, I did one summer go off to a school that was for kids with ADD,
and, um, it was actually a summer school,
so I went to school for summer and I hated it.
Wow.
I saw two kids, uh, get in a fight and get kicked out of school.
Mm-hmm.
And so, I was like, oh, that's a thing.
Mm-hmm.
So, I went and, and got in a fight and got to come home early.
So, I didn't really like being there.
I, I did actually learn, um, some good skill sets,
again, for learning, note-taking, and, and, and focusing,
but, you know, I, I wanted to get home.
Uh, that was actually during the time
where I was ramping up in my social scene.
I was, at that point, I think I was 17 years old.
Mm-hmm.
And I, I didn't want to be there.
I wanted to be back home.
Yeah, I get it.
You didn't have a legal drink,
but I'm assuming that you've had plenty of illegal drinks,
uh, after, after you moved to Houston.
Yeah.
That people were, they were smoking grass,
but were they equally drinking, or, or was it just mostly grass?
I mean, I think we, we were drinking, but it was,
uh, weed was the baseline.
Uh-huh.
We were drinking, and then we were doing some other stuff, too.
Uh-huh.
I, I think, you know, I, I believe I was an addict
before going to college.
Yeah.
Dependent on weed, and then things accelerated more.
When I went to college, I remember when I was, um, about 17,
I, uh, saw cocaine for the first time.
Oh, okay.
And I, I don't know how to explain this,
because I, I don't believe in an omnipotent, all-knowing God.
And there was a feeling that came over me as,
there was three people in the room,
all three did a line of coke and offered it to me.
I had this feeling that that was how I was going to die.
I, I don't know how to explain it.
It was one of the strongest feelings I've had in my life.
Huh.
And I knew I was compulsive.
Right.
I've been compulsive from the age of three, right?
Sure.
That is in me.
I believe I was an addict before I added drugs to the equation.
Yeah.
I act, behave, think like an addict.
I, if, if I love something, I want a hundred of it.
You know, I don't believe in law of diminishing returns.
I want...
Well, that's classic OCD.
Isn't it?
Yeah.
I just want more and more and more.
And I'm talking about when I was collecting baseball cards.
And from a kid, I hated running out of money
and not being able to open up one more baseball card pack.
If I was playing a game, I did not want to stop.
You know, if I had food, I wanted more.
Everything for me was always more, more, more.
So I saw cocaine.
I was in the room.
It was like recoiling from a hot flame.
I never touched it.
I was so afraid of it.
And it, you know, and I told myself,
I told myself that I would never do cocaine
because I knew that if I did, it would kill me.
And I never did cocaine.
And to this day, I believe if I had done cocaine
or if I ever do cocaine, I believe it's going to kill me.
I believe I would love it.
Yeah.
And I would not be able to stop due to my compulsivity.
Yeah, I get that belief system that you're talking about there
because if you're going to have a belief about something,
it might as well be that something that you really shouldn't be doing
will kill you if you do do it.
But I had the same kind of thing when it just comes to getting drunk again.
I mean, I don't think I'll make it back.
If I go out and drink, you know, not only will I have thrown away my sobriety,
but I'll throw away the thing that I've spent more years of my life doing
more intensely than anything else.
And I just don't think I would survive.
But that's okay.
I'm willing to live with that because alcoholism is a deadly disease.
And you and I have both, you know,
and you and I have both known people who've died from cocaine.
Oh, my God, yeah.
Maybe not necessarily the snorting of it,
but certainly freebasing and crack.
To me, that's a healthy fear.
So you never did cocaine, but the marijuana aided you
in terms of regulating your whatever the drugs were doing for you, huh?
Yeah.
I think it's important to say this.
You know, when I came into sobriety, and I'm a high-bottom guy.
Yeah.
Yeah?
I went to college.
I accelerated.
I definitely used, you know, a lot of other drugs,
you know, more hallucinogenics and party-type drugs.
I was very fortunate that I had deteriorated in school.
I deteriorated in both my relationship with my family
and how I treated my family.
And I became sort of immersed in the culture
of drugs.
And I had an intervention that was done
and was put in rehab before I had any real life consequence.
I was getting really close.
I started dealing drugs, and I loved dealing drugs.
I loved dealing drugs as much as I loved doing drugs
because what I learned is I'm just not part of the party.
I felt like I was bringing the party.
Oh, yeah.
And I loved the sense of control that I had over people calling me
and needing me.
And, you know, again, it was part of that culture.
So I was very much participating deep in the culture
in a way that I was running headfirst into major consequences
but never really had them.
And I enjoyed drugs.
I did until the end.
I had a very high bottom.
I remember when I got into the program,
I was actually extending the truth of a lot of my using recovery
to feel like I fit in with people.
To make it sound worse, right?
Yeah.
And it's crazy.
I know that sounds crazy.
No, it doesn't.
I get it.
But, like, I went to rehab,
and, like, these people have these amazing stories.
Like, you know, I never ran from the cops.
I never got shot.
I don't have anything.
And honestly, like, there was a part of me that I was like,
do I fit in?
And what I realized was my truth is I had enough for me.
When I got sober and I didn't want to go to rehab,
I was intervened upon,
and I was basically told that I would lose the support of my parents,
be put on the streets, not be in college and have no direction,
or go to rehab.
And I went to rehab, and I was 20 years old.
I went to the University of Arizona,
and the University of Arizona is just a big, big party school.
Party school, sure.
I joined a fraternity, had a great time there,
again, sort of accelerated in my using.
I had to stay behind my sophomore year for summer school
because I was basically, I think, a second semester freshman
after finishing my sophomore year because I had dropped so many classes
and I just wasn't focused.
I dropped all my classes.
At this point, I'm sober.
At this point, I'm starting to grow marijuana.
I'm dealing it.
And again, I'm in summer school, and I dropped my classes again in summer.
So I'm there, but basically I've now dropped my classes.
Were you keeping that from the folks and other people?
I thought I was.
Yeah? But they found out?
Turns out, no.
And I remember, you know, 20-year-old kid, you think you're smart.
I ran out of money, and I decided to spend on my emergency credit card,
which was my dad's credit card.
And my thought process was I'm going to spend a bunch of money on the credit card,
but I knew I had money coming in from a deal I had done.
And my idea was I'm going to go charge my dad's credit card,
and I'm going to go call the credit card company
and pay it off before he ever sees the charges,
not knowing how credit cards really work,
that you get bills in the mail and you see what people charge.
I actually don't know what I was thinking.
My parents had an anniversary.
They renewed their vows.
I miss my flight home.
I miss my parents renewing their vows.
I had, to some extent, just not cared about my family of origin,
had really estranged myself,
had just completely engulfed myself in what I thought were friends.
Had that started before you got to college?
Yeah, to some extent.
I mean, I was just getting to be, you know,
an older teenage kid who was finding my way through.
How about siblings?
Do you have siblings?
So I do.
I have one older brother.
Right.
And, you know, honestly, we had a good relationship growing up.
We fought a lot.
I mean, we were just two different people.
I see.
So I wasn't very close with my brother.
Certainly during those years, we just didn't talk.
Sure.
And then had estranged myself from my parents.
You know, I tell people part of my story is,
I'm a high-bottom guy.
I had a great childhood.
One, you know, huge life event in childhood which shaped me,
but I don't have a blame.
I believe I was born a very compulsive person.
Once drugs were added to the mix, you know, it was game on.
Like, I was going to be an addict in something, I believe.
I was going to either be an overeater or I was going to be a drug addict.
I was going to be something the way I'm kind of built and molded.
Yeah.
I'm so, so grateful that I became a drug addict.
Yeah.
Because, you know, then I was given such a gift,
which was the skill sets of AA, the program for living.
Yeah.
That I was given.
But when I came in to the program, I remember I tell people I was too everything.
Too everything.
I was too young.
I was too Jewish.
I was too high-bottom.
Like, I walked into a meeting, I did not belong.
My first meeting, I heard somebody talk about smoking crack.
Somebody come in and talk about how Jesus saved their life.
And I'm like, I'm out of here.
When I had my intervention, one of the deals I made is I'll go to rehab,
but I won't sleep there.
That was the deal.
So mommy and daddy picked me up, brought me back from Arizona,
and, you know, drove me to rehab every day and picked me up.
And I remember when they picked me up from my first day of rehab,
I'd gone to a meeting, and I was like, you don't understand.
I don't belong.
I don't belong here.
These guys, you know, people are smoking crack.
People are shooting heroin.
You know, I'm busting people's anonymity left and right.
Wow.
They're talking about Jesus like they're going to try to convert me.
Like, what do you do?
Where are you putting me?
This was July in Arizona.
I had driven to Phoenix.
This was after spending on the credit cards, doing that story.
I had driven to Phoenix to basically, you know, pick up drugs and come back to Tucson.
And we went to Phoenix.
We're driving back to Tucson, and I'm with one of my good friends at the time
who was like my partner in crime.
And I said to him, I said, somebody's following us.
And he's like, you're nuts.
I was like, no, I think somebody's following us.
I remember we pulled off the freeway.
We go back to our house.
I'm not a paranoid guy.
That wasn't part of my thing.
And we go back to my apartment.
And I walk in my apartment, and it looks like stuff's been moved around.
I was like, somebody's been here.
And he's like, man, what's wrong with you?
I was like, no, like, somebody's been here.
And, you know, we sit down.
I think we watched TV, smoked a couple bowls, went to bed.
Wake up the next morning, and this was July 12, 1998.
And my door gets kicked in.
Like, my front door gets thrown open.
Everybody down.
Everybody down.
And the next thing I know, I have somebody with his knee on my back basically cuffing me.
Oh, my goodness.
And in my apartment, I had weed, X, acid, mushrooms, money, you know, 20 hand-blown glass pipes because I collected them.
Because they're art, you know?
They're art to me, right?
Sure, sure.
And so, I mean, I was done.
I mean, this was the end.
And basically get arrested.
And sat down on the couch next to my buddy who had slept on my couch.
And these two guys start yelling at us.
We've been following you.
We know everything.
We've seen you do your drug deals.
You're busted.
You're done.
You know, this was like life just hitting you in the face.
I mean, and then they said, you can come in.
And then my dad walked in the door who lives in Houston.
And I'm in Tucson.
Oh, wow.
And basically, my parents had hired private investigators to come follow me to see what I was up to.
Oh, my gosh.
And they knew everything.
And you thought they were law enforcement or DEA?
Oh, no.
I thought they were cops.
I mean, they were like flashing badges.
So, these two guys were private investigators or former cops.
And so, I thought I was being arrested.
Like, my life was over.
I was over.
I had a grow room in my second bedroom.
I would have done a decade with what was in my apartment.
And then my dad walks in.
Yeah.
And my dad just looks at me.
I'm very close to my dad, always have been.
But I thought he knew nothing.
So, he went from knowing nothing to having been in my apartment and seen everything.
Oh, wow.
That's wild.
And my dad, they said, you can come in.
And, you know, it was like the biggest sense of relief.
But immediately followed by the biggest sense of guilt you can ever imagine.
It was like the biggest, you know, melding of emotions you could ever feel.
And they said, do you want to say anything?
And he looks at me and he just, you know, says the worst thing a father can ever say to his son.
I'm just so disappointed.
That's a killer, man.
That's a killer.
There was no speech.
There was no anger.
It was just, you know, like, I'm so disappointed.
It was like, oh, my God.
Was that his first time visiting you?
No.
I mean, they had been there.
But every time they had been there, of course, I'd clean up my act.
You know, they'd come and been to, like, our fraternity things.
But I could play the game.
I could go on vacation with them.
I felt like I was hiding it.
But I had a rapid descent.
My last nine months was pretty rough in the fact that, again, I was having a great time.
But I was destroying everything around me without even realizing it.
Did your dad learn about all of this from the private investigators?
Or did he have some inkling that you were doing all this prior to getting involved with them?
They just couldn't figure out what was going on with me.
Like, why was I spinning so far out of control?
Why was I so distant?
Why was I getting such bad grades in school?
And they knew something was up.
And so they finally got the thought that maybe he's got a drug problem.
They went and saw this lady who saved my life.
She was my therapist for many, many years.
And saved my life.
Just the angel in my life.
They met.
And she kind of coached him through what to do.
And so my dad told me, he goes, you've got two choices.
He said, we're going to turn everything over to the cops.
And you're out.
Or you can go to rehab.
I was like, pretty easy decision.
Like, I'm going to rehab.
Easy choice.
And so I went to rehab.
And I remember we flew back through Phoenix.
And there was a moment after I had to throw out everything.
I had to throw out all my lovely paraphernalia that I cared so deeply about.
Sure.
And we flew back from Tucson to Phoenix.
Had a layover.
And I actually thought about running.
I actually thought about taking off at that point.
But I knew what it would do to my relationship with my family.
And so I continued back.
Checked in the next day.
Had no intention of staying sober.
Mm-hmm.
And I was about 25 days in.
And I remember they asked how, you know, they gave you the speech.
Only about 10% of you are going to make a year.
Right.
Right.
And they said, who here thinks you're going to make a year?
And everybody in the room raised their hand except for me.
Oh.
Honestly, I was just there to check the box, get through.
And my intent was I didn't know if I was an addict.
I didn't know if I had a problem.
Yeah.
And I remember they made me write a paper about surrender.
And I went home and wrote a paper about surrender.
I think what I did, if I remember right, is I wrote a whole paper.
It was about three pages.
Something about the Peloponnesian War.
And I brought it back.
I really studied.
And I gave my all.
And she just said, you just, you don't get it.
Don't get it.
Yeah.
You don't understand what we're doing here.
And she proceeded to tell me that I could restart my 30-day program 30 days in.
So I spent 60 days in a 30-day treatment program.
And it was the best thing that happened to me because it took time for me to distance myself from my using to see the consequences, not just of what I'd done.
Right.
But where I was going.
Yeah.
I always wanted to be successful.
I always wanted, I really, really wanted to make an impact in this world.
Sure.
And when I was sitting in rehab, my epiphany really came in a couple of moments.
Number one was somebody, I was outside of a meeting and an old timer said to me, he goes, have you ever lied to your parents?
And I was like, well, yeah.
He's like, have you ever cheated or stole from your parents?
Yeah.
He's like, have you ever hit your parents?
I was like, actually, yeah, I slapped my mom one time.
I remember that.
And he said, what would you do to somebody that did that to your parents?
Mm-hmm.
And he said, the thing is, is that we start acting and behaving in a different way when the drugs take over.
And it really did make me sacrifice my morals, my values, my ethics.
Mm-hmm.
People talk about my standards, you know.
Right.
My actions were actually falling quicker than my standards.
And that's what was happening for me.
And it took me being in sobriety in rehab, that was my time to actually sit back and reflect.
And my reflection, again, this high bottom moment for me, I was ready to get off of the ride, not because of where it had taken me to.
Sure.
But because I had enough time that I could clearly see where I was going.
Yeah.
And I was 20 years old.
I had gone nowhere in college.
Uh-huh.
I had an identity crisis essentially there.
Yeah.
It was very clear that I was going nowhere.
Right.
So I made a deep commitment at that point to get to a year of sobriety.
They told me we can always refund your misery.
Yeah, right.
And I made that commitment, got a sponsor, decided I was going to work the steps.
Uh-huh.
And decided I was going to throw myself into it because I just had nothing to lose at that point.
Yeah.
And I realized that the path I was on just wasn't one that I was proud of.
That was my epiphany.
That was really my moment in just saying, I'm going to give it a shot and seeing myself differently.
You were there for a total of 60 days.
At what point did you have this light bulb moment?
It was probably around day 35.
Really?
Yeah.
So there was a few things I went through in rehab.
One is just kind of going through.
Being in meetings every day and just looking around and saying, you know, part of it was hearing those people telling the stories that were 40 and 50 and 60 and going, I don't even want to give it a chance to end up like that.
And I remember I actually stayed in treatment for a total of 90 days.
I did an IOP afterwards.
And I remember I was finishing my IOP.
We could go around the room.
It's kind of the end of rehab.
You're checking out.
Everybody says nice things to you.
Yeah.
And, you know, keep coming back.
And I remember Ed said something to me that I can't get out of my brain and it's in me every single day.
And he said, you know, Randy, he said, I've seen a lot of people come through this treatment.
And he said, you may have some of the most potential that I've seen of anybody that's come through here.
And I was so proud when he said that.
Wow.
And he said, but, you know, when somebody tells you you have potential, that's an insult.
He goes, because what you're doing is you're wasting talent.
He goes, nobody tells Michael Jordan he has potential.
Right.
He goes, right now, you're just wasted talent.
And he goes, I hope that you can fulfill your talent.
And my life's goal now is to make sure nobody thinks I have potential anymore.
I'm telling you, it stuck with me.
It branded me.
Yeah.
And it crawled into my brain and never left me.
That's a great frame of mind to have.
I mean, and also to pass on.
I've heard that before.
I have a sponsor who said very similar things to me early on.
One of the things he said was, and I've said this in other interviews, he said, be careful of telling people what you're going to do or your intentions or what, in this case, your potential.
Because you can get enough satisfaction from their response to that, that you never actually have to engage in what it is you've got the potential for or your intentions to do.
You know, his whole thing was, do it.
Do it and let people see it.
And then you don't have to talk about it.
Sounds like that's what you got from Ed.
I did.
And, you know, I grew up in a small South Texas town.
I grew up in McAllen, Texas.
Sure.
So I was born there.
And my best friend from birth, his brother was my brother's best friend.
My brother was older.
And he was my best friend.
And our parents were best friends.
And we were essentially raised together.
His name was Jeff.
Wow.
And at six, he developed a brain tumor and ended up passing away from it.
When Jeff was diagnosed with a brain tumor, I didn't see him anymore.
And I wasn't really told what was going on with him other than he was sick.
And I remember my brother went to his brother's birthday party, and I hadn't seen Jeff in about six or eight months.
I don't know how long it had been, but it had been a while.
Sure.
And my dad pulls up to the bowling alley.
I run in to go get my brother and bring him back to the car.
And there's a kid in a wheelchair with a straight shaved head or lost all his hair and barely recognizable.
And I went up, and I didn't know.
I didn't know he would look like.
It's burned into my head.
What a shock.
And I talked to him for like a minute, and then I ran out crying.
And you were six at the time this happened?
I was six.
I was six.
Wow.
And Jeff passed away, I don't know time depth at that age, but passed away a few months later.
Right.
I didn't go to the funeral.
I wasn't allowed to.
I was totally passed, and that was it.
That was the end of the conversation.
Nobody ever really talked about it.
And there was a few things that happened.
This is pre-dating using, but I think has a lot to do with my wanting to numb.
Yeah.
And that the reason that statement by Ed about potential hurt me so much.
I remembered not trusting God.
Yeah.
I remembered feeling like at eight, nine, ten years old, sitting there at night going to sleep going, where is he?
What's happening?
What's happening to his soul?
And then by the time I reached my teenage years, when something good happened, I had guilt because he never had the opportunity.
And when I screwed something up, I felt terrible because I was screwing up an opportunity he never had.
I lived in this crazy sort of binary box where if something was great, I couldn't accept it.
And if something was bad, it was worse because I had failed.
So when Ed says something to me like, you have potential, but you're a waste of talent.
Mm-hmm.
I'm wasting an opportunity that he didn't even get.
Wow.
And part of me getting sober, part of me working my fifth step for the first time was digging into that feeling of loss.
My work was letting him go.
Yeah.
And not having that hang over me and not feeling like I had to live my life for him.
Wow.
Now, to this day, in a lot of my life,
Uh-huh.
I have a relationship with his parents.
Right.
His mother I saw years later and she had trouble seeing me because it's the sort of pacing of where he would be.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
But I try to live every day honoring him.
Mm-hmm.
And honoring the life that he lived and the influence that he had on me.
Mm-hmm.
But I've been able to let go of some of that release and guilt of having opportunities that others don't.
But I don't forget.
I really deeply want to give back in this life.
Yeah.
In his honor.
And so that's something that's a big, big part of me.
We'll be right back.
My friends, if you're enjoying AA Recovery interviews, I invite you to check out my latest audiobook, Alcoholics Anonymous, the story of how more than 100 men have recovered from alcoholism.
This is the word-for-word, cover-to-cover reading of the first edition of The Big Book, published in 1998.
It's a relaxing yet meaningful and engaging way to listen to The Big Book anytime, anyplace.
Have a free listen at Audible, iTunes, or Amazon.
While you're there, search for my other audiobook, Lost Stories of The Big Book, 30 original stories from the first and or second editions missing from the third and fourth editions of Alcoholics Anonymous.
It's also available from Amazon as a Kindle book or in paperback if you'd like to read along.
Yeah.
You're going to love it.
And we're back.
What were you being told back then when you're a kid, you're seven, eight, nine years old, having to deal with this thing, which is just absolutely devastating to anybody but to a six-year-old who doesn't even get a chance to understand it?
Were you being given any messages about a higher power or God?
Or what kind of messages were you getting from people around you or institutions to help you deal with it?
Or did you not get anything?
Nothing.
So a couple things, right?
So you piece the pieces together.
Right.
Number one is Jeff dies.
Nobody talks to me about it.
And literally in my room, the only thing I have is a bear that he had when he passed and that was given to me.
Right.
And I have that bear still in my house.
Yeah.
But we didn't talk about it.
And then I'm an ADD kid who goes to Temple.
Right.
To me, I was learning a lot of boring stuff.
Right.
And then I'm an ADD kid who goes to Temple.
Right.
And then I'm an ADD kid who goes to Temple.
Right.
And then I'm an ADD kid who goes to Temple.
Right.
And then I'm an ADD kid who goes to Temple.
Right.
And then I'm an ADD kid who goes to Temple.
Right.
And then I'm an ADD kid who goes to Temple.
Right.
And then I'm an ADD kid who goes to Temple.
Right.
To me, I was learning a lot of boring stuff.
Right.
I didn't want to be there.
Yeah.
I'm a hyper kid.
They couldn't reign me in.
Right.
As I got to 10, 11, 12, I start training for my bar mitzvah.
I didn't like the rabbi.
Right.
He didn't like me.
Oh.
Yeah.
Because I didn't want to be there.
I didn't really connect with religion.
Uh-huh.
And I didn't trust God.
Because it was the same question.
Yeah.
The obvious question.
Would God let this happen to a six-year-old?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, my belief in God is not omnipotent, all-knowing.
My belief in a higher power came really through working the steps a few times.
It took me a while to find my version of spirituality in God.
I found it in a new pair of glasses, actually.
Did you find it retrospectively?
I mean, oftentimes, we don't know or cannot sense God.
We don't see God working in our lives until he's just done it and we look back.
Is that the kind of awareness that you had of God was in retrospect?
I mean, I can see where I've been really blessed.
I don't think that's where I came to it.
There were two parts of my belief in a higher power.
The first one is I finally reconciled myself to the perspective being more intellectual
about it than I probably should have been.
Yeah.
And my first sort of crack in my belief, in being able to believe, was I got to the point
of I'd rather believe in God and be wrong than not believe and be right.
So that was my first thing.
Just throw yourself into it, and if you're wrong, who cares, right?
But if there is no God and you're right, that's a pretty sad place to be.
So let's go with the other one.
That was kind of where I started with that.
That's no lose right there.
That's a no-lose situation.
Yeah, right.
So that allowed me to sort of embark on the idea, okay, there's so many people out there
that believe, so many priests, clergy, rabbis out there.
How can they all be wrong?
And I started piecing all that together.
But then where I found my God, and I just mentioned it, which was a new pair of glasses,
was where Chuck C. talks about ego.
And he talks about easing God out.
Yeah.
And he talks about the conscious separation from, and that God is either everything or
he is nothing.
And where I found my God and where my belief in my higher power today is, is that I love
seeing you.
I love seeing you at meetings.
And I find you to be an egoless person to talk to, to love, to hug, to be around.
And my belief is, is that when two people or more come together...
Thank you.
...and deflate their ego, that that part of God can come out and that there's a piece
of God in all of us, right?
And when you go to a God meeting, it's because you have a lot of people there that aren't
selfish or self-centered in the moment, but they're there to share openly and to love
each other.
My relationship with my wife, my relationship with my kids is as egoless as I can make it.
And when we do, there's just that bigger piece of God.
And that's what I've latched onto.
And what that tells me is that I've got to put goodness out there.
I've got to be egoless in my behavior with other people, in how I approach opportunities
to help.
And I got to let my piece of God out.
And so that's really where my higher powers come from.
But it lines up for me really with my sobriety.
It lines up with my want to do service work.
It lines up to my willingness to accept help and be open with other men.
Well, you know what it strikes me as too, and as you were just describing that, I was
thinking of the term spiritual maturity from the standpoint that what you're describing
right there, that you've been able to take to your relationships, not only with men and
women in the program, but with your wife and with your kids, it's a mature spiritual position
that is the outcome of the work that you do.
It's a mature spiritual position that is the outcome of the work that you do.
It's the outcome of the work that you did in the program to get to where you needed
to get to.
What would you tell somebody who's relatively new in sobriety, maybe even within their first
couple of years, about how long it took for you to get to that comfortability with that
or for you to get to that place where you could have this belief and really believe
it?
You know, I definitely was a fake until you make it guy.
You know, I said I was going to make it to my first year.
I went to 600 meetings in my first year.
I volunteered when I didn't.
I just gotten sober.
I volunteered at AA Intergroup when I got out of treatment, I immersed myself in the
program.
Again, high bottom, I can stay off drugs, I could stay off alcohol, especially after
like detoxing myself.
Sure.
And you know, so it wasn't until I had my core rocked that I really got the test of
this.
of do I really want to stay sober? And do I really want to dig deeper? And what happened was I had
been dating a girl in the program. We'd been dating a while. We're very, very close. And we
were also part of a very tight knit group of young people in sobriety. So it was about eight of us
that were very, very close, including my best friend. And she actually cheated on me with my
best friend. This is my core group of sober young people. We go to all of our meetings together. We
go out to dinner afterwards. And I got both embarrassed, right? Like my girlfriend slept
with my best friend. Everybody knows I can't go back to my meetings. What am I going to do? It
shook me to the core and challenged everything I just put together in my sobriety. And honestly
ended up being...
Probably one of the best things that happened to me. Number one is our relationship wasn't
healthy to begin with. But number two, that was the moment. That was the moment where
line in the sand, do I really want to keep doing this? Do I really want to stay sober?
And this is when I went from, you know, a lot of co-ed and young people's meetings.
I had to go forward.
I had to find a different place to be.
I see.
And that's when I started going to Alder Street, Avenue B, these men's meetings.
Men's meetings, yeah.
I moved from a group of young people being my peer group to surrounding myself with the men
that I call my heroes. And so I transitioned my meetings. I went to these meetings where
there was just unbelievable people like George J. and Dan D., Pat C., Todd.
Like all these guys, you know, who, you know, I would listen to these guys and they were
amazing husbands and fathers and businessmen. And it was this transition in my life. That
was my maturity moment. This was my, I've got to grow up. I've got to move out. And
at that point, I remember vividly thinking I was almost like starting over. I couldn't
go to the same meetings. I couldn't be around the same people.
Well, how old were you?
How old were you when this happened?
I was 22.
Okay. So, so you'd been in the program for two years.
18 months.
Been in the program for 18 months, hanging with the young people, having that situation
happen to you that rocked your world there. That left you relatively weakened in your
resolve to stay sober? Or were you, did you have any place to go with that, with that
feeling that you had after that situation?
The guy, my best friend, we actually shared the same sponsor. So I couldn't even run to
my sponsor.
Whoa.
Right. So it was like, I was on an island, but I surprised myself. I had every excuse
to relapse. I had every excuse to run, put it behind me. And I didn't want to. I had
had enough blessings to that point in the program. I had immersed myself enough that
by this time I had started my first company at 21 years old.
Right.
Had enrolled back in school, had put my life back together and was proud of the person
that I was becoming. And I wasn't willing to give that up. And I liked who I was sober.
I believe that a lot of people, or most people I've talked to as they get sober, they have
that line in the sand moment where it's literally, you know, which it's the fork in the road.
And that was my fork in the road. But that fork in the road was so important to me because
it tested my resolve and taught me what was really important to me. And I didn't know that.
Was that a spiritual turning point for you as well?
You know, what I would say is yes. It was a massive ego deflating moment.
Yeah, I get it.
And that ego deflation allowed me to be teachable. That it allowed me to seek,
help. It allowed me to be vulnerable. And I had to go get a new sponsor. So I went to my therapist
and I was like, this is what happened. I need to get a new sponsor. I need to go do this. And she
said, I've got the perfect person for you. And she introduces me to David, who was my second sponsor.
Now he's since passed away, who was a gay man and who took me to meetings and was completely
different than anybody I'd ever been.
Close to. And it was amazing because my first sponsor, Ron Kay, amazing guy,
takes a ton of people through the steps, falls it by the book, love the guy to death and forever
grateful for him. This was somebody who was a deeply emotional member of AA, which I was not.
And I remember David telling me, he said, every answer from you is from your mind.
He says, you need to start answering from your heart.
And David broke the steps down in a different way for me, which were emotional, spiritual and deep
in a different way. And he really challenged me and called me on my BS and challenged me deeply.
And he said, you know, Randy, everything you see is black or white, black or white, black or white.
He goes, I'm going to teach you about gray. Part of it was learning how to
I think he taught me a lot about how to love.
I think he taught me how to lot about how to be vulnerable.
He taught me a lot about how to heal and was the perfect person for me and couldn't have been more
different than me. I remember I felt very uncomfortable going to an AA meeting that was
all gay and lesbian. And I'm like, I don't belong here. And he said, you do belong here
because you're just a member of AA. And the more time I spent with him, the more I felt like I was
there, the more I loved it. Yeah. You know, but it was like I was afraid of what you don't know.
And David was just, you know, such an incredible, loving, supporting man and loved me and taught me
how to be a man differently. Yeah. So he opened up a spiritual dimension that had been closed off.
A hundred percent. I was highly transactional as a person and he opened up my heart.
So how long did he sponsor you for before he passed away?
So David sponsored me for about five years and then ended up moving away.
He moved away and died four or five years later.
Did you get yourself another sponsor at the time?
I did. And I went through sort of like a little bit of time where I had a bridge where I didn't
have a sponsor. Yeah, I get it. And then I remember I asked Scott B to be my sponsor and I met with Scott B one time.
I don't even know if he'll remember this. And I sat down with him. And Scott B is a deep step work guy,
just deep in the program. He's an onion peeler. Oh, yeah. And I sat down with Scott and he gave
me my step one work, which was probably more work than all the work I'd done in the program to date.
And I remember leaving him. I was like, well, I guess he's not going to be my sponsor.
And I love Scott. Scott's one of my favorite people. We're so close to this day.
Again, I drifted for a bit, but I knew I needed to stay connected. And it took me a little while.
It took me about another six or eight months. And I remember I had asked George J to be my
sponsor and he was full at the time. And I don't remember what it was, but I had another
tough moment and it was time to really get into the steps again. And I asked George J again and
he said yes. And so George J has been my sponsor since that time.
And you guys went back through the steps.
Yeah. As a matter of fact, I'll be doing my fifth step tomorrow. So we're in the steps again now.
And I've got a fifth step to do tomorrow. And I'll tell you what's interesting about that is,
you know, 23 or sober now going through the steps. Life is very, very full. And just I've had
just incredible blessings in my life. And I was doing my fourth step this time and I was really
struggling.
Because I want to dig deep and I want to put, I want to be thorough. And I was doing my fourth
step and it's weak. I'm like going to my fifth step and it's like, I would do my fifth step
right here on recording. What I realized is now that I live a pretty clean life and I live a life
that I live out loud. And so what happens is I don't carry a lot of resentment.
Anger and fear. And when I have it, I clean it up pretty quickly. Yeah. There's some stuff on
there and there's some stuff I got to get through, but like, and there's definitely some stuff I need
to look inward on. Yeah. Especially, you know, in my role of being a family member, a father,
a son, what have you, there's some stuff I need to look up.
That's all natural. I mean, you know, anytime I've done, and I've done more than one or two or
three, probably four or five fourth steps over all the years. But it's funny when you get to those
later fourth steps.
You do find yourself digging where it has already been dug. And the cool thing about doing a fifth
step with a guy who knows you pretty well is he's going to know when you're just rehashing the same
stuff you dealt with last time. The fact that you're willing to, on a daily basis, do what
you're doing to keep the resentment factor to a minimal amount. You know, I mean, gee whiz,
you can, you could probably clean up almost everything you do with a 10th step every day.
I think so. I mean, um, I,
I'd like to,
I'd like to think that I live pretty clean. Um, yeah, you know, that doesn't mean I haven't stepped on toes that I'm not aware of, or I haven't negatively affected people in ways that I haven't.
You've remained human. So that's a good thing. Now, what's your relationship like with the men that you sponsor? What, what does it reflect?
You know, I, I think it goes back to wanting to be of service and, and be, um, ego deflating. You know, I, I've sponsored a guy recently.
I, I think it goes back to wanting to be of service and, and be, um, ego deflating. You know, I, I've sponsored a guy recently.
who was estranged from his daughter when he got sober.
Mm-hmm.
And, um, I spent a lot of time, as a father now, I have an eight-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old son.
And I have an incredible wife who's such a blessing to me.
Did you meet her in the program?
So, no, she was my cousin's best friend from childhood. We actually have a picture at summer camp together.
Oh, wow.
When we were 12.
When I got sober at 20.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
was one of the big challenging things is how am I ever going to find somebody? How am I ever going
to get out and date and, um, and, and just found somebody who's perfect for me. So your relationship
has been informing the way that you work with guys on their relationship. Absolutely. And being a
father, you know, I was working with this guy and I said, you know, your primary purpose is to stay
sober and help others to recover from alcoholism. Your secondary purpose is to repair the relationship
with your daughter and everything else doesn't matter. How's he been doing with that? Great. I'm
so proud of him for re-engaging, leaning in. And, you know, he did a great job. Being estranged is
tough because you can't push your way back. And his job there was, he was
rock steady and reliable and kind of let his daughter and his daughter's mother
come to him seeing that he's reliable and accountable. And it's just been a beautiful
thing to watch. And so, you know, my relationship with the guys I work with, I, I, I, I tend to take
myself too seriously. I have a very, very busy work schedule, life schedule.
I wish I had more time with people in recovery. What I've realized about myself is in some ways,
and I think this is because of my experience with David, I think I'm a better second sponsor
than first sponsor. And so I don't, I don't know what that says about me. And maybe, you know,
like I have guys that come in and the guys who are like on the edge and just new and just drying
out. I don't find that maybe it's, you know, I, I see guys that they sponsor so many guys. I honor
that so much. And I want to be there. It's just, I don't think that I connect as well. And I'm as
good of a guide as I am against men who have been through the steps once and I'm helping them find
a program for living and I'm helping them rework the steps on.
People, places, and things. And I love taking people to the steps actually in a new pair of
glasses. It's just a little bit different. And I think part of it is, is the availability. It's
hard for me to be on call at all times. Oh yeah. Yeah. And it's also part of your
maturing as a man, as a husband, as a father, you're gaining different life experiences now
in your sobriety that speak to different things that men need when they come to you to be
their sponsor. And for me, what I found is I have a handful of guys who I've sponsored for going on
30 years. Uh, I've got others who I've sponsored for, for lesser amounts of time, but some of the
guys that I've gotten more recently have been men who have had sponsors who've passed away or
whatever else. But what's interesting about it is I find that one of the best ways I can be of
service to the new guy is to hook him up with one of the guys I sponsor. And you've seen me do this
before in meetings. I'll go.
Yeah, you'll go look at one of our guys, grab guys and say, you know, come over here to one
of my sponsees and I'll be talking to the guy who's just come in, and I'll, I'll put them
together. I'll say, you need to trade phone numbers, and you guys need to talk tomorrow
and just do that. And when it's worked out later on, I can say, well, I guess I was a pretty
good sponsor to this man because he's being a good sponsor to the next man. And, you know,
being grateful instead of proud of myself, I'm grateful that I can be of service in that way.
Yeah.
OK.
I see a guy
Yeah.
So, and I've done, I've heard, I've seen people say, okay, this dude has two humorous
views.
like you, who's got all these great life experiences of being a successful businessman,
successful father, a great sponsor, a great friend, all these other great things. It's
understandable that you're stretched because you've got a young family. And when my family
was young, when my kids were young and I wanted to go to a meeting, I knew and my wife knew that
that was indeed taking some time away from the rest of the family. And so balancing that has
been over the years, it was a big challenge, but I was able to go to other men who had done
it successfully. You're that kind of guy too, aren't you? Oh yeah. I mean, it goes back to my
compulsivity, right? So my work week is a 50 to 60 hour work week. I can't help myself. I've had
success. I run a company, you know, and then the rest of my time is my family. And, you know,
I tell people this and I tell people this inside and outside of the program. I say,
I'm a husband. I'm a father of two children. I'm sober and I run a company. You now know
everything about me. I don't have hobbies. I don't. I love what I do for a living. I love
the impact that I have there. My hobbies tend to be some of the organizations that I work with
where we can influence, you know, but I live out loud about my sobriety. Almost anybody that has
even working with me knows I'm sober. And the reason is, is that I want anybody who ever needs
help or knows somebody that needs help to know that they can reach out to me. That happened
recently. I had a very dear friend in the program. Her husband, it turns out has been alcoholic for
several years. She did not know who to call and I got the call and I want that call. And I am not
embarrassed that I am sober.
I am so proud because my heroes in the program taught me to be proud of it.
And grateful at the same time. I mean, God is actually in a lot of ways, I think he
places us in situations and with people that we need to be with. And one of the great things about
doing this interview show is that these are people I've known my whole sobriety and some of them.
And yet I really don't know that much about them. You know, we, we, we learn about,
we learn about each other. Even if we go out to lunch or dinner from time to time, the opportunity
to really get to know people and get to know what's in their heart. Frankly, it takes time. It
takes time. And you know, when you're a young father and you're running a business and you're
working a lot and he's trying to stay sober by doing as many meetings as you can or sponsoring
as many people as you can, there isn't time for anything else. That's been my experience. But
later on, the kids will grow up or they'll go to college. They'll move away from home. And you'll
find yourself with some additional time on your hands.
And, uh, so whatever it is that you enjoy, I mean, I, I love the fact that I can go to a lot
more meetings now than I could when my kids were small. I look forward to, I, you know,
and the reason is, is that I see all my best friends, the w you know, the one thing I've done
right the whole time besides, you know, not drinking is I stay connected to guys in the
program. Cause I love these guys. It's not work. Right. And when my ass is falling off or I need
to talk, I pick up the phone and I call Todd or I call George or I called Dan or I called George G.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And, and it's not work to call them because they love me and I love them and it's just easy.
And, um, this, uh, podcast, thank you for doing it because during COVID it became even more
difficult to stay connected and, you know, going on zoom meetings, but, you know, literally
listening to podcasts between work and home driving or going out for a run and, and listening
to it and plugging in, you know, those are the, those are the, those are the, those are the
moments, you know, I went to, um, an international convention. I've, I've been to a few of mine.
If anybody's listening, there's one thing you should do in your sobriety, get to the international
convention. Nothing like, you know, first one I went to was, uh, was 18 months sober. And, uh,
I remember being in a stadium full of people and saying the serenity prayer and saying the Lord's
prayer. And it's just, you're with 50,000 people and they're all like you and everybody loves you
and you love them. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and,
and it's just awesome. Um, and to walk around the city and just being greeting people in the
streets, you see that little tag around their neck and you know that they're, they're a brother or a
sister. Well, that's one of the things I like about zoom now is that I can, I can participate
internationally. Whereas when I've gone to the conventions, it's always neat to meet people from
other parts of the world. Sounds to me like you've got an extraordinary life right now. And to hear
you speak about these other people, what's cool about the podcast,
is that when you're listening, you're listening to people, you know, and so you can listen from
a different perspective, a perspective of knowing what's in their heart and hearing them express it
in a, in a really grateful way. And to me, your story is really inspiring and it's still evolving.
I mean, you've been sober 23 years now, you're still a relatively young man. And, and with two
kids, you know, the, the interesting thing is the timeframe here is interesting because you've got
two kids who it's not going to be long before they're of that age. Yes. I hope that they stay
away from drugs and alcohol. Um, just recently, and I, this is something I'll be processing with
my sponsor. I need to start thinking about how to message to my kids, you know, about me being
sober. They, they've never known, obviously they're eight and 11. I mean, it's over 23 years.
At what point do you start sharing with them that, you know, your dad had a problem and I'm sober,
and I'm grateful to be sober. And I, I, you know, I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to
have that conversation, but I know who to have that conversation with that can tell me how to
do that. I'm 43 and everything I go through, it's like, I have a cheat code for life. And that cheat
code is when I don't know what to do, it's either in the books or in the steps. And when I still
don't know what to do, I pick up the phone and I can call people who tell me how to do. I have
this incredible network, this incredible program around me.
That had I not gotten sober, I would have never been able to be a successful husband or father
or businessman. I tell people I spent some of my most formative years, the time that you're
really shaping your social function. I spent arresting my social function with drugs. You
know, my natural tendency is still in a lot of ways to think like an addict. And it's taken a
lot of time to think like an addict. And it's taken a lot of time to think like an addict.
And it's taken a lot of time and energy and work. And it's taken a lot of guidance to shape me into
a vulnerable, sober, hopefully lower ego man. Yeah. And it's all because of the gifts of the
program because left to my own tendencies, I'm an addict. The wiring is still in place. You know,
for me, I have to acknowledge the fact that left to my own devices, left to a period of time where
I skip meetings.
When I stop returning calls or stop praying or stop being of service, that hard wiring will carry
me right back to behavior. And it'll be worse because it will have come at the expense of an
otherwise good program. Whereas, you know, when we're first sober, you know, what do we got to
compare it to? How life was before we got sober? But when I see guys slip, one of the first things
I ask them is, what was true about your sobriety that stopped being true?
What was there that you were doing or not doing that was helping you stay sober,
that you changed to the point that you drank? And so it's beautiful to keep that humility that
you're talking about. And I see you as a humble man, and I'm glad to see you on a regular basis
now. This is what I needed today was to talk to you and just kind of hook into Randy L.
The time's flown by, man. I think that's how it is with us brothers. I love you, man.
And I appreciate you.
And the man that you are in recovery and such a center point of recovery for the men in Houston and what you've done with this podcast.
It's just this is such a gift and knowing you is a gift.
Thanks for doing this today, brother.
You're the best.
Absolutely.
Love you, brother.
Thank you so much.
Well, my friends, that's a wrap for today's episode of AA Recovery Interviews.
Thank you for tuning in.
If you enjoyed AA Recovery Interviews, will you please tell others how to listen to it?
It's another helping hand we can all extend to alcoholics everywhere.
If you want to contact me directly with any comments, questions or suggestions, simply email Howard at aarecoveryinterviews.com.
By the way, this podcast strictly adheres to AA's 12 traditions and all general service office guidelines for safeguarding anonymity online.
I pay all production costs.
AA Recovery Interviews and my guests.
Do not speak for or represent AA at large.
This podcast is simply my way of giving back to AA that which has been so freely given to me.
The next episode of AA Recovery Interviews is on the way.
So keep coming back.
It'll be here soon.
Thank you.