Self-Centeredness and the Cost of the Alcoholic Ego – Larry T.

Hi everybody, my name is Larry Thomas and I'm an alcoholic. And I want to thank you guys for inviting me out to be with you. And it's good to be in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'd like to thank the three gals that took us to dinner tonight. Well, you know who you are. It's Nancy, Colleen, and Stephanie. and that took a lot for me to remember that it was only 10 minutes ago but I'm glad to be with you guys I'm glad to off the plane and it's good to be in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous if you're new I want to welcome you to AA and I know I don't know about you but once I stopped drinking I took up thinking and there's and I'm baffled by little things today they seem to just catch my eye, you know. I got an email from my boss the other day and he says, I want you to start at 8.30 in the morning. Hmm. I had to think about that, you know, and think about it. What did he mean by that? 8. 30, huh? I wonder what 8. 30, why 8. 3? Why not 9? You know, why 8.30? Is he watching me? You know what I mean? And maybe it's because it's his company, he can do that, you know what I means? So I thought about it and he just wanted me to start early so I can quit early, you now what I mean? But I've always taken things the wrong way, you know? I mean, I don't know why that is. I've always been a loser. I'm a hostile loser, you know? I've always had a chip on my shoulder. I've always been a bitter, bitter, hostile little bastard, you And when you're a loser like me, people are always bringing people to your side to compare you to. Why don't you try to be like George, for Christ's sakes? And I remember that happening to me when I was in high school. I'm in the principal's office and I got called in because I'm drunk on campus and me and my dad are sitting in the principle's office and he sees this picture of the star quarterback. And he says, why don't you try to be like Coy for Christ's sakes? You know. And I thought about it and I tried it for a week, you know. Next year I'm in the principal's office because I got loaded on barbiturates and whiskey and I stole the custodian's cart and I drove it through the library doors, you know. I had to get this book back, you know. And so me and my dad and my probation officer are sitting in the office and And my probation officer says, you know, why don't you try to be like Coy for Christ's sake? You know, he seems to be doing well, you now. My junior year, my sister starts dating some guy and she brings him over. And it's old number seven right there on my couch, you kno. Easy. And my mom comes running over in her muumuu, you kow, why didn't you try to like Cuy for Christ sakes, you gno. My senior year, I'm in the Torrance jail and I'm getting ready to do 90 days And there's a newspaper comes flying in there And it says, Coy makes all pro-CIF And I said, shit, I'd like to be like Coy Guy seems to be clipping right along here And it seems like what goes around comes around in old A&A town I'm about five years sober and I am sitting in my van And in Los Angeles, in downtown L.A. And all the other places, it seems to me It seems to vogue that on every street corner They've got some guy selling oranges or peanuts, or he has this cardboard sign that says, I'll work for food. You know, like you don't. And I'm the kind of guy that I always look like I need help. People are always putting pamphlets in me telling me Jesus is coming any minute now and Jehovah's on his way. and I lock eyes with this guy and I go, oh shit I got two bucks and he ain't getting it I'm a giver in AA for Christ's sake this guy locks eyes with me and that's always weird and he runs over to the van and he sticks his head in the van and he goes, Larry, Larry Thomas and I say, hey, it's old number seven and then I immediately thought if there was any justice in AA that maybe my sponsor could write this bastard a letter saying, why can't you be like Larry? You know what I mean? Everybody's always looked like they've had it made. Everybody's all over the place. They always look like they're just cruising right along. You know What I mean. And I've always been goofy and I had no reason to pin it on. I mean, I had little nickel and dime but nothing to validate how crazy ass I felt. You know, What I Mean. And I come, my sponsor tells me that I'm living proof that a man can stay sober for close to 24 years and not amount to a goddamn thing, you know. He's not impressed with me not drinking, you Know what I mean? He's impressed with Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, and that's the miracle of AA. You know, I'm not the miracle. AA is the miracle, and I'm a small part in it. And the miracle of AlcoholicsAnonymous in meetings like this is you guys are able to reduce an ego-like mind small enough to be useful in a meeting. Because too many people get sober and their egos get bigger than the meetings and they don't need us anymore. They've got better things to do, you know what I mean? I've always had better things to do. I've been a runner. I've had wings on my feet for as long as... I've never stayed in one spot for over 24 hours. And I've always had leaving on my mind. Don't threaten me with a 401k. I'm out of here, for Christ's sake. I don't want nothing to do with being committed or responsibility or nothing like that. And I come from a great home. My mom was a little Scandinavian lady, and my mom loved diet pills. We were talking about that. She loved speed, you know, and she was always buzzing around the house around 5 o'clock in the morning, you knows, sorting out nuts and bolts in the garage or raking the neighbor's yard, you now. Every time she'd get the prescription filled, she would get the power edger and just do the whole goddamn block. I didn't know I'd seen my first tweaker, you know? I mean, I had no idea, man, you Know? And she was always busy, and she loved to make afghans. Everything in the house had a fresh afghan on it, you Now? Chairs had afghns, couches had afkhans, my dad's golf clubs had little chipmunks, you Know, you'd go in the bathroom and the toilet paper had a big poodle stuck on it. You know, and you could hear her all night just going to town, man. Every now and then you look in the bed or, you know, she'd look at you like that. And she always had that look of determination, you know, and she had a hobby. She had a couple of them, but when she can get them down to two, her favorite was to make these jigsaw puzzles, these 40 million piece jigsaw puzzles of the Mojave Desert she don't want to get stuck with any color it's going to be beige all night long she'd run to Savon's and get her carton of Raleigh cigarettes because they had coupons on the back and she saved these coupons to buy more yarn it was a hideous cycle she was caught up in one that I know you know about and she'd get this peroxide have this stinky muumuu one muumUU her entire life poor little thing and she'd come home, plop open that card table take a couple more Dexys start putting together this puzzle and if she had a piece that didn't fit she had these big pair of toenail clippers and she would snip that little piece down and fit it right in there I tell you there's one thing that I learned from my mom and that is there's nothing like going fast and that is I knew she loved me there was no doubt in my mind that my mom loved me no doubt and I was to do with that lady what I would do with anybody that would ever show me any ounce of attention or affection and then I would play them like a fiddle. I don't ever want to forget being 30 years old coming out of an institution and my mom hadn't seen me for a while and there she is from right here to about 50 feet away and I'm in a parking lot and she hadn't see me for a long time and she's working in a dry cleaners and I lock eyes with her and the only thought that I have is you better have a dollar to make that walk to ask her for that dollar and to see her little hands start shaking going through this little wallet she got at Woolworth's fumbling through those little dollars and a picture of me falls out when I'm 8 years old the only decent picture she has and she gives me that dollar I don't ever want to forget but isn't it amazing you take the same man and he comes to Alcoholics Anonymous and he can't walk that same distance to ask the secretary for a commitment. But he can walk over there and hit his mom one more time. You see, that's the selfishness and self-centeredness they talk about in Alcoholics Anonymous if you're new. You'll hear that word, you know, and you'll think we're talking about being stingy. The selfishness and self centeredness that is centered in the soul of the alcoholic is the kind that kills people if they don't tend to it. If your alcoholism don't kill you, your selfishness and self-centeredness will. And we must get rid of that. And that's what these meetings are all about. This isn't just a gathering for entertainment. This seems to be the only formula where people like me and you, who are used to using people all around them, can finally stay and learn to live where they're not killing themselves or the people around them a day at a time. I love my mom today. One of the things that I do with the guys that I sponsor, because one thing that I did, and that is I encourage them to get back with their families. I encourage these guys to get back with they're moms and dads and wives and kids. I love to see that happen. I'd love to men back in the center of their families, right where they belong. You know, getting back with their wives and stuff like that. And my mom you know, she just went through a terrible operation, you know and she had this die for tichylitis or some kind of intestinal thing you know she was scared to death You know, and my sponsor says, Jesus Christ, go over there and talk to her. Encourage her, you know. Give her some hope for Christ's sake, you now. I mean, you go all around telling people giving hope in AA. Why don't you go across the street and talk your mom for Christ sakes, you know? He loves me. And so I went over there, and I talked to my mom, and, you know, I simmered her down. I told her, Mom, you don't got nothing to worry about. You know? It's like getting your tonsils out. You'll be up and running around the next day, and everything will be fine. Well, she went into the operation, and shit, you You know, it went south. And I went over there to visit her and I got my little $5 flower and I went up the elevator to visit Her and the nurse says, Are you her son? And I said, Yeah. She goes, She wants to talk to you. You know. I walked in there and she's laying flat. She's got all these hoses on her and they found a bunch of stuff in there, you know, and she looks at me and she gives me this. And I walk over there and She goes tonsils my ass. You know what I mean? And, you know, but I tell you, on the way over there, on thewayoverthere, I talked to my wife. And my wife, Rosie, said, women love to be touched. Why don't you just go over there and hold your mom's hand? And on the Way Over There, I stopped at the gift shop. And I got this big jar of lavender hand cream, you know, and I took this hand cream up to my mom. And I see her laying there. And I asked my mom, I said, how would you like your feet massaged? And she goes, bam! Her feet popped out of the blanket. They just start humming, man, you know? And I started massaging my mom's feet. I had never touched that lady like that in my entire life. She's used to hugging me like this or not at all. And I starting massaging her feet. I started massageing my mom'S feet. And she started oohing and aahing. God, she loved that. And I make that a regular part of my visit. You see, when I started making amends to my mom, it just wasn't a letter and see you later. See, I'm cheating on my wife right now. I'm dating my mom on a weekly basis. I take her anywhere she... I love spending time with her because tonight as I stand here tonight in Phoenix, Scottsdale, that lady don't have to worry. That peace of mind that I rob from her on a daily basis has been brought back to her. And what a neat thing it is. And my dad was a happy drunk. My dad was happy singing the blues, Nat King Cole, Bobby Darin drunk. He loved to drink, and he loved to sneak into his own damn house. Amazing thing, you know? And he's always sneaking through my bedroom window. He was a refinery worker, so he was always working different hours. And his nickname for me was Son of a Bitch, you Know? Where's that son of a bitch at? Have you seen that sonofabitch? And he'd knock on my window, and she'd be crawling through. Open up, son ofabitch! And he crawled. I grabbed his leg one night, and I said, Why don't you have Mom make you a set of keys? I think you've earned them. you know, and my God, she's up anyway, you know. I can hear the Hoover going now, for Christ's sakes, you know? And oh man, my dad was one of those guys that everything he touched turned to gold. He was a hard-working World War II Navy vet, man, and he started off at a refinery worker when he was, you Know, I don't know how old, but he started out as a janitor maintenance man and stayed there 32 years and wound up being a plant manager working for osha you know and i wanted to be like dad because you know he learned how to work through stuff you know, and you know everything I touched just turned to crap you know. And I felt so ashamed for the way that I felt because there was nothing visible in my house to validate how crazy I felt. And you know our our house was small and I remember how many times that I used to hear them talking and blaming themselves where Where did we go wrong? What should we do? And never once did I run over there and say, hey, you guys got it all wrong. It's my fault. I let them ride that pony up until and after I come to Alcoholics Anonymous. And that was the thing that drove me insane was that I was as crazy as you could be, a goofy, restless, irritable kid, but I didn't have anything to pin it on. And everybody around me seemed to be grasping and developing manners of living. And the older I get, the more goofier I felt. And by the time I was 11 years old, sobriety stopped working. I'd had about enough of it. There was four of us in a garage and we started passing around a bottle of Four Roads Whiskey. And for the first time in my life, it changed howdy-doody into James Dean and two drinks. And it was the first thing that I did something that I could connect happiness with. It felt better than any home run I'd ever had, any D I ever got in school. And it Was the first things that I ever did that made me feel normal because I don't care if you find out that I'm a drunk, but I don' t want you to find out how crazy I feel all the time, and that most of the time I'm on the edge of throwing myself in front of the RTD. I didn't want you to find that out. Go ahead and look at my drinking, but you've got one goofy son of a bitch in your house, and I don't know why, because I have the life anybody would dream of. And I couldn't figure out how goofy I was, and I felt ashamed about that. I didn' t talk to anybody in the house, but I took a shot of Four Rose Whiskey. It was the first thing I'd ever done that quieted my head, took away that grinding in my gut. And for 15 seconds, it was all right being me. And it's never been all right Being Me. I get real Larry, you know? And I even hate that name. I wanted to be Michael or Dennis or Joey or something like Larry, You know what I mean? I want to be Larry,you know what i mean? You know? Everybody had cool nicknames in my neighborhood, you Know? My dad called me Boober. I don't want to Be a Boober, you know what i mean that's about that close to goober you know what i mean but anyway i took a shot of four rows whiskey and i didn't head out the schedule that next next day but i got the address you know and i never forgot that connection with happiness and the idea that it was the first thing that ever made me feel normal and that would be my pursuit up until i come to alcoholics anonymous was the pursuit of normal living i knew the more normal I got in my life, the least I'd have to worry about drinking. And I was on this headlong pursuit and this headstrong obsession that one of these days if I get the right little job and do the right things like Dad, I won't have to drink like I did. And isn't that amazing? When I come to Alcoholics Anonymous, I came into rooms like this and I would see people not drinking and they would get a little job and they Would get a Little Room and They'd Get a Little Car and they'll get a little girl to squeeze. And to the untrained eye, it looks like the treatment for alcoholism is normal living. And nothing could be further from the truth because we got people in this room tonight that have got every material need one could ask for and they're restless and they'RE irritable and theyRE DISCONTENTED because money is not the treatment FOR ALCOHOLISM. Getting an education is not THE TREATMENT FOR ALCOHOLISMS. The treatment for alcoholism isn'T those material things. that comes with hard work and good fortune. The treatment for alcoholism are doing the most uncomfortable things you can imagine to do. I mean, if you're new, be prepared to be divinely inconvenienced for the rest of your goddamn life, you know? I mean... This is the longest thing I've ever done against my will my entire life, man. Yippee! I get to go to Phoenix, you now. Everything about AA goes against the grain, which is why it works so damn good. Because if it was a matter of convenience, we'd have a whole different crew of people here tonight. It seems like we have to do the uncomfortable to get comfortable. And it seems like that happens after you do the comfortable for a long-ass period of time, man. There's a lot of misconceptions about AA and there's a Lotta New People wondering why they haven't gotten theirs yet and they've been here for three weeks. Well, goddammit, you got it. Now what you gonna do with it? It ain't about getting. You're in the best environment that one could ask for. It's now, what are you going to do to preserve it? What do you do? I don't come to AA to get a goddamn thing anymore. My days of getting are all over. I can't tell you the last time I've been to a meeting and I said, Jesus Christ, I wish they would have talked about sponsorship. I wish они бы говорили о спонсорстве. Jesus, if you're not hearing these things in your meeting, why aren't you talking about them? Are you waiting for somebody else to say them? One more time, you're depending on somebody else to do your work. That's the way I am. I've always been a something-for-nothing guy. Give me my goodies. Give me that half pint. I'll pay you later. Give me the half pint of wine. Give me a bag of rock. I'll give you that bag of rocks. I'll do those amends later. I promise. You know what I mean? I've been like that. A something-or-nothing man. I lived my entire life with my hand out, thinking that I don't have to do what everybody has to do to earn a living, that I deserve to have everything brought to me. I had this special ego. I've got the type of ego. I'm the type of jackass that does average things expecting standing ovations. Yeah, I go to work and I think the boss is up in the office going, oh shit, look at this guy. God damn it, they don't do it like that anymore. He put in eight hours of work, man. God damnit, man and he only took a half hour lunch too. Man, they don' t make them like that any more do they Bob? No, they don''t man, you know. Always doing these average things expecting the parade to come by any minute now. You know, look at Larry took out the trash. Jesus Christ, we're going to sleep tonight, you know? You know? I'm the same way at home. I'm a same way home. I put a toilet seat on for my wife about four months ago and she's busy and hey, hey, you know, and we're both busy. And every time we'd come home from the meetings, I'd be sitting in my bedroom. She'd go to the bathroom. I'd been sitting there going, oh, Jesus, come on, Rosie. God damn it. Get out of yourself, lady. You're sitting on a brand new piece of cherry wood in there, you know? how selfish can you be you know oh my god get out of yourself man who do you think put that toilet seat on God hell no it was old Lawrence of Torrance that put that damn thing on there you know I finally had to tell her she goes yeah she goes I know and it was loose too I said there's no pleasing you you know all my life had my hand out I don't know what it's like to earn a living and I watched my dad and I started drinking because I found my peace. I found a place where I could quiet my head. Isn't that the thing that just drives you nuts? It's that damn head always working on you. And it's like that sometimes today. I could be physically beat. Just physically beat, come home, lay my head down, 2 o'clock, my head... Hey Larry, I know you're there. Let's chat. No, I don't want to small talk. I don't want to small talk. I want to talk about when you were a baby and bring you right up to date, goddammit, you know? And the only frustrating thing about that is we just did that the night before, you know, relentless. But I tell you, that alcohol just quieted everything down. There's a place where Alkies get after two shots that most people don't understand. And it's kind of like that feeling when you drive up to a meet. There is a field of peace that we find when we're drinking that can't be described other than when me and you talk about it. When I'm describing that spot of Wonderland, and you're describing that Spot of Wonder Land, you know exactly that there was only one place that took you there, and that was alcohol, and there was nothing like it. And we didn't know about a phenomenon or craving. We just kept drinking to hold on to that spot. Come on baby, let's keep it here. There ain't nothing like this spot. I know It's only a half hour long, but God damn it, everything's pretty now, baby. And it is the most magnificent place an alky could be, and he'll never be able to get there sober. There's not amount of money, hard work. My God, that's why we get obsessed when we get sober. It's the most uncomfortable place for an alcoholic to be is when he's not drinking, and he's Not Drinking, and He's NAA, and he'S Feeling Kind of Rough, and all of a sudden he finds himself in these obsessions. He's not obsessed with the massage parlors because he's horny. He's obsessed because an hour, he's in Wonderland again. And he can block out work. He can blockout the wife. He can even blockout AA. But for an hour he's at peace. Or if he's a little bit drunk, or if he is at the gambling place, or if his playing those ponies or stuffing his face with a burger, you know? We slip into the obsessions because sobriety drives us there. We've never been comfortable sober. That's why Alkies when they're not drinking are sitting ducks for medication. they've lived this way for 20 years I'm depressed, oh shit you're depressed I'm surprised you're not hanging yourself in the garage right now I'm one week sober it's the worst place for us to be and the only place that takes that edge off is coming in here and sitting around people you don't like have any jackasses from LA come over here it's a crazy thing man, but I started hanging around these guys and I'm a freshman in high school and I start dating this Mexican girl and she had some brothers who liked cars. I love cars. I love lowered cars. I love lower Chevrolets. I love getting my hair up real big like a Bakersfield tumbleweed and listening to the Four Tops and the Temptations and Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye and God, I loved it, man. You know, I was in my plumbing truck a couple years ago when the Four Topps came on and I just started sinking in my damn truck, man, I loved it, man. Lowering our cars down. I had a girlfriend named Lupe and she got her hair up real big and I'd get my hair up really big and we'd bounce around and eat those reds and drink that wine wondering what the hell you're staring at. What are you looking at? God damn it. We know what you're looking at. Two of the most ugliest people you've probably ever seen. Got these frowns on because our asses hurt from bouncing around all night. Taking those driver education classes. Somebody along the line told me that men who were well endowed had big feet, so I had a pair of 15-inch shoes, you know. Had some big hair, some big feet and big ideas, you know. Somebody tripped over my feet tonight and I felt proud. Excuse me, you know, I loved it, man, I loved it. We'd bounce around and you go on to high school and you take that driver education class, you know, like you haven't driven yet and they're always kicking me out of high school, so i'm taking summer school and there's this one summer school, and you always take driver education class with the biggest football coach they could find, you know, and I'm in there and it's a hot summer day. He goes, all right, Thomas, come into the car. So I get my hair into the car and I sit down there and three little Mexicans in the back seat. And he goes, go over there and parallel park. Well, I parallel park, get that thing in there, you knows, well, you're doing pretty good. He says, why don't you go to Torrance Boulevard? I want to buy everybody in the car some Pepsi. What a cool coach, right? Drive up to Torrence Boulevard and pull up to the jack-in-the-box and totally forgot that 15 minutes before class, I took four of what they then called two-and-alls. Yes, ma'am! You know? And I'd just been a good kid drinking wine and doing heroin, minding my own business, and some guy laid me on to four of those things, and I forgot all about them, you know? And I took them because I didn't want to call it anything, so I took all four of them, pull up to the jack, and these things are barbiturates. You're knocked out telling the truth is what you're doing. It's every Al-Anon's dream, you And we pull up to the jack-in-the-box, and the coach says, God damn it, talk to the puppet. And I pull up, and these things nail me, man. I can't see. Now I've got four coaches sitting there, and I can'T talk. What the hell's wrong with you? He said, go up there and talk to The Puppet. Well, I can'T see the God dang puppet. I drive up there, and I run over The Puppet. His head's hanging down like that. Can I have your order, please? He started yelling at me, and the cops come, and they arrest me, and they throw me on the hood of the car. They shatter my hair all over the place. I don't drive until I'm 30. Well, big deal. There's nothing like riding shotgun. Let Rudy drive all night, man. You can make that beautiful discovery that every alky makes and that's finding himself in a mirror. There's something like that. There's just nothing like it. It's almost as pretty as that place we get when we're drunk is when you see yourself in a mirrored. You go, Jesus Christ, are you good looking? My God, man, what are you doing hanging around these Mexicans? You know, you ought to be an underwear model. You know? You look in that mirror, you got cigarette butt stuck in your head, you know, you've got some vomit on your T-shirt. You feel foxy. You do. You feel like dancing. I feel like dancin' when I look like that, you know. And I hung around these guys. Hey, I ran into a kid like that not too long ago. I was over at the Glendale Mall in Glendal, California about four years ago, and I'm walking down this mall, and this kid walks by me. He's about 19 years old. He's shaved like a cue ball. He's got all these tattoos on him. He's Got a tank top on. He's got these big pair of pants you could put about five guys in. And at that time, he had three beepers because he was an important kid, you know? I walked by him. He had his mom's earrings on. He had a diamond stud here, had a ring here, had a Ring in his lip, had a ball bearing in his mouth, had a chain to his wallet. I walked behind me and goes, What are you looking at? I says, I don't have a goddamn clue what I'm looking at. I give up. I have no idea what I am looking at, you now. I have no, what am I looking at, you know? And now I sponsor the kid. He's down there in Chula Vista, and I remember him calling me up, you know, well, what do you want me to do, sponsor? And I said, well why don't you unlock yourself for Christ's sake, you know? Well, I'm going to these meetings and I feel so different. And I say, no shit. Maybe you're the only one in a chain link fence. Maybe that's it, you know? But I understand that, you know? It ain't about being bad or being tough, you You know, I'm a man whose hide-behind image is my entire life. All my life I've had an image to hide behind. And if it ain't a lowrider or a little wino or a Little Loser, it was some kind of image. And when an alky runs out of images, he always has his ace in the hole, which is hostility. We've always been able to keep him out with our little hostility, you know, because we don't want him in. Because once they get in, they're going to find out. They're goingto find out that thing that we don' t want everybody to find out, and that is we are absolutely full of fear and out of our mind that we don't know what we're doing. We've been playing it by ear, baby, you know? And you just can't let them in. You can't Let them find that out, you Know? And that's what confused me when I was new in Alcoholics Anonymous. I remember sitting in my meetings in Alcoholic Anonymous and being about, oh, maybe four or five or six weeks, and I said, My God, I feel like such a phony. And I got scared because one more time, I confused being new in AA. I thought I was putting on another act because you have a new language, you have new vocabulary, you have anew group of people and it was like hiding behind another image again. And I got afraid but this time I was told you're not hiding behind other image to keep people out. You're taking on a way of life so that you could stay in. And it's going to take time for you to grow. It's like getting a big coat. You know, we're used to stuffing stuff in it to fill ourselves out. But in Alcoholics Anonymous, you're going to get a nice coat. And these principles and these steps and sponsorship, you're eventually going to fill out your jacket and fit it yourself because you're gonna be filled with your own principles and you're become that certain someone that you've been running from your entire life. This is the only place that takes people like me and you teach me to show up, give up and grow up. All right here. And I've been runnin' from being grown up my entire life, man. I come in here, I was a 30-year-old man with a 10-year old brain. Because that's when I started drinking. I didn't have to have any coping seals or learn how to deal with anything. I had Thunderbird wine. I didn' t need anything else. And I bounced around with these guys for a long time. Around 1969 all my buddies are going to Vietnam and some of them are turning hippies. And me and my buddies said well what are we going to do? Let's go to Detroit and find your roots. And we wound up in Phoenix. We were over there off of Roosevelt and North Central at the Apache Hotel. It's a beautiful hotel, about six floors, about $40 a month. Everybody's got a bathroom, and it's down the hallway. Everybody's gotta TV, and you've got to get out of the room. And it's in the lobby, you know. And you spend your days looking out that bedroom window, staring at the wagon wheel bar, you know, drinking, dreaming, and dying. A little room with a little Murphy bed and a hot plate and a Hot TV, staring out that window, knowing one of these days it ain't gonna be like that. I remember getting a little job with a plumber and working with this plumber, and he stuck me underneath the house. I'm going to re-pipe a house, you know, and I got a pint of Kessler's. I got an transistor radio, and there's this cat staring at me. I never had a cat before, you Know. And I'm underneath this house, You know, and there is this little vent, and then I crawl over, and I look out the vent, and I see all these cars going by, and I go, Jesus Christ, I got it made under here. I'm on top of the world. I'm under the house, I'm top of world, man. And I got a Kessler's transistor cap to seal off that bottle. Nine hours later, they're dragging me out from underneath that house. Apparently, I'd gotten drunk and I busted through the bedroom window crawl space, the bedroom floor, and I ransacked the house, stole the lady's jewelry, got all of her underwear, went back underneath the house. Dressed up my cat. Lost that job. And then this guy, Ernie, I met him at the Wagon Wheel Bar. He says, I know what we're going to do, Larry. You're not too far from here. There's a horse track. And he says, we're gonna get you down to 95 pounds. You're gonna be a jockey. Cool, you know? And I figure we're gunna be working out and stuff like that. And he gave me a bag of meth. And I'd never taken... I took meth once before and it was the worst nine days of my life. And this guy... I want you to get this stuff and take this for a couple months and we'll get you down to 95 pounds and go get your colors. Jesus Christ, Ernie. And he takes off and he comes back a week later and I'm in the same doorway. And it's all gone too. You couldn't have possibly taken all that stuff. I locked myself in my room while he was gone and I chased around a fly and every now and then I'd look out the window and see these black and white flashes and that was the sun going up and down. I'm going faster than any goddamn horse I've ever seen in my life or you can put a saddle on me and ride my ass to Scottsdale I gave up that idea so I worked for another plumber and I started digging the ditch for this guy for about two hours and I found out he was younger than me I ain't digging a ditch for a kid I got my pride god damn it so I did what any noble man would do I faked an knee injury and they took me to the Phoenix Hospital and they gave me a prescription for Percodan. And me and Ernie started drinking cheap whiskey and we met these guys down in Nogales and we start writing prescriptions and selling them, writing prescripitions for Sacchanol and Nemvitol and Obitrol and you name it all. We wrote it all, man. Damn near took it all too, you know. And after about nine months, they caught up with me. Now when you're loaded on barbiturates and whiskey, there's no freeway chase, you now. There he goes down to 17 North It's a matter of the sheriff coming into the Busy B Hotel going, there he is under there. Always naked, leave it to that alky, butt naked whenever they found him. He's in the boiler room, didn't got a stitch of clothing on, butt naked. So they tried and convicted me and put me away in southern Arizona for a while and I come out of there a little bit. And they gave me a $45 voucher to go back to California. 1974, I go to California and I get a little hotel in downtown Torrance. I hook up with the probation officer, and I'm sober for two months. They find me in a Little League dugout over there in El Segundo, California, absolutely sober, not a thing in me. And they find me between hysterical and maniacal, absolutely out of my mind. The paramedics come. They take me to the Harbor General Hospital. They diagnose that some of my drug overdoses and my jackets have been suicide attempts and about the size of my record that I need to go to a state hospital and be observed. So they sent me for a state hospital out there by Oxnard for 30 days to be observed, and they kept me there for a year. Totally locked, and I never want to forget the animal that was in there. There were no AA panels coming in there, but there was one scared man whose biggest fear was getting out. And I didn't know what to do with myself while I was in here, and after about close to a year, they let me loose and they put me on antipsychotics and antidepressants and they told me that I wouldn't be able to operate out in society unless I took those things. And after two months, they left me loose and I ran out of Thorazine and then they found me in downtown Los Angeles on Alvaro Street right behind the Chevron station, a public drunk, a public nuisance. They arrested me one more time and took me up to Wayside and I'm up at Wayside County Jail for about 40 days and they've put about 50 of us in a black-and-white bus and send us down to the South Bay Courthouse in Torrance, California where I'm going to be tried and convicted and I'm looking at a two-year hit. And at 4 o'clock in the afternoon I'm sitting in a holding tank about this size, nothing but a concrete floor and I're sitting on the floor with a Vons bag and no hope. And the only thing that I'm hoping I can hear is maybe some keys. And I hear some keys and they open up the jail door and they slide open that big old lime green door and there's a Scottish man with a patch standing there and he says, are you Larry Thomas? And I said, yes sir, I am. And he says, why don't you come with me, son? You're going to AA. I said, AA? Those are two initials I've never heard of before. I've heard of OR and PO, but what's AA now, you know? And the miracle about this little Scottish pirate, and I hope I never forget this, is he had no business being there. He wasn't on a panel. He wasn'T part of the courts. He wasn' t a counselor. He was a refinery worker. And he just got in the worst news of his life, and that is his wife was dying immediately of a terminal disease and he knew she was in good hands but he knew he wasn't. But somewhere in his meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, somewhere in His teachings and His beliefs and His actions, he grasped and developed this manner of living, especially that first paragraph of working with others where it tells us that practical experience tells us nothing will ensure us from drinking than intensive work with other alcoholics, that this works when other activities fail And he knew he needed a live one. And he turned his cart around, and he went over to the courthouse, and he asked Judge Foy and Judge Hollingsworth if he had a drunk down there, and they said, well, I think we've got a guy in the holding tank. And Alex came over there, and He says, are you Larry Thomas? And he took me to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm ready for a long ride up north, maybe some lunch. And this guy took me for a 15-minute car ride to my first meeting with Alcoholics Annonymous. And in that car, he told me the most profound news that I carry with me today. The earmark of the alcoholic when he's drunk or sober is this ability to always feel different than anybody around him, no matter if it's at work or even in AA. We always have that little piece about it that, eh, I'm not quite like them. I'm a little different. And he told my wife, and he says, son, I know you've had a hell of a life. But he says that I know your feelings are different, Larry. But he said, in Alcoholics Anonymous, the more different you feel, the more qualified you are. that nobody comes here happy and well-adjusted. And he took me to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1975, rolled up to this little Alano club called the TLC Club in Torrance. He introduced me to a little lady named Indian Jeannie and Captain Bob and Singing Sam and Serenity Sam and Bicycle Ray and Dancing Pete and Whistling Butt and all these other people, you know. Little Moose came after me like a toilet paper commercial. Hi, honey, my name is Moose and I'm expecting a miracle. I said, I bet you are. You know, I said I'm not it, you know. And then some big transvestite came out of the card room and he started circling me like a helicopter and came around three times and he landed and he said, you now, I can't wait to take you to a candlelight meeting. And I said... I don't think so. Not until I get a year anyway, you kno. Now, my God, that guy's got big feet, you kno. and I said, my God, if that's AA I don't want any part of it and if that is the effect of that little blue book I don' t want to crack that thing open either and from 1975 to 1982 I came in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous 30 days to get drunk 60 days to getting drunk and the longest I could stay sober was 6 months because I was on heroin and that don't make me a worse alky or a better member but it proved to me one important principle in my life and I don''t know about yours that if I don't change, my sobriety date will. And I don' t have the power to change. I don''t have thepower to do it. I am powerless. The whole principle of the first step isn' t that you' re having a problem with alcohol, is that you're powerless. See, and that's the place that every one of us, one thing we can, our common welfare, one thing that me and you can talk about is that place where alcohol took us. And another place that me and you could talk about is that place where me and you finally looked eye to eye with ourselves and said god dang it i can't do this anymore but i'm going to keep on doing it i cant keep myself from doing it and i used to think my god being an alcoholic i cant drink i'm an alcoholic I shouldn't drink but if you're an alcoholic you're gonna drink you are flat ass gonna drink and the only thing that's gonna keep you from drinking is alcoholics anonymous and these principles there's not a living condition in the world to keep an alky sober. Only the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous apply to his life. So simple, but yet so hard to do because so many of us are trying to get our normal life together. So many of us are taking our cakes and thanking everybody for our great blessings. I want to thank you for the blessing of my college degree and the blessing of my new family and the blessings of my job. And after two months we see these dear people hanging themselves with their great blessings because they don't want to come back to the place that blessed them when nobody else will, you see. And on May 2nd, 1982, I'm over at the Don Hotel. I got 15 days of, I just checked in at the Beacon Light Mission, and I call Alcoholics Anonymous, and I get my, this guy that used to 12-step me, I said, Don, I am ready to come back to AA, will you come and get me? And he told me the most profound thing I have ever heard in my life. He said, no, no. Why don't you come ahead and get it yourself. You know where we are. You know what we got. Why don't you get your rusty ass down here yourself? I'm tired of chasing after you, and he hung up. I said, my God, whatever happened to that AA love? You know, I just heard it. For the first time in my life, it was up to me to come to you. It was no longer up to the good people of Alcoholics Anonymous to come fetch me, and I walked the longest 10 miles of my life with my poopy pants and no hope. I waddled into that Alano Club, strolled up to this man and looked him, scratched her dead in the eye, and said, I don't know what to do with my life, Don, would you be my sponsor? I never asked a man to be my sponsor. And that man lit up like a chandelier for about five seconds and then he lit into me for about 20 minutes. And he was my sponsor. He was my sponsor for a year and a half and after two years I got another sponsor. And I know it's time to wrap it up. But I want to tell you something. There's nothing been more magnificent in my life than being part of a home group and making amends to my family. Getting to know my mother and father, my dad becoming my best friend before he passed away. I learned that from a sponsor. See, if you're lying to your sponsor, this whole thing's a lie. It's all bullshit. If you're laying with your sponsor this whole things a bunch of gas and it starts right there. See, I made the mistake of trying to please my sponsor and one thing about me is that if I'm starting to please people I'll hold back secrets so that I get your nod of approval my sponsor taught me you don't need to please me I know you're a goof and I've come to find out that I need his sponsorship more than I need his approval so somebody has to know everything about me and my sponsor and my friends do I've got a daughter that I'm supposed to see tomorrow she's 18 years old, when I was 10 years sober I wasn't supposed to see her. You know why? Because I was picking her up for a visitation, and she had holes in her underwear. She had holes on her socks. You know how she had those holes? Because the old man wouldn't hold a job. You know what? You know the reason why the oldman wouldn't hold a Job? Because he had a resentment, and the resentment was that first wife ain't getting a penny. And you know how I'm going to do that? I'm gonna stay poor at her. And my daughter suffered. And the macho man in Alcoholics Anonymous 10 years sober wouldn't hold a Job because he didn't want his first wife to have a dollar. and who's suffering but a baby girl. My pride and joy. And the men in Alcoholics Anonymous sat me down and they taught me how to hold a job. Why don't you go into this job and act like you need them instead of they need you? If you can surrender to a sponsor and a home group on a daily basis, why can't you do it to the man that's writing your check? Why don'T you just go there and just try to be the best worker you can be? Quit trying to steal from them. And I've been working for that company ever since. It's been about 14 years. Now, what are you going to do with a guy like me? Alcoholics Anonymous made me a plumber. They took me out of the gutter and stuck me in the sewer. Now, about last June, I watched the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life, and that is my little girl come down this football stadium over there in Glendale, Arizona, and they called out her name, and she was going to get her high school diploma. And the most beautifully Cuban lady walked by me, and it was my daughter. and as she got closer to me, everything in me wanted to say I'm going to jump up and say I love you. I'm gonna do it. I'm Gonna do it and Lauren got right in front of me And I was gonna jump up And say I loved you when this jackass sitting next to me jumped up He hit me with the chain on his wallet and said Lauren I love and it was her jackass boyfriend You know and he had he looked like a voodoo doll everything in him was spiked man. You know And I learned to love that kid. I learned to love that kid and my precious daughter. Nothing like a man and his daughter, child and parent, nothing like that. I've got a good life because of you people. I used to speak for a man in Flagstaff every year and he used to keep me in his house up there in Flagstaff and the most unique thing about this man's house was that no matter what room you were in you had a peak view and he had several rooms And no matter what room you went into, you could look out the window and have a peak view of the most beautiful mountains in the world. And as I stand here tonight, my friends, in every window of my life, I have a peek view. And in every windows, you're in it. Every window, you are in it, and I see you people, and see the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and i know flat sure. I know flat sure that there's a God in my life because I stopped looking for God and what I started doing is playing in the evidence. I started hanging around the evidence and everything fell into place. Thank you.