The Best Financial Decision He Ever Made Was Buying a House – Earl H.

Hi everybody, my name is Earl, I'm an alcoholic. Thank you, thank you, thank you Bob. I'd like to thank the committee for asking me to come share here. It's always an honor and a privilege to do so. I would particularly like to thank Brad for being a terrific host. Terrific host. We had a great time, man. It's a pleasure to get to know you. Really a pleasure. Hope you come to L.A. sometime. If you do, my turn. All right? And a lot of other people. I mean, I've been to – this is the fourth meeting I've gone to. First of all, Cynthia. Unbelievable. powerful talk right from the heart forget all that bar stuff setting the bar stuff that's just us teasing each other you were fantastic and then Lexi last night the 10 o'clock meeting you were terrific led that meeting that was great and then the 5 o' clock meeting Susan Susan oh my god great talk that was a great, great, great talk And now I'll confuse all of us. But that's all right because we've got Eileen tomorrow morning. She can fix anything. She's unbelievable. So I didn't start drinking until I was 12 years old. I waited as long as I possibly could. I had been restless, irritable, and discontented for quite some time. I was not a happy kid. I was just walking, I mean, you know, I didn't have the words. I didn' t, you now, I couldn't, didn't know how to express my feelings. I was a little kid walking around. But what it, you kno, today those feelings, if I were walking around like that, the inside of my head would just be saying, something's wrong, somethings wrong. Something's really wrong. Something's wrong. I don't know what's wrong but something's wrong. It's not good. It's all going to be bad any second. It was just kind of that impending doom was there. You know what I mean? I was always this uncomfortable kid. And I got shipped off to boarding school when I was 12 years old and my father decided it was time for me to become a man. Man, I was 5 feet tall, 103 pounds, 12 years old. Man, it was right around the corner. I was just ready to break out into a man at any moment. And how I found out I was going to boarding school is he just said, Get in the car. All right. They got in the card and we drove and there were like a lot of relatives in the cart right behind us. And I just think, I wonder where we're going. And we got to this place and I got out of the car, he got outof the car and nobody else got outto the cars. And he put a suitcase down next to me, shook my hand, said, this will make a man out of you. Got back in the car and they all drove off. I was just like... And it turns out I was the youngest and the smallest kid in a school of 250 boys. They had scoured the earth to find 250 of the brightest, most disturbed young boys they could find and threw us on this campus like Lord of the Flies in this place. It was not good. And, oh, man, I was scared. I had no tools for living. I hadno idea how to be in the world. I didn't know what to do at all, you know. And I'm just walking around trying not to make eye contact with anybody. And every high school has got a guy named Tiny, right? He's like 6'4", 240, you knows, plays guard on the football team. He found me. And he just said, how are you doing, punk? And he slapped me in the back of the head and sent me and my books flying, right. And I had this like out-of-body experience where you're watching yourself do something and you're thinking, this is probably not a good idea. And I just walked up and I hit Tiny as hard as I could, which had no effect on Tiny at all. And I just stood there because I didn't know, you know, well now what do we do? Because I was on a new turf already. And he looked at me and said, you've got a lot of guts, kid. And he beat the crap out of me on the spot. And as I'm taking this beating, I'm thinking, this is going pretty good. Because I wasn't sure what to do. I was terrified of him. And he had just said, You've got to get out of here. He said, Well, you got a whole lot of cuts. My violence had masked my fear. So my first tool for living was, you Know, when frightened attack. And if you're coming at them, they're not going to be saying, boy, is this guy scared. Just so I was always... I'm not a tough guy or a bad guy. I never have been and never will be. But I've been extremely violent in my life as a direct result of self-centered fear. So anyway, I go back to my room, wait for the bleeding to stop and the word spread across this campus like wildfire, watch out for this little Hightower kid. He's a maniac, you tack tiny, right? Which had absolutely nothing to do with the truth But all of a sudden, I got this reputation that has nothing to do with who I am. I'm a frightened child, right? So the cool guy started to come around. I'm sitting on my bed just thinking, my life sucks, man. And this guy stuck his head in the door. His name was Matt. And Matt said, you want to smoke a joint? And I said, yes, I do. And I didn't even know what he was talking about. I didn'T know. He could have said, listen, we're going to go kill the Spanish teacher. do you want to come? I would have said, yeah, I'm with you. Just because, you know, I was alone in the universe as far as I could tell. I'd been thrown away by the people who knew me best in the world and I didn't know why. And this guy says, you want go smoke a joint? Of course the answer is yes. It doesn't matter what it is. Can't feel any worse than this feels. So we pick up Steve and Steve has a Tupperware container full of cheap red wine. You mentioned the Mad Dog, The fortified stuff. You know, the 2020, right? No grapes involved wine. That's the, you know what I mean? That's what we had in the Tupperware container, man. Two 13-year-olds and a 12-year old standing behind the dormitory, right, by this tree. Matt fires up the joint and I take a hit and, ugh, burns my lungs and my hand. That's awful. Then the wine came around. I took a pull on the wine down to my stomach, and it burned my stomach. And you get that vapor feeling that I was not familiar with yet. I thought, well, that's awful. And I'm standing there thinking, I don't get it. I don'T get it, you know? Like, why should this be any different than the rest of my life? I just DON'T get IT. And then it happened. That thing that makes me bodily and mentally different from my fellows occurred. And suddenly I was comfortable standing where I was standing doing what I was doing with the people I was dealing with. And I never felt like that before in my life. And I don't know, is it the pot? Is it the wine? Is it just the fact that I'm standing here with my two very close personal friends, Matt and Steve? Because I'm feeling that connection, man. It's like, it's us, right? It's us. We're together now forever. This is what we do. You know? I never felt a connection like that in my life. It's just like, you know, my whole outlook on life changed. I was like, Tiny, bring them on. I'll give it another shot, you Know? I just wasn't afraid anymore. It was the fear killer for me, is what it was. It killed the fear. I got this emotional barrel of feelings. And way down at the bottom of my emotional barrel, the deep undercurrent is self-centered fear. That's the thing that has run my life. I mean, I can drink through... This is why I drink to get drunk. I don't drink to be socially lubricated. I have no interest in a couple of cocktails. You know, you have a couple of cocktails while you're waiting for them to bring you a couple of cocktails, right? But I can drink through just the emotions that are going on. I can drink through that stuff and eat, you know, bam. But way down at the bottom of that emotional barrel, I've got to get to that because the last thing I feel is fear. So for me to accomplish my goal, I have to get drunk. It's the only thing that will kill that fear. That's what I did the first day and that's what i tried to do the last day and was unsuccessful at. So it was humble beginnings, a little pot and a little wine. Thirteen pills. The only reason I took a pill was the guy said, would you like a couple of pills? And I said, yes, I would. Again, having no idea what we're talking about. You know, I want you to understand that I didn't have a big plan here. You know what I mean? This just kind of evolved on its own. I'm a child of the 60s. I talk about drugs. You know? I apologize. I'm an alcoholic. The only way I can say that is because I'm not. The only thing I mentioned drugs is because we were in the 60's. Our parents were the alcoholics. We were carving out our own identity. They were drinking themselves to death. We were going to kill ourselves in a whole new way. But that's the 60s. The fact is this. The drugs would come and go. It didn't really matter. My drug of choice was, what do you got? You know, it's all anti-Earl medication, you know. But the only thing that was on the bottle every single day, every single days, the only things that were on the table was alcohol. Booze was onthe table because booze is the reliable stuff. Drugs are completely unreliable. There's no quality control going on out there. You don't know what you've got until you get it in your body. You get yourself a fifth of Jack Daniels, a good quart of gin. You know what you got here. You're going to be all right. No matter what else happens, Jack is here. We're fine. That was kind of my attitude. Do so much cocaine, you can't get your mouth open anymore. And it's 7 o'clock and the party just started and you've completely overshot the mark one more time. Don't worry about it. Suck a little gin through your teeth. You'll be allright. Go right on with the party. That's the big dog, man. And alcohol has, I mean, you guys can look at it any way you want. Alcohol's always been the big dog in my life. That was the thing that made me know I was going to be all right. And in the end for me, there was no more time to play around with any of this other stuff. It was about alcohol because that was the only thing that could even for a moment make the demons leave my brain. So a couple of pills, 20 minutes later, I'm laying on the floor. I'm happy about the pills. I'm lying on the ground very happy. 14, you know, 14 psychedelics I did about 650 acid trips got classified legally insane by the military that's a whole other story we don't need to get into here 15, I started shooting dope and the only reason I did that was because I was on a boat in Marina Del Rey, California and this girl came and she said would you like me to stick let me stick this in your body and I said well yeah yes I would and she did and it was one of those shots where you just kind of go yeah Lexi Yes. And I only remember thinking was, if I'm not dead, I'm doing this again because that was outstanding. That was great. I have no problems. 60 in the nuthouse, you know, two trips to the nathouse, tried to escape from the nothouse, failed. That's a demoralizing moment when you're shuffling around the nut house, getting your three cups of pills a day. And if you acted out, you got a shot. So my particular treatment plan was, you know, what are we going to do today to get the shot? Right? Right. Not particularly interested in getting healthy. And I'm like 16 years old, 16 years older. And remember, I was going to escape. I decided I got to get out of here. I got escaped. We're just shuffling around in this joint. And And I didn't know exactly what was in the cups, right? So I decided one day I'm going to make my break and there was a girl that lived in this nuthouse. I think she just lived there always. And her name was Kilday. And KildAY was crazy. I mean, KildAy, all you had to do to get KildAy going was look at her and say, KildEY, how you doing? And KILDAY goes, WOW! And she just... All the whistles would go and all the guards would come. So I used KILDAY as my diversion when I was going to make my escape. We would look longingly at the exit signs, just like, there it is, that's what I want to do. Exit, it says it perfectly. Sorry, at lunch I sat in my chair and I'm getting ready to make a break, right? And I got killed, they flipped that going that way and it's like, all right, ready, ready to go! You know? And I'm hauling ass, that' all I got. that's those little cups of pills you know over the loudspeaker if you're here on the Ed when you got a minute do you want to grab a roll he's making a break for the door Ed's in there having a sandwich going yeah I'll get him in a minute it's demoralizing and so next time in their own house I learned if you're going to escape, you've got to get out before they put the Thorazine in you. Because they get that Thorazin in you, man, and you're leaving when they say. It's done. You've got two speeds, slow and stopped. That's it. So I did that, and I spent three years out on the street doing what we do to stay drunk and loaded on a daily basis. More and more demoralizing. The world getting smaller and smaller and small. Ended up in business college in Northern California. Long story that makes no sense. And I'm completely estranged from my family still. I'm like 19 years old. I'm a drug dealer, and I have no problem being a drug dealer because I have No Sense of Family. I have NO Sense of Community. I have NOMORALS. I have NOTHICS. I don't know anything about any of that. What I am is a self-centered alcoholic, and that's fueling my entire life. And anything that feeds killing that fear is just in my life. I mean, when I was 16 1⁄2 years old, a guy called me an alcoholic, and my reaction was basically, what's your point? You know, if that's what this is called, then fine. I'm an alcoholic. But if you think naming me that is going to change what I do, you're out of your mind. This is what I'd do. We wouldn't even be having a conversation here if I hadn't had a few bells, you know? So where was I? Selling drugs in college, right. So I'm studying marketing, production, distribution. It's going really well. I love college. and uh i get done 20 years old they get diagnosed with malignant cancer fly back to la they they talk tell me i got malignant cancer they prepare me to die they tell my family it's very likely that i will die and i remember looking at him thinking you have no idea who you're talking to you know the dying thing is like not big news for a guy like me i've been starting to overdose regularly that's you know that comes up like twice a week for me and they said you know you need to get your affairs in order And I just started laughing. It's like, I'm a 19-year-old drug addict. I don't have any affairs, you know? It's, like, a couple of calls and we're good to go. You know, there's just... I don' t have... I wish I had to say, well, we got to call the accountant and we got do the... And they did major surgery on my upper back and put me in nuclear medicine programs that they called chemo back then. And I'm long-term cancer survivor. And I was absolutely the worst participant in the recovery process ever. Some of my friends said the only reason they thought I made it is because the way I was drinking and using, my body was so toxic, cancer could not live in my body. It's bad. So then I went on, and I'm back up in school, and my mother calls me and says, we haven't been anywhere as a family in 10 years. We'll go anywhere you want to go. Let's just go as a families. I said, okay. We took off on my natal birthday. We tookoff the flight of Guadalajara and on the way there the plane crashed. And my mother, my father, and my little sister all died. And I did not. And I woke up on a mountain in Mexico. And skull fractured, back broken in three places, crushed leg, crushed arm. Paralyzed in the waist down. I could move my right arm. That was all I could do. And I couldn't get anybody to help him. Sometimes it's hard, you know. That date's coming up in about ten days. And it gets close, you know? It's like still there. But I'm safe, you now? I'm save. I look at Eileen and I know I'm okay because whatever else may be, there's a face that was here when I got here, you known? I walked into a room and hey, hey, and there she was. And she looked at me and went, ooh. That's not good over there. Anyway, my mother was laying over there, my little sister Kimberly was there, and my father was over there and I couldn't get too many of them to help him. I couldn'T do anything to help them. So I watched them all bleed to death and I said to God, you know any God that would lead a lying, thieving, cheating, dope fiend alcoholic like me on the planet and take somebody like my little sis or this kind, gentle little creature? I have no interest in a God of this type and I renounce God. And some guys came up, and they got my wallet out because I wanted to know my name because I knew I was dying, but I just wanted them to know me. And they took my wallet, took the money out of it, threw it back in my chest, and moved on through the wreck and scavenged the wreck and then went back down the hill and left me up there to die. So I had no more love for you either. Had no love of God. Had no Love of My Fellow Man. Man, I was out of the game. And they got me down to the hospital, and my name, and that brought the federales, and the federalese interrogated me to an interpreter for three and a half days, wanted to learn what I was doing back in Mexico. Again, another story. We don't need to get into here. Let's just say I was at odds with Mexico. And I called some friends up in Northern California who got a plane and flew down. They plastered me from the neck down and paid some guys and smuggled me out of Mexico and got me to a hospital in Santa Monica, California, where I recovered from my many injuries while getting completely strung out on Demerol in the hospital. And I left there one day and went on my last run, and it lasted for six years. And, I mean, you've got to understand, I'm not a guy that had any anchors at that point. I didn't have a family to keep it together for where they were dead. I had pictures in my head that I knew I could not live with that were driving me insane. I had no sense of family, no sense OF community. I didn' t have a career. I didn''t have a wife or kids. I just was loose. And I went for it, man. I drank and used like a lunatic for the next six years. and it got very, very dark. And I was detoxed three times in a bootleg sanitarium, a little bootleg detox in Hollywood where you knew the guy who knew the guys who knew where it was this week and you would go and give them 150 cash and give him all your stuff and they would strap you to a gurney, shoot you full anti-convulsants and let you rock. And 72 hours later, they'd send you home or to the morgue and they didn't really care which way you went. And you'd get up after three days and you're still full in complete detox mode. You're still sick as a dog. And I remember the last time I did that was in 1978. And this nurse said, nurse, said, you know, Earl, you're an alcoholic, don't you? And I said, yes, ma'am. And I mean, and there was no hesitation in my response. Yes, I'm an alcoholic. I admit it to my innermost self. It says that on page 30 in the big book. We must accept our innermOST self that we're alcoholic. That's the first step in recovery. And I was there in 1978, and I said yes, I am an alcoholic . . . And she says, you know, for you to drink or use is absolute madness. Earl, you need to change your language, man. You're not partying. You're nicht getting high. You're niet having a good time, man, you just feed the beast. You've just been feeding the beast for years. That's all you do. You understand that? And I said, yes, absolutely. And he says, armed with this knowledge, you're going to be a good boy now, Earl. You're neut going to drink and use no matter what, are you? And I say, no, I'm not an idiot. Walked out of there and drank for another two years. could not stop drinking. Given a good reason, I don't stop. It's the difference between me and the problem drinker. You give a problem drinkers a good reason to stop, they can stop. Problem drinker goes for the judge, got another drunk driving charge the judge says, you know what, I'm sick of you. See you one more time, you're going to do a year in county. Problem drinkers go, I don' t want to do that. Makes a decision to stop drinking and driving and can act on that decision. Actually stops drinking and drive. Me, I start wondering what it's going to be like in jail because I'm going. And I can look like the problem drinker right up to that last thing. I can looks just like him when I'm getting the drunk driving charge. I can looked just like them when I am getting the information about what's going to happen if I don't stop drinking. I can even have exactly the same reaction to that information as a problem drinkers. I can make the same pledge the problem drinks makes. I just can't act on it, I cannot follow through. Because I go home and say well I said I was just going to stop drinking and drive. So I'll just go drink at home. And then I go drink at home, and I just feel like going somewhere all of a sudden. I just lose track of stuff in my head. The inside of my head, not a good neighborhood. So I drank for two more years. When I had my moment of clarity, it was the day before my 28th birthday. It was November 6, 1980. Came out of my last blackout. Hair down to here. beard, psychotic, don't use the term loosely. Could not distinguish between fantasy or reality. Couldn't do it. I'd broken 74 bones. I had over 650 stitches in me. I'd been stabbed twice, shot at. And I'm just a nice little white boy from the west side, you know? And, I mean, it was so over the top in what was going on in my life. There were so many times in my lifetime where I just would look around and go, whew, way over my head, and just keep going. And how you get out of those things, it's like, I think they just look at you and go, well, he seems calm. You know, it must be cool. I wasn't calm. I was obliterated. And both my hands were broken. My family was dead. I had no friends. I had No Place to Live. I had annihilated my life. They were deciding whether or not to charge me with attempted murder. And I just woke up, and none of that mattered. None of that was it. What was it was I had this moment where I realized I wasn't connected to another human being on the face of the earth, and I hadn't been for a long, long time. I'd been lonely so long I didn't know I was lonely. I'd be alone so long, I didn' t know I wa s alone. I didn nd understand any of it. I didn nt know how... You know, I just knew that it was... I was an alcoholic, and this wasn't God's fault, and it wasn't the Interpol's fault and it was not my father's fault and it w asn't the FBI's fault. It was my fault. It was on me, and if anybody was going to do something about it, it was going have to be me. And I mean, you know, we talk about God shots a lot. You know what I mean? And the God shots for me are when something comes out of my mouth or something happens or an intuition presents itself that's never been there before that doesn't seem associated with anything else that's been going on at all. And in that moment, suddenly, I threw my hands up and I said, help me. There had been nothing like that for me in my life. And I said help me and they took me by ambulance to a place They pumped my stomach at UCLA, and they said, get him out of here. He's going to die. And then they took me to Olive View Medical Center, and they kept me for three to five more days. I don't really know which, and I was getting worse. They took me by ambulance to Long Beach General Hospital under the care of a doctor, Vicki Fox, the Georgia peach man. Saved a lot of souls like mine. And I was in there for 17 days more detox and then 30 days on a cot. It was 21 cots on each side of the room, 42 guys in one room with sheets drawn between the cots. And how you kicked was you got in your cot and you kicked. No meds, no nice being nice, no anybody coming around going, are you a little anxious, sir? Would you like a little something? Nothing. You just... And it was like Dante's Inferno in there, man. It was like somebody's going nuts every second of the day. 42 guys kicking like that and you'd buck up out of your... It was called riding the cot, man, and you're sitting in your car going, oh God, oh God. And then you'd, uh-oh, here we... And then você tinha umbrio e você só bucou de cima do cot e eles vinham a correr in and stabilize you and get your vital stabilized? You all right? Well, no. I'm not. Well, just get in the car. No, I'm not all right. How can you ask somebody in here? I don't think anyone in here is all right. You look good. You look good, Earl. You look good." Oh, yeah. And I remember I was sitting in a chair and Dr. Fox came walking in. It's the first direction I got. Dr. Fox walked in and she was from Georgia. She had hair piled up on her head with a pencil in it all the time. And she had always wore a sweater and had files with her. She always had files With her, and she would smoke, she had a cigarette that she'd stick in the corner of her mouth and light it just leave it there, right? So there was always ashes on the files and on her sweater. You know, it's like a freeze frame picture in my head, because she scared me so bad, I almost had a heart attack and died. So I have that picture in My head, just like snap, there it is. And he walked in the room, and he looked right at me. And I was in the chair, I was holding onto a chair was riding the chair. I'm sitting in the church, you walked in, I just went, Oh, And she looked right at me, and she went, ooh. And she walked over, and she put her hand on my cheek, and she said, baby, you really do need to be here. And I was like a dog, you know what I mean? It was like she came over, and she just looked at me and went, stay. And I just went, yeah, okay. And then when I left, Ray W., my counselor, said, if you don't want to die, you better go to Alcoholics Anonymous. It's the only place a guy like you has got a shot. And I said, okay. I said again, I just heard, go AA. And I went to AA and I went to a basement of a church on a Friday night, try God group, Jeannie and Nick. And sat in the back of the room, arms folded, mad dog and everybody looking crazy. You know, just... Because the greater aspect of my disease, the obsession of the mind was in full effect. I had kicked, the physical phenomenon of craving had been removed, but the obsession of the mine was overwhelming. And my old thinking was there So I sat in the back of the room Looking at all the windows and doors Scanning the room Who's got the juice in here I'll slide up on whoever's talking about stuff Burglarize a conversation Find out what you guys got And then I'm out You know Read the steps on the wall Great, got it What else you got? Tradition's good Lovely You know That stayed in my head for like Four seconds By the time I read step three I'd forgotten completely What step one said But I thought I had it And then I sat in the back and this guy got up and he shared his experience, strength, and hope. And it changed me. I was just... I'd been beaten into a state of reasonableness by my alcoholism and I didn't even know it. This guy gotup and he share his experience strength and hope and I don't know that's what it was. I just heard a guy who got up and he talked about waking up in the morning with his head just on him. And I went, yeah, I know about that. I mean, I would wake up in morning and my head would just go, Earl, we're glad you're up. We've been talking for several hours amongst ourselves. we've got a few things we want to go over with you. So just lay still and first of all you're a miserable piece of shit and you're never going to amount to anything there's absolutely no reason you're getting up anyway so let us continue. You know and this guy would wake up in the morning and his head would do that to him and he would get up and he'd take a shower and hewould go to work and hewould give him an honest day's work for an honest days pay right and then hewould go get something to eat and hewed go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting not to take from the meeting not to see what they had for him because he had worked the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous as outlined in the big book. He had an awakening as a result of that. The obsession of the mind had been removed. He was walking on the earth a free man, so he went to that meeting to be of service to that meaning, to see what he could bring to it, and then he went home and he got in bed, no wreckage. I was astonished. Because me, I mean, I'm such a self-centered, frightened human being. I mean my first sponsor got a hold of me, the late great Donald Madden, and he said, first of all Low self-esteem is a goal for you. And I just went, okay. What am I going to say? No. And I mean, it was just when he said no wreckage, I thought that's incredible. What that guy just said is incredible because I wake up, if I'm up, wreckage. It's just wreckage because I'm so afraid. If you come up and say, how are you doing? I hate you because I don't know the answer to that question. How are you doing? I don' t know. What's going on? Don' t Know. What's up? You're asking the wrong guy. I don''t know what's up. I'm just, you know what I mean? And I can't say that. If I'd have been honest when I got in and you said, how are you, I would have just started screaming at you. How's that sound? That's what it sounds like in here. Did you enjoy that? Get away from me. I don'T want to talk. I never took a chip I didn't take a cake until I was three years sober Didn't say a word in AA for two and a half years And the reason was, I was too afraid I thought if I come up here And I tell you my name It'll just open the floodgates And you'll find out who I am And if you find out the things that I've done You're going to ask me to leave Because that's what reasonable people would do And you looked like reasonable people I didn' t know that you were nuts as me You looked like Reasonable people I was so scared all the time I mean, I've had people who were sober when I come in tell me, God, you're so angry and I went, nah, I might have looked angry but that was just so you would know how scared I was. Just afraid of everything But that guy that same first speaker, he looked right at me and he said I don't care whether you like what I got to say or not You don't like what i got to see? Go to another meeting Maybe you'll hear somebody that you can identify with And I thought, that's the best thing I've ever heard It's the Best Thing I've Ever Heard Because it was clear to me he wasn't selling me anything He was sharing it with me. If I wanted it, I could have it. It was for free. And this little pilot light went inside me and I went, Oh, oh, oh. This is for me. This is für mich. This is för mich. And I never left. I'm so grateful that I had nowhere else to go. I'm så grateful that it was destroyed. I would look at the horizon of my life and there was no place where I could go, Well, it's going pretty good over here. Let's focus on that. There was nowhere for the denial to take me. You know what I mean? Everywhere I went, it was like, well, that's not good. That's bad. That's annihilated. And it was all a result of the same thing. There was no where to go. I'm in Alcoholics Anonymous because there's no place else left for me to go I don't have any choice. If I don' t find a way to make this work, I'm going to die the death of an alcoholic and I don''t want to die like that. I don ''t want people to think casually of me sometime in the future and just shake their head and go, what a waste. What a waste of a life. Because I had done absolutely nothing of any value at all up to that point. So I thought, I'm going to come back. So I started going to meetings, and they said, get a sponsor. And I said, what's a sponsor? And they said like Toyota? I don't know what a sponsor is. And they say, a sponsor's somebody who's got what you want. And I says, I want a drink. You know, I wanna drink. They said, well, you know, no, no. I succumb to believe you get a sponsor who's got what he wants. That's a good definition of happiness for me, wanting what you have. And I'm looking around and this lunatic comes up at a podium one day. He just flew in the room, this great big homosexual guy. Just flew in. And there's an unabashed gay designer. Oh, hello to you. It was how we talked. And it was the late, great Donald Madden. And he flew to the podium one day, and I just went, boy, is that guy gay. I got nothing in common with that guy. And then he started, because, I mean, I noticed the differences. I'm very good at spotting the differences, I'm not looking for similarities yet, I don't know how to do that. So if you're a, I got here, it's not a better or worse thing, it's just you're different, you come up in something else. If you're gay, you don't Know About Me. If you're black, Hispanic, Asian, a woman, five years older, five years younger, you're just different to me. You come up through something else. You don't know about me. By the time I got here, the wagon circle was so tight, it was just if you're not Earl, you don't all know about me. And then Donald comes flying in, you know what I mean? And it's like, well, that's easy. Now we're not the same. And then he shared his experience, strength and hope. And at the end of it, I loved him. I just went, I want what that man has. He had such a passion for life. And he was so unabashedly high on AA and the program and one alcoholic serving another, you know, and being there for another. And it was just his whole life. And I just thought, that's it. I want to feel strongly about something. I don't feel strong about anything. I'm so dead inside. All I think about is me, and man, am I tired of that. I mean, self-obsessed isn't just a guy walking around thinking he's great. Self-obsessive is also a guy talking to himself. A guy walking along going, I'm a loser. I'm an loser. I hate myself. I hate meself. That guy's as self-obsessed as any of the other guys. I mean, it was awful. And I went up to him and I said, you know, will you sponsor me? And he said, what? And I said will you sponsored me? He said yes. And you don't have to like what I tell you and you don' t have to think it's a good idea. You just have to do it, baby. And I so wanted to get off the first part that I just said did you have to say baby? Did you have the same thing? It was like, okay, I'll do what you say. And he goes, great. He would call me. I mean, I remember the first time he called me. I lived in a one-room apartment and it was in those days where they had answering machines separate from the phone and you could turn the phone off and leave the answering machine on, right? Because I was afraid of the phone. I was scared of the mail. I was worried about the phone because it's all bad news. Nobody's writing me a letter going, boy, did we miss you when you're coming over. Not getting letters or phone calls like that. Earl, we're having a party. Love it if you'd come. Nah. But on my apartment, all you would hear was you'd hear beep and somebody talking, leaving a message so I could spy on whoever it was calling. And I'm laying in the bed. It's like 6.30 in the morning and I've had an hour of sleep at this point because I'm not sleeping much in the beginning. And all of a sudden it goes beep and it's Donald. And I go, beep, wake up! And he just went from laying there to just, oh! And he goes, we're having a day. Click. she remembered she knows i'm telling the truth that was him right and i just went oh my god they have bed checks in aa these people are everywhere man there's no escaping they're just everywhere and he would call me he never called me up and said earl do you feel like going to a meeting would you like to go to a meaning with us please he just called me up and go earl we're meeting we're meaning it to ohio street the meeting starts at 8 30 be there at eight. I want you to pick up Ed in the corner of 6th and Santa Monica at 730 and bring him to the meeting. Click. It's just like, God, that's rude. Just the assumption that I have nothing else to do. Yeah. When I got here, I did not need a day planner. You know what I mean? When I got here if they said, listen, meetings are 12 hours long. They go from noon to midnight every day and you have to go to one every day. I would have had no scheduling conflicts. he's like okay i'll go but i mean we'd have to go get ed who's ed i mean this was the inside of my head was ed corner of six in santa monica and i'm driving over there just pissed off oh fine i'll go to the corner six in sata monica to get it if i'm not mistaken there's four corners on six in santa tonica there's more of them how am i going to find yet something i mean there's going to be a lot of people around and i've i'm like a half a block from there and i'll never find this guy There he is right there. There's Ed. Because you can always spot the alcoholic waiting, the new guy waiting on the corner to be picked up by somebody he doesn't know. Ed's the guy standing on the car doing this. He's just... And I go, so I pull over and I go Ed! Get in the car! It's like, oh! Ed comes in and gets in the card and goes Hi, I'm Ed and I've got six days. and my wife took me back and I got my job back and I'm going to have a car tomorrow and it's like, shut up, Ed. I got 18 months and you're already doing better than me. Just shut up. I'm supposed to take you to the meeting and if you want to go somewhere after the meeting I'll take you there too but just quiet down right now. And they're just, okay. It's just crazy in my head. And then this buddy of mine went together and this buddy OF mine calls me up one day And he goes, you know Earl, they got a book. And I went, what are you talking about? You know, I've been sober like, you know, a few years. He said, they've got a book. Steps, everything. We've got to check it out. And I said, all right. Christopher. So Christopher and I sit down with the big book and we've got tapes. Joe and Charlie. God, see now I said Joe and Charlie. Jesus. The original Joe passed away yesterday. Joe McHugh. Yeah, yeah. 3.30 Friday morning. Man, what a great legacy, man. What an unbelievable legacy. The original Joe and Charlie, the big book comes alive. And boy does it when you're talking to those guys. If you can ever get a hold of that set of tapes, the original Joe und Charlie, the big books comes alive, buckle your seatbelt, get out your big book and a pencil, church's hit play. You'll never be safer. Anyway, God bless Joe. What the hell was I talking about? Christopher, we got the book, right? So we got the book and now we're listening to Joe and Charlie and we're following around the guys who talk about the books, you know, the guys we've been avoiding at all costs, right? We go follow the guys around with the book and we were sitting and we Were reading the book and I wish I had a camera on us reading through the book together. Because it was like, you know... We're reading the books. I mean, we'd be like reading along and Allison and I go, Hey! You know that thing they say in those A&A meetings? Here it is, right here. they kind of explain it too this is pretty good i mean it's like every five minutes you know what i mean he's like oh oh oh so that goes with that and we're just i mean our heads are exploding with this and what we found was there's this triangle with a circle around it right this ancient spiritual symbol that stands for mind body and spirit brought together as a whole human being therein lies the balance i've sought my whole life and i've never had drunk or sober. Alcoholics Anonymous adopted that symbol, and it's the same thing. It's unity, service, and recovery. Unity is the body. I bring it here. I couldn't stay sober, but we seem to be able to. It was the first word in the steps. We admitted. So I've got to stay with you. So, you know, I figure I've gotta do four things. I've go to regular meetings regularly. Regular meetings regularly so I get known, so I develop a home group. I gotta I get a sponsor in that home group. The sponsor's job is to take me through the 12 steps, as outlined in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of working the steps, I can be of service to other people, get out of myself and be of surface. Go to meetings, get a sponsored work of steps, be of services to somebody else. So unity is the body. I bring it here. I couldn't stay sober, but we do together. That's been my experience, so I've always stuck close to meetings. The recoveries of the mind, the greater aspect of my illness. See, because this is not about stopping drinking for me. That's not what this... It couldn't be about that. It had to be about how can I stay stopped. And the only way a guy like me is going to stay stopped is if I can get comfortable sober. And the Only Way I Know to Get Comfortable Sober is to Be Relieved of the Obsession of the Mind. I can't have that beast whispering in my ear all the time, making me crazy while I'm standing in a meeting, sweeping up at Ohio Street with my sponsor standing right over there and the beast is whispering in your ear, Earl, have you seen the apple martini? I don't believe we had one of those, and it looks very refreshing. And I'm not mistaken, apple is a fruit. And it's just like, what is going on in there? I'm telling you, I'm... I'm now getting into all that. Unity is the recovery of the mind. I have to work the 12 steps so that stops. Because it does. It does. Step 1 is, what's the problem? Lack of power is my dilemma. I may be very functional in other areas. Well, not, but I could be. Maybe. But when it comes to the question of drinking and using, I'm out of my mind. So if lack of power is my dilemma in step one, what's my solution? Step two, that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity, soundness of mind, relieve me of the obsession to drink so that I could walk the earth a free man for the first time since I'm 12 years old. Step three says, well, you better make a decision to do something about that or this is just a useless conversation. So I get on my knees and I turn my will and my life over to the care of a God I don't understand at all. I don'T UNDERSTAND GOD. I see evidence of God on a daily basis, but I DON'T UNTERSTAND. Thank God understanding is not necessary here. You don't have to just stick on whatever you're on until you go, Oh, I get that completely. Don't do that. Just keep moving. So step one, problem. Step two, solution. Step three, make a decision. Four and five is me. Six and seven is God. Eight and nine is you. There's nobody else to play with. That's the whole troops. That's everybody. Four and five, I swallow large chunks of truth about myself doing four-column inventories on resentment, fear, and sex. Then before God, I read this to another individual. Get it out. How free do you want to be? Get it Out. That person looks at me and goes, Good luck. Leaves the house. Six and seven, I hook it back up with God. Notice the order of these things. Get Earl's inventory done. get Earl to check where he's at have Earl read this before God, get it out then Earl's going to hook it back up with God asking God to remove the defects of character because I will remove the wrong stuff I will, I do and 8 and 9 I'm going to hook it up with you but I've got to get right with me and right with God before I start running around bothering you and there's a lot of conversation in the book that sort of basically says we're going to let you out of the house now so we want you to be very clear on what we're trying to do there's a lot of conversations in the book about 8 and 9 I go out, I'm very, very sorry here's your money back in the house pretty simple and to make amends means to change so I'm sorry I stole your car I estimate the value of the car at $25,000 at the time of the theft if that's acceptable to you I will pay you in monthly increments in this amount at whatever interest rate you deem is appropriate and I will not go steal your car and sell it to pay you for the car I stole from you I'm out I don't do those things anymore So then 10, 11, and 12 keeps me in the game. 10, me, 11 God, 12 you, same stuff. 10, I continue to take personal inventory and when I'm wrong, promptly admit it because if I don't promptly admit it, I'll fester and die. Resentment's the number one killer of us and I'll turn something I've done to you into a resentment I have towards you effortlessly. It's unbelievable, right? And I continue because I've scratched the surface and I want to dig deep here. The great thing about Alcoholics Anonymous is how deep do you want to go? You want to go deep? We got it for you. It's a bottomless, unbelievable journey that goes as far as you can possibly take it. Eleven, I seek God through prayer and meditation. What do I pray for? What it says to pray for. Knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry that out. And I meditate to quiet the mind so that when the answers come, I can hear them. Twelve is the third side of the triangle. Unity is the body. I bring it here. Recovery is the mind. I work the steps. Having been restored to sanity, soundness of mind, lead to the obsession drink and use walk in the earth for a free man the first time practice these principles and carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers I now go to meetings not to take but to give how can I help not because I'm a good guy but because that's how I stay free of the beast and can have a life that has any value at all I'm not sober everything else is just a conversation it's number one in my life a guy explained it to me real simply when he just said Earl if you drink again how many areas of your life will be negatively impacted by that And I said, woo, all. And he said, what areas of your life seem to have been positively impacted by your staying sober? The answer is all. All of them. I have areas where I didn't even used to have areas now. I got great areas, you know. I got problems, but I got the best problems I've ever had in my life. It's a good way to see if you're in the game, you got problems. They're the best ones I've every had because of you. I mean, if I don't do anything what's the day's date? The 28th? The 27th? So we got four. Ten days I'll be 27 and trust me when that happens, God's willing for that to happen you know, so 26, 11 months blah blah blah and that's a direct result of being involved with Alcoholics Anonymous there's no as Earl sees it in there all the Earl sees that information is prior to that Just wreckage and annihilation. And fast forward to now. Here's what's happening now. I've been with the same woman for nine years. I'm married to somebody I actually know. I've Been Married Several Times. This is the only time that's true. I like my wife. Of course, I'm in love with her, but I like my wife, she's an amazing human being. She's dragged me kicking and screaming into a very nice life you know you know she'll say you know I think we should live together I think well that's a bad idea and we live together and it's really nice and she said we should get a dog and I said well you've gone too far because there's like walking and pooping and all kinds of stuff involved there and I just don't want the responsibility got a dog unbelievable we got two now she said we should buy a house I said you've slipped loose from reality somehow that's it we got a house best financial decision we ever made you know what And then I started to get it. Ask her to marry me, you know what I mean? I caught on after like five years. And I'm not a guy that's capable of doing that because remember, I'll never love another human being again as long as I live. And there's no way I'm ever going to tell you who I am so there's nowhere you're going to love me. Just not going to do it. Just not gonna do it, I can't do it and the day it changed was because I was not paying attention to it I was simply chopping the wood and carrying the water of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was doing the deal, man. I was going to regular meetings regularly, working with my sponsor, going through the steps, and then turning around and trying to give it away. I sponsor 25 guys. One of them came with me to this trip, which has been a blast. But how do I say this? I don't know how to say that. It's like beyond words for me. It's beyond words what's happened. It's Beyond Words What's Happened to my life. I marvel in the ordinary now, right? I mean, I was so dead inside. I was such a good person. I was just so dead inside that if I heard a bullet go by, that was an exciting evening. You know what I mean? Because it took that for me to feel anything. I could feel that. I was like, oh, I felt that. That's good. You know? Now, I get to marvel in the extraordinary. I get the sit and have a conversation. Watch my wife wake up and go, oh, I feel amazing. That makes me feel amazing I can talk to a friend. I can have some crazy newcomer come up to me and say you need to sponsor me I sponsor Satan Louie this guy with a shaved head got two red horns of hair shellacked up on his head got a beard down like this he's got a devil's tail tattooed up his back and he's Got Flames tattooed over his legs like he's standing in the fires of hell and I spoke at a meeting one day and this guy comes running up to him and says dude you have to sponsor me and I just looked at him and said I don't know what I'm doing to attract Satan but okay God, man and he's got 14 years now and he is an absolutely remarkable member of Alcoholics Anonymous he is of service where no one else can be the midnight madness meetings in Hollywood those little speed freaks come tweaking in off the boulevard with their heads on fire and they look around the meeting and they go the devil got sober, this is outstanding louis walks right up and says hi i'm actually louis not a hallucination and uh here's a big book and let's uh let's get to work and he i mean he's an amazing guy i get to watch stuff like that i get the marvel in human interaction you know it's just we have a house we have a house with a lawn in the front of it we bought this house and we move over there And, I mean, you know, I've learned to walk among them pretty well. You know? Where people just don't get frightened right away. And we got this house and it's got a front yard. And I look up and down the street. It's a nice neighborhood. And there's nice yards. And I think, well, God, you Know, I got to keep this alive. I got To keep this going because that's how they spot us, you Know? Good yard, good yard, dead yard. There they are. so I got to keep it alive so I get the hose and I got the thing on you know, throwing a little water around and it's in the afternoon and the light is coming through the sycamore trees and it is hitting the water on the plants and it does that little prismatic thing where the light kind of dances off the water and I think, oh, that's kind of nice a lot of acid looking at that this is fantastic I like this And then it occurs to me that the plants are, in fact, alive and that they breathe in the carbon dioxide and out the oxygen. And I'm standing right here breathing in the oxygen and out to carbon dioxide. We got a little thing going on here. This is good. So here's a little more for you, my brother. Here's a Little More For You, my sister. I'm catching a little buzz. I'm hooking up with the plant life now. You know? This feels fantastic. Guy drives by, right? Sees man on lawn watering plants. Not what's happening. There's an alcoholic on his lawn feeding a few of his friends. Catching a buzz, man. Just catching a buzz. Lighten up with life. See, the power of choice has been returned. I get to choose now. I'm not a slave to alcohol and drugs anymore. I'm a free man. I get the choose. Now, I'm going to be watering the lawn. Now, you can either have a lousy experience or a good one. I choose the good one I choose to go out there and catch a buzz with a few of my friends. I don't have to stand in line anymore, I get to. I'm pretty comfortable standing in line. I go with the flow better than I ever have before in my life. And it's because I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. If you're new, this goes so far past not drinking and using, it's unbelievable. Buckle your seatbelt. When they say in the very beginning it is a design for living, that's what they mean. They mean those words. They're real words. You should get a sponsor. get a pencil, go through that book and read the black part. Just the black part. And ask yourself, is this true for me? Do I identify with this? What does that mean? I don't understand. Wrestle with the concepts afoot in that book and it will blow the top of your head off. Look, if there wasn't a big buzz here, I wouldn't be here. I'm still about the buzz. I've got to get the buzz and it's here for us. Can you imagine? Remember the links we used to go to to catch a buzz, man. In here, it'll take you to a whole new place of that where you marvel in the ordinary. Where in the normal course of a day you will find countless opportunities to have a cosmic experience in your own life. To have a spiritual connection. To feel like God is in your breath. To feel that to feel like there's the distance between me and this human being doesn't separate me from this person it connects me. I'm connected again. I'm loving and being loved. I remember the day was what I was trying to say earlier was I remember the day when I woke up and it was a horrible morning and I called up Donald Madden and I said, Donald, something has gone terribly wrong. And he said, What is it? And I said I love you. Oh no! And he just said Oh I know baby. Click. And I know he did. And I hung up and I went, you know, I know he does. You know, it just laughed. And when I know we does, I know he knows I love him. I know, he knows that feels very dangerous for me because if he goes now, I'll be devastated. And when he did go, when he did go I was lost. I didn't know what to do because he was the face of AA for me. He was the one human being on the face of the earth I believed. And he was gone. And I went in and I tried to water his garden because he had this amazing garden. So I just was crying and watering his garden. We were waiting for him to come get the body. And the guys that he sponsored would come up to me and say, what do we do? And I don't remember any of this. I was just blacked out with it. But a lot of them say, I would walk up and I'd say, you have to get a sponsor. You should probably call this guy. And I'd tell him, you've got to get his sponsor. Like, we're not missing a beat. We're going to do it because I hear his voice in my head saying, you better get a sponsor, Earl, you little son of a bitch. You should never, ever, ever be walking the earth unattended. He used to say that to me all the time. I would call him up to check in and I would just say, Donald, it's Earl. And he would just out of nowhere, he would say stuff like, your noodle, you're 30. Click. Okay. Like I wasn't going anywhere. All right. I'll be noodle, I'm 30. I'm only 26 now, so I got a ways to go before I'm no longer new. according to Donald but when he died I got lost and then a couple of months later I was just I was in bad shape and I went to a meeting to give a guy a cake for 11 years that I sponsored at the time and he got up and he said I want to thank Earl H. for sponsoring me and showing me the way and then he said and I want to thank the late great Donald Madden for showing him the way and I just started crying again in public my favorite thing and I realized he's not dead because of this legacy this legacy of recovery this amazing legacy of humanity that is Alcoholics Anonymous when I was five years sober I went to my first AA conference and I walked in the back of a room there was 2,500 alcoholics in the room listening to one guy and I thought who is that guy and his name was Franklin W. from Olive Branch, Mississippi and Franklin W said I'll sum up AlcoholicsAnonymous for you in six words Trust God, clean house, and help others. And I had a spiritual experience at five years sober. Everything I'd heard in AA just went bam. It all made sense. It all make sense. Trust God clean house help others, me, God, and you. What the steps are about, 12-step program. That was the heart and soul of this thing. Sixteen years later, I was 21 years sober, and I was the speaker of the Texas State Conference of AA. And there was a guy there named Searcy. Searcey's gone now. You Texas folk, you know the name, right? And Circe, he was 91 years old at the time. He was like 58 years sober. He'd been married to the same woman for 59 years. And sharp as a tack, right? Big tall guy. And he goes, Earl, come over here, son. I'm talking. Ooh, all right. You know, Circe. Jeez, that guy's legacy is just unbelievable. It's global. And he said, I was sitting talking to Bill and Franklin. And I said, hold it. You mean like Bill Wilson, co-founder of AA and Franklin W., Olive Branch, Mississippi? And he said, yes, Earl. Now, stop it. I'm trying to tell a story. I said, fine. And he said, Franklin W. said to Bill Wilson, what is the heart and soul of this program that we must protect for the generations that have yet to come? And without hesitation, Bill Wilson said to Franklin W., that's simple, Franklin. Trust God, clean house, and help others. And it hit me again. I knew that's where I need to be. So, I mean, it's a pretty short legacy. Bill Wilson told Franklin W.- and countless other people, trust God, clear house, help others- Franklin told me and countless other people, trust God, clean house, help others. I'm telling you and countless of other people. Trust God, Clean House, help Others. My prayer for you is that you engage in the unity. You go to regular meetings regularly. That you engage on the recovery of the mind. You work the 12 steps so that you can be relieved of the obsession to drink and use. You can walk the earth free men and women. As a result of the awakening that occurs, that you will then be of service to other people and show them how to trust God clean house and help others it is a remarkable, remarkable journey and I truly feel that this is the only way I can honor Donald Madden it's the only one I can do it and that's enough for me that's not enough that's it's enough for me thanks We hope you've enjoyed this recording. To obtain additional copies, receive a free catalog of A.A. and Al-Anon talks, or to find out about our tape and CD of the month club, call Encore Audio Archives at 1-800-878-1308 or visit our website at www.12steptapes.com