The Fear Killer and the Bottom of the Emotional Barrel – Earl H.

My name is Earl, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi. Oh, good Lord. Terrible timing. Bring me here. Unwind me. I begin to unravel. I've become emotional at the breeze. And then throw me up here. Good. Oh, God. I want to thank Steve for asking me to be here. It's always an honor and a privilege to participate in anything that SVI does. It's an amazing experience. And I got to start with today. I gotto start with just the speakers that I've heard. You know what I mean? And all the main speakers have been amazing. I mean, Sandy Beach, you know what I mean? Come on. Never misses. Annie never misses. Bobby's just amazing. But it's also been the three 20-minute speakers, one of whom is my temporary sponsor while I'm down here, Al. It's about the people who've led the meetings and the things that they've had to say, these little mini meetings and these little glimpses in the miracle the share that David gave last night when he led the meeting for five minutes. I mean, it's just all, every little bit of it, every little bid of it. If you're cracked open and available to it, it just happens. You know, and I got new heroes since I've been here. I'm a guy that got, when I got sober, I had no heroes. I had new images of myself later in life, you know, as an older person. I had nothing when I was a kid. When I got here, I came out of such a dark, dark isolated lonely place i've been lonely for so long i didn't know i was lonely when i got here i've Been desperate for so Long i didn'T know that i was Desperate when i Got here um you know but then i come to a place like this you know and i mean i mean today i'm sitting by the pool talking to people and charlie who's going to speak later in the week is in the pool with two friends learning how to swim. And I mean, I don't know about you, but if I'm a grown man and I don' t know how to do something, I'm going to go find somebody in an adjoining state who I'm gong to pay their fee plus whatever is necessary for their total silence in this matter because my ego can't tolerate looking bad. and there's Charlie in the pool in front of a couple hundred people delighted to be learning how to swim trusting in the care of these two women that are with him it makes me cry the magic that happens around here I mean stuff that just if you'd have told me when I got here what was going to happen I'd have known that you were still using and the wrong person to talk to you were delusional you know it's just been an amazing it's amazing to me it's amazing I've been working every day 14-15 hours a day for like a year and then I came here so I'm just I'm going to comfortably come in glued in front of you but I've come to the understanding that today is Ash Wednesday having absolutely no idea what that meant but what I heard was do you want to hook up with us and the answer was yeah I want to hook up yeah I'm alone in the universe man hook up great they could have said look we're gonna go kill the spanish teacher do you want to come i said yeah i'm with you let's go it didn't matter what what we were doing or where we going they were going to include me so i went and we picked up steve that was that was matt and steve we pickedupsteve who had the tupperware container full of cheap red wine and i mean no grapes involved red wine you know what i mean the good stuff right and we went there And I was 12, and they were 13. And the joint came around. It took a pull on the joint, and it burned my lungs. Handed that over there. Then the wine came. It took A pull on The wine. It burned my throat and my stomachs. Please. And it just kept coming around. And I don't know what's going on. I mean, my life's bad, and I'm 12. But, I mean. Just. It happened. That thing that makes me bodily and mentally different from my fellows occurred. Right? Suddenly I was comfortable standing where I was standing, doing what I was doing with the people I was doing it with. I never felt like that before in my life. I was fine. And fine for a guy like me is a spiritual experience. To just be comfortable standing where i'm standing. Everything you have to understand, everything I know about my life, I know in retrospect having gotten sober and done the inventory work and looked back on it. I didn't know what was happening at the time ever. But what had happened to me at that moment was I found the fear killer. I found the thing that could kill the fear in me, that I walked around and I'm a self-centered, frightened alcoholic. That's what I am. I'm that way when I'm drinking, and I're that way when I am not. And usually I'm worse when I am not And I'm standing there I mean, I got this barrel of emotions inside me. I am talking about stuff I haven't talked about in a long time. It's weird Right? There is this barrel of emotions inside me. And there's all kinds of stuff swimming around, all kinds of emotions swimming around on the top. I don't know anybody that feels an emotion for a few days, gets tired of it, and then feels something else. You know what I mean? It's just kind of swimming through you. Since I've been here, I've been frightened, impressed, frightened, curious, frightened happy to see, frightened. You're not just going to bounce them back and forth, right? And I can drink through that stuff like that. The fear, that stuff down at the bottom of the barrel, that deep undercurrent of my emotional life. That's the thing that drives me. I'm emotional today. My God. And you know, I'm a man, so of course. How about those Pats? How about Those Patriots? Let's hide behind sports. Alright. It kills the fear. I gotta drink down to the bottom of the emotional barrel and I gotta kill the fear that's what I gotta do and it's the last thing I feel so I gotta get drunk so the first time I drank I got drunk and the last time I drunk I was trying to get drunk I don't know anything about social drinking I have no experience with it I've never done it I've seen it I find it bizarre you know, the person that can sip and clearly be focused on something other than the fact that they have a drink in their hand. And when they call you for the table, they just put it down. They put it damn, and they get up and they go. And they leave it behind. It's disrespectful. I have a completely different experience with drinking. The change in me is dramatic when I drink. And Father Tom talks about the three stages of alcoholism being, one of the great teachers in AA, talks about there's fun, then there's fund with problems, then there's problems. And I think that I drank and it was fun for maybe a few months. Like almost to 13. You know? know? And there were problems starting to develop. I mean, we knew real, I remembered my childhood when I was watching Charlie learn to swim. I remember being, when I went to learn to swimming, they all got all the kids and they got us in the pool and they taught us, okay, now here's what we're going to do. You're going hold your nose and you're going to go under the water and you are going to open your eyes underwater and then you are going come back up. And I held my nose, I went under the water. I opened up my eyes and said, I like it here. This is good. And a little while later, there was a hand on my neck that pulled me back up. Didn't you hear about the come back up part? There was information there about what was going to happen. I open my eyes under water and my consciousness had been altered. I liked it better. That was like four or five years old. I mean, it was just going to be that way the rest of the ride. 14 was pills, any kind of pills. The only reason I took a pill was a guy said, would you like a couple of pills? And I said, yes, yes I would. Again, I have no idea what we're doing. A couple of bills, 20 minutes later, I'm laying on the floor. I'm very happy down there. You know, got any problems? Nope. You got any goals of any kind? No. Just want to know what those are. What do you call that? Two and all. Well, I don't know two and all Let me ask for that, my name. And just to and all, second all, Placidal, 14 psychedelics, did about 650 acid trips, got legally classified by the military a few years later. That's a whole other story. 15 started shooting dope. Only reason I shot dope is I was on a boat in Marina del Rey and this girl, lovely girl, just a lovely girl. Cammy said, would you like me to stick this in your body? And I said, well, yes, I would. So she hit me that night. It was one of those shots where you just went, and on the way down, all I remember thinking is, if I'm not dead, I'm doing that again. That was excellent. Sixteen, the mental institutions, on and on and off and on. I mean, my story's, it's just fill in the same blanks for all of us. You know what I mean? Trauma, you bet. Diagnose malignant cancer at 20 years old. Prepare yourself to die. And I remember thinking, you don't even know who you're talking to. By the time I was 20 years older, the way I was using that was a possibility twice a week that I was going belly up. So it just didn't major surgery. I'm a long-term cancer survivor. Plan crash, everybody died but me. Mother, father, little sister, I lived. Don't know how Drank and used for another six years Alcoholically And as my drug and alcohol addiction progressed The drugs began to slip away And the alcohol began to assert itself Because when it's all on the line When it's ALL on the LINE It's gotta be alcohol You know what I'm saying? I mean, drugs are unreliable They are There's no quality control going on out there. You don't know what you've got until you get it in your body. I never went to a connection and said, can I have an 8-ball? And the guy said, well, you know what, Earl? Quality's a little bad this week. Come back Thursday, we'll have something a little better for you. No, everybody's the best, it's the greatest, you better cut that again. Right. Just what do you know? It's terrible. No integrity in the drug world. But you go get yourself a fifth of Jack Daniels. You know what you got here. You go get a quart of good gin, you know what you got there. This will get you where you gotta get. You know, there's not, you know, too much acid get a little spooky? Don't worry about it. Jack, I'll get you back in the comfort zone. You know what I mean? You do so much cocaine you can't get your mouth open anymore. You know and it's like seven o'clock and the party just started and you've completely overshot the mark one more time. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Jack will get you back in the zone. Suck a little gin through your teeth, you'll loosen up and go on with the party. You're okay. You know? It's never about, okay, let's just hold for a minute and let everything settle down. That's never the answer. For me, not using was like 10 Quaaludes and 3-4 grams of Coke a day. I was relaxed but alert. That' s the way I was. You know, and it's finding that line, you know, it's findin' that line. And then life on life's terms. I mean there was so much, my life was beginning to get painful. Thank you. Guy's up there toying with me. Life was becoming, getting unmanageable. It was getting un manageable. And on top of the alcoholism progressing and life getting increasingly more difficult for me, there was this other stuff going on that's called life on life's terms. The stuff that I don't have a say in either. Once I'm an alcoholic and I'm in the game, I don'T have a saying what's going on. I mean, I woke up every day thinking, should I drink? Should I use, you know? Use, not use. I used every day. Every day for 16 years, right? And it's like the beast whispering in your ear going, Earl, you know, pretty this up any way you need to. You know? When I wrap a bow around it, you need to think you're involved in the decision making process. Man, you go right ahead. But we will be using today. We will. It's just we're going to get, I'm going to give us where we got to get. The obsession of the mind, the allergy, the body, that's a duo I'm no match for. I'm not a match for it. And then life on life terms. I mean, losing my family in a crash like that. I had pictures in my head I knew I couldn't live with. And I'm drinking and using like a madman when I get out of the hospital, broke every bone in my body practically. And I mean, it was nuts. It was nuts and I just started to drink and use. Crazy man, crazy man. Dying was irrelevant. It wasn't that I was trying to kill myself. It was that if I do this and I die, that's just the way it goes. You know what I mean? You couldn't threaten me with this could kill you. You just couldn't threat me with it. Because as far as I was concerned, life was a lonely, dark place. By the time I got out of that hospital in 1974, November 1974, my attitude about life was, I've renounced God. I have no interest in a God that would do the things that I've seen done. My kind, gentle, sweet, creative little sister would be dead and this lying, cheating, thieving, dope fiend alcoholic is on this planet walking around. there's no this this i i have no do i it's not about love i have no respect i renounce this god and and they'd scavenge the plane wreck and left me up there to die so i had no more love for you either i was out i had no love of man i had in the love of god i was alone and i drank and used like a madman and if you didn't like it step off you don't like the way i drink and use then move away get away from me because i'm not going to stop doing this this is what i do this is my life, this is how it's going to play out I'm going to drink, I'm gonna use I'm just going to die at the end, thank you I had a lousy time and then it started to get down to it where the madness is really on ya, the madness is really on ya and you're out of control and you got nothing to say about it and you are coming to in different cities and youre coming to in conversations with police don't like doing that but I blacked out so many times I remember coming to about 3 o'clock in the morning on Speedway in Venice. Anybody that knows this place, back in those days, 3 p.m. was not a good time to be on Speedways. I'm there at 3 a.m., I come out of the blackout, there's four cops standing there and they're all looking at me and none of them are happy. And I've done this so many times, I know, just keep your hands where everybody can see them and nod. And eventually you'll find out why we're all here. Right? I mean, the only other thing I can do is say, excuse me, officers, I just got here. Just a little thing I do. I'm here, I'm not here, I'm blacking out all over the place. I remember 1978, I was in my fourth detox and I found this little bootleg sanitarium where you had to know the guy who knew the guy who knew where it was this week. And you'd go in and give him 150 cash and you'd give them your wallet and your car keys and your gun and your valium or whatever else you had going on they'd take you and strap you to a gurney shoot you full of anticonvulsants and let you rock for 72 hours and you just kick like a dog and at the end of it you'd get up off of that gurney and they'd say to me they would come to me and they would say this nurse nurse would say Nero, you know you're an alcoholic don't you? Yeah, yeah You know for you to drink is just to create madness mayhem and just rocket you towards death. So now we're all armed with this self-knowledge. You're going to be a good boy, and you're not going to drink your ewes anymore, are you? No, no. I'm not stupid. May I have my Valium, please? I have to go. And I'm loaded in the parking lot. I remember the fourth time in there in 1978 I'm kicking like a dog on that gurney, I'm strapped down and it's oh yeah I'm riding I'm in a place and a lot of you know this place I'm In The Place where you're amazed you're in so much pain that you're actually now detached from yourself and you're amazing that the body is still alive and that the mind is able to track any kind of information at all, that you have not gone completely insane and just died is a testimony to the workings, to the physical nature of man. It's just unbelievable the pain you're in. And I reintroduced myself to that God. That's how bad it got for me. I said, you know, me again. I know we haven't been talking, but look. You get me out of this sane and alive because both seem to be up for grabs right now and I promise you that I will never, ever, ever drink or use again as long as I live. My ass is kicked. I surrender. I'm an alcoholic. I've known I'm an alcoholic since I was 16 and a half years old. I know that I'm that, and I meant that with every fiber of my being. I meant it. I wasn't pulling a fast one. I wasn'T trying to get over on God, man. I was so hands up. I give. I get it. I cannot do this another day, and I got up off that gurney and I drank for two more years because I couldn't stop drinking, and in the end for me, I was 28 years old, I was 215 pounds. I had hair out like this, a beard like this. I was psychotic, and I don't use the term loosely. My family was dead. I had no friends. I had No Place to Live. My thyroid was shut down, heart swollen, couldn't touch the kidneys or the liver. They're deciding whether or not to charge me with attempted murder again. I got over 650 stitches in me. I've been stabbed twice, shot at. The violence has been insane. I've broken 74 bones, and I'm done. I come out of a blackout, and I have the moment of clarity. This is the direct result of my alcoholism. God didn't do this to me. The FBI didn't doing this to me. The FBI had me for 30 years when I was 19 years old for interstate trafficking and the only, and I used to tell people I beat the case, I didn't beat the case, they screwed up and it didn't happen. Just luck, dumb, the key word here, dumb luck, you know? And now here I'm standing and I got nothing left. My life is over. I've flatlined my life. I've burned it to the ground. And it's the only way a guy like me was ever going to come to you. I had too much information that said, You're nothing, Earl. You're never going to be anything. You've never been any good at being in the company of other people. You've not been good at this. You've been good. You've just never been good enough at being alone. You're no good at doing this. Let's just wrap this up and save the space for somebody who might be able to do something with it. That was my information. And I just threw up two broken hands, and I said, help. And they took me to the hospital. They pumped my stomach. They said, get him out of here. He's dying. They took me another place. I stayed there three, five days. I don't know. Then they took my bionics to another joint where I kicked for 17 days and did another 30 days on a free bed. But where I kick was 21 cots on each side of the room with sheets drawn between them, 42 guys in one room kicking. It's like Dante's Inferno in this joint. And how you got your cot was you got in it and you stayed. If you stayed, that was your cot. and I knew one thing when I left there they talked about lots of stuff but the one thing I heard was from Ray W Ray W said to me Earl if you don't want to die you've got to go to Alcoholics Anonymous it's the only place where a guy like you has a shot and I had been as the book says beaten into a state of reasonableness and I said okay and on a Friday night I was in the basement of a church 8.30pm meeting mad dog and everybody that looked at me you know, you looked at me, he's like, what do you want? Because my alcoholism was in full effect. I'd spent 42 days being relieved of the physical phenomenon of craving, but the obsession of the mind, the greater aspect of my disease was in fall effect. I was thinking the way I think. I didn't know you could think any other way. And I came in and how I went to meetings, I sat in the back, I checked where the doors and the windows are. I didn' t talk to anyone. I looked around there, scanned the room to see who had the juice in here, see who looked like they were in charge I slid up on them, burglarized the conversations they were having and I'm out I'm not going to tell you who I am because the truth of the matter is if I tell you who I are you're going to ask me to leave because you look like reasonable people and that's what reasonable people would do and I didn't have any place else left to go so I was quiet never took a chip didn't take a cake until I was three didn't say a word nay for two and a half years I just sat in the back and this guy, the first meeting I went to the guy got up, we were talking about it today some of us, and I got up this guy gotup and he shared his experience I didn't know that's what he was sharing and I don't even know what he said because the words weren't what was important to me it felt real it felt like that guy knows and I left with a feeling and I left with a little pilot light on side in me, I had hope. Another alcoholic gave me the hope nobody else could give me. Nobody. Because I wouldn't listen to anybody. Anybody. But that guy, that total stranger, because he looked, it was like he said, it was as if 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 it? Go to another meeting. I loved that. Because it made it clear to me this guy's not selling me something. He's sharing it with me. If I want it, I can have it. It's for free. If I don't want it, don't worry about it. Go to another meeting. Maybe they'll hear somebody that you can identify with. And I left thinking – I mean, I had a look at the stain on my face for you that whole meeting. But I left think this is cool and coming back. And last November was 24 years for me. And I couldn't stay sober for a day. You're clapping for yourselves because I didn't do it. all the tools I have today all of the things of any value whatsoever that are happening in my life today are the direct result of the men and women who came before me who shared their experience their strength and their hope with me they shared their experience I'd say well you know I don't know how to work and they'd say well my experience of work is it's really good if you show up in the morning got it you know what I mean they talked to me that way they talked to me in simple terms which was the way I mean And I was talking to Dick about how I said, you know, I don't want to speak anymore. I don' t want to talk about that later. But I made this promise to Steve and this is going to be the one time this year that I speak. And I said to Dick, you just get so scared and nervous and it's still so difficult for me. And he said, just start. I went, got it. That I can do. You know, simple action. Simple action. Do this. Thank you. I'll go do that. Don't talk to me in an ethereal way. Don't give me theory. Don't tell me action that will bring about change, contrary action that would bring about change. I didn't know that a meeting was a place where a newcomer can come to hear a message of hope and recovery, that that was the whole point of a meeting, was to come and get what you had, that you were waiting for guys like me. I didn't know that, but I felt it. I felt It. And I kept coming back and I kept coming back. And they said, get a sponsor. I said, okay, what's a sponsor? And he said, a sponsor is somebody who's got what you want, Earl. And I said. I would like to drink. Maybe it's a little early to be throwing the ball back in my court. Right? And so what I've come to believe is get a Sponsor who's got what he wants. That's a pretty good definition of happiness, wanting what you have. So the sponsorship that I've had through sobriety, I went out and I got a sponsor. I got the late great Donald Madden to sponsor me. On the outside, nothing in common. Donald was this tall, handsome, vibrant, larger than life, just big, flamboyant gay man. And I had met him earlier in my life in a business business meeting. He's the only representative of Alcoholics Anonymous that ever crossed my path. For a long time, movie theaters, studios would come to me and say, we want to make a movie about your life. We want to make an album about your live. I'd say, get away from me. Get away from here. And I'm in this one meeting, and Donald was the set designer or the producer in the meeting. And we're sitting there talking, and I'm getting up every five minutes and going to the bathroom. And in the middle of the meeting, Donald says, Earl, I just want to let you know that there's an organization called Alcoholics Anonymous, and if you don't get there, you're going to die. And my mouth dropped open because the people in that business meeting had been working with Donald for six years, and none of them knew he was in AA. He broke his anonymity. Eighteen months before I got to AA, he broke his anonymety in a business meeting to tell me that there was a place I needed to get to. And I remember thinking, that's really nice. A little dramatic, but nice. So he gives me his card right now you gotta understand i wasn't doing the kind of business in those days where you need cards so when people give you cards you just thank you right so now 18 months later i'm in aa i'm going to meetings and i'm looking at this i'm talking this girl outside thursday night brentwood beginners workshop and i said uh can't find a sponsor and out of all the great great solid recovering aa men in that part of town she says to me have you ever heard of this guy named Donald Madden. And I got chills. And I said, that's very weird. I'm going home. And I went home and I pulled out my phone book and I turned to M and there was one business card paperclip there and it was Donald's card. I thought even weirder, getting weirter by the minute. I dialed the number and he answered the phone the way he always did. Donald Madden! I said Donald you probably don't remember me. My name's Earl Hightower. And he said, oh, yes, I do. I said, well, I've been going to these A&A meetings and I thought it would be nice if I could talk to you. Be at my office at nine tomorrow. Click. I thought short, but got the message. All right. So I went over to his house and I said will you sponsor me? He said what? I said well you sponsor me. And she said yeah, I'll sponsor you. You don't have to like. And I just put I had done and cried. Because I didn't realize when I did that, that it had been so long since I'd asked anybody for help. I'd ask anybody for anything. Would you sponsor me? Would you go out of your way to be there for a worthless human being like me? I got nothing anybody wants. Would You Help Me? He said yes. And I just started crying. And it was so great. I'm laying there sobbing like, you know, I'm doing the lip sucking thing and you know? And he looks over me at his assistant and says, and I quote, oh wonderful, he's destroyed. And I'm thinking, what have I done? The man's thrilled. I didn't understand that he realized, look, there's just so little in the way. He was delighted. Look, there so little in the way here. This guy's a wreck. We can just pour AA into this empty vessel. There's nothing in theway, right? And he said, 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. And I thought to myself and I said, deal. Thinking to myself, I can work around that. Because my alcoholism was still in full effect. And oh, next thing you know, I'm going to seven to nine meetings a week. I'm calling my sponsor on a daily basis. I call that man every single day until the day he died almost 14 years later. I was with him long, I spent more, he's the most single most important person in my life. Family, community, doctors, nurses, lawyers, you know. Him. Him. He's the one that I trusted. He was the only human being on the face of the earth I trusted for the first two and a half years I was sober. And he rebuilt me from to ground up. And what he gave me was Alcoholics Anonymous. He didn't tell me about it. He showed it to me. He never said, go to a meeting. He said, we're going to a meeting. We're going, we'll go into Ohio street and the meeting starts at 830. Be there at eight click. He ever called me up and said, Earl do you feel like a meeting? How do you feel about going to meeting? There's a guy on the corner of six in Santa Monica, Earl. If you got him, you think you could take the time to pick the guy up? No, I got, I could Come home and go, Louie's on the corner at 6 in Santa Monica. Pick him up and bring you to the meeting. Click. Perfect way to talk to me. It was the perfect way to speak to me because I knew in his eyes that he loved me. I knew from the way he was with me that he cared about me and he was showing me you don't have to like this or think it's a good idea. If you do it, it'll work. Contrary action brings about a contrary experience. Change occurs in your life and if we've ever met anybody who's looking for a little change, it's you. and there were a lot of times they would be talking and I would say you know I have a thought on that and he'd say no you see Earl we don't want what you have we see how that's gone for you you know and I think rude fair but rude God and he just loved me back into life man And the meeting's Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm going to seven, nine meetings a week. I got commitments every night. I'm picking up new guys and bringing them to meetings. I'm doing the whole deal. I'm in the thing, and I'm getting nuts. And I go to this old-timer, and I say, what's up with this? I am doing everything you people talk about. And I am getting squirrelier by the day here. What's going on? And this old guy looks at me, and he just says, Earl, saw you come in. If you don't get a program, you're gonna die. Get away from me. i said hold on a minute you old bastard seven to nine meetings a week calling my sponsor on a daily basis taking out panels never turning down any requests he said earl that's the fellowship vital to your recovery glad you're doing it but if you don't get a program which you'll find in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, you're going to die. Get away from me. I said, fine, pastor. Went and got a, me and Christopher got our big books together and we started following around the guys that we used to avoid at all costs, the book guys. And we decided we'd get these things and we'd read the book. This is Christopher and I reading the book, sitting in the room, yeah, yeah. Hey, hey You know that thing they say in AA? There it is, right there Actually go on to explain it a little bit It's amazing Yeah, okay, okay Hey look There's another one The best kept secret In Alcoholics Anonymous The big book And I think the reason most of us don't go anywhere near it is because there's nothing really dramatic about it. I mean, if they were to say to us, okay, look, you're now a member of AA. Don't tell anybody, but there's an AA library deep in the Yucatan Peninsula. You go there, there's 100,000 secret volumes of 12-step recovery. You got to get right on it. I mean we would all just go get in the car. Wow, that's big. I'm in. Right? No, we just go, here's a book. Good luck. It's like a book, it becomes a coaster, it's over there, it levels the table, you know. And you don't even have to read the whole thing. If you read The Doctor's Opinion in the first 164 pages, you're in. That's where the 12 steps are found, the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I talked about some of that stuff in the relationship workshop. Oddly, they are connected. and what I found was this there's this triangle with a circle around it it's an ancient spiritual symbol it stands for mind, body and spirit brought together as a whole human being and therein lies the balance that I've sought my whole life and I've never known drunk or sober up to that point Alcoholics Anonymous adopted that symbol and it's the same thing. The mind, body, and spirit is unity, service, and recovery. Unity is the body. I bring it here. I couldn't get sober, but we seem to be able to. We seem to being able to together. The recoveries of the mind, the greater aspect of my disease, this idea that I can be free to the prison of the mind, that I could get out of here and come out in here and be, just be with you. So I work the 12 steps which are, that's what they're designed for is to relieve me obsession. That's what they're designed for. Restore me to sanity, soundness of mind, relieve me of the obsession of drinks. I work the steps. Step one, what's the problem? Lack of power. That is my dilemma. If that is my problem, what is my solution? Step two, that a power greater than myself could restore me to insanity. Relieve me of the obsession so that I can walk the earth a free man. If I accept that, step three says make a decision to do something about this information. So I got down on my knees and turn my will and my life over to the care of a God I didn't understand. Admittedly, I mean, the only reason I was even thinking about the idea of God is because I'd been in AA ranting and raving about there is no God and this and that and the other thing till Donald Madden just quietly turned and looked at me and said, Earl, you can't be mad at a God you don't believe in. Which was just one more of those, you know, AA two by fours in the forehead where, you knows what I mean? He's just like, I'm going home. i gotta think that over god you know and every time i'd say i gotta think that overdone i'll say well for god's sakes don't do that god he was just the best man uh and when donald died i was without a sponsor for three hours and i remember uh i'm watering his i'm out in his garden watering his plants and just crying like a baby. And we're all waiting for him to come get the body because the word had gone out and all his boys, man, we were all there looking after each other. And I heard his voice in my head that said, get a sponsor, you little son of a bitch. You cannot be allowed to walk the earth unattended. And then I just, my mind went blank and I went, cause it had never even occurred to me that anyone would ever sponsor me but him. I couldn't imagine, you And I thought, I said, I need a seat at the same table. Who sits at that table? And the name Al, Al signs. Pop just rolled through my head. So they're crying and I called them up. And I said Al Donald's there, will you sponsor me? He said of course, well I love him. And Al was my sponsor for the next six years until I moved to another area. And he's actually my sponsor this week while I'm here. And because I knew that he loved and respected Donald and Donald loved and respected him so I just went to another seat at the same time and it was seamless sponsorship. So anyway, I do those first three steps. I know what the problem is. I know What the solution is. I make a decision to do something about it. I then immediately embark upon a plan of action or the whole thing's a complete waste of time. Four and five is me. Six and seven is God. And eight and nine is you. There's nobody else to play with. Four and four is me, Four and six and five, I swallow large chunks of truth about myself doing an inventory as outlined in the big book on resentment, fear, and sex. Because if you want to find out ways that I will whack out, these are some good areas to check out. six and seven i hook it back up with god and ask god to remove my defects of character because i'll remove the wrong stuff eight and nine i'm very very sorry that i stole your car i estimate the value of the car twenty thousand dollars at the time of the theft if that's acceptable to you here's a check and i'll pay you this amount monthly until that amount is paid off and amends means to change so i will not go steal your car and sell it to pay you for the car i stole from you i'm out i'm not doing that anymore change this is to bring about change that's what i need i've built such walls between myself and other human beings and myself and god and it's my job to tear them back down and that's where the steps give me access to al talked to you on the night about gotta get in there man gotta get the Get between those That's all he ever said to me was Learn to meditate and get in there I was like, alright I was a little slow Al's a kind, loving and gentle man I was not, no, no We're talking about now If you think about it though When I would drink and use It was all about I'm restless. I'm irritable. I'm discontented. I got to get out of here right now. I got it. I got get out of here right now not be here right now I got to get out of here right now this is not fun I don't feel good right so I like down and out alcohol heroin barbiturates these are a few of my favorite things my idea of a good night sitting around checking my pulse I don' need a TV I don need a woman I don need a window just heart and lungs working I'm good Yep, there it's beating again. Good. That's great. But if I can't go down, let's go up. I'll take a great big bag of the cocaine. Sure. I'm happy. I'll drive the freeways, decode and license plates. Let's go. You know, I'll get psychotic. No problem. It's an old neighborhood I'm familiar with. Let'S go right up or down doesn't matter. It'S about, I got to get out of right here right now. What work in the steps, turning your will and your life over to the care of God, getting a sponsor, being involved in these meetings, turning yourself over to us. What that is, is it will get me back to right now. It will give me back the only place I can have a life. The only place i can live. The only places i can love you. The only placed i can have any honor or dignity as a man is now. I can't have it in a few minutes. I just can't happen in a two minutes but i can't habit now. I can be a kind and gentleman now. I don't know about five minutes from now. But right now I can if I'm with this, if I're free to the prison of the mind. If the whole thing isn't about me. If the thinking has been subdued. And the only thing that does that is constant and ongoing contrary action on my part. You know why I go to Al with 41 years of sobriety? Because he's been doing exactly the same thing I'm doing but a whole lot longer. He's still doing it. He's not riding. He's nicht coasting. He's going to the next level and the next level and there's a light up there that says, how do I get over there? What new stuff do I have to add to my game to get there? And the answer is nothing. Chop the wood and carry the water of Alcoholics Anonymous. Trust God, clean house, help others. That's what the steps are about. Trust God clean house help others those six words Franklin W Olive Branch Mississippi. He got them directly from Bill Wilson. I got them directly from him. Standing in the back of a room 19 years ago at a conference in South Bay Manhattan Beach, California Franklin W. saying I'll sum up Alcoholics Anonymous in four and six words trust God, clean house, help others me, God, and you there ain't nothing else nobody else to play with so I've got to do those steps 10, 11, and 12 keep me in the game because I've just made a pass at this I've gotta keep chopping the wood I've Gotta Keep Carrying the Water and you say well if you're doing the same thing aren't you going to get the same results hell no the planet's spinning I'm changing this information is changing me I walk through the 12 steps they change you you cannot take that action and not have it affect you when you go back to step 1 is it the same step? yes am I looking at it from the same perspective? no there's an old Zen saying you can't step in the same river twice that's thousands of years old and it still holds up because it's the nature of things that's what I have to do So when the next guy comes up and says, will you sponsor me? I don't say, you know, I've already sponsored about 1,200 guys. I said, nah, get somebody else because I already got everything I can get out of that. That's not the deal. Sandy Beach talked about it when he talked about it's not about whether the world is being fair to me. It's whether or not I'm being fair in the world. I thought that the big prize here was going to be if I was loving towards you, you would love me. If I loved you,you'd love me If I told you the truth, you'd tell me the truth. That's what I wanted. I wanted the exchange. But that's not what's happened. I was missing the buzz. The buzz is that if I love you, I become a loving man. If I'm honest with you, I'll become an honest man. And the thing is, I'm so flawed. With this trust God, clean house, help others thing, I got a shot, man. I'm a human. I'm flawed. It's my nature to be looking over my shoulder. It's My nature to think I'm not going to get what I want. And I start thinking about it all and it just gets all screwed up. I got to not get into that prayer, meditation, service to others. I get it wrong all the time. I screw up all the times. I'm a flawed man. And I'm in conflict with self. I'm In conflict with God and I'm conflict with others. It's the nature of being human and alive. The difference is that those conflicts are very different than they used to be. Do I have problems? Yes. But I have the best problems I have ever had in my life. I got problems in areas where I didn't even used to have areas. And all it's been is the truth. Sandy told us when he said, well, this is my problem. Well, you should probably go to meetings. And they told him, you Should Probably Go to Meetings. You Should Probably Sponsor Somebody. You Should probably pray and meditate. You Should Probably Get Out of Stuff and Be a Service. How can that be the answer to everything? Well, just try it. Go in your life and see where trusting God, cleaning house, helping others is in direct opposition to your growth, your peace, your centeredness, your ascension, the expanding of your consciousness in a way that has nothing to do with your thinking. To understanding that none of this requires my approval. None of it. So I work these steps, and the life I've got today, man, is beyond my wildest dreams. I'm still changing. I still sponsor a lot of guys. I am still sponsored. I check in with a sponsor regularly. The samurai, Luther, is my sponsor. He's the samurai, man. He's that guy that walks in the room and everybody just calms down because Luther's here. You know? It's powerful, man Love is powerful. sure it beats anger resentment hostility aggression beats them all beats them all I can't come from a place of love and fear in the same sentence now I sponsor these guys and they're getting their turn and I got to tell one story because I mean it's Al what's a part of it I'm sponsoring this guy right well first of all me at a meeting when I was new was a horrifying thing it was really just a terrible thing because I mean I would go to Ohio Street on a Saturday night and I would drive up and I'd go there it is found it so that's the inside of my head there it's good we're going to go inside they put the keys in the seat put the key in the sheet find the key with the key in the suit there's a guy with a red coat sit next to the guy with the red coat put your key in his seat and that'll be good good good good alright go outside smoke smoke smoke smoke smoke smoke smoke smoke smoke smoke smoke smoke smoke smoke smoke smoke smoke smoke smoke smoke smoke smoke smoke we're going to go to the meeting, how you doing? How you doing fine. How you don't find, how you know, fine. The guy's up. He's talking, he's talking. He's reading something. He's read it. He's writing something. He's written 12 things. He's rarely saw something. He rarely saw something. I don't know. I missed that. I don' t know what I mean. 12 things in AA. 12 things in AA, 12 things in ABC. He's down. I didn't get a lot of that, but it was 12 things in ABC, 12 things in ABC good, good, good, good. All right, we're good. We're good. All right, we're going on. We're going. There's a guy who's up. He's talking. He's walking. I did that. I did it. I did. I did what? I did this. I did all of this. I did everything. I love that guy. Get me that guy! He's gone. That was great. I want to talk to that guy Wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait. Now there's another guy. They're up. He's reading 12 things. Those aren't the same 12 things There's 24 things ABC 24 things A-B-C Now they're passing a basket They're passing their basket Why are they passing it? Oh, oh, oh Don't take the money don't take the money, don't take the money, don't take the money. Now they're up, they're up. We're going outside. What are we doing? Why aren't we going outside? We're gonna smoke. Smoke. I smoke. I smoke. How you doing? Fine. I'm doing fine. I already told And I'm getting cracked open. I don't even know it. I don'T EVEN KNOW IT. The tractor beam is on me, and they're pulling me in. I'M GETTING SUCKED UP. It's like, this is amazing. And I go home, and I'm crying all the way home. And I'M WALKING IN MY LITTLE ONE-ROOM APARTMENT. AND I GET AN HOUR'S SLEEP. AND I get up, andI DO IT AGAIN. GO BACK TO ALCOHOLICS. NO, I'M JUST GONNA SOMETHING. GOTTA GET THE SEAT, GET THE... JUST INSANE. AND I'D LEAVE THE MEETING, AND THEY'D SAY, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE MEATING? I'D SAY IT WAS GREAT. Now I got Lou I hear that Al is speaking Saturday night on Ohio Street He's going to throw it down Pearls of wisdom The guy talks, you just get better Like Al talks about the four noble truths The first noble truth is all life is suffering When you can acknowledge that You can get to a path to happiness And what Al does He says this about a lot of other people What Al does is Al relieves the suffering of alcoholics That's what he does And what a thing What a thing to do, man And I gotta get Louie Louie's got nine months I gotta take Louie And we gotta go to the meeting And Louie has to hear Al Because Al is going to throw down And I feel so blessed To be a part of the human chain That can bring Louie Sitting down and go Al, do it Do it to Louie You did it to me Do it for Louie I'm gonna watch It's gonna be great I need popcorn This is gonna be good It's going to be great We go to The Meeting Sure enough, Al's there Because Al can't help it. He's throwing it down, man. It's happening and I'm thinking, isn't this great? No. No. Louie's not having the same meeting I'm having at 14 years of sobriety. It took me all 14 of those years to be able to hear something as simple and profound as the concepts that Al is laying out for us to take. Louie, it's just... You know? Louie sitting next to me listening to Al going... and i'm looking at louis going that's good and we leave and i say louis what'd you think of the meeting he goes it was great and i just go okay i won louis won you know why we're two alcoholics in completely different head spaces and we're together common problem common solution i've met a lot of people on this weekend. This is a group that under other circumstances probably wouldn't mix, but we're all alcoholics. You know, we have a common problem and a common solution. The solution is of a spiritual nature. We're all trying to break down our resistance to trusting God, cleaning house and helping others. We'RE all moving forward. I mean, if you're new, please just come with us. Just come with US. You don't have to like it or think it's a good idea. We'll love you till you can love yourselves. We're be there for you. People as broken and useless and destroyed as I was when I got here, come here and lead reasonably decent, valuable, productive lives. I'm married. I got a couple of dogs. I've got a house. I watered the plants out front. When we bought the house, we got the house and we moved in, right? And I got neighbors. And the neighbors came over to the fences and said, hi, I'm Mark. Mark's over here. And I said, And he's going, hi, I'm Tom. And Tom is over there, right? And I'm thinking, they don't know. They don't knows moved into the neighborhood. But I'm looking at the front lawn. It's got like plants and grass and stuff in the front. And I am looking down and it's a very nice neighborhood. And very nice lawns and flowers and plant-like things all up and down the street. And I think, I got to do something with this. Because, I mean, how do you spot the drug addicts, right. Beautiful lawn, beautiful lawn, dead lawn, beautiful lawn. There's the addicts right there. Those guys. It's a red flag to the neighborhood. So you've got to water the plants. Fine, there's a hose out front. I get the water. I get to the hose and I'm watering. I'm throwing the water around. Hi, how are you doing? Throwing the water up. And it's like in the afternoon and the sun's coming through the sycamore trees and it's hitting the water on the plants and it'S doing that little dancing thing that the water does on the plants. And I'm thinking, all right, this is kind of good. And then I'm thinking back to the old school days and I'm thinking, you know, if I'm not mistaken, this stuff's alive. And not only that, but plants are breathing in carbon dioxide and breathing out oxygen while I am standing right here breathing in the oxygen and out the carbon dioxide. We got a little thing going on here. Here's a little more for you, my brother. Here's the little more for you my sister. And I'm getting a buzz now man. This is good. Now you may have to water your lawn. I get to. I run in the house to my wife and say honey, they're alive. And she just rolls her eyes at me and just goes yeah you got some more friends in the backyard. Go back there and play with them. I'm in the back. I don't have to stand in line. I get too. I don't have to be an alcoholic, I get to I don' t have to love you I get too That's the beautiful thing about this The power of choice has been returned I can get between those If I'm willing to sit still And try to quiet the mind And still the body And let what happens, happens If I get out of myself and be of service to you Coming back to me gets easier to do Because I seem to be a better place When I'm thinking about you and not about me It's available to anybody that is willing to just take the next indicated step. You know, I love you. I love you. But the most amazing thing is that I know Peg loves me. That's the most amazing thing. And that Steve loves me you know steve back there loves me tom loves me you know amy loves me i mean there's people in it and i i've never been able to feel that in there you can in there you can what cannot be fixed can be restored here what the impossible is a piece of cake around here it is All you have to do is come here and do a few simple things on a daily basis, and it all changes. I love you. I wish you peace. Thanks.