The Fear Killer That Made Him Comfortable – Earl H.

It's my pleasure to introduce you with gratitude, Brother Earl Hightower, North Scottsdale, A.Z. Hi everybody, my name is Earl, I'm an alcoholic. Oh yeah, you guys do the sobriety thing, sobrietry day. November 6th, 1980. Yeah. 39. 39 years. You round it up. Thanks, man. Sponsors Luther W., the Samurai. North Scottsdale Fellowship Hall. What else do you want to know? Servicemen. Sponsor it. A lot of guys. yeah and all of them they're either working the steps or somebody else is sponsoring them um and I want to thank you guys for asking me to come up here and share it's always an honor and a privilege to do something like this and it's been a real rare experience to be up here and hang out with you guys I met a lot of really cool guys up here in the last couple of days I've had a good time. Yeah, man. Here we go. Right? Chains up. Here we Go. Today's Pearl Harbor Day, so I just wanted to say to everybody that's currently serving in the military, everybody with relatives that were there on that fateful day in Hawaii at Pearl Harbor All the rest, thank you very much for your service and everything you do for the country. Thank you. So, I didn't start drinking until I was 12. I waited as long as I possibly could, man. I was restless, irritable, and discontented for quite some time prior to that first drink. As the therapist once said to me, she said, Honey, you've been looking over your shoulder since you were four years old. And I remember being startled by that remark until I actually thought about it, and she was right. I grew up in a violent home. My old man was a wild man. He was a dangerous individual, and I learned that early and often. And 12 years old, I got shipped off to boarding school. I'm going to get sober as quick as I can, but got to qualify. That's what this portion of this is all about, I guess, the speaker boy. I got shifted off to the boarding school, it was 250 boys. And how I found out I was going to boarding schools, my father came in my room and said, Get in the car! All right. I went outside, and there were two cars, motors running, right? And a bunch of relatives. Some of them I'd never even seen before, right, and I got in this car, and we drove and drove and dove and drove and pulled up in front of this place by this mountain. Nobody got out of the car. My father got out. I got out he put a suitcase down next to me. He shook my hand. He said, This will make a man out of you. Got back in the car, everybody left. It's like, Okay, I guess I live here now, all right, And it turns out it was 250 students, and they had scoured the earth to find 250 of the brightest, most disturbed young kids they could find. And there were 249 teenagers and one 12-year-old. I mean, I was the youngest and smallest kid in the old school, right? And I was scared of my own shadow, right, but I'd grown up in a violent home, and I'd known, man, you know, you can't back up, you got to go forward. So I was walking around campus in the first week, you know, my books under my arm, trying not to make eye contact with anybody. And I ran into Tiny. Every high school's got a guy named Tiny, right? 6'4", 240, plays guard on the football team. You know, and Tiny found me, really. Tiny said, out in the quad in front of everybody, man, he just said, how you doing, punk? And he slapped me in the back of the head and sent me and my books just flying, right. Now, I get it that Tiny figured he just, you know there's a new kid and we'll just you know here's an introduction to boarding school kid you know good luck he just smacked a little kid that's all he did he didn't realize it he had hit somebody that was willing to die over this right so i got up and i walked over and i belted tiny as hard as i possibly could and just stood there glaring at him right because the punch it had no effect whatsoever right and tiny looked down I mean, he said, you got a lot of guts, kid. And then he beat the crap out of me, right? And as I'm taking the beating, I'm thinking this is going pretty good, you know? Because the violence had masked my fear. So my first tool for, you now, life was when frightened, attack. If you're coming at people, they don't think, hmm, what a frightened little fellow he is, right. So, you kno, word spread across, so I go back to my dorm room sitting there waiting for the bleeding to stop, right, And word spreads like wildfire across this campus. Watch out for this little Hightower kid. He's a maniac. He attacked Tiny, right? Which is not actually true, right. And so the cool guys came around. I mean, this took like 30 minutes, right, and this kid Matt stuck his head in my room, and he goes, hey, bro, you want to smoke a joint? And I said, yes, I do. And I didn't even know what that meant, you know what I mean? And all I heard was, you want to hook up with us? And it was like, yeah, man, I feel like an astronaut or something. Man, I've just been launched out into the world. I have no idea what's happening, right? I'm five feet tall, 104 pounds, soaking wet. You know what I mean? It's like, I'm not prepared for manhood. You know What I'm saying, right. And we picked up Steve on the way and Steve had a Tupperware container full of cheap red wine, like no grapes involved, red wine, you know, the fortified stuff, right, We met a little mad dog, right? We went behind the dorm. Two 13-year-olds and a 12-year old and standing by this big oak tree. And he took a pull on the wine and handed it to me and I took a pulled on the line and you know how it goes down and hits the bottom of your stomach and then just kind of that vapor action thing kind of wafts back. It's nasty, man. It's going down. It's floating back up, right. And I was like, no thanks, right Let me try that joint, right? So I got the joint, took a hit off of that. You know what I'm saying. It's in your DNA. I don't know how I knew how to grab a joint. I'd never grabbed one before, but there must be somebody in my DNA, in my history, that smoked a lot of weed because when he held out the joint I knew that there were three moves that seemed like one. You know, you applied the index finger, you know, you rolled towards you, popped with the thumb and release, right? And it was just, fwap, I got the joint. So I took a hit off the joint, it burned, right, and I said, that is nasty, man, let me try that wine one more time, right. So we got the circle going, and now I'm standing here, two complete total strangers, Matt, Steve, and they stand behind this door, babies, we were babies standing behind this dorm getting high and I mean it happened that thing that makes me bodily and mentally different from my fellows occurred and suddenly I'm comfortable standing where I'm standing doing what I'm doing with the people I'm dealing with and I've never felt like that before in my life and I don't know, is it the pot is it you know, the wine is it that fact that I'm stand here with my very close personal friends Matt and Steve because these are my boys now You know what I mean? I'm feeling it, right? I don't know what it is and I don' t care. Because I have to remember that it's the truth. The truth is that it worked perfectly. It did exactly what I needed it to do. It was the fear killer. I had this big barrel of emotions inside me. And I don''t know anybody that feels one thing for a while and gets tired of that and then feels something else and then gets bored with that and dann feels it. you know they float they come and they go there's an ebb and a flow to our emotional state and you know what's what's affecting us you know girl walks by i'm thinking certain things buddy walks by hey man how you doing thinking certain Things right get asked to speak a little scary get feeling something all these things are floating around right i can drink through all that stuff in nothing flat but way down at the bottom of my emotional life at the bottom of that barrel, the deep undercurrent is fear. That's the thing that runs me. And I can't get comfortable unless I kill the fear. And if it's the last thing I feel, I have to get drunk to get done what I'm there to get down. So I was never a social drinker. I was there to drink away everything I felt from my very first drink, right? So if there's a line that we cross, I crossed it without hesitation right woke up the next morning nobody died nobody no blood was drawn you know as a result of drinking and using I was a mess right but that was from an earlier incident with tiny right and nobody gone to the nut house nobody died you know nothing bad happened it was all gonna happen but it didn't happen that night all I knew was nothing bad happens feel better than you've ever felt before in your life, I'm in. I'm In. I need to find Matt and Steve as quickly as possible. And so there was a humble beginning. It's just a little weed and a little wine, man. 13 was pills. The only reason I took a pill is I was on a 10-hour pass and a guy walked up to me and he said, I was at this party and this guy said, I'm 13 years old. And this guy goes, holds out two pills. He goes, do you like a couple of pills? And I said, yes, I would. took them popped them in nope what were those which is the difference between us one of the many differences between us and the normal man you know i just i had just swallowed them and i knew i had you know a few minutes and i just need a little information that's all you know it's all i need should i lay down or should I get ready to paint the house? What are we doing? Which way are we going, man? I don't care. And that's the thing I've got to remember too, man. I like to think of myself... I like heroin, alcohol, barbiturates. These are a few of my favorite things. My idea of a good night is sitting around checking my pulse, you know what I mean? right in there man I don't need a window I don' t need a woman I don''t need a TV man you alright cool I just like that but here is the truth if I go to hook up and that's not what's available I'm sorry but all we have is a giant amount of cocaine I say I'll have that please if we can't go down let's go up right i'm very happy let's get this going right let's get on that freeway start decoding license plates you know what i mean get on window patrol you know because i mean the truth is man it's not about up or down it's about i got to get out of right here right hit now because right here right now i'm restless i'm irritable i'm discontented Right here, right now, I'm comparing your outsides to my insides and I'm losing every time. So, you know, that's the truth about it for me. It's a symptom of the underlying issue, which is me. You know, I am trying to fix this, right? And just doing the best I can. Fourteen was psychedelics. The only reason I took a psychedelic, you now, at the 60s, I was on a 10-hour pass with Debbie. Debbie was a very bad girl. and I will love her till the day I die, man. Debbie said, do you want to drop some acid? And I said, yes, I do, Debbie. And Debbie rolled up a lipstick tube and on the end of it was this little pill and I just took it off, put it in my mouth and swallowed it, right? And she looked at me and said, did you just take that whole thing? And I'm like, no, I didn't. And she said, of course I did. It was a very tiny pill. You know, I'm used to these big old three grain horse caps. You know what I mean? And she said, that was three hits of white lightning. A little identification in the room. People are like, oh, yeah. Next two days were very interesting. We don't got time for that now, but yeah, yeah, about 650 hits later, I got classified legally insane by the military, which is another story we don't have time for. But you know, I was willing. they wanted no part of me no, no you stay home young man don't come fucking up our thing so anyway at 15 I started shooting dope the only reason I shot dope was on a boat in Marina Del Rey with a girl named Cammie there's always a girl lovely, lovely lady She said, would you like me to stick this in your body? And I said, I am certain of it. And she did, and it was one of those shots where you just kind of go. And on the way down, all I remember thinking was, you know what, if I'm not dead, I'm doing this again. You know, because that was awesome, right? You know? I'm going to need more information about that. You know, and on and on it goes. You know the story, right? Sixteen, I drop out of high school. My father steps back in my life, says, you've gone insane. Throws me in the nut house. Three months of observation, a year of rehabilitation. I think that's a little excessive, right, so I talk my way out of that. Go back on the street doing what we do. They throw a net over me, drag me back in. And I've learned now that when you get thrown in a nut house, you got to get out before they get the Thorazine in you because if you don't, you're leaving when they say because Thorazine got two speeds, slow and stopped. That's it. Right? There are no sudden moves on Thorazin and you usually find that out as you're making your big break. Very demoralizing. When you hear from the nurse's station, yeah, I'll get him in a minute. Let me finish this sandwich. chubby. You've got the arms working, the whole thing. Back to the room with no doorknob. Second time they got me in a nut house, I escaped during the intake process and I was out and over that fence and gone before they knew what was happening, man. Spent three years out on the street doing what we do, right? Ended up in business college because that's a reasonable thing to do under my circumstances. And I'd become a drug dealer, of course. And And I had no problem being one because I had no sense of family. I had no sense of community. I had no morals. I had no ethics. I knew about this stuff and I was going to business college and I'm studying marketing, production, distribution. I'm applying it to my business. Business is booming. I think that, you know, college rocks. This is great. So I think, you know what I mean? I think we're doing all right. You know, there's an overdose every now and then but, you know. Nobody's perfect. So they had this health fair, and all my buddies are going, well, come on, let's go to the health fair. So we get as wrecked as we can and still stand. And we go to The Health Fair, and they check us all out, and they say, you know, we think you need to go see a doctor. I was like, well, all right. So I went and saw a doctor, and the doctor said, you have malignant cancer. And I went, all Right. What do you do about that? And he said, you get your affairs in order, dude. You got late stage. This is bad. I was like, all right. So I called my family that I hadn't been talking to at all. Flew back to L.A. They did a major surgery on my upper back. Prepared me to die. Told my family, you know, I was going to die, and they put me in nuclear medicine, which is now chemotherapy. And I didn't like their drugs, so I left and went home and got high the way I get high, and I'm a long-term cancer survivor, right? And ended up going back up to school after a while, and I got a call from my mother. My mother called me and she's crying and she said and I mean I don't know about you but I'm the kind of son that like I don' t have a lot of defenses to deal with a crying mother. You know? Like stop that. Just what do you want? Right? Well we're gonna your birthday is coming and we're going to go wherever you want but we're gone as a family and you and your father are going to put your issues aside and we'll be fine and we are going to be a family. I said fine I'll be there right so i flew back to la and on november 7th 1974 we took off to fly to guadalajara and on the way there the plane crashed and my mother my father my little sister all died in the crash and i survived and i came to in this wreck and i fractured my skull broke my back in three places that's why i've been kind of missing a little bit is i got a bad back and every once in a while i just got to go put my feet up, right? Get it to unlock. And crushed my leg, my arm just broke on my wrist. I just shattered from head to toe, right. But I could move my right arm and I was paralyzed from waist down and I's awake. And my mother was laying right over there. My little sister Kimberly was right over here and my father was right there. And I couldn't do anything to help them. Um, so I just laid there in the dirt and watched them all bleed to death in front of me and it was and it wasn't like this hallmark you know raging at the sky dramatic kind of thing it was just this real quiet you know moment out there in the dirt by myself right and I just reached inside and flipped a switch man. I will 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 really am so there's No Way You Can Love Me. I'm out. You know I've never been good at this you anyway man you know I'm not good at chit chat I'm not good at all. You know, I don't know what y'all are talking about anyway. Either of them, I'm out, right? Then some guys came up and scavenged the plane wreck and took what they could find of value and left. And I thought, well, that wraps it up, right. I got no love of God. I renounced God. Anybody take a beautiful, kind, poetic soul like my little sister Kimberly and leave me here? No, God. Don't like you. I'm Out, right。 Finally, some guys came up and they threw us in the bed of a flatbed truck, me and my mother. They threw everybody else in and some other stuff. They took us to a Mexican aid station, tagged my mother dead, tagged me dead, sat there smoking cigarettes waiting for us to die, which pissed me off. I just wouldn't die. They ended up taking me to Hospital Fatima in Los Mochos, Mexico. I remember coming to there and people freaking out and yelling in Spanish and all this stuff going on. Then the Federales showed up. that was not good because I'd had, we don't want to really get into this, but the federales were not thrilled to see me. All right. So they interrogated me. I use the term loosely through an interpreter for three and a half days wanting to know what I was doing in Mexico. Right. And I finally got ahold of some guys I knew up in Northern California who flew a plane in and we paid some folks off and they plastered me from the neck down smuggled me out of Mexico and I spent a long time in a hospital in Santa Monica California with pictures in my head that I knew I couldn't live with um that my life was now going to be out blotting out the intolerable nature of my existence and I was not going tobe successful and I knew it right so I went on my last run and it lasted for six years. I managed to stay alive for another six years and you know anytime you want to get together and talk crazy things that we have done, I'll jump in with you but y'all know all that stuff, you know, what we do, you now what boats sound like when they go by what I've been stabbed twice, shot at, the violence of my life has been insane and I'm just a peaceful little white boy from the west side of L.A., right? But drugs and alcohol take me to a different place. That and some of the experiences that I had in my life. Came out of my last blackout. I was 215 pounds, had hair down on my elbows. Family's dead, I got no friends, I don't have a place to live. The police are outside deciding whether or not to charge me with the attempted murder of David Luboff. I mean, my life is just, I just burned it to the ground. It just burned to the ground. There was no area of my life I could look at and go, well, I'm doing pretty good over here. There was no area like that. It was just bad news all across the place. And I don't know what, I'm a lightning bolt through the window guy. Right? I'm not the educational variety guy. I'm the lightning bolt throughthewindowguy because I came out of just one of, hundreds of blackouts. I came at one more blackout and it was over I don't know what happened but it was over and both my hands were broken and I just raised them up and I said help me and a minute and somebody was in that room that understood what had just happened and they threw me in the ambulance instead of the cop car and I was gone before the police knew where I was they were probably just glad he's gone good we don't have to deal with that right and they took me to a place pumped my stomach and said get him out or he was going to die. Took me to another place, stayed there for five days, just kept getting worse. Then they took me to other place by ambulance and it was a place, Long Beach General Hospital. It was, the detox was free. And the reason it was free is because it was one room with 42 cots in it, old army cots, 21 on each side of the room with a sheet drawn between the cots. And how you kicked was called riding the cot. You know? Nobody showed up at night saying, you know, bro, you look a little anxious. Are you feeling anxious? Can I get you a little something to help you sleep there, buddy? That guy never showed up. For 47 days that guy didn't show up. So my detox was a total of 52 days. And I was still so sick, man. And Ray W., God bless him, said, Earl, we love you, but you got to go now, man, and if you don't go to AA, you're going to die. And I just remember thinking, so, let's come to this, has it? Got to go to the A&A, huh? Come on. There got to be a plan B, bro. Got to. That's just the saddest thing I've ever heard in my life. He just said, shut up and go to AA. It's like, all right, no need to get tense. So I ended up on a Thursday night. I walked into a room and there was about this many people in that room. And I took one foot in and you looked like about 11,000 people to me. Walked in, I went, no. Walked right back out. That was a Thursday Night. Friday night was a Tuesday Night Beginner's Workshop in Brentwood, California. The next night I went to the Friday Night Tri-Guide Group in Culver City, California And I walked in. They said, welcome. I said, yeah, great. Went over and sat down and just mad-dogging everybody, man. Just stay away from me. Don't. Don't come say hello. Don't, don't. For God's sakes, don't start telling me about your day. I don't give a shit about your days. Your day. I don' t care how your day went. Go away. And the old-timers were great. They saw me and they were like, oh right they got it they went hey good to see you partner get yourself a cup of coffee there's a chair for you right over there and good luck with all that you got going on right there all right good luck that's exactly what i needed man and i was just like i didn't talk yet i just kind of growled at people you know and but there's always a new guy in the meeting just caught fire with a and a gonna be giving it away tonight right and all he saw was new guy right so he came running coming at me and I'm like no no no don't do it don't his name was Vegas N Vegas and he stuck out his hand he said hi I'm Vegas I'm an alcoholic and I said me too Vegas so what it ain't exactly the highlight of my life I don't know what you're so happy about get away from me and he looked at me he said, keep coming back. And I remember thinking, well that's helpful. Keep coming back. To what? This? Because I'm having so much fun so far? I hated it. I hated it. The beast was talking, was barking man. Come on, they got this wrong. Come on you know you know what we can do with this come on come on and then a guy got up and he shared his experience strength and hope and I didn't know that's what he was doing I didn'T KNOW THAT BUT IT WAS LIKE HE REACHED RIGHT INSIDE ME AND GRABBED A WHOLE JUST AND WHERE MY PILOT LIGHT IS RIGHT WHEREVER THAT IS HE JUST FLICKED IT ON YOU KNOW YOU KNOW IT'S LIKE US ADDICT ALCOHOLICS WE MAY NOT LIKE IT WHEN YOU TELL US THE TRUTH BUT WE KNOW THE TRUCE WHEN WE inherit. And I knew that guy was telling me the truth. And I thought, all right. All right. Maybe they got something that I could use. And that was my way of saying, for the love of God, somebody come up with some consciousness beyond that which I currently possess. Because man, if I got to go with what I know, I'm a dead man. I need something new. I need new information my humility came from being beaten into a state of reasonableness as the book talks about right and i decided i didn't know anything about this i said i'm gonna go back next week and hear that guy talk again so i waited a week and i came in the next week to hear that guy talk and they did all the rambling of this and that and the other thing you know what i mean they did the rarely saw something with the 12 things and the abc and then they did the other thing with the other 12 things, 24 things, A, B, C. Right? Great. Got whatever that is. Right? They had the charts, read the steps, went, got it. What else you got? Traditions? All right. Not a group. Fuck that. Right? I was rolling through this information. Right? And then they said, and our speaker tonight is Betty. I said, what? Bill talks here. Where the hell's Bill? What'd you do with Bill? Where is Bill? Guy looked at me and goes, you're new, aren't you? I said I don't think it's a good time to bring that up. And he started breaking down different meetings and different speakers and blah, blah, blah, bla, blah. Meantime, Betty with her little blue hair helmet and her little summer dress and she's working her way of that podium, man. And she got out there and I'm like, great! How am I getting this hour of my life back? Betty got up and said, hi, Betty, I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Betty. And like five minutes in, Betty said, you know, in my day, if you were a reasonably attractive woman, if you had 50 cents, you could walk into a bar and drink for two weeks. And then broke down how you go about doing that, right? When she was done, I looked at this dude next to me and I went, you don't know, Betty is a badass. I would roll with Betty man and I left freaking out now I'm identifying with 70 year old women what the hell is going on I don't get this but I had no place else to go the blessing of my life that I had destroyed my life I had nowhere else to goes one guy said to me you can come more than once a week we got them every night You can come every night, you know. And I would have loved to have said, you know, hey, scheduling conflicts. But that would have been a lie. Not that I wasn't perfectly willing to lie to him, but it's just like whatever. Right? So they had a bunch of meetings, the Try Guy group. So I started going to more meetings and more meetings. And, you now, stuff started to change. And they said get a sponsor. And I said what's that? And they says sponsor somebody who's got what you want. And I say well I would like to drink. so maybe it's a little early to be throwing the ball back in my court you know and i've since come to believe then that you should get a sponsor who's got what he wants wanting what you have is that's a good definition of happiness wanting what you have right and so i i'm sitting in a meeting i'm struggling with this whole sponsor thing and i'm going on a meeting a day and i am you know i'm hanging in and I'm just miserable man I'm left with me and I got pictures dancing through my head that are just bad and I go to this meeting and all of a sudden this guy just comes flying into the room if you know what I mean he's the kind of guy that if he walked through that door right now you'd all turn and go oh who's the big gay guy just like that His name was the late, great Donald Madden. And Donald Maddon got up at the podium and said, oh, hello to you. And threw down. And gave this talk that was absolutely remarkable, man. His strength, his power as a human being, his grace, his commitment to Alcoholics Anonymous, the fearlessness that that guy stepped up with, man, He didn't give a shit what you thought about him or anything else. This is his life and how he, this, you know what I mean? And I went, that, I want that. And the guys I was with are like, dude, are you paying attention? And I said, yeah, I'm paying attention. That guy feels really strongly about Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'm dead inside. I want to feel strongly about something. And it looks like it needs to be this. So I'm picking that guy. So I walked up to him and I said, will you sponsor me? So scared, man. And he went, what? I said will you sponsor me and 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. And I went okay i'm probably working around that right little did i know there was no working around this guy right i mean he'd call me up and say we're going to the money you're going to two plus two tuesday night two plus two the meeting starts today they'll see you there at 7 30 click say okay like ask maybe and by the way and i got there and i went i have a quick question yeah it's 7 30 the meeting starts at 8 what am i doing here at 7 30 he goes well earl well shocking to you there are other people in the world and a lot of them have problems too and when they come to an a and a meeting they should be able to come and have somebody waiting there for them who can say here let me get you a seat let me give you a cup of coffee do you have a big book? No, let me get you one. Do you have a meeting directory? No. Let me get you in and underline some of the meetings that I go to. And we talk to them and see how they're doing. You know, like that. Like, we think about somebody other than ourselves. Got it? It's like, fine. 730. Fine. So every meeting I went to from that point on, I was there a half an hour before the meeting started because I knew there was no point in asking. you know he used to back in those days you had an answering machine and a phone and you could connect them so that you never heard the phone ring and you never hear the outgoing message all you ever heard was a beep and the voice of the person who called you leaving a message right beep somebody talking to you right so I'd be getting my two hours of sleep a night right just PTSD through the roof right and laying in bed and all of a sudden beep wake up It's like he's in the room You know He goes, we're having a day baby Click I go, you woke me up Sunday morning at 6am To tell me we're havin' a day And then hung up That's who he was What am I gonna do? Call him up and go Listen, we need to set some boundaries here no way man that was the only human being i talked to on the face of the earth i couldn't lose the guy i had to roll with whatever he threw at me so i did you know we said i mean i remember the day we were coming back from a meeting i wrote my fourth step and i when i came into recovery i was planning a murder i never talk about this but this is where we get real at the nights right so i was planning a murder um and he was speaking and i finished my inventory and i said i finished my inventory he said fine come over tuesday and we'll get it done i said no no no i have finished my inventory where are you now and he went all right get over here you'll come with me i got to speak at this meeting out in eagle rock i'm like great shot over to his house get in the car i'm reading the inventory right scared to death i'm getting there i'm get into the thing you know what I mean, I'm reading the inventory to him, and he's driving. Every once in a while, he'd say, wonderful, keep going. And then I'd say I'm going to throw up. He said, not in my car. He'd pull over, jump out on the freeway, do my thing, get back in the car. We stop. He goes, oh, I have to eat. I'm like, really? So we pull over to the place where it's the little hamburger stand, the cheap, cheap, low-end hamburger stand off the side of the freeway in some little podunk town where they have the tables, outside tables with the umbrellas and everything's metal and everything is bolted to the cement floor. And we're sitting at our table and you know when you're scared you kind of talk louder when you are scared? So I'm reading my inventory I hate Robert but for this reason and then, you know, lots of blood. And people are getting up and moving there from the thing, right? There's this wide, empty circle around Donald and I who's eating his hamburger going, wonderful, keep going. He's a hamburger, right. So we get to the place and I tell him, right, and the first, I finished my inventory and I put it down and I handed it to him and I went, there. And he looked at me and he said, sensational. and we don't kill people here one day at a time. And I got to tell you, I was so grateful that man that he said that because I felt at that time like I'm the kind of guy that can do it, but I don't know that I'm the kindof guy that's going to do it. I'm not the kindoff guy thatcan live with it. It's two different guys, you know? Don't know if I can carry that weight, right? and I'm a believer that every man needs to carry his own weight and I didn't know if that's a weight I could carry I don't want to know so we get to the meeting and they said the secretary goes, Donald we're so glad you're here oh is this the first speaker? and he goes, yes I mean I'm as vulnerable as I've ever felt in my life so my five minutes was I'm Roman alcoholic I drank a lot And it was really bad And I came here And it seems to be getting better Thanks a lot And sat down And he was like Oh that was very good Now I never took a chip I didn't take a cake Until I was three years sober Because I was scared to death Of coming up here I'm not the speaker boy I'm just a guy I'm the guy that goes Let me share I want to talk Let me be This is not a thing I ever sought out this. No. One over here, everybody else over there. I don't like that at all. Do you do a lot of speaking? Do you have a lot to say? Do you know how to do a loud speaking? Come here. Yes, Earl. Look at that. Wow. That's mildly intimidating. isn't it? You don't say. Yeah. All right. Thanks, man. All right. Good hanging with you. Thank you. Just just sharing my pain. What the hell was I talking about? Right. I didn't want to be a speaker. I don't know where I was going with that. We finished the fifth step. Donald. So I ended up speaking. And Donald, me and my friend Christopher were the only two straight guys that he sponsored, right? And Christopher called me up and he said, hey, you know, they got a book. I know I got one around here somewhere. He goes, no, but we need to like read this right away. I got an inside scoop, but We Got to Read This. And I was like, all right, chill, right? He goes I got these cassettes, these guys, it's called Joe and Charlie, The Big Book Comes Alive and we're going to listen to these tapes and we are going to read the big book and we will be different and I was like completely ready for that let's go so we sit down and I wish I had a video tape you know the giant video cameras that you slot the whole video thing into I wish i had one of those because we sat there and we would be listening to the tape and reading along and every other page one of us would do this hey you know that thing they say in the meetings here it is right here and they go on and he kind of explained it pretty good right there two pages later the other guy hey you know and this went on and on and on and at one point he looked at me and he goes man I gotta let you know you're kind of freaking me out what are you talking about and he goes you're changing and i said i feel like that about you so we could we couldn't see it in ourselves but we could see it each other right so we got six and we finished it and we got six four six of the people we sponsored so we had eight of us and we did it again and that was 28 years ago 29 30 gotta be about 31 years ago and all eight of are still sober, right? Yeah. Yay, Joe and Charlie. Yay Big Book, right, because that's what that's about, right. So anyway, if you're new, and on and on, and craziness ensued, and life went on, life got big, then it got small, then got big and it was great, I started to heal and my PTSD went through the roof and popped outside issue but I'm talking about it anyway fuck it right well I mean I just ground to a halt I couldn't make I couldn'T take another step right it was just beating me to death and I ended up in a therapist's office and I did the work that I needed to do because the book told me you got an outside issue go get outside help so I did, right? And it saved my life, right. But I didn't go there replacing the ANA. I went there as an adjunct to the ANC. The ANA is ground zero for me. The AMA is the ground floor. This is it right here. This is foundational in my life. Everything else comes next after this because Without this, everything else goes away anyway. You know, I had a woman say to me, you love AA more than you love me. I said, well, of course I do. We'd have never even met if I hadn't been a member of the ANA. You should be thanking AA. Well, maybe you should be cursing AA. I don't know. You end up with a guy like me, right? But it's always been core and central to my life. And look, I've led an amazing, remarkable life. I've dealt with a lot of serious issues, some of which I'm going to struggle with and fight all the rest of my days, right? I'm 67 years old. I'm 39 years sober. I've been in a relationship with a woman for over 20 years, right, same one. we actually know each other right live together right have a life together right something that i thought was important remember i'm the guy who will never love or be loved right i am loving and being loved if you're new this is what i want to say to you about everything that we've heard and talking about that that what i found in here was i found this circle of the triangle right it's an ancient spiritual symbol that stands for mind body and spirit brought together as a whole human being and therein lies the balance i've sought and i could never find drunk or sober alcoholics anonymous adopted that symbol and they just changed the words a little bit that just just changed it up a little but to make it specific to us to get it as close to who in fact we are and how we roll you know and how the thought processes click on through in here from an alcoholic perspective unity service and recovery mind body and spirit same thing unity's the body i bring it here i can't stay sober but we can what's the first word in the steps we we admitted together us community vital to my recovery this community that i am close to you i have never been away from you i've always stayed with you And that has never been a bad idea. That has always proven to be the right choice every single time in 39 years, right? The recoveries of the mind, the greater aspect of my illness, right, because the thing is is that when I get, if that wasn't true, detox centers would be kicking out winners. 72 hours and free. How you doing? Great. What are you doing'? I ain't drinking. What else are you doing? I don't know. I'm not drinking. What are you going to do later? Probably not going to drink. And guess what? I don' t know many people that have done that rapid opiate detox and are doing fantastic. I don''t know the guy who's been on methadone for 30 years and looks great. Maybe he's out there, but I ain't met him. did I cross a line there well if I did I'm sure you all write about it or something because I ain't taking it back here's the thing unity is the body I bring in here recovery is the mind I gotta address the greater aspect of my disease the thing that makes it impossible for me to be comfortable sober right the obsession of my mind so what do i do work the 12 steps that's what they're for step one is what's the problem lack of power is my dilemma period testify period period if that's the program what's the solution step two that a power greater than me could restore me to sanity soundness of mind relieve me of the obsession to drink and use that i could become comfortable clean and sober, walk the earth a free man. That's a pretty good statement. I ain't heard a better one, right? And I've been looking. Step three says you know what the problem is, you know What the solution to that problem is. Make a decision to do something about it, right. Faith without works is dead, right, D is with me, all right. It empowers me. So I worked at 12 steps, right? Four and five, me. Six and seven, one problem. Two, solution. Three, action. Get down on my knees, turn my will and my life over to the care of a God I may or may not understand. Understanding God is irrelevant. Being open to the notion that there's a consciousness beyond my own that is open and available to me, I need to open myself up to that as well. You there? Bring it. I'm open. Let's roll. Right? Let's go. We're wasting time. I got to get between these. I gotto get right in there. I gotta get in there because there ain't nothing else. They're in. Right before we started this meeting, all that's gone. Can't revisit that again. You can talk about it if you want but you're wasting your time. Gone. What's going to happen in five minutes? Beats the hell out of me. but right now here we are loving and being loved in the same room wanting the same things willing to take these moments of time because the only thing all of us have a finite amount of is time that precious commodity and we've chosen to spend it doing this getting in there right here being in this moment so when we look each other in the eyes we're here together that when And we, when, I've made that point. Now, don't beat a dead horse, right? Don't just beat it to death. Keep going, right. So I want that. I want to be freed from that. So how do I get in step three is I turn my will and my life up to care of God. Great. And then it says I must embark upon a plan of immediate action, rigorous action. Right now, right now, just jump it, get on it. Okay, what do you want me to do? Four through nine. Why those? Because that's what's going to completely reframe your entire life. We're going to reboot your entire live. It's like your whole life is an Etch-a-Sketch and we're just going to shake it. And give you this blank screen to rebuild and recreate the life you've always wanted and hope might be possible for you. Because now, quite suddenly it is. As a sober man or a sober woman, right? 10 minutes, I'm going to make it. There it is, right. So, 4 and 5 is me, 6 and 7 is God, 8 and 9 is you. There ain't nobody else to play with. That's what those steps are about. 10, me, 11, God, 12, you to keep me rolling, keep me in the game. 4 through 9 in that first pass, 10, 11 and 12, me, God, and you. Me, God and you rolling, rolling, rolling. I can't. God can. I'll let him roll and roll and keep him going. 12 step having that spirit unity is the body. I bring it here. Recoveries of the mind. I work the steps having had the spiritual awakening as the result of working those steps. The whole point was to be restored to sanity, soundness of mind, relieved of the obsession free. What am I supposed to do with that? Be a service. Get out of self and serve. Turn back to that community that saved me when no one else thought I had a chance. It would invest nothing in me, and rightly so. And you picked me up and loved me and took care of me until I could take care of myself. I turn and I give back to the community that so freely gave to me. That's what I do, right? So there it is. There's the whole triangle. And it all ties together. I went to a conference when I was five years sober. Stood in the back, and a guy from... Is there somebody in here from Olive Branch, Mississippi? There will be. But I went to this conference, and this guy Franklin W. from Olive Branch, Mississippi stood up, and he said, I'll sum up Alcoholics Anonymous for you in six words. Trust God, clean house, help others. And I had a spiritual experience because I was ready, open, and available for one because I've been going to seven to nine meetings a week for five years because I'd been doing everything my sponsor told me to do because I had been doing it for five or six years. Because I was taking out panels and I was being of service on every single day. I was a good AA foot soldier, man. and I was in this thing. I was into it to win it, right? And he said, trust God, clean house, help others, and my head blew off because that was all three relationships. That's the only relationships I could have. I could trust God. A conscious decision to trust that there was consciousness beyond my own, that I would decide to trust God Clean house. I checked my side of the street. Stop worrying about what you're doing and start looking at what am I bringing to the table? What am I bring to the party? What do I got going on? I'll worry about this. You worry about that. I'll worried about this and get busy on this. And the last words were help others. Trust God, clean house, help others, and that if I could base my relationships in those three areas on those six words that I could lead an honorable life. A man who lived a dishonorable life, a liar, a cheat, and a thief could have an honorable wife, could be an active member of society, could do good works, could be a part of something bigger than himself. So if you're new and you think this is about stopping drinking and using, you're selling yourself way short. This is in fact a design for living. This is, in fact, a way to be in the world that is powerful and dynamic every single fucking second. And if you've been one of those people who struggled getting this thing coming in and out, right? And you hit and you miss, and you hit and you missed. But you keep coming back, God bless you. You keep coming back. And you get that, every once in a while, you get to get that look. You know, that look down the nose? That poor son of a bitch just can't get it. You get that judgment look, right? Please do me a favor. I'd consider it a personal favor for you to walk up to that person and say, I saw the look. And I just want to tell you, I met this guy named Earl Hightower. And he said, you should go fuck yourself. Because we don't shoot our wounded in here. We do not shoot our wounded in hier. I don't know what God's will is for me. How the hell am I supposed to know what it is for you? Right? You come in here and say help. What am I suppose to do? Extend a hand. Extend the hand. To have a seat, you get your cup of coffee? Do you need it? Just like they did me. You got a big book? No, let's get you one. You're going to love it. Let's get your meeting directory. Let'S get you rolling, man. I'll meet you. Give me your number. Yeah, here's my number, but give me yours so I can call you, right? And do the deal and watch what happens. Watch what happens? You think you caught a buzz. I know you do. Oh, nobody shot dope like me. Oh nobody smoked crack like me, right. Nobody do more acid than me bite me that's just you know watch this you work with a seemingly hopeless human being it's got nowhere to go and there's that moment when you're working in the book and they'll look up at you and you know it happened it it happened they popped they just went oh, this is me. I am you. That we are in this together. This is stronger than family. This is blood, past blood. This is a spiritual connection that we are bound by, right? And I'm telling you, we're going to change the world in the way the world needs changing. Love and tolerance toward others is our code. And we will exercise that, not just out there, but in here as well, with each other and with those that we meet on the road, right? So if you're new, jump in. This is the big ride, right. This will not let you down, ever. It will never let youdown. We will. Because we're a bunch of flawed, crazy human beings. but the program of Alcoholics Anonymous will stand rock solid for you so chop the wood and carry the water of Alcoholic Anonymous it's like water over the rock bro the water always wins I love you, peace