The Sponsor Who Saw Two Sentences Under the Bullsh*t – Deandre M.

My sobriety date is May 29, 1991. My sponsor's name is Dennis Lee. And my home group is a spiritual meeting at the open door on Sundays at 11 o'clock. And for those things I'll forever be grateful. It's good to see Shalvi. My wife is here today with me, Shalvvi. It's good to be sober. I was born a poor black child. I'll get that out of the way. I grew up in the Jordan Downs Housing Project in Watts, over off 103rd and Grape Street. And my mother had to move over there because she had lost her job. We had to moved somewhere where she could afford to keep all six of her children, six of our children with all six different fathers. And so that's where we had to go. We went to the projects. And I love the projects. I love living in the projects, I love having one problem right next to another baby, crammed all up in there together, and it's conducive for a lot of weed smoking and a lot of drinking, you know, my mother made drinking look fun, I loved the way my mother made drink and look and so we as the kids nowadays I can call us the children of the barley corn because we, my family and my brother and my sisters we snuck and drank after my mother's parties she would have her friends over they'd play spades which is a card game and we would play spades and drink and be happy about it and there was nothing wrong with drinking drinking is what it's all about when you're living over there and you don't want to deal with what's happening over there and what's going on around you the best way to deal with what is inside of you is to get some alcohol alcohol in any firm will do for me I know this is an AA meeting, but my big book tells me that I got to stay away from alcohol in any form. And I have to remember that when I come here because I've got an incredibly short memory and a lot of times I forget what it was really like because I'm doing pretty good today. got a good life I'm coming up on 13 years of sobriety in May and so I had no intentions on staying sober this long at all when I first got beat up not by alcohol but by my friends for stealing money and not being a very honest person I remember having to go to my aunt's house who lives over by the Coliseum in Los Angeles and I remember going over there with my arm kind of like what this gentleman is wearing over here and just I had a cane and I was walking up the street and my grandmother pulled up alongside of me who is a very successful woman in the community down there And she put up alongside of me and told me that I looked like a bum. And she started her car and just drove off. And I could relate to that when she did that. She nailed it, you know. By that time, my insides had started matching my outsides. When I grew up, I could always push away what I was really feeling on the inside. I could always get it out of there but the more that alcoholism and these drugs and all this stuff started eating away at me it ate it away it ate away at that barrier that I used to not let you know what was really going on so the more I drank, the more I couldn't hide what was really happening with me and that's how I started acting out and started getting into your shit and stealing your stuff and lying and talking about how I'm really going to be different the next time you catch me. Next time you catch me doing the wrong thing or too drunk to be a part of society, I really am going to change. So I can relate to the relapser even though I've been sober since my first meeting so far. I can related to telling a plethora of people that this time I really am not going to get loaded again because people around here that run in and out of here have this belief that the real alcoholic can't relate because they keep running in and outer we keep staying sober and I beg to differ that is the disease of alcoholism no matter what kind of sobriety date you try to put on it swearing it off You know So if you're here and if you knew Again, welcome You know they didn't call them relapses When I got sober They called them alcoholic But now we've got a special name for them But anyway I remember getting beat up And running over there And having my grandmother hurt my feelings And I had to go to this hospital Big general hospital Over here And there was this little lady in the building And she said You know, we don't have any services here for you We can't help you But there's a little place down the street Called El Centro Which is a little drug addict referral agency place And maybe they can help you get into some sort of a program Because we don' t have anything here for yo I mean, we already patched you up You know You got your little brace thing on and that's all we're going to do for you. We have tried to fix your outsides, which is what most failed attempts at treating this disease is all about, getting the outsides together so you can look presentable in front of the rest of the family, I suppose. I don't know. But she told me, we've done all we can for you, and that said. You know, and so I went down to this place and I met this little Mexican guy named Ronnie Macias and he told me the most profound thing I had ever heard in my life. He told me that somebody was going to wind up killing my ass. He told him that I was 24 years old, I was already living on the streets and I wasn't going to make it. And for some reason I believed that man. You know, and I got on my knees. He had walked out of the little cubicle that we were talking in and I asked God for help and Ronnie put me in a hotel room on 7th and Vermont for seven days. I know this is starting to sound a little bit like Christianity, but bear with me. But I went to that hotel room and I went back and forth to his office, to the hotel room every day until he could find a program to put me there. And a miracle happened. I didn't sell the bus tickets that he gave me to use to get back and forth to his office. And on that last day, I saw an opportunity he presented to me. He told me, go down to the Volunteers of America building on 5th and St. Julian, which is on Skid Row where I've been living anyway, and go down there and go in there and use the phone and call Warm Springs Rehabilitation Center and talk to a lady named Yolanda. And I went down there that morning and I walked in front of the building and I saw a little roach on the ground. That's part of a marijuana joint. Some of you strict alcoholics here. I know this is an AA meeting and don't nobody know shit about marijuana in here. and I picked that up and I smoked it, I walked around the corner and I smoke that not because I'm surrendering I've surrendered and the relapser tells me I don't get it yeah anyway I walked around the car, I went in there and I called this lady and she said well DeAndre in order to get in the Warm Springs, you have to have seven days sober. That's why he put me in the hotel for that amount of time. And I told her, I said, you know, I really want to do this thing. This is May the 28th, 1991. I told him, I really want to do it, but unfortunately I have something in my system this morning. We're going to have to push this back. And she said, well, you don't know what? Why don't you get on the van anyway? And I've been sober ever since. So see, it's really hard for me to spend a whole lot of time talking about drinking. And I went up to that rehab dilatation center and I basically decided that when I got there with no underwear on and one pair of pants and this little guy came from the general from C-Dorm to the General Services building to pick me up and take me over to the dorm I was swollen up and I had to use the bathroom a lot because I hadn't gotten high since that roach and I was really craving something some form of alcohol which is most excruciating it was really, really tormenting to be laying in that bunk sweating it out wishing that I could have some kind of medication or something you know I've never been diagnosed with any kind of mental illness or any kind of chemical imbalance thing or whatever I never had any of that so I was not allowed any kindof meds you know and that pissed me off you know cause I saw other people getting the medication and for a minute there I thought that it had a lot to do with you know probably a racial issue there yeah white people are getting down the pills and you know I've got to lay up here and talk her out but at any rate I suffered through that and just went to a lot of meetings and you don't thank God for hospitals and institutions, thank God for HNI those winners came up there to that rehabilitation center and carried the message much like what my friends and I did last night what Shalaby and I do up to this day just going up and just seeing, you know, getting out of that bunk crawling, because my disease is like those horror films like Jason or Michael Myers you know you cut his ass You put the ax in the head and it just keeps coming back. You take a machete and whack it across its face, you set fire to it, you dunk it, you bathe it in holy water and it keeps coming back. That's how my disease is. I remember being at that rehab really confused about why I needed to be here, you know. I knew that I was in trouble, I knew that I had problems, but now that I'm not high, why do I have to continue to stay here? I haven't been loaded in two days. You know, it's been two days you know, why? I mean it's over, right? And through listening to those people come up on those panels, they were talking about real life situations and how they weren't drunk and that's when it dawned on me that I probably should stay there a little longer you know because I didn't know how to apply abstinence with real life I knew how to reply not drinking with being miserable about it and not being able to stand it we hated being sober when we were getting loaded you know and I come to AA and it just seemed like people were trying to tell me be happy about it I didn't feel that way about, you know, I don't know what, you know, and then we would see these guys coming in on these panels. And they had that laughter and that little sparkle the way your eyes look right now, Susie. And it just, you You know, that was, you know, you're loaded. You know? You done smoked some weed coming up here. Talking about you're sober. And we used to sit in the back row and just talk about how we thought they were high. You know. You got the high H&I all right. You know what I mean? You're a loaded ass. And then, you now, I thought they would try to put us down. You know ? I mean, you can bring your ass up there in these mountains and talk your bullshit about not drinking. You know, we're struggling up here. And I was a little bit frustrated about it, but overall, once I stayed up there, I started realizing, you know, that these people really care. You know? And it was strictly AA. It wasn't a whole lot of stuff that we have to go through nowadays to get to what's in this book what really happens to an alcoholic when another alcoholic talks to them or he about recovery nowadays we got a lot of stuff going on at any rate I stayed up there for 11 months they're playing our song out there we like it that's a sample of the alcoholic national anthem right there But we really had a lot of stuff going on up there. And after I got out of that rehabilitation center, I moved to Lancaster, California. Because I tell people when I go to other meetings out of the area, it may not look like I'm from Lancaster but I'm form Lancaster. The only thing I didn't let that area do is affect how I vote, but that's an outside issue. And I went up there and they saved my life in that area. People talk shit about Lancaster, but you know what? Those people kept me sober up there. You know, those people, there was hardcore redneck. We don't give a shit what color you are, AA. You know? I went to the open door and I met my sponsor there. His name was Dennis Lee, like I said earlier. And he told me that, you know what, because I told him I had already done steps one, two, and three in OneSprings, I had completed my step packet. And he said, you've done all of that, then you can get started on your inventory. But first, we're going to review what I know about step one, twos, and threes. And you know, I kind of thought he was a little arrogant, but I went ahead and followed along. And I'm just here to share that, you know, my sponsor is the one who saw two sentences under my bullshit and got me involved with real A&A. You know? Uncut, unrehabilitated AA. You know, and he taught me how to take commitments at that group. And they gave me a secretary commitment on a Saturday afternoon at noon. and I hated it because everybody was out doing their A.A. activity stuff or you know sleeping off from the Friday night dance and I had to crawl my ass over there this hot ass fly infested room on a Saturday afternoon and look at three alcoholics and my sponsor talked about it as the greatest because you know I want to be a speaker I don't want to be in a meeting with two alcoholics and two of them are drunk, you know. And I don t know, that meeting saved my ass man. I remember the first time they gave me the key and all I kept thinking about was how much the coffee machine was worth. You know because I hadn't had a key for a while or anything. You know and I couldn't believe they gave a key to that building. It tripped me out, you know, and it's like what happened for me is I just got involved. I just started doing stuff. They needed somebody to be somebody, and I did it. You know, I just starting raising my hands, and started taking commitments, man. And I was going up to Warm Springs every month with my friend Jeff, who I had met when I was in there. And I just, I, I've just got brainwashed. I'm here to share that I'm brainwashed you know I know a lot of people are concerned about their own identity in AA their own awareness their own self interest and I am too to a certain extent but overall ...intervene in my life today with almost 13 years of sobriety. He has to reach inside of whatever the hell I think is more important than you men and women and remove it he's done it with cars with people places and things you know he has done that and I sit there powerless you know like wow you know because I've tried to contemplate at night on how I'm going to get rid of this thing or how am I going to stop doing this thing that's interfering with me and God and AA and the next day or week or month or year later it's gone anyway And I don't have nothing to do with it. You know, and I believe that that comes through the surrender experience of taking the steps. Being in his will. Not screwing around with this thing. You know? Not working the room and working a real program. And it takes a lot of pain to get to that place, man. It takes a partness, a loneliness, you know? With time sober. Tripping. talking about how I know I really got the answer but I can't get to a meeting this week because I'm busy you know I got stuff happening I mean I know Jim is over there every night you know and I know that these other people that have full lives are over there but they don't know how busy I really am you know I got no children, no significant other and I got a lot of stuff going on You know, and it's five years sober And it's like AA is overbearing God damn They want you to do all this stuff That they did for you You know There's this old time At this meeting I go to Over here in Simi Valley And he says that it's the last thing you tried And the first thing that worked Alcoholics and addicts So if you're coming here and you quote unquote believe it's not working, I don't really think you're trying AA. I really don't. That's just my own personal opinion. I'm sure if yours is stronger than mine, you're going to come up to me after the meeting and talk shit to me anyway so I'm just going to go ahead and let it out. I know how elkies are. They come upto you after the meaning to really get you through what they thought that you said or whatever. That's happened to me a lot. And it's like when people do I'm so alcoholic, I don't even remember when I shared that. I'm sorry, you know. But anyway, I just love AA is what I'm trying to share. I just loved Alcoholics Anonymous. I love being able to fall on my face. I don' t love it while it's happening, but I love looking back at it and knowing that I got up with AA without a drink. You know, I know that I can start over with step one and now with a first drink. people don't know that here I'm here to share it because then when they come back and say I didn't hear anybody say that that's why I'm talking kind of loud if you're new because people go and get loaded and then they come back and see, I don't remember them saying that you know, and I'm there to share that we don't start over with a drink at Alcoholics Anonymous we start over with step one when we're on that dry drunk and we know that we've been slacking off we don't have to come in here and announce that we're not perfect, only alcoholics do that shit, I don't know why but we don'T need to announce that we're NOT perfect, all we gotta do is get with a man or a woman around here and there and like take step one again you know, and I meant to do that, cause I can stand up here and talk more shit than the Chinese radio but not apply this stuff you know the stuff that they applied on me when I got here and I have this kind of emptiness that just comes into me that I can't control and it can come at any time you know, it can comes before a meeting it could come after I do a fifth step with somebody it could comes when somebody doesn't call me back or when I sit there and look at my caller ID and I don't call you back big book says there are certain it doesn't say specific It says there are certain points and times where we will be unable, you know, to get that mental defense, that effective mental defense against that first drink. That's got to come from a higher power. So I don't know when this thing is going to go off. I don'T know when it's going to happen. So what I try to do, and I'm an alcoholic, I like trying to play it safe. I try to already be involved in certain activities, actions, or habits that will protect me. And I believe that's why the triangle, the symbol of our society, all three lines are even for a reason, you know? Equal treatment. And I try To Be In The Middle Of That Triangle As Best I Can. And it has nothing to do with perfection. It's about a direction that I try live in today as best as I can. Because I'm going to tell you something right now. With this time sober, I get really frustrated watching people who can say that they're a member of AA and don't do nothing about it. I get jealous, and I have to write and pray and get back into minding my own business. But this is the only, I mean, when you're a number of the Ku Klux Klan, from what I hear, you have to do specific things. But at AA, it's just like you can stay away from a meeting for three years and still be telling people, yeah, I'm at AA. Well, that's great. I got this job, I got all these kids, I got this life. I'm an AA. I haven't been to a meeting in three years, but I'm a member of AA. You know, and I get kind of weirded out by that, you know, because it's like, I don't think that's fair to the guys and gals like us that come around here and put away these chairs and shit and put up with these drunks like ourselves and listen to these guys like me for over 45 minutes. You Know, we put up with a lot of stuff around here that we don't necessarily like. We just do it most of the time because it works. At least that's what I do. And prior to leaving that rehab, I wanted to be safe so I didn't go back to L.A. because I didn' t know what was going to be there except what I had left there. But as far as me going back there sober, I didn''t really feel that it would have worked out. So I didn ''t go back there. I went to Lancaster. I got involved with that group, and I just started, you know, realizing that I can't stay sober anywhere else but AA. I can'T do it. You know, and my sponsor and I, once we took the steps together, he stopped cussing at me so much. Because he used to say mean and evil things to me. You know, my demon sponsor, one night I had called over there because, you know, I was burning down. And I wasn't feeling good about this whole sober thing. It's a term that you guys use. It's cultural thing. We don't say it in rants, but you're spun? Yeah, I respond. I had learned that word in the meetings. I don't know what the fuck it meant but I felt like it so I called and told him that I was fun and he asked me how many meetings have you gone to today, I said five you know like you know, so there yeah five fucking meetings and he said well what you should do is you skip those first two meetings in the morning and go look for a job so you can be as tired as my ass is at 3 o'clock in the morning. Just by an ass. So, you know, I hung up the phone because he hung up on me and I literally just sitting there thinking to myself, you know they talk about this love and where's the love here? That's not a loving, What is loving about that? And what I found out later on through continuing working with this man is that love is an action. See, I want love to be like somebody rubbing their back at night or whatever. Love is an option. There are certain things that I've got to do to be about love. And I didn't know that, but he taught me that, you know. He told me to stop drinking so much of this damn coffee and maybe I could get to sleep. Because I would drink a pot of coffee at each meeting that I went to, so I had a hard time sleeping. And then I would tell him, my stomach just feels bad and I don't feel right. And he would tell me, stop drinking all that goddamn coffee. And I know that's not in the book. No, it's not because people say don't share about what's not on the book, Not drinking a whole lot of coffee is not in the book, but that's what my sponsor had to tell me in private when we practiced the hidden legacy of AA called intimacy. You know, and it's not pouncing up and down on top of somebody sexually. It's being intimate with someone, really letting them know what eats my lunch and why I'm going to get drunk. Why am I about to take that drink? That's what intimacy is all about for me. Why do I feel so uneasy that I can't go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and think about somebody else for at least three to five minutes? You know, I need to talk to him about that before I act out on that. You know and that's what I do today. You know this is just my stuff. This is just mine. This is my opinion. The opinion that counts though is in the front of this book and in there it says that I cannot safely use alcohol in any form. And my mind spends a whole lot of time in sobriety trying to find other forms of alcohol. They don't necessarily have to be a substance, it could be a situation that I'm obsessing on. Being in a relationship, for example. Prancing up the stairs of the rafters in love with somebody. when the truth of the matter is I'm lonely and I'm desperate and I am afraid and I still empty without a drink I don't know if anybody in here with time sober can relate to that but I have to be willing to do that because I plan on staying here for the long haul you know and it's the people in this room that have done that that continuously attract me to this program I love hearing these men and women with time silver letting me know what I'm going to have to deal with or what I ought to be willing to walk through with them with and not take that first drink, you know. That's important stuff, man. People walking through all kind of medical situations, domestic, you know, and they're not drinking, man, that's some stuff that I really admire because I'm only human, you know? And it's like I had to connect with people around here because I will go off and try to do things by myself to not be a burden to you, to not have to let you know that I don't have enough food that I have seven years of sobriety that I didn't have any food at my house see that they didn't took my car because I couldn't make the payments because I got laid off from work you know and I have to be willing to be honest about those things, not get honest because if I'm getting honest, that means I've been lying. You know, and so I trip off people that are quote, getting honest today. Because what that means to me is, what, you've been lying to me the whole fucking time you've been talking? Yeah. So I'm here to show you being an honest man works for me. In regards to this, even though it's at the group level, but I work with autistic children in the home and I was out of training Friday and I got some recognition at the group level for the way I do my job and how effective I am and I started crying during the meeting and I don't cry publicly I just I feel that it's a little inappropriate because I'm full of shit basically and I wanted up in the meeting and there's all these people in the meeting and it was very embarrassing for me because I just want to be the lowly, you know, person that only makes this amount of money during the year and I don't have all my bases covered and, you know, I've been comfortable there, you know. And people are and the head guy, Rick got up and said that there had been some praise going on from some of the clients and my name came up and I thought that was really deep and instead of sitting there you know relish you know enjoy it vaski get that my head automatically said well shit they should have given me a raise you know the ego you know edging god out and then when i went to the car after the meeting i thanked my higher power i knew that that was a direct result of what he wants uh and what my power has going on for me. You know, I was in a meeting complaining because I had been out of work for eight months, and I was at a noon meeting, learning about it down in Hollywood, and one of my supervisors today was in that meeting, and she came up to me after the meeting, I didn't even know who she was, and gave me her supervisor's card and told me to call her supervisor, and two days later I was working. They put me on the job. They trained me and they got me going. And that's because I didn't go to that noon meeting, I led that meeting too. And I didn�t want to go lead that meeting because I had been unemployed. Hell, I didn �t even have the gas to get over there. But I suited up and showed up just like you guys and gals taught me and I got that job. And know that this is not an employment agency but all I did, I don�t ask the group for a job. I I was just telling them exactly where I was at at that very moment. And what I'm trying to share is that if you're here and if you knew, let us know where you are at this very moment when you're talking to us. I know you have a gamut of shit that you want to let us know all about from way back there. But on that 12-step call that you're trying to get out of us, just kind of let us know what your needs are right now. And I'd be willing to bet if you search honestly that there'll be somebody here to help you but those immediate needs you know and you won't even see it coming man i didn't even know that girl because for a minute there i thought she was trying to hit on me but then i kind of went oh chemically impossible where i got that from but You know, because I had shared. And she just came up to me. And now that I look back on it, she did it kind of, it was almost like a pathetic kind of a hymn. You know? Shut up. Go get a job. You want a job, go get it. You know and it happened. You know I'm here to share that I was at a meeting one night with about three years of sobriety, I was struggling and I was complaining. I didn't have any cigarettes. I used to smoke at the time. And my grand sponsor, I tell my sponsors about this, it was a candlelight, it was dark. I was really feeling the feelings of not having smokes and struggling in my sobrietry. And my grandfather just reached back and kind of chucked a pack of cigarettes at me and it hit me right in the mouth, right? and I just leaned over the table and said thank you for letting me share and just those solutions just kind of hit you you don't really have to worry about it people don't believe that people don' t believe that people don''t believe that people believe that you got to come up in here and earn a free gift no this work that we're doing is just a constant reminder that God Of myself, I am nothing. This work that we do is just a constant eye-opener that my higher power is running shit. And I used to think that the work that we do was for recognition and notoriety and rank. We're going to move up around here. I'm the coffee guy on Friday night. This is my kitchen. You know what I mean? You know, you come in, you don't want to. I love that way, man, because you see that transformation. You see new people come in. All right, man. I don't know what to tell you. Two weeks later, we give them a coffee. Can I help you, please? Why are you in the kitchen? And we give you a restore some stuff in us. And this work that we're doing, these panels, these commitments, taking these cakes and stuff, it's just a reminder that our higher power, most of us, of the people that I know here personally, we've turned our will and our life over to the care of God. And He's taking care of us. And we'd just be tripping, that's all. We'd be triipping. We forget. Like I forgot that microphone was right there. We space out. And I forget that God is taking care of me. All of a sudden, I start hearing your problems and I start hearin' your fear and I started hearin', you're lack of step three and then I start acting as a conduit and I take that shit on and I forget, you know what I'm taken care of I don't need to be afraid because you're afraid, maybe God's got you talking to me about your fear cause I'm not in it I don' t know it, cause when you're out there on those streets man and somebody is talking to you about something man, whenever you get a free drink you gotta really feel what they're talking about you know, you gotta really get down in there with them and go Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, he is a bitch. Can you? Yeah. You know, today in AA, I'm going to have to prostitute my recovery today. If you're feeling like crap and I'm not, that's okay. And it's okay for me to feel like shit and for you not to feel like shit because God may be using that to get us both out of ourselves, you know, and I trip off of that because when I was newer than I am now, I used to really believe that when people used to tell me, I know exactly how you feel. Something just really rubbed me the wrong way with that. It's like I just got fired from my job and you're driving around with a car tank full of gas living good having sex every night and they're going to tell me you know exactly how I feel you know it's a farce what I like about AA members is you know the big book talks about it you know I felt like that I have felt like that before and this is what I did or this is what I didn't do or this is what I'm still doing come join us come join us I don't think anybody here has all the answers, especially the guy you're listening to, but we do know how to live in the solution today. You don't need all the answers in order to live in the solution. I found that out after having about 10 years. I thought that all the stuff that I was learning from you women and men was some sort of a key to having all the answers. And all you guys and gals are just telling me is that this is how we live in the solution. This is how we live with unresolved issues. You know, this is what we do. Come join us. We do not want to join you. New comer. You know? It says we care. It doesn't say you care. We know you don't care. You'd probably much rather have a drink right about now. But we care because we've been there and done that and we have the pain, the experience and the 12 steps to prove it. And that's what I've been learning around here, especially when we're all done talking. Because a lot of times you can go to a meeting and you can hear a lot of good stuff, but it's like, I know how to leave a meeting and think to myself, why the hell did I tell them that? You know, all that fucking talking. And why didn't I get it open and why didn' I do it? And the reason why is because I'm a fraidy cat. I've always been a fready cat, my brother was a bully and I let him know it. By doing what he told me to do, I'm not asking any questions. And today, I don't let bullies blast me around. You know, I just don't. I believe today that Alcoholics Anonymous is the only thing that's ever going to work for me. You know? I believe that Alcoholic Anonymous, and this is where I really kind of get far-fetched, but I believe we need to really be careful with our staff. I've been going to a lot of different meetings, and what frightens me about AA is looking at it from the inside out. It's like, you know, man, we have one single purpose here, and we can't do all things for all people. You know, that's how the Washingtonians imploded, and that's why the Oxfords kind of faded off the scene, trying to do all kinds of things for our people. I'm not here to do everything for our own people. I'm trying to practice these principles in all my affairs, andthat's it, youknow? And sometimes I think we just get a little too carried away, especially me. Especially me. People don't want to hear that, you know? I was in a meeting a few months ago and this guy was down there sharing, you know, my birthday is on this day so I want to start my sobriety over so my real birthday and my AA birthday can match. Thanks for letting me share. And we just sort of clapped for her, you and I just I was right out of the book right out of the it just tripped me out and I was just and it's like look at us and we're all and I saw like four or five people going yeah write off that shit scares me with over ten years sober you know people changing their sobriety date in the middle of a field you know. Changing sponsors because the sponsor wore a red hat instead of a blue one. All this merry-go-round stuff, man. And I try to watch the parade is what guys like Jim and Susie show me. Just watch the parade. Just to watch it, you know? And one night I called my sponsor here recently and me and I just told him, you know, thank you for putting up. There's another one of my favorite melodies. The alcoholic top 20 list, that's right. Well, I'm sharing. And I just called him and said, thanks for putting it up with all bullshit. Thank you, sir. And he just laughed because he knows I'm at that point. I sponsor a lot of guys and it's just It's like sometimes it can be a little overwhelming, you know. And I feel spiritually depleted, you Know, because I'm only human. And only alcoholics have to announce that as well. Have you ever heard an alcoholic dog identify? But I'm not only human, man. I just, I get up and I look at these little Christian Judeo-type books, these little meditation books in the morning, and I sit there and I read them and I try to understand what they say and I close them and I get on my knees and I ask God to keep me sober and I walk out the door and I go and screw up and make mistakes. And then I come back at night and I say thank you. You know? If you're new that's how simple it really is and everything in between that that you're drinking over is a lie. And I can go on out and say that because I'm not a star. You know, I'm doing anything special or different that we're not supposed to do around here in order to get the results of not drinking. You know? And I don't appreciate being put on this pedestal just because we're doing what we're supposed to be doing. That's dangerous for guys and gals like us. Don't put me on a pedestal because I don' t want to do it. I'm going to do what my sponsor tells me to do. You know. Get busy. There's work to be done. You know there's awakenings to be had. you know, I fell asleep you know it's kind of like that movie The Matrix I fell sleep, I was in a dream world you know I didn't know that I was living in a dreaming world you know and then I come to AA and just like in that movie when he got unplugged it was like he was throwing up and shit especially when he found out the truth he started throwing up and detoxing from the lie and that's where my head's at right now so all those things that I thought were so important you know being able to diss my mother and being able like you know talk shit because you know I had learned some stuff off of video or TV or some shit but I could you know I knew how to think really fast you know and my mother would ask me something and I knew how to answer it really, really quick. See? And today I know that it was all her shit, but I wanted a drink. I needed a drink, I needed some weed or something. Something had to be happening. Let's get it going on. That's a, hey, what's up? Hey, what you doing? All right, that's a drunk. Been loaded. You know, and today it's like, you know what, I get up with that same kind of energy, but it's headed towards sobriety. On those days, what can I do to be of service today? What can I do to help out? And some days I stay quarantined. Because I am of no earthly good. I stay up and I get myself in the house. I don't come out. And I live in Glendale. I love the way I say that. I moved from Lancaster to Simi Valley. I lived in Simi valley for six and a half months. And now I live at Glendal. And they are beautiful people over there. It's a nice little house, little duplex. I got the speed freak manager in charge of every piece of thing in the sector that lives in front of me. I got to get the entire... I'm not going to go there. But there's another group of family in one two-bedroom unit next to me and my AA friend lives in the back behind the property and I love that little place one bedroom, one kitchen one bathroom and one alcoholic just there you know the other night I was sitting in the bed and I was just looking around because I'm from Skip Row I'm not from Glendale and I'm sitting in there And I was just thinking about my life because as we get older, I'm getting older too. I thought I'd be dead by now. I'm 37 years old. I'm just sitting here going, wow, all of that shit, just so I could be sitting here in Glendale. All of that stuff. Because I was holding on to that. Anybody was holding? I was holdin' on to my life out there. I had a right to be drinkin'. and stuff, and you know, I mean shit, the white man is bringing us down yeah, suffer life is hard anybody got any zigzags on, I means, life is rough and I have a right to be drinking, I had no idea that was coming from my disease I thought that was some kind of desire that was just you know earthly or bohemian or some shit I had no idea, but that is your disease. Anything that ends with you killing yourself is disease-oriented. It's coming from your sickness, fool. You know, my sponsor used to tell me that because I was talking to him one night about politics. And I'm like, yeah, I don't believe in this and that. He said, well, when's the last time you voted? I said, about five years ago. He says, shut the fuck up. I mean, I didn't know I thought that all these things were just things That I needed to be about And what I'm learning today is I can change my mind You know, and I'll shut up I can have God change my life I don't have to stick with it Just because You know If my ass is falling off And I can't do it I cannot do it Hello? Can't do that because I used to you know it was like I gotta do it you know it's like I was talking to my friend I don't know if Chalabi was with me that night or we I think it was you or somebody we were at Coco's with Jeff and I was late or something and I met him at Coco's and he was like I was like I hate being late and I said what are you going to do drink over it and I thought about it and I'm just like yeah it's not that important you know it's Not That Big of a Deal if you're here and if you knew whatever you're not staying sober over it's not that important you know it's a good thing it's just not that important to be drinking over come on in here the water is fine you're going to make it but you got to do what we do in order to see that big book of Alcoholics Anonymous on the last page of Bill Wilson's story talks about a guy that could not see our way in life doesn't say he couldn't do it you couldn't see it and it's our job as a group of people to try to show you what we got wake up a vision I don't know it's been a long time when we used to come to that meeting on Fridays and see Susie and her family and that little baby your grandbaby I know it's big now and I'd go around and tell people that's my baby. You know, the baby looked different from me. And everybody thought, wow, that's your baby. Things really do change in alcoholics and all of this, don't they? And I claimed the baby, and her daughter just accepted me as an idiot, just a funny guy. She's like, yeah, this is his baby. And the dad would be like, what? for the baby that's my baby you know it's like just the love you know it was love that's all it was because we were in the action to show up I watched auditions with her sister for six months straight every Friday night because I was miserable and stick to the ABCs of Alcoholics Anonymous the ashtrays the brooms and the chairs cups you know not having all the answers man but doing something but drinking I love that kind of stuff because it really does get a little salty sometimes and to close I hope you take a little bit of this meeting with you you know, it gets a little salty, it gives a little weird but it doesn't have to get drunk, the alcoholic does not have to get drunk our solution is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve that same freedom once again congratulations on your birthday thanks for having me come out and I'm through talking, I'm hungry now thanks