Oh, God. My name’s Earl. I’m an alcoholic. Hi, Earl.

Jesus Christ. Ugh. Okay. Uh…

I wanna thank the committee for asking me to come share here tonight. It’s always an honor and a privilege. Uh, particularly, I wanna thank Harlan. Y- you all right, Harlan?

Harlan. And I wanna thank, uh, Zan and, and Vicky for coming to the airport and picking me up in Portland. It was an interesting ride back. And, uh, and just everybody who’s been real nice to me while I’ve been here.

I’ve had a great time. Rosa, for all the communication, uh, over the last couple of years, making sure I’d end up in the right state. Um, so let’s get this over with. Uh…

I didn’t start drinking when I was 12 years old. I, uh, I had been restless, irritable, and discontented for some time. Prior to that, I, uh… It’s true, man.

I was, I started sleepwalking and talking in my sleep when I was a little kid, about four or five years old. I’d get up and walk through the house and, uh, turn on the lights as I’d go through the house and stand at the foot of my parents’ bed and talk to them for a while, scare the hell out of my parents. Turn around and walk back through the house, turn the lights off as I’d go back through the house and get back in bed. Right.

They sent me immediately into therapy. They, uh, ran a few tests on me, and the answer they came up with was every night before I’d go to bed, they’d give me a tablespoon of this liquid, right? Which would knock me out. No more problem, right?

I think, uh, I subconsciously filed that away as, uh, what the information was, “If you don’t like the way things are going, take something.” And went into my childhood and don’t remember much else about it. You know, I was 12 years old. I got, uh, um…

They did, uh, a bunch of tests, more tests on me, and they, they determined that I had a very high IQ. I don’t have it anymore, so I’m not bragging. It’s- That’s long gone. The, uh…

But so they decided that I should be shipped off to this think tank boarding school, right? And, uh, so just, and nobody told me what was going on. They just one day, my father said, “Get in the car,” you know? So I got in the car and drove forever, I remember.

And we ended up in this place, and, and I got out of the car, and he got out of the car, and nobody else got out of the car. And one of them put a suitcase down next to me and shook my hand and said, “This’ll make a man out of you,” and then got back in the car, and they all drove off. Now, the fact was, is that I was being given an opportunity for a wonderful education, which has held me in good stead to this very day. Um, the feeling was, is that I just got thrown away by the people who knew me better than anybody in the world, and, uh, I had no idea why.

So I was launched out into the universe at age 12, and I, I, I had no tools for living. I mean, you know, I was five feet tall, 100 pounds, clueless. I didn’t know what was going on. I mean, everybody had been telling me what to do every step of the way s- you know, up to that point, and here I was in this school.

It turns out that there were 250 boys from all over the world in this school. They had scoured the Earth to find 250 of the brightest, most disturbed young men they could find. And they threw us all on this campus. And, uh, everybody was thir- There were 249 guys that were age 13 to 18, and there was me.

I was the 12-year-old. I was the smallest and the youngest kid in the whole school, and I knew right off the… I mean, I knew instantly, I’m the odd man out. This is a big mistake.

I’m not supposed to be here. I lose. And I knew it right away, and I hated this place. And for 72 hours, I called my mother every chance I got to say, “This is a big mistake.

You gotta get me out of here.” And she’d just say, “Sorry, can’t do that.” And, uh, after, that was as long as I could stay in that kind of pain, and s- it was like something broke inside me, and I just said, “You know what? You don’t want me, I don’t want you,” and I turned my back on them. About the fourth or fifth day in this school, every high school’s got a guy named Tiny, right?

He’s like 6’4″, 245. Right? Biggest guy in the school. And I was walking along with my books, trying not to make eye contact with anybody, and Tiny found me.

And he said, “How you doing, punk?” And he slapped me in the back of the head and sent me and my books flying, right? Well, I had no, you know, I had never met a guy like this before, and I didn’t know what to do, and I had this kinda, like, out-of-body experience where you’re watching yourself do something, and in your head you’re saying, your head’s telling you, “This is a very bad idea.” You know? And I walked up, and I hit Tiny as hard as I could, and then just stood there in front of this giant person.

And I didn’t know what… You know, we’re already past anything I know, you know what I mean? Let’s, uh, you take it from here. And he did.

And he said, you know, “You got a lot of guts, kid,” and then he beat the crap out of me right on the spot. And as I’m taking the beating, I’m thinking, “This is going pretty well.” You know? ‘Cause the fact of the matter is, is I was absolutely terrified of this guy, and he, but he had just said, you know, “You got a lot of guts.” So apparently, my violence masked the fear. And that was my first tool for living: When in doubt, attack.

Uh, you know, not ’cause I’m a tough guy or a bad guy, but just because I was a self-centered, frightened human being from as early as I can remember, and that was how I dealt with my fear, was to attack people. So, uh, I went back to my dorm room, you know, sat around waiting for the bleeding to stop. And word spread across this campus like wildfire.

You know, within 30 minutes, every guy there was like, “Watch out for this little Hightower kid. He’s a maniac. He attacked Tiny,” right? So now I got this reputation.

As far as I can s- the hole is just getting deeper, you know what I mean? As, as has absolutely nothing to do with who I am. I’m a frightened child, you know? But now I have a reputation as a maniac, so…

And you know we gotta live up to that. So the cool guys started coming around, right? And Matt swung by, and Matt said, uh, “Hey.” Matt was 13. He says, “You wanna smoke a joint?” And I said, “Well, yeah, I do.” You know?

And I had no idea what he was talking about. I had no idea what that meant. But what I heard was, “You wanna hook up?” The answer was, “Yeah, man, I wanna hook up. I’m alone in the world.

I got large people beating the hell out of me, you know?” I need some friends. And he said, he said, “Well, come on, man.” So we swing by and we pick up Steve, and Steve had a Tupperware container full of cheap red wine. I mean, no grapes involved. You know what I mean?

That fortified stuff, you know? The, the good stuff, you know? When you’re there to get something done, you know? And we went behind the dorm, and we’re standing by this big tree.

And Matt fired up the joint, took a hit, and handed it to me, and I just did what he did and handed it to Steve. And there came the wine, and I took a pull on the wine, and we’re standing there going around in a circle like this, and I have no idea why we’re doing this. I’m just glad not to be standing there by myself, you know? And I’m watching this happen, and I don’t get it.

And I mean, all of a sudden, it happened. That thing that makes me bodily different from my fellows occurred- … and that warm, easy feeling kinda just wafted up over me, you know? And it was like, “Hey.

This is good.” “This is very, very good.” ‘Cause I’m comfortable standing where I’m standing, doing what I’m doing with the people I’m doing it with for the first time in my life. And I’ve never, I’ve never felt better. It’s like a spiritual experience for me just to be comfortable standing there, you know?

And I don’t know if it’s the pot, the wine, if it’s the fact that I’m now hanging with my two very close personal friends, Steve and Matt. These are my bros, you know? I feel very tight here. I don’t know what it is.

But what I’m noticing right away is, is that nobody’s dying. Nobody’s going to jail. There’s no, no blood drawn. Nobody goes to the nuthouse.

There was no downside whatsoever. We hung. It was very mellow. Went back to my room.

Was no longer concerned about the beating I’d taken a couple hours before. Went to sleep, got up, went to class. Woke up, first thought, “I wonder where Matt and Steve are.” I gotta do that again. I like that.

And I made a commitment right there, I need to do this as often as possible, and I did for the next 16 years no matter what. I was given many good reasons to stop along the way, and, uh, I never even slowed down. It just didn’t matter. It didn’t matter.

‘Cause this was the greatest thing I’d ever found in my life. It made it possible for me to get up and go out into the world and talk to other people. Something that I was terrified to do. Uh, 13 was pills, you know?

And the only reason I took pills was ’cause somebody said, “Would you like a couple of these?” And I said, “Well, yeah. I would.” So I took a couple of these pills, and I didn’t know what they were, you know? 20 minutes later I’m laying on the floor, and I’m very happy down there. Everything’s cool, man.

I’m on the floor. Good. Can’t fall down. No problems.

Everything’s good. Just laying on the floor. And a guy came by, said, “Can I get you anything?” I just said, “Well, well, well, what do you call those?” He said, “Tudol.” Tudol. All right.

Write that down. Tudol, Seconal, Placidyl. Got strung out on all that stuff. 14 was psychedelics.

You know? ‘Cause I was hanging out with this girl, Debbie. Had a 10-hour pass from boarding school, and I was hanging, I was hanging with Debbie, man. Debbie was a older woman.

Debbie was 15 and a half, man. Debbie was a bad girl. And I had such respect for Debbie, man. I still do.

And she said, “You wanna go have some acid?” And I said, “Well, yeah.” I had learned, you know? You say, you know, people ask you stuff like this, say yes. Something good’s about to happen.

So she pulls out this lipstick tube and spun it open, and on the tip of it is this little tiny pill. So I just took it off, threw it in my mouth, swallowed it. And she said, “Uh, did you take that whole thing?” I said, “Well, yeah. It was a little tiny, it was a very tiny pill.” And she said, “Well, that’s three hits of white lightning.” Oh.

Oh, we have a little identification in the room, I see. Yeah. Everybody’s going, “Oh.” Oh. Yeah.

Next two days are very interesting, man. I don’t remember much of it. I do remember, however, I was in a supermarket somewhere, you know? Bob’s got his supermarket stories, I got mine, you know?

And I, I was in the supermarket with him, and he had a cart, and we were walking down one of the aisles, and I remember thinking everything looked really put together, you know? It was just- You know what I mean? And I’m down the aisle, and we were, apparently, we were pretending we were married. And I looked over and I said, “Do we have any children?” And she said, “Yes, we have two.” And I said, “Well, then we’re gonna

need these diapers right here.” And I blacked out again. That was the last thing I remember doing there. But to this day, going into a supermarket takes a real commitment on my part. There’s…

I still find them kinda spooky. There’s too many decisions, man. I mean, you gotta make a lot of decisions. If you don’t have a list, it gets rough in there.

I want, you know, everyone, you know, uh, you want corn, there’s cream corn, there’s canned corn, there’s the Mexicorn thing, there’s the… And then somewhere over there is the, you know, corn on the cob. It’s like, I’m already done. It’s like, I’ll come back.

There’s too many decisions, you know? There’s, you ever want, you see the abandoned shopping carts in markets, you know? I identify with that guy. I know that guy.

It’s just like… I’ll do this later. I don’t know if that’s ever gonna change. Anyway, so 15 I started shooting dope.

And the only reason I did that was this other girl said, “You know, you want me to stick this in your body?” And I said, “Well, yeah.” And she did, and I did one of those, you know- Just right over, you know? And all I remember thinking on the way down was, “Oh, yeah.” “That’ll work.” “I gotta remember this.” Okay, now I’ve been talking about drugs.

I identify as an alcoholic. Uh, drugs led me to alcohol, and alcohol led me here. That’s just part of my story is the drugs, you know what I mean? While I was doing all this stuff, I was drinking every single day.

Always drinking. I would… Uh, my drug of choice was what do you got? You know what I mean?

I was not a, I was not a specialist, you know what I mean? I didn’t do… Now, if you’re into, you did one thing right into the dirt and crawled in here, God bless you, have a seat. You know what I mean?

That’s not my story. I know, it’s just, it’s all anti-earl medication to me, and that’s all I’m after. It’s all the fear killer. I get enough of what you got in my body, I can kill the fear, and that’s all that’s important to me.

The only thing that I did every day was alcohol. I mean, I’d be, you know, shooting heroin one day, snorting cocaine the next, you know, eating psilocybin or, you know, carrying on doing the Carlos Castaneda thing out in the desert, you know what I mean? Or just doing whatever I was doing, you know what I mean? I, I was not committed in any one direction.

Now, again, like Bob, if I get to, uh, the, I get to choose, I want down and out. I want heart and lungs working, nothing else going on. That’s the place I like. It’s cool.

It’s quiet. It’s dark. I like it down there. Booze will do that for me.

Opiates will do that for me. That’s the place I like to go. Barbiturates, give me those. Let’s, let’s go, right?

But if I go to connect to buy, you know, some heroin, and he goes, “We’re out,” I’ll say, “I’ll take the cocaine.” You know? I was planning on going down, can’t go down? Let’s go this way. Let’s go up.

‘Cause I got, ’cause my j- I got a job to do here, man, and my job is I gotta get out of right here right now. I gotta get… ‘Cause this is where I’m feeling stuff, and this is where I gotta be like a person, and I gotta, I gotta deal with other pe- I can’t, and I’m not good at any of this. I’m just not good at it.

I gotta get out of here. And, and I got… And I, when I drank, I got drunk. I don’t know any…

I can’t even comment on social drinking. I don’t know anything about it. I’ve never done it. I’ve seen it.

I’ve seen it. I find it bizarre. ‘Cause they’re clearly doing something to… If they…

You know that part in chapter three where they say, you know, science may one day accomplish this but it hasn’t done so yet? They might come up with a pill where people like me can drink like a normal man. You can keep it. I have no interest in drinking like a normal man.

I’ve seen how they drink, and I, that just, I have no interest in that whatsoever. ‘Cause it doesn’t do what I’m there to get done. There’s no point in a couple of drinks. The only reason to have a couple of drinks is you have a couple of drinks while you’re waiting for him to bring you another couple of drinks.

It’s… Couple of drinks. Yeah. Yet I have a mind that has, that told me for years, “Let’s go have a couple of drinks.” “We need to unwind.”

And I’d sit there like an idiot going, “Yeah.” “I could have a couple of drinks.” Never had a couple of drinks in my life. So anyway, I was drinking through all of it. Now, all the day. Booze was the only thing that was on the table every day.

And the reason for that, in my opinion, is because drugs are unreliable, and booze is very reliable. You can count on booze. There’s, I mean, out there on the street, there’s no quality control going on out there in the drug world. You go connect, you go get whatever it is you got.

I mean, when was the last time you went to go buy some cocaine and the dealer said, “You know, it’s really not that good today. Come back Thursday, we’ll have something a little better for you”? Doesn’t happen. “Oh, yeah, yeah, it’s great, it’s great.

It’s the best. Probably gonna have to step on this one more time, man. It’s great.” Sure. You know, you’re shooting salt.

And you never know what you get, you never know what you get out there. You know what I mean? You don’t know, you know… You do so much cocaine you can’t get your mouth open anymore.

You just, ugh. You know what I mean? Always overshooting the mark, you know what I mean? You got a bottle of Jack Daniels, you got yourself a quart of gin, no problem.

You suck a little gin through your teeth, gets you right back in the comfort zone. Acid a little too spooky tonight? Don’t worry about it. Jack’ll ease it back for you.

Crack ghetto starts sucking on the bottle, man. Not enough heroin to get you to that cool, quiet, heart and lungs working place? Booze will get you the rest of the way. It will take care of the job.

You can count on booze. And I did from age 12. That’s what I counted on. I mean, in my generation when we…

Our parents were the drunks, you know what I mean? We were the drug addicts. We weren’t gonna drink ourselves to death. We were gonna kill ourselves in a whole new way, you know what I mean?

That was, that was, that was, uh, carving out our own identity, you know what I mean? But the fact of the matter is, when you being an alcoholic, truly, you go with what works. You go with what works, you know what I mean? You, you, they can get all, they can be as, you know, hip as they wanna be, man.

I gotta get the job done. And the job meant alcohol for me. Always with the booze. So 16, I dropped out of high school.

Um, my, I got committed to my first mental institution. Three months of observation, a year of rehabilitation, and, uh, shuffling around in there taking three cups of pills a day, you know. No shoelaces, no belt. Somebody else lights your cigarette for you.

You know what I mean? Shaving in that reflective stuff, you know, with a guy standing right there, you know, ’cause they didn’t have mirrors. Nice place. You know?

We’re aspiring to be a mental patient, you know? And, uh, they had the exit signs like they have here, the green lit ones that are lit up by the doors. And I remember sitting in the cafeteria, used to have all my meals with this woman named Kilday. Kilday was really nuts.

And Kilday, but she was fun because all you had to do was look at her and say, “How you doing?” And Kilday’d just spin like a top, man. And just go crazy. And it was fun. You know what I mean?

Every meal was like dinner and a show, you know what I mean? You have, you have your dinner and you watch Kilday flip out. So I decided I was gonna escape, and I got a, a, a… I used Kilday as my diversion.

I got, ’cause the green exit signs, you know what I mean? I was so focused on those. It just said exit, and that’s all I wanted to do. That was it for me.

I wanted to get out. I made my break, but I, you know, I’m taking these three cups of pills a day. I get killed they spinning off that way, and it’s like, “Ready, ready, ready, go!” And I’m hauling ass, you know what I mean?

That’s all I got. And your brain’s working fine, and you’re looking down going, “Ooh, Jesus,” you know, “get going, man.” It’s not working. You know, you hear over the loudspeaker from the nurse’s station, “Uh, Lou, when you got a minute, do you wanna grab Earl? He’s making a break for the door.” You know, Lou’s in there eating a sandwich going, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll get him in a minute.

I got it.” “I’m working for the Lord.” So, I mean, at this point I’m, like, 16 years old. My tools for living are drugs, alcohol, violence, and run, and now I gotta add another one. If you’re gonna live my life, you’re gonna get thrown in the nuthouse, you gotta get out before they get the Thorazine in you. ‘Cause if you don’t, you’re leaving when they say.

So the next time I got thrown in the nuthouse, I, uh, I escaped the first day. I was sitting in the interview process, you know what I mean? With my mother sitting there wringing her hands, you know? And this intake person, Daniel Arms, says, “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, man, it’s really bad out there.

I’m really glad you got your hands on me. It was really rough. I was really having a hard…” “Hey, look at that.” Phew. You know?

And I– There no pills in me now, man, and I hauled ass out of this place. It was a place called Re- Bob knows the place. It’s called the Westwood. It was before they built, uh, the hospital there.

It was on the corner of Barrington and Olympic in Los Angeles, man. I blasted out of this place, and whistles are going off, and I’m– I bust out in this backyard, and I got this guy, this intern right on my tail, man. And we’re heading across this lawn, and I see this 12-foot chain link fence with, uh, ivy on it, and I’m thinking, “I got it. I’m over that fence, I’m free.” You know, as I’m running, I mean, at this point in my life, I’m 16 years old.

I’m a high school dropout, right? I’m a drug addict. I’m an alcoholic. I’m at any moment, hopefully, an escaped mental patient.

This is, like, my resume. This is what I have to say for myself, and I’m thinking, “If I make that fence, I don’t have any problems.” “I don’t have any problems if I make that fence ’cause I’ll be loaded in 20 minutes, man. This is LA. It’s my town.” And that’s all my life is about.

‘Cause who I am is I drink and use no matter what, which is why I don’t care for the statement around AA where they tell newcomers, “Just don’t drink no matter what.” Telling you, man, that misses the point for me. I mean, if I could just not drink no matter what, I guarantee you you’d have a different speaker tonight. There’s no way I’m getting on a plane.

Fly up to Oregon, drive two hours, right? Hang out in a hotel, get up in front of God knows how many of you are out there. Scare the hell out of myself. Tell you the truth about who I am.

Are you… Why? Why would you do that? Why would you go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous?

Why would you go anywhere near the steps? Why would– The fourth step? Are you out of your mind? Why would I need to swallow large chunks of truth about myself?

I’ll just– I’m not drinking no, no matter what. I’m at home not drinking no matter what. I can do that. If I could do that, that’s what I’d do.

The point is I can’t do that. I’m the exact opposite of that. I drink and use no matter what. Given lots of good reasons, I don’t stop.

I was seven– 16 years old, I had a lot of very good reasons. Let’s review for you, Earl. You’re a high school dropout. You’re alienated from your family.

You’ve just escaped from a mental hospital. How’s it going so far? And I’m– my answer was, “I made it over the fence, so it’s going fine.” ‘Cause I’m high now, you know? So I spent three years out on the street doing what you do to stay loaded on a daily basis.

Uh, met this woman at a party. We talked for 20 minutes. It went pretty well. We were in love.

So Rosemary and I decided that we were gonna– we had to pull our- pull it together here. I’m really watching my language. I’m doing very well, too, I think. Don’t you think?

And of course, right now is when I’m just so tempted to say So- Um, I set myself up. Um, so we decided– So I went on this interview. They had a guy in town in LA who was, uh, uh, interviewing for a, a good business college in Northern California, and I decided I would go interview for this college.

I’m a high school dropout, right? But that’s details, you know what I mean? So I go, I go on an interview, and the guy’s a musician, so I’m a musician, you know? His favorite color’s blue.

That’s amazing. Mine too, you know? I just lined right up with this guy, and an hour and a half later he said, “You know, you’ll be a wonderful addition to our campus in the fall.” I said, “Great. See you there,” you know?

Left. Thinking, “Now what do I do?” Went back and saw my father and said, “Look, I got accepted to college. Don’t ask. Give me a year’s tuition, I’m leaving town.” He said, “Fine,” you know?

Jack leaves. So me and Rosemary piled all our belongings in the back of this truck, along with eight pounds of hash, and drove to Northern California to higher learning. And I went to school. I, I went to an adult night school and got my G– gave him a year’s tuition up front, told him the transcripts were in the mail.

Went down to the local high school, did the GED to get my my high school equivalency done, right? Was going to college during the day, became a drug dealer. You know, was studying marketing, production, distribution, applying it to my business. You know, business was booming, you know?

And I didn’t have any problem with any of this. I mean, I had no morals. I had no ethics, you know? It wasn’t a, was n– there was no right or wrong stuff going on in my life.

I had no principles of any kind. I didn’t know what it meant– I had no idea what it meant to be a m- a part of a family. I’d been gone since I was 12. I didn’t know what it, what it meant to be a part of a community.

I had no sense of that at all. I was just, it was me, and it was up to me to take care of me, and this was the way I was gonna do it. It was a brave new world, and I was gonna be a part of it, and this was my thing. We were gonna rage against the machine and party till we dropped, you know?

So fast-forward, I’m, I’m, I’m 21 years old. I’m a, um– Rosemary’s long gone. Rosemary’s saying things like, “I’m too high. Gotta go.” Rosemary’s gone.

I’m living, I’m living the life of a drug dealer. Um, I got a high school diploma. I’m a junior in college. I’m editor-in-chief of my college newspaper.

I got an early acceptance to go to USC law school. My business is booming. You know? I mean, I’m all, I’m, i- it’s, you know, it’s working.

It looks like everything’s working, but I’m ha- I’m really starting to struggle inside ’cause I’m using like a madman on a daily basis. I’m starting to overdose every now and then. You know, people are starting to drop around me. You know, it’s getting a little severe.

I’m only 21. And, uh, um, I got diagnosed to have, uh… I went for a physical. I don’t know why.

I went for a physical, you know. Bad idea ’cause I got diagnosed to have malignant cancer when I had the, went in for the deal. And, uh, I had to fly back to LA and they did major surgery on my back, and they told me I was gonna die, and they told my, my family I was gonna die.

I remember thinking, “You don’t even know who you’re talking to.” You know, people have been saying that to me for, like, two years now, you know. “People, knock this off. You’re gonna die.” And I just never identified with the idea that I was gonna die at that point. I mean, I knew I w- I knew, already knew at that point in my life that I probably wasn’t gonna live that long, but I was all right with that.

You know what I mean? But I didn’t think it was, you know, the… I mean, the way I was living was gonna kill me way before this did. So they did the major surgery.

They did the nuclear medicine thing. You know what I mean? They had me, you know, shoot me full of all kinds of stuff, and I hated their drugs, so I quit right in the middle of it, and said, “I don’t like this,” and I left. And I went home and got high the way I get high, and, uh, beat the cancer thing.

And, uh, basically, I’m convinced that, that the way I was using in those days, my body was so toxic cancer could not live in my body. It’s like the host was more toxic than the disease. So I beat the cancer thing. And went back up north and was going to school, and my mother called me, um, right before I was 22, and she called me up and said, “Look, we haven’t been anywhere as a family

in 10 years. We’ll go anywhere you wanna go. Let’s just go somewhere for your birthday.” And I said, “Fine.” So I flew back into LA and, uh… Uh, my birthday is November 7th, right?

So I, I, I blew in the morning, 6:00 AM, November 7th. It was one of those mornings where I had been up, you know, I couldn’t get my mouth open. You know what I mean? It was like, “Ugh.” It was locked down.

You know, I shouted out, “Hi, Mom.” And she said, “That’s cute. Get in the car.” And, and we took off to fly to Guadalajara. Um, and on the way there, the plane crashed, and my mother and my father and my little sister were all killed, and I wasn’t. And I, uh, I woke up on this mountain in Mexico, and my skull was fractured, my back was broken in three places, and my leg was crushed, and my arm was crushed.

A bunch of metal through my arm. Had a lot of internal injuries. I was paralyzed from the waist down, and I was awake, and my mother was laying right over there, and my little sister, Kimberly, was laying right over there, and my father was laying right over there, and I couldn’t get to them. The only thing I could move was my right arm, and I couldn’t get to them, and I couldn’t help them, and I watched them all bleed to death right in front of me.

And I had a little chat with God, and I said, “You know what? I renounce you. I have no interest in a God that would take a kind, gentle, poetic, loving little girl like my little sister Kimberly, who was mine.” When she wanted to know about boys, she came to me.

I was her big brother. I raised her. When she wanted to know about boys, she came to me. When she had problems with her friends, she came to me.

When she had problems with school, she came to me. When I went away to college and she graduated from high school, she came up to the same school so that we could be together. We were real close. She, she was 15 months younger than me.

Said, “You take her, and you leave a lying, cheating, thieving, dope fiend alcoholic like me on the planet, I got no use for a God like this,” and I renounced God. And then some guys came up to the, to the crash site and they scavenged the, the wreck, took the money out of my wallet, and threw my wallet back out on my chest, and went back down the mountain and left me up there to die. Said, “I have no more use for you either.” I was out of the game.

No more need for the pretense. No more need to say, “Hey, I’m going to law school,” or, “Hey, I’m doing this,” or, “Hey, I got this going on,” or, “Hey, I got that going on,” so that you’ll leave me alone and let me drink and use the way I wanna drink and use. I don’t need it anymore. I’m just gonna drink and use the way I want to.

You don’t like it, you can, you can get out of the way. You know what? You got sex, drugs, alcohol, money, or any information on how I can get any or all of the above, we’ll talk. You don’t?

Next. I got no use for you whatsoever. I don’t wanna be your friend. I don’t wanna get to know you.

I don’t wanna be a part of your life, and I don’t want you to be a part of mine. What I do is I drink and I use. That’s what I do, and that’s all I wanna do. I’m never gonna have the TV life.

It’s never gonna be Earl and the wife and the kids, and the picket fence and the little house, and the dog and the two-week vacation, and the nine-to-five job and the retirement plan. That’s never gonna happen. My life’s never been anywhere near what TV told me it was gonna be. I am not Leave It to Beaver.

Never have been, never will be. I’m just gonna do my thing. This is my life. This is my road.

This is my path, and I’m gonna live it. And I came up that mountain. They, they… Finally, some other guys came up and they took me down off the mountain, and they drove us to a, a aid station, and they tagged my right big toe, tagged me dead, and sat there smoking cigarettes waiting for me to die, and I didn’t

die. And they finally took me to a, to a hospital in Los Mochis, Mexico. And while I was in the Federales, they found out who I was from my ID, and the Federales came, and I had a whole bunch of them in my room, and I had an– I got interrogated through an interpreter for three and a half days, and they wouldn’t give me anything for pain, nothing.

It was all due to another little matter in Mexico earlier that… Just another story. But they wanted to know what I was doing back in Mexico, and we had a real problem on our hands. So I called a buddy of mine up and, you know, we’re, we’re little networkers, we are, and I called a buddy of mine up in Northern California whose family was out of Mexico City, and they flew the company plane in

as close as they could get it, came in. We bribed a few guys. They plastered me from the neck down and threw me in a plane and, and I basically smuggled myself out of Mexico. Ended up in a hospital in Santa Monica, California.

Spent a long time there. They told me I’d be blind in my left eye, I’d have a withered left hand, and I may or may not walk again. Again, I remember thinking, “You don’t know who you’re talking to.” And quite a while later, I came out of there on a brace, a cast still on my leg, a cane, and I got out of there just, just grilled on Demerol, strung out.

‘Cause we know how to work that story, you know, and I had a beaut. So when I said I’m in pain, man, I was getting maximum doses of Demerol every tw- every three hours around the clock for a long time. I, I discharged out of that hospital. I was out of that hospital three hours and twenty minutes, man, and I was in trouble ’cause I needed a shot.

And I c- I hooked up and I went on my last run and it lasted for four and a half years. And I used like a madman for four and a half years. I got a lot of money from the airplane crash, the plane insurance, and I had a house in Bel Air and I had a bunch of cars and I mean, I had, you know, I had all the stuff. But in the middle of that stuff was me, and I was just a wounded animal.

I had no i– n-no, no tools for living at work, no idea how to be a part of, no idea how to be in the world, no idea how to connect with other human beings, and I’d been so beat up and knocked around up to this point in my life, I had no desire to try. So I just used, and I used for four and a half years. I d- I was sober on three separate occasions during that four and a half years.

They were seventy-two hours each, and that was ’cause I was strapped to a table. I would go in this little, this little bootleg sanitarium in Hollywood and I’d pay him a hundred and fifty cash up front. And, uh, you give him your car keys and your wallet and a hundred and fifty bucks cash and put your b-bottle of Valium or whatever you had and your gun or whatever. You put everything up on the table.

Go in, they strap you down on a table, shoot you full of anti-convulsants, and seventy-two hours later, they just send you home or to the morgue, and they didn’t really give a shit which way you went. And I’d come up off that, I’d, I’d reintroduce myself to God every time. It’s like, you know, “Hello. Hi.” You know?

“I’m hallucinating like a dog. I’m kicking like a beast. You know, you get me out of this sane and alive and I’ll never drink again as long as I live. I’m, my ass is kicked.

I’m done.” And I’d get up off of that thing just beat like a beat dog, man. I’d crawl back out there and they’d give me all my stuff back and they’d say, “Now, Earl, you be a good boy and you don’t drink no more.” And I’d say, “No, ma’am. Not me. I can’t live like this anymore.

I don’t know how else I’m gonna live, but I know I can’t do this.” And I’d be sitting– I’d go out and get in my car and I’d pop forty, fifty milligrams of Valium ’cause I’m shaking and you shouldn’t shake like that when you’re driving. You know? And I’d come to in, uh, Oakland. You know?

In somebody else’s car with four other people in the car that I’d never seen before in my life. You know, that’d be a Monday and I’d come to Thursday in Oakland driving down the freeway with four people I don’t know. Have no idea how that happened. Didn’t know how that happened.

I wasn’t gonna drink. Did that three more times. Finally, the– and the bottom for me was, uh, I was living with this woman in Venice, California. She was keeping me is what was happening, and both her parents had convulsed to death from alcoholism, so I was perfect for her.

So she liked having me around ’cause all the alcohol, the alcoholic insanity was still in her home and it made her feel, you know, secure. And, uh, I came out of that last blackout and, um, I had hair out like this, I had a beard like this. I weighed two hundred and fifteen pounds. I was yellow.

I had had two doctors independent of one another tell me, “If you don’t stop drinking, you’re gonna die this year. Your thyroid’s no longer functioning. Your liver’s a mess. Your kidneys are just ready to shut down.

Your heart’s– you’re just a, you’re a mess. You’ve taken too many direct hits, man.” I mean, I came out… Both my hands were broken. Um, they were deciding whether to press charges, uh, for attempted murder.

I had apparently attacked the apartment manager for some reason. Um, we were being evicted. And I came out of the blackout and it was another four-dayer. I’d, I’d get four-day blackouts where I can’t remember anything for four days.

And I, I was done. That’s all I can tell you. It was a gotcha. I was done.

My ass was kicked. And then when I got sober, I told you, I was two fifteen, I was yellow, I was psychotic. My family was dead. I had no friends.

I now had no place to live. Um, I’d broken seventy-four bones. I had over six hundred stitches in me. I’d been stabbed twice, shot at.

The violence had been insane in my life. Um, and I had nowhere to go and no money. I’d burned my life to the ground. There was nothing left.

And I threw up these busted paws and I said, “Help. Help.” And they threw me in an ambulance and they took me and pumped my stomach one more time. They’d done that so many times I could talk to them while they did it. They’d run the tubes and they’d say, you know, “How you doing, Earl?” And I’d say, you know, “Bad day.” Oh.

Right? Real claim to fame. And they said, “Get him out, he’s gonna die.” And they took me to a, another hospital and they kept me for five more days and I got worse and they took me down to a place in Long Beach, California, under the care of a lady by the name of Dr.

Vicki Fox. And I kicked for twelve more days there and then they did thirty days on a free bed. They kind of took a liking to me because they said they liked me because I was destroyed. You know?

I mean, I had, you know, they– there was no wise-ass remarks out of me. There were no bringing up any of the old tools for living. There was no, “Yeah, but.” There was none of that left. They said, “Go right.” I just said, “Okay.” So I went right.

I remember sitting in that detox and Dr. Fox came walking in. You know, and I’m just sitting in a chair trying not to throw another seizure, you know what I mean? And I’m me and forty-one other guys in one room, right, with cots like that.

And somebody’s flipping out. You know, you get an hour of sleep a night, you know, somebody’s flipping, you know, all, all twenty-four hours a day with that many guys in one room. And she came walking in and she had that presence about her, man. She had big beehive of hair and a pencil stuck in it, and she had glasses on a chain, and she always wore a sweater, and she always had files under her arm, and a cigarette sticking out of the corner of

her mouth that she never took out of her mouth. She just, she’d light it and just smoke it right there. You know? And she came walking in the detox and she just, you know…

I mean, if she walked in here, I’d go, “Oh.” She just had a power and a presence about her, you know what I mean? She walked in and I just– everybody just kind of looked up at her, and she looked over at me, and I froze, man. Like a deer in the headlights, just. And she just walked right up to me, and she put her hand on my cheek, and she looked over down at me, and she said, with a cigarette and everything.

And she leaned over me, and she patted me on the cheek, and she said, “Baby, you really do need to be here.” And turned around and walked away, and I just went, “Yeah.” That was my first direction. “Stay.” And I got it, huh? I got out of there, and they said, uh, “If you don’t wanna die, you better stop drinking.

If you don’t, if you wanna stop drinking, you better go to AA.” I said, “Got it.” A little while later, I ended up in the basement of a church on a Friday night in West Los Angeles, 8:30 PM Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Sat in the back with my arms folded, my best tough-guy look on my face, scared to death, ’cause I had no idea how to be in the world. And I had no place else left to go, man.

If I’d have had anywhere else to go, I’da gone, ’cause you know what? I didn’t want what you had. How was I supposed to know what you had? I didn’t know anything about what you said.

You want what we got. You know, I don’t know what you got. You know? I don’t know what you’ve got.

You, they say you people did like me. Well, I didn’t see any out there in my trials and tribulations. You all look pretty well put together to me. I don’t know about this.

But I just sat in the back ’cause I had no place else to go. This guy got up, and he shared his experience, strength, and hope. I never heard anything like it in my life. This guy talking honestly and openly about his feelings as a man, about how he could have a head chewing on him and still walk through a day with some grace and some dignity and meet his responsibilities.

Work, put in an honest day’s work, get something to eat, go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Not to go to a meeting to see what’s this meeting got for me, what are you gonna give me tonight, but because he’d been through the 12 steps to Alcoholics Anonymous, as outlined in the big book, and had a spiritual awakening as a result of doing that. He was going to a meeting to see what he could bring to that meeting.

He was there for the newcomer. ‘Cause I mean, that is the whole point of having a meeting, right? It’s so that there’s a place where a newcomer can come and hear a, a message of hope. That’s the whole point of meeting.

All right? Program’s in the book. You know? Meeting’s a place for a newcomer to come.

See that, you know, can’t all these people be lying. You know? So I sat in the back, and I was blown away by this guy, and it was like he looked right at me, and he said, “You know what? 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. You know? ‘Cause I mean, it was like the guy’s not selling me something. He’s sharing it with me.

I thought, “Well, why am I gonna have it? It’s mine for free. Don’t want it, cool. Go to another meeting.

Hopefully, here’s somebody you can identify with.” And I had another gotcha at my first meeting. I said, “This is cool. I’m coming back.” And I left there with something I had not had for years. I left there with hope.

Hope. That little pilot light that was still flickering inside me, maybe, maybe, maybe these people can show me what I gotta do to just be sane and alive on the planet. Forget about the dreams and the hopes and the aspirations, man.

I just, I just wanna be able to be here. Just let me be here. So I went back the next Friday night to that meeting to hear that guy talk, and a lady got up. And I said, “The guy,” I said, “Where’s the guy?” She said, “What are you talking about?” I said, “The guy who talks here.” She goes, “What do you mean the guy who talks here?” I said, “The guy that

speaks at this deal,” ’cause he was… The guy that was… I was here last week, and the guy talked, and I came back to hear him. She goes, “No, no, no, man.

We, we have different speakers, and we have different kind of…” I didn’t know what you did. I thought that was that guy’s meeting, and you went there, and you listened to that guy. And the lady got up, and I thought, “Great, a lady.” I mean, you know what I mean? It’s the woman.

What’s she know? You don’t know about me. She doesn’t know what I… And I was great at noticing the differences.

I mean, if you were a woman, you don’t know about me. You’re five years younger, five years older, you came up in something else. You don’t know about me. You’re Black, Hispanic, gay, Asian, you don’t know about me, right?

Right? It’s not a better or a worse thing. It’s just you come up in something else. You don’t know about me.

By the time I got to AA, man, it was if you’re not Earl, you don’t know about me. I could back anybody off, you know what I mean? And this woman gets up and starts talking about my feelings. How scary was that?

You know? I thought, “Oh, no.” And I said she carried a message of hope to me, you know? And I thought, “I’m coming back.” And I started coming and coming and coming and coming and coming. Next thing you know, I’m going to seven or nine meetings a week.

I got a sponsor. I got a vicious sponsor. I met this guy, and, and I never heard anything like it in my life. And I knew this guy was crazy.

He’d been committed 23 times to mental institutions. He had actually… The only guy I ever met who was evicted from the nuthouse. They told him, “You gotta go now, or you’re never gonna leave.

Get out.” And he’s the late, great Donald Madden. And Donald Madden saved my life. ‘Cause I did not trust another human being on the face of the earth. No one.

No one. I came here to hear what you had, and I came here to take from you, ’cause that’s what I knew how to do. And that’s what, in, in my opinion, what any self-respecting newcomer will do, is come here and take. That’s your job.

Take. Get, grab, steal it, gather it up, bother people, man. Just take. Right?

Just take and take and take. And hopefully, what some of what they’ll give you is be outlined in this book right here, the first 164 pages. Tell you how to do the 12 steps. Some of you, if you take that, you’re smoking now.

You are in the game, right? That’s- Well, I mean, the fact of the matter is, is, you know, a- a- as, uh, better off as a lot of us might be now than we were when we got in here, we’re still human, we’re still fallible, and we will screw up. We will screw up.

Count on it. It’ll happen. This stuff in this book never, ever, ever, ever let you down. Always right there, always right in the same order.

You will never go to a meeting and go and see that step 11 is now step 2. They’re always in the same order, in that order for a reason, outlined in the book exactly like that, and, and, and written for us, for alcoholics. That’s who they’re for, right?

Now, the s- the, the metaphysical principles that those 12 steps are based on, they’re thousands of years old, man. They have withstood the test of time, right? Our founders put them together in a 12-step format, right? That allows us, as alcoholics, to access that information, and that’s what it is.

And it works. It works. That’s what I tell people say, “Ah, you know, screw AA, baby. I went to a few meeting.” I say, “Hey, you know what, man?

Uh, you can say whatever you want about Alcoholics, um, to me. Alcoholics Anonymous, you can say whatever you want about it. But at the bottom of that list, you gotta say, ‘And it works.'” It works. Whether I work it or not, that’s another story, right?

But it’s on me. I mean, the teachers can open the door for me, but I’m the guy that’s gotta walk into the next room. I’m the one that’s gotta walk into that room. And the only way I can do that successfully that I’ve ever seen, and frankly, as far as history is concerned, the best chance, shot, roll of the dice that any alcoholic has ever

had is going this way. This is the most successful thing that’s ever been for us. So I had to sponsor Donald Madden, and Donald Madden said… I said, “Will you sponsor me?” He said, “What?” He was not a low-key guy.

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, baby.” Just like that. And I said, “No problem.” No problem.

I saw lots of room to move in that, right? So he takes me to a Friday night meeting and he says, “They make five hundred and fifty cups of coffee here every Friday night. You’re making them for the next year.” And I said, “Fuck you.” Oops. I

apologize. Yeah. So we’ll just move right on. So, um, he said, “Fine, then drink.” I said, “You know, there’s no talking to you people.” “You know?

I’m trying to have a conversation here. I mean, I’m ready to kill myself and several other people at any moment. I’m having very bad days in a row here.” “I’m not doing well. I’m not happy.

I’m getting about an hour of sleep a night. I’m very pissed off. I go from victim to assassin and back, man. I’m not hitting anything in the middle.” “Just victim, assassin, victim, assassin.” “I’m hanging on by a thread here, and you say to me, ‘Make a

little coffee.'” “I don’t think you understand the nature of my problem here. I don’t think you understand how serious this is.” He said, “Then drink.” I said, “Fine, I’ll make the coffee.” So I made five hundred… It’s a four-and-a-half-hour commitment on Friday nights, and I’m grumbling and moaning through it. You know what?

I feel better every Friday night. I have no idea why. If you’re new and you’re thinking, “You know, I’m the new guy. That’s why I got the grunt job.

I gotta make the coffee. I gotta clean up the meeting. They’re making me pick up the cigarette butts outside, and I don’t even smoke,” you know? You got this in your head, consider this.

Actually, we’re giving you one of the best gifts you can get in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. We’re giving you an opportunity to, check this out, get out of yourself. Be of service. A profound spiritual principle, to be able to get out of yourself and be of service to other people so that when you come back to you, there’s more God and less of you in the way.

That that’s the whole point of doing that, right? Now, I’m, I mean, it took me six months of making coffee. I don’t know how many thousands of cups that is, but it took me six months of making coffee to actually put the two events together. I thought it was just Friday night, and you always feel a little better on Friday night.

You know what I mean? And, and that wasn’t what was happening at all. I was out of Earl for the first time in my life. You know, and he could have explained this to me, and it would’ve gone right over my head.

I wasn’t gonna understand metaphysical, spiritual principles, universal laws, stuff like this. He just said, “Do it or drink.” I got that. You know, he was one of those guys that said, “Sit down, shut up and listen.” Thank God I got a guy like that who didn’t love me back to drinking. You know what I mean?

He loved me into the program. He loved me enough to tell me the truth. He loved me enough to understand that he had been in my seat. He had, he had sat there thinking just like I was thinking.

And now, years later, he was sitting in the seat that he was now sitting in and had all the experience that comes between that seat and this one. I was sitting in that seat and had no other experience. Whose best thinking should we be using? His, right?

But you couldn’t, you can’t tell me that. But he’d say, “Go pick up Ed on the corner of Sixth and Santa Monica and bring him to Ohio Street.” I’d say, “Fine.” Yep. I go, there’s Ed standing. I got, like, two years at this point, right?

And I’m still a mess, right? I’m still not talking to anybody but him. He’s the guy I talk to, and I do what he says. Seven, nine meetings a week.

I got commitments that don’t require me to talk to anybody. You know? And I go, and I work, and I go home, and I try to get some sleep, and I go back to meetings, and I just go to meetings, and I call my sponsor every day, “What do you want me to do?” “Go get Ed, pick him up, bring him to the meeting.” “Fine.” So I go pick up Ed. Ed’s got six days.

Ed gets in the car. “Hi, Earl. How you doing? I’m Ed.

I got six days. I got my job back. Man, me and the wife are doing great. You know, we’re gonna have a baby now.” It’s like, “Shut up, Ed.” I hate Ed.

Ed’s got six days. He’s doing better than me. I don’t wanna hear it. I say, “Ed, I told to pick you up, take you to the meeting, and I’m doing that.

If you want a ride back to where I picked you up or home or anywhere else after the meeting, I’ll be glad to give it to you. Between now and then, shut up, Ed.” And Ed would just, you know, “Okay.” You know? Ed just… Ed’s doing that pink cloud thing and grooving, you know what I mean?

I never got a pink cloud. You know what I mean? I never got one. So I take him to the meeting, and I’d be standing in the back of the meeting, right?

Two years sober, caving in. Caving in. Losing it. I’m caving in.

“You’re worth just no good. You’re never gonna mean anything.” Just caving in, man. I couldn’t get another step. That’s it.

I’m done. Can’t move. And the, the speaker would be up at the podium speaking, and Donald, well, they didn’t even see me in the back doing that, and he got up Ohio Street. He gets up, he walks up to the podium, he interrupts the speaker.

Speaker’s flailing away up there. Interrupts the speaker, speaker steps aside, and Donald gets up to the microphone. He goes, “Earl!” You know, I’m in the back of the meeting, and I just- Wow! And he just– And he goes, “We’re having a meeting.” Right.

Right. Okay. I got it. Okay.

I’m back. And he would just tell the speaker, “Come on.” And he would go sit down. And I’m in the– Everybody in the whole meeting is going, “Who the hell is Earl?” ‘Cause I don’t talk to anybody, right? And I mean, I mean, he– that’s– He did stuff.

He just loving me, loving me, loving me, loving me, loving me, keeping me in the game, man. He never let loose of me for twenty-four hours, man. It was just, “Do this. Go here.

Do that.” He– ’cause he knew, man. He– We hesitate, this boy’s just gonna just unravel and go screaming off into the night and be dead soon. So he just stayed on my ass, man. I remember I had that com– I had a cleanup commitment at Ohio Street.

My commitment started at ten fifteen. I showed up one day at six twenty, scared to death. ‘Cause I was so scared that day I couldn’t be alone. I– And I– But I was scared to go to the meeting at six twenty ’cause my commitment doesn’t start till six fifteen, and some guy’s gonna say to me, “What’s the matter with you, you loser?

It is six twenty. You’re ex– commitment.” You know? And I’m gonna have to hit him. And it’s gonna go bad, right?

But I’m– And I’m so ashamed that I have nowhere to go, nobody to talk to. I gotta be in this meeting. So I go to the meeting at six twenty-two, and I walk in the door. Donald sees me.

What does Donald do? Donald runs up to the microphone and says, “Earl, it’s six twenty-two. You’re late.” Let everybody in that meeting know I had– I was supposed to be there ’cause he said so. That’s why I was at the meeting.

‘Cause he knew. He knew. And he just, “Come on, man, you’re safe. Come on in.” He’d make it safe.

Just make it safe. And he did that for me. I mean, he– I have a, I have a higher, higher power in my life that I have a tremendous relationship with. My higher power came to me through Donald Madden.

I understand how the program of Alcoholics Anonymous works and that before there was a book, before there was anything, there was one alcoholic down in the dirt sharing his experience, strength, and hope with another alcoholic so that they could rise up out of a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body because that’s what Donald Madden brought to me. He was one of the finest examples… He was one of the finest examples of Alcoholics Anonymous I ever met in my life.

He died July twenty-fifth, nineteen ninety-four. Broke my heart. Got up, got dressed, did his morning meditation, and left. Just like that.

And my friend Christopher called me up and said, “Hi, Tower, you gotta get another sponsor. Donald died this morning.” And I completely unraveled, man. I was almost fourteen years sober at the time, and I drove– Me and Christopher sat there, you know, and with a couple other guys waiting for him to come get Donald. And I just said, “I don’t know what I’m gonna do.” And he just said, you know, “Yeah, you do.” And he was right.

I knew what to do ’cause Donald Madden had been my sponsor every day for almost fourteen years. I was with him longer than I was with my family, right? And I heard him in my head. He said, “Get a sponsor, you little son of a bitch, right now.” So I called up Al.

Al loved and respected Donald. Donald loved and respected Al. He was one of the guys Donald said, “Watch that man. That’s a good man.

That’s a kind man, and that’s the highest compliment I can pay anybody, Earl, is that that is a kind man. He’s not kind when it’s convenient. He’s kind because that’s his commitment to the way he lives his life. He’s a very strong man, very courageous man.” And you know what?

He is. I called him up and I said, “Al, Donald’s dead. Will you sponsor me?” And he said, “Sure, I will, kid.” And he’s been my sponsor ever since. I didn’t have a sponsor for about three hours because Donald Madden was my sponsor, and Donald Madden raised me from a pup.

And it’s, you know… And I love coming to places like this and telling them about guys like Donald Madden, bigger than life guys like Donald Madden, who had a passion for living and a passion for Alcoholics Anonymous, and they gave it away all the time. And I was so sad that Donald Madden was dead until I realized one day Donald Madden’s not dead.

As long as I’m alive, Donald Madden’s alive. As long as my boys are alive… And I sponsor a lot of guys, man, a lot of guys. My boys all know their line, man.

They know that they’re– they come from Earl Hightower, who comes from Donald Madden, who comes from Norm Alper, who comes from Chuck C, who comes from Bill. You know what I mean? It’s a– Those are my boys, you know what I mean? That’s my line.

Those are the guys that I come from. And we don’t pass around any of this watered-down bullshit, you know what I mean? It’s straight out of the book, you know what I mean? Straight out of the book.

You wanna know how to stay sober? Get a book. And that’s what we do. And what I knew it was true is I gave a kid, Jeff, I sponsored.

He took a kid for eleven years, and we’re sitting there, and I give him the kick, and he says, “I wanna thank my sponsor, Earl, for all the help he’s, he’s, he’s given me, and I wanna thank the late, great Donald Madden.” And I just… I didn’t know he was gonna say that, you know what I mean? And when I heard him say that, I just started crying, and I just thought, you know, he’s alive. He’s alive, and he’s always gonna be alive, man, ’cause it’s all part of the tribe.

And we’ve got, we’ve got a written way to move, you know what I mean? We have a path laid out for us in black and white, but we have a verbal history that we share, you know what I mean? We get together around campfires every night of the week in thousands and thousands and thousands of places, and we share our experience, strength, and hope, and we tell the truth about who we are and how we live.

And new people come in, and they get ahold of the hope that they can get from that, and they use our strength, right? And they use the clarity that we’ve gotten as a result of being in this book, and we pass them into the book, and we move along, and we, we have a verbal history of who we are. And we have some tapes now, you know what I mean? Where you can listen to where we all come from.

And every once in a while, a lot of the little tribes get together, and they have a big deal like this, you know what I mean? We come together from all over the place, and we get together and find out, yeah, they’re doing it the same in Washington as they’re doing it in, in, in Oregon, as they’re doing it in California, as they’re doing it in Australia and Europe and Washington and Canada. I mean, it’s all the same, man.

We’re all– It’s the same path, man. Common problem, common solution, that we’re all in this boat together. And I didn’t know any of that until I got ahold of a guy like Donald Mad- And who was willing to come into meetings with Alcoholics Anonymous and wait for that crazy boy to come walking through that door and snag him and give it away for fun and for free.

So I… And all he ever asked of me was is that I do the same thing. And I’ve been doing it, man, every day. Same, all three sides of the triangle every day.

I, the unity, res- the service, and the recovery. I do it every day. The unity is the body. I bring it here.

I bring it here. I can’t get sober, but we can. Recovery’s of the mind, the greater aspect of my disease. I have to pay attention to that, ’cause if that ain’t true, I say we drink Fridays.

Fridays are good for me. ‘Cause that continuous sobriety thing, you know, it ain’t about… It’s, yeah, it’s one day at a time, but how you have the process of your life and the process of your recovery grow together is if you string those one days together at a time. Bill, Bill Wilson said, you know, the idea is to die sober.

That is the idea. How we do that is one day at a time, right? So I mean, if it wasn’t true, detox centers would be kicking out winners, man. 72 hours and free.

Thanks for coming by for the weekend, Earl. Have a nice life. You know? Yeah, I’m ca- I’m kicked.

I’m cool. You know? But I got an obsession of the mind that tells me that I can drink like a normal man. The book tells me that the persistence of this illusion, this belief in a lie, is astonishing, that many of us pursue it to the gates of insanity or death.

I got a friend in LA, calls me the gate guy. ‘Cause I was always going to the gates, you know? I don’t wanna go to the gates anymore. I don’t want them.

I wanna stay here with you. That’s what I wanna do. More than anything else in the world, what I wanna do is remain a member in good standing with Alcoholics Anonymous. That’s number one in my life.

I’m all for money, property, and prestige. It just can’t come first. It can’t come first. I gotta have a spiritual way of life.

So if I’m gonna get over this, if I’m gonna get over this obsession of the mind, what do I do? Guess what? The book. Yeah, there it is.

The book. Work the 12 steps as outlined in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. 12×12’s a great book. Tell me a lot about them.

I wanna know how to do them, I do the book. Do them out of the book. Yes. Right?

That’s right. This lady down here says, “Yes.” Right? And, and that’s, that’s designed to bring about a spiritual awakening, restore me to sanity, relieve me of the obsession, address the mental aspect of my disease. Step one is what’s the problem?

Lack of power is my dilemma. Powerless over alcohol. Whole life’s unmanageable as a result of it. If that’s my problem, what’s my solution?

Step two, that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity, soundness of mind, relieve me of the obsession to drink and use. Okay, I know my problem, I know my solution. I better… Says this program of action.

Step three tells me I better make a decision to do something about it. So what I do is I turn my will and my life over to the care of God, say the third step prayer down on my knees, I get up and I embark upon a plan of action. What’s the plan? Plan is designed to deal with me, God, and you.

Everything that I pushed away. Four and five is me, six and seven is God, and eight and nine is you. Four and five, I, I swallow a large chunk of truth about myself. Look at resentment, fear, and sex.

Why those areas? ‘Cause if you wanna see where we’re all whack out, those are good places to look. You know? And there’s a fourth column on those, and I gotta look at me.

I gotta look at me, right? Having done that, at six and seven I hook it back up with God. I ask God to remove my defects of character, ’cause I’ll remove the wrong stuff. Oh, I’ll cut deals there.

You know I will. You can have this one. I’m enjoying this one for right now. We’ll talk next week, maybe we’ll swap.

I don’t know yet. I’m not gonna do it, you know. So I ask God to do it. Eight and nine, I hook it back up with you.

I go out, I’m very, very sorry, here’s your money, I go back in the house. I don’t get into it. I clean my side of the street, right? I pay my debt.

You don’t want your mon- You don’t wa-… See, that’s the funny thing is, is that pe- people don’t want my money. They want their money. They want me to give them their money.

I figure that’s fair, you know? So I did that. Took me nine years to make my amends, but I made them all. I made them all.

And weird stuff started happening. They told me I’d be amazed before I was halfway through step five, and they were right. They told me that the promises were right after step nine. They were right.

And my friends kept saying to me, “Man, you are, you are different.” And I was just in here being me. You know what I mean? I didn’t know. I couldn’t see, ’cause I’m just in here being Earl, trying to do the next thing, ’cause all I wanna do is stay sober.

I don’t wanna die like a dog. Ten, 11, and 12 keep me in the game. 10, save three things. Ten’s me, 11’s God, and 12 is you.

Nobody else to play with. 10, I keep my side of the street clean, ’cause I’m a work in process. I’m gonna need that step 10. ‘Cause I’m gonna screw up.

I’m gonna tell a lie, right? I’m gonna misrepresent myself, right? I’ll lie by omission. Something you have a right to know, maybe I won’t, you know…

And then I gotta clean it up. Right now. Right now, clean it up. I do that.

11, I seek God. I seek God through prayer and meditation. What do I pray for? Knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out, period.

That’s enough. That covers it. I don’t need to be making any deals. Just nice and simple, do it.

I remember when I was two and a half at the, at the back of the podium at Ohio Street, they had a, there was like a three-by-five foot painting of the Serenity Prayer. I’d been sober two years and I spotted it. I’d been going there like three nights a week. For two years.

I called up Donald. I said, “Donald, I found a great prayer.” He goes, “What is it?” I said, “It’s the Serenity Prayer. It’s the shortest one I could find.” He says, “No. Too much going on in there, you’ll screw it all up.” I said, “Donald, it’s the shortest prayer I could find.

What do you want me to do?” He says, “I’ll give you prayers, and you get up in the morning, your feet hit the ground, I want you to look up and I want you to say, ‘Whatever.'” The guy out there knows it, right. And when you get in bed at night, you get in your, in the bed, you pull your covers up and you say… Enough.

Enough. That’s it. Those are your prayers. So that’s what I did.

And I would do whatever. And I would go out in the day, it’s like my, get whatever. Whatever you want me to do, and I would go do it. At the end of the day, enough, I’m going to go to sleep now.

I go to sleep. Those are my prayers. It’s perfect. Is it perfect for me?

You know, ’cause I would go along, you know, courage to, courage to change to wisdom. I don’t know. You know? And I’m back on the phone to him.

“I’m stuck.” “I can’t get out of this phone booth, man.” So I just kept going, and I just… And I did the 12 steps, right? The unity was the body I brought in here. The cover is the mind.

I worked the 12 steps. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of that, having been restored to sanity, having had the rese- obsession of use removed, and it has been, I could prac- I could service. I could, I could practice these principles. I could be of service to other people.

I could start conversations with, “How can I help?” Just to frame me up. How can I help? Not ’cause I’m a good guy. Whether I’m a good guy or not is irrelevant, but because I wanna stay sober.

My primary purpose is to stay sober and carry the message, but I gotta stay sober. I can’t give away something I don’t have, right? And I don’t wanna be giving them any slick LA, West Side cool crap, man. I wanna give them the stuff that the real guys put together, man.

These are the big dogs in here, man. These guys, original 100, they got sober when it wasn’t hip, it wasn’t fashionable. It wasn’t everybody walking around going, “Hey, I’m an alcoholic. I’m sober.

Isn’t that great?” You know? Uh-uh. These guys were the pariah of society, man. They were looked down upon.

This was not a cool thing to be doing or admitting. The, uh, anonymity was vital to their lives, and unfortunately, I think I live in a time where anonymity is not stressed that much because I think that the spiritual nature of anonymity is profound, and I think there’s tremendous gifts in staying sober. You know how I met my sponsor, Donald?

It was a year and a half before I got sober, and there was this movie studio that wanted to do a movie about my life. They’ll make a movie about anything. So I go to this meeting, and I’m still using like a All right? I mean, I’m up in the bathroom every five minutes in this meeting.

I’m in the bathroom every five minutes, right? And the producer brought her set designer, who’s this guy Donald. And we’re, they’re having a meeting. All of a sudden, this guy says to me, “Earl, got something I need to tell you, buddy.” I said, “Yeah, what’s that?” He said, “Uh, Earl, I’m an alcoholic.

Been sober several years in an organization called Alcoholics Anonymous. And if you don’t start coming to AA, kid, you’re gonna die.” And everybody’s mouth dropped open. And you know why? ‘Cause he’d been working with them for six and a half years, and nobody knew he was in AA.

Nobody knew. He broke his anonymity that night to tell me that there was a program of recovery that I needed. And I thought that was very nice. A little dramatic, but it was nice.

So a year and a half later, I’m in AA, and I’m trying to find a sponsor, and I can’t find a sponsor. And this woman says to me, “Have you ever heard of a guy named Donald Madden?” And I got spooked. The one guy who mentioned AA to me way back when that I’d forgotten about, and this woman, of all the names, mentions this guy’s name. I said, “That’s weird.

I gotta go home.” I went home. I go to my phone book, right? I open up to M, and there’s one business card paper-clipped to my phone book, Donald Madden’s card. I’m thinking, “This is really getting weird.” And I just said, “I’ll call it.” I called it, and he answered the phone.

“Donald Madden.” And that was when I asked him if I could come see him, and that’s when I asked him to sponsor me, and, and that was it. I mean, I just… God shouts left and right for me. So I stayed all the way through.

I did the… I’m being of service. I’m doing all the stuff that you’re supposed to do, right? I mean, I get on planes and fly to things like this.

Now, you gotta understand, having heard my story, that I’m not thrilled about getting on planes. This is not my idea of a good time. I mean, it’s the only thing in the world makes my palms sweat. So I’ve had guys come at me with knives that didn’t make my hands sweat.

That, this makes my hands sweat, to get on planes. But I get to just, I get to realize all the time that I’m willing to go to any lengths. If I’m willing to get on a plane, I must love AA, ’cause that’s the only thing that will get my ass on a plane . And the only other thing I gotta say is, is that I gotta, you gotta remember what it’s like to be new.

You know? I mean, I’ve been sober now seventeen years. I got a life beyond my wildest dreams. I’m having a lot of fun.

I got a lot of passion in me. I got a lot of fire in me. I’m having a very good time in my life. And it’s, and life’s doing what life’s doing.

You know what I mean? But I’m showing up every day all lit up. I don’t miss a thing. I don’t miss a day.

I wanna paint, I paint. I wanna play music, I play music. I wanna go somewhere, I go there. I wanna talk to somebody, I walk up to them and say, “Hi, I’m Earl.

What’s up?” And I talk to them. They say, “Go away,” I do. But if they say, “Well, you know, I’m going,” you know, we talk. We have a nice time.

I got friends. I got a sense of family. I got a sense of community. I got all…

You know? I got a great career. I got all… It’s just, I have a wonderful, wonderful life.

And it’s all, everything that’s of value in my life is a result of my being a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Everything. ‘Cause how I address every… I got problems.

Don’t get me wrong, I got problems. I got the best problems I’ve ever had. I got problems in areas where I didn’t even use to have areas. You know what I mean?

I got… But if you don’t have problems, you ain’t in the game. You know what I mean? You gotta get out there and push it a little bit.

Check it out. You know, start off being bad at something before you get great at it. You know what I mean? Work it out.

Get out there and move around in it. Having a great life. I gotta remember now, great life, seventeen years sober, flying around, meeting hundreds of thousands of people a year, doing all this stuff, right? I gotta remember about the newcomer.

I gotta remember the new guy. I gotta remember that this is the most amazing thing that’ll ever occur in Alcoholics Anonymous, is somebody getting up and taking a thirty-day chip. That’s incredible. I mean, you guys have been giving me the…

When I turn… If and when the time comes when I turn eighteen, I mean, you guys have given me the tools. You have shown me the way. I have followed your example time and time and time and time again.

The odds of me getting to that eighteen-year cake, right? That’s pretty good odds, you know? Barring a flood or a famine or some kinda thing, you know what I mean? It’s, you know, I got a good shot at that.

I do it one day at a time, but the days are coming to me pretty easily no matter what happens around me, right? That person that’s getting and working up on that 30 days, they got no tools for living. They don’t know what’s going on in here. They haven’t had any time to, man.

They’re living in a state of grace. They’re here because the disease chased their ass in here, and they’re scared to death to go back out. Great way to get here. So that’s that state of grace is amazing of that 30-day chip, and I gotta remember what you were like.

‘Cause I, I sponsor a guy named Nino. Go to pick up Nino. Nino got 90 days. I got like 10 years or so, right?

We go to a meeting ’cause Al’s talking. Now, I know Al will rip a pitch, you know? I’m gonna go hear pearls of wisdom, man. This is gonna be spiritual stuff that anybody can grab ahold of.

So I’m gonna take little Nino, and we’re gonna go, and we sit in the meeting, and Al just ripping, man. I’m sitting there going, “Whoa, this is the greatest thing that’s ever happened.” Here I am, 10 years sober at the time, listening to Al. All this is great stuff, and here’s Nino, 90 days, being exposed to all this amazing stuff. Well, I gotta remember something.

Nino is having a fundamentally different meeting than I am. It’s all… He’s not having the same meeting. I gotta remember what I was like when I was new driving over to Ohio Street.

I gotta think back and remember what that was like for me. I didn’t go there and say hi to everybody ’cause everybody there knew me, and I had a seat, and I got to sit, and my guys that I sponsor were there, and it was like my family and my friends and my life. Uh-uh, man. I was driving up to Ohio Street.

You know, driving over there. Okay, found it, found it, I found it, I found it. I found it, I found it. Good.

Park, park, park. Okay, okay. They put the keys, they put the keys on the seat. Put the keys on the seat.

Find a seat. Find a seat. Find a seat. There’s the guy with the red coat.

Put your keys on the seat next to the guy with the red coat ’cause you find the guy with the red coat, you find the keys, you find a seat. Good. Good. They’re ringing the bell.

They’re ringing the bell. Sit down. Sit down. They’re ringing the bell.

Ring the bell. Ring. You know, good, good. Good.

Good. Yeah. How you doing? I’m fine.

I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. All right, I’m, I’m gonna fine.

I’m gonna… All right. Good, good, good, good. And they’re reading this.

Guys are reading something. It’s chapter five. Chapter five. How works.

How works. How works. Really, really seen, really, really seen something. Really saw something.

I missed that part. I don’t know what… Really saw something. Really saw something.

He’s reading 12 things, 12 things, 12 things. Okay. There’s 12 things in Alcoholics Anonymous. Remember that.

12 things. 12 things. 12 things. A, B, C.

There’s an A. I, I missed that part, too. I don’t remember. I, I’ll hear that again.

I’ll get… I have to get this book. I have to get this book. All right.

He’s gone. He’s gone. I missed a lot of that. But there’s 12 things.

There’s 12 things in Alcoholics Anonymous. 12 things in Alcoholics Anonymous. He sits down. Next guy …

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. And we just got started. Next thing I mean, you know, next the guy gets up.

He, you know, he… Uh, speaker. You drink. You drink.

You drink. It’s good. Good. I drink.

I drink. You drink. He’s gone. That happened very fast.

That first guy was very fast. He’s down. He drank. Good.

They’re passing a basket. Passing a basket. Passing a basket. What’s the ba- Money.

Money. Money. Money in the basket. Money.

Don’t take the money. Don’t take the money. Just let the basket go by. Let the basket go by.

It’s good. It’s good. It’s good. It’s okay.

They’re ringing the bell. Break. Break. Break.

What are we doing? What are doing? We’re getting up. Getting up.

Going outside. Smoke, smoke, smoke. I smoke. Smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke.

Smoke. Smoke. How you doing? Fine, fine, fine, fine.

Okay. I gotta go back in. Gotta go back in. Gotta go back in.

Where’s the guy with the red coat? Red coat. Red coat! Where’s the guy with the red coat?

Find the guy with the red coat. Sit down. Keys, keys, keys. Listen, listen, listen.

They’re reading 12 things. These aren’t the same 12 things as the other 12 things. These are another 12 things. There’s 24 things in Alcoholics Anonymous.

I gotta remember the 24 things. I can’t remember that. All right, he’s down. He’s down.

I’ll get that later. I’ll get it later. Here’s another guy. He drank.

He drank. He drank. I did that. I felt…

Oh, I felt like that. I felt like that. This guy knows how I feel. This is good.

This is very, very good. He said… He’s talking about those 12 things again. Okay, I got a little bit of those 12.

That’s good. That’s… This is good. This is good.

He’s down. I love that guy. I love that guy. I gotta talk to that guy.

He’s down. He’s down. Here’s the guy again. And now, something, something.

We’re up, we’re up. We’re holding hands. Prayer, prayer. Another prayer.

Another prayer. Say the prayer. Say the prayer. Say the prayer.

Say the prayer. Say the prayer. Right. Now, good, good, good.

Good. Meeting’s over. Now go back to the car. And I’m walking out to the car, and some guy says, “What’d you think of the meeting?” And I go, “Oh, it’s great.” “It’s a great meeting.” So now I’m sitting with Nino, 90 days.

Listen to Al. I’m having a great meeting, and I walk out of the meeting, and I say to Nino, and I know. I know. I know.

And he look at me, I go, “How was the meeting, bro?” He goes, “It was great.” “It was great.” And I gotta remember, he gets his turn. He gets to be nuts in AA. If you’re new here, and you feel like killing yourself or several of the people around you, perfect, man. You know?

Stay in here. Stay in here. I mean, I’m not lying to you. The story I told you is true.

That’s the nature of my life. Guys like me don’t get to be happy, joyous, and free. Guys like me don’t get to know peace, a new freedom, a new happiness. We don’t get to do that stuff.

We don’t get to move around in the world. We don’t get to, to feel like us… we have a family. We don’t get to feel like we have good friends because we do.

When, you know, when I was, when I was new, Bob, who spoke this afternoon, got up at a podium on Ohio Street and shared his experience, strength, and hope. And what I heard was, guys like me get to stay here. They keep guys like me. And Bob sh- gave me hope.

I’ve loved him from that day to this. We’ve been good friends a long time, and I absolutely love him, and I always will, and nothing can come between that. We’re bound by something much stronger than blood. We’re bound by a spiritual connection.

And I mean, the distance between you and me doesn’t separate you from me anymore. It connects me to you. I’m bound to you. You are my people.

You are mine. You are mine, and I love you. I know you’re thinking I don’t know who you are. The hell I don’t.

If you be in this room, and you be an alcoholic of a hopeless variety, you with hope to die dope fiend, I know you, just like you know me. And we ain’t lying. This amazing thing has come to pass for people in these rooms, right? All these people sitting up here straight up looking straight away at me right now, uh, this is a room full of dead people sitting up looking at me, you know?

And you got a dead guy up here talking to you. And that’s what Alcoholics Anonymous does. It t- it really takes people out of a hopeless state of mind and body, and we rise up out of that, and we have absolutely remarkable lives. So if you’re new, right, bring it on, man.

Bring what you got. Bring it on. You angry, you frustrated, you frightened, you hostile, you homicidal, you suicidal, bring it on. You think we’re all lying through our teeth?

Come on, man. Come on in. Come on in and let us know. You share what you got, we’ll share what we got.

We’ll see how it goes, you know? And w- But I’ll tell you what, no matter what you got, what you bring into the room, it’s all welcome here. You’re all welcome here. We just ask you don’t disrupt the meeting.

That’s all. The, the group must survive, or the individual will perish. We don’t want that to happen to anybody. You bring it all in here, man, and find your own way.

Who you’re gonna get introduced to in here is you, just like who I got introduced to in here is me. And I love you to death, and I wish you peace. Thank you.