Jesus Christ, man. I’m kinda outnumbered, man. My name is Earl and I’m an alcoholic. Jesus Christ.

Ugh, hope the tape guy took his headphones off. Um, very grateful to be here. Uh, it’s always an honor and a privilege to do something like this. I wanna thank the committee for asking me to come out and share.

It’s an honor. And, uh, I used to drink alcohol. Mm-hmm. Insatiably.

I drank alcohol. I drank a lot of it. I drank it till I almost died and I c- and that’s what got me here. Um, gotta fill that in a little bit.

Um, what got me to that was I had my– I didn’t start drinking till I was 12 years old. My neck of the woods, they’re coming in at 12, you know? Um, but I didn’t start till I was 12, and y- I didn’t know I needed a drink, you know? Um, my father had shipped me off to boarding school.

My– He said, uh, what had happened was is that they’d given me a series of… I used to sleepwalk and talk in my sleep and scare the hell out of my parents in the middle of the night and go back to my bed, and they took me to a bunch of doctors and had a bunch of tests done on me, and every night before I’d go to sleep, they’d give me a tablespoon of this liquid, and it just knocked me out, drugged me, so I’d go to sleep. No more sleepwalking, no more problem, right?

And I think subconsciously I got the information, if things aren’t going right, take something. Kinda filed that for future reference and, uh, did some more tests on me and they, uh, uh, tests turned up I had a very high IQ. I don’t anymore, but- … I did.

I was a br- I was bright as a child. And, uh, so they, my, they decided to, uh, ship me off to this boarding school, and we got in the car one day, and I didn’t even know where we were going. We drove off to this, drove and drove and drove and drove, and we pulled up at this place, and I got out of the car, and my father put a suitcase down next to me and shook my hand and said, “This’ll make a man out of you.” And then got in the car and everybody drove off. Scared the hell out of me.

I had no idea what had just happened, and the fact is, is that I’ve just been given an opportunity for a wonderful education. Um, the feeling was is that I’d just been thrown away, and I had absolutely no idea why. And it was, up to that point, the most devastating thing that ever happened to me. I was just m- completely horrified, and all I can remember feeling was afraid of everything and everybody.

Just terr- I was terrified of my own shadow. Turns out I was the youngest and the smallest kid in a school of 250 boys from all over the world. They had scoured the earth to find 250 of the most disturbed young men they could possibly find. And they put them in this school.

It was like Lord of the Flies at this place, man. I mean it- … was bad. And, uh, everybody there was 13 to 18, and I was 12.

So I knew right off the bat, I don’t fit here. I was five feet tall, 104 pounds, and 12 years old. I had no tools for living. Up to that point, I hadn’t needed any.

I mean, Mom and Dad had it pretty much covered. And, uh, I needed some tools fast. About the third day, I made a, a real calm decision. They don’t want me, I don’t want them.

So I pretty much let my family go when I was 12 years old. And I was walking through the campus and, uh, about the fourth or fifth day there, and I met Tiny. Every high school has a guy named Tiny. You know, 6’2″, 240, right?

Loves finding guys like me, right? And I’m walking along, and he came up to me and he said, “How you doing, punk?” And he slapped me in the back of the head and knocked my books flying and me flying and… I mean, I don’t know what to do with this, you know? So I had, like, this out-of-body experience, you know, where you’re, like, watching yourself do something and your head is saying, “This is a very bad idea.” “I don’t think you should be doing this.”

And I walked up, and I hit him as hard as I could, which had absolutely no effect on him whatsoever. And I just stood there a- looking up at him like, “You know, man, you’re gonna have to take it from here, Tiny, ’cause we’re so far past anything I know anything about,” you know? And he looked down at me and he said, “You got a lot of guts, kid.” And then he beat the crap out of me right on the spot. And as I was taking this beating, I was thinking, “This isn’t going so bad.

This is going pretty good.” Because what was more important to me than any… I’ve taken a lot of beatings. I know how to take a beating. The thing that was important to me was I was absolutely terrified of this guy, and he had just said, “You got a lot of guts.” My, my violence, my aggressive behavior had

masked the fear successfully. First tool in my life. They frighten you? Attack them.

Which meant if you got within five feet of me, you were in danger, because I was basically afraid of everybody. And word spread across this campus like wildfire, “Watch out for this little Hightower kid. He’s a maniac. He attacked Tiny.” All right?

So now I got this reputation that has absolutely nothing to do with who I am. I mean, it’s just getting deeper by the minute, you know? And I’m just, I’m thinking, “I can’t do this life thing.” I’m 12 years old, and I’m figuring the life thing is over my head. Enter Matt.

Matt walks… So cool guys started coming around, the bad boys, right? Matt walks up to me and says, uh, “You wanna smoke a joint?” I said, “Well, yeah.” Had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. I had no idea what that meant.

But the fact of the matter was I was currently alone in the universe. I was alone, and I needed to hook up now. It would’ve made no difference to me where he was going or what he was gonna go do. He could’ve come to me and said, “Listen, I’m gonna go kill the Spanish teacher.

Do you wanna go?” I’d have said, “Well, yeah, yeah, I’ll go with you.” I gotta hook up. So w- we swung on out of the dorm and I was, you know, just trotting along behind Matt. We picked up Steve. Steve had a Tupperware container wrapped in tinfoil.

My life was about to change and I didn’t know it. Dramatically. And, uh, you c- we went out behind the dorm, me, Matt, and Steve, and Matt lit up this joint and took a hit off it and handed it to me, and I just kinda did what he did and handed it over. And Steve was over there unwrapping this tinfoil, and you could tell by the way he was unwrapping it that what was in here was very important.

He was very careful with it. And he opened this up and he popped the lid, and he had, he had a Tupperware container full of cheap red wine. Cheap red wine. No grapes involved.

Just- You know? Yeah, that fortified stuff, you know? And, uh, he took a pull and he handed it to me and I did a pull. So we got the joint going, the wine’s going, and I’m just looking at these two guys like, you know, I have no idea what’s going on here.

You know, and they’re talking and all, and I mean it happened. The magic happened. This warm feeling went right down into my shoes and right back up over me, and for the first time in my long, lonely 12 years I knew everything was gonna work out. I knew it was gonna work out.

I didn’t know why. I just knew it all of a sudden. I just knew that the secret to life had been revealed to me behind this dormitory. I mean, here I, here I was with my two best friends, Matt and Steve.

And I didn’t know if it’s this pot or this wine or what it is or some kind of weird combination. I don’t know. It makes no difference to me. I have never before been comfortable standing where I’m standing, doing what I’m doing with the people I’ve been doing it with.

This is… I never felt this way. This is the most remarkable, wonderful thing I have ever felt in my life, and I’m gonna do this as often as I possibly can. And so begins the next 16 years of my life on a daily basis.

I mean, I got humble beginnings, you know? A little bottle of wine, here we go. And, and the thing that I have to remember from the beginning is, is that why not do it? I paid no price for that.

I didn’t even need a Tylenol the following morning. Paid no price for that, that, that gift, that tremendous sense of ease and comfort that I had never before experienced. Why shouldn’t I go after it? Made perfect sense.

So I did. Now, I’m a child of the ’60s. That’s just the era I was brought up in, and everybody in my era was focused on drugs. So was I, because that’s the thing that differentiated us from our drunken parents.

I mean, we weren’t gonna, we weren’t gonna drink ourselves, like, to death like they were doing. We were gonna kill ourselves in a whole new way. Separate ourselves from our parents. So everybody was focused on the drugs.

It was th- it was our time and it was our thing. So I was very focused on it, and I mention them, but, but I gotta tell you going in, I identify as an alcoholic ’cause that’s what I am. Because I drink alcohol alcoholically. And when I look back in retrospect, I understand two things that I did not understand as I was going through it, and I learned this through my inventory work.

The number one thing that I learned is, is that no matter what else was going on in my life, there was o- there, there was only one thing that was always on the table. Other stuff would come and go. There was only one thing that was always on that table: booze. That was the thing that was on the table, and the reason for that is because drugs are unreliable and alcohol is not.

Alcohol is extremely reliable. I mean, there’s no… In the drug world, there’s no quality control going on out there. You know what I’m saying?

You have no idea what you’re getting. You have no idea what you’re getting. You go get yourself a fifth of Jack Daniels, you know what you got. Right?

That’s was very important information for me. And in the last five years I was out there, all I did… I, I had no use for any of that whatsoever. I just drank, ’cause drinking was the only thing that worked.

Anyway, 13, somebody walked up to me and asked me if I wanted a couple of these pills, and I said, “Well, yeah.” I had no idea what they were. Hand them to me, I took them. 20 minutes later I was laying on the floor and real comfortable down there. Said, uh, “Can I get you anything else?” “No.

No.” Fine. 14 years old, a woman said to me, “Would you like to drop some acid?” I said, “Well, yeah, sure.” You know, took some. Two, the next two days were real interesting. 15, a woman walked up to me and said, “How’d you feel about me sticking this in your body?” And I said, “Well, yeah, all right.” Injected me with something.

I s- did like this. And as I was going down, I was thinking, “Oh, yeah.” “Oh, yeah. That’ll work.” So, I mean, it, uh, uh, for me it was just if somebody offered me something, I just took it.

It didn’t m- make any difference to me whatsoever, at all, as long as the booze was there. ‘Cause like I said, drugs are unreliable. I mean, you do so much cocaine you can’t get your mouth open anymore. You just, you know, you suck a little gin through your teeth, you can go back to party.

You’re all right. Acid gets a little too spooky? Don’t worry about it. Jack will get you back in the comfort zone.

Just start sucking on the bottle, right? Not enough heroin to get you through the night? It’s no problem. Quarter gin, you’re home.

You can get to that cool, quiet, dark place that is my best friend, that place where heart and lungs are working. Nothing else going on. I like that place. That’s the place for me.

And you know what? I never could understand why from the very beginning I drank to get drunk. I was– I don’t– I can’t even comment on– So I mean, I’ve heard people talk negatively about social drinking from the podium of Alcoholics Anonymous. They have experiences different than mine.

I don’t know anything about it. I have no experience with social drinking at all. I’ve never done it. I don’t know anything about it.

I don’t understand the point of it. I don’t understand, and I never tried. I never tried. Drinking for me was y-you do it to get drunk.

I mean, that’s the whole point. I never– When I, when I was in Alcoholics Anonymous a while, I kept thinking, “Why, why was it that I did it that way?” And I think that the real reason is, is that I am a self-centered, frightened individual, and it’s the fear that makes it impossible for me to feel comfortable anywhere, ’cause I’m always afraid. I’m always afraid, and my whole life is about killing that fear or making sure you don’t know about the fear, one or the other.

That’s what all my tools for living are about. My tools for living are drugs, alcohol, violence, and run. Those are my tools. Those are the tools that I used till I got here, ’cause they worked for me for pretty much any situation that I would get into.

The reason I drank alcoholically was alcohol was the fear killer for me, and it’s the last thing I feel. That’s why I gotta get drunk. I mean, I got a barrel of emotions inside me, and swimming around up on the top of this barrel are all kind of feelings. I mean, I don’t know anybody…

And I’m feeling them all. You know, just there, here comes a feeling. There’s another feeling. Here goes another feeling.

There goes another feeling. I’m never just– I don’t know anybody that just feels happy for eight days, you know? And then shifts gears and goes into another feeling. I think I’ll be, I think I’ll be mildly depressed for a couple of days.

You know? I’m tired of this. All right, I’m gonna be amused for three weeks, you know? It doesn’t work like that.

You know what I mean? It just kinda comes and goes. I mean, since I have been in this room, I guarantee you I’ve felt fear. Again, you sucked all the air out of the room when y’all said hello.

Just- Confusion, irritability, happiness, gratitude, lust. I’ve felt them all since I’ve been sitting up here. Enough

about me. Oh, man. But see, I can drink through those real quick. I can blast through that stuff.

But that’s all swimming around up on the top of the barrel that is my, that are my emotions. Way down in the bottom of that barrel, that deep undercurrent that is running my ass is fear. That’s the thing that runs me, and I gotta drink all the way down to the fear. Fear is the last thing I feel, and if I’m here drinking to kill the fear, I got to get drunk.

I’ve gotta black it all out. So blackouts were the normal fare for me. I mean, I blacked out so many ti- I don’t even know. It’s ridiculous.

It’s absolutely ridiculous. I do know that my limit for being blacked out is four days. I got so many blackouts where I can’t remember four days. That seems to be my body, it has to wake up at that point or wake me up at that point.

I don’t know. Anyway, let me get sober. Tired of this. It’s making me tired, all this drinking.

God. So I mean, tho-those were the beginnings. I hit the s- sixteen, I got committed to my first mental institution. I dropped out of high school, figured four years of Latin was plenty for me.

Hit the street. My father came back in my life, said, “You’ve obviously lost your mind.” I said, “How would you know? You ain’t been around for four and a half years.” He said, “That’s cute.” Threw me in a mental hospital. I hung out in the mental.

They put me in for three months of observation and a year of rehabilitation, which I thought was a little dramatic. And they had these, uh, they had exit signs just like they have in here, these that are lit up over the doors say exit, except these were red and those were green. And I used to look at those and think, “That just simplified everything I was feeling while I was in the nuthouse.” That’s all I would like to do, just exit. Exit’s the word.

What do you wanna do? Right there, exit. That’s what I wanna do. And I remember one day I was having lunch with Killday.

Killday, she’ll remain anonymous. How that woman’s still alive I don’t know, but in case she is. Killday w– I would have lunch with Killday every day because Killday was insane. And, uh, lunch was like dinner and a show having lunch with Killday.

You know what I mean? It was really entertaining eating with her. So I was sitting– She’d just s- be snapping like crazy over there, and I decided I was gonna bust out of this joint. Now, I’d been shuffling around this hospital for weeks taking my little three cups of pills a day and talking to my psychiatrist for fifteen minutes a day, who would come in and ask me how I felt.

How would I know how I feel? I’ve been loaded since I was twelve. What are you- Stupid question. And I decided to bust out of there, and I’m sitting in this, uh, I’m sitting in the dining room, and I decided to make my break.

And I got ready in my chair, and I said, “Ready? Ready. Ready. Go!” You

know what I was talking about? ass, you know what I mean? I didn’t know about what was in those little cups of pills that they’d been giving me.

‘Cause I’m sitting around in this joint for weeks thinking, you know, at a normal speed I’m thinking everything’s fine, right? I didn’t know that they, the pills have, they’ve reduced me to two speeds, slow and seated. That’s, that’s all I got, you know? But I’m an alcoholic, man, you know what I mean?

Just as I’m run, as I think I’m running, I mean, I got my arms are working, you know what I mean? My head’s down, you know, I’m going. I’m thinking, “Screw it. I’ll just keep going.” I just kept shuffling, and you hear from the nurse’s station over the loudspeaker system, you hear, “Uh, Ed, when you got a second, do you wanna grab Earl?

He’s making a break for the door.” You know? You know, Ed’s over there having a sandwich going, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll get him in a minute.” Back to the room with no doorknob. Tools for living. If you’re gonna live my life and get thrown in the nuthouse, you gotta get out before they get the pills in you.

‘Cause if you don’t, you leave when they say. So I did some, started interacting with my psychiatrist a little better at that point, and, uh, talked my way out of that joint. Next time they threw me in the nuthouse, I escaped the first day. Sitting in the intake process thinking, saying, “Oh, geez, boy, I’m really glad you got me.

It’s brutal out there. It’s vicious. I couldn’t have made it another day. I’m so glad to be here.

Hey, look at that.” Phew. And I’m hauling ass again, right? Through those exergyms, right? Feel a sense of completion doing that, you know what I mean?

I’m out the exergyms. I’m in the backyard. I got an intern running my tail. We’re going for the chain link fence.

I’m moving, man. And I’m, and, and in my head, I mean, at that moment, I mean, I’m a high school dropout. I’m a drug addict. I’m an alcoholic.

I’m at any m- I’m a, I’m at any moment, hopefully, an escaped mental patient. I mean, that’s- … that’s like my resume. That’s who I am.

That’s all I got to say for myself, right? And I’m going for this fence, and I’m thinking, “If I make that fence, I don’t have a problem. I don’t have any problems ’cause I’ll be drunk in 20 minutes I get over that fence, and that’s all that matters.” ‘Cause you see, I drink no matter what. Now, my neck of the woods, there’s some people that, that say stuff that personally really pisses me off.

They say, they look at newcomers and they s- tell them, “Just don’t drink or use no matter what, pal.” And they walk away. And I think to myself, “Hey, thank you very much. You know, that really addresses my particular problem. You know, I feel a whole lot better now.” Just don’t drink or use.

If I could do that, if I could somehow manage to just not drink, no matter what, I guarantee I wouldn’t be here tonight. What the hell for? I don’t know anybody in Nebraska. Why would I come here?

And when I tell you a little more of my story, I mean, you know, I, no way I’m getting on an airplane. No way I’m getting on an airplane. Not gonna do it. I’d just be home with a remote control in one hand, little ice tea in the other, just not drinking no matter what.

That’s what I’d be doing. Wouldn’t be going to meetings, wouldn’t have a sponsor, wouldn’t be reading the big book, wouldn’t have gone anywhere near those 12 steps. I’d just be home on the, on the couch, not drinking no matter what. See, the point is I drink no matter what.

I’m the other way. Gotta tell you, it’s really weird to have the fellas up there like that, looking over your shoulder. Man, that’s some heat, you know?

That’s… Whew. His eyes follow you, too, if you walk around. He doesn’t let go of you, man.

It just… All right. Settle down, Earl. I drink no matter what.

No matter what. It’s the difference between me and a problem drinker. Give him a good reason, he’ll stop. Not me.

I mean, it’s evident in every area of my life. I mean, you take a problem drinker and you put him before the judge for another 502, and the judge looks at him and he says, “Partner, I see you one more time in my court for a 502, you’re doing a year. No conversation this time. None.

I see you, the gavel bangs, you go for a year. Do the whole year. That’s it.” Problem drinker says, “Uh, I don’t wanna do a year.” Stops drinking. Me, I start wondering what it’s gonna be like in jail.

I’m going. Same thing with a relationship. Problem drinker’s got a good relationship. Woman loves him.

She says, “Honey, you know, I love you and, and more than anything, you know, but this drinking, it’s killing the both of us. You don’t stop drinking, I gotta go.” Problem drinker says, “Well, I love this woman. You know, I got a lot invested in this relationship. I gotta stop the drinking.” He actually does it.

Me, I start wondering what it’s gonna be like to be single. ‘Cause she doesn’t get it. I remember one time I was living with a woman in Redwood City, California. I don’t know why.

And some people had been over, and we’d just gotten a little high and, and they had left, and I turned around, and she looked at me, and she said, “I’m too high.” I thought, “Oh, darling. Uh, first of all, if you can say it, it’s not true.” And secondly, we need to talk about our living arrangements, ’cause you gotta go.

We’re still friends. I actually married her three years later for one day Hey, the party was over, it’s time to go. Oh, man.

Where was I? Hopping the fence, hitting the street. So I get out of the nuthouse, I spend the next three years out on the street, drinking, using, no matter what. Um, through a series of circumstances only a, a self, you know, a good little alcoholic like me can create, I ended up in college.

I know, I know. You know, I just, I, I had met this woman, and I decided that we needed, you know, I, we needed to hook it up and do something right, and I needed to become a provider of some kind. I mean, I, you know, I didn’t know how to do anything legal. And, and I went on in– I heard this guy was interviewing for a prestigious business college in northern California, so I went to, on an interview.

I mean, as a high school dropout, went on that college interview. Sat down with this guy for an hour and a half. W- you know, he was a musician, so I was a musician. His favorite color was blue.

It’s, it’s incredible. My favorite color is blue. I mean, I just lined right up with this guy. End of an hour and a half, he said, “You know, you’re gonna be an excellent addition to our campus in the fall.” And I got accepted to this college.

So now I’m like, one more time I’ve talked myself into something there’s no way I can back it up. So I went and saw my father and I said, “Listen, I got accepted to college. Don’t ask. If you’ll write a check for the tuition, I’m leaving town.” He said, “Beautiful.” Wrote me a check, handed it to me.

Me and this woman piled all our belongings and eight pounds of hash in the back of this truck and went to northern California. You know? So we, uh, uh, we set up shop up there, and, and I went to give him a check for the tuition, told him the transcripts are in the mail. They told me don’t worry about it, which was a good thing ’cause I didn’t have them.

Went and got my GED for colle– for high school at night while I’m going to college during the day. I’m dealing drugs on campus. Um, there’s a bunch of rich kids going to school, and I’m dealing them all drugs. I’m studying marketing, production, distribution.

I’m applying it to my business. Business is booming. I think this college thing is the best, right? Um, right about 20 years old, they diagnosed me having malignant cancer.

Sort of burst my bubble a little bit. Flew back to LA, had major surgery for cancer on my back. Um, they put me on the nuclear medicine routine. You know what I mean?

You’re, you’re showing up at the hospital and getting injected with glow-in-the-dark stuff, you know, and I was going, and I just wasn’t enjoying this at all, this whole thing. So I told them, “Screw it. I don’t wanna take your, your drugs anymore.” And I just went home and got loaded my way. Well, I beat the cancer thing.

I’m thoroughly convinced that I was using at such a horrific rate at that point in my life, the cancer could not live in my body. The cancer just said, “No, no.” “We’ll go someplace else. This is ri– this is absolutely ridiculous here.” So I just kept going and going like that. When I was 21, my mother called me and said, “We haven’t been anywhere as a family in 10 years.

Your 22nd birthday’s coming. We’ll go anywhere you wanna go. Let’s just go as a family.” And she was crying and doing those, pulling those mother tricks on me. I said, “All right,” and I flew back to Los Angeles, and we got in my father’s plane and, and, uh, took off to fly to Guadalajara.

And on the way there, um, plane crashed, and my mother and my father and my little sister were all killed, and I wasn’t. And I woke up on this mountain in Mexico, and my skull was fractured, and my back was broken in three places, and my leg was crushed, my arm was crushed, and I was paralyzed from the waist down, and I was awake. And I couldn’t m– um, I couldn’t move, and I laid there and I watched them all bleed to death.

And I made a decision that I had absolutely no interest in a God that would do such a thing, leave a lying, cheating, thieving little dope fiend alcoholic like me alive and take somebody like my little sister. My little sister and I were very close. Uh, we were 15 months apart, and she was mine.

When she had problems, she came to me. She wanted to know about boys, she came to me, and I was very proud of, to be her big brother, and when she died, uh, I had no interest in a God that would do such a thing. So I just quietly removed God from my life. And then some guys came up the mountain and, and, uh, scavenged the plane cr– the wreck, took my wallet out of my pocket while I was laying in the mud there, took the money out of it, dropped the wallet

back on my chest and left me up there to die. I had no use for you anymore either. So I was alone in the world again. No God, no other people.

I had no interest in any of it. I was one angry little maniac laying on that mountain. The only thing I could move was my right arm, and I kept banging myself in the side ’cause it hurt so bad, so I’d keep out of the shock so I could stay alive on the mountain. And I was up there, I don’t know how long I was up there, and some guys from the Mexican Red Cross found me, and they, they took me down the mountain and took me to a Red Cross station and tagged my right toe and waited for me to die.

And, uh, which pissed me off. And, uh, they finally took me to a hospital, and they patched me up enough to, uh, fly me back in the States, and spent a long time in a hospital in Santa Monica, California, and I came out of there as crazy as I’ve ever been in my life. I came out of there, and I went on my last run.

Um, it lasted for four and a half years, and I was– drugs had bec– were completely unreliable. The drugs couldn’t get the pictures that were in my head out of my head. Um, so I was overdosing a lot. Went down in the basement one day and picked up a fifth of J&B Scotch.

Wasn’t my preferred drink, it just happened to be the closest bottle to the door. And I picked it up, and I drained it. And I passed out. And when I woke up, none of the bad dreams had been there, none of the nightmares had been there.

Um, none of the ugly pictures in my head had been there. It had erased all of it, and I thought, “That’s it for me.” So I used– uh, the last four and a half years I was out there, it was all about alcohol for me. I used cocaine to keep me on my feet so that I could drink the way I wanted to drink. When it gets so sick I couldn’t drink anymore, I’d eat about 150 milligrams of Valium a day just to get me well enough to go back to drinking.

S- getting sober never even occurred to me. The only time I drew a sober breath in four and a half years were the three times I went into this little detox place, ’cause people started coming to me and saying, “If you don’t stop drinking, you’re gonna die.” And I’d say, “Yeah, I know, so what’s your point?” You know? And m- I mean, this was not a world for me.

It was not something I’d ever been any good at, you know? There was no need for the facade anymore. I w- I didn’t know anything about loving or being loved. I didn’t know anything about being in the world.

The only thing that had ever worked for me was drinking. That’s it. That’s the only thing that ever made it possible for me to be in the world. I didn’t know about chitchatting.

I didn’t know about friends. I didn’t know about checking accounts. I didn’t know how about going to the market. I didn’t know about…

You know what I mean? All the stuff that everybody else took for granted, I was completely in the dark about. So it was just all about finishing off the game, as far as I was concerned. And I’d go into this little joint, and they don’t have them anymore, but it’s this little sanitarium in Hollywood where you go in, you give them $150 cash for 72 hours.

You give them your wallet, and you give them your bottle of Valium, and you give them your gun. You give them whatever else you had in your pockets, and they take you in and strap you down on a table, shoot you full of anticonvulsants, and let you ride. And 72 hours later, they either take you home, let you go home, or they send you to the morgue, whichever way you went. And you lay on that table kicking and screaming for three days saying, “God, I know we’re not on the best of terms, but if you let me get out of this sane and alive, I will never, ever, ever

drink again.” Right? Then they’d take me off that table, and I’d just come staggering out of that joint, and that nurse would look at me, and she’d give me back my gun. She’d give me back my car keys. She’d give me back my Valium, and she’d say, “Now, you be a good boy and don’t drink again, Earl.” I’d say, “No, ma’am.

Can’t take it.” And I’m like the guy in the book pounding on the bar wondering how he got there. That’s me. Drunk that night. ‘Cause see, the thing is, it isn’t about stopping for me.

It’s not about stopping. I’ve stopped thousands of times. I stopped three, four times a day. You know?

As your head’s going down one more time, you’re thinking, “I gotta knock this off.” You know? And you get up and get that twitching going and that shaking and breaking into a little sweat, and you got to have your just a little bit… It’s medicine now. Gotta have a little bit of that hair of the dog.

Drunk that night, ’cause it’s not about stopping for me. It’s about not starting again. How do I not start again? I’ve been, I got stopped three times in there.

I’ll start the second they untied me, I went and got drunk, firmly convinced in my mind that that was an insane act. And I think of the insanity that… I mean, I’ve been stabbed a couple of times, shot at. The violence in my life has been extreme.

I have done things that are impossible to survive. Don’t know how you do it. Can’t fall two miles out of the sky and walk away. I did.

It’s, um, it’s been a bizarre life. You wanna know the craziest thing I have ever done? Gotten off a table stone-cold sober and walked into a bar and ordered a drink. That is, with the experience that I have available to me in my life, that is the most insane act I have ever committed.

Be free of the physical craving and drink. It’s ’cause I didn’t know anything about alcoholism. I didn’t know I had… I, I mean, I knew I was an alcoholic, but I had no idea what that meant.

I was comfortable with the fact that I was an alcoholic. So I did the last four and a half years, and it’s just all about death and dying and craziness and insanity, and I burned it to the ground. And I came out of my last blackout, and I was h- I was yellow. I was 215 pounds.

I had hair out like this and a beard out like this, and I was psychotic. And I reached out and said, “Help.” I experienced the aloneness of my life, the loneliness in my life for the first time. I’d known it a long time, but I felt it that morning. And they took me to a hospital and pumped my stomach, and they said, “Get him out of here.

He’s gonna die.” And they took me by ambulance to another hospital, and they kept me five days, and they said, “Get him out of here. He’s getting worse.” And they took me by ambulance to another hospital, and they kept me for 42 days. And I remember sitting in that detox in that joint, and this woman named Dr. Vicky Fox, um, powerful lady, came walking in.

It was this Georgia peach. She always had her hair up in this big old do, you know, with the glasses and the, on the chain around her neck. She always had a sweater on, right? Big stack of files under her arm and a cigarette that hung out of the corner of her mouth that never left there.

She didn’t take it out. She just smoked it right there. Ashes all down the sweater on the files, and she’s the kind of lady, I mean, if she walked through that door right now, we’d all look over there. You know what I mean?

Powerful lady. Had a power and a presence about her that was remarkable. And I’m sitting in a chair trying not to throw the next seizure, and she comes blasting into this detox ward. And I just kinda And she looked over at me.

There’s 42 of us in there kicking, 21 beds down one side of the room, 21 coming up the other side. It was a real party in that joint. Oh, man. I’m talking low bottom, stop drinking or die kind of guys.

You know what I mean? And she looked over at me, and she walked right over to me, bounces out my heart, and she looked at, down at me, and she said, put her hand on my cheek, put her hand on my cheek, and she said, “Baby, you really do need to be here,” and turned around and walked away. And I just looked up at her and went, “Yeah.” That’s the first direction I got.

Right there. It was the first direction I got, was you stay here. I got that. I mean, there was a lot of noise going on in here.

You had to keep it real simple for me, and she did. I was in that place for 42 days. When I came out, I was the craziest I’ve ever been in my life. And through a series of weird circumstances, I came to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I did not come here because I wanted what you had. I had no idea what you had. Had no idea. Didn’t know anything about it.

All I knew was that people came here who used to drink and didn’t drink anymore. I walked in, I sat down in the back with my arms folded, my best tough-guy look on my face, my best stay-away-from-me look on my face, which of course doesn’t work in AA. Doesn’t work, ’cause every meeting’s got that guy with about six or nine months who has just caught fire with this thing and is gonna give it away now. You know?

And he does not see the subtle signals that a guy like me is sending off, you know? The old-timers aren’t even coming anywhere near me. They’re not bringing me a cup of coffee. They’re going, “How you doing, pal?

Coffee’s over there, all right?” They aren’t getting anywhere near me, ’cause they can see the look on my face. I am a terrified human being, and they know it. But this guy came, saw me and went, “New guy.” And he came sliding across the floor with his hand out, and I’m sitting there thinking, “Oh, Jesus. Look at this.” “He’s all dressed all nice.

His hair’s combed. He’s smiling. I hate that.” And he’s got his hand out, and here he comes. He walked right up to me, looked me right in the eyes, and he said, “Hi, my name is Vegas.

I’m an alcoholic.” And I said, “So what?” “So am I, and it ain’t exactly the highlight of my life, pal.” “I don’t know what you’re so happy about. Get away from me.” And he looked at me with these knowing eyes, right? Look… It, it got…

Like, the room got quiet for both of us. And he looked at me and he said, “You keep coming back.” And I looked at him like, “Yeah, great, all right?” And in my head I’m thinking, “What the hell does that mean?” I mean, he said that like there’s some big, deep meaning to that, and I don’t know what it is. They probably all know what it is.

I’m the only stupid son of a bitch in the room does not know what the hell that means. I’m a loser. What the hell is that, “keep coming back”? And they did it the whole meeting just to press the shit out of me.

Keep coming back, one day at a time, right? My favorite: turn it over. Turn what over? What the hell are you talking about?

I have no idea what that means. And it’s real interesting that a whole lot… There are a lot of people in AA that don’t know what that means. I mean, if you’re new, I dare you, the next time some guy walks up to you and, like, looks…

Got a look on his face like he’s gonna lay the big deal on you and kind of like gonna walk away proud like, “Hey, look what I laid on that guy. Changed his life, didn’t I?” And looks at you and says, “You know what? Just turn it over, buddy,” and walks away, you stop him and say, “Excuse me. I’m not really sure what you’re talking about.

Would you mind explaining that to me just a little bit better?” You’d be surprised. In my neck of the woods, about 70% of them would have to turn around and tell you, “I’d love to, but I can’t. You know what I mean? I mean, I just heard a guy say that, and I’m just passing it on to you.

I don’t know what the hell it means either.” But of course, I was new, and if… didn’t want anybody to know I didn’t know what was going on, so I just shut my mouth. And they’d say, “Keep coming back,” and I’d just do the newcomer mantra: “Fine.” “Keep coming back, Earl.” “Fine.” “How you feeling?” “Fine.” “Everything all right?” “Fine.” And inside, I’m dying. I mean, it’s a testimony to the human skull, the amount of pressure you can build up as a newcomer sitting in the back of a meeting.

I mean, it’s a… It, it, it should be that you just… You’re just sitting in meetings like this, and every once in a while some guy’s head just explodes, and he falls over in the aisle. You know?

And they got a special cleanup crew that runs right over there and cleans it up real fast and then runs right back out. I mean, that’s why we keep… That’s why we keep all the new guys up front, you know what I mean? So when a h- when a head goes, you know, and they’re going, “What the hell was that?” you say, “Hey, hey, hey.

The speaker’s up there, buddy.” “Turn around.” That’s what my head felt like. And I mean, I couldn’t, I could not hang in a meeting. I could not hang. Had no idea what was going on.

No idea. It’s too loud in my head. It’s way too loud. I mean, a victory meeting for me is I remember going to Ohio Street, a little place up in West LA.

Crazy AA hall, right? It’s crazy. You slide in up there, and I guess I’m telling you this ’cause if you’re new, and you’re crazy, and you don’t get it, perfect. Perfect.

You’re right on schedule. Just have a seat and let the tapes roll. Just let them roll. Do your best to pick up just a little shred of something, and you don’t even need to know what it means.

Just stick it in your pocket and keep it. And when you meet somebody you vaguely think you might be able to make the conscious decision to trust, make the decision to trust and walk up and say, “You know what? I heard this right here at a meeting. Could you explain that to me?” And it begins, one alcoholic talking with another.

Before there was a book, before there was anything, one talking to another. That was the ticket, right? But I mean, I’m sit- I mean, I’d go to Ohio Street and a b- and a, and a… It’s real funny, too, ’cause I mean, I sit.

I go, “I have to remember what it’s like to be new.” I have to try to remember, because I’ll, I’ll get some guy I’m sponsoring who’s got, like, nine months, and I’ll pick him up, ’cause I, I hear that Al’s talking. And Al opens his mouth, and the spiritual stuff, the pearls just come flying out of this guy. And I got to…

And, and it’s just, it’s rich and full and meaningful to me. And I’m gonna take my nine-month guy, and we’re gonna go listen to this. I’m gonna turn him on to this deal. And we go, and we sit in the meeting.

And this… And Al’s on tonight. Al’s just tearing up the room. Al’s in complete full-contact God talking going on right here, right?

He’s just, just going. And I’m sitting there going, “This is so wonderful.” And here at nine months, he gets to be exposed to this beautiful stuff. Well, the meeting I’m attending is completely different than the meeting he is attending. And I gotta remember that and give the new guy room for that to happen.

‘Cause I mean, me at nine months, I walk in the back of Ohio Street, and inside of my head was like this: “I found it. Jesus Christ, I found the hall again. Unbelievable.” “Here we are. Okay.

Okay. Go inside. Save yourself a seat. Save yourself a seat.

Where’s a seat? They saved all the goddamn seats in this place. Where’s a seat? Where’s…

Here’s a seat. I got a seat. I got a seat. Put my keys on the seat.

Keys are on the seat.” Oh, good. Okay, good, good. Okay, they’re ringing a bell. They’re ringing a bell.

What the hell’s going on? Oh, they’re ringing a bell. Everybody sit down. We sit down, find a seat, find a seat.

Where are my keys? Where the hell are they? Where are my keys? Here’s my keys.

The keys are here. The keys are here. I sit down. The guy next to me’s got on a red jacket.

Try and remember that, try and remember that. Guy with a red jacket to your right. Guy with a red jacket to your right. Guy’s up, he’s talking, he’s saying something.

Here comes a guy. This guy’s talking. He’s an alcoholic. That’s good.

It’s good. That he’s– And he’s rarely seen something. He’s rarely seen something. He’s rarely seen– I wonder what it was that he’d rarely seen.

I wonder– He’s down. What the hell happened? He’s down. Here comes another guy.

He’s an alcoholic. He drank. I like that. He drank.

He drank. I drank too. That’s good. That’s good.

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. We ain’t even at a break yet. He sits down.

You’re thinking, “Jesus Christ, what the hell did that guy say? He drank. I know that. I’m in the right place, but I can’t remember a damn thing.” Everybody’s standing up.

Where are we going? What the– Everybody’s going outside. What happened? What happened?

Oh, we’re gonna smoke. Beautiful. I smoke. We’ll smoke.

We’re gonna smoke. We’re smoking. We’re smoking. All right, they’re ringing the bell again.

They’re ringing the bell. Jesus Christ, where do I go? Where’s the guy with the red coat? Where’s the guy with the red coat?

I can’t find the guy with the red coat. Screw it, I’m sitting here. I’m sitting here. No, it’s not your seat, pal.

It’s my seat, all right? I’m sitting in it, all right? Here comes another guy. He’s reading twelve things.

I think there were twelve things before, but they’re different than these twelve things. Could there be any similarity between this twelve and that twelve? I don’t know. There’s a tradition.

There’s a thing. It’s a stepping. I don’t know. He’s gone.

It doesn’t matter anyway. He’s gone. Here comes another guy. He’s an alcoholic.

I did that. I did that. I did that. This is good.

I did that. He sat down. I want– I would like some more of that, please. Get him, get him back up there.

Get him back up there. Oh, man. And everybody gets up and hold hands, and I am immediately terrified. They’re holding my hands.

Jesus, they’re holding my hands. I got another one. It’s fine. They’re saying the Lord’s Prayer.

I know this prayer. Get about half of it out, and you leave, and you’re thinking– And then you’re leaving, and some guy looks at you and says, “Wasn’t that a great meeting?” And I go, “It’s fine. Got a lot out of that.” Driving home thinking, “I gotta remember to try to find this place again. That was unbelievable.” Now, that’s what’s happening to the guy with– Now, we leave the meeting, and Al’s talking.

I’m all full of this stuff. I’m thinking, “I got my nine months.” Got to get in the car, and I go, “So what do you think?” He looks at me and he goes, “It’s fine.” It’s just his turn, and I gotta give him his turn. You know what I mean? To hide till he can come out.

Hi– If, if you’re new and you gotta hide, fine. Just hide in here. Don’t hide out there. H- ’cause you’re alone, and you’re in bad company when you’re doing that.

Hide in here. Lie to us. We are familiar with this process. So

anyway, that was how I started in here. And I was– I, I, I got a sponsor. I got a vicious sponsor. I got a guy who said to me, “You don’t like what I– 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,” ’cause this is a program of action. We take the actions in here. And you know what? I never could trip that guy up.

Never could trip him up, ’cause every time he told me to do something, I’d go to a meeting and see him there doing it himself. Had me. First– It was the first time I can remember trusting a human being. First time I can remember.

It’s the only human being I trusted in Alcoholics Anonymous for two and a half years. I never took a chip. Wouldn’t go anywhere near a podium. I was in the back, my arms folded, trying to keep you all away from me and trying to find some hope, which I got in my first meeting.

The main speaker got up, and he said two things that I remembered. First one was he talked openly and honestly about his feelings, and I’d never heard a man do that before. Never. Men don’t do that where I come from.

Not the men in my family. The other thing he said was he said he didn’t care whether I liked what he had to say or not. If I didn’t like it, go to another meeting. I loved that.

Well, it made it real clear to me, this guy’s not selling me something. He’s sharing it with me. That meant a lot to me. He shared that with me.

It’s mine. If I wanted it, I could have it. Didn’t want it, that’s okay too. I thought, “This is cool.

I’m coming back.” That was all I got. I never took a chip. Didn’t take a cake till I was three years sober, and I didn’t open my mouth in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous until I was two and a half. The only reason I did it was my sponsor told me if I didn’t open my mouth in a meeting, I was gonna go drink.

That I, I c- could have no reservations. None. I had to do it all. Saw you come in, Earl.

When I got here, family was dead. I had no friends. I had no place to live. I was completely and utterly mad, and I was physically extremely ill.

I was sleeping on a friend of a friend of a friend’s couch. I had no money, a box full of clothes, and a 1968 Volkswagen that no one else would get in. My life had been burned to the ground, and I came to AA, and I did– I got a sponsor, and I went to the meetings. When he told me to pick a guy up, I went and picked him up.

When they told me to sweep up, I was grateful to have something to do. When they said get here early and s- and set up the chairs, I did it. I did it quietly, and I did it because I was willing to do anything you told me to do. Just don’t make me go back into madness.

See, I got here with real clear purpose. Don’t make me go back into madness. I don’t wanna drink. I don’t wanna drink.

I don’t want my old life. It’s not that I want my old life back. It’s not that I want my friends back. It’s not that I want w- either one of my first two wives back.

It’s not that I want my health back. It’s not that I want any of that. I just don’t wanna have to go back into madness. Let me stay here.

I’ll sweep up for you for the rest of my life. Just don’t send me back to the madness. And I figured if I told you who I was, you’d throw me away too, ’cause anybody that knew anything about me had. And I just– And I, and I had no place else left to go.

So I was real closed up in here, and it was only my sponsor telling me, “Do it or you’ll drink,” that got me up at a podium, and I shared. I remember saying, “My name’s Earl. I’m an alcoholic.” And about 150 people said, “Hi, Earl.” And I went into a blackout, sober. I just blacked out.

And I just remember going and sitting down and my sponsor saying to me, “Jesus, you really were scared, weren’t you?” And I looked at him like, “What have I been telling you? Where have you been?” And so the process began, you know? And by the time I was five years sober, I had– I was Mr. AA in my part of the town, man.

I mean, I was seven to nine meetings a week, call my sponsor every day, sponsor anybody that asked me, never, ever turned down an AA request. Taking out two panels, one to the San Fernando Valley Juvenile Hall, the beginning of the disease, and one to County General, the end of the line. And I was going back and forth once a month to those two deals and doing all this stuff in the middle, s-speaking when I was asked to and everything I was supposed to do. You know what?

A-a-and it was starting to manifest in my life. You know, I got a job. And then I got another job. A job turned into a career.

I mean, when I started out, I had a three hundred and twenty-five dollar one-room apartment, and I was having trouble making the rent. And I was happy because I wasn’t in the madness. I was a poor man, and I was happy. Never knew you could be that, happy.

And a job turned into a career, and I got a better car that other people could get in. I mean, a big de– A lot of people take this stuff for granted, you know? It was a big deal to me to pick somebody up, have him get in the car and sit right next to me on this seat, and I could drive and go like this. Say, “How are you?” That was a big thrill.

I thought, the rest of the world can take this stuff for granted, not me. I got a checking account. Big thrill for me. I got to where my rent was paid regularly on the first of the month.

It’s a thrill for me. I was thirty-four years old the first time I paid taxes. I’d been underground my whole life. I paid taxes, man.

IRS, here you go. I was excited. I couldn’t have been happier to pay the IRS the money they wanted. I mean, I’m the only guy I’ll probably ever meet that’ll get something in the mail from the IRS and go, “Hey, look, the IRS.” I

got no problem with the IRS. And they got no problem with me. They say, “Earl, you’re short of this two grand last year.” I call them up and say, “Real sorry about that. Can I get this to you?

Can I make you a few payments and get this to you?” They say, “No sweat.” And that’s done with the money. Honest to say, unbelievable. So I got to five years and all that’s going on. I got to six and a half, and I started going nuts.

Didn’t know why. Why am I going nuts? I went up to an old-timer, and I said, “I’m-” And if you’re new, watch out for these people. ‘Cause, I mean, this guy was not interested in as Earl sees it.

You know what I’m saying? He didn’t want to hear the big story. I walked up to him, and I said, “I’m feeling restless, irritable, and discontent again. I don’t know what’s going on, man.

I’m like edgy. I’m nervous. I’m jamming around. I feel as obsessive and as crazy and maniacal as I did when I got here.

I don’t know what’s going on, man. I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do. What is the deal?” And he looked down at me, and he said, “Earl, saw you come in. If you don’t get yourself a program, you’re probably gonna die.

Go away.” Said, “Excuse me.” And I recounted my litany of AA activity. Seven to nine meetings a week, sponsor checking in every day, sponsoring people, get me in commitment, take me in a service, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He said, “Uh, Earl, please. Uh, what that is is the fellowship, son.

I’m glad you got it. It’s the title of your recovery. The program is in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and therein lies the Twelve Steps and how we recover as individuals. Uh, I suggest you get yourself a book, or you will drink and die.

Go away.” I said, “All right, you ornery son of a bitch, I will.” And I went, and I got a buddy of mine. He had eight years. I had six and a half years.

We sat down with the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and said, “Okay, we’re new. Screw this time deal. We’re new. What’s up?” Remarkable book.

Who knew? Where I come from, it’s the best-kept secret in Alcoholics Anonymous. They got this amazing book. They’re taking the symbol off of it they used to have on the cover here.

It was a triangle with a circle. It’s an ancient spiritual symbol. It stands for mind, body, and spirit brought together as a whole human being. And that’s the balance I had always lacked in my life.

Mind, body, and spirit. Always lacked that. Alcoholics Anonymous adopted the symbol. It means the same thing.

Unity, recovery, and service, it’s the same thing. Unity is the body. I gotta bring it here. I gotta be with you.

Left alone, I’m a dead man. I gotta bring it to you. Unity is the body. I bring it here.

I sit down, I shut up, and I listen like the old guys told me to do. That’s what worked. And I avail myself of all the opportunities in here that allow me to demonstrate certain spiritual principles that are afoot in this program, like making the coffee. I always thought you made the coffee ’cause you were the new guy, and you got the grunt job.

Wrong. It’s the best job in the joint. They give it to you to expose you to the most beautiful thing you’re ever gonna know. I mean, I went to my sponsor, and we went to a meeting, and he said, “They make five hundred and fifty cups of coffee here every Friday night, and you’re gonna make them for the first– next year.” I said, “Bullshit.” He

said, “Fine, then drink.” Said, “Well, you know, there’s no talking to these people.” You know? It’s just, it’s just a cut and dry To the chase, so I made this coffee. He could have said to me– He said to me, “Do it or drink.” So I did it.

He could have said to me, “Listen, Earl, we know that you’re a self-centered human being to the extreme. You’ve never thought about anybody but Earl your entire life. What we’re gonna expose you to here is the principle of service, a spiritual principle that is of profound importance in your life. And what you’re gonna do is every Friday night for about four hours, you’re gonna think about them and their coffee, and making that all go smoothly for them.

We’re gonna get you out of self, out of self, out of self, and you’re gonna feel remarkably better as a result of this. Remarkably. And when you come back to you, you will have a little different perspective on what’s really going on.” He could have said that to me, and I would have gone, “What?” I wouldn’t have understood at all.

So he said, “Do it or drink,” and I did it. And after about six months of this, I was feeling great on Friday nights, and I had, had no idea why. I couldn’t put that all together just yet. That’s an example of the unity in the body.

I gotta bring it here. The recoveries of the mind, the greater aspect of my disease. Like I said, it’s not about stopping for me, it’s about not starting again. ‘Cause I can stop, but I got this obsession of the mind that brings me back to that first couple of drinks.

I got a mind that tells me I can have a couple drinks. Now, y’all know enough about me at this point to know two drinks is pointless for a guy like me. It’s pointless. Two drinks is what you have while you’re waiting for the next two to come.

You just kill time with two drinks. That’s all two drinks do is kill a little time till we can get the party rolling. Johnny talked about it. You know what I mean?

When the guy says, “I’m starting to feel this,” that’s, well, now you kick it into overdrive. Now we’re gonna get the real job done. We’re gonna black it all out. That’s what it’s about for me.

So it’s about– Now, I have to address the obsession of the mind. That’s what the r-recovery, the second side of the triangle is about for me. Recovery of the mind, relieving me of the obsession to drink. And I know that the persistence of this illusion, this belief in a lie that I can drink like the normal individual, is a very, very powerful force in my life, and that many of us pursue

it to the gates of insanity and death, as the big book tells us. I’ve been to those gates. I don’t wanna go there again. So I started to do the 12 steps as outlined in the big book, ’cause they told me the 12 and 12 will tell me all about them, and it’s a great book.

But if I wanna know how to do them, I gotta go to the source, the big book. So I went to the source. The step– Real simply for me, the steps turned out to be, step one is what’s the problem? If you don’t know what the problem is, how are you gonna come up with the right solution?

The problem is lack of power is my dilemma. I am– I admit it. I’m powerless over this thing, and my whole life is unmanageable as a result of it. I accept that that’s my problem.

Now, I haven’t even got up off the couch yet. I haven’t done anything. I’m sitting on the couch reading this with this guy. Yep, yep, and I ca– I, I admit that.

That’s true for me. Well, if that’s the problem, what’s the solution? Step two. I came to believe that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity, soundness of mind, relieve me of the obsession to drink.

I thought, that to me, that’s the greatest promise in the book, that that could happen to a guy like me. I said, “Cool, I’ll go for that. I’ll go for that.” He said, “Well, okay, Earl, we told you in here self-knowledge avails you nothing. You better make a decision to do something about this, ’cause it is a program of action.” “Okay, what do I do?” “Well, why don’t you try step three?

Make a decision to turn your will and your life over to the care of God.” Oh, so that’s what I’m supposed to turn over. That’s what they mean by that turn over thing. Turn your will… “Okay, how do I do that?” “Get on your knees.” All right, I’m up off the couch for the first time.

Down on my knees. Do the third step prayer. Turn my will and my life over. Scared the hell out of me personally.

Got back up on the couch. “Now what do you want me to do?” “Well, Earl, we hope you meant that,” which I think is kind of the cruelest part of the book, is that they let– they tell you after you’ve done it that they really hope you were serious about that ’cause they’re not kidding. Okay, well, I guess I was pretty serious about that.

And he said, “Well, now we’re gonna embark upon this plan of action, steps four through nine, that are gonna bring the solution of step two about in your life. We’re gonna restore you to sanity. You just do this stuff right here. What you’re gonna do is you’re gonna get all this stuff you put between you and other people and you and God out of the way.

You’re gonna swallow some large chunks of truth about yourself, and you’re gonna move this stuff out of the way, and you’re gonna open up a channel to hook back up. You’ve been alone way too long, pal. Sober. Forget drunk.

Sober. We’re gonna hook you up.” I said, “All right, I got no place else to go except right down the middle of this.” So we did the four through nine. Things started popping and changing. It said in the book I’d be amazed before I was halfway through step five, and I was.

Ten, 11, and 12 just keep me in the game. Ten is me, 11 is God, and 12 is you. Nobody else to play with. Ten, I gotta keep my side of the street clean, and when I’m wrong, admit it.

Promptly. They put that in there for me, I’m convinced. ‘Cause I’ll get– I’ll tell you, I’ll talk to you about it in November. And I’ll keep the resentment, and I’ll build the resentment, and I will be– I will, I will poison myself.

I will become a toxic nightmare before I’ll finally be surrendered and get rid of it. Let it go now so that I can keep growing so that I don’t cut myself off from you and God on a daily basis. Let it go. 11 is God, and I seek God.

The action’s on me. What do I seek Him for? I, I seek God through prayer and meditation. That’s how, that’s why we do it.

And what am I praying for? Knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out. That’s it. I gotta keep it simple for me.

When I– The first prayers I ever got from my sponsor, I was going to Ohio Street for like two years, and I said– There’s a big painting right behind the podium there that’s the Serenity Prayer. After two years, I spotted it. And I called up my sponsor, and I said, “Excellent prayer. Shortest one I found.” He said, “No.” “What do you mean, no?” He says, “There’s too much in there.

You’ll screw it all up.” And he was right. Rarely s- um, yeah, okay, I can’t go any– He said, “Here’s your prayers. When you get up in the morning, I want your feet to hit the floor, and I want you to look up, and I want you to say, ‘Whatever.'” So that was my morning prayer.

When I finished the day, I would get in bed at night, and I would pull the covers up to my head, and I would look up, and I would say, “Enough.” Those are my prayers. They’re great. Try them I called him up one day at nine o’clock in the morning, and I said, “Jesus Christ, Donald, I’m screwed.

I’m doomed. I’m doomed.” He says, “What’s wrong?” Says, “I’ve had enough. It’s nine AM. I’m a dead man.” He says, “All right, I, I can help you here.” I said, “Please, before I go.” Says, “Take a deep breath.” “Now say enough.”

“Enough.” “Okay, now take another deep breath.” “Okay, now say whatever.” “You can do that?” That was like a spiritual experience for me. I thought I had to do till in the bed thing. That was all I mean…

Nope, that’s what you get. Unbelievable. Unbelievable freedom for me that came out of that. Tremendous gift.

The gifts I got from this man are absolutely unbelievable. I mean, I’ll talk about that in one second. But step twelve was having had a spiritual awakening as the result of doing these steps. It was the whole point.

The result, the only point of doing this, a spiritual awakening. I can practice these principles and carry the message. Third side of the triangle. Unity is the body, I bring it here.

Recovery to the mind, I gotta work those steps. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of that third side of the triangle, service, I can be of service. I’ve got something to give. I have purpose.

I didn’t have pur– I had no purpose before I got here. None. It was a completely wasted, useful– useless life. And all of a sudden, I found myself an individual with purpose, who was clear– an individual who was clearly on a specific spiritual path that I had the utmost faith and confidence

in. I came here a hopeless, hope to die, dope fiend alcoholic. That’s how I got here. I had no hope.

I got hope here. I became a hopeful man, and I’ve stayed and done all the things that I’m supposed to do in here, working those three sides of that triangle on a daily basis. I practice the principles on a daily basis. I am of service on a daily basis.

I am in contact with other members of Alcoholics Anonymous on a daily basis. I sponsor a lot of guys now. Some of them I’ve sponsored for, for, for me for a lot of my sobriety. I’m, I’m, uh, thirteen years and nine months sober, and I’m a guy that could not stay sober a day.

Now, thirteen years and– It’s all in your perspective. That is not– That’s, that’s punk time to some guys, you know what I mean? And I respect that. I do.

And I really enjoy meeting guys at meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous who scoff at my thirteen years ’cause that means there’s guys there with a lot more time, and it makes me feel good that they’re there, you know? You can pat me on the head all you want, man. I’m just really glad to see you, you know, at a meeting.

So if you’re in here and you got more time than me, thank you. Thank you for conti- for continuing to participate in this program. And if you got less time than me, congratulations. It’s a remarkable journey.

This goes so far past not drinking, it’s unbelievable. It’s a process of liv- for living. It’s a design for living. Be-beyond your wildest dreams.

If you’re new, I guarantee it’s beyond your wildest dreams. I mean, I’ve read lots of interesting stuff, you know, Paths to God. I mean, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve read The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and I’ve read, you know, uh, uh, The Mustard Seed, and I’ve read the Sermon on the Mount and the Bible and The Way of the Peaceful Warrior and The Celestine Prophecy. I mean, I’ve read all of this stuff.

Great stuff. Great stuff. But there’s something we do that’s different than that. You read all that stuff, and then you talk about it, and you try to expose yourself intellectually to this path to God to achieve ascension of some kind, to enlighten as you move forward.

In here, what we do is we get down in the dirt with each other, and we share our experience, strength, and hope, and we rise up out of a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. It’s in the– It’s getting, it’s get– It’s not the looking up as much as it is getting down in the dirt. Getting down in the dirt, getting down on our knees and doing the things that we do in here to stay clean and sober. The best example of Alcoholics Anonymous I have ever known in my life is a gentleman by the name of Donald Madden.

He was my sponsor. This is gonna be hard, but I gotta do it. Donald Madden, I got to Alcoholics Anonymous a shell, a worthless human being. He took me in as, uh, as his sponsee, and he rebuilt me from the ground up personally.

He was the only man on Earth I trusted for two and a half years, and all of the things I learned in that original two and a half years I got from that one man. One man. And when I was ready, he gave me to another man and then another, and I developed friends. And, and, and as a result, today I have a complete life.

I didn’t know how to make a living. He had a factory. He said, “Paint the factory.” And I’d show up every morning and paint on his factory, and he’d feed me dinner and tell me to go to a meeting, and I’d show up the next morning, and we’d do it again. And when we finished painting the factory, he said, “You know how to paint.

Go get a job.” He gave me a way to go out in the world and make a living. That’s so far beyond what’s expected of a sponsor, it’s unbelievable. And I mean, the– And I mean, the gifts go on and on and on and on and on. Only sponsor I’ve ever had.

Only one. The most important person in my life, period. Whatever I am that’s of value today is a result of my relationship with that man and his commitment to this program and his sharing that with me. Twenty-seven days ago, he died.

And I w– I was devastated. It absolutely broke my heart. It was the most pain I’d ever experienced in my life, and I was gonna feel this pain sober and didn’t know how I could do that. Do you wanna know that it never even occurred to me to drink?

That’s how good a teacher he was, and that’s how powerful a program this is. I was absolutely on the floor dying, and I went to– But I hear his voice because somehow the man, as a member of this program, prepared me for even this. And I, I went to where he was, and we waited for them to come to take the body, and before he was even gone, I had a new sponsor.

So I knew if I didn’t do it, I never would. And I called up a man that I knew loved him and respected him, that I loved and respected, and I said, “Donald is gone. Will you be my sponsor?” And he said, “Yes.” So I had a new sponsor within three hours. And we had a beautiful memorial service for him, and hundreds of members of Alcoholics Anonymous showed up and said absolutely phenomenal things about this man and about how he had touched their lives and changed their lives

in a positive way. And I got to see the magic of Alcoholics Anonymous demonstrated on a day like that, and it healed me a lot. Healed me a lot because I was open to the healing. I mean, the grief that I’m experiencing is not this big dramatic thing, and it’s not– I’m not shutting down on it.

I’m somewhere in the middle because there’s some balance in my life as a result of unity, recovery, and service, and I’m able to just feel these feelings and move forward in my life. During the last– When we, we buried him, and it’s just been tough for me since we buried him. During this summer, my wife’s had a miscarriage. My sponsor died.

A very good friend of mine died of a heart attack. I got viral pneumonia. I mean, it was just like building up on me, right? And when Donald died, I got down– I, I felt like standing up and clenching my fist and saying, “All right, God, what is the point?

What is your point?” But something I learned in here from you, I just couldn’t quite get my hands clenched and up before I was sinking to my knees. And I got down on my knees, and I looked up, and I said, “What do you want me to do?” And on my mother’s grave, the phone rang. And I picked up the phone, and I said, “Hello.” And it was a guy with seven years that said, “I’ve been wanting to ask you to sponsor me for a year. Will you sponsor me?” And am I glad he waited a year because I needed him right that moment.

And I said, “Yes, I will. Let’s talk about you.” And I got to get out of me for a little bit. It works. See, these things work.

They’re of value. They’re pertinent to my life on a daily basis. This is an absolutely phenomenal program. I have a life beyond my wildest dreams.

Beyond my wildest dreams. And there’s a lot of great stuff in my life. I can say, “Yeah, I drive the car I want. I live in a nice house down in Redondo Beach.

I’m making money. This is going on. That’s going on.” You know what? A lot of fluff.

You know? A lot of fluff. The miracle of my life is that I’m sober. The miracle of my life is that I’m sober, and I’m as committed to this program as I am.

I don’t commit to anything. You’ve got to know based on my story what it means for me to get on an airplane and fly someplace. So far, I will only do it for Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s just too intense for me.

I got here and slept eleven hours last night because I’d been on planes flying from LA to here– from LA to Phoenix and Phoenix to, to here. It was up and down, and the bumping and the thing, and I’m losing my mind the whole way. And I got here. And you know what?

I’ll never say no to doing it. Never. You can’t scare me bad enough to get me to say no to Alcoholics Anonymous. That’s much scarier to me than anything else anybody or anything could do to a guy like me.

If you’re new, congratulations. Congratulations. You have stepped in it now. You stepped in it now, man.

These look like normal people to you, don’t they? They’re all kind of dressed. They got their hair combed. They’re all sitting facing the right way, you know?

They look like normal people. We’re not. We’re not normal human beings. We are bodily and mentally different from our fellows, and that is demonstrated in the things we think, the things we do, and the way we feel.

Just every single heartbeat, something different is going on with us that we constantly have to reevaluate, give to God, and come up with some way of trying to be of service to the situation we’re in so that we can remain sober individuals and members of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is a remarkable, remarkable place to be. Those guys gave it to us.

Bill and Dr. Bob, they gave that to us. I had the pleasure once– I had lunch with Dr. Bob’s son one day.

And I just– I mean, I’ve met a lot of people in my life, you know, and I, I figured it was pretty hard at this point in my life to be impressed. I just sat there with my mouth hanging open looking at, looking at this guy. I was going, “You were there, man.” He goes, “Yeah, I was right there the moment it started.” He said, “You want to know something? You got to believe everything I tell you about it because everybody else is dead.” And I said, “Great.

Tell me.” And I got to talk– I mean, just the gifts are boundless. You know, the gifts are boundless. The main gift for a guy like me is that I’m free, you know? I’m loving and being loved, and I’m free.

And I have ne– I’ve been a slave all my life. I’ve been locked away all my life. I’ve never been free. I’ve never been comfortable.

And I got to tell you, I’m standing right now in front of God knows how many people, one of the greatest fears of my life, and I’m comfortable being who I am, doing what I’m doing with the people I’m doing it with. And that’s a freedom beyond my wildest dreams. If you’re new, please stay here.

If you’re old, please stay here. And thank you very much for letting me participate.