My name is Earl. I’m an alcoholic. Earl. Hi.

When I saw that camera, I thought– was– my first thought was, I’m gonna get up here and say, “My name is Alberto Somoza, and I’m an Al-Anon.” Hello. Um, I wanna thank the committee for asking me to come share here. Always an honor and a privilege to do so. Um, I also wanna acknowledge the fact that I have some very dear friends in the room that came here, um…

They say they came here to hear me. I know they came here to gamble. Because they’ve heard me endless numbers of times. Um, I also wanna acknowledge Clara, sitting right over there.

Um, one of my heroes. I didn’t have any heroes when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. I was dead inside. I wasn’t connected to another living human being.

And, uh, I’d sat in meetings when I– in the beginning, I sat in meetings not because I wanted what you had. I had no idea what you had. I sat in meetings because I could no longer live with what I had. And I thought, and, uh, like the gentleman who just spoke, Scott, when he said, uh, you know, last house on the block, it was in fact the last house on the block for me.

And, uh, I was there ’cause there was no place else left to go. And I remember my first few weeks at a Friday night meeting in, in, uh, West LA, Clara got up at the podium and shared her experience, strength, and hope. And I remember sitting there quietly and, you know, with a look of disdain on my face, of course, you know, this couldn’t possibly be true, um, thinking to myself, uh, “There are some very interesting people in Alcoholics Anonymous.” That lady’s alive is remarkable.

And I love you very much, and thank you for all you’ve done for me. Um, so I, uh, drank and used for sixteen years on a daily basis, then I came here. Now I’ve screwed up. That was my drunk-a-log.

Y’all need to wake me up before you get me up here. I don’t… So yeah, I l- I drank ’cause I liked the effect produced by alcohol. Um, it was the fear killer for me.

It was the thing that made it possible for me to leave the house. It was the thing that made it possible for me to talk to other people. It made it possible for me to breathe like a normal human being. Um, I s– humble beginnings, a little pot, a little wine, no big deal.

Only reason I did that was a, a, a guy walked… I was in boarding school. I’d been shipped off by my family. And, uh, uh, I’d gotten in a fight with the– Well, I wouldn’t really call it a fight.

I had taken a beating. I had taken a beating from a very large individual on campus and was sitting in my room waiting for the bleeding to stop and the, you know, because I had in, you know, I had essentially assaulted him prior to the beating I received. And, uh, um, word had spread around this campus, you know, “Watch out for this little Hightower kid.

He’s a maniac. He attacked Tiny,” right? Which couldn’t have been further from the truth. And I, all of a sudden, I had a reputation.

It had nothing to do with the fact that I was this terrified, frightened little child. And these guys came around, and they said, uh, “Hey, man, you wanna smoke a joint?” And I said, “Well, yes, yes, I would.” And I didn’t even know what they were talking about. I didn’t even know what that meant. All I heard was, “Do you wanna hook up with us?” And the answer was, “Yeah, I’m alone in the world.

Of course I wanna hook up.” And, uh, I did, and we went behind the dorm, two thirteen-year-olds and a twelve-year-old, and we smoked some weed and drank some cheap red wine, and it happened. That thing that makes me bodily different from my fellows occurred, and suddenly I was comfortable standing where I was standing, doing what I was doing with the people I was doing it with, and I had never felt like that before. Um, I was twelve years old, and I was restless, irritable, and discontented.

And, uh, alcohol evened the playing field for me. So that was humble beginnings. A little pot and wine at twelve, thirteen, pills. The only reason I took a pill was the guy said, “Would you like a pill?” Yes, I would.

Twenty minutes later, I’m laying on the floor, and I’m very happy there. ‘Cause the fear is gone. All I wanna know is, what do you call that? Tuinal.

Oh, huh, a little identification. That guy right over there just went, “Oh, yeah.” Only way I’ve ever known for a human being to actually melt. Uh, Tuinal, Seconal, Placidyl, got strung out on all that stuff. And at, uh, fourteen was psychedelics.

Only reason I took a psychedelic is ’cause Debbie, lovely girl, bad girl. Debbie was a bad girl. And an older woman, she was fifteen and a half. Debbie opened my eyes in many ways, and Debbie said, uh, “Would you like to drop some acid?” And I said, “Well, of course I would, Debbie.” Again,

I have no idea what we’re talking about. In sobriety, I’ve gotten used to that, though. I’m no longer concerned with the fact that a great deal of the time I have no idea what’s going on. And so I, you know, six hundred and fifty hits later, I’m classified legally insane by the military, but that’s

a whole other story. Fifteen, I’m shooting dope, only because Cami, lovely girl. Cami said, “Would you like me to stick this in your body?” And I said, “Well, of course I would, Cami.” And she did, and it was one of those shots where you just go Right?

And on the way down, all I’m thinking is, “If I’m not dead, I have to do this again.” It was… That was excellent. Oh. This pretty much…

I think my story should be titled Many, Many Reasons Why Earl Should Never Be Allowed to Roam About Unattended. To this day, I would say that that’s pretty much true. I should not be allowed to walk around unattended because if you leave me unattended, I, what I get back to is me, and that just never goes well.

I shall continue to make that point. So 16, I ended up in my first mental institution, was for a short period of time attended to. You could find me. You knew where I was.

Where is he? He’s in the nuthouse. Uh, got out of there, um, hit the streets doing what we do to stay loaded on a daily basis. Got back, uh, they came back out, threw the net over me, threw me back in the nuthouse again.

I escaped- … um, on the first day. I had attempted to escape the previous, um, stay- … in the mental facility and had failed miserably.

Thorazine will do that to you. It, you know, the only speeds you got on that are slow and stopped. And when you make your move, man, it is not there. And, uh, so the second time I escaped, I, I did escape ’cause I got out before they got the Thorazine in me.

And as I’m blasting across this yard, I’m like 17 years old, and I’m an alcoholic. I’m a drug addict. I’m, I’m a high school dropout. 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, I mean, my life is not working. It’s not working. Um, I have achieved alcoholism by this point, and I remember as I’m heading for the fence with an intern on my tail chasing me as I’m…

If I make that fence, I don’t have any problems ’cause I’ll be loaded in 20 minutes. It’s LA. It’s where I grew up. Uh, ’cause I, see, I drink and use no matter what, which is why I, I don’t, you know, when we, I, you know…

My neck of the woods, we tell newcomers a lot of times, “Just don’t drink or use no matter what.” And I happen to think, per, this is my opinion, I happen to think that’s an absurd thing to tell a newcomer. It’s like, “Just don’t drink or use no matter what, Earl.” All right. And I’m drunk. ‘Cause I’m the flip side of that.

I drink and use no matter what. Given a good reason, I can’t stop. Normal man, problem drinker, gets in trouble with the law, gets before the judge, judge says, “Gets a 502,” a drunk driving charge again. The j- and the judge says, “I see again you’re doing a year.” Problem drinker hears that and says, “I don’t wanna do a year,” makes the decision to stop drinking and driving, and can actually

follow through on that decision. Me, I just start wondering what it’s gonna be like in jail ’cause I’m going. I, I can… I made lots of decisions with or without a solemn oath.

You always like that one part in there where it talks about taking t- taking a trip, not taking a trip, right? I c- I… just reminds me of how many trips I, I took that were not planned- … where you just come to and you’re in a different city, and the last thing you remember is sitting in your house ha- just gonna have a couple of drinks.

Like I’ve ever had a couple of drinks, right? But that’s always the plan, and you c- you blink, and you’re in a car with four other people that you’ve never met before. And the woman next to you is just chatting away, and you’re looking for road signs like, “Okay, I need a marker. I need a marker.

Where…” You know? And nothing’s coming. Nothing’s coming. So you look to her and you say, um, “Where are we?” And she, you know, “Ha ha ha ha ha ha.” You know, and just keeps talking.

“No, really, where are we?” I was in Oakland. I don’t even know anybody in Oakland. Four days gone. I got so many blackouts that are four days long.

For some reason, that’s as far as I can get. Four days gone, and still gone. None of it ever came back. I consider that a blessing.

So anyway, life happened. You know? The life of an alcoholic happened. You know, it’s just blah, blah, blah, fear, blah, blah, pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization, blah, blah, there he goes unattended again, bad idea, bad experience, bad

result, on and on and on. I mean, there was malignant can- I got malignant cancer when I was 20, had major surgery on my upper back. They prepared me to die. They prepared my family for me to die.

I remember looking at them and thinking, “You don’t even know who you’re talking to.” You know, the way I’m using, that’s coming up, like, twice a week whether I’m gonna die or not. You know, it wasn’t a f… You know, telling me I was gonna die wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I beat the cancer and I, I didn’t do their nuclear medicine thing.

I didn’t like the buzz I was getting off the medication they were giving me. So I went home and got loaded the way I get loaded, and I basically, I believe that the reason I’m a cancer survivor, a long-term cancer survivor, is the fact that the way I was using in those days, um, I, my body was so to- toxic, cancer could not live in my body. It was not good.

Um- Yeah, I was in a plane crash. My family was killed in the crash. I had bad pictures in my head. I, I, uh…

As I recovered from that, I went on my last run that lasted for six years. Yeah. Little run. Little six-year run.

And, uh, um, I was sober on three different occasions during that, and that was because I would go into this bootleg sanitarium in Hollywood where they would strap me to a gurney, shoot me full of anticonvulsants, and let me rock for 72 hours, and you just kick like a dog. And you’d get out of that, and you’d get up off the gurney, you know, and you’d walk back, you’d just stagger back out, and they’d say, “Now, Earl, you know you’re an alcoholic, don’t you?” “Yeah, yeah.” Just wiped out.

He’d say, “You know, Earl, for you to drink or die is– for you to drink is, is to die.” “Yeah, yeah.” “So now armed with this self-knowledge, you’re not gonna drink or use again anymore, are you?” “No, no.” “No.” “All right, Earl, you go on out there, and you don’t drink or use no matter what, all right, son?” “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.” I’d be drunk in the parking lot. ‘Cause I can’t do that.

And I mean, I remember the last time I kicked in that joint, um, I reintroduced myself to the God I had renounced. I said, “You get me out of this sane and alive, and I will never, ever drink or use again as long as I live.” I can’t take the madness. I can’t take the pain. I got pictures in my head I can’t live with.

I know I’m a guy with no anchors. I know. I know who I am. I’m an alcoholic to the bone.

I, I don’t have a sense of family. I don’t have– My family’s dead. I, I r- you know, I, I can’t even look at that kind of life. I, you know?

I’ve g- I don’t have a wife or kids, something to hold it together for. I don’t have a career. I don’t even have a job. I’ve been underground since I was a kid.

I don’t have any anchors for, to hold it together. I’m just loose, man. I’m loose, and I, and I don’t know how to be any other way. And I wish it’d just, this would just end, that I could just di– either kill me on this table, strap, I’m strapped down, just die, or if you get me out of this

sane and alive, I will never, ever, ever drink or use again as long as I live, and I meant that with every fiber of my being. And I got up off that gurney and staggered on out of there and drank for two more years. Couldn’t stop. And the madness for me was complete.

Um, when I came out of my last blackout, had my last drink, I was 28 years old. I was 215 pounds. I had hair out like this and a beard out like this. I was yellow, thyroid shut down, heart swollen, broken 74 bones.

I had over 650 stitches in me. Family was dead, had no friends, had no place to live, um, psychotic, and dying of alcoholism. And I had, and they, uh, and on and on and on. I mean, it was just, you know, it was, uh, it was over.

And, uh, I had what they call in here a moment of clarity, and that was that, uh, this was the direct result of my actions. I was an alcoholic, and this was on me. FBI didn’t do this to me. My father didn’t do this to me.

God didn’t do this to me. This is– It’s mine. And I threw out– I– both my hands were broken at the time ’cause I had attempted to, to m-murder an individual, and, uh, which he was very upset about. I remember as they thrown, threw me in this ambulance, and they’re taking me off to pump my stomach one more time, this guy’s chasing the ambulance, and he’s yelling,

“You don’t understand the ramifications of the situation.” And I remember thinking, “You know, he’s right.” I don’t. I don’t understand the ramifications of the situation. I don’t get it.

I’ve known I was an alcoholic since I was 16 years old. Apparently, that self-knowledge is availing me nothing, to coin a phrase. And, uh, 42 days later, I got out of the hospital, and they told me, um, “If you don’t wanna die, you better go to Alcoholics Anonymous ’cause it’s the only place a guy like you has got a shot.” And I had been beaten into a state of reasonableness by alcoholism, and I said, “Okay.

Okay. I got nowhere else to go. I got nowhere to li– I got nothing. I got nothing.

It’s flatlined.” And, uh, I ended up in the basement of a church on a Friday night, West LA, and I sat in the back with my arms folded and the best tough guy look on my face, mad dogging everybody and– ’cause I needed you to stay away from me ’cause I was– all my tools for living didn’t work anymore. Drinking, using, fighting, running were all gone. Couldn’t drink or use anymore.

Had no fight left in me. Had nowhere to run. So I just sat there. Had no idea what you had.

I just said– They said, “Come here or die,” so I came here. And I’m sitting in the back, and all the old-timers kind of stayed off of me, you know, ’cause they, they’d been me. They knew what was sitting there. You know?

This was just not good, what’s over there. And they just said, “Glad you’re here, partner. Get yourself a cup of coffee and take a seat.” You know, it’s like, “Yeah, yeah, whatever. All right.” I s-

In the back, you know. Check where the doors and windows are. Scan the room, find out who’s got the juice, who’s got the power. Slide up to them, burglarize their conversations while they’re talking, find out what this A.A.

thing’s all about, and then I’m out of here. Twelve steps on the wall. Got it. What else you got?

And the reason was that my– I was suffering from alcoholism. I had kicked. I had, I had, I had kicked. The physical phenomenon of craving wasn’t present in me.

But the greater aspect of my disease, the obsession of the mind, was in full effect. I was nuts. Full-blown alcoholism sitting in the back of the room. And this old guy got up, and he shared his experience, strength, and hope.

I didn’t know that’s what he was doing at the time or what that meant, but what I heard was that guy drank like I drank. Told me what he was like. And then he told me what happened, and I’d had an experience like that that’s– it ended me up where I had been delivered into a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And then he told me what he was like now, and I found that absolutely remarkable.

And the way he delivered it was he had this grace and this dignity about him that, that just did not go for me with the words he was speaking. I just didn’t understand how you could be that way and talk about the things that he was talking about. It just made no sense to me. I found it absolutely remarkable.

And it got to me. You know? One thing about us is, is that you, you, you throw truth at us, we may not like it, but we can hear it. And I– and the only way I could hear it was from somebody who’d been where I’d been, another alcoholic, and there was one, right?

And he knew what a meeting was for. He knew that the purpose of a meeting was to have a place where a newcomer could come and hear a message of hope and a message of recovery. He knew that that’s what the place was for. So when he got up, that’s what he shared.

He shared– he reached out and, um, and then he said, and I felt like he was looking right at me, 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. ‘Cause it made it clear to me he wasn’t selling me anything.

He was sharing it with me, and if I wanted it, it was for free. If I didn’t want it, cool, go to another meeting. Maybe I could hear somebody I could identify with there. And that was it for me.

I haven’t had a drink since. I mean, it’s– I’ve been sober twenty-three and a half years now, and I couldn’t stay sober for a day. Left unattended, I’m drunk. That’s me today.

Today. I’ve got a wonderful life today. You leave me alone for a month, I can unravel that life- -that took twenty-three years to build. I can unravel it in a month.

Any conversation that starts with, “Hi, this is Earl. I’ve got a thought,” and the other voice says- -“Yeah, I’m Earl too. What do you got in mind?” I mean, bells and whistles should go off. I should just have, “Security.

Security to the Starview Room.” “Unsupervised alcoholics present in the Starview Room.” I mean, it should just, you know, red alert. It’s not gonna go well. Which is why I go– I do m– And the guy– And it’s great.

If you’re doing what you’re telling your sponsees to do, you’re good. You’re good. You know? If you’re not doing what you’re telling your sponsees to do, you’re pretty much screwed.

You’re an alcoholic, and I believe you should go to regular meetings regularly. You should get a sponsor. Oh, yeah, right, that’s me. I should be, I should be taking you through the twelve steps as outlined in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and we should be face-to-face, um, no less than once a week so that we can discuss this, and I can look in your lying

eyes and find out how you’re doing. And you should be calling me on a regular basis, letting me know where you’re at, and being willing to s- to surrender to the thinking of another ’cause we don’t get sober. As a friend of mine in the program says, w- “I gotta get sober somebody else’s way ’cause I do it my way, I’m screwed.” So I go to regular meetings regularly. I have a sponsor.

I’ve ha- The– In twenty-three and a half years, I have been without a sponsor for three hours, and that was when my original sponsor, the late, great Donald Madden, had passed away, and we were waiting for them to come get the body, and I heard… I thought he was dead till I heard his voice in my head, and the voice was, and appropriately so, “You get a sponsor right now, you little son of a bitch.” All right.

Jesus Christ. How do you do that? And I got on the phone to a guy that I knew he loved and respected, and loved and respected him, and I said, “Donald’s there. Will you sponsor me?” And he said, “Yeah.” And he was my sponsor for six years until I moved, and then I was sitting in what is now my home group meeting, and I saw the samurai sitting over there.

I call him the samurai man. He– I mean, he’s the kind of guy– He’s a little man, gray hair, and he’s the nicest, sweetest, kindest man you’d ever wanna meet in your life, and there’s nothing we can say or do to shake that off of him. You can walk up to him and be abusive as you wanna be. He’ll smile at you, and there’ll be love in his eyes.

He’s the samurai man. He walks into a room, and everybody just calms down ’cause he’s there. That’s strength. He’s strong enough to be gentle with himself and gentle with other people.

He brings love. Ours is a cult of love and tolerance, and he’s a walking example of that. Luther. Yeah, Clarence Luther, man.

He’s an amazing s– When I grow up, if I grow up- -I would very much like to be like Luther. Um, he’s a tremendous example. And, and, a-a-and if you don’t feel a way about your sponsor, get another one ’cause there’s– they’re walking around. They’re all over the place in here, the ones with the lights in their eyes.

The one– Happiness is wanting what you’ve got, and there’s a lot of people in here that are, that are walking around living that. They want what they have. They’ve, they’ve, they’ve found the balance, the peace. There’s this circle with a triangle, you know?

This symbol. Stands for mind, body, and spirit brought together as a whole human being. Therein lies the balance I’ve sought my whole life, and I’ve never had, drunk or sober. That’s what I look for.

I’m a maniacal human being. I live in extremes. I go from victim to assassin. You know?

That’s me unattended. I’m in there, “Don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me. I have to kill your whole family now.” Not ’cause I’m a tough guy or a bad guy, but because, uh, for some reason, unbeknownst to me, you have

frightened me. And when you frighten me, I respond horribly to that. I just… Fear is something that I just can’t accept, so I’ll rage right up over it.

It’s, uh, self-centered fear is the chief activator of all my defects of character. Either I’m afraid I’m not gonna get something I want, or I’m gonna lose something I already have. I’m afraid I’ll be rejected or abandoned on some level. Goes right to the core, and I go right to fight or flight, man.

I go right there. As a result of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, as a result of the 12-step path, I have been able to surrender that behavior. It still goes on in my head, but as Donald Madden used to tell me, “They don’t throw you in the nuthouse for what you’re thinking.” “They throw you in for what you’re doing.” And I have been able to check my behavior a great, the great majority of the time now.

I mean, it still happens. I still resist. I think, I mean, I’ve been working seven days a week on and on and on, and I’m so tired I don’t even know where I am. And I c- the other night, I was a Monday night on my home group meeting, and I walked in the house and I looked at my wife and I said…

Who is a v- a kind, gentle, loving, bright, happy individual, willing to have a good time. Great partner. She’s just… I am the weak link in this, in this relationship.

And I tell everybody, they say, “How’s your relationship going?” I say, “Well, as long as her denial holds, we’ll be fine.” What the hell was I talking about? Your home group. My home group, right.

I come home- … and we got to leaving, and I s- and I walk in the door, and she says, “How was your day, honey?” I said, “I’m not going.” Had it. I don’t think I can actually say what I said to her, can I? No.

No? Yeah, I can. I’ll just clean it up a little bit. I said, “I feel like everybody’s just coming at me.

They’re coming at me all the time. I’m working, working, working. They’re coming at me. Sponsies.

These guys. Speak here. Do this. Work there.

Work there.” Just losing it, right? Said, “I feel like if I got 16 breasts, there’d be a alcoholic hanging off every one of them.” Had it. Staying home.

I’m ordering in some food. I’m getting out the remote control. I’m channel surfing. I am not, I’m not making the commitment to watch a particular show.

I’m just gonna watch wha- I’m just hitting channels. I’m just- “Take me the hell out of here. Just go.” And she said, “I understand.” I said, “Good.” About 20 minutes later, she said, “You know, we need to get ready for the meeting now.” I said, “What, what part of no don’t you understand?” Right?

“I saw you as an ally of mine. I’m starting to feel like you’re on the other side now.” “Do not come back in this room. I think I’ve made my point.” Channel surfing, channel surfing, channel surfing. About 20 minutes later, she comes back in the room.

She says, “Time to go.” I said, “All right.” And I went to my home group meeting, and then here come the sponsees, “Can we talk to you?” “No.” “Can we talk to you?” “No.” “Can we talk to you?” “All right.” Against my better judgment, I felt great at the end of the meeting. I had been given the opportunity to get out of myself and be of service to somebody else.

Freedom from self, the prison of my mind. My life, this… Oh. Tell them who you think you are.

What? Who are you and why are you talking to me? I don’t know who I am. Tell me.

Hi, my name’s Earl. I’m an alcoholic. It works. You don’t have to like it.

You don’t have to think it’s a good idea, Earl. You just have to do it. One of the first things Donald Madden told me. I thought, “Well, that’s good, ’cause, you know, I don’t like anything and I don’t want to do anything.” He says, “Well, it’s not required.

The action brings about change. The action brings about change.” Getting… I remember being in a meeting and a guy, they, I was sitting there in a meeting. I was talking to a woman who w- got sober in, in my part of town before the meeting.

She was talking about the Moorpark meetings, and I slid over to one one day, and I’m sitting there, and they said… The guy… It was a kind of meeting, participation meeting, where the leader called on people. And the leader says, “Hey, you over there, you want to share?” And the guy said, “All right.

Bob Alcoholic. First of all, screw AA.” “Screw this meeting, and you over there, screw you. I hate you.” “I hate the book. I hate the steps.

I hate the meetings. Thank you for letting me share.” And half the meeting went, “I like Bob.” And I was one of them, ’cause you kn- Right? Keep coming back, Bob.

That was excellent. And it was, you know? ‘Cause Bob felt like that at home. Bob felt like that at home.

And Bob got his angry ass up off of that couch and in a car and drove to that meeting, and he was sitting there respecting the podium of Alcoholics Anonymous, respecting that meeting, sitting quietly and listening, thinking what he was thinking. And when they asked him to share, he told the truth. Bob’s doing fine.

He is. Bob’s doing fine. Bob’s around and going to the meetings. He got commitments.

You see him now, you say, “How you doing, Bob?” He says, “All right. You?” And it’s that you part that’s remarkable. You know? Bob actually wants to know how you’re doing now.

Bob’s fanning out, you know? But I mean, I get Bob. I get that. And I, you know, and there’s that part of me still lives where I am resistant to the things that heal me as a human being, that, that, that feed my spirit,

my spirit, where my malady rests, in my spirit, that manifests in the mind and in the body. So this, this, this symbol became really important to me, this unity, this mind, body, and spirit. Alcoholics Anonymous adopted that symbol, and so it means the same thing, unity, service, and recovery. Unity is the body.

I bring it here. I must not be left unattended. I must be in the company of my fellows. I can fool them out there all day long.

“How you doing?” “Fine.” “How you doing?” “Fine.” “How you doing?” “Feel like killing you.” “‘Cause you keep asking me how I’m doing.” I can fool them as long as, as I need to. I can’t fool you. I walk into my home group, there’s way too many people in there that know me and have earned the right in my life to speak the truth to me, regardless of what I may

think of that. And they come to me and they say, “How you doing, Earl?” And I say, “Fine.” And they say, “No, really.” “What do you mean? I’m fine.” “No, no, really.” Uh, right. “What’s that?

Your eyes are pinched.” “Y’all, y’all are like this.” “You were spitting when you said fine.” “I don’t think you’re fine.” Well, I’m not fine. All right, let’s talk, right? And that’s what I have to do.

Re- the re- unity’s the body. I bring it here. I couldn’t get sober, but we seem to be able to, together. I have to be in your company.

You pull me out of me. You free me from the prison of the mind by introducing me to the recovery. The recovery is the 12 steps. That’s the recovery.

Those… They’re designed to relieve me of the obsession of the mind, the greater aspect of my disease. So I work the steps. Step one is: What’s the problem?

Lack of power is my dilemma. I may be good at a lot of things, but I’m absolutely powerless over my alcoholism. It says on page 30 in the big book, I must accept to my innermost self that I am alcoholic. That’s the first step in recovery.

So if my problem is alcoholism, is powerlessness over that, what’s my solution? Step two, power. That a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity, soundness of mind, relieve me of the obsession to drink. Huge.

I’m in. You know, I’m on the couch. Step one, problem. Yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s it.

Solution? Gonna have to be. Tried everything else. Step three, pull the trigger.

Get down on your knees and turn your will and your life over to the care of a god you may or may not understand, Earl. So I get down on my knees and I say the third step prayer and turn my will and my life over to the care of a god I do not understand. I have tried to understand God. I don’t.

I have tried to wrap my head around infinity. It just will not go. I don’t understand God, but I see evidence of a power greater than myself around me every day, all day. It’s just right there if I want to see it and accept what it is, beyond anything I could possibly comprehend.

A bunch… This, this is a room full of dead people sitting upright pretending they’re paying attention to me. You should see this. It’s remarkable.

These are alcoholics, suffer from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. The great majority of us to this day die as a direct result of our illness, and I’m sitting in a room full of people that are living in a state of grace. It’s an absolutely remarkable thing. Do I understand the power that can do something like that?

No. Have… Do I experience it on a daily basis? Yes.

There was a great teacher, not one of us, his name was Joseph Campbell, who said, “I do not wish to understand my life. I wish to experience it.” And I thought, “That’s… I’m with that guy, man.” I want to experience my life. I don’t want to understand.

What… You know? Do you understand that, Earl? Yeah.

What’s that doing for you? Not a whole lot. Right. You experiencing your life fully and completely?

Yeah. What’s that doing for you? It’s giving me the biggest buzz I’ve ever had in my life. Beats any drug I’ve ever taken by a mile.

The buzz is here. Like Al says, Al says, “Just get in there, Earl. Just get be- get between those. Right, right, right in there.” “Get right in there.

You’re gonna be fine.” You know, so I walk away going… Being the brilliant individual I am. I was born…

Uh, when I was 12 years old, they tested me and I had an IQ of 168. I drank. Guy said, “What happened?” I said, “I drank.” Yeah, it’s Now it’s like, “Get him shoes that don’t have laces,” you know?

‘Cause he just put his feet in and start walking. Gone. So the, uh, the, you know, steps four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, action plan. Bring about the change that step two promises me.

Four and five, me. Six and seven, God. Eight and nine, you. Nobody else to play with.

Four and five, saw a large chunk of truth about myself. Clear it away so that I can connect in six and seven with God, asking God to remove the defects of character ’cause I’ll remove the wrong stuff. Eight and nine, hook it back up with you. I’m very, very sorry.

Here’s your money back in the house. Pretty simple. But because if you notice in the book, there’s a lot of conversation about eight and nine because that’s the first time in the steps they’re actually letting me out of the house. Let me around other people, and they know that that can be troublesome at best.

They’re very, very clear on what you do there, right? In the book. So I read the book, and that’s what I do. Ten, 11, and 12 keep me in the game.

Ten, me, 11, God, 12, you. Same thing. I continue to take personal inventory and when wrong, promptly admit it because I’ve just scratched the surface going through the first time. There’s guys that say you work the steps once.

I say, “Okay.” There’s guys that say you work them annually. I say, “Okay.” There guy… I happen to say you work them constantly. Daily.

Because I work through the 12 steps, it’s an action plan that brings about change in my life. It alters my consciousness. It gives me a new awareness, a new depth, a new understanding. I take that back to step one.

It’s a whole new step. I’m looking at it on a whole ‘nother level. It’s a whole new experience. I learned that from Jack P.

He had 43 years at the time. He got– came to a meeting, shared for 20 minutes on step one when I was 11 years sober, and blew the top of my head off. I had no… I had studied and studied the text of Alcoholics Anonymous, and he was presenting concepts and ideas about step one that had never even occurred to me.

It’ll go as deep as you wanna go, as deep as you wanna go, and I got to go deep. I didn’t like the little tiny, itty-bitty baby buzz out there. I’m not going for one like that in here. If I’m gonna stay here, I gotta catch the buzz.

I gotta get in the game. I gotta get fired up by this thing, or I’m not gonna stay. I’m in or I’m out, and I’m in. I love this thing.

Unity is the body. I bring it here. Regular meetings regularly. I work with a sponsor.

I take commitments in meetings because those are ways that can show me through action how service gets me out of self and brings God into my life on a regular basis. That can happen making coffee, sweeping up cigarette butts, being a greeter, being a secretary. It doesn’t make any difference. I’m there for something beyond myself, to serve– to be of service to the meeting.

Huge. We don’t give new guys that job ’cause they’re the grunts, and it’s their turn to do the work. We give them the greatest gift we got in meetings right off the bat, so they can see what’s going on here and catch the buzz. That’s what it’s for.

So the recovery is of the mind. I worked the 12 steps, has– 12 step, haven’t, you know… I, I, I’m relieved. I’ve had spiritual experiences, the result of working the steps, and that is I’ve been restored to sanity, sound of mind, relieved of the obsession to drink.

Wouldn’t drink again even if I could. It’s not a choice. I don’t choose not to drink. It’s a non-issue.

It’s a non-issue. I look at… When I have a problem, and I’m looking at the solutions available to me on my table, I don’t see alcohol, drinking, or using on there and then remove that. It’s been removed through a process I have engaged in where I’ve turned my will and my life over to the care of a God I don’t understand that’s provided this for me.

Now, I do this on a daily basis. The reprieve is daily. I maintain that spiritual experience, that spiritual connection, by continuing to do the things that got me there in the first place. I do not get to a place where I can say, “Got it.

I’ll take it from here.” Kiss of death. Kiss of death for somebody like me, and I have seen people with more time than me do that and go out. And I’m not one that can go out and come back, and I know it. I don’t know how I got here in the first place.

How the hell am I gonna find my way back? I don’t know where the door in is. I just know I’m in, and I gotta stay here. There is no, there is no, “Well, you g- did it once, you can do it again.” Having

had that spiritual awakening, the third side of the triangle, service, the spiritual. I can’t give away something I don’t have. Gotta get my own house in order. Cannot say to a guy when he walks into a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, “Do you know how to stay sober?” I said, “Yes.

Yes, I have developed the as Earl sees it plan.” “And I would like to take you through what I consider to be a miraculous process.” Guys look. Guys, you know what I mean. People are tackling me, dragging that guy off. You know what I mean?

“No, no, no, no. Don’t listen to that guy. He’s nuts.” How about, “Yeah, and it’s got absolutely nothing to do with my best thinking. Here it is.

Why don’t you read the doctor’s opinion in the first eight pages of Bill’s story and, and ask yourself, ‘Is this true for me? Do I identify with this?’ And if you write a sentence at a time, and if you see, you read the sentence and you go, ‘No,’ write ‘no.’ You read a sentence and you go, ‘I don’t understand that,’ put a question mark. If it really, really hits you as, ‘Yeah, that’s me,’ underline it, highlight it, do whatever you want. Rip that book up.

It’s a text meant to be studied. Check this stuff out. Call me up. We’ll talk about it, and we’ll move on.” And if all you get out of a page is the desire to read the next one, you are in.

You are in, and we’ll just see what happens. I got a guy I sponsor, a brilliant individual, very successful guy. Went, uh, had a, had a very minor problem with, with alcohol and drugs when we got ahold of him. And I asked him to do that, and he was reading through, right.

So he– We sit down and say, “Well, what’d you get out, come up with?” And he opens up his book and it’s just no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not identifying at all. I said, “All right, well let’s, let’s talk about it,” right? Talk about it.

No, no, yes, yes, no, yes, no, yeah. Right? Now, coming up on two years sponsoring guys, going to meetings, got commitments, you know? Going– Just doing every- I mean, he’s on fire.

Turns out he was mistaken. But not ’cause I convinced him. The book did. I said, “Well, let’s think about that again.

Didn’t you say this? Well, that sounds like that.” “Well, yeah, you’re probably right.” Yes instead of a no. And just slowly turning. Like Dr.

Paul used to talk about when he used to say a guy here who’s barely an alcoholic. And that he’s caught alcoholism here. And you know, and the longer he stayed sober, the more severe his alcoholism became. He just- “My God, do I need to be here.” And that’s the truth for me.

The thing about this is this: I have this great life now. I mean, I have a great life. I have, I have a sense of purpose. I have a sense of value.

I have a sense of family. I have a sense of community, right? I have a host of friends that know who I am and have made the, you know, remarkable decision to love me anyway. You know?

I, I think of them as very, very kind, forgiving people. And they are my friends. Carl’s my friend. Carl’s like a brother to me.

This guy sitting over here in the blue shirt. Stand up, Carl. Take a bow. Okay, good.

He’s like a brother. He’s a great friend to me. We’ve known each other a long, long time. Carl knows all about me.

I know all about Carl. We’re friends, you know? And what’s nice about friends in Alcoholics Anonymous is, I mean, out there it’s like, you know, you get arrested or you get shot, you know what I mean? Or you get stabbed or…

Right? It’s real dramatic. People will come running, right? What I’m talking about is the people that are in your life day after day after day.

For when nothing’s going on, when it’s kind of okay, when it’s not just the process of life. That we walk through the process of life together knowing that we’re not alone because we have family and we have friends, and we find that stuff. I didn’t have any of those things in my life because I was unavailable for them. I was resistant to those things.

I rejected those things. Alcoholics Anonymous has given me everything that I have. I don’t have a– It didn’t give me back my life. It gave me a life I’d never had.

It gave me a life beyond my wildest dreams. And it gets good, ’cause you know what? You can get in there now. I was using alcohol and drugs to get out of right here, right now.

I like down and out. I like heroin, alcohol, barbiturates. These are a few of my favorite things. My idea of a good night left to my own devices is sitting around checking my pulse.

I don’t need a, I don’t need a television. I don’t need a woman. I don’t need a window. I’m just, I’m cooked right there.

And that’s w- Heart and lungs working. Nothing else going on. That’s what I like. But if you don’t have any of that, I’ll take a big bag of the cocaine.

Let’s just blast right on up out of here, right? Can’t go down? Let’s go up, right? ‘Cause the most important– I’m happy driving the freeways decoding license plates.

I’m actually, I’m actually thinking about, for my, for my methamphetamine and cocaine brothers and sisters, I’m actually thinking of getting a, a personalized license plate that says N-O M-E-S-I-G. No message. You can go on.

There’s no message for you here. I got… I wanna walk the earth a free man. I don’t wanna be a slave to alcohol and drugs.

I wanna be able to… And I don’t wanna have to go up or down ’cause the point is I gotta get out of right here, right now, ’cause I can’t take it. I can’t take life on life’s terms. I can’t take my comparing my insides to your outsides and losing every time.

I can’t. I don’t wanna live like that anymore. What Alcoholics Anonymous has given me back is right here, right now, where I can live my life. And it’s the only place I can, I can have a life.

It’s the only place I can know God, have a, have an experience of God. It’s the only place I can come to the understanding that I wanna take actions in my life that are beneficial to self and others, and I don’t wanna take actions that are harmful to self and others anymore. That I don’t wanna be him anymore. I wanna be something other than I came here as.

I wanna move in the direction of something I’ll never attain, but I can move towards. I wanna know peace. I wanna love and be loved. I wanna be strong enough to be gentle with myself and other people.

I want– This thing goes so far past not drinking and using, it’s u- unbelievable. It is a design for living. They say in that book that this is precisely how these men and women recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. And I don’t get into all that thing, am I recovered?

Am I recovering? I’m both. I have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body, and I remain in a process of recovery in my life. And the what– And the foundation of that, the heart and soul of that for me, is the program of Alcoholics Anonymous as outlined in this book.

I go with the original 100, the big dogs, man. The guys that got sober when it wasn’t hip or fashionable, and people didn’t understand. It was hardcore, man. And if you read the forewords, over 75% of those guys came to know long-term sobriety, way past anything that’s going on now.

In that book, that’s the deal. And that’s what I want. I want the big buzz. I wanna be free.

I wanna stay free. I wanna be freed from the prison of my mind and allowed to come out in the world and be with other people. And that’s what the 12 steps does for me. Right here, right now.

There’s nothing but now. This is it. This is it. This is it.

I can breathe in and out to this. There was a guy said to me before I got up, he said, “Just breathe in, in God, and breathe out self.” And I thought, “Very cool.” Guy who came here from Cleveland to hang out with you guys, right? Came from Cleveland.

There’s a… Cleveland rocks, huh? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So if you’re new, congratulations. Just come on. Just come on.

I know that first year’s like a minefield. Get a sponsor, he’ll tell you where to step. If you step and it blows you up, get another sponsor. Just keep coming this way.

You can get- you can have right now, you can have this moment, you can know peace in this moment. Not self-centered fear and, a- and isolation and, and abandonment and all those things. You can have this moment right here, right now, and you can know peace in that moment. My wife and I bought a house.

That’s a remarkable sentence for somebody like me to say. First of all, that I have a wife. And, and we’ve been together six years. Last– a couple of days ago, we celebrated six years together.

That’s… Yeah. You’re applauding yourselves ’cause it’s got nothing to do with my best thinking. You know, I’ve been dragged kicking and screaming into a wonderful life.

We bought a house, got a front yard, right? I’m walking around, I’m looking at the thing. Got a front yard, plants, stuff, you know, green stuff all over the place. Looking up and down the block, all our lawns in the street and all the plants all looks real nice, you know.

And I’m thinking, “Well, I gotta kinda like, I gotta keep this going ’cause you don’t want them to be able to spot the alcoholics and addicts in the neighborhood.” You know what I mean? They got– It’s like beautiful lawn, beautiful lawn, beautiful lawn, dead lawn, alcoholic, drug addict, beautiful lawn, beautiful lawn. Guys, it’s a dead giveaway, so you gotta keep the lawn up, right? ‘Cause we walk among them and they don’t know, right?

That’s the idea. So I get out the hose and I turn on the hose and I’m throwing the water around and I’m remembering back to school and thinking, you know, this, this stuff is alive. You know what I mean? You’re watering, I’m watering the stuff and then just throwing water around.

Guy drives by, sees man on lawn, front lawn watering plants. Now what’s happening? ‘Cause the light starts to come through the trees, the sycamore trees on my street, and it’s hitting the water on the plants and it’s getting that little glistening prismatic effect. I’m, mm, a little buzzed here.

This is kinda nice. You know? Yeah. And then I’m thinking, you know, if I’m not mistaken, plants breathe in carbon dioxide and they breathe out oxygen.

I’m standing right here breathing in the oxygen and breathing out the carbon dioxide. We got a little something going on here. I’m catching a buzz now. This is nice, Sam.

It’s nice. Here’s a little more for you, my brother. Here’s a little more for you, my sister. Right?

Now, man drives by, sees man on lawn watering plants. Now what’s happening? There’s an alcoholic on the front lawn catching a buzz with some of his friends. You may have to water your lawn.

I get to. Choice been returned. I get to water my lawn, run in the house and look at my wife and go… “This shit’s alive.” “Hanging out with some friends out front.” She says, “That’s wonderful, honey.

There’s some more friends waiting for you in the back.” Yeah. Come in the back. Water it up. You may have to stand in lines.

I get to. I’m gonna stand in the line either way. I get to choose how I experience it. I get to.

I, I don’t like speaking. Never have, never will. Makes me nervous, gets me all messed up, can’t sleep. I’ve been doing it for a long time.

Still makes– I get weird about it. It’s just like, oh, you know, they’ve heard it, you know? But I do it, and every time when I get down, I feel better. You know why?

I’m connected to the human race again, you know? See one person go, “Yep.” At some point then I think, “Okay, did my job. Now I get to sit down in the room and hang out with everybody else.” If you’re new, stick with us. It’s not what it appears to be.

And if you think about your own experience, you know that few things do. Few things seem to be as they appear. S- few things are as they appear. It’s different.

You gotta hang out in here. You gotta find out that the people in here that are all polished up and looking like normal human beings, you hear their story all of a sudden in a meeting where they share and you think, “I’ll be damned.” Right? That guy didn’t get here looking like that.

That guy got here in a fundamentally different state of mind and body, spiritually bankrupt, no connection to God, no connection to self, no connection to others. Now he’s walking around a free man, living life, ha- doing all the things that the normal man does. The difference between me and the normal man is this: the normal man can take a lot of what goes on in life for granted. I can’t.

I don’t take it for granted. I’ve gotta– I have to learn to appreciate and be grateful for every step of the path. Every step of the path. You know, we’ve, we’ve been laughing some in here.

It’s the healing thing for people like us. You know, we come out of the madness and the misery, and we get together and we celebrate life. We celebrate the miracle of recovery. That’s why s- uh, you know, conventions are such an amazing thing.

It’s not the regular meetings. These people that have been on these committees here, they worked all year, all year to get this together, and it’s not about the gratitude or the thanks that we give them. It’s about the experience that they get.

Talk to some of them if you’re new. Find out the buzz they’re catching, getting out of themselves and being of service in such a remarkable way. I wish you all peace. Thanks.