Woo! Woo! Cut it out. Get me all choked up before I even get going here.

Ugh. My name’s Earl. I’m an alcoholic. Hey, Earl.

Hi, everybody. Hi. It’s, uh, it’s an honor and a privilege to be here. I wanna thank the foundation for asking me to come share.

I want to, uh, anybody who’s new, uh, welcome. Uh, sincerely, welcome. I can’t imagine what your karma is that, that you’d be new and show up at a deal like this, man. God must be thinking, “Boy, we gotta shock the hell out of this one,” you know?

12 step by the planet. Woo! But we, uh, we’re glad you’re here, and welcome. It’s so nice that…

Haven’t had much sleep, um- Yeah … which I’m sure a lot of you can identify with. I mean, you just don’t wanna miss anything and… But it’s, it’s emotional.

You know, I come in, and I just see so many people that I’ve, I’ve met over the years, um, across the country. You know, and it’s just, uh, it’s an amazing feeling. Before I start blubbering, I’ll get into my- Well, I’m here ’cause I drank. Woo!

That’s why I’m here. And I drank because I loved the effect produced by alcohol. Um, when I was, uh… I, I didn’t start drinking a lot.

I was 12. I had… I held off as long as I could, man. I was I was restless, irritable, and discontented for some time prior to that first drink.

And the only reason that I drank is that I’d been shipped off to boarding school. M-My reaction to that emotionally was that, uh, my, the people who knew me best in the world had just thrown me away, and I had no idea why I was no longer allowed to be a part of the family when I got shipped off to school. The fact was I was being given an opportunity for a wonderful education.

Held me in good stead to this very day. But I’ve never really dealt much with the facts. I’ve never really- … concerned myself with that.

I mean, it’s all about the, I’m, I live down in here. You know what I mean? That- And this felt bad, so it, it had to be bad, you know? And, uh, I had met the biggest…

I was the littlest kid in the whole school, and I’d met the biggest kid in the whole school, who had found me and like beat the hell out of me. And I was sitting in my room, uh, um, and word had spread across this entire campus in like 30 minutes, “Watch out for this little Hightower kid. He attacked Tiny,” who was the bigger- Which had nothing to do… I mean, I, what I was was a 12-year-old frightened child, and I was g- developing a reputation as being a little madman, you know, right out of the gate.

And I, I was sitting in my room, and the cool guys around campus wanted to find out who I was, so they came by. And Matt came in my room and said, uh, “You wanna smoke a joint?” And I said, “Well, yeah, I do.” And I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. I hadn’t- I didn’t know what that meant. All I knew, what I heard was, “Do you wanna hook up with us?” And the answer was, “Yes, I do,” because, uh, as far as I can tell, I’m alone in the world.

And, you know, it doesn’t matter where you guys are going. You, he could’ve come in my room and said, “We’re gonna go kill the Spanish teacher. You wanna come?” I said, “I’m with you. Let’s go.” And I went with him, and we picked up Steve.

And we went behind the dorm, and there was a Tupperware container full of cheap red wine. And Matt lit this joint and handed it to me, and I did what he did, and then the wine came around. I took a pull on the wine. 12-year-old boy, two 13-year-olds standing there, total strangers, no idea what’s going on, lost in the world.

Didn’t understand it. My… I mean, it’s just a downward spiral for me. I mean, I’m, as I’m looking at my life at 12, I’m thinking, “I’m not making it to 13.” You know?

It’s just bleak. And I mean, just like that, that thing that makes me bodily different from my fellows occurred. And this feeling just washed it up over me. 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 that way before in my life.

And I, it just, it was just this calm, easy feeling. And I didn’t really, I couldn’t put the words to it at the time, but I can now. And what it was was it was the absence of fear. That’s what it was.

Alcohol was the fear killer for me. It, and, and, and that’s terribly important in my life because, I mean, I am a self-centered, frightened individual. That’s who I am. That’s, that’s who I was.

And, and that’s the way… Come on in. Yeah, man. More the merrier.

I mean, I’ve got this big barrel of emotions inside me, right? And up on the surface are all kinds of emotions just kind of swimming around, you know? And, and I don’t know anybody that feels one emotion for a couple of days, gets tired of it, and then feels something else, you know? I mean, they all just kind of come and go and just kind of wash over you.

I’m very happy to be here. Look at all these people. I’m a little frightened. Uh, there’s a- You know?

And I’m tired. When I get tired, I’m feeling mildly confused now. I don’t, you know? They, I mean, I can, I can drink through those like that.

But way down at the bottom of that barrel, man, that deep emotional current that runs my life is fear, and fear’s the last thing I’ll feel. So I, and so if I’m gonna drink to kill the fear, I gotta get drunk. Got no time for social drinking. I gotta, I gotta get down to the bottom of the barrel.

I gotta get drunk, which is why I got drunk the first time I drank, and that’s what drinking was to me, was I, you drink this stuff to effectively medicate yourself so that you no longer feel the fear, so that you can measure up somehow, so that you can go out and be in the world. And that was my MO. I mean, it was humble beginnings.

I mean, I, I, I, I apologize for mentioning drugs. I identify as an alcoholic, but I’m a child of the ’60s, and we were very, very… We, you know, carving out our own identity. You know, our parents were the alcoholics.

They were drinking themselves to death. We were carving out a new identity. We were gonna kill ourselves in a whole new way. You know, so we were focused on the drugs.

But the fact of the matter is the drugs were what we focused on, but there was only one thing that was on the table every single day. That was alcohol. Because that– and my opinion on that, my humble opinion on that is because drugs are completely unreliable and alcohol is remarkably reliable.

I mean, there’s no quality control going on on the street out there. You know what I mean? You never know what you’ve got ’til you get it in your body. You go get a fifth of gin, you go get a quarter Jack Daniels, you know what you got.

You can count on this, so no matter what else goes down tonight, I got my bottle. You know, I do so much cocaine, I can’t get my mouth open anymore. And it’s seven thirty and the party just started, you know? And I’ve overshot the mark completely.

Don’t worry about it, man. You suck a little gin through your teeth, it’ll loosen you right up, and you can go right on with the party. Not a problem. The acid’s a little too spooky, don’t worry about it.

Jack gets you back in the comfort zone. Ease that right off. Not enough heroin to get you to that heart and lungs working place, don’t worry about it. Jack’ll get you the rest of the way, get you where you need to be.

So I’ve relied on alcohol. I had it– I had relied on it my whole life. How you guys doing? Hey.

Hey. Good to see you. All right. Friends from everywhere.

It’s amazing. Where was I? It doesn’t matter. So I mean, it was just humble beginnings, you know what I mean?

I’m exploring, you know, I’m shooting this and smoking this and popping this and ramming that and, you know, and just going nuts. Doing the things that would have me be, uh, classified legally insane by the military a few years later, but that’s a whole other story. Sixteen, I started going to mental institutions. Um, they were committing me for three months of observation, a year of rehabilitation, and this was, you know, based on a five-minute conversation with, with, with me.

It’s like, “We need to lock him up now.” Can I get some water? Anybody got any water? Just throw one up. Yeah.

All right. So, uh, humble beginnings for me, and it just, it progressed like it does. By the time I was sixteen, I knew I was an alcoholic. I knew I was an alcoholic.

I knew that I relied heavily upon alcohol on a daily basis to get me through the day. I knew that. I was comfortable with that. You’ve got your story.

You’ve got your life. This is mine. This is who I am. I resign my– Acceptance is the key.

It’s just, it’s who I am. Let’s just– We’re gonna go with this. And it, it’s, it– Because in the beginning, I mean, that’s the beauty of it. In the beginning, it works perfectly.

It was perfect. I mean, I was getting blasted out of my skull, waking up the next morning, couple of Tylenol, shake it off, going about my business. And I thought, “Feeling better than I’ve ever felt in my life. No downside.

What’s the big deal?” I mean, when I was– In the beginning, nobody was going to jail. Nobody died. Nobody died. There was no blood drawn.

Nobody was going to mental institutions. I mean, all these things would come to be. But my experience was I’m terrified of l-life and the living of it. I consume this alcohol.

I move through the world. I gotta do this. I don’t know, you know, uh, I don’t know. Do other people have a broken piece?

I don’t know. I know I do, and I know that alcohol takes care of that for me. And I move through my life, and it’s– The disease progressed. Knowing that I was an alcoholic, I simply accepted that and just worked that in with everything else that was going on in my life, and I just moved forward.

Just keep going. I was a defiant, self-will, fear-driven alcoholic moving through my life. And as it progressed, all of the things that normal people experience in life slipped away from me. Um, b- at a very early age in my life, I mean, when I got shipped off to boarding school at twelve, I was in pain about that for three days.

At the end of that three days, it was as if something broke inside me, and I, and I looked at my family and I said, you know, “You don’t want me, I don’t want you,” and I turned my back on them and, and pretty much never went back. I had no sense of family. I had no sense of community. I had no sense of particularly belonging anywhere.

I didn’t trust anyone. Honesty was something that I considered inconvenient. I mean, I have been known in my life to lie for absolutely no reason. And I would often wonder, “Why would I…” You know?

And the thoughts would go through my head, “Why am I doing this?” I mean, I– Somebody would say, “What would you do this afternoon?” I’d say, “Oh, I went to the movies.” And I’m think– In my head, I’m thinking, “You didn’t go to the movies.” “Why would you say… I went… You did not improve your standing here at all by saying you went to the movies.

They didn’t think better of you at all by saying you went to the movies. There was no value in saying this lie, in saying, ‘I went to the movies.’ You weren’t in trouble. Nobody was at the gate. You just lied for no reason.” “Why do you do that?” And all I’ve been able to come up with is, is that when you live in a life like I lived, to be

really good at lying is important, and maybe you just need to practice occasionally, you know? So that when you really need one, you’re there. You know? Look them in the eye and lie.

I mean, these were, these were my social skills. This is how I was learning to function in the world. I wasn’t coming up like other people. I wasn’t concerned with the future.

I wasn’t con– making– I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t– My plan was just to have another drink, just to get… And I, I didn’t think of myself as a pig, you know? I, I, without question, I was.

But I’m just having this drink, and I’m just buying this bottle, and I’m just gonna go home and have these drinks tonight. I– That’s all it was. And I remember when I– by the time I got sober and cleaned up, um, sitting down with this guy and him asking me these questions, and I was talking about my past. And when we were done, he held up and he said, “Do you know that you’ve been loaded-” Daily for sixteen years.

I was shock– I was completely shocked. I mean, out there, who’s keeping track? You know what I mean? You know, I’m just dealing with this right here.

I’m right in here. I’m- That’s irrelevant. Anyway, and it just got, it got worse, and it got worse, and it got worse, and it got worse, and it got worse, and bad things happened along the way. You know?

Some that were the direct result of my actions, some that were not. Life on life’s terms, whether you’re drunk or s- or not, you know what I mean? What’s gonna hap– What happens, happens. And I, uh, I remember, uh, mental institutions at sixteen.

Twenty, I was diagnosed with malignant cancer. They flew me back to LA, prepared me to die and prepared my family for me to die. Um, I remember thinking, “You don’t even know who you’re talking to.” I’m twenty years old. My drinking and using is extreme at this point.

Um, you know, this dying thing that could come up li– that comes up like twice a week, you know? People giving you that funny look, you know what I mean? People looking at you like, “Oh, no.” Going. And I was starting to overdose and do all that stuff that we do, and it was just– But the answer for me was just to, uh, restructure the medication.

It was never get sober. That was never a part of the plan for me. I was never interested in getting sober. I knew what that meant.

That meant you walk the earth terrified. And I’m not willing. I’m not willing. Wherever this takes me is where it’s gonna, it’s gonna take me.

I, you know, this, uh, uh, my commitment is here. This is how I live. This is what I’m gonna do. You don’t like it?

Move on. You like– You, you wanna come party with me? Great. You know?

But my relationships are very, very simple. Do you have drugs, alcohol, sex, money, information on how I can get any or all of the above? If you do, let’s talk. You don’t?

Next. I don’t– Go away. I got no i– ‘Cause, I mean, I, I don’t have relationships with other human beings. I don’t have them, right?

I’m self-centered. It’s about me. It’s about me getting what I need. You can’t fi– If I don’t get it, you’re gonna find out who I am and how I function, and that I have no value in this world.

I have no– I have nothing of any value to offer you at all. You will find out what the people who knew me best in the world found out, my family, and you will throw me away too. So I have no interest in getting to know you. I don’t care how your day was.

You know? I don’t want to chitchat. I don’t want to get to know you. I don’t care.

You know, you come up to me, start chitchatting with me, “Oh, today we went to the market, and we went over here, and we did…” It’s like, “Uh, uh, no, no.” I don’t care. I’m glad to let you know I don’t care. You lost a family member.

Bummer. I don’t care. You think I’m heartless. Think whatever you like.

This is how I have to live. And I mean, and it got worse and worse, and I was more and more and more and more underground and more underground, and it got darker and darker and smaller and smaller and smaller. Twenty-two, my fam– my mother called me and said, uh, “We haven’t gone anywhere as a family in ten years. We’ve got to put the family back together,” crying like mothers do.

“We’ll go anywhere you want to go. Let’s just do it as a family.” I said, “Fine. Fine. You know, one more time, we’ll prove that this is pointless- -and then I can go on about my life, you know?

Which is g- gonna cost me a few days. All right.” So I fly back to LA on my twenty-second birthday. We took off to fly to Guadalajara. On the way there, the plane crashed, and my mother, my father, and my little sister were all killed, and I was not.

And I woke up on a mountain in Mexico with a fractured skull, and my back busted in three places and crushed leg and arm and paralyzed from the waist down, internal injuries. Only thing I could move was my right arm, and I was awake. And I’m laying on this mountain in Mexico, and my, my, uh, mother was laying right over there, and my little sister Kimberly was right over there, and my father was laying right over there, and I couldn’t get to them, and I couldn’t help them. And they all bled to death right in front of me.

And I had a little chat with God, and I said, “You know what? I have, uh, I have no interest in a God of this type. Any God that would take a kind, gentle, loving little creature like my little sister Kimberly and leave a lying, cheating, thieving, dope-fiend alcoholic like me on the planet, this makes no sense to me, and I renounce God.” And then some guys came up, and they scavenged the plane wreck.

And, uh, I took my wallet out and put it on my chest with my right arm ’cause I w– I knew I was gonna die, but I wanted them to know who I was for some reason. Just, “This is who I am. See ya,” right? Uh, they took the wallet on my chest, took the money out of it, threw my wallet back on my chest, went through scavenged the wreck and went back down off the mountain and left me up there to die.

Yeah. I had no more love for you either. That was it. I had no love of God.

I had no love of my fellow man. Any need I had had for the pretense or that, you know, that, that front in my life to give you the impression that I was a part of you and functioning among you was over with as far as I was concerned. I got down off the mountain. Uh, they put me in the back of a truck with my mother, and they took us to an aid station.

They tagged her dead. They tagged me dead. They sat there smoking cigarettes waiting for me to die, and which made me very angry. They took us back to the hospital, and then the Fed– then the Federales show up because they wanna know what I’m doing back in Mexico.

Uh, so they interrogated me through an interpreter for three and a half days. Finally made a few phone calls and got myself smuggled out of Mexico. Uh, spent a long time in a hospital in, in Southern California. Got out of there strung out on Demerol.

Went on my last run, and it lasted for, um, almost six years. And I was sober on three occasions during that time because I was strapped to a table for seventy-two hours in a, in a detox, a bootleg sanitarium in Nor– in Hollywood, where they’d strap, you know, you go in, and you give them your wallet and your gun and your bottle of Valium and your car keys and a hundred and fifty cash. They take you in, strap you to a table, shoot you full of anti-convulsants, and seventy-two hours later, they either send you home or to the morgue, and they didn’t really care which way you went.

And I’d, I’d reintroduce myself to God, kicking like a dog, and say, “You know, you get me out of this sane and alive, and I’ll never, never drink again. I can’t take this anymore.” And I, I mean, and I meant that with every single fiber of my being. And the last time I did it- Um, and I came out of there, and I was drunk that night, and I was drunk for another two years. And by the time I got to you, my family was dead.

I had no friends. I had no place to live. I was two hundred and fifteen pounds. I was yellow.

I was psychotic. I do not use the term loosely. Um, I, I couldn’t tell what was true and what was false. You know, it was just a big blur.

Did I do that? Did I– somebody tell me that? Did I read that? You know, I don’t know.

I don’t know anymore. Just blackout. There’s a guy in the room here who’s a, a very good friend of mine. Uh, we used to drink together, and he’s told me parts of my story that I don’t remember.

He said, “Remember the time, man, we had started to have a party on a Friday night, and we drank, and we used, and we drank, and we used, and we drank and used, and Monday morning, everybody’s gone, everybody’s burned out, there’s nothing left in the house, and you and I are sitting on the floor in the kitchen drinking the cooking sherry?” And I went, “No, I-” “I don’t remember it. I know it’s true, but I don’t re– I, I don’t remember it.” And we’ve been sober together for a long time.

As a matter of fact, he and I, uh, were at the, uh, my friend Steele, we were at the, uh, International San Diego five years ago and, and, uh, hooking up to do this again together as friends. It’s an amazing thing. You know, I’ve been sober together a while now. Um, and neither one of us stood a chance.

Neither one of us stood a chance. Here we are. Yeah. Anyway, you know, um, then I had seventy-four broken bones.

I had over six hundred and fifty stitches in me. I’d been stabbed twice, shot at. I mean, the violence was insane in my life. Um, and I came out of my last blackout, and had– both hands were broken and, and they were deciding whether or not to charge me with attempted murder of a gentleman named David, David Luboff,

who, as they were carting me off in the ambulance one more time to take me to the hospital, I remember him screaming at the ambulance, “You don’t understand the ramifications of the situation.” And I don’t know why I remember that. But that’s what he said. “You do not understand the ramifications of the situation.” As I’m strapped down in the ambulance being taken off one more time, I re– thinking, “You know, he’s right.” I

don’t, man. I don’t. I don’t get it. I’m a heartbeat away from dead, and I can’t stop drinking.

Yeah. Just insane out of my mind. I threw up these two busted paws, and I said, “Help me.” And pump the stomach in the emergency room, get him out of here, he’s dying. And they took me to another place five days.

I was getting worse. They said, “Get him out of here.” They took me by ambulance to the final place. They kept me for another twelve days of detox, thirty days in rehab on a free bed. And then they said, “You don’t wanna die.

You can’t drink again. And if you don’t wanna drink again, you better go to Alcoholics Anonymous.” And I said, “Okay.” And I ended up on a Friday night in the basement of a church, eight thirty meeting. I went, and I sat in the back of the church, my arms folded, my best tough guy look on my face, mad dogging everybody. You know, ’cause y’all happy and dressed nice and painted.

You know, I was like, “I don’t get this.” “And just stay away from me, man.” And it was because, “Don’t stay away from me ’cause you might get hurt. Stay away from me ’cause I might get hurt. I’m like glass over here. If, if you come up to me, you’re gonna ask me questions I don’t have the ans-

Answers to like, “How you doing?” I got nothing. I got nothing. If you find out who I am and you find out the things I have done, you will ask me to leave ’cause you look like reasonable people, and that’s what reasonable people would do. You know?

And I didn’t come here ’cause I wanted what you had. I had no idea what you had. I just knew I couldn’t live another day with what I had. And I sat in the back, and this old guy got up, and he was like sixty-five years old, and he was a skid row bum, a wino, and an ex-boxer.

And I remember thinking, “Pfft. I’m none of these things.” This guy don’t know nothing about me. And I was very good at spotting the differences, boy. I c– you know what I mean?

If you’re different than me, you don’t know about me. I don’t gotta listen to you, which is my goal, to not have to listen to you, right? So I gotta work my way there, right? You know what I mean?

If, if you’re a woman, you don’t know about me. And see, this isn’t a better or a worse thing. It’s just different. If you’re different, you don’t know about me.

If you’re a woman, you don’t know about me. If you’re gay, you don’t know about me. If you’re Hispanic, you’re Black, you’re Asian, you don’t know about me, right? I had the wagon circle so tight by the time I got here, it’s basically, “You’re not Earl?

You don’t know about me.” I don’t… And I sat in the back and this old guy got up, and the beauty of it was is that my life was destroyed. I had burned my life to the ground. There was no opport…

There was no side door out of the game for me. There was nowhere I could l– no area of life I could look at and go, “Oh, well, it’s going pretty good here.” You know what I mean? It was just flat wasteland in every direction, you know? I was a low-bottom, hopeless drunk.

I’d stopped using the drugs a couple of years before I got here because I had to go with the o-old reliable. I mean, I snort three or four grams of cocaine a day just to keep me on my feet so that I could drink the way I wanted to drink. It was about the drinking, right? And, boy, that’s the big dog.

I mean, I’ve kicked everything you can name up and down. Heroin, cocaine, speed, all this stuff, right? Uh, you can go sit on the couch and kick all of it, except alcohol. Alcohol, you go kick it on the cou– you get a couple of quarts a day going, you go kick it on the couch, you just lay there and convulse to death.

This is the big dog, right? And I mean, and I’m so sick, and I get out of this hospital and I’m sitting in the back of that meeting. This old guy gets up there, and the beauty of it was I had no place else left to go. If I’d had somewhere to go, I’d have gone.

But my life was such that when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, if you had told me, “Look, you gotta go to a meeting a day, and our meetings are from noon to midnight.” “They’re twelve hours long, and you gotta go every day,” I woulda just said, “Okay.” “I have no conflict in my schedule here.” This interferes with nothing I’m doing. I’ll just go. I was destroyed and hopeless.

And this old guy got up, this guy I knew didn’t understand me at all. I knew didn’t understand me. And he shared his experience, strength, and hope with me. With me.

He shared it with me. And he talked openly and honestly about his feelings as a man, and he did it with grace, and he did it with dignity, and he did it with humor. And I saw people looking at a disease that had go- driven me to absolute hopelessness and madness, and they were laughing, and they were celebrating their lives. And I, and I thought, “This is amazing.

Amazing.” And, but, I mean, look of total disdain on my face, you know, I go, “Pfft,” you know? And inside thinking, “Wow,” you know? And then it was like he looked right at me and he said, “You know what? I don’t care whether you like what I got to say or not.

You don’t like it? Go to another meeting.” I thought, “That is great.” I loved that ’cause it was clear to me he’s not selling me anything. He’s not trying to convince me of anything. He’s sharing it with me.

And if I want it, I can have it. It’s for free. If I don’t want it, that’s cool. Go to another meeting.

Maybe you can hear a message of, uh, of recovery, a message of hope there that you can identify with, and you can catch the buzz that’s available in here. I thought, “This is cool. I’m coming back,” you know? And coming back.

That day I had something. I didn’t know I had it, but I had something I hadn’t had in years, and that was hope. I had some hope. I think the greatest gift you can give to another alcoholic, hope.

You know? And I said, “I’m coming back.” And I went home and I paced, and I cried, and I paced, and I cried. I wasn’t sleeping, you know? And, and, uh, next week, next Friday, I went back.

I sat in the back, folded my arms. Woman got up to speak. Pfft. And I nudged the guy next to me and I said, “Where’s the guy?” He said, “What guy?” I said, “The guy that talks here.

I heard him last week. I came back to hear some more.” And the guy looked at me and he goes, “You’re new, aren’t ya?” And I said, “Yeah. What’s your point?” And he says, “Oh yeah, we do s– a different speaker every week. We try to go male to female, male to female, a little something for everybody, young and old.

And we got all kinds of meetings. W- our particular group, we’ve got a, a, a candlelight discussion meeting, and we’ve got a men’s segment, a women’s segment.” I’m like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” “Way too much information, man.” “You’re making me nuts.” I mean, I was good with get car, go meeting, hear guy, go home. You know what I mean?

I was not all happy and ready to roll, you know what I mean? I was messed up inside and out. And I thought, “Okay, you know, I’ll listen to Granny.” You know, I didn’t really… Like, you know what you do?

You– little brandy in the tea, you drop the cup and raced into AA, you know? Sure I’m gonna identify a lot with Granny, right? Granny gets up and just looked like everybody’s grandma. It’s like, “Oh hi, I’m Louise.

I’m an alcoholic.” It’s like, “Yeah. Hi, Louise.” And Louise gets up and Louise throws down. I mean- I mean, this nice little old lady gets up and explains how any wom- any alcoholic woman worth her salt can drink for two weeks on fifty cents, and then breaks down exactly how you go about doing that.

You know? And I’m in the back row going, “Yeah!” Hits me. Oh my God, I’m identifying with Granny. Something really weird is going on in here.

You know, and then, then next week I’m not pacing waiting for the guy, I’m waiting to find out w- who’s next. And I’ve never left. I’ve never left. I’ve been involved to my eyeballs from that day to this.

You know? I’ve, I’ve never left. I w- l- you know, I still don’t have any place else left to go. I mean, I have a great life.

I have problems, but I got the best problems I’ve ever had in my life, which is a good way to, I think, to gauge how you’re doing. How are you doing? Well, these are my problems, and they’re excellent. I mean, if I look around at my life and think, look at my life and go, “Well, there are absolutely no problems present here,” my, I’m thinking, “Well, you ain’t in

the game enough, man.” Get your ass back out there in the world. Push the envelope. Get out there and mix it up. Be good at that and be bad at that until you’re good at it.

And go out there and move around, shake it up, and get out in the world and grow, and expand, and learn. Manifest the things that have come to you as a result of being a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Get out there and mix it up. Progress, not perfection.

Progress suggests to me I’m moving, right? So I look at my problem, I got the best pr- I got problems in areas where I didn’t even use to have areas. Woo! That’s how it works for me.

I mean, I came in destroyed, talking to myself. All of myself. You know? Showing up at a meeting, picking a group leader, and going in.

Who’s, who’s going to the meeting tonight? Ugh. And at five years sober I go to my sponsor, the late great Donald Mack. I could just jump up and kill several people around me and myself at any moment.

It’s bad. I have bad things going on in here. I’m very stressed out. Now, you don’t seem to understand that because your answer to my problem is, “Make a little coffee.” And he looked at me, he said, “Fine, then drink.” I went, “You know, there’s no talking

to you people.” “I’m trying to have a conversation, you go right to the drinking thing. Fine.” “I’ll make the damn coffee.” Now, he could have said to me, “Look, one of the great things we do as a m- as a part of the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, I mean, the reason we have meetings is to have a place where a newcomer can come and hear a message of recovery and a message of hope. That’s why we have a meeting.

That’s why we do it,” right? The program is in the Big Book. That’s the program. We do, we study what’s in the Big Book.

I mean, that’s the loop in here, you know? You come in, you say, “I don’t know how to live.” Some other guy in there goes, “I do.” “How do you do it?” “Come with me.” They get you a book. They say, “Read, start reading this. Call me, we’re gonna work our way through the 12 steps.” You say, “Okay.” New guy, take, take, take, take, take, take, take, take, take.

Older guy, been through the steps, had an awakening as a result of that process, been restored to sanity, soundness of mind, relieved of the obsession of drink and drugs, give, give, give, give, give, give, give. Woo! Woo! Right?

New guy, catches buzz. Catches buzz. Catches on fire. Got the deal.

Goes, “What do I do?” He says, “See that guy that just came in? The, the little insane person? Lucky thing about it, a, a new wave of insanity washing up on the beach every day.” “No shortage of opportunities for service, man.” “You see that guy that just came in with that deer in the headlights look?

That dude?” “He could probably use a few suggestions.” “We got ’em. Give him what was freely given to you.” Check. And you start giving. You go, that’s the loop, right?

Donald got me into that loop, and he said, “Make the coffee.” I didn’t understand. He could have said, “What we do in here is we don’t give the new guys the coffee job, and the cleanup job, and the setup job, and the greeter job, because those are the new guys and they’re the grunt and we pick on them. We give them the best we got to offer. We’re gonna give them an opportunity to manifest some of the principles that are afoot in this program.

We’re gonna give you the best there is. You get to make the coffee. What this means is, as a self-centered, self, self-centered, frightened, alcoholic girl, you’re gonna have to focus on the coffee-” “… instead of Earl.

You’re gonna be out of self for probably four hours,” the size of that meeting, “on a Friday night.” “You’re gonna have to worry about getting the pots, and filling the pots, and bringing all that condiment stuff, and the cream, and the stuff, and the stuff, and the tea, and the… ” “Oh, you gotta have all that stuff in the box, and you gotta have it ready, and you gotta have enough, and you gotta plug in all the pots, and cook the coffee, and you can’t blow out the fuse because then the meeting’s dark. You gotta be very careful.” “And you gotta get the pots out, and you gotta get them all set up, and you gotta have everybody what they want.

At the break you gotta bring out the new pots and take the old pots in, and you gotta wash everything out.” It’s four and a half hours not thinking about Earl. Every Friday night I’m going home from the meeting and I go, “You know, I feel good.” “I don’t know why.” “Must be the speakers they’re getting. I don’t know.” It took me like six months to put it together.

Out of self, feeling better. Out of self, feeling better. It’s pretty cool. It’s getting a little deep around here.

It’s getting kind of cosmic, and I like that. And you keep going, you keep going. And so I, I, I, I haven’t left in, I don’t know, November. I don’t do anything stupid, it’ll be 20 years I’ve been here.

Yeah. Woo! Trust me when I tell you you’re applauding yourselves, ’cause th- that’s got nothing to do with my best thinking. That’s got to do with the things that I have learned in here and been willing as a result of having been beaten into a state of reasonableness by the disease of alcoholism.

I became humbled by that and willing to listen to you, and you taught me, and you sustained me, and you made it possible for me to survive and live a life beyond my wildest dreams. That’s why being a part… I’d never been a part of anything in my life before I got here. I was never a Boy Scout.

I didn’t join anything. I didn’t come here to join. I came here to survive the disease of alcoholism, and it’s working. It’s working.

And I sponsor a legion of guys now, I mean, a legion of guys- … who sponsor an unbelievable number of guys, and they’re the ones that, that, that I learn from now. They’re the ones that teach me. They’re the ones that ask the questions that must always be asked.

They’re the ones that catch fire with the things that have burned in me for a long time, and I get used to it, and I see it hit them, and I realize how miraculous my life is on a daily basis, how lucky and fortunate I am. I watch what happens with them, and I realize what’s available and possible for a guy like me as a result of working the steps, is I can close my eyes, breathe in and out, and get right here. Get right between those.

Get right here, right now, that thing that I avoided my whole life. I can’t be right here right now ’cause that’s l- that’s the life I have to live. That’s where my feelings as a man are. That’s where all my fear, my doubt, my insecurity, my total lack of self-esteem, that’s all here, and I can’t be here, and I have to get away.

Now I’ve found that I have to come back to right here, get in between those, because that’s where my life is. That’s where God is. That’s where any dignity or honor or self-respect I will understand as a man. It’s all right in there, and I have to do that.

I can’t love you anyplace else, and I can’t allow you to love me anyplace else. I can’t get the things I want in life, which is I want a sense of family, and I have it. I want a sense of community, and I have it. I wanna feel comfortable standing where I’m standing, doing what I’m doing with the people I’m doing it with, no matter what that is.

I want the power of that in my life, and I can only get that from a loving God, a God that I personally don’t understand. They said, “Find a God of your own understanding.” I had to go a little bit further, and I had to find a God that I don’t understand at all. I mean, I, you know, I try to get this little head of mine around an in- the infinite, and it just won’t go all the way around, you know? I go till it gets spooky, and I come on back, you know?

And it’s all God to me. I don’t need to understand God. I just need to ma- see the manifestation of God’s will all around me every day in the things that I see go on. I mean, I’m– this is a pretty good opportunity if I’m willing to look at it, standing up here looking at all of you.

I’m looking at a bunch of dead people sitting upright celebrating a, a life of recovery, coming from all over the world to be together and celebrate around the great campfire. You know what I mean? To tell their stories and share their experience and revel in this kind of a life. The only way I know for a guy like me to get at that is through the steps.

Step one is what’s the problem. Lack of power is my dilemma. If po- lack of power is my problem, what’s my solution? Step two.

A power greater than myself that could restore me to sanity, soundness of mind, relieve me of the obsession to drink. I’m in. Step three, it says you need to make a decision to do something about this, or it’s not gonna happen. You’re gonna have to take some action.

Okay, I get down on my knees. I turn my will and my life over to the care of God that I don’t understand. So I’m gonna take that action. It’s up to you.

I’m gonna do what you suggest. And then begin immediately upon a plan of action, four through nine. Four and five is me, six and seven is God, and eight and nine is you. Nobody else to play with.

Four and five, I swallow large chunks of truth about myself. I look at resentment, fear, and sex. I do these four, this four-column inventory. I work through that.

I see my part in it. I look at it in black and white in front of me. I see it for what it is, not what I’d like it to be or imagine it to be, but what it is, right? I see the effectiveness of me at the helm.

You know? Six and seven, I hook it back up with God and ask God to remove the defects of character ’cause I’ll remove the wrong stuff. Eight and nine, I hook it back up with you. I’m very, very sorry.

Here’s your money. I go back in the house. And to amend means to change. So I’m very, very sorry I stole your car.

I estimate the value of the theft, the time of the theft at $2,500. If that’s acceptable to you, I’ll begin to make payments on that until that amount of money is paid to you, and I will not go steal your car and sell it to pay you for the car I stole from you. Change. Whoo.

I gotta change, right? Ten, 11, and 12 keep me in the game. Same thing, me, God, and you. Me, I continue to take personal inventory because…

and when I’m wrong, promptly admit it, ’cause I’ll wait till sometime next year. I’ll build a resentment against you somehow, and I’ll fester, and I’ll die. I gotta deal with it. I gotta deal with it.

11 is a God. I seek God. I seek him through prayer and meditation. I pray for knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry that out, and I meditate to quiet the mind so that when the answers come, I can hear them.

12, having had a spiritual awakening, that being having been restored to sanity, sound– having been relieved of the greater aspect of my disease, having been relieved of the obsession to drink, I can practice these principles and carry the message to you. How can I help? Not ’cause I’m a good guy, but because I don’t wanna die drunk.

That’s why I do it, ’cause I don’t wanna die drunk. I wanna stay in this game. And I gotta remember my new boys. I gotta remember because as I move along the path, and I catch the buzz, and all of a sudden I can hear that speaker that I could never hear before, that I heard 50 times and I could never hear him, and now I can hear

him. So I go get Louie, who’s got, you know, 90 days, and I take Louie to hear the guy speak. And I’m thinking– And we’re sitting, and we’re watching the, the, you know, Al just throwing down. And I’m thinking, “Isn’t this great?” You know?

That at, at 19-plus years of sobriety, I could bring Louie and expose Louie to the pearls of wisdom, and Al just nailing it. Fact of the matter is, Louie’s having a completely different meeting than I’m having. Louie’s got 90 days. I gotta remember what I was like at 90 days, going over to Ohio Street on a Friday night, go to a meeting in my car, right?

And, and me, ins- in the inside of my head and how I worked, you know, I gotta remember it. Louie gets– Gotta give Louie his turn. I would go to Friday night on Ohio Street saying, “Okay, okay, I found a meeting. I found a meeting.

It’s good, good, good. They’re just gonna park the car. Put the car going. Put the keys in the car.

Put the keys in the seat. You gotta put the keys in the seat.” Then I’m saying, “Where am I gonna sit? Where am I gonna sit? There’s a guy, guy with a red coat.

I’ll sit next to the guy with the red coat. I’ll put the keys in the seat. I’ll find the guy with the red coat. Everything’s cool.

Okay, I gotta find… Now people coming. ‘How you doing?’ ‘Fine.’ ‘How you doing?’ ‘Fine.’ ‘How you doing?’ ‘Fine.’ ” “The ring a bell. We’re sitting down.

We’re sitting down with whoever. Sitting down. We’re sitting down. Good, good, good, good, good, good.

I’m fine, fine, fine. All right. All right.” “Now they’re reading something. Up there, there’s guys.

He’s up, he’s up, he’s down. Another guy’s up. I missed all of that.” Guy’s reading, he’s reading. Uh, uh, he’s rarely seen something.

He’s rarely seen something. He’s rarely seen something. I don’t know what he rarely saw, but he rarely saw something. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, uh, the 12 things.

There’s 12 things. Okay, there’s 12 things in A, 12 things in A, 12 things, 12 things. A, ABC, ABC. 12 things, ABC, ABC.

12 things, ABC. 12 things. He’s down. I didn’t get a lot, but that was pretty g- All right.

Another guy’s up. Here’s another guy. Another guy’s up. He’s sharing.

I did that. I did that. I did that. I drank like that.

It was great. He’s down. There wasn’t enough of that, but it, third guy’s down. Now, up, they’re passing the basket.

They’re passing the basket. Why is they pass… Up, don’t take the money. Don’t take the money.

Don’t take the money. Didn’t take the money. Going to break. Going to break.

Guys, good. We’re on a break. We’re on a break. Light.

We’re smoking? Yeah, I smoke. Good. We’re going.

Hey. They ring the bell. They ring the bell. We’re going back in.

We’re going back in. I gotta find a cigarette. Where’s the … Where’s the break over?

Where’s the guy with the break over at? Say, “I’m fine, fine, fine. Yeah, I’m fine. Yeah, I’m fine.

I’m fine” I said, “I’m fine.” All right. Uh, they’re reading 12 things. Okay, 12 more things. There’s 24 things in AA, ABC.

24 things, ABC. 24 things, ABC. And he’s down. I missed all, I’ll get back to that later.

That’s fine. Here’s another guy. He drank. I did, I did that.

I did that. I did that. Wow, I felt like that. I felt like that.

This is great. I’m, I’m in the right place. He’s down. That was very good.

It was very good. I loved that part. They’re up. They’re talking.

Okay, okay, I’ll keep coming back. Now, we’re up, we’re up. We’re holding hands. What, what are we doing?

Uh, prayer. I know this prayer. Okay, we say the prayer, say… That would lead to meeting, right?

That was me in a meeting. That was a successful AA meeting for me. I gotta remember. I gotta remember.

I’m sitting in a meeting with Louie, who’s sitting on his hands, and he’s got that look on his face, listening to the speaker, that… “What?” You know? And, and we’re leaving the meeting, and I said, looking at Louie, I go, “That’s a great… I w- I, I loved that meeting, man.

What’d you think?” He goes, “Oh, it was great. Great” I think, “Cool, man. You had your meeting. You sat there.

You made it through. You did your best to grab a little bit, and you got a little bit, and you keep coming back, and you get a little bit more, and you get a little bit more, and the ne- and then there’s that day where you look up, and you sit there in your own life, and there’s a sense of ease and contentment you never thought was possible. You got a new joy happening.

You got a new freedom. You’ve caught the buzz. You have caught the buzz. You are in the game.

You’re all lit up, and boy, you’re gonna give it away tonight.” “And you’re that new guy in the meeting, running around, looking for trouble, man. And you see some terrified individual coming in, and you’re on him. The minute you’re on him, you’re on your way. You got the whole loop going.

You are in the game. The buzz can be yours.” Worlds within worlds here, it just gets deeper and deeper and more profound and more freeing. They asked me in the beginning when I got here, “How free do you wanna be?” I said, “I was a pig out there. I’m gonna be a pig in here, man.

I want it all.” “I want it all. And because of you, because of you, I got a place to go. Because of Bill and Bob, I got a place to go. And tonight, I’m gonna go to that thing, and I’m gonna jump up and down and cry and carry on and tell people I love them.

I’m just gonna let it go, man.” ” ‘Cause that’s what this is about, celebrating the buzz, celebrating the life, that we’re in the game. It’s all around the planet. You an alcoholic, you know who I am. You an alcoholic, I know who you are.

We got a common problem and a common solution, man, and it’s about celebrating that every single minute.” That’s what I’m gonna do, and I wish you peace. Thanks.