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Source: Darren P – Kentucky State Convention (2022) – Speaker Talk – Date Unknown.mp3 File: darren-p-kentucky-state-convention-2022-speaker-talk-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:46:48
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Hello, everybody. My name is Darren. I am an alcoholic. Hey, everybody. Do I have to say this thing? No. Yes and no. I couldn't remember it if I tried. First of all, Pat is full of shit. For sure he's full of shit. I'm so happy he cussed right now. He just opened the doors wide open. I want you to know I ran out the gate. I'm the worst drunk I've ever met, man. I'm the worst drunk I've ever met. I still can't believe I'm sober.
I can't believe I'm sober and happy. How unbelievable is that? I want to thank Dave for a great host. He's taken us everywhere, looked after us. I love AA, man. I love it. I'm all in. I'm all in because this thing has saved my life. And Pat brought a few friends, sponsors of his and friends of mine now from California and we had a good time. We ran a mock down in, where was it? I don't even know, Cincinnati or someplace. I don't know. Listen, we're all working a good program, right? We're living right. We're doing good. We get kicked off the public transport system today. We're fucking around. I can't believe it. Oh my God. Well, don't tell anybody. We work a good program. I didn't know AA was going to be fun, man. I didn't think it was going to be fun. I've seen this thing on the TV in England.
By the way, I'm not drunk right now. I'm not having a stroke. I was born in Manchester, England. And on the telly in England, they really depict Alcoholics Anonymous so depressingly boringly bad. It's like you want to kill yourself before you get there. It was sure like, I didn't know you could have fun like this and there can be recovery. I didn't know it was going to be full of party animals like you. Any other party animals in here? I used to be good at this thing. I used to be good at drinking and drugs. I could never become an alcoholic. But it would show these crappy scenes where there'd be 14 men in a smoky filled horrible looking gloomy room and they're all sat in a circle. They're all fat, bald, ugly, boring. And one of them's like a week sober. They're all clapping and crying. I'm like, Oh my God, I never want to go to that. I'm already suicidally depressed. And now you want me to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. I could do that myself. So I did not want to come here at all. I also had like a preconceived notion of what it means to be an alcoholic and can't really be. Well, some of you look like you've had a good drink. But you know, some of you are either too beautiful, too pretty, too young, too businesslike, too well put together. For me, the alcoholic is the bum on Main Street begging for change. He's got a big bushy beard. I know big bushy beards are back in right now. But fuck, they used to have a big bushy beard and they peed themselves. And they, oh fuck, oh my God. Fucking hell.
I'm going to throw some change at him. Drink it out of a brown paper bag. Like, that's an alcoholic. You know, the thing you see on TV. So for me to end up in Alcoholics Anonymous, it was the last house on the block, man. And I swear to God, it works a lot better when it's like that. And I remember I'd come to America at this point and I'm maudlin drunk. I'm suicidal. And I end up making that call. I look for the yellow pages and I can't find Alcoholics Anonymous. Dude, it's in the front of the book. And I'm looking, I'm drunk. And I find the number. I call and this lovely lady answers the phone. And she's kind of talking me off the ledge and telling me, have you never been to AA? I've never been to AA.
No, it's for losers. I'm going to kill me. I'm not a loser. I just want to kill myself. And she's, oh, well, there's a meeting tomorrow night just down the road from you. It's a men's stag. Why don't you go? I'm like, yeah, whatever. I pass out. I go to bed. I wake up the next day. I'm like, oh my God, what did I say I was going to do? And it was just, it was the last house on the block. I'm not a functioning alcoholic. I'm a nightmare drunk.
I'm a nightmare. And so I can't say I didn't drink. At my stage of alcoholism, if I'm going to leave my bedroom, let alone me house, I got to have a little bit of vodka in me. You know what I mean? Especially if I'm going to do something really weird, like interact with another human. So I showered for the first time in months and it gelled me hair ever so sexy like I used to be able to back then. And I went down to this meeting. It was nothing like I'd seen on the telly. It was this huge well lit room just like this.
[00:05:01]
There were 80 plus men in this room. They were having a good time. There was a vast amount of fun about it all. They seemed happy to see each other. Now I'm not, I'm not engaging. I'm sat on my chair. I'm an observer. You know what I mean? I don't want to catch anything from these happy fucks. You know what I mean? And if you're wondering, fuck is, fucks in England is spelled F-O-L-K-S. Okay. So I don't want to catch anything from these happy fucks.
So I'm just sat there. Somebody got on engaged. They're all shaking his hand. Somebody else had like got on a promotion and like, just like, what is going on? It can be all this fun about it. And then what happened next really captured my attention. Just underneath the deadly earnestness kicked in. The meeting's about to start. Everybody shut up, got off their phones and respected the meeting. I'm like, wow, 80 men in a big circle. So as the meeting starts, I think this is a good time to open my jacket pocket, pull out my big bottle of vodka and start drinking in the meeting. And the guy next to me said, fuck, this guy's drinking vodka in the meeting. And I was astounded. I'm like, why is nobody else drinking? Isn't this alcohol synonymous? Don't you have a drinking problem? I honest to God, couldn't believe it. I stayed drunk in AA for a year in Santa Barbara for a year, got quite the reputation. I come into a meeting and someone say, oh my God, look, he's an English fuck. He's going to, well, he's going to pull a bottle of vodka out. And I did.
And I did, you know, but I'm glad, glad for the third tradition. Nobody kicked me out. I got kicked out of two meetings, but that's not bad for a year. And, uh, you know, but it kept coming back until it was my time. And eventually it was my time. And I'm glad I met somebody. I went to some solid meetings who, and they were properly armed with the facts about themselves and the illness of alcoholism. Now, it wasn't always like that.
Like I said, I had a good time. I started drinking in England at a typical age. I was, well, I was young, 13, right? 13. I thought he was going to fall off his chair. Don't look like it. Look at him. He's like, you boring bastard. 13. I was drinking at eight. Little low mouth. All right. What I've come to understand in AA is that you can never outdo another alcoholic. So don't even try, right? This one woman speaker, me and Pat Noah, she's great. She gives a good talk. Uh, but her whole story, her whole pitch surrounds the fact that she was drunk in her mother's womb, in the womb. Oh my God. Give me a fucking break, lady. Okay, Teresa, you win. You win. Why don't you just give all the talks all around California? Fucking hell. I think she was born blowing a 0.25, smoking a pack of Marlboro Reds. Get it out. Get her out. Give her a gin and tonic. So I'm drinking at 13 like a weekend warrior, drinking stolen bottles of cider. I drink through school. I drink through college and I went to university, not because I'm clever, but because I needed to prolong the party life, right? I didn't want to settle down into boring, glum life.
I hated boring, glum life. And so when I finished university, luckily I was supposed to become a boring school teacher, but thank God my brother saved the day. Now he's six years older than me and he's already somewhat successful businessman. And he had an idea for a new business venture and it was brilliant, right? And we made a good team. I came back from Brighton and down south and came back to Manchester and we formed this partnership and it was to do with the auto insurance business. But if someone had a road traffic accident and that wasn't their fault, I would take over the claim. I would give them a replacement vehicle. Now my brother's a brilliant businessman and I'm a good, I'm like you, I'm a good bullshitter.
You know what I mean? Let's call him the marketing director. So the two of us just made a good team. And you know, every time a check came in, we'd buy another vehicle. And before we knew it, people were saying, wow, you're doing good. You'll have to get a sec, get some offices and we got some offices in Manchester. You'll need a secretary. We got a secretary and we had dozens of people working for us and we ended up with over a hundred vehicles. And within two years we had outstanding invoices of almost $2 million. And I'm not, I'm about 25 at this point and I had arrived and I'm drinking, I'm driving a nice sports car and I've got Miss Manchester on my arm. But it's around age 25 or 26 when alcoholism starts to take its mighty grip on me. And it doesn't come in the form of me waking up one day in a bush drinking vodka. It's more subtle than that and it's progressive as we now know.
It comes in the form of massive amounts of anxiety, right Fred? It comes in the form of depression and it comes in the form of a spiritual illness that wants to separate me from you, get me alone and kill me. And when, and the problem for us is that, or for
[00:10:02]
me was, I have to keep the facade going. It's more important for me to keep the facade going that everything's okay than to tell you the truth. So alcoholism looks a lot like depression. People say to me, I'm like this, oh my God. And they'll be like, Darren, how are you doing? Hey, I'm great. How are you doing? How are you doing? Yeah, wonderful. No, I'm not. I'm dying. I'm beginning to die slowly of this soul sickness that's eating me alive from the inside out. And you know, I can't convey it to anybody because the best description I've ever heard I say is like, it's weird. Something weird is going on. I used to be the party animal dude. I used to be leader of our party. You get me drunk. I'm like a mixture of Dave Chappelle and James fucking Bond all rolled into one. I think I'm the man dude. I'm the man. I probably wasn't, but I thought I was the man. So, so the drinking still working at this stage of my alcoholism, the drinking is working. I'm having a good time. But during the day when I'm sober, alcoholism is killing me. It's killing me, wanting me to separate me from you. And I would be walking down the hallway of my business that I own and a junior of 17 will be walking up the other way. And he's all excited because he's about to see the boss. And I'm so nervous. I got to book off into an office just to hide because I can't stand that because I might lose my shit. Right. And I'm starting to like kind of hang on by a thread, even at this stage of alcoholism. It really interfered with my work, my business. Like I would be sat outside in my nice sports car, paralyzed with fear that I can't go into the business meeting that I'd set up to meet with the CEO of an important insurance company the day before. I can't do it. I'm like, what is wrong with me? I used to be confident. I used to be outgoing. Now it's not the drinking. The drinking is the only time I feel good. I go out that night and the old fierce determination to win comes back and I'm king of the shit again. Right. So this is what's cunning, baffling and powerful about alcoholism. Things got so bad. I was just avoiding my responsibilities so much like I could never turn up on a Monday morning ever because like any good alcoholic, my weekends are longer than my week. Right. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And sometimes I'd have to go into work with a hangover so bad, so bad that most normal people would dial 9-1-1. Right. And we've just dragged. I remember having to go to the bank one day and present some checks on a Monday morning. And my brother made me do it because my brother's onto me. Everyone else can pull the wool over their eyes and I'm the boss or shut up.
My brother though, he's all over me. And I had to go and present these checks and I'm sat in my nice car and I can see the entrance to the bank. But I know this is going to be tough, dude. And I have lit myself up all weekend and oh my God, I'm thinking to myself, what is wrong with me? And I think to myself, OK, if I open the car door and I scurry off into the entrance of the bank like the rat I am without the sunlight shattering me into a million pieces, maybe I'll be OK. And I go into the bank and I get in there. I just want to get in and get out. I've got my suit on. I think I look all right, but I'm sweating even though it's freezing outside. And I rush into the bank and there's a God damn line right in front of me. And it's not moving, dude. It's not moving. And you know what's happening next? I'm about to lose my shit. And the walls are closing in. And these two are talking about me over here. And he's giving me a funny look. And I'm just waiting for the guy in front of me to just look, turn around, look at me and say, like, what's wrong with you? I'd be like, I don't know. Do you know? Because I don't know. I'd have to leave.
It got so bad. I was in a boardroom meeting. We're a shareholding company at this point. There's four directors. I'm not paying attention like usual. I hated those things until I heard my brother say, so yeah, Darren, we've all had a meeting before this meeting. And we don't know what's wrong with you, but we're going to have to let you go. It's decided. It's final. And I start to wait. I go, wait, what? What? You're going to let me go? I built this business up from my bedroom, you bastard. Well, Darren, there's something wrong with you and you need to go. And I was furious because all my fears were playing out. I knew this day was coming. So I kicked the table over and I went to go give my brother a flying headbutt. I believe in clear communication. You know what I mean? The finance director tackles me and it's just one of those awful scenes where a classic alcoholic moment where Darren's been found out. We've all had a boom, found out, the mask had slipped. He was on to me. And so I walk home that day. It's the most depressing, worst day of my life up to that point. I had to leave the car there. They're going to cut me a crappy check in a few weeks. It was the worst time to exit the business, all this stuff. And I go out that night. It was a Thursday night. And all I care about, like any good alcoholic, is to spin the story. I need to get ahead of this story before it gets out. Who was in the room? Who wasn't? And so I get to the bar. I've been depressed all day. And I get to the bar. We have a couple of stiff drinks and the old fierce determination to win comes right back. And here comes Simon. And here comes my mate Dave. And I said to him, you hear that ball?
[00:15:27]
that motherfucker can become President, alright, so I gave it a go, I wasn't short of confidence, especially when I'd had a little drink, now I think the problem is England and the shitty UK weather, I think the problem is my girlfriend, she keeps leaving me for stupid shit, like me cheating on her and stuff, I think the problem is my brother, cos he's a right wanker, right, but no, somebody puts the problem and checks him onto an international flight at Manchester airport, and flies him all the way to LAX, and I came to America just to chill out, man, I came to America just to take the edge off, cos I'd had a rough go, right, I came to America for a two week vacation, 22 years ago, 22 years, really good, I never made it home, I didn't know I was gonna circle the drain of life and almost die of untreated alcoholism, I thought I'm just gonna go and have a good time for a bit, now a cousin, an uncle who I'd never met before, comes and picks me up, rolls a big blunt, says, how you doing, I'm your uncle Paddy, I'm Darren, and we start sharing this joint and go up the 101 all the way to Santa Barbara, this guy owns a pub in downtown Santa Barbara, there is a God, now on the plane, on the plane, I'm thinking, Darren, you need to calm things down, something's wrong, I'm not an alcoholic, cos I'm a king shit when I'm drinking, but something's going on with me, maybe I should stop doing drugs, now this is Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'm gonna, you know, talk mostly about alcoholism, but I did try cocaine once, for 20 fucking years, I love that shit, I love speed, I love amphetamines, I love anything that will allow me to drink pat under the table, you know what I mean, so I'm thinking, I've gotta calm things down, but, dude, when I'm on holiday, I like to have a drink, so we end up in this little beach town called Santa Barbara, it's like heaven on earth, nothing like Manchester, which is rough as can be, where I'm from, and like, I just fall into this party animal atmosphere, and everybody loves me cousin, and I'm the new kid in town, I've got a funny accent, and I decide to stay for 3 months, what my visa waiver would allow, and then, when that runs out, a friend from England comes and flies over, I buy an SUV, and we travel the whole of America for 6 months, like a big loop around America, 12,000 miles, 32 states, we see everything a tourist would wanna see, I'm drunk off my arse in every town, city and state, by the time we get back, and I'm drunk, by the time we get back to Santa Barbara, I have 7 outstanding warrants in 5 different states, that means I had a good time, right, I had a good time, so now I've no income, I've spent all my money, and my cousin offers me to become a bartender in his English pub, I'm like, oh my god, it was the best job in the world, and the worst job in the world, all rolled into one, and so this is just like, now at this stage of my alcoholism, hanging on by a thread, the lack of responsibility I had for the previous 6 months, really is gonna mask my alcoholism, right, if you think about it, people say like, I was drinking too much, I was drunk all the time, I have no problem being drunk all the time, I have no problem at all, that's not the problem, it's a problem for other people, it's a problem for the authorities, it's a problem for spouses, it's a problem for your boss, it's not a problem for me, the problem for me is turning up sober to do a job kind of responsibly, or turn up for life responsibly, now I had to go to work, and I'm losing my mind from a heightened state of anxiety, and it is just an absolute torturous nightmare, so then I need a drink to go to work, and I remember thinking, I just gotta get out of this fast lane man, and you start getting into the downtown scene, it is just a slippery slope, I'd have to drink on my days off, because the tourists were upon me, and as soon as I'd have a drink, oh my god, that's all we want, that sense of relief, and so I'd wake up, and I'd be sweating, the bed stinks awful, this Jägermeister coming out of every pore, and I'm trying to think, jeez, did I even work yesterday, what day is it?
Oh my god, and I'd have a shadowy recollection of me being the bartender, being slumped on the stool, in my bar, by the locals, and I'm watching them serving each other, thinking, this ain't right man, and I'm so jittery and nervous, and I'm thinking, what is wrong with me, I used to be an entrepreneur, other people used to rely on me, and I knew I couldn't do stuff like that, did you ever get to that point, where you've done so much hard alcohol, or done so many drugs, you've ruined your wiring?
I had ruined my wiring, I knew I couldn't do those kind of tasks anymore, even basic tasks, I just couldn't do it, I'm like, what is wrong with me, and I think to myself, oh my god, well please, at least don't be a Wednesday, because I've got to go to work on Wednesdays, like, oh my god, it's Wednesday, and it's 9am, I used to live my life, it's 9am, I've got to be there at 9.30, so I jump in the shower, now I've got a plan of action, and it involves alcohol, right, because I need to dumb myself down, I'm crawling out of my skin,
[00:20:24]
so I jump on my bike, because I don't want another DUI, I'm bombing it down State Street, huge delivery trucks are coming up the other way, and I fantasised every day about just going to one of those delivery trucks, and it would look like an accident, and only you know what I'm talking about, and I make it all the way, my plan is I've got to go to Dagen's Irish Pub, to have a cheeky drink, to go across the road to the English bar, and I think I'm doing my boss a favour by doing this, there's no other way I could pull it off, so I put my bike outside on the hedge, I grab the door handle, within the nanosecond of holding that handle, I've changed my mind, six times, just go out into State Street and kill yourself, no, not now, and I open the door to the huge empty Irish bar, same scene as usual, there's beautiful Yvonne, cleaning some beer pumps, she was gorgeous, she was way out of my league, now, what I've been thinking about all the way down is, this has to look normal, who else needs a drink at 9.15 in the morning, so I'm trying to finagle a drink into the conversation, I walk in, I'm like this, oh my God, she looks at me, I go, hey Yvonne, how you doing, she's all, Jesus Darren, how you doing young fella, I said, I'm okay, but I went out last night, and I shouldn't have drank too much, I think I've got the flu, and I've got to go to work, and I want to take today off, but I've taken the previous 14 Wednesdays off, with a hangover so bad, and magically she said to me, would you like a pint, I said, fuck yes, I'd like a pint, now it's her idea, as if I'm thinking about it, hurry up, and so I walk up to the bar, now here's the problem, I don't think I can wait the 30 seconds it's going to take her to pour this sucker, right, she waltzes around the bar, and she's pouring it away, and I'm just like, oh my God, and she looks my way, and hey, she finishes pouring it, and she comes all the way, comes up to me, puts it in front of me, but stands there, looking at me, and she wants to chit chat or some shit, and I just want to like, pull me knife out, and stab her in the neck, stab her in the neck, bleed her out, get her out of that awkward way, and just fucking get me drinking, I get me drinking, I finish it, I finish it in 0.3 seconds dude, but it hasn't quite done the trick, it hasn't quite done the trick, I'm going to have a nervous mental break, and I say Yvonne, that was nice, thank you so much, but there's something really wrong with me, and I don't know what she said, would you like a Jaeger, I said, oh yes, she doesn't bother with that shot glass bullshit, she gives me a tumbler full of that stuff, right, I'm feeling better just watching her pour that sucker all the way in, give me that thing, and I get that thing, and I glug it down, oh, hey, what was the problem, what was the problem dude, I've gone from a trembling, despairing, nervous wreck, to a man brimming over with self-reliance, like that, like that, and it takes me 30 seconds, now I'm all cocky and confident, now I'm going to go to work, I might even come back and shag Yvonne on my break, you never know, I go to work, I overshoot the mark, I wake up the next day, I've got 3 missed calls from the boss, oh my god that sense of impending doom, do you know why we live, with that sense of impending doom, because something bad is going to happen, that's why, and I answer the phone, boss get down here now, oh my god that gut punch, and I go all the way down, I'm crying when I get to the bar, now I know the gig is up, I had a job where you're allowed to have a cheeky little drink and I even screwed that up, and I went in and said please Raf, please don't fire me, you're out of here, there's something wrong with you, you have to go back to England, you have to go to rehab, I don't know what you need to do but you're a liability, you're not coming here, and I lost that job, and I went home, I came back to my bar the next day to see who took my shit, and I threw a pint over him, oh my god, Darren, out, we never want to see you again, it took me 2 weeks to get barred from every pub in downtown Santa Barbara, James Joyce, Old Mallies, Old Kings Road, the sportsman is difficult to get barred from, yeah, mine is that one as well, so now I'm just living to drink, I'm not a functioning alcoholic, I'm not a cute alcoholic, I'm a nightmare, 2 to 3 big bottles of vodka a day, drunk, and nobody's seen me for months, I'm living in a crappy house in a shitty room on the west side of town, I have my own entrance so nobody has to bother with me, the 3 other bartenders want nothing to do with me and that's fine with me, and I'm just living to drink, and a typical day for me would be I would come to and it would be pitch black outside, I have no idea whether it's night or day, I'd figure it out, it's 5am that darkest hour before the dawn,
[00:25:07]
now I have strong, horrible, warm vodka under my bed because I will need it at first daylight, but I desperately don't want to drink because I know what that means, and I could only wait about 10 or 15 minutes before the madness is about to hit, the terrors are about to hit, I'm hearing voices, I'm hearing my name, and I'm going to have a nervous mental breakdown, I'm suicidal on awakening, and I know what will make the big hurt away, the problem is this though, the problem is this will immediately work, but then I am immediately fucked, that's how alcohol works for me, and so I reach under the bed and I've got big tall bottles of vodka, I'm almost drinking with 4 fingers left in it, and I will need that, it's like a science project, and I suck that down, finish it before 6 just to take away the thoughts of suicide, but here's the problem, I've just fed the beast, and now the beast needs feeding, and I would put on my baggy clothes, and I would stumble along to Foodland liquor store less than one block away to steal 2 or hopefully 3 big bottles of vodka, one time I'm going along there and I see my reflection in a huge shop front window, and it's so outrageous, I come back to look at it, I'm like oh my god, and I go all the way up, and I've got a big bushy beard, my hair is everywhere dude, I'm sunken down in yellowy jaundice, I'm so underweight, I'm 15 years older than I should, and I remember I said to myself, wow, I better not tell anyone about that, and I carry on to Foodland liquor store, and I steal me vodka, I come clinking off home, no you can't just get a home and pound the vodka and pass out, no, no, no, it's like a science project, I've got it, depending on how much I've stolen, that first bottle needs to get me into the later afternoon, for the second bottle to get me to later at night, I'm trying to get to 9 o'clock or 10 o'clock or maybe 11 o'clock at night to catch a good enough sleep to wake up and not have to drink like that ever again, and it says the mind and body are marvellous mechanisms, I drank like that for 2 more years, 2 more years of jails, institutions, and death was close, and death was welcomed, the first speaker talks about that, you can't scare an alcoholic with death at that stage of alcoholism, it's like bring it on dude, but it doesn't have the dignity to take us quickly, my fear is not dying an alcoholic death, my fear is living an alcoholic life, some of us don't die, we are tough, and here's how I got sober, I came to one morning, there was no vodka under my bed, that had never ever ever happened to me before, there wasn't even an empty bottle, I took it as a sign that this is the day I'm going to kill myself, and I was fine with that, I tried to kill myself 2 months prior, all my roommates were downtown at midnight, having excluded me again as usual, I'm maudlin drunk, and I remember one of them has an arsenal of weapons in his bedroom, so I break in, I jimmy the door, and I break in there, I find, and I'm an English guy, I don't know what to do with a fucking gun, you know what I mean, but I find a loaded gun, I go in staggering into the living room, and I put it in my mouth, it's heavy on my teeth, and I'm like, go blow the back of my head off, or do you shoot up through the roof of your mouth, then the thought came to me, Darren if you pull the trigger right now, it's late, if you pull the trigger, you'll definitely wake the neighbours up, you know what I mean, I'm too polite for that shit, so I throw the loaded gun back in the room, go back to my miserable part of the house, and finish the job, one month after that, I found a whole bottle of pills in my other roommate's bedroom, and I googled it, this shit should have killed a goddamn elephant dude, I took all that with a big bottle of vodka, and I just came through it, I don't know how I survived it, I had a rotten stomach for over a month, but today I'm going to kill myself, and I'm as calm as can be, I wait a couple of hours figuring out how to do it, and I decided to throw myself off Santa Barbara's biggest bridge, it's called Cold Springs Bridge, it's a popular suicide spot in my area, a bit like the Golden Gate, so I jump in my beat up vehicle, I drive all the way up this mountain road, and I park, and I walk to the centre of the bridge, and I pause, because I know it's going to kill me mum, and there's a moment of grace that comes in then, when some guy in AA told me the truth, and I was sharing drunk and saying this shit doesn't work, AA sucks, fuck you, and he took me to the side and said Darren you can't say AA doesn't work, you've never done anything to do with AA, and I said I've been coming here for a year old man, he said well first of all you have to come sober for it to work better, and he said and a drunk like you, you need to go through the 12 steps to have a spiritual awakening and all this, and all this information comes like oh my god he's right, I've never done that shit, I had two secrets, one is that I didn't have a sponsor, and two I didn't know what a step was, I was just turning up drunk to get there, They're just turning up drunk to get there.
And so I know I can't just come skipping in to AA, going, where's those Golden Twelve Steps?
[00:30:01]
I'm so happy to be here. You know, I needed to be medically detoxed one more time. I've been going to the lockdown psychiatric unit regularly. And so I jump in my vehicle, drive all the way back down to Santa Barbara. I go to Cottage Hospital Emergency Room and I park in my usual spot. I'd been there four times that year, it was only April. As I pull in, I side swipe the car next to me. I've just driven down a goddamn mountain road and I have a crash in the car park of the hospital.
The security there, two police cops around the corner, they come round to see what all the noise was and I get out of the car and say, I'm sorry sir, that was my fault. I've got my ID, but I need to go into the hospital. Two cops, the first one comes right up to me. And the first thing he says was, whoa, have you been drinking? And I'm like, that's a weird first question. I said, no mate, have you?
They don't like that approach. The other cops like behind, like almost rooting for me, just wondering what's going on. He said, you're doing some field sobriety tests. I said, okay. I do, it's about 11 a.m. now, I do all these field sobriety tests perfectly. He's pissed. He looks at his mate, his mate goes, you're doing some more. I said, okay, I'll do some more. He said, you have to blow into this device.
I blow into his breathalyzer and I blow 0.32. I haven't even had a drink yet. I'm waking up at a 0.32 and then I'm drinking two or sometimes three big bottles of vodka. Anything after a 0.3, vital organs start to fail on normal people, not on you lot, on normal people. And at a 0.4, you're in a coma and it's a medical fact that many of them would die. They cannot believe it. They're like jibber jabbering with each other and I'm like, is this a good thing or is this a bad thing?
And then he comes towards me and gets the handcuffs out. I've been unusually confident until then. I said, whoa, what are you doing? He said, turn around, you're going. And I have detoxed in jail before, man. It is the worst horror of your life. And I said, look, dude, look, if you take me to jail right now, I will kill somebody. I said, I'm small, mate, but I am dangerous. I'm telling you that. And then I started to use the language of Alcott Stoneman to start telling him like I knew him.
Look, I've been going to AA, but I haven't been doing shit. I need to get a sponsor. I need to do the 12 steps. Please let me into the lockdown psychiatric unit. They have a file on me in there. And something magical starts happening. Of course, they arrest me, but they don't take me to jail. They take me to the lockdown, take me to the police station. Thank God that felt so much safer to me. And now I'm handcuffed in the back of the squad car and we're getting along great.
They radio ahead to tell their colleagues. They said, oh my God, we've got this Irishman and he blew a 0.32. I said, I'm English, you moron. Oh, okay. They fingerprint me on there. And somebody they know and trust comes and picks me up and takes me back to the lockdown psychiatric unit. It's almost like, so what? I've been there four times. I've gotten drunk twice on the way home from there. Now the lockdown psychiatric unit, I know it sounds a little bit miserable and stuff.
And it is a bit like one flew over the cuckoo's nest, but I love me some lockdown psychiatric unit, me. I love it. Because now I'm getting a bit jittery and the DTs are coming in and I know what's coming my way. A lot of narcotics are coming my way, mate. And I know the drill. I know the drill in there. I know everybody that works in there. I go to the little window where the person's working behind there.
And I know her and she knows me and like, hello, Mary, back again, love. Did you have a nice Christmas? Yeah, okay. I would like 118 Valiums, please. Two pints of Seroquel. Whatever the fuck they are on the top shelf, they look ace. I would like me usual room, unless that's taken, Mary. And then I'll have the penthouse suite. That's all right with you. And they take me laces off me. They take me belt off me so I don't kill myself.
And they put me in me room. And now I know what I need to do next. I know exactly what I need to do next. I need to find myself a girlfriend. That's what I need to do. And I'm all lit up. I'm confident. I wanted to kill myself a few hours previously. Now I'm ready to start judging people again. Look at all these losers in the lockdown psychiatric unit. What a bunch of morons. And so I know I'm going to find her.
I'm going to find her in the day room. She's been in the TV room. So I got Saunter into the TV room. Look at all these weirdos here. And then I see her, the love of me life. I see her. She's doing the nuttiest bird in there. She's doing laps around the couch. I'm like, oh, she's gorgeous. Look at her over there. And I go over to her. She's got like black hair and it's all in front of her. She looks like that girl out of that film.
What's it called? The fucking Ring or something. She's going. And I lovingly go up to her and I grab her by the hand and we do laps around the couch together. It's just love, dude. And then they detox me from the alcohol and they detox me from the drugs that they detox me from and let me out. And they pop me out nine days sober one more time. But so what? What's the difference? This time I'd hit bottom.
It wasn't my worst drunk. Hitting bottom gets misrepresented in Alcoholics Anonymous all the time.
[00:35:01]
Hitting bottom for me is very specific. Hitting bottom is when you ask somebody for help and follow through with all the directions. The rest of it's a bunch of bullshit in our bullshit war stories. Think about it. My friends tell me, Darren, I was in prison drinking pruno out of the bed frame and gang warfare going on. Like, that's a bad story, dude. But you hadn't hit bottom. I hadn't hit bottom.
I'm like, no, you carried on drinking and using. Or the girl will tell me, Darren, I was selling my body on State Street so I could get high 10 minutes later. I'm like, listen, love, that's a bad story. But you haven't hit bottom. Hitting bottom is when you ask for help and follow through with all the directions. And I came out of the lockdown psychiatric unit. It was a Wednesday. I didn't get drunk that afternoon.
And I went to a very powerful men's stag called the Junkyard Dogs on a Wednesday night. There was dozens of men properly armed with the facts about themselves and the illness of alcoholism. They'd seen me in a state that whole year. I went straight up to Mike. I said, hey, Mike, I just got out of the unit again. I'm gonna drink tonight, dude. You know it, I know it. What do I have to do? And he looked at me and went, Jesus, Darren, are you sober right now?
I said, yeah. He'd never seen me sober. He said, oh my God, let's get into action. Let's do a third step prayer. Normally we do some reading, 60 pages, ABCs. Let's just do a third step prayer. Now, I don't pray, dude. I don't believe in God. I hate religion. I hate all that shit. I said, what, in front of all these 80 men? He said, yeah. I said, okay. I said, okay, because the no had been beating out of me, man.
The no had been beating out of me, and I hit my knees. We did a third step prayer in front of everybody. We went into that meeting. It was great. I went home that night, and I wrote 100 names on my fourth step. I got up at 5 a.m. the next day, shaking and baking, and I wrote 100 more, and I called this man, and it wasn't even 6 a.m., and he answered the phone. He answered the phone, and I can never repay this man, because he knew.
He knew it was me, and he knew I was gonna drink again, and I called him 12 times that day to finish all three inventories. I went to his house the next day, and we did my fifth step, and before he sent me home for me hour, he gave me a big hug and said, Darren, this has never happened to me before, dude. I said, I'm glad you're feeling good, mate, because I feel like shit, dude. He said, oh, don't worry, dude.
Trust in the process, and then we did six and seven, and then I transferred my list, and I added to my list. On my fourth day of sobriety, I went around Santa Barbara and made 21 amends. 21 amends. I was rocketed into a fourth dimension. I couldn't believe it. Shit, my heart, my little English heart filled up so much. I'm like, this is true. This is why Dave's into it so much. This is why the speakers, they're gonna have a good time.
This is why Pat sponsors all these. It must have happened. It happened to me. Finally, I saw, I felt, I believed, and a full heart, man, a full heart. If you've had a full heart, you know what I'm talking about. You wanna call that God? I don't give a shit. I don't care, and I realized, oh my God, this is why me little mum likes to go to church on Sundays so much. Most boring hour of my life, but she must feel a little heart, so I kinda got it, and I was overwhelmed.
I'd recovered from alcoholism there and then. I felt so good, I got up the next day, and I went to Foodland Liquor Store, and I said, I need to speak to the manager. I said, look, man, I don't want it. I'm sorry to tell you this. I live less than one block away. I'm a really bad drunk, but I'm trying to live differently. I've been stealing from your store for well over a year. It comes to $2,750. I've just started work for the first time in years, dude, and it's Friday.
There's 25 bucks, $25. I said, I'll be back every Friday with $25 on payday till I've paid that whole amount off and any interest you determine. I said, is there anything else I can do to make this right? And he said, wow. And I said, wow. And I floated off to make some more financial amends. I couldn't believe how good it felt to give you your money back. I said to my sponsor, what's next? He said, Jesus, Darren, this has never happened to me before.
10 and 11, like 10 and 11, what are you talking about? I said, yeah, I'll show you what to do right here, right now to postpone the punishment of. I'll show you what to do in the morning, what to do at night. I'm like, what? He said, yeah, you can stay sober the rest of your life if you continue to do this, but you need to do all of it, all of it. I call it the guaranteed version of sobriety. Two minutes in the morning, two minutes at night.
I'm all, postpone the punishment of. He said, yeah, weren't you lot, weren't you being punished your last few weeks, months, or even years of your drinking and using? Dude, it was a living hell. And I get to put that off one day at a time, prayer and meditation, even though I don't know what I'm doing. I got to try it and review your day. I'm like, oh my God. I said, I am in, dude. I am in. I am sold on the plan outlined in this book.
Now I'll tell you now, I absolutely suck at meditation. I suck at it.
[00:40:01]
Bad. It's taken me 18 years, 18 years to go from two minutes meditation to 10 minutes meditation, 18 years. But hey, God loves him a little try-er, dude. God loves him a little fucking try-er. My God, my God is laughing his bearded ass off at me doing my shitty prayer and meditation in the mornings in me bedroom. Laughing his ass off going, look at that little fuck doing his shitty prayer and meditation.
Look at him. And he sucks at it as well. Look at him. But he says this, he says, you know what? But you know what? Check. Give that little wanker another day of sobriety. That's what my God does. He doesn't care that I'm a potty mouth man from Manchester. He cares about my actions and my helping others. And I was in, dude. I'm sold on the plan outlined in this book. This is the best thing that's ever happened to me.
Now you've got to feed your own soul around here. They're talking about going to one meeting a week. Dude, that will not cut it for me. Now you've got to decide between yourself and your sponsor what fills your soul and feeds your soul. But I have to be active. I have to go to a shitload of meetings. I have to do H&I. I started sponsoring people at 30 Days Sober. I didn't know what I was doing, but my sponsor knew, right?
I just have to be into action. I got to be in the trenches doing it all. I have to work a very, very good program just to feel normal, dude. Yeah, you're as sick as me, some of you. Just to feel normal. I got to work a very, very good program. Dude, I sponsor so many men in Santa Barbara. I do so much AA. I should be the Delhi fucking llama or some shit, you know? I do all that just to feel normal.
I'm the kind of alcoholic. I need affection all the time. I need praise all the time. I need petting. I should have been a fucking dog or a cat or something. I need to be petted, dude. I want a round of applause for not hitting snooze and getting up right away. You know what I mean? Dude, one time I went home to see my mum. I was five years sober. And there's another guy who says something similar.
I swear to God, this was my experience. And I go to see her and I'm five years sober and I'm so stoked. You know what I want? I want a bit of good feedback, don't I? I want a bit of good praise. And we're having a cup of tea and she's chitter-chattering and I kind of glide my coin out while she's talking and slap it on the table. She ignores it, so I slide it over while she's talking. She's all, what's this shit?
I said, it's a coin, mum, look. Look, it's got a five on it. She picks it up. I said, mum, I'm five years sober. She said, so's the bloody dog. I said, fuck you. Then she tries to figure out how long Toby's been longer sober than me. Like, hang on, isn't the dog eight? You know, like, fucking. I wanted a pat on the fucking head, you know? Like, well, good job. But she gave me exactly what I needed.
A kick up the arse. She doesn't care about shit like that. I'll finish with this. So I'm able to give some talks around and about because I've got a funny accent and stuff and I was speaking at this Akipore convention somewhere in San Jose in the Bay Area, right? I'm from Santa Barbara. I'm in the Bay Area. And, you know, these things are nuts, dude. Have you ever seen 3,000 young maniacs running around this Hilton complex, right?
Now, I'm the closeout speaker. So everybody's already fucking left for the most part. I wasn't thinking about that much. And so there's about 600 or 700 kids left, right? Most of them have been hospitalized because they've overdosed on Red Bull. But don't worry, they put them on a monster drip and they were okay, you know? And so, now I'm sat on the stage and there's a girl next to me who's gonna talk before me.
And she's like, it's really rude. Everybody's looking at us and she's texting on her phone. And, of course, that's none of my business. So I get involved right away. What the fuck are you doing, like? Put your phone away. She's like, I know I'm having a problem with my sponsor in LA where I'm from. She's having a real problem. I'm trying to find this, that, and the other. Now, we've never met. She's come from LA and we're in the San Jose Bay Area.
Her sponsor in LA got sober 21 years ago with a bunch of people and two of them stayed sober. This guy, 90 days sober, moved to Maui, Hawaii, stayed sober for 21 years, raised two kids. His two kids are dying of untreated alcoholism. The only number he has on the mainland is this girl. So he texts her, she texts, this is called the events of the world of the spirit. She texts her and she says, I'll put my phone away but I'm trying to find somebody from Santa Barbara.
I said, I'm from Santa Barbara. I'll give you my number and we'll take care of it. So we do that, we give the talks, everything goes great. Now, we're going home. Now, when I speak out of town, that's Pat and the other speakers, when I speak out of town, I take all my toughest sponsors, you know what I mean? All the tatted up guys. I mean, you don't know what's gonna happen. I mean, you don't know what's going to happen. You might run into some of them NA fuckers, you know what I mean? And so, we're flying home on the freeway and I call this guy, you
[00:45:04]
know, all sleeved up and necked up, and I put him on his own speakerphone, and I said, hey, my name's Darren, I'm just coming home from a convention, I was told to call you, what's going on? And this guy just starts crying his eyes out. He can't even get a sentence, he's just crying, it's such a moment of humility. Like, it's alright man, don't worry about it, he's crying and crying, and I want to cry, I want to cry, but I'm with these tough guys, you know what I mean? And I look over, I'm like, are you fucking crying, dude? He's like, he's got a sleeve, are you fucking sleeved up, what the fuck? And I look behind, I'm like, are you just crying in the back and all? Dude, you've got tattoos on your face, you pussy, what the fuck are you crying for? We're all crying and shit. Eventually, he catches his breath and he says, look, I've never asked for anything in Alcoholics Anonymous, off anybody, except that the hand of AAB there, if my boys ever need it, and they are in bad shape. I said, dude, I will do anything to help, I'm pretty well connected, where are they, what state are they in? He said, they both attend Santa Barbara City College. I said, I work at Santa Barbara City College. We have entered the world of the spirit. And I go back to Santa Barbara and I find those two young fine men, and one of them is a proud member of the Junkyard Dogs and he's killing it, and the other one is dying of untreated alcoholism. The ying and the yang of Alcoholics Anonymous. We are lucky in here to be sober and present right now. Now, if you're having a problem with God like I had a problem with God, maybe you can think of this. Religion might be for those people that are trying to avoid going to hell. Spirituality is for people that have been to hell. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much, Darren. Darren will be around. We have a small gift from the committee.