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Source: Doug R – From Tujunga, California – Date Unknown.mp3 File: doug-r-from-tujunga-california-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:10:00
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Sorry it took me so long to get there, baby. Hi everybody, my name's Doug Rowell. I'm a grateful alcoholic. I'm grateful to be an alcoholic and I'm grateful to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And the reason I say that, I don't know, piss off the newcomers I guess. What did that guy say, he was grateful to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous? You must have a real exciting life. Best thing that ever happened to him, he joined AA.
That's right, that's right, that's the best thing that ever happened to me. But I didn't know it when I was joining it. I didn't come here to find out if I was an alcoholic. Some people do. In fact, there may be somebody here tonight who came here to see if you're an alcoholic. If that's why you're here, I've got bad news. That's not something that non-alcoholics ever do. But here's the deal, I just recently heard that there's a test you can do to see if you're an alcoholic.
I didn't know this when I was thinking about it. What you do is, on a Sunday afternoon, whether you're watching a football game or doing whatever you're doing, playing with the kids, you have two beers, and they can be 16 ounce or 12 ounce, it doesn't matter. But two beers only and nothing more. And then you don't have anything to drink for the rest of the week. And then the next Sunday, you repeat that, you have two beers again.
And you do this for eight Sundays in a row without drinking it or lying about it. Going from Sunday to Sunday with only two beers each Sunday. And if you can do that, that proves that you're not an alcoholic. Unless you're doing it to prove you're not an alcoholic. I want to thank the committee for inviting Carla and me to come here. We've been hearing about Crested Butte for years, and we just never managed to get up here.
And we were real excited to come here, and we're real excited to be here. A couple people mentioned that it took three months or ten days or whatever to get here. Carla and I spoke this last weekend in Deadwood, South Dakota, at the Pajasapa Roundup. And then we went right from L.A. to Rapid City, South Dakota. And then Sunday, we were leaving, after the Sunday speaker, leaving South Dakota to come here.
And we made the flight from South Dakota to Denver, but it was held up for weather. And when we got there, our plane was on the tarmac, but we didn't make it from getting our luggage to getting over to the plane. And we missed it. So we ended up, because it was weather, they said, sorry, we'll see you tomorrow. So we booked a flight in the morning and stayed at a hotel, and it was nice. As a matter of fact, a dear friend of Carla's that she's been working with lives in Denver.
And we got to have breakfast with her, and she got to spend some time together. So there's always a silver lining to those clouds. And then we went to the airport, and we got there early to make sure that we got on the plane, an 1115 plane, which after a while was postponed to 1145, and then was postponed to 1215. And then at one point they had us coming down the ladder, the stairs, and out to the plane.
And we're standing right outside the plane, and they said, there's some kind of maintenance problem. We don't know if it's serious or minor. But everybody go back upstairs. So we went back upstairs, and we sat there. And there's about eight what they call gates. The doors in this room would qualify as two gates. So there's a lot of people there, vacationing families. And they're making lots of noise, and kids are running around.
And they have a loudspeaker system that says things like, The plane to Gunnison is about to take off. Attention all passengers going to Wichita. And once they would postpone a plane, then they would cancel the flight. And everybody's listening to see if it's their flight. And finally about 3 o'clock, about 2.30, we figured if we're going to… Well, I already knew by then that Sterling was going to cover for me.
So we said, we need to get to Crested Butte by 8 p.m. We finally said, they could postpone and postpone and cancel again,
[00:05:00]
or we could end up driving all night to get here. Let's leave early enough so we know we get there to hear Sterling's talk. So we left about…actually, we got out of there about 4. And we zipped up the highway or down the highway and got in here. And we pulled in real quick and ran in the hotel and found out where the meeting was. And we came in to hear…we got here at 20 minutes to 8. We ran in the room and heard most of Sterling's talk.
I wish Dan had been introducing him. We would have heard the whole damn thing, but… Laughter Who put that man up there? He ain't right. Get him down from there. Laughter They said that to me all my life. Anyway, Carla and I are just delighted to be here. And you're going to hear her talk Thursday. And I want to thank everybody that had anything to do with this. Steve was in contact with us the whole time we were stuck in Denver.
And we had…help took us back this morning down to Gunnison to return our rent-a-car and got us up, and he's been great. And our host for today, Buckley, took us out for dinner tonight. And Tim and Renee said they're going to take us tomorrow. Lee, your taper, got us tickets to the chairlift, and at some point we're planning on getting on that zip line, too. So we're real excited to be here. We love big AA conferences and little AA meetings, and we just love Alcoholics Anonymous.
Our whole life is centered around Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't come to AA to stop drinking. My…I could tell you my…it hasn't been necessary for me to take a drink or a mind-altering chemical since my very first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous on September 26th of 1986. But no, no, wait. Necessary or not, I drank on the way home from that meeting, and I just missed the whole part about it's not necessary.
It seemed like a good idea. I had a couple of friends who'd gotten sober in AA, and I liked what was happening in their life. There's my friend Teddy. I missed her as a drinking partner, but she was fun to drink with, but she was also dangerous. You know, you might get in a fight with somebody you actually kind of would like if you hadn't been introduced by Teddy. So she got sober, and her life turned around.
I mean, she would be where she said she was going to be when she said she was going to be there, dressed appropriately, speaking in whole sentences. I was impressed with that, but I didn't… But she was always talking about AA, and I finally said, Listen, Teddy, if I ever see alcohol interfering with my life, I probably will go to AA, okay? And she really hadn't tried to 12-step me blatantly or anything, but when I said that if I see alcohol interfering with my life, she said, You mean like last year when you lost these two jobs?
I was a prop man for TV shows, and long story short, I lost one of them because I was too drunk to work, so I didn't go to work, and they fired me. And then the other one I lost because I was too drunk to go to work, and I went to work, and they fired me. So, you know, it's like they're out to get you, you know? And I had had my daughter… My daughter's mother and I had split up when my daughter was about two years old, and I had stayed in her life, and she was about 12 now, and her mother had remarried, and he's a great guy.
I liked him a lot, and he liked me. We got along fine. I'd pick up my daughter after school sometimes and keep her around, and we'd play and do stuff until her mom came home from work, and so, you know, I was part of her life. And she was the most important person in my life. One Saturday, I was supposed to pick her up at noon. We were going to go see a movie, and then we were going to go out to dinner.
She was going to spend the night at my house. I'd bring her back Sunday afternoon, and I got there at noon like I was supposed to, but I was drunk. And I didn't mean to be drunk by noon. I just, you know, started drinking, and I'm kind of a compulsive over-drinker. And I got to the house, and I wasn't there five minutes before her stepfather walked me out on the front porch, and he said, Doug, you're drunk.
And, you know, let me tell you something. If you're new and somebody says, have you been drinking? They already know the answer. That's not the hill you want to die on, you know. Yeah, I'm drunk. And I said, yeah, I'm drunk. I'm sorry. He said, so am I. You know, because I can't let Star get in the car with you. You know, I can't. And he was right. I knew he was right. I thought maybe I could handle it, you know, but he was right.
[00:10:03]
And I said, I'm really sorry, Stu. And he said, I'm really sorry, too. You know, Star really loves you, and she's going to be very disappointed. And I said, so am I. And I got in the car, and I started to drive home, and I just started thinking about what a lousy parent I was and how could I not stay sober until noon so I could spend the day with my daughter, you know. And I just started sobbing. And I started crying.
I couldn't even see to drive, and I turned on the windshield wipers. And, yeah, it really was no help at all. And I pulled into a parking lot, and I sat there in the parking lot. I parked my car, and I opened the door, and I put my feet out on the tarmac, on the concrete, yeah, pavement. And I just put my head in my hands, and I just sobbed. I just sobbed like a baby because I was so disgusted with myself.
And I looked up, and I saw this red neon sign that said liquor. And I went in that liquor store, and I bought a pint of whiskey and came back and had a couple of pulls and got my head together, and I drove home. And, you know, I've told this story a lot, and every time I tell it in an AA venue, there's heads nodding. Sterling's down here going, yeah, yeah, I get it. Head over there nodding, there's a head over there nodding, because you are the ones who understand that.
Most earth people just don't get that thing. You know, like if you tell this story at a PTA meeting, you know, they look at you like you're an unfit parent and say things like, I'm sorry, I don't know if I understood that. It sounded like you said you were so distraught over your drinking that you drank. Yeah, that's right. And then I could drive. I hope you weren't on Tampa Avenue. I've been assessed to be a danger to myself and others, you know, so stay out of my neighborhood.
But, you know, that's not something I wanted to do. Teddy, you mentioned that. You lost these two jobs. You've been asked not to come to your daughter's house drunk anymore. Stu told me, you're welcome in our home anytime, sober. Don't come over here drunk anymore. It's very hard on Star. Man. She said, you know, you skied off a cliff drunk. I did. We were up at Mammoth, and the way I like to ski is I like to get there at 830 when the lifts open and be one of the first ones on the chair, you know, and get up the chair.
I take my gloves off, and I pin them to my vest, and I reach over here and get my little vial of cocaine and put that away. And by the way, if there's anybody in here that's offended by mentioning drugs in an AA meeting, I don't know what to do about it. It's part of my story, and if I leave it out, I'll be telling less than the truth. But if I had known, you know, I didn't know where my life was going to go.
If I had, the first time somebody said, hey, man, try this, I would have said, you know, I'd love to, but I'm going to be speaking at an AA meeting in 30 years. I don't want to piss anybody off. Anyway, I get this vial of cocaine. I have a little one-on-one to wake up, and I reach over here and get my little flask and have a shot of Irish whiskey. Yeah, and put that away. Get my little windless pipe and enjoy the scenery on the way up.
Put that away, and as soon as I hit my skis, make sure the bindings are good, grab my Bota bag, have a little shot of white wine. And then I'm ready to go, because I'm a soul skier. You know what I'm saying? It's more important to feel it than to see it, really. It comes down to the choice. And it's good. I'll be all loose and everything, but the thing is, if you start this at 830 in the morning, by 330, after you've done 20, 30 runs, you're really in no condition to be involved in an athletic event.
So I was up at Mammoth, and long story short, I skied off a 25-foot cliff. If I say it like that, it sounds like it was an accident. No, I skied by this cliff several times, and it was right after the Winter Olympics. It's just, I mean, I think they jump like 170 meters or something like that, 25 feet. But you know how they lean way out over their skis and they look like a bird? I didn't do that. I thought they did that for show.
It turns out if you don't do that, your skis go straight up in the air. That's how you find out things like this. And so I came down upside down. And so I came down upside down, I landed on my shoulder, fortunately, instead of my head, and I broke my shoulder, and they took me down, the ski patrol took me down, they had to take me down the hill and put me in the hospital, operated on my shoulder, and I was out of work for six weeks, and I had just gotten back to work, I was back to work about a month, somebody had a party that lasted all night long, and a lot of the people had left, but there was about a half a dozen of us left, and the woman who owned the house said, her car was blocked in the driveway, people had parked all over her lawn and everything,
[00:15:27]
if somebody would take me to the store and get some eggs, I'll make breakfast, so I said, I'll do it, I have my Harley parked out on the street, so we went and got on my scooter, and we're going to the store, Harley and eggs, I don't know why I thought that was a good combination, but we're going down the road, you know, and it's early in the morning, it's like, it's April, you know, and in Southern California, April, the beginning of spring is just brisk, it's not cold, and it's not hot, and the sun is just coming up over the horizon, and it's just gorgeous, besides that, there was no helmet law, so our hair is flying in the air, you know, and we're going in, and it just was so sexy, we both had the same idea, wouldn't it be beautiful to make love in the great outdoors, and I don't know if you're familiar with downtown Burbank, but it's a, not a lot of great love-making venues, I mean, we weren't going to rent a motel or anything, you know, and so, but we found this four-story parking structure, and the gate was locked, you couldn't get in, but there was a fire escape, so we parked by the fire escape, and we went up the fire escape, and then the door was locked at the top, so we climbed up, we didn't climb over anything, because it's got to be unlocked from the inside, so I jumped up and grabbed that wall, and I'm going to fall over, you know, the top, and open the door, I didn't, actually, I fell over the front, and I was hanging by this wall, I knew I was going to think of something to get me over that wall, but instead, I'm watching this wall go by like this.
My dad was an engineer, he was a mathematician, and he figured out 185 pound man falling 54 feet takes 1.3 seconds, and not a lot of time, but you know, if you fall off your one-story house, you're on the ground almost before you knew you fell, 54 feet is long enough to go, shit. So, I landed on my feet, and my knees buckled, and my foot came up, and broke my pelvis in two places, and which snapped the heel bone off my right foot, and shoved it through my foot like a bowling ball, and so I didn't walk away from that one, but here's the deal, God has always been with me, whether I like it or not.
This was the parking structure of St. Joseph's Hospital, so my gal pal ran into the hospital, and she said, my friend just fell off your parking lot, and it broke him, and so they took me in the hospital, and I was in there for 10 days. I really, my pelvis was broken in two places, so I couldn't move very much, and you know, all the big muscles in your body are connected at your pelvis, so if I moved my arm, it hurt my back, my pelvis, you know, if I moved my leg, my foot looked like a tether ball with multicolored green, and black, and blue, and yellow, and orange, and with little toes sticking out, and you know, you see something like that at the end of your leg, you're going, oh, it's going to be a while, you know.
Friends of mine were bringing me in gifts, and it never occurred to me to say to the doctors, look, I know you're giving me Demerol and Percodan for the pain, thank you, I'm self-administering Irish whiskey and cocaine, is that going to be a conflict, you know, and it turned out, you know, if it was a conflict, I was evidently able to withstand it, but I was in the hospital for 10 days, and they finally operated on my foot.
See, they didn't want to cut the skin, because it was so damaged that if they put it in a cast, they were afraid it would get gangrene, so they just manipulated it. They'd take an x-ray, then they'd move bones around, and they'd pin them, then the x-ray, and it was in there for 10 hours, and they finally got it so it looked like a foot, and it took me five months before I could walk without a cane, and it also turns out I had a .40 blood alcohol level that night.
So my friend Teddy is just going, if you see alcohol interfering with your life, you mean like when you lost those two jobs, like when you've been asked not to come to your daughter's house drunk, like when you skied off a cliff and broke your shoulder, like when you fell off a four-story building, took you five months to learn to walk with a .40 blood alcohol level, what would you call interference?
[00:20:04]
What would you call interference? Brain death? Would that do it? And I said, you know, I don't think accidents should count, because drunk or sober, you fall off a four-story building, you're going to get hurt. I mean, it just, it was irrelevant, but all that week, all that week, I'd be at work or something, and I'd have a little quiet moment, you know, and I'd picture Teddy's face saying, what would you call interference? Brain death?
And I started thinking, man, any one of those accidents could have been brain death if I had just fallen a little differently. It was just luck that I didn't, and it certainly was all alcohol related. Maybe next time it will be brain death, because it's bound to be a next time. I'm like the jaywalker, you know. Scared me. So I rushed down to AA three years later. I'm not one to make snap judgments, in my best interest.
So, but I went to my first AA meeting. Somebody told me if you want to go to, if you want to check out an AA meeting, go to a big speaker meeting, they'll leave you alone. Not the truth, but it's a lie. I mean, it's my first AA lie. But I guess he meant, you know, they won't ask you to share or something. But anyway, I went there. I got there early, and I'm watching people set up chairs and make coffee, and everybody's hugging and laughing, and I'm standing over against the wall, you know, like this, with my best leave me alone look on.
And there's another guy leaning against the wall on the other side of the double doors. We were cool. You know, we were so cool, we didn't even talk to each other. And a few were coming up, you're new, you're new, no, I'm not, you're new, no, I'm not. One guy came up, you're new, no, I'm not. What's your name? My name's Doug, and I've never been here before. Oh, that's what I mean by new, man, you're new like you've never been here before.
Yeah, okay, well, that's all right, Doug, pleased to meet you. I said, yeah, listen, I'm not here to join up. I'm new like a new, like I've never been here, but I'm not new like a new member. I'm not new like a new drunk that's come here to not be a drunk anymore. That's not me. I just came to see what it is. I'm checking it out, man. I'm auditing the class, okay? You know, I'm just over here minding my own business.
You might try that sometime. I'm just not a joiner, man. It's just not who I am. It's, you know, I'm a loner. I'm an outlaw, man. I'm a desperado. I'm a misfit, pal, you know, a misfit. I never fit any place in my life. I didn't fit school. I don't fit in the workplace. I barely fit in my own damn family. I'm certainly not going to fit here in Alcoholics Anonymous, hug, hug, laugh, laugh. Isn't it good we're not drinking?
Yeah, I don't think so. Just not my deal, man. It's good for you. You know, I'm glad all you people got all this, but, you know, I'm fine over here by myself. Like, he should have been insulted and walked away, but he goes, you're going to fit right in. You know, and he was right. But I remember from that meeting, I don't remember. I know that was a speaker meeting, and it's funny. I should remember who the speaker was.
There's some things I remember. I remember they had three different kinds of coffee. I remember they had a literature table with a bunch of literature set up on it. They had a birthday that night. The secretary said, we have a birthday tonight for Ruth, excuse me, for 18 years. And I thought, well, that's kind of cool. They celebrate people's birthdays. I didn't know they did that. So I'm looking around for Ruth, some 18-year-old tiny honey, and Ruth gets up.
She's walking up to the front. It's one of those meetings with a stage, you know, it's a proscenium stage, and you've got to walk up steps to get to it. And they've got a piano up there, a podium like this, and Ruth is walking up toward the stage. She's the only one walking. That's got to be Ruth. Ruth is 50 if she's a day. And I thought, god damn, if she's 18, she should stop drinking. She didn't look bad.
She looked pretty good. You know, she was all dressed up and made up and coiffed. She looked fine for 50. She just looked a little whip for a teenager is all. And I thought, okay, I get it. I'm going to figure out it. Ruth is 18. This is AA. They don't drink here. Ruth hasn't had a drink in 18 years. I get it. So Ruth gets up to the podium, and she says, my name's Ruth, and I'm an alcoholic.
[00:25:02]
And everybody, of course, goes, hey, Ruth! I'm still standing back at the back, as is the other cool guy. We're the whole cool section here. People had told me I could sit down. I said, I get it. People come in. They put down a purse, put down a jacket, put down keys. No keys, no purse, no jacket. That seat's available. I'm going to figure out it. I get it. I may not be able to stay through the whole meeting, so I don't want to cause a scene if I have to leave.
Like, how would I know if I had to leave the meeting? I mean, nobody had a cell phone then. I mean, there were mobile phones, but they were big. They were in briefcases. Surgeons had them, and producers had them. I didn't even have a pager. Nobody wanted to contact me. What do I need a pager for? I would be like, if they had pagers for, like, don't come over here, I would be like, eh, eh, eh, eh. Hey, hi, hey, hi, it's Doug.
Are you guys going to be home, because I want to come over there and visit. No, no, we're not, Doug. You know, we're just walking out the door, man. I don't know how long we'll be gone. Long time. Yeah, we'll be gone a long time. So, yeah, don't come over here. Okay. Love you, Mom. You know, me and this other cool guy are standing back at the back of the room, and everybody says, hi, Ruth. My friend Scott R. said it the best, I think.
This is some level of lameness I never knew was available to me. I love Scott. Carla and I were listening to a CD collection of Scott on the 12 Steps when we were driving from Denver to here, and at one point he said his wife finally had to tell him, his wife Nancy was an al-anon, serious al-anon, and she said, Scott, you're not a mind reader. You're barely a mind user. Anyway, I miss that guy. Ruth says, I want you to know that over these last 18 years of sobriety, I've attended a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous every single day.
Yeah, and I see some people going, oh, that's what I did. Some people were like, oh, yeah, she does. She never misses. Eighteen years, every single day, I'm in the back going, you're a little slow, ain't you, Ruth? You are not the sharpest knife in the drawer, honey. She'd go home every night and her husband says, how was the meeting, honey? I've got to go back tomorrow. I don't know, you know, but I'm chuckling, and I look over at the other cool guy, and that's when I realize he's not cool.
I'm the only cool one in the whole room. He's a member. I don't know why he's standing in the back. Maybe he's got a newcomer catcher commitment or something, but he's heading over to me, and he's got his hand out, you know, like we do, and that sunbeam for Jesus smile, you know. And he comes over to me, and he shakes my hand, and he says, I'll tell you what, you stay sober a year, we'll give you one of them cakes.
Oh, be still, my heart. Really of my own? That's what he said, don't drink for a year, and we'll give you a cake. And I don't know anything about this guy, but I know that he values cake a lot more than I do. And he probably doesn't have the same relationship with ethyl alcohol. Because to me, it seemed like if you don't drink for a year, you ought to get a car, you know, something. So yeah, I'm here by myself.
But at one point, the secretary said, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, held up this book. This is our big book, Alcoholics Anonymous, the basic text of our program, the only authority on AA. If you're new here, please don't leave without this book. That's what she said. I know she said that because I came back week after week, and I heard her say it. Please don't leave without this book. And I thought, I'm new.
The guy told me I was new. A guy told me I was new, and I will not leave without that book. I'm going to steal that book tonight.
[00:30:00]
They had a lot of them on the table. I could just go pick it up, act like I was fascinated with it. Oh, this is great. This is really going to help. And walk right out the door. And I just had this feeling that if they even noticed, they'd say, let them go. And I could hardly wait to try it. But then she screwed it up. She said, if you're new tonight and you're financially embarrassed, we understand that.
We've been there. We want you to have the book. We'll make very liberal credit arrangements, including nothing down and nothing a week till you get back on your feet. Okay, well, that's loving and generous unless you're going to steal the book. And then now if I steal the book, you're going to think I'm homeless, you know, or stupid. Look at the book's free and he's got to steal it. You know, I just.
So now I got to buy the book. I got to buy the book. I don't care. I mean, it's a hardcover book. It's probably 20, 25 bucks. And I don't care how much it is. If it's 30, 40 books. If I got to write a bad check, I'm leaving with this book tonight. And so I'm waiting. And now I got to stay for the end of the meeting. I go up to her and I say, pardon me, can I buy one of your books? Oh, the big book? Yeah, the big book. I've seen bigger.
How much is that big book? She said it's $4.65. Do you have it? $4.65 for a hardcover book? I think I can handle that. Yeah, here's a five. Keep the change. She said, no, I'll get your change. No, no, please. Maybe I want you to keep that change and use that change to help a drunk because I'm on my feet, okay? All right. So she goes, okay. So I got the book. Now I got my big book. I stopped on the way home.
I got a fifth of whiskey. So I get home with my bottle and my book. And I poured about three fingers of whiskey and started to read this book. Not stay up all night studying. Some of it I didn't bother with. The doctor's opinion. I've had doctor's opinions. Doug, you really need to cut down on your drinking. Okay, doc, I'll do that right away. Thanks. So I got into the basic text, the meat of the program.
Chapter one, Bill's story. Bill's story. Who cares? Chapter two. Chapter two, there's a solution. That's a sales pitch. I was raised on TV. I see a sales pitch a mile away. Young man, there's a solution to your problem. The 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous will give you a life beyond your wildest drunken dreams. Great. Chapter three, more about alcoholism. It sounds like it could be the most boring piece of literature in the English language.
More about alcoholism. It sounds like the title of one of those sixth grade health movies, you know, 16 millimeter and the audio visual kid. We get more about alcoholism, you know. I'm going to save this till I'm tweaking some night and feel like I got toothpicks in my eyelids, you know, and just more about alcoholism. So I'm already up to chapter four, we agnostics, which surprised me. I didn't expect to find a chapter called we agnostics.
I expected to find a room full of atheists and agnostics when I walked into my first AA meeting. Not because anybody had ever told me that, certainly. But my grandmother was a Pentecostal minister. Also, I forgot to mention this sometimes. My grandmother was a drunk who found Jesus and picked up the cross and dedicated her life to Christ and good works. She became an ordained minister and she opened a skid row mission on Beacon Street in San Pedro, which in the 1950s was a real nasty place.
It was all hock shops and shooting galleries and saloons and liquor stores. And my grandmother's little white dove Pentecostal mission. And she would bring these wharf rats and winos in and save their souls. And along with that, they'd quit smoking and drinking. So I knew you could get sober on soup and Jesus. I had seen that done. It just never seemed worth it to me. But my grandmother hated Alcoholics Anonymous.
I never discussed it with her. I wish I had so I could have found out exactly what it was. But I suspect that, you know, there wasn't the same. She thought there was no God here. And so that's what I thought. There was no God here. And when I walked into my first meeting, I'm there five minutes. My higher power, power greater than yourself. Humbly asked him with a capital H. Admitted to God. Told God.
Prayed to God. Oh, my God. God. The last house on the block is Sunday school. And I'm very irritated. But it's the last house on the block, so. Now I got this book and it's called We Agnostics, the fourth chapter. So here it is. This is how the smart people do it without God. So I was very excited about that.
[00:35:01]
I drank. I filled up the glass and the three fingers of whiskey. And I started to read this chapter. I read it all the way through. And I got done. I thought, I don't know what I just read. I have no idea what I just read because I'm looking for how the smart people stay sober without God. So I poured some more whiskey and I read it again. And I did that again. I did that three times. I filled this little three fingers of whiskey and drank them down while I was reading chapter four.
And it's not coming to me because it's not saying what I want it to say. And finally, maybe the whiskey slowed down my brain where I could focus on the black part. But whatever. I saw this one little sentence that jumped off the page. It said, we found that God doesn't make too hard terms on those who seek him. And at that point I realized I'd never heard that anywhere before. It's pretty subtle so it's easy to miss.
But it's incredibly significant. We found, this is not an opinion, this is what we found. This has been our experience. We found that God doesn't make too hard terms on those who seek him. And it got my attention. I didn't have an epiphany when I read that, when I understood what it meant. But it cleared the door for me so I could go back to AA. You're not Bible thumpers, you know. So I went back to AA and I started going regularly.
You know, my grandmother's Pentecostal church never said we don't think God makes hard terms. If anything, they said just the opposite, you know, to me. You know, duh, they call me duh. You know, duh. We are very sure that God makes hard times on those who seek him. Boy, you know God will not even hear your prayers unless you're baptized. And I don't mean sprinkle on the forehead like some Methodist.
I'm talking about total sublimation. That's why we got a tank of water for Christ up here. Come on up, boy. We're going to soak you down, pull you up, washed in the blood of the lamb. Praise Jesus. Amen. Somebody get that boy a towel. You know, I'm like 14 years old. I'm going, I don't think so. You know, it's impossible for me to believe that my grandmother would let them drown her only grandson. But maybe she told them I touched myself.
And, you know, possibly they're going to send my ass to Jesus for my own good. I don't know. But I know I'm not getting wet in this room tonight. I told them I got brand new Levi's on, man. They're shrink to fit, you know. I couldn't ride my bicycle home, so I'm out of there. And I could just imagine Brother Van Dyke saying the next day, you know, I'm going to miss that boy's guitar playing, but thank God he don't have to abuse himself no more.
But it wasn't just the Pentecostals. My girlfriend was Catholic. She had to go to confession, communion, confirmation, a bunch of other cons, to determine how many Hail Marys and Our Fathers were required to cleanse her soul of the various kinds of sins. I know we got Catholics in here. You can validate what I'm saying. They don't have sin at the Catholic Church. They got them categorized, venial, menial, cardinal, mortal.
Some of them you don't even have to do them if you think about them. Express way to hell, partner. Really? Burning perdition for eternity for thinking about sin? Well, that's tough. How long could I go without thinking, oh, damn it? My friend Michael was an Orthodox Jew, and he and his brother Sherm had to wear spit curls to school. Oh, there's a loving God for you. Went over to Michael's house for dinner one night.
His mom says, Doug, welcome to our home. It's an honor to have you. Would you like to join us in some wine and challah? Some what? She said, would you like to join the family in some wine and challah? I said, well, I'll have some wine. Not much of a pastry eater, you know. And then there were Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims. Oh, my. So by the time I got to AA, I'm like, OK, here's the line. All the religions of the world over there, and I'll be over here making fun of you.
Equal opportunity in that category. But here's AA saying, we found that God doesn't make too hard terms. OK, I'm going to go back and check this out. And I started going regularly. I started going to five, six, sometimes seven meetings a week, sometimes more. I became very interested in AA. I started to like the people a lot. And it was the only place I ever fit, really.
[00:40:04]
I mean, I remember being at a 7 a.m. meeting one time, and everyone who shared in that meeting I related to. And that doesn't even happen today all the time, but it did that one morning before I stopped drinking. I was at a meeting. You know, they'd say, anybody with less than 30 days, Doug Alcoholic. Do we have any new friends with us under 30 days of sobriety? Doug Alcoholic. And I went, Doug Alcoholic, Doug Alcoholic.
And finally one day I just said, I'm not doing it. I'm not playing. I've been in AA a couple of months, and I've been raising my hand as a newcomer all the time. And I thought, if you're drinking every day, it's a long time before you have 30 days. So I just didn't raise my hand. And some girl at the end of the table misunderstood it. She said to her friend, Doug's got 30 days. And I realized what happened.
She mistook my arrogance for serenity or something. So I didn't want to make her look bad. She was on my 13th step list. I had an impressive 13th step list. It wasn't conquest or anything. It was just like a wish list, you know. It's all these cute girls in AA that if I ever went 24 hours without drinking, I was going to ask one of them out. Interestingly enough, the one that was on the top of the list, when I actually got sober, when I was 21 days sober, she 13th stepped me.
And I was like, hey, well, this is worth not drinking. And so then she moved in. And we were together for 15 years. We lived together for nine years, and we were married for six years. And we had a happy life. But this is why they tell new people, you know, don't get involved in the first year because, you know, sure, it's fun and loving and happy for 15 years. But then it just fizzles out. Anyway, I owe a lot to Randy.
Randy was two and a half years sober when we started going out. And she taught me how to ask questions. She's a voracious reader and a good AA. And she taught me a lot of stuff about AA, but mostly she taught me how to ask questions. I don't like to ask questions. Something in me says if you ask this question, they're going to think you don't know the answer. You know, I don't know. But one time we were in bed, and I had my leg on her side of the bed, and she grabbed it like a log, and she threw it over.
She said, get on your own side of the bed, damn it. You sleep like Jim Parks. I thought, I don't know any Jim Parks. I don't know any Jim Parks, and I don't know why she said that. That was very rude. I know that she had a promiscuous past. I'm down with that. I had a promiscuous past myself, but I don't drag my former partners into the bed and compare them to my wife. That's just rude. It's not helpful, and it can only drive a wedge between us.
I'm not saying this. It's going on in my head, and I realize I'm working on the sober part of me that sponsors yourself, you know, saying you're working on the resentment. Dude, shut up. I'm working on the resentment. So I realize if I didn't say something, because I don't want to. Like if I say who Jim Parks, she reads a lot, maybe she'll say, oh, I thought you had read Lady Chatterley's Lover. Oh, you're not familiar with For Whom the Bell Tolls, you know?
But if I don't say something, I'm going to be wearing this thing, and it's going to get heavy, and I'm going to get mean, and nobody's going to know why but me, and so eventually after three days she's going to say something like, did you mean to leave your boots in the dining room? You know, something innocent like that, and my response is going to be, boots? Boots? Boots my ass, bitch. Hey, boot down on this.
Who's Jim Parks? I don't have to do that. I don't have to live like that. So I said, I'm sorry, honey, am I supposed to know who Jim Parks is and how he sleeps? She was a cackler, you know. You know Jim Across the Street? Yeah, yeah, Jim Across the Street that moved in here after you moved in. Yeah, you know how he puts his truck so you can't park in front of him or behind him without blocking a driveway?
You sleep like Jim Parks. So that's when I learned you can learn some stuff asking questions. So, anyway, I'm back at the San Fernando group and I didn't raise my hand as a newcomer
[00:45:00]
and this girl thought I had 30 days, so I took a 30-day chip. Yay, Doug, yay, Doug. How do they know my name? Doug Alcoholic, Doug Alcoholic. I took my 30-day chip and they're going, yay, Doug. I said, it's nothing, because it was nothing, you know. But now I got a sobriety date, 30 days before my first bogus chip. And I got to figure it out so I'll know what it is if somebody asks. And then the next day I went to some other group and took a chip there and then I'm taking chips and then sometimes 30 days didn't seem like enough, so I took a 90-day chip.
I was at a meeting where I heard this girl say, tell her friend my sponsor says I can't have sex until I'm sober six months. So I took a six-month chip over there. Just in case, you know, in case I get lucky. In case I get lucky. I couldn't have gotten lucky in a women's prison with a pocket full of pardons. I got four different sobriety dates at four different groups and it's hard to keep track of.
And people from one group go to another group, you know. Anyway, what happened to me was one night I came home from a meeting. It's about 10, 30, 11 o'clock at night. And I had a bottle of whiskey and I laid down on the floor and turned on the TV, excuse me, drank whiskey until I passed out. And I woke up about 3 a.m. and this is real common. Wake up about 3 a.m., the bottle's half full, television's on, turn off the TV and I get my bottle and I crawl on my hands and knees through the living room, through the hallway into the bedroom, which some people call pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.
You know, I just called it going to bed. In fact, the first time I thought of it, I thought it was brilliant. Hey, you can't fall off the floor. So, but I did it. I stood up to get undressed and I fell. I just lost my balance. I fell on my knees and I spilled this whiskey all over the bed and I grabbed the bottle and there was some left in it and I set it in a safe place and grabbed this bedspread and started sucking whiskey out of the bedspread.
And a voice in my head said, hey, man, that ain't right. You thirsty? There's whiskey in the bottle, man. No, I'm not thirsty. I'm frugal. I waste my life, but I'm not letting whiskey evaporate in the bedspread overnight. Look what I was doing. I knew what I was doing was because I was an alcoholic. There's no question about that. But, you know, I'm done drinking. There is whiskey in the bottle and I'm sucking it out of a bedspread.
And I didn't know what to do about it. That's the thing. I was lost. I was lost and alone and out of ideas. And I did a dumb thing that night. I said, God, if you're there, please help me. I really sincerely meant that prayer of desperation and I did not think for one second that anybody was listening. I went to bed and I went to sleep. And over the next couple of weeks, every single day, something unusual would happen.
I go in my neighborhood liquor store and there's somebody from AA behind the counter of my neighborhood liquor store. I never saw him in the neighborhood before. I said, what are you doing here? He said, no, what are you doing here? I said, I just got some cigarettes and I went someplace else and got a bottle. When I'm in the supermarket in the liquor department, I reach up for a bottle. Somebody from AA is pushing a cart towards me.
Hey, one day at a time. Keep it simple. Beautiful life, isn't it? And so I'm working over in Burbank and I cross the street for lunch by myself and I start to order a margarita. The waitress is somebody I know from AA. This kind of stuff is happening to me every day. Somebody from AA would be between me and a drink every single day. And it didn't keep me from drinking. It just created hurdles. I had to jump over to get a drink and I was happy to jump over them, but you can't not notice.
After two weeks of this, 14 days of this, I'm on the way to work one morning and I just killed a half pint of Bushmills and I don't keep empty bottles in the car. They're illegal and useless. So I roll down the window. I'm about to toss this bottle and a guy from AA is driving towards me at 6.30 a.m. and he saw me and waved just as I let that bottle go in front of his car. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
And I thought, where the hell are these people coming from? It's like those stupid miracles people talk about. You know what I'm saying, Harold? Just like a miracle, ain't it? Oh, no, not for me. And I remember that I bent on my knees and said, God, if you're there, please help me. And I came to believe that a power greater than myself existed and could restore me to sanity.
[00:50:04]
Maybe it would restore me to sanity. And it was the beginning of my sobriety and I started to get involved in AA. I got a sponsor. And I still wasn't reading the book, but I'd go to meetings and people would quote the book. And I got a good memory, so I just spouted off. It says on page 84, the love and tolerance of others is our code. I hope it does because that's what I heard and that's what I'm repeating.
I don't know. But I heard somebody say, our book says that our drinking was but a symptom of deeper underlying causes and conditions. That's what she said. It's not a direct quote, but it's a pretty good paraphrase what the book actually says. But then she went on to add her own stuff. She said, so if you don't find your deeper underlying cause and condition, you're going to drink again. I hadn't heard that before.
And it was not in the book either, but I didn't know because I'm not reading the book. And it scared me. And I started looking for my deeper underlying cause and condition. I don't know. I didn't start drinking too young. I was 18 years old. My friend said, if you want to get in your pants, get her drunk. And I just got a bottle of Rainier Ale and we passed it back and forth. And it turned out he was right.
It was the first time I got a buzz and the first time I ever had sex in front of a witness. So I just like, I like this. I'm going to keep doing this. And I don't come from an alcoholic family. My dad was the kind of guy who would buy a six-pack of beer and drink one and put it away and not remember if he has beer in the fridge. That's the kind of drinker he was. My mother, on the other hand, may be an alcoholic.
We don't know. You can't really tell because she won't drink. And if they don't drink, how are you going to know? And I asked her when I was sober, Mom, why don't you drink? She said, what do you care? So I just ask you a simple question, why don't you drink? Why do you care? Are you an alcoholic? Doug, I don't even drink. Well, I know hundreds of alcoholics that don't drink. Why don't you drink? She said, I don't know.
When I was young, I drank. Every time I drank, I got sick, stupid, obnoxious, so I quit. I said, you've got to drink through that. Yeah. My mother does not have the tenacity to make this program, you know. Sick, stupid, and obnoxious. Not even my problem. It's your problem. So I don't come from an alcoholic family. I didn't start drinking too young. I don't know what my deeper underlying cause is. I'm really shining the spotlight over my drinking career.
And I realized when I was 24 years old, I had moved from Orange County up to Hollywood. Tried to make a living in the music business. And I could play guitar and sing, write songs. And I started hooking up with some people up in Hollywood. I sold a couple of songs. And I co-wrote a couple of songs with some people. Sang on somebody's album. Played guitar in this one band and bass in this other band.
I started to make a couple of bucks here and there. And the show came to town called Hair to the Aquarius Theater. If you're young and you don't know, Hair was a Broadway show about hippies. It was about sex, drugs, and rock and roll set to music. There was a nude scene. Everybody stood nude and sang Beats, Flowers, Freedom, Happiness. It was kind of theatrical history in a way. But it came to town.
And I went to see it. And I'm like, God damn, they wrote a musical about me. And so the next day I called the Aquarius Theater. And the receptionist at Aquarius Theater, yeah, I want to be in your show. She said, just a minute, I'll connect you. I don't think this can happen today. But she connected me to the company manager. And he said, can I help you? And I said, yeah, I want to be in your show.
Oh, you do? Can you sing and dance? I said, yeah, yeah. That's me, brother. I can sing. Yeah, I'm really good. He said, and I was a pretty good singer. I was comfortable with my singing. But I never tried to dance. I didn't know. I'm the guy up on the bandstand playing bass or guitar. Well, you're dancing. I know good from bad. How hard could it be? So I said, yeah, I can sing and dance. And he goes, what are you doing Friday at 1 o'clock?
I said, you tell me. He said, we're going to have auditions here. Come down at 1 o'clock and bring a piece of sheet music. What's your name? I told him. He said, okay, see you at 1 Friday. So now I got an audition. I go buy a piece of sheet music, and I didn't think of anything else for the next couple of days. This is a Wednesday afternoon. Next couple of days, nothing on my mind, but doing a good job singing that song.
So Friday morning, I got my guitar, practicing the song, and I broke a string. And it's hard to explain now, but in 1969, it was like, oh, bad karma, dude. So I went into my roommate's room to see if he had the string. He was a guitar player. See if he had the string. It was right there in his dresser. Little D-string in his little D-string envelope. Good karma, dude. So I picked it up, and underneath the envelope was a little white capsule.
I wonder what that is. Oh, because we didn't have a PDR.
[00:55:00]
You pretty much had to swallow test everything and, you know, forget about heavy machinery and automotive vehicles and stuff. If you eat it, you're going to know exactly what it does. And if somebody dies, don't eat the green shit. It's real easy. This turned out to be THC, a synthetic marijuana, and a nice little psychedelic. So 45 minutes later, when I got down to the Aquarius Theater, I parked my bike, and I got off with my sheet music, and my hair was long over my shoulders, and it just swished when I walked.
And I had these hip-hugger bell-bottoms on, you know, big old bells like this, and no shirt on, just a vest with six layers of foot-long red, white, and blue leather fringe. Woo! I was a walking wind chime, you know, and floated up the stairs of the Aquarius, and I'm standing back at the back of the theater watching people audition, and I'm thinking, man, these hippies can sing and dance. These people are good.
And then somebody said, Doug Rowell. Is Doug Rowell here? And I said, yeah, and I went running down the aisle, up on stage, and I handed my music to the piano player. He opens it up, smiles at me, and he starts to play. Bom-bom-bom-bom-bom! I said, wow! I feel good! And I went into this James Brown number, and I thought I was the godfather of soul, and I'm down on one knee, and I'm back up, and when I hold you, and I'm on…
And I got done, bom-bom-bom-bom-bom! And they're smiling at each other, and they're nudging each other, and the guy that's leading them says, hey, dude, we love your energy, man. Can you sing something a little mellower, just so we kind of get a range? I said, no problem. And I went into an a cappella version of Otis Redding's Dock of the Bay, and the piano player knew it, and he picked it up, and we were right in the bucket.
Looks like nothing gonna change! And I made myself cry. I had a… And the guy said, we love you, man. We love you, we want you, we just gotta see you dance. I said, hit it! And the guy started playing, and I started moving, and I suspect initially I looked like the offspring of Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Joe Cocker, you know, sort of. But I'm feeling that music, and I'm seeing my hair come around and getting trails off my hair and trails off the fringe on this vest.
And I heard somebody say, Jesus, can he dance? And they hired me. I thought I was auditioning for the Hollywood show. They were auditioning for the Las Vegas show, so they sent me to Las Vegas, and I understudied the lead role for a while and played in the tribe and had a lot of fun in Vegas for six months, and then we left Vegas, and they gave me the lead role of Berger, the obnoxious, speed-freak, sex-crazed leader of the tribe.
It was a stretch, but I could do it. And we toured the United States and Canada for three and a half years, and the audience would come up on the stage afterwards, and say, hey, man, we love you. Can we buy you a drink? Meet us over at this bar. They'd take the whole company over, buy everybody drinks, and somebody would come up and say, hey, man, you like pot here, a sense of me and Maui Waui, all this great dope.
You like acid? Here, Osley, purple haze, orange sunshine, windowpane, all this free dope they give us. Some girl would come up and go, oh, my God, I love you. Take me. Okay, and… So it was sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and just drinking as much as we wanted and hardly ever had to pay for anything, and that's the way life was on the road. So I looked back. You know, it was a pretty good job, really, but…
I looked back at it from my newfound sobriety, and I realized how they had used me. You don't realize that when you're being victimized, you know, afterwards, looking back at it from a sober mind, and I called my sponsor. I said, yeah, I found it. What'd you find now, Doug? Evidently, I was always finding stuff. He said, what'd you find now? I said, my deeper underlying cause and condition. What is it?
I said, hair. Your hair? Your hair? If we cut your hair off, you think you can not drink? I said, no. Not my hair, the show hair. Remember I told you I was a big star and traveled around the country and everything?
[01:00:02]
Oh, yeah, I forgot about the big star deal, you know, because you're drunk now. But I thought you were loaded when you auditioned for that show. I told him too much. I said, yeah. And he said, let me tell you something. Most people, non-alcoholics, when they go to interview for a job they really want, won't take a drug they can't identify. It sounds reasonable, doesn't it? And so I said, well, then I don't know what my deeper underlying cause is.
And he said, you know what? I don't know what mine is. If you want to look for it, fine. I'll give you something to do between meetings. But meanwhile, go to a meeting tomorrow. Call me tomorrow. Read the book tomorrow. Whoa, whoa, read the book. He had never told me to read the book. Yeah, I want you to start reading that big book. If you can't read a chapter, read a page. If you can't read a page, read a paragraph.
But I want you to read it every day. And I've been doing that. He hasn't told me, neither he or any of my future sponsors told me, don't stop. Now, stop reading that book. You're done. That doesn't happen. And I've read it hundreds of times now. And I take the guys that I sponsor through that. So does Carla take the women that she sponsors through that. And that's the Holy Grail, you know, that big book.
I've gotten so involved in Alcoholics Anonymous. It really is the biggest thing in my life. And my family all loves that. They're so appreciative of it. I met my wife. Actually, I met my wife, I don't know, 15, 16 years ago. We were friends for a dozen years. And then we had to go speak at a conference. Carla and I in Scottsdale, Arizona. And we were the only people we knew there. So we kind of hung out through the weekend.
And it got good. So on the way home, I asked her if she wanted to go see a play. And she said yes. And we've been playing ever since. And we just have this beautiful AA life, you know. I want to tell you this one. I was two years sober. I realized that I hadn't made amends to my dad. My dad always loved me. He would do anything for me. But I borrowed money from him. I paid him some back. But I borrowed some and paid him back.
I figured I owed him somewhere between $2,000 and $3,000. I was going to save up three grand and hand it to him. Here's your money, Dad. Surprise him, you know. Oh, you're over. Yours is too much. Oh, keep it. Call it interest. But I didn't do that. I've known hundreds of people that were going to do that. And one who actually did. But I have known hundreds of people who started making payments. I got this from Sharon.
Sharon B. at the time. Sharon C. who talked about making amends to her father. So I said to my dad when I was two years sober, I need to pay you back the money I owe you. And he said, don't worry about it. I don't need it. I don't want it. I'm just happy. You're happy. You've got a good life. You're a good father. You're a good son. You're a good husband. You're a good neighbor. That's all I ever wanted.
I said, yeah, but you've heard of the 12 steps. There's this ninth step that says we have to make amends for harms that we did. Or we may not stay sober. I think borrowing money and not paying it back is a harm. So if I don't pay you back that money, I can't guarantee I'll stay sober. And he heard that differently. He said, oh, okay. So I said, I don't know how much it is. Do you know how much I owe you?
And he said, yeah, I got it in the computer. I don't need it. I don't want it. I just like to look at it once in a while. You could hurt your nail on that delete button, you know. So he printed out an accounting of what I borrowed and what I paid back. And the balance was $7,200. So it made me glad I didn't hand him that big deal, $3,000. Well, you're a little light, but thanks for the effort. But I started sending my dad a check every Friday.
I didn't keep track of it either. And I never missed a Friday. Sometimes I could only send him $20 or $30. Sometimes I could send him $200 or $300. I don't know. I don't know if I ever sent him $300. But anyway, $100 or $200. But sometimes, you know, whatever I could send him. But I always put a note in it. Sometimes it was a page. And sometimes it was just a post that stuck to the check. But always a check and a note every Friday.
I didn't ever miss. And after about three years, he called me and he said, I just got your check. I said, is there a problem with it? No, no, never a problem. You know how much you owe me? And I said, no, I knew it was under $1,000. He said, you know how much you owe me? $32? Are you sure? He said, you know I am. So my dad and I met for dinner. And we had a nice dinner. And I gave him his check for $32.
And he gave me a closeout statement with everything I borrowed, everything I paid back. And I let him pay for dinner. And here's the thing. My dad always said, whenever we went out, the family went out or anything,
[01:05:00]
I'll get this. No, it's a father's job to feed his family. Come on, dad, let me get the check. I'm a grown man. No, it's a father's job to feed his family. I'll get it. And sometimes I would go and I'd catch the waitress and give her my credit card and hope that it was good. And sneak around behind his back. But once I got that debt paid, I realized my dad always said it's a father's job to feed his kids.
He thought that was what he was supposed to do. And I was cheating him out of that. But what was going on in my head, and I didn't even realize it, was, God, I owe you all this money. At least let me buy dinner. And I never had to pay for another meal as long as my dad lived. I mean, with him. He didn't call Denny's and say, if my son comes in, give me a cent. But unless it was his birthday or something, every time I ate with dad, he always paid.
And I understood. When you put that baggage down, you realize what you've been carrying. And when my father died about 10 years ago, I said to my, I was going through some stuff, some financial stuff in his file cabinet that my mom had to find. And we were digging through this stuff and I found a folder that said Doug. And I pulled it out. And when I opened it, I knew exactly what it was because all these post-its and notes fell out of it.
And there's like 150 notes in there. It's a big file, big thick file. And I didn't, I just, I was shocked. I said to my mother, did you know he saved these notes? She said, oh yeah. Yeah, he cherished them. She said every week when your check would come, he would come in from the mailbox and he'd open up the check and put the check in his pocket and he'd read me the note. Then he'd set the note on the dining room table and he'd take last week's note and put it in the file.
And sometimes he'd come home from work and he'd be tired and he'd read it and smile. And it was a gift I gave him. I didn't even know. When, she said, one time I said to him, you know Doug sure loves you. And he said, I know that. I got that in his own handwriting. And I believe that every step comes with a personalized gift from God. I really believe that. It's been my experience. It's been the experience of the guys and sometimes they're huge and sometimes they're small.
Sometimes it's a message from the grave saying I love you, I know you love me. Thanks for being a man. When my dad was dying, I said to him, everything in me that's of value I learned from you. He said, that's not true. I said, it is dad. You showed me how to be a neighbor. You showed me how to be a husband and a father. You showed me how to be a brother. He said, yeah, you have AA. Because the truth is, I did learn all those things from my dad but I couldn't put them into practice until you made me be accountable for my life just to keep from dying in the gutter from a drunk, you know.
I heard the music of Alcoholics Anonymous somewhere along the line and that's what I like to bring is the music of Alcoholics Anonymous. And if you're new and you're saying, what is this moron talking about it's the laughter. I really do, I think it's the laughter. We come in here sick unto death and dying and feeling like we'll never laugh again. And you hear somebody laughing and you realize it's you.
You know what I'm saying? And we start to laugh and we laugh ourselves weller than we were before we got sick. What an incredible gift that is. And there's people all over the world in AA meetings probably in this room tonight who have handed this incredible gift and say, no thanks, I'd rather get loaded. I wish that wasn't the case but I've seen it over and over and over. And if you're new all you have to do is decide not to be that one.
To be the one who gets this. Be the one that has this beautiful life that you really wouldn't imagine. It wouldn't occur to you to imagine it. Carla is not the girl of my dreams. I never could have dreamed that good. You know, the things that have been given to me in Alcoholics Anonymous are things I couldn't have imagined. But you can be the one who stays sober. If you stay sober for a year we'll give you a cake.
Thank you. Thank you.