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Source: Reggie W – BOX OF CHOCOLATES – 2025-05-01.m4a File: reggie-w-box-of-chocolates-2025-05-01.mp3 Duration: 00:52:08
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Thank you, Ramona. My name is Reggie W.. I'm an alcoholic. Thank you for inviting me out. I wish I knew if there were any newcomers, because I usually try to talk to new people. I'm going to assume there's somebody who is so well-developed in the alcoholic anonymous. I want to welcome you here and let you know that the program works and it works really, really well. And it would be enough to save a guy like me. And what we do is we tell our story.
We tell what it is, what happened and what it's like now. I was sitting here thinking about. Oh. I agree. Hey, Reggie. Yeah. Having a little trouble hearing you. You're going in and out a little bit. How's this? Is this any better? Perfect. Thank you. Okay. I'll try to stay forward. I've heard that before. Okay. As I was saying, what we do is we tell our story. My story went something like this. I often think about how I started drinking in the first place because I was a guy who didn't want to drink. My dad was a wino, you know, like an alcoholic. He didn't really rise to the level of alcohol. He drank Ripple. You know, he always drank Ripple. I don't know if you guys even know what Ripple is. It's a real cheap wine, came in these little bottles. And I remember after my mom put him out when I was seven years old, we started finding Ripple bottles all over the house.
Empty Ripple bottles under the couches, behind, you know, stoves, everywhere. There were Ripple bottles everywhere. And my dad wasn't a mean drunk, tough, drunk, abusive drunk. He's just a guy who couldn't make it home with the paycheck. He'd get paid on Friday, wouldn't make it home till Sunday or Monday. He'd come in. My mom would yell at him. He'd yell back at her. She would cry and I hated it. And I said, I'll never be like him. And I hated people that drank. I hated alcohol.
I said, I'll never drink. My mom had six boys to raise by herself after that. And we did much better after my dad was gone, you know. And we grew up with hopes and goals and dreams. We were the poorest family in the poorest part of Washington, which is the poorest part of LA, right? But we were a happy family and we were family. You know, I always often think about the fact of a lot of people say they didn't like school and stuff. Man, I love going to school. School is where things were good for me and easy for me, you know. You know, because we were like real smart guys, right? Me and my brothers, we were really smart. And you knew me in school. I was a teacher's pet. I was a guy who had all the answers. And the good news is I was a guy who would give you the answers on the test. I didn't care because I wanted you to be my friend, especially if you were a big tough guy because I was in a real tough area. And I was student body president because I was funny and people liked me. I was shortstop on the baseball team. I ran track, had a really good looking girlfriend every year. I mean, all the time, elementary school, junior high and high school. And that was the source of my problem. Like I like to share, I grew up on third base. I lived on third base. For those of you who don't know what third base is, I was like king of the blue balls, if I'm not being too graphic there. But I was a guy, I just didn't know what to, I don't know what I thought ladies would do to me if I tried to score. I was just painfully shy one on one. And I was, and you fellas didn't help any. To see all these, every single one of these fellas in these squares, ladies, every one of them was telling me that they were getting down with every one of you guys, right? So I went away to school, to college thinking I was the world's last virgin. I thought everybody was scoring except me. And I went away to college like that. And I got there and I finally admitted my affliction to my roommates, right? And my roommates had a solution. They said, Reggie, next time you have a girl in your room, what you do was this. You make sure you have the best bottle of alcohol that you can buy.
They said, you get that most expensive bottle you could buy, get the best bottle. And as alcohol goes down her throat, her legs will come open and you'll get exactly what you want. Their words, not mine, right? Don't get mad at me, ladies. And I believed them. So the very next weekend, I didn't waste any time. I was in my room, in my dorm room, and I had this girl in my room. Wasn't my girlfriend, but her boyfriend was going home weekend, so it was cool. And we're in my room
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and we got this bottle of alcohol and we're both looking at it, right? Real, the best I could buy.
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It was called Spinata, a bottle of Spinata. I got this bottle of Spinata and me and this girl are all nervous because we both shy and we both trying to grow up and we're looking at it. And finally, we poured some and it went down her throat. It worked exactly like the fellas told me it would. And I became a man that night. I don't know if she became a woman. She was talking about, oh, you've done already. Anyway, that was the end, not now. But I became a man and the problem was that I drank some too. That was where the problem came in. Because when I drank some, something happened to me. I changed. I transformed. I became all of a sudden, I wasn't that shy guy anymore. My mouth started going. All of a sudden, I felt like I could dance and we're dancing and stuff. All of a sudden, I got real close to cool. Now, from the beginning, I had problems with alcohol because I couldn't handle my liquor, right? I love the effects, but I hated the taste of alcohol. I couldn't handle my liquor. I would throw up and black out and stuff like that. So what I did is I started mixing in some things. I mixed in some non-addictive marijuana. I mixed in some PCP in the form of angel dust. I mixed in hash and hash oil. I mixed in quaaludes and Valium. I mixed in acid. I mixed in as many things as I could, other than the hard stuff. No LSD. I mean, no cocaine and no heroin, but everything else was fair game. This was the 70s. I was in college. We had free love. Man, life was good. And man, I was so tightly wound. Alcohol, I really needed that alcohol. Alcohol saved me, man, because I don't know what I would have done. I probably would have just got straight A's and been real successful. But anyway, at the time, I didn't know what I would have done if I didn't have alcohol. And I kept getting great grades. I was still on the baseball team. I ran track on the track team. And I came out with really good grades. And I got a really good job. Now, I forgot some of my goals and hopes and dreams. I had a goal of being a millionaire by the time I was 30, so I could bring my mom out to cattle. I had a hope that I wanted to be a lawyer. Me and my two brothers, Ralph and Ronald, who were right in front of me, we were going to have a law firm, White, White, and White Incorporated, and help disadvantaged people. Ronald's the only one who ended up being an attorney. I forgot to apply to law school. But I came out of there. I was real successful, got really good jobs, made a whole lot of money, and life was really good.
I had Laker season tickets under the basket during the Showtime era while we were beating up on the Celtics, you know, and all that stuff. You know, and Bozzer tickets. We'd go in the concerts. We're partying. Life was good until we started adding in some of those things that we said we'd never touch. And then things changed. My life started circling the drain real, real fast. I started losing jobs. I started losing cars. I started losing bank accounts. I started losing that holy trinity, license, insurance, and registration. I started going to check cashing places. I started wondering what the hell was wrong with me. And all of you guys start wondering that too. People start asking me that question on the job. Reggie, why can't you make it in?
My girlfriend's at home. Reggie, what's wrong with you? Why can't you make it home with the paycheck? And I'm sitting there thinking to myself, why? I don't know why. I didn't have an answer for it. Eventually, I ended up on the same day losing my girlfriend, my job, and my car, my girlfriend, my job, and my apartment all in the same day. And I said, I need to regroup. I moved back in my mom's house in 1984. By 1985, all five of my brothers had moved back in, and we were all drinking and using. And my mother had a nervous breakdown and almost died. She was in the hospital for a couple of weeks. By 1985, I mean 1986, two of my brothers disappeared. Didn't know where they went. Didn't care. First, my brother Ronald disappeared in July of 86. Didn't know where he went. Didn't care. Ralph disappeared in October of 1986. Didn't know where he went. Didn't care.
December of 1986, I'm standing on the corner of Hollywood and Vine waiting for a bus to go get this girl's car and make a trip and buy some things and make it back to her. And this stranger walked up on me. He said, let's do lunch. And I'm looking at this dude walking up on me saying, let's do lunch. And it was my brother, my brother Ronald, the one who had just disappeared in July. And he looked like an entirely different human being. His eyes were clear. His hair was cut and
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looked neat. He looked sharp. He smelled good. His clothes were nice. And he said, and he went, we ate. He broke out a huge wad of 20s to pay the bill. And I looked at him and I had to ask him. I said, man, you look really good. And I'm all tore up like I always was. I said, you look really good. I said, what did you do? He said, I went to this place called the Salvation Army Harbor Light Center. He said, it's on Skid Row. He said, I no longer drink and I no longer use. And if you ever want to stop doing what you're doing, I can get you in there too. I looked at my brother and I thought to myself, man, you were scandalous out there. You need that place. I said, can you loan me $40? He said, no. I said, you son of a, and I kept it pushing, but the seed had been planted.
And two months later, a couple of months later, in February 7th of 1987, I had this girl's car. I left work in this suit. Me and her left work together and I dropped her off at her house. I was still in that suit that I went to work in. And I had took her car to LA from the Valley. I never made it back to her home. I got stuck in LA in her car, never made it back to her. I hadn't shaved, showered, brushed my teeth, combed my hair for two weeks, and I was still in this car.
By this time, I owed a whole bunch of dangerous people in South Central LA a whole lot of money, and they were looking for me. And I certainly didn't want them to find me. And I didn't know what to do, but I thought to myself, at least let me get this girl's car back to her. So I couldn't find Ronald, but I reached and found Ralph. And I said, can you take the car back to my friend? He said he'd take the car back, but the only condition was that I go into this harbor-like place, Salvation Army place. I didn't want to go in that place, but then he sweetened the deal.
He said, if you go into the Salvation Army place, they'll let you sleep for a week. And I hadn't slept in two weeks, and I was scared, and people were looking for me, and I didn't have anywhere to go. So that's the only reason I went there. And so on February 7th of 1987, I walked into the lobby of the Salvation Army Harbor-like Center more dead than alive. I stank so badly, I have no idea how they did intake on me. I don't know how I stayed in the room with me and did that intake on me. They ended up eventually taking me upstairs. They took that dirty, nasty, filthy suit away from me and threw it away. They let me shower, gave me fresh clothes, they let me eat, and then they said I could sleep. They called it detoxing. They said I could sleep for a week. I detoxed for a week. I guess that's what they called it. And then they sent me down to this thing they called AA. I'd never heard of AA. I'd never heard of recovery. I'd never heard of rehab, really. I didn't know anything about this stuff. But I went down to this AA meeting, and I sat on the front row because I was what they called you. And I'm looking around the room, and it's all these guys from Skid Row. I'd never seen Skid Row before. I'd never heard of Skid Row.
I'd never been on Skid Row. And the first time I ever saw Skid Row was when they took me, when Ralph drove me to that rehab, right? And I remember looking at the people on Skid Row, and they were like, they were full up. They were eating out of trash cans. They were living on the street. They had a bunch of boxes. That was before tents. They didn't have tents then. They had cardboard boxes, right, that they were living in. And they called them cardboard condos. And they had these boxes all made up as a house. And then I got into this rehab, and the people on the inside looked just like the people out there on the street. And I'm looking around at them in this meeting, and the guy came up to the podium, and he had on a suit and tie, tall white dude with a suit and tie on, and he looked incredibly lame, right? And he looked incredibly lame. And he's pounding on the podium saying, if you want what I got, you'll get this Bible that's up here on this podium. You'll get you a sponsor, and your life can change. And I thought to myself, man, you ain't got nothing. You look incredibly lame. You ain't got nothing. I don't want nothing you got. But I had a real quick second thought. I thought about the fact of, wait a minute, he's probably not spending the night here at the Harbor Lights Center. And I know he's not walking. He's got a car, because he ain't walking down Skid Row this time of night. I bet he got a home that he's going to. He probably got a couple of women up at that house, and maybe he has a job. So I thought, maybe I want a little bit of what he's got. So I asked him to be my sponsor. He bought me that Bible. He said, read it from the beginning. Your life can change. I looked at that Bible and said, Life at the Cave.
I looked at that Bible, it said Alcoholics Anonymous on the front of it, and I'm thinking
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to myself, what kind of Bible is this? Opened it up and it said, There Is a Solution. Opened it up and it was right at that chapter, right at that first page, it said, There Is a Solution. I'm thinking, oh, a little bit of hope, you know? I didn't know what was wrong with me, but there is a solution. I took that Bible and they had said only two of you guys are gonna make it, right? So I'm thinking, I don't know who the rest of these losers are, but I'm gonna be one of those two.
I didn't even know what it was, but I'm gonna be one of those two guys. I'm judging everybody, my very first day, I'm judging them, and I said, I'll be one of those two, though. And I went upstairs to read that book. I said, I'm gonna speed read this book tonight, and I'm gonna get an A and AA, and I took it upstairs and I'm reading The Doctor's Opinion, and I got to that part where it said the only hope for the chronic alcoholic is total abstinence, and you lost me right there.
See, why would anybody, you can't slide big words by me like abstinence, or total abstinence. Why would anybody wanna do that? I couldn't even figure that out. I'm like, who wants to not do anything? You know, this is a bait and switch. Y'all were supposed to teach me how to just hold on to a job, keep my car, keep my girlfriends, hold on, you know, like maybe be able to hold on to license, insurance, and registration all at the same time.
Matter of fact, I thought you were gonna teach me how to drink successfully, you know, just some wine with my meal, not that hard stuff, you know, all that, but instead you talk total abstinence. Lost me right there. I would've walked out of that place, but I had nowhere to go. Then, 30 days later, I went down to this place called 9604 South Figueroa on a weekend pass. Me and my two biggest friends, because I don't travel alone, we went down there to the noon meeting, and we opened the door to that meeting and got hit with a wall of laughter and it was terrible, because I was scared to death, because I hadn't heard people laughing out loud in years, and I looked, and it was a bunch of old-timers, and they're shaking hands and hugging, and I'm like, okay, then it was a bunch of guys.
They look like cool guys, but they're hugging and shaking hands, and I'm like, I don't know about this. Then, I looked at the far end of the room, and it was really good-looking women. I'm like, okay, maybe we can do this. We went in, and we sat at the only seats available in that packed meeting in the back of the room. Later on, I found out it was called Death Row, and we're sitting on Death Row, and I looked to my left, and there's the coffee, that big silver coffee pot that looked like it was glowing.
Man, I wanted some of that coffee. Next to it, a plate, how high with cookies, not that 99-cent store stuff. It looked like Oreos, good stuff, and man, I wanted some of those cookies, but it was a whole gang of people standing over there by the coffee pot, and there was a guy behind the counter, and I thought to myself, what if I go over there and pour a cup of coffee, and they ask me for a quarter?
What if I go over there and pick up a cookie, and they ask me for a nickel? See, I don't have that either. See, the condition I came to you guys in is all I have is that dirty, nasty, filthy soup that they took away from me and threw it away, and I had absolutely nothing else, and I don't know how that old-timer lady read my mind. I don't know how she even figured out I was new, but she came through that whole crowd of people laughing and joking, and I guess she didn't want to embarrass me.
She whispered. She put her mouth right next to my ear, and she whispered to me, she said, baby, go over there and get you some of that coffee, go over there and get you some of those cookies. Think all you want is free, and then she smiled and winked at me, and I fell in love with you guys because of the kindness of strangers. See, I didn't know what they were talking about at that podium, mental obsession, physical allergy, all that stuff, but man, I knew kindness when I felt it, and I haven't felt kindness in a long, long time, and I started doing everything you guys asked me to do.
I fell in love with AA right there on the spot. I started cleaning ashtrays and mopping floors and setting up meetings. I started showing up early and volunteering for anything I could. Eventually, I was going on panels in prisons and taking panels down on Skid Row. I came to you in February of 1987. In November of 1987, my two brothers, Ralph and Ronald, along with our good friend, Strange, came up with the idea of the Never Too Early Big Book Workshop, and it was 13 of us, excuse me, 13 of us around my mom's dining room table, and we're sitting there with our big books open early on a Sunday morning, and my mom got up to go to church, and she almost cried to you for how happy you had brought three of her sons back to her.
Then in December of 1987, on Christmas Day, my baby brother, Rod, came to the fellowship of AA, and so now I got three brothers in this fellowship today with 38 and 39 years
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of sobriety. 1987 was a great year in the White household, and we started working the step exactly as outlined in the big book at Val College Anonymous. We went together as a workshop. We went to a Joe and Charlie workshop in Long Beach, and we started working it like that, and my life took off. See, I didn't know I'd come in on a high bottom, but I'd come in on a real high bottom. I still had a real good work history.
I hadn't lost a lot of jobs. I was able to get work. I was able to make money, and so I immediately started making really good money. Then, so I quickly got a girlfriend here in AA, and within two weeks, we had moved in with each other, and she had a son already, so now I got a ready-made family, and I'm a better dad than my alcoholic father has ever been, and the Christmases were great. The Thanksgivings were great.
Me and my brothers, all of my brothers, we would have movie nights together, eating ice cream and stuff like that. I will show you how long ago it was. We were looking at videos, so we'd have movie nights looking at videos, and all of us and our AA girlfriends, and we're all sitting around together on Friday nights, on weekend nights, call ourselves partying. Then on holidays, my mother was so grateful you had brought four of her sons back to her.
Every holiday, she said, her house was wide open to anybody, and alcoholics and non-alcoholics, so on Thanksgiving, our house was packed full of AA people. Christmas and New Year's, people came as well, but I remember on Thanksgiving, it was always the big holiday for all the AA people to show up at the White House, at the White household, and man, my life, I don't know how I could get any better, but then it got better.
The richest man in California handpicked me to bring his company back to Atlanta, to LA, so now I've got a home in Atlanta, I've got a home in LA, I'm making six figures, I have six departments, 250 employees, and they're paying for everything, and I'm flying back and forth every two weeks, and how could it get better than that? Well, my girlfriend got pregnant. A miracle, an AA miracle. Why is that a miracle?
Well, I barebacked it all my life, because I couldn't get anybody pregnant, I thought, so I never used protection and never got anybody pregnant. Now, I got my own baby, which I didn't think I could have, so now I have my daughter, Angela Marie White, and the best thing I've been from that day to this is a father, here, and alcoholics are not, and don't let the life that AA gave you get in the way of your AA life.
Don't let the life that AA gave you get in the way of your AA life. See, Bill puts it differently. He says if an alcoholic fails to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through self-sacrifice and working with others, he won't be able to survive the certain trials and low spots, and if he can't, he'll drink, and if he drinks, he'll die, and all hope will be lost indeed. What did that look like in my life?
Well, I stopped going to meetings, because I was working people 24 hours a day, I had three shifts, and I didn't like the meetings in Atlanta anyway. They weren't like the meetings in L.A., so I stopped going to meetings. I'm not calling my sponsor anymore, so I got a long-distance sponsor in name only who I'm not talking to, and this went on for years while I was there in Atlanta and going back and forth.
I'm not taking meetings downtown on Skid Row anymore, and I'm not going on panels to prisons anymore. I'm not doing any of the things in Alcoholics Anonymous that it got me, all the things that Alcoholics Anonymous had gotten me. Don't let the life that AA gave you get in the way of your AA life. Then the trials came, Bill talked about. My wife thought she saw a seizure in my daughter, and so took her to Children's Hospital.
They kept her for a week, tried to induce a seizure, and finally gave up and gave her medication that was not supposed to be given to a child that young. It started eating her kidneys away immediately, and my daughter was being eaten alive from the inside. We were back and forth to that hospital for four months trying to get them to switch that seizure medication. You can't just stop it because it would cause seizures.
All my daughter could tell me is, Addie, tummy hurts, tummy hurts, and she would just look at me and hold me like I could stop that pain, that agony, and I couldn't, and I was helpless, and I said, enough of this. Took her to Cedars-Sinai, the best hospital in L.A. They took one look at her, and they said, we have to intubate her. She's in too much pain. They put her in an induced coma for three and a half weeks.
All of the AA gathered around, all the church people with my mom, all of my family, we were not alone for one single minute in that three and a half week period. We stayed at that hospital the entire time, and you guys stayed there with us the entire time. I started praying again. I stopped praying, guys, because I was ashamed of praying.
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I don't know why. I just stopped doing everything, and now I'm praying again, God, take my daughter, I mean, take me, take my life, save my daughter. I wanted to trade my life for my baby, and it looks like my prayers were answered. Doctors came out. They said, we figured out what's wrong with your daughter. You just have to do exploratory surgery. I said, do it. They opened her up. When they opened her up, they killed her.
When they killed her, it felt like God. I don't remember much. It just seemed like everything just went black from there. I just told them, you guys did everything you could to reach me and my wife. You guys did everything. I never went back to that dream job one day after that. Not one day. I never even called them. Somehow they made it to the funeral. I don't even know how they heard about it. They kept paying me.
I don't know why. I'm a cautionary tale here in Alcoholics Anonymous. We know what to do in Alcoholics Anonymous when we have tragedies. What we do is we get at the podium. We go up to the podium and talk till they drag us off of it. What we do is we call our sponsor or call sponsees. What we do is we go and we mop floors and we set up meetings. What we do is we sit in the middle of the herd for you guys to love us back to life.
I could do none of that and neither could my wife. We totally shut down. We couldn't hear you guys. You guys did every single thing you could to get through to us. All I was was just angry all the time. I was so angry and I was just pissed off at God. All I could think about was my little girl being tortured for four months and then just having her life ripped away from her. I'm thinking, what kind of God would allow something like that to happen?
I wrapped that anger around me like a warm blanket on a cold day and I lasted 11 months like that, just being angry. Then I finally went to a bar and I drank. When I went to that bar and I drank, it came rushing back at me how bad of an alcoholic I was. All the throwing up, all the blacking out, all the bad behavior. See, I'd done so many outside issues, I really didn't think I was an alcoholic. I'd done a whole bunch of other stuff and I'd forgotten how bad of an alcoholic I was.
I only drank for two weeks, guys. That's the good news. The bad news is I only drank for two weeks because she came in the bar. You know her, short skirt, long legs, low cut dress, full length, huge and gorgeous and tilted her head and gave me that look. Y'all know that look when you're giving it and tell us, y'all know the look when you're getting it. I tilted my head right back and gave her that four word interview I always did, do you get high?
She said, yes. I kept doing what I really wanted to do and what I really knew I couldn't do and I only did that for two weeks. Then it was the anniversary of my baby's death and I needed to see God. I really wanted to see God. God needed to explain things to me, face the things. He needed to tell me, did he need more angels down here? Did he need help? Why would he let us do this to each other? I wanted to be back with my baby, which is the last place I had ever been happy.
I took a bunch of pills and I committed suicide. I was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital and God wouldn't let me die. He pulled me back. The second worst day of my life is when I came to and I thought I'd be looking into the face of God. Instead, I was looking in the face of my mom and my brothers and people in AA and all the people that love me. Now I'm ashamed and I'm humiliated and I don't have my sobriety and I don't have my baby.
I don't have shit. I don't have anything. And I'm just angry at everybody. And was I to know what the next 16 years were going to be like, I'd have tried to commit suicide all over. It took me 16 years to make it back to you guys. And by the time I made it back to you guys, every single person in my life had given up on me, including myself. There was absolutely nobody that had any hope that I could make it back to you guys.
I had plenty of chances and plenty of time. I started off the first five or six years or so. I don't know how long it really took, not holding my family together. I just, you know, it was me, my wife and my stepson. And you hear me say stepson now, but when my baby was alive, he was always just my son. And I'm ashamed of that because I always told him, your dad is not, you know, his dad had died. I'm like, you know, I'm not trying to take your dad's place, but I'll always be your father.
Just like Angie is my daughter, I'm your father, you're my son. My daughter, I'm your father, you're my son, and I'm your father, and then when Angie died, I just totally checked out, and I left everybody, and I did nothing to hold my family together,
[00:30:05]
and it took till a couple of years ago to make amends to that man for that, and thank God for you guys. Anyway, I'm getting out ahead of myself, for the first five years or so, me and my family destroyed ourselves, and I wanted to get back to the fellowship of AA, more specifically, I wanted to get back to Never Too Early, Big Book, Worked Out, if there are any new friends on here, that's why we get a home, because we always want to go back home, where we know people love us, and I wanted to get back to my home group, Never Too Early, Big Book, Worked Out, but see, my brothers were there, you know, and when, it's funny, Clancy always talked about how AA is the only friendly direction when we're out there, and see, for me, when I first came, AA was the friendly direction, and the fact that my brothers were here ahead of me, that was the best thing, because I could look at them, and I could say, oh, I really see how this program works.
I may not know it's working with Chris, or with Ramona, or even Luis, right, I may not know that it's working with you guys, y'all could be lying, y'all could have been okay before you even got here, and I knew that my brothers, Ralph and Ronald, were even worse than I was out there, and I'm looking at the change in their life, so it was easy for me the first time, it was easy for me to believe this thing worked, everything was easy, everything came easy to me, you know, relatively speaking, and now, when I'm coming back, see, we had all come in here together, we had all been, you know, we all had the same, you know, relatively close to the same amount of time, we all came within a few months of each other, and now, they got all these years, and I got nothing, and sometimes Alcoholics Anonymous, when I'm a relapse, especially when I'm a serial relapse, or Alcoholics Anonymous, friendly directions, it does look like a friendly direction, and so, I wanted to get back to Never Too Early, but I wanted to get back with my pride and integrity, and my brothers there, and I'm thinking that you guys, see, my mind is going crazy, and I'm thinking that you guys are judged, and oh, why can't he be like his brothers, if he really wanted this thing, he'd get it, what's wrong with Reggie, why can't, you know, and I wanted to at least have a year when I came back, so I could walk in, and under, you know, with a little bit of pride and integrity, and how do you get your pride and integrity back, if you're Reggie W., you sneak back to Alcoholics Anonymous, okay, how do you sneak back, well, I'm living in, I'm living in West Hollywood, everybody, all of my brothers and everybody are in South Central LA, but what I do, I go to meetings where nobody know me, and I go to meetings late, I go to meetings late, so I don't have to stand up as a newcomer, because I'm too ashamed and humiliated, I leave meetings early, because I don't want to raise my, take any tips, because I'm too ashamed and humiliated, so now I'm at meetings, but not in meetings, and I'm not getting any of the benefits of the meetings, and I'm relapsing over and over and over again, and now I'm starting to recover, yeah, but I'm a sharp guy, don't trip, don't forget that, how did I get sober the first time, I thought about it, I said I took the steps, okay, in a vision for you, it says, know you people, one man with this book in your hand, we believe and we hope it contains all you need to get, I have a book, I've taken plenty of people through the steps, so I'll take myself through the steps, I have this book, I'm going to take myself through the steps, I'll sponsor myself, I'm at these strange meetings where nobody know me, I do a great step one through four, do a tremendous four step, I ain't a stranger, do a great fifth step, skip the steps 12 and 13, and relapse over and over and over again, and my life starts to circle the drain, and that's when I start, but still not all the way gone, guys, don't trip, I still got a little bit left, because I'm not hurting anybody other than myself, because I'm still working, I'm still able, I'm always able to get a job and hold on to a job, thank God for telemarketing, thank God for Girls Gone Wild, you know, I'm doing stuff like that, right, I'm doing all these, I'm that guy that was always calling you late at night, early in the morning, that one you didn't want on the phone, but I'm paying my own way, I'm not hurting anybody other than myself, right, I'm staying away from my family, God said enough of this, I need to slow you down, Reggie, in 2009 he gave me glaucoma, now I have 0% vision in my right eye, I have 30% vision in my left, I can no longer drive a car in the state of California, and I can no longer work for anybody else, I'm considered legally blind, I can't see well enough to now I'm on county assistance, I'm getting $200 a month, plus $200 worth of food stamps, and I'm supplementing that by selling plasma twice a week, and I always used to say trying
[00:35:05]
to make ends meet, but the end's never met, and I'm walking the street, one every day the same as the day before, no hopes, no goals, no dreams anymore, and my mother, and I became a low-bottom drunk, now I learn what it's like finally to become a low-bottom drunk after all these years, and my mom, because a mother is only as happy as their most unhappy child, she thought it might be something left in this piece of man, and she didn't want to see me out there living in the streets, so she let me rent a room in her house, you heard me, rent a room, she wouldn't look at me or talk to me, my brothers would come, Ralph, Rod, and Ronald, hey Ralph, Rod, Ronald, and me, she'd just shake her head and look at me, shake her head, or look away, and shake her head and walk by me, and I just felt like no piece of, less than nothing, and I remember one day I was driving my mom's garage, right, that's where I used to sneak and drink and use, while living in that house, while renting the house, they rent the room in her house, and bringing that, that, that, all that confusion, and, and, and we bring to the people that love us, we're like tornadoes in the lives of the people that love us, and I love my mom more than anything in the world, couldn't love her more than drinking and using, and I'm drinking and using, and I'm bringing this girlfriend over there that she said never ever bring in her house, and I'm sneaking her in through the window like I'm a kid, like I'm a kid in high school, and there's chaos, chaos going on, and I remember I was sitting behind my, that, behind that garage one day, and I had a bottle of cisco and some paraphernalia, and I remember thinking to myself, I can't do this anymore, I didn't think I, you might be thinking, oh, oh, I can't, I can't drink anymore, I can't use anymore, no, what I was thinking is, I give up on trying to get sober, I've tried every single way that I can, I've tried going to meetings, I've tried taking steps, I've tried working with a spouse, I've tried, I've tried pairing up with people, I've tried every way in the world, except I didn't try God, because fuck God, I already tried that God thing, and I know that there is a God, but that God didn't work for me, I tried that God thing, and look at what he did with my little girl, look at what he did with my little girl, so I tried every way, but every time I get to that God thing, it's no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm gonna try to educate my way to sobriety, right, and use it as a management tool, and behind that garage that day, I gave up, looking back in the rear view mirror, that was my surrender, I surrendered to the fact that I couldn't do it, I didn't have to surrender to the fact that God could, what I needed, what I had to do was surrender the fact that Reggie couldn't, and that was what I did that day, I surrendered to the fact that I couldn't, and I remember what that looked like, was I walked away from behind that garage, and I said I'm not hiding anymore, what I'm doing, everybody knew, right, but in my mind, I was sneaking and hiding, right, and I said I'm not gonna hide that anymore, and about a week later, God had my so-called girlfriend steal my mother's car out of her driveway, and the door got pushed open to that bedroom that I was renting in my mom's house, and my baby brother pushed the door open, and he said where's mom's car, I said what are you talking about, he said I have to leave my mother's house right now, and I sat up and looked behind him, and my mother was standing there looking terrified of me, of me, I love her more than anything in the world, and it felt like a piece of my soul, and I made one right decision that day, I made the decision to go to that same rehab, I've been to twice in a five-year period, and I called Rico Cruz, my sponsor, I called Rico, and Rico said he had been waiting for that call, and I hadn't talked to Rico in years, but he said I've been waiting for this call, and two days later, I was walking the ground to that rehab with my head down, because I hadn't looked any on the eye in years, I was too ashamed and humiliated, and Rico walked up on me, and he said Reggie, pick your head up, you're a child of God, you don't have a right to walk with your head down anymore, he said God wouldn't put you through everything he put you through for 16 years to leave you out here like this, and before I could stop myself, the words slid out of my mouth, I said would you please take me through this now, and for the first time in 20 years, I asked another man for help, and God reached in right there, right there, right there, God reached down, and he touched me, and he did something with me,
[00:40:00]
all of a sudden, all of a sudden, I no longer, see I had been dominated by what you guys thought of me, that's all I cared about is what people thought of me, and all of a sudden, I no longer cared what anybody thought about me, all I started thinking from that second was how can I help these 200 guys in this rehab, and I'll start going around, telling my story to them, and helping those guys, at two or three days sober, and I'm going around there, and I'm talking to everybody in that rehab, and I'm talking about what happened in my life, and I'm telling them stuff, and thank God that God doesn't need my permission to work in my life, because I was still a person of God on a daily basis, I hadn't told God, God just made sure that I knew that he had never left me, you know, and I walked out of that rehab at 90 days, and I was on the third step, and I walked into Never Too Early Big Book Workout, because I no longer cared about whether I had a year anymore, I didn't worry about my pride and integrity anymore, God was still pouring grace on me, and I walked in there, and I was on the third step, and we were on the third step prayer, and we were on our knees together, holding hands, 250 to 300 of us doing that third step prayer together, that's how Never Too Early does it when we're live, and we're holding hands, we're doing that third step prayer together, me to a God that I had no belief could do anything for me, and that I was still a person on a daily basis, but I believe that you guys believe, and that was enough to start, then we got to the fourth step, and my brother Ralph had a saying, we always talked about totally justified anger, the worst enemy of any alcoholic, and if you've been raped as a child, molested as an adult, if your baby, four years old, four and a half years old, had been tortured and killed, and she did nothing to anybody, and neither had I, and what we say in that situation is, do you want to be right, or do you want to be free? Do you want to be right, or do you want to be free?
And this time, I chose freedom, and I put God on the fourth step, and when I put God on that fourth step, things started to look different. I realized that God wasn't the one that made that decision, that gave my little girl the bad medication that killed her. I realized that God wasn't the one that had made that decision, that was the Doctors Children's Hospital made the first decision. I realized that God wasn't the one that made the decision for my daughter to die, that was the Doctors Cedars-Sinai Hospital. Okay, but wait a minute, I prayed, God, please take my life, save my daughter. Well, when did God start working for me instead of me working for God?
Okay, and then there was this big thing, the really big problem, what kind of God would let a little girl, the thing I've been angry about for so long, that just dominated me for all those years, what kind of God would let a little girl be tortured for four long months and then die a horrible death like that? The last memories in that little girl's life were nothing but pain and agony, and I could never get past that. But see, when I look at the world differently, the world looks back differently, and the way I prefer to look at it is this, that God held Angela Marie Whiteness off before he put her on this earth, and he said, little girl, you are going to be tortured for four long months, you're going to die a horrible death, so what I'm going to do for you is I'm going to give you to a man who's going to love you every single day of your life.
And he gave her to me, my miracle baby, and the way I prefer to look at it is this, not that God only let me have her for four and a half years, but that God allowed me to be a father for four and a half years, the best four and a half years of my life. And then my mom, my mom suffered so long and hard at the hands of my brother and myself, but especially at the hands of me. And thank God that God has allowed my mother to still be alive today. On February 1st of this year, my mom turned 95 years old. My mom has lived long enough, thank God, for me to not only make amends, but to continue make living amends to her. See, we are tornadoes in the love of the people that love us so much, and I've been such, not only had I destroyed her so much, but I'd gotten her hopes up so many times that she, you know, when she thought I was back, right? And so even though my mom was the last one to give up on me, she was also the last one to believe I was all the way back. So new friends, some of the time, sometimes we gotta be patient with people. You know, yes, I knew I was back. Everybody else knew I was back, but my mom didn't know I was back. She didn't believe, she couldn't believe it. And it took her four years.
And It Took Her Four Years, It Took Her So Long, And All I Kept Saying, If I Went Out
[00:45:01]
of Her House, To Take Her, See My Mom Had Said She Never Wanted Me On Her Property Again, And Then I Remember That First Thanksgiving After I Made It Out, My Mom Said, She Sent A Message, She Sent A Message Saying, Reggie Could Come, No Reggie, He Could Come, Thanksgiving, That Doesn't Get To Happen, It's Like, I'm The Guy That Every Single Person I Knew Gave Including Myself, Every Single Person, There's No Way I Should Be Sitting Here Running Right Now, And On My Fourth A.A. Birthday, Finally, My Mom Wrote My Birthday Card, You're The Center of My Universe, And Now My Mom And I Are So Close, We're Like Best Friends, And Some Of The Benefits Of Supporting Her, My Ex-Wife, Who Also Didn't Make It Through This Whole Thing, About Seven Months After I Made It Back, He Saw What Was Happening With Me, And She Came Back As Well, You Know, And We're Really Good Friends, And My Ex-Wife Gets To Drive My Mom Everywhere, Taking Her To Shops, Stores, And Plays, And Stuff Like That, Those Are Some Of The Benefits Of Supporting Her, And My Mom Told My Ex-Wife, She Said, Reggie Is What I Always, Reggie Is Like To Be A Reggie, And He's The One I Always Counted, And That's The Benefit To Society, And I Always Used To Say, I Was Never Hurting Anybody Other Than Myself, Even When I Had All Those Jobs With Girls Going Wild, And Stuff Like That, And I Said, That Was My Man, I'm Not Hurting Anybody Other Than Myself, And Then My Mom, When I Was Back About Two Years, See She Knows Too Much About This Program, She Said, Reggie, You Own Your Niece And A Men's, I'm Like, What, What Did I Do Now? She Said, Well, When That Car Got Stolen Out The Driveway Two Years Ago, You Paid $185 To Get It Out Of Impound, I'm Like, Why Would You Wait Two Years? And I Called My Niece, I Said, I Really Have To Pay You This Money, I Have To Make This Amends, My Niece Is Like, Uncle, I Love You So Much, I'm Just So Happy You're Back, I Want Your Money, And I Said To Her, If I Don't Pay You This Money Now, I Might Be Drunk Tomorrow, And She Hurried Up To Get The Money, But I Asked Her That Question We Have To Ask, I Said, Is There Any Other Way That I've Harmed You Me? And She Said, Uncle, You, And I Was, I Was Surprised, I Said, How Did I Harm You? She Said, Uncle, We Were Little Kids Growing Up Together, Me And Angie, She Grew Up With My Daughter, Angie, She Said, You Used To Take All Us Little Kids, Put Us On Your Lap, And Spread Us Out On The Couch, And On The Floor, And Every Holiday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, And New Year's, And You Would Tell A Story, You Would Tell Us These Tales, Tall Tales, Every, Every Holiday About How You Had All These Adventures With Santa Claus, And The Tooth Fairy, And The Easter Bunny, And You Guys Would Fly All Over The World, Having All These Adventures, She Said, Uncle, I Would, We Would Laugh, And Laugh, And Laugh, It Was My Favorite Part Of Every Holiday, She Said, Uncle, I Wanted You To Tell Those Stories To My Kids, I Wanted You To Tell Those Stories To All The Grandkids, She Said, Uncle, You Were Gone So Long, I Thought That We Had Lost You Forever, She Said, Uncle, You Would Be In This Room, Right Here In Gran's House, And The Door Would Be So Close, I Could Reach Out And Touch It, She Said, But That Door, She Said, I Would Pray That That Door Would Open, And You Would Come Out, So I Could Hug You, I Love You, She Said, I Used To Pray That That Door Would Open, You Walk Out Like You Always Used To, And Hug Me In, Thanks To You, Here In Alcoholics Anonymous, My Niece Has Her Uncle, Thanks To You, In Alcoholics Anonymous, My Mom Has Her Son Back, And My Brothers Have Their Brother, Thanks To You, Here In Alcoholics Anonymous, I Have An Opportunity, One Day At A Time, To Try To Repay Just A Little Of What's Been So Freely Given, Ramona, Thank You So Much For Inviting Me Out, Thank You Guys For Listening To Me, My Name Is Reggie W., I'm An Alcoholic, Thank You For Allowing Me To Speak, Thank You Reggie, And I Think This Is The Last Time I'm
[00:50:10]
Going To Ask You To Speak, Because We're All Crying, Everybody's Crying, You're Supposed To Make Us Feel Better, Love Your Story, I Love Your Story, And I Know It's Coming, I Know It's Coming, Oh My, Okay, Thank You So Much For Joining Us Tonight, Where You Never Know What You're Going To Get, I Think Is What It Says, Okay, You Just Have To Keep Coming Back, And We Surely Hope To See You Here Again Next Week, Our Speaker Is Rebecca C. From Atlanta, Colorado, Wherever She Is Right Now, She's Got A Great Story, If You Like This Meeting, Please Come Back, Please Do As Bill Wilson Says, Pass It On, You Can Help Others Right From Your Phone Or Computer, And Tell Them About This Special Meeting, Everyone Is Invited To Hang Out With Us Afterwards In The Meeting, After The Meeting On The Back Porch, Okay Reggie, You Still Got To Talk, I'm Sorry, You Have Any Closing Comments, And Would You Take Us Out With A Prayer Of Your Choice, No Ramona, I Have No Closing Comments, Thank You So Much For Having Me Guys, After A Moment Of Silence, For The Alcoholics Who Still Suffer In Or Out Of This Room, God Grant Me The Serenity To Accept The Things That I Cannot Change, The Courage To Change Things That I Can, And The Wisdom To Know The Difference, And Man Keep Coming Back At Work, Thank You Guys, Appreciate You, All Right Y'All, I Can't Come Back Now, Thank You Reggie, Thank You, Thank You Reggie,