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Source: Reggie W – BOX OF CHOCOLATES – 2025-12-11.m4a File: reggie-w-box-of-chocolates-2025-12-11.mp3 Duration: 00:54:02
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I want to welcome anyone who possibly is new to AA or is coming back home and assure you that the program works and it works well, especially at times like this. I was sitting here thinking, I talked to, there were a few of us here talking before the meeting, and I mentioned that at my mom's funeral next week, and if any of you have ever heard me or any of my brothers share, you know how close, how much we idolize our mom and how much our mom has done for us.
She raised six of us by herself in Watts, which is the poorest part of LA, and we were like the poorest family in the poorest part of LA, and my mom used to mark all six of us around the church, you know, and we were in like the roughest part of LA, and we weren't rough guys. Well, she raised us by herself because my dad was an alcoholic. Well, he didn't really rise to the level of alcoholic. He was a wino. He drank this stuff called Ripple, these little short dog bottles of Ripple, right? And my dad would drink this Ripple, and he wasn't a mean drunk, tough drunk, or abusive drunk. He's just a cat who couldn't make it on the paycheck, and so he'd get paid on Friday, didn't make it on until Sunday or Monday. And see, my mom is struggling by her, you know. My mother was a domestic. She was putting herself through high school and college.
She was taking in laundry and ironing and stuff like that, you know, all this extra stuff to try to make ends meet because it was real tough back in those days, and my dad just wasn't cooperating, and she was looking forward to him bringing home the paycheck, and he would come home on Sunday or Monday, get off work on Friday, but make it home Sunday or Monday, and 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.
I said, I'll never—I hate alcoholics. I'll never drink alcohol, and I couldn't wait till I had a family to show my dad, my father, what a real father is supposed to look like, and I meant that with everything in me. My mom, she raised all six of us, but we were poor, but we were happy, you know, six boys. We were all like real tight, like each other's best friends and stuff, and we made up games and all that stuff, and we were real sharp. We were, you know, like we had hopes and goals and dreams, and we were real smart guys. You knew us in school, guys who were straight-A students and teacher's pets, but I know you liked me because I was funny, and I let you cheat off my paper, and I was fast, and I ran track, and I played baseball. I was good at that, and I always had a good-looking girlfriend, elementary school, junior high, and high school, and that was the crux of my problem. See, because somehow I thought all of you guys—I don't know what I really thought.
Well, I do know what I thought. I thought all the guys—I'd be seeing all these cats in here, especially like police and stuff, right, and I think those guys know what's going on, and they'd be whispering to you girls, and you guys would be giggling and stuff, and I didn't know what they were saying, and somehow I'd have a real good-looking girlfriend, but I was so painfully shy, and my deep, dark secret was that I lived on third base, see, all the way up through school. You'd think it wasn't a big deal, elementary school, junior high, and high school, but where I came from, man, I didn't know it. Well, all these guys in these squares, they were telling me that they were getting down with all of you women, all the way coming up, elementary school, junior high, and high school, and I believed them. I didn't know half of them were lying, and so I went away to college thinking I was the world's last virgin, right? That was my dirty little secret, but my roommates had a solution. When I finally admitted my affliction to them—I'm 17 years old, I'm a freshman in college, and I finally admit my affliction, this terrible secret I got, and they had a solution. They said, Reggie, don't trip. We got it. We got you. The next time you have a girl in your room, you bring the best bottle of alcohol that you can buy, right? The most expensive bottle, the best bottle that you can buy, and as the alcohol goes down her throat, her legs will come open. You'll get exactly what you want. Their words, not mine, ladies. Don't be mad at me, but I believe them, and so the very next weekend, I had this girl in my room. It wasn't my girlfriend, but her boyfriend was going home for the weekend, so it was okay, and I had this bottle of alcohol in there. It was the most expensive and best bottle I could buy. It was called Spagnata, so I got this bottle of Spagnata in there, and me and the girl, we're so shy and so scared, and we're looking at each other, waiting for one to make the move, and finally, we poured some
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drinks and drank them, and it worked exactly like the fellas told me it would, and I became a man that night, but now, I don't know. She became a woman. She was like, oh, you're done already, but anyway, that's a whole different story, but the problem was that I drank some of that alcohol too, right, and when I drank it, something happened to me. Good shit. I mean, some good stuff. Sorry, he said no cursing in here. Some good stuff happened to me. It was that good, right?
All of a sudden, my mouth started going. See, I was shy, and I couldn't talk, and all of a sudden, my mouth was going, and I felt like I could dance, and I got real close to cool. Now, some other stuff happened. I found out I couldn't hold my liquor, and I'm throwing up and blacking out and stuff like that. My roommates had a solution for that too. They said, Reggie, you have to mix it in with other things. You have to be balanced, so I mixed it in with some non-addictive marijuana, with some hash, and some Quaaludes, and with some Valium. You name it. Anything you could do in the 70s, we did a mushroom, some of everything. We said, me and my brothers always said, we just won't do the hard stuff. No cocaine or heroin, but anything else was fair game.
This was the 70s. It was free love. It was good times. We were in college and good looking, and man, I had a ball. Alcohol worked for me like nothing else would. It was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I really needed some alcohol. If only I could have just kept it to a minimum, I'd have been fine if I could have managed it, because I'm a cat who was so tightly wound that alcohol did for me what I couldn't do for myself, and I really needed alcohol, and the weed, and everything else that went along with it.
Now, I'd had hopes and goals and dreams when I went to college. Me and my brothers, we were real sharp. We were going to start a law firm, White, White, and White Incorporated, me and my brothers Ralph and Ronald. I was going to be a millionaire by the time I was 30 to bring my mom out to get them, because I love my mom, but I kind of forgot about those goals. I forgot to apply to law school. I forgot about those other goals. All of a sudden, I was just busy.
Once I started drinking and using, I'm chasing women, and that was my whole goal. I made it through school, though. I was an A student still. I was still on the track team and baseball team. To me, there was no problem, and I came out of school. I got real good jobs. I'm making real good money, and life was going really great. I had season tickets under the basket, three rows back, all during the later Showtime era with Patrick Johnson and all them.
I'm right there, and we have Dodger tickets. Me and my brothers are partying together, and life is really, really good until we start adding in some things we shouldn't add in. I started losing things. I started losing jobs. I started losing bank accounts. I started losing cars. I started losing license, insurance, and registration. I started having to go to check cash in places. I started walking the streets. I started losing my self-respect and my dignity. One day in 1984, I lost my apartment. I lost my girlfriend, and I lost my job all in the same day. I said, I got to regroup. I moved back down to my mom's house because that's what any successful guy would do, be highly successful. I moved back in there in 1984. By 1985, all five of my brothers had moved back to my mom's house. We were drinking and using so hard that my mom had a nervous breakdown and almost died. She was in the hospital for two weeks. All six of her formerly successful sons were drinking and using in her house and almost killing her.
We loved her more than anything in the world. In 1986, two of my brothers disappeared. First, my brother Ronald disappeared in July. I didn't know where he went. I didn't care. My brother Ralph disappeared in October of 1986. I didn't know where he went. I didn't care. In December of 1986, I was standing on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. I was waiting for a bus to go pick this girl's car up and go make a run in LA. I had drank my car up already.
This stranger, this guy came walking up to me, telling me, let's do lunch. I'm looking at this dude thinking, I don't know who this guy thinks I am, but it was my brother. He looked so good, I didn't recognize him. This was just five months after he had disappeared. His eyes were clear. His clothes were sharp. He smelled good. His hair was cut. He looked good. We went and had lunch.
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He broke out a huge wad of 20s to pay the bill. I asked him, dude, you look really good. I said, what have you been doing? He said, I went to this place called the Salvation Army Harbor Light Center. He said, it's downtown on Scarborough. He said, I no longer drink and I no longer use. 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.
Can you loan me $40? You need that place. I said, can you loan me $40? He said, no. I said, you son of a, and I kept pushing, but the seed had been planted. Two months later, February 7th of 1987, I had my suit and tie on. We left work together, me and this girl. I dropped her off in the valley, took her car to LA to go buy some things, and I got stuck. I never made it back with her car to her house. I was stuck for two weeks. I hadn't changed, showered, brushed my teeth, combed my hair. I hadn't left that car for two weeks other than to go out and make some bills with some other really dangerous guys in South Central LA. After the two week period, there were a whole bunch of people looking for me and they were really dangerous and they were really looking to do me some harm. I thought that I at least wanted to get this girl's car back to her. The car was empty. I called my brother Ronald, couldn't reach him, and I reached my brother Ralph, who had also disappeared. He said he would take the car back for me, but I would have to go into that Salvation Army Harbor Light place. I said, okay, this was on a Friday. I said, I'll go in there on Monday. I have to get my affairs in order. He pointed out to me I didn't have any affairs, so on Friday, February 7th of 1987, I walked into the lobby of the Salvation Army Harbor Light Center more dead than alive. I stank so badly, I have absolutely no idea how that guy stayed in the room and did intake on me. He told me that they were going to let me sleep for a week. That's all that I heard. They called it detox. I heard that he was going to let me sleep for a week and that's all I heard. I hadn't slept in two weeks and I wanted to sleep so badly.
They took that suit that I had on, threw it away, gave me fresh clothes, let me eat, let me sleep for a week, and then they sent me down to what they call an AA meeting. I didn't know what that was. I'd never heard of AA. I'd never heard of rehab. I went down and I sat in the front row because I was what they called new. I'm sitting in the front row and this tall white dude with a beard came up to the podium. He looked incredibly lame to me. He had on a suit and tie and looked incredibly lame, just like I look right now. He's pounding on the podium and he's saying, if you want what I have, you'll get this Bible. It's up here on this podium. You'll read it from the beginning. You'll get a sponsor and your life can change. I looked at that dude and I thought to myself, man, you are lame. I don't want nothing you got. I had a real quick second thought. I thought to myself, wait a minute. I bet this guy's not spending a night here at the Harbor Light Center like me. I know he has a car because he's not walking down Skid Row this time of night.
He probably has a home that he's going to and he might have a couple of women in there and he may have a job. I started thinking maybe I want a little bit of what this guy's got. I asked him to be my sponsor. He bought me that book, that Bible. He said, read it from the beginning and your life can change. I looked at that Bible and it said Alcoholics Anonymous on the front of it. I'm thinking, what kind of Bible is this? I opened it up and it said, there is a solution.
I got my first message of hope. I'm a real sharp talker, don't forget that. I thought to myself, wait a minute. I'm going to go upstairs and I'm going to read this book from the beginning. I'm going to get an A and A, A. I'm going to speed read this book tonight because they had said only two of you guys are going to get it. I looked around the room at these Skid Row bums and I'm thinking I'm going to at least get it. I don't know what these guys are going to do. I'm already dug at everybody in the room on my very first AA meeting ever. I went up to that room. I started reading that book and I got to the part in the doctor's opinion where it said the only hope for a chronic alcoholic is total abstinence. You lost me right there. You can't slide big words by me like abstinence. I know what that means. I know what total abstinence means. What part of the game is that? I had a bait and switch. I thought you guys were going to teach me how to just drink wine with my meal, not that hard liquor because I can't handle it. I thought you were going to show me how to smoke, just maybe drink wine, maybe smoke a little bit of marijuana, stay away from the hard liquor, stay away from those hard things that I also use. I thought you were going to teach me how to pay my bills, maybe hold on to a job, maybe how to pay my rent, and hold on to that holy trinity, license, insurance, and registration all at the same time. Instead, you're talking All at the same time. Instead, you talking F. And who does that? Who wants that? No, I didn't want
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that. And I would have left that rehab right then and there on the spot, because you lost me right there. But I didn't have anywhere to go. So I stayed. And a month later, they gave me a pass, a weekend pass, me and my, and I took my two biggest friends, and we went down to this place called 9604 South Bigger Road. This was on a Sunday, Saturday afternoon at noon. We went to the noon meeting at 9604 South Bigger Road in Alano Club down in South Central L.A. We opened the door to that meeting and got hit with a wall of laughter and terrified, because people hadn't been laughing where I had been coming from, right? Not out loud, not like that. And I looked and I saw a bunch of old timers standing there and they're hugging and shaking hands and laughing and joking. I'm like, OK, that's cool. Then on the other side of the room, it was a bunch of guys, but, you know, cool looking guys, young guys, actually young looking guys, cool guys.
And they're hugging and shaking hands. I don't like to hug them, but I'm like, OK. And then I looked at the far end of the room and it was a bunch of really good looking women. I'm like, OK, maybe we could do this. So we went into the only place they had open seats. We went to the very back of this crowded room and it was a long pitch at the back of the room. Later on, I found out we called it Death Row. And we're sitting on death row. And I looked to my left and there's the coffee, big silver coffee pot. And it looked like it was glowing, like just like it was like a lamp or something. And man, I wanted some of that coffee. And it was right next to it was a plate piled high with cookies, not those cheap ninety nine cent store cookies look like Oreos.
Right. And man, I wanted some of those cookies. But it was a crowd of people standing there, a gang of people right there by the coffee pot, laughing and joking. And it was a guy behind the counter. And I thought to myself, what if I go over there for a cup of coffee and he asked me for a quarter? I don't have it. Or what if I go over there and pick up a cookie and they ask me for a nickel? I don't have any. See, the condition I came to, you guys, and I had nothing but that dirty, nasty, filthy soup that they took from me and threw it away. I didn't have anything else to my name. Right. And I don't know how this old timer lady read my mind. I don't even know how she figured out I was new. He came all the way to the back of that room, a crowd of people that was laughing and joking. And I guess she didn't want to embarrass me. She put her mouth right next to my ear and she whispered, maybe over there and get you some of that coffee over there and get you some of those cookies. Take all you want is free. And then she smiled 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 the podium that day, that mental obsession and physical allergy, all that stuff. I knew kindness when I felt it. And man, people have been kind to me in years and nobody had been offering me something for nothing. And then I started going. I fell in love with Alcoholics Anonymous on the spot and I started doing everything you asked me to do. I started volunteering for everything. I started cleaning ashtrays and mopping floors and setting up meetings. I was volunteering for everything. Eventually, I ended up going on panels, 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 for the Never Too Early Big Book Workshop. It was 13 of us around my mom's dining room table with our big books open. When my mom got up to go to church that morning and she was, my mother walked out to go to church and saw all these alcoholics with the big books open at her dining room table, and she almost cried. She was so happy you had brought three of her sons back to her.
And just two years earlier, before that, she had been in the hospital with a nervous breakdown from these sons. It was such a white household. And then a month later, after we started the Never Too Early Big Book Workshop, my baby brother, Rod, came to the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous on Christmas Day of 1987. 1987 was a great year in the white household. And the Never Too Early Big Book Workshop, which started in 1987 with 13 of us, had like probably close to 500 people this past Sunday at 9.30 in the morning. It's been going continuously since 1987. When we were live, it was like 250 to 300 of us. Since we've been on Zoom, since the pandemic, it's been 500 of us online going through this book at 9.30 in the morning every Sunday morning. And 1987 was a great year in the white household. I have three brothers now who have 38, 39 years of sobriety in this fellowship. And my life, we started working the steps exactly as outlined in the
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Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous in my life. Things started to get really, really good, really, really fast. I didn't know it, but I came in here on a real high. I didn't feel that way, but I had a real good work history built up and I hadn't lost a lot. I hadn't lost a lot of jobs or anything, but I was able to get work really fast and I'm making money really quick. And I got a girlfriend real fast and that girlfriend had a son and we moved in together. We had an AA romance and moved in together within two weeks. And I'm already a better dad than my dad ever was.
And my mom was so grateful to you guys for bringing four of her sons back to her. She opened their house up to Alcoholics Anonymous every Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. If you didn't have anywhere to go, you came to the White House. Mrs. White invited you, everybody in the fellowship to her house. And we had a house that was full of people every holiday. Every holiday was great. And we did the dances and the parties and the softball games and the meetings. And man, AA life really, really, really good. How could it get better? Well, the richest man in California handpicked me to bring his company back from Atlanta to LA. So now I have a home in Atlanta. I have a home in West Hollywood where I've moved my family. I have six departments, 250 employees, and I'm making six figures at less than two years sobriety going forward for years.
And how could life get better than that? Well, I didn't think I could have any kids. And all of a sudden, my girlfriend turns up pregnant in AA Miracle. See, I barebacked it all my life. I've never used protection because I didn't think I could have any kids. And now I have my miracle baby, Angela Marie White. And the best thing I've been from that day to this is a father here in Alcoholics Anonymous. 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. Bill puts it differently. He says, if an alcoholic fails to perfect and enlarge the spiritual life through self-sacrifice and working with others, he won't be able to survive the certain trials and those spots ahead. And if he can, he'll drink it. If he drinks, he'll die. And I'll hope Austin Dee, what that looked like in my life. I'm in Atlanta, so I'm not going to never twirl the workshop anymore. So I'm not working the steps anymore. I got a sponsor and name only that's in Los Angeles that I hadn't talked to in years. I hadn't called him in years to talk to him. I'm no longer going on panels to prisons and I'm no longer taking panels down on Skid Row. I'm not doing any of the things that Alcoholics Anonymous, they got me all the things that Alcoholics Anonymous got me. Don't let the life that AA gave you get in the way of your AA life. Then the trials came that Bill talked about.
My wife thought she saw my daughter have a seizure. We took her to Children's Hospital. Doctors said they thought they saw a doctor gave her medication that was not supposed to be given to a child at young. The medication, the seizure medication started eating my daughter's kidneys away. She's being eaten alive from the inside. Four long months, we're back and forth to the hospital trying to get them to switch the seizure medication because you can't just stop it or it would cause seizures. The doctors wouldn't do it. We're back and forth begging them to switch.
I had enough of that. My baby would come to me and hug me. Daddy, tummy hurts, tummy hurts. She's being eaten alive, being tortured. She hasn't eaten in four months and she's just in agony for four months. I can't stop the pain. She trusts me and counts on me. I was her hero. I said enough of this. Took her to Cedars-Sinai, the best hospital in LA. They took one look at her and they said, we have to, 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 AA gathered around, all the church people with my mom, all of my family, all of our friends. We weren't alone one single minute or one single day of that three and a half week period that we lived at that hospital. I started praying again.
At first I brought my mom in to pray. I'm like, mom, because I needed to bring in the big guns. I'm like, mom, please come in to pray. My mom is a prayer warrior. She does those prayers. I'm thinking my mom's going to come in and say, God, please heal this baby. I'm bringing her in to ask for God's help. My mom came in and she said, God, please help this family walk through whatever you put in front of it. Whatever it is that you have, whatever your will is, have us be able to walk through it. I'm looking at my mom and in my mind, I'm cursing her out.
I'm like, mom, you're supposed to take for my baby's life. I start praying. I say, God,
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please take my life and save my daughter. That was the one time I didn't know that my mom was going to need a right to pray. My mom's in for God's will. I'm praying for Reggie's will. Take my life, save my daughter. I'm offering my life for hers. It looked like my prayers were answered. The doctors came out. They said, we figured out what's wrong with your daughter. We just have to do exploratory surgery. They opened her up and they did it. When they opened her up, they killed her. When they killed her, it felt like God left me. I totally shit in them.
I never went back to that dream job one day after that. I never even called them. Somehow they made it to the funeral. I don't know how they kept paying me. I don't know why. I'm a cautionary tale here in Alcoholics Anonymous. What I used to say a long time ago is that I relapsed because my daughter died. That's not true. We know what to do when we have tragedies in our life here in Alcoholics Anonymous. We go to the podium and talk till they drag us off of it. What we do is we call a sponsor and call a sponsor. What we do is we go and we mop floors and we set up chairs. What we do is we talk to new people. What we do is we sit in the middle of the herd till you guys love us back to life.
I could do none of that. We're supposed to lean into the fellowship. I totally shut down and so did my wife. You guys did absolutely everything you could to get through to us. I just couldn't hear you. I was just so angry and so filled with grief. I'm angry at you. I'm angry at God. I'm cursing God. What kind of God would allow a little girl? What kind of God would make it so that a little girl like that who did nothing to nobody is tortured for the last four months of her life and then dies a horrible death like that? What kind of God would allow that to happen?
I was so angry at God and I wrapped that anger around me like a warm blanket on a cold day. I lasted 11 months like that. Then I went to a bar and I drank. When I started drinking, it came rushing back at me how bad of an alcoholic I was. I'd done so many outside issues. I'd forgotten how bad of an alcoholic I was. All the throwing up, the blacking out, the bad behavior came rushing back a hundredfold. I only did that for two weeks. Then she came in the bar. You know her, short skirt, long legs, low cut breasts. She tilted her head and gave me that look. Y'all know that look when you're giving it and when you see it. I tilted my head right back and gave her my four-word interview that I always did, do you get high?
She said yes. I was off and running doing what I really wanted to do and what I really knew I couldn't do. I only did that for two weeks. Then it was the anniversary of my baby's death. I needed to see God. God needed to explain some things to me. He needed to tell me, did he need more angels down here? Did he need help? Why would he allow us to do this to each other? I wanted to be back with my baby, which was the last time I'd ever been happy.
I took a bunch of pills and committed suicide. I was pronounced dead on arrival. 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 then my brothers, and then all the people that love me. I'm ashamed. I'm humiliated. I don't have my sobriety. I don't have my baby. I don't have anything. I hate you. I hate God.
I hate me. Was I to know what the next 16 years were going to be like, I'd have tried to commit suicide all over again. It took me 16 years to make it back to you guys. The first five or six years was spent me and my family tearing each other apart with grief. Never blamed each other for my baby's death, but it was just so much sadness that we couldn't even stand it with each other. Me and my wife, who was in the fellowship, we fell apart out of that. My stepson, who had never been a stepson before, I said, you're my son, just like that's my daughter. All of a sudden, when my baby died, I let him go too. I'm ashamed and humiliated about all that.
That probably took five or six years. Eventually, I wanted to get back to you guys. More specifically, I wanted to get back to Never Twirly Pickbook Workshop. If there are any new friends on here, that's why we get a home group because we always want to go back home. Home Group. Because we always want to go back home where we know people love us. And I want to go back and never too early Big Book worked out, but just like it was
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so good that I had me and my brothers that come in here together, and all of us, I had three brothers and we all came in here together, we're walking this path, now it's a deficit when I'm trying to come back to you guys. I know Clancy always talked about how AA is the only friendly direction for a lot of us when we get here. Our family doesn't want to see us, and our friends, and our work people, and the church doesn't want to see us, nobody wants to see us, the job don't want to see us, the family don't want to see us, our relatives don't want to see us, nobody wants to see us coming and the only friendly direction is Alcoholics Anonymous.
But when you become a serial relapser, sometimes Alcoholics Anonymous becomes an unfriendly direction, you know, it's not a friendly direction for those who have become serial relapsers like I eventually became. And I wanted to go back and never too early Big Book worked out, but I thought in my mind I was thinking you guys are all looking at me and good, why can't you be like your brothers, what are you going to do different, if you really wanted to be sober you could do it.
I wanted to go back in with my pride and integrity intact, so I at least wanted to have a year of sobriety before I walked back into my home group and never too early Big Book worked out. And if you're Reggie W., how do you get your pride and integrity back if you, well, for me, for a guy like me, I sneak back to Alcoholics Anonymous, what are you talking about Reggie, well let me explain. I'm in West Hollywood, all the people I know, all of my friends and family are down in South Central LA.
So I'm going to these meetings where nobody know me, I go to meetings late because I can't, I'm too ashamed and humiliated to raise my hand as a newcomer. I leave meetings early before you give out chips because I'm too ashamed and humiliated to take chips. So now I'm at meetings, not in meetings and I'm not getting any of the benefit of the fellowship of the meetings and I'm relapsing over and over and over again and I start doing that recovery home dance, in and out, in and out, in and out and I'm starting to die.
I'm starting to die within the fellowship of AA. On a trip, I'm a sharp guy, I thought about it, how did I get sober the first time? I took the steps, okay, in a vision for you it says, though you be but one man with this book in your hand, we believe and we hope it contains all you need to be in. I got a book, I've taken plenty of people through the steps. I'll take myself through the steps, I'll sponsor myself, so now I'm at these meetings where nobody know me.
I'm taking myself through steps one through four, I do a tremendous four step and find a stranger and do a great fifth step and I skip the steps 12 and 13 and relapse over and over and over again but I'm not hurting anybody other than myself, right? Because I'm still working, I'm still holding on to a job. As long as I stay away from my family, I'm not hurting them, so I'm doing everything I can to stay away from them and I'm working, thank God for telemarketing jobs, girl gone wild and all that kind of stuff and I'm working these jobs and God said, I need to slow you down, Reggie, I just need to slow you down.
So in 2009, he gave me glaucoma, now I have zero precision, 0% vision in my right eye and 30% vision in my left. I'm considered legally blind in the state of California, I can no longer drive a car and now I can't work for anybody because my vision is too bad and I learned what it's like to become a low bottom drunk, so now I'm getting $200 a month from the county of California along with $200 worth of food stamps and I'm selling plasma twice a week to make ends meet and ends ain't meet and the mother is only as happy as their most unhappy child and when I became that low bottom drunk, that guy, you know that guy walking the streets every day, wandering the streets with his head down all the time and I'm walking the streets every day the same as the day before, no hopes, no goals, no dreams anymore and my mother thought it may be something left in this piece of man and she took me and let me rent a room in her house, she wouldn't look at me or talk to me but she let me rent that room in her house and I'm tense, we're a tornado in the lives of the people that love us and I'm starting to tear her life apart, I'm starting to tear her household apart and starting to tear her life apart and I'm dying, I'm dying, I have that diagnosed alcohol but I'm not treating because I'm busy out there drinking and using and my eyesight is gone and I'm starting to go towards totally blind because I'm not treating at all and I have
[00:35:01]
an undiagnosed enlarged prostate so I have no control over my bodily functions, I'm stinking, I am and I'm watching myself die and then I have and I'm starting to have psychosis, I'm being visited by psychosis, I have I have audio and visual hallucination so now I can't tell what's true and what's false anymore, I'm that guy running to the door because I'm thinking people are talking about me and I look and they just get away around the corner where I can't see them and I'm sitting outside in my body and I'm watching myself die and I'm wondering if I could ever make it back from this, I don't think I can and every single person that I know gives up on me and the only time that anybody in my life, any of the people that love me have any peace of mind is when I'm in rehab, those periods when I go to rehab and that's the only time they have any peace of mind when I'm in those rehabs and then in June of 2017, I remember I was sitting behind my mom's garage where I used to sneak out of her house and go behind her garage and drink and use and I got a bottle of Cisco and I have some paraphernalia and I remember thinking to myself, I can't do this, not that I can't drink and use anymore but that God has made it, fixed it so that I can't, I can't get myself sober, I tried every single way that I could to get myself sober, see you got to remember I'm still hating God and F God, I don't want anything to do with God, look at what he did to my baby, look at what he let happen to my baby, I have no faith, no trust in God and I can't get myself sober anymore so I can't get myself sober, God won't even let me kill myself and I said I'm gonna have to be, this is who I'm gonna be for the rest of my life and I surrendered to the fact that I was gonna have to be this alcoholic and addict for the rest of my life and just walk in the streets and that Reggie W. is dead, Reggie W. is dead, I don't know who this guy is anymore and God saw that one little crack in there where I surrendered to the fact that I couldn't, that I couldn't do it and about a week later he had my so-called girlfriend steal my mother's car out of her driveway and my baby brother came to that room I was renting in my mother's house with that one more piece of that tornado just terrorizing my mother and my baby brother pushed open the door to that room and said, where's mom's car? I said, what are you talking about? He said, you have to leave my mother's house right now. I sat up and looked behind him and my mother was standing there looking terrified of me and I love her more than anything in the world, 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 through twice in a five-year period. I called my sponsor who I hadn't talked to in years and Rico said I've been waiting for this call and three days later I was walking the grounds of his rehab, the rehab he was running and I'm walking with my head down because again I hadn't looked any of you in the eye in years. I was so ashamed and so humiliated and I just couldn't look anybody in the eye and all I cared about is what you got. I was so worried about what everybody thought about and Rico walked up to me and he said, Ricky picked your head up, you a child of God, you don't have a right to walk with your head down anymore and he said, God wouldn't put you through everything he put you through to leave you out here like this. God has work for you to do.
Before I could stop myself, the words came out of my mouth, would you please take me through the steps. The first time in 20 years I asked another man for help and God reached down right then, right there and he did something in my life that I couldn't have done for myself. All of a sudden I no longer cared what people thought about me. All I've been caring about when I was walking with my head down is what the people on staff were going to say about me.
This was the third time in a five-year period for me at this rehab and every time I went in rehab, I came out as most likely to stay sober. I'm walking around worrying about what they're going to say to me and all of a sudden God touched me and all of a sudden I no longer care what anybody thought about me and all I cared about was helping those 200 guys who were in that rehab and I started right here at three days over walking through that rehab telling anybody that would listen to my story and talking to them about recovery and talking to them about relapse and talking to them about my experiences and thank God that God doesn't need my permission in my life because I was still cursing God on a daily basis. God is pouring grace on me and I walked and I came out of that rehab 90 days with God still pouring grace on me and I walked in the never too early Big Book workshop and I didn't care that I didn't have a year because I no longer
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care what people thought about me and I was on the third step and we were on the third step prayer. I continue in the poor grace on me and it was 250 to 300 of us on our knees holding hands doing that third step prayer together. We told God that I had no belief to do anything for me and that I was still cursing on a daily basis but I believe that you guys believe and that was enough to start and then we got to the fourth step and my brother Ralph drove the point home that if you have the worst thing that an alcoholic could have is totally justified anger. If you've been raped as a child, molested as an adult, if your baby four years old has been tortured and killed, did nothing to anybody, neither had I. What we say in that situation is do you want to be right?
Do you want to be right or do you want to be free? And this time I chose freedom and I put God on that fourth step and when I put God on that fourth step things started to look different. I realized God wasn't the one who had given my little girl the bad medication. That was the doctors at Children's Hospital. I realized God wasn't the one who made the decision for my little girl to die. That was the doctors at Cedars-Sinai Hospital. Okay, wait a minute though.
I pray God take my life, save my daughter but when did God start working for me instead of me working for God? Okay, well, the biggest thing, what kind of God would only allow me to have a girl for four years and rip her out of my life? 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 White in his arms before he put her on this earth and he said, little girl, you are going to be with her for four long months and you're going to die a horrible death. So what I'm going to do for you, I'm going to give you to a man who's going to love you every single day of your life.
I'm going to give you to the best father in the world and he gave her to me, a miracle baby that I didn't think I could have. And the way I prefer to look at it is this, not that God only allowed me to have my baby for four and a half years but that he 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. Thank God that God allowed my mom to live long enough for me to not only make amends to her but to continue to make living amends to her. My mom is my hero. Before I ever came to Alcoholics Anonymous, before I ever started school, before I ever picked up anything, my mom drove into her six boys the right way to live, the right way to walk with God. I couldn't hear it but she drove in us the right way to live, how to treat people right. I always grew up wanting to be one of the good guys, always grew up wanting to be a hero in my story, the one that helped other people.
I always grew up knowing the right thing to do even when I didn't do it. And like I said, we're the people that love us. And with my mom, she was the last one to give up on me. She was absolutely the last one to give up on me. And when I got back sober again, my mom still wanted nothing to do with me. She was terrified of me and said that she did not, she only had five sons now, not six. And she never wanted me to set foot on her property again for the rest of my life, stay off her property. I remember and I came back and there was something different. Thank God that God had touched me and there was something different. And I said, that's the way she should be. And new friends, that's the way people should be when we come back. I got my mother's hopes up so many times through all those years. She was the last one to give up on me. And it was just so hard for her to get her hopes up again that her son was back.
And I remember around Thanksgiving, that first Thanksgiving when I came back, my brother, I was going to never to early big book workshop. I remember I asked my mom if I could come down and just get my clothes out of her garage. She had moved them out of her house and she said, no, don't come on her property. And she said, my niece and nephew bring my clothes. And I remember I feel humiliated, but I remember there was something different about me then.
And I just said, I'm not that guy anymore. and I said, I'm not that guy anymore. And I just said, I'm gonna just keep doing the right thing. And I understand all of a sudden, I didn't care what people thought,
[00:45:00]
but I also knew that what mattered is what I do. And I said, I'm gonna keep doing the right thing and doing the right thing. And I was going to Never Too Early Big Book Workshop and one of my brothers, I think it was Ralph, came and said, mom said, you can come home for Thanksgiving. You could just come for Thanksgiving. And I remember that first thing, I was able to go in her house. And I remember I took up like a plate to go put it in the outside trash can.
And my mom came rushing to the back door watching because I'd always gone back there behind her garage and sneak, all I could tell her, and I was just, mom, I'm not that guy anymore. And it took years for my mom to believe I was all the way back. My mom came and gave me a birthday cake at two years at Never Too Early Big Book Workshop, but she still didn't believe I was all the way back. My ex-wife gave her a ride.
Thank God for the amends process. After I came back and started doing amends, and I had done amends to my mom by then, but she just couldn't get her hopes up to believe I was all the way back. And my ex-wife took my mom home and she was telling my mom how I had made amends to her and that she was sober again too. And my ex-wife now has seven years back, because of the amends process, what's happened in my life.
I want mom still didn't believe I was back. And finally on my fourth birthday, my mom wrote in my birthday card, you're the center of my universe. And all I did, I just kept being patient. And then I made a decision, because my mom is older. On February 1st of this year, my mom turned 95 years old. And my mom is our hero. And I said, I'm not only gonna, I made those amends. I said, I'm gonna make living amends and what I'm gonna do.
I don't want it to just be mom. I want it to be Marie White Oakland. I wanna know her as a person. And I started going down there every two weeks. I made it a point every two weeks for years, I've been going down to my mom's house and I started asking her questions about her childhood. My mom was a little girl. She was born in 1930 in Cleveland, Mississippi. And she grew up in Mississippi. Her grandmother who was picking cotton and her grandmother's grandmother had been a slave.
And there was all of those things. There was all of those things. And I started getting all the stories from mom growing up and all the adventures she had, funny things and sad things. And my mom having to hide when she was 12 years old in a ditch and hold her brothers, her little brother's mouth because some guys in a pickup truck tried to lynch him and they had to hide and she had to hold it because he was crying and they were able to sleep on through the field.
And I made my mom a real person. And on November 22nd, my mom passed. And thank God, my mom died, my hero died. It's Wednesday coming up, we'll bury. Thanks to you, every one of you here in these squares. When people say, thanks to you and Alcoholics Anonymous, you guys really don't get it. Some of you don't even know the impact that you have on other people just by showing up and eating. But thanks to you, not only was I able to be there when my mom died, when she, in that room, when she was in her last breaths, but more importantly, I was able to be there with her for years.
These last few years, every two weeks, I was able to sit with her and laugh with her and have her go back to her childhood and relive her life with me and go through it. And that's thanks to you guys. Thanks to you guys. Every single thing,
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absolutely nobody thought I would be alive right now. Not my mom, not my brothers, not people in AA, not my friends, not me. Every single person gave up on me. And what I'm here, I think what I'm here to do is I'm here to bring you a message of hope. If you have a brother, if you have a sister, if you have a parent, if you have a friend, if you have a person out there, don't put them out there. Never put anybody out.
And what do I do? What you guys did for me when I was out there, the best thing, when you were at your best and you were doing your best, nobody came up to me with me eating directories. Nobody came up to me with big books. Nobody came up to me pushing the program. What you guys did is you showed me kindness. Especially when I was out there, you guys would come to me because when somebody's out there and they're drinking and using, that's less than a human life.
And you guys made me feel human. And what you were, what you don't understand is sometimes you're the only big book that a person gets to read, especially that person closest to you. They may not be able to hear you if you preach the program or even talk the program, but you're the only big book they get to read. And what I'm here, I'm here to be a witness of hope. If I'm sitting clean and sober and I was able to be there for my mom and be there for my mom those last few years and at the end, any of you, there's somebody new in here, I'm here to tell you that there's plenty of miracles left for you.
Anyway, I'm sorry to go off so much on my mom, but she's so special and so important in my life. And it's only here at Alcoholics Anonymous that I was able to be here for her. And only due to you at Alcoholics Anonymous that I'm able to be here right now and have an opportunity to pay back a little bit, just a little tiny bit of that miracle that you guys gave me, because there's absolutely no way that I'm supposed to be sitting here right now.
I wanna thank Ramona and Abstentia for inviting me. I wanna thank you guys for being patient with me and listening to me. My name's Reggie W.. I'm an alcoholic. Thank you for allowing me to share. Thank you, thank you, it was beautiful. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. We never know what you're gonna get. We just have to keep coming back. We surely hope to see you here next week when our special guest is Brendan M.
from Wilmington, Delaware. That's gonna be great. If you liked this meeting, please do as Bill Wilson always said, pass it on. You can help others right from your phone or computer and tell them about the special meeting. Everyone is invited to hang out with us afterwards in the meeting after the meeting, the porch. Reggie, do you have any closing comments? And would you please close us out with a prayer or reading of your choice?
Thank you so much. I'm Reggie W., I'm an alcoholic. And after a moment of silence for the alcoholic still suffering in and out of this room, we'll go out with the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can and the wisdom to make a difference. Amen, keep coming back at work. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Everyone can unmute and thank Reggie. Thank you Reggie. Thank you Reggie. Thank you Reggie. Wonderful message.