The "We Are Family" gay/lesbian conference in Reno, Nevada

You guys hear me okay? Okay. Good. I'm really, really nervous, but, I called my sponsor this morning, the same sponsor who refers to all my ideas as schemes. And, kind of told me that if I what are you nervous about, get up there and tell the truth and you'll be okay.

So, I'm really, really nervous. This is supposed to be a spiritual speaker meeting and we'll see what happens. I was very, very nervous. This starting so early at 10 o'clock, I didn't know if I'd be back from church yet. The nickel slots at the pepper mill.

I want to thank the committee for inviting me up here to Reno to speak for you all. Trudy and Keith, you've been very, very gracious and hospitable and everyone that I've met here has been absolutely terrific and I can hardly wait to go back to Sacramento and tell them what a wonderful conference you folks host here. Thank you very, very much. I want to tell the new person or anybody who is relatively new to Alcoholics Anonymous, I really, really want to welcome you and I hope you find here in Alcoholics Anonymous what I found here and it's that sense of belonging and being a part of, because growing up the way I grew up it was the only thing that I was looking for. All my life all I wanted to do was be a part of accepted for who and what I was and be part of the gang, another bozo on the bus.

I didn't want to drive the bus. I didn't want to be in charge other people may think differently. Just wanted to be a part of. I like to say that I grew up in a snooty part of a hit town that was close to a country club. We didn't belong to the country club, I thought I did.

I got thrown out of that country club so many times drunk that I care to remember. In the home that I grew up in, my father runs all the detention facilities in our county and there is 3 detention facilities in Solana County, but actually there is a 4th one not too many people know about it. It's on 2127 Rockville Road. It had 2 inmates, my identical twin and myself, and it was a very well run prison. It had everything except bars on the windows and uniforms.

My mother has never worked a day in her life and growing up there being part of a set, I can really relate to Gordon what he said last night about not fitting in. My twin fit in. He grew up to marry a blonde blue eyed girl. He drove a pickup truck with a gun rack in the back and I didn't do that. He hunted and fished.

I wrote to pen pals in Europe. So, and they just I just didn't quite fit in growing up in that household. My grandmother had come to watch us one time, my parents had gone away and my grandmother had come to watch us. And when my parents came home from that week's trip, I knew how to sew, embroider, counter cross, stitch and quill. My grandmother never watched us again.

Around 8 years old, I had honed my sewing skills and I had got some white satin from the fabric store and I didn't have a machine or a zipper. So I sewed myself into it with blue thread. Of the first of many a ball gown I was to wear to make. And I put this contraption together, this white satin dress and I trimmed this T shirt with lace, a little brooch on my shoulder, I'm kind of an accessory kind of girl. And I wore that into the living room and that's when the room went up for grabs.

I had been called things that day that it took me years to know the definitions of. I didn't know what a homosexual was or a faggot or a gay boy. I didn't know what they were talking about. I thought I looked very nice. And my mother I remember my mother said, what are your what is your plan?

What are you going to do in that get up? What I always do clean the house. I didn't fit in. We around I forget when I started drinking. It's just something that happened.

My parents had knocked out several walls into they knocked out several walls in the home and built this magnificent bar. And it had it was a sunken bar with leather captain's chairs and a pool table and they're hunters, so there were several dead mounts hanging on the wall. And we had a pool and a stereo and a lot of booths. And my happiest days of my life was when my mother would be volunteering at the hospital, my father would be at his detention facility, my brother would be out hunting some poor animal and I'd be behind that bar, swelling gimlets. And I'd laid in the sun and I'd pretend that whole place was mine and I just drink and drink and drink.

And I and God it was wonderful. It was wonderful. I had escaped. And I remember once getting good and liquored up and smart enough to my father, they would take pictures of themselves with these dead animals and put their pictures on the wall with their dead animals. It makes no sense to me.

And I'd say, well, how come there's no pictures of me up in here hanging up here in this bar room? And dad goes, what would we do, take a picture of you out drunk by the pool? That's what I do. I had my I had a safe in my room when I grew up and I bet most boys growing up probably had dirty magazines, Playboy and all that in their safe. I had empty bottles of vodka in international mail and I would never have left that bedroom if I could have made ice.

I recently found a page out of a diary that I kept when I was in high school and it said something to the effect of that I had gotten in a fight with my parents and I'd lost their trust because they caught me drunk and I don't know what I had done to get in trouble, but it said if mom and dad won't let me drink in the bar, I'll just have to buy a bottle of vodka and hide it in my room and just say screw it. And when I look at the date on that I was a sophomore in high school and what that tells me is that even in the sophomore in high school alcohol ruled me. Already alcohol was the most important thing in my life at that time. And it and I live to drink. They had taken away my rights to drink in the house and I didn't have any so I went to visit my family of course I'd go over to all my aunts and uncles houses and drink with them.

But I kept booze in my room and it was a long time before I was able to get to you guys and already in high school I had a problem with alcohol. I lived for wedding receptions and funerals that's where I could get the booze. Growing up in the house I had gone to a Halloween party dressed as a hobo in my grandfather's clothes and I remember that I was going to try and be good because I was driving. So, I was only going to have 5. Now going up to going home and I drank stayed way too late and drank way too much and I was driving up the driveway to my parents' house and they have a long driveway with a white picket fence going up either side and I got halfway up that hill and I decided that I hadn't had enough and I turned around.

And I took out 40 feet of white paneled fence, 10 feet of paneled posts, the whole bit. And I remember turning that jeep around in the field and thinking that I dreamed it. So, I drove up to the hill with 4 flat tires and parked it in the garage and I went into the house and I shook my mom awake and I go I think I bumped into the fence. So, we climbed into her car and when the headlights hit all that splintered wood and that great big hole in that fence, I got all those names again. And that was the very first night that I wanted to kill myself and there was a lot of other nights.

That was the very first night that I actually wanted to kill myself and I was just too drunk to load the gun that night because that house was full of guns and I was just too drunk to load the gun that night and I'm really grateful that I didn't. They were pissed already if I'd have scattered myself all over the living room God knows what they would have done. I made the great escape and moved to Napa. I was 21. I was a big old gay boy.

I was coming out of the closet. I'd found the gay bars and I was ripping and running and I'd shampoo set my hair and back rat it and comb it upside down and slack it so it was doing this huge flock of seagulls thing. I'd roll the pegs of my pants, pin them with safety pins so they were real tight around the ankle. Am I the only one who did that? Put Estee Lauder bronzer on my ankle, because I was white as a ghost.

I had to put so I bronzed my ankles, little bit of glitter, it was the 80s, it was MTV, I wore eyeliner and then I'd go out to woo the men. You know, stack your hair high, love the hair, hope it wins. My twin who was faring a little bit better than I was whose drinks also had met this beautiful girl in high school from a wealthy family and she was perfect, he was perfect and they were going to have get married. And I my folks were given an engagement party and I was not invited for obvious reasons. So I had gone to the local tavern.

I was very mad, very bitter. How can they even have a party without me telling them how to do it? So I get good and liquored up. I'm wearing some God forsaken outfit that wouldn't even be fit for a stage and I show up at this party. And they're really lovely people.

Their name is Mr. And Mrs. Kettle and I spent the whole night calling them Mom Pa Kettle, drunk on my arm. Alb. And my mother, my father and my brother are looking at me with that look like the minute they're gone, you're dead.

So when my new found friend the kettles left I figured they needed to be escorted to their car so I walked into their car because I knew my parents wouldn't dare murder me in front of the kettles that's not sight behavior. So I got them escorted into their car and hit town and got out of there and the next morning when I came to, I got 3 phone calls and it was my brother calling me and telling me what a horrible, horrible person I was and not only would I not be the best man at this wedding, I wouldn't even be invited. And my mother called and said the same thing and my father who never speaks to me on the phone called and said the same thing also. And though I didn't have very much, I like to know that I had a family. Even though I was drinking and I didn't have any money or I didn't have anything at least I had a family and now I didn't even have that.

So by this time I'm running with boys who drink like me and we're running to this Vallejo bar called the Club Pegasus and I lived in Napa then and I was Napa society. So when I show up in Vallejo they referred to me as one of the boy a napkin from Napa. We would drink in this Club Pegasus and we would drink in Club Pegasus and run to the city San Francisco and we would order our drinks in the Club Pegasus and we would tuck them up underneath our coats and swivel out to our car so we'd have cocktails to drink on our way to the city. Well, Those drinks for the road should have been just drinks for the parking lot because I was tucking my empty glasses out of the car window before we even hit the road. And we would go to San Francisco and drink where the right people were on Polk Street.

My favorite bar was the Polk Gulch for drinks for $0.75 between the 5.07 and you wouldn't believe what I do to get there before 5. We would come over that Bay Bridge going just weaving in and out of traffic. I remember getting there one night we walked up to the bartender and we were pushing for time and we said how much longer the drinks $0.75 he goes 5 minutes. And I said, well I'll have 3 of these, Mona will have 3 of those and Sean will have 3 of these. And before that 5 minutes was up we were back at that bar ordering more.

We would throw them back and then run up and down that street to the QC and chemos and all those hovels, all those hovels to drink with all those boys And it's a miracle that I'm here, because I ran up and down that street in blackout so many times. I came to in the Leland Hotel, which isn't very nice, very nice. It burnt down. I bet it was probably a mass murder of roaches, burnt to the And I would come to in that Leland Hotel and I look around the room and I wouldn't know where I was. I didn't know who they were and who had paid for the room, what had happened, I had no idea and it scared me.

I remember coming down the elevator once and I was in that elevator and I was riding the elevator with monsters, because these are people in that elevator that I would have crossed the street to get away from them and I was terrified. I was terrified. I go how in the hell did I get here? Right around this time, I'm at work. I'm a waitress, a surly waitress, not good.

I was about ready to be fired because I would go to the Club Pegasus in the middle of the afternoon and I drink and never make my shifts. So I would call up work with these extravagant dramas saying that I'd been in a car accident and I couldn't come to work. The next day I call up and said I couldn't come to work because the people that were in the car had died. And on the 3rd day I was due to do funeral arrangements I couldn't come to work. I'm very sorry I might make it the next day.

The whole time I'm calling from the Club Pegasus and Madonna is singing Vogue in the background over the jukebox and I don't think they're buying my story. So, I'm drinking around the clock and drinking with these guys. We'd call them lower companions now, but right then they were my best friends and they drink like I did, which made my drinking so much less obvious And we were Sean and Arman and Sean, I read somewhere where we have the opportunity to be locked up, covered up or sobered up And I sobered up, our mom went to jail for his drinking and Sean died because of his drinking. Sean had gotten in the car accident, I was drunk, so I don't remember what happened. I wasn't with him, but we had gone to visit him in the hospital and there was a lot of complications and being social giant that I was, I know that when you go and visit people in the hospital you take flowers or candy.

Well, I didn't have very much money so all I could afford was a half gallon of warm inglenook chablis. So we go there. We kick Sean out of his bed because I was tired and I'd been out all night. We put Sean in the chair, me and Armand get in the bed and we're drinking warm Chablis out of her Dixie cups and we start fussing with the buttons on the bed to make it go up and down like it's a ride at Disneyland or something and we accidentally summons the nurse. And then all I remember is a bunch of security in the room.

And I was thrown out of somewhere again. I was in trouble at work. My folks weren't happy with me because of my drinking and I knew I was going to be fired and had I been fired from a job that would have been just like my parents' worst nightmare because we just don't do that. We just don't do that where I grew up. So it's June, it's 1988, it's hot as hell.

I'm sick as a dog and I've called up a detox. I've gone to my mother and father's home from Napa and I've called the Solano County detox and they said that they would see me at 3 o'clock. And I did some things that day that I'd never ever done in my life. I called my father at his job and told him to come home and help me. And my mother had come from my grandmother's house and they came to their house and I said I have a problem with alcohol and I'm going to detox at 3 o'clock and I need you to take me.

And it threw my parents for a loop because the great big fat pink elephant sitting in the living room had opened up its trap and was telling the truth for a change. So I was 6 years sober before I knew that my father took me to detox, I thought my mother had. Things were very foggy, very foggy that day. But I was sober enough to know that I needed to go back to Napa and pack a proper bag and change my jewelry because I didn't change my watch. So, my folks take me to Napa, take me to Snohom County to detox and, god, it was like a barracks, this tin can with a 100 horse slides and a dirt road in front and they pour me out.

So I go in this detox and I said my name is David and I'm at 3 Do you have a room is my room ready? And they said you know what you need to shut up sit down over in the corner and don't throw up on this rug. This rug. So I said okay okay. So I go and I go in the back room and they give me this big book like I don't know what they thought my hazy ass was going to do with that.

And I'm sitting there and I'm sharing the detox facility with 2 Latino gentlemen who are coming off the heroin. They're cooking their lunch with lard. It's hot and my stomach does this huge flip flop and I'm just like, oh my God, what am I doing here? I think I made a great mistake. Someone stopped that car that's speeding down the highway and so I can get back in and go back home.

And by this point I noticed that the facilitator or the woman is going through my bags. And I'm like, oh, well that didn't take very long for them to start rifling through my things. So I said, excuse me, pardon me, what are you doing? She said, we're taking your mouthwash and your fragrance so that you don't drink it. Honey that was like throwing water on a witch.

I come out of that I came sober right now and I said, let me tell you something. Not now nor have I ever drank Cool Water, Lancaster cologne, or Skok to get the effect? She always thought, I thought I told you to shut up ghost in the corner and we'll get with you shortly. I just try and do what I'm going to do. So, I go back and I sit down and try and do what they say.

I stayed the night. I stayed the night. By the morning I'd had a new idea. They made me make my own bed and other crazy, crazy stuff before I could leave And I called my mother and I said, I you need to come get me. Now she goes, I thought you said you were going to stay 3 days.

And I had never swore accustomed at my mother in my life, but now that I'm sober of course that I have, I called and said no King Mess with me you come get me right now and take me back to Napa. So I go back to Napa and it's I check out the noon meetings. I start going to noon meetings of the Napa Valley Fellowship and I don't do anything. I get there maybe on time. I leave early.

I maybe raise my hand. I don't talk to anybody. It's a straight group. I think they all hate my guts because I'm so unique and I go out, but I didn't change. So, one night at 30 days I'm sitting at the Club Pegasus and I'm doing what I'm always doing, I'm waiting for my friends to come pick me up and take me to the city and my friends are running late.

Well, I had ordered 2 Cokes and I kind of felt like an idiot for ordering a third. So I said well maybe I'll just have 1 bourbon on the rocks. And it was just like it always was, It was another morning on the bathroom floor. That Bourbon on the Rocks led me to who knows, don't remember going to the city, don't know how I got home. There was another night of getting up and walking downstairs to see if the car was there and if it was dented and if there was blood on the fender or whatever.

There was a lot of mornings where the car wasn't there and there were mornings where I drove this Buick thing and it had one of those mirrors here on the door and it was just dangling there by its electric cord and I still don't know what hit me. At about 30 so I bounced around and some of us in Alcoholics Anonymous and it doesn't have to be this way. Some of us were like pebbles that hit water. We bounce, we bounce, we bounce, but we finally got to get in. So here I am back at the meetings and I'm stumbling around and I get 54 days and some friends came and got me in a limousine from my job one night and God I like that.

God I just loved riding around the limousine and we were going to drive up valley and look at all the wineries at night. Yes. And they had free champagne in that thing. And one of my friends says, do you want some of this champagne? It's free.

Well, hell that's music to me. It sounds like a Christmas carol to me. And I said, well, I'm trying not to drink. And he goes, well, how long has it been since you drank? And I said, 54 days.

He goes, alcoholics cannot go without alcohol for 54 days. That means you're not an alcoholic. Well, that made sense to me. That made more sense than anything else here and here at the meeting. So it was another night.

I came to a restaurant with my credit card on the bar drinking magnums and champagne. And apparently that night on the rims of the champagne glass they put those plastic monkeys and mermaids. Well, Martha Stewart like me, I had to have those. I had to have those. So I'm slowing back that champagne and you got to keep those little doodads when you finish your champagne.

When I came to the next morning I had so many of those doodads shoved in my pockets they'd cut my thigh. I don't know what I was going to do with it. I guess I was making Christmas ornaments, I don't know. So I'm bouncing around, bouncing around and I get back into Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm coming back to Alcoholics Anonymous, but now I have an attitude because it's not working. It's not working.

So I'm back in the meetings and I'm sitting downstairs at the Napa Valley Alana Club and this older woman comes up to me and she's got lavender hair and I'd never ever seen her before. She comes up to me and she says what's wrong with you kid? I said, you know what, let me back up, I want to tell you about my last drunk. I'm in the Club PEGASUS as usual and I'm swilling Cape Cod. How that happened I don't know.

I never drank juice. And being the lady that I am, there are certain things that I do and do not do. And one of them is, I knew I was going to vomit. I had way too much and I was going to get sick. And I had a full drink, so I was I mean, I didn't know what to do.

So, I beat the lady that I am, I run to the bathroom with my full drink and I try not to make any noise, get any of the vomit on me or spill my drink. Well, I didn't spill that drink. It's kind of hard to projectile vomit quietly. So, I rear my head up out of that toilet in the Club Pegasus bathroom and I'm standing there and I'm looking in the mirror and I finish off my Cape Cod to rinse out the vomit sna out of my mouth and throw the glass in the wastepaper basket because ladies like me don't go into the restaurants with cocktails let alone come out with 1. And I look in that mirror and I was just like oh Jesus, those people in Alcoholics Anonymous are right.

You're powerless over alcohol and your life is unmanageable. And I said my second prayer I was like please God please let me have $5 more so I can have another drink. So I come out of the bar or out of the bathroom, I'm heading to the bar and I'm digging in my pockets praying for money. And I must have had some because the next morning I'm on the floor in my house and I slept off down to the Napa detox to their noon meeting again and that old woman comes up to me and again she says what's the matter with you kid? And I go I don't know, I've been here.

I've been here for 30 days and I've been here for 54 days and I can't get it. I don't understand. And I was in the clip I guess this last night and she goes, what do you need? You need a higher power. And by I'm going to loan you mine, but by the end of the night, I hope you found it because I'm going to want it back.

And I went and it went right over my head and I was like, oh my God, it doesn't help anybody to see it. I don't feel well. What is she telling me Riddlesports so early in the morning? So I'm like, oh okay. So, we march ourselves upstairs to the Napa Valley Alana Club which is nothing, it's a there's recovery there, it's a hovel, but there's recovery there.

They had the place was papered with white paper on the ceiling. They had smoked so much there that the place had turned gold, but they had non smoking tables and that's where all the old ladies sat sat and knit and I sat with them. Ms. Jean is the chairperson that day, the woman who had excuse me one second. Ms.

Jean is the Chairperson that day and she's sitting up front. I sit at the non smoking table again. Now, though I had never ever taken off a white linen skirt, hanging out the window of a Lincoln Continental, soaked with urine hoping to get it dry and being pulled over by the law, there were bits and pieces of Jean's story that I could relate to. So, I'm sitting there and I'm listening to Ms. Jean's story and I don't remember what the topic was, but she calls on me.

So, I raise my hand, she calls on me. So, I start to experience strength and hope. Well, I had experience, experience and some experience to share. So, I started telling her about being drunk in the Club PAGUS on Cape Cod, how that happened, I've been telling her that I didn't know. And before I can get half that out, she points and she goes, that is a sick suffering alcoholic.

And when this means over, I want every one of you to go give them your number. And I was like, woo, and I started folding in. I was like, oh, my God, how rude she calls names and she points just what finishing school did they kick her out at. I was dying. I was so humiliated.

If I could have got underneath that linoleum I would have. All eyes were on me and I was like, oh no. But you know what? When that meeting was over that fellowship of Napa Valley Alcoholics Anonymous they started passing pens, paper, they started tearing the corners out of their deposit slips and they came running to me to give me those cards and those phone numbers and that was October 24, 1988 and I haven't drink since. And what happened for me that day was that fellowship took an interest in me getting and staying sober and everyone in that room was offering me their assistance and I had never ever been anywhere where that had happened for me before and I thought that was the most beautiful gift, I couldn't believe it.

And they said David, you don't drink today and you come back tomorrow and we'll be here, we'll be here waiting for you. So I did what they told me and I didn't drink that night and I came back the next day and I sat with the old ladies who knitted and hung out with them and started doing what they told me to do. At about 6 days over I'm standing in one of the meetings and we're standing there doing the Lord's Prayer. I am way because I haven't had a cocktail in 6 days, so I'm a little bit agitated. I'm holding hands with this lady and we're doing the Lord's Prayer and we go, keep coming back, it works like we work it.

I'm standing next to her. The woman is wearing pink plastic earrings, pink sweatshirt, pink pants, pink L. A. Gear shoes, which are a crime against every god, pink socks and she is one of those that is just happy to be there. And I was like and I go, Boy, you sure all done up in pink today?

And she goes, And don't I look cute? And I go, Just like a bottle of Pepto Bismol. She goes, You must be new. I'm Brenda B. Well, I didn't know that around here in Alcoholics Anonymous that we have this thing called Mrs.

AA. Her and I met and we exchanged numbers. And she tells me she goes at the end of the week is Halloween and the fellowship is signing on this party. Would you like to come and be part of my committee? Halloween, hell I knew that was coming.

I've been sowing for months. I knew that was coming. And I said, be on your committee? Well, hell yes, I want to be on your committee. I just waited all my life to be on a committee to be a part of I'm going to be your committee.

I'll be there 6 days I'm going to be on your committee. So, she has me shut down to this armory. How do you decorate an armory? I gave it my best shot. It was straight AA and then I blew in.

And I had told Mrs. B, I told her I was coming as a cowboy and I did show up at that Halloween party with a 250 straight Napa Valley in the best Scarlett O'Hara black satin morning dress and a veil that you have ever seen. They all remember me. I was Brenda's new baby. And she'd come to James Mansfield and when she saw me coming through the door she was on me like a duck on a June bug.

And she came up she goes I thought you said you were coming as a cowboy. And I went I changed my mind. She goes we're selling raffle tickets. They're $3 for a dollar. Let's go get started.

And I had a ball, I had a ball. So, I'm running around with Mrs. B and I kind of fall into her wake and I go and do what she does and we start working the steps. I'm not working with Brenda because I was told that I didn't know she didn't have any time either. She had about a year.

She'll be 12 next week and I'll be 14. She kind of was doing this little bit of a jewelry collection. She was getting a 1 year chip here, 1 year chip here, 1 year chip here. She was going out every year. So, I passed her, but we have stayed friends for so long and I've learned she saved my life.

The woman saved my life. I would never have stayed if it wasn't for her. I'm sitting at the nonsmoking table with the old ladies and I start listening and doing what they tell me. And I'm sitting next to this woman who, she had a diamond and oval ring the size of Kansas. And that's when I learned about if you want what we have.

I wanted to wear her ring and drive her car. She had a blue Cadillac with a white canvas top and she was my new best girlfriend. And I learned a lot from her and I do not remember her name. And she was one sassy cookie, let me tell you. Step 1, I came to believe that a power greater than myself would restore me to sanity.

I had so much trouble with that, because when I read it I thought it said came to believe that excuse me that I was powerless over a lot I thought it said that I was powerless over a lot of alcohol. And I read that because there was those days where I would have 1 drink, 2 drinks, but and I would be okay, but it was the days that I had a 5th or a half gallon that stuff happened. And that was what it took me a long time to get that. Step 2, excuse me, came to believe that a power greater than myself restored my sanity. Well, I've been going to the Catholic Church all my life, but I came here and learned how to pray.

I I learned how to pray sitting in the non smoking meeting. This old man was sitting in the corner and he got called on one time and he had described prayer meditation. He goes prayer meditation is like screwing an old maid, there's no wrong way to do it. And I'm sitting next to my girlfriend with her oboe and diamond ring and I was like, oh my God. She goes, that's why we don't call on people who sit in the corner.

I learned how to pray that day. She also told me what a garden variety drunk was. I'm brand new. I don't know anything. This man is referring to himself as a garden variety drunk.

And I said, now what's that? Just honey he's average. And I went well hell you and I can leave now. Came to step 3. I had at about 5 months sober, I wanted to be in service.

I wanted to secretary a meeting so I could do it correctly. We could put all the orange ashtrays on this table and all the green ashtrays on that table and all the red ones on that table. I wanted to be a secretary. So they said, well David, you've got 5 months and even though your spouse has 6 months, you can secretary, do you go ask your sponsor? And I went, I guess better go get one of those.

So I looked around, I'd done I didn't want a redneck hillbilly sponsor. I had one of those who ran detention facilities and I called him dad and I sure as hell wasn't looking for another one. And there was I was fortunate to find a very gentle jazz musician in that town who said he would sponsor me and take me through the steps. And we had done step 1 and 2 and he came over to my house and we worked on step 3 and we got on our hands hands and knees, no, we got on our knees. That came later.

She came over and we got on our knees and we did the 3rd step prayer together. And now I wasn't ready for the 3rd step because all I could think about when that big heavy man was sitting on my carpet and he used to put his hands on my coffee table and push himself up with his body weight that I had fingerprints on my coffee table and that I had to dust when he left. So, I was not quite ready for step 3, because I had this already a huge resentment. So, I backed myself up and I started praying and I started doing what they tell me and he came over to my house and we started working on step 4. So we had divided my we had done the list of fears.

I had done my sexual inventory and we had taken that thing and I wrote down the resentments and I had a slew of those that was the easy part. The people, the resentments, my part in it and how it affected me. And when it came to my part in it, we kind of came to a stump, because I was in a sand. So he goes, oh, I'll help you, I'll help you. He's always wanting to help me.

So we went through that and we looked at my part in it. And he goes what you need to do is you are very, very hard on yourself and I want you to write down some good qualities about yourself. And I hit this stumbling block again, because I couldn't think of anything. So when I had taken him all my paperwork and I handed him my paperwork and he looked at my list of good qualities I had one thing on it and it was that I had a pretty mahogany coffee table. And he started to cry and I started to get mad because I thought he was doubting that.

And he goes Dave, David we really have a lot to work on. So step 5, I was able to tell him everything and he didn't seem frightened about it. And he was really, really, really very gentle and helped me so much. And he wasn't scared. He had explained some of the things that he had done.

He had grown up in the city and there wasn't anything he hadn't done. So we got along great and I learned a lot. Step 6, we came down and I listed character defects and I hit a stumbling block again. And that's when he said pass me the paper and pen, I will help you on this. So he starts writing it and as the clock ticked by, I said do you want to pass that pen and paper over here so I can see some of these things that you're jotting down?

And there was things I still didn't know what they were, sloth greed, I didn't know what all that stuff was. I do know. I do know. Shortcomings, we had a long list of those. I became willing to I made my list of shortcomings and we talked about that and we made my list of amends and I had wanted to do something fabulous with my forceps.

I thought maybe we would take it and take it to the ocean, bury it in the sand and pray over it or maybe pee on it or something or throw it in the ocean. He goes, oh no, honey, we're going to need that because we're going to need that for your 9 step amount. And I thought the man had lost his mind. So he takes that tablet and he tears off the whole list of names because that was going to be the start of our 9th Step amends. And we he says, we'll just start with the hardest one.

Let's talk about your dad. And I was like, oh, no, oh, Todd, no. Let's do something different. Let's start saving some money. So, I got myself a ragu jar and I scraped the label off of it and I slapped some masking tape on it, said 9 Step Emens and I was putting $10 in it every Friday to save up to pay off all the things that I had done wrong.

I build it up, build it up, build it up and it got pretty high. So, I went to Puerto Vallarta. And then I started saving again. I built it up and I built it up. And then I had moved I had moved from Napa to Davis and I used it in all my move in expenses.

And then he called me up and he goes, you seem to have trouble saving your money. You'll be sending me $10 a week so we can get these 9 step amends paid off. No, no, no, I was so insulted. I go I can save money, I'm responsible, I can show you all, I'll save money. And I was able to do that.

And the first financial amends that I was able to make was to the school that I had graduated high school from, because I did yearbook at high school and the year that I graduated from school our yearbook didn't have colored photographs because somebody stole all the money. So, I had to pay all that back. And I saved and I saved and I cut a check and I knew who had ran the thing. So, I'd put the check and a letter in the mail and I sent it off to that old teacher. And it's so true what they would tell you here that when you're ready to make amends that it will happen, because I was, I don't know how sober I was, I might have been 6 years sober.

And the day that I put that check-in the mailbox that teacher walked on to my job and I hadn't seen them since I graduated. And I was like, checks in the mail. And I was like no David, this is finally a chance for you to clean something up and do something correctly for a change. So, I walked up to him and I said, my name is David and I was a student of yours back in the '80s and I explained, I stole all the money with the year that I graduated from high school and I've written you a check and I want to make amends for that and you'll get the check-in the mail tomorrow. And it felt really, really good and he goes I don't remember you.

And he goes but thank you for doing that and we'll cash that check. And that was perfectly, perfectly fine with me, because that's why I did it. And when I turned around and I walked away from that man, I was free, because I hadn't I don't have to hide from him anymore and I don't have to look over my shoulder and I can find that man any day in the street and see him and walk up to him and be okay doing that. And what was the greatest gift to that was that when I made that first financial 9th step amends, it made all the other ones easier to do. And that was a huge, huge gift.