The 12th annual CA convention in Bournemouth, CA

hi everybody my name is Earl animatic

C.

shares

thank you I feel very welcome

really to be perfectly honest I feel welcome then a complaint and I'm overwhelmed

almost only by the welcome and guide here I left Los Angeles Tuesday afternoon

and I haven't slept much since the jet lag than just I have not kicked over time apparently I am defiant to my core

so I've been kind of living like a vampire since I got here I have I was talking to a guy really nice and I feel like I'm going to faint so if I do

there's some water up here just

splashing my face on get up and keep going

hi yeah I want to thank the committee for asked me to come share here it's a it's a tremendous honor and a privilege to be here with you I I also think Dominic for coming to get me at the airport that was a

that was quite a ride

and I want to thank Steve for his hospitality and Chris for all the correspondence and everybody it's been emailing it's

hi I've been enjoying you long before I got here

I have a little sadness in my heart tonight because of a lost a brother recently in our fellowship that I got clean where who just couldn't surrender

and he's one of the ones that just shot down till

he didn't over does he just

stocked

his body just quits after twenty three years of using

so this is for Jamie

I did not start using until I was twelve

our long as I possibly could

I had been restless irritable and discontent in for a long time prior to that and I had been shipped off to boarding school I think the call that public school here correct the morning school and how I found out I was going to boarding school with my father came in my room and dancing get in the car

on the car

no no no no I got a car nobody else got out of the car he got a couple of suitcase down next to me shook my hand said doesn't make a man out of you got in the car and drove off

now the fax was I've been given the opportunity for a wonderful education held me in good stead to this day the feeling was that I've just been thrown away by the people who know me best in the world and I don't know what I've done to be to be thrown away I was devastated emotionally

balance is the key Manya

in

I'm real raw I don't know what come out of my mouth and

in a safe place my chi so

I want to get sober fast

so I I met tiny every high school got again a tiny right he actually he found me so how you doing pox lab in the back and I had sent me my books wine I got up in the in in and walked over his time is R. as I could which had no effect on tiny it was about a hunt I was five feet tall twelve years old hundred four pounds I mean I was I was afraid everything everybody right but he scared me so bad I thought I'd rather die than what this guy no I'm afraid someone up and hit him he said you got a lot of guts they beat the crap out of me around the spot

as I've taken is beating up thinking is going pretty good

because he had said you got a lot of got scared and my violence had mastered my fear that was my first tool for living when frightened attack so I took my beating went back to my room sit around waiting for the bleeding stop in the cold it's word spread across this campus in like thirty minutes watch out for is the high terra kid he's a maniac attack turning

and I got a rap that's got nothing to do with who I am I'm a frightened child but the cool guy started coming around that was the beginning for me man Matt stuck his head in my dorm room he said Hey you wanna smoke a joint

and I said yes I do

you know what he was talking about

it was do you want to hook up you want to connect with us the answers yeah man I'm alone in the universe you know you get the Kerr said we're gonna go kill a Spanish teacher you want to calm myself down

she her

me and Matt and Steve are behind the dorm G. container little Tupperware container full of cheap red wine and joined the fire at the joint I just did what he did I took a hit and I burn my minds I thought that's a nasty man then this wind coming cheap no grades involved wind you know I mean

I took a long pull on the mad dog

and that that just burn my stomach I thought this is terra may I got not so my head my family so I mean a week ago I was fine

you know this family be dead by next Tuesday this is not going well

and I

I mean

it happened

the thing that makes me bodily different from my fellows occur and suddenly I was comfortable stand around a stand in doing what I was doing with the people I was doing it with and I have never felt like that before in my life you know I mean the Knox went away I wouldn't scared anymore I love the fact produced by alcohol and drugs it's the fear killer for me the fear killer I get enough of what you got in my body it doesn't matter what it is I'm not a specialist all right I didn't do one thing right in the ground that your story you know welcome now

my god when you got

I'm particular to down and now

ally and Caroline barbiturates alcohol these are a few of my favorite things

really I think a big bag okay

you know we can't go down let's go up

hi I'm reminded of a good night's sleep around checking my pulse you know I mean

the way I do things I don't need a woman I don't need a television I don't you know window

yeah I mean just as being again all right

we're all right but if it's not there I'll dive cocaine you bet man first time I used cocaine I was sixteen years old I don't mean twelve was pined wind thirteen was pills any kind of pills only not to compel the guys every like couple fails said yes so what

twenty minutes later I'm laying on the floor in a very happy there

got strong enough signal to an all glass and all that stuff

fourteen with academics at about six hundred V. acid trips got classified legally insane by the military if years later that's a whole other story

fifteen a German surgeon don't we only my shadow because on a boat marina del Rey California and this girl Cammy

I said that would you like me to stick this in your body by civil courts I would

and it was

yeah he hit me and I just went

and on the way down on remember thinking if I'm not dead I'm doing that again

sixteen I started going another house

they signed me after three years of hot three months of observation in a year from rehabilitation of the little excessive

kept trying to skate and I couldn't because I got those three cups of pills a day and a shot if you act out act out right my treatment plan was that down in a different way everyday that you get the shot right

some shuffling around in this joint you got in here green exit signs they had him in their green I thought that's it that's good I got it down to one word for me that's what I want to do accident nights and I I divide my escape from the not house

yeah it's a very well planned out I use this woman and killed as my diversion killed it was not so all you have to do a flipper I would just say kill me how you do it

click that killed a few one off line up that we don't sit near me no my little three cups bill today in a joint ready ready ready

that's all I got out of the out of the speaker from the nurses station here and when you got a minute you want to grammarly's making a break from the norm

see what's going on again in a minute

the arms were going numb as far as the man there is the shop

you got to speed slow and stop

I got out of there get thrown in not house again the state the first day because that's my tools for living man you know you got to have this information my tools to live more drugs alcohol violence and run a gonna get thrown in a NASA got to get out before they get the floors and then you're you're leaving when they set

so I didn't scooted out of that place three years on the street

do what we do is a loner on daily basis and I mean I wouldn't bow I'm not a bad guy a tough guy outs I just do what I gotta do some self centered frightened addict alcoholic that's who I am and it runs me fear runs me I gotta get my thing is it's not about Downer up like I was talking about before bouncing around my check in my post great can't do that I'll drive the freeways decode license plates let's go up I'm back I'm happy to get psychotic because either way I'm not a right here right now right here right now I'm I'm not I'm not and never have been right I can measure my active their minds your outsides and I live

I have a sponsor he says however long I manage to stay sober I should never be left unattended

sometimes quickly sometimes slowly

anyway

I got to get out of right here right now and that's what it was all about for me it didn't really matter what direction I was going as long as I didn't have to be Europe I need antiviral medications I knew the effect produced back on drugs which was to look deliver me from that self centered fear and my world got smaller and smaller and smaller a lot of things happen along the way a lot of things happen along the way that happened to us the feds had me for thirty years when I was nineteen years old the only reason I didn't do that and federal time you do it all hi the only reason I didn't do it because they screwed up

had nothing to do with me being a slick don't feign you know get my legal team together you know I mean if

you know it they screwed up so I walked R. I'd be getting out about now

I'm not a license they had twenty one years old I got diagnosed with malignant cancer back in LA and they thought they prefer they do major surgery my upper back they prepared me to die I prepared my family for me to die but I was using so hard I was starting over does

quite a bit and I remember looking at him and thinking you know you're talking to when I'm using that comes up like twice a week you know that the possibility of diet

right that's just and they did the surgeon on a long term cancer survivor and I beat it the reason I believe it is I know that I didn't I went into the nuclear medicine program they were shooting me for all this stuff is back in the seventies and

I like the buzz I was getting off the nuclear medicine bank

yes when we I love the way I got loaded and I I believe to this day that my body had become so toxic cancer could not live in my body

if we can't something I was in a plane crash the whole family got killed me

woke up on Mauna Mexico mother father little sister land on the ground bled to death right in front of me

I broke

everything skull back legs arms

everything I could move into my right arm and I renounce died right there

and you as well I had the love of god and I have no love you at all I always been afraid of you and I am

house out

right there the member six nineteen seventy four I was out

can I they were they were

they got me down off the mountain by the technique that they finally took me to a hospital in in Los Mochis Mexico and they got my name in that brought the federal license federalized interrogated me through an interpreter for three and a half days when you're missing for paint wonder what I was doing back in Mexico which is another story we don't need to get anywhere but I wasn't welcome

and I finally called up a buddy of mine flew in a plant because the family in Mexico City the flu in the plan that smuggle me out of Mexico on domino hospitals on California I spent a long time and then I came out there's just not as strong on damn all because you know how to when you got a story like that you can work the nurses you know I was getting maximum shots of them all every three hours around the clock I came out of there with a good habit already going I hit the ground and I use for another six years

and

I'm not a guy with an anchor I've never been you know I've never been a guy with an anchor at that point in my life my family was dead I had no friends you know I didn't have a career to hold it together for I didn't have a family to hold it together for I didn't have hold for dreams to hold it together for I was an addict I was an alcoholic and I haven't had a handful of pictures just for driving me into madness and I knew I couldn't survive so I was just gonna drink in use until I died you live what you want to live your life live your life I'm living my life this way there is no god there's no such thing as loving and being loved someone willing to do what the people I love died I'm not doing I'm out of the game a lot and now

I remember a

two years before I got clean I was in my second detox and my date to my kind of detox was it is a slow bootleg sanitarium in Hollywood California where you go in and you give them your wallet your gun your car keys in your big bottle of valium hundred fifty dollars cash and given the cash and they take him they strapped to a Gurney in sugar land I. convulsant and let you rock at the end don't seventy two hours they send you home in the morning then you really care which way you went I got the money and you can't go out and die

and the second time I did it I remember I was laying on there and it was just ugly it was ugly

and I re introduce myself to this god I had announced and I said you know what you get now the sane and alive and I will never ever drink or use again as long as I live and I meant that with every fiber of my being I meant that as much as I never meant anything in my life the list and strap me off that during and then I went out to my car and I got my car and I went out and I just I could use for two more years because I could not stop drinking and using couldn't stop the madness was mine by the time I got sober I was twenty eight years old I was two hundred fifteen pounds I had hair out like this in a beard like this I was psychotic I don't use the term loosely I could not distinguish between the true and the false like the books that

I was yellow my heart was small in my thyroid was shut down I could text my kidneys and my liver family was that had no friends they were deciding whether or not to charge him with attempted murder again I've been stabbed twice shot at the violence in my life a bit insane and I'm just a nice little white boys on the west side you know I mean but I had I got I was dancing with the beast and the beast had me and I had no tools for living that works both my hands are broken

I came out of my last black out my hair with a common recovery a moment of clarity

a what what clarity was for me was I got to see my life as it was for just a second that god didn't do this to me my father didn't do this to me the feds didn't do this to me hi Interpol did not do this to me right this was on me and if I didn't want to die I was gonna have to get something that at that moment in my life I did not happen all I knew was I could not live in on the second with what I had that I had to let go of the reins I had to let go of the reins after these two but and then I said help me

and they threw me in an ambulance and they took me to UCLA emergency in that part of my stomach and there's a good amount of time he's just like a little old man

and then they took me to another place they kept me there five days I got worse and they took advantage to another place I did and I was a joint that was free bets they were bad they were cops number forty two cots in one room twenty one constantly side room sheets drawn between and how you earn your coppers you stated and when I got in my top man forty two guys ticket all right no drugs if you threw a seizure which we all did he threw a seizure that hit you when I convulsions and throw it back up in the car your vitals right you know I mean if your code may just R. A.'s goal leaving there and you just hang on your car and I was in there for twelve more days and you'll sleep a wink

something I'm very experiencing

you know sleep when somebody's loser Dante's inferno in this joint somebody's flipping out at any given moment it's just right and all I knew was this my **** I can't drink it I can't drink I can use a cane use came here and I I made out of detox detox and I was in rehab for thirty days and I came out there are still so sick when I came out of that joint

but I knew one thing

my cancer rate double said to me said all

it's real simple if you don't want to die you bet your **** there was no CNN

and I said okay because I had been beaten into a state of reasonableness by my alcoholism my drug addiction that's what kicked my ****

and I signed up on Friday night in the basement of a church eight thirty PM meeting I walked in the back and I had a I I was I yeah I've been you know I've I was like forty eight days clean but I was I was crazy

what I didn't understand

I know what I could've understood was that I did I I knew I was an alcoholic but I didn't know what out the hall is once I don't know what addiction one I didn't know I suffer from an allergy the body in the possession of the mind that the obsession of mine mine was the greater aspect of my disease because when I kid I felt better

apparently we're on the right track here that's what you do you kick right but I had to learn this is not about stopping

this is not about stopping

news and that's not what this a back to back how do I stay stopped

because I stopped a thousand times man every time I my head over the table I say the guys that

every time I had came back up off the table right I had a whole new agenda because my body was talking the physical phenomenon a craving was chewing on me and I was thinking I was making the decision to use but I would make a decision use because I have lost the power of choice the big beast is smoking man the base to smoke I thank you we stand around me when I read that part about no human defense

what's great news right I'd be happy to stand in a meeting with the committee sweeping up after meeting with sponsors standing right over there all this in my head and just go

and I just drop a mop and bucket area

sorry my turn right and I just go and get drunk and I get drunk I have downtown going to go bad fast

but now I get the beast is moved to BC how you doing

we've been up in the meeting I have a commitment

you seem very very tense

and you know why you're a lovely person I don't know what it is and it's like you got a bull's eye on people walking around all day just to visit me like **** I don't understand why anybody just a lovely person

you know it's a cruel of the world I can see the discussion very very stressed out if I'm not mistaken that's a medicinal issue that's medical and I'm here for you

here for you I love you know I love you have always been here for you and his arm we'll work this out I mean when you know where to go know what we're gonna do we're just gonna have a couple drinks

don't overreact

one that spring well might bring a work a way through this come here for I love you know that

okay and I don't know it let's just keep this between you and me

responses like his father smile and wave and smile and

and I'm standing there like

cut me a break the man

that's the beast it's just smooth book says Beth cunning baffling and powerful man and that is just the truth and I got this voice in my head the greatest session very alcoholic and addict right this is somehow some way to be able to control and use their drinking and they're using that's what it's about right the great obsession in my mind that I can have a couple it's why I have what they call you for a recall I don't see the misery in the madness of the last six years of my drinking and using when I think about smoking a joint I go all the way back to that first joined man when it worked when I was in the first stage fine

I don't think much about the second state fun with problems and I definitely do not even go near the third state problem

I don't look at that I have this you for every car I want to regain that thing that I once had that ease and comfort the came very right in the beginning that's what I'm looking for man that's what I want and I'm willing to die to get

this is the only really fine now uses like breathe into me

second is meeting thank you I've stopped we got now I didn't come here because I want to what you had I came here because I could no longer live with what I had I knew nothing about what you had but that did not I am content prior to investigation

I had great contemporary having never been

I knew about that play Saturday Night Live

I know about those people sad pathetic shape

can pull together they say go or die so I can't check it out and sit in the back but I still got I still got my mind work in my mind is not recovered at all I've stop but I don't know anything about stay in stock that's the deal around here find a way to stay stopped and the only way a guy like me is going to stay stopped as it might be relieved of the obsession of the mine I can't walk around that beast whispering at me all the time do my newcomer mantra man how you doing how you doing

I can't live like that man I got to be really be concerned that lives on life's terms ma'am and when the **** hits the fan I'm discover I am in charge of the fan and there's a I just know it's happening right that's gonna line up just right he's going to whisper and I'm gonna listen

and I'm gonna be one of those guys downtown thank you how did my life go away in fourteen days

kind of my whole life go away how did I become a slave to the beast again because I blinked

right because I did not address my my own that did not address the obsession among the greater aspect

yeah

he didn't see it but I was here I wasn't here and I was back

it says it in the back and they get up in it and that and this old timer gets up to this year's experience right now but alas he was doing but it was like he reached right inside me right first meeting I went to he talked openly and honestly about his feelings as a man

he and he did it with grace and dignity that I have never seen I mean he was putting things together aspects of being human together that I had never seen together before and then it was like you looked right at me he said and I don't care what you like when I got the same or not you know I could go to another meeting and I love that because it made it clear to me this guy was a selling me something he was sharing it with me if I wanted I could have it was for free I didn't want this cool gonna meeting maybe here somebody can identify with and it was like this little pilot light just went on inside me and I went from a hopeless alcoholic drug addict to an alcoholic and drug addict with a little tiny bit a hole and I think that is the greatest gift one of us can ever give to another is hope I mean if you're of the hopeless for riding and you know what I'm talking about the death the half hoping maybe somehow some way not that you could live a good meaningful life which is that you don't have to go back into the madness anymore you don't have to dance with that beast ever again one day at a time

sitemap cried all the way home and paste my little one room apartment

right I got my hours sleep I was getting by then

he got up and went to work so I can get tired enough to go to a meeting at city trying to listen try to retain some of the stuff I can retain anything

they said get a sponsor and I said what's the sponsor and they said the sponsor somebody who's got what you want I see well I would like to use

to be honest there and that's where I would like to use so maybe it's a little early be throwing the ball back in my court

and I have since come to believe that I want to sponsor he's got what he wants that's a pretty good definition of happiness wanting what you've got

and this guy and I found this guy the magic man man I mean the late great don mad and he was very alive and he was passionate and that's what I wanted I wanted to feel strongly about something again I had I didn't I was dead inside there was nothing going on inside that can feel anything and he was so alive and and and this and anyone afraid to say this thing this recovery matters to me and I went to when I said will you sponsor me and he said yes our sponsor you and you don't have to like what I tell you and you don't have to think it's a good idea you just have to do it

and I thought fair enough right so we went to a meeting and he said they make five hundred and fifty cups of coffee in this meeting every Friday night you're going to make up for the next year

and I said what we saw was back the newcomer which says that **** you

the one on the ground I'm the new guy all right see you bring me and here's your free labor Hoosiers slave labor that's the job you'll come out could you run your man I got a few thoughts on this anyway

we do not want what you have now

I believe it's the other way around if you don't want to have fun go during

I said you see there's there's no talking to people and trying to have a

I'm trying to have a little conversation you go right to the drinking thing fine I'm making coffee

thanks for making a copy I didn't understand he said it to me in a way a newcomer can understand it make the car for your diet sh yes right

and I I would like

all right Americans often

he could have said look IRL you know we don't know yet we don't know you well enough to like it but we love you because we could see the depth in your eyes we know who you are we know where you've come from and we're going to do everything we can't be your right off the bat we're gonna give you one of the coolest things we can give you the fellowship we're gonna give you the opportunity to be of service to get out of self and be of service to someone else we've been around you just a little while ago but we recognize you probably never thought about anybody but yourself

we're going to give you the opportunity to get out of self self centered frightening place you live for so long that painful lonely prison of self we're gonna get you out of that and for about four hours every Friday night you're gonna be so focused on our coffee and serving the the meeting you won't be thinking about you and less you are more god bless you more god listen we're gonna we're gonna make the doorway will open the door up to let something other than self be in your life and you're going to feel better because action this is by the way a program of action brings about change action brings about change thank M. brings about more thank you

I I got asked early on as the move we all want to talk about it and he said do you want to talk to you want to understand why you feel so bad or do you want to feel better

if you want to talk about all your the blue do you like to focus on the problems and really working out we can come to an understanding of probably before you die will come to a pretty good understanding of why you feel so bad or we can take action right and you will feel better because this action will bring about a change in your life these directly applicables to the problem you have a real alcoholism and drug

right can explain a lot to me because it would just gone

he just said they were diagnosed yet you know

thanks for the choice and I made a copy I did that come in the first six months before I figured out I feel there on Friday nights when I would drive home I felt better I got

real crazy that commitment man I had that stuff laid out

I had my condiment table and I went on Wednesday with my check list and I got my little swizzle sticks and I got the D. in the creamer enough takes off from the real stuff and I got it all lined up and I'm making coffee drinking coffee while I make you know for a couple hours everybody gets to get there also jacked up on like a kid ball next to my

some that comes in gets his car for use with things on the table to the

that's where that goes

people learn the banging on the coffee do

as a little tense

I was a little tense

and I got through you know and I mean by the time I live

here's the deal

as far as I'm concerned this is the heart and soul of all this you know because it's blah blah blah stories stories stories we all heard all right get out of my life I got to talk about

what Jimmy couldn't get

what he couldn't get

see we got this

I'm not get to see a

because I was at it right at the beginning first ladies a CA I was on the first speakers and see at that two and a half years clean and that they have the first meetings out of the meeting I was two and a half years clean and there was a about fifteen twenty people in the meeting and nobody in their forty five days when the fort nobody in that forty five days and they thought I was been so before ever

and this guy said to me now that I look into your own I'm gonna have to sell them out of my mind and I think it

worst box if they're looking

in the funny part is my sponsors donors are often because he knew I had no idea what I had yet because I that I did not and then at the podium you know I mean I don't I don't think anybody for the first couple couple years I was here I was too sick to crazy I don't know that I had an office in the stuff out of my mouth in the party many knows in there because I had been listening like it was a lifeline in those meetings and listen to what those guys there and the thing is is that

there's a circle with the triangle the original twelve step symbol it's an ancient spiritual symbols stands for mind body and spirit brought together as a whole human being and therein lies the balance I stop my whole life and never have that's what that symbol means and it's the same thing in here the union the service and the recovery of the work that we do how we engage this path

the unit is the body I bring it here because I couldn't get sober but we seem to be able to we clean up together

couldn't do it by myself but I can deal with you because I can look in your eyes and I know your mind people I live in another country I come here I don't quite know who you are

I know what because I know what it takes to get that seat

you know and I don't notice the things you've been laughing at your disturb

just like me

unity is the body of bring it here I have to be with my people so I go to regular meetings regularly

and my town you go on meeting every night for ten years and never go in the same meeting twice and when you go out and use and don no one will say where is ed where zero where's paddy where's Louie they will say that because no one will know you I will not become a part of the fellowship I go to regular meetings regularly there's three meetings a week I go to that I'm at every week and those people know me on a consistent ongoing basis they become family

for me

they're the ones that I can go to I can walk in the door they say I don't see fine C. get over here because they know online right there they know me well enough to call me on and they've earned the right

in my life to do that to me

they've earned it to step up to me and said you seem to be unusually holy **** today

would you like to do

so

Yunis the body I'm bringing here right recovery is out of the mine the greater aspect of my disease invited not disease of the obsessive nature I don't deal with the obsessive nature of my mind I will never get comfortable clean and if I don't get comfortable clean I'm not gonna stay

sooner or later life on life's terms will happen in the bell rang and I'm gone and I know that about me I know that I will not stay restless irritable and discontent for the rest of my life particularly when I'm no because there were those who came before me those who came before me look me in the eye and said you do not have to suffer sober

you do not have to you do not have to wrestle with that beast anymore if you take this simple program and the tool kit that we offer you when you do this or you will not have to suffer

and that that was an undeniable truth you all know exactly what I'm talking about you know when somebody tells you the truth you know I'd like to tell you but you know it's true do we know the truth when we hear it we say it so seldom when it's cold once we hear

and there it is

I thought I must relieve myself of the obsession of the mind so I can walk to the Freeman I don't want to be a slave anymore I don't carry the ball and chain the beast with me everywhere I go wait for life on life's terms that happened just take my hat off how do I do you know how we can help with the recovery it's working the twelve steps that's what it's for step one is what's the problem lack of ours my dilemma

left to my own devices I will drink in use just the way it is if that's my problem lack of power to my solution step to that a power greater than myself could restore me to stand the sound of the mind leave me the obsession years Freeman yeah we want to do well step three year old pull the trigger

get out on the I mean let the house I'm on the couch that one that's a problem step two going to have to be dried everything else step three get on my knees to my one of my a levels of care got what we got a problem here

you see I have renounced god I don't believe in god now I'm discussing this with my sponsor and rant and rave about god he he just turned and looked at me and I I and he was smiling I shoulda known is about to do something he was really gonna enjoy

and he looked at me he said you can't be mad at god you don't believe

and I just went

when I got to go home

messed up my whole day man got to rethink the whole thing now

the

so I ended up

I got on my knees and I turned my one of my life over the care of a god I did not understand and I do not understand this day I don't pretend that our professed understand god I see evidence of god my life on a daily basis I do

this I mean I understand what's going on I'm comfortable not knowing what's going on I mean if you think about it very eagle centric you know I used to be that kind of guy there's like a red nose guards like everybody freeze on what's going on