The 2nd annual Men Among Men group's 12-step conference in Reykjavik, Iceland

Speaker of consciousness, Brian from Maine, you as well. Can you even see me over this? Tampa. Yeah. Sounds like someone from Texas.

That's fine. Thank you. Well, I'm an alcoholic, and my name is Brian. Hi, Brian. And, I'm beyond honored to be here.

This is wonderful. I'm working on no sleep, so bear with me tonight. And, it's amazing to be here. It just really is amazing to be here. I I get extremely nervous whenever I'm asked to share, my life, and I don't know why I accept that it's my life.

And I don't know where it's gonna go, and I don't know what I'm gonna say, except that, I've been over there in prayer asking god to give me the words to speak with, what needs to be said tonight. I, I've had a wonderful day. And I I I'm privileged to be here, and I'm honored to be here, but I'm conflicted to be here because I I really wasn't supposed to be here. And, I I wouldn't be here, if it wasn't for my good friend Don being sick. And, and that's not, it's not good, you know, because he would he it's just not good.

And so it's I I don't know if any of you know Don. I've known him for 10 years, and he, he was part of the change that happened with me. Thank you. And, he was paramount in bringing the big book to Maine, indirectly through my home group. And so him being ill and, being terminally ill is not a good thing.

And but and I got the phone call from Arnar. He called my wife. My wife called me at work and said that some guy from Iceland left a message, and she couldn't understand it. And, she said, he wants you to speak in Iceland. So and I'm like, I don't know anyone from Iceland.

And, and then about an hour later, I got a call from, Don saying that, he would be honored if I could go in his place. And, it is an honor to come here. It is an honor to to speak anywhere in AA. I never planned on even getting sober. My sobriety date's March 6th 1993, and, I didn't wake up that day to get sober.

I kinda resigned to the fact that I was gonna kill myself, or I was gonna go out and commit some felonies. And, for some reason, I woke up that day, and, and I haven't had a drink since. And and that in itself is a miracle. The power of God is amazing, even when I did not even want that power. I, I'm blessed beyond belief.

And so to be asked to come here and share and and to just travel today around your countryside, what a beautiful country you guys have. I mean, you're really blessed to have such a beautiful country. And my wife's if I had known this as being live on the Internet, I would've called my wife and told her to get online, because she she is extremely jealous that I'm here. And, so I guess we'll have to come back. But, let me just share with you what I was like and what happened, and what I'm like now.

And I I think that's all I really have to offer about, you know, what what happened to me, and my alcoholism, and how it progressed, and and, and the hope and the message I found in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, in the halls of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the change that has transformed me into the man I am today. That day, on March 6, 1993, when I'd get gotten up, I was working on a recovery ranch in Arizona, and I'd been in relapse for 3 months. And I don't think that's good when you're trying to tell people how to stay sober and you're drinking in the evening. And that's really what was happening, and it was getting really ugly. I was doing, 2 meetings a day, and then I was drinking after the second meeting, and then so the old you probably don't have this phrase here, but we have it in Maine, and it's, it's one of those myths in AA that I think needs to be smashed, and it's meeting makers make it.

That's a big phrase in Maine, and it it just kills me when I hear it because I went to 2 meetings a day, and I wasn't making it. You know, I was about ready to kill myself. And, so I know there's more to sobriety than just going to meetings, though I need to be in meetings. That in itself is not the solution, never never has been the solution. And, and the reason I drank see, what happened is, I was in AA for a year, and, and I didn't do anything.

I just I went to meetings, I was court ordered. I had just gotten out of prison, and so I came to AA because it was either go to go back to prison or go to AA, and I'm not an idiot, you know, so, there's women in AA. It just seemed like a good bet to me, and, so I went and, but I didn't wanna do what they suggested, and they I I did you know, and then really what the truth was, I just didn't believe I needed to. I I never really tried to get sober. I was 30 years old, and, I was 29 at that time, and I never really tried to get sober.

And so I just thought, well, I'm I wanna be sober, so I'll just be able to stay sober. And the truth is, for me, I'm a real alcoholic. And without a spiritual solution, I just couldn't do it. And I went to a lot of meetings that year. And about 2 weeks after my year anniversary, I started drinking.

And that led me to that day, 3 months later. And, so let me share you with with with how that all happened, because I, you know, I grew up in California. I'm not really from Maine. Maine's just it's cold. I grew up in Northern California, and then I moved down to Tucson, Arizona, and that's where I got sober.

And I grew up in a family that, you know, and this isn't why I'm an alcoholic, but it's just kind of gives you an idea who where I came from and what what my life was like. I come from my mom's an alcoholic. My mom's a hard core beer drinker, you know, bar drinker. A lot of drama went on in my family, and to be honest with you, as a as a young kid, I liked the drama. I like the action.

Like, we had a bar in the back of our house, and I liked the activity that went on, and I liked the energy around that. And, I just kinda liked it. And so I started drinking at an early age. You know, I was the youngest of, 3 boys. Well, there was 4 of us.

My mother brother died when he was 7. And, I I like drinking. Drinking really I like the effect it had on me. You know? It made everything going on change.

It made there's a lot it just made it made me feel okay in my skin. And so I started drinking, 10, 11 years old, and it wasn't like I was a daily drinker. I mean, you can't really be a daily drinker when you're that young, but, you know, I would they would have parties, and I would definitely sneak booze. You know? And I got pictures from when I was a kid.

My mom and dad didn't care if I drank. I mean, in fact, the the philosophy in my home was it's okay if you drink, but as long as you don't leave the house, you know, which you know? K. I'm cool with that. And, so my alcoholism started progressing slowly, and and and the behaviors around that were were crystal clear.

I mean, I and and my pattern for me is my brother, I'm I'm the youngest, and there's 2 other one. One's 4 years older and one's 6 years older, and so I always craved the attention of my older brother. And when I was, like, 10, 11, if I if he would say, if you if you steal a bike at school today, I'll give you $5. And so I would steal a bike and get $5, and also get the recognition from his peers, like, your little brother's crazy, you know, and, you know, and then I'd see that they liked me because of that, and so then I would do so I would do and that pattern would go all the way up until I got sober. And, that if if you were if if I did something that you approved of, and I got your kindness and your acceptance, then I would do that, no matter what it was, no matter what morals I was breaking, it didn't matter.

And, and then and I just ran with that, and my alcoholism really didn't I didn't become a daily drinker till I was 18. When I was 14, I moved to Tucson, and I did that one thing where I was gonna get new friends, you know, like, okay. I'm 14 years old. I need new friends. I think that's a sign that you maybe have a problem if at 14 you need to start over.

But, you know, so I'm like, okay. I'll get new friends. Moving to Tucson, and I so I went to went to Tucson. I started looking for new friends. Well, the people that weren't drinking and drugging, dude, nothing was happening there, man.

I gotta be honest with you. It was boring, and that lasted about a month. You know? I'm like, this is lame. And so I found the guys who were drinking and drugging, you know, the guys who were leaving high school, going across the street to go smoke their weed and do drink drink on the weekends.

Those are the guys I started hanging out with. And, I had a knack of drinking with guys who drank a little bit more than me and who were a little bit crazier than me, so I could always look at them, and they were like my measuring stick. If I ever get like Norman, then I'll stop drinking. You know? Norman was like this 6 foot 2 guy who fought all the time.

I'm like, I'm not gonna fight anybody. Come on. I'm, like, doing my best to avoid fights. So I never got like Norman. I was never a violin drunk, you know.

And, had 18 years. I graduated in 1980. I'm 42 years old, and, I graduated barely graduated in high school, and I did this thing where I, made this decision not go to college. I'm not gonna go to university. I'm just gonna, go move in with a bunch of buddies of mine, and I'll take a year off.

And that was, I don't know, 25 years ago. Still, still waiting to come back for that one, but, you know, I I I it was a good plan in my mind. I thought it made sense. I've been in school for 12 years. I need a break, and, moved in with a bunch of buddies.

You know? Four guys living in the house. We're all 18 years old, and we're all construction workers, and we're all just became daily drinkers. And, and that was when everything started to progress. From 18 to 21, it was a blur.

I, you know, the drama I always get a little bit worried about sharing my story because some stuff happened in my story that, you know, people if you're new and you say, well, I never did that, so I'm not an alcoholic. That's not the story I'm about to tell you is not why I'm an alcoholic. I'm an alcoholic because when I put alcohol into my body, I can't control the amount I drink. Something happens, and I have a mind that tells me it'll be different every time. That's what makes me alcoholic.

The drama that I'm about to share with you is just a you know, it's a symptom of what happens, and not everyone gets that. And, to me, I'm grateful. I'm grateful that it's what happened to me. I'm I'm I have no problem with all the time I spent in prison. I'm totally okay with that, because it got me to a place where I'm, where I'm at peace with myself.

And, so from 18 to 21, I just was daily drinking, and and it wasn't a lot of you know, we had a lot of fun. I can tell you, I had a lot of fun in my early drinking. It wasn't all drama, you know. I mean, I had a girlfriend, I had a job, we'd go road trips to Mexico, we'd go to Las Vegas, we'd go skiing, sometimes I wouldn't pay rent for 2 months, but, you know, we can make that up, and started doing, drugs, started doing cocaine, and, that became a problem when you're making $7 an hour and you start getting a habit like I got. So you you get a little creative.

I my creativity was I would deal drugs. That was a good one. I said, well, I can be the local dealer and, but if you're using more than you're selling, that's a problem. And, so financially, I ended up digging this hole, and so by the time I was 21, I was in this huge financial debt all around Tucson, and I'd pretty much burned all my bridges, and I was drinking daily, and I wasn't telling anybody about this, I was keeping it a secret, I was taking rent money for my roommates, and I was paying you know, I was doing I was just shuffling money all over the place, and it was getting really crazy. And, and I'm gonna I'm gonna share this story.

I don't really share this too much, but I'll share this story just because, it it kinda just gives you an idea of what what I'm not. There's a buddy of mine who was sitting around, this guy named Dave, and, Dave Dave's no longer with us. Dave killed himself. About 3 years in my prison sentence. He put a gun in his mouth, and, and he was one of us.

He was a candidate for the halls of Alcoholics Anonymous. And Dave and I were sitting around, and we were drunk. And we were both crying that we didn't have any money. And, and I came up with this idea. I said, well, Dave, we can go rob the Kentucky fried chicken.

I don't know if they have them here, but it's a really quality chicken place. And, so I made this plan, we're gonna go rob this Kentucky fried chicken. And I I, my roommates were gone. So I took my roommate's car, and we took his gun and, ski mask and rope, and we had this great plan to go do this. And it was I mean, we were really, like, pumped to do this.

I mean, we're 21 year old kids, never really committed any kind. We're, like, we're jamming ACDC on the way over to this place, you know, like, yeah. You know? And, so we get there and we pull in, and we're, like, pumping each other up, and we go into this place. And we walk into the door and, you know, it's, like, it's very surreal today, but everyone's, like, it got real quiet when we walked in.

And the people behind the counter kinda looked at us, and then I told Dave, I gotta go to the bathroom. So he we both went to the bathroom, and he goes, what's up? And I said, dude, I can't do this. He goes, yeah. Me neither.

And he goes, what do you wanna do? And I'm like, I don't know. Let's go eat. So so we went and had, like, a 2 piece meal, and, as I described, I'm not really a gangster, but but I was still hopeless. You know?

I'm a 21 year old kid, and I'm hopeless. And I drop Dave off, you know, we eat our meal, and I drop him off, and I go home. I'm really extremely intoxicated now, and, and I made this decision. And I and I and the more I'm around, the longer I know there's lots of people who've made this decision. And some have followed through and some haven't, but I made the decision just to kill myself.

And it wasn't a cry for help. I'm gonna cut my wrist and then go in my roommate's room and you know, that wasn't what I was looking for. It was like, I'm done. And so, again, I took my roommate's car, because I'm thinking if you're gonna kill yourself, definitely don't wanna kill yourself in your car. And, I drive all the way out in the desert, and I'm pumping fumes into my car, and I and I can still today smell it.

Whenever I smell car fumes, I can still almost get back to that place of sitting in the car, and the fumes are coming in, and I'm sitting there, and I'm crying, and I'm writing notes, you know, to my girlfriend, I'm writing notes to my friends, and I'm and I get to this note to my mother. And, and my mother had already buried a boy, and she already buried her son from leukemia. And as I'm writing this note, I just I couldn't I couldn't do it. You know? I just couldn't do that to my mom.

And it was probably the only selfless thought I ever had up until that time, that I just couldn't do that. What it would do to my mom to find her baby in a car, and, and the will to live was a little bit stronger than the will to die. And so I stumbled out of the car and walked around the desert for the rest of the night and realized that, this is what I realized, that my problem was lack of money. Lack of money is my problem. And if that's your problem, there's only one solution for that, money.

And so I took my roommate's car and drove into town, and I drove up to this bank, and I walked in, and I robbed it. And, and I say it, as a matter of fact, like that, because that's how it felt. I walked in, handed the teller a note, and it said, I have a gun. Well, this is what it said. This is another description, so you know I'm really not a gangster.

And I never told this for a long long time, and my wife made me say it when I started to get asked to speak. She says, oh, you never really get honest about what happened that day. I'm like, well, the details are bogus. You know? It says share in a general way.

I don't need to get specific. She goes, yeah. You just say it because you just don't want your ego smashed. And so the truth is, here's the way it went down. My first bank robbery, I got $50.

And I'm glad that amuses you. I'm like and the reason I got $50 is because I wrote, I have a gun. Give me $50 or I will shoot you, and she it It it pains me to tell that story. It's just like and I know if any of the guys I ever did time with ever hear this, they're gonna be like, that little guy lied the whole time, because anytime anybody asked me why I was doing time, like, oh, yeah. I got $70,000.

And, and really what happened is this is the way it probably looked for her, is I was kinda looking up at the I was like, looking up and shoving a little note up there and say, hey. Give me my $50. And she she should've just reached over and slapped me and told me to go home, but because I was, like, 21 years old. I was probably 5 foot 1. Well, I've been 5 foot 1 since since 9th grade, but, you know, it's it's, acne all over, blonde hair.

I just was a mess. And, so I got my $50, and I ran out. And I get to my car, and I'm excited. Like, yeah. 5th no.

I didn't say $50 until I looked at him. I'm like, oh. Drove over to this convenience store, bought some Budweiser, and drank about 3 or 4 beers, and kinda calmed the nerves down, and drove all the way across town and robbed another bank. And I got the money I needed that time. I didn't ask for $50 that time.

And, and then I went to work the next day. You know? I mean, the insanity of my life is I went and paid all my bills, paid all my dealers, paid the rent, paid everything, got everything caught up, went home, had some extra money in my pocket, took my girlfriend out to dinner, and then got up and went to work the next day. Like, nothing happened. You know?

Like, okay. One day, you're just a goofball, now you're a bank robber. I mean and so, and and and became a daily drinker and started running the game one more time and and kept that lie up for a long time. 6 months later, I'm painting houses, you know, work for this guy, and I'm running out of money again. So I say, hey.

Can I use your truck? You know, I gotta go into town, and he gives me the keys to his van, and I drive into town, rob a bank, come back to the job site an hour later. Hey. What's up? You know?

And, and this that kinda angered the FBI. They they frown on that. And so, well, here's what here's what happened, and then we'll get to some real good recovery. But here's what happened is I I came home from work, this is about 2 weeks later, and, and I'm feeling good. You know, I got all my money, got my debts paid off.

I'm like, alright. This is cool. Anytime I need money, I'll just go rob bank. Nobody knows me. It's a 1000000 people in Tucson.

How are they not gonna know me? You know? So, I come home from work and I go to the refrigerator like I always do to get some some beer, and there's a picture of me from the local paper, and it's not my name, but it says, you know, picture of me. I mean, you have to be blind not to notice that that's me. And it says, 8 8 crime.

This gentleman's wanted for 3 bank robberies. If you know anything, it's a 5,000 dollar reward. And my roommates cut it out of the painting, you know, cut it out of the paper and put it on the refrigerator. And so I go to the refrigerator. As soon as I see that, you know, my knees get weak, and I'm like, oh my god.

And then because I'm a good alcoholic, I recover real quick and snatch it off. And I walk in the room, and they're all sitting around smoking weed and just hanging out in Bolivia, and, I throw it on the table. I go, what's that? And these guys no lie. These guys I live with, they all 3 look at me, and they go, dude, you're not gonna believe it.

There's some guy who looks just like you, And I'm, like, cool, you know. Yeah. That's crazy, you know. And then so anybody came over that day, we show them the picture. You know?

And, like, and about 2 weeks later, I got arrested. You know? 2 weeks later, the FBI knocked on my door, and, and and I used to we used to make jokes when I was doing time with guys, like, oh, you didn't get arrested. You got saved. You know?

And the reality is I was saved because I was heading down a track that was not good. And, I opened the door and there's 3 guys in suits, and they asked me my name. You know, are you Brian Percox? And they said, yeah. And they said, we have a warrant for your arrest, and I got arrested and went to prison that day.

And, you know, my life changed. You well, it it changed, but it didn't change. You know, it changed the fact that the game was over for a minute, but as soon as my you know, 3 days later, my parents bailed me out and, got me a lawyer, and I told them this lie, and, you know, and all my friends are impressed, but, you know, I just not good. And so I'm about ready to go to trial for these bank robberies, and, I'm talking to my lawyer, and my lawyer says, you know, Brian, you're guilty. I've I've seen the evidence.

You know, you're gonna you're gonna go to prison. You can't not you can't rob free banks and not go to prison. And I live in this delusion that I'm just a young kid. You know? I'm not a criminal.

You know? I'm just a I'm just a I've got some bad luck. You know? I got a problem. You know?

It's and he's like, it doesn't matter. It's a matter of how much time you're gonna do now. And, well, when you put that kind of stuff in my mind, I just was drinking to oblivion. You know? I think I was drinking to die.

You know? I was getting up early, drinking all day, and, it was just getting crazy. And 2 weeks before I went to trial, on a Friday afternoon, I robbed another bank. And, now that's a description of an idiot. Alright?

Because I can tell you right now, there was no there was no other 5 foot 1 bank robbers going to trial that year. It was not happening. And my mind said, well, I'll just get away. I'll do it different. You know?

I'll put a disguise you know, I don't know what I was thinking. And, but I know and subconsciously, I was thinking, well, I'll do it on Friday. I'll at least get the whole weekend to party. And so I I did this party that was just unbelievable. And, Monday, they came and got me, and and I wasn't to get out for the next 6 years.

You know? And, and in my 6 years in prison, I did absolutely nothing to better my life. I didn't address my alcoholism. I didn't address my addiction to cocaine. I didn't address anything.

All I did was play the game. I learned, you know, and and I would honestly say, for me, you know, when you're 5 foot 1 and you're a £110, and you go to a prison, a federal prison in the states, and there's 1700 inmates and a 1,000 of them are are black from the inner city, you start to adapt certain ways to survive. And, and and I just watched, you know, how to survive, and and it definitely wasn't going to counseling, and definitely wasn't getting sober. It it was basically living like a convict. And, and the scary part is I really adapted quickly to that lifestyle.

I I became I'm not proud of this, but I became a racist in prison. Never believed it for a minute, except that the people around me almost required that I believe it. And so I would spout stuff off that I didn't believe, I I I started using heroin in prison. It just became you know, the things I would never do, I started to become. You know, I started to really just strip every moral fabric from my body.

And and I got out. I got out 5 years, 8 months later, and, and and here's the truth and the reality of my family is, and then I know this today, is my family stuck by me. My friends, no no one ever came to visit me, none of them hardly even accepted phone calls from me, but my mom and dad would come out to Detroit and visit me, Indiana, when I was in Indiana, they would spend time in you know what the truth is? And this is a really hard this is when I went through the steps, this one really rocked my world, that my mom and dad did every single day I did in the penitentiary. I took my family with me to the penitentiary, because my mom didn't know if I was gonna live or die.

And all I could ever think about is I'm the one doing time. You know? Give me this. Give me that. And, as I started doing my inventory, when I went through this 4 step, I had these huge resentments because my mom, I had this huge awakening around that fact that, you know, that that my mom had to do time with me, that when I got out of prison, she'd aged 20 years.

You know? And what kind of son does that to his to and what kind of son does that to his mom? You know? And, I got out 5 years, 8 months later, and, my family my mom and dad brought me right back home. And my dad got me a job, and he got me a car, and he gave me a credit card.

And, that's a mistake. And I was drinking the day I got out. I was drinking on the plane ride from from Indianapolis, because I ended up going to Terre Haute, Indiana, where I ended up finishing up, and on the plane ride home, I was drinking. You know? And the and the lie I told myself, and this is what the steps steps told me, was, oh, I'm just a cocaine addict.

I'm not an alcoholic. I don't got I got a drug problem. That's obvious. I mean, I wasn't robbing banks to support my alcohol problem, that's for sure. And so I wanted to focus on that, and I don't wanna focus on that.

I can't drink safely, that I'm not supposed to be drinking, and if I drink, I'll go back to prison, and yet I have to drink. I could not even fathom of not drinking, so that wasn't what I was thinking. And so the reality was, I'm drinking on the way home, you know, drinking as soon as I get there, Going to counseling, lying to my spa you know, lying to everybody, my my, parole officer. 8 months later, violation, 3 dirty urms, go back to prison. Go back in front of the same judge, sends me right back to prison.

You know? And this is when things changed for me, because up until that time, my family was back in my pocket, you know, I could do what I wanted, and, my mom wrote me a letter. I was back maybe 3 days, and my mom wrote me this letter, and the letter was clear cut. It said, dear Brian I'm gonna paraphrase it, because it's a lot longer what I'm gonna say. She says, dear Brian, we love you too much to watch you die in our house.

I've already buried one son. I do not wanna witness the bearing of another son. So you're not welcome here anymore. I love you too much. When you get out, you can't come home.

And the harsh reality of that is I made my mom write that letter, and the lie I told myself was my mom. How dare my mom disown me? And coming out the other end through my inventory, the truth was I put the pen in my mom's hand, and I made her write that to her baby boy. I made her disown. And she often tells me today that it was harder to do that than it was to to bury Chuckie.

She says, because with Chuckie died, I had no choice. There's no choice on that. Leukemia took him. I had nothing. I couldn't do anything about that, but with you, everything every fiber of my body screamed not to do that.

Not every fiber of my motherhood screamed not to disown you, not to walk away from my child. And, but she had to. And, you know, I've told that story 100 of time. I can never say it without, you know, getting emotional because, you know, I was talking on the way over here. I got a 3 year old daughter, and I can't imagine.

I just can't imagine having to do that. I can't imagine that. And, I mean, the good news is my family's back, and and, you know, know, I didn't tell my mom I was coming to Iceland to speak, but my wife did. And, my my mom is very proud of me today. You know, the healing process of the steps is amazing.

But everything that she said in that letter came true because when I got out a year later, I was a 28 year old young man, and, I had no money. I had no job. I had the clothes on my back. I had nothing, and I had to go live in a halfway house in downtown Tucson. I had nothing.

My first two weeks out, I had to go sell plasma just for bus money. And I remember vividly standing in line. You know? First, I remember seeing the ad in the paper thinking that I was, you know, I'm being an entrepreneur, because I'm gonna go sell my blood. You know?

And, I remember standing in line with all the other winners that were selling their blood that day. And, see, the ego that I have, the arrogance inside of me, I'm looking at everybody else thinking, what a bunch of losers. Like, I'm a winner. And I just got out of prison. You know, I pretty much spent from 22 to 29 in prison, and I'm thinking, losers.

I heard a guy say this. I can't take credit for it, but it's the best thing I ever heard on ego. And when he said it, I thought, oh, yeah. That's me. We're it was at an AA meeting.

It was my 1st month in AA, and I'm I actually asked him to be my sponsor after he said this. I'll tell you how sick I am. But he said, they're asking about ego ego and talking about ego, and it came to him. And he said, ego. He says, I said, I don't know.

My ego would kill a lesser man. You have to think about that, the arrogance of that statement. And, I just didn't get it. You know? Like, I just didn't get it.

I didn't know how to live, and so I ended up at this halfway house, and I ended up I was out 3 days, and I started drinking again. And I couldn't and they told me, if you if you drink while you're here, we're gonna send you back prison. And and I'll tell you, the most important thing to me at that time was my freedom, and yet I had to have a drink. I could not I was supposed to go out and look for a job. As soon as I as soon as I got outside the premises, everything in my body screamed, I need something to knock the edge off.

And so I went and bought a bottle. And, and I get away with it because I'm slick for a little bit, and so I drink till noon, and then I white knuckle it and come back. And And I did that the next day. And then the 3rd day, my body's saying, no. That ain't happening.

You ain't coming back to the halfway house without booze this time. Because the first two nights, I wanted to scream just to have more booze, you know, because my body was aching for it. And so I snuck some tequila on and, and got drunk that night and, surprised, I got caught. You know? And that's when, I got sent out at Hawkes Anonymous.

And, and I tell you, my parole officer, Tim, I'll never forget, I hated this guy with a passion, and, he, came and visited me. That was on a Friday night I got caught. He came and visited me on Monday, and I thought I was going back. I thought I was going back for sure, and he, in fact, when they called my name on the loudspeaker, you know, Brian, to the office, I had my little bag of whatever you know, I think I had shampoo with some toothpaste, so I brought it with me. And he says, what's in the bag?

And I said, well, I wanna have toothpaste and some shampoo when I go back to prison. He says, you know, sit down. Let me talk to you. And, which was a surprise. He just violated me.

He's the one who sent me back for the year before. And so he sat me down, and he sat down and he did something for me which was not even justified. I didn't even merit it. But he gave me an opportunity that has changed my life. He said, I wanna share something with you.

He says, I've been sober in Alcoholics Anonymous for 7 years. He says, and you keep thinking that you're a drug addict, and, you're an alcoholic. He says, you can't even stay sober a week after going back for a year. He says, you got a serious problem with booze. He says, I'm gonna do you a favor, and it's the last favor I'm gonna do you.

He says, but I'm gonna recommend the pro commission that you not go back to prison, but you have to go to AA everyday while you're here. You gotta get your sheet signed, and for the next 4 months you have to go to that name. If you miss one meeting or you get one write up while you're here, I'm gonna send you back to prison. And he says, so what do you what's your what do you wanna do? Like, okay.

I'll go to AA. And, and AA, I'm gonna tell you right now. AA scared me to death. The whole idea of getting sober scared me because I didn't know how to live sober, and and then going into the meetings. So I went to the the Alano Club, Northwest Alano Club, and I was it was like a 110 out, and I drank, of course, I'm a newcomer, so I drink about 14 cups of coffee.

And, so, like, coffee's pouring out of me, and, people are trying to talk to you. You know, like, the government that I had to walk through here, you know, that would that that that would have frightened me. You know? It would have been I was a shoe watcher at that time. You know?

I was, like, watching shoes, couldn't look people in the eye. And, so guys would come up to me, like, hey. How are you? You know? And they'd they'd shake my hand.

Welcome. They knew I was a newcomer. I don't know how, but they did. And they say, you know, welcome, you know, welcome to the meeting. And, the stupidest thing they ever said was, well, come back tomorrow.

And I'm like, I gotta get my sheet signed. I gotta come back. You know? Like, I have a choice. You know?

And, but they all and they knew I got my sheet signed, and they knew that I was from New Beginnings Treatment Center. And they knew that, and yet they still gave me lots of love and kindness. And I used to take the bus. I'd be at the bus stop, and it would be, you know, it'd be literally a 110 out of them, and the desert gets really hot. And it'd be coming down on me, coffee's pouring out of me, and the guy would drive up in his Cadillac.

I'll never forget this. Guy drove in his Cadillac, and he it's like icicles are inside his car from the air conditioning. You know? He's like it's like a a it's like a frost in there. And he'd roll his window down and be like he said, hey.

You wanna ride back to the halfway house? And I'm like, no. I'm cool. I got this. Don't worry about that.

Because you know? And the truth was, I was 29 year old man, and I had never experienced unconditional love. I'd never experienced any, you know, the world I was that world that I was that I put myself in and that I'd lived in for a long time was a world of take and hate, and if I and I took always took kindness for weakness, and if you were kind, there was you were trying to get something. I knew that from the first I was in prison. As soon as the guys come up and said, hey, you want some coffee?

I knew what he wanted. You want me to give me coffee? I'm a good looking kid, you know. So I I carried that in the air. It's an old idea that if you're kind and loving to me, you want something from me.

That's an old idea, and it had to get smashed. And it got smashed in the halls of Alcoholics Anonymous, because I didn't want anything from me. The only thing they wanted from me was for me to see the hope and what what the opportunity was that I could live a different life. That's all. You know?

I often say, you know, I'm sober by the grace of god. It used to bother me. I used to hear that all the time, like, grace of god. What the guy who died today didn't have that grace, you know, and, because that's what I thought. You know?

Because that's what it sounds like. If I'm sober by the grace of God, then I know someone's dying of alcoholism tonight, so he didn't have it. Right? And I heard the speaker say and he said, it's not what it means. It means that I'm sober by the grace of God because I accept God's grace.

And that's the reality of my sobriety, is that once I accepted God's grace, the door was opened. You know? And I didn't accept god's grace my first time in AA. That first year that my parolesor sent me there, I got off parole. I lasted about a year and I drank again, and then I came back.

What happened is I got off all the paper and then I drank again because there was no nothing tied to me anymore. Right? Drank, and then that March 6th day when I woke up. And here's what happened after that, because this is what's important. And this is this is the message I really believe that we need to carry, and it's always obviously the message that you guys are carrying here because you guys are amazing.

I mean, this is for me, it's like when I got sober in Maine, we were all young. We're all just a bunch of vibrant young people. You know, energy was like, yeah. And the answer's in the book, and do it. You know?

And and all the old timers hated us. And everybody, you know, were like, woah, wait. You know, but we're the ones who put conferences on. We're the ones who got things going. And, and there's a guy out in Arizona who who had that.

He was 27 years old and he'd been sober 7 years. He got sober when he was 20, what, 20? And, everybody around Kenny was getting better. And I didn't like Kenny my 1st year in AA because he talked about God, he talked about making amends. We don't wanna wanna do that.

Not when you're a thief like me. When you're robbed from every place you work, you don't wanna make amends. I mean, come on. We skipped that step, jumped right over to 10. Right?