The Third Tradition Speaker Meeting in Studio City, CA

And my only instruction I'll give him is that when I look at Tim, I see the person that I'd like to become an alcoholic. It's anonymous. Will that Tim, would you please come up and He's not aiming very high. Is he? You you could do better, bud.

Believe me. My name's Tim Whitcomb. I'm an alcoholic, and I'm grateful to be clean and sober today. Thank you, Jeff, for asking me to come down. It is always an honor and a privilege to be asked to participate in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And, happy birthday to all the birthday people, and, welcome to the newcomers. I'll tell you what I was told when I got here, and that is that you are welcome in this fellowship, that you're not alone anymore, that you don't ever have to drink again if you don't want to. I now believe that because it's been my own experience. You know, you can't you can't stick around here for any length of time without forming a few opinions. So let me get at least one of them out of the way right now.

You know? One of the things that really bugs me is every once in a while in a meeting, you'll hear someone say, isn't it good to see so many young people here? Stick around. You won't you may not have to go through the things that some of us went through. Let us love you until you can love yourself.

You know, it always sounds so condescending, and and, and having said that, let me say this. Isn't it nice to see so many young people here? Stick around. You may not have to go through the things that some of us did. Let us love you until you can learn to love yourselves.

I have young friends in Santa Barbara where I live and am sober, and involved in Alcoholics Anonymous, who are, miracles of our program. And as, hopefully will become clear at some point in this talk, they are useful to me. I see them as tools because, one young person can talk to another young person and be heard perhaps better than, some of us who are, slightly older. So I know people in Santa Barbara who are 30 years old and have 15 years sobriety. I know people who are still not in their twenties, who have 2 and 3 and 4 years, And that's a testament to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, to the education about alcoholism, the disease that has taken place since, our cofounders started this blessed program.

There's a lot of things that factor in there, but it's it's really good. When I walk in, I said, Jeff, to Jeff, looks like you emptied out the junior high tonight, you know. But, but that happens more and more frequently for me. So everybody looks young anymore. Darn it.

Yeah. And, you know, I'm never sure what I'm gonna say when I get up here. I don't have a set thing that I do. I I have a little talk with God beforehand, and then I just get up and let it rip. I'm certain of this much that the talk I give here this evening will not be nearly as good as the one I gave in the shower getting ready to come down here.

That one was crisp, and and I wish several of you could have been there for it. You know? Now you'll notice I wasn't looking at anybody when I said that, you know. I I made that mistake, and it's it's an old joke. I've used it a lot of times.

I'm just trying to get comfortable up here, but I delivered that line one time and realized that I was staring right into somebody's eyes. And I'm pretty sure I made that guy nervous. You know, He was new and not quite sure what he gotten himself into. Okay. I wanna thank Steve for driving, and, Pete for coming along, and Chuck for meeting us for dinner, and Eric, thank you for I just hit a blank spot.

It's nice to meet you, Eric, and we had dinner with Carla Moore, who's a good friend of all of us, and and she went on she went on to some other group. I hear there's another meeting tonight somewhere, and and they don't know what they're missing. So I used to drink. I, I drank because I like the effect produced by alcohol. Is it better?

Should I start over? Somebody said, please, no. I like the, effect produced by alcohol. I enjoyed the sense of ease and comfort that came at once from, you know, unscrewing the top off a bottle of that good white port and pouring it down my neck. And I And for a long time, it worked for me.

I also, used a lot of outside, you know, other things, outside issues. I guess that's a popular phrase nowadays for for heroin and the things like that. And I'm an alcoholic of the hopeless variety, but I did do other things, and I when I shot dope, I I like to drink, and when I drink, I like to shoot dope. I do see some difference between the 2, but, not in my case. My drug of choice was, what do you got?

And I heard Don Pritt say this recently, my drug of no choice was alcohol, because when I started drinking, I had no choice. So I I ran it out for a long time. I ran it until the wheels fell off, and then I rode on the rims for a while. And it didn't seem all that bad, and I gave up little pieces of myself. But eventually, things got worse faster than I could lower my standards.

I worked at it, it. You know? I I gave it a good run. I tried, but we all hit that point, don't we? And it doesn't really matter where your particular point is.

You know, don't when I was new in Alcoholics Anonymous, I tried to impress people with my story, and then I heard some impressive stories. One of the things that I I will never forget was sitting in a meeting in Santa Barbara where I got sober. Fellowship Hall was the last bastion for the doorway drunk in Santa Barbara. That was my sponsor's term. I had been to the Alano club, but it was too high class for me.

Chuck's been to that Alano club. You know? I'd been over there once or twice, and they didn't like me. I could tell that immediately. So I went to Fellowship Hall, and I was sitting at in a meeting at the hall somewhere in my first 90 days of sobriety, and at the at that meeting, they went around the table for sharing.

It was participation, and so it depended I learned pretty quick. You sit in the middle, so you stand a chance either way. But sometimes you get stuck on the wrong side of the table, and they start on the other side. And, you know, you've got 60 or 90 days. You got a lot of stuff you need to tell people, help them get straightened out.

And they'd started on the wrong side of the table, and and about halfway down, this woman started talking, and she was old. You know, she was probably at least 50. I mean, real old, you know. And and she'd been a housewife and a beer drinker. You know, beer.

Beer. Beer is not alcohol. You know, beer is some kind of breakfast beverage that you used to get your day started with, and she'd been married and had a family and all kinds of stuff that I didn't know anything about, Could not relate to, plus she was talking way too long, and I was counting the rest of the people, and you know, is it gonna get around to me? Because I got stuff to say, and and I'm I'm having trouble remembering it all, and I'm, you know, getting it, But I'm I'm kinda listening to her, and and she talked about all this stuff. And then she said that, something about the way she felt about feeling different, isolated, and afraid, and lonely.

And my heart went across the table and connected with her heart. I've never forgotten that experience because even though the circumstances were vastly different in our lives, She was just like me. I was just like her. Oh, suffering from the disease of alcoholism when it's active. She was doing it in some place in in a fancy home in the suburbs, and I was doing it on the streets.

Doesn't matter. The feelings are the same. November of 19 oh, I should tell you this. I'm sober since January 3, 1983. I'm very grateful for that.

My home group is men who have lost their legs. We meet in Santa Barbara at the Veterans Memorial on Thursday nights. Any of the men in this room would be welcome at that meeting. 8 o'clock. It's a great group.

In that meeting, if you say this is my home group, everyone says, right on. Something we learned in from Hawaii from our brothers and sisters in Hawaii. But you can always tell somebody who's never been at the meeting before because they go like this when, you know, when a whole bunch of men go right on. It's just kind of I left once with a guy that I had taken for the first time. He says, man, there's a lot of testosterone in that meeting.

Is this mine? Yeah. So we got the drinking part out of the way, you know. I've changed my beverage, not my habits. My sponsor is a guy named Rick Mohan.

Rick is a peaceful man. He's 43 years sober, and he's got what I want. 43 years sober. I'm willing to get it one day at a time, but I want it, and there's no big deals in Rick's life. November of 1982, I was living on the streets in Sacramento, I hadn't shot any of that heroin in a long time or anything else, drug wise.

I was drinking wine, and I was begging for money to get it. I was doing petty thievery when I wasn't too drunk. I stood on street corners with my hands out going, can you help me out a little bit? Can you help me out? I had hair down to here and a beard down to here, and I was dirty and been sleeping in the same clothes for a long time, And I developed a plan.

I approached the last friend of mine who was still speaking to me, last person of my acquaintance, actually, including family members who were still speaking to me. She talked her mother into making up a job for me. I worked for a few hours. I moved some boxes. I swept her garage.

She gave me $20. I spent half of it on a bus ticket and the other half on wine, and I went home to mom. I was 38 years old, and I arrived at mom's drunk as I had many times before, and when she answered the door I said to her with all of the arrogance of the practicing alcoholic, don't worry about anything, mom. I'm here to take care of you. And mom said, I'm sorry, son, but you're dying.

You're killing yourself, and I can't stand to watch it. So if it's something you have to do, you have to do it somewhere else. And she gave me $20, and I spent half of it on a bus ticket and half of it on wine, and I went back to Sacramento. And I crawled up under that freeway bridge I'd been sleeping under, and I laid out my bedroll, and I I started thinking. You know?

My feelings were hurt because I'm a sensitive guy. When I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, if you had asked me, I would have told you what was wrong was that I had had a long life full of bad breaks, unfortunate circumstances, and people who didn't understand, and that was the problem. And now even mom doesn't understand. Something else happened. I I was at a Salvation Army a few days later.

I was gonna try and get some soup in me. Some kind of solid food, although I'd pretty much sworn off it. And I was standing there and looking around and thinking, jeez, you know, I hope nobody sees me here, because I won't have time to explain why this you know, I'm not supposed to be here. It's bad breaks, unfortunate circumstances. People who don't understand.

And I had a sudden realization that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, and that I put myself there. And I hated that. I hated that. In fact, I just left and went got something to drink as quick as I could to make all that go away. And a few days after that, I was tramping around with a guy named Bob, and we were drunk.

Bob looked at me and said, you know we're dying? You know that? Yeah. I know. Who cares?

So I'll tell you what, man. I get a little money at the first of the month. Why don't we go to Santa Barbara and get sober? And I said, sure. Now Bob could have said, why don't we go to Denver and get drunk?

And I would have said, sure. You know? I had focused in on the fact he got a little money at the 1st of the month. You know? That's what caught my attention, but he was a man of his word, and he bought us bus tickets, and we traveled to Santa Barbara.

We were drunk on the trip, and we were drunk in that town for a couple of days, and then we got separated. I didn't see him for 6 weeks. 6 weeks later when I saw him, I was 6 weeks sober. I was sober because when I went looking for Bob, I looked at Alcoholics Anonymous because he had said on that bus trip, we'll go to AA meetings when we get down there. And I said, oh, yeah.

AA. I've been there. I used to go when I was in the joint. I wasn't an alcoholic. You know?

It was part of that bad breaks unfortunate circumstances thing. You know? But that got me out of the cell. There was coffee. Free people came in.

Some of them were women, real women. You can always tell who's been there, you know. Chuck Chamberlain came in there and spoke. Other some of the other convicts had been around for a long time, and they could really talk, and I thought the meetings were great. I laughed and thought, yeah, that stuff's funny.

Sure good these guys got that thing because they obviously don't know how to drink. I'd been convicted of the crime of second degree murder, a crime that I committed while under the influence of alcohol and narcotics. I was sentenced to 5 to life under the old and determinant. I had an a number. It's been that long ago.

When I went looking for Bob, I called Alcoholics Anonymous. This woman said, she answered the phone. I said, have you seen Bob? She said, I know a few Bobs, honey, and, how are you doing? And she we just talked for a very brief period of time, but she was nice to me, and I remembered it, and and I drank some more, and then I went up there.

I thought maybe Bob would be there by then. I thought I was going to Alcoholics Anonymous. That's what it said in the phone book. I didn't know that there were meetings in halls like this, and Alano Clubs, and churches, and private homes. I thought I was going to AA to turn myself in.

I didn't know it was central office, but I walked in and I met Gertrude. Oh, you're that man looking for his friend? You know, I still haven't seen him, but, you know, I know some guys that would just love to talk to you. Began my journey into sobriety. You know, Gertrude was so wonderful.

Such a nice lady. I mean, I looked bad, and I smelled bad, and she didn't flinch, and I remember the kindness that she showed me. She passed away about a year ago. She hadn't been running the office for a while, but she was still around. I got a call from her family saying, you know, our mom thought so much of you.

Do you think you could officiate at her memorial service? What an honor that was for me. You know, she she brought me in, and I like to feel like I helped her go out. You know, I've been out of prison so long now that they let me go back in. You know?

And I wanna thank anybody who's doing HNI work, who has done it in the past, who's gonna do it. It's not for everybody, but, for those of us who love it, it just it's Jack Prose said to me once, Tim, people who do HNI work stay sober. I think he had 53 years at the time. So I wanna pay attention to you, Jack. People who who do HNI work stay sober.

So I have a panel at CMC East that I've had for years. My friend Pete introduced himself as being from that survivors group up there in Lompoc. We go into that United States penitentiary up there. You know, CMC East is I I am convinced there's someone in the state of California whose job it is to name these places so that they sound good. You know?

CMC stands for the California Men's Colony. Oh, the men's colony. A nice place to get away from the girls for a while. An extremely long while. Yeah.

Pelican Bay. CMC, we there's the convict portion of the meeting, and then there's the mid sick portion where we get to fellowship with each other, and then we do our thing. Chuck's been up there with me, Pete's been, Steve goes. Those of us who love it, love it. And that's it's a level 3 yard, and it's mostly lifers.

And we're in the break one time, the break portion of the media, and a guy comes up and he says, hey. You ever see these chips? Say 30, 60, 90 days on them. You ever see those chips? I was like, yeah, Donnie.

I've seen them. I said, these aren't the metal chips, because we can't have metal. These are they look like poker chips. They're plastic. And I said, yeah, I've seen them.

He said, well, you think you can find out where we can get some, how much they cost? He's like, sure, dude. I'm I'm certain I can, but, Donnie, you're 12 years sober. What do you need with a chip like that? Oh, no, man.

It's not for me. Said, there's a whole cell block full of guys here who have alcoholism and troubles problems other than alcoholism. They're bipolar, manic depressive, and schizophrenic, and and they can't come out to get to this meeting. So what we've started doing is we're taking meetings into them, because that's how we do our HNI work, man. I am just continually blown away by the experiences I have going into those places.

A friend of ours named John called me a couple of weeks ago. He was a lifer on that yard, and he called me. He'd been paroled. We knew it was possible, but sometimes they take those dates away. He'd been down for 26 years.

He called me, says, I'm out. So where are you? And I went and I took him to an AA meeting. And, and he got called on to share. It was a men's stag, which, you know, the humor of that struck us at some point, you know.

A nice place to get away from the girls for a while. Yeah. Just a little bit longer, but, they called on to share, and he said, I just got out of prison this morning. I've been gone for 26 years, and the whole room went, yeah, which is exactly what I've told him for the last 7 or 8 years is gonna happen, and it happened. It was perfect.

It was perfect. And a mutual friend of ours named Patrick gave him a job. He gave him a job because that's the kind of guy Patrick is. He's got a little business, and he's got a few extra bucks, and he can he can give a guy a few weeks work to help him get along. It's no big deal, but it turns out that John's just a perfect fit for Patrick and his company.

He's He's probably gonna work for him forever. Who knows? You know? He's but, so he's employed, and he's got an apartment. He's living in Lompoc.

And then he he he called me the other day, and he he said he'd figured out what he was gonna do to be of service. He's in the process of compiling a manual for lifers who get out to teach them how to get their driver's license and their Social Security card and their birth certificate. And he's just taking all of the experiences that he's been going through for the last 2 or 3 weeks, and he's putting them down on paper so that the next guy has it just a little bit easier. I feel humbled by that, you know. I mean, he he just sat down and figured out what he could do to help somebody.

I love Alcoholics Anonymous. The other part of that equation in hospital and institution is the hospital part. There was a point in time where a guy came. He got out of the joint, and he was living at Newhouse, which is the men's recovery home, and he came and, you know, he's a great big man. He must have weighed £400, been up stood 6 4, but you know, he came and he stared me right straight in the shoes and said, would you be my sponsor?

Sure, man. When we started working together, and and he said, he had a little job, and he said, you know, man I'm really in pain. My back hurts. I go to the doctor. So then he was laying out from work, and he said, can I come help you with the office a little bit, because I have all this spare time?

Sure, man. So he's doing some stuff for me on the computer. Back hurts. Go back to the doctor. So he said, I went to the doctor.

They gave me Darvocet. What do you think? I said, I don't know. I'm not a doctor. I know that for guys like me and you, when those drugs get inside us, they don't know they're legal, So we have to be So we need to be careful because our thinking changes.

So stay in close contact. Let's, you know, let's really tighten it up. And he kept complaining about the pain, and he called me in a couple of weeks, and he said, I went back to the doctor, that gave me, Vicodin. What do you think? I said, well, I'm not a doctor.

You know? Those drugs don't know they're illegal. I gave him the wrap. And a couple of weeks after that, he said, hey. I was at the doctor again.

They gave me all the Dilaudid and second all I want. What do you think? And I I see it as a measure of my growth that my first thought was, I think you're very sick, and my second thought was, did you say unlimited narcotics? It's a damn shame a guy's gotta be sick for something like that to happen, you know? But, he had a huge tumor.

It was removed. He was in the hospital hospital for a long time. He went home for hospice. We took him meetings while he was in the hospital and while he was home. Some of the best meetings I've ever been to.

And the last meeting we had there, he, he didn't even come to, but we held had the meeting anyway. We just got around his bed and had the meeting, because we thought he could hear us. And the next morning I woke up, and I thought Beau was awful sick last night. I better go see how he's doing, and I went over, and I was in the process of getting a divorce. Things were not going well with all that, and, 2 minutes after I walked in, my soon to be ex wife walked in because she knew him also.

And we stood on opposite sides of that bed, and we held his hands, and we prayed over him, and we petted him, and he died. And we walked outside and got all our business straight just like that, because you know what? It put it all in perspective. What's truly important. Now some of those meetings with Beau were just so incredible because he talked about the gratitude he felt.

He talked about the fury he was experiencing. He talked about this is what I've always wanted as a group of people who would accept me for who I am, and now I found them, and now I'm dying. And ain't this a bitch? I'll never be as afraid of dying again because I was with Beau when he died. It looked pretty peaceful to me.

About 8 years ago, I've been working at a place for about 12 years, and I was doing well there, and then I got hurt, and I was out for a long time with physical therapies, and doctors, and procedures, and stuff, and and, and I wasn't taking any medicine because I know better, you know, and I didn't need to, but man, it felt like I did on a lot of days. And my friend Pete came to me and said, hey, we need a new manager at central office. You think you want that job? It's like, yeah. So, that's what I do now.

For the last 8 years, I've been the manager of the central office in Santa Barbara, 23rd District Central Office, a job I love. These days, I am Gertrude. You know? And I remember the kindness she showed me, and now you know why I think of those young people and and other people with special qualifications as tools in my little arsenal, because I get calls. I get calls from high school saying, we need somebody to talk to our class.

And I know if I go, they're gonna think, dude, if I was as old as you, I'd quit drinking too, you know. But when I can send Jimmy Callas or Adrian Lewis or little Christian Blanchard or some of these young people that I know, the kids listen. We're planting those seeds out there. I'll tell you a couple of experiences from central office. You know, thank you if you've ever volunteered at a central office.

Thank you. Steve came down and told me he wanted to be an AA speaker. I said I didn't have any openings right at the moment, but but I needed somebody to answer the phones. And he said, you know, he didn't answer phones. He hired people to answer phones because he was a big shot, but, we negotiated, and he he's been there for the last 3 years answering the phones every Tuesday afternoon.

Yeah. And I think we're just about even in the domino game. Anyway, because we play when the phone doesn't ring. I'm there at the office one day, and this guy comes in, and he says, hey. I'm Lou.

I'm going back east on a trip, and I'm kinda nervous about it because I only got 90 days. And, do you know if you any AA meetings? You know, you think you could help me, and, I said, where are you going? He said, you know, Crabapple Cove, Maine or something. Well, let's look, you know, and I look in the Eastern States directory, and there's Crabapple Cove.

Dude, let's call them, you know, and we call. Some guy named Ron answers the phone. It's like, Ron this is Tim. I'm in Santa Barbara, and I'm here with Lou. And Lou's coming there, and he's nervous.

Could you talk to him? And Lou get on Lou gets on the phone, and I can see him just just kinda like, ah. And he thanked me and he left. And about a week later, the phone rang. And I happened to answer, and he said, hey, Tim.

It's Lou. I'm here with Ron. We just went to a meeting. Now we're going out for ice cream. Yeah?

Thanks, man. So, you know, I'm a special worker in that service center, and I do get paid to be there. So normally, I don't answer the phones, but when I do, I take myself off the clock mentally. It's just important for me to point that out, but sometimes, for whatever reason, the volunteers don't show up. So I get to answer the phones, which I love.

And I'm there one day, and the phone rings, and this woman says, I wonder if I could talk to you. I came to town yesterday with a friend of mine, and she got hurt. And she's in Cottage Hospital, and she's still not ready to get out. And, and I can't leave her, and I had to spend last night in a motel. And I really can't afford motels, but can't leave my friend.

And I'm not in any danger of drinking. I'm 12 years sober, but I just feel like I need somebody to talk to. Do you think you could talk to me? And I said, absolutely. However, I'm here alone and the other line's ringing.

Let me put you on hold. I'll get right back to you. And I put her on hold, and I picked up the other line, and a young woman said, can you help me? I can't seem to stop drinking. I don't know what to do.

And I connected line 1 to line 2, because that is how it works the best. You know? They came by the office later that day. They were thinking about each other. They were okay, because this one was thinking about this one, and this one was thinking about this one.

And when I can take my my mind off myself and my bad breaks and unfortunate circumstances, all the people who don't understand, When I can give a little thought to you, I'm always better for it. You know, I had prayed that morning for knowledge of God's will and the power to carry it out. A lot of times it's not that clear. I felt like it was that day. I thought, isn't this great?

I'm God's telephone operator, You know? If you're new, let me make this suggestion because our book makes it. If you're not so new, let me make this suggestion because our book makes it. Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to him and to your fellows.

Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We'll be with you in the fellowship of the spirit. You're gonna meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny. May God bless and keep us all until then.

Thank you for listening, you guys.