Soberfest 2005 in Jamestown, ND

Thank you. I'm Don Landis. I'm an alcoholic. I really I really like that. I'm telling you.

And I wanna thank Ben and didn't have much use for Ben today, but I'll tell you, he kept trying. So the sponsor's here. I'm telling you, he gets a gold star. Every time I turned around, he was there. He goes, let me do something for you.

And so he really gave it the old college try. But everybody's been wonderful and I got a lot of friends in this room. And, it's good to be here. It's good to be in a meeting. It's good to be sober.

I've enjoyed the 2 gyms and a cliff that we heard today, so much. I didn't hate you. You say what? I'm gonna get right to that for you. I've been sober since 9/16/91.

And for that, we're both grateful. My home group is the Fairhaven Group in Bellingham, Washington. My sponsor is Steve l. His sponsor is, who's his, sponsor? My sponsor sponsor.

The big guy. He did. Is he dead? Well, anyway, anyway, we're gonna get into it. And it's good to be here and it's good to be sober.

And what I'm gonna do for you tonight briefly is I'm gonna tell you a little bit about what I was like and what's happened and what I'm like today. And, I'll tell you I was born in Hollywood, California. No. Oh, yeah. Oh, Hollywood's a fascinating town.

I'll tell you. There's a lot of money in that town, a lot of movie stars, a lot of, big houses built into the hillside with cantilevered swimming pools with views of the city lights twinkling down and Bentleys in the driveway and living gardeners and living maids and that wasn't the part of Hollywood we grew up in. We were down in the low lands, and it was, you know, hustlers and pimps and hoes and gangs, and it was wonderful. I mean, it was just, just a guy. We grew up, you know, 10 minutes in Hollywood Boulevard and I was just running the streets with my friends and, just a real typical family for the street I grew up on which, for me when I was about 2 years old, my dad got off the couch, said he was going out for a pack of smokes and we never saw him again.

And that was real typical. Lots of single moms raising, raising kids on that street. It was my mom, my 2 sisters, my grandmother, even the dog was female. I'm telling you. And I don't wanna start anything here tonight, ladies.

But, you know, this was the early sixties, and I'm fairly certain the feminist movement was, like, born in my house. There were some there were some angry empowered women in that household. I mean, let me give you the logistics. Grandpa got drunk and ran off with another woman. Then dad got drunk and and ran off with another woman and they left me holding down the fort.

You know what I mean? So they didn't wanna hear much of what I had to say. And I got that stuff. And I got that stuff you heard about today. You know, there's been a lot of talk today about self will and about self obsession and, long before I fur took the first drink, there was something wrong with me.

I seem to be overly concerned with myself. I seem to be having too much of a passionate relationship with how I felt and how you perceived me. You see, I'm the kind of guy that long before I take a drink just born into the game what I bring with me is I know how I look in 17 different angles at all times. I mean I'm not much but I'm all I think about. I'm I'm the kind of guy that will get you in a corner and talk incessantly about myself for like half an hour, realize I'm doing that, go wait a minute wait a minute enough about me what do you think of me?

And I I don't have to come to Alcoholics Anonymous to learn to do a 10th and 11th step. I'm 7 years old laying in bed at night reviewing my day thinking about those missed opportunities to say just the right thing. And then when I came to AA and I heard men tell their story they always said they they felt funny in their own skin and I mean I know how that feels. It always felt 2 ways for me either I felt like I didn't fit like it was too big for me like I was goofy. I'm trying to fit in.

I'm trying to say the right thing and I embarrassed myself. Or I'm afraid of that so I wait for just the right moment to say just the right thing and then the moment passes and I just stand there as the world goes by. And either way I always feel like I'm a dime short or dollar late. I just can't seem to find my place. I'm a square pig in a round hole and I don't know how what to do about that and I got nothing to compare it to.

Absolutely nothing. And when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and they described some of the symptoms of our disease they talked about we are a class of people that are just plain insane. And they described insanity as we're guys that take the same actions repeatedly expecting different results. Now when I got sober and I wrote my first inventory, I saw clear cut evidence of that long before I started drinking. It was all there all the way up until I started drinking.

And I mean, the first real evidence of it, I was only 5 years old and it was already in place. 5 years old, goofy little self obsessed kid sitting in the sewing room playing with a bobby pin. And I looked to my right and there was an electrical outlet. I remember thinking, it looks like it'll fit. Bam.

And I got shot across the room and my fingers were smoking and my hand stand hair standing straight up. And I remember thinking did that just happen? Did that hurt as bad as I think it did? Bam. And based on the way that I live my life until I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I guarantee you, I would have went for 3, but I was unconscious.

It was like, you know, the only thing that stopped me. And this self obsession, just wondering how I fit into your life. I've got this big problem. You know, I've got a problem. It's the only mistake I ever see that a loving a loving God ever made in my case.

And he made my eyes looking outward instead of looking inward. Because you see, I have 2020 vision when it comes to you. I I could tell you what you're doing wrong and not only can I tell you what you're doing wrong, I probably have a plan on how you could be doing it better? And I'm not shy about that because I'm a helper and I wanna tell you these things. But when it comes to myself, my shortcomings, my character defects, my inability to connect with other people, I'm a blind man in the wilderness and I got nothing to compare it to.

And I'm trying because when you're a young man, society lays out a plan and they tell you, if you follow this plan, you'll be fulfilled. You need to do. And if you do these things, you're gonna be happy. And I went to their schools and I took their test and I played on their teams and I played their sports and I gotta tell you I excelled at all of it. But a very funny thing I was doing it with the guys that do that kind of stuff and they're happy.

Isn't this great, Donnie? Aren't we having a good time, Donnie? Isn't this wonderful? And I'm saying that because I wanna believe it. But the truth of the matter is those accolades and those things the society sets out for a guy like me that tells me if I do this I'm gonna be fulfilled.

It leaves me feeling strangely hollow, like an itch I can't scratch and I got nothing to compare it to till I throw my first drunk. And I'm not talking about my first drink. I gotta tell you, I'm really not interested in my first drink. I'm sure it's in there somewhere. I've never really tried to figure it out.

I'm interested though in getting drunk, getting enough alcohol on board in one setting to get there. Because alcohol as much as anything, it transports me. It takes me to the land of I don't care, and the rough edges become round, and I get to step out easy. And suddenly that wall that's always been between you and me, it comes down. And I was to experience that for the first time when I was 17 years old.

And I wasn't drinking to get drunk that night. I was drinking to fit in. I'm with the guys they play high school basketball with, and we were going out that night to a place called the Hollywood Reservoir, which is just a big hill over a concrete pond. And what was on tap that night was old English 800. And, that's a that's a fine malt beverage if there ever was one.

Right? And I don't know how you drink malt liquor when you're 17, but somewhere about that second tall can, I had a feeling come over me from my toes to my head that filled me from the inside out? And in that moment, everything changed. Yet nothing changed. I was with these guys I played ball with.

These are my friends. I like these guys. And now I'm drinking with them. I look at these guys and suddenly, I love these guys. And I turned into this big goober.

I get all emotional. I start telling them about it. We're gonna be together forever, man. You guys are the best. And they're looking at me kind of funny, and I'm looking at the sun setting down low and the water shimmering on that concrete pond down there, and I get all teared up.

It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. And and then I experienced something I always experience after I drink because once I start to drink, I start to think. And what I thought was I gotta get down to that water. We're on a hillside on about a 45 degree grade. It's covered with Chaparral with a few scrub oaks in the middle of it.

And I start down that hill, and I'm walking kind of fast, and then I'm kinda jogging down the hill, and then my feet are windmilling behind my ears, and then I fell, and it was like sky earth sky earth sky earth all the way down. And I slammed into this tree. And I'm an athlete. I have an athletic background. I know what it's like to be hit.

And I hit this tree hard. I remember thinking, I'm gonna be hurt. And I got up slowly and I realized, no pain. And suddenly, my first drunk, I'm acquiring valuable information about drinking alcohol that's gonna serve me well for the rest of my drinking career. If I drink enough booze, there's no pain.

And you guys go to the gym and you lift those heavy weights and you have that saying, no pain, no gain. Well, I have my own saying, no pain, no pain. And I do what most people do when they get drunk for the first time when they're 17. I get violently ill. I make a fool out of myself.

My friends have to throw me in the back of the car. I got my head being slapped by bushes all the way down the canyon. They're teasing me unmercifully. They throw me on the lawn in front of my mom's place. She comes out.

She gets hysterical. I pass out. I wake up the next day with my first hangover and I just wanna die. I feel so physically bad. And all of that stuff didn't even enter my consciousness.

I sleep that day, I get to school late, and all I can remember is that top that time on the top of the hill where I was able to have those feelings about those guys I played ball with and the way that that water looked. And almost on a primal level, something inside me said drinking's good. And I knew I'd be doing more of it. And I didn't grab a 5th and head off, you know, down to Skid Row. That's not my story.

Alcoholism is a progressive disease. And I'll tell you for me the progression was very quick. And it's very funny, when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, guys like me would come to the podium and they would tell their drunk a lot. And at some point in their drunk a lot, invariably, they get real serious and they go, and then I crossed the line. And you know, it sounded like really important information.

And when I came here I wanted to figure it out. When did I cross the line? When did I cross the line from controlled to uncontrolled drinking? When did I cross the line from where it was working for me to where it wasn't working for me? And I thought of all the dramatic things, you know, maybe it was the first time I came out of a blackout and I was in a jail cell.

Maybe it was the 10th time I came out of a blackout and I was in a jail cell and I realized it didn't bother me anymore. Was it the first time I made my mom cry behind my drinking or the last time I made my mom cry behind my drinking? 1st car crash, 3rd car crash. And And I'm thinking about all these ABC movie of the week dramatic things. Maybe that's when I crossed the line.

But after being sober for a while, I can tell you when I crossed the line from controlled drinking to uncontrolled drinking. When King Alcohol took possession of my soul, when I turned over everything that I had for the sake of another drink and didn't even realize I had made that pack with the devil was when I thought it was working for me. And that's the beauty of alcoholism. It gives you stuff, and it gives it to you early. And it gives you that sense that you found everything you've ever been looking for in your life.

And it certainly happened to me. 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. It was free. I mean, I wasn't picking up a tab. I wasn't getting in any real trouble.

I wasn't standing in courtrooms in front of judges trying to explain my latest event about outrageous behavior. I didn't have my mom standing in front of me crying saying don't you know you're killing yourself. I didn't have girlfriends hiding in closets because they're afraid they're gonna get smacked around in my latest drunken rage. I guess we could take all those things and label them yet to be added to my story. And And when I was 23 years old, I was having such a good time with the booze that if God almighty walked into the bar I was drinking in and it sat down on the stool next to me and said, Don, the next drink, the next one, it's gonna pass you into a region where there's no return through human aid.

You're gonna have to go to Alcoholics Anonymous for the rest of your life or die a horrible alcoholic death. I'd have told God Almighty, you got the wrong guy. Because it's working for me. From my toes to my head, it's filling me from the inside out. It's letting me be anything I want.

It's allowing me not to feel anything I don't wanna feel. And I'm living it behind that shield of nonconformity with all that tough guy bravado that you learn to hone. You learn to keep people away. So now I'm scared to death. I don't know how to live life but I'm having a good time with the booze and as long as I'm drinking, as long as I'm partying, I'll worry about tomorrow when tomorrow comes.

Guys that stand and try to party with me and it's a Tuesday night and it's 11 PM and they say the strangest things, they go, well, you know, we got work tomorrow. I'll see you later. And they go home. I'll tell you what, I've always been willing to ruin tomorrow for for the promise of a few more hours of fun tonight. I mean, I've never understood that.

And that this isn't to say that when I was 23 years old, the drinking wasn't a problem for the people around me. I mean, it may have been a problem for my landlord who wasn't getting his rent on time. It may have been a problem for my girlfriend who I couldn't stay faithful to. It may have been a problem for, my employer who's not getting 5 days a week out of me. But you see, it's not a problem for me until it's a problem for me.

I I can't tell you how many times I had a girlfriend standing in front of me crying her eyes out saying, don't you know how I feel? And I'd be like, not really. I remember thinking, you're watching and I'm drinking. And one's more fun than the other. And I never got that either.

And they start showing up in my life about the time I'm 23. And you've all had them in your life. We all know who they are. They're the well meaning people, you know. And the well meaning people are husbands and wives and sons and daughters and employers and friends and, district attorneys and, and arresting officers and, doctors that stitch us up and we don't feel the needle and they think that's kind of funny and, and they showed up in my life.

And they they were kind. They weren't belligerent and they started talking to me about my drinking. And they say things like, you seem like a nice enough fellow, Don. You seem like you have some potential. Do you ever look at your drinking?

Think about slowing down? Maybe even stopping? And I didn't get to find it. I just said, no. And I just thought they had the wrong guy and I went on down the road.

But I'll tell you what, by the time I was 25 years old, the light went on and I got it. Every negative aspect of my life was associated with the drink. Every heartache, every failure, every plan I put into motion and failed to hit the finish line right alongside that was a drink of alcohol. And for the first time in my life at age 25, I had what our big book refers to as self knowledge. No justification, no rationalization, no clever framing, no ex no explanation of circumstances, self knowledge.

I knew the drink was killing me. But you see, I got a problem. I haven't been to Alcoholics Anonymous, and I haven't read your book. And I certainly haven't read the part that says, for the real alcoholic, he will absolutely be unable to stop drinking on the basis of self knowledge. And that's just crazy.

And you know why? Because I'm a man. And you know what a man does when he finds out he's got a problem with something? You just knock it off. Don't you?

Just knock it off. And when I was 25 years old, I did what a lot of us do when we have self knowledge for the first time. I made the declaration. I'm quitting drinking so don't try to tempt me. And I told everybody I knew I wasn't gonna drink anymore and I didn't come to Alcoholics Anonymous and I didn't get a sponsor and I didn't work your 12 golden steps wrapped in a ribbon of promise and I didn't get active around here and I didn't get service commitments and I quit drinking for 2 weeks.

And the funny thing about that 2 weeks is the outside stuff that they can see starts looking better, doesn't it? I mean, the laundry starts getting done. I start showing up to work 5 days a week, which is kinda new for me at that point in my story. And I'm getting all the accolades and all the support and everything that you think a guy would wanna hear who just made a life changing decision. And the family members and the girlfriend and my employer, they're all saying the right things.

We're so glad you quit drinking, Don. I thought you're gonna die. It's all gonna be okay now. And man, I wanna believe that. So I'm saying things like that back to them like, yeah.

Thanks for hanging in there with me. I don't know what it was all about. I'm really sorry. You know, I'm working out again. Feel a lot better, get more exercise.

Don't miss it at all. But the truth is in here where my soul lives, with every day that goes by since my last drunk, I'm getting more irritable and restless and discontent and confused and baffled because for years they've been telling me drinking is my problem. You know what? I agree with them and I'm not drinking. So why do I wanna kill myself or kill somebody else?

And I had no idea of the trouble I was in. You see, I thought it was a moral issue. I thought it was an issue about strength. I thought if I was a man enough, if I pulled myself up by my bootstraps, I could get a handle on this thing. I had no idea that what I was surrendering to was an obsession of the mind greater than my human power could overcome.

I hadn't read the doctor's opinion. I didn't understand that no matter how many times I go to jail or cars I crash or hearts I break or knuckles I scrape, it's never gonna get me to stop taking that first drink. That self knowledge alone will never keep me from the first drink. That some way somehow I'm gonna figure out a way that it's gonna be different this time or I'm not even gonna care. That life is gonna press down on me that day in day out staying sober, being good.

At some point, it's just too much for a guy like me. And I did But what I did was I reached for that relief. The relief that never sets me you know, never lets me down. And after 2 weeks of sobriety on my own, I thought to myself and what the book calls the thought that precedes the first drink. And for me, that always sounds like what's in a half pint.

And I went and I got a half pint and I drank that half pint and the relief it produced within me was so precise, so concise. So where have you been all my life? Why did I think quitting drinking was a good idea? That I made a mental note we're gonna go about this thing called life without giving up the boos. And what started for me was a 6 year odyssey.

6 years until I made it to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, doing a lot of the stuff we read about in chapter 3. Various vain attempts to control and enjoy my drinking. You know, most normal people don't go out to the bar and have rules for their drinking. And I had rules. You know, I knew that I was getting in a lot of trouble when I was out there.

So I said, you know what? I'm gonna go out but I'm not gonna get drunk. I'm gonna have 2 beers and 2 shots. So I have 2 beers and I have 2 shots and I go home. So now I control my drinking, but I don't enjoy it.

Or sometimes I've been good and I take the rules off. And and then I don't know how much I'm gonna drink or what's gonna happen. And normal people don't have that kind of intimate relationship with alcohol, but I do. And I don't know how to stay away from the first drink, and I think it's a matter of self will. I think it's a matter of willpower, and I don't understand the trouble I'm early in.

And what started for me that 6 years, I do the classic things alcoholics do. I figured LA is the problem. Everybody knows me in LA. That's where all my loadie friends are. I got that reputation as Johnny Saturday night.

Don's always up for a good time. I gotta get out of here. So I moved to Boston. That's gonna fix everything. And I find out, you know what?

They drink in Boston. And my drinking starts to take on violent proportions and I've never been violent guy and I start losing control. I'm drinking too much. And what starts to happen is, you know, I'm a bar drinker by desire and I'm a couch drinker by ability. You know, I should really just stay at home on the couch.

It's safer for everybody. You know, I should really just stay at home on the couch. It's safer for everybody. Stay at home on the couch. It's safer for everybody.

And I'm confused by what's happening. And I stay in I I got this little girl in Boston and we're gonna get married. It's about 6 weeks before the wedding. And, and I know I can't marry her. I know I can't.

I know I'm a drunk. I can't be a husband. But But I have no ability to be honest with another human being. I have no ability to tell the truth. So I'm just going through the motions and the wedding's getting closer and closer.

And what I do in a situation like that when I'm in a relationship, whether it's a job or it's an intimate relationship or it's with friends and I don't know how to tell you the truth and I don't know how to reach out for help, I just turn up my behavior. And that does it for me. And I started drinking where I used to be trying to hide it, and I started to get drunk at inappropriate times and started to cause a lot of havoc in her life. And on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee one summer, I've been drinking beer all day. It's about 2 in the morning and she's standing in front of me.

And I can't understand what she's saying, but she's pissed. I could tell that much. And I got that good alcoholic sway going, you know, where you're just going around and around. And by the way, you can do this all night. When you stop, that's when you fall.

So just keep stirring. Just keep stirring. And she takes engagement ring off her hand and she says you're a drunk you'll never change and she throws a ring in my chest and I say, duh. And that's the power alcohol in my system gives me. It allows me to go through something that should be traumatic.

My fiancee just called off the wedding. She stormed off the beach in tears. There's an engagement ring at my feet and I say, Duh. Because it's very funny. Because now I don't have to feel anything.

I don't have to have a relationship with anybody. It puts that wall back up between me and you and I can walk through the world but I you're not really here. You don't really exist. You're like bit players in some bizarre movie of my life but I don't really connect with people. And I go back to LA and I get the best job I ever got in my life and, they had heard some rumors about my drinking and I told them, no.

I have that under control. I just have a couple on the weekend and did a great job for them. I went in there and I wrote a quality manual for them as in the aerospace industry and I got their business turned around in a couple of different areas and the boss made like the lethal error you make with an alcoholic of my type. He brought me in, he put his arm around me, he says Don, I wanna tell you something, you've done a great job. Now I'm the kind of alcoholic when I hear that.

I know what you think it sounds like. What it sounds like in my head is well you can slack off. And I start missing work. I start showing up drunk. They start talking to me about my drinking.

And in January 91, something had to happen for a guy like me to maybe finally start taking a look at himself, finally start taking down that wall of denial. And what happened is that boss called me in his office and he said, you're fired. And that was nothing new. I've been fired before. I you know, I get fired for his fights I get in with salesman.

I mean, they love to fire me for attendance, it seems. But he said, you're fired for your drinking. And nobody had ever had the guts to call me what I was. And he said, you're a drunk. You're never gonna change.

Get out. And I got, you know, I'm an alcoholic. Defiance is my outstanding characteristic and I said, how dare you? After all I've done for you. And, called up my sister in Simi Valley, California and, copped the plea, played the victim card, said, Pat, they've done me wrong.

I need a place to get on my feet. Can I come stay at your house? She said, Don, you can come stay at my house, but if you drink, you're out of my house, because everybody knows I'm a drunk by this time. And I told my sister, I won't drink, I promise. Because I can lie to the pope by this time, it's not a big deal.

I was in that house for 9 months until I got sober and I drank every day in that house. And if you don't know how you do that when you're when they're watching you, well, maybe you're not a sneaky rat like I am. I got no problem drinking around your schedule. I'm unemployed. What time do you go to work in the morning?

7 AM? Bars open. But you need to hear this at the end of my drinking. I'm not drinking so my friends mean something more to me. I'm not drinking so I can kid myself I'm better looking than I am or that I dance better than I can or that the world means something more than it really does.

I'm doing oblivion drinking. I'm doing light switch drinking. I'm getting the whiskey on board hard enough and fast enough to shut off my head so I can get drunk, so I can go into a blackout, so I can pass out in this room. I'm mooching off of my sister. So I can come to from the blackout to meet the hideous 4 horsemen sitting on the end of the bed.

They sat on the end of the bed, terror, frustration, bewilderment, despair. They watched me as I was passed out from my latest drunk. They waited for me to come up. And when I came up, they talked to me in my voice in my head and they said things to me like, who you gonna hurt today, Don? Who you gonna steal from today, Don?

What are you gonna do to drink today, Don? When are you gonna get it together, Don? And I don't know what you do with a head like that when you come to at 6:30 in the morning, but I just took another pull off the jug. And I swore it was gonna go down that way. I got an unemployment check-in September of 91.

I went up to my brother-in-law and I said, Larry, I got my unemployment check. I'd like to go down the street and cash it. Can I borrow your car? He asked me a very unusual question. He said, Don, will you be coming back?

And, and he asked me that because I borrowed his car a few times that summer and gone out on little vacations and, and I got right in Larry's face. You know, Larry, the last time this happened, I opened my heart to you. I told you how sorry I was. You know, and you're really giving me a hard time here, Louie. I really don't need this.

You know, things aren't going so great. And he got all embarrassed, and he gave me the keys, and I went down to the liquor store to cash my unemployment check because that's where alcoholics of my type cash our checks. And why I was in line to cash the check? I have the thought that precedes the first drink. Well, it's in a half pint.

And about a half pint and a half pint got lonely, we got another half pint. And I had the thought, I can be those friends in the valley and back in 45 minutes, and I'm gone. 3 days later, I'm driving up the hill to face this family I'd done over. One more time, I've taken their hope, their faith, their trust, and I've just torn it to shreds. And you need to hear this, driving up the hill to face that family I've done over one more time.

I love them no less and I love them at this very moment. And I love my family tremendously. But you see, I got a problem. I can't serve 2 masters. I only got time to serve 1.

And that's King Alcohol. And if you get between me and a drink, it's nothing personal. It's almost business like. I'm getting to the drink. I'm going around you.

I'm going through you. I'm manipulating you. I'm telling you what you wanna hear, but bet your bottom dollar. I'm getting to the drink. But I know nothing to alcoholism, so I don't know how to explain that to you.

So I say things like, I'm sorry. Man, I don't mean to treat you this way. Care about you. Can you give me another chance? And it got hard for my family members to give me those second, those third, those 20th chances when I kept roaring through their life over and over and over again.

I find out my brother-in-law wanted to report the car stolen and my sister negotiating him down to a missing person's report and the Simi Valley police are on their way up to do the follow-up work now. I don't know if you've ever been up for 3 days, drinking and doing other things but the police usually aren't who you wanna talk to. I got I got warrants for my arrest in a couple of counties so I start yelling at my sister. I got warrants. I'm going to jail.

Thanks a lot because now it's her fault. Yeah. And I go outside to wait for the police because I don't want the interview to go on in front of the family. I have no idea what I'm gonna be saying, but I'm fairly certain I'm gonna be lying. Right?

And the black and white rolls up and on the side of the black and white, it says canine unit. And I think, great, they brought the dog, like I'm in any shape to make a run for it. Right? And the cop gets out and he starts asking me those hard tough questions that trained professionals ask like, where were you? And most of what I remember is illegal so I'm making up a story about a bachelor party that got out of control and he's looking at my eyes really hard because they're like Chinese road maps and they're rolling up in my head and I I see him do that and so I break his gaze and he breaks with me and now we're over here and we're talking and I'm moving and I don't feel good and my hands are wet and I just wanted to divert his attention.

I see the dog in the back seat and I point at him and I go, hey, is that your partner? And he goes, why, yes, it is. And he walks over and he opens the door and this dog gets out. German shepherd. Not a hair out of place.

Like a Rin Tin Tin reincarnate. And with no prompting on my part, he starts to relay facts to me about the dog's life. The dog is 3 years past mandatory retirement. They can't retire him. He's too good.

The dog has participated in more arrests than any dog in the history of Ventura County. The dog has participated in more arrests and rescues than any dog in the history of Ventura or Los Angeles County. This dog was so phenomenal that the officers took a collection out of pocket to send him over to Europe for international competition where he kicked butt on German German shepherds. Right? And I said to the cops, that's a phenomenal dog you have there.

And while I said that, a thought flew in the back of my mind, the kind of thought that many you think it you know it's the truth. You may wanna deny it with every fiber in your being, but you know it's the truth. And what the truth was is this dog had done significantly more with his life than I done with mine. And I hated that dog. And I didn't know but that was gonna be my past in Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I'd love to tell you that I had some moment of clarity, that I knew I suffered from a spiritual deficiency and Alcoholics Anonymous was a spiritual answer, That I knew it was the answer for my drinking. It was the answer for everything that held me. That I would find hope, love and support in Alcoholics Anonymous, but that's not what was going on. See I'm a manipulator and I'm a liar and I was in trouble. My family's gonna throw me out.

So I played the recovery card. And I knew if they played the recovery card maybe I could buy some time, get the heat off, and figure out my next move. I told them how sorry I was, and they said they didn't want to hear it. I said, look, I'll go to AA in everything. It's not like they really believe me.

My first two weeks in Alcoholics Anonymous, my family was taking me to AA and picking me up from AA. You know what that feels like when you look like I do and you're 31 years old and you get in your older sister's car at the end of the night. She's driving you home. She goes, So Donald, what'd you learn in AA tonight? That was a what you're learning AA tonight?

And I'm a tough guy, you know. I got the hair down my back. I got the full beard. I'm wearing the biker shades. I'm just daring you to come talk to me.

And I'm just lucky that there are some old timers in there hold up with copies of the big book and they get a lot of new guys and they just jumped on me. They saw right through the bluster of a tough guy and they saw a scared man. And they they did some very interesting things for me immediately. My second day in Alcoholics Anonymous, probably the most important thing happened to me since I've been here. You see, my first home group, they didn't believe that anybody should pick their own sponsor.

They thought it was too important a decision for a newcomer to make. They didn't go to you and say, hey, go find somebody that has what you want. Because when I was new, what I wanted was, like, a narcotic salesman with a spare Cadillac. That's that's what I would have wanted in a sponsor. So they walked this guy up to me and they said, Hey, Don.

This is Mark. He's gonna be your sponsor. And I'd already figured out what a sponsor was. And I saw his mark up. A little bald headed carpenter about 5 foot 7, about a £140 and kinda talked with a soft voice and I figured I'd have him wrapped around my finger in a couple of days.

No problem. So we sat down to have the first baby sponsor interview and he he's gonna line me out on what he expects me to do in Alcoholics Anonymous. And he he prefaces this by saying something very important to me. He says, Don, I'm not gonna ask you to do anything in Alcoholics Anonymous that I'm not doing myself. Sounded reasonable till I found out he went to 14 meetings a week.

Never said no to an AA request and his idea of a good time is one of you hits a little rough spot in the road. You call him up about 2 AM and he goes down to local Denny's and talks you through it. It. My first sponsor used to say to the degree that I'm inconvenienced by my fellow alcoholic, that's the degree that I walk with God. So I got a spiritual zealot on my hands.

And I'll tell you he made terms very affordable from on me. Very affordable my first 30 days in recovery. He didn't ask a lot of me. He didn't ask me a lot of questions. He just was really concerned that I was at the meetings.

You're gonna be at these two meetings at night, you're gonna get little commitments to these meetings. We're gonna get you cleaning up, up. We're gonna get you setting up. We're gonna get you shaking hands. I don't wanna ever see you standing there by yourself.

I wanna see you walking around the room constantly shaking hands, introducing yourself. And try to do this Don. It'll be really hard on you. When you ask them a question, wait for the response before you walk away because I notice you do that a lot. And I'm going to AA.

And a week goes by and I haven't I haven't taken a drink. And I think it's the strangest thing in the world. And it's very funny. You know, I love that Cliff talks about the 8 minutes. And I'll tell you, I you know, I had it better than you, Cliff.

I really did. Because no matter how bad my life got, one thing I could always guarantee from drinking whiskey is I can have the worst day in the world. I can have the whole world coming down on me. I owe the IRS a ton of money, I got warrants for my arrest, I'm about to lose the job, she's about to leave, she's about to come back, whatever the big deal is that day. And if I drink enough whiskey, I wait about 20 minutes and I have a feeling that comes over me.

And it lasts about 2 hours before I go into oblivion. And the feeling vaguely resembles hope. Just hope. Where I can sit on the couch and nothing's changed in my life and I can sit think about those very things that have been bothering me all day long and suddenly, it doesn't bother me. I could think about owing the IRS all that money and they're gonna find me and I'm like, let them find me.

I could think about that job I'm gonna get fired from. I'm like, let them fire me. I found this job. I'll find another. Let her go.