The Men Among Men group's conference in Reykjavik, Iceland

My name's Matthew, and I'm an alcoholic.

When Jay and Bill and I were putting this together,

we decided that we would like to start every session of this weekend

with an 11-step, three minutes of silent meditation.

So since this is the first night, that's what we're going to do.

And when you hear the chimes, you can close your eyes or not,

and we'll meditate for three minutes.

Okay?

My name is Matthew. I'm an alcoholic.

Okay.

I can't tell you what an incredible honor it is to be here with you tonight.

My drinking took me to some awful places,

and my sobriety has never taken me any place as magical as Recovec, Iceland.

Thank you for inviting us.

If you're new, we apologize for the three minutes of silence meditation.

We understand it was several days for you.

Keep coming back.

It's always my desire when I get the opportunity to share it in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting

that I talk a little bit about what it was like so that you will trust me.

A lot about what happened and a lot about what it's like now.

Or more profoundly, not so much what got me here, but what keeps me here.

I will tell you to qualify that I did not come from an alcoholic home per se.

My mother and my father were hardworking, loving people.

I rarely saw them drink more than a few drinks.

I didn't see them drunk very often in my life.

However, my brother, I'm the youngest of four in an Irish Catholic family,

and my brother, who's the next older than me,

but seven or eight years older than me, was a raging alcoholic,

and there was a lot of chaos in my home.

But as a result, I did not drink when most people did,

in high school when they were younger, and I was afraid to

because I could see that it was a problem in my family.

But I will share with you my first drunk.

It was my junior or senior year of high school, so it would be like 11th grade.

And a bunch of my friends got together at a guy's house who had his parents had this house overlooking the ocean.

It's a beautiful house in Hermosa Beach, California.

And there were six of us guys in a bottle of tequila.

And I wasn't going to drink.

I did not intend to drink.

But I grew up with these guys in a small private school,

and I always felt a little bit less than, a little bit out of it.

A little bit...

I always felt like they were hanging out with me as sort of a favor.

They were athletes. I was not. I was a musician. I played guitar all the time, hours and hours a day.

I just always felt a little separated from them. So they poured these shots of tequila, and they all took these shots of tequila, and the feeling of being apart from them was overwhelming.

So I asked for a shot of tequila and just forgot about my brother and the chaos at home, and I took that drink.

And only you guys know what happened.

This warmth in my chest.

Now, I don't know, I know that there's a lot of Lutherans here, and I don't know if it translates,

but 12 years of Catholic school guilt melted out of my shoulders.

And I felt profound and articulate and funny and asked for, I got a glass that was much bigger than this one and said,

can I please have some more?

And...

They filled it up with tequila, and I was drinking this tequila, and I felt a part of, and I felt great.

And much like John Lennon thinking that the world leaders should take LSD, I thought if only everyone drank tequila, the world, particularly the nuns at my school, this would be a much better place.

And I drank this tequila, and I had to go to the bathroom.

And I went down the hall, I mean, of this beautiful house, and I sat down on the toilet, and the room started to spin.

Okay.

which was new to me.

And this is where God first enters my story,

because I'm sitting on this toilet in the room spinning,

and my last thought was that God would not make a body

that could skeethe and ulat at the same time.

And I was wrong about that.

God actually, for the Americans, it would be defecate and vomit at the same time.

But I was absolutely wrong, and you actually can do those things at the same time, or your body is capable.

And I blacked out.

And I woke up in this beautiful multi-million dollar home on the floor of this bathroom in a sleeping bag with a pillow under my head like I'd gone camping in the bathroom.

And imagine, you know, my friends found me there and they were apparently codependent.

And they took care of me.

And I woke up.

I had no idea why I had gone camping in the bathroom and didn't know what had happened.

And I was about halfway through school that day that it occurred to me.

I remembered.

And I was just mortified.

Leave it to my sponsor to leave his phone on.

Do you need to get that?

No, okay, great.

Okay.

But I felt terrible and overcome with remorse because my brother was, I loved my brother, and he was my hero, and drinking was clearly his problem and the problem that was at my home.

So I've heard people share from the podium and say, I drank my first drink, I got violently ill, and I couldn't wait to do it again.

And that's not what happened to me.

I drank my first drink, I got violently ill, and I stopped because I didn't want to be like my brother.

And then I went to college a year later.

And this is interesting because my brother now had gotten his high school girlfriend pregnant.

He'd been married seven years older than me.

Gotten thrown out of our house, gotten thrown out of his house with his child, lived in the street.

I used to drive around when I was in high school to try to find him to see if he was alive.

And he had entered our lives again.

He had gone to Alcoholics Anonymous.

And just before I went to college, I used to stand in the bathroom and shave while he was in the bathtub reading the big book.

And I was so curious about what could be in that book that stopped that particular person from drinking because nothing we tried worked.

So I went off to college and my brother had sort of, it was exactly like the prodigal son.

He came back and was offered the fatted calf, and they quickly forgot about the son who was trying to please them and get good grades and go to college, which was fine because I snuck away and discovered marijuana and crystal meth and cocaine and LSD.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some.

Yeah.

Alcohol. I started drinking right when I got to college. You wouldn't understand this in Rekevac, but I went to Chico State, where the motto of Chico State is, I think I went to Chico State University.

So, and my experience is no different.

But I did okay in school.

I smoked a lot of marijuana.

I drank constantly, and I played in bands because I had practiced and practiced playing the guitar,

and I loved it, and I was good at it.

And in Chico State, there were three girls to every guy,

so I used to joke that I had a date at least once a year during college.

And I drank alcoholically, but it was hard to notice that because I was at college,

and everybody was away from home for the first time.

Although I remember my freshman year, my first year of college, stopping, drinking,

because I was afraid that I was becoming exactly like my brother,

and it was clearly that that's what was happening.

And I stopped, and I didn't know what was happening to me,

but I became restless, irritable, and discontent.

And I remember the girl that I was dating at the time, Katrina Madsen, brought me a six-pack of beer after two weeks of sobriety.

You're not sobriety.

I mean, it was white, I didn't know about sobriety.

I just thought maybe I shouldn't drink.

And she gave me a six-pack and said, please drink this.

You are such an incredible asshole.

And I'm quoting.

I'm not swearing.

And...

I drank it because who was I to argue with her?

And I was off and running.

And when I graduated from college,

I just went on the road with rock and roll bands

and played guitar and hit out.

But that all came to an end.

We're getting close to the sobriety part.

When I was playing in the East Coast with a band,

and they asked me to leave.

And you know you have a problem with alcohol

if you get kicked out of a rock and roll band.

I mean, it's like Keith Richards going, you know, cool out, man.

And, but these guys were fairly serious about what they were doing,

and they didn't think I was.

Although I was, I was deadly serious.

It was my dream.

I had worked all my life for that, and I drank it away.

I got kicked out of the band.

I got kicked out of the whole East Coast.

I couldn't really work anywhere.

My reputation preceded me.

I was...

very famous for missing the bus when we were on tour and borrowing cars to get to the next town.

They call it actually Grand Theft Auto where I'm from,

but I would leave little notes about what city and area I took the car from

because I wasn't really a car thief, and I got kicked out of the band.

And I came home to California, and my mother, who I was very close with, I'm the youngest of four,

was dying, she was terminally ill with cancer.

And I lied, and I told everybody that I came home

because I needed to take care of my mother.

And the truth was, I never would have come home

if I could have stayed out there.

And it wasn't that I didn't love my mother,

I just didn't have many feelings.

And I got a department near the beach

And I got a job that I thought was beneath me at a Marie Calendors,

and they made me the manager of this Marie Caledars on the weekends.

I was a weekend manager.

And I remember very clearly when I was training for this job that he said,

you know, this is the freezer, and this is the refrigerator,

and this is the kitchen, and here are the keys to the bar.

And then I couldn't really hear him after that.

Yeah.

I kept looking at the keys and looking at the bar and thinking, all of this is mine.

And I was one of those managers that after the restaurant closed, I would serve alcohol to all of the waitresses and myself.

And they would leave. Eventually, they would have enough and leave.

And I would stay and drink in many, many mornings.

Okay.

I would wake up at the bar in Marie Callendors, and it's right on Pier Avenue in Hermosa Beach,

and you can see the street from the bar, and the morning manager would be coming to open the bar

because we were open for breakfast on the weekends, and I would run through the restaurant.

I hadn't done the books. I hadn't cleaned up the bar, and I would set the alarm system

for the minute and a half that nobody was going to be in the restaurant,

and I'd go lie down on the floor of my car.

Okay.

the only car in the parking lot, thinking he wouldn't notice, right, that I was still there.

And he used to do this great thing. He'd pull right up next to me, right up, you know, no cars at all,

in this huge parking lot, park right next to me and get out and look down at me.

And it was the weirdest thing, but they fired me from that job.

And it was a job that I really believed was beneath me.

And they only fired me because I was absolutely incapable of doing it.

And...

I left there right after a waitress told me who was 18 years old and I was 30 years old and she said, I'm pregnant.

And I remember I walked across the street when they fired me.

And across the street from this place is a place where they have a rehabilitation sort of school for autistic people and retarded people.

people with birth defects and mental problems to teach them to live on their own.

And I walked across the street to the bus stop because I had lost my car and I lost my license from drunk driving.

And I had this, you know, lame, narrow tie on in my Marie Callender's manager badge.

And I was crying and I'd snot coming out of my nose and I hadn't slept for a couple days.

And I weighed 108 pounds.

And I went up to the bus stop, and there were all these autistic and retarded guys there,

people who were from this school waiting for the bus.

And I was so ashamed of myself that I'd lost this job and terrified because I'd gotten this girl pregnant,

that I stepped off the curb to see if the bus was coming, and like 15 retarded people shouted,

don't stand in the street! Don't stand in the street!

And...

I remember thinking that retarded people are teaching me how to wait for a bus.

And I went to college.

And I was a rock star, you know, like three months before that.

And so I got back on the curb.

And I got in the bus.

And I went home and I tried very seriously to drink myself to death because...

My mother was dying of cancer, and I lived a couple of miles away from them.

I mean, I don't know what that is in a kilometer.

It was very short distance, and I would call her and say,

Mom, I'm going to come visit you.

And I was her youngest boy, and there was a great, strong love between us.

And I think what qualifies me to stand here before you today is,

I did not want to have a drink.

I didn't want to.

I wanted to go visit my dying mother.

And somewhere between the phone and the door, I just had to have a drink.

Just one.

And then the sun would set.

And I hadn't gone over there again.

And I never went over there.

I never visited my mother when she was dying of cancer.

And also that girl kept getting bigger and bigger.

You know, she was actually pregnant.

And I used to say that she had gotten pregnant.

And then through the work of Alcoholics Anonymous and the fourth step,

I found out that I had a part in it.

And she would come over and she'd be getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

And I could not drink that away.

And I could not drink my mom's cancer away.

I just wanted to die.

And I would do drugs at quantities that I assumed would kill me.

And I was always a little surprised when I didn't have a heart attack.

And, you know, I ended up, my father and my mother were married for 50 years.

Okay.

50 years, happily married, very happily, loved each other, spoke well of each other, my father

respected my mother. And when that girl was eight months pregnant, I pushed her down the flight

of stairs. And it wasn't because I wanted to hurt that baby. And it wasn't because I wanted to hurt

that girl. It was because I didn't care at all about them. And I wanted to get loaded. And they were in the way

And there's a part in the big book that says,

we will neither regret the past nor wish to close the door on it.

And it says farther on because no matter how far down the scale you have gone,

you'll see how your experience can help others.

And I tell you that I did that because that's where alcoholism took me.

Now, around that time, around that time, when I pushed it down the stairs...

My brother, who was sober now for like 12 years, called me up and said,

hey, you know what?

We're going to have Mother's Day.

I don't know if you celebrate this here, but Mother's Day, and you're going to show up.

You're going to come.

I'm going to come get you, and we're going to go down to the yacht club and have brunch with mom.

So I was up all night, partying.

You know, partying for me was sitting on the couch, holding my breath when the mailman came.

Because I didn't know who the hell was on my porch.

And I didn't know why he kept coming because after the mail started turning red,

you know, like final notice, I just stopped bringing it in the house.

And I would sit there and hold my breath.

So I was up all night drinking by myself and I put a shirt on, a clean clothes on my dirty body.

And I went out to Mother's Day with my mother and my family, my brothers and sister and my father.

And I made a complete idiot of myself. I couldn't, I wasn't speaking clearly and I couldn't stop talking, which is kind of like how it is now.

But I was, I was loaded. And I remember they looked at me with this just like, what happened to you? What did you become?

And they had all found out about this pregnancy and that I'd lost this job. And they thought the job was beneath me when I took it.

So I went home with my brother.

He drove me home, and on the way home, we got in an argument.

And I don't know what we were arguing about.

He doesn't know.

We've talked about it since.

No.

But I got out of the car and I was filled with righteous indignation.

I would love to know how I had righteous indignation.

Here was my brother who was supporting his family.

He was sober.

He was visiting my mother.

But I had the moral higher ground in the argument, clearly.

And I got out of the car and I waited until he had enough time to go home.

And I called him and I started screaming at him about whatever.

And he listened very carefully and very patiently until I ran out of steam.

And then he quietly said, Matthew, I think you may have a problem with drugs and alcohol.

And I don't know why I said this.

And all kidding aside, this was a moment of great grace in my life because I said, of course I do.

Of course I do.

And people had been telling me that, you know, managers, bands, girlfriends,

bosses, friends, you know, you have a problem with alcohol.

And I'd always say, no, I don't.

You don't understand.

I'm a rock and roll musician or I'm more, I'm smarter than you or whatever.

And this time with my brother, I said, of course I do.

And he said, just stay there.

I'm going to come over.

And I remember thinking.

that my brother would, because I come from a fairly large Irish Catholic family,

and I thought my brother will come over here, he'll kick my ass, and I'll never drink again.

And part of me hoped that's what he was going to do, because I just hated myself.

And I heard Adele actually talk about it the other day, is there are things that happen that you think you'll never do.

And then you cross those lines and you go, oh, that wasn't so bad.

And then you put that line a little bit further, and then you cross that line, and then you cross that line.

And believe me, I was not taught to throw a pregnant woman down a flight of stairs.

No one showed me that.

And, in fact, I like to say that I was given a tremendous education.

I had loving parents.

I pawned or hawked or took to the pawn shop.

all of the character and life lessons and good education that I had to pay for the party.

And when my brother came over, he did not kick my ass.

I had been living in this apartment by myself for about six months, rarely going outside.

My brother walked in.

He inhaled.

And he goes, hey, let's go to the beach.

Because it was a little ripe in there.

And he took, I remember I grabbed two packs of Marlboro Red cigarettes.

And I went down to the beach with my brother.

There's actually a pack and a half.

I'd smoked half a pack of cigarettes.

And we sat down at the lifeguard stand right on the ocean, and he did this incredible, incredible thing.

He started talking about how he felt when my parents kicked him out of the house.

And then he told me how he felt when he got that girl pregnant.

And then he told me how he felt when he was living in his car.

And somewhere in there, he told me how I felt.

And I didn't think anybody in the world knew how I felt.

And the last person that I expected to know how I felt was my brother.

And he laid it out there.

He told my story to me.

And I trusted him.

I started to really listen to him because clearly he was not feeling like I felt right then.

And I listened to him.

And he would do this thing.

He'd go, so what's your plan?

And I would bumble and light another cigarette.

I smoked all those cigarettes.

It's like 35 cigarettes.

And I weighed 108 pounds.

So I'm going, you know, my plan.

And so he said, I said, finally, when I ran out of cigarettes, I threw up my hands and said,

you know, all right, I'll go to Alcoholics Anonymous.

And he burst out laughing.

And he said, hey, hey, dude, you're going to the hospital.

Right.

And I said this, and I was completely serious.

I said, I can't go to the hospital.

I'm busy.

And the sad part was, I believed that I was busy.

You know, I was sitting on my couch and drinking myself into a stupor for five months.

But I thought, if I leave, you know, all the balls will fall.

You know, all the plates will stop spinning, you know.

Clearly, I can't go anywhere.

And I said, well, how long will I be in the hospital?

He goes, I don't know, like 30 days.

And I was like, that's impossible.

I can't leave all of this for 30 days.

And...

And I was really taken aback by the hospital angle.

But I clearly needed it.

I was 108 pounds, and I couldn't stop talking, and I couldn't make sense.

And I used to eat, I don't know if they have them here, but with these sugar donuts that come in packs of six, they're about this big, and a little thing of yogurt.

And I would have that every couple of days, whether I needed it or not.

And that's how I shrank down.

And I live right next to a liquor store, and I'd go next door to the liquor store

after I pawned a guitar or sold my records.

And I would go in there with my money, and I'd get a, in the morning, I would get Fosters.

And I'd say, to the guy behind the counter, Fosters, it's Australian for breakfast, mate.

And he never, ever laughed.

But I repeatedly tried the line, you know.

But I did.

I actually went into a hospital.

And just before I went to the hospital, my phone rang, and I answered it, which was also not my MO at that time.

And they said, hey, your daughter was born.

Get down here.

And I had bought a car for $200 an AMC car.

And if you were from America, you'd know how funny that is.

I've never seen one since.

And I didn't even know where that one came from.

But I went out and I found my car, which was a chore.

And then I drove to the wrong hospital.

Because I didn't know what hospital she was going to be at.

And then I drove to the correct hospital.

And right when I was walking into this hospital,

this teenager's parents were walking out the other glass doors.

And I was about to go to rehab, and I walked up to the counter, and I found out where it was a great struggle.

I'd been awake.

I was drunk, and I went upstairs, and they put my daughter in my hands, and I thought, how could anything as beautiful as this have anything to do with me?

Because I was a negative person. I was underground.

I was not a bad boy.

You know, somebody said to me once when I was sober, oh, you were a bad boy.

And I always pictured like a motorcycle and a leather jacket.

I was dangerous insofar as my selfishness knew no bounds.

If you loved me, I look at that as an opportunity to take from you.

Clearly, that's what you were trying to tell me.

I had permission to take from you.

And I did that with my dying mother, with my loving father, with every employer ever had, with every fine, talented musician that ever let me play with this girl.

And I had this baby in my arms and truth confronted me that I was a parent and I prayed for her that I would have nothing to do with her.

That she would have a life separate from me.

And I got, in fact, my sponsor tells me that there's a moment of clarity that you have when you know that everything will be okay.

I did not have that moment.

I had that moment of, oh, my God, it's come to this.

This is what I am.

And I couldn't avoid it anymore.

And I went off to the hospital and for a, I know there are some of you that went into a program like I did, 30-day program, and it was the scariest day of my life.

Absolutely, without a doubt, the scariest thing I've ever done.

I did not have my medicine, and I did not know you people.

And 30 days later, when they spit me out the other end, it was the second scariest day of my life.

Because all my friends at the hospital were my closest friends in the world.

And they were going to stay sober with me forever.

And we were going to face the day.

And I have no idea where any of those people are.

But I got out of the hospital.

And my brother, who was years sober, I was in the desert at a powwow, some sort of AA thing.

And he picked me up.

And he did this weird thing that was very uncharacteristic of him.

I got in the car with him and I started going, you know, I just did a fifth step in the hospital.

And I am going to be the world's greatest father to Phoebe Rose, my daughter.

And I'm going to visit mom and I'm going to blah, blah, blah, blah.

And he pulled over and he goes, hey, why don't you drive?

which I don't think he had ever done in our entire lives.

And I said, God, I'm sober.

I get to drive.

And I got in the car and he fell asleep.

And I drove home from the desert.

And then right when I pulled up in front of my house, he woke up and he said, go to a meeting.

And he later told me, he said, I had to pretend to be asleep because you were so full of newcomer bullshit.

I could hardly stand.

And he pushed me out of the car.

And...

I went into my apartment and there was a guy rolling a joint, smoking pot on my couch,

and they were snorting cocaine in my kitchen.

And somebody handed me a beer.

Actually, it wasn't a beer.

It was a Coors.

But they put it in my hands.

Oh.

And I stood there, and I started a shake because all I had in the world was 30 days of sobriety.

That's all I had.

I had nothing else.

I was thousands of dollars in debt.

I had warrants out for my arrest.

I had a baby, and I had a mother who was dying of cancer.

And I didn't, all I had was that sobriety.

That's all I could hang my head on.

And I put that beer down, and I walked out.

And that weird thing is I lived alone in that apartment.

So, uh...

I walked around and didn't know what to do with myself,

and I remembered what my brother had said,

and I called Alcoholics Anonymous,

and I went to a speaker meeting called Stompers,

where we come from, and I was scared to go in.

I didn't know you people.

I did not have my medicine.

I was so full of self-conscious fear.

And I walked up, and I finally opened the door,

and I was like an hour early,

and there was one guy in there setting up the chairs,

and I told him how afraid I was.

His name's George O'Hagan.

I'll shout out to George.

And he said, you're going to be okay.

Help me set these chairs up.

And I set the chairs up, and he stood me in front of the door,

and he introduced me to every single person who came through the door.

And it's a meeting of like 300 people.

So I was pretty worn out before the meeting started.

And then I sat down and I'll never forget.

I had that moment of clarity.

I had that moment where I knew everything was going to be all right.

And I'll never forget what the speaker said that night.

He got up to the podium and he said,

wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.

And I just held on in my chair and looked around.

And there were friends of my brother there and...

I knew I was going to be fine.

And I had to sneak into my apartment to move out.

And I moved in with my parents.

And I went to a meeting that day,

and this is the part that I'm enthusiastic apart.

This is the part that I can't say enough about.

This is what happened to me at Alcoholics Anonymous.

And this is why I'm here.

And I went to a meeting in the morning,

and I went to a meeting at noon,

and eventually I went to a meeting that night.

And they had said at the rehab I went to...

find somebody who has what you want and ask him to be your sponsor.

And I had noticed this guy at the noon meeting, and he seemed comfortable in his own skin.

And he had a decent used car.

That's about where I was aiming.

And I'm dead serious.

I thought, that guy has what I want.

He does not have an AMC.

And I went up to him and I asked him to be my sponsor.

And he did this really weird thing that it took me years to understand.

He didn't say okay or hello or you're going to be fine.

He said, do you have a job?

And I said, no.

And he said, well, get a job.

He said, what kind of job should I get?

He said, the kind with a paycheck.

Okay.

And I went and got a job from midnight to 4 in the morning stacking newspapers at a printing place for the local newspaper, the Daily Breeze.

And I got up in the morning and I went to the morning meditation meeting and I'd sleep for a while.

And then I got a job during the day delivering packages.

So I worked from midnight to four, went home, went to the meeting, went to sleep, went to work, went to sleep, went to a meeting, went to the newspaper, worked.

And I did that for months.

And...

What happened, the incredible thing that happened is this guy said, come to my house, and he had one of these apartment complexes where you buzz the buzzer and they let you into the courtyard.

And I remember just being so afraid.

I don't know if you're new here.

Who here is in their first year of sobriety?

I salute you because you are in the desert of Alcoholics Anonymous.

You have stopped drinking, hopefully.

And...

You don't have the foundation of the steps.

That's the desert.

That's the scary part.

That's what the fellowship is for.

That's what we're here for.

And I would go to these meetings and shake.

I'd walk across the room with the coffee in my hand, spilling coffee,

because I was sure you were all staring at me.

and talking about me and thinking about me. And I do have, for all of you who raised your hand,

I can tell you one helpful hint that no one told me, we are so self-centered. We're not staring at you.

If we happen to be looking your way, we're certainly not thinking about you. We're thinking about us.

Although if there is someone who's staring at you and they're looking at you, that's a good thing.

That's somebody who's worked this program and they want to help you.

But I would go to this guy's apartment complex, and he would buzz me in, and I would walk across, assuming there were people looking out the windows going, you know, there's the alcoholic.

And we would read this book, and he did this incredible thing.

He would read a paragraph, and then I'd read a paragraph, and then we'd talk about it.

And when we got to the steps, we worked the steps.

And it was a very strange feeling for me when we got to the third step, and we got down on our knees in this guy's living room and held hands and said the third step prayer.