The Mountain Top Roundup at Guntersville State Park in Guntersville, Alabama

I got my watch so you're safe

my name is candela alcoholic

really glad to be here take care of my housekeeping chores want to thank the committee for inviting my wife and I up here this is quite a crowd out I am not a circuit speaker I don't do this I speak a lot locally but this is by far the largest crowd I've ever spoken in front of like I have some old friends here the fruit basket which had a lot of chocolate in it which is what I ate I don't think I played one banana feet probably about two pounds or the chocolate since I got here so thanks for that I don't keep chocolate the house for a reason it was quite a treat and up for it thanks to Trish in the ring for a host in Korean I you know it it's pretty cool to be in a place like this I always get nervous I don't I don't get afraid anymore but I get nervous and I like it my wife says I I get nervous actually for Alcoholics Anonymous because everything I have not me not just my life but everything good I have in my life is a direct result of Alcoholics Anonymous and Alan on and out

I want to be able to put into words what this program means to me and one has given me I always like to say what my first sponsor said whenever he talked is that the only thing I really hope you get when I'm done is that there's no way I got from where I was timbre eighteenth nineteen ninety eight to war I am tonight by anything that I did you know I mean I I stood up and I showed up and I did the things you all told me to do and somewhere along the line before I got to step twelve I had a spiritual awakening in my attitude now look upon life had changed

and it's you know it's that old a a cliche that if you know my first day in Alcoholics Anonymous and I'd written down what I wanted out of life I did you know cheated myself remember hearing that like you know yeah right and then looking back and I haven't been sober that long it's like I would have sold myself absolutely so terribly short suggest I absolutely love this program yeah I'm supposed to tell you in a general way when I was like what happened to me when I'm like now and always want to wanna start off a little ice breaker

ladies spoke recently at a little place in Millbrook outside a we talk and good friend of mine Vicky said you know are you nervous I got to thinking it was kind of a small group and I said you know I'm really not nervous because I haven't barest myself in a large fan of a large group of people before when when I was in the army

and I was sent down to Panama or spent many years I was with the group we should travel across the world and we teach different outfits foreign armies different stuff and now we were down there we're going to train out back when Noriega was supposedly a friend of ours we are trained in his Israeli trained commandos on some advanced terrorism techniques in ambushes and raids and stuff like that and I've been through a six week Spanish course up in fort Bragg so you know I had a translator but I did need a translator I would speak Spanish for six weeks right tell us

the night before I'm right my preliminary notes and stuff like that and I'm drinking as I was want to do and now

so I'm writing down a no you always want to say something nice about the host country and the people saw him write it down I'm translating in English in Austin okay when I say this in this sow came you know

people people what's the word for people in Spanish and like I don't remember something in English he people human man mankind that's it right so so that's what it's like at the next day and there's seven hundred and twenty Panamanian commandos up there and I get up there and I'm I'll translator which raises and mine and I should not say what I said I said no not me nobody else are handled article Joe Gustafson vice you Joe goes to Los hombres monomania

and I realized the look on their faces I'm like oh my god I've done something horrible and what I had said was hi I'm sergeant long I love your country and I like Panamanian man

so that was a that was a showstopper so

you know what my keto alcoholic mine I could tell from the facial expressions that I'd said something awry

and I turned to ray is I'm like dude what I say he's like man you just said you like Panamanian man

okay so he was able to clear that up

so if I embarrass myself tonight it will be the first time

I'm I was born starting to get in I was born may eighteenth nineteen sixty two I will turn forty six this Sunday however the lady said this morning at the meeting it was fifty years old you know to me her as pretty cool because neither one of us plan on being here that long so that's a that's a blessing I was born in Tokyo Japan my father worked for the CIA and he was stationed over there and I had a brother that was thirteen months older and three years after I was born a little sister

there's no active alcoholism in my immediate family and my sister and my brother are both discussed in the normal people you know they want to life they went to college when they were supposed to they got married they have kids their kids are normal they're great

yes there were you know productive Matt they live their lives the way I was raised in the same house I just didn't I have a disease a perception and

I just didn't turn out the same but you know I was raised in the same house and I've been to a few treatment centers and I I remember early on as most treatment centers you know there's some people that really had a pretty hard go of it a lot of you know physical sexual emotional abuse and I say man I wonder I wonder if I'm repressing something because that's why these people are alcoholics and addicts because look at the horrible things of course is why they drink and use you know I want if I hadn't of repressed memory and you know the bottom line is I just drank myself into this deal you know the book talks about the difference between a hard drinker in a real alcoholic and you know I know I start off as a hard drinker and I became a real alcohol and I don't know when it happened but I know I was drunk when it when it did occur

I spent the first three years of my life was in Japan and then we moved to Taiwan and then we moved back to on the back to for may first time Washington DC area and that's my parents still live today and when I was in the states I guess that would that would be home and

went to St Michael's parochial school kindergarten first grade second grade and then we went to Switzerland for three or four years I might ask you a very very bad there that actually given last rites by a priest when I was a about three years old the also I was I was never particularly large not large now but I was tough I was twelve I was really really started so I think I kind of grew up with that little Napoleon complex and I had an older brother you know Cory talked about her rivalry with her little sister my older brother you mean you can match I mean I'm I'm five foot five about a hundred and forty pounds okay hundred forty five so

you know my brother in eighth grade was five foot ten hundred eighty pounds when shaving and and I think in seventh grade I was like four foot eight and eighty two pounds and now

he always he was like a straight a student and I was a B. student he was incredibly athletic to listen to the Aztec you know but the interesting thing is you know I always like to

the disease a perception you know Chuck chamberlain series it is talk because nobody in my family ever said why can't you be more like your brother you know my brother never said that it's just I decided early on I didn't measure up you know and that's nobody told me that no one ever said that

it also is always a one way one way rivalry with him enough I was on those alcoholics and when I got here I kind of thought that up there's really nothing wrong with me except I drank too much and tell me like I'm gonna keep coming back and I you know when I had these little moments of clarity of growing up the north eighty seven years old my best friend Joe okay lived down the street from me he had a nineteen year old sister we go it was house and I would steal her costume jewelry and wrap it up and give it to my mother as a present you know like I thought everybody did that

and that you know probably that's that's not true

I learned early on how to

how to apply to adults you know that old honesty is the best policy you know

I absolutely did not have any physical abuse in my life but you know my parents did use the belt and I've just making this up but you know the first time I can recall being honest I got spanked ergo honesty is for suckers

and so I I learned how to live I learned how to line up my my dad doing what he did with entertained a lot you know and I remember at the age of seven I mean I would not a full suit but it blue blue pants white shirt a tie and I knew how to set up a table for like six people to include you know the sixteen forks and all that well I mean I knew that at age seven when adults would come over why Mrs Wong what a fetching dress you know what seven year old should ever have to know how to say crap like

but you know what I learned early on how to say things to adults and I remember what a precocious child you have you know I was my vocabulary was advanced beyond my years especially living overseas we didn't have TV and both my parents read were avid readers and I grew up reading you know when I used that to manipulate people to tell people what I wanted when I thought I wanted to be here and it was pretty cool to like got sober at the age of thirty six realized I didn't know who I was I had lost myself along the way and I used to laugh not being part of the sixties generation that was you know but after that but in the sixties you know due to trying to find myself you know that here was in nineteen ninety eight thirty six understanding exactly what they were talking about I had no idea what I liked you know my wife said today I didn't have opinions you know last seven eight years a drink and I just drank therefore I was I didn't have any opinions but you know I do always mention my family of origin because it was important for me that I

for me it wasn't my environment you know I just drank myself into this deal and you know I I probably do have a genetic predisposition for this but I did all the drinking my my life started for me the end eighth grade my dad came home and said the move into Singapore you know we said sweet you know where is it

we got the atlas out and we found out and so we moved there and I was really good for me because

nobody knew my brother nobody knew anybody it's kind of flesh from a fresh slate for me and I'll start my high school there so I wasn't leaving high school and that's when I made up you know it's funny it living in the DC area all the people that we met as adults all the adults were ill military state department government you know they were suits briefcase people and in Singapore the Americans their oil people they were from Texas Oklahoma Louisiana completely different breed these people work hard and they party hard enough

I loved it and I love them and now we move it in Singapore there's no drinking age at all you maybe we will but your core so we can go into the Hyatt regency hotel at the age of fourteen in order to drink it was no big deal

my parents were to Martina night drinkers and still are so alcohol wasn't a big deal for me and I I knew I grew up having wine on Sundays for dinner and never had an allergic reaction until I drank enough of it that was the kicker and when I got Singapore that's that's what happened met the Warren brothers these three boys their dad was a big week one to all companies and how they had a big expense account they could be charged up to their rooms and started drinking Heineken beers you know and I never had a spiritual experience drinking my my first couple beers but it made me a baby fat and you know I was a

I became very comfortable prior to that I was relatively shy and introverted when I really became an extrovert in high school

you know a course that I was you know student body president when I graduated in class favorite and king of the junior senior prom and that it wasn't doesn't that didn't mean I was drunk all the time I I fact I didn't really have a lot of drinking problems in high school but it gave me confidence he gave me a false sense of confidence as it turned out and I was able to come out of my shell and make friends I didn't drink every didn't drink every weekend to drink every day I know I missed one football practice because I went to the bar with some friends which is not unusual before practice and I was too drunk and that happened once and then I had a blackout on my eighteenth birthday on may eighteenth nineteen eighty and that was because a tequila

and that's the only thing that happened in high school

by October of nineteen eighty I was drinking a gallon of Carlo Rossi pies on a wine before noon every day it happened that quick and what happened to me was I don't really I was not

I was not and I am not an angry alcoholic I don't relate to anger I'm much more comfortable with self pity and fear

okay that's that's what I did in self pity and fear do I have when I graduated high school I moved to a flagstaff Arizona I want to be a forest ranger I didn't I didn't do nothing about what the career entails I thought you wore green outfit hung around in the woods and that's what I want

but the the degree is for street and I knew that because I picked up in the northern Arizona university was back in the day was the third best in the country for forestry but I had no idea that was a science degree I'm a liberal arts type of guy really you know history foreign languages social studies geography anything to do with math and science yeah not so good and so when I met my guidance counselor she told me all these classes I had to take I was absolutely filled with fear you know and it's it's just amazing

college freshman on average were they say by the time the graduate change their major like twelve or thirteen times I mean it's perfectly normal but it never occurred to me I was just filled with fear and I stopped going to classes if I thought I couldn't do well you know I never even tried to go in maybe I could do this consumed with fear and and I didn't know anyone there that was thirteen thousand people there was ninety nine people in my graduating class in high school but only thirty three of us have been there for four years and now it was just a bad deal and

I ended up my parents pulled the financial plug after two semesters of that

you know because I just wasn't wasn't performance and now I know I bummed around the state the state for about a year I'm not really sure what I did I I actually don't recall but I do know at some point my dad knew I wasn't he said he got me an appointment in Virginia military institute when was I interested that's why I got nothing else going on let's give it a shot now so I went there and I I managed to last two and a half years there because there were no women there was no alcohol you couldn't have a car and they marched to the class

that's a that's a pretty good deal for a guy like me you know it was amazing because that was my first exposure to structured disciplined and I found out I did quite well in that in it amaze me years later reading the big book which says you know we alcoholics are not disciplined a lot into this program we let god discipline us and I was like that's one of my aha moments hi I've been looking for it you know I could relate to the speakers that talked about even in kindergarten feel like they everybody else in class had the rule book for life except them you know I've been looking how do you do this deal I've been looking for all my life I know people have told me how they do it and I've seen it they got the same instructions but I just don't hear what they hear and so when I was at VMI I did okay but on the problem with a four year degree is it takes four years you know and I also like what up you know the

one of the speakers are

I heard Wayne Wayne Butler talked about being the fifty yard man and a hundred yard dash and I could relate to that you know I'll get half way faster than anybody I just don't close the deal I just don't close the deal

and so after two and a half years I left him a whole Christmas and I told my parents you know them leaving analyst in the army that's what I did and I went to a fort Benning Georgia

I went to basic empty school airborne school and up in the eighty second airborne up enough for Bragg North Carolina and now what happened is a

I spent the next ten years jumping out of airplanes and doing different stuff with different people and different types airborne units around the world

and just drinking more and more I'm alive today because I was in the military the units I was in

so three different units the first unit we spent about six months of the of the year in the field there was no alcohol the second you know I want to spend about nine months of the year in the field so that was nine months I couldn't get out on the last unit sometimes up to a year we'd be deployed somewhere and I couldn't drink but always when we came back especially that last year that it was an unconventional unit and now they say just take a month off you know and I'd I'd weep inside because I

I get mad when I got a month off all I do is drink I no matter where I went there was alcohol in

amber

I think I'm too young I can't be an alcoholic you know what it was bill C. talk about last night was the guy with the trench coat under the bridge and and also I was a beer drinker only drink beer and I was in great physical condition I didn't drink every day how can you spend six months without alcohol would be an alcoholic we'll tell you how we come back we usually jump back where we live and we you know March eighteen miles or so back in an American nuclear weapons get off about three o'clock in the morning and people would usually just be passed out in the hallway so so exhausted and I would get up no matter how late it was you go to the shop and get a six pack wouldn't even think about the whole for six nine months but if I was in a place where it was I couldn't go to sleep until I had a six pack so what happened to me is a you know if things were just a I don't know I I just knew I wasn't living right and I was maybe thirty thirty one years old and I was taking stock of my of my life and what's going on and what's wrong and you know when I realized that the people that had the things that I just were tracked it to work they were family men they're responsible they had a wife they had kids and I figured that's what I lacked I needed some responsibility so I married a Panamanian prostitute I knew

who who had a seven year old daughter

okay instant family

yeah there's there's a radio program down at a shot north Carolina call John boy and Billy and they always had this thing you know how that works he's gotten doing Hilbert the answer is always not too good button and probably not for the reasons you think what what happened is that was the first time since I was eighteen that I was out of the barracks dormitory type existence and I had to do things like

pay rent pay my phone bills balance the budget and I found out I wasn't capable of doing that and my life started spiraling out of control and I was consumed with fear we shame with guilt and just like a three

what helped those feelings I drank more the more I drank

the worse things got the more shame fear guilt remorse the more I drank that was my spiral I would do things like on a Friday get drunk and buy my wife a three hundred dollar dress and that was the rent money on Monday you know

and I couldn't I couldn't tell people how do you do this deal you know I I I can't do this I

I am unable to do what sixteen year olds that are emancipated can do and and I I can't do it I don't understand I won't go into the club but the schools I've been to in the military I was either distinguished honor grad or undergraduate from every single school how how can I not be able to do this and eventually what happened is

I missed three days of work you know and if you work for Krispy Kreme that's okay but if you work for the army they call it a wall and

so my buddies came and got me into you know lo and behold

I was a solitary drinker so I thought nobody knew it was a bill is also talking about that that smell you know because matter how may times you shower once you hit a certain saturation when it comes out of the port everybody knew that out that I was bad to drink and now they sent me to a treatment program up enough fort Gordon Georgia six weeks long military and

you know I I am not a a quick study I I've gotten recovery slowly

that was nineteen ninety two not sorry ninety one actually ninety one it was six weeks long and when I got other treatment center was that I was an alcoholic the interviews with the disease concept alcoholism and they proved to me beyond a doubt that I was an alcoholic and I know they talked about the steps and they talked about Alcoholics Anonymous all I heard was I'm an alcoholic and the solution is not to drink and I'm a pretty tough guy and and I do have will power and I've been able to use it successfully and I'm not stupid so I'm not going to drink so I went back to Panama and

one six months without a drink and I'm one of those guys I'm not a white knuckler if if I'm medically detox I don't I don't think about alcohol that's like well you know not not too shabby here when you drink the way I did when you stop I felt better I could eat I was getting along with my wife better I said wow this body things pretty good I never went to a meeting in six months later during all kind of all just put your call Mardi Gras yeah my wife wanted to dress shop I turned around there was a survey said Panama beer carton I had two beers and I stopped I was like well this is interesting because I thought what they said is if I ever drank again I'd become a raving lunatic that's what I thought they said and I had two beers and I stopped some like maybe I was too hasty in this diagnosis and I had two more right and then I had a six pack the Saturday global block three weeks later I was drunk on duty all right this is bad timing for me for so many old timers remember the days of velcro rank you know you could you know be in a first sergeant on a Friday get busted for you know

whatever on a weekend they break it down twenty five ninety days later bring it back this is nineteen ninety two when president Clinton was drawn down the military so

they really had to cut through stringent rules and when I went to the treatment center not being a lawyer I don't read what I said sign I just signed and now there's a paperwork that if I had a drug or alcohol incidents within a year I'd be summarily discharged nine states army and and that's what happened to me I lost my career I lost more than that I lost my identity my entire identity was my uniform

I was absolutely completely shattered I was nothing without my uniform I I didn't know who I was I didn't have a purpose for living I was also I am not responsible I have a wife and a daughter I have no marketable skills I'm not a tradesman I don't change my own oil today I can change a light bulb hi I'm not handy and I have no college degree and I got you know two and a half years of liberal arts classes you know and I jump on airplanes and shoot people that's that's pretty much my resume

so what I did was I drank I drank more I drank more and all

ended up back in the states ahead of my wife and daughter they were waiting for visas and

I appeal fair amount of money

the saved up that the army saved up for me and so I got a hotel room and I just drank for two weeks I got alcohol poisoning and I ended up in another twenty eight day program and then into a one year program at this point my wife and daughter are back in the states and they're staying with her sister and her her husband like thirty miles away and I'm in this apartment deal with other alcoholics and addicts you know when I got other

all my roommates Rockall genetics I've got group counseling once a week and I got individual counseling once a week and I had to go to a five eight meetings a week

and I want to five or six a week four year

I didn't have a sponsor I didn't work the steps okay this is important for me this is like that's my experience keep coming back doesn't work for me because I got problems other than alcohol me when I'm removed from the drink I get worse beyond my book tells me drink is but a symptom the steps are designed to change me the steps are designed to produce a spiritual awakening the steps are designed to change my attitude and my outlook upon life the steps are designed to remove the obsession to drink from me if I don't do the steps

an alcoholic like me is doomed and I'm telling you I went to these meetings and I sat up front I enjoyed the meeting so I didn't say it in half measures row I didn't scoff I love the meetings I just didn't hear I you know I know now I used to beat myself up I just I just wasn't frigging ready but seeds were planted you know I didn't have a home group to you know the met in the large metropolitan areas there's thousands of meetings and I go to use different means you know it may even take me six months to get back to a place I've been before and I thought I was doing great BC it once again I was under some type of discipline I was in a supervised apartment program you know and and things went well until I graduated and then I moved thirty miles away back in with my wife and my step daughter in I shot going to AA meetings

I honestly thought when I got my one you may dial it was some type of graduation deal

and what happened is I lasted I lasted six months after that once again I went to the grocery store and the idea of a beer popped into my mind just a court that's all just a court and you know what happened is my wife god love her she didn't want to Malcolm Hollis but all she knew was I was bad the drinking should be drinking

any ice on those I drink a lot of beer and I detect tax like nobody could smell beer and she knew I was drinking right into cheap cheap nag and I'll it didn't take me but four days to all that made a conscious decision to choose alcohol over my family because I couldn't drink the way I wanted to drink

and be in that house and I came home one day and I said I'm leaving but I've not seen her or my stepdaughter since that day and that was ninety

ninety four ninety five K. my first group in the one year anniversary you have been told your story and I said from the podium that we were separated you know my sponsor pulled me aside and said you know there's actually a legal term for what you did is called abandonment you know and that's what alcohol did I I chose alcohol over my family and I will take the time I was working for the airlines and I moved in with three pilots little single family home up in Herndon Virginia right near the airport and now I had had enough alcohol

treatment that I probably could have qualified for

drug and alcohol counselor I knew what I was and I didn't care I was at that part the big book this as you know yeah I'd go on to the bitter end or accept spiritual help and

I was reading on the better and I was convention I'm going to die alcoholism I didn't care I wasn't hurting anybody but me and what happened is the first time that I can say my life that I can look back and say aha this is this is a god moment you know I guess does the article we speak you know I got my first computer in February of ninety seven I'd never touch a computer my life and I I bought it and went to work that day and told the guy's got a computer and got an AOL account what do I do with it they tell me there's a different search engines in the very first word I ever typed in the search engine was Singapore you know and I was like Hey look at that and I'll find out my high school had a bulletin board it's like wow that's pretty cool and I that's why I saw messages said from Corey H. class of nineteen eighty and was the only message in the class of nineteen eighty and I knew Corey H. was like I said there's only ninety items in the class and I didn't kill that many brain cells and so you know you heard the deal sent the email Calder and

still left eleven hours you know eighteen bears eleven hours as control drinking for me it's Thursday they'll say we got married because we couldn't afford to date out of the phone calls were too expensive

you know it and what happened is I I moved I moved down here with her I took a hostage I read I really did maybe you'll hear how it pretty soon but you know I was reaching out you know this is a woman that knew me for the last time in my life when I was happy joyous and free in high school you know when I was kind of the last time I felt I was kinda living god's god's plan for me you know when I was somebody when I was full of potential I was a completely broken defeated human being at this point and she had no idea that I was a raging alcoholic we did the long distance thing I would fly down to spend three days with her and I would literally drink maybe nine to twelve beers in three days I mean that is out rages control that is control of her growing proportion

but what would happen is I would always fly from Atlanta to Chicago and I go to Chicago go to a bar have two drinks in call in sick in the bands the next day because I had to get my drink on

and that's what I did so I moved in with her and

you know I I can't do that nine beers over three days for too long now but I'm still doing a good job for me I'm doing like six six pack a night which come on alcohol it's it's pretty cool

well I caught her attention

you know there was

you know once again it was really nothing major I mean there was one time though I came home and she was crying and I said what's going on right what's wrong and she said do you have to get drunk just to be with me it's like wow that that that hurt that hurt me to see that you know the effect that I could have that you know she thought it was her I know how how do you tell someone it's like now what I'm not even drinking half of what I need you know it's got nothing to do with you Alan I'm cutlass my drink down because I love you

anyhow what happened to me was a

you know that last month or so you know I'd like to say that September seventeenth I wanted to try new spiritual way of life and that's that's not the case at last month I think the last stages alcoholism I've gotten physiologically addicted you know I mean I enjoyed morning drinking recreationally for years I I love drinking in the morning the last couple months I absolutely had to and then that last week if you can relate the get the beer in the morning and like this and it would take me maybe an hour just to drink one beer and then the last three or four days I could no longer consume alcohol so the only thing that works for me stop working that's what got me to September seventeenth saying I need some help okay

so I went to once the treatment center my last one god willing

and

I went in there just you know try to get some medical detox to buy myself twenty eight days to think my way through this thing again right and I think what happened is I was sick and tired of being me in now I wasn't sick and tired of drinking which I've been for years I was sick and tired of being me and I had a moment clarity in treatment early on one week two I'm not sure but four days four days she's my calendar girl at my memories host but I want that family counselor she mentioned

Mr looking here some things I said I think I need to tell my wife and I remember she's like oh oh my she said well you know kind of like you you do what you think you need to do see you tomorrow and I

but what I had to do was I had to be rigorously honest with her because I was tired of lying you know I remember one time maybe six years ago I got some of my work my mother one of my infrequent visits at home look at me

earnestly instead I think you might be a pathological liar and I looked at her I said I think you might be right you know and so I came home that that day from treatment mental choruses look scribbling check I'll tell you I didn't graduate from VMI CVM might is the only college in America where you get your class ring is huge the size the Superbowl ring but you get it your first match of your junior year right so I had a big old college roommate I also told her that I I left the military during the early outs because many people then

got significant amounts of money like twenty five and older twenty five thousand dollars in the bank account Virginia and I also told her that meet haven was my first treatment center so I had to tell I'm not a college graduate I got kicked out of the army for alcohol rehab failure only by the way this is my third treatment center and one of them was a year long but I'll tell you what the truth shall set you free

I slept like a baby that night now here's the deal this was the first time in my life I was willing to take responsibility for my actions it was my first time exposure to recovery that I was willing to take responsibility for my disease previously I wanted someone to waive the twenty eight day BlueCross BlueShield wand over me and cheer me okay no no treatment center I ever want to ever claim to do that every single one of them told me the deal this is discovery recoveries in a I just to be honest I was willing to do it I one of the easier softer way and this is the easier softer way I thought Corey was going to leave me and I was okay with that no I don't mean you know I was looking forward to it but I had to tell her these things for me and that was the first time that I was willing to be honest with another human being and face some negative consequences because I thought if she had done that to me I'd have been gone I'm a runner she's a sticker and that's why we're still together she didn't she didn't leave but she said she doesn't didn't sleep that night so what happened is when I I told my counselor in week two because I want to make to him that I was a slow learner when I finally told my counselor this is my third time round do you like what you expect me to do for you I'm like what he meets here professional and he's like there's nothing I can say to you that you haven't heard I had to do what I think is actually terrible institutionalized you know

I heard all dealings like there's nothing I can do for you and this is why I am forever grateful not only was he a council he was one of us okay and he said you need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous and I said man I've tried that that's what I want for a year now take it through him

he was like really

but then his training kicked in his alcoholic training he's like did you have a sponsor I said no Sir thank god he said do you have a home group I said no Sir should you work the steps I said no Sir and he's like you didn't go to Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm like really he's like I'm telling you man they said you're going to go to twenty two north California street metro at eight o'clock you go in there tonight

said okay let's see where is it he said you find it okay okay I did like six miles from my house and I went there and I got a sponsor that night who didn't even want to talk to me talk about a treatment he said you go do that deal and you know you just keep coming here willow will hook you up when you get out and that's when I came out that was on fire you know I really was I was on fire and I said I'm going to do in ninety and ninety that's my first time around that hadn't been cleaned yet you know something show him my commitment he's like well good for you Skippy how about a

he said how about a meeting a day for a year he said the meeting from eight to nine we open from seven to eight and we stay from nine to ten I want to do that every day from here are you willing