The Burbank Group of Alcoholics Anonymous in Burbank, CA

Here we go. My name is DeAndre and I'm an alcoholic.

Thank you, Sammy. Having me up here and

my sponsor called me,

he said how are you doing? And

we need a speaker tonight.

And and my response was OK and yes. And I don't know anybody who knows Jimmy Moss, but it's just really hard to tell him no. And he drives to something that has to do with Alcoholics Anonymous. Welcome to the new people. My sobriety birthday is May the 29th 1991 and my Home group is the no nonsense meeting in Redondo Beach

6:30 on Sunday nights. And like I said earlier,

Jimmy Moss has been cursed with sponsorship. For me, I'm grateful to be sober and welcome to those 3 new people that sit up and identified and those that didn't. And I hope that you find something here to help you stay sober.

Just start off with my story. I was

born in Los Angeles, CA. I'm from LA, don't I look like it?

And

born in LA. Actually, the person who painted this room designed this shirt I'm wearing.

I'm gonna throw that in there to get everybody

and tune what's happening here and going and living in the I live in the projects. We lived in the Jordan Downs housing projects. My mother and all six

of her children lived in the Jordan Downs housing projects and Watts.

But I went to school in the San Fernando Valley,

which explains the proper diction when I share. But I really am from Watts and live there 14 1/2 years.

And while we were living there, I went to Pacoima Junior High School and I went to Van Nuys High School theater, arts theater and Fine Arts magnet. I am a performer, I am a thespian and I am very fat and tired tonight too, because I worked all day. So I'm not going to get into my theatrics and living in that community. We, we, it was fun. I liked it ago. You go and, and you go to

in the valley and you hang out with all these people who are living good or I don't know if they were living good or not, but everybody seemed to have a swimming pool in their backyard, you know, And we would go out in the valley with all these white people and have fun and go to school and learn and do all these things. And then I'd have to ride the bus back to Watts and deal with the reality of my own community.

And that was a little rough. And alcohol made it better for me

to be able to handle the transitioning and

went ahead and started drinking. My mother made alcohol look fun when we were little, so I decided to try to do that.

And I love alcohol,

you know, I know a lot of people do a lot of other things, and so did I. I mean, it takes a lot of crack to hide alcoholism, but

I am an alcoholic. I love alcohol. Alcohol. Yippee. You know, I remember with the first time I saw the Budweiser plant, 'cause I don't know if you're from Watts, we don't have plants like that over there. And I remember the first time I saw that thing and it just, it just, it just seemed like there was a certain spiritual presence

the Budweiser played off the 405 freeway. It just, and then that odor, just the raw essence of alcohol. You know, my mother used to take it to this chicken place called Jim Dandy Fried Chicken. It's an old place. It's out of business now. But at that place they used to have these little, square little things that you would get after you were eat, done eating.

They were these little like napkins for your hands

and you can rip that little thing open and put that little wet thing, soak with that other kind of alcohol on it and you put it on your face and just inhale it. Love alcohol,

not an alcohol and sniffing napkins with weird types of alcohol on it and good old time not knowing nothing about this fatal disease. And what happened for me is I just started

liking that more than anything else.

So please don't tell me that I'm now adjusted to life and expect me to get it all together. It's not happening. I got to get loaded around here and I got to ignore how I feel and what I've really been doing in order to get drunk.

So

I, I just pursued that sort of, you guys call it an obsession, I call it a mission. And I just pursued that and kept chasing that over and over again. And I, it kind of reminds me of that little nursery rhyme like the, the gingerbread man, you know, run, run as fast as you can. You can't catch me. I'm loaded, man. And I would just sort of run and do this thing

to stay high and, and loaded. And you know, I, I know how to make it look good when I really have to,

because the bottom line is I know what I have to do in that strike.

And I remember at around

17 years old, it wasn't fun anymore for my mother and she did one of the most healthiest Al Anon type things that she could have ever done for me. She threw me out of the house

and I confronted her because I've always been able to like watch TV,

different shows and stuff and then apply that to my life to, to let people know how intelligent I really am. For example, if you are about to be homeless and you watch certain episodes of Jeopardy, you may get a couple of those questions right. Therefore, you're not wrong about nothing, you know? And those are the kinds of things that I would do. And I had seen some stuff on law and order and my mother clearly didn't have any legal basis for throwing me

out of that house at 17 years old. And I and I brought that to her attention. I said this is illegal. And she said I don't give a shit. You're a criminal anyway, get out of my

and, and so I got put out of there and I went and I and lived with my friends, my real friends,

the people who could love me until I could love myself, you know, and we got loaded and, and, and did all of that stuff, man. And I, I really

at 17, I kind of knew that I had, I was doing getting loaded more than most people really like to. And see my friends when I got high and, and drank and stuff, they always wanted to stop a lot of them. And I'm not a stopper, you know? And I think that that's what differentiates me from these people who don't have this allergic reaction to alcohol.

They can take it or leave it alone. They can be told about, hey, you better get it together. And then they get it together. You know,

the story I tell is like, I got three friends. We wake up, one of them says I got to go to school. You know, I got to go. And another one wakes up. I got to go pick up my kids. And I wake up and say I got to get drunk,

see, because I'm a real alcoholic. And I wound up being chased out of that community

and I got jumped by one of my friends. He beat me up because I had stolen some money from his aunt and my sexual behavior was completely out of control.

And I was chased out of that community. And what happened was I wound up laying out in the front of this building called the Westminster Foundation. I used to go there when I was a when I was a younger person with my siblings, we used to go to this theater therapy program. And that building is like in the middle of the newer part of Watts, if there's such a thing. And we would go there

and I round up just running there one day and I fell and I just collapsed in front of the building.

And the director of the program, she came out and she said what has happened to you?

And I'm laying on the ground looking up at her, thinking to myself, none of your God damn business.

But instead I just, I just, I just sort of just, I went mute, I guess. And she scraped me up and took me over to kill her. Martin Luther King General Hospital and, and took me over there. And they sort of wrapped me up

and gave me a shot of Demerol and sent me on my way. And I wound up going back over to my aunts house who lives over by the Coliseum. And I was walking down the street and my grandmother pulled up behind me and saw me with the sling and this little cane. And she told me you look like a bum.

And. And she nailed it. I mean, by then my insides had started matching my hands outside. It's pretty much a dead man talking

and she just drove away. I mean, what do you say to your grandmother when she said something like that?

Thank you.

Thanks, Grandma.

My grandmother caught me a bomb,

actually, she said. You look like a bomb.

But when you're living on 5th and San Julian, which is where I wound up, not up in my head. I know a lot of people have lived in Skid Row. In their head. It's an imaginary place. They tend to go there and in and out. But Skid Row feels a little different when it's on your ass.

And I literally live down there

and I love that environment. I know this sounds kind of warped and I, I'm not trying to share in a condescending matter toward that that that neighborhood, but I loved it. There was just all this, what I thought was freedom,

which I soon and later found out through a sponsor that that was lawlessness. There is a difference between freedom and lawlessness.

Lawlessness is doing whatever I want to do what I want to do it, and

freedom is doing what I have to do when it needs to be done. And I didn't know that before y'all steps. And I just lived down there and I loved it and we it was like there was there was never a dull moment on 5th in San Julian. Let me tell you, if you are bored in your sobriety tonight, I suggest that you do one of those little Dr. Throughs like at the San Diego Animal Park

and take your bored ass in sobriety on down there

and drive through. You know, I think it could revitalize your sobriety a little bit just for a day. And that's all we have anyway. So go on down there and take a look.

And I did my time on Skid Row and I loved it. And I wound up going and visiting my aunt one day and she told me you are, you know, you, you can't come up in here. You're not coming in this house. Now we'll let you sleep down on the floor in the garage. So you can go down there and we'll bring your meal and you and you can sleep on the floor in the garage, but you can't sleep in this house.

Now, I know culturally we're all from different places and stuff, and I see some of the assistance that some of my younger friends

receive from family in regards to early recovery.

And I can just sit there and watch and learn because that is not my story. My mother did not provide a safe haven for me to kind of figure it out. And my aunt told me you cannot sleep in here. So I went and took her up on that offer and slept down there on the garage floor. And,

you know, it was really, really

humiliating because I was a * of my family. You know, I could do writing calligraphy, which is basically writing in graffiti with a special pin. But I, I, I know how to sing. I can dance, I can write poetry, I can choreograph, I can do lighting, I can do everything. But stay away from that front drink. Can't do that.

And what happened is I just lived down on that little floor in the garage

and something about me and dressing up a trash can, I'm just really good at it. And I started thinking, well, there's nothing really wrong with sleeping down here on the garage floor.

And then one night I got back too late and she locked the door.

So I had to sleep in this abandoned car.

Now at the time, her daughter was to have thought that she had a son for my brother, but we later found out that that wasn't true. But at the time, my nephew saw me sleeping in that car one night and I was pretending to be sleep and I heard him asking his grandmother, why did I have to sleep in that car? Why is Uncle Dee Dee sleeping in that car? And the next morning,

you know, Miss Humphrey told me, she told me to go down to Big General Hospital and see if those people can help me.

And I went on down there and I went to the little social services place. And I saw this little lady sitting in this little booth. And I asked her, are there any, Is there like a program here or anything that I can say? And she said, no, there's nothing. We don't have anything here for you. But go down to this place called El Centro, which is about a mile or so away from here, and talked to a guy named Ronnie Macias.

And I did that. And I went into Ronnie's little cubicle office thing

and he was talking to me about my life. And he told me that I was 24 years old, I was already living on Skid Row, and I wasn't going to make it. And for some reason I believed him. I don't know why. Usually I could just drink that kind of stuff away,

but

he left out a little cubicle, what I now know today to go get me some bus tickets. And when he left out of that cubicle, I got on my knees and I asked God to help me.

And then I had to hurry up and get up because I didn't want him to see, you know how desperate my situation really was. I mean, when you play it in public, something screwed up about your life.

And he came back in there and he gave me those bus tickets. And for seven days, he made me catch the bus from his office to this hotel on 7th Vermont. And he wanted me to come back every day while he called facilities to try to put me somewhere.

And

on the last day I was at that hotel, this dude that I was sharing the room with, I guess he was trying to help him too. I don't know. But he went and got a, he went and got a couple of 40 oz. And we drank those two beers and talked about the conflict in the Middle East until 3:00 in the morning.

And then I rode the bus back down to Ronnies. And Ronnie told me to go down to the Volunteers of America building and call Warm Springs Rehabilitation Center and ask for a lady named Yolanda, you know, and I just,

I said, all right, and I did it. But before I went into the building to make the call, I saw this little Roach on the ground. And I know this is an A meeting. It was a little marijuana thing. And I smoke. I walked around the building and smoked that so I could start my recovery.

Some people take medication from the doctor. I smoke a little Roach before I get sober, you know. And, and I did that and,

and I went in and I called Yolanda and she said you have to have seven days sober before you come to Warm Springs. That's why Ronnie had you in the hotel. And I just cleared my voice.

We'd like to push this back. You know, I, I have something in my system this morning. I'm sorry. You know, I, I didn't know that these were, you know,

and she said get on the van anyway.

And that was on May the 28th of 1991. I've been sober ever since. So I'm not really into spending a whole lot of time talking about drinking.

And it's not because I think I'm cured, it's because I think I found a solution. Don't you know,

because when I went into that rehab, those people introduced us to Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, some rehabs have different feeling groups, basket therapy, chair sitting, relaxation technique, all kind of stuff at different rehabs. But in this rehab, you know, they made us go to the A, A meetings, you know, and in those meetings, there would be these panel people that would come up, people who were like you out in the community,

living, breathing and sharing a A and coming all the way out there in those mountains telling us about it. And that really impressed me.

You know, they call it H and I

and those guys and I just thought they were all high really when I first saw him say no, you cannot be that happy without any kind of alcohol. And what happened was I just started talking to some of those men and women after the meeting while my dorm friends were talking about the sick old days and stuff like that. I sucked up to the panel people and when I

went into that facility, it's a 90 day program.

I was there for 11 months

and

they just, they changed what I was thinking about this alcohol stuff.

My mind started changing on me a little bit. It just seemed kind of weird that after all that information they were sharing with us and after showing us the stuff in this book, it would it just seemed really weird that I would want to leave here and go get loaded anyway. You know, that kind of confused me a little bit. And So what happened was I started talking to this guy named Jeff who had the Sunday panel at Warm Springs and.

When I got out of the rehab, he came and he picked me up and he took me to the H and I meeting and he made sure that I got a panel at that facility.

And I've had a panel there

about six months. It took a little while, but after six months I got a panel there and I've had a panel there, you know, since then.

And

I don't want to spend a whole lot of time talking about H and I. But I'm just here to share that if you have not tried to help us out with that,

it would be nice if you could think about it because technically that's what Bill and Bob were about. They were H and I people,

you know. And

anyway, I left that facility and I moved to a beautiful little town called Lancaster.

Lancaster, CA Up in the high desert

and

something about Lancaster

and and sobriety and the desert and the heat

and my skin color just made me feel a little uncomfortable. I didn't really like it up there a lot, but I stayed there for 12 years

and I went to a place called the Open Door Fellowship Hall of Alcoholics Anonymous. And in that meeting hall, I met my original sponsor, Dennis Lee.

Dennis Lee took me through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous,

you know, and I had told him that I had done some step work in rehab. I had completed my step packets. And he told me that I needed to get with him and learn what he knew about the steps. And I did that and

he just taught me how to be involved in a a man. And I know a lot of people have been taken through the steps, but my sponsor taught me how to stay in Alcoholics Anonymous as well.

And it's one of the things that I, you know, love about. My current sponsor is when I met him several years ago, with the amount of time sober that he had, he was still involved in Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I'm not trying to put anybody down, especially some man or woman with time sober, but a lot of times I think some of us kind of cut back

and and that's not what I need to be doing.

And

anyway, I, I wound up,

you know, falling in love with a A and doing, doing the deal and working around the Home group. I was the dance coordinator for several years. I, I did, I was in charge of all the Turkey stuff, Turkey lurkey dinners and all this book, you know, and it kind of felt like I was trapped in a trailer park with all these, you know, these white people in these funny ways that they dance and all of this stuff. And, you know, the way they argue about different things. There was sort of a discussion about balloons.

Well, the group didn't want to buy the balloons for the dance. And that kind of weirded me out a little bit. But I still stuck because I, because I'm hearing that, that, that in AA, if, if you're not totally comfortable, then something's not working and you got to get out of here.

And it's not just the newcomers that are spitting that garbage out. I'm hearing people with time sober saying, look, I'm not comfortable in my sobriety. A A is dysfunctional. I must figure out a way to escape,

and they're trying to sell that to me. Like that's that, that that's somehow not alcoholism.

That, that, that, that. That's this sort of weird thing going on where if they're not stable

emotionally, that somehow AAA is failing them and they must leave.

And, you know, I don't believe that that's what's happening for me.

I believe that

I'm being taught how to stay sober whether I got my shit together or not, you know, And I believe that he instilled that in me. That's what he taught me. And he told me that you can't save your face and your ass at the same time. He said. You know,

if everybody in a A decides to go get drunk, you better grab a big book and go try to help somebody stay sober

no matter what's going on in your life partner. And see, I had to deal with him like that because I grew up without a dad and I've been manipulating women all my life,

you know? And I never had like, a man, like, get in my face and deal with the reality of who I really was, you know, 'cause I didn't, I would just drink that away. And he didn't do that. He wasn't intimidated by my insanity, you know? And quite frankly, I just needed a sponsor. That was a threat to my ego,

really.

I mean, 'cause I hear people sharing that they're looking for a friend, you know, And he told me to go buy a puppy

because I hadn't done that 4th and 5th step and he wasn't really interested in a friendship with me,

you know? And that made me a little uncomfortable because when I went to the meetings, it seemed like everybody was just sort of, it was sort of a weird little subliminal Bob Marley song playing in the background. And I wasn't hearing it, you know, and everybody else was just sort of rocking to the beat. And I wasn't hearing it, you know, these people just sort of.

But nevertheless, I tried to cooperate because I started seeing how my life was crap before meeting new people.

There was nothing significantly worth nothing happening with me. And I know that a lot of people come here connected to other stuff. We're all from other social background. I talk about my story. He called me tonight wasn't happening for me before I came here.

And so with these steps and whatnot, I've started accepting the fact that I don't really think there's anything monumental out there for me without being connected to a a, you know, in other words, a, a must come first. You know, I have a decent life today. I have real problems that I primarily created for myself, but overall my life is a blessing

and I'm not here to sell anybody. Nothing, man. If you want what's out there for you in regards to what we are trying to provide for you in here and you want that instead,

that's your own affair. We can't. I, you know, I mean, this is not a hostage situation.

However, there is a rescue operation going on here and we don't allow the new people to mess it up. And I've been finding out recently they don't allow the older members to mess it up either.

I'm going into my 18th year sober.

You know, it's a miracle. Alcoholics Anonymous, man. I mean, you know, coming out of Warm Springs and going to Lancaster and then I moved to Simi Valley,

just feeling the love.

When I go and I move to Simi Valley and I see all the,

all the white people you know, in, in Simi Valley, they're all there. And if you're white, I am not trying to offend you at all. I mean, I can clearly see who my listeners are. OK?

I've been speaking for years and I, I, I, I just, you know, it just sort of felt a little weird, you know? And then I'd be coming home from one of the meetings at night and I get pulled over and they would, you know, make sure that this sector was clear or whatever.

And then I drive about three blocks, they get pulled over again, you know, and that, that came six months is all I could take, you know, and I moved, I got, I got couldn't sorry. I, I'm doing a, you know, those books back there for me to read, you know, this, you know, asking me questions and all of that. So I went ahead and now I live in Glendale. I live in Glendale.

I'm living in Glinton. This is not 1944. I am living in Glendale and I love Glendale. I love, I feel like

an Afro American Prince and an Armenian paradise

living in Glendale. Loving it. I just love it man. I do. I walk around and people are looking at me like

the police don't pull me up. I don't get. I haven't been pulled over once in Glendale. I've been living there for almost five, five years.

Police look at me and they sort of nod got a little royalty going on in England. I love it. And I and I just noticed too, that you know where I'm at today in my life. I've been on this job this past July. I've been on this job for five years, since my fifth year. The little ABA therapy. I work with autistic children in the home. I do in home therapy care

and working in this field and seeing all the stuff that I complain about is just really kind of silly.

Watching these men and women plan for children and whatnot and then winding up with that go on. And, and just, you know, and not I want to rub too close up against the 10th tradition, but it's just the stuff we whine about is just fucking ridiculous. And I am part of it. I, I get right in line with you. Where is the winding line? I want to join where, you know, the winding line is right next to the coffee line and Alcoholics and we just complain. And, you know, and watching these human beings go through these other things, it's just I'm grateful

tonight,

you know? And so when my sponsor calls and asked me to do something in regards to AAI, don't try to figure out ways to say no.

And that's what I've noticed too, is like when you ask somebody to do something and you look in their eyes, they're either working on a yes or they're working on a no. Straight out try it. After the meeting, go up to one of those new people that we met tonight and ask them, do you think you're really ought to try this thing? Look into their eyes. Scare the shit out of them.

So, DeAndre, you're scaring people out of a A. You're too serious about this crap. Lighten up. Lower your voice.

Talk softly to the newcomers,

and I'm here to share that I've been meeting so many people in the last five to seven years that have been running in and out of a a saying that they haven't been hearing certain things.

Our newcomers are not going to have that problem tonight. As loud as my ass is talking, I want you to hear something 'cause that's what happened to me, man. I heard something

and then I could connect what I heard to what I felt. And what I felt was a sense of ease and comfort that I used to get from taking that front drink.

And there's things and stuff and material and steps that are around here to help you find that. Otherwise we don't have an answer

and it don't feel good all the time either.

But it works every day that I've been here.

Every day since I've been here, it's been working,

you know, and when I hear people contradicting such views, my fight is getting a little bit, you know, it's, I'm sort of pulling back. I, I, you know, you can tell an alcoholic, but you can't tell him much.

No. And what happened for me, and I'll bring it around the corner is something

because I've been visiting with my sponsor off and on. We, me and my sponsee family friends, some of us been going up and visiting and seeing him in the meeting and stuff. And I've been sitting next to him in the meeting. And what I've been realizing is that man helped save my sorry ass life.

He took time out of his character defects, out of his shortcomings, out of his fears, out of his life with his wife, who incidentally kind of looks like a parrot. He took time out of his world to actually give a darn about me,

you know, and I just, I don't know. I mean, I know a lot of people don't have a close relationship with their sponsor or whatever, but I'm just saying, you know, when we call these people and they're like, you know, talking to us about the stuff that we're about to go get loaded over or stuff that we could wind up drinking over, and they're opening up to us. I know that we're not supposed to put people on a pedestal, but damn, it's still kind of respectful, isn't it? Based on where the hell I come from,

you know? And thank God for effective sponsorship.

You know, I just been tripping off of how, you know, he hung in there with us and we used to do some crazy stuff and they used to help keep that group going, you know, keep the group going, whatever you got to do, you know, because individuals can't survive unless there is a group. That's what my 12:00 and 12:00 tells me,

you know, and, and I'm willing to be a part of a group today

and I'm willing to ask my higher power to put my ego and my pride and myself righteousness in the back seat,

you know, so these new people can have a safe place to have that first step experience.

And it's hard to do that because I can become lustful and all kinds of areas, not just sex

and lustful about things that are not truly beneficial for people, especially people that are crawling in here with their lives at stake,

you know, And I believe that Alcoholics Anonymous has but one primary and singleness. There's a singleness of purpose that I often lose sight of because I bathe regularly now. And those people are telling me that I'm doing a good job,

and so I lose focus. And when I'm working with a newcomer, it sort of reminds me of what it's really all about, especially when I'm all done talking,

you know? And it helps me with my walk because I fall short,

you know? And one of the reasons why I think Alcoholics Anonymous has saved my life is because I've tried to give myself completely to it.

And it doesn't mean that I sit in meetings, you know, 9 hours a day.

You know, I have a lot of stuff going on with work and whatnot. But overall, you know, I'm not married, I don't have any kids. I'm in a meeting every night.

When I go to a meeting once a night

and I know that my life is so full of you know what, Probably on a lot of days that I know because my head tells me you're too busy to go to the meetings

you got to work on.

You're worrying.

There's a great show coming on tonight,

How to Kill yourself without a A

and

I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't try to make people go to the meetings. You know, all I share is my experience. And my experience is that when I have this head noise going and I can't stop it, for some reason, you people and what y'all do here slows it down

and I don't chase it so much. And then things open up and then I start thinking about other stuff.

You know?

Alcoholics Anonymous takes care of a mental illness.

It does.

Doesn't cure it, but it takes care of it. Mentally ill,

my 12 and 12 tells me in the second step that a lot of people do not understand the difference between sane drinking and being mentally ill. And I know that disturbs people 'cause they're not telling you that over at the rehabs, the Ren. I don't want to get into that

because when I got out of rehab, those people turned us a loose man. And they told us you go to a A nowadays you leave the rehab and they have somewhat of a roster, like a check sheet,

and they send you out to go look in the meetings to see if we are meeting certain criteria and then you will ask us for help.

And I'm sorry, but that takes away the urgency of my situation. Man, I was dying when I got here. I didn't have time to be doing no background check on nobody.

I want to get loaded. And I'm just grateful for you people and all the stuff we put up with when, you know, when it comes to me and, and, and, and this group, you know, I, I've been coming here for a little while now and we come down here, me and my friends on Tuesday nights at 10:00, you know, and now we've been coming on Saturdays also,

you know, this is safe place to have a first step experience. If you're a newcomer,

be a part of this thing. This is a good, good group, man. They've been around for a long time

and I've always had ever since Justin and his family. They brought me over here. They were trying to save me from Hollywood late night, I think, but they, him and his sister, they brought me over to Burbank several years ago when they were primarily new and they all of them are NAA. So I don't know who was new at the time the most. There's so many of them in a a over there. But my sponsee brother, you know, they brought me over here, you know,

and that's why I asked Jim to be my sponsor, 'cause I like I. I wonder what Justin had in regards to his relationship to this program.

This is serious here. What you know I have fun out. I can have pictures. I don't have time for myself. I was just telling my friend I'm talking right now and I'm making tired for myself while I'm talking.

While I'm sharing to you right now, I am making time for myself. So

believe in this. I need time for myself stuff. I don't believe in it. Maybe I'll get a little older and I'll think differently, but for now, I mean, I'm thinking about myself right now.

People need separate time to think for themselves. And So what I'm saying is that, you know, a lot of the stuff that I go through and, and, and, and my Alcoholics Anonymous experience is sort of outlined in the big book. And I wanted to read something real quick. I'm running out of time

and I know everybody is so busy

because I talked with my sponsor in complete candor. We don't have a lot of paperwork in between us.

This is a life and death, Aaron. I don't have time to be calling him, bogging him down with what I think. I thought, I thought, I thought,

'cause he's working with other Alcoholics and he thinks that that's what I'm supposed to be doing.

So we cut through the red tape with this book and basically it says time after time, newcomers have tried to keep to themselves certain facts about their lives, trying to avoid this humbling experience. They have turned to either your message. OK. Almost invariably they got drunk. Having persevered with the rest of the program,

they wondered why they fell. We think the reason is that they never completed their house cleaning. They took inventory all right, but hung on to some of the worst items in stock. They only thought they had lost their egoism and fear. They only thought they had huddled themselves. But they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness and honesty

in the sense we find it necessary until they told someone else all their story. And what that means in English for me,

I'm I am the thumb and the asshole of progress for me. Nobody else, nobody gets to take responsibility for my screw ups. Nobody else has to take responsibility for me back and away from a A. Nobody gets to take responsibility for me running away from that man trying to get help.

Nobody gets to take responsibility for me not wanting to get closer to my higher power.

Nobody gets to take responsibility for that.

You know what? I'm just grateful that I'm not confused about that. So you can talk soft to the new people. You can do a little weird. I mean, you can do like hip. Let's start hypnotizing them shit.

But most Alcoholics are going to wake up wanting to drink

when they snap out of it. I needed something profound and significant, but yet practical and realistic for me, you know, And I think that that's been happening so far, you know, So basically what I believe is not really important all the time, but what a A has done for me is always, it's always, it's always important,

you know, and a lot of my friends, but a lot of times sober just seem to kind of forget that,

you know? So if you are a newcomer, please join us.

We do not want to join. You

used to tell us we do not want what you have. We are trying to get rid of it,

you know, and I don't hear that a lot in the meetings anymore, but it's true, man. We have a way out. In fact, that's what they were going to call the book.

You know, we have a way out. And it's, I don't think it's a way out of our mind. It's a way out of the alcoholic pit, you know, being in that darkness with all those secrets, not telling the things that are making me thirsty,

you know? And that's not happening for me today.

You know, the transparency is important because I know how to obsess on looking good and feeling better.

You know, I know what that's like. And I'm telling you, it's not an answer for this age-old malady. Looking good and feeling better is not a cure for alcoholism,

you know. And I'm clear on that today.

So if I got a look bad and fall in A8, I just hope I'm falling forward,

you know? This is not the PTA,