The Aberdeen Wednesday Night Group's Quarterly Meeting in Aberdeen, SD

Would all of you please give an enthusiastic welcome to Earl

's?

Ah, Hi everybody. My name is Earl. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, I thank you all for asking me to come share here. It's always an honor and a privilege to do this sort of thing.

And thanks to all the fellows. Paul and all the fellows from North Dakota came down to visit. Appreciate that very much. Thanks. And

whoever cooked the tacos, thank you.

Good, Very good.

What else?

Just glad to be here. It's been quite a journey getting here. I got here via New York City, Buffalo, NY, Chicago, IL, Sioux Falls, and here. It's kind of the circuit and I'll go from here to Colorado and then Colorado home tomorrow

and meeting people everywhere. I was looking at the pamphlets that you have here. I'm a long way from home, and I went over and I was looking at the pamphlets you have over there, and they are, you know what? It's shocking, but they're identical

to the ones we have in Los Angeles. It's exactly the same stuff. Can I sit this on that

when I get in trouble right out of the gate, right?

Anyway, so

alcoholism, right? I I started drinking when I was 12 years old

and it was a really good idea.

I had been shipped off the boarding school by my father. How I found that I was going to boarding school was my father came into my room one day and said, get in the car. All right. I got in the car and with a bunch of other relatives and another car and it kind of caravanned off to this joint

and I got out of the car. My father got out of the car and nobody else got out of the car. They just kind of idled, you know, and he put a suitcase down next to me and said this will make a man out of you and shook my hand, got in the car and everybody drove off. And the fact was, was that I was being given an opportunity for a wonderful education. It's helped me in good stead to this very day.

The feeling was, was that I had just been thrown away by the people who knew me best in the world, and I didn't know what I'd done to be thrown away. So emotionally, it was a devastating experience for me. I, I was terrified. I was 12 years old, five feet tall, 104 lbs, scared of my own shadow. I didn't have any tools for living. I mean, who knows? Who needs tools for living when you're 12 years old? You know what I mean? You just do what they tell you when you're 12. Get up. All right, Go to school, right?

Come on from school, OK,

Eat fine, do your homework, of course, go to bed. And that's pretty much the day right there, getting direction the whole way. If at any point you say no, I don't want to it, it goes bad immediately. So it's very simple life. And now I'm in this school of 250 boys. They'd scoured the earth to find 250 of the brightest, most disturbed young men they could find.

It was like Lord of the Flies in this joint. It was

not a, not a not a not a friendly place. There were no electives. It was a school where you went to schools 5 1/2 days a week. You went to school half a day on Saturdays. You were informed what what courses you were taking. I had 4 1/2 years of Latin. Used that a lot.

That's come that's come in handy and

you know, UBS, Doobie, Saboobie,

that's Latin means where oh where is my underwear? That sucks. That's all I got. That's it. That's it. Thousands of dollars to learn that.

And I mean, I was just going to classes, scared to death, didn't know what I was doing there. Calling home every day, crying, telling my mother, you know, you got to come get me. This is crazy. You know, I don't belong here. It's very clear I don't belong here. And you can hear my father in the background going hang up,

gotta go click.

After about 3-4 days of this, it was like something inside me broke. And I just want, you know what, you don't want me, I don't want you. And I turn my back on my family and pretty much never went back. And when there'd be about every seven weeks, you'd get to go home for the weekend and I'd usually go with someone. I'd either stay there or go to some other kids house, you know, you know, go home with another family. Very seldom that I go home. And when I would, I really didn't have anything to do with my parents because I had one of the few jobs in the school, one of the few jobs is working. You could work in the kitchen and I got a job working in the kitchen

making $0.75 a meal and I would have them keep my money till I got a weekend pass and I'd have, you know, pretty good little chunk of money. When I, when I leave that just, you know, 7-10 weeks of that and I go home and I have a day with my little girlfriend. You know, when I get a cab, my mom and say what you want me to drive anything? No, no, I'll get a cab. I'd get a cab and go get my girlfriend, go to the movies, take her to the movies, take her cab, ride home, go home. I didn't want anything from my family. I just didn't want anything to do with them.

They threw me away. That's it.

And there was every school's got a guy named Tiny. My high school, you know, had Tiny 64240 played guard on the football team, right? And actually he found me. I didn't find him. I was just moving around trying not to make eye contact with anybody. A tiny family. He said, how you doing, punk? And he slapped me in the back of the head and sent me and my books flying. And I had this like out of body experience where I was like watching myself moving towards Tiny and when instead of my heads was saying, you know, this is a really bad idea.

As I went up and hit Tiny as hard as I possibly could.

And Tiny looked at me and said, you got a lot of guts, kidney. And he just beat the crap out of me on the spot. And as I was taking the beating, I was thinking, this is going pretty good.

This is going on, you know, it's going well because I was terrified of him. But he had just said you got a lot of guts. My violence had masked my fear. And that's what my whole life was about. I mean, my whole life was about the illusion that I could create for you. It was never about what was really going on. You never got a straight answer out of me because I was a self-centered, frightened individual. I could never tell you the truth because I had been trained very early in my life by my father and my uncles and my father's father,

right? That you play close to the vest. You don't tell anybody anything about what's going on with you. You just don't. You don't talk about your feelings. You play it close, you keep it tight. And that's just what I did. So when I would be, you know, dying a loneliness, if you asked me how I was, I just say I'm fine. I'm fine. So there was no real legitimate communication on any kind of human level going on at all in me. So, I mean, word spread across this campus like wildfire. Watch out for this little Hightower kid. He attacked Tiny. He's a lunatic, right?

So I got this now I got this Rep that's got absolutely nothing to do with who I am. I mean, I'm a 12 year old child. I'm a frightened kid, right? And now. But now I'm a lunatic, right? So the cool guys came around, the guy named Matt swung by my dorm and he said, hey, listen, you want to smoke a joint? And I said, yes, I do. So I do. And I didn't even know what he was talking about. I didn't know what that meant. I didn't understand what that was. But what I heard was, do you want to come with us? And the answer was, yeah, man, I'm like, I'm not liking this alone in the

feeling I'm having. No, let's go. Right. So we went and we picked up Steve and Steve had a Tupperware container wrapped in aluminum foil. I can see it to this day, man, this Tupperware container on them thinking, and it was wrapped in aluminum foam. I wonder what that is? And we went behind the dorm by this tree, 213 year olds and a 12 year old, three children. I look at them today and I see them all going to go, how old are you? 12? And I go, really?

That's how old I was when I started this. That's absurd,

you know,

You know, now they're coming in now getting, I mean, I, you know, I started doing, I'm 12 kind of late these days, you know what I mean? You know they can when you start drinking. Well, I was around 7:00.

Got a job in a liquor store packing boxes in the bank.

Unbelievable as Robin Cabs 8. I was eight years old.

Anyway, I was 12 and

went behind the dorm and and Matt fired up the joint and he took a hit and he gave it to me and I just did what he did and it burned my lungs. And I thought that's I don't like that, that's ridiculous. And then the wine came around, took a big pull on the wine and this is the fortified stuff. This is cheap. No grapes involved. Red wine. This is

nasty, right? Something I can't. It's an acquired taste, let's put it that way.

And I did acquire it. I did acquire the taste, but I took a pull on that and it burned my stomach and I thought, man, I don't get it. I got knots on my head from the thump when I took from Tiny. I got my stomach's burning, my lungs are burning. I don't even know these two guys, You know what I mean? Tiny's lurking around out there somewhere and it's like my life sucks. Two weeks ago, I was fine, right? And now, through no fault of my own, it looks like by next Wednesday I'll be dead

at the pace we're going here, right?

And

you know, just

it happened, that thing that makes me bodily and mentally different from my fellows occurred and suddenly the pot and the wine kicked in and suddenly I'm comfortable standing where I'm standing, doing what I'm doing with the people I'm doing it with. I never felt like that before in my life. I just, there was an eat. It's like the big book says that ease and contentment that came with the first couple of drinks. That's exactly what happened to me. It was just this feeling came over me and it was a new day. It was a new day and and I was going in a new direction and I knew it. I knew it right there. I thought,

mean the knots went away. You know, I don't know. Is it a pot? Is it the wine? Is it the fact that I'm standing here with my two very close personal friends, Matt and Steve?

All right, boys, I'm feeling that connection, right?

Tony's out there. I'll give it another shot. Bring it on, man. I got that courage. That comes in a bottle, right? I mean, it was just, you know, family doesn't want me. I don't want them to hell with them. I'm I'm OK. I was just like, I'm going to be all right. There was hope in the beginning for me

and I got to remember, you know, it's, it's nice to say, you know, alcohol did this to me and you know, you know, those other things did those things to me. But the fact is I got to remember the reason I got into this jackpot in the 1st place was that it worked perfectly in the beginning. It did precisely what I wanted it to do.

It took all the little compartments of me and it just put them all together. And I was in the world and talking to people and you know it. Life on this planet became possible. It was no longer something that I couldn't figure out. I was going to be all right. And I thought. And nobody died. Nobody went to prison, nobody went to the nut house. No blood was drawn. All those things were going to happen, but they didn't happen that night. So my experience in my head at the pillow was drink a little red wine, smoke a little weed, feel better than you've ever felt before,

no harm, no foul. Move on with your business. I thought, I'm in. I'm doing this as often as I possibly can, which was every single day for the next 16 years no matter what. And I was given many good reasons to stop along the way. But I think that's the difference between me and the problem drinker. I get the problem drinker gets drunk just like me. We look the same. Drinking, we get drunk look just the same. We both get drunk driving charges just the same.

We both go before the judge and the judge says, you know what, I'm sick of you. I see you one more time. You're going to do a year in counting and then we're going to talk,

right? Me and the problem drinker here get that same information. Both of us immediately think, well, I don't want to go to jail. And both of us immediately make the commitment to stop drinking and driving.

Now here's where we part company,

the problem drinker, having made that pledge that given that solemn oath, actually doesn't drink and drive. After that, I go home and immediately think, well, you know, I didn't say I wasn't going to drink, I just said I was not going to drink and drive. So I go home and I have a couple of drinks, perfectly reasonable. And but something happens to me when I have a couple of drinks and that psychic change occurs and suddenly I just feel the need to go somewhere.

And I've somehow truly forgotten about this deep commitment I had made not an hour before. I mean, I'm, I was the guy that if the judge said you get drunk again, we're going to have problem. And I said, your honor, I am, I'm, I, I hear you. I look,

I'm with you. We're good. Trust me, we're good. I leave the courtroom, the judge could say. Just follow him home.

This isn't going to take but a couple hours. Just follow them home. He will reappear hammered and be moving towards his vehicle. Just get him right there and bring him back. He could, he could, they could say that about me because I can't, I can't do it. I can't do it. I didn't know that. And I got to tell you something else when I was, and I'll get to 60, but when I was 16 years old, 16 1/2 years old, a guy said to me, you know, you're an alcoholic. And there was nothing in me that was offended by that.

I just, all right,

I'm, I'm an alcoholic. If this is what you call an alcoholic, OK, But if you think for a moment that's going to make me stop drinking, you're nuts. Call it what you want, but this is what I do. Is this. I'm an alcoholic. Great.

Next time somebody says, Earl, what the hell are you doing? I'll be able to say, well, apparently I'm an alcoholic

and see if that satisfies them.

I mean, it's true. I'm going to stop it. Knowing you're an alcoholic and being able to do something able or willing to do something about it is 2 entirely different things. The difference between those two things for me was 12 years from 16 to 28. So humble beginnings, a little pot and a little red wine.

13 was pills. The only reason I took a pill was the guy said would you like a pill? And I said yeah. Again, knowing, having no idea what we're really talking about. Couple of two and alls, you know, 20 minutes later laying on the floor. Very happy down there.

Don't see any problem with laying on the floor.

People do it all the time.

So I got strong and I'm placidal. Second all tunnel, all that stuff, right? I don't even think they make that anymore. I don't know, do they?

You're the wrong crowd to ask, clearly.

Go down to the bar, ask them.

You make two and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Here's two right here. You're gonna have to

14 was psychedelics. Dropped the acid with a lovely girl. Debbie. Debbie

Bad girl loved her.

She said would you like to have some ass? And I said, well, of course I would, Debbie.

The next two days were very interesting. I'm going to speed this up 15. I started shooting dope. The only reason I shot dope was because

another girl Cami, very nice girl,

Cammy said would you like me to stick this in your body? And I said, well, yes, I would, Cammy.

And she didn't. It was one of those shots where you just kind of go

right

and on the way down I was just thinking, if I'm not dead, I am doing this again. That was fantastic.

It was one of those moments where you're you're having a really troubled day and then just, no, I'm not.

I'm not having a troubled day. I can't even remember what I was upset about.

And and again I'm I'm mentioning drugs, but identify as an alcoholic and the reason I'm a child of the 60s. We were very focused on the drugs, very focused on the drugs because our parents were the Alcoholics and we were trying to carve out our own identity here. We weren't going to kill ourselves, drink ourselves to death the way our parents were. We're going to kill ourselves in an entirely new way. We were getting our own identity. But the fact of the matter is this, for me,

the drugs would come and go, but there was only one thing that was on the table every single day, and that was alcohol. And I believe that alcohol was on the table every single day for one simple reason. Drugs are completely unreliable and they are. There's no quality control going on out there. You don't know what you've got until you get it in your body. This is when you know if we're going to be all right or not. So you always got to have a fit, the Jack Daniels or a Court of good Gin sitting there. Because if you've got that, it really ultimately

doesn't matter how the little drug exchange goes. You got what you need. You're going to get where you need to get because Jack is present,

right? You do so much cocaine you can't get your mouth open anymore. Just

and it's only 7:00 and the parties just started and you've completely overshot the mark. One more time doesn't make any difference. It doesn't make any difference. You suck a little gin through your teeth, you loosen your eye up, you can go on with the party. You'll be fine.

The heroines lousy, doesn't matter. Jack Daniels will get you where you got to, get man to that cool, quiet heart and lungs work in place where there's just nothing else going on. Jack will get you the rest of the way. And then the end. For me, it was all about the alcohol. All about the alcohol for me. I didn't have time to mess with, trying to be cool,

you know, it was business, you know what I mean? Had to happen. I started drinking. I was, I was one of those guys that drank when I, if I was awake, I was drinking. I woke up. I drank in the end. So 16, I went to my first nut house. They put me in for three months of observation and a year of rehabilitation, which I thought was a little excessive.

And I got very compliant, though, when they started doing the signing, you know, bringing up the forms to sign you up for the shock therapy. Like, you know, I'd seen the guys come sliding back from the shotgun. I mean, sliding back from the shock therapy. I thought, Nope, Nope, Don't want the little rubber triangle in my mouth. What was that question again? I'll be happy to answer that for you.

And so I finally talked my way out of there that first time. Second time they locked me in the nut house. I escaped.

First time I tried to escape, I found out

they give you these 3 cups of pills a day and if you act up at all you get a shot and you're just shuffling around inside this joint with everybody else. You know what I mean? So when you go to make your move and it's not there, when you when you're ready to go, ready, ready, go,

you know, that's it. That's all I'm asked. That's all you got. That's when you know, it's the cups and pills, man. You got to get out before they get the Thorazine in you because they get that Thorazine in you. You're leaving when they say you got.

You don't have a fast move,

so the second time I escaped the first day just shot out of there like a cannon and hit the streets. I spent three years out on the street doing what we do to stay loaded on a daily basis.

You know, just a common St. drunk. It's what I was. I mean, there was nothing. I thought it was going to be, you know, great. Me and Jack Kerouac, man on the road. You know what I mean? This was going to be the stuff legends are made of. Couldn't have been further from the truth, man. It was just me being a pathetic drunken loaded guy out doing what we do. You know, just my and slowly but surely my alcoholism progressed

so that it was no longer

something over there. It was something in here. And it had taken over my life. It had it had become the central core element to how I spent every waking moment had to do with getting ready to get high, being high, recovering from being high, figuring out how I'm going to get out of the trouble I got into when I was high, not liking the feelings I was feeling when that was going on. So needing to get high again and doing what was necessary to make that possible. And that was my loop. That was just where I lived and it just got

world got smaller and smaller and smaller. When I was 20 years old, I got diagnosed with malignant cancer and I was living on Northern California, become a drug dealer and the only reason I was a drug dealers, I had no morals. I had no ethics. I had no sense of family. I had no sense of community. I didn't have any of those things. I didn't know anything about anything. I was just, this is just what I did. I was loose. I hadn't been parented since I was 12 years old. I didn't have any idea

how to engage in anything that had anything to do with the kind of things that I had learned as a child in terms of what was right or what was wrong. So I ended up just loosen out there, got diagnosed with malignant cancer, flew back to Lai. Remember, they were sitting with me and my mother and the doctor was sitting with me and my mother and the guy said, listen, this isn't good. I went, yeah, I got that cancer bad. I get it, you know, But I mean, still just, you know, not a reality based individual. I mean, there was

real moment in any of this where I was sitting there thinking, wow, I'm really in trouble or wow, you know, this could this could kill me. None of that was sinking in for me. I could see my mother was upset and they were saying, you know, you need to get your affairs in order. And I just was like, that was funny to me. OK, affairs. And I'm like 20 years old. I've been a drug addict since I'm 12. I make a couple of phone calls. We're good to go, You know what I mean? I don't have a lot happening, you know what I mean? I don't have any affairs to get together. So I

Northern California flew up, saw her, let her know what's going on, came back to LA that had major surgery on my upper back and they prepared me to die, prepared my family to die, put me in chemo, but they called it nuclear medicine back then. So I was in the nuclear medicine program and I didn't like that I wasn't getting a buzz off of their stuff at all. So I just left and I beat it. I've been on a long term cancer survivor. It's been like 3035 years. And that has,

you know, that would be nice applause if there was, if I had done anything to support that process,

you know what I mean? But I didn't, I mean, I was completely a part of the problem. And it was, that was a great example of pretty much every other area of my life. You know, there were. There was within me, I think a desire to try to have some value, but I could never

manifest that at all in any way, shape or form. I was just spiraling downward. When I was 21, my mother called me and just said, listen, you know, we haven't done anything as a family in almost 10 years. For you, 22nd birthday, let's just get together as a family and go somewhere. We'll do anything you want. Let's just do it as a family. And I said fine,

and I flew back to LA and we took off the flight of Guadalajara, Mexico. And on the way there, the plane crashed. And my mother, my father, my little sister all died in the crash and I didn't. And I woke up on this mountain and met in this like, not a mountain. It's like Noel in Mexico. And

I was sitting in the plane crash and my seat had been thrown out of the plane and I was sitting in my seat. I don't know why I'm talking about this. I never talked about this, but I'm sitting in my seat. And I remember thinking, oh, and I looked and my mother was laying over there and my little sister Kimberly was laying right over there. And my father was laying right over there. And I thought, I have to help them. And I unbuckled my seat belt and I just fell out into the mud because my back was broken and I couldn't move. And I mean, my arm was messed up and my leg and my back and my skull was fractured. And the only thing I moved

right arm, but I was awake and I watched them all bleed to death and I swore I'd never love another human being again as long as I lived. And there was and I renounced God. I had no love of God. I had no love of my fellow man. I'm never going to tell you the truth about who I am again because this loving and being loved thing, man, I am out. You know, I, I don't know how to do it. It's all too painful. I couldn't take it. I just everything in me just kind of broke. It broke my heart. It just shut me down as a human being. And some, some guys came up to

the plain site and I remember I took my wallet out and had my driver's license in my hand because I knew I was dying. I just wanted to know who I was. And they, they took my wallet, took my money and moved through the wreck and took what they could find. Then split. They scavenged the planes, the wreck site and then left me up there to die. And I remember thinking, I'm, I got no love for you either, man, I'm out. So I was just one crazy angry

little alcoholic drug addict and some other guys came up and they took me by a by a in a flatbed truck with my mother down to

Mexican aid station and tagged us all dead and I didn't die. So they finally they took me to the hospital hospital Fatima and Los Mochis, Mexico. And I stayed there for quite a while in the federales came in and they interrogated me through an interpreter for 3 1/2 days. Want to kind of what I was doing back in Mexico because a little issue with the Mexican government that we don't need to get into right now. But let's just say they were not thrilled to see me. And I call some buddies of mine in Northern California who flew a plane down and

paid some guys off. And they plastered me from the neck down, put me in a body cast and, and, and flew me out of Mexico into Southern California. And I was in a hospital for quite a while. There came out of there nuts, nuts, getting maximum shots of Demerol every three hours around the clock. It was crazy. And it's crazy. I was crazy. And I got out of there and I went on my last run and it lasted for six years. And it's the kind of run where you don't have any anchors left. You don't have a family,

you don't have a wife or kids or a career

or any kind of real goals of any idea. There was nothing there for me to kind of hold it together for. And I just went nuts. And about four years into this, I would go every once in a while I'd get so sick I couldn't use anymore. And I would go this little bootleg sanitarium in Hollywood where you give them 150 cash and they take you in strap. You will Gurney shoot your full anti convulsions, let you kick for 72 hours. And then they'd sit you up and say behaviour's out. All right, all right. And then you'd run off into the night, right. And I'd done this as like

3rd or 4th time I'd done this. And I mean, 72 hours in, I'm still kicking like a dog, man. I mean, I'm not done detoxing at all, right? But they'd sit me up. And I remember this nurse, she seemed like, and it's, you know, when you're in a joint like that and they seem particularly upset about you, that's not good, you know? And the nurse comes up to me. She goes, Earl,

don't you know that you're an alcoholic and a drug addict? I said. Yes, ma'am, I know. I know.

I mean, no hesitation, nothing inside me going. Yeah, just, you know, appease her. No, I yeah, I'm an alcoholic. I guess she goes, you know, for you to drink or use is just nuts. Boy, you just, you know, you haven't been having any fun. You have not been partying. You have not been getting high. You need to look at your words because those words don't fit what you're doing. You just feed the beast, boy. That's all you do is just feed the beast. You just try to get it back to 0 'cause you're in pain all the time. I can see it in your eyes

like a little old man and you're dying. And if you don't want to die, you better, better not drink or use anymore. And I just said no ma'am, I'm not an idiot. And I meant it, man. It was almost like she, I mean, she was that close to quoting the book. Now her armed with this self knowledge, you're not going to drink anymore, are you? No, ma'am,

Walk right after the parking lot, take 4050 milligrams of allium because I'm shaking real bad. And that's clearly what's medically indicated, you know, And I get behind the car and four days later I come two in a different city, and I don't even know how I got there. I know. I mean, it was over. It was over. And I went and drank for two more years.

You know, there was not at that point, there was nothing in my life you could look to and say, well, that's going pretty good. I mean, there wasn't anything like that. And I still another two years of just banging it out out there. And I came out of my last blackout and I was the day before I was 28 years old. My hands were busted. They were deciding whether or not to charge me with attempted murder. And I'm I'm the most peaceful guy you'll ever meet in your life, man. But drink, you know how we get

We take exception to things.

The imagined insult is the worst.

It's a quote a friend of mine

and

I had the moment of clarity that they talk about in recovering. The moment for me was I wasn't connected to another human being in the face of the Earth, on the face of the earth. And that was the direct result of my actions, my behavior.

You don't know if somebody said to me, you're lonely, I would have just gone. What are you talking about? You know, because when you've been alone, when you haven't been connected to anybody for a long, long time and you've been alone on with what's inside you for a long, long time, and you haven't had a legitimate conversation with another human being that had any measure of truth or personal exposure in it at all

for a long, long time.

You don't know that you're lonely anymore. Lonely is compared to something else is like you're around a bunch of people, you got friends and suddenly you don't. Wow. I feel real lonely because I I miss the human contact. I didn't miss human contact. I hadn't had it for so long. I didn't even know that I was lonely. I didn't know that's what it was. So I mean, it's really, I mean, I think a lot of people when they say the newcomers, you know, you got to learn to identify your feelings. I think a lot of people, normal people think, well, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. But you know what, it's the truth. We come in we

to identify our feelings. When somebody says how are you feeling right now? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how I feel. Well, you seem really angry.

Oh

all right,

so what's behind the anger? What do you mean? What's behind the anger from angry. I'm angry, you know well, I'll for me it's always fear. Self-centered fear is the chief. It's like when you read the 12 and 12 and this on step 7 about second last page, step seven in the 12 and 12 halfway down the page talks about self-centered fears. The chief activator of all my defects of character. I'm paraphrasing it says we're either I'm either afraid of losing what I have or not getting what I want, rejection or abandonment. And that's that's me in a nutshell right there. If you walk up on,

just walk up a little early on, man, it was funny. Must have been funny to watch me in a meeting. Somebody coming up on me just a little too quick.

What are you doing?

That's all you had to do. It end up on my inventory was just approach a little too quickly. Jesus, what do you, you know, 'cause you're scaring me and you're gonna come up. You look, you look all happy

and you're gonna ask those questions that you people ask,

you know, like, how are you?

What's up? I have no idea how you doing? Don't know. Got nothing to compare it to. Hate talking to you. Does that count?

I hate talking to you. Get away from me.

There was a woman that remember her name is Raj. She's over a long time. She saw me in my first few meetings and people asked her what was he like? And she doesn't even use words. She just goes, oh,

shakes her head and I'm like, come on. And she goes, You were so angry.

And now I look back and I go, wow, really? I looked angry because, man, I was just scared. I was so scared. I was scared that you were going to find out the things that I had done. And if you found out the things that I had done, you were going to ask me to leave because that's what reasonable people would do when you looked like reasonable people. So I couldn't, I came in here knowing right out of the gate, I can't tell these people the truth. I can't tell you either. I got no place else left to go. So I can't get thrown out of here. I got to stay here. So I'll just be sitting in the back. And I mean, I came in with my alcoholism in full effect. I mean

that that moment of clarity hit, you know what I mean? In 47 days later, I've done a free cot in a hospital, 42 cots in one room. That's where I went. That was my treatment program, right? 42 cots, 21 cots on each side of the room with sheets drawn between it, right? The guy laying next to you on this cuts, you know, hasn't been outside more than six months since 1958,

you know, and he's looking at you like, how you doing, kid? He's like, oh, don't talk to me.

You know when you sleep like sleep facing him.

God man, my life sucks.

End up in the basement of a church on a Friday night a a meeting. Back wall, arms folded, hair out like this, beard like this. Psychotic, right? And I'm not using the term loosely.

This was

testimony to the human skull that that much pressure can be going on in there and you're not just sitting. We should be sitting around in meetings and just every once in all some newcomers head just blow up.

This head just explode and slump over. Now have a special cleanup crew just rushes right in, cleans that all up. And that's why they put the newcomers in the front. So you know, if one of them blows in the back, you don't see it's like meetings up front. Don't just don't pay attention to that. What happened to him? New guy

sitting in the back just

oh God, you know, knowing where the doors and the windows are, you know, trying to scan the room, find the guys got the juice in the room, seems to have the power in the room. Slide up on him, burglarize the conversation, find out what they got going on in here and get out. That was my plan. That was my going to a a plan. Find out how they don't drink and then split looked up on the wall, 12 steps, got it. All right. What else you got

all right? Traditions for the group. I'm not a group, don't need that.

You know, just banging around inside my head, you know what I mean and people and every mean he's got the new the guy who's just caught fire with A and a you know he's going to give it away tonight, right, That my guys name was Vegas N and Vegas with blonde guy, real Nordic looking guy, right? Everything on him was light. That's just right. I remember seeing him when he came powering down the aisle at me. You know everybody, you know, like the old guy saw like woof, when I walked in, they were just like,

get a cup of coffee, get yourself a seat. Good luck with all that going on over there

and they didn't get near me right because they knew that guys too scared don't move on him too quick. Let's just give him a little room. They knew which was exactly the way to treat me. Just let him be here right, because they knew if you just come up because they'd been me that was nothing special about me. They'd all bend me but Vegas, who just caught fire they he saw me. All he saw was new guy and here he came and I'm just like mad dogging him and just like

he's trying to get him to veer off before he got to me. You know what I mean?

Nothing had any effect on this guy whatsoever. He walked up, he said hi, I'm Vegas. I'm an alcoholic, you know, I just said great,

me too. It ain't exactly the highlight of my life. Don't know what you're so happy about. Go away.

And he looked at me and he said, keep coming back. And I remember thinking, oh, great, keep cut. Saw that little slogan on the wall earlier, Greg, keep coming back. Apparently there's some deep spiritual significance of that. I have no idea what it is. Those three guys standing over the left over there, Those guys are all going on Juicy. Vegas told the new guy to keep going back, right?

And I'm thinking, OK, I don't know. Everybody else clearly knows what the deep meaning of that is. I don't. I lose again. I hate this

love and a a so far, man. Just thanks a lot for swinging by to point out the fact that I'm the idiot in the room Vegas. Thank you. And off they all went. If you're new and we do that to you, hit you with the slogans, right? Keep coming back one day at a time. Oh my favorite. Hey, let's turn it over. Let's turn it over. Have more guts than I did. Just step up to us, man. Just step up and say, excuse me, I don't understand the deep spiritual sign