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

Hi, everybody. I'm Don Landis. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Don. And thanks to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, strong sponsorship, 12 steps.

The things I've been taught to do here in my time in Alcoholics Anonymous, I haven't had a drink since September 16, 1991. And for that, I'm very grateful. And I certainly hope that you're applauding for Alcoholics Anonymous because if you're applauding for me, that's the wrong thing to applaud for. I am a low bottom drunk. And, in my recovery, I'm a meat and potatoes AA member.

I'm not a circuit speaker. I am not a guy that bases my recovery on this. I'll be honest with you. The most dangerous thing I do in my recovery is this. Because, oh, you know, the ego is still alive.

Trust me. You know? And, and, you know, you get on a plane and you think about those people you haven't met yet, and those new friends you're gonna meet in Aberdeen, and you're and you go, Jesus. How did this happen? You know?

One day, the LAPD is dragging me out of the car, and they're sticking a shotgun in my ear going, give me a reason, punk. You know? And then and then it seems like a short time later, you're getting on a plane to go speak in AA. You know, and it's a dangerous thing for me to ever think that I have anything to do with the good that's transpired in my life. Then I'm a guy that got a second chance, Got a second chance in the game of life because of Alcoholics Anonymous and because of good sponsorship and the men that came before me that have shown me the way I've been able to make use of that second chance.

I'm just grateful to be here. I I think it's an honor and a privilege just to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, just to be able to come to meetings with people like you on a on a daily basis or a weekly basis, whatever your schedule is, you know, be able to enjoy the gift of sobriety one more day. A gift that for a long time, I didn't think I wanted. And then once I wanted it, I knew I'd never have it. I knew I'd never make it in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Because the previous 6 years before I got to AA, I tried everything I could think of to stop drinking. And there was always one more attempt and one more failure. So when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I didn't even come here to get sober. I was in trouble. Fancy that.

And I came here to get the heat off, you know, figure out my next move and buy some time. And the fact that I've been able to stay here and that I haven't had to take a drink in over 15 years, and more importantly, I'm not fighting to drink. I'm comfortable in my own skin. I'm comfortable with my own thoughts. The best people I've ever had in my life are in place in my life today.

I'm not just grateful, I'm amazed. And I'll tell you, it didn't look like it was going to start out that way. Before I get any more self involved, I want to take a minute to thank everybody that's associated with this meeting for taking the time. I know it takes a lot of energy and a lot of effort by AA members to put something like this together. And I know the thought that you give it, and you want it to do good, and you're trying to create an environment where recovery can happen.

And that takes an essential ingredient, and it takes love. You know, you can call it a lot of other things, but, you know, you gotta love your fellow alcoholic to be willing to be inconvenienced for them. Be willing to put something together so people can come and partake of the the fruits of recovery. And I wanna thank everyone that's associated with this meeting. And I wanna thank my friend John who picked me up at, you know, 10:30 at night last night.

Had a big smile on his face and took me to the motel and made sure I got fed tonight and got here on time. And, he's a good AA member. And I met some of his cronies, and we got to talk a little bit. And, I've been fortunate enough in Alcoholics Anonymous. Every now and then, I get to travel a little bit, and we're all the same, you know.

You meet those AA guys, and you could see it in their eye. They're just glad they got a second chance at the game of life. They're just so grateful. They just you know, and you tell those war stories, and you go, did you ever think it was gonna turn out like this? Did you ever think it was gonna be okay?

And the answer is no. Had no reason to suspect it. Had no reason. And I'll tell you, I didn't start drinking in earnest till I was 17 years old. That's not my first drink.

I'm not interested in my first drink. Yeah. It bores me. I'm sure I did some drinking in the years leading up to that. You know, a beer here, a drink there.

But 17 years old is when I threw my first drunk. And why that's important for me is you see, that's where I got enough alcohol on board in one setting to get there. Because alcohol, as much as anything, it transports me. It takes me to the land of I don't care. And I get to step out easy and those rough edges become smooth.

And it's not that I become better looking or I dance better or I think that your girlfriend would rather be with me. I just don't care about those things anymore. Because before I throw that first drunk when I'm 17 years old, I got all the alcoholic precursors going on in my life that you hear about in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I got all that stuff, and I don't know. I don't get into the debate whether I was born alcoholic or whether I became an alcoholic.

I'm not quite sure when I crossed that invisible line from controlled to uncontrolled drinking. But I know this, I was a goofy kid growing up, and I was self obsessed, and I was self centered to my core. I'm the kind of guy that knows how he looks in 17 different angles at all times. I mean, I'm not much, but I'm all I think about. I'm the kind of alcoholic.

I will get you in a corner and talk incessantly about myself for half an hour straight. Realize I'm doing that? Go, wait a minute. Enough about me. What do you think of me?

And and these are not things that are produced by me drinking alcohol. These are things that are taken care of when I drink alcohol. You see, there's always been a wall between me and the world. There's always been a been a wall between me and you. And I've never been able to see it, but I know it's there.

I've always felt uncomfortable in my skin, like I can't reach out and touch you. I can play sports with you. I can hang out with you socially. I can go to school with you. I can work with you.

I can do all these things that put us in these social situations where we're supposed to be having a common bonding experience. We're supposed to be breaking through. We're supposed to be getting close to each other, and I can't connect with other human beings. And when I drink alcohol, the wall comes down. And that's magic for a guy like me.

I can reach you. I can talk to you. I like you. I know you like me. I don't even have to ask.

All that happens when I drink alcohol, and that's very valuable to me when I discovered that when I was 17 years old. And I didn't get a 5th of Jack Daniels and go on a crime spree, and I didn't head for a skid row. I just knew I liked it, and I knew I was gonna be doing more of it. And I gotta tell you, the early part of my drinking, I mean, it was trouble free. It really was.

I wasn't picking up a tab. Didn't seem to be getting any real scrapes in 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, basically trouble free. I wasn't standing in courtrooms in front of judges trying to explain my latest event of outrageous behavior. I wasn't standing in front of my mom with her crying her eyes out going, don't you know you're killing yourself? I didn't have girlfriends hiding in closets because we're afraid they're gonna get smacked around in my latest drunken rage.

Those type of things, I guess, when I was 23, you could have labeled them yet to be added to my story. And I was having such a good time with the drink when I was 23, 22 years old, that if god almighty walked into the bar I was drinking in, and it sat down on the barstool next to me and said, Don, the next drink, the next drink, it's gonna pass you into a region where there's no return through human aid. You're gonna have to go to Alcoholics Anonymous for the rest of your life or die a horrible alcoholic death. I'd have told god almighty, you got the wrong guy. Because it was working for me.

From my toes to my head, from the inside out. It's letting me be anything I wanna be, not feel anything I don't wanna feel. And I'm getting into trouble, but I can drink through trouble. That's not a big deal. And it's not that my alcoholism and the way that I was drinking wasn't a problem for the people that cared about me or the people that were around me.

I can't tell you how many times I had a girlfriend standing in front of me, crying her eyes out, going, don't you know how I feel? Like, not really. Because I'm drinking. And when I'm drinking, I really have no ability to connect with another human being. Just doesn't get to me.

I wish that the I wish that the trouble it caused for me was some incentive or the trouble it caused for other people was some incentive for me to change, but it's not. You see, it's not a problem for me until it's a problem for me. But a very interesting thing happened to me by the time that I was 25 years old. And what happened for me by the time I was 25, I had what the big book refers to as self knowledge. You know, no justification, no rationalization, no framing, no spin doctor.

I knew the drink was killing me. I knew that every negative aspect of my life was associated with the drink. I knew every plan I put into motion and failed to hit the finish line right alongside that was a drink alcohol, and I got it. And I remember thinking, god, they've been talking to me about my drinking for years, and I just thought they had the wrong guy. Now I understand.

And I did what a lot of us do when we have that for the very first time in our life, that self knowledge. I made the declaration. I told everybody I knew I was quitting drinking. So don't try to tempt me. And I absolutely knew I was gonna stop drinking.

I knew it'd be no problem. You know why? Because I'm a man. And you know what a man does when he finds out he has a problem with something? You just knock it off.

You just knock it off. You pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and you just knock it off. And I didn't come to Alcoholics Anonymous, and I didn't get a sponsor, and I didn't work your 12 golden steps wrapped in a ribbon of promise, and I quit drinking for 2 weeks. And the funny thing about that 2 weeks is in that 2 weeks, all the outside stuff that they can see, it starts looking better. I mean, the laundry starts getting done.

I start showing up to work 5 days a week, which is kinda new for me at that point. And I'm getting all the affirmation and all the people that love me the most that you think somebody would wanna receive who just made a life changing decision, giving up the booze. They're saying all the right things. They're saying, we're so glad you quit drinking. We thought you're gonna die.

We thought we're gonna lose you. It's all gonna be okay, Don. It's We thought you're gonna die. We thought we're gonna lose you. It's all gonna be okay, Don.

And, man, I wanna believe that. So I'm saying it back to them, and I'm saying giving them things like, thanks for hanging in there with me. I don't really know what that was all about. You know, I'm working out again. You know, I don't miss it at all.

I feel fine. And our big book talks about that. It says, we laugh at such a Sally. Inwardly our man would do anything to take a couple of drinks. And that's where I was because in here where my soul lives with everyday that goes by since my last drunk, I'm getting more irritable and restless and discontent and confused and baffled because for years you've been telling me that drink my problem.

You know what? I agree with you, and I'm not drinking. So why do I wanna kill myself or kill somebody else? And you see, at 25 years old with no Alcoholics Anonymous, I'd never been to AA, so I hadn't read your book and I hadn't got to the part in the book that said for the real alcoholic, he will absolutely be unable to stop drinking on the basis of self knowledge. So I'm trying to quit drinking on the things that I naturally bring to the game.

See, every human being brings these things naturally. We bring our instincts. We bring our intellect. We bring our emotions. And why these things work really well for me in a lot of areas of my life, in the game alcoholism, they will kill me dead.

I cannot think my way out of my alcoholism. And I tried to do that. It made perfect sense to me that if the drink is killing me and I put it down, everything's gonna get better. And I put the drink down and everything got worse. And after 2 weeks of recovering from my own program, which consists of don't take anything that affects you from the neck up and tell everybody how happy you are about it, I picked up a half pint.

And I did what most of us do after that brief period of recovery, you drink that half pint and it gives us what it always gave us, it gives us that relief. In the doctor's opinion, it says guys like me drink essentially for the effect produced by alcohol. And what is the effect? You think you're better looking than you are, I don't know what the effect is for you. For me, in a word, it's relief.

It's relief from what swirls around in my head when I'm in a silver state. It's those, do I fit in? Do they like me enough? Am I good enough? It's the resentments that I live with on a daily basis.

It's all the worry, all the contortions that my mind puts me through on a daily basis. It's that big dark secret I carried ever since I was a little boy that I swore I'd never tell anybody. And I finally told a man in Alcoholics Anonymous. And what the secret is and it's I've talked to enough men I've sponsored. It's all the same.

Life is always felt a little bit too big for me. See, all that goes away when I drink whiskey. All that goes away. And for a lack of a better explanation, when I drink, no matter what's going on in my life, drinking enough whiskey in one setting produces a feeling in me that vaguely resembles hope. And what is hope?

Hope is in spite of all the information you might have in front of you. That billboard size information that says, it's never gonna be okay. It's never gonna get any better. I drink whiskey and I can imagine anything. You know, I can drink whiskey and sit back and go tomorrow.

I'm gonna go into work and I'm gonna clean up all those files I got hidden in my bottom desk drawer. You know, tomorrow, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna call my mom up and I'm gonna tell her how sorry I am. I'm gonna start paying back that money I brought from her. You know, tomorrow, I'm gonna call up the IRS. I'm gonna clean up all those years of taxes because this is no way to live.

Tomorrow, I'm gonna quit drinking. And I make those promises to myself over and over again with a belly full of whiskey, and it makes perfect sense. And I'm hopeful, and I'm strong, and I know it's gonna be different tomorrow. And then tomorrow I wake up, and I'm hungover, and I just want to get to work because the job's always in jeopardy. And I can't look anyone in the eye because I fiscally don't feel good.

And by 10 o'clock, I start to feel a little bit better, and by 12 o'clock, I'm able to choke down some food. And all day long, I tell myself I'm not drinking that night, how I'm dying from my drinking, how this has to stop. And about 3 o'clock every day, I have what's known as the miracle of 3 o'clock, which is after a whole day of promising myself I'm not going to drink that night. I have what the book refers to as the thought that precedes the first drink. And this little voice says, we'll just have a couple.

Precedes the first drink. And this little voice says, we'll just have a couple. And what happened to my plan? And I get excited, and the 2 voices start arguing out of my head. What happened to our plan?

We're not drinking tonight. Well, we're just gonna have a couple. What happened to our plan? We're not drinking tonight. We're not gonna go to the bar for god's sakes.

What happened to my plan? We're not gonna drink tonight. Well, it's not like I'm gonna buy any drugs. I'm just gonna do a little drinking at home. I won't get in any trouble.

And at 5 o'clock, I'm at the liquor store, and I'm pointing at the bottle and they're putting it down, and I know I shouldn't be doing this. I know where it takes me every time. And I go home and I pour 4 to 6 ounces of whiskey in a glass with ice, and I swirl it twice. I take about half of that down. Takes the air right out of your lungs.

And you get some air pump back in there, and I finish that 4 to 6 ounces. And I repeat 2 or 3 times as recommended. And then I wait. And I sit back on the couch, and all the things have been bothering me all day long, all the failure, all the heartache, all the trouble I'm in, all that I've taken, every good thing that's ever come into my life and I've torn it to shreds, all of that goes away, and it changes. And the things that I worry so much about, I can still think about it, but now they don't bother me.

I'm so worried that she's gonna leave me. You know what? Let her go. I found her. I'll find another.

I'm thinking about that job I'm about to lose. You know what? They are lucky to have me. I'm thinking about the IRS. Big deal.

I'll change my Social Security card. All these problems get resolved over a couple of drinks sitting on my couch and my life goes nowhere. I pulled the big geographic in 85. I knew that Los Angeles was the problem for all my loadie friends were. It's where I built this reputation as Johnny Saturday night.

They expected me to drink. They expected me to party. You You know, it's all that temptation, you know. You try to tell people you're not drinking and there they are shoving drinks in your face. How's anyone gonna get sober in that environment?

So I moved to Boston, found out much to my chagrin, they drink in Boston. I think they drink more. And I stayed in Boston for 3 years, and you know the story. You know, the downward spiral. You know?

And it started some things started getting added into my story at that point. They've never been a part of my story. I started going to jail, and I'd love to tell you some great criminal story about this tough guy. Isn't that's not how I go to jail. You see, the problem is I start to drink at home, and I'm not gonna go out because I get in trouble when I go out.

But there's a certain point in that process where I get enough whiskey on board, I just can't stay home because it's out there, and it's happening right now. And I'm gonna miss it. And besides, they're gonna miss me because I add I add 2 at this point. I got a little whiskey in me. I know I'm the life of the party.

And I go out, and I love to get drunk, and I love to go to the bars, and I love to dance, and I love to fight, and I love to do all that crazy alcoholic stuff. And then I get too drunk, and now it's time to go home. And, I'm walking home, and I just get tired. You know how it is you've been drinking whiskey all night, and you got about a mile walk home. You you just wanna rest for a minute.

You just wanna just catch your breath. And I sit down and and I fall asleep. And, somebody calls the police because there's a big guy on their front lawn. And, and they come and they take me away. And I wake up in a jail cell, and I don't know what I did or why I got there.

And I'll tell you, it's the through repetition, living the way that I was living, it was astounding to me the things that I got used to. The first time I came out of a blackout and I was in a jail cell, I was shocked. And I thought, I wasn't raised this way. You know, I was our graduating class athlete. I left high school with a 3.5 GPA.

I was supposed to go play basketball at a major university. Fear didn't open the first envelope, didn't open the first piece of paper from the university. Big book tells me the fabric of our existence is shot through with it. It says that fear ought to be classed with stealing. It seems to cause more trouble.

Did in my case, couldn't get out of my own way. Fear paralyzes me. And when I'm drunk, it kills the fear, but I can't do anything. And I came out of that blackout in that jail, and I thought to myself, this will never happen again. But I'll tell you, the 15th time you come out of a blackout in jail, it's very different.

You come to and you go, wow. This is jail. I don't know which jail. And you just wonder what you did, and you wonder about how much trouble you're in. And I just got used to that stuff.

I got used to having to borrow $20 on Monday morning because I'd blown my paycheck drinking on the weekend. I got used to making those sweet promises to my family about how it was gonna be different this time and how it wasn't gonna ruin the holidays, just to ruin them again. I got the u I got used to doing things like being down on my luck, and my mom calls me up. She lives in Lexington, Kentucky, and she goes, I haven't seen my favorite son in a while, and I I really need to see you. And, and I gotta tell my mom I'm broke or I'd do it.

And she goes, well, you know what? I'm doing okay right now. I'll buy you a ticket. You know, so my mom buys me a ticket at Christmas to go to Lexington, Kentucky. And I went out the night before I was supposed to fly out there, and I met her, you know, And we trudged the road of happy destiny, and I come to, and I've missed my flight.

And you think that a guy would pick up the phone and take the heat, call his mom, and go, you know what, mom? I blew it. You know, I'm really sorry I missed my flight. I'm not going to be there for Christmas. But, that's not what an alcoholic like me does.

Because you know what? They might be mad at me. They might hurt my feelings. I'm embarrassed enough about that. So I just start drinking in the morning.

I pass out and go back to sleep. And my mom gets up, and it's Christmas time, and she's so excited. She's gonna see her favorite son that she bought a ticket for, and she she gets dressed, you know, and she drives that rickety car that she drives. She drives it down in the airport, and there's a pounding rainstorm in Lexington at that time. But she doesn't even see the rain.

She doesn't even bother her because she's gonna go see her favorite son. And she's out there with her umbrella and the tarmac, and she's watching them get off the plane, and she just knows it's the next guy getting out of the plane. She's looking for the big guy that has to lift up when he comes out because she knows he's gonna be there. And finally, there's nobody getting off the plane. And the ground and the crew's coming out of the plane, and they're walking by my mom standing in the pouring rain in Lexington, Kentucky.

She goes, there must be a mistake. There's gotta be somebody left on that plane. My son's supposed to be on that plane. No. I'm sorry, ma'am.

There's nobody else on the plane. And she gets back in her car, and she drives back to that little apartment that she lives in by herself in Lexington, Kentucky. And she sits at the dining room table and she starts to cry because she knows I'm going to die and I'm beyond human aid. And I don't find out these things at the time. I find out these things through a program called Alcoholics Anonymous.

And when we go through the 8th 9th step in the immense process, and I made that list of all the things I had done wrong and all the people I had hurt, I had a preconceived idea because I live my life based on what I bring to the game. My intellect, my instincts, and my emotions. So I am so grandiose. I will think I know how I hurt you. I know what I did wrong.

You spend all that money for that plane ticket. That that's what pissed you off. And I go and I make those amends with family members and I say what I think I did wrong, and I ask what I can do to make it right. And then I give them the opportunity to talk to me. Tell me how you feel about this, and if you don't know right now, then we can talk again, but it's important that I understand how I affected you.

An important ingredient in the amends, you ask them, how did my behavior when I was drinking affect you? And I found out it wasn't about the money, and it wasn't about the cars, and it wasn't about it's about loving somebody as much as my family loved me. And not knowing if that when the phone rang after 10 o'clock at night, was that the night they were gonna get the call that I was dead? Was that the night? And we come to Alcoholics Anonymous, and we're absolutely consumed with our disease because it's killing us, and we need to pay attention, and we need to be selfish, and we need to circle the wagons, and we need to get some recovery, or we're going to die from this thing.

But we need to work the steps when we start to get well. When we get well in our own life and that roaring wind stops blowing in our guts and we get that conscious contact with the power greater than ourselves, one of the gifts that we have in Alcoholics Anonymous is we can take what we learn here and through the steps and through the immense process. We can start to heal our families. We can start to feel our bring our family members to open meetings. We can start to bring the gift of recovery home where we have roared through their lives like a tornado year after year after year.

My book tells me a man is unthinking to say that stopping drinking is enough. They use the analogy of coming out of the storm cellar to the devastation of the farm and saying, ain't it grand the wind stop blowing, ma? It's not enough. It wasn't enough for me to have my life saved by Alcoholics Anonymous and say I'm sorry. And apologies, but a small aspect of the immense process.

What can I do to make it right? And I've been able to be active in my family. I've been able to make those graduations and those Christmases. And I and I'll tell you what kind of a loser I was when I started making financial amends to my mom. I called her up and said, do you have any idea, mom?

I go, I I just don't even know how much I owe you. And she said, hang on a minute. I got it written down. So she gave me this figure, and I started sending my mom a check for a $150 a month. This is many years ago, and, I still do it, and then I paid it off.

It's just something that we do. And when she got the first check, she didn't call me up and say thank you. And she didn't call me up and say, wow. Alcoholics Anonymous works. She called me up and she was crying so loud.

I couldn't tell what she was saying. I go, mom, you gotta pull it together. I I can't understand what you're saying. She goes, when did you get a checking account? Because that's the kind of loser I am.

And Alcoholics Anonymous made my mom's day because she got a check, and it wasn't about the money. It had my address. It had my name. She thought, oh my god. I don't know anything about this AA thing, but they're growing them up.

Isn't this amazing? In January of 1991, I lost the best job I'd ever had. I'd moved back to LA. I lied to somebody right in their eyes about my drinking. They'd asked me what what was going on with it.

I worked in the aerospace industry. I had kind of a reputation. I told them I wasn't drinking anymore. They gave me a chance. I did great work for that company for about 6 months, and then the owner of the company made a horrible mistake.

He came up to me one day and he put his arm around me. He said, Don, I just want you to know you've done a great job here. Now I don't know what your alcoholic's ear ears here, but what mine heard were, you know what, Don? You've done a great job here. You really need to slack off.

And I proceed to slack off at that job, and I started to show up drunk. And I started to miss time, and I got fired for my drinking. And I copped a plea with my sister in Simi Valley, California, played the victim card, said, God, they fired me after all I did for them. I need a place to get on my feet. My sister took me in her house.

She said, Don, you can stay in my house, but if you drink, you're out. Because everyone knows I'm a drunk by this time. And I tell my sister, I won't drink. I promise. Because I can lie to the pope by this time.

It's not a big deal. And I, I was in that house for 8 months until I got sober, and I drank every day in that house. And if you don't know how you drink around them when they're watching you, well, maybe you're not a sneaky rat like I am. I got no problem drinking around your schedule. What time do you I'm unemployed.

What time do you go to work? 7 AM? Bars open. And at the end of my drinking, I'm not drinking so my friends mean something more to me. I'm not drinking so I can kid myself that I'm better looking than I am.

I'm not drinking so that wall goes down between me and you. I'm doing oblivion drinking. I'm doing light switch drinking. I'm getting the whiskey on board hard enough and fast enough to shut off my head, so I can go into a blackout. So I can pass out in this room.

I'm mooching off of my sister in Simi Valley, California. So I can come out of my blackout to meet the hideous 4 horsemen sitting on the end of the bed. Terror, frustration, bewilderment, despair. They sat on the end of the bed, and they waited for me to come up from my latest blackout. And then they would talk to me in my own voice about my life.

And they'd say, who are you going to hurt today, Don? Who are you going to steal from the day, Don? What are you going to do during today, Don? You've taken every good thing that ever came your way, and you've torn it to shreds. It is over, man.

What are you doing? What are you going to do? And I don't know what you do with a head like that on a hangover morning, but I just took another pull off the bottle. And I swear I thought it was gonna go down that way. I went up to my brother-in-law September of 91, How dark it is before the dawn.

And I said, I got my unemployment check, Larry, can I borrow your car? And he asked me a very unusual question. He said, will you be coming back? And the reason he asked me that question, I borrowed his car a few times that summer and gone out on little vacations. And, I'm an alcoholic.

Defiance is my outstanding characteristic and I got right in Larry's face. I said, Larry, how dare you? You know, the last time this happened, I told you how sorry I was. I opened up my heart to you, and now you're giving me a hard time. You know, I'm unemployed.

I just wanna cash my check. I can't believe you're doing this to me. He got all embarrassed, said he was sorry, held the keys out, took the keys, went down to the liquor store to cash my check, because that's where alcoholics of my type cash our unemployment checks. And while I'm standing in line, I have what the book refers to is the thought that precedes the first drink, which always sounds like what's in a half pint. And And I get the half pint, and I drink that in the parking lot, and the half pint gets lonely, so we need to drink another half pint.

And, I think to myself, I can go visit those friends in the valley and be back in 45 minutes, you know, and I'm gone. And 3 days later, I'm driving up the hill to face that family. I'd done over one more time. One more time, I've taken their hope, their faith, and their trust, and I've just torn it to shreds. And you need to hear this, driving up the hill to face that family, I've done over one more time.

I love them no less and I love them at this very moment. But you see, I can't serve 2 masters. I only got time to serve 1. And that's King Alcohol. And you get between me and a drink, it's nothing personal.

It's almost business like. I'm getting to the drink. I'm going around you. I'm going through you. I'm manipulating you.

I'm telling you what you wanna hear, but bet your bottom dollar I'm getting to the drink. And I don't know how to tell you that because I don't know what I suffer from. I think it's a moral issue. I think I'm weak spined. I think I need to just man up and I'll be okay.

I don't understand that I suffer from an obsession of the mind beyond my understanding. I don't understand that I'm going to surrender to the call of King Alcohol, and then I'm eventually with no recovery, with no spiritual solution. I will. I'm doomed to drink again and again. And then once I put any alcohol in my system of any kind, the phenomenon of craving will kick off that allergic reaction.

And then I have no idea how much I'm gonna drink or what I'm gonna do. And I don't know that. Intellectually, I think it's a moral dilemma. I think I'm a bad person. I don't know what I suffer from.

So I say things to my family like, I'm sorry. I don't mean to treat you this way. I don't know why I do these things. And it got really hard for my family to believe those sweet apologies when I did it over and over and over again. I walk in the house.

My sister has informed me that my brother-in-law wanted to report the car stolen, and she negotiated him down to a missing person's report. And the Simi Valley Police are on their way up to do the follow-up investigation. Now, I I don't know if you've ever been up for 3 days drinking and doing other things, but the police usually aren't who you wanna talk to. I got warrants for my arrest in 2 counties, so I start yelling at my sister. I got warrants.

I'm going to jail. Thanks a lot. Because now it's their fault. I go outside in front of the house because I don't want the interview to go on in front of the family. Because I have no idea what I'm gonna be saying, but I'm fairly certain I'm gonna be lying.

Right? In the black and white unit rolls up, and on the side of the black and white unit, it says, canine unit. And I thought, great. They brought the dog. Like, I'm in any shape to make a run for it.

And the cop gets out, he starts asking me those hard tough questions. He's a he's a trained professional, like, where were you? And most of what I remember is illegal. So I'm making up a story about a bachelor party that got out of control. And he starts looking at my eyes really hard because they're like Chinese road maps and they're rolling up in my head.

And I I I see him looking at me, so I break his gaze and he breaks with me. So now we're talking and we're doing this in front of the house, and I'm really nervous. My hands are wet. I see the dog in the back seat, and I just wanted to divert his attention. And I go, hey.

Is that your partner? And he says, well, yes. It is. And he walks over, and he opens the back door, and this dog gets out. German Shepherd, not a hair out of place, like a Rin Tin Tin reincarnate.

And with no prompting on my part, he starts to relay facts to me about the dog's life. The dog is 3 years past mandatory retirement. They can't retire him. He's too good. The dog has participated in more arrests than any dog in the history of Ventura County.

The dog has participated in more arrests and rescues than any dog in the history of Ventura or Los Angeles County. This dog was so phenomenal that the officers took a collection out of pocket to send him over to Europe for international competition where he kicked butt on German German Shepherds. And I'm so I'm yeah. And I'm saying to the officer, that's that's a phenomenal dog you have there, sir. And his thought flies in the back of my mind.

The kind of thought the minute you think it, you know it's the truth. You may wanna deny it with every fiber in your being, but you know it's the truth. And what the truth was is this dog, had done significantly more with his life than I'd done with mine. I hated that dog. And I love to tell you about I had a spiritual awakening that the dog was the trigger, and, I found myself in Alcoholics Anonymous, but that would be lying to you.

You see, I knew I wasn't gonna be able to stop drinking, but my family was gonna throw me out. So I played the recovery card. I mean, I was theatrical. I cried. I begged for another chance.

I'll go to AA and everything. And, they said, okay. We'll see what happens. And, you know, the truth of the matter is they didn't really believe me. My first two weeks in Alcoholics Anonymous, my family was taking me to AA meetings and picking me up from AA meetings.

You know, that makes you feel like when you're 31 years old and you look the way I look and you get in your older sister's car at the end of the night, she's driving you home. She goes, so Donald, what you learn in AA tonight? You know, it's just And things started happening for me fast and furious and Alcoholics Anonymous. And if you're new in the program, here's the beautiful thing about Alcoholics Anonymous. You don't the the actions don't care why you take them.

You know, belief in Alcoholics Anonymous that it'll work for you has no value. Having faith that Alcoholics Anonymous will work for you, absolutely worthless. You see, the rubber meets the road on who's willing to take the actions dictated in the first 164 page of the big book through sponsored direction. If you're willing to take those actions, you will get the desired result. It's one of the few guarantees in life that I know of that actually holds its weight.

When I was new in Alcoholics Anonymous, men told me this. They said, if you come with us and you go with us and you do exactly what we do, we have absolutely no idea what will happen to you. But we guarantee you'll be better than what you have now. Something happened to me in my second meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's the most important thing that has ever happened to me in AA from that moment to where I stand here today.

I was in the Simi Valley Alano Club. A guy named Big Lou came up to me, and Lou said, hey, Don. This is Mark. Mark will be your sponsor. See, I got sober in a group of activists that didn't believe that newcomers should pick their own sponsor.