Step 12 at the Stateline Retreat in Primm, NV

Good morning. My name is Carl. I'm an alcoholic.

Kevin has been a fantastic host and I'd really like to thank Bob for for asking me here. It's a big honor to be asked to, to come here. I'm sort of I'm the last guy up here and I looked at the website and they called this the Woodstock of a A

in my position here. I don't know if you guys know this, but it would stock after all the big acts were done. There was this guy that got up as everybody was cleaning up and he played the kazoo

and he, I met him and he still claims he played at Woodstock. And so that's my position. I'm playing the kazoo,

Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix has already played.

But I've had a great, great time. Unfortunately, I, I had to miss I, I came up Thursday and I had to go back to Covina where I'm from after golfing on on Friday and got back and I missed a Friday night and, and, and Peg on, on Saturday morning. But I, I dashed back simply because it was my daughter's Christmas program. She's four. I have two kids, four years old and two years old

and was just one of those things where I intuitively knew the right thing to do was to go do that. I didn't really have to check with anybody and say should. I didn't have to call my sponsor and ask permission. It is intuitive. That's what I was supposed to be. Now, I did call my sponsor and tell him and he did a little addition and said, well, you're going to go up Thursday, you're going to drive golf all day, you're going to drive back to LA and then drive back and there's going to be a lot of driving. The only advice I have for you is don't get into a midnight poker game in the middle of that. That would have been a bad idea.

The rest was just it just that's just what I was supposed to be. And I as anybody that knows me, I'm very irritating with pictures of my children, especially with technology. I can show you videos, I can show you anything. You don't even have to ask me and I will show these to you.

And as I came back, I showed Sharon this picture and my daughter was in the IT was a nativity play, and she was the little lamb next to baby Jesus. And she sang a duet

with a little boy that was the donkey.

And so I were showing this to Sharon. And Sharon goes, Carl, you know I love you, right? And I go, oh, yes, absolutely. She goes. But I've known a lot of wonderful women in a A and I know their stories and mine.

Don't be alarmed. But this might not be the last duet your daughter has with a donkey.

True.

Yeah.

Oh, where am I going?

Oh, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to Alcoholics and practice these principles and all our affairs. First thing I want to talk about is that sometimes we never know who's going to be carrying the message at any given time. No clue. I'm just going to tell you this little story. I,

I was in Midland, Odessa, my, my now ex-wife. I last five years have been rather difficult. I got married wonderful We had we were married long enough to have two beautiful kids and then the marriage didn't work out and, and we're being really good separate parents. We really are and it's really a joy. But I was in Midland, Odessa on January 20th, 2007, and my wife was about eight months pregnant and

she wasn't supposed to give birth for another couple of weeks. And I was in Midland, Odessa at a conference. And

right before I got up there at 8:00 PM on Saturday night, my sister-in-law called me on my phone. And I'm I was literally sitting up front. It was about 10 minutes before I was supposed to go. And she goes, I don't want to worry you, but I'm taking Stephanie to the hospital. She is in labor. And I'm sitting there in about 400 people out there. And I'm like,

and I got through what I was supposed to do that night and, and I was just, oh, I was just torn up going home. I'm in the wrong place. I'm not where I'm supposed to be. And Polly Pistol was there and she's been there many points in my in my life, good and bad, and has always been a very comforting source. And she did her best. But this time it wasn't working. And I and somebody else got on the phone to try to call the local airports to see if any private person would be able to get me back to Los Angeles. I thought that God was going to intervene in some oil men in Midland, Odessa. We're heading back there.

No such thing.

One fellow did answer his phone in the middle of the night and said, oh, yes, I and there was ice all over Texas at that time. Oh, I've got a little twin engine, $10,000 and the And the problem is we can't fly over the ice. We might have to go down through Mexico and we don't know whether there will be any fuel because I can't make it the whole way. What do you think about that? Well, bad idea there.

And I am just struggling and struggling and and finally, when I just gave up

and I was, but I was, I was literally saying, you know, and the marriage was already in trouble. And a lot of the trouble in the marriage was what I do in Alcoholics Anonymous because she's not an Alcoholic anonymous. And I was pacing out in front of the hotel. I'm in the wrong place. I'm not where I'm supposed to be. I'm supposed to be there in this. This gentleman walked up to me and said, thank you so much for tonight and I know what you're going through. Can I pray with you? And I thought

nothing better to do for me right now. Absolutely. And he gave one of the most heartfelt prayers

I have ever been witness ever been a part of he, this man knew how to pray. I mean, he prayed for my wife, the child on the way for me and made me feel it was one of those times where when we got done praying, I knew that I was where I was supposed to be. Things were the way they it was just all OK. And as after he said Amen, I looked up to him and I said, that was really wonderful. Thank you so much. What's your name? And he goes, my name is Percy. But I can't stay and talk.

My treatment center van is leaving.

You never know where it's coming from. You just never know where it's going to come from.

Long story short, I made it back with eight minutes to spare and the doctor was in the catcher's mid position and he turned and he said you got here. So anyway, that was that was actually on my 20th a a birthday that my son arrived. A lot of wonderful stuff has happened and that's the way life is good and bad. I,

I'm really going to talk about a lot of of how I was 12 step because it's just the best way that I can do it. And I also need to need to let you know that I'm an alcoholic.

It would be sort of foolish of me And Clancy talked about it last night that the identification is absolutely vital in carrying any message between US. And that's not just when we're brand new. It just seems that you guys really need to know that I'm an alcoholic. And I'm going to throw a little bit bit of that out there. And the reason I believe I'm an alcoholic is really very simple. I, I have a really bizarre relationship with alcohol. That's why I believe I'm an alcoholic. I don't believe I'm an alcoholic because of where I went, where I what I did, what I lost, or or any of that is because of my relationship with alcohol. And my

strange relationship with alcohol takes on a couple of forms. The first part of my bizarre relationship with alcohol happens when I drink it. A strange thing happens. The book calls it an allergic reaction. The book says that the symptom of this allergic reaction that I have with alcohol is called the phenomenon of craving. And the best way that I can describe this thing called the phenomenon of craving in my life is that it seems like whenever I drink alcohol, the more I drink, the thirstier I get.

Happens with nothing else, only alcohol. An example of that is I've got a bottle of water and over the next hour that I'm talking with you,

I would probably drink half of it. I don't know, maybe I'm if my mouth gets dry, I might drink the whole bottle of water. But I can absolutely guarantee you that once I finish this bottle of water, I'm not going to go lock myself in the hotel room with a case of water. I'm

I'm not going to do that,

but if that's the only thing that made me alcoholic, then just say no. Would have wiped out alcoholism. Wouldn't have early 80s Nancy Reagan came out said just say no. I would have, and I imagine you would have gone

no and just gone on and lived a happy, successful life. Just saying no. But I have this other strange part of my relationship with alcohol and that happens when I'm not drinking it. It seems like when I go any extended period without drinking, drinking I, I seem to have this mind that rationalizes and justifies my walk back to the next drink at all cost. It doesn't matter about the pain and humiliation of A and the suffering of a day a week or a month ago. And it does not matter whether it's my pain and humiliation or your pain and humiliation,

but I have a mind that will get me to take another drink. And so I can't drink successfully because of this physical thing. I cannot not drink successfully because of this thing the book calls the mental obsession. I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't. And after AI battled with that ever since I started drinking, started drinking much later than most people. I was 11. And by the time I was,

and I'm just going to skip right ahead and I'm going to get into how Alcoholics Anonymous 12 step me and the and the good people of Alcoholics Anonymous,

whether they were consciously aware that they were working the 12 step or not. But the actions that people took in Alcoholics Anonymous is exactly why I get to stand here before you almost 22 years sober. No other reason. It's because of the people doing their job and Alcoholics Anonymous.

I wound up in the Navy. I'd love to tell you that at a certain point I got this patriarch patriotic feeling and that I should get an education and serve my country.

Actually, what happened was a drug deal went very, very badly and I joined the Navy.

The Navy put me on an abuse. Simply, they just a little misunderstanding and some miscalculations. I accidentally drove my car through the guard shack at the front of the Navy base. They were very angry.

They were reading new charges on me at the hospital and the Marine and the guard shack was OK,

but they're reading new charges on me. And this is nothing significant. New charges are just what happens in a guy's life like mine about every 90 days if you're living the way I'm living. So it's nothing significant. But the most significant thing is the Navy doctor prescribed this stuff called an abuse for me. And they sent this prescription back to the ship's doctor. And every morning before quarters I would have to show up at sick Bay and the corpsman would put this little white pill on my tongue and make me sit there for 1/2 an hour

to make sure it actually ingested in my system. And what happened next is over the next 10 days I started to experience the most cunning, baffling and powerful side of this disease called alcoholism. And that is that I had no alcohol or drugs in my system and I was slowly going insane. I become extremely agitated, frustrated, I this wall comes between me and you and I do not know how to connect with the rest of the world. And I absolutely just self destruct on the inside. And I remember counting those days on that antibuse just.

It's been 4 days and

I'm on an abuse

now. It's been 6 days and

I'm on an abuse

now. It's been 8 days,

six hours

and 15 minutes

and I'm on an abuse.

I started to look around that ship.

The other men,

they're talking behind my back.

All 300 of them

have ever felt that way in AAA.

The only difference is that an AA we are talking behind your back

only with love and tolerance in your Home group. I'm sure.

10th day I just snapped and I still remember the straw that broke the camel's back. My division officer asked me to do a very legitimate task, swabbed the passageway or something like that and I could not believe that out of all the other men in the division, he had asked me to do this lowly task. It had escaped me and I had forgotten that I was the lowest ranking man in division.

So I let him know how I felt. Division officers are very concerned with their subordinates feelings and and I let him know how I thought. I said you obviously don't know who I am, do you? And this man stopped dead in his tracks as he was walking away, and he slowly turned.

And as I stand before you today, I have never been asked a more embarrassing question than the question that man asked me that day. As he stared me right in the eye. He said. All right, son,

who are you?

I

so I just, I went AWOL from my ship. I locked myself into the hotel room in downtown San Diego and a Plaza Hotel. 4th and Broadway. It's still there. This would have been 1986. I checked a few. It was. It was $13 a night back then.

I checked a few months ago, they remodeled it. It's now $13.95 a night.

I locked myself in this hotel room and and I got a bottle of vodka and a shot glass. And as I sat there on the edge of the bed looking at this rickety little end table with a bottle of oak and the shot glass there, I remember that the Navy doctors had given me a very stern warning about drinking on top of Ant abuse. It said, son, you need to understand that if you drink on top of this antibiotics, you will get one of two reactions. One reaction is you'll get violently I'll. The other reaction is you might die.

I remember looking at the bottle and I thought,

well,

I wonder which reaction I'm going to get.

I took one shot and nothing happened. Authority had lied to me again as far as I was concerned. I waited about two minutes just to make sure,

and I took another shot. All of a sudden I felt tingly in the face, so I looked in this cracked little mirror that was in this hotel room and I was blotchy and red, purple in places.

Took another shot.

All of a sudden I could feel my heart going. Looked at my shirt, I was drenched in sweat and all of a sudden I was like

hyperventilating. We're doing all right so far.

You guys are really sick if you think this is funny.

I, I got to let you, I got this little story. You guys really are you, you're very sick. If you think this is funny. I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to skip ahead a couple of years, two years sober and Alcoholics Anonymous. One of the, and I, I got an honorable discharge out of the Navy that was actually Alcoholics Anonymous, a loving God and a personnelman that lost half my file. That's how that happened.

But one of the amends that I could not make while I was still in the Navy was that my parents had paid for a bachelor's degree

back when I was like 1718, nineteen, maybe even up until 20, I didn't have one. Actually, at that college, my grade point average matched my blood alcohol content is what was going on.

And so one of the amends that I had to make was that I either had to go get what my parents had paid for or I or I had to pay them back for that bachelor's degree. And so that's how I wound up in Covina, where I've been the last 20 years. The school that I was going to go to was, was in Covina and I got to Covina and I signed up to go to school and, and I was taking this telecommunication business bachelor's program.

And in the first couple of semesters, I had to take this business presentation course. It's like a speech class designed for business presentations. In the first couple of days, the instructor was just randomly pointing at students in the, in the, in the class and throwing them up in front of the room, giving them a topic. And they were, each student was supposed to talk for two to three minutes on this topic. And the instructor was doing this just to see what he had to work with for the semester. And after about seven or eight students were thrown up that he pointed at me and I walked up to the front and from the back of the room, the instructor shouted out.

Talk about a bizarre situation in your life.

So I told him about drinking on top of an abuse.

They did not respond the way you guys responded. They were like,

there were there were a couple of guys in the back going right on I.

So anyway, I'm back in the hotel room, red face. I were ventilating and sweating and I took another shot

and up became my late sponsor, Eddie Cochran, God rest his soul. It is one of The Pioneers of Southern California Alcoholics Anonymous, one of the men that really changed the course of my life. And Alcoholics Anonymous

used to, he used to call what happened to me next, projectile regurgitation. You know how when you are out there and you got a good buzz on going and you and you get that little sour taste in the back of your throat, maybe a little bit comes up in the mouth, but it's the warning, right? And you kind of go and you if there's a toilet in access you and you can get there, great. If you just got to get the window down, OK. If it's your friend's shoe, Oh well.

But on this antibiotics there is no warning, is it? Oh boom

and thank God. The Plaza Hotel is a type of hotel room where the toilets in the same room as the bed.

It's it's a design feature, I believe,

to make convicts feel more at home.

But I found the magic of drinking on top of an abuse that if I would keep drinking and keep puking and keep drinking and keep puking for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half, enough of the antibiotic to kick out of my system. And I would quit throwing up and I would just be left with a red face hyperventilating and sweating. And I already told you I'm all right with that.

So if there is anybody that happens to be on an abuse, I do want you to know you can drink on top of an abuse. I always get nervous at when somebody is going to hop up and run out. Right now there's there's a couple of pieces of advice I've got to give you before you take such a drastic action.

If you're going to be successful at drinking on top of an abuse, you have to get two things going on at the very same time. In order to do this, first thing you got to do is you got to hang in there.

You really got to hang in there. No quitting halfway through. You got to stick it out

and at the very same time don't die.

If you can piece those two things together, I invite you. Have at it, have at it.

Drank on top of an abuse. The last seven months of my drinking, my second of my last drunk, I was left for dead in a motel parking lot. It's one of those nights where lots of fish were flying and none of them were mine. Lots of blood seemed to be going and it seemed to be mine. And then I came. Next thing I remember is I came to, and you know how when you come to and you look around for evidence as to where are you? In my own room. I'm in jail. Oh my God, who's that? That kind of stuff.

This particular morning I came to and and the first thing I saw were men and women with surgical masks

and tools in their hands and bright lights behind them. This is evidence of a very bad night,

my last night of drinking. I'm being LED out of the San Diego jail, being brought back up to the quarter deck of my ship, being transferred from civilian authorities and military authorities. I'm in handcuffs and that morning the officer deck put his arm up and said wrong answer. Orders have already been processed on this loser. The orders are 90 days in the break, bad conduct, discharge or treatment. Now as I stood there in handcuffs, it was apparently some sort of option was thrown out on the table.

I do not remember as I stood there in handcuffs thinking, Oh God, you are so good.

I don't deserve this. I'm ready to get sober. I don't remember thinking or feeling that, nor do I remember thinking or feeling, hey, if I just act like I want that, that would have been more likely, right? But I don't remember thinking or feeling that. If I act like I want this treatment thing, maybe I can beat this rap too. I now know that it would not have mattered what I was thinking of feeling that particular morning because I was in handcuffs. And I don't know about your experience in handcuffs, but my experience in handcuffs was always the same.

Whoever had me in handcuffs, Never once,

never once did they ever turn to me and say, so what's your opinion on this matter? It

just never goes that way in handcuffs, does it?

When you're in handcuffs, you go where they say, and

they took me up to this treatment center up at the up in the North End of San Diego at Miramar. And when the doors were locked behind me, that's when they took the handcuffs off me. That is who Carl Morris is without Alcoholics Anonymous. That is what society feels about how I act out there in the world is they're ready to take the handcuffs off me when the doors are locked behind me. And rightfully so. I am a danger to you and your children. When, when, if I do not have Alcoholics Anonymous in my life, it's just the cold, stark, absolute fact.

So I'm in the treatment center and this is when the beginning of when Alcoholics Anonymous and people doing their job in Step 12 and the way they were living and what they knew what to do and even when they didn't even know that they were consciously doing it, how it affected my life.

First thing is I'm they take us to. Well, you know what the taper loves this little story. I got to throw this in there. He's even been wearing a name tag for this particular story.

In the first couple of days in this treatment center, the there was a counselor that was just really trying to get us to talk. And nobody's talking. I mean, there's about 35 of us in these group therapy sessions and none of us are talking. And, and we're just arms forward-looking down at the ground and nobody's talking. And he's getting more frustrated by the day. I think he was new at his job. And about the third day, this fellow named Paco from some other base raised his hand

and he says, I'd like to say something. And this counselor? Oh, yes. What would you like to say, Paco

Bako said. I, I hear I'm supposed to be rigorously honest with you guys if I'm going to do this thing sober thing.

And I want you guys to know that Paco is not my real name. Paco is this a name I've always used when things look like trouble. And the other day when I got here, this looked like trouble. And but I want to come clean with you guys. And I, I want you guys to know that my real name is not Paco. It's Randy. Will you call it guys call me Randy from now on. And, and you know, we all just kind of look up from the floor and go, OK, whatever. Nice to meet you, Randy. But this counselor got really excited. Oh my God, this is the first breakthrough of any honesty

any of us obese and they later that afternoon they paraded Randy up in front of us. They slapped a golden name tag on him. They said Randy and then we were all informed that whenever staff was not around Randy was in charge and Randy loved his job. We hated Randy and but on the 7th day in this place, it took us all to our first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Lisa with my first meeting and all I know is over the one MC. It's an intercom system through the barracks. They said 6:00 PM civilian closed parking lot and we were all out there in 5 white vans pulled up

told which van to get into and boom out into town. Each van went out to a different meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and the van. I was insured and affordable meeting and you guys started your meeting. We were sitting in the back and as you guys had your meeting, I,

this is what I remember. I remember that a bunch of people got up to the down in San Diego. They do podium participation. Most the meetings, they do not let you just sit in participation meetings from where they, most of them are podium participation. I just remember a long string of people coming up to the podium and the first few read out of something and the rest to seem to talk off the cuff. And as I sat there and listened to what you guys read and what those people said for a few minutes each,

I sat in the back going, Oh my God, they know.

They know. Now, if you would have seen me there thinking and you went over and nudged me and said, So what is it that they know that you think you know? I would have said, well, I don't know,

but they know. And what it was, what it was is I truly believe that those people in that meeting were sharing responsibly in that meeting because I was hearing what I believe Alcoholics Anonymous wants any new person to hear. I was identifying. I was identifying with the way you describe your drinking, and even more importantly, I was identifying with the way you were describing the way you felt when you were not drinking. That is what have been killing me my whole life. In between drunks was the way I felt in between drunks.

You know, through my life, whenever any authority figure had been like, yelling at me about my drinking. If I could have verbalized it, I would have said yes, Yes, I, I know.

I, I, I agree it looks bad. Yes, I see that burning car over there. I know, I know

looks bad. But if you knew how I felt when I was not drinking, you wouldn't be asking me why I drank. And you guys were talking about that. And I also will never forget this. This one fellow got up, he got called on you. He walked up and he said one sentence. And in that one sentence, this man described the alcoholic mind better than I have heard in the 21 years and 11 months that I've been in Alcoholics Anonymous. This man got up and said, my name is Jack. I'm an alcoholic.

My mind would have killed my body a long time ago, except it needed it for transportation

energy.

And I like followed him all the way back to his chair.

And again, it's the first thing that meeting was being run. Well, those people were conscious of what they were doing from the podium and they knew that that was part of working step 12 in their life to make sure that they had no idea I was in the room and being affected in that way. But because I'm sure that they were responsible members of Alcoholics Anonymous and they had guided their group to be to to to follow its primary purpose in carrying that message to the new person. You know, I have no idea what other new people were affected, but I was deeply affected. I was deeply

affected my

the next night they took us to another meeting and as much as I identified at the first meeting, I got just as confused at the next meeting because everybody at that meeting was talking about something called a drug of choice. People are up there saying well my drug of choice is and something wow, my drug of choice is. And the more they said that, the more confused I got. I was sitting in the back going, oh, for Christ sake, was I supposed to be choosing out there?

Do they want me to choose now? What are they talking about? So the next morning, I'm back in the treatment center. I asked the counselor who'd been assigned to us. And I go, her name was Mary, wonderful woman, non alcoholic, but very devoted to working with Alcoholics. And I go, Mary, last night in the meeting, they're talking about something called a drug of choice. What do they mean by that? And she goes, Carl, let's play a game. Now that kind of worried me because she was insinuating that I'm supposed to like pay attention and focus.

This was a little difficult because they had me on these anti convulsant medications.

When I had arrived there, they had done a physical workup on me and they had seen that my liver was extended, my pancreas was shutting down. I was full of alcoholic edema. Apparently drinking on Antabuse does a little damage to you. And so they didn't want me to do a floppy fish right and and distract people. So they had me on these anticonvulsant medications for the first week or something. And I don't know whether you've ever been on those, but if you have, you know what I'm talking about. Your field of vision is just fine, right about like this. But over here there's dancing, squiggly things, and when you look over,

see what that is, now they're over here. And so it's just a little bit hard to focus. You know, You try.

And so I did. I tried. I OK. And she said, let's play a game. Carl. Imagine I walked into this room and I had a tray. She said on that tray I had a bottle of Jack Daniels, an ounce of cocaine and an ounce of Thai sticks. Which one would you take? I started to drool immediately. Just take them all. And she started to snap her fingers. Settle down, Carl. Play the game.

Play the game, Focus.

And when my eyes quit watering and I could see again, I said, OK, She said, you can't have the mall, you can only have one. Which one would you take? And I thought for a second, I said, well, I, I guess I take the ounce of cocaine. She said, well, then maybe cocaine is your drug of choice, you understand now? And I said, no, no, I don't understand. She said, what's the problem? I said, well Mary, the only reason I take the ounce of cocaine over the other two is, well, I take that ounce of cocaine, I get the hell out of this place and I'd sell.

Now we have enough money for 1/4 pound to tie six in the case of Jack Daniels is what I would do.

Now. The only reason I bring that up is to bring up a very important aspect of Alcoholics Anonymous and you need to and I and it has to do with working with other people.

I know there's a lot of people in here that work with a lot of other people and I know you run across this idea of multiple sobriety dates. You know, you see some see some guy at my Home group. Hey, good to see you. How long do you got Every once in a while I get this. Well, my pot clean date is May 3rd. My drinking sobriety date is January 4th. Oh, I blew my methamphetamine date last night. I was in Walmart all night long. I

one sobriety date. Funniest thing I ever heard about sobriety date. Same scenario. I saw this guy around my Home group for a while went up and said hey good to see you how long do you got? He said, well I had 90 days, but I drank last night, so now I have 89 days.

I know I had to think about it too. For a minute I was like,

if I missed something here is I think it kind of falls in the same category as being down in Mexico looking at the tequila going. Would that affect my US sobriety day? Yes, yes. Sobriety dates are international if you're new. Just a little piece of information, that's all.

So anyway, after,

after 45 days in this place, they were going to let us all out

in the last 30 in the last, it was a Friday. They're going to let us out on the Wednesday before that Friday. They gathered all 35 us up and put us in this room and we were all going to get out in two days. And the biggest, meanest counselor in the place came in through a side door. And he's a Marine and he was in his full dress uniform this particular day had all his medals on and a Marine in his full dress uniform is very impressive, very intimidating sight. And he opened up that door and we saw this man walk in and I mean, it just went, went dead silent in the room. And he walks up to

podium up in front and he just stares at us, doesn't say a word for it. Seemed like forever. And he just pan the room,

he said. You, 35, have been through one of the finest treatment centers in the world for alcoholism and drug addiction

treatment centers. Been here for many, many years. And over the years the statistics of this treatment center have shown us that out of you 35, only one of you will stay continuously sober from this day forward. Many of you will die, go insane, wind up in prison. Nice little exit pep talk, don't you think? Jesus.

Then he said many of you will relapse once, twice, maybe 20 times and make it back into long term sobriety. But according to this treatment center statistics,

only one of you will stay continuously sober from this day forward.

And if you thought it was quiet before he said that, you could hear a pin drop in the room. Now the only thing you could hear was me going shit,

because I knew if only one of us was going to make it, it was not going to be me.

We all knew who's going to be. It's going to be Randy over here. Guaranteed he's the poster boy of the treatment center by now.

So on this Friday afternoon, they're letting us all out and

people were taken back to their ships bases in commands in various different ways. And there's about three or four of us that have been arrested in vehicles the night before we were thrown into this place. And I was one of those. And we had to, there's about four of us that had to stand on the front door steps of the treatment center with our sea bags, our feet, waiting for them to bring our vehicles out of the impound lot. And it took an extra 45 minutes or something. And as we stood there, one of the guys I'm standing with points at the other edge of the parking lot and there's a car coming across the parking lot. And he goes, hey, is that Randy in that car?

And we look a little closer. Yeah, sure enough, as he got a little closer, one of the other guys says he's drinking already. Sure enough, he's got himself a pint. He's polishing it off. He rolls right in front of the front doorsteps, the treatment center where we're standing. He rolls down the window. He throws the empty right at our feet. Crash like whoa. We look up. He gives us all the finger and he drives it right off.

I guess his name was Paco again, I guess. I don't know,

but as far as treatment centers go as a fine treatment center because they took us to a lot of meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous almost every single night we're taking the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, but I've never really interacted with any of you. We watched Alcoholics Anonymous because we are taken in 30 seconds before the meeting started and we're taking out right as the meeting got over. I'd never we never saw any of the same people. We went to different meetings and Oliver San Diego County, but I got I've been watching Alcoholics Anonymous for for some 35 days and I knew that I knew, as my friend Steve a always says, I knew you were my tribe.

But there was a different there was a there was a problem here.

I had always separated the world into two categories, the good people and the people I can hang with,

and you suspiciously looked like the good people. But then I got to know you

and I found out that I can hang. But it took a while for me to know that. But I came to my very first meeting out of that, about three hours out of that treatment center. I came to a meeting and I'm sitting in the back and the one guy operating his primary purpose that night, I'm sure there was a lot of other people that were there to work with people and, and understood that that's what they were at that meeting for. But this is the guy that was lurking around the back of that meeting that particular night. And he saw me and he went up and said, Hey, never seen you here before. What are you doing? I didn't think quick enough to lie to him because I promise you, if I would have thought for one more

second, I would have made-up a lie. And he caught me off guard. And I said, I don't know, I just got out of a Navy treatment center as if I had a watch back couple hours ago. I don't know what I'm doing. This guy's eyes went Bing, big smile went across his face at the break. He's like fighting other men. He's mine. He's mine. I got him. I got him. I got him.

I didn't know. There's guys an A that lurk around meetings trying to find that new guy who will accidentally admit he doesn't know what he's doing. But there were. There was something else going on in this guy's life that particular night that made him especially glad to meet me. This guy's girlfriend had left him the night before for one of his friends in his Home group. Yeah. And so he was wondering what he was going to do with his weekend homicide, suicide. Get loaded or grab this newcomer. He's like,

he was all over me that weekend. We went to like 18 meetings of Alcoholic Anonymous.

This guy was insane over this woman. In between the meetings he throw me in the pasture side of his car and he start driving and he start yelling. He wouldn't even look at the road. He had like one of those AA radar cars that just made it to the next meeting, right?

And he'd be driving, he'd be yelling, you got to go to, he's got to read the book. You get a sponsor. Damn her. Got to go to me. Got to read the book, Damn her.

I didn't know it, but I was getting a very early introduction to your typical A. A relationship breakup is what I was getting.

But I'm so glad that that guy that night was a guy in Alcoholics Anonymous who was somebody who had done the work of Alcoholics Anonymous, had taken the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and understood that the solution to his pain was out of self. Out of self, out of self. I am so glad that this guy that night was not a guy in a a who was under the misperception that he should be at home underneath his covers whining into his sponsors answering machine, waiting for the magical answer.

I'm so glad he was out dragging my sorry butt around. I'm sure he did check in with his sponsor and I'm so glad that he didn't think. You know, what I really need to do is work on myself some more. I, you know, I just just best way I've ever heard that described is when we just spend all our time working on ourselves is like hiring an interior decorator for our prison cell. It's a, you know, just no, it's still still stuck there. And this man and you know, we really all we need to do to see see, sometimes we misinform