The Recovery in the Rockies VII Convention in Snowbird, UT

Hi everybody, My name is Earl. I'm an addict.

I'd like to thank the committee for asking me to come share an event like this. Always an honor and a privilege,

Rico, for all the communication back and forth. Come and pick us all up at the airport.

Quiet in here.

Oh I have AACA related announcement that was handed to me by someone. There's an individual in a state far away that it's going to be getting a copy of this tape

that goes by the name of Doom. And the message for Doom is work the 4th step, you miserable son of a bitch.

And it signed a friend.

So if you're, if you're listening to the tape Doom, it's just a suggestion.

I enjoyed that.

OK,

what time do we wrap this up?

Yeah, when I'm done. Yeah, get comfortable,

blast through this, I said. I'm an addict. I didn't start using until I was 12. The only reason I waited that long was because nobody offered me anything until then.

I was.

I was

Daddy was rich, Mama was good looking, my sister was talented artistically, and I was in trouble. I was over the way it went. I was sleepwalking, talking in my sleep, carrying on like a maniac in the middle of the night, scaring the hell out of my parents. They had a bunch of tests done on me. The answer to the problem was to give me a tablespoon of this liquid every night before I went to bed, which just knocked me out. The answer was medication, and I think I subconsciously got the information very early in my life that if things aren't going the way you want them to, take some.

And I filed that away and moved on in my life. When I was about 12 years old, they took me to get an IQ test and I had a very high IQ. I'm not. I don't have it anymore, so I'm not bragging.

Let me wipe that out.

And they sent me out. They decided I needed to get up out of the house and they shipped me off to a boarding school and but nobody informed me what we were doing. And we we drove and drove and drove and drove a big caravan of family vehicles and got to this place. And I got out of the car and my father got out of the car and he put a suitcase down next to me and shook my hand and said this will make a man Addy and got in the car and they all drove off. And the fact was, was that I was being given an opportunity for a wonderful education.

The feeling was was that I'd just been thrown away by the people who knew me best in the world and I had no idea why.

We all right now

just doing his job. I'm doing mine

so

trained up in this school, and I'm in a school at 250 boys from all over the world, and 249 of them are 13 to 18 and I'm 12. I'm the youngest and the smallest kid in school. And when everybody's a teenager in year 12, that doesn't matter to anybody. But you, you know, you're out. They're teenagers, which is all you want to be and you're not. So I was the odd man out and I hated this place. I knew that this was a big mistake. This couldn't possibly be the right thing to do

and I was terrified of everything and everybody there.

I liquid. I need liquid

so the

I

I have liquid

is all right. This is an outside beverage.

I'll get someone to drive me back to my room.

I have this Pepsi

Alan thing over there.

Yeah,

right.

Anyway, so I had no tools for living. I didn't need any tools for living, you know what I mean? Where I came from, you know, I just went to school, went home, did my homework, went to bed, got up, did it again. And here I am in this place is think tank for bright kids. I mean, it was like Lord of the Flies in this place, you know what I mean? It was we were all bright and disturbed and causing problems. And the first week there, I met Tiny the big, the biggest guy in the school and he slapped me around and I hit him and he said, you got a lot of guts and then beat the hell out of,

I remember and, and as far as I was concerned, went real well because what I was was terrified of this guy. And he had said, you got a lot of guts even swinging on me. And I got my first tool for living. I learned that that violence masks the fear. So violence became my number one tool for dealing with the world. And word spread across this campus in like 30 minutes. Watch out for this little Hightower kid. He's a maniac. He attacked Tiny. So now I got this reputation as this tough kid,

which I wasn't. I've never been a tough guy or a bad guy. Never. I never. I never have been and I never will be. I've been extremely violent in my life, however, as a result of being afraid.

self-centered fear is the chief activator of all my defects of character and it has always been that way. And violence for me was a huge defect.

So word spread around, some guy showed up and

you hear piano music. Good. Just as long as you hear it, I'm OK.

That was kind of off there far away. You know,

I'm at a high altitude. I'm AC level guy, you know what I mean?

What are we at? We're like what, 1415 thousand feet up here? I've been a little spacing since I got here.

So anyway, the cool guy started coming around. This guy named Matt came up to me and he said you want to smoke a joint. And I said, well, yeah, yeah, I do. I had no idea what he was talking about, but what he was. All I heard was you want to hook up. And I was completely alone in the world, as far as I could tell. My family thrown me away. I decided you don't want me, I don't want you. I turned my back on them and I never really went back. And we picked up a guy named Steve on the way. And Steve had a Tupperware container pulled, cheap red wine. We went behind the dorm, smoked a joint, drank a little red wine. I had no idea why we were doing this. I'm standing here with

sweet strangers smoking a joint, drinking red wine, and I don't know why, but there's this is what they seem to want to do when I'm hooking up. So we'll do would have made no difference to me what they were doing. I would have jumped in. I was alone in the universe. I needed to hook up. And all of a sudden, I mean, it was like that, the magic happened. That thing that makes me bodily different from my fellows occurred. And this feeling kind of swept up over me. And for the first time in my life, I felt comfortable standing where I was standing, doing what I was doing with the people I was doing it with. I had never felt such ease.

I had never felt that kind of relief. It was a mystical experience for a guy like me. And I didn't know what it was. I don't know. Is it this pot? Is it this wine? Is it the fact that I'm standing here with my two very close personal friends? Stephen, Matt. I felt a bond with these guys. You know, I didn't know what it was. All I knew was there was no downside to this nobody. I mean, all the things I'd heard weren't happening. Nobody died. No blood was drawn. Nobody went to jail. Nobody got thrown in the nut house.

Yeah, I got 2.

Yeah,

Diet Coke rules. I'm sorry.

Scary. He's like,

so I

that was the humble beginnings for me. No big deal. I just thought I'm doing this as often as I possibly can because there's no downside to feeling this fantastic feeling. So 13 was that was humble beginnings. Pot and wine at 12:13 was pills, any kind of pills? Two and all placidal second all loved all of them. Only reason I took them is somebody came up and said would you like a couple of these pills? And I said, well, yeah, took them,

you know, lay down on the floor, stay there, very comfortable on the floor.

I felt very good down there, that there's an absolutely no reason not to do this. So I took all kind of pills, all kind of pills, lots and lots and lots of pills. 14 with psychedelics. I did about 650 acid trips. Got classified legally insane by the military several years later, but that's a whole other story.

And

that will do things to you. That much LSD, peyote, all that stuff. 15 I started shooting dope because this girl at a party said would you like me to stick this in your body? And I said yes, yes, I would.

I had learned that this was a good, good. When people came and asked you these kind of questions, yes was the only way to go. I mean, it was working out. So she stuck that, you know, she hit me with that, and I just did one of these.

And on the way down, all I remember thinking was, yeah,

this will work. This is the work. Man, I like this one. Soon as I get my head back up, I'm going to ask for some more of that.

And I did and I did. And, you know,

first time I hang out with some friends, I said, you want to start some cocaine. And I said, well, yeah,

we started some cocaine. I said I like this,

this is good, this is good. It stopped that nod thing from happening. You know what I mean?

You know, shoot more dope when you got that cocaine going as you know what I mean? Drink a lot more, right? I mean, I, I, I remember when I, there was a period of my life later on where I was really making a concerted effort not to die as a result of my alcoholism and my drug addiction. And I was not drinking. I was doing 3-4 grams of cocaine, about 10 Quaaludes a day.

But to me, this was not getting high. This was just sort of a maintenance thing, you know what I mean? It was cocaine and quaaludes. I was relaxed but alert. This was right where I wanted it. Yeah. Very, very difficult line to walk,

actually impossible. You know those, those little those video card games, you know what I mean? We try to keep the car on the road and you're always off on the field and in the barn. That was me trying to hit that line with the cocaine and the quaaludes just all over the place. 16 I got thrown in my I dropped out of high school, got thrown in my first nut house. They took took me for three months of observation and a year of rehabilitation,

which I thought was a little excessive.

I eventually talked my way out of there. I did try to escape while I was in there. I my big escape attempt. I mean, I'm in there taking 3 cups of pills a day in a shot when I can get one for acting out and just shuffling around and they're answering stupid questions. Having guys light my cigarettes for me, having a guy stand there while I shave. And we were sitting in the cafeteria one day and I ate all my meals with this insane woman named Kilde. Kilday was very entertaining. Kilday just say a few words to Kilday and she just amp about just

insane and it was very entertaining.

It was I mean every me every meal would kill day was like dinner in the show. You know what I mean? Eat your little meal and watch kill. They flip out. So one day I decided I was going to make the big break. They had the exit signs like they've got here, except they were lit up green,

big green exit signs. And that was it, man. That was the word for the death. What I wanted to do is exit. So I was sitting at the table ready to blast out of there and I said kill day was my diversion. I sent her spinning that way and I was sitting at the table. I was like, ready, ready, go.

Yeah. And I'm hauling ass, you know what I mean? That's all I got because I forgot about those little 3 cups of pills a day, you know what I mean? And I'm doing my little Thorazine shuffle for the door, you know, and the arms are working. I'm really trying to get out of this joint and off from the nurses station over the loudspeaker system here. Lou, when you got a minute? You want to grab or he's making a break for the door

as though they're having a sandwich going. Yeah, yeah, I'll get him in a minute. He ain't going there. So I had to talk my way out of that place. There was no escaping. But tools for living if you're going to live my life. And your tools for living are drugs, alcohol, violence and run, Yeah. You got to know if you're going to get thrown in mental institutions, you got to get out before they get the Thorazine in you. If you don't, you leave a NASDAQ. It's that simple.

So the next time I got thrown in the nut house, I blew out of there the first day I created the diversion blast it out. Bells and whistles are going off at an intern right on my tail. I'm in the back. I'm in this back lawn area heading for this chain link fence with an intern right on my tail. And I'm I'm like 1617 years old. I'm a high school drop by and I'm a drug addict. I'm an alcoholic. I'm at any moment hopefully an escape mental patients like my resume. You know, this is all I have to say for myself. And I know though, if I make that fence, I don't have a

I don't have a problem if I make that fence because I'll be loaded in 20 minutes. I'm as LA is my town, I'll be loaded in 20 minutes. And that's all that matters because I drink and use no matter what, no matter what in my part of town. They tell a lot of times I hear people telling people that are new just don't drink and use no matter what, which pisses me off. I think that kills people, telling them that if I could just not drink or use no matter what, I guarantee you I would not be here tonight

in this room in Snowbird, Utah, sharing my experience, strength, and hope

with a group of people the majority of whom I've never seen before in my life. Why the hell would I do that?

Why I hate to fly? Why would I get on an airplane and fly here and then have to turn around and get on another one just to get back? I wouldn't do that. I'd be at home on myself for doing my thing, not drinking and using no matter what. But that does not address my problem. That's like saying just say no to a guy like me or the new one, the new one they got now. Just don't do it.

Shut up.

That's just your ignorance is showing when you say stuff like that, man. That does not address my disease. That is not address my alcoholism, my drug addiction. That doesn't even come close to addressing the problem at hand.

Just an opinion,

but it's the wrong one.

So anyway, I hit the streets and I lived on the streets for three years and I you do what you do to get loaded in LA on the streets, stay loaded on a daily basis.

Ended up in college. Long story, we don't need to get anywhere here without a high school diploma. Casual, take care of that.

Give me a year's tuition, said the transcripts were in the mail. Next thing I know, I'm I'm I'm 19 years old. I'm going to business college. I've become a drug dealer. I'm studying marketing, production, distribution. I'm applying it to my business. Business is booming. I've gone and gotten a GEDI got my high school diploma. I'm living with this woman up in Northern California.

She's saying things like on too high,

which pisses a guy like me off. I mean, if you can say that, it's not true.

So we shipped her back to LA and I was drinking and using the way I do. When I was 20, I got diagnosed to have malignant cancer. I flew back to LA. They did major surgery on my upper back. They told me I was going to die. They told my family I was going to die. I told them you don't even know who you're talking to

because I'm using like a madman at this point

and that sort of stuff's coming up like twice a week. You know, you could die if you shoot that. Well, we'll see.

That was just the way I was living.

They did the nuclear medicine thing on me. They had me in the chemotherapy. I didn't. I didn't like the shots they were giving me, the drugs they gave me, and I didn't like the buzz, so I just quit.

I was ready.

Let's not get carried away.

You want that, You can have that.

Those are the 12 steps.

I have no idea where I was. It makes no difference at all.

I'm up at school, I'm getting high, I come back down, I get the cancer thing, I quit the cancer treatments. I get loaded the way I get loaded. I beat the cancer thing. Basically, I think that I was getting so high that I would become so toxic. Cancer could not live in my body.

I've become more of a disease than the disease itself. And it beat the cancer thing. I spent a lot of years,

I went back up north, continue to use the way that I was using ended up I had AI, was a junior in college. I had an early acceptance to go to USA law school. I was editor in chief of my college newspaper.

I mean, things were looking pretty good on the outside, but I was using like a maniac and it was just non-stop. And I had known for a while, yeah, I'd known for a few years already that everything in my life was secondary to getting high. It was the only thing that made me feel comfortable anywhere with anybody doing anything. And I knew that if it if things had to fall by the wayside in order for me to get high, then that's just the way it was going to have to be.

So I was just keeping the facade going as long as I could.

My mother called me from LA and said, look, we have been anywhere as a family in 10 years, we'll go anywhere you want to go. Let's just go as a family. And I said, oh, can I flew back to LA Did one of those all nighters, you know, those cocaine nights where you show up, you can't get your mouth open, You know, just

showed up like that, just all locked down and crazy. And we got in my father's plane to fly to Guadalajara. On the way there, the plane crashed. And my mother, my father, my little sister were all killed. And I wasn't. And I woke up on a mountain in Mexico,

just outside of Los Mochis, Mexico, about 160 miles north of Guadalajara. And my skull was fractured, My back was broken in three places. My arm was crushed, leg was crashed. I had a lot of internal injuries. I was paralyzed in the waist down. And I was awake and but I couldn't think. I could move with my right arm. And I laid there and I watched them all bleed to death right in front of me

and I

had a little quiet talk with God and said you know I have no interest in a God that would take a kind, gentle loving girl like my 20 year old sister Kimberly. I leave a lion cheating, thieving, dope fiend alcoholic like me on the planet. I had no interest in a guy that would do such a thing. And I renounced God. Some guys came up and scavenged the PLAN wreck, took the money out of my wallet, scavenged what they could get off the wreck, and then 11 went to back down the mountain and left me up there to die.

Had no more use for you either. I was out of the game. I had no interest in other human beings. I had no interest in God.

I was going to get my ass down off of this mountain one way or another, and I was going to use the way I like to use. And anybody that got in my way, that was just too bad.

I was one angry little son of a bitch with a huge habit, no tool for living other than drinking youth no matter what. And I got, I kept hitting myself in the side with my right arm because my back was broken and it hurt so bad when I did it, it pulled me up out of the shock. So I didn't shock out and die. And some guys eventually came up and they took me down, down the mountain, took me to a a medical station and they tagged my right big toe.

They tagged me and then sat out and smoked cigarettes waiting for me to die. And I didn't. So they finally took me to the hospital

and they kept me there, and then they realized who they had and they had me under federal. I was under armed guard by the federales for 3 1/2 days and interrogated to an interpreter because they wanted to know what I was doing back in Mexico. I wouldn't give anything for pain. And every once in a while they'd sit me up and my back was busted. So I just pass out and then they lay me back down and when I come to that, interrogate me a little more and then they'd sit me up and I'd black out and sit and blame me back down. It was a nice 3 1/2 days.

I called a friend of mine up in Northern California whose family was family was out of Mexico City and they got their company plane to fly in

pay a few people I got. So I got myself out, smuggled out of Mexico, flew me back up to Southern California and I stayed in the hospital there for a long time. They told me probably wouldn't walk again, have a withered left hand and be blind in my left eye. And none of those things are true. And they had me on maximum doses of Demerol every three hours around the clock, right up until the moment I walked out of there under my own power, had a special brace made with metal bars in the back that cinched up in the front and a cane. And I walked out of there

and three hours and 15 minutes later, man, I was looking to hook up because I was Jones and bad. And I did. And I went on my lap, got a lot of money from the airplane crash, the insurance. And I went on my last run and it lasted 4 1/2 years and I went for it. It was not about getting sober at anything at any point during that. It was not about cleaning up Occasionally. I had to detox enough to get well enough to go back to using my routine. At that point, I was overdosing a lot.

One of my claims to fame was that I could talk to you while you pump my stomach

tubes on me and I could talk to you. I got so used to it.

It was a long run and I was loaded every single minute of it. From the time I would come to till I would pass that. That could be 4 hours, that could be four days. You never knew. I've come to in different cities. I've come to in in very interesting conversations with police departments,

all kinds of interesting situations. You just, it just becomes a normal fair. You just come to again in the middle of a conversation and you just know you did it again

that I got, I did not drink or use on three separate occasions in the last 4 1/2 years. They were 72 hours each and that was because I was strapped to a table shot full of anti convulsions and let ride. There was a little fake sanitariums in Hollywood. They used to go in and give them 150 bucks cash. Give me your wallet, your gun, your bottle of Valium, your car keys. They strap you to a table, shoot your full anticonvulsant some 72 hours later. They didn't send you home and send you the morgue. They didn't care

and you'd get up and you'd pray to God, God, it's me again. Get me through this same and alive and I'll never, never, never do this again. I can't take it. My ass is kicked. I'm an alcoholic, I'm a drug addict. I've known that for years.

I cannot take the pain and the torture, the madness of this anymore. I can't do it. And I'd come crawling up off that table and stagger out there and they give me my wallet, my valor, and my car keys and my gun back. And I'd stare at my car and I'd pop 4050 milligrams of Valium because, you know, I'm shaking. And I got to drive because I don't know what I'm up against. I don't know what I'm up against. I don't know. I don't know that it's not just about stopping. It's about not starting again and having the tools to do that. I didn't know what I knew. I was an alcoholic, but I didn't know what alcoholism was. I didn't know about an obsession of the mind

body. I had no idea. So I take 4050 milligrams of Valium to settle down enough to drive home and come to four days later in Oakland pounding on a bar like the guy in the book that was on his way home and all comes 2 LB on the bar wondering how it happened. That's me. I did that three more times and the end for me was in Venice, CA. I had, in a blackout, had attempted to murder my landlord.

He was not happy about that.

We had been evicted and

it was over. I came to and it was over. I was

yellow. I was quite literally dying of alcoholism and hair out like this, a beard out like this. I was 215 lbs. I was psychotic and I don't use the term loosely. I could not distinguish between fantasy and reality. I would come too and I didn't. And I I think of something and I didn't know if I'd done that. Somebody told me that, that I hear that on the radio. I didn't know. I had been accused of murder in a blackout on one occasion. I have absolutely no memory of what happened. I was sitting at home drinking just like I always was.

Got a phone call, picked up the phone. I said hello buddy mindset. I guess it's not true, he said.

I said, what are you talking about? He says, well, apparently you are a party Friday night and you got to fight and kill the guy. And I said what? And I couldn't remember Friday. I had no idea what I'd done Friday because, yeah, some friends of your family have talked to District Attorney and they got things set up you to come down and surrender yourself and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said, we'll call him back and tell him I'm at home. If anybody wants to talk to me, here I am. And things just drifted away. I don't know. I don't. And I don't know. And those are crazy wild things to have in your head.

Well, I mean, when I was finished, both my paws were broken. I had two broken hands. I was 215 lbs. I was yellow. I was psychotic. I had almost 700 stitches in me. I had broken 75 bones. I've been stabbed twice, shot at. The violence had been extreme. My family was dead. I had no friends. I had no money left. I had no place to live. I burned my life to the ground. The only thing left was that my lungs were still breathing and my heart was still beating.

Completely destroyed human being. And I had no tools for living that worked at all. And I threw up my hands and I said help me. And they took me by ambulance to an emergency room. And they pulled my stomach one more time and they said get him out of here, he's going to die. And they took me by ambulance to another facility. They kept me five days. They said he's getting worse, get him out of here. And they took me by ambulance down to a place in Long Beach, CA Long Beach General Hospital and put me on a free bed. And I detoxed another 12 days in there. And they didn't make it easy on you back in those days.

This is a lot. This is a while back. They, I mean, they kept me from here. I only had one convulsion while I was in there,

which was pretty good for their, they kept you just aside of it. And it was, and I spent another 30 days on a free bed in there with a counselor guy. And, and, and I learned one thing while I was in there.

If I didn't want to die, I had, I couldn't, I could never drink again, could never use again. And if I didn't want to do that, I was going to have to find a place called Alcoholics Anonymous and get involved in this back before there was any CA.

And I said, OK, And I remember your Friday night. Speaker Sam was the first speaker I ever heard when they just got me out of detox. And those places out of detox meant if they stood you up and helped you, you could walk. And this guy had me and he gave me 1/3 of a cup of decaf and a Styrofoam cup. And I was just shaking like a dog, man. And they and they helped me and I sat down. There was a panel coming in. And this panel was Sam. And he had like 21 years of sobriety at that time, is going to be 40 in January.

And

this guy started talking and he was funny and he was talking about, you know, all these crazy speed runs that he was going on and that he, he'd gotten clean and he decided to write him down. He wrote a couple of them down and they ended up his two episodes of Mission Impossible and he sold them to the Mission Impossible. And I was thinking, and he made me laugh. And I was sitting there and I was so crazy. I heard this sound and it was me laughing. And it was only at that moment that I realized I hadn't laughed

in a long, long time. And that made me so sad. I just sat there and cried,

check in with my little cup of coffee and crying. Listen to this madman at the podium saying in sober 21 years, I thought no way,

no way because it sounds like he is like me. There's no way you could do that

and shuffled around. I left that place into a series of circumstances. I found Alcoholics Anonymous. It took me about another year and a half. I didn't drink. I haven't had a drink since 1978, but I've been clean and sober since November 6th, 1980. So in November I'll be, I'll have 16 years of sobriety and that that's impossible. Nah, man, you just, you just applied in yourselves because of you applied in yourselves because there is absolutely no way

I could stay clean for a day. I couldn't stay clean for a day until I found this place. No way.

And I wandered into the basement of a church on a Friday night at 8:30 in West Los Angeles and I sat in the back with my arms folded with my best fuck you get away from me look on my face because I was scared to death, man. My tools for living didn't work anymore, and I was a terrified, wounded little animal sitting in the back of a room who had no idea how to be in the room. I'd been on the ground since I was 14 years old. I had no idea. I had no sense of family, of being a family or being a part of that kind of a structure unit. I had no sense of community.

I had not been a part of my community. I had no sense of social systems or how they worked. I had no idea I've been an addict my whole life. I didn't know anything about it. And I had done some very crazy things out there and I had no place else to go but this room. And I sat in the back with my arms folded, looking crazy because that's what I was. Because if you came up on me and said that you, I was no way I could talk to you. If you came up to me and said how you doing? The answer was I don't.

If I'd have been honest when I came into recovery, if you had walked up to me and said anything to you, I would have just opened my mouth and started screaming because that was all it was inside me. I was out of my mind and I was terrified that if I if I couldn't do this, I was going to die. And I was at that point. I am a low bottom, hope to die dope fiend alcoholic of the hopeless variety.

That's who I am. And I'm here tonight to tell you that low bottom hopeless Alcoholics and drug addicts can recover

in these rooms. My life was destroyed. I got here the only way I could get here. And that was that, that I had no place else left to go. So I sat in the back of room, my arms folded. And the guys with some time, they stayed off of me because they knew who I was. They'd been me. They knew you don't go up on a guy like that. It's not about being tough. It's about he's a very frightened, crazy individual and if you get up on him, he'll get violent. So they stayed away from you, man. They call that across the room. And they said, brother, we're glad you hear there's some coffee over there. We got a seat for you right here. Welcome.

Which I love, man. I said cool, They got the message, you know, and I went, I got my coffin. And when I sat down, dying inside, can't let anybody know what's in here. Cannot happen for years and years and years. Hadn't asked anybody for anything in a long time. But every minute he's got a guy who's new who just caught fire with a A and he's going to give it away tonight, you know what I mean? And they had one guy named Vegas. Vegas saw me and all he saw was new guy. So he came up on me, said hi in Vegas, I'm an alcoholic. And I said, So what?

And, you know, in exactly the highlight of my life, I don't know what you're so happy about.

Get away from me, man. And he looked at me and he said, keep coming back and turn around, took off. And I thought, great, you know, keep coming back. That's going to help about 3:00 AM when I'm losing it one more time.

Meant nothing to me.

Keep coming back to a guy like me and meant nothing. Neither did one day at a time, neither to turn it over, neither did Easy, does it? The hell does any of that mean? When you're fresh off the street, crazy out of your mind, and you know, man, you slip up once you're dead, you're spiritually bankrupt. You've burned your life to the ground. So things didn't mean a God damn thing to me. All it did was irritate me because it was said to me in a way that suggested there was some deep spiritual significance to these little slogans and you all knew what they were and I didn't. So I felt like the loser

one more time so you can shove your little slogans.

If you're new, there's a couple guys that set up. We're new tonight. If you're new, again, just another suggestion. If you're new and some guy walks up on you and says, hey, bro, keep coming back. Or my favorite, just turn it over, right? Says that to you, step up to the plate, man. Say, excuse me, I don't understand the deep spiritual significance of turn it over. Would you mind explaining that to me a little bit?

Well, if in in my neck of the woods, if they're honest, they would about 70% of them would say,

well, you know what, I don't really know what it means either. You know, I came in, they said it to me. You came in. I'm saying to you, I don't really know what I mean.

You know, if there's a guy over there who reads the big book, you know, let's go ask him, baby. He knows.

So I sat in the back of this old timer, got up and he was like 65 years old. He was a Skid Row bum, he was an ex wino and he was an ex boxer.

And I thought from none of those things, this guy knows nothing about me. Because see, I came in here being able to spot the differences between you and me immediately that way, 'cause that way I don't have to listen to you. I don't have to be threatened by what you have to say. I don't have to hear from you that what I'm doing doesn't work, that I'm not OK, that I'm not enough because that's all I can hear. So I have to get you off the list real fast. I got to work 15 seconds, man. I can tell you didn't know about me. I mean, it was if you're a woman, you don't know about me. If you're a woman, it's not about her being better or worse. It's just different.

If you're a woman, you don't know about me. You're five years old or five years younger. You come up with something else, man. You don't know about me, you gay. You don't know about me. You black, Hispanic, Asian, you don't know about me. I mean, I got so good at it by the time I got here, let's circle the wagon so tight. It was just not Earl. You don't know about me. I can just back you off right away. But this guy got him. He said these things and I thought, this guy knows nothing about me. But the beauty in my circumstance was was that I was sitting in the back of my arms folded, keeping everybody off of me that I didn't have anywhere to go

at. Absolutely. I thought that if I go get in my car

and leave, where do I go?

I have nowhere to go. Nowhere.

So I stayed and that guy got up and he said two things that blew my mind, that did something for me that nobody had been able to do ever. He got up and he spoke honestly and openly about his feelings as a man and I was amazed by that. He talked about waking up with his head chewing on it, head telling him what a miserable, worthless son of a bitch he was, and it didn't let up. All that and while his head was doing that, he got up. He got dragged, took a shower, got drast, went to work, put in an honest day's work, went and got something to eat, went to a meeting and was

to that mean he did not go to that meaning to get something. He went to give something because he had worked the 12 steps as outlined in the big book. It had a spiritual awakening as a result of that, had been restored to sanity and was now coming to the meetings to give something that had been freely given to him. He knew about that. He understood that. When he was done, he went to coffee with a couple of new guys, shared what he could in terms of his experience, strength and help with them when home, got in bed, head chewing on him the whole way, no wreckage.

That was amazing to me. I'd never had a day like that. I didn't know about a day like that. And then it was like he looked right at me and he said, you know what,

I don't care whether you like what I got to say or not. You don't like what I got to say, go to another meaning. I love that. I love that because it made it clear to me, this guy's not selling me something. He's sharing it with me. If I want, I can have it or any part of it. If I don't want it, if it's not good for me, come go to another meeting, find somebody that's got something that that I want that I can use. I thought, you know what? And I got to sit back there acting like I hated this.

But inside I thought, this is cool, I'm coming back. And I got and I waited till the next Friday

and I went back to that meeting to hear that guy talk some more. I didn't know