The PNR Convention in Boise, ID

Part of these military or something,

I'd like to say. Good morning everybody.

I'm with mathematic

alcoholic, whatever

for a start. I really want to thank the committee for asking me to to do this and I want to thank everybody who had any kind of part in putting this convention on. Had a wonderful time myself and I was going to say thank you very much.

So yeah, I'm an addict, an alcoholic.

Anybody know what the difference is between an addict and alcoholic?

You can see from the back a couple sugar packets right? Alcoholic

does that, Drug addict

you can relate to that. You're in the right place,

my really good buddy Donnie. So my oldest friends in the world,

been cleaning sober around a decade now, told me that joke. And I'm like a lot of other people, I get, you know, terrified coming out to do this no matter what, and found a little humor always kind of helps me relax.

It's really an honor and a privilege to be here this morning. It's a,

it's another Sunday morning, you know, and I'm not trying to stave off what I did Friday night and Saturday night. I, I woke up this morning, actually, the bird woke me up and they kind of pissed me off for a little while. When you're attic like me, you know all about the birds pissing you off first thing in the morning.

So I was remembering what I heard somebody else talking about this weekend and 11 step workshop about the the beauty of be able to hear some birds and that kind of thing. And I think it was the 11th of workshop. I might have been, I'm in gym last night, I'm not sure.

I'm pretty tired, but

I woke up feeling good and it's, you know, it's 10:00 AM and

before I got here, I would have been would have been running for a couple of hours already. And deeply grateful to have to not have to go through the stuff that I just have to go through to just get out of bed this morning.

I want to say that I love the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I believe in the the program of action that it's so clearly outlines. It's changed my life. It's changed me as a human being. And I'm continuously amazed that a, an old sod in New York Stock speculator and a proctologist were able to put this thing together. You know, that's just amazing to me.

It's an honor to stand before you

as an addict, somebody who's recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. And I don't say that because, like, I'm all that in a bag of chips. I say that because that's what this program has to offer. And

very happy that I have a place to come to on a daily basis and take care of myself and try and care the message to the attic who's still suffering once. I'm glad that I have a format to follow and what it was like because

and then what happened and what it's like now, because, you know, there's those early founders found that that's the way to gain somebody who who's who's new or nearly knew how to how to gain their trust. And I'm hoping that some of the people that that that were here last night, who were new or or nearly new are, are here again this morning. And you went to bed sober and you haven't gotten loaded yet this morning.

I always hate talking to people like 20 years and saying, you know, go to meetings, work to stab students bonds. Read the book, it really works.

You know, it's, it seems like I'm preaching to the choir, but you know, we have a tradition around here. And the fifth one that, you know, I have a primary purpose that's to carry the message of the addict who still suffers. And my experience has been for the most part, those people that are new, but sometimes the people that have been around for a long time, if you're an addict like me, sometimes you have a mind that just forgets everything. I've got this forever clever mind. It's, it's like a steel colander and stuff just goes right through it all the time, you know, and

drugs work the same way. They always wore off. And I was laughing myself and I found that recovery will wear off. So I need to do this thing daily, and

I'm grateful that it works that way.

I was born in Brooklyn

and I'll prove it. Hey, fuck you.

I, I, you know, I, I grew up in a family that that gave me all the love I could ever want, all the support I could ever want.

I never went without and,

and I'm deeply grateful for that. You know, my folks flew out here and there was a point a few years ago where they had to make that difficult decision of, of saying, you know, we love you, but you have to go. You can't be here. You have to, you have to go live back on the streets where you just work. And it really moves me a lot. And it speaks of what this program has to offer. I believe that they flew all the way out from New York just to, you know, say I love you and spend a little time. And I'm, I'm really grateful for that. I love you guys.

Thank you.

So I had all, I had all this love, I had all this support and

none of it ever really quite

sunk all the way in. You know, I've just been listening to people speak all weekend and just relating across the board. I just, I never really quite fell all the way comfortable inside of myself doing what I was doing, wherever I was doing. It had those feelings like I never ever quite fit in. I could never really match up to you.

And the one that I didn't really know until I got here and I started doing some of the work was that, you know, if you really knew me, you wouldn't like me. And I, I could never ever quite put a finger on any of these feelings so that I just didn't feel right. And

I'm so glad that I got here. I did, you know, and I continued to do some of the work to be able to identify some of this stuff.

I

I never had, you know, the thing of like, you know, I just don't feel adequate, you know, passing that joint, you know, it never, it was never a conscious thing. Was like I got lyrics. This shit felt good. All right, That's all I knew, man. It was like this feels good. I'm going to do it some more.

I, I,

I was a big believer in the bathroom.

Favorite room in the house, you know, and I would be long before I even started getting loaded. I would go in the bathroom to use the bathroom and I pick up a book and start reading. And I'd sit in there for three or four hours and just read, you know, and my mom, you're like, are you all right? You know, I'm sure she was doing some, she thought I was doing something else in there other than reading, but

wrong fellowship for that. But

you know, I

I loved like that, like quiet like I'm all alone in here and no one can really, like mess with what I'm trying to do to change where I feel folks from my first real big escape. But nothing quite worked like that first beer that I drank. I don't know exactly why I drank it today. I was like some hunches, you know, uncomfortable as a kid, teased by other kids didn't want to be a kid, saw adults sitting around drinking and smoking a pot, laughing and having a good time. And I like to hang out with them. That was going on

because it was like, it was fun. And

so, you know, the devious mind that I have, you know, I waited and I plotted and I planned and took a couple years, but I finally got my opportunity and I stole the beer out of the fridge. I think it was something really quality, like a black label, you know, some really good stuff there. And I snuck in the bathroom. It's my first experience of being in bathrooms for a long time. After that I drank it and I got off

that thing that that makes me different from normal people happened,

felt good, felt really good. And all those like weird little childhood feelings of just like this kind of sucks went away and I got off man. And I, I loved it. I pretty much immediately and I kind of stumbled around the house and this little euphoric buzz and then that wore off and a puke my guts out. And because I have this disease, I note at the time, I went back and I got another one immediately

and it just kicked off this long 20 year run.

First illegal drug I ever did was LLC. I was nine. And today like I look at 9 year old kids and be like, what the hell was I thinking man? You know, I'm like, dude, you know,

yes, I moved out of California. I say dude now sometimes so

that you might hear that said once or twice,

but man, I had a great time. I spent all day tripping my ass off hanging out. My grandpa

got an old stoned out alcoholic guy and he was just sitting there all kind of buzzed out. And I'm laid on the floor watching it melt all buzzed out. And

you know, and you know, I, I didn't know it then, but these were hits that was supposed to be slipped between four people.

Oh, I heard. I felt that shudder.

I've heard other people talk about that, you know, and just, you know, I didn't know, so I'll take this. Sure. You know, my oldest friend Donnie stole it from my dad and and we decided to take it and

I loved it. Closest thing I found to a spiritual experience before I got here.

Later that night, I took the second-half. I'm nine years old and I'm running around. I'm like, I guess the equivalent of what like eight people should have been taking and

there are no consequences. I didn't get caught. I loved it and started smoking pot pretty much right after that. I'd heard drugs were bad but my experience was nothing bad happened just feels good and I want to keep doing this for for a long time.

Smoke pot pretty much every day for for 20 years.

Started getting into,

started taking pills and I liked, I like things that made me go down, primarily

my my grandmother was dying of lung cancer and was living with us and she died and they were giving her morphine and liquid morphine. And I went in the bathroom and stole the bottle and drank a little bit. And that was that was the best thing I'd ever found.

And I was not like one guy who I totally do not relate to the concept of drug of choice.

I never even heard that term before. I walked into a treatment center and I looked at the woman who asked me that like blankly and like, what the hell is that? I was a mixer. I like to put about four or five 6-7 different things in my body at once and see what happened That that was the way that that I drank and I used.

So I got into got into pills. I was a medicine cabinet bandit and the coffin flush down to a science. You know, you walk, go visit somebody. Can I use your bathroom,

you know, go on there and open the medicine cabinet, you know, and rifle around and like, may cause drowsiness. Alright, yeah. Do not take with alcohol. Oh yeah, right. You know, I'm gonna be doing some of that and I just take shit and find out what happened later, you know,

took all kinds of things that I probably shouldn't have been taken and

like that, you know. And so I'd finish, you know, rummaging through and take some of this, some of that and put it all back very carefully so, you know, in case they open it up, you know, it was all on exact same spot and flushed the toilet to close the door. There'd be no no noise and

I did that a lot. I was first stop I made in somebodies house

and

went on and on like that.

I was

big believer in in psychedelic drugs for a long time, took an awful lot of them. It was not uncommon for me to wake up and and like take 5 bits of liquid acid and smoke a joint just to get to the the bus stop to get to school. And and it's you, you learn some survival skills trying to like pay attention homeroom while you're coming on to that shit, you know, sitting there and the professor's lecturing with a, you know, meter stick or something. You know, I'm just

wow, man, You know, Are you present? Barely, you know,

not that kind of thing.

Did my first line of cocaine and the bathroom of high school. I'm really good friend of mine, Chris, who I got tragically killed many years later,

went out of there and went into gym class

and darn near pulled a lend bias on myself playing basketball. I was, I was so amped up. I was like practically passing the ball and running and catching it myself.

I mean, I was, I was gone, man. I was like, this is great. But it was like this, you know, really expensive thing and hard to get. And, you know, it's like in every once in a while kind of thing. And by the way, I do not identify myself as a cocaine addict because my personal belief is that that like, maybe somebody who's new might go like, Oh, well then like I can shoot a little heroin.

You know what I mean? I'm a drug addict. I'm an alcoholic. The thing that I love about CA is that when I got here, he said, we don't care. Whatever it is you're doing, we want to help with your problem.

The freedom from all mind altering substances is very appealing to me. And I love Cocaine Anonymous for that and and the people that that welcome me when I first showed up in the rooms because they're like, we don't care bro. We don't care. Whatever it is you're doing, whatever it is you're telling yourself with, we have a solution and that just sit your ass down and pay attention,

you know, so cocaine was not a real big easily accessible thing. There was tons of pot and tons of acid and all kinds of pills because everybody has a bathroom. And

I, I did that for a long time and all kind of culminated with getting a poison. That's something I thought was some kind of psychedelic drug. And being running around the house naked and riding on the walls and, and my folks having to like literally like hold me down on the floor and like, like literally sit on my back and that kind of thing. So I was out of my mind,

literally. I couldn't speak.

I was just like grunting and saying like weird words and it was a scary thing. And so I figured that ass is a problem and but I can, I can drink some more pot. And I did that for the last couple of years of high school and somehow I, I got into college because high school is all about being high. It was, that was all it was for me. And

you see, I'm a drug addict. I'm really smart. Even though I've done some really stupid shit in my life. I'm really smart and I know how to play the game. My whole thing is if I'm interested in it, I'm going to do really well. And if I'm not interested in it, I will do just what I can to get by. And that, that was the way that, you know, this is my coping mechanism. My, my life coping skills in high school were advising dentine and Cologne,

you know, that that's what I needed to get through each day, man, you know what I mean? It was like get the red out and take the reek off and, and choose some gum and you know,

so like that, that, you know, that's how I survived, you know, is, you know, trying to sell a little bit, a little bit of that and hooking up friends and making all of my friends because I always had a bag of pot. That was how I earned my friends. By the time I graduated from high school, it was my 7th overall school, my second high school. It's like every two years I had to move. And

what I found was as soon as I got to the new school, there were certain people I could just like us. I can spot us over a mile away, and I could spot us loaded a mile away. Walk up and you know, I got the big boots and the torn Levis and the bandanas around the leg and all that. You know, David Lee Roth crap. And you know, the leather jacket and smoking. I'm like, there's my people and you get hot. Yeah, I get high. Best of friends. Immediately. We had something in common,

so like that was just how I related. I related by by getting loaded with people.

So I moved out to Santa Cruz, CA to go to this wonderful university there and I moved out there in 1987 and I finished in my bachelor's degree in 2001.

Now

that doesn't sound like one of our stories. Only through five years. And I was I was in a class and a half away from graduating and could not get it together for all of those years

in in college was was great. Did all those things that college students are supposed to do like snort, speed and study

crank? There's a nasty drug, right? Burn a hole in your head, tears running down my face and then what the hell did I just do? Just snort battery acid and then

it would hit me. And this is great for the first day. And four days later, when everybody's a cop, you know, it wasn't so much fun.

You know, they're out there and they're looking in and here they come and all that, you know, how can I make this stop?

Did all the, the keg parties and I used to have this, this, this sticker that said my parents think I'm in college and

you know that that's, that's what I did. I ran around the redwoods and I got, I got loaded

and, and the progressive nature of, of this disease was really starting to come on. I didn't know it at the time. I know it today. I thought I was that tolerant,

you know, that was my word for it back then. I've got tolerance, See, I can, I can party more than you and I can drink more than you and, and I can, I can function better than you. I'm the guy at, you know, 5 minutes at 2:00 AM who's got enough together to walk into 711 and deal with those lights. You know,

I, I can, I can handle that. I I drive better when I'm drunk. If I'm not drunk in shape, I'm all Oh my God. You know, I have a few drinks. I'm like, whoa, you know, this time take the edge off. Yeah, I'm a better driver this way. And

and I can deal and I took great pride in being like out party people.

Some male ego thing going on there.

And I did all that, that stuff that, you know, I had to do

to feel normal. But umm,

looking back on now, I can really see how like, you know, those first like 2 beers when I was nine was not what I needed to get the desired effect when I was 20.

And

that it, it was the way this disease works. It really blows my mind because it's so sneaky and it's so subtle and it just, it creeped, it crept into my life and just started taking a hold of all these things that I like to do, like make art, like play sports, like cook food, like go dancing, all those things. It just, it just kind of stole it all the way, but so subtly. I actually thought I was making a decision to not go do these things anymore.

You know, pattern was like, this is fun. And then take take some drugs or drink and say like, wow, this is even better. And then after a while I was like, well, it's not going to be fun unless I have this stuff to go do that. And then I was like, well, I need to get this stuff in me just so I can even think about going and doing that. Like, why bother doing that? That's too expensive.

I'll just sit at home and have a party by myself,

not a bar drinker. Cost too much

a drink of choice was like what's on sale, you know, not particularly picky. And, and that's the way that, you know, I went through that those five years of a wonderful opportunity to really improve myself and, and develop my mind.

So it got out loud. I graduated and went on this long series of

one job being slightly lamer and the next pretty much. And

I did this and I did that. And I moved around and I tried to, you know, pull off, you know, this, this dream that I had of being able to drink and use the way I wanted to use and still kind of come up in life. I would see people with like new cars and mountain bikes on them and boats on them. I'd be like, how do they do that? You know, how do they, how do they pull this thing off? Watch friends get married and buy houses. And I would just scratch my head and I couldn't figure it out.

So this, this went on and on and on, you know, just, you know, taking as much as I could whenever I could every single day and, and just existing. Like I heard somebody else talk about nearly how much of A life everybody I, I hung out with did what I did or else I thought, you know, people that didn't were lame.

And my life, I started to kind of get a glimpse that I just, I wasn't really progressing. So I was noticing like the houses and the places that I lived a few years earlier were a lot nastier these days, you know, and I'm living in these places. I'm looking at like the place is a dump, you know, and my life is kind of slowly going downhill, but I really can't quite see, I can't figure out what the problem is. I'm thinking that my main problem is I'm just not earning enough money.

And that's, you know, if I can just get enough money, then I can afford all this stuff I like to do.

I can buy all that shit, you know.

And so it just started falling apart. And I started, you know, figuring that the town I was living in was the problem. And I started moving around and I would move and hang out somewhere and I'd end up with myself again, doing what I needed to do. And it would fall apart up there. And I would

just pretty much run my life into the ground and then go home for the holidays and recuperate for a little while, eat a bunch and sleep and bathe and that kind of thing. And kind of like, all right, I'm feeling a bit better and I can go back out and try this, what I now understand to be a desperate experiment all over again. And every year it just seemed like a notch would go. I was just drop a notch and like worse things would happen. I'm like,

you know, long standing jokes. When I first showed up, it's like I just thought my life was going to slump. Anybody have that feeling like, you know, I'm just, I'm just in a bad spell. This is going to pull out.

It's gonna be fun again, you know, and,

and I didn't, I didn't end up happening until I got sober, but it was starting to go downhill. And

I ended up, you know, I had back up a little bit when I was in when I was in high school, when I first started getting into drugs. I needed to educate myself, right? Some smart dude. I wanted to know what the hell I was taking, where I came from, what it did to me. And so I read every available piece of literature I could. And this is all stemming from reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I read, I read that book, man. I read that Backpage of all that shit through those guys run around carrying and not wearing.

Yeah, that's what I want to do.

And I don't think normal people read that book and have that like, yeah, you know, I want to run around with no shit to kill 30 people at all times, you know?

So I, I, you know, I was, I was using like that and going on like this. And I'd tried pretty much everything I could possibly find to get my hands on and things that I couldn't find, I looked for. And I did all that stuff. And I, I had always swore that I'd never do heroin and I'd never stick a needle in my arm. Swore it deathly afraid. You see where this is going, right?

Means I'm going to be getting sober pretty soon.

Give you talking about like picking up the pipe and you're like, cool, here comes recovery. You know,

friend said, hey, I already get some heroin. Cool. I like to snort a little bit of that. And so I was just I was just going to try it here. Here is my forever clever mind. I'm just going to try it once to say I've tried that. A month later, I'm still trying it and I'm looking at my friend who, who's, he's shooting it and he's shooting his little teeny thing and he's I'm starting this big old thing and I'm just not getting off the way he is. Put another absolute, just stellar, brilliant, fine-tuned state of mind thought processes.

I know I'll save money if I start shooting heroin.

That was honestly my thought. I can remember that thought. You know, clears the bell today. And

it took me like 6 years to get that needle out of my arm. And like I heard somebody else say last night, I really wanted to stop.

Within a year, I wanted to stop with all of my might and I absolutely could not. And that just reinforced, you know what, what a, what a piece of crap that I am and what a loser. And I'll never amount to anything. I'm like, you know, you know, you can do all these things. You can't even stop doing this. You know what, you're just so lame and all that, that just, you know, shame and that stuff. It just weighed so heavy on me. And then I really started getting into

things that caused me a lot of guilt.

And then guilt was like starting to pile up really heavily.

And

I'm spending all this money just trying at this point just to not be sick. And I made another career choice, my forever clever mind. You know what? I'm going to start camping,

save some money, I'll have to pay rent. I'm going to start camping and

being somebody who's done like a lot of mountaineering and backpacking and that kind of thing. I had all the gear, right. So am I cool? You know, I'll come up in the world do for a couple of months that that did not happen for me. My life went downhill really fast because also I had I had some extra cash in my wallet. I didn't have to go for bills or rent or that kind of thing. And

I made AI migrated to the middle of a BlackBerry Bush, which I lived in for. I was like Brer Rabbit, you know, this big old farm Bush and I lived in there. That was my little spot and

I, I, I forgot the skills like eating.

Got to be pretty loaded to forget to like eat. You know, I never drank water. So it's like, no, there's water and beer.

I I didn't brush my teeth. I didn't get a haircut and I didn't brush it. I certainly didn't bathe. My idea of laundry was

wearing clothes and using some of these hose in their backyard and

losing weight fast. And I'm looking worse and worse. And my friends, I used to like, you know, have a good time with, you know, the things going on, like what's wrong with Matt? What's going on with him? And then I started that thing. I love the big book talks about. So clearly is that leading that that double life doing my very best to put on a good looking outer shell. You know, I'm dying inside just to try and fool people so they won't know like how how bad it is. And even people that I like to get really loaded with, like I was embarrassed to tell them

how I was getting loaded. And

I ended up living on that Bush for quite a few years. And I go home for the holidays and try and pull myself back together and go back and do it again. And, and it was getting, it was getting bad fast, you know, and I was actually able to stop on many, many occasions. I could not stay stopped. I would go through five days with no sleeping and you know, the diarrhea and the vomiting and all that crap and,

and then I would be like, well, look, you stopped.

Stop anytime you want to. You can shoot a little heroin socially on a Friday night, you know, and, and that would just kick it all off again. I had no idea what I was up against. I had no idea that I had this disease that once I start, I don't stop when I want to.

It was just brutal.

And

I used to trip out on like just, you know, people that would smoke rock. I would just, you know, you guys would be sitting there right and like lips all blistered and swollen and crack and you're doing this thing and I'm like, you guys are messed up. And I'm like, you know, trying to like find a rig and you guys like you guys are messed up. You know, like I just look at you guys and couldn't relate. And and that was going on and

I was really feeling loneliness like that chilling vapor just settled over my life. So I couldn't be around anyone. And man, I was just alone,

alone, so unbelievably, painfully alone. It crushed me. And every morning I'd wake up, I don't want to do this again today. I don't want to do this again today. But I just felt so bad. And I had this mental obsession just ruling my life that I would go and do it again. And then like, such a loser, you did it again. You know, all that kind of stuff for years and years and years, desperately trying to stop trying everything, you know, therapy and moving and reading inspirational books and all that stuff to talk about on page 30,

31. Man, I related to that big time when I got here, I went, Oh yeah, I've taken a trip, not taking a trip. Like, absolutely. I've tried all that stuff. And

finally, I ended up back in New York just trying to like pull it together one more time. And my family,

you know, just intuitively knew comment was going on with me and had a little mini intervention. And with my forever clever mind, I came up with my program and drives me nuts when I had to go say I'm working my program, you know, 'cause my, my program gets me loaded. I believe in the program of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I believe in it with all of my heart because that's what I found for me, my experiences. That's just helped me stop using it and say stop one day at a time.

So I have my plan.

I'm going to go to a couple of meetings every once in a while, pretty much get everybody off my back. But I can drink because that's OK. I can smoke pot because that's like green and organic and garden shit and I can do all that, you know,

And I'm and I'm really sneaking around and trying to hide it a lot. And

I can remember sitting in the back of meetings and I am just miserable, miserable and and I'm not doing anything to change it. You know, I'm not doing any of the work. I'm I'm not even what I heard my first bunch of me. I didn't even hear. I heard like,

you know, it was like Charlie Brown's parents, man, that's all I heard, you know, and I would just, you know, get there second. The meeting started and the 2nd is over out out of there, you know, go back and like meeting was great. Run in my room and drink a pint. You know, I'm like,

I just so did not get it and

ended up with a second professional intervention and I agreed to go into a treatment center,

which

back in New York and

I went in there trying to be a little like star pupil. I figured, and it's I relate to Bill's story was that self knowledge, knowing what's wrong with me is going to really help me. You know, I did everything that they wanted me to do in there, except I was like shooting heroin and detox. I guess they didn't want me to be doing that in there. And I was kind of doing the pillow shuffle on there and I smuggled a rig through the whole thing.

But what happened was or the 8th, there were these H and I meetings that were coming in

and they planted the seed of hope in me. I didn't really necessarily note at the time because, you know, I haven't drank you within 10 years. I go bullshit

can't be done. No way. Look at you got to watch. You know, you've eaten today. It's obvious, you know, and, and you're far too happy. But

I started to think that just just maybe one of these people weren't lying.

But I got out of the treatment center. They, they told me everything I needed to do at that time. I learned everything I needed to know how to stay sober in there and told me to go to meeting every single day and told me to get a sponsor and work the steps in order as fast as I could and as honestly as I could.

Told me to read the book and pray and maybe think about getting a service commitment.

I did none of that

because you know, that guy over there in that treatment center, this guy needs a sponsor. That guy messed up. that Lady, she needs to work steps right, You know, But like, I'm, I've been to college, you know, I'm a smart dude. I can, I can figure all this out and I would read the book. You're like, read the book, read the book, read the book. I'm like, read this stupid book, you know? And

I open it up and it's like, war fever ran high in this little New England town. I'm like,

I'm dying here. What the hell is this, man? I'm like, Oh my God, you know,

I do not relate. This is not for me. This is not for me, you know.

I was trying to do this thing myself is the problem.

They got out of there and I got loaded within an hour.

Fled New York is New York is a problem and back to Santa Cruz, which is something the solution had been the problem just a few months earlier. Moved back into my Bush.

The rats have moved out at that point because I wasn't around like with food and stuff like that. But they came back to visit and I, that's when I really started to understand because I've had a little bit of stuff pumped in my head about the progressive nature of this disease. Was always watching. I knew how much I was doing before I went in this first treatment center and I could not believe how much I was doing against my will

from that point on and

started breaking into houses, ripping friends off. And that's really good for yourself esteem,

doing all these these awful, terrible things that that I hated doing and that from the outside it might have looked like I didn't care. But

I'm an addict. I have a huge heart and I cared and I wanted to do the right thing. I just couldn't do it. There's this thing ruling my life and crushing me. And

this went on for about, I don't know, 6-7 months, you know, the last bunch of years and there are really hazy. I mean, like I sobered up and it was like, it's the 90s, you know, I was like, wow, what happened to like the 80s? You know, it's just like this big like blur, blur through like, you know, at the end of the 70s and the 80s and, and you know, the 1st 3/4 of the 90s and

I'm sitting in the woods.

I haven't, I haven't bathed in about a month and I'm eating I'm like a burrito a week and I have to wake up with like 2 needles in each arm just to not be sick and

what I needed to not feel sick again. And I just say this because not like I'm all bad badass addict or anything like that, but just so like maybe somebody who's new who's like coming in here just just crawling

to me. It speaks of the power of this fellowship as I was doing like 7 grams of smack and 4G of coke and 1/5 of booze and an eighth of weed and a big handful of tranquilizers every single day just to not feel sick. It along stops and stop being the party. It was like I'm just existing here, man. And all that stuff going in through my system. One day I just I'm sitting in the woods and what happened was I felt something shift in my heart. I felt something move and the feeling behind it was like the honeymoon's over and

I knew I just could not do this anymore. And what came out of my mouth was something that I never said in the kind of desperation that I said at that time. I've done a lot of like, you know, Foxil for God. If you Get Me Out of this, I promise I'll never a lot of lot of praying to the porcelain God and that that kind of thing. But this was different since I came from my soul and I want God. Please help me

because I remembered all those people in H and I

talking about they asked something greater than themselves for help. And I,

God, please help. And before you guys taught me to like, watch out what you pray for, right? Because I believe God called the cops. God please help. And the cops showed up, you know, and not exactly what I had in mind, but and it was funny and I saw him. I'm walking on his rail tracks and I saw him wait a little cop waiting in the distance and he was standing there,

you know, cop hose, you know, and I can see the sun hitting his badge and his belt buckle. And it was like I was in a dream. Like I believe today that God just kind of got walked me right up to this guy

and I snapped out of it when he threw me in the back of the car with handcuffs. And all of a sudden all those time I was like, oh, oh, come on. Like officer, can't you just let go? I promise. Don't do it again. You know, I'm starting to renege and all that. So

set in jail and jail is a good place to think. I didn't my first 30 days. I didn't sleep, I didn't eat. I could lay on the floor like a pile of laundry. That's about all I could do other than crawling into the bathroom and

and I was

I was ready to do drugs that were just going to come out of another man's asshole. You know you know you got a problem when right I'm ready to do this shit right thing to put me into I'm ready to do and

I made a deal with myself and my heart that when I get out of this this this sentence.