The Huntsville Alabama Roundup in Huntsville, AL

Hi, my name is Earl, I'm an alcoholic.

That was a good sorry. I couldn't help with the sponsored ease a little more than

God.

I want to thank the committee for asking me to come share here. It's always an honor and a privilege to do that.

I What's up with, what's your name? Beverly,

Brenda. Jeez man, every other thing they had, you won.

I I don't know what I'm doing up here.

My head is going way too fast. All right,

okay,

Max is killing me. I want to thank Max and Mike and Darrell for coming to pick me up at the airport. Seems like

the longer I stay sober they just keep sending more and more people to come get me at the airport. Like I'm going to run off or something. They used to send one that's too. I'm up to three guys they send to get me.

Anyway, I'm very glad to be here. I've met a lot of really nice people since I've been here.

Hung out with Max today

and

here we go.

I drank,

yeah, I did. I didn't start drinking though. I didn't start drinking the last 12

I had been. I had and I had been restless, irritable and discontented for quite some time prior. Prior to my first drink. I mean I was. I was scared of my own shadow. I was a self-centered, frightened little kid from the gate. I was one of those kids that never said much, but if you took your eyes off me I was gone,

which my parents loved.

I got I used to. When I was about four I would sleepwalk and talk to my sleep a lot. I'd get up and walk through the house and turn on the lights as I go through the house and stand at the foot of my parents bed and talk to him about all sorts of crazy stuff. Scare the hell out of them, Turn around and walk back through the house and turn the lights off as I go and get back in bed. My parents decided that we need to do a few tests on May. So they did a bunch of psychological tests and the answer they came up with was that every night before I'd go to sleep, they'd give me a

tablespoonful of this liquid and it knocked me out, right, No more problem. And I think you know, and, and subconsciously I got the information very early in life that things aren't going the way I want them to take something.

So I sort of file that away and went on with the rest of my life or 12 years old. They tested me. I had took an IQ test and apparently I had a very high IQ and I don't have it anymore. So I'm not bragging

that's that was way back.

So they shipped me off the boarding school and they didn't tell me that's where I was going. They just, my father showed up and just said get in the car. You know, when I got in the car and we drove and drove and drove and drove and got to this place and I got out. My father got out and nobody else got out. And he put a suitcase down next to me and shook my hand and said, this will make a man out of here and got back in the car and drove off. And

that paralyzed me. I mean, the fact was I was being given an opportunity for a wonderful education, which has helped me and gets dead to this very day. The feeling was was that I just got thrown away by the people who knew me best in the world. And I didn't know why they did that. Emotionally, it was devastating. And I, you know, called home crying three days in a row. You know, Mom, you got to Get Me Out of here and, you know, hear my father in the background. Hang up

and she well got to go son, you know, hang up the phone.

And after about 3 days I'd taken all the pain I could take and I just something broke inside me and I said you don't want me, I don't want you. And I turn my back on them and I, I pretty much never went back after that.

Here I was, New World, new School, 250 boys from all over the earth, 249 of them, or 13 to 18. And I was 12. I was the youngest and the smallest kid of 250 boys. And they had scoured the earth to find 250 the most disturbed, bright young men they could find.

I mean, this place is like a Lord of the Flies, man. This is

just, it was bad and and I was scared to death and I knew I was the odd man out. I knew I didn't fit in. Everybody was a teenager but me.

So I just figured I'll get through this the best I can and

first week in the school, walk around in mind in my own business and I met Tiny. Every high school's got a guy named Tiny, right? 64240, you know, plays guard on the football team. Tiny found me. Tiny came up and said, how you doing? Punk slapped me in the back of the headset, me and my books flying, everybody watching, you know, and I had this like out of body experience, you know, where you're watching yourself do something and

your head while your brain is saying, you know, don't do this.

Very bad idea. And I walked up and I hit him as hard as I could,

which had no effect on him. And I just stood there looking at this giant guy and he was like 2 1/2 times my size. And he looked at him and he said, you know what, kid, you got a lot of guts. And then he beat the crap out of

and as I'm taking this beating, I'm thinking, you know, it's going pretty good

because the fact of the matter was I was terrified of that guy. And he had just said you got a lot of guts.

So my violence had masked the fear that I felt. That was my first tool for living. When in doubt, attack. They won't know how afraid you really are.

So I went back, you know, The beating stopped and he went his way. And I stumbled back to my room and sat there waiting, you know, listening to the knots swell on my head.

And the cool guy started coming around because word spread across his campus, you know, like wildfire. You know, watch out for this little Hightower kid. He's a maniac. He attacked Tiny, right?

So now I got this reputation as being, you know, the only guy on campus that would assault this huge person. And it has absolutely nothing to do with who I am.

This reputation couldn't be further from the truth. I'm a frightened child. That's who I am. Right? And now I'm the madman, you know, so cool guys come around. And Matt stuck his head in my in my dorm room, and he said, hey, you want to smoke a joint? And I said, well, yeah, yeah. I had no idea what he was talking about. I hadn't. I had no idea what that meant. You know, I was not a real savvy kid, you know what I mean?

All I heard was, you want to hook up?

You want to come with us. That's all I heard. As far as I can tell. I was alone in the universe, man. I he could have said, listen, we're going to go kill the Spanish teacher. Do you want to come? I said, yeah, I'm with you. I'll go. I'm just sitting here. So we went, we picked up Steve and we went behind the dorm. And Steve had a Tupperware container full of cheap red wine. And I and Matt had this joint. We got behind the dorms dealing with his big tree. And he fired up the joint and handed it to me. And I just did what he did. And then the wine came around. I took a pull on the wine. And I mean, I don't get it.

I'm like 12 years old. I'm in physical pain. My family has thrown me away. I'm standing here with two complete strangers burning out my lungs and drinking this, you know, I mean, this was cheap red wine. There wasn't a grape within 1000 miles away. This stuff, you know, this is just, I'm not having fun. I don't get it. And we're all standing there in silence. Nobody knows anybody, right? And I mean just like, just like that man, it happened.

That thing that makes me bodily different from my fellows occurred

and I got this warm feeling came up over me and all of a sudden my brain just went, well, hey,

this will work. This is all right.

And I mean, it was, and I couldn't put the words on it at the time and I didn't know what was going on, but I was comfortable standing where I was standing, doing what I was doing with the people I was doing it with for the first time in my life. I had never felt that good. I mean, I felt that knots going down on my head, you know, And I mean, and I didn't know what it was. I don't know. Is it this pot? Is it there's wine? Is it the fact that I'm standing here with my two very best friends, Matt and Steve?

I'm starting to feel a connection here. I don't know what it is and I don't care because all the things I had been told

coming true. I went back to my dorm room, got some sleep, got it, went to school the next morning. That is not what I had been told. I had been told you smoke a joint, you know, you're downtown copping heroin immediately you drank. You know what I mean? You get in fights, people die, people go to jail, you end up in insane asylums. I mean, it's just, it's bad from the gate. And none of that happened. What happened for me was I felt better than I ever felt in my entire life. And I paid no price for it. It was free.

Now I'm not that bright, but I can figure this one out. I'm doing this as often as I possibly can and I did for the next 16 years. No matter what, man, I was there. Now along the way things changed a little like the price I was willing to pay. It was gradual, but it was consistently. The price I was willing to pay became greater and greater and greater till in the end, for me it started with feeling the best

that ever felt.

No price to be paid. By the time I was done drinking, I was paying a horrible price just to get even, just to get well. And I have lost everything. I mean, 13 was pills. The only reason I took a pill is somebody said would you like a pill? And I said, well, yeah,

I mean, if that is. And I took a couple of pills and 20 minutes later I was laying on the floor and I was real happy down there.

I couldn't remember having any problems.

Two and all second all class deal. All that junk, right 14 I dropped. That's the only reason I did that was because this girl well see I met this girl. Her name was Debbie. Debbie was older woman. She was 15 1/2

and Debbie was a bad girl. I had such respect for Debbie. Man,

change my world.

And she said you want to drive some ass. And I said, well, yeah.

And so she took out a lipstick tube, spun it up, and there was a little tiny pill on the end of it. I took it and put in my mouth. What do I know, right? She said. Did you take that whole thing?

I said, well, yeah, the very tiny bill, you know, I'm used these horse caps, I'm taking these 3 grain pharmaceutical deals, you know. And she said, well, that's three hits of white lightning.

Oh well, lady over there about fell out of her chair. Yeah,

Yeah. I didn't know and I went well, all right. You know, Needless to say, the next couple of days were very interesting.

Oh my God, man, I was, I'm

coming. I kind of like came back into focus at one point and we were at the market and we were pretending we were married.

And we are walking along and I remember I looked over at and I said do we have kids?

And she said, we have two.

And I said, well, then we're going to need these diapers right here.

And I kind of blacked back out.

And I mean, to this day, man, going in a supermarket takes a commitment on my part

because everything is in those little rows. You know, everything is all perfect and the lights are that. That's that weird lighting. And you got to make so many decisions in there.

You do. I mean, if you want, if you want, you want yourself like some corn. You walk in and buy some corn. You don't just go in, you get the corn and leave. There's like nine kinds of corn,

cream corn, the canned corn, and then there's that Mexican thing. And then there's a, you know, and then somewhere over there is like corn on the cob. It's like I'll come back later, man.

It's too much. You're in the market, You seen him that you won't come around the corner in the market and there's like that abandoned cart there.

I understand that guy, man. I do. Every time I see one of those,

Every time I see one of those, man, I go, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,

good night. Didn't have a list.

So anyway, 15 I started shooting dope and the only reason I did that, I was at a party and this girl said would you like me stick this in your body? And I said, well, yeah,

you know, And she did. And I mean, it was a good one, too, man. She did it. I just went,

just went over and I remember thinking on the way down was, Oh, yeah,

well, that'll work.

You know, I mean, that was just one more color in the paint box for me. You know, it was just you open up that paint box every morning and you go, well, what are we painting today?

And I mean, now I identified as an alcoholic here I am talking about drugs, you know, and, and I got to tell you, I'm a child of the 60s. We, our parents were the Alcoholics and we were carving out our own identity. We weren't going to drink ourselves to death like they were. We're going to kill ourselves in a whole new way,

you know. So we were very, hang on, we were very focused on the drugs. But I got to tell you something. Haven't done my anal. So we were all it was all about why, yeah, we're drug addicts. We're drug. We're very proud of the fact we were drug addicts. But the fact of the matter is and haven't done my inventory work and look back on my life. This is the truth about it. Drugs that come and go, you know, drugs that come and go. I'd be shooting heroin one day, snorting cocaine the next. Now I prefer down and out.

This is what I prefer. I prefer to go down.

Heroin, please. Dilaudid barbiturates, Quaalude. Take me down. Down now. Heart and lungs working. That's it. That's what I like. I like that place. My idea of a good night's just sitting around checking my pulse. You know what I mean?

See how I'm doing? But if I go to connect for the heroin and you don't have any, but you got a whole bunch of cocaine, why Let's go up.

I'm not a specialist. I prefer to go down. But if we can't go down, I'll go up. I'll sit around all night listening in the air around my head.

You know, I go on window patrol. That's all right, let's go. I'll do that. Because the point is I got to get out of right here right now. That's the most important thing. It's not about being a specialist. It's about I'm a self-centered, frightened, terrified human being. I got to get out of right here right now and I'll go anywhere you got available to you.

Just give me some my drug of choice. What do you got? Give me that. I love that. Give me that.

But here's a fact. The drugs would come and go. I mean, I, you know, I don't care what that was. There was only one thing that was on the table every single day, and that was booze. Alcohol was on the table every single day. And I'll tell you why. For me, I speak for myself alone.

Drugs are unreliable.

They are

and be you've done enough of them, you know, then there's no quality control going on out there.

You know what you get? You don't know what you've got because you get it in your body. That's how you find out whether it's any good or not, is to just take it, see what happens, right? You go get yourself 1/5 of Jack Daniels. You go get yourself a quart of gin.

I say that word. Still gin.

I love gin. You get yourself a quart of gin, you know what you got? You can count on that. This is a very reliable thing according It will get the job done so you can go on about your little drug business. You got your you got your court there. You going to be all right either way, right? You do so much, you know, You do so much cocaine, you can't get your mouth open anymore, you know,

and it's 730 and the party's just starting and you've overshot the mark one more time.

Don't worry about it. You suck a little gin through your teeth and loosen your right up and you can go back to party.

That's a little too spooky. Don't worry about it, man. Jack Daniels easy back into the comfort zone.

Not enough heroin to get you to heart and lungs working. Don't worry, Jack will take care of it for you. Jack will get you there. You can count on the booze, and I always, always count on the booze. First time I drank, I got drunk and that's how I drank

till I die of alcoholism. That's what I did was I drank alcoholically. I drank that way because that's the that's how that's the only way you can get the job done. I'm there to do. I mean, I got this barrel of emotions inside me. I mean, and swimming around up on the top, all kind of emotions, you know, I mean, I don't know anybody and you feel an emotion and you feel something else and you feel something else. I don't know anybody that feels something for two or three days gets a little tired of it and then just decides to feel something else. I mean, they kind of blast in and out of I felt like

since I've been in this room, you know, I've been self-conscious, frightened, terrified, back to self-conscious, right? I felt a part of I felt grateful when the when the girl came up here and got a chip from the guy who had the most time, right? I felt the awe and wonder I feel towards Alcoholics Anonymous. I look around the room, you know what I'm in and I feel gratitude. I look, I feel respect. You know, when I go, that's a nice guy, that's a nice guy. Oh, that's very pretty girl. Oh, then there's, you know what I mean, Just kind of bounces through your head, right?

I'm drinking used to that stuff like that, man, that's no problem. Way down at the bottom of that barrel. The emotional deep undercurrent that has always run my life has been fear. And I got a drink all the way down through everything I feel and then kill that fear. It's the last thing I feel. So I got to get drunk to kill the fear. I got to get drunk to get comfortable. Do you give me a couple of drinks? All I gets agitated,

you know, I don't like, I don't, I can't even, you know, I can't even comment on social drinking. You know, I've never done it. I don't know anything about it. I've seen it done and I find it bizarre. I've never seen.

You know, that's, it's just clearly a completely different reaction to alcohol and I'm told it's the normal one,

not the one that I had, that mine is not the normal reaction to alcohol. I have an abnormal reaction to it. That's what happens. I drink it and I develop the phenomenon of craving, man, I go into hyperdrive. You know, everything else I'm thinking about her doing just goes away because I'm on a mission. I am clear of purpose,

you know, I must. And I'm not a pig. And I didn't keep track. And I remember I got sober and I'm sitting in the hospital and some guy says to me, oral, tell me about your drinking. He said what we know 12 we're right. And we're talking for about an hour. And the end of it goes, you realize you've been drunk or loaded every day for the last 16 years.

I was stunned.

I was, I was shocked. I mean, who's keeping track out there? I wasn't keeping track. I never once got out in the morning. Go. You know, I've been drunk every day this week. I got to slow down. Never even occurred to me because I'm not focused on what I have had to drink. I just want the next one. I would like this drink, please. I would just like this drink here, please. And when I have that in my hand, it's like, you know why you're over there.

I really would. You know, another one of these would be pretty good.

I'm not a pig. I just want one more. That's all I want is one more and then one more and then one more ad infinitum. That's what I want 'cause I can't, I can't get enough and I'm not focused on what happened. It's in the past. Let's not worry about that.

Usually it was wreckage and

hideous behavior.

So 16 I got I dropped out of high school, my father came back in my life, threw me in the nut house.

I started my first mental institution. I was, they hooked me up for three months of observation and a year of rehabilitation, which I thought was a little excessive.

And all I did was take 3 cups of pills a day and shuffle around in the hospital. And then one day I decided I got to escape. And you know, I mean, well they had, you got them here, they got the green exit signs that are all lit up. And I remember sitting in the cafeteria one day and looking at that sign and thinking that's it. They boil it down in one word for me, man, that's all I want to do is exit. I went out of this joint and I was having lunch with one day with kill day. Kill day was this woman I had I ate all my meals with cause kill day was like nuts

and very entertaining. You know, I mean all you had to do to get killed at go as you look over and say Kildee, how you doing and kill it just fuck and there she

kill. They would flip man and just go flying across the room.

Every meal was like dinner and a show, you know, get your little food and watch kill. They flip out,

so I used her as my diversion. You know what I mean? I got the lunch and I'm going to escape and I've been doing my 3 cups of pills a day and shuffling around and then I'm going to make my big move. All of a sudden I think right, and I'm and I get killed a flying across the room that way and I'm going ready, ready to go

and I'm hauling ass. You know,

that's all I got.

And I think my brains were going to look at my feet like, what the hell is going on, man? I'm going to make my move. And it wasn't there.

And you hear from the from the nurses station, over the loudspeaker. You hear Ed. When you got a minute, you want to grab Earl. He's making a break for the door.

You know, Ed's in there having a sandwich going. Yeah, yeah, I'll get him in a minute.

I got the arms working and everything. I think, you know, because, I mean, I like a normal person to realize you're not leaving, just shuffle back over and finish eating your jello. You're not going anywhere. And I, I would, man, it's like, you know, I'm up, come get me, you know, And I made it my 20 feet across the room before they got me. And I realized, man, I mean, I'm. And so I realized

you want to get out of the nut house. You got to get out before they get the Thorazine in you,

and that became one of my tools for living

because if you're going to get thrown in nut houses like me, you got it. You got to know these things. So I got out of that place eventually and I hit the streets and things, which immediately went berserk

and they threw the net over me and got me back in one more time. I'm sitting in the intake process, My mother sitting there wringing her hands going, oh Christ, you know, I'm sitting there going, you know, I'm glad you got me, boy, it's rough out there. It's rough out there. Hey, look at that. And I hauled asked the first day and the whistles go off and the guys are chasing me and I'm flying across this lawn towards this 12 foot chain link fence, right? I'm like 17 years old. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a I'm a drug addict. I'm a high school dropout.

Any moment hopefully an escape mental patient. It's like my resume, this

my resume and and this is what I have to say for myself. And I'm thinking if I make that fence, I don't have any problems. I have any problems. This is LA, man. It's my town. I'll be drunk in 20 minutes. And that's all that matters. Because you see, I drink no matter what. That's why I hate that thing they say, man, I hate it that you know, when they tell newcomers just don't drink or use no matter what. Yeah, thanks.

That's really addressing my problem, right? If I could do that, do you think I would be here?

If I could just not drink or use no matter what, do you think I would be here? I hate, I hate aeroplanes. I got on two of them to come here to get home. Two more

not worth it to me. I don't know 99% of you. I don't know you, I don't know you.

Work a step. Do the four step put you out of your mind? What 4

What for? Take a phone call in the middle of the night from some whining, suffering newcomer that won't lift a finger to help himself, won't go to a meeting, won't read the book, won't help anybody else, won't take a commitment, but he'll call you at 2:30 in the morning to tell you what a horrible day he's had in bed.

Why would I take that phone call? I just say, hey, go drink man, I don't care. They say people say, well, call me, I'll be at home. He said, what are you doing? I said I'm home, not drinking or using no matter what. I could do that. But you see, that's exactly the opposite of of my situation. I'm the opposite of don't drink. I drink no matter what. Given a good reason, I don't stop. That's what differentiates me from the problem drinker. Problem drinker can actually give it a good reason will stop drinking.

You know, hard for us to believe, but it's true. They actually do that. Problem drinker gets a drunk drive and another drunk driving charge goes for the judge. Judge says you know what, I'm sick of this. I'm sick of you. I see you one more time. You're doing a year in county. No conversation, no discussing it one year we'll talk about at the end of the year. Problem drinker says, you know what, I don't want to go to jail. Actually stops drinking and driving me. I start wondering what it's going to be like in jail because I'm going. I know I'm going.

I'm going to jail

given a good reason. I don't stop. I was given so many good reasons along the way to stop. Didn't even occur to me. Didn't even occur to me

because it's how I live. I've been this way since I was 12 years old. This is what I do. This is what makes it possible for me to leave the house. This is what makes it possible for me to get sleep at night. This is what makes it possible for me to have a conversation with another human being. This is what makes it possible for him to be comfortable anywhere, under any circumstances, at any time. This is this is like breathing for me. This is how I live. I am committed to this life now. I already know by the time I'm 19 years old,

I've been out on the street 17 to 90, seventeen, 1819, I'm out on the street doing what you do, doing what you do. And I'm thinking when I hit the road, man, I thought, man, me and Jack Kerouac, man, I mean, it's just going to be romantic and dramatic. It's going to be great. The thing you know, stories is great stories, right? It's it's hard out there, man. And I battled fiercely to get what I needed on a daily basis. Turned 20 years old and got diagnosed to have a malignant cancer

and I had been going to college, which is a long story. What had happened was I'd met this woman at a party

and we talked for 20 minutes. Went pretty well. So we were in love

and we decided to make something of our lives. So I went on an interview for a business college and just, you know, bullshit my way through the interview. And at the end of the interview, they said you'll be a wonderful addition to our campus in the fall. And I said great. Well, back to my father said, look, I got accepted to business college. Write me a check for a year's tuition. I'll leave town. He said beautiful

wrote me a check. We piled all our belongings and 8 lbs of hash in the back of this truck. Drove to Northern California to higher learning and she got a straight job and we got a little place and I got AI. Was going to adult night school 'cause I didn't even have a high school diploma. I was a high school dropout going to college. So I gave him a year's tuition and said transcripts are in the mail and they said no problem man. Took the check, went down to local high school, do my GED, get my my equivalency done

going. Don't go into college during the day, right? And became a drug dealer.

Made perfect sense to me, man. I don't know any problem being a drug dealer. I had no morals or ethics. I had no sense of family or community. I had no, none of that was going on with me. I wasn't interested in how you were doing at all. I didn't care. I wasn't one of those chitchat kind of guys, You know what I mean? Let's have a little chat

about what you know.

About what? I don't care how your day went,

I don't. You want to get high or not?

It's ridiculous.

And and I mean, I'm studying marketing and production and distribution and business college and my business is booming, man. I'm learning all this stuff and I think college is great, right? I'm making money hand over fist, right? She starts saying stuff like, I'm too high and you know, you know, we're still no, I mean, she had to go.

So we sent her back to LA and I got to use the way I wanted to. Shortly after that, I got diagnosed to have malignant cancer

and flew back to LA and they told my family I was going to die. They prepared me to die, did major surgery on my upper back, put me in the nuclear medicine program. And I remember they're telling me this thinking you don't even know who you're talking to. You know, this dying thing. This is coming up like twice a week these days the way I'm living, because I'm starting out, I'm starting to overdose every now and then, you know,

and I did the and I beat the cancer thing. I beat that, went back up north, was feeling strong, using it like a madman. And my 21 at this point, I got a high school diploma. I'm a junior in college. I got an early acceptance to go to USC law school. I'm editor in chief of the college newspaper.

I'm a very successful drug dealer.

My resume is looking better and better. You know, I got on my ducks lined up pretty good. And my mother calls me and says, look, we have many words of family in 10 years. Your 22nd birthday is coming up. We'll go anywhere you want to go. Let's just go as a family. And I said, fine, all right. And I flew back to LA and on my 22nd birthday, we took off to fly to Guadalajara. And on the way there, the plane crashed. And my mother, my father, my little sister were all killed. And I wasn't.

Well, in a way I was. And I woke up on this mountain and

my skull was fractured, my back was broken in three places, my leg was crushed, my arm was crushed. I was paralyzed in the waist down. And I had a lot of internal injuries. And I can only I can move is my right arm. And my my mother was laying right over there and my little sister Kimberly was laying right over there. And my father was laying right over there. And I couldn't move. And I couldn't get to them to help them. I couldn't get there to them. And I watched them all bleed to death right in front of me,

and I had a chat with God and I said, you know what? Anybody that would take a kind, gentle, loving little girl like my little sister Kimberly

and leave a lying, cheating, thieving, dope feeding, alcoholic like me on the planet. I have no interest in a God of this type. And I renounced God. And then some guys came up and I thought they'd come up to to help me. And for some reason all I want, I took my wallet out and I wanted to I want them to know my name because I thought I was going to die. I just want to know my name. And the guy took the wall, my wallet out of my hand and he took the money out of it and put the wallet back on my chest and then went through and scavenge the plane wreck. And then they left the mountain and left me up there to die.

So I had no love for you anymore either. My I had no need for the facade of my life

anymore. I didn't need to be in school. I didn't need to be doing anything. I had no love of man and I had no love of God. And I thought, and I was one pissed off, crazy alcoholic and I was coming down off that mountain one way or another. And I was going to show you how I felt about this life. And eventually some other guys came up and they took me down. They got me. They took us to a red, threw me and my mother in the back of this pickup truck,

drove down, parked it by a an aid station and they tagged both of our They tagged us both dead and sat there smoking cigarettes waiting for me to die. And I didn't die, so they finally just took me to the hospital

and they kept me. The federales showed up and I wanted to know what I was doing back in Mexico, which is a whole other story.

And they said they interrogated me through an interpreter for 3 1/2 days and wouldn't give me anything for pain. And I called the finally, I called the buddy of mine in Northern California who called his family in Mexico City, who flew a plane in and we basically we smuggled me out of Mexico, complete plastered me from the neck down and shipped me back to LA. And I spent some time in a hospital up here and they said I may or may not walk. I'd have a withered left hand and I'd be blind to my left eye. And I worked real hard, man, in that hospital make sure that none of that was true

because I didn't want you think anything was wrong with me.

And I got out of that hospital and I was strung out on Demerol. I've been getting maximum doses every three hours around the clock for a long time. Left that hospital and I was a drug seeking nightmare when I got out of there. And I had a lot of money from the airplane insurance and I had a house up on the hill and I had a bunch of cars and I had a basement full of booze and an office full of drugs, man. And I went for it. No more pretense. I didn't care what you thought

I got. I threw the gates of that house open and I threw a party. It lasted for 3 1/2 months,

and when it was over, the neighbors thought I was with Charles Manson.

I wasn't. A buddy of mine was, but I wasn't. I mean, it got weird, you know, It got weird.

It got weird by LA standards.

It got weird and it was just round the clock for 3 1/2 months and every it got to where people wouldn't. I mean, people just go, there's a girl in the program that she's got to have about 1617 years sober now. I remember the first time I ever heard her speak, she was talking about that. She went to this party with a friend of hers and they walked in the door and there was a bunch of these guys in this house, bunch of people and Sandy people on leashes people. I mean, it was crazy what was going on in there.

And she sat down at this table and the guy's house was sitting at the head of the table.

And she'd been using pretty hard, but she said she was, she'd never seen anybody use like that in her life. She thought, she thought for sure this guy was gonna die right in front of her. And we're all listening to this. And she points down she goes. And that's him right there.

And that's what it was like. And my last run lasted 4 1/2 years and I was drunk every single moment, waking moment for 4 1/2 years except for three separate occasions and they were for 72 hours each.

And that's because I was strapped to a Gurney and shot full anti convulsants. And I'd get well enough after three days and they'd unstrapped me and I'd go back out and I'd be drunk that night and I'd be swearing when I got off that Gurney that I was never going to drink again as long as I lived. I couldn't take it anymore, man. My ass was kicked. And I'd be drunk that night. I knew I was an alcoholic. I knew I was a drug addict. I knew all those things were true about me. I knew that I was dying and I was a young man and I was dying. And I knew that what I didn't know was what it what

to be an alcoholic. I didn't know what alcoholism was. I didn't know when I was up against I I thought if you stopped, you were OK.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. And drunk that night, every night, right. I'm the guy in the book. They talk about pounding on the bar, you know, wondering how it happened again. That was me. And I got, I mean, war stories, war stories, war stories, war stories. In the end, I came out of my last blackout. This was the normal fair for me. I was a blackout drinker. I've come to in different cities. I've come to in conversations with police,

when you're down in Venice, CA on Speedway and you come out of a blackout at 4:00 in the morning,

you got four police officers standing there. They're all talking to you and they're not happy and you have no idea what's going on or how you got there or why they're pissed off. Nothing, I mean, but you've done it 100 times. So you know, man, you just stand there, put your hands where they can see them, and you just not

yes, wherever you're saying yes, I mean, what else are you going to? You can't just say, excuse me, officers, I just got here.

It's this little thing I do. I'm here. I'm not here. I'm here. I'm not here.