The 35th Annual Essex County Convention 2010 in Windsor, Canada

Boring. Yeah,

you to behave.

Hi, everybody. My name is Larry Thomas and I'm an alcoholic. Is there anybody we haven't thanked here? OK,

if you're feeling suicidal, get ahold of Dean later. He'll read you the rest of the report

and let out about finish the deal for you. You, you know,

I want to thank Dean for cutting his talk so short. It's the first time we've ever gotten anybody from New York to do what we wanted them to do.

I I'm glad to be here. I'm glad to be out of my room.

I I want to thank my lovely wife for putting up with me for a couple days here and joining me on this trip. I want to thank like maybe there is some more people to thank. I said let me get out my list here, you know, and

you know Kevin for picking us up and certainly I want to thank Chris and Debbie for hosting us this weekend and bringing us into their home so I didn't have to stay at this dingy dorm you got here. So, but not that it was a bad dorm, but I tell you can always tell if a A is working in someone's home

by the smile on the child's face.

And I met their kid Davis. And I tell you that kid beams. I tell you it was a happy experience for me. I, I got to talk to somebody who understands me.

I just, you know, busy little head and we damn near didn't make it across the border, you know, Kevin picked us up and that scared him off, you know, and,

and,

and so the, the guy at the border says, you know, we had to show him our passports and he says, where are you from? You know, and we Los Angeles, he says, what's your nature of business? And Kevin says, well, he's friends of mine. And the guy says, well, where did you meet him?

And Kevin says, well, we've just known him a lot. And the guy says, well, how did you meet him? You know? And Kevin looks at me like, we're doing, you know what I mean? I says

just tell them where we're going, goof. Are you running into my time? You know,

and, and he says, well, we're going to an, a, a conference and, and he's our speaker. And he goes, oh, he says, what are you bringing over? And I go, I got my wife, you know, and he said, you know, he says, what are you bringing here? And I, I said, well, my experience for God's sake, you know, and all right, get through here, you know,

but I, I'm really glad to be here with you guys. I tell you, when I sat in Peter and Debbie meeting this afternoon at 3:00, I knew I was in the midst of a loving God.

No safer place to be If you be alcoholic,

you want to hear God, you want to be with God, you want to feel God. You put me in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous where they're talking about the solution and there is not a finer place for me to be. I tell you, I my sponsor tells me that I'm living proof that a man can stay sober for a little over 28 years and not amount to a damn thing. So,

so

I am, I got a busy head, I really do. I got a head that loves to chat, you know, There is no problem too small to baffle the mind of this alcoholic, you know? And I just love to think, you know, I, I and I love to, you know, I give it away all day. And then at night I just see how he did with everything, you know what I mean?

And I love to worry because it makes me feel like I've got something to live for, you know?

And, you know, we were, we were over at Debbie and Chris and that storm hit, you know, that always worries me, you know, and it hit real hard. And I, and we're down in the basement. Thank you for that.

But no, they got a beautiful room down there. And every now and then they come by and look through the hole, you know,

Got some visitors. Larry. Kevin wants to take you to meetin, you know? Yeah, Yeah. You know, so beautiful, Homer, we had a great time. And so that rain hits and I start, you know, Jesus, that's all this Thunder and stuff, you know? And then I, you know, I start worrying, you know, and I start thinking about my house. And I started thinking, you know,

if you had a swimming pool, you know, where does that water go,

you know, and what happens if that's swimming? Yeah, what happens if that swimming pool cracks? You know, where does that water go? Does it flood into my neighbors house and get her all wild eyed about me again, you know, Or does it go underneath the house? And is it going underneath the pool? Is it going to crack that pool? Where's that water going, you know?

Now, I don't own a pool, you know. I was thinking about getting one, you know, But I'll think about it some more for God's sakes, you know?

So I've got that busy head and I got the type of

I'm geared this way that no matter how tired I am, the more my head wants to chat, you know, I'm thinking I could wear it out, you know,

2:00 in the morning, Boy, that old head. Hey, Larry, let's chat.

I know you're in there, you know, if let's talk about when you're a baby and bring you right up to date, for God's sakes, you know? You know, and the frustrating part about that is we just did it the night before. You know,

they don't care, you know, Come on, man. We're taking you through it again, you know,

and

come, you know, I, I've had a great family. I, you know, I was,

I'm a loser. What I am, you know, there's no excuse for me being here. I mean, really, I am a loser. I'm a hostile loser. And when you're a loser like me, when you're growing up physically, people are always bringing people to your side to compare you to,

you know, why don't you be like Bobby? He seems to be doing good, you know, And, and I was like that in high school, you know, and goofy little freshman, you know, and I get nailed in high school for being drunk. And I'm in the principal's office with my dad. And my dad looks up at the side of the, of the gym in the in the room in the principal's office. And he sees this picture of coy old #7 star quarterback.

And the old man gives me the nudge. Jesus, Jackass, why don't you try to be like Coy, you know, look at him, man. Star quarterback, you know, And I said, all right, I'll give it a shot.

You know,

the next year I'm being arrested for being drunk on campus and loaded on barbiturates and I stole the janitors cart and I drove it through the library door. You know, I had to get that book back, you know.

And so, you know, me and my dad and my probation officer are sitting in the principals office, you know, and probation officer looks on the wall and he sees a star quarterback. He says, Jesus, Larry. He says, why don't you try to be like Coy, you know, that guy seems to be doing pretty good. And I says, all right, I'll give it a shot.

My junior year, my big sister starts dating some guy and she brings him over. It's a whole number seven right there, you know, right on my couch, you know, my mom comes running over in her moo moo, you know, why don't you try to be like coy, for God sakes, you know? And I said, all right, I'll give it a shot. You know, my senior year, I'm in the Torrance jail getting ready to do 90 days. And the newspaper comes sliding through there, and it says that Okoye makes all pro CIF, you know? And I said, my God, I want to be like that guy, you know,

And lo and behold, what happens? I'm five years sober in A and A and I'm, and you know, they're, they're saying what goes around comes around, right? And I'm in my little plumbing truck, you know, and, and I've got the window rolled up. Well, actually it's cardboard, you know, thing things are going good for me, you know, and, and it's pretty vogue in LA that on every street corner they've got these guys selling oranges or peanuts or they have this cardboard sign that says I'll work for food

like you don't you know what I mean? And

I don't know, you know,

and I look like a guy that needs help, you know, I've got everybody's giving me pamphlets about Jesus and Jehovah and all these Jay guys come into town and I, I better go see him, you know what I mean? And I'm sitting in my plumbing truck, you know, and I and I lock eyes with this guy and I go, you know, I got 2 bucks and he ain't getting it. You know,

he's over there holding this side and he looked at me and he comes running over and he sticks his head through my truck and he goes, Larry, Larry Thomas. And I go coy. It's all

go out for a long one, you son of a bitch. Yeah, well, you know, I said, my God, I thought this guy had it made, you know what I mean? And then it dawned on me that if there was any real justice here in AA, then maybe old Dean can write this guy a letter saying why can't you be like Larry? You know what I mean?

But that's been the nature of my dilemma is, you know, and I was, you know, I come from a great home and it nothing wrong with them. I was born in Detroit. I was a little, little city off their Pontiac and Saint Joseph Hospital. And we got some refugees from there too, you know, and,

and, and my mom said we, you know, we moved around a lot, you know, and I understand that because they weren't together a lot. And my moms a little Scandinavian lady. And we moved out to LA after a while, when I was about four years old. And they put me in a little foster home. And my momma's a neat Scandinavian lady, you know? And my mom was always eating diet pills and running around the house, you know, around 4:00 in the morning, you know, sorting out nuts and bolts in the garage all night, you know,

raking the neighbor's yard around 3:00 in the morning. Hey, you better go get the rake, eh? You know, and

just a busy lady and she loved to eat that speed and make Afghans. And so, you know, everything in the house that a fresh Afghan on it, you know, chairs had Afghans, couches had Afghans. My daddy's golf clubs had little poodle heads, you know, if there was any animals, they had a fresh vest on, you know,

and, and the house was small and you can hear her in the next room just just going to town, you know, and, and no matter what time you got up, she was up doing shit, you know, cleaning stuff with your toothbrush, you know, and just

busy lady, you know. And then and she, she had a lot of hobbies sometime do them all at the same time, you know, and I had no idea was my first tweaker I'd ever seen, you know, and she loved to eat that speed and and go down. And she used to love to make these big jigsaw puzzles, these 30 million piece jigsaw puzzles, you know, of the Mojave Desert, you know, going to be a beige night tonight, Sunny, you know, I mean,

should run down to save on get her a cart in a Raleigh cigarettes because she saved the coupons on the back to buy more yarn. It was a hideous cycle. She was caught up in man, you know,

and she would come home and put her one and only mumu on. She had for 45 years, you know, put this stinky peroxide on her hair, you know, eat some more speed, start making this big jigsaw puzzle. And if she got a piece that didn't fit where she had a big pair of toenail Clippers and she just snipped the shit out of that, you know,

wedge that baby right in there. You know,

just and you know, when you grow up with a lady that determined, there's a there's a lot of rules going on there that you just don't quite understand. You know, a lot of mom laws going on, you know, don't plan the gutter. You're going to get polio.

You know that for a fact. I'm you know, you got a lot of gimps running. I mean, you know, you know that, you know, and the other one was burnt. Food is good for your gums.

Well, yeah. You know, she'd get three things going. Something catch on fire. You know, I'm getting ready to go to school. She slides this plate of fire under there. You know, I'm looking at it at 4:00 in the morning, you know, And I make a mad, you know she don't you make, don't you give me that face, you son of you know that burnt food is good for your gums. You know,

now she don't have a tooth in her head, God damn it, you know,

So I didn't want to stick around the house that much, you know, I mean, whatever I could to get out of that house. I was all four. I was into staying at your house, playing Little League, playing midnight football, they doing anything, you know what I mean? Now, my dad was a happy drunk. My dad was a happy singing the Blues, Nat King Cole, Bobby Darin drunk. He just loved to drink and sneak into his own damn house. It was amazing thing, you know, and he's coming through my bedroom window. He got these big refineries, boots, sneaking in there,

that boot stepping on my chest around 3:00 in the morning, you know, And I grabbed that boot one night. I says, Dad, I says, why don't you have mom make you a set of keys for God's sake, You know? I mean, she's up anyway, you know,

I can hear the Hoover going now, Dad, you know, or shut up. And, you know, and,

and my dad wanted nothing but the best for me. Now, let me tell you, I, I, I, I love my dad and I still love my mom. But there was so much confusion between them

that I did. I couldn't trust him

and I was afraid to and I and I wanted to please him, but there were so many things that I, I wanted to ask him but I was so confused and I felt ashamed for being confused. You see, and one thing about my mom, make make no mistake about this, I knew my mom loved me at an early age. I died. No, no, no, I am not lacking love.

But it's because they love me that drove me mad.

It's because they love me that I knew I didn't have the power to stop drinking. I would love to say, oh, we love you, you stop for their love. That drove me absolutely nuts and I never want to forget what it's like to be a young man,

17/18/19 years old, something like that and put away for a small period of time. And I come out of there

and I'm supposed to be home and I don't come home.

I don't come home for two or three days. But when I do show up, I don't show up at home. No, I show up on an April morning with the rain hitting me at my mom's place of business. I'm in the parking lot of a dry cleaners with all my drunken mud on and my mom's from about here to the back of that wall and I'm staring at her in that rain. And you only thought I have is she better have a buck?

She better have a buck. And I walk through that rain

and it go into that lady's place of business and one more time I startler with my presence,

which would be an ongoing thing.

And I asked her for that buck and she breaks out that little Woolworth wallet of hers. And a picture of me falls out when I'm about 8 years old. The only decent picture she ever had of me when I'm on a Little League team. And she gives me that $1.00 and then $2.00 and I take that money and I run off to Wilmington where I'm going to die. Now, the thing that brings it home to me, if you're new and Alcoholics Anonymous, and I never want to forget this, is you take this same man and you bring them to Alcoholics Anonymous with my so-called desperation and willing to go to any length.

And you stick me at a meeting like you have here

where every action I take my life depends on. And you put me in an atmosphere of grace and sobriety. And I need to ask you something.

How come when my life depends on it and you have the secretary of this meeting that same distance as me and my mom, How come when my life depends on it, I can't walk that same distance and ask a man for a job in a meeting? It's going to save my life. But I can walk that distance and use my mom and other people like that time and time and time and time and time again. And I'm here to share with you, if you're new, that if my alcoholism doesn't kill me,

my selfishness and myself centeredness will. Make no mistake about that.

Which is why it's necessary for a man with a little over 28 years to still be close to an active in a program called Alcoholics Anonymous and even more so, a Home group. You see, I will never get so sober that I can't get drunk again.

There is no place for the alcoholic of my type where we can just kick back and rest on our laurels. I will never get so sober that I can't get drunk again. But I can get so drunk that I can't make it back again. And I never want to forget what it's like to be outside your meeting halls year after year after year, staring in through there and wondering, will ever have a piece of this thing?

Will I ever be in the middle of this thing? Or will I always be on the outside like I did my entire life, watching life go by me like a train,

wondering how do you jump on that thing? You see,

I've got to be busy with you. I can't just be a guest. I need to be an active member,

you know, and I never want to forget that.

Now, like I said, I'm eleven years old and people around me are grasping and develop manners of living and they seem to be growing along normal little lives. I'm starting to grow up and I for some reason, after about 11 or 12 years old, I just woke up and I had this tremendous amount of fear and resistance to anything good and decent up to that point. Whatever the old man said I would do,

and now I've got this little resistance. Now I'm a little bit restless and irritable and discontented.

Now I'm confused and I don't know who to take that to now. I don't trust the people that I'm living with that I should be loving.

And why am I not grateful for everything that I that I have in that little home? Why? Why am I always full of this little restlessness and irritable and feeling discontent?

Why is there's this confusion about me and everybody seems to be doing things on the norm And I can I can do the physical things that everybody are doing, but there seems to be some unfinished business on the inside. And I don't know what that is. And at about 11 years old, there was four of us, and I took a shot of four Rose whiskey and the business was settled.

It took away the confusion, it took away the doubt and it evened out the playing field for the first time in my life and the simple satisfactions that kids were getting out of doing good and having good grades and hitting home runs. I got that same satisfaction out of three fingers of four rose whiskey. Now I, you know, I didn't, you know, head out the Skid Row every day and lose my paper out and come to a a, you know,

But I never forgot that place you took me to. I never laughed so hard in my life. I never threw up so much in my life.

I got dizzy. I was going after my first Latin woman to get a kiss from her, and it was my aunt, you know?

You know, that makes old Uncle Jack a little nervous to have you around, you know? Where is he, you know? And

all I knew is that I visited a place that I knew whenever I would be restless or irritable or discontented or in my in my my life would have to face any form of responsibility that always made me thirsty. I knew that I could run off into the old man's garage

and find some Thunderbird.

I knew he had that Santa Fe port in there. And I chased it. I chase it as often as a little kid would get. And by the time I got into high school, I'm about 13 years old or something like that, and I'm spending more time outside than I am supposed to be doing. And I run across these guys in a garage and they're and they're working on a dragster. And I feel the laughter and I hear these guys laughing and working with tools and starting up this engine that just was so loud it quieted my head.

And I started hanging around this garage and I started chasing tools for these guys. And they were giving me sips off their beer. And after a while, they took me to the races with them and I would be part of their pit crew and I would get them tires and stuff like that. And I felt a part of this little clan of guys, you know, And my dad started seeing me make this right turn and it and I know that, you know, he wanted me to go to school and stuff like that. And I become preoccupied with these guys. And by the time I'm a freshman in high school, kids are going to their lockers,

get their books, and I'm going to my lockers to take some barbiturates to take away the shakes that I'm having. And I start dating this little Mexican girl. And, and she had some brothers and her brothers like cars. And over in California, they like lowered cars. They used to lower their Chevys down to the ground. You right get their hair up real big, like a Bakersfield tumbleweed. You know,

drive around, listen to The Four Tops, the Temptations, the O'jays, Marvin Gaye. God I loved it man.

I was in my plumbing truck the other day and The Four Tops came on. I just started sinking in my damn truck.

I loved it, man. I had these white T-shirts and black khaki pants. They came up to here.

Women were telling me that men who are well endowed had big feet. I had a pair of 15 inch shoes. I was riding around it

got my big hair and my big feet and my big frown, wondering what the hell you looking at. You know, somebody tripped over my foot tonight and I felt proud.

Let me move that thing for you, ma'am, you know? Ohh. I loved it, man. I loved it. I had a little Mexican girlfriend. Her hair was all big. She used to curl her hair with these soup cans, and the noodles were stuck in there. You know,

we drive around with our frowns, wondering what the Hell's everybody looking at, you know? Oh, I loved it. Drive into the jack-in-the-box, you know? And she says,

drive into the chat in the box and talk to the puppet Weddle, you know, I can't see the puppet, you know, drive up there and give me a hamburger, man. You know, I drive, I'm loaded on that 151 rum, you know, So I'm, I'm hearing about 5 puppets, you know, I'm trying to look for that menu. I drive into the jack-in-the-box, you know, and I run over the damn puppet. His head's hanging down like that, you know, he's still yelling at me. Can I have your order please? You know, the cops come, they throw me on the hood of the car. They shatter my hair all over the place.

I don't drive to line 30. Big deal. Let Rudy drive and there's nothing like riding shotgun. Let Rudy drive all night and it was riding shotgun, man, that I could drink that wine all night and and make the most magnificent discovery in Alki can ever discover. And that is how good you look in that mirror. I look at myself in that mirror. My God, are you good looking? You ought to be an underwear model or something. You know, you, you don't wear any, but what the hell, you know?

And the more wine you drink, the bigger your hair gets, you know, you look at yourself, my God, are you something? You know, you're 120 lbs. You can't lick a stamp. You know, my arms are about as big as this post, you know, And I, I hang them out that car door and press them against that big car door to make them look big so you don't mess with me, you know what I mean? Driving around like that. What up, man? What are they, you know?

Oh, I loved it, man. I ran into a kid like that not too long ago. I'm in the Glendale Mall in California. This kid goes walking by me.

He's about 19 years old, his heads all shaved bald. He's got his moms earrings on,

he's got a he's got a ring in his eye. You got a ball bearing in his nose,

he's got a ball bearing in his tongue. Got another ring in his lip, Got a chain to his wallet. I walked by me. He goes,

well, what are you looking at?

I haven't a clue what I'm looking at. You know, I,

I wanted to score them with some WD40 to make sure he keeps moving on, you know what I mean? Get out of here your little, you know. And you ever see those big holes they put in their ears? You know,

just so you don't lose them, You can just hook your finger in there, you know, I think they ought to make rims for those, you know what I mean? They put some spinners in there, you know, Put a clock in there. I don't care, you know?

So me and the kids started talking and laughing and. And now I sponsor him. And

what do you want me to do? I said, well, why don't you unlock yourself, for God's sakes? You know, well, I go to these darn meetings and I feel so different. Really,

I said. Maybe you're the only one locked up in a chain link fence. How about that? You know,

I had some guy come up to you today. Some guy had a suit on and some big earrings on. He says, boy, these suits aren't made for men to wear. I said I know, but those earrings are, you know, what the hell is coming on here, you know?

Oh, I loved it, man. I loved it, man. Nothing about driving around like that, seeing yourself in that mirror. You got 40 lbs of puke on your chest, you know? And that's when I start feeling like I need to go dancing, you know? Let's go find that salsa queen, You know,

I loved it, loved every bit about it. Man, Around 1969, a bunch of us start to start going different places, some to Vietnam and some different places. And I thought I'd take my buddy and come out to Detroit and find my roots. And I wound up in Phoenix and, and I'm over there off of North Central and Roosevelt at the Apache Hotel.

It's about 6 floors up. Everybody has a bathroom. It's down the hall,

everybody's got a TV, it's in the lobby. It's about 30 bucks a month, and I can't get up the dough to get that. And I got a little room with a little Murphy bed and a little window. And I drink and I dream and I die,

and my best friend is across the street at the Wagon Wheel Bar, where there is no windows, just a dirty old purple curtain with holes in it. And that's where I was to go to live.

I love these stories we hear about alcoholism, our experience, strength and hope.

And I've come to believe for me and people like me, I believe that all we're telling you is our search for Peace of Mind. The alcoholic search for Peace of Mind. The length he would do just to find that peace. Just to find that quiet spot where there's no nightmares. Just to find that spot where you can lay your head and know that nobody's going to get you tonight.

And I had no idea that by the time I come to Alcoholics Anonymous, that the Peace of Mind that I thought I had was all an illusion that it wasn't really happening. That all these things we hear happen in Alcoholics Anonymous. How that how that drink shut off our head and quieted our gut and put us here and did all that. I had no idea that that there wasn't really happening. That everybody that drinks that doesn't happen to. And that to me and you, it was just an illusion. And the persistence of that

illusion is astonishing, how we sell out on the idea that an illusionary Peace of Mind is more real than the Peace of Mind we can't find when we're sober. And to the alcoholic of my type, it seems that sobriety seems to drive me to drink time and time and time again. I can't stand the way that I feel when I'm sober and the people that I'm introducing into these innocent lives of my parents,

I never want to forget.

These people were dangerous, dangerously naive

to what goes on in that world. They were just hard working people and by the time I was 14 I was starting to introduce them into a level of life that they never imagined existed. And I would traipse it in front of them and in their house

and they had no idea what was going on with me. That I would introduce them into a life that they couldn't imagine was really out there,

and the filth and the disgust and the perversion and the sickness that I would traipse across them trying to convince them that everything's all right.

And then the thoughts that had to be going through their head

as I see Chris and Debbie looking at their child. What in God's name is going on?

And that my alcoholic life become the normal one. It was one that I was selling out every time I could just for one more shot of that Peace of Mind that I thought I was getting. And I'm over in Phoenix, and I'm over at the Don Hotel,

and I don't know what I'm going to do for work or anything. So I go down to the Wagon Wheel Bar and I meet a guy named Ernie, Ernie's from Tennessee. Ernie says, I know what we're going to do with you, Larry, show up here tomorrow. He says, I got a guy that's a plumber, he'll help us out. And I showed up the next morning and I met this plumber. He said, yeah, I'll put you to work. And he stuck me underneath the house. He said, you stay under there. All I want you to do is hang copper all day. And he gave me a transistor radio

and he left me and he says I'll come back in nine hours and get you. And I'm under there and I got this transistor radio.

I got a pint of Kesslers, I got the stray cat staring at me over there. And it dawned on me, man, I'm on top of the world.

I got a maid under here, man. I got a transistor, I got a pint, I got a pet. You know, I, all I got to do is bang on this pipe every now and then and let them think I'm busy. You know, I said, man, I need some hot bourbon. Started drinking that bourbon. 9 hours later they're dragging me out from underneath that house, it seemed. I got drunk and busted up through the floor. Robbed that Lady of her money and her jewelry.

They're dragging me out. This cat comes running out with a bunch of necklaces. You know,

fired me from that job.

Come back there a couple days later, talk to Ernie again, Ernie says. I know what we're going to do, Larry, he says. Not too far from here as a horse track. He says, we're going to get you down to £95. You're going to be a jockey,

and I was excited. I thought we were going to start working out and stuff.

And he gave me a bag of speed

and I look at no, man, I don't do that. I've just been drinking and doing heroin, minding my own, you know, business, you know, I, I don't need any help, you know what I mean? No, no, no. I just want you to take this stuff. And two months later, I'll come weigh you in, you know? Well, he was down to 105, so he was sure it was going to be working, you know, and I don't know what happened, but he took off and he left me with that stuff. And two weeks later he comes back and I haven't moved an inch. I'm just, you know, I don't want to be a job. You get ready. I'm going faster than any damn horse I've ever seen in my life. You know?

I'm in this little room just going around and round chasing a family and looking out my little blinds every 10 seconds, you know, because I hear these voices out there and I'm what's that, What's that, What's that? You know? I see these black and white flashes and that's the damn sun going up and down. You know?

We're 16 days of my life, you know? So we come back and I got another job with another plumber and I work for the guy for an hour and a half and find out that he was younger than me

and I'm not working for a kid.

So I did what any honourable man would do. I faked a knee injury,

went down to the County Hospital and they gave me a prescription for Percodan. And the doctor left, gave me a, he left a box of persistent pads and he took off and I knew he didn't want to use them anymore. You know, I

don't waste it. There's kids starving in Europe, you know, and you know, so I borrowed some and and I started writing prescriptions and me and Ernie at the bar, we met these guys in Tucson, California, and I started writing prescriptions to these guys, these little Mexican doctors and just writing prescriptions for second all and nebutol and two and all, you name it all, I wrote it all. I said, you know, damn near took it all too, you know,

after about nine months that you know, you know, they caught up with me. And when you're loaded on whiskey and barbiturates, there's no freeway chase, you know,

there he goes down to 17. You know, none of that happens. You know, it's just a matter of the sheriff coming into the old Busy Bee Hotel going there. He is under there, you know,

so they, they convicted me and put me away in a little place. And I'm no big time convict, don't you know, I'm just a little loser. And they locked me up for a small period of time and I got out there and I 1974 I come back to California and I go to the City Hall and I register there and they put me on an abuse and I'm on two months of an abuse. And I go through some agency and I don't have a driver's license. So I'm taking buses everywhere and hitchhiking and stuff and

finally get a job as a laborer. I admit a I am a guy who doesn't suffer from people giving me breaks.

People have been given me breaks my entire life, and one of them was the guy that I resented, and that was my dad. Now, my dad was a refinery. My dad had a miraculous thing about him, a characteristic that I don't have. He used to be able to start things and finish them.

Called a hard worker. Not me, I'm an alcoholic and I also have another problem. I have a 5 inch belt of lazy ass that straps around here where, you know, the only thing I think about when I get up is when's my nap, you know,

and, and so I went and my dad went out on the limb. His, his best friend, his our neighbor was in charge of the fire department of this refinery. And my dad went over there and talked to him and said, why don't you give the kid a chance? And the guy put his name on an application and all I was going to do was be a laborer in a refinery and shovel stuff. And I was supposed to show up.

And I showed up three hours early and then, you know, the refinery window was closed. So I went to a

a Little League field and I went into a dugout

and an hour went by and two hours went by, and at about the third hour I slipped into a place between maniacal and hysterical. The cord was plugged.

I went into a catatonic state, and my paranoia was so bad that I was locked into hallucinations. And I'm two months without drinking and having anything in me. And I don't know what's going on. And people tell me that somebody called the paramedics. And this time I know I pulled the coronary. No coming back because I'm in a place that I've never imagined that I would ever get out of. And it was so frightening that they took me to the Harbor General Hospital. They looked at my jacket and they looked at some of the things that was going on in my life. And they said, I think we need to take you to a state

for you to be observed for 30 or 60 days, son. And they took me to the state hospital and a year later I came out, totally observed,

and they gave me my medication and they gave me things that took care of some of these problems. But I tell you what, you can't medicate away

this time. It's going to be different,

my friends. I'm an alcoholic. I'm the type of alcoholic that the memory of my last drunk, no matter how bad, does not have sufficient force to keep me sober. I am the type of alcoholic that every time I drink, I can look and I get sober. I can look over the 20 years of drinking and I can see every face of every person that I ran over and used and abused. I'm the type of alcoholic that every time I'm sober, I can see the physical things going on with this young body.

I can see the things that are happening to me and the way that I look and the sores and the stuff that's going on with me. I can see all that. I am the type of alcoholic that I know the threats of the institutions that lie ahead of me if I'm caught one more time.

Yet I'm an alcoholic

and the longer I stay sober,

the memory of my last drunk is pushed aside and all that knowledge of those things are pushed aside for this idea that maybe this time it's going to be different. And it doesn't come to me in those words. It comes into me. Screw it, I can't handle it no more. I'm not drinking now. And people around me are telling me, Larry, if you stop drinking, everything will be all right. And I stop drinking and I'm not all right. And I get a little bit restless and I get a little bit irritated and I get so tense and

come to these meetings and I see these guys with these ties on and they say stuff like 30 days ago, I was on the streets of Los Angeles. Now I'm the president of the Bank of America. Thank you. You know, I, my God, I came in with that guy.

I am the type of alcoholic that that book talks about,

that after days, weeks or months of sobriety, the thought will come that I've got to drink again, That I don't have sufficient force to keep me sober. And that knowledge of what's going on with me is all pushed aside for this idea that maybe this time it's going to be different. And my sobriety and my and my and my drinking all feel the same. And I wind up staying drunk as long as I can and sober as long as I can. And my life is just a period of fresh starts, and