The 60th Gopher State Roundup in Bloomington, MN

Everybody. My name is Scott Trainer. I am an alcoholic.

I love the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and I love the people. And I always start off and say it has not always been like that.

Yeah. I'd like to thank the committee. Connie, Mike Powers, my my host and sticky hand. Mikey, that's a that's an inside joke. There is. His real name is Mikey because they call him Smiling Mike. And the hospitality that the Gopher State Roundup has given my wife and I is just absolutely phenomenal. I have the opportunity to be back here. I haven't been back since the International. And you guys put on a heck of a show at the International. Yeah,

he really did.

You know, I, I think I'd like to start off and tell you that you're never going to have a better sobriety date than the one you got, so you might as well keep it, okay?

You're never going to have the best story in a a so you might as well keep that one too. I didn't hear those things when I first came in Alcoholics Anonymous almost 40 years ago. I,

I didn't know that even at that young age, I was in an absolute fight for my life. You know, that alcohol was going to rob it. Any gold dream aspiration I ever had as a kid on the things I wanted to do and the things I wanted to become. I didn't know that when I put alcohol in my body, I was going to try to overcome an obsession I had no control over,

you know, and that drink was going to demand another drink. We learned to share our experience, strength and hope here, talk a little bit about what we were like, what happened to us and what we're like today. And we do that in a general way. You know, when we get up here and we give a talk, we maybe give three percent, 5% of our stories. We never can give it all in in the short time that we're allotted. That's another thing. I don't consider myself a speaker.

I consider myself a talker, OK? The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says. One alcoholic talking to another. No lectures to endure, no axes to grind.

And so I believe that if you speak from the heart to heart lessons, OK. And we just heard that a little earlier, didn't we?

You know, my story is not the story of drinking out of a brown paper bag at the age of five. I hear people talk about that sometimes. That's not my story. I grew up in an Irish Catholic neighborhood. I'm from Boston. I grew up in the projects. I grew up in the neighborhood being Irish and Catholic. I drank as young and as often as I could. The drinking age was 18 in Massachusetts. And so I started at a young age. And when you were in the Irish Pub, Kelly's Pub, whatever the the pub was, if you had money, you could drink, you know, you could drink. And it was just part of the culture. Growing up in the neighborhood,

I didn't understand anything about alcoholism. I didn't understand anything about this disease, this illness. I didn't know that it was a family illness. It talks in our book about the warped lives of blameless wives and children, the sweet relationships that get dead. And my dad was an alcoholic. And he was that tornado roaring through our lives. You know, the police at my house all the time, bruises on my mom's face, crying at night, The the silence, all the things that that we hear people share about

happened growing up. You know, it talks about defiance being one of our chief character traits as Alcoholics. I was very defiant. If you were a teacher, a babysitter, you know, a police officer, you tried to tell Scotty what to do. I rebelled against that. And so I had a lot of the, the selfishness, self-centered, self seeking behaviors that we as alcoholic display even at a young age. You know, that was before I even really started drinking, driven by those 100 forms of fear and self delusions. I even made decisions at that young age

based on myself, which placed me in the position to be hurt by others. Now, I didn't know any of this stuff at the time. I would go to Al Anon meetings with my mom. I know we got some Al Anons here. I'd like to welcome Al Anon family groups. Yeah,

we're still going to try to have fun tonight, though. OK.

Who? I love Alan. That's a joke. No, I do. I I I would go 42 years ago, I was going to Al Anon in South Boston and N Quincy going with my mom and. And there were no men in Al Anon at the time. You know, I'm a young kid and I would go to al Anon with my mom. And to me, they were just a bunch of women sitting around the table complaining about their husbands and the way they were being treated. And my dad was the alcoholic type that sat down the street in his van and would be drinking and drive home, follow us home and then beat my mom up and call her a whore. And who was she meeting there? He

she was doing something talking about his business and stuff and she wasn't doing any of that. She was she was trying to find a better way to raise her four boys in this terrible grip of alcoholism in the family. And it is a family illness, OK, You know, and that didn't work. Al Anon with my mom and I tried alotine alatina for children of Alcoholics. I know we have a big Alatene present this weekend and yeah,

and I would take the trains in a SE South Boston and stuff and go to these allotene meetings. And the honesty of it is I didn't get anything out of Valentine because I didn't want anything out of Valentine. You know, Valentine was a place for me to go and manipulate and get you to feel sorry for Scotty and the way I was being raised. So I, I didn't get anything out of it, you know, and then drinking, you've heard people talk about

how they grew 6 foot tall. You know, they could talk to women, they could dance. That was not my experience when I drank alcohol.

It didn't make everything OK. What happened to me is when I started actively drinking, it was just that I could breathe. You know, that's really what it was, is I could breathe because I believed I I was in a world I didn't belong. And if you just leave me alone, I'm going to be OK. You know, one day I'm going to do this and one day I'm going to do that. And

while I'm drinking, getting into that vicious cycle, even at the young age, I had my first arrest when I was turning 13 years old for a sound battery on a police officer and drunk and disorderly conduct and

got sentenced to Alcoholics Anonymous for myself. And I went to AA in that young people's group and the youngest young person was like 30 years old. OK. You know, this is when the 2nd edition was still out and they talked about losing cars and homes and families and going to jail and just all the this insanity and I didn't relate to them. I didn't even have a driver's license, you know, I mean, they, there's different customs all over the country and how it worked in in Massachusetts at the time, Boston and Quincy is they never did any readings of a portion of chapter 5 from the big book on how it works. They didn't read

about alcoholism, They didn't read a vision for you at the end. These were customs that were started in Southern California. And the meeting would start and the meeting would end with the Lord's Prayer. That's all it was. And there were commitments and you couldn't share unless you had 90 days. And they would interview you when you came in. Alcoholics Anonymous literally sits you down and interview you to make sure you even belong. And that happened to me. You know, I raised my hand as a newcomer. I was there from the courts and, and some of the old timers gathered me into the corner and, and they started questioning me on, you know, all the,

you hear about you got to watch, you can't be an alcoholic. And they start questioning me. And when I say the old timers, I'm talking about the guys that had like 30 days and 60 days, you know, the guys that really knew the program, OK, you know, their sponsor said go talk to this guy. And they came over and talked to me and they basically precluded me from a a they honest to God, they said that I was too young, OK, that I was more of the juvenile delinquent type and that maybe if I could just learn to deal with my anger, I would be OK.

You know, chapter three more about alcoholism talks about the self deception, the experimentation that we'll try to prove ourselves, exceptions to the rule, therefore non alcoholic. And even at that young age,

I was going out there defending my right to drink, you know, but I had to go to AA because of the courts. I had to go to AA because of my mom. The first step where we admit we're powerless over alcohol, that our lives have become unmanageable, was real easy for me to admit that to the judge or my mom or whoever. But I never accepted that to the innermost self that I had a problem. I really believe that I just had bad luck and I was too young. And so I kept going out there and we, we know the vicious cycle. I mean, I was in my first detox at 14. I was at Skid Row eating out of dumpsters

cans at 16, trying to find a better way. I started making the rounds to the homes of the bewildered as my friend Jim Buckley would talk about getting strapped to beds. Pump full of lithium, thorazine, chloral hydrate, Haldol, you know all these wonderful drugs. Being diagnosed as suicidal, homicidal, manic depressive. They call it bipolar today, I guess. And you know, I loved it because years, years later, when I read the book, when I finally did the deal

in it, it talks about the different types of Alcoholics, it says. And then we have the manic depressive type, which is probably the least understood amongst us, of which a whole chapter could be written.

And then they didn't write the chapter. OK,

that was my chapter. OK, They never wrote it.

And so I'm getting diagnosed with all these things and I got to tell you really right now is I was misdiagnosed. What I am is I'm an alcoholic. I'm an alcoholic of the hopeless variety. A lot of those behaviors that I had displayed were common manifestations of alcoholism. OK, but you couldn't tell me that at the time, so I'd run with it. And I love it. In our book, too, it talks about we seldom told a psychiatrist the truth. I never told them the truth. They would show me those ink blots to the Teresa was talking about and I would say it's a battleship coming down Hancock St. blowing houses up on the left and right.

I would make this stuff up. OK, I didn't really see that, but they were sure writing a lot of notes when I was saying that stuff,

you know, and and and I'm in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous. Never read the book. OK never worked the steps. I would hear things. I'd hear things like just don't drink and go to meetings. OK, you know, I never heard about that 12 step program or recovery that brings us back from the gates of insanity or death. I didn't know that this process that we go through that it requires for its successful consummation is out of the book. It's through the action of those steps. And, and I had a lot of misconceptions on what a a was and a a wasn't,

you know, find someone that you can relate to, get a sponsor. I don't know about you guys that are new, but I didn't relate to anyone because my case was different. OK, You just didn't know. You just didn't feel the way I feel feel you weren't raised the way I'm being raised, all the excuses. But I wanted to do something different because I kept getting into all these jackpots, you know, And when I say jackpots, I'm talking about the drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs that shave your head, make you wear dunks, caps, sit on the bench, clean dumpsters with

brushes. The scared straight program of the 70s where you go in all these major prisons and these tough convicts would come up to give me your shoe. I won't bend you over, you know, and then start telling you what they're going to do to you when they get you in there to try to scare you straight. And, you know, I had been in a a a few years and I decided maybe I need a sponsor. And, and how it worked with them. When I talk about the different customs is, is, let's just say, for instance, that Mike is my sponsor and I'm going to take why you laughing? And I'm

oh, Mikey,

and I'm going to take a medallion at this meeting. Well, Mike would get up here and tell you all about me and he would tell you, Mike, not only a a in the steps that I'm taking this year. OK, You like that this year,

but my community involvement and just the things that I'm doing in life. And then I would get up, accept the medallion, say a few words and sit down. And this guy, Fred was one of the youngest young people in the group. He was like 33 and he was taking a four year anniversary medallion.

His sponsor got up and said all this wonderful stuff about Fred. And then Fred, it was that Saint Estrassenum's church. And Fred got up and he accepted the medallion and he was looking at it and he says, you know, he goes. I was really nervous this morning because I knew I was going to have to get up here in front of all you people. So I smoked a joint to take the edge off. OK.

And he went on. And I got to tell you, I love what Fred had to say, OK?

And that meeting got over and I went right up to Fred and asked him to be my sponsor.

That was my first experience with sponsorship and Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, now, make no state mistake here. Years later, when I when I read that book, when I took that prescription that's outlined in it, Doctor Silkworth closes all those loopholes when he says that we can't take alcohol in any form, OK, That the only treatment we have to offer is complete abstinence. See, I wasn't taught that it was a little different because you didn't share about drugs from the podium of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is Alcoholics Anonymous. That's an outside issue

and that back in the early 70s in Boston, that's how they treated it. So you didn't talk about drugs. If you did, you were pulled off the podium. There were many of my peers that were doing Darvon Librium. For you young people, these are some of the old drugs, OK, Darvon Librium, you know, and smoking weed and stuff and claiming sobriety just because they weren't drinking. And that's not sobriety, you know, And it'd just be a matter of time before I would try that program

of theirs.

And our book says we can't bring to sufficient force to pain the misery of a week or a month ago. We succumbed. So many of us do. One more time. And I would drink and then the drink would take a drink and then the drink would take me and I would be off and running one more time, you know, So the whole 70s to me were just a bunch of misconceptions on what Alcoholics Anonymous was and what it wasn't in and out of one institution after another. DYS Division of Youth Service. It's like a, you know, juvenile jail. I don't know what they have here in Minnesota.

I'm always trying to find a better way through all those other outside issues because I'm a I'm a garbage pail, OK. And I will try as it was really big in the 70s and and I would try just about anything to try to make me drink more, drink less to function. We call it the magic elixir. The book refers to it as gin and sedatives. However you want to put it. That's what I was trying, trying to find a better way for myself and just crashing and burning at every turn.

You know, I ended up getting a girl pregnant and that didn't work. I figured I'd settle down. I was senior in high school. I quit, I was in a culinary art program, four year culinary art school and I quit and married her. And two weeks later she was home with her family. She came from a rich Irish Catholic family. I came from a poor Irish Catholic family. And the attitude was I didn't even need her anyway. But inside I felt so shameful, you know, I couldn't even do that right. And she was pregnant and I found myself in the combat zone in Boston. Those of you that have been to Boston in the

know, it was a red light district, very bad area and I found myself in there with a few of my buddies rolling prostitutes. And if you don't know what that is, it's robbing them. And I ended up getting arrested for armed robbery and I went into the Charles St. jail, the oldest jail in New England. 5 tears and I walked in like that Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder movie stir crazy. You know that's right, we bad And I walked in there and a guy got thrown off the 5th here and he got killed and it scared me to death. You know, I had heard all the things that happened a cute little punks when they get you in there and I was cute. I had long hair,

I was cute and I was afraid.

Come here, boy. Yeah. You with the Tai jeans, right?

And I was scared.

And Massachusetts, Massachusetts is a Commonwealth law state. You have the right to face your accuser. If they don't show up three times, they dismiss it. Lack of prosecution. Well, I gotten bailed out three days later. And, you know, this life that we're leading becomes the only normal one. We can't distinguish the true from the false. And it talks about the jumping off point that our souls become really, really dark. And, and it's talking about suicide. And I, I didn't want to go to prison for eight to 10 years in Walpole State Prison. I knew a a didn't work. Psychiatry didn't work.

This stuff worked for me. And I just decided that I didn't want to live like that. And I went home with this little dingy apt I had. And I climbed in the bathtub and I set up the stereo speakers and I rolled 1/2 a dozen joints and I drank a six pack of beer. I was already drunk. And I took a razor blade and I cut my wrist all the way down, 110 stitches in each arm. And I bled out. And that's how they found me the next morning, got rushed to the hospital and five days later I came out on the critical list. And you hear people joke about that they can't even die, right? They can't even do that right.

And I felt like such a failure for that. And I found myself in other homes of the bewildered, strapped to a bed. And I'm fighting that case and I end up beating that case. And there was another suicide attempt. There was very suicidal in the 70s for some reason. And I had a bad 70s and I, I, I took 200 nitol sleeping pills and stuck my head in a gas stove. OK. And when I got found that time, I never talk about this one. And those of you that have heard me before heard part of my story. I don't really talk about this one,

but I literally I'm talking like this for two weeks because of those drugs and stuff just killed my sinuses and my brain and they didn't know if I would ever come out of it correctly. But that's how I talked for two weeks. I scared myself that time and,

you know, and, and, and I ended up, you know, being OK. I beat the case and and that's suicide attempt there. I found myself at Medfield State Hospital strapped to the bed one more time. And this woman came and saw me. You know, she told me about this guy named Jesus Christ, said if I accepted him as my personal savior, that behold, everything would be new. And she talked about a loving, caring God. And growing up Irish and Catholic, my God sat on the throne, took a record of everything I had ever done wrong.

And I was being cast in the lake of fire. I had an Ant that was a nun. And, you know, just all the things they tell good little Catholic kids that are going to happen to you when you touch yourself and purely, you know, you know, you're going to go blind and all this other stuff.

I stopped in time,

I did,

but these are the things that she's telling me about this guy named Jesus Christ. So, you know, Alcoholics of our type, we go from 1 extreme to the next. We're either really, really good or we're really, really bad. And I, I went for this program hook, line and sinker and I went into a program called Teen Challenge. Okay. And I quit. I quit smoking, swearing, watching TV, stop listening to Rock'n'roll. I started going to Bible study 7 hours a day, you know, church seven days a week. I, I entered the ministry. I was going to become a preacher.

I started traveling New England given my testimony, I'll crisis saved my life. I would go into the born again Christian revivals and rooms not quite this big, but they would be talking in tongues and passing out. And you know, I'm I'm that square peg just trying to fit. You know, these Christians had something in the eyes, something in the eyes that I wanted. You know, it's sort of like some of these old timers that are sitting here. They get that shit eaten grin, right. They you want it. You don't know what it is, but you want it. And it was the same thing. I wanted to fit so bad. And our book says we're actors,

right? We can be more demanding or more gracious as we want, OK. And that we're still trying to get our way. And so I'm that square peg trying to fit in. I'm three months into this program. I'm three months away from a drink. I'm three months away from my solution. And I decide, you know what? I really want this really bad.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to get filled with the spirit like they are and I'm going to pass out. And so I would be in the revival and I'd get filled with the spirit like they and I'm falling out like they are. The only problem was I'm hurting my neck and my back and I'm getting hurt. OK, They're not getting hurt. And the reason why is this is a real spiritual experience.

For them, for me, I'm acting, trying to fit in.

So, So what I do is I decide, OK, I decide what I'm going to do is I'm going to speak in tongues. I'm a quick study, right? That's what I'm going to do. So you got to follow me here because I call this my throne of judgment. Because see, now, OK, I'm starting to judge this and I decide I'm going to speak in tongues. So I start making this up and I'm speaking in tongues, making it up. And Doug over here starts interpreting what the Spirit's telling him that I'm saying,

OK, so I know he's full of crap. OK,

I know it because I'm full of crap

now. This whole thing is full of crap. OK,

now the first step where we admit we're powerless over alcohol, that our lives have become unmanageable. Unmanageability simply means not achieving ones purpose. I knew that I was not achieving my purpose. I had conceded to the innermost self that I was an alcoholic. I had a drinking problem. I had come to believe that this power was going to restore me to sanity. I used to think that the second step talked about the sanity of the world, and I used to have a real problem with that because things that I did that I thought were saying and I looked at,

you know, just the opposite was insanity. And I really

misunderstood what that step was talking about because what it's talking about really is the insanity of the first drink. You see, when this mind will convince this mind that it's OK to drink again after everything I've done, all the jackpots I've been to, all the trouble that's caused me, all the heartache, everything that this mind will convince this mind that it's OK to drink, That's the insanity that it's talking about. Restoring me to sanity, OK?

Making the decision to turn my will in my life, nothing more but my thoughts and my actions over to this higher power. I had done that even in this program and being around a A for a while at this point.

But what I had never done was a fearless and thorough moral inventory of myself, let alone admit that stuff to another human being. You know, I love it because they say we're not bad people, we're just sick people trying to get better. I was bad, OK? I did a lot of bad things and it was time I started doing some good things.

Or they say that, you know, you heard Theresa talk a little bit about being sensitive. The big book does say that the alcoholic is sensitive. And but then the next sentence says, but it takes some of us a long time to overcome this serious handicap. My sensitivity is not an asset, OK. And I, I went to the director of this program and because the stuff inside me was like gangrene. You know, it was like gangrene. If I didn't get it out, it was going to absolutely kill me. And so I told him I needed to get this stuff out. And he told me I didn't. He, you know, we started quoting scripture back

forth to each other because by that time I was what you term a Bible thumper, OK, And we're quoting Scripture back and forth that I have the strength to face all conditions through the power of Christ Jesus. Don't you believe that? And we're going back and forth and that defiance came up in me and I told him what he could do with his program. OK, now see, I didn't understand that, that that 4th and step 5th step was designed like like a cup of coffee. OK, is if you took a cup of coffee right now and went out to the sink and put it underneath the sink and drip cool clear

water into it at the end of this meeting, go back and look inside of it. It's still going to be dark and dirty on the inside. See, and that's what I was, was still dark and dirty on the inside. The way the 4th and 5th step are designed is to dump that stuff so that maybe I can retain some of this good stuff, clear stuff, good morals, values. And so I'm trying through this program, through a, a trying to put all this good stuff in me, but the stuff inside me was killing me because I had never admitted this to,

to God and another human being, the exact nature of my wrongs.

And I walked away from that program and I walked back into the projects with the firm conviction. I'm not going to drink anymore. I know I got a drinking problem. I know I do. I've conceded that I'm just going to smoke a little weed, okay, because that's really not my problem. Okay, My, my problem is alcohol. And you know the story. And, and I don't say that to disrespect the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm well versed at the the 12 steps of 12 traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, the 12 concepts of World Service that we have in Alcoholics Anonymous. They say that the steps are designed so that we

commit suicide, the traditions are designed so we don't commit homicide, and that the 12 concepts are designed so we don't commit genocide in this organization, right. You know, and I'm well versed at those in, in, in. I don't say what I say to disrespect the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm telling you my experience in Alcoholics Anonymous at that time in the 70s, OK? And it was just a matter of time before I picked up that drink again. The drink took the drink and the drink took me and I was off and running one more time wondering how it

and sitting on this bridge. I tell this story to show the cunning, baffling and powerfulness of this disease of alcoholism, the insidiousness of it. Because I found myself sitting on a bridge in Cape Cod, MA, called the Bourne Bridge, 169 feet up in the air over the Cape Cod Canal. And I climbed up there drunk and brought a bunch of beer with me. And I was up there 4 1/2 hours. And the state police have blocked off the bridge and the Corps of Engineering coast car were down in the canal with spotlights on me and the Good Samaritan suicide prevention leagues talking to me on bull horns. And you know, underneath

campground called the Bourne Scenic Park and all the campers came out and set up lawn chairs and stuff and

they're yelling at me. Jump you mother job, right?

And I'm going to end. These guys are crazy. Don't they know if I jump, I'm gonna die, right?

You know, that self delusion and it was a big drama every time the SWAT team came close. You know, I'd say I'm gonna jump in it, back away. And

you know, they say we're delusional people. I'm up there thinking of, you know, Dillinger and how the West was won and the Indian shoe chief and 200 Braves and 10,000 cavalry and today's a good day to die and, you know, thinking of King Arthur's court. I would have been a great night I think at all these things. And I'm full of resentment, okay, resentment, the Latin word, recentary, refill, rethink, replay. And that's what I'm doing in my mind sitting up on this bridge. I'm thinking of all the crap growing up. I'm not thinking of good stuff, OK? I was taught a lot of good values and

you know, when I was nine years old, I saved a kids life and when I was in the Cub Scouts and got honored by the House of Representatives. And I joke sometimes about being trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent, right. I still remember those lessons that were taught to me. But see, I what I'm sitting on this bridge remembering is, is getting honored and sitting on a stage like this OK? And my dad being drunk, not showing up.

See, that's what I'm sitting on this bridge thinking. I'm thinking

coming home from school one day because I got caught sneaking out the night before and my dad grabbing me by the back of the neck and marching me to my room. And he hands me a milk jug with the top cut off and there's a lock on the outside of my door and he throws me in and locks the door and the room so dark I can't see. I turn the light on and he took my window and sheet metal then riveted it. OK. And he would let me out in the morning to go to school and lock me in at night.

You know, I'm thinking of those things now. I don't say that to, to talk about child abuse because the honesty of it is I didn't think of that as child abuse at the time.

You know, that was the price for getting caught. That was the price that I paid for being a tough kid to raise and getting caught. But sitting on this bridge, these are the things I'm, I'm thinking. And then I had that moment of clarity we all talk about 4 1/2 hours later. And my moment of clarity was, you know what, Scotty, there's got to be something out here for you. There has to be some, there's something you haven't tried. You know, you, you need to get down. There's something that you got to do.

And then I had another thought, and I had an honest thought, OK. And the thought that jumped into my mind was, you know what, Scotty? If you get down,

you're going to look like a pussy to all these people that have waited all this time for you to jump.

You gotta jump.

And so I turned and I jumped, OK, I don't remember hitting. They say I died. The only bone I broke was my sternum bone and chest cavity. And that was from them giving me the pericardial thumbs, bringing me back to life. They don't do that because it can cave in your chest and kill you. Okay, yeah, I'm going to Fast forward here real quick. Two quick stories. About 11 years ago, I was giving a talk in Middleboro, MA

and my mom was still alive. My older brother was there, my mom was there, my one of my younger brothers was there.

And I told the story about the bridge just like I did. And the meeting gets over and people are thanking you and this guy comes busting through the crowd. He goes, oh, I owe you an amends. I owe you an amends. I looked at him and I said, geez, I don't even know you. He goes, no, you don't understand. He goes, we were at the bar and it came across the scanners that they had a jumper. He goes, so I rolled some weed. I got some Jack Daniels. He goes and that was me yelling at you to jump.

He he goes and you did.

And he had like 10 years sober, OK.

And so about five years ago now, I was given a talk in Palm Desert out at the ABC Club, Keith and Sally Carpenter, and they were real active in Al Anon and a A at the time. And I was given a talk and I told those two stories. And that meeting got over. And this guy, real distinguished in a suit and tie, comes up afterwards. He shakes my hand. He goes, you know, I always wonder what happened to you. And I looked at him and I go, I'm sorry, I don't know you. He goes, no, you wouldn't know me. He goes, I was the captain of the state police barracks and buzzards

who called out all the rescue vehicles and stuff. He goes and when it came across it, you had died. He goes, I knew they brought you back, but I never knew what happened. I was a practicing alcoholic at the time and he had like 22 years sober. Okay, you know, you hear people joke, is that odd or is that God? But you got three different people, three different walks of life. One event also were members of Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, but I wasn't done drinking. I, you know, I, I mean, I got out of that and I found myself in another home to the bewildered. Nothing was working. I was going to go to California. The Atlanta Golden Opportunity, Hollywood

hitchhiking made it to Pennsylvania.

And

I don't know why I thought of this story real quick, but I looked at I looked at Doug and this guy picked us up. I mean, this, this crime partner of mine picked us up and he drove us about 90 miles. And he was in a suit and tie and he had a a briefcase in the center of his station wagon. And he lifted it up and it was full of black hash treated with opium. He had just come back from Peru, right? Look just like you, Doug. OK,

Doug's holding his chest. Oh, and

anyway, through umm, indulging, being drunk and indulging in that stuff, I joined the United States Army out of Wilkes Barre, PA

because what I needed was discipline. OK, that's, that's what my mind told me. So I came out of a blackout in Fort Jackson, SC heading to Fort Benning, GA and before my Army career was over. Six month Army career, they call me down for the Count Tranner. I was on the Benning House program of alcoholism, taking antibiotics every morning,

front of the CEO, OK. And before that was over, I was strapped to the bed at Martin Army Hospital, Ward B4, getting pumped full of all the drugs. And they gave me a Chapter 5 honorable discharge, unfit for military life. I went up to Massachusetts. That was it. I was done. I'm going to California. You know, I delusional people growing up in the projects, you know, I'm going to be discovered. I'm going to be a movie star. I'm going to be in a rock'n'roll band, all this stuff. And I went out to California and I was out there six days

and I came out of a blackout. OK. We got any blackout drinkers here? Yeah. Got any projectile pukers? Got a few. I loved everything about alcohol at that time. I loved it going down. I loved it coming back up so I could drink more. But I I came out of a blackout and I was in LA County jail. And there's nothing like coming out of a blackout and you're looking at those pink slips trying to see what you were charged with. And the bottom line here is before that was over

between LA County, San Bernardino County and Riverside County, I had 22 years sentencing the state penitentiary in California. You know, and those of you that have been in prison know the prison is nothing but a human kennel that breeds violence. And I let it breathe the violence and me and I became an absolute animal. I got tattoos all over my body. My attitude was if you weren't white, you weren't right. I came from one of the most racial capitals of the country at that time in the 70s with forced busing with Judge Sirica would bust the blacks in the Southie and all the

prejudice that I was taught as a kid growing up. I brought it in the California penitentiary with me. You know, I made it up to this institution called Tehachapi and I I was told they had a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and was I interested in going and I went and I sat in the back with my Bonnaroos on and it was Southern California H and I and they started the meeting and they read a portion of chapter 5 from the big book. I had been in a A10 years at this time.

I had never heard how it worked first time

I had heard how it worked. And then they read more about alcoholism and they talked about the experimentation, the self deception that many of us would pursue this into the gates of insanity or death. And they were talking about me. And then this guy Eddie Miracle got up and couple, you may remember Eddie Miracle. And he said, you know, if you're new, you've come home, You need never be alone again. You like the prodigal son who had to venture out there. Now you're home. You started talking about our glasses being half empty or half full, that this was a disease of perception.

He started talking a lot about Chuck, Chuck C Chuck Chamberlain in that, you know, we're all children have gone for me to love you for your color, you not for your color, that there's no room for hypocrites in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Either we're all God's kids or none of us are. What was my choice going to be? You know, and I believe luck and chance was passing me by. And I reached up and I grabbed onto it. You know, people all my life told me what I wouldn't do and what I wouldn't become. And all of a sudden I'm sitting with people just like you and you're telling me what I can do and what I can become if I was willing to put forth the effort and work for it.

And so I jumped in a a like my very life depended on it. That meeting ended and they read a vision for you. And they when he started reading it, I didn't know he was reading it, but he said, you know, our book is meant to be suggestive only we realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answer will come if your own house is in order. But obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got.

See to it that your relationship with him is right and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the great fact for us.

Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past, give freely of what you find, and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the Spirit, and you'll surely meet some of us as you treasure the road of happy destiny. May God bless you and keep you until then. And they're reading this and I'm going, oh, that's so good. Where are they getting this right?

I've been in a A10 years, never heard that. And you hear people joke, but my fundamental belief at that time was do you want to hide something from the alcoholic? Put it in the book. OK, It's the least

where I came from. It was the least read book in the rooms, I'm telling you, OK. And so I got sober and I worked the steps in, in, in, in. All the promises started coming true for me, even behind the walls. I went through a couple governors. I got my GED. I got four years of college behind me. I was becoming a gentleman. A gentleman,

OK, even in there. And it wasn't so much a process of learning all these new things as it was a process of unlearning a lot of the things that I was taught. And I was raised, raised with, you know, that process of uncovering, discovering, discarding all the things we think we know because that's what was getting me in trouble. And I and I went for this underwater diving program that Chino had started. There were only 11 institutions when I was in under the old SP laws. Governor Brown was the governor back then. And I think it's funny because now he's the governor again, you know, 30 years