The Broken Chains meeting in Prescott, AZ

I'm Doug. I'm a heroin addict

trying to figure out where to put this thing

right here.

Congratulations. Is it Luke? That's cool.

Thank you. Thank you. And Ian, Congrats again.

I seem to come up here and celebrate my birthday with you guys every day. It's I had my I spoke here for my 32nd birthday last year and so

I get to celebrate my birthday with my good friend Ian, which is cool. And now my new friend Luke,

and that's the one thing I really love about this fellowship, is that there are no strangers and Heroin Anonymous, there's just friends you haven't met yet.

And

you know, I'm a obviously I got sober when I was a fetus.

Yeah, I'll be 60 years old next year. And I got sober when I was 26.

And,

you know, and that heroin back then, Jimmy and I were talking about the good old days

before fentanyl and all the shit that's absolutely tearing, tearing this world apart, you know, And it was different back then because today most of the people who are heroin addicts got there on the road from opioids.

And back when, when I got sober, there really wasn't, I mean, yeah, they had Percocets and things like that, but there really wasn't the same pathway.

You know,

he just started shooting heroin, you know,

But I didn't always do heroin, No. There was a time when I was a little boy and I had a nice family, New England family. My parents are still alive and still married.

Been married 63 years. I think it is.

They met when my father was 15 and my mother was 13. And they've never been with any other person in their life. They've just been since they were little kids, you know, And it's kind of romantic in a way. I don't get it. Because I was kind of a slut when I was out there, you know? That's not, that's not my truth,

you know, And in 1957 my sister was born. And in 1959, I don't think I was born. I think I was more like spawned because,

excuse me,

you know, I was born into this family that was beautiful and you know, my parents,

loving, tender, supportive. You know, when I got to the program, first of all, there was no AJ when I got here. And so I was going to a A and I was going to California and I didn't hear my story for a long time. I heard stories of, of broken homes and drug addicted parents and abuse. And I thought, man, I, I, this is the last house on the block and I don't even belong here.

And the old timers would come and they, you know, they put their arm around me and they say, just listen, just stay and just listen. And eventually I did hear my story. And then I heard it over, and I heard it over and over again.

And then I came to turn to the fact that it wasn't really about where you came from, and it wasn't about whether your family or your parents were addicts or your parents were abusive or any of that. That didn't make me an addict.

You know what made me an addict is that when I started using, I couldn't stop.

And the problem was, is that when I wasn't using, I had to start.

Can anybody relate to the notion of like, I am not going to use today no matter what? And then that thought hits. I call it the thought crime. And then there's nothing to stop you from getting loaded.

The big book uses fancy words. They call it a mental obsession. You know, I call it I'm fucked. Yeah,

my friend Steve and I were like, we're done. We're not going to do dope anymore. He's lying on his bed, I'm lying on the couch.

And all it took was a look. All it took was the look. I'd look at him and he'd look at me. And then one of us, when we were in Queens, we were in Astoria, and we go downtown and that was the code. That was the code word. And next thing you know, we're in a cab, we're heading downtown. Cops and dope and,

you know, but it took, you know, that was nearing the end and, and, and, and there was more to the story that happened before that. You know, there's a story about like when I was in elementary school and the cop who came to my school, probably the same cop who went to your school and told you about the perils of drugs and alcohol. Do you have that cop who go to your school? Some of you had DARE, right? Yeah. Oh thanks,

yeah, I was pre dare

we. We had a cop and he put and he put on that movie Reefer Madness.

Bunch of people smoking pot and getting crazy and having sex. And I was like, that's a deterrent.

But I did actually believe him. And I believe that drugs were dangerous and I was scared of them.

But as I started to progress and try different drugs, you know, the, the kind of this lurking notion was in my head that, you know, if I do this cocaine, that I'm going to be selling my body down on the street corner for more cocaine. And if I do this heroin, you know, I'll end up a junkie on the streets and, you know, a convict and all that stuff. And you know, none of that happened until later.

And,

you know, so as I was doing the drugs and, you know, he was wrong.

He was wrong,

you know, and I went to high school and I went to high school in England and I was in the 70s and, and the 70s were apparently quite great. And I say apparently because I don't really remember the 70s. I do. I remember some things like going to see the Clash or seeing the Sex Pistols in little pubs the size of this room. And, and we didn't realize that what we were seeing was a revolution of music

and everybody was loaded.

Yeah, we're, we're in restaurants and doing lines on the on on the tables and smoking joints in public. And,

you know, it just seemed like there was a lot of

people turning their head the other way. And in the pubs in London, even if you were underage, they didn't card you back then. It just served you beer. And it was, I thought it was great. I thought it was a great time. And

you know, and then I moved to New York and I went to upstate New York and I went to college and I don't I don't remember college. I found non addictive heroin in college.

Any of you guys do heroin here?

Just checking. I want to make sure I was in the right room.

Umm, and it wasn't addicting. Heroin was not addicting, and we were snorting it right. Every two weeks somebody would go down the Big Apple to New York City, buy a bunch of bundles of dope, come back to our school, which is about 100 miles away, and we'd all do dope, puke, have a great time. And nobody got addicted.

So I didn't. I didn't. I didn't get it.

It didn't dawn on me that we were counting the minutes, counting the seconds for the next time somebody would go down to New York. I remember one time I was, it was my turn to do, to drive down, and it started to rain. My windshield wipers didn't work. That didn't deter us. We tied a rope to the windshield wipers. And my friend is doing this with a windshield wipers for two hours. Yeah,

but we're going to get our dope. And,

you know, and then I moved to, I got out of college. I, I think I actually graduated. I have a, a diploma. I don't again, it's, it's like, it's like watching an old-fashioned slide show and nine out of 10 slides are missing. That's what my memory of college is like. And I moved to New York City. I started driving a Yellow Cab in New York

and heroin. Driving a cab is a really bad mixture, you know, because you tend to nod out.

And if you're going down 1st Ave. at 50 miles an hour with a fair in the back and you nod out it, it's just not good. But but I did it and then I broke into the film industry and at this time I didn't consider myself having an A problem. I just liked heroin. I never experienced dope sick yet and but I was doing heroin every day because I liked it. That was the delusion that I had.

Delusion means lie to self, and when you lie to yourself,

you don't know you're lying to yourself because you're lying to yourself. I'm the last one who knows that I have that I'm deluded, you know, so you know, I didn't think it was a problem and. And I'm still managing, I'm making money driving a cab. And then I,

my, my career path was to work in the film industry. And I got work after a couple years in the film industry, and I started making a lot of money. And

in the big book of alcohol Synonymous, there's a chapter called Bill's Story.

And in Bill's story, Bill is one of the founders of AA. And in Bill's story, he talks about making money on Wall Street and playing golf and, and, and he says I had arrived.

And that was my moment in my story where I had arrived. I was making money. I was producing music videos. This is right in the very beginning of music videos.

And I was working with some famous people and, you know, I had, I had money coming out of my ears and, and, and it lasted about three months.

And they kind of frown on you when you leave the set for like 4 hours. And I would leave the set in the middle of the day because I started feeling funny. And what the message I got was a little heroin would fix this.

I didn't know that I was getting sick. So I would leave the set in the middle of the day and I'd be gone for hours. Well, in the industry I was in, it was, it was a freelance industry. So you're only as good as your last job. So they stopped calling me and I started falling down the list, the call list. I went from first call to substitute to. If you're desperate to, don't call.

And before you know it, I'm out of work.

And I started that funny feeling that I would have that would tell me that I would need heroin got worse. And now anybody kick cold here? Yeah, it sucks. And you know, I start to get these feelings like muscles tightening up my my neck. And I mean, it would just start straining and I start getting nauseous and and I sweat. And yet I was I was freezing. And I don't know what the hell is going on, but the heroin had fixed it.

That's great, but I didn't have any money,

so I did what any smart heroin addict would do. I started to steal. So I went from making buku bucks,

you know, buying a bundle a day to just being a common thief in just a few months.

And

yeah, I don't know what to do now. I knew I, you know, I had this, I had this habit and I knew a dope sick looked like and you know, and somebody said, you know,

the junkies go and I wasn't a junkie. No, those, those were, they lived on the street. The junkies would go to the methadone clinic and when they get their methadone, they come out and they would sell it. And then so you could buy methadone and kick dope on your own. You don't have to join the clinic. I was like, oh, that's good. Last thing I want to do is be one of those guys who's on the methadone clinic.

And so I remember every, every few days I would buy an 80 milligram bottle of methadone. And, and really it was kind of this back and forth thing. I would do 3 days of methadone and then I feel like I got it, I've kicked it, it's gone. And then after about a day when the methadone starts to wear off, then I go and buy some heroin.

And after about three or four days on the heroin, I go, fuck this. I I'm back to where I was.

And so I go back down to the methadone clinic and buy 8 MGS of methadone. And this went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth for a while

now, my parents had no idea that I was unemployed. They had no idea that I was living this way. They had no idea that I had a habit. And my father, who traveled most of his working, like

I had all these mild saved up through the airlines and he contacted my sister and I and said, let's go back to London for a New Year's reunion. Now, this is New Year's 1984. New Year's Day would have been 85. So I thought that's going to be a perfect opportunity to kick dope.

So I got 80 MGS of methadone, went down to JFK, drank the methadone, got on the red eye to London. The overnight flight was fine going over there. I was going to stay with some friends of mine that I had known years prior from high school and I went to their house and it was the morning and they, the guy had some crackers. He had some cheddar cheese, he had some smoked fish like whitefish and salmon,

and the fish had gone bad and I didn't know that. So I ate this fish and then the next morning I go to my parents hotel to have breakfast with them and in the middle of breakfast I get food poisoning.

Also in the middle of breakfast I start to, I start to kick.

So I'm going in full blown

detox and food poisoning at the same time.

And I, my father, he just thought I was sick and he gave me the key to his room and he said go, lay down. And I didn't leave the room for three days.

And, you know, I ordered room service and I ordered about a glass of milk. So I wanted to coat my stomach. I ordered a glass of vinegar because somebody in New York told me if I drank vinegar, it would remove the toxins from my body quicker. I'm still looking for that fucker.

And then and I ordered a bottle of Jack Daniels.

Yeah, to forget the whole thing.

And, you know, I drank the milk, drank the vinegar, drank the Jack Daniels. Jack Daniels didn't get me drunk. I couldn't drink this thing away. And it was New Year's Eve and this desperate, desperate soul just kicking dope cold in this hotel room. And you know, I have the the garbage can next to the bed because I'm just puking like crazy and just stuff coming out of all openings in my body.

It's I wasn't a vision for you, that's for sure. And

I remember there was this, there was this movie, there was this old English movie about a candy factory. And it may not have been about a candy factory, but there was, I remember this one scene in this candy factory. And there was a conveyor belt and it looked like a tongue. And there was this machine that looked like a mouth with big eyes and it was belching candy out. It was going to be. And then a piece of candy would go down the conveyor belt. And I'm watching this thing, like watching a bad accident.

And, you know, every time I go, I'd be like, cool. And it's funny the things we remember. Yeah. I don't remember a lot more that night. I, I do remember trying to kill myself twice.

The first time I was going to jump out the window, but the windows don't open. So I, I threw the chair at the window and the chair just bounced off the window. And then, and then I got a really brilliant idea. I thought what I would do is I would there was, it was a like a, a semi sweet sort of thing. It had a bed, it had a couch and had a big heavy coffee table with sharp corners. It was made of stone and the, the chest drawers was really low. They were only about 3 drawers and they were about

feet off the ground. So I thought, perfect idea. I'm going to move the chest drawers right in front of the coffee table. I'm going to get up top of the coffee table. I'm going to dive head first into the corner of the coffee table. It'll split my head. I'll die instantly and it'll look like an accident because I didn't want my parents to suffer, you know, So I wanted, you know, Oh my, my son died of a junkie. No, he died of an accident.

Well, that's good, you know, So I get up on the

on the Bureau and I'm like, you know, I got my hands behind my back and I'm just kind of eyeing it, you know, getting the target lined up. And I don't want to watch this then. So I close my eyes, leap forward, missed the missed the coffee table. And it's, it was like this high pot. What do they call that? Shag carpeting, Right. And I'm just like, and I get rug burns across my chest and yeah, and my nose is bleeding. And it was one of those moments where you're lying there. You remember the moments where you don't know whether to laugh or cry,

you know? And I started to cry and then I just started to laugh hysterically because I knew what a sight. Yeah, what a fucking sight. And

I just, I don't know how long I laid there and I don't, I, you know, time and when you're, when you're kicking, time just goes in and out. Things are wobbling around. And but I do know it was the 3rd morning and the 3rd morning was it was almost like somebody would came up to a a pitch black room and peeled back the curtain just a little bit.

So just a sliver of light came in and that sliver of light was a sliver of not hope. Well, yeah, kind of hope, but it was more like a sliver of feeling just a little bit better, just like not quite as nauseous, not quite as the muscles weren't quite twisting as much. And I was like, OK, maybe I'm maybe this thing is going to end. Maybe I made it. And I remember laying I turn on the shower as hot as I could take it and I.

I laid down on the floor of the shower and I let the water just beat on me just like I thought. I felt like it was kind of rinsing this thing out of me. And and I said a prayer and it was one of those foxhole prayers. It was God, if you Get Me Out of this one, I will never do heroin again. And I'm an atheist, you know, so.

But you know, everybody becomes spiritual when they're desperate enough

and

that, you know, we went on with the trip and when I got back to New York,

I got into I borrowed my mother's car and I drove to the Lower East Side of New York and I found non addictive crack cocaine.

It was one of those moments where a friend of mine is Puerto Rican kid named Jay. He had this glass contraption

and it had all these kind of like I there was a contraption, right? And he pulls out this propane torch.

I, I was waiting for the mask to come down. And he lights it up and he starts heating up this thing. I'm like, what, what are you doing? And and he started sucking in this, through this tube and, and his eyes roll back in his head and he said, and I have resolved, I am not going to do this. I have no way. And he's Jason, would you like it? And I said yes, I would.

Will you teach me how?

And you know, crack cocaine is not terribly addicting. I think it took 8 seconds. And you know, I know we're in an HA meeting, but it's part of my story. And, and crack cocaine is like having sex with a gorilla because you're not done until the gorilla is done. And it just and, you know, that's my that this part here is like,

see a story, OK. And, you know, wearing a wetsuit in Times Square,

just lots of weird shit. Because when you do heroin, yeah, you know, crack cocaine manic and

you know, I was a one man freak show on that stuff. And, and

you know, I cleaned ovens with Q-tips. I

I, I remember sitting in a bathtub, naked, smoking crack.

Yeah, with the curtain closed, just

yeah. One man freak show

and you know, but I remember when I was wearing the wet suit because the wet suit kept the bugs off of me and, and it works by the way. And then I wore a World War Two leather flying helmet like the, you know, the, the like the like the kamikaze pilots war, you know, the donut ears and, and that kept him off my head.

But I remember looking in the mirror and I could see my ribs through the wet suit and I thought I I was cut.

Yeah. I didn't realize that 140 lbs was, was,

was sick and it got worse and it got darker and I picked up the heroin again.

And, you know, it was all about better living through chemistry, you know, trying to trying to,

you know, I'm trying to find that place. Remember, remember that place where if you do the right mixture, you'll get there. But if you're like me, I always missed it. And then I'd have to do something to bring myself back to that place. And then I, I miss it again and back and forth. And you know, and I never, I could never get to that place.

And then I started going to treatment centers and I wouldn't last more than a couple of days

because.

I had memories of being dope sick and I refused to detox.

One time I got shot up with Narcan. Narcan.

And if you've ever had a Narcan experience, anybody had a Narcan experience? It sucks. I was pissed, you know, I didn't know I was dying, you know, and then I didn't know I was overdosing and then they shot me over Narcan. They ruined my high as far as I was concerned, and it put me right into detox. And so I didn't last in that treatment. They used Narcan for detoxing.

It was they didn't have the suboxone back then. They did methadone detox and

I forget the name of the drug is used for blood pressure. Klonopin Clonidine. Yeah, it's that's worthless shit.

Then

two days ago, 33 years ago, oh, backing up real quick, there was a buddy of mine, Steve, and we had gone to college together. We had worked in the film industry together.

We were really close and he had a heroin. He he was the guy who in the beginning of my story, I told about he was on the bed and I was on the couch and the thought crime was committed and would go downtown. That was Steve. Well, Steve had called me in March of of 85 and said, Hey, Doug, I'm clean. I go clean of what? And he goes, I, I, I don't do heroin. I go, great, let's get together. We can smoke a doom,

he goes. No, I don't do that.

And you know, and he was following the dead around. He had hair down to here. And you know, pot was just, I mean, God gave us pot, right?

It wasn't a problem with pot. You don't call it pot anymore, do you?

Weed. Marijuana. Grass. Mary Jane? Yeah, that, that's a name from the past,

Skunkweed and whatever. But yeah, I said that's ridiculous. Why wouldn't you be smoking potty? Because no, I'm, I'm clean and I'd like to take you to a meeting. Now. My only exposure to meetings at that time was an old cop show called Hill Street Blues.

Captain Ferrillo on Hill Street Blues was an alcoholic and they had a a meetings on TV and it was the first time that I saw because I had this thing that where I thought that alcoholic

were bums on the street who shot their shot their pants and, you know, babbled incoherently. That was an alcoholic. But on this TV show they looked like us. They looked like normal people. And I was like, and then I logged out in my memory banks. So when Steve said I want to take you to a meeting and he said it's ANAI was like, OK, I'll go.

And you know, I didn't do any dope that night. I just, I, I think I drank some whiskey and did some cocaine

because it didn't, I didn't really connect the dots. And after a few meetings, he said, dog, you're not getting it, dude. You don't get it. It's about being clean off of all mood altering substances. And I was like, why I didn't get that. He said just you know, I can't hang around with you anymore.

So roll the clock up to October 10th, 2 days ago. 33 years ago.

I'm on the streets doing anything I can. I stop landing on my feet. I got nothing. Everybody in my family's been told don't give Doug money. Unemployed, unemployable. I'm just a common bad thief. I wasn't even a good thief. And I suffer from IGS, which stands for imaginary Gangster Syndrome. Yeah. So I wasn't even good at any of that. I'm a suburban white kid trying to make it in the jungle of New York. And, you know, and

Steve called my mom and my parents at this time were done with me. They had finally gone to Al Anon and quit enabling me

and she said where's dog? And she said, I don't know, but he's supposed to check in the treatment and if you see dog, tell him a message for us. And

she said tell him he's no longer our son. Tell him he's no longer part of part of our family. Tell him that there's nothing left for him here.

And Steve found me

and Lower East Side of New York.

You know, junkies are like magnets. And he wasn't really there to save me. He was there because he was on the run,

but he saved me.

He said. I'm going to take you to Bethesda Hospital.

And

I said I don't know, I I need a bag of dope. And he bought me a bag of dope. He asked me to tie him off and he took a shot and then we got in his car. He had an old station wagon

and we drove to Beth Israel and before I got out of the car and he had me tie him off one more time. Now this is the guy who took me to meetings

and he looked at me and and tears were running down his cheek and he said,

I hope it works for you.

And I left and I walked into the lobby of this of this hospital at 11:00 at night by this time. And the guard said, can I help you? And I said, I'm going upstairs to the treatment center on the on the 4th floor. And he said, it's too late, come back tomorrow

Now. Do you remember the times when you almost got sober and you didn't? And it was like, Phew, almost got sober? Glad I dodged that one.

I had a few of those, but not this time because when I turned around to leave, I knew that I was walking into my coffin. I was 123 pounds, my liver was failing, my kidney was failing. I didn't have I hadn't bathed in a month. I had a big bushy beard with

dried blood, dried mucus in it. I was not, I was not very pretty. And I heard the voice of God

and it was the guard. And he said, you're here, come in, go on up. Now on other times I might have just kept walking. I tried, it didn't work. Not this time. I felt like the hand and invisible hand came, pulled me in and brought me upstairs.

And when I woke up yesterday, 33 years ago,

I didn't wake up. I never went to sleep, but when I sort of was aware it was morning,

there was a there was this nurse and I'm sure she was beautiful and she could have been, she may not have been, but she was beautiful to me. And she had a sponge. And she was just real gently just wiping my face and looked at me. And she smiled without judgment and said, it's going to be OK, baby. It's going to be OK.

And that was my first glimmer of hope. But it faded. It left

and then the the thoughts remember the thoughts that they start attacking you that all your life, your all the mistakes, fuck this, it's not going to work. I don't know if I want to be sober. You know what was I thinking? All that stuff. And on the 3rd morning,

I did wake up on the 3rd morning and I it was 4th floor and it was overlooking a little park and it was the middle of October and the leaves on the trees were changing and they started to become gold and yellow and and red. And they were beautiful. And I realized I hadn't seen color in a long time.

And that was a moment of hope.

And I stayed and, you know, after a few weeks,

uh, maybe three weeks, they said, you know, you got nothing here. Your parents don't want you, your sister doesn't want you. You're unemployable.

You owe people money. You got nothing in New York. You need to leave. And when you do, you need to go to Minneapolis or Phoenix. So it was the end of October, so I looked at the New York Times weather section. Minneapolis was about, I don't know, 80 below

and Phoenix was 80° and sunny.

I didn't know about the summers. And

so I came out to Phoenix and started my life here, and I was 33 years ago and, you know, I just

hadn't been late in a really long time. So that was first order of business

because the first part of your body that wakes up when you get sober is your genitals. They,

you know, so

and I heard somebody say that back then in the A meetings, they used to say don't get into a relationship in your first year. And it sounded like Charlie Brown's mom to me.

But I did hear, uh, relationship. So I got into 7

umm because I like to follow direction. Umm, But The thing is, is that I would go with the halfway house bus went and I went to cocaine Anonymous and and that's where I hate hung my hat. And Cocaine Anonymous was much like HA in its early days And, and we, we built Cocaine Anonymous

and umm, you know, the last 1415 years now I think it is, we've built Heroin Anonymous. And

you know,

my recovery, my sobriety has been difficult at times,

real difficult at times. There have been bankruptcies and death

there. I've been married twice.

Thank God for my wife today of 24 years.

You know, I have a son who's going to be 31. I have two grandsons.

I own a home. I own a business.

I I write paychecks instead of forging checks,

you know,

and the formula for me was really simple,

you know,

see what I've discovered is the magic. You know, people talk about the steps and the steps are the, are the stairway to growth. But to me, the secret sauce

is the connection between me and you.

That's the secret sauce.

And and there's a little quick little story about that. Bill Wilson, the guy who founded Alcoholics Anonymous before a started is he came out to Akron, OH to cure his financial ills because him and his wife were suffering financially terribly. And it was all hinged on a good deal that he knew he was going to get. And he was sober about six months,

and he had failed miserably trying to preach to other drunks.

Well, the deal fell through. He didn't get his way,

and he knew he had one or two choices. He'd go to the bar in the hotel because he heard the clinking of the glasses, saw the smoke rising and the music playing, and it was pulling him like a magnet.

But then the thought occurred to him. What I need to do is I need to find me a drunk to talk to.

Not a drunk to help, not a drunk to save. I need to find me a drunk to talk to.

And he started making phone calls. And back then, it wasn't even a pay phone. It was. Well, actually it was. It took nickels. And he finally got a hold of this lady who said, yeah, I know a drunk doctor named Doctor Bob Smith. And Smith gave him 15 minutes.

Five hours later,

Smith found New Hope

and Bill Wilson didn't drink that day.

So the secret sauce is talking to another addict,

making that connection.

You know, addiction is the disease of alone, of loneliness. It's the disease of disconnection and

and what we do here is, you know, when you're new and we say get a service commitment, it's a way that's the secret sauce. We're we're pulling you in, making you part of the team.

You know, when we tell you to call us every day, we really don't want to hear from you every day. You ain't got shit to say, believe me. But what happens is that it helps to form habits so that when you get into that place that Bill was in was in, you make the call,

you know, and

I'll share with you, I'm running out of time, so I'll share with you a story

about the secret sauce.

And

you see, Heroin Anonymous

is heaven.

And

I actually have proof.

You see, there was this guy

and he wanted to know what heaven and hell were like before he continued on in his life.

So he went to the tour guide, Heaven and Hell tours,

and the tour guide said, all right, I'll take you down to hell and and then I'll take you to heaven.

So they went to hell, and what hell looked like was this.

It was a room the size of a football stadium. Massive

and inside of this room had the floors were all made of Italian white marble beautiful and the walls were hand carved oak

and all the windows had drapes beautiful. In the middle of the floor was this gigantic gigantic Persian rug. And on top of the Persian rug was a hand carved table beautiful table. On top of the table was all the finest foods you could ever imagine, and it smelled wonderful and it looked wonderful and it tasted wonderful.

And yet all the people sitting around the table and there was a there was probably 2000 people.

They all looked sick and gaunt and like they hadn't eaten. And he looks at me and thought, well, that's strange.

So then it goes to heaven. And in heaven he sees the exact same scene. He sees this gigantic room the size of a football stadium, huge Italian marble floors and the hand carved walls with the silk and drapes. The beautiful Persian rug in the middle, massive, the size of a football field.

Huge table with thousands of people sitting around eating the most delectable foods and desserts and vegetables and fruits and cheeses and beef and chicken and fish and vegetables and just the smells and the delicious. And yet all the people, the thousands of people sitting around the table,

we're laughing. And they had pink cheeks and they were fed and they were having a great time.

And the guy said I don't get it, why? What's the difference?

And the tour guide looked up to Adam and he said, you may have noticed in both places they have 4 foot long forks and four foot long knives and they're tied to their arms

and it's impossible to feed yourself with four foot long forks and knives. You just can't do it.

So what they do in heaven is they pick up their food and they feed their brother and they feed their sister.

And that's what heaven is. And that's what Heroin Anonymous is, is that you come in here and I feed you and you feed him, and he feeds her and she feeds him. And that's how it works. And it's not. It doesn't diminish. Every time somebody is fed, the light gets brighter and brighter and brighter.

So Heroin Anonymous is heaven and I'm glad to be here. I really AM. And I'm really excited to come up and share my birthday with you. It's been just a real gas and I love you and I'll pass.