The Knights Retreat in Prescott, AZ

It's my pleasure to introduce you with gratitude, Brother Earl Hartow, North Scottsdale, AZ

Lord your.

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

Oh yeah, you guys do the

the

sobriety thing. Sobriety Day, November 6th, 1980.

Yeah,

3939 years, you round it up. Thanks man

Sponsors Luther W The Samurai

A Nurse. Scottsdale Fellowship. Paul,

what else you want to know?

Servicemen sponsor it, A lot of guys,

I Yeah, And all of them, they're either working the steps or somebody elses sponsoring them. I

and I want to thank you guys for asking me to come up here and share. It's always an honor and a privilege to do something like this, and it's been a real rare experience to be up here and hang out with you guys. I met a lot of really cool guys up here in the last couple of days. I've had a good time. Yeah, man,

here we go.

Right,

James, up here we go.

Yeah, in today's Pearl Harbor Day. So I just wanted to say to everybody that's currently serving in the military, everybody with relatives that were there on that fateful day

and why at Pearl Harbor, all the rest of thank you very much for your service and everything you did for the country. Thank you

SO

I I didn't start drinking till I was 12

out waited as long as I possibly could. Man, I was

I was restless, irritable in the discontented for quite some time prior to that first drink. I,

as a therapist once said to me, she said, honey, you've been looking over your shoulder since you were four years old. And I remember being startled by that remark until I actually thought about it. And she was right. I grew up in a violent home. My old man was a

He was a Wildman. He was a dangerous individual and I learned that early and often. And

12 years old, I got shipped off to boarding school. I'm gonna get sober as quick as I can, but got to qualify. That's what this portion of this is all about, I guess. Speaker Boy,

the I got shipped off the boarding school. It was 250 boys they had. And how I found out I was going to boarding school is my father came in my room and said get in the car,

all right. Went outside and there were two cars motors running, right? And they got, you know, a bunch of relatives, some of them I'd never even seen before, right. And I got in this car and we drove and drove and drove and drove and drove. Pulled up in front of this place by this mountain. Nobody got out of the car. My father got out. I got out. He put a suitcase down next to me. He shook my hand. He said this will make a man out of you. Got back in the car. Everybody left. It's like,

OK, I guess I live here now, right? And

turns out it was 250 students, and they had scoured the earth to find 250 of the brightest, most disturbed young kids they could find. And there were 249 teenagers and 112 year old me. I was the youngest and smallest kid in the old school, right? And I was scared of my own shadow, right? But I'd grown up in a violent home and I'd known, man, you know, you can't, you can't back up. You know, you got to go forward.

So I was walking around campus in the first week, you know, my books under my arm, you know,

trying not to make eye contact with anybody. And it ran into tying in. Every high school's got a guy named Tiny, right? 64240 plays guard on the football team, you know, and Tiny found me. Really Tiny said out on the quad in front of everybody, man, He just said, how you doing, punk? And he slapped me in the back of the head and sent me and my books just flying right now. I get it that Tiny figured he just, you know, there's a new kid and we'll just, you know, here's an introduction to boarding school kid, you know, good luck. He just smacked a little kid.

He did. He didn't realize that he had hit somebody that was willing to die over this, right?

So

I got up and I walked over and I belted tiny as hard as I possibly could and then just stood there glaring at him, right? Because the punch had had no effect whatsoever, right? And, and Donnie looked down at me and he said, you got a lot of guts, kid. And then he beat the crap out of me, right? And as I'm taking the beating, I'm thinking, this is going pretty good. You're not good

because the violence had masked my fear. So my first tool for, you know, life was when frightened attack, if you're coming at people, they don't think what a frightened little fellow. There he is, right? So, you know, word spread across, you know, So I go back to my limp, back to my dorm room, sitting there waiting for the bleeding to stop, right? And word spreads like wildfire across this campus. Watch out for this little Hightower kid. He's a maniac. He attacked Tiny, right?

Which is not actually true,

right? And so the cool guys came around. I mean, this took like 30 minutes, right? And this kid, Matt stuck his head in my in my room and he goes, hey, bro, you want smoke a joint? And I said, yes, I do.

And I didn't even know what that meant. You know what I mean? All I heard was you want to hook up with us? And I was like, yeah, man, I, I feel like an astronaut or something, man. I've just been launched out into the world. I have no idea what's happening, right? I'm 5 feet tall, 104 lbs soaking wet, you know what I mean? It's like I'm not prepared for manhood, you know what I'm saying? Right?

And we picked up Steve on the way, and Steve had a, a Tupperware container full of cheap red wine. Like, no grapes involved. Red wine. You know the fortified stuff, right?

They met little Mad Dog, right? We went behind the dorm, 213 year olds and a 12 year old and standing by this big oak tree and I took a pull. He took a pull on the wine and handed it to me and I took a pull on the wine and it you know how it it goes down and hits the bottom of your stomach and then just kind of that vapor action thing kind of wafts back. You know, it's just nasty, man. It's nasty going down, it's nasty floating back up, right And I was like, woof, no thanks, right. Let me try that joint right so

swap got the joint right took a hit off of that right You know what I'm saying it's it's in your DNA. I don't know how I knew how to grab a joint. I I'd never,

I'd never grabbed one before. But there must be somebody in my DNA, in my history that smoked a lot of weed because,

you know, when he yelled at the joint, I knew that there were three moves that seemed like one. You know, you applied the index finger, you know, you roll towards, you pop with the thumb and relief, right? And it was just flap. I got the joint. So I took a hit off the joint. It burned, right? And I said, that is nasty, man. Let's let me try that wine one more time, right.

So we got the circle going and I'm standing here two complete, total strangers, Matt, Steve, and they stand behind this storm. Babies. We were babies standing behind this dorm getting high. And I mean,

it happened. That thing that makes me bodily and mentally different from my fellows occurred and suddenly I'm, you know, comfortable standing where I'm standing, doing what I'm doing with the people I'm doing it with. And I never felt like that before in my life. And I don't know, is that the pot? Is it the, you know, the wine? Is it the fact that I'm standing here with my very close personal friends, Matt and Steve, you know, 'cause these are my boys now, You know what I mean? I'm feeling it right.

I don't know what it is and I don't care, you know, 'cause I have to remember that, that it's the truth. The truth is, is that

it worked perfectly.

It did exactly what I needed it to do. It was the fear killer. You know, I had this big barrel of emotions inside me, right? And I don't know anybody that feels one thing for a while and gets tired of that and then feels something else and then gets bored with that and then feels, you know, they float, they come when they go. There's an ebb and a float our emotional state and you know what's what's affecting us. You know, girl walks by him thinking certain things, but he walks by, hey man, how you doing? Thinking certain things, right? Get asked to speak.

Well, scary. Get feeling something. All these things are floating around, right? I can drink through all that stuff

in nothing flat, but way down at the bottom of my emotional life, at the bottom of that barrel, the deep undercurrent is fear. That's the thing that runs me. And I can't get comfortable unless I kill the fear. And if it's the last thing I feel, I have to get drunk to get done what I'm there to get done. So I was never a social drinker. I was there to drink away everything I felt from my very first drink, right? So if there's a line that we cross, I crossed it

without hesitation, right? Woke up the next morning, Nobody died. Nobody.

No blood was drawn, you know, as a result of drinking and using. I was a mess, right? But that was from an earlier incident with Tiny, right?

And nobody's gone to the nut house. Nobody died. You know, nothing bad happened. It was all going to happen. But it didn't happen that night. All I knew was nothing bad happens. Feel better than you've ever felt before in your life. I'm in. I'm in. I need to find Matt and Steve

quickly as possible right and and so there was humble beginnings. Just a little weed and a little wine. Man 13 was pills. The only reason I took a pills was

I was on a 10 hour pass and the guy walked up to me and he said I was at this party and this guy said I'm thirteen years old and this guy goes holds out two pills. He goes like a couple pills and I said yes or would

took them, popped them in go what were those?

Which is the difference between US1 of the many differences between US and the normal man? You know, I just, I had just swallowed them and I knew I had, you know, a few minutes

and I just need a little information, that's all.

You know, I all I need. Should I lay down

or should I get ready to paint the house? What are we doing?

Which way are we going? Yeah, You know, I don't care, you know, And that's the thing I got to remember, too, man. I like to think of myself, you know? I like heroin, alcohol, barbiturates. You know, these are a few of my favorite things, right? I like my idea of a good night sitting around checking my pulse. You know what I mean? Just.

Right in there, man. I don't need a window. I don't need a woman. I don't need a TV, man. Just how you all right?

Go.

I just like that, right? But here's the truth. If I go to hook up and that's not what's available, I'm sorry, but all we have is a giant amount of cocaine. I say I'll have that. Please.

If we can't go down, let's go up, right? I'm very happy. Let's get this going, right? Let's get on that freeway, start decoding license plates. You know what I mean?

Let's get on Window patrol, you know, gets

because I mean, the the truth is, man, it's not about up or down. It's about I got to get out of right here, right hit now, because right here, right now, I'm wrestling some irritable. I'm discontented right here, right now. I'm comparing your outsides to my insides and I'm losing every time. So, you know,

that's the truth about it for me, it's, it's a symptom of the underlying issue, which is me. You know, I'm trying to, to fix this, right? And just doing the best I can. 14 with psychedelics. The only reason I, I took a psychedelic, you know, I'm a child of the 60s. I was on a 10 hour pass with Debbie. Debbie was a very bad girl

and I will love it all the day I die man. Debbie Mann. Debbie said you want to drop some acid? And I said yes I do Debbie.

And Debbie rolled up a lipstick tube and on the end of it was this little pill. And I just took it off, put it in my mouth and swallowed it right. And she looked at me and said,

did you just take that whole thing?

And I said of course I did. It was a very tiny pill. You know, I'm used to these big old 3 grain horse gaps, you know what I mean? And she said that was three hits of white lightning,

a little identification in the room. People are like, Oh yeah, yeah,

next two days are very interesting. We don't got time for that now, but yeah, yeah, about 650 hits later, I got classified legally insane by the military, which is another story we don't have time for. But you know, I was willing

to.

They wanted no part of me.

No, no, you stay home, young man. We don't know. Don't come fucking up our thing.

So anyway, so

15 I started shooting dope. The only reason I shot dope is on a boat in Marina del Rey with a girl named Cami. There's always a girl right Cami, Lovely, lovely lady. She said would you like me to stick this in your body? And I said I am certain of it.

And she did. And it was one of those shots where you just kind of go.

And on the way down, all I remember thinking was, you know, what, if I'm not dead, I'm doing this again. You know, because that was awesome, right?

Yeah. I'm gonna need more information about that,

you know, And on and on it goes. You know the story, right? 16, I dropped out of high school, my father steps back in my life, says you've gone insane, throws me in the nut house. Three months of observation, a year of rehabilitation. I think that's a little excessive, right? So I talked my way out of that. Go back on the street doing what we do. They throwing that over me, drag me back in. And I've learned now that when you get thrown in a nut house, you got to get out before they get the Thorazine in you,

because if you don't, you're leaving. When they say

because Thorazine got two speeds slow and stopped, that's it

right? There are no sudden moves on Thorazine,

and you usually find that out as you're making your big break. Yeah, right.

Very demoralizing. You know, when you hear from the nurses station. Yeah. Yeah. I'll get him in a minute. Let me finish this sandwich. I'll be fine. You've got the arms working the whole thing. Now

back to the room with no doorknob.

Second time they got me to nuthouse. I escaped during the intake process and I was out and over that fence and gone before they knew what was happening. Man spent three years out on the street doing what we do,

right. Ended up in business college because that's a reasonable thing to do under my circumstances. And I'd become a drug dealer, of course. And I and I had no problem being one 'cause I had no sense of family, I had no sense of community. I had no morals, I had no ethics. I knew about this stuff and I was going to business college and I'm studying marketing, production, distribution. I'm applying it to my business. Business is booming. I think that, you know, college rocks. This is great. So I think, you know, I think we're doing all right. You know,

an overdose every now and then. But, you know, nobody's perfect.

So they had this health fair and all my buddies are going, come on, let's go to the health fair, right? So we get as wrecked as we can and still stand, right? And we go to the health fair and they check us all out and they say, you know, we think you need to go see a doctor. I was like, well, all right, right. So I went to a doctor and the doctor said, I, you have malignant cancer. And I went,

all right, what do you do about that?

And he said you get your affairs in order. Dude, you got late stage. It's bad, I think. All right, So I call my family that I hadn't been talking to at all, flew back to LA, They did major surgery. Map or back

prepared me to die. I told my family, you know, I was gonna die. And they put me in nuclear medicine, which is now chemotherapy, but and I didn't like their drug. So I left and went home and got high the way I get high. And I'm a long-term cancer survivor, right? And ended up going back up to school after a while

and I got a call from my mother. My mother called me and she's crying. And she said, and, and I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm the kind of son that like I don't have a lot of defenses to deal with a crying mother. You know, like, let's stop that. Just what do you want? Right? Well, we're going to your birthdays coming and we're going to go wherever you want, but we're going as a family and you and your father are going to put your issues aside and we're going to be a family.

I said fine, I'll be there, right? So I flew back to LA and on November 7th, 1974,

we took off to fly to Guadalajara. And on the way there the plane crashed and my mother, my father, my little sister all died in the crash. And I survived. And I came to in this wreck and I fractured my skull, broke my back in three places. That's why I've been kind of missing a little bit is I got a bad back and every once in a while I just got to go put my feet up right, get it to unlock and

crush my leg. My arm just broke on my I just shattered from head to toe right. But I I could move my right arm and I was paralyzed and waited down. I was awake

and my mother was laying right over there, my little sister Kimberly was right over there, and my father was right over there. And I couldn't do anything to help them. So I just laid there in the dirt and watched them all bleed to death in front of me. And it was, and it wasn't like this Hallmark, you know, raging at the sky dramatic kind of thing. It was just just real quiet, you know, moment out there in the dirt by myself, right? And I just reached inside and flipped a switch. Man, I will never love another human being again as long as I live. And there's no way I'm ever going to tell you who I really

them. So there's no way you can love me. I'm out

you know I never been any good at this you anyway man, you know I'm not good at chitchat and I'm not good at all. I you know I don't know what y'all talking about anyway either my mouth right Then some guys came up and scavenged the plane wreck

and took what they could find a a value and left and I thought well that's that wraps it up right. I got no love of God. I renounced God. Anybody take a beautiful, kind, poetic?

Soul like my little sister Kimberly. And leave me here.

No, God don't like you. I'm out, right? And finally some guys came up and they threw us in the bed of a flatbed truck, me and my mother. And they threw everybody else and some other stuff. They took us to a Mexican aid station, tagged my mother dead, tagged me dead, Sat there smoking cigarettes waiting for us to die, which pissed me off and I just wouldn't die. And they ended up taking me to hospital. Fatima and Las Mochas, Mexico,

and I remember coming to there and people freaking out and yelling in Spanish and all this stuff going on right?

And then the federales showed up. That was not good because I'd had.

We don't wanna really get into this, but

the federales were not thrilled to see me. Alright,

so they interrogated me, I used the term loosely through an interpreter for 3 1/2 days, wanting to knew what I was doing to Mexico, right? And I finally got ahold of some guys I knew up in Northern California who flew a plane in and we paid some folks off and they plastered me from the neck down, smuggled me out of Mexico. And I spent a long time in the hospital in Santa Monica, CA, with pictures in my head that I knew I couldn't live with,

that my life was now going to be out blotting out the intolerable nature of my existence. And I was not going to be successful.

And I knew it right. So I went on my last run and it lasted for six years. I managed to stay alive for another six years and you know,

anytime you want to get together and talk

crazy things that we have done, I'll jump in with you. But

you all know all that stuff. You know what we do? You know what? It's what boats sound like when they go by. What if I've been stabbed twice? Shot at? The violence in my life has been insane, and I'm just a peaceful little white boy from the West side of LA, right? But drugs and alcohol taking you a different place. That in some of the experiences that I had in my life came out of my last blackout.

It's £215.00. That hair down on my elbows.

Family's dead. I got no friends. I got no place to live

there. The police are outside deciding whether or not to charge me with the attempted murder of David Lubov. I mean, my life is just, I just burned it to the ground. It just burned it to the ground. There was no area of my life I could look at and go, well, I'm doing pretty good over here. You know, it just there was no area like that. It was just bad news all across me. And I don't know what I'm I'm a lightning bolt through the window guy,

right, But not the educational variety guy. I'm the lightning bolt of the window guy because that came at a just one of hundreds of black guys that came out of one more blackout and it was over.

I don't know what happened, but it was over and both my hands were broken and I just raised them up and I said, help me

in a minute. And somebody was in that room that understood what had just happened. And they threw me in the ambulance instead of the cop car. And I was gone before the police knew where I was. They were probably just glad he's gone. Good. We have to deal with that, right? And they took me to a place, pumped my stomach and said get him out of he's going to die. Took me into another place, stayed there for five days, just kept getting worse. And they took me to another place by ambulance. And it was a place Long Beach General Hospital. It was the detox was free,

and the reason it was free is because it was one room with 42 cots in it, old army cots, 21 on each side of the room with a sheet drawn between the cots and how you kicked was called riding the cot. You know, nobody showed up at night saying, you know, Earl, you look a little anxious.

Are you feeling anxious? Can I get you a little something to help you sleep there, buddy? That guy never showed up

for 47 days. That guy didn't show up. So I have my detox was a total of 52 days

and I was still so sick, man. And Ray W God bless him, said Earl, we love you, but you got to go now, man. And if you don't go to a a you're going to die. And I just remember thinking, so let's come to this, Heather.

Gotta go to the A&A, huh?

Come on. There got to be a Plan B, bro. Gotta I just that's just the saddest thing I've ever heard in my life.

He just said shut up and go to ass. Like all right, no, no need to get 10 so I'll go to.

So I ended up on a Thursday night. I walked into a room and there was about this many people in that room. I know I took one foot in and you looked like about 11,000 people to me walked and I went, no, walked right back out. That was a Thursday night. Friday night was a Thursday night beginner's workshop in Brentwood, CA. The next night I went to the Friday night Tri Guide group in Culver City, CA. I walked in, they said welcome.

Yeah I agree.

Went over and sat down and just mad dogging everybody. Man. Just stay away from me. Don't, don't come, don't. Don't come say hello. Don't. Don't.

For God sakes, don't start telling me about your day. I don't give a shit about your day. I don't care. Your day went

to go away. And then the old timers were great. They saw me. They were like, oh, right, they got it. They went, hey, good to see your partner. Get yourself a cup of coffee. There's a chair for you right over there. And good luck with all that you got going on right there. All right, Good luck.

That's exactly what I needed, man. And I was just like,

I didn't talk yet. I just kind of growled at people, you know, and but there's always a new guy in a meeting just caught fire with A and a going to be giving it away tonight, right? And all he saw was new guy, right? So he came running, coming at me, and I'm like, no, no, no, don't do it,

No. His name was Vegas N

Vegas and he stuck out his hand. He said I'm Vegas, I'm an alcoholic and I said me too Vegas. So what?

It ain't exactly the highlight of my life. I don't know what you're so happy about. Get away from me. And he looked at me and he said, keep coming back. And I remember thinking, oh, that's helpful.

Keep coming back to what this because I'm having so much fun so far.

Ah, I hated it. I hated it.

The beast was talking, was barking. Man, come on. They got this wrong. Come on. You know, you know what we can do with this. Come on, come on, come on. And then a guy got up and he shares experience, strength and hope. And I didn't know that's what he was doing. I didn't know that. But it was like he reached right inside me and grabbed ahold of just and where my pilot light is right wherever that is. He just flicked it on

in a you know,

it's like us addict Alcoholics. We may not like it when you tell us the truth, but we know the truth when we hear it.

And I knew that guy was telling me the truth and I thought, alright,

maybe they got something that I could use. And I knew. And that was my way of saying, for the love of God, somebody come up with some consciousness beyond that which I currently possess. Because man, if I got to go with what I know, I'm a dead man. I need something new. I need new information. My humility came from being beaten into a state of reasonableness is the book talks about right?

And I decided I didn't know anything about this. I said I'm going to go back next week and hear that guy talk again. So I waited a week and I came in the next week to hear that guy talk. And they did all the rambling of this and that and the other thing. You know what I mean? They did the they did the rarely saw something with the 12 things and the ABC. And then they did other thing with the other 12 things, 24 things ABC, right, right. You know, great got, you know, whatever that is, right?

They had, they had the charts, read the steps went, got it. What else? You got

traditions, all right? Not a group. Fuck that, right?

I was rolling through this information, right

And then they said in our speaker tonight is Betty.

I said what?

Bill talks here?

Where the Hell's Bill? What'd you do? Where is Bill?

Guy looked at me and goes. You're new, aren't you? I said. I don't think it's a good time to bring that up.

And he started breaking down different meetings and different speakers and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Meantime, Betty with her little blue hair helmet and her little summer dress man, she working her way to that podium, man. And she got out there and I'm like, great. Am I getting this hour of my life back?

Betty got up. So I'm betting I'm an alcoholic. I Betty,

you know, like 5 minutes in, Betty said. You know, in my day, if you were a reasonably attractive woman, if you had $0.50, you could walk into a bar and drink for two weeks and then broke down. How you go about doing that right? When she was done, I would just do it next to me and I went, you know, Betty is a badass.

I would roll with Betty man.

And I left freaking out. I thought now I'm identifying with 70 year old women. What the hell is going on man? I don't get this.

But I had no place else to go. The blessing of my life that I had destroyed my life. I had nowhere else to go. So they one guy said to me, you know, you can come more than once a week. We got them every night. You can come every night, you know, and I would have loved to have said, you know, hey, scheduling conflicts,

but that would have been a lie. Not that I wasn't perfectly willing to lie to him, but it's just like, whatever, right? So they had a bunch of meetings to try, guy groups. I started going to more meetings, more meetings and, and you know, stuff started to change and they said, get a sponsor. And I said, what's that? And they said, sponsor somebody who's got what you want. And I said, well, I would like to drink.

So maybe it's a little early to be throwing the ball back in my court, you know,

and I've since come to believe then that you should get a sponsor who's got what he wants. Wanting what you have is that's a good definition of happiness, wanting what you have, right. And so I, I'm sitting in a meeting, I'm struggling with this whole sponsor thing and I'm going to a meeting a day and I'm, you know, I'm hanging in and I'm just miserable, man. I'm just miserable because I'm, I'm left with me, you know, and I got pictures dancing through my head that are just bad.

And I go to this meeting and all of a sudden this guy comes, just comes flying into the room, if you know what I mean, right? He's the kind of guy that if he walked through that door right now, you'd all turn and go, oh, who's the big gay guy, right?

Just like that, right feeling his name was the late, great Donald Madden. And Donald Madden got up at the podium and said, oh, hello to you and threw down and gave this talk. That was absolutely remarkable, man.

The, the, the, his strength, his power as a human being, his grace, his commitment to Alcoholics Anonymous, the fearlessness that that guy stepped up with. Man, he didn't give a shit what you thought about him or anything else. This is his life and how he, this, you know what I mean? And I went that I want that. And the guys I was with her like, dude, are you paying attention?

And I said, yeah, I'm paying attention. That guy feels really strongly about Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm dead inside.

I want that. I want to feel strongly about something, and it looks like it needs to be this. So I'm picking that guy. So I walked up to him and I said well you smelling me?

So, so scared man.

And he went what I said, will you sponsor me? And he said yes.

And you don't have to like what I tell you, and you don't have to think it's a good idea. You just have to do it.

And I went,

OK,

I'm probably working around that, right? Little that I know, there was no working around this guy, right? I mean, he'd call me up and say we're going on the money. We're going to 2 + 2 Tuesday night, 2 + 2. The meeting starts at 8. I'll see you there at 7:30. Click,

say. OK,

thank

ask maybe.

And by the way, and I got there and I went. I have a quick question. Yeah, it's 730. The meeting starts at 8. What am I doing here at 7:30? Goes well, Earl. Well,

shocking to you, there are other people in the world and a lot of them have problems too. And when they come to an A and a meeting, they should be able to come and have somebody waiting there for them. Who can say, here, let me get you a seat, Let me get you a cup of coffee. Do you have a big book? No, let me get you one. Do you have a meeting directory? No, let me get you on and underline some of the meetings that I go to and we talk to them and see how they're doing. You know, like that, like we think about somebody other than ourselves. Got it.

It's like fine, 730, fine,

right? Half. So every meeting I went to from that point on, I was there 1/2 an hour before the meeting started because I knew there was number point in asking. You know, he used to back in those days, you had an answering machine and a phone and you could connect them so that you never heard the phone ring and you never heard the outgoing message. All you ever heard was a beep and the voice of the person who had called you leaving a message, right? Beep, somebody talking to you, right? So I'd be getting my two hours of sleep a night right to PTSD through the roof, right?

And laying in the bed and all of a sudden, beep, wake up.

It's like he's in the room, you know,

he goes. We're having a day, baby.

I go. You woke me up Sunday morning at 6:00 AM to tell me we're having a day and then hung up.

That's who he was. What am I gonna do? Call him up and go? Listen, we need to set some boundaries here.

No way, man. That was the only human being I talked to on the face of the earth. I couldn't lose the guy. I had to roll with whatever he threw at me. So I did, you know, we, I mean, I remember the day we were coming back from a meeting. I wrote my four step and I when I came into recovery, I was planning a murder.

I never talk about this, but

this is where we get real at the Knights, right?

So I was planning a murder

and he was speaking and I finished my inventory and I said I finished my inventory. He said, fine, come over Tuesday and we'll get it done. I said no, no, no, I have finished my inventory. Where are you now? And he went, all right, get over here, we'll come with me. I got to speak at this meeting at Eagle Rock. I'm like, great, shot over to his house, get in the car. I'm reading the inventory, right? Scared to death. I'm getting there. I'm getting to the thing, you know what I mean? I'm reading the inventory to him and he's driving. You know, everyone in a while, he'd say, wonderful, keep going. You know,

he's right. And then I'd say, I'd say, I'm going to throw up. He said, not in my car. He'd pull over, jump out on the freeway, right, do my thing, get back in the car. We stop. He goes, oh, wait, I have to eat. I'm like, really? So we pull over to the place where it's the little hamburger stand, the cheap, cheap, cheap low end hamburger stand, you know, off the side of the freeway in some little podunk town, right, where they have the

the tables outside tables with the umbrellas and everything's metal and everything's bolted to the cement floor, right. And we're sitting in our table. And, you know, when you're scared, you kind of talk louder when you're scared. So I'm reading my inventory, right, Right. I hate Robert, but for this reason. And then I'm, you know, the, you know, lots of blood. And then and people are getting up and moving

there from the thing, right? There's this wide empty circle around Donald and I, who's eating his hamburger going wonderful. Keep going.

He's the hamburger, right? So we get to the place and I tell him, right? And the first I finished my inventory and I put it down and I handed it to him and I went there and he looked at me and he said sensational.

And we don't kill people here one day at a time.

And I got to tell you, I was so grateful that man that he said that because I felt at that time like I'm the kind of guy that can do it, but I don't know that I'm the kind of guy that can live with it.

It's two different guys, you know, don't know if I can carry that weight, right. And I'm a believer that every man needs to carry his own weight. And I didn't know if I could that that's a weight I could carry. I don't know. I don't want to know, right. So we get to the meeting and they said your speaker and the secretary goes, Donald, we're so glad you're here. Oh, is this the first speaker? And he goes, yes. And I, I went,

you know, I mean, I'm as vulnerable as I've ever felt in my life, right? And so I, my 5 minutes was, I'm ROM, I'm an alcoholic. I was, I, I drank a lot and it was really bad. And I came here and it seems to be getting better. Thanks a lot. And and sat down and he was like, oh, that was very good.

Now, I never took a chip. I didn't take a cake till I was three years sober because I was scared to death of coming up here. I'm not the speaker boy. I'm not the guy that goes let me share. I want to talk. Let me be. This is not a thing I ever sought out this.

No

one over here, everybody else over there. I don't like that at all.

Do you do a lot of speaking? Do you do a lot of speaking? Come here.

Yes, Earl, look at that.

Wow, that's mildly intimidating, isn't it? You don't say. Yeah. All right. Thanks, man. All right. Good job. Good hanging with you.

Thank.

Just just sharing my pain.

What the hell was I talking about?

Right? I didn't want to be a speaker. I I don't know where I was going with that. We

finish the 5th step, Donald. So I ended up speaking and Donald,

me and my friend Christopher were the only two straight guys that he sponsored, right? And Christopher called me up and he said, you know, they got a book. I know, I know I got one around here somewhere. He goes. No, but I, we need to like read this right away.

I got an inside scoop, but we got to get we got to read this and I was like, all right, chill, right. He goes I got these cassettes, these guys called Joe and Charlie. The big book comes alive and we're going to listen to these tapes and we're going to read the big book and and we're going to be different. And I was like completely ready for that. Let's go right. So we're we sit down and we're I wish I had a video tape and those the, you know, the giant video cameras that you slot the whole video thing into, you know what I mean? I wish I had one of those because