The Pine Lake speaker meeting in Issaquah, WA

Thank you for your patience. Without any more from me, please welcome tonight's speaker, Doug R from Tahunga, California.

Yeah, I knew this Mike wasn't going to work. Did somebody want to?

My name is Doug Rowell. I'm a grateful alcoholic,

grateful to be an alcoholic and grateful to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And

the reason I say that

is just to piss off the newcomers.

Grateful, you moron. You know, I know I'm an alcoholic. I don't have to be grateful for it. Thanks for the terminal illness, you know, but I, I'm absolutely sure my life's dead or today because I'm an alcoholic then it would have been if I hadn't been an alcoholic and,

and people like you that have made me grateful to be an alcoholic.

So I want to thank Pixie for inviting me and I want to thank Jack for being in touch with me over the period and, and certainly want to thank Mark for picking me up at the airport and took me to downtown Seattle. We went, we had lunch at Pike's Place and they ran out of coffee.

And I told, I told, we said at the bar, I told the bartender, you know, this is going on Facebook right now. I came to Seattle and they ran out of coffee and,

and I really want to thank Darrell for starting this group. It's, it's so impressive. I, I was here about 10 years ago and Darrell invited me and it was a lot smaller than and I know starting this, this meeting was an act of, of faith and service and to see it grow like this and, and become self supporting and, and you know, and draw on people that to come in and want to be a part of it. And that's that's the best of Alcoholics.

That's the best there is going on here. So thank you, Darryl and.

And I like doing this.

So some speak, I know some speakers who are like, who are very, very good speakers.

They're, they're so spiritual and so evolved that when you hear their story and, and their, their successes coming from the gutter and, and they're so you float right out of the room. I mean, you just lift right off your chair. You know when you nobody would drink between here and Tacoma, you know, after they, they talk and

I but but some of them hate doing it. And pardon me, they hate to be asked and

you know that. Well, yeah, I'll do it. They do it out of courage or commitment or something like that. I don't know what they do, but I'm not like that. I don't know if I'm a good speaker or not. And I couldn't care less. I'm the guy tonight. And,

and I love doing it. I wanted to be the speaker at the first meeting I ever went to, so

I was a little drunk that night. They didn't ask me, you know,

but I sure would have given them a talk if they had asked. I'd say so.

My I should tell you my sobriety date is June 7th, 1987. My Home group is the winners Attitude Adjustment group of Alcoholics Anonymous. We meet every day at 7:00 AM every day of the year, corner of Colfax and Addison and Studio City. If you're ever there and at 7:00 AM in the morning, please come in. It's just about 80 people in there and we laugh a lot

and, and my sponsor's name is Bob Bezance. And some people say if you have those three things, that sobriety date in the Home group

and a sponsor, that's all you need to stay sober, which

I take objection to that. I, for instance, I think like a big book is really helpful,

but I guess if you have a Home group and A and a sponsor, you'll get a big book.

I didn't, I didn't come to Alcoholics Anonymous to stop drinking. I came pretty much to see what it was

and, and my life is my life is benefited from it so much. And I, I didn't, you know, the two things that I

that I really objected to. I kind of liked AA when I, when I first came, when I came to check it out, the two things that I really didn't like was, well, they're not drinking thing. It just just seemed a little over the top. You know, it's a little excessive. So you don't drink ever. Well, we don't do it one day at a time. Yeah, but I mean, OK, so like if I don't drink Monday and I don't drink Tuesday, then Wednesday I can have like, you know, a couple beers or something. Well, we don't know. It's not Wednesday yet. Yeah, that's what I thought. That's forever.

Yeah. You're not fooling me with that One day at a time crap. So they're not drinking was kind of kind of excessive. And then there was a lot of God stuff, a lot of God talk here, which I didn't expect. And I'll tell you more about that later. But but I,

I've, I mean, my life is about just, I'm not the same person. I thought the fun would be all over if I stopped drinking. And, and the opposite is true. You know, I've, I had a lot of fun drinking. You'll never hear me say I wouldn't trade my, my best day drinking from my worst day sober in 28 years of sobriety. You can have a couple of lousy days, you know, and, and, and you don't have to drink over them.

And, and when I was drinking, I had some incredible days, some beautiful days. And

if you could trade one lousy sober day for one great drunk day, I might trade a week weeks worth or something. But that's just not the way they're dealt out. So. So I've been married faithfully, faithfully and happily for 18 years to three of the finest women in a A.

My wife Carla, some of you have no Carla or have heard her and my wife Carla will be here next year, No, next year next month March should be here in March. And

she'll she gives a great talk. She doesn't mind me telling that my first wife, Randy, Randy, 13, stepped me when I was 28 days sober and we were together the 1st 15 years of my sobriety. So, so

we, after 15 years, we, we, it turned out we didn't have very much in common anymore. And, and we didn't go to the even the same meetings. And we, we,

we just, we turned out to be more like brother and sister. We were living in the same house. We didn't hate each other. There was no, there was no fighting when we broke up, when we, we got divorced, there was no cheating or lying or stealing or guarding against each other. If, if you're both involved in a spiritual program, when the end of the relationship is over, you just go your separate ways. And we, and we still love each other. But Randy taught me, let's see. That's why they tell tell new people don't get involved

romantically in your first year because well, look, I sure it's great you're happy and everything for 15 years, but then it just fizzles. So,

but Randy, Randy taught me how to ask questions because I'm not naturally a question asker

to me, something in in my makeup says don't ask that question. If you ask the question, they'll think you don't know the answer. And and I don't want people to think I don't know the answer. So, and I still have some of that, but when I was newly sober, I had a lot of it going on and ready and I were in bed one night and

she I have my leg over on her side of the bed and she grabs my leg like a log and throws it over. She said, God, get on your own side of the bed. God. She said you sleep like Jim Parks.

Nice. Of course I started. Who do I know? Jim Parks I mean,

I don't think I was trying to think maybe somebody in the fellowship. Hey, Jim. Jim P Because, you know, she, she was sober 2 1/2 years when we got together. She had kind of a active sobriety in her early times, you know, and she was, she was kind of promiscuous, but I had a promiscuous pass. But I don't bring them into the marital bed, you know. I mean, I never say you sleep like so and so or you Make Love like so and so or Oh yeah, you have a nice ass, but you should have seen Shirley's or something like that, you know?

I mean, I just don't. I I just seems rude to me. Rude, thoughtless and inconsiderate to compare me. Oh, wait a minute.

Randy was a voracious reader. She read everything. She read every book in the house. She read any book she happened to pass by newspapers on newspaper stand. She if she ran out of stuff in the house to read, she'd read cereal boxes. She just, she just loved to read so, and she's read all the classics and I'm like, you know, I'm, I'm not a big reader, you know, And so

if I say, who's Jim Parks? She may say something like, oh, I thought you were familiar with Lady Chatterley's Lover. You know,

no, I'm an idiot.

I'm a moron. I'm practically illiterate. No, I don't want to get, you know. Oh, you've never read For Whom the Bell Tolls, damn it. And so,

but I'm laying there working on this resentment and I can feel this resentment coming in like the surf and, and,

and I know if I've silently suffering, if I don't say anything, it's going to build up. And within a couple of days I'm going to be walking around stomping and and she won't know what the problem is. She'll say something simple like, did you mean to leave your boots in the dining room? You know, but, and that's a little take, just a little trigger and I'll just be like

boots, boots,

boots my ass, bitch. Hey, boot down on this, Who's Jim Parks?

So,

so I can squelches right now, all I have to do is ask a question

against my nature. But it's spiritual growth. And I said I'm sorry, honey. Am I supposed to know who Jim Parks is and how he sleeps?

And Randy was a cactus, you say.

You know, Jim across the street,

Jim across the street that moved in here after you moved in? She she said, yeah, You know how he puts his truck so you can't park behind him or in front of him without blocking a driveway? You sleep like Jim Parks.

So, so

so anybody who's new in here,

let me help you out. You can learn stuff, asking questions.

So I had,

I don't know why I'm an alcoholic. I,

I don't come from an alcoholic family. My, my dad enjoyed a beer, really enjoyed. He liked to have a beer. Sometimes he would have two, usually, not usually he'd be working on a Saturday at Saturday he'd be working on a car or working in the yard or something, watching the football game come in and have a beer and then go back to what he was doing. He he really enjoyed a beer, but the thought

of drinking so much beer that it would affect your walk, talk and driving

just seemed insane to him.

My mother

maybe an alcoholic. We don't know. She won't drink and you can't tell

how. How would you know? So when I got sober and I'm looking for why I'm an alcoholic and I asked my mother,

Mama, you an alcoholic? She said what?

I said, why don't you drink? Why do you care about that? Well, are you an alcoholic? She said, Am I now? Have you ever seen me take a drink in your life? I said no, but I know hundreds of Alcoholics that don't drink.

What's, what's your deal?

She said, why do you care about this? And I said, well, because, OK, because there's such a thing as a genetic predisposition, it may be your fault. I'm a drunk. So

she goes, oh, oh, she had pretty much the same reaction you just had. And she said, I don't know.

I

the fact is when I was young, I drank and every time I drank I got sick, stupid, obnoxious. So I just stopped. It wasn't worth it. And I said you got to drink through that, Mom, you know,

there's. Yeah. See,

yeah, you guys know where I'm coming from. Like the promised land lies beyond sick, stupid and obnoxious.

And but she doesn't know that she she doesn't have the tenacity to make this, this program. You know, you got to stick with it,

give up on a little sick, stupid, obnoxious. And besides that, I figure if I get sick, stupid and obnoxious, it's really not even my problem. It's your problem. So. So I don't know why I'm an alcoholic. I didn't drink, start drinking too young. I never had a drink till I was 18. I had friends and in school who drank

and I saw them get sick, stupid and obnoxious. And it made it less attractive to me than than it was than it might otherwise have been. And and, you know, like I said, there wasn't much drinking in my house,

but a friend of mine said he was Morris. He was kind of my sexual sponsor. He said,

look, Doug, if you want to get a home run with this girl, you're good because we use these baseball terms, you know, like we have this first base, second base, third base, home run. I don't even remember where the bases are now, but

now for sure. I mean, it seems like there's not enough basis, you know, besides that I'm married. It's like step up to the plate and slide home. But at the, I don't mean I get tagged for missing a base, but you know what I'm saying?

It's not a challenge exactly anymore, you know, But in high school it was a big deal. And I remember home run, all right. And Morris said, if you want to get a home run with this girl, you're going to have to get her drunk. So that that was the rules. All of a sudden now I'm a little bit interested in drinking. And so I went and stole a quart of Rainier rail, which seemed like it was the national beverage of Garden Grove, CA, where I grew up. And, and so I scaled and I went and parked by the railroad tracks and we'd been at the railroad tracks many times and sit there and, and neck

or whatever. And, and it was getting closer. But now I got my ammunition, you know, and I still didn't care about drinking. It really wasn't attractive to me. I would have been happy to say here drink this and let me know when you're ready and but just seemed kind of rude.

So I opened, I drank some and I handed it to her and she drank some and, and I think now I think we were probably both there for the same reason, but but we, we drank this quarter Rainier Ale.

So from your area, sort of,

and I got, I got a buzz on, you know, that never happened to me before. And she did too. We both felt like warm and, and fun and, and attractive. And so one thing led to another and turned out Morris was right. This is the first time I ever had an alcohol buzz and the first time I ever had sex in front of a witness. So, So I'm out.

Well, I'm going to do both these things much as I can the rest of my life,

you know,

and

one thing led to another. I, I saw I was a guitar player in high school of folk music, of a sang folk songs, The Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Mary. And then as you get deeper into that, Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and, and, and then, so I started like playing some, some little venues with my guitar and singing and gotten a couple of bands and I got some rock'n'roll bands and played bass and guitar. And then I moved to Hollywood

from Orange County

and see if I can make a living playing music. And I moved into a home in Laurel Canyon with two other musicians. And I would somebody would say, hey, you want to play guitar or bass or harmonica on my record. So I do that, make a couple of bucks. Got in a rock'n'roll band and playing bass. And somebody would say it would give me a job like singing background on a record or write a song and sell a song, Co write a song. So I was making enough money to pay the rent. I was, I was a professional musician

and, and that was like, that was my life's goal. And what happened was a show came to town, a Broadway show called Hair, which was if you, if you're young and you don't know, it was a, it was a musical comedy about hippies. And I love musical comedies. I love rock'n'roll and, and the Blues, but, but I always like musical comedies. The Flower Drum song in Oklahoma and the Music Man and all that stuff. People are walking down the street,

burst into song and the whole city comes out and dances and sings with them and it just, it just love that. So this show Hair was about hippies on the street and but it was a musical comedy and it was rock'n'roll. So I went to see it at the Aquarius Theater. Oh my God, I fell in love. This is like, this is like all the things I love coming together. And it was a character named Berger. They came out and insulted the audience and stripped down to a a loincloth and swung on a rope and screamed rock'n'roll and and

insulted the audience. I thought I could do that.

And so I called the Aquarius Theater the next day and the receptionist asked answered, I don't think this can happen today.

In fact, I'm sure it can't. But I said the reception and she said Aquarius Theater, may I help you? Yes, I want to be in your show. She said, just a minute, I'll connect you. I think in those that situation today somebody would say, well, please have your agent contact us. And but 1969 was a different world

and, and there was music and there was hippies and, and we owned a certain part of the entertainment world. And so somebody off the street said, I want to be in your show. They connected with the company manager. He said, can I help you? I said, yeah, yeah, I want to be in your show. He said, well, can you sing and dance? And I said, yeah, that's what I do. That's how I make my living now. I never dance the step of my life. You know, I'm the guy up on the bandstand play and watching you dance. Good dancing, bad dancing. How hard can it be so?

But I was comfortable with my singing. So. So the guys said, OK, well, what are you doing Friday at 1:00?

I said, you tell me. He said, we're having auditions Friday at 1:00. What's your name? And I gave him my name, my phone number. He said, be here at 1:00 Friday, you got an audition. That's this is like Wednesday afternoon.

So he said, bring a piece of sheet music that you like to sing. OK, So I went right down to the music store and I got a piece of sheet music, came back and practiced all night long. And then all day Thursday, I had my guitar out. I'm practicing this song, trying to work out the little subtleties of it and make it my own

and all that. I did nothing Thursday but practice this one song. Friday morning I got my guitar out. I'm practicing the song and I broke a string on the guitar which it seems like a small thing now but hippies were like

bad karma dude so

so I went to my roommates room to see if he had the string and right in the middle of his dresser along with all the other stuff on his dresser was this envelope D string. I'm like, good karma, dude.

And underneath the envelope was a little white capsule.

I wonder what that is? Oh, because we we didn't have a PDR. You pretty much had to swallow test everything

and it's a good test. You know, it's a very effective test. Forget about automobiles and heavy machinery and all that stuff that if you eat it, you're going to know exactly what it does and, and if it's good, you'll remember it. And if somebody dies, don't eat the grease yet, you know. So this turned out to be THC synthetic marijuana.

And

did you hear this, though? Oh, that went through the audience. That's the only way I know to duplicate that is to go to a PTA meeting and say, did anyone lose a kitten? You know,

I but if you don't know, THC is a synthetic marijuana and it's a nice little psychedelic. So about 45 minutes later when I got to the Aquarius Theater, I got, I went down on my Harley and I with my sheet music in my hand and I pull up to the Aquarius Theater and it's

put the kickstand down. And it seemed like it took about 3 minutes to get my leg over there.

And at, at that time my hair was long, was like over my shoulders and just swished when I walked, you know, and I had these hip hugger bell bottoms on big bells like that, they call them elephant bells and, and no shirt on. I had a vest, a vest with six layers of foot long red, white and blue leather fringe.

Yeah, was a walking wind chime. And I floated up the stairs at the Aquarius Theater and I just, I just floated up the stairs and I was at the back of the auditorium and I'm seeing people down on the stage auditioning. I may have been a couple minutes late. And so I'm watching. I'm God damn these hippies can sing and dance, you know, and I so I just almost forgot why I was there and

pretty somebody said Doug Rowell Is Doug Rowell here? Yeah. And I went tearing down the aisle and up on stage and I handed my sheet music to the piano player

and he opens it up, big smile. And he starts to play bom bom, bom, bom bom. I said why I feel good. And I went into this James Brown number. I thought I was the godfather of soul. And I'm down on one knee and back up. And when I hold you,

wow.

And they said people who are judging the auditioners nudging each other and this and the the main guy said, we love you, man. We love your energy. Can you can you do something a little mellow or just so we kind of get a range of of what you do? And I said, sure, sure. So I went into this acapella version of Otis Redding's Dock of the Bay.

Looks like nothing going to change. And I, I made myself cry, you know, I was like,

everything still remains the same.

Piano player knew the tune. He picked it up. We were right in the pocket, you know, could not fail and got done. And they said, we love you, man. Just great, great. Just what we're looking for. Just got to see a dance.

By this time I'm flying anyway, you know, I was like hit it and the guy started to play and I started to move and I I probably initially looked like the offspring of Joe Cocker and Julia Louis Dreyfus. Dreyfus you know, just sort of a

But it got good to me and

and I see my hair coming around. SHO

getting trails off of this hair and fringe on the vest, you know,

and I'm sort of a tornado of trails here. And I heard somebody say, Jesus, can he dance?

I can dance.

Who knew? So they hired me and

but I thought I was auditioning for the Hollywood show. They were auditioning for the Las Vegas show. I didn't know that. So they said, great, well, we want you to do our show in Las Vegas. Can you report to Las Vegas Tuesday? I said, yeah, yeah, I can't. Turns out that they paid quite a bit of money, too. That's like union scale. And so. So I said, yeah, I can do that. So I had from Friday to Tuesday clean up my affairs

and the one my roommates, I wasn't coming home and jumped on my scooter and ate a tab of orange sunshine just headed out across the desert. The report for fame and fortune. And so I got in that show and I and I started understudying a couple of the lead roles and and we played Las Vegas for six months at the International Hotel. And then when that show ended, they they sent us on the road. We became the first national tour of hair

and we started, we went to Indianapolis,

Pittsburgh and Cincinnati and all around we played two weeks here in two weeks there up into Canada 3 1/2 years played all over the United States and Canada. And when we left Las Vegas, they gave me the lead role of a burger, the obnoxious speed freak sex craze leader of the tribe as a stretch. But I can do it. And,

and we would play some place and people would see. We started out in the audience and then we would come on stage at the beginning of the show and at the end of the show, we'd bring the audience up. Let's say it's come up and dance with us. And people would come up and big

crowd of people, somebody would come and say, hey, listen, man, we, we have a bar down the street. We want to close it off for the night and just have you guys and our friends there. So drinks are on the House all that long. Great drinks are on the House. That's the magic word. So we'd go and they'd party all night, you know, and, and some somebody would come up and go, beautiful man. You like pot here Sense of me and Maui Wowie Panama red Acapulco gold

give us all this great dope. You like acid here Osley purple haze orange sunshine window pane

and got a witness. And so we would drink and use all over the United States and Canada and and it was like it was a requirement of the job almost, you know, and and so that by the time that show was over,

I had I had become a father. We had with this gala worked in wardrobe and and we had a little girl and we came back and I started auditioning for things and and she was working as a as a temp and and I'd work here and there work in a parking lot, work in a theater, cleaning toilets, whatever. You know, it's trying to stay in the business. You know what

the guy guy working at the circus and somebody shoveling elephant crap and somebody says, what are you doing? He says I'm just a elephant crap shoveler. He goes, you like it? No, I hate it. Elephant crap. It stinks. It's it's dirty. Why don't you quit what and get out of showbiz? You know so that's that's who I was. So

I was trying to trying to drink and use an audition for things and make a living and support my child and and my wife is working or my her my wife, my daughters mother. And finally she had all of me she could take and we split up and but I stayed in my daughters life. I

and I and I got some work. I ended up working in television as a stagehand for those parking cars at the Aquarius Theater. And a guy came in who had been the prop man on the show when we were on the road. And he said, what are you doing?

I said, Bob, how you doing? Yeah, it's, it's good to see you said no, what are you doing? Well, I'm up for this jack-in-the-box commercial. And I don't know. I got a call back on that. And I got a call back on two gentlemen. Verona, you know, so he goes to your parking cars, man, Why don't you hear? Go down the stage hands Union, tell him I sent you and, you know, make some money while you're waiting for your ship to come in. So 25 years later, I'm waiting at the airport for my ship to come in and

and I retired. Meanwhile, in that job, I started out with a pretty good reputation of being a a good guy and I drank more and used more

and until I finally lost it. By the way, when I say use, of course I'm talking about illegal drugs.

Make it clear Alcoholics Anonymous is not a drug treatment program. Some people think it is, and it seems like maybe it should be, but it isn't. It's designed to help Alcoholics overcome alcoholism. Not to cure it, but to overcome with it, to learn to live with it, live happily and comfortably without a drink. But if you also happen to be a drug addict like I am and so many Alcoholics are, if you practice these 12 steps on your alcoholism, it does a wonder for your drug addiction.

But drugs are an outside issue. They're the only one that everybody talks about. Parenting is an outside issue as well.

This is not a parenting program, but nobody seems to mind if you talk about that, you know, it's not a work program, but our employment is an outside issue. But people talk about I was a bad employee. I was a bad employer. I hated my boss. I, you know, I had an affairs with my boss, whatever, you know. But nobody seems to mind that either. And driving, I don't even talk about driving. My God, the streets of Seattle are so much safer because we're in here

than they were when we were out there.

But just because I love Alcoholics Anonymous, I want to make it clear that I will talk about drugs. I already have, but,

but if I had known, 'cause you don't know when you're out there doing it, you know which way your, your sales are gonna trim. So if I had, if I had just had an inkling I promised you the first time somebody said, hey, Matt, try this, I would have said, you know, I would love to, but I'm gonna be speaking at an, a, a meeting in 30 years and you know, I don't wanna piss anybody off. OK so

so so drugs are an outside issue and I did plenty of them.

I only used

every drug I ever heard of except for ones I've heard of since I got sober. And you, you wonder, you know,

did I miss the, the you know, that's why you hang out with new people.

You see a new guy in your meeting, a new gal in your meeting, go talk to him. You know how you doing? You know you can are are you happy and comfortable? How long you sober? Did you ever do any ecstasy? Because

ecstasy is a good name for a drug, I'll tell you. But that's when you know. Yeah, man, I did a lot of it.

How was that?

Dude, I'm here, you know, so OK, so that wasn't the fantasy either. But so I just used up my reputation, you know, I, I started to get a, a bad reputation.

One time my daughter was about 12 years old.

I went over, I see it in her life. I used to pick her up from school and she would stay with me the afternoon and I'd take her to a mom's house when her mom got home from work and her mom remarried and read a great guy named Stu that we got along just fine. And, and I, I stayed in my daughter's life and I had good parents. I know what good parenting looks like and I wanted very much to be a good parent. But sometimes

my addiction would would stand in the way and I would tell you my daughter was the most important thing in the world to me. But the facts is the evidence is that alcohol and drugs were more important than my daughter. If they weren't, I wouldn't let them stand in the way. One particular time I went over to pick up my daughter on a Saturday afternoon, pick her up at noon,

we're going to go see a movie. Then she's we're going to go have dinner, she's going to stay at my house for the night and I'll bring her back Sunday afternoon to her, to her mom. Simple as that. And I'm looking forward to it. And by the time I got from my house, 15 miles away from her house, I was already drunk and, and I knew I was and I damn it, I did it again. And I,

I try to act like I was just in a funny mood, you know, like, you know, maybe they won't notice. And I wasn't there 3 minutes before her stepfather walks me out on the front porch. And he said, Doug, you're drunk.

I said, yeah, yeah, I am. If you're new, let me tell you, if somebody says to you, have you been drinking, they already know the answer. So.

So there's no point in trying to hide that.

So I said, yeah, I am. And he said, well

damn it, I can't let Star get in the car with you.

And I got that. He's right, he's right. He's doing what he should do. And and it broke my heart

and he said

these words are burned in my memory like a branding iron, he said. Doug, understand you're welcome in our home anytime

sober.

Don't come over here drunk anymore. It's very hard. OnStar.

It's exactly what he said,

and I heard every syllable of it and I understood all the context of it.

There was nothing I could do about it. I couldn't get undrunk. He didn't say, Don't come over here drunk. We're afraid you're going to embarrass us in front of the neighbors or break the furniture or fall in the pool,

he said. Don't come over here drunk. It's very hard, OnStar. He's protecting my only child, the most important person in the world to me, from me, and that's what he should do. I understood every bit of that

and I just said

I'm sorry, I was really looking forward to this. And he said so was I and so a star and

hope you come back sober. And I said this will never happen again. And I meant it. And I left there

and I got in my car and I started to drive home thinking what a scumbag I am. And I started to cry. And once the tears started, it was like Niagara Falls. I couldn't stop them. I couldn't see to drive. I'm like this. I turned on the windshield wipers

seemed like a good idea at the time. And

I finally, I, I, I pulled into a, a parking lot, little strip mall parking lot. And then I opened the door and put my feet on the pavement and put my head in my hands and I just sobbed like a baby.

I couldn't stop it. And I looked up and I saw this red neon sign that said liquor.

And I got out of the car, closed the door. I went into the liquor store and I bought a pint of whiskey. And I came back to the car and I opened up that bottle

and I had a little drink. Then I had another one

and I was OK,

I was alright.

This is something that non Alcoholics

can't understand. They don't understand the most aware and evolved al Anon in the world understands that there is that feeling. But it's not the same as feeling. It's not the same as knowing it. It's not the same as Bill D. Alcoholics Anonymous #3 When he was in his bed, Doctor Bob and Bill Wilson came to talk to him and and Bill Dee said listen, I know you guys mean well

but don't waste your time. People have come and talk to me about my drinking before. It never does any good

And they said we didn't come to tell you about your drink and we came to tell you about our drinking and they did.

And he said you guys are like me,

and they left. And when they came back the next day, Bildie's wife was there. And Bill said these are the guys I told you about, the ones who understand.

That's what you're the ones who understand. If you're new, we're the ones who understand.

We didn't come here to talk to you about your drinking.

You know, we just came to offer you our hand in case you need it, in case you can use it, and then you can offer a hand to somebody else.

That's what we do here. But

but you understand when I say I had a couple of drinks and I was OK when I was in this palpable pain, this

unrelievable pain and disgust with myself and had a couple of swallows of an alcohol of a liquid

and it makes me feel OK. How would you ever give that up? How could you give that up? You know, if you, because you guys understand their heads nodding here every time I tell the story in an A, a deal, their heads nodding. You understand if you tell the story at APTA meeting, they, they look at you like you're an unfit parent or something. You know, and.

So I had experiences like that with my daughter, with my mother, with women that that that I loved. I had

a lot of a lot of mistakes that mostly I injured myself. I mean, I heard other people too, more than I ever thought I did. But

but I injured myself a lot. I was, for instance, I was skiing at Mammoth. And the way I like to ski is I get on the on the lifts at about 8:30 when they first opened and the snow was all fresh and groomed and, and take off my gloves and hook them on my vest. Reach in here and get my little vial of cocaine and do a little one in one to wake up. And then I reach over here and get my flask and my whiskey and have a couple of pulls on that. Yeah, yeah. Loosen up some, put that away. Reach over here and get my pipe, my windless pipe so I can.

The scenery on the way up to the top of the hill. Put everything away and make sure my bindings are good. Have my little boater bag a shot of white wine.

Get all loose. You know, 'cause then, you know, then you're sort of a soul skier, you know what I'm saying? You know, the feeling matters much more than the seeing And, and, and it's great. It really does loosen you up. I thought I could ski better.

It's the problem is if you keep doing it after 20 or 30 runs, you're really in no condition to be involved in an athletic event.

And so this one time I was up there and, you know, was in the afternoon when the shadows are getting along and, and the snow is starting to ice over. And, and I, I went down this run. I'd been down several times. There's a hard left at the Cliff. I didn't miss the turn. I went off the Cliff. But it was a decision. I thought, I thought I could do it.

It was right after the Winter Olympics in and

I see these guys jump on 170 meters or whatever, you know, when they seal through the air lean, they lean away over the front of their skis. No matter what else their style is, they all lean over the front of their skis. And I found, I thought they did it for looks, but it turns out if you don't do that, your skis go straight up in the air. So I, I don't know the physics behind that, but,

but,

but now you're heading towards the planet and head on the bottom, skis on the top. And it's not like some Wiley Coyote thing where they're going to turn into a helicopter. No, no, no. You're going to, you're going to land head first on the earth. And fortunately my shoulder hit a rock before my head hit and broke my shoulder. And the ski patrol had to take me down the hill And my sister was there and she drove, drove me back home to LA and I got in the hospital and they operated on my shoulder. And I'm out of work for six weeks while the shoulder is healing and, and,