The Brentwood Beginners Workshop in Los Angeles, CA

Let's welcome our speaker tonight, Carl.

Good evening. My name is Carl. I'm an alcoholic. I'd like to thank Rose for asking me to come out and talk. I'd like to thank Denny and Steve and Patty for inviting me to dinner and sending me to the wrong restaurant.

They did. Really. They really did.

Oh anyway, my sobriety date is January 21st, 1987. I'm 54 years old. So I've been sober and Alcoholics Anonymous more than half my life. And the most important thing I can tell you about myself is that I'm an alcoholic. There's a lot of other things that I can talk about that I aspire to be, have tried to do to be, have been successful at, have failed miserably yet that want to do that. Lots of other things about my life, but the defining, defining feature

of my life that I'm an alcoholic.

It's really the thing that has driven my bus

stuck up against here a little bit. Anyway,

there we go, All right. It's the defining feature of my life. It really is. It's whether I've been drunk or sober. It's the thing that has made the decisions in my life. The fact that I'm an alcoholic and the reason I believe I'm an alcoholic is really very, very simple. The reason I believe I'm an alcoholic is because I've got a really bizarre relationship with alcohol. That's it. There's no other reason. It's just based upon my relationship with alcohol. And this strange relationship that I have with alcohol takes on a few forms. The first part of the strange relationship that I have with alcohol happens when I

thinking a very strange thing happens when I drink booze. The book calls an allergic reaction. And the book says the symptom of this allergic reaction that I get when I drink booze is what they call the phenomenon of craving. And the best way that I can describe this thing that the book calls a phenomenon of craving in my life is that it seems like whenever I drink booze, the more booze I drink, the thirstier I get. It happens with nothing else, just booze. An example of that is they're kind enough to give me this bottle of water and over the next 27 minutes, but I'm going to talk with you,

I will probably drink at least half this bottle. However, once I finish this bottle of water, I absolutely can guarantee you that I am not going to go get a case of water and lock myself in a motel room. Really, there's no chance of that happening. Not at all. There's no chance that I'm going to, at 2:00 AM, call up Deezer and say Deezer, dude, come on, I need another case. I need another case. I'll turn the pink slip in my car over, right? It's not going to happen.

But if that was the only thing that made me alcoholic, this bizarre physical reaction that I get, if that was the only thing that made me alcoholic,

well then just say no would have wiped out alcoholism, right? Early 80s Nancy Reagan came out and said just say no. I would have. And I imagine you would have gone no and just gone on and lived a happy, successful life. Just saying no. But I've got this other strange part of my relationship with alcohol, and that happens when I'm not drinking it

oven by myself. If I don't drink for a day, a week or a month, I seem to have this mind that is able to paint a picture that makes it OK to take another drink, no matter what the pain, humiliation and suffering was a day, a week or a month ago. And it never seems to enter into the equation. Whether it was my pain and humiliation or your opinion of humiliation, I could care less.

But sooner or later, I have this mind that is able to rationalize and justify my walk back to the next drink at all costs. So I can't drink successfully because of this bizarre physical reactions I get, but I cannot, on my own, not drink successfully. I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't. It's the ultimate Catch 22 we call alcoholism.

I swear to you, if I could do either one of those two things, I would. And I'm going to harp on that physical feature a little bit, a little bit more because it's the one thing bar and none we all have in common.

Our stories are really, really very different on a lot of levels, you know, but Alcoholics Anonymous is it. And the reason they're different is because Alcoholics Anonymous is a huge wide cross section of society really. I mean, we're all here, everybody is here. Every different race, creed, color, religion, every background, good family, bad family, we're all here. In fact, Alcoholics Anonymous is the only place where the bank president, the bank teller and the bank robber are all right here in the same room,

right? And they're all telling a very different story about what just happened.

So if you've been told, just go to meetings until you hear your story. You might be sitting here a long time unless you know what to listen for.

So our stories are different based upon our backgrounds, but our stories are different because of the way we drink. Also, we drink differently than each other. An example of that is, let's say we wheeled in this giant cart full of all the kinds of booze we all love. Everything is on that cart. If you're a top shelf drinker, we got it. Remy Martin Cavazier, we got it. If we're bottom shelf drinker, we got that to Mad Dog 2020. It's all right there

and we wheel it right in here and we all get a good four or five stiff drinks. No umbrellas, no mixers, good four or five stiff drinks. We would all be acting very, very differently right over in this corner. We'd have the good time. Crowd talk, talk, fun, fun, haha. Talk, talk, talk, talk. Faster, right? Right

over in this corner we'd have the sobbing crop.

Right over in this corner, this corner we'd have the fighting crowd. I always fighting when they get a few drinks in here. Over in this corner, a bunch of us would be naked, right?

I personally would be visiting each corner trying to find a few friends to come over here with me, right.

So our stories are different, our story. So our stories are different on that level too, because over here in the good time crowd, they get a lot of Duis, right? Always. Hey, next bar. Hey, we got to head over here. Who's who's getting the boost for the after hours party? Let's go to Charlie. Let's go who right. So they're always out there driving, get a lot of DUI over in the sobbing corner. No DUI. They don't even leave the damn house,

right? The worst thing they do is late night drunk dialing, right? Harass your friends in Europe, right?

Or God forbid these days, drunk Facebooking,

right? It's the worst they do, right? Over here in the fighting corner. Their stories always have, you know, jail, parole, probation officers, parole officers, right? Court dates, right? It's all in that corner over here. A bunch of children show up by surprise, like

so. Our stories are different on that level, too. But there's one thing bar none. No matter what corner we're in, there's one thing we would all be doing. We'd all be back at that cart for another drink. That's the one thing, bar none, we all have in common.

Now, I set this relationship up with alcohol that I just described to you right from the get go. I started drinking at 11. I know it's very late these days and Alcoholics Anonymous, but you know, by today's standards, by the time you're 12, you're on your third treatment center, for God's sake. It's really true.

I'm just, I'm just a drunk and, and and a pot dealer my whole teenage years. But I'm, I'm 14, we lived in Seattle and I'm 14 and my vocabulary is

right. That's my vocabulary. And my parents are like losing it. They're really good people, really good, solid people. And they see this happening to their son. They don't understand it. They they don't understand that it's alcoholism. They blame my problems on people, place and things. They try to get me away from the kids I'm hanging out with. They try to Get Me Out of the public school system thinking that's going to fix it,

but I'm not. You know, my problems are not based upon people, place and things. My problems are based upon my physical and mental relationship to alcohol. You see, if you change the people placing things in somebody's life like mine, all that happens is that I'm loaded with different people in different places ruining different things. That's all that happens. By the time I was about 18 or 17, almost 18, I barely scraped out of the public school system there in Seattle, and my parents decided that Seattle was a problem. Get them out of Seattle.

And so they sent me 300 miles away to Washington State University. I spent three years at that university on my parents money and in that three years I got almost 10 credits.

I think my GPA matched my blood alcohol content about a .25

by the time I was 22. This little story I'm about to tell you, we'll let you know exactly where I stood with my family. Now, my father were Swedish, my mother is Icelandic. Therefore I look like a polar bear. And I don't know whether this customer I'm about to tell you about a Scandinavian or whether it's Lutheran, I don't know. But at Christmas time, my parents would wouldn't just send out Christmas cards their friends and relatives. My parents would send out this big long Christmas letter that said everything the family had been doing that year. And when I was about 22, I got a hold of one of these letters have been sent out the previous Christmas. And as I read it, it let me know exactly where I stood with my family.

Now, the first paragraph talked about what my parents had been doing that year. Another impressive year, I'm sure. The next paragraph talked about what the Morris children had been doing that year. And that paragraph went something like this.

Our orders daughter Christina, just graduated from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY with a master's degree in human resources. She's now working for a large pharmaceutical company in the Midwest. She traveled to Europe this summer. She saw this. She saw that her hobbies of this, this initially is a very happy young woman. We are very proud of her. Our oldest son, Eric, just graduated from Western Washington State University with a degree in marketing. He's now working for a large advertising firm here in downtown Seattle. He loves the golf. He loves to travel. He's engaged to be married to this wonderful woman named Mary Lou who works for a very small company here in Seattle named Microsoft.

It was small at one time and they loved to golf together. They'd love to travel, to travel together. He's very happy young man. We are very proud of him. Our youngest son, Carl, just turned 22.

They were actually being kind.

Long story short, a really bad night happened. It's really just, it would take till breakfast to describe everything, but a drug dealer went really, really badly. And so I joined the Navy. That's what happened

on my way in the Navy. This should concern you. On my way into the Navy, I passed a potential test. It's called the ASVAB test. It's qualified me to become a nuclear engineer. That should concern you that the United States Navy would have any type of system in place that would allow me near anything nuclear. However, they made me take another test when I showed up at that base for boot camp and I couldn't pass that test.

Test is called a urinalysis test is what it's called.

So anyway, they kept me in. I was supposed to get kicked out. They kept me in any way in two years later, I'm a lower rank than when I first came in.

And after a big barrage of ugly craziness, they had put me on an abuse, right? I was now under orders to show up at sick Bay every single morning and they put this little white pill on my tongue and make me sit there for 1/2 an hour to make sure it actually ingested in my system. And I got to tell you, people have been taking alcohol away from me throughout my life every once in a while, but this time on that an abuse, it was really I was started to experience the most cunning, baffling and powerful side of this thing we call alcoholism. And that is I had no booze at all. No

in me at all and I was literally going insane.

I remember counting the days on that and abuse, just

it's been four days.

I'm on interviews

now, it's been 6 days and

I'm on an abuse

now. It's been 8 days,

six hours and 15 minutes

and I'm on enemies and I started to look around that ship,

the other man, they're talking behind my back,

all 300 of them.

Have you ever felt that way in a A?

The only difference is that in A we are talking behind your back only with love and tolerance in Brentwood, I'm sure.

10th day I just snapped her when they walk from my ship and I locked myself in this little hotel room in downtown San Diego. The Plaza Hotel, it's on 4th and Broadway. This would have been 1986. It was $13 a night at the Plaza in 1986. I checked about a year and a half ago. They've upgraded that area. It's now $19.00 a night.

But I remember sitting on the edge of this bed and looking at this bottle of vodka and a shot glass sitting on the edge of it on the in this rickety little end table. And I remember that the Navy doctors had given me a very stern warning about drinking on top of an abuse. They told me, son, you need to understand that if you drink on top of this an abuse, you're going to get one of two reactions. One reaction is you're going to get violently I'll. The other reaction is you might die. Remember looking at the bottle? I thought,

well, I wonder which reaction I'm going to get.

Took one shot and nothing happened. Authority had lied me again as far as I was concerned. I waited about two minutes just to make sure and I took another shot. All of a sudden I felt tingly in the face, so I looked in this cracked little mirror in this hotel room and I was bright red, blotchy and purple in places.

Took another shot.

Oliver Senna could feel my heart going. Looked at my shirt. I was drenched and sweating and all of a sudden I was like hyperventilating.

We're doing all right so far.

See the

the message here is if you're going to drink on top of Anna Bees, you cannot do it with half measures. You've got to hang in there. So I took another shot and up it came. My late sponsor, Eddie Cochran called this next thing that happened to me, projectile regurgitation. This is a new level of puking I was unfamiliar with, right? We don't know normal puking. You get that little warning, right? You try to get to a bathroom or roll down the window, which is whatever you got to do, but you get that little warning. But here on the end of use, no warning.

Sort of this Linda Blair spray across the room.

Thank God. Thank God. The Plaza Hotel is the type of hotel room where the toilet is in the same room with the bed. It's a design feature, I believe, maybe to make convicts feel more at home upon release. I'm not really sure. Anyway, I drank on top of an abuse for the last seven months of my drinking. The only words that describe this are desperation drinking. There's no other way to describe it. I was one more night I was in handcuffs and angry people around and neck muscles aren't working well. And this time they threw me into a military treatment center.

Wasn't my choice, really wouldn't have mattered. I was in handcuffs. You go where they sit, right? And I wind up in this military treatment center. I've never been, had never been in treatment. I don't remember discussing treatment. I, I, I know that my drinking was getting a little bit out of hand on this Ant abuse. You know, especially when the police officers look at you and go, do we need to call an ambulance and go, no, no, no, It's just the Ant abuse. They go, you look like you're about ready to explode.

As far as treatment centers go, this is one of the best in the world for one reason and one reason only. They did not come start to believe that they had a new new flavor of the month treatment for alcoholism. They did what they gave us medical attention. They did a good a therapy as you can do. But they sent us to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous every single night. And I've talked to the staff there afterwards and they would pray that maybe we would hear something. And they understood that. They understood that the only hope is to separate us.

Alcohol, keep us safe, send us to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. Hope we would hear something. You could under San Diego. They're still doing the same thing. Military sits all in the back. You guys just carry on your meetings and let us watch. And I'm very grateful that you guys, you guys did that, that you didn't question, are you really alcoholic? You know, maybe you don't belong here. You just let us sit there and you carried on with your meetings no matter what. And I got to tell you, I'm not somebody. I'm like my friend Steve. I identified right off the bat, you know, he said when he first got here,

this was his tribe. It's really true. I was blown away the very first night when when I heard you guys talking about two things, the way you described your drinking and then even more importantly, you describing the way you felt when you were not drinking. I had never been able to put any words to that. I had felt that my whole life. I wanted to scream it. I mean, I agreed with when authority figures were yelling at me about my drinking. I wanted to verbalize something and, you know, but I, and the way I felt it, I, I agree with you. I I don't like the price I'm paying.

I'm not happy the car is on fire. I'm with you, right,

But if I would have known how to say it, I would have said, but if you knew how I felt when I wasn't drinking, you wouldn't be asking me why I drink. And you guys were talking about this like it was yesterday's news, like you've known this for a long time, right? And it absolutely blew me away. So the very first I identified right off the bat, but there was something else that just really was confusing me people that I don't hear it very often anymore. But back in the 80s, you heard it all the time. People were my drug of choice is and somebody else. Well, my drug of choice first night I

I'm sitting the back going, oh, for Christ's sake, was I supposed to be choosing out there? Do they want me to choose now? What are they talking about? Drug of choice. So I went back to the treatment center the next morning and I asked the counselor who'd been assigned to us. I go Mary last night in the meeting they're talking about something called a drug of choice. What on earth did they mean by that? She said, Carl, let's play a game. That worried me because she was saying pay attention is what she was trying to say. So I kind of OK, because they had me on that anti seizure detox meds that are hard to see things. You're kind of twitching a bit. So I tried to stabilize. And what?

And she said, imagine this, Carl. Imagine. I came into this room and I had a tray. And on that tray I had a bottle of Jack Daniels, an ounce of cocaine and an ounce of Thai sticks. Which one would you take? I started to drool immediately. Oh my God, take them all. And she started to snap her fingers. Settle down, Carl, settle down. You can't have them all play the game. You can only have one.

I thought for a second, well, I guess if I can only have one, Mary, I guess I take the ounce of cocaine. She said, ah, maybe cocaine is your drug of choice. Do you understand now? And I said, no, no, she said, what's the problem? I said, well, Mary, the only reason I take the ounce of cocaine over the other two is like, take that ounce of cocaine. I get the hell out of this place and I bite. I sell 28 balls now. I'd have enough money for 1/4 pound to tie 6 and a case of Jack Daniels. That's what I would do.

So what was happening there is that I was learning something about Alcoholic Anonymous that was really, really important, and I didn't even know I was learning it. It was only years later that it looked back and go, wow, I was never confused about that

ever since I got here because of that. And that is sobriety. It, first of all, if you're new or fairly new, it's really important to have a sobriety day and it needs to be written in stone. It's the thing that nobody can question or take away from us and nobody can question when it is especially us in the middle of the night,

really important. And there's only one sobriety date, I imagine. I know there's lots of people that work with new people and maybe you run across this scenario once in a while. I I do every once in a while out in Covina. Not very often, but you know, see some guy. Hey, good to see you. How long do you got every once in a while? Not very often, but every once in a while. My drinking sobriety did is January 4th. My pot clean date is May 3rd or I blew my methamphetamine date last night. I was in Walmart all night long

no

one sobriety day. Funniest thing I ever heard about sobriety date. Same scenario or saw this guy around my Home group for walk said hey good to see you how long do you got and he said well I had 90 days but I drank last night so now I have 89 days.

I had to think about that one for a second.

I think that kind of falls in the same category as being down in Mexico looking at the tequila. Wondering would that affect my US sobriety date? Yes, sobriety dates are international. Just a little information for the new guy.

So anyway, after 45 days, I get let out of this treatment center and

the only thing I knew what to do is go to meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I got let out on a Friday afternoon and I was at the 6:00 Gong Show meeting in Pacific Beach. And I'm sitting in the back of this big meeting. And the truth about my life is I was 45 days without a drink. I had a lot of information. I was physically feeling better than I had felt since I've been a young teenager. But there had been no spiritual awakening, spiritual experience, or even a personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism. And what was even more dangerous than that is I did not know I needed one,

one guy that night operating his primary purpose. There's lots of men that were operating on their primary purpose that night. But this guy was scouring the back rows that night before the meeting. He came and said, hey,

never seen her before, what are you doing? I didn't think quick enough to lie to him because I promise you if I would have thought for one more second I would have lied to him. But I accidentally told him the truth. I said I don't know. I just got out of a Navy treatment center this afternoon. I don't know what I'm doing. This guys eyes went bang. Big smile went across his face at the break. He's like fighting his friends off. He's mine. He's mine, mine, mine, mine. I didn't know you Mark, your newcomers. It's like, felt like he was peeing on me for God's sake.

But there was something else going on in this guy's life that particular night that made him especially glad to meet me. This guy's girlfriend had left him the night before for one of his friends in his Home group, so he was wondering what he was going to do with his weekend homicide suicide. Get loaded or grab this newcomer. He's like all over me all weekend. We went to like 18 meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, and this guy was insane over this woman, Flat out insane. In between this barrage of meetings we went to, you're throwing the pastor's side of his car. He started driving and he started yelling.

Wouldn't even look at the road. He had like one of those AAA radar cars. They just made it to the next meeting, I guess. But he'd be driving. He'd be yelling, you gotta go to me. He's gotta read book, you gotta sponsor. Damn her gotta means gotta read, but damn her. Jesus.

Now I didn't know it. I didn't know it, but I was getting a very early introduction to your typical AA relationship. Breakup is what I was getting,

but I'm so very glad that that guy that night in his pain where the guy in Alcoholics Anonymous who had done the work of Alcoholics Anonymous had taken the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and therefore he understood that the solution to his pain without herself. Out of self, Out of self. I am so glad that that guy that night was not at home underneath his covers, quining into a sponsor's answering machine. Sponsor, where are you? Fix me. Give me a golden answer, right? I'm so glad he was out dragging my sorry butt around

by going to some meetings. So many meetings with this guy in the same area of town. That weekend, I learned something really valuable about what how we go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, especially when we're new.

See, I saw other people that were going to multiple meetings over that weekend. I didn't see anybody else doing 18 meetings, just me and that guy, but I saw two. I saw other people that seemed to be at two or three meetings over that weekend. And what I learned about how we go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, especially when we're new. I'm going to correlate it to a football game. Now, a football team is out there on the field for one reason and one reason only

to win the game. And how do they win that game? They huddle up, they make a plan and they do one play. Then they huddle up again, they make another plan and they do one play. That's exactly what we do in Alcoholics Anonymous. And the game around here is one day without a drink. You're a big winner. And how do we do that? One day we run in here and we huddle up and go. Remember, we're bodily mentally different from our fellows, right? We go out there and we try a little this, we try a little that. We run right back in here and we huddle up

After that weekend, I got back to my ship and the one other sober member of Alcoholic's in Honors was waiting for me. His name was Bob W

He became my first sponsor. Even before I asked him to be my sponsor, he could have cared less whether I wanted him to be his sponsor or not. He understood that he was going to work with me so he could stay sober. I was going to have to like, say no, I don't want you. He looked at me like I was gold being delivered to him on a silver platter, right? And it was kind of a captive audience. I was going to have to jump overboard to get away from him, right? And I love the fact that the one other sober guy on my ship

was an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm so glad that the one other sober guy in my ship wasn't somebody who hadn't been to a meeting in nine months,

you know, didn't have a sponsor, knew nothing about the big book, right? This guy was right in the middle of Alcoholics Anonymous. So therefore

he was living his life in a way where he was able to do an amazing thing, stick his hand out and say come, do what I'm doing. And by doing that, he was effectively able to help save my life just simply by saying come and do what I'm doing. Who else on this planet? What level of education, what level of appointment by whatever government, what level of position of power, amount of money

allows anybody in our society to reach out to the dying and say,

come, do what I'm doing and effectively help save their life?

Only us, Only us. It's an incredible gift. And he understood that. He had that.

After two years sober, I got an honorable discharge out of the Navy that was a result of an apparently merciful God, the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, and a personnelman that lost half my file. That's how that happened. One of the amends that I was unable to make while I was still in the Navy was that my parents had paid for that bachelors degree. I didn't have one. I had two choices. Either had to go get what they had paid for on my own money, or I had to pay them back every single nickel they had wasted on that. I know that's bad news for some of you young guys,

but that's what what what make choices were. And that's how I wound up in the LA area.

I chose a school in Covina and I poured in. I remember I was still pushed starting the same little Volkswagen that I got sober with, and I pulled into the parking lot of the 502 Club in Covina. It's flat. That's bad news. When you're pushed starting your car, you're always looking for a little bit of an incline. And I met the man that became my next sponsor for the next 10 years of my sobriety. And that man's name was Eddie Cochran, literally one of The Pioneers of Southern California Alcoholics Anonymous. He literally taught me what it means to be a man in this world and a man in Alcoholics Anonymous. He was just a brilliant and brilliant man.

He literally loved me until I could learn how to love you guys. And he did it in a way that I didn't even know he was doing it. First thing he told me what I needed to do is put new guys in my car. Now I kind of objected, but then I realized he was 10 years sober when I was born and I thought, OK, I'll give it a shot because his sobriety day was December 2nd, 1951, right? So 10 years sober when I was born and he told me to put new guys in my car, my life would get better. I was very concerned about my life. I need to get a life together. I'm two years sober and fresh out of the Navy. I'm going to be going to school. I got to get a life.

I've heard, I've heard people talk about having a life in AAI need to get one of those. And I was very concerned about that. And he told me, put new guys in your car, your life will get better. I didn't see how that would happen. But the very first night I followed his direction, it happened. My life got better the very first night the new guys could push start my car.

He didn't say how much better, he just said better.

But the other thing that really, really hit me between the eyes was when I tried to explain to him, I'm going to be going to school. I'm going to be working. I'm, I, I don't have time for a lot of meetings. I'm, I'm going to, I got to get my life. And he said, Carl, school and work is what we do in between meetings. And what he was really telling me was one of the biggest secrets that, that has kept me here for 28 years. And what he was really telling me is that I need to live in Alcoholics Anonymous and visit the world instead of trying to hash it out there in the world and visiting Alcoholics Anonymous when convenient.

It literally has been the way I've lived my life for the last 28 years. The life that I found in between meetings here in Alcoholics Anonymous is nothing like I thought it was going to be. Everything that every corner and, and, and turn my life is taken. It has not been my decision. I have absolutely found a life that really means something to me these days. One of the biggest things that happened to me, I'm 17 years sober, I got married, we had two beautiful kids. The marriage did not work out. I know you've never heard of that in Alcoholics Anonymous, but you know what? We decided

both love these kids with all our heart and we had to figure out a way to be good Co parents. So we have actually figured out how to do that. And she's a very good mother. She really, really is. If I would, she just did. She's a very good mother. And I have found a level of love for another human being that has blown me away with my two kids. They're eight years old and 10 years old right now. If you're a Facebook friend of mine, you're probably sick of seeing the pictures that I post constantly of them. But I, I literally have met who I I would die for.

It's like these you even wrote a song like that in yet with your son. Literally, I met who I would die for.

I've never felt that way. I know that when I was in the Navy, I'd raise my hand and said I would do that. I was hoping it was not going to come to that, right. But here with my kids, literally, I would have, you know, Steven Denny went and like gave me the wrong direction tonight. But if we're out at Starbucks later tonight and and you know, some, some guy comes in wielding a gun and says when he is going to go, I would have you met my friends Danny and Steve, right? But if it was my kids, I would dive right in front without even a thought. I would dive.

I'd never felt that way. And I love my kids from the bottom of my heart.

And I would never trade them for the first drink. Never in a million years would I trade them for the first drink. But I'm alcoholic. I know what it means to be alcoholic. Although I would never trade them for the first drink, I would trade them for the second drink like that. So there is nothing more important than me staying in the center of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I believe my time is up. Thank you for the privilege of sharing.

All right.

Apparently this is question and answer for a little bit.

Do we have any questions?

Really. I just, as Steve said, stomped out. Alcoholism, huh?

The question was did I make amends to my parents? How did that go? Absolutely. I actually still am making amends to my parents simply in, in, in. Well, actually, you know what? I,

I just came back from taking my kids up to see my mother. My father passed away when I was 10 years sober. Let's put it this way. At my father's funeral, he was a past a Lutheran pastor. He was also military and he had also been a missionary in, in Borneo, Southeast Asia. So there's a huge contingent of his, his church that he started in Borneo is now 10 churches, a university and a hospital. So a huge contingent of people came from there,

huge contingent military because he was military for 40 years. And then if you've ever been to a past a Lutheran pastors funeral, they have this procession of like 50 pastors all in full robes and banners. I mean, it's really something. And they told the family only one person gets to talk.

My family voted me in.

It's, you know, I think that just says it all. It and a lot of it had to be with my parents were very excited. I was staying sober, but they kind of wanted to see me do something,

you know, they wanted to see me do something because that's how they gauge life. They don't gauge life by just not drinking. They think I should have been doing that in the 1st place, right? We're the, and it's valuable that we, we, we gauge life by not drinking. And we have to. That's spectacular,

but but we can't expect them to, so. So yes,

yes,

sure. She she is asking about my perception of my higher power.

I think the best way that I can describe that is tell you a little story that I told Jazz on the way out here. This is the way I perceive my higher power and Alcoholics Anonymous together. I think that in late late 1934, somewhere around October and November of 1934, all of the greatest spiritual leaders that ever came together ever were on this planet all decided they had to have a group conference. I think Abraham LED, Abraham said, hey, Buddha, Muhammad, Jesus,

Gandhi, hey, we need to talk. We need to talk. They all came together and Abraham said look it. Look at all of the very viable pathways to God we have given mankind. But look at those Alcoholics and drug addicts down there on planet earth. They can't seem to get it. Do you think we really need to give them one more pathway to God specifically designed for them? Let's chat about it. And they started a chit and chat and then chat about it. And Gandhi chimed and said, well, if we are to give them their own specific solution,

I believe that part of that solution should be they get to incessantly talk about themselves. So they go, OK, we'll throw that in there. And they took a group conscience and decided indeed, we're going to give mankind the alcoholic exactly their own specific pathway to God. And they look down on the planet. They saw this stock speculator and a proctologist, Eddie Cochran used to call that odds and ends and gave us our gift. I see it one and the same. I view my my view of God is

Alcoholics Anonymous. I feel God when I'm talking to other Alcoholics. I don't necessarily feel it when I'm talking to other people. However, I do have to say in the last 10 years, I see God in my child's eyes. But went went for me to feel whatever all poets and and mankind is written about all the time about God. I experience it with you people. That's the that's the place where I hear the music of life.

That's the best way I can describe it. Yes,

8:00 and 10:00 today. Every state you ever told me a story. They have sat in the back with their iPads at least 12 times and they don't listen. They do listen. They were just down in Newport just recently. And one of the things that my son always waits to hear when he reads in the room. I always say my sobriety date is January 21st, 1987. And then he perks up and he goes and I say,

when's your birthday, Ryan? He goes January 21st, 2007.

He was born on my 20th, a birthday. So they, and they sit in the, I do some workshops in Covina and sometimes on days that I have them, I have them sit in there. Now I temper my talk a little bit. I don't go heavy into drug dealing and stuff like that if they're in the room, but they know allergy, the body obsession of mind, they do, they know exactly what that means.

That's my, I don't think I, I wouldn't give anybody else advice to do that. I just do that,

yes.

What gave me that idea?

I don't usually talk about that in a is that OK? She it so happens that my one of the businesses that I run is is a group of recovery houses in Covina and all right, I was, I was working for General Electric and I was interviewing with Microsoft using my family contacts. I was on my third level of interviews with Microsoft in 1993. That means I was in

and I was obsessed with a redhead,

just obsessed with her. And she wanted to do that. She wanted to open up a woman's recovery house. And she said if you really love me, you'll bankrupt yourself. And,

and do this for me.

And I said, oh, yes, honey, you're right. And so I just financed it for her to run it. And it's grown and grown. But she took off about six months into it with another man. I still remember driving away in her red hair flowing, and there's another man in the seat and she's giving me the finger.

And I happened to, I was late for work that day because we'd been arguing. And I remember standing on the front door steps of what is now in my office. And I, I remember going, oh, my God. And there's like 40 people that are all gathered around. OK, Slick, what are you going to do now? And I remember vividly, I reached for the telephone and I called my boss at General Electric, and I said my life has taken a drastic turn. I'm not going to be into work today. He goes, oh, what happens? Are you sick? I go, no, no, no. And I understand that I probably will never get another reference in this