The Brentwood Beginners Workshop in Los Angeles, CA

Now let's welcome our speaker, Matt.

Hi, I'm Matt Kimball and I'm an alcoholic.

I'd like to thank the meeting for putting me putting up with me for the last year. I've got a list of changes that I want to go through with you guys right now.

Anyway, let's start with me not being Secretary's. If you're new, I want to welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous. This is the Brentwood Workshop. It was the first meeting I came to as a newcomer that I laughed at. And

so I hope that if I don't say anything funny tonight that, umm,

you

just find another meeting that you can go to and not drink between meetings. You know, they tell me that when I got sober,

they told me the most important thing I can find in a meeting is where's my next meeting going to be in Canadian states over between now and my next meeting. And that's all that matters. And, and I remember when I got sober, I came here, I needed $500 in a lawyer and I was going to go to jail. Back then when you got arrested for drunk driving, it was a $500 fine. And

you guys said sounds like you need a meeting. I was like, no, you don't understand, I'm going to go to jail. And you guys said, well, that's probably exactly what you need to be and that you guys are not my kind of people after all. So

wow, OK, I, I just, I'm, I'm going through, it's hot up here. I

my sobriety date is November 6th 1978.

The the last time I drank,

I kind of have two loud strong's.

What happened was the last six months, the last six months of my drinking, I had been

I've been arrested for drunk driving. I've been arrested for drunk in public. I've been arrested for controlled substances. And I was on probation. I've been on probation from the time I was 9 until I was 22 years old. The first time I ever got arrested was at the Whole Foods. It used to be a, a westward ho up here on, on San Jose. I was nine years old the first time I got arrested there. And,

you know, I went to elementary school right over here at Brentwood Elementary and I went to Emerson Junior High School and I went to Uni I. And

so the last time I was drinking, one of the last times I drank, I, I, I had had this,

had this run

where I'd been in a bunch of accidents, car accidents and physical problems. And I, the last six months of my drinking, I've been drinking a quart of vodka every day, 2-6 packs of Schlitz malt liquor and whatever you had to take. I was taken and I was, had lost the ability to talk to anybody. I couldn't communicate with anybody anymore. I, I just, I've been hit by a car. I was I was working at the Rainbow in the Roxy parking cars as a valet car.

And the first night I was there, I took some coils and drank a cord of Bacardi because I found out my girlfriend was sleeping with somebody. So the manager of the parking lot came in. He goes, man, you can't drive like that. So he gave me a grandma cook. He goes, go do this coke and we'll talk. So I said OK, and

I, you know, I did this stuff and we stayed up all that long talking and I told him my girlfriend was sleeping with somebody else and I was really upset about it and he felt bad for me. So he made me the manager of the parking lot.

And then two weeks later I found it. This is one of the guys sleeping with my girlfriend. It's like, oh,

but it was in the day of preludes and she was a giver.

All my friends liked her.

So when I was working the rainbow, the Roxy, I got to buy a car and this also had my head caved in. I have multiple brain contusions. I had partial amnesia. I lost my sense of smell. I still can't smell at that time. By that time I've been slitting my wrist. I've been trying to commit suicide. By that time I think I've been arrested twelve times and and I was looking at going to jail. I since bad been seeing psychiatrists

and a couple weeks after I get hit by a car

another friend of our mind died in a car accident. And at his funeral I went to my friend Tom's house and I stole a bottle of vodka from his mother's bar. And he that night Tom got so upset with me for stealing his mom's vodka that he pinned me down to the ground and he beat my head on the ground until my eardrums burst. And the next day I walked into my doctor's office with blood coming out of my ears

and and my doctor said, what happened to you this time, Matt? And I said it's just a friendly fight, Doc. It's no big deal.

And he goes, You know, Matt, your friends are trying to kill you. You're gonna doubt you're dying. You're gonna die. I can't. I can't treat you anymore. You're gonna die. So. So

three weeks after that, on June 3rd, 1978, I took a three hits of purple microdot and drank a case of slits about liquor on the way to Santa Barbara to go see the Grateful Dead play. And on June 3rd, 1978, and I stayed up all night long, I drank a quart of Jack Daniels, a quart of tequila, and a quart of Southern Comfort. And then we were staying at the same hotel as the band and they told me, my friends told me that I was partying with Jerry and Bob, but it might have been a tree, I'm not really sure.

And the next day I walked into the concert and I got arrested for drunk in public

and I called my mom and my mom came to pick me up and she said, you know, Matt, you got three choices. She says, I'll give you a one way ticket to Germany or Hawaii, or you can stay with me for 30 days and go to Alcoholics Anonymous or I'll drop you off at the Midnight Mission and go go live with Clancy. And so I stayed sober and I got a sponsor. I got the Pacific group at that time and

my sponsor said, you know what we do here is we don't take anything that affects us from the neck up. We don't snore anything funny. We don't do, we don't do recreational heroin. We don't drink. We don't, we don't smoke anything. We don't do poppers

and we don't do sniff blue. Nothing that affects us from the neck up. And we don't do speed. And I thought, you know, when I was six years old, I was fat. And, and when I went to Emerson Junior High School, I became a speed freak and I became really skinny. And I thought when he told me we don't do anything, I thought if I ever get fat again, I'm doing speed. And so I just gave myself an out. I wasn't 100%

done, you know, I'm not done yet. So on November 5th, 1978, I had a Fender Bender car accident and I went out and drank of a couple 6 packs of beer. I drank a six pack of Carlsberg Elephant malt

in a six pack of a Schlitz malt liquor. And then I wanted to get a bottle of vodka. And my friend said, he said, you know, Matt, my friend Doug, who lives in Maui, who's got three years today, he said, Matt, you know, he says you got to go back to a A tomorrow. You can't hang us. You can't hang out with me anymore. You're going to die. You got to go back to your mom's and go to a A. And so I went back to a A the next day and I haven't had a drink since that day. And

I, I, I'm kind of just thinking about, I went to the

what's left of the Grateful Dead last night and, and, and I was with, it was really,

it was fun because it was like AI saw like 20 of my high school friends and some of them were on psychedelics and some of them were just not, and some couple were sober. But for the most part, I'd say, you know, 80% of my friends were really high. And, and I just, you know, I called John on the way over here. My brother John spent over for 41 years. He just turned 41. So I just, I asked my brother John, I said, if you ever been to a concert with all the people people you drank with and not get high.

That's the weirdest thing, man. So it was it just and I brought, I was so happy and overjoyed and overwhelmed with good feelings to see my friends. And at the same time, I was really uncomfortable. And I know that that uncomfortable feeling is why I drink. You know, I drank to hang out with my friends. I, I got hired to be with the people I was with last night and

they're still my best friends. I mean, they're, but they're not people I, I choose to hang out with all the time. But I have a really good feeling when I see him,

but I also get really uncomfortable and I need to go to meetings because I need to be comfortable.

So I'll tell you a little bit about some stuff. So this is a workshop, I think that I like to think about forgiveness and love and a higher power. That's kind of important to me and my sobriety today. And, and it has been for quite a long time. But I have found that for me, like forgiveness has been and also perception. My perception is,

is is often wrong, you know, and what I learned a long time ago on how to deal with my life doesn't always work for me today, but sometimes I still go back to it. And so I need to be reminded constantly that I'm no longer running the show. And I can't base myself my my sense of well-being on having my way. And if I do, I'm not, I'm never going to be happy.

Some of the things that used to happen to me in sobriety was I would, I would set my, I would set goals for myself and I would achieve goals, but I was never happy with any of the goals I achieved.

And so I started thinking about like, well, if I could just perfect how I get the stuff I'm getting, then I'll just always have good stuff happening. And then I'll, I just, it doesn't matter how, what I'm trying to get. I'll just do what I'm doing to get what I want. And I just obsessed on that for the longest time and I was never

happy inside. I've never felt any sense of accomplishment if I, if I ever achieved anything. And I never felt that sense of satisfaction in my heart. And I also felt that disconnect from my power, which I didn't know at the time. And I think today, you know, I think that there are two things that we have really seriously for me is that is the two problems that I have is not getting my way. And then just a disconnect from a higher power and knowing that those are my 2 problems. If I know those are my 2 problems all the time, I'm I'm pretty good. So,

umm, but you know, when you're busy to Grateful Dead concert in somebody's smoking pot in front of you and you're telling them to stop smoking pot, it's hard to figure out that you're just disconnecting from the God at the time when you're telling to put the stuff away. But anyway,

but we try to, you know, we try to learn how to do that stuff and, and in practice and we do. So some of the things I learned when I was younger. I, I mean, I have some examples for when I was when I was, when I was 15 years old, that guy Tom and I, and if Tom ever hears his tape. Hi, Tom's,

he's not in a but we, we, we got these phone calls from this girl. He, my friend Tom. We lived in Westwood and these two girls lived in, in Bel Air. And they asked us, they said, if you guys bring us a bottle of Southern Comfort, they'd have sex with us And we'd, we'd like, we'd heard that, you know, we were 15 and

we've been talking about it for a long time. So we got, you know, we got a taxi. We got, you know, we Panhandle the, but we got a bottle of Southern Comfort and we ended up in Bel Air and, and the magic happened. And the girl that I was with the next day, I turns out she had a boyfriend and he was a couple years older than me. He was on a football team

and, and, and from the 9th grade to the 12th grade, at every single party I went to, it seemed like this guy Frank was at that party and Frank was, you know, so somebody would say Kimball Frank here and I go got to go, you know, and I would run because I just was not going to. I mean, I like I'm a fighter. I love to fight. I mean, I, I really did like to fight. I was, I like to drink and fight. I was just one of those guys. But there's no fight when you just

hit me. I'm wrong, you know, And I'm, I'm a pussy. So I'm a fighter, but I'm also not like a guy that wants to get it.

So anyway, right after high school I heard Frank died of cancer. And I was like, oh, thank God, you know, And

so and I got sober right after high school. So miracles do happen

and then a couple years I don't have a lot of time to talk. So

in, in 1996, I,

I graduated high school in 1977. I got sober in 1978. So I heard Frank died in 1977. And in 1996 I was working on a movie. First I was working as a, an assistant to it, an actor. And, and in 1996, I'm, I'm, I drive my actor to this stage and, and I get out of the car and I open the door for him in the trailer. And, and this actress walks by

and with her, you know, her driver, he looks familiar. And he opens the door for her. And I look at him and I looks at me and I go, Frank, you know, to me goes Kimball. And I go, I heard you die to cancer. And he goes, I heard you die to cancer.

And I said, I swear to God, I didn't know she was your girlfriend. That was the first thing I said.

He goes, you swear to God. And anyway, Frank's a black belt and karate. Oh my God, this. I swear to God, I this is true. Frank just called me.

I'm like, he really did.

So, umm,

so I, when I got sober, I really wanted to be a roadie and I

kind of dabbling and doing music stuff when I was a kid and my brother Jim was a roadie for a band and there was music in my family a lot, lot of everybody was doing stuff. And so I, I started, you know, we started promoting shows when we were little kids and, and

building flash pots and lighting stuff. And I took some classes at Santa Monica College. I got sober and I got, you know, this time I got Clancy's a sponsor and I went to the Pacific group and, and Clancy had, I got this, I wanted to be a San engineer and learn some sound stuff and then go on tour and be a roadie. And, and you guys said, you better wait till you get to your sobriety. And then I got a year and you guys, you guys said, you better wait till you get three years, you know? And

so I got this job offer to work at a club. And I called Clancy and told him about this job offer and Clancy and I said, but I'm not going to take the job because if I take the job, I'll miss the Wednesday meeting. I won't be able to go to the Pacific meetings. And he said, what are you talking about, kid? He says, I thought you wanted to be a sound engineer. And I go, I do. And he goes, well, he says the steps are set up for you to walk through your fears, for you to have your life. He said, don't try to live my life for anybody else's life. He says live your life and take that job.

He says try to come to the Wednesday meeting if you can, but if you can't make it, go to other meetings. So I took the job and what ended up happening was I started going to the Uncle John meetings during the day and I met a guy named Bob Horrigan there. And Bob was became my sponsor for 22 years. And Bob was a guy that I saw who had a sense of humor and and I wanted what he had. He referred to me and my brother John and my brother Jim as Larry, Larry and Darrell. And

he always invited us to sit in the brain damage section with him and,

and, and he was just funny. And then, and then his sponsor, Fred Ellis died. And when Fred died, Bob did the eulogy. And this is before I asked him my sponsor, but this was when I, when he did the eulogy and he was crying and telling jokes at the same time. I thought, I want what he has, you know, I want to be able to do that.

And so Bob is my sponsor for 22 years. And, you know, and he taught me how to how to walk with dignity and how to have a sense of humor. 10 years of sobriety,

I, I got, I had a son and I went in to get custody of my son. And at this time, I still, you know, I, I believe that group conscious was my higher power. But I, I didn't come to Alcox Anonymous with a God and I didn't know how to use God all the time.

I knew how to use the group all the time. I knew that if I went to a meeting, I would feel good. I stayed sober by meetings. I did the steps to the best of my ability

up to that point in time, but I've had to re establish in a connection with the higher power that wasn't working for me when I was downtown in the courthouse, you know. And so I was really uncomfortable at the LA Superior Court and I looked at Bob and Bob looked at me and he said, you know Matt, he goes, he goes, what's wrong? And I said, you know, Bob, I've been arrested thirteen times. I've been guilty 13 times. I go, I've testified for friends of mine. Then after I testified they were guilty, I go, this system sucks. It doesn't work for me and I don't like this. I don't want to be here.

And Bob said to me, you know, he was just kind and patient. He said, you know, Matt, life's like the Academy Awards. He goes, the judge is already read your case and she's already put the answer in the envelope in an alcoholic synonymous. We're not in the results business, we're in the action business. He said, So what your job is, is to go in and calmly state your case to the judge and then be quiet. Because Bob knew me well enough to know that I'm the kind of guy that once you give me what I want,

I could tell you why you should have given to me in the 1st place and work my way right out of a good deal. So he said just shut up. You know, that's basically what he said. And he said, you know, if you're worried about the other shoe dropping, he says, what if the guy upstairs only has one leg? So he got me to laugh, you know, and then what she always did. And then he said last thing that he says before you walk in the courthouse, he says, I want you to open the door,

taking a deep breath and let God walk in first and call me, state your case, the judge. And I did and I ended up getting custody, my son, you know, and,

and I still do that. I still call me, I, when I get uncomfortable, I'll take a break. I'll open the door. I let God walk in first. Wherever I go, I try to let God walk in first, and I try to be conscious of a presence, a creative intelligence, and a language totality of all things

with goodness for all of us. And my sponsor today is a guy named Howard P So

I love talking to hard about higher powers. So

anyway,

so you know, shortly after I did the roadie thing and then I, I end up getting cancer after I had my son, I had throat cancer and I got married afterwards and things happened with my cancer and, and I got through that in sobriety. I got through that with you guys. You know, I had this, I was married. This is so, so often in my life. I want what I want when I want it. Like I wanted what I wanted I wanted. I was married and my wife found out that I was, I guess I was on tour

and when I was on tour, she met somebody else and she loved me when I came home and I was diagnosed with cancer at the same time. And I had like this, I'm a, I'm a professional victim, you know, so I had like this, well, I've got cancer and my son's mom's now taking me back to court and I'm losing the house and I lost the car and why don't you take me back now? You know, I'm like, I was trying everything and nothing would work, you know, so, so I had a friend who on the program who, who helped me and I moved in with her and she was, she's a celebrity, you know, and, and she took

me, you know, and she introduced herself to all the doctors as either my wife or my sister. And I got a lot of really wonderful help, you know, and, and because of what she did, but what I would still would rather have had my way, which wouldn't have gotten me anything. I would have just been uncomfortable with this woman who didn't want to be with me. And I wouldn't have had the care that I had. And I, you know, anyway, so, but, you know, when I was going through all this stuff, I didn't know why it was happening to me. And but Howard told me there's a golden thread and everything that happens and.

We can see where the existence of God is. And after the fact of this whole thing, I could see that, you know, I had a big tumor that was rocked around my jugular vein and I had tonsil cancer from smoking and I quit smoking 10 years before I got the cancer. So if you smoke, don't quit. And

just that little disclaimer. So they took out all the the my tonsils, they took out all the lymph nodes out of this side of my neck. I had a radical neck dissection and they got rid of the tumor. And in hindsight, after, you know, I can see

clearer now that that the tumor probably created a lack of oxygen in my brain and that's why I married that bitch in the first place.

But the truth is, is she married a guy that wasn't going to go on the road. She got what she got was something that she didn't want to have. And if I wanted to keep that relationship, like I'm sure I could have made it work out

anyway, maybe if I got tuberculosis or something. Anyway, so,

so the guy Todd that beat my head to the ground at my 20 year high school reunion, I hadn't talked to him in 20 years. And Tom was there last night at the grip of that concert too. And,

and anyway, so he, he, he, I hadn't talked to him since he beat my head in the ground. And I at at the reunion, I asked him if I could take him to coffee

and he said sure. So we went to coffee the next day and I told him that I said, you know, when you beat my heck, you know, that really hurt. And, and I said, but you know, I'm sober today. And that's one of the reasons why I'm sober. My life wasn't working at all. Anything I did, everything I did was wrong. I mean, every, no matter where I went, there I was and things weren't happening. The truth is I stole a bottle of vodka from his mom's liquor cabinet and that's what I did. So I kicked the toe, you know, I

step on the toes of my fellows and they retaliate. And he retaliated way over the top, but I forgive him and I forgave him and he started crying and he's told me that he'd been a victim of that for the last 20 years. And he didn't know how to, how to call me to tell me that. And we became really good friends afterward, the fact and, you know, and so, and then the thing with Frank that happened a couple years 25th, I, I stopped rhodiing because I just, I can't do it. It's not fun for me anymore

or whatever. And, and I started a painting business, you know, and I, I'm an interior, exterior house painter. And so that guy Frank that I saw at that movie shoot got in touch with my friend Doug. They both have property in Maui and they saw each other Maui. And my friend Frank has this property in Lancaster. He's got houses he wanted to have painted. And he was talking to my friend Doug about it. And he says, Doug says call Kimble, he's a painter. So he called me up and he asked me if I'd be interested in going to Lancaster to paint

forum. And I said, you know, I go, yeah, I go. I would, I go only if I could do it for the cost of materials and you pay the labor and I don't want to make any money. He goes, no, no, no, I'll pay you money. I go, no, no. I got to make an MSD for what I did. I go. I lived with that for a long time. You got to let me do this. And so he said OK. And we, I painted three houses for him in Lancaster. And today, like this, he just caught like I talked to Frank once a year and we have these three hour conversations. This guy has turned out to be one of my best friends

and he's not an AA. And so much in my life has been

based on my fear of not wanting to confront or or address the things that I've done to other people that have kept me away from the light of the spirit. And it's been my experience. And every time I face my fears and go through them on the other side of them, it's been really, it's been a, it's been a wonderful life. And So what I want to leave everybody with is the thought of forgiving people and forgiving yourself and how important it is for me is this alcoholic to try to

set a different course so that I don't like

have the anger. And, you know, I have a impulse control problems. And the, the, the more I work on being connected to a higher power and the more I think about forgiveness, the more I think about how we're all just people. And we're all, And if I just can see God and all of us, I don't really have those impulse control problems as much, but they still come up. And I, I, you know, I, my brother, my, I was talking to my other, my other brother

Luke. And Luke was saying that, you know,

on Memorial Day, he says, you know, my dad was a major,

a major alcoholic, but my dad was a major in the Air Force. And he was, he died of cirrhosis of the liver. And he died when I was 3 1/2. And, you know, one of the things he left us with is, was the vision of him trying to kill my mom when he's, you know, choked her on Christmas and, and, and, you know, and beat her head in the ground. And, and, you know, I grew up with a lot of violence and I saw a lot of stuff when I was a kid. And,

and it kind of helps me to know that

because of what I was imprinted on me before, if I could change how I see that I can have a different,

different, I could have a different outcome on how I, how I process it. Because how I've always processed it was what I used to hear my, the word dad. I would, I would get really angry And what I would do is react out of rage. And I, I worked on rage for a long time and that hasn't worked for me for a long time. And the truth is I haven't seen my dad. He died when I was 3 1/2 years old

and

you know, I haven't lived with that kind of violence in my household in 555250 a lot of time, 5053 years, something like that. So but sometimes I still act as if it's happening. And so I've got to try to work on forgiveness so that I can have a different outcome because I don't want to be there. I don't want to, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to respond to life that way. I want to be happy, joyous and free. And I do that when I go into meetings. So

I love you guys, Alcoholics or whenever, when I wake up in the morning, I breathe in God. I breathe in God and I exhale love and I breathe in the power of Gods within me. I breathe out, the grace of God surrounds me

and I read the third step here in the seventh step prayer, and then I do a mantra. I go money, money, money, money, money.

Thank you very much.

OK. Well, now open up for questions. Anybody have any questions?

There's one

we talked about. He grew up in a solo family. All your brothers were celebrating, all sober. Your mother was sober. Sober or sober. Tell me the pros and cons of that, that whole situation. Look, you know, how do we get a manifest result throughout the year?

John asked me if I grew up with a sober family and how that benefited me. My mom wasn't sober. My mom's a dry drug and she never after my dad died, she just stopped drinking and she was an untreated al Anon. So I grew up in that kind of a household

and my eldest brother, when I was, I think my eldest brother Jim, who passed away about eight years ago, he died sober. He had 22 years of sobriety. He was the first one to go to Alcoholics Anonymous when I was 13. And he came home, he was sent to a A by the courts and he came home with the 20 questions and we were all drinking and getting high and any we, we read the 20 questions. And so

at 13, I knew I was an alcoholic. My brother John read most of them and he knew that he better not answer yes to anymore. So we kind of like

the seed was kind of planted.

John was my Eskimo when I was 16 years old, the 1st the very first day a meeting I went to, I had really long hair and we talked about this a lot. I had really long hair. I was wearing no shirt, no shoes. I was wearing Levi's. I think my brother John had a patch pants on. He was wearing a six inch patent leather platform shoes and he had a big Roach feather for an earring and a big white streak in his hair, you know. And his girlfriend Kath has really well endowed and she was wearing overalls, you know, and no shirt, you know, just overalls.

Sunday afternoon we walked into the Pacific group on a Sunday night. You know, I'm 16 years old. There's no team. There's no kids. It's there really were no 16 year olds. I'm June was here probably, but I I don't know. I don't know if I was in 1975, I guess she was here. Yeah. So. But there weren't I think that was it. And Harriet was the other one, but

areas no longer anyway, so and we met this guy Dave and Dave, 12 stepped us and John stayed. And So

what happened? The benefit of John being sober first was I saw John's life just gradually get better. He had that. He went from wearing having that long hair and and the popcorn shoes. And so he got a he used to wear those three piece suits and he's always wearing a tie and he's always he'd always get up here and fix his tie like Rodney Dangerfield. He's always crack. He's just, he was always having fun.

There's no more drama in his life. He wasn't going to jail anymore. He wasn't getting into trouble anymore. And he just became an example. He never told me to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, But every time I got arrested, he he'd pick me up and he, I'd, I'd call him and ask him for help and he would pick me up, but never told me to go to an, a, a meeting and I would just kind of go with them. So he 12 step me and and then my little brother.

I don't know if you guys ever tried to commit suicide but I I tried to commit suicide with the track two razor. I don't know if you've ever done it but it's really hard. My little brother used a steak knife and he cut his arms like 8 times on both sides.

And then he didn't tell me about it. And then because he was afraid that I would be upset with him. And then he, he got sober after that for a little while. Then he went back out again and he drank. The next time he drank he he overdosed on heroin and he died and they brought him back to life. And then he didn't want to tell me about that because he thought I was I'd be upset with him. So the next thing that happened was he lived on an apartment building on Barrington. He got high again, he drank. His sponsor was getting Vernon

and Vernon called me and said, you know, your brother just he tried to commit suicide.

And Luke went up on the on the power lines of his building and grabbed onto him and he burned his hands down. He lost his fingers and he electrocuted himself and and he looks the drummer. He's a really good drummer and he still wasn't ready, you know, so but we just loved him until that's not really the truth. What happened was Vernon asked if I meet him at the meeting. I I mean, I'm at the Pico Alana club and, and Luke was like, Luke looked at me and he goes, you know,

I just want to die.

And so I did what most of you guys would do. I hit them just

I grabbed him. I go, let's go get a rope. I'll hang you right now. And anyway, he's been so ever since

now it's not true. But and then my brother Jim got server and

it's been a really wonderful thing to have this all here. Thanks, John. Thanks for question.

Thank you, Matt. Thank you for your service.

What was mention some of your amends, but what was the most profound one that you experienced and why?

Oh, the question was what was the most profound amends that I made in my

I think the first one was, did my mom? Um,

you know, it's it,

the harm that was done to her was that I felt like I did to her was just so

insane. You know, I mean, just the insanity of the, I was completely out of control. You know, I was, and she was always there for me and, and,

you know, it's, it's, but you know, it's kind of, it was embarrassing too. You know,

one of one of my girlfriend. I mean, there was a lot of drinking. There's a lot of drinking in my house and I and I had no, I had no switch to, I wouldn't listen to her at all. And anyway, I got that to my mother. You know, it's hard to make an event sometimes of some of the stuff that, you know, incomprehensible demoralization that came out of that. But it was freeing in, in a, in that that would be it to my mom. Thanks

in front of a dog space witness very sort of first call that you make when I fall into a dark space what's the first call I make I call my sponsor. I talked to my Howard and or I call somebody in the program. I,

you know,

you know, for me in a dark space would be for me. Sometimes I think about like things that have happened in in a morbid, reflective kind of a way. And I I could really work my way into a depressive, depressed state.

So I've got like, I've got,

I had some things happen with my brain and,

and, and I had this cancer. And then I have, I have some cysts in my brain and, and I have every now and then I get these cluster headaches and I and I'm supposed to get Mr. is every six months. And, and I started getting these Mr. is every six months. And because they want to keep an eye on these, these cysts. And I was having, I have like whiteouts where everything goes. And and last year I had a thing called.

I think it's GTA. It's a, I had a transient global transient amnesia where I, I, I, I was at my house and I, I didn't know where I was. I didn't know I got there somehow or another, my brother came and found me. He brought me to the hospital and for eight hours I, I didn't know what was happening. And it's funny because the thing that I used to do that for fun, you know, but.

So when I thought like anybody here would think, you know, like when I found out that I insisted my brain and then you see the scarring in my I've got these scars in my brain. Like I've got the MRI that just show all this like trauma from all the head injuries and, and I knew there was something wrong. I knew there was something wrong with me other than alcoholism. I knew it. I knew it like we all know it. I know, you know, it's a hangmail, you know, whatever it is. And I'm convinced that there's something else wrong with me. And the more I thought about,

but I just, I could barely even move after a while. So I did what anybody else would do. I don't know about anybody else, but what I did was I just kind of got slowly but surely started walking through that and knowing that I'm not a, I'm not a doctor. I don't want to be a doctor. I don't want to, you know, I got to a place where I don't do the MRI's anymore because I don't, you know, it's going to be what it's going to be. And I don't really, you know, it's, I want to do them every six months, but it created such a darkness and I don't, you know, it doesn't really matter. You know, it doesn't really, it doesn't. I don't, I don't want to be different than anybody. I don't

that's the thing too is I don't want to be different anybody anymore. I just want to be amongst everybody here. Like being secretary of this meeting was the greatest commitment that I've ever had in my sobriety. I mean, if I had had this 20 years ago, I might have you know, I just wanted to be a servant. Like I just wanted to whatever it whatever is best for the group. I don't, you know, I just want to be of service. I don't want to my way whatever I don't. There is no my way is your way

unless we're alone and it's my way.

But you know what I mean? It's just like, I just want to be amongst us and how important we all are and how important the newcomer is and how important that we're here tonight sober, like in that we get to have sober breasts and that, you know that for 38 years I haven't had a drink or, or a drug. And you know, I'm grateful for that. And so I, I, so when I go to how I stay out of a dark place now, what I do now is because I used to. So if I can, I could play the tape of how my life's going to

apart, but I could also play the tape that everything's great. I could look at my life and I can wake up in the morning and say I love my life. I my life's great. I love my life. And I can, and I could do a mantra in my head where everything is OK and I'll do God is good, God is good, God is good, God is good, you know, breathing, God exhale love. I used to think I was crazy because I used to drive around the streets and I'd be like, I'd be, you know, I was trying to replace, you know, anger of people cutting me off with good thoughts. And so when somebody would cut me off, I would hold on to that anger for six hours sometimes, you know,