The Brentwood Beginners Workshop in Los Angeles, CA

Now, let's welcome our speaker, Mick.

Everybody. My name is Mick and I'm an alcoholic.

My sobriety dates April 27th,

2002. I have a sponsor, my sponsor has a sponsor. I've gone through all 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and I've taken other men through the steps as well.

Last time I was on an altar, I spit on the cross. I'm hoping this goes a little differently.

You know, when I came my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and it really breaks my heart to not be able to tell my drunk a lot because there's so much delicious victimhood in that. But I will just focus on the sobriety. My first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous was April 21st, 2001 in Chicago. Is that Jimmy Mack, my man?

The guy saved my life one day. You know, it's funny. I don't want to be here right now. I'm nervous. I don't like being in front of a lot of people. And I had some tragedies happen in my family earlier in the week, but I got to be here. And I show up and I see Jimmy and I see John, and this is where I'm supposed to be. So if you're new and you're uncomfortable or if you've got some time and you want to leave, I'm not going. You know, I got to be up here for 25 minutes. I'm going to try to do something that was impossible for me before I got sober, which is to not lie

for 25 minutes straight.

It's going to try to be absolutely honest and umm,

you know, I, I had locks changed a couple of weekend stints with the Chicago PD and lock up facilities where, you know, I woke up saying, you know, I don't remember buying a bedroom set that looks like a prison cell.

When did you guys move in? You know, just not knowing how I got there, not knowing what district I was in, having someone pick me up. And because I was young, that was a wild adventure. There was no tragedy in that because I had deluded myself and to convince, I convinced myself that it was an adventure that was on a great alcoholic adventure. And after the locks are changed, jobs

fired, people no longer wanting to associate with me, I thought, I have to get sober.

And, umm, I knew nothing about Alcoholics Anonymous. I saw it on TV. That's all I knew about it. And it turns out later that my grandfather was sober, but I didn't know that He, he, he said he was just going to the club. That was his turn. I'm going to the club. And I found out later that the club was Alcoholics Anonymous.

But I went April 21st and I went to a night meeting and I had called information. I called 411 and I said I need the number to Alcoholics Anonymous. They gave it to me. Someone answered and I said, this is where I'm at. And I, I, I guess I have to go to a meeting. They gave me an address and I sat outside and I practice saying my name. And then I'm an alcoholic because I'm pretty sure that that's what you needed to do. And I went into this room and it was smoky and there were four people in this room.

And they started and it was like the teacher on

Charlie Brown. I just was twisted. And they said, is anyone here new to Alcoholics Anonymous? Please raise your hand and say your name and the nature of your disease. So my hand went up. I said my names Mick, and I'm an alcoholic. And it was like someone pulled a pen out of my throat. I started shaking and sobbing. And I'm getting fired and I'm losing the job and my wife's going to leave. And I got to stop drinking. And I can't stop drinking. I can't even stop my own hands from putting alcohol in my mouth. And I 20 minutes, I went on talking

this meeting and the secretary was so kind. She just said OK, and now I'd like to introduce our speaker and we're going to start the meeting.

And, you know, I had that weird

moment that everything might, might be OK. And so I I was looking around. This is a small room. It was an old guy with a some missing teeth and a young kid and A and a woman with a mullet. And

I just, I felt something. I felt something. And then I started looking up on the wall because I could not make eye contact with any of these people. I just had that new guy rock and just look over people and I saw

were powerless over alcohol and our our lives are unmanageable. Yes that is the truth and came to believe a power greater than our. That sounds very poetic and nice. I love power, It would be nice to have power in my life.

Made a decision to turn our life and our will over to go no,

Oh no no. And then I looked around like I was going to be attacked at any moment. Like I'm going to be at the airport handing out flowers next week and like banging a tambourine and a tent for Jesus. And I, I, I just locked up that 5 seconds ago. I was open to anything, anything you would have told me. I was so desperate and broken. And as soon as I saw the word God,

I just be, I was riddled with terror.

And I've heard it in AA. This is this is not something that I've come up with, but I've heard people say, you know, I didn't want to pray because I don't want God to know where I was. And that was my standing with God. And

I shut down and then the guy next to me just starts rubbing my back

just like

for no reason. He's just like, And then he's like working the neck and the shoulders and I'm like, what's up with this guy? You know, like in what world is it okay to just start rubbing another man down? Like

I can't even believe this. Like I'm staring at the word God's the answer while this guys like it just keep coming back. Just keep coming back. Here's my number. Just call me 24/7 with whatever you want. And I'm like, this is this is the end. This is the end. This is the worst thing ever.

And then he's like you should you should buy a book. And I'm like, oh, this is a book hustle. Does you guys are hustling books here. That's what you do. You're like, this is about selling some books. I get it. Fine, I'll buy your dumb book. And

you know, I walked out of there and I was angry. I was a little resentful. I was certainly scared and

I called my wife and I said, you know these, they know about drinking. There's some God shit I'm not on with right now, but I'm pretty sure I could skate that. But they know about drinking and

I said it's over, the nightmare's over and I didn't make it home. I stopped at the bar and I came home three days later.

And when I was coming home, I remember two things that they said at that meeting. They said if you're drinking, it will get worse. If you're an alcoholic and you continue to drink, it will get worse. So simple on its surface, but another drunk had never told me that. The priest told me that, and the counselor and the social worker told me that, and my aunt told me that. But I never had somebody that drank like I did tell me. If you're an alcoholic and you continue to drink, it'll get worse

and you will find yourself engaging and pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization,

which I had never heard. I considered myself a consumer of literature and I had never heard. You're going to become a scumbag, put so eloquently

that you will experience pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.

And that's what happened. And so I would go to meetings Monday through Thursday and I, and I didn't get a sponsor and I would even share at those meetings nothing but disease. And then I would drink. I'd go out Friday night. I drink all day Friday night, all day Saturday, and I come home Sunday. And that was my first experience with Alcoholics Anonymous. And I continue to slide deeper and deeper and deeper until I, I, I, I didn't know how to brush my teeth. I didn't know how to open mail. I didn't know how to go to work three days in a row. And sleeping outside started to make a lot of

to me because what do you got to do? Keep the box dry and drink? I could do that. And that scared the hell out of me.

And I had a woman that I was coming home and I was breaking her heart every night. And I don't want to be that guy. I didn't want to. I just didn't go through what I went through to be that guy. And so I went back into Alcoholics Anonymous on April 27th, 2002. At that point I had moved to Los Angeles

and I said I spoke from a podium and I said I feel like I'm going to die. I never listen to anybody. I never got a sponsor. I read the big book like it was Tom Sawyer. I just know that if I go out again, I'm pretty sure I'm going to die

and I don't know what to do. And I walked off and a young lady sitting in the front row at Radford Hall in the Valley said go ask the guy making coffee to be your sponsor.

Only people in this room will understand. What a miracle

that was with me. I said, OK, I didn't say, who were you? Who's the guy making coffee? What's his deal? Are you guys in on something that I don't know about? I just said, OK, I was desperate enough to go and ask a total stranger, Hey, there's someone in the other room that thinks I should ask you to be my sponsor. And he said, all right, listen, when the meeting's over, you and I are going to go for coffee.

And I said

there's coffee right behind you.

And he said I don't want any bullshit.

He said, we're going to go get coffee.

Are we going to get, are we clear? He wasn't. It was stern, but it wasn't mean. It wasn't vindictive. And I said, yeah, man, I'd really like that. We went down the street. He sat me down and he said, here's the deal. Are you willing to stay? So are you willing to go to any lengths to stay sober one day at a time?

And I said, yeah, man, I got to tell you, I might have heard that before. He goes just today. Can you stay sober until you go to bed? And if you feel like drinking, hurting yourself or anybody else, you call me. Can you do that?

And I said that I can do. He backed it up into the day I was living in and he said, I want you to do 90 meetings in 90 days. I want you to read the big book. I want you to get commitments immediately. Whatever they got that has no time requirements. I want your hand to go up. Sweeping bathrooms, coffee, greeting, whatever hand goes up, I'm going to take you on panels and we're going to go into, you know, hospitals. And I didn't know what any of that wasn't like. Yes, I will do that. Yes, yes, yes.

And that's what happened. I started going to meetings and I just sat there and I rocked back and forth and I would call him every day. And I go, hey, Steve, it's Mick. He goes, how you doing? I go I'm good, man.

And the longest, most awkward, intense pauses ever, I think, in my life, he goes, yeah, yes, man, I'm good, I'm good. How you doing? He goes, this isn't about me. How are you doing? And I go, I'm good. He goes, all right, call me tomorrow.

Do it again next day. Hey man, Steve, how are you? It's Mick. I'm calling to check in. How you doing? I'm good. All right, I guess. Yeah, call me tomorrow. So finally after like 3 weeks, I'm like, I don't know what like Mr. Miyagi shit you're pulling on me here. Like

I keep calling and I, you say, how you doing? I'm telling you, I'm telling you I'm good. And then you don't say anything. And I'm listening to these people share at these meetings about these relationships that they have with the sponsor. And they go to Ojai and they go by the beach and they talk and they have this big connection. But you're, you're ice cold man. I call you, you don't say shit. What's the deal with you? And he's like, well, how you doing? And I go, I'm not, I'm not doing good at all, man. They're coming to get the repo, the car. They tried to evict me from the apartment, man. There's this neighbor downstairs.

I, I would wanted to knock his teeth out. And you know, I'm, I'm horrible, man. Of course I'm horrible. He's like, now we're talking. Now you and I can have a normal conversation. If you're going to be honest with me, I'm down. I'm here for you. And it occurred to me in that moment, and I can't tell you the shame that I felt and the embarrassment that I could not bring to the forefront of my memory. The last time I had an honest conversation with another man

where I wasn't jocking for position

ride. It wasn't wearing a mask where I didn't need something for him, where we weren't in a little dance of what's really happening here,

that I was just defenses down in the moment having a conversation with another guy. Because I didn't come from a neighborhood where, you know, I I was on the bar stool and I could look and go, Hey, Frank, just so you know, I'm, I'm very fear based today,

just tearing up and I don't know why. And I'm just going to run a 10 step by real quick if that's cool. No, all right, I just though there weren't I, I came up in an environment where if I was happy, it's what the F for you so happy about. And if I was sad, it's I'll give you something to really be sad about. So I learned right away that you get nothing, you get nothing, you get nothing from me. And so it's very difficult for me when something demanded everything for me, which is what sobriety demands for me. In my experience, the more I

you, the more honest I am with my sponsor, the deeper I go into my inventory, and the more willing and open I am to new ideas, the better my life gets.

Plain and simple. So I started going to meetings and then I wanted to check out because I didn't hear my story. This is a bunch of rich douchebags. That's what this thing is. I'm going back to Chicago where we are fine with our misery.

And then a guy shared my story almost to a tee and I was out. That was the day I was going to go drink, but I was at a meeting and wanted a drink instead of at the bar wanting to drink. So that day I happened hear my story and another day I wanted to go out in the sky. Tim sit next to me and he man, I just wanted a drink and I I had that irritability and I just was disconnected. And he said

he's just sitting next to me

unprompted, says.

Man, sometimes I just like a

a pint glass full of warm whiskey.

And I just thought I'm in the right place. I'm in the right place.

All these little insignificant things collectively add up to this sobriety I have. I, I was unemployable. I was parking cars at Casa Vega. I got fired for stealing and then steel. I didn't steal any of them. Some guy was doing an old hustle. This guy stole my CDs give me $300.00. I didn't steal. Now I, I, I wanted to tell him, you know, I have a year sobriety and I'm leading a spiritual life

your normal. So you can't really comprehend how spiritual I am and

I would never think to steal this man CD's. You see, I'm a sober alcoholic and I go to meetings and I, you know, a lot of commitments. It's a very in depth. It's just the thing I do. It's pretty amazing.

And so I didn't steal this guy's things. I said I couldn't say any of that. I said no,

I didn't do it in that I hope you give me a fair shake on this. And they said we'll give you a fair shake, but you're fired. So good luck with that. And so now I was fired, newly sober. My wife was pregnant and

I didn't get sober to have some child inherit my mistakes. That wasn't part of the deal. I didn't get sober so that my my son could pay my bill for living a wrong life. And so I got a job at Starbucks, regretfully so beneath me. Newly sober

job at Starbucks and taking the garbage out

and it's not going to work.

Not going to work.

I start following guys down the street that have the little bubble on the Rolex and I'm going to Jack them in the back of the neck and take the watch, pawn it. That'll catch me up at least for a couple months, and I think I better call my sponsor first.

And I'm telling him reluctantly because that's what I was taught, rigorous honesty.

It's not getting better. It's not getting better. It's to the point where in order for my wife to eat and my son to have Similac once he was born, the formula, I would have to eat the broken muffins because there wasn't enough money for three of us. So see, I didn't sign up for this. That's not sobriety. That's what I'm telling myself. And so I figured, my son's six months old, if I kill myself, he'll never know me. So it's no harm, no foul. And my wife's a young, good looking woman. She can find a guy that got the rule book

because this is not sobriety. This is not what I'm supposed to be doing. I didn't get sober for this. I didn't get sober for a kid to come up like I did. Why is this kid got to pay the price over and over the tape in my head.

So a friend of mines rehabbing 22 bedrooms on a hill in Echo Park

and I think if I put a card room in one of these things

and open a bar and the other I could probably make 5 grand cash a week. I can see the cop cars coming up the hill and I can see helicopters coming 10 miles away. I got it, I got this. Finally, God has given me a plan.

But I need somebody to come in on this and I'm at the back of Radford Hall and I just need one guy and I'm pitching this guy. I got, I think I got hooks in them. And I'm like, listen, you run the door. I give you 1500 cash a week.

It's a number brainer, man. We fill this up, we get card games running around the clock. We get a bar going. A couple tricks in there were aces and I'm watching this guy just smoking his cigarette and I think I got him.

I just need one guy to cosign it And he said, kid, I got 21 years sober. I don't cosign bullshit. Go back in the meeting

and that was Jimmy. So

I had never been treated with that kind of integrity before, where you kind of want to hit somebody

but you know it's going to get bloody and you know you're wrong. So I went back into the meeting and things got worse.

And I was just to the breaking point.

So I went to Tree People, Sober Meetings, commitment

sponsor, secretary of meetings with this idea of who and what I have to be as a sober man, literally killing me minute by minute. And I said, God,

I cannot do this.

I can't pay my bills, I can't feed my family.

I don't know how to do this. It seems like in this town, everybody walks outside in the morning, pulls a lever, money falls all over them, they pick it up and go back inside.

I don't know what to do.

Please help me and I know I'm not supposed to put any type of parameters when I'm talking to you but this is this is what I need.

I need to know

that my wife and son and I will sleep indoors

every night in a safe place that has no bugs in it,

and when I open the fridge, there will be food in the fridge

and that the clothes we wear will be clean. Those are my deal requirements. That's what I need. I don't think I'm asking a lot. Please, please. And I will do anything. If those three things can happen, God, I will do anything. I am ready to do whatever it is that you have in store for me. But I can't do this. And I walked down

the hill at Fryman in the valley, and I felt like I was a little lighter and I had surrendered that

thing that was killing me because I just couldn't figure it out. I couldn't control and manage it,

and two weeks later, my life changed forever. And that's my story. Maybe it'll be your story, maybe it won't. That's my story. And I had to do that. I had to get broke into the point where I was going to kill myself. Do I want to say that now with 11 1/2 years sober? No, But someone here right now might be thinking that, and I'm you. There's no difference. And if we go to bed sober tonight, we're tied for first.

All of the things that I learned day one are the same as they are now.

I went back for so now I want to wear my hair on time. So now I'm sponsoring guys. My lifes changed and I remember being the guy sitting in the back of of meetings in Los Angeles going please give me that problem,

please. I'll take that problem any day of the week. You want to trade places right now, my man? That's what you're bitching about? Are you serious? Oh my God, I call my sponsor. All right? I got a resentment. I got to ride on this guy.

You know, I've learned in a a that if you stick around long enough, it's the place where your dreams become your problems. And so here I thought if I had this thing, everything would be better. I got the thing. I legitimately got the thing. And the thing lasted for about a week. It brought me about a week's worth of joy until the complaining started. And I can't believe

so. What does that tell me as someone who suffers from a seemingly hopeless state of mind, of mind and body, a progressively

fatal illness, disease that centers in my mind that this is about God,

that lack of power is my dilemma, and that I have a daily reprieve based on the maintenance of a spiritual condition.

That's it. And so if I make it about getting the thing

when I get the thing, there's no way it's going to live up to my obsessive expectations. And so I'll be, as my sponsor calls it, chronically dissatisfied.

That's it. If I'm not connected to a power greater than myself that can solve my dilemma,

I'm doomed. And I love that thing in the book that says to be doomed to an alcoholic death or lead a life based in spiritual principles are not an easy decision for the alcoholic.

Because when I read that, I'm like, define doomed.

Like, what are we talking about when you say doomed?

But if you tell that to anybody else, they're like, what are the things? What's the thing that I have to do? My mother-in-law, who, you know, when I was dating her daughter for a year, I thought I, I, I, I got it. I got this. I'm going to live in a storage facility because it's only 150 bucks a month and I have a gym membership, so I'm only like, it's like 300 bucks. Are you kidding me? I can't believe no one's even thought of this yet.

It's heated. I throw a bed in there and I'm like telling her like I was telling Jimmy, like Can you believe these idiots that just 24 hour access, Why wouldn't you live there?

And she's like, because it's a storage facility,

that's why you don't live there. You put files and old shoes there

and she said this is what you're going to do. You're going to live in our basement.

This is pre sobriety. This is me, you know, second guy from the left on the evolutionary chart.

Just, you know,

and and that was that was her response. I, I, I need to go to 1 Hopefully I just a meeting a day. Please call my sponsor, pray at least twice a day, meditate, talk to my sponsees to come close to her default mode

of just who she is as a woman and A and a matriarch of her family

to be that loving and kind and selfless. I now have a daughter. I have a son and a daughter. If I saw me at the at the dinner table, I'd be like, that's a great idea. You should go there now. You should move into that storage shed now and then never come back here where this is don't come back here. Just stay over there if you could, if you're open to suggestions.

I can't even get my head around being that kind to somebody. I just so I, I, but I'm open to it. And I, she got diagnosed with a, a breast cancer and we went back for Thanksgiving and she just finished her her chemo and she was going to

make Thanksgiving dinner for everybody.

She got emergency diverticulitis surgery 12 hours after we were there. They put a bag on her. She could the second she comes out of the anesthesia, she says the turkeys at Maureen's house, you got to get the Turkey and you got to bring it over to Tom's house. Her first thought was if someone else, her first conscious waking thought was how can I be of service?

And she's an inspiration for me. Broke my heart, broke my wife's heart. We come back Tuesday my neighbor's Pitbull attacks our dog and then it dies.

And Tuesday I also started a new job. As I share all this because this is my life right now in sobriety. My heart breaks every day for my mother-in-law. So my we're going back. How can I be of service?

I had to tell my children a week before Christmas that their puppy is gone. My wife is a mess. How can I be of service? How can I just sit here quietly and let everyone be sad and let them get through what they need to get through?

I learned I'm starting this new job beyond my wildest dreams and I have to tell the boss I got to go because my family needs me.

Because I didn't.

I didn't check out, I didn't get hiding it loaded. I didn't drink, I didn't pick up. I didn't kill myself. I didn't get into a situation that would have incarcerated me.

I just went through the pain and I'll tell you, and everyone in this room knows I thought I was going to die. I thought if I don't kill myself, this pain will kill me. But it didn't. I'm standing here. It didn't. And it comes back a little sometimes for no reason. It comes back and gets me, but I go through it and to tell these people my first day of work that I had to go killed me. And this is a guy.

I was the type of guy that I would get a job and I would go out drinking the night before

and drink straight through the first day, get home around 3:00 in the afternoon the first day and then sleep till the next morning and then go into work. And the boss would always be like, where were you? And I said, what are you talking about? And he'd say, you're supposed to start yesterday. And I go, no, no, no, today. Today you said today he goes, it's Tuesday. Who starts on a Tuesday? I'm like, that's what I thought.

That's just so weird. Who starts on a Tuesday? Payroll's a Monday. That's when he worked. Monday

he goes, yeah, who would? Who would miss? Who would not come in on the first day? Yeah, I must have. I must have said yeah, I guess I said Tuesday

I would go to the bar that night. Like worked again. Best drinking Jedi mind trick in the history

of drinking. How to get out of your very first day of work. It was like the best. I thought that was the best thing ever.

And now this Tuesday,

it, it killed me to have to leave because those people are paying me good money to show up and work hard for them and my names on the line. And my name means something to me now. I want to be a worker among workers, a friend among friends. I want to be a good father. And I practice these principles in all my affairs.

If you're new, I want to welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous. I hope you stick around. I hope they they say don't leave 5 minutes before the miracle happens. I'm telling you I'm not selling it to you. I'm not shucking and jiving. I'm telling you I love Alcoholics Anonymous. It saved my life and it gave me a life that I couldn't possibly fathom. It gave me a life where me is a guy that wanted to die,

is happy, joyous and free and I don't know if I can ever pay that back. So thank you.

I guess we're going to take questions now. What Does anybody have a question I'd like to ask?

Yes, Sir.

How is the meetings in Chicago different than the fellowship in LA? Thanks for asking the question. I love going home. You know, Chicago is a,

it works. People get sober there. I, for whatever reason, when I came to LA, really enjoyed the, you know, people would say their names in the meeting and then everyone would clap. Like we just said our names, we set our names. We should clap.

And in Chicago, they're like any birthdays. And yeah, Frank, 35 years. Good job, Frank. Who wants to reach chapter 5? Like it's just this weird thing. It's not at the end, you know, I at the end, everyone does the kind of funeral grasp with their hands like this and heads heads down and praying. And

you know, at first I was like, you guys are doing this wrong. In LA, we have birthday parties and cakes and we sing and every time someone talks, we applaud. This is like a death March, these meetings and

a guy, I went to a meeting at a place called The Twist of House on Wilson, which is where I my Home group in Chicago when I go and this guy who was a Carpenter goes, hey, California, you know, we call you and I'm like, I actually grew up a mile down the street. But he's like, yeah, whatever, Mr. California, we call you Mr. Feelings.

So it's like,

you know, this day, I guess you would call it a little plug in the jug with a, with a little emotion on it. But you know, when you start being like really getting in your feelings, you just see the guy start rolling their eyes and shaking their head.

So, but it's refreshing. It's certainly a nice break from I miss it and I'm going to be there for I'm going the 28th through the 5th and I already have all my meetings lined up. I don't play around. I know where I'm going, where I'm going to be there when my next meeting is good, bad or indifferent. And it's weird because it work. I've had a chance to go to meetings in Detroit. I just met somebody from Detroit and New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

Just got to see how people, you know, in the swamp get sober. I'm like, what's that all about? Like, it's crazy, you know, just keeping an open mind to how other people do it. So how about anybody else a question? This is so weird answering questions. John,

talk a little bit about your men's process. Anything outstanding?

What is the immense process like for me? Yeah, I'd like to tell you

when I first came in Alcoholics Anonymous before, well before then, I would every day I would take a little time out of my day to,

I visualize seeing my mother

and then I'd visualize killing her.

And then I, and then I make sure that I, I felt the bars of the prison on and, and that metal bed and what the food was going to taste like. And I wanted to prepare myself to do the time if I had the ever had the opportunity to do the crime. And I am dead serious. So I literally had a resentment that was so strong that I was putting myself in prison every day in my mind. That's how intense this resentment was.

And so when my sponsor said, read Freedom from bondage,

and then I want you to pray for your mother and give her in prayer everything that you would want to have in your life. And I thought this is the one where you've crossed the line.

Like this is you don't understood. You hear what I just told you about murder, Like, I'm not kidding with you about this. I'm not messing around. And he's like, do if. If you like the way that you're feeling,

by all means keep doing what you're doing. If you don't like the way that you're feeling, here are some actions that you can take

that will change how you're thinking and feeling.

Now, for a guy like me, I had felt and had. I had feelings and I had instincts that I had reacted to my entire life as my primary source of information. And it never occurred to me until I came to a A that that might be faulty information. It never even crossed my mind for a second that my instincts to kill my mom might be unjustified. And so, through gritted teeth and much and furious anger and resentment, I prayed for my mother.

After about a month, that whole resentment was lifted to the point where my mother is She's passed away two years ago but suffered from alcoholism, drug addiction, mental illness,

convicted felon, and I wrote her a letter when I was 18. I was headed down

a wrong path. I saw her on the street and I said get in the car and she could tell that I meant it.

I drove over to this pool hall that I was hustling pool and this guy was selling this Moochie cube. It's a pool cue. It's a $600.00 queue. He was going to give it to me for $300.00. So I shook my mom down for $300.00. I said, listen, you've destroyed my life. You know it, I know it. This guy I'm buying this pool cue from. We're driving to the bank. You're taking out $300.00. We're coming back here. I'm going to get this. Q Are we? Are we cool? You understand what I'm saying?

I basically robbed my mother for $300.

I did that.

That's who I am and that's what I'm capable of. I'm not that guy today, but I'm this far away from being that guy.

And so I wrote my mother a letter. I found where she was down in Florida and I said, listen,

I I basically robbed you and I'm ashamed of that behavior. I've taken a lot of actions to not be that person anymore. Here's the amount of money that I took from you with interest. And here's some picture of your grandchildren. And if at any time in your life you feel like I have any ill will towards you, I want you to know that I do not.

You may be beating yourself up thinking

you did some things. I'm totally cool with everything. So please accept this amends from me and hopefully this brings you some peace as a mother

not might go to plan from a guy that was going to kill her and I and I'm dead serious to a guy that wanted to send his mother pictures of her grandchildren and pay her back. That was the power of this program and she passed away and we were on we were on good terms. So that's probably my greatest experience with the men's. Thanks, John. Yes Sir.

People say like don't get sober for anyone else. Get sober.

Sounds like you're

I'd be dead. I mean, if it wasn't for oh, did I get sober for myself or for my wife and my son? Well, we, she wasn't pregnant yet,

you know, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't want her to go. I didn't, I didn't think I loved her. I didn't have the capacity to do it. I just didn't have the capacity to, to, to, to be the guy that I wanted to be continually. And, and there was a thing that I wanted to read in the and we agnostics where it says if a mere code of morals are a better philosophy of life would suffice. Many of us would have recovered from alcoholism long ago, but we found such codes and morals didn't work.

Our willpower no longer works on our problems. Lack of power was our dilemma.

That's talking about a code of morals. That's how I want to be a better husband. I want to be a good employer. I desperately wanted to be the guy that could sit on the sofa with her and watch Felicity.

Did you sit there and be the guy that rubs his wifes feet and you need anything? I go in the kitchen and I will get it for you because I'm a good guy. I no, I like 5 minutes and I'm out of I'm walking around. I'm probably got nothing to do. I'm just in another room for no reason, just pacing and come back in and she's like where were you? And I'm like in the other room doing you know, what do you want? What's wrong?

Well, we were just watching like I couldn't do any of it. I couldn't be at work and have

appropriate conversation. Like, you know, I'd be telling my boss the most horrific stories, thinking that's just passing. That's what we talk about, right? We just talk about, well, you don't tell that here at the telemarketing place when you got stabbed in an alley. That's not the good story. Like

I just had no idea how to.

But amidst all of that,

seeing how deep, you know, coming home after three days and plugging the cell phone back in and hearing 50 messages with a woman sobbing, saying I don't care who you're with or what you're doing, just let me know you're alive.

Certainly wasn't my intentions when I left the house when I was just going to have a couple beers

and I thought,

I want to do this, this woman. And then when I stuck around long enough, I really started to understand, obviously, that this is about me staying sober day at a time and that it's not about causes and conditions or me making somebody else happy. But that was another stage that I crossed over in my sobriety, probably around. I'll tell you exactly when. It was at six months when my wife decided I'd six months sober, she would stop taking the pill without telling me. And I got pregnant and I was riding a girl's bike to

work her bike. And I thought, this doesn't seem like father material to me. Like

once I'm riding your bike to a boiler room job that I'm about to quit because I don't like the way it makes me feel. And I didn't get sober to be on, you know, be a scam artist. And so I said,

this is what you want, this is what she wants. I'm her husband. We talked about having kids. Sometimes it's not on my terms. And I got to dig in and and get ready to be a father. And I had to call. I didn't know what to do. And my sponsor says, you know, the sober men and Alcoholics Anonymous that are fathers.

And my experience had been so narrow, like, I've just married guy, no kids, sober guy. And then my experience expands. And then there's men and women right there to meet you for whatever you need that had that experience. I never wanted to be the LA guy with a tiny little dog. Never