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Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> Good evening.

My name's Carl. I'm an alcoholic. >> Want to thank Tom for asking me to be out here.

And I'd like to thank Bernie for not objecting to it when I got here. I also want to really thank you people for the for the hospitality you've shown me. I tell you the the the kindness and the love and and and everybody I I have not met one person who did not take the attitude with me of how can I help?

What can I do to make you feel feel better and what can I do to help you? And and that's not always true in Alcoholics Anonymous. I've often run around uh Alcoholics Anonymous saying that if you if you uh like everybody in Alcoholics Anonymous, you're not going to enough meetings.

And uh but I find that's not true in Texas, at least not here. So anyway, I uh in keeping with tradition, I'll state my sobriety date and uh through a through a loving God and the in the program and fellowship of alcoholics anonymous in the unselfish actions of two two men in particular, I haven't had to take a drink or a drug since January 21st, 1987. I uh you may you may find think that well six and six years and four months is kind of young to be a a speaker.

That's not really so true in Los Angeles, but I uh I was I called my my uh sponsor earlier today and he told me to let you know just as as Arley was introduced that I come from very good heritage. Sponsors like to claim we come from very good heritage and this is this is this is absolutely true with me. My sponsor's name is Eddie Cochran and for 30 years he was sponsored by Chuck Chamberlain and Chuck Chamberlain sponsor was God.

So, uh, and and in 1984, Chuck died. So, there's one more step closer. Even on top of that, last September, we all got a really big scare with Eddie and he had a 20 lb tumor removed.

And so, for a while, it was really scary, but I guess I would have been one step closer. But anyway, anyway, didn't ask if any any people were brand new here in Alcoholics Anonymous. And if there are, I really want to welcome you to Alcoholics Anonymous.

Hope you find here what I have found here. I have a little bit of advice for people that are brand new. And you and if you've been around for a while, you may think this is a little bit crazy, but I'll explain myself.

If you're brand new here in Alcoholics Anonymous and you're wondering, now that I'm here in AA, what am I going to do about all my old friends? Can I call them? Can I go over and see them?

Can I have them come over? Should what should I tell them about what I'm doing? What can I do?

Da da da da da da. Your head may be just spinning around with it. You maybe even be thinking, maybe I can go over to the crack house and just hold the torch and see how their life is going.

Uh, that type of thing. What I suggest you do is that you call your old friends and you let them know that you're an alcoholic and that you're an alcoholic synonymous and then lay this one on them. Tell them that if they ever drank with you, they must surely be alcoholic, too.

And unless they find find what you found here in Alcoholics Anonymous, they will surely die. I remember I told you it may sound a little bit weird, but I'll explain myself. I don't recommend you do that to carry any sort of message or what we say plant a seed in anybody's mind.

It's uh my recommendation for doing that is because after you do that, you will have no old friends to worry about and you'll be left with us as your friends and you'll probably have a better chance of this thing called sobriety. I uh I also don't recommend near beer as a way to wean yourself off of alcohol. Often wonder near beer, how near do you want to get?

Uh if you were going to do that, maybe you may as well go out and get some near pot and some near cocaine and we'll just nearly get loaded. But anyway, enough of this nonsense. I got to alcoholic synonymous when I was 25 years old.

I was burnt out in every single area of my life and I had no solution on how to live. And yet I would question things. I don't know if you're doing that now, which you may be, but I know I did.

I identified with a lot. And I'll get to that, but but I also question things. And I remember pulling a fellow aside when I was new and thought I needed to tell him about some of these things I was questioning.

He was a good AA, so he listened. I'm sure he wasn't too interested in what I had to say, but he listened for a bit. And I told him that, you know, I'm hearing all kinds of people say from the podium that they felt very, very different as a child even before they took their first drink.

And this wasn't true in my case. And I thought I needed to prove it to this fellow. And so I told him, I just don't remember feeling very different as a child before I took my first drink.

And I went on to tell the fellow even more. I told him that at 4 years old, my father packed our whole family out of Helena, Montana, moved us to the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. I went to a Mandarin Chinese kindergarten.

All the kids were melee and Chinese. I was the only white kid there and I didn't feel different. And uh the fellow looked at me for a second.

He said, "Son, this alcoholism in reverse cuz a normal kid would have felt very different at that form of what he was giving me was the kinder, gentler way of saying if you're looking for the differences instead of the similarities, you're going to die." Plain and simple. Very valuable information to get early on in Alcoholics Anonymous. Anyway, I came back from Asia when I was about 9 years old and uh and I was a goofy goofy kid.

I had short hair. I was playing violin. I was doing really well in school and I loved my family.

Kind of kid that might grow up to be a geeky yepy in a suit kind of like what I look like tonight. But uh so something happened along the way. I took a drink at 11 years old just basically out of curiosity.

And I was like a time bomb waiting to go off. I had no idea. Uh I stole a bottle of wine from my father, locked myself in a study when my parents were out of town for that weekend and proceeded to drink.

And I'll tell you that I believe it was alcoholism right off the bat. And I'll tell you why. First sign of alcoholism was that I I got a feeling deep inside that I just had never felt before.

It was just incredible. Just incredible. But that's the last thing I remember.

Uh next thing I remember, I woke up in my my bedroom and there's vomit all over the room. Just all over the room. And there's two signs of of alcoholism.

Immediate change of perception. Second sign, loss of control, blacking out. But the third sign was my thought process the next morning.

And that's what makes me believe I was alcoholic for sure right off the bat. And that is you see after I realized how sick I felt. I had felt the sick one time before in my life while while we lived in Asia.

I contracted this intestinal disease called tropical worms. Easily cured once diagnosed, but it took the doctors a couple of weeks to diagnose it. So for a couple of weeks, I was throwing up.

I couldn't eat. And I had very intense headaches, much like this hangover I I was experiencing years later. But here here's the here's the clincher on this alcoholism thing.

Once I ran to the bathroom and threw up one more time, I said to myself, "I'm going to do that again." I didn't do that with the tropical worms. I didn't say, "I'm going to go try tropical worms again." There was some sort of peculiar mental twist that was going to lead me right back to what had destroyed me the night before. And it was like an overnight sensation.

Once I started drink all of a sudden, remember I described myself as a goofy kid, short hair, playing violin, doing really well in school, loved my family. Like overnight once I started drinking, all of a sudden out into violin and came to heavy metal guitar, wanted to grow my hair down to my ass. school became a very secondary issue and my parents became the enemy immediately.

Uh posters went up, black lights went on in my room, the posters went up, my gods became Jimmy Page and Richie Blackmore and my parents just stood by going and uh of course I started hanging out with kids that were doing the same thing as I was doing. We would drink in the morning and then we'd smoke that commercial pot. Remember that stuff in back in the 70s?

Useless stuff. You had to smoke about seven joints to get high. You smelled worse than you were.

guys would be standing around at that outside the at the at the school and they'd be loading up this big bowl of haul seeds and stems and popping on you'd be burning your your clothes and stuff like that and uh you know I'm just uh boy did I I but I always just love to drink and I was and by 14 years old I was trying to figure out how to control my drinking because I was blacking out a lot and the reason I didn't want to black out anymore this is kind of embarrassing to say but but it wasn't because I was worried about it. It's because some of my friend, this one friend of mine told me one morning that he had seen me at when I was about 14 years old and I was in the bushes with this girl and she had her shirt off and I don't remember a damn thing and I was thinking I need to remember things like that. So, so how am I going to control these things?

And and through a series of events, I I I found this I was introduced by this older person at this restaurant where I was a bus boy on how to control my drinking. was this little white powder that she put out on this mirror, did this big chop chop chop chop chop, lined it out, rolled up this bill, and I was incredibly impressed with this ceremony. And she handed it to me.

She said, "Snort this. You won't you won't be blacking out anymore." She was absolutely right. Absolutely right.

But now I got a problem. How do I afford this on a bus boy's tips? And uh so I went back to this waitress and I told her my problem.

You know, this is really helping my drinking. I really really like this. And and uh how do I afford this now?

and she had my answer. I'm going to the wrong people for my solutions at this point in my life. And she took me up and introduced me to her husband up up up at her house.

And he took me down into his basement and and he opened up this sealed up bag of the most incredible pot I'd ever seen. Remember, everybody's smoking commercial pot. This guy had this stuff that was was like out of this High Times magazine.

I don't know if that magazine is still out there or not, but he he he rolled up this joint and he took a took a hit. I should have gotten a hint from that and he handed it down to me. Remember, I'm only about 4' 11 at this point.

handed it to me and I took this hit and it just blew up in my lungs and I went right down on the ground barking like a dog and uh I handed it back up to him and he took another hit and he handed it back to me and he asked me a question that changed the course of my life. He said, "Can you sell any of this at school?" My eyes got big and I said, "Absolutely. I'll be the most popular kid in school, guaranteed." Once again, overnight my parents phone is ringing off the hook.

All the kids are calling me. They're all trying to find me and I'm just uh answering the phone on the first ring trying to hide this from my parents. And then I'd be doing that after school all afternoon trying to set things up for the night.

And I'd run up to the dinner table and I'd sit there and my mother would ask me questions like, "How's school?" These are very good questions that I can't answer. And uh then I'd run back downstairs and answer the phone on the first ring. I forgot to mention my father was a neighborhood Lutheran minister that put a damper on things every time.

And this is what I did through junior high in high school is I I sold pot to afford cocaine so that I could escalate my drinking. The core issue was always the alcohol. And I certainly hope it doesn't offend anybody for for mentioning drugs in an alcoholic anonymous meeting.

But I will assure you of one thing. I promise you I did drugs alcoholically. I absolutely promise you.

And so anyway, that's what I need to do during high school. And my parents always blame my problems on people, places, and things. If we can just get them away from that group of kids, things will be fine.

We can get them out of that damn public school, things will be fine. Twice they sent me to private schools, I I would drop out and get kicked out. And uh through after very I I barely scraped out of the public school system.

And after a very nasty summer, they they had my they they tried to help again. Man, do I love my parents for how much they tried to help. They tried to help again and again and again to no avail.

They had no idea I was alcoholic. I didn't know I was alcoholic. And they and we lived in Seattle and they and their solution at this point was to send me across state to this place called Washington State University.

And they were going to flip the bill for this. And I spent three years at Washington State University and got 10 credits. I uh I at any given time my grade point average matched my blood alcohol content about a 0.25 25.

I did absolutely nothing at that school. And uh and now my parents had a life that was based on love and service. And I know that at that time they were just practicing a protective mechanism of we just don't want to know what you're doing.

And after 3 years became painfully aware they became painfully aware of what I was doing. And they they showed up over there at Washington State University unexpectedly. And they let me know that uh you can consider yourself uh on your own.

You really uh we've tried again and again and again and you've done nothing but spit in our face. And this was absolut the absolute truth. But guys like me can't handle that truth.

And we just come back and and and say things to people we love dearly with profanity and and telling them we don't need them anyway. And I remember packing my car that day and I had no idea where I was going to go, what I was going to do. I'd had a lot of cars ever since I'd been 16 years old.

They would always start out as perfectly good used cars, but along the way they would die of alcoholism. I don't know if yours did that. But I'll tell you exactly what alcohol did for me.

That is if I were physically sober on any given day, meaning I just hadn't had a drink yet that day. And I'm coming out of wherever I happen to be living, whether it be a park or my parents basement, depending on what part of my life we're talking about. If I hadn't had a drink yet that day, I' i'd walk up to a car that I'd owned for a while, and I'd look at that car, and I' I'd see the dents and the broken windows.

I'd start to get angry and I'd get in and I'd turn the key and it's only hitting on one or two cylinders and I'd see the cigarette burns on the ahulion and smell the rancid smell of alcohol and and I the radio is sounding terrible for some reason. It sounded great last night but it's sounding terrible now. It's only hit on one or two cylinders and I'm driving down that road and I'm going, "God, what do I got to do to get ahead in this world?" And all I'd have to do is go drink for a couple of hours and I'd walk back up to that very same car.

And as I'd be walking up to that car, I'd look at it and I'd say, "Why, that 62 Dodge Cornet is a classic. An absolute classic." I'd get in and I'd turn that key and it felt like a mechanic had been working on that damn thing. Why?

There's a driving man's dream. Look at the way there's corners at 70 mph. But at that point, I hit the streets.

Portland, Santa Cruz, streets of Hollywood. Uh uh the words are demoralizing for that year and a half of my life. Those are the words to be used.

Came back to my folks house, pleaded with them. It's rough out there. You got to let me back in.

I'll do anything, you know, the way us uh sons do. And they did. They they had stipulations like get a job, do something with your life.

Uh parents do that kind of thing to guys like me. And and I swore to them, "Yes, I will." And I couldn't live up to it. I would be disappearing for three days at a time and coming back and sleeping in their basement.

sneaking into their basement is what I'd be doing and locking the the door so they couldn't even get down into their own basement. And uh at this point I was drinking in the bar that as a young teenager I swore I would never drink in because that's where the losers of the neighborhood drank. At this point I'm running a tab.

I know everybody in the bar and I'd be there on any gi any given night and at a one night these fellows that were that I met from Washington State University that were from Canada came down to find me and they found me and and their their purpose for being there was to find out if I could still get that pot that I used to get years ago. They had a lot of money up across the border and they couldn't get anything. It's all dry up there and they came down to find me.

What they wanted me to do is play middleman. And there's three losers in any drug deal. There's the buyer, the seller, and the middleman.

the middle man will make the least amount of money, probably go to jail first and get beat up the most. I will do that. And uh so I started running I would run truckloads of potadian border and meet these fells and each time I'd make a lot of money and I'd go on these three-day binges.

I was used to three-day binges. I like three-day binges. And each time I do that, I'd be coming back from that border laying in the back of my car, a stranger driving, and I'd be bleeding out of every orifice in my body.

If you know what that means, you know what that means. If you don't, I suggest you stay in Alcoholics Anonymous. You don't want to know what it means.

And uh I would be laying in the back of that car as sick as can be counting money. Who owes me? Who do I owe?

And that money represented my contribution to the destruction of hundreds of lives. At that point, I could have cared less. My life was about getting loaded and making money at your expense and your children's expense.

And uh about the sixth time meeting these fells up there at the Canadian border, I I showed up drunk and they showed up and they said, "We couldn't get the money. We would have been late to meet you if we would have uh waited around waited around to get that." Now, you wouldn't want us to be late, now would you? Oh, certainly not.

They said, "Give it to us for 24 hours. We'll be right back." Been 10 years now since I've seen them. And needless to say, I'm scared to death.

I can't go back to my parents house. I can't go to my friend's house. I've got people looking for me.

And uh I joined the Navy is what I did. Skipped right out of town. Uh I didn't have any of that code of ethics of that you hang in there and and pay your debts.

I skipped out of town. And this is going to scare you with the patch that I just told you about. And that is that on my way into the Navy, I passed a potential test to become a nuclear electrician.

That should scare you. Navy has different uh has other tests for smart Alex like me. They uh they hand you this little plastic bottle when you show up and they say pee in this sun.

And I couldn't pass that test and and so they transferred me from the elite force of nuclear engineering to what they called nuclear waste. And uh and uh My alcoholism exploded in my face at that point because I had to show up somewhere every day. I didn't know how to do that.

And uh and here I I disappear for days at a time. The Navy frowns on that rather vigorously. And I got in all kinds of trouble, constantly in trouble with the Navy.

And uh and on this one given morning after a series of of problems, I was driving to the base after drinking all all weekend. And I had a bottle between my legs and thinking I'd had another driving man dream again. I think I'd wrecked the car a week before.

It was just kind of puttering along, but I'm going way too fast if I remember right. I got this bottle between my legs and I I got along straightaway before the guard shack that get gets you into the Navy base. And I just had this depth perception problem between my front bumper and this median and the guard shack.

And uh before I knew it, my front front right front tire was clicked up on this median and the car is going sideways and I hear twisted metal and broken glass. Blood hits the dashboard. Not sure whose it is.

And it's at these times in my life that I would just say to myself, if I could just rewind my life just by a few seconds, this wouldn't happen. But there is no stopping this. And bam, right through the guard check, I can still see that marine doing this big dive.

And the car is upside down. The the wheels are spinning and I'm upside down, but the bottle's still there between my legs. I know it's important now.

And my thought process is I got to get the bottle in the bushes over there. And I didn't need to get that bottle into the bushes and out from between my legs because I thought that would be evidence to incriminate me. I'm going to jail.

I'm going to the hospital. These are things that guys like me do about every 90 days. Reason I needed to get the bottle in the bushes over there so that once the jails and hospitals were done, I knew where my next drink was coming from.

But that morning in the hospital, the doctors had different ideas for me. They put me on this stuff called Anabuse. They patched me up and put me on an abuse and sent me back to the ship.

And I remember for a day or so I was kind of a celebrity. People were saying, "Nice driving, Mario. Right on." There was one guy on the ship that said, "I hated that marine that was on duty that night.

Good job. Gave him a good scare. like that.

And so I had a little negative attention. I'll take any kind of attention. Then all of a sudden I realize it's been about 4 days and I'm on an on on an abuse and I realize it's 6 days and I'm on an abuse.

It's been 8 days, 6 hours, 15 minutes. somewhat an abuse. I looked around that ship and I knew there was a conspiracy.

If they weren't talking behind my back, they were thinking it. I would look over and I'd see this other guy. He's younger than me, but he's a higher rank and he's telling me what to do.

That so I find if you would have asked me during this few days, how are you, Carl? Yeah. Fine.

Just don't like the way the sun feels on my skin. All right. The knot got tighter and I got angrier and all of a sudden on about the ninth day I realized what the problem was.

They don't know who I am. They wouldn't treat me like this. They wouldn't think the things they're thinking if they knew who I was.

Now, how do I let them know who I am? One of my superiors asked me to do something. Sure, it's very legitimate today.

probably something that they ask everybody to do, but I thought it was really way out of line. He asked me to do something. I looked at him and I said, "You don't know who I am, do you?" He looked me right in the eye and he said, "Who are you?" That was the most embarrassing question I've ever been asked in my whole life.

I couldn't have answered that if you would have paid me a million dollars. The doctors had told me that uh if you drink on top of antabuse, some people die, other people just get violently ill. So I locked myself in the hotel room to find out which one I was and bought a bottle of vodka and a shot glass.

I took one shot. Nothing happened. As far as I was concerned, authority had lied to me again.

Took another shot. I looked in the mirror. I was bright red, blotchy in places.

took another shot. Looked down at my shirt. I was drenched in sweat.

I realized I was hyperventilating. We're doing all right so far. We're doing it.

We're doing all right. We're doing all right so far. But you guys are really sick.

Took another shot and up it came. You know, we all know how to practice throwing up. We've done years of practice.

You can excuse yourself from any social situation and turn around just you just come back. Now, where were we? But there was this this was coming up and out.

And thank God I was in a kind of hotel room where the toilet's in the same room as the bed. And uh found the magic advantage though. If you're persistent at this, if you're really persistent, you keep drinking and you keep puking and you keep drinking, you keep puking, you keep drinking, you keep puking for about two hours, just two hours.

enough of the and if I don't die here that if you're new and happen to be on an abuse I like to throw that in there. Uh after about two hours enough of the anus would kick out of my system just by upheaval that uh I would just be redfaced hyperventilating and sweating and I can go about my business. Now I drank on an once sometimes twice a week for 7 months and on my last night of drinking I was being led out of the San Diego downtown jail.

My ship was stationed there and I was being brought up to the up to the ship uh in in handcuffed by the shore patrol and the off deck put his arm up and said stop. The orders are not to accept him on board. He's a loser.

He's had every chance in the book. He's a lower rank than when he came in two years ago. We've just really had it up to here.

The orders are to send him up to treatment. If he can't make it there, we want 90 days in the brig and a bad conduct discharge. They turned me around, sent me up to the treatment center.

And uh my feeling was, "What are you going to do for me in the treatment center? I've been on an abuse. Uhuh.

There's nothing you can do. I've got the Navy has sent me to a psychiatrist once a month. My father, the Lutheran minister, has been sending me letters that they've been having these prayer vigils for me.

So, I've got it coming from all three sides, and I'm drunk as hell. What can you do for me here in the attitude I had for quite some time? And they detoxed me.

And uh then the next thing they did was they put me into this uh small group therapy kind of thing. And and they had also the large group. Uh they had a small group and a large group.

And everybody that was in your in the large group were people every the 35 people that came in. They took in 35 people per week. And the 35 people that showed up on that week were all going to be in your large group.

And you would have these large meetings where everybody shared and and all of that. And on about the third day, I'm really angry. I'm I'm the knot is back.

I'm feeling just like I had been whenever I didn't take a drink, it was getting worse. I'm getting angry at the people there. I'm not a poster boy for recovery.

I can tell you that. And uh all of a sudden, this fellow comes in on our week and his name is Paco. And he shows up.

And on about the second day there, he in this large group meeting, he says, "You know, my name's really not Paco." That's just a street name that I've had my whole life. My name is really Randy. I've never told anybody that, but my name's really Randy.

This assistant counselor that was in there said, "Oh my god, this is a phenomenal move in your recovery. You're the only one that shows any hope so far. You're now president of the floor." And now what that meant is now he could tell us all when we could smoke, when we could go get coffee, when we could go to the bathroom, who cleans up what.

The perfect person to direct hate towards. And that's what I did. And so Randy was a real thorn in my back the whole time.

And I I got angrier and angrier and angrier. And I felt like my head was just about ready to explode. And and I knew there was no no answer.

And and they were giving me a lot of good information. I I I couldn't hear it because I was angry at Randy. And uh on about the seventh day, they took me to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I got to tell you, my first impression of Alcoholics Anonymous was a positive one. I could not deny that the people there at that meeting were talking about the way I've been thinking, feeling, and drinking my whole life. I couldn't deny that.

And I still remember sitting there and and Randy was a couple of seats away from me and I'm and I'm listening. I'm thinking I'm just going to be I'm I'm I think I'm psychotic. and my head was just spinning with stuff and I'm trying to listen and I and I just uh don't remember much except for one person getting up and and they called on him.

It was a participation meeting and and the man came up and he said one sentence and he sat down. He introduced himself as an alcoholic and he said, "My mind would have killed my body a long time ago, but it needed it for transportation." And and that's exactly what happened. Just a slight laughter and I almost fell right out of my chair.

In one sentence, this guy had described my mental condition and I felt great from identification for about 30 seconds. Then I remembered Randy was two seats away and a went back to the treatment center that night. Of course, we had to we had no choice but to.

And then the second night we went to the second meeting and I don't remember what type of meeting it was, but I sto I remember I got very very confused. Everybody in that meeting was talking about something I had never heard before. Everybody in that meeting was talking about something called drug of choice.

I had never heard that term before. I had never used that term. I'd never asked anybody what their drug of choice was.

Nor had I ever been asked this what my drug of choice was, but everybody in this meeting was talking about it with like it was very important. I'd better figure it out. At least that's what I thought.

And I'm sitting there getting all worried. Oh my god. I don't know what what do they even mean by this?

My god. So, we went back to treatment. The next day I I asked my counselor.

Her name was Mary Weber, a non-alcoholic, wonderful woman. Probably saved my life for a lot of reasons. I said, "Mary, last night in the meeting, they were talking about something called drug of choice.

What in the hell do they mean by that?" She said, "Carl, if I came into this room and I had a tray, and on this tray, I had a bottle of Jack Daniels, an ounce of cocaine, and an ounce of Tai Sticks. Which one would you take?" I started to drool immediately. My god, take them all.

And she said, "No, Paul, play the game. You can only have one. Which one would you take?" Thought it was a terrible question to ask him.

Said, "Well, I guess I take the ounce of cocaine." She said, "Well, then maybe cocaine is your drug of choice." Said, "Uh, I don't know about that." Said, "Take that ounce of cocaine. I get the hell out of this looney bin. I'd sell two weights, buy a quarter pounder of sticks and a case of Jack Daniels.

That's what I would do." So, so I have no clue as to what it means. And there was two things happening there. I The first thing that was happening that day is that I was 25 years old, no solution to how to live, but I was a smartass.

The second thing that's happening there is it was actually a valuable piece of information and that is that we don't just quit our drug of choice, go to our meeting of choice and take our chip of choice. The message of Alcoholics Anonymous is clean and sober. Clean and sober does not mean that I just took a shower before I came down to this meeting.

And sometimes people miss that because some people are scared to mention anything about drugs for fear of retaliation from uh from from whoever. But my sobriety date depends on the fact that I do not do drugs. So therefore, it seems to be a rather pertinent issue to mention if I did them.

The core issue is alcoholism. I don't argue that at all. I don't argue that at all.

But I know that the future of alcoholics anonymous that I found in taking surveys, people under 40, most all of them, most of them, most all the alcoholics under 40 years old did drugs, too. And and it's not and it's not that I that I think that it needs to be argued over. The only thing that I see that I'm worried about is people that don't hear that and die because they think, well, I'm in alcoholics anonymous.

I'm not drinking alcohol. Alcoholics anonymous. Nothing wrong with smoking a joint in between meetings.

And so I I don't know how many people I've run across that have that have not heard that might be selective hearing, but sometimes they just don't hear it. They just don't hear it. And the other thing, it's absolutely impossible to have the necessary spiritual awakening personality change necessary to recover from this deadly disease called alcoholism if you're doing a little social heroin in between meetings.

You just it's just not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. So anyway, after 45 days, they're going to let me out of that treatment center.

They're not happy with my progress, but they're going to let me out. And they used to they would they would throw some scare tactics at us at us 35. They used to say only one out of you 35 is going to be stay continuously sober.

Now we all know who that's going to be. It's Randy. It's got to be Randy.

It's not me. I guarantee it's got to be Randy. And we're all standing on the doorstep kind of looking out over the fence.

There's about four of us sitting there talking. What are we going to do? You know, it's they've been controlling our lives.

That's that's uh they've been telling us when we could eat, when we could sleep, and and we we just really couldn't drink even if we wanted to. But now we're about ready to go through that gate and we're we're sitting there and they're telling us only one about out of out of the 35 is going to stay sober and we all know it's going to be Randy. And then all of a sudden the next thing we know this car comes wheeling around the corner spinning its tires and it's Randy and he's got a bottle and he's pounding that bottle, rolls down his window, throws it right at the treatment center, gives us all the fingers.

I guess his name was Paco again. I don't really remember much of what happened that day except that I must have gone back to my ship to take my orders back there. But the next thing I consciously remember is that I walked into a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous at the Northshore Lano Club in Pacific Beach.

6:00 Friday gong show meeting is what they call it. And uh during this period of time, all I wore other than the Navy uniform that I had to wear on the base, all I wore and had been wearing for a long time and all I wore for quite some time into sobriety were black leather pants, black leather jacket. Mind you, I've never talked about owning a motorcycle and black leather pants, black leather jacket, black tank top.

I had a spike top flat top hairdo that I would sit down during the day when I put my hat on, right? But at night before I go out, I'd stand in front of the blowd dryer, hit some hairspray, and bam, it would stand straight up. And I'd wear long, dangly earrings and sunglasses at night.

And this is the way I showed up at this meeting. This friend of mine, Mickey Bush, told me that uh at that point in my life, I was experiencing IRS problems. Imaginary rockstar is what that is.

AND UH and anyway, I'm sitting in that meeting and uh I'm sitting in the back. I don't know a soul. I don't know anybody.

And they're having their meeting and I'm sitting in the back dying of alcoholism because I don't know a soul and I don't know how to hook up with anybody. One guy operating on his primary purpose leaned over to me and he said, "Say, I've never seen you here before." Under his breath, he said, "I haven't seen anybody quite looks like you in a while." And he he asked me a very important question. He said, "What are you doing?" And I guess without thinking without trying to think up some sort of lie, I just blurted out, "I just got out of treatment and I don't know what I'm doing." And this this was a Friday afternoon.

And this guy just got excited. He started to shake in his chair. His eyes got big.

And I thought, I'm out of here. This guy's weird. I'm But I now know what was going on.

It took me a couple years to figure out what was really happening that weekend. This guy just got ecstatic over the fact that he just met a newcomer that admitted he didn't know what he was doing. And this guy had a couple of years sober.

And uh and and also what had happened is that this was a Friday and on on Thursday, this girl his girlfriend had left him. And so even more so was he very excited about a newcomer that admitted he didn't know what he was doing. And this guy just lashed on to me and started to take me to meeting after meeting after meeting the whole damn weekend.

I went to like 15 meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. And and what I remember is that we would go to this meeting and then we'd get back in the car and and we'd be he'd be driving. I'd be sitting there and he'd be going, "Well, what you got to do is you got to get a sponsor.

You got to work the steps. You got to go to meeting. GOD DAMN THAT WOMAN.

And you got to go to meetings. You got to do this. You got to do that." We go to another meeting.

We sitting there and d' be shuffling and dragging you to another meeting. Same thing. You got to get a sponsor.

You got to damn that woman. You got to get That's all I remember. That was good information for me a couple years later.

That's how I got through my first weekend without a drink. Was meeting after meeting after meeting. Came back to my ship and the same kind of thing happened.

the one other recovering alcoholic on the ship that was waiting to ambush me. He was just waiting for me. He heard that I was coming out of treatment weeks before.

Just waiting for me. This guy did the same kind of thing. Just started to drag me to meetings and he started to sponsor me even before I asked him to sponsor me.

And this man helped me more than I can I can even say. I'm very grateful for his persistence with me. He started to drag me to meetings and and hounded me about taking the steps.

And I I of course boxed for a while and just went to meetings and went to meetings and went to meetings. But he put me back on my ship during the day and my life is just like complete shambles and and I'm on the ship and I'm still a little bit paranoid. I still have no idea how to live.

It's like coming out of a fog after 11 years old. I'm now 25 years old and I don't know what's happened. There I am in the Navy expected to do certain things and I just I mean and and I look back at my past my parents still are my parents attitude they were they were hopeful but I'll I'll tell you what the deal was with my parents.

They were in Seattle. I was in San Diego. They were very happy about that thousand miles.

They were happy about that. And uh you know they they they were still very very hurt. I had I had spit in their face.

I had robbed them. I had done all kinds of things. I had I had uh you know really really dragged the family name around as we all like to do.

And uh oh I forgot I was also in this embezzlement deal that uh that I forgot to mention that I that uh was just uh weighing very heavy on me because if I this this paycheck was coming from the government that wasn't supposed to be coming to me and if I would turn myself in I was going to go to jail. And so I was very concerned about not letting that leak out to my sponsor and uh it did one day and uh you know there's all kinds of things and plus I I owed all that money to this guy up in Seattle and I'm just and I'm sitting in meetings and I would I would get a sense of sanity while I was in the meeting but you put me outside and I'm just going nuts. It's going nuts.

But every night after the ship after the after we'd get off the ship, my sponsor would drag me to the 6:00 meeting. We'd drink coffee. We're so wide awake.

Well, we may as well go to the 8:30 meeting and we drink coffee and well, hell, we're so wide awake there, we may as well go out to coffee. And uh and the all these things were very valuable for me early on in recovery because that occupied every single night for me. And what and the people that I was hanging around by doing that, everybody's talking recovery constantly at the meetings, at at the coffee shop, everybody's talking about about recovery.

I got to have that because if I was not doing that, maybe I just think, well, maybe I'll maybe I could learn to shoot pool better now that I'm sober and I wander down to the to the pool hall. And I can guarantee you at that pool hall, they are not talking about not taking a drink. One drink doesn't mean spit to them at this point.

It means my life to me. Doesn't mean a damn thing to them. One drink just means uh $2 to them.

That's what it means to them. To me, it means my life. and I have got to be around people that are constantly talking recovery until I get this message.

So that's what happened. I went to a lot of meetings, but you'd still find me very anxious on the ship. And my first sponsor kept telling me, "You got to take the steps.

You got to take the steps. And you you've got to do this." And I'd hear it in meetings. And I I'm getting more confused and I and I'm bing.

And at about 90 days sober, the ship had to go out to sea. And I'm telling Bob, "Wait, wait, you got to tell the tell the Navy, I can't go. I got to be in meetings.

I I can't go out to sea." And he said, "I can't do that. What we're going to do every night, Carl, is we're going to read the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous back and forth back in the battery shop every night at 6 p.m. And before you come down on the first night, I want you to read the And and before he said, "What I was supposed to read," he said, "Well, you've you've had the book for a while.

I've been asking you to read it. Have you read it?" I said, "Well, uh well, sure. There's uh there's how it works.

There's we antagonist. There's uh" said I think you'd better read again and start from the beginning. And uh and he told me that before that first night to read the preface and the forward of the first, second, third edition, the doctor's opinion and highlight what I what I thought was important.

It was very valuable that he said get that highlighter out because otherwise it really doesn't make any sense. And I tell you that that first night with that highlighter and I was looking for things to impress him about what I thought he might think was important with that highlighter. All of a sudden things started to make sense as I went through with that highlighter.

Just that little highlighter was a very important tool there. And I started highlighting things and I remember I was in a lot of pain and and things started to make sense in that book. I knew that they I I'd been to enough meetings.

I'd been to book studies but I would be looking around the room and I'd try to pay attention and I really couldn't. Da da da. But this night it was making sense to me and I and I remember uh I read it and I highlighted the stuff and and what he did uh that very first night is after we read read the part that he told me to read and and uh he asked me what do you think it means to be powerless over alcohol that your life would become unmanageable.

Carl, I said, I I honestly am very confused about that cuz I've heard so many different things in meetings. I've heard this. I've heard that.

And he goes, "Good. You're supposed to be confused if you haven't read the book." And uh and he said, we went back to the doctor's opinion and it was drilled into my head that the meaning of being powerless over alcohol is that it it states in the chapter 3, even before chapter 5, we learned we had to fully concede to our innermost self that we were alcoholic. This is the first step in recovery.

If I'm going to concede to my innermost self that I am something, I need to know what it is. If I'm not in the book, I have no clue what it is. I'm just taking everybody's opinion as to what they think alcoholism is and whatnot.

And I need to be in that book. And what it was drilled into my head early on is that I I have a body that's allergic to alcohol. That I that once I take a drink, my body will crave alcohol.

And this phenomenon of craving is an allergic or abnormal reaction. This was news to me, not that it was that I craved alcohol. I knew that from the get-go.

I knew that feeling. They say the phenomenon of craving. I knew exactly what they meant.

What was news to me is that it was an abnormal reaction. You see, my life, my alcoholic life seemed like the only normal one. I couldn't differentiate the true from the false.

And I thought everybody drank that way. And and the people that didn't, I didn't know what was the matter with them. I didn't know that only 10 or I don't like to use percentages, but they say 10%.

I think somewhere between 10 and 20, doesn't matter. That this is an abnormal reaction. Now, if that's all there is to alcoholism is just that I have a body that that's allergic and I crave alcohol once I start drinking and I go on these binges just because I put a drink in my body.

If that's all there is to alcoholism, well then just quit. 10 days, couple two day followers, just say no. That type of stuff, you're back in the game and and your family loves you and everything's great and you know how to participate in life and you're you're just doing great.

But that's not true. That's just not true. There's something else and that is that I have a mind that forgets that I have this body that can't drink.

I get thirstier the more I drink and I get crazier the more I don't drink. So, what it's telling me is that I can't drink but I can't stay sober. It's a perplexing problem.

And so what they say is that's power that's a very nice word. Powerless over alcohol. I can't drink, but I can't stay sober.

I can't drink, but I can't not drink. They call that powerless over alcohol. It's the only time I'm going to swear from the podium.

And it's just because my first sponsor swore. He whispered in my ear. He said, "Carl, powerless is a very nice word.

What you are is fucked." That's what he said. And he backed that up by a couple pages there in the doctor's opinion. There's this one paragraph at the bottom of of one of the pages.

It says if if you identify with this allergy of the body, the obsession of the mind. It says much have been written pro and con. But among physicians, the general opinion seems to be that most chronic alcoholics are doomed.

They don't say just in a little bit of trouble. They don't say it's going to get better here. Just sit and wait.

Uses words like doomed. It's one of these ancient words like you're hanging in this dungeon waiting to be sacrificed. It's one of those types of words.

Doomed. They use that a few times in the book. So that gets scary when you realize that, oh my god, I can't drink and I can't stay sober.

But they say that they have an answer. And there in in uh I found out as we agnostics I was put through this this chapter and it says right there in the first couple paragraphs says well in the preceding chapters we hope we have distinguished between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic or we we we hope you've learned something of alcoholism and you can distinguish between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic. So what they're saying is that the chapters preceding we agnostics is all about step one.

By this time you know the difference between an alcoholic and a non-alcoholic. Then they say that basically you need to in order to recover from this uh deadly disease you have to live on spiritual a spiritual basis. And then they say something in the next paragraph that absolutely proves that alcoholics wrote this book.

No question in my mind with this one sentence in this next paragraph. It says and it uses this word doomed again. To be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on spiritual principles are not always easy alternatives to face.

So what they're saying is, do you want to live or do you want to die? And only an alcoholic would look at that question and say, "Hm." And there was one more more statement in uh I'd always believed in God. I'd had a good upbringing as a child and I'd never not believed in God.

But I'd never applied a single principle in my life by which to experience God. And there's a sentence in there that says, "If a man believes or is willing to believe, we emphatically assure him he's on his way." I remember my first sponsor saying that to me, Carl, I told him, I believe in God. He said, I emphatically assure you're on your way.

Don't goof around. Well, I did for a little while. I get to step three and well, I'm going to turn my will and life over the care of God as I understand him.

I want to know what God is. And so, that's when I went on the typical newcomer trek of say, "What's God's will for you today? Can you tell me what God's will is for me today?" And here I am.

say what's God and here I am asking these questions prior to doing steps 4 through nine and if I did 4 through9 I would have an experience by which I would not have to ask that question so I'm doing it a little bit backwards here and uh and I heard all kinds of different things the beauty of alcoholics anonymous is that everybody has a different perception of God that's the most beautiful thing about alcoholics anonymous a lot of beautiful things but this is one real really incredible part of it but it got me confused and I got really confused one night and I thought I know who I'll ask my father. He's been a Lutheran minister and a theologian for 40 years. If anybody knows who God is, he knows.

I'll call him up and then I'll come back and I'll really sound good at the meeting. And uh so I I I called up my father. And now remember, they are still very very standoffish.

They are they're they're still happy about that distance. They're hopeful. Call up my father and I go, "Dad, this is Carl.

You've been a minister and a theologian for 40 years. You spent your whole life searching for God, talking about God and and and everything. You got to tell me what's God.

He said, "Carl, God is whatever got you got you to those people. Do what they say." And he hang up on box for a little while. There was still one night on a Saturday night meeting.

I was wondering what God's will was for me and I looked down the aisle and there she was and uh I knew it. We went out to coffee and for sure I knew why God had put this woman in my life. I was convinced.

I ran to the speaker meeting on Sunday night and I ran into my first sponsor. He was there with a friend of his that I didn't I didn't really like his friend. And I ran up to him and I said, "Bob, this I met this woman last night.

God put her in my life. I'm convinced God put her in my life." And this friend of his jumped right in without being asked and said, "Carl, God's not a pimp." And well, well, I didn't like that friend of his very much. Anyway, I I over the next subsequent weeks, you you could have found me in a hotel room in a strange country or strange city, curled up after going to as many meetings as I could, but I'd be curled up just my life is like this title wave coming behind me and I'm on a surfboard going to meetings just hoping it doesn't crash on me is what it is.

And I and I had to get I had to do stuff for it. Finally, by the urging of my first sponsor and enough pain, I did that. inventoried my resentments, my fears, and did my sexual inventory.

And the overwhelming feeling that I got after doing step five was all the destruction, all of the mayhem in my life. I had been the center point of it all. And this was news to me.

This was news to me. All my resentments came back to me. All of all of my fears were unfounded based on me.

And everything I had done in my sexual inventory, I was there for every single one of them. I'm the common denominator in all of it. And so then my my sponsor and his first and his sponsor led me through the rest of the steps and urged me to and and made me make amends.

They immediately made me take a an aotment out of my paycheck and send it up to my parents. It was penis compared to what I had taken from them. But it was at least you see when I called up to apologize to my parents they said like any loving parents would just stay sober.

My first sponsor and his sponsor said not good enough. In the long term that will not you will not get a relationship back with them. and from your side, you will not feel like a clean human being.

They said, "You've got to start sending money out to them." And they made me do that. Money that I wouldn't even be able to get to get in my hands to think about each month. They just was sent right out of my paycheck.

I had to make amends for the embezzlement scam that I was in. They made me call that drug dealer up in Seattle. I don't suggest anybody go knock on a door and say, "Hi, here I am.

I'm sober." But I was a thousand miles away, so they said, "Call." So, I called him up and I told him, "This is Carl. I've been in the Navy last couple years, in case you've been wondering. I just have no way to pay you unless you're going to kill me.

And he just said, "Screw off. I've written you off a long time ago. You'll never deal for me again." I looked at my first sponsor.

He was right there. I said, "Bob," he said, "I'll never deal drugs from again. Is that all right?" He said, "Absolutely." Hang up the phone.

I remember the weight of the world lifted off my shoulders. And I didn't even know it was weighing that heavy until it was gone. I didn't even know it was weighing that heavy until it was gone.

And uh boy, they made me make a lot of amends. After two years sober, I I got an honorable discharge out of the Navy. The first thing I'd ever accomplished in my whole life by the help of Alcoholics, anonymous, and a loving God.

And I remember uh getting out of out of the Navy and I wanted to know what I wanted to do. Uh what am I going to do with my life? I I don't know.

Uh and I remember thinking how long it's going to take to pay my parents back. I had squandered th tens of thousands of dollars on this bachelor's degree that they had paid for. and I had never really gone for, but they had paid for it.

And I was thinking, if I get out of the Navy, I can make $6 an hour. And I'm I was calculating in a coffee shop how long it would take me to to give them $2 out of that $6 an hour. And I was getting more depressed the longer I look at it.

This one fellow at the next coffee table, there's a bunch of AA fellowship going on. He asked me what I was doing. I told him, and he said, "Why don't you go get what they paid for in the first place, and it'll be a win-win situation." This was really good thinking, not mine.

And uh so this is what I did. I I I had gotten some VA benefits and I and I packed my car all what I owned at this time from making financial amends. I was dead broke.

I I had the 68 Volkswagen with a hole in the floorboard that you had to push start and a headlight that shown off into the distance. Had a mind of its own. And everything I owned was in the back of this Volkswagen.

I was driving up to Los Angeles to go to school. And uh my thought process at this point was I've got to work. I've got to go to school.

These are all good things, good decisions for a young man recovering from alcoholism. But my third part of the this decision was near fatal. said, "That's all going to take a lot of time.

I don't think I'm going to have time to participate in AA. Maybe I'll go to a speaker meeting once a month and see if he's funny. Maybe I'll go to a step study once in a while and see if the step pertains to me." And I haven't talked one single bit about being of service and alcoholics anonymous.

I hadn't really lifted a finger for anybody. It's wasn't really anybody's fault. I never had a chance to have a commitment because I was in the Navy and the ship had to go out to sea every other month.

It would have been nobody's fault, but I could have used just as easily been drunk. And uh that's when I met my sponsor uh that I have now today. And he uh he intervened on that thinking.

He said one of the first things that uh he uh told me is that what we do we uh what we do in life is just what we get done in between meetings. You need to really hook up an alcoholic synonymous more now two years sober than you ever did. And what you need is commitments and you need to work with new people.

And I tried to tell him I just don't have time. I got to I've just enrolled in school and I'm looking for this job and it looks like I might get this job and that's going to take a lot of time. And he said, "When are you done with that?" "Oh, 7:00 p.m.

Good." He said, "Good. Most meetings don't start till 8. We'll see you there every night." And uh and then he told me that what I needed to do that very first Friday night after talking to him was that I needed to pick up newcomers out of the Alano Club locally and take them out to this meeting that he was speaking at on this Friday night.

And they needed a cleanup crew and we were to all volunteer for this 25 some odd miles away. I said, "You're kidding. I can't put newcomers in my car.

I've got this 68 Volkswagen hole in the floorboard. One of them might fall through the floor. Eddie, I got to push start the damn thing.

I'm embarrassed about this car. Some of them have nicer cars. It may be their mother's car, but man, it's nicer.

He said, "What? You've got to put these new people in your car and take them out to meetings, and I guarantee you your life will get better." He guaranteed me my life would get better. So, begrudgingly, I did.

I did that that night, and I and I grabbed about I had to ask about eight guys, and but two of them said yes. And two of them got in my car, and we drove out there that night. And the very first night, my life got better.

The very first night they could push start my car. Bam. I'm right in there.

My life had gotten better. My life had gotten better. And I'll tell you, Eddie has has taught me things over the years.

And I'll tell you real quick that all those things that I was planning to do uh on the side other than Alcoholics Anonymous by hooking up into Alcoholics Anonymous, they all happened in between meetings. I got that bachelor's degree. My whole family flew down from Seattle and uh they were all sitting in the front row and my sponsor and his wife were there and three rows of people from Alcoholics Anonymous and and it was just the most amazing feeling and they all when when they announced my name for that bachelor's degree that everybody did the wave like this and and the rest of the students what in the hell is that you know and and and my parents told me they were proud of me that day you know I had to work for for their respect back bunch of flowery aa talk wasn't going to do it I had to work for And uh my jobs have gotten progressively better.

Progressively better. And the one thing that the other Eddie teaches me such simple things. All his direction is just sort of gives me a little gentle pat on the head and a little swift kick in the butt.

and he uh you know the couple weeks ago uh lately because he he had been so sick and and I I pick him up whenever I can to go take him out when he speaks and I drive and I was just all muddled up with with life's problems and her and the job and I'm thinking about moving jobs and what can I do here and da da da da and I go and I knock on the door and he answers the door with his bright face and he just said it's all just not important. I hadn't said a word to him yet and I said what's not important? He said, "Look around you." Not everything.

It's not important except where we're going tonight. Just he's taught me also that the u the presence of pain in my life does not denote the absence of God. I needed to hear that one day very very badly.

I uh he's taught me something else that he he learned from Chuck C and that is that if I want love in my life, I have to quit looking for it. That is my job to go out and give it. The second I'm giving it, there it is.

This is absolutely bizarre because from my perspective, that means I've got a bottle of gin, I give it to you, you drink it, I feel better. It doesn't make sense. Doesn't make sense.

Like the overwhelming logic of why I want to stay in Alcoholics Anonymous is that if I were to take a drink tonight, which I'm eligible to do, I suppose I'd have to go a long way for it tonight, wouldn't I? But if I were to take a drink tonight, I'm eligible. Just about anybody's eligible to do it if they don't do or do or do do certain things.

But right from this second forward. Right from that second forward. See, I'm promised jail's insanity or death if I do that.

Or maybe, and we have to say this because we see so many people come back. Or maybe I'll get lucky enough to come back. So I've got jails, insanity, or death.

And maybe I'll make it back to Alcoholics Anonymous. So the logic of that is that the best thing that could possibly happen to me without exception is that I make it back to Alcoholics Anonymous alive to try again. That's the truth.

Why leave in the first place? Why not just stay? No matter how good it gets or how bad it seems and seems is the operative word.

I've got to stay with you people. The things I got to do to stay with you people is go to meetings, be in the book, and be of service. Those three things materialize in the in my life because I stayed here long enough for it to happen.

And I've got to have those three things. That's the unity, recovery, and service. those three things.

You knew stay and God bless. Thanks. >> Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise.

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