Sober at 15 — Still Standing Years Later: AA Speaker – Karl M. – New Orleans, LA
AA speaker Karl M. got sober at 15 after living on the streets, juvenile detention, and nearly dying from alcoholism. His story covers early sobriety challenges.
Karl M. from New Orleans got sober at 15 years old after years of juvenile detention, living in the streets, and nearly dying from alcohol poisoning. In this AA speaker tape, he shares his journey from drinking at 9 years old to finding recovery as a teenager, and the ongoing challenges of maintaining sobriety through life’s ups and downs. Karl walks through his early criminal activity, family estrangement, and the moment someone finally told him he was an alcoholic.
This AA speaker meeting features Karl M., who got sober at 15 after starting drinking at age 9 and experiencing juvenile detention, homelessness, and family estrangement. He discusses working the steps with a sponsor, dealing with grief after losing friends to alcoholism, and facing ongoing struggles with gambling and relationships in long-term sobriety. Karl emphasizes that quitting drinking isn’t the real challenge – it’s filling the spiritual void and maintaining a connection with God through daily prayer and step work.
Episode Summary
Karl M. opens with characteristic humor, joking that if his story disappoints, it’s God’s fault since he prayed. But what follows is anything but disappointing – it’s a raw, unfiltered look at getting sober as a teenager and navigating nearly 12 years of recovery with all its victories and setbacks.
Karl’s introduction to alcohol came at age 9 when his grandfather, a cheerful man dying from alcoholism, threw a glass against the wall when Karl’s mother refused to give him “turkey” – Wild Turkey whiskey. Even as a child, Karl’s thinking was already alcoholic: if keeping alcohol away from his grandfather made him violent, why not just give it to him? This warped logic would define Karl’s relationship with alcohol for years to come.
His first drink came shortly after, when a 12-year-old girl suggested making screwdrivers. Karl used Jamaican Myers rum instead of vodka, creating “purple syrup,” but the effect was immediate and profound. He felt “ease and comfort” for the first time in his life. Unlike many speakers, Karl didn’t feel smarter or better looking when he drank – he simply became okay with who he was.
By age 13, Karl had moved from drinking to dealing drugs, viewing it as entrepreneurship. His criminal career escalated quickly, leading to carrying his father’s stolen .38 special for protection. At 14, he was arrested on a road trip returning from Texas, facing charges including possession of a stolen firearm, drug possession with intent to distribute, and interstate trafficking. The judge sentenced him to juvenile life probation.
The consequences were severe – no driver’s license until 17, no firearms, and constant supervision. But Karl continued drinking and disappearing for days at a time. His parents eventually told him he didn’t live there anymore when he showed up on Christmas Day with presents and $1,000 in his pocket. At 15, he slept in bushes behind his family’s house, reduced to begging a local “wino” he’d once pitied to share his tent.
The turning point came during a retreat in North Carolina. When a girl he’d known since childhood asked him to use drugs with her, Karl initially refused, saying “You don’t want to be me. Look at me.” But misery loves company, and he eventually gave in. Hours later, she was dying in an ambulance from a bad reaction between the drugs and her prescribed medications.
Her mother, an ex-problem drinker who had found recovery, confronted Karl not with anger but with truth. She told him he was an alcoholic – the first person to name his disease clearly. This “message of death and weight” changed everything. On June 12, 1996, Karl called his parents on their wedding anniversary to tell them he had a drinking problem.
Early sobriety wasn’t smooth. Karl spent 10 days detoxing on his first sponsor’s couch, then went to treatment where the best advice was simply “go to AA.” His first meeting at Club 12 in Baton Rouge was nearly disastrous when an old-timer dismissed his youth, but another member, “Jumpsuit Jimmy,” tracked him down in the parking lot with a meeting schedule and directions to a group with young people.
Karl found his home group at Goodwood, where they actually read from the Big Book instead of hiding it. This became crucial when he lost his best friend just six months into sobriety. His friend relapsed and died 10 hours later in a car wreck. Standing over the casket as a pallbearer, Karl cursed his friend and demanded to know why he drank. His sponsor’s response was profound: “He didn’t wake up this morning and say he was going to die from alcoholism. This is the illness we suffer from.”
This tragedy motivated Karl to dive deep into step work. He and his sponsor read the Big Book cover to cover, answering every question, praying every prayer, writing everything it suggested. The fourth step revealed his core defects, and making amends to his father marked a turning point in their relationship. Karl graduated high school on time and even went to college.
But recovery isn’t a straight line upward. Karl shares honestly about his struggles in long-term sobriety. A failed engagement left him devastated, and at nine and a half years sober, he ended up in a mental institution. He spent three years gambling professionally instead of working a regular job, admitting he’d been “slapping God in the face” while telling himself that God could keep him sober but wasn’t good for much else.
The death and imprisonment of sponsees have marked Karl’s recent years. One friend died of alcohol poisoning in a hotel room – what they’ll call suicide, but Karl knows it’s alcoholism. Another sponsee is serving 15 years in prison, leaving behind a four-year-old son. A third sponsee died in a car accident just two days after asking Karl to sponsor him, but Karl finds comfort in knowing the man “died like a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous.”
Karl’s relationship with his father, once marked by violence and threats, has transformed completely. The man he once held at gunpoint now holds his hand and tells him he’s proud when Karl puts on a tie and goes to work. His father, despite being a non-alcoholic, has become the supportive parent Karl needed.
What keeps Karl going is daily surrender – he hasn’t missed a day in over 10 weeks of getting on his knees morning, noon, and night, asking God simply to “hold me and help me.” His version of the third step prayer has been reduced to its essence: “God, please hold me and just help me.”
Karl’s message is unflinchingly honest about what long-term sobriety actually looks like. This connects powerfully with many AA speaker talks on hitting bottom and early sobriety, showing that the work doesn’t end after the first few years. He reminds his audience that he never came to AA to stop drinking – “quitting drinking is not my problem.” He can dry out any alcoholic, he says, but he can’t fill “that hole in that soul” or facilitate what needs to happen between them and God.
His closing is perhaps the most honest ending to any AA talk: “At almost 12 years sober, that’s it. That’s all I got to say really… No great happy go lucky, hey, I’m married and life is good. Not, hey, I got a great job or a great car. But if you be a real alcoholic like me, one day without one drink, one day at a time, you can be almost 12 years sober.”
For those expecting inspirational recovery success stories, Karl offers a reality check: “Maybe I’m not the big quality sobriety guy today, but neither will you one day. And so, when you’re picking your ass off the floor, remember me.” It’s this brutal honesty about the ongoing nature of recovery that makes Karl’s share so valuable, similar to speakers like Don P., who talks about coming to AA to be changed rather than just sober.
Despite everything – the gambling, the relationship failures, the mental health struggles – Karl remains grateful. He credits service work, particularly his involvement with ICYPAA (International Conference of Young People in AA), with helping keep him alive during his darkest periods. His love for the fellowship shines through even in his pain, ending with simple declarations of love for people he knows and doesn’t know, united only by their shared experience of alcoholism and recovery.
Karl’s story demolishes any notion that getting sober young means having it easy, or that long-term sobriety guarantees smooth sailing. Instead, he offers something more valuable: proof that one day at a time, with daily surrender and connection to God and the fellowship, it’s possible to stay sober through anything life throws at you – even when you’re “picking your ass off the floor.”
Notable Quotes
I would learn later on that I’m bad news when I drink. But take away alcohol, leave me untreated, and I will show you how just disturbingly horrible of a person I can be.
I never came here to stop drinking. Quitting drinking is not my problem. Give me any drunk – I can dry them up. But I can’t fill that hole in that soul.
At almost 12 years sober, that’s it. No great happy go lucky, hey, I’m married and life is good. But if you be a real alcoholic like me, one day without one drink, one day at a time, you can be almost 12 years sober.
Maybe I’m not the big quality sobriety guy today, but neither will you one day. And so, when you’re picking your ass off the floor, remember me.
God, please hold me and just help me. I am so in love with y’all.
Young People in Recovery
Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
Sponsorship
Long-Term Sobriety
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Full Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
>> I told you to stay in the car.
>> I'm Carl. I'm an alcoholic.
>> I got two microphones. So yeah, I just introduced myself. I want to say first, if my story sucks, it's God's fault. I prayed. And Billy asked me to get a CD to him, so blame him. Blame everybody else but me.
I have a sponsor. His name is Worth P. He got sober about a month and a half before I did. A lot of people say he doesn't have twenty years more than me. Well, you know what? From the class of '96, which is when I got sober, he's one of the few left. And he knows everything about me and I trust him with my life. And I can guarantee you that when Bill and Bob and Clarence Snider and RT and some of these old guys were first getting sober, they weren't going, "Well, Bill, you don't have a year, you know? Are you sure your sponsor said you're ready to sponsor?" They'd had a spiritual awakening as a result of the twelve steps. They had something to transmit. So he has a sponsor as well.
I sponsor people. I have a home group. It's the Goodwood group of Alcoholics Anonymous. We meet in a little scout hut at Broadmore Baptist Church on Goodwood Boulevard in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I hear a lot of speakers a lot of times, and my home group's the best home group. And if you don't feel that same way, you need to get a whole another home group.
I don't know if my home group's the best home group, but I do know that when I walked in there, I was going to meetings in early sobriety. And they would talk about that book. I don't know if y'all noticed, but the book is a myth because you go to meetings and it's hidden. People don't have it. You need to get the big book. What is it? Where is it? I don't know what you're telling me about. And I went to that meeting and they had that book and they read from that book.
In fact, last night I needed a meeting and I needed to go to my home group. And I have no idea what I'm going to tell y'all tonight. I have the gift of gab. I'll tell you about my job. I'll tell you about what kind of jobs I've had. It's dealt with talking, dealt with sales, dealt with people. It should be what I'm good at. And tonight, I have no idea what I'm going to say.
But I needed a meeting last night. And the one thing about my home group is that as I'm pulling up into the parking lot, I'm going, "Please don't let me hear about your dog getting run over. Please don't let me hear about your shopping problem." I got in, they were talking about the sixth and seventh step. They're reading out of the literature. That's why it's my home group. I don't know if it's the best home group, but it's my home group.
Now, with that resume being said, because that's what all the big special speakers say. I have a sponsor who has a sponsor, and I have a home group. So I've said all that. Now I'm qualified. I've been sober, and life has been good. Thank you. Not so much.
I'm also, I don't know. I'm usually the tie guy, you know, dress right behind the podium. Not tonight. Because I'm just not in that mode tonight. It's not where I'm at. I'm hoping by the end of the night that you don't see all this presentation I'm bringing. I hope y'all see me.
My sobriety date is June 12th, 1996. That's when I got sober. I was fifteen years old when I got sober. Okay, there was a couple out there. Fifteen. [snorts]
The amazing thing is, last night after the meeting, this is to talk about age and young people and stuff. I went out to eat with some people because that's what we do. Even when we don't want to, even when you're just like, "No, really, y'all should go hang out and let me go be by myself." And they're like, "Oh, no. Come on." And I went and had really bad food at a really bad restaurant and just hung out.
But there was an older guy there and he was talking about this young people's meeting that meets on Wednesday nights in Baton Rouge. He was talking about how when I went there, I just couldn't relate. And I said, "Really?" You know, because if we get around in the room and we talk about alcoholism, if I ask thirty people, "What is just one ingredient to alcoholism?" It's fear. You know, if I ask Billy back there, "What do you think?" Resentment. We come up with all this stuff and none of us say alcohol. That's alcoholism, you know?
And he was telling me he couldn't relate, you know. And it was funny because I was going, "Well, you know, because you had the same alcoholic checklist I had when I got here. You said, 'Well, y'all never wrecked a car and y'all never got divorced and y'all never lost a job. So apparently either y'all aren't alcoholics or I'm not alcoholic.'"
Well, when I got here, I was like, "I didn't get divorced. I didn't lose a job." I couldn't qualify under those means. But I got to some meetings around some people that had been through what I had been through. But they also talked the language of the heart. They talked about the same thing that I went through. They talked about pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.
So when I tell people, "Yes, I got sober when I was fifteen," I immediately look for that look like, "Oh, come on." But the good thing is I'm not going to drink for that long, so you won't have to worry about that.
I do want to say I'm also not a drug addict. I have no solution for you if you are. I will talk about two outside issues in my story most likely, and they were a result of my alcoholism, but I was not a drug addict. I'm an alcoholic. And the funny thing is though, as I tell you my story, hopefully you'll realize how little alcohol had to do with it. And still has so little to do with it.
The first thing I ever knew about alcoholism, my grandfather. He was one of the most cheerful men I ever knew, and he died in alcohol. He died due to alcoholism. I was about five years old, and my birthday is December 20th. And of course, you all know when Christmas is. I'm not going to tell y'all. It's kind of redundant. But so it was this big thing. We were going for the '85 family reunion and we were going to show up and it was going to be this big deal and everybody was going to be there.
So I was going to celebrate my birthday and Christmas, and we went over there. A couple days after Christmas, some of the family had left, and I'm sitting there by myself with my mom and my grandfather. He's sitting in this little leather sofa chair. Really nasty green carpet. It was really shag green. Like this house was built in the late '60s, early '70s.
He looked at my mom and he said, "Sissy." He called my mom sister. And he said, "Sissy, go get me some turkey." And she said, "No, daddy, I'm not going to." And I thought to myself, and this is of course Bill talks about a boomerang that would turn in its flight and cut him to ribbons. And this is the funny way I think because this sort of thinking is what would end up showing that I was a real alcoholic.
Because in my mind, why would you not give him turkey? Now granted, I'm thinking cut the turkey. I didn't see the glass in his hand and he's holding Wild Turkey. And she says, "No, the glass goes flying against the wall." But here's what I'm talking about. Here's the logic. If that's what happens when you keep him away from turkey, why would you not give it to him?
>> Why? You think he's bad when he's drinking? Look at him now. Chill him out a little bit, you know.
And there's the truth. Because that's really me. I would learn later on that I'm bad news when I drink. But take away alcohol, leave me untreated, and I will show you how just disturbingly horrible of a person I can be.
And so that was my first thought about alcoholism, and it made complete sense. Because I thought, if that's what he wants, give it to him. Why make him angry?
He died two years later from alcoholism.
I had an uncle, my mom's brother. My dad, I feel sorry for my dad. My dad was an only child. His dad died when he was four. He had no brothers, no sisters, no male figure in his life. So when I reared my ugly head, of course, he had no history of alcoholism, you know? He really didn't.
Now, my mom. I have a sister who's nine years older than me. I think because she had some stumbles and some falls, she got through school and she ended up growing up. She's got three kids now. She's married, doing great. And I think my parents thought, my mom thought, "If I marry this really nice guy who was actually born in Jackson, Mississippi—that's where he's from, man, it's not what he claims. I'm just joking. But if I marry this guy who's not from where I'm from and I get out of this small town in Louisiana and I go to some big school, LSU, and get away, things will be different."
And they probably were for her and my dad and my sister, you know. But it didn't skip me. It landed on my face. I got it, full-fledged.
So I found out I had an uncle who died in a drunk driving accident. I get sober and I find out it was with a brick wall, you know. I had another uncle who didn't visit a whole lot. I found out he did a lot of time for drugstore cowboy, you know? I mean, that's what he did. A lot of the activities and things that made complete sense to me seem to be in my family.
I have no opinion about what really physically makes an alcoholic. Apparently there's some good doctors out there. You know, one of them wrote a little something in the front of that book, and I tend to leave the opinion of allergies and things like that to people like that. I tend to agree with them because it seems to make a lot of sense.
But as far as the feelings, the emotions, the instincts, the things that I suffer from, that's alcoholism for me. That's the thing I really suffer from. Because like I said, if I don't take a drink physically, I don't seem to crave alcohol. I don't start that, and if I stay away from obsessing about it, then I don't tend to go physically towards the drink.
But if you look at the Fourth Step, it talks about when we get the spiritual malady straightened out, we straighten out physically and mentally. What's funny is that if you look at what precedes a relapse, people don't get spiritually correct and then mentally they obsess and then physically they take a drink. So mentally and physically I may be all right, but if I'm spiritually broken, I really don't stand a shot. And that's what I've suffered from from day one.
Great family. My sister dated this guy who was a real winner. He was into the tough love kind of thing. Rode a Harley. He was super cool. Showed up really drunk. Physically showed her how much he loved her.
And when I was about nine years old, after all the damage he had done to me and to my sister and my parents had had a restraining order on him and all kinds of stuff, he showed up. She had gotten in a fight and she had gone out with one of her friends. It was a male friend that she grew up with, and it was this big deal. He was like, "You went out with so-and-so?" Yeah, she went out with her friend so he could console her because you're beating the everliving snot out of her.
So he showed up drunk and broke her nose. And I'm nine years old. I go very casually, I don't know how casual I was, but kind of run, and I go into my room. I grab my little T-ball bat and I go over. The last thing I remember is going after him.
Now I wake up to cops showing up, my next-door neighbor screaming and calling police, my parents and my sister wondering what's going on. At nine years old, I broke his collarbone, his wrist, and two ribs. And I have no idea why. I just lost it, man. And that is not just about anger. That's everything.
I have been doing some crying lately. I did not think I was capable of crying like I've been crying lately. When I get happy and truly happy, when I'm filled with the fellowship of the spirit, I cannot begin to describe to you what kind of joy I have. When I'm in love and I see beauty, there is not a language that I can use to describe it. It's just the truth.
So here with anger and fear, I lose it.
Now this starts a whole big long parade of going to doctors and neurologists, and you know, the funny thing is, from that day until the day I stopped drinking, which was still a whirlwind of seeing doctors and going places. Don Pritz once said this, and I truly believe it. He said that when he would see these shrinks and he'd be in jail and the jailhouse psychiatrist would come talk to him, they would all come around and they would be like, "Well, you're a sociopath. Well, you're insane. Well, you're a psychopath. You've got borderline personality disorder. You've got associative displacement disorder. All these abandonment issues."
And the thing is, Don said they were absolutely right. Because it was alcoholism. That was the underlying issue with all of it. You know, why did I have borderline personality disorder? Because once I start drinking, I cannot tell you what personality is going to show up. Just don't.
And it's the same way when I'm sober, if not worse. There's the sad part. You think I'm bad when I'm drinking, man? Come on.
So I'm nine years old and I'm hanging out, and I made some friends with some people in the neighborhood. I was very resentful at my family. My dad was a survey contractor and he used to do surveys. In the '70s, for those who are alive and remember it real well, there's a big oil boom in the country and the country was doing great. Anybody who had money invested and anybody who was doing any type of oil work was making money. They were building. Contracts were everywhere. My family was living good. They lived in Brazil. They lived in Africa. They lived in Spain. They lived in Mexico for four years. They did all these amazing things.
They had these slides. My dad used to love to show these slides of my sister and me standing on these temples in Yucatan, Mexico at four years old. And I'd be like, "All right, you know, great." Because I was born in 1980. Then the oil crisis happened, and my dad went from living with a certain budget and certain style of life to, well, we were pretty broke.
And I had to do things like wear my sister's jeans to school because that's what we could afford. Really, it wasn't afford, it was pass it down. I remember when they said, "We're going to Biloxi to the Seagull Motel." And I went, "Joy, you had Rio de Janeiro. I've got sewer water that goes out to my knees for a mile. Maybe I'll step on a bottle." And I was very resentful, right?
So I made friends with some kids in the neighborhood that were a lot like me, you know. Upset, just didn't feel right, whatever. And one of my friends, Wes, who I love and miss dearly, he had an older sister. It's always a story.
And so my dad has this wet bar in the back, and she's like, "Hey, you know, let's go hang out. Let's go to Carl's parents' house. It's after school and my parents are still at work." And at this time I'm very ashamed to show people my parents' house and to show people where I'm from because it's not that great and there's not a lot there. There have been rats. I was just not proud of where I came from, you know? I really wasn't.
But this girl was coming over. Which today when I look at my story, I wonder, what was I thinking at nine years old? What was I really thinking? Man, I must be upsetting people. They keep leaving. [laughter]
But at nine years old, what was I thinking? "Hey, come hang out. Check yes or no." I don't know what I was looking to accomplish, you know.
She comes over and she's like twelve. And she comes over. My sister had just had me watch the movie Cocktail, you know, with Tom Cruise where he's flipping the drinks and everything. So I'm like, "All right, I got you." So she's like, "Let's get a screwdriver." I said, "Simple screwdriver. That's simple. None of this fuzzy whatever, you know."
So I said, "All right, you know, do a screwdriver. Get this orange juice." And I get the one thing that I've always known, always loved, because it was that first drink. And it was Jamaican Myers rum. For those who don't know, a screwdriver typically is vodka. [laughter] I came out with purple syrup.
Needless to say, there was no second date.
But I had this big little thirst buster cup or whatever from Circle K, and you know, he took a drink and I took a drink and she took a drink and he took a drink and I took a drink. And you know, it happened.
Released from care, boredom, and worry. Man, I felt ease and comfort. I am not like a lot of speakers I hear. I did not get better looking. I did not get smarter. I did not become faster.
But what did happen is that for the first time in my life, being you know, twenty pounds underweight, scrawny, pale—which not much has changed—I became okay with that. And I became able to talk to her. I became able to not worry about what kids thought about where I came from or not having, you know, whatever.
Now there's the tricky part. I used to think that an alcoholic was like the skid-row bum and that they just couldn't help it and it was just so bad. And the reason why they drank was some horrible reason. But even the skid-row bum and even me drink for the same exact reason. It's the same reason why normal people drink. We like the effect produced by alcohol. Nothing else.
My dad is the furthest thing from an alcoholic. He really is. There's a big St. Patrick's Day parade where I'm from and it used to be he would get this big keg. I would have to float it for him because he couldn't finish it. He's not a drunk. He doesn't drink like I do. He doesn't think like I do. But the point is, I drank for the same reason everybody else did.
I saw that if I took a drink, I could do the same thing my grandfather did when he drank. He was okay. He wasn't any better. He wasn't super human. What happens over time for me is that I take that drink for ease and comfort. Over time, as I move through the well-known stages of a spree, I may take that drink and everything will be all right. Maybe I have a little bit of fun. But somewhere along the line, maybe down the week or whatever, I start craving it and I drink and then I can't stop. And all the times that I promised I wasn't going to drink, I end up drinking.
So I found alcohol and I love it, you know? Still do to this day. I wouldn't be an alcoholic if I didn't. I mean, I love alcohol. Look at what it does for people. Makes them enjoy themselves, you know.
I kept drinking and I went to school. And by the way, at nine years old, I was not club hopping. It was more or less pitching a tent in the backyard with me and Wes and a couple of guys, stealing some magazines, and getting our G.I. Joes. And you know, whenever we could, we got an opportunity and we drank.
But what happened over time is that I needed more and more, needed the ability to keep going. And I was about twelve or thirteen or so. I had gotten into—I'm going to say some things that are dirty words, okay? They're very profane, horrible words. They're words like God, you know, home group. I'm also going to say words like drugs. They're part of my story. I'm not a drug addict, but they were around.
Now, what I'll tell you about drugs though is that I wasn't so much into doing them as I was seeing it as entrepreneurship. I've been in sales my whole life.
So I'm about thirteen or so, and a couple of my friends' older brothers and whatever, they're getting this, that, and the other. And I start noticing that when I hang out with these guys and I'm drinking and having a good time, I keep having to wait and I keep having to mingle my way in there to get whatever I want. And I said, "You know what? Get rid of those guys. Go talk to the source."
So at thirteen, I started a very young business. Young businessman. And this is the kind of insanity I deal with. Thirteen years old. I get told, "All right, first job, go out here." There's the Bella Baton Rouge Casino. At the time it was Argus Casino, and they were just opening because Argus had taken over, and it was this big deal. And so a couple of friends of mine, they're going to go out to the parking lot. A little hand-eye coordination, whatever. And you know, we're going to take off.
We show up, a little hand-eye coordination, a little scuffle breaks out, and then I hear those fateful sounds. Pow! Pow! Pow! I go running and I'm running and I'm running and I get all the way home. And I get that thought, "I cannot live like this anymore. I will die. I've got to get a gun." [laughter]
Sane thinking to me is, "I'm not going to let you shoot me." So at thirteen years old, I stole my father's .38 special. There's a story with that, and I'll get to that later, but it's very sad.
And I'm moving up the ranks of corporate enterprise. I'm getting promotions. I'm getting a little bit more of a corporate expense account. I can relate to Bill. You know, I had good uses of an expense account and the ability to do things that other salesmen weren't able to do because I was good at my job.
Also later on that year, I had alcohol poisoning. I got sent to a hospital at thirteen, and my parents were like, "Oh my god, what's wrong?" And I had bottles under my bed and everything. And I ended up in this hospital for three days. And I got out, and that was one of the first times where I really started looking at it and going, "You know, I don't know. Maybe something needs to stop."
But I didn't.
So I kept drinking. And around that time, I had met some people at this middle school I was going to. And one of these guys, real funny. I hated this guy because he was just good. He was just really good. He was a good guy. And so I drank to be him, you know? That's what I wanted to be. Now I overshot the mark every time. But he was such a nice guy. I couldn't stand him.
Well, his sister took kind of a liking to me. So we decided to go to this little sixth-grade dance, whatever. Well, through that, I end up becoming his best friend. Irony. Mr. Good Guy and the drunk. And we become real close friends. And I can tell you to this day that every time I walked into his house and hung around his parents and hung around his grandfather, anytime I was around any of his family, that was the safest I ever felt. And I never knew why. Never knew why.
So you know, I'm kind of losing touch with him, and I'm kind of doing my thing. And at fourteen, I had gotten a really big opportunity in business. I had been asked to go on a road trip west towards a very large state in which a very large country is under it. And I was not going to go there, but I was going to stay in Texas. And I was asked to go there and to hang out in this hotel room and these two older guys were going to go do whatever they do and everything was going to be all right.
And I'm drinking and I'm drinking and I'm hanging out and having a good time and I'm making money and things are good. And they come back and we take off. My friend's driving. He flicks a cigarette out the window. Little swerve when he does it. There comes those blue lights.
Now, here's the thing. I don't know if alcohol does this for y'all, but for me, sitting in that very moment, I felt a sense of ease and comfort because there was no denying what was going to happen. There was no, "Well, maybe we'll get out of this." We weren't. A fourteen-year-old, a seventeen-year-old, and an eighteen-year-old in a car that was not registered to them at three o'clock in the morning coming from Texas into Louisiana with no story of we were on vacation or visiting family. We're not related. We're going to jail. That's just all there is to it.
And the state trooper pulls us over and I began a long trip from Baton Rouge City Juvenile to Lula Juvenile to St. James Juvenile down to what is now Ryan's Airport or LTI.
Now, here's where the delusion comes in. Because as I'm going from each place, you get in and you're sitting on that cot. I don't know how it is in Mississippi, but in Louisiana, a lot of the juvenile facilities are more or less like summer camp for all the bad kids, you know. You still kind of play board games and kind of hang out. You go to school, but it's like, you know, you don't always use your pencil to write. You kind of keep it by your side just in case.
And every time I would go to a new place, people like, "What are you in for?" And I'm like, "Nothing, man. I'm getting out here in like a day. My parents are coming." I got on the bus. Now I'm getting shipped down to the next place. And every time I showed up, I was so sure they were showing up. They never did.
I ended up in front of a judge at fourteen years old with possession of a stolen firearm, possession of schedule three and schedule two narcotics, intent to distribute, interstate trafficking, and truancy, being out after curfew. [laughter]
I'm going to go to jail. I'm going to go to a juvenile facility until I'm eighteen and if I don't behave, twenty-one. And you want to throw in truancy? Thanks, judge. We will remain nameless.
I couldn't have my license in the state of Louisiana. All these things they sent me in front. My lawyer says, "Here's what we're going to do. Since you're a minor, we're going to put you in juvenile court by yourself. Well, you know, wrong kid, wrong place, wrong time. They'll be tried as adults in adult court. Hopefully you'll get some sympathy." I get juvenile life probation. Can't have my license in the state of Louisiana till I'm seventeen. Can't be around a stolen or any firearm, stolen or not. [laughter] It's legal, I promise.
So I got to stay out of trouble, which I did none of those things. Well, I didn't get my license at seventeen because I wasn't seventeen yet, but I didn't do any of the things that were asked of me.
So I keep doing what I'm doing. And at fifteen, I started going missing. It was no longer taking trips. I was going out to drink and then I just wouldn't show back up.
I would go to your party and I would hang out and I would drink everything that was in there. In the last days of my drinking, I would drink everything I could and I would get intoxicated. I would get drunk. But I didn't feel any better. Didn't feel any better. It's the most miserable place for me to be.
But there were also times like my sister's wedding where my family looked at me and said, "Please just not tonight, not today." But I took a drink a day or so prior. And I'm being told that I broke the little Greek column that had the rings on it and I made a huge scene at my sister's wedding.
I had tickets to a concert one time that my favorite band of all time and I was going to go see them. And I knew if I just got to UNO Lakefront Arena in New Orleans, if I just got there, then I could party. But I took a drink a day or so prior and that craving kicked in. So on the trip, I just decided—which really, I didn't decide, because I have no choice. I still have no choice. Nowhere in the literature, in my interpretation, has it ever said I've gotten that choice back. Never have.
I've seen groups and if it's your home group, that's cool. But free again to choose? Still don't have that choice. Never have. Never will.
And I woke up at some flop house in New Orleans with the tickets still in my pocket, never been ripped, completely broke, going, "How am I going to get home?"
So I'm drinking like that. And my birthday is December 20th, like I said. I take off and I go missing and I show back up on Christmas day and I got about a thousand dollars in my pocket and I got a bunch of presents in my hand because the golden son, you know, the prodigal son, the golden child. I'm home.
My mom pokes her head out the door and she says, "You know, you don't live here anymore." I smelled the stuffing, the ham, the turkey. I saw my sister, my brother-in-law, my mom, my dad, saw everybody but me. And they told me I didn't live here anymore.
And at fifteen years old, that first night, I slept in a bush right behind my parents' house, in between the two houses. That was where I ended up. I went from Corona and a slice of lime to living the good life. Thunderbird, you know, Mad Dog, you know, Cisco, all the high-shelf stuff.
It's sad because when I was about fourteen, there was this bum who lived under this overpass in my parents' neighborhood. He was a wino. That's what he was. He was a wino and he lived under this overpass and he was kind of our childhood patron. And we felt so bad for him because he slept in the woods and we were like, that's just got to suck. He needs to get a tent or something. You know, this guy sits and hangs out with us on the railroad tracks and buys us liquor. And we bought him a tent.
Year later, I'm begging him to scoot over. I got nowhere to go.
You know, Bill talks about how he stepped away from the hospital, a broken man. And then on Armistice Day, he drinks again and he goes on that last debauch. Some people disagree. I don't know. It's how I've interpreted the book. But I think if Bill, in that time from November until December 10th when Ebby came and talked to him, probably could have gotten the message at any time in there.
I don't know, because he apparently had done one of my favorite people and spiritual giants. I love her with everything in me. She used to always say this. She said, "I could either go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of my intolerable situation as best I could, or accept spiritual help."
And that's where I had gotten to. I realized that this was the bitter end. That was it. I didn't know that there was spiritual help. And so I show back up at my parents' house, probably about late May, and I'm sitting there. I'm like, "I'm dying. Please help. Please help. I'm dying."
So they said, "Well, you know, when you used to hang out with this kid and his family, you know, I had gone to church with them. I got baptized. But I said, 'Frothy emotional appeal seldom suffices. I've been to altar calls and I've felt the Lord and the Holy Spirit and felt them all the way out the door drinking.' I needed a message of depth and weight. I needed somebody to finally tell me what alcoholism was so I knew what it was that was wrong with me so I could appropriately fix what was wrong."
So I showed up at these people's house and I said, "You know, I don't know what to do. I need help. My parents kicked me out. They sent me here." So they take me and we go into their house and they want to go off on some little retreat and get me all spiritually charged like the good alcoholic that I am. I'm going to lick my wounds, get some food in my stomach, get some money in my pocket, and get back to business.
And so I did that and I ended up in North Carolina with them. And that girl that I went to that sixth-grade retreat with, she's sitting there and she's like, "Hey man, let's partake." And I looked at her, I said, "You don't want to be me. Look at me." She's like, "Come on." And misery loves company. I said, "All right."
So