I Asked for a Sponsor and Never Drank Again – AA Speaker – Sean C.
AA speaker Sean C. shares his story from punk rock partying and daily drinking to asking for a sponsor and 35 years sober. A talk on sponsorship, the Big Book, and finding grace in the rooms.
Sean C. grew up in Sacramento, California as the youngest of 13 children in a strict, religious household—and spent his teenage years and early twenties getting drunk nearly every night. In this AA speaker tape, he walks through how he bottomed out, finally went to a meeting that felt like home, asked a man with 8 months sober to be his sponsor on May 8th, 1990, and hasn’t had a drink since. His talk is centered on sponsorship, working the Big Book with a sponsor who showed him exactly what was in the literature, and how the fellowship carried him through his worst moments.
Sean C. is an AA speaker with 35 years of continuous sobriety since May 8th, 1990, when he asked a sponsor to guide him through the Big Book. He describes his drinking days—starting at age 7 with his first beer and escalating to daily blackout drinking by his late teens—and his breakthrough moment when he finally identified as an alcoholic and found a meeting full of people he could relate to. The talk focuses heavily on his sponsor’s no-nonsense approach to the steps, his own journey as a sponsor later on, and how the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous sustained him through profound grief, including the loss of his brother and his father’s heart attack.
Episode Summary
Sean C. came into Alcoholics Anonymous at 18 years old, but not by his own choice—a girl he knew kept asking him to go. Before that, drinking had been the center of his life since childhood. His first beer came at a Super Bowl party at age 7. By high school, he and his friends were systematically stealing beer from neighborhood backyards and joyriding in stolen cars. Drunk was just normal: cool, something to brag about. He was a punk rock kid, a skateboarder, an artist—identities that came with a built-in excuse to stay loaded.
When he finally showed up at his first AA meeting, he arrived drunk, thinking it would be a laugh. He saw people in their 30s (ancient to him), people talking about days sober, and felt nothing but alienation. Someone handed him a Big Book on the way out. For eight months, he attempted sobriety on his own terms—marking days off a calendar, making it three or four days, convincing himself he could control his drinking by switching beer types or trying wine, then getting drunk again. That cycle of shame and humiliation broke him down.
What changed was finding the Primary Purpose meeting—full of artists, record store workers, and angry lesbians who swore and quoted God in the same sentence. People he could actually see himself in. He got sober for real on May 8th, 1990, when he asked a man with 8 months of sobriety to sponsor him. The guy had a mullet, drove an orange Datsun, and loved Rush. Sean C. thought 8 months was blazing.
His sponsor took him literally through the Big Book: “You’re going to read this out loud to me. Where it says pray, we’re going to pray. Where it says write, we’re going to write.” No fancy interpretation. No shortcuts. When Sean C. tried to turn his Fourth Step into a novel, his sponsor threw it in the trash and made him start over, sitting right there in the same room. The Fifth Step came on a beach in Santa Cruz. The steps came with structure, accountability, and a man who had been shown this way by his own sponsor.
Early sobriety was supported by the fellowship in ways Sean C. now understands as twelfth-step work. He had guys who let him sit on their couches all night, who took him to coffee shops, who picked him up for afternoon meetings and evening meetings. They didn’t rescue him—they just stayed present. He got 90 days because of their consistency, not his strength.
The talk touches on the way Sean C. drifted multiple times—moving to Texas for a spiritual retreat, getting caught up in Step 11 while neglecting his daily program, slipping into complacency when his life got good (the girl, the job, the house, the car, the business). Each time he found himself convinced he was going to drink or die, he went back to his sponsor. The second time through the steps hit differently. When he read “We Agnostics,” something shifted.
The emotional core comes near the end. His brother—a man who got sober partly because he watched Sean C. get sober, a man the rest of the family had abandoned when he came out as gay—called with news. He’d been HIV positive for years, stable on medication. Then came hepatitis C from his drinking. Then the hospital. Then the diagnosis: no liver transplant, days left.
Sean C. walked into that hospital room and told his brother he was going to die. His brother died six days later. During that same week, Sean C.’s father had a heart attack in the hospital parking lot. Sean C. learned his mother had Alzheimer’s. No extended family came to help. Just his sponsors, his sponsees, and his sisters.
In that moment, Sean C. called a woman he’d known since his drinking days—his friend’s mother who’d kept AA pamphlets in her bathroom, who’d been sober the whole time. She was a counselor for death and grieving. He called her friend, a nun, who walked him through the funeral arrangements. He got calls and visits from people in AA constantly. He sat in meetings without speaking, just needing to be around people who were sober, people he trusted.
That’s when Sean C. says he finally found God in Alcoholics Anonymous. Not in the desert. Not in Step 11 alone. In the rooms, through people showing up. In the grace of the fellowship. He came to scoff. He remained to pray.
Notable Quotes
I asked another man to sponsor me. I have not drank since the day that I asked another man to sponsor me.
I don’t know exactly what I bit off in that situation, but he happened to have a sponsor also, and his sponsor was not a guy with 8 months—it was a different type of guy.
My sponsor looked at it and he was just like, ‘What are you talking about?’ And literally threw the whole thing away and made me start writing it again in front of him.
There is no advanced AA. This is the only program that we have. There is no higher level of this. It is really that simple.
There’s no way that I could have not have taken a drink to actually walk through that situation. The only way that I was able to do it was by grace and it was by the grace of these rooms. And I came here to scoff. I honestly did. And I remained to pray.
Big Book Study
Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
Early Sobriety
Grief & Loss
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Sponsorship
- Big Book Study
- Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
- Early Sobriety
- Grief & Loss
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. My name is Sean Christian and I am an alcoholic. >> This is Eileen's first ACUPPA.
In fact, her first AA convention. >> >> My home group is out of the blue. It is a big book study.
It is a men's meeting. It is closed. It meets on Monday nights at 7:00.
It meets at the Salvation Army building on the corner of Laurel and Blackburn in Santa Cruz, California. My current service commitment is I am the alternate general service representative for in the hat group which meets Sunday night at the Silk Elk Range. >> My sobriety date is May 8th, 1990.
>> I'm very excited to be here. It's a it's it's it's a huge honor to be asked to speak at this, you know, and I'd really like to thank the host committee. It was an awesome weekend.
And thank you for everyone for putting this on. It's been an awesome weekend. Thank you everyone for actually being good representatives of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I haven't seen that many shenanigans this weekend, so it's been nice. Let's see if we can keep that one going tonight. And you know what?
Thank you everyone for attending the panels. It was awesome. I went to the men's panel today.
Like I showed up expecting like 20 people to be there maybe and I had a hard time getting a chair, you know, that's amazing at an AA convention. The meetings have been packed, you know, and it just kind of warms my heart at an ACUPPAW. So that's awesome.
It's been really good to be with all of you this weekend. >> Let's get on to it. >> I am the youngest child of 13 children.
It's an Irish family. >> And believe it or not, I have never seen my parents actually take a drink. They were very religious.
They went to church and they believed alcohol was a sin and there was no alcohol in our home and it was looked down on. I came from a fairly functional family. I was not abused.
I think that I was actually shown an amazing amount of love. So, I can't really point to my alcoholism and blame it on that. Um, my first beer, I had a sister who was 5 years who is 5 years older than me and uh she took me to a Super Bowl party.
I was 7 years old. It was a Miller highlight. That was before they had the long necks.
They only came in the shorter necks. And uh she gave me that beer and I thought it was the most amazing thing that I got to drink it. You know, like I absolutely I heard a speaker earlier talk about the fact that she couldn't remember the first time that she had chocolate ice cream, but she absolutely remembers everything about her first drink, you know?
And I started thinking about that all day. It's like, I don't remember the first time I had ice cream. I don't remember the first time I had pizza.
I absolutely remember that beer. My parents are from the south. I was the only California born sibling.
And uh there was one bottle of whiskey in the house that was actually used for medicine. It was something that they did in the south. They uh put a little bit of whiskey in a small like glass and they put honey in it and lemon in it and they would heat it up and use it as cough syrup.
And that was the only bottle. I eventually found that bottle. It was hidden in my mother's closet.
all the way at the top. I took the bottle. I took it out and I hid it in the woodshed.
That bottle has never been discussed in my family ever. Like, I'm sure they knew it was missing, but no one ever said anything. There was just a lot of prayer in the house.
What I would do when I was young is I would go out and I would uh they would put me to bed, close out the lights, and I'd sneak out my window. I'd go out into the yard and I'd experiment with that whiskey by myself in the yard. And I drank and I drank that way until I found other kids who actually drank.
And then I started hanging out with those kids. I grew up, got drunk, and got sober in Sacramento, California. >> >> The first time that uh the first time that I really got drunk uh was Halloween night.
It was with my friend Sean who lived around the corner. We actually split a paper route together. We were in junior high and uh we emptied out a gallon milk jug and cleaned it out.
We put unsweetened Kool-Aid in the jug and then we went through his parents' bar and we took a little bit off each bottle, put it in the jug and shook it up. That night we went out dressed inappropriately on Halloween night and uh and we were going to split that jug in between us. I don't remember much about that night.
I remember there was a chainsaw. I remember there was a fire extinguisher. I think we set something on fire later on.
I was told that it was my idea to steal the moped. I don't even remember a moped. And uh I remember vomiting on my friend's dad's shoes.
I remember waking up the next day with my mother praying next to my bed and it was never discussed again. And that started that started drinking for me. You know, I drank in the neighborhood.
Sacramento is an interesting the whole entire Sanwa the whole entire San Hawk King Valley is really interesting. There's not a whole lot to do for kids. You know, you drink in parks, you drink down by the river, you drink in a field, you drink in the back of a truck, you drink wherever you can drink.
You know, Sacramento, we're incredibly lucky. There's this thing called the American River, right? I guarantee you at any time of the day you can go down there and get alcohol.
There are people down there fishing that'll give you a beer. There are people down there rafting that'll give you a beer. You know, there are people who will, you know, who are having a party that you can just join in on any age.
It is fairly easy to find a way to get liquor. Um >> Oh, yeah. And you know, that's the way that things first started out for me.
Um, I did a lot of things in my neighborhood. I broke into an amazing amount of houses and never once did I ever consider breaking into a house and stealing something that I could sell. Like, it never occurred to me.
In the valley, and a lot of people know about this, you'll have a back porch that's screened in where the pool table might be or the ping pong table, and that's where dad keeps the refrigerator that he has his beer in, right? So, we go in the middle of the night and we'd break into people's yards and we'd break into their back porches and steal beer, you know, because that's the best way to do it. Like, why would I need money, right?
I have money. Money is easy to get. Alcohol is hard to get.
So, we would break into people's houses, find out if they were home, and we would steal liquor out of their bars because that was the hard thing to do. That started an interesting train of things. Uh, a friend of mine who's not here tonight talks about something in his pitch and I'll talk about it tonight.
Um, when I was young, my sister took me to Tower Records and I got to buy a record and that record was from a band called Black Flag. >> And you know what? I went home to my skateboard and it was a Dwayne Peter skateboard also.
And I had every excuse in the world from that moment on to do whatever I wanted to. >> I was young. I was a punk rock kid and I was a skateboarder, which means I can be drunk all the time.
I can spray paint or break whatever I want to. And it's a lifestyle. >> The more things that you do as the punk rock kid, quote unquote, right?
Or, you know, you could fill in anything in the blank there and it works. Is, you know, the higher in social status you get. like, "Oh my god, do you know what Shawn did that night?
Dude, he's so cool. He puked all over himself and then he went out and started a fight, you know, and like then you're the cool dude, you know?" So, it was this great excuse. And I never identified drinking as a situation.
Um, and you know what? I'm really sorry if I did this to your house, but uh, you know, and it could be, but you know what would happen is we would hear about keg parties in neighborhoods, right? You know, like someone's parents is out of town for the weekend and they're having a keer.
So, we'd show up to these parties, and if there weren't good-looking girls that we wanted to flirt with, what we would do is we would start a fight, me and a bunch of my buddies, and basically intimidate the entire party enough that we would take the cake for ourselves and leave. So, then you have like five of your buddies in an entire cake in a park and you're set. Now, preferably do this on a Friday night.
What happens is then when the keg is done, you could take the keg back to the liquor store. This happened in the 80s, right? You could return it for the deposit on the keg and the tap and they would give you the deposit in beer and they wouldn't card you, right?
That takes care of Saturday night. Sunday night, it's time to go down to the river, go to Fulsome Lake or go whatever you're going to do, and I guarantee you, you're going to find a way to get drunk. So, uh, that went straight into high school.
And, uh, you know, I I swear to God, I thought that you had to be a jock to play school sports. When I found out that anyone could go to the tryyouts, I thought that was the most hilarious thing in the world. And I was going I'm like, I'm going to ruin your party, dude.
Like, that's so awesome. I could show up and actually be on the football team. So, I showed up and I actually got onto the football team.
which turned out to be great because they would get drunk after games, right? So that would take care of like a couple nights a week there. Then I was like I was the guy like I convinced my parents that it was okay to drive a motorcycle if you were only 15 and they never actually like looked into any legality of this and they get you know they let me buy a motorcycle.
So, I was driving a motorcycle around the neighborhood and I would go out and go out with my buddies and one way or the other, you know, we'd find the guy that had the parents who drank and we were able to drink that night and I never identified that as a problem. But it came down to it later on when I was in Alcoholics Anonymous and I look back on it, I was getting drunk every single night of the week. But I never thought about it.
You know, I never considered it a drinking problem. That's what you do. You know, that's a good time.
you know, the only thing that you might be bummed at me because I'm out having a good time because you're a stick in the mud. You don't have any friends, you know, but this is what we do and we're having a good time. So, uh, I thought drinking was fine and I did for a long time.
Um, there's a lot, you know, I grew up in Sacramento. There's a lot of parts of my story that don't have anything to do with alcohol. will just phrase over that and say that you know what if there was something that I could get because sometimes it's really odd to me that it's really difficult to buy alcohol but it's really easy to buy anything else you know so I would do anything that I could get my hands on and that you know but alcohol was my true love that is what I absolutely loved I did not need you as my friend if I had a bottle I did not need you if you were a girl if I had a bottle you know like I don't care I have a bottle go have fun you know this is what I could too.
And uh you know, because I came from drinking in my yard and that was a good time. Like I had fun getting drunk in my backyard on that bottle of whiskey all by myself. You know, I really don't need you.
And uh things got good. You know, I had a lot of fun. Like I want to say that there were consequences, but you know, I never really identified any of the consequences.
There's a bowling alley called Country Club Lanes in Sacramento. We would go by there and be drunk and we would steal bowling balls that were the rental bowling balls and we'd load the car down with the bowling balls and we drive around neighborhoods drunk just throwing bowling balls through windows of cars. We were talking about it the other night.
Someone was talking about what a fun time it was actually being drunk. This was fun. You know, like if it's a Tuesday night, you know, you're in high school, you're 16, you want to get drunk.
What we would do is we would go out and we would walk around the neighborhood and we'd steal a Volkswagen bug, right? And we joyide that bug until we found another Volkswagen bug and we'd steal that bug and leave the first bug. We would do this five or six times and the last bug would end up where the first one was.
So, everyone leaving their house would have a Volkswagen bug in front of their house. It just wasn't theirs. you know, and and it's totally fine to get drunk and set stuff on fire, you know, that's a good time, you know, like if you haven't done it, try it.
It's a blast. And uh I really thoroughly enjoyed drinking and I didn't ever acknowledge any consequences of that because you know what, I'm young. I'm a punk rock skateboarder kid.
This is okay. This is all right. And then uh shortly afterwards, you know, I got to I moved out of my house and uh I got to live on my own, an apartment in downtown Sacramento that was a fun place.
Like if you wanted to go drink, you came to my house, you know, that was the place to go. And things got really interesting. Um eventually my girlfriend that I had at the time was uh asking me if I would go to Alcoholics Anonymous, and I had no idea what she was talking about.
like why would I go to AA? The only idea that I had of AA was commercials that I saw on late night television for hospitals. It's from this place called Shik, right?
And they had little candles that you passed around and I'm like, why would I go to that place? You know, Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't know.
She mentioned it that one time. And uh things in that relationship were kind of getting interesting. At the time I was uh 18 years old.
I worked at a live music bar, you know, and I got to bar back at that bar. And uh I thought that I had the greatest life ever, you know. I got to drink at that bar before it opened.
There were the like the cool bands were playing at that bar. I got to drink when it closed. I had a daytime job at the time.
I had a house. I had a girlfriend. I had a car.
I had money. And I was partying. Things are good.
Why Why do I need to go to AA? You know, what's the story there? And she kept asking.
And uh she would ask me and I would tell her, you know what, I called them up and they were closed. And then I told her, you know, you know what? I I called him up and I since I don't have health insurance, I can't go.
Then I called her up and said, you know what, it's going to be really hard for me because it's all the way on the other side of town and it's in the middle of the day, so I can't go. You know, I have to work. And uh the excuses kept piling up and uh eventually she left and she actually moved in with a friend of mine and there came my first good solid excuse to drink because I drank at her.
Oh yeah. You know what? I had an excuse then to drink and it was on and I created a lot of wreckage and I was drunk all of the time like pretty much day and night.
I moved out of the beautiful house and I moved into a one-bedroom apartment that I lived in with three other guys, right? And this was not a big apartment, and it was definitely not nice. We actually had to keep our food in the refrigerator because it was the only place that the cockroaches wouldn't get in.
Yeah, it was it was that kind of place. Like you shook out the sheets to get the bugs out and it was smelly. And you know what?
It was the greatest thing ever. Like look at me now. You know, like I'm a punk rock kid living in a punk rock house with my buddies and we get to drink all the time and no one's nagging me.
Like this is awesome. I'm quitting my job, you know? Like there's no reason to go to work anymore.
Like this is ridiculous, you know? I need to really focus on what I'm doing because, you know, and then I found out that you can buy rice and beans and tortillas really cheap bulk, you know, like you could buy big like 50 lb bags of that stuff for next to nothing at the beginning of the month and have food for the rest of the month, right? So then all you have to focus on at that point is where you're going to get alcohol and that's the only thing you have to worry about.
And you know what? You don't even have to really work that much or put that much effort into it. You could pretty much stay drunk all of the time.
There's a part, you know, I've heard lots of stories in Alcoholics Anonymous and I've read about stories in the books where people were hiding bottles because they were ashamed of their drinking. I hid bottles all of the time, but I was hiding them so no one else would drink them. You know, that was my stash.
You know, when we went out to a party, I wanted to make sure that I was taken care of on the side and I had my own bottle. So, I would drink your alcohol and I would drink the alcohol available, but I would never tell you about the alcohol that I had. I knew one time I was actually working at another club and uh and I knew that there was no booze in the house and I knew that all my housemates were broke and they showed up to my job drunk and I'm like, "Oh, dude, they found it.
They found my ball of vodka." And I was just pissed. I was running around with a bat getting ready to cave ahead and I was angry. I was really angry because I knew these guys found the bottle.
And uh you know, I still didn't identify a drinking problem, any of that kind of stuff. I'm still living the life, right? You know, I'm working at a club.
I have drunk girls that I'm making out with randomly. Who knows who they are, you know? I live in the cool house.
And then came the next greatest thing. Oh yeah, dude. I started painting.
Not houses, but paintings. And uh I was an artist, right? So being an artist, totally cool to drink, totally fine, acceptable, you know, and uh I was booking along in my life just right.
I would every once in a while go down to this coffee shop and hang out in downtown Sacramento that's at 18th and Capital. And it was like one of the only coffee shops down there at the time. And there was always a bunch of guys down there that I really enjoyed talking to and having a cup of coffee with.
And uh you know, I really didn't know much about them, but every once in a while I'd see him out dancing. I'd see him out at shows. was a team having a good times and you know I I actually like these guys and considered them my friends.
One time one of these guys came up to me and said hey would you like to go to an alcoholics anonymous meeting with me and I'm like you're kidding you're joking you go to AA? Really dude I'm going where do we sign up? Let's go to AA you know like that's great.
Like this is going to be really fun. Maybe we you know maybe I'll cut my hair and get a job. You know who knows what'll happen.
Maybe we'll start going to church. Yeah, we'll be a good Alcoholics Anonymous people. So, I went to a meeting.
I mean, I got good and liquored up and went to a meeting with him. I'm like I wanted my buddies to go, too. And they're like, I don't know what you're talking about.
I'm like, no, dude. We're going to an AA meeting, dude. This is going to be rad.
See what these people are doing, man. And I showed up and there was a bunch of people in the meeting before it started that I used to drink with. And I'm like, dude, that's where you are.
I've been looking for you everywhere. I'm like, you know, like I I wondered what happened to you. I thought maybe you moved out of town.
You're at this AA place, man. Rad. What is this?
And they told me to sit next to him. And I'm like, "Okay, cool. Whatever." You know, and uh I didn't get, you know, the only thing I really understood at that meeting is one, there was a bunch of old people there because they had to be at least in their like 30s, you know.
Two, right, is Yeah. Yeah. I was 18, bro.
30 was old. Like, you should have been dead by now. Like, you're doing something wrong in your life if you're not.
And uh there were people who were like talking about how many days they had sober, you know? There were people that like say like, you know, hey, I have 18 days, you know. And that was pretty much the only thing I got out of that meeting other than I didn't relate to anyone.
There were like a bunch of biker types that were tattooed and rough guys. And I'm like, I don't know what you guys are talking about. I don't understand what's going on here.
I'm leaving, you know, and my friends gave me a book on my way out, right? They said, "Look, we bought you this book." And I'm like, "Oh, that's cool." And they all signed their name in it and put their phone number next to it, you know, and they got a couple other guys that I met in the meeting to do that, too. I'm like, "Wow, that's cool." You know, right on.
I'm glad you guys do this. And went out that night and went home to tell my housemates. I'm like, "Dude, it was awesome.
It was totally fun. There's all these freaky people there and this guy was there and this guy was there. I'm like, "We need to have a party.
Invite him over. And uh I didn't go back to AA for a while and uh until things started getting really really weird. Um I started not feeling good all of the time, you know, and I always thought I was sick.
I thought maybe I got some kind of bug or something like that or, you know, maybe the cockroaches got in the food. Who knows? And uh then I started vomiting blood every once in a while, you know, and uh I and I was drunk all of the time.
Like I got drunk when I woke up. I got drunk in the middle of the day. I was drunk constantly, you know, and I just didn't feel good.
And I didn't understand what that was. So, uh for some reason, and I'm not exactly sure why, I went back to that those same guys that picked me up at the coffee shop and asked if we could go to another AA meeting. And uh I went to a meeting that was called the primary purpose group.
And uh at that meeting it was the most amazing thing I ever saw. There were people with like weird hair. They were like like real artists, you know?
They worked at like cool jobs like record stores and they went to coffee shops. And then there was this lesbian, right? She was angry.
She was pissed, right? She was small and angry and and she used and she used profanity and God in the same sentence. And I'm like, "This is it, Toad.
I like, wow, this is awesome. This is so much better. I must have went to the wrong AA before.
Like, this is the right place." So, I'm like, "That's it, dude. I'm joining AA. Like, I'm into these people, man.
They're awesome." And uh and so, like, I went home and told all my housemates like, "Dude, I'm going to stop drinking. This is going to be great." You know? I got the calendar off the wall and I marked off the day that I went to the meeting, you know, and I'm like stoked.
Okay, I go to bed tomorrow and I just wake up and this is what I do. I mark off another day on the calendar, right? And then probably like day three came along and who knows what happened, but maybe it was somebody's party.
And it's like, oh, you know, dude, I can't I can't flake on my bro, dude, it's his party. We have to get drunk. So, I would get drunk.
and I'd, you know, wake up with regret and I'd show up, you know, and the next day I'd call up my friends and be like, you know, can we go to one of those meetings again? I'd go to the meeting, I would smoke a lot of cigarettes, I would talk to a few people and uh decide that I wasn't going to drink again and I'd come home and I'd start marking days off the calendar again. And I did that for eight months.
And it was terrible. And it was awful. you know, I all of a sudden decided that I had a drinking problem and I didn't know how to control it, you know, and it was really humiliating, right?
Because I'm the cool guy. I'm the fun guy. Everything's great, right?
And I can't figure out how not to drink. And uh I started doing weird little things, right? It's the heart, it's the tequila, it's the vodka.
That's my problem, you know? I need to drink beer. If I just drink beer with the Bros, it's good.
All right, that didn't work, you know? All right, let's go back to just hard alcohol and not mix it with beer. Didn't work.
Still ended up getting drunk. Then I started, I swear to God, I went in this big kick where I was gonna drink wine, you know, like I'll be the sophisticated artist drinker and I'm drinking wine and uh and I still ended up getting into the same places, you know, I would end up having a beer at the beginning of the night and for some reason, I have no idea why, but it was my idea to throw the bus bench through the window of the building, you know, and everyone told me it was me and I'm like, "Oh, dude, bumped." So came up with this new theory. Like I don't know how many people remember this, but they used to have these TV shows called ABC ABC after school specials, right?
And I'm like, that's what we're going to do. We're going to have an ABC after school party and we're not going to have any booze, right? And this will help me not drink.
And uh I really have no idea what happened at that night, but apparently it was my idea. Someone told me this. It was my idea at some point in the night to spike the punch because it would be really disco and that would really make it an ABC after school party, right?
I woke up the next day, oddly to my mother coming over to the house to clean it. And uh yeah, that was a scene. And um there were like drunks all over the place.
They were like scammering out when they saw my mom. And my mom was like, "You know, your friends are very rude not to stay and help clean up, you know, and they're all freaking out because my like 60-year-old mother is there." And uh yeah, and I was done. I had taken my housemates that I was living with to AA meetings at the time because they were the ones getting me drunk.
Like, if they didn't drink, right, then I would be okay. Like, I need my bros to get sober. And I started taking them to meetings and they all stayed sober and I ended up drunk and I was pissed.
You know, I'm like, "Oh, dude." Because then it became an ego thing, right? They had more days than I had, right? And I'm like, "Oh, this that's hammered." So, I started convincing them to get drunk with me.
Like, no, dude. We need to get drunk, you know? Come on.
Come on. Dr. is in town.
Come on. We have to go get drunk and go to the show. Like, you know what else are you going to do?
and they stopped talking to me and hanging out with me. They wouldn't even talk to me when I was at home. I'm like, "This sucks, right?" So, I couldn't convince I could could three of them actually stayed sober for a good little chunk of time till they decided that they weren't alcoholics.
And uh I went to an AA meeting again and I wasn't going to go to the cool meeting that I liked with all of my friends. You know, what I was going to do is I was going to go to the old people biker AA meeting, right? And it was this place called uh group three.
And uh and there's like, okay, like I need to figure this entire thing out. I keep hearing people talk about this sponsor thing. I need to figure this out.
There was a dude in that meeting that had a mullet, right? He used to live in like Kansas or Nebraska or something like that. He drove an orange Datson B210.
And he really really liked the band Rush. And I'm like, you know what? You're it, dude.
you're that's absolutely like will you be my sponsor because at the time he had the blazing amount of time that it amazed me he had 8 months of sobriety right if you could do this for 8 months I absolutely want you to be my sponsor because these other people over here that had like 15 years they're not alcoholics you know they have a bunch of time they they haven't drank in years they just need to move on you know like is this some kind of like weird like social club for them is it they don't have any friends, you know, is it they don't know how to have a good time? Do they not have a family? Is it a church thing?
I don't know what's wrong with these people, but they need to move on, right? Because they're not drunks if they haven't drank in that long. 8 months, dude, was, "Yeah, you're my man, right?
Let's figure out how this thing works." And uh that was May 8th, 1990. I have not drank since the day that I asked another man to sponsor me. >> >> I don't know exactly what I bit off in that situation, but uh and I didn't understand what sponsorship lineage really was at the time, but he happened to have a sponsor also, and his sponsor was not a guy with 8 months.
It was his sponsor was a different type of guy. So, uh he invited me over to his house, said okay. Showed up.
He had brewed a pot of coffee, set out some water. There was a lot of literature there. I was like, "Weird, man.
What, you know, are we going to college? What's all this stuff?" You know, he had a dictionary that was very old and very large. He had a pen and he told me to bring that book that I got at that meeting that I went to.
And I brought the book with me and he said, "Okay, this is what we're going to do. You're going to read this out loud to me. And where it says pray, we're going to pray.
Where it says write, we are going to write. And what we're going to do is I'm going to show you this exactly the way that my sponsor showed it to me because my sponsor said that he was teaching me to be a sponsor. So I'm going to teach you the same way that I was taught.
And I'm going to teach you how to be a sponsor. And this is how you take someone who's new through the steps. And where it said pray, we prayed.
And where it said write, we wrote. And uh things were good. through those times when uh I thought that I there was absolutely no way that I was going to make it or I had to either like I don't know join a church like I was still pretty convinced that everyone in AA was terrible and really boring and I really wasn't interested in them other than this one group that I went to and then actually my second home group which is the uh Wednesday night Mckenley Park young people's meeting.
Oh, trust me, you might have liked it now, but back then there was like eight of us and we were all sitting in a circle and we were really bored of each other's story. Like, wow. Okay, we've all shared and there's still a lot of time left.
What are we going to do? I think there was a scene too for a while where we actually couldn't pay the rent and we had to meet in the park in front of it. Like, we were actually meeting on the grass cuz the meeting couldn't pay for the rent.
Like, we're meeting in the parking lot, you know? And uh I started hanging out with some of these guys from these meetings because I didn't know what else to do and I didn't know how not to drink. And what I didn't know is these guys were 12step me.
You know what? There were guys that let me sit at their house all night long no matter how crazy I was. And they would watch movies with me.
They'd smoke cigarettes with me and they'd take me to coffee shops and they'd let me sleep on their couch. And the next day there would be some guy that would pick me up and take me to the coffee shop again and we'd hang out at the coffee shop and he'd take me to a meeting in the middle of the afternoon, right? Right.
And then all of a sudden that would roll into going to another meeting at night, which would roll into sitting at somebody's house and watching a movie again. And the entire process kept going. And all of a sudden I found out that uh I had 90 days.
And the only way that I got 90 days was because other Men and Alcoholics Anonymous 12step me. And uh if I had to do it over again, I would absolutely go to a detox. I wouldn't do it that way again.
But there's a lot of men that I absolutely owe my life to and I have no idea why they were even helping me other than the fact that they were probably just told to carry the message. You know, maybe they were looking for that fellowship to grow up around them because there wasn't a whole lot of us. And uh it was an amazing experience and one that I started sharing inappropriately before I got very far into the steps.
I started going to parties and we called it 12step jumping. We were finding our friends who were still drunk at parties and taking them to AA. Like, dude, guess what we have?
We're like four of us. We're sober now. We're going to get you sober, too.
It's awesome, right? And we would take them literally from these parties, like sometimes physically dragging them out of parties and take them to our house and then show up to a meeting the next day with them, right? And uh and my sponsor, God bless his heart, was like just amazingly tolerant with me.
And uh I have no idea why. You know what? I don't think there was anyone like there might have been a few people and I just thought they were being mean to me that told me, but man, I was just crazy.
Like I was smoking through the entire chair and then as soon as the smoke break came I'd come back into the meeting and start sharing about my life like and just vomiting all over meetings right and saying like I I didn't even have a clue what the solution was yet and uh and then all of my friends started doing that too right they all started coming along and none of us really quite understood what was going on and we were just vomiting all over meetings like constantly talking about the bizarre wreckage that we were getting into. And you know what? People stopped going to those meetings eventually.
You know, they're like, "Yeah, wow. This meeting is terrible. Look at all those guys in the back row." And uh that meeting actually moved to one of my buddy's house.
And then one night we took a group conscience to either have the meeting or to watch The Simpsons and it never met again. So that was the end of that meeting. Recently, I heard that it actually was restarted, which I think is awesome.
And uh my sponsor showed me how to uh my sponsor showed me how to do a fourth step and we did it right out of the book. And you know what? I was going to do the best like the biggest fourth step ever.
Like this was going to be a novel. This was going to be war in peace. I was going to impress all of Alcoholics Anonymous with my fourth step.
And uh like I was just writing about everything, man. I was writing about the guy that worked at PM down at the corner when I was in like third grade that was mean to me or something. And uh my sponsor looked at it and he was just like, "What are you talking about?" And literally threw the whole thing away and made me start writing it again in front of him, you know, and I'm like, "Dude, that sucks." I'm like, "You know how long I worked on this thing?" And then all of a sudden, I was done with my forte and like in like 3 or 4 days I was done with it, you know?
And I was like, "Oh, because I had to write it in the same house as him." and he wouldn't like we were having an appointment where we were going to meet and basically it was just him coming over to my house and going now write you know and I had to sit in the other room right while he was watching TV or something and write my fourth step. I'm like wow this sucks. God bless that man.
He was kind. He actually took me to uh Santa Cruz, California. We went to a meeting that night that was actually in the hat.
it was at a different location and uh that weekend he took me to the beach and I did my fifth step with him and uh we were right there on the beach and it was one of the most amazing things. He uh he had me go out and he had me think about those steps that I did and he told me to make sure that what I did was right and he told me to look at the book and review it. He told me to come back and we did the sixth and the seventh step and then all of a sudden we took everything out of that first column in that inventory and said this is the beginning of your eighth step list.
Now let's start adding to it and uh I got through the steps that way and things were good and life got good you know but all of a sudden I came up with the idea that I need to find myself in the 11th step like I need to get closer to God. So, I moved to El Paso, Texas. I'm going to go to the desert and find God.
And I got into this thing that now I refer to as the 11th step groove. That that was the only thing that I was doing was the 11th step. You know, I was going to meetings and I was getting spiritual and I was getting God and I was doing all these things and I absolutely ignored my daily program that I was supposed to be doing.
You know, I was in the 11th step and uh things got strange. I moved back to Sacramento. I'm like, "Wow, the desert sucks." And uh like there's nothing but dirt here.
And uh I moved back to Sacramento and you know what? My life was really starting to get good. You know, I got the girl and then I got the job and then I got the house and then I got the car, right?
Things are stuck. So, you know, I'm going to like two meetings a week. You know, I'm doing all right.
I'm kind of involved in AA. And then all of a sudden I started my own business, you know, and work was rolling and my life was going on and these are the promises coming true in my life. So I started going to a meeting about every two weeks, you know, but that's okay because I'm hanging out with all my AA buddies, you know, I hang out with AA people every single day and I fellowship, you know, and that's what's important.
So I started going to a meeting maybe once a month, right? And uh my sponsor, yeah, he hadn't heard from me for a while, but you know what? I was fellowshipping with my AA friends and we're getting serious about this stuff and we're finding ourselves and we're going out and seeking these new paths and uh all of a sudden I came to a point where I was absolutely convinced that there was no way that I could keep living this way.
I was convinced that either I was going to kill myself or I was going to drink because there was no reason to be sober, you know, like my life was absolutely miserable. I had everything and none of it fixed it, you know? like I was miserable and I had all these things that made me look good and it was terrible.
And uh I went back to my sponsor and I talked to my sponsor again and I said, "You know what? What are we supposed to do? What am I supposed to do?" And uh he pulled a bunch of literature off the shelves and he pulled out some paper and he pulled out a pen and he pulled out that dictionary again and we started on the blank page again and I read the book out loud to him again and it absolutely amazed me when I stood up and said, "You know what?
Alcoholics Anonymous is old. It needs to be updated. You know, like this was written in the Midwest by a bunch of really creepy white Christian guys, you know?
They need to like jazz this up a little bit because there's some better ways you need to look at this. I went through that and all of a sudden I became the whiskey and the milk guy, you know? I'm like, whoa, that's weird, you know?
And all of a sudden, I became the jaywalker. I never got that story. I swear to God, I'm like, that's weird, you know?
And then I read we agnostics and I'm telling you man, that was the heaviest thing I ever read in my life. You know what? And I launched back into the steps and it was incredible.
You know, my first and second step were amazing the second time through when I went through with my sponsor when I was absolutely defeated by my self-nowledge again. And it was the second time that I was defeated by self-nowledge and I got involved and I got sponsese and I started going back to meetings and I went to the not cool meetings. I went to the old dude meetings, right, with the old guys that I really didn't like that much before.
And I found out that they knew what they were talking about, you know, and then I went back over to those biker meetings and found out that they had a bunch of time, you know, like those biker dudes knew what they were talking about and they actually had sponties and sponsors and they worked the steps and it was amazing and my life got really good and uh so I moved to Santa Cruz, you know. Wow, it's time to move again. In that situation, I probably spent another nine months not really going to meetings and not really checking in with my sponsor.
And so, the relationship fell apart. The work situation was falling apart. I was miserable again.
I did not like Santa Cruz Alcoholics Anonymous at all. And uh they did it wrong. They didn't do it the way they were supposed to do it.
And uh and I broke down. I'm like, you know what? I need a sponsor again.
and it needs to be someone who lives here because I'm not accountable to my sponsor in Sacramento anymore. I need a sponsor who's here. So, I asked a man to sponsor me and I started going to more meetings amazingly right afterwards and we started working through the steps together and you know what the worst thing in the world ever happened.
Some kid after a meeting asked me to sponsor him and I'm like, "Oh my god, this is terrible, dude." Like, and you know, literally I was so bummed about it. I'm like, "Are you sure? And he's like, "Yeah." And I'm like, "All right, I really want you to think about this.
Here's a pamphlet. It's called questions and answers about sponsorship. Really think and make sure this is what you want to do." And uh, call me back tomorrow.
We got together the next day and he still wanted to do it. I'm like, "Ah, d all of a sudden, you know, he's supposed to be going to meetings all the time." So, I have to go to meetings with him because he's my spons, right? And then all of a sudden, I'm opening the book and he's reading me the book, asking me questions again.
So, I'm back in the literature, right? And then all of a sudden, he needs things to do. So, we need to go to the coffee shop and fellowship with other people in Alcoholics Anonymous.
And then and then another guy asked me to sponsor him. And I'm like, "Oh, dude, are you kidding? I already have one." He's like, "No, really, you know, I need someone to do this." And I'm like, "Oh, bummer." Right?
And so we started talking about it, you know, and I told these guys, I'm like, "Look, I'm not your buddy. I'm not your friend. I'm not your bro.
You don't get to sleep at my house. You can't put me as a reference on a job application. I'm not going to loan you money.
I don't want to hear about whatever weird problems you might have, right? I'm here to teach you how to be a sponsor and that's it." That's the way it was shown to me. And then I got another sponsy and I was totally bummed and I'm like, "Oh, dude, I have three of them now." And they want to go out and do stuff and they're bored.
So, we had to start going to Young People's and Alcoholics Anonymous conventions again. And there you all were again. Some of you hadn't left.
And uh all of a sudden, I got excited about Alcoholics Anonymous again, you know. And I mean, I got really excited about it. And uh my life got good again.
It was amazing how that worked. And uh it was incredible. It really was.
I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed all of a sudden finding out that I was in love with AA and I had forgotten. I found I you know what I was amazed to find out there is no advanced AA.
This is the only program that we have. There is no higher level of this. It is really that simple.
You can't look beyond it. There's nothing. It's just that it's our literature and it's working with another alcoholic and uh and things got good and my life got happy and there were some problems in it.
Um my mother gave me a call one night when I was in Santa Cruz, which by the way I've spent more time sober in Santa Cruz, California than I've spent in any other town. And uh my mother called me one night and she said uh she told me that she had cancer and she had six months to live. And I was floored.
I was ready to kill myself again. And you know what? I talked to my sponsor about it and I went to a meeting and I stood up and I cried in a meeting.
And uh all of a sudden Santa Cruz became my new home because it was the only thing that I had and it was the thing that was saving me. And all of a sudden those sponses was the only thing that I had and my sponsor, you know, they're the only thing that I had to grab on to to walk through that. And uh my mother's cancer went into a remission and that was pretty awesome.
And uh we uh convinced them to move, they were living in Alabama at the time and we convinced them to try to move closer to us and move to Oregon to my oldest sisters. And uh in Alcoholics Anonymous, I had the opportunity to try to buy my parents a house to live in because they didn't really have any money left. You know, it all gone to medical bills.
They were old. They were retired. They're on social security.
And I had no idea how to do that. You know, I had no idea. When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I couldn't get a bank account because I'd done so many scams with banks.
I didn't have a driver's license. I had a lot of warrants out for my arrest and it took me a long time to clean it up. And you know what?
There's some people in AA that actually helped me to do that and walked me through it. And the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous taught me how to buy a house for my parents to live in, you know, and then uh and that was pretty amazing and it happened and AA took care of me. And uh I've been sober for 15 years, you know, and when I first came to AA, I would see people with 15 years and I would look at those people and those were the people that I said, you know what, you just need to go and get a life.
You know, like I didn't relate to the people with 15 years because they were talking about their house payments, right? Or buying a house, right? Which is like, dude, that's weird.
I'm 18, you know? I just want to go get drunk and laid and uh you know they were talking about their like you know car payments for their Lexus or BMW. Hi.
Yes, I did drive a BMW here. I feel like that guy now and and uh you know and I didn't relate to any of them at all. So I think it's important for me to be honest about some of this kind of stuff that happened over the past year.
Um in May, my brother called me. Now this is the guy that I split a bedroom with when we were kids. This is a guy that I drank with.
This is a guy that actually got sober eventually when he saw me get sober. This is a guy that uh I lived with as an adult in four houses. This is a guy that my entire family, other than my parents, abandoned because he came out of the closet and said that he was gay.
And uh he called me up and said that he was sick. He had been HIV positive for a long time and everything was fine. We were a little bummed when he found out that he was hepatitis C positive also because of some of his drinking.
And uh and he called me and he told me he was in the hospital and I freaked out and uh I drove up to San Francisco to visit him in the hospital and they said, "Your brother's really sick." And I'm like, "Well, you know, he's always been okay though." you know, yeah, he's been sick, but he goes on his medication, he goes off it, he cycles, he's healthy, he does these things and they're no like, no, really, if he doesn't get a liver transplant, he's going to die inside of six or nine months. I'm like, wow, that's heavy. 6 or nine months, right?
So, we went back to Sacramento. I went back to Santa Cruz. And uh I had to start talking to people fast because things were bad, you know?
And uh he was in the hospital again two days later. and and uh they told me that uh over the telephone they told me that he was disqualified for a liver transplant and that he didn't have 6 or 9 months that he had a week or two and I had to go to Sacramento and see him there and uh I was falling apart. I didn't know what to do.
You know, I'm calling my sponsor. What am I supposed to do? My sponses are calling me.
What do you need me to do? I show up to Sacramento again and uh you know and I brought someone with Alcoholics Anonymous with me and uh I walked into that room and I saw my brother and he was yellow, he had blood in his eyes, he was distended and I saw my brother and I had to walk into that room and tell my brother that he wasn't going to get a liver and that he was going to die. And I didn't know how to do that, but I did.
And uh he actually he he actually did he I think it was like maybe 6 days later he actually died in Sacramento. And um I got to walk through that. When I was in Sacramento, all of a sudden I was able to call those same guys that sat on me when I first got sober and took care of me and let me sit at their house.
And I got to call them and say, "You know what? I need help again. I need to, you know, I need I need someone to help me do this.
I don't know what I'm doing. And they would show up and they would get me and they would say, "Hey, let's go to a meeting." And I'd go to a meeting and I just sit there. I wouldn't say anything.
I wasn't going to talk to anybody about what was going on. I just needed to sit around somebody who was sober because you know what? You people are the only people I really trust, you know, because we've walked through this together and we've done this together.
I trust you and you're the only person that I could be around in a situation like that because there's no way that I want to walk through this sober. You know, how are you supposed to do this sober? How are you supposed to do this and not drink?
How are you supposed to walk through this kind of fear and not drink? Um I had to be the one that called my parents and tell my mother that her son was going to die. And she freaked out on the phone.
She's like, I never thought I would live long enough to see one of my children die. and I had to be the one to tell her that that he was going to pass. Um they immediately drove from the house that they just moved into in Oregon.
It took them 3 years to get there and uh they drove down. Um they stopped by the hospital and they got to see my brother when he was coherent. And when they brought they came back the next day, my dad dropped off my mom in front of the hospital, parked the car, he walked across the street and he had a heart attack and he dropped into the middle of the street and they took him to a hospital 2 miles away and he had surgery.
Um, I went to see him later that day when he was recovering and I'm like, you know what, I really don't understand what's going on with mom. You know, she, you know, I think she's in a lot of shock over this. And he told me on that day that she's like, "Well, you know, we were waiting until we got settled into the new house.
Your mother has Alzheimer's." And uh yeah, and I didn't know what to do, right? It's like, dude, are you serious? And no one from my family showed up.
You know, there was a couple members that showed up a little bit later, which was nice, but no one who could really help showed up. My sister was there with me, one sister was there, a second sister showed up, a few nephews and nieces showed up, but all of a sudden, it was my responsibility. It was my responsibility to make funeral arrangements and uh I was able to uh one of my best friends when I was drinking, this is great, he uh we used to go into his bathroom when we were getting loaded and there was uh and there was always pamphlets in his bathroom and condoms that his mom left out and they were AA pamphlets.
I didn't find out for years later, but she was actually sober and had always been sober and her best friend, the nun, was also sober. And I called up Yeah, I know. totally bizarre, right?
All these people all my life who have been in AA just watching me get drunk and uh just waiting for me to come to the rooms. And I called her up and I said, "You know what? I don't know how to do this." And believe it or not, that woman in sobriety went to college, came out with a degree, and uh she's a a counselor for death and grieving, right?
And so I was able to call her up and go, I don't know what to do. And she's like, "This is exactly what you do step by step, you know?" And then I was able to call up her friend, the nun, and say, "You know what? I I don't know how to do this.
And she's like, "This is exactly how you set up funeral arrangements." And they walked me through it. And I had people from Alcoholics Anonymous showing up left and right every moment that I could. And uh they walked me through those times.
And what I realized finally through that entire situation is that I did find God in Alcoholics Anonymous because there is no possible way that I could have stayed sober through any of that. There's no way that I could have not have taken a drink to actually walk through that situation. The only way that I was able to do it was by grace and it was by the grace of these rooms.
And uh I came here to scoff. I honestly did. And uh I remained to pray and uh this is where I found God.
And Young People's and Alcoholics Anonymous is one of the reasons why I am still sober. If you were not here, I would not have stayed sober. I would not have gotten sober.
Enjoy your weekend a lot. remember that you are representing Alcoholics Anonymous, but enjoy this weekend with me because I need you as you know to be here for me to have fun to do these kind of things. You know, you were never ever going to feel as excited as you are tonight.
This is an amazing opportunity. Grab it and enjoy your evening. Meet people that you've never met before.
Shake some hands, get some phone numbers, you know, meet people from different towns. network around a little bit because you never know when you're going to be in a new town and you need a hand of Alcoholics Anonymous to be there and it's an amazing thing. So, um, I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight.
>> Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message. Until next time, have a great day.