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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. Give a warm welcome to our main speaker, Steve D from Rainbow. I'm Steve Alcoholic.

One of the reasons I'm here tonight is because I got run over by a drunk driver. Hear how quiet the room gets when I say that? You You guys know who you are, drove around.

Yeah. I was out in uh Box Canyon years ago and me and a couple of my drinking buddies and a couple girls were going to get back off the road a little bit. We had been drinking all day at the beach and and so I jumped in my van and we all jumped in the van and went down this old bumpy dirt road and and the linkage fell off the transmission on my van.

And being the smart mechanic that I am, without even turning the ignition off, I was going to jump out and put that linkage back on the transmission and so we could go a little bit further. And when I did, I jumped underneath the van and I put the linkage on the transmission and pulled it into gear and ran over myself. Just the back tires ran over me, but then I had to chase the van for a little while, but I jumped back in.

So, in reality, I did get run over by a drunk driver, me. And uh and I wanted to welcome uh M and Morgan. And if I missed one, I'm sorry, the newcomers in the room tonight.

Um, I hope that what you hear in these rooms uh is is somewhat of a reflection of Alcoholics Anonymous. Uh, and and if it seems a little bit uncomfortable for you, good. Uh, it's not very comfortable when you start out and I sympathize with you and I and I want you to keep coming back till you feel comfortable.

And uh, but anyway, I want to welcome the newcomers. That's part of my assignment. And I wanted to thank Merl for asking me to come up here this evening.

And and usually I don't stand up here in front of this many people unless it's at my own arraignment. So So I'm a little nervous. And uh and uh I I wanted to let you guys know I'm going to be telling you some of my secrets tonight.

And uh and that's not always comfortable, but I learned that my secrets will kill me, so I have to tell them. So, in order to be comfortable telling you people my secrets, I kind of want to know who I'm talking to. So, I'm going to have a little show of hands here that I always like to do, and it's a little survey that I like to take so that I I know who you people are.

Is there anybody besides me that that sat in the backseat of a cop car? Oh, good. I feel better already.

More than once. All right. Oh, I feel taller already.

Is there anybody that made that stupid phone call in the middle of the night they wish they could have taken back? Oh, more than once. Uhhuh.

Any bed wetters in here? More than once? Oh, you guys.

All right, I feel better. I can tell you my secrets now. I came from a big family.

Uh, I came from an alcoholic family. Everybody drank. I came from a musical family.

My parents were both uh big band members. My mom was a lead singer and my dad was a sax player and a singer in the Johnny Martin band and they played in the big band era. And so we we had jam sessions at our house and there were five kids and a lot of drinking going on and and uh it's you know just the way I was raised.

Party on. And uh and every kid in the family all played a different musical instrument and and we just all uh partied together, one big happy musical family. And uh I grew up in the St.

Gabriel Valley. I am a third generation native Californian, an endangered species. And uh I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley up in the Cavina, West Cavina area, and uh and went to school up there.

I went to uh four different high schools and never graduated. Uh my parents were alcoholic and and so they do real good for a while, just really run for the goal and and then do really bad for a while and lose it all. So, we always moved a lot and uh a lot of bill collectors and and all that stuff that goes along with with uh trying to raise a family and drink at the same time.

So, I learned early on to lie when the bill collectors had called the house. I learned real early to tell them people that, well, I don't know. I don't even know who my dad is and my mom's at work, you know.

Uh, and so, uh, so from a ve very early age, I I learned that lying was real important to cover your ass. And, uh, and so, uh, you know, life went on and and, uh, it got real, uh, got real crazy. Like I said, I went to four different high schools, but it seemed like every time I'd make friends, we'd have to move.

So, I stopped making friends. And, uh, boy, I tell you what, my parents were some booze hounds. And my whole family was booze hounds.

I had a an aunt that put a gun in her ear and and my grandfather hung himself and just crazy crazy severe alcoholic tragedy and drama going on my whole life. I was just raised with it and that's the way it was and and I just thought it was that way everywhere. And I was one of these kids that did real well in school and uh and then I'd do real bad.

So I was like an a student that was in detention all the time. You know, it was it just nothing seemed right. And I was, you guys have heard it before, I didn't fit in my skin.

And and uh and so very difficult when uh when I watched the way that my family drank, I said, I'm not going to do that. I'm a product of the 60s, too. I kept my hair, though.

And uh I I I tell you what, the the way people drank and the and the things that I seen, I didn't want any part of that. And so I was going to be a pthead, you know. I was just going to smoke weed.

I was not I was not going to be, you know, stumbling and drunk like my folks and their folks. And and the problem with that is that stuff made me thirsty, you know. You know, I'd smoke a couple joints and then I'd drink a couple beers and I'd smoke a couple joints and drink a couple beers and just that that I don't know.

It was just it was just boring. Life was real boring for me. And and and I couldn't wait to get out of that crazy insane house.

and and uh the Vietnam War was coming along and coming along nicely and and they were drafting most of my friends and and uh I tell you what, if you left school when I was uh when I was in school, if you left school, you had to go in the service. You had to have permission to leave school. You couldn't leave school like kids do now.

It's like now they don't even go to school, but anyway, you couldn't leave school and uh unless you're in the service. So, I joined the service. I was a Kitty Cruiser.

my older brother joined and uh I was 17 and I joined when he joined and and went in on the buddy plan and and I was going to join the service cuz I didn't want to get drafted and go to Vietnam. So I went on the uh I went into the service. I joined the Navy and I was on the uh I was on the USS uh Fort Snelling which was a in the amphibious Navy and and before I was even 20 years old I' I'd already been to Naples, Italy and Barcelona, Spain.

And the the ship that I was on was is an amphibious ship and it had a helicopter flight deck and it's the ship that the Navy sent over to uh to off the tip of Spain. The United States Air Force accidentally dislodged a a bomb and uh and so the ship that I was on is the one that went and recovered it. Had Alvin, that little twoman submarine that went down and grabbed onto this bomb off the tip of Spain.

They evacuated the all of Spain back miles and miles and went down. We our ship is the one that recovered it. So the the Navy granted us what they called a good hope cruise and that's like the pleasure cruise.

And so we came back to uh where the ship was tied up and painted everything and shined everything and we got to go uh went back to Little Creek, Virginia, went island hopping all through the Caribbean. And I was your typical drunken sailor. Couldn't wait to, you know, go on Liberty and and uh and get good and liquored up and and and I'll never forget I wasn't I wasn't very good at it.

I was I was uh I was one of these guys that just had too much fun and I and it it would always catch up with me. So in one we were in one port of call in uh in Tobago which is way down below the equator by Trinidad and we were in Tobago and I had offended one of the natives there. It's I think it's British West Indies.

I'm not sure, but I had offended one of the local natives there. And before I even got to the end of the building, trying to run away from this bad scene that I'd made drunk, um, some of the uh, locals there had grabbed me up and had a rope around my neck and was actually pulling me up the flag pole in front of city hall and was going to lynch me right there in in Tobago. didn't really think that story, that drunk was going to end that way that day, but shore patrol came along and popped a couple rounds off and got me down off the the flag pole and and I was restricted to the ship for again.

Uh it's just a kind of, you know, I I got a when I look back on it, you know, it's kind of funny now and and you know, that was kind of scary then having a rope around my neck, but I always ended up in those I'm not the kind of guy that like lost my watch and came to Alcoholics Anonymous. I made great big messes. I I ended up in Vietnam anyway.

I spent seven months in Vietnam, but I got shot in San Bernardino. Uh but anyway, you know, after the Tobago scene and getting in and Trinidad and Tobago, we went to St. Croy and St.

kit and and uh Pony and San Juan and and all all the way down below the equator. I went Shellback and and uh had a good time aboard that ship and and it really was a a lot of fun. Got to see a lot of the world and a lot of drunks and and and what happened is I got in trouble.

I always seem to get in trouble and I got sent down to to the builders of the ship. Part of my uh part of my punishment was to go down and do some duty painting down in the villages of the ship. And uh and the Navy uses a real toxic paint.

It's called red lead and zinc oxide. And it's boy, it it I I got overcome by paint fumes. And I'm not a huffer, honest to God, but I got overcome by paint fumes.

And next thing you know, it's like I'm being pulled up out of the bowels of the ship and I'm laying in sick bay. Damner died. And uh and I said, "Hey, these corman have it made, man.

Gez, they don't get dirty. They don't do any work. They get the best food.

They don't even get they don't even have to take shots, you know. So anyway, I I changed rate. I became a striker.

And uh and so a after I left the ship, they sent me off to Great Lakes Naval uh hospital core school in Great Lakes, Illinois. And uh and I became a hospital corman. That's not a good thing for a guy that likes to drink and that has like an obsessive kind of personality, me, and pill popping and drinking and partying.

Corman isn't a good job. And but that's what I became. And uh and I got stationed down in Corpus Christie, Texas, and the Naval Air Station down there.

And and uh and I started stealing uh pharmaceuticals off the n off the uh out of the med lockers and selling them off off base. And uh unfortunately, someone, you know, it got back to the Navy that I was taking their drugs and selling them. And I was brought up on charges.

And so here I was joining the Navy trying to avoid going to a war in Vietnam. My choice was was go to Fort Levvenworth, Kansas, or take orders to Vietnam. And so off I go and now I'm attached to the USS Reposie, which is a hospital ship sitting out in Cameron Bay.

And uh that that's where they fly everyone off. You know, if you guys saw MASH, well, they they take them from the MASH tent and they send them out to the hospital ship. And if you can't fix them there, they'd send send them on over to Sassapo, Japan.

So that's what I did for a while. And uh for a young kid uh uh I cracked and I I couldn't stand all the carnage and the blood and the death and and what was going on. Remember I joined when I was 17 and uh and watching all this stuff was too much for me and I didn't want any part of it anymore.

And so the Navy decided to to dischar discharge me with you know I got an honorable discharge and all that but it was under medical conditions. And so when I discharged out and I was all done with that uh I discharged out I was out of uh the Navy on Treasure Island which sits up underneath it's in San Francisco area and Treasure Island was a man-made island for the 1939 World's Fair and so that was where the Navy base was and it's right down the street from Hate Ashbury and that that was going on. Now, now I got out of Vietnam right before the Ted offensive and and so eight Ashbury was happening and boy the music they were playing and the things they were doing in the eight was that was me and man I grew my hair long and and I blended right in there and and it was just so much fun.

It was such a great great time. I was just, you know, just lucky to to experience that without the bad experiences. And I thought, man, I I was missing it.

And by this time, you know, I'd learned to drink. And I was mixing it up with everything up there. And, you know, for some reason, I got some brainstorm to come back down to Southern California and leave the Frisco area and and have the American dream.

And and so I came down and I met a gal and we got married and started making babies. And and I didn't realize that I was caught in the throws of alcoholism that I would do the same thing that I saw my parents do. I'd do really good for a while and then I'd make a great big mess.

You know, the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous talks about that. You know, you guys hear us read in in uh in chapter 3, well, about the real alcoholic. Well, the real alcoholic is actually he's described on page 21 and on and I'll read it to you guys.

I get too much feedback there, Dan. >> Yes, sir. >> Okay.

Uh anyway, uh the real alcoholic is the real he's the fellow that's been puzzling you. Um, he starts off as a moderate drinker and that that's what I did. I started off a moderate drinker and he says he may or may not be a continuous hard drinker, but at some stage of his drinking career, he begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption once he starts to drink.

And that's that's what they call the real alcoholic. They say for most real alcoholics, you well, that's that's who they're talking about is the real alcoholic that he loses control. He says, "Here's the fellow who's puzzled you, especially with his lack of control.

He's seldom mildly intoxicated. He's always more or less insanely drunk. His disposition while drinking resembles his normal nature, but little.

He may be one of the finest fellows in the world, yet let him drink for a day, and he frequently becomes disgustingly and even dangerously antisocial. That sound familiar? Well, that's how I drink.

and and nicest guy, you know, when I'm sober and give me a couple drinks and just instant and and I just make great big messes and that's that's going to and I didn't know that's what I had. I didn't know that that my problem was at all related to alcohol. You know, I thought because I went to the war and I saw all this carnage that that's what, you know, I thought maybe it was cuz my parents were were drunks and all this in insane kind of childhood that I had.

I didn't know that it was like from alcohol, but it was. But it took me years to figure that out. And that that's why I welcome the newcomers.

You're going to discover some things in here. It's going to take you a little while of being sober to realize why you drank, you know, and and I couldn't figure that out. I couldn't figure out why I drank.

Why, you know, I didn't go out there till I get a rope put around my neck and be pulled up a a flag pole. You know, I was down here at a uh I went fishing one time and and and a good friend of mine wanted to get out of Cardiff and he says, "Hey, you want to come, you know, jump on my fishing boat with me and and go fishing?" I said, "Sure. I need to get out of Cardiff anyway." And so we go down to Pointloma and he has his 40ft fishing boat and we head up the coast and he had an ex-wife that that was a cashier at one of the markets there in Cardiff and he anchored off of Cardiff right where I just left and he goes on on the beach on a on a drunk and spends all the fuel money.

Well, the the the storm came up, the anchor came off the boat. It starts going closer and closer to shore and I don't know how to drive a boat. you know, he's the captain.

I'm just an engineer and I can keep it running, but I don't know how to steer this thing. And I don't know how to read bottom charts. I can't take it back to PointLoma, try and save his his master's papers.

So, I'm going in circles for 17 hours. And I'm talking to the to the surfers in the lineup out there in Cardiff on the reef. Hey, go find Fish Jim.

Tell him that the anchor came off the boat. I've been driving in circles for hours here. I don't know how long I can stay awake or And and and the boat washed up on the state beach right there.

made the front page of the paper and I would buy this, you know, that's what I mean. I didn't just like lose my watch and come to AA. I mean, I now I got a bui boating under the influence, you know, and so I I didn't really sign up for that, you know.

It's like I was just going to go have a couple beers, maybe go do some fishing and uh and so my life just got crazy like that. And and I'm one of the, you know, I'm just one of them guys that was just lucky enough to get out of that one, you know, on to the next adventure and and uh not not realizing that maybe maybe I might have a drinking problem here. Well, you know what?

The marriage uh back to the American dream, the marriage didn't work out too well. You know, by this time there were a couple kids and my wife was a drinker and a pill head, too. And and the marriage wasn't working.

And it came apart. It came apart real quick. and and uh my kids stayed with my with my ex and next thing you know they weren't behaving too well and and uh it's a family disease.

You know, they're they're experimenting with drugs and they're drinking and and they're becoming little insubordinate shits to the point my ex couldn't deal with them anymore and made my two daughters awarded the court and I'm out there running wild. So, you know, I don't have a thing to say about it. And uh next thing you know, my daughters are up there in uh waiting to be fostered out at a place called Penny Lane in Van Eyes.

And Penny Lane is also a little recovery home for kids that are delinquents and and uh so my oldest daughter Amber and my youngest girl Jennifer up there in Penny Lane uh going to meetings and waiting to be foster homeed out. Well, I go up there to visit them and uh and the counselor there at the front front desk said, "Uh, Miss Mr. Duval, we can't let you uh see your daughters." And then and I said, "What?

Why not?" They said, "Well, our records here show that you're an absent, negligent, alcoholic father." Well, that sucks. You know, they're right, but it sucks. You know, and I got a little indignant about it and I was my feelings were kind of hurt and and and I pleaded with her and they wouldn't let me see my kids and and so I I didn't get a visit.

And so I went back out and and had a big chain link fence around this place about 15 ft high. And my oldest girl saw me walking across the parking lot expecting me to visit them that day. Dad, where are you going?

I said, they won't let me see you. And so they they were a little bit, you know, uh they were crying and everything. And my oldest girl, it's not this one here, but I I used to carry it to meetings when I spoke.

They brought their big book out to the fence and said, "Hey, Dad, read this big book and maybe if you get sober, they'll let you come visit us." Do you think a guy gets sober? Huh? It got worse.

It got worse. I mean, you would think that those kind of things like usually are wakeup calls for for normal people, but for us, it just drove me into harder drinking and and uh became homeless. And you know, when I was chasing that American dream and I had the home in Oceanside and and uh you know, I was I was a renter in the Los Angeles area before I even came down to San Diego.

I had good jobs. You know, I worked for a rock and roll radio station, two of them, KPPPC and KME. Both of those started out at KPPPC and uh I used to swap records with uh with the a guy that had the largest 45 and 78 collection in the world, Bear from Canned Heat and Dr.

Domin. We'd all trade records and play table hockey when I worked at KBPC. So I was lucky enough in those days to go see Jimmyi Hendricks live, you know, and I saw Janice live and I saw the Beatles and I saw the Stones and and all the greats.

got to see them all, you know, and I'm I'm wearing expensive suits and driving a Jaguar and and and I'm on top of things except that drinking was getting in the way. I'd rose right to the top. Everything I wanted to do.

I mean, I had lunch with Leon Russell one day at up Labraa Tarpits up on Wilshire Boulevard because that's where KAT was. When they pulled the plug on KPPPC, half the air staff went to KOS and the other half went to KAT. Some of you guys at silver here might have remembered those days, but I went with the KAT staff and man, next thing you know, I'm drinking and and and I'm ruining a job, you know.

So, the marriage is coming apart real quick. The kids are gone. Uh, and next thing you know, it's a, you know, from those good jobs and a marriage being intact and a homeowner and driving nice cars and wearing nice clothes and and having change in my pocket.

I don't know how it happened, but all those bumps on the way down that I I was I was unscathed. I just kept hitting these bumps and lower and lower and lower and and next thing you know, I'm a homeless guy, you know, and I can hang with that, you know. Uh I'm not a very good panhandler.

I'm too proud to panhandle, you know, but but I got to hustle and and I'm a homeless guy and I'm living in my car and and you know, I didn't realize this until I did an inventory years later and and uh I didn't realize all those years of homelessness when I was feeling sorry for myself and drinking every day and and all that stuff that uh I was spoiling myself with being with being irresponsible. Now, I'll kind of explain that once I once things turned the corner for me and I sobered up, I had a chance to have good jobs and housing and and relationships. And I I'd been such a flake for so many years, I was too afraid to do that, you know.

And uh and the reason I say I was I was homeless is, you know, I already asked you guys. I I can tell you my secrets. I'm not real proud of some of the some of the ways that I lived, but I went from like what I thought was the top to the bottom.

And I didn't know how to get out of there. And I was eating one meal a day at Brother Beno Soup Kitchen and selling blood, you know, for a guy that used to work at radio stations, you know, that had seen all the greats and had a family. It was like, it wasn't like I was ashamed, but I didn't know how to get out of it.

And and that was that was the weird part about alcoholism that took me years of doing inventories to figure out. I I didn't know how to get out of it because I what I'd done is I'd shaved off all the rough edges of living like that and I'd got so used to getting a meal here or a hand out here that that I didn't know how to I was becoming more animal than human. I lived in my car for 3 years after I sobered up.

Now, I want you guys to stop and think about that for a minute. I want you to stop and think about when you leave this meeting, you go out to your car and you take the blankets that are in the trunk and you move them to the back seat and then you got to go find a dark neighborhood somewhere and hope that no one sees you flop over in the back seat so you don't get roused by the police. It it's not it's not easy being a homeless guy.

And I'm not saying that because I'm a low bottom drunk. Uh you know, it's just that's my story and and you almost have to want to live like that. And that's why I had to do inventories.

It's like I chose to live like that because you know what? If you're homeless, you don't have those damn phone bills. Worry, you don't worry about making those stupid phone calls in the middle of the night.

You got no phone. You know, uh registration. I had your sticker on my car.

You know, warrants. You got to catch me first. I was wanted in five different counties.

Just stupid stuff. just failure to appear and not pay fines and drunk drivingings and and the way that I behave when I drank and and so I had to lay low. And so being homeless and wanted is really scary because you kind of stick out when you're a homeless guy.

You know, you always got that look, your hair's on kind of sideways, you know, and and your clothes are all wrinkled from sleeping in them and you know, you're just leaving the soup kitchen instead of, you know, your job. And uh you know the thing is I didn't know how to get out of that. Some of you guys that have been around the Oceanside area or over on the coast a little bit know that right right where Wisconsin ends and in between Wisconsin and Oceanside Boulevard on the Coast Highway, there's an old cemetery and a bowling alley.

That was my home. I slept in the cemetery and I like to say that it was quiet. I was the first guy up every day.

But there was an old musaleum in that cemetery there in Oceanside. It had a wall all the way around it and all the uh all the uh crypts had already been vandalized years ago. And so we'd throw my road gear in one of those crypts and crawl in there every night and every once in a while you'd have to you know you have to guard your stuff when you live on the streets.

It's hard to believe that but you have to guard your stuff because the it disappears. sleeping bags, whatever you have, you know, the cheese that the state will give you, what people take it. And it's not like you guys wouldn't take it.

Other homeless guys take it. And so it's like you got to hide your stuff. So it's a real it's a real shuffle.

It's a lot of work. But there's a lot of things you don't have to do. You don't have to pay rent.

You don't have to answer to a boss. You don't have to that phone bill. You don't have utility bills.

So as I slipped into this this whole thing of drinking and being homeless, it sounds sounds pretty attractive sometimes, you know. no responsibility. None at all.

And I didn't want to answer to you and I didn't want you to see me. And it was it was a miserable lifestyle. Not one of those lonely ones like you think it' be.

It's like, how did I get here? How can I get out of here? Always figuring out, you know, always on guard wondering when the cops are going to pick you up.

And I went on like that for 10 years. I was a homeless guy for 10 years before. I'm a slow learner.

And uh you know when I when I was just all out of ideas and I was wanted all over the place, the sheriff's down in Cardiff knew me on a firstname basis. They'd go Steve like that. They didn't even want to take me in anymore.

They knew I wasn't going to pay my fines. I it it was a good time to clean up. I'd do 30 days and and uh and get cleaned up and get fed and fatten up a little bit and they'd boot me back to the streets and it was just the same thing over and over and over again.

Matter of fact, I got sober on Valentine's Day in 1988, and the H&I people that used to come in and do H&I service over in the Vista County Jail on Melrose there. If you was doing if you was at the tail end of a of a 30-day, 60-day, 90-day sentence for drunk driving or or drunk, if you had an alcohol-related crime that you was doing county time for and you was well behaved in county jail, the H&I people would come over to Vista County Jail and they'd put you in a van and they'd take you to an outside meeting. Can you believe that?

Well, that's what they did. And so my very first meeting from the H&I people that came over to Vista County Jail on Melrose Avenue took me to an outside meeting at Saturday Night Live over at the YMCA on Saxony Avenue. They used to have mats on the ground there that'd set up on the basketball courts.

And so the van from the county jail would pull up and about six of us uh from the from the county jail would get out in our dungarees and our green shirts and our flip-flops and we go into a meeting. Greg was talking about each head two eyes. It was like a million people looking at us, you know, all these inmates walking in, you know, and walk into a meeting.

And there was no doubt in my mind who I was going to be holding hands with at the closing prayer, you know. I didn't get to like pick out a pretty girl and go, I'd like to stand next to her and pray. And so another inmate I'm handcuffed to and then they'd take us back to county jail and then, you know, a week or two later then they'd turn us loose and it'd be the same thing over and over again.

Um, I I got sick of living like that and I didn't know how to get out of that and uh and I was kind of wanted and and I'd pick up little day jobs here and there and I got a little bit of cash in my pocket and a guy gave me a job painting uh inside of a house and he sent me to the paint store in the in the company truck and uh I think I was headed down to Fris Paint and and I took his truck and I left town. I stole a truck and I went out to Desert Hot Springs. Well, well, first I went to Palm Springs and uh and I was sitting down there at a place called The Nest, just a scurvy little dirt floor bar and and uh and this lady about 150 was sitting on a bar stool drinking and big diamonds and big hair.

And she got so drunk she fell off the bar stool and and uh couple of the locals there went there and picked her up and propped her back up on the on the bar stool and she dragged this phone number out of her out of her purse. She said, "Call these people that it's Alcoholics Anonymous. They'll come pick me up." And so she had totally relapsed, but she knew that Alcoholics Anonymous would come pick her up.

And she was staying at a convolescent home close by. And I don't know whether they came and picked her up or not, but we got her over back to her to her room at the convolescent hospital. But uh she said, "If you need some help to stop drinking, call these people." And so I did.

And I was in a stolen truck and and I was hiding on this on side streets and sleeping in in this stolen truck wondering what I'm going to do next. No money, wanted everywhere. And so I called him and uh I called a place called Lost Heads.

Now Lost Heads is a is a recovery home. I think it's called the ranch now. It's in Desert Hot Springs.

They had two beds uh that were provided by the state. It was sort of I didn't know it at the time. It was a high-end recovery home.

It was like you did if you flunked out of Betty Ford, you could go to Lost Heads Next. So it was up there. It was pretty expensive to to stay there.

But they had two state beds was part of the requirement for their state funding. One for a guy, one for a girl. and they took me and uh they detoxed me and uh the counselor was going through my bags and and I was just in that days that you're in when you decide to stop drinking, not comfortable at all.

And uh you know what the the counselor I I said, you know, that truck out there in the parking lot I got here and it isn't mine and I really should let the guy know that I have his truck if I'm going to be here for a little while. And they said, "Oh, making amends already." And I'm going, "Huh? So, I called the guy and I said, "Hey, you know what?

I've turned myself into a to a rehab, and if I tell you where your truck is and you don't call the cops, that'd be cool. But if you're going to call the cops, I'll just burn it. I don't care.

Didn't matter to me, you know. Everything in my life at that time was so disposable, you know, everything was a throwaway. And uh and so they took me in lost heads and I called the guy and he came and got his truck and and uh I didn't play well with others and I didn't do recovery real well.

I didn't understand what was going on but I felt something different. Uh what was different is that I asked for something different to happen and it started happening and it was almost scary. It was like I felt better health-wise.

I could I'll never forget they they had had some big shindig when Betty Ford herself had gone over to the Betty Ford Center and they had pheasant and the leftover pheasant they brought over to Lost Heads and it's like oh my god I'm in a recovery home. I I went from a soup kitchen to pheasant and they go, you know, and uh yeah, I'll I'll I'll mess it up if it's if it's possible, I'll mess it up. But I I got in trouble there, too.

And next thing you know, they had me at Lost Heads uh sweeping rocks across all the way across the tennis courts and the swimming pools and and then I'd sweep rocks all the way back. They they caught me with too many candy bars. And it's like, God, candy bars.

Well, I mean, you guys, man, I used to hang around with outlaw bikers, you know, candy bars, give me a break, you know. Um, I left that part of my story out and and it's not it's not important, but uh at the end of my drinking, I didn't hang around with the kind of guys that that I could come up and say, "Give me a hug. I'm having a bad day." You know, I hung around with the Mongols.

I rode Harley-Davidsons. Yeah. I hung around with an outlaw motorcycle club.

And I hung around with thieves and liars and cheats and drunks and dope beans and and it's not the kind of people that you want to say, uh, I'm not doing too well because it was a sign of weakness. And you just couldn't hang around. You you couldn't hang around and say, I need help.

And I wasn't raised that way. And so now I'm I'm in a mess. I'm in a place where I have to ask for help and I don't know how.

And so there's only one person that's going to help me. And that's just God that I asked to help me when I said my little prayer out there in the middle of the desert. And so it was just like it was one of these deals where they go, "Well, you know, don't you don't have to get the God thing.

Just find a power greater than yourself and uh and you can make it the group or whatever you want it to be, but these people here are, you know, they're all going to have to find their own individual higher power." And and so I did. And and I didn't think it was working. and and made it 30 days and they reviewed my case and said, "Maybe you better stay another 30." And that's good.

I don't have anywhere to go, you know. Well, I know where I'm going. You know, I'm going to go right back to the streets, right back to the bars, and and and by this time, I'd sober up enough to realize that I'm going to have a car like Greg's, you know, uh it's going to turn into the nearest liquor store.

And they told me, he said, "You if you leave this place, you won't you won't make it back. you're one of them kind of drunks and we don't think you're going to make it. What?

What do you mean I'm not going to make it? So, you know, I stayed there with a resentment for a long time going, I'll show you guys, you know, and I made it. I made it to 60 days.

Well, at 60 days, they started taking you out of Lost Heads and you started doing a little work for the for the u uh rehab there, like what they had car washes and things like that, and you bring the money back and and so it started working a little bit. Well, at the end of 60 days, they gave me another 30 days. Now I've been there 90 days and a guy with belongs to another program uh one of our other sister programs came around and a real wellto-d do guy and he came around to all the recovery homes in uh in the valley out there and he said if anybody is uh looking for work and getting ready to discharge out of here I'm opening the Oasis Water Park down here and we'd like you to come fill out an application.

So I went to work for the Oasis Water Park right there in Palm Springs and uh God what a great job. uh walk around, get a tan and and uh and you know what? I was I was around people that was serving beer and the obsession had been lifted and I'm making some money and and I bought a bicycle.

You know, Palm Springs is kind of flat so you can ride in it. So, I bought a bicycle and uh and I met my sponsor and he had a he had a room at his place. He was due to go in for some back surgery and he said, "I'm the maintenance man at this huge apartment complex.

I'll give you a room for free if you help me do the maintenance in this apartment building. And so he did and and I moved in there and he gave me a room and he went to the hospital to get his back surgery. And you know, I thought sponsors were like bulletproof, but he wasn't.

And he started drinking and he went into on top of his pain pills, he went into anaphylactic shock and died in the hospital from using and from using and the the prescribed medications and drinking. And so now now I got to move and I lost my job and and I'm going what am I going to do? So I took my paycheck and remember back in my story when I said I'd spoiled myself with irresponsibility.

I've got money enough to get an apartment but I'm too scared to do it because there's a whole bunch of responsibility that goes along with that. Like rent and 30 more days and 30 days after that rent again, you know. And I'd gone so long living on the streets that I I didn't know how to do that.

And so I bought a car and I bought a car cover and that's my new home. And you can't be homeless in Palm Springs. It's against the law.

And so every night it was just like when I lived on the coast. I'd have to sneak into a dark neighborhood, put my car cover over my car, take a walk until it got dark, and then when it got dark, I'd come back and I'd sneak in underneath my car cover and sleep in my car. And I did that for for quite a while.

And I I didn't know how to the the water park closed and the and that concession company, Ogden Allied Concessions, went on. Their next stop was London. They asked me to go and I was too afraid to go.

Now, remember, I haven't done the steps. All I've done is ask God to help me stay sober. So that's the only thing that I've participated in my recovery so far.

So I had an absolutely empty tool bag. I had absolutely no faith. I didn't have a an understanding of of a power greater than myself.

And you know, I'm almost throwing my arm out a joint, patting myself on the back for all the good sobriety that I've done all by myself, you know, and uh but now I'm lost again. And I all I know how to do is like drink and crime. And and I didn't want to drink.

I didn't, you know, one of the worst things I could think of is going back and having to ask for a hand out at a soup kitchen. You know, now I've got clean clothes. I've got a little bit of sobriety.

And and one of my biggest fears is going back to eating out of dumpsters and eating at at soup kitchens and selling blood. You know, I'll never forget the doctor at the blood bank in Oceanside wouldn't take my blood because it was so protein poor and they was only given like eight bucks then. And it's like what?

You know, I couldn't even sell blood anymore. And and and so I didn't want to go back to that kind of life and I didn't know what to do. And I got a job with a construction company and they were building a house out at Salt and Sea, a big five-sided, really confusing house to build.

And all this was new to me. and and the guy knew that soon as I got paid I was going to leave that desert cuz by this time it's July and it's about 160 every day there it felt like you know for a guy that's from the coast you know and and my brains are getting baked so he was right he knew that if he paid me I'd be gone so he held my check and he held my check and he held my check until we got done with this house and finally I snapped I didn't have any tools I didn't have any I didn't have anything going on except uh the stuff that was familiar to me. Anger, rage, resentment, revenge.

And uh so I wrapped one of those great big construction extension cords around his neck about two times and he paid me and I left the desert and I came back to the coast. And now I'm just I'm not even understanding this. I heard it later on in the meetings.

Everywhere I go, there I am. And so now it's like, you know, just different neighborhood. And uh now I've already cut a different trail from the rest of my old drinking buddies.

And and I had a I used to have an old bus that I lived in that was all converted over as old hippies had buses, you know, and I had this bus out on a friend's ranch and in uh up above Fairbanks and uh so my bus was up at this guy's ranch and he said, "Yeah, if you do ranch chores for me, you can stay in your bus." So that's what I did. And uh and I started going to meetings down at the chef house that Greg mentioned there. And then a little bit of time went by and and uh and I didn't get along with the owner of the ranch.

And one day he said, "You got to get all this stuff out of here." And and so I was down to just the car and the streets again. And I was down at the little stephouse and I had three years sober and behind the step house, the step house down there have they have what they call a trusted servant. Now the trusted servant lives in the stephouse and he gets up in the morning and he makes coffee for the morning meetings.

They have morning, noon, and evening meetings. And the trusted servant is the guy responsible to make sure the place gets locked up and the coffee is made for the morning meeting. Well, everybody wanted that job.

All of us homeless people that were trying to stay sober wanted that job. But the deal was is it was a long line for it. And so in the alley behind the sixstep house, it was a bunch of cars parked and there like three or four cars and and there were people like me that lived in their cars that were waiting for this position to open up as trusted servant.

And every time the trusted servant would either get drunk or relapse and go away or his six months was up and he'd have to move out of the step house, everybody had moved forward one car. Now I still had your your sticker on my car waiting for my turn and uh I've got like three years sober and there's people that came in after me, the people that came into recovery after me. But these people had girlfriends and they had clean clothes and they had nice cars and they had jobs and they had homes they were going off to and this became like it's a little bit embarrassing and I'm I'm you know actually I'm I'm getting mad at these people.

They came in after me and they've got it going on and here I am three years sober and struggling to stay sober and I'm still getting bus tokens and eating at brother Benos once in a while and you know I mean they're going this this sucks. This really sucks. And you know what?

If this is what sobriety is all about, I don't want to be part of it. So, if there's a God, you better show up. And you better show up today.

That was that was my prayer. If there's a God, you better show up cuz this sucks. I It was easier for me living when I was a drunk.

At least I could drink myself to sleep, you know? At least I didn't, you know, have to look at all these people, you know, they ain't got nothing going on. They got they got a lot more stuff than me.

And poor me. I'm sleeping out here in my car waiting to move into the trusted servants position. And so if there's a God, you better show up and you better show up today because the sobriety is no fun anymore.

I'm about done. And the phone rang. Now, this is just my story and it's it was just like how God showed up in Steve's life that day.

But the phone rang and it was Ed and Marty used to have a moving business down there on the coast. and Ed Morty would use people from the step house and a couple other recovery homes to help load trucks when someone was moving, the big trucks, the big giant ones. So, so, uh, Ed called and he asked Tony, the trusted servant, "Hey, is there anybody down there wants to go to work today for cash?" So, that was my, you know, yeah, I petitioned God and said, "If there's a God, you better show up and show up today." And the phone rang.

And I didn't know it. When I look back on it, it was God. And God said, "You know what?

Here's a job." And the trusted servant there, Tony, gave me 10 bucks and put some gas in my car and I went to work and I've had a job ever since. And so the lesson I learned in that is is ask for evidence. So I'm not one of these guys that'll pray for you very easily.

I'll pray for me first, you know, help me get a job, help me get a girlfriend, you know, help me get some housing and some gas money and help, you know, help help me through this sobriety stuff because it's not very easy. It's the hardest thing I've ever done, you know. And so I did a lot of those selfish prayers.

It's not recommended. You know, you'll hear a lot of people tell you, "Don't pray for yourself." Boy, I did. I still do.

I I need a miracle, you know. You know, I mean, left to my own devices, you know, without a God, it's like I'm going to do stupid stuff, you know, and and I've already proven it over and over again. And so, I needed some help and I had to ask and I asked and God showed up and I've had a job ever since.

Now, that was I like to call it one notch on my gun belt. I put that first notch on my gun belt. That was my evidence that there was a God that cared about me.

And then one of the old-timers there said, "You know what? None of these promises are going to happen for you, Steve, until you start participating." You know, and I said, "I'm absolutely crazy. I can't live in my car anymore.

I can't do this." I tried to turn myself into the fellowship center over in Escanido and the counselor there said if you get busy working some of these steps and start making some of those amends maybe some of those promises had happened and your life would turn around and then going who does this guy think he is you know he was just trying to give me you know we give each other it it sounds like tough love but it's not tough love we got to love each other in these rooms enough to care about each other so we don't go down those awful trails and get drunk. Man, I've got to love you guys enough to go, come on, you know, you can do better than that. I had a group of people around me that was willing to take a chance and tell me the truth about Steve.

And a lot of them were afraid of me. Yeah. A lot of people were really afraid of me.

Um, if you go over to the coast and you ask if they knew anyone that pulled a gun on anyone in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, my name will come up. And uh if you ask anyone over there on the coast uh if they know anyone that's been in a fist fight in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, my name will come up. I'm just, you know, I'm just an old scrapper, an old bar drunk, and let's get it on.

And so I I didn't behave well. I didn't play well with others. But these people had me convinced if things were going to change for me, if you want to not eat out of dumpsters anymore and not sell blood, if you want what we have, you have to do what we do.

So they said they wouldn't take me at the fellowship center and I started making some of those amends. And one of the first amends I made, I told you guys I hung around with some outlaw people is I had to go down to the Federal Depositors Insurance Corporation and make amends for about 10 bank robberies I was involved in and I had to be willing to go to prison for that. And they escorted me to the door with security guard and they said this case is closed and we don't want you in our building.

my my amends wasn't very well accepted, you know, and I made that amends to that ex-wife, you know. I'm sorry that I that I ruined our marriage, that the kids were gone, and that we lost the house, and I'm sorry that was just such an alcoholic, and I am so sorry. And I made those amends to her.

And she said, "I I didn't divorce you cuz you're an alcoholic. I divorced you cuz you're a jerk." It's that simple. Once I get to be the right size, I I'll tell you guys something.

When I came in here, Alcoholics Anonymous was my umbrella to get out of the storm. And it was like, "Oh, thank God it stopped raining." You know, "Thank God the wind stopped blowing." They put it in the big book like that. But after I was around here for a while, Alcoholics Anonymous became my armor.

It helped me in those situations when I was wrong to look you in the eye and go, "I'm sorry. I screwed up." And you know what? I never realized it was that easy.

I I spent more time and energy lying and cheating and trying to get around from from what was really going on than I was just killing myself. And uh and so I started working those steps and I got a good sponsor in there, one of the first sponsors that that I could really tell him the truth about me. And he had called me on all my And he hired an attorney and we went around from courthouse to courthouse taking care of all the wreckage of my past.

And the last one, the one that I dreaded was up here in Orange County. And then I had a failure to appear and the judge told the attorney, "Have Steve in my court at 10:00 on Wednesday morning." And uh and I thought, "Well, this is the one they're going to send me away for. I already got my I I got to walk.

I got a pink slip on the FDI amends, but this one I didn't think Orange County was going to let me out from underneath. It was about a year and a half old drunk driving charge. And uh I'd done my time.

I didn't pay my fine. And I my attorney told him what I was doing, that I was involved in Alcoholics Anonymous, and that I'd really struggled to try and stay sober and that I'd you know, I came from a homeless guy that was eating in a soup kitchen to a guy that could actually hold a job. And and he told the judge that and the judge called me up before him and and he had a room full of people that were all probation violators and they had all done the same thing that I did.

They didn't show up and they didn't pay their fines and they got picked up and pulled back into court. And he used me as a good example. So this man here, Steve Duval, has taken responsibility for himself and he's taken care of all of his warrants in four other counties.

And I'm dismissing his case. And that only happens in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I tell you what, that didn't happen to me before.

I was the guy that they'd hear my case last, you know. Like I said, the only time I stood up in front of people is at my own arraignment, you know. And uh and so that judge gave me a walk on that one.

And and I started getting busy working the steps. And I came from a group of people that said, "Take some service work." And early on they'd take us down to uh 111 Island Street in San Diego. And uh I'd go down there with with Crazy Trudy who had hair going this way and babbling Barbara who had been locked in a trunk until she lost her mind, kidnapped, and a crazy story.

And they were going down there to 111 Island Street. And we'd walk up there to that street and the counselor would see us coming and they'd tell us over there, "Get the mat. Get your mat over there." They thought we were coming to check in, you know, and there was a they had a red line painted right down the middle of 111 Island and you if you was still drunk and detoxing, you'd get a mat and go on that side.

If you was bringing a panel in to talk to these drunks, you'd go on the other side of the line. And so I got busy doing H&I work. And I took a commitment at the VA hospital.

And you know what? I stopped fighting that war in Vietnam because it wasn't a war in Vietnam. I wasn't the only guy that got drafted or had to join the service or go to that war.

There were a lot of people like that. I just found out it was one more thing. I was blaming the wrong thing, you know, and that's what the inventory did for me.

And the inventory showed me why I drank, where I was wrong, and my part in it, you know, what was affected by it. So, all these fears I had about I can't get an apartment, so your rent's going to come due every 30 days. All that stuff became easier to do once I had some tools in my toolbox.

You know, there's there's a funny thing that happens in Alcoholics Anonymous, and and I'm going to read to you guys the way that I felt. It's on page 52 of the big book, and this is the way I felt when I walked in the rooms. It certainly isn't the way that I feel now, but it says, "We were having trouble with our personal relationships.

We couldn't control our emotional natures. We were prey to misery and depression. We couldn't make a living.

We had a feeling of uselessness. We were full of fear. We were unhappy.

We couldn't seem to be of real help to other people, you know. And they say, "But you have to find a substitute for for alcohol." Got to There's no substitute for alcohol. You got to be kidding me.

They say there is. They say the substitute for alcohol is 100 pages later on page 152. It says there is a substitute.

And it's vastly more than that. It's the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. So all of you people that I called lame be became my saving grace.

It was it was you people would you love me enough to be brave enough to tell me and call me on my and say work these steps. We understand we did it. We drank like that.

Not all of us drank as hard as you. Not all of us are low bottom drunks like you. But we understand alcoholism.

You were willing willing to take a little bit of time to spend with me and show me how to do these steps. showed me how that I can believe that I can be restored to sanity like it says in the second step. Showed me how to find a power greater than myself like it says in the third.

How to do the inventory, how to share that with someone else, you know, how to identify my shortcomings and my defects and and and ask God to remove that stuff. you know, how to make a list of all the people that I'd hurt and start reaching out and and and and saying I'm sorry and really mean it, you know, and how to like continue to take that inventory. I don't mean at night when I lay my head on my pillow.

I mean in the moment, I'll give you an example of that. Very simple 10th step right here. If I've said anything to offend anyone, whether it be my language or my story, I apologize.

I'm just trying to carry the message of Alcoholics Anonymous. And then of course in 11 is is is I want to understand that there's a God in my life that will I I want I want the knowledge that he has for me what he wants me to do. I want knowledge of that and then to carry the message is what I'm doing right up here tonight telling you guys my story.

I didn't know that 22 years later I'd be standing up here talking to you guys. You know that isn't what I expected at all. I just wanted to like not eat out of a dumpster anymore and not have to sell blood.

I didn't know that I'd have a beautiful home on about 5 acres full of avocado trees and a loving wife sitting next to me in the rooms tonight. I didn't know that I'd have a host of friends about me just like it's described in the big book. All the promises have come true for me.

And I'm one of these guys who said it might work for you, but it won't work for me. You know, I come to Alcoholics Anonymous. The drink went away a long time ago.

I come here today to learn how to live and to give back to you guys and to feel the love from you guys. I don't know where else to go. You know, I made a mess everywhere else I went.

I made a big mess and luckily I was one of these lucky guys that never went to the penitentiary or got shot. I certainly had it coming. But instead, I found the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And you know what? You can't get to where I'm at from where I came from without a miracle. So I I'm an absolute believer in uh and that there is a God and he does he does love me.

You know I always wondered why why me? You know why did he pick me? I know why.

You know and it's because there God came to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous when this first thing started and he liked it and he's been showing up ever since and he's been working miracles not only mine but in all these people in these rooms. Every one of you guys is a walk and talking miracle in yourself. And I want to let you guys know your story might not be as horrid or as tragic or as ugly or as humorous as mine, but it tells us in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous that we can take all of those liabilities from our drinking days and turn them into assets.

And that those liabilities are to be identified to use to help another alcoholic. That's what it says in the big book. That's what my job is.

to take the way that I lived and show you guys that the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous is happening. It worked in my life. So, I'm only just a I'm just a tiny little piece of it, you know, and uh and I want to thank Merl for asking me to come up here this evening and I want to thank the group for listening to my story.

Thank you. >> 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. >>