John's Journey: From Early Drinking to Sober Life

I'm John Porter, I'm an alcoholic.

I want to thank Alex for asking me to come out and speak tonight.

And I've known Alex for a while.

And he has a good program, and he's a good guy.

And it's really good to see him.

Oh, wait, I've got a whole bunch of them.

There's a lot of people in this room that I know.

And it's really good to see a lot of you guys.

When I first met with my wife, she was going to Life's In Session.

Yeah.

If it wasn't for Life's In Session, you guys wouldn't be here, though.

[GROANING]

So it's all in how you think about it, right?

But I'm grateful to be here, to be anywhere safe and sane and sober.

I have a sobriety date.

It's 9/5/88.

I have a sponsor.

His name is David R. I have a home group.

It's the USR group of Northridge.

I have a higher power that I found through the 12

Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and through the love and guidance

of the men of this program along with the women.

And because of that, I have a pretty darn good life today.

And the life I have today resembles very little

the life I had when I got here.

I want to thank Esteban and Milton for their shares.

I identified a lot.

I think that whenever I hear anybody sharing,

if I'm looking for the similarities, I find them.

If I'm looking for the differences, I find those as well.

So I've been taught to look for the similarities,

because that's what keeps me here.

When I'm looking for the differences,

that's what starts to separate me from you.

And my sponsor tells me that when

as soon as I start to separate myself from you,

I start to separate myself from God,

and I start to separate myself from God,

I become one-on-one with my alcoholism.

And when I'm solo with my alcoholism,

alcoholism will win every single time.

Because I drank when I didn't want to drink,

like your 10-minute speakers were talking about.

I started drinking when I was 12 years old.

I was in Pacoima.

I was a white guy in a Mexican neighborhood.

I desperately wanted to fit in, so I

did whatever they were doing.

And we went into the next door neighbor's backyard.

And we had some kind of wine, some anti-green springs

or something like that.

Whatever was the wine of choice back in those days.

If you can actually call that wine,

I don't think any of that stuff had any grapes in it.

But that's what we had, some marijuana.

And we smoked that, and we drank the wine.

And I got super sick, and was throwing up

all over my bathroom at home.

And woke up the next day and thought that was fun.

I want to do that again.

And probably not a normal thought.

Most people that get sick from something

just think, I better stay away from that.

But I had so much fun.

And I felt comfortable for one of the first times

in a really, really long time.

When I drank, I got that feeling, everything's OK.

Everything's OK right now in this moment.

And that's what alcohol did for me.

I drank because I liked the effect.

Not because I like the taste.

Not because I liked anything else, really.

I drank for the effect.

And I believe very strongly in the traditions

of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I think the traditions are what hold us together.

And I follow them to the best of my ability

in Alcoholics Anonymous, and in my life

outside of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I think they apply everywhere, actually.

But my story includes a lot of drugs.

So I can only tell my story.

I'll tell you what happened.

But I want you to know I'm an alcoholic.

I didn't think I was an alcoholic when I got here.

I'll tell you a little bit about that.

I drank all through junior high and high school.

Again, it was a lot of fun.

It was like backyard parties.

And we were partying every weekend.

And it was hard to get alcohol.

But we could always get some of the other stuff.

So there's a lot of times when there was other stuff,

and maybe a little bit of beer, maybe

a little bit of some alcohol.

But as we got older, it started to become easier to get it.

And we were always drinking.

It seemed like we were drinking every weekend.

And we did that for a long time, backyard parties with bands.

And you still have a lot of fun.

It was a lot of fun back in those days.

And I just remember drinking on the way to the party,

drinking at the party, drinking on the way home from the party,

going home, passing out, waking up.

And I'm still in school at this time.

And I got in a lot of trouble in school, kicked out,

came back into continuation, kicked out,

and got back into alternative school

at San Fernando High School.

And somehow I managed to graduate.

And we lived in Pacoima.

My parents didn't have a lot of money.

They had a program called CETA.

It was the program that allowed you to work

if you were underprivileged.

And the city gave me a job as a gardener caretaker, which

is basically you walk around the park.

If you were a CETA worker and you

were a gardener caretaker, you walked

around the park with a big stick with a nail on the end of it.

And you picked up paper.

And basically you kept the park clean.

And you put out the rainbirds and water the grass

where the dry spots were.

And I kept showing up.

And I learned how to take care of the grass

and take care of the trees.

And I started learning a lot about just

what it was to take care of those parks overall.

I was going to San Fernando High School.

My first park was at Brand Park.

And so all my friends just would come pick me up in the car.

I'd go out, walk around the park.

They'd come and pick me up.

We'd go drive around, drink, get high, come back.

They'd drop me off.

And I'd just go through the rest of my day.

And I'd get off and go back home.

And we'd continue.

We'd party through the night.

And I remember after about a couple of years of this,

we started doing some other things.

And I had sold drugs all the way through high school

to support the habit that I had because I

didn't have a job at that time.

And even when I got a job, I still

continued selling because I wanted more.

My middle name as an alcoholic is more.

If it's good, I want more.

And so I started selling angel dust

and started smoking angel dust all the time.

And it was destroying my life kind of quickly.

And I remember sitting in my living room one time.

It was a commercial.

And it said, if you want to change your life

and you want to learn how to do something good,

join the military.

It was an advertisement for the United States Marine Corps.

And so thus came my first geographic.

I knew that I had to somehow change my life.

I didn't want to go to college.

I didn't feel like I had it in me.

I actually hated school when I was in it,

even though it was kind of easy for me when I did apply myself.

I went down, and I was going to go talk to the recruiter.

And I had some friends who were in the military and said,

listen, don't go down there and just sign up

because you're going to wind up being a grunt.

And these guys, they're out there

with the rifles on the front line.

And that's not you, dude.

They said, tell them that you want

to figure out what it is you want to do

and make them sign a contract with you.

So that's what I did.

I went and signed a contract to learn electronics

and to be a radio repairman.

And so I went through, and I went through basic training.

And I got the training at 29 Palms.

That was like a nine-month training.

And then I went to Hawaii for three years.

And in Hawaii, they had a great duty station for alcoholics

because it was kind of like a top secret, nobody knows

about it, battalion, radio battalion.

And I showed up there for the first day,

and I knew I was with my people because what is it about us

that we just are like magnets to each other?

We just find each other because everything

that I did in my life was always about drinking and using.

It's like if you weren't drinking or using

or couldn't help me get to the next drink or the next drug,

I probably wasn't talking to you.

And so I show up, and I report for duty,

and I meet a couple of guys, and they go, hey, come with us.

And took me up to the top of the barracks area,

and we're overlooking everything.

And they pull out this sticky bud, and we start smoking it.

And I'm getting high, and I'm thinking, life is good.

I'm in Hawaii, I'm getting high.

I mean, the island was beautiful.

We get up every day, we go swimming.

I learned to play golf.

They had a golf course right on the base.

I'm playing golf.

I mean, life is good.

At night, we're going out on the weekends.

We're going out and partying in town.

And you're going out to the hoochie bars and everything

and hanging out.

And I mean, life was good.

And I was happy.

And three years passed, and at that time in the military,

they had started doing the urine testing.

And I'm doing all kinds of stuff other than just drinking,

and I don't want them to catch me.

And I'm getting nervous, but I'm just about to get out.

So I'm thinking, OK, I got to go.

And the recruiter comes to me.

He says, look, we're having a hard time keeping people

with your MOS.

That's my job specialty.

We're having a hard time keeping you guys.

So we're going to offer you something special.

We'll give you your next stripe, and we'll

give you the next level of schooling,

and we'll give you $16,000 bonus.

And at that time, that was 1983, that was a lot of money.

And the only thought I had was, I got to get out of here.

You guys are going to catch me.

Because I had no intention of stopping.

And every decision I made, like I said,

was about where's the next one.

So I got out.

I came home.

I was hanging out with some friends, just partying.

And I've come to find out that my bank account,

I had been saving up a whole bunch of money for--

my plan was, I had all this money.

It was supposed to be for going back to school.

But I had all this money.

I was like, I'm going to use that money.

I'm going to go to the East Coast with all the guys

that I was hanging out with.

That's where they were living.

And they had gotten out already.

And I was going to go with them and continue the party.

That was my plan.

And God somehow saved me, because my dad

decided that he needed the money to pay the rent

and got into my bank account and took all the money.

And I was pissed.

All I could think about every day is, I want to kill this guy.

My brain is just processing all the different ways

that I know how to kill him.

But I love my mom.

And I knew that doing anything to him was going to--

it would just destroy her.

And so I just bit my bottom lip, and I just did nothing,

except just stay angry.

And so I just started partying even harder.

And I partied, and they moved out of the house in Pacoima

and moved to Panorama City.

And I had to go find my own place to live.

I started working again.

I got my job back with the city of Los Angeles.

I tried working in the electronics field,

but they didn't know who I was.

They weren't paying me the way that I thought

that they should pay me.

And so I showed them.

I quit.

And I wound up getting my job back with the city.

And I would just go every day to work and party

like I was before.

But now they're giving me a truck every day

to go around to these small parks.

And so I'm driving to these small parks.

And I'm coming in sometimes.

I'm just hungover from the night before.

And I'm just parking the truck.

I go get the truck, go park at the park, and just sleep it off.

People are-- moms are walking with their kids.

And they're looking at me in the truck

and just shaking their head.

And I'm just an embarrassment to myself.

And it's not who I wanted to be.

I was becoming more and more--

losing that self-respect that Milti was talking about

and that Estefan was talking about, I hated me.

I hated what I had become.

But I knew that my--

alcohol was my solution.

If I didn't drink, I couldn't even get up and do anything.

I couldn't-- I didn't want to participate in life at all.

So during this time, started snorting cocaine.

And then we learned how to wet rock cocaine.

And then real cocaine is too expensive.

So we started buying crack.

And within a couple of years, it has me on my knees.

And I don't know what to do.

And I remember sitting in this lady's house.

So I had been asked by a lady who was a friend of the family.

She was dying from Lou Gehrig's disease, ALS.

And she asked if I would want to come and live

with her and her two sons and help take care of her

as she started to get worse.

And I said, sure, I'll do that.

And I would never be there.

And when I was there, I didn't have any money.

I couldn't pay my rent.

So things just really started getting bad.

And she finally said, I'm going to have

to kick you out because you just can't be here anymore.

And I remember sitting in the living room thinking,

I hate me.

I don't know what to do.

And so I called the only person that I had left.

And I called mommy.

And my mom was--

she probably needed it all in on.

But my mom was one of those where that's--

if you're her child, she never gives up on you.

And thank God for that.

She said, OK, come and live with me.

So I went to live with my parents.

And now I'm back with my dad.

And I'm just-- I'm angry.

I hate me.

I hate him.

I just hate life.

And I don't know what to do.

And I started trying to get sober.

And I'm still working at the city

because it's impossible to get far from the city almost.

I say almost because they did finally let me go.

They let me go when I was in a recovery house.

And they said, if you sign right here,

we'll just forget about it.

You can actually apply to get your job back later on if you

get your stuff back together.

If you don't, we're going to fire you.

And you'll never get your job back.

And so I sign the papers.

Now, mind you, it's my mom sitting

on the other side of the table with this paperwork telling me

that I need to sign on the bottom line

if I ever want to have a chance to get my job back.

And I feel like this big.

This is what my life has become.

And so I sign the paperwork.

And I get out of that recovery program.

And I don't stay sober because I think the problem is crack.

If I just stop doing the crack, I can just drink.

And so I drink.

And then I smoke crack because once I start drinking,

there's no such thing as a bad idea.

Everything's on the table.

I have no control.

And so I went through that for a little while.

And I realized, God, if I ever want

to stay off of this stuff, I got to not drink for a little while.

Was smart enough to figure that out.

And so I went to another recovery program.

And they wound up sending me to go to meetings.

And one of the meetings I went to--

because they sent a panel in there.

One of the guys that was on the panel, his name was Steve Ogle.

And some of you in here probably remember Steve.

He was a great guy and really on fire about AA.

And he came on that panel.

And he said, hey, when you get out of here,

come over to our meeting.

And it was life succession.

And so I went over to that meeting.

It was real close to the place where I was--

the treatment center that I was in at the time.

And so I did that.

And I heard the guys talking.

I was in there.

It was laughing.

I was laughing along with them.

I kind of understood what was going on, but I kind of didn't.

But I had this thing inside of me that said,

you guys are all alcoholics.

I'm not.

I just never thought I'm an alcoholic.

Because my problem's not alcohol.

Because I couldn't relate how alcohol was destroying my life.

I knew how the drugs were destroying my life.

It was easy to see that.

And so I kept going to meetings because I knew

I needed to somehow stay sober.

And I moved into a house into the West Valley

with the lady that I had met at a job that I had finally got.

Because I'm not working the same program

that you guys are working in this room.

I was working the John program.

I had no sponsor.

I was going to like one meeting a week.

Wasn't working any steps.

Really didn't have any kind of God.

But just going to that one meeting a week

and listening and trying to practice

what I was hearing on my own actually helped me stay sober,

even though it was a white knuckle sobriety.

And I was able to get a job.

So I got a job.

I met a girl.

I took her hostage.

We moved in together.

And after, I don't know, like 18 months or something like that,

she said, what's wrong with you?

I said, I don't know, I feel crazy.

I think I'm going to drink again.

And I just feel like I'm crawling out of my own skin.

And she says, and I don't know what to do.

She goes, well, maybe you need to get some therapy.

And she had been in therapy her whole life.

So that was her solution.

That's what she knew.

And so I didn't think to myself, hey,

I should go to those meetings I've been going to

and maybe get a sponsor or maybe start doing it your way.

I didn't think those thoughts at all in my head.

At least I didn't have them consciously.

And so I started going to see this therapist.

And she was working on a slide rule

because we didn't have a lot of money.

And so she was new.

She was working under someone else's license.

But God was working through her.

And I know it today because I can look back on and see it.

Because I remember we would talk and we would talk.

And all of a sudden, one day she says to me,

well, what do you think you need to do?

And I said, I guess I need to give AA a chance.

And I remember thinking to myself, where the heck

did that come from?

And so I did.

I went the following week.

And there was a guy that used to come every week.

And he would put his hand out and shake his hand.

Every week, same thing.

Introduce himself.

Hey, John, how are you doing this week?

So he was really the only one that I remembered.

And I remember from the podium these speakers--

because it was a speaker meeting I was going to,

I remember they would say stuff like, ask somebody to sponsor

you who has what you want.

I had no clue what that meant at the time.

All I knew about life at the time

was all the outside stuff.

And he was always dressed nice, sued and everything.

And they would always call his name.

People would clap for him.

All the ladies were coming up to give him a kiss.

He seemed popular.

And I was like, OK, yeah, he's a good guy for me.

I want what he has.

And so I asked him to be my sponsor.

And I said, OK, Jose, will you be my sponsor?

He said, sure, I'll be your sponsor.

I said, OK, what do I need to do?

He says, I don't know.

I said, OK, I asked the wrong guy.

And he says, I don't know what you need to do to stay sober.

I'll tell you what I need to do to stay sober by showing you.

He goes, and I go to a meeting every week.

And I have a commitment at every one of those meetings

that I go to.

He goes, so if you want to stay sober

and you want me to be your sponsor, then you come to me

with those meetings.

And he started picking me up and taking me to all the meetings

he was going to.

And I had to get a commitment at all those meetings.

And he started trying to take me through the book.

And I started going to a book study.

And I mean, I'm immersed in Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I still don't think I'm an alcoholic.

And one of the places that he took me to

was my current home group.

That's the USR group.

And those men in there actually taught me how to live.

They taught me what it is to be a man.

I used to think it was the guy that

had all the stuff on the outside, all the toys, all

the good stuff.

And I've learned that that's not what it really

is to be a good man.

It's someone who keeps his commitments, who's

honest, who shows up for his family.

And we've heard it here before tonight already.

And they showed me through their own examples

how they were with their own families

and how they lived their life what it was like to be

a man in this world, a sober man in Alcoholics Anonymous.

But I'm going to this meeting.

I'm showing up every week.

And I'm thinking to myself, but I'm really not an alcoholic.

And there was a guy there.

His name was Randy Lawrence.

He used to come to the meeting every week.

And he was fantastic with newcomers, this guy.

He died with 27 years of sobriety.

And he'd come up to me, John, if you're not an alcoholic,

what is your problem?

And I'm like, I don't know.

And he said, John, if you're not an alcoholic,

why is it so necessary for you to be able to drink?

And I didn't know how we could see in the back of my head

that plan that I had, that if I could just stay off that stuff

long enough and kind of get my life together well enough,

that I could probably drink again.

I could go back to drinking like I used to.

And I started thinking, maybe I'm really an alcoholic.

And so I went to my sponsor and I said, Jose,

maybe I'm really alcoholic.

He said, duh.

He said, maybe now you start doing the things

I've been asking you to do.

I want you to go back and find yourself in the book.

I want you to read the doctor's opinion.

I went back to the doctor's opinion,

and I started reading about alcoholism.

And they describe alcoholism in there, right?

And there's no definition for an alcoholic,

but there's a description.

There's different types that he describes, the doctor does.

But he describes the actual disease.

When I drink, the drink seems to want another drink.

And I start to drink and I don't know when I'm going to stop.

After three or four, all of a sudden, I'm just off and running.

And that wouldn't be so incredibly horrible,

except when I manage to somehow get stopped for any period of time.

A few hours, a day, or something, my head starts talking to me.

And even though I've told myself I'm never drinking again,

because I've destroyed my life, my head

tells me through some mechanism that it's OK to have another drink.

Either screw them, or you've earned it, or--

I mean, there's some message that pops in between these ears that makes

it OK to pick up another drink.

And if I have that mental twist, that peculiar mental twist

that the book talks about, and I have the allergy of the body,

then I have alcoholism.

And so all of a sudden, I realize I'm an alcoholic.

So I start thinking, OK, I got to start doing everything

that these guys are doing the same way that they do it.

And so I started doing that.

Did you need to get that?

OK, we'll wait.

I remember thinking to myself, but what if they

think I'm really not an alcoholic?

What if they want to kick me out of here or make me leave?

I started having these bizarre thoughts and fears.

And I started going to the meeting and sharing honestly

about what was going on between my ears, because I never really was--

I always knew how to share in a way that made me look good.

I knew how to tell you what you wanted to hear.

I'm a chameleon.

I know how to fit in.

And I know how to get what I want out of life.

I'm a magician at stealing your time, your money, your resources,

whatever it is that I need to get from you for me to be OK to get what I want,

because I'm a selfish, self-centered person.

All I think about is me.

All I want is to get what I want.

And I started learning about alcoholism and recovery from alcoholism

by working the steps with my sponsor and going

through a fourth step and a fifth step.

I didn't have a lot of trouble with believing in a higher power.

I didn't really understand it, but I knew that I could just--

as long as I just turned it over and just did what you guys were doing,

that somehow everything was going to work out.

I just had that feeling.

And I think that was God working in my life.

There was a God inside of me being talked to through the God in you,

because I believe that's how God works through people.

The God in you talks to the God in me.

The God in me talks to the God in you.

And I heard a speaker one time say, you can always

tell when God's involved, because there's at least two winners,

somebody doing some giving and somebody doing some receiving.

And I had to really start adopting the principles

that I was learning in these steps.

I had to start forgiving myself, had to start forgiving other people.

And then I had to start making the wreckage of my life,

trying to clean that up.

And I was able to do that.

I was able to forgive my dad.

And we have a relationship today.

It's not a great one, because my dad's not the easiest guy in the world

to get along with.

But we have a relationship.

And I don't have to be the creator of any trouble in any of my relationships.

I am quite often, because I'm selfish and self-centered.

But I don't have to be.

And I have tools so that I can clean that up very quickly.

I wound up marrying that lady that I was living with.

She had a 10-year-old-- or she had an 18-month-old.

And I raised her till she was about 10.

And then that lady said she didn't want to be married anymore.

And I mean, it just--

it killed me.

I didn't know what to do, but I brought my butt to Alcoholics Anonymous.

I brought my buck to my meetings.

And I said, I don't know what to do.

I don't know how to live with these feelings.

Because my heart was broken.

It was aching.

And I knew that my relationship with her was over a long time before.

What my heart was really aching for was the loss of that little girl.

I mean, I loved her with all my heart.

And I didn't know how to deal with that.

And my sponsor says, this is maybe something

that's a little bit bigger than I know how to deal with.

He says, this is something other than alcoholism.

And maybe you need to get some outside help.

So he sent me to see a therapist.

But he gave me some instructions.

He said, when you go to see a therapist,

he says, you have to pick somebody who understands what alcoholism is.

Because if they don't, they will try and treat your alcoholism with therapy,

and you will wind up drinking again.

And if you drink again, you may die.

And so I went to it and found a therapist who

was sober in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And he was able to help me walk through a lot of those feelings

and recover from some lifelong stuff, not feeling good enough,

needing other people's approval to be OK in my own skin,

all kinds of stuff like that.

You can learn it here in AA2.

I mean, I've heard lots of people share lots of great stuff in meetings.

But I needed some kind of intense one-on-one to get OK in my own skin.

And while I'm doing this, I'm telling my sponsor,

look, I need to not go to as many meetings.

I need to take care of myself.

I need to maybe let go of this commitment.

Because I was involved with the San Fernando Valley Convention,

had been for a number of years.

And said, I'm going to maybe give it up this year.

He says, no, no, no, no.

He says, you need to keep all of your commitments.

You need to go to all your meetings.

And you need to keep making all your phone calls.

He says, those are the things that are going to get you through this.

And so I did it.

I didn't want to.

I'm just feeling awful all the time, and whining, and complaining,

and sniveling.

And I love that.

I love that.

No sniveling.

I love it.

And I just kept showing up when the convention time came around.

And I remember it had been close to a year or so.

And we were getting ready for the convention that whole time.

And Convention Weekend came around.

And I remember driving to the convention.

I'd been finished with my therapy.

And I was working with my sponsor, and going to my meetings, and sharing.

And I had really started to feel good.

And I felt comfortable in my own skin.

I said, hey, I'm OK.

I'm OK now.

I feel OK.

I said, God, if you want me to be alone, then just show me

what you want me to do.

Just put it in front of me, because I'm stupid.

I need to be guided.

And he said, OK, here's what I have for you.

And I showed up at that convention.

And I had to be of service, because I was the chairman of the computer

committee.

And the chairperson of the registration was a lady.

You can see where this is going already, can't you?

You guys are very smart.

We had to work together that whole weekend.

And we started talking.

We kind of related.

And I remember on Saturday night, I was out there.

Everyone was inside the dance.

And I was outside taking care of some stuff.

And she came out.

And she said, you can get one of these other guys to do that.

You've got to come inside and dance.

And she took me inside.

And we're inside, and we're dancing and everything.

She goes, come on, there's someone I want you to meet.

And she took me to meet her sponsor.

That's like meeting her parents.

And so somehow I must have got the thumbs up from the sponsor.

And we hung out for the weekend.

And on Sunday, she asked me if I wanted to get together.

And I said, OK.

And we wound up getting together.

We went to In-N-Out.

We went and saw a movie.

And I remember thinking to myself

when she asked me if we should get together that night,

I remember thinking, but I don't want to get married again.

I went to my sponsor, and I said,

I don't think I'm ready for a relationship.

I don't think I want to get married again.

And he said, just go on the date.

It's just a date.

Because I like to live way down there.

When God is right here in this moment,

I need to stay in this moment.

And I've learned that here.

And so we went to In-N-Out.

Like I said, we went to a movie, and we spent the next almost

year dating.

And my sponsor had gotten me involved in Al-Anon at the time.

I was going to Al-Anon.

I had all these Al-Anon ladies telling me to be careful.

She's an alcoholic.

I said, I know.

And we wound up really--

I mean, I knew long before, probably

within a couple months, I knew she was the one for me.

I was head over heels.

And just shy of a year later, I took her to In-N-Out.

And when I went to pick up the order from the counter--

I mean, the place is packed on a Friday night.

And I got the order of French fries.

And you guys who have been to In-N-Out,

they put a napkin over the French fries.

And I picked up the napkin, and I put a ring

on one of the French fries.

And I put the napkin back over it,

and I brought it over to the table.

And I sat down, and I just waited.

And the place is just crazy.

And she's talking-- we're practically

having to scream at each other to hear each other.

And I'm-- that's five?

OK.

So I see that she is sitting there and talking,

and she's reaching into the other side.

She hasn't even taken the napkin off yet.

Now, she's reaching in under the napkin,

and she's taking out French fries and eating them.

I'm thinking it's going to fall or something.

And so she finally grabs the napkin, and she takes it off.

And she looks down, and she just bursts into tears.

And as she's bursting into tears, I'm down on one knee.

And I'm asking her to marry me.

And in my mind, everybody in the place

was going to see this and start applauding.

Nobody said anything.

Nobody did anything.

They just kept eating.

Like, what's wrong with these people?

But she said yes.

And we wound up getting married about six months later.

And this past June, we celebrated

20 years of marriage.

And on Thanksgiving Day--

because she had two kids that I've met and love like my own.

And one of them, my daughter got married on Thanksgiving Day,

and she asked me to walk her down the aisle.

So she had two dads walking her down the aisle.

And this program has given me a life.

I have a job today that I didn't think I would ever have.

I work with computers, and I'm responsible for the computer

network that I work for.

I have keys to the building.

I have the alarm codes.

I have everything.

They don't know who I am.

And it's all because of rooms like this and people like you

sharing your experience, strength, and hope with me.

And the loving God that I found by listening to you

in these rooms, that I have any of this stuff.

I have a relationship with my family.

When I first got sober, my sisters

wouldn't let me be in the room alone

with my niece and my nephew.

My nieces and my nephew, they were afraid of what I might do.

And today, they love me.

And my nieces are sending me texts all the time.

I'm graduating.

Will you come to my graduation?

And I'm getting married.

Will you come to my wedding?

And it's like, I could have missed all of this stuff.

I have friends today that are real friends that I

know will be there for me no matter what.

And I've learned to be a friend, to care about other people,

and to be able to do things for fun and for free.

It's one of the hardest concepts for a selfish alcoholic

like this because I'm always looking for what's in it for me.

But I've learned here how to actually give and not

expect anything in return.

And that's one of the biggest joys

that I think a human being can have.

And when my heart is full because I've

been able to help you somehow, that's

one of the best joys I think any human being can ever feel,

at least this guy.

So I'm grateful to be here tonight.

Thanks again to Alex.

You guys have a fantastic group.

I love coming into this room.

The energy here is fantastic.

The friendliness that I've felt over the years from you guys,

I appreciate it so much.

And thanks so much.