David's Journey: Finding Family and Friendship in AA

Now I would like to introduce our main speaker, David.

>> Good evening.

My name is David.

I'm an alcoholic.

First of all, I want to thank Alex for asking me to come

out and share with you tonight.

It's an honor and privilege for me to share in my own sobriety

and participate in any AA activity.

It's amazing.

It's amazing, this program.

If you're new here tonight, I want to welcome you

to Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I hope you find what I've been able to find here,

which is a different way of life, you know.

And a lot of new friends, people that I now call my family,

that I know that I can rely on, because we're here

to support one another, and we do that.

And it's in our actions that you get to experience that

and feel the love and see the love,

because it's happening around you.

I was a member of this group, the predecessor group,

Life's in Session, and that's where we all got started,

you know, Life's in Session.

That's where it all got started, at Life's in Session.

And I got to see people come in and grow up,

and their families grow up.

Like Alex, he was a baby when his dad was coming around,

and other people had, you know, their children around.

And we all grew up together in this program,

in this fellowship, in this group.

And so if you're new here tonight,

and you don't hear anything else, what I did was, you know,

I got a home group, Life's in Session.

I got a sponsor, and I was willing,

and I followed direction, sometimes suggestion,

and not always willing to do it, but I did it.

Built a relationship with a higher power,

who I choose to call God, and got a friend,

somebody that came from my same neighborhood in New York City

that I didn't even know before coming to Life's in Session.

We lived in the same neighborhood in New York,

and I never would have known it.

But I met him here at a Saturday night meeting,

and, you know, he was attracted to my wife.

She was his fatal attraction,

and I wasn't in the fellowship yet,

but I was, she was coming to meetings here

at Life's in Session on Saturday night,

and getting a little bit, getting dressed up

a little bit prettier every year, you know,

and every week, you know, and looking nice, you know,

and smelling fresh, you know, and I was like,

I need to go down to this meeting here

and check this thing out,

and see why she's getting all gussied up, you know,

find out what's happening, who's looking at my wife,

you know, and so, lo and behold, you know,

there's this character from New York,

he's saying he's from East Harlem, Spanish Harlem.

He said, "Really, so am I."

Yeah, yeah, it's from the same neighborhood, wow.

So we got to reminisce on some of our old neighborhood,

you know, landmarks, the different churches,

and different parks and things,

and different things about New York

that makes it so special, you know,

and so that started a friendship that, to this day,

you know, Tom is like a brother to me.

You know, we call each other every day.

Every other day, you know, four or five times a week,

we're on the phone with one another, complaining.

Initially it was complaining.

When he lived in the valley here, we would go to,

after the meeting, we'd go to McDonald's

and complain about our wives,

and complain about our sponsors,

complain about people in the meeting,

you know, complain about Avery, you know,

and don't worry, it gets better, it gets better,

and built that foundation of a friendship

that's like a brother, like none other, and similarly,

I could say that about a bunch of other people here,

you know, like Bruce.

Bruce is, you know, like a brother to me.

He's been able to be there for me, and other people, Eddie.

I mean, I can go on and on,

just kind of like name people off, you know,

and I don't want to do it

because I don't want to miss anybody and say,

"Oh, well, you need to talk about me."

What about me, you know?

So I'll get a text message when I get back to the car,

you know, "What about me?"

Sorry, man, hey, man, I can't talk about everybody.

But anyway, but that's not what it's about.

That's not what it's about.

What it's about is keeping this fellowship going, you know,

and keeping us supporting one another,

because like it talks about in the big book,

you know, we're in a special class,

we're in a certain class, you know,

and, you know, no other alcoholic, no other person,

but alcoholics know who we are and how we are.

And it takes that special person

that we all share one thing in common, you know,

it may be something tiny and minuscule,

or maybe even larger in your case,

we all share this one common thing,

and that's this feeling of loneliness, you know,

and sometimes it could be varying,

it could be greater than others at times in your life,

but that's one thing that consistently has been common

in my life is this feeling of loneliness.

And I found when I come to meetings,

I get that loneliness filled up with love and care

and support like Robin talked about, you know,

this group, Kwaath, is still carrying that forward,

that love and care for one another on the moves

and the watches and the parties.

And it's great to see that, seeing that to continue,

you know, and I feel very much a part of this group

as if it was life's in session because I have a lot,

still have a lot of friends here,

people that I know I can call on,

people that I know that I can rely on and women too,

you know, and you'll be there, you will be there.

So with that being said, Alex already advised me

that dang, I have to cut my time short tonight.

Just a few minutes, don't worry, don't be alarmed.

But he did tell me you got some other stuff

you gotta take care of, some business you gotta handle here.

So, you know, I'ma respect that, you know, absolutely.

You don't have to invite me back out, you know,

so I can finish the rest of my story.

(laughing)

But sticking with the format,

my sobriety date is March the 5th of 1988.

So I've been sober 32 years and it's by the grace of God,

the fellowship of alcoholics and meetings like this,

friends like this and sponsors that I've been able

to put these days and weeks and months and years

and decades together to have this life that I have today,

you know, and I too was born and raised in New York City

where there's a lot of crime and violence

and substance abuse and alcoholism

and that's just in my family alone.

But I learned to drink at an early age.

There's parties or baptisms or weddings or divorces

or something going on in my house that we had a party,

you know, and I learned to drink, you know, 14 and 15.

Now I didn't go out and become a daily drinker,

but I drank regularly.

I drank, you know, on a regular basis,

hanging out with the friends, playing games,

playing sports or whatever, you know, we'll have beer,

you know, whatever on Saturday or whatever.

And so I learned to drink at an early age

and I believe my father was an alcoholic

and he drank on a daily basis and for the longest,

I said, I don't want to be like him.

I don't want to grow up to be like him, you know,

and I have four older brothers and sisters.

My sisters were having kids at an early age

when it wasn't cool to have kids at 17 and 16 and a half,

you know, and they were dropping out of school

and my brother went away to fight a war in Vietnam

and he came back with a hundred dollar day heroin habit

and I didn't want to be like him.

He went off, you know, he was a Marine

and he went off to Vietnam, big strong man.

He was six foot two, could kill somebody in 15 seconds,

could kill another man, you know,

'cause that's how they trained him to do.

And when he came back with that heroin habit,

he was somebody that I did not certainly look up to

and that I did not aspire to be

because he was terrorizing the neighborhood,

robbing our neighbors, you know,

sticking up the local stores, the bodegas.

It's a little, it's like 7-Eleven,

but in New York we call them bodegas, you know.

I didn't even think 7-Eleven was around then, you know,

but our version of 7-Eleven.

And so I didn't want to be like him.

And so my best friend in high school I used to drink with,

you know, they say the more you come to meetings,

you know, the more, you know, more will be revealed.

And, you know, people say, well come up and they'll say,

"Oh, well I was a daily drinker, you know,

and I started drinking, you know, in the morning."

You know, I'm like, I don't remember drinking in the morning.

You know, I was a, you know, I was a night drinker,

you know, like, but then I remembered

that my friend and I used to buy these little pints

or half pints of Blackberry Brandy on Subway

'cause in the wintertime it's cold in New York

and you get on the subway and, you know,

we take the subway to school

and we used to drink these little half pints

of Blackberry Brandy.

So, you know, I was a morning drinker, you know,

and I didn't realize that until after I had come to,

you know, some meetings after a couple of years, you know.

And that friend of mine, that was my high school friend,

his name was Jesus Jesus.

And he started messing around with drugs

and skin popping and he OD'd, you know.

And I was devastated 'cause that was my,

as you guys call it, road dog, you know.

And, you know, that was my first real true loss

that I really felt at a early age.

And I'm like, damn, you know.

And so I went on and was given an opportunity

to go to college and I wanted to be different

than my brothers and sisters.

And so I got an opportunity to go the way to college.

And so I went to a little small business college

up in Maine, the state of Maine.

I had been there before on like a camping trip or something,

but, you know, it was far, far away from New York City

and snowed there, snowed a lot.

So for four years, I became a maniac and learned

to drink a lot of beer, a lot of beer.

I mean, a lot, a lot of beer.

I mean, they used to drink it by the kegs, you know.

And I joined the fraternity because I heard

they had the answers to all the tests

and a lot of book reports.

They had a file cabinet full of like old book reports

and stuff like that.

And so I joined this fraternity, you know.

And, you know, I was playing basketball and things.

I played on their teams and stuff.

And so they let me in their fraternity.

And so I said, hey, I need some exposure to some of these

exams and things, you know, and these reports and stuff.

And so, oh, just get it out the cabinet,

just get what you need.

I said, oh, okay, cool.

So the professor would get it, just like, hmm,

this looks very, sounds very familiar.

Did you do this report?

I said, oh yeah, yeah, I stayed up all night

working on this, you know, copying it, you know.

And so I lied and cheated my way through college.

And at the end of four years, they gave me a degree.

So I went back home to that Spanish Harlem neighborhood

in New York City and pounding on my chest.

Yeah, I'm a college graduate.

That's right, I got my sheepskin, you know.

And so I was a big man in the projects, you know,

the big man on campus, you know,

a big man in the neighborhood, you know.

And so, but I didn't do anything for a few months.

You know, I laid on my parents' couch.

You just kind of, ah, I'm tired.

It was a rough, rough semester.

I need, I need to chill out.

You know, I did a lot of copying, you know.

And so I need a couple of months off.

And so I went back to the old neighborhood,

started doing with the things that I was doing

before I left, drinking and hanging out with the fellas,

you know, and playing ball and stuff.

And, you know, my drinking progressed

and it wasn't till I realized that, you know,

that I really needed to drink that I decided that,

you know, maybe I need to make a change.

This girl I had dated in college, her parents had,

her dad had got transferred to, to,

with his company to, to Huntington Beach

down in Orange County.

And they invited me out to come check it out, you know,

and it was a belong furthest west that I've been ever,

you know, and so I came to California

and was living down in Orange County

and we set up housekeeping.

Well, her dad said, you know, you cannot,

she cannot move in with you until she's engaged or married.

I said, oh, okay, no problem, you know, sorry.

So I was working at the small little airspace company

in Los Alamitos and so pulled a couple of overtime shifts

so that I can, you know, buy this ring

so this girl can come live with me, you know,

and so she, I raised up enough money to buy a little ring

and we got engaged and she moved in with me

and after a couple of months,

she told me that I drink a lot like her father

and that he was an alcoholic

and she didn't want to be married to an alcoholic.

So she moved back home and of course I was devastated

and at the time I didn't think about it, but I'm like,

I should have got that ring back, you know.

I think it's probably worth some money, you understand?

But I didn't and I had a sister that lived out here

in the Valley and I came and set up housekeeping with her.

She said, hey, look, you know,

get a job as a big aerospace company in Burbank,

you know, they probably could hire you

and blah, blah, blah, blah, you know,

and, you know, come stay with me and, you know,

you just paid a rent and I'll take care of everything else.

I'll cook, I'll clean, I'll do your shirts,

I'll do everything.

Oh, okay, cool.

Sounded like a ready-made, you know, situation, you know.

Sounded like a good deal to me.

So took care of that.

I got this job at this aerospace company in Burbank.

They were building these commercial airliners, L-1011s

and they were hiring a lot of people

and I got a job there and started making great money

and bought this new car with T-tops.

You know, you kind of, not convertible, it's a T-top.

We take the top off, you know,

and kind of put it in the back or in the trunk, you know,

and so I was cruising around town, you know,

thinking I'm Dan Tana, you know.

Oh, am I dating myself?

I'm sorry, oh wow, okay.

Let me see, Miami Vice, how about Miami Vice?

Anybody related to Miami Vice?

Tubbs, they call me Tubbs.

Anyway, so I started partying, you know,

partying on the weekends, you know,

Fridays and Saturday nights and Thursday nights

and Wednesday nights is ladies nights

'cause a lot of people don't go out on Wednesday night,

but hey, ladies night, I'm a ladies man.

So I got to go out on ladies night.

So I started going out on Wednesday nights too.

So Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday

and try to recover on Sunday, you know,

and get up and go to work on Monday, you know.

And so this job was kind of interfering with my partying,

you know, so, but I knew it was my source of income,

you know, so, you know, I did the best I could

and after a while I got old real quick, you know,

going to the clubs, going to parties, you know,

going to, you know, these discos and things.

And I had dated a girl back in New York before I left

and at one time I went on my trips back to New York

'cause I used to buy my clothes in the fall in New York

'cause it'd still be summertime out here.

So, you know, in New York, they'll have the fall sales,

you know, 'cause they're getting rid of all of the summer

stuff, all the fall stuff.

And so fall stuff would be coming in.

So I'd go to New York and buy all these nice stuff,

go nice clothes, I like to dress nice, you know.

So I'd come back to LA, you know,

all these nice clothes and things.

And so on one of these trips, I connected with this girl

and told her that, you know, I want her to come

to California, I want her to settle down

and blah, blah, blah, you know,

threw one of my lines on her.

And so we started communicating, you know,

over the next couple of months,

I may have made one or two more trips back to New York.

And so I convinced her to come to California

and she did so, she was planning on coming in December.

At first, initially she was gonna come for a couple of weeks

to check it out and see if this is something

that she wanted to do, make a move like this.

But then after the time, you know,

over the next couple of months,

I was able to convince her to come,

hey, just move out here, just move,

say your stuff and move out here, you know.

And so she did it, she made that move, you know,

and I'm glad that she did.

That was over 37 years ago and we're still married today.

It's a miracle and a blessing and a blessing.

But we set up housekeeping and after a couple of months

while she was here, her father passed away

and oh no, her mother passed away first.

And she was concerned about her father,

so she went back home for a couple of months

to spend time with her father, get him situated.

And shortly thereafter, he passed away too.

And so when she returned, after he passed away,

she had just one sister and her sister lived in New Jersey.

And after everything had been settled out,

you know, she had inherited some money

and she was suffering from this disease as well.

And she was blowing a lot of her money

on some substances that was really eating up our finances.

And so I told her that she needed to get help

with her problem or I was leaving, you know.

And so she did that, she went and got help.

I told her that my bags are packed, they're in the trunk,

you know, and this teatop, you know, and I was leaving.

And so she went and got help.

She went to this program called VISTA

where she actually met Bruce and Tom

and a couple other people that are still around

in this fellowship, you know.

And Cheryl and one of the things that,

one of the requirements of that program,

there was a lot of programs going on around that time

and one of the requirements of this program

was to go to a couple of AA meetings a week

and so she started doing that, you know.

And that's where she found Life's in Session.

You know, Life's in Session had a Thursday night meeting

there at this program.

They used their facilities for a Thursday night meeting

and that's where I met some of these guys

and then a couple of months later,

I found the Saturday night Life's in Session meeting.

And you know, I wasn't an alcoholic originally.

I came not only to check up on my wife

and see what she was doing,

but also, you know, I was living from Peter to Paul

and you know, my life was unmanageable

but I didn't see it at the time.

And they told me, "If you come to enough meetings,

"you'll hear your story one day."

And I heard it one day, you know.

From a young man, different ethnic background,

different upbringing.

He was born and raised in the country

and I was born and raised in the city

and he was white and I was brown.

But I identified with the causes and conditions

and how he drank and why he drank.

I'm like, "Wow, that's my story, that's my story."

And I identified and I caught alcoholism

sitting in one of these meetings

and started raising my hand

and did the things that they suggested we do around here.

Took me a little while to get a sponsor.

You know, I'm college educated.

I'm an intellectual and I interviewed a couple of people,

quite a few potential sponsors, you know.

And so I asked my wife, you know,

"Who should I get to sponsor?

"Who should I get to sponsor me?"

So she said, "Well, sponsors are the one that pays you

"when you go out to speak.

"They pay you $100 when you become a main speaker."

I said, "What?"

I said, "$100?"

I said, "Yeah, that sounds like a pretty good deal.

"Yeah, all right, that's really a pretty good meeting here.

"All right."

So I had asked Chuck, Chuck Andreessen,

one of the founders or the founder of Life's In Session,

to sponsor me and she said,

"Go ahead and ask Chuck about it."

You know, and so,

so I go to Chuck and I said, "Hey, Chuck,

"you know, I told you about, you know,

"how I'm running from Peter to Paypal

"and, you know, I'm having some financial difficulties.

"I know, you know, the lights are turned out

"a couple of months ago, you know,

"because I didn't pay the, you know, the DWP bill,

"you know, and so, you know, I heard, you know,

"when you become a main speaker and you go out to speak,

"you know, they pay you $100

"and I think this would be a good way for me

"to make some extra couple of extra hundred bucks a month,

"you know, if I had to go out and become a main speaker,

"you know, and I had like, you know,

"68 days or something, you know, and so,

"but, you know, I'm articulate, I got suits here,

"I got suits, you know, four or five different color suits,

"you know, I can do this, you know, and so."

I'm sure Chuck is laughing up in heaven today,

still to this day, because listen,

"No, no, no, we do this for fun and for free, you know,

"and so, lo and behold, they went my part-time job, you know,

"or my revenue stream, as it's referred to,

"these millennials, and so I had to do it

"the old-fashioned way, stick my nose to the grindstone

"and just go to work, you know, and not be a big shot,

"you know, just become a worker amongst the workers,

"as it talks about in the big book, you know, and so,

"one of my first experiences in a miracle for me

"happened when I was, you know, a couple of months sober,

"I was still reading the big book from cover to cover,

"and which I recommend newcomers,

"and don't skip any chapters, cover to cover.

"I was getting fired from my job.

"They told me that they put me on progressive discipline,

"and I was, you know, had about maybe eight months

"of sobriety, you know, and I went to Chuck,

"I said, Chuck, you know,

"they write me up progressive discipline,

"you know, my manager, you know, I'm in sort of

"a management position, I work in human resources,

"and so they're writing me up, you know,

"for, you know, not meeting expectations of my job,

"you know, and I thought I was the best thing

"that ever happened to this company, you know,

"how dare them write me up like this, you know?

"That's humiliating, you know?"

So Chuck said, "Well, I want you to, you know,

"dust off your resume and start, you know,

"going out and filling out applications

"at some companies that may be attracted."

I said, "What do you mean, fill out applications?"

He says, "Yeah, go, fill out an application."

I said, "Oh, wait, no, oh Chuck, you misunderstood me.

"I am college educated, I have a degree,

"I have a resume, you know?"

So I said, "I'll start sending it out."

He said, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

"No, you're gonna go fill out applications."

And I'm like, "Oh man, fill out applications?"

So I had to humble myself and be willing

to go fill out applications, sit in the lobby,

and fill it out in hand and paper, not doing it online,

you know, at home, or in Starbucks, you know?

Man, I had to fill out this application

and apply for different jobs.

In any case, long story short,

I got a better job making more money, you know?

And that was one of my first miracles.

One of my other miracles, I found that,

because my drinking was like this.

It would start out like this, me be starting at home,

drinking at home for a few little bit.

I drank and blacked out, you know, and danced and partied,

it was the life of the party, and then get home,

and then probably wound up urinating on myself

or someone else.

I see we have a few other urinators here tonight.

All right, all right, I'm not alone, I'm amongst my people.

All right, all right, we got a few more coming up.

Come on, raise your hand, I know you out there.

It was the baby, it wasn't me, the baby, the baby did it.

But I think, you know, I did as they suggested,

you know, I got a sponsor, read the big book

from cover to cover, started taking the steps,

taking them, reading, learning them,

learning about the principles in each step

and how to apply it to my life, you know,

about honesty and open-mindedness and willingness

and having courage to go sit in that lobby

and fill out that application and perseverance.

You know, when things are not going my way,

just, you know, buckle up and keep it going,

keep it pushing, you know, and life today is incredible.

You know, it's not always rosy

'cause my head gets in the way, you know.

I still call my sponsor on a regular basis.

I still see my sponsor on a regular.

As a matter of fact, I see him every Thursday night

because I have a must meeting.

I must go to that meeting no matter what.

And I'm proud of my home group, USR,

Unity Service and Recovery.

We are very involved with service.

You know, we have a commitment every Saturday,

every other Saturday, answering phones at central office.

We have other commitments with other groups

and I'm excited for what our group has to do this year.

You know, I've been asked to become the retreat coordinator,

so I'm coordinating our retreat, you know.

And I'm excited because I love doing this kind of stuff,

you know, 'cause I wanna see Alcoholics Anonymous continue

'cause I don't know who's coming through the door next.

It could be one of my relatives,

could be one of my sons or grandsons, you know.

And so I wanna make sure this fellowship continues

and that's why I do the things that I do.

I had a great day today.

I got up and my grandson started.

Today was the first day of opening day of baseball,

little league, and I got to see him get a couple of hits

off the machine, you know, and that was so exciting,

you know, and to watch him and watch my son

and him become a dad, you know, because without,

you know, you guys taught me how to be a father.

You guys taught me how to be a coach

and how to be a, you know, a man and how to be a father,

you know, and how to be a father, you know.

And so I don't talk about my son a lot enough,

you know, because you guys helped grow him up

and he grew up to do great things on his own,

not on his own, but of course, with the love and support

of, you know, us and what you guys taught me here.

He went to the best university on the West Coast,

Berkeley, and for undergrad.

Don't hate, don't hate, don't hate.

I know you got a bunch of USCs here, don't hate.

Oh, UCLA, whatever, baby bears, whatever.

But he went on to Temple University and got his law degree

and came back to California and passed the bar

and he's a lawyer now, you know, and amazing, amazing.

You know, one more drink, one more sniff, one more puff.

You know, I would have missed it all.

I would have missed it all.

But, you know, it's meetings like this, it's the fellowship,

you know, it's hanging around with, you know, sober people

and hanging around with people that are doing the do.

People like Juan and Lacey, you know,

getting involved with H&I.

I did biking for books, biking for books.

That's it, I did it, I did it, you know?

And it's great because, you know, they say 80 to 90%

of the people that get involved with H&I stick around.

So if you're not an H&I yet,

I suggest you get into it, you know?

Because the people there are doing this deal, you know?

So if you're new here tonight, get a big book,

get a sponsor, get a friend,

get a home group right here, stay right here.

Or you can come to USR on Thursday nights, men's tag.

But more importantly, you know, no matter what,

don't leave before the miracle happens.

God bless you and keep you on, keep coming back.