Alec's Road to Sobriety: From Early Drinking to Bad Ideas

Everybody I'm Alec. I'm an alcoholic. Can everybody hear me? Okay. Yes

I'm sober tonight, and I'm not unhappy about it

Thank you Scott for asking me. I think the first thing I should do is tell Scott I lied to him

I have about 50 neckties. I used to be a new

But there's no more under the bed in about a plastic box and I just didn't want to I was just being

Oppositional my basic nature so I am glad to be here. I dug out a jacket and a nice shirt

I guess I'll go with the form here

My sobriety date is August 24th

1982 I have a sponsor. His name is Leo Leo at Leo are Leo has a sponsor

His name is Tom D. And that's how it works the chain of sobriety. So I'm certainly glad to be a part of it

Thank You Dominique. Thank you for sharing, you know

Our interventions always come and at least for me came in strange ways

First time start. I can't tell about the whole room. But are there newcomers in the room? It's hard to see

Okay, cuz I shake a lot and I didn't want the newcomers think they were going into DT's

Since all the central it's no big deal. I'm glad to be here though. Oh my goodness, you know, I

I took a drink. There were no bad ideas. They're just were no bad ideas and that manifested itself

In many ways I can give you some examples

When I took a drink, it wasn't a bad idea to punch somebody in the fist with my nose in a bar

I thought I was a tough guy and I wasn't so I

Punched a lot of people right in the fist with my nose when I took a drink

It didn't seem like a bad idea when in the dead of winter in Chicago. I know there's two other Chicagoans here

They know what those winters are like and I had to get to work and I had a flat tire and I couldn't get wheel

off my

1968 Buick to change the tire because the nuts were frozen

The lug nuts were frozen on wheel and I kept banging my knuckles

So to me it wasn't a bad idea to run upstairs to my apartment get my pistol and shoot my car three times

It seemed like a pretty good idea at the time shoot the car in the fender

The last one is probably the most telling of all and it was on my last relapse Dominique

I relapsed for four and a half years. I had come into Alcoholics Anonymous in

1978 in San Francisco, I was living there

I lived there for ten years and my last one was here in LA my last relapse and it was the result of

Actually, I'll get to that later, but I'll tell you what happened

I was driving down Olympic Boulevard and I guess I was 36 years old at the time and

Very loaded and a guy cut me off in a big old red Cadillac convertible and I was gonna show him

I had a real good idea

I'll cut him off right back and I'll block his car from moving and I'll jump out with my flat bar wrecking bar and I'm

Gonna threaten this guy

Maybe bash him in the head and I come sauntering up to his car and I get to the window

He rolls down the window. He's about 80 years old. He's paralyzed from the waist down

He has hand controls to operate his car and he looked at me said by your tough guy aren't you and I felt about this

big I just kind of hung my head put my tail between my legs and walked away and I got sober shortly after that it was

very

debilitating it was really pitiful and

incomprehensible

demoralization to to be that crazy and go and start a road rage thing and the guy turns out to be an

Engineerian with no legs boy. What a tough guy I was so those are the kind of bad ideas that I thought well

These aren't but this is not a bad idea. I'm gonna do this. There are many others

Throughout the years as a young guy. I knew two things for sure by the time I was 10 or 11 years old

I was gonna drink whiskey and smoke cigarettes and I knew it for sure

I don't know why I knew that but I knew I was gonna do that and I did that

Yeah, as soon as I could my first drunk we had moved from a melting pot neighborhood in Chicago

into an upscale neighborhood north side of Chicago and

It was a hot summer night and I was the only friends are the first friends

I made were guys that were to two or three years older than me and they like to torment me

I was the skinny little guy and it was a hot summer night and they challenged me to drink a Country Club malt liquor

Which about 20% alcohol. I'm

12 years old 5 foot 10

Maybe I weighed 140 pounds ring and wet and my body was not ready for alcohol and I drank that I had had some wine

And religious service wine prior to that and always liked it

but I'm 12 and I drank that can down and they kept urging me on and I drank a whole six-pack and I was

Blitzed absolutely blitzed and could not find my way home from my friend

Jimmy Sanford's backyard and I lived across the street and the guys had to pick me up and carry me and dumped me on

My front steps and my poor little immigrant Polish Jewish mother came out and here's her little sunny boy

Blitzed and that night was miserable

I spent the night vomiting until nothing but green bile was coming out

I learned how to put one foot on the ground while I was laying in bed to make the room stop spinning

So if you put a foot down the room doesn't spin so bad

I was miserable all night and I believe here's the difference between us and other drinkers

I got up the next morning and my first thought was I can't wait to do it again

You know as miserable as I could be all night a little 12 year old puking my guts out

Can't wait to do it again. So that's kind of how I drank. I drank to oblivion. I drank

recklessly and

Got into high school at a time. I got to high school

I was known as a drinker and I had two great obsessions baseball and basketball

Three baseball basketball and boots and I love to play ball. I'm gonna tell you folks. I love to play ball

I played through junior college. I was a big fish in a little pond and I was a pretty good player for you know

Your average white guy and I had the same experience with both my high school baseball coach and my junior college basketball coach

They both said to me, you know where you living the way you smell when you come to practice the way you act with your teammates

You've got a choice to me my answer and I love to play ball more than I love to do anything in the world

My answer was always the same. See you later coach

I've got other things to do so not that that career was ever gonna be anything more than you know, some fun

I was never gonna make it to the professional

I didn't have that kind of challenge

But the point is the Blues always took to precedent over anything that I thought was necessary. I moved on from high school

I

And this is a critical time in my life when I graduated high school. I was 18. It was 1964. I

I was known as a drinker in high school. I've been kicked out of school a lot many times for drinking and having bad ideas

That I thought were good ideas and all my friends

I by this time we were living in an upscale neighborhood the kids that I went to school with and played ball with were all

going to big

universities Michigan Stanford

UCLA Harvard Yale

Wisconsin top schools, Illinois and I was too scared to go over to school. That's the truth

I had terrible social anxiety and

graduate on the bottom of my class in high school because I was the class clown and afraid that I couldn't measure up and yet

I tested out in the upper 90th percentile and I qualified for an Illinois State scholarship

But my what I told myself is well, I'm not good enough to play division one basketball

I'll go to a junior college instead and just stay home and really I was just too afraid to go away from home

I was a little chicken and I didn't think I measured up

So that's when the junior college coach said, you know

You got a choice to make and I left and I stopped playing ball. That was the end of it

Um, and you know, it's just a heartbreak, you know

when you give up the things you love and alcohol always takes first first precedent the what happened that first

Winter break for Christmas all my friends came back from the fancy schools

They're all going to be doctors lawyers and executives really upscale bright people that I went to school with

and many of them did become doctors lawyers and big shots and

Film industry etc, etc, and they were smoking power. So I'm like, I guess we're crazy

You're gonna burn holes in your brain. You can't do that

Why don't you just drink with me drinking is so much better and they thought I was kind of a loser within a year

all of a sudden it was

1965 my hair got real long

He got a broken heart went to a party and a young lady said gee, you're kind of a bummer at this party

You're bringing everybody down come in the kitchen

I'm gonna make you feel better and she stuck a needle in my arm and my nut my life was never the same

It was it all bets were off from a kid who had a crush

Aspirin and put it in orange juice to take aspirin. I started eating pills and smoking dope and shooting dope

My life was never the same again, and I didn't draw a sober breath again until I finally did get sober in 1982

Got through college transferred to University, Illinois

Graduated with the high GPA somehow that double life we can lead astounds me to this day

We can be totally screwed up on booze and drugs whatever other substances

We want to take and yet perform in another arena and I did that

I was able to graduate get a bachelor's degree and I taught school. Can you imagine? I taught your children this drunken guy

I went to school like drunk. That's when I shot my car. I was a school teacher. I'm a grown man school teacher

I got out and shot my car cuz I couldn't change wheel and I'm teaching special ed go figure. I met a woman

around this time and

we got married right about the time we should have been breaking up and

It was ten years of a dance of death. We were not meant for each other

We do have one son. I'll get to that momentarily, but I met that woman. We moved to San Francisco

I went into the business world and became a road salesman in Northern, California

My territory was the 12 Bay Area counties. And by this time, I'm a full-blown alcoholic. There's booze in the car

There's booze in my briefcase. There's booze in there wherever I go. There's booze. I drank in the shower in the morning

I hate from her. I'm told the 12 Bay Area counties are beautiful. I travel them extensively

I don't remember a lot because I was drunk most of the time and that's how I lived my life as a drunk

So fast forward now a little bit. This is critical when I when we ended that marriage

It ended with me and an alcoholic drug addicted rage

Breaking furniture smashing things in the apartment. I punched a window and severed the tendons in my right hand blood everywhere a horrible horrible

Dramatic breakup broken furniture broken doors broken windows and I left and she was five months pregnant at the time

it's the kind of guy and when I drink and I use and I left and

She moved to Chicago back Chicago to be a family and raise our son

The good news about that is my son has never seen me load. He's 43 years old

his mom was smart enough to keep me away from them for the first four years of his life until I could be

sure that I'm a sober guy for real and

So for the last 39 years, he's never seen me load it ever once so that's a great gift for me shortly after

We had split up. I found an apartment and that apartment was an exact replica of who I'd become

It's real good on the outside. I had a sports car. I had nice clothing as a salesman

I was earning a lot of money on the road. The apartment was

Had a view with little rounded bay windows in the back

I'd had a view of the Bay Bridge the Oakland Bay Bridge and the Berkeley Hills

It's just beautiful, but there was nothing inside nothing just like me nothing inside

All look good on the surface the sports car nice clothing haircut, you know by this time I'm a clean-cut guy

I'm not a hippie anymore making a living out there and the apartment had nothing on the inside didn't have it

I didn't have a picture a plant a pet nothing

I had a Murphy bed a coffee pot Mysterio and that's how I live my life. I had isolated myself by this time

I was totally alone back then in those days

There were only that we knew of there were only three sexes and I couldn't get a date

Second date with any of them. No one was going out with me a second time because of my baby

No one was getting in a car with me a second one woman who I was arranged date with someone arranged a date

She got in my car in about five minutes. She said can you pull over please? I pulled over the curb

She got out. I never saw her again. She heard her mumble something about I don't know what and she was gone

You know, you couldn't get in a car with me. I was lunatic drunken driver

I wrecked that car five times in four months. It was a beautiful brand cheesy

Really sweet little car and I kept wrecking it wrecking it wrecking it and by April of 1978 when my son was born

Coincidentally like these coincidences that happened in our lives

I got an intervention not the classical intervention that you hear about with people in the room and a professional

Interventionist it was a friend who called me who had come to visit San Francisco from Chicago childhood friend

I've known him for over 60 years. He called me and he said, you know, I'm sick of your BS

You treated me horribly while I came to visit you you are an a-hole

You become that I don't know what happened to you

But you got to do something about it and you should call our other friend Barry

That's why would I call Barry's a junkie because Barry is staying sober a was not mentioned

I couldn't believe it Barry was the worst heroin junkie I ever knew he came from a wealthy family his dad-owned nursing home

He had a key to the narcotics box. You guys can fill in the blanks after that

He was D where and I a was a mention. I said well, why Barry what so he's not getting high anymore

He goes to somewhere and talks to people which I found out later is a I called my friend Barry

It was a Friday night in San Francisco. I was in that apartment. I cut the legs off my favorite chair

So when I fell out of it

I didn't fall too far so I could low ride in that chair could hold all my paraphernalia on the big arms

It had listening to my razor blade music, which was Billy Holiday

I drank a whole jug of real cheap vodka and my body was very drunk

But my mind was clear as a belt and I made that phone call to my friend Barry who stole my closest friend for 63 years

And I called him when we talked and talked and talked and talked and by the end of the conversation maybe an hour

He got me to say well, I guess I'm an alcoholic and he said good now everybody knows and I said

What am I supposed to do now say do you call a I did the next day on a Saturday?

I called a and some guy with a squeaky little voice like Mickey Mouse got on fire - alcohol synonymous gonna help you

What I do he said

Drunk here. I don't know what to do. He's got a meeting little me

I told them where I lived there was a meeting right around the corner and the meeting

Was on 15th and Guerrero Street if any of you know, San Francisco back then that was you know

The mission and just kind of run down

Beat up area and that meeting was everything you hear people say that they're afraid alcoholics

Anonymous might be it was a little storefront with a big plate-glass window a single bulb hanging down in the middle of the room

There was a guy who got up and sat down and got a cup of coffee

We weren't a trench coat and put it back and put the coffee got the coffee and got back and put it on the ground

Got a donut through the donut got up a street guy very, you know, disturbed street guy

There was three or four people in the room and the secretary's name was Rocky

He was an ex-prize fighter and he was drunk. I said, I love this. This is for me. I love this place

This is great. This is a age. I had no clue

Well, I came to find out that AA was not bad at all, but it had attracted me that underground

Weird feeling that low living low life always attracted me

I was talking earlier to someone about San Francisco and when I was married, I had a pocket full of credit cards

I had a company car. We lived in very nice apartments

We had plenty money and every time I run away from home

Which I did regularly because we fought non-stop day and night this woman and I I'd go right to the tenderloin

I had a pocket full of credit cards. I could have gone to the mark

I could have gone to the high at downtown or any of the fine hotels gotten a sweet right to the tenderloin to some cheap

You know, no bathroom in your room. All you got's a sink and a bed for whatever eight bucks a night

That's where I felt most comfortable. So, you know that tells a lot about who I am

Anyhow, I started going to some meetings met a man and I said my sponsors name is Leo

I've had three significant sponsors in my sobriety

I met a man in San Francisco

His name was everyone and I really want everyone to hear this two things are struggling finding a sponsor

They can't find the right sponsor Erwin and I were polar opposites absolute polar opposites

He was short and fat and bald and gay and funny-looking

and I was tall and handsome and not funny-looking and

Mostly straight and he was the perfect sponsor for me. He taught me the ABCs of alcoholics and then he got me going right away

He saw that I had social anxiety and I shared before meeting started

That's first thing he told me to do is you're gonna be the greeter the greeter. I have terrible social anxiety

I can't be the greeter. Yeah, you're gonna be the greeter. Okay, I'll be the greeter

I couldn't say no to the guy whatever he asked me to do then he said you're gonna make coffee

I'm not making a coffee and of course as you all know once they started making the coffee don't touch my coffee

It's my coffee. I got this. No, I don't I don't need your help. Leave it alone. So Erwin gave me the ABCs be a service

he got me into

H and I right away. He was the

administrator for the

Institution part of the hospital institution committee in Northern California. So we were going we went to all the prisons

He had me dragging around but I didn't stay so I stay so I'll break up relapsing

I relapsed and really I was not ready to get sober and I kept relapsing for four and a half years

The relapsing would last a week ten days a month. I'd get six months. I'd get 18 months. I get a year

I took dirty cakes. I took 30 chips and in 1988. I moved to Los Angeles for business reasons and

I'm gonna try to speed this up and get sober. I

Was living with a really nice young woman and we she moved down here with me

she was a bit younger than I about ten years younger than I was and

at the time and we moved down here to LA and she had never seen me drink and we were sitting in a little apartment on

the west side of Los Angeles that I'd found and I said look look what it says here in this big book it says if

Any one of us can do the right about face and drink like a gentleman our hats are off to him

I said take your hat off. We're going out to the Santa Monica Pier

We're gonna have a couple drinks and have a good time and we did we're not Santa Monica Pier

I had a couple scotches

Nothing happened at all the voice of higher power didn't come down say Alex you really screwed up this time

You're a bad bird nothing yet. Everything was fine within a week within a week. I was getting in fistfights again

I was I wrecked the apartment

I was wetting the bed total insanity all within a week and it came to one night where I was so out of control

She had to contain me now. She was a big gal

She was like 510 wiry and she had to contain me

So I ended up woke up the next morning with a black eye and a fat lip. Um, she beat me up

I couldn't I was out of control

She had her try to do something with me and I don't get women out. Um, so I guess she kicked my butt

There you have it. She was pretty tough. Anyways, she was raised with a bunch of men and she was a toughie

So she kicked my butt and boy that was it. I decided well

That's it need to get sober and I made amends to her and she said no by January of 1982

She said no

I've got to leave. I can't trust you anymore. She left she moved back to Michigan and I was just fine. That's fine fine

You know, I'm the now generation of a cool guy. That's good. You go back. My heart was broken

I didn't want to leave and I'm going to meetings and I can't tell anybody how much pain I'm in and I'm a jerk and

I'm a liar and I'm a phony so I'd come to the meetings late leave early and had no sponsor and couldn't talk to anyone

And I got too big an ego, but I'm also an approval junkie

So I'm lying to people because what happened is I need what do we got 956? Oh my god my phone

Are you kidding me? I think says 815 something's really messed up. Someone just flashed a phone at me. What time is it people?

That's how much time you have. Oh, how much you're ten minutes ten minutes super fast forward had to get sober again

She left I was broken-hearted

I started eating qua ludes by August of 1982 because I don't want people to smell alcohol in my breath

And I was going to meetings. I was down to 138 pounds

I'm six foot one and I was dying on my floor in West Hollywood and a couple guys showed up. I had coincidence

I was on the floor. I couldn't get up. They shook me out

They put me in the shower and they said you ought to call your sponsor up in San Francisco. I did that

I called her when I was whining. I said Erwin, it's hard to stay sober and he said

How would you know and hung up on I said I'll show I'll show him and sober ever since I want to fit

Forward as I said real fast. I've done a lot of H and I work

I got a sponsor here right away again a guy who was my polar opposite

soft-spoken

Former Roman Catholic priest from Colorado. I'm a loudmouth Jew from Chicago and John and I were together for 25 years

Um, he was my sponsor until he passed away trusted me with his whole life at the end of his life

How does that happen a guy like me who just total guy who's coming in your house going to your medicine cabinet?

Stealing your meds drinking you're all the booze in the house dating your sister hitting on your brother

Annoying your mother this guy trusted me with his whole life. How does that happen at the end of his life?

I had power of attorney. I did get married again a second time in AA and I think it's important

I talk about this because that marriage had an end to after 15 years

She's a wonderful person, but we decided that we both like girls too much

So it was time for us to part company and which was fine. That's who she is

That's who she is

But here's the difference that marriage ended the exact opposite of my first two sober people no broken hearts

No broken furniture. No broken hands. No broken windows. Just two broken hearts didn't want to attend but that's the way it was

So that's the result of being being sober. I've been restored to my family my sister my brother

I'm allowed in their house my brother who looked at me for 20 years into my sobriety

He gave me that look whenever we'd get together on a visit look on his face said to me

What's that crazy SOB gonna do next and he let go of that and now when I do visit Chicago

He lives way down in Hammond, Indiana. My sister lives way up in Vernon else. It's about a hundred miles

He drives that hundred miles just to have a cup of coffee with me. What a difference. What a great difference

My son is a whole other story

Very complex relationship right now. We're on hiatus from each other

He did ten years on the federal penitentiary for whatever and he's not one of us, but he's got other problems. He's college graduate

He's not a gang banger. He's bright guy, but he did had to do ten years. He's not smarter than the FBI

He thought he was and right now we're on hiatus in our relationship. We're not talking. He's got to work stuff out and that's fine

It's his stuff. He's a 42 year old man. It's his stuff not mine and I'm okay with that

I would prefer that we were still talking but we're not but I was restored to him for a long long time and he's never

Seen me loaded. I'm grateful for that. I'm gonna finish with this thought, you know

I've been with the same woman now for 20 years to my best pal

She worked in treatment at 70 years old. She said when I was 70 she said to me you're sitting around you're semi retired

You're playing your guitar. You're smoking cigars. You're drinking coffee. Is this what you're gonna do with the rest of your life?

I said well, yeah sounds pretty good to me said no, I think you should do some do be more helpful be more productive

Well, what should I do? She said why don't you go to Pierce College and take the addiction studies program?

So I did and I've been working in treatment for five years now. It's kind of cool. Sometimes I like it

Sometimes I don't my attitude before was content prior to investigation treatments bullshit

Just gonna choose my language treatments baloney go get a big book at a sponsor and shut up

But I learned a lot about what treatment can be. So oftentimes there's some great choice. Here's the best news this weekend

We're going away

down to San Clemente to be with our grandkids who have 10 year old twin grandsons and a four year old with autism and they're

Allowed to stay with both of us were both so can you imagine when they say to their mom mom?

Can we go in the car with grandpa else just an hesitated middle-sized. Of course, you can't quite a great gift

What a great gift those guys light me up the sober life, you know, John was my sponsor for 25 years

He passed away. I immediately got another sponsor Leo. So here's what I did. I do meditation John

My first sponsor pushed me into meditation. I've had the same meditation practice for 30 35 years. I do meditation

I work steps. I do a 10 step regularly a written 10 step very simple. It's just

Resentment and fears give it up to my higher power read it to my sponsor care it up. Give it up. We do it together

I go on retreats. I have been a regular attendee of meetings

I go three to five meetings every week for 39 years nevertheless and three meetings a week minimum

So I'm a member of good standing and alcoholics anonymous. I'm in the middle of the herd

I stay a part of I have a sober posse

They've been with me most of them for well over 30 years and I got some new young guys

Which bring great new blood into my life and great, you know sense of energy and excitement young guys

You know getting sober and I love it

So I'm doing all the stuff that I was taught to do way back in San Francisco in

1978 get involved be a part of be of service

worksteps find some kind of higher power that you can find a way to have a spiritual awakening in your life and leave some sort

of spiritual

Existence and my whole thing is the golden rule if I can live by the golden rule

I'm in pretty good shape do want the others as you'd have him do unto you can't go wrong with that

I'll finish father Terry the Monsignor Terry Roman Catholic priest my sponsor is a Roman Catholic priest and we were having dinner or lunch one day

We're talking about the existence of God and I'm a I'm a non God guy and there are two God guys and I said well Terry

You guys you got the you know, the red phone the hotline to God

What's it all about and he said I don't know. It's just a big mystery if it's good enough for the Monsignor that it's a mystery

It's good enough for me. Thanks for having me tonight. This has been a lot of fun. I love a I'm glad to be here

And I'm also glad it's over