33 Years Sober: Jay’s Journey from Trauma to Recovery

Hey everybody. My name is Jay Westbrook. I'm an alcoholic sober today by God's mercy and

practice of the principles of alcoholics and animus. So grateful to be here. Thank you all

for having me come talk to you tonight and just statistics. I'm in my first sobriety. I got sober

December 2nd, 1988. So assuming I go to bed sober tonight, that's 33 years, seven months and eight

days. And so grateful for it. I ran on burning building with my ass on fire and so far I haven't

run back in. It doesn't mean I won't, but so far I haven't and I'm grateful for that. I have

a sponsor. Her name is Kathy Neches. She knows she's my sponsor. I have a grand sponsor, Peggy

King. She knows she's my grand sponsor. I have sponsees that have sponsees and my home group

is the Daily Reprieve meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous here in Tupelo, Mississippi. We meet

seven mornings a week. And because of the time difference, I'm on Central Time. My other home

group is Zoon Log Cabin, 730 a.m. Monday through Friday. I host that room every day. I've lived a

lifetime in Los Angeles and moved here to Mississippi three months ago, right at the end

of March. And, you know, love absolutely loved Los Angeles. And then the music changed and I just

couldn't dance to it anymore. And Tupelo has everything that I was looking for. And I'm so

grateful to be here. I also go to a meeting in Bend, Oregon, Monday evenings on Zoom and Friday

evenings. I go to this little meeting in Yellowknife of the Northwest Territories in Canada,

240 miles from the Arctic Circle. And man, that's that's really interesting. You know,

little community up there, a lot of indigenous people. And through the winter, it's typical,

you know, average 37, 39, 41 below zero. And they're just like these happy people, I guess,

just being alive in that kind of weather. You know, hard place to be an alcoholic if you all

pass out on the way home, you know, fall down and pass out, you die just very quickly in that

kind of weather. So that's I love going to that meeting. And so that's me. And then I speak a

bunch around around the world on Zoom, speaking in London tomorrow. So here's what I want to say.

I want to talk about my favorite topic. That would be me. But before I do, let me say the important

stuff. And that's just welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous, we have a solution for your alcoholism.

If you're female or male, black and white, gay or straight, young or old, old timer, newcomer,

returnee, welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous, we have a solution for your alcoholism. If you're educated

or illiterate, sheltered or homeless, Republican or Democrat, tattooed or still an empty easel,

welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous, we have a solution for your alcoholism. And if you all

are anything like me, and you got up into these rooms going, Oh, my God, I can't believe it's

come to this. And I'm with a group of losers like you, or you're anything like me and simultaneously

felt Oh, my God, I can't believe a group of people like you would let a piece of shit like me even

stand in the doorway, let alone sit next to you, let alone have you remember my name. Welcome to

Alcoholics Anonymous, we have a solution for your alcoholism. And if you all are anything like me,

and you got up into these rooms with some issues, we don't have the solution for issues. But I

promise you that whatever your solution might be, it'll work better if you're clean and sober. And I

got here with issues. I'm a high school dropout with a master's degree. I went to 16 schools in

11 years and never did one year at one school. I was always the new kid came in the middle of the

year didn't make friends, isolated myself, but was also excluded by, you know, everyone who already

knew each other and I was new and they weren't interested. I'm also I come from a New York

communist atheist theatrical family, and I'm not sure what issues it gave me, but I know it gave

me some. And I think it's really important to say I'm an incest survivor of horrendous, horrendous

torture and incest from age three on. My parents gave me away when I was three and they wanted to

focus on a career and I think they thought they were giving me to a good family. They weren't. I

was three years old, terrified of the dark and this family locked me in a pitch black closet for

the next three years. And I lived, toileted, ate, slept, existed in that closet, pulled out once a

day to be washed, ritualistically tortured and raped. And I lost my sanity and safety and

security, my trust, my innocence, and was filled with absolute hate and rage that was unsafe to

turn on my perpetrators. So I turned it on me. And that's a habit that lasted for many decades,

hurting myself with my wounds, turning my legitimate anger and hate of my perpetrators

on myself. And when I finally got out of that situation and was reunited with my parents,

I was, I was just broken and periodically re-victimized. And then we moved to California.

I think I was 15 and the next year I found alcohol and drugs and God, I was so grateful. They were a

solution. They were not a problem. They kept me on the planet. They kept me from suiciding.

They let me stay in my skin, but over time, they certainly made me stupid. And that stupidity led

to bad decision-making and that decision-making put me in front of a power greater than myself,

Judge William Ritzy. And in my first ever encounter with the criminal justice system,

he slammed that gavel down and sentenced me to double five to life in the penitentiary. And man,

I did not, did not want to go because I had this absolutely stunningly beautiful wife at home who

was kinder than she was beautiful. And she was like movie star, beautiful, just like insane,

you know, the kind of beautiful where people would look at her and they'd look at me and they'd look

at her and they'd look at me and just shake their head and go, Oh my God, you know, he must be so

rich or so hung and I'm a hospice. So I'm a clinical hospice nurse, so you go figure.

And anyway, I was so green. This was my first encounter with the criminal justice system. I

didn't know there was a difference between jail and prison. Had no idea. So I had no fear and off

I went to the penitentiary. And that first night coming up from the chow hall five hours after I

checked in I was gang beaten and gang raped for the first time. And it happened throughout my

incarceration. And when I got out of that pen I was filled with bitterness and rage and blame

and cowardice and irresponsibility and a massive PTSD and massive shame. So not a vision for you.

And went right back to the lifestyle. And I'm going to back up for a minute because I think

there's something really important because I don't want to mislead you. I will tell you that

that beautifully, stunningly beautiful and kind wife Nancy that I had grew up in a loving, stable,

supportive, non-abusive home in Wichita, Kansas. She lived in one house her entire life. She went

to grade school, kindergarten grade school, junior high, high school with the same group of kids.

They had community. They stayed friends their entire lives. And she ended up with the same

disease, alcoholism and drug addiction that I have and the same solution, the 12 steps and the 12

traditions. So I don't want to mislead anyone and make you think that I'm saying that my incest and

torture caused my alcoholism because they didn't. And to say otherwise would be unfair to all of

those incest survivors who never picked up a drug, never picked up a drink, and certainly never used

that experience to excuse bad behavior, which is exactly what I did because of my alcohol.

And there was a time when the alcoholism and the drug addiction were not bad. I remember I worked

at the Troubadour from 1965 to 1972. It was the golden years at the Troubadour when people who

went on to play stadiums, people who did play stadiums around the world came to LA and played

that little 400 seat venue. And it was an amazing time to be there. And I came home from work one

night and I had bought cocaine for the first time. And our rent on Fuller Avenue right across from

Plummer Park, our rent was a hundred dollars a month. And I spent a hundred dollars on a

gram of cocaine. And I put it on this little desk and I was putting it on, I put it on a plate and

I was chopping lines. And Nancy, like she did every night, brought me a cup of coffee. And as

she turned, her elbow hit the coffee and that coffee hit the cocaine and washed it off onto

the floor. And she burst out crying. And I jumped up and grabbed her and hugged her and said, honey,

it's okay. It's just cocaine, you know. And we went from that to hope to die, drug addicts and

alcoholics, you know, until we got to these rooms. And these are the rooms that got the drink out of

my hand and the joint, the drink, the drink out of my hand and the joint out of my mouth and then

the needle out of my arm that took my ass from base to grace. And for that, I'll be forever

grateful. So, you know, we did it, Nancy and I did it till the wheels fell off. I did very

well in school in spite of the fact that I was getting loaded. I got a lot of letters to my name.

And at the end, you know, we lived in this lovely apartment across from Plummer Park. I drove a nice

car. I had this stunningly beautiful wife. I had a business card that said associate director of

medical research at a children's hospital here in Los Angeles, you know, and I couldn't look you in

the eye, but I could hand you that business card and I hated my job. Nancy and I never had children

because we didn't like children. Thank God we didn't have them. There are people who don't

like children and they go ahead and have them. Oh my God, I don't understand that. We didn't like

them. We didn't have them. And where am I working? At a children's hospital. That's alcoholism. And

I've got three guns on cock and lock because I'm thinking, right, you turn your back on a five year

old with leukemia. You don't know what that kid might do. Out of my mind, paranoid, insane. And

how they didn't know and have me arrested or at least fired is beyond me. Associate director of

medical research. And I just couldn't do it one more day. I was so lonely and baffled and

frustrated and confused and desperate and cornered and, and could not make it work.

It just, I tried so hard and, and Nancy and I couldn't make the relationship work. We loved

each other so much. The feelings of love were so deep and so intense, but they were not matched by

behavior. And we just didn't like the goddamn breaks were out and we didn't have an instruction

manual and we didn't know how to fix it. And massive unhappiness in every, every aspect of

my life. And I just decided I got to die. I can't do this anymore. And thank God I'm an alcoholic.

I just stuck one of those guns in my mouth, pulled the trigger and y'all have a different speaker

tonight. But because I'm an alcoholic, meaning I'm grandiose and arrogant and traumatic,

you know, I decided to stage, to kill myself, but stage it so that it looked like an accident

and I'd be out of my misery, but Nancy had had money from the insurance policies and the

accident insurance, accidental death insurance policies. And I set it up and it had to be,

you know, on this day at this time, and the thing was staged. And, and I'm sitting there that

afternoon and I'm snorting cocaine and I'm drinking Jack Daniels and a public service announcement

comes on the TV and it's this curly haired guy in a suit. And excuse me for not LA casual. I'm

almost always in a suit and dye. And it's this guy and he's got curly hair and he steps into a

bathroom stall. And I don't know how much time y'all spend in bathroom stalls, but I spent an

inordinate amount of time in bathroom stalls. And, uh, and he steps in there and he opens the vial

and he does a little one-on-one and as he's closing the vial, it falls and it rolls behind

the toilet. He gets down to grab it and his cheek is touching the public toilet seat and they freeze

frame. And the voiceover said, welcome to the glamorous world of cocaine. If you have a problem,

call this number. And a hundred times or 99 times, I'd seen that public service announcement and

thrown the finger. And that day I picked up the phone, burst into tears, picked up the phone and

called. And a guy on the other end of the line said, cocaine anonymous. This is Dean Katz. Can

I help you? Dean is still sober. And, uh, he talked to me for 90 minutes and then he said,

it's time to go to a meeting, you know, and thank God it was cocaine anonymous. Cause I had been AA

and they said, we got a meeting over here in a church. I wouldn't have gone. Y'all would have

had a different speaker tonight, but it was cocaine anonymous. And they said, we got a

meeting in a bar on the sunset strip. It's called Carlos and Charlie's. And I'd been in that bar

before I'd gotten loaded in that bar and I felt safe going. And then I went down and I got on my

motorcycle and before I could get the find, which of those holes to put the key in the bike. And I

just fell over and I let it lay and I got a cab up to Carlos and Charlie's and went in. And, um,

and in that meeting, I felt the breath of a God in whom I did not believe blowing on me with a

gentleness that I did not deserve. And then I had not, and I've been sober ever since. And they said

to me that night, um, you know, honey, you're, you're, you're sicker than most. And I went,

Oh my God, thank you. They said it wasn't a compliment observation. It was not a compliment

you would pro you're really sick. You would probably benefit from morning meetings where

cocaine addicts, we don't do anything in the morning, go to log cabin. It's an AA meeting

on Robertson, but you can talk about drugs. And in my third day sober Monday, December 5th,

1988, I walked in log cabin for the first time, you know, and a guy was in a pink shirt,

greeted me at the top of the steps. And he said, hi, honey, welcome to alcoholics anonymous. You

know, if you leave your fantasies at the door, all of your dreams can come true in AA. If you're

willing to work for them. I mean, my mouth gaped open and it was like, I didn't even realize there

was a difference between fantasies and dreams. And today I've lived that difference. You know,

and I told you that I hated my job. I don't like children. I don't particularly little children in

the hospital that was a children's hospital, you know? And, and so kept hearing, leave your

fantasies at the door and all of your dreams can come true if you're willing to work for them.

And that meeting ended. And I got in my car and I drove into the hospital and quit my job,

you know, and I drove downtown to LA County, USC Medical Center. And, and I got a job as a

cancer nurse. And that hospital serves the poorest of the poor. And there's very little early

detection and so many people die. And that was my dream to work with the dying. And I did that

for a year and got recruited to the pain management service and did that for a year and then made the

leap to hospice. And that's where I've been ever since. I've spent 31 years as a bedside hospice

nurse. I go from one dying person's house to another. I do the pain management with the dying.

I do the grief work with the dying and their families. And the third, the third step talks

about making a decision to turn will and life over to the care of God, meaning our thinking

and our behavior. I guess the shorthand for that is I'm going to do God's work. I'm not going to

do God's job. I'm going to do God's work. And, and I'd like to think that that's what I've gotten to

do in, in being privileged to work with the dying and the grieving. And, and what happened was that

the place where life and death meet is filled with God. That's not an opinion or a hypothesis

or a theory. The place where life and death meet is filled with God undeniably. That's my experience.

And that's where I found my God. That's where I found my God. I was seeking, but I had not found

God until I started doing that hospice work. And then I just had to figure out how does that God

that you cannot deny work with this horrendous history that I have. And that was a struggle to

make that work. And here's where I got to, and this is just me. And there's a, there's this

loving God who designed it, who created it and put it in motion and gave us free will. And that loving

God never leads, never leaves my side, co journeys with me always and co suffers with me, but does

not intervene. He is a non intervening God, but he co suffers with me. He watched me being raped

at three and four and five and six years old and wept at my suffering and looked at my rapist and

went to their suffering that they'd moved so far from his grace, but did not intervene because he

made them with everything they needed for redemption and made me with everything I needed

for resilience. And I don't know if they reached for it, but I know that I did first through drug

and alcohol. And when that didn't work, then, then through the amazing fellowship and the transformative

12 steps and 12 traditions of alcoholics anonymous, you know, and I'm so grateful that God was so

patient with me and so forgiving with me. And I want to pick up pieces of the story that I may

have left out. I got to tell you that I'm so grateful to have gotten here with the seconds

and inches where willingness and clarity because here's the deal. If you have the willingness,

but you lack the clarity about the problem, you could end up in church or yoga or therapy

or wilderness camp, all of which are good thing, but they don't treat alcoholism. And if on the

other hand, you got the clarity, but you lack the willingness, then you could be one of those people

who 15 years down the road has a drawer at home with 791 newcomer chips, two 30 day chips, one

60 day chip. And in 15 years, you've never seen a 90 day chip. And I got to tell you, that's a hard

way to do alcoholics anonymous, and it takes away the opportunity for all of the gifts that this

program has to offer. You know, this is a giving program they say, and I think that's true except

in the beginning. And in the beginning, it's not a giving program. It's a getting program, you know,

and the eight basics that you got to get are sober date and a home group and a seat and a posse and a

book and a sponsor and a commitment and a God. And if you get those eight things, you can't go wrong,

you know, and then you use those eight things. And as you go along, it switches from a getting

program to a giving and you start giving those things to people and our lives get immeasurably

better. I was sitting here doodling a couple weeks ago and kind of drawing out what I thought was a

cute pretend business card. And I had seen I drove a friend up to the airport from Tupelo to Memphis.

And as you go along, what's it called Winchester, Westchester Avenue, you turn off the highway to

head to the airport. It says Westbrook auto body shop. And that's my last name. Oh, that's cute.

So I was sketching like an auto repair car. I don't know why, you know, I'm a nurse. But

what I did was double hyphen, a re hyphen pair shop, the double a repair shop thinking that's

a and I thought that was pretty cute. And then I started thinking about it. And I went, No,

it's not cute. It's profound. Double A is Alcoholics Anonymous and really means again,

re means again, and pair, P I R means to connect or to bond. And that's what's happened to me in

Alcoholics Anonymous, I have been repaired, I have been reconnected, rebonded with a God

and with myself and with other people and with purpose and with principles, I got to tell you,

I am blessed and overpaid, without a doubt, you know, and I'd like to tell you that Nancy got

sober. You know, she saw me do this, and she was completely disinterested, had no interest in

sobriety. So I got her a big book. And it was third edition, which is a, you know, has a more

porous cover. And she used it as a coaster for her Crystal Rocks glasses filled with bourbon or

tequila. And, and I don't know, I was maybe seven weeks into my sobriety. And I was headed out to a

meeting. And she goes, Oh, my God, you're going to one of those things again tonight. I said, honey,

AA every morning, CA every night. Yes. But I've told you before, you don't have to be sober to

come. And it was like, she heard it for the first time. And she went, what? Well, could you wait a

minute? And she ran in the other room. And I heard the sound of one ice cube dropping into a glass

and then her pouring her liquor. And I heard, and she did a couple of lines and, and she came out

with a smile on her face and she said, well, let's go. And I said, all right. And off we went and

people would hug her and their head would pull back the alcohol coming out of her pores, you

know, and they just say, honey, we love you keep coming back. And she'd say, I'm just here to

support Jay. I'm just here because I'm lonely. And what happened in my first 90 days, she caught

alcoholism through her ears. And on my 90th day, she stood up and said, my name is Nancy Morgan

West. I'm a cocaine addict and an alcoholic. And she stayed sober the rest of her life,

another 23 and a half years. And she died 11 weeks to the day after our 42nd wedding anniversary in

my arms in our home on hospice with pancreatic cancer. And she died a sober one, you know, and

people say to me, man, don't you hate God for taking your wife? And I say, absolutely not. I

don't think God took my wife. I think the pancreatic cancer took her life and God was there

to receive it. And I wasn't sure I could stay sober through her death, but I got real clear that

I was willing to disrespect the program that gave Nancy so much, that gave Jay so much, and that

gave Jancy so much. We were that AA couple and we were Robertson Boulevard strong. I was the

steward of log cabin for 18 years. Nancy was on the board of directors of the West Hollywood

Recovery Center from the from the day they opened and until that last couple months when she just

couldn't - couple months before death when she couldn't do it. And so I just reframed my pain,

a small price to pay for a lifelong love affair, small price to pay. And I took my wedding ring off

and took my ring and Nancy's to JR, a custom jeweler in there, a private custom jeweler in

Beverly Hills. And I said, here are the rings, melt them together and make me a new one. And

that's what I wear today. You know, it's thicker and wider. It's a combination of our two rings.

So you kind of have Jancy speaking tonight. I'm so glad about that. I want to tell you that it's

pretty amazing that we did everything we were supposed to. We got commitments, we got the posse,

we went to meetings, we were of service, we took commitments, we got sponsors, we worked steps,

we did all that. A little hesitant about reading the book, you know, and I'm like this arrogant

dick. And I said to my sponsor, well, why should I read the book? I mean, I'm going to meetings

in Beverly Hills and Brentwood and Pacific Palisades and the boo, because it's too hard to

say Mala. And I'm hearing these speakers that are powerful and moving and poignant. Why should I

read that antiquated book? And my sponsor said, because those moving, powerful, poignant speakers

will have shit coming out of their mouth. It's well intended, but 180 degrees. And what the big

book of Alcoholics Anonymous says, and if you haven't read the book, then you're like a dead

dry leaf on a windy day, blown back and forth across the street by the opinion of the last

speaker you heard. And if they're entertaining, you may be more likely to believe to read the

book, you know, because here's the deal. They say, don't go to a treatment center. Oh my God,

you're buying yourself a $50,000 big book. What a waste of money. But the book says on page XXVI,

in the doctor's opinion, we favor hospitalization for the alcoholic who is jittery or befouled. And

they say the road gets narrow, but the book says on page 55 and 75, that we're on a broad highway.

And they say the women stick with the women and the men stick with the men. But nowhere in the

book does it say that. And it's clear that all of the early women had male sponsors. And I've had

male sponsors six of my 33 and a half years, and female sponsors 27 and a half of those years,

you know, and Nancy and I have both sponsored gay men and straight men and gay women and straight

women from the get go without regard for sexual orientation or gender. It's just about one

alcoholic carrying a message of depth and weight of hope and transformation. Got it. Thank you to

its suffering alcoholic, you know, and they say you can't date in your first year. But on page 69,

the big book says we don't want to be the arbiter of anyone's sexual conduct, dot, dot, dot,

we put each relationship to this simple test is it selfish, you know, and they say you're not sober

if you're taking psych meds or pain meds. But on page 133, and I'm paraphrasing the book says God

has wrought miracles in our physical and mental health. However, he's also gifted us with wonderful

practitioners, including the doctor, the psychologist, psychiatrist, who can be

indispensable to the alcoholic. So obviously, I've read the book, and I just didn't want to be one of

those guys running around telling everyone what they can't do and what they should do. And oh my

God, and just being as wrong as could be, you know, so read the book. And everything kind of goes full

circle. It's very interesting. So I am a high school dropout. I'm a high school dropout who

has taught and guest lecturer at Harvard Medical School, USC School of Medicine, UCLA School of

Medicine, at Yale School of Nursing, UCLA School of Nursing, and every registered nurse program,

at least 10 of them in the Los Angeles area. One of my next colleagues who's been invited back

to the prisons, the California Department of Corrections has had me come back to do five-hour

training for staff and inmate volunteers of the hospice on being with dying. The largest maximum

security prison in the United States is Angola State Penitentiary right outside of Baton Rouge,

Louisiana. And that's the prison I go to more than any other in my space. 89% of the men there

will die there because it's Louisiana, and they have sentences like 311 years to life, 244 years

to life, you know, but the number that gets me is that 92% of the men at Angola State Penitentiary,

the largest maximum security prison in the United States, 92% of the men there were under the

influence when they committed the crime that put them there. So in the big book of Alcoholics

Anonymous says that we either get sober or we face jails, institutions of death. It's not being

dramatic, you know, it's just being factual. And they also have an active death chamber at Angola

State Penitentiary, and I've stood in that death chamber with the warden. I mean, you can feel the

energy and it's very interesting. Sometimes my mouth just runs without thinking before I open it.

I don't know, six, seven visits back, I'm in that death chamber with Beryl Kane. He's the warden,

Beryl Kane, sweet man, good old southern boy with a good old southern name. And I turned to him and

I said, "Beryl, the last three guys executed in this room, what'd they do?" And I had absolutely

no reason to ask that question and no reason to get that information, but I asked, and he looked

me dead in the eye. And he didn't know, but I knew that had I committed the crimes that I got away

with in California, had I done them in Louisiana and been caught, tried, convicted and sentenced,

I could have been in that death chamber under very different circumstances and y'all would have had

a different speaker than I. But he looked me in the eye and he said, "Jay, while I'm not unwilling

to carry out the court mandated consequences of the prisoner's behavior, I will tell you that

every man who's executed in this room, I hold his hand, I tell him he's loved and he's not alone."

And it's like that warden lives what any of you who have ever heard me speak have heard me say,

and that is that God has no grandkids, only kids, and God doesn't make junk. And yes, that is true

for every single one of you here tonight. And it's true for me. And no matter how many times

I went out into the world and tried to behave in a way that would validate the lie that when God

made me, he made junk. The truth is that it's a lie, that God has no grandkids, only kids,

and God doesn't make junk. So here's the deal. I'll close by telling you I'm country and that's

how I always closed my pitch when I lived in LA. Drove a big black Dodge Ram pickup truck for 27

years, wear Lucasi cowboy boots, have a big cowboys of faith belt buckle, say y'all,

listen to 105.1 country music. My favorite kind of music is country music. My favorite group is

rascal flats. My favorite song is God bless the broken road. And all I can say is God bless the

broken road that led me straight to Nancy Morgan Westbrook. And God bless the broken road that led

me straight to Alcoholics Anonymous and God bless the broken road that led me straight to God. My

name is Jay Westbrook and I'm an alcoholic. Thank you. It's my story. I mean, I tell it,

but my job, the one I love doing is my walkthrough on applying the 12th through difference to

romantic relation. Monday through Friday, 730 AM. No, that's LA time. Monday through Friday,

730 AM. The ID is 844-258-7346. And the, and the password is log cabin, one word with an uppercase

L and an uppercase C has to have one word log cabin. And, and we'd love to have you,

it's usually about 90 people every morning from all over the country, all over the world.

Different secretary, but it's always a one hour, 20 minute speaker and sharing. Yeah, absolutely.

Hopefully to see you there. Yeah. You too. Good night. Thank you, Tracy. Yeah. It gets real good.

Feeling changes. Yeah. Francine ward talks about you want self-esteem do a steamable act and you

get self-esteem. Yeah. Not from affirmations, not from the label in your clothes or the car you

drive or the zip code you live in, but self-esteem comes from doing a steamable act and she's 40 some

years sober and just amazing and love that woman. So, yeah, absolutely. Abraham, you good? Yeah,

truly my pleasure. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to skedaddle here y'all. Everyone stay sober,

get a great weekend and we'll see you on campus.