Carter's Journey: From War‑Scarred Childhood to Sobriety & Meditation

Hi everybody. My name is Carter and I'm an alcoholic. I want you to notice the tie and

the coat that I haven't worn since COVID, and maybe before. And my first reaction when

I saw that goddamn, pardon me, I wore the coat and tie, but the language may not be

perfect. My first reaction was, "No, you can't make me wear a goddamn coat and tie." It's

like, "I hate him. I've had to wear him to work for a long time." But I decided, "Well,

maybe that'd be nice." It was actually kind of fun. I feel like I'm at Halloween. Why

did I come here outside of for my own sobriety to save my own ass, which I've been doing

now for almost 48 years. Can you believe that? I was really impressed with four days and

one day at a time things happened. But the big book says that the main purpose of this

book is to help us find a power connection to a power greater than ourselves that can

solve our problem. Not this problem or that problem, all our problems. That's hard to

really take. Where do we... Well, I'll tell you. Okay. Where do you find... Tomorrow I

just sent out, I teach a meditation on Sunday mornings now online. Actually, I love COVID

because I now sponsor people in Europe and Asia and all over America. Just sit down there,

put your feet up and click a few things and say, "Hi, there. How's it going?" I teach

meditation online and I send out this email. The email says, basically it says, "Where

do we find peace? Where do we find happiness? Where do we find joy? Where do we find feeling

okay? Where do we find self-esteem?" To talk about that, feeling okay about ourselves.

Where we find it is by stop, stop being thinking. In that stop, if we take a breath, you might

try it and you might not. I don't care. But take a breath. Just take a breath and just

drop thinking and just shift your attention to the warmth of your own heart. Then take

another breath and deepen it even to the connection of peace and power and love deep inside. That's

where the big book says we find it. Man, I spent a long time learning that goddamn lesson

because as a little kid growing up, I thought I learned that I was separate. I had a separate

body and a separate thing. Then because I was separate, I needed to find love and I

needed to figure out how to manipulate mommy and daddy so I could be okay and find love.

Daddy was in the Navy and disappeared and mommy was a good Navy wife and was unavailable.

She was like emotionally couldn't connect. She took care of me. Events happened in my

life that disturbed. When I was four, I lived ideally, actually. I think about that now.

I lived on a beach in Hawaii. All I had to do at four years old was put on a pair of

swimming trunks. We lived by a little stream. My brother would take me on his canoe rides

and his outrigger and I could search for shells and mommy was there. She'd fix me lunch and

dinner and dad would come home from his ship. He was in the Navy every day and give me a

ride on his shoulders. I was in happy land. Then you may guess my age now and then at

the age of four, idiot people in charge of governments decided to have a war with each

other and the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and destroyed my happy little vision, my happy

little vision. I started not trusting this world. You got to watch out. The bombers may

come. Who knows what's going to happen? I started being scared of the world. Then later

on, I want to fast forward. I want to spend a lot of time on this, but came back to the

States. Actually had a good time and skipped the second grade, which was a terrible mistake

because I was very immature. Then I ended up in this city school and these city kids,

I was so naive. They were pushing me. They wanted to see what I was made of. They were

challenging me and they were scaring the hell out of me. There was a gang of them all ganging

up on me. I ran home crying to mommy and daddy. Dad said, "Don't be a wimp, Carter. Don't

be a chicken shit." Now I knew what I was, a chicken shit wimp. I also figured out pretty

early that it was a good idea not to let you know what I was. That started the whole game

of let's pretend to be something you aren't so that the people out there. I started suffering

from this delusion, the big book says, this delusion that in order to find rest, satisfaction

and happiness from life, I need to manage well. I need to manage what I look like.

I watched two idiots in my yard play that game. Now I'm true. It's like still trying

to manage through anger. I don't want to go through a whole lot of that. We moved around

some more. I grew bigger. I was smart. Like the lady that just talked, I was smart. I

had something going for me. I was smart. I skipped the second grade and I was smart.

As far as connecting man to man, as far as being a real man in this real world, I was

like, I don't want you to find out who I really am. I decided at some point that I was really

ugly too. I had this funny Adam's apple. I grew from this height to this height and overnight.

I was skinny and had these funny arms and legs. And, and so then I was supposed to ask

girls out, you know, and I knew, I knew that if I was a girl, I wouldn't want anything

to do with the skinny wimpy chicken shit, the ugly guy, you know, had the big fat lips

and this big Adam's apple on his ears. It stuck out. I knew no girl was, so I would

say, you don't want to go out with me. Do you? And she would agree. No, I go out with

you. Thereby proving that at least I was smart. I don't know whether I'd ever want to relive

that part. I sponsor some of these guys and they're busy getting laid at like 12 or something

or other and having a happy time. And, you know, and my approach, you know, it took forever,

you know, for me to, but I was smart. You know, I talk about that smart doesn't do a

goddamn thing for you being smart. You know, I, I was, I just realized I was accepted to

Harvard and to MIT at the age of 16. And I was talking to another guy and he was trying

to decide who's a very, very smart son. And he was trying to decide what school to go

to, you know, MIT or Caltech or Michigan. And he started writing in a little, little

list of which one was, wasn't he? And he was like writing down, he's going to figure it

out. He's going to figure out what schools to go to by the very best intellectual process.

And he got to the very bottom and he had made a decision and it was midnight or 11 o'clock

and he had to make a decision. And the guy from MIT called him up and said, Hey, you

want to go to school? He said, Oh, okay. You know, they sort of, we have suffered from

the delusion that we can figure things out with our mind. And even though maybe this

mind is pretty good at figuring out algebra and techniques and crap like that, but it's

worthless in figuring out whether I love you, whether I care about you, whether this is

the right thing to do, it's totally worthless. You know, I may meet my ego may decide I want

this and then my mind thinks, yeah, you should do it for this and this and this and this

and this reason. And then the other part of my mind says, yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but

yeah, but yeah. And then I'm like crazy. And then I haven't talked about drinking, but

that's where drinking comes in. You're trying to figure it out and you're trying to figure

it out and try and figure it out and try and figure it out, try and figure it out. And

finally you say, I need an escape. You know, I really understand now why young girls trying

to figure out why nobody likes them at school will cut themselves because you know, I'd

rather feel the physical pain than the mental pain of my head. And that's where I was only

I didn't get into cutting myself. I did drive cars fast. You know, I never killed myself

driving a car, which some kids do, you know, or I did later on, put my fist through a wall

from just that stress, but drinking. Oh yeah. Oh, thank God. You know, I remember I got,

I did go to MIT and I was in this fraternity and I still didn't have a date. And because

the girls in Boston didn't like me any more than the girls in Seattle. And I said, you

don't want to go out with me. And I had a few, it's just a little what, but I'd had

a few beers, a couple of beers, I think, or something to drink. And I remember walking

into this room and there was a guy over there with this girl. Oh, you know, usually I would

feel, oh, I don't have a girl. They'll find out what an idiot I am. There was a guy over

there with his girl and with this alcohol in me, I thought, oh wow, bless you, my children.

You know that wonderful thing that sometimes we got when we first started drinking or using

or something. Oh yeah. It's all just wonderful. And the fact that, you know, a half an hour

or a couple of hours later, I'm upstairs, barking my guts out was a very small price

to pay for feeling okay. For feeling, feeling a connection, you know, what the alcohol does

is it shuts off this fucking head of mine that was just driving me nuts. And unlike

the other speaker, you know, when I went to, at least when I went to MIT, it was like,

okay, I got here now and I'm really smart. So I should get really good grades without

studying. And it turns out to be a very poor strategy. I got A's and F's and A's and

F's. And I finally, I did, you know, I went back and finally completed that and went back

to Seattle, which is where my, my father retired to. And so I hadn't found a girl though. I

was, I was like 21 years old and a virgin, but I'm speaking to Playboy and saying, oh

yeah, you know, trying to pretend to be okay. You know, that trying to pretend to be okay.

I'm jumping around, but I just, I see people with 10, 20, 30 years sobriety in this program,

still trying to pretend to be okay. You know, I'm trying to keep up the, you know, pretense.

You know, there was my wife just, she sponsored, there's a lovely black woman she sponsors

and, but that she's trying to pretend to be okay. You know, she threw a party for a hundred

people for her mother's 80th birthday. And then this big funeral for a mother actually,

but it was huge. And, and then she just got married all in white in Las Vegas to this

perfect, really good looking guy, except that he was total fake. And she just, she was married

for two months, married in June. That's right. And it lasted until a month ago, you know,

because it was all this illusion. If I can only just arrange the, you know, the actor,

see the actor part of the big book, you know, if I can only arrange the scenery and get

everything okay, then everybody will think I'm wonderful, except that I know I'm a piece

of shit, you know? And so it doesn't work. I see people, you know, on this program, I'm

actually working, it's the craziest thing. I'm working now with three people and we're

going through the steps with the addiction now, you know, they've all been through SLA,

but the process I go through of really using the big book as a tool to examine yourself

can be used for more than alcohol or drugs and using it for this addiction to, oh, that's

the person that's going to make me okay. You know, come on, come on, come on, come on,

come on, come back here. Oh, God damn it. You know, you know, we get, you know, we,

you know, first we're kinder and more loving. And then because our ego is trying to get

us into it and the steps are working for that, you know, it's really, it's fascinating. We're

going through the, even the first step of body, you know, I'm powerless over, over alcohol

and my life is un manageable and it's both body wise and mentally and, and spiritually.

And once we get into the, you know, where I'm okay for a while and then I find her and

this guy, I sponsor, he teaches, he gives workshops in Europe for Christ sakes, you

know, because they take him over here to do workshops and he really helps people because

he got a really fabulous recovery from heroin and alcohol and stuff in the, in the ghetto.

And they think he's wonderful, except that he's still, you know, okay, God can handle

this, but there's part of this, this part that I never got this connection to mother's

love and I can find it now. And it gets over to Europe and there's four good looking young

women in there. He's 65 and black and they're 32 and white, but that doesn't matter. They're

looking at him, you know, because he's the answer and he, you know, he violated all his

principles because he's like, he got into it, you know, it's like it kicked in again.

So anyway, I'm okay in my life. Yeah. When he came back, you know, I want, what time

is it now? Yeah. Well, I've got some time. Yeah. One of my, one of my stories about you

know, just the craziness of alcohol was was I decided, God damn it, I've got to get laid.

You know, I'm 22 years old and I haven't been laid and I keep pretending like I know what

to happen that every time I get near a woman, I like get all scared, you know, it's like,

and I can't do it. And so I'm going to seek professional help. So I decided I got my little

blue Ford and I drove, I was in Seattle and I drove through downtown Seattle. Actually

there's a lot of professional help. I was seeking professional help, you know, of the,

of the informal kind and, and we'll go through Portland and down to San Francisco. There's

a lot of professional help in Seattle, but it was kind of odd. And and down to here in

LA and then on to where any good Navy kid would go, you know, if he was seeking professional

help in 19, when was it 1958 or something? And that was to Tijuana, you know, and I got

out of my little blue Ford and Tijuana and there was, there was professional help helpers

on the street. I want to come over here and I got a little scared, you know, I've just

been thought, been thinking for God knows, you know, five or 10 years about getting,

getting laid. And now, you know, it's about to happen, but I, I was a little nervous.

So I decided to go into a bar and have a drink and, and their bourbon was awful and the scotch

was awful, but they had this tequila stuff, you know, that was, and they had this little

ritual where they put a little salt and then they looked at, and then they took a shot

and it was really good. I thought I'd have another one. And I did, you know, look shot.

And then that was really even better. I think I'll have another shot. And I think something

happened that night, but I'm not quite sure. I have a vague memory of road beds and dirt,

but I can't really remember any of them. So I really drove 1500 miles back to Seattle

problem unsolved, you know, God damn alcohol, you know, it was that tequila. That was the

problem. But we always have some bloody excuse, you know, from that. And there was a lady

back in Seattle that then rejected my brother that spotted me because I had a job. I was

working for Boeing and she dragged me over to apartment and she got me. So I had a couple

of drinks, so I wasn't like this, but not so many drinks. I was barking on her and which

was another problem I had. And it's really discouraging in a relationship, but if you

go back out again, you know, try not to barf on the woman. And she solved my problem. And

so now I'm a man. So now I've got her and actually I've got her every night because

I don't want to let her go. But I also got this blonde from work. It's really pretty

that I've been longing for an awful lot. But this one wanted to get married and said, OK,

I'll get married because I don't want to lose her. But I'm still after the blonde from work.

And even after I married, you know, it's like we are so crazy. And that marriage got really

crazy. You know, that woman, the girl I married, she was quite young to 19 or 20 and had been

through the own hell. You know, people that are attracted to alcoholics are not necessarily

the best people in the world, you know, emotionally stable. And, you know, she you know, I taught

her to drink really. And she would she exceeded. She really exceeded me. And she would get

so goddamn drunk, she would pound her head against the wall after screaming epithets

at me. And I would finally learn to not pay any attention to people that go into blackouts.

But but I only realized recently that the reason she was pounding her head was, yes,

she was emotionally crazy. But it was also I was emotionally unavailable. I've been trained

by those two parents of mine not to express emotion. If you have negative emotion, you

don't do it. It's almost like you don't shit on yourself and you don't spout out, you know,

negative stuff. You keep it in, you stuff it in. You don't ever express it. So this

poor girl is trying to talk about her emotional problems with me. And I'm talking about what

did you know that according to science, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, or according

to, you know, it's like, I'm totally no wonder she's pounding her head against the wall. And

we decided after a while, Seattle wasn't working out. We moved to Boston, we moved to Boston

where everything was going to be wonderful. And it worked, you know, kind of move that

the big book describes and it worked for a while. And then she we had two kids too, by

that time. And the drinking was worth on her part and my part. And then it really got worse

on her part. You know, she discovered she, she was going to help the people in the in

the Boston ghetto. And she ended up, you know, getting getting a lot of help as far as connecting

with drugs and heroin. And, and then she ran off, she deserted me with these two goddamn

kids and a dog and a cat in the house. And she ran off across the country with Billy,

the near knee breaking is a knee breaker. That was one of the, he had several professions,

knee breaking, prostitute, pimp and, and drug dealer, you know, he was a man of many trades

and she ran across the country with him, stole all the money she could get rid of. And I

was upset. I was terribly upset with her. And I can remember, you know, I actually,

I really do qualify for Al-Anon too. In fact, I've been in Al-Anon some, and I remember

here's my, my perfect Al-Anon AA saying one time when she was out running around with

somebody or other, I'm getting really, really angry at her drinking. And I get really drunk

and I start in a rage looking around the house for his fucking vodka, which I hate. And I

found it hidden in the drawer, two bottles of goddamn vodka. And I find myself in a drunken

rage pouring out her vodka into the sink. Goddamn bitch. We are so crazy. You know,

we are just goddamn nuts. And I see that we're nuts, you know, but we're nuts in sobriety

too. Anyway, what happened was what time is it now? Yeah. I want to, I want to get sober

somewhere in the medicine there. I was feeling so sorry for myself, but you know, I was suicidal

for a long time because it really gets, you know, it really gets confusing. You know,

you should be smart. You should be able to figure it out. You know, people on, you know,

gun smoke, which I watched, they seem to have figured out, you know, all these people seem

to all people you look at, you know, they're walking hand in hand. How come I can't figure

it out? You know, how come I'm so goddamn miserable? You know, how come I'm confused?

I can remember, you know, my wife, yeah, my wife had run away and I was up in Maine and

I was feeling so, you know, I decided, fuck it. And I dove into this. I decided, okay,

I'm going to swim out to that island and that I can just barely see in the icy waters of

the main fjords. And I dove into the water drunk as a skunk to swim out to the island.

And if I live okay, I'll live. And if I die, that's fine. Now, a guy named Bucky Fuller,

who you may have done this, did something similar in the, in Lake Michigan. And, but

he got out of there and when he turned around, he decided he would give his life to mankind,

which he did, you know, with an off geodesic dome and an awful lot of things. But when

I dove into the water and swam out there, I got really cold and I got really sober and

I decided it would be a really good idea to come back and go back to the fire and the

bottle of scotch I had and, and the hell was killing myself that night. So, which I'm really

glad because, you know, my life is, that was only, that wasn't too long before we, the,

you know, that's fascinating too. You know, I, I just, I, that goddamn wife of mine, I'm

thinking, I got, I hate her. I hate her. I wish she'd die. You know, that God would kill

her and drop a, you know, I don't care what, and then she runs off with across the country

and then I'm mad at her for running away. And when she calls up, you know, Billy apparently

didn't think she was a very good prostitute and she loved, he deserted her in San Francisco

and she said, Carter, can I come home? And I sent her the money to come home. This woman

that I've been screaming, you know, I wish she'd die, you know, and I sent her the money

to come home and we decided, Oh, okay, Boston didn't work out. Let's move to Los Angeles.

You know, we've got a, got a possible job out here and we moved to them and all the

little children here were little angels. You know, they got blonde hair. You didn't know

that, did you? But you know, from our point of view from Boston, all the little kids were

blonde and beautiful and singing on the beach. So we moved out here and of course that lasted

about two weeks and, and then you know, and then the craziness started again and I couldn't

get a job too. And I was, you know, I was lying around, you know, if you want to get

a job, here's, here's a secret I have. If you want to get a job, you shouldn't lie in

bed or getting drunk, thinking about getting a job and thinking about how you're going

to do it, you should actually get up and go look for a job. And I can't remember, it was

all in the middle of trying to get sober and try not to get over. Now she would, she actually

almost physically died from alcoholism, bad creatitis at the age of 31. She was a God

damn bad alcoholic, you know, two fists a day and a little bit of, get a little bit

of milk for her sustenance. And and that's where she got into the program. And then,

and then I got hooked into one of these friggin, you know, support group things and it was her

problem, but I decided to be a good person. I also, I was vaguely suspicious that getting

drunk every night and hating myself and not being able to get a job who had something

to do with getting drunk every night. You know, I didn't usually drink during the day.

I usually survive the day and got drunk at night survive. Okay. And every night after

night after night. So I didn't do whatever needed to be done during the day, but then

I relieve myself by getting drunk at night. And, and thought maybe there's a relationship

between and I tried not drinking because they told me in the support group, don't drink

and just support her the ditch, you know, but I'm sorry, but that was, we did not have

a, have you ever, have you ever laid side by side with the woman that you've sometimes

loved and you're like, you know, you don't touch each other because you hate each other

so much. You don't touch me, you know, it's like, Jesus, you know, that was, that was

throughout that whole period, you know, don't touch me. I can't. And so I tried not drinking,

you know, and and I actually, and I also tried looking for a job at that same time, you know,

I tried looking for a job. I think it was connected to the, I started going to, I didn't

want to go to fucking AA because they made, they said you shouldn't drink. And I wanted

to retain my right to drink because she had the problem. So I went to Allen on of all

things and and I stayed sober for a while and I got a job and then, which, and then

after I got the job, everybody at work, this is 1974, everybody at work drank a lot and

I wasn't drinking and it wasn't fair that I could drink and they could, I couldn't drink

and they could drink. And I finally decided, you know, my problem was I drank at home alone.

That was the problem. And and it would be all right if I drank socially because I never

drank socially before. And it's like people, I didn't like going, I wasn't a bar drinker.

They scared me, but I just drank, you know, and watch television or drooled on myself.

And so I decided I'm going to become a social drinker and I'm only going to drink with other

people and then it will be okay. And I remember we went to San Francisco on a business thing

and I drank there and it was okay. So then I came back and for almost a whole week, that

worked pretty well. It was an experiment that was looking really successful, except that

there was no underlying, you know, you know, let's look at the conditions that cause us

to cause that thing. Yeah. You know, people that have shitty whatever, you know, don't

necessarily drink. They may use or they may overachieve or they may, you know, they may

overeat or they may do all sorts of things to suppress the thing. So, but alcohol was

what works for me. And I, and one night I'm driving home and I'm facing this goddamn environment

at home with the crazy children and the wife that may or may not be there that I hate anyway,

because she caused me all these problems. And so I decided, well, I'll stop at Woody's

Steakhouse and I'll have a steak barrier. I won't have to go home. And when I was at

Woody's Steakhouse, I looked at all these people and I thought, gee, there's lots of

people here. I could have a drink. You know, it's not quite, it's social drinking, you

know, they're here and I'm there. So I had a, I'll just have one though. So I had a triple

martini at Woody's Steakhouse. And it turns out that a triple martini was not enough to

calm the mind. Mind is still going, you know, and I had this thought, well, I'll buy to

hell with it. I'll go out and buy my bottle of Cutty Sark and take it home. And I loved

Cutty Sark. It had this ship on it and I always had this fantasy if I could get in the ship

and just go off into fantasy land on the good ship Cutty Sark. And I'm about to leave and

go get my bottle of Cutty Sark. And through God's grace, I had a thought. I had a thought,

if you get that bottle of Cutty Sark, it's not going to take you off into happy land.

It's going to take you back to the last 12 years of fights and blood and confusion and

suicide attempts and hatred. And it's going to take you back to 12 years of goddamn misery.

And that 12 years of misery got compressed into that Cutty Sark. And it was like, no,

I don't want it was God's grace. You know, it was like, I work with people that, you

know, that don't have that, you know, they just sort of stumble around and it's like,

it can be even years in AA of in and out and in and out before they say, Oh, I can't do

it. But I got it in one compressed thing of, you know, it reminded me reminded me of trying

to put the cat in the cat box to take it to the fat bit. No, you know, all four paws against

the guy gave me another gift to that I didn't quite recognize initially. And that is the

gift of realizing the problem is here. The problem isn't the damn bitch wife. The problem

isn't the crazy kids. The problem isn't the job. The problem isn't the parents that obviously

fucked up when they raised you the problem or 2000 miles away. The problem is me and

my thinking and the solution. I'd been around this program enough. The solution seems to

be in this program in this process of steps. And it got me into working the steps and looking

at myself and looking at my behavior, eventually finding a sponsor and, and being willing.

There was a willingness, you know, I realized, you know, I was a month sober and I was driving

to work and actually was I we lived near the beach and I was driving to work along the

beach. And I had this realization, I'd rather be alive than dead. I'd rather be alive than

dead. That was such a wow. You know, maybe there's a possibility for Carter in this world,

you know, possibility, peace and happiness and joy. And that got me into, you know, I

found a sponsor and I did the one minute, one minute to go. Oh, okay, one minute to

go. And that drove me into the steps and the willingness to work through the steps and

the willingness. I just want to say, you know, that at five years sober, I was still looking

for a woman and I, and, and because I was still scared, I still had that thing. And

finally, you know, I finally, I was over, I felt okay about myself at five years sober

that I had something to offer another woman. And, and first I explored the world of women.

I just had fun and took out on dates and then I found the woman I've been with for the last

40 years, you know, and staying with a woman for 40 years as powerful as my wife is, is

not that easy. And over and over again, I've had to choose, choose a loving relationship

over being right over and over again. I'm so right. I'm so right. She should understand

it except that I love her and I care about her. That's the power of that is that you

know, that I want, I want to, I want love. I want a connection with God. I want connection

with other people. And it's been 40 years now, 40, I'm going to be sober 48 years. And

in about, and this coming week and 48 years since that moment in Woody's steakhouse. And,

and it's been a life of, you know, peace and possibility for the last 10 years, I've really

gotten heavily into spirituality and teaching meditation and teaching what I just talked

about over and over again, working with people to help them connect to that power greater

than themselves that can solve their problems over and over again, to understand that their

problems are not out there. The problems are in their thinking about what's out there and

that their true self is not this little ego itself, but this child of God, this awareness,

this formation of God that is okay. Each and every one of us is inside perfectly. Okay.

We just haven't figured it out yet. Some of them. I love you all. I love this program.