From Entitlement to Tolerance: A Journey Across Continents and Sobriety

"Oh, it's not a shock alcoholic, it's not an alcoholic because I suffer from alcoholism. I did not know that. I just thought I drank and did goofy stuff and I blame the amount of alcohol I drank and I didn't understand the concept of alcoholism and alcoholic. And that sound you just heard right now would give me an erection when I was growing up."

"I mean, a lot of other things would too. For sure, you crack open a beer. Oh, good God. Party chimes. Five o'clock somewhere, right? But the reason I say I'm an alcoholic is I found out in Alcoholics Anonymous that the misconception that I used to have as a person growing up abroad and then coming to America and all the other conditions and things that were happening in the 70s and early 80s, I used to blame that as a reason for my misconduct.

Because I couldn't fit it. Bottom line, I hear the common thread in Alcoholics Anonymous for most alcoholics of my type is that I just didn't seem to fit in anywhere. I just didn't know the rulebook or I just didn't know the tradition of the place or some odd reason I just didn't seem to get it.

And usually I didn't have much, it didn't make sense, just like Robin shared earlier. It's like, "What's the point? It's silly." Everything to me was, "What's the point? That's silly." We're going to play baseball. I go, "Why? What's the point? It's silly."

We're going to all stand around until one guy sits on the mound, throws it to another guy, hopefully he hits it, and then we're all going to run around trying to grab the little piece of ball, and they go, "For what?" "Oh, so you can score a base hit?" I'm like, "For what? What's as good as a base hit? I don't get it."

My mind has always been screwed on a little different. I'd get nervous when I see my mom's car would be full, the F and E in the gas meter. It reads E and F. Right when it's around F, I'd get a little nervous.

And my mom one day noticed that, "Why are you always getting nervous when it's around the tanks? We have enough gas." Petrol, we used to call it in Zambia. I said, "Well, when it gets towards finish, I get a little nervous." She goes, "What do you think the E stands for?" "Oh, enough."

So I'm figuring out things on my own. My perception's always off. So when it's on empty, I'm thinking, "Oh, we got enough gas. Oh, we're good." But if it's full, of course, I'm getting nervous. We have to pull off and get some gas. So that's the guy I was.

And I was always, like I said, didn't seem to fit in. I was not athletically inclined because I had asthma growing up. And I grew up in Africa, in Zambia. So I don't know why I had asthma because it's pure. Everything's just, you know, there's no pollution. And back in the '60s, I'm old. I'm 58 years old. I'm going to be 59 next week on the 23rd.

So I'm like, generationally, I couldn't understand what was going on in America when I moved here. I got here in 1978, and I hadn't drank. I was growing up in Africa. My parents were very nice. They worked for the government. We had everything provided.

And my first alc ism, and I'll tell you what that ism that I suffer from, is the sense of entitlement I have. I have the sense of entitlement that you owe me. Everybody owes me something. I don't know why, but you guys do not have stuff coming, as they say. And number two, that your rules, or any rules for that matter, don't apply to them because I'm special.

And I had that ism bottled up growing up. And growing up in Africa, we had a lovely lifestyle with the government. When you work for the government, everything's catered to you. You have a driver, you have a maid, you have a butler, you have a gardener.

You live on an estate, you know, a big fancy estate, because those were estates that the British had in Africa in the colonial times. And when they left Africa, those palatial nice compounds were handed over to whoever worked for the government.

When I was growing up as a kid, I'm like, that's how you live. I mean, is there any other way, you know? And for the teacher to tell me that my homework was due at a certain time, I'm like, how dare you, you know? Really? I mean, rude, you know? Don't you know?

So I was just talking to Veronica on the way here. She says, we were talking about respect. Well, a friend of ours, his daughter has a baby and my friend doesn't like the son-in-law. And Veronica said, well, at least he should respect him because it's his daughter's husband.

And he said, he's like, no, respect is earned. Just because he knocked her up doesn't mean he gets respect. All that says is he's got a weak pullout game, you know, that's all. That's not respectful. That's how my brain works at 26 years sober.

No, you don't automatically get respect. What if Chris is marrying your daughter, won't you respect Chris? I'm like, no, he's just a goofy kid. You know, I'm like, his actions, whatever he does with my daughter moving forward, that's going to garner respect. But what I learned is in recovery, I've learned tolerance. I have to tolerate everybody. I have to show deference to their way of life. I don't have to respect them. I don't even have to have reverence for their way of life. I just have to show love and tolerance.

They always say love and tolerance. You love them because they're one of God's kids, just like me. I'm tolerant of them because they're going through whatever they're going through. I don't know. Why should I stir the pot and make it any worse than it is?

So that part where I didn't respect people, I was always combative, like, no, the headmaster says this, that and the other. I'm like, no, this is so. What happens? I get a reputation for being an honorary kid. Today's world, I'd probably be drugged up by now on Ritalin and crap, but we didn't have that back then. So I was always one of those kids that was combative, but not a very bad person.

So I always knew I was off a bit. So that's what I'm trying to get at. Because I didn't see things properly. The perception problem started from the beginning. And I used to remember the same headmaster who would kind of whip me every once in a while. And back then you get in trouble, they'll bend you over and they'll cane you. And it works. It really does work in my opinion. Now I do it for sexual purposes, but that's a little bit of a secret.

But growing up, I always saw the way people were being normal and decent as being boring. I always wanted some drama. That's the other part of my ism is that I like to create static. I like to have some kind of drama.

And I always had some excitement because I get bored quickly and come to find out it's just that my head was faster than everybody else's. I needed something else to do. I needed to give me some project. And I'm one of those guys, if you give me a project, get this thing box of bolts and nuts sorted out, we'll be back. Sure, I'll get it done.

You tell me, only three bolts and three nuts today, three bolts and three nuts tomorrow. I'm like, why? What if I just do it all in six hours and just have the rest of the week off? I don't understand the concept of discipline and structure and routine as everybody else does.

I'm always task oriented as I see it now. It's like, give me a task, I'll get it done and get off my back. I didn't know that was antisocial in a way, because in society, you have to do it the way at a rate that everybody's on step and in cadence with everything else.

You don't want to be left out. You don't have anybody else left out. We have to work as a community shock. You got to be part of the team. I wouldn't say I'll get whipped and came because I'm always doing something different.

I didn't start drinking actually until I went to college. So this kid that was entitled and just felt different just didn't see how the world operated and why do we have to do things.

I didn't have a vocabulary to ask you like, could you explain to me? I don't understand. I didn't have that vocabulary to say those two sentences. I don't know. And could you explain to show me how?

The best synopsis of my sober life is those two sentences. I don't know. Can you show? Out of those two sentences, I am what I am today. Just amazingly happened. I'm not always happy, but I'm content with what I have today. I don't know. Can you show me? I didn't know how to say that as a kid.

Then we come to America, of course. America is a whole different ballgame, ball of action. Nobody's catering. I don't have a driver. I don't have a nanny. I don't have a butler. I don't have a valet. The guy's not putting my clothes out for me to wear in the morning.

Nobody's doing my bed. I'm stepping out ready for my lunch pail. There's no lunch pail ready. America is one of those pull you up by your bootstraps kind of country where everybody's equal. You get for what you put in.

There is no free handouts here in America. I was mad at my parents. I thought we were going to be Brady Bunch and leave it to Beaver and all that kind of good stuff family.

I shouldn't say we ended up. My dad came in '75. I came in '78. What does that got to do with my drinking? Nothing. What he says is that I've had a fantastic lifestyle. I've lived all over the world with amazing experiences.

Instead of seeing those as something good to look at, I'm always looking at the odd man outfit. Like in Africa, I don't look African, so I didn't fit in.

Bullshit. I mean, excuse me, sorry. Quality of life. See, I told you. It sounds like those keys at the park.

I like keys. They're a little greasy, but if you look them just right. If you see me running around in a ghillie suit at Balboa Park, don't say nothing.

Let a brother eat. You see Africa in me. The hunter gatherer is still in here somewhere. Although not as they call it breaking and entering, but hey, verbiage, verbiage.

When I came here, we lived in Koreatown, so I didn't see any white people there. I'm like, "Where do white people at?"

Everybody's Hispanics. We had Koreans. A lot of Koreans, Chinese coming in there. A lot of Asians, Hispanics, black people were there.

Some of the white people were there, but it was like, "What, they got a white flight going on there?"

I just thought it was the name of a new airline. White flight. That must be nice.

When I get rich, I'm going to go on white flights. That's my brain. I'm trying. It's not all there yet. It just looks good. The presentation's good.

My sponsor says just wear a suit and tie and shut up because I think you know something. Just don't prove them wrong.

I grew up at Belmont High School. It was tough back then. Growing up, I was a pimply-faced kid, long hair, going to school. There's no uniform.

I'm wearing clothes that was fashionable in Zambia. There's a polyester shirt with butterfly collars out to here with gaudy print, bell-bottom flared out, pants here.

Polyester again checkered. I knew the red ones. I still reconvision it with butterfly collar shirt. Polyester skin tight, flowing hair like the Bee Gees, and platform boots this high walking out to campus.

I even heard the soundtrack. I had my own soundtrack in my head. I'm thinking I'm all cool in that bag of chips and all that. I'm like, "Yeah, I'm ready to rock and roll. I look sexy."

Biden would have siff my hair for sure. Let's not get political here, lady. Karen, stop it, please. Keep your hands on the table, lady.

But the worst thing you could do to an arrogant, self-centered, entitled person like me who thinks he's all that in a bag of chips walking up what happened that day on campus.

I walk on campus. I think America's gonna be great to me, and I'm gonna have all that stuff that I used to have all my life until I was 14 years old, and it hit me like a kid in a brick wall.

All the kids are pointing at me and laughing, and I'm puzzled. Plus, I look like a skinny little Mexican dude in a polyester hooky bear outfit, like a pimp with no hose.

"That's a bad pimp. You gotta have your hose with you." I didn't have none. I walk out, and they're laughing at me, pointing at me. I whip around, I'm looking around, and then I open my mouth.

I had a British accent at that time. I still have it, and I use it to get out of tickets every once in a while. It doesn't work.

I say, "What are you laughing at? There's something going on. Did I miss something? My name's a shark, and I just came here from Zambia."

First of all, American students are stupid. They have no idea what Zambia is. They still are stupid, but now they're stupid with electronics. Brilliantly, intelligently stupid.

But they're looking at me laughing. "It's you!" I'm like, "What?" He goes, "Yeah." I said, "Look at that Mexican. He looks funny, and he sounds funny too."

I'm like, "Where?" They go, "You!" Of course, that's hilarious when you think about it. As a kid at 14 years old, kids do that. There's nothing wrong with that at all. In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with that at all.

Kids, that's how you grow up. That's how you mature. You go through adversity. You overcome. You adapt. You get through it. You josh around. You paddle around.

Every juvenile has to go through a sense of a code of ethics with his own peer group to grow up and become decent people. I didn't have that maturity, nor did I have the capability to take it. I shut down.

As an alcoholic, I found out I wanted all the accolades without earning it. That respect thing I was talking about earlier? I wanted respect, but I didn't want to earn it. From that day, I shut down because I thought I was different then, and the old school laughed at me, and I was not cute and simply facey. Crazy looking.

I started changing what I wanted to become like. In my head, I wanted to be like John Way. Is anybody coming to America at that time from abroad? John Way was an epitome of Americana. Big, robust man. Big hat. You got the vest with the six-shooters, boots, and put his head up and just circle up to a bar and order something brown that comes in the liquor, tosses his back, and looks just so macho.

I can only be like that. That epitomized for me in my generation of what an American male was. Helpful, gregarious, hardworking, salt-of-the-earth, can-do-it mentality. That all.

Growing up in L.A. at Belmont High School, a public school by the way, I didn't fit in again. There's no Indians there. They thought I was Hispanic with a weird accent, basically, but they knew later I was Indian, but there were no Indians back then. I didn't know, did I fit in with the Essays? Did I fit in with the Brothers? Did I put you in Becker Woods? I don't know which one. No, that's in the jail.

They want to offer any insult to any Becker Woods out there. Call your parole officer. Don't call me. But I didn't fit in with the Asian kids. I said, "I'm Asian," and they go, "You don't look Asian."

See, Asians in America, those that look like Chinese, Korean, are considered Asian with Asia-Mongoloid features, which is a direct term for it. I wouldn't even fit in that. I hang out with the Chinese kids and all that in the science club, and I don't like studying.

I'm the gregarious man there, and I don't fit in there anyway, but I knew that there was something out there because everybody would come in the day after on Monday and they'd tell me about, "Oh, they were at the beach. They had a beer. They had some kind of a spinata. They had some kind of a Boone's farm, that cold duck," and I'm hearing this.

Meanwhile, I'm working at my parents' motel because all Indians either have a motel or liquor store or AM/PM or 7-Eleven, so we were unlucky. I didn't get no 7-Eleven, so I had to buy my Slurpees. It was a hard life.

Speaking of that, I was learning a trade that I didn't even know. I used to go to school, come home, make beds, do the banking, do the laundry, do the paperwork for running the motel as a 14, 15, 16-year-old kid, and I used to resent my dad because I couldn't participate in sports.

Again, I have asthma. I'm not good at this, period. I mean, you put me in a baseball field, they want me far right, right field. If there was a second baseball field, they'll put me on that one over there in the teenage league or kiddie league. I'm not good at anything.

At football, they're beating the crap out of me. I'm like, "Ooh, this hurts." I'm like, "Okay, then tag team, you're not playing." The only thing I did was single sports like swimming and archery.

Archery I like because I felt I could kill somebody with an arrow, and that gave me a rush of power. That was always in the back of my head. Swimming, I always figured I could drown somebody, so I had this sense of, yeah, that's the psychotic feeling of power over somebody.

Not that I ever did try it on anybody else. At least I didn't get caught. It was a kid. He had to come. But anyway, I made amends. I help other kids out. I make them drown and pull them out, but that's an amender. No, I didn't do that.

By the way, I do comedy at night just in case you didn't know. I'm a stand-up comic in Hollywood on Saturday. I also do real estate and other things nowadays.

What this all brings up to me is I'm a fully graduated kid from high school, and I have not drunk, I have not had sex, and I have not done any drugs.

I'm a pious boy, a Brahmin boy from India, a Hindu religion where I'm straight laced, and I found out later that I'm running a motel full of pimps, prosthetic hookers, channies, drugs, alcohol, pornography, everything is a buffet of vices, all-you-can-eat kind of thing.

Every day at my fingertips, I did not use or partake of that. Why? Because I'm a true alcoholic. My responses are based on fear or faith.

I'm afraid that if I do any of these things, I'm going to displease my parents. I'm afraid if they kick me out, I have no game out there. I can't be like a hood rat. I'm not a gangster. I don't have any game out.

I'm afraid that if they kick me, if something happens, I won't have any money. I won't have any sex. I'm living in fear. I'm afraid that if I told somebody that I'm 17 years old and I've not had sex yet, I'd look like a weak person.

I'm afraid that this image that I wanted of John Wayne is never going to materialize. Then this other image I had, because of my wife's smart mouth, as you can see, people would beat me.

I mean, I'd get into it. They wouldn't beat me. It was like the retaliatory effort of my smart aleck mouth is I'd get pounded by people, so I always wanted to be like Clint Eastwood.

Now, if you know Clint Eastwood, there's this one scene everybody knows about where he pulls out a gun and puts it in somebody's mouth and says, "Are you feeling lucky now?"

I mean, boy, that's like opening the beer can. It gives me an erection all the time. It's like that level of power over somebody.

I wanted that. I wanted to be like Clint Eastwood, because I'm the lone silent type, and nobody's around me, and I want to be that lone wolf hombre.

Come to find out human beings are never born to be alone. It's a psychotic twist of fate that some people are alone. It's not the human condition to be alone.

And my condition was that I was too ego-driven and so full of self and so full of fear. I didn't want to look bad that I made myself alone.

I didn't allow myself to be made fun of. I didn't give myself freely to others so that they could enjoy me for who I was, a silly-looking guy with a funny accent.

And just kind of let it out. Just let it pass, because kids will, if you notice kids, they'll make fun of things, and then they'll forget, and they'll make fun of this thing, and they'll forget, and they'll make fun of this thing.

And that's just how we do. I didn't know that. So I didn't allow myself to be, and I thought I was a lone wolf type. I was not. It was all in my head.

Again, perception problem. The third thing I wanted to be was James Bond. Who doesn't want to be James Bond?

Everybody in, every kid my age wanted to be James, because you get to have all the fancy cars, you know, gadgets. You get to go all exotic places.

Because again, if you're an alcoholic of my type and you haven't drank yet, because there's no relief in sight, you go in your head.

Without alcohol, I'm in my head. I'm going stir-crazy in my head, fantasizing crap, while I'm running the business, while I'm going to school, while I'm trying to get A grades, and while I'm trying to be a good Indian kid, and trying to be straight A, all that.

I'm going stir-crazy, and I have no relief. No relief. I have not drank yet. That level of craziness was in my head. You know, the helter-skelter.

I mean, when people talk about Charlie Manson and the helter-skelter in his head, I'm like, "I get it. I totally get it." I would be right there with him slaughtering people too, because I am stir-crazy.

I have no way to get rid of this head. It's spinning. I have no friendly direction to go to, as my sponsor used to say.

And I wanted to be James Bond, because you got all the good, great-looking girls. And the best thing about James Bond, he had a license to kill.

I mean, have you been on the four or five lately? I mean, don't we need one of those licenses? I'm just saying.

It's like, I wish I had air-wolf power, you know? Just blow up people on my way out there.

So, this is the kid that took his first drink. Wants to be John Wayne. Wants to be Clint Eastwood. Wants to be James Bond.

My first drink that solidly changed my life was Jack Daniels. When I went to college, first year in college, I walk into campus, everybody's having drinks.

I knew I've had beers before and didn't really do anything, because I knew there was limited, you can't drink as much.

There was no kaboom when I used to have beer and drinks at the family gatherings. It didn't do it for me.

After I graduated, what changed for me was in college, when everybody was drinking, something happened.

I drank that alcohol. I drank Jack Daniels. It went down beautifully. To this day, I crave Jack Daniels to this day.

Nothing in the world has done for me what alcohol has done for me to this day. Alcohol, it's anonymous, is a sufficient substitute.

I have to remember that. It's a sufficient substitute for what alcohol does to me, and therefore I consider myself an alcoholic.

Because alcohol has to do something for me that nothing else in the world can do for me.

Alcoholics Anonymous comes a very close second, but alcohol does for me that nothing else in the world did for me, and guess what it did for me?

When I started drinking that Jack Daniels, and you asked me why Jack Daniels?

Well, Van Halen's like Jack Daniels. I had no clue. I'm a wannabe. I'm a fake. I'm a fraud.

You can tell. I want to be John Wayne. I'm not white or a cowboy. I've never rode a horse. Camels, maybe. You know, girls, sure, but never a horse.

Clint Eastwood, I'm not tall and gangly and cool, calm and collected. I'm nervous. I'm scared of people.

You turn the lights up, I'm like, "Ah!" You know? One of those kind of little kids, that was a fraud, and I've never been a James Bond kind of guy.

I'm not responsible. I'm not committed to anything. James Bond kind of personality is somebody that goes above and beyond everything for his country and his people.

I'm the other way around. I'll sell out my country and people just to feel good. I'm not any of those mythological characters.

I just want the goods from everything. I started drinking, and one thing happened, and I noticed right away.

All those fantasies I had about being John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and James Bond, they materialized in my head.

All of a sudden, I was a man on campus. Drugs are part of my story. I didn't take drugs, but they are part of my story because I found that drug addicts will do crazy stuff for you just for some drugs.

And what was the thing I told you about control? Lack of power was my dilemma.

These phrases I learned in recovery. I always wanted control and power over everything. That's why I wanted to be John Wayne. That's why I want to be all those mythological things.

I really didn't want to shoot anybody. I didn't want to kill anybody. I didn't want to make anybody feel bad.

But I lacked power from that first age who walked onto campus, and the whole campus laughed at me and made me feel ridiculed me.

I wanted a sense of power over that kind of ridiculous feeling of being left out and not being a part of.

And I found that drinking alcohol and my perception of the world changed. You became less threatening. I became more powerful.

The more I drank, the less your status was, the higher my status was. The more I drank, the more adorable I was and the more detestable you were.

The more I drank, I was better than anything. I was like, "Forget the bag of chips, baby. This is it. You can keep the bag of chips. I am apex predator here."

That's what alcohol does for me. It makes me feel like I'm everything and everything I ever wanted to be. The problem is, it's just in my head.

I had a college reunion. We were talking about things. They used to call me Jack back then because I drank Jack Daniels.

And I said, "Man, did I really have..." Because, Jack, you were not all that. You were just an amazingly fun guy.

You tell us all these things that you did in Africa, all the things you did in Singapore, Hong Kong, India, UK.

You were like a walking entertainment system because this was the '80s. There was no internet.

We loved you because you had so many lovely stories. You were cute ass. The girls, "Was I that adorable?"

Because, yeah, you were super sweet. You were very kind. The way you were brought up, I suppose the British way, you were very kind.

You respected women. We liked that. Most American guys were a little different. You came across a lot more polished.

I go, "Is that why you kind of put out?" She goes, "Yeah, that's why we put out." "You've been nice. We'll put out."

Still to this day, it works in real estate. If I'm nice to my clients, they'll put out. They'll sign the contract.

They're not going to haggle with me. It's very simple. If you're kind, proper, disrespectful, and have a good demeanor in the general population, they like us.

If I don't tell them I'm an alcoholic in recovery, they think I'm a decent guy. That's why anonymity is so huge for me.

I'm in a business where I'm in charge of other people's finances, multi-million dollar properties. I can't tell them I'm an alcoholic.

To you and me, that's a good thing. It's like, "Yes, recovery, 90 days, six months."

Through the general population, the stuff I did while I was drinking, the stuff you've probably done, they hate us.

We detestable. We not only took their material stuff, but we shredded their hearts and their dreams.

I did that to my parents. As an Indian boy, I didn't amount to much. An alcohol turned on me like it always does.

Every alcoholic, it depends on alcohol and drugs. Like I said, I used drugs in my story.

I used to have drugs around because people would run around and do stuff for me. Because I'd have a baggie of this, a baggie of that, something of that.

A controlled power, blotting over others. But again, I'm getting locked up now. Alcohol's turned on me. I'm 5150.

I'm playing with a gun because I don't think I'm a hotshot. I'm locked up. They think I'm trying to commit suicide.

I'm in a 5150 situation. So I've already been to places that I never wanted to go.

And my dad says, he goes, "Vishak, if I wanted to bomb in America, if I wanted you to be a bomber that left you in India, that's where bombs belong.

You were brought here in America to take advantage of this great nation and take advantage of the opportunities that people are dying of taking, getting over here, running through all kinds of loopholes to come here and you're wasting it."

And he called me a parasite. My dad called me a parasite. He goes, "You're a parasite. You're useless. You suck in the life of anything and everything that comes in your way.

You cling on to everybody as if you're bringing nothing to the table."

And then he beat me with a bar stool. Well, that was a different story, but that was fun.

That bar stool's still at home, by the way. It's a little bent. You know, every time I walk past it, I'm a little like, "Okay."

Me and dad get along just fine now, but the thing started to change. The way I got into Alcoholics Anonymous was a DUI.

I come into Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm looking at everybody and none of you look like Indian, none of you look like you've been past the county line, none of you look like you've had a passport.

And I'm looking at, I'm like, "I don't belong here." I'm looking at the difference.

The best thing that happened to me the last time is what can happen to anybody that I can think of is that I was basically ostracized and there was this restraining order put on me by my mom.

Because I'm a mama's boy. I already told you. I'm a mama's boy. I don't have game. I only have game when other people's dying on my own set. Nothing.

I'm a loser. I'm a fraud. I'm a fake. Mom put a restraining order on me. My wife put a restraining order.

By the way, I'm married by this time at 93. They put a restraining order on me because mom works for LA Unified School District and Unified School District have a strong Al-Anon presence.

They said, "Mrs. Asani, that's not your son. He looks like your son. May sound like your son every once in a while. Probably looks like your son when he cleans up."

That's not your son. He's basically like a zombie, a vampire. He's going to bleed you dry emotionally, mentally, psychologically.

And my mom understood that. Yeah, that's not my son. He's long gone.

We Indians have a joke. I left the reservation a long time ago. Although I'm not that kind of Indian. I'm dark, not feather.

I'm from the Middle East, but 7-Eleven, not 9-Eleven. I'm going to simmer down. I'm blowing up this place. I'm blowing up sheer murder.

This tradition, Sharia law, we have to kill people. Anyway, that's a different story. Chilling it here. Why?

But I got sober because of what my sponsors would say. There was no friendly direction to go to. Nobody wanted me around. Nobody. Even my mama didn't want me around.

When I went to the Claire Foundation this last time, Gilbert would say certain things like, "You got nothing coming." I didn't believe it.

I go, "Why would you say such a rotten thing to a newcomer?" He goes, "Yeah." I said, "Isn't a newcomer the most important person in the room?" He goes, "No. Who told you that?"

I go, "Here in our meetings. That's bullshit." The only reason you're important is you're letting us know that the disease is still out there and kicking ass.

You yourself are not an important person. What you represent is important. That alcoholism is alive and well. Addiction is alive and well.

That's why you're here. You're just like a canary in a coal mine. If you die, we don't care. Our sobriety is more important to us than yours.

I go, "Wow." I say, "So-and-so went out, and he OD'd on a huge jack himself in Venice Beach." He goes, "Thank God." I'm like, "What? That's brutal." He goes, "No."

He goes, "The tree of recovery has to be watered by the blood of losers ever so often. Better his than mine." Damn. This guy is brutal.

But those kind of hard-taste sentences and statements woke me up to understand that if I want to be anything in this world, if I want to recover from alcoholism, I have to do what these people are doing, which is the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I have to do it in the routine and in the manner that they have done it. Remember I told you I don't like routine, I don't like structure, I don't like to go through schedules? I had to give up all that.

Because it says in Alcoholics Anonymous, we had to give up all our old ideas, not just a few, not just certain things that were convenient for you. I had to turn it over, meaning everything I knew.

This is what my sponsor told me. He goes, "You're a 32-year-old man, married with a child, no source of income, living at your mom's house, you have a baby at home, you're on EBT and welfare, you're making fun of Section 8 from other people, you're applying for it now, you're doing everything that you make fun and ridicule other people, that's where you are today.

This is your best thinking got you here, how's that working for you?" I'm speechless. You know me, I'm a wise-tracking guy, but I knew the depravity of my case was that I've been too fearful to ask for help.

He goes, "Why don't you learn to say, 'I don't know, can you show me?'" Nobody here is going to judge you, Sharpe. We all know where you come from because we came from there.

Because everybody here, whether you got a year sober, five years sober, 10, 15, 20, we all understand where you're coming from, that fear-based lifestyle you're living and that charlatan way of attending to things, the fraud that you're perpetuating, we know all that is is that you're afraid to let us know that you want help.

And the reason we shake your hand and say keep coming back, we want you to know Alcoholics Anonymous is a movement, is a community, is a spiritual way of life that we do not discard our own. I don't care how bad you are to us, I don't care how you treat us as a newcomer, we're here, we've earned our seats, and we're here to give you a seat. That's all you ask is you do what we do, in the way we do it.

Fortunately, I ended up in the Pacific group. I had no idea what home group was, I had no idea what a sponsor was, and I did what they did. Long and short of it, as Robin said earlier, get a home group, get a set of people that you're going to have eyeball contact to every day, every meeting, talking with people at a level of commonality.

I don't care what I did outside of what jobs I have or where I am today, where I live, what I do, when I walk into any AA meeting, as soon as I parked my car and walked in here, I got greeted by a whole bunch of people here today. Veronica is like, I've known Veronica two years now.

She comes to an AA meeting and she's like, good God, you guys are just amazing. How do you do this thing? And I'm like, this is Normie. She has no clue what we're talking about half the time, but she goes, this is the damn spiritual stuff you guys got going on. And you know, she's amazed by it. This is the person who's been to several meetings and doesn't need to go and just comes here and enjoys it. And I'm, I had to be dragged. This is the person that enjoys it. And that's what AA is for me, is that normal, successful, decent, kind people look at what we do here and totally understand it just like that.

They never fight it. They don't fight this. I'm fighting because the evilness inside of me, which is the alcoholism, the evilness inside of me still wants to control the world the way it wants to live.

If I don't keep it in check by coming out here and allowing myself to be vulnerable, to let you people know that no matter what happens, AA, every meeting in the, any AA meeting in the world is a sanctuary place for anybody and everybody. You will not be harmed.

There's a bunch of people that have been here a while. They're going to stay here a while. No matter what happens, I came back to AA. I've been in court cases. I've been wrapped up. I've been, well, all things happened to me in recovery.

I was married for 22 years, got divorced, got two girls. Both the daughters are fine. Nobody's having any problems. Graduate school, all that stuff's fine and dandy.

But one thing I do remember and I still want people to know about AA is that no matter what happens, at any time I could snap into any AA meeting worldwide and there's a sense of ease and comfort that comes.

The same ease and comfort that I used to when I walked into Hank and Frank's bar and the bartender will have a double shot of Jack and a Guinness stout ready.

That ease and comfort I had walking into that bar, as soon as my shadow hit the door, my shadow hits the door at any AA meeting, I have that same ease and comfort because I know it's going to be okay.

If you're new, a minute left. If you're new or newer than me or in a situation where you feel like it's untenable, this too shall pass. Everything passes.

For me, my life today is Rule 62. I don't take myself too damn seriously. I know for a fact if I die today, you're going to judge me on my deeds.

You're not going to judge me on what I said. You're not going to say, "He was a good looking fellow." I'm very pretty by the way. I just want you to know that.

Beauty is what we call depreciating after. It gets worse over time. In closing, all I can say is that this program works from no matter where you came from.

You could be a Hindu like me. You could be an Indian kid brought up in Africa. All the differences in the world did not matter.

It melted away because people like you in rooms like this had a chair ready for me, had a coffee ready for me, had a handout and said, "It doesn't matter. Just come back. Just come back. It's okay."

It's going to be okay. Thank you.